The Painter and Joe Diamond

While Mandy headed to the Police Station in Easttown looking to recruit her Private Eye friend, I went to the nearby Graveyard in Rivertown looking for more clues to the gates and the Ancient One. I did find a clue, but I also met a mysterious man named Richard Upton Pickman who was painting a picture of one of the horrible gargoyles lining the walls of the graveyard. He was a painter visiting from Boston, the same city I left to come here. He said he could sense the growing danger in the city. I told him about our mission to save the town and he offered to teach me an incantation to help fight the evil creatures. He set his paintbrush down, pressed his fingertips together, and mumbled the words "red sign of Shudde M'Ell" and told me to repeat those words to weaken any monsters I encounter. It sounded strange but was worth a shot. He wished me good luck and returned to the painting he wished to finish before the rains came. I realized I had spent more time than I intended in the Graveyard and made my way to the exit.

Mandy had left the Merchant District, crossed Rivertown, and entered the Police Station in Easttown. Before she could find her friend Joe, the elderly Sheriff Engle saw her and asked her to step into his office. Word had spread of her battles with the monsters and he asked if there was anything he could do to help. She knew he was in no physical condition to join the fight, so said she was there to see Joe Diamond. The Sheriff led her to a waiting area and soon Joe came out.

Joe had taken what sounded like a simple job - pick up a statue at the Providence Museum and deliver it to a guy at the Silver Twilight Lodge in Arkham. The money was good and the dame who gave him the job had seemed sincere. Sadly, things never seemed to work out that easily for Joe. Now the statue was missing, two people were dead, strange cultists were on his tail, and all the clues lead to Arkham. He had tried talking to the Sheriff, but that proved to be worse than useless. And now one of his few friends in Arkham had come for him.

Mandy explained what was happening. He agreed to help if she would help keep an eye out for clues to the disappearance of the statue and the case he was trying to solve. She agreed to help... if they lived. In addition to the .18 Derringer that never left his body (even in sleep), he holstered a .45 automatic and grabbed the uneaten dinner he had packed for himself earlier that evening.


While both of us were busy, a gate opened at the nearby Witch House in the French Hill district. A Ghoul had emerged and was now lurking in the French Hill streets. The Nightgaunt at the Independence Square gate now joined the Mi-Go in the skies above Arkham. Conditions were quickly deteriorating in the town and our job was becoming more difficult.

Gates open: 2/8
Monsters in Arkham: 4/4
Monsters in Outskirts: 0/7
Terror Level: 0/10
AO Doom Track: 3/13