Not being too good at fighting, I try to make myself as small a target as possible. I'm a reader, not a fighter!
Joesph and Anatoly hear gunshots ringing out from inside the mansion.
The bottom level of the carriage house is a converted garage, with space for several cars to park and various auto maintenance tools stored within. There is currently a black Cadillac sedan parked there. A closed door on the wall leads to a set of stairs leading to the second floor of the carriage house.
Order of Action- pool values represent total at the beginning of the round
Ralph- Fleeing 8 (diving for cover)
Trammel
Freddy- Firearms 6
Amadeus-Scuffling 5
Walker
Evelyn- Firearms 2
Ralph, with the body of a heavy reader, throws himself away from the door his hands shaking in fright.
Meanwhile, Samson Trammel grabs the drawer in his desk and yanks the entire thing out. Evelyn, Freddy and Amadeus can see that there is a sheaf of papers and folios bound in twine and rubber bands within.
"YOU WON'T GET ME! I WAS CHOSEN! CHOSEN!", he shouts.
Freddy stays cool, his adrenaline pumping. He retaliates, taking a shot at Walker while he's popping out to line up another shot on the detective.
Walker grunts, blood seeping from where Freddy wounded him.
Amadeus charges into the room, jumping on Trammel on the floor.
"WALKER! GET HIM OFF ME!", the cult leader shouts.
Walker takes a risky shot at the medium, trying to dislodge him from his employer.
For the second time today, Amadeus feels the hot pain of a bullet entering his body- this time through the shoulder.
Evelyn takes the opening to retaliate, landing another hit on Walker.
Trammel's bodyguard falls back behind the wall, clutching the new wound.
Stability check with 2-point spend
Antatoly stands looking at the body. He just stands. It's almost too much. First the mouth, and the unspeakable acts surrounding it, and now this. He had murdered a man. Sure, he might be dead himself if he hadn't shot, but now what. Where did he go from here. did he begin his slow descent into madness and depravity, or learn to live with his sins, and continue life.
He makes no acknowledgement of Joseph's attempts to speak to him... he must stares.
1d6+2 Stability check with 2-point spend
Antatoly stands looking at the body. He just stands. It's almost too much. First the mouth, and the unspeakable acts surrounding it, and now this. He had murdered a man. Sure, he might be dead himself if he hadn't shot, but now what. Where did he go from here. did he begin his slow descent into madness and depravity, or learn to live with his sins, and continue life.
He makes no acknowledgement of Joseph's attempts to speak to him... he must stares.
Anatoly's mouth is dry, his heart racing. He killed a man. He's a killer now and there's no way to change that. Dear God, what would Uncle think?
Freddy keeps his aim steady as he circles around the wall, attempting to get another shot off on Walker.
"GAWDDAMMIT SHUT SHOOTING ME YOU DAMN FOOLS!" Amadeus cries as the bullet tears into him. For a moment he's too filled with adrenaline to notice the pain as he tries to slam Trammel to the floor.
Trammel kicks and writhes in Amadeus' grasp, trying to sink his teeth into the investigator's arm.
While Trammel bites down into Amadeus' arm, the medium maintains his old on the cult leader.
Walker tries limping away into the smoke filling the grand entry from the sputtering wreck of a car, but Freddy gets an angle and takes it:
With the loud report of the .45, Walker sprawls to the ground and remains still.
Joseph walks up to Anatoly Come on, we have to help them!!! He tries to drag him into the car, and whether or not he succeeds, he stamps on the gas pedal and begins to speed towards the firefight!
Joseph jumps into the Cadillac and hits the gas! Then realizes that the key isn't in the car.
Now that the shooting has stopped, I rush up and try to help Amadeus secure Trammel
Ralph dives onto Trammel, putting him in a headlock to discourage further biting.
I wrestle with him a bit, keeping him in place.
Now what?!?
Tinkering with the car like he's seen other people do it before, Joseph gets the Cadillac running without the need for a key.
Trammel continues thrashing, kicking with his feet, jabbing with his elbow and biting at Ralph's hand.
With a nasty kick to Amadeus' bullet wound and vicious bite to the soft flesh at the base of Ralph's thumb, Trammel kicks free of the investigators and attempts to run into the grand entry!
Amadeus screams in pain as the damnable man hits his wound, causing a flare of lightning to rush through his body. "Get.... that.... sonuvabit..." he mumbles.
I grumble under my breath, flecks of blood trailing off my hand as I take off running after the madman.
Will someone with a gun please shoot this man before I have to do too much running?
Freddy runs forward and takes aim at Trammel's leg with his .45...
The cult leader tumbles to the floor in the smoky grand entryway, toppled by his momentum and the bullet in his leg. The desk drawer and its contents drop from his arms, flying across the room. Grunting from the pain, he starts crawling after it.
I rush up and grab the drawer before he can reach it.
Ralph scoops up the drawer- within is a thick sheaf of papers and folios bound variously by twine, rubber bands and nothing. The top sheet has Testament of the Dripping Mouths' Emanates typed in the middle.
Trammel starts pulling himself to his feet.
"That is not for your eyes! Give it back! The- the briefcase! A thousand dollars cash, plenty of Nectar- take that! Twice as much if you let me go!"
Joseph drives the despondent Anatoly over to the smoking mansion from the carriage house, completely ambivalent to the groundskeeping. Running in through the servant's entrance and the kitchen, he finds the place filling with smoke from the crashed car. In the grand entrance, the powerfully built man that answered the door lays face down with a rifle still clutched in his hand while a middle-aged man in his undershirt and slacks, bleeding from a bullet wound in his leg, attempts to get back on his feet. The man he had lunch with this afternoon... what was it? Randall? Ralph?... seems to be studying something in a desk drawer that's been ripped from its home.
I move the drawer out of reach of Trammel.
Testament of the Dripping...well, this is indeed what we're looking for. Let's see what we can learn about this so called "magic mouth" hmmm?
I read the spooky book.
Amadeus staggers to his feet and kicks Trammel in his wound. "Bastard. See if you like it." He looks at Ralph and smiles. "What you will learn is not to look into the mouth of the beast while it tries to swallow you, Haas."
Trammel ignores Westmore's orders and lunges for Ralph, only to be kicked by Amadeus. His knee buckles and he falls to the floor once more.
The Testament is a thick sheaf of papers, it will likely take two or three days to read through. Flipping through pages, Ralph finds that Trammel's magnum opus-in-progress is a chaotic work, variously typed and handwritten in different penmanships. Many pages are soaked or marked with various bodily fluids or supplemented with thin shavings of organic material.
"I was CHOSEN! Give it back! Your feeble mind won't be able to grasp our genius!", he says, still crawling toward the manuscript.
A truly disturbing piece of work, the product of a warped mind. The very act of looking at it makes Ralph's skin crawl.
Amadeus peers over Ralph's shoulder, curious about the script. "May I see the paper?"
Anatoly sits in the car for a while after it stops. Zombie-like he follows Joseph in after a while. The forgotten gun dangling loosely in his hand.
Freddy grabs at the throbbing wound inflicted by Walker. The gun battle was over and the adrenaline was wearing off. "Arrgh. We've still got to take care of the mouth down stairs. Ralph, where is the cross?"
Joseph continues pointing his gun at Trammel Stay down or I shoot!
Sweating, Trammel looks between Joseph, Freddy and Evelyn before making a break for the gaping car crash hole in the front of his mansion!
He legs it far harder than you thought a man with a leg wound possibly could.
The gunfight is over before Evelyn even realizes it. Very slowly she stows her firearm and waits for her heart to stop pounding; the others already seemed to have Trammel handled. Or so she thinks, until the man manages to break in spite of his condition. How the hell is he running so fast?
Instead pursuing Trammel, Evelyn's first instinct is to assess everyone's injuries.
"Right, the mouth," she says absentmindedly, grimacing at Joseph's wounds.
Joseph's bullet finds its mark:
Trammel had clearly hoped that the smoke would give him the needed cover to escape into the night, but Westmore's practiced enough to lead the fleeing cult leader. A shot through the center mass sends Trammel tumbling face down to the ground not far from where the smoking car crashed into the house.
I absentmindedly hand Amadaus the papers. Sure. Very scattered work. I'd like to read more, but nothing useful jumps out at me...
I turn to Freddy.
The cross? It's in the trunk of the once-car now battering ram. I hope it's ok...it's very valuable to the right collector...
Anatoly cringes at the sound of each gunshot, but Trammel going down seems to make something within him snap. "Load him up in the trunk of Caddy, and let's get out of here. I'll grab the cross, but don't know if I'm capable of going down there and... seeing... it again". Anatoly runs to the ruined car, trying to get to the trunk before it explodes.
"Let the fool bleed," Amadeus says as he limps up to the body. "We have his book and notes, we don't need him."
Anatoly runs to the trunk. A frightful sound and the smell of gasoline rises from the shattered engine. The massive cross is where it was left, slightly splintered. With a sputter, a gout of flame rises from the engine block.
Trammel gasps on the ground, still crawling away. He drags himself a few more feet before finally collapsing, a nonsense word gurgling from his lips: "Nyarllathhhughh..."