IC: Chapter 1 - NEW YORK, Starts 12th Jan 1925

[Raiko]

The random passer-by gives Johnny one of those 'we don't like strangers in these parts' type looks, but does manage to recommend the Miskatonic Hotel and provide directions to get to College Street, before he walks briskly away.

[Grafster]

Johnny affably thanks the stranger's departing back, hefts his bag and leads the group off to the hotel.

[Raiko]

Miskatonic Hotel - West College Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
5:30pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

It takes fifteen minutes to walk to the Miskatonic Hotel; the route takes the investigators back across the river and around the university campus. By the time they arrive at the hotel the last rays of sunlight are gone, the streets of Arkham are eerily quiet after dark, nothing at all like the bustling streets of a Manhattan evening.

The Miskatonic Hotel itself is a multi-storey building, constructed from red brick, it appears to be the tallest building in this small city, with the possible exception of the lofty spires of some of the churches.

Inside it's homely enough; though certainly not as grand as the Parker House in Boston, it's still far superior to the dilapidated East Side hotels that Maksim frequented with his brother only a week ago.

There are three adjacent rooms available of the ninth floor, with a view of the university campus and the Miskatonic River.

After quickly settling into the rooms, a couple of short phone calls reveal that Professor Cowles is back at his house on Pickman Street, only a few blocks away. He hasn't prepared dinner yet, and would be delighted if you could all join him.

[Grafster]

Johnny finishes inspecting the street outside from the window of the magnificent old building. He eyes a comfortable looking easy chair in Miss Downing's room where the group is gathered but remains perched on his cane.

"Perhaps we should see the professor while he is available? He didn't seem intimately acquainted with Jackson, but perhaps we can tell him more about the things we've discovered and it will jog something in his memory.

I'm not sure what his Australian bat cult has to do with those butchers in New York; but Elias surely thought they were related. I do not think he would have gone to see the seminar the night before his death otherwise."

[imme]

"Yes, let's join him for dinner. Besides, we'll need to eat and this town doesn't look like it has much in the way of fine eating establishments." Elizabeth gives each member of the group an appraising look. "Perhaps we should all freshen up before we head over."

[Raiko]

Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
6:15pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

Once everyone has freshened up it takes only ten minutes to walk from the Miskatonic Hotel to the professor's house on Pickman Street.

The house itself is a well maintained bungalow with a small garden at the front, located between West and Garrison. Your knock on the front door is answered by a beautiful young lady with long blond hair and a figure to die for.

A delicious aroma of roast meat drifts out of the doorway. The young lady who you guess probably about twenty speaks with an Australian twang, "Hi you must be dad's friends; come in he's expecting you."

She smiles, "I'm Ewa. I hope you're all hungry."

[Grafster]

Johnny tips his hat as he passes into the house, stomach audibly rumbling. He as the others meet and greet he casually slips to a window, surveying the street outside the house.

[Raiko]

Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
7:30pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

Professor Anthony Cowles is a stocky, flamboyantly dressed man, with bright red hair and a bushy beard. Both he and his daughter are excellent hosts, although the professor is rather eccentric, who are delighted to have you all as dinner guests. He insists that you all call him Anthony. His daughter Ewa is quite obviously very attracted to the handsome Maksim Rukov, she blushes slightly every time the Russian mercenary speaks, and giggles at anthing humorous that he says.

After a little small talk the meal is ready - a large joint of roast beef, complete with heaps of vegetables. After checking that nobody present is a prohibition agent, the Professor goes down into his basement and returns with two bottles of wine.

Anthony talks a lot. Once he gets going on a subject it's difficult to get a word in edgeways, he spends a lot of time discussing the main points of his lecture again, without actually going into any more detail, although he takes the opportunity after you've all eaten to show you all the slides of Arthur MacWhirr's discovery.

He also enquires about Jackson Elias; since his earlier conversation with Johnny, Anthony has read about Jackson's dreadful murder in the newspapers, and also realises that his house guests are most certainly the friends of Jackson Elias that are mentioned in some of the newspaper reports. He is most interested in hearing how you think Jackson's murder in New York could possibly relate to his lecture on a death cult in the Australian outback.

Main Points of Prof Anthony Cowles’ NYU Lecture

ONE

A bat cult once existed among the Aboriginals of Australia. It was known across the Continent, and the god of the cult was always known as the Father of All Bats. Adherents believed that by making human sacrifices to their god they themselves would become worthy enough that the Father of All Bats would appear to them. Once he was enticed to appear, he would conquer all men. Sacrifices were run through a gauntlet of worshipers who struck the victims with clubs embedded with the sharp teeth of bats. The teeth were coated with a substance derived from rabid bats. The poison was quick-acting, but victims apparently went mad before they died. Leaders of the cult reputedly could take the forms of bat-winged snakes, enabling them to steal sacrifices from across the land.

Cowles believes that this cult became dormant or extinct hundreds of years ago. Its former existence is the reason that he became interested in Jackson Elias’ books about present-day cults.

TWO

An Aboriginal song cycle mentions a place where enormous beings gathered, somewhere in the west of Australia, The songs say that these gods, who were not at all like men, built great sleeping walls and dug great caves. But living winds blew down the gods and overthrew them, destroying their camp. When this happened, the way was open for the Father of All Bats, who came into the land, and grew strong.

THREE

Cowles shows the investigators a set of four over-exposed glass slides. Each shows a few sweating men standing beside enormous blocks of Stone, pitted and eroded but clearly dressed and formed for architectural purposes. Dim carvings seem to decorate some. Billows of sand are everywhere. Though he did not bring the book with him, Cowles says that the discoverer, one Arthur MacWhirr of Port Hedland, kept a diary in which he records several attacks on the party by Aboriginals. MacWhirr reportedly records deaths to victims from hundreds of small punctures, reminiscent of the earlier bat-cult.

FOUR.

Cowles tells finally of a tale he collected from near the Arafura Sea in northern Australia. In it Sand Bat, or Father of All Bats, has a battle of wits with Rainbow Snake, the Aboriginal deification of water and the patron of life. Rainbow Snake succeeds in tricking and trapping Sand Bat and his clan into the depths of a watery place from which Sand Bat can only complain and is unable to return to trouble the people.

[Maksim Rukov]

Maksim seems more distracted by Ewa then the lecture notes. In his paranoid, dark mood, he can't help but wonder if she's taking the mickey and queries less and less, until he simply stares at his hands, his thoughts on Timour. Finally, he abruptly stands, rubbing his chin, staring at the roast. "Yeah, I, um... I remembered ... I ... left something in the car. Sorry." He looked around, his cheeks burning, and he turned to walk away. "Sorry." He draws his sleeve across his eyes the moment he's outside and leans against the wall, sniffing strongly to keep from weeping.

[Raiko]

Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
7:35pm - Monday 19th January, 1925


Maksim's hasty exit brings the discussions around the dinner table to an abrupt halt. Poor Ewa doesn't seem to know which way to turn, her face goes bright red and she seems torn between following Maksim out of the room and hiding herself.

Opting for the latter she mumbles an excuse and dashes into the kitchen, pulling the door to behind her.

Anthony doesn't know what's going on. Stopped in mid flow discussing a particularly grainy slide of what might be an ancient sandstone column, he sits open mouthed waiting for somebody to speak.

[Decrepit]

"Do go on, Professor," Caroline says. "Our friend has, well, had a rather severe shock, and it seems that the best thing we can do for him right now is to give him some time to try to recover as best he can."

[Raiko]

Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
7:40pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

"Oh, ok..."

"Yes, I suppose that you've all had a traumatic time recently."

Anthony resumes discussing the grainy slides, he says that MacWhirr's diary claimed that the pitting indicated that the pillars must be at least ten thousand years old, which would mean that the buried city pre-dated any other recorded civilisation.

MacWhirr's diary is unfortunately currently in Anthony's house in Sydney, Anthony says that he'll be returning to Australia when his fellowship ends in seven months time, and that you are all welcome to have a look, "If you happen to be in the area."

After a few minutes Ewa returns to the room, "I could do with some fresh-air dad, and I already know all about your lecture. So I thought I'd go out for a walk."

She heads for the door.

[Decrepit]

Caroline is torn between wanting to go with the young woman and wondering whether she was acting on a pretext to look in on Maksim. Caroline had no problems with the latter, but she was a bit worried about the girl going out alone, given the trouble that seemed to follow the group.

"Would you like some company?" she finally offers, noncommittal.

[Raiko]

"If you like," replies Ewa, equally noncommittal.

She opens the door to leave.

[Decrepit]

"Well, all right then," Caroline says, "I'll join you." A foreboding washed over her, but she fought it down.

[Grafster]

Johnny looks up, "If you're going out in this weather you'd best take a warm scarf. I'll get you mine."

He slips to his feet and works his way past the doctor and out into the hall. He returns with Caroline's coat as well as a ratty old scarf. As she puts on the coat Caroline may notice a heavy object in one of the pockets.
"I'm sure things will be fine in a nice quiet town like this one; but perhaps you shouldn't walk too far off. It could start snowing again."

Johnny returns to the room, sitting down with the professor and Miss Downing.

At some point he takes a moment to bring up a delicate conversation topic "If I understand correctly, it sounds like there is evidence that this Bat-religion is still being practiced... Seems remarkable in the modern world. I don't suppose there is evidence of -other- religions. Old ones. Being practiced, I mean. These so called "voodoo murders" make one think."

[Raiko]

Outside Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
7:40pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

...Maksim is snapped out of his contemplation when the door of the bungalow opens. The beautiful Ewa Cowles steps outside, followed by Caroline. Both are dressed for the cold.

OOC: I'll let you both post before Ewa speaks.



Inside Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
7:40pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

At some point he takes a moment to bring up a delicate conversation topic "If I understand correctly, it sounds like there is evidence that this Bat-religion is still being practiced... Seems remarkable in the modern world. I don't suppose there is evidence of -other- religions. Old ones. Being practiced, I mean. These so called "voodoo murders" make one think."

Professor Cowles' eyes light up, clearly this the kind of thing that he loves to discuss.

"Well, there's not all that much in the way of real evidence, but there are certainly dark rumours of a wide variety of such cults around the world."

"Indeed that's what interested me in the books that your friend Jackson Elias wrote in the first place. Although he never found evidence to support the superstitions, he did expose several conmen and murderers who used such superstition for their own evil ends."

"I expect that the voodoo murders, the Carlyle expedition massacre and the events surrounding Arthur MacWhirr's expedition are all much the same thing: Some unscupilous individual reviving an old religion as a cover for their nefarious activities. I once studied a copy of the Pnakotic Manuscipts, a quite dreadful collection of writings, most copies have long since been destroyed. Anyway these Manuscripts are extemely old, and claim to be translations of even more ancient texts. They discuss several ancient and twisted deities, the Sand Bat amongst them. It would be easy for a suitably charismatic conman to use such texts in order to 'revive' these religions, particularly amongst primitive societies. Unfortunately the University of Sydney's copy of The Pnakotic Manuscripts was stolen several years ago."

Anthony shakes his head sadly, "I'm quite sure that Jackson must have found some connection between this New York voodoo cult, and their allies in Africa - smuggling most likely, and paid for it with his life."

"These 'ancient death cults' must make excellent cover for smugglers and bootleggers. There's nothing like a bit of the supernatural to encourage the inquisitive to keep their noses out."

"If Jackson did attend my lecture, then I do wish he'd spoken to me. Perhaps he'd discovered a link between the cults in Africa, in New York and the Sand Bat cult in Australia, but I'm afraid that whatever link he may have found has almost certainly died with him."

[Maksim Rukov]

Maksim draws up his collar, draws his bowler hat down a little over his forehead, shoves his hands into his pockets and walks for the car.

[Grafster]

Johnny's face takes on a relaxed, almost euphoric, glow as the Professor continues to speak.

"Of... course... you're completely right Professor. That's exactly what's happening. Smugglers and conmen taking advantage of gullible immigrants. I've saw the very thing in San Francisco when I was on the force. It's just what's happening here. Quite right. Covering up a smuggling operation or the like. It's the only sensible explanation."

Much rejuvenated, positively gleeful, Johnny leans forward. "Can you tell us anything else about this 'bat-gang'? Obviously we're not anthropologists but I've some experience with immigrant gangs and smuggling and we've access to some of Elias' notes. We don't understand all of it, you may be able to help shed light on some of it."

[Raiko]

Outside Professor Cowles' Bungalow - Pickman Street, Arkham, Massachusetts
7:40pm - Monday 19th January, 1925

As Maksim starts to walk away, Ewa calls out, "We're going for a walk in the university grounds Mister Rukov! Would you like to join us? I love to walk in the snow."

Ewa looks hopeful, and genuine.


OOC: Laraqua, there isn't a car here (you arrived in Arkham by train). I assume Maksim was still walking away from Ewa & Caroline though.