Call of Cthulhu, Episode #22: 'Fear and Loathing in Black Knob'

 With Sinead spending time with the owner of the local agricultural machinery store (!), the other characters make their way to the Russian Count Mikhael's home on the mountain, not far from the infamous Adam Smythe, who, it seems, has found a real kinship with the townsfolk, though the Prof recognises the fact that something is amiss with them...and somebody, has been messing with the darkest of magics. 

Real estate prices are gonna plummet ...just a sense...

Arriving and being welcomed by the Count's bodyguard, having had a look at Smythe's mountain home - where they see a very polite 1920s Architect style fellow...and some strange French Windows on the upper floor..., they see that Pauly (the bodyguard with the Tommy Gun) has recently had a serious hand injury.

When the vodka is flowing and the Count is once more glad to see that his guests actually paid him a visit after the weird adventures on board the Mauritania. Pauly tells the tale of his injury as the Prof prevents any infection - the count insisting that it was a dog - while the bodyguard insists that 'no dog walks on its hind legs'.

 Reasoning at first that all these tales of werewolves must be true, the characters make Cthulhu Mythos rolls (with the Prof and McDade rolling 02 and 03) and realise, that 'what we are in fact witnessing here gentlemen, is a ghoul!'

Not a dog...

 Tales of men seeking immortality, and feeding on the dead, and sometime even finding that though it works - they are forever 'changed' - abound at Miskatonic University... Pauly gives them an exact location.

Using their binoculars, the part also sees some sort of summoning site in a clearing near an old Indian burial mound...clearly the location of the large blocks of concrete that Smythe had ordered.

 

I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit...?

That night, of course, having also seen a faint glow from the summoning site, they set out with shotguns. The count insists that Pauly accompanies them - they agree reluctantly,  though slipping and falling on his ass on his way down the scree slope, Pauly reopens his hand wound, and is advised to act as rearguard - a fateful decision - with the signal being three flashes from the Prof's torch on the way back (this is important).

 The characters make their way along the side of the trail, using the woods as cover...and determine the entrance to Smythe's house...only a candle is lit at the French windows...and the ever present sound of Mi-GO...more than one - can be heard toward the summoning site, as can the wailing cries of a human summoning something nasty - Smythe?!?

It's on!..although there is also sound of something in the area across the roadway, in the woods around the burial mound..the ghoul, no doubt, though it seems to be aware of the wily characters' attempt to set a trap for it.

The canny ghoul, does...canny...ghoul stuff

Opting instead to return to Smythe's presumably empty home, they scooch through a badly secured window, and find it empty... In the living room is a partially finished letter, and a map...to Septimus Crane. McDade starts snapping photos of everything.

They opt to leave...hearing a terrifying female scream from the site...then decide to go back inside the house and await the 'things'. Whoever they might have saved. it would appear, ran out of time (those cads!). 

McLeoud and the Prof head upstairs, securing a superb ambush position at the entrance to the door with the French windows with solid slugs in their shotguns...the room having been turned, it seems, into some sort of alien nest! 

'Yeah man, but it's a dry heat...'

 McDade finds a research area, with three human brains preserved in tanks of foul green liquid...ewwww..., with maps and data on ancient Mu...and snaps everything, then unplugs the brain jars which start to vibrate and die with a quiet, shuddering, inaudible screech...and then he finds a pupa mi-go, that may...or may not...be alive.

Lovely with chips.

As the Mi-Go return to their nest, the Prof give it both barrels (min damage 7 from solid slug - which is a big deal since rubbery Mi-Go take minimum damage (shotguns impale in 6th ed. but not in 5th - but it was a stoopid rule anyway)) and blows it apart at close range, with the second coming in fast ti grab McLeoud, but he similarly gives it some solid slug discipline.(The local Black Knob gun store is currently out of solid slugs by the way...).

They're heeeere...

They start to gather all of the intel, the sound of a 'third' Mi-Go echoing as it seems to leave the scene of carnage. ...and the ones, are bigger than the previous aliens they had slain... 

Another one???

Returning from the summoning now, Smythe himself, painted in horrible runes and sigils rushes up the stairs sc4reaming 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" ...good thing McDade is still loaded for bear - it isn't pretty, and that carpet was new too!

 They now rush out...speeding to the summoning site, perhaps to delay or stop whatever is coming? Though...they have forgotten about the ghoul in the woods...

Yeah...that guy

 After luck rolls, where the Prof loses out..the ghoul SLAMS into him from the woods as the characters rush down the road...clawing and biting and clawing...doing considerable damage as the two fall into a flurry of teeth and claws...McLeoud and Mcdade, keen not to shoot the Prof, take into the ghoul with the butts of their shotguns, though this allows the thing to get more attacks on the Prof who bleeds out and falls to to the ground..apparently dead, blood streaming from his neck (-2 hp - one round to save). McLeoud tries a first aid, but there is too much blood.

As the ghoul rears, McDade blows its head off with solid slug at close range...and both characters look up to see, the third Mi-Go..casting a Mind Blast to destabilise the characters - striking McLeoud who falls to the ground raving and screaming with madness...

McDade reloads as the Mi-Go comes in to grab McLeoud, delivering both barrels of solid slug to the alien thing...and the stench of cordite and the sweet sickly smell of dead bug...fills the air. 

Falling to the ground, with McCeoud screaming nearby, McDade manages to get a dressing onto the Prof's neck, and just manages, barely, to save his life.

That...was close.

He rushes back to get Pauly, forgets the signal, and almost gets shot... (I mean it would have been funny?) ...

 Bearing in mind that the Count owes McDade a favour for having saved his life, agreeing to burn the evidence, is practically a given...and he sends men off to do the deed. McDade searches the remainder of the house as the fuel is being doused around the place, finding more books on ancient Mu (and Easter Island) and another book...with strange inscriptions and sigils and spells...of course.