Yes please
Amunet and Hathaway find the long gallery covered with vines both thick and thin. The vines move in places with massive emerald tree boas, equally large red rainbow boas, and dark brown on light brown bushmasters, each at least 10 feet in length. These otherwise beautiful snakes are crisscrossed with thin vines, clearly infected.
The chamber smells much like the overgrown lab back in boston, though without the smell of disinfectant.
Where Harker has this Creature imposter in his grasp and his fangs, he feels the scaled flesh around the bite wound attempting to knit itself back together.
The imposter struggles in Harker's grip, and the very water of the Lagoon rises up to defend its current master, but it is no more effective than he is.
The shaggy yacaruna reach out with clawed hands and vinelike hair, grasp-clawing at Hyde and Sehkmet.
[dice=Gillman Will Save]d20+10
[dice=Gillman Toughness vs Hyde]d20+13-1
Sehkmet, you should still have an attack against the Yacaruna if that is what you want to do. You have plenty of movement to make your leap and still attack.
I had to get to my feet first and then leap. So, no attack action this turn
The board has gone very strange on me. Trying this as a separate post
New round, everyone gets a turn. I think it is clear what everyone is up to, but if there are questions feel free to ask.
Hyde staggers back under the force of the blow. She growls and shakes her head to clear the fog.
The Mummy's Bride looks at the Phantom. "Bearer of Thoth's gifts, how shall we approach?" They've known each other long enough Lord Hathaway has likely chatted with Amunet and knows her quirks. Likely if they either get where they're going or dispatch enough enemies, she'll relinquish control back to Helen.
The vampire continues to drain blood from the amphibian. Although the blood tasted odd, he continued the suffocating embrace hoping that he can wrest control of the Gillman's mind from the Mother and gain an ally before choking him out.
Sehkmet again leaps, this time into a position where she can get as many of the mooks within 30 ft of her as possible while making sure none of her allies are affected.
"Feel the Pestilence of the Nile"
She then unleashes a wave of sand coloured energy that hopefully strikes down many if not all of the mooks.
Affliction: Burst Area Affliction 10 (linked)
1st degree: Impaired, 2nd degree: Disabled, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Fortitude,
DC 20; Burst Area: 30 feet radius sphere, DC 20 (Standard - Close - Instant)
All of the minions start wheezing as if they are having difficulty breathing, then they all start coughing. As water pours from their bodies they all collapse unconcsious
Seeing them all collapse, Sehkmet roars triumphantly, a roar louder than should be able to come from something her size.
Hyde attempts to punch the Gillman in the jaw.
The Mummy's Bride looks at the Phantom. "Bearer of Thoth's gifts, how shall we approach?" They've known each other long enough Lord Hathaway has likely chatted with Amunet and knows her quirks. Likely if they either get where they're going or dispatch enough enemies, she'll relinquish control back to Helen.
He know her will and what she was capable off, this was a supernatural infection something spreading out.
”We must find the source of this infestation , looking as it’s spread if we follow the scourges ingestion you will find its point of origin. I can place us in a protective bubble of force and move us, but I’m sorry you will have to fight off any that get past that as we progress”
The Mummy's Bride nods at Hathaway. "Let us go then. I'll draw the snakes to me, they cannot harm me."
He can let one throw, he is at risk, so its up to you Mummy to keep him safe, the force bubble has a hardness of 20 moves at 60' a round
Hyde's massive fist slams into the Gill-man's scaled jaw. The mutant's head snaps to the side, a stream of blood and spit flying. The Gill-man grabs its jaw in pain, adjusting its chin in pain. In this moment, the monstrous facade falls away, and you see the tough guy he must have been. He forgets that he has gained any special abilities at all and turns back to violence. He reaches over his head to grab at Harker, but the vampire is too well practiced to be overcome by a rageful newborn monster.
New Round. Everyone should have a turn. Gill-man Defenses are : Dodge: +8, Parry: +8, Fortitude: +12, Toughness: +13-2 (Impervious 10 from armor and hide), Will: +10. Immune: Drowning, Pressure, Cold, Disease, Poison
The vampire continues to drain blood from the amphibian. Although the blood tasted odd, he continued the suffocating embrace hoping that he can wrest control of the Gillman's mind from the Mother and gain an ally before choking him out.
Sehkmet leaps at the Gill-man, attempting to bite its throat out
But misses wildly as Harker gets in the way :-)
As they move through the temple, the Mummy's Bride will continue to draw the snakes away from Hathaway's force field.
As the Creature's dark, oily blood flows into Jonathan's mouth, so Jonathan's influence flows into the Creature. It's massive arms cease to clasp at the vampire as its will is sapped. Eventually, all struggle ceases. The water ripples as the fight ends, and the jungle around you is nearly silent, as if holding its breath.
When he feels the last of Gill-Man's willpower extinguish, the vampire releases his chockhold but maintains his grip. And, whispers through blood-coated teeth pausing to allow answers to his questions, "what's your name mortal? You are mine now. Forever."
"What happened to my friend, the previous Gillman?"
"How do we subdue this Mother of Monsters?"
"I am the Gill-man. I was always destined to be the Gill-Man. Consort to the Yacaruna and the Mother of Monsters. All across the world I fought, I killed, I destroyed. But here I am an agent of Creation. Here I am made whole."
"There is no previous Gill-Man. We are all servants to the Mother of Monsters. I serve as her protector and agent in the world. You speak of my brother, he remains. His blood flows in my veins, and his blood floods the natives who devote themselves to the Mother. His blood is pure, superior, far beyond the weak homo sapiens. Surely you can recognize this. Just as you are transformed and transcended, so can the blood transform and transcend. Find him in Cassandra's surgery within."
"The Mother is free. She can no longer be contained. Her progeny will spread across the globe like a cleansing fire. Our kind will rule over the weaker species. We will bring about a new Golden Age."
Hathaway and Amunet make their way into the ancient stone corridor of the pyramid. Snakes both venomous and not strike at Amunet. She takes the strikes when necessary, catching or swatting vipers who get close to Hathaway. She is forced to grab a few constrictors from their perches and hurl them behind her as the two advance. They are not worth killing if it can be avoided. They are, after all, natural creatures whom Isis would prefer to protect if possible.
As Hathaway and Amunet reach the edges of natural light penetrating the hallway, they are left only with the fluttering amber light of the torches burning on the walls. A pair of Yacaruna block their way. These are hulking, heavily muscled women with glowing yellow eyes, covered in thick, almost dreadlock-like or vine-like or both body and head hair.
The vampire listens to the Gill-man and controls, "what was constraining the Mother before? And, help us liberate your brother, so that he may travel abroad again."
He motions for the two of them to walk and talk catching up with the others entering the pyramid.
His gills flex as he speaks, voice like water moving gravel. He stares through Jonathan at something only he can see.
“She was already there… under the roots. Dreaming. We didn’t know it at first. We thought we’d found something more than what we were looking for.
Cassie said the orchids weren’t right. Said their roots were too long, too deep. Like the whole lagoon was adjusting itself. Regulating something bigger. I didn’t get it. Didn’t care. I sensed the power. I wanted more and more.”
He looks at his webbed hands.
“We dug into the lagoon bed. Ripped up the roots. Thought we were opening a chamber, like a womb. Thought she’d be in pieces. Tissue samples. Evolution waiting to happen.”
A pause. Then, reverence. Fear.
“She wasn’t sleeping... She was waiting. And when we cracked it open, the orchids stopped singing. The water got warmer. The fish swam backward. And I started hearing her… in my bones.”
“We didn’t break the seal. We fed her. Gave her what she needed to wake up. Dolphins, the Gill-man's blood, me. Then the Yacaruna came. They knew. They had been waiting since time beyond memory."
Jonathan worries that he does not have full control over Gill-man but settles for removing him from the fight with the Mother. He has heard minions rant about their evil master taking over the world before, so he nods along nonplussed. Just another one.
While following his teammates, he asks Gill-man, "can we access the chamber through the ziggurat? Where is the Mother now?"
The walls of the pyramid interior are covered with pictographs. Helen recognizes many of them, finding that it is a strange combination of hieroglyphics and proto-Incan writing.
The writing tells the story of a battle between Viracocha, Osiris, a Northern sky god who might be Zeus or Thor, Isis, Sehkmet, a massive bird like an eagle with wings of lightning.
They battle against a female titan who is wrapped in diseased vegetation. Her vines are wrapped around Pachamama, the Incan earth goddess, drowning the goddess in the befouled waters of the Amazon. The Yacaruna are twisted and diseased warriors, fighting for the Mother, as are serpents of epic size and twisted river dolphins with fang filled mouths dripping poison.
The gods call upon the mummified kings of 5 continents as their army. They drive the forest back, cleanse the river, push the Mother of Monsters into the Lagoon, then wrap her in the roots of her own orchids and drown her beneath an artificial mountain of stone.
Finally, they transform a group of humans into the Gill-men, leaving them to guard this place, cursing them to be separate from humanity, but also bestowing great power upon them as guardians.
The Gill-man's gaze lingers on the vine-choked stone of the ziggurat interior. The pictographs glint in the torchlight—roots and gods and monsters etched into time. He speaks slowly, half remembering, half channeling something older than himself.
“You’re standing in her grave. But she isn't dead anymore.”
He looks up at Harker, something flickering behind his black eyes.
“The gods thought they could bury her. They called down lightning and solar rays, flooded the forest with fire, raised mummified kings to drown her in her own vines. They turned men into monsters like me—guardians, they called them. Cursed blood with a purpose.”
When you arrive at the central pool, where the vines now writhe gently, pulsing like veins on the stone.
“They were supposed to hold the seal. Forever. But the roots… they spoke to her. They were part of her. The prison was alive. It remembered her. It loved her.”
His voice softens, strangely reverent.
“When Cassie and I tore into it looking for secrets, for power, we didn’t just break a cage. We woke her up.”
He steps back, pointing toward the vines now spiraling along the walls, merging with the very stone.
“She found Cassie. Took her in. Twisted her. Or maybe Cassie was always meant for her. A vessel. A voice.”
“She’s not in the lagoon anymore. She is the lagoon. She’s the roots in the walls. The breath in your lungs. The thing whispering behind your heartbeat. You can still reach her… through the pool. Through the chamber beneath. But I don’t know if she’ll let you leave.”
"Lovely. Swimming." Jonathan replies in a deadpan tone.
"Gill, mate? You wouldn't happen to know what she wants, now she is awake? Does she have any interest in retiring here being the big fish, in a small lagoon?" He had fought more than his fair share of old gods, and the battles always had collateral damage and unintended consequences.
"And Gill? Would you be able to oppose your mother? Or, would you be able reunite with your predecessor brother Gill?" The vampire tries to find anything useful task that his new ally can perform with certainty.
"Of course I know what she wants. What does any mother want? She wants to wrap her arms around her children. She wants to wrap her arms around the whole world. The mother remembers when all of her children were one. No plants. No animals. Just a beautiful harmony, a single unity spread across the world. Can you see the beauty? You are Harker, right. You were a human, once, as I was. But you are happier now, as you are. You are stronger, faster, and have a stronger will than you did in your soft human form. You are transformed, just as I am. We are so much more than we once were. That is what the Mother wants for all. The Gill-man is perfection. An ancient bloodline, older than humanity, older than the corruption that burns the forests and pollutes the water. Who do you fight for, Harker? Are you on the side of chaos and pain? The Earth is a single organism. Do you misdiagnose the Mother and myself as the infection? No. We are the CURE."
Jonathan squints at the Gill-man and replies, "Gill, my boy. I'm dead, so infections don't bother me."
"Unfortunately, your mother is not the first being who has wanted to control the world. Imagine if one of them had succeeded before your mother awoke? How boring the world would be if one being controlled it all. No plays, books, music. As long as humans don't destroy the world themselves, our culture can be quite wonderful."
"Ironically, that human culture enabled human science to awake her. Where would she be if humans had not had the free will to explore? Help us convince your mother to stay here and leave the world alone."
= 10
The mural within is fascinating enough that Helen finds the strength to offer a commentary:
"Interesting. It is like the Greek myth of Typhon, but with a pestilent river rather than a lava monster. The Gods of Olympus fought the monster, failed, and fled to Egypt, turning themselves into animals to hide from Typhon. Hence, to the Greeks, why the Egyptian gods have animal heads." Amunet adds a derisive snort to the commentary, but Helen continues, "But there they rallied, and chased the monster into the Mediterranean, where they sealed him beneath Mount Etna. The mountain erupting was Typhon's barely contained rage."
Her eyes cross the images. "Here we have a 'false mountain,' the ziggurat. And it happened here, not in Africa. But I wonder, is it the same story? A parallel? Typhon was mate to Echidna. Another Mother of Monsters. Or perhaps this same one? Did they do the same to her as they did to Typhon?"
She rubs her chin. "Who started it, I wonder? Typhon went on a rampage and tried to overtake the heavens. The story goes that it was defensive. But with the Mother of Monsters... look, pestilence is, in moderation, a balancing force of life... Isis herself can bring on a pestilence. But if pestilence were to overtake the world, it would destroy itself. Pestilence depends on live thriving to continue. Otherwise it consumes everything and then starves to death. Did she attack or were they trying to subdue her? Can a balance be attained?"
Later, Helen/Amunet gaze at the Yacaruna blocking their way.
"I suppose we must enter some tiresome fracas? Perhaps you respect a high priestess enough to explain: what is this battle?" She waves at the mural. "What did this mother do to earn the ire of even other mother and father gods?"
hathaway hears out the Bride and nods, he was not that up to speed on this kind of Mythos, but it seemed to be logical. How ever he did not like that idea of possibly fighting a god.
Hyde tried to remember what Jeckyll knew of the Greek myth, but eventually gave up. She was capable of remembering what happened during her time as her alter ego, but does not have access to that personality's knowledge.
"Well, if the Gods could bury her once we can hopefully bury her again. Because she needs to be buried. Mankind needs to be protected"
The Yacaruna shuffle toward you. They don't appear to be particularly mobile here, out of the water, away from the jungle. Perhaps there is a power in the ziggurat that weakens them.
Suddenly, they all jerk into the same pose...and then speak with the same voice, "You mistake, I have not brought you here for a fight. From far away, I felt your pain, your isolation. Each of you bears a heavy burden and special power. I, too, have felt pain. The pain of being alone, abandoned, imprisoned in Power. You worry that the infection I bring will destroy life, but that is far from the truth. I do not wish to destroy life. I wish to bring it all together. Never again will anyone need to be lonely. The world burns with a fever, the infestation of HUMANITY. The vessel of Isis speaks of balance, but the world is far from balance. I will restore her. I will bring peace. And you can be my Heralds of Peace."
Hathway can't help himself, he busts into laughter, thought tires in his eyes he says
"I'm sorry, really for that, but who is your script writer, now really, that was a speech worthy of the very best B-Movies"
He claps his hands and in a theatrical tone says
"I aplored you I really do, but your see the world unlike the movies you watched is not that simple. I don't feel pain, I have not for a long time, and I am not lonely, Jonathan, Sehkmet, Helen and Ms. Hyde are my friends. We have faced many a danger, shared good and bad times, and out of all of the we have learned to care for each other for who we are."
His hands wave in a dramatic way, his cape futters and he turns, looking at his chums one by one, then back to their target.
"And We don't need anything more than that. Unlike you, who I suspect felt isolated and alone for to long. If only you had found us sooner I know you may have joined out ranks and become part of our group. But I can see your to far gone, you took a teal with a Devil and now, as they say the Jog is up."
Then a smile crosses his face and a mischievous grin and in a normal voice adds with a bow.
"How was that for B movie theatrical"
"Humanity is my charge and my responsibility. Well, them and cats. Ok, mostly cats. But I will fight you to the death to preserve humanity. Who else would take care of the cats if you killed all the humans?"
"No more need die. There were unfortunate deaths when I was seeking a suitable host. My Gill-man, as you call him, was overzealous in trying to bring them to me. But this one, this one who was Cassandra, she is a perfect vessel. No need for anyone else to die. All can become one. Hmph, Cassandra. How ironic. There was another Cassandra, a priestess of Apollo. She foretold the future and no one believed her. I hated Apollo; he was always so opposed to my work.
As they speak, the vines on the wall seem to throb and flex. Massive stones, some 50 tons, move as though the entire ziggurat is alive. The floor stones begin to pull away from the middle, revealing a crystal clear pool...
Jonathan squints at the Gill-man and replies, "Gill, my boy. I'm dead, so infections don't bother me."
"Unfortunately, your mother is not the first being who has wanted to control the world. Imagine if one of them had succeeded before your mother awoke? How boring the world would be if one being controlled it all. No plays, books, music. As long as humans don't destroy the world themselves, our culture can be quite wonderful."
"Ironically, that human culture enabled human science to awake her. Where would she be if humans had not had the free will to explore? Help us convince your mother to stay here and leave the world alone."
[dice=Persuasion. He probably should be better at this]
“You speak of music and plays like they matter, vampire. Your precious culture fed by blood and violence."
“Humanity carved its name into the bones of this world. Built cities on sacred land. Paved over rivers. Burned forests to ash. The Mother has heard your stories and your songs. She knows what you truly are.”
He steps closer, his fringed jaw twitching with restrained fury.
“You want to convince us to stop? To negotiate with a force older than your gods?”
He laughs—a bubbling, gurgling sound.
“There’s no stopping it. No compromise. You can’t reason with a flood, Harker. You can only drown.”
Jonathan sighs and looks sad at Gill-man's reply. "Well, it's good thing then, that I cannot drown... anymore."
"Would you please sit out here and not involve yourself in the conversation we need to have with your Mother." He looks to see if the Gill-man will stand down in the upcoming conflict.
Hyde looks bored. She isn't used to talking anyway, and conversing with god-like beings is waaaay above her pay grade. Her specialty is punching things.