From Hell: A Trip Through the Demimonde

Game Master GM Grimm

ROUND ONE

Lucretia
Altair
V4
Brother Thomas
V1
Reagan
V2
Edgar
George
V3

Remember, you don't have to post in order.

Lucretia takes aim with her light crossbow at the night walker who addressed them.

The bolt finds the neck of the creature who recoils in pain, but is miraculously not out of the fray.

Reagan reaches into her satchel, quickly pulling out one of her metal tubes and giving it a toss toward the largest group of enemies. As it flips through the air, she decides to warn any of her friends near the impact zone. "Incoming!"

*BOOM*

The stale air in the tunnel fills with an acrid smoke and the smell of salt as the cave lights up in orange for just a moment. Her work done, Reagan repositions slightly and pulls out her pistol.

One Spawn rushes Altair in an attempt to slam Altair hard. Another rushes Edgar to do the same. The attack misses the ever agile Altair, but the stalwart Edgar is not so lucky. The spawn slams him hard, knocking him back, but not prone.

Reagan, you need a higher initiative. :)

As the clawed...things approach Thomas tries to bite back a surge of panic. What are those things? He shudders, wanting to pull back and run, but at the same time rooted in fear.

As the fear courses through him, a calm voice echoes in his mind. "I am with you. For such a time as this I have chosen you to wield the powers of holy righteousness against the servants of darkness."

As resolve blossoms in Thomas' innermost being, he begins to chant as he acts; stepping back as he draws out his sling.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

As his words crescendo at the end of the verse, Thomas fires the sling at the monster that was already struck by Lucretia's crossbow.

ROUND 1

Edgar staggers back a step, caught off guard by the sudden appearance and attack of the ghoulish toughs. Get yer wits straight, ol’ boy! His frustration boils over and he launches himself at his attacker with a roar and a heavy overhand swing.

”I’ll ‘ave you, son!”

Taking from his pocket one of the small mirrors Zhou provided, Fitzroy directs it forthrightly at the only unengaged vampire. "Back, Fiend!" the doctor orders, as his puppy dodges back to hide behind his master's feet.

Already in a foul mood from his encounter with the Ravens, the con-man draws his kukri with a flick of his wrist immediately upon spotting the claws on their opponents. He doesn't wait for anyone but Lucretia to move, and even that fractional second of hesitation is mainly due to assessing the situation. He picks out the vampire nearest the priest and the scholar, running diversion and attempting to ram the hooked knife into the creature's neck, operating on the assumption that said attack will in fact impede the damn thing in some way.

Screw mythology and legends. Most things died if you parted their head from their neck anyway, and at this point the vishkanya needed to blow off a little steam.

Round One Recap

Lucretia's bolt finds the neck of the talking spawn. Altair follows by quickly slashing the one charging him across the chest. Wounds as fatal as these would end any mortal creature, but these slowly return to their feet. The slashed spawn charges Altair, but is unbalanced and stumbles forward. He quickly regains his balance, as if he is a cat. Brother Thomas's call for divine strength seems to bother the creatures as they wince a bit at it. His stone finds one which seems to bleed from the attack, but barely flinches otherwise. A spawn launches forward at Edgar attempting to knock him down, slamming into him with great force. Reagan's bombs knock one spawn prone towards the back wall and causes another spawn to sustain injury even though it quickly returns to its fighting stance. Edgar's swing misses the injured spawn. George remembers Van Helsing's words and stops a spawn dead in his tracks, almost as gripped by fear at the sight of the mirror.

Begin Round Two

Standing in the same position, Lucretia loads her crossbow quickly and takes aim at the spawn moving slowly towards her with the bolt in his neck.

The second shot is not as well-placed as the first, but the bolt is embedded into the chest of the spawn who falls to the ground unconscious.

Thomas reloads his sling and begins to spin it, trying to pickout a target. Finally he decides on the spawn being stopped by George's mirror. "Flee from the wrath to come!" he shouts as he unleashes a bullet at it.

ROUND 2

Edgar continues the fury of his charge, if not the literal momentum, throwing a vicious left-handed uppercut into his unseemly opponent's chest.

ROUND 2, FIGHT!

Altair narrows his eyes at the vampire, but swiftly moves on; now that he's got its attention, he attempts to slip out of melee with his opponent and engage Edgar's foe from behind, angling the curve of his knife to take advantage of the bobby's fist. Hopefully, he'd be able to remove this one's head with the momentum of his ally's punch aiding him. And damn, could Stone throw a punch.

Round 2
Unsure what else to do, Fitzroy keeps the mirror trained on the spawn.

As the fight continues, Reagan pulls out her pistol and takes a shot, this time at the one she'd previously injured.

Amazingly, Altair slices off the head of one of the spawns as Edgar knocks it back almost as if it were a planned act and the two had been performing this routine for awhile. George's mirror kept one of the two occupied so Thomas's stone could find its mark. Reagans bullet finds its intended target as well as the spawn seems to pause for what feels like minutes before dropping. Both of the remaining vermin drop though after being softened up by the blast seconds earlier. A fact that made the party's ears continue to ring loudly. All of the spawns were unconscious on the floor, one missing its head.

Lucretia's mouth is moving, but you cannot hear what she is yelling. She repeats it over and over, now making the movement of slicing her throats with her hand. You concentrate through the ringing and finally discern what she is saying by reading her lips, "Cut off their heads!"

You see her move towards one of the fallen and draw her dagger and begin the difficult task of removing its gray-skinned head ripping through as much as cutting through it's neck.

Reagan blinks, shaking her head and pumping her palm against her ears to try to equalize pressure and stop the ringing. She thinks about her knife, then stops. "I'll be lettin' ya take care of that. I think I need to be makin' some adjustments t'the next batch of hand-bombs. A bit too loud!" Hoping someone's heard her, she pulls out her bombs and dumps just the tiniest bit of powder from them. Then, she has an idea. "Could we burn them instead? It'd be a fair bit cleaner, I'm thinking."

Francis walks up to one of the bodies and pulls out his Rosary, and a vial of annointing oil. He quickly makes the sign of the cross on the creature's forehead and lays the crucifix over its heart. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. May the Lord grant you whatever peace he may."

He moves from creature to creature, repeating the same ritual. When he is done he looks at the others somberly. "They may well have been men once. I don't know how to do last rights yet, but it seemed fitting all the same. I hope this is not the fate of Mr. Fitch."

Lucretia pauses her gruesome task to acknowledge the thoughtfulness of Brother Thomas and reflect upon the veracity of it. She suddenly realizes that these spawns as human as they once were, are still potentially a threat. She begins the grotesque task once again, motioning for help to finish it quickly.

"I'd give a great deal to be able to do some autopsies..." Dr Fitzroy adds, hope and regret mixed in his tone.

The ringing stops as the silence fades away, Lucretia finds herself yelling the question, [b] Do you need the head still attached, George?[b]

Edgar takes one close look at his decapitated opponent’s hands and decides these “men” are not, after all, strictly human. Though it seems excessive he follows Ms. Wyld’s directive, borrowing her knife to quickly hack the heads off the remaining creatures with a few short, powerful strokes. When complete he wipes the blade on the last one’s shirt and returns it.

”If these bashers were born men, then what the bloody ‘ell happened t' turn ‘em into… whatever these are?” he asks no one in particular once his ears stop ringing.

"I suppose not." concedes Fitzroy. "I also suppose we have little time to waste - it seems impossible the noise has not alerted our quarry."

Lucretia replies Very well. she looks around and finds an empty crate. After finishing the last beheading, she motions to Edgar, Help me with this body please. The two put the body in the crate along with its head. And she pulls out some lose nails and attempts to haphazardly nail the crate shut with the hilt of her rapier.

As the others go about the grisly work of decapitating the bodies, Francis somberly things about how fragile life truly is. "I don't know what we will face further in, but we should probably get moving soon. I hope we are all prepared."

*As prepared as we can be* he thinks to himself sourly.

A sinister laugh comes from the dark tunnel ahead. There are some tools strewn in the tunnel. Lucretia looks up quickly as if she recognizes the laughter in the darkness.

Jack! she exclaims out loud as if speaking to herself. She quickly looks around the dimly lit storage area as his laugh echoes down the tunnel. We need to go after him. I hope that it is not too late for him. I don't think that I can kill him. We were playmates in the nursery.

We must go. Lucretia lights a torch after reloading her crossbow. Who leads?

Fitzroy says nothing, but looks to Mr Stone.

Altair looks at Stone, face serious as he helps secure the lid back on the crate containing a dead vampire. "You first, me second? Same thing as this last one, set them up and I'll knock them down." There's little room for levity now; they're dealing with forces beyond their weight class. No way to play nice. "Lucretia," he calls to their employer's daughter, "I'm telling you now that if he's like these things I don't know if we can take him without maiming him. Anything that stands up and keeps coming after taking a bullet is not something I can pull my punches on, figuratively speaking."

"It's a good thing I have a mirror." Fitzroy adds weakly "As I'm not sure what good I'd have been otherwise. It may be that we need to test the other superstitions."
He hesitates, then continues "I have a book at home that details rituals that purport to deal with such things. Little good it does us here, but should we survive rest assured I shall copy such things out and carry them with me from now on." He coughs "From what I recall... there is little chance of reversing such a change without killing the patient."

I have never been this unsure of myself. If I hurt cousin Jack, it would probably kill my uncle.

"Very well, let's at least confirm our suspicion and report it back to Lord Walker. From what I have just seen, I don't believe that any of you will be having any trouble getting out of a pinch."

Edgar nods to Altair and takes the lead once they're all ready to head further in, squinting to see ahead into the darkness as best he can.

As they regroup, Reagan pulls out her mining lantern and passes it forward up the line. "You might be wantin' this, Constable. Just don't break it on something's skull, it's the only one I have." She digs through her bag, pulling out her flask and taking a sip. As she does, her muscles loosen and her movements grow a bit more calm, though her eyes take on a bit of a manic look as she fishes out another tube and then shuts her bag.

"Shall we continue? I think we shall, yes?" She fidgets with the triggering capsule on her bomb, fingers running subconsciously across its glass surface.

The group trudges carefully down the dark, musty tunnel. Rats scurry quickly away as your feet move cautiously through the puddles of sludge on the floor. The long tunnel seems claustrophobic as you finally reach another storage room like the room with the crates that you just finished an altercation in. The room was the same size and shape exactly like the last one. The room is filled with rusty parts and strewn with shredded clothing and rusty parts.

The first thing that catches your eye is the freshly mutilated corpse of what could be a well-to-do English gentleman by what parts of the clothing is left. There is also an unmolested top hat nearby. The degree of brutality is nauseating and fascinating at the same time until a spawn enters the room smiling.

“Well hello Lucretia,” the spawn says.

“Jack,” gasps Lucretia.

An eight foot-tall creature steps in behind ‘Jack’, a sort of golem-like being with white eyes and a scarred and stitched visage. He was garbed in the manner of a Zulu chieftain with all of its accoutrements. Its hands end in long, sharp claws.

“This is all of father’s fault you know. He drew the ire of kaMpande and the shamans cooked up this darkness to end our bloodline. He betrayed the wrong people, Lucretia, and for what? For riches? Aren’t we worth more than that? He has to pay for his sins. This city, this country has to pay…in blood.”

Jack pauses for a moment then continues.

“We have summoned a darkness. Once our ritual is complete, this metropolis will be a paradise for us night walkers. It will however mean hell on earth for you. Join me cousin. My master awaits you. Together we will bring the underworld to Great London.”

Thomas gives Jack a grim look. "My master is greater than yours. Repent and turn from evil or you will perish, along with your master.'

Thomas holds up his crucifix and cries out in a loud voice " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it."

Lucretia faints as the acknowledgement that her cousin John has now become some sort of creature of darkness.

The shambling corpse of the tall undead creature with Zulu chieftain garb extends a claw as it points towards Lucretia and exclaims in a deep and demonic voice, "I smell the blood of the deceiver. Lord Walker will pay. Stand in my way and perish."

At that, John, or what he has become retreats into the darkness of the tunnel behind him as his disturbing henchman lunges forward at Edgar.

The creature slashes Edgar across the chest with its sharp claws. 6 hp damage

Round 1

Altair draws one of his razor-edged cards as he steps forward to just behind Edgar, throwing the weapon without hesitation, knife still clutched in his other hand from the last fight. It's not the strongest of attacks, but it's made with precision and just as the strange, towering creature is about to begin its motion. "For the love of... why'd she have to bloody faint? Panic and run screaming, fine, but don't just drop like a sack of potatoes!"

Brother Thomas watches the creature slash out at Edgar with a growing sense of anger. "What darkness does, let the light undo!" He moves up behind Edgar to the left of Nikos, and grips his Crucifix in his hand.

"Death and Decay, flee before the power of him who conquered the grave. In the name of the Christ, the Son of the Living God, be healed! Thomas lifts his glowing blue hand and grips Edgar by the shoulder.

ROUND 1

Edgar is stunned by the appearance of the disfigured Zulu giant and slow to react as his allies spring to his aid. The pain of the creature’s attack, however, brings him to his wits quick enough. This chap’s a big’un, whatever else ‘e may be! Best put 'im down quick afore Lord Walker’s son gets too far.

Edgar throws a quick one-two punch combination into the towering African’s midsection.