Ch3: The Madness

[Supercape]

The flames spread wide and fast, although the heavy air of strange sickly perfumes and wispy smoke hid the fire, at least for a few valuable moments.

Then, the hut was ablaze. As some of the toad people became aware of it, crack, crack! came the sound of the two French soldiers opening fire. They were fair shots, and the targets were easy. Soon the sound was of screaming, and the ground slick with blood.

From the hut cam a most horrible scream, and then, an awful crashing and wailing - something was trying to get out, and it would hardly be stopped by flimsy burning wood...

[Mr. Handy]

"Quick, back to the cover of the jungle," hisses Percy, already moving. "If anyone gets out, we can shoot them from there."

[Priest]

Still coming to terms with the blasphemy he had witnessed within that hut of evil, Baxter slowly, and carefully retreats towards the jungle' edge. As he moves he takes the opportunity to take several shots at the confused natives. Three in fact whether they hit or not he is not bothered to note, firing the heavy revolver is just an act of sanity in an insane situation.
Each of the three loud reports is accompanied by a whispered exclamation, "Not my bloody gin again".

[Tabs]

Again Burton tugged at Munshi Singh, together they followed Carstairs. "Unhealthy to linger, man. Quick! follow the sot Baxter."

[Supercape]

All hell broke loose. The toad people may have been fierce, sadistic warriors, but they were drugged and feverish. Some fell to their knees in a trance, screaming strange names "Cootooloo...Tsagottha...." some rushed the three gentlemen who stepped between the chaos. All the while, the French bullets took a bloody toll, and none of the Toad cult could see where from.

A man rushed Burton, only for his skull to explode over the explorers linen, thanks to the accurate aim of one of the French soldiers.

But the numbers were on the sides of the Toad people. As the explorers started to reach the perimeter, danger lurked, as spears and knives started to be drawn, and some limited semblance of orientation seeped into the tribe.

Behind them, a horrible roar was heard. A gurgling, inhuman scream. Something crashed from the smouldering and flaming hut in the centre...

Spoiler:

So without getting too bogged down in combat, all three of you are sort of rushed or may get stabbed. To keep this simple, you can make an attack roll with a weapon of your choice (Rifle, handgun, headbutt, etc) to knock aside a tribesman or two. If that fails, you can try a dodge roll to evade their clumsy attack. If not, ill say you get hit for 1D6 damage, or 2D6 damage (an impale) if you score 90-100 on your dodge roll. Hope that works for people. You can narrate that how you wish, and may wish to do something like run to the perimeter with a knife in your arm or something.

Finally, if you do look back, please narrate so and I will reply. And you can have a nice 1D2/1D10 SAN roll for seeing the horror. Baxter has seen worse, so he is ok!

[Mr. Handy]

A Toad Person rushes at Percy before he reaches the edge of the jungle, but he levels his rifle at him at fires. His aim is true, and the tribesman goes down.

OOC,Rifle roll (56% skill) shooting at a Toad Person: [dice]0[/dice]

[Tabs]

Burton fired his pistol at a Toad woman blocking his path, she looked like a deuced angry scarecrow.

[dice]0[/dice]

But (dare I say) he panicked, missed, and tried to sidestep her instead.

Dodge 26% [dice]1[/dice]

The poxy bitch scraped her claws down his back.

[dice]2[/dice]

"Christ! Unhand me you--you---" and Burton kept on running after Carstairs.

[Priest]

Body wracked by sobs over the scandalous misuse of gin, and his gin at that, Baxter points the pistol at a Toad person who, unlike the majority, seems to have pulled himself slightly together.

Pistol,[url=http://orokos.com/roll/363232]pistol: 40%[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]20[/b]

And has the satisfaction of seeing the bloody headed native smashed aside by the heavy calibre bullet.

"GIN!!" he screams and continues his run for the treeline, without a backward glance. Pausing momentarilly to throw a vicious headbutt at a glassy eyed mewling female.

Headbutt,[url=http://orokos.com/roll/363237]Headbutt: 35%[/url]: [u]1d100[/u] [b]37[/b]

His hastilly thrown attack misses its intended target conjuring forth a strange scream from the female, somewhere between one of anger and unfullfilled desire.

[Supercape]

Bullets carved through the Toad people who seemed unable to rally themselves. A few started hacking and stabbing each other. One man mounted a woman, intent not on fornication but in gouging her eyes out, both of them screaming hysterically, or was it laughing?

Spoiler:

Singh's cutlass [dice]0[/dice]
Singhs SAN roll [dice]1[/dice]
Singhs SAN loss [dice]2[/dice]

Singh's mighty arm and sharp sabre took a man's head clean off in a fountain of blood. He pressed on, but was distracted by the sound of something screaming and moving behind him. Something that broke free from the burning hut and was in pain and in rage.

He turned around to look. One would have not expected the Indian, roasted by the African sun, to possibly go that white of colour. But manage it he did, with eyes and jaw wide open.

"No! Mercy! It cannot be!" he whispered, and turned to run as fast as he could.

The four men reached the perimeter of the Jungle. There was no sign of Scar or Wessex, and the French Soldiers, still firing and decimating the chaotic tribe, seemed shocked and frightened.

"Zut Alors! DId you see it! In the smoke?" said Sgt LaForge, gripping Burton's arm tightly. "It's coming this way!!!"

Private Paris shot off one more round and his gun was empty. He gritted his teeth and pulled out his knife in defiance.

[Mr. Handy]

"I've still got some bullets left," says Percy. He turns around and takes aim with the rifle, taking in the monstrosity in all its horror. However, he manages to stay collected enough to fire at it, hitting the flaming thing in square in the chest!

OOC,I just realized that I still have one point of damage on me from before. Shouldn't [b]Dr. Wessex[/b] have had a chance to treat that before we moved ahead? Sanity roll (current level 75) for seeing the monster: [dice]0[/dice] Sanity loss for seeing the monster: [dice]1[/dice] Rifle roll (56% skill) shooting at the monster: [dice]2[/dice] That was so close to being an impale... How much damage do our rifles do again? I've seen conflicting things. At one point it was said to be 1d6+2, but against the croc I think we did 2d6.

[Priest]

Baxter crashes into the trees with a sick smile, for a few moment as he reloads his pistol he keeps repeating a single word "GIN!!" while slowly shaking his head. At Percy's yell about bullets he pulls himself together and glares around him,
"Where is Wessex and the boy? Look for them quick we cannot leave without them".

[Tabs]

At the jungle's edge he looks back toward the monster.

Burton's Sanity check [dice]0[/dice]

He gets a delicious, spine tingling, chill.

Sanity loss [dice]1[/dice]

"What's the plan, fellas?"

OOC:   Burton will reload his pistol's chambers. How far away is the thing? and who's got what weapon?

[Supercape]

The smoke concealed the worst of the sight. The thing was burning, black. It was at least ten feet high, human in shape and form, but with vast sails of sagging skin that looped over endlessly on limbs and torso. Its head was horribly broad, and flat, with wide spaced black eyes that protruded. It was squat in form and movement.

Still smoking, burning, and screaming, it lolled this way and that towards the expedition...whilst the Toad King was burning and deflated, and by any reasonable estimation in pain, Carstairs shot just seemed to sink into its sagging skin.

Spoiler:

So apologies for the oopsies with the rifles. Lets just keep it simple and say they do 2d6 damage.
[dice]0[/dice] damage on the Toad King from Carstairs, which unfortunately does nothing against it, although you can all make a pretty good guess the thing is already severely injured from being trapped in a burning building!
As for weapons, you can pretty much choose what you will!

The horror was not far away, but the stench of sickly sweet fumes was overpowering. Like the burning oils of the festival they had come too, but a hundredfold stronger...

Spoiler:

An idea roll to notice that the burning toad king is producing the fumes. In other words, the horrible drug-oils that had been burning were actually the secretions of the Toad King himself - and you just set light to him!
This means the threat is not so much the King himself now (who is weak and still a couple of dozen yards away), but the cloud of hallucinogenic gas that you have unwittingly let loose. At this stage there is only a CON x 2% chance of avoiding the hallucinogens, and having a 1/1D6 SAN loss (and whatever amusing drugged out hallucinations you wish to narrate) from its effects!

For the NPCs (Singh, Paris, LaForge) the CON rolls are [dice]1[/dice] [dice]2[/dice] and [dice]3[/dice]

SAN rolls [dice]4[/dice] [dice]5[/dice] [dice]6[/dice]

SAN loss [dice]7[/dice] [dice]8[/dice] [dice]9[/dice]

Singh started sweating, and yelled out, in Punjabi, that they should shoot the snakes...the snakes!, although for now his increasingly fragile psyche seemed to remain intact. Both the Frenchmen rubbed their watering eyes.

Merde! I feel peculiar! complained LaForge as he tried to focus on his shot...

[Mr. Handy]

Percy is completely overcome by the fumes. "That's no toad, it's a bleeding chameleon!" he cries. "Look, it's changing colours!"

OOC,I would have preferred to roll the damage myself, especially after seeing what you rolled. ;) You never answered my question about healing. CON x 2 roll (28% stat) to not be affected by the hallucinogen: [dice]0[/dice] Sanity roll (current level 73) from the hallucinogen: [dice]1[/dice] Sanity loss from the hallucinogen: [dice]2[/dice] Idea roll (65% stat) to avoid temporary insanity - failure is good: [dice]3[/dice]

[Supercape]

Spoiler:

Sorry about the damage roll. I tend to do what's most rapid turn around for PbM games, which sometimes means making player rolls (if they cannot be modified), but it's no big shakes!

Yes, you can all assume that you are all healed up!

[Tabs]

Con x2 [dice]0[/dice]

Sanity [dice]1[/dice]

"Pull yourself together, man!" barked Burton unsympathetically at Carstairs. He shouted at LaForge to take-up Carstairs' rifle, and levelled his own pistol at the Toad King.

[Priest]

Baxter, still trying to spot the errent doctor and the young native, winces as the bullets seem to have little effect on the onrushing monstrosity. "I think we are going to need bigger guns, or maybe some explosives. Did we bring any?"

[Supercape]

In fact, the lumbering horror was burning to death. It looked ill, shrunken, with sails of loose skin under each arm and between its legs, as if an obese giant had lost all its fat and all that was left was bone and far too much skin. And the burns were awful, smoke and red flesh.

Whilst it lumbered towards them, bullets from the company thudded into it. They appeared to be little more than slaps to its horrible flesh, but by the time it had reached not a dozen yards from the company, it fell to its knees. It got up, but its will had gone. Two more steps, and it fell flat on the ground. It groaned out a few gasped breaths, then stopped completely. Its flesh seemed to fall apart all the more, slowly crumbling and turning to ash.

And there was much lamination and screaming from the remnants of the toad people. Fear, anger, and...rejoicing?

Spoiler:

The King is dead! But it is not over...

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,Am I still insane, and if so, what kind of insane am I? Also, do I gain +5 Cthulhu Mythos for going temporarily insane?

[Supercape]

Spoiler:

You are indeed temporarily insane. I generally prefer players to chose an insanity they think best fitting - that said, I would thought "hallucinations" would probably be best fitting from an hallucinogenic drug. Feel free to do something awesome like think your rifle is a snake, or climb up a tree to avoid the seething mass of toadspawn on the ground. However, as we are out of combat, the length and dangerousness of such a temporary insanity is rather academic.
Yes you gain a Cthullu Mythos increase, although off the top of my head I cannot recall the amount - is it +1?
On reflection the "Insane Insight" roll of INT x 5% also comes into play - if you can make that you can get some clue as to whats going on