IC: Chapter 1 - NEW YORK, Starts 12th Jan 1925

[coffee demon]

Andrei flips on the lights, throws open the door, and stands back quickly to give Thomas a good field of view. He's pretty sure things are ok now, but he'll indulge the lawyer.

[Grafster]

Johnny relaxes further hearing the conversation outside. Sounds like she's safe. Good.

As Andrei flips on the lights Johnny he sees Johnny standing nochalontly in the doorway. He looks slightly uncomfortable.

[Quote=Thomas]"Turn all the lights on and stay on your guards until we've looked everywhere." [/quote]
The Chinaman gestures silently with his hand toward the end of the hallway, which contains the bathroom and Andrei's Russian-love-pala... bed room.

Johnny won't draw his pistol but will follow the lawyer (or anyone else) who decides to go to the last two rooms.

[Raiko]

Andrei crawls through the window and walks to his rooms. "We had a hell of a time", he explains to Timour before opening the door and surveying his belongings.

[OOC: In case you haven't read the Chinatown Thread]

The living room has been trashed; furniture is overturned, cushions slashed, cupboards and drawers emptied onto the floor.

Johnny:

There isn't anyone hidden in the guest bedroom, it's trashed like the living room though. That just leaves the bathroom & Andrei's bedroom to check (as Grafster already posted).

[coffee demon]

"My old Officer's pistol is...was... in the bottom of my trunk in the bedroom", Andrei quietly offers. He also relaxes visibly, even though his room is trashed and someone may still be in the bedroom.

Andrei will wait behind Johnny and Thomas, surveying the damage quietly.

"Where's Maks?"

[Timour Rukov]

"My old Officer's pistol is...was... in the bottom of my trunk in the bedroom", Andrei quietly offers. He also relaxes visibly, even though his room is trashed and someone may still be in the bedroom.

Andrei will wait behind Johnny and Thomas, surveying the damage quietly.

"Where's Maks?"

"Unfortunately we arrived too late to stop them from searching your apartment, but we scared them off. I'm just glad I wasn't in the mood to shoot first and take names later on that balcony or your wedding plans would have been cut in half," laughs Timour, happy to see them alright. "As for Maksim, wasn't he downstairs in my car?"

[coffee demon]

"We came around the back. We saw a few people waiting in a car outside earlier, and there were more up here. Not only that, people were searching Thomas' office at the same time. There's a lot of them, and somehow they know where we live."

[Timour Rukov]

"A lot of them?" Timour seems perplexed, "I assumed we were dealing with but a handful of men, but this sounds more like an organization were dealing with than a few crackpots smoking too much of the blossum. Perhaps I do need grenades?"

[Grafster]

Johnny taking advantage of all the aural cover provided by the chit chatting in the living room will silently slip down the hallway. After pausing to listen at the doorways [please roll for me if necessary] he'll either:

If hearing nothing check the bathroom and then the bed room and check for Andrei's gun.
If hearing something wave to Thomas and draw his pistol. He doesn't particularly want to shoot anyone but he'll try to quickly open the door and intimidate.
If anything physical happens he kicks out knees and otherwise tries to do painful but not fatal type of disabling stuff.


[OOC
Gonna be away for 6-8ish hours. I've copied the roll above below.
Chapter 1 - Sneak (50%) - Down the hallway to check the rest of the apartment. [1d100 -> 3]

[coffee demon]

"A lot of them?" Timour seems perplexed, "I assumed we were dealing with but a handful of men, but this sounds more like an organization were dealing with than a few crackpots smoking too much of the blossum. Perhaps I do need grenades?"

Andrei looks quickly at Timour's face, to read if he's joking or not. For the first time, it doesn't look like the big Russian is passing judgement on Timour. He looks back down the hall toward Thomas and Johnny and chews his lip, thinking.

[imme]

Elizabeth crawls in through the window and breathes a sigh of relief upon seeing Timour. She walks into Andrei's apartment, stifling a small gasp as she sees the damage done to the living room. "Are we safe here now?"

[Raiko]

Johnny taking advantage of all the aural cover provided by the chit chatting in the living room will silently slip down the hallway. After pausing to listen at the doorways [please roll for me if necessary] he'll either:

If hearing nothing check the bathroom and then the bed room and check for Andrei's gun.

Johnny creeps silently down the hallway with Thomas covering him. He checks the bathroom, finding it empty - although again the room is trashed, the contents of Andrei's medicine cabinet dumped all over the floor.

Then he turns his attention to the final door. Pushing it open he surveys Andrei's bedroom:

Time seems to freeze...

An open trunk...

An empty polished walnut case...

A grotesquely masked man crouched by Andrei's bed...

Pointing the huge revolver right at the doorway...

Johnny throws himself sideways back towards Thomas, just in time as the cultist pulls the trigger. The .44 bullet misses Johnny by inches, blasting a big hole straight through the wall behind him.

Everybody else turns towards Johnny, startled by the ungodly loud report of Andrei's huge revolver.

Before Johnny is even back on his feet, a second cultist burst out of the room brandishing a machette.

Please reply to this in the OOC thread.

[Raiko]

Elizabeth shrieks as she joins Caroline ducking behind the overturned furniture, Andrei attempts to usher the ladies out of the room, shouting "Go! Go! Get Maks, he's downstairs in front!", but ends up joining them as Timour fires a deafening burst from his Browning Automatic Rifle.

The Russian fires the BAR straight through Andrei's living room wall, in the direction of the gunshot, then dashes into the hallway towards Johnny and Thomas.

Things are not going well for that duo. Thomas' first shot misses the masked attacker by inches as he closes in, brandishing the wickedly curved machete.

The cultist is unaffected by Johnny's weak sweep, and swings the huge knife at Thomas. The lawyer's second shot also misses, as he despirately backs away from the masked man, but at least he avoids the deadly machete.

[Raiko]

Johnny draws his revolver and, ignoring the machete wielding maniac only a few feet away, takes a quick look into Andrei’s bedroom. The masked man armed with Andrei’s revolver is nowhere in sight, but there is a big smear of blood down the back wall, and more blood on Andrei’s bed.

Thomas slips as he tries to escape his masked attacker, the cultist looms over him his machete raised and Thomas wonders whether he can get a shot in quickly enough.

There is no need though, before the cultist can attack Timour fires from the doorway, his bullet slams straight through the centre of the grotesque mask killing the cultist instantly.

Johnny steps carefully into Andrei’s room, his revolver ready, just in case. He glances behind Andrei’s bed and sees the other cultist’s body, three bloody holes torn through his chest by Timour’s burst [OOC: ].

Andrei’s revolver lies next to the body, covered in fresh blood.

************************

Andrei, Caroline and Elizabeth run down the stairs, and out of the front entrance, but neither Maksim, nor Timour’s car are anywhere to be seen.

[Decrepit]

"Is anyone hurt?" Caroline says, lugging her bag as she heads downstairs. "Any of us, I mean." She was used to sometimes being the one who helped a victim of violence, but she'd never been this close to the actual perpetration of violence as it took place. Twice in two days, she'd been with the freshly or newly slain, and it wasn't an experience or a feeling she wanted to get used to. Not that it looked like she had a choice.

[coffee demon]

Andrei curses when he finds that Maks is missing. He leads the ladies upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

...

Upon re-entering his apartment and seeing that everyone is OK, Andrei starts piling his business documents from his desk into a leather satchel. "We need to get out of here before the police come."

[warhammer]

Thomas sits up and stares blankly for a second, scratching his head. Only minutes ago, a cultist was standing over him raising a deadly machette and intending to kill him with it. He was saved because of someone else's intervention, something he was not used to, and something that had happened to him twice in a short amount of time.

He gets up and, for once, does not display his traditional unphased attitude. After muttering a few words of thank you's, he comes back to his senses and packs his things.

"Yeah. Let's get outta here. I suggest using the fire escape again. By now, all the neighbours are probably sh*tting themselves and looking through their keyholes to try and see anyone coming down the stairs."

"Good to see everyone's OK." he adds after a pause.

[Grafster]

Johnny squats down and pulls the mask of the mans face. He'll search the body for any items of interest before picking up Andrei's handcannon and returning to the central room.
“We’re going back to the estate.” It’s more of a statement than an order.

"Timour if it's all the same to you I'd like to have you and Thomas take the BAR out of her now. If Maksim isn’t out front then you’ll have to carry it away through the snow.”
Johnny will find a sheet to help wrap the BFG.
He’ll hang on to the Andrei’s gun, sticking it in a bag from Andrei’s apartment (if he can find it). His pistol goes back in his pocket.

He'll check the second body (if no one else has), examine but leave the machete, and help Andrei pack up and leave. He doesn’t forget the cane he left on the fire escape but uses the stairs to go down.

[imme]

When Elizabeth re-enters the apartment and sees the dead cultist, her eyes go very wide and all color drains from her face. After staring for a few moments, she shakes herself and studiously ignores the body for the rest of the time in the apartment.

During the commotion of getting ready to leave, she says, "Where did Maksim go? I thought you said he was outside. We'll need to find a taxi."

[Decrepit]

"I gather the attackers are quite dead," Caroline says. What was it about these men that drove them to such seemingly insane lengths? She hadn't much of a clue. She knew, of course, that Freud and a few others gave credence to the depths of man's dark natures, but she doubted whether the good doctor had been confronted with murderous men such as these she had encountered twice in short succession.

She looks to Beth, who seems quite shaken--and understandably--by what she's seen already. Sadly, Caroline suspected, it wasn't going to get any better for any of them, at least not soon.

[Raiko]

Andrei’s Apartment
9:40pm - Thursday 15th January 1925

Both attackers are black, and shabbily dressed in old suits. Their wooden face masks / headdresses are virtually identical, except for minor artistic differences in how they were hand carved. Both masks feature the same red tongue or trunk protruding obscenely from their centre. There is very little in the style of the headdresses to suggest that they represent human faces, hence the difficulty of determining whether the red leather represents a tongue or a trunk. The masks possibly represent some pagan deity.

Both men were armed with the same kind of machete, they bend by about thirty degrees in the middle of the blade; apart from that one bend the single edged blades are relatively straight.

Searching the bodies Johnny also finds that each man has a flashlight, some cigarettes and matches and a small amount of cash, $15.28 in total. They have no identification of any kind.

None of the neighbours have investigated the gunfire yet, but it’s likely that the cops will arrive any minute now.