Abraham nods quietly, not hearing things as intently as others but he hears it nonetheless. Quietly putting down the bomb with Enoli, he takes out his shotgun as well and attempts to move up quietly with the archaeologist towards the source of the noise.
You move into a small chamber, a mere widening of the twisting tunnels, and see four humanoid creatures hunched over and gnawing a small pile of bones. They wear the tattered shreds of clothing and their faces are grotesque and monstrous parodies of human faces, with long rows of razor-like teeth, stained red with the blood of their meal. Seeing you, they attempt to scatter into the nearby tunnels.
Sweet!!!
Double sweet!!!
Chakos sucks in a deep breath, as he spies the horrible creatures, but it's not a hundred foot long snake, or a twelve foot tall misshapen gorilla, so he holds it together and fires three shots at the nearest beast...
Miss
Hit
Hit
Abraham gazes down upon the flesh-eaters and he feels his chest tighten at the same time that his mind tweaks. This place was wrong. This whole situation was wrong. He could feel himself cracking it under it all. Yet with shaking hands, he lifts his shotgun up and aims at the closest monstrosity.
I knew it was coming sooner or later!
The sight of the ghouls is disturbing, but Elliot manages to hold onto his sanity and fires both barrels instinctively as the creatures flee!
= Miss!
= Miss!
= Hit!
Sawed off 12-gauge Shotgun (2B): Regular: 60 / Hard: 30 / Extreme: 12 ; Damage: 4d6/1d6
………………… Range: 5 / 10 yards ; Attacks: 1 or 2 ; Ammo: 2 ; Malfunction: 100
Momentarily startled into bad aim, Elliot nonetheless brings down one of the hideous ghouls.
Enoli screams in terror, drops the Haftorang Device and blunders off into the tunnels!
Minerva stares in dumb horror, her weapon momentarily forgotten.
Antonio curses as he sees the creatures eating flesh. He fires his shotgun at them and then charges forward to swing the buttstock of the shotgun at one.
Antonio blasts another ghoul, putting it down hard.
The chamber is silent save for everyone's heavy breathing. The stench of cordite almost masks the scent of blood. It's dark in the twisty tunnels and Enoli is missing.
Now what?
So? WHADDYA DO?
”Where did Enoli go?”
Antonio searches through where the ghouls were...feasting. He tries to control his gag reflex. "Uh, this is disgusting. What vile creatures."
"We have to go after Enoli. He won't last long in the tunnels by himself."
Chakos checks his pistol and realizes he never fired a shot! "Ok, let's go after Enoli!"
Chakos leads the way, with flashlight and pistol at the ready.
Elliot reloads his shotgun and nods. "Let's find him."
Not wanting to get lost in these tunnels, the archaeologist pauses at intersections, using his knife to carve into the earth and indicate the way back.
[ooc]Cue Yakety Sax!
The team runs into the myriad and twisting tunnels, their goals completely forgotten. Doing their best to stay together in the stygian darkness broken only by the feeble light of their flashlights, they descend past twists and turns, past foul-smelling tunnels and piles of old bones.
Abraham feverishly pushes ahead, muttering half-formed prayers under his breath while the others struggle to keep up.
Suddenly, a scream from somewhere ahead! You rush forward to find a pack of ghouls devouring something. Oh gods! It's Enoli!
"Vamos!" Antonio charges in, firing his shotgun wildly. He tries to scatter the ghouls away from Enoli's body.
Fail (99's twice in a row on Sanity checks!)
Hahaha
Chakos stands dumbstruck at the sight!
"Padre! No! She's gone!" Elliot watches the pack feasting on the remains of Enoli and tries to grab Pena with one hand, keeping the other holding the sawed-off shotgun, leveled at the ghouls. "We need to get out of here!" He urges, trying to draw the priest back. The archaeologist saves his shots, just in case they're needed while beating a hasty retreat...
So with Abraham urging people onward, Elliot urging them back, Father Antonio dispensing divine shotgun justice and Chakos starting to crack up, things are going to pieces!
Does anyone want to try to stop Abraham?
Abraham charges into the room alongside the good father, lifting his shotgun up and taking aim at the nearest monstrosity. One of these bastards had Jesse and he was going to gun them down until he could find his friend.
"Give him back to me, you sons of b+##@es!" Abraham shouts, wild-eyed and mad before he fires at the pack.
Abraham plunges wildly into the dark tunnels as Antonio shoots the last of the ghouls in this area. Elliot yells for Antonio to desist and Chakos stares in numb horror. Enoli and Minerva are nowhere to be found.
Abraham, you find yourself in complete darkness, bent nearly double. There is no light and the only sound is your own heavy breathing. What do you do?
Antonio, Chakos and Elliott, where is the haftorang device? And what do you do?
Alone in the dark, left with only his heavy breathing ringing in his ear, Abraham tries to compose him. With shaky hands, he rubs his face and focuses as deeply as he can to try and listen for anything familiar, anything that could be the companions in the darkness with him.
Antonio finds the remains of Enoli (and Minerva?) and prays over them, trying to give the man's soul some peace after a violent end. "We have to find the device again. Trigger it if that is the only thing we can do."
As Chakos gets his wits together, he asks Father Peña, "where did you drop the stupid thing?"
Elliot nods numbly. "Yeah... we have to backtrack and find that thing. But we can't leave Abraham alone in these tunnels. Let's see if we can find him. I've been leaving markings as we go, hopefully that'll be enough to find the device again and get out of these damned tunnels. Guess we should have tried the cliffs, though it seemed insanity to do it with those things up there that ripped apart our plane like it was made of paper."
The archaeologist moves onward, in pursuit of Abraham as he continues to mark his way back - if they live to return that way...
"Can you track him?"
Abraham, you hear your companions talking some way off make your way to them. You can hear muttering and shuffling in the darkness some way behind you. You're being followed.
__________________________________________________________
Antonio gives the last rites to Enoli and Minerva, torn apart by ghouls, then stands up and joins Chakos and Elliot.
Abraham focuses and steels his mind. It was like being back in the trenches again, the rain falling and the dirt clinging to every bit of you. Focusing on the bit of voices he could hear, he would begin to make his way towards his companions. The sounds behind him made it known that he was not alone. A shout of warning, of danger, or even a call for help could lead the thing in the darkness to take his life. Calm and steady. He needed to be calm and steady. Calm. Steady.
Chakos takes another moment to settle himself before really trying to find Abraham and reunite the remaining members of the party...
Chakos follows the main passageway, listening and assessing until the group encounters Abraham, bloody, wild eyed and savage-looking.
"Ok, now where did you drop the bomb? We can take it deep and set it off, it's the only way to be sure!"
Elliot eyes Abraham warily. "Hey, Abraham. You okay? Those ghouls are gone, I think. No telling what else is lurking down here, though. I'm thinking maybe we better try those cliffs and take our chances with the flying beasts. But first we need to get that bomb. Maybe if we drop it down that deep shaft we saw it'll take care of the dhole - or at least not devastate the countryside as much as it would if it went off above ground. What do you think?" The archaeologist doesn't like the wild look in the man's eyes, and hopes to get him calmed down a bit...
Light flashes upon Abraham and instinctively, he lifts his shotgun and takes aim. His eyes focus on each of them for a moment before they can see the logic come in. He had found them. They had found him. Moving quickly, he rejoined them before shaking his head.
"We are not alone. Something...is following me." Abraham whispers conspiratorially to Elliot. Looking back at the darkness, he stares for a few hard moments before shaking his head. "We need to deliver the bomb and get the hell out of here. Lets get the bomb." Abraham takes a shuddering breath, just remembering to breath as he reloads both chambers of the sawed-off in his arms.
"Right, agreed, the bomb!"
"I..." Antonio looks around for the bomb. "We had it when we saw those horrible things eating flesh!" He is stunned that they might have forgotten it. "I guess we need to backtrack?"
As they walk, Antonio walks beside Abraham, putting his arm lightly on his shoulder. He whispers to the man in calm, even tones, trying to help his mind adjust to what he's seen down here. "I know we've all seen horrible things here. But Jesse is far from here. It can't be him."
The team meanders through the twisting tunnels but eventually finds its way back to where it first encountered the ghouls. The haftorang device is there amid gore and darkness, but its countdown has somehow been accelerated! It now reads five hours to detonation!
Chakos shrugs, "We lost some time in those tunnels, adrenalin and all."
He reaches for an end of the device, looking to the others, "up the hill then?"
Elliot nods grimly. "Yeah... but we gotta do something with this or we're all goners. Dropping it down that shaft just outside this tunnels seems like the best bet to me. We could try and climb the hill first, but if we die up there, this thing is going off for sure. Of course, maybe we'll find someway to stop the timer up there, especially if we can find whatever lizard thing was posing as Shapiro."