MoN 053: Exploring Cuncudgerie

For a week or so, the group explored the dusty frontier mining town of Cuncudgerie. The amenities were basic at best. Charles, particularly, did not fare well in such an environment, while Kirk and George seemed in their element. Both enthusiastically dived into Cuncudgerie’s nightlife (such as it was) in an attempt to get the lay of the land. Both heard many interesting rumours and titbits and what they heard convinced them they should explore the desert even though they didn’t know what they were looking for or where it was.

Some of the more experienced miners and explorers tried to dissuade the group from their goal. Still, Kirk’s money talked, and soon, the investigators had two fully equipped and heavily laden trucks suitable for an extended trip into the desert.

However, before they could depart, they discovered that Mortimer Wycroft and his three daughters had departed on one of their semi-frequent trips into the Great Sandy Desert. The group had previously visited the shop in the guise of shopping for supplies and had come to the realisation that Wycroft was more than a little mad. He was also more than a little pale and skinny—in fact, suspiciously so. He reminded George of Luis de Mendoza—the kharisiri the group had repeatedly killed during their expedition in Peru four years previous.

The group had found Mortimer Wycroft’s details at the Randolph Shipping Company. He had been shipping items out of the desert to Randolph, and from there, they had been distributed to several far-flung places around the globe. This intrigued them.

Thus, it was that the group decided they were perfectly within their rights to break into Wycroft’s shop while he was away somewhere in the desert. This they did, although Vincenzo’s lockpicking skills were sadly lacking, and various doors had to be removed from their hinges so the group could enter surreptitiously.

Nothing out of the ordinary presented itself in Wycroft’s shop, but upstairs in his bedroom, George found a book under the man’s bed. The book—Wondrous Intelligences—was written during the English Civil War. Among many other things, it featured sketches of quite singular sexual positions. Kirk—not bothered or distracted by that kind of thing—leafed through the book. One passage caught his eye—in fact, it did more than that. The redoubtable investigator froze at the horrible implications of the words he read. Something seemed to snap or give way in his mind, and strange thoughts, impressions and knowledge rushed inward. Kirk bore away the book for future study, although what he had glimpsed had clearly unnerved him. His companions noted that Kirk seemed paler and more haggard due to merely looking through the book. Perhaps further study was not such a good idea?

In any event, the group returned to their rooms to discuss their next move. Wycroft had disappeared into the desert and could not be followed. Absent any other plan, a trip into the Great Sandy Desert, perhaps following the Canning Stock Route, seemed the way forward. Perhaps while out in the great, barren, sandy, inhospitable and larger unexplored wastes teeming with poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders and other unknowable dangers, they might stumble onto something…or perhaps something might stumble onto them…

This post is a session summary for my weekly 7th edition Call of Cthulhu Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign.

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