Jack Morgan leads John down a rickety set of wooden stairs. The stairs lead from the top of a rocky cliff face, down to a rock strewn coastline. Clambering over the rocks, Jack pauses to look out at the sea.

A huge tower dominates the view. It seems to be made of stone, and while the initial impression is of a lighthouse, John's brain fights to fit the tower into that category. No light issues from the tower, and there's a subtle sense of wrongness about it. The top of the tower seems to stretch up to the pink sky, while at the same time giving the impression of squatness.

The others from the diner arrive at the top of the cliff in time to see Jack and John pausing on the shore.

[Sanity check for everyone but Ray...this hits the locals harder than the others, since the locals *know* there isn't a tower here. Everyone else simply feels it shouldn't be here.]

Jack gazes toward the tower with an attitude of absolute entrancement. "The Tower In The Sea," he murmurs, loud enough for John to hear. He sits and begins to take off his shoes.

"We're almost there," he says to John. "You'll get your answers there, if anywhere."

Derek looks at the tower, then looks at the locals. "I take it that tower isn't usually there?" he asks. He then looks at Ray, "Hey, sightless, can you swim?"

Ray quirks a brow and turns her head slightly toward Larry. "Tower? What's he talking about, Larry?" At Derek's words, she frowns and looks squarely at him.

"Okay. You know, I've been more than kind and patient with you, sir. My name is Rajka. Use it. That's not a request. I'm no less of a person that you are simply because I'm down one of the five senses. By the way... there's a spider on your shoulder." She smirks slightly. "I can hear it crawling on your jacket. As far as my ability to swim? I used to be an amazing swimmer. Sadly, I can't do that without assistance anymore. But don't worry. Larry can help me so you don't have to. You can keep thinking I'm weak. I assure you, sir, I'm not."

Her cheeks flush slightly from frustration and a little bit of a temper. It's hard to make her mad, but it seems Derek has accomplished it. She squeezes Larry's hand, tightly.

"Ummm..." Larry seems at a loss for words, momentarily. "Ray, there *is* a tower there. Kind of like a light house, but not. Must be one of them secret government places."

Derek calmly flicks the spider off his back and narrows his eyes at Ray. "Lady, I never said you were weak. I said you were blind. And it just so happens that right now, that's a rather large impediment. If Mr. Conspiracy Theorists wants to hold your hand across, fine but I'm not gonna slow down to wait for either of you." He shifts his gaze to Larry, "And I sincerely hope you don't really think that's a government building."

With that, he starts down to the rocks.

Larry helps Ray down the rickety wooden stairs, muttering under his breath the entire way. Ray's excellent hearing catches phrases like, "Damn city boys,", "Horse's [censored]", and others.

As the group makes their way down to Jack and John, Jack notices them and smiles as he finishes removing his shoes.

"Excellent!" he says. "He will be pleased. We're a far cry from what my great-grandfather had planned, but still a respectable offering."

He then heads for the water.

Ray chuckles slightly as Larry murmurs under his breath, her smile just effervescing as always. When she hears Jack's words however, she balks at moving further. "Excuse me? Offering? I...don't think so. I'm not sacrificing myself or my friends, sweetie. I'm sorry..."

She frowns and twitches slightly. That eerie presence making itself more of a nuisance. "L-Larry...maybe we should go back to Mike...something doesn't feel right..."

John hears what Jack said while taking his shoes off "Offering?..."
all the while staring at the tall tower in aww struck at the same time feeling very uneasy "You're hiding something I have been very patient and followed you....I want some answers now before we go any further Jack"

Derek hops down beside Jack and slips a hand inside his coat. "Indeed. Answers or we'll go nowhere."

[Ray will most likely hear a faint click as he talks.]

Larry pauses for a moment at the bottom of the stairs.

"Yeah, I think you're right Ray," he says. "These guys are all loony. Let's let Mike know what's going on." Still helping Ray, Larry starts back up the stairs.


Jack ignores John's demand, and doesn't even register Derek's actions as he heads for the water.

[You'll have time for an action before he starts swimming, but that's about it. Derek will have more time if he wants to shoot while Jack's swimming.]

Derek grabs Jack by the shirt and throws him down. A knife is now at his throat. "Look f***er, answers now, or I'll make a little "offering" of my own, understand?"

[Any action by John will be simultaneous with this, so we'll see what he's doing before seeing who's successful.]

Ray feels Larry tug her hand and starts to try to climb up the stairs with him. She pauses a moment and cocks her head slightly as she hears the click coming from Derek's direction. She freezes and grips Larry's hand tightly, holding her breath. The ensuing tussle causes her to close her eyes, then bite her lower lip. "L-let's keep going. He doesn't want me around, anyway..."

John pulls out his gun and points it at Derek "Drop the knife right now!"

[This was resolved using mostly skill levels, with a couple of die rolls for luck.]

Jack heads for the water, followed closely by Derek. Derek has his knife drawn, intended to toss Jack to the ground and get some answers. Jack's luck is with him, and he manages to get across the rocks on the shore without mishap, slipping just out of Derek's grasp. Derek stumbles on the rocks just enough to put Jack out of his reach by the time he recovers.

Jack is still within range of guns, but going after him physically will mean getting wet.

Meanwhile, John has his gun pointed at Derek, and has demanded that he drop his knife.

Derek glares at John, "If you wanna shoot someone, shoot him." He points at Jack.

Ray stops moving and grabs Larry's hand in both of hers. "Larry, we -have- to go back." She frowns and looks a little distraught. "I can't let them kill each other. We all need to stick together. Something's very wrong. Maybe if we just reason with them?" She looks pleadingly at Larry. "Please, Larry? This is your chance to fix a problem that the government may have caused..." She smiles slightly.

"I say let 'em finish each other off," Larry says. "But if you want to go back, Ray, I'll take you back."

Larry turns around on the stairs and heads back to the beach.

"I just can't bear the idea of one of them dying when we have the chance to prevent it," she frowns, then murmurs as she follows Larry, "...maybe I'm just too soft-hearted..."

*still has gun pointed at Derek* "Look we want answers right killing him won't bring it but he isn't going anywhere until we got some answers." *still looking at Derek with gun in hand pointed at Derek* "Jack what did you mean by sacrifices and so forth?"

Derek looks at John. "You [censored] moron, I wasn't going to kill him. Oh, and he's not to keen on staying around. He swimming away, so if you want answers you might wanna do something about that."

[censored]...*John turns his gun to Jack and fires a couple of rounds purposely missing him hopefully to startle him* [I don't know much about guns so I don't know if they can be water proof or not other wise I would have John run after him and jump in the water so let me know about that =) ]

[Modern guns will tolerate being submerged in water, and will even fire underwater. The malfunction chance might go up a bit, but that's about it. We'll assume John fires his warning shots, and then he can jump in the water if you'd like.]

Ray hears the gun fire and freezes, prompting Larry to stop abruptly as well. She's now in a conundrum and isn't sure what to do. "I-I didn't hear them hit anything...They're still standing, right? Oh, Larry, I don't know what to do! I'm scared and I can't shake this feeling of being watched..."

Jack is startled by the gunshots, and glances back at the shore. He then redoubles his efforts at swimming, apparently just now realizing that not everyone is as happy as he is about what's happening.



"Just warning shots, Ray," Larry says. "Looks like the muddy guy's heading for the tower, and one of the others shot at him. I don't think we ought to get mixed up in this."

Larry lapses into muttered comments about crazy city folk. Ray notices that he's been muttering a lot more than usual.

Ray frowns and then nods a few times. "Alright, Larry... let's head back to the diner, then." She furrows her brow, hearing the muttering and squeezes his hand. "Everything'll be alright, Larry. I won't let anything happen to you!" She smiles reassuringly, but is quite worried about him.

Derek looks at John. "Just shoot the bastard. We're not getting any answers out of him now, and I really don't want him waking up whatever he wanted sacrifice us to."

Looks at Derek for a second and answers "I don't kill anyone unless I am threatened so if you still want those answers I suggest you swim as fat as you can. I as sure as hell not gonna let that bastad get away I'm going after him." John dives into the water and starts to swim as fast as he can to catch up to Jack

Mutters, "Dumbass," and picks up a nearby rock and throws it at Jack. [He's going for the head, hoping to stun him and slow him down.]

Larry leads Ray back to the steps and halfway up them.

Derek throws a rock, hitting Jack square in the head, causing him to falter for several strokes before recovering. That's just enough for John's strong swimming to allow him to catch up and start to grapple with Jack.

Jack's efforts to free himself reach a frenzied effort, threatening to drag both men beneath the water. On the shore, Derek becomes aware that not all the turbulence in the water is due to Jack's thrashing.

Raising out of the water behind Jack are several large tentacles. Derek's mind insists that it must be a large squid, despite a sickening certainty that no squid was ever quite that shade of rotten green. He catches a glimpse of teeth in the suckers before one tentacle wraps itself around Jack, and the other tries for John.

[Sanity check: Derek, and eventually John]

Larry, glancing back at the scene, utters a shocked gasp, and then begins running for the diner, urging Ray to keep up.

Derek stares for a brief moment in shock, then bolts for the stairs to catch up with Larry and Ray.

Ray feels Larry start to run and hears his urges to keep up. "L-Larry! Slow down, I can't...I can't run that fast!!" She's trying not to stumble, but failing. "Sweetie, what's wrong?!" Her voice is now into "panic" level. She is also quite a bit disoriented.

Larry reluctantly slows down when he realizes he's practically dragging Ray along. He glances behind them, and doesn't see anything climbing up over the edge of the cliff.

"There's something in the water, Ray," he says, still moving toward the diner. "They must be doing genetics research at that tower, 'cause it looked like nothing natural. It got at least one of them city boys."

Ray frowns, "Oh, dear...Oh, Larry, don't worry, sweetie. I promise I'll protect you...you and Mike, both." She clings to his arm like a child clings to their parent. "How far away are we? I'll fix you some coffee when we get to the diner--I'll even make your favorite pie!"

[I'm assuming the thing in the water didn't yank Derek off the shore?]

[That's right. He'll have a chance to get to the stairs before it'll be ready to take notice of him. After that it depends on how long those tentacles are, and what John does.]

In fear for his life John fires a couple of rounds at the tentacle that is going after him. Then starts to madly swim back to the shore. [At this point John is scared out of his mind but still remains focused also if the tentacle hasn't gotten to him he would be at the shore and runs fast as he can up the stairs]

John fires at the tentacle, his training taking over even in the midst of his terror. Both rounds hit right at the point to do the most damage, breaking off several feet of tentacle. The broken end spews noxious smelling fluid, and the rest of the tentacles pull under the surface (including the one holding Jack).

As John pulls himself out of the water and runs for the stairs, and Derek scrambles up the stairs, a few large rocks are tossed from the water at John. He manages to dodge them, while taking only a little damage from rock shards as they hit the rocky ground.

Both men make it up the stairs, and see Larry and Ray about halfway back to the diner, moving at a fast walk. By the time they catch up with the two locals, they're all nearly at the diner, breathless from their run.

Larry pauses at the edge of the parking lot to let the two men catch up. Just as he's about to say something to Derek and John, a light shines out of the tower, brightly lighting the area around the diner.

The group feels as if they're in a spotlight.

[I'll start a new thread for being back at the diner, feel free to use this one for any discussion that happens before they all go back into the diner.]

Ray's face turns from her normal, pretty smile to a troubled frown. She lets go of Larry's hand and drops to her knees, clutching her head. "Oh, Larry, what's going on!!" She's on the verge of tears. "Are we home yet?" Clearly, something is deeply troubling her. She rocks a little on her knees.

Derek's head snaps toward the tower as the light comes on. He shields his eyes with one arm, half staring at the tower, half looking for more tentacles. His voice sounds distant as he says, "No, I think we're a loooong way from home..."

Larry picks Ray up in his arms and carries her quickly into the diner, to get her out of the light.

Covers his eyes with his arm as well to try and see the tower again. He thinks to himself "Why is this happening to us?"