Fury on the Orient Express, Pt. 3
A fairly short post this time, as we haven't played a session in a week or two due to illnesses, work, and school. That and it was a fairly slow session, very much investigative and very little action.
Fury on the Orient Express
Book One: Through the Alps
Chapter Three: Dancers in an Evening Fog, Final Part
WARNING: This summary contains spoilers for the Chaosium adventure "Horror on the Orient Express", not yet released to the general public as of this writing. If you wish to avoid any spoilers given in the Kickstarter Backer materials for the adventure, please discontinue reading now.
Exploring around town, the Investigators decided to do what they do best: Investigate. Splitting their separate ways, they uncovered much and deepened the mystery of Mehmet Makryat, Professor Smith's assassins, and a new story in the paper that may relate to the case. Splitting their separate ways, Tiberius went to the Turkish Embassy, Harrison Kincaid went to bother the police, and Yakahisa Kiyoko broke into Mehmet's antique shop.
Tiberius found himself speaking to a very defensive and shady young man who would not cooperate without copious bribing. At the right price, he provided Wallingsworth with records showing Makryat, the real Makryat, to be much younger than the old man who ran the antique shop, or the three that had been found dead in the hotel. In addition, all photographic evidence and other images regarding Mehmet Makryat had gone missing, and deeper investigation into the bureaucratic heart came up blank. Finally, Tiberius was thrown out by an angry clerk who insisted the photo IDs found on the Makryats were forgeries, not duplicates, and that it was a problem of London, not the Turkish Embassy.
Speaking to the police, Harrison Kincaid was faced with the surly head detective of the Mehmet Makryat investigation. He was a grumpy and irritable man, clearly tired of questions regarding the murdered men, and in no mood to speak with outsiders. After much negotiation, the detective let slip two details: That a telegram telling the dead men to meet an "M." in London as urgently as possible, and that the three dead men had been skinned, one on his torso, one on his arms, and one on his legs...
Mehmet's antique shop came up curiously. It seemed the man had left in a hurry, with precious little intention of returning given how much he had left behind him. In addition, the ledgers pointed further to their newspaper mystery, a story of a man who had suddenly vanished from his home with only burn marks in his trace and a mysterious toy train left behind him. It seemed Makryat had sold the missing man the toy train, and Yakahisa's contacts indicated that the train set was meant to resemble a train in real life that had derailed many years ago before going missing entirely...
Retracing their steps, the Investigators went on to the trail of the Simulacrum and the Professor. In the Professor's office, they found a journal belonging to Smith, regarding a red fez like the ones worn by his attackers...
Their research in the library was curiously fruitless. When searching for the Simulacrom, they found only a mention in an ancient tome of a thing called The Devil's Simulare, more information of which could be found at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. Their search for the Sedefkar Scrolls was far more successful, finding that a document by that name was brought the Topkapi Museum in Constantinople, just before the Great War.
Then, on a rainy day, the third of their study, they were joined by a resting student in a long overcoat. When they went to awaken him, he tumbled over and his coat splayed open. Pinned to his flayed body was a note, written on his shredded skin, that told them "THE SKINLESS ONE WILL NOT BE DENIED". They phoned for help and the police arrived shortly, but it would be some time before they could identify the body.
Though they were shaken and dismayed, this only strengthened their resolve to do the right thing, so they went to the apartments of the man who had vanished, and his mysterious, macabre train set...
