Easter Island, Part Three: August 29, 1926

The group decided to bed down in the barracks for the night and continue their investigation once they are refreshed.

Ron has a restless night. It has become obvious to him that his wife did not believe him when he told her the truth about what he and his friends had been doing the past year. Now that Connie is beginning to see the strange secrets of the world with her own eyes, she is becoming increasingly afraid and off balanced. Ron, worried that Connie will either be harmed by the Silver Twilight or driven mad by stunning revelations, decides that he needs to send her back home as soon as is humanly possible.

The next morning, Ron conspires with Dr. Black to drug Connie so that he can safely carry her through the gate box and leave her in the Bernouse guest house in New York City. Dr. Black, having previously displayed questionable medical ethics, is only too willing to go along with this.

On their way to breakfast, the group encounters the Catholic priest for the second time in as many days. He introduces himself as Father Jorge and invites the group to a dinner at his home later that evening. The group, already sick of the food available at the mess hall, accepts.

Father Jorge

After breakfast, Ron invites the group to the base’s impromptu bar and orders a round of the local engine degreaser for his wife and his companions. Dr. Black spikes Connie’s drink with a hefty dollop of laudanum.

The cocktail works well, but not particularly quickly. Connie, drunk and drugged in equal measure, starts an argument with Ron that causes him to flee the bar. Connie then begins commiserating with Viv and the others about what a horrible bastard Ron Deluca is, which proves to be an agreeable and therapeutic diversion for all. It is only when Connie turns to insulting Ron’s boss (i.e. Vivian’s father), that the mood in the bar sours. Johnny and Dr. Black flee to take a smoke break, while the bar’s single employee finds something else to do “in the back.” Vivian and Connie exchange increasingly harsh words until Connie is finally overwhelmed by her mixed drink and keels over.

Judge Putnam, Vivian, Kane, and Mikhail, who are unaware of Ron’s plan, can only look on in rapt horror as Ron swoops in through the bar door to catch his wife as she falls.

While cradling Connie, Ron explains his plan to the others. Vivian is extremely critical of it, and Ron, but does allow Ron to bring his wife back to New York via gate box.

The group expects that this interdimensional jaunt will be the work of mere minutes, but Ron does not return in a timely manner. The rest of the group, realizing that they need to get some actual work done, decide to leave the military compound and examine Dr. Methridge’s archaeological site.

What Happened to Ron?

Ron travels to the Bernouse guest house via gate box and leaves his drugged and semi-conscious wife on the bed in the master bedroom. He is about to return to Easter Island, but then becomes concerned with Connie’s safety and is worried about what will happen when she wakes up in New York all by herself.

Ron calls Ron Junior and asks him to come to the guest house to watch over his mother until he recovers. Ron Junior is baffled by his father’s call and demands to know what his parents are doing in New York and how they got back from Chile so fast. Ron abruptly hangs up on his son but remains at the guest house.

Ron Junior arrives and demands some answers from Ron Senior. The conversation does not go well, and Ron Junior calls bullshit on his father’s fanciful tales of evil cults, sleeping gods, and other eldritch happenings. Ron Senior, frustrated at being unable to get through to his son, uses the Ouroboros Ring to summon Nathan Torpley. As usual, activating the ring saps almost all of Ron’s vitality, causing him to collapse unconscious in front of his son.

The Archaeological Site

The remainder of the London Group arrive at Dr. Methridge’s site. The site consists of a sloping ramp, with three moai statues standing atop the ramp’s highest point. The group also notes a crack in the ramp beneath the statues, which seems to have been recently widened into a hole that leads below ground. They also notice that a Chilean shepherd tends to a flock of sheep a short distance away.

The Site

Thanks to their pre-travel crash course in Easter Island culture and history, the group realizes that there are several things odd about this site. In the first place, these moai, unlike those erected throughout the rest of the island, face inland rather than out to sea. These three statues seem to be gazing at a point due eastward, a fair distance across Easter Island.

The group also notes that these three moai, though badly eroded by time, feature the neck lesions they now recognize as being signifiers of the “long-eared people.”

It is at this point that Liam shows up from seemingly out of nowhere, startling Viv and surprising the rest of the group. When asked what the hell he’s doing there, Liam explains:

• Ron Junior called to tell him that Mr. and Mrs. Deluca were both unconscious in the Bernouse guest house.
• Ron Junior asked if Liam could come over and help tend to his unconscious parents until they recovered.
• Liam got a little bored and was worried what the London Group was getting up to, so he hopped in the gate box and went to Easter Island.
• He happened to see the group departing for the site, and so decided to follow them and say hello.

Liam accompanies the group as they squeeze through the hole at the base of the ramp, emerging into a narrow crawlspace beneath. This crawlspace contains sixteen mummified corpses, who have been leaned up against one of the area’s long walls.

Everyone's Favorite, Bisexual Actor, Liam Grant!

The group investigates the corpses. Unfortunately, Judge Putnam trips over his own cane and puts his foot straight through one of the mummies. His attempts to extricate himself only serve to tear the mummy completely to pieces. The judge does notice that his struggles have freed a piece of slimy, greenish stone that had been placed into the mummy’s chest cavity. Realizing that he has already done significant irreparable damage, Judge Putnam pockets the stone.

Meanwhile, Dr. Black conducts an examination of the remaining mummies and confirms that they appear to be hybrids of deep ones and human beings.

The group forces their way out of the hole and back into the open air. They call over the shepherd and ask him if he has seen anything strange at the site.  The shepherd replies that he hasn’t seen anything unusual in the area, but does mention seeing odd lights and an unidentified flying object in the sky above Rano Raraku, an extinct volcano that just so happens to be located due east of the site. When prodded for more details, the shepherd sketches a crude, jellyfish-like creature in the dirt with the base of his staff and says that this is what the object looked like.

Dinner with Father Jorge

The London Group returns to the base and freshens up for dinner at Father Jorge’s. They find him to be an affable man who is interested in the culture, language, and people of Easter Island. As a practicing Catholic, Father Jorge reacts with visible disgust when he sees Mikhail’s masonic ring, which makes Mikhail instantly wary of him. Father Jorge’s friendly treatment of Pushok does little to allay Mikhail’s suspicions.

Father Jorge asks the group about their academic credentials and interests. The London Group is able to answer all of his questions more than satisfactorily, thereby maintaining their cover story. They quickly steer the conversation to the disappearances and the other strange things that are happening on the island. Father Jorge, despite being a priest, proves to be a practical and non-superstitious man. He credits the disappearances to the dangerous waters around the Easter Island, and the lights and shapes in the night sky to the ramblings of drunken sailors and superstitious primitives.

Father Jorge encourages the group to listen to the Singsong—the multi-hour islander singing circle that starts promptly at sundown. He also discusses the pagan faith of the islanders which, he is glad to say, they no longer practice. He mentions the moai statues and the long-eared people, but also touches on something called the Tangata-Manu, or “Birdman.” He also shows them a petroglyphic carving of the Tangata-Manu, which he acquired for his personal collection.

The Carving at Father Jorge's

The Singsong

The group travels out to the village to listen to the Singsong. There, they find the entirety of the native population of the island gathered out under the open sky. Among them is Aneru, who greets the London Group warmly. The group finds comfortable places to sit and, moments later, the Singsong begins.

Johnny and others versed in the Mythos lore recognize the opening notes of the Singsong as the beginning of an ancient chant of invocation. There is power in these words, even if the London Group cannot discern their meaning.

The Singsong is lovely, and the group feels oddly refreshed when it ends several hours later.

As the rest of the islanders return to their huts, the group approaches Aneru and tries to communicate with them about what they’ve discovered. Through halting English and a lot of gesturing, Aneru confirms that there is much evil in and around Rano Raraku and says that the lights seen around it are evidence that the long-eared people have come back to cause chaos.

At this point, Aneru asks the London Group to explain what they’re really doing on the island. Though it takes a great deal of pantomiming, the members of the group are honest with her and tell her that they want to find the missing people and stop the evil inside the volcano. Aneru is pleased with this, and tells them that she knows the location of the last Tangata-Manu, who still lives in isolation somewhere on Rapa Nui. Aneru says that she will take the London Group to meet him tomorrow.

Reconnaissance Flight

Just before bed, when all of Easter Island is quiet, Judge Putnam unpacks his drone and uses it to survey as much of the island as he can. His drone is able to navigate the ocean breezes quite easily, and soon its onboard camera is relaying visual information to the judge through the viewscreen on the remote.

The Judge's Favorite Toy (Other Than Both Travel Typewriters)

Judge Putnam brings the drone in low over Rano Raraku. While he sees no sign of any other flying objects, he does notice pools of sickly luminescence on the slopes of the volcano. Taking the drone in closer, he sees that the light comes from the numerous moai statue ringing the volcano, whose eyes appear to be glowing.

Judge Putnam does one final circuit of the volcano, and discovers that a narrow trail runs down from the lip of the caldera into the depths beneath the island. He tells the others that he suspects the long-eared people are likely operating out of this subterranean space beneath Rano Raraku, and that the people who have disappeared are likely to be found there.