24/05/2026 – City of the Great Race (5)
Ruined Building
They pause to reflect the alien nature of this ancient city, then consider what to do now. On the left hand side, opposite to the wooden building, is the remains of a building, where some of the walls have collapsed and it is possible to climb up and look into the building. Eddy decides to going over and taking a look. The others follow him, except Monty, who begins to sneak over to the wooden construct.
Eddy crosses the dust between the causeway and the damaged building, then climbs up the rubble pile where a wall was once. The others keep watch. When he reaches the top of the rubble, Eddy uses his torch to look into the building. It is a large, square building with doorways on each of the walls, except one wall where there are symbols suggesting a doorway, but the wall is solid.
Strange Tracks
In the middle of the building is some sort of square hole in the floor and signs a large, metal platform covered it, but it has been broken off and lies to one side. There are also large, strange tracks leading away from the square hole in the dust, leading away into another part of the city.
Eddy climbs back down and tells the others what he saw. They wonder what sort of creature came out of the hole and decide to head back to the causeway. As they move back, they realise they can be seen from the wooden building and decide to sneak around in an arc, using the darkness for cover.
Cultists Shack
Monty sneaks over to the entrance of the wooden building. He can hear Australian voices and smells food and cigarettes. He keeps watching and listening, waiting for the others to return. He waves the others over to where he is as they come into sight. Someone in the wooden building says something about seeing something outside. Monty poises for action, but the man decides not to do anything and carry on with his card game.
When they meet up, they resolve to go around the back of the wooden building, so keep out of sight. At the back they find a door at the back, leading to a smelly, outdoor toilet. They hold their noses and continue, trudging through thick dust back to the causeway past the building.
A Huge Building
They continue along to causeway, passing a mostly ruined building along the way. Further along, they see an enormous building rising up to the left. It is made of the same stone as the rest of the city and looks mostly intact. The causeway continues along the side of the building, but there is an open doorway, where another lamp and generator resides. The electric wires split here, going both through the doorway into the building and continuing along the causeway.
They decide to head left into the huge building. They enter a large room with dozens of strange columns or tubes running from the floor to the ceiling. Some of the tubes are broken in the middle, others have a transparent section in the centre, full of a strange, grey looking substance of unknown origin. There are a serious of curvilinear symbols on some of the walls or columns, but they are completely unfathomable.
Curvilinear Language
The follow the electric cable through the room into another room. This room has a lot of shelves reaching up to three meters high. Most are broken or empty, but the floor is scattered with a few strange-looking “books” with metal covers and super-thin “pages” of a strange substance, covered with curvilinear symbols, but they are damaged. Eddy climbs up to a high shelf and takes down an undamaged “book”, but the contents is impossible to understand.
They pause to consider the books and the language. It looks like hieroglyphs, but of a more precise, mathematical nature. Alex wonders if there is a Rosetta stone hidden somewhere that would help them translate, but that seems unlikely.
Leaving this room, they find themselves on another causeway, which passes a large square building, but there a no lights and the electrical cable goes past it, towards another lamp at the end of the causeway. They decide not to enter this dark building and follow the wire. When they reach the generator and lamp, they see that the cable again splits here, heading both “west” and “north”. They decide to continue “west”.
Underground Horror
There are less buildings in this direction, but ahead they can see the wires are heading towards a large, pentagonal-shaped building. They follow the wires into the building and see the building is about 500 metres wide, with a doorway at each of the five walls. In the centre of the building, they see a large, dome-shaped thing. As they approach it, they hear a loud breathing-like sound and they see the dome looks organic and is undulating in-time with the breathing.
The dome is about 50 metres across and appears to have a thick, outer skin of a yellow-brown colour with veins. It is clear this is only a small part of some enormous being that lies underneath them. It seems to sense Agatha and an eye suddenly opens, looking at her. This spooks her and the others, and they make a swift exit, following the wires out of the building towards the “west”.
They walk across another causeway towards a further, octagonal building ahead of them, which glows with a bright red hue. They continue to follow the wires, which lead into this large building, but there is no lamp here, as the red light is bright. They follow the wires, which turn “north” now and exit this building.
Machinery Room
They continue to follow the causeway “north” and walk on for a while, until they see electric lights coming from a building on the right side of the causeway further on. The wires split here, continuing along the causeway and leading into the room. They enter the room and see it has a lot of machinery, wires and green florescent tubes like they saw at Henson Manufacturing. It looks like a workshop, where Ancient technology is being mixed with human electronics and machinery.
There is a further lit room beyond this, with a number of electric wires leading into it. In that room, they see a large “control panel” with levers and dials on one side of the room, with many cables connected to it. Sitting near the panel is some sort of hospital couch, with restraints and a strange, electrical device sat on it, connected to the control panel by a thick bunch of cables. It is circular, with three metal balls. It looks like it would fit on a human head.
Someone in the Room
Another room lies off this room, but that room is in darkness. There is also something odd about the doorway, it has “prongs” in the wall all the way around and there is some sort of shimmering effect. There is also a box on the wall beside the door, which is locked with some sort of numeric code. There is a cable connected to it that goes into the wall.
Their torches show there is a large array of Ancient technology in various states of repair in the dark room. Eddy beams his touch around and suddenly someone moves in side. A light comes on and a woman in overalls looks at them, asking what they want, they should not be in here. She asks them where Lord Huston is.
Monty decides to run in and hit her, but when he reaches the doorway, he hits some sort of force field that throws him backwards. She tells them to go get Lord Huston and get out. Then she stares at Alex intensely and he feels an odd sensation in his head. She then seems to realise they are not cultists and asks where they are from.
Kaka-kaka-katak
Then she looks at Agatha and says she is the one she needs to communicate with her people. She says they are apes from somewhere else. She tells the “apes” to open the box beside the door and break the wires. Cassandra is not sure if that is safe. Monty asks who he is and she says her name is Kaka-kaka-katak. She was imprisoned here by the Huston, a very smart ape. Cassandra suddenly realises she means Dr Robert Huston – Roger Carlisle’s dream doctor.
She then reads Cassandra’s mind and understands why they are here. Cassandra tells her to get out of her head and she apologies but needs more information and continues to read her mind, unlocking some horrible memories from the Mountain of the Black Wind. The woman tells them they have seen the Crawling Chaos – Nyarlathotep. They are gods, but it would be best they avoided them, as they mess with ape brains.
She asks them what time period this is and have they had the double wars yet but they are not sure what she is talking about. She does not know a lot about “apes” and their history, only learning since she was tricked into coming here. She tells them that the Huston and the other servants of the Crawling Chaos want to open a portal and destroy their world. It would be better for them to stop their plans.
Being from the Past
Eddy asks where she is from and she says this City, but 200,000 solar cycles ago. Huston tricking her into swapping minds from the past into this ape body. Cassandra asks about what she read in the Wondrous Intelligences, about the forthcoming catastrophe in the past. They are looking for a time period in the future that is safe from the Polyps. She describes them as cancer that became sentient. They are multiplying and they do not think they will be able to stop them in the end. They have learn how to fly and are very resilient.
Huston is here because they are using the remains of the Technology of her race to help create the explosion they need to open the portal that will let the Great Old Ones to come through. She says he is a crazy ape who worships the Crawling Chaos. He needs to be stopped. She points at the device on the hospital couch and says the Huston is using that to “break ape brains”.
He could come back here any time and they should let her go, which they agree to do. Monty breaks the box and the woman walks through into their room, walking slightly oddly.
Powerful Weapons
She says the first thing they need is to arm themselves against the Polyps. She leads them back to the causeway, but cuts away from the lit causeway and into the darkness of the City. They follow her through strange rooms. When they have to climb over rubble, Cassandra and Agatha stay behind. She leads Alex, Eddy and Monty into a maze of broken rooms, until she reaches the one she is looking for. There she opens a secret panel and takes out two odd-looking devices, comprised of green, glowing tubes in a spiral, with some sort of projectile points out of the middle.
She plays around with its odd controls, which are not designed for human hands, and is able to produce some sort of powerful electric discharge from it, which shatters a near-by object. She then shows Alex how to do the same on the other device. When he does, he notices one of the tubes is glowing less.
She tells them they are useful for keeping the Polyps away, but Huston has worked out how to use them as well. They are lucky they have not encountered some of his people armed with them.
Huston’s HQ
Kaka-kaka-katak leads them back to Agatha and Cassandra, then leads them back to the causeway where the wires are. She leads them along the causeway until they reach a crossroads, where a generator and lamp is. Nearby is another wooden construct, which has three stories and she tells them that where Huston is. They should prepare their ape weapons to fight.
Cassandra asks about Huston and Kaka-kaka-katak confirms she has read his mind too, which is why she knows what they are doing and that he is crazy. Cass asks if she knows where Roger is, but she does not know who that is.
Eddy suggests burning the place down, but Monty does not think it would be wise to burn them alive. Eddy points out he had no qualms about that a few days ago. The others are not sure what he is talking about.
Ground Floor
Along the side of the wooden building are steps leading to the first and second floors, but Eddy goes to check out the ground floor first. He sneaks over to a curtained-off doorway and sees inside is some sort of storage area. There are a lots of supplies, a generator and many drums of petrol. On the floor, he can see a few shabby, skinny-looking people lying asleep on the floor. A man dressed like a miner carrying a whip is sat in a chair.
He goes back and tells the others. Monty wonders if the ones asleep are slaves and Kaka-kaka-katak says their minds have been broken and they obey any orders. Monty decides to deal with the ground floor, while Eddy sneaks up to check out the first floor.
First Floor
Eddy goes up the stairs and opens the door to the first floor room. In that room are a number of metal cages, with miners and aboriginals, including women and children. They look in a real state and when they see Eddy, they start making desperate, moaning noises. He quickly closes the door and tells the others.
Monty, standing by the curtain of the ground floor room, hears the man in the chair wonder out loud who woke them. Then Monty hears him going to urinate and Monty uses the opportunity to sneak up behind him and knock him out with his hammer. The others come in and check the room out. He checks the men on the floor have three marks on their shaved foreheads, suggesting they had that device on the hospital couch put on their heads.
Monty says he assumes Huston is on the top floor and Kaka-kaka-katak confirms this. He asks her why she didn’t say so earlier, but she says she does not know what they are going to do, as she can only read the ape Cassandra’s mind and she does not like it when she does that.
Second Floor
They all go up the stairs to the second floor and open the door, seeing a nice, well-laid out room, with a desk, bed and work bench. There is a familiar marine chronometer on the wall, like they are seen in other places. They see an older-looking man, who Cassandra recognises as Dr Huston. He looks up when they enter and is surprised and impressed that they are here. He has been told they are coming.
He mocks Cassandra for coming all this way for Roger. Cassandra asks where he is. He is not sure, perhaps Jack Brady took him but he does not know where. Jack took Roger because he did not agree with their plans. Huston says he god has been waiting for her to come. He knows what they did in Kenya and that was unfortunate, but their only choice now is to join their cult.
Join Us
He asks them what they imagine they could do against Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos. He is the messenger of the gods. They have shown they are above the common folk and are worthy to join them. Alex mentions they are smart apes and Huston asks if they have been talking to his prisoner. He will have to have words with her. Alex reveals they have let her go and Huston says they should not have done that, but he will get her back.
Huston says he is a high priest of a god – what can they do against him. Monty raises his hammer, but Huston makes an odd hand gesture and tells him to drop it and not move. Monty is forced by some force to do exactly that. Cassandra says she has killed high priests before. Huston says M’Weru was useful and it is a shame about Queen Nitocris, but they will be replaced. In fact, the old woman (Agatha, who is outside with Kaka-kaka-katak) has been ear marked for that role.
He tells Cassandra he will be Nyarlathotep’s bride. How can she possibly turn down such an opportunity? Alex decides he has had enough of this and shoots Huston with his rifle. The doctor collapses in the chair.
Monster in the Dark
Meanwhile, above ground, Jeziah has been able to stabilize Tiger and they are resting, although they are concerned that the others are taking a long time down the stairs.
Suddenly, there is a loud noise. A huge, bat-like creature, carrying a crying aboriginal male, flies out of the sky and down the hole in the floor.