The Museum of Death

GM: James
Transcribed by: James
Date: December 08, 2019
In Game date: April 16, 2012
Episode: 28

Part 01: Fergus Mac Cormaic

I remember standing there in the hallway of the National Nordic Museum in Ballard, the lighting dim because the power appeared to be out, staring at one of the most horrific sights I had ever witnessed. Mark Whitlow. I had to remind myself that that was his name. Singard Jarlson had told us the name of the security guard when he gave us the security codes and keys to get into the museum. We were trying to track down Eric Laufey and the cursed blackthorn tree he had stolen to prevent the power of the demon, Sebassis, from corrupting him and the entire city any further.

I knew we might be in for a fight when we noticed that the security keypad had been fried and was smoking and the back door lock had been forced. But I wasn’t ready for this. Someone had posed the body. Something had ripped the poor man’s head off and then posed him. His headless corpse sat cross-legged with his head in his lap being held in his hands. Above him, painted in his own blood, were the words “Tough Guy”. It was all so deliberate and callous and it really shook me to my core. My heart was pounding in my ears and I was glad I wasn’t there alone in the darkened museum. David Clay was a solid presence and I felt more grounded just having him by my side. He stared grimly at the gruesome spectacle before us and started moving up the stairs, his eyes alert and calm. I fell into place to guard his back trying to gather my resolve.

We moved cautiously down the hallway and up the large, wide staircase to the second floor where the library for the museum was. The library was restricted by appointment and held many artifacts and documents that deemed too fragile or too dangerous to be viewed by the regular public. I felt David tense as he prepared himself in case we had to confront whatever had taken Mark Whitlow’s head off. Gods. I am not sure why it freaked me out so much. I had seen some shit before. I had to get a grip.

I was just calming my thoughts when I caught some shifting shadows out of the corner of my eye. I turned my attention to the movement and suddenly saw through Eric Laufey’s veil. He was moving quietly out of the Library carrying a small leather case clutched to his chest. He hadn’t spotted David and I yet and I was just about to point him out to David when I saw it.

It took a moment to understand what I was seeing but I perceived the eyes first. They were baleful eyes, full of fury and hate. It seemed to appear out of the gloom behind Eric as if it was a creature made up of shadow itself. It had a sinister smile on its face and as it stepped forward I noted its sallow, yellowish skin was covered in blood. The Y-shaped scar from an autopsy was clear on its uncovered torso as it stood there wearing only filthy, blood splattered hospital scrub pants and carried a wicked looking butcher knife. It looked me right in the eyes as I was about to call out a warning to Eric and my heart nearly stopped.

I am not sure I had ever felt such…hate. The powerful, all consuming contempt for life I saw in its eyes made my breath catch and my throat go dry, my voice stilled. Eric, finally sensing something was wrong, turned toward the abomination as it smashed out with its fist, striking him in the temple and felling him with one blow. It never even took its eyes off of me.

Its smile promised me that it would enjoy posing my body too.

Part 02: David Clay

I could tell that Fergus was disturbed by the brutal murder of Mark Whitlow. He tried not to show it but, while he is a brave and stalwart companion, his emotions are easily perceived. I believe the phrase is that he “wears his heart on his sleeves” which is a disturbing image in itself, as many human saying are. He has stood by me in battle against monsters and demons and I have never questioned his courage. So when he saw the monstrosity strike down Eric Laufey and jumped off the stairwell and wall-ran down a side passage with impressive speed I knew he was not abandoning me. He was using some clever tactic.

I got ready as the creature approached. It was clearly long dead. Its yellow skin looked dried and stretched too thin over its bones and desiccated muscles. An autopsy scar marked its torso and yet it moved with a determination and purpose that shone in its hate-filled eyes. It took me some moments but I realized that I recognized the dead man. His name was Donald Goldman. He had died of cancer 3 years ago and was the long-estranged father of the murderer Barry Goldman. I had seen several photos of him in Goldman’s file. It was hard to fathom how much Goldman must hate his own family. He had murdered his own mother and sister and had now turned his father into some kind of undead abomination.

The monster pulled a large butcher knife from his blood splattered hospital scrub pants and with gleeful hatred slashed at me with blinding speed. I stepped into the blow trying to get in too close for the knife. I reached out, grabbing him, and was immediately forced to exert all my might just to barely keep him under control. He was strong. As strong as me at least. He seemed fueled by some kind of inhuman rage, barely contained and full of madness. That smile, disconcerting and promising a great deal of pain, never left his face. My grip on his arm was slipping when Fergus came swinging in off the pillars of the tree exhibit at the monster’s back and slammed his mystically created spear into it, knocking it out of my arms. I wound up and threw my most powerful haymaker at the abomination but my blow bounced off the creature’s chest and knocked me off balance and into Fergus.

As Guardian of the Seventh Gate Fergus is strong and fast beyond measure. Even off-balance he managed to jab the monster with his manifested spear but had no effect. The creature reached out with blinding speed trying to grab the Changeling but Fergus managed to dance out of its way. It countered again with the knife trying to gut Fergus from stem to stern but my friend did a back flip out of its reach. The knife was especially dangerous to Fergus because of his Fae nature and I grabbed its arm with both of mine trying to disarm him. Fergus darted back in again to attack but the monster seemed unaffected despite the deep wounds inflicted on it. It tried to lay its hands on my friend again but Fergus was far too fast for him.

Exerting my strength I slammed the monster’s hand and knocked the knife out and across the hallway into a wall. Fergus slid down to the floor sliding across it and slammed the haft of his spear into the back of the creature’s knees trying to take him down but it stepped into the blow and wasn’t moved at all. It charged me and we wrestled back and forth destroying display cases and even cratering the wall with our struggles.
I realized that I would have to exert myself to my fullest and unleash my wrath on this monstrosity.

Part 03: Fergus Mac Cormaic

I always suspected David was always holding back. Not using all of his might for fear that he might hurt someone. Might hurt himself. The two combatants struggled, neither able to get the upper hand. David’s normal form of a mild-mannered lawyer had vanished leaving the visage of a savage, powerful and righteous creature of God’s wrath in its place. He slammed the undead thing to the floor, creating a crater in the marble. I charged forward and rammed my spear through its chest, momentarily pinning it to the floor. The creature did not seem to mind. It flailed its arms at me. I knew I was dead if it got its hands on me and used my full speed to leap above its grasping limbs. I whipped my spear around and slammed it into its shoulder chopping down deeply, leaving its arm hanging limply at its side. David tried to crush the thing with some rubble from a shattered pillar but it slapped it aside with contempt. One of the fragments went flying through the front window and in the distance we could hear the approaching sirens of the police. Great. Just what I needed. Another crime scene associated with the Green Man.

David must have felt the urgency too because he charged the monster and grabbed both sides of the terrible wound in its shoulder. With a below of effort he began tearing with both of his massive hands. The creature, suddenly desperate, battered David with its free arm but David did not relent. With a crunch of breaking bone and limb the golem ripped the undead monster into two pieces. Blood and old viscera went everywhere and I only barely held onto my lunch as the smell hit me. Gods it was terrible. I turned away and began to head over to where Eric had fallen. I was worried he would be hurt after taking such a terrible blow to the head but I guess the son of Loki was made of sterner stuff. He was gone. He must have fled during the battle. David stalked over to me and called out into the museum as the sirens got louder and louder.

“Erik, we are your best way to get out of here safely.”

“Sigard sent us, and we have a car,” I added.

Only cold walls answered us.

I realized we would have to make our getaway and pushed David down the stairs. We had failed to get to Erik but if we stayed around any longer we were going to end up in jail. Luckily, with the power out I wouldn’t have to worry about our battle being recorded by the security cameras. We got the hell out of there just as the police arrived and I used a veil to make David’s old Crown Vic look as bland and unnoticeable as possible. It must have worked because the cops went right on by us as we left the neighborhood. We drove to Erik’s house but weren’t surprised he wasn’t at home. David spotted a payphone (no easy feat in this day) and called Jack’s house.

Craig Big Eagle answered the phone and David described our encounter with the walking corpse and explained that it was Barry Goldman’s father. Which was a surprise to me. Damn. That guy was one sick puppy to go after his own kin like that. Craig suspected that Donald Goldman was a Relentless Dead monstrosity that could not be destroyed with physical means alone. He said that it would require the banishing of its spirit as well as the destruction of its physical form to fully defeat it. So basically all we had done was tick it off.

Great. That is just wonderful.

We did get some good news though. Grizzly had combed through Barry Goldman’s records with a fine tooth comb and come up with a lead. Apparently a Daniel and Mary Kenyon, recently from St. Louis, had gotten a job with The Peter Kirk Syndicate working in their research department. They had purchased Goldman’s childhood house with money awarded in an insurance settlement from Vanguard Insurance from Black Monday. But they had not even lived in the city before a few months ago.

The two continued to draw a salary from the Syndicate even though their entire department had been dissolved in the aftermath of the lab in Bellevue being destroyed several months ago in our initial battle with the demon Sebassis.

Could Barry be so bold as to hide in the very house he was most notorious for? The place where he had ritually murdered his family as well as several other innocents? We had to check it out.

Singard, who was charged by Odin himself to look out for Erik, cut in to give us some other leads. He had been talking to Jack Youngblood about what Erik’s next move might be. It was good to hear that he was awake, although not fully recovered from his injuries.

Jack was a friend of Erik’s and knew him well. He figured that he would try to find a place where the veil was thinnest to make his escape to the Nine Realms. The main place he had figured would be on the campus of the University of Washington. Specifically Buel Hall. That is where Zebidiah Einar, a former Warden of Seattle, had returned from Jottenheim once. It was also where we had encountered the taint of one of Sebassis’s blackthorn trees. It would likely be a good spot for Erik to attempt his escape.

END OF CHAPTER SEVEN

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