The Crypt of Malkuth

(WARNING – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

I'm sitting in the Absinthe bar, writing these notes. I know who are the men in the black robes, the Followers of Malkuth, and why are they here. And I think I know more about the nature of the Babbage beast already, although I still have no clue about how to get rid of it. But first things first.

Shortly after Mr. Blindside disappeared, his satchel was found near the excavation site. It contained several letters from a man named Frederic Von Battersby to Mr. Blindside, mentioning the old crypt of Malkuth under Cobblestone street, the same place where poor Willard Steamweaver provided his experiments and which I visited already last year during the search for information about The 13 Club, and a document from Van Creed archives (signed as „The Light“). It seems there was another, old excavation site in Clockhaven, with some interesting finds about the Order of Malkuth. I decided to explore both of these sites.

The crypt under Cobblestone street was my fist choice, since I was already familiar with the place. The Steamweaver's laboratory was still there, untouched, even the old phonograph cylinders with his recordings were still on their place. But something terrible must have happened recently – two coffins were open, empty. I thought it was a case of a grave robbery at first... but I was wrong, as I understood later.

I managed to open the third coffin (although I had to consult the Babbage library first), very well aware it could be me this time who could be accused of grave robbery. There was a body of a man (it's hard to tell, it must be several hundreds of years old) covered with a large shield. I thought it's a dead end this time, since I had no idea who the dead man could be, but only by a happy accident I found something which led me later to the grave of poor Helen, to understanding where the Babbage beast came from, and who are the Followers of the Malkuth...

The Beast of Babbage

Again, some matters forced me to leave the city for almost two weeks and couple of days ago I returned pnly to see the city is burried under the heavy drifts of snow. Now I'm not sure if I'll be able to recollect everything what happened during my absence, since I have to rely only on rumors. I doubt I'll provide a whole picture here, but I have to sort the fact for myself anyway.

http://www.babbagechronicles.co.uk/

Strange beast is lurking the streets of Babbage, apparently something which has been imprisoned inside the artifact before and now walks around the town free again. It haunts the citizens and we can consider ourselves lucky that no one was killed so far. The urchins, who are of course in the greatest danger, tried to entrapped the beast (which is described here http://natmerit.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-babbage-monster-attacks.html), repeatedly and unsuccesfully, but only thing they achieved is the detailed photography of the monster.

http://cityofnewbabbage.com/reader/node/1282

A strange black-cloaked men was seen several times in Babbage, talking about the beast as about „something which feeds the flesh of others, and cannot die“. They were recognized by urchins as followers of Order of Malkuth, an ancient cult once present in Babbage and involved in unfortunate events, which happened last autumn and ended with the burning of the place where nowdays the strange statue was discovered. Later, Mr. Cleanslate intercepted a message while experimenting with his radiowave monitor:

http://tinyurl.com/2u2kxrz

It's Van Creed society again, and apparently the followers of Malkuth attacked their headquarters, trying to destroy Van Creed archives. Why? Because there were some informations regarding the origin of the beast perhaps? Or even the way how to defeat it?

Later the urchin named Victor Wunderlich was saved from the beast by one of the black-cloaked men, who managed to injure the monster, and took care of the poor boy. Which brings only more confusion, of course... What are the intentions of followers of Malkuth?
And more than that, Mr. Blindside, the archeologist who doscovered the artifact, is missing, just after he informed the babbage citizens he's got some new informations about the artifact...

For more informations I reccomend notes of Myrtil Igaly:
http://myrtil.blogspot.com/2010/11/beast-takes-bite.html

The Artifact opens

The next day I returned to the excavation site to explore the artifact more and was lucky to met Mr. Blindside himself, working at the artefact at the same moment. He managed to dig out the whole object from the ground and was just adjusting it in vertical position when I disturbed him. We talked, briefly, and he admitted he will be much wiser after he'll remove the mud and dirt from the artifact, which, finally visible, vaguely resembled a cloaked human figure. And of course, there was the heartbeat, stronger maybe this time, but I didn't want to disturbe the archeologist with more questions as he seemed to be quite exhausted. He'll probably attend tonight's Bonfire Night and make some public statement, unfnortunatelly I have some affairs out of town tonight.


I felt comforted more or less, after all, mr. Blindside seemed like he knew what he was doing. That was until today, when I visited the site once more.

The artifact was still there, standing in the same position as Mr. Blindside left it, but there was a huge crack almost at whole it's lenght. It seemed as someone shattered it's surface with a great force, and took anything what was hiding inside. Or, maybe... maybe as something from inside broke the shell and run free. There was a splash of a dark liquid just in front of the artifact, probably blood. Maybe someone tried to use some explosives to disturb the surface of the object, and was hurt? Or maybe someone just stood there when the... thing... from inside broke free and... I hope Mr. Blindside is allright.


The artifact is still standing there, silent, no heartbeat resembling sound could be hear. Just like an empty shell.

Return to Babbage

Long time ago I left this Journal, same as I left the City of New Babbage. But recent events forced me to wipe the dust from these old pages and start to write again...


It was a cold October day when I stepped out of a ship in Babbage
port, returning to the city once more. The thick Babbage fog covered
the streets as the city train approached my old house in Canals and
the memories came back to me, almost as I've never left. The Porta
Terranum Device, Babbage Cuckoos, Cloud Angel, Prof. Eliot, Nareth
Nishi, The Thirteen Club, Van Creed society, Jasper Renfield, Jason
Moriarty... These names are already half-forgotten in Babbage, only
amongst some street urchins the tales are still told. So when I red
in the Newspaper a short note about the discovery of a strange
artifact under the basement of a destroyed building very close to the
Old Imperial Theatre, the place related very closely to these old
events, I couldn't wait any longer.

After I unpacked my things, I hurried to visit the place of the
discovery. There was the artifact, a large piece of stone still half
burried in the ground. And exactly as the rumor said, there was some
sound, almost like a heartbeat, clearly hearable when I leaned
closer...


According to the Newspaper, a famous archeologist Mr Bernard
Blindside was called up to excavate the site and find out more about
the artifact. The only information I was able to find about the
gentleman is that he was the man who discovered the obelisk of
Datramarr, although I'm not familiar with this part of history and
have to admit I have no idea what Datramarr obelisk actually is...