"Arthur, photos," Jake says, his tone almost dull from the way all casual thought has dropped away. Rage will doubtless fill that void in a few heartbeats more yet for the moment he's absoloutely calm. "Sully, cover the exits. Professor, get that liquor out."

He steps swiftly over to the nearest prisoner and tries to determine how he's restrained - whether it'll take messing about with individual locks, some work with the crowbar or the simple removal of a pin. He takes a moment to get the drain cleaner out of his satchel at his feet in case Sully having to shoot the one below bringing reinforcements. "Thanks, Miss M.," he murmurs. "D'you think the rungs...we met you at go up to street level?"

Arthur snapped the photograph almost carelessly, standing stiff like a board and feeling numb in his hands. The intensity of this moment was more than he could rationally handle, and he hardly registered the canine noise from nearby. Still, he had heard them, and he was fearful of what they meant.

He reached for the weapon he had brought, and he started to make sure that it was properly loaded.

Sully swings his gun barrel from point to point, trying to look in all directions at once. The growling makes him nervous, though it's not particularly near. He leaves the manacled figures to Jake as he edges nearer to the pit, positioning himself at the top of the iron rungs before peering over.

The first of the prisoners, a dark haired man with fresh injuries, Jake feels certain is one of the liquor runners who were attacked in the abandoned sewer tunnel. As he is considering this idea, the unseen Miss M gives a single squeeze in response to his question about the rungs in the room where they encountered her leading up to street level. However, after a brief pause, Jake feels a pair of additional chill squeezes on his wrist, as if the spirit is discouraging him from using the discussed route.

The investigators quickly determine that the manacles holding the captives have been bolted to the stone wall. The iron restraints are rusted and uniformly appear quite old. Utilizing Jake’s crowbar, or a similar implement, would be the fastest means of freeing the prisoners.

As Sully nears the pit, the sounds of snarling fade, though the reporter can hear another, fainter sound rising from below: several voices joined in a low chant, the words of which he cannot easily discern. Sully can see that the rungs descend for roughly forty feet before reaching a stone floor below. From somewhere in that deeper place is a dim source of illumination, white and cold.

Sully retreats back to where the others are gathered with the captives. Keeping his eyes and gun trained back toward the pit, he whispers about the light below and the chanting.

A flicker of a frown crosses Jake's features as he makes his assessment, nodding to Miss M's advice and Sully's reconnaissance as he sets the crowbar in what looks to be the weakest part of e restraint. "...all right. You know of any other hostages might be down here?"

"Sully, you reckon a few shotgun blasts could breach a city water pipe? Keep an eye for 'em coming up, but our priorities just changed." He nudges the semi-responsive captive as he gets the crowbar in place, not particularly gently. His voice stays low, though it's more of a gravelled growl now. "Hey, you. You're going to help carry the others out of Hell or I promise I'm going to become your biggest problem."

"Professor, try'n get a sip of liquor into the end ones, might wake them up a little and it's calories, might dull the pain some. Arthur, back Sully up: if more than one man-jackal or demon thing comes swarming up here, let them get into the dark shaft and give 'em the flash." The detective sets to trying to free the most able-bodied captive. "They take anyone else down there?" he asks as he works, remembering the traces of the theft of a half-naked man by the manhole above.

Arthur nodded at Jake's instructions and, seeing that the captives were being handled right now, moved toward the pit. Falling in at Sully's side, Arthur, despite himself, tried to hear what might be being chanted below.

Wells followed Morris's instructions blindly, withdrawing some liquor from his bag and beginning to give small sips of it to people to help them cope with the current circumstances.

Jake feels a cold grasp encircle his wrist twice in response to his question.

The monster awakens as Jake pries his manacles free from the wall. The man rubs his wrists, his gaze somewhat unfocused and wide. He nods slowly at the detective’s instructions. ”Yeah. Help. Sure. Nobody deserves to be down here. Nobody.” He shakes his head before a burst of hysterical laughter erupts from his throat, which is quickly halted by a fit of coughing.

Those who the professor gives sips of liquor to awaken as well, though it is difficult to discern just how aware they are of what is transpiring. One of the men begins humming an off key portion of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, while another man breaks down into uncontrollable sobs. The woman who spoke previously continues to insist that everyone is going to perish there in the underground, shaking her head listlessly from side to side.

Remaining near the opening in the floor, Sully hears the chanting continue without pause, the unnerving vocalizations growing in intensity and volume. Arthur cannot understand the words that are being spoken, the language unlike any he has heard previously, the tongue they are spoken in guttural and alien.

The other female captive seems to be the most mentally clear of the group. She nods toward the opening below, speaking with a hoarse, reedy voice. ”Time…it doesn’t have a lot…a lot of meaning here. Seems like I’ve been here…I don’t know…forever.”

“But not long ago…when they brought him…” She nods toward the gangster. ”The man that had been held there….gray haired…kind…they took him down .”

Jake grunts vaguely at the criminal, acknowledging his pledged aid. "Mph. Take the Draino in whichever hand's talking to you, keep that close with us. They kill your friend for shooting at 'em?"

He hastens down to the other end of the row of prisoners to librate the weakest, getting to the most helpful of the captves as soon as that's possible. "It's..." he takes a moment to recall the date and gives her an approximation of the time, and what day it is, human things without inherent meaning that he nonetheless speaks into being. "...do you know how many of them are down there?"

Once she's freed, Jake takes a moment to rearrange himself enough to give her his coat, since there's not much left on her and he can feel the hot blood in his own body perfectly well, anger vibrating under the skin. Something very distant in him is mortiifed at offering a lady a stinky coat, not that he has any better, or that she would mind.

Jake moves on in his task and hesitates over the slight and now sobbing young man they'd first mistaken for a woman, not sure what to do with that kind of vulnerability. Still, he gets to him as swiftly as he might. "Listen - hey, listen - you're going to get up and get out of here, all right? Ssh. You got a name, someone to call when we're out?"

Turning slowly to Sully, he whispered to him.

"They're performing some...ritual down there. We need to stop them from doing it."

The expression on his face was grim, skin pale and eyes deeply bloodshot. His voice lacked any sense of urgency, the words coming out in a clear, factual sort of tone.

Sully turns to the photog: "You got any idea how to do that?"

He wants to go back to the captives, to use his reporter's skills to help Jake question them and soothe them. But watching out for the enemy is his post for now and he means to do his duty.

”No. No,” the mobster says, stifling another out of place laugh, ”I’m the one did the shooting. Guy in the suit said that’s why they needed to keep me alive.”

The woman accepts the coat gratefully, pulling it about her shoulders, tremors causing her limbs to quake. ”There…there are several of those things…stooped over creatures that look…their faces look like dogs…sort of. There’s maybe half a dozen of them down there.”

“But people…there’s only three. The man in the dark suit. He…he gives all the orders. Sometimes…there’s someone else with him. A man in robes. Old, tattered robes, with cobwebs and mold on them. I…you can’t see his face. He has a hood on.”

She points to the opening in the floor with a trembling hand. ”They talk about a woman a lot. One who lives down there. She this, she that. Like they’re trying to do…do whatever she says. But I’ve never seen her.”

The sobbing young man calms slightly at Jake’s reassurances. Nodding, he says, ”I’m Ben. Ben Quigley. My ma…her name’s Linda…she lives in Brooklyn.”

Below, a sharp shriek, a sound of exultation rather than horror, rises up amidst the chanting. The vocalizations grow louder and more repetitive, their tone increasingly urgent.

"It help any?" Jake asks of the shooting, and addresses the Professor: "Prof, if everyone's done with that first bottle of booze, get a strip of rag off the floor and wipe it 'round the nearest gun barrel to make up a firebomb. I think it's best that most of us get out of here before anything drastic happens, so whoever's left to go down for the last guy - I volunteer myself - needs some wide-area distractions prepped."

He looks to the lady with the coat whilst freeing the musical man. "Are both upright ones down there now?" He nods to Ben, stepping back once the last prisoner is freed. "OK. We got a Ben with a Ma Quigley in Brooklyn, I'm Jake Morris, who else knows who they are?"

Jake holds up a hand for a moment's pause and speaks softer. "Miss M., can the guys down there see or hurt you at all? Miss M. is the cold patch, she's one of you that didn't make it out," he half-explains to the people.

He flinches at the shriek and rise of chanting and hastens over to those near the opening, speaking in a low and rapid tone. "Right, we're good to go. Who wants to go tango with some demons and who wants to protect the ladies n' shaky gentlemen?"
This message was last edited by the player at 18:23, Sat 20 May 2023.

"Oh! ohhh..." When he hears the shriek from below, Sully stifles an answering cry of his own. He’s never felt more frightened or more horrified. He uses his sleeve to blot sweat and tears from his face.

"Hold on, Jake. Let's be smart here. There’s at least six of them down there and only four of us. And we’d have to climb down there one at a time. It sounds like they’ll be coming be coming back up here probably.

“Let’s wait and ambush ‘em coming up. We can send those folks back topside—doesn’t seem like they’ll run into trouble. If we turn our lights off they won’t suspect anything. If Art sets off a flash and we hit the lights, it may blind them and we can blast them, catch ‘em on the rungs maybe.

“What do you think?”

"I think they're within a minute of killing the man taken down there to power some spell that makes things worse for us, maybe New York, and we don't know when or where scavenging parties will come back," Jake answers, having to speak forcefully over the chanting. "Look at the hostages, Sully - some are hardly standing up. Go keep 'em safe, I'll keep the unrulies off this level. Arthur? Two on six is three each and your photos need to get out either way."

The professor attempts to follow Jake's directions, but is completely out of his depth in terms of understanding how ad hoc explosives were created, but he did his best and offered the likely poor output to Jake for inspection and finishing up.

"The smartest suggestion is most likely that made by Sully here, but Jake I'm inclined to agree with you. Based on what we've witnessed, I'm not sure what good can come of whatever is happening down there. I'm not much of a good hand with a firearm, however, and I'm not sure how much use I'll be."

"Wandering the library stacks with pen and paper have been more my habit than wandering sewers and streets with firearms. I'll come with you, but I'm not sure what I bring other than resolve."

Arthur shook his head and said, "No, Sully's a journalist, he can find someone to develop these photographs. If not...well, take this to Harper's Advertisement. That's where I work, Bernadetta can help you develop these."

He tried to swallow with a dry mouth and continued, passing his camera to the mobster, who seemed able at this moment.

"I'll go, as well. I need to see that they don't finish that ritual. I need to, because of what Wells and I learned, because of what I'm...almost certain is true in those books. It just can't happen."

Sully looks from one of his companions...comrades... to another.

"I... You sure you wanta go down there, Prof? I could... I mean, I think it's gonna be... You sure?

"Well, here, Jake, take my shotgun if you want the extra firepower. I've got my revolver.

"You guys... Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean..."

Jake very gently pushes Sully and his long gun to the extent of his arm. "Keep it: I hope you won't need it, but if you need it, you'll need it. Now get 'em out of here." He grins, though whether out of terror or fey confidence even he can't tell, tucking the makeshift scorch bomb down his shirt and crowbar through his belt in preparation to climb. "See you up top somewhere."

"It's most definitely not what I'd call a good idea, but I don't think there are any of those as far as resolves what we have here. Now go on."

He looked to Jake. "You lead, I'll follow."

Sully nods solemnly.

"You all know how to get in touch with me. I'll see you later." He shakes hands with each man in turn: Arthur, Wells, Jake.

Turning to the gangster: "Let's get going. I'm Sully. Whatta they call you?""

Gently but insistently, he gets the captives on their feet. He takes a last look at the three men gathered at the pit.

Arthur looked Sully in the eye as he shook his hand. He knew that it was possible he wouldn't make it out. He didn't say anything

Then he turned to the pit. He wasn't quite sure who should go first--Jake, he supposed, then himself, and the Professor last? He looked to Jake, to see if he would go down first.

Jake had already been gripping the rungs when offered a handshake (returned firmly, if fast); by the time Arthur looks he's on the descent, a concentrated aura of rage about his movements.

”It’s Lorenzo,” the mobster tells Sully. He helps Ben Quigley steady himself on weak legs as the investigators exchange handshakes.

Moments later, the reporter is leading the faltering group of former prisoners back through the oppressive darkness of the tunnels, retracing his steps in a bid to lead them to safety.

Jake, Arthur, and the Professor begin their downward climb, the unearthly sounds of voices chanting in an alien tongue growing louder and louder as they descend into shadow.