New York

Session 8: The Chelsea Hotel

Arthur made arrangements for Mylo, Clarence, Everett and Don to stay at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel for a few days while they met up with Jackson Elias (even though Don and Everett have their own lodgings in the city). On the morning of the 15th, Jackson called Don and told him to have the group meet him in room 410 at the Hotel Chelsea at 8PM that night. He seemed aloof and rushed - not his normal bubbly self. That made Don uneasy - so he gathered the team and they took a cab over to the Chelsea right away. Jackson had already left when they arrived, however - so Arthur left him a note with the front desk clerk and the group went down to a cafe that Everett knew about for breakfast. They decided to split up and do some research on the Carlyle Expedition and the Carlyle Family (and do some sight seeing) before their meeting later in the day.

 

Arthur found a shop that specialized in restoring and selling books - and purchased 2 rare volumes: The Golden Bough and The Zohar. Then he went to the NY Public Library and spent the rest of the afternoon searching through articles for information on the expedition - but didnt come up with anything that they didnt already know. Everett took Clarence to see some of NY's sights and ended up at the Museum of Natural History where he spoke with his friend Leland Strong, one of the curators. Leland told them that no Egyptian artifacts have been passed to them nor did they have any involvement with the expedition - mostly because The Penhew Foundation in London was heading it up. He also mentioned that The Penhew Foundation had just sent a new expedition over to Cairo headed up by Dr. Henry Clive. Mylo went to research at the Associated Press - finding an article that expounded on Roger Carlyle's situation. It said that after his parents died in a car accident he began to lead the playboy lifestyle and take a hands-on approach to running the Carlyle business empire - but after his sister Erica graduated from college he began to shirk his duties until the seemingly random announcement of the expedition. Don spoke to Maurice the Miser, his mob connection, who confirmed that the Carlyle business was 100% on the up and up. He said that Erica Carlyle was a hard businesswoman and was incredibly hard to get an audience with - but she will be hosting a charity Eclipse Viewing party the night before the eclipse to raise funds for a city beautification project that the business was heading up - very exclusive (3-4 figure donations required). He also said that his cousin, Joey, had left the "family business" to work as her bodyguard several years back and said he would see if he could arrange a meeting with him.

 

The group reassembled at 8 at the Chelsea - but again there was no answer at Jackson's door when they knocked. They tried knocking again with no result - and dint hear anything inside the room, so Don picked the lock. When he opened the door, they were surprised when a large machete-like Panga came flying at him through the door. Inside the room were 3 men (2 black men speaking an African dialect and 1 white man) in shabby suits and odd ceremonial headbands. A bloody body lay on the bed - though turned away from their sight. The white man ran for the fire escape while the 2nd African man grabbed some papers off of the bed and threw a barbed knife at Everett. His screams of pain alerted one of the neighbors, who ran back into her room after seeing the site. Don ran after the killer on the fire escape and Clarence rushed downstairs to cut him off at the street level. Arthur and Mylo attacked the African men - with Mylo knocking one unconscious and the 2nd running out onto the fire escape which collapsed under the weight of the 3 men on it. The fall killed the African man and injured the white man (who was pinned under the debris) but luckily Don was only mildly bruised. Clarence and Don tried to intimidate the killer into talking but he wouldn't talk so Don hypnotized him. Under hypnosis, the white man said that he was sent there to kill Jackson Elias by M'Dari "a priest". But before they could question him further, 2 policemen showed up - soon followed by an ambulance. Clarence slipped away in the crowds but Don rode to the hospital with Colm Doyle (the white killer) to keep an eye on him and get his knife wound looked at. 

 

With the excitement done upstairs, Everett, Arthur and Mylo saw that the body on the bed was that of Jackson Elias. His intestines had been ripped from his body and a symbol carved into his head. Everett gathered some of the more important looking papers and items from around Jackson's room (and Mylo retrieved the papers that Jomo Jepleting - the African man - had stuffed in his pockets): a letter from Warren Besart, a Penhew Foundation card, a matchbook from The Stumbling Tiger Bar in Shanghai, a blurry photo of a ship, an Emerson Imports business card, a Letter from Miriam Atwright, and a lecture handbill from NYU. Everett planted his switchblade on the scene - making it look like Jepletting had be wielding it. Mylo took the items and took the stairs to the ground level where he met up with Clarence - and left for Everett's apartment to look over the items and wait for the others. Eventually the police arrived and talked to Everett and Mylo and Jepletings body was taken away by an ambulance. They told them that they had come to see their friend and found him dead with the killers still in the room - they made sure to make it seem like they were the only ones from the group present. The police asked them to wait to talk to the officer in charge of the case - Lt Martin Poole.

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Session 9: The Clues

Lt Martin Poole took Arthur and Everett to the NYC Police Precinct 7A for some further questioning. He told them that Jackson Elias was the 9th in a string of murders over two years - all sharing the symbol. Nothing else seemed to connect the victims. Captain Walter Robson of the 14th Precinct had caught and arrested Hilton Adams after the last murder several months ago. Dr Mordecai Lemming, a folklorist, had been working with the police and had identified the symbol as being associated with an African death cult - but the Adams had been charged as the sole perpetrator. Meanwhile, Don Gallico was patched up at the hospital and saw some orerlys transfer Colm Doyle to the ward at the 14th Precinct. Eventually, everyone met up with Mylo and Clarence at Everett's apartment to go through the collection of clues that they had retrieved from Elias' room.

 

The next morning over breakfast and a conversation about how to split up the research that needed to be done, the group read a New York Times Article about the murder. Everett made a quick call to Miskatonic University to find out where Prof Cowles was staying in the city and then Everett, Mylo and Arthur went to Prospero House to meet with Jackson's editor, Jonah Kensington. He told them that funeral arrangements had been made for the following day at the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn where they would meet Carlton Ramsey, Elias' lawyer. He explained that on August 8th he received a letter from Jackson from Nairobi saying he believed that the Carlyle Expedition had been set upon by a death cult but that members had survived - it also contained Elias' Nairobi notes. Elias next wired from Hong Kong to say that the investigation was going well. Then Kensington didn't hear from him until December 16th when he wired from London. He said he’d been there for a few days, where he’d dug up a lot of stuff. Elias said he’d seen unbelievable things, and mentioned a plan or conspiracy of monstrous, worldwide proportions. He said that there was a timetable, and that he needed to find the missing pieces—he mentioned needing to go to Australia—but wouldn’t or couldn’t explain more. The wire ended, saying that he would soon be in New York. When he arrived, Jackson dropped off his' London notes - a small quarto volume of 40 pages which included a dozen or more blank pages or pages where a single word is repeated for several pages.

 

Clarence and Don made their way to Emerson Imports where they spoke to one of the foreman who confirmed that they receive shipments from all over the world - including Kenya. They also spoke with Arthur Emerson who told them Elias had been checking importers to find connections with Mombasa. Emerson is the U.S. agent for the Mombasan exporter Ahja Singh, whose only known U.S. account happens to be Ju Ju House , 1 Ransom Court, New York City. Emerson said that he is sure Elias intended to visit Ju-Ju House to talk with the manager, Silas N'Kwane - who makes Emerson's skin crawl. Clarence went back to the apartment to wait for the others, but Don decided to head to Harlem. After stopping to re-attire himself, he found the alleyway where the Ju Ju House sits and took a perch on the roof of one of the tenements to stake it out. Amidst mostly African patrons, he noticed a smartly dressed white man enter the shop for only a few minutes before coming out while stuffing envelope in his pocket before getting in a police car on the main road and driving away. Around 5PM he saw N'Kwane lock up and go into a diner across the street from the alley. He followed him and spoke with him briefly asking about jewelry for sale. N'Kwane told him to come by the shop when they were open the next day and he would show him what he had to offer. 

 

After leaving Prospero House Arthur, Mylo and Everett got Dr Lemming's address from Lt Poole and paid him a visit at Murray Hill Hotel. Dr Lemming told them that while the symbol was associated with an African death cult that he was convinced that it was a ploy to throw the police off as the African people wouldn't have been able to coordinate cult activities internationally and that a cult here in the city would be ludicrous. He told them that he studies African culture and often gets trinkets from a man named Silas N'Kwane who runs an antiquities shop in Harlem. He said all you have to do is look at the quality of their craftsmanship to know that they didn't have the intelligence to pull off such a scheme.

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Session 10: The JuJu House

The team met back up at Everett's apartment to discuss everything they had come across. Arthur decided to call over to the Widener Library at Harvard University and speak with Miriam Atwright about her letter. She was saddened to hear of Jackson Elias' death and said that he had contacted her to obtain their copy of Africa's Dark Sects - a book with a limited publishing - but unfortunately the book had disappeared form their stacks a month of so before his request. She remembered that there was an odd smell in the Library the day it disappeared. She also said that she had done some research for him before he left for Kenya regarding a symbol that she had traced to a group called The Cult of the Bloody Tongue. The symbol she described matched the tattoo that had been seen on Augustus Larkin back in Peru. The group made their way back to the Plaza Hotel and had diner. Afterwards, Don and Arthur decided to use The Golden Mirror that they had found in Peru. Don had a vision of hanging from the ceiling of a cavelike room filled with drumming and chanting cultists all wearing headbands like Jackson's killers had worn. They were chanting the word 'Chakota' over and over. Arthur saw himself in same room but with a smaller group of cultists being led by a man in a feathery robe and wearing lion paw gloves. They were chanting over a dead body that had the same symbol carved into its head as was found on Jackson. The man with the lion paws ripped open the stomach of the body as they chanted.

 

Having seen these visions Don, Mylo and Arthur decided to go back to the Ju Ju House now that it was after hours while Everett and Clarence stayed behind at the hotel. After casing the alleyway - and knocking a few times - they decided to see if Don could use his 'master key' to get inside. Once inside they heard loud snoring coming from the back room - so moved with great care to look around the shop. Arthur noticed it contained many items used in African based spell casting along with the weapons and more decorative items. Don found an accounting book that showed regular payments made to WR14 - and tripped on the handle of a trap door in the process. While Mylo and Arthur perused the book, he opened the door and went down the stairs to a lower level carved all in symbols and a large bolted door. Beyond the door he found a large room surrounded by African drums with a large cover-stone in the center of the floor attached to a device that looked as if it was meant to raise it. Above the stone were 2 leather straps where someone could be hung above the it. The scene resembled what Don had seen in his vision. In a little alcove he discovered several interesting items being guarded by 4 zombie like men all marked with the symbol. They chased him to the stairway as he climbed back up and weighted down the door by moving the counter over it. 

 

The noise woke up Silas N'Kwane from the back room. Don called to Arthur and Mylo as Silas pulled a Panga under his bed and barricaded himself in the bathroom. By the time they had followed him to the bathroom - Silas had escaped out the window. Arthur followed him onto 137th street as Silas yelled to the onlookers that he was being robbed - but Arthur knocked him out and drug him back to the store before too much attention was taken. They decided to lock up the store and retreat to the basement area with Silas to question him. the zombies seemed to not be able to enter the stairwell itself - so the 3 of them picked them off and then rigged the trapdoor to close behind them.  They tied Silas up to the straps and Arthur and Mylo did a quick look around the room while Don went to work destroying the drums. In the alcove they found the feathery robes and lion claws that Arthur had seen in his vision along with the Harvard copy of Africa's Dark Sects and several other interesting items. As Silas began to come to - they gathered to question him, knowing that their time in the basement would most likely be short.

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Session 11: The Funeral

Don and Arthur began to question Silas N'Kwane, who insisted that he didn't know anything about the cult until he was hypnotized by Don. Then he told him that M'Dari was a tall, muscular man with a shaved head and skin as dark as night - and that he works down by the docks but could often be found at Fat Maybelle's (a speakeasy down the block under a coffee house). Arthur decided to send a message to the cult by killing him. Then they planned to blow up whatever was underneath the coverstone with some dynamite that Don had. As they cracked open the cover, they heard a horrible  wailing coming up from the depths and Don tossed a stick down without looking. As they were gathering their things to leave they heard noise from the hall and 4 cultists burst into the room - one attacking Mylo with a throwing knife to the neck, causing him to bleed out on the floor. Don threw another stick of dynamite at the cultists and he and Arthur fought their way out as both sticks exploded causing the floor of the basement to cave in. They ran out of the store just in time and made their way out on to the main road - seeing a glimpse of a shadowy figure watching their exit from the roof of a building in the alleyway. 

 

They returned to the hotel and woke up Everett to tell him about Mylo and what they had found: a burnished copper bowl, a carved African scepter, the feathery robes and lion claws, a headband of grey metal, a wooden African mask, a marine chronometer, Africa's Dark Sects and a money-box full of watches, wallets and other trophies. Don decided to try on the Mask - which fused itself to his face while he had a disturbing vision of a large, ominous, tentacled being with many eyes watching him from the depths of a swamp. Arthur also tried on the Mask with similar effects, though in his vision he was introduced to the Norse god, Nodens, who offered his assistance against the agents of chaos that they faced. Arthur and Everett also took a cursory look at Africa's Dark Sects - which, among other things, described a ritual to create the zombie like figures they had met under the Ju Ju House called Ciimbas. As the night wore on, Clarence came to their room to tell them that a family emergency had called him back to PA.

 

The next day Don went early to the Cypress Hills Cemetery to scope it out and find a position where he could watch for signs of M'Dari. The funeral was lightly attended. Jonah Kensington was there and introduced the group to Carlton Ramsey, Jackson Elias' attorney, his niece/legal assistant, Willa Sligh and Harley Shrimpton, another of Elias' friends in town from Boston for the services and will reading. After the service, the group was questioned by some reporters, most notably Rebecca Shosenburg of the New York Times. She was the junior crime reporter that had covered the Hilton Adams case and invited them to come and speak with her at her office, saying that if they could provide some new information on the cases that it might be enough to free Adams - who's execution date had already been set for next month.

 

Harley drove Everett and Arthur back to the hotel where they retired up to their rooms to toast Jackson. Don stayed at the cemetery to watch the burying of the body - but didn't see anyone matching M'Dari's description so he too returned to the hotel. Upon arrival, the front desk gave him a message that his mother had called. He called her back and she said that some police had been to the house asking about his whereabouts and had been sitting outside across the street all day. Don quickly called his mob contact and arranged some protection for his parents.

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Session 12: The Speakeasy

Harley had invited Everett and Arthur up to his room to toast Jackson Elias and talk about old times. When Don arrived, they brought Harley up to speed on what had been happening with the murder case and Jackson's research into the Carlyle Expedition. Later that night they decided to check out Fat Maybelle's - a Harlem speakeasy located a block away from the fallen Ju Ju House and known hangout of "M'Dari". They were greeted by jovial Fat Maybelle Hopkins and ordered some drinks. Don buddied up to the barkeep and noticed a trapdoor leading down to a subbasement where the liquor is kept. After being in the bar for a while, the group noticed a 2nd bartender that matched the description of M'Dari came up out of the trap door. They kept an ear out on the locals and bought them some drinks - some of them talked about the death of 'poor' Silas N'Kwane who had been killed when the Ju Ju House's basement caved in. Arthur noticed the 2nd barkeep (whom everyone referred to as "Mukunga") eyeing Don after he brought up the Ju Ju House. Don decided to leave and call the bar and tell them that the police were on the way for a raid. The group saw Maybelle and both bartenders rush the liquor downstairs but noticed that Mukunga did not return from the trapdoor before they were hurried out of the building. Don then called in an anonymous tip about the speakeasy directly to Captain Walter Robson. Harley talked their way into an apartment across the street where they watched as Robson arrive in a very nice car. They saw that he was not the man that Don had seen at the Ju Ju House a few days before. He and Maybelle disappeared into the Speakeasy so the group decided to call it a night.

 

The next day the group joined Arthur at the New York Times HQ where they met with Rebecca Shosenburg. She told them that while the reports concerning the first two bodies make no definite link between them (despite the strange symbol carved into their foreheads), by the third murder connections were being drawn, although the police seemed baffled by the deaths especially as no ties could be found between the victims other than their visits to Harlem. Captain Robson took over the investigation because most of the bodies were found in his district - and he is using the publicity to become a contender for the currently vacant City Commissioner job. Robson had found Hilton Adams at the scene of the last crime holding a knife and covered in blood. His wife, Millie, and his friends had raised enough money for the trial and an appeal but it had run out. When the group shares the description of the headband worn by Jackson's killers - Rebecca says that she is sure that Millie will agree to meet with them. Apparently Hilton and some of his friends from the Harlem Hellfighters had formed a neighborhood watch when they noticed disappearances starting to happen regularly and Hilton had come into possession of one of the felt 'tongues' - though it was confiscated when he was arrested.

 

After the interview, the team did some further research in the NYT archives and Harley found a society photo of Roger Carlyle not long before the announcement of the expedition. The photo was taken in Harlem and showed him with a beautiful, young, (unamed) African woman. They spent the rest of the day in individual pursuits. Everett perused Egyptian antiques in the Upper East side. Don spoke with his mob contact who was able to confirm that the car casing his parents house was the one he had seen at the Ju Ju House. His contact also promised to get him plans for the unfinished subway line that ran under Harlem around the Ju Ju House and Fat Maybelle's and set up a meeting with the cop they pay off in the 14th precinct to move their liquor. Harley Shrimpton spent the day being passed from secretary to secretary until finally talking his way into an appointment with Erica Carlyle on Wednesday. Finally, Arthur spent the day reading Africa's Dark Sects - and came across a short segment about Kenya’s “Bloody Tongue” cult which mentioned the Mountain of the Black Wind as the location of their ceremonial rites, though no location is given. He also received a call from Rebecca saying that she had set up a meeting with Millie Adams at the Lafayette Theatre the following day after the reading of Jackson's will.

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Session 13: The Will

Don, Everett, Arthur and Harley attended the reading of Jackson Elias' will at Carlton Ramsey's Office in Harlem. After a toast and short bit of reminiscing about Jackson, Carlton Ramsey read the will which stated that he was to set up a fund from the liquidation of Jackson's Estate (around $50K) that would finance the team (with Mylo, Clarence and Harley's brother James Shrimpton also listed as beneficiaries) to continue Jackson's research into the mystery of the Carlyle Expedition. Everyone in attendance agreed to the terms and signed the form that Willa Sligh brought around. They told Ramsey about their theory about Captain Walter Robson being on the take and the cash box that they had recovered from the basement of the Ju Ju House that contained what they believed were trophies taken from victims of the cult. 

 

Ramsey asked to see the evidence they had found, so Harley drove them back to the hotel where Don retrieved it from the hotel's safe where he had stored it. He made a quick trip up to his room and found that it had been ransacked. Downstairs Harley noticed that a car seemed to be tailing them so Don dropped the box with them and went to block the driver from being able to follow them. He slashed one of the tires so when the car tried to follow Harley it slid in the snow and crashed. Don watched as the driver abandoned the car and made a phone call before leaving the scene. He did a quick search of the car and found that it was registered to Thomas Witherspoon on Lenox Ave in Harlem - license plate NYL7 - and then made his way back to Ramsey's office. Ramsey looked at the contents of the box and said that he would do some background research to find out if anything had belonged to the victims. He also suggested that the team should use Willa as a point of contact to send important messages or items to that they did not want traced back to him directly.

 

The group left the office for their meeting with Millie Adams and Rebecca Shosenburg at the Lafayette Theatre. They left the car outside Ramsey's office and went by foot out the back - not seeing anyone casing the office but wary. Once inside the theatre, they spoke with a slightly standoffish Millie. But she warmed to them as they told their story and promised to do their best to find evidence that would exonerate her husband of the murders. Although her husband didn’t confide everything he knew about the deaths and disappearances in Harlem over the last few years to her, he did tell her one or two of his suspicions. Hilton grew concerned when Harlem locals began to disappear several years ago. As the number of disappearances increased, Hilton turned to a group of friends from the saloon they all hung out at (Teddy’s, two blocks over from the Lafayette Theater), all of whom had served in the Harlem Hellfighters. They began organizing patrols to try and protect members of the community, alongside trying to find out who was responsible, after the police at the 14th Precinct refused to take the matter seriously. Hilton and his friends focused on the death cult link and managed to turn up a reference in the New York Public Library about some long-dead cult from East Africa. Her husband didn’t tell her what it was called, and the police confiscated the journal in which he kept all his notes regarding the case. Millie remembers her husband using a strip of red cloth as a bookmark in the journal. She suspects it had some significance, but the police also confiscated it. Her husband was arrested in September 1924 after he was found standing over the body of a middle-aged white man in a dingy alley not far from the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library. The police, allegedly alerted by the dying man’s screams, claimed to have seen Hilton throw away a bloody knife when confronted. The knife—Hilton’s army-issue bolo knife—was reportedly recovered from the scene and formed the crux of the prosecution’s case against him, although Millie never remembers her husband taking the knife out with him when he went on patrol.

One night, shortly before his arrest, Millie overheard her husband mention the name “Ju-Ju House” to his friend, Needham Johnson, who works as a reporter at the New York Age. Since she started watching the premises after her husband’s arrest, she has noted that, once a month, usually between 20–30 people file into the shop in the early hours of the morning. The timings coincide with when her husband and his friends used to go out on patrol. The attendees are a mixed bunch; some she swears are tramps and lowlifes, while others look like the sort of people her husband worked with in construction (i.e. blue collar workers). She didn’t personally recognize any of them, though. Once, Mrs. Adams saw crates going into Ransom Court on a night when there was a gathering, about an hour or so before the “guests” arrived. She concedes that there might just be a very exclusive speakeasy in the basement beneath Ju-Ju House.

 

The team told her to go and pay a visit to Ramsey - and that they would pay for any further legal expenses that she and her husband would incur from him - and she said that she would speak with Hilton and ask him to meet with them. As Millie went back to rehearsals, the group snuck out the back and made their way to Harley's car, but before they could go - a street urchin lifted Don's wallet and ran into a nearby alleyway. Don chased the kid about halfway down the alley - where he stole the money from the wallet and dropped it to the ground while ran away. As Don retrieved his wallet, 5 cultists emerged from the shadows - but Don was able to dodge past them and flee the alley - throwing a grenade behind him. The group hurriedly drove back to the hotel where they found that all of their rooms (including Harley's) had been ransacked. Since several items were stored away form the hotel, only a few things seemed to be missing: the metal headband, the lion claws and Everett's journal/sketchbook - but they did find one of the hotel housekeeping staff's master keys carelessly left behind in Arthur's room.. They planned to make a show of the issue downstairs and extend their stay - while secretly leaving the hotel to check into another. Arthur proceeded to diminish the concierge at the front desk - learning that "Sarah" (the maid on their floor) had gone home for the day but was promised that everything would be returned to order and looked into on their behalf. Everett saw one of the housekeepers react to the talk about Sarah and questioned her. She said that Sarah hadn't shown up for work that day, but her sister had - saying that Sarah was sick but the family couldn't afford for her to not make the day's wages and pleading with her not to tell management. 

 

With the group's things assembled, they drove to Everett's apartment so that he could grab some things (and make sure the apartment had not been disturbed). Everett checked with the doorman who said that no one had been by to see him or left any packages, etc - and that the water would be back on within the hour. The water main had broken in the basement and plumbers were working on it now. Everett went up to his apartment to find the door slightly ajar...

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Session 14: The Crawling Chaos

Everett, Arthur and Harley went to check out Everett's apartment while Don waited with the car. They heard movement inside and tried to sneak in and surprise the intruders but Everett accidentally knocked over a vase, alerting them of their presence. As the trio made their way to Everet's bedroom a cultist was waiting in the doorway while 2 others tried to make a getaway via the fire escape with the carved African scepter. Everett tussled with the cultist in the doorway while Arthur stopped the other 2's escape - cornering the one with scepter. Harley tried to hobble the cultist that was fighting Everett but ended up killing him with his shotgun. Arthur struggled with his cultist and eventually overpowered him - but the 3rd escaped out the window. Arthur questioned the man before he killed him asking who had sent him - his reply was "M'Dari...and Nyarlathotep". With the police on their way the team decided to leave via the fire escape but was caught by the squad of police that arrived as they were half way down.

 

The group was taken into custody for questioning at the NYC Police Precinct 7A and Everett requested that Lt Martin Poole be notified. They gave their statements to the officer - whom was eventually relieved by Lt. Poole. Poole was less than happy to see Arthur and Everett again connected with a burglary/murder that they seemingly weren't the cause of - but their story seemed to check out. The group floated the idea to him that another police officer - someone high up - seemed to be involved in what was happening. Poole said he would look into but cautioned the group to the dangers of accusing the bully boys in blue as the brotherhood of police tended to stick up for one another but assured them that if concrete evidence was presented to him that he would see it through.

 

Leaving the precinct, the group found a new slightly lower rent hotel and booked a room under a false name (ensuring anonymity by bribing the receptionist). Arthur was intrigued by the name "Nyarlathotep" - with Everett realizing it had Arabic origins. He decided to try and converse with Nodens by using the African mask. Nodens appeared to him in a vision and told him that if they were dealing with Nyarlathotep then they must be careful about who they trust. He called him "The Crawling Chaos", "The God of Many Faces", "The God of Many Masks" and "The Bringer of the Way". Arthur asked if there was anything he could do to help them - and Nodens told him to seek "Ebion's Wheel" in the Book of Ivon which could be used to shield them from the minions of chaos. When Arthur returned to the group he told them what Nodens said and Everett recognized the book that had been referenced was the Livre D'Ivon - a 13th century French translation of the works of an ancient sorcerer known as Ebion. It is incredibly rare and while he had heard of it, he had never seen a copy.

 

The next morning Arthur made a call to Miriam Atwright at Harvard's Widener Library and asked her to look into the book. Everett also made a call to his college at Miskatonic University, Elijah Moses. Elijah said that he would talk to Professor Armitage at the college's library about the tome.

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Session 15: The Chakota

That morning, the team saw a newspaper article about a suspected 'Harlem Bomber' due to 2 seemingly isolated incidents occurring successively around the same area of Harlem that they had been working in. Arthur called Carlton Ramsey to check in and found out that Rebecca Shosenburg had been by to see him and that he was meeting with Millie Adams today. Don got a message that Maurice the Miser, his Mob contact, had obtained the abandoned Harlem subway plans and could meet with him. Harley and Everett arrived at the cafe where they were meeting early (to watch) and Arthur accompanied Don as his guest. Don gave Maurice the rest of his explosives for 'safe keeping' but also put in an order to resupply himself. He and Arthur convinced Maurice to have the Mob 'lend a hand' if sticky situations popped up moving forward and then ended the meeting.

 

After looking at the plans, the team saw that the unfinished subway line ran directly underneath both the Ju Ju House and Fat Maybelle's - so Don contacted a realtor, Dean Graber, and made an appointment to view a property along the same line but further uptown. While being shown the property, Arthur noticed that there was a drainage system built into the basement that could be manipulated to open up into the tunnels below - with some tools. Don slyly made a copy of the key - and later that night disguised the group as construction workers. They came back to the house and made an opening that dropped down into the tunnels. They followed the  unfinished subway system til they found a barrel beneath a ladder leading into one of the buildings above. Don climbed up and found himself inside a fake crate in the sub basement/storage room of Fat Maybelle's. Harley Shrimpton followed him up  but accidentally knocked some bottles of liquor from one of the shelving units with his gun holster. When the bartender came down to investigate - Don hypnotized him into thinking that the shelf had given way and telling them that M'Dari wasn't working tonight.

 

Meanwhile, Everett and Arthur heard a faint groaning sound coming from further down the tunnels - they found a bedsheet covering a hole that had been tunneled into the left-hand side of the passageway. And down the smaller tunnel they came upon a large earthen room with 4 Ciimba - one being a transformed Mylo Buckett. A battle ensued in the near pitch black of the room - making it very hard to subdue the living corpses. But they eventually managed to take out 3 of the creatures just in time for Don to arrive and take out the last - and Harley to miss the whole thing. Looking around the room - they found some dried blood in large amounts against one of the walls - and a large metal door that had been fixed into another. While trying to listen at the door Don and Arthur accidentally unlatched the door and it swung open, revealing  a squirming entity composed of dozens of human faces set into a thickly cylindrical, worm-like mass of sickly, purple-veined muscle. Immediately the men started to blast at the creature as it shambled forward - wailing. Some very well placed shotgun blasts sent the last of the creature - whom Harley recognized as a Chakota from his brother's wild tales - around the room.

 

Exploring some tracks that Harley discovered which lead further down the tunnel - they came upon a ladder leading up to another building. The team decided to return to the slaughter room, move the bodies and parts into the chamber that the Chakota had been concealed in and set up a booby trapped shotgun that would blast whomever opened the metal door in the back. Then, as they had an appointment to meet with Hilton Adams the next morning at Sing Sing - and Erica Carlyle later in the afternoon - they returned to their new hotel for the night.

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Session 16: The Good Friends of Hilton Adams

The next morning Don, Everett, Arthur and Harley drove out to Sing Sing Prison for their meeting with Hilton Adams. Hilton told the team that he suspects the disappearances have been going on for years, although how long, he couldn’t say. He only really started noticing them a little after he got back from the war in 1919, but they could have been going on for a lot longer than that. Once they’d spotted something was going on, it became clear that the disappearances took place on a monthly basis during the dark of the moon. The murders, on the other hand, didn’t appear to have any fixed schedule; they seemed to happen in response to something specific. He says he is certain the last one was carried out just to frame him and that it wasn’t his knife that was used to murder the victim; he had more sense than to take his bolo with him on patrol, knowing that the previous victims had all been killed with a large knife. Instead, he carried his army-issue revolver for protection. He insists that the knife was taken when the police searched his tenement rooms, and later covered with the victim’s blood to secure his conviction. He did discover another pattern, shortly before he was arrested: none of the abductions or murders took place within a two block radius of West 137th Street, between Lenox Avenue and the Harlem River, apart from the one that saw him arrested. Beyond that clear area, the abductions fanned out in a rough circle for about a mile west of the Harlem River. Following on from Dr Mordecai Lemming’s pronouncements in the press about an African death cult, they’d found mention of something called the “Cult of the Bloody Tongue” in the New York Public Library that allegedly had links back to Kenya. The only place in the area that had ties with Africa was an emporium called Ju Ju House, run by a man called Silas N'Kwane, which received regular shipments of goods from there. Even though the shop had been there for years, there was just something about the place that gave him the creeps. He didn’t manage much surveillance of Ju-Ju House before the police came for him, but he did follow a muscular, shaven-headed African man, probably in his late 30s-early 40s, from there up to a coffee shop on 139th Street and Sixth Avenue, above Fat Maybelle's speakeasy. No one seemed keen to talk to him about the man, and several warned him to walk away, but he did get a name: Mukunga M'Dari. He’s certain that that was when whoever was behind the murders decided he was becoming a threat. 

 

Next, the team hurried back to the city in time for Harley to have his meeting with Erica Carlyle at her lawyer's office in the city: Dunstan, Whittleby & Grey. Ms. Carlyle was accompanied by her attorney, Bradley Grey, and her bodyguard, Joe Corey. At first she didn't seem interested in speaking about her brother and almost booted Harley from the meeting - until he mentioned that his group thought that Roger and the other expedition members may still be alive.  Then she opened up a bit about how Roger had begun to have strange dreams in which something seemed to beckon him and call to him that something be done. Roger would wake up screaming, but absolutely refused to discuss his dreams beyond that; with her, at least. In an attempt to help her brother, Erica recommended that Roger visit Dr. Robert Huston. She believes that Huston talked Roger into the expedition and feels guilty about introducing them, but is convinced it was all "That Negro Woman Bunay's" fault that Roger ultimately lost his grip on reality. Her brother began to disappear for days, then suddenly turn up wild-eyed and crazed, saying only that he had been to Harlem. Roger said that Bunay was queenly, a priestess, and that she held secrets which he must have. For a while Erica encouraged the African expedition, supposing that eventually Roger would come to his senses and see that Bunay and her tales were mumbo-jumbo. A large donation earned Harley and the team invites to the Eclipse Charity Event she was hosting at her mansion in Westchester, saying that she would like to speak with them further about the 'evidence' that they had found.

 

The group then headed back to Harlem in hopes of running into some of Hilton Adams' friends at Teddy's Saloon. Even though they stuck out among the regular crowd at Teddy's, the team was able to speak with Art Mills, Douglas Fells, Jackie Wallace and Needham Johnson and give them some reassurance about Hilton's case. They told them that once, Hilton managed to stumble across someone being attacked when out on patrol and drove the attacker off. In the fight, he tore a strip of red cloth from some sort of weird mask the attacker was wearing. It wasn’t long after that that the police starting making their threats. Hilton was convinced he’d tracked down a new lead, something to do with Ju-Ju House, but he was arrested before he could confirm his suspicions. Don convinced them to go to Fat Maybelle's that night and keep watch while the team would be trying to flush M'Dari out in the tunnels below - just in case he tried to flee through the speakeasy.

 

Then they entered the tunnels through the house that they had broken through the basement of and positioned themselves along the subway tunnels to wait.

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Session 17: The Coverup

Don, Everett, Arthur and Harley were hiding along the unfinished subway tunnels underneath Fat Maybelle's - and eventually Mukunga M'Dari came their way carrying a bag and the body of a young black woman. They successfully ambushed him but just when it looked like their weapons weren't able to harm him - Harley blew him away with 2 point blank shots of his gun. The woman was dead and without any identification - but in the bag, they found the lion claws and a set of keys to an apartment building on 129th St. They undid the boobytrap that they had set up and piled the bodies in the room hidden room where the Chakota had been kept - then went to the 129th St Apartment, where they found a wooden box on which is carved a three-legged monster with a massive tentacle in place of a face containing 3 vials of strange liquid. They also found a maid's outfit from the Waldorf-Astoria hotel with the a nametag that said 'Sarah' - and deduced that the woman must have been the missing maid from when their hotel had been ransacked. Not knowing what else to do, they called Carlton Ramsey and explained the situation. He arrived and they showed him the tunnels - through a secret passage that they found in the basement of M'Dari's apartment building. Carlton decided that the best course of action was to move Sarah's body back to M'Dari's apartment and leave an anonymous tip to Lt Martin Poole's precinct. He also said that they were making progress with identifying some of the trophies from the Ju Ju House's basement.

 

The team went back to their hotel and rested for a bit. In the morning, Arthur decided to try to speak to Nodens via the African mask - but something went wrong and he saw a seemingly endless vision of the chaotic center of all things. With that seeming to be a dead end - Don tried to use the Golden Mirror. In his vision, a version of himself who's pupils filled his eyes showed him a meeting between M'Dari, Fat Maybelle Hopkins and Captain Walter Robson where M'Dari promised to help Robson rise to the Commissioner position by making sure he was in the 'right place at the right time'. Then the doppelganger thanked him for helping to take care of some of his careless underlings and that they would meet again. Then the mirror shattered (along with Don). Most of the rest of the day was spent nursing Don back to mental health (via a dose of heroine from Everett). When he could make sense of things again, the group went to case Robson's house. They found an invitation to Erica Carlyle's Eclipse Gala the next morning and 2 bank books (from different banks). One seemed to match the payments shown in the accounting book from the Ju Ju House. They turned the books over to Carlton Ramsey and started to get ready for the party.

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Session 18: The Eclipse

Don, Everett, Arthur and Harley traveled to the Carlyle Estate to attend Erica Carlyle's Eclipse Fundraising party. The estate was heavily guarded and filled with the whos-who of New York society, including Mayor John Francis Hylan. Evertt spotted Captain Walter Robson chatting with the mayor and went to introduce himself and size him up. Meanwhile Don snuck out of the party and found the Carlyle Library.  A quick search and expert lockpicking skills quickly uncovered 4 books that Jackson Elias had referred to in notes: Life As A God, Amongst the Stones, Selections de Livre D'Ivon and The Pnakotic Manuscripts. He smuggled them out of the mansion and into Harley's car.

 

When he returned, Joe Corey collected the group and brought them to that same Library where they met with Ms. Carlyle. She informed them that she had spoken with the family attorneys and secured her position as the head of the Carlyle Organization - in the chance that her brother were to resurface. The group presented evidence to her that Roger Carlyle, Jack "Brass" Brady and possibly other members of the expedition might still be alive - enough to convince her to offer more information to them to help their search. She explained how Roger had suffered from horrible dreams and a mystical longing for something. She referred him to Dr. Robert Huston for psychoanalysis. He had also become involved with a black woman named "something Bunay" who fed his mania and eventually left with the group on the expedition. She also recalled Roger hiring a Frechman named Bessart to do some work for them in Cairo before the expedition arrived - and that Roger poured over ancient looking books that he kept locked in the safe. When she went to retrieve the books, she discovered that they had been stolen and called the interview to a close so that she could discuss the theft with her head of security. Before leaving her, Erica agreed to provide them a letter of introduction to The Penhew Foundation.

 

The group watched the eclipse, feeling an ominous sense that something larger than themselves was beginning before returning to the city to start researching the books that they had procured. Albert found a spell that he believed was the one that Nodens had referred to him called Eibon's Wheel of Mist - and Don found a connection between the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh mentioned in Life As A God and the Cult of the Bloody Tongue in Kenya.  They read most of the day until Carlton Ramsey contacted them to let them know that he had found a concrete connection between the trophies the group had found under the Ju Ju House and one of the murder victims. They met him at NYC Police Precinct 7A and presented all of their findings to Lt Martin Poole. Poole seemed convinced and promised to act on the information - and over the next days they read news of Robson's arrest as well as Fat Maybelle Hopkins and a growing spiral of others associated with the cult.

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In the aftermath of the cult's demise Don, Arthur, Everett and Harley were invited to a Welcome Home party for Hilton Adams at Teddy's Saloon. They were greeted by Hilton, Millie Adams, Rebecca Shosenburg, Art Mills, Douglas Fells, Jackie Wallace, Needham Johnson and half the neighborhood. They team took the time to relax and mingle with the group and take in a song or two by Millie and her band. Over the next week or so they arranged for passage to London and tied up their loose ends at home. Don and Arthur visited a local craftsman to have some of the materials from the Golden Mirror (now broken) inlaid into some of Don's weapons - and a 2nd hand mirror crafted from the shards; while Arthur procured a copper disc and tools to etch it with. Arthur decided to call Prof Anthony Dimsdale Cowles at Miskatonic University to ask him about the lecture he had given that Jackson Elias had the Lecture Handbill from. He told him about a cult in Northern Australia that worshiped the Sand Bat - and had a very similar sound to the Cult of the Bloody Tongue - though with significant differences. Everett made a call to Erica Carlyle to inquire about Dr. Huston's notes on Roger Carlyle and she arranged for them to be acquired and delivered to them. The day before their departure, the group met with Carlton Ramsey, Willa Sligh and Jonah Kensington at Jackson's gave in the Cypress Hills Cemetery. They all gave their final farewells to Jackson and wished each other luck in their pursuits. Jonah directed the group to look up Mickey Mahoney - Editor in Cheif at The Scoop in London. He said Mickey was a professional friend of Jonah's and Jackson's and might be able to give some clue as to what Jackson did while he was in London.