Game system: Call of Cthulhu 6th ed
Dramatis personae
Carl Blackwater | Foreign correspondent | 31 yrs | Martin
Edward Foxworthy | Big game hunter | 34 yrs | Flan
Slim Shady | Attorney | 46 yrs | Djuro
Walter Wannabi | Explorer| 44 yrs | Flan
Preben van Task | Treasure hunter| 40 yrs | Djuro
Herrman Germain | Spy| 42 yrs | Martin
Absent this session
Kent Bengtsson | Aviator | 38 yrs | Berndt (in New York)
H.P Rennfarth | NYPD Forensics Specialist | 27 yrs | Mats (in Egypt)
Link to background stories and portraits
Written under the influence of Dorothy
Cairo, Wednesday, March 4th, 1925 | very early morning (night between Tuesday and Wednesday)
Killer eyes
Last session we left off in the middle of the night assault on Omar Shakti’s river Nile mansion. Present are Carl and Slim and the new guys: Preben, Herrmann, and Walter. Edward is in the hospital due to the grave wounds he received when fighting the underground tentacled horror under the Mosque of Ibn Tulun.
Walter and Carl are inside the house, looking for clues and evidence for Shakti’s involvement in the theft of the Girdle of Nitocris, while the rest are fighting hordes of cultists (or farmers?) outside.
Tactical map. Red triangles are PC kill zones.
Inside the mansion I
Inside the house, Carl and Walter are advancing cautiously from room to room. When they enter the main hallway a servant starts shooting from the stairway up. Carl and Walter return fire and sends the man sprawling against the wall. A sound is heard from the salon. Inside, a housemaid is hiding behind a sofa, hiding something behind her back. When she won’t put her hands in the air, Walter shoots her dead.
“-Better safe than sorry, right?” he nods to Carl, who turns away in disgust.
“-Maybe she just didn’t understand English?”
Turning the body over, they see that she was hiding a large kitchen knife behind her back…
“-See, Carl. You can’t trust anyone these days.”
As the search of the 1st floor turns yields no interesting results, the trigger-happy investigators advance up the stairs, carefully stepping over the dead servant in the stairs…
Outside I
After some fruitless frontal attacks, the enemies outside have resorted to more advanced tactics. Instead of charging straight at the house over open ground en masse, smaller groups of cultists try to flank the defending PCs. One group is advancing along the east wall of the living quarters while another has dug in at the northwest corner of the cotton warehouse and the battle now has changed to a situation more akin to trench fighting. The attackers outnumber the PCs greatly but they are lousy shots and both Herrmann and Preben manage to pick off several sneaky bastards while only receiving minor scratches. Slim fires away with the Maxim machine gun but manages to hit almost nothing to his great dismay.
Inside the mansion II
Carl and Walter sweep the silent upper floor of the mansion. The rooms are ordinary – several neat and clean bedrooms and a bathroom. The most interesting area is the study, complete with a huge jacaranda writing desk and what looks like expensive art adorning the walls. As the PCs enter, Walter hears a sound from the direction of the desk. Looking closer, it is evident that someone is hiding under the desk. Walter walks up to the desk, crouches, and fires both shotgun barrels through the front of the desk… There is a silent thud and blood starts seeping out. Dragging the body out reveals a well-groomed and good-looking young man in an expensive off-white suit. Walter mutters that this must be a secretary or something akin. Behind one of the paintings, the PCs find an old French safe built into the wall. Carl remembers that the German chap found a key on what was left of Shakti’s body and runs down to get it.
The key works. Inside the safe, they find business records, 250 Egyptian Pounds and a handwritten log book which lists 5 years of international shipments of Egyptian artifacts sent to Ho Fong Imports, 15 Kaoyang Street, Shanghai or to Randolph Shipping Company, Port Darwin, Australia. Inside the book are also a hand-written note from someone named “A.P.” to Omar Shakti (Clue #30).
Searching the last bedrooms, they also come upon a servant, hiding in a pillow fort. It doesn’t help against Walter’s shotgun though…
As the men search the pillow fort room, Carls spots something going on outside. It seems that the cultists have reinforced a 2-wheel wagon by adding metal plates to the front and sides, effectively creating a huge shield on wheels, which they use to advance across the open space in front of the house, while simultaneously launching new attacks on the east and west flanks.
Outside II
After some time of much more intermittent shooting, suddenly the cultist attacks become more ferocious again. Black-clad fanatics shoot from the western flank and on the eastern flank, they attack again. And in the courtyard area, a new attack is launched, where many cultists advance over the open ground protected by a steel-reinforced cart that they push ahead of them!
On the east flank, Preben has valiantly held off many attackers but now his luck runs out as he is hit pretty bad by two bullets, sending him reeling to the ground, unconscious (0 hp).
Meanwhile, Slim and Herrmann shoots away at the cart, but to no avail as they can’t see any targets.
Suddenly, there’s the sound of broken glass as Carl and Walter join the fight from their elevated position in the house. Luckily, they can shoot over the cart and hit the men hiding behind it, thus breaking up the assault. Slim sees that Preben is lying on the ground and moves the MG to Preben’s spot, pushing back the attackers with a spray of bullets before trying to patch up Preben’s wounds.
The increased resistance seems to break the morale of the attacking fellahin, who retreat and dig in, creating a Mexican standoff situation of sorts.
Inside the mansion III
Having searched the upper floor, Carl and Walter ventures down again, where they find an entrance to a hidden basement. Down there, they find a dungeon complete with BDSM-style paraphernalia. In a cage, they find a dead man in a gimp outfit. By the looks of it, the man has been starved to death…
Burn motherfucker, burn
Disgusted by the whole affair, the PC:s decide to burn the place to the ground and get the hell out of Dodge. The mansion is doused with whatever burnable stuff they can find and as the flames claim the vile mansion along with any evidence of them being there, the PCs sneak out the back, stealing Shakti’s Duesenberg and disappear into the night, like desert djinni, with the old truck following behind.
Duesenberg Model J
What happens in Giza, stay in Giza…
Preben and Slim are badly wounded, but manage to get back to the hidden truck with the help of their comrades. As they prepare to leave for Cairo, Germain spots lights moving in the distance. Looking closer, it looks like a long line of lights, moving through the desert towards the Sphinx. Something is afoot, and despite having two wounded men in the group, the PC:s decide to investigate.
The Sphinx at night
They drive as close as they can without risking to be spotted. Parking behind a sand dune, Carl stays behind guarding the car and taking care of the wounded men, while Germain and Walter trudge on. Moving closer, they soon realize that the line of lights is a large group of people walking towards the Sphinx, carrying torches and lanterns. The people seem to be both men and women, in varying ages but most are wearing simple kaftans or robes. The group is led by several men in black robes, carrying large golden inverted ankh necklaces.
As the long trail of people comes nearer the Sphinx, the leaders stop in front of the dream stele and start chanting. Towards the end of the line, the PC:s employ a most cunning plan, luring away two persons to a secluded area where they knock them out and take their kaftans. Strangely, both of them are naked under the robes.
“-Hmm. These chaps must be rather sweaty, I suppose” Walter says as he dons one of the stolen kaftans…
Dressed in their new, err… airy garments, Germain and Walter rejoin the marching row of people. It’s hard to see what’s going up further up the line, but it seems as if people are entering the stele and disappear!
The Dream Stele in front of the Sphinx
When they enter the stele, which is now translucent and completely aetheric, the PC:s instantly find themselves in a round stone chamber which exits into a tunnel, into which the cultists continue. The only light is produced by the lanterns of the walkers.
There is a feeling of immense weight and semi-claustrophobia in the tunnels, which are obviously man-made. Sometimes side tunnels open up into the darkness, but the crowd marches straight on, following the leaders. Along the tunnel, loathsome images adorn the walls, depicting men with the heads of animals, animals with human limbs and alien entities performing cruel, disgusting and obscene activities. Despite the oppressive and creepy feeling, the cultists seem joyous and almost ecstatic as they walk on.
After what feels like a very long time they arrive at an intersection guarded by people dressed up as the animal-things they saw earlier on the walls.
Children of the Sphinx – obviously very clever costumes
“-Blimey, those costumes are most realistic!” Walter proclaims as he nods to a huge rhinoceros-clad gentleman as they descend the wide steps leading down to an immense hall (it’s so large so they can’t see the walls or the ceiling).
In the hall, thousands of robe-clad figures have gathered on the jet black smooth marble floor. The hall is only lit by a few wall-mounted torches along with the light sources that the cultists have brought. Somewhere up front, something emits a sickly red light that reflects from the smooth walls, but the PC:s can’t see the source.
In the opposite end of the great hall, a huge altar and a raised throne with sculpted tentacles, both made in some green stone, can be seen. Both are lit by several torches burning with a very strong vile yellow light.
Walter and Germain opt to remain near the exit as the crowd slowly moves nearer the altar. Everything goes quiet as a procession emerges along a bridgeway high in the air, leading to the throne. Four white-robed figures lead the procession, followed by two naked men and women and two animal-masked figures.
The figures in white all wear black inverted ankh necklaces. When they reach the center of the bridgeway they stop and address the crowd in a mix of Arabic, English, French and an unknown language. As the crowd cheers, they cast back their hoods, revealing two men and two women and point at the naked figures.
-“Let the Black Pharaoh have his prize!”
At this point, the animal-clad figures step forward and beat the naked ones, who do not resist at all. One by one, they are bludgeoned to death and thrown down to the floor, while the crowd screams in joy and ecstasy, dancing frantically and tearing off their robes, making obscene moves.
The experience is most disturbing, but even more disturbing is the fact that one of the white-clad priests is none other than Omar Shakti!
However, our friends have other things to bother about as the crowd around them explodes into an orgy of the flesh of unprecedented size, and while they try to sneak out in a most discreet manner, that is discouraged by the animal-men guarding the exit, meaning that Walter and Germain is forced to participate in the orgy (or so they say at least) in order not to be revealed as infidels, meaning sure death or worse.
Afterward, both men solemnly conclude that “what happens in Giza stay in Giza”…
Shame, shame, shame
After the orgy, the participants don their robes and head back the same way that they came. In contrast to before, the atmosphere is happy and almost giddy and people are discussing mundane things. The PC:s notice that the cultists seem to come from all walks of life and station. Poor or rich doesn’t matter in the eyes of the Pharaoh. The majority are naturally Egyptian, but quite a few turn out to be Europeans and even American accents can be heard.
As the exit the stele, entering the cold Sahara night, Germain lay his eyes on a blond Germanic-looking figure that he and starts a conversation. It turns out that the man is indeed German, a fellow named Johannes Sprech. Johannes is glad to meet a fellow countryman and tells Germain that he is an archaeologist currently working with the Clive Expedition. After some chit chat and discussion about the current affairs in Germany, the men decide to meet the following day for a bier and to discuss further.
The session ends with the PC:s driving through the desert night towards the lights of Cairo. And yes, they kept the Duesenberg…
And this is where we have to break for the evening. Don’t miss the next session of our Masks of Nyarlahotep game!
Action! Suspense! Bizarre humor! Mystery!
Be sure to follow A Fistful of d20’s continued struggle against the God of a Thousand Faces!
With a Fistful of d20's 
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