Due to unforeseen circumstances, Archie's character sheet was missing, so the fourth player instead assumed the role of professor Dodge. Just as well, so that Archie could lie down and rest, while Dodge and Sanchez rifled through the warehouse. They found a box with the same winged symbol, containing a telescope like device and a letter addressed to Edward Ganigan, in which Robert Houston describes the object as use for short range exploration by the Yithians. Yeah we have no idea what that means, but Robert Houston was the member of the Carlyle expedition supposedly seen alive, and Ganigan is a lead we have in London.
Further investigations found a ledger with more shipments marked with the winged symbol, involving the Penhew Foundation in London, Achia Sing in Kenya, Mombasa, and Ho Feng Import Export in Shanghai. The packages seemingly arrived from Cuncudgerie, Mortimer Wycroft.
With everything to be found found, the investigators crowbared their way through the back door, gathered up Archie and left along the beachline, first setting the place on fire. This erased all tracks, but also lead to a large fire (which Lucy and Amos helped put out) and at least one death, and of course sanity loss.
We spent a day resting and recuperating, then headed off towards Cuncudgerie. On the way, Amos fulfilled his life-long dream of boxing with a kangaroo. Dodge found the animal, Amos went at it with his brass knuckles, then we chopped it up and added it to the food stores.
Another encounter was the sight of 3 gigantic birds in the distance. According to Dodge, they were not lifeforms native to Australia.
Finally, we arrived at Cuncudgerie, a small mining settlement. We settled into the Cuncudgerie Grand, the local tavern, and paid for a load of beers to the locals in search of information. Besides the large birds flying the in the direction of the lost city which nobody wants to visit, we found out about an American called John Carver who came a few years before, hired some miners, dug a hole, then sent his men home. They were never heard of again. Incidentally, the mining accident story was repeated here as well.
We also heard about Wycroft, a supplier of equipment, and the Slattery family living in Dingo Falls, who are apparently assholes. Some drunk told a ghost story about a flaming man assaulting him around Dingo Falls, so that was another lead.
We decided on visiting the Wycroft store, to get our equipment before getting into trouble. Instead of Mortimer, we were greeted by his three daughters, who each chose a male member of the party to flirt with, pretty aggressively. After getting our gear in order, and having a go at Mortimer, who was clearly drunk and insane, we took the bait and headed out with the girls for a ride. We tried out a stick of dynamite, then retired for a dinner at the Grand.
The girls came on aggressively at their chosen targets, and the guys couldn't resist blurting out where we were headed. Gertie took Amos to his room, but then complained about the environs and suggested heading back to her home. Amos made his check and realized she's off, and refused. By this time I also realized they are high functioning lunatics. With so many insane people, somebody had to be a cultist, so we followed the girls back to their home. They packed up, along with their father who clutched some sort of book to his chest, and headed out by car in the middle of the night.
We took the time to search their home and store, but found nothing amiss. We headed out at first light, following the Wycrofts towards Dingo Falls at first, but they soon turned in the direction of the hidden city. We surmised they were going there to warn the residents, and we couldn't have that. We decided to force the issue by spending all our water and travel all day, hoping to intercept our targets before they got there.
On the way, we met some Aboriginals. Thanks to Dodge and his local knowledge, we traded tobacco for news of the bat cult. While we did not recognize the 5 circled symbol they sketched, hearing that Ngunung Ngunnut returned in the guise of a white man was pretty clear news.
Next session: confrontation!
No comments:
Post a Comment