Tom Holub’s Recollection of Events (With slight ammendments.)
The investigators are outside the St. Francis
hotel, amid the chaos of guests fleeing a supposed fire. Pat O’Hara is there
with his partner Walter Gregory, the red-faced cop who was tailing the
investigators for the Vigilantes. Hector Gonzalez has been taken into custody
and will be held for several days at least.
The four exhausted protagonists check into
another hotel and lay out the items from the black bag, presumably Gonzalez’s,
found in Jake Luzinsky’s car: a bell, a vial of the “black lotus”, a ceremonial
dagger, and a leather pouch containing a metal toad figurine that is either a
pipe or a whistle. Dr. Marsh sounds a wheezy note through the toad and Sophie
shrieks in alarm, scanning the air for eldritch manifestations.
After a few hours of sleep the group wakes on
the morning of Friday, September 16. Sarah remarks that she did not have one of
the terrifying dreams she’s become almost resigned to. She and Sophie speculate
as to the reason for their surcease.
The women take room service and recommence study
of the materials obtained from the Chapel of Contemplation mausoleum and the
domicile of poor, doomed Father Kolvenbach. Moving back and forth between the
weird old tomes and Kolvenbach’s notes, they start to piece together the
dangerous spells and rituals with which the priest tried to confront Drood.
Also of alarming note: the oft-heard name “St. Toad” is a sobriquet for
Tsathoggua, a dread, nebulous supernatural monstrosity.
Dr. Marsh, accepting that his trusty sidearm is
no match for the malformed beasts Gonzalez controls, develops something of a
mania for heavy explosives. He begins working his own brand of TNT. This first
essay, at least, comes up short. Likewise, Tom’s attempt to contact Finn, an
Irish freedom-fighter known to traffic in explosives, reaches a dead end.
With the Finn lead run cold, Tom takes advantage
of Gonzalez’s imprisonment to break into the shack on Red Rock Hill. Inside a
locked and shuttered room he finds a dread altar bearing a telltale
herpetological specimen and a sheaf of pages titled “Diary of Charles Aaron Drood”.
This incomplete document relates Drood’s first arrival in America, his journey
to California, and his ascent to power within the ranks of the Chapel. Drood’s
true identity as Chester Allen Drury is confirmed within, as well as the
presence of English occultists Macgregor of Liverpool and his apprentice Silas
Creed, operating sub rosa as members of the Chapel.
Drood/Drury’s diary also contains a map of San
Francisco criss-crossed with exactly the ley lines that Sarah has all along
insisted underpin the mystical geography of this metropolis. Also learned:
Drood’s plan necessitated his own death and burial in a special tomb
constructed by the Gray’s. And: Drood was apparently experimenting with the
means to “…take what I need from many persons” and “…to control the actions of
any person” in 1887.
The morning of Saturday, September 17, Sophie
and Tom check in with Leland Cort, who encourages them to attend a meeting of
the Vigilantes at the Blue Fox in the evening. When asked, he owes that the
excavation at Laurel Hill Cemetery has halted over the weekend.
Later that day, the investigators learn that
Gonzalez has simply vanished from his cell, his whereabouts unknown.
Approaching the Blue Fox at night, all is
clearly not well. Sirens bounce off the walls and smoke pours from the alley
between the speak and the Hall of Justice. Dr. Marsh spots Jessie Cook’s
unconscious form on the sidewalk and rallies the others to get him to the car
for medical attention. It’s at just this inopportune moment that Gregory Walter
appears and summarily nabs the group under the foul insinuation that some sort
of abduction is taking place.
Playing the role of fear-blind authoritarian to
the hilt, Walter holds the investigators in cells overnight, letting slip only
that Pat O’Hara and four other Vigilantes died in the conflagration at the Fox.
Come Sunday morning, their liberty restored,
Sophie, Sarah, Tom and Howard head straight to Jessie Cook’s hospital room.
They learn that the surviving Gray brother has increased security at his
mansion. This seems a possible, if decidedly deadly, place to find Gonzalez,
who was no doubt behind the attack at the Fox. The talk with Cook also reminds
the investigators that they never did get around to pursuing an audience with
Eric Ralston.
In his bone-white mask, Ralston confirms for
Sophie, Sarah and Tom much of what the investigators already suspected: Older
and younger Gonzalezes were members of the Chapel, appearing incognito at
select rituals in the roles of “Watcher” and “Mason” respectively. Ralston also
speculates Red Rock Hill as the possible site of Drood’s true interment--Chapel
brothers had let on that his body was never given to “The Burrowers”.
Also on this day of rest, Dr. Marsh lunches with
a friend from the war, from whom he’s able to procure dynamite sufficient for
the group’s needs.
A return to the Gray brothers’ old quarry on Red
Rock Hill seems in order. One can only hope that the pairing of modern
explosives and ancient occult lore will provide some defense, however unlikely,
against whatever terrors slumber within that craggy mass.
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