I'm going to call it here for now. I wanted to finish the campaign and not disappear mid-chapter is all. Thank you all for your patience and the privilege of playing. I wish you all the best on your fourth! <3
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"Elliot is right. As far as possible is the best course of action. We need to move. Now." Abraham says, tossing away his cigarette now that the chance to live seems on the table again.
An almost sad smile spreads across Abraham's face as he sits against the hood of the car, giving a momentary chuckle to himself. "That's that then. I understand Captain. I guess we wait." The former soldier said as he beat a pack of cigarettes against his palm, a shaky hand bringing up a lighter after he placed one between his lips. What he would do for an actual drink right now. When Dr. Hyluan spoke up, Abraham's eyebrow perked upwards. Maybe death wasn't going to claim them all today.
Drink water, rest well, take it super easy friend!
"Sir." Abraham says, stepping out of the jeep for a moment and stepping towards the men. "I fought with a number of you back in France. Brave son of b+&!%es that tug to the German lines while we held the no man's land. I know you are men of courage and valor and I pray that you believe the same of me." Abraham's eyes show the potent mixture of the horrors of war and the horrors of the jungle behind them. "We discovered that there was some...insurgency further in. One that spread the plague as a biochemical weapon and is now aiming to hide as much evidence as possible. They have some sort of powerful bomb, one that should react with the chemicals the sickness creates. I don't...understand it much...but I know the bomb is active and we do not have that time. In maybe less than an hour, this whole place may be an inferno." "If you wait two days, we will all be corpses. We have to pull back as far as possible, the possible destruction that will be wrought is unimaginable. Lancaster, you have the choice here; save us and your men or condemn us all to death following orders. Please...save us." Abraham says calmly but the desperation cannot help but tinge his final words. It all rested on him.
"We grab the samples and we get moving again back to the airbase. We know nothing of that weapon's range. The further away we are, the better." Abraham says from the back, watching out behind them for any danger that could be had. This place was doomed if these weapons were as deadly as Shapiro said they were.
Abraham adds his own brawn to the two men, helping push the eldritch bomb down that godforsaken hole.
"We need to punch the hell out of here and back to the base, warn those we can. Father, grab the wheel. The rest of you, rifles ready." Abraham barks out, the tremble thankfully staying out of his voice as he hopes into the back of the jeep.
Sorry folks for the silence here. The move and injury I sustained had put my mood into the bad zone and I thought I had posted her but it seems I had not. I am definitely wanting to finish up this chapter but I think after that, I'm going to be dropping out here. Work and life have gotten busier and this chapter just didn't grab me like the other one had. That isn't to say anything about our good Keeper's skill, Tarondor has been killing it. If Abraham gets out of this alive, he is going to retire away from it all a little more broken than most would. A fitting end for a guy who started the campaign with such terrible starting sanity! :P
Abraham chokes for air as he breaks out of the hardening cocoon, gasping for breath before grabbing a hold of Elliot and rushing towards the door. There was no time to talk, to try and process the horrors that they had witnessed here. All there was time to do was rush forward and live for another day.
Abraham pulls out his pistol, taking aim at the creature as he had begun to scale the cliff face. Pulling back the hammer, he aims and takes his shot.
Abraham moved quietly along the hill-face, trying to still his still racing mind. Each step was perilous and overall, this mission had gone wrong from the get-go. With weapon in hand, he moved up higher and higher.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll try to get a post in tomorrow folks; head is hurting bad right now.
Does That Make Me Crazy? Possibly.:
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.
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.
"That seems wise." Abraham says between clenched teeth, still walking the bomb with Enoli.
With the majority seeming to want to go down into the massive tunnels, Abraham gives up his position. He goes to hoist the explosive, frowning as he nods for Enoli to grab the other end.
"I know! I...I know. This mission has been s@&~ from the beginning..." Abraham shouts at first, the stress getting to him before he wipes the sweat away from his brow. Taking a breath, he looks back at the device and the others. "I tend to go with the idea that when someone says it is a bomb, that it is a bomb. I don't think Shapiro was always an enemy, I think he was compromised here in Borneo." "I say we either scale that cliff and investigate while time allows it or we leave the possible bomb here and get the hell out of here and consider the mission a failure. Our handler is down, we have limited time, and limited leads. We need to make a decision."
Abraham listens quietly to Elliot, his scowl only deepening more before looking at the pile of rags and flesh. The sight was unpleasant but the war had shown him such unpleasantries before. It seemed man and serpent were capable of terrible things.
"Whether Shapiro has been a traitor or was eliminated and the enemy disguised themselves as him, the mission remains the same; try to identify the source of the Yellow Plague and let the bomb destroy it." It was the best way to keep the team's focus was to keep them looking ahead, not looking back towards the terrors they've had to overcome to get here. "If these are these...dhole...that you say, Elliot, then I don't even know if our weapons will be effective against it." Rubbing at his sore eye, he gave a momentary shrug. "I say we climb up, investigate where the target went, and then get the hell out of here. We drive as fast as we can back down the mountain and back to the military airstrip. Maybe we'll be out of range of the explosion."
The monstrous spider creature flees away from them all, leaving them alone with the burning webs once more. Antonio goes to take care of Enoli while Abraham takes the time to reload his shotgun with another shell. "I hate bugs." The private eye grumbles before returning to the jeep and turning the engine on. With the path cleared, they make their way till the road could not carry them anymore. There were massive holes in the ground, reminding him too much of their first excursion into the depths underground.
Abraham looks up, trying to scrutinize the scene around him when a swarm of gnats encompass his head it seems. More than a few make the natural decision to get stuck in his eye, earning a number of scowls and curses as he steps away to grab at his canteen and rinse his eyes out. Abraham really, really, hated bugs.
Abraham lights another cigarette, taking a puff before throwing the lit match onto the soaked webs. They quickly begin to go up in flames, the sticky fibers disappearing in black smoke. The hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise though and as he turns around, seeing the large monstrosity land before them. It clicks and clacks softly, rising up on horrendous black legs before regarding them with more eyes than any being should have. A shiver travels up Abraham's spine and he can feel something in his head begin to break.
Even as Abraham's hands shake, he draws the sawed-off double barrel before moving over towards where Enoli laid trapped under the webbing. Aiming with the shotgun, he fires at close range hoping to put down the abomination.
"Whatever it is, bullets kill it just fine. Nice work, men." Abraham says between gritted teeth, reloading quickly and efficiently to ensure full combat readiness. He gets back into the vehicle, turning the engine back on before looking at the others. "I'm with Elliot. We could be wondering for who knows how long. Thing didn't seem that smart anyways. Let's get a move on."
Abraham takes aim at the creature as his comrades panic around him, the fear in his heart being swallowed down into control. He just had to breathe. Breathe and squeeze the trigger. The Lee-E's retort adds to the chaos around them
The thing that comes out of the forest is massive, this four-armed, split-head, gorilla creature straight from one's own nightmares. Terror seizes at him for a moment but the screams of his fellow men steels his resolve. Bracing the rifle on the jeep's hood, he takes aim and gets ready to fire.
Another friend of Abraham's, lost to the Mythos... Sad to see you go Enoli, I enjoyed having you around. Hopefully we'll play together another time soon!
"Damn it." Abraham mutters, killing the engine and letting the vehicle roll to the side of the road. The jungle was only getting stranger and stranger as they rode up the mountainside. Quickly getting out of the vehicle, he moved off to the side and took cover behind the jeep's metal frame.
Crouching behind the vehicle, Abraham stays as quiet as he can as the strange creature surveys its surroundings. Licking his dry lips and ignoring the dull pain in his whole body from their earlier plane crash.
"Just stay still and stay quiet. It'll pass." Abraham growled, watching it with narrowed eyes. He did not want to waste the ammunition on a beast of this size, not when the bomb was sure to clear away the strangeness of this jungle.
Abraham simply nods in agreement; this whole situation was strange and abnormal. The sounds coming from the forest though was unearthly and it made the man grip his rifle tightly. "Pull over and kill the engine. Take cover and keep quiet." Abraham murmured to the others. Who knows what this strange forest held within it.
When Abraham returns back to the tent, his eyes widen at the sign of a confrontation there. His knuckles tense up and his eyes bulge just a little as the simmering anger begins to get the best of him. "This whole mission has gone up the g+$~&$n creek. No one saw anything?" Abraham says with exasperation, looking around the tent. "Wasn't he with others? The people being tested? Isn't there a guard at the front?" Sweat that wasn't coming from the heat ran down the homely man's brow. Their time had been shortened, the man who knew how to use the analyzer was gone, and they weren't any closer to discovering what caused the Yellow Plague. "We need Shapiro. He is the one who understood how to use this machine. If we don't find him, we're condemning everyone here to death. We can't let the plague escape the valley." The survey team, the guards, villagers, everyone would have to be killed when the bomb went off. This wasn't his area of expertise either though; the man was just a detective, a former soldier at that. Fighting off disease and controlling an outbreak was not in his wheelhouse.
Do we have an idea of how hard it'll be to get out of the valley? An estimate on time? This mission just seems completely FUBAR'd at the moment.
The family and I have caught Covid so I may be intermittent? Depends on how I am feeling. So far, pretty good but it is a day by day thing. I am fine hiring on Abidin and moving towards the survey sites, if there is nothing else anyone wants to do.
There was a moment of quietness amidst the group; perhaps a recollection of the nightmare that they dealt with back in Bolivia. Abraham took a breath, shaking off the apprehension before looking towards Abidin. "There is a lot of strangeness in the world, friend, a lot of strangeness. We're going to try and save as many of your friends and family as we can but we need to find the source of this. We've...dealt with strangeness before. We'll hire you." Abraham says before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. The pack is crumpled from the plane crash, a few of them even ripped open when he was slammed about the cabin. Offering them to whoever wanted one, he would light up and shoulder his rifle once more "Let's move."
Abraham stumbles back as the grave collapses inwards, not body to show but instead there laid a tunnel in the earth. Elliot's had the same situation and the former soldier could feel a knot tighten into his stomach. "Tunnel diggers was the worst job outside of being a runner back in the war. I don't think we should check it out. We don't know what could be laying in wait down there and we'd be at a severe disadvantage." Abraham suggests, looking at the others. "It's a bad idea."
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Abraham wraps some cloth around his face just in case the dead release more disease since their graves collapsed. Grabbing a shovel nearby, he would give a nod to Elliot and begin to dig at the most recent grave.
Abraham shoulders his rifle and gives a nod, his eyes focused on the perimeter around them moreso than the actual cemetery when they arrive.
Now I know what I'm suggesting is considered a cardinal sin in D&D but I still think we should have some talk to the boy while another group talks to the farmers. The only thing worse than splitting the party up is going in without as much knowledge as you could have in Call of Cthulhu. I'm willing to go to the farmers; Abraham is built for some social interaction and he can kick a lot of ass. We get some information from them, grab the young guide, and make our way up the survey. It has been a bit and I've been sick so I apologize for being hazy on the details but our goal is to try and identify the source of the Yellow Plague and what causes it right? We also need to consider like...is there any chance that anyone gets out of this valley alive since with have a "Mythos Nuke" with us.
"Five stops along the way, could be nasty..." Abraham mutters to himself, studying the map upon the ground. It would be helpful but investigating the locals and questioning them would also be useful. The former soldier returns just in time to hear about the young boy that had been acting as a guide. "I agree Father, that would work best. Perhaps you and a few others can talk with them? I'm not the best with kids." Abraham says with a grim smile for a moment before looking back towards Clements. "Has there been aggression from any locals? Any other threats we should worry about other than the plague?" He wanted to get all the information he could out of Clements before interrogating Sinclair about the bomb and the analyzer. He casts a worried look towards Chakos. The man had been hit twice it seemed, that could be an incredible danger.
"Sacred mountain, you say?" Abraham asks, giving his fellows a knowing look. If he had learned anything from the previous expedition, it was that these sacred locations seemed to great places to start looking. "Which one of these survey locations is the mountain?"
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