07/06/2026 – Fighting the Cultists (6)
Thursday, 23 May 1935
Jeziah Takes Command
Jeziah immediately panics, saying Cassandra is in danger and they need to go after that monster and protect her. He demands all of them come with him down the stairs. When Tiger struggles, he gives him a dose of morphine to ease the pain. Zalkador is reluctant, but Jeziah tells him it’s time to man up and does not take no for an answer.
Tiger brings the elephant gun and Banbridge takes the Lewis machine gun and a rifle as well. Jeziah shoves a gun in Zalkador’s hand and then marshals them all down the stairs. They proceed all the way down the stairs, following a similar path to the others who went before them. They are all awed by the huge city, but Jeziah tells them to keep moving.
Attack on Cultist Hut
They see the wooden hut where the cultists are based. Jeziah proposes a frontal assault, but Tiger grabs him and tells him to use stealth. They get their weapons ready and sneak over, although Zalkador hangs at the back. Banbridge stumbles and gives them away. A cultist looks out of the door and see them, but Banbridge shoots him in the head, killing him instantly.
A gun fight then breaks out. Banbridge, Tiger and Jeziah shoot at the four remaining cultists in the hut, who take cover and fire back as best they can. Tiger’s shooting is not great, but between them they shoot all the cultists after an extended exchange of fire. Banbridge is wounded twice and Jeziah once, but neither of them seriously, as they use their cover well.
Jeziah briefly pauses to bandage up their wounds, while Tiger searches the hut and makes sure they are all dead. There are just the personal belongings of the cultists in the hut, who live in squalor. He does find some nuggets of gold on them though, which he takes.
With no sign of Cassandra in the hut, Jeziah urges them on, following the electric wires further into the city.
Dr Huston’s Last Gambit
Dr Huston is seriously injured but not immediately dead. Monty begins to snap out of whatever was squeezing him brain and not letting him go. Cassandra is a little surprised by Alex’s actions, but she says she was tempted to do the same.
Then suddenly, she hears Dr Huston’s voice in her head. She sees his spirit rise from a bracelet on his body and he tells her she has made such a mistake. Cassandra draws her gun and fires, but the bullet passes straight through the spirit of Dr Huston, almost hitting Alex.
Dr Huston tells Cassandra she cannot hurt him. It is such a shame, she could have been their god’s bridge, but now he is going to have to become her and she will died – shot by her own friend. He then mentally attacks Cassandra, trying to swap bodies with her. She resists with all her mental strength, which is considerable. Huston soon realises he has made a mistake, Cassandra’s will is too strong to overcome.
Alex cannot see Huston and Cassandra seems to just be standing there, pulling a strained face, He decides to shoot Huston in the head, which causes the Doctor’s spirit to scream and dissolve. Cassandra snaps out of whatever was happening to her and tells them what was happening.
Kaka-kaka-katak enters and notes Dr Huston is dead. She says she is surprised they were able to beat him, he was a smart ape with a lot of mental abilities.
Searching the Ancient City
When the path splits, Jeziah is not sure which way to go. Zalkador offers to do a Tarot reading, but Jeziah says they do not have time for his nonsense. Banbridge spots some tracks and Tiger examines them, spotting what he thinks is Cassandra’s female boots and works out they went left into the City, so they go that way.
They pass through some of the strange rooms that the others went through, but Jeziah allows them no time to look at what is in them. He does though search a side building to see if Cassandra is in there, but when they do not see anything, he has them press on.
They go through the large, pentagonal building with the huge, breathing organic thing bulging out of the floor. Jeziah is spooked by this but presses on. They pass through that room and into the glowing Red Plaza. The room is huge and there are little dust, so there are few tracks. Jeziah starts to worry, but they continue to follow the electric wire and when they leave the room, Tiger finds Cassandra’s tracks again.
They follow the corridors pass a room where there is a lot of technical machinery, which was the room the others found Kaka-kaka-katak. They do not find Cassandra and so go back to the corridor and continue to follow the electric cables.
Mustering the Slaves
Alex, Cassandra and Monty discuss what to do next. Kaka-kaka-katak says something is happening to the north and it would best if they stopped it. Monty asks what about the people who have been made into slaves. “Kat” tells him they will follow clear instructions.
Monty goes to the ground floor and orders the sleeping workers to get up. They slowly respond, but when he gives unclear instructions they just ignore him. He then gives them clearer orders to grab tools and accompany them to the north, along with Alex, Eddy and Kat. Cassandra and Agatha stay behind to search Dr Huston’s room.
Stripping the Technology
As they head north, they see damaged rooms with piles of rubble, but a safe pathway has been dug through the rubble, leading deeper into another building. They follow this pathway and enter what looks to be a big control room, with a lot of machinery and consoles. Many of them have been broken open and the insides removed.
At the far end of the room are electric lights and a gang of five people, who look like they are more controlled slaves, who are working to remove more machinery and technology from consoles. A cultist with a whip seems to be supervising them.
As they arrive, the cultist with the whip is surprised to see them. Alex and Eddy shoot at him but miss. Monty charges. The man with the whip draws a gun and fires at Monty, but misses as well. Alex then shoots the man dead.
Monty then orders the slaves in the room to stop what they are doing and follow him. Kat says they need to use dynamite to block access to this area.
Meeting Up
They return to Dr Huston’s hut, with the ten slaves following Monty. When they get there, they see lights to one side. It is Jeziah leading his group, who immediately recognises Monty straight away. Jeziah immediately demands to know where “Ma’am” is and runs over to the hut.
Tiger questions who the ones who are following Monty are, as he suspects they are cultists. He draws his gun, but Monty and Eddy assure him they have been brainwashed. Jeziah comes running back saying Cassandra is not in the hut and Monty points him to the top floor.
Tiger tells them they saw a huge bat fly down the stairs, carrying an aboriginal man. Kat tells him that is a Servant of the God of the Sand Bat. Tiger demands to know who she is, but Kat reads his mind and assures him she is friend.
Kat then tells Monty to bring the slaves and follow her, while Alex should gather as much dynamite as he can find. Monty, Eddy and the slaves then follow Kat back to the workshop where they found her.
Checking Huston’s Room
Agatha covers Huston’s dead body while they search his room. They find another Marine Chronometer, like was found in Ju-Ju House, Misr House and at the Mountain of the Black Wind. Cassandra finds a letter from Huston to Gavigan, which tells him someone called “the Pale Viper” is expecting an update from him.
There is also a typewriter, as well hundreds of pages of text. It is titles “Gods of Reality” by Dr Robert Huston. Cassandra decides to take the pages for reading later.
At that point, Jeziah bursts in and hugs Cassandra, clearly relieved that she is OK. Cassandra is a little taken back by his manic behaviour and updates him a little on what has happened. He slows begins to calm down and snap out of the anxiety that gripped him since he saw the huge bat.
Cassandra has him take Dr Huston’s writings and put it in his bag with the other notes. Jeziah finds a bracelet on Dr Huston’s wrist that seems to be made of a strange, bronze or copper-like metal, with a small, green glowing crystal crafted in the middle. Cassandra recognises it as the device that allowed Huston to try to swap bodies with her. Jeziah pries it off his wrist and takes it.
Deprogramming the Slaves
When they reach the workshop, Kaka-kaka-katak grabs tools and begins to make adjustments to the large console that has the headset that is on the couch. She tells them Huston managed to work out how to adjust their memory machine that affects ape brains and turn it into something that makes an ape into a mindless slave. He did this using trial and error, killing a number of apes in the process.
When she has finished her adjustments, she has him put the headset on the first slave, an aboriginal. She throws a few levers and the machine hums for a few minutes. Then she switches it off and the man suddenly looks around and babbles in his native language, confused and scared. He hides in the corner of the room.
Kat repeats the process on the rest of the slaves. Some pass out, others are scared and angry. Monty and Eddy end up having to manage them. Some of them who speak English start to demand to know what is going on. Monty is forced to get rude with them to keep them from doing stupid things.
People Approaching
Alex finds a box with 50 or more sticks of dynamite on the ground floor of Huston’s hut. He carries the box out and moves it over to where the northern passageway through the rubble starts. Banbridge spots just in time that four people are approaching with head lamps from the south. They quickly take cover on the north side of the building.
They hear them heading up the stairs, possibly up to Huston’s room, where Cassandra, Agatha and Jeziah are. Tiger imitates a cultist calling for help and one of the cultists come round to the front of the building. He gets into a fist fight with Tiger, who eventually punches him to the ground. Tiger then leaps on him and beats his face until he is dead.
Another Shoot Out
Agatha hears the sound of the cages in the level below them being opened and the noise of the prisoners moaning. and wonders what is going on. They decide to go down and see what is going on.
Outside, they also hear the prisoners making noises and they move around the building. As they move round, the cultists emerge from the first floor, shouting at the prisoners to shut up. Above them, Jeziah, Cassandra and Agatha are also on the stairs, leaving Huston’s room. Another fire fight breaks out, with the cultists caught between targets below them and above them and are gunned down, mainly by Jeziah shooting them in the back.
They then realise that there are another 12 prisoners in the cages that they will need to release and deal with. Zalkador says that one of the prisoners is the aboriginal that the huge bat was carrying earlier. He looks in a bad way. Tiger says they came from the south – so the bat monster must be that way.