← Shelf The Mist over the Funicular

Chapter V

The Investigation

Nobody from outside at the Festival. That was the rule, for a hundred years.

Seven scenes, from the first night in the fog to the crystal chamber under Grota Funda. They are not a corridor: after the arrival, the investigators can take them in almost any order, and each scene lists where it leads and what opens the way. Boxed text is meant to be read aloud. Skill rolls name the investigator best placed to make them, but anyone can try.

1. Arrival at Alto da Serra

History + Fiction A winter evening, the last train up, a village preparing a festival nobody outside has heard of.

What is here + contribute

The station of Alto da Serra and its British clock tower, the square in front of it, and the steep lanes of wooden houses running down to the yard. The village is preparing the Winter Festival, which no outsider has been invited to in a hundred years. A policeman at the station takes the names of everyone getting off the train. The investigators lodge at the Pensão da Dona Ercília (see Bringing Them Together).

Clues + contribute

  • Spot Hidden. Lines of salt on every threshold, including the boarding house's. Fresh, not old.
  • Psychology on the villagers: they are not hostile. They are afraid for the strangers.
  • Persuade or Charm with Dona Ercília: "You should have come next month. Or never. The festival is for us." She will say nothing about the salt.
  • Listen, outside after dark: someone in the fog calls an investigator by their first name. Nobody is there.

The first night + contribute

This is the first Contact roll of the scenario: each investigator who goes out after dusk rolls POW (see Mist Contact). Lenita reads her brother's letter again in her room (Handout 1: Tonico's last letter).

2. The Rail Yard

History + Fiction Dudu's audit: ledgers full of 'ballast water' and a tank car with tide lines inside.

What is here + contribute

The yard office, where Dudu has an appointment with the section clerk; the engine shed; the abandoned tank wagon of the Company Car; a stack of sealed barrels behind the shed. The foreman, Moacir, a cultist, watches the investigators all morning and makes no secret of it.

Clues + contribute

  • Accounting (Dudu). The "ballast water" line has cost the railway more than coal every year since 1946. No auditor has ever questioned it. The RFFSA order suspending the service is pinned above the clerk's desk: Handout 2: The RFFSA order.
  • Spot Hidden. Inside the tank: rust stains in rings, like tide lines on a pier. Behind the shed: barrels stencilled "FILINGS — 4th LANDING".
  • Science (Geology) on the sediment at the bottom of the tank: crushed granite, iron filings, and a violet grit that can only be amethyst. Amethyst does not belong in this mountain [11].
  • Mechanical Repair. Drain pipes run from the tank siding uphill, along the incline, toward the Fourth Landing.

Complications + contribute

If the investigators linger at night, Moacir and two cultists siphon brine from the barrels into buckets and carry it up the incline by hand. Following them leads to the Fourth Landing.

3. The Winter Festival

History + Fiction Bonfires in the fog, salt in the drains, names read aloud, and an old driver who remembers.

What is here + contribute

The private festival of the railway families, the night before the rite (see The Winter Festival). Most villagers are warm to strangers once they have a cup in their hand. Seu Ditinho (Seu Ditinho), who drove locobreques for fifty years, sits by the biggest fire and talks to anyone who will listen.

Clues + contribute

  • Persuade or Charm with Seu Ditinho: "The machines pulled heavier going up than the scales said. Always one car more. A car that was never on the timetable."
  • History (Local Folklore) (Lenita). There is no record of this festival anywhere: not in newspapers, not in the railway's own bulletins.
  • Spot Hidden. The drains are not being cleaned. They are being salted.
  • Listen, at midnight: every lamp in the village goes out at once, and in the silence the fog breathes. Everyone present makes a Contact roll.

The names + contribute

At the end of the night the chief engineer reads the names of the year's dead and missing from the steps of the Castelinho. One of them is Antônio Castro. Lenita loses 0/1D3 SAN.

Developments + contribute

The chief engineer notices the strangers. Before the night is over, a boy brings a folded card to the boarding house: an invitation to dinner at the Castelinho, tomorrow, for "the gentlemen from the RFFSA and the press, and the young lady from Santos".

4. The Tunnel

Fiction Arthur's old photograph, retaken: the mist has faces, and someone is watching from the hill.

What is here + contribute

A disused tunnel on the Serra Nova incline, a long scramble below the village. Reaching it means walking the track (a Climb roll on the steep stretch; a failure costs 1D6 HP from a fall). The mist here is thick in daylight.

Clues + contribute

  • Art/Craft (Photography) (Arthur). A new photograph of the tunnel, developed that night in the boarding house bathroom, shows the same faces as the old one, and one more: a young man in a railway cap. SAN 0/1D4. Lenita recognises her brother.
  • Spot Hidden. Footprints on the sleepers, wet with seawater, going in and coming out. A railway cap with a crust of salt inside, with A. CASTRO inked on the band.
  • Listen. Water runs under the rock, downhill, toward Grota Funda.
  • Spot Hidden, looking back up the hill: the glint of binoculars in the windows of the Castelinho.

Complications + contribute

Every hour spent here is a Contact roll, day or night. An investigator who breathes deep on purpose (see Mist Contact) sees the inside of the mountain for a moment: violet light, and something very large, asleep.

5. Dinner at the Castelinho

History + Fiction The chief engineer offers a deal; his study holds a century of secrets.

What is here + contribute

The chief engineer's house (see The Castelinho), and Henrique Ashworth (The Chief Engineer). Dinner is roast beef and boiled potatoes, served by a silent housekeeper. On the wall of the dining room hangs an instrument like a barometer, with a violet crystal needle that points downhill.

The deal + contribute

Ashworth wants the investigators to understand, and then to help. He offers each of them what they came for:

  • to Dudu, one more year of "ballast water" signed off in his audit, and the truth about his father;
  • to Arthur, his negative, returned that night;
  • to Lenita, the place where her brother is.

In return, he asks them to leave on the first train after the festival and say nothing. Psychology: he is terrified, and he is telling the truth about the negative and the brother.

The study + contribute

The study is locked (Locksmith, or Stealth to take the key from the housekeeper's apron). It holds:

Reading everything takes an hour and a Library Use roll; it costs 1D3 SAN and gives +2% Cthulhu Mythos.

Developments + contribute

If they accept the deal, Ashworth leads them down to the chamber himself the next night, to "show them why". If they refuse or are caught in the study, he lets them go, and the cult starts watching the boarding house.

6. The Fourth Landing

History + Fiction A machine house halfway up the mountain, a bin of iron filings, and a culvert that swallows the sea.

What is here + contribute

The fourth of the Serra Nova's five landings (see The Fourth Landing). The way in is a long, steep walk up the incline, or a ride on a locobreque if Seu Ditinho can be persuaded to raise steam. Two to four The Cultists are here at night, pouring brine and filings through the hatch by hand.

Clues + contribute

  • Mechanical Repair. The valve opens the culvert, a brick tunnel just wide enough to crawl along, sloping down into the rock.
  • Science (Geology). The rock walls of the culvert turn from grey granite to faint violet the deeper they go.
  • Spot Hidden. In the store room: a crate of railway dynamite, used for clearing rock falls, with fuses and detonators. It matters in Ending B — Shatter the Stone.
  • Dudu, if present: a plate on the winding drum bears his father's name among the fitters who assembled it.

The culvert + contribute

Crawling the culvert to Grota Funda takes about forty minutes in the dark and the water. Each investigator makes a CON roll or loses 1 HP to the cold, and a Contact roll for the tunnels.

7. Beneath Grota Funda

Fiction The chamber of violet crystal, the Seed at its heart, and the choice.

SAN 1/1D6 on entering the chamber. Everyone makes a Contact roll at once.

What is here + contribute

The Body of the Amethyst Heart, and the Seed at its centre. Cultists carry buckets of brine down from the culvert, desperately, while the creature screams in all of their heads. Among them is Tonico Castro (Tonico Castro), at Contact 9, who speaks with the creature's voice. If Ashworth is here, he begs the investigators to help keep it asleep.

What can be done + contribute

  • Cut the Seed free: an hour of work with railway tools and a successful Science (Geology) or Mechanical Repair roll. The noise draws 1D3 more cultists every fifteen minutes. Touching the Seed costs SAN 1/1D6 and +2 Contact. Then: Ending A — Return to the Sea.
  • Shatter it: the dynamite from the Fourth Landing, set against the column. Lighting it takes one round and a nerve: a POW roll if the lighter is at Contact 5 or more. Then: Ending B — Shatter the Stone.
  • Help the cult: the investigators can carry brine with them. It buys one more year, at the price of their silence, and the Mist Clock goes back to 0. Next winter it starts again.

If the Mist Clock fills before the investigators get here, the scenario ends in Ending C — The Mist Keeps Its Own.