03/08/2025 – Battle inside the Mountain (5)
Into the Valley
A fight quickly breaks out. Only Eddy and Okumo are not involved, as they are by the cage still, trying to communicate with some of the escaping prisoners.
Round 1 - Fight with the Shaman
Tiger shoots him with his rifle and hits, but the wound that bad. Monty swings with his mechanics hammer but misses. The others draw their pistols and try to shoot around the two men who are in the doorway, but are unable to fire initially. The Shaman with the headdress suddenly makes strange gestures with his hands and shouts some odd words. Monty feels like some invisible force grabbed his chest and heart, but it fails.
Round 2 – Snake Shenanigans
Tiger fires again, but the Shaman backs through the doorway, to get out of firing line of Tiger’s gun. Monty then charges at him, swinging his hammer, but before he can hit the man, he waves his hands again and some sort of large snake head appears in the air and bites him. Monty staggers a little at this and his counter stroke goes wide. Cassandra and Jeziah fire and miss, while Agatha fires and hits, but the shot barely grazes the Shaman. She shot hurts her hands though and she stops.
Eddy has now heard the gun shots and heads over to see what is happening.
Round 3 – The Shaman Down
Monty swings at the Shaman but misses. Tiger moves through the doorway and attacks the Shaman with his rifle butt, striking the Shaman and knocking him down. The two Africans behind the Shaman throw spears at Monty and Tiger, but both attacks miss.
Round 4 – The Other Cultists
The two other cultists behind the first two turn and run back up the tunnel, but the two who threw spears draw clubs and charge.
Monty tries to hit one of the cultists, but misses, while dodging the counter attack. Tiger hits another cultist with his rifle, but he does not go down. His counter-attack on Tiger fails.
Round 5 – Misses All Round
All attacks this round miss or are dodged.
Round 6 – Glancing Blow
Tiger hits his opponent, but it is only a glancing blow. Monty attacks but misses, while both the cultist attacks are failures.
Round 7 – Hammer Time
Monty finally gets the first hit with his hammer. He knocks the cultist down with the blow, not killing him but winding him. Monty then punches him out. Tiger misses and so does his opponent.
Round 8 – Kill them All
Tiger finally gets a good blow on the last cultist, smashing his nose in and the man collapses on the fall, bleeding badly. Tiger then uses his rifle to ensure all three cultists are killed. Agatha is a little distraught at this horrible violence.
Frustrated with the hammer, Monty draws a shotgun from the bag of guns and loads it.
Further Up the Mountain
Okumo comes over to join them. He was telling some of the people from his tribe how to escape around the side, rather than run into the large number of cultists in the valley.
Monty and Tiger lead the way further up the Mountain tunnel, slowly and cautiously. The sound of drums thunder get louder and louder as they ascend. It is very steep and the walk is tiring.
They start to find weird, bulging patches on the walls that glow with a sickly yellow / green colour. They give off light, but appear strangely alive and disturbing. There are more and more of them, on the ceiling and on the floor, the higher they climb. The shape of the tunnel seems to distort into strange, unnatural shapes.
The Great Temple
Eventually they emerge into a large, open cave. There is a large, misshapen alter with strange markings in the middle of the cave. There are strange columns that keep up the ceiling, but they are warped and misshapen, like they are alive. There is also a huge throne, standing over which is an image of the God of the Blood Tongue, similar to the one in the cave they just left, but in a different style. There are also three pits and a huge pile of bones. The ceiling of the cave is open to the stars and the full moon stands over the Mountain.
Hypatia and M’Weru
On the Throne sits a young girl, Hypatia Masters, but her lower half is bloated and deformed, like she is heavily pregnant with a monstrous being, whose glowing eyes and mouths look out from under the skin of her bloated belly. Beside her stands an African woman in a very large headdress. Cassandra recognises her as M’Weru.
M’Weru is clearly the leader of the cult and is leading more than 20 cultists in some sort of ritual chant. Most of them of African. Some are dancing, others are beating drums. They are all in a frenzy and ignoring the Investigators.
Bloody-Tongue Zombies
Between the entrance where the Investigators are and the rest of the Cultists there are 6 figures that look like they were once alive, but are now clearly dead. Someone had cut their throats and pulled their tongues through the cut and left it dangling down their chest, then painted the tongue with blood. These figures begin to shuffle towards the Investigators, directed by the two cultists who fled from the fighting earlier.
One other cultist is not taking part in the ritual and it is stood over a flaming brazier, waving his hands and apparently summoning a small ball of fire.
As the Zombies close in, the Investigators draw their weapons and prepare for combat.
Round 1 – Open Fire!
Monty gets the Lewis machine-gun out and Tiger starts setting it up, but it’s more awkward than they hoped. Cassandra, Jeziah, Agatha and Eddy start shooting at the zombies. They are not great shots and the bullets don’t seem to have much effect.
Round 2 – Problems with the Machine Gun
The zombies are now closing in. Monty fires his shotgun at the nearest zombie. The blast blows out the creature’s stomach, but it does not go down and grabs at him. It is slow though and he is able to dodge.
Tiger is exposed trying to get up the machine gun, but he is struggling to get the magazine to fit, while three zombies close in on him. Eddy steps between them and fires at one of them, but the hit to the chest does little to slow the creature down. It grabs at him, but he is able to dodge for now. Three of them are closing in on him though.
Cassandra, Jeziah and Agatha fire again, but it’s difficult as they need to avoid hitting their friends. Jeziah gets a good hit on one of the zombies in the leg, blowing away its knee cap. The creature falls onto its knees, but keeps crawling forward.
Round 3 – Zombies Close In
Three zombies are now closing in on Monty. He decides to aim for the leg of one of them and blasts its leg off. It falls over, but it keeps grabbing at him. The other two grab at him. One misses and he dodges the other.
Three more are closing in on Eddy. He is terrified and shooting wildly, trying to keep them back. He is able to disable the arm of one of the zombies, but they all grab at him. He backs off and dodges them.
Tiger has finally got the magazine into the machine gun, but Eddy has been backing off so much that the zombies have now reached where Tiger is. They are too close to fire the machine gun at.
Cassandra, Jeziah and Agatha continue firing. Cassandra and Agatha both hit one of the ones going after Eddy, taking its leg out and making it crawl.
Round 4 – Monty in Trouble
Monty’s shotgun is empty. He starts swinging the shotgun at the zombies but misses. All three of the zombies, including the one on the floor, manage to grab him and bring their mouths closer to bite him. He kicks and punches as much as he can to keep them off.
Two of the zombies that were after Eddy have lost their legs and are crawling. Tiger is finally in a position to use the machine gun, but the third zombie steps too close to bring the long barrel machine gun to bear. He draws his heavy calibre .45 Webley and shoots the creature, blowing a huge hole in its chest and causing it to collapse. It falls onto the machine gun though.
Cassandra, Jeziah and Agatha hold their fire as the zombies are now too close to their friends.
The ball of fire over the flaming brazier has finished materialising and begins to bob through the air towards the Investigators.
Round 5 – Zombie Beheaded
Monty suddenly begins to feel ill and realises that the bit of that phantom snake is beginning to affect him, but he is able to shack it off for now. He grabs one of the zombies by the head, pulling its head off. The other two bite and claw him.
Eddy notices the ball of fire heading towards them. He is puzzled by this and decides to shoot at it. It’s small and he misses. Okumo reacts to the approach of this fire creature, stepping forward and taking out the necklace he was given by the Great Bundari.
Tiger pulls the zombie off the machine gun. Another zombie with no legs is still crawling towards him.
Cassandra and Jeziah risk shooting at one of the creatures attacking Monty. They are able to shoot the arm of one of the zombies that has grabbed Monty, causing it to lose its grip.
Round 6 – Fire Peril
Monty tries to crawl away, but the zombie with no legs has a firm grip on his ankle and stops him escaping.
Eddy fires again at the fire creature and hits. It buzzes like a wasp and it heads towards him. Tiger sees this and shouts a warning, telling him not to get too near the creature. The fire creature suddenly sends flames through the air towards Eddy, but warned, he is able to dodge out of the way, though his clothes are on fire.
Okumo then steps forward, brandishing his necklace close up to the creature. It suddenly seems to hesitate.
They all notice that the drums, the dancing and chanting have reached a crazy crescendo. The power in the cave is rising. M’Weru calls upon the God of the Blood Tongue. They see that something is starting to obscure the stars and the moon above the Mountain. It starts to get a little darker in the cave.
Round 7 – Fire Creature Banished
Tiger fires at one of the zombies bothering Monty, but in trying to avoid hitting Monty, he misses. Eddy is putting out his burning clothes, helped by Agatha.
Okumo goes right up to the fire creature and touches it with his necklace, causing the creature to disappear. However, Okumo’s hand is burnt from getting so close to it. Cassandra and Jeziah again try to help Monty but her shot misses and his hit has little effect.
Monty continues to fight off the zombies. He manages to stop them both from biting him, but he is unable to damage either.
The walls on the far side of the cave now start to glow brighter and pulsate with the rhythm of the drums.
Round 8 – Fire Creature Banished
Eddy sees that the cultist at the flaming brazier is trying to summon another fire creature. He shoots at his head. He misses, but only just and the bullet going past his eye ruins his summoning attempt. Tiger shoots again to help Monty, but misses badly.
Cassandra and Jeziah move further into the cave, shooting at the cultist trying to summon the fire creatures. Monty manages to destroy one of the zombies.
The God of the Bloody Tongue
Suddenly, the far side of the Mountain, which has been glowing, disappear, exposing the side of the Mountain to the elements. A huge stair case appears, reaching down to the valley where the rest of the cultists are.
A huge figure now appears above them. It is a three-legged monster, hundreds of feet high, with a huge red tongue where its face should be. The God of the Bloody Tongue has come.
Hypatia Masters makes a terrible scream. The creature inside her makes an unearthly scream too, but its scream is more triumphant.
Cassandra screams in terror.