(Through Otto's Eyes - week 2)

Once more, we are treated to an engaging podcast and post from Norley here:

https://www.rpgcast.co.uk/call-of-cthulhu-eternal-lies-27-2-2018/

(Text included below for searchability)

It is arranged that we meet Sir Godfrey at dawn at the fountain of St George – Howard is instructed to ‘bring his cohorts’!

That evening we decide to move hotels for security, so we pack our travel things and walk to the new hotel, that way being harder to trace.

The group comes to a piazza where tourists and locals are enjoying the early evening sun. Bastien glances up and spots a rifle wielding man on a balcony of the surrounding buildings. He alerts us and we scatter as he opens fire. All is chaos and we decide to make ourselves scarce before the police arrive.

With no further incident we arrive at the Hotel Valentine – run by one ‘Honest Valentine’ who assures us his hotel is the safest in town. Hmmm. Eric knuckles down to some book study and reads the Scholars Chorus – which, he learns, requires and alchemic concoction to be imbibed in order to open his mind to learn the spell.

In the morning we head off to the meeting with Sir Godfrey. The venerable gentleman informs us that he is a friend of Honest Valentine and that he has paid money to keep Grace safe at the hotel while she recuperates. He instructs us to follow him into a cellar, through a tunnel and finally into an open cavern. This cavern, it transpires, is a templar shrine, complete with altar and cross

There are cots for sleeping in and alcoves stacked with books. On one wall is a mural of the Templars in battle with a beast that Sir Godfrey refers to as ‘The Liar From Beyond’ or ‘Nyarlathotep’.

Sir Godfrey informs us that he believes the Donovan cult worships ‘smaller mouths’ than Trammell did and that they are in the business of producing the drug Nectar. He mentions a child at the local hospital, there with Donovan’s son, who was bitten by a small mouth. Donovan is also in control of the hospital itself.

Donovan and his wife were very active in society until a few months ago and Godfrey believes the cult (specifically Hurtz) may have killed her, or had Donovan kill her, as a show of strength and control.

The talk moves to our next move. Sir Godfrey tells of catacombs that descend beneath the warehouse so that we could get into the basement undetected. However there are traps laid in these tunnels, so it will be a dangerous undertaking.

The way to truly destroy the mouths is to find the ‘stomach’ Sir Godfrey explains. If there is a ‘body’ it is only reachable in a ravine somewhere and only when the moon is dark and the stars shine in a certain configuration.

We agree to prepare for the journey through the catacombs to the Donovan warehouse. Sir Godfrey gives us 5 vials of a liquid he says will counteract the effects of Nectar. He also spends time teaching us from a parchment which contains a spell to ‘unravel the physical manifestation of the body’. The ritual is lengthy and requires chanting.

We then separate – Godfrey goes out to acquire dynamite and pistols whilst we study the books in the alcoves. They are occult and christian doctrine – there are references within them equating Nyarlathotep with Satan.

Sir Godfrey arrives back with the weapons and informs us a boat has arrived at the warehouse and they will begin loading soon. We head off…

We walk to the docks where we can see a boat, the Thyruss, docked. Sir Godfrey takes us down a drainage tunnel and then through a crack in the wall which opens into the dark, wet, catacombs.

The journey is dangerous, Bastien heroically navigates a collapsing ceiling trap whilst, later, Otto triggers a blade which wounds him badly. Nevertheless our investigators push on and arrive at a point in the wall where the bricks and mortar are crumbling and decayed. Beyond this point, Sir Godfrey tells us, lies the warehouse basement…and our quarry!