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Dr. Pale attempts to placate his friend. "Yes, yes, I'll talk to Henry. Just settle down—you musn't exert yourself so!"

Pale calls out for a nurse. "This man needs a sedative! He's terribly agitated!"

Archie stands, scooping up his hat and placing in on his head. He steps over to the dying man's bedside and puts a hand on his arm. "We will see it done, Doc. Trust me." He forces a grin.

Aloysius Taft

No stranger to dying men, and a believer in fate, Aloysius initially says nothing. To Dr. Pale's call for a nurse and a sedative, he reaches over and hands the doctor a vial of heroin from his inside jacket pocket. Quick-eyed folk can glimpse a shoulder-holstered handgun strapped below his armpit when Aloysius leans forward to pass the small bottle.

He tries to catch Rupert's eye, giving him a nod of assent, under the gaze of the other watchers in the room, but is unsure of whether Rupert understood this. So he adds, "I am happy to help. Feel confident that this matter will be resolved." An easy promise to make to a dying man.

Hyacinth Ausby Hudspeth, antiquarian

Holding back her tears she whispers fiercely, We will do this thing for you, Dr. Merriweather. I swear it!

gaylord500 wrote:To Dr. Pale's call for a nurse and a sedative, he reaches over and hands the doctor a vial of heroin from his inside jacket pocket.

Dr. Pale gives Aloysius an surprised look as he takes the bottle. He slips it into his pocket as his expression shades from alarm to judgmental. "Thank you, that's very generous, but it would be best to leave the selection and administration of medicine to the hospital staff."

Jed

Jed wonders at the variety of the Professor's acquaintances.
"If it's your wish, I'll sure try to help, Professor. You get some rest now. "
"I know the town he mentioned and I got a truck if it'd help," he says to no one in particular. "Maybe some of you academics could talk to the librarian and then we could hit some supplies and see what's what."

Miss Faversham

Oh Mr Merriwether, you shouldn't trouble yourself with wild fantasies, "( in an aside to others she says, " they do dream and ramble in their last moments"), Jasmine says offering a silk handkerchief to wipe his droolings.

... and now, back to our show!

Scott308 wrote:Elmer "Big City" Ramsey

Knowing he can do nothing to help Mr. Rupert, Big City walks to the nightstand an picks up the box. He looks it over, declaring, Bertrand will not be happy to see us walking out with this box. He will not take it away from me!

The box is roughly a foot by 10 inches by 5 inches, the kind that usually holds important documents. As you pick it up, something inside slides around a bit, so it isn't all papers.

Pulpatoon wrote:Dr. Pale attempts to placate his friend. "Yes, yes, I'll talk to Henry. Just settle down—you musn't exert yourself so!"

Pale calls out for a nurse. "This man needs a sedative! He's terribly agitated!"

Indeed he is. As Elmer lifts the box, poor Rupert goes into horrible spasms. He doubles up, groans, then coughs up a huge gout of blood and tissue, spattering Dr. Pale and Elmer and Jasmine, just as she was offering him a handkerchief. It's time for our first sanity check at this horrific display of bodily fluids!

Now, this gives me a chance to explain how sanity works. You have your sanity characteristic, which is POW x 5. That doesn't change; it represents the highest psychoanalysis can raise your current sanity to. As you witness horrible things, your current sanity will go down. As you defeat horrible things, your current sanity will go up. If you ever lose 5 points of sanity at once, you have to make an Idea roll to see if you go temporarily insane or not. Ironically, it's making the roll that causes the insanity, because you realize the truth of what you've just seen. If you ever lose 20% of your current sanity, you will go indefinitely insane. If you ever reach 0 current sanity, you will go permanently insane; you can't play that character anymore. On the flipside, if you keep killing monsters or at least thwarting their efforts, the maximum your current sanity points can reach is 99 - your Cthulhu Mythos skill score. Your Cthulhu Mythos skill will continue to rise as you get more involved with these creatures. It can help, of course, to know what you are fighting, but it does limit your sanity.

A sanity check is just rolling your current sanity or less on a d100. For this mess that Rupert just made, it is the most benign check possible. 0 sanity is lost if you make your roll, and 1 point is lost if you don't. You'll never see better than that for any event that calls for a sanity check. (In case you are curious, the worst event in the whole game, seeing Great Cthulhu, is a loss of 1d10 sanity if you make your roll, and a loss of 1d100 if you don't.)

I'll be setting up a thread to keep track of the Investigators, with regards to current hit points, current sanity points, spells known, etc.

Aloysius Taft: 30 ... 23, made it
Archie: 40 ... 81, failed. Current sanity drops to 39.
Jed: 30 ... 44, failed. Current sanity drops to 29.
Dr. Pale: 65 ... 54, made it.
Elmer: 45 ... 34, made it.
Jasmine: 60 ... 01, made it easily. Maybe the handkerchief blocked her view of the projectile vomiting.
Hyacinth: 60 ... 47, made it.

Dr. Pale had already called out for a nurse, and now one arrives, sees the situation, and immediately returns with an army of doctors and nurses. You are all sent outside, where Agnes and Bertrand wait nervously. Bertrand fixes his gaze on Elmer. "My father wouldn't let me touch that box. Did he give it to you ... or did you just take it?" He states the accusation with a sneer.

Miss Faversham

Jasmine, shocked at the sudden spasm withdraws to the waiting room. I'm so sorry Mrs Meriweather, I wish I could do more to help."she says to Rupert's wife, before going back to the ladies WC to clean herself again. Upon her return she will make polite small talk with Jed, "oh, you have a truck do you Mr Jed? If it helps dear Mr Meriweather to recover, I can hitch a ride. What sort of wagon is it?"

Archie reflexively covers his eyes with his fedora. Grim thoughts echo through his brain, "I've flown from one side of this globe to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* like that gob of blood and mucus!" The professor's belief in the stability of his world is ever so slightly shaken. But he recover quickly.

"We've got to get to the bottom of this, and fast."

Elmer "Big City" Ramsey

Elmer grabs a towel and tries to clean himself up, offering it to anyone else who needs it. That wasn't any worse than calving season. I don't miss helping Pa with the cows he thinks to himself.

ken-do-nim wrote: You are all sent outside, where Agnes and Bertrand wait nervously. Bertrand fixes his gaze on Elmer. "My father wouldn't let me touch that box. Did he give it to you ... or did you just take it?" He states the accusation with a sneer.

Elmer tightens his grip on the box. Are you calling me a thief? Mr. Rupert said the box was for us. It has somethin' to do with why he wanted all of us here. I would never take something that b'longs to someone else. My momma raised me better than that!

Hyacinth Ausby Hudspeth, antiquarian

Still holding her handkerchief to her mouth, Hyacinth tries to look at nothing in particular for a few moments longer. They certainly don't have calving season in the library, she thinks bitterly. What are we getting ourselves into, Professor? Why did you have to leave us?

Jed

Jed lapses into a coughing fit himself after swallowing part of his chew. He's never seen a feller cough up a lung like that and thinks about slipping out for a quick sip from his hip flask. Poor Professor. It was almost unnatural.

Stumbling out of the room, he's surprised to be addressed and struggles to respond.
"Yes'm, got me one of Mr. Ford's trucks. Might not be the most comfortable, but it runs good if some folks don't mind pilin' in back."
He eyes Elmer and gives him an encouraging nod as well. Good to see a young fella telling that Bertram what's what.

Dr. Pale wipes his face and hands clean with a handkerchief, and looks at the others with concern. "It is neither pretty nor dignified, when the flesh fails the spirit. I'm sorry you had to see that, and I trust that you will chiefly remember Rupert as he was—vibrant, hale, and curious. In particular, I would advise you set no store in his... well, I'm afraid the proper word is "ravings." This is more common than you would expect, when a patient nears the end.

"That said, I did make a promise to a dying man to visit our mutual acquaintance, Dr. Armitage. And I intend to keep that promise. If any of you would care to join me, I am sure Henry would appreciate it."

Aloysius Taft

Aloysius averts his eyes at the blood, bile, and prossibly worse, thankful that he isn't in range of his inlaw uncle's sick. He stands and heads out to the hall with the crowd, as the doctors and nurses head in.

He tries to cut off the argument about the box. I'm afraid your father has asked us to look into some of his obligations. He probably wants you and you mother close at hand... sooner, rather than later...? He trails off suggestively. Rupert can't be long for the world, if he's spitting up gunk like that.

Miss Faversham

"Well Mr Jed, I think the family should be close now. We will say our consolations at the family wake no doubt."Jasmine nods in the direction of the hospice bedroom."If your truck is parked outside, would you mind if I throw my holdall in the back?" she picks up a big leather bag from the corner. Poking out from various side pockets are a set of goggles, adjustable spanners and glamorous heels and her lucky scarf.

Dr. Pale pulls Jed and Archie aside. "You look unsettled, sirs. Entirely understandable, given the circumstances. I think you would benefit from a sedative. Would you mind if I called for a nurse?"

Can Dr. Pale apply any of his skills to bump their sanity back up?

Scott308 wrote:Elmer "Big City" Ramsey

Elmer grabs a towel and tries to clean himself up, offering it to anyone else who needs it. That wasn't any worse than calving season. I don't miss helping Pa with the cows he thinks to himself.

ken-do-nim wrote: You are all sent outside, where Agnes and Bertrand wait nervously. Bertrand fixes his gaze on Elmer. "My father wouldn't let me touch that box. Did he give it to you ... or did you just take it?" He states the accusation with a sneer.

Elmer tightens his grip on the box. Are you calling me a thief? Mr. Rupert said the box was for us. It has somethin' to do with why he wanted all of us here. I would never take something that b'longs to someone else. My momma raised me better than that!

Bertrand's jaw goes slack. "For you ... but not for me. My inheritance ... to strangers." He is so full of emotion that he can only choke the words out. His mother, however, scolds him, "Leave them alone, son. They're only following your father's wishes. And he's not gone yet."

Then Aloysius says:

gaylord500 wrote: He tries to cut off the argument about the box. I'm afraid your father has asked us to look into some of his obligations. He probably wants you and you mother close at hand... sooner, rather than later...? He trails off suggestively. Rupert can't be long for the world, if he's spitting up gunk like that.

Mother and son turn their attention back to the crisis at hand, and the party slips away.

Dr. Pale, meanwhile, gives Jed and Archie a sedative to calm their nerves, but that will not restore sanity. The psychoanalysis skill can only be used once insanity has set in.

Dr. Armitage can usually be found at his office at the Miskatonic University Library. Would you like to visit him before or after examining the contents of the box?

Elmer "Big City" Ramsey

Well, if we are gonna bring this box to someone and ask for help, I think we should see what is in it first. Elmer will put his hand on the latch, ready to open it, but will look around at the others to see if anyone agrees. He will NOT open it.












Yet.