"Not quite good as new cousin but that should do you until we can get you more proper treatment." The elder doctor swivels his head in the direction of the LCDR. "Leftenant, is there anything I can do to assist you? I see we are in a bit of a precarious situation."
"We are hemmed in on three sides," Edward says, coughing. He tries to prop himself up on one elbow. "Here, cousin, take my pistol. I recommend shooting anything that moves."
LCDR Readington-Smythe : You feel a familiar wrenching in your guts, as the wizard's foul magic washes over your (make a Stability Test, Dfficulty 4).
The 'ghost girls' are hovering overhead: they are shrieking obscenities that would make a sailor blush; though their voices are thin and faint, almost whispers.
The wizard glares balefully at you, but the churning in your stomach, tells you that his baleful magic has not ravaged you as it did the time before.
Now there is just the matter of the lunatic with the shot-gun.
Well, that is a hit:
Mr. Carter, the ghostly twins are floating, a good foot above the ground, as they hiss and wail.
"Lieutenant-Commander, duck!", Edward screams as the shotgun is unleashed on his comrade. The gun's blast quakes the old author to his very bones.
The ghostly twins titter.
Twins : "Die! Die! You're all going to die! We're going to grind your bones for our bread!"
Henry tries to duck, as best he can, but the distracting sounds of the little girls shakes him to his core.
LCDR Readington-Smythe goes flailing to the ground.
.
After taking a quick look at his cousin to assess his overall condition, the doctor quickly takes aim as he heads to the Lieutenant Commander. As he approaches, he looks at the wizard and proclaims, "I've had just about enough of you good sir, you shall leave us be so I may tend to this man's injuries!". Emrys fires from the pistol given to him by his cousin in the direction of the wizard.
Dr. Hanmer drills the wizard: .
He clips the sorcerer in the shoulder.
Straining against the pain, Edward manages to lift his weapon just enough to get off a round, aiming at the wizard as best he can.
Pistol shot, with penalty:
Edward lowers his head in dismay, knowing his shot went wide.
The wizard ducks, while his brawny cohort vaults over the low wall.
As our daring aviator's player said he would be on travel until mid-week, would either of you like to roll for him as he struggles up onto his elbows and takes a shot at the assailant springing over the wall? -1 again as he is also Hurt.
The LCDR, arms aching from the strain, takes dead aim at his antagonist.
"Not again!" he shouts.
The LCDR's shot goes wildly high.
The lunatic swings his gun, as if it was a 9 iron and he was on the fairway at St. Andrews, in attempt to brain LCDR Readington-Smythe.
The butt of the weapon smacks LCDR Readington-Smythe rather ineffectively in the side.
The older man, draws a knife, and clambers over the wall.
The spectral girls: "Kill them Liam! Cut them into little pieces1"
"Keep your wits about you, Lieutenant-Commander! Emrys, take up arms"
Edward raises his Webley and shoots again.
He cusses loudly as yet another shot goes awry.
Henry nods, the world seeming to nod with him as he fires again at the nearest enemy - it's hard to distinguish which one as the world is closing about him.
The younger man again uses his shot-gun like a club against the prone
LCDR Readington-Smythe.
The older man, Liam apparently, slashes at Mr. Carter with his knife.
The blows are clumsy, but still manage to strike home, doing only minimal damage.
Emrys quickly realizes that the two assailants have momentarily given up on attacking him. He charges quickly behind the elder sorcerer while fumbling through his bag to find the syringe of mephenesin.
Blood spurts from the wound that Liam inflicted on the old author. Edward feels light-headed, just as he did once in the trenches when he saw... when he saw... the thing.
The LT Cmdr lets out a sharp noise of pain as he sees Mister Carter take his wound and feels the crack of the shotgun. He shoves the gun into the hillbilly's side and pulls the trigger until it stops firing!
Henry pulls the trigger until it clicks empty, desperate and angry as he is!
"Oh, bloody hell! It's still 1917. I never left the damn trenches!" Edward screams. "It burns. The thing, it BURNS!"
LCDR RS's burst hammers his attacker back. He is still alive, but Hurt.
Wild eyed, Mr. Carter stares into the darkness, seeing again the dark tangle of the Delville Wood.
With the agility of a man half his age Dr. Hanmer springs forward, and drives the syringe expertly into the menacing wizard.
Edward begins to gibber, "Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville. Bois d'Elville," as he runs his hands frantically through his hair.
The wizard, already swaying on his feet, slashes his blade at Dr. Hanmer.
The Lt Commander staggers to his feet, raising his hands in the gentlemanly signal for 'bring it on, sucka'.
The doctor takes his now depleted syringe and as the slash passes by, catching his arm, he winces but quickly attempts to plunge the syringe back into the neck of the wizard.
"Now would be a good time for the mephenesin to kick in!"
Edward claws with his hands and feet as if climbing out of his imaginary trench in the imaginary Somme, running from the indescribable thing he saw that day in 1916.
The wizard drunkenly stumbles into Mr. Carter.
The two wraith-children are shrieking like dammed souls.
The other cultist again attempts cudgel LCDR RS with the butt of his shot-gun.
The cultist is perhaps distracted, seeing the wizard's collapse, and misses.
Henry swings as hard as he can at the cultist with the shotgun, trying to bludgeon him with the gun!
The doctor looks at the cultist attempting to bludgeon the Leftenant, then over at his cousin to assess whom to help.
"Hesitation is a killer Emrys! You need to pick now!" The doctor yells at himself to attempt to gain composure the tense situation.
Mr. Carter, you feel someone brushing against you. Good God! Its Milken! That damnable thing in the crypt! Its eerie whistling, making the dead walk! Cold, dead Milken, raising like a shaky marionette, called from the place where he lay among the mud and blood at the bottom of the trench you shared. Milken is clawing his way up the side of the trench, to join the damned processional making their way through the splintered and broken trees, to that vault, exposed to the sun and air after who knows how long by a plunging howitzer shell, where that pale and bloated horror sits, whistling its siren song to the dead!
The ghostly twins let out a last, despairing moan, and then they melt away.
The younger cultist glares and LCDR RS, and then leaps over to the side of the older cultist, who has fainted against Mr. Carter.
Edward screams, a frantic, loud, ear-piercing scream. "Fight or flight" kicks in and, with a shaky hand, raises his pistol. He aims at Milken and unloads the entire chamber of his Webley at the walking dead man.
Mr. Carter screams, and jams his pistol against the side of the man drunkenly leaning against him.
Edward's face pales as the pistol clicks, empty.