The pudgy, elderly, bespectacled, luxuriantly dressed Doctor Klay swung down through the window well on his cane, using his powerful arms to supplement his stubby legs.
He rasped out a greeting, and asked the gang to show him the "patient". Larry helped the Doctor haul the dead vampire to one of the old dressing rooms, where they tossed it on a table for dissection. The Doctor treated Larry and Acrasia for the wounds they'd received fighting the vampires, then went to work chopping up the specimen.
Carl had been gone about forty five minutes. Acrasia and Larry went back through the passwall into the dungeon, to see if he was still alive, and if he had accomplished his mission.
Carl the Rock was looking through the film reels in the archives. He sealed both the tunnels to the West, shooting one vampire in the process. The players decided to leave him to his tapes and resume their original mission: to scout the Southern tunnels for a path to the Sink.
The South end of the research facility opened into an abandoned train tunnel. Daylight was visible at one end, where an iron grate had been mounted to block the passage. Train horns, train engines and train engineers could be heard overhead, indicating the rail interchange was overhead. A door from one of the old underground rail sidings led further South into a series of offices, locker rooms and storage areas. One of the walls was bored out, leading to an underworld complex beyond.
In the underground frontier, the group stumbled into an old survivalist camp. Acrasia triggered a claymore entering the room, injuring her and Larry. They realized all the entrances to the chamber were trapped. The camp's single deceased inhabitant yielded a shiny emerald ring and a box of explosives, which the players pocketed. They stood in the entrance and threw cans and bottles into the room to trigger the mines on the other entrances until the room was clear.
The route further Southwest was blocked on both sides. One by a room filled with dangerous protoplasmic ooze, kept inside by rings of caustic chalk around the doors. The other by a sealed airtight hatch, that indicated some dangerous substance beyond. The gang decided to take the long way around to the Southeast, and hope they found an alternate route. The geothermal caverns beyond frustrated their hopes of a path through, with tight corridors and gouts of superheated steam which promised to cook them alive.
They decided to try their luck with the slime room. Since their last visit, the giant amoeba had oozed over to the door, right up at the chalk line. They realized it was lured by heat, and decided to juke it by shining their light on the opposite side of the room, warming the stone up. It took about twenty minutes for the slime to ooze out of the way and give them some breathing room to dash through.
They pushed through puffballs that put them to sleep, and troglodytes who fled the glare of their flashlights. What finally halted their progress was an abandoned footlocker, which glistened with a sticky sheen of glue. Acrasia tried to open it and it bit her arm off. That was enough to end their adventuring day, sending them back the way they'd come in a hurry.
(Normally, losing an arm kills you in a matter of rounds without medical attention. Acrasia's resistance to bleeding was super useful!)
The door to Adrian's Darkroom was locked. They banged on the door and Adrian let them in, after admonishing them to turn off their lights. He was working on developing the photos of Doctor Klay's autopsy. He told the players all the fun facts the Doctor discovered about vampire biology. Then he noticed Acrasia's arm was missing.
The Love Shack basement was full of occult weirdos, most of them armed. Backup after the vampire fight. Doctor Klay was in the dressing room, dissecting the other five vampire corpses recovered from the abandoned facility. There wasn't anything he could do for Acrasia's arm, other than close up the stump. He told her there were two groups in town that might be able to help: the artistic types in the Gallery downtown, and the faith healer at the Megachurch. But both of them would want favors before they brought her missing limb back.
The map the players made
This was our second player character death. I think we haven't had many because all the players are used to Delta Green - a world where guns and monsters are even more deadly than in Esoteric Enterprises.
I deliberately populated Cow Town with all the content that didn't make it into Coal City. I think between the two, I've used all the results from the faction and dungeon tables now. So there's more content the players haven't seen up ahead, even if some of the underworld regions are similar to the ones in Coal City. With that plus the new system I'm working on for running your own gang, we'll be able to suck a little more life out of Cow Town before the well runs dry.
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