August 18 - 10.30 PM - The Croockey Inn

[robertod]

The girl´s name is Vera. She´s a girl of about 20 years old. She has a childish face and blonde hair, with a fringe that covers her right eye. She is thin and frail. The skin of the arms and hands is dry. The breasts are almost absent, as if the belly had sucked and accumulated most of the body fluids.

Vera leads the investigators to the passage, hidden between the rocks near the pier. As the tide is now low, the entrance to a tunnel appears. The tunnel goes north towards the inner part of the island. Soon after the entrance, the tunnel slinks into the abyss of the earth, like an almighty worm had burrowed under the surface rocks. A steep descent takes the investigators twenty feet underground. Then, the tunnel continues parallel to the soil and goes towards the hinterland.
The temperature drops as the group enters into the underground cavern, sending violent chill down the spine. As soon as the group moves away from the entrance, light reaches neither wall nor ceiling.

It doesn´t seem like a natural cave, it rather appears as the product of a drilling work. Whoever built it tunneled for a straight line, not giving importance about the softest soil. The tunnel is 10 feet wide and high, and keeps this size as the investigators continue walking through it. Sea water invades the place at high tide, leaving kelp seaweed remains and the strong smell of salt.
At about 700 feet from the entrance, the group enters a large hall, which is roughly rhombus shaped and whose side measures around 150 feet. The hall has four pools of about 30 feet in diameter. They are located symmetrically in the hall.
Each pool is ten feet deep. Two pools are empty, but those closest to the exit contain the kolby slime, made of fragments of brown seaweed, salt and sand. Beyond the hall, the tunnel continues north.

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

Michael shines his flashlight into the two seemingly empty pools, to see if there's anything down there.

"Anybody got a hip flask or somethin' to get a sample of that slime?"

Spoiler:

Is Vera coming along or staying behind?

[Mr. Handy]

"Sorry, I don't drink," says Kathryn. Old Brian McCabe had always carried a flask around, but she had more respect for the Volstead Act.

[jp1885]

"I too abstain from alcohol, but perhaps I have a small bottle of cologne I could empty out."

Ivy rummages through her handbag to check for perfume bottles.

[robertod]

Vera remains standing by the pool.
While investigators take a sample of the substance, the mass of algae of the pool closest to Vera suddenly rises, forming a column of liquid. Then, it immediately falls back, as if rediscovering the gravity force.
The falling is somehow slightly redirected by an unknown force, so that the liquid falls and spreads over Vera's body.
The girl tries to remove as much slime as possible. Her face suddenly becomes a mask of deep terror, as if she knew that all this means something horrible.

In a few seconds, the sludge solidifies. It becomes hard as a rock, and creates a continuity with the ground. The slime was transformed into a structure that imprisoned most Vera´s body as in a statue, only allowing limited movements with the arms and upper body.

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

Michael rushes over to Vera, smashing at the stuff with all his might.

"Stay away from that pool!" he screams at the others. "It's a death trap!

Spoiler:

If relevant, Strength = 48[dice]0[/dice]

[Mr. Handy]

Kathryn nods, gulping. She tries to help Michael free Vera, keeping the frozen woman between her and the pool.

[robertod]

The pools return to being a placid inert slurry. Their reaction against Vera was similar to a reflection of a carnivorous plant. But the girl is still trapped. The resin wrapped her lower body making it like part of a marble statue. Suddenly, some noises of footsteps are echoing. A group is walking, coming from the north.

Suddenly, indistinguishable and unidentifiable voices echo in the hall, coming from the north tunnel. They sound like something between the roar of an animal and the hiss of the wind.

The girl opens her mouth and eyes, and her thin face turns white like a ghost, tinged with the most desperate and unimaginable terror. She begins to beg for something terrible. Her mind is in a plan of reality the investigators cannot yet fully understand.

"The spirits of the sea. They are coming. They are coming to get me. You can do nothing for me, don't let them take me alive. Kill me. Kill me!"

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

"Girl's out of her head,"Michael says, "and I don't blame her, poor kid. We gotta stop those things. He gets his pistol ready, wondering if he's going to be firing at men or devils.

[Mr. Handy]

"If we kill them, we don't have to kill you," says Kathryn, drawing her pistol. Taking cover behind the rock-like resin trapping Vera, she takes aim down the tunnel at the approaching enemy.

[jp1885]

Ignoring the others’ warnings, Ivy tries to free the girl buy hacking at the material. However her efforts are in vain.

STR 40,[dice]0[/dice]

[robertod]

Vera knows that there´s no hope for her. She speaks with unnutural lucidity.

"Forget it. They´re the only ones who know how to dissolve it. Many are coming. You should not try to face them now. Hide yourselves. If you can't kill me, hide yourselves."

Kathryn sees the shadows of six humanoid figures approaching at a brisk pace, a breeze blowing carries the smell of the seabed along with their coming. Their body is taller and wider than common human beings. They walk with some difficulty, as if the earth were not a place for them.

[Mr. Handy]

Terrified, Kathryn tries to find a hiding place.

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

[jp1885]

Ivy hesitates for a moment. Hiding would be the obvious thing to do, but she cannot allow the girl to fall into the clutches of the terrible forces behind all this. The others may not have the stomach for it, but the Ripleys have never been ones to shrink from what must be done - however unpleasant that may be.

“I’m sorry...” she whispers, before plunging her knife into the girl’s jugular.

That grisly act done, she stands back to accept her fate (assuming there is now no time left to hide.)

[robertod]

The girl bows her head as blood gushes from her throat and flows down to the resin that traps her. The noises are approaching, but the group still has some time to hide, but they must do it quickly.

[jp1885]

Feeling wretched at what she’s just done, Ivy half-heartedly tries to hide.

Stealth 20%,[dice]0[/dice]

[Mr. Handy]

Kathryn conceals herself as best she can, knowing that a fate worse than death awaits her if she's discovered.

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

Having witnessed the mercy killing of a poor innocent woman, and seeing that the other ladies are trying to hide from the monsters coming this way, Michael throws caution to the wind and tries to draw the attention of the things. He runs off to the side of the road, screaming at the top of his lungs, and fires at the creatures.

"Come and get me, you lousy creeps!"

If he can't save himself, maybe the others can get away and warn the rest of the world. Besides, maybe they're just interested in females. He can hope, anyway.

[jp1885]

Ivy stands next to Michael, arms folded in defiance.

“No, you go Mike. I’ve just taken a life; I must atone for that.”

[VictoriaSilverwolf]

"There ain't no shame in doin' a terrible thing for the right reason,"Michael says with unexpected gentleness. "You wanna stick around, that's A-OK with me, but don't feel like you need to make up for nothin'."

He grimly waits for the demons to approach, muttering to himself.

"Hail Mary, fulla grace . . .