After everyone boarded the train and sat down, the doors swished shut and the train began rattling down the tunnel. The ads were for various products, including clothing, liquor, and cigarettes. There were also some war-related ads, encouraging people to volunteer for war work and obey the blackout regulations and discouraging them from talking about secrets. One featured a beautiful blonde in a revealing dress talking with a man in uniform. The caption read "SHE'S NOT AS DUMB AS SHE LOOKS - CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES."
"Somewhat tacky perhaps, but probably still a wise precaution. We don't want our friends from across the channel to know everything that we are planning..."
The train coasted to a stop at another platform, and the doors swished open. There were only two people besides the six of them left in the car, a man in his fifties in a suit and tie, and a young female conductor. "Last stop, Aldwych," she said. "Mind the gap."
The man alighted from the train onto the platform and began heading away, in the direction of a sign with an arrow and the words "Way Out."
Archie is still contemplating the "CARELESS TALK" sign sadly. To no-one in particular, he says, "How sad it is that we must tell people to distrust their neighbours. One day it will be over I know."
Carole led the group off of the train and in the opposite direction along the platform, to a door that was guarded by a bald man of about forty years old, wearing a uniform. "Good morning, Miss Siddons," he said to her, looking her companions up and down.
"Good morning, Ralph," she said. "These are Professor Story and his associates. "I'll vouch for them. I'm going to show them around."
He nodded and took a ring of keys from his belt, looking through them until he found the right one. He unlocked the door and opened it, revealing a long tunnel ahead. "All yours."
Anna follows closely behind. Observing Story with great interest; he was a puzzle, shrouded in riddles, wrapped in an enigma, then lovingly tied together with a ribbon of intrigue, and express-mailed to 110 Mystery Street, Secretsville. Needless to say, Anna believed that there was more to this man's...story (ba dum tss) than he let on.
Carole led the way down the tunnel, eventually coming to a large metal sliding door. "Most of what we've got stored in here is sculptures, vases, and the like," she said as she unlocked the door and slid it open, leading the way into a vast storage area. "Those are put away in crates to protect them. The Elgin Marbles sculptures from the Parthenon are all packed up, but the wall sections were too big for the crates, so you can still see those in the back. We didn't have any books in here initially, for fear that the humidity would damage them. Many of them were kept at various country houses, but when the bombing started in the south of England, it soon became apparent that they weren't immune, and the only truly safe place for them was underground, humidity or no."
The huge room contained many rows of metal shelving containing crates of various sizes, with no clue what was in them besides numbering on them. Carole walked over to a desk, where there was a large binder. "Here's the catalog of what we've got stored here. Everything's been meticulously inventoried. You're welcome to look through it to see if there's anything that might be relevant to your researches, and I can assist you. It's going to take a good deal of time to find anything, though."
Anna perused the resources, searching for relevant tales of animals matching the descriptions as provided. She found something worthy of interest tucked between a book on Phrenology and an atlas of the Ancient Roman empire.
Everyone began to search for anything that might contain a reference to the creature described by the German airmen. It was slow going at first, with many false leads, but eventually Anna located a book that could be of interest called De Vermis Mysteriis, written by a Ludwig Prinn in 1542. Her knowledge of Latin allowed her to translate the title, which meant "of the mysteries of the worm," and the creature might possibly be considered worm-like. She was disappointed to discover that the copy of the book that the British Museum had in its collection was a later German translation from 1587. However, Benjamin knew German inside and out, it being his native tongue, and he was able to translate for those who did not know it.
From looking through the book, it quickly became apparent that Prinn was a madman who fancied himself a sorcerer. Much of the book detailed his travels throughout Europe and beyond, including Egypt. It was in the land of Egypt where he described an encounter he had one night with a creature the translator dubbed a Jaegerschreck. He describes it is being a huge serpentine monster about fifty feet long, with a single large wing and far too many teeth, capable of flight. He only survived, according to him, due to his mastery of the arcane. He was able to conjure a ball of flame that he held in his hand which kept it at bay until dawn approached, at which point the beast fled. He speculated that it was the light rather than the fire that it feared, due to the fact that it was the imminent sunrise that caused it to turn tail and fly away. His further studies determined that it was a servitor of a deity he called Nyarlathotep, who went by many guises such as the Egyptian god Thoth. The Jaegerschreck was not only afraid of light, it was vulnerable to it. An intense enough light could cause damage to it, and sunlight would most likely instantly disintegrate it.
Story,[b]Story[/b] began to look through the book, his Time Lord's mind able to speedread and comprehend the relevant contents much faster than a mere human could. Elsewhere in the book, Ludwig Prinn detailed a ritual that would open a transdimensional portal to bring a [i]Jaegerschreck[/i] into this world from its native one and bind it to the summoner's will - unless something went wrong, which he gathered was not an entirely unusual occurrence. The ritual mentioned that such a summoning required a human sacrifice. The sorcerer did not need to kill the victim personally. Rather, the creature would perform the killing upon arrival and then follow the sorcerer's commands. The victim merely needed to be present and indicated by the summoner. If there was no victim prepared, the creature would turn on the one who had called It forth instead (also not an entirely unusual occurrence). Prinn also mentioned that it was possible to banish a [i]Jaegerschreck[/i] simply by reversing the ritual, which would send it back whence it came, which Prinn points out could be useful in the event that one of these creatures is trying to eat one's face. This would take a lot less time than the summoning ritual, and it would not require a sacrifice, but it would still take a toll on the psyche. [b]Story[/b] was now confident that he could summon or banish one of these monsters himself.
OOC,Everyone may roll Idea to try to think of where you might find a very bright light.
"Jaegerschreck a servitor of Nyarlathotep..."Story runs his hand through his hair and continues thinking out loud, "Yes, yes, if we could get a large enough source of light to somehow capture or incapacitate it we could then banish it."
