SESSION 9: THE FIGHT
--------------------

We join our friends on Sunday, the first of February, 1925, at around
2:30 in the afternoon. Katya, Jim, Nathaniel, and Elizabeth are
present; Alistair having lost interest in their cause.

The group went to the 49th Street hotel and thought and pondered, and
came up with the following:

 - Adrian's extensive background told him that the mask symbolized
four different creatures or 'things'; that they were powerful things,
and that the carving on the scepter was an ancient written form of
Swahili, different from the carving on the band and other artifacts.

- Elizabeth's medical knowledge told her that the finger was cut
approximately 12 hours before from a live person; there were wood
splinters under the fingernail and abrasions on the fingertip; and
that the skin hung slightly loosely from the bone.

The group came up with a plan: Jim and Katya would retrieve a cultist
from either Elizabeth's apartment or the meat market while Elizabeth
snuck into Columbia's chem lab to try and make some truth serum. They
would bring the cultist and serum to Jim's house, where they would
interrogate the cultist.

Things went pretty much as planned. Elizabeth got something she
thought would work, and Jim and Katya retrieved a cultist from the
(surprisingly clean and fresh looking) meat market.

At Jim's house, things got nasty. Katya handled most of the torturing,
while Elizabeth asked questions. (The men waited upstairs.) After
around 1 1/2 gruesome hours (and repeated taunting from the man of
"Nyar shthan nyar gashanna"), Katya and Elizabeth got the following
information:

 - Rachel was taken to New Jersey earlier that morning by 4 people,
*not* including Magonga; she was alive then.

 - CoBT wants to bring their god back by some sort of sacrifice. He
described various sacrifices by Magonga where M. held out his hand,
and after a few minutes a flaming, beating heart bursts out of the
victim's chest

 - There was no meeting this month; however, a special meeting would
take place the next night in New Jersey. Most cultists were leaving
from the Meat Market around 10 pm.

 - He came from Africa (guess where?) and described someone he saw
there; the "Mother of the Son", who was white, with blonde hair, and
was fully possessed when she arrived with two men. She left after the
Impregnation.
 

Katya then killed the man, and Elizabeth puked, and got drunk, and
repeated this whole process several times.

Later that night, Jim and Katya cleaned up, and the group (minus
Adrian) dumped the body in the East River, waving to the mafioso who
were also there, before heading back to the 49th Street hotel, where
they spent an uneasy night.

The next morning, the gang left the hotel, sticking together. Everyone
else waited in the car while Jim went up to see Poole in the
hospital. He found 5 or 6 close friends from the force (not wearing
uniforms) telling Poole that he couldn't go looking for his wife
himself. They left, and Jim went in and told Poole about the a
possible exchange of items for Rachel. Poole calls back his 7 closest
friends, and Jim explains the situation to him. The following plan was
hashed out:

 - 5 of the cops will follow the expedition from the Meat
Market. They were instructed that if Poole & the Gang (sorry, couldn't
help it) weren't there within 1/2 hour, to go back to the city.

 - Our friends should take 1/2 of the items to the drop point; Poole
said that they would then be led to the real exchange point. Poole
would come with group, other friends would follow behind. Everyone
arranged to meet at Poole's at 9.
 

Before then, the following happened:

 - Adrian read the book, "Africa's Darkest Sects", and got a bunch of
information, the important of which is contained in his notes about
it.

 - Katya got shotguns for Elizabeth and Adrian, and tried to explain
how to use them.
 

At 9, the group put the items in the car, Adrian kept the book on his
person, and they headed over to Poole's. 5 were following the meat
market crowd, the other two following the main group.

At the Duck pond in Central park 20 minutes early, the group
waited. After a nerve-wracking 35 minutes, a bundled-up white male in
his mid-thirties approached the group. Our friends showed him the
bowl, the mask (at which point his eyes got big and he half reached
out, like he wanted to touch it), and the scepter (at which point his
eyes got VERY big). He instructed the group to follow him in the
car. They did so.

Around 2 hours later (the drive was, unsurprisingly, South to New
Jersey), the group reached the upper reaches of the Pine Barrens. The
car stopped, the guide got out, and headed down a trail. Poole and Jim
drew guns, and followed him. Katya, Adrian, and Elizabeth stayed with
the items, shotguns drawn.

Jim and Poole entered a clearing. Around a large fire, there were
about 15 people naked and dancing and chanting. At the far end, were
Magonga and Rachel. They were waved on by Magonga; at that point,
Poole started walking and Jim followed. They stopped about 1/2 way
there, waving Magonga on in a show of chutzpah.

Magonga then pulled Rachel off the ground by her hair, and put his
knife to her throat. Jim and Poole again started walking forward. They
try to bargain, but after Poole notices that all 4 fingers on Rachel's
left hand are missing and she is wearing a burlap sack, Poole goes to
get items.

The rest of the gang returns to the clearing with all items but the
book and the bowl. While they are fetching, the chanting and dancing
increased in tempo and intensity slightly.

When the group showed Magonga the items, he laughed and the pace
increased to a crescendo. Katya shot Magonga (but not Rachel!),
trying to stop whatever was about to happen. Unfortunately, the blast
drew his arm back, causing him to slit Rachel's throat. Poole screamed
and started to run towards his wife, and all of the birds within a 15
mile radius started to shriek with him. The sky began to boil.

At this point, things started to go crazy. People started coming into
the clearing from the woods, shooting at Magonga and the cultists,
some of whom started shooting back. Rachel was pulled straight up into
the air, and shrieked a *VERY* loud shriek. Katya shot Magonga again,
and suffered from a heart attack. Elizabeth grabbed the mask and made
a run for the woods; Jim continued to shoot at Magonga, who had begun
to reach his hand out to Katya's chest in an eerily familiar manner.

Adrian tried to use his shotgun, hit the sky, and knocked himself
down. More cultists started to get pulled up into the sky, some
appearing to have been ripped by large talons. The whole scene was
very, very bad.

Then things started to turn around. Over everything, the group started
to hear a strong voice chanting something that didn't sound as
sinister as the cultists. It was Mama Mguana, being carried into the
clearing in a wheelchair. Magonga moved his attention to Mama Mguana
from Katya, who started to shoot him again. Adrian and Jorgana
(remember him?) started spraying the sky with bullets.
 

After MANY GUNSHOTS on the part of our friends, and MUCH WORK on Mama
Mguana's part, Bits of the 6 cultists visible in the air started
dropping, and the shriek finally stopped. Eventually, Magonga died,
pulling Mama Mguana's heart with him. Everyone went a little
insane. The gunfire wound down. Our group of friends (except for
Poole, who was shot to death and collected by the police officer
friends who were still alive), made it to the car. Elizabeth treated
all the wounded police, people on the "good guy" side, and Jorgana
after Jim shot him in a moment of confusion. The following artifacts
were retrieved:

 - The bowl
 - The mask
 - The headband
 - The book
 - A tiger skin that Magonga was wearing
 - A claw made out of a tiger claw **** (I know this isn't
   right, but that's what I wrote down......)

Nobody could find the scepter. Everyone headed back to New York.