The Masks of Nyarlathotep: Egypt part 5

A field report by Capt Sandy Wood

 

The Scrolls of Nitiqreti

Saturday, 11th October 2008

Fatima reports that the initial analysis of scrolls, that we recovered from van Heuvelen, is that they relate to the body of Nitiqreti and resurrecting it. This includes the necessary spells. Our best lead would seem to be Rifaat Abaza's disappearance between the paws of the Sphinx.

Zwaiter, Syed, Fatima, Adam and I went to the Sphinx in the morning. Fatima's credentials got us a viewing of the Dream Stele with the throng of tourists held back. I cast the spell Detect Enchantment between the paws.

The whole Sphinx is weakly infused with magic. There was a major source of magic some distance between our feet. The Dream Stele is very magical, with a number of the hieroglyphs especially magical. I showed Fatima which ones these were. They are a message hidden in the text, which reads:-

His Majesty, the king eternal who makes the Wind of Set, at the time of sleep speaks, saying “Look at me. See me, Father. I shall give you the Eye of The Lord-of-all. My limbs (are) dismembered. Run to me. I desire you. Come forth and I shall be you.”

We believe the “Wind of Set” is what we have previously heard of as the “Black Wind”. It seems likely that the reported speech in the text is a spell's incantation.

There is a report of an over-night attack on the Ibn Tulan mosque. We heard that the clerics we had woken with had been injured in the attack. Zwaiter, Syed, Adam and myself went to the hospital to try to speak with them. The charge nurse would not let us all in. Zwaiter went in to talk to the casualties alone.

After a few minutes, the older, less sympathetic and less injured cleric, Abdul Selim came out and talked with all of us. In addition to the tourist police, the mosque had guards of their own. There was an attack by armed men. They were killed or driven off, but they were merely a diversion.

The real assault was by a “ghost of the desert” which escaped with the Girdle of Nitiqreti, the Sword of Allah and the said sword's wielder, Kharis, Abdul's grandson.

Saturday, 18th October 2008

Alex wanted to take four days making a “Cross of Bast”“. It is a permanently enchanted item that should help in casting out creatures for other dimensions.

The rest of us spent four days in small arms training. It is never ideal to be arming amateurs, but it is so much less dangerous if they have some really recent weapons training.

Alex has also been in contact with an American organisation that the MI13 redundancies may be work with. As I will be returning to the regiment, the less I know about that the better.

Night of Saturday, 18th October 2008

We all armed ourselves and set off for the Sphinx. We timed our arrival to be just after the departure of the last of the evening light-show's crew.

It took a few attempts, but Fatima eventually managed to cast the spell on the Stele. The Stele began to glow and seemed insubstantial. Correctly assuming it was now an open portal, Syed and I went through first. We were the only two with decent night vision equipment and the training to use it effectively.

We found ourselves at the end of corridor with the portal, a glowing rectangle, in the wall behind us. Once the others were through, Syed and myself set off for a preliminary recce, leaving the others at the portal.

The passage was reasonably but not completely straight. It had sufficient curves to prevent seeing a long distance down it. After a few hundred metres we came to a cross roads. There were a narrower passages on each side. At this point I decided that it was unwise for just the two of us to proceed alone. We risked something getting between us and the rest of the party from these side passages. I guarded the junction and sent Syed back to fetch the rest of the party.

The portal had stopped glowing shortly after we left. Presumably the spell only opens it for a limited duration. We were concerned about the risk of an accident to Fatima preventing us casting it again. So once we were all at the junction we had Fatima record the incantation on a mobile phone. Simply playing it won't cast the spell, but repeating it sufficiently precisely should.

We decided to continue on the main passageway after a cursory investigation of the side passages. I took point with Syed as rear-guard. We soon came to another junction with the main passage going to the right with a narrow passage going straight on. Again we took the wide passage.

Then around one corner I was surprised by a creature like a small man with a head the shape of a hawk's, but of a size to match its body. It pecked my chest but my body armour prevented any real damage. I got one shot from my automatic off before it crashed into me, knocking me over. I couldn't safely use the pistol but, with help from Black Cat, we soon had it knocked out. All it was wearing was a loin cloth, just a rag. It was bleeding from its head and was probably dead shortly afterwards.

The next junction was an asymmetric fork: one side full width, one side narrow. I heard what sounded like some sort of voice down the narrow passage. I broke a light stick and threw it down this passage but it did not reveal anything of interest.

There was another fork and about ten yards beyond this the walls started to be plastered and decorated with grotesque scenes of half-human/half-animal creatures engaged in a variety of foul and sordid acts.

A little further on we met four ghouls charging down the corridor towards us. I stepped to the side to give Jamieson a clear field of fire and opened fire myself. I managed to take down two of them and Jamieson took down one, but the fourth ran right into me. There was a brief hand-to-claw struggle, which was fairly even until Syed arrived. However the ghoul managed to give me a nasty abdominal gash before it died.

I decided it was time for Syed to take point. I replaced him as rear-guard. We continued past various side-passages. I didn't take any particular note, beyond that we seemed to still be on the main passage. (Keeping a proper watch behind yourself and keeping up with the group took my undivided attention.) At one point, I heard a fusillade from the front. Fatima offered to look after the rear while I went to the front. However, as I could hear a slithering behind us, I remained at the rear. Syed and Jamieson managed to deal with the creatures they had encountered.

We came to a junction with a staircase going down to one side. Syed took us up the stairs. I wasn't sure about this decision but as I would have been in some doubt myself I decided it was best to trust his judgement.

The stair led up to a vast hall the size of a sports stadium. The ceiling was about 30 metres high and supported by strange pillars. They were geometric at the base, but higher they were tree-like – even seeming to sway as though in the wind. At the time I was certain that they were moving, but perhaps it was only some sort of illusion. There was a pit and a downward stair near the centre of the hall. At the far end there was a high walk-way. There were several of the half-man-beasts in various places in the hall. As yet they were taking no interest in us.

We noticed that there were spots of ichor on the marble of the stairs. Suspecting that this was from the wounded Dimensional Shambler, we decided to follow this trail. As entering the hall would be likely to meet resistance that would make following the trail hard, I decided that we should follow the trail in the other direction first.

As Syed has little experience of tracking I took the lead. The trail of ichor took us back to the main corridor and further along in the direction that we had been going. We passed a point where the floor of the tunnel had collapsed and a stench rose from the pit, so foul that a number of us (myself included) threw up.

Then the trail led us down a narrow side passage. I found a black rose with extremely sharp thorns, growing out of the wall. We passed a side passage which I ignored as the trail continued straight on.

Then a Dimensional Shambler appeared coming the other way down the passage. It had a sword still embedded in its flank. I gave it a long burst of fully automatic fire from the SA80. I also heard Alex starting a spell. The Shambler disintegrated leaving nothing but a pool of ichor and the sword.

I retrieved the sword. Before we set out again it was clear that Alex had completely lost it. He was quiet for the moment but in no state to be armed so I relieved him of his gun, which I gave to John Zwaiter.

We continued down a passage that was in an unstable state. Zwaiter was hit by a rock fall from the ceiling, but escaped serious injury. Finally we came to a corridor of dressed stone with a line of locked doors. The ichor trail led to the first.

I cast Open The Way on the door. As I was doing so a cultist gaoler turned up. Jamieson shot off his foot and then Alex beat him to death. (Very good thing I had taken the gun off him.)

In the cell that I had opened I found Kharis, the grandson of Abdul. The jailer had keys with which we opened all the cells, in which we found a further 11 captives. Abdul was insistent that we should leave no-one behind alive and asked for the sword to kill them with. However Jamieson actually did the deed. I took no part in this, either you encourage or prevent. I had no reason to doubt the necessity but I have serious qualms about killing the hopeless.

I asked Kharis to ensure the stronger of the released prisoners helped the weaker so that we were free to defend the party when necessary. Alex was convinced that he understood the geography of this place. We accepted his intuition at least for the moment, and he led us off in the direction that the jailer had come from.

As we went, we felt a breeze that was encouraging, suggesting an opening to the outside. We also heard voices, but did not encounter anyone or anything. Then we found a pit that more or less blocked the passage. Our original party could have climbed round it, but it was clearly beyond the capabilities of our walking wounded. We weren't going to abandon them so readily so we turned back, in search of a different way out.

We soon found ourselves walking down a ramp that we had definitely not encountered before. I was certain that we had been precisely retracing our steps. This seemed proof of something that I had suspected for sometime. The geography of the place was not fixed; it could change. This being the case, there was a real chance that the pit that had turned as back would not still be there. Accordingly we turned round again.

The pit had indeed disappeared. We encountered two ghouls, but they were as surprised as us. They hesitated and I shot them both dead. Finally we came to a large chamber with several of the man/beast creatures. They tried to attack us, but being much better armed we soon had dropped them all.

From the chamber, there was a steep ramp to the outside. It wasn't easy to climb, but we all managed to get up. Some of our walking wounded needed to be more or less dragged up with ropes. Nevertheless we all got out safely.

Sunday, 19th October 2008 - Early hours

We called Abdul. The news that we had his grandson and the Sword of Allah was enough to get him to come immediately. He was clearly conflicted. He still considers us to be “soulless”, but had to accept we had done him great service and was grateful. More significantly he took all of the rescued prisoners off our hands.

Sunday, 19th October 2008 - Morning

It is the parting of the ways. There is a message at the embassy that the party has been recalled. I haven't actually got orders to that effect yet. It is entirely possible that the M.O.D. won't get around to it for sometime. However that is academic. With the party disbanding, my orders to “protect and assist” expire.

The others head off (mostly to USA I suspect). I try to know as little as possible about what they will be doing. I returned to the embassy. Handed back all of the kit that we had borrowed. Told them that my task here was done and that I needed transport to return to my unit.

They are initially uncertain how to treat me. The others (or most of them at least) are persona non grata now. Nevertheless I am a serving army officer who has been following written orders. They inspect the orders, check with my regiment and decide I am okay, but they get me on the very next flight that they can.

Writing my report is going to be a bit tricky, but with MI13 it always is. The difficult bit is making it plausible. You need to steer between the Scylla of implausible lies and the Charybdis of implausible truth.

 

Offical Report

Date: 21st October 2008

Assignment: Protect and assign investigation in Egypt (2/10/2008-19/10/2008)

I was ordered to join a mission under diplomatic cover to Egypt investigate some suspected terrorist. Most details of My orders were to protect the other members of the mission and provide all assistance that I could which did not conflict with my protection role.

The party from the UK consisted of Black Cat, Ice Maiden and Sphinx from Whitehall. We were ably assisted by John Zwaiter and Sgt Syed Hussein (SBS) from the Cairo embassy.

The initial incident requiring attention was the theft of a complete sarcophagus with the nested coffins, corpse and funerary paraphernalia of an ancient Egyptian (female) pharaoh (altogether weighing several tons). The tomb containing this had recently been discovered by a British expedition lead by Dr. Henry Clive. The most obvious suspect was a Dutch-American archaeology student by the name of Jan van Heuvelen. The expedition were also concerned with two terrorist attacks on the Ibn-Tulun mosque, a number of particular sadistic murders and the kidnapping & illegal imprisonment of at least eight locals.

The expedition succeeded in tracking down van Heuvelen who was delivered to the United States Embassy. My understanding is that he was discreetly repatriated to the USA. It is likely that this would not be officially acknowledged. As this was contrary to the wishes of the Egyptian authorities, I recommend that this incident should be treated as confidential.

We subsequently effected the release of eight kipnap victims (all Egyptian nationals). There was no opportunity to consult the local police force, prior to this action. It was no com This was achieved without the loss or serious injury of any members of the mission, and, to the best of my knowledge, without any repercussions that have any likelihood causing any embarrassment to HMG.

Captain A. C. Wood.