A Hand of Bridge with the Gloating Overlord!

The Drowned Man was weak, alone and de-moralised.

But as the Psychonautical survivors of the Royal Society can testify, the Gloating Overlord requires more occult conditions for Psychic Invasion.

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I am a well-bred son of Surrey stock, sound in mind, spirit, shoulder and calf. And yet my duty to the Queen has dragged to me the most intolerable cesspits of Indigenous squalor. I speak not off Calcutta, Khartoum or Shanghai... but those unmapped zones beyond which most white men have yet to venture.

Places where physical and mental torment compels the Noble Explorer to imbibe the Sweet Poppy for his very survival: the accursed cities of Xinhua, Ttxechocalan and Salford.

The Scum of Media City!

I am not proud of what I have ingested in Defence of Her Majesty’s Honour (in truth there are few Imperial Officers alive who have consumed as much Heathen Horse), but I do not regret my selfless sacrifice. It has caused deleterious effects upon my spin-bowling, marksmanship and (as Abigail can testify) marital relations; but nevertheless as a good soldier I must make the best of my hand and toss down the high Spade with a wink and a smile.

 

A Metaphor

Unfortunately my best Spade was woefully trumped by the Astral Hand of the Gloating Overlord.

 

Enough with these endless Bridge Metaphors you splutter..!

Well in Plain English, the Monsters that lurk beyond the Abysmal Plain can only enter our dimension through the psychic dreams of the Opiated Sleeper...

Is that clear enough for your slack wits!! Forgive my lack of patience, but having to continually re-organise my atoms after mental agitation gives me Welsh Temper

------------- So....to return -----------------

The scheming Trickster who manipulates those Abysmal Terrors (with the slick charm of a Hebrew Banker) needs more than just Poppy to gain entrance to our Queens Realm...

As subsequent investigations of the Royal Society’s Psychonautical Supper Club have discovered, the Gloating Overlord is an entity that thrives on pain and death. It seeks agents in the various dimensions it infiltrates, and these agents must smooth its transgression through the violent sacrifice of innocents. 

So, you retort.. the Monster would seek some Turk, Hun or Spaniard for its bidding...

Nay, here the plot thickens... The Overlord seeks not wilful massacre by Psychopathic Mongol, but something more terrible...

...what ancient legend calls the “The Angel of Death”... One whose very presence brings misfortune upon the innocent.

What on earth does this superstitious nonsense have to do with The Helmeted Hero of Helmand...?   

Well, sit quietly and listen my friend, and I will recount my tragic history...