Having missed the cult the Cell decided to break into their meeting place and see if they’d left any clues to their intentions. We approached the building cautiously with the TOYmen to the fore. Sergeant Jones led the way with Agent Fox dogging his steps. While Patrick, Billy and I watched the street the two other Cassandra operatives entered the darkened terraced house that was apparently acting as the cult’s temporary headquarters. A narrow hallway opened out beyond the door, with stairs straight ahead and two doors on the left – Jones made his way down the dimly lit passageway, followed a little distance behind by Fox. A brief glance into the first room revealed nothing. Upon opening the second door, Jones was met by the sight of strangely garbed man and a room, illuminated by ceremonial candles and decorated in a most disturbing fashion. The robed figure demanded to know why his house had been broken into and who we were, receiving know answer he picked up a wicked looking blade and charged at Jones.

The cultist’s blade flashed in the candlelight as he rushed forward … Fox’s gun roared but a single bullet could not still the mad intent of the attacker … a blade honed to razor sharpness sliced through flesh and muscle, a scarlet rain fell to the floor … Jones’ fired, committing the madman’s soul into the care of the dark creatures he worshipped … faint from loss of blood the Sergeant slumped to the ground.

The first screams sent Billy and Patrick rushing into the house to help – the sight of the bloodstained bodies and the terrible Yellow Signs, which adorned the walls, proved too much for Patrick’s overstrained psyche. He swept up Jones’ gun and, speaking an unintelligible gibberish, emptied the clip into the supine form of the corpse.

By the time I entered the room the others had already begun to search. I assisted them but the Yellow Signs exerted an oppressive menace and somewhat clouded my thoughts. The other decorations were no more comforting … the works of De Sade, the Devil’s Bible, a human skull, all spoke of minds broken by prolonged exposure to the monstrous, to the unearthly. Agent Fox stumbled on a more complete copy of the “King in Yellow” but found its contents so disturbing that, within moments of reading it, he was shacking uncontrollably, apparently afflicted by delirium tremens. Fortunately Patrick managed to control the affliction by striking the quaking Fox about the face a number of times.

The others were more successful in their searches, discovering a number of documents, apparently written in blood, which indicated that the Cult planned to carry out some ritual or other within an hour on Crickley Hill, overlooking the city.

At the time the obvious course seemed to be to get up to the Hill and prevent them from carrying out their sinister plans. Unfortunately, because we’d tailed the cultists for quite a time we were now some distance from the pool cars, which would probably prevent us from stealing a march on our foes. Without the first aid kit it was impossible to treat Jones’ wound so we decided that he and the two Irishmen should leave first to give them enough time for the crippled soldier to get to their car. As Jones shuffled off we three remaining agents examined the remaining documents which were scattered around the Cultist’s hideout. None of them were immediately relevant to our investigation but they were, nonetheless, most disturbing. I read through the diary of a child who apparently lived in the West Virginia coalfields in the early 1920s, at about the time of Coalfield Wars. Much of it seemed innocuous but there were certain passages … certain passages that …

At this point subject savage apparently lapsed into unconsciousness again. The following is a transcript of what he said while he slept.

Mother took her AXE and gave the MINERS forty whacks … WhoSE fOr DINNER TONight MuMmy ???
The DaRk OnE watCHES over us ALL … The thOUsand FACed MAN …
ThE ST A RS AR E Right … The STARS a r e Right !!!

Subject regains consciousness at this point.

Ehm … Er … Where was I? Oh yes … the diary … very disturbing indeed … that poor child.

… Unfortunately although the diary spoke of the Cult’s interest in the macabre it was of little use to us at that moment, but I did take it with me for further perusal. There were many disturbing images found between the covers.

Having given the others a little time to get on their way Agents Scott, Fox and I made our way back to our own pool car and Fox began the drive towards Crickley Hill.

NEXT...

All material on these pages relates to fictional situations, characters and organisations,part of an ongoing murder mystery type adventure game, and in no way reflects any real interest or belief in the paranormal, espionage, etc, etc. It's just a game chaps!

Last Updated:26^th March 2000