¶ 🧠Session 025: The Countdown and the Carnage
The clash inside the inner sanctum of Mertlinger's Sanitarium erupted into chaos without preamble. Nitro, Snax, and Otto found themselves mid-fight against Snow’s twisted henchmen, with blood already pooling on the floor.
At the heart of the melee, Nitro wasted no time. With a howl of rage, she cleaved an enemy clean in half at the hips, sending a spray of gore across the stone floor. Wielding half the corpse like a gruesome weapon, she hurled it at another attacker, splattering him with viscera and stunning him momentarily. Blood slicked the walls; the room reeked of violence.
Before the party could reposition, Dr. Snow unleashed a sticky web spell across the battlefield, tangling the ground underfoot and threatening to immobilize the heroes. Otto, caught fast, fought to free himself with his blade, while Snax pressed the assault.
Facing Snow, Snax leveled his dog slicer and barked,
"Mate, tell me about the devils you're dealing with, and maybe I'll let you live."
The room tensed, but Snow only sneered behind his plague mask, refusing to answer.
Meanwhile, the battlefield grew stranger. Two of Snow’s henchmen shimmered like cuttlefish, fading from sight into near invisibility. Realizing their ghost-hunting gear was useless against these chameleon-like foes, Nitro improvised, trying to rip free gore from the bodies around her to use as a marker—only to find the sticky webbing too strong. Frustrated, she tore through the webs with her great axe, carving a path forward.
As the battle raged, Snow snarled a final threat, slamming a button on a nearby console. A 10-minute timer began its deadly countdown. Panic flickered through the party—this was no mere fight; Something incredibly bad was about to happen.
Otto, thinking fast, fought free from the webs and made his way toward the console. The investigator's mind raced through tactics and deduction, but time slipped away with every breath.
At the front lines, Nitro continued her brutal work, crushing enemies and even punching a man clean through the gut, using his limp body as a makeshift shield as she forced her way out of the sticky floor.
Snax pressed in. He leveled his blade again and snarled,
"Guess we'll have to cut the information out of you, mate."
With grim precision, he drove his dog slicer deep into Snow’s gut.
Snow, bleeding from his wounds and coughing blood into his plague mask, laughed bitterly.
"The wheels are in motion,"
he rasped.
"Nothing you can do will stop it now."
With a final grim invocation to Father Blackfinger, Snow dragged himself further onto Snax' blade and died.
The battlefield quieted for only a heartbeat. Then the vats around the chamber began hissing. Gas vented and rose higher as mutated, chameleon-skinned assassins, engineered in Snow’s experiments, began emerging from pods. Some tried to ambush Nitro, but she stood firm against them, refusing to give ground.
Otto spent time searching Dr. Snow's body and found some folded documents
Above the fray, Snax hacked into the nearby door controls. With quick hands and sheer luck, he disabled the security locks, popping open a much-needed escape route. Nitro and Otto cleared the way, and the group—with a terrified Wadsworth trailing behind—bolted from the inner sanctum.
Clambering up through the halls of the sanitarium, they quickly realized the threat was bigger than their own lives. They shouted warnings through the corridors, rousing the few remaining patients they could find. Between Nitro’s commanding presence, Snax’ chaotic shouting, and Otto’s organization, they managed to lead six survivors into the streets.
The party burst into the foggy Westgate streets as alarms still blared behind them. Shaken, bloodied, and gasping for breath, they turned to watch the old sanitarium building still humming with ominous energy. The countdown continued behind those walls—five minutes remained when they escaped.
Civilians looked on in horror and confusion. Meanwhile, inside the minds of Nitro, Snax, and Otto, a darker truth took root: whatever Dr. Snow had been planning, his death had not ended it. The real battle was just beginning. And what the hell were they going to do about this count down?