Cathulhu #1 'The Black Cat Murders'

During a short interlude from Shadowdark, our intrepid party have now become feline investigators in the mad mash-up that is 'Cathulhu - Velvet paws on Cthulhu's Trail', where the characters are ...ummm...cats investigating the Cthulhu Mythos - makes purrrfect sense...(see what I did there...)

I bet he drinks Carling Black Label...

 Whiskey (who belongs to local P.I. Brock) and Fitz (the cat of a certain professor Edward Downie, recently returned from a sanitarium in Los Angeles) both of Arkham, meet at the site of a recent vicious cat-murder, noticing a few things...as they peer through the throng of nosey felines.

'Moidah! Moidah!'

 An old cat called Benjamin, after some discourse, explains that this is the 4th such murder he has seen in the last few days

Whiskey - definitely trustworthy, without any 'dodgy' connections to the mob...

• Whiskey & Fitz notice that the cat's heart has been removed
• Upon further investigation, it looks like all of the victims were also black cats - curiouser and curiouser.
• From a 4th storey apartment balcony overlooking the scene in Walnut Street, a regal and thin looking white female cat watches them.

Fitz - keep an eye on your catnip...and the milk...and your wallet

 Resolving to see what she witnessed, Whiskey & Fitz use the old 'delivery truck driver leaves the door open while they scoot past and head upstairs' trick...then the 'hide in the flowerpot while the grocery delivery knocks on the appropriate apartment door trick'...and manage to make their way inside the white cat's 'palace' whose owner, is actually an old blind woman.

Her excellency 'Madame' decides that they shall be her 'knights' as she is of course descended from Cat Royalty of old...though she appears frightened by what she witnessed the previous night. The local victim - 'Tom-Tom' was known to her but not well, and she saw him taken and killed by something 'large, with distorted contours, warped, cat like, but three times the size of a cat...' seeing it tear something from Tom-Tom's body before he died'. She shudders at the memory.

It seems also that 'her majesty' has a penchant for cat-nip, and Whiskey (who is well connected to the local 'mob') promises to get her some. 

Trail of the Black Cats...

Benjamin had told them that one of the victims had also been found at the docks - where Whiskey happens to know 'Ricardo' the local mob-boss cat and supplier of catnip (Top Cat? the indisputable leader of the gaaaang). Surrounded by mob operators, they find their audience with Ricardo, guarded by Ahab (who is rarely cheerful) and Tik-Tok (who never shuts up)...'tell 'em boss, tell em'.

 As Ricardo relates the story of one of his cats - a black cat named O'malley, who also appears to have had his heart ripped out, he has an idea, trading two sticks of 'nip'...if Whiskey and Fitz will guarantee to  'take out' this cat murdering fiend - be it a dog or whatever.

They agree and leave, finding a stray mother who is being menaced by a dog, and give it short shrift, returning to hear that she had fled from south of the city due to the 'black cat murders'...she thanks them and says she will keep an eye out.

 They resolve to check out the other crime scenes at the East College St Laundry (Fitz's normal hang out where the ladies feed him milk) and the French Hill street. They leave the nip with 'Sanjo Panza' the fearful mouse who hangs out in Brock's offices.

They also hear various rumours about sightings of the thing, and stories of rabid dogs...but they resolve to find Benjamin first and keep him up to date...finding him amongst a gaggle of students being carefully petted at the Miskatonic University Tower... joining the party, and finding themselves pampered by the students...Fitz and Whiskey bring Benjamin up to date surrounded by 'can openers' who have no idea as to the import of their conversation. The older cat slowly realises, based on what they have determined, that this 'thing' must be something to do with the fabled 'Dreamlands'.

From behind a statue...a grey Siberian cat, owned by Paulie Pavlov, listens closely...watching...