Saturday, March 22, 2014

Entry 20: First Contact

      As we began to fly to the top of the tower, we spotted what looked like a military base that most likely belonged to Kang, the local Crime lord (member of the Triad) of the area who was working on building a railroad through the area. While Eric was navigating away from that we were attacked by huge Devil bats that appeared to be a monstrous combination of a bat and a huge shark.

       They went directly for the ropes keeping the passenger basket attached to the plane itself, forcing Eric to angle us to at least crash into the top of the tower. I braced myself against the basket and managed to take out 2 of them with my rifles, while Ziggy attacked them with a stream of sparks.  Unfortunately that left two of them and they grabbed onto Vudulady and myself (causing me to drop one of my rifles) and began flying upwards. I shot the Bat holding Vudulady and Malady and Casanova shot the one carrying me, although this led to us falling. Ziggy heroically jumped out of the basket and onto the roof to catch Vudulady, while Waltzing Buffalo turned into an albatross to catch me.

      After we fixed up our wound we saw a devil bat nest with 2 young devil bats in it, which we quickly eliminated before they called in more devil bats.  In the middle of the nest was a bizzare and freaky skeleton, and on its arm was a metal cage with claws and a cable that reached it's back, we also found a hand torch, which would glow if held. Mal decided to put the metal cage onto his arm, and it quickly bonded with his skin and the cable impaled his back. After Waltzing healed his injuries Mal found he could extend or retract the metal claws and it enhanced his strength.  When Jackie saw the arm cage and the hand torch she commented that it was far beyond the technology of her time, which was distressing.

      We looked for a way into the tower and found an air vent hidden behind some bushes that were moving weirdly. The vent extended for nearly 100ft before we reached the bottom which had a stone path leading further into the tower. When we entered the tunnel we were attacked by flying manta rays, but as if that weren't weird enough, they exploded when they were shot (possibly due to using an explosive gas to allow them to 'fly'). Eventually the tunnel ended and opened up into a well illuminated room, with very well groomed plant life in neat ordered rows, the garden was being tended to by creatures that resembled a combination of pig, rhino and monkey, who were probably angry and shocked by our intrusion (although it was hard to read their facial cues). There were also foot long worms flipping through the dirt, and quite a few large wasps flying around.

      Ziggy tried to convince them we weren't hostile, while I prepared for combat and braced myself against a tree to reduce the recoil of using both rifles.  After a bit of attempting to communicate with the creatures becoming increasingly Smoke fired one of his newest inventions (flash rounds), however like many of Smoke's inventions it malfunctioned and instead of blinding the creatures it exploded and incinerated several of them, causing the worms to immediately begin eating the corpses.  I took this as a cue to open fire, and killed two of them, and in response they hit me with a strange weapon (a staff with two ends crackling with energy) which felt like being hit by a sledgehammer attached to a live wire.  Lucky for me Waltzing used his healing magic to save me from becoming worm food. The creatures then attacked us again, and I was knocked out again (They didn't seem to want to let me shoot my rifles at them). Casanova protected me when I was down, and the rest of the creatures were killed, and then the wasps began attacking, although they were taken care of with smoke (and fire).

     After I regained consciousness we examined their weapons, which we named 'Stun' Sticks, and found that they were powered by strange batteries, with a dial on each side that had 6 symbols which were presumably the amount of power that was being used to 'Stun'. And another button, that we found was what switched the stun sticks from stun to lethal. The batteries themselves have 30 different symbols on them (one of which was glowing slightly), which we speculated was probably how much charge was left in them.

     After was finished experimenting with the stun sticks we heard muffled sound similar to the creatures from the far side of the room. Ziggy investigated the sound, in the hopes that he could still try to gain access diplomatically.   The noises led to a room with chemicals tanks, sewage and other gardening equipment. Ziggy found a small child like version of the creatures we fought in the garden. Ziggy tried to calm it down and communicate with it, while I used the supplies to make a torch for us. After a bit of calming him down, and when we started to discuss what to do with the kid, it began catching on and glanced at Jackie and I and then at the ropes (I suspect he may have be a bit afraid of us). So we tied him up and hid him, figuring someone should find them when they investigated the farm.

Entry 19a: Dreams and Visions

      Last night I had a strange dream that started with the words "Jackie Dethewright" and an image of Jackie. Then it changed to an endless repeat of myself running and repeating "Never going back. Not after that. Never going back. Not After That.

I'm certainly not planning on going back to sleep any time soon
 -------------------------

     As we began to fly to the top of Devil's Tower I had a vision of the portal we were trying to reach at the end of a long hallway down several ramps, although my memory is hazy on how many, it could be anywhere between one and eight. The room containing the portal is semicircular and the portal itself is against the back curved wall.  I also later heard "level E. last door on the right. Understand."

Entry 19: Cutting it close

      When I asked if Jackie could make me some of her 'spiritfucker' rounds, she told me that while we couldn't make the bullets she was using (due to lack of materials such as depleted Uranium), she did have blueprints for dual-nature bullets that could be made with the resources we had available. When I asked for the blueprints Smoke got angry and threatened to burn the blueprints if I even thought about making them, so I dropped it (and asked for a copy of the blueprints when he wasn't paying attention, just in case we needed to make them later, but she was going to respect Smoke's decision).

       Since Smoke was adamantly objecting to using the rounds that were consistently effective against Stone, I spent my time upgrading my electroshock rifle with a new design Smoke had worked on that would make it charge faster and store energy more efficiently. The designs were much easier to implement than I had expected and I had the time to make one for Smoke so he had a way to help disable enemies without killing them.  We landed in the mountains for the night and turned out the spotlights to avoid enraging the bats in the area.

      The next day as we were dropped off at the town of deadwood,  Jackie spotted someone falling and when Colleen looked through a telescope to get a better look she said it was someone with a hat flying dangerously on an autogyro. It looks like we didn't have as much of a lead on him as I had hoped.

     We also got our first glimpse of the Devil's Tower, it looked like it was a giant tree stump, and after asking around in town we were told that the legend of the Devil's Tower was a giant tree that was chopped down by a giant bear and that it was surrounded by the Pahowmakonsika, which roughly translates to 'pale mountain devils'.  The locals avoided the place out of superstition. 

    After getting what information we could from the locals we began discussing how we would get in to the portal inside. There was a river the went in and out at the gate of the tower, but getting there would require possibly having to deal with the pale mountain devils surrounding the tower. Eventually we settled on flying to the top and working our way down the tower to where the portal was.

    Also after spending time around Jackie, I have started to notice that she bears more than a passing resemblance to me, she might know more about who I am than she is willing to share.

Friday, March 21, 2014

Entry 18: Dropping the Bomb

      Wilson certainly lived up to his boasting, he flew us nearly on top of the speeding train, and we lowered ropes down to prepare to board the train and confront Stone.  Unfortunately Stone noticed us and began to shoot at our plane.  Ziggy shouted that Stone was an enemy of the states and we began to drop down the ropes into the train. Even more unfortunately Stone is holding a little girl hostage, who said "This is worse than Plum Tree" which seemed to get a strong reaction from Smoke.  I shot the bastard in the head, but he just became intangible and ignored it and clubbed the little girl in the head. Ziggy instead of fighting, tried to pick Stone's pockets while he was distracted.

      Then he began to laugh, it was both terrifying and infuriating at the same time, as if the thought of us thinking we could fight him was a joke ... and he might be right.  Jackie unexpectedly shot Stone through the girl he was holding hostage.  This got Stone to grab his saddlebag and declare that if we wanted the heart so much we should try to take it from him, and at the same time Jackie began to have difficulties breathing and signaled us to kill Stone. I tried to shoot him with my electroshock rifle (since he was completely ignoring my normal bullets), but it phased through him as well.  Apparently he was unable to maintain his invisible choke-hold on Jackie while he was phasing away from my attacks, so she unleashed a small hail of bullets into him, blowing several holes in his chest and launching him out of the train.

     When we looked into the bag we saw the perfectly cylindrical HoD, and also noticed that the areas that Jackie shot had bizarrely distorted angles.  The hostage that Jackie had shot had apparently been real, and while I am not entirely happy with that, she couldn't afford to risk missing. Also it would seem that Ziggy managed to grab The HoD and Stone's wallet, which had a piece of a molar that apparently he could have used to track us (if I hadn't tossed it after I learned that).

     Smoke is positively livid about the ammo that Jackie used to actually hurt Stone (more so than usual) and nearly attacks Jackie over it, however before anything comes of it Ziggy restrains Smoke, and we asked her about the rounds.  Which she explained were made of depleted Uranium and worked off of the Copperfield effect, which was based of of the Copperfield bomb. Jackie then continued enthusiastically (while Smoke was going absolutely ballistic) about how if it hadn't been for his work at Plum Tree she wouldn't have the rounds she used (which was obviously not what he wanted to hear, If looks could kill ...). Apparently the Copperfield bomb was a dual-nature bomb that had a conventional explosion and opened a temporary rift to the hunting grounds (presumably not the happy hunting grounds).

     Even more surprising than Smoke trying to physically assault Jackie was Colleen attacking Smoke after it was revealed that he worked on the Copperfield bomb.  Jackie began to explain that Smoke's research was essential to the ability to fight them, and that she couldn't explain until we reached Devil's Tower.

    Colleen surprised everyone again by asking if Jackie was from the future, and Jackie admitted she was, which certainly explained how she knew so much and had advanced technology like the Copperfield rounds.  Jackie told us that the Copperfield bomb was made as a deterrent for the Confederates. Waltzing Buffalo then began to lecture Smoke about how he was possessed by Manitous. The Copperfield bombs were also apparently banned in the Geneva convention (in 2030).  In Jackie's universe Smoke helped Heklstrome build most of his technology. She also revealed that the outpost at Devil's Tower was a portal to the future, and that it works less well in the future.

    We were all passed a dossier on 'modern' (futuristic to us) technology, and figured out how she tracked us, it would seem that Bloody Sunday, and bloody Tuesday (out incident in Salt-lake) are fairly well known historical events in the future. It makes sense now, the suitcase the ringmaster had was a Plumtree bomb, and he was apparently a Texas Ranger.

      When we asked about what she knew about us from the future, We were told that I was a known as a competent scientist in the future, Cogsworth Copperfield aka Smoke was famous for his Copperfield bombs and many other inventions, and that the Wheatleys (such as Casanova apparently) were known for their "non-euclidian" family tree.

      Eventually Wilson was no longer willing to continue flying into Indian territory, and so he dropped us off with his younger brother Eric Stanish, who was much more willing to take risky jobs, for the right price, a price that is coincidentally the same amount that we were paid for breaking Stone out of the Rock ... This seems like it might be a trap, but it's too risky to not try.

Entry 17: Who Is Stone?

      The evening after the disaster in the City of Angels we were visited by a woman named Jackie with a crew cut and wearing a duster, armed with a Gatling pistol asking if we were the troupe that had blown The Rock up. She seemed to be very stressed out and seemed to honestly want to help us, so we admitted that we were. It's good to see that Colleen recovered enough from the traumatic events she went through to crack a joke warning Casanova against trying to sleep with her.

      She then told us that the apocalypse that just happened in Lost Angels was was just Grimme using a very small amount of the "Happy Dance"'s power. She then told us that Stone planned to unleash all of it's power and that we needed to get to the Devil's tower to stop him.  She also told us what Jasper Stone is. He is a Harrowed, a corpse that has been animated by a Manitou, and he was the first Harrowed and is so terrifying that his Manitou is completely cowed by Stone. He was shot in the back by his own troop during the battle of Gettysburg moments before the reckoning.  Stone is also the harbinger of death.

    When we asked what a harbinger, we learned that there is a spirit world known as the hunting grounds, which is vaguely shaped like a tree; at the top is the happy hunting ground where people go to dream, but the bottom of the tree is where the dead-lands are located, ruled by 4 powerful entities known as The Reckoners or War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. These entities were sealed away, but the shamans keeping them sealed away were betrayed by a young shaman named Raven who wanted revenge against those who wronged him, which was the cause of the Reckoning.  Luckily the entities are unable to enter the world, and have to work through monsters and their Harbingers (the 4 horses of the apocalypse).

Horseman - Harbinger/Horse
Pestilence - Professor Darius Hellstrome
War           - Raven
Death        - Jasper Stone
Famine      - Reverend Ezekiel Grimme

    Jackie then told us that she is from the organization that controls both the Texas Rangers and the Agency, which if it were coming from anyone else I would dismiss as nonsense, but with what she knows it almost seems plausible. She then told us that we would need to hide the Happy Dance at the Devil's Tower and into the dead-lands where it would be harmless (since it worked by taking power from the dead-lands, which wouldn't matter or work if it was in the dead-lands)

         Understandably she wanted to come with us, and it couldn't hurt to have another experienced gunslinger if we were going after Stone again, and now that we know the what 'game' we are playing and the stakes, I am sure we can succeed in stopping Stone, because otherwise ...

       Jackie told us that we would need to ditch our wagons and take the train, which we were not to keen on doing, since we were rather attached to our wagons, and would be unlikely to get them back if we left them unguarded in the desert. Unfortunately when we got to the train station the train was already speeding off, so we quickly arranged for our wagons to be loaded and sent on the next train and found an Irish pilot, named Wilson, who was willing to fly us where we needed to be quick, for a price.