The Masks of Nyarlathotep: Australia pt 2

Extracts from the Personal Diary of James Elliott

Delta Green Briefing

The next stage in the assignment is to try to find the site in Western Australia. The most significant piece of Mythos activity was downing of a Vickers Viscount in 1968. It appears that it had its wing torn off in flight by a creature. The Viscount was a decent sized aircraft (over 30 tons fully laden), so it is implausible that anything normal could have done the damage.

The most likely candidate for the site is the ancient city reported by Macwhirr. Our primary aim is finding and investigating it. Dangers in the area:

• Lake Disappointment is believed to be infested with Nyayurnagalku, a type of water sprite, probably associated with Nyarlathotep, so should be avoided if possible.
• The vast blind Rainbow Serpent known to the local tribe as Jalkawarrinya, although the tribesmen believe it to be benevolent.
• We may encounter the ‘Dreamtime’. This is not so much a time as a place or a state, and is in many ways similar to the Dreamlands.

Sunday 13^th February 2009

Flew to Port Hedland by charter flight, where we collected two large off-road vehicles. Inquiries revealed that Mortimer Wycroft, who was shipping mythos artefacts to Penhew, runs the Wycroft Emporium in Cuncudgerie. There are no proper roads in this part of the country. The route to Cuncudgerie from Port Hedland is as close to a proper road as you get, being the track-bed of a dismantled railway line.

On arrival, we made inquiries looking for a guide. We hired a guide called ‘Ginger’ Muldoon. He would not have been our first choice, but the best guide wasn't available, nor likely to be without waiting longer than we could afford.

Monday 14^th February 2009

Set off in the morning. Around midday, we sighted a sand-storm and at Muldoon's recommendation we diverted to caves at Dingo Falls for safety. Dingo Falls consists of a pool of pretty foul water, and rocky outcrops with some caves. It provides at least a modicum of shelter. We parked up about 100 metres from the pool as it attracts too much wildlife, some of which can be dangerous.

We settled down for the night, some sleeping in the vehicles (including myself) and some between them. I was woken by Freddy banging on the vehicle. It seems that both John and Marshall had had the same dream. It was of a man in flames, and those who had been in Cairo thought this was reminiscent of a ghost magically raised there. That would not have been cause to wake me. The problem was that John now seemed to be possessed by something. Muldoon said the ghost needed to be laid to rest, but he did not seem have much idea how to go about it.

Marshall was restraining John, who seemed to have weird lights in his eyes. We all got our kit on, and then Marshall released him so we could find out where the ghost wanted to take him. John walked towards the pool. On the way, a snake appeared and Marshall promptly shot it. (A moderately impressive bit of shooting.) There were three caves close to the pool and he was heading for the right-hand one. He clearly wanted to go into the cave but we inspected it first. The floor of the cave was a couple of metres below the entrance. I scrambled down and found a skeleton wearing charred clothing, as though he had burnt to death. There seems little doubt that it was the dead-man's ghost that was possessing John.

We then made the error of judgement of lowering John into the cave to see what John-possessed would do next. He lay down next to the corpse, embraced it and promptly started to catch fire. Marshall managed to separate them but not before John had suffered some nasty burns.

I suggested that we applied the solution as for Sophie Ennie to consign the ghost to the dream-lands. With the aid of Nyarlathotep's sceptre and flail to provide magical energy, Freddy cast Command Ghost to summon the spirit and Kuranes Binding to consign it to the Dreamlands. It was only after we had done this that someone observed that the angry ghost might not be entirely welcome there. It is likely to appear somewhere in, or near Celephaïs.

Muldoon witnessed all of this and had a nasty turn. It seems very likely he has had his epiphany.

We bundled up the bones and packed them to present to the authorities when we get back. They may be able to identify him.

Tuesday 15^th February 2009

In the morning, Muldoon had a lot of questions. We were basically truthful, but didn't tell him everything. We set off again.

Around midday we saw another SUV. We stopped for a chat. It was a friend of Muldoon's called Tod Gilman. He said there had been some earth tremors that were disturbing the bats.

We drove on to Ginyana Springs, where we found three young aboriginal men. They were Mikey, Si and Paul. According to them, the great bat Ngunung-Ngunnut is returned in the form of a white man. They said the cult is being revived. We suspect they mean the Cult of the Sand Bat.

Wednesday 16^th February 2009

We put a call through to Delta Green HQ, asking them to check the precise epicentre of any tremors in the vicinity. They cannot do this immediately and we are told to phone back in the evening for the results.

We arrived at the Canning Stock Route and drove along it. We spotted some strange large high flying birds. John was sure that they did not have wings. By evening we were in the search area.

When we contacted HQ again, they told us that the only tremors detected were from mining blasting; not helpful. We set up camp where we were, in the middle of nowhere.

Fatima and Marshall went to climb up to a local high point to see if anything of interest is within site. They saw some more of the mysterious flying creatures to the north east. Marshall spotted an aboriginal which he was sure was 10 foot tall, and had a claw for a hand. Muldoon said that this was a creature called a Mimi.

We decided that we had to set watches; Muldoon took the first; then Freddy and Fatima, and finally John and I. During my watch, I briefly saw a very tall, very thin humanoid, with very long limbs and elongated claw like hands. It had tusks protruding from its mouth.

Thursday 17^th February 2009

Briefly and unsuccessfully looked for the tracks of the Mimis. We then set-off to the North East, aiming for the area under the mysterious flyers. They may be over what we seek.

After an hour or two we encountered a track heading north-east-by-east. This was near enough the right direction so we followed it. A couple of hours later we spotted a couple of wooden buildings. One was the size of a double garage, the other appeared to be a privy. Nearby there were a lot of collapsed tents.

On examination, we found the larger hut was the head of a small mine. We tried and failed to get the winding gear running. I am not sure I would have trusted it even if it had worked. The smaller hut turned out to be an empty explosives store, not a privy.

One of the tents was still up and apparently still occupied. Then we noticed that there was a man by the vehicles with a pack of seven partially transparent dogs. We were briefly worried as all our weapons were in the vehicles, but he wasn't hostile. His name was Jimmy Grogan and he is the sole survivor of the miners who worked here.

His story was that the mine was set up by an American caller Carver. Eventually he ran out of money. There was the predictable disagreement over unpaid wages. Carver summoned beasts that killed the rest of the work-force. Grogan survived due being away from the camp after a disagreement over a game of cards. He did witness the deaths, but from a distance. From his description, we suspect the creatures were Hunting Horrors and Wind Daemons.

We tried to contact HQ again and found that just about everything electronic was useless, even wrist watches. We took this as a clear indication that we are deep in the Dreamtime. Grogan seems to be a quite talented dreamer. He has probably dreamt his dogs, and quite possibly the spring in nearby rocks.

We topped up our water tanks from the spring and set out again North East (or as close to that direction as we can manage, lacking as we do any precise way of determining direction). We saw another of the flying creatures; most of us had a distinct impression that it was watching us.

About an hour later we drove into a ravine, where we were ambushed. Men above dislodged a number of boulders, and then threw war boomerangs at us. One of the SUVs had a couple of windows broken, but no-one was hurt. We took a couple of pot shots back, but I don't think any of them were hit.

A couple of hours later we saw some rocks that seemed to match the ancient city we were looking for. (Being in the Dreamtime, we cannot actually get a fix on where we are. Indeed it is not clear if this location exists outside of the Dreamtime.) We could see that in the centre of the rock fields there were vehicles parked. We parked up, hidden from these vehicles by the nearest large rocks.

Baxter's past-viewing binoculars allowed us to test if this had in fact been an ancient city. Freddy tried using them. Initially, (not understanding the logarithmic scale), he set them to recent past and saw no change. He then set it to the earliest possible and saw lush vegetation. There were also structures, high walkaways, dinosaurs and Yithians. The conclusion was that where we were had been a zoo in a city of the Great Race. If so, then that is way beyond the supposed 100,000 year range of Baxter's binoculars. However the capabilities of this artefact seem to be variable. Whereas it is generally reckoned that their most recent setting will show about 2 weeks in the past, St. John C-F claimed that in Penrith they once showed the future. It is not clear whether this variability is due to imperfection in their construction, or Nyarlathotep allowing us to see what he wants us to see. In any case, we could be reasonably sure we had found the ancient city, and it was real (in the Dreamtime at least).

Marshall and Eliza went ahead to recce. Then we heard a single gunshot from the direction of the other vehicles (and where our friends had gone). I got the rifle out and moved up to take a firing position round the right hand-side of the rock were parked behind; not so much to open fire but to observe through the telescopic sight.

I was relieved to see Marshall and Eliza, as far as I could tell unharmed. Then there seemed to be a mini-sand storm obscuring them.

My recollection of what happened next is a little muddled. I remember Muldoon behind me shouting about something. It took me some time to work out what he was about as it was way above my line of sight. (It is not at all easy to look upwards when in a prone shooting position.) Then I did see it, the Wind Daemon high in the sky causing the sand-storm that had obscured Marshall and Eliza. I not at all sure what order everything happened in after that.

I think that my opening fire on the Wind Daemon must have been next. Judging by how much ammo I have left (almost all of it), I think the gun must have jammed almost immediately. This was probably a very good thing as I was not in a state where I would have been careful enough with a deadly weapon, and I would simply have been wasting ammo on a target that was probably wholly invulnerably to bullets.

Marshall turned up back at the vehicles. Someone told me the Wind Daemon was a Living Wind. I told Marshall that John’s amulet was protection against them. I finally wound up back inside one the vehicles and my gun was unjammed, but I don't really remember how either happened.