Episode 23 - Fight Like an Egyptian - July 13, 2025

Cast of Characters

Present

Player	Character	Background
John	Keeper	Dreamer of dreams
Todd	Lawrence “Skinny Larry” Simons	Dynamite fanatic, saxophonist, inventor, ladies man
Eric	Father Gerald “Gentleman Jerry” O’Shea	Catholic priest, pugilist
Cyle	Aaron Winters	Occultist, child of occultists, sharpshooter
Scott	Ritter Gunter “Stig” von Stiglitz	Wealthy German confronting shell shock

Sleeping it Off

Player	Character	Background
Eli	Dr. Kenneth Filmore	Wealthy doctor and automobile enthusiast

Journal

From the journal of Lawrence Simons

Monday, February 23, 1925, afternoon

• As planned, we broke into the Blue Pyramid. There was one guard. We subdued him and put him in the men’s room. Once upstairs, we found the cleaning crew, and we put them in a separate room. We tried to make it look like we were burglars, there to steal the money from the bar.
• In no time we found the trap door, and opened it. There was a ladder leading down into a large room on the ground level of the building. It was a store room, basically, with coffee, alcohol, tea, drinking glasses, etc. There was also an area where they had been holding prisoners using manacles.
• We found four boxes with various items that was apparently supposed to be delivered. The boxes had a wide array of items - food, soap, spices. And the labels on the boxes indicated they were to be delivered to “Mizr House”. We later learned Mizr is the Arabic word for Egypt. And they were meant to be delivered today, February 23. And Aaron pointed out that this happens to be the night of the new moon, which has some occult significance.
• We took the crates to our acquaintance Mickey Mahoney, publisher of The Scoop. He had unfortunately not heard of Mizr House, so then we called Inspector Barrington. The name rang a bell with him, and he said to call back after while.
• When we called back, he remembered the significance. Mizr House is the name of an estate belonging to Edward Gavigan. It’s northeast of London. So we rented a truck, loaded up the boxes, and headed out.
• Our general ruse was that we were going to pretend to be the delivery crew bringing the boxes in for the delivery. We hoped nobody would find it odd that a ragtag bunch of Americans with an Irish priest and a German were delivering these things. The drive was two hours.
• After crossing a bridge, we got to the gate of the manor house. A guard game out of a guard shack, and we jumped him with a surprise attack. We knocked him out and tied him up in the woods, before driving the rest of the way up to the house.
• When we arrived, there were some vehicles out front, and I stole the keys to some of them, but sadly not the Bentley. We parked the truck around back and went into the house. I put on a servant uniform and loaded the four boxes up on a dolly, and brought them inside, maintaining something of a disguise, implausible as it might seem.
• We headed down stairs to the basement, and found the servants’ quarters first. Exploring deeper, we found a room with racks holding white cultist robes. Each robe was decorated with the inverted ankh of the (supposed extinct) Brotherhood of the Black Pharoah.
• I guess this counts as proof that Edward Gavigan is a lying bastard, since he told us to our faces that the Brotherhood is extinct, and yet we found their robes in his own house! If I get my hands on that guy, there will be trouble.
• We went back upstairs and explored some more. We found water closets, a great hall, two suits of armor flanking a fireplace, doors, a dining table set for three, and a library. The whole house is decorated with Egyptian knick knacks.
• As we all had a hunch about, the armor triggered a secret door, which led down some stairs to a good old fashioned torture chamber. There were racks, an iron maiden, etc. Also, there were ten cells, three of which were occupied! We let the prisoners out, and they were very grateful. In all three cases, they had seen something they weren’t supposed to, they said.
• We decided we should get the prisoners out of here ASAP, so we headed for the exit. But on the way up the stairs we were surprised by the brute squad. They attacked us, we attacked back. I blew one into about six pieces with a shotgun blast at point blank range. Aaron took the worst beating of any of us, but we all got away and out to the truck. We blew through the gate on the way out, and headed back to London with the prisoners and one of the brutes. We plan to turn him over to the Inspector for questioning. But first we have to survive traffic inbound on the A13.

Gentleman Jerry’s Conjectures and Musings

February 23rd, I think ?

Being a rather curious lot, and tasting the sweetness of a lead - at last - we knocked at the door leading into the Blue Pyramid. A thug dressed in a crisp jacket told us to go away, so I pushed my way in and cold-cocked him. Riding up the lift - without my chair on wheels, sigh - we manacled him to some exposed pipes in the club’s public bathroom.

We also contained three confused members of the cleaning crew in the parlor.

The trap door behind the bar led down a stout ladder into a storage room that must abut the wall of the Green Grocer’s. There were manacles on the wall and indicators that there were recent occupants (trays and bowls), and some broken furniture and some crates of goods.

Four of the crates were stamped for delivery to something called the “Mizr House”. The contents weren’t remarkable, and included four large tins of sardines. The delivery was for tonight.

We took the crates (there was a block and tackle to make lifting them up to the bar a simple matter) and rummaged through the business office, scooping up a ledger and some records. One note taken from the unconscious guard indicated something was going down tonight, which also happened to be a full moon (Aaron told us this). We helped ourselves to a dolly for the heavy crates.

We called Mahooney at “The Scoop”, but neither he nor his secretary knew what “Mizr House” was, he thought maybe the Penhew Foundation.

We called Barrington (of the New Scotland Yard) and at his behest called him back an hour later. The “Mizr House” (“Mizr” meaning “Egypt”) was Gavigan’s (of the Penhew Foundation) Summer Home, a mansion on an estate northeast of London, a few hours or so. It was in a region called “The Nazzay”, an area of farmland, marshes, lakes, and rivers. “The Walton on the Nazzay” (Naize) was the closest town, a noted local tourist spot. The region was identified as a “Prominatory Headland”, whatever that means.

We rented a truck, loaded the crates and dolly, and cruised up to the town. From there we got directions to the estate. Crossing a stone bridge, we stopped at a guard shack, and knocked out the guard. We tied him to a tree out of sight and lifted the wooden plank, for entry.

The guard had a gun, too, which we took. We noted the guard shack had a telephone.

While there were vehicles parked (notably, including a Bentley) in the front of the (somewhat run-down) manor house, a gravel track took us around back to a garage. “Skinny” Larry took the keys that had been left in some of the vehicles; sadly the Bently was not one of them.

We backed into the garage, and started opening doors. I emptied a crate of its contents (except for the sardines), carried it along, and we set to exploring. A utility room led to a hallway which led to a basement - servant’s quarters. The only feature was a closet full of white ritual robes with inverted Ankhs, one of which I donned. “When in Rome” and all that. Oh, and evidence.

We explored the maze-like first floor, and found a large room with two suits of armor flanking a beautiful fireplace, but were shooed away by a servant/cleaner. We doubled back to find him gone, so we twisted and pulled the armor until a secret door opened, to stairs, leading down !

We had studiously avoided staircases going up to the second floor.

We passed through a torture chamber, through a cultist’s library (I filled my box with mostly Latin tomes), and freed three prisoners. They would have been sacrificed, tonight, by the woman that turns into a cat (Zahra).

Rather than hang around to fight a High Priestess and her minions (which I am CERTAIN includes a Mummy), we chose to try to get these three to safety. They are the thread that, when pulled, will cause the whole Egyptian Murders saga to unravel ! Huh. Maybe Gavigan is the High Priest ? It’s his house, after all …

Four cultists blocked our egress from the dilapidated manor, these were well-trained fighters and included the original servant. They fought like demons.

Naturally my friends pulled out guns and it was the wild west for a few seconds.

We protected the three prisoners and killed, maimed, or drove off these guys. Aaron went down, so we patched him up and pulled him along, urgently.

The gunfire had alerted Kenny, so we piled into the truck and raced out, noting a new car had recently arrived. We lay down cover fire as two guards at the shack fired at us, and broke through the striped plank and shot across the stone bridge.

Aaron was in the truck’s cab, for safety, and in the breezy bed of the rental truck, I opened one of the sardine tins and offered a delicate fish, packed in oil and mustard, to Stig … he didn’t want one, so there was more for me.

Next time I will pack a box of crackers.