Back to Innsmouth

Innsmouth turned out to be a lot more exciting than I expected.

The town looked abandoned when we drove up to it. The FBI did a good job clearing it out last time I was here. Whole place was a ghost town. A dank, foggy, creepy ghost town.

We had planned to spend most of the day searching the Olmstead manor, but when we went inside we found that it had been ransacked. Would’ve taken us days to sift through all the mess. Rather than attempt that, we went down to the town to see what we could find there.

I didn’t have a goal in mind, but 330 seemed to. She led the way through the streets to a church in the town square. Like the rest of the town, it was a new construction, but designed to look like the original 19^th century building it was based on. The door was locked, but 330 just did her old “teleport inside and open the door” trick. That little jump seemed to strain her more than usual; she had to stop and catch her breath after opening the door. Still not completely recovered….

Superficially, the inside of the building looked like a regular church. Except when I opened the bibles and hymn books, the pages were completely blank. Which was weird but not helpful. What was helpful was when I heard some pews shifting, and saw a trapdoor opening on the floor underneath them. A man stepped out, but when he saw 330 and me, he ran back down. We chased after him, down the trapdoor and into a tunnel.

Could barely see down there. There was a light further up ahead, silhouetting the running man, but other than that it was dark. The ground was damp, and every step I took felt like I was sinking through an inch of mud. Didn’t help with running at all.

We were quickly gaining on the man, and would have caught him easily. Had we been the only ones in that tunnel, at least. More silhouetted figures jumped out of the shadows between us and the man we were chasing. They didn’t look entirely human, with oddly shaped heads and hands. When we got close enough to see details, I realized that those hands were webbed, and the heads had fins and bulbous eyes.

Alright, so… fish people. Sure why not. Their attempt to jump us backfired pretty badly when 330 and I started throwing punches. Even with only one arm, she can kick ass. And I managed to hold myself up pretty well.

There only were three of them, so it only took a few minutes before they were running away from us as well. Chase resumed, until we reached the end of the tunnel.

Small room, with a few flickering lights hanging from the ceiling and bunk beds built into the walls. The man we’d chased at first was trying to hide in the back, but when the fish men reached the room they tried hiding behind him, and then he tried hiding behind them, and so on until they gave up.

“Please don’t hurt us!” The man said. “We’ll do anything, just, just don’t hurt us!”

“Calm down.” I said. “We’re just looking for info. Who the hell are you people?”

He gladly went into a full explanation. It seems that, in the past, the citizens of Innsmouth crossbred with… whatever freaky monster things they had living in the bay. Those fish monsters who’d tried to jump us? His cousins. They’d all hidden down under the church during the FBI raid, and had been staying there ever since.

“And the Order of Dagon? Are they still hiding here too?”

“No, they fled when the town was raided.”

“Where?”

Hesitation. “He’ll kill me if I tell anyone….”

“Who will kill you?”

He didn’t answer. 330 grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him against the wall. “You really should tell us where they went.” She said.

He started panicking, trying to struggle out of her grip. “Your eye!” he half shouted.

“Well?”

“Louisiana! There’s a ritual site in the swamps there! That’s where they went!”

She dropped him and started to walk out of the room. I saw a brief flash of red in her eye, but when she blinked it was back to its blue.

“How’d you do that?” I said.

“Guess I’m just naturally intimidating.” Was her answer.

Wanted to ask them more. After all, “the swamps of Louisiana” doesn’t sound like a very specific location to me. But 330 seemed intent on leaving; Had to run to catch up with her.

Onwards to Louisiana, then.

-Lisa