Wed Sep 6 - 224 Bay Street

[Delores Brown]

Delores mechanically broke open her shotgun, catching the brass rim under her fingernails and pulling the cartridges loose, dropping them to the floor. The cordite smoke rose wisperly from the barrels and Delores moved her head to one side to avoid breathing the fumes. Her hand searched in her bag, fingers tightening around two more shells and she loaded her gun again.

[Gaffer]

The great monstrosity is staggered by Delores's blast, it's naked torso peppered with small punctures and a few great rents. Dark fluid oozes sluggishly from its flesh. As Dex's shots hit home, it moans, a low rumbling noise.

Then it leaps forward! Both huge cleavers flash up, then down. Langdon Vilas's body is sundered into three parts, both arms springing loose with attached bone and gristle down to the waist, blood spurting from arteries and exposed organs. A horrible, choking sound as shock overwhelms him, and his corpse staggers down the last few steps to collapse on the basement floor.

At the head of the stairs, Heinie's chopper begins to pound, the shattering sound mingled with shouts and screams and the popping of revolvers. Pat Corydon's voice shouts in pain.

Two-Gun steps forward and begins pumping rounds into the brute that bars the way as fast as both triggers will pull, the leaden slugs slapping obscenely into loose flesh.

I think we should have some Stability checks, yes?

[Dexter Ford]

Dex is staggered by the rounds just peppering the bestial man, and when it attacks Langdon, chopping him into pieces, it is a sudden shock.
He looks incredulously at the weapon in his hand, and then shakes himself. "No foreign bastard does that too my friend."
He reloads the .45 automatic almost mechanically, letting the slide snap back loudly. He aims for the creatures' eyes, and fires round after round
until the slide locks open. "Die you bastard, die."

(Dex calls upon his pillars of stability to assist him in his Stability roll)
1d6+3=6

(Dex's shooting roll)
1d6+1=5

[Delores Brown]

OOC,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3230418/]Delores sees Langdon hacked to death in front of her. (1d6=1)[/url] Umm, is that good? :?

[Gaffer]

Dex,[color=#FF4000]Dex is hardened enough that even such a horrific sight doesn't faze him.[/color]

Delores,Delores loses 3 Stability points.

Delores turns away from the horror of Langdon's grisly demise, clutching the shotgun and shutting her eyes tightly as guns explode all around her.

Dex and Two-Gun stand shoulder to shoulder pumping bullets into the monster until it finally staggers back and collapses into the doorway from which it came, only his feet protruding into the hallway. A sign beside the door says SUPER.

At the top of the staircase, Heinie's Tommy stops hammering and he calls, "Re-loading!" Jerry says, "Franky, Pat's hurt pretty bad."

Esposito has held his fire during the last few moments. He reaches out a hand to squeeze Delores's shoulder, "C'mon, Boom-Boom," he mutters, "Don't give up on us now." Then he turns and climbs the steps to where Jerry crouches beside Pat, "How are you, old-timer? Can you walk?"

At the end of the short hallway is an iron door with BOILER stenciled across it.

[Delores Brown]

Delores' eyes flick open and she stares at Franky as he makes his way up the stairs. Without looking at the body of Langdon, she steps over it and mechanically walks up the stairs, stopping short of Jerry and Pat, standing there, staring blankly as if waiting for orders.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex looks about and notices that the remaining door is still waiting. He then glances back over his shoulder to see how the others are doing.
If they seem to be holding their own, he will coldly walk over to the giant of a man and place two shots into his brain pan.
He will then make sure that everything is alright once again, before listening at the door to the room marked "Boiler."

1d6=4

[Gaffer]

Pat Corydon writhes on the floor, clutching his belly with Jerry O'Donough crouching over him, "Hang on, old pal," says Jerry. "We'll getcha outta here." Heinie watches the stairs above, a new magazine in his chopper. As Delores and Franky join them, they can see a dozen or more cultists on the stairs and landing above, a couple feebly writhing and whimpering. "Th' sons-a-bitches've had their bellyful fer now," says Heinie, "But they ain't gone away."


As Dex's shots thud into the creature's head, its flesh begins to ripple and waver. In a moment, all trace of humanity is gone. Instead, a rubbery, white dog-shaped thing with an ammoniac stench lies on the floor. It has no eyes, but tendrils on its featureless face quiver spasmodically for a moment and are still.

"Dex!" calls Franky, "Any sign of a back door? We need t'get Pat outta here and to a hospital."

"Here's a door up to the alley," says Two-Gun.

Behind the boiler room door, Dex hears a faint thudding of machiner --or maybe drums.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex looks at the others and then responds to Franky. "No sign of a back door, only a door to a boiler room. However, there is sounds of what I swear are drums coming from behind the door. Maybe this is where Langdon was leading us?"

He looks over at the wounded cop. "Franky, can your boys get out and up to the alley while Heinie and the Wop watch the stairs? I know this is stupid, but I think you, me and Delores need to see what is behind this door. Otherwise, this is all pointless, all of this including Langdon's death."

[Delores Brown]

Delores eyes flick over to Dex, studying him momentarily then she nods almost inperceptably. She checks the load in her shotgun, and steps over to cover the door.

[Dexter Ford]

Having reloaded his weapons, Dex will open the door to the Boiler Room once Franky and Delores are in place.

[Gaffer]

Jerry and Franky half carry Pat through the suoper's apartment and up to the alley. Then Franky returns.

At the foot of the stairs, Heinie says, "We'll hold on here for five minutes, Dex, but unless they come down, we're comin' behind ya, just in case."

The door opens smoothly onto a short concrete staircase. Below is a good-sized room, the near end cluttered with a furnace and boiler and incinerator and a large pile of coal, as well as scattered debris. at the far end a hole has been battered through the wall. From that opening comes a throb of drums and a piping of flutes and a clatter of cymbals. Above it, crudely etched in the cement is an inscription:

ΦΊΛΟΣ Ο ΚΑΙ ΣΎΝΤΡΟΦΟΣ ΝΎΧΤΑΣ, ΧΑΊΡΕΣΤΕ ΓΙΑ ΥΛΑΚΉ ΤΩΝ ΣΚΥΛΙΏΝ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΑΊΜΑΤΟΣ, ΠΕΡΙΠΛΑΝΙΈΤΑΙ ΣΤΗ ΜΈΣΗ ΤΩΝ ΣΚΙΏΝ ΜΕΤΑΞΎ ΤΩΝ ΤΆΦΩΝ, ΓΙΑ ΤΟ ΑΊΜΑ ΚΑΙ ΦΈΡΝΕΙ ΤΟΝ ΤΡΌΜΟ ΣΕ, GORGO, MORMO, ΧΊΛΙΑ ΑΝΤΙΜΕΤΏΠΙΣΕ ΤΟ ΦΕΓΓΆΡΙ, ΚΟΙΤΆΖΕΙ ΕΥΝΟΪΚΆ ΣΤΙΣ ΘΥΣΊΕΣ ΜΑΣ.

Franky shudders at the few words he recognizes, but makes no comment.

The space beyond the opening is dark.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex nods his thanks to Heinie. "If you hear shooting, the hell with those guys, and come to our rescue. I didn't think you guys would ever be the US Cavalry, but you might just get that role today."
Seeing into the room, and then beyond to the darkened hole, he asks: "Does anyone have a flashlight?"
Regardless, he will cautiously make his way over to the whole, glancing at the crude etchings on the wall, and unable to read any of it (though it does look vaguely Greek to the classical scholar),
he listens at the hole and takes a quick glance into the darkness.

(How big is the hole?)

[Gaffer]

The hole is door-sized. I'll say that Dex and Franky each have a flashlight and Delores has one in her purse, but cannot hold it and use the shotgun at the same time.

The characters carved into the wall are actually reminiscent of those on some shops in the area, perhaps Turkish? The words are unreadable though.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex will free his flashlight, shining it around inside the hole, and look towards the others to see if they are ready to continue. Revolver in one hand, flashlight in the other, he will prepare to step through the hole. Just because it seems warranted, he'll pray and call upon God and the saints to protect him. (Good Jesuit education and Roman Catholicism comes to the fore!)

[Delores Brown]

Delores catches Dex's eye. Her gaze is blank, vacant, staring off into the distance, only a twitch in the corner of her mouth indicating she is anything more than an automaton.

[Gaffer]

The opening passes through the walls between two of the buildings and into a sort of cavern or grotto beneath them, lit here and there by gas jets spouting from crudely-installed pipes. A rickety wooden structure -- half staircase, half bridge -- spans a narrow canal gouged out of the ground that passes through a tunnel into utter darkness. Beyond the canal is another arched opening from which wild sounds of arrhythmic discord issues, mixed with ecstatic shrieks and wailing cries.

[Dexter Ford]

Dex steps through the hole and continues towards the sounds of music. However, he will be cautious enough to make sure nothing is lingering in the shadows as he approaches the discordant music.

[Delores Brown]

Delores steps forward after Dex, only her shifting grasp on the stock of her shotgun giving away anything other than nerveless automation. Her eyes flicked left to right, looking out for threats.

[Gaffer]

The archway gives into a large space open to the night sky. A circle of silver moonlight shines from above, illuminating a hellish sight. Cultists dance lewdly around a pool of black water to the music of pipes and drums. A woman dances ecstatically around its rim, wearing nothing but an ornate headdress and a mask and a distinctive necklace. In either hand a blue knife slashes and thrusts rhythmically.

Worshipers thrust sacrifices into the circle -- cats and other small animals -- and her knife-strokes send black blood spurting across her flesh and into the crowd. The corpses are thrown into the black pool, which pulses in time with the music like a living thing. The air smells of ozone; it is unbearably hot, but your breath steams in the air in front of you.

On the far side of the pool, two men hold a blond woman, struggling frantically and uttering little shrieks. It's Marlene Hirt. As the dancer whirls around the circle toward her, knives flashing, the men thrust her forward, her throat bared to the blades.