Call of Cthulhu Part 14: October 22, 1925

The Night of October 22, 1925

"And now," as Majel Barrett would say, "for the conclusion." 

Recap

Mikhail, Angie, James, and Mrs. Dimathias all arrive at the judge's house as the others enters the wardrobe. Mikhail and Vivian try to fill one another in after Mikhail cuts his mom loose to explore the judge’s fancy house.

Meanwhile, the others (Johnny, Ron, Kane Eastman, Judge Putnam, and Dr. Black) step out of the wardrobe into an increasingly cramped oubliette. There’s a howling, mewling, half-formed, humanoid…thing that’s pretty darn appalling down here. Martin, formerly of the train station battle, is somewhere upstairs, calling out to Carl Stanford and begging for forgiveness.

The Oubliette

Some of the many awful things in the oubliettes beneath the Lodge

Ron mercy kills the inhuman thing with his sledgehammer, stifling its cries and giving the team more room to maneuver. Various people clamber onto the shoulders of various other people and manage to slide the iron grating off the top of the oubliette. From there, it takes only a little time for everyone to get themselves and their gear out of the oubliette.

There is some discussion as to what to do next. A few are interested in investigating Martin’s fate, while others want to search this level more extensively. Eventually, the team realizes that they don’t have much time, and so proceed with all haste to the stairs leading to the upper cavern.

As they ascend, Johnny feels his psychic link with his summoned byakhee snap and fall away. He urges everyone to hurry.

At the Carriage House

After a long moment of everyone starting at everyone else very awkwardly in the judge’s garage, Vivian invites everyone upstairs for snacks. They chow down on some of the food in Johnny’s larder. They also find the homemade baklava that Johnny was gifted by his mom. They do not eat it, but Mikhail does spike it with hot sauce.

Mikhail’s mom, who cannot go anywhere without making sounding noises like a submarine, announces that she is in the back garden and that it is lovely. She then wanders back into the judge’s house and, thanks to an amazing Luck roll from Mikhail's player, accidentally locks herself in the wine cellar, sparing her from the rest of the night’s terrors.

In the Cavern

Things are going relatively well. The team has gotten to the upper level of the caves and have begun setting dynamite around each of the support pillars. They are about halfway done when several of the team spot three figures marching slowly, but determinedly, toward them. Kane Eastman, Dr. Black, and Judge Putnam continue to work, while Ron and Johnny face the intruders.

As the three figures come closer, they are revealed to be hairless, naked men of exceptional size and strength, their skin piebald and covered in deep pockmarks, their genitals completely withered. Johnny, suspecting magic, gives Ron his blessed knife.

In the brief exchange that follows, Johnny kills one of the figures and badly wounds another with his shotgun. Ron almost gets his head knocked off his shoulders by one of the figures before killing both it and the wounded one who had almost reached Johnny.

Whenever Ron stabs one of these figures with the blessed knife, it leaves a bloodless wound that glows with a blue-green light. Every time Ron kills one of the figures, they collapse, instantly, into piles of fine dust.

After the battle, the team confers with one another. Have they been discovered, or was this just a patrol? Is mining half the pillars enough, or should they risk doing more? After a frantic discussion, they decide to continue on, as quickly as they can, and get as many pillars set with explosive charges as possible.

A Modern Solution to Medieval Problems

At the Carriage House

James has gone to bed. Viv, Mikhail, and Angie are sitting around the kitchen table, filling one another in on the events of the past few days. Angie is willing to add her gun to the cause, and the others fill her in on the weirder aspects of what’s going on. A lot of time is spent trying to describe the workings of the wardrobe.

And then, the trio hears the sound of terrible flap-flapping outside. It seems to be circling the house. Pushok goes nuts and starts barking up a storm, following the thing as it circles the house. Vivian and Mikhail go to the window, getting only a glimpse of the leathery, hairy bulk of the Johnny’s unbound byakhee as it goes flapping past the window.

After a moment, the byakhee flies to the front door of the main house and begins smashing its way through the front door. Mikhail, terrified that it will kill his mother, races out of the carriage house to go rescue her.

In the meantime, Viv and Angie take stock of the situation and Angie hotwires the judge’s car. They are unsure of what to do at the moment—should they wait for the others or should they get the hell out of here? They stand watch nervously, with Angie retreating to the bedroom to stand guard over James.

In the Cavern

"Insolent FOOLS!" cries Carl Stanford

The team has just about finished setting dynamite around all of the pillars. All that remains now is to hook the wires up to the plunger on the lower level and bring down the house.

Just then, three more people enter the cavern: John Scott, Max Reed, and Carl Stanford. Mr. Stanford does something to cause the cavern walls to emit a steadily brightening red glow, allowing everyone to see everyone else. Kane and Johnny duck back behind pillars, and are not spotted at the moment.

Carl Stanford sarcastically welcomes them to the Lodge, and tells them that they could simply have come in through the front door. He tells them that the byakhee was clever, and that he is impressed at their resourcefulness. He realized, almost too late, that the byakhee was likely a distraction for them coming in the back way, and so has come down to the basement to end matters once and for all.

Judge Putnam steps forward, pretending to be his duplicate, and tries to salvage the situation, telling Mr. Stanford that, “this was the only way I could get them to come.” Mr. Stanford doesn’t buy it, and the final battle begins.

Carl Stanford shapes a glowing red symbol in the air with his cane. This causes anyone to see it (including Stanford and his allies), to suffer organ swelling and internal bleeding. When Max Reed mocks him for his spell suggestion, Stanford snaps, “You’ve already died once, so stop complaining. Besides, think of this as encouragement to be efficient.”

Ron taunts Carl Stanford, and Stanford immediately recognizes Ron as the Italian “city maintenance worker.” Stanford is not surprised that Ron is part of the group, and gleefully remarks that they have made it easy for him to tie up all the loose ends.

At this point, Ron tells Stanford that he stole the Jade Sphinx on behalf of Nathan Torpley. This causes Stanford to fly into a panicked, confused rage. Stanford tugs on his cane, revealing that it is, in fact, a sword cane. With the blade halfway out of the cane body, Stanford turns to stab Ron.

Only for him to be body checked and knocked to the floor by Johnny.

The frenetic battle lasts only a few more seconds, but the amount of brutality packed into those seconds is truly a sight to behold.

Max Reed and Dr. Black blaze away at one another with their guns, trading one-liners the entire time. Max Reed dies, again, crumpled against the cavern wall. Dr. Black collapses, mortally wounded with a perforated liver, next to one of the pillars.

Ron leaps on the prone Carl Stanford and stabs him with the blessed blade. He wounds Stanford, who bleeds like a stuck pick and screams that “this is impossible,” and other Republic serial villain lines. Stanford summons a tentacle to grasp and strangle Ron, but Ron avoids its slimy caress and stabs Stanford in the heart, killing him.

The judge, who just wants to be thorough, empties his pistol into Carl Stanford’s body.

John Scott tries to shoot Johnny, who is lying on the ground next to Stanford, with a flintlock pistol. He misses, tosses the gun away, and shows that he, too, has brought a sword cane to a gun fight. Johnny blasts him at point blank range with his shotgun, killing him instantly. Johnny then tries to pick up Carl Stanford’s cane, only for it to “bite” him. He swaddles the cane up in his coat, and resolves to worry about it later.

In the meantime, Kane Eastman, who has not been noticed by anyone, has taken the wires down to the lower level and has hooked them up to the plunger. He hurries to the upper level and, realizing the battle is over, has Johnny help him carry the unconscious Dr. Black downstairs.

The team all follow, reaching the plunger, which is at the lip of the oubliette. Johnny proposes that he stay behind to use the plunger, leaping through the wardrobe immediately after. Judge Putnam, however, countermands that order, and says that, as the oldest member of the team, he will stay behind. Everyone looks at one another, and worries privately that this is the last time they will see the judge. Realizing that there’s not much time left, they all travel back through the wardrobe.

At the Judge’s House

While the byakhee ravages the front door of the judge’s house, Mikhail sneaks around the back and comes in through an unlocked door on the verandah. He hears his mother talking in a normal volume (or as someone else might say, shouting) in the basement.

“Mikhail. Honey? Is that you? I’m stuck in the basement! I think there’s a bird in the house!”

Mikhail hears the byakhee smash its way through the door and into the front hallway of the judge’s house. He throws open the hall doorway, steps through, readies his gun…

And watches, in bafflement, as the byakhee disappears.

At the Carriage House

Angie screams in terror as the wardrobe doors open and a dust- and blood-covered Ron steps into the room. She almost shoots him. Ron yells at her about it. With good reason.

Vivian tries to calm Angie while Ron tries to explain what’s going on, as the unconscious Dr. Black flops out of the wardrobe onto the floor. He is soon joined by Kane and Johnny, the latter of whom works very hard to save Dr. Black’s life. Johnny calls upon his experiences in the trenches of Europe and uses what he learned there to stabilize the doctor. Unfortunately, this triggers a brief psychotic episode, during which Johnny destroys the doctor’s pocket watch.

There is a long, ghastly silence, at the end of which, the wardrobe opens for the final time. Judge Putnam steps through, thoroughly unflapped, even as the wardrobe, its link severed by several thousand tons of collapsing rock, implodes behind him. Johnny grabs the judge and kisses him on the head.

The Next Day

The next day, the papers tell a patchy, sensationalist story about how, after a brief moment of noise and shaking, the Silver Twilight Lodge vanished into a sinkhole. Many members are missing and presumed dead.

The End

For Now