A gala celebrating the new Eye of Kilquato exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art ended in screams, blood, and destruction as a group of would-be thieves used the event as a cover to steal rare Egyptian artifacts. The Wardens, who were the guests-of-honor at the event, managed to stop the heist. They killed all but one of the attackers in a brutal gunfight that saw numerous Egyptian artifacts damaged or destroyed.
The Wardens quickly went over the fallen thieves’ belongings and found no identification, though they did find lock picks, crowbars and other tools of their nefarious trade. Alistair Sebastian Cadwalader Martindrake III discovered one item of note in the pocket of the gang’s leader: a gold figurine of a goat. The figurine was well-worn, with many of its finer details smoothed away by constant handling.
The gala goers, shocked by the gunfight unfolding nearby, started fleeing the museum. The Met’s guard staff was overwhelmed by the panic and ensuing stampede, and screams soon to rise from the scared and injured. As the Wardens surveyed they ruined Egyptian wing, distant police sirens could be heard through the broken skylight. It was only a matter of time before the authorities arrived.
The NYPD, commanded by Det. Samuel Coughlin of the 20th Precinct, arrived about 20 minutes after the shootout, at 10:25 a.m. With him were a contingent of 30 officers, half of whom he dispatched to the front of the museum to start dealing with the crowd, while the other half went around to the Central Park side.
This group was led by his partner, Det. Jason Carl Carson, who took four of his men and entered the building through maintenance entrance. They made their way through the crowd inside, slowly making their way to the Egyptian wing, where they found the Wardens waiting for them.
Carson was shocked by the level of destruction in the Egyptian Wing, and laid into the Wardens he discovered there in true New York Police Department style. Fortunately, Rikard Greystone, a former NYPD officer himself, was able to cut him off. Greystone introduced himself, explained the situation, and got Carson to calm down.
The Warden’s explained the situation to Carson, who came to see them as a possible tool for aiding in the investigation rather than interlopers. He advised them to be careful leaving the MET, because the entire building was surrounded by reporters and photographers who had come to cover the gala. They had now gleefully shifted gears to cover the blood-stained debacle that the gala had become.
The Survivor
The next day, Greystone interviewed the sole survivor, Andre Bellard, who fell in and out of coherence. He ranted about the raid’s failure to secure the Isis artifacts:
“I will never know the caresses of the Golden Doe now. The Tears of Isis flow, not in happiness, but in despair. We shall all drown, drown! And I deserve to suffer her righteous sadness, for I have failed her! Failed!”
and the Golden Doe herself:
“The Golden Doe. Blessed of Isis. Bringer of Life. The one who walks among us. She who shines with benevolence and love.”
and her consort:
“Beware the Chevron. The Horned Master. Ba-neb-djedet! Infused by Set to guard the life that She gives .. and take it. He is a jealous master. He watches from the night, and covets all he sees.”
Piecing it all together, the Wardens were able to determine that Bellard and the other thieves were worshippers of “The Chevron” and that the Golden Goat was some sort of fertility icon. They also learned from Bellard that the cult lived in a tenement on the extreme northern end of Manhattan.
Disappearences
Meanwhile, follow up investigations by the Wardens at the Metropolitain Museum of Art revealed that the were several possible abductions from the museum the night of the gala. All involved young men and women who moved in New York’s high society circles, and all were former friends of Warden Alistair Sebastian Cadwalader Martindrake III.
There was evidence scattered throughout the Met.
In Central American exhibit they found a dropped hairpin with dried blood on it, and is coated with some sort of sticky material. They also uncovered a A broken statue depicting the Mayan god of agriculture. There is dried blood and hair along one of the broken edges. Interviews determined that two of the missing, Mary Halleck and Elijah Irving IV, were last seen here.
In a corner of the gala hall, they found evidence relating to the disappearance of Joseph Stewart: a discarded handkerchief that had the faint, sweet antiseptic smell of chloroform.
In a women’s bathroom they found a broken mirror, with bits of blood on the edges of the glass. They remembered seeing Elizabeth Livingstone leave to powder her nose with her older sister, Catherine Livingstone, shortly after the opening of the gala.
Outside they reviewed the crime scene that Rikard and Alistair had already found early that night, where the brothers Richard Brockholst and Benjamin Brockholst had apparently come to blows. Their fight left blood on the paving stones of the walking path where they fought. Further investigation turned up scuff marks leading to an access road near Central Park, as though multiple bodies had been dragged to a car or cars.
Defenders of the Hooved Faith
The Wardens decided to follow up on the Chevron lead. Martindrake delved into his extensive collection of Egyptian lore looking for references to “Ba-neb-djedet”, “The Golden Doe”, and their connections to Isis. He learned that Ba-neb-djedet was an proto-god worshipped in the mountainous highlands of Egypt, and pre-dated the pantheon. His connections to Isis were tentative at best. He also found no reference to the “Golden Doe”, and offered the opinion that the cult’s entire belief system appeared to be a modern fabrication.
The Wardens headed to the poverty-ridden north edge of Manhattan, where they spoke with a number of kids about the “strange people” living in the target tenement. They bribed them to convince their parents to leave the building, and then headed up to investigate.
They found that the cultists had turned the third floor of building into their lair. A few cultists lay collapsed on each other, obviously passed out from drug use and carnal activities. Others sat naked in the halls, painting murals, while a few slept.
The Wardens found the lair’s murals deeply unsettling. While the hallways were dingy and ill-lit, the individual rooms had been re-painted with murals that flowed from one to the next. They depicted idealized Egyptian scenes co-mingled with that of New York (the Pyramids having been replaced with the Empire State Building and other notable landmarks). Woman and men cavorted naked in the Hudson River, and a beautiful woman with hair like sun rays shines upon them all. Shockingly, the Warden’s recognized this individual as Catherine Livingstone, one of the socialites missing from the museum. All of the humans have taken on aspects of the goat – horns, hooves, multiple nipples, etc.
Entering The Buck’s room, the Warden’s found that the murals transformed into a great forest, with ancient, rolling mountains rising from them. Located at the center of this forest was a cluster of stylized, Egyptian stone buildings, built around a great lake. More human worshippers could be seen here, fornicating openly as they worship their gods. Looming over all of this was the goat-headed-figure of a man, his eyes red with power. Something else lurked in the woods behind him, just out of sight, just out of mind. With growing horror, the Wardens realized that the mountains depicted there were the Catskills.
The cultists initially smiled absently as the Wardens explored the tenement, but became aggressive when the heroes penetrated the main sleeping chamber. There they found The Buck, a man once known as Jean-Paul Huguet. He wore a goat-head mask and dirty pants, but nothing else. At his side was a nasty looking, wave-bladed sword that ended in a pummel with a serpent’s head on it.
The Buck, who clearly considered himself an aspect of Ba of the Lord of Djedet, was none too pleased to see the Wardens in his den. The cultists attacked, attempting to drive the heroes from the building, but failed. The Buck was killed outright as were several other cultists, but a few others were merely knocked unconscious. These were left bound on the third floor for the police to find. The fight was not without casualties on the Warden’s side: Rikard took grievous wounds in the fight.
The Warden’s bound the incapacitated cultists, retrieved the Buck’s sword, and then retreated from the tenement, warning the inhabitants not to enter the third floor as they left. They then headed immediately to the nearest hospital so that Greystone could be treated for his wounds. Once there, they sent word to the police about what they’d found in the tenement, and asked that a squad be dispatched to secure the cultists.
Meta
- Feature photo credit: 1966 USA. NYC. East 100th Street, Spanish Harlem. Ephemeral New York. Source.
- Game date: May 18, 2014
Experience
- McGinnis: 3 xp
- Rikard: 3 xp
- Andrew: 3 xp