And it was evening and it was morning, 29 November 1933.*

*[PLAYER NOTE: Jon decided that the fact that we had strayed from the dates specified in the book was irritating enough to warrant a change. Thus, by GM fiat, the pumpkin discovery and Lexington conversation of the last summary happened on 28 November, 1933. ]

In the early morning light, after rousing themselves in their tent, Rachel shared interesting gossip she had gotten the night before at dinner in the Lexington mess tent. According to Acacia Lexington, the African safari was saved by her, *not* Starkweather. While he was making rafts out of non-floating wood, she traded her gold earrings to natives for passage across a newly-flooded river in canoes. All this *after* she had asked Starkweather explicitly if the stream they forged on the way over would be safe to travel on the way back, given that it was rainy season. Catherine and Betsy had absolutely no trouble believing that Starkweather falsified accounts upon his return.

Breakfast chatter was subdued and sleepy until Moore called everyone for the day's announcements and jobs.

Increasingly distracted, Moore indicated that the group should uncover tents and pumpkin hillocks in order to find out what actually went on in Lake's camp. Additionally, he mentioned, another pumpkin specimen was needed; the one found was missing the "eye stalks" mentioned by Lake in his report.

Shaftoe, Catherine, and Johnson set to work on the tents, and the remainder of the crew (Betsy, Moore, Rachel, and Donovan) the next hillock.

Moore's team began excavating the hillock next to the first. They found no soapstone in the mound this time, but did find a pumpkin specimen complete with "head" visible through the ice. It was star shaped, at the end of each point there looked to be a bulbous round protrusion. At the inner points of the star, there seemed to be a stalk. The team was still examining the head through 3 inches of ice when Catherine ran screaming by.....

Shaftoe's team picked the southernmost tent to start with; after clearing away the thin layer of snow, they discovered it was covered with approximately 3 inches of ice. Working carefully, they managed to get the door flap open.

Inside the tent, Shaftoe thought to himself it looked like someone had been shaken violently while leaking. Familiar with such scenes from the Great War, he quickly determined that the reddish-brown stains on the ice and metal table and walls of the tent were blood. Peering in, he declared: "Someone got killed in here pretty bad."

Once the group stepped inside, things got a bit worse for the weak-stomached. Clearly the medical tent, the large metal table in the middle was covered in reddish ice, and the surrounding floor was splattered as well. Medical texts were open on the table, the pages stained with blood in interesting and disturbing patterns. Catherine, looking around with increasing horror, at that point noted the footprints on the floor.

There were some expected boot-prints, but also many non-human wedge-shaped prints with ridges.

Too much for her to bear, she started screaming and ran out of the tent, towards the group excavating the hillocks.

Unfortunately, she ran directly past them without noticing. By the time the group caught up with her, she had begun to show the signs of hypothermia. While Betsy, Rachel, and Donovan helped her walk back to the warmth of the mess tent, Shaftoe showed Moore the medical tent. All convened for an early lunch, not wanting to discuss the horrors they'd found but not being able to stop themselves.

After Catherine had recovered enough to safely be on her own in the mess tent, the group decided to excavate more of the tents, leaving the second Pentaform in favor of potential explanations. They started on the tent furthest from the medical tent, and had removed most of the snow when the planes arrived with more people: Bryce, Griffith, Winslow, and Winchester.

Betsy and Bryce quickly made their way to specimen dissection and discussion (which proceeded slowly and with difficulty but without incident); Shaftoe decided to take a party to the cairn, to ensure that all bodies were found; Moore took two parties to continue tent excavation.

Work at the cairn was difficult; Shaftoe, Cole, Driscoll, and Packard uncovered four bodies before stopping. The first and second had already been discovered by Rachel and Catherine; the third and fourth seemed.....too thin and light. Thinking about this for a moment, Packard decided it would be too much for Cole to handle, and took him away.

Eventually, curiosity inspired Black Jack and Shaftoe to see why the tarps were so light. As the tarps were frozen to their contents, part of them had to be cut and pulled away. Doing so was difficult, but they managed to see what was under part of one of the tarps--the remains of an arm; the only skin present being on the hand, and most of the muscle removed. Upon this discovery, the two decided hastily to refrain from further investigation of the bodies, and in fact to head back to camp immediately.

At the tents, there were enough people to excavate two at once. One tent was a solid mass of snow near the door, as the door flap was not securely tied. After removing that snow, nothing sinister was found--two cots, 2 sleeping bags, and little else.

Moore, Rachel, and Sykes continued excavation of the tent started earlier. Inside, they found large piles of food cans, wooden cases, bags of flour, etc. Though many food stuffs were untouched, some representative containers of each type had been...played with. Some of the wooden cases had been smashed, some bags of flour cut open and mixed with something. An entire pile of cans seemed to be banged, twisted, impaled, and so forth. A large number of match boxes on the floor were empty. There was a surprising lack of meat in the tent; wrappers abounded, but no actual meat could be located.

At this point, Cole wandered by looking for the medical tent. Winchester escorted Cole to it, at which point Cole announced he was headed back to the cairn (not knowing that Shaftoe and Driscoll had left).

At dinner, Cole's absence was noted and a rescue mission was quickly formed. Groups of three people would head to different places, searching him out. Shaftoe, Betsy, and Packard headed toward the cairn, where they found him.

He had excavated 2 more bodies before deciding to sleep.

Noting that he appeared alive but unconscious, Shaftoe's quick thinking led them to construct a makeshift sleeping bag while Betsy radioed Sykes for help. The two jumped into the "sleeping bag" (constructed out of parkas zipped together, then wound up in tarp from the bodies) with Cole until Sykes arrived with help. By the time Sykes arrived, Cole had begun shivering and Sykes declared he would be moved back to camp in the "bag" with Betsy and Shaftoe. Once there, he was fed warm water, and moved to an actual sleeping bag.

Though it was a long night, Cole eventually recovered. The next morning, there was a large group discussion about the buddy system, exertion in the snow, and other life-saving tactics.

The next day (30 November) Moore was extremely distracted. He had not pulled himself together enough to announce orders for the day when Miles and Peabody burst into the mess tent, relaying the news that the Lake dig site had been found and opened for business. This seemed to jolt Moore, who then allowed the scientists (and Driscoll) to head to the dig site, demanding that all others help continue the tent excavation.

The dig site was within a quarter mile of Lake's camp. Near the entrance drilled by Miles and Peabody, expeditioners were treated to the awe-inspiring sight of the Lake drill, twisted and sticking out of a roughly 100' circle of strangely colored ice. Around it were many footprints, both human and wedge-shaped.

Lake's cave itself was indeed a beautiful and eerie place. Stalagmites and stalactites created limestone chambers, their beauty enhanced by ice crystals that were everywhere. Striations were evident in the rock; pale tans, pinks, greens indicating the massively great age of the cave. Following a path out of the main chamber, the scientists saw amazing piles of fossil and geological discoveries, left forgotten on the floor in favor of even more spectacular finds.

The chamber they were led to was approximately 20 feet by 10 feet, and had been clearly excavated. More fossils from the Pre-Cambrian, Paleozoic, and Cenozoic periods could be seen in the walls. Impressions where the Pentaforms had rested were clearly visible.

After a few hours of sketching, examination, disbelief, and happy work, the scientists decided to head back to camp for lunch. (And also resolved to take lunch with them the next day...)

At the tent excavation, Moore was beginning to go crazy. Snappier than usual, he was extremely meticulous and obsessive about every detail as they began excavation of another tent mound. By noon, after hours of painstaking work, it became very clear that no tent had ever been there.

At lunch, Moore was so distracted and out of it that Sykes had to remind him to take advantage of the clear reception and make a radio report. Betsy accompanied him to report on the scientific discoveries. Moore's report was halting and disjointed, with long pauses. He requested that the Gabrielle contact the Miskatonic University Geology Department, and in specific that a telegram be sent to Professor Peabodie.

Upon return, they found Sykes warning everyone that a large storm was coming. That afternoon was a flurry of activity as everyone scrambled to make the camp ready for a storm potentially as fierce as that which had wiped out Lake's camp. Guidelines were erected, windbreaks were reinforced, tents were battened down, and the planes were quickly readied for takeoff so that they would not be grounded in the Lake camp throughout a storm.

With everything ready, the expedition began to wait for the storm that all cold-weather guides said was coming quickly and fiercely.

Around 45 minutes later, Sykes, Rachel, and the dog handlers were increasingly unhappy as their weather sense told them they should be in the middle of a huge storm; yet, the sky was clear and bright. Four agonizing hours later, their senses told them that the storm (which had never materialized) had passed.

Oddly, radio transmission remained completely clear even through the night. Moore received a reply from Professor Peabodie, in addition to well-wishes from Starkweather (and reports that he and his crew were also doing fine). Peabodie said:

You already have all the answers I can give you STOP be careful not to make mistakes you cannot undo

At 4AM on the 1st of December, 1933, the deep and throaty sound of plane engines startled expedition members who slept lightly. Rushing out of their tents, they saw three planes coming South towards the camp, circling around overhead. A black cross was clearly visible on the wings of the loud tri-engines, and the tag-lines D-BFEA, D-BFEB, and D-BFEC were also prominent.

"The Germans are here."