Meet The Crew

So the players decided they wanted to play through the investigators actions, now at this point I've been reading up on 1812 (Hell of a year globally) and the technology they had available at the time.

I gave them a team of four investigators, employed by a mysterious company that seems to hire Cthulhu investigators backed by two squads of three soldiers.

They’d already taken out one of the squads so they were down to four investigators and a single squad of soldiers.

The investigators were:

Akembi: A 30 something African whom I decided was the recently promoted team leader.

Chen: A hardened Veteran on the verge of retirement. Recently demoted from the team lead.

Malloy: An excitable academic with a love of ingenuity,

Fredrick: A former priest and scientist.

I'd developed a better notion of what had occurred in the run up to the disaster at the manor and the ultimate direction of the game.

Once the players were in a closed environment it became a bit easier to direct the action into the general area I intended though the dice and decisions did still manage to divert my planned course of action more then once.

Meet the Crew

Akembi hurried to the front door to meet the awaiting crew and his fellow investigators. The crew looks shocked as the wounded are stretchered out

"Okay folks I know that sounded scary but they'll be fine, ruined side of the buildings very unstable, it’s going to have to be off limits. however the intact side is stable and spooky enough for your purposes. If you guys want to get set up quick go ahead just don't touch any books or documentation until we've had a look some of these things are very old and might crumble"

"What was the gunfire about?! Biff asks sceptically.

"Fastest way to alert us to their whereabouts" Akembi answered swiftly, he'd expected that "You're losing light better get to it!"

The crew don't wait for Biff to give orders, they stream past to begin the set up. The rest return to the vehicles and tents bar one production assistant who's commandeered to drive a jeep to the emergency clinic.

Akembi motions his fellow investigators over. "We got a very powerful problem in the ruined side but it's agreed to let us go into the complete side unharmed. There's a couple of rooms we can look in"

"Library's the obvious starting point" Fredrick said the others nod in agreement.

"Thought so" Akembi said turning to Squad Two "Okay you lead the way to the Library" he said to the youngest looking soldier "and the rest guard the way into the ruined section, load spectre rounds and prep some more clips with them while you're there just in case" The soldiers heft up the ammo crates marked Spectre Rounds they fetched while Akembi was addressing the crew.

"Good work right lets get a move on, I've no idea how long the deal will hold"

"What's our priority?"

"Where they did this magic, we'll get more definite information from the ritual site than from any surviving notes" Akembi replies.

"Then surely we need to be in the ruined section? That's where things clearly went wrong" Malloy objects.

"If we know where we're going we can get there fast with Squad Two holding off the entity long enough for us to get a look, take some pictures and retreat. We're not going to survive if we just start wandering about, it'll pick us off"

"I could try performing an exorcism?" Fredrick offers.

"I'm not sure that'll work and it'd break the truce. I don't want to do that until we're armed with as much information as possible and have a viable plan of action."

Everyone nods in agreement.

"Okay, Library first remember the TV people are setting up so try not to freak them out too much. Lead on" Akembi tells the young soldier.

The soldiers heft crates of ammo and lead the way into the house as you pass the crew Biff is telling Hazel to do the introduction again.

"Again? What was wrong this time Biff?"

"Just the camera angles Hazel, this about the show not us."

"Humph"

"Okay, camera two slower on the mansion reveal, finish a second before she stops speaking, should have the timing down by now?"

A camera woman nods to Biff who's oblivious to the following shared eye roll between her and Hazel

“Okay, cameras good? Sound?"

Thumbs go up

"Hazel, go"

You all pause to listen to the introduction (and avoid being caught on camera). Hazel takes a breath and begins.

"Tweeting Manor was built in the 1700's by forestry and shipping magnate Agustus Tweeting, among his achievements, he was instrumental in bringing the Miskatonic University to the nearby town of Arkham with a discount on building supplies he shipped up the Miskatonic river.

With astute arrangements like that his family were set for generations to come as they held the contracts for every future expansion of the University, now the 7th largest in the states. It is his grandson, Ambien Tweeting, who brings us here tonight.

Ambien had turned the management of his company over to business experts and pursued a career as a professor at Miskatonic University specialising in African warrior and spiritual traditions. He had met the future President Madison several times during his tenure and in 1812.

With his war going badly, rumour has it he turned to Ambien to see if he could do anything to help. Ambien is alleged to have set about trying to open a portal through the astral plane which he believed he could march soldiers through to flank the enemy.

The University, of course, would have nothing to do with it and refused to allow him even  experiment on their grounds. So he took an undergraduate team to his own home and allegedly attempted a ritual here”

Hazel paused for dramatic effect

“On All Hallows Eve 1812, Ambien sent all the servants home and then, near midnight reports from the time tell us, the sky light up with a display of weird lights from the manor  followed by a large fire. Locals rushed to help but and entire wing of the building had been destroyed.

However no bodies were found and then things got odd.

Ambien had left instructions that the manor be sealed off if anything went wrong.

Once the structure was made safe, it was to be off limits to anyone bar his descendants. No reconstruction work was to be carried out.

These were odd instructions but they were followed. Things took a turn for the spooky when a few years later, on all Hallows eve the local watchman discovered the bodies of two vagrants, their faces twisted in terror apparently dead of heart failure.

Scared to death by something unknown was the official verdict.”

Hazel let a look of concern flit over her face.

“Every few years after, whenever people stayed here on Halloween they reported being filled with fear, always by different things, few managed to stay a full night and of those that did, fewer still survived.

Local legend has it, Ambien opened a door to hell and on All Hallows Eve demons run amok here, tormenting any poor mortal foolish enough to be in their path.

Tonight we're going to try to spend the night here and with modern equipment, figure out what's behind these troubling incidents.

Can Spectre Squad survive this one? Stay tuned!"

"Cut, right that'll do, thank you Hazel, I'll film the viewers questions bit and then we can do a tour of the house. Has the local sheriff shown up yet?"

"Constable sir, they still call them constables in this place and they get quite snippy about that" an assistant informs him.

"Good to know, is the constable here yet?"

"Be here in 10 sir"

"Good, Thank you. Right camera 2 on me here and I'll do the questions, where's the sheet?"

An assistant hands him a sheaf of papers.

"Okay, we good? Roll"

The soldier from squad 2 leads Akembi and his crew through the complete part of the manor.

"This place is well kept" Malloy observes "It's not cleaned regularly but someone's tidying up every now and then"

"The family company has maintenance people come in during the summer to do upkeep, standing orders from the wandering descendant apparently"

"What's the deal here exactly?" Fredrick asks.

"So after the explosion an heir was named in the will, an illegitimate child according to the documents. That child was to be recognised as the heir if they changed their name to his and apparently they have chosen to name their firstborn child Ambien tweeting ever since" "How many children have they had?"

"Everyone of them has only had one child"

"Since 1812?"

"And that's what sparked our automated records search to flag this place as of interest." "So the current heir is?"

"Travelling the world, a very old fashioned chain of forwarded mail leaves paper trails and scheduled ticket purchases create an illusion of existence"

"Illusion?"

"No one has laid eyes on any of the heirs, ever as far as we can tell"

"And how could Ambien have set that all up in 1812?"

"He couldn't have, someone or something else has"

"I don't know of any kind spirit that does that level of admin"

"Nor I"

"Hence the truce and the need for research"

"This is the library sir?"

The soldier interrupts "Would you like me to stay or join the others guarding the entrance to the ruins?"

"Go join them" Akembi orders him"If it breaks the truce I hope it will attack there first"

The soldier pulls a face at that notion but salutes and leaves.

The library turns out to be quite extensive, bigger than the local one, the books are stored on shelves covered by sliding glass panes.

Each section has a plaque above it declaring what category the books in it are.

"Right" says Akembi "Lets see if his math was up to scratch, if he screwed that up then that could explain the explosion.."

The crew pick out books from the Mathematics section they find notes scribbled in, Akembi finds one author in particular of interest..

"What's with all the Halley books" Malloy asked curiously.

"Well this was the year after Napoleons Comet so his work would have been in vogue and it's still quite useful"

"He was a versatile guy, built diving bells and even did the math for life annuities" Fredrick chips in... "..terrible ships captain though."

"More importantly he's useful for precisely calculating where everything in the solar system is at a precise time, so if you were to transit from one plane to another and back you could calculate two fixed points to go between. Okay, moving on"

The crew speed through the world spirituality, experts in their own rights and with  suspicions of what the ritual would have needed, they quickly find some incongruous titles. "I've never heard of these but they've a lot of notes scrawled in them" says Fredrick placing a pile on the floor "Mainly astral projection, heavenly ascension stuff"

"Hey! We got a lot on Golem construction here" calls Malloy "Like, a bit too in depth not to be looking into seriously and some references to GE1212?"

"Well we got Geography or Geology?" says Akembi "take your pick"

The Geology section is smaller than the others, though it has some notable authors in there, Theophrastus, Pliny the Elder, Ibn Sina, Shen Kuo, Emmanuel Kant but it's a simple pamphlet that catches Malloys eye, Moqui Stones: Rare Rocks of the Indian tribes.

"Well now this is interesting indeed, I didn't think they knew about them this far back!" "Knew about what?" the crew ask as one.

"Moqui stones! Called Shaman stones sometimes they can interact with the spirit realm and vice versa... NO WAY!" as Malloy races back to the Spirituality section... there's a shocked yell and the sound of someone hitting the floor hard.

You can check it out yourselves or bring Squad 2 away from their guard post to check it out.

The crew rush after Malloy, who looks up from the books he's flicking excitedly through in surprise.

It takes him a moment before he realises why people are looking at him.

"... Oh! No, I'm fine, that was from the corridor"

They all run out to find two TV crew on the floor groaning beside a strange object.

"What happened here?" Akembi asks, eyeing the object warily.

"Went to pick that up by the handle, got a shock grabbed him as I fell and shocked him too" one of the men getting to his feet "this place was abandoned before electricity, so what the hell is that?"

"Not strictly true, people were using electricity mainly for fun before then, though the notions of power stations or national grids were still pure science fiction" says the normally quiet Chen, studying it.

Akembi and Malloy share a surprised look.

"So, is this science or magic?" Akembi asked

"Yes" Chen replied "think about it, someone looked at metal discs and figured out if he put brine soaked cloth between each disc he could not only create electricity but store it!"

"So it's a battery?" the crewman asked nursing his hand .

"Yes, well, wait it's got the extra copper disc so this is what's called a Voltaic pile, what we did before we'd figured batteries out, that "handle" you grabbed are the contact wires, when they touched, it created current hence the shock"

"Yeah" Akembi says "So... Why was it out here?"

Akembi asks looking around the hall way for clues.

"Good question, this was the height of tech at the time so it wasn't a something I'd dump" "Okay so it powered something out here, how?" Fredrick asks. "Touching those wires to contacts to create a circuit"

"And contacts look like?"

"Metal studs usually though some types of nail could work"

"Okay before we start looking for these contacts, any idea what they power?" Akembi asks.

"Could it be a detonator?"

"Volta did try making a hot wire blasting cap" Chen says "but most likely it's: not going to kill us, Volta couldn't get his prototype working properly" Chen adds cheerfully.

"Oh great! So it'll only be poorly constructed explosives that maim us" Akembi says sourly.

"It is most likely a secret door, they liked that sort of thing back then"

"hmm... Okay lets see if we can find what he was hiding" Akembi orders.

The two crewmen, now recovered watch smiling as the three men start stroking the walls trying to feel for the hidden contacts.

"What are you two grinning at?" Fredrick asks irritably.

"You idiots, it's not 1812 now you know" the older of the two responds "Fetch the..." "Please don't.." the younger man pleads.

"The Grindr!" he finishes triumphantly/

"Oh for Fu..." the younger man mutters as he goes to their tool box. "Okay, I'll bite, what's the Grindr?" Akembi asks with a weary sigh.

"It's a studfinder!" he says with a happy grin.

"Oof! That was so bad it hurt my head" Fredrick complains.

"It's alright for you, you don't have to work with him every day" the younger man says going over the walls with the device.

"Not my fault you don't appreciate quality humour!"

"Oh I appreciate quality humour alright.., Here! Found one that has no business being there" he takes a knife and marks a spot high on the wall.

"So if you're right about a door the other should be in a straight line... Yep! Here!" he marks another spot.

"There you go fellas, there's the contacts. I'd say use our phase rotation meter to run current through it rather than the antique" the older man says handing them another device.

"Good plan" Akembi says "Thanks for your help, I'll get it back to you when we're done" "Oh.. Okay..”

"I'm need you to move to a safe distance" Akembi tells the disappointed crewman "there is a small chance Ambien might have been playing with explosives... which would explain the damage come to think of it... anyway, there's been enough people hurt today already and I'd rather not add you to the list"

"Fair, should we go tell Biff?" the older crewman asks.

"Absolutely, if it doesn't kill us. finding it will make for great TV"

"Cool. hope you don't die" he says cheerfully and with that he and the other crewman leave.

Akembi waits until they are out of view.

"Okay, lets see what we've got" he says passing the other part of the device electrical to Chen.

They touch the contacts with the device, there's the sound of something metal slowly grinding, a long crack appears in the wall as a hidden door starts to slide open.

There's a horrible crunching sound, the door stops abruptly, leaving a gap of a few millimetres.

"Think you broke it" Chen says to Akembi.

"What? I did not!"

"You've got the buttons, your fault" he says with a grin.

"Cheeky git!"

"Gents, what do we do now?" Fredrick asks in exasperation.

"Fetch a crowbar" Akembi shrugs

"Did those guys leave their tools?"

"No of course they didn't, no one leaves tools lying about on a set"

Fredrick admonishes him

"You've been at this long enough to know that"

"I just asked! Right who is fetching one from the crew then?"

"Okay" Chen says and hurriedly walks off.

"So what do we do now?" Fredrick asks.

"Lets see what we can see!" Akembi tries to look into the room through the gap. "Hmm got a torch on your phone? It's really dark"

Fredrick holds his phone over Akembi's head.

"Okay I see some sort of writing.. white... painted on the floor, not our alphabet.. bookshelves, Shit!"

Akembi leaps back and drops into a fighting stance.

Fredrick also steps back looking from Akembi to the door and back again.

After a few moments pass with no activity from the room. Akembi relaxes.

"What did you see?" Fredrick asks, more curious than alarmed.

"A figure, looked like a big human" Akembi says "But maybe it was a mannequin" he admits looking slightly sheepish.

Fredrick looks through the gap himself.

"It's not a mannequin, more like a..mould? The writing looks likes it's painted in a circular fashion. might be a ritual room"

"Let's go see what Malloy was so excited about, may be connected" Akembi says.

"Yeah, wonder what's keeping Chen?" Fredrick asks as they head back to the library. "Probably giving a lecture on the history of crowbars" Akembi says with a grin.

"Ah he's not that bad"

"Dollar?"

"Dollar" Fredrick agrees.

Malloy looks up as they enter the library.

"What are we betting on" he asks.

"Sent Chen to get a crowbar, betting on whether or not he's lecturing someone on it's history right now"Akembi explains.

" 'Course he is, it's a proper compulsion, count me in, This is really interesting I think Ambien figured out how to sublimate a Golem!"

"We've found a hidden room, looks like there's a human shaped mould in there" Fredrick says

"Akembi may do battle with it so you'll want to be quick about examining it"

"Asshole" Akembi mutters "So have you figured out  how the Golem was built?”

"Yes!" says Malloy excitedly "but I still have elements to figure out like how it was controlled"

"I'm not sure. it was... it seemed... sentient and almost reasonable" Akembi says.

"He seems to have worked out some sort of hybrid of gargoyle, golem and temple spirit creation rituals, they all have different triggers and controls though, it's a puzzle"

"So we have two separate rituals" Fredrick mused "one in the hidden room and whatever caused the explosion. Any idea about that?"

"Haven't started on the other books yet" Malloy admits.

"Lets see if we can get in that room, might have more concrete information on the other ritual stored there" Akembi declares.

Malloy keeps the book he was reading with him as they head back to the secret door. Malloy shouts "Open sesame!" at the door as soon as he sees it.

Akembi and Fredrick glare at him.

"What?" he says defensively "It's got to work sometime"

"No, no it doesn't" says Fredrick irritably "You're bein..."

His jaw drops as the door to the room slides open. An unfamiliar figure begins to emerge from the room...

"INTRUDER!" Akembi yells into his radio "Get back! Entrance hall!"

Malloy and Fredrick don't hesitate, they turn and run immediately. (Experienced investigators don't question a command to run, it's how they’ve lived long enough to get to experienced)

The figure coming out of the room is yanked back and is replaced by a pistol toting Chen. "Where are they?" he calls to Akembi.

"Password!" Akembi yells pointing his own pistol at Chen.

"What?"

"Shapeshifter protocol!"

"Oh! Uh... Black Mountain?" Akembi relaxes a little but keeps his pistol up.

"Who's your friend?"

"I'm the Gaffer you flaming nutter, now put that pistol down before I have to call the union in!" Akembi holsters his pistol.

"Sorry sir, bit on edge with the goings on today" he apologises to the man. "Stand down, false alarm, Chen's an idiot, send Malloy and Fredrick back"

Akembi speaks into the radio.

"No shapeshifter protocol on the radio?" Chen asks.

"Yeah there is for false alarms, it's Chen's an idiot, because they usually happen because you've been an idiot"

"That's not..." "Berlin, Taipei, Sydney..." Akembi starts listing off places where Chen has apparently been an idiot.

He's still naming places to an increasingly shamefaced Chen and grinning Gaffer when Malloy and Fredrick rejoin them.

"So the door works?" Malloy interrupts the recitation of a very long list excitably.

"Yes sir, Mr Chen here told me what was going on and a quick google told me that device was the wrong voltage, I've fixed up hidden battery on the pile there, oiled and cleaned the mechanism so when they “discover” this place it will slide open clean" the Gaffer says with a little pride "This Ambien fella did a hell did a hell of a job given the tools he had available back then"

"He really was very clever from what we've found so far" Malloy concurs.

"Yeah well I'm going to be sending the crew back up here to finish set up, try not to shoot them. And remember from now on all electrical stuff goes through me. This is a union job and you don't want that trouble"

"I know, my apologies again" Akembi says sincerely.

"I'll be expecting a nice bottle of something when the seasons wraps by way of apology" he says as he leaves.

"You can count on it sir!" Akembi calls after him.

"Did he see much?" Akembi asks Chen as soon as the Gaffer is out of earshot.

"No, got the door open and then he went to work on the mechanism, I was  holding the torch for him so I haven't had a look either"

"Right lets see what we got. Lead on Fredrick" Akembi says.

Fredrick produces a torch that looks like it doubles as a baton and enters the room.

"Okay there's candles in here" he calls back "I'll light them up so we can all work here" "You sure they're not dynamite?" Akembi asks half jokingly.

"Yes, that wasn't invented till the 1840's" comes the reply.

The room is lit with shimmering candle light as the whole team goes in.

"Okay we got a ritual circle on the floor, human shaped sarcophagus,  work bench and a desk, some paintings on the wall too, where do we start?"

The bench and desk are littered with tools, pieces of rock and copper wires. Beneath them are dozens of apparently dead paired voltaic piles, wired to the sarcophagus in the rooms centre.

There are drawings and books among the debris as well as a collection of chemicals in jars. Ignoring the fact they’ve unsealed a room with a pile of 208 year old chemicals the party peruse  the books and notes.

Chen finds a translation of De Viribus Electricitatis, he's quite excited about it.

"Luigi Galvani! If it wasn't for the dispute between him and Volta electricity would have never been more than a curiosity!"

"Are you telling me modern electricity was created by the friction between the two?" Fredrick asks with a straight face.

"Yes! Isn't it brilliant?"

"We'd also never had Frankenstein if he hadn't made running current through the dead popular" Akembi says.

"In fairness he only used a frogs leg, the dead people was society at  large"

Malloy chimes in

"I think I got something here by the way, if  you're done with the history lesson?"

He spreads some sheets of paper out.

"So our boy came up with an electric oven accidentally, he used a combination of the shaman stones and easily sublimated" he paused as Fredrick held up a hand "Oh, that basically means easily evaporated rocks" he explains "to create a Golems body in the sarcophagus, then, he heated metal elements inside it with a steady current"

He brandishes a sheet covered in mathematical scribblings.

"He'd worked out the timings and temperatures, everything to a minute, ritual took three days and nights but he got it done"

"Any notes on the ritual itself?" Akembi asks.

"He wrote it some sort of personal code, impossible to decipher fully as it's based on his opinions on people he knew rather than a proper code system"

"Well what can we say for sure"

"As far as I can tell he had to set up a vocal command word to control the Spirit Golem as a scroll wasn't feasible"

"And that was?"

"Percevals killer, though I suspect that's a reminder of the command word not the actual word"

"Got to be more than that to go on in here" Akembi says "Okay lets see if there’s anything related to this Perceval thing in here”

They all look around to look for clues about Perceval...

"Hey guys, those chemicals..." Chen starts to say as a there's a weird "Bloop!" sound from the corner.

"Yeah?" Akembi says "They've been in an airtight room for 200 odd years right?"

"And we've just introduced light and heat into it" Fredrick says with alarm.

There's an ominous creaking sound from the chemical jars.

"SHITE!" screams Malloy. As one they all dive for the door... -