Damn sand!

Present: Cooper (Ian), Felix (Kevin), Gazala (Richard), Jean (Jeff), Mesmer (Shane), Wonton (Darryl)
Absent: Bernard (Jamie), Fleur (Steven), Jacob (Chris)

The morning sunrise was accompanied by a fierce wind howling across the desert and whipping up great clouds of sand that pounded upon Gazala's desert tent like rain. Sand billowed in through the many tiny vents in the tent roof and walls and settled over everything. Sand had gotten into everyone's shoes, under their clothes, onto the breakfast crockery, and had settled onto every flat surface available. 

"I joined the navy to get away from this blasted sand" grumbled Jean as the party ate breakfast and spat out clumps of gritty sand that had gotten into their food.

The previous night the party had revealed all to Tariq and discussed how best to solve the problem of the baby skeleton and the intense Mythos beacon that extended from the hilltop directly above the collapsed cave containing the stone sarcophagus and its silver encased skeleton to the heavens above. 

Tariq had told us that putting the three pairs of symbols on the stone as we did, actually created the beacon effect, and that the symbols would need to be rearranged into the correct alignment or many Mythos infused creatures would infest the area and eventually overrun all the surrounding region, including Tunis.

Rectangular ammo box

"What shape was your silver lined box?" he had asked Mesmer.
"Rectangular of course" Mesmer had replied.
"You idiot" Tariq had yelled, "The containment must be spherical for maximum effect."
"It never said that in YOUR book" muttered Mesmer.

We had figured that it wouldn't be too difficult to have a new sarcophagus carved, with an internal spherical chamber and a spherical tin box to hold the skeleton's ammunition case. The silver encasement in the current sarcophagus could be removed, melted down, and recast around the spherical box within the new spherical chamber.

"Peese of cak" stated Wonton.
"We will order from Heroux during the 9am comms" decided Mesmer.
"So, how big does this spherical thing need to be?" asked Cooper, always the practical one.

Wonton waved his hands around and said "Dees bigger"

Coopers vision of a tin sphere

But all was not lost. We got hold of a similar ammunition case from the small armoury in the back of our truck, and Cooper took some measurements. Mesmer did the numbers and confirmed the necessary diameters of the various spheres we would need and passed it all onto Inspector Heroux at 09:00.

After that we supervised (from the rear) the advance up the valley towards the cave. Every so often we would hear the violent chatter of the heavy machine guns as they encountered strange and deformed creatures who always rushed towards them with mindless savagery.

The machine guns were leapfrogging their way forward up the valley. One of the Tariq's gunnery teams would setup in a forward position, under cover from the gun setup behind them. Then the rear team would dismount their gun, carry it forward past the front gun, and setup forward. It was a long and tedious process but kept one of the heavy machine guns mounted and covering the other at all times.

Jean kept a professional eye on the two gunnery teams as they progressed. He noted that one of the teams was not as thorough as the other in their mounting and dismounting process. They did not always clean the gun barrel out fully as they dismounted the gun for moving forward. 

Figuring Tariq would be happy for him to intervene, and no doubt save the gun from damage and potential misfire at a critical moment, he stood right behind them as they stripped the gun down for the next advance.

When they again failed to oil out the barrel, Jean channelled his training Sargent-major and yelled out from right behind the crew.

"You stupid Arabs, do you want to be ripped apart by one of those bloody 'wolves'?" he screamed.
"Oil that bloody rag and ram it through the barrel twice, every bloody time!"
"Otherwise, this damn sand will get in there and jam your bloody gun" he concluded.

Then he showed them how to do it properly.

Sure enough, ramming the rag through the barrel twice pushed out a film of sandy grit.

"Damn sand" muttered Jean as he carefully cleaned off the rags.

Meanwhile, Wonton had noticed a skull from a dead goat that was partially buried in the sand, but seemed to be in a slightly different location every time he looked over at it. Making some careful observations in his notebook, and many sidelong glances, he quickly concluded that the skull was slowly sliding up the valley. It would slide forward through the sand, in the same direction we were advancing, in little fits and starts, when no one appeared to be watching it.

"Rrrr" Wonton exclaimed, "Deer is beeg wagnet up deer"
"Ass anyone ills seen weerd sheet?" he asked.
"I saw a tree get spontaneously sucked into the ground" replied Cooper.
"Dis wery baad" exclaimed Wonton, "We mus chop chop hurry"

[switching to précis mode for timing reasons, will subsequently infill with detail]

The gunnery teams notice an old Berber staggering down the valley towards them.
He acts a bit suspiciously and Mesmer is concerned about his intent.
He gets killed by Gzala and the gunnery team in a hail of bullets.
We find a strange paper with a Baal symbol amongst his shredded flesh.

We next encounter a "wolf" racing towards the group, which is also blown away and shredded to bone dust by the gunnery team. The dust looks to be sucked back up the valley against the breeze.

We spot observers on the ridge top above us and decide to clamber up the canyon wall and advance along the ridge to avoid any high ground ambushes. Will take longer but be safer.

We see two figures on the ridge in the distance, and once Tala's mirror is taken out for the night, Tala notes there are about eight creatures up ahead where we saw the two figures. In the night, two of the figures approach and attempt to sneak up on us. Cooper with his night vision skill watch them coming all the way and we open fire once they are in range. So one sided. They also have the Baal symbols.

The watchers attempt to set up some grenade traps for us, but their attempt is pathetic, easily seen and avoided, and put together with old and dud grenades anyway.

We see another "wolf" creature on the canyon floor and Jean mans the machine gun for the long-range shot. We do some serious damage, but the creature manages to stagger away down the canyon towards Tariq and the main following party.

While waiting on the ridge for the morning so we can rush down into the canyon where the cave is and be there to set up a decent defensible camp for the next night, one of Tariq's men hurries up from behind and requests we send one of the guns back to support the rest of the crew. Seems that the "wolf" we had shot up but not killed had given them a bit of a scare and killed a few labourers.

Strange dreams occur during the night, although the customary watches keep us safe from attack.

We descend into the canyon in the morning, with a little bit of trouble from the creatures guarding the area around the cave. But we survive and they do not. 

Achmed and one of the gunnery crews take one of the heavy machine guns off down the canyon to support Tariq, with instructions to fire a round after any skirmishes to let us know they are safe. 

The remaining team, including us, set up a guarded encampment at the cave entrance and begin the excavation of the collapsed rubble blocking the cave.

A burst of heavy machine gun fire echos up the canyon, and then silence. 

We all pause and listen for the "safe" round. 

"Oh dear" whispered Mesmer, a few minutes later ....