Game Night Tales from around the gaming table

 

Continuation from Mine Terror - Otis' Log.

 

 

 

We arrived at the surface as twilight became full night.

 

After discussing with Williams what I found, we decided that the best thing would be to test the water that came from the aqueduct, the well and the cistern.  Williams recalled that there was a portable test kit in the foreman's house.  Loathe to return to that place alone, we took two gunmen with us.  It was a quick thing -- the testing kit was stored in a large suitcase that I could easily manage.

 

Once we arrived back at the mess hall we were offered coffee by one of the gunmen, I asked him where he got it from and he pointed at the kitchen.  Reminding him again that we should only eat and drink what we brought with us, I get him to pour it out.

 

Williams and I tested each sample separately and then compared our results -- it wouldn't do to make a mistake on such important tests.  All the tests but one came back negative, but that one test was the most ominous, a small amount of ghost rock added to each of the samples reacted and changed them into a black inky murk.  This was bad, very bad, it meant that the water was contaminated with something unnatural, what that was we couldn't know but it meant that the water was not to be used.  Knowing that they had made coffee from the water, I questioned everyone to find out who had drunk it.  Five of Holden's men had drunk it or the water directly.  The miners had listened to us and had kept to their personal rations, so none of them had touched the tainted water.  I also had noticed that the gunmen had very few provisions themselves, so I warned the miners to conserve their rations and not to flaunt what they had left at the gunmen.

 

I also told the miners that we would need to keep our own watch that night; I had a bad feeling about what the water might do.

 

Late into the night Rosco, one of the gunman, disappeared.  After a quick search, Jesse found him around back, near the mine entrance, looking all ghoulish, along with six others that were much further gone than he.  A gun battle ensued as Holden tossed a lantern into a pile of ghost rock, igniting it, and burning two of the ghouls up.  The only problem was that our shots didn't seem to affect them -- we connected but they just went through them and the ghouls kept coming at us.  As Jesse got grabbed by the thing that was once Rosco, Holden shot it in the head, dropping it.  Seeing this, I screamed out the way to kill the ghouls so that we might just survive, depending on how good a shot all the remaining gunmen were.

 

Still in the mess hall with the miners, I got them to ready small charges of TNT and prepare to defend the door.

 

Now that I knew I needed to blow their heads off to stop them... I thought to myself "I'll give it a try and hope for some fantastic luck."  To my very great surprise, I got it -- in the process managing to save Holden and three of his men -- but that luck didn't hold for long as one of the miners blew himself to pieces with a poorly fused stick of TNT.  Luckily it was a small enough piece that he only caught himself in the blast.  During the confusion most of the remaining gunmen were taken, including Jesse, as the ghouls retreated back into the mine.  Only Holden and two of the gunmen I had saved survived.

 

We regrouped and, after a bit of brow beating by Holden, got the remaining men in line to mount a rescue -- in the process we learned that Holden was a Texas Ranger and Jesse was his partner.  Williams and I double checked all the TNT fuses twice, and Holden taught me the proper way to fire one of the Gatling guns he had brought in the wagons.

 

Armed as best we could be, we headed into the mine after the ghouls and taken men.

 

We followed a blood trail all the way back down to the aqueduct.  From there it took an hour to make our way to what could only be described as a giant underground manufacturing facility and warehouse; the perfect place to find one of those Mad Scientists that were always in the Dime novels.  Suddenly I knew we were in for a bad time...

 

Sure enough, we found the men, some had changed, as Rosco had, but there were still a few alive and normal looking.  They were being held by a man who was monologuing at them about some kind of mad scheme to rule the world -- he even wore the signature white lab coat.  Shaking my head to make sure I wasn't dreaming all this, I talked with Holden and Williams to see how best we could use the men at hand.  We decided on first lobbing in some TNT to blow most of the ghouls to bits and then with Holden and me using the Gatling guns, we'd rescue the men from the ghouls surrounding them.

 

It worked, after a fashion, we got rid of a lot of the ghouls, but in the ensuing chaos of explosions, their creator got away -- seeing an opportunity I dropped the Gatling gun and rushed through the remaining ghouls to free our men to aid in the fight -- but the mad scientist wasn't gone.  He had just fled to another of his creations.  This one a giant mechanical man whose arms ended in a flamethrower and a massive crushing claw.

 

At first he didn't pay any attention to the freed prisoners and me; he focused on Holden and the others -- smashing through his own ghouls to get to them.  The fight was full of men's dying screams, TNT exploding, guns firing, napalm spraying and machinery stomping.

 

In the end, the mad scientist died in his invention, but not before setting off a chain reaction that destroyed the entire facility.  Luckily we hot footed it out of there just ahead of the fireball that consumed the place.

 

In the end only Holden, Jesse, 4 miners and one gunman survived.  But before that horror could sink in, men descended from the sky.  Blinking, I looked up to watch as two large zeppelins stationed themselves above the mine in the predawn light.  We were all quickly whisked away, up into them and told to forget what had happened.

 

My only consolation was that Holden had been impressed with me and -- as I had saved his life multiple times last night -- told me that he owed me one.  It was never a bad thing to have a Texas Ranger owing you one!

 

I sat back and tried to relax; I wanted to forget the horrors that I had been through on this job.  I would need to do some serious research to learn of these things -- so that next time I would be better prepared.  I hated not knowing things.