First of all, let’s remind ourselves who is where:

At Waterloo Underground Station: Flaxton, Revell, Radshaw

At King’s Dulcarnain: Crannog, Genevieve, Meridian, Selkirk, Albrecht, Dawn, and newly arrived Magda, Redvers-Ainderbury, and Emmanuelle.

At the Club’s library base in Harrogate: Qayrawun, Zany, Aveyard

In London doing research: Angherad

All clear? Then let us proceed.

In the presence of the Railway Police, Revell opens the door into the office of missing Station Controller Daniel St Clement.

A little research has revealed that it was St Clement who complained to Walter Fennell (the man who called the Club in) about the lack of chocolate bars at his favourite vending machine. Fenell is responsible for restocking the cigarette and chocolate machines at the station from supplies sent by the manufacturers, although he does not have access to their cashboxes which are emptied weekly by representatives of the companies. It is evident from talking with the companies and with Fenell that no company actually claimed the missing machines, none of their employees remember maintaining or emptying them, and even Fenell cannot remember what kind of chocolate bars he put in there – only that they were very good and everybody liked them. He has been doing this job for twenty-four years.

When the MHC get inside St Clement’s office it is clear that he isn’t there. Things look to be in good order, but he hasn’t changed his calendar from 24^th June. His last diary appointment was a meeting in his office on that day at 10.20am with a Mr Nocaut. Nobody saw the meeting, but that is not unusual given the location of the office.

A search of St Clement’s desk also turns up a half-eaten Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate bar. It and its wrapper have a dweomer of magic and the chocolate itself detects as good. No other discarded wrappers are found anywhere in the station area.

A check on chocolate machines in adjacent stations have indicated nothing remarkable. However, a number of passengers have complained about the missing chocolate machines on the platforms at Waterloo, citing the Waterloo chocolate as being "especially tasty". These people do not detect as good, evil, or magical. They do detect as alive. The same is true for station personnel.

The remainder of the evening and the morning of the 27^th are spent following up the forensic evidence of the missing machines and the sundered track. An eleven-inch handspan is larger than typical human (measure your own hand from thumb to smallest fingertip). The machines appear to have been wrenched off the wall almost straight but slightly up, suggesting something perhaps ten or twelve feet tall doing the wrenching. It is not possible to say in what order the machines were taken, but it did happen in a fairly short time, just a few minutes, and at times when at least a few passengers should have been there to see it. Nobody has reported seeing anything, even the maintenance staff who are fighting a constant war against the graffiti-artists on the London Underground.

The rails are due to be replaced on the 27^th, since losing one track is significantly disrupting the schedules. Not only the third rail but all three rails were sunk into the earth.

A little research into the ley alignments theory proposed by Radshaw throws up one similar instance of electrical variations on railway lines, the Case of the Railway Sentience, a lifeform which used the railway systems as its cerebral cortex. This entity was actually resident at Chillwater Street in a model railway created for the purpose for a long time before being claimed by the Morrigan. Before people get too paranoid the waveform on these electrical variations was slightly different to that of the Railway Sentience (which was latterly well disposed to the MHC anyway).

The Club has encountered a number of "lurkers beneath London" over the years, from a now-dead Morkoth up the now-covered Fleet River to the Great Titan Lud who is imprisoned beneath the city named for him. London is a very old city and holds many secrets.

Work at restoring the rail-line stops at 11.11am on 27^th June when workmen digging out the loosened ground where the rails vanished unearth a mangled giant hand and arm sinking down into the bedrock. The skin is black-red, the fingernails of iron, and the handspan eleven inches. It reeks of evil. A little research from Flaxton identifies it as probably belonging to a Pit Fiend – a very, very dead Pit Fiend!

Angherad ap Griffeths travels to the Land Registry to get a description of "Lucard Nohaut". A determined Welshwoman with a whispering six-foot runestaff topped by a skull gets amazing results sometimes, and she is able to get a good account of the gentleman. He seemed about sixty years old, five foot eleven, clean-shaven, with silver hair slicked back to reveal widow’s peaks. He spoke with a slight European accent, perhaps French or Swiss. Staff here were very, very eager to aid him in any way, and only become helpful to Angherad when she intimates that she is his assistant.

Mr Nocaut does not match Radshaw’s description of the man in tweeds. He does match the description of Compte Ettienne Fauçonburg, Genevieve’s estranged husband.

A review of the case-notes in the Finchley Poltergeist Case proves interesting. The family consists of:

• Mr David Stankey, 39, a bus conductor
• Mrs Maureen Stankey, 36, a housewife
• Miss Deborah Stankey, 13
• Master Roland Stankey, 11
• Mr Furry, 11, a cat

The Club were contacted on 17^th June by Mr Stankey after attempts to get rehoused by the council proved useless and the local vicar expressed his theological opposition to the existence of poltergeists.

A number of Monster Hunters identify the recurrent XX xxiiii inscription with the passage in the Biblical book of Exodus, chapter twenty, verse twenty-four, one of the ten commandments: "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery". Bearing this in mind a re-evaluation of the evidence suggests a concentration of poltergeist effects centred against Mrs Stankey, in particular regarding the placement of pins in her clothing. The recurrent crown graffiti motif however seems centred upon Deborah.

The Operating Team investigating did note the tension between the adults of the house, often a common prerequisite of poltergeist cases. The children seemed acutely aware that something was wrong between their parents but could not understand what it might be. David Stankey’s brother Ben was a frequent visitor trying to "sort out" the bizarre things which were going on and the situation between the adult Stankeys. No direct connection between chocolate or Waterloo station seems evident from previous casenotes.

Temple Fortune Hill is reputed to mark the site of a Roman temple (allegedly to Fortuna, but that may well be later accretion). Meole is an old word meaning "meander". Locating any appearing vehicle engines would require Monster Hunters to return to the area and look.

A telegram enquiring about further poltergeist phenomenon after the operations team departed has so far gone unanswered.

Qayrawun corresponds with Angherad on the Cult of Mithras. Mithras was originally a Persian sun-deity, whose totem animal was the bull. Mithras is often depicted slaying a bull in combat. His worship became popular in the Roman Empire in the first to third centuries AD, especially amongst the military. He was worshipped only by males, and his holy places were caves or underground chambers. Several examples have been found in Britain. There were mason-like grades of Mithras-worshippers. No theological or religious Mithraic texts survive, an the cult itself was suppressed in the early Roman Christian period.

Qayrawun also checks what drove Monster Hunter Gareth McGuffie insane at the time he was daubing crowns on the walls of his cell. He discovers that the incident occurred in 1912 (not, as has previously been erroneously reported, 1094/5). In #643, The Case of the Dunwich Horror, McGuffie unwisely consulted the Necronomicon, the Book of Dead Names, to assist with the investigation. This transformed McGuffie into a psychopathic killer, but McGuffie feigned kleptomania to keep the Club from suspecting the truth. The reality was exposed in #657, The Case of the Purloined President. Seeking to recover Count Pietr Romanoff, then Club-President, from Czarist Russia, the group attempted to kidnap the Russian Ambassador. McGuffie instead murdered the ambassador. Things went from bad to worse and in #658, Romanoff’s End, Romanoff and his son both died at the hands of Rasputin and the Club faced murder charges. In #659, The Case of the Adventure’s Aftermath, Gareth was found to have acted alone in the matter of the murder and was institutionalised (it is at this point that he was inscribing crowns). The Club revised its own operating procedures, including introducing the three-case probationary membership and expelling another of its members. In #660, The Case of the Once and Future Gareth, the insane McGuffie escaped from incarceration having been infused with the spirit of his Arthurian ancestor Sir Gareth of Orkney, assisted the Club to overcome the Morgana le Fey-spawned Spirit of Vengeance, and was proclaimed sane and eventually allowed to rejoin the Club.

Aveyard is contacted by one of the barmaids at Revell’s Harrogate pub. She reports bar talk about "a haunted post office." A quick check indicates that the Harrogate Central Post Office (the nearest post office to Radshaw’s pillar box) has indeed been plagued with alleged strange thumpings and moanings for the past three days.

Work on analysing a pattern between the various Horne-owned properties will require a good deal more time and man-power before such a wide survey can be completed.

A trawl of the Rogues Gallery reveals several former adversaries who used druidical abilities, but none who are known to still be active. The Club do have tentative contact with a genuine nymph, Galeili Worldsedge of Lammermuir Forest, who may be able to advise more if somebody travels to Scotland to see her.

Just as divers are about to give up on the evening of the 26^th they recover the engine-block from Radshaw’s vehicle in the same body of water that the rest of the car was found.

Tanzania Quilp is kept busy with a lot of analysis. First a microscope investigation of the sheet of stamps and any other Club mail to locate the two missing stamps takes a lot of time. Nearly everybody who writes to the Club will use a second-class penny stamp. A close check of the mail by Qayrawun locates no less than twenty-seven similar stamps today alone. The usual checks for traps do not uncover any.

Then Zany starts on the dead seagull from the King’s Dulcarnain shore. It is clear that the seagull has indeed been eating frog, of the same type said to have showered the Anglian village. Zany determines that the cause of death of the gull is Energy Drain. The cause of death of the frogs is seagull.

Weary but determined, Zany carries on to look at the sample of "special" sent by Albrecht. I am assuming that the bottle with the rag in has also been sent to Harrogate for analysis. Miss Quilp’s initial visual inspection suggests that the liquid within is alcohol of the same kind as "special". A quick check to verify Albrecht’s assertion that the drink is evil determines that not only are both samples evil, but every alcohol-based liquid in Zany’s laboratory is also evil. Then they shatter out of their containers and surge towards the surprised alchemist…

The evils of strong drink are also evident here. As the Club gather at the George and Dragon for an evening’s research it becomes clear that now not only the "special" but all alcohol in the vicinity is tainted with a dweomer of evil. This includes the drink the Club brought with them in hip-flasks and suchlike, and also all Magda’s alcohol-based potions. Detect Life isn’t possible (unless I’m mistaken that only Flaxton of the existing team can do it) but Redvers-Ainderbury feels that drinking any of this stuff would be a damned bad idea.

That’s not stopping the locals though, and as they quaff they become residually evil. Albrecht hits the entire pub with a series of Purify Food and Drink spells and Dawn discovers that Bless mitigates the effects of the alcohol on people. In both cases the casters feel resistance to the spell which is not usual [i.e. they had to make percentile rolls to see if it worked].

Dawn retains a sample and intends to do a more through investigation of it when she has recovered spells in the morning. In the meantime it can sit there in that magic restraining circle.

While the clerical contingent is dealing with this, Emmanuelle, Genevieve, and Magda were variously exerting their charms on poor PC Cundy (a temperancer) and checking on the mysterious Mr Smith and Mr Jones. Mr Smith is short and well-dressed with a nasty smile and a gold tooth. Mr Jones is large and his suit doesn’t quite fit him. He wears many sharp rings. Mr Bellnichol appears quite unhappy to see them, and partway through the evening he slips out of the pub with them and takes them to see the damaged barn. They return with Mr Bellnichol looking even more disturbed and limping, and the landlord retires early with a headache. He leaves orders for a lot of his stock to be stacked up in the morning ready for shifting.

PC Cundy is concerned to hear that Mr Mummer is not answering his door. He agrees to have a stroll along tonight, and to force an entry if there’s no answer in the morning. Mr Mummer (52) is a lifelong resident of King’s Dulcarnain, although he did study at Oxford and serve time in the 1^st Anglian Regiment long ago. He lived with his mother in the same house until her death four years since.

Cundy is happy to describe the gentleman in tweeds, and his description is close to that of Radshaw’s encounter. He saw the tweed man on the morning after the storm, which was when everyone was talking about the frogfall. This was the day before Radshaw’s postal encounter.

Magda’s evening stroll around the area helps her to clarify the geography. The main street of modern King’s Dulcarnain runs east-west, terminating in the cliff where the rest of old King’s Dulcarnain has vanished. The Horne barn is about half a mile southward along the cliff’s edge, and Chalfont Didbury is another five miles south and slightly inland. Magda’s arcane detections suggest that the residual evil effect is linked with the consumption of alcohol. She cannot discern any curses in the area. She cannot see any oak trees, but this is not uncommon in the bleak flat Norfolk landscape.

Selkirk’s calculations posit a summer solstice dawn alignment with the barn lintel.

It is Emmanuelle’s view that this area is actually not very good for smuggling, given the lack of alternate ways of bringing goods up from the sea. All PC Cundy should have to do is watch the wooden staircase to catch the smugglers.

Given Mr Bellnichol’s indisposition Genevieve cannot interview him on Morris Dancing, but the rest of the team will happily fight to the death for a chance to explain it all to her. The team is an old one, and last performed at the Midsummer’s Day festivities on 23^rd June in Norwich. Mr Bellnichol is their trainer and plays the accordion. When they dress the parts for the old plays he takes the role of the Fool (other roles include the Knight, the Saracen, the Maiden, the Doctor, and the Dragon). The King’s Men practise every Monday night.

Walter Wode does not appear at the public house this evening and his absence is commented on.

The evening ends with Meridian and Selkirk staying up to endlessly discuss theories about the evil alcohol, toads in stones, and other aspects of the care. They agree that Rock to Mud would get the toad inside the stone, providing the stone was in a box to hold the sloppy mud in shape (but that would leave surface marks which are not present). Standard Sepia Snake Sigil would not preserve the toad since the Sigil leaves a sepia block of force around the subject which would prevent a toad imprint.

Crannog completes his mapping of frogfall, which suggests a triangular formation, beginning narrowly over the sea then coming North-west over the Horne barn and widening to cover the village proper before stopping some half-mile beyond Main Street. He uses the Bus laboratory to make his own examination of a dead gull and notes that this gull’s claws are coated with a dried ichor-like substance.

Genevieve and Emmanuelle have their long-awaited girl talk. Emmanuelle is the older of the two, and she is the child of international jewel-thief Gaston leClaire and his beloved wife who died young of pneumonia in the late 1920’s. Emmanuelle was raised by foster-parents and developed a natural aptitude for dance. Her father also taught her certain skills when he made his infrequent appearances to look in on her. Her foster-parents died during the Nazi occupation of France and Emmanuelle has been tracking Nazi war criminals since then.

Genevieve knows nothing of her parentage, but was adopted before she was three by Count Ettiene Fauçonburg, who made her his ward, paid for her to have expensive schooling, and somehow arranged for her to be trained by the classical Muses in dance magic. Thereafter Fauçonburg launched Genevieve’s terpsichorean career and married her. Their marriage remained unconsummated (and still is). The MHC later learned that Fauçonburg was preparing his wife as the sacrifice in some lower-planar bargain and rescued her from his power. However, even now Genevieve is gaesed to absolutely obey everything her husband tells her.

Later the Club discovered that Fauçonburg was the latest shell body of an ancient and evil entity who once possessed the legendary Bluebeard and was seeking to corrupt and control the Western Mystical Tradition. Eventually Fauçonburg was thwarted and defeated and finally absorbed into the demiplane of dread, Ravenloft (players of the previous internet scenario may recall this place as now being the domain of Chia Caranques los Llanos, la Belle Dame Sans Merci, Jimmy Maxtible’s ex-wife and herself hardly a friend to the Club). Fauçonburg has not been heard of since.

Redvers-Ainderbury keeps watch on the sleeping Monster Hunters overnight but nothing untoward occurs as far as he knows.

In the morning the Operations team split three ways. Dawn and Magda take a closer look at the demon drink. Meridian, Crannog, and R-A accompany Cundy to the Mummer house. Emmanuelle. Genevieve, Selkirk, and Albrecht visit the Chalfont Didbury church.

The quiet village of Chalfont Didbury is five miles and a world away from the bleak and sinister King’s Dulcarnain. There is a pleasant teashop and a beautifully-kept churchyard, and nobody and nothing detects as evil. The MHC have no problem finding the Horne tomb, and can even take brass-rubbings of its fine plate with its crown motif and its Latin inscription which translates: Blessed is the Man who Holds the Hallows.

Albrecht takes a look from the top of the church-tower and tries to piece together the land as it might have been centuries ago before erosion claimed so much coastline. According to Angherhad’s research and a useful pamphlet from the Chalfont Didbury Historical Society King’s Dulcarnain once occupied a promontory forming a natural lee harbour. Great storms in the sixteenth century claimed much of the headland and by the eighteenth century the once-wealthy town was a mere hollow shell of its former glory. Some say the church bells still ring beneath the waves. Divers have recovered slates and utensils from the sunken town. Angherad was unable to discover anything special that happened in 1871 other than the Horne death already known about and local research turns nothing up either.

Redvers-Ainderbury helps Constable Cundy force the door to Mr Mummer’s house. It is clear that the place has been ransacked. There is a foul oily smell of burned flesh and waxy residue on the ceilings. A charred patch of library carpet with a few sad ashes on it suggest that a human life has been taken by fire. What is unclear is why that person might have been standing well away from furniture in the middle of a room while they were burned to death. Given the accumulation of dust it is clear that nobody has been alive in the house for several days.

Meridian, who has triggered his Detect Extraplanar Activity spell before entering the building (as well as summoning an Unseen Servant) detects a residual extraplanar portal to the Abyss.

Then the radio crackles to life. It’s Dawn, who has completed her investigation of the evil alcohol. "We should have guessed!" she warns the Operating Team. "We’ve seen this before. We’ve fought this before." Then she tells them what it is the Club is facing here.

So over to the players for their comments and questions. What the DM wants to know from the Monster Hunters is:

• What is it that Dawn has worked out? (5xps for the first right answer posted)
• What does Zany do next?
• What does the Waterloo team do with the buried hand (and attached bits)?
• What does the Harrogate team do about the haunted Post Office?
• What about the Finchley Poltergeist?
• What does the group at the Mummer house do next?

All responses gratefully received by Thursday 15^th February, and I’ll attempt an answer at the weekend. I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to do replies but this chapter took about five hours to do, for example.