London 1802: Ghosts of St. Paul's, Pt. II

Monday December 13, 2010 at 3:00pm world of darkness, london 1802, game session notes Comments (0) »

Gerald and Robert had been standing near the back of the crowd when the ground shuddered and the Cathedral disappeared from sight.  Almost immediately after these incredible events, they noticed a rather violent disturbance to their right - in the area around where Ludgate street enters the church yard from the west.  People where panicked, shoving each other out of the way trying to get away from the area.  The two shortly saw the reason why: a massive black dog the size of a large horse was slowly moving into the square.  It seemed like it was looking for something.  Gerald and Robert decided it was a good time to be somewhere else.  Robert tried to support Gerald (who was still quite weak with injury) as best he could as he pushed their way through the crowd toward the center of the square.

The center of the square was clearing out now, as people attempted to flee the area.  Robert and Gerald pushed through the crowd to see Molly and George standing near the massive hole.  After a moment George turned and began walking toward a shop at the edge of the square.

Katherine was standing in front of the Cathedral near the entrance, staring up through the rain, watching the growing number of swirling shapes in the clouds above.  She had advised the others present to take shelter inside the church.  There was another tremor and she heard the sound of cracking wood.  Across from her, she saw the ornate coffin fall from the platform and split open.  Inside, Proteus' lifeless form stared blankly out into the gloom.  Katherine noticed something else as well: the staff the Bishop always carried had been buried with him.  This struck Katherine as somewhat strange.  As she looked at it more closely, she noticed something else: the staff was suspended in the Twilight, not in the material world.  Katherine walked over to look more closely.

Molly decided to follow George over to the small shop.  George was in search of a rope - something that they could use to help get Katherine out of the hole.  As she followed him, she happened to look up and across the square to the east, where she saw and impossibly large, black dog parting the crowd and moving toward the center of the square.  They needed to hurry.

George broken the shop window and climbed inside.  Molly managed to unlatch the door through the broken window and followed him.  It took a few moments for them to find a decent length of sturdy rope.  By the time they were leaving the shop, Robert and Gerald had nearly reached their position.

Meanwhile, Katherine was looking at the body of the dead Bishop when she heard a hollow voice behind her.  "Why do you come to confess, child?  There will be no more forgiveness here!"  Katherine turned slowly and only just in time to see the knife point being thrust at her head.  She ducked out of the way just in time, emerging with only a small cut across her cheek - though she didn't think the injury had a physical manifestation.  The spectral figure of a man floated before her.  His skin had a strange discoloration to it.  He wore obvious clerical vestments, though they seemed rotted, moth-eaten and very old.  He held a knife in one hand and there was a sadistic smile on in face.

Katherine pushed her hand into the Twilight and took up Proteus' staff.  Placing it between herself and her assailant, she commanded him, "Go back to where you came from!"

The ghostly being recoiled from the cross and his smile immediately shifted to a hateful scowl.  His form seemed to distort and fold in on itself, and seemed to be sucked backward to a single pinpoint a few feet behind where it had floated.  Katherine was glad to see the figure gone, but she had a feeling her actions had little to do with its departure.

The square above was all but empty at this point, save for Katherine's 4 companions.  The two giant dogs had converged on the far side of the giant hole from them.  As their paths crossed and they darted back and forth, a third figure appeared among them: a woman.  She wore what would have been at one time a very fancy red dress, but time and decay seemed to have taken their toll on it.  It was faded and rotten in many places, having large holes and torn seams.  She spoke arrogantly to the nearly empty square.  "Who are these few who do not run in terror?"

It was Gerald who turned to face her.  "Who are you, woman?  What evil lurks here?"  The woman did not answer with words.  Instead, she violently clenched her fist before her.  Gerald pitched forward against his cane as excruciating pain coursed through his body.  He gritted his teeth hard, he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing him succumb.  When he would not collapse, she threw her hands into the air and shrieked "Kill them!"

From the depths of the hole, Katherine heard the shriek and looked up.  She saw the dark shapes that had been gathering above in the clouds suddenly streak away in all directions.  Above, Robert saw them descend into the street, causing screams to echo through the alleys and leaving dozens of people inexplicably collapsed in their wake.

The dogs leapt forward in order to tear the companions apart.  One of the dogs barreled into Gerald, knocking him to the ground.  Robert ran forward and began to stab at the huge beast with his knife.  The other dog was also about to charge forward, but Molly reacted by sending a strong impulse of fear toward it, causing it to balk.

The woman held out her hands and spoke in some strange voice.  As she did so, hundreds of the cobblestones around her feet became massive spiders that began crawling toward the group - but then something unexpected happened.  The woman suddenly recoiled as if stung by something.  Several of the spiders turned back and began moving toward her.  A few others broke off and began leaping onto the dogs' legs.

Below, Katherine had affixed the spectral cross to herself and had been attempting to find a way out of the hole.  George had tied off the rope and thrown it down to her, but its length didn't reach all the way to the ground.  She was finally able to get a hold of it, but climbing was slow.  Looking down, she noticed something else: the pouring rain seemed to be filling the basin the cathedral now occupied.  There was already nearly a foot of standing water on the ground.

Robert was having a difficult time fighting off the dog, being driven backward as its vicious bites tore into his arms and legs.  He was trying his best to return the injuries with his knife, but the thickness of the beast's hide made doing much real harm to it difficult.  The massive dog finally managed to trip him, and, standing over him, dug its teeth into his shoulder.  It was only then that Robert was able to jam his knife into the monster's underside, causing it to collapse atop him.  Unfortunately, this final exertion was all he had left, and he too lost consciousness.

The other dog had begun to charge forward several times, but Molly had managed to keep it just unsure enough such that it stayed out of reach and only partially inclined to attack.  The spiders, however, had begun swarming around them and it was virtually impossible to keep them all at bay.

Gerald looked up at the woman who was fighting off spiders herself.  The woman shrieked again.  An icy wind cut through the empty square, and all of the spiders withered and died.  "Go away!" Gerald yelled at her, and watched in shock as her form folded in upon itself and was drawn backward into nothingness.

Almost immediately after her disappearance, there was a loud BLAM!, followed shortly by another,  The dog that was still standing staggered slightly, turned and ran off toward a pair of figures standing near an alleyway across the square.  There was another BLAM, and the beast staggered more, and then changed course and darted out into the fog of the city.

Molly ran over to Robert's motionless form and called for Gerald who hobbled over and, using some scraps of cloth torn from his own clothing managed to stop the bleeding.  By this time, Katherine had managed to climb out of the hole.  The group decided they needed to get back to the bathhouse.  

The trip back was long, cold and painful.  Gerald was able to tell Molly to call for a doctor before he collapsed himself.  Katherine went up to her room and placed the spectral cross she was still carrying under the mattress of her bed.

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