Play@YSDC

You part ways with the others and walk to the steel door with the wheel on it. Putting an ear to the door, trying to hear anything from the other side, bears no result, as always since you entered the base. No sound, except your own, breaks the silence of the base. Slowly, slowly, Stogie turns the wheel, until it clicks. The door is now open.

Oliver shines his torch through the open door and looks through it to see what's on the other side, his pistol in his other hand.

You enter a relatively large room, some sort of barracks by the look of it. There are bed-frames and mattresses, but they're orderly stored in stacks along one wall. At first glance, it seems they were set there by someone who planned on coming back and using them again, although clearly not in the near future. On your left, a simple wooden door, open, leads to another room, probably identical to this one.

Oliver gestures to the wooden door and stands ready for when it's opened.

Nick takes his rifle off his shoulder, moves over to the wall, and pushes the door open the rest of the way with the rifle barrel so as to keep himself and Oliver out of harm's way in case anything comes flying out of the second room...

Stogie is starting to get the impression there's nobody home. He charges quickly through the door, flashlight and .45 at the ready.

Stogie dashes into the room, flashlight moving around to reveal again an empty and silent space. Like in the other room, everything is tidily stored and organized. On one wall, on his right, there's an air vent. Directly in front of him, another open wooden door seems to lead to a third room.

Oliver follows a short distance behind, shining his torch into the vent to see if there's anything in it.

Stogie will quickly shine his flashlight around the room then charge through the next door.

"Speed, surprise, and violence," he mutters through chomped cigar.

Oliver points the flashlight towards the air vent... and finds a pair of eyes looking back at him from the darkness inside. It takes a moment for his brain to register the strange occurrence. Wasn't the base empty? And why in the air vent, of all places? As he takes a step to get closer, there's a muffled thumping from inside the vent, and the eyes disappear.

Meanwhile, Stogie runs into the third room, which is exactly the same as the other two. As there are no other doors, this is the end of the road here.

"There's someone in the vent!" calls Oliver. "Looks like they left someone behind. Let's get it open."

Stogie grunts. "About time," he grumbles. Quickly stashing his flashlight (he'll rely on the others' lights), Stogie pulls out his entrenching tool and attacks the air vent grill with it, looking to get a good angle to pop it open. He tries to keep out of direct line of sight, assuming there's someone inside with a gun.

"Take him alive if you can," says Oliver, covering him with his pistol. "We've got questions that need answering."

The grill pops open and falls to the ground with a metallic sound. As there's no movement or answer from the inside, you steel yourself and push your head inside, half-expecting to be met with a bullet, but luckily... the shaft is empty. It extends vertically over your heads for a few meters, before turning at a right angle. You hear no sound coming from inside. It's rather puzzling how someone could just disappear so quickly, making practically no sound at all, on a vertical shaft with nothing to help climbing.

Oliver,Roll Sanity.

While you're wondering about it, suddenly the lights turn on. You hear a screeching metallic sound from the direction of the docks, and a thundering clash of steel against steel. Then, again, silence wraps up the base.

"How the bloody hell did he disappear so fast?" asks Oliver, bewildered but not frightened.

OOC,Sanity roll (current level 54) for looking into the vent: [dice]0[/dice]

Stogie scratches his head. "Is there an upstairs? Where the hell would that vent lead except out onto the island?"

he starts dragging mattresses over to the space under the vent, piling them up to create a base from which to try to clamber into it.

Oliver shrugs, helping to drag the mattresses over and stack them. "Be careful, he could be armed," he says.

Stacking up half a dozen mattresses is enough to allow Stogie to reach the air vent and push himself up inside. The shaft is small inside, but with a little squeezing it should be possible to climb up - it's only a few feet, after all. There's a nasty smell inside, not overbearing, but strong enough to be disgusting. Like the smell of something rotting.

OOC:   A Climb check is needed to climb up the shaft until the point it turns. There's little space to move,and it would be impossible to use any kind of rifle or large firearm inside the shaft.

Stogie holsters the 45. With just his flashlight for company, he attempts to get up through the vent.

OOC,[i]Climb[/i] of 40% and he rolls... [dice]0[/dice]

With a muttered curse, he slides and falls out of the vent. "Never was a good climber."

"Neither am I," says Oliver. "How about the rest of you lot?"

OOC:   I was waiting for some of the others to answer, but I guess I'll just NPC them

Nick says: "Here, let me try. I was best in my squad at climbing obstacles". He gets into the shaft and, grunting and painting, starts making his way to the top. "Almost... there... Ok, I'm up. It runs horizontally now, I can't see where it ends. It might run over the entire docks area. Wait... there's something...", you hear his voice echoing down the shaft, "There's something slimy here... it stinks... God, I think it might be blood. The guy you saw, he must be hurt".

"Should make it easy to track him," says Oliver. "Let's hope he doesn't bleed out. We need him to talk. Which way does the trail lead?"

"Only one way here, at least I can't see any other. I'll try and follow the trail, he's probably planning on exiting from another vent. If he keeps losing blood, he'll just die up here", you hear more grunting as Nick starts moving in the close shaft over your heads.

"All right, be careful," says Oliver.

A few minutes pass, without any further notice from the vent. Amadeus seems to be growing restless: 'Verhapz ze base iz not az empty az ve thought, capten? Verhapz ve should varn ze otherz?".

"Good idea," says Oliver. "Would you like to do that, and do you require an escort? At least one of us needs to stay here to await Nick's return."

Stogie doesn't move but does get his flashlight and 45 back out. "Think I'm more useful staying here, where there's an actual Jerry might need convincing to surrender. No offence, Doc. Docs."

Amadeus nods eagerly. "Gut. Let's go, capten", he says, as he starts walking towards the door, eyes fixed in the vent.

Oliver heads off with Amadeus to find the others.

Stogie prowls around and shines his flashlight in vents, trying to see what's going on.

Oliver and Amadeus head back to the docks area, completely revealed by the now functioning powerful lights on the ceiling, almost fifteen meters over your head. It's a huge cave, now completely empty except for the half-destroyed submarine you discovered earlier. You see the control panels lightened up as well, suggesting that it should be possible to open the huge blast doors. In fact, on the other side of the docks, there's one standing open.

Meanwhile, Stogie keeps watch at the vent, waiting for his comrade to return... hopefully alive and unharmed.

Stogie,Roll Listen.

Oliver leads the way to the open blast door, relieved that they've gotten the power working.

Listen,[b]Stogie[/b] has a 35% skill and rolls... [dice]0[/dice]

Stogie hears nothing but his own breathing.

Oliver and Amadeus walk into the corridor past the blast door, where they immediately see Tom as he is entering a room in front of them. As soon as he hears their footsteps, he practically jumps around, pointing his gun in a hurry. He seems to be on edge.

OOC:   You continue here: viewtopic.php?f=409&t=6111&p=201134#p201134

Meanwhile, Stogie is keeping watch at the vent - fruitlessly. There's no trace of Nick, or anyone else, in fact. For a moment, the lights flicker, leaving him in the dark, then come back to life.

Muttering, Stogie flicks his flashlight back on and holds it up with his 45.

"Nick!! Can you hear me? Where are you? What's going on?"

The lights go out again, this time for longer. You hear a soft moan, tinged with pain. Then a face appears, a few meters above you, where the vent stops climbing up and turns horizontal. It's Nick. You're about to call out to him when you realize he's open-mouthed, and there's something pouring out of his jaws. As it splatters over your face, you realize it's blood - thick and warm. Then another face appears, and another, and another. All shows bruises and wounds, but that's not the worst of it. As the thing starts to slide down the vent, you realize the heads are linked to the same body, a large clump of tissue and bone and skin all fused together in a single hellish abomination.

Sanity,Roll against a 1d6/1d10 loss.

SAN,SAN of 50 and Stogie rolls... [dice]0[/dice]

SAN Loss,[dice]1[/dice]

"AAAAAAAGGHHH!!!" Stogie hollers at the top of his lungs. He races back towards an exit door as fast as he can, firing a round from his 45 into the ceiling as he goes in the hope that will alert his compatriots if they didn't hear him scream.

Stogie turns and runs, shooting in the air. The gunshot echoes in the confined space of the room, but it's hard to tell whether it can actually be heard from outside, or not. Just before he reaches the door leading to the next room, he feels something, something hard, with an edge, hitting him in the back and slicing, starting from his left shoulder to his right leg. He can feel the flesh ripping and blood flowing out, along with a burning sensation of pain. Stopping to check the damage it's not an option, though, so he keeps running, door after door, until he's back in the docks area. Just the time to take a few steps along the dock, and the light comes back up to life. At the same time, there doesn't seem to be any trace of the monster following him anymore.

OOC:   Stogie takes 9 points of damage (I updated the sheet).