[CoC: HotOE] Orient *Express*

​Dramatis Personae

• Elena Costanza, British Agent of the Crown
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

That evening, the investigators discussed their plans. They couldn't report Makryat to the authorities--even if they were believed, it would delay the train and exceed the hundred hour time limit--and they eventually decided to question Doña del Garda's maid about her habits and, perhaps, be able to search her room and see if Makryat had left anything incriminating or useful there. The professor went to talk to Rama Ho-Tet about the Sapieta Maglorum, and after introducing himself and speaking about their travels, and the professor admitting that his Arabic was not so good, the Egyptian agreed to try his hand at translation, saying it would pass the time. As he was taking, Jackie Gattling the gossip columnist came to talk to Rosaline and the countess, asking them for gossip and saying that she had arranged an exclusive interview with the Doña in her compartment. After Jackie left, the the group discussed what to do, and decide that they had to prevent the meeting from occurring.

In Belgrade, as they pulled up, they noticed a small white house, incongruously sitting among some other ramshackle houses. As they disembarked, a swarm of black chickens suddenly descended on them from nowhere, pecking and scratching! The investigators piled back onto the train, other than Yan, who looked at the others strangely and then walked up and down looking at the train. Before he returned, he went to a haberdashery and bought two ladies' hats. As the train pulled away from the station, the party noticed further degeneration occurring.

At dinner, the maître d'hôtel seated an old woman with the party, and after a moment, they realized that she looked very familiar. "Grandmother" looked at their food and it turns tasteless and cold, and both Rosaline and Yan left the room. As Rosaline left, she saw the Baba Yaga waiting in the hallway outside her room. Rosaline told her that the investigators didn't have what she sought, it the Baba Yaga did not reply. The countess heard the noise and opened the door and found the Baba Yaga staring straight at her, and the professor called over the maître d'hôtel and asked him who the woman was. As the countess slammed the door, the maître d'hôtel said that she was "the duchess," refused to give her full title, and repeated that she was definitely a passenger who had a place on the train. The investigators could not tell what she wanted and she did not disappear, but as the professor looked out the window and saw the shape of the terrible creature, the Walker in the Woods, he realized that the Baba Yaga could harass them, and could confuse them, but could not harm them. He looked into the Baba Yaga's eyes and calmly took a few bites of his food.

The professor left the dining room, drawing forth the Elder Sign and presenting it at the Baba Yaga in the hallway and trying to force his way past her, but overwhelming fear filled his heart and he could not muster up the will to do so. And eventually, he gave up and they retired to the salon car. After some time, Yan left and used the bathroom door to sneak into the countess's room, where she was hiding under the covers. He retrieved her, they left through the bathroom connecting door, and the investigators convened in the salon car. After a moment, Yan left to go sneak into the fourgon, and the professor wrote a note to Elena Constanza, asking her to meet them in the salon car.

Outside, Yan clambered onto the top of the train in the bright moonlight. He leapt from car to car, passing toward the front of the train, until he reached the fourgon. He couldn't see any guards, but he didn't know their schedules, and he took a moment to watch until he decided it was too risky and returned to the sleeping car. Elena came to speak to the professor and the ladies, and she agreed to keep watch on Jackie Gattling and then left. Moments later, the countess and Rosaline returned to the countess's compartment, but Jackie wasn't there. The countess resolved to remain awake. Rosaline, the professor, and Yan went to sleep.

Yan woke up when the train pulled into Zagreb, and saw a figure in a black cloak holding something white and standing on the platform. As he drew closer, he realized that it was just a porter in a greatcoat gnawing on a loaf of bread, and reboarded and went back to sleep. But in the dead of night, something attacked each investigator separately! Tiny, flapping, fleshy things, like crawling hands, that clambered onto their beds and attacked, covering their mouths and trying to suffocate them!

Yan easily took care of his beast and burst into the hallway as did the countess, clawing at the skin beast on her own face. The conductor, seeing a problem, got up and stared moving toward them as the professor also staggered out of his room clawing at his own assailant, but Yan cut it off his face. He also freed the countess, and then burst into Rosaline's room as she fell unconscious and removed her own skin beast. The conductor, shaken, asked that they come to the salon car and have brandy and discuss what happened. Once there, the professor demanded that the doctor be summoned, excoriating the conductor for how passengers on the Orient Express were attacked in their beds. The apologetic conductor summoned the doctor and, after the investigators' wounds were treated, he said that everyone was in their bed and safe. Rosaline asked about Jackie, and the conductor says the steward said she was safe, but the investigators checked themselves. Jackie was in her compartment, moaning "they came for me, they came for me" over and over, and when the countess examined her, she found six star-shaped lumps of flesh missing from her torso.

At this point, Elena called them into the salon and told them her secret mission. She knew that a man named Makryat was planning to kill the Prince of Wales, and asked them what they knew. After a moment, the professor explained about the Brotherhood of the Skin, about Makryat the sorcerer, and that his plan was probably not to assassinate the prince, but replace him. Elena was doubtful, but after having seen the skin beasts, she believed them. At the Italian border, Jackie was taken off by a doctor, and as the professor poked his head into the salon car, Anton Szorbic pulled them aside and said that he knew they were looking for a killer and he believed that Groening was the killer. He was disappointed at their lack of immediate action, and eventually stalked away.

The investigators slept undisturbed for the rest of the night.

In the morning, the professor noticed another murder in Islington written about in the newspaper, and that neither the Doña nor her maid were at breakfast. After breakfast, the countess went and knocked on the Doña's door. A conductor stopped her and told her that the Doña and her maid had disembarked at Ljubljana, which the professor confirmed with Lord Margrave. They tried to observe Groening and Szorbic, but they didn't see either of them for some time, and when Rosaline asked a conductor, he stated that he didn't think that either of them had disembarked. Yah knocked on Groening's door, and when Rama Ho-Tet answered the door, the Egyptian said that he hadn't seen Groening in some time, and that he was having a lovely time translating the professor's book. Yan then went to Szorbic's door and asked him. Szorbic was curt, but said that he hadn't seen Groening and in the process revealed that he remembered the conversation from the previous night, and Yan thanked him and returned to the salon car. On the way, he heard from a conductor that Groening had disembarked at Trieste.

That evening, the train departed Milan and steamed up into the mountains. As they were sitting in the salon car, Rosaline saw a fireman laying motionless on the tracks. After she told the others, the track curved, and they saw the locomotive moving ahead ringed with a glowing, white-blue nimbus. Almost immediately, the train began to pick up speed, jolting and shaking, and the investigators knew they had to check out the engine. The professor, countess, and Rosaline try to ask the fourgon guards what is happening, and the conductor asks a steward, but it quickly becomes obvious that they are on edge and don't actually know. Yan and Elena climbed on the train and walked over the fourgon to the locomotive where they heard voices from the cabin. Yan and Elena crept closer to listen as they heard what may have been chanting, and saw five Italians in the cabin, cleaning up various accoutrements. Yan and Elena debated what to do, and decided to attack. From surprise, as the Simplon Tunnel approached, Elena and Yan opened fire.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.
   
4. Radovan Venclovic, Romani Ex-Soldier, driven to madness by the beast of flesh in the cemetery at Üsküdar, February 20th, 1923.

We finally did something! Well, some of us. Maybe the rest of us should have also gone over the train cars to attack, but the professor is the only one with a gun and his pistol skill is only 20%. I'm not sure it would have made that much of a difference.

mutantur thought we'd get done today, but he underestimated the ability of player characters to faff around and accomplish nothing. Next time, we finish this business on the train!

...maybe