Episode 25 - Waiting for Frank - August 24, 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
Scott	Ritter Gunter “Stig” von Stiglitz	Wealthy German confronting shell shock
Eli	Dr. Kenneth Filmore	Wealthy doctor and automobile enthusiast

Journal

From the journal of Lawrence Simons

Tuesday, February 24, 1925

• We were in the factory, trying to get into the safe. But we had no key. We learned that Frank the foreman has the key. So how do we get it from him? Such a mystery! What’s in the large safe!
• We explored around some more and found some blueprints of two types. The first was just typical stuff that the factory here in Derby had made - household items, etc. The second type was more interesting. The blueprints were really complicated tiny things with occult symbols. I couldn’t figure out what these were for. I decided to take the blueprints with me, in hopes I can decipher them later. So into my messenger bag they went.
• And then shit got weird. Jerry was wandering around outside, and got attacked by a tentacle from the sky. There is some huge flying creature above us! What is it?
• I untied the guard, and told him he is allowed to go use the WC now. I led him outside of the main factory building, toward the WC. The tentacle creature attacked him and ripped him in half. I got something of a view of the thing. It was a black serpent with bat like wings. The thing we thought was a tentacle at first was actually the thing’s tail!
• I shot the creature with my shotgun, and it hissed at me before I ducked back into the building.
• Did the creature leave? We didn’t know. But I realized we had a working telephone. So I decided to call Frank the foreman, in hopes I could trick him to coming down to the factory so we could steal the key to the safe. But it didn’t work. Some other guy answered the phone, and made it clear that he and Frank knew we were here. They had been warned by Gavigan, who is also here. Gavigan is behind the flying creature, we learned.
• So we waited it out, thinking surely the thing will disappear before day breaks. We spotted a very nice car at the gate.
• I used the phone again to call Scotland Yard, in hopes we could get Inspector Barrington out of bed and activated to come arrest Gavigan.
• But then, some unknown person arrived to talk to the person in the car, who we think is probably Gavigan. And shortly after, the man cut the phone line. Now it’s just us.
• Time passed, and Jerry had the idea to use the power tools in the shop to drill open the safe. It took hours, but eventually we got in. The safe had very strange things inside. First were a set of tiny devices embedded in rock. They looked like some ancient civilization created advanced engine mechanics of some kind, and then those pieces of machinery were buried with mud that fossilized. That would mean the mechanisms were millions of years old! This made no sense. The other set of things were similar tiny devices that looked like they had been manufactured recently, right here in the machine shop.
• We loaded up all these items into some bags, and snuck out the back with the gizmos - both old and new.
• Time passed. We eventually made our way back to London and explained everything to Barrington. We stayed out of sight, since clearly Gavigan has it out for us and could strike at any time.
• Next, we leave for Kenya.

Gentleman Jerry’s Conjectures and Musings

Tuesday, February 24, 1925

The Americans paused to assess their current situation. They were inside one of two larger buildings (or four total) inside the walled Henson Manufacturing complex, looking at a huge cast iron safe, which held heaven-only-knows-what. Two guards were manacled and semi-conscious. One muttered that “Frank has the key”, I think Frank Marshal was the guy that escorted us out during the day.

We found some large, flat drawers that could hold drafting specs, and looted some strange diagrams, with doodles of Cthulhu figures in the margins of one page. Were the specs for an engine ? A flying machine ? A weapon of war ? We could not determine the function of the devices described upon the large papers.

I decided to take a loop around the complex’s perimeter, dressed like a guard. I felt something large and fibrous brush against me from above, then a second time as I continued pretending to check doors and stuff. Later we found it was a sort of demonic winged serpent, which didn’t seem to be represented by any of the figurines we had grabbed from the Penhew Foundation. Its true shape was difficult to determine as it was inky black, against a somewhat cloudless sky.

We walked a guard out to the latrine, and the tentacle (actually the tail of the beastie) grabbed him, lifted him away, and ate the poor fellow’s head. Larry shot it with his rifle, and it hissed back.

I think Gavigan summoned this evil beast with a ritual like the couple we had picked up … somewhere … the basement of the rental house we explored ? I forget, exactly.

Larry called Frank at Mrs Bullrush’s Boarding House and spoke to one Bill West. The smug chap told Larry that Gavigan had sent a “friend” and was probably watching them meet their demise. And if not, well, they had broken into private property and the police would greet them in the morning.

Whooof - the beast landed upon the roof. We espied a rather nice looking automobile parked outside the gate. Larry tried calling Barrington at the New Scotland Yard, but the phone went dead. Snipped at our location, we decided.

To pass time, we assaulted the safe with drill, acid, crowbar, and muscle and finally sprung the stout door open. To our surprise it contained some shelves with about a dozen softball-sized devices, and half as many pieces of fossilized stone with little gear-like impressions.

I was expecting a Mummy.

We also picked up a packing label with an address in Australia. As with Shanghai, another strange indicator that we had stumbled into a truly global operation.

First light was upon us, so we divided up the rocks and mechanical devices, and left out the back, up over the same wall we had used to gain entry. We decided to lay low until the day of our sea voyage out of England for once and for all.

One of us surmised we were carrying part of an advanced aircraft engine. We had many days at sea to try to link the little things to the pictures in the specs, which also had small, neat handwriting on the illustrations.