Terror on the Thames

Introduction
Trouble on the Thames was the first scenario we completed with four investigators. Carrying over from The Vanishing Conjurer were Jack Nash and Ann Finnigan, but we were newly introduced to professional wrestler and strongman Roger Schmidt, as well as freelance photographer Penelope Shutter.

The investigators were all invited - for various reasons - aboard the Louisiana Lady, where they attended one Thaddeus Grant's launch party for the vessel. While all went to plan for the first few hours, the investigators soon found themselves drugged and awakened by a terrible howl aboard the almost deserted vessel.

All aboard
Jack, Penelope, Roger, and Ann all found themselves above the Louisiana Lady with various jobs to perform. Both men were tasked with keeping the evening entertaining and encouraging conversation should there be a lull in the action, at special request by Thaddeus Grant himself. Miss Shutter attended as the official event photographer, while Miss Finnigan was a +1 of fellow guest, Walter Humphries, who wished to discuss a strange outbreak of a peculiar illness affecting livestock in the U.S. state of Massachusettes. The first few hours of the party passed swiftly, but not uneventfully. Schmidt found himself arm wrestling famed huntsman and explorer, Allistair Campion-Reeves, while Jack cosied up to a young woman at the bar, called Felicia Ingram, who wished to become an actress herself. Her boyfriend too made himself known and left Nash with a strange feeling about the couple.

Meanwhile, Finnigan engaged in conversation with the man she was invited by, while Shutter kept her finger on the 'shutter' and captured what she could, including the marvellous fireworks display that followed a short trip up the Thames.

However, after taking part in a toast to celebrate the launch of the vessel, everyone became violently ill. Patrons began to pass out and as our investigators vomited their way into unconsciousness, they observed the crew acting most peculiarly.

A ship deserted
Upon waking the investigators found themselves alone, their presence on the ship having surprised those behind this recent calamity. The door was locked, but resident headbutt specialist, Roger Schmidt was able to break a big enough hole in it to allow them to leave. A haunting, howling scream echoed down the deserted corridors, streaks of blood and black filth marked the walls.

The investigators made their way through the ship, trying to piece together what happened. Along the way they saved the ship's band-leader, Tony "Big T" Laine, from hanging himself after what he'd seen. They also came across a whimpering Yvonne Forbes-Pennington, who together with Big T, joined them on their quest to escape the vessel.

After coming across various blood soaked rooms, discarded limbs and signs of struggles throughout the ship, the investigators made their way to the ballroom, which was soaked in blood, vomit and all manner of human remains. It caused young Jack to go quite mad, lifting up the severed head of Miss Ingram, believing it to be a prop from a movie he was working on.

After discovering that the ship's boiler was set to explode, the investigators and their new companions managed to leave the vessel before it went up in a giant ball of flame, leaving them on the corpse-ridden, Dead Man's Island, so called, because of its use as an unofficial and illegal burial site.

That which is dead
The investigators made their way across the island, skirting its boggy interior in the hope of some method of escape. They were accosted at various points by soaked, rotten and oozing fell zombies, and quickly discovered that their artistic heritages made them incredibly poor shots. Fortunately Big T was able to incapacitate many of them with his lethal boat hook, while Roger delivered swift headbuts and kicks to downed and standing foes alike.

After spotting a grounded ship in the fog ahead, the investigators made their way to it, only to discover a full blown fight between several more fell zombies and an enormous creature of monstrous shape and size. Hugely muscled, though with an underlying female form, the headless creature had mouths in the palms of its hands and emitted a shriek eerily reminscent of the one heard about the Louisiana Lady when the investigators first awoke.

Using a combination of their remaining firearm ammunition, fell zombie distractions and some heroism on the part of Jack, they were eventually able to slay the creature, though not without crippling injuries that would plague our investigators for the rest of their days - wounds to body and soul.

Playing the part
In the bowels of that ship, the investigators discovered the headquarters of the Scarlet Palm, the cult that summoned the dread beast that ravaged their fellow passengers on the ship before and nearly ended their lives on the deck above. They found cages full of fetid, stinking flesh from fell creatures and a bizarre sex dungeon/temple where the remaining passengers were held captive.

Using guile and cunning, they donned the robes of the cult members and bargained their way close enough to cult leader William Cunliffe and disarmed him, holding the other cultists at bay while they and the passengers escaped with their lives.

When the police eventually arrived to investigate the ship explosion, Cunliffe and his fellow cultists were arrested and imprisoned. Although the authorities were keen to see the investigators behind bars too, Thaddeus Grant interceded on their behalf and made sure to keep them free of the laws' clutches. For now.