Re: Cairo III
Before they left they made sure the guards were dead. Fearing what they might find, they ensured most of their party remained outside for this lest they be shocked or unnerved by what such an examination might reveal. And they were right. As suspected, these were not simply cultists wearing masks, but instead some kind of unholy fusion of the actual head of an animal to the body of a man. It was impossible to say if this was the result of science or magic, or something else.
They dragged the bodies of the hideous guards out of sight down a dark side corridor and cleaned up the blood in cells as best they could. Still, the wet floors might be a giveaway!
It was a long and arduous trek to the side corridor they had turned on to this main corridor, then all the way back to their starting point. Although because they were backtracking and had a route marked on the map, far faster than the trip in.
When they got back to the entrance, they signalled for the "stay-behind" party to come help. The prisoners were all spirited away by Alexander's men to safe houses that had been pre-arranged.
All told, the round trip back to the start cost them about an hour, considering there were a few false turns and pauses to let noises of movement ahead subside. From Agatha's dream-journal and Dr. Khafour's information about what to expect from the ritual ceremony of the Black Brotherhood they probably had not progressed to the part where the sacrifices would be needed. Which would be good as their disappearance and the killing of the guards would certainly be cause for alarm!
Eventually, they came back to the central-seeming wide corridor. To the right were the cells where they freed the prisoners from. Hopefully their actions had not been discovered yet. There was only one way forward: turn left, then proceed down the main corridor towards the underground temple where the ceremony was to take place.
After ten minutes or so they were nearing the location marked on the dream-map that was the sacrificial chamber. All three of the Count, Cynthia and Chi-Yin heard sounds of several men coming towards them at a slow pace. Thankfully, the corridor was twisty enough that they were not in sight, yet, but soon would be. There were shadowed side corridors they could duck down, allowing them to hide and the oncoming group pass them by. Or they could try to brazen it out, but while they had about a half-dozen cultist robes and ankh symbols, there were not enough for everyone. Plus, they were lugging around a Lewis machinegun plus ammunition. Along with satchels and cases of explosives like grenades and Dynamite!
A final consideration would be if this group was going to fetch the prisoners to bring them back to be sacrificed, they would soon discover the prisoners gone and guards missing and raise the alarm. But there wasn't much they could do about that. This gave them about fifteen minutes to find some way to cause as much damage as possible to stop the ceremony and (presumably) kill as many attendees as possible.
This message was last updated by the GM at 23:40, Wed 15 Nov 2023.