Ravi advances into the room, eager to learn what the source of the eerie light is. He peeks around the corner of a stack of boxes and sees that there are several large holes punched into the wall and ceiling, and several plates containing crumbs are scattered across a trunk top – it appears someone or something has been feasting. He notes a foul musty smell emanating from the apertures but they are too small to permit further investigation; he does note however, that the dimensions of the house seem much smaller than its outwards appearance. He walks back over to Caleb’s room and asks the mad collector about the layout of the mansion and is told that the other wing can be reached by a flight of stairs on the floor below.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Prime joins the party in the music room and is shocked to see so many strangers present. Learning that one of them is a mere mechanic, he instructs the man to go and wait in the sitting room, which Hugo duly does with chagrin. “Dr” Ezekial introduces himself and informs the mad family that he has successfully treated Fliss’ “injured” ankle. He makes to excuse himself, but first asks where the lavatory is – and is duly taken by Lucille. While going about his business, Ezekial meets Ravi coming down the stairs; the pair swap information and decide to use the opportunity to quickly explore the other side of house.
The pair bound up the previously unnoticed stairs and enter the other side of the house. They are confronted by several closed doors and another flight of stairs going up; they decide to ignore the entire floor and focus on searching the other side of the attic. They race up the next flight of stairs and find themselves in the attic with a door to the left and another to the right – after a brief debate they opt to try for the door on the left. The gloomy room inside is sparsely furnished and the window is covered with newspaper to prevent the light getting in – in the middle of the room a corpulent old man sits slumped in an old-fashioned wheelchair, seemingly chained to the wall. The old man’s eyes are closed and his breathing is laboured; Ravi moves in to use his medical expertise to determine the man’s condition while the somewhat cowardly Ezekial hovers close to the door for safety. As Ravi approaches the old man suddenly springs up and attacks! It becomes quickly apparent that the man was merely pretending to be an invalid, furthermore, to Ravi’s trained eyes he can see that there’s something very troubling about the man’s appearance – something not quite human. An absurdly long black tongue shoots out from the old man’s improbably wide mouth and wraps around Ravi’s throat, choking him. A shocked and horrified Ezekial pulls out his silver ceremonial dagger and attempts to strike the deranged assailant but the man is far too swift and violent for him; Ravi attempts to break free from the man’s tongue but it’s too tightly wrapped and moments later he blacks out. Ezekial, seeing his compatriot collapse, realises that he will be next and turns and flees, leaving Ravi to his fate. The toad-like old man draws the unconscious psychologist into his craw with his vice-like tongue and crushes his bones and consumes him whole, just as he had the Accursed Cat Burglar the week before.
A terrified Ezekial races back down the stairs and runs into a surprised Lucille, who asks him what the matter is. The craven occultist is in full flight mode and bowls past her, knocking her over, and runs full tilt out through the front door, out of the grounds and down the hill, towards town. A stunned Prime runs out of the music room in response to his “cousin’s” cry; everyone else quickly joins him out in the hallway as he picks Lucille up. Moments later the sibling pair run up the stairs to investigate what the cause of Ezekial’s fright was; Fliss and Hugo take full advantage of the chaos and quickly chase on up behind them.
When they reach the landing of the first floor they see Prime and Lucille being knocked down on the next flight of stairs as the unhinged toad-man comes charging down onto the floor. A terrified Fliss wastes no time and pulls her already prepared derringer out and pumps two rounds into the crazed fiend’s midriff. As the old man is momentarily staggered Hugo leaps forward and ineffectively strikes him with his cane; the enraged man lashes the magician with his monstrous tongue, sending Hugo flying. Most of the Hazard family converge on the landing – utterly shocked at the sudden eruption of violence; Prime calls out to his Grandfather, urging him to stop the attack. Fliss quickly reloads her pistol and takes another two shots, one missing, and the other grazing the monster’s arm, she then dodges the creature’s counter-attack once before being struck by another. Hugo springs back to his feet and tries to grapple the assailant but he is no match for the other man’s monstrous strength and the savage tongue whips across him again, seriously injuring him. Fliss fires again and hits with a single round, attracting the monster’s attention once more. Hugo picks himself up and tries to floor the beast by pulling its legs out from under it – but he is too weak and it turns round and lashes him once more with its tongue, splitting Hugo’s head like a ripe melon. Fliss fires wide on the first shot but her second goes into the creature’s eye, killing it instantly and bringing its rampage to an abrupt end.
The Hazard clan howl in despair and anguish, their cries quickly joined by unearthly wails as several small and disfigured “children” appear from behind furniture. Prime steps forward and demands to know why all this has happened; Fliss responds that they are there investigating the theft of the pearls. A sickly blue luminescence flashes into view and moments later the deformed Jean Hazard appears, brandishing the missing black pearls. He cries out in a warbling barely human voice, yelling at Fliss that she can have them, before throwing them at her in fury. The aristocratic sleuth picks the acclaimed jewels up, and as she does so Wilfred’s corpse beings to twitch and convulse. Moments later a black amorphous mass erupts from out of the bloated corpse and begins to crawl towards the investigatress. At the same time the house begins to shake and the earth below rumbles – an earth-quake is occurring!
Fliss doesn’t hesitate for a moment – she turns and flees. She belts past Saphronia, Guillaume and the twins and flies straight down the stairs. The house continues to shake violently, sending everyone flying, tipping over furniture while wide cracks appear in the walls and plaster falls from the ceiling. The wealthy heiress manages to reach the bottom step but a violent lurch sends her colliding with a sideboard, and then crashing to the floor. Her new found love, Ellery, cries out to her for help as he stumbles down the stairs. Fliss scrambles to her feet, yelling for her paramour to follow her. The floor boards are buckling and the walls shaking, the frantic heiress throws herself out through the front door. She turns around just in time to see the house collapse in on itself; her lover disappearing from sight forever as he and the structure are swallowed up by the earth. The ground still shakes and the aristocrat once more wastes no time in saving her skin by racing over to her car, cranking it, and speeding off, out of the estate. Moments later she spots the weary and heavily exhausted Ezekial at the bottom of the hill; she drives on past him and into town.
The Bentley pulls up outside the Benson Hotel and the highly distraught Fliss climbs out from the driving seat, regains her composure and strolls into the lobby, casually greeting a concerned Harold. She makes her way up and into the penthouse apartment where Michael and Stanford have been loafing around all day, reading gentlemanly magazines and giving each other Harrow Handshakes. They are shocked at the sight of her – the mental and physical trauma of the afternoon is written on her face. They ask her where all the others are and she tells them that Ravi and Hugo are both gone – she then provides an extremely brief summary of what has occurred. Michael is most concerned about the missing pearls and is overjoyed to discover that they are in fact in Fliss’ possession; he immediately phones up George Knowles and informs him that they have managed to recover the pearls – when asked about the theft he mistakenly informs the insurance partner that the theft was an inside job. Knowles tells Michael to immediately drive back to Boston and meet him at the club with the pearls. Michael agrees to this and moments later an exhausted Ezekial enters the apartment to an unfriendly reception – the group instinctively feel that the narcissistic braggard has had a hand in the deaths of their compatriots, or has at very least failed to help them.
A short time later and they have packed up their belongings, settled their bill and loaded Fliss’ car. Outside on the street there is a commotion and fire trucks come wailing down the street on their way to investigate the “earth-quake” up on the hill. Realising that Fliss is in no state to drive them back to Boston, Stanford takes the wheel and they arrive outside the club at 7pm without any problems.
They make their way up to the 5th floor and enter the club to find Bartholomew Petard and George Knowles waiting for them. The pair enquire where the rest of the group is and are informed at the tragic loss; with pleasantries concluded, Knowles then asks for the pearls. Michael takes them from the emotionally unstable Fliss and is about to hand them over when the startled insurance man points to behind the clueless communist and asks what the small black amorphous mass crawling on the wall is. They all turn and stare in horror as the walls and ceilings about them begin to transform before their very eyes – things are becoming steadily blacker, colder and lower. Michael races for the door but finds himself confronted by a stone wall. Seconds later and all signs of the Silver Stroker club have disappeared and they are in the deep black caverns of N’Kai. Everyone is shocked but Bartholomew and Knowles are the worst – they are freaking out.
There is only one direction for them to go and that is forward down a narrow passage. They have only the feeble light offered from their lighters to guide their path and they try to ignore the sounds of something slithering among the rocks around them. A short time later they arrive at another cavern – this one bathed in an ethereal blue light; the source soon reveals itself to be none other than Master Jean and the other deformed Hazard children who are sat in a circle. The investigators approach; the children are sullen and dejected at the loss of their elders and beloved family members. Fliss, unsure of the children’s motives, asks what they want of them and is told by Celestine that they do not want anything from them but rather the investigators need to return the pearls to their rightful owner. Michael asks about the owner but the children refuse to provide any details and merely offer to guide them to him. The investigators have little choice but to agree and for the next hour are led through the near pitch black labyrinthine cave tunnels until they reach the edge of a monstrous cavern and the obsidian skyline of a subterranean city.
They enter the city in a procession, Master Jean leading the way while the other children protect the group’s flanks from the horrific dwellers of the place – formless entities of black ichor that slowly track them from the alleyways and rooftops. Fliss and Ezekial, already traumatised by what they witnessed at the mansion, enter into a dream-like waking nightmare, somewhat detached from the reality of what is occurring around them. Bartholomew and Knowles are near-hysterical while Michael and Stanford manage to hold onto themselves even as they witness a throng of over fifty of the creatures following in their wake. They finally reach the epicentre of the city, a large black hole in the ground; Master Jean points to spiral steps that lead down into its depths.
The group descends; no one wanting to be left alone with the crowd of creatures above. They reach the bottom of the seemingly empty gargantuan chamber and ask the children in puzzlement what they should do now. The children inform them that they should return the pearls to their owner and point in a direction – they all turn and become aware that something large is in the chamber with them. Master Jean moves forward and his bio-luminescence reveals the presence of a Great Old One, Tsathoggua, himself. The toad-like god is stirred from his eternal semi-slumber by the proximity of his long lost possession, the black pearls; he transmits his desire for their return to the primitive creatures before him. All the investigators feel the god’s presence in their mind and Fliss tries to communicate and bargain with it which only serves to stir up its annoyance. Realising the eminent danger and their precarious position, Michael strides forward, bows, and lays the pearls before the deity. The super-being is delighted with the gesture and decides that its hunger has been stirred and randomly plucks the nearest thing up, a deluded Ezekial, and pops him into its mouth. The astonished investigators realise that it’s time to leave and quickly make their way back over to and up the curving stone steps.
Celestine urges the group to follow her and they all run full pelt through the throng of ichor-creatures and down the main boulevard. The creatures stir and realise that the party is no longer in the possession of the token of their master’s protection and finally give pursuit. Everyone is running at full tilt as the black mass of flowing creatures give chase; one of the things manages to catch up with Knowles and latches on to him, slowing him enough for its brethren to catch up. The rest of the group ignore the insurance man’s screams and race into the tunnel chambers, staying close behind Celestine. Moments later they pass through a dark tunnel and emerge into the light…….
…..the four people emerge to find themselves in a field as dawn breaks. In the distance they see a truck driving along the dirt road towards them; they make their way over to the road, wondering just where they are. Bartholomew Petard voices his concern of what he’s going to tell his sister, Ezekial’s mother. The truck stops and the surprised farmer asks the exhausted and dirty-looking group if they need a lift. Michael asks him if there’s a town nearby and the farmer tells him that they are but a few miles away from Wichita. The group then ride in the back of the truck, sitting amongst the hay bails, heading back towards civilization, thankful to still be alive.