Seeing the dire situation that has befallen his cousin, he rushes to the man growing limp by the moment and thumps him on the back of his cranium.
"Take that you Nazi sympathizer!"
Dr. Hanmer's blow is largely ineffectual, but the drugged sorcerer still slumps to the sward.
The younger cultist lunges at Dr. Hanmer.
Henry tries again to tackle the other cultist!
LCDR RS sends the other cultist sprawling to the ground.
Mr. Carter : Something hurls out of the dark woods, and falls upon Milken's palsied corpse. You have a glimpse of shining eyes and teeth before the pair tumble back into the depths of the trench.
Snarling, the younger cultist attempts to strangle LCDR RS.
Dr. Hanmer, you see a woman running from the house, trailed by two young children; the trio race into the darkness.
Edward scrambles into action and, using the barrel of his empty pistol as a handle, attempts to pistol whip the creature with the glowing eyes before it can escape.
Those eyes, he thinks. They burn. They... burn.
LCDR RS twists out of the cultist's grip, then gets a smart rap on the noggin from the butt of Mr. Carter's pistol.
However, the angle of the blow is awkward, and the blow has little force.
Seeing as he isn't engaged and no one is in any immediate danger, the doctor gives chase to the woman, shouting towards her, "Miss! Wait, we can help you!"
Dr. Hanmer, the woman looks back over her should, but continues to run into the deepening mist.
Mr. Carter: Milken's corpse, has tumbled back into the trench, apparently once again inanimate clay. Some thing lean and feral is savaging another corpse, just a little further down the trench.
As the doctor begins to feel his age, huffing and puffing from the unexpected run, he yells out one more time, "Madam! Please! Don't run away! We simply wish to help!" The last syllable trails of as the doctor places his hands on his knees, straining to catch his breath. After a moment of respite, he looks up to see if he can still see the woman and children.
[ooc] The ghost children have vanished. The wizard, cult elder, is dead; shot at point-blank range by Mr. Carter, who is having a psychotic episode. The younger cultist is still struggling, he and LCDR RS are currently grappling now. The other, young cultist, is unconscious; I believe you knocked him at the beginning of this 'donny-brook'. A woman and two children fled the house, and are being pursued by Dr. Hanmer. [/occ]
Dr. Hanmer, you hear a voice, wailing through the fog: "Please, dear God, help me!"
"Where are you!" the doctor begins to hastily survey the fog, trying to identify the source of the sound. "Please! Show yourself! We want to help!"
Henry tries again to brain the cultist he is grappling with!
Edward looks down at his pistol and screams: "Snake! It's a snake!" He drops the weapon and backs away from it as if it were going to bite him. Frantically he looks around for anything that could be used as a club, a sturdy tree limb or good piece of lumber, with which he can bash in the snake's head.
Dr. Hanmer : "Over here! Please help us!" The voice seems to be coming from your left. You seem to be surrounded in a clammy mist.
LCDR Readington-Smythe : The ordeal of the last day is beginning to take its toll, as your blows seem to be ineffectual.
Mr. Carter : There are some stones on the ground, that might do the trick.
The remaining cultist struggles back.
He is enraged, and apparently out of his mind, his blows wild and erratic.
Henry keeps pummeling!
Edward finds a good, sharp rock and, snarling, takes it over and pounds his pistol/snake.
"Die, serpent!"
The doctor trudges, shuffles along towards the sounds of voices. "What I wouldn't give for a good spot of tea and biscuits right now" he mumbles to himself as he crosses his arms and clutches his biceps to try and fight the shivering induced from the mist.
Looking around, Dr. Hanmer realizes he's quite lost.
"Oh God, will someone help me please!" A female voice shrieks from near by.
Mr. Carter: The snake, some kind of python perhaps, is slithering through the muddy water that has collected at the bottom of your trench. What is such a beast doing in France!
The remaining cultist lurches to his feet, and tries to stagger back towards the hovel.
"Ohh, God have mercy on me!" The voice wails from the fog.
Dr. Hanmer starts forward, and then halts, something is not quite right.
Edward rushes to the body of the young cultist, leans down and shakes him vigorously. "Watson! Watson! Wake up, mate! We've snakes in the trench, big ones. I need your Enfield, or your bayonet at the very least."
Good lord! Is Watson dead too! You seem to be in some nightmarish world where everything is dead and diseased, tainted and corrupt.
The remaining--conscious--cultist, is limping towards the house.
Dr. Hanmer: the mist seems to have thickened, quite suddenly, hemming you in with its pallid folds.
Henry once again tackles the cultist!
"Ghastly fog! Madam! It seems the fog has thickened! Stay where you are and we shall find you!"
LCDR picks himself off the ground, and lunges towards the retreating cultist, only to slip and fall face down.
"Ohh please hurry, the little one is hurt!"
Hearing of the potential injury of the little child, the elder doctor quickly begins to search about his general vicinity, limited in sight by the fog.
"I will find you and we'll help the little one post haste!"
"No, Watson! Not you, too! Not you, tooooooo!" Tears are streaming down Edward's cheeks as he scrambles to climb out of the "trench" filled with both the dead bodies of his comrades and, now, snakes."
Dr. Hanmer hurries forward, that piteous cry, it came from directly ahead, didn't it? Suddenly, he realizes he has stepped off some steep embankment, and the world spins vertiginously around him.
Mr. Carter : The splintered and torn trees of the Delville Wood seem to be leaning over the trench; the ragged scars of bullet-holes eyes weeping with shadows.
The remaining cultist staggers into the hovel.
Dr. Hanmer : Make a Athletics test, Difficulty 4, to try to stop your fall. If you succeed you take 1 point of damage from your fall, other-wise you'll suffer 1d6 damage from your tumble.
The elder doctor realizes quickly that he is slipping down an enbankment and reaches about and finds an old root to steady himself with.
"What a fine mess this all is." the doctor mutters to himself.
Dr. Hanmer, with a spry agility that would be the envy of a man half your age, you turn your forward motion into a skipping series of hops that takes you quickly down one slope, and up the other.
The remaining cultist emerges from the hovel, clutching a hatchet.
The elderly doctor looks back at the small embankment he had just traversed thinking he hasn't felt that spritely in years.
But just as quickly as the excitement had come, it quickly fades again as he returns to the current objective at hand. "Where are those children? Where is the woman? Surely they couldn't have crossed that gully with such pace..."
Henry sees the hatchet and groans. His best efforts were failing him. Snarling with sudden renewed vigor, he mutters "For King and Country!" and tackles the damnable cultist!
LCDR RS: Again you drive the cultist into the ground.
Dr. Hanmer: All that you see before you is a blank wall of fog.
Knocking the cultist down does to him.
Performing a 360-turn, the doctor realizes he has lost the fight for visibility. Hope quickly diminishes into bitter despair as he realizes that his attempts to save the woman and children are all but gone.
"Confounded fog. How will I find anyone in this blasted weather? As much as my spritely enthusiasm carried me across that small ravine, I dare not try it again and hope for the same youthful vigor."
The doctor pulls out his pipe to take up a small reprieve and collect his bearings.
Dr. Hanmer believes he hears a child sobbing directly ahead of him in the thick fog.
The cultist, pinned beneath LCDR RS, jabs the LCDR in the ribs with the butt of the hatchet's handle: .
He cannot get any leverage, and the attack is ineffective.