Play@YSDC

The tunnel ends in a larger space, a large square room with a 40-foot side. The room is dark and has smooth walls, made of a strange kind of metal, being it dark gray and very cold to the touch. The wall ahead of the investigators has two heavy metal doors. The left door is open. The doors have a large handle and a big hole in the lock, looking like doors from an ancient era.



The ceiling is very high, the flashlight beam projected forward does not show how much. The group senses that it must be high, from the echo of their small steps as they enter the place. The smell becomes strong nauseating and unbearable, forcing them to cover their nostrils. The smell comes from above.

Wrinkling her nose, Kathryn points her flashlight at the source of the smell and looks upward, dreading what she might see.

As soon as the flashlight is pointed, towards a roof that seems endless, Kathryn suddenly screams and the object falls at her feet, as a result of an abrupt movement of her fragile nerves.

Kathryn,The vision lasts a split second, but enough to arouse horror. A mass of absurd and chaotic biological matter, made of limbs, slime.... closed eyes and mouths. Seemingly immobile and dormant. The same horror they saw rise from the pit of the Andersons' house. Now it is smeared on the ceiling of this place.

"Nononono..." whispers Kathryn, picking up the flashlight with her trembling hand. "That thing we saw in the Andersons' house...it's up there. We need to move very quietly through here and get through that door...or go back and check that side tunnel first." Of course, her own scream could have easily alerted it.

Shrieking like a frightened child, Michael runs away in sheer terror. His only thought is to hide from the thing he can't bear to think about. In his panic, he runs into the side tunnel as the closest place to get away from it. No matter what's waiting there, it can't be worse than the thing he's running from.

Kathryn follows Michael, bringing Ivy and Emma with her. She also doesn't want to be near that thing, let alone walk under it.

Going back in a desperate run, the group then takes the new tunnel. They soon realize that this tunnel makes a curve, and continues parallel to the one the´ve just left. After a few meters, the beginning of another tunnel appears on the left wall, while the main one continues straight.

"Let's take the side tunnel," suggests Kathryn. "That'll lead us back toward whatever's on the other side of those doors without having to risk going under that thing."

"Jake with me, lady," Michael agrees, his voice a little shaky. "But if we run into those things again, I'm gonna make like Barney Oldfield."

"I hope you'll take us with you," says Kathryn. "If you're scared, how do you think the rest of us feel? The worst thing they can do to you is kill you." She shivers.

The new tunnel is short, arrives in front of a heavy sliding metal door, open a few inches, just enough for a glimmer of light to come out, through which investigators can spy inside. The room is lit by a strong white light coming from the ceiling.

Inside the room, four creatures are gathered around a circular structure, the size of a large round table. They are the same monsters the group has fought in the tunnel, after Ivy had killed Vera died. Under this strong light, their forms appear in all their horror. They vaguely suggests the anthropoid, with large frontal roundish bulbs, thick scales with a fine skin and white flesh. Their skin is the colour of the forest floor in fall, fading green mixed with so many browns. There is a tightness to his skin except for a crinkle at the arms and legs. Their long paws are webbed, and the fingers clawed. Their clammy body syncretizes the vertebrate’s passage from marine to terrestrial life. The mouth is enormous and resembles that of a fish. One of them has jaws wide open up to the ears, showing a scary rows of sharp teeth. The bulging and lidless eyes, along with the upper part of the head, are more similar to amphibian traits, while the spiny ridges down the back point out the contribution of reptilian features. They reek of raw sewage and rotten fish. Their predominant color is a greyish-green, though they have white bellies. Their body is shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs is scaly. At the sides of their necks are palpitating gills and their prodigious bulging eyes never close.

Near the Northwest wall are placed some large rectangular structures that extend up to the ceiling. The devices have cumbersome and rudimentary mechanisms that look like the first machines of the Renaissance period. In some parts of the machine, the metal is chemically degraded, as if an advanced process of rusting took place, turning the metal into a slimy greenish and brown organic substance made of kelp seaweed and fragments of other organic material of the seabed, the same substance that assembled to generate the monsters in Norris house.

This substance looks the primary source of biological manipulation used by these foul creatures. Apparently, they are able to shape this material for different purposes.
The machines are all interconnected by large metal tubes and the lateral surface has a cavity hosting a few levers and buttons. One machine is connected to something that looks like a large cistern, whose upper end is soiled with the kolby substance, which is stirred inside the cistern and produces a bubbling noise.
Some glass cylinders are placed near the large cistern and above the machines. They contain unknown liquids of different colors, with varying gradual shades of red and brown. All cylinders have tubes that converge inside the big cistern.

The seaweed slurry articulates within the metal gears, like a slimy shapeless reptile settling into its lair. It pulsates rhythmically within the machines wheels, following the tuned and coordinated activity of the metal structures. The kelpy mass interposes between the gears like a lubricating oil to establish a symbiosis, a functional interaction between the machine and the biological.
The result is the most shocking and incredible interaction between metal and living matter ever seen. It is a miserable embarrassment for human limited intelligence, which still treats the two matters as strictly separate.
At some critical points of the structure, pieces of metal and vegetable fibers are so fused, that make it difficult to understand where the one starts and the other ends. The most astonish thing is the way the two interfaces interact coordinately, as if they were a single organism, rather than the result of an assembly process.
The liquid seems to have knowledge of the spaces he needs to occupy for its function, as it refuses obeying the insignificant and limited hydraulic law of communicating vessels, but avoids the fluid overflowing.
Rather, the slurry remains adherent to the gears and its movements are followed by metallic noises inside the whole structure, while the chemical solutions in the glass containers keep bubbling. Tubes come out of the cistern and reach the circular table.

The eyes of the creatures are staring, and their gazes are impassive and implacable, seeming to testify capacity for human intelligence and cognition. They watch a small mass of kelpy substance spreading over the metal surface and moving chaotically. One of the creatures controls the machinery through a few large levers, and this operation seem to allow the density of the substance to change. The creature observe the substance like human scientists would patiently observe the result of a scientific experiment.

The entire surface of the ceiling is bright and dazzling, to the point of disturbing and damaging the eyes when looked at for a long time. The floor and walls are made of smooth, dark gray metal. The room has three other closed sliding doors, one in the wall in front of the observers and the other on their left.

Sanity roll,Kathryn [dice]0[/dice]

Kathryn only barely manages to keep her senses. She gestures to Michael back the way they came and around the corner to the left, to the rest of the tunnel they haven't yet explored. She'd rather not face these things if there's another choice. If they can find Timothy in that direction, they can just avoid these monsters entirely.

Just the stench coming from the place is enough to make Michael want to back awy, so he offers no argument. He tries to move as quietly as possible.

Kathryn slips back to the intersection, thankfully skilled at sneaking around.

Going back, after having made just a few steps, they feel the cloud of nauseated smell. Soon, a disturbing noise accompanies the smell. Something that crawls along the walls of the other tunnel, coming from the southwest and going northeast. They feel that it is close to go past the entrance of their tunnel.

"We hide here and wait for it to pass," whispers Kathryn, holding her gun ready in case they're detected.

The source of the smell passes along the tunnel and continues in the same direction, ignoring the new tunnel where the investigators are. At that moment, one of the horrible amphibian humanoids inside the room heads for the door the group is spying throught. He has an unidentifiable object in his hand, which gives off a blue light that hides its shape.

"Hide," whispers Kathryn, pressing herself against the wall beside the door, extinguishing her light, and concealing herself in the shadows. She hopes desperately that the creature won't see her or her friends.

OOC,Stealth roll (60% skill) to hide from the Deep One: [dice]0[/dice]

Michael is about as easy to hide as one of those German airships, but he'll give it his best effort. It has to beat running into one of those hideous things again, anyway.
Once again his clumsiness gets him in trouble. He gets ready to blast away at those things once they head his way.

The amphibious being opens the door and passes by, not seeing the two investigators hidden and huddled, upon the cold floor. His bulbous eyes are looking ahead, as if he were traying to notice something on the distance, at the end of the tunnel. The object in his hand projects a ray of blue light and the creature stretches out its arm, as if it were using the thing like a lantern. When he reaches the end of the tunnel, he turns left, following the muddy and atrocious creature that had passed shortly before. The blue light soon disappears with him.

Much as I hate the idea, Michael muses to himself, I guess we gotta find out what's goin' on down there. He gestures to the others to follow them quietly. Luckily, these monsters don't seem too bright, or they would have noticed the humans among them.

Kathryn quietly follows Michael. She had been sure that the creature would see her and is relieved that they remain undetected for now.

Investigators follow the amphibious monster down the tunnel. The creature lifts the bright blue object towards the slimy and muddy monster, which flattens its mass against the tunnel wall. Apparently, the light repells the slimy moster, so to allow the humanoid creature to pass without touching it. Soon as the blue light moved on, some parts of the slimy thing tend to re-occupy the space, blocking the passage again. Most likely, only way to follow the humanoid creature avoiding the contact with the other monster would be walking close behind the anphibious monster.

Without saying a word, Michael stays close behind the human-like creature, ready to grab the blue light out of its hand, or claw, or whatever it has, whenever he has a chance. He hopes the other thing is as stupid as this one seems to be. If he's lucky, it has the brains of a slug.

Kathryn follows close behind Michael, keeping her revolver ready in case they're discovered.

Only one investigator can follow the humanoide creature without getting in contact with the slimy shapeless monster.
Who follows the creatures need to walk very close to him, and would be undoubtely discovered.

Kathryn backs off, seeing that she won't be able to stay in the strange light, and keeps her distance from the horrible slimy thing.

After the amphibious creature has passed, the slimy being remains adhered to the walls of the tunnel. Part of it reaches the the ceiling, then runs down and accumulates on the floor. The whole mass obtructs half of the tunnel section.

Kathryn keeps Ivy and Emma away from the creature, hoping that Michael knows what he's doing.

When Michael approaches the anphibious creature, the being turns to him in anger and fright. His bulbous eyes widen, and the blue light of the strange object in his hand reflects in his toad pupils, taking on an even more terrifying and unnatural appearance. The creature opens his mouth and its sharp teeth are ready to bite, while trying to push Michael away from him. Around the couple in struggle, where the blue light loses its sparkle, the muddy mass of chaotic organs forms a surface, a kind of shell of shapeless matter moving all around the field of blue light.

"Stay back!" Michael shouts with all his might. He hopes the frog-thing thinks he's yelling at it, when he's really warning the women to get away. Trying to fight off the creature in hand-to-hand combat, he makes a lunge at the lantern, trying to grab it out of the thing's hand. It looks like the blue light is the only thing keeping back the other monster, which is the bigger danger, he figures.

The beast flaps around trying to hit Michael with one paw, while holding the bright object in the other. As Michael defends himself, the creature loses its balance, and falls. The bright object ends up on the ground near Michael's feet. Immediately, a slimy tentacle grabs the ankle of the amphibious being, dragging it into the putrefied mass. A complex of teeth and stomachs overlap the creature, devouring it and digesting it voraciously. Michael turns his head not to see, while a cloud of rancid blood smell attacks him, as if it were something physical. He finds himself on his knees, holding a strange object. It is composed by two buzzing globes of shivering gray stone, one encasing each hand and projecting a blue beam on his face.

Meanwhile, the slimy mass withdraws, moving away from the light.

"Jesus, Joseph, and Mary," Michael whispers. "That was too close." He rises to his feet, keeping a strong grip on the glowing thing. "Everybody stick close to me," he shouts. "The big monster is allergic to the light, or somethin'. Anyway, it's the only chance we've got. The little guys ain't so tough or so smart, but they might be a handful. Keep your weapons ready, and don't step away from the blue light!"

Kathryn wraps her arms around Michael, filled with relief that it was he who emerged and not the horrible fishman. She clings to him as they pass the creature down the tunnel, her revolver at the ready.

Using the strange object to repell the absurd being, the four investigators manage to continue along the tunnel, avoiding contact with the thing, which seems to be threatening them while placing itself around the blue aura.
The tunnel keeps streight towards the hill of the island. The group walks under a roof of stalactites that looks like a threatening jaws. The tunnel ends after a hundred feet. It leads to a cave. The floor of the cave is made of a smooth stone, gray in color with brown hues. A circle of thirty feet in diameter has been engraved in the stone floor. Four stone prisms three feet high are placed along the perimeter of the circle, equidistant from each other.
The prisms are of the same material as the floor, but with different shades being one darker and the others gradually lighter. The prisms rest on their triangular base, being the point of the triangle directed towards the center of the circle.

The cave also hosts a pool of water that connects the cave with the sea, probably comunicating with the waters of the northern shore of the island. The walls of the tunnel are humid and probably the tunnel must fill with water with hight tide.

"Dead end," Michael mutters. "Nowhere else to go, and I don't particularly feel like drownin'. Messin' around with those weird rocks probably isn't a real good idea either. No way to tell how long this blue light will last, so we better get the Sam Hill out of here. Gotta inform the authorities about this, as crazy as it sounds. With more than one witness, maybe they won't throw us into the loony bin. Bring somebody back with some real fire power, and a camera, too, to prove this is real."

"I have a camera right here," says Kathryn, taking it out of her purse and photographing the contents of the cave as she examines them closely, "but I don't think we're going to be able to go toe to toe with them, even if we bring back help and bigger guns. We'd need an army to overcome these odds. We'll have better luck being stealthy and slipping through the cracks, like we're doing now. I don't think we have much time, either. We have to find Timothy, and we know he's here somewhere. If he's not in this cave, we'll have to go back to that structure in the middle. There are only three of those things left there, and with our guns and surprise on our side, we should be able to defeat them."

The prisms of the structures (the point of the triangle directed towards the center of the circle, having different shades being one darker and the others gradually lighter) has something familiar. They resamble something the group found inside the Anderson secret room:

OOC:   See https://www.callofcthulhu.org.uk/pbp/vi ... 4&start=60 Post Wed Oct 16, 2019

"Wait, that stone disk!" says Kathryn, taking it out of her purse. "I think it's supposed to go in the middle of the circle. It also had one darker triangle and the rest gradually lighter, just like the circle here. The dark triangle on the disk should be aligned with the dark prism around the circle, and the lighter triangles lined up with the lighter prisms. The light from the prisms should catch the disk. I wonder if this circle is the way to K'n-yeil. Maybe if we stand in the center with the desk, we'll be able to get there."

OOC,Thanks, I'd forgotten about that!

"Then let's do it," says Kathryn. Once they're all standing in the middle of the circle, she holds up the disc and aligns it with the prisms as she had described.