Ch.12b. Caught somewhere in time

[Mr. Handy]

William shines his flashlight around the floor, searching for the symbol in a ring.

Spot Hidden roll (60% skill) searching for the symbol:
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[Philulhu]

The torch that William held cast a shadow across the floor and, when held low enough, causing the shadows of the sigils and symbols carved into the floor, to stand out in contrast.

Brophy knelt by the carvings and placed his hands upon them. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, his head hanging low, then he nodded.

“I think this is it,” said Brophy. “I can feel the vestiges of Thomas’ power here.”

[Mr. Handy]

"What do we need to do?" asks William.

[Silver Priest]

Alex studies Brophy carefully, just in case the man tries to mislead them.

1d100

[Philulhu]

“Clear the area,” said Brophy, who had tried ineffectively to sweep away some of the dirt and detritus with his hand.

“We could do with some light as well - have a look in the next room and see if you can find some candles. If I remember correctly, there were some storage cupboards down here.” He shooed them in the direction of the next room before sinking down on his haunches to inspect the marks on the floor some more.

[Bullfrog]

Lawrence, presumably guided by the light of William's flashlight, heads into the other room to seek out the cupboards and the candles they possibly contained.

"Do you think he's setting us up to get stabbed in the back again?" Lawrence asks in a hushed tone.

[Silver Priest]

Alex stays with Brophy, keeping watch.

[Mr. Handy]

William goes into the other room and uses his flashlight to look for the candles. "It wouldn't surprise me," he whispers back.

[Philulhu]

Brophy looked up at Alex. With William taking the torch, the light in there was fading so Alex couldn’t see much more than a shadow and the gleam of his eyes. “You may as well go with them,” said Brophy. “You’re going to have years to enjoy my company… …”

Entering the next room, they found another low, vaulted ceiling, with shelving around the walls. The light from William’s torch illuminated rows and rows of glass bottles and jars, of all shapes and sizes, which had been neatly stored. Thick with dust and cobwebs, they clearly hadn’t been moved for a long time.

In the corner of the room, the floor sloped away and steps downwards had been roughly cut into the stone floor. From the opening they lead to, came the faintest of green phosphorescence, giving the area a ghoulish glow.

[Silver Priest]

Alex studies Brophy for a moment before nodding. While he does not trust the man, he also seems to need the rest of them, especially him. "Call if you find anything," He chides, heading off to join the others.

[Mr. Handy]

"Looks like we have to go down there," says William, shining his light down the stairs.

[Bullfrog]

"Well, there isn't any alternative, is there?"
Lawrence warily steps into the glowing room, unsure of what he would find; the phosphorescence oddly reminded him of the luminescent green tubes that he had seen on that horrible train not so long ago.

[Philulhu]

The rough steps curved away to the right, descending another twenty yards or so, through a tunnel hewn through the rock. The glow got progressively stronger as they moved forward and by the time it opened up into a cavern at the end, it was like twilight, albeit a unnerving, sickly-green twilight that no-one would wish to see.

To their left and right, scores of glass bottles, jars and other assorted containers were perched on innumerable clefts and crevices in the rock walls, all filled with some ungodly liquid which gave off the green light. In front of them, the stone floor ran on for another ten yards until it met the edge of a large underground pool, one that stretched away to meet the sides and far wall of the cavern that was about forty yards wide in all directions.

The water eddied slightly as if pulled by an underwater current (or worse!) with an occasional bubble popping to the surface that suggested that there was life in the dark waters…

[Bullfrog]

"Jesus... William, put some light on that water." Lawrence remarks, almost amazed by the sheer effort it must have taken to hew these tunnels and chambers out of the solid stone, much less that pool of water. If something managed to live in there despite the passage of decades, it certainly wasn't anything natural, and thus something Lawrence would prefer to tread lightly around.

He takes a pair of the bottles out of their alcoves and hands one off to Alex; they weren't candles, but they'd just have to do for now.

[Mr. Handy]

"I don't think we want to see it," whispers William, "and I don't think we want it to see us."

[Silver Priest]

Alex takes the bottle, resisting the urge to investigate it further. "I'm in agreement with William. Let's head on back up."

[Philulhu]

The liquid in the bottle put Lawrence of a mind of the jars of liquid they had found in the Brophy’s motel storeroom, all that time ago. He couldn’t be sure, but he could’ve sworn he felt the bottle jerk slightly in his hand, as if something swam unseen within…

[Mr. Handy]

"Yeah, let's not stay here any longer than we have to," says William quietly. "We got what we came to find."

[Bullfrog]

"That's fair enough." Lawrence states, his tone hushed. Brophy's operations at Squatter's Lake and in Louisiana must have been small fry compared to this mansion when it was still standing; perhaps this is what the motel could have evolved into, if not for the interference of Lawrence and company.

Guided by the unearthly light of his bottle, Lawrence makes his way back to the room with the pentagram.

[Philulhu]

“Well, well, well! What do we have here?!” chuckled Brophy, snatching the bottle from Lawrence as they re-entered the room. He held up the bottle, peering at it intently, the sickly, greenish light giving his face an unholy, ghoulish cast. “This will do very nicely!” he declared, and pulled the cork from the neck of the bottle, upending it so the liquid drained out onto the floor, where it flowed like mercury, rolling around the grooves etched into the floor.

As the symbol in the pentagram emerged, Alex, Lawrence and William recognised the symbol they had last seen at the sanitarium with a shudder of trepidation. Grabbing the second bottle, Brophy traced two circles from the tips of the pentagram, the liquid again flowing like liquid metal, as if it had a life of its own. “You two will stand here,” he said to Lawrence and William, indicating the circles. “You’ll be with me, obviously!”, he smiled wolfishly at Alex.

“Now, are you ready?”