Zebulon Vitruvius Pike (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dime_novel_hero) wrote2009-11-22 08:40 am
dime_novel_hero) wrote2009-11-22 08:40 am
Deadlands RPG Session Twenty Six
From: Mr. Zebulon Pike, Coffin Rock, Colorado
To: Mrs. Hannelore West, Kingsport, Mass.
October 1879
Dearest Sister,
Before leaving Cheyenne, we were met by Miss LaRue. She is a messenger rider who occasionally rides through Deadwood, has some prior relationship with several of the girls of the House of Pancakes, has decided to join us in our travels at least in the short term and I mention her now in more detail because she brought us news. To me, she brought news that a package from you had arrived in my absence. It has been so very long since I have received anything more than letters from you and I am giddy at the prospect of discovering what surprise you have bestowed upon me. It is a shame that I shall have to wait until I find myself more settled to have it forwarded to me.
More immediately to our current situation, Mr. Pace received a collection of letters from a childhood friend of his named Daily. These letters told of his purchase of copper mining interests in Colorado, the founding of a town, his subsequent troubles only referred to cryptically and a request for assistance from Mr. Pace. It seemed fortuitous at the time in that where the letters found us in Cheyenne was was only a day and a half away. Unfortunately, the letters had been delayed in attempting to find Mr. Pace in his home city of New York and his desperate plea for help had been delayed by more than a month.
Coffin Rock lies on a narrow gauge spur approximately midway between Cheyenne and Denver. Since we could not take our train up this track, designed to shuttle copper ore down from the mine in the high valley, we left Zeke and Mr. Ho with the train on a siding next to a dilapidated tipple and rode our horses the rest of the way.
The town itself was in a forlorn condition such that I immediately guessed that at least half of it's population had left. And, on entering the town's saloon and learning that Daily had been dead for a month, it became almost instantly clear what was going on. Even so, I suspected that my comrades would proceed with their typical investigation. Mr. Bongiovi would play his guitar, drink and encourage people to talk. The diminutive Mr. Sombrero would drink and watch. Mr. Pace would gamble and Mr. Tobin would attempt to antagonize information out of people and be generally terrifying. Such tactics seldom produce details so I left them to search the town.
My first stop was the now closed town newspaper office. The door literally fell off its hinges from the slightest of pressure and my merely average weight broke through the floor, setting to flight a huge colony of mice that had been using the paper stock as nesting material. The paper's archives were mostly undamaged and the events of the past year unfolded. Having built the town from his initial investment and revenues from the copper mine, Mr. John Daily was yet a benevolent and forward thinking town leader. The town grew and diversified with Daily encouraging miners to settle their families. This growth brought with it some boisterous elements and Daily brought in a man named Bryce to act as sheriff. I suspect the journalism became more and more obtuse at this point as Daily attempted to conceal the undercurrent of difficulty that developed at this time. The copper veins played out. The economy suffered. There were mysterious disappearances and illnesses. Rising tensions amongst the dwindling population. In the end, Daily committed suicide, his house burned to the ground, Bryce inherited everything and the situation generally “went to hell.”
I'm sure you can deduce from the paragraph above that Bryce was Daily's murderer. Even sitting in the newspaper office at the time, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence to implicate the sheriff. Additionally, there seemed a web of intrigue that also included the preacher, who had arrived at about the time things started going bad, and the town doctor.
I left the newspaper offices and intended to investigate the assayer's office. If indeed my suspicions about Sheriff Bryce were true, it was possible that clues at the municipal offices may have been overlooked in his attempt to cover up his theft. The door was, of course, locked, and while I considered whether to attempt to manipulate the lock or try a more coarse entry, I noticed my reflection in the window glass. I appeared unnaturally gaunt and tired. What intrigued me was that the thinness of my hands as seen in the dark glass did not match their normal appearance when I looked on them directly. It was as if I was looking on an older version of myself standing on the other side of the window. With that, I decided to visit the doctor's office.
Before reaching that destination, however, I encountered the actions of what would be colloquially described as a poltergeist. Dust, dirt and various items of debris were swirling around the center of town as if driven by tornado-like winds except that there was no actual wind. I was able to determine that the center of this maelstrom was the unused schoolhouse and, once it dispersed I was able to approach. The simultaneous confluence of my comrades with Bryce and his deputies at the schoolhouse was not destined to go well. Even though Mr. Tobin did knot know the evidence I had gathered implicating Bryce in Daily's death, he nonetheless took an instant dislike to the man. When Toben takes a disliking to someone, that person is likely to end up seriously injured or dead. In this case, when the dust settled I was able to escort Sheriff Bryce to the town doctor.
I questioned the sheriff in a more civilized manner than Mr. Tobin had but found nothing to dissuade me from my initial conclusion that Bryce had killed Daily. But what my questioning did reveal was the mitigating circumstances that might turn some of the responsibility away from Bryce. Not that Bryce was not the murderer, he most assuredly pulled the trigger, but he may have had an external or even controlling influence guiding his actions. All evidence seemed to point to the Reverend Cheval.
The doctor indicated that I should see him about the rash I was developing. A rash that I could not see except in using the mirrored surface of my pocketwatch. I was disgusted and repulsed when he revealed that he had been treating these rashes with excision. In the next room, I found one of his patients, wracked with terrible pain, his skin nearly flayed from his body. I nearly killed the doctor then and there but reconsidered, thinking that perhaps he too was not in full control of his actions. I forbade him from treating the man any further and left forthwith across town to the community church.
Along the way, I passed by the school and collected up Mr. Bongiovi who was conversing with and calming the ghost of the young girl who had taken up residence. I passed by the hotel and collected up Miss LaRue and Mr. Tobin who was barely avoiding a gunfight with the sheriff's deputies. I passed by the town's brothel and collected up Messrs. Pace and Sombrero who, in their very short stay, had determined that the girls there were probably vampyres, demons or some other sort of siren.
We entered the church and found it to be occupied with disturbingly happy and inviting parishioners who seemed inordinately intent on offering us soup, which I suspected was drugged, poisoned or worse. When Mr. Pace kicked over the copper altar revealing a concealed tunnel, it was no surprise that they were provoked into attacking us. Again, suspecting that they were under some fell influence, I refrained from drawing my gun and instead employed the gentlemanly art of bartitsu to fend them off with cane and fisticuffs. In my attempts to prevent one of them from strangling me I regrettably had to use some significant force, rendering his skull concave.
With the cultists suitably pacified, we descended into the tunnels and then, ultimately, found ourselves at a tunnel entrance beneath the geologic formation from which the town earned its name. A short distance away from the entrance, we encountered a young woman being menaced by a largish man-shaped creature that seemed made of a red clay, like a golem of Jewish folklore. I rushed to her aid, drawing close to the creature, pointing the nozzle of my confligationater near to the back of its head and depressing the firing mechanism. Even as it's head was engulfed in liquid flame, it seemed only mildly irritated and turned upon me. I attempted to block its blow with my cane but its strength brushed it aside, glanced off my forearm and struck me upon the side of my head.
The sleeve of my frock coat and my hair were set alight by some inherent heat the creature possessed and I fell to the ground, rolling and batting my hair to extinguish the flames. I suffered some second degree burns on my left arm, both hands and left ear while mostly first degree burns upon my scalp. My hair, which had been growing overly long through neglect, was singed quite short. The top hat which you had given me as a birthday gift was, unfortunately, completely destroyed.
Meanwhile, the monster was finally put down under a hail of gunfire, whereupon it dissolved into a puddle of steaming, wet mud, with a human skeleton as a discarded structural framework.
The rescued girl was Daily's daughter who had taken refuge in the hills with several of the town's womenfolk. Miss Daily had letters from her father refuting Marshal Bryce's contention that her father had sold him the bulk of the town and Bryce had threatened her in an attempt to recover those papers.
While the others attended to the safety of Miss Daily, Mr. Tobin and I climbed Coffin Rock itself. At a distance, Mr. Tobin had seen someone standing atop the formation and felt it important to investigate. At the crest, we found a crevice in the rock with a rope ladder descending within and there we found an old Indian. He spoke English, though not very clearly, and offered to help us, reveal the secrets behind the towns decay and provide us with powerful weapons to combat the infesting evil if we would only meet two conditions. The first was to smoke from the offered "peace pipe" and the second to pass some unspecified test. Based on previous experience with these Indian customs and Mr. Tobin’s coffee, I refused. Mr. Tobin feels comfortable enough with such things and seems to have a good rapport with the natives but my experience has been mixed at best. I left Mr. Tobin to the task and climbed out of the cave. . . to emerge from the passage beneath the church altar.
I looked back and found the cave above Coffin Rock was not behind me. It was as if a door had opened up while I climbed taking me instantaneously from one place to the other, and then closed behind me to prevent my return. I wonderd by what mechanism the Indian accomplished this. Could such a thing become widely available it would revolutionize transportation. Indeeds, the nearly instantaneous passage over great distances could fundamentally change civilization. Unfortunately, I fear that the Indian, if interviewed on this, would speak only in mystical humbug. He would not actually know how it works, accepting on faith that it does work and having no curiosity in the understanding of its mechanics.
Quite ignorant and selfish.
With most of my comrades an hour or more away from their return to town, still smarting from my fiery encounter and not feeling particularly ambitious I waited for their return in a chair on the hotel's porch. I might even have dozed off for a short period of time.
When they did return, Mr. Tobin seemed even more intent than usual and I suspected that he had learned enough to push aside any hesitations, as if the letters to Miss Daily were insufficent. I rose from my chair and followed him to the doctor's house. There, I found that the patient I had seen earlier had died in the meantime. Had I been there, I might have been able to save his life. In another room, I found two more victims of his madness that would have been long dead even before we arrived in town. As I searched the office, learning that these unfortunates were apparently the parents of the spirit haunting the schoolhouse, I heard a muffled gunshot from upstairs as Mr. Tobin delivered justice upon the butcher. I was angry at his somewhat precipitous action and would very much liked to have studied him and his twisted mind to learn how it was that of all the people in the town, only he and I could see the malignancy infesting everything. And even then, what was the difference in that he could see clearly what I could only see in reflection?
I find Mr. Tobin’s single-minded pursuit of what he calls justice to be ignorant and selfish as well.
Mr Tobin next went to the jail to confront Sheriff Bryce. In a short gun battle, he defeated several of his deputies, disabled and disarmed the sheriff and bullied him into opening the lockbox with the deeds to the various properties in the town. He may have tortured additional information from the sheriff were it not for Daily’s daughter sending a rifle bullet through the sheriff’s skull in revenge for the murder of her father.
The townsfolk buried the doctor’s victims in the cemetery. With the phantom schoolgirl’s parents laid to rest, it was an easy enough task to find her own neglected corpse hidden beneath the classroom floorboards and bury her beside them. I advised burning all the bodies; the parents and child, sheriff and deputies, cultists and victims of the doctor, but was unable to convince the townspeople to set them all upon a pyre. I fear we may have to pay for that particular Christian nicety later.
Afterwards, most everyone retired to hotel rooms for the evening, preparing themselves for tomorrow’s tasks. There is still the Reverend Cheval to find. The monsters in the brothel across the street to attended to. The source of all these problems to be tracked down and eradicated, I suspect this will involve a search of the copper mine's depths.
In the past, I recall apologizing for the length of several letters when they exceeded a few pages in length. This letter is embarrassingly long and I profusely apologize for that. I have also over extended myself, having been awake for several days with the excitement and compounding it by writing when I should be sleeping, preparing myself for tomorrow’s sure to be harrowing adventure. There are still a few hours before sunrise so I may yet get some sleep.
I end this, ever your devoted brother,
Zebulon
To: Mrs. Hannelore West, Kingsport, Mass.
October 1879
Dearest Sister,
Before leaving Cheyenne, we were met by Miss LaRue. She is a messenger rider who occasionally rides through Deadwood, has some prior relationship with several of the girls of the House of Pancakes, has decided to join us in our travels at least in the short term and I mention her now in more detail because she brought us news. To me, she brought news that a package from you had arrived in my absence. It has been so very long since I have received anything more than letters from you and I am giddy at the prospect of discovering what surprise you have bestowed upon me. It is a shame that I shall have to wait until I find myself more settled to have it forwarded to me.
More immediately to our current situation, Mr. Pace received a collection of letters from a childhood friend of his named Daily. These letters told of his purchase of copper mining interests in Colorado, the founding of a town, his subsequent troubles only referred to cryptically and a request for assistance from Mr. Pace. It seemed fortuitous at the time in that where the letters found us in Cheyenne was was only a day and a half away. Unfortunately, the letters had been delayed in attempting to find Mr. Pace in his home city of New York and his desperate plea for help had been delayed by more than a month.
Coffin Rock lies on a narrow gauge spur approximately midway between Cheyenne and Denver. Since we could not take our train up this track, designed to shuttle copper ore down from the mine in the high valley, we left Zeke and Mr. Ho with the train on a siding next to a dilapidated tipple and rode our horses the rest of the way.
The town itself was in a forlorn condition such that I immediately guessed that at least half of it's population had left. And, on entering the town's saloon and learning that Daily had been dead for a month, it became almost instantly clear what was going on. Even so, I suspected that my comrades would proceed with their typical investigation. Mr. Bongiovi would play his guitar, drink and encourage people to talk. The diminutive Mr. Sombrero would drink and watch. Mr. Pace would gamble and Mr. Tobin would attempt to antagonize information out of people and be generally terrifying. Such tactics seldom produce details so I left them to search the town.
My first stop was the now closed town newspaper office. The door literally fell off its hinges from the slightest of pressure and my merely average weight broke through the floor, setting to flight a huge colony of mice that had been using the paper stock as nesting material. The paper's archives were mostly undamaged and the events of the past year unfolded. Having built the town from his initial investment and revenues from the copper mine, Mr. John Daily was yet a benevolent and forward thinking town leader. The town grew and diversified with Daily encouraging miners to settle their families. This growth brought with it some boisterous elements and Daily brought in a man named Bryce to act as sheriff. I suspect the journalism became more and more obtuse at this point as Daily attempted to conceal the undercurrent of difficulty that developed at this time. The copper veins played out. The economy suffered. There were mysterious disappearances and illnesses. Rising tensions amongst the dwindling population. In the end, Daily committed suicide, his house burned to the ground, Bryce inherited everything and the situation generally “went to hell.”
I'm sure you can deduce from the paragraph above that Bryce was Daily's murderer. Even sitting in the newspaper office at the time, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence to implicate the sheriff. Additionally, there seemed a web of intrigue that also included the preacher, who had arrived at about the time things started going bad, and the town doctor.
I left the newspaper offices and intended to investigate the assayer's office. If indeed my suspicions about Sheriff Bryce were true, it was possible that clues at the municipal offices may have been overlooked in his attempt to cover up his theft. The door was, of course, locked, and while I considered whether to attempt to manipulate the lock or try a more coarse entry, I noticed my reflection in the window glass. I appeared unnaturally gaunt and tired. What intrigued me was that the thinness of my hands as seen in the dark glass did not match their normal appearance when I looked on them directly. It was as if I was looking on an older version of myself standing on the other side of the window. With that, I decided to visit the doctor's office.
Before reaching that destination, however, I encountered the actions of what would be colloquially described as a poltergeist. Dust, dirt and various items of debris were swirling around the center of town as if driven by tornado-like winds except that there was no actual wind. I was able to determine that the center of this maelstrom was the unused schoolhouse and, once it dispersed I was able to approach. The simultaneous confluence of my comrades with Bryce and his deputies at the schoolhouse was not destined to go well. Even though Mr. Tobin did knot know the evidence I had gathered implicating Bryce in Daily's death, he nonetheless took an instant dislike to the man. When Toben takes a disliking to someone, that person is likely to end up seriously injured or dead. In this case, when the dust settled I was able to escort Sheriff Bryce to the town doctor.
I questioned the sheriff in a more civilized manner than Mr. Tobin had but found nothing to dissuade me from my initial conclusion that Bryce had killed Daily. But what my questioning did reveal was the mitigating circumstances that might turn some of the responsibility away from Bryce. Not that Bryce was not the murderer, he most assuredly pulled the trigger, but he may have had an external or even controlling influence guiding his actions. All evidence seemed to point to the Reverend Cheval.
The doctor indicated that I should see him about the rash I was developing. A rash that I could not see except in using the mirrored surface of my pocketwatch. I was disgusted and repulsed when he revealed that he had been treating these rashes with excision. In the next room, I found one of his patients, wracked with terrible pain, his skin nearly flayed from his body. I nearly killed the doctor then and there but reconsidered, thinking that perhaps he too was not in full control of his actions. I forbade him from treating the man any further and left forthwith across town to the community church.
Along the way, I passed by the school and collected up Mr. Bongiovi who was conversing with and calming the ghost of the young girl who had taken up residence. I passed by the hotel and collected up Miss LaRue and Mr. Tobin who was barely avoiding a gunfight with the sheriff's deputies. I passed by the town's brothel and collected up Messrs. Pace and Sombrero who, in their very short stay, had determined that the girls there were probably vampyres, demons or some other sort of siren.
We entered the church and found it to be occupied with disturbingly happy and inviting parishioners who seemed inordinately intent on offering us soup, which I suspected was drugged, poisoned or worse. When Mr. Pace kicked over the copper altar revealing a concealed tunnel, it was no surprise that they were provoked into attacking us. Again, suspecting that they were under some fell influence, I refrained from drawing my gun and instead employed the gentlemanly art of bartitsu to fend them off with cane and fisticuffs. In my attempts to prevent one of them from strangling me I regrettably had to use some significant force, rendering his skull concave.
With the cultists suitably pacified, we descended into the tunnels and then, ultimately, found ourselves at a tunnel entrance beneath the geologic formation from which the town earned its name. A short distance away from the entrance, we encountered a young woman being menaced by a largish man-shaped creature that seemed made of a red clay, like a golem of Jewish folklore. I rushed to her aid, drawing close to the creature, pointing the nozzle of my confligationater near to the back of its head and depressing the firing mechanism. Even as it's head was engulfed in liquid flame, it seemed only mildly irritated and turned upon me. I attempted to block its blow with my cane but its strength brushed it aside, glanced off my forearm and struck me upon the side of my head.
The sleeve of my frock coat and my hair were set alight by some inherent heat the creature possessed and I fell to the ground, rolling and batting my hair to extinguish the flames. I suffered some second degree burns on my left arm, both hands and left ear while mostly first degree burns upon my scalp. My hair, which had been growing overly long through neglect, was singed quite short. The top hat which you had given me as a birthday gift was, unfortunately, completely destroyed.
Meanwhile, the monster was finally put down under a hail of gunfire, whereupon it dissolved into a puddle of steaming, wet mud, with a human skeleton as a discarded structural framework.
The rescued girl was Daily's daughter who had taken refuge in the hills with several of the town's womenfolk. Miss Daily had letters from her father refuting Marshal Bryce's contention that her father had sold him the bulk of the town and Bryce had threatened her in an attempt to recover those papers.
While the others attended to the safety of Miss Daily, Mr. Tobin and I climbed Coffin Rock itself. At a distance, Mr. Tobin had seen someone standing atop the formation and felt it important to investigate. At the crest, we found a crevice in the rock with a rope ladder descending within and there we found an old Indian. He spoke English, though not very clearly, and offered to help us, reveal the secrets behind the towns decay and provide us with powerful weapons to combat the infesting evil if we would only meet two conditions. The first was to smoke from the offered "peace pipe" and the second to pass some unspecified test. Based on previous experience with these Indian customs and Mr. Tobin’s coffee, I refused. Mr. Tobin feels comfortable enough with such things and seems to have a good rapport with the natives but my experience has been mixed at best. I left Mr. Tobin to the task and climbed out of the cave. . . to emerge from the passage beneath the church altar.
I looked back and found the cave above Coffin Rock was not behind me. It was as if a door had opened up while I climbed taking me instantaneously from one place to the other, and then closed behind me to prevent my return. I wonderd by what mechanism the Indian accomplished this. Could such a thing become widely available it would revolutionize transportation. Indeeds, the nearly instantaneous passage over great distances could fundamentally change civilization. Unfortunately, I fear that the Indian, if interviewed on this, would speak only in mystical humbug. He would not actually know how it works, accepting on faith that it does work and having no curiosity in the understanding of its mechanics.
Quite ignorant and selfish.
With most of my comrades an hour or more away from their return to town, still smarting from my fiery encounter and not feeling particularly ambitious I waited for their return in a chair on the hotel's porch. I might even have dozed off for a short period of time.
When they did return, Mr. Tobin seemed even more intent than usual and I suspected that he had learned enough to push aside any hesitations, as if the letters to Miss Daily were insufficent. I rose from my chair and followed him to the doctor's house. There, I found that the patient I had seen earlier had died in the meantime. Had I been there, I might have been able to save his life. In another room, I found two more victims of his madness that would have been long dead even before we arrived in town. As I searched the office, learning that these unfortunates were apparently the parents of the spirit haunting the schoolhouse, I heard a muffled gunshot from upstairs as Mr. Tobin delivered justice upon the butcher. I was angry at his somewhat precipitous action and would very much liked to have studied him and his twisted mind to learn how it was that of all the people in the town, only he and I could see the malignancy infesting everything. And even then, what was the difference in that he could see clearly what I could only see in reflection?
I find Mr. Tobin’s single-minded pursuit of what he calls justice to be ignorant and selfish as well.
Mr Tobin next went to the jail to confront Sheriff Bryce. In a short gun battle, he defeated several of his deputies, disabled and disarmed the sheriff and bullied him into opening the lockbox with the deeds to the various properties in the town. He may have tortured additional information from the sheriff were it not for Daily’s daughter sending a rifle bullet through the sheriff’s skull in revenge for the murder of her father.
The townsfolk buried the doctor’s victims in the cemetery. With the phantom schoolgirl’s parents laid to rest, it was an easy enough task to find her own neglected corpse hidden beneath the classroom floorboards and bury her beside them. I advised burning all the bodies; the parents and child, sheriff and deputies, cultists and victims of the doctor, but was unable to convince the townspeople to set them all upon a pyre. I fear we may have to pay for that particular Christian nicety later.
Afterwards, most everyone retired to hotel rooms for the evening, preparing themselves for tomorrow’s tasks. There is still the Reverend Cheval to find. The monsters in the brothel across the street to attended to. The source of all these problems to be tracked down and eradicated, I suspect this will involve a search of the copper mine's depths.
In the past, I recall apologizing for the length of several letters when they exceeded a few pages in length. This letter is embarrassingly long and I profusely apologize for that. I have also over extended myself, having been awake for several days with the excitement and compounding it by writing when I should be sleeping, preparing myself for tomorrow’s sure to be harrowing adventure. There are still a few hours before sunrise so I may yet get some sleep.
I end this, ever your devoted brother,
Zebulon