[ Note: I'm not sure if this is exactly where we broke for dinner, but it's about halfway through my notes, so I'm arbitrarily breaking the marathon session up into two sessions starting here. ]

The group split up at that point into several different parties to make best use of the time remaining. They agreed to meet back at base camp in 6 hours, at 3PM.

Catherine and Moore went off together; Catherine to study murals and rock, Moore to make maps of the city. They headed off for the black pyramid first, thinking it a good vantage point. On their way, Catherine noticed a peculiar thing: while the rest of the city was frequently sculpted in the murals they passed, the pyramid was never depicted. Once there, they noticed that the pyramid stone was Jurassic obsidian, very different from the Cretaceous to Pleistocene local rock of the rest of the city. Once on top, they suffered a strange joint hallucination--for a split second, the entire city was gone. Moore noticed the storm in the distance, near the further mountain range, and got down to his mapping. With an increasingly excited Moore, they wandered all over the city, taking pictures and making maps. The murals were interesting, depicting plants and trees being grown (though the trees always appeared after one of the strange blank panels). Animals were also everywhere, and were also shown to be grown in vats. Notably, the Shoggoths seemed to be grown this way.

Starkweather, Shaftoe, and Miles set out in search of the statues they had previously seen near the river. Once there, they discovered that the statues are immense; Starkweather couldn't resist climbing them. Standing on the strangely unweathered necks revealed a marvelous view of the city. Visible from their viewpoint were the remnants of a waterfall, and Starkweather caught a glimpse of something yellow in it. After traveling there, they discovered a gigantic eye, some 2 men in diameter, caught in the ice, almost about to go over the waterfall. They attempted to free it for hours, well past the meeting time of 3PM. Still, they were unsuccessful.

Driscoll, after taking meteorological measurements and determining that the storm wasn't moving any closer, decided to explore one of the tall buildings in the city. After wandering a bit, he found the center room of the building, and followed the ramp up to the top of it (which ended in a dome, surprisingly still intact). At the top of the dome, five immense dot patterns were carved into the ceiling [I have drawings of this --A.]. Eventually getting bored, he wandered back to base camp, where he joined Dr. Green in poking through the rubble littered around the plaza. They moved on to other buildings, where they looted some more: they found the flat green stars of soapstone (great stocking stuffers!); they pried off an entire mural out of a low-sloped pyramidical room; they also found a beautiful mural carved out of cloudy glass. Of course, they broke this too and grabbed pieces for themselves.

Rachel, Wallace, and Betsy had decided to investigate the "oxygen shaft" a bit more. After around 26 rotations down, the air started to get warmer and humid, with unpleasant organic smells. Continuing to progress down, single file, the smells kept getting worse. Eventually, Wallace pulled out a flare and threw it into the center; they were able to see stone floor. There were no rocks, under-pants, or notes anywhere to be seen. At this point, they heard insane murmuring of the dread phrase "Tekeli-li" and decided it was time to leave. On their way out, they spent some more time in the dissection room, so that Betsy could complete her dinosaur drawings.

Back at base camp at 3PM, Moore took off his hood to reveal a nasty bit of frostbite on his face. Upon Dr.'s orders, the rest stripped off their outer layer to reveal bits of frostbite here and there on nearly everyone. Moore suggested that they spend lunch warming up, and then take the afternoon to catalog the finds accumulated so far. Driscoll, Wallace, Halpern were to take the next sleep shift; the rest were to head to the "museum". As lunch wore on, Moore got increasingly worried about Starkweather's absence. Moore and Green had gone so far as to go out looking when Starkweather returned, sans eye. Moore spent the afternoon at base camp, raptly listening to Starkweather's account of his morning.

Intrepid explorers of the museum read an interesting story unfolding in the murals:

• Cities were created

• Then plants and animals, including the Shoggoths.

• The Shoggoths revolted but were subdued.

• Battles were also shown with ant-creatures and octopus-creatures.

• The Pentaforms were shown constructing *both* mountain ranges and also building the forests and evolving forms of life. Much was devoted to this early time.

• The Pentaforms were shown using machines, and, later, bio-mechanical devices. These were used in wars with the slaves, ants, Cthuloid monsters, and strange pseudopodal things with mouths that turned inside-out, at which point they would fly. By and large, the Pentaforms lost these wars.

• Then, something happened--there were many blank panels. The event (whatever it was) seemed to be connected with the west somehow.

• After the blank space, the Pentaforms were suddenly winning wars. They had halos, and were carved holding boxes which emitted rays of some sort. These boxes seemed to be able to vaporize buildings.

• The carvings got a bit more detailed; the investigators noticed that the same knot-like sigil was carved above all of the blank panels.

• This detailed carving continued for a time, and then something happened (an earthquake of some kind?) and the city was destroyed. The continents were shown shifting, and one city seemed to be swallowed overnight.

• A great struggle then seemed to occur. Many of the Pentaforms were shown making the previously seen gestures with their tentacles. Rebuilding the city didn't seem to happen for some time; energy was instead directed somehow towards the West, rebuilding the mountains even higher and growing vast forests. Only then was the city rebuilt.

• Artistic styles then changed, and the city was shown being evacuated; the forests died but the mountains remained. Again, the pyramid was not depicted in any of the murals.

While all of the responsible adults slept, the rest went out for some looting and debauchery. Starkweather led everyone off to investigate the black pyramid some more. Starkweather's comment: "That, gentlemen, is the biggest challenge I've ever seen."

After trying unsuccessfully to make it through the petrified wooden doors, they went back to base camp for dynamite. At this point, Starkweather discovered that whoever packed the planes had forgotten the blasting caps and fuses. Not fazed in the least, Starkweather grabbed his gun and some dynamite and headed back to the pyramid, where he and Shaftoe shooting together managed to blow a crawl-hole in the door. The doors were an impressive foot-and-a-half thick, but this did not interest the men. Inside, the room was very black and the same knot-sigil was carved in the back of the doors as well.

The ceiling curved into a dome well below the height of the pyramid, and the room was empty except for a table with 5 crystals growing out of it. The crystals were about 3 feet tall and pentagonal; the table was solid and also pentagonal with the crystals growing out of the corners. Above, the obsidian ceiling glinted a bit-flecks of something were embedded into it. Starkweather reached into the table, which was carved into an upside-down pyramid shape, and brought out an egg-shaped piece of stone. It flickered, almost crystalline, in his hand. It was covered with almost microscopic dots. Starkweather's comment on the priceless artifact covered with ancient writing and belonging in a museum:

"Well, gentlemen, I believe we've made a fortune."

At meal-time, sleeping shifts changed yet again; Starkweather, Shaftoe, and Miles went down.

When Betsy awakened, she noticed that the piping had stopped. Mentioning this to her companions, others noticed that the clouds weren't as long as they used to be. Deciding to do a bit more work, Wallace and Driscoll offered to accompany Ms. Lehey to the pyramid; Moore, Betsy, and Rachel were off to look for a weather vantage point.

Interestingly, the storm still hung near the Western mountains. However, when Moore inflated a weather balloon, it floated straight up; the wind had gone. Heartened by this, they tried the radio once more. The noise was different; this time it sounded like white noise layered over pink noise, but they still could not get through even to the Lexington camp.

After that work break, Moore gathered everyone at the camp. They only had until the next day to research, and he beseeched everyone to help the scientists finish their work. Shaftoe, Starkweather, and Miles would continue to attempt excavation of the eye. Catherine, Dr. Green, Betsy, and Rachel would finish up work in the dissection room. Moore requested more stone samples, and directed everyone not previously mentioned to split up and fan out in pairs, searching for them.

Thus, the rest of the day was spent cataloging, photographing, and sketching the dissection room; Starkweather and Shaftoe continued to be stymied by the eye (which weighed approximately 1 ton). They "left it for next year" and set up signal flags around it. Wallace got a collection of alien carvings from the murals, and delivered stone samples to Moore.

Wallace and Driscoll's random searching also led to a room full of vats situated under something that could only be described as an udder. Carvings on the walls were of the later scratched variety, rather than the careful bas-relief style.

After that, the final sleep shifts happened.

In the morning, someone noticed that Dr. Green was missing; everyone split into pairs for searching; Moore and Halpern stayed in base camp on the chance that he would return. Nobody could remember him since the previous day's sketching in the dissection room.

Betsy and Rachel went to the rooms beneath the tower; Wallace and Driscoll were to search the plaza; Shaftoe and Catherine headed to the pyramid. After an hour, nobody had seen or heard the doctor. Starkweather ordered them to go out again, this time for 2 hours.

Wallace and Driscoll found many wedge-shaped tracks in the plaza, but none from Dr. Green. At some point, they saw someone walking (quite a distance away from them) towards the planes. Thinking it was Dr. Green, they shouted at the figure, which kept up its amble without paying them notice. Driscoll fired a warning shot in the air, at which point the figure waved and continued moving towards the planes.

They quickened their pace towards the figure, and when they were about halfway there one of the planes exploded in a great ball of fire.

(At this point, everyone in the city heard a loud boom and started rushing back to base camp.)

Wallace and Driscoll saw the figure stumble towards the other plane from the first explosion. Now running, they saw the figure take out a flare gun and start to fire at the remaining plane. Both of the Australians opened fire themselves; the figure spiraled forward and the gun flew out of its grasp. Grabbing its leg, the figure reached with the other hand inside its parka, and pulled out something, setting it on the ground. As the figure pulled off its mitten, Wallace continued to move towards it and fired again, luckily scoring a hit; [Nothing short of miraculous, given the distance, the extreme cold, the fact that he had recently been 'trotting' while breathing bad oxygen, and his poor eyesight... --GM] the figure collapsed onto its back.

With the ruins of one plane burning brightly behind them, Wallace and Driscoll reached the figure lying on the ground. Uncovering the face, they see Rachel Van Buren looking rather pale.