In the Laboratory
Stone and Trombley shot at Lowe. Lowe cast his spell again and Stone was incited to rage and attack Trombley until they were also grappled by the tentacle man. With his opponents incapacitated, Lowe ran away. The investigators fought back, repeatedly breaking free of the tentacles and getting grappled again. Ultimately they all managed to break free and shot tentacle man dead.
The team assessed the contents of the laboratory. Shattered glassware and furniture were strewn everywhere. Warren inspected the library and called Sir Jonathan over. They decided to take the books and journals back to theircarriage and collect their longarms. However, as they exited the room, a squad of asylum guards advanced from the direction they wanted to go. Abandoning the books, they ran in the other direction. The hallway ended in a stairwell going down.
The Basement
As they reached the first floor landing, they discovered a row of cells, and all the doors were open. The elected to continue down the stairs to the basement.
The room at the bottom was full of large barrels and kegs with a small wine-rack of dusty bottles on one side. There were two doors to one side and one on the other. Behind the single door was supplies for the asylum: linens, bedclothes, tools, machine parts, curtains, cutlery, spare pots and pans, and other miscellaneous objects.
The nearest door on the otherside was reinforced, but Stone made quick work of the lock to discover the larder inside. Several shelves were devoted to mundane foodstuffs, but other shelves contained more gruesome victuals: severed limbs, human organs, and dozens of brains. All were well-preserved; some were pickled in jars, and large haunches of meat of uncertain origin dangled from meathooks on the ceiling.
The last door contained the personal effects of the staff and patients. They lingered in this room and debated disguising themselves as guards. While this was happening, a large man, leering lasciviously, charged toward them. His twisted body had been modified through surgery or magic or both: in place of feet he had large hooves, a pair of horns had been sutured to his scalp, and his eyes have been replaced with the yellow, horizontal-pupiled eyes of a goat. He bleated horribly and slammed into Trombley. Sir Jonathan fired off a bolt that stunned the monster. Trombley then shot him point blank in the face and it dropped.
The Guard Room
They climbed back up to the ground floor. As they entered the row of cells, three crazed but otherwise normal inmates ran toward them. The team shot them down. Proceeding down the row of cells, they noticed other inmates cowering in the corners.
They passed through the door at the end of the row of cells into a guard room. Three guards with pistols were there waiting for them. Sir Jonathan cast Stun and two of them were affected. Trombley killed one. Stone shot, but missed. The guards shot and Trombley was hit. Warren fired again and killed one. The last guard ran away through a door at the other end of the room. Sir Jonathan had the presence of mind to pull the three levels in the guard room, which closed all the cell doors.
In an adjacent room, they discovered an arsenal. All the weapons were gone, but there was an ample supply of ammunition for the pistols. They each took one of the guards’ pistols.
The Kitchen
Following the guard into a hallway, Warren saw the guard run into an open door on the left. He and Trombley flanked the door. Inside, three more guards opened fire from the kitchen. Warren and Trombley returned fire. Sir Jonathan and Stone followed. Stone glanced into the open doorway the others had passed by and was attacked by a malformed female figure from the dining room. At first he thought she was a werewolf, but then he realized that the snout, tail, and paws of a wolf had been roughly stitched to her body. She howled as she attacked. Stone shot at the woman but his bullets did not stop her. She bit into him, but could not get through his sleeve.
In the mean time, two of the guards had been killed. Warren ordered the guards to surrender. One complied, but another appeared from out of view and used him as a shield. Sir Jonathan cast bolt at the wolf woman and killed her. Stone ran through the dining room to the door to the kitchen. Trombley shot the armed guard. The other dove for cover and recovered his pistol. Stone shot at him, but missed. Warren shot and killed the last guard.
To the Exit
Trombley advanced to the next doorway, which opened up on the foyer. From there, he could see two guards laying in wait. There were also two guards at the end of the hall on the opposite side of the foyer, two more on the balcony overlooking the foyer, and one outside the front door. Sir Jonathan attempted to cast Bolt at the nearest guards, but his spell backfired. Warren opened fire to provide the others time to get into cover. One of the balcony guards shot Tromley. He shot another guard and then took cover. Stone shot but missed. The foyer guards shot at Stone and Warren, but they were not injured.
The guard outside ran off. Stone shot and killed one of the foyer guards. The other shot Warren but did no damage. Sir Jonathan tried another Bolt, and it misfired again. The one of the balcony guards shot and missed. Warren shot him. Sir Jonathan fired off a Bolt at the guards down the hall and killed them, but stunned himself in the process. Stone killed the last guard on the balcony. With the firefight over, Warren bound Trombley’s wounds.
The Other Wing
Stone insisted that they search for the weapon plans. Trombley elected to wait by the door while the others cleared the other wing of the asylum. The first room they came to was the infirmary. It was unoccupied. The next room was an unused recreation area heavy with dust. The room at the end of the hall was another guard room. They had already killed the guards. The armory contained more ammunition for their pistols.
While this was going on, Trombley thought he heard footsteps in the foyer, but saw no one. Then the front door opened and closed on its own.
Beyond the guard room was another row of open cells. When the entered, four crazed woman lunged at them. Stone shot one outright. Sir Jonathan hit two more with Bolts. The woman in the lead slammed hard into Stone. Warren shot her. The battle over, Sir Jonathan returned to the guard room and pulled the levers to close the cell doors.
Escape
Suddenly, shots were heard outside. When the others arrived at the foyer, Trombley informed them of the mysterious footsteps. They ran to the gate to discover that their carriage was gone and Jacobs was lying on the ground. He had been shot twice. He told them that two gentlemen and a guard had taken the carriage. Stone carried Jacobs to the infirmary where Warren and Trombley worked on his wounds.
The Second Laboratory
Stone and Sir Jonathan decided to search the second floor. The took the stairs at the end of the female wing. The first door they came to was the laboratory of Dr. Lowe. It was filled with glass tubing, small oil lamps, textbooks, an operating table, organs preserved in glass jars, and a small library. There were also glass jars arrayed on counters along the edges of the room brimming with bilious liquid. Suspended the jars were various creatures, each more alien and disturbing than the last. The team elected to take the various books and notes with them.
The next room was Dr. Lowe’s office. Inside was an antique wooden desk strewn with papers, some of them scrawled with occult symbols and formulae, others with anatomical illustrations, and others still with notes. In one corner stood a naked human corpse, stuffed and mounted on a wooden base, its face frozen in an expression of terror.
Stone realized that Lowe was not their target. Dr. Muelhoffer was thought to have the stolen plans, and his office was in the other wing. They proceeded down the hall ignoring the remaining rooms until they crossed the foyer balcony back to the first wing. The door they had passed by in pursuit of Lowe was Dr. Muelhoffer’s office. Sir Jonathan rummaged through the desk while Stone opened the safe.
Sir Jonathan found a diary with an appointment in two day’s time for “Lady Henrietta, London, 7:30 p.m.” In the safe, Stone found various papers and letters spelling out the plot to acquire Lord Cotterill’s latest weapon designs by any means and return them to Germany, where they will be transferred to Transylvania and handed over to the “Master of Night.”
They returned to the infirmary, where Jacobs was now bandaged. Collecting the books and notes, the team made haste to the coach house, where they tacked up the asylum’s carriage and horses to pursue the fugitive psychiatrists. They had perhaps a one hour lead, but the next train did not leave Moreton-Hampstead until 10PM. It would take about three hours to get to town, so there would be several hours until the train arrived.
The Heroes
- Inspector Alabaster Warren, Scotland Yard
- Gravner Stone, notorious playboy and consulting detective
- Sir Jonathan Dennis Braun of Eatin-over-Heywoods, peer of the realm and wizard
- Clancy Trombley – British Intelligence Service