Necromancy Most Foul

Previous Victoriana session we stopped after breaking into a necromancer's house. Ben is out this session.

Sidney follows Aaron Baylor, the necromancer, to his office. He goes in, and Sidney runs off to Edwin Ingram's so that we can gather up again. While Edwin doesn't hear Sidney's knocking, his dog does. While Edwin works on getting Father Amorth and I, Sidney takes a loaf of bread and goes back to the necromancer's office.

Edwin Ingram goes to Freddy's flat (who is oddly still awake and in white tie formal attire) and has him grab Father Amorth, while Edwin gets me.

Edwin has some difficulty getting to my fashionable flat (chipping a tooth in the process), and then I have to get dressed, so it's a bit before the both of us can get the necromancer's office.

When we do, Father Amorth and Sidney aren't here, and there are three constables milling around.

We decide Ben's wife has a white eye, green hair, and a beard.

Father Amorth gets to Sidney, who is outside of the necromancer's office again. The windows are blacked out, so it's not clear if he's still inside or not.

Sidney asks some ghosts to check inside. One does on the condition that she tells his children where a hidden box is (mention peanut butter brittle on Wednesday, they'll know it's from him). She agrees, and he goes in for a few minutes before returning. He reports that there isn't much there, not even the necromancer, but the basement door gives him the creeps so he didn't check down there.

A constable wanders by and recognizes Father Amorth, and asks him what he's doing around here. Father Amorth doesn't lie, to which the constable says they're going to the station.

Two inspectors at the station, and Sidney fidgets a lot. One of the inspectors, Inspector Gibbons seems to think that Father Amorth's story about a necromancer is a bit fanciful, but it'll have to wait until the Chief Inspector arrives. He puts Father Amorth and Sidney in jail.

Around 6am, Joey Mathas, the Chief Inspector, has arrived. He lets Father Amorth and Sidney out escorts them to an office. He tells them that the guild is here to talk to him and Father Coburn is also here (Father Coburn first provided us with this job). Father Amorth has him pass a note off to the St. Augustine abbot.

The guild member is concerned that Father Amorth did not consult the guild at once. Father Amorth tells him that he did not have sufficient proof, and that his case is specifically a missing persons case. The guild member says its a guild member, and implies that Father Amorth will absolutely not be allowed into the necromancer's offices.

Finally, Father Amorth and Sidney are let go, and they even manage to get all of their effects back.

Edwin Ingram and I have been waiting for a little while, and finallyEdwin goes up to one of the constables and shows him his warrant card. The constable introduces himself as Ray O'Neil, and that he knows of Edwin, and is impressed by him. He saw our colleagues, and they're locked up at the station. Edwin asks why, and gets "suspicion" as a response.

We go to the station just in time to see our companions coming out. They tell us what happened.

A barely grumpy abbot passes us, seething barely contained rage.

We return, but the guild is involved now, which makes doing the investigating on our own problematic. Edwin talks to the sergeant again.

Edwin remains and talks to the sergeant again. Eventually, the guild members leave, saying something about needing reinforcements, and Edwin manages to secretly negotiate entrance with the sergeant, and sends messengers for us to return.

A messenger arrives from Edwin. My brother is bored, and he wants to go on my adventures, but I tell him he'd be bored there too.

I get to the necromancer's office, and we all go in. We check out the main floor, but there's nothing interesting here, so Sidney picks the basement door lock, and we go into the basement.

There's only a concrete room and another door. Behind the door is...darkness.

Edwin pokes his head through, and he sees a graveyard on the other side. We put a blanket through, to make sure the portal stays open and to make sure we can find it again, as the other side of the portal is invisible.

We step through, and we see our ideal selves. Sidney is playing with her bowl.

There is only a road and it leads into the city in the distance. It looks like London, but only a London made out of parts of London. As we get into the city proper, we notice that there are bones scattered around. Farther in, and the bones are fresher, with bits of meat on them and then fresher and fresher corpses.

We keep going forward.

There's a dart of movement to our side, and a human child giggling flits by. The child follows us, which appears androgynous and wearing a jerkin and some breaches. It has a long cooking knife and shoulder length hair.

We keep going forward.

Eventually the road stops at a circular building at the center of the fake city. It has several layers, with each successive layer less wide than the previous. An iron fence covered in brier surrounds it.

We go through the archway entrance of the fence. We can now see that the building has many sides, with each side having a doorway. It's a rather large building, maybe 600-800 feet wide. The child lingers at the fence archway.

Father Amorth speaks to the child. The child is of the fey, and this is Somnium. The child has seen the necromancer we describe to him, and the building belongs to him. The child says he's three years old, but he looks much older, and he says he killed his parents and sibling. He spends a lot of time playing in London.

We go into the building. In the first room are two stairs leading up, and between them, a doorway leading to the other rooms on this level. After a quick vote, we go through the doorway.

The doorway leads down a long hallway, and at the end is a room, split in half with 13 doors on each side, and a main door at the center. We check some of the side doors, and find nothing interesting. As we check the center door, mist starts pouring out, and it leads to another room, with 13 doors and a center stairs.

We go up the stairs, coming up into a room that looks like a barracks, with sleeping humanoids. We sneak past to a door at the end of the room, down another hallway, to a spiral staircase that goes 50 feet up to a trapdoor.

Edwin Ingram goes first up the stairs, and sees that it leads to a patio, with two figures sitting at it. One is dressed in black, so Edwin unloads all barrels of his gun on him. His neck explodes, and Edwin is launched backwards into us.

We entangle ourselves, and I peek out. All I can see is a table thrown on its side. The other person is probably on the other side of it. I report back to the others.

Edwin reloads his gun, and walks back up. He sees Thomas Ericson, the horse beastman. He looks him in the eyes.

We hear "kill them all" and Edwin turns and fires on Father Amorth. I return fire, and Sidney leaps forward and starts choking him.

Father Amorth recovers and runs upstairs, and Ericson and Father Amorth look each other in the eyes. While Father Amorth succeeds, Ericson is unable to break Father Amorth's will, which causes his hold on Edwin to also break.

Father Amorth has Ericson lay down, and unable to help himself, answers all questions Father Amorth asks of him.

He admits that Aaron was his master, and he was replacing the gnome we met earlier. Aaron and Ericson were planning on killing Aaron's own master, Maruis William Barrot Silvert, hey that's the name on the tobacco case although he does not know specifics. Aaron had made this tower, and the child outside was drawn to it as they share resonances. Ericson apparently also did not love his wife. He still has 10 pounds from the bank robbery, and Father Amorth has him turn it over.

Sidney searches Aaron's body, and finds a ring on it.

Father Amorth has Ericson jump to his death, and we carry both of the corpses back through the portal and to the necromancer's office, where we leave him.

We come out, and make some sort excuses to O'Neill, who is distracted by a thunderous noise.

As we go, we see the changeling child running through the street.

TODO: Chad wants chemicals that would cause short term memory loss