The Relic continues....

Setting off a little earlier than the proposed time, the group headed for the main gate and waited. And waited. And then waited some more. Some were about ready to give up when Mr Edwards nonchalantly made his way past the gate and let out a cry to which the others responded. Mrs Shannon was found lying amongst the undergrowth, dead from strangulation. Her hand still clutched a piece of rather ancient looking cloth covered in strange designs and everyone surmised that it had something to do with the death of the Professor and that Mrs Shannon had intended to pass it on. Someone obviously didn't wish her to. Mr Shannon came to mind.

  The party returned to the cottage and, after getting over the shock of the stolen biscuits ("Damn that Mr Shannon!"), searched it for clues (and more biscuits). After finding neither, they sat in the kitchen, lost for ideas. Suddenly an eerie noise filled the room which then turned into a very low chanting.  The players, showing bravery and daring, rushed for the door  tripping over one another as they struggled to get outside the house. Only once the sound had died did they attempt to re-enter. As normality appeared to resume, they spotted a figure standing outside in the fading sunlight, holding a lantern. Everyone shouted out that it was the ghost of Prof. Harrison, and funny enough, it was, his face twisted horribly with scars. He began to walk away from the house and the party followed at a safe distance as he led them off the path and down to the nearby stream, where he stopped and pointed to the base of a tree.  Dr Viljoen took fear by the collar and approached the spot indicated and found a black bag. Inside was a skull, a roughly drawn map, some notes containing a strange code written in the same runes as those on the clay tablet, and an old piece of parchment also covered in the runes.

The ghost turned around walked away, disappearing into the dusk, thoroughly fed up at being dead. The afterlife wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

The players set about reading the notes which detailed the folklore that surrounded the monastery. It told the story of a secret order of monks that had lived there and had been accused of witch craft and how their power came from a mysterious item brought back from the holy land. It also told how a local noble man lay siege to the monastery and captured it, along with the four leaders, and how all the monks and a large proportion of the local population were put to the sword with the rumours of a plague spread around to keep others away. The exact location of this mysterious item was unknown although Prof. Harrison believed that an encrypted code he had found in an old text revealed its whereabouts. The code, which he reproduced in his notes, was written in the same script as that on the clay tablet, and so the players hoped that finding the others would help them decipher it. 

Armed with the map showing the expected whereabouts of the other seals, and an arsenal that would put a battalion to shame, the party made their way out into the dark night to search for the remaining three slabs, leaving PC Fox and Emily Ross-Forsyth to try to decipher the clues with the information they had. The seals were discovered very much as indicated. Each one was emblazoned with a crucifix on the front which appeared to glow, and with strange runes on the back. As they started back to the house they heard Miss Ross-Forsyth scream and the sound of a gunshot. In their absence the eerie noises had started again and that biscuit-snatching Mr Shannon had appeared briefly at the window.

With all four tablets gathered, the party began what was to prove an arduous task to decipher the ancient manuscript, interrupted only to make more tea, and punctuated by the restless shuffling coming from the strange room which no one could enter. Two hours later Capt. Butler broke the code, which was nearly miraculous considering that whatever stupid old monk had written the text had used a wrong symbol in the first word! The writing stated that the relic, although still not described, was buried under the main courthouse of the monastery, a place fairly easily identifiable from the map. So the group prepared to set of to search it out. Just then there was a loud banging on the door, and Mr Shannon appeared at the window, asking to be let in into his house. After a few minutes the group reluctantly opened the door. He came in, eyeing the biscuit dish, and then demanded to know if they had seen his wife. He was swiftly told the bad news.

Not long afterwards a gunshot was heard outside, and there was more frantic banging on the door. This time it was Detective Biggs shouting that he had been attacked by masked figures in the woods.  He too was let in, eventually, and on seeing the gamekeeper pointed him out as his prime suspect for the murder of Prof. Harrison, while the players took a back seat waiting suspiciously to see how things would unfold. Suddenly Biggs turned on Dr Viljoen and put a gun to his back and ordered everyone back. He also instructed Shannon to take the deciphered clue and map but, being the thick inbred hick he is, the gamekeeper was already out of the house, leaving the policeman with the rather tricky problem of how to get out alive. Biggs then attempted to leave, taking the doctor with him. However Viljoen was having none of it and refused to budge, making for a rather tricky problem. Luckily for Biggs Jonathan Edwards was close enough to be grabbed instead.  Both went outside, with Biggs shouting threats that Edwards would be killed if anyone followed. Unfortunately for Edwards the group remained unmoved by his plight and so he had to free himself, a feat made easy through being the referee.

The group slowly made their way to the site marked out as where the relic had been buried.  As they moved along the main track the flicker of lanterns and torchlight could be seen  through the trees, and as they neared the spot the sound of voices were heard. Quickly realising Biggs, Shannon and his associates were already at work apparently looking for the relic, the players drew their own guns and split up into small groups. As they made their way up the bank and into the woods the presence of the players became known and shots rang out and so they returned fire. This exchange continued for some time as the group made their way through the woods, shooting at the figures as they were picked up in the torchlight. At the end of the exchange Detective Biggs and one other masked thug were dead, although Shannon had disappeared. The party, however, remained miraculously unharmed for all the bullets flying. (Do you know how hard it is for a referee to keep track of players in darkness?)

A large iron-bound box was found by a hole in the ground, which Dr Viljoen swiftly picked it up and made off with. Those behind searched the bodies and found more of Harrison's notes, another very old looking cloth with the Arabic style writing on and a set of scrolls. Returning to the house to investigate their new finds, the group gathered in the living room of the house. After unscrewing the lock, the casket was opened to reveal a large reptilian mummified hand with four-inch long razor sharp claws which impressed Mr Edwards, if no one else.

Reading the notes, the group learned that the monks' power didn't come from the hand but the fearsome beast it belonged to, which had been summoned from a nameless hell by an ancient middle eastern cult, and that to control the beast its hand had been severed to tie it to this plane of existence. They also found out that through the same method the beast could be sent back. Lucky, huh?

The intellectual nature of the group made it difficult for them to believe these old stories, and so more down to earth suggestions as what to do with their finds were passed around, including that they should offer to sell the hand to Mr Shannon! However proceedings were interrupted when the door was flung open and Shannon burst in firing. As the group sat there somewhat stunned, the caretaker ran out of ammo and also stood gaping for a while before turning and running off. Taking a brief second to pull themselves together the group returned fire at the now empty doorway. Mr Shannon was found dead just round the corner. A ricochet perhaps? Tragically, John Hammond was hit clean in the chest, killing him instantly. There was mutters about serving him right for being asleep. However, he was to be just the first of many to perish before the night was out.

Just as the group were recovering from this  - and some were lamenting that the death of Shannon also ruined their chance of making a profit from their adventure - a robed, faceless figure appeared at the window. As the players raced to close the shutters the front door could be heard being thrown open. Dr Viljoen rushed to bolt and held it shut, but the creature was too strong and the door was flung open. The demonic monk stepped slowly into the room, quite wickedly for a robed figure. Members of the group either cowered at the back or drew their weapons and fired. The monk fell under a hail of bullets, which surprised everyone at the ease with which it dropped. Their relief was short-lived as the monk began to rise. With this the group charged out of the room. Unfortunately, the monk attacked at that moment and claimed a victim.

On their way out of the house, the party was confronted with yet another monk, lurching towards them. Quickly, the people were forced out into the night. After a while of skulking about, the group decided that perhaps they should consider looking at a way of dealing with these spectres. They finally gathered their courage to re-enter the house, and read the notes further until they discovered that to perform the correct ceremony they needed the ceremonial cloths, the hand, candles, representations of the four elements, and also four items to represent the elements of the hell from which the ancient civilisation had summoned the beast. It all sounded a bit tricky.

One bright spark hit upon the idea of summoning one of the dead monks who had lived in the monastery - using a spell they had found on the policeman - and asking him what to do. They did so, and the spirit of a dead monk appeared, glowing well under the UV light. It revealed quickly that around the necks of the monks now pursuing them were medallions engraved with symbols representing the elements required. It said other things as well, but the dead can be quite boring and no one listened. It disappeared in a sparkle of blue light.

The now somewhat smaller party had to turn the game of cat and mouse with the spectres around and try and retrieve the medallions. They waited for one of the monks to turn up and opened fire, and in the short space of time which the beast lay immobile on the floor they ripped the medallion from around its neck. The monk then crumpled to dust, sort of. The dangerous pursuit of the other monks continued, during which a huge beast with one hand missing joined the fray - obviously it had heard there was a party going on with a human buffet and had come along for a nibble. From the missing hand it was obvious that this was the creature mentioned in all the tales. No bullets harmed the creature, and it attacked ruthlessly, killing many. It even decapitated Dr Viljoen, which was a bit unfair because he was recovering from a backfire from his gun at the time. Finally it left, for some reason, and the only ones remaining were Emily Ross-forsyth, Capt. Fredric Danby and Hiram Grumbacker. 

The other three medallions were finally gathered. A special mention must go to Miss Ross-forsyth, who, using her quick reactions when unarmed and confronted by one monk, swiped a medallion from its neck. If the blank face of the beast could've shown surprise, it would have before falling into dust. But despite their success against the monks the large creature still remained, seemingly unstoppable. The even more depleted group prepared the ceremony outside.  First they summoned the creature before them, hopeful that it would remain under their spell as stated. The beast approached out of the darkness and stood impassively before them, held by the spell. Then the rite to return it to its own hell was begun. As the gateway was opened evil sounds began to fill the air and a thick mist appeared around the beast, flashing with light. The final stage of the ceremony was completed as the mist now covered the whole area in front of the house, and the creature screamed and disappeared into the smoke. Suddenly the sound and light ceased. When the mist had gone creature was nowhere to be seen. The few remaining people had survived.