# The Runic Cthulhu Hour: Something wrong in a small town college.



## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

Here begins the fictional tale of a real place--my small town college--and real people--my players and the people we know.  I hope you will relax and enjoy the show.

_Note: the names of NPCs have been changed to protect the innocent.  Any similarity between these NPCs and real individuals is not really coincidental, but is certainly nothing but parody.  Please move along, now.  Nothing to see here…_

Welcome to the town of Berea, located in the heart of Kentucky, on the fringes of the Appalachian Mountains.  The town is built around a college that has stood here (despite being burned to the ground a few times) since 1855.  It is a college rich in history, culture, and…intrigue?    John G. Fee, a man of the cloth, founded the college as a haven for the impoverished to learn and thrive in.  Berea College taught people of all races—and genders—and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad.  Naturally, the community that sprang up around the institution would often rise up in opposition to the school’s unpopular political stance.  But the school survived.

Today, it is famous the world over as a place of very high quality learning and is frequently ranked as the top small college in U.S. News and World Report.  Its students often refer to the school as the “Harvard of the South” (despite the fact that Kentucky barely qualifies as a southern state), because of the professors' frequent (apparent) belief that they teach at that illustrious institution.

It is a dry town, because the college likes to keep it that way.  The school keeps a paternal watch over its students, especially its lower-classmen.  Nevertheless, students will rebel and alcohol, good times, and parties are not infrequent.  Our tale begins at one such party.


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

*12 April, 2002 Session.  Part 1*

It was January, on a Friday night.

In suite K, room 1 of Danforth residence hall, lives a man who goes by the name of “Rune.”  Last night, he threw a party...a very good party, which quickly got out of hand, as parties in Danforth tend to do.  With him were a few of his closest friends.  His twin brother, Kelly was there.  So, too, was his brother’s girlfriend, Jess.  Also present were Anthony, Mike, and Dustin.  The alcohol flowed freely and no one could really be sure when the party ended.  Everyone had passed out.

Kelly, Jess, Anthony, Mike, and Dustin wake to find a feeble stream of light flowing from a narrow window above them into a room filled with old beer cans and dead flies…where the hell are they?  And why is Rune sitting, nearly naked, in an old, rusty bathtub?  Screaming.

The last answer is quickly answered, anyway.  Dustin walks cautiously over to Rune and sees that the tub is filled with rapidly melting ice.  All stained very red.  It appears that some sick bastard has removed a few of Rune’s organs.

Dustin climbs up to the window to look out as the other students scurry frantically about, trying to bind Rune’s wounds.  Finally, he realizes where the group is, although it makes little sense.  He is looking out of the top of Draper tower—but the Draper building is being renovated.  It’s almost finished.  It should look nothing like this room does.  This room is the Draper tower of two years ago.  Not now.

Outside, he can see, on the rooftop of Hutchins Library, a man cloaked in a black cape, wearing a black cowboy hat, and what appears to be a Zorro mask, of all things.  He is staring out over the campus, as if he thinks he is Batman, or something.  Jess knows the man.  All too intimately.  She has a restraining order against him, as a matter of fact.

There is a ladder leading down into darkness in the center of the room.  Anthony and Mike decide that they should seek help and climb down the ladder.  Mike, thin and agile, goes first and makes it all the way to the bottom, where he stands in the absolute blackness, waiting for Anthony to join him.  Anthony reaches the middle of the ladder, where the wild swaying of the structure causes him to lose his grip.  He falls twenty feet to the floor, loosing his breath and possibly breaking a rib or two.

The folk with Rune realize that, with the ice in the tub quickly becoming water, the poor young man’s wounds will never stop flowing.  They carefully remove the flailing man from the tub and place him on the floor.  Rune immediately starts clawing his way toward the ladder.  He is still not coherent, but clearly knows that his chances of survival depend upon the rapidity with which he is taken to the hospital.  His pained ranting reveals as much.

His brother is thinking more clearly, if somewhat cynically.  “We can’t take him to Berea Hospital!  He’ll die for sure, there!”

Dustin tries to tackle Rune to keep him from falling down the hole in the floor, but he cannot hold onto Rune’s blood-and-water-slicked form.  Within seconds, Rune has reached the ladder and _slides_ down it, giving no thought to his own safety.  There is a sickening, wet, thud as Rune’s tortured body crumbles into a pile at the base of the ladder, and Anthony and Mike rush to it, illuminating the immediate area with a feeble lighter’s flame.  Rune seems no worse than could be expected, although two trails of blood reach up beyond visibility along the poles of the ladder.  Rune’s palms—and the insides of his fingers—have been flayed of their skin.

Rune is already scuttling into the darkness on hands and knees.

Above, Jess keeps an eye out of the window at the dark figure on the rooftop.  He now seems to be looking in her general direction.  For a second, she thinks she catches a glimpse of him behind her shoulder _in the room with her_, but it must be her imagination.

In the meantime, Kelly has gone on to the lower floor to be with his brother.  Dustin tries to climb down the ladder, but his fear of heights is magnified by its swaying.  He looses his footing.  Fortunately, the hand that shoots out is quick enough to catch a rung.  He hangs in the darkness.  He is less fortunate the next time he slips.  This time, he is tangled up in one of the rungs and badly hurt.  He hangs in the darkness.


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

*12 April, 2002 Session.  Part 2*

Down below, a scraping can be heard from somewhere ahead of Rune.  He is headed straight toward it.  Mike and Anthony both run forward to catch their irrational friend.  Mike’s foot slips in the trail of blood left by Rune’s hands, but his years of experience on a skateboard help him keep his balance.  Anthony has no such experience and falls into the wet dust that blankets this portion the floor.  Mike is scrawny, but he is enough.  He manages to grab Rune’s ankle and Rune is held in stasis, for a moment.

On the wall in front of them, a door opens and closes.  Whatever room is on the other side is brightly illuminated.

Slowly, Kelly, Anthony and Mike make their way toward that door, holding Rune in check as they progress.  The shadows shrink away from the flickering lighter, but ultimately, close in again, behind the group as they pass by.  They find the door and open it.  There is no illumination on the other side; they are faced only with a staircase that winds its way to a lower destination.

It leads to the fourth floor of Draper.  This floor, like the three below it was, before renovation, tiled in cold, green marble and looked dark, even when well lit.  Today it is not lit at all, although it is curiously also not the Draper that has been under renovation.  It is the old Draper.

Mike and Kelly make their way to an office door and open it.  A middle-aged woman sitting at the desk turns to them and a cat jumps from her lap and bolts out the door.  Something is not quite right about this woman.  Most likely, it is the unnatural contortion that her neck displays.  Her head is leaning on its side, staring at the ceiling, as she begs the two for help.

When they tell her that they need to call the police, she says, “The Police can’t help you.  No one can help you.”  That is when they forget all caution, collect Rune and Anthony, and bolt for the first floor.

Dustin is still hanging in the darkness.  He hears a door open and close and then feels the ladder that he is precariously clinging to begin to shake violently.  He slides down the ladder for the full distance, trusting in the entity at the bottom to break his fall.  With a scream and a series of cracking sounds, the entity does just that.  Jess climbs down soon after, her lithe form making the descent seem simple.

Dustin jumps up and down on whatever creature he landed on.  He is determined not to be attacked by it.  Jess hands him a lighter and they soon see that Dustin has killed a middle-aged woman.  Her neck is broken and her back is very likely also snapped in a few places.  Fear will make people do monstrous things.

They make their way to the other group, cautiously, but with great attention to their speed.


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

*12 April, 2002 Session.  Part 3*

Downstairs, all of the doors are chained and padlocked.  That is unusual.  All of the windows are barred.  That is _very_ unusual!  Mike, Anthony, and Kelly attempt various methods of breaking through the doors.  One such attempt—when they try to lift a stone bench from the hallway and smash through a door—results in the shearing away of each of the three’s fingernails.  That is when Rune gets away.  Rune knows of a trap door in the front of the building, beneath the carpet.  No one is sure where it leads.  Urban legends suggest that there are catacombs underneath the campus that runaway slaves were once hidden in.  Perhaps sinister meetings take place down there.  More likely, it is merely the entrance to maintenance tunnels.  Rune doesn’t care.  He just wants—needs—to get out of this building.  His friends detain him once again.

And a curious footstep pattern can be heard echoing down the hallway.  It sounds like two steps…and a cane.  A short, aging man with extraordinarily thick glasses walks into view.  We shall call him Dr. Strangeman.  Dr. Strangeman is usually a very jovial and good-natured, if somewhat eccentric, man.  Today, he is ill tempered and undoubtedly insane.  He barely seems to recognize Rune, at one time an appreciated student, only muttering something about how “there always must be someone.”  He is clearly going to be no help, so Dr. Strangeman is asked to leave the group alone.

Dustin has always mistrusted the professor, so he follows him to his second floor office.  Inside, he catches a glimpse of the scrawlings on a small blackboard.  He nearly loses his mind and finds that he cannot remain in the room.  Whatever was scribbled on that board was beyond mortal comprehension.  That is not a good sign.

Dustin returns downstairs, where he can see that Rune is trying to gnaw through the cast-iron chain, losing his teeth in the process.  To everyone’s amazement, Rune actually _has_ gnawed through the chain!  Quickly, they run outside…and someone is shooting at them!

The students run around the back of Draper building (dragging the body of Rune, one person per limb), dodging the bullets of a sniper, whom they cannot see, to get to Anthony’s car.  Their progress is impeded by the emergence of tentacle-turned roots from the trees surrounding the area.

A lucky shot from the sniper severs Rune’s left arm as Kelly holds it.  Now, at least, they can see where it is coming from.  On the top of the Science building, a man takes aim with a rifle.  He is prone and hard to see, but his ten-gallon hat can just barely be made out.

Heedless of the shots raining down around him, Kelly does his best to stop the fountain of blood that spurts from the severed stump of Rune’s shoulder.

The Media Services’ van (whom Anthony works for and for whom Rune once worked) is parked directly in front of the students, with the door open.  That is too convenient for Anthony to trust at this point.  The group runs to his car, but finds that all of the tires have been slashed _and_ sugar has been poured into his gas tank.  The group returns to the van, throws the unconscious body of Rune in the back, and brave Berea’s city streets to drive the block to Berea Hospital.

Inside the emergency room, they wait on an update on their friend’s condition.

“Don’t worry,” they are told.  “He probably just needs antibiotics.”


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## Rybaer (Apr 13, 2002)

I love this idea for a Cthuluian setting.  Essentially playing yourselves in a world gone twisted.  And a college campus should offer lots of good material - both settings and people.


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

Rybaer said:
			
		

> *I love this idea for a Cthuluian setting.
> Essentially playing yourselves in a world gone twisted.  And a college campus should offer lots of good material - both settings and people. *




Thanks.  It was particularly fun, because I discovered that I'm really a pretty masochistic guy.  The "Rune" in the story is me, if you're wondering!  I think that it got the players a little bit frightened just because they saw that I was willing to inflict horrible types of torture on my own persona.  That definately helped the mood!

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed yourself.  I hope there aren't too many inside jokes.


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## Horacio (Apr 13, 2002)

A Cthulhuid story by Rune!
Cool


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

Horacio said:
			
		

> *A Cthulhuid story by Rune!
> Cool  *




Thanks for reading!  This one was fun.  I'd been planning it for a loooooong time!


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## Henry@home (Apr 13, 2002)

I see "Rune" is well on the way to becoming the game in-joke. He has had ongans removed, skin flayed off hands, lost teeth, and had his arm shot off.

Cheers! 

So far, so creepy! Keep going!


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## Angelsboi (Apr 13, 2002)

Printed it out. Now to read!


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

Henry@home said:
			
		

> *I see "Rune" is well on the way to becoming the game in-joke. He has had ongans removed, skin flayed off hands, lost teeth, and had his arm shot off.*




Heh.  Kind of, but it really wasn't a joke in the game.  They were pretty scared (especially, dare I say, my brother)!  It does keep me wondering, though: what am I going to be able to do to myself in the next game to top all of that?



> *Cheers!
> 
> So far, so creepy! Keep going! *




Thanks, we hope to, but this isn't really a scheduled game.  At best, it will be a (probably short) series of linked one-shots.  I'd call it a mini-campaign if we had a schedule, but it's pretty much a spur of the moment game.  It certainly was last night!  Don't get me wrong, I'd been preparing for the eventuality of the game for a long time, but we didn't know we were going to be playing until earlier that evening.  I had fun, I hope they did to!  And I hope y'all reading this enjoy it, as well!


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## Rune (Apr 13, 2002)

Angelsboi said:
			
		

> *Printed it out. Now to read! *




Thanks for stopping by!
Hope you enjoy the read!


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## Lazarus Long (Apr 13, 2002)

VERY Cool, VERY creepy.

It was like watching a nightmare unfold from someone's sick mind (that's a compliment, of course ).

I WANT MORE!


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## Rune (Apr 14, 2002)

Lazarus Long said:
			
		

> *VERY Cool, VERY creepy.
> 
> It was like watching a nightmare unfold from someone's sick mind (that's a compliment, of course ).
> 
> I WANT MORE!  *




Thank you! It means a lot to me that you think that this is like a nightmare; as the story hour linked to in my sig shows, I have dabbled quite a bit into that realm.

Thanks for reading!


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## Angelsboi (Apr 14, 2002)

I read it.  I WANT MORE!!!!!!!

I kept thinking it was a Resident Evil/Silent Hill type.  I just didnt understand.  I LOVED the Urban Legend bit though but the zorro guy was never revealed as was the professor guy.

Whats up with all that??


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## Negative Zero (Apr 14, 2002)

this thread is my very _first_ introduction to CoC. i've heard about it before, but i've never read any of the books or game stuff. and i'm really liking this! nicely done. the familiarity of the setting makes it all the more creepy. kudos to GM and group. i'm looking forward to reading more. 

~NegZ


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## rootbeergnome (Apr 14, 2002)

Negative Zero said:
			
		

> * the familiarity of the setting makes it all the more creepy. kudos to GM and group. i'm looking forward to reading more.
> 
> ~NegZ *




Yeah, tell me about it, today I was walking on campus and I looked up at the building where we were trapped in the game and I shuddered.  This was thoroughly disturbing, I LOVED IT! !   I am Mike, by the way, and Anthony is my roommate, in-game and in real life.  It's much more scary when it's your neck on the line, even your in-game neck!  And thanks for the praise!  Rune does horror very well.


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## Ziggy (Apr 14, 2002)

Excellent start, another thread added to my list of must-read stories. 

BTW CoC is *excellent* for this type of campaign, adding horror to a well-known setting maximizes the fun. We used to play a con-scenario based on using the CoC-setting in our town every year, and it was great fun. The most fun was probably the year I played a media-student filming *everything* with a small video camera (this was way before Blair Witch). His last act before dying was to fling his camera under the slowly descending door that was trapping the monsters that were killing us. It was found by the police later, and boy did those policemen lose a lot of SAN when looking on that tape. 

.Ziggy


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## Rune (Apr 14, 2002)

Angelsboi said:
			
		

> *I read it.  I WANT MORE!!!!!!!*




Thanks!  I hope to continue the story relatively soon!



> *I kept thinking it was a Resident Evil/Silent Hill type.  I just didnt understand.  I LOVED the Urban Legend bit though but the zorro guy was never revealed as was the professor guy.
> 
> Whats up with all that?? *




I actually don't really like Resident Evil very much, but I have no doubts that I am _very_ influenced by Silent Hill.

As for the batman guy and the professor...

These people exist in real life.  I included the batman guy because I knew he would really freak out a few people at the table and I included the professor, because I like him.  He's not like his in-game persona at all, but I can easily imagine him slipping from sanity.  Also, his diagrams and notes really do offer glimpses into "that which man is not meant to know."


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## Rune (Apr 14, 2002)

Negative Zero said:
			
		

> *this thread is my very first introduction to CoC. i've heard about it before, but i've never read any of the books or game stuff. and i'm really liking this! nicely done. the familiarity of the setting makes it all the more creepy. kudos to GM and group. i'm looking forward to reading more.
> 
> ~NegZ *




Thanks for giving it a try!  To be honest, the game hasn't become very Cthulhuid...yet.  Oh.  And definately read some of the stories.  I can only try to emulate the work of a true master.


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## Rune (Apr 14, 2002)

Ziggy said:
			
		

> *Excellent start, another thread added to my list of must-read stories. *




Thanks!  I sure hope we can play often enough to warrant that kind of devotion!



> *BTW CoC is *excellent* for this type of campaign, adding horror to a well-known setting maximizes the fun. We used to play a con-scenario based on using the CoC-setting in our town every year, and it was great fun. The most fun was probably the year I played a media-student filming *everything* with a small video camera (this was way before Blair Witch). His last act before dying was to fling his camera under the slowly descending door that was trapping the monsters that were killing us. It was found by the police later, and boy did those policemen lose a lot of SAN when looking on that tape.
> 
> .Ziggy *




Hey, I'm a videographer/videoeditor in real life!  That's pretty interesting (I loved Blair Witch, by the way).  In fact in another Cthulhu game (at some point) the characters who start the game will be a documentary crew for "Sightings" or some similar paranormal investigative show.

It should be fun.

Oh, and lest people begin to think that I'm an innovative fellow, I must admit that the idea of using a familiar setting and familiar characters is nothing new.  Check out RangerWickett's Savannah Knights and jonrog1's DarkMatter D20: Drunk Southern Girls with Guns, Zombie Toddlers and Bad Aliens for examples.  Actually, go read them anyway.


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## Bianca MarOu (Apr 14, 2002)

*Mysterious Masked Man*

I want to sell Rune to the circus for naming the Proffesor Strangeman (Well, from what I hear the guy really is strange, but I still believe yon DM was on crack).

The cryptic gentleman in the cape is actually my ex-husband.  Said dude really has more mental problems than your average Edgar Allen Poe character, and if he was fictional he wouldn't be considered believeable because there is just so much wrong with him.  After I left him he shoved me around pretty good, hence the restraining order.

When Rune described the figure on the roof, I believe my first reaction was, "Aw, Sh**!" and Kelly declared "It's fu**in' [name deleted on the request of Rune, but I still think the guy's a jackass-- er, not Rune, the deleted one]!"

Scary stuff man.



			
				Angelsboi said:
			
		

> *I read it.  I WANT MORE!!!!!!!
> 
> I kept thinking it was a Resident Evil/Silent Hill type.  I just didnt understand.  I LOVED the Urban Legend bit though but the zorro guy was never revealed as was the professor guy.
> 
> Whats up with all that?? *


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## Rune (Apr 15, 2002)

If anyone is interested in my methods of setting the atmosphere (not all of which necessarily worked especially well), here they are:


No background music.
Turn off the lights when the characters are in the dark.  Cigarette lighters are sufficient for reading by.
Make them roll lots of sanity checks.  Lots.
Give them an impossible situation (such Rune's dilemma).
Split 'em up!  Actually, they did it for me, but that's because of the situation I put them in!
Include NPCs that you know freak out the players.
Make it all too familiar.
Leave the appartment for a while.
Pound on the back door, while you're gone.
Call one of the players' cell-phones and hang up.
Do terrible looking things to your body in real-life, such as twisting your neck around.
Be a bastard.

[edit-added one more to the list.  Second to last.]


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## Angelsboi (Apr 17, 2002)

when we gonna get some more?


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## Rune (Apr 17, 2002)

Angelsboi said:
			
		

> *when we gonna get some more? *




Can't  really say.  It _was_ just a one-shot, after all.  Tonight's my regular game (see my sig).  If a lot of people don't show up for it, maybe I'll run another one of these, instead.  I really hope to get back to the Dream, though...I'll be using Piratecat's _Of Sound Mind_!

At any rate, thanks for tuning in.  And keep an eye focused in this direction.  It probably won't be very long at all...

Not sure what to do, though.  I think all of the characters lost enough sanity to go permanently insane!  Ah well, there's always the college's psychiatric counsiling!


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## Rune (Apr 29, 2002)

*27 April, 2002 Session.  Part 1*

It is a sunny day in February.

In the emergency waiting room of Berea Hospital, four acquaintances wait anxiously on news of their friend, Rune.  Rune is in surgery again.  He has been allowed no visitors since his induction into the hospital a month before.  Rune’s twin brother, Kelly, is here.  So, too, are his friends Anthony and Michael, a recent graduate of Berea College—a psychology major.  With them is a woman named Jude, a religion major whose interest in going into the ministry is no doubt influenced by her intense interest in the occult and humanity’s failings.  She is the last person anyone would expect to choose a career in the clergy.

They wait.

The waiting room is filled with a number of patients waiting to be seen, with loved ones in tow.  The sense of pain and suffering that comes from both are as omnipresent as the faint scent of antiseptics that permeate the building.

Still, they wait.

Is the clock on the wall getting louder as it _ticks_ the day away?

The waiting room door opens.

_Are you Rune’s brother?_

"Yes."

A nurse stands in the doorway, enchanting Kelly with an indefinable magnetism.

_I have some bad news.  Your brother has a rare genetic defect.  If you have this same defect, as is likely, you may not have long to live.  We will need to take a sample of your blood._

Kelly, unable to stop himself, walks with her through the waiting room door.  It all seems so _reasonable_.  His acquaintances do nothing to stop him.

When he returns, he is told that he will have to wait for an hour for the test results.

The wait.

The paging system clicks on.  _Paging Dr. Hobbes.  You’re needed in ICU.  Paging Dr. Hobbes.  You’re needed in ICU._

Dr. Hobbes?  He’s the incompetent doctor from College Health Services.  What could he possibly be needed for in ICU?

The waiting room door opens again.  It is the nurse.

_I’m sorry, sir.  You do have the disease.  We will need to operate immediately._

This time, she does not sound nearly so reasonable.  When Kelly will not go with her, she sighs in resignation and returns through the door whence she came, on a mission to find a doctor to convince the student what is best for him.

The intercom clicks on, once again.  _Attention, all physicians.  Code blue in ICU.  Code blue in ICU._

This is followed by a frantic scramble of doctors through the hallways and a quick rush toward the emergency entrance doors, which are locked and sealed.  Something is wrong.

The patients are on their feet, milling about in a state of shock.  Their movements are jerky.  Their bodies are pale and almost lifeless.  Their faces are blank.

Within moments, they have all crowed around the thick glass doors, their injured bodies forming a half-living wall of flesh as bloody fingers leave streaks of red grime on the glass, tinting the room red as the sun shines through.

Again, the paging system springs to life.  _Cancel code blue in ICU.  Cancel code blue in ICU._

But the doors are not being unlocked.


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## Rune (Apr 29, 2002)

*27 April, 2002 Session.  Part 2*

The people who accompany the injured patients are unsure what is going on, but seem fairly panicked.  Many run down the hallway into a different wing or rush for the stairway.  Some of the injured patients break away from the human wall.  As one stumbles toward Michael, he snatches up a chair and topples the unfortunate man, doubling him over unnaturally.

Two doctors rush through the waiting room door and tend to the body.  One of the doctors has a small tattoo on his hand, its edge barely slipping out from under the cuff of his sleeve.  It drives its image into the minds of the compatriots who catch sight of it, twisting and distorting their thoughts.

Eventually, a nurse walks out of the waiting room door, again, to give the four friends the bad news.  Rune didn’t make it.

The four decide that it is time to leave the hospital, in whatever manner is possible.  They walk down the hallway, toward the main entrance of the hospital.  Doctors are running frantically back and forth.  One such doctor trips and tumbles prone, to the floor, the sound of metal instruments clattering to the tile beside him.  They are surgical tools.  In haste, he scoops them up, cutting himself in the process, and a thin trail of blood follows him down the hall for a few feet.

In the reception area, no soul can be seen.  No one is in the pharmacy, nor is anyone in the gift shop.  The great, glass doors are sealed and locked.  The combined efforts of the friends do nothing to break the glass.  Michael takes the opportunity to search the pharmacy and acquire some sedatives and mood-enhancing medicines.  Kelly takes the opportunity to grab some stuffed animals, which, experience has taught him, are flammable.

A low moan is rising from the hallway.  _Help us.  Help us._.

The patients are crawling and clawing through the hallway, toward the four.  Many of them, far more than were in the emergency room waiting area.

Michael manages to create a hole in the glass of one of the doors, but it appears to close rapidly around his hand, which is yanked free just before it can be severed.  Surely _that_ can’t happen.  Is Michael losing his mind?

Anthony and Jude discover that there is, in fact, someone in the gift shop, cowering behind one of the racks.  He holds a handgun.

And he is raving.  "You can’t have me!  I win, you see!  You can’t eat me;  I have one more bullet left!"  With that, he shoves the barrel of the gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger.  His front teeth fly across the room as his head jerks back; the corpse collapses to the floor.

Anthony grabs the gun.  It is no longer loaded.

In moments, the army of patients is upon them, and they are swept up in a sea of cold, clammy flesh.  Kelly lights a teddy bear and throws it into the crowd as the four friends make their way toward the nearest stairway.

They climb to the second floor.  The door opens, but beyond it is a brick wall.  Nothing else.  The door leads to a wall.  Strange.

The group decides to escape to the roof, so they pass the third floor and continue up.  The door is dead-bolted, and a small sign explains to them, _No admittance._

They go back to the third floor.  It opens into a hallway that stretches to the left and the right farther, much farther, than the eye can follow.  Unmarked doors line each wall in an unbroken pattern that stretches indefinitely in both directions.

A low chanting can be heard in the distance, though its direction is unclear.

The group tries to open a door.  An ancient voice yells at them.  "You can’t have us.  Go away!  We don’t need you!"

The group tries another door.  The same voice yells at them.  "You can’t have us.  Go away!  We don’t need you!"

The group crosses the hall and tries another door.  The same voice yells at them.  "You can’t have us.  Go away!  We don’t need you!"

And so on down the hallway, the party tries to open doors and is met, each time, with the same response.

But at one door, the response is different.  They are allowed within.


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## Rune (Apr 29, 2002)

*27 April, 2002 Session.  Part 3*

They enter the hospital rest home.  But something is wrong.  The bodies of mangled nurses are sprawled across the floor and blood is spattered across walkers and wheelchairs—and the faces of the old folk.

The smell of ancient humans mingles with the antiseptic aroma.

Many of them are convulsing, as they have no access to their medication.  Michael gives them what he has and hopes for happy results.  An intercom system plays the soft music of Enya and is slowly driving the old folk into insanity.  A television is turned on and shows reruns of old 60s sitcoms.  Part of the picture is obstructed by a fragment of bloody bone.

Apparently, these poor individuals have rebelled against their oppressors.

A pounding at the door is followed by an explosion of wood splinters, as the door is burst open.  The remnants swing inward on the hinges, and a strange sigil can be seen scratched into the outside of the door with a very fine blade.

The sigil is on all of the other doors, as far as the eye can see.  Each is slightly different.  All are maddening.  They claw at the mind and taunt the beholder with unearthly whispers.

Jude recognizes one of them as some symbol she had seen on an occult book in a large bookstore—the kind of book that people try to sell to young fools who really have no idea what they are looking for in occult literature, save rebellion from authority.

They open the door.

The chanting that filled the hallway washes over them in a wave of nausea.  It is loud, so very loud.

A crimson ring of robed and hooded people stands around a hospital bed, ignoring the group as their alien words continue to strike at the interlopers.  

Anthony pulls out the gun and tells them to stop chanting.

They do stop chanting and turn to stare at him.

And something rises from the bed, stumbling through the circle of red-robed people toward the group.

It reeks of formaldehyde.  A trail of wires falls from the stump of its shoulder, even as clumps of rotting flesh fall from the rest of its body.  It picks up a piece of the flesh and begins to eat it, then stumbles forward again.

Kelly lights another teddy bear, preparing to throw it, but he is overcome with a sudden feeling of inertia.  He is not capable of causing harm to this _thing_ advancing upon the group.

It’s arm stretches forward as the thing slides one foot across the dark tile, then another.

_Brr…_ it intones from a mangled mouth.  _Brother…_

This thing was once Rune.  It still bears some resemblance.

But Kelly can no longer remember Rune.


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## Horacio (Apr 29, 2002)

Wow!

Wonderful! Mind disturbing! Very Lovecraftian!

Wow!


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## Rune (Apr 29, 2002)

Horacio said:
			
		

> *Wow!
> 
> Wonderful! Mind disturbing! Very Lovecraftian!
> 
> ...




Thank you.  We try to do our best.


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## Angelsboi (Apr 29, 2002)

Ooooooo that was good!!!


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## DM with a vengence (Apr 30, 2002)

This makes me wish I had a real group of players, instead of a bunch of piece of sh*t f**k ups.

((Read my Story Hour))

Shameless, arn't I?  

Anyway, back on topic, excellent, most excellent.


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## Broccli_Head (Apr 30, 2002)

Rune said:
			
		

> *27 April, 2002 Session.  Part 3
> 
> 
> Brr… it intones from a mangled mouth.  Brother…
> ...




Eerie...very eerie, Rune. I don't know if it's Lovecraftian--generally too much gore--but it is very horrifying..._night-of-the-living-dead-ish_. I've been trying to coax my players into playing CoC but they refuse. If they read this story hour, they'll not want to even more. Especially if I suggest that they play themselves....

What a nightmare!


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## Rune (Apr 30, 2002)

Broccli_Head said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Eerie...very eerie, Rune. I don't know if it's Lovecraftian--generally too much gore--but it is very horrifying...night-of-the-living-dead-ish. I've been trying to coax my players into playing CoC but they refuse. If they read this story hour, they'll not want to even more. Especially if I suggest that they play themselves....
> 
> What a nightmare! *




Thanks for dropping by, Broccli!  Good to see you!  I'm sorry to hear that your players refuse to play CoC, but whatever you do, don't press the issue.  If they aren't willing to let themselves go and be terrified, horror just isn't going to happen!

Too bad, though.  I'd have liked to have read about it.


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## Desdichado (Apr 30, 2002)

Hey, not all Lovecraft is tentacles and Old Ones!  This could fit remarkably well next to _The Case of Charles Dexter Ward_ for example.  Great work, Rune!


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## jonrog1 (May 1, 2002)

Niiiiiiiice.

You see, this is where the fact that i'm a professional writer works _ against_ me.  I think in story structure too much.  This $#%ked-up hopelessness and surrealism is a genuinely very, very bad place for the PC's to wind up.

And I thought the live, mewing upside-down kitten head in the corpse's mouth in my campaign was weird ...

I'm inspired.


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## Rune (May 1, 2002)

jonrog1 said:
			
		

> *Niiiiiiiice.
> 
> You see, this is where the fact that i'm a professional writer works  against me.  I think in story structure too much.  This $#%ked-up hopelessness and surrealism is a genuinely very, very bad place for the PC's to wind up.
> 
> ...




_You're inspired!_  Where do you think I get my inspiration for horror!  A significant bit of it comes from your horror!

The live, mewing upside-down kitten head in the corpse's mouth *was* weird!  As a matter of fact, rootbeergnome (who plays Mike in the first session) talks about it _all the freakin' time_!

I've been practicing "$#%ked-up hopelessness and surrealism" for a long time, as the link in my sig would attest to.  I will say that I would have a little more story structure, but with my players, there really is no point.  They wouldn't stick with it,  anyway.  I thought, maybe, _just maybe_, they would want investigate Rune's death, being investigators and all.  Ha!  Not likely.  They just wanted to get out.  Bastards. 

Anyway, thanks for dropping by!  I'm flattered to have inspired you, although it might present a sort of chicken-and-the-egg syndrome.

While I'm on the subject, I have to pimp your story.  Anyone reading this who likes horror and hasn't read jonrog1's DarkMatter D20: Drunk Southern Girls with Guns, Zombie Toddlers and Bad Aliens story hour, go there immediately.  It is all kinds of horror goodness.


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## Rune (May 12, 2002)

*11 May, 2002 Session. Part 1* 

As Kelly takes a step back from the advancing abomination and as Jude dashes toward the door, the flaming teddy bear is wrested from Kelly’s immobile hands and arcs toward the rotting monstrosity that was once his forgotten brother.  The Once-Rune is hit squarely in the chest and tumbles backward to the floor.  The aroma of cooked Rune fills the chamber, quickly overpowering the antiseptic scent of the hospital, but the flesh is far too moist to actually ignite.

Kelly and Jude hear the sound of a scuffle behind them and turn to see that their companions have vanished.

And then, the floor falls out from under them.  The hospital is sliding downward in a steep decline and bits of the ceiling fall around them.  They can see—through holes torn into the walls—that they are descending deep into the earth, perhaps half a mile or more!

Oddly, a wind shrieks through the holes in the walls, even this far underground.  The hallway has been collapsed on either end and the robed people are completely lost in a mass of rubble—as is the Once-Rune.  Jude and Kelly make their way to another room and find nothing but clouds of dust, as well as chunks of stone and tile.  The floor drops a little, producing what is roughly a thirty-degree angle.  The wind screams through the holes in the far wall of this room, as well—at a much higher pitch; the holes are considerably smaller than those in the last room.

Jude searches through one of the piles of wreckage and comes across a cold piece of rubber.  Feeling around a bit more, she discovers that it is in the shape of a human hand.  When she gets to the sticky end of it, she realizes that it is not rubber at all; it is a real, severed hand.  She pulls it out of the debris.

The congealed blood that she has smeared all over it is stained with her handprints.  She drops the hand in revulsion and tries to wipe the sticky, red-brown syrup on the floor, but succeeds only in collecting a layer of dust.

The hand, Kelly notes, is that of a very old person.

The floor shifts again, producing an incline of forty-five degrees.

And then, the hospital is sliding downward, again.


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## Rune (May 12, 2002)

*11 May, 2002 Session. Part 2*

When the building comes to rest for the second time, it is on its side.  Kelly is hanging from the doorway of the room into the hall.  High above him, Jude hangs from the exposed metal supports of the wall—a wall inlayed with incomprehensible symbols.

Jude climbs through the hole in the wall, from which she is suspended.  Kelly scrambles around in an attempt to find some way up to that hole.  Eventually, as the building groans and shifts, Kelly climbs a pile of debris and escapes through a hole created by Jude’s unstable determination—and her black leather boot.

They are in a large, circular, domed chamber.  It is certainly constructed by humans.  A strange moss grows along the walls, casting a pale luminance all around them.  Jude and Kelly climb down to the floor of the chamber and the hospital slides further into the ground, leaving a crater of no determinable depth.

Three tunnels branch from this large room and one archway leads directly into another chamber.  All are illuminated.  They decide to enter the room.  It is merely a quarter of the size of the room they exit, but it is still quite large.  Inside it, they are greeted with the smell of an old cemetery—the smell of moist earth; it is the smell of the grave, of loneliness and solitude.  Several more tunnels branch off from this room, all also illuminated by the unusual moss.

Kelly realizes that they will need to map their progress and begs Jude for a scrap of the only paper that they have—a page from her bible.  She is understandably very hesitant to yield this significant tome for such a _blasphemous_ purpose, but a growing sense of paranoia clouds her judgement in the matter.  She tears a page from the concordance in the back and Kelly begins to scribble.

They head down the center corridor.  It could just be her imagination, but Jude seems to see patterns in the illuminating moss.  No, they couldn’t be…

The path is straight and has no slope.  This is a trait that they are to discover is common to all of the corridors.  They intersect each other many times and the sound of the two investigators’ footsteps, the sound of their breath, and the sound of their heartbeats echo through the hallways, before them and behind them.

Eventually, Jude can no longer subdue her suspicion that the moss holds some message.  She takes a long look at the moss and is mildly surprised to see that it shifts into the form of an obscure script.  She is not even sure where she has seen it before.  She cannot read much of it, but some of it speaks of a command to "Turn away," and something about "mortal" and something else about "Great Old" somethings.

Kelly wants to deface it.

Jude is quick to dissuade him.  "Don’t touch it!"

"Why not?"

"It’s shifting, glowing, script of moss.  You just don’t see that every day!"

After a very brief pause, Jude and Kelly decide to go the other way.


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## Rune (May 12, 2002)

*11 May, 2002 Session. Part 3*

The next room that they come across as the walk through the maze of tunnels is a very large hemisphere—or possibly a full sphere—with a floor that is completely lost in a pool of water.  More tunnels branch from this room, but, more significantly, the pale moss-light reflects movement in the water.  Quite a bit of movement, in fact.

Jude and Kelly decide not to enter the room.  After traversing more corridors, they find themselves in another circular chamber—this one with no visible ceiling despite the presence of moss-light crawling up the walls further than their eyesight can follow.  Every sound that the two make in this room is amplified and echoes.  The echoes echo.  The very sound of their own breathing travels up the walls and back down again to drown the out their source.  Kelly’s face twitches and the two move on.

As they walk down another long pathway, Jude feels compelled to decipher some of the script in the moss again, if she can.

She can.  She reads the same message as she saw the last time, but this time, she sees something else: something about "The Faithful of Berea."  It looks like a list of names—a _very long_ list of names.

The two move on.  In another circular chamber, they see that the moss along the wall shifts perceptively.  It writhes, even.  Closer examination reveals the reason; the wall is covered with thousands of small, albino spiders, each blocking out the moss-light.

Kelly and Jude are retreating from the room before they even discover that the spiders can jump.

An unsettling thought crosses Jude’s mind.  "Let me see that map."

Kelly shows her his hastily sketched rendering.

Her suspicion is confirmed.  The tunnels and the chambers form a symbol that is strikingly similar to a pentacle.

She can also see that the corridors that they have not traveled appear to conjoin at two separate points.

They choose one and head toward it.  It is another echo chamber—designed precisely as was the first, but with a much smaller diameter, so the echoes are at a far higher pitch than those of the other chamber.  Again, Kelly’s face twitches and they move on.

The other point on the map is a chamber that they cannot see.  That is to say, once inside, they can only see a void and thousands upon thousands of stars.  Kelly is interested to see that a new passageway branches from this room, but Jude is entranced by something else, entirely.  None of these stars are familiar.  This room almost seems to be view of the universe from some point other than the Earth.

When she can will herself to move, they walk through the last tunnel and into a large chamber, also circular.  A large shape dominates the center.  As Kelly finishes mapping the room, the lines begin to glow and the bible page withers away.  At the same time, stone snakes spring to life on the surface of the large…building…in the center of the chamber.  Other stone shapes can be seen writhing across its face, as well--tracing the outline of a set of doors.

The doors swing open and an unearthly chanting rushes out to fill the room around them.


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## Barendd Nobeard (Jun 6, 2002)

BUMP!

Are we gonna see more on this story?  I hope so!  But with the "college season" winding down, I fear the worst...


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## Rune (Jun 7, 2002)

We will, but I wouldn't count on it before fall.

I will have a couple of summer campaigns going, though, if you want to check those out in the meantime.


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## Barendd Nobeard (Jun 11, 2002)

Drat!  I'll just take 2d6 San loss , as I sit here driven crazy by the wait....


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## Hammerhead (Aug 22, 2002)

This is freaky.


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## Broccli_Head (Aug 22, 2002)

Yah! would be nice to see more!


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## Rune (Aug 22, 2002)

Hammerhead said:
			
		

> This is freaky.




As freakiness was my intention, I'll take that as a compliment. 

Thanks for dropping by, Hammerhead.  As you've probably noticed, this story has a tone quite a bit different than the dwarves story (or any of my other stories, for that matter.  Sheesh!  I write too many story hours!).  Hope you enjoy them both!


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## fenzer (Aug 27, 2002)

Just a friendly little bump.


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## Kesh (Oct 27, 2002)

Somehow, I'm not surprised you came up with this one, Rune. 

I have to say, I'm sorry I'm not in Berea anymore! I would've loved to try out this campaign. Ah well. It's kinda fun to read through this and see the descriptions of familiar places twisted in Lovecraftian style.

Plus, it just made sense that no one would want to take their injured to Berea Hospital. Now we know the real reason why!


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## Rune (Oct 28, 2002)

Hey, good to see ya, Kesh!  It would have been great to have you in this game.  Maybe if you drop by for a visit (long way from Alaska, I know), we'll see what happens.



			
				Kesh said:
			
		

> *
> Plus, it just made sense that no one would want to take their injured to Berea Hospital. Now we know the real reason why!  *




You mean you _think_ you do!


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## weiknarf (Dec 16, 2002)

Rune said:
			
		

> *12 April, 2002 Session.  Part 2
> 
> He slides down the ladder for the full distance, trusting in the entity at the bottom to break his fall.  With a scream and a series of cracking sounds, the entity does just that.
> 
> ...


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## The Forsaken One (Dec 16, 2002)

Muhahaa everyone loves CoC!

I just finished running *Nocturnum* yesterday. A 300 page CoC adventure in the present day. It's cool and my players loved it!

So I'm enjoying reading this 

Good stuff Rune, keep it comming. (From where ever that is... *shrug*)


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