An interesting and quite a light hearted night which is quite bizarre considering where the characters ended up.

An interesting and quite a light hearted night which is quite bizarre considering where the characters ended up. Steveg has been excluded from this entry for now as his characters are unaware of what has gone on.

Firstly, Orthrus gets a note from Prince Convruth apologising for his and "Lord Setanta's" absence - they are pretty much both grounded while Lord Setanta recovers, they'll probably be able to resume the sightseeing on the day after.

Meanwhile the papers are full of the Dead Fishman on the Thames report.
Some broadsheets suggest that there's been as many as 10 people killed by the beast before it was killed by the brave mudlarkers!

Orthrus goes to report Convruth's note to Harry, and furthermore regales him with tales of fishmen tunnelling up from the bowels of London to invade, and that they should go and kill them.

Harry takes this with a grain of salt, and Orthrus goes off to stir the Decayed Elf, Lord Fingolfin, who also rejects immediate action on account of his lady friend's presence.

Orthrus does a little shopping, scaring Wilkes the weaponsmith, who eventually consents to sell him a sabre. He also runs into one of The Chinese Master Chef's apprentices, who arranges for some spices and herbs to be sent to Orthrus's workshop, as he hopes, (as I understand it, this was early in the session and I might have remembered wrong, and it's bloody 1 am now) to either try cooking them himself or to get Sung Pao in to show him how or just to cook generally. He also tells the apprentice of the note from Prince Convruth.

People get themselves together and off everyone went to the Crystal Palace, to see if the captive fishman there was still captive. In goes Kuval and Harry, but to their, and the Crystal Palace owners eventual dismay, Kuval discovers that not only is the fishman display an illusion - chillingly - so is Lawrence, his owner.

They go back outside to where Fingolfin and Orthrus are eating pies and waiting impatiently for the chance to go and kill some fishmen, and inform them. At this point there's something of an argument. Harry and Kuval want to go to the Society, alarmed that the Fishman body there being dissected is actually a masterful illusion cast on Lawrence's live or dead body.

These two go there, and meet Terry Alcyone, a miniture engineerest and some sort of relative to Mrs Alcyone. He directs them to Dr Cuthbert, who is in the middle of dissecting the Fishman corpse. Everyone keeps their lunches, except the Fishman whose last meal appears to be the hands of at least two individuals, a child and a woman, perhaps. Harry is horrified, he's missing a messenger. And Mrs Alcyon isn't around.

Kuval and Harry instruct that Mrs Alcyone be checked to make sure she's real, and leave to meet the others who meanwhile....

Have returned to above where Lord Tan was found. Orthrus looks around - "Can I see a bit of solid wood?"

Yes, there's a door lying over there...no handle though...he picks it up and to his surprise there's a hole underneath. Of course he and Lord Fingolfin wander down it, at least having the sense to leave chalk marks.

Orthrus begins to hear a familiar voice calling him. He tries stuffing his ears but it seems to be coming from in his own head. He tries to ignore it, with some success.

The passage they're in is bricky and earthy, not very damp. It doesn't at first seem to relate to the area where they found Tan...leaving chalk marks they find some tracks, but then Fingolfin has a vision through the floor of massive gates, a dark, dark river and an amazing three headed snake furred dog howling. Not having a Classical Education, he has no idea what this means.

Orthrus proclaims that he will drink a potion to turn himself into a two headed dog (apparently he's working on the third) and Fingolfin says, beauty, tracking!

Orthrus turns into a two headed, snake tailed dog, 8 feet high.

http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/L3.1B.html

They follow the tracks which appear to be that of a human fleeing a Fishman, and after a brief distraction and dead end - although Orthrus had a nice dig in a fresh pile of earth with bones! bones! bones! and came away with a nice beef bone out of it - they turn torward the damper tunnel which suddenly opens out onto a huge cavern and a dark river flowing.

Far out on the water a dark ship floats, and comes towards them.

The Ferryman who has a nice wide hat and a pleasant manner, greets Orthrus in a friendly fashion and says his brother is after a chat. Orthrus starts fretting about change for Fingolfin. The right change. The ferryman is insistant that Fingolfin shouldn't wander away from Orthrus, "If he's your mate, if he's with you."

Lord Fingolfin has never, of all places, been to Greece and knows nothing of Hades. He's just enjoying the trip and Just Can't Understand why Orthrus is so concerned that he has the right change. He's also thinking that this is a big river to be serviced by just one boat. They need some competition around here! Another ferry at least. But there's something funny about this place, that everyone else knows about, which annoys him, (the values of a classical education) and he doesn't. He gets on the Boatman's good side by offering him some pork pie.

Kuval and Harry turn up on the shore of the great subterranean river which is probably the Acheron or maybe the Styx. (Kuval - of course we know dogs are into sticks!) On the boat, the passengers and the ferryman become aware of them, and after a great deal of worrying about whether there's enough matching coins to get them there and back, goes and picks them up, before they Wander Off - definitely not a good thing to happen here! But they'll be all right if they stick with you.

They are ferried across into Hades proper, to the descent to the Gates. There they meet the 20 foot high fire breathing snake tailed and furred, black, red and white Cerberus http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M12.1.html, who has a chat to Orthrus about Certain Other Matters, who definitely gets on his good side by submitting the beef bone to him. Cerberus seems very well disposed toward Orthrus who he names as his brother in the hearing of the other characters.

Kuval's snake charming skills allow the characters to discern that Lawrence, the owner of the captive fish man is still alive - Kuval's music buys them the information from the snake who know all who pass the various multi afterlives doors.

After expressions of good will all around, although Cerberos looks askance somewhat at the perplexed Decayed Elf, the party turn their backs on the gates of Hades. Going down is easy.

There are some rather uneasy jokes about Charon being a pickpocket and noone having any change to get back with.

Fingolfin starts to look back, but finds his way blocked by a concerned 8 foot dog who says "It's traditional not to look back". Just in case.
http://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M12.1.html