OOC: Jake, that is an accurate understanding of the investigators’ current location and situation.

I’ll just note that

I understand this refers to the east-west tunnel at the top of the picture.

OOC: Yes, it does.

OOC: I think Arthur will, in fact, step back as Jake urges, and will help to move everyone else back as well.

Sully turns and retreats several paces down the side tunnel.

The shadows seem to eagerly envelop the investigators, the absence of any light source making the darkness that they retreat into almost total. From somewhere behind them, a lone drip of moisture onto stone is the only sound to break the silence.

Ahead, the group of men see two figures, the gangsters they heard conversing, cross in front of the opening to the dry east-west tunnel. One bears a lantern, a shotgun propped on his shoulder. The other wrestles a dolly along, laden with a stack of three crates. As the pair continue eastward, the whistling that had alerted the investigators to their presence resumes, fading into quiet as the two continue their trek. In a short time, there is only quiet within the dank passageways.

OOC: For additional clarification, the information provided by Victoria Surrette indicates that within the abandoned east-west tunnel that lies north of the investigators’ position, there should be a connection to the basement of the Bishop residence. Of course, that may not be the only feature within the tunnel, if the Bishop family has made changes to the underground over the intervening years.

"I'll be damned," whispers Sully, "I was right. There are smugglers."

"These at least were only moving hard liquor, not bodies," he said, recalling their true purpose here.

"I'll be damned. Don't I owe someone money for that?" Arthur looked around at everyone.

He cleared his throat quietly and said, "Anyways, we should go on."

Emerging into the abandoned sewer tunnel, the investigators immediately notice, a few paces west on the passage’s northern wall, an opening into a narrow, brick walled passageway. Based on its position, the men surmise that the passage likely connects to the Bishop home. It is dark and unlit.

Further west down the tunnel, the investigators can see two additional openings in the tunnel, one on the southern wall and another on the northern wall. Unlike the connection to the Bishop residence, both are more crude, the passageways they connect to having earthen walls, the bricks in the walls having been roughly cleared from the apertures, as though they were broken down to make way for digging. Some of the bricks still litter the floor.

The tunnel remains quiet. The investigators do not hear or see any signs of someone approaching.

OOC: Later this evening, I will post a map to clarify the positions of each branch in the tunnel.

Jake risks a quick peek down the dark tunnel leading, they hope, to the Bishop house, clicking his flashlight on for no more than a few seconds and shining the beam as far down the narrow tunnel as it will penetrate.

"We would have been quiet anyway," he hisses to the others as he passes out their various shotguns and rifles, "but them rum runners'll shoot us full of holes if they find us down here. So extra cautious from now on."

He clicks off the torch and steps gingerly into the open maw of the side tunnel, feeling his way slowly based on his first glimpse. When they have gone far enough, 30 feet or more, he'll turn on the flashlight again.

Sully retrieved his shotgun from Jake’s sack and loaded it. As they start to file into the tunnel that should lead to the Bishop house, he takes a few steps farther down the main tunnel, looking for tracks from the dolly the hoodlums were pushing. Did they seem to emerge from one of those crude side tunnels or beyond?

Well, if it ain't obvious, Sully doesn't see it: Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 93 for Spot Hidden 50 or Track 10. 

By the time Sully’s finished snooping, the others have disappeared down the tunnel and Jake’s light is a mere glow. He hurries to catch up.

Although Sully isn’t able to make out the fine details of the gangsters’ tracks, it is plain that the two men haven’t gone to any trouble to conceal their movements, suggesting that they don’t suspect that anyone might attempt to follow their route. Traces of tracks from the wheels of the dolly inform the reporter that the smugglers came from the western end of the tunnel, likely reaching it by way of one of the connecting sewer passages further in that direction.

Peering down the passage which leads toward the Bishop residence, Jake is able to see that the corridor extends for roughly thirty feet before opening into a room, which is entirely dark. From where he stands, Jake cannot make out fine details within the chamber, but he can see that there are three large heaps lying on the concrete floor, a short distance from the room’s entrance. The detective does not see any movement ahead, nor does he hear sounds of any activity.

Despite being interested in the rough tunnel openings in the main sewer line, Jake moves forward to examine the room which is approximately under the Bishop mansion. Now that they are well away from the main sewer line and the transportation of illegal goods, he risks the beam of his flashlight to illuminate the three mounds on the floor of the chamber ahead of them. He stands in the tunnel, not yet entering the open space, shining his light around.

OOC: Jake, and anyone who’s ventured down the corridor with him, please give me a Spot Hidden roll.

Jake squinted in the darkness, unable to make out much in the gloom

Although he was, himself, interested in the other exits from the line, Arthur followed along, keeping an apparently rather sharp eye out (or, well, it was sharp on this occasion). It seemed his time as a photographer had paid off, in this instance.

OOC: "17:36, Today: Arthur G. Flatt rolled 14 using 1d100.  spot hidden (50)."

From his place at the end of the file, Sully can't see much of the room ahead. Besides, he keeps looking over his shoulder to peer fruitlessly into the darkness behind them.

Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 51 for Spot Hidden 50.

The light from Jake’s flashlight reveals enough for the investigators to see that the mounds appear to be piles of discarded clothing. All are stained and most appear to be old, though there are a few newer garments amongst the piles. An unpleasant, musty smell permeates the still air of the room.

Arthur had seen it. He was dead certain. He caught it, and he couldn't ignore it.

"Th-there's something underneath. Jake, there's something under the clothes."

Jake moves forward and delivers a heavy blow to the nearest pile of clothes with his crowbar.

At the talk of being shot full of holes, Professor Wells suddenly found it difficult to focus on the task at hand. What was he doing here with these people? His province was academics, research, and instruction. This wasn't the sort of field work he'd found himself doing. Certainnly, in his younger years, he had traveled to parts abroad where danger was a bit more common, but simply being here at home didn't spare one from dangers. He was in underground tunnels with bootleggers and mobsters looking for someone doing unpleasant things with the dead and who might not object to taking more dangerous methods with the living.

"Probably not rum," he muttered under his breath as they walked along. "More like to be whiskey." He could use a nip about now. "Gin, maybe."

He held the weapon given him fearfully. Fearful of using it, as if afraid of the thing itself, or perhaps simply his own ineptitude with it. He knew not what drove him to press on beside a curiosity that very nearly overcame all reason and sense of self preservation, to learn what was afoot here.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:23, Tue 20 Sept 2022.

As the professor came to a halt, Sully jostled past him in the narrow tunnel. He came up close behind Arthur, his shotgun pointed at the ceiling. He craned to see past Arthur into the room illuminated only by Jake's flash.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:49, Fri 23 Sept 2022.

As Jake advances into the room, he can see that there is a fourth pile of clothing a short distance from the three the investigators first saw. On closer examination, all of the clothing appears to be of a formal nature, the kind of garments, the detective realizes, that most would be buried in. A number of the clothes are smeared with dirt and dust.

There are two exits from the room that Morris can see, corridors that lead away from the dank chamber to the east and west. The eastern corridor is short and leads into a large, rectangular room that holds a number of dusty crates and boxes. A wooden staircase in that room’s center leads up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. The western passage stretches away into darkness.

Bringing the crowbar down on the pile of clothes Arthur pointed out, Jake feels the blow connect with something solid underneath the collected garments. Something roughly the size of a human adult.

08:28, Today: The Keeper rolled 2 using 1d8-1.  Damage - Crowbar.

Whatever is impacted by the swing does not give any vocal reaction, but the impact prompts it to move more quickly, and it stands, the clothing that concealed it falling away as it does so. At the same time, similar figures rise from beneath the three other piles. Jake, and his fellow investigators, can see that the awakened are all dead men, portions of their bodies rotted down to the bone, but somehow animated and aware. None of the corpses make any sound, but as they move toward Jake, it is plain that their intentions are murderous.

OOC: As the investigators have already had to face the reality of the restless dead previously, there’s no additional sanity impact from encountering them again.

All the investigators possess higher dexterity scores than the four zombies, so everyone may act before the dead take their turn.

Fearfully, the Professor circled around the room. He knew that his aim with this bloody thing wouldn't be good as he had no experience with such things aside from a trip he had been on one with his uncles - and he had no desire to shoot any of the living. In fact, he hesitated to pull the trigger at all, but somehow, the fear crept up his body until it suffused every cell he was certain, and he felt his finger begin to depress the trigger as he did his best to brace his frame for the recoil.

OOC:

10:13, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 87 using 1d100.  Shooting (only if he can find a shot without anyone in front of him).