The Masks of Nyarlathotep: Egypt part 5

The Diary of Syed Hussein

 

Saturday 11th October AM

John, Sandy, Fatima, Adam and I all go to the Sphinx to check out the ‘Dream Stele’ whilst Eliza and Alex stay at the hotel reading. Since we are with Fatima we are able to bypass the queues at the Spinx and we soon find ourselves standing between the paws of the statue, surrounded by a cordon of armed tourist police.

 

Sandy performs another of these ‘magical rituals’ apparently in order to determine if there is any magic in the area. He informs us that the Sphinx itself is faintly magical and there is something else underground, but the stele is definitely magical. Moreover there are certain parts of the inscription on the stele which are particularly significant. Sandy indicates to Fatima which are the important points. Meanwhile Adam seems to be having another ‘turn’ and tells us that he is getting a very bad feeling about an area underground about 500 yards south of the Pyramids. He says this is a bad place, like the Collapsed Pyramid only worse.

 

We receive news reports of another attack on the Ibn-Tulun Mosque. Apparently Abdul Salim and Samir Mohammed have been injured so Sandy, Adam and I decide to visit the hospital. At the hospital we are permitted to visit Adbul Salim who tells us that the attack on the mosque (same m.o. as the last time) was merely a diversion to distract from a second attack by a ‘Ghost of the Desert’. This creature invaded the mosque and was fought by Abdul’s grandson Kharis, who was armed with the ‘Blade of the Prophet’. Apparently the creature left with Kharis, the blade (which was stuck in it at the time) and ‘that which they were after’. We presume this to be the girdle we believe to have been held in the mosque. Abdul accuses us all of being ‘soulless’, but if we rescue Kharis and retrieve the blade we may recover some of our souls! Upon hearing this story one of our number (I can’t remember who) identifies this ‘Ghost of the Desert’ as a Dimensional Shambler – some sort of horrible monster which travels (or even shambles?) between dimensions.

 

Whilst we are at the hospital, the remainder of the group are studying the inscription on the Dream Stele. The section of the inscription highlighted by Sandy’s spell is a quotation hidden within the text and the team determine that the portal into the Sphinx can be opened by intoning this quotation. Fatima will probably have to do this as the words must be spoken in Ancient Egyptian.

 

We come up with a plan to investigate beyond the portal and see what is there. I am concerned that we should be attempting to recover Kharis and the Girdle, both of which I believe are at Rifaat Abaza’s house, but I agree that we need to investigate the portal and we don’t know for sure where Kharis is, so I am content to go along with the majority vote and open the portal first.

 

We spend four days in preparation for our exploration. Alex constructs a holy symbol – a protective device sacred to Bast the cat goddess. Adam and I spend time trying to calm ourselves and prepare mentally for the horrors to come! The rest of the party head off into the desert to practice with weapons (mostly pistol and shotgun). Alex informs us that he has been in touch with someone in America to arrange for an extraction. All we have to do is make it to the US embassy and ask for ‘Mr Green’. Meanwhile John tells us that London is getting irate and demanding that the team return at once, but they show no signs of obeying!

 

Saturday 18th October 1AM

The party, suitably geared up with weapons and armour, arrive at the Dream Stele in front of the Sphinx. Fatima speaks the words in Ancient Egyptian and the stele begins to glow and turns translucent. We are able to ‘pass through’ the stone and find ourselves in a tunnel. After we have all entered the tunnel two minutes pass before the wall behind us stops glowing and we are in darkness.

 

Our night vision goggles show the passage leading away so we follow it along a twisting and turning route. After a short while we are attacked by a small human figure with a bird’s head and simultaneously three ghouls attack the rear. I shoot the three ghouls with ease and Sandy and Alex fight off the ‘bird man’.

 

I’m fairly spooked by this place but Sandy seems extremely nervous. He is on point to start with, but I think I’m going to have to take over at the front soon. I don’t think Sandy is going to make it out of here intact, but there’s no guarantee that I will either!

 

We continue along what we are calling the ‘main’ passage, passing several narrow passages along the way. There are strange noises and smells throughout this place, but when blood begins dripping from the ceiling this really starts to freak people out. After a while we come to an area with plastered walls. These walls are covered with paintings – pretty gruesome stuff. Animal/human hybrids doing nasty shit to people. Several of the party look like they’re on the edge – at least I’m not alone in that now!

 

Continuing along the passage past the pictures we are suddenly charged by four ghouls from the front. Alex and John have lost it at this point, Sandy and Eliza open fire on the ghouls and I try to get forward in support. One of the ghouls manages to reach Sandy and attacks him and I arrive just in time to stab it. With the ghouls defeated, Adam manages to calm Alex and John and we continue on with me on point and Sandy at the rear.

 

We continue along the main passage as it curves and turns, still covered with paintings. We pass several more side passages whereupon we are charged by 11 Black Pharaoh cultists, all armed with the hooked clubs common to the cult. Alex and I open fire on them as they close and six go down before contact. Alex and I then engage them in hand-to-hand with John and Eliza in support, firing into the cultists behind the front rank. After some desperate close quarter fighting all the cultists are dead or dying.

 

Continuing on for a while we pass a side passage which slopes upward and then some of the party can hear conversation in Arabic. We have no idea where it is coming from, but Fatima recognises Henry Clive and Rifaat Abaza talking about sending ‘children’ out to get the intruders.

 

Henry Clive: ‘We must not leave the temple unguarded’.

 

Rifaat Abaza: ‘It does not matter, they cannot do anything. Djehutemes will protect the Queen’.

 

Proceeding onward we reach a straight section of corridor about 50 yards long at the end of which is some sort of structure – looks like the bottom of some stairs. Ten yards short of the stairs the main passage seems to divide for the first time. We continue straight on to the stairs. The stairs go up ten feet and over a lip whereupon we find ourselves overlooking a huge hall in black stone with white flecks. There are many pillars all in jet black stone. There are two holes in the floor, one quite large. Smoke rises from the smaller hole and stairs descend into it.

 

Something is moving in the hall – it turns out to be the pillars! At ground level the pillars are octagonal, but they twist and warp as they rise until they are as trees. The ‘branches’ spread out to support the roof and appear to sway in the wind, though they are made of stone. At the far end there is a green bridge extending part way across the hall. There is also a platform with glowing braziers on it. We can see creatures moving about the hall – they seem to be the animal-headed figures we have identified as ‘Children of the Sphinx’, but it is hard to get a clear idea of their number.

 

From the platform on which we stand we can see a blood and ichor trail – we conjecture that this is the trail of the Dimensional Shambler and its victim. It seems the creature left the chamber with the captive so we decide to retreat and explore the alternate main passage at the bottom of the stairs. Following the blood and ichor trail, Sandy takes point again as his tracking skills are up to the task. We pass a pit in the corridor with a path alongside it so we can walk past. The passage walls here are still covered in weird pictures.

After a while the trail turns down a side passage and we follow it. There is a jet black rose growing in the corridor. It has long, curved, exquisite thorns. Pressing on we pass another side passage, but we continue on, still following the blood trail.

 

Then suddenly we see the Dimensional Shambler approaching us. It has a sword stuck in it. Sandy immediately opens up on it – full auto. Meanwhile Alex takes one look at the creature and his mind gives up on him. He still has enough presence of mind to present his ankh to the creature and banish it at the same time as Sandy fills it with lead. The creature vanishes in a burst of gunsmoke and magic and the sword clatters to the floor. We pick up the sword and clean off the ichor with a bandage. Alex is on the very edge so we relieve him of his guns and move him away from the front rank.

 

We continue on down more rough-hewn passages, still looking for Kharis, still following the trail. After more twists and turns and side passages we come to a properly worked section of corridor containing four doors. The trail leads to the first door which Sandy opens, but while this is going on another cultist appears in the corridor. Only Eliza notices him at first and he moves to attack her, but she shoots him down before he can reach her.

 

We find Kharis in the first cell and eleven more prisoners in the remaining cells. Four of them are beyond saving – hopelessly insane and too badly injured to be moved out. After a brief discussion we decide that it would be kindest to put them out of their misery. We cannot rescue them and we refuse to leave them to the ‘mercies’ of this hideous place and its inhabitants. I prepare to deliver the coup-de-grace with my sidearm when Eliza declares that she will take care of it with lethal injections. This done, we decide that we have to save the remaining prisoners which means finding a way out immediately. We cannot continue exploring or fighting the denizens of this place if we are to have any chance of leaving with these unfortunate souls. In a moment of lucidity Alex realises that the breezes we have felt are the ‘breaths’ of the complex and we can find a way out by following the exhalations.

 

There follows much wandering along changing passageways as we move back and forth through the complex trying to follow the ‘breathing’. We come across two more ghouls which Sandy dispatches. Eventually we reach a straight corridor leading to a chamber twenty yards across containing four Children of the Sphinx, two bird heads, one lion and one bull. Sandy and I take care of them with support from Eliza.

 

The chamber is lit from above by moonlight. Upon examination we discover that the chamber is at the bottom of a sloping shaft six feet wide. We climb out with all the prisoners and find ourselves in the fresh night air of the Giza plateau, some distance from the Pyramids. Thank God we have escaped, alive, mostly intact and with several souls rescued from that hellhole.