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Friday, March 22, 1935

 

     In an ancient tomb, high atop Tengri Khan in the Kok Shal mountains, is a pink marble sarcophagus containing a preserved body, in sumptuous silk robes and Mongol armor, with a sabre clutched at his chest; the corpse's face is concealed by a jade mask. Our Heroes gaze upon what may well be the corpse of Tamerlane!

 

Continuity Notes
production:  Pulp Adventure	location:  Tengri Khan	scene description:  Tamerlane cave
weather:  cold, snow, and ice	day, interior	director:  KM
The Scene: Interior of a (cold, dark, damp, musty) mountain cave, ice glinting from many surfaces. As the characters crept further into the cave, it became obvious that someone had expanded and improved what must have been a natural occurrence. The further from the entrance everyone got, the warmer the cave seemed to get and the more signs of worked surfaces, old sconces and torch-holding thingies (all no doubt purchased in bulk from a sale at Bannerman’s, Pier One or perhaps Hammer Studios by the panicked props department).    After about 30 minutes of carefully advancing, the characters came upon the site of a recent battle, with the bodies of 14 dead Mongols (perhaps actually Upir), 3 dead Young Pioneers, and a couple of bodies in white snow-smocks. After a brief exchange with the survivors and Qua Lin’s first aid assistance, our intrepid band of cold, damp, exhausted, altitude sickness-plagued Heroes continued further inwards. Along the way, they saw the signs of foot traffic over many centuries (“boot prints of various eras”). Several hundred yards further into the cave, the visible widened and branched into a series of large chambers; likely hundreds of feet wide all told (thanks to well-done matts, likely provided again by the panicked, over-worked, under-funded, barely appreciated props department).    As the characters prepared to enter the first chamber, the signs of a horrific battle were evident. Everyone could hear shouts, gunshots, and screams in the distance; those of Our Heroes with outré goggles could tell that a small group of Young Pioneers were being handily destroyed by several dozen Upir. Looking into another chamber, someone saw more than a score of skeletons lining the walls, each armed and armored with archaic and varied gear (note: not Upir). Across the chamber, a series of stone shelves could be seen, surrounding a small stone enclosed structure built into the chamber. Our Heroes advanced to the huge metal-bound wooden doors of the suspected tomb. The door handles felt warm to the touch, but yielded easily.    Pulling on them revealed a room with many niches filled with scrolls, books, and tablets, and dozens of elongated stone-like "haggises". In addition to the scene laid out by our Scottish art director, a pink marble sarcophagus with gems and gold and silver inlays on the lid resided on a grey stone dais, all under a worked stone roof being held up by 4 shiny posts (think a bed canopy sort of thing). In front of the sarcophagus lay two piles of gold-leaf-covered skulls. Around the walls, 27 figures (nope, not upir guards either) stood, unmoving. At least one of our more trigger-happy Heroes opened fire on the not-Upir figures, whom had not reacted in any way to the characters’ presence -- well, except perhaps to start to deliquesce when sufficiently perforated or blasted.      Fury's explosive ammunition did considerable damage to the piled golden skulls and the collections of books, scrolls, tablets, etc.; destroying everything other than three rather battered texts (note from Continuity: three (3) recovered out of more than 100 objects of art originally present when the doors were first opened). Qua Lin was able to gather the surviving (3) pieces: a Tibetan prayer book: long skinny pages of vegetative origin, composed in Sanskrit in the Devanagri script, laced between wooden covers. a set of 3 ancient Chinese clay tablets, bound by decaying animal gut of some kind. a 10th Century Bible, in Latin and held in a decaying leather satchel.    As sounds of more gunfire and yelling back towards the entrance of the cave drew Nora and Bill away, Lotta and Fury immediately went to work cracking open the sarcophagus, pounding pitons and blades into the stone to break the lid free. DeLacy quickly searched the hideously liquefied remains of the not-Upir for treasures, ultimately recovering finding 27 sticky, smelly jade charms, and a quantity of various swords, helmets, and other ancient gear. When the lid of the sarcophagus was eventually breached, there was a sort of "whoosh" noise and a bright flash; those of Our Heroes still in the chamber detected a strange metallic odor, and decided to depart and let the weird gas clear out.    Lotta, Fury and DeLacy became somewhat disoriented and nauseous; Fury thought the inner casket contained arsine gas -- to prevent decay, and to kill intruders. Once the gas seemed to have dissipated, Fury and Lotta lifted the lid fully off the sarcophagus. Within was a well preserved body, in sumptuous silk robes and Mongol armor, with a sabre clutched at his chest; the corpse's face was concealed by a jade mask. Clutched in the right hand of the corpse is an ivory tube of some kind.

 

     DeLacy examined the contents of the sarcophagus using his outré goggles:

 

• the jade mask had a "significant color" when viewed through his goggles. It weighed about 1 pound, and was about 1/8th inch thick

• the bone tube

• the sword had a rather deteriorated sheath. The weapon itself was unharmed by the passage of time; it was about 4' long overall, and somewhat curved -- it might be described as a sabre or scimitar. The grip was wrapped with electrum wire, and a lapis stone was set into the pommel

 

 

Tengri Khan sword

A long one-handed ‘scimitar’ sword. It is a slim blade that has almost no taper until the very tip, and is curved 12 degrees from tip to hilt. The blade is 102cm in length, the hilt and grip 15cm, and the sword weighs 1.9kgs. The sword has a “yelman” (false-edge) edge on the first 30cm of the back of the blade.      The hilt is what is termed a "disc hilt" from the prominent disc-shaped flange surrounding the pommel. The silver gilded copper flange serves as the mounting a 4cm rounded piece of lapis lazuli on the tip of the pommel. The flange has a ring in it that holds a 20cm (dried out, aged, and fraying) loop of red silk. The rest of the hilt is iron that has been covered with hard blue enamel and gold wire. The tang of the blade is fastened by pins through the blade and hilt to form the grip. Two brass quillons form a simple cross guard.      Instead of being worn upright (hilt-high) on the waist, the blade is worn horizontally, with the hilt and tip pointing up. It was normally used for slashing unarmored opponents either on foot or mounted. While the tip can be used for thrusting, the curvature of the blade makes accuracy difficult. This requires a very secure and rather inflexible hold on the weapon, enforcing the use of variations on the very effective "draw cut".      The blade is made from Wootz steel, a steel characterized by a pattern of bands or sheets of micro carbides within a tempered martensite or pearlite matrix  developed in India around 300 BC. Wootz steel was widely exported and traded throughout ancient Europe and the Arab world, and became particularly famous in the Middle East, where it was known as Damascus steel and was later traced to workshops in western India. The techniques for its making died out around 1700 AD. Oral tradition in India maintains that a small piece of either white or black hematite (or old wootz) had to be included in each melt, and that a minimum of these elements must be present in the steel for the proper segregation of the micro carbides to take place.

 

•   four rings were worn by the mummy; Lotta took them. One was worn on the mummy's thumb; another had a ruby set into it.

 

     Underneath the mummy were several lumpy bags:

 

• contained chunks of whitish ore or minerals; not gold, silver or bauxite

• contained cinnabar ore

• contained taels of some whitish metal

 

     DeLacy and Ivanov went back to check on Nora, Qua Lin, and Bill Davis; the trip took about half-an-hour. It turned out all the fighting near the cave entrance caused an avalanche (outside) and collapse (inside near the entrance). Nora was partially buried -- we dug her out -- but it was clear that We Would Need To Find Another Way Out. Nora said that "Europeans" were fighting the Young Pioneers. The Europeans wore snow camouflage smocks, and had at least one belt-fed machine gun.

     Meanwhile, Lotta and Fury searched the two other chambers near the main tomb. Those chambers also contains sarcophagii, but less elaborate than the main one.

 

• white marble sarcophagus:  female mummy, hematite mask, ceremonial dagger, robes

• black basalt sarcophagus:  male mummy, less notable mask, riding crop, big black pearl ring, robes

 

     The two lesser mummies seemed to be closely related. Also found in those chambers were a cradle, two nomad saddles without stirrups, 27 pottery jars (some filled with the remnants of evaporated oils), three big rotted documents, and more bags:

 

• contained dangerous stuff we didn't want

• contained coins

• contained cinnabar ore

 

     Our Heroes had already noticed that the wall behind the main sarcophagus was somewhat suspicious; and in fact only a minute of searching found the 'trick' to the secret door. Behind the door were the long-rotted remains and tools of seven dead workmen -- their throats had been slit, no doubt to preserve the secrets of this tomb. A further masonry wall was easily demolished, revealing a passage, semi-natural but obviously prepared and used in the creation of Tamerlane's Tomb. There are the remains of old sconces along the passage; Our Heroes fashioned a few torches from old bits of wood and rotted silk, and set forth.

     The trip was long and tiring -- and at one point an ancient crossbow trap was triggered -- but eventually, near the end of the day, we emerged on a small flat area, on the side of the mountain 14,000' above sea level (thus 3,000' above the frozen lake). The tomb had been at 19,000' above sea level, so the secret passage represents quite an easier method of ascent or descent! We were on the northern side of the mountain, so we made a camp for the night and ate the last of our food.

     During the night, we saw actinic bluish lights moving about on the slopes, over a mile away.

 

Saturday, March 23, 1935

 

     The shadow of Tengri Khan stretched into the west as the sun rose; as Our Heroes exhaustedly packed up the tents, they heard the droning of multiple aircraft engines. The planes themselves were not seen; but another camp was visible off where the bright lights had been seen the night before. We moved off that way, hoping to find food there.

     It took the party about an hour to reach the other camp; it consisted of five tents, one of them flying a triangular banner:

 

 

 

     We found seven bodies in and around the tents; all had been slain in various ways -- rending, shooting, throat-cutting -- at least several days ago. Two of the bodies were women; one of the women wore a snow-camouflage parka with several odd patches attached, including one that said, "U.S. ARMY". The food supplies and weapons had been taken, but there were two Primus stoves and fuel for them. One of the bodies carried papers for Professor Lem; DeLacy had never met this universe's Lem, so it wasn't certain that the body was that of the evasive academic.

    Among the remaining supplies was a metal case, weighing about 30 pounds, with a torn braided cable leading out of it. Elsewhere in the camp we found a sort of clarinet/pistol thingie, with the other end of the torn cable. The case and clarinet/pistol were apparently hundreds of years old; our tentative translation of writing on the case was "for cleansing of hellish places".

     DeLacy put Ivanov to work digging graves while the camp and bodies were searched. After a short burial, Our Heroes scanned the area with binoculars for signs of trouble -- sure enough, about 1000 yards away were three yeti, striding smoothly across the mountainside. Two of the yeti were carrying human bodies (alive or dead, we could not tell), while the other had a long piece of pipe over its shoulder.

     Concerned that the yeti might be carrying off Bill Davis and Qua Lin, we opened fire. In response, the two burdened yeti moved more quickly, while the third yeti fired some sort of odd explosive balls at us with his shoulder-pipe. They quickly vanished around a ridge ...

    Our Heroes set off after them; by the end of the day, we were more or less 5000' directly below the entrance to Tamerlane's Tomb. In the remains of the avalanche, we found the bodies of  three Young Pioneer leaders; two smothered by snow burial, and one gun-shot. We camped again, desperately hungry.

 

Sunday, March 24, 1935

 

     Before dawn, Our Heroes could see more of the strange blue lights moving in the distance, many miles away on another mountain.

     Continuing our descent, weak from hunger, we came upon another devastated camp, this one apparently set up by Germans. There were a couple of scoped rifles, various submachineguns and pistols, cigarettes, kerosene fuel, and -- thank goodness -- food! We fell ravenously on the erbswurst, canned bread, and canned meat.

     After we had sated our hunger, we searched the tents more thoroughly. There was a field radio and crank-generator set; Nora set it up, Ivanov cranked, and we listened for signals -- but heard nothing but a briefly-repeated call of "WXR".  (So maybe QXR? or another equivalent European aeronautical code of the period?)

     If those are station call letters, a character with experience in radio operation would know that "WX" prefixes are assigned to the U.S. Army in this period.

     The dead Germans had been killed with edged weapons and some sort of energy blasts.

     Leaving this camp, Our Heroes made it down to the frozen Merzbacher Lake and to our own base camp. As the sun set, Qua Lin and Bill Davis appeared, walking from the nearby Young Pioneer base camp! We all had many questions for each other, but exhaustion set in, and we quickly fell asleep, barely able to set watches.

 

Monday, March 25, 1935

 

     As we ate our breakfast, Bill Davis and Qua Lin told the incredible story of their plummet thousands of feet down the side of Tengri Khan. They also mentioned seeing a sort of castle or walled compound on the side of Tengri Khan.

     DeLacy examined the ivory (well, bone) tube taken from Tamerlane's hands -- it contained a key-shaped piece of jade, embedded in wax. Davis and DeLacy walked over to the Soviet camp for a visit and chat. The Young Pioneers were entirely dubious about any such thing as the yeti ... "ha, ha, ha, you are just seeing things." Lotta listens in on the frequency which the German radio had been set to; a voice is heard in some language unknown to any of us.

     A pair of Soviet biplanes, probably Il-15 fighters, are seen flying over the glacier towards Tengri Khan.

 

Tuesday, March 26, 1935

 

     Inspecting our aircraft, we realized there might be some water in the fuel tanks. Whether a minor sabotage, or some unfortunate maintenance issue, we decided to pump and filter the fuel, and generally give the planes a good going-over.

     We noticed that the Young Pioneers had taken down their camp and departed.

     In the afternoon, Nora and DeLacy took off in one of the planes and flew towards the triangular fort or walled compound on Tomur Feng, described by Davis and Qua Lin. It's at an altitude of 17,500', and butted up against a cliff rising at least a thousand feet higher; DeLacy took some (not very useful) photographs. A few miles from the fort was a crashed airplane, with no markings; it was a modern-looking twin-engine craft, and seemed to have had a relatively non-catastrophic crash (though it'll never fly again). Nora and the major returned and described their experience.

 

Wednesday, March 27, 1935

 

     After dawn, Our Heroes took off in the two Heinkel Blitz aircraft; before leaving the area, we flew again around Tomur Feng, and spotted a crashed spear-shaped aircraft at about 24,000' altitude (only a few hundred feet below the top). The plane may have been one of Boulle's long-range high-speed aircraft we had seen before.

     Elsewhere on Tomur Feng, there was a small plateau, with signs of life:  tents, supplies and four strange vehicles, probably aircraft. Perhaps they use the same contra-gravitational technology as flapters?

     Winging our way over the mountains, we flew the entire distance to Karachi -- DeLacy was desperate to report his finds. We landed, handed over the aircraft to the mechanics for maintenance, and flung ourselves into the modern comforts of the Hotel Metropole, on Club Road.

 

Thursday, March 28, 1935

 

     Nora Cullin and Major DeLacy typed up a report, and visited the offices of DeLacy's agency to present the report. DeLacy asked if perhaps some better aerial photographs of Tengri Khan and Tomur Feng could be taken; the representative offered the services of a Royal Navy petty officer -- an eager amateur photographer.

     Fortunately, before any flight planning with the petty officer commenced, it was mentioned to DeLacy that the RAF regularly conducted aerial reconnaissance over Afghanistan (and probably Sinkiang and the Soviet Union, a bit). Thus proper photo-reconnaissance aircraft from a local RAF squadron were prepared for a flight the next day.

     In other news, Our Heroes were recovering from their trip to Tengri Khan. Ivanov visited the Fury's Fate in the harbor, and (after smacking the crew around a bit) set to cleaning the galley and heads.

 

Friday, March 29, 1935

 

     Just after dawn, two Westland Wallace aircraft lifted off from the airfield and flew to Peshawar; the landed there briefly to refuel, and then continued over Sinkiang to Tengri Khan and took many photographs.

     Meanwhile, Lotta and Fury had finally sorted out and categorized the many coins, taels, and lumps of ore found in Tamerlane's Tomb. These included rubidium and rhodium, apparently isolated hundreds of years before their historically-noted discovery. Fury's identification of rhodium and rubidium required access to a chemical laboratory, and a fair amount of care -- rubidium reacts eagerly with water or air.

    

The maiden voyage of the SS Normandie began today.

 

Saturday, March 30, 1935

 

     After breakfast, Major DeLacy visited the observation squadron and was shown the photographs taken of Tengi Khan and Tomur Feng. The triangular citadel was clearly seen. He took some copies of the photographs back to show the other members of the party.

 

map created from RAF aerial photography of 29 March 1935

 

Sunday, March 31 to Wednesday, April 3, 1935

 

     A few more aerial reconnaissance flights were made by the RAF. Our Heroes took their experience checks.

 

April 2, 1935:  Robert Watson-Watt receives a British patent for radar.

 

Thursday, April 4, 1935

 

     Interested in looking at Tomur Feng with all possible outré goggles, psychics, etc., Major DeLacy arranged for himself, Nora Cullin, and Bill Davis to fly in the observer seats of two RAF Wallace aircraft, flying over the mountain. The long, slow flight to the mountain was uneventful, and they look down upon the crashed spear-wing plane -- it was lying only a couple of miles (as the crow flies) from a strange "blob of light" visible through DeLacy's goggles.

     Alas, the engine of the plane carrying Bill Davis suddenly stops, and the airplane crashes nearly immediately into the side of Tomur Feng, less than 500' feet from the peak -- thus more than 23,000' above sea level! The other plane flew slowly by, and could see Mr. Davis waving; DeLacy and Nora threw down spare oxygen bottles and emergency supplies.

     Late in the day, the remaining plane returned to Karachi, and Our Heroes immediately planned to drop supplies -- and themselves -- to Mr. Davis the next day.

 

Friday, April 5, 1935

 

     As Our Heroes prepared for their record-setting parachute jump, Qua Lin revealed that she'd had a dream that night. In the dream, Bill Davis told her that he was okay, but the pilot had been seriously injured in the crash. Four of the RAF Wallace aircraft took off, carrying Our Heroes and supplies to be dropped by parachute.

     Over the peak of Tomur Feng, the supplies and parachutists were dropped onto the small flat area that Davis and the RAF pilot were sheltered on. Ivanov was slightly injured in the landing, breaking several ribs; but otherwise it was remarkably successful.

     Among the equipment are 6 pound tanks of oxygen; each will support a man for about a day of strenuous activity near the peak of Tomur Feng. The equipment dropped by the Wallace aircraft include quite a bit more food, stove fuel and oxygen than can be carried by Our Heroes.

     While most of the party went to work unpacking and sorting out equipment for the descent, Qua Lin tended to the injured RAF pilot. Most seriously, both of his legs were broken in the crash. In the makeshift tent that Bill Davis had set up to shelter the stranded pair during the night, she set to work ...

 

on to Violence on Victory Peak