[DL] The Unharrowing of Hell... (*very, very* long)

["Daphne Brunelle" <dbrune4@po-box.mcgill.ca>]

Howdy all!

This is write-up number two of our Deadlands campaign. I've been told by the
rest of my posse that the previous one was too biased in favour of my
character (imagine that! *g*), so great efforts will be made to give all
perspectives this time around. If not, well, blame it on my subconscious
mind taking over at inappropriate times (it's the manitou, not me! *g*).
Anyway, this one will be substancially longer than the first, because a lot
more happened this time around.

Shameless plug time (and I'm going to keep doing this every single time): if
you want to learn more about the setting of this campaign, or about the
intrepid heroes who currently make up our posse, here's the URL for Ross's
site: http://www.geocities.com/weirdwest_2000/

For those of you who didn't read my interminably long write-up last time, or
who have (like me) a memory like a punctured sieve, here's a brief
presentation of the cast of main characters as it stood at the beginning of
the nine hour session, in alphabetical order:
-Bathes-in-the-Rain, the group's NPC Indian guide (I've momentarily
forgotten which nation she belongs to);
-Elijah Blanton, aka the Mariposa Kid, would-be gunslinger extraordinaire
and J.B. Taft lookalike (also NPC, and nobody has told him yet that mariposa
means butterfly in Spanish);
-Victoria Anne James, the group's token Harrowed (more on that later);
-Winslow "Slowpoke" Monroe, ex-Marshal of Yellow Creek, Colorado, now turned
(or re-turned?) gunslinger;
-and the Reverend Matthew Tiberius Stone, the posse's resident MiB, charged
with bringing Victoria to Denver (to be helped, or helped to move on).

We last left our sorely put-upon protagonists in the middle of the Mojave
Desert, where a group of Rattlesnake Indians had done their level best to
shorten our heroes' existence. Needless to say, it didn't work, although
they came close at one point.

Having defeated the Rattlesnakes, the posse decided that discretion was the
better part of valour, and that travelling during the day for once was
better than to risk encountering more Indians. Several hours later, Blanton
collapsed from heatstroke, and the rest of the posse being in pretty poor
shape (Monroe was at the time suffering from one to three levels of wounds
in pretty much every part of his body, and Victoria was attempting to
recover from what would normally have been a fatal tomahawk wound between
the shoulder blades), they took what shelter they could in a small rocky
formation nearby, a mere stone's throw away from the Ghost Trail, which they
had been trying all this while to avoid.

To make a long story short, things were looking grim indeed for the posse.
The skirmish with the Indians had left them with very few rations, and even
less water (many of the skins were pierced by arrows and tomahawks). Monroe
estimated that they could probably survive for two weeks on starvation
rations, and even then it would be iffy. It was certain that they would not
reach the edge of the desert in two weeks, but none of them relished the
idea of turning back toward Lost Angels, which was about a ten day's journey
(give or take, with wounded horses and whatnot).

When pressed for ideas, Bathes-in-the-Rain came up with two alternate
suggestions to going back to Lost Angels: ambush a caravan, or try to find
the Navajo Indians who lived in the region. The posse didn't cotton too much
to the idea of attacking a caravan, although the Reverend Stone didn't mind
as much, seeing as how they were rebel caravans anyway, and there was no
love lost between Bathes-in-the-Rain and the soldiers she knew often
escorted caravans. Monroe and Victoria baulked at the idea, mostly because
the potential slaughter of innocents didn't appeal to them (although
Victoria was fairly reserved with her protests, not really being in a
position to condemn wanton murder, thanks to the legion of manitous
currently attempting to take possession of her consciousness). Blanton was
still delirious at that point, and so had nothing to say.

The Reverend Stone got Bathes-in-the-Rain, who seemed relucant to say more,
to divulge that she might be able to lead the group to the Navajo Indians
who lived in the region. She was not too thrilled by the idea, since -as she
said- there was no way of knowing whether or not they served the Raven (a
comment which went over most of the posse's heads, except for Stone's, since
they mostly didn't know anything about the Reckoning). She was unwilling to
take the risk of their being on Raven's side, since that would mean certain
and unpleasant death (although she took care not to say so directly).

The following events, however, precluded any decision-making on the part of
the heroes. Blanton spotted a moving sand dune sometime late in the
afternoon, which Bathes-in-the-Rain informed them was a Mojave Rattler. As
they watched in horror, the ground shook as the dune shifted in a course
rather parallel to theirs, then stood still as the creature presumably went
deeper underground. They figured that they had best wait out the Rattler,
and so were still in the rocky formation when night fell, wondering what to
do with the wounded horses (butcher them now, let them free, use them as
bait for the Rattler...) when Stone spotted a cloud of dust on the horizon.
Monroe saw it as well a moment later, and the two of them identified it as a
caravan coming from the west (the same direction as the posse, in fact).

Everyone lay low, hoping the caravan would pas by without noticing them.
Blanton, who turned out to be better with horses than with guns (he was a
cavalry deserter), was charged with keeping the horses quiet and out of
sight. Everyone held their breath as the first two outriders passed, and
then the second pair, kitted out partially in Confederate gear. Then as the
first wagons began to pass by (outfitted with gattling guns, no less),
Blanton recognised, on one of the men escorting the caravan, his two pistols
that he'd sold in Lost Angels. As he whispered this indignantly to the rest
of the posse, he turned his attention away from the horses for a fraction of
a second, during which one of them wickered, alerting the caravan that there
was someone behind the rock formation.

One of the men escorting the caravan rode his horse up closer, and called to
the posse to stand up with their arms raised. As they hesitated, he grew
more menacing, informing them that they were outmanned and outgunned. At
that point Victoria decided that she would stand up, hoping that they would
believe that the group had no hostile intentions and that they would simply
move on. Having gotten approval from Monroe and Stone, she stood with her
hands up, and tried her best to convince the man that there was no threat.
Unfortunately, it seemed that some of the men escorting the caravan were
"friends" of the recently late Padrick O'Brian, who had been dispatched to
the Hunting Grounds only a few days before by Monroe (after O'Brian had shot
Victoria in a duel). It also turned out that there was a bounty put on their
heads by the grieving widow, $1000 for Monroe, $500 for Victoria, and $250
apiece for Blanton and Stone, dead or alive. Victoria was, much to her
chagrin, recognised (by the spokesman of the caravan, Coleman, and also by
another Irishman whom they identified as Rufus), and since she's better at
shooting than lying as a rule, didn't have the presence of mind not to
divulge the presence of the others with her. No amount of backpeddaling
would convince the escort members that she wasn't accompanied by said
"accomplices," and so it seemed inevitable that -unless the posse gave
themselves up- this would turn into a shootout, five people with rifles and
pistols against a caravan with gattling guns and -it turned out- dynamite.

Coleman acted first, shooting at the exposed Victoria with his scattergun,
and missed. She ducked, grabbed her rifle and returned the favour by
shooting his arm almost completely off. There was a momentary standstill, as
the posse collected themselves, and the caravan leaders were barking orders
about lighting the dynamite and blowing the posse's cover. Stone suggested
that they should wait until the someone on the other side lit the dynamite,
then shoot him and cause the dynamite to explode in their hands. Everyone
saw the wisdom in this suggestion, and Monroe managed to get his head above
the rocks without being noticed. He proceeded very carefully to draw a bead
on the two preparing the dynamite (Jed and Buck). It was at this moment that
they noticed that Bathes-in-the-Rain had disappeared.  However, since there
was no visible means of finding her at that precise moment, they decided to
tackle the more pressing issue of the gattling guns being aimed at them.
Victoria, Blanton and Stone fired at Rufus, and Buck as well, I think, with
no real success.

In the meantime, two of the outriders had managed to circle back
(Bathes-in-the-Rain had managed to put two of the four out of action), and
were now shooting our heroes from behind, sheltered by a sand dune. Blanton
managed to wound one in the arm, and Victoria did her level best to help him
dispatch them to the Great Beyond, but their cover proved too effective.
Then one of them shot Victoria (a gizzards shot, too), and she failed her
smarts check. Bad news for the poor buggers. Dropping her rifle, she pulled
out her pistols and hurled herself at them, shooting alternately with each
hand, determined to rip them to pieces once she got there. She managed after
several shots to wing one of them in the arm (and luckily he failed his stun
check), and the other one misfired (although not before shooting her in the
leg), so that when she got there she made rather short work of them. Then,
everything went dark.

As Victoria was running toward the two outriders, the gattling guns finally
came into play, mostly hitting rock, but also wounding Monroe in the hand,
thus ruining his bead on Jed. Rufus helped out the gattling guns with his
Bullard Express, also with little success thanks to the protective rock. He
himself seemed untouchable, though, as all the shots fired at him missed.
Then Monroe took a shot at the dynamite with his .69-caliber revolving rifle
(still can't remember if it's a Patterson or not, I'll have to ask), causing
a huge explosion which sent shrapnel flying every which way. Jeb and Buck
were reduced to shattered and bleeding shadows of themselves, and Rufus was
saved only by Ross's spending of a Black Chip. Two of the gattling guns were
rendered completely useless (one of them being the aforementioned shrapnel),
and the third was pulled away by its horses, which were only barely being
kept under control by their driver. Blanton failed his guts check, and
cowered face down in the dirt with his hands over his ears.

In the ensuing uncertain silence, Bathes-in-the-Rain reappeared and told
Monroe, Stone, and Blanton that they had to leave right away. She informed
them that the Navajo Indians had Victoria, and that they were to follow
them. They sneaked away into the night, although the Navajo felt it prudent
to club Monroe over the head (he was being too noisy for their standards).
Bathes-in-the-Rain had already knocked Victoria unconscious -much to
Victoria's subsequent relief-, and so the party was led for what seemed like
forever until they reached the Indians' camp.

Victoria came to the next morning, with a sinking feeling. When things went
dark, it usually meant that one of the manitous had taken over and done
horrible things to innocent people, but Bathes-in-the-Rain, who had been
watching over her with rifle in hand, reassured her that the only people
she'd killed were the two outriders from the caravan. She also told Victoria
that her friends were safe, and that Monroe was being tended to by Running
Bear.

Monroe awoke around the same time to find his wounds completely healed, to
everyone's general astonishment. Stone, who had been trying to follow the
conversation in sign between two of the Indians, gleaned that they had been
unable to locate someone during the course of the night. When he asked them
who they had lost, the Indians refused to communicate with him, and made
sure not to sign in front of him anymore. He and Blanton found Monroe
perplexed but healed in a nearby dwelling, thanks to the ministrations of
Running Bear. Stone made a half-hearted attempt to explain away the
miraculous healing to Monroe ("Those healing herbs can have hallucinatory
properties."), but soon gave up trying to maintain the
there's-no-such-thing-as-the-supernatural attitude dictated by the Agency in
the face of overwhelming evidence and the fact that Monroe had already seen
more than his fair share of weirdness (werewolves, headless horsemen,
nosferatu, and the harrowed, to name but a few).

Victoria was in the meantime honoured by the visit of Running Bear, a
wizened elderly Navajo shaman, who came to speak to her of the many manitous
inhabiting her -a bad thing, apparently *g*. He questioned her about how she
had come to be inhabited by these spirits, and learned that she had no
flippin' clue about how it had all happened ("I was shot, and all of a
sudden I wasn't dead anymore..."). He asked her if she knew about Raven and
the Reckoning, to which he again got a response in the negative. Having made
sure that she hadn't purposefully gotten herself entangled with said evil
spirits, he then asked her whether she was happy as she was. After thinking
it over for a second (sure, it's nice not being killed by fatal wounds and
having a couple of extra edges, but on the other hand there's that whole
thing of wanton evil taking over at the wrong times which tips the balance
in a major way), she said she wasn't at all happy with her situation.
Running Bear asked Victoria whether she would prefer being dead or alive
(Victoria refrained from making a flippant comment about that being a moot
point, sensing that this was not the time for such banter), informing her
that it was within his power to help her be rid of the manitous forever.
Knowing that this was not a decision to be taken lightly, he left her alone
the rest of the day to ponder this.

Victoria rejoined the rest of the posse, who were at the time trying to fix
Stone's rifle which had jammed the night before. None of them knew how to do
this, so the rifle stayed jammed. Running Bear was nowhere to be seen, so
Monroe was unable to thank him as he'd wanted for healing his wounds. They
spent the rest of the day resting (or pacing, in Victoria's case -she *did*
fill in the rest of them on Running Bear's offer).

When Running Bear came back that evening, Victoria had made her decision (to
her, it should have been pretty much a no-brainer, actually, but after a
month of being harrowed, she was just a big ball of Angst and indecision),
and accepted his offer to help rid her of the manitous. Running Bear
enlisted the help of Monroe, Blanton and Stone in a ritual dance, and had
Victoria taken inside, away from everyone. Her clothing was cut away from
her and she was bound to a circle made of rawhide and hung in the midst of a
number of clay bowls. Running Bear fed her a heaping spoonful of peyote,
which he also swallowed, chanting rhythmically all the while. He tattoed a
large and beautiful copperhead snake on her entire back (from tailbone to
shoulder), then painted the rest of her in very nifty patterns -not that she
was entirely aware of exactly what they were, being under the effects of a
powerful drug- and drew intricate designs on the floor in coloured sand. He
then battled the manitous in a very close contest of spirits, and won. The
manitous were successully banished to the Hunting Grounds (although Victoria
had to spend a Legend Chip on her vigor roll not to die in the process).

The next morning, Blanton, Monroe and Stone awoke (having passed out the
night before from exertion) with terrific hangovers. Victoria awoke to find
herself still tightly bound, but otherwise unscathed. Running Bear was
collapsed in a corner of the cave. To her joy, Victoria found that not only
were there no more manitous dwelling inside her, but that she was in fact
very much alive: there wasn't a single part of her that didn't ache or
throb, she was starving and parched, but frankly she'd never been so
overjoyed at feeling any of those things in her entire existence. She
floated behind Bathes-in-the-Rain to a nearby stream where she washed off
the remnants of the paint, then bounced back to camp and kissed every single
member of the posse, to generalised astonishment (oh, yeah, did I mention
she gained the "randy" hindrance in the process?). She also aquired the name
Fears-No-Owls among the Navajo (it turns out that owls are bad, and that her
snake spirit guide helped her defeat them) as well as a 5-point obligation
to the Najavo Indians, and the ability to get by in the Navajo tongue.

The posse set out again the next day, re-equipped with enough food and water
to last them until Fort 51, along with some dynamite they had salvaged from
the caravan. Victoria was uncharacteristically chatty on the voyage, whereas
the Reverend Stone became increasingly morose as he tried to figure out
exactly what he was to tell his superiors in Denver when he brought back a
girl who was most obviously alive and unharrowed as all get out. He kept to
himself, read his Bible, and threw dark glances Victoria's way when he
thought of it.

Then, a few days into their trip, disaster struck once again. Victoria was
pointing out a really cool-looking cactus to whoever would llisten, when
suddenly the ground shook and shifted beneath their feet, and an ominous
rattle filled the air. Monroe, Stone, Blanton, and Bathes-in-the-Rain all
reacted instantly and instinctively, trying to get their horses out of the
moving sand. Victoria sat, stunned, on her horse, as the sand gave way under
its hooves. Only Bathes-in-the-Rain managed to stay in her saddle, and urged
her horse away quickly from the danger. The rest of the posse were unhorsed
or otherwise prevented from moving as a huge Mojave Rattler reared its
hideous maw (not entirely sure that it had a head, if you want to get
technical) in their midst. As they watched in horror, the giant worm (it was
about eighty feet long, if'n I remember this correctly -if not, my friends
will correct me, I'm sure) spread its tentacles and attempted
whole-heartedly to end their collective existence, stretching its long
tentacles toward them. Blanton fainted dead away (poor guy only has 2d4
guts), and even the MiB found himself terrorised by the abomination that
loomed above him even as he tried to escape. Victoria and Monroe managed to
keep themselves together (they'd seen a lot of weird and terrifying stuff
before), but barely, and Bathes-in-the-Rain was in no hurry to come anywhere
nearer to the Rattler than she was (roughly 25 yards away).

Shai-Hulud, as Ross called it (it's a Dune reference, in case -like me- you
have no clue what that is) coiled a powerful tentacle around Victoria's
horse and dragged it and its hapless rider a whole yard closer to its
powerful maw and razor-sharp teeth, as Monroe struggled to get the pack
horse under control (that was where they kept the dynamite). Victoria
attempted to slip off her horse and escape, but in so doing inadvertently
grabbed on to the tentacle, which wrapped itself around her instead, pitting
her strength (3d4) against the Rattler's. Stone had by this time given up
trying to catch hold of one of the horses (hoping to get away more quickly),
and turned to run away as fast as his legs could carry him, while Monroe
still was having trouble mastering the panicking pack horse.
Bathes-in-the-Rain was valiantly but ineffectually shooting at the monster
from a safe distance, and Victoria, having almost emptied one of her pistols
into first the tentacle and then the creature itself, unsurprisingly lost
the contest of strength and was dragged screaming into Shai-Hulud's gaping
maw.

Blanton recovered from his faint in time to see Victoria being swallowed,
and valiantly shot at the beast, impressing it not in the slightest.
Victoria, willing herself not to freak out (a second later and she would
have), managed to scramble out of Shai-Hulud's maw, and teetered
precariously on what I'll tentatively call its lip. Monroe in the meantime
had managed to get a stick of dynamite from the pack horse's saddlebags, and
to light it. Victoria leaped desperately to the ground and did her level
best to scramble out of reach of the Rattler's tentacles. As Stone tried to
run past the creature (apologies to the player, I don't remember if he was
trying to get to the pack horse or just trying to run away), he slipped, and
Shai-Hulud rolled over on him, injuring him in the leg (it started as both
legs, but lots of Fate Chips were spent that round). Then, a tentacle
reached out and grabbed him by the leg and began to draw him slowly but
surely towards the aforementioned gaping maw.

Drawing his tomahawk, Stone hacked desperately at the tentacle until it
released him, then staggered away as quickly as possible. Victoria managed
to run almost out of reach as Monroe tossed his lit stick of dynamite into
Shai-Hulud's maw. The Rattler was understandably nonplussed at this. It then
decided that eating the pack horse would be a good idea under the
circumstances, and proceeded to try to engulf it (along with Monroe, who was
standing next to it). Shrieking a warning to Monroe, Blanton proceeded to
fan his pistol at the horse's saddle, hoping to set off the dynamite. It
didn't work, unfortunately, and Monroe acquired a few more white hairs in
the process, but everyone got the picture and tried to set off the dynamite
by shooting at the horse as Monroe scrabbled to get out of the line of fire.
Finally, a shot from Monroe's gun set off the dynamite, crippling Shai-Hulud
which, rearing in pain and bereft of its tentacles, sank beneath the earth
to lick its wounds and wait until it was recovered. The blast left Monroe
and Blanton seriously concussed, and Reverend Stone closer to dead than
alive (four levels of wounds to an arm, a leg and the guts -the beauty of
massive damage). The danger being passed, Bathes-in-the-Rain rounded up the
horses, and (having obtained a 57 on her horse ridin' roll -kept rolling
twelves) managed to find three wild mustangs along with them.

You might think now that the posse's adventures for the time being were
over, but you'd be sadly mistaken :-)

Bathes-in-the-Rain left the posse to their own devices shortly before they
reached Fort 51. As they entered the town, they immediately went in search
of a doctor for Stone, who was on the verge of keeling over from all those
massive wounds he took from the dynamite.

Victoria, along with Blanton, found the army doctor in the local saloon
tending to a man who turned out to be none other than Rufus Abelard, the
Irishman who had been saved by a Black Chip back in the middle of the Mojave
Desert. Sitting next to him was a lovely young woman, all platinum hair and
blue eyes, dressed entirely in black, who was later introduced as Anika
Sorrensen O'Brian, the widow of the late Padrick O'Brian who had apparently
put the bounty on our heroes' heads. Rufus, evidently exerting some kind of
power over the hapless doctor, denied our heroes access to medical service.
Furious, Victoria dragged Blanton back out to where the Reverend Stone and
Monroe were waiting, and told them what had just happened. Stone decided
that he would go in and throw his weight around a little, and so Victoria
and Monroe helped him off his horse and through the door. Rufus had a little
difficulty in maintaining the cool control he had over the situation once
confronted with four extremely irritated posse members, but did in fact
manage to get the doctor to leave without tending to Stone, overawed Blanton
(although not by much, to Blanton's credit), and ridiculed Stone in a most
ungentlemanly manner, after informing Monroe that it had been unsporting to
shoot the dynamite from under the wagons (while Victoria seethed but held
her peace, being about as skilled with words as she is at needlepoint). All
in all, it was not a good encounter for our protagonists.

Victoria, Monroe and Stone followed the doctor as he headed toward the fort,
but Victoria saw Blanton draw a pistol out of the corner of her eye, and ran
back, fearing the worst. Blanton luckily was only showing off how well he'd
practised twirling his pistols in front of the mirror at home (and did it
none too badly -at least, he didn't embarass himself by dropping it or
shooting himself in the foot). Unfortunately, Rufus did the same, and rather
better, and he even managed to fire a shot at Blanton all the while making
it look like an accident. Luckily, the shot passed between Blanton's knees
and did no real harm except startle him. Victoria and Monroe managed to
convince Blanton to leave well enough alone, and while Monroe carried Stone
to the fort for medical treatment, Victoria and Blanton sold the three
mustangs that Bathes-in-the-Rain had rounded up a few days before.

Stone managed to convince the private guarding the fort entrance, with
healthy doses of intimidation and coercion as well as by producing his
official badge and papers, to let him in for medical treatment. Monroe
helped him inside the infirmary, where the doctor tended to his injuries
(mostly by shooting him so full of morphine that he passed out for the
remainder of the night, although not before threatening the doctor's life if
he breathed a word of the previous events). Monroe in the meantime managed
to get hold of a bath at the barber's in the fort before heading back to
town to buy some new clothes.

He found Victoria and Blanton in the almost deserted train station; Blanton
was still seething about Rufus's attempt on his life, and after Victoria and
Monroe tried to dissuade him from seeking revenge, he pulled out his pistol
and proceeded to give them another demonstration of how good he was at
twirling it. He seemed nonplussed when his friends told him that it didn't
much matter so much whether you could do tricks with your pistol, but
whether you could draw quickly and fire accurately. Victoria (forgetting
momentarily that this would probably draw attention) tried to prove her
point by doing exactly the same thing that Blanton had just done, but this
proved ineffective.

Blanton then challenged Monroe to a quickdraw contest (with unloaded guns),
which he did in fact win (rolling two aces and a one giving him a total of
17). Monroe, still eager to prove his point, said something to the effect of
"Yeah, but I've seen you shoot," which completely deflated the hapless
Mariposa Kid's victory. Reddening somewhat, he went into the nearby saloon
(making Victoria and Monroe imagine the worst) and emerged carrying a
pitcher of beer and several empty whisky bottles which he then lined up on a
wall. Reloading his pistol, he drew and fanned it a the bottles, managing to
knock one down. On his second try, he knocked down two more. Monroe,
determined not to let all this go to the boy's head, shot a bottle off the
wall from about ten feet behind Blanton.

Victoria, thoroughly disgusted by now, made her way into the saloon and
ordered herself a whisky. She therefore missed Blanton turning around and
pouring the pitcher of beer over Monroe's head. Luckily, Monroe took it well
and brought the boy into the saloon for a drink. After a while, they made
their way to find clothing (they each had one set of clothes to call their
own, Victoria's being full Navajo garb), then settled in the railway station
for the night.

As Victoria and Blanton slept, Monroe was surprised to find that O'Brian's
widow had sneaked over in the night to beseech his help. It turned out that
she heartily disliked her late husband, but was entirely in the power of
Rufus, who had been one of O'Brian's men. Her father was a wealthy man,
owner of stock in the Union Blue railway, and he had promised her to
O'Brian. Rufus now had a letter from her father in his possession which
stated that he was to bring her home. Mrs. O'Brian seemed confident that
this was most definitely not Rufus's intention, and pleaded with Monroe to
help her escape his clutches. Monroe, being the heroic type, promised that
he would do what he could, and she slipped away, back to the stables where
she'd been staying (that low-down scoundrel wouldn't even give her a decent
place to stay, while he apparently had enough pull to saty in the soldiers'
barracks *tsk*).

When she was gone, Monroe awakened Victoria from an interesting nightmare
and outlined the situation to her. Thus we leave our heroes once again
pondering their fate, wondering if the damsel-in-distress scenario isn't a
trick on Rufus's part so he can "legitimately" blow them all to hell, and
trying to  scrape together enough money to get them back East.

Thanks to all who've made it this far. I know it was horrendously long, but
I made some serious efforts at cutting and pruning and slashing where I felt
it was necessary. Sorry about the typos that I know have escaped me in this
text (no matter how many revisons I make).
Questions, comments, issues and literary criticism are more than welcome,
and in fact encouraged.

Thanks again,

Daphné

--
 "I've really got to learn to just do the damage and get out of town. It's
the 'stay and gloat' that gets me every time."
                                  --Ethan Rayne, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer