TOPIC: Horror on the Orient Express - All Rotations

Makryat’s skin pales to a translucent, waxen white, its living warmth draining as it takes on the dead glaze of the Simulacrum’s porcelain. He screams, and the sound fractures into wet, choking syllables as he claws at his own face, fingers slipping as though the flesh is already softer than it should be. His features begin to smear and collapse, skin blurring and slumping like overheated wax. Bone vanishes beneath yielding flesh; his nose dissolves, his ears sag and are swallowed, until his face is reduced to an anonymous, suffocating mask.

The surface of his body begins to ripple. From every pore, threads of crimson and viscous, luminous energy tear free, writhing like veins pulled inside out. His skin peels, not cleanly, but in heavy, wet folds; sloughing away from the muscle with a sound like sodden parchment being torn apart. Beneath it, his exposed tissue throbs and shudders, slick and raw, each pulse painfully alive.

Makryat’s final breath is a bubbling gasp, thick with fluid and terror. His mouth tries to scream one last time, but only a gurgle escapes. Through the ruin of his face, his eyes remain horrifyingly human: wide, lucid, and pleading, until the last shred of skin finally gives way, leaving nothing but the flayed echo of the man he was.

Tick a skill of your choice.

II THE SHORT VERSION

Saturday 23rd February 1923
2.0 AM. Makryat is dead.
The demon engine reverts to normal.
With no driver, the Express grinds to a halt.
Search under the train.
The secret locker.
The Duc is watching.
On our way again.
The Duc’s cathedral car pops off.
Paris. Recover the Simulacrum and six oil skin tubes.
Four scrolls. One Mims Sahis. One dossier of the Duke of York.
No cure for the afflictions and more degradation is to come.
Back to Blighty.
Tea time. London Victoria.

II THE LONG VERSION

Saturday 23rd February 1923

No more avatar
Robert Harrow was dead. Technically he was already dead, as Selim Makryat had hollowed him out and stole his identity. Makryat was now nothing more than a puddle of gloop on the salon car floor. We feel a definite deceleration of the train. The Orient Express slows to a halt. Up ahead, the demon train—Aspect of Nyarlothatep—is once more an ordinary steam engine (if the Orient express could ever be described as such), with no driver on the footplate. The dark magic that had transformed the engine had been dispelled with the death of its creator.

A who’s who of what they did next
Father Mika knocks back more brandy for medicinal purposes, Cartwright steals all the cigars from behind the salon car bar, the bar tender presumably having swooned, and probably mentally scarred forever, at the gruesome sight of Makryat’s ending. Ludwig complained about the unacceptable delay to the Chef de Train (and the mess on the salon car floor). He said something about writing a letter to the Wagon-Lits company and the delays and the mess being outrageous. Pierre, Letty and Percy climb out and look beneath the train. Percy snatches a lantern from a conductor. They find what they’re looking for. A secret compartment, welded beneath the Calais Coach, holds the pieces of the Simulacrum and five oil skin tubes.

The watcher on the balcony
Pierre looked to the rear of the train. The Duc (aka The Prince, aka The Jigsaw Prince) stood on a balcony of his cathedral car watching proceedings. They’d have to leave everything where it is or else the Duc would know they’d discovered the treasure. They reboarded the train empty-handed.

Here come the guards
The Chef de Train insisted everything was under control and the train would be under way again shortly. We were in France, several miles short of Paris. The Express, due to unexpected spurt of speed, was in fact ahead of schedule and we would arrive in Paris early, rather than late. The Chef de Train now has other business to conduct. Guards from the fourgon carriages, those not dead or terribly wounded, are searching the passenger carriages to identify murderous assailants.

The spy and the envoy
Letty rushes to the Calais Coach to wake Elena Costanza (or whatever her real name is). Maybe she can help before we’re discovered. The bald headed, androgenous, envoy of the Duc is the in car—waiting. He demands to know what progress we’ve made.
‘Working on it,’ said Letty.
‘The Duc is not a patient man,’ replied the envoy.
‘Just give us a bit more time,’ pleaded Letty.
The envoy blinked. His eyes went totally black. He blinked again. Eyes back to normal. Communicating Letty’s update to the Duc no doubt.
She pushed past the envoy and entered her compartment. She woke Elena and hurriedly explained our predicament. Elena said she'd do what she could.

The spy and the guards
Elena headed off the search party before it could enter the salon car. She remained out of sight with the Chef de Train and his guards for several minutes. When she re-emerged in the salon car she announced the search for miscreants among the passengers had been called off. She went back to bed without an explanation of how she’d managed it.

We need a miracle
They pondered what to do next. Pierre was adamant he knew the exact spot beneath the Calais Coach floor the locker was located. We could rip the flooring up perhaps. Otherwise we need to wait for the train to stop at Paris and hope to get underneath without being seen. The biggest problem of course is what to do about the Duc? We need Father Mika to pray for us—we need a miracle. At that moment the train shunted violently. Percy was sent flying. The train didn’t stop however, after the unexpected lurch it continued as before. We looked out the window. The Duc’s cathedral car was gone.

We don’t understand the science of the Dreamlands—do we?
What could have caused it? Cartwright makes an educated guess. Perhaps the Duc’s car, being a manifestation from the Dreamlands, is tethered to Dream Lausanne. Maybe we have reached a distance far enough from Lausanne for its power to diminish. Beyond a certain limit of reach, the car can no longer sustain itself in the physical plane. And the Duc? Has he been pulled back to Dream Lausanne too, or could he have stepped into the physical plane, right here on the train, before his cathedral car popped off?

Early Arrival
Despite chaos and delay, and despite having to get a back-up driver to get the train going again. We pull into Paris Gare de l’Est in the pre-dawn, ahead of schedule at 6.0 AM. The shock of the Orient Express not running exactly to schedule threw the stationmaster and his crews. There was a bustle of confused passengers, guards and porters on the train and platform as passengers were disembarked with little time to dress and no time to breakfast. The police were being called to the train—the Chef de Train had many disturbing reports to provide. In the confusion, everyone but Mika and Cartwright dropped down on the track side of the train, away from the prying eyes of those on the platform, and wasted no time in accessing the secret compartment. We recovered six pieces of the Simulacrum and six oil skin tubes.

Now you see me, now you don’t
Cartwright stood on the platform, prepared to run a distraction should he think anyone might notice the others on the tracks. Maybe he planned to pull a rabbit from his (Ludwig’s) hat or the old three cups and a ball sleight-of-hand hustle. He didn’t get to do any of this however. The platform was a hive of activity—passengers were still confused, porters were loading luggage on hand trolleys and gendarmes were questioning people and sealing the train. Cartwright’s attention was caught by a vendor at a newspaper stand. He looked exactly like the Duc. The vendor winked at Cartwright before the milling masses on the platform obscured Cartwright’s view. Cartwright pulled his cigarette lighter and loosened the cap, intent on splashing its accelerant on the Duc and setting him alight. He swam through the crowds to reach the newspaper stand—but it wasn’t there. No stand, no vendor, no Duc.

The oil skin tubes
We regroup and take over a waiting room on the platform, jamming the door so no-one else should enter. We need to spell that saves us from our degradations and pray the oil skin tubes hold what we need. We empty the contents.
Tube 1 contains the Scroll of the Head. The only scroll we have so far possessed.
Tube 2 contains the Scroll of the Belly. A mad litany to the Skinless One.
Tube 3 contains the Mims Sahis. Ludwig snatches up his precious and secures it beneath his coat, close to his heart.
Tube 4 contains an envelope and documents. The envelope is filled with newspaper clippings of Prince Albert, the Duke of York. The documents are an itinerary of his movements and appointments.
Tube 5 contains the Scroll of the Legs
Tube 6 contains the Scroll of the Right Hand

Missing scroll number 1
The scroll of the Left hand was not in the collection.
‘But we need all the scrolls to destroy the Simulacrum—and the deed must be done at the Shunned Mosque.’
Everyone stops to think for a minute.
‘Who told us it has to be done at the Shunned Mosque?’
‘Professor Smith did. It was in his notes. The notes Beddows gave us.’
‘You mean what Selim Makryat told us in the notes. The notes that asked us to gather the pieces of the Simulacrum and deliver them to Makryat’s secret cultist headquarters in Constantinople—that Shunned Mosque?’
‘Oh. Well, now you put it like that.’
‘It’s all Billy Bullshit.’
‘So we don’t need to go back to Istanbul to destroy it?’
‘I certainly hope not.’

Missing scroll number 2
And there’s no scroll or spell to end our cursed afflictions either. Above the lip of the station roof, the pale dawn sun began to rise. Everyone flinched as new degradations wracked their bodies to supplement their existing afflictions.
-Letty began to grow thick ropey hairs from her body.
-Cartwright’s skin erupted in mass of sores.
-Pierre’s flesh discoloured taking on the putrid shades of necrosis.
-Percy’s skin loosened and sagged.
-Ludwig secreted a vomit-like substance from his pores instead of sweat.
-Father Mika TBA
-George Banks TBA
Percy tried to form words—the new hang of his jowls affected his speech. ‘At least we’re not dead yet,’ he managed.

London bound
The Orient Express has been sealed off and taken possession of by the police. It’s going nowhere. We need to get to London. Fast. Pierre goes to the ticket office and enquires after then next train to Calais. The attendant, making a huge fuss about the man’s stench, quickly passed over six tickets for the 9.15 AM train. We secure bags to place our treasures in and wait out the next three hours. Once at Calais we acquired tickets for the cross-channel steamer to Dover, and from Dover a train to London. We arrived at Victoria Station at tea time, having caught up as much sleep as possible on route.

.

Duke of York
In 1923, George V is king. He had five sons, the princes Edward, Albert, Henry, George and John. Edward is Prince of Wales, will later become Edward VIII and will abdicate in 1936. Albert, Duke of York, will succeed his brother to become King George VI. The others are Henry (Duke of Gloucester), George (Duke of Kent), and Prince John, who died young.

In short, the Duke of York in 1923, is Prince Albert.



Recap of a previous handout on the Sedefkar Scrolls
Sedefkar wrote the scrolls in response to the prescient knowledge that he would one day lose the Simulacrum. The scrolls are a record of what the Simulacrum meant to Sedefkar.

This scroll was written by Sedefkar the Osmali.

It concerns an item in his possession, the Sedefkar Simulacrum. In this scroll, Sedefkar prophesises that he is soon to lose the simulacrum, and so praises it and makes a record of it in a set of five scrolls.

This scroll is the first of the five, and is referred to as the Scroll of the Head, being the thoughts and history of Sedefkar. The four missing scrolls are the Scroll of the Belly, concerned with the worship of a being known as the Skinless One; the Scroll of the Legs, a series of body affecting magicks, the foundation on which Sedefkar’s power was built; the Scroll of the Right Hand, a ritual which awoke the statue, and is the driving force of Sedefkar’s power; and the Scroll of the Left Hand, containing a ritual which balances this power, a necessary ongoing sacrifice.

The scroll is a rambling, insane document. The author has not set down events in any form or order, making it difficult to follow. The most detailed description in the document dwells on the torture and skinning of human beings.

III THE SHORT VERSION

Saturday 23rd February 1923
2.50 PM. Victoria.
Missing Islington schoolmaster in the news.
Bill the Cabbie. Taxi to Islington.
Dreamlands in London.
Bong.
The Duc reminds us of the deal.
Delivery Instructions.
Simulacrum and scrolls. Hamstead Heath. Tomorrow. Sunset.
Wake up outside number 3 Brophy Lane.