Pierce nods,also wanting to know the answer to that question ”are you some kind of shapeshifter then?
"What I am, dear boy, is yet another of the Laundry's pet monsters," Leo said simply. "Collecting things like me from the wild is still more effective than trying to make facsimiles. Now do have a seat, there is much we have to cover before I feel comfortable introducing you to my associates."
Over the next couple of hours and after a bit of the usual spycraft paranoia, Leo fills the others in on the current situation in Prague...
"as much chaos a Loose golem would bring, it'd be even more effective if it were controlled and productively attacking targets we wanted..... especially considering the danger to secrecy a loose golem would represent
"The Nazis have also been collecting bodies - why, I do not know. This plan of the road, though, I do not mind. No civilians nearby, few guards."
Now that information has been shared, you head back to Gabčík and Kubiš' hideout, to whom you are soon introduced.
"Glad to see we're getting some assistance. Heydrich'll be a tough nut to crack. Come, I'll show you the spot."
Riding on your bycicles, you head upstream on the Moldava river, until the city gives way to dark woods. Among the woods is the road that, according to your intel, Heydrich will take whenever he heads to Prague.
"We heard that the Hangman will act as his name suggests, and watch over the hangings on the fifteenth." says Gabčík, holding a length of steel wire. "We thought about drawing this cable to stop the car, then fire at him until he dies. Plan B, we have a modified anti-tank mine that should make short work of the car. Plan C, we try to shoot him whenever we can, but we'll be likely dead if it comes to that."
The spot is a quiet place, silence only broken by a babbling brook, chirping nightingales and cawing ravens. There are many trees that would be appropriate for the deed, and with some craftsmanship you could rig some explosive devices, either from the agents' mine or your own grenades. However, should the plan fail, Heydrich would be on high alert and any subsequent attempt will be far harder.
There is another, riskier plan that comes to your mind: there can't be too many places at the end of this road: if you could identify Heydrich's HQ you could assault it. It's sure to be heavily defended, but it's also somewhere you could go on an all-out rampage, especially if you managed to secure the Golem from Elias, without worrying about witnesses being exposed to magic.
Or, of course, you could ambush him in Prague. There is sure to be heavy security, but a well-aimed bullet in the main square will certainly make for a bold statement. Getting out, however, would be hell.
”unless his vehicle is insanely fortified, I am almost certain we can get him to stop, whether it’s by wire, bomb or by my shooting out his tires at a distance.
"It would be better to shoot the engine block. Vehicles can still move with a flat tire," L says flatly.
"Hmm, we are a small group attacking a much larger force. If I may make a suggestion friends, chaos is our strongest ally," Leo said, his horrible grin splitting his face. "We should strike in two places at once. The explosives only require a small team. Say one specialist and two men with rifles to cover a getaway. With some support from our Jewish friends, another team can hit the headquarters. If the assassination fails, le boucher will be loathe to return to a siege to lick his wounds. If it succeeds, the confusion will make it easier for us to escape."
"I don't know if it's really wise to split the party--I mean, the team," Sam says. "But, this isn't my specialty. My experience with this kind of work is dark hotels and back alleys, not explosions and sieges."
'I can be useful in any of the presented plans."
"I can do subtle, as you've seen. Did you have something in mind?" Leo turned his grin down a few notches when he shifted his regard to Sam. No one person should have to bear the full brunt of that grin for too long.
"It would be better to shoot the engine block. Vehicles can still move with a flat tire," L says flatly.
Pierce nods ”I have a selection of piercing rounds and can induce a kinetic detonation upon impact, so stopping the car shouldn’t be an issue unless there are several vehicles to deal with as the others talk about a siege he grunts ”and there inlies my strategic weakness to the team. I do not have a rapid rate of fire, I am at my strongest when The number of my opponts are relatively small, so I’d be best on the road attack. Is there any spots by the road with any cover? I’m not picky about what kind. Hill, distant ditch, tree, log, whatever we can find
"I will recommend that this anti-tank mine, it should be plan 'A'. Heydrich, he has not survived this long dabbling in profane sciences by being easy to kill. Sudden and overwhelming force is our best option." Tomasz looks up and down the road. "The car, blow it up. Any survivors, shoot them as they stumble out.This golem, bring it and stow it in the treeline to deal with surprises. I have little faith that something like bullets, even your explosive ones, will kill this man or that he will not have something prepared to blight his murderers."
"Golem?" says Kubiš, looking at you. "The underground resistance movement? I don't know if they'll manage to help, this should be subtle, but if they have any firebrand who's good with bombs it could be nice."
"No point in placing the mine now. The trigger is modified to be more sensitive than usual, so an animal could detonate it. We'll come back on the fifteenth at dawn and ready the ambush."
During the next couple of days, you get familiar with Prague and scout the occupation troops. There are no Ahnenerbe soldiers to be found, as could be expected given their rarity, but still there are many companies of mundane footsoldiers garrisoning the city.
You do chance across an interesting rumour, however: Heydrich, a talented violinist, will be hosting a concert at Wallenstein Palace after the mass hanging on the fifteenth.
A burst of cough and a sharp chest pain end the dream and wake you up.
L attempts to gather a bit more information on this Heydrich fellow (like when he will arrive in Prague, where he will be staying, etc..).
"We have a complication," Leo says as soon as he is alone with his fellow occult operatives. "My contact with the jewish underground says our would-be golem master has gone rogue. We need to bring him back into the fold."
The french monster was clearly agitated. With no mundane observers for him to restrain himself around, the flesh of his face seemed to ripple and crawl when not kept under scrutiny. His disturbing countenance was more dramatically defined as well, the scars deeper, the asymmetries more contrasting. He certainly still looked more human but only just.
"By gone rogue, you mean he will be attacking Heydrich or he will simply be killing as many of the Nazis as possible?" Tomasz asks. "Because the golem, it is useful but it is a backup plan. If he should alert Heydrich we are here, though..."
"That is unknown, he had been silent for a while but the rabbi has found him again and intimated that the young man in question was... unwell. He is hiding in a disused section of the Opera House. Regardless, if we wish to have his golem at our disposal we need to speak with him."
"The opera house? Very well then, we should do this quickly."
The State Opera, now renamed German Opera House, is an imposing, neoclassic building. Before the occupation the New German Theatre group offered shelter to fleeing artists, but now is nothing more than a place of propaganda, political assemblies and Wagner performances.
Picking the lock of a side door is simple enough, and as you slip inside you notice that the place is innaturally empty. The familiar tingling in your head, together with a short-lived wave of nausea, are more indicators that something is amiss.
You move through the deserted corridors, passing dressing rooms and scene items deposits, without finding any trace of a human being. The door from the dressing rooms to the stage is open and the blood-red curtain is drawn.
L creeps along through the corridors and stops, peeking onto the backstage area.
There isn't anything of interest in the backstage, just a few props and scripts. The part of the stage that you can see before the curtain is empty as well.
Sam moves to check the dressing room. "There was nothing else about how this golemancer wasn't himself?"
"He is in the same business as you and he is suddenly 'not himself.' Seems rather straight forward to me. He certainly threw up a powerful ward," Leo noted, closing his eyes and breathing slowly as he turned senses he never really bothered to explore upon the room and felt for the flow of energies.
"Hm. A ward, you say? It is not for the feint of mind, golemancy - any homunculus would require precise bindings if you do not want to risk disaster."
Tomasz moves off to the side, pulling the edge of the curtain aside to get a glimpse into the theatre seats.
L begins searching for another exit/entrance to the theatre seating.
L can't quite manage to find another way to the gallery. It's likely that there is one somewhere, but the corridors are labyrinthine and the lighting is awful.
Behind the Curtain, Tomasz can see that a couple of stage lights are on, pointing at the stage, and there are people sitting in the front rows. It's hard to say against the light, but they don't appear to be moving.
Leo gestures for the others to wait for a moment before his appearance ripples, flesh folding and shaping itself into another's. Soon and older gentleman stands in his place, seeming wise, fatherly, and weighed down by years of responsibility. Carefully, he picks his way out and away from the others, slipping through the curtains to stand exposed and alone.
"Elias! Are you in here, my boy? Please, it is not too late. Let us help you."
While Leo makes his way out onto the stage, Tomasz draws his pistol from his holster but otherwise stays watching from behind the curtain.
The stage light goes into Leo's eyes, but he manages to get a good look at the gallery, which is filled by more than a hundred corpses, their deathly stillness unquestionable. Most of them are dressed in rags.
The only other lit area is on the balcony, where a young man was waiting. As he turns to address Leo, you notice that his eyes are covered by a black velvet blindfold. He has wiry, unruly hair, is dressed in a black suit, and there is some unnatural sharpness in his lineaments.
"Father?" he calls out in Czech, apparently surprised. "Isn't this a surprise, I wouldn't think you'd have the strength to come here yourself. Have I finally got through? Did you come here to join in my triumph? It was not easy, but Loew's creation is finally done, and this time it shall not stop until our people are finally safe from all of there pogroms."
His heads tilts to the side, as if listening to unheard sounds before continuing, his voice echoing in an otherwordly reverb. "But I sense more of you, bearing a convoluted and deep mark, familiar in substance yet foreign in its form. What sorts of companions did you bring here, Father? Interesting ones, it seems."
The old man's face falls when he seems to realize just what his son has done. "Friends, men and women with gifts. I will not pretend they are here only out of the goodness of their hearts, but we can use them. Now, tell me what you have done here, son. What is the price of our people's safety?"
L will try to navigate the corridors as quickly as he can.
Something is very wrong here... is the boy still there? Or is he... no longer himself?
"Cost?" Elias laughs. "This is a chance! An opportunity to become part of something greater, break out of these mortal shackles! Loew's plan was brilliant, ambitious but tragically limited, as he only wanted to be human. No human could conceivably create the Golem as it should be! So I found help, through the silence, my calling was heard, by one who granted be a power beyond any! The power to crush Germany like a rotten fruit, and Russia beyond that, and anyone who raises their hand against our people!"
He looks down for a moment, his expression indecipherable behind the blindfold. "Not many could deal with the revelation. You recognize them, perhaps, those who followed me? Sara, Daniel, Rachel and Stephan, Ernest and the other Daniel, Karel and old stubborn Zsuzsanna, and some more. Weaklings, all of them, weaker than me. But useful in their devotion and their weakness, they assisted in the first parts of the ritual until their minds rotted. So I found more. Polish vagrants, who had the brilliant idea of setting camp outside the city walls. I swear, if I hadn't come to offer them" he chuckles "shelter, the Gestapo would have dealt with it, and it would have been such a waste. Through numbers more than talent, they served their purpose."
Elias takes a brief pause, again listening to something unheard. "But now that you met my entourage, Father, I'd like to meet yours. Would these men and women with gifts come forward? I'd lift the curtain but I fear the stage technician is dead. Or something quite like dead."
”Very well, but it will not be pleasant,” the old man said, tears staining his cheeks at the sight of what his son had done for the sake of power. Unlike his other transformations, this one was particularly horrible. The old man’s features twisted into a blend of anguish and pain as Leo’s seemed to push them from his face, rippling down from right to left and crushing the old rabbi’s heartbroken countenance into nothingness.
A strangled cry of pain turned into booming laughter as Leo’s monstrous shape became prominent again. There were distinct cracking and popping sounds as his shoulders misaligned themselves and his strange proportions pressed themselves into reality.
”Ah! Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour mon petit frère! Look at you! Look at this!” Leo cackled madly, hands sweeping over the corpses in the theatre. His did a strange little dance in the lights, moving to a song only he could hear, clearly enjoying himself in front of the audience of the dead. ”The irony is so delicious I’ll never need to eat another meal again!”
Sam had taken hold of the curtain, trying to think, but when Leo started up the decision was made for her. "The show must go on, I suppose."
She pulls the curtain aside enough for her to step out. "Well, now, what madness is this?" She snaps her fingers. "This has gone far enough. Take off that blindfold and let me see your face."
Sam also readies an action to Counterspell Elias.
Tomasz steps out through the curtain, his gun still held loosely in his hand pointing at the floor.
"Vae qui dicit ligno 'Expergiscere surge!', lapidi 'Tacenti!' Numquid ipse docere poterit ecce? Iste coopertus est auro et argento; et omnis spiritus non est in visceribus eius. You have made a grave error, child."
He shoots a scathing glance at Leo. "Have some small respect - these poor souls are lost, and this boy with them."
"Ah, but the dead are dead and the boy is more like me than you," Leo chided in return.
"He paid a price too, you know, a gamble as it were. In order to see his son one last time, he bargained with me." The old rabbi's voice came from Leo's lips again.
"My son is not so foolish to turn into the very same sort of monster that grinds his people into the dust in order to fight them. I will show you, stranger."
Leo's own voice returned, "But I know what the price of power was and is. So tell me, boy, are you lost? If making others pay for your power is a small thing, then I suppose your father was wrong and he is mine. What does it matter? Another small price for powerful allies who will help you take bloody vengeance on those that have wronged you. You get to be like me."
Suddenly the humor and cheer dropped out of Leo's voice with the suddenness of an executioner's blade. "Or, you can look at these corpses and the broken hopes your father placed in you and see what you are turning into for the sake of power. A power built on lies, lies to yourself about who you are, lies to the dead about the worth of their lives, and lies from whatever is whispering to you out of the blackness between dreaming and stars. I'd choose quickly as the ranks of monsters like myself has no place for those who look back."
Elias looks shocked at Leo's transformation and sudden change of demeanor. It looks like your words are cutting deep as he stammers trying to articulate a response. "No, this- I did it for the greater good, saving the many through- I only wanted to-"
Suddenly, jerking spasms shake his body as his nervous system is overtaken by the presence he was speaking to. The reverb returns with the next things he says, his head lulling to one side.
"Bonjour et bienvenue, monsieurs et mesdames. Excellently played, I must recognize. To fill the boy with doubt at this point, you weakened his resolve, and took out one of my strongest assets. He was an excellent conduit. Now then, I am the whatever that was whispering out of the blackness between dreaming and stars -beautiful choice of words, by the way- a seeker of knowledge and a humble servant of the Lurker at the Threshold."
You recognize the appelative given to the dark Outer God known as Yog-Sothoth, omniscient divinity of dangerous knowledge, as the creature removes the blindfold, revealing one large iridescent blob where his eyes should be.
"Obviously I shan't tell you my real name, but you may call me Ga'ahar. But who are you, who looked further than most, beyond what mortal eyes generally look? Friends of the young man? Hunters of those who like me whisper in the dark? Or something else entirely? Perhaps our goals are not that different."
"I have been on this earth for too many years to trust the aims of such as you. You feed too greedily. What did you promise him, that you have failed to deliver?" Tomasz says, moving slowly sideways to try and keep Ga'ahar focused on him.
Leo lets Tomasz take the lead now, happy to let a figure of relative authority handle the negotiations with this 'officer' now that he had successfully stripped away the artifice of their engagement. Tomasz, as much as anyone in this room, represented the will of his current masters. Some respect was due.
He did keep his worrying gaze locked on the possessed man. His act was mostly finished for the moment, but he certainly had views about the envoy. Ga'ahar was just another in a chain of lies, it seemed. A pity, he had hoped to encounter something more interesting pulling the strings of this particular tragedy.
"I did not fail to deliver anything. He wanted the knowledge to build a Golem and the power to send it against his enemies, especially that powerful necromancer called Heydrich. I gave him just that, he did not include his own safety in the bargain. He likely thought his wards to be enough to protect me. But what he asked for was given."
From the darkness behind what used to be Elias, a large creature steps into the light. It looks like a well-crafted clay statue of a man, more than eight feet tall and proportionately large.
"An improvement over the original notes of the Rabbi of old, who did not contact any entity from beyond, but just used his meager own spells. Silver is woven in the clay, and servant entities are bound to it. But you still haven't answered my question. I doubt that folks like you would gather together just for this boy. What are you seeking here? And what would you offer in exchange?"
Leo could not help but laugh his unhinged laugh again. "A lie by omission is still a lie. I wonder who is lying to you or if you even know you are being lied to? Ah, the ironies continue." Chuckles burbled up from within for a moment but he crushed it back down.
"Sorry, ignore me."