[DL] A Brief Interlude (long)

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

Howdy all!

This is the write-up of our last session, featuring everyone's favourite
ex-harrowed heroine *g* and two new characters: Emily "Boom Boom" Smith and
La Cucaracha. I was told to keep the lid on this last adventure so's not to
ruin the surprise for the rest of the posse, but I've seen that Ross has in
fact put up the adventure on his website, so the cat's out of the bag, so to
speak.

If this seems rather short on plot and long on shooting, as Ross mentioned,
it's because this was supposed to serve more as an intro to game mechanics
and setting than anything else.

Oh, and before I forget one of the more important aspects, last week's game
also featured the re-introduction of J.B. Taft, the fastest gun in the West
(although not always accurate *g*). He is, I'm pretty sure, Ross's favourite
NPC in Deadlands.

Shameless plug time (it's a good thing I'm here, 'cause Ross never remembers
the URL of his own site *g*). For more information, go here:

http://www.geocities.com/weirdwest_2000/

Here we go, then:

After their second day in Salt Lake City, our protagonists (Blanton, Monroe,
Stone, and Victoria) settled into the Restful Arms for the night, feeling
justifiably that they would probably have an eventful time the following
day.

Sleep, however, did not come easily to Victoria (read: failed spirit roll).
Plagued by nightmares and unwilling to spend the rest of the night tossing
and turning, she decided to go for a walk to clear her head. Taking her
pistols with her (hey, you never know), she wandered purposelessly through
the nearly empty streets, until her steps took her, rather to her surprise,
back to the train station where she had very nearly met her demise two days
before.

As she strolled along the platform, she was assailed by the most horrendous
reek that seemed to  be coming from a huge shapeless mass heaped on the
platform somewhat upwind from her. Closer inspection revealed a pile of
luggage with a large mule attached to it. Sprawled against the luggage and
snoring unabashedly was perhaps the most revolting-looking man she'd ever
seen, stinking of stale sweat, old tobacco, tequila and flatulence, with a a
large scattergun resting in his lap. His clothes were filthy and greasy, as
was the rest of him, his face recognisably Mexican and decidedly unwashed.
He cut a loathsome figure, in short, and it was with a mixture of amusement
and revulsion that Victoria stepped upwind from the repugnant smell.

At that moment the shrill whistle of an oncoming train sounded, and the few
other people on the platform began gathering up their belongings (shooting
looks of utter loathing at the Mexican snoring lustily several feet away),
complaining rather loudly that the train was almost five hours late. As the
tran pulled into the station, Victoria watched, making sure that the cattle
cars weren't about to unleash more unholy terror into the station (well, can
you blame her after Los Diablos?). The aforementioned Mexican (known only as
La Cucaracha for the moment) awoke at that point and was disappointed to
find that his mule had polished off almost all of his tequila. Shrugging off
this latest inconvenience, he belched loudly and wiped his nose on his
sleeve, conscious that he was in the company of others and must therefore
show a little consideration for their feelings by not doing anything too
disgusting.

Thus it was that both he and Victoria saw the train's conductor stepping
onto the platform, and noticed that he looked uncommonly nervous. Victoria,
seeing him shoot anxious glances in the direction of the caboose, let
curiosity got the better of her, and, walking in that direction, saw that
someone was in the process of breaking the windows of the caboose. Before
she could react, someone leaned out a window with a longarm (she couldn't
see exactly what it was) and shot past her at the conductor, felling him
with one shot to the back.

Feeling that this behaviour was hardly kosher, Victoria drew her own pistol
and shot the offender in the arm. He cursed and pulled back into the caboose
as the people on the platform, hearing gunfire, screamed and fled for cover.
Having shot one of the men in the caboose, Victoria understandably drew the
fire of another man wielding a pistol. She managed to avoid being shot all
to hell by dint of sheer instinct (i.e., Fate Chips), and shot back,
destroying the first man's elbow in the process and thus removing him from
the action.

While this was taking place, La Cucaracha, feeling that discretion was the
better part of valour, had attempted to roll under the train in order to
gain better cover. However, his girth prevented him from doing so, and so he
got annoyed instead. Still wielding his shotgun, he ran up the stairs
between a baggage car and a private passenger car and knocked in the door to
the former. Finding nothing of note, he turned his attention to the other
car.

This particular car was at the time sheltering a young lady with bright red
hair and a temper to match. Emily Smith, niece to the famous Jacob Smith (of
Smith & Robards), had come to Salt Lake City partly to visit her uncle,
partly to escape the scandal which had followed her (successful) attempt to
blow up the carriage of some of the better-known Denver socialites. At the
sound of gunfire, she had risen to open her window, and caught a glimpse of
someone going past her car behind the train. Suddenly, the lock to one of
the doors of her car was blown away and the door opened revealing a large
man pointing both barrels of a scattergun at her.

Victoria in the meantime had shot twice at the man in the caboose who had
tried (unsuccessfully) to shorten her existence, wounding him slightly in
the chest. As she exchanged shots with her unknown assailant, she heard a
muffled voice protesting rather petulantly from inside the caboose
(something along the lines of: "Don't shoot in the caboose! I'm in here!"),
and she guessed that the men must have a hostage inside with them. Choosing
to head for cover (she had already fired three out of six bullets from her
gun), Victoria ran up the stairs between the caboose and the baggage car,
intending to investigate the shots she'd heard being fired at the other end
of the train (since she couldn't fire into the caboose without risking
injuring the hostage).

Emily turned to face her antagonist as he burst into her private car. He
fixed her with a mean stare and threateningly ordered her to sit, and the
only thing she could think in that one paralysing moment was: "He's going to
kill me." She obliged (he got three raises on his Overawe roll), but
inwardly began to seethe at him, and she secretly prepared to fire her gun
through her purse at him, the minute she got her nerve back. At that precise
moment, the other door to her car was blown open by a second shotgun blast,
and La Cucaracha, looking if anything more fearsome and bloodthirsty than
her first assailant, entered, shouting in Spanish. The first man had twisted
desperately away from the door at the very last minute, and so avoided the
deadly blast, only to be gut shot by the greasy Mexican, who yelled (still
in Spanish, so no one understood other than him): "You will remember me as
La Muerte!" The man staggered slightly, and that's when Emily, recovering
from her intitial shock, shot her pistol at him through her purse, missing
him by mere inches but succeeding in unnerving him a good deal. She shot him
again, this time hitting her mark.

Two cars down, Victoria was just about over the stairs to the other side of
the train when the man she'd been firing at came through the door of the
caboose. Both were too nonplussed at the appearance of their antagonist to
react quickly, but Victoria managed to duck round the corner before he could
shoot. She planned to take cover behind the baggage car, but he was
unfortunately quicker than she, and before she reached shelter, she heard
his voice behind her call out: "Freeze!" before he shot her in the back.
Victoria was understandably put out at this, and before he could take
another action, she whirled on him, shot him in the arm, then, pointing her
pistol at his head, informed him that if he moved there wouldn't be enough
of him left to scrape up with a spoon. Well, that spooked him. With very
little extra prompting, he dropped his gun and kicked it over to Victoria,
placing his hands behind his head at her request.

Emily, furious at having her car shot to hell by this two-bit ruffian,
decided in her own vengeful way that it would be a good idea to kick him.
However, her opponent took the opportunity to catch her foot and pull her on
top of him, making it impossible for La Cucaracha to get a clear line of
sight to shoot. Instead he drew one of his pistols and leaned over the
prostrate villain, intending to poke him painfully where he'd been shot only
moments before. The man, seeing his chance, tried to grab the other pistol
out of La Cucaracha's gun belt and gut shoot him. He did in fact manage to
do this, but missed his mark, and was summarily shot by Emily for his
efforts. Seizing this rare opportunity, La Cucaracha whipped a huge Bowie
knife from his boot and, much to Emily's disgust, set about cutting off the
man's head with apparent relish, spilling blood everywhere and drenching his
arms and hands in it as he sawed at the man's neck.

Meanwhile, Victoria still had her opponent in her sights. Weaponless and
intimidated, he managed to blurt: "I suppose it's too late to say we don't
want any trouble," to which Victoria responded scornfully something to the
effect that he had shot the train's conductor, which had prompted her to
shoot back. After all, you're not supposed to shoot conductors, since
they're the ones who make the trains go. She then interrogated him about his
prisoner, only to be informed that it was a certain Blanton. Groaning
inwardly, Victoria immediately understood that they in fact had J.B. Taft in
their custody. Holding back her laughter, she motioned to the man to go back
toward the caboose, intending to free Taft when they got there. Her
erstwhile assailant managed to give her the slip and ducked into the baggage
car. Victoria switched guns (having only one bullet left in her pistol), and
ascertained that Taft was in fact under the train (she called out to find
out if he was all right, and he responded rather peevishly from under one of
the cars. He was also rather nonplussed to find out that it was her, despite
her reassurances that she was no longer dead). She followed the first man
into the baggage car, and only narrowly missed being crushed under a pile of
luggage he tried to push on her. Thoroughly exasperated at this point (she
*had* been doing her level best not to kill him, for once), Victoria shot
him again, informed him that she had another gun and wasn't about to run out
of bullets, and ordered him to come out with his hands up.

At that moment Emily Smith appeared in the other doorway, red-faced and
furious, and shouted at no one in particular that "he" had ruined her coach.
Victoria, although slightly nonplussed, kept her focus on the man in front
of her until La Cucaracha, now reeking even more if that's possible, erupted
into the car holding the bloody head of the man they'd just killed. Shouting
at the man Victoria had in her sights, he displayed the gory mess, prompting
the unfortunate man to lose whatever it was he'd last eaten. Victoria was
unimpressed, and was even less impressed when, when she asked him to discard
the bloody thing, he chucked it at her, thus ruining the clothes she'd just
bought. Grumbling about people's habits of destroying her new clothes,
Victoria left her still retching prisoner to the tender mercies of the young
woman and the smelly Mexican she'd only just encountered and went to find
Taft. Emily went back to her own coach and gathered a few of her belongings,
pausing to search the now headless body on the floor. She discovered two
shotguns (one his, the other belonging to La Cucaracha), two pistols, one a
Schofield (Taft's gun) and a wanted poster for J.B. Taft.

Victoria found Taft outside (or, rather, he came up behind her, startling
her no end). He'd managed to crawl under the train, but his hands were
firmly tied, and there were long gashes in his forearms where he'd tried to
free himself. Victoria untied him and they made their way into town as
nonchalantly as they could, seeing that the Sheriff and his deputies were
now swarming over the train station. La Cucaracha stepped off the train only
to find that his mule had bolted, strewing his gear all over the station and
was now a good fifty yards away. As a means of dissuading the animal from
going any further, he pulled out his shotgun and pointed it at the
creature's head, only to have his gesture interpreted as hostile by one of
the Sheriff's deputies, who pistolwhipped him and later dragged him to jail.

Emily, recognising Taft from his wanted poster, dashed after them. After an
initial surprise (during which Victoria very nearly shot her), she fell into
step with them and invited them back to the hotel at which she was staying
for drinks. Introductions were made all around as they made their way to the
Salt Lake City Hotel. They were greeted at the door by the maître d'hotel
Louis Montague who just about sneered at Taft and Victoria's appearance, but
didn't argue when Emily ordered three rooms, baths and robes for herself and
her "guests." When they had all cleaned up and Victoria had been tended to
by a doctor, the three of them gathered in Victoria's room to discuss the
night's events.

Taft, when questioned by Victoria, told them how he had come to be a
prisoner on board that particular Denver-Pacific train. He and Juanita
(Pepita la Pistolera, for those who have been following our particular saga
for a while) had had a falling out at Carver's Landing, and Taft had left.
He was apprehended shortly afterward by the Union Army when he was mistaken
for Elijah Blanton, who had deserted the army several months before. They
were taking him North, presumably to hang him, when the train they were on
was attacked. In an ironic twist of fate, it turned out that the bandits who
attacked the train also had a copy of Taft's wanted poster with them, and
decided to take him south to collect the reward.

There were three of them in the caboose with Taft when they got to Salt Lake
City. They had taken the conductor prisoner, but he had managed to get free
during the voyage. Victoria had shot one of them, while the one named Jeb
shot at her and the other, named Hoss, had gone round the other side of the
train. Hoss had died in the aforementioned gruesome fashion, reminding
Victoria (a truly awful pun, I'll admit) of the "Headless Hoss-man" she and
Monroe had confronted the year before in Yellow Creek (I'm just mentioning
this because I'm proud of the fact I got awarded a Fate Chip so I would stop
there *g*). Once Taft had finished telling his story, Emily insisted that he
and Victoria stay in the rooms she'd provided, and told Victoria that she
would have her belongings sent for. She restored Taft's gun to him as well,
much to his satisfaction (although his spectacles are probably irretrievably
lost). Resolving to discuss the rest of the events of the last few months
over lunch, the three of them settled in for the night.

Not too far away, La Cucaracha awoke in a prison cell with a throbbing
headache. Seeing a cockroach scuttling across the ceiling, he proceeded to
live up to the nickname he'd been given, chasing it, catching it, and eating
it.

Thus we leave our heroes, new and old alike, asleep in the wee hours of the
morning. Stay tuned for their newest adventures.

Thanks for making this far, all!

Daphné
--
"Why is it every time I go somewhere with you it ends in violence
and terror?"
                                        -Buffy the Vampire Slayer