Pulp Cthulhu - The Two Headed Serpent (North Borneo Part #3)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Zeke Broda (Grease Monkey / Mechanic)

Ivy Guinness (Outsider / Nurse) 

Nigel Thorne, VC, DSC (Thrill Seeker / Explorer)

[Oz the All Knowing (Mystic / Entertainer)]

After brainstorming a range of ideas for getting past the night gaunts, the team decide to simply sneak past. Zeke goes up the ragged cliff face first, followed by the rest of the team roped together like mountain climbers. Except their guide Abidin, who wisely stays hidden in the tunnel entrance in the clearing. They make it without arousing the interest of the perched monsters, and find themselves in a hexagonal tunnel. It glows with a white light, and is made of some seamless rock-like or concrete-like material. It leads into a large hexagonal room, 20 feet in height. Standing in the center of the room is a six-sided step-pyramid of polished metal, and hanging in the air above the pyramid are two hexagonal frames. In an adjacent room there are control panels inscribed in Nacaal and other weird symbols, while three walls are coated in a glossy glass or some similar material. Zeke gets down to work trying to figure out the controls, and is successful in bringing up an image on the three flat glassy panels. They show a map, which after some confusion they realize shows the earth millions of years before. There are some spots on the map in red, and Ivy sketches it all in her notebook for future reference. 

After some further fiddling about, Zeke powers up whatever is in the the adjacent room. The low hum he heard earlier now intensifies, and the team glances in the pyramid room to see the two hexagonal frames now circling around in the air. After a few moments, the two overlap and lock together. Where before is was possible to look through the individual frames, they now showed only an inky blackness. Ivy and Nigel clamber up the pyramid to look into the frames, and Ivy's keen eye's spot movement in the darkness. A huge worm-creature chewing through rock, much like the description the ghouls gave them of the creature that dug the tunnels in the clearing. The party surmises this is the portal to another dimension through which all the weird plants and monsters have travelled, and they decide to destroy it. Prying open one control panel uncovers what looks to be more serpent person technology of intricate brass gears and moving gyroscopic parts. They also finds fragments of writing in Nacaal that Oz tells them refers to Tsathoggua, which suggest the involvement of the Inner Night and further convinces them the facility needs to be destroyed.

The party is just wiring up the last of the dynamite when to their surprise Quintin Shapiro enters the chamber. He is shocked to see what they are doing, saying they need to stop so they can all shelter here. He has discovered there is no cure to the Yellow Death and they must stay here to be protected from the Haftorang device when it blows, a course of action now necessary to stop the infection from spreading. The team is suspicious. Zeke notes Shapiro is not acting like himself, being very cavalier about the death and destruction that is about to be released. Ivy notes that he is also not sweating at all; unusual for an out of shape scientist whose just climbed through the hot jungles and up the cliff face. They try to bluff him and proceed with rigging the demo charges. Quinten responds with an inhuman scream, threats of death and destruction to the human race, and leaps at Zeke. The mechanic dodges, and Nigel guns down 'Shapiro' with his Webley. When they examine the body, they find it unnaturally cold with oddly inhuman features. Even though it looks like Shapiro.

They waste no further time, and blow the facility with dynamite. Immediately the night gaunts on the cliff above disappear, as does the strange dying plants they'd observed earlier.  Collecting the shaken Abidin, the team heads back down the mountain as fast as they can, determined to figure out what happened to Shapiro and hopefully get the Haftorang device far far away. They reach the armored cars just as daylight breaks, and head for Kazin's farm and the medical tent. They find Shapiro has confirmed the disease was the Yellow Death, and that is no cure producible with the viral analyzer. There is a way to delay the progress of the disease, but in the end the person would die in a week rather than a day,. There was however a curious note that read 'hybrid?' in the margin of his notebook. 

While Ivy is picking apart their erstwhile leaders notes, the rest of the party checks the rest of the tent. In the wooden chest in which the lab chemicals and apparatus had been packed, they now find a collection of human bones and scraps of flesh. But more troubling than that was the Haftorang device. When Zeke looks inside the lid, he realizes the timer had been advanced and it will now blow in less than an hour. Given the time it would take them to get out of the blast radius, they have to leave in the next 20minutes or be caught in the blast. A fast and furious argument breaks out about what to do. Nigel insists they must try and save any uninfected folk they identify using a testing solution produced by the viral analyzer. The others, though sympathetic, didn't think they have time to do that. And are appalled by the panic and angst that would ensue when separating those who could be saved from their infected loved ones who would be left behind. Not to mention how could they get them out of the blast zone in a hurry with just the armored cars. 

In the end, Nigel has to be forced into one of the armored cars, and Ivy has to persuade the crowd now blocking the road to move out of the way so they can go get help for the sick nad dying. And having quickly checked that everyone in the party, including Abidin and their drivers, are free of the Yellow Death, they head down the winding dirt road at high speed. The tear into the army camp just as a massive conflagration explodes behind them, incinerating the jungle and all in it for miles around. As ash and debris starts to fall around them, the team is met by Captain Lancaster and a pair of officials from the North Borneo Chartered Company. Once the excitement dies down, the official's  question the team. And they, with a great deal of pragmatic skepticism, buy the story that the dormant volcanic mountain had blown and wiped out the infected zone. 

With heavy hearts at their inability to save the doomed people, the team climbs aboard their plane for the long flight back to New York and another debriefing at Caduceus headquarters. 

Pulp Cthulhu - The Two Headed Serpent (North Borneo Part #2)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Oz the All Knowing (Mystic / Entertainer) 

Zeke Broda (Grease Monkey / Mechanic)

Ivy Guinness (Outsider / Nurse) 

Nigel Thorne, VC, DSC (Thrill Seeker / Explorer)

The teams initial reaction to the haftorang is to drop it into the sea from the plane. Quentin insists they need to keep it for now just in case they need it to eradicate the virus, even though the though of using it is distasteful to him. Zeke and Oz look at the device to try and disarm, and discover it is not normal human technology and has no visible 'explosive' but rather a collection of astronomical signs and sigils. The team agrees and Quentin directs them to search for Inner Night activity while he uses the viral analyzer to identify the pathogen and find a way to treat it if possible. 

First, however, they report to the officers mess to lunch with Captain Lancaster. He explains the quarantine zone, and that his men have orders to keep anyone from leaving using lethal force if needed. Inside the zone are a large number of local farmers gathered at a local tobacco plantation. They have gathered to protest mining exploration work the North Borneo Chartered Company  is carrying out. These locals believe the mining team has angered to spirits of the mountain with their blasting and drilling. The mountain had recently blessed them with wild abundance of strange fruits, but these have now died away and they blame the mining team. That exploration team is likewise trapped in the quarantine zone.  The captain does not seem too troubled by his orders when it comes to the locals, but is anxious to save the mining team.  Asked about the strange happenings on the mountain, he gestures to an odd animal head mounted on the wall. It looks like a cross between and elephant and a stegosaurus with moss skin, and he explains two of his men shot the creature outside the perimeter two nights ago. Very weird and must be a new discovery. Also very tasty, and the team realizes the steak on their plates is from the strange creature. Zeke goes ahead and eats heartily, but the rest politely avoid the meat.  Oz clairvoyantly bonds with the creature's head, and gets an impression that it comes from some other reality, and is not native to earth. 

Lunch complete, Captain Lancaster walks them over to a pair of armoured cars and drivers who will take them up the mountain to the tobacco farm and survey camp. Before they can leave a woman stumbles out of the brush, obviously sick and covered in yellow pustules. The team first moves to help her, but when she gets too close and it becomes obvious she cannot be saved, Nigel and Captain Lancaster end her misery with a pair of pistol shots. 

A hour driving up a rough track brings them to a fork in the road. They take the left fork to the survey camp, and find a ragged line of protestors outside the chain link fence surrounding a collection of pre-fab huts. Two guards stand just inside, and the team talks their way through as one goes to get Richard Clements , the head of the survey team. As they wait for him to arrive, the second guard suddenly bends over and vomits out all his rotting internal organs and dies before their eyes. Mr. Clements arrives, and seems to think the team is there to escort him and his men out of the quarantine zone. When he learns that is not the case, he gets increasingly angry and threatens them. Sensing they will get no where with him, the party leaves and goes to the tobacco plantation / refugee camp. There the plantation owner (Kazin)  meets them, and insists that the team clear the protestors off his land. He thinks once they are gone, the spread of the disease will stop. Instead the team convinces him Quentin will set up here to collect blood samples and look for a cure. Once the party has their boss settled into one of the medical tents, he directs them further up the mountain to look for Inner Night activity and any clues to the source of the Yellow Death virus. Kazin sends along a guide with them, a cheerful scruffy young man named Abadin. 

Leaving the armoured cars behind, the team proceeds on foot. They encounter a number of different tracks, some clawed and slender going up the mountain, and other hoof-like and going to the east. They continue up the mountain, and pass though areas where a kaleidoscopic array of weird plants and fruits are dying.  As they climb, they encounter two strange creatures. One looks like the thing in the officers mess, and it when encountered it charges straight at Zeke. Lucky for him Nigel drops it with a full magazine from his BAR. The second creature is a 20' fall, four-armed giant with a massive toothed maw at the top of it's head. Zeke returns the favor to Nigel by emptying his tommy gun into the thing. Oddly enough, neither sight seems to phase anyone on the team. The weird and unknown must be getting too common. 

As light is failing, they come to a clearing. Abidin tells them this is where the survey team had been blasting, and caused a rockslide that killed two men. They see the rock slide and ragged rockface ahead. On the rockface perch nights gaunts, which seem to at this point ignore them. There is also a hexagonal opening in the rock, obviously not natural and faintly glowing with a white light. There are also two, 200' wide tunnels at opposite ends of the clearing. One goes straight down, the other at a 45 degree angle, The team heads down the slopped tunnel to explore, and after some time hear noises ahead. But are surprised from behind by a hideous ghoul with hoofed feet. The noise ahead proves to be a pack of ghouls feasting on flesh infected by the Yellow Death. They don't attack, content in their feast, and instead one speaks enough English to question. The tunnel was dug by a great worm from another reality, attracted here by all the recent death in the area. This stench of death has opened the already thin veil between here and the Dreamlands, and other things like the strange plants and creatures have also come through as well. The ghouls too have been drawn here to feast, and they offer the choicest bits to the team. Who politely decline, and head back to the clearing to determine how best to get past the night gaunts and into the hexagonal tunnel ...  

Pulp Cthulhu - The Two Headed Serpent (New York Part #1 / North Borneo Part #1)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Oz the All Knowing (Mystic / Entertainer) 

Zeke Broda (Grease Monkey / Mechanic)

Ivy Guinness (Outsider / Nurse) 

Nigel Thorne, VC, DSC (Thrill Seeker / Explorer)

Over the course of the 5 day trip from Bolivia to New York City, the team discusses their experiences and what they should do when they arrived back at Caduceus headquarters. Decision is made to tell Caduceus everything, but to hold back a few of the artifacts. Specifically the 'Serpent Scepter' and the 'Pain Whip'. They feel the team as earned some 'reward' for their troubles, as well as some vague sense that they shouldn't give their employer everything. Over the course of the debate, Oz picks up the scepter to examine it clairvoyantly; and is immediately struck by horrific visons of snakes that shake him to his soul and instill a deep ophidian fear into his bones. 

Having telegraphed ahead from their last refueling stop, the party is met at the airport in New York and brought to the Meadham Building, centre of operations for the Caduceus Foundation. There the serpent person mummy Tyranissh is whisked away and the team is brought to the previously out of bounds 7th floor. There they turn in their expense reports to Philip Connors, the special operations quartermaster, and then meet with Quinten Shapiro, who debriefs them on the mission. The team also asks him a few things about what they observed, but he is unable to any specific information. He also turns down a request from Nigel to meet Mr. Meadham and offer him a gift of fine cigars and rum they picked up in Cuba on the way back. But Quinten does have Mr. Meadham's personal secretary, Deloras Parville, take the gift and bring them to her boss. 

When the debrief is complete, Quinten repeats what they were told over the radio while in  Bolivia. That the team now knows the true mission of Caduceus, and having been thrown into the deep end (successfully he adds) they have been granted Tier Two access to the organization. And leaves them each a portfolio of documents to review, telling them they will meet again in the morning to be briefed on a new mission. 

The documents lay out the history of the serpent people (much as Oz has already learned from the 'Annuals of Mu' scroll in the mummy temple) and learn the serpent people remain active on earth today. But they further learn of a split between the serpent person followers of Yig and the followers of Tsathoggua. Those of Yig seem content to let humanity be, knowing they cannot compete with humans or they risk annihilation. The followers of Tsathoggua on the other hand have the elimination of the human race as their goal, spearheaded by a group known as the Inner Night. These were likely the serpent people the team encounter in Bolivia. The documents explain that sometime around 1912, the head of Caduceus Joshua Meadham had a violent encounter with the followers of Tsathoggua, which lead him to sell off his successful pharmaceutical business and devote his fortune and money to protecting humanity from the serpent folk under the cover of the Caduceus Fountain and it's charitable medical works.  

Somewhat shaken on having their suspicions confirmed, the party scatters to various haunts through the evening before meeting Quinten back at the Meadham Building in the morning. Their handler is packed and ready, and he tells them they must leave immediately for North Borneo. Caduceus has received a request from the North Borneo Chartered Company for assistance in combating an outbreak of what the company believes is a virulent strain of infectious hepatitis. Caduceus however believes it to be the Yellow Death, a biological weapon created by the serpent people to depopulate areas of human habitation. The team, led by Quinten, are to go to North Borneo and investigate. Quinten will be their scientific lead and focus on identifying the infection and how to address it, while the rest of the team assists him and determines if there is a connection between the Inner Night and this outbreak. Asked about treatment for the Yellow Death, Quinten notes the advanced equipment he is bringing may be able to produce an antidote depending on the exact nature of the strain. 

Quinten takes his leave, and the party reports back to Phillip to draw equipment and supplies.  Nigel take advantage of the foundation's library to do some research on North Borneo. And in the process uncovers a pair of misplaced documents. One is a report from the chief of security about a break-in at Mr. Meadham's Connecticut estate.  In it are curious references to a temple (of Yig?) on the estate, and other comments pointing to possible serpent person activity there. The second document is from Dr. Victor Gonsalves, Caduceus Chief Researcher. It is in reference to the Cobra Crown, and notes it was once located at the Temple of the Dreamer along with the Serpent Scepter, but reports over the centuries seems to locate it in Asia and more recently in Calcutta. Mr. Meadham seems especially interested in the Crown, and is ready to fly to Calcutta at a moments notice if it is located there. There is also a curious reference to Mr. Meadham's  daughter and her possible connection with the Inner Night.  When Nigel passes these documents onto the rest of the team, Ivy heads back to the library to look for information on this daughter. It seems Rose Meadham had once been her fathers 'right hand woman', deeply involved in the operations of the Caduceus Foundation. But around 1920 all mention of her disappears, with no indication of what happened to her. 

The team collect Quinten and his pile of equipment, then head to the airport and thence on another globe spanning flight. Five days later they are approaching their destination, a British Indian Army camp and airstrip at the base of Mount Kinabalu. As Nigel focusses on keeping the plane under control in the buffeting winds blowing off the mountain, Zeke gazes out the window. And notes a pair of clouds moving against the wind very quickly and in their direction. He shouts a waning as two shadowy bat winged night gaunts (creatures of the Dreamlands) crash into the side of the plane. And rip it open, climbing inside and grabbing Ivy before once more leaping from the the plane. As the pair of gaunts prepare to drop Ivy to her death, Oz grabs a rope and leaps out of the plane in an attempt to reach Ivy before she plummets to her death. He misses, but Nigel is able successfully maneuver the plane under her and catch her in mid fall. The creatures fly off, and Nigel brings the plane more or less intact to the ground. 

Met there by a Capt. Lancaster and a half dozen turbaned soldiers, the team is invited to the officers mess for lunch once they've unloaded gear and made necessary repairs. When the Captain departs, Quinten calls the team over for urgent news. During the attack, wild flying, or Oz's bout of rage afterwards, much of their equipment was damaged. Most importantly, a wooden box Quinten had kept secret until now. He calls it the Haftorang Device, a specialized incendiary weapon designed to sterilize an area infected by the Yellow Death. It has been brought along as a last ditch defense if needed; but the damage has started the time bombs' countdown and they now have less than 24 hours to compete their mission ...

LINKS

Letter- Estate Break-in

Report- Cobra Crown 

Map - North Borneo Quarantine Zone