[Icelander]

The PCs rested for the rest of the night, providing spiritual comfort to the refugees, binding their wounds and grabbing a few winks of sleep. Col. Wilkinson slept till morning, being badly bruised from the demonic horse-thing that trampled him.

There was great rejoicing when there actually was a morning, even though the day was overcast and foggy. The PCs went out to Middlesex and Goulston Street to gather up oranges, sausages, meat pies and other food from the costermongers' stalls there, in order to feed the refugees in the church. After several hours of work, they figure that they'll live for a day or two and decide to take another look at the haunted townhouse.

There, they come across two young upper class men who try to attack them and are subdued. They are revealed as enthusiastic followers of some occult mastermind, whom they variously call Hermes Trismegistus or De Vere. Apparently, they haven't seen his face, but he speaks in some foreign accent and is amazingly knowledgable about esoteric lore.

In a bedroom upstairs, they rescue a bound and gagged man who introduces himself as Arthur Machen. Reggie Woodsworth recognises that name as the signature on friendly and affectionate personal letters in Dr. Stanley's study, written in the same hand as a manuscript about the Great God Pan. Also in the bedroom is a stone face of indescribable malignance, which radiates a powerful supernatural evil to Father MacManus'.

Machen tells them that prisoners were brought through the bedroom to a secret chamber reached through a book case. He heard the most terrible sounds from there the previous night and fears they may be dead.

When the PCs open the secret door, a grayish stinger the size of a man's thigh shoots through and Father MacManus just barely avoids it. Some monstrous hybrid of man and scorpion, armed with a sickle sword and bronze mace, jumps them and nearly kills both MacManus and Col. Wilkinson. Only by the skin of their teeth do they avoid being stung or cleaved.

The inimatible Mr. Frankton sneaks behind the scorpion-man and cuts off his stinger in two mighty swings of his cleaver. While that beast contorts in pain and keens frightfully, Col. Wilkinson blasts it with his elephant rifle. Father MacManus then pours enough holy water over it to dissolve most of it. Poor Machen is screaming in terror, but a quick one-two slap from Reggie calms him down enough to draw a breath.

The hidden sanctum is a terrible sight, with the floor and walls covered in blood and mystic symbols drawn in it. There are at least four human bodies on the floor and strips of meat have been prepared in a silver basin, where a brazier still burns. On one wall a man has been crucified with huge iron nails through ankles and wrists. His entrails have been drawn out and and placed on his shoulders. Around his neck is a necklace of black and red stones, with a Greek cross in the middle.

When approached, the eyes of the crucified man snap open and he starts laughing in a deep, knowing voice. The PCs hack the crucified corpse to pieces with sword and cleaver, as well as breaking a few bottles of holy water on it.

We left off at that point.