TOPIC: R5: World War Cthulhu

Summary of tonight's session:
July, 1941

Andy - Raoul Dubois
Stephen - Noel Maclean
Hugh - Quincy MacBride
Matt - Padraig McGowan
Pat - Pierre Le Clair

After their first night spent in occupied France, the SOE team ventured into Rennes. McGowan remembered reading about an air raid on the town the previous year that had resulted the deaths of many refugees and retreating French and British soldiers. He also recalled that this coincided with N's team of 'sensitives' experiencing distressing dreams about the location.
The agents passed through a checkpoint without trouble, although McGowan attracted some attention, being Irish. They headed for the Museum and reconnoitred the area. Dubois and Maclean took particular interest in the row of apartment buildings next to the museum down a side street. Eventually they rented one on the third floor* and began settling in.
Le Clair, MacBride and McGowan continued to watch the museum. They saw Oskar Kalb arrive with two Gestapo men and enter the building around noon; he stayed for an hour. Shortly after his departure, von Laue also left with a group of officers and men. McGowan approached the guard on the museum door** and was refused entry. He and Le Clair visited the Cafe Morvan, a location frequented by Breton nationalists and a possible location for contacting Yann, a Resistance worker. While there they saw Rene Celle come in and sit with the regulars, although his manner seemed guarded. He left, and MacBride saw him go into the Hotel Cassard a few doors down. Not long after that, Yann visited the cafe and passed on the news that Gestapo men had visited the farm where the agents were staying, asking the Le Moals about McGowan. They had kept their cool and stated that the Irishman had arrived a week before, looking for work and they had put him up. The Gestapo left, but Yann warned that they would likely be back to talk to McGowan himself.
The agents ran a training session that evening for six Resistance workers***. While they were out, two Gestapo officers arrived at the farmhouse and questioned McGowan briefly. They did not arrest him, but insisted he report to their HQ in town, daily at 10am. Maclean and Dubois spent the evening watching the museum for signs of life, but saw none. They did, however, experience the unnerving sensation that something in the museum was watching them. That night, MacBride and Maclean both experienced disturbing dreams - little detail, but the sensation that something knew they were in Rennes and was determined to destroy them and their allies.

More next week!

*Having looked at some photos of Rennes, I see that the building in question actually has a fourth floor, with a roof space above that. If it matters to you I'm willing to allow that the flat you rented is on this floor instead. Also, there are only bars on the museum's ground floor windows.
**Again, after studying Google Earth, the main entrance appears to be on Quai Emile Zola - the road running beside the river.
***Not ten - there aren't as many as I thought.

Day 3

McBride and Le Clair moved out to a different safe house, eight kilometres north of Rennes, given that the Gestapo only expected McGowan to be staying at the first house. McLean and Dubois stayed at the flat they had rented in the rue Leonard de Vinci, next to the museum.

McGowan reported to the Gestapo HQ in the avenue de Barry at ten o'clock, as instructed. After leaving he noticed a hospital nearby with a temporary sign "Frontstalag 221W". McLean stayed in the flat to watch the front of the museum. As expected, von Laue arrived at 9am with a few Dienstelle Westen officers and soldiers. Dubois sat outside the Cafe Morvan (the Breton Nationalist hangout) and chatted with an old man named Albert. Albert told him about the air raid the year before and how many of the British and French soldiers who survived the attack were still in the hospital north of the town centre - now converted into a POW hospital called a "Frontstalag". As they talked, Dubois spotted Rene Celle leave the Hotel Cassard down the street and pass the cafe. Dubois tailed him for a while but stopped when he suspected Celle had spotted him. Dubois went into the hotel and spoke to a chambermaid, passing himself off as Celle's brother, which allowed him to find out that the Alsatian was staying in room ten. As he had no lockpicking skills, Dubois left.

At the flat, McLean's observation was interrupted by the concierge, who informed him that a cart had arrived with his and his co-tenant's belongings. As McLean took the two suitcases upstairs, McGowan saw him and followed him up for a chat. As luck would have it, the apartment's furnishings included a gramophone and some records, so McLean put something on to prevent anyone overhearing.

At 12.30pm von Laue and his men left the museum to lunch at a cafe across the river; McLean followed them, and some time later Dubois also arrived, but was unable to glean any information from overhearing their conversation. McGowan, meanwhile had gone to the east side of town to look at the site of the air raid. This was fenced off with several signs warning of unexploded bombs and forbidding entry. McGowan noticed that the fence was by no means secure, and noted a spot where one could pass through. He went back to the centre of town and met up with Dubois and McLean in a pissoir. McGowan went to look round the bomb site again while McLean took up position in the flat, watching the museum. Dubois returned to the Hotel Cassard and spoke to the desk clerk. After an awkward conversation during which Dubois gained the impression that Rene Celle was not the most reputable of folk, the clerk left him with the room key, not wanting to get in the way of Resistance activities. A search of the room revealed some items hidden below the wardrobe: an old revolver and ammunition, several thousand francs in gold, a piece of antique gold jewellery and an old book in Hebrew, concealed inside a cover printed in Arabic. Dubois replaced everything and left, locking the room and returning the key.

McGowan did not see anything new, but was stopped by soldiers patrolling the area and, despite the language barrier, given the impression that people should not loiter in that area as it was dangerous. He also noticed a small boy of about nine years who seemed to be watching him, but who was nowhere to be seen when the Irishman went looking for him.

It's now about four o'clock in the afternoon.

Day 3-4

The agents met at the flat in the rue Leonard de Vinci, opposite the Musee des Beaux-Arts, to plan their next moves. They were visited by Maelys Hamon from the local Resistance, who requested their help. There was a prisoner being held by the local Gestapo who had been sent to the prisoner-of-war hospital (Frontstalag 221W) to recover from injuries suffered during interrogation. Unusually, this man had been assigned a personal guard outside his room, suggesting that the Germans considered him of particular value. Maelys asked if the agents could rescue him; she could not participate directly, but could provide information on the hospital layout, guard schedules etc. The team agreed, and asked if she could obtain some chloroform and some orderly uniforms. She agreed readily, and set off immediately with McBride and McGowan back to the hospital, where she tossed five orderly outfits over the wall in a bag. Yves Le Pennec, the local Resistance leader, also turned up at the flat to discuss the plan of action. He agreed to arrange for the laundry van that serviced the hospital to be left unlocked and unattended, provided it was returned undamaged. The agents also requested a bottle of brandy and if possible a dummy or mannequin. As curfew approached the agents returned to their separate hideouts; McGowan at the house on the Le Moal's farm; McBride and Le Clair at the safehouse in the village of Betton, eight kilometres north of Rennes, and McLean and Dubois at the flat in the rue Leonard de Vinci.

Next day, as the others were making their way into town, McLean and Dubois were entering the local library. They had hoped to find a catalogue of the Musee's contents, but instead only found a historical book describing them in general terms. They did uncover a couple of interesting works - a book about a 'poisoners cult' that had been active in Rennes during the 19th century until its leader was caught and guillotined. Its author nevertheless suspected that the cult was still active and used witchcraft to escape detection. The other book was a collection of letters from the Revolutionary period. One message described the forcible confiscation of a strange,'evil' statue from a church in Bruz (14km from Rennes). Remembering that the poisoners cult he had read about generally used arsenic, McLean purchased some chemicals suitable for detecting that poison.

The rescue was set for 2pm that day. McBride reconnoitred the streets around the hospital while Le Clair spent time chatting to the regulars in the Cafe Morvan. As two o'clock drew near the team rendezvoused at the flat, then set out. They found the laundry van abandoned and unlocked, with a laundry basket in the back containing brandy and a waxwork head of Napoleon Bonaparte. Le Clair started up the engine and drove off, while the others in the back pulled on their slightly stained porters' uniforms. At the back gate, a bored guard allowed them through, Le Clair backed the van up to the doors and the group went in, pushing the basket. They went down to the basement laundry room and collected a pile of soiled linen, then headed for their target. Dubois and McLean checked inside a broom cupboard and found a bottle of chloroform and a pad of gauze. They also took mops and buckets which they filled and took with them. On arriving at the ward near where the prisoner (named Paol Bossard) was being kept, they started to clean the floor, but were scolded by the nurse on duty who told them to come back later. At the same moment, the other three arrived with the basket and wheeled it up the corridor towards the Gestapo guard...

Day 4-5
The rescue of Paol Bossard from the hospital went as planned and the team left the premises just as the local Gestapo were coming in to check on their prisoner. Bossard, though badly injured, was anxious to pass on information about a 'demonic force' which was being sought by various parties in the region. He advised the team to visit the church of St Pierre in the nearby village of Chateaubourg and to seek a cache of documents relating to the imprisonment of a demon beneath a stone bench in the vestry. The agents did as he asked and managed to persuade the local priest to let them smash through the bench and the stone beneath. They uncovered an old book - The Demon's Bane - which MacBride set to studying.

Day 5-6
A cursory study of the book revealed it to be an account of how the renowned sixth-century missionary saint Pol (and his followers defeated a cult worshipping an entity from another plane. Pol was able to summon the entity and trap it between two dimensional gates that faced each other. The gates were placed in the abbey of Bruz and were removed from there during the Revolution as part of a general confiscation of church artwork. MacBride's studies suggest the book contains rituals for reinforcing the wards that hold the creature, whatever it is.

While he continued to study the book, the others planned a reconnaissance mission into the Musee des Beaux-Arts. Entry was easy, with a key obtained by their Resistance friend Yann through a service entrance in the side of the building. Unfortunately the agents were faced with a dark basement full of mostly locked doors and no quiet way to open them. Deciding to explore upstairs, McLean was spotted and chased into the basement by two German guards. The team were able to kill these, but not before one had fired his rifle. More soldiers appeared at the street door. McGowan, wearing a German uniform, was able to bluff them temporarily, but then they saw Dubois behind him and, thinking him to be holding a fellow soldier hostage, opened fire. A Mauser bullet felled Dubois and only some rapid first aid by McLean saved him. The agents slammed the door shut and fled, carrying the injured Dubois. A few minutes later they made their way round to the courtyard of the apartment building, where MacBride let them in.