Prolog

The hands of Rupert Merriweather were too enfeebled to write the letters himself. His nurse took his wheezing dictation, and made sure to send the four letters off to their proper destinations.

Dr. George Trenton was something of an enigma. In order to get her archeological papers printed, she was forced to take on a man's name and identity in academic circles, and yet she was an insatiable seductress. Only a few men were safe from Dr. Trenton's hungry eyes. Those eyes had seen a little too much at one time or another, and she had the medical psychiatric records to prove it. Something in the letter she received said that this could be another one of those crazy kind of expedition, but she owed the old man too much for funding some of her digs.

Russel Helfrich III was not nearly as pretentious as his name may at first imply. He had an excellent mind, a way with words, and an overpowering sense of superiority over everyone around him. Russel wrote short stories and shorter articles to keep his printing shop alive. The stories were fair, but the greater public could not accept his sytle of fantasy. How were they to know that Russel had read the forbidden text, the Necronomicon, and that most of his stories were not all that ficticious? Regardless, when Russel received a letter from Merriweather, he packed his motorcycle onto the next train, leaving Salt Lake City behind and heading for Arkham, Mass.

Griswold Lewis was as good a gumshoe as he was ugly. Unfortunately, he really was a good detective. Whatever he couldn't find out by conventional means, he would discover through the use of his Ouija board. The best part about the board was that no matter what board he used, the shuttle would move on its own. The identity of the spirit always seemed to be the same, and confirmed that it would be a good idea to take the invitation given by Rupert Merriweather.

Sun Bin Yang had been sent to America on a mission of training and enlightenment. Although his home in Korea was far away, he never seemed uncomfortable. He accepted the existence of Rupert's invitation with characteristic stoisism.

Raphael McCloud had never had an easy time at things, but the past week had been too much. "Indoctrinated" into a gang of thieves, Raphael was the only member of their little troop to escape a gin-run raid by the police. He was able to steal a car and two cases of hooch in his getaway, but was still looking pretty bad. Raphael followed a drunk dilletante staggering into an alleyway, and came back out with a good suit, a gold pocketwatch, and blood on his hands.
The pocketwatch channeled the spirit of the man Raphael had killed. The spirit told him of great danger, and a great hope that he was meant to become a part of. At the same time, a peculiar symbol burned itself into the watch. Raphael was led to find a specialist in the field of paranormal activity, and discovered a work published my a Dr. E. A. George Trenton.

They all arrived in Arkham to hear the words of the dying Rupert Merriweather. He asked them a great favor, for in his youth, Rupert had done a horrible thing. He and a group of friends had summoned up a something  , and had been too frightened to send it back. Rupert's conscience had finally caught up with him, but his age and illness left him helpless and hopeless without the intervention of his friends. Before they left for the farmhouse in Ross Corners, Griswold befriended a stray black pug-dog named Phydeaux, who seemed to notice more than a dog would have been expected to.

And in the inky blackness, like the tolling of a great bell, a voice said, "And so it begins again."

    Rupert Merriweather had died not long after telling them all he could about the happenings of thirty years ago. He gave them a metal strongbox, containing the passage from De Vermiis Mysteriis that would banish the monster, a pouch of dust that was a vital component, and a curious Egyptian gold box, from which the shard of amber that had imprisoned the monster had come. Sun Bin Yang received another missive from his honorable master, and was not permitted to join the rest of the investigators in this adventure.
    The wary investigators made their way through the quiet, not-quite-hostile village, and arrived at the farmhouse just before dark. Thirty years of neglect had rotten the porch steps, but the roof and outside moldings were amazingly preserved. Just as the sun set, a terrible howl came from an invisible source that rushed from the farmhouse's roof on a noisome wind. Shaken by the experience, the investigators searched the farm, and found strange burrows just under the surface, and a vagabond who had been taking shelter in the basement. More frightened and insane than harmful, the bum told them about the horrible noises and smells that came from the attic in the darkest hours of night. He broke free and ran away when the investigators were startled by the return of the invisible howling. Curious, Russel held George up to the attic trap door. Though she was armed with a sawed-off 12-guage shotgun and a lantern, the terrible beast  was invisible, and incredibly fast. George would have surely died, but the beast  let go of its own accord, leaving George alive, but with deep, unattractive triple scars running up each cheek. The next night, the investigators cast the spell of banishment, barely surviving the alluring, horrific, and/or undead distractions that the beast  conjured up to save itself.
    As the safety of the adventurers was in doubt, they decided to set the farmhouse on fire. Unfortunately, the fields around the farm took to flame rather quickly, placing our heroes in the middle of the blaze. Their car went off the road, and they were surrounded by flame. In a desperate attempt, Russel summoned a Brother of Chagnar Fauhn, which caused his friends great distress. They were eventually rescued by Dexter Miller, and were invited to stay in his somewhat unusual home. A wedge-shaped mark added itself to the symbol on Raphael's pocketwatch, but this went unnoticed for some time.

    After a good winter's rest, the investigators were beginning to get bored, and since their host had healed them of their temporary mental ailments, they were ready to tackle evil yet again. Dexter told them of a widow friend of his who needed help. At the appartment below the widow's, the group met a crumbling old lady who was obviously not in her right mind. She screamed at them to go away, then slammed the door. Half an hour later, she was dead from a heart attack. The dolls that she had hand-made came to life, and began to torment the investigators.
    The dolls, serving as vessels for the vengeful spirit of the old woman, began to attack each of the investigators. After the first attack, Griswold decided that this was not the line of work he had signed up for, and returned to New Jersey. Unfortunately, the dolls had been popular several years ago, and every major town had at least three.
    Eventually, the investigators discovered that the the old woman had, in her youth, made a vow with a suitor--that they shall always remain together. The troup stole the deceased suitor's coffin, and buried him in the same grave with the woman.

    Meanwhile, Griswold took a case involving missing teenagers. The trail led to a cathedral-like hideout of a young Vampire. The Vampire had not yet indoctrinated the youths he had kidnapped, and so he was not very strong. Griswold blew off his head with a sawed-off shotgun, and the teens were free.

    Additionally, during the investigations about the doll problem, Russel and George met Louis Lewis, a rather scraggly boy with some talent for magic. His failed attempt to make George forget something caused a good deal of friction between them for some time.

Fade to Gray

    After the doll business had been cleared up, the investigators had time to deal with the problem of the widow. Her granddaughter had been seen in disreputable company--who were, in fact, cultists. Our heroes destroyed the altar of the cultists, picked up a dagger that had the same symbol as the on on the pocketwatch, and found a clue to the whereabouts of Ezekiel Whitmore.
    Though the pocketwatch and a number of library researches showed Raphael that the Whitmore house would be dangerous in the extreme, he failed in communicating this to the rest of the group. Thus it was that the group entered the house unprepared, and found themselves attacked by inanimate objects, objects driven by Ezekiel's will. Eventually, they hacked down the false wall and destroyed the mummified--but moving--corpse of Ezekiel. Russel was not prepared for the gruesome sights there in the basement, and his mind suffered for it. Jean-Paul, however, was not prepared for the gem that had been fixed around Ezekiel's neck to disolve directly into his skin. His mind ever after was clearer and more focused.
    The power of the magics that Ezekiel had done had echoed in the ceremonial dagger that George had picked up, and had burned her. The expediency of burying the dagger distracted the adventurers from the fact that a new mark had appeared on the pocketwatch.

Time Stand Still

    The investigators settled down to rest at Dexter's house-in-the-hill, but Russel was still feeling a bit overactive. It had been discovered through their adventures that George had an overpowering fear of trees, and Russel and Griswold decided to play with that. They ran off into the woods, and began shouting and shooting. Griswold and Phydeaux came running back out of the trees, but Russel saw a wolf following him and ran deeper into the woods. George was not terribly amused when she discovered that it had only been a joke, and no one was too worried about Russel...until the next morning.
    Russel was chased down by the wolf and got a bad bite on his wrist. The wolf was distracted by something, and therefore did not finish Russel off. With his good hand, Russel hacked into the wolf with his handaxe, and came away from the battle with a wolf head trophy.
    The next morning, Russel found himself on top of the large hill that housed Dexter's house. He found an entrance to the house that Dexter had not made known, and investigated. The stone hallway led to a secret door into Dexter's room, and another secret door to the underground caverns. In the cavern, Russel found a cloudy quartz crystal hooked up to an old, re-wired radio. When Russel made a sound, the crystal started pulsing and the radio began to call for Dexter. Russel ran back upstairs and into Dexter, who had a wild, violent look in his eyes. Dexter began attacking--physically and magically--anyone who happened to be in line of sight. Prudently running away, the group was assaulted by lightning bolts, thrown from the clearly insane Dexter. Raphael noticed that the pocketwatch became hot just before each bolt, and used it to reflect back Dexter's last bolt. In a massive magical explosion, Dexter died.
    Russel had not stopped running since he had left Dexter's room. When he heard the explosion, he started to come cautiously back. At the same time, George was slowly approaching the house, shotgun ready. Unfortunately, the poor lighting combined with George's shock-numbed mind, and she shot the kerosene electric generator. With an explosion that was marginally less than Dexter's, the garage exploded, taking Russel's beloved motorcycle with it. In retribution, Russel decided to use a case of dynamite in the rapidly less structurally secure house. The dynamite's explosion threw huge chunks of hill, masonry, and furniture into the air, narrowly missing the speeding get-away van.

Note: At this point, a semi-normal timeline resumes. We appologize for any inconvenience, and recommend that you turn your watch back 12.3 minutes.

    Rapael was truely in need of a vacation. After the madness in the Dexter house, he decided to travel with his physician brother, and his brother's colligue, a psychiastrist. Their travels led to the center of Vermont, where the two doctors mysteriously disappeared. Raphael found his way to the Wandering Inn, and discovered that the year was now 1953.

    Russel, George, and Jean-Paul drove the van out of the foggy cemetary after burying the doll-witch's corpse with her lover's. They emerged from the fog of downtown Arkham to find themselves in downtown Elm Haven. They also checked into the Wandering Inn, but Jean-Paul saw something that made him question whether or not they had just made a wrong turn.

    Griswold decided that he had to go on a vacation, and Phydeaux agreed. The black pug dog showed Griswold on a map that they should go to Elm Haven, Vermont. Griswold, having had extensive conversations with a Ouija board, thought nothing odd about his dog showing him where a good vacation spot should be, and headed out. Just as he entered the valley, a reverberating *BOOM* sounded behind him, as a great door slamming shut. He would have investigated, but his car suddenly lost control, and he parked it nicely around a tree.
    It did not take Griswold long to realize that he was in the late 1600's, and that the founder of Elm Haven, Johnathan Dark, was a total jerk. The natives of the area were much more calm and rational than this arrogant emmigrant, and so Griswold took up the side of the natives when Dark declared war. Dark was killed, and Griswold flitted forward in time.

Endgame

    The destruction of the bell, involving gasoline, plastic explosives, and dynamite, occurred just in time. Afterwards, Russel, George, Griswold, Raphael, Jean-Paul, and Louis found themselves in the nothingness of the limbo dimension that they had all seen at one time. This time, however, the ground was a huge chessboard. Nylarathotep came before them in the guise of the Black Man, and spoke civilly with them. He revealed that Phydeaux was only a projection of himself, and that he had known what they were doing every step of the way. He then ordered them to choose what position they would like to play in the chess game. If they would not choose, Nylarathotep would place them wherever he liked.
    The positions then choosen have been since forgotten, but hints reveal that Russel chose the King's Knight, and Raphael the Queen's Rook. In the end, Louis chose to be the white player, thereby not putting the last piece in place. His game unplayable, Nylarathotep cursed Louis, and fled.

    Rupert Merriweather and Jeremiah Whitmore held a celebration for all those who took part in saving the world from the Bell and Nylarathotep. They offered the heroes the option of forgetting all the horror that they had seen, but none accepted. Then they offered to return all of them to their homes, except for George. It had been the forces of Light that had made the creature in the attic retreat from George so long ago, and thus she had been living on borrowed time. George was made to stay in the pleasant, grassy limbo until other arrangements could be made. Before she was taken away, she was allowed to say goodbye to Russel, with whom she had begun to form a serious relationship.

And so the story ended--almost, but not quite, a happy ending. But with a story such as this, the characters themselves could not let the story end this way.