Kingbeast's Lair

Chapter 7 – The Menace From Sumatra – Session #14

Date At Start Of Game: 1/4/1894

[Author’s Note: This episode is the fourteenth session. Note that the order of the events in this record may not be the exact order that they occurred in the session.]

• After returning to Oxford and passing through an uneventful holiday season the group enters into the new year. While walking across campus one afternoon the PC see a small group of students protesting a new labor movement. As the PC walk by some constables enter the scene. From a short hallway a man stumbles out. He is dressed in a hat, gloves, dark glasses, and trench coat. He stumbles into the constable who gently pushes the man back. To the surprise of the constable and the PC the man collapses! As he hits the ground his hat and glasses fly off. He starts muttering, ?Save Susan! My Susan!? As the PC approach a wisp of blue smoke emerges from his mouth. His eyes are missing and only a blue goo like substance remains. His skin is aged and he smells like he has been dead for weeks. Tredge searches his pockets while Burton grabs a nearby banner and wraps up the body. Singh chases down a cab which he spies leaving the scene. He marks the cab with a thrown knife then returns to the group.
• In the office the group examines the body and their clues in more detail. The man is dressed in light clothing that has not been changed in some time. It is shredded and very dirty. The trench coat is from a high end clothing store called Rotbridge & Sons. His pockets contain loose change and a slip from the East India Shipping Company. The slip is addressed to a Mr. Alfred Windebank. Senemut and Burton examine the blue goo under a microscope. It is a type of fungus or spore. Senemut feels that it could be contagious. With that the PC leave the body in the care of the constable.
• The PC first decide to visit the East India Shipping Company. At the company Tredge pretends to be Alfred Windebank and picks up 5 crates. The crates contain carefully cataloged botany samples.
• Singh visits the cab company where he eventually tracks down the cab that dropped off Mr Windebank. The cab driver, whose name is Jarvis, distinctly remembers the man and comments that he swayed back and forth in the cab. He picked the man up from the Norris Hotel.
• At the Norris Hotel the PC claim to be friends of Dr Windebank and get access to his hotel room with a well placed bribe. In the room they discover a picture of Alfred and his wife Susan. They also find a strange blue egg shaped stone and a diary from Alfred. The diary mentions dealing with a Dr Granger. According to the diary Dr Granger disappeared one night. He came back several nights later. After returning he dismissed all of the local help and even made some type of advance on Susan. The diary claims that Granger has gone mad.
• The PC quickly discover that Dr Granger is a professor at Oxford. The visit his office but he is not present. They break in and search around. There are many strange texts but a bulk of them are about tropical diseases. While they are searching around Dr Granger shows up! The PC immediately start questioning the startled professor. He denies all claims as that of the madman Alfred Windebank. When shown the diary he consider that proof that the man is not ?altogether right?. Eventually he dismisses the PC telling him that he has important work to do. The PC leave the doctor but decide to start following him?

Date At End Of Game: 1/4/1894