BangoSkank

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

Father O'Flanagan leads the group around the back of the chapel to a freshly filled in grave site. It's quite small with a modest head stone amid a number of larger more ornate headstones. Many are marked as Union or Confederate soldiers but are located on opposite sides of the graveyard.

"My friend here," he gestures to the grave site, "owned that mine. Was always convinced it would show something. Said he could feel a fortune just beneath his feet, but he always got caught up with one thing or another in town. Helped build and from time to time rebuild half of Selina. He was a good man, owned the mine but he wasn't obsessed the way some get. All those distractions, it took years but one day a few months ago, he said he was about to his fortune. He knew it."

O'Flanagan points the group over to a small groundskeepers shack with a pile of equipment beside it.

"Came back to town to have a dinner with me one night, told me all about it, about all the good he was going to do when he sold that Ghost Rock off. Sounded great, miraculous. Old Charlie he bought up all that gear and lugged it, and a ton of vittles, out of town to complete his little project." Wringing his hands he continues.

"Charlie come back the next day real quiet. Didn't want to talk about the mine, or the rock, or the fortune. Didn't bother to try to sell all that equipment. Was always nervous and always hungry."

O'Flanagan is quiet for a bit. He knows he hasn't really explained it right. Don't much like to talk about it.

"He never really came back I mean. His body were here. His face. It was Charles, but it wasn't. Like them soldiers that see too much, you men must have seen that sort of thing right? It was like that, but it was more. We seen them men before and we can work through it most times. This was different, Charles was different. We collect up funds and goods at the chapel, feed the people, nourish their bodies and their souls like the Good Book says. Charles couldn't get no nourishment. When I say he was always hungry I mean it. He'd eat enough food for three good grown men, still be hungry, and still lose weight. By the end he was damn near skeletal."

He dusts off the gravestone and continues, "He was a strong man. Busy, always busy, and big lord he was a big man. Yet in the end he was weak as a child and shriveled. Wasted. I can't stop you from looking for the mine, I don't doubt one of the louts about town shadowed him out about that way at some point. I just want to warn you, Charles was a good Christian man. He was strong in spirit and body and whatever he saw there broke his body and his spirit along with it."

Roof Trainers - W40k Ork RP using the Roll for Shoes System

I am but I’m not so sure I’ve really got the time to do it. I’d like to but I think I’ll probably end up not contributing much so I’m just going to drop out now. Seems like a fun story, I’ll be sure to read it.

Roof Trainers - W40k Ork RP using the Roll for Shoes System

I used the bot to roll and got 3, but I can reroll it we want to avoid the Bad Moons. I’ll start thinking up a character either way but I’m on a phone tonight so I probably won’t post.

I wouldn’t be opposed if we want to all go Evil Sunz

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

As they enter the general market the Father greets Tobias, the owner, by name and explains what he is here for. The older man heads to the back to get it.

“Don’t trust the stuff,” he clarified while they wait in the shop.

“It’s not natural I don’t believe. Everything is of the Father of course, and I have never read anything about it in the Good Book, but I read plenty enough about temptation and that Ghost Rock she is a temptation. You’ll see.”

The shop is quite plain and sparsely stocked. Nothing to be particularly excited about. It contains the things a traveler on the prairie needs but likely not what one might desire. The shopkeeper comes back carrying a box big enough to fit the pistols and holsters of everyone in the room all at once with meticulous care.

“Alright Tobias,” the Father says as he takes the box, shooing Tobias away.

“Don’t like folk looking at it too much. Gives them funny ideas. I believe this damn rock got an old friend of mine killed somehow.”

The Father takes off his gloves and from the finger of one of them retrieves a small key and unlocks the clasp. As he opens it you can see inside.

A great number of rags are bunched up filling the majority of the box and giving the weighty object you can feel but not see a wealth of padding. There is an immediate magnetism as the lid opens. A desire to see that object laid bare, to examine it intimately.

“Feel that?” the Father asks. “That’s why I keep this fool thing locked up.”

“Don’t mean to say you boys are fools now. I know well enough how much money these things bring and how much they’re driving the expansion out West. I suppose everyone knows that. Just. It just. It feels to me like the thing for a mind of its own. Feels to me like it killed Charles and it know’d what it was doing.”

He turns back to the others, somewhat hoping they will seem uninterested but of course this rock is what they seek. They’re going to want to see it.

Putting his glove back on he brushes aside the rags to reveal a large piece of cratered white rock.

“Looks a bit like coal at first don’t it? Like white coal?”

It does, at first glance. Looks like white coal, but pitted all over with small craters. Looking closer you realize the borders of those craters seem to fall very sharply creating ridges that look quite sharp. It is hard not to desire to feel those ridges on your hand. To roll it around your hand and feel it’s balance shift. Hard too not to look closer. Hard not to examine the craters, noting their near but not complete uniformity. Hard not to think that this rock should really, by all rights, belong to you.

“You know,” he sees after he all too quickly covers the glorious thing in rags once again, “it’s said when you burn Ghost Rock it screams.”

His hand trembles as he closes the lid, then closes the clasp and locks it shut.

“They say all kinds of things about Ghost Rock.”

He pushes the locked box away and secrets the key in his glove again.

“You’ll want to meet the owner of the mine now, unless you have questions let us hurry. It’s getting late and I must preside over supper.”

Roof Trainers - W40k Ork RP using the Roll for Shoes System

If there’s still a spot I’d be happy to join, I’ll try to get a sheet up tomorrow. I too would like to roll for clan if that’s alright.

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

Off Chisholm Trail, Near to Selina

"Oh...hello," the Father greeted the group of rather hard looking men at his door, feeling a bit worried until he heard the sheriff had directed them to him and saw Ms. Aveline.

"Well do come in, I...," despite just welcoming them in he rises and walks around his desk. Approaching them to properly greet them, he reaches out to shake their hands.

"Yes, well, Ghost Rock you say? It's some dangerous stuff. You seem like capable men. Decent men, I wouldn't want to send you into danger but I suppose you're dead set on going after it and more information couldn't hurt you."

He evaluates them with an oddly discerning eye for a man of the cloth. His worry is rather evident. Though they seem to him quite capable indeed these are violent times and many have lost themselves or their lives to the search for Ghost Rock.

"I'll tell you what I know, what little there is. But I won't speak of that vile stuff in the house of the Lord. Come with me, I'll show you Ghost Rock and I'll show you why I wish fervently it had never been found."

Unbeknownst to the Father one more member of the group, Rick Matthews, had been listening just outside and now made his way into the church as the Father came by.

"You are with the others yes? Another seeker of Ghost Rock? Follow me, I'll tell you what I know."

The Father pats the fellow on the shoulder and forces a smile, then slips past him and out the door.

It is later in the day now. The sun is about halfway through it's path back down. A new waitress has been found for Zeke's Hunter Lodge. The man who had his nose broken has returned home to heal what Aveline could not, his ego. The job notice has been changed, indicating that there is now only one cougar left to hunt and so about town parties of hunters begin to gather. Two cougars being too much of a threat, one cougar however and wounded at that, that was a surer thing.

The Father heads toward the town center, nodding to the townsfolk as the wind blows hard. It's going to be a cold night.

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

Just wanted to put a bit of a notice out. We've only got 5 folks actually posting, and one of them will soon be unavailable to post for a while, so if anyone would like to join let me know. I set it back to (Apply) rather than (Full) but figured I'd put this up too.

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

Selina - Just Outside Zeke's Hunter Lodge

"Oh," the Sheriff reacts with a genuine grin, "More prospectors out to make their fortune? How droll. The woman, I believe she is referring to the Father's friend. Had a claim out someways, suppose it's lost now. Not sure what he found, but he didn't seem quite as excited as I would have expected."

"Aveline," he calls out in an unnecessarily loud voice, "Be a good girl and show these men to the Father won't you."

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

"Now look what you did to him," the Sheriff says with no affect whatsoever when it is clear LeBlanc isn't going to batter the fool any further, "Busted his nose all up. That's alright though. Never liked him anyway. Don't reckon we do have a problem Constantin long as you don't go about pullin' that pistol now."

Sheriff Higgins looks over to Zeke, who is shaking his head at the loss of his waitress and will now likely have to clean the blood up himself, and shrugs. As the Frenchman kisses the mute woman's hand for some gul darned reason he smiles; curious to see just how the rather odd rather quiet young thing reacts

Deadlands - A Supernatural Western

Selina - Just Outside Zeke's Hunter Lodge

As he stepped toward the three men the Sheriff did not present a particularly intimidating figure, though he was well groomed he was out of shape and he did not appear as a man who particularly enjoyed living in the West. His only worrisome aspect really was his eyes. Too sharp, though in that they matched the rest of him. He was entirely too clean. His mustache too precisely trimmed, his clothes too clean and arranged to artfully. Dark Pants, a grey dress shirt, and a nice black vest to embellish the shine on his badge. It was a rather nice badge.

"Calvin Higgins," he said quickly and to no one in particular, "Sheriff in these parts."

"Looks like he's learned his lesson don't you agree Mr? Well I suppose I missed your names. I'm Calvin Higgins."

The man on the ground pushes himself up to a sitting position and wipes the blood and snot from his face. While the Sheriff reaches a very clean hand out to make your acquaintance. As he does so he leans back a bit at the waist and tips his hat to the young woman approaching.

"Miss Aveline."