Something awful was coming from the seafaring town of Innsmouth MS, and it wasn't Duke's deodorant. Rumors of some terrible doings by the Marsh Clan, the folks purported to run the place, doings which fell well out of the jurisdiction of traditional law enforcement. Still, rookie cop Tommy Muldoon, stirred but not shaken by his near-death experience in that mansion weeks ago, insisted on joining Fr. Matteo and magician Dexter Drake, now armed with a few actual spells, the sort that cut people in half for real, and you're damned sure Tommy was gonna bring along his rifle Becky.
Attempts to track down the bootlegger Finn were fruitless, but the search did lead to an associate of his, one Michael McGlen, a self-styled "problem solver", tho Tommy and Dex were suspecting he probably solved the same sortsa problems that Clemenza would solve, and probably in much the same way too. Still, McGlen was pretty persuasive, or at least as persuasive as a fella brandishing brass knuckles needed to be. He was in.
Arriving in town by boat - there were no roads in or out - the entire place smelled like a dead fish. Maybe it was Duke's deodorant after all. A green haze hung over the place like smoke in a whore house, and everywhere, the locals stared with wide, unblinking eyes, too big for their damned heads, cold and clammy snarls on pursed lips. It soon became apparent that they were all in danger, night was falling fast, and the only thing to do was hole up in a hotel until the morning and catch the first boat out of town. All they had to do was make it through the night.
No one slept. No one got a chance to. Not long after the sun lurched beneath the brackish water of the cursed bay, voices could be heard gathering outside. Maybe human, maybe something else but whatever they were, there were a lot of them. Tommy loaded his gun. McGlen donned his brass knuckles. Dexter gathered his papers for a quick escape. Fr. Mateo kissed his rosary and whispered Psalm 23:4 quietly to himself. And then, some shuffling at the door. Something was trying to get in. Something big.
The four investigators looked at each other and nodded. Then, with a "Whatsamatta, not even gonna knock?", McGlen kicked open the door, knocking whatever the hell it was on the other side halfway across the adjoining room and giving it a nice imprint on its forehead for its trouble. With a snarl, the trollish half human, half fish thing clamored back to its feet and advanced. "Outa the way!" Tommy yelled, and emptied the contents of Becky into its chest before the thing went down for good.
The noises outside grew in number and agitation.
"Guys, we need to make ourselves scarce!" urged McGlen.
"I agree!" agreed Dexter. "Our investigation will be for naught if we're all dead!"
"But guys! We came here to do a job, and that's to figure out what's goin' on with the Marshes!" pleaded Tommy.
"Who cares?" blurted McGlen. "Let's get outa here and call in an airstrike!"
But Father Matteo settled it. "I agree with Tommy. We need to find out what is going on with the Marshes. Something sinister is at play here, and we MUST find out what it is! This goes much beyond Innsmouth!"
Now, Tommy and McGlen were on the opposite sides of the law, but they were both raised Catholic, and neither of them would go against the word of a jesuit. Dexter suddenly found himself out-voted three to one.
"Okay, have it your way" conceded McGlen. "We're gonna split up. Maybe that'll confuse the crowd. You and the flatfoot search the rooms to the left. Drake and I search the rooms to the right. We meet at the docks in five minutes and take the first boat we can find, no matter what sorta evidence we all manage to gather. Shoot anybody who gets in your way."
So, they split up, dodging the crowd, battling progressively more disturbingly fish like creatures, fighting fires that broke out everywhere, even battling an outwardly innocent looking librarian who turned out to be a cultist. Soon, they were able to get on the CB radio and contact some boatman to come pick them up. All they had to do was ring the chapel bell signalling him to come in, meet him at dock two, and be sure to have a light so he could see. It was decided that Fr Matteo would meet him at the dock with the light, and try to convince him to wait a little, while the rest of the team made their way to the chapel, which unfortunately was in the direction of the mob. So off Fr Matteo went.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team made it to the temple, battling a few horrors along the way, and managing to avoid the riot, who at this point just seemed to be marching around the block as if in some sort of demented parade. McGlen decided to check a nearby beat-up boat to see if it was seaworthy. No dice there, but it did have a tommy gun. Yes, someone left a tommy gun in a rotted boat. But you don't look a gift horse in the eye.
Just then, Tommy and Dex rung the bell. And this is where things went to shit.
Of course, ringing the bell drew the entire crowd towards the chapel, and some monsters besides. Dexter threw some disgusting shrivel spells at them, Tommy kept firing Becky, and McGlen did what gangsters with tommy guns do, but the townsfolk were possessed, relentless. They just kept coming.
Meanwhile, at the dock, Fr Mateo could see the lights of the boat approaching fast. He held up his light to signal it in. Suddenly a shock knocked the lamp out of his hands, and it crashed to the ground, its light going out. Coming in blind and fast, the boat crashed into the dock, becoming stuck. Fr Mateo put all of his back into it and managed to free the boat enough for it to get out of there, then pleaded with the captain to wait for his friends. Apparently the captain was catholic too, because he agreed.
Suddenly, Fr Matteo noticed something down the alley behind him. Looked like the door to a library! Now, if that librarian was a cultist, surely she must have been protecting something in there? Fr Matteo raced to the door and hurried inside. Meanwhile, things became suddenly quiet outside the chapel. The crowd was moving on. The relief was short lived, though, as it soon became obvious what was the new target of the crowd. The boat!
Fr Mateo emerged from the library with enough evidence to prove The Marshes were of the Esoteric Cult of Dagon, and the entire town had generations before made a terrible pact with The Deep Ones, just as Dexter and Tommy emerged from the chapel, all of them just in time to see the crowd descending on the boat, lighting it on fire, and tearing its captain to pieces.
Only one route left: inland, through the woods. But it was too late. They were surrounded. Soon the crowds converged upon them, pinning them to the ground, screaming, dragging them to their doom.
The current whereabouts of the investigators remain unknown.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Reply With Quote
Quoting bac0n 
forum