Session 13: Andante Report

General Summary

Wenesday Morning January 21, 1925 - Friday Evening January 23, 1925 Morning comes and we go to the Carlyle estate for our meeting with Erica Carlyle, but we have to get through her lawyer, Bradley Grey, first to make sure the conversation will be worth her time. After some back and forth and a slight misunderstanding, we are able to convey our intentions in coming to speak with them that day. We discuss a little bit about the relationship between Nichonka, which did not seem to be well received. Eventually we do gain an audience with Erica, who is an intimidating beauty. She gets straight to business, and we lay out our evidence. We get a subtle but telling indication that there are books/documents locked away somewhere, but she is unsure about how we knew. As we explain that we heard from Jackson Elias about them, she decides to indulge us with some additional information. She mentions that while the expedition seemed to be nothing more than a whim for Roger Carlyle, there were also some strange nightmares and a sense of being called to something. He'd also disappear for days at a time, returning half-crazed and saying he only went to Harlem. She does seem to have a slight bit of regret for either encouraging or at the very least not putting an end to things. After some more back and forth, we do manage to persuade her to let us peruse the locked away books. She mentions that she did read one of the books and that it frightened her, but procures it for us anyway. As she leaves, Edward asks her thoughts on all the things we told her today. She essentially says she believes we believe it, but without definitive proof, she doesn't put much stock in it. We start going through the books. One, Amongst the Stones, is a modern book of poetry, a fairly simple yet somewhat dark and sensational collection of poems. Monte reads this and it does wear him down mentally, adding to his Cthulhu Mythos. This book is unpublished and seems to be gifted to Roger from the author. Booker and Solomon read a book from the early 1800s, poorly bound and in duodecimal format. It's titled "Life As A God" and recounts gruesome and increasing maniacal dealings with people. Of note, it has many references to a black Pharaoh named Nivrin Ka made with reference. Edward peruses an old, massive book that is an annotated collection of manuscripts subtitled "Translation and remarks from ancient Pnakotik Scrolls". The Pnakotic Manuscripts also has two spells, allowing the reader to contact "the winged one" and "the mind of the observer". It also has some parts removed, likely pictures. This influx of info causes Edward to pass out. As the sole French speaker, Leviticus reads from "Selections from the Ivory Book", or Sélections de Livre D’Ivon an ancient book that is written in French translated from Greek and Latin. Bradley Gray (lawyer) comes in around 8 to inform us that the gathering is starting. After some time to get ready, we appear at the gathering. Everyone but Leviticus is somewhat out of their depths, trying to figure out how to navigate the crowd. We do have an African American man come up to us and say he recognizes us from leaving the Ju Ju House, and he is curious as to our reasons for visiting. Booker picks up some malice and a sense of danger emanating from the man. He talks very briefly before abruptly leaving, and a few of us catch a glimpse of a red scarf being pulled from his pocket. Monte tries to follow him, but loses him fairly quickly. Erica eventually swings past and greets us as a formality, but upon learning that she read the same book as him, Edward begins intrusively asking her what her thoughts are on it. She shuts him down and the conversation goes another direction. The rest of the evening passes without incident. The next morning, Thursday, we reconvene to plan our way forward. Solomon and Leviticus take a train down to Miskatonic University to try and convince Leviticus's uncle to try and illegally access Roger Carlyle's medical records from his psychiatric evaluations with Robert Huston. They manage to convince the uncle to get Roger's medical records about his therapy and dream stuff, but it will take until Saturday afternoon. Edward goes to the library and looks up some key phrases from the books. He learns about Pnakotus, which pops up in many occult texts and talks about a great library in an alien civilization, thought the information does not seem to be able to be passed on. He also finds a copy of the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which he checks out and begins a thorough reading of. We also learn about Hyperboria and Atlantis, which were other ancient civilizations. Hyperboria was Greek word for those people who live in the far north, who were, according to legend, a race of non-humans. Information about them should be found in the Pnakotic manuscripts. Monte learns that the poet who wrote Amongst teh Stones lives in Australia and is trying to stay off the grid. Booker learns that the man who wrote Life As a God was a troubled/troubling individual that lead a bit of a wild life. With this new information, we prepare for our infiltration of the Ju Ju House on the night of the new moon, in two days (Saturday). We go for our meeting with Hilton Adams, meeting Rebecca Shosenburg to go with us. We arrive at the Death House, where death row inmates are housed, and have any potential weapons removed from us. We begin our conversation, and Hilton is surprised to hear of another murder imitating the ones he's accused of. We ask if he's willing to share the details he kept hidden from his wife with us, and he obliges. While the abductions happened on a regular schedule, the murders seemed to happen as a response to something unknown. The only one that didn't follow this pattern was the one that caught him, which was also the only murder that occurred in a different area than all the others. He also gives us the name of an individual, Mukunga M’Dari, that he was looking into and that he feels learning that name is what marked him as a target that meddles too much. Leviticus makes arrangements to delay the execution as much as possible. Upon returning, we are approached by some policemen who say there were some complaints about us "asking questions" and "stirring up unrest" and such. We're threatened to back off. Seems we are closing in on something that someone doesn't want us to discover.

Campaign

Masks of Nyarlathotep Campaign

Protagonists