Present –Mesmer (Shane), Bernard (Jamie), Gazala (Richard), Jean (Jeff), Felix (Kevin), Wonton (Darryl), Jacob (Chris)
Marmalading – Fleur (Steven), Cooper (Ian)
(By Gazala)
"What would Bernard do?"
"Who cares"
"What about Tariq?"
"Let’s just leave him and go somewhere else"
"We can't leave him – he's our leader"
"He's French – who cares?"
"He knows where the baby is"
"Good point"
"I twork to im, I great negotiator"
"Yes, just like last time"
The party debated for quite some time. It seemed we had several options some of which of course were more sensible than others. They were
- We ask the navy [ battleship Bretagne ] to bombard Carthage. But would this penetrate below ground?
- We lure Bernard out
- We align with Tariq
- We leave
- We align with Bernard
- We do nothing
1 and 5 were quickly discounted and we decided we had little to lose by going and talking to Tariq. Prudently, Gazala and Wonton were left at our apartment.
"But I wanna go" said Wonton
"You stay here with me" replied Gazala.
"I don wanna stay wif you – your crazy woman"
"You ARE staying" said Gazala as she twirled her knife around her fingers.
The rest of the party head off to Tariq's, but, as it turns out, he in uncooperative and of little use – still sulking that his compound was overrun. The party returns.
"What about tanks?" – chimes in Gazala. "They must have some and they would be effective against these 'skeletons'."
Indeed, there are six Renault FT two-person tanks with mounted machine guns in town. Heroux, however, is reluctant to have them go into Carthage, but is prepared to have them stationed 30 minutes away with a company of gendarmes.
"So, what do we know?" Mesmer asks endeavouring to get some direction to things.
"We know the Mythos torch protects the skeletons in its light"
"We know Bernard is wearing he crown and that enables him to go outside Carthage"
"We know he wanted the baby far away"
"He has the Censer and can raise dead"
"Why does he want Tariq dead?"
"Don’t we all?" says Gazala
"I use my status Myfos spell to stop torch working" thinks Wonton
"How are you going to draw a circle of blood around that?" questions Felix
"I don no – just idea" defends Wonton.
At this point Jacob returns from purchasing some local newspapers.
"The Germans have returned" he states looking agitated.
"They have attacked and damaged the Jewish Synagogue"
"I thought the Germans were gone after Herschel died ?" says Jean
"There is a Jewish cemetery across the road from our apartment" says Jacob. "I'm going to watch it"
"Me too" says Gazala "there is nothing else to do"
We all retire to the apartment, not really certain of our next steps – maybe we should depart?
We cook ourselves a hearty dinner and retire for the evening only to be awoken near midnight by the chiming of the church bells nearly.
''I can't recall those ringing before" says Mesmer
"Not me" says Wonton
"Let's go," says Jean grabbing his SMG and gear and heading out the door.
We all follow down the street as quickly as we can and see a crowd gathering around the local church, whose bells continue to chime. Jacob (in a moment of bravery) checks around the back only to see two skeletal guards near the back door. One is holding a mirror and a green glow is emanating from the door.
His slightly sweaty and portly body scampers back to tell us and we all head around the back. A truck is parked nearby.
"Bernard – you dare" calls out Wonton
"Oui c'est moi petit chinois" replies Bernard from inside the church. 'Do you wish to join me in Carthage?"
"Noo we not do tat – you stay with us" calls out Wonton.
At this point two gendarmes arrive. They nervously eye the skeletons before one takes aim and pulls the trigger. The skeletons head explodes from a successful rifle shot.
Upon that, according to Bernard "a pointless bit of violence", Bernard and a large group of skeletons break from the church.
Gazala as quick as a flash and without hesitation takes aim at the Mythos torch being carried by Bernard. She shoots. [ This was a difficult shot requiring Gazala to roll three D20 and take the worst ] And hits it extinguishing its flame and knocking it to the ground. Immediately, all the skeletons shatter to the ground. Bernard is alone.
Realising his plight, Bernard, as fast as his fat little legs can carry him, sweeps up the torch and runs to the nearby truck.
Gazala takes careful aim and shoots at the crown atop Bernard's head.
"If I miss and kill Bernard it matters little" she muses to herself.
This time the shot required 4 dice taking the worst one. Using 1 luck Gazala hits the crown but does insufficient damage to dislodge it.
A panicking Bernard reaches he truck as Jean lets loose a full clip of his SMG, ripping apart the back two tires. Surprisingly Bernard manages to still retain control although his speed is severely impacted and very slow, allowing the party to run behind.
Gazala unclips a grenade and skilfully throws it into the back of the truck, and this time Bernard loses control and crashes into a nearby parked vehicle.
The others who have been standing watching the efforts of Jean and Gazala, finally decide to do something and race toward the vehicle with various goals in mind.
Bernard leans out of the broken truck window, and raises his hand with a bolt of lightening shooting forth and hitting Jean who was at the front (he failed his Luck roll by the most) fair and square in the chest. The 17 points of damage would have killed him but he used 2 luck and reduced the damage by 3 (leaving him on 2 hit points). If that was anyone else, it would have killed us.
Gazala, seeing this, draws her blade intent on slashing Bernard's throat.
But for once Wonton and Felix are next to the truck. Felix pulling at Bernard's feet and Wonton at the other door trying to remove the crown from Bernard's head.
Success – the crown is in Wonton's hands. He looks at it, he smiles, - "ahhh wot I could do?" he murmurs as he drops the crown into a sack. [ Wonton made his Mythos roll and did not feel compelled to put the crown on – which was fortunate because Gazala was fast approaching with her Mythos knife.]
Gazala arrives within seconds having been intent on killing Bernard for his attack on Jean (or just anyway) but saw Wonton remove the crown and the changed demeanour on Bernard and stopped herself (she made a POW roll successfully – a fail would have seen her carry through with the attack – her POW is 8)
Jacob quickly uses chloroform on Bernard and then cuffs him (we aren’t sure why the wee Polish man carries handcuffs), we put the torch in a separate bag and head back to our apartment. We question Bernard, who can remember his time in Carthage but otherwise seems as normal as always. He wanted Tariq dead because he believed Tariq wanted the baby. They were his eyes following us to where we buried the baby but his claim Tariq also knew was a lie.
Tala can see Bernard's Mythos and also that Mesmer and Wonton are evil (as per normal). "You should kill them" she says to Gazala.
We release Bernard to draw a detailed map of Carthage and how best to get to where the Censer, the Mythos skeletal hand and the stolen books (Tariq's library) are. As it turns out all in the crown room. His memory of everything Carthage related is slowly fading.
15 minutes into drawing the map, Heroux turns up wanting to understand what has happened. In doing so he calls Gazala a useless whore. The party go silent – Gazala goes silent and then smiles at Heroux.
Gazala's kill list (top 3) in order of priority is now
⦁ Heroux
⦁ Felix
⦁ Tariq
We decide we must recover the items from Carthage. Jean, who has a major wound, and Gazala will stay above ground in the truck while the 8 gendarmes, that Heroux has provided, Mesmer, Felix, Bernard and Wonton will descend.
Jacob, conveniently collapses with Marmalade [ Chris left ].
The rest is a blur. The group go below ground and make several trips back with books, the Censer and the Mythos skeletal hand. Four gendarmes die but the brave troop (Gazala writes sarcastically) of Mesmer, Wonton, Bernard and Felix are unharmed.
We load everything back on the truck and head to our apartment in Tunis. We ask Heroux to fill each of the 20 descending shafts (in Carthage) with concrete.
We now effectively have the Tunis Mythos library, Tariq's library and a few other books as well as all of our Mythos items recovered.
"We wool need to giv dem back" says Wonton – "but we weed first"
As if on cue, an Arab man (dispatched by Tariq?), knocks on our door.
"Tariq understands you have his books" says the man
"We do – how he knows?" replies Wonton
"He has many spies" the man smiles
"Fucking Heroux" whispers Gazala.
"We weturn dem in 1 week – not before – and we won reward"
"Agreed and two silver ingots" the Arab replies.
"We need those" – says Mesmer –" we need to encase the other Mythos items in silver"
One week passes uneventfully. We recover from our wounds, dry-clean our clothes and wait for Wonton and Mesmer to read the books. From this they each get a Mythos spell (and gain a Mythos point effectively drawing them nearer to insanity). Wonton gets a Control Ghoul spell, and Mesmer gets a Stop Mythos spell.
She returns later in the week – also appearing in the newspapers is an article concerning a coffin found with human parts in it – clearly a man ……
The adventure ends.
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