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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1562236" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter 58, “Battle against the Evil”, December 20th , 1881:The group land on the other side of the portal, landing in a large underground room.   The room is lit by gaslights along the walls.   Arcades father is sitting behind a desk reading from a large tome.  Behind him are large pieces of machinery, with various gears, pulleys and cranks.  The gears are all moving and slowly turning in a counter-clockwise direction.    The men in the group withdraw their firearms and the party begins to move closer to Arcade’s father.  As they near Morgana comments “He’s totally oblivious to us.”  Arcade states, “Yes, he is mesmerized by that book.”   Morgana moves in close enough for the protection aura to surround Lord Arcadiam but there is no discernable effect.   Louie starts to grab for the book, but is stopped by Qualtaqa.   Lord Arcadiam continues to stare blankly at the book, muttering odd words to himself.   “We need to stop him,” Sam states.   Hank says, “I’m not sure, seventy-year-old men reading books aren’t my usual foe.”   Louie comments “He afraid of old men?”  Sam states, “No, he’s afraid of books.” Gesturing to the moving gears Hank asks, “What’s with all the machinery?”   Arcade comments, “I don’t know but it can’t be good.”   They are unsure of what to do next, but that decision solves itself when Wes’s body goes flying through the portal and lands in a heap at their feet.   Morgana notes that he is still breathing, so is unconscious rather than dead.   They look to the portal and see that William has crossed through, standing there with his arms hands on his sides and leans his head back and lets out an evil laugh.   He then states “We Elders are not to be underestimated.” “Elders?” Hank asks.   Louie says, “I thought his father was old one.”   William then bellows “Chumagohta is not to be taken lightly.” Morgana tosses holy water onto the book in front of Lord Arcadiam and the water steams instantly away, leaving the book intact.  William says, “You’ll have to do better than that.”    Hank grabs Lord Arcadiam and pulls him out of the chair and away from the book.  The old man collapses into a heap on the floor.  Louie uses his dagger to push the book off of the desk.  It lands on the floor and closes shut, with the party seeing the title spelled out on the cover, which reads “Necronomicon”.  William continues to laugh and a mystical opening begins to appear beside the machinery.  Qualtaqa tells Louie, “I have an idea.  Grab the other end of the desk.”  The two of them lift up the large oaken desk and then hurl it into the machinery, causing considerable damage  At the sight of the machinery being harmed William yells out “NO!” and begins to undergo a transformation.  The machinery continues to turn, although the damage causes many of the gears to screech and grind, with several of the metal pieces banging against each other.   William continues to polymorph, becoming a large green creature, presumably Chumagohta.  He is approximately ten-feet in diameter, with over a dozen eyeballs floating around in his protoplasm form.  He also has several dozen tentacles, grouped together from several points along the body.   At the sight of this creature Arcade, Hank, Louie, Qualtaqa and Sam all have the same idea, drawing their handguns and commencing to fire into the creature.   Morgana begins to chant.  A deep voice bellows from the creature yelling out, “The difference engine was only to control the device.  The portal will open regardless.”    The group sees that the inter-dimensional rift behind them, with it expanding by several feet every minute.   A structure made of white marble begins to form inside of the rift.   Qualtaqa stops Louie from shooting and has the two of them kick the desk further into the machinery, this time causing the gears to slow their turn to a crawl to the sound of grinding metal, as smoke and sparks appear in several places.   The creature yells “Even if you stop the dark ones from coming the portal will stay open.”    The rift continues to grow, the building now appearing to be a small Greco-Roman temple with a marble floor and ceiling and supported by marble pillars.Arcade, Hank and Sam have scored over a dozen shots into the creature that is slowly making its way across the room towards them.   A few eyeballs have been shot out and parts of tentacles have been shot off, but the creature still appears to be primarily intact and relatively unhurt.   The creature retaliates, targeting Arcade, who is overwhelmed with fear.  He drops his gun and runs back towards the portal to the office in London.   Morgana attempts to stop him and is then targeted by the creature as well.  She is also overcome with fear and runs towards the entranceway alongside her husband.  Qualtaqa decides that desperate measures are needed and fires his gun directly into the Necronomicon at point blank range.   The bullet makes a hole into the book.  The book then heals over almost instantaneously, expelling the spent lead, the cover sealing up to look as it had been.   Qualtaqa decides to try something else and pulls off his jacket, using it to wrap up the book without having to touch it directly.   Hank and Sam continue to fill the creature with lead, having inflicted in excess of 100 points of damage at this point.  Several stalks of tentacles have drooped or fallen off although the creature continues its forward progress towards the party. The creature yells “Yogoroth and The Dark One will still rise from the Ocean’s Depths!”  Hank bellows back, “Oh, shut the hell up!” as he fires two perfectly fired shots point blank into two of the creature’s eyes.    Louie comments, “That building now here,” the marble temple now standing in the room where the machinery had been.  Louie joins the other men in shooting at the creatue, scoring a few shots.  Qualtaqa charges towards the side wall with the book, cursing the fact that he no longer has horses legs to carry him.    The creature stops and begins to change direction towards Qualtaqa and the book.   Qualtaqa in turn changes his direction too, charging towards the entranceway, as Morgana and Arcade reach that location.  The creature also moves back in that direction, although his movement is greatly slowed by the ever-decreasing number of tentacles falling off of it, as Sam and Hank reload their guns and commence firing again.    Tentacles lash out at Qualtaqa, almost grabbing him.   He starts to call out to Arcade and Morgana to “Catch the book” but they have already exited the room.   With his last ounce of strength the centaur turned half-elf dives through the portal with the book, the doorway closing up behind him.   Hank mutters an expletive as the creature turns around and continues to move towards him, Louie and Sam, now trapped inside the room with it.</blockquote>

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