Masks of Nyarlathotep: Time's up

We were right back in the dungeon, on our way to Huston's cabin. We passed by the cultists on the ground floor, but the aboriginals noticed us, particularly the one previously burned by Sanchez. They started howling, alerting everybody. Huston awaited us with a lightning gun in hand, and his cronies soon arrived. We could not strike immediately, and so we stalled and drank whiskey and tea, hoping that the cultists would soon go back to work. Spoiler: they did not.

While stalling, we pumped Huston for information. We learned about the mind erasure machine in his quarters, which he used to screw the aboriginals' brains and transform them into obedient slaves. We also learned about his winged beasts, the children of Nyarlathotep. While not particularly smart, they were adept at gathering aboriginal prisoners. Efforts to train them to patrol the perimeter, or take humans on a ride, failed; the latter, quite spectacularly.

Huston then described the ritual in some detail. We would sacrifice all the aboriginals, plus one or two miners, by having them run a gauntlet of poisoned bats[1]. This would expand their minds, allowing the statues to leech all their available mana. The infusion of energy would allow Huston to summon the father of all bats. Well obviously, this wasn't something we were keen on; all the while praising his efforts.

We then turned to the subject of the flying octopi, which are, according to Huston, a race so alien that we wouldn't be able to converse with them. On the other hand, the Great Race, as he called the Ythians, responded quite well to interrogation, especially accompanied by electric shocks. I successfully diverted him from the idea of asking the Ythian about the other machine, which, according to Huston, was meant to transfer thoughts.

The cultists were still around, happy to skip work for a bit. Then Huston decided we should all work towards completing the ritual. We went down to the ground floor to gather up the supplies, which included jars of poison[2] and jars of brain worms[3]. We took all this to the ritual chamber, where, due to an unfortunate group luck roll, we met the returning winged beasts: three giant frog-like monsters, each dragging an aboriginal. Excited about the catch, Huston decided to go ahead with the ritual on the same day. 

Sigh.

We started towards the barracks to gather up the rest of the cultists, but obviously we struck before we reached our destination.

Sanchez grabbed Huston by the neck, but Huston mind blasted him into undressing.[4] Amos clubbed Huston, who was still up, until I shot him in the head. General chaos and melee erupted. One of the cultists cast a spell, burning up Sanchez; I shot him dead, and then shot a cultist with a gun into unconsciousness. Amos clubbed the guy with the lightning gun. I almost ate extreme damage from a serrated bat, but a generous amount of luck[5] kept me on my feet.

With the retcons and discussions, we ended our session just at the end of the battle.

[1] Just like in the original description of the bat cult.

[2] Made of ground up bats and vomit, left to ferment.

[3] Which would impregnate the surviving victims, having them birth monsters for the nursery.

[4] Sanchez' magic hands were highly underwhelming.

[5] And a bit of retcon, after we found out what going down to 0 actually meant.