SUMMARY 31 - MORE INFORMATION
-----------------------------

[This goes to Hatch, obviously.]

Dear friend-

Apologies in advance; this missive will be a rambling, large information dump. I've not much time to write, and we've discovered a lot that may prove useful for the next round of investigators of the cult. I'll try to break it up into coherent sections, though.

• About Carlyle and what he did while he was here:

  Carlyle's agent, a French-man named Basart, purchased several items from an under-the-table antiquities dealer. They included:

  • A bust of the Black Pharaoh
  • A small drum with symbols written on it
  • A head-band with a black gem in the middle (said to give power over the dead)
  • A scroll written in hieroglyphs, said to give a detailed description of the location of a secret room in the Black Pharaoh's pyramid.
  (An interesting postscript to that story is that the bust is now located in Gavigan's work room at the Penhew Foundation.)

  After the items were purchased, the dealer found out that they had been stolen from Omar Shatki. Interesting, that. An ad was placed by Carlyle in a paper for them a couple of months before the items found their way to the dealer. (The dealer was not actively looking for them.) After the items were sold to Carlyle, the dealer was visited by some kind of fire spirit, and warned not to speak of them ever again.

  Basart is described as being tall, golden haired, with a mustache and a goatee (though this was several years ago, now), and very long-limbed. He was also described as being very sophisticated.

• About Shatki (who he is, what he wants), and the Cult:

  I believe I've already told you that they meet every new moon in front of the Sphinx. We also found out a little more about Shatki's pets; they look like cats but aren't.

  The cult is looking for something (we don't know what) at Im Tuleen mosque.

  Shatki is indeed as old as we have suspected; he has been killed several times, and takes a few years to come back.

• Our artifacts and magic that might prove helpful:

  (I don't know whether or not this interests you, but it helps us, and therefore may help those who follow in our footsteps. I feel quite sure that we will all die because of this.)

  The Mask is actually quite an important artifact; I'm surprised we've survived this long, carrying it around. It even has a name; the Mask of Hymleah, named after the wizard who created it. It provides communication with the Black Pharaoh by taking you to the current location of there-is-no-peace.... It has four sections, representing four of there-is-no-peace...'s faces.

  We were mistaken when we thought that drawing elder signs above all the doors in our house was a good idea; it turns out that it must be put up during a lengthy ritual that requires some permanent sacrifice of one's energy.

  The Voorish sign that we had heard of is some kind of hand gesture which is said to aid in spell casting, but further research proved fruitless.

• The cosmology of old gods as it relates to our situation:

  It seems that there are at least two different kinds of great, powerful beings. One, the Outer Gods, which include Azathoth and who's soul is there-is-no-peace-at-the-gateway. The other is named Yog- Soggoth, who resides outside of this universe, in some sense.

  Each of these has followers, less powerful but still great creatures. They are of a different nature, though. The first has many, many sub-creatures, but they are not very powerful individually. The second has fewer, but *much* more powerful followers; great Cthulhu and Yig are two slightly more well-known ones.

  An interesting thing about Yog-Soggoth is that an aspect of it may have been Isis in Snaferu's defeat of the Black Pharaoh. Yog-Soggoth seems to have two dual natures; one who is a giver of magic, and friendly towards powerful humans (who may have aided Snaferu), and another which is very dangerous and bent on destroying the universe. This aspect is trapped outside our universe somehow.

  It is said that Snaferu received several gifts from Isis that he used to defeat the Black Pharaoh, and that they were buried with him. Perhaps we can trace their path?

There are major problems with this, however, not the least of which are money required to procure such guns and then what to do with them after we're done so that they don't wind up killing us and our countrymen. We're currently trying to figure out if there is another way to strike a blow at them.

We're still in good health, and I become ever more grateful for that fact. I hope this missive finds you well.