R'lyeh Part Two: September 7, 1926

The Ascent

Dr. Black unlocks the door with his trusty YOLE key. The key, having now magically unlocked three doors, crumbles to dust in the doctor’s hands. Dr. Black opens the door and finds a set of blue crystalline spiral steps that lead upward to the top of the tower.

The group checks their ammunition and their bearings before preparing their ascent. Johnny notes, to his dismay, that the strange geometry prevalent in R’lyeh also seems to affect the tower steps. He realizes it will be impossible for the group to bring the bulky gate box up the stairs with them. After some discussion, they decide to leave the gate box at the base of the tower. Dr. Black sets up a warding ritual around it.

The London Group begins their exhausting ascent. As they climb, they wonder what they will find at the top of the tower, and they make plans for what they believe is a final, inevitable confrontation with Carl Stanford. Vivian says that she will take point on the Sink R’lyeh ritual. Christopher Edwin, his mi-go cylinder nestled in Pushok’s sling, says that he will assist her. Kane and Dr. Black also volunteer to support her in this all-important endeavor.

As the group nears the top, Judge Putnam, normally a man of staid disposition, reflects on the decisions that have led the group up to this point. He says that he considers the group his closest friends, including and especially Johnny. He says how much he deeply appreciates Johnny “putting up with him” for all of these many years, and that he is sorry about how strict he has been with his dietary restrictions and his insistence that Johnny always bring both his favorite and second favorite typewriter on outings.

At this point, the London Group reaches the top of the staircase. Ahead of them, a massive archway leads out and down a flight of steps to a wide balcony. Through this doorway, they can hear ritual chanting in Valusian. Vivian, who is practically fluent in the serpentfolks’ language by this point, informs the others that the chanters are calling upon Yog-Sothoth and asking it to allow them to awaken the Herald before the appointed time.

Ron, desperate for some advantage against the foe that they will soon face, puts on the Ouroboros Ring and attempts to summon Nathan Torpley. Dr. Black assists him, lending Ron sufficient magical strength so that he does not exhaust himself.

Mr. Torpley does not respond to the call.

Realizing that this may be their last time together, the group gather around and say their farewells to one another. Then, readying their weapons, they charge onto the balcony for what they hope is the final battle.

The London Group, Fire-Forged Friends and True Companions, Prepare for the End

Carl Stanford

Emerging out on the balcony, the London Group see that they are standing on the far side of a massive courtyard from the edifice they glimpsed earlier, its pitted and barnacle-encrusted bronze doors still closed, for now. Far below, amidst the bones and bloated corpses of dead marine life, naked cultists caper and dance, shrieking blasphemous ululations at the sky.

On the balcony, eight robed cultists standing in a circle around a ritually prepared space. Contained in the space is the last remaining piece of the Disc of R’lyeh, as well as the sundered remnants of the Arc of Vlactos. Standing at the edge of the balcony, with his back to them, a man in a robe and headdress raises his hands to the sky. A cloud of iridescent bubbles stream from his fingertips, floating gently across the courtyard from the balcony to the sealed doors of the edifice.

The London Group notes that the broken corpse of a dead spectral hound lays at the man’s feet, and that suppurating wounds on the man’s forearms drip steady streams of ichor.

They are not at all surprised when the man turns around and reveals himself to be Carl Stanford.

Stanford mocks the London Group, telling them that, though they have been a thorn in his side and dogged his steps for many months, they are too late to stop him from seizing ultimate victory. He then mocks his followers, saying that they believe they will rule as lords of the earth when the Elder Gods awaken. Stanford says that this isn’t true, that the Herald will listen to only him, and that he plans to have the Herald scour the earth of all life and raise himself to godhood.

His reasons for doing this seem to be fear of “mixed marriages and mongrel races,” which the London Group finds oddly venal for a man who is on the verge of ending the world.

Vivian begins the ritual—with Christopher Edwin assisting—as Stanford urges the cultists forward. A pitched gun and sword battle erupts on the balcony. The cultists suffer heavy losses in the first salvo, but are urged to keep fighting  by Stanford. He orders them to stop Vivian at any cost.

Vivian and Edwin are the only ones who have been casting the ritual up until this point, and the fatigue of casting such a powerful spell is clearly evident on Vivian’s face. With the ranks of their enemies thinning out, Kane and Dr. Black move to join the ritual and support Vivian. The power of the ritual overwhelms Kane, and he fights back by not only chanting along with Vivian, but adding some impromptu dance moves to help lift his own spirits and that of the others. Those participating in the ritual feel its energy sinking down through the tower, through the island, and deep into the earth, where it strains to reach…something…

The rest of group make short work of the remaining cultists, but one of them pushes his way past Johnny, Mikhail, and Ron and races straight at Viv, cruel knife flashing in the alien sun. At the last moment, Pushok leaps at the cultist, pinning him to the stairs, sparing Viv’s life, and giving Mikhail the chance to run the cultist through.

Furious, Carl Stanford lashes out Vivian with a devastating magical attack. Vivian is lifted up into the air, painfully contorted, and cast down like a rag doll. Though she still lives, she is badly injured and unconscious. Dr. Black, Kane, and Christopher Edwin continue the ritual, Ron leaps at Stanford, blessed blade in his hand, and attempts to avenge his niece.

At that moment, a loud gonging sound echoes through the courtyard. The group looks up to see that the outer edge of the cloud of bubbles has impacted—and popped—on the surface of the edifice’s sealed portals. Another cluster of bubbles pops, and there is another bong. And another. And another.

Dr. Black and Kane feel the ritual take hold. The island begins to shudder ever so slightly beneath their feet. Have they won? It’s too soon to tell.

Carl Stanford extrudes a cruel, curved, organic blade from one of the wounds on his wrists and duels first Ron, then Mikhail, then the two men together. Ron chops off a portion of the organic blade with his knife, and the two men shove Stanford up against the balcony’s railing, stabbing him again and again and hoping to finish him off for good. Stanford—his new body disturbingly resistant to injury—keeps fighting.

Until…

Carl Stanford's Plans Have at Last Come to Fruition!

The Herald of the Elder Gods

The portals on the edifice swing open, causing a triumphant shout to echo up from the naked and cavorting cultists below. The group beholds an incomprehensibly large half-octopus, half-dragon figure pushing its way out of the edifice, its milky eyes casting a baleful gleam all around the summit of R’lyeh. It takes a step out into the courtyard and, seemingly oblivious to their existence, pulverizes dozens of its adoring worshippers beneath its heel. 

Johnny, overwhelmed by the awful visage of the great being, as well as the waves of malign psychic power pouring in waves from its mind, collapses in a dead faint.

Judge Putnam is similarly overcome by the sight of the being, but is able to channel his terror and mental anguish into something useful. Recalling the unpleasant period in his life where he was touched by the ghouls’ hunger, he throws down his weapons and leaps at Carl Stanford, trying to rip and tear apart the sorcerer’s flesh with his teeth. Judge Putnam finds it almost impossible to do injury to Stanford until his teeth at last find purchase on one his eyes. Carl Stanford shrieks in agony and tries to push the judge off of him.

Mikhail manages to keep himself together in the face of the revealed visage of the Herald of the Elder Gods and decides that it would be much wiser to escape it than try and fight it. He scoops up Vivian in his arms and flees for the tower steps, Pushok and Kane hot on his heels.

Dr. Black, conversely, feels nothing but rage at seeing the hideous creature lumbering across the courtyard toward the balcony. Knowing that the Herald is wrongness itself, he launches spell after spell at it, hoping to slay it. The spells rebound off of the creature’s rubbery and oozing hide. It is unclear if the Herald even notices these attacks.

Carl Stanford kicks Judge Putnam off of him and struggles to stand, only to be immediately attacked by Ron Deluca. As Stanford holds Ron at bay with the splintered hilt of his organic blade, he at last sees the Herald approaching. He calls out to it, pledging his eternal service if it would but slay his enemies and give him the power he so obviously deserves. The Herald, now very close to the balcony, raises its paw as if in benediction. Stanford cackles, feeling his victory is all but assured.

Only for the Herald to sweep its paw down and through the balcony, destroying a large part of it and tearing Carl Stanford into bloody ribbons.

Judge Putnam, realizing that no force on earth can stop the Herald, picks up Johnny and begs him to break off his magical attacks. Dr. Black helps the judge carry Johnny’s unconscious body and, with Ron following close behind, the last four members of the London Group retreat from the balcony.

Ia! Yog-Sothoth Neblod-Zin! The Herald Awakens!

The Escape

As the group descends the tower, they feel the island shuddering and quaking beneath them. The roar of the Pacific sounds increasingly loud in their ears as it begins to wash in to reclaim the dreadful island of reclaim R’lyeh.

There is panic and confusion on the non-Euclidian stairwell as the group races down to the bottom of the tower, the gate box, and their much hoped for deliverance from the awful island. They are close to the bottom when the Herald tears away the tower wall, exposing the full length of the staircase to the open air. It reaches seizes the staircase in its claws and face tentacles, and seems intent on snapping it free and heaving it aside. The group calls on reserves of strength that they didn’t know they had and sprints down the last few turns of the staircase as it begins to splinter and shatter all around them.

Now at the bottom of the steps, London Group sees that the flood waters of the ocean have already reached the highest point on the island. They watch as water surges around the gate box, lifting it up off of the floor and batting it about the room.

Mikhail reaches the gate box first. He throws an unconscious Vivian inside, bundles Pushok and Christopher Edwin in afterward, and then jumps in himself. He finds himself safely in New York moments later.

The others plan to follow suit, but rubble dislodged from the tower staircase collapses on Kane, trapping him and knocking him unconscious. The judge is urged to continue on and enter the box with Johnny, while Dr. Black and Ron stop to haul Kane free of the rubble. They manage to get him free just as the rubbery foot of the Herald comes stomping down into the ruins of the tower.

With a final, heroic effort, Dr. Black and Ron Deluca heave Kane into the gate box before passing through it themselves. They arrive in New York with the others, moments before the Herald pulverizes the box beneath its heel.

Though no human being is present to witness it, R’lyeh sinks once again. As it vanishes beneath the unconquerable Pacific, the Herald is forced to return to it sepulcher and its aeons’ old slumber.

Until the stars are, at last, right…