Session 2: Peru Part 2
Contents
Monday, March 21st, 1921
The group departs on Monday morning as planned. Casey rides with Larkin and discovers through conversation that he is very interested in finding evidence of the treasures that the pyramid holds, supposedly to help find funding for future expeditions. Leonard talks to the locals who are assisting in the expedition and learns that they are glad that de Mendoza is gone and consider Larkin to be a little ridiculous. They drive all day and then make camp for the night.
Tuesday, March 22nd, 1921
Except for some rain, this is another uneventful day of travel.
Wednesday Morning, March 23rd, 1921
On the third day of driving the groups starts heading into the mountains. Eli has some issues with altitude sickness, but they all arrive safely in the town of Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The group heads to a hotel for dinner. Larkin tells Casey where to find the farmers from whom he supposedly bought the gold artifacts that launched this expedition. Because he is clearly lying, Casey uses a disguise to try to follow Larkin to see what he is up to, but is unsuccessful. Jackson’s contacts in the town let him know that the wise woman Nayra has taken shelter in a floating reed house on the lake, so the rest of the group go to meet her.
Before they launch their boats, they notice a teenager and an old woman watching them, so Archie and Eli stay behind to create a distraction. This works, but soon they are joined by de Mendoza, looking none the worse for having been shot a few days earlier. He threatens them, and Archie and Eli return to the restaurant where they find Casey. Meanwhile, Jackson introduces Leonard and Lucas to Nayra, who tells them a legend about the temple they’re seeking: An evil, hungry god fell from the heavens into the lake, and another god, the trickster Ekeko tricked it into an armadillo burrow in pursuit of tasty food. He then piled stones on top of the hole, trapping the evil god underground. Ekeko then told people to build a temple on top of the hole, inlaid with gold, so that it would never be able to escape. Since then, locals have avoided the area. She also tells them about the kharisiri and how there seem to be more of them lately, including some who were following her, but she knew of no connection between the pyramid and the kharisiri.
Everyone regroups at the hotel, shares what they have learned, and goes to bed for the night.
Thursday Morning, March 24th, 1921
The group heads out on foot in the morning. Casey sees a spectacled bear, but otherwise the day is uneventful. That night, Leonard interrupts a ragged-looking kharisiri attacking one of the groups mules and manages to scare it off with his gun, although not before the animal dies. Larkin says it was probably just a wild animal, but no one believes him.
Friday Morning, March 25th, 1921
The group continues their journey. The weather is pouring rain, and then after traveling for a few hours they hear the sound of gunfire ahead. Lucas and Archie run ahead and find two men, one of them with a wounded arm. Archie assists the wounded man, and it turns out the two are father and son, locals who live nearby and were attacked by what sounds like kharisiri. They invite the group back to their home for some food and to get out of the rain, and the invitation is gratefully accepted. After that, the group continues walking until they make camp for the night.
Saturday Morning, March 26th, 1921
The group continues on this morning, although they soon notice that there are two people ahead of them, seemingly headed in the same direction; a man and a woman, traveling light, although strangely bloated looking. Eventually, they come upon a valley with a plateau in the center, and upon the plateau a step pyramid. There is a piping sound on the wind that the group later learns is caused by carved stone faces decorating the pyramid. Leonard watches in horror through his field glasses as the two people ahead of them, scaling the pyramid, proceed to vomit a thick white substance profusely into the roof of the pyramid.
Leonard then confronts Larkin and asks him what his game is. Once again Larkin’s eyes go black and his voice changes; he tells the group to enter the pyramid and remove the gold. He tries to attack Leonard’s mind, but Leonard is unaffected and responds by shooting him. The rest of the group comes to Leonard’s aid, and Larkin is killed when Lucas shoots him in the head, exploding the top of his skull. Before he falls, Larkin laughs and tells the group that he will be seeing them again.
The group reaches the pyramid, finding no obvious entrance but two pits that seem like they might lead inside. One is filled with desiccated corpses, so the group tries the other one. Archie and Jackson stay back to guard the rope the others use to get inside.
The others find a series of tunnels under the pyramid, including the area where the gold plank seems to have been removed from. Lucas burns away the viscous fluid around the gap, as well as whatever was moving inside, and after fleeing the acrid fumes that arise the group returns so that Eli can use his blowtorch to reattach the missing piece of gold. While he is working, the group is attacked by de Mendoza and another kharisiri, but thankfully Eli manages to successfully complete his work. As he does so, the kharisiri both collapse, aging before the group’s eyes until there is nothing left. The group tries to seal the entrance with dynamite, but when they realize they don’t know what they’re doing they decide to simply begin the long journey back to Lima instead.
1925 (Four years later)
The members of the group, having gone their separate ways after the Peru incident, receive a telegram from Jackson Elias asking for their assistance in New York.
