During the voyage back, there is news of a disaster at the BFE expedition – a large overland party led by Falken vanished without a trace and is presumed dead – the base is shut down.

Cissy and Lexington manage the media stories. Many stories are published ‘Travelling with a saboteur’, ‘Blasting free of the pack ice’, ‘The fate of the Wallaroo’, ‘Madness at the Lexington camp’, ’Lake’s Camp’, ‘The Miskatonic Mountains and the highlands beyond’, ‘The Great Polar Quake and the death of James Starkweather’.

Back in New York, the Gabrielle and Tallahassee are surrounded by hundreds of small boats filled with well-wishers. Fireboats blast their horns and churches ring their bells. There is a large crowd when they finally dock.
The Mayor is there and VIPs. There is a parade and dinners and several memorial services for those who died.

Acacia Lexington produces her film showing the barren wasteland that is the highlands beyond the Miskatonic Mountains. Working with her to keep the lie, Cissy produces a documentary and writes many stories. Lucinda, Asmund and George work to find some solution to the problem. Archie finds a nice quiet village and a therapist. Patrick drinks to forget.

Meanwhile, Eric – at least part of him – continues keeping the ‘The Imprisoned God’ trapped in the God Trap.

Archie and Patrick take the Belle back over the mountains to collect Moore, Lexington and the rest of the expedition.

After landing and being signalled, they meet up with the remaining members. Archie stays by the plane with his shotgun ready. He sees Elder Things swoop in above the building that houses the group with some device. Patrick finds the group in the building in a bad way. Moore cannot walk (due to earthquake injuries and frostbite), Halperin is still a madman – struggling at his bonds, Meyer squats in the corner mumbling, but with Lexington, Priestly and DeWitt helping, they get the group moving towards the plane.

DeWitt shouts from outside – “They’re coming, four of them, get you guns ready”. A sound begins inside, a low hum from the stone walls. The the building starts to throb and tremble. Meyer screams and runs out the door. Patrick shouts, “Let’s go”, as part of the back wall starts to collapse.

Everyone runs. Patrick pulls Moore on a sled, with Lexington and DeWitt running next to him with rifles. Priestly drags Halperin.

Outside a pair of Elder Things swoop down on Meyer and he is taken into the air. Archie shoots, but at that range he is just making a noise. Everyone runs for the plane. There is a loud crashing noise and many high pitched trills from behind, Patrick shouts “Don’t look back”.

Archie watches the enormous Shoggoth emerge from the tower that was so recently their refuge and he freezes in shock. It pours towards the runners, shrieking as it leaves a trail of itself stuck to the ice. Helperin hits Priestly and escapes, his random path takes him towards the thing and it engulfs him. At the same time the remaining Elder Things attack. Lexington, DeWitt and Patrick badly injure one of the Things and they flap off. Priestly had turned towards the Shoggoth as Halperin left him, he screamed in rage as it took Helperin and ran towards it shooting. The shoggoth engulfed him too.

At the plane everyone bundled on, and DeWitt quickly got it in the air as Archie was in no state to fly. The return journey was uneventful.

When they got back to Lake’s Camp, some Junkers from the BFE had arrived with supplies and journalists. The Weddell has arrived at the Ross Sea camp and will be returning with fuel and supplies too. Radio communications have been restored.

Over the next few days, all the planes make several trips to the Ross Sea camp, returning men, equipment and the exhumed bodies of Professor Lake and his men. Soon the Gabrielle and the Tallahassee cast off and set sail Northward. The expeditions at an end.

December 7th 1933

Patrick manages to fix the Belle’s radio. At 8am there is a Morse code transmission in German, some numbers and names – Meyer, Rucker, Baumann – are deciphered. Archie recognises the numbers as latitude and longitude, roughly where they are headed.

Soon after the Belle spots the Weddell on the ground a couple of miles from a camp site. They decide to land quietly next to the Weddell. They find the Weddell empty, with tracks heading towards the camp site. While searching the Weddell, which has run out of fuel, George notices his rock getting very hot. George and Patrick quickly work out that a satchel full of black stones is the cause of this and they decide to bury it in the snow.

Patrick stays by the Belle and transfers some fuel to the Weddell and keeps them warm. The others walk to the campsite. Asmund and George hand back out of site with their rifles, while Archie, Cissy and Lucinda go towards the newly erected tent. Cissy wants to find out what state the Germans are in, Halperin’s stories were quite disturbing – would these be men or monsters. Cissy calls out to the tent, and after a few moments Baumann struggles out of the tubelike doorway.

‘You are alive – we thought everyone was dead!’

He seems very happy to see everyone. Baumann invites them into the tent and they talk over what happened. Lucinda examines Rucker, who is badly injured – with a shot in his belly. They convince Baumann and Rucker to come with them back to Lake’s Camp, with as much supplies as they can manage. Baumann agrees and Rucker is too fevered to disagree. The Germans send a transmission that they are headed for Lake’s Camp and to send help.

The pilots quickly ski back to the planes and then bring them up to the camp. Everyone loads and they head back to Lake’s camp just as a storm starts to blow in. It is a dicey takeoff, but Archie and Baumann are very good.

At Lake’s Camp, the planes manage to land and are met by Winslow who tells them of the earthquakes and fires, the caves have collapsed and most of the fuel has been destroyed. There are a few men dead, but now that the Weddell and Belle are here with supplies, they can start flying out to Ross Camp. Archie and Patrick volunteer to take the Belle back over the mountains to retrieve the rest of the expedition, while Baumann starts flying people out to Ross Camp.

Rucker goes into the care of Doctor Schick of the BFE, but does not recover.

The shoggoth rears up and slams into the ground, mouths moaning and eyes popping. Everyone runs.

As they get to the ramp, they are met by two Elder Things coming down, Archie runs in a blind terror, while the others start shooting. Cissy momentarily blinds everyone with her flash gun.

Suddenly, everything smears and twists causing a terrible vertigo. There is a small break in the fight and Cissy runs, followed by the incoherent Eric. The others drive back the Elder Things with frantic shots, George screaming at them in the heat of battle. Everyone heads down. Archie recovers enough to head back up towards the gun fire and passes Cissy running down.

The first earthquake hits – chunks of crystal and rock rain down.

There is a shout of ‘Agnes, time to start the lecture’ from the large room with the new panels. Eric is waiting for everyone and tells them that they have broken a machine that is holding back a terrible thing that will end the Earth and the only way to fix it is by one of them joining the wall. He points at the method shown in the panels on the walls of the room. George thinks him mad, Lucinda is worried that he is calling her by his wife’s name. This is a lot of silence and then a lot of talking – some recommend lots, some think it is the ramblings of a madman, but the timeslips and earthquakes are getting worse. Eric says they have only minutes.

Eric gets a head bowl from the side room and then everyone goes to the room with the tub and the monster. Eric describes the steps that must be taken.

Archie volunteers, but Asmund is louder, saying that he broke the ‘machine’ with his rifle, so he should fix it. As Asmund turns towards the slab, Archie hits him with his handgun and throws him to the floor, only then noticing Eric getting onto the slab. Archie and Lucinda try to stop him, but they are too slow. Eric just says, “I am the logical choice”, as the Corpse-Eater Shoggoth rears up and strips away the unnecessary parts. Erics head is left in the head bowl, still twitching and covered in a thick fluid.

Archie carried the head up to the wall. A group of four Elder Things wanted to attack, but the Shoggoth kept them away and the head was handed over and the Shoggoth added it to the wall. Everyone headed down and the Shoggoth kept the Elder Things back. It appears that Eric has saved the world as the timeslips and earthquakes lessen and stop.

At the bottom of the tower, Lexington and Cissy had to rescue Meyer, who had run outside without his parka. Meyer is badly frostbitten and unresponsive. Everyone dresses and heads for the planes. Halfway back there is the sound of engines and the Weddell flies over, heading towards the city. Everyone pushes on, hoping to find a plane still waiting for them.

The Belle is intact, but Halperin is in the pilot seat with a gun. He eventually lets everyone on board and takes off. He mutters about being attacked, and he must stop them and lets no one near the controls. He is clearly disturbed.

Archie gets him to land in the City – which has clearly been hit by mighty earthquakes – in order to offload some supplies before going after the other plane. While on the ground, Archie adds something to the air supply to knock out Halperin. Lexington delivers the bad news to Moore and says she will stay to take pictures of nothing. Meyer and Halperin are left in Moore’s care, while Patrick Miles joins the crew to follow the Weddell.

The Belle takes off and makes it through the pass, the earthqukes have been here and down at Lakes Camp – which has obviously had major problems. The Belle does not land, but flies towards the South Pole BFE cache – which must be the Weddell’s target.

The group continue up the tower, following a ramp leading up from the eastern archway. The ramp climbs in a spiral and then opens up into five immense vertical chambers fanning out from the core, filled with a complex latticework of crystals. Eric climbs into the weave and nearly passes out. Meyer leads the group further up the central ramp.

At the top of the chambers, the walls close in again, the spiral ramp continues up another 30 feet and then the walls fall away again into a large room. There are several side chambers, which Meyer says should be checked. The large chamber has several panels, some in the decadent style showing some kind of ritual, and more recent panels that show the story of ’Lake’s Elder Ones’ including a picture of a plane.

One of the side chambers has many skeletons filling it, the oldest ten thousand years, but some more recent. On top are some very recent glistening male human bones. But no skulls.

In another side chamber is a slab that slopes into a tub that contains some faintly slopping liquid. Meyer strides forward to have a look and goes to take a sample of the liquid. He then throws himself back as the surface surges upwards, a huge sinuous tongue riddled with eyes and tiny screaming mouths reaches out towards him, and then slides back into the tub. Meyer is very shaken by this and cowers on the floor.

Another chamber has tools and bowls in it.

The group decides to continue up.

The ramp makes several spirals before opening out once more into the bottom of another set of tall angular chambers. One side filled with another crystal matrix, the other lost in a fleshy chaos of alien jungle. The floor is littered with piles of crystal shards and fallen rubble.

There is a trail leading from the ramp into the jungle, which the group follows. Eric collapses while examining a plant, just as the group reaches an open area where the jungle plants are knotted together and vines climb crystal struts. In and around the might plants, rising beyond sight into the mists, is a massive structure of crystal, stone and living tissue. The hideous artefact stares at the intruders from thousands of dead staring eyes.

Embedded in the fleshy frame are a great number of heads. Some are animals – birds, seals, walruses, but many are men. Most are little more than grinning skulls, but some show faint signs of life. In the centre at eye level is all that is left of James Starkweather. His lips purse and twitch in time with the pulsing of the plant. Next to it the head of Doctor Green is in a similar condition.

Lexington says “We can’t leave him like that”. Asmund agrees and raises his shotgun, shoots, and Starkweathers head is no more.
At the shot, Meyer runs away screaming, Lexington runs after him. Eric runs babbling towards the wall of heads seems to be attempting first aid. The entire jungle shudders and twitches violently. The remaining heads silently scream. The darkness overhead is filled with creaks and rustles, whistles and trills as a shoggoth throws itself through the jungle towards the intruders.

While some move Kyle Williams into the camp, or try to stop the Enderby fire, Starkweather sets off on the trail left by Williams. Cissy follows him at a distance with her camera and Asmund gets to high ground with his rifle.
Shortly after Starkweather goes out of site, there is a pistol shot from his direction and two creatures spring into the air carrying a bundle. Asmund manages to shoot one, but it does not even slow down, there is another pistol shot from the bundle – the creatures have taken Starkweather alive!
Professor Moore cries out, ’It’s the Captain! He’s alive! We’ve got to save him!"
Everyone springs into action readying the Weddell for flight. Meanwhile, Cissy returns pulling a sled containing Kyle Williams supplies. There is a sketch pad of symbols with some translations in German, a binder with the lost chapters from Arthur Gordon Pym and a Notebook containing strange occult ramblings.
Halperin, Asmund, Eric, Archie, Lucinda, Cissy and George volunteer to go after Starkweather.

Shortly the Weddell is in the air following the creatures. It does not take long to get them in sight as they are much slower than the plane, but there is not much that can be done while they are in the air. Halperin flies the craft in a series of long sweeps, back and forth across the path of the creatures. The seem to be heading for a distant valley half-lost in the edge of a mighty storm. Beyond the valley, behind the storm clouds, rise the gigantic peaks and spires of the Western Range – even larger than the Miskatonic Mountains. Several of the party find the arrangement of these peaks unnerving.

An hour into the flight, the Weddell is joined by a battered looking Belle. The radios still don’t work, but the BFE pilot in the Belle waves at the Weddell and follows them. As the valley get closer, there is a tower that can be made out, with a beautiful blue light atop it.

The valley does not have a flat area to land in, but the Belle pilot drops some landing flags on a nearby dry riverbed. As the Belle goes in to land, there is a blue-white flicker from the top of the tower and a strange wave of distortions sweeps out from the storm. For a second, everything is distorted and twisted as the silent wave passes through, the Belle lands roughly. The Weddell follows the Belle down.

The two expeditions meet again, in a rather tense meeting. The Lexington/BFE group thought that Kyle Williams was going for help as their plane was too damaged for repair. But while he was gone, the BFE pilot reaired it, in time to see the creatures flying overhead. So they took off to follow them. They are shocked at what Kyle did at the Starkweather camp. He must have been their saboteur all along.

The groups combine to look for Starkweather. The pilots remain with their planes, to fix them and get ready for a quick departure.

The rescuers enter the tower through a large arch at one of the five corners. It seems to have been used recently. Inside the temperature starts to rise. Meyer leads everyone up the tower – he seems rather confident.

Following ramps upwards, they reach an huge domed chamber, a hundred feet across and 40 high. Five ramps angle up into this chamber around the edge from below and a large shaft yawns beneath the centre of the dome with a yard wide ramp spiralling down the side. A narrow arched opening in the eastern wall is the only other visable exit. The air is hot and dry – everyone removes their outer layers. The floor is a map of the area, the walls beneath the dome have a series of murals and dot writing, and the dome has a fresco of sweeping bands and a tall slender tower touching the sky with bolts of lightning and a knot-like form in a pit beneath it.

Dec 5th and 6th 1933

Explorations continue in the City. Many strange, wonderful and often disturbing sites are seen. Starkweather leads one group to the ancient riverbed and the beheaded statues that guard it.

Another group goes exploring round another tower and works their way through many surface remains.

The most interesting discoveries were:

• The missing Lake sleds and the body of Gedney are discovered at the bottom of the plaza tower. The sleds are missing their runners, and Gedney has been buried upright in a hole with a green stone placed ontop – in the same way the Elder Ones remains were found at Lakes Camp.
• A giant stone eye embedded in the ice – originally from the beheaded status of the Elder Ones
• An organic smell wafting up from the abyss where the river used to waterfall under the mountain.
• A black pyramid with doors at the top, inside there was a star pattern in the ceiling and a smoky quartz egg shaped rock with intricate inscriptions held on five crystals. The pyramid is old, but does not show up in the murals from the tower.
• A spiral tower with much larger doorways and rooms, and smooth ramps. Inscriptions in a curved script run around the tops of the walls.
• A room with many anatomical carvings of creatures long extinct

On the 6th Asmund thinks that he sees some new strange tracks – like the strange tracks at Lakes camp.

On the 6th, when returning to camp in the afternoon, everyone is looking for Dr Greene – no one has seen him for several hours. He was last seen poking about around the plaza.

George and Asmund eventually find his tracks and follow them near a building on the far side of the plaza. There they are joined by some strange tracks that head inside the building, up and onto a ledge and vanish.

Just then, there is an explosion, the Enderby is on fire. Everyone runs towards it.

George spots someone moving towards the Weddell and raising a gun. George readies his rifle and shoots. The fellow drops to the ground. When Eric reaches him, he sees he will not last long, moving his breathing mask – it is Kyle Williams.

Dec 3rd 1933

All three camps prepare for a flight into the Mountains. There is a furious gale in the morning which slows the work.

Cissy had a talk with Acacia and found that the BFE had not mentioned Dyer’s text to her. She says that she will keep her eyes open and pass on anything she can, but she has a deal to take some members of the BFE into the mountains, which she is bound to.

By the end of the day, the Belle is packed and ready at the end of the runway, the Weddell has collected Starkweather and is on its way back. Dinner is tense, with a constant current of excitement.

Shortly before midnight, Starkweather arrives and rouses the SME camp for a rousing speech. Then everyone returns to bed.

Dec 4th 1933

The Belle carries: Acacia Lexington, Kyle Williams, Albert Priestly, Doctor Johann Meyer, Maxwell Rucker and Hermann Baumann.

The Enderby carries: Ralph Dewitt, Patrick Miles, James Starkweather, Richard Green, Cissy and Eric

The Weddell carries: Douglas Halperin, William Moore, George, Lucinda and Asmund, Archie

The Lexington Belle gets away first in the morning, followed 20mins later by the Weddell and Enderby. The flight into the mountains is difficult and radios stop working. Flying through the pass tail wind speeds the planes past enormous mountains, which look like they have some regular patterns upon them – some kind of buildings? Some people hear some high pitched sound.

The Enderby and Weddell burst through the swirling cloud patterns and angle down towards the plateau beyond. No sign of the Belle has been seen. Before them stretches an enormous ice-shrouded city. Incredibly massive and impossibly ancient, its crumbled towers and streets extend as far as the eyes can see.

The two planes circle, for a quick survey and to find a landing site. Cissy films, Moore takes notes.

Moore points at a broad circular plaza with a pit in the centre ans tells Archie to land there as he flips through his notebook. The two planes land (the Enderby with a bit of a bump) and everyone gets out onto the ancient ice.

Moore tells the explorers that he thinks that this plaza is the one in Dyer’s text. Camp is set up and some initial scouting is done. The pilots check their charts and determine that there is enough fuel to fly the long way back if the pass cannot be used.

Lucinda, Eric and George decide to have a look at the rubble mound in the centre of the plaza that looked like a pit from above.

Climbing the rubble, they find the bottom of what must have been an immense tower, with a ramp descending with ancient arches and stone carved murals. The murals appear to tell the story of the city and if the pictures are to be believed, then it is much more ancient than can be imagined. Eventually they return to the camp, which has been moved to the interior of a building at the side of the plaza.

Starkweather returns with some carvings from pieces of ‘fallen’ walls and some green soapstones.

Dec 2nd

Doctor Meyer requests Professor Morre bring a group with him to open a new location – one of Lake’s hangers. Meyer says that the unbroken canvas should mean that the space below is untouched. Lucinda and George get to work slowly and carefully uncovering the hanger with the help of others. Eventually they break through into the frozen shelter below.

Inside there is the unmistakable signs of dog dismemberment. The main bodies of the dogs have already been found, but here are many of the bits – bones, tendons, brains – neatly arranged. An outline of salted ice around where each dog had been – presumably used by the rescue team to free the bodies. Nine more rings of salted ice are found – each human sized.

Meyer takes Moore away to discuss what has been found, while it is still being excavated.

Moore then stays in his tent reading for a long while.

Meanwhile, work at the dig continues and the LEX team take their aircraft up. When they return Acacia concludes some business with Meyer.

Moore requests that the explorers (George, Lucinda, Eric, Asmund, Archie and Cissy) meet him in the supply tent. There he tells that he has been told something fantastic and want their opinion. He gives them the Dyer Text to read.

Moore calls them together again at 5pm to get their thoughts. It also becomes known that Meyer has made a deal with Acacia to take some members of his team into the mountains on her plane. The BFE Junkers cannot fly high enough.

There is a long discussion on what to do. Asmund thinks that it is very dangerous, Moore wants to get into the mountains to discover if the Dyer Text is true. Cissy will tell Acacia what they know about the Dyer Text. At the end, it is decided to fly into the mountains and see what is there.

Dec 1st

The BFE go to sleep and the SWM and LEX expedition members spend the day clearing the last of the Lake Tents and uncovering another specimen. This third specimen is more complete that the other two, and a 4 inch star shaped rock is buried on to of it.

The BFE start their day as the SWM and LEX teams go to bed. Meyer, Uhr, Rucker and Benecke are shown round Lake’s camp. Meyer and Uhr do not seem surprised by what they are shown.

Asmund stays up to watch the camp, and Cissy stays up to take pictures of the BFE work.

The BFE clear the cairn over Lake’s dog corral and also make some exploratory holes in the snow above Lake’s hangers.

The bodies of all of Lake’s dogs are recovered, all had been cut up to some degree. From just the meat taken, to a detailed dismemberment. Not a pleasant sight.