Cthulhu in Anchorage Alaska 

** Keeper's Note: I was holding off, hoping to have more time to work on this. But it did't happen. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did  playing it. **

After trekking about a quarter mile into the woods, FB starts having second thoughts… Visions of movies start dancing in his head. An African-American and two white chicks head off into the woods at night... guess ‘who’ doesn’t come back.

That is the same reason he got rid of all red and yellow shirts. He has seen enough Star Trek episodes to know better.

After some quick discussion, they decided that it would be better if they came back in the morning. They headed back to the car and drove back to their rented house.

In the morning, they all awoke, somewhat refreshed.  FB at least wasn’t feeling any worse. The china man’s tea seems to be helping in that regard. He managed to keep down some breakfast. Samantha took a long look at FB and is seems that he has probably dropped at least 20 pounds. After some breakfast, they decided to pay a call on Elizabeth Switzman at her house.

The group arrives at Elizabeth Switzman’s home. She greets them warmly and says,”please come in, she told me you were coming.”  After some talking back and forth, she tells them, “I must find my mother’s journal. It has the ritual in it that we need call the Queen to destroy the darkness in the lake.” She seems genuinely concerned that if the Queen is destroyed, she will die as well as everyone else in town.

Samantha isn’t really buying into the whole ritual thing but she decides to go along. So, it is decided to head over to the old manor. A short drive later down a very bumpy and almost impassible road, they arrive at the old manor. And if it weren’t for the all wheel drive, they would have been stuck a couple of times.

Samantha: I wasn’t buying it at all.  The woman was surfing along on a layer of liquid crazy, but it sure as hell beat intimidating college kids into giving up their dealers.  Besides, enough weirdness had already happened that I was willing to go along with it to a point.

A quick tour of the house revealed a destroyed library of very old books. It appears that the books had been piles into the center of the room and set on fire. Though not burned completely, five decades of decay and fungus is covering the remains of the books. The reddish orange mushrooms seemed to be growing everywhere.

Siss decides to see if there is a hidden space in the library and starts measuring off the room and tapping on the old mahogany, looking for any discrepancies. While Siss is checking the library, the others take a tour of the old manor. Up the spiral staircase, they smell an awful stench. It appears to be coming from the master bedroom.

Inside they find a nest of sorts and piles of feces… quite disgusting and stinky. Even with the window open, it makes it hard to breathe. There is nothing moving upstairs so they move it back down to the main entry where Elizabeth mentions the altar in the basement.

The basement is almost as bad as the rest of the manor. Good thing that it hadn’t rained in a while or they would have been up to their knees in mud. The altar is on the far wall. It has numerous large fat candles on it and looks recently used.  On the wall behind the altar is the same symbol that is ‘tattooed’ on their arms. Samantha closely examines the marking on the wall, but not finding anything, turns her attention on the altar.

After carefully inspecting the altar, Samantha seems to think that she may be able to move it. Samantha, Elizabeth and Fredrick try to move it, but it barely budges. To be honest, FB wasn’t much help in his current condition.  So, Samantha sends a text to Siss for some help.

After Siss examines the altar for a few seconds, she pushes on one corner and the whole altar pivots every so easily, revealing well worn stairs cut from rock leading down… revealing a small cramped room that contains an ancient oak desk, some candles, a journal, and a large black rock.

Elizabeth immediately gets excited and grabs the journal and starts reading. She repeated states, “This is it! This is it! Here is the ritual!” Samantha finally calms her down a bit when Fredrick, who is waiting in the altar room, hears some noise upstairs. He quickly texts Samantha, “noise up stairs” and she quickly moves to the altar room.

 By the time she makes it to the alter room, it is quiet again. She quietly moves up the stairs. As she gets to the top of the stairs she hears someone walking up the staircase to the second floor. She quickly makes her way up but didn’t find anyone. It is time to leave…

They head back to the rental house. Elizabeth goes through the journal and shows Samantha the ritual. “You are the chosen one. You must do the ritual. The Queen has told me this,” Elizabeth says. Fredrick scans the page and Elizabeth works with Samantha to get the pronunciation and wording right.

Samantha memorizes the ritual and goes over it and what she needs to do. The ritual must be done at the lake at sun down. So, she spends the time going over her lines. It is mostly in English, but there were a couple of phrases in an unknown language. That really bugs Samantha… Languages are one of the things she excels at.

Samantha: Frankly, the whole thing bugged me.   I could picture it now: “the whole world gets destroyed all because Sam summoned the dark lord because the Queen of Crazy told her she had to do some strange ritual.”  The language part was more than disturbing. 

Siss and Fredrick head off to the hardware store for some supplies. Siss wants to make some smoke bombs with a knock-out gas inside. Hopefully, she can find what she needs to make them. Going the hardware store route won’t be as safe as having access to a chemistry lab, but it should work. Might just be a bit more flammable…

The appointed time comes and the party heads off to the lake. Siss is armed to the teeth with her special goodies including three knock-out canisters. Fredrick has his shotgun and Samantha has the rock…

Samantha: There’s so much wrong with this that I can’t even begin to enumerate it.  THEY have weapons, and I have a rock?  Clearly, I was already under the influence…of something.

After they arrive at the lake, about 100 yards from the shore the water starts to boil. A naked man rises to the surface and starts walking on the water. It was quite unnerving.  So unnerving, in fact that Samantha loses her hearing.

Samantha: Why are they always naked?  Is there an unwritten rule about it or something that says that the bad guys always have to be perverts too?

Samantha then felt the white hot piercing pain through her skull. She has felt this before… Fortunately, it only lasted for an instant. Elizabeth wasn’t so lucky, she fell to the ground holding her head with blood coming from her eyes, ears and nose…. Sis was next, nearly dropping her backpack of goodies, but like Samantha, it only lasted for an instant.

As the naked man approached the shore, he transforms into a huge crocodile with long legs with retractable claws that seem to be able to cut into the stone and a 20 foot tail… It seems to be smiling as it approaches.

Samantha: I guess that means he isn’t particularly happy to see me.

Samantha, holding the black rock aloft, finishes the ritual. There is a clap of thunder and everything went dark. The next thing they saw was that they were standing in front of a huge ebony tower… The realization falls on all of them… They are in the Twilight Land….

This sudden turn of events surprises all, except Elizabeth who is unconscious. Even the crocodile seems a bit bewildered. While everyone gapes at the tower, a crack starts at the top and rips down the side, dislodging huge blocks of stone that fall away from the tower. Fortunately, they are far enough away to not have to worry about being crushed by the block of stone as well as getting eaten buy an oversized croc.

As they watch the split start to widen, they see the Queen start to emerge from the tower. She looks like large larvae with eyes all over it. Her appearance seems to enrage the crocodile and he presses his attack.

Initially, Samantha takes the brunt of the attack. That thing has some vicious claws. But after Fredrick lands a couple of good shots, it turns on him. Siss finally injures the beast with some DetCord just as it takes Fredrick down. It looks really bad… he is just laying there bleeding.

Samantha keeps shooting at it, but with no effect. She is just trying to stay out of the way of that tail. Siss now is taking it on. She hooks a charge up to one of her sleep canisters and manages to get it close to the beast. It screams in agony as it moves in to kill Siss.

Just when it seems like all is lost a bright white light erupts from the Queen. The Crocodile screams in agony as everyone else goes painfully blind, then mercifully unconscious.

When Samantha awakens, she takes a quick survey… Elizabeth is still out cold but breathing. Siss has taken a few, looks to be minor, wounds. Poor FatBast3rd, lying in a pool of his own blood. Good thing he is face down… probably keeping his insides together.  (Samantha:  And he has a LOT of insides!) That thing nearly bit him in half. He was a good man. Samantha finally notices her own condition… still bleeding, feeling a bit light headed… mumbles something about blood loss and dials, 1-800-911.

The ambulance arrives in about 15 minutes.  They pause briefly at Fredrick’s body, then quickly move on to Samantha and get her stabilized, then Siss. Elizabeth is stable, but in a coma. As Samantha is being getting ready to be loaded in to the ambulance, Fredrick get up and starts complaining… “I got to get something to eat NOW!” But he realizes that his clothes are shredded and blood soaked.

One of the EMTs point him to some spare clothes in the ambulance, but he quickly strips down, runs into the lake and rinses off the blood before he quickly dresses. He doesn’t have a mark on his body…He yells to Samantha, “Yo… hope you don’t mind, but I am going to have to borrow your car to go get some food…” Samantha is pretty weak, but manages to shout, “NO TAKE OUT IN MY CAR!” As Fredrick peels out, and heads off to the nearest diner.

After Fredrick manages to eat one of everything on the menu AND some things twice, he orders two pieces of pie to go. He then dials 1-800-911 to find the location of the medical facility. He pulls it up on the GPS and heads out.

He finds Samantha and Siss on the mend. Elizabeth is still in a coma and Jason is finally getting better. Fredrick realizes that he doesn’t feel so weak anymore either.

The Doctors want to check out Fredrick. From what Samantha and Siss told them he was almost cut in half, yet there is not a mark on him. So, he gets a full work up.

The only thing of note in the exam is that his heart appears undersized for his height and weight, but it is functioning well. And his electrolytes and enzymes are a bit off, though they are within norms. The Doctors want a full work up done when he gets back to the office.

Samantha sends an email off to Agent Carmichael, “All personnel WILL be trained in handgun safety and operations, need to get a firearms instructor for FB and Siss.” No more worrying about been shot by one of her team…

Aftermath…

Three months later, Harrison Mining, a division of Tiberius Research, which is a subsidiary of TemCo, buys the mineral rights to Lake Mebidji for an outrageous sum of money. They begin extensive digging and exploration of the lake bottom.

Samantha’s Epilog: I’m probably still spotting greasy fingerprints in the car.  If Fat Bast3rd wants to learn to drive, I’m all for it.  Detailing only goes so far.

Finally, my personal aftermath—I’ll find some point to go visit the nephew, and give him new instructions on how to contact me if he needs to, rather than using that old email.  I read the NYT classifieds daily for a reason.  Insurance is a tough business!

I’m making it a point to learn about that language.  If I’m going to be releasing a dark lord any time soon, I’d rather know about it BEFORE I do it.  After I heal a bit (great, more scars) I’m doing some more martial arts training.  I know it won’t do much against crocodile men with 20 foot tails and claws that tear through stone, but I’m branching out into bladed weapons.  It’s not so much about usefulness; it’s more about what helps me sleep at night.  Something strange is going on, it’s getting stranger, and it’s definitely time to get some answers.

***End of Samantha's Epilog***