Clayton hadn't given us much to go on - only that we were supposed to meet a guy named Dodge here in Darwin, and that he would give us info about someone. Conveniently, just such a man - red-faced and in a broad-brimmed hat to protect from the sun - was present outside at the airfield when we landed.
"You the fellas that Byrd bloke wired about?" he asked in an Aussie accent thick as the muggy heat around us.
"That'd be us," I responded, and he had a look of distaste as he handed me a large envelope.
"Of course nobody told the university it'd be a bloody Yank," the man sneered under his breath. "I'm Dodge. David Dodge. I work at the University of Darwin with Dr. Cowles, the bloke Byrd wired to. He's somehow friends with the doctor, and was able to set up an appointment with Dr. Mackenzie about his expedition. Don't bloody know why anyone's interested in that miserable maelstrom of a desert trek."
"Well, apparently it is important," said Chief, "Or we would not have been sent to investigate it."
"Apparently so, sir," responded Dodge, "But there's a problem - Mackenzie's on Holiday at his home in Port Hedland, and that's about four hours away by train, what with the rail gauge changes an' that. But most of what you need's in that parcel there. You have questions, the Uni's about five, ten blocks from here, I'll be happy to help. See you later."
With that, he left, and I curiously opened the package he'd given us. There was only a small, leather-bound journal within, stamped with the year 1925. Inside, in a scrawled cursive hand, I read a rather sordid tale about the ill-fated Mackenzie-MacWhirr expedition. Apparently the group had found some strange stone blocks out in the Great Sandy Desert, and some sort of nasty incident had happened out there. Something about terrible windstorms and one of the camps being attacked, but they were able to haul back a few of the blocks. Those blocks resided in the University of Darwin's attached museum, meaning we'd need to come back and look at them later. As for lodging and such, we were on our own.
Chief, Mei-lin, and I... well, scratch that - Mei-lin's gone, too. I don't suppose you remember Xiao at all, but the rich old geezer somehow had bought and piloted the Dark Mistress, which he rechristened the Pink Lady, down here and found us. He'd become smitten with Madame Xu (which, alright, I guess I don't blame him for - she was a looker), and pleaded for her to return to Shanghai with him. Mei-lin accepted, sensing money, respect, and a way out of her life of street work, and promptly left Chief and I behind. So, there we were, strangers in a strange land, surrounded by tropical beauty in the port town of Darwin, in a hotel overlooking the ocean... utterly alone.
Disheartened we'd been abandoned, we ended up at a bar drinking our troubles away as we decided our next course of action. Neither of us had any idea what to do or how to get around Australia, so we sat and debated, drinking beer and trying to forget our troubles, until we heard a drunken, oddly familiar voice.
"Das ist Scheße! Your beer is fit only for the dogs!"
"Ludwig?" I asked, and we both turned to see Dr. Hildebrand struggling with two large, muscle-bound men, about to be thrown out.
"Hey! Hold up a second, we'll take care of him," I replied, and they relented. "Ludwig, how the hell did you end up in Darwin?!"
"Well, you see," he admitted, sitting down, "I was recovering in the hospital, and Clayton visited. He kept me up to date on the Bloated Woman cult situation, and when I was well, he asked me to find and meet up with you. I ended up here as a result."
"Wait," Chief asked, "Did he tell you about the whole... you know. Grey Dragon Island?"
"Oi, wazzat about a cult now?" said another voice from the nearby table, and we turned to see two local men observing us keenly, one a light-haired and rat-faced looking man, and the other dark-haired and dressed in a decent suit. Both had been drinking heavily by the looks of the amount of glasses on the table, and yet neither seemed terribly intoxicated. Must be the Aussie genes, I guess. All the same, I sighed in annoyance when I realized they were interested in our story. Great, more people we'd have to explain our adventures to because of Ludwig's big mouth. Fortunately, I knew how to ply the locals in Australia into believing tall tales...
"Lemmie buy you folks a round, and I'll explain," I offered as Chief brought two more chairs to our table. And so, the two Aussies took our offer, sat down, and we explained what had occurred in Shanghai. Not everything, mind you - but we told them about Grey Dragon Island's warhead, the cult, Sir Aubrey Penhew, and the narrow escapes.
"No," said the Dark-haired man, who we later learned was named Lucas Bradford. "There's no bloody way you found a missile there, you're having a go, mate..."
"Oh, believe it," I said, and pulled out the stolen warhead from the missile with a large clunk as it landed on the table. "This is it. Heavy bastard, too..."
"Well, innat the craziest thing this side of the black stump?" the rat-faced man replied, eagerly lapping up the story. "It's like something out of one of them Weird Fiction stories or something..."
Of course, they only believed us because we were buying, and Lucas still remained skeptical. The rat-faced man, Neville Harris, was much more eager, and leaned in to listen. Then we found out we all shared another commonality - we'd all served in the War. Well, that got them to open up, and we learned all about our new friends and their lives, and them all about us. They were ground forces in the trenches, and I shared the story of how I lost my leg. Drinks were had, rousing rounds of Waltzing Matilda were sung, and by the end of our drinking session we were stuck together, thick as thieves. Even Ludwig was able to find common ground with the two ex-soldiers. It's amazing what a little story-telling and beer can do, isn't it?
From there, we turned our discussion to the journal, explaining what we were here for. This got Neville and Lucas excited, probably because they sensed a job opportunity and figured this would give them that if they played their cards right. Besides, they had offered to help us get around Australia - and we had intimated we'd be likely going through the desert at some point, a place I had little experience with. Sure, I'd been to desert countries, but never out of the cities there, and Chief had experience only with Kenya's jungles and savannas, not the desert itself. That meant we'd need a guide. Who better than two locals? Besides, we had a lead they were interested in after hearing the story - the Randolph Shipping Company. Clayton had said we needed to check it out, and I agreed. Ho Fong had taken shipments from there, and Clayton said there were places in New York, Cairo, and London that had received goods from there, too. It seemed a likely enough place, and besides, we could always fake that we knew Sir Aubrey Penhew if we had to...
And that was how we met two of our closest allies and friends thus far. I can't say I was expecting that, but apparently things in my life just change fast ever since I took on this crazy cross-country conspiracy chase. I just hope that we have an easier time here than in Shanghai. Knock on wood, I guess, but between you and me, I doubt things will be restful here, either...
-- Francis McCloud, Back in Civilization (June 15th, 1928)
You think I'm having a laugh, don't you? Well, I'm not - if it's one thing I learned in the army, it's that when someone gives you proof of something, you accept it, no matter how absurd it sounds. I was forced to do it, of course. Kind of hard not to when your new mate brings you out to the docks to prove a point, then just drops a strange gold bit into the waves and up come about twenty or so fish-like humanoid things. Things that talk like people, and look like some sort of creature from the black lagoon. Things that the American chats nonchalantly with the way you'd ask the barkeep about their kids. They swore up and down, McCloud and Muuzaji, that these bizarre creatures saved their bacon, and they saved them, somewhere in Shanghai - and well, like I said before, proof's in the pudding and you don't deny evidence.
Well, I figured anyone that had the ability to call up deep-dwelling mermen for a friendly chat was probably someone that ol' Lucas Bradford here better stick around with, so when they said they wanted to check the old Randolph Shipping Company, I went with them. I was intrigued, but confused, by their decision to see what was in that ratty old building - all they ever shipped out was fish and dry goods, that was what everyone said after all. Oh, how wrong I was... Turns out that Muuzaji bloke's a hell of a sneak, and a hell of a lot more clever than anyone gives him credit for. He was in after McCloud easily, and the two quickly hatched a plan. Muuzaji would feign being a receiver for some Penhew fella they were chasing, while meanwhile we'd all check the other crates to see what we could find. It worked like Billy-o, it did - Randolph was distracted enough to give us the crates assigned to this Penhew, apparently quite the nasty cunt if their tales are to be believed.
Now, it was around this point I started feeling like something odd was going on, or was about to happen. Call it one of those gut feelings. We waited to see Randolph leave with his blackfella guard, probably to go get knackered or something before finally making our move. Courtesy of Muuzaji's stunt, we had an office and two crates to look through. First up was the office, where we quickly discovered several records - recent shipments for Penhew and others to Shanghai, Nairobi, Cairo, New York, London... everywhere. When Muuzaji saw them, he gasped in surprise, and took the register from my hands.
"These places," he murmured, "They were all the same locations Ho Fong had been shipping goods to. But that means... are they all working with each other?"
"What, the cults?" was my quizzical response. "Yeah, I guess so, didn't you say you got into this whole thing because of some loonies what were chasing down some cult in Egypt?"
"Yes, the ones we transported to Shanghai, then got stuck with," said Muuzaji, and he then related to me all the events up to that point. Even showed me this nifty journal, said it once belonged to an old friend of one of McCloud's friends. From there, well, I had little choice but to acknowledge that if all that was true, then the cults had to be connected. They had a trade ring established, under the noses of the Crown and everything. Why had they come to the forefront now? I had to know, and I suppose that was how I entered into this slapdash crew of foreigners and strangers.
Something tells me this is gonna be a hell of a trip over to Cuncudgerie.
-- Lucas Bradford, Fortunate Son (June 16th, 1928)