With the walls of the apartment fading from view around them and something else becoming visible instead, the party of Investigators may wish to make some SAN Rolls – 1/1D4.
From
out in the distance on all sides, the party will see swirling shapes, like tall
saplings or very long grass waving in a breeze. As they move through the
apartment, they notice that they are starting to feel somewhat weightless and
that the air has become incredibly dense, to the point where they struggle to
move through it. In fact, it’s as if they are underwater. They cannot “swim”
through the air, but jumping results in slow movement with an decreased range
and a slow descent.
Should
any Investigator in Elsa’s bedroom assume that she is the cause of all this and
try to waken her, they will approach in time to hear her murmur the word
“swimp” and languidly point towards the foot of her bed. Simultaneously an
enormous roar from that direction will startle them into turning:
Barrelling
out of the darkness beyond the walls, a gigantic fish-like creature emerges,
with its pectoral “fins” raised and maw gaping. Just as it seems to be about to
attack the Investigator, a bright flash illuminates the mist-obscured lines of
the telegraph wires and the El tracks and the creature screams and rears back,
flitting instantly back into the darkness. However, having seen this beast, the
Investigator can now make out many more similar shapes lurking in the shadows
on all sides.
Still
sleeping, Elsa will smile and murmur, “Why, how do you do Mr. Swimp! Lovely to see you again also!” The Investigator
should make a SAN Roll: 0/1d10.
Waking
Elsa will result in nothing happening to rectify the situation. She will be
startled into consciousness but the effects described will not abate.
Tellingly, Elsa becomes wide-eyed and scared also, as if this is the first time
that she has seen these phenomena (it is). The party should be made aware that
their own reality has become superimposed upon another, stranger one; that the
solid objects of their world are now barely visible and apparently insubstantial, while
the objects and creatures from beyond are not only solid but very deadly.
Strangely (and perversely) the party members are still limited by the
boundaries of their home dimension: they cannot pass through walls, furniture,
or doors, although they can see through them.
Ideally,
the party should try to re-group: obviously something weird is happening and
they need to get to the bottom of it. It is important to ascertain where in the
apartment they convene, as some areas are safe while others are hazardous to
their health. Any Investigator having seen the Swimp being forestalled by the
mist-enshrouded telegraph wires and train tracks can make an Idea Roll to learn that something at
that point was acting as a barrier, preventing the creature’s attack (if they
haven’t worked this out already). What the party may now guess at, is the fact
that Elsa’s bedroom is surrounded by a wall of metal fixtures and objects that
produce this misty effect: the telegraph lines, the train tracks, the rear fire
escape, the pneumatic tubes, the bathroom and kitchen pipes; the front fire
escape, the ice-box, the stove and the chimney flue. The mist effect creates a
barrier, but it’s an imperfect one: the area it covers is like a large doughnut
in shape. Anything descending from directly above, or from below, has access to
the centre of the flat: to be safe, one has to be inside the compass of the
mist circle and close to the perimeter.
“Swimps”
STR: 15
CON: 14
SIZ: 20
INT: 8
Idea: 40%
POW: 12
Luck: 60%
DEX: 15
Move: 11
SAN: n/a
HP: 17
Weapons: Bite 40%, 1D10; Grapple 20%
Average Damage Bonus: +1D6
Spells: None
Skills:
Swim 90%; Spot Hidden 70%
SAN Loss: it costs 0/1D10 to see a Swimp
“Swimps”
(as Elsa has termed them) are savage extra-dimensional creatures which live in
a liquid environment (possibly something other than water). They have huge,
motion-sensitive eyes and can see at a huge distance. They are attack predators,
hunting singly and without the pack mentality shown by lions or wild dogs: they
are entirely self-motivated and the only reason they hang around together is to
try and beat the others to a kill (or to steal it if someone else beats them to
it).
Despite
certain surface similarities, Swimps are not fish. Their “fins” are webbed
tentacles and their bodies are more or less a single huge tentacular structure
with a mouth on one end. They are capable of grabbing and smothering prey with
their pectoral, dorsal and tail “fins”, but they would much rather devour an
object whole in order to prevent another of their kind wresting it from them.
*****
Any
lights and movement in the apartment will attract the Swimps, as will any
hysterical screaming or yelling. Eventually, the apartment will become
encircled by the aqueous horrors, looking for a point of access. Fighting them
off is problematic: underwater physics are in full-swing here, so blows with
clubs and knives are slow and hard to accurately direct. Firearms, too, are
badly affected; however, the loud reports will startle the Swimps and send them
all fleeing for a time. Firearm activity has another beneficial effect too:
Downstairs,
in the secret government laboratory (oh ho!), the sound of shooting will alarm
the operators of the dangerous inter-dimensional device upon which they are
working and they will immediately shut it down. Their so doing will mean that
the “real” surroundings will start to solidify and, in about ten minutes’ time,
the world will return to normal and the only indication that anything untoward
had happened will be throbbing headaches for those involved.
Conspiracy
Revealed!
While
the strange effect is in place, have all participating Investigators (and Elsa
– just in case) make Spot Hidden Rolls,
ostensibly to spy any sneaky Swimps that might have wriggled in where they’re
not needed (which is anywhere, really!). Successful rollers will spot a strange
tableau through the floor beneath their feet: in the basement of the building
is a bright flickering play of the strange light which is radiating from all
the metallic objects and surfaces in the locality; this is stronger however,
and there are shadowy people standing around it.
Three
of the human-seeming figures are wearing some kind of coverall, complete with
hoods and dark-lensed visors; another figure is wearing the visor but no other
protection, clad in what seems to be a dapper modern suit; the fifth human is
wearing nothing and, beyond a general human-ness of outline, is anything but human. This being is grey of skin,
with a large bald head and long limbs in relation to its trunk; its eyes are
large, almond-shaped and jet black, without pupils or irises, and its mouth is
tiny. In one hand it holds what seems to be a large sea urchin with many
radiating spines of scintillating and constantly-changing colours. Their
combined attentions seem to be fixed upon a complex machine from which the
strange flickering light is emanating.
If
one of the Investigators fires a gun, all of the people downstairs will
suddenly look upwards towards where the sound came from; additionally, the
figure in the suit will tear off his protective visor and, if the Investigator
was lucky enough to have seen him earlier with Dr. Windrush, may be recognised
as the tall, bespectacled man, with dark hair and a thick moustache, with whom
Windrush sat at Tony Sarg’s Oasis Lounge, the day the party first met Elsa.
Instantly, he yells at the other protected figures and they rush to turn the
machine off: as the light fades and the world returns to normal, the mysterious
men seem to be hurriedly de-camping, tearing off protective gear, grabbing
equipment and documents and making for the doors. Investigators witnessing this
activity may pass it along to their confederates, however there are still
dangerous Swimps to be dealt with before this avenue can be investigated.
After
the Fish-Fry...
At
this point it would seem particularly obtuse to state that there was no
substance to Miss Sheridan’s claims: the party can now re-group and try to
develop a theory about what’s been happening. Obviously, this strange effect
has been occurring while Elsa has been sleeping and – luckily for her – some
kind of unanticipated barrier has been keeping her safe from attack. While
asleep, elements of the strange revelations have penetrated through into her
dream-state and have been interpreted oddly by her sleeping mind – obviously
the “droll Swimps of Saturn” are anything but the pacific beings she thought
she’d encountered!
If
none of the party saw the mysterious events playing out in the basement below,
have them make Listen Rolls now: they
suddenly hear wheels screeching and car engines racing. Looking out of the
apartment window, they can see a van disappearing into the night at the top of
the cul-de-sac; a large touring car
stands just outside on the street and the party sees a coated figure step
inside, glancing upwards as he does so, just before the car roars away. Again,
those who spotted this fellow at Tony Sarg’s will recognise him again now.
There’s
not much the party can do about these fleeing ciphers; in the meantime, there
are characters who may be wounded, or insane, to deal with. Some party members
may wish to check on the elderly couple who live in the apartment above:
there’s no answer to their knocking and – if the party breaks in, or awaits
police sanction – the apartment will be discovered to be unoccupied. A thick
layer of dust lies over everything: two armchairs placed before a
quietly-buzzing radio-set contain the slumped clothing of a man and a woman,
the garments nested inside each other as if the wearers simply vanished from
inside them. A similar investigation of the loft apartment will reveal a set of
man’s clothes in a similar state, on the floor next to a desk, on top of which
is a typewriter and a half-full scotch glass. The implication of these
discoveries necessitates a SAN Roll
(0/1D3).
If
anyone saw the mysterious gathering below, have them make an Idea Roll: those successful will recall
that Miss Sheridan’s “Martians” bear a strong resemblance to the naked grey
creature watching the proceedings. Could these beings be involved somehow? And,
more importantly, if she got the Swimps so wrong, what are these creatures really like?
Investigating
the basement – again, legally or otherwise – will find evidence that something
was going on there, but something that has been very quickly effaced. In pride
of place is a concrete slab, about 10 feet by 10 feet, with large, heavy
batteries attached to it by steel cables: witnesses will be able to ascertain
that this is where the light-emitting machine stood recently. Nearby there is a
smouldering heap of burnt paper, reeking of accelerant – a whole heap of
evidence gone up in smoke. A desk and chair lie tumbled over at the base of the
pneumatic-tube reception point and smashed bottles of ink add to the chaos.
Other than this, several decades of clutter from previous tenants – including a
disassembled buggy – have been pushed into a corner near the entrance and the
whitewashed windows in an attempt to mask the activity inside.
But
searching here is not entirely a waste of time. Have Investigators make their Spot Hidden Rolls: if successful, they
will find some of the contents of a document file spilt some of its contents as the guilty made
their exit. It includes the following information:
Firstly:
a matchbook from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. This isn’t much of a clue in and of
itself, but it definitely ties our mysterious moustachioed gent to that
location.
Secondly:
this is a page from a grant application for Government funding. It’s page 2 of
a longer document, stamped and initialled “APPROVED”, and the author’s name is
typed along the bottom of the leaf next to the page number – “Dr. Crawford
Tillinghast”.
“...will be of immense benefit to
humanity in every field of Science or Exploration.
What do we know of the world and the
universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our
notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are
constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With
five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet
other beings with a wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not
only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole
worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be
detected with the senses we have. I have always believed that such strange,
inaccessible worlds exist at our very elbows, and now I believe I have found a way to break down the barriers. Within twenty-four hours the machine I have
constructed will generate waves acting on unrecognised sense-organs that exist
in us as atrophied or rudimentary vestiges. Those waves will open up to us many
vistas unknown to man, and several unknown to anything we consider organic
life. We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats
prick up their ears after midnight. We shall see these things, and other things
which no breathing creature has yet seen. We shall overleap time, space, and
dimensions, and without bodily motion peer to the bottom of creation.
With the assistance of Government
funding and resources, further invaluable refinements...”
Thirdly:
a newspaper clipping detailing a nasty incident.
The
plot thickens!
To
Be Continued...
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