Editing Britbongsteros (section)

===Meltdown on the Isle of Man===
A short trip to London later sees us meet Queenie herself for the first time. She is in the bath when she receives us. She still has a small rubber duck.

She doesn't seem particularly enamoured with us, originally thinking us to be 'Some sort of variety act? Possibly the Aristocrats?' Once she is informed who and what we are, she decides she has a mission for us. A very special mission, she says, idly signing another death warrant.
:"I am very fond of smoked herring and something seems to have happened to the Isle of Man. Fix it."
We are not stupid enough to tell her she already has us doing something. This we assume takes precedence.

:The Isle of Man: chief exports - kippers. The north end of it is populated. The south end (due to what used to be a research institute with links to Aberdeen and various other magical folk) is now entirely uninhabitable since said institute went full Chernobyl about fifty years back. The north end however has a thriving fishing and kipper smoking community, of which, Queenie is very fond of their produce when it comes to breakfast.
:Though being a faerie she probably has them done in blood or something.

No one has heard much from the Isle of Man in a couple of months, and no kippers have reached the mainland either. Reports from ships say the harbour was empty and that there was an air of foreboding such as the crew would not venture ashore. The Isle of Man is of course near Ireland, so it is assumed Cthulu has eaten everybody, Queenie however likes kippers from there and this is why we find ourselves aboard the armed trawler, HMS Irrefutable, being battered by the worst storm the Irish sea has seen in a good number of years.

We discover that the Navvie gets sea-sick in bad enough weather, as does the Wizard. Angus is already green so he's fine. The bard, according to his rolls, is loving the situation. The rest of us mostly alternate between wishing we were dead or praying that the boat doesn't sink and kill us.

The crew of the vessel are largely laconic and generally uncommunicative but will be back for us in a week. Which as we stand, alone on the quay in Ramsay, makes us feel rather isolated. The port is entirely empty. No signs of fighting. Also no one around. It's very eerie but also a situation we are already familiar with as this happens to us a lot.

We start cautiously searching, expecting to find hordes of zombies or a seething mass of tentacles or a shoggoth or something. Instead, nothing. It's clear there's something up, but this time there's no clues as to what. We do note however the animals are gone too. No dogs, no cats, not even flies. It's all very odd.

I said the place is empty, but we treat it as though there's a dire cazador around every corner.
:Angus: "Maybe they've all gone for lunch?"

On a more sensible note, there are no boats in harbour, which is to be expected for a busy fishing village. Except staring down into the waters it seems like a number have been sunk. So that's probably not good. We are in the midst of arguing when we spot movement from within a chandlers. Naturally we drop all pretense at thought and give chase.

We pursue whatever it was we just saw. It's small and fast as all hell. It is however our only lead. It was definitely watching us and bolted as soon as it was spotted. The door of the Chandlers is no obstacle to large hammer. Searching inside turns up lots of sails, no people, and something small and very, very fast.

We point various weapons (and some bagpipes at it), the wizard is able to wing it with an iron ball which knocks it flat and over a box. Surrounding the little fucker, it seems we've cornered a large weasel.

It very slowly raises its hands.

:"I surrender..."
:"Dafuq DM?"
:"No furfaggotry in here."
:"I'm Gef."
Suddenly something clicks for the Wizard.
:"Aah it's a Mongoose."
:"The fuck are you talking about?"
:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gef Gef]

The back door is kicked in. A large chap with a most impressive tache points an extremely big rifle at us.
:"I'm Mary. You have a problem with that."
:[http://www.imfdb.org/images/8/88/Trem4_046.jpg DM shows us a picture.]
That is definitely a punt gun.

Well... this just got slightly mad.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEXSiFzOfU Journey - Don't Stop Believing]
:"Hello err... Gef... and hello... Mary..."
Goodness that is an entirely stupidly big gun.
:"What have you bastards done with all the people?"
:"We just got here! That wasn't us..."
:"Then where is everybody?"
The Mongoose has scuttled up to sit on his shoulder.

The Navvie, sotto voce utters
:"Who is this nutter?"
:"I HEARD THAT"
:"Where did you come from?"
On closer inspection, he looks like he's been living rough for a while.
:"The south side of the island"
:"No one lives there. You're lying. Was this you?"
The punt gun goes back up, aiming at us
:"Ok obviously that was the wrong question..."
We ask him if (assuming we believe him) he knows where everybody went, or at least how long they have been missing for. Apparently he and the rat come to town once a month or so, and this being the day of the month they do, he has as much idea as we do. He does however seem pretty keen to help out. We offer to enlist this looney.

:>Why is he called Mary? 
:According to the DM - Well the Mongoose of (the wiki link) talked to someone called Mary. Not everyone could see him, but he always spoke to her, and apparently "I needed a name"
We ask him about his pet.
:Wizard: "Fits at rat aboot?"
:"What rat?"
:"The whin on yer shoolder?"
:"What. Rat?"
:"Furrae thing, next tae yer heid?"
:"Is this a trick?"
:"..."
Ok so it seems like he is unaware of it. Which is... odd...

The Mongoose gives us a wave.

Shortly afterwards, we decide to head southwards and see if we can find the rest of the folk. Mary says he won't come with us, but he will be around (DM avoiding DM PC) and will be keeping an eye on us, so we don't steal anything apparently.

The more perceptive anons amongst you may recall on some of the crudely drawn maps, the Isle of Man is marked as something along the lines of "NEVER GO HERE" well what follows is why.

The party have, for the most part, seen Tremors, so we are entirely sure that if there's something going underground, we already know what we're doing. The DM is very shortly afterwards sick of us looking for holes where someone might've been sucked down, and carefully analyzing the ground beneath us to ensure we are walking on rock. Such meta-knowledge is frowned upon in Britbongsteros.

We're well into the island and a good distance from the sea when the DM has us all start rolling.

Balls. Probably not a good sign.

We are on a road with plenty of vegetation either side, but lots of stones beneath, so we're probably fine. We think.

Then several things happen at once.

The wizard is on point, he is told he can sense "something out of the ordinary nearby". Being a prudent man, he sends a ball bearing slowly hovering down the road in the direction he can sense. He is somewhat surprised when it simply disappears about ten feet in front of us. Off to one side, something moves in the bushes.

The rustling sees the party prepare for a fight. The wizard is however much more curious about what's going on ahead. He sends an iron bar to follow the ball bearing. Noting that it seems to dissolve at a fixed point about ten feet ahead of us.

Meanwhile, Angus helpfully says
:"Make yourself known or we will shoot."
The rustling continues.
:"Last warning."
Rustling comes from either side of us now. We think this is definitely some sort of ambush. The party open fire on either side of us.

With the ferns shot flat (and a large amount of the west side of path on fire), we eventually stop firing.

There's no bodies. Nothing. Closer inspection reveals some larger plants which are leaking an unusual colour of sap (bright green), but beyond that, nothing.

The Navvie makes to move forwards and off the trail. The Wizard grabs him by the shoulder as he passes him. The Wizard tosses another ball bearing. It disappears like the first.
:"Dafuq is that about?"
The Wizard takes a step to the right, and does the same. Then another.

This process repeats, until a ball bearing lands on the ground with a satisfying thud. We advance a few steps, and do the same. The wizard's innate abilities and ball bearings leading us around the anomaly.
:>anomaly
Yes.

Some distance away, we hear an enormous gunshot. It can only be the punt gun. So that must be Mary. We decide to make for it. He must've been making for us following the fusillade of fire we just unleashed. He may be in trouble and that thing doesn't reload fast. The Wizard's detection doesn't ping so we make fairly good speed, we hear another blast from the punt gun followed by a hell of a lot of pistol fire.

We crest the small rise, ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVWESrIt3uk Predator Theme Song]) and find Mary standing with a revolver in each hand, smoke rising from both barrels. The punt gun a good two feet shorter than it started out lying on the ground in beside him.

He spins to face us. Holding up his hand.

The wizard detects another anomaly in front of Mary. We are starting to theorize what may have happened to the townsfolk (we did not investigate the town very closely did we... and if walking into an anomaly dissolves you... then it's possible that's where they've all gone). Mary holds up a pistol in front of his mouth in a clear "shush" motion.

There's definitely something in the bushes. Lots of somethings.

The plants move and sway. Angus decides defoliation is a very sensible notion. As plants burn movement can clearly be seen. We unload on it. Meanwhile from our flank, something rustles a bush next to Mary. Mary manages "Clever girl" before it leaps.

The thing looks like a velociraptor with mouth full of tentacles. As Mary goes down, he screams "Kill the beastie!" which helpfully provides us with a taxonomic classification. There's also a lot more of them.

Now I'm having trouble finding specific reference to this thing online, but according to the DM's sources this thing had a pedigree having been seen in 1910 (in our world) a couple times on the Isle (or at least a large lizardy thing). In any event, we do what we do best.

The dead creatures soon litter the road. Mary it seems is pretty severely wounded, he asks we leave him there, he'll catch up. We do our best to bind his wounds and prop him up. Leaving him with his weapons reloaded and head southwards.

As the mongoose reappears from wherever it was hiding, we leave them be. As we head onwards, the anomalies become more frequent. The beasties can be heard moving around, but none attack. The countryside starts changing as we proceed, the ferns and heather giving way to windswept trees, a small forest. The anomalies are easier to spot (half a tree for example).

Just because the anomalies are easier to spot, doesn't make them any less dangerous. The weirdness starts to ramp up the further south we go. Though it's still light, the woods seem darker, stranger. We're somewhere near Stony Mountain Plantation (so named because there's a great big stoney mountain surprisingly enough, no really, it's on the map) when the familiar rustling comes again.

There's no bushes or shrubs for them to be hiding in.

We look up.

:>shit.

They're not quite in the walls, but they are in the canopy.

The combat, although were I a drawfag would be awesome, is not very exciting to describe aside from the Navvie successfully intercepting a flying leap and smacking a beastie in the face with his hammer, sending it back the opposite direction. Itshould land in a small stream, instead it explodes. Which is new.

There's still plenty of beasties coming for us when a crack like thunder rolls across the sky. The beasties all pause, their heads snapping upwards. Looking into the distance and the source of the sound.
:>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwaJhYv9FYE blowout stalker]
We haven't been on the island long enough to know what this is, but we already know this is probably fucking terrible.

[https://youtu.be/1w7OgIMMRc4 Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine]

We can't dive into the ravine because anomaly. We search for what cover we can find. The beasties have begun to retreat, plainly with the same plan.

We search about, well really the Wizard picks a direction and starts running, we follow as best we can. He stops dead occasionally and we skirt more weirdness. Areas where gravity isn't right and the ball-bearing shoots into the sky, others where the ground bleeds, a particularly interesting area which appears to be a vertical pond, before we hit on a small swine-herds cottage (or at least that's what we assume it is), the thing is still standing so that's something.

We dive inside and prepare to wait out the storm.
:Angus: "I hope Mary is ok..."
The thunder grows in frequency, lightning strikes across the landscape, smashing trees and sparking off anomalies. We hunker down, powerless in the face of the storm.

As the storm rises there is nothing we can do but try to wait it out. Something that certainly isn't rain batters down on the ground outside. It's more like hail, it rattles off the roof. Hundreds and thousands of... seeds? That's what they look like anyway. They sit innocuously on the ground as rain falls. Flashes of lighting come faster and faster, all coming from the south. Rising to a climax. It feels like sitting in the middle of an artillery barrage. Thunder makes communication impossible.

Thunder. Lightning. Thunder. Lightning. The wizard has done his best to seal us in here. We hunker into what has become a bombshelter. It's like the world is spinning. The storm is a physical thing. We dig deeper into the earth as a shockwave of force blasts northwards toward us.

When we are able to get our heads about us again and look out, everything is changed. The earth has been blasted clean, nothing biological stands above six inches tall until at least the mountainous peak of the Isle.

On the ground fresh seeds sit, as a multicoloured rain hit them, they germinate quickly. Where before the storm there were ferns and small trees, now there are redwoods and cycads. We can even see the remains of beasties, at least everything below the ankle anyway, slowly growing into new forms. Instead of tentacles and velociraptors these are furry, low slung, vicious looking lobster things.

It's like the entire island has just been reset.

As we step outside, the new plant growth (already swelling into a forest) and still with those recognizably oddly coloured sap plants (above) which are starting to flower. We hide within the cottage. The Navvie elects to venture outward. As he does, the plants belch a visible cloud of pollen. He gets a good lungful of it and falls coughing to the ground. The rest of us elect to make crude gasmasks as last time and follow him to try to help.

He is up on his feet before we reach him, lumbering like a sleepwalker southward. His eyes are glassy and blank. We can't stop without hurting him and instead do our best to follow and make sure he doesn't fall into any anomalies. As we pass a beastie slowly being frozen on one side and on the other slowly peeled by gravitational forces, we are very thankful for the wizard.

Our "gasmasks" aren't perfect and we can all feel our perceptions altered slightly. I for one conduct an inner monologue with dwarvish saint Geoffrey Chaucer, Angus seems... different somehow, he lovingly caresses the trees and calls out to the beasties that he "will be gentle with them!" The wizard makes himself a little orrery of cannonballs and has great fun with them. The bard... somehow... is totally fucking fine.

We navigate slowly, moving like drunks, giggling as we blast the odd inquisitive beastie. The DM insists that if we want to communicate with anyone but him, we must speak backwards to replicate the difficulty of communication under the fug.
:"Reeb a em evig" etceterea.
It's a very odd little dynamic, it makes coordination impossible. We lurch along between two anomalies, one a simple whirlwhind, the other appearing to be slightly out of time as it's autumn in there, here it's midsummer.

As the still growing redwoods tower over us, the bard attempts to talk sense into us. We can see and hear him, but somehow his words and actions seem to just flow over us without sticking, we can definitely hear him, but we just don't process his words at all. If I'm not describing this well, think "pyrovision." It becomes a struggle to keep each other alive as the DM will warn someone that a hazard will occur to another member of the party, but the one at risk as no idea.

For example:
:"Pots sugna!"
:"Yhw?" (You try pronouncing it)
:"Enivar!"
And Angus has no idea he's a step away from a fifteen foot drop.

Anyway, this fun continues as the Navvie seemingly unerringly follows a safe path, and we stumble around him. Eventually, we come to the lip of a crater, and at the center of that, sits what can only be the institute. A converted monastery which seems perfectly fine despite the size of the crater in which it sits. The earth has been baked by the blowout and is barren. A small cloud of magical energy boils above the building. In there is the source of whatever the fuck this is about and given what happened to the Navvie, the possible location of the locals.

We are either adjusting to the pollen or just starting to sober up, but by the time we knock with a boot on the front door and exclaim
:"By England and St George we are here to fuck you up... You"
Everyone except the Navvie seems to be mostly back to normal. Within however, the place seems almost entirely like a research institute should. The reception area seems like any other reception, and aside from the little piles of salt everywhere, untouched. Angus cannot resist putting his finger in one and saying "yup that is salt" after tasting it.

We decide, obviously, that we must go deeper. The corridors are empty, though the piles of salt in one direction seem to have been disturbed as though trodden by oh so many feet. We follow that path (and the Navvie), the wizard can definitely sense magic ahead.

We start to hear moaning, which in our experience is never good, except it sounds happy. Which is probably doubly bad. There's also something that can be heard moving behind us. A slow dragging noise. We are going to have great trouble wrestling the Navvie to a halt however.

We can't slow down the Navvie without great trouble. He's by far the strongest of us, and though not in full control of his actions or very coordinated right now, no one really fancies trying to grapple with him. The wizard (as wizards sometimes are) is able to be useful, weighing him down with bands of iron around his legs, then Angus takes the simple expedient of tripping him. This slows him down enough that we can wait for whatever is behind us to catch up. We use doorways (leading off the corridor and into what are clearly offices) as cover as we prepare ourselves to meet whatever is behind us.

What's behind us isn't immediately recognizable as... anything really... it's man sized, but in the gloom of the building and our one light (no other illumination in here), its clearly human sized.

We wait for it to get closer... and oh... hello Mary.

At least we think it's Mary.

Burnt, blackened and blasted, he wheezes for breath, he limps, dragging a foot behind him, using his gun as a walking stick. It seems he decided to follow us and didn't have as good a shelter in the blowout as we did. The mongoose however is perfectly fine. It asks us for help. It seems Mary has had a dose of the pollen too, but he doesn't react to it like everyone else, instead going slightly crazy (becoming even more unhinged than when he started out).

Gef shouts (squeaks?) at us to stay back, it's too late however. Mary has definitely seen us, and that punt gun is coming up. We have only a couple seconds to respond and that huge gun will turn the lot of to paste if he fires it. He slurs something about demons and voices in his head.

The DM has us all say what we're going to do at the same time and then roll to see who does what first. I try to speak to him, Angus prepares to immolate him, the wizard attempts to pull the gun up and move his aim to the ceiling, the bard dives for cover.

The chain of events goes as follows:
:"Mary it's us!"
:>Mary struggles with his gun
:>The Bard hides under a table
:>FWOOSH

Now Mary going crazy because of the pollen thing explains how he seems to be the only islander that was vaguely normal. Regrettably, Angus has just torched him and his pet. The flaming corpse falls to the ground. Angus spits.
:"You're welcome."
The mongoose seems to have been torched too. We don't feel great about ourselves but... there wasn't much else to be done (DM, you're a cunt). The Navvie is still a few feet away and still not entirely with it. He's started to cough however, bringing up mucous and spores, if anything it seems like he might be shaking it off slowly.

From up ahead, we can still hear moaning and the occasional scream. Whatever has happened to everyone else, it is certainly not good. We decide that using the Navvie as a homing pigeon is fruitless and we need some way to get him back on his feet and helping. The bard is the most medically minded and assisted by the wizard they decide on a course of action.
:"Whiskey. Lots of whiskey."
They figure if the Navvie's mind is under the influence of something (i.e. the pollen) then what's needed is something to scramble it. So if they get him good and drunk, it might "jam the signal" as it were.

With the still smouldering corpse of Mary behind us, the two of them persuade Angus to part with some of his stash and pour Tomatin 12 into the Navvie without a great deal of trouble. To my surprise (not theirs) it works, as the Navvie goes from waving his arms ineffectually and generally slack-jawed to purposeful movements, reaching for the bottle and finishing the rest. By the time he's finished, he's smiling.
:"Hi guys."
He tosses the empty bottle behind him. It should smash. It doesn't smash... Instead it goes "twomp" (as though hitting something soft) and can be heard rolling down the hall. This is out of the ordinary enough that we stop walking. The long low growl from behind us is definitely not good.

We turn in enough time to see the now standing Mary's rib cage split open as flesh melds and flows, mutating, running like water, reforming.
:"Oh fuck."
Whatever it's doing, we decide to go full Thing on it and let Angus torch it again. This time he keeps playing fire until there's nothing but a smear left. The flames are starting to lick over furniture and walls. It seems like we've also set the building alight - oops.

Well we're here for a reason, there's no point trying to put the flames out and it's probably for the best that the place burns down (if we had a motto it'd be "leave nothing standing"). With whatever happened to Mary in our minds, we head onwards into what looks like laboratories or at least places where science got done. We can't be far now from whatever happened here.

No one knows a great deal about the institute beyond it being somewhere where something bad happened, and that no one really wanted to investigate after whatever accident occurred.

We pick up some clues as we proceed. The facility is fairly big and we are going down flights of stairs and deeper into the facility. We expect violence or threats around every corner, but there's nothing (yet) just that sound, that constant low sound of distress and ecstasy.

We are able to piece together clues as we go, finding notes or simply using logic, there was an experiment here, a grand, grand experiment. Sanctioned by Queenie's Dad, it was a magical investigation into the very building blocks of all life and all other things. The theory so it seemed, was that if man was composed of small tiny things (cells), then perhaps those smaller things were themselves composed of smaller things, and then those smaller things... could themselves be separated into smaller things. Eventually, through this splitting of components, the signature of god or the maker of our world must, logically, be found. Therefore, the goal was to:
:>Split the atom.

:>You were building bombs?
No, this was (for Britbongsteros) pure science, an investigation into the world itself and how man came to be.

:>What the fuck went wrong? 
We have no idea.

:>Why didn't anyone come to look?
Combination of bad-juju, weirdness, and the feeling that maybe, just maybe, God doesn't want us looking too closely.

:>What was going to happen next if it worked?
Man would eventually find the very building blocks of life, and could, in theory, make it himself.

:>Making life
This was actually a theme of Britbongsteros itself which the more perceptive anons may have noticed throughout the setting. Everyone is up to it somehow. (Or blowing it up).

We proceed onward and downward. The facility seems to spiral around one central chamber, which we can't seem to find a way into yet but it's the source of the sound. We haven't seen or felt an anomaly in a while but the Wizard thinks (as though it weren't obvious) that the source of the weirdness is in there.

Eventually after a couple of logic puzzles (one using displacement and the other an interesting attempt to have us use common sense that resulted in the Navvie simply smashing the Gordian knot with his hammer) we come to the doors of the chamber. We get down to what must be the lowest level. There are still piles of salt but there aren't any monsters or anything. We find a large pair of blast doors that just have to be the center of the facility. We prepare ourselves mentally and physically and boot them in.

Of course, kicking in blast doors doesn't work very well. Aside from hurting Angus's foot, so we open them instead.

We know from the signs of the passage of people through the facility that we should be expecting something bad. We are not quite ready for what we come across though.

Naked bodies of the couple thousand islanders are piled together below what looks more like an altar than a device of science. There's something on top the altar that looks like a reactor or... something. There are the fried remains of a skeleton clutching a lever. We decide the only thing to be done here is smash the thing and bug out, if that's what's creating the blowouts, then it's what needs doing. It's only as we get closer to the islanders do we realize that they are fused together, a single mass of humanity, moulded and warped, and they're still very much alive.

Smashing the machine is easy enough, giving it a whack with his hammer sees the thing break down into component pieces. So that was easy... Too easy. The moaning, shifting mass of bodies that we just clambered over starts to flow, to alter, to tremble, component parts make for us...

We are in the center of the room surrounded by a slowly shifting (but getting faster) sea of bodies. What we thought was the wreckage of the machine sparks and sputters. Something that looks like a van Der graaf generator flashes into life. The apparatus seems... angry.

The facility rumbles and shakes. We seem to have woken something. We decide the most important thing here is
:>leg it. 

The Navvie drops a few lit sticks of dynamite and Angus burns us a path to the door. The bodies are slowly mutating. By the time we are out of the room we can see individual critters with partially human attributes lumbering after us. They also have a mix of wicked looking bone scythes or claws, exposed suppurating muscle glistening wetly. The human parts chant nonsense words and phrases. The faces seem horrified, as the DM puts it, as if they are aware of their condition.

We don't have enough explosives to detonate the facility but, fuck it, time to go. We can get out alive then worry about the rest.

It's impossible to describe in detail the confused violence of our journey upwards. It took long enough to get down there but now as we leave the place, pursued by the creatures (DM called them villagers which somehow felt worse), they are faster than us and explode from vents or simply chase us. We do our best to mow them down but we have to fight for every desperate step. The wizard thinks there's another blowout coming soon and if we aren't out of here and in cover by then, we are extremely dead.

The villagers howl or scream inarticulately, managing a few words and phrases, some cry or whimper. Terrified seemingly of what they have become. We want very much to run as fast as we can but instead it's a slow, steady pace, we have to be methodical as villagers leap, crawl, slither and slop towards us. In the darkness they loom, slashing and biting. We will be joining them soon. Thunder can be heard as another blowout becomes a certainty.

It seems the researchers here certainly made life, but oh wow did it go wrong. If the piles of salt are anything to go by then they weren't around to know it.

Sometimes, not knowing is worse than knowing. We don't know exactly what or why these things exist. The machine seems to have been created to split and transform life on a grand scale. Whether what we face is what was intended we just don't know, and as I frantically thumb shells into my shotgun, I don't care.

We have been lucky so far, but as the Navvie batters down one assailant another gets a good slash into the muscle of his shoulder. The bard is grabbed from behind moments later, nearly eviscerated before the wizard can drive a stake through the villager. The villager herself gibbering deliriously about mending nets and why the hens have stopped laying.

From the rantings of the villagers more of what happened can be pieced together. A big storm followed by animals doing strange things and people walking away (pollen), some villagers scream or shout things like "Stop walking father, please! Come back!" Or "Edith please... don't go... why won't you wake up?"

The building is still definitely on fire (Angus's further actions haven't helped) and as we get back to ground level the place is full of flame and smoke. Outside lightning flashes, that blowout is going to be soon. Very soon. The villagers are harder to spot in the choking smoke and the fire slows us further as we have to rely on the Navvie making new doorways for us to get around it. We finally come to an exterior door. It's already open. A small thing, but at the door sit two child sized knapsacks. It might be making a leap of deduction but it seems whoever those belonged to were the first people to enter here and started this chain of events rolling by accident somehow. That small skeleton holding the lever would on the machine would have been about the right size...

We get outside, still pursued and now having to deal with beasties too. The redwoods and cycads will be gone soon but they provide plenty of cover to lurking packs of them. We make for the coast, wizard in front as now we have beasties, anomalies and villagers to contend with. In the distance we can hear a ship's horn, something must have seen the smoke. The thunder and lightning is becoming more intense, we are not going to make it to the coast before the blowout. We need shelter. The wizard spots a small dip in the ground. It's not much but it's enough for him to make a sort of Anderson shelter with, and for us it's going to be our Alamo as, if we stop, all kinds of mutant hell is going to catch up to us. In the rain and lit by sheet lightning, we look at each other. This is going to be a hell of a fight.
:>Bard has the biggest shiteating grin. 
:"This is jolly good fun isn't it!"
:"...shut up bard."

We dig in as the wizard slowly and carefully constructs a shelter. Big fat drops of green rain splash down around us. The woods are alive with mutated creatures and they howl, as though knowing the hunt is at a climax.

The report of my shotgun is joined by that of the wizard riveting boilerplate together. The shelter slowly takes shape around us as villagers rush us. It all feels very zulu.

Slowly the world begins to shrink, as plate after plate are joined around us, finally with creatures battering at the structure from all sides, there is just one window sized gap through which they all try to boil at once. I rapid fire into it as the rest of the party try to help the wizard push the last plate into place. When it's secure, we lie panting in the darkness. Listening to the tattoo of creatures beating on the shelter. The iron deforming under the blows almost faster than the wizard can fix it. The noise is incredible but eventually it is subsumed into the rumbling howl of the blowout.

Later, with our fresh "gasmasks" firmly in place, we emerge from our cocoon into a new world. Strange tropical looking palms and beautiful black roses cover the island. The beasties are much bigger now, rhino sized centi-octopus-pedes. They take some killing but we manage to make it to shore. There is the oh so beautiful sight of a battleship. HMS Rodney. We manage to signal it and shortly afterwards, we convince the captain to empty the entire magazine on the smoke of the institute. We don't know if this is enough to put the machine out of action, or if we have fixed anything, but seriously, fuck the Isle of Man.

Later, Queenie is more understanding of the lack of kippers than expected, but having discovered Peterhead Smokies, she's actually not terribly bothered by the plight of the Isle of Man.

We on the other hand are told to get on and do some work. Getting those rifles is what we should be doing. The necromancers have been on the move again and are up to something new in the villages and towns around Newcastle. Plenty of alchemists have been seen with them. It would be even better if we could capture one and learn something about the metallurgy of the guns rather than just grab a sample to reverse engineer.

The privy council are however persuaded to part with a motor vehicle to assist, and thus in the jalopy 2 we head northwards.