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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nebulous" data-source="post: 4199614" data-attributes="member: 31465">Adventure #25: Escape from the Mountain (Part 1)Part 1:  Old FriendsThe Spawn is dead! Chunks of its ravaged body decorate the Ceremony Chamber with radioactive red and orange viscera. Mass chaos ensues as thousands of panicked cultists push for the exit, the long, treacherous stairway leading down to the valley below.  But the investigators (along with their ally Okumo and one trembling mook) are huddled in their secret alcove, just as Chad Slambody streaks up to them.  He is bloody, sooty, and wild-eyed, but he's alive and doesn't know what the hell happened to Father Salvatore. They don't wait to find out.A dozen of M'Weru's undead bodyguards are trundling toward them; fat, stinking black men, their skin sloughing off in wet sheets.<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/ghouls3.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The heroes run down the tunnel, Chang in the lead, until they reach the Throne Room of M'Weru. They have only two flashlights between them, and naked Chad Slambody doesn't have his gun anymore, discarded somewhere during the confusion. [GM Note- insert jokes about Chad's "suitcasing" capabilities] They run through the cavernous room, backtracking to where they know they last left the Gas Mule. Lester Cobblebottom is somewhat composed now, free of his former madness, but Chad Slambody is concealing a new affliction, one that pulls at his loins, tugs at his testicles, a yearning for men who CANNOT RESIST HIS ADVANCES! The chaos of the past several months has finally deteriorated his senses and Chad seeks solace in what seems rational: sex with the dead! In their glassy eyes he is perfection; the perfect specimen of Man. [GM note: Leo opted for this particular malady over the boring hypochondria]However, the foul statue of Nyarlathotep overlooks them all, a 15-foot monstrosity that fills the investigators with dread.  A sudden wind whips up inside the throne room, keening through the corners, howling with peculiar similarity to the wind outside the mountain.The investigators reach the rickety bridge again where they first crossed with a rope and left the Gas Mule tethered on the far side.  The beast of burden still sits here, and the heroes cross the chasm one at a time. The bridge sways back and forth in the unnatural wind, and it is extremely treacherous to cross. Hand over hand they navigate the chasm, with boards falling beneath their feet.  When it is finally Lester's turn, he ties one end of the rope around his waist and hobbles over the bridge.  But it breaks! His feet splinter through the wood and he plunges into the ravine, only to painfully slam against the wall, saved only by the rope anchored under his armpits.  The others haul him up even as they hear voices from nearby. Torchlight begins to flicker elsewhere in the cavern. They pull faster until Lester crests the top, and then they see several fat dead men have reached the far side. Staring at them with soulless white eyes, they approach, but lack the dexterity or foresight to navigate the damaged bridge.  Both zombies fall to their second deaths and splatter messily in the darkness at the bottom.  The bridge is impassable now, and the investigators cut the last remaining strands and discard the bridge into the chasm.However, they hear strange shrieks in the darkness, and the scrape of claws on rock.  Something else has entered this room, and they don't want to find out what.Almost to the exit!  They reach the bottom of the room that leads up to the ledge where M'Weru first tossed the infant to its death a few hours earlier. Outside, the wind screams with unholy fury, and they hear the screams of thousands of men and women climbing down the stairs from the Ceremony Chamber. Chad Slambody reaches the top first, sprinting ahead......and stops in his tracks. Horrified.<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/tornado.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />A cyclone of immense proportions twists in the distance, two baleful blue eyes burning within the darkness. Chad shudders and averts his gaze, even as the others clamber up and witness what is waiting for them.  Lightning crackles and pounds the earth, arcing from trees and sparking them into blooms of flame.  Men and women run shrieking from the magical stairwell, flee into the jungle. And the magical stairwell begins to crumble...Chaos swirls before the investigators and they are reluctant to step out, so they opt to wait. Chad runs back down to set a trap in the corridor, in case anyone or anything manages to cross the chasm. He hauls gasoline off the Gas Mule and begins to place the fuel in the narrow tunnel, keeping an eye on more torch-bearing zombies gathered at the far side of the crevasse. But then he hears it: bird-like ululating shrieks from deeper in the chamber, and the flap of leathery wings...as something huge and bone-white slithers up behind the zombies, viscous saliva dropping from a fleshless head that resembles a desiccated horse skull.<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/horse.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Chad (wisely) decides to run.  They have few choices now.  The winged monstrosity will cross the chasm and be on top of them in seconds, so they clamber out onto the ledge and begin picking their way down the trail, with Lester hauling the terrified Gas Mule.   The cyclone finally moves out of sight, but even as they step out onto the ledge, the great magical stairway completely crumbles!  The remaining cultists who still have not escaped fall to their deaths and are crushed under tons of rock.Purple lightning continues to strike the ground, buzzing and arcing over the corpses, many of which were sacrificial victims from earlier, or were killed by the investigator's liberal use of dynamite. The electricity worms among the dead, and then, to the dismay of everyone climbing down the trail, the dead begin to stir!<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/~saasha/Masks/zombie mob.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></blockquote>

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