Hi Everybody,
A Call of Cthulhu 1920's RPG Episode
4. - A Stormy Nightmare - part 2 - 27 Feb 2026.
Hank talks Ferb into driving back to the Doctor's house again, hoping there might be some more information to discover, as there is still a mystery about what the blue thing is and how to destroy it, and what happened to the two bodies.
Ferb shakes his head, "I don't think it is a good move hanging around there, but I trust you, so I'll go back. Keep your wits about you. "
"Thanks, Ferb. I trust you too".
Once there, we grab some supplies
and food and load them in the car boot in case they have to make a quick getaway from there. We continue our investigation by going down into the gloomy basement, just lit by two bulbs dangling from cords. On a long work table, we find new electrical
and mechanical equipment, along with grisly dissected human body parts in long fermentation jars, that may
have been used to test the equipment or even keep that blue sparky thing alive.
Also, Hank finds a printed receipt from Innsmouth Fisheries – From The Greenwood Sanatorium, to collect body parts and stuff and deliver them here. "That was the same company that was at the Hotel the other day. It proves that there is a wider conspiracy about this matter. We had better keep this."
We see the two bodies on the floor in the lounge. The Doctor had been shot, and the other body had been partly burned. The shotgun was lying between the two bodies. "May the Mighty Angra Mazda judge them well when they come before Him." he pauses, adding, "And us too."
We took the shotgun and a few more cartridges, as we might need them for self-defence, not that it did that pair much good. Ferb puts
his barber's tools in a case with a silver lining, which was described in the journal. We also take the wax and the coating stick. We search the car in the garage and find a spare set of keys for it.
Hank hides the shotgun under the seat. They take both cars and drive back to the diner, hiding the old car in the woods close by. Hank climbs back in their car, and they finish their journey, wondering what state of mind everybody will be in.
As we pull into the car park, we see a figure by the diner loo, huddled up, moaning and sobbing, "Teddy, where are you, Teddy, Teddy". That would be Ethel. (The blue plasma got him in the last episode.)
The power is off in the diner, and some candles have been lit and stuck onto plates, casting a dim glow about the room. Ferb can hear a muffled argument going on.
Suddenly, the young chap from earlier, Billy Esterhouse, emerges out of the woods, pointing behind him and dashes past Ethel; not far behind him, about four feet off the floor, is some manifestation of blue-toned ball lightning. It changes course, going towards Ethel, now that she is the nearest and easiest target. She holds a crucifix out in front of her and whispers. “Begone, foul beast! Begone.”
Ferb loses 1 sanity
point as he hears this.
Blue lightning
tentacles come out from the ball and rip the widow to bits. Ferb shoots at it and misses,
and Hank misses his shot shortly afterwards. It hovers over her shredded form and consumes her, just leaving ash and the crucefix, while we flee before it again.
Both of us lose 1 sanity point after witnessing this horrific sight.
We dash into the diner and slam the doors behind us. The wind blows one of the candles out.
Who is in the diner?
Behind the bar is Mary, and Emilia is in front of the bar. She is looking into the innards of the phone on the bar counter with the radio and someone has made a jury-rigged something, carefully sticking pins into it.
"Where are the others?" demands Ferb.
"They are in the garage, trying to get the truck to start with a new air filter or something," replies Mary, timidly, as she relights the candle from one further away from the door, then goes back to sticking pins into the phone and radio jury-rig on the tabletop.
Billy and Emilia are
arguing, "Why did you have to come out in this storm?"
Suddenly, the radio emits sparks and bursts into flames. Mary gets a shock. Billy gets a shock, too. Mary tries to douse the fire with water, which is on the counter and shocks everybody again. Ferb comes to the rescue by pulling the plug from the socket, then angrily threatens
everybody.
"Calm down now or else you will all kill yourselves, Mary, come round this side of the counter where we can see what you are up to"!
Mary came round, and
Hank tied her up with electrical wire. Ferb questions her about the phone call she made earlier, "Why did you have a conversation on a phone that was not working?"
"I heard some static and hoped someone could hear us, even though I could not hear them. It was worth a try". she replied.
"Well, now you have destroyed our only means of communication out of here."
"Why did you not recognise Emilia earlier, when she only lives up the road?"
"Well, she was all wet, with her hair all over the place, and that must be a new dress; I had not seen her wear it before tonight," she explained.
Ferb is not convinced. "What about you, Billy?"
Billy tells everybody about the blue light chasing him, which killed Martin Greaves, her boyfriend, at the doctor's cabin.
Hank ties up Emilia next, not trusting her either.
While Ferb is concentrating on Emilia, Mary tries to charm us with a spell,
Ferb succumbs to it, but Hank tries to bring him out of it by slapping his face, "Don't disgrace your Deity like this."
Hearing this, Ferb snaps out of the trance, shudders and he swung the shotgun around.blasts her
with the shotgun, he was trying to wound her in the leg,, but his aim was off and he killed her instantly.
(Ferb is shooting at point-blank range, scoring a critical hit with "Exploding Dice", doing 24 points of damage) = killing her instantly.
4 points of sanity are lost
by both of us.
Hank gains 7 points of mythos understanding. (That is bad news - the higher you get, the closer to madness you are.)
Hank can now see Mary's spectral form leaving her body and begin crawling towards him. This triggers his germophobia. He screams, "I've got Mary splashed all over me, and she is coming to get mee!. I've got to get her off me, got to get her off, off, off."
Hank dashes into the back workroom to throw up and wash the splashes of fresh, warm blood off his hands. and shirt
Emelia rolls a 42 on a Sanity check and does not know what is going on.
(She rolls under her 50 Sanity roll. That is good, as what she does not understand cannot send her mad. It might kill her though. :-( ).
Meanwhile, the blood splattered Ferb blesses the assembled company with
his razor.“Begone, spectre of Mary”.
A BONUS SCENE that was added later.
Hank screams again, "Ahh.. Nooo..", as he sees Mary's fuzzy form coming through the wall towards him on her hands, dragging her useless legs behind her, leaving a trail of ectoplasmic blood behind her. He backs up until he is flush with the drawer top, eyes fixed on her hideous form approaching him, leaving a trail of black, ectoplasmic blood. "Keep back spirit, keep back. This was not my fault", he pleads.
Looking around for a weapon, he picks up an earthenware jar and throws it at her head. It goes straight through, of course, and smashes on the floor. She grabs his leg and starts to pull herself upwards. He tries to bat her away, "Begone, shadow, begone.", and gradually, to his great relief, the image fades from his sight.
(The Vision faded because he was with a friend, technically.)
He cleans himself as much as he can; his hands are visibly shaking, grumbling, "This will have to do for now," and opens a bottle of whisky that was on the shelf and takes a large slug of its contents.
He looks down at his lucky rabbit's foot. "Protect me, Granny, protect me," he whispers.
He takes a few deep breaths to steady himself. Herb takes another belt of the clear liquid and then puts the bottle back, thinking, "I don't want a drunken Ferb, too; he is the only one of us that is holding it together". Which just goes to show how badly his judgment has been affected.
End of bonus material.
Just as he staggers out of the back room, Herb sees through the Diner's rain-swept windows the blue lightning apparition attacking the lorry driver as he tries to get into his cab."Oh Noo, not again, it's attacking the driver", moans Hank, pointing at the event with a shudder.
Sam runs away from the ball of lightning. Emelia has another fit, and when it is over, she looks slightly
stronger than before, as she had the other time when we first saw her on the road.
Hank is emotionally drained by all of this; he collapses into a chair, rubbing his hands with a towel from the back room, constantly scanning the windows for the ball entity's return.
Ferb takes no notice of Hank's distressed condition at the moment. He walks up to Billy, saying, "You have had a terrible night. Let me make it a bit better for you. Would you like a haircut? Free of charge?"
Billy just nods a few times, still in shock, going along with the situation. Ferb would have probably cut it in any case. Hank hopes it will calm Ferb, too, by doing something he is so familiar with. Ferb leaves the shotgun by Hank, then gets the box from the car, along with the journals and the wax on top, the applicator stuck in his pocket. He puts these on the counter and proceeds to cut Billy's hair
and gives him an expert shave with a perfectly steady hand; the light glints off the blade as he cleans it with a cloth.
"There, you look much better now."
Turning round, he asks, "Anyone else, Hank?"
"In the morning, will do, thanks Ferb".
Regards all,
Ivor Cogdell
P.S. 7th March 2026 - Due to an unforeseen illness in the family, the next episode of this campaign is postponed until further notice. Ivor.
19 th April 2026 - I gave it a bit of a reworking while we wait for the next episode. In the meantime, you can read my adventures of Kal-Arath.
