*
Walking with Jezebel, you deliberately slow your pace to a dawdle, forcing Whipple to walk on past you. He glowers, and then strides onwards past the trundling cart.
You may not be a tough guy or a marksman, but you haven’t been a professor at Miskatonic for a decade now without learning about the right words for the right occasion. With careful, quiet hints and thoughtful questions, letting her mind lead her to her own conclusions, you think you’ve managed to convince her that James’ motives on this expedition may not be all they seem to be.
She shakes her head, a little sadly.
“There’s something wrong, terribly wrong, about all of this,” she tells you. “What happened to those workers…and the way Professor Hurley smiled at me. Ugh! I thought he was being kind.”
You’re walking close now. Her hand slips into yours, and clasps it tight.
“You’re the only one I can trust,” she says, and smiles at you.
*
You stumble in under the great grey arch of the fortress.
“The Eyes On The Cliff, they used to call it,” James shouts, his voice echoing through the immense passageway. “Kept watch for British ships approaching from the south. Built to be near-impregnable.”
“What happened there?” Jezebel murmurs from beside you. She’s gazing down at an enormous crack in the stone wall; the side of the archway has begun to sag as a result. “I thought this place didn’t see any fighting.”
“From the end of the war, miss,” someone growls. You glance around, and to your surprise, realise that it’s one of the dull-eyed locals who’s speaking. An older man, with a shock of white hair in the middle of the grey.
“They moved the battalion out and west,” he says. “Left a token few men to maintain it. Well, it got to ‘em, just a couple of young local lads up here, locked behind these walls away from their sweethearts. One boy, Jess Tremaine, went worse than the rest. Blew up the powder kegs beneath our feet – you’ll see the damage to the south-west wall, miss, once we’re in the courtyard – took his rifle and started shooting.” His sea-weathered face is pale. “Lot of sweet young boys of Dynhill perished in this damned place,” he adds.
Jezebel touches him softly on the arm.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she tells him.
He nods.
“Best be helping them unload the cart,” he mutters. “’Scuse me, miss... good luck.”
Gulls erupt from above you; the courtyard is huge, and the stone walls high. Turning back, you can see where the south-west side has begun to collapse, presumably from the explosion the old man mentioned.
James is standing over a large, protruding rock in the very centre of the cobbles. He looks up as you approach.
“We’ll set up the ladders and the harness under the southern wall,” he says. “There’s a little battlement, for the cannons; we can make the climb down to the temple from there.”
His aging face is open, and smiling. The smile of a very old friend.
“But this,” he tells you, kicking gently at the rock, “is to whet your appetite, Stephen. A marker-stone; the boundary of the sacred ground. Apparently even the soldiers were afraid to move it. So they simply…built around it. It’s how I even got wind of this place to start with.”
You stoop, and try to make out the faint, rain-washed markings across the base of the stone.
Welcome, traveller, to my golden hall.
But there’s something else, as well; fainter scratchings beneath the scratchings, too heavily-eroded to be made out. Words beneath words.
*
As the workers begin to unload the cart, you slip away out of the courtyard.
“If there was one boundary stone,” you mutter, aloud, “there’ll be more. In the temple's outer circle...”
In a narrow, shaded passageway near the north wall, you find what you’re looking for. A narrow slab of granite, half-tucked into a small doorway. You kneel, and peer down at it.
Welcome, traveller, to my golden hall.
But the lettering here has been partially obscured; the symbols have been scratched at, and other, fresher symbols etched over them. Mesopotamian in their depictions, perhaps, but not in any language you recognise. And beneath both of the patterns, faintest of all, you’re certain you can make out more pictographs, in a similar style to the most recent markings.
“There was a war here,” you mutter, aloud. “Its battles centuries apart; its worshippers on both sides seeking to cross out the other side’s culture. Or…perhaps…not a war, perhaps an equation…”“Praying for forgiveness, Professor?”
You look up.
Whipple is leaning against the far wall of the passageway, smoking a cigar. His revolver is hanging ostentatiously at his hip.
“Saw you was keepin’ an eye on me keepin’ an eye on you earlier on the road,” he says, conversationally. “Figured we should talk. Name of Josiah Henry mean anything to you, Professor?”
“No,” you reply, shortly. Anger darkens his face.
“No,” he says, eventually. “Thought you’d say that.”
He reaches inside his pocket and produces a tiny, framed photograph. You get to your feet, and take it from him.
A young man, obviously in his best clothes, his hair slicked back to one side; smiling nervously towards the camera.
“Had his picture taken right before he left for Miskatonic,” Whipple says. “His mother wanted a keepsake. Josiah Henry. Your friend Professor Hurley’s new assistant. Came with him last time he was in this damned place. Never came back. Ringin’ any bells now, Buch?”
“Well, James never mentioned him to me,” you say, handing the photograph back. “Mr Phillips, can I ask-”
“-and this,” Whipple continues, ignoring you, “is a telegram I got this morning down at the post office. Told Hurley I was going to check for news about my grandchild.”
You take the proffered sheet of paper, unfold it, and read.
JOSIAH HENRY FOUND STOP BEDROOM OF J.HURLEY IN LOWER AVENUE STOPMUTILATION SEVERE MURDER HIGHLY SUSPECTED STOP IF POSSIBLE SECURE A RETURN TO ARKHAM IMMEDIATELY STOP
Whipple’s fingers are trembling on the butt of his revolver.
“You sick bastards,” he hisses. “What did you do? What did you do to him? Some occult bullcrap? You thought that boy’s life was gonna bring your hoodoo suddenly decide to work? I knew him, goddammit!”
You fold the paper again, slowly.
“If you think I’m involved in any of this,” you ask, slowly, “then why are you telling me?”
“Because I ain’t afraid of you,” he says, calming down. “And I’m thinkin’ this might be a good time for you to come clean. I don’t know what you boys have been planning – that caper with the five workers, the chanting in the manor, that white-dressed bitch you got following me about – and I don’t give a shit either. You ain’t gonna try and fight me, you university fops aren't gonna run off into some goddamn wilderness…either you get caught, or you confess voluntarily.”
He flicks away the cigar, and turns to go.
“Hurley’s going to be in handcuffs the second we step back into Arkham,” he says. “You might want to think about whether you want to join him.”
“Whipple,” you call back. “You really think any of us are going to make it back to Arkham?”
He stops, and turns back towards you.
His face goes pale. And his hands, slowly, go to his revolver.
You spin about.
An old woman, her face half-hidden beneath the cobwebs of white hair, is standing at the end of the passageway. Her hands are clasped behind her back. She’s tall, and dressed all in white.
Meg Polack.
Whipple takes a step towards you. He’s keeping his revolver trained on the old woman. His hands, however, are trembling.
“All right,” he hisses, and you can hear the fear in his voice now. “You just call your bitch off, Buch. I’ll shoot her if I have to. God help me, I'll shoot the pair of you.”
A) "She's nothing to do with me. Shoot her!"
B) Shove Whipple towards her, and run.
C) Take advantage of the distraction; tackle Whipple to the ground.
D) "Don't shoot her, Whipple. I don't think she means to harm us."
E) Other. (I don't know. Something else. You think of it.)