I thought it was time the readers of KMANT heard from the other side of the screen, so this update is coming from God’s side.

I've been putting my well seasoned group (you can call trained chimps that) through the wringer of a Cthulhu campaign, Horror on The Orient Express.

So far I must confess I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the fact that everyone except Chris (playing Apu the servant) and Matt (playing something… probably a Ranger knowing Matt) has survived so long on their first characters. This isn't bad going considering the group comprises of 2 sociopath's and 3 megalomaniacs.

WARNING: may contain spoilers for The Orient Express Campaign

The group had been asked to locate the remains of a scattered statue, put it together and then destroy it (yes another bloody statue… Gareth’s games always seem to involve masonry – Jon).

So far they've managed to gather it all apart from the head during their travels across Europe. They started in the smoggy streets of London, took in the sights of Paris and its' surround, had a quick nocturnal sojourn in Lausanne before leaving the delights of France behind, to the relief of French peasants everywhere. Then they had a quick visit to the opera in Milan before seeing the city of canals, Venice. Next they had an out of body, literally, experience in Zagreb, a bit of site seeing in the ancient city of Belgrade, before arriving in the quiet little city of Sofia, which is where we will pick up our story.

On their journey between Belgrade and Sofia, Matt was viciously attacked on the train loosing an eye to the assailant who fled the train by jumping off and trying to escape into the darkness. Chris took this opportunity to show everyone his masterful shooting abilities, which bring me to ask the question; why is every character in this group an expert marksman, when we all know fire is an investigators best friend?

The staff on the train were obviously horrified and did everything to make the journey more comfortable for the group by arranging a quality hotel for their next stop. Matt, now doped up to the eye-ball had a couple of visions on route, which he kept quiet about… when you’ve only got one eye, I guess the fact that there’s not one in ‘team’ escapes your attention.

After arriving in Sofia, the group found a newspaper article featuring a picture of the missing statues head. The following morning they all set off to the university to try and obtain (read: steal) the final piece and this was where their excellent grasp of English, but total lack of local lingo let them down. Despite their complaints I’m not being harsh. You try talking to somebody in English when they only speak Bulgarian or Slavic!

Eventually they managed to find a rather more educated professor and settle on a common language, Latin. After a casual chat and then some good persuasive tactics (lying) the prof finally agreed to let the group have a look at the statue piece and led them to where it was stored. Upon opening the door the prof fainted at the sight of a headless corpse and two prone figures.

What were our heroic investigators initial reactions? The doctor stayed true to the Hippocratic oath and helped the professor and prone figures along with the journalist, while the aristocrat had a quick look around to see if there were any choice items worth nicking. Remember people, with Martin in your group always check your inventory because if you haven't got it any more he probably has.

Soon the scene was awash with medical staff, police and university staff, but the group managed to pick up some important clues.
1) The statue head was missing.
2) One of the men was missing his head
3) They really needed someone to be able to speak Bulgarian
4) Their are lots of caves to north of the city.

The players retreated to their hotel and made plans to go for a leisurely walk along the river to the north of the city and do some pot-holing. With the group wrapped up warm they boldly set off on their little hiking expedition. After a couple of hours Matt, now being referred to as the psychic one-eyed freak, had another vision and pointed out a cave entrance. The fearless group entered with torches blazing, perfect for letting any occupants of said cave know that interlopers are on the way.

As they delved deeper into the cave, to their great surprise, nothing happened. No screaming horde of cultists or unspeakable horrors appeared and so with a new found confidence and Martin bravely organising the groups marching order to ensure maximum personal safety, they pressed on.

Eventually they came to a large cavern with several piles of rags scattered about and a strange feature in the darkness that they couldn't quite make out. The rags turned out to be the shredded remains of people and among them they found the man who’d stolen Matt’s eye earlier, with a rotting globule of jelly in his left eye socket.

The thing in the darkness they couldn’t make out before, turned out to be a 15' pile of heads. Karl’s character bravely chose to climb the mound. In reality, Karl wasn’t present for this session and was in fact chosen by the rest of the group as the most expendable. On top of the mound he found a cushion, but no statue head. Slightly put out, with no further clues and claiming that it was surely in the rules that they should find one statue part per session they boarded the train and set off for Constantinople and the final destination of their train journey.