The party began the session still in the manse of Dr Hiram Quill in Bristol. They decided it was time to explore upstairs. In Quill's bedroom they encountered a man on his knees praying at the foot of the bed, although this was obviously not Quill himself. As they sought to approach him, a half man, half rat creature burst out of the bathroom and attacked.
As William engaged the monster, the stranger leaped to his feet and came at Fallowdrake wielding a heavy brass cross. A brutal fight ensued, with both the rat being and the other man killed outright (the latter being almost beheaded with an iron axe wielded by Fallowdrake). The rat creature changed back into the body of a naked Quill. His companion was wearing a dog collar and proved to have calling cards in his pocket identifying him as Reverend Matthias Rowe (later identified as an expert in Arthurian lore).
A further search of the upstairs of the house revealed another map, showing a pattern of ley lines across the southwest of England, and nexus points, including Glastonbury, Wellow, the Mendip Hills and notably Bristol cathedral. A journal belonging to Quill was discovered, in which he wrote of excavations of a plague pit in the Mendip Hills, and the discovery of an iron crown sealed in a Romano-British chamber. Quill was also translating a manuscript from Latin and Welsh which mentions "the Broken Son who shall rise where water and sorrow meet."
Our heroes decided to leave the house and return to their hotel to rest (and heal up). After a good sleep they headed to the sewer access point near the cathedral, descending into the dank and noisome tunnels in search of the hypogeum. As they were exploring, they were attacked, first by more giant rats, the size of dogs, and then by swarms of frogs. Luckily they avoided skin contact with the amphibians and as more frogs converged on their location, were able to evade them by running (frogs cannot move faster than men).
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| Our valiant heroes face a frog swarm under Bristol |
Eventually the party came to a place under the cathedral, seemingly only accessible via the sewer network, where they could hear chanting. Fallowdrake decided to protect their rear by spreading lines of apple bough ash across the tunnel, which was prescient, as a shuffling zombie came out of the darkness from behind them, but stopped at the line of ash.
Up ahead, they could see lantern light and the glowing figure of a man in armour. Approaching, they found six people in what looked like an old Roman temple, surrounding the transparent form of a man in Dark Ages armour, who was standing with his head bowed. Another man in a cowled purpled robe held an iron crown. William recognised one of the worshippers as his doppelganger.
In a climactic battle, the party attacked the Circle of Six (for it was they). The man in the hooded robes was shot first and dropped the crown, upon which other members of the circle sought to retrieve it while others chanted. The leader was not dead, though, and transformed into another man-rat entity and attacked the party, but to no avail, as it was eventually bludgeoned into unconsciousness and later shot in the head (he turned back into a mortal man, and was recognised as Dr Emrys Carfax, the doctor in charge of stopping the plague in Bristol).
The image of Mordred seemed to become more solid as the ritual (and the battle) continued. One cultist produced a pistol and opened fire (the GM rolled...badly) before he too was slain. Fallowdrake sought to shoot the crown from a distance, but the bullet ricocheted off it, and he suddenly had a vision of himself as a prominent literary figure. Soon only the false William remained. He stopped chanting and faced off against the party on his own, but was also defeated (the dice were not the friend of the GM in this foray). He vanished into thin air.
With his departure, Fallowdrake drew a circle of ash around the image of Mordred, which then also faded with a mournful howl. The party recovered the Iron Crown but were very careful not to touch it (sensible). They put it back in its box but coated it with apple bough ash as a further precautionary measure (also sensible).
As they were doing this a door of light appeared in the temple where no door existed before and through it came William's double, seemingly fully recovered. He offered to take the crown from them to the palace where the Mourning Queen was bound under Avalon, where it would be beyond the reach of mortal men. The party refused the offer, whereupon the doppelganger offered to trade places with William, who also refused. The figure shrugged, smiled wrly, and returned through the shining door to the lands of the fae.
With that the party debated what to do with the crown. It was eventually determined they should sail to Iceland and throw the crown into a volcano. Passage was duly booked and the group sailed north away from Bristol. Amidst less than clement weather conditions they trekked to the volcano Oraefaejokull in Iceland and threw the crown into the crater. As it fell, they thought they saw an arm made of magma reach up and catch it, before it disappeared - perhaps forever - under the lava.
Upon returning to England at the dawn of the New Year in January 1866, the party discovered the plague in Bristol had almost completely vanished. William Chubb had fled to Australia. Charles Dodgson had just published Alice's Adventure in Wonderland...
"He's dreaming now...and what do you think he's dreaming about? Why, about you! Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream. If that there king was to wake, you'd go out - bang - just like a candle."
Lewis Carroll
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