With the resulting standoff in MacKenzie House, Sinead Maguire , now with MacLeod pointing a pistol at her, and seemingly also confronted by his two new friends, drops her bag and raises her hands, opting not to reach for the oh-so-tempting bottle of unstable nitro, that has got her out of so many situations in the past.
She does opt to produce her one bargaining chip – the Willard Gibson notebook that she found whilst staying in his old room. This appears to placate the rest of the party, and bearing in mind the potential dangers (and her bag full of dynamite), they agree to work together, at least for a time.
There are several points to decipher in the notebook. Willard had made friends with a man called Paten MacGuffin up the lough, and had conversely managed to annoy the vile and malignant MacAllens, whom Erma MacKenzie, upon being assessed by the wily Schmidt (rolling a 01 on psychology) is terrified of.
Further ‘intense probing’ reveals that not only have the vile MacAllens killed Paten’s wife, and caused upset in the town, but they are somehow linked to the thing in the Lough, and vile bouts of ‘keeping it in the family’. Sinead resolves to stay at the guesthouse for the evening, and keep an eye of Willard’s daughter Elaine, who heard the entire discourse.
 |
| See the toepath..just there...yep that's it... |
Resolving to walk the toe-path around the lough as darkness falls (I mean, why wouldn’t you?), they discover the wreckage of wooden boats on the shoreline. They also encounter one of the deformed MacAllens, with an even more deformed dog called ‘Satan’ who crosses their path, the deformed moron assuring them that they are being watched. No shots exchanged (at least in terms of lead) ,the two parties move on.
 |
| According to AI this is a 'mad inbred Scottish farmer from 1925 with a dog called Satan and a shotgun' |
As it grows dark, moonlights glints off something in the tree line, and they discover an out of place, rune marked, horrible black obelisk style standing stone …which appears to be acting as part of a magnetic field (confirming Schmidt’s earlier research regarding standing stones). It has also been cleaned of muck, perhaps even unearthed by the local mad men?
 |
| I asked AI for a black obelisk - this was option B... |
The lands surrounding the Lough seem controlled by the MacAllens, except for one area, a well positioned and stockade protected farm…Pater MacGuffin meets them with his friendly shotgun in hand, though McDaid manages to fast-talk him with regaled tales of the war and the party’s knowledge of Willard Gibson, and they are allowed into the farmhouse.
Inside is a mess, since the death of MacGuffin’s wife Sara, though they do see an intact rowing boat (called the ‘Sara’). MacGuffin confirms their worst fears regarding the stones, of which it seems there are five. Consulting the map of the area, MacLeod correctly assess that they form the shape of a dreaded pentagram, and whatever is in the lough, might rise at the epicentre.
MacGuffin’s life has collapsed since the death of his wife, at the hands of the MacAllens. He wants only vengeance, and the characters might just be just the vehicle he has been waiting for …combined with the boxes of unstable dynamite and a handy-dandy Lewis Gun, currently needing a little oil, in the barn…
No comments:
Post a Comment