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Cthulhu Now Write-ups 

1990s Cthulhu Now Campaign 

Scenario Name: The Healer of Silesh
Scenario Written By: Allan Goodall
Run Date: 29 December 1996
Keeper: Allan Goodall
Write-up Written By: Lorna Toolis
Characters: Larry Cocker, Leann Goodall, Rick Johnston, Dave Nickle, Kate O'Donnell, Liza Ordubegian, Michael Skeet, Martin Sloan, Chris Smith, Lorna Toolis
Guest Observers: Karen Fernandez, Shirley Toolis, Richard Toolis

25 July 1996 (Thursday)

Leann is in hospital, currently with an extremely sore stomach. The hospital corridor and her room reek of roses, surprising in a cancer ward.

“Hey, Leann, wake up - it smells funny in here...like roses,” says Lorna.

Lorna looks out into the corridor and sees a white-haired man turning the corner. She follows him to the elevator. The nurses don’t seem worried, so she returns to Leann’s room.

Later that evening, Dave and Liza drop in and smell the roses, as do Michael, Martin, Kate and Chris.

“I’m here, I’m here, it’s too good to be true, but I’m here,” chants Michael, preparatory to the Dead Sea Tupperware routine. “Boy, does this place stink,” he adds, then asks belatedly, “Is your wound suppurating?”.

“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts!” Leann growls at him. Then she throws a stuffed animal at him.

“I thought they didn’t allow flowers?” asks Chris, puzzled. The smell hangs in the hallway.

Dave goes over and snuffles at the airvent, making gross noises. “No roses here,” he says, also puzzled.

Dave, Kate and Liza check out the next two floors above Leann, both smell of roses. Staff are a trifle un-nerved by the gross snuffling noises Dave is making.

“He’s an undertaker, trolling for clients,” Kate explains blandly.

The elevator reeks of roses too.

“All right, Liza, give me a boost,” says Dave, ever one of nature’s happy campers. “What do you mean, being pregnant should count for something? You aren’t still pretending that you’re pregnant!”

She refuses to help him climb up onto the top of the elevator. Eventually they arrive at the ICU, where Liza approaches the desk and explains the whole sad story.

Meanwhile, Dave lurks into the ICU. He notices an extremely old gentleman on a gurney, in his 90s or maybe early 100s, hard to tell. Monitors stuck in and taped on all over everywhere, some making some suprised noises. The little name plate reads, “DeWitt, T.” The white board says “stroke”. The man standing around looking worried is apparently T. De Witt’s son.

Abandoning any interest in roses, everybody but Dave heads out to Frans. En route, Stan and Ollie, sorry, Larry and Rick, arrive from Oshawa. Group members dive for cover as it becomes apparent that Larry is driving.

Dave hangs around the ICU entrance, but the son doesn’t come out.

We go home and we sleep, perchance to dream. We all dream that we are walking through a tunnel to a forest, occasioning ribald comments about the referee’s obvious lack of an intro psych course.

A voice says, “Please, help me, you must help me, oh, please, help me.”

We were all expecting something like this anyway.

We look around and see ourselves standing in a clearing. Doctors, nurses and patients fade in and out of our vision. Insect noises and bird calls become audible.

“You must help me,” the younger man, the one roaming the corridors of the hospital, emerges from the trees. All around us, deep sky-blue roses give off a scent that hangs in the air. “My father’s soul hangs in the balance and I have very little time. His dream self is captured and held in the castle of the City of Silesh.”

“We must?” asks a group member, unconvinced.

“Remember last time?” says another, still brooding about old horrors.

“He’s your father, why don’t you rescue him?” asks another one of nature’s generous souls.

“I am being hunted by the knights,” explains the white-haired man.

“With a “k” or without a “k”?” asks Michael, as always fascinated by trivia.

“With,” says the white-haired man, still focused.

“Why us?,” asks Liza, focused as well.

“I need somebody - a lot of people, as soon as possible. My father is about to be executed by the King.”

“Why?” asks another cynic in the crowd.

“My father was a healer. He had a ship in Silesh. He is a Dreamer and taught me how to dream. The king - there was a procession 40 years ago. He suffered headaches and went to the healer. As my father bowed down, the King was wracked by a terrible pain. He screamed and dropped his magical orb, which shattered. So, he had my father dragged off to the castle, where he has tortured him for 40 years. He says my father is evil. He is dying and has sworn to kill my father before he dies.”

We take stock of the situation, diplomatically discussing how much of this we believe. We appear to be dressed in mock-medieval fashion. The items we were carrying at the hospital came with us, translated into medieval format.

Accordingly, Kate has a compass, a teabag, wax tablet and a stylus. Larry has a knife. His passport has translated into citizenship papers for Silesh. We mostly all have some form of writing implement and something to write upon.

We watch in awe as Martin empties his pockets. Three knives, a silvered metal mirror, coin of the realm, letters of introduction, a tool set, more tools, a letter of credit, a stylus and a wax tablet, a speaking trumpet, a big set of large keys, a goat and a license plate for a goat cart in Silesh all pile on the ground.

Leann’s hospital bed translated into a cart; we figure it will fit into Martin’s other pocket.

We hear the distant thunder of hoofbeats.

“The knights!” exclaims the white-haired man. “Quick. Down the path, across the rope bridge and across the island. Catch the ship to Silesh. I’ll find you!”

“What’s your name?” calls Liza as we all run.

“Walter,” he tells her.

The rope bridge crosses an extremely deep chasm. The rope is old and frayed where it hasn’t rotted. We creep across, one at a time. Everybody is across by the time the knights arrive except for Michael and Liza. Liza dives across the bridge.

Michael looks up at the knights. They look more like Arab Saracens than European knights in armour. He says to them, “Salaam ala-cheim?”

Dave dreams caltrops, under the hooves of the horses. The horses rear and stop, justly indignant.

Liza and Michael get onto the bridge. One of the Saracens grabs at Liza and misses. He pulls out a short sword, or possibly a long dirk, and holds it out as a cross. As he holds the blade out, we can see that it is a bayonet, probably of WWII vintage. Dave hits the ground, as do the rest of us.

The Saracen pulls down the cloth covering his face. His face is beyond gaunt, a dessicated corpse. The knights ride off into the woods on their graceful, Arabian steeds.

We trudge across the island, heading for the ship. Then, suddenly, we notice that we’re in a town. We realize that we knew we were in a town a little while ago, somehow, but it is insubstantial, like a dream. Narrow streets, old ruins of row houses; they seem to fade or collapse. No one else is here.

The dragon with the mug of ale does make it clear which building is the pub, although the lettering is not in English.

Kate and Larry go inside. She finds a newspaper in Czech, dated Sept 29, 1938. Unable to read the text, she checks the date with Michael, who says, “Say ‘Hello’ to the Fatherland, Sudetenland!”

We come to a T-junction and take the wrong path. We see some time parasites bleaching a row house.

Larry hears a strange clicking noise. “Eh?” he says, just as something large jumps on Rick.

“Blech,” says Rick, as a whomp leaps on top of him and starts chewing.

We all flail away at the womp, except for Michael and Kate who are screaming into what they hope are its ears. The womp retaliates by attacking Kate, but misses and sidles away.

Eventually we walk to the shore. The ship is a fanciful version of a Spanish Galleon, floating well away from the shore.

“How many miles to the galleon?” asks Michael. We all hit him.

We make a signal fire and they send the dingy for us. We sail for Silesh aboard the White Cloud.

The lower part of Silesh is shrouded in fog. There are bombards on either side of the sea gate. A Disney castle sits high atop the surrounding city. The fog strategically leaves the roads to the City gates visible. Knights are waiting on the dock. Their dead eyes creep the group members out.

The fog in and around the city fades when we look at it closely. Upon inspection, we learn that the less heavily used parts of the city are fading.

While searching one of the fading areas for the old healer’s house, we find a wall where a street should be. We tear a chunk of the wall down and enter the street. Only one house is still standing, and it has the chronocrustaceans crawling all over it.

Searching the street we find five red shards from the king’s orb. In the healer’s house, Kate finds a copy of a book, hidden under a floorboard. “Holy Bible” it says, but all of the pages are blank.

We return to the Blue Barnacle. Bells chime, indicating that the king is dying. Walter appears, covered in sewage.

We have some more questions for Walter. He tells us that in our world his father ran an antique store, until he had a stroke, yesterday. Walter never visited his father’s home in Silesh; it never occurred to him.

“When were you born?” Chris asks him.

“1948,” says Walter, distracted. Abruptly the eau de sewage that he was drenched in disappears.

As long as we have time for minor matters, Rick asks if someone could find the time to do something about the large, gaping wound in his back.

Walter knows a way in to the castle, but he doesn’t know where inside the castle his father is being held. We buy weapons in the picturesque market, as we head toward the castle.

Once at the Inner Wall, it turns out that Walter has been dreaming a hole. We slither on through and consider the mound in front of us. The path has guards posted, so climbing would appear to be the better choice.

As we climb, it turns out that the mound was built of skulls. A dislodged skull comes to life and pursues the group. It tries to kill Lorna and eventually kills Michael.

Chris and Dave drop a length of chain on top of the skeleton, then we all run for the castle, as more skeletons form at the base of the mound. The town bell clangs slowly.

One group runs down the left corridor - the screams and even the echoes fade as we turn. We find a great many jail cells, with people still inside them. The key ring is on the wall: Martin lets the first prisoner out, who lets the others out.

The screams are coming from a cell at the end of the hall. A suit of armour, complete with mace, stands outside it. Lorna cautiously takes the mace away from the suit of armour, and then gives it to Martin, who hits the door twice and shatters it.

In the light streaming through the open door, we can see a naked man, about thirty years old, presumably the elder DeWitt, crucified on a Star of David. He is in agony. A yellow Star of David has been tattooed on his chest. A small group of boys come up to him, cut a piece of him off, put it on a paddle and then put the paddle into a one of a bank of roaring hot ovens along one wall. DeWitt regenerates.

Chris has a slight problem with reality, suddenly he is on the Star of David and this is happening to him. As the boys start to cut him, he wakes up.

Lorna asks, “DeWitt, why are you being punished?” He doesn’t answer, and it seems quite likely that there isn’t enough left of his mind to respond to questions.

Lorna pushes one of the boys away from DeWitt. The boy starts to transform into a knight. Lorna hits him with the mace, then Kate torches him. As the boys transform, Lorna and Martin hit them and Kate sets fire to them. More knights come down the hallway past the cells.

Kate torches the first knight through the door: the second one kills Lorna. Kate torches one more and then the following knight gets her: she pops out.

Martin and Leann move to the door and finish off the third knight. One more remains. They can hear a door creaking open behind them.

Martin grabs the mace and runs back to the melee. Leann has killed the knight. DeWitt is quieter.

Behind him, the door has opened into a gas chamber. They cut DeWitt down and run.

Meanwhile, on the right hand side, the group members find the king. Dave approaches with a shard of the orb and offers pain-killers.

Unfortunately, he is pushed out of the way by Larry, who charges the dying king with an axe. The king’s man servant grabs the axe, just as Michael blips into existence.

As the king is no longer paying any attention, the man servant has to answer the questions.

“Why did the king order the healer tortured?” Dave asks.

“He was evil,” the manservant explains, unhelpfully.

“Our friends will rescue him,” someone says.

Patiently, the manservant explains that the king dreamed the city into being - even the fight wherein he killed the previous king. The king is dying now, and Silesh will die with him. The king on the bed slumps and his hand falls backwards, revealing death camp numbers tattooed on his wrist. We all look at it, our suspicions that Walter’s father was nobody’s prize confirmed.

“Goodbye,” says the manservant. He closes the king’s eyes.

Dave is already running for the left corridor, when DeWitt starts to laugh. It is your basic demonic cackle, and everyone becomes aware that they may have made a mistake in getting involved here.

“He’s a Nazi!” Dave yells a warning.

“Ho, ho, ho!” cackles DeWitt, and vanishes.

Outside, Silesh is frozen. The alarm goes. Everyone wakes up.

Dave calls Toronto General Patient Information and asks for the status of Mr. DeWitt. No answer. Michael phones the RCMP and suggests that they should check Mr. DeWitt out.

ICU is still not answering. We all go to the hospital. At 7:30 A.M. there is lots of street parking. There are also lots of police, running towards the hospital. There are nurses running all around us too, trying to get the patients out.

Dave produces his Press pass and Michael produces a CBC identity card. They head up the stairwells to the ICU.

“Come with me,” an old voice says, as they arrive on the seventh floor.

“No,” says Walter, ever dismal.

“Fine,” says the old goat.

Walter is screaming, while his old man gets sucked through a portal into a black landscape filled with sharply pointed edifices. The elder DeWitt is impaled upon one of the edifices. The portal is getting larger and the sucking is getting stronger.

The rest of us arrive at the ICU. The police are unconvinced that we know how to deal with this situation, but they don’t know either.

Dave tosses Walter a fire hose and pulls him back to safety. Meanwhile, Michael sets fire to his shirt and a bunch of papers, which he then places on top of an oxygen cart. Then, he rolls the oxygen cart through the portal. It rolls over the edge and explodes without having any impact upon the portal.

Lorna is making some odd scratches on the floor of the ICU and chanting something. The portal stops expanding when it hits the odd marks.

Michael finds a Bible in one of the cubicles and throws it into the portal, where it has a good long fall but no impact.

We check Walter’s pockets and go to his father's house in the West end of the city. We check under the floor boards in the same place as Kate found the bible in the Dreamlands.

We find a hollowed Bible, holding a notebook/experiment log.

“Walter, can you read German?”

“No,” says Walter, definitely not his father’s son.

Fortunately, Kate and Liza are able to translate.

They start at the end of the logs. Tobias Kimmel, who took the name DeWitt to hide his Nazi past, was not a nice man. He was a doctor experimenting on concentration camp victims. He also dabbled in dark magic. In his own scrawl, Kimmel explains how he wanted to open a Gate to Valhalla at the end of WWII for the Valkyries to come through and save Germany.

He was called to the Fuhrerbunker, but opened the wrong portal. He was able to close it, but it wasn’t a permanent closure.

Walter offers to atone for his father’s sins. We agree to let him. He shuts the portal.

Then, we head back to the Dreamlands, to clean up the mess we left there. We take Walter with us, the man who will be king if no one else will. Larry considers it briefly, no one else does.

The mound of skulls is gone. The castle and city of Silesh are fine. There is a coronation in progress. We saw enough in his diaries to be sure that Tobias Kimmel will make a terrible king.

“Dream the orb whole,” says Leann.

Michael holds the pieces up and lightning crackles around the group, as we all dream together. The remaining bits of the sphere melt together.

“That’s not enough!” says Tobias, sweating.

Larry fires his crossbow - it hits Tobias in his chest. He stands concentrating, when a chronocrustacean falls on him and he starts to fade away.

Dead in our world, and the orb now whole, chronocrustaceans eat him, converting him into a horrible memory. “NO!” he screams, his voice dwindling away as he does.

“Yeh, yeh,” say the group members, unimpressed. “What do you think will happen next year?”
   

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