Ch. 14c. Together Again (all)

[Silver Priest]

"Sorry, Ms. Ripley." Seeing her reaction, Alex reaches out and attempts to roughly shake her out of her stupor. "Pull it together!" He says sternly.

[Philulhu]

Though very shaken, that brief human contact was enough to break the paralysis that Ivy was feeling and she found that she could move again.

I’ll let you describe what you do then do my update.

[jp1885]

Shaken out of her paralysis, Ivy screams, long and loud.

“My God! My God!”

Fuelled by the sheer, simple adrenaline joy of being able to move, she launches herself forward and envelopes Alex in a hug.

“Thank you! Oh My God! I couldn’t move! That thing!”

Recovering her wits, she disentangles herself, smoothing down the remnayof her dress.

“We should get out of here. Poor Jerry - we should take his gun.”

[Philulhu]

William lead the way to the Winscott house but as he approached, he could feel a nervous tremor in his legs and a cold sweat broke out across his back. The thought of going back into the caves filled him with dread and his purposeful stride faltered.

The front door of the house was open. Had he left it like that? Was that a noise he heard in there? Was it a trap?!

The neighbour looked at him carefully. ”Perhaps we should wait until the police get here?” he suggested.

You’ll require a successful POW roll for William to overcome his fears and venture back inside the house.

Alex found himself gripped by a screaming, hysterical Ivy, her nails digging into his arms! She was babbling about being unable to move, staring about wild-eyed, then she grabbed Jerry’s gun and started making for the exit, pulling at her clothes with jerky movement and babbling away but not making a lot of sense!

Given Ivy’s insanity, I think there’s a disconnect between what she thinks she’s doing and saying and how that’s perceived by someone else (Alex, in this case).

[jp1885]

Great idea - I wasn’t sure how to play it (I always struggle with roleplaying insanity in CoC!)

[Silver Priest]

"Ow." Alex says as Ivy grabs him. She seems... better? Maybe. In either case, she was able to move now, which he'd count as a success. A good thing as well; his next move would have been to slap her, and he was dreading her reaction if he had to do that.

"Perhaps I should go first," He offers, eying the gun with some alarm. "We could switch weapons if you like. I'm nearly out, but am likely to be a better shot if anything else attacks us."

[jp1885]

Ivy’s knuckles whiten as her grip on the gun tightens. She shakes her head vehemently and gibbering incoherently, staggers towards the exit.

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes, we'll wait here for the police," says William. He gathers his equipment and shines his light through the open door.

[Philulhu]

Tuesday, September 2nd, 1930 6.10am
79 Power Street, College Hill, Providence, R.I.

Alex had endured a difficult journey back through the caves with Ivy who babbled gibberish, shouted and jumped at shadows. At one point she suddenly screamed out loud, spun around and fired her gun at some imagined threat behind them, narrowly missing Alex in the process. He had to physically lift her up to the ledge when she refused to try to climb with the rope, and another thirty minutes had passed before they were back in the cellar under the Winscott house. As Alex helped Ivy up the stairs and through the kitchen, he found William talking excitedly and being carefully disarmed by two patrolmen, while two ambulance men and some of the neighbours looked on.

The patrolmen had been listening to William with visible disbelief but when the bedraggled but thankfully lucid Alex showed his badge, explained the situation and told them the fate of their comrades, they sprang into action. Reinforcements were summoned and, as William and Ivy were helped into the waiting ambulance, Alex found himself leading a group of heavily armed policemen back down into the caves beneath the house.

Any living creatures had disappeared, leaving behind the dead bodies of Jerry, the patrolmen and the ungodly creatures that they had killed. As they moved deeper into the caves, there was a sudden ‘crack’ followed by a rumbling noise and a gout of dust and debris spat out from some of the tunnels at the far end of the central cavern, at which point the Sergeant leading the search refused to go any further for fear of putting his men in danger.

The bodies of Jerry and the patrolmen were carried out to a waiting mortuary wagon and the bodies of any creatures were covered in kerosene and set alight, setting up a thick, choking smoke that forced them all to retreat to the house. As sun started to come up over the neighbouring houses and Captain Lawrence of Providence PD arrived to take over the investigation, Alex could only wonder at what he had seen and how he had managed to make it out alive… …

—- —- —- —-

That was The Darkness Beneath the Hill from Doors to Darkness. I hope you enjoyed it. The investigation didn’t exactly go to plan - Jerry’s firebomb destroying the lab was somewhat unexpected, and those ghasts were lethal (as Jerry found out!)

We have three investigators who are currently insane (Ivy, Lawrence and William) so they are all going to need a period of downtime to recover. I was thinking our next investigation might be in a sanitarium where they are recovering but that might be too similar to All Unquiet on the Western Front. Alternatively, I’m happy to explore something else instead, after everyone’s had a chance to recover. If you have a preference, just let me know.

SAN rewards:

Leaving Josh Winscott to his fate 1d6+1 (SAN loss)
For escaping and defeating S’syaa-H’risss 1d6 (SAN gain)
For defeating the ghasts 1d8 (SAN gain)

Overall, a loss of two points of SAN. Failure to get Winscott home must way heavily upon our investigators.

I thought you might also like to see the maps:




I had copies of the maps on Roll20 so I could follow where you were.

Having carefully tried to plot your route through the caverns, Mr Handy, it struck me as too good a chance to miss when William went insane and I had him run headlong through the cavern. Just too good an opportunity to miss

[jp1885]

That was quite a ride! Thanks for running it Phil; I had a great time. Having just also completed Death on the Reik for WFRP, that’s two deadly dungeon crawls under my belt this week!

Ivy’s descent into madness was inevitable I think, considering how much of an option she had of herself. I’m happy to play an sanitarium-based scenario, or pick things up after everyone has recovered (or indeed play a different character - there’s a camp-as-Christmas occultist in my files somewhere).

[Philulhu]

Thanks, JP. We’ll see what everyone else wants to do

WFRP is one of my favourites although we ended up with a TPK in Shadows Over Bogenhafen last year. The PCs were trapped on a boat by someone sniping at them with a crossbow. They tried shooting back but had no clue as to what else to do (erm… go over the side and swim to safety anyone?) and they all just got picked off. I kind of felt like I should have done better as a GM but at the same time, they’re not novice players so I felt they should have done better than just get used for target practice

[jp1885]

We got lucky in that scene. One of our players, a halfling, somehow managed to one-shot the assassin with his sling. That enabled us to finish off his mates and for my character, a budding bounty hunter, to nick his crossbow!

[Silver Priest]

I must protest that san loss, Alex did not even know Winscott! Jk, That's how the game goes. Alex will be taking some time to try and recover mentally--and physically-- whether or not that does anything mechanically.

I quite enjoyed the scenario and how Alex kept his cool throughout it. He has a good head on his shoulders. And it was fun being a bit of the pulp hero. We won't talk about being run over by the apes. I do sort of regret making him gay, because IMO he and Ivy have such great chemistry. I suppose there relationship is more of a sibling one. If Ivy ever dies I'll probably opt to have Alex take full san damage because that would be the ultimate failing for him.

No major preference for what we do next. The sanitarium could be great. There's also that weird cult William met down south that could be interesting to follow up on.

But great work as always Philulhu, and thanks for all the hard work in running this. Do we roll for our skills now?

[Bullfrog]

I had a ton of fun with this, especially playing Jerry. It's a shame he died, since I would have loved to play him again, but he did pretty well so I can't complain. Imagine spending untold eons in your underground laboratory complex, studying the arts of magic and alchemy, only to get incinerated by a bomb-throwing ape.

As for follow-ups, I'd prefer something set after everyone's (somewhat) recovered their marbles. I like having more freedom with investigation, and after all, Lawrence has some unfinished business down in Louisiana...

[Mr. Handy]

Thanks, I enjoyed it too. The random running worked out okay for me, as I did manage to find my way out of there. Going insane and running away actually turned out for the best for me. I'm fine with an adventure set in a sanitarium, but I'm also okay with something different.

[Philulhu]

Hi all,

Pleased to hear you enjoyed it, and yes, please roll for skills (Bullfrog - did you roll for Lawrence’s skills last time?)

I’m in two minds which way to go next. Both would be home-brewed so I’ve got some writing to do. Give me a couple of days…

Thanks, Phil.

[Silver Priest]

1d100

1d100

1d10

1d100

1d100

1d100

1d10

1d100

1d100


1d10

[Bullfrog]

Lawrence did indeed improve his skills after All Unquiet. He may be 29 SAN points poorer, but at least he came out of 1917 as a (somewhat) more skilled man.

[jp1885]

[88] = 88
Climb 20 1d100: [ 88 ] = 88

[3] = 3
1d10: [ 3 ] = 3

[20] = 20
Fighting (Brawl) 25 1d100: [ 20 ] = 20

[21] = 21
First aid 65 1d100: [ 21 ] = 21

[91] = 91
Listen 50 1d100: [ 91 ] = 91

[7] = 7
1d10: [ 7 ] = 7

[82] = 82
Navigate 10 1d100: [ 82 ] = 82

[5] = 5
1d10: [ 5 ] = 5

[58] = 58
Psychology 60 1d100: [ 58 ] = 58

[60] = 60
Spot hidden 65 1d100: [ 60 ] = 60

[Mr. Handy]

Spot Hidden (64% skill) XP check:
d%
Listen (68% skill) XP check:
d%
Listen increase:
1d10
First Aid (50% skill) XP check:
d%
First Aid increase:
1d10
Climb (40% base skill) XP check:
d%