Fragile:Story
The Story So Far[edit]
May 23, 2008.
The Hallowed Believers compound in Boulder City, some 20 miles from downtown Las Vegas.
The LVMPD was serving a warrant for cult leader Dr. George Carpenter when they discovered signs of a shooting in progress. After subduing several resistant suspects, they found evidence of graves in the basement of the main ranch house. Subsequent investigation uncovered a hidden tunnel, leading to an old abandoned mine. LVMPD SWAT escorted Homicide Detectives Mendoza and Grimes into the mine after a body, possibly that of Dr. Carpenter, was found. Key witness Ben Hartcourt and his police escort Officer Mitchell entered the mine to try and identify the remains.
At approximately midnight, the group heard on their radios that Silver Team had encountered something unexpected, followed by a loud rumbling sound. The group attempted to flee the tunnels as the ceiling began to collapse around them, but were unable to reach the exit in time. After most of the group was able to dig themselves out from under the rubble, they heard Detective Grimes being assaulted. Grimes was in a chamber that had been opened by the collapse, being attacked by a red-haired woman who had pinned his hands to the cave wall. The woman disappeared from view, and Officers Rivers and Tanaka descended into the chamber to help Grimes. While the team was attempting to hoist Grimes up and out of the lower chamber, however, they were attacked by numerous hostile humanoids.
In the ensuing fight, Sergeant Bowen and Detective Mendoza were killed, along with almost all of the mutated assailants. Recovering from the shock of this attack, the survivors turned their attention to alerting the Command Post of their situation. CP responded by saying that there was probably an alternate exit that could be reached in less time than it would take work crews to dig down to the group's level. Officer Davies advised CP to contact the Center for Disease Control, feeling that the state of the mutated attackers indicated some sort of widespread infection. Officer Tanaka harbored a suspicion that Detective Grimes was now infected, as he exhibited signs of similar symptoms. The group got Grimes, Mitchell, Tanaka, and Rivers out of the crevasse and began going down one of the tunnels they hoped would lead them out of the mine and to safety.
The group found a chamber at the end of the tunnel, one that had one occupant, a sleeping pregnant woman strapped to a wooden table. The SWAT team debated their options and whether or not they could afford to take the pregnant woman with them on their way out. As they prepared to assist her, however, her eyes and her stomach opened. Something lept out of her belly and onto Tanaka's helmet, and several other small creatures came pouring out of a cut in the rock floor. The group retreated from the onslaught of fetal mutant things, Officer Davies fleeing the hellish scene in a panic. In the midst of the attack, Grimes began to undergo some hideous mutations, transforming into something like the mutant attackers from before. Officer Russell shot the smiling mutant woman who had apparently birthed the smaller fetal monstrosities, but he was almost overwhelmed by her spawn. While most of the group fled into the dark tunnel, Officers Rivers and Tanaka held their ground and killed the remaining mutant babies. Grimes struck Rivers a few times before Rivers killed him with several point blank bursts from his firearm.
Shaken and wounded by this encounter, the group tried to regroup. As Davies recovered his senses, he was confronted by the red-haired woman who had killed Sergeant Bowen in the previous ambush. Speaking of "Wormwood, fire, our second coming", she quickly disappeared. The rest of the SWAT team, Hartcourt, and Mitchell found Davies and together decided to rest. Tanaka helped out by tending to those who had been hurt in the latest monster attack. Deciding to press on through the same chamber they had retreated from, the group found a slime covered tunnel that led up into an old storage room. Searching the room, they found evidence that the mine was the Cameron-Marshall Silver Mine, which had apparently been built upon an earlier, older mine, and which had closed in 1929. Taking a lantern and a map from the storage room, the group decided to try and reach one of the exits from the higher levels of the mine. They approached what was once an elevator shaft, trying to see if they could somehow use it to ascend to the third level, where they hoped they'd find a means of escape. As he began climbing and scouting out the shaft, however, Officer Russell noticed that a recent underground disturbance had unsettled the old elevator hanging over his head. Before he could get to safety on another level exit, he was hit by the falling elevator and fell many feet to the bottom of the shaft.
Miraculously, Russell survived his injuries, and was helped up and out of the shaft by the others. Deciding that it was worth the risk, the group climbed up the shaft, ascending to the third level. As they climbed the metal ladder, Hartcourt noticed a girl standing on a lower level, watching him as he passed by. He began to experience hallucinations and warned the others on the ladder not to look into the girl's hypnotic, inhuman black eyes. Once everyone was on the third level, Officer Russell scouted ahead, going down the tunnel away from the shaft. He was surprised to discover a large chamber in which there were numerous mutants. The mutants' attention was drawn to a television which was powered by a nearby generator, and which was only showing a screen of static. There was also a normal looking young man observing the television from a seat placed in front of it, and above the television was a strange rock with a growth of luminescent fungi.
Russell reported what he had seen to the others, and the group discussed their options. A theory was put forth that the strange rock may have been extraterrestrial in origin, which could potentially have explained the mutations they had witnessed. While Davies suggested that they assault the enclave to wipe out the infection, Mitchell objected and suggested that the group continue to the first level and try getting out that way. After some more discussion, it was agreed that the survivors would try and ascend to the top level of the mine and look for an exit there. As the last of them were finishing the climb, however, a seismic disturbance alerted them to the presence of something large quickly ascending up the elevator shaft below them. Running down the tunnel that led into sunlight, they were pursued by this unseen thing until it finally caught up with Officer Rivers. Revealed to be some kind of tunneling mutant of enormous size, the creature attacked Rivers while his comrades tried to kill it with gunfire. Mitchell and Hartcourt escaped into the light as the SWAT team was destroyed by the massive beast. A Center for Disease Control helicopter flew in to pick the two survivors up, and the tunneling mutant turned back when fired upon, disappearing back into the mine tunnel.
As Hartcourt and Mitchell relaxed from their ordeal in the back of the helicopter, they were informed that there had been other disturbances at the compound. Hartcourt noticed before he fell asleep that there several falling stars visible on the early morning horizon...
