När det gäller Lovecraft, och även i flera introduktioner till Call of Cthulhu-äventyr, förmedlas bakgrundshistorier ofta genom dagböcker, anteckningar och tidningsartiklar. Fredrik har skickat mig ett lysande exempel på detta, en hårdkokt privatdeckares anteckningar, som också fungerar som introduktion för hans nya karaktär i Masks of Nyarlathotep-kampanjen. Visst blir man sugen på att träffa Sam när man läser detta? Han kommer passa in alldeles utmärkt…
March 11, 1926
This dame named Alison came to my office today. Sassy little negro lady, fast talker, obviously the kind of gal that saw the whole segregation thing as inconvenience at best. She said her dear old auntie had gotten herself mixed up in a bad situation and got locked up in a brittish jailcell. Told the dame I normally don’t take out of town jobs, let alone out of country, but she said the family could make it worth my while. So I think, why the hell not? Business’s been slow lately, and a few extra bucks could be useful. Seems like a simple enough job at least.
March 21
Made my way to London and met with the client. Turns out she’s some creepy voodoo broad from the Bayou. Nutty as a bat. Tried my best to make out what she was going on about. Started out simple enough: she and a group of other unlikelys were trying to figure out what happened to the Carlyle Expedition. Pretty soon though she starts rambling about strange cults, something called the Dark Pharaoh and the Bloody Tongue, about how they were attacked by some fog tentacle thing and other insane nonsense. Decided I wouldn’t get that much useful information from her and that I would poke around London instead. See what I dig up.
March 26
Investigations in London didn’t really turn up anything. Whatever was at the places mentioned in the reports is long gone now. Talked to Ed Gavigan, one of the plaintiffs in the case. Seemed like a proper enough fella, though something about him rubbed me the wrong way. Probably just my imagination.
April 2
I was all but ready to call it quits and go home. Money or not, there’s nothing left here for me to go on. Then I got a letter delivered to me. It was from the voodoo broad’s cousin, some fancy anthropologist. Seem he’s taken up investigating the case too, and had found some… interesting things in Egypt. Decided I might as well hop on a boat and meet up with him. By the time I got there though he was already long gone. He’d left his journal with the museum curator for me though. Craziest stuff I’d ever read. Ancient tombs, evil gods, portals to other times, monsters… it’s completely loony. Scary part is, though, that a lot of it makes some form of sense considering what I’ve already found out. The curator seems unwilling to talk straight to me, but he’s not denying anything either. Whatever all this is, he believes it to be true at least. Still think they’re both completely off their rockers, though, but now it feels even more important to find Ducreaux. Apparantly he’s left for Kenya.
This case just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Part of me is telling me to just give it up and go home, but another part really wants to know what all this Nyarla-whatsit business is all about. Guess I’m booking another boat ride.
