Monday, May 24th, 1920. The party travels to Egypt to join an expedition lead by one of Armitage’s associates Prof. Lawrence Greyson. The temple of Bast was built by a very mysterious order of dedicated followers said to have hidden some great and powerful artifacts and secrets. The investigation society wants them to fully investigate what they may learn about the followers of Bast, who disappeared from history around the late middle ages/early renaissance.
Two weeks travel to Egypt by ship, plus two weeks R&R. They spend a few days in Barcelona, a few days in Rome, a few days in Athens, then straight to Cairo, where they ride some camels and take pictures in front of the pyramids at Giza.
Later they travel up the Nile to the newly discovered Temple of Bast. It’s marked by a stone sphinx in the desert a ways up. When they investigate the oasis Sade is attacked by a nile crocodile that bites her leg. Tony fills it full of lead from his tommygun.
At the Temple of Bast, they see an Elder Sign on the entrance to the temple under the stone sphinx. They find a secret entrance that slides open. Upon entering a large stone falls down revealing a great shaft up to the sky (through which sunlight enters the chamber below)
The room down at the bottom of the shaft has a map of stars on the floor, along with many snakes. Toni is lowered down and disperses the snakes with a torch. At high noon, the sun reflects onto the jewels on the floor and walls showing the location of the Necropolis of Nephren-Ka, a mysterious pharaoh little is written about. Later Prof. Greyson learns that Nephren-Ka was wiped from the history books by his successors and only the very secretive sect of Bast were said to know the location of his tomb.
Through double doors a long stone bridge crosses a chasm. There’s a sheer drop on either side. A voice speaks from the darkness. When illuminated they find it is a sphinx sitting on a platform in the darkness. It asks riddles of each crosser, and those that fail are knocked into the bottomless blackness by a hideous roar from the sphinx. Madeline and Prof. Lawrence are hurled into the darkness, but Sade, Prof. LaTerveau, and Toni all answer correctly and move on.
They find a huge treasure vault with three magical items: The holy grail – heals the drinker instantly. Genie in bottle offers them three wishes (though Toni takes the lamp and declines the offer for now). The third is Excalibur (1d12 two-handed magical sword, must be wielded by one of royal blood – noble title or luck check). There is also a statuette of Bast laying in a pile of gold coins and treasures.
In the next room there’s a temple with a giant statue of Bast. There are several animal statues placed in alcoves but one is missing. Prof. LaTerveau places Bast’s statuette back into her alcove bringing her to life, first as a cat, then as a cat-woman. She teaches him a charm animal spell placing her hands on either side of their head. Rays of light spills out of her eyes into Prof. LaTerveau's. She then says something in ancient Egyptian and becomes a statue again.
Meanwhile, Prof. Lawrence is lost in time and space. He travels to Atlantis and meets himself in a past life. The party finds him screaming in a sarcophagus in the treasure room. He cannot speak for 24 hours. Sade fires a few rounds into the sarcophagus thinking it is a mummy before they figure out it’s the doctor and free him.
Toni messes with another statuette and goes into a trance and convulsions. He has a vision that he is being Judged by the Egyptian gods. He is in an operating room and the animal headed deities are removing his organs and placing them on scales to measure their virtue. They are speaking in ancient Egyptian. He rambles incoherently for some time and gains a severe phobia of doctors, hospitals, and surgery.
While Madeline is lost in time and space she has a hallucination that she is standing on a giant table with giant people around her rolling dice. See sees life size figures of her comrades standing on a two dimensional board of the temple of bast. She steps back onto the board and re-enters the “real world” but permanently suffers from the sensation that she has no control over her own destiny and is somehow a playing piece in some strange game.
They travel one week back to cairo. The first day they are travelling, they notice several bedouins in the distance riding of horseback. They wave to them but nothing eventful happens. They spend a month researching the tomb of Nephren-Ka and learn little about the man. They head down the nile.
After the first week they approach an oasis to refill their water barrells. They are attacked by two hungry lions but Toni and Prof. Greyson take them out before they can harm anyone.
At the end of their second week heading up the nile, they find the valley of Nephren-Ka… grass fields become very hot salt flats. They meet salt traders with filed teeth in the flats. They are harmless and cannot communicate with the party but laugh at them. Travelling through valley they find ruined entrance to the Necropolis of Nephren-Ka. They are followed by Hyena’s from a distance, but don’t get close enough for the party to shoot at them.
In the Necropolis of Nephren-Ka, the first room is a treasure room. There’s an Elder Sign above the door. Looks like it was already broken into and looted by thieves. tread They find a secret doorway and spend mintues moving rubble out of the way.
The second room is the tomb of Nephren-Ka’s court (advisors, queen, etc). Mummies rise from the sarcophagi and attack. One mummy has tentacles to grasp and strangle opponents. The rest try to choke with their hands. Madeline is killed during the battle after setting several mummies on fire. Prof. LaTurvea is knocked unconscious by the tentacled mummy. Sade is knocked out and the high priest drags her deeper into the tomb.
Prof. Greyson drags Prof. LaTurvea outside the tomb then leaves him out there, but he thinks better of leaving his unconscious body to the hyenas and drags him back inside after shooting the tentacled mummy down.
Toni rushed deeper into the tomb taking out many mummies and reloading several times. They are very resilient to gunfire. In the adjacent ritual room Toni finds Sade on a blood altar called the Shining Trapezohedron. The Black Pharoh Nephren-Ka bought the altar from the merchants of Khem and committed sacrifices to the Haunter of the Dark around 2610 B.C. before the order of Bast buried him alive and hid his tomb here in the salt flats.
Toni greases the mummy of the high priest and uses the grail to save Sade. The ghost of Nephren-Ka takes possession Sade and has her plunge a ritual dagger through her own heart on the altar of blood.. When blood is spilled on the altar a great salt storm begins to block the entrance and they cannot leave until it clears around midnight. Toni raises Madeline from the dead but goes a little crazy. The stress of the expedition has made him paranoid and homicidal.
That night when the storm passes and they head to the entrance they see Nyarlathotep, who arrives outside the tomb entrance. Prof. LaTurvea witnesses the horror and flees. Sade goes mad and calls LaTurvea a coward, guns him down before her gun jams, then falls to the ground clutching her face and screaming madly. Toni goes catatonic in the doorway and Prof Greyson and Madeline dodge out of the way as Nyarlathotep tosses a stone column through to doorway. The rumble pins Toni to the floor, nearly killing him but for his flesh ward and migo-armor he is wearing.
They wait until dawn. As the sun rises they see a princely Egyptian looking man they presume to be the human form of Nyarlathotep walk off in the salt flats followed by an obedient pack of hyenas. When he is gone, they take the crazed Sade back with them to Cairo. In Cairo they get a telegram from Armitage and Carter that they need the investigators in Transylvania.
They spend a month in Rome after committing Sade at a good institution there. The institution specializes in many cutting edge experimental therapies, but they are not optimistic they can help her. Toni however makes a speedy recovery from his mental illnesses. When they finish resting (nearly five months after they set off for Egypt) the current date is Sunday, October 3rd, 1920.
Survivors: Toni, Prof. Greyson, Madeline Rammstein
Sent to Asylum: Sadie Benz
Dead: Prof. LaTerveau
