The Chaos Mines

Zachary, still staring out the window, suddenly started backing away from it with a look of terror on his face. A moment later, all hell broke loose.

Raine was standing by the door looking out into the corridor when the window broke. He turned around in time to see Kieran and Tiny destroyed by the strange tentacles.

"Oh, crap! Run!", he exclaimed before taking his own advice and speeding off down the corridor to the west.

With his back pressed to the wall, a horrified Zachary watches as his friend is reduced to a dedicated husk and discarded. A strange sparking red object caught his attention as it fell from Kieran's corpse. Having never seen anything beyond these caves, over the years, Zachary had developed an extremely vivid imagination and an intense curiosity about anything new that he encountered. Kieran's and Tiny's deaths had satisfied his curiosity about the tentacled whatever-it-was, but the strange red object... What was that??

Zachary heard Raine shout as he lunged forward and grabbed the glittering red object. Then he pivoted and took off after the beekeeper with every bit of speed he could muster. He kept his eyes forward but could feel the monstrous tentacle stabbing at his exposed back.

Raine makes the decision to break right down the western hallway and the others, either fleeing in panic or methodically waiting for another to make the call, follow suit...

The corridor leads on for a ways and the group of haggard escapees makes their way swiftly down it. A brief tremor momentarily halts their progress but the shaking is over almost as soon as it begins. At the end of the hall, the group in front stops suddenly as they realize that the room the corridor opens onto has fallen away in the explosion.

What was once a storeroom is now a deadly obstacle course consisting of a vast chasm passable only by three remaining outcroppings that were once the floor of this room. The outcroppings are separated by about 10 ft each with former elements of the store room still somewhat connecting them. A cargo net hangs between the entry ledge and the first outcropping, a length of pipe that once passed water deeper into the mines hangs dislodged from the ceiling between the 1st and 2nd outcroppings, and the chain winch that was used for hoisting heavy crates hangs from the ceiling between the second and third out croppings. There is nothing to assist with the leap from the third out cropping to the doorway on the other side.

Worse than this is the fact that two huge cats, once common house cats now made massive by the twisted energy of the chaos vortex, prowl the cavernous ledges above these outcroppings higher up than the prisoners can reach. They peer friskily down at you as you peer out across the chasm...

Wil, not expecting to live long enough to experience hunger again, takes out two of the tins of spiced ham and pries them open with a knife. Hoping that cats are more interested in a meal they don’t have to kill first, he tosses them up to the ledge where they perch.

The cats seem immediately impressed by this offering and both move quickly to the ham. A standoff soon ensues with both cats arched on either side of the salty meat making deep throated "mraooooowws" at each other.

While Slinky is easily able to leap to the net and then swing across to the first outcropping (Reflex save DC10), Will is unable to reach the net by hand from his position on the entry ledge.

As Kimberly swings for the final platform on the winch, her sweaty palms slip on the slick metal of the chain and she begins to fall!