"Damn," Sully breathes, his eyes going round. He brings his shotgun up, the barrel extending past Arthur, pointing at the nearest dead man to Jake's right. He pulls one trigger.

Sullivan (Sully) Quinn rolled 92 for Shotgun 25.
And that's how we all died.

Jake dances backward from the rising corpse and squawks in terror at the sudden explosions from right beside him. The two shotgun blasts echo like the crack of doom in the ancient tunnels, and he swears to himself.

No chance the bootleggers failed to hear that!

As more of the horrid things reveal themselves, he tugs his Roscoe free of his shoulder holster, drawing a bead on the skull of the creature closest to him, but not between him and his companions.

Something jostles his aim in the close quarters, however, and his shot flies wide as well.


14:43, Today: Jake Morris rolled 97 using 1d100.  Firearms -- Colt .45 60%.

OOC: I did better with my crowbar!

Seeing the dead rise, again, seeing Jake smack it with his crowbar, and hearing the sudden blasts of gunfire, Arthur did not immediately stand and fight, but began drawing away. He thought that if he stayed in that cramped little space, someone was going to shoot someone, and he couldn't be certain it wouldn't be him.

OOC: My rationale isn't so far off, either.

Gunfire erupts in the small, underground space, the reports of the investigators’ weapons almost deafening as they echo off of the walls. The whine of a ricochet, as Jake’s bullet glances off of stone, cuts through the gloom.

Three of the walking dead men close with the investigators. All move slowly, their pace seemingly limited by their own decaying flesh, the last of their number not yet able to reach the four explorers. The corpses claw at Jake, Sully, and Dr. Wells, their hands made up mostly of yellowed bone. Their attacks are clumsy, none inflicting harm on any of the three men. With their nearness, the walking dead bring the sickening scent of rot.

10:31, Today: The Keeper rolled 36 using 1d100.  Attack - Zombie.

10:31, Today: The Keeper rolled 60 using 1d100.  Attack - Zombie.

10:33, Today: The Keeper rolled 80 using 1d100.  Attack - Zombie.

A couple of tactical considerations:

The zombies are slow, their quickest locomotion a stiff, shuffling walk. It will be easy for any of the investigators to move out of immediate melee range of the dead men. They will, of course, be pursued.

The corridors leading east and west out of the present room are somewhat wide, sufficiently so for two investigators to travel them shoulder to shoulder. The passage that the group entered from is narrow and can only be easily traversed single file.

The investigators may all take their next actions.

"Quick!" Jake urges the others, shining his light in the direction of the room to the right with the steps leading upward. "Let's get up there and put an end to all this."

In his mind, the continued presence of undead things is directly linked to the killings of innocents over the years. And the person responsible for one is responsible for the other. He wants to find and confront Bishop, and he does not need the weight of evidence or the authority of a court to mete out justice.

Any port would do in a storm, and Jake's advice woke him out of a frightful spell that put him in a stupor which would have imperiled at the very least his life and safety. Without much more thought on the matter, he followed Jake's directions. He had sense enough to keep the gun safe, and had no plan on using it again unless at absolute necessity.

Quickly, he followed up the stairs.

Having beaten a hasty retreat back into the main sewer line, Arthur looked back to see with dismay that the only source of light was moving on. He moved into place and started listening for scraping footsteps headed in his direction, hoping that the dead things would follow the group which was, by far, larger.

Sully follows Jake and the Prof up the stairs as fast as he can. If they stop, he turns to train his gun back down the steps.

OOC: Arthur, please provide me with a Luck roll.

OOC: "14:31, Today: Arthur G. Flatt rolled 35 using 1d100.  luck (80)."

Doing his best to orient himself in the deepening gloom, Arthur follows the tunnel wall back into the chamber occupied by the shambling corpses. Sighting the glimmer of Jake Morris’ flashlight, he is able to cross the room to the adjoining chamber with the staircase, only stumbling briefly as his foot finds one of the mounds of grave clothes.

Just as he exits the shadowed room for the room with the stairs, the scent of stale decay assails his nostrils once again, and he feels something swipe through the air behind him, a skeletal claw narrowly missing his back and informing him that the walking dead can indeed see clearly in the darkness.

Arthur rejoins his fellow investigators as they quickly mount the dusty stairs, the wooden steps leading up to an iron door, blotched with rust, which stands closed.

Appearing as if from out of thin air, Arthur urged the others on, saying, "Could someone open that? I think it's about to get cramped behind us, if you understand what I mean!"

He tried to peer into the darkness behind them, hoping that the creatures would only follow them quite slowly.

Jake wields his forged steel skeleton key, also known as a crowbar, applying the business end to the edge of the door in an attempt to pry it open.

Slotting the crowbar into the seam between the door and the brick wall, Jake leans into the tool with all the strength he can muster. The iron portal gives a momentary screech of protest, then pops open, the investigators hurrying into the dark room beyond just as they hear shuffling footsteps on the steps below.

The last one through, Professor Wells pushes the door closed and secures it with a handle operated bolt. Jake shines his flashlight around the gloomy space, relieved to discover that the investigators are alone.

The walls of the room are of mortared brick, several of the individual bricks showing evidence of crumbling, a mute testimony to the age of the construction. In the center of the western wall is a single alcove, which houses a closed wooden door made of unfinished wood.

In the room’s northeast corner, a set of iron rungs which serve as a ladder have been set into the wall, leading up into a dark hole in the ceiling. Some of the rungs have had a recent application of fresh mortar to stabilize them.

The center of the eastern wall is occupied by an archway. Whatever lies beyond it is concealed by a thick black curtain which appears to be fairly new and well cared for.

From the door the investigators entered from come the sounds of slow, persistent scratching.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:56, Thu 06 Oct 2022.

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire," mutters Jake, eying up the alternate routes out of the room they've just locked themselves into.

He steps towards the dark-curtained archway, using the end of the crowbar to slide back part of the curtain and peer beyond.

Sully gets out his own flashlight and shines it up the rungs into the hole above.

Peering up into the shadows, Sully has the impression that the ladder travels upward for a significant distance. The reporter estimates that it reaches Bishop House’s second floor.

Pulling the curtain aside, Jake is confronted with a pair of open doorways, which lead into separate chambers.

The northernmost of the two rooms appears to be of recent construction, its walls made of poured concrete. At a glance, the detective can see that it functions as a small art gallery. The floor is mostly covered by a rich Persian carpet. A single overstuffed chair, upholstered in black leather, is positioned in the room’s center, allowing anyone who sits in it an easy view of the six framed oil paintings which adorn the walls. Although a closer look would be needed to gain a grasp,of each painting’s subject, all appear to be extremely detailed, their subjects disturbing and grotesque.

The southernmost chamber shares the brick walls of the room the investigators entered from the stairs, but the floor is crafted entirely from black marble. Inlaid in the center of the floor, with pale gray marble, is a pentacle bordered by two concentric circles. Between the two circles are a series of strange, arcane symbols.

In the center of the pentacle is positioned an altar crafted from black basalt and draped with a black velvet cloth, upon which is embroidered a monstrous figure. Atop the altar are a pair of silver candlesticks, a brass bowl filled with what appears to be charcoal and incense, a stoppered brass bottle, a black hilted dagger, and an ornate silver chalice decorated with yellowed bone.

Both rooms are unoccupied.

Reporting his surmise about the iron rungs, Sully turns his flashlight on each of the paintings. In addition to taking in the subject matter, he looks for the artist’s signature.

Does it seem like we are in the cellars of the house or somesort of sub'basement?

Now inside the place and surveying the room from behind Jake, Arthur found himself almost unable to believe what he was seeing. his hands wanted to shake, but he did his best to still them as he looked on.

"Good God in Heaven, man."

He started snapping photos, capturing images of the pentagram and the implements on the altar. A part of him wanted to disrupt this profane ritual space, but he was too fearful to step forward to do it. Once his pictures were taken, he stepped backwards, near to the entrance of the room, all the while remaining fixated on the altar.

The weird art gallery and the mystic circle room raise the hair on Jake's neck. He'd understood at some gut level that the presence of zombies was probably associated with weird magic stuff, but now they're treading on the very ground where the evil deeds are done.

Some part of him wants to destroy the paintings and the altarpieces, but he recognizes this urge as just childish. The academics should spend time studying this setup -- once they've dealt with Bishop himself.

And he's already come to the conclusion that they need to destroy Bishop. And whatever is stalking the young people of the area. He suspects that the actual killer is the figure in the top hat, but he's pretty certain he's linked to Bishop and this awful subterranean chapel.

Moving towards the alcove with its plain wooden door, he listens at the door before trying the handle.

"Does anyone have that burlap sack?" the Professor asked out of curiosity. He couldn't help himself, the academic in him, as he moved towards the altar to examine what he might have found there.

OOC:

22:43, Today: Anthony Wells rolled 66 using 1d100.  Anthropology (71).

Venturing into the gallery, Sully can see that the paintings appear to all be the work of the same artist, one who seems gifted in imparting exceptionally lifelike qualities to the images they compose, a capacity that is inescapably disturbing, given the horrific nature of each piece.

The first is a portrait of a loathsome creature, vaguely humanoid in outline with clawed hands and canine features, crouching over a partially dismembered human corpse and feasting upon it. Its blood-smeared features hold what can only be described as demonic glee and appetite.

In the next work, a horde of half-human, canine monsters have crawled up through a hole in the floor of a subway tunnel and are attacking patrons apparently waiting for a night train. The details of the location lead Sully to believe that it is an actual place, not solely the work of the painter’s imagination, thought it does not resemble any of the subway stations Sully has visited in New York.

The next painting, the smallest and most precise of the six oils, is a ghastly composition which portrays a squatting circle of nameless doglike things in a churchyard. The creatures surround a young man who is digging up a grave mound with his bare hands. The young man’s peculiar expression, paired with the vaguely canine caste to his features, are especially unnerving.

In the fourth painting, the most immature work of the collection, an arrogant humanoid with sharp, cruel, canine features holds the hands of an adolescent girl and boy, both in night clothes, as they walk away from a burning home. The young woman is tearful and reluctant, but the young man appears eager for the horrors clearly to come.

The following piece depicts, in dim lamplight, the body of a portly man resting face down, face toward the viewer, sprawled on a counting table. Around him are stacks of treasury notes and bags of coins. His mouth bulges with 20-dollar gold pieces which spill out onto the table. Above him, two humanoid monsters delicately compare fresh human ear with fresh human arm, as if considering cuts in a butcher shop.

In the final painting a terrified man is shown being dragged toward a writhing darkness, within which burns a single red point of illumination. The limb that grasps the frantic victim is strangely formless, its odd proportions somehow suggestive of both a tendril and a claw.

The artist has neatly signed each work in the lower, left hand corner: R. Upton Pickman.

OOC: Sully, I’ll need you to give me a Sanity roll. There’s no loss if you succeed. If you fail, you’ll lose 1d3 sanity points.

After Arthur takes a handful of carefully framed shots, Professor Wells approaches the altar, his attention initially drawn to the embroidered depiction of the creature on the velvet cloth which covers it.



OOC: Both the Professor and Arthur will recognize the symbol from their reading of Cultes des Goules as being a depiction of the Haunter of the Red Abyss, Nyogtha.

Taking in the symbols inlaid on the floor, along with the implements laid on the altar itself, only a few moments are required for Professor Wells to discern what manner of rituals are performed in this dark space and their ultimate, terrible purpose.


Jake finds the door unlocked. Opening it a crack, the detective can see that the room on the other side is unoccupied. The walls are constructed from mortared fieldstone, and much of the floor space is occupied by old wooden caskets, perhaps two dozen in number. One, close to the door, lies open, with several dark green glass bottles sitting inside of it.

On the wall opposite the door Jake is peering through, he can see the opening to what appears to be a steam tunnel, the entrance secured by a set of iron bars.

In the center of the room is a brick staircase, leading up to a dark stained, wooden door, which is closed.

He exchanged glances with Flatt, mouthing the strange word, "Nyogtha" without saying it aloud.

"I've seen things like this before in my examination of several cultures from all parts of the world, and I would guess that this altar is dedicated to necromantic rituals, specifically communicating with and binding the spirits of the dead. These symbols on the floor, they are intended to shield whoever is inside the circle from the power of the evil that is involved in these rituals," he said quietly.

"This vial contains the same powder we found above." He looked at the stairs leading up to what he guessed was the house.

"This place that we now stand in...he didn't make this, at least I don't think he did. Maybe one of his forebears. It stood here long before the house above."

Sully's mouth twitches nervously as he plays the flashlight beam over each painting in turn. His hand trembles as the disturbingly all-too-real and horrific scenes depicted. He'll need to get Arthur to photograph these pictures. He backs out of the room, unwilling to turn his back on these works.

Joining his companions in the other room, its furnishings and decoration are nearly as outre as the gallery. At the Prof's request for the burlap sack, he pulls it from his pocket and proffers it to the academic.

"This place is weird."

Arthur found himself mimicking the professor, his face going white and his eyes glassy. He found that his mouth was salivating in an unpleasant sort of manner. He found himself barely capable of holding on for much longer than it took to take the pictures, and so he fled as the good professor explained, heading to the other room.

In the space between, he briefly let himself hyperventilate, forcing his haggard breath into a more regular pattern as he came into the other room. Without even really thinking of it, he began taking photographs of things in there. Once he spotted the signature, he even took a shot of the signature. But he was just trying to distract himself, and he hadn't really absorbed the photographs yet.

At least, not until the last. He looked up at it and breathed in forcefully through his nose. He felt sick.