In game, October 3-4, 2009.

There they were in Scotland, then Adrian keeled over. Meg insisted they pull back and figure this out, and probed at his body with spirit lore etc. on the way back to town, finally telepathically maxing out and going in. She fell into a dark place.

Then she was trapped in a pendulum-like object hanging in a bottle by a string, with a yellow-eyed figure (indistinct with blue energy) peering at her. The figure took her to a coma ward, checked to see if she was male or female, then put the bottle on a female body and transferred her consciousness from the bottle to a body. She saw that he was an old man. He gave her something tarry and sharp from a hip flask with an Elder Sign carved on it, then snuck her out in the Mists; otherdimensional contact was painful, but bearable, and they escaped back to his house.

His name was Captain Holt. His premises down by the docks on the north side of Kingsport were heavily defended with Elder Signs and other mythos-related protections, as well as other occult methods. He explained he took an apprentice, Malcolm, who betrayed him and stole his doubloons and some of his less valuable books and absconded to be a freelance wizard. Holt could not apparently pursue him because Malcolm summoned hellhounds and set them after Holt.

Holt abducted Adrian and put his essence in a bottle, and Holt was trying to get Adrian and got Meg instead. So he suggested Meg could rescue Adrian, and she agreed. Holt took her out on the water in his small sailboat, its hull marked with Elder Signs. He sailed close to the North Point lighthouse, which was long since unmanned, its light replaced by instruments to communicate with ships.

The Lighthouse

The lighthouse had a yacht docked, the “Drowned Sorrow.” Holt sprinkled Meg with some dust to hide her from the hellhounds, then Meg hopped off the sailboat and swam up onto the island, ran up the steps to the tiny house attached to the tower. She saw a middle-aged woman at the table inside, and the bottle on the table tinking away (presumably with Adrian’s essence inside.)

She darted in, grabbed the bottle, ran down the stairs, and flung herself into the water, swimming to the boat. They sailed away as fast as they could.

Once back to the mainland, they revisited the hospital and the coma ward, and Holt put Adrian in a body. They snuck out once more, back to Holt’s house.

Adrian’s Tale of Woe

Adrian told them that an ugly man who dated Emma when they were students at Miskatonic U. still carried a torch for her, and did not take kindly to her telling him that she was with Adrian now. So he captured Adrian in a bottle, hiring Malcolm’s freelance wizard services, and he took his little clique to the North Point lighthouse after kidnapping Emma. There, he taunted her with Adrian in a bottle, demonstrating no one was coming to rescue her an she belonged to him now.

Holt advised them he could return them to their bodies, but he was not sure how much they would remember. Grim, Adrian decided to stay and rescue Emma. Meg agreed to help. Exhausted, they fell asleep.

Planning the Rescue

The next morning, Meg found Holt upstairs, badly drained from the night’s exertions. He said she could have any two amulets from a drawer, and she immediately identified two powerful Elder Signs and took them.

Meg and Adrian went to a pawn shop, concerned because they had no idea who they were and they did not want to be recognized as coma patients up and about. Meg bound vain shiny spirits to pebbles to make a couple Rolex watches, which they sold to Neil Hazlett of Neil’s Curiosity Shop. In exchange, they got a pump shotgun, a heavy pistol, some rounds and shells, and a guitar case, along with about $200 in walking-around money—no questions asked.

Neil offered them a tour of the bizarre in the back, for $5 each, refundable if they were unimpressed. Poor guy—he had no idea how tough their minds were, and he regretfully refunded their $10 after they shrugged at the horrors he had on display with absolutely no loss of sanity. Still, they parted on good terms.

They headed to the marina on the north shore, getting a gas can full of gas, a flare, and duct tape, then stealing a nice fishing motorboat and heading out to North Point.

Island Assault

Upon arriving, they ignited their improvised firebomb and hit the “Drowned Sorrows” so flames raced across its hull. Adrian shot the man who came out to intercept them, and noted Malcolm and a woman racing up on the deck of the flaming yacht; Meg and Adrian blew Malcolm away before he could get a spell off, and confronted the woman, who attacked with a knife and was shot.

By now the hellhounds were closing in, but Adrian put a line of salt across the end of the dock, slowing them down. Meg fell into the water and spotted a deep one, clambering out desperately.

Their capacity for magic and physical tasks were greatly reduced by the body switch, but Adrian could still cast a defensive shield. He did so, racing up to the lighthouse; when Malcolm died, the hellhounds attacked even the defenders of the lighthouse, clearing his way to the tower where his enemy waited (presumably with Emma.)

He raced past the hellhounds as they clawed at his shield, and he threw himself into the lighthouse tower over a salt line as they finished his protections off. He traded shots with his foe, then finished him with a shotgun blast. He took his victim’s wallet, noting he was Horatio Marsh from Innsmouth, a wealthy fellow.

As Adrian was untying Emma in the lighthouse tower, explaining he was sent by Adrian, Meg was firing at deep ones that were climbing up on the yacht. Adrian freed Emma and got her down the stairs, then expanded his mystic protection to cover them both as they raced to the yacht, barely making it over the salt line at the end of the dock as Meg fired on another deep one.

Working fast, they cleared the dock lines and sailed away before the deep ones could befoul the boat. Limp with relief, they returned to Kingsport waters, leaving the stolen boat to drift and taking the inflatable lifeboat with its little motor to return to the bay.

Safe Harbor

Meg bought Emma some new clothes to hide her shame, then they got a motel room, they took turns showering, and they gave Emma money to hire a cab to drive her all the way back to Edgarton. Then Meg and Adrian returned to Captain Holt, returning their Elder Signs. He sent them back to their bodies in Scotland.