April 8th. Night. Blackthorn. South Texas, CSA

"On a gathering storm comes
a tall handsome man
In a dusty black coat with
a red right hand"
--Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "Red Right Hand"

Silas Underhill sat down, set his hammer aside, and pulled the bottle of laudanum from his desk. His work was done for now...the body was snugly tucked away in it's eternal home, and all that was left was the burial, which could wait until morning, after the dandy had actually paid him for his labors.

He took a swig from the bottle. Good stuff for what ails a body, he reflected. He used to travel from town to town, selling bottles of this stuff sweetened with honey and mint, touting it as a wonderful miracle cure. "Dr. Marner's Marvelous Medicine." he chuckled at the memory, and the irony of his situation. For the last three years he'd been in the town of Blackthorn planting bodies in the ground instead of selling them panaceas to keep them out of it. Sure, he'd needed to learn carpentry fast, but at least now his customers didn't complain about his wares.

Or so he had thought.

Until the banging came from the coffin he'd just finished nailing shut.

Underhill started at the noise, as would any sane man in his circumstances. He almost spilled his medicine all over himself in shock. The clatter continued.

What in perdition was going on? You heard about live burials, sure, but Underhill had learned to make discreet cuts in his charges to avert that little problem, should a body prove less dead than advertised. This man hadn't bleed...he'd just oozed. No way he could still be alive!

Whatever was in the box, though, didn't seem to appreciate the impossibility of it's motions, and continued to bang at the pine lid. Underhill heard the wood begin to crack under the pounding, and decided it would be a good idea to fish the Derringer out of his desk, move near the door, and wait for this nightmare to stop. Yes, this was surely just a delirious dream brought on by the laudanum, nothing more.

The coffin lid warped as it began to buckle under the pounding. Splinters flew as the coffin shattered, and the curious body began to struggle upwards.

It wasn't long dead, only a few hours if the man who'd brought it in was to be believed, and had been dressed in the uniform of a Union soldier. And now it was turning towards him, glaring at him with eerie red-glowing eyes. It began to speak, a horrible whisper passing grave air through rotting lips.

"...Mine eyes have seen the gloy of the coming of the Lord...I didn't find it glorious, in fact I was quite bored...we killed the Lamb of God and splashed it's blood across the wall...because Jesus hates us all..."

Underhill did what any right-thinking man would do when confronted by such a blasphemous mockery of all that was good and holy. He pissed his pants, dropped his gun, and ran into the street, shrieking like a little girl.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:22, Tue 17 Nov 2009.

There's a bloodcurlding scream from outside, and suddenly a thin fellow dressed in a swallowtail jacket and stovepipe hat comes crashing into the bar. He bulls his way to the bar. "God almighty!" he babbles. "I need a whiskey and an exorcism, or else a posse of folk with shotguns!"

Roland looks at him. "Mr. Underhill? What's the matter?"

"I just seen a ghost in my shop, that's whats the matter! The devil has come for old Silas Underhill at last, to make me pay for my sins!"

"Calm down, Mr. Underhill, please..." Roland begins, but the man will not be calmed.

He spies Robert heading upstairs to bed. "You!" he shouts. "What in perdition did you bring to my shop!? I got a corpse that won't stay dead, lurching about and shouting terrible things! What did you do to that poor man to make him want to crawl back from Hell again?"

Robert had spent quite some time gambling.  Not that he was a gambling man as such, but the company was pleasant enough.  He paid some attention to Injun drinking at the bar, and the two drifters who came in after him.



"Probably closed now, I.." Robert is interupted by the arrival of the raving Underhill.

"I didn't do nothing but find him.  Why don't you just sit down, get yourself a drink, and I'll go take a look"  Robert says soothingly.

The thing lets John take his drink back, swiftly distracted.
"It starts."

With that, it walks backward out of the bar space, looks at its hand, and makes off in the direction Mr.Underhill came from, pausing only at the threshold to look up and remark of the rain: "Sky falling."

John swallowed his beer hard which was about as bad as spitting it out would have been which was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. Gripping his throat in pain he looked at August and then the newcomer. With Alouette's words he blinked and watched the construct depart.

Standing John looked back at Silas "did it have red glowing eyes?" he asked as he pulled what appeared to be a couple river stones from the pocket of his duster. "Sounded like it was speaking scripture only not?" he asked.

"Yeah! You do that!" Underhill barks at Robert. He turns at John's question. "Yes! Eyes red and glowing like coals, and muttering the most horrible blasphemes! how did you know?"

Charging Bear shakes his head and downs his last drink. "First the dead rise, now evil spirits."

August is momentarily distracted by watching the construct depart, but the exchange between John and Underhill brings him back to the moment.

"We saw something like this before," he answers confidently.  "We stopped it that time, and we can stop this one, too."  He looks quickly around at the various others in the room as he speaks, although his words are mostly directed at his erstwhile companion.

That said, August heads towards the door, pausing long enough for a backward glance to see if anyone else is coming.

"what you see, some fella everyone thought was dead, but wasn't?  Hell, I'm not a doctor, must have made a mistake" Robert says as heads out.  "'scuse me young fella." he says as he slips past August, heading for the undertakers.

With a rather confused look on his face, Charging Bear listens to all the talk and watches Robert leave.

Rain splashing off it in a weak lightning-lit halo, the "angel" is out ahead of August and Mr.Micklethwait, walking towards the disturbance it senses with a steady, mechanical gait.

Charging Bear shakes his head again and walks towards out the door after the tin-can angel. He'll stop by his horse to pick up a pair of tomahawks.

The rain is beating down, and the lights from the lanterns don't provide much illumination into the street. But near the undertaker's shop is a figure, dressed in blue, shouting at the top of it's lungs. It staggers into the street, shuffling like a drunk, haranguing passers-by. Flashes of lightning spark the sky, but it's the man's red, glowing eyes that stand out most in the gloom.

"And I heard the voice of thunder! The crack of doom as the seal was broken! And behold, a white horse! And he who sat on it brought with him a blanket, infected with pox, to give to the friendly natives who knew no resistance! And he passed out food to the hungry, tainted with rot! And the ten plagues of Egypt now raged across the globe, with pestilence and pox and consumption and fever riding like Paul Revere to the north and south, the east and west! Come, embrace me, that you to may feel the withering caress of your wrathful God! I bring you His touch of mercy, the corruption that hides in His heart!"

Alouette carries on walking, passing into and out of static with gusts of rain, glinting like a hatchet. It stops just across from the noisy ranter, walking towards him until it has at least some attention.
"Cease."

With a half stumble, Charging Bear draws his pair of tomahawks. "What in the name of all ..." his words trail off into a slur.

Robert grimaces.  He says softly to Charging Bear (and August if he is there), "I don't think that man is in his right mind.  Think maybe a preacher could talk him down?"

Taking a moment or three longer than one would expect, Charging Bear says, "I think he needs his head removed my good man... his eyes glow with fire from the spirits realm."

August is close on Robert's heels, having no intention of letting the harmless-looking older man head into harm's way alone.  He draws his revolver before taking more than a half-dozen paces away from the saloon, but keeps it pointed downward for now.

The sight of the blue-coated figure is exactly what August had anticipated, but that doesn't make it any more welcome.  Those red eyes mean that this isn't any mistake or misunderstanding.   He nods at Charging Bear's words.  "First one we met wasn't interested in talking any, 'cept for its own mad preaching."

He takes a few steps to one side, angling to get a clearer view of the ranting madman.

"Might be hard to explain to the local sherrif." With that thought in mind, Robert glances up and down the street, looking for the sheriffs office.

[Private to GM: In case you are curious, I'm trying to role play the Agency line, "nothing to see here, move alone, he's not a walking dead man...cows turn themselves inside out all the time..."]

The man cocks his head. "Cease? Cease, you say? But what about the poor, innocent people? Don't they have a right to know their doom flies of swift wings towards them? That their hollow, empty lives of pain will soon be swept away? That their idols are false and gilded, and with tarnish before their eyes? No! No! A thousand times, no! I have so much to do, and so much to reap, before my task is finished. And you will not hinder me. I remember you of old. Before the Storm. You vanished before the Pact was broken. Where did you go, I wonder? And what will you do to stop me? What can you do?"

He starts to move around Alouette, to continue his ranting.

[Private to Robert Micklethwait: I gathered that. :D]

A brass hand goes out, catches the walking dead man around the neck, holds him. "You...remember...my name...?" The construct goes completely still a moment, then shakes itself, something glowing hot behind its glass-lens eyes, voice hissing through the static like the damned caught and torn in the wind. "And you would light the fire of fires...for silence? No. This is not subtle, si-ssst-static error."

Alouette twitches and straightens. It sounds far more as though it's tapped into old programming now, apparently oblivious to anything that just passed between itself and the corpse.
"Object: demon - release! exit! avaunt! leave present clay, you are commanded."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:44, Wed 18 Nov 2009.

O'Rourke had listened to the commotion when the undertaker had staggered into the saloon half hysterical. He had followed the rest of the group from the Grand Bull out into the rain to see what precisely the man had been raving about, the talk of blasphemy and demons arousing the priest's curiosity.

Upon encountering the fire eyed ranter, O'Rourke listened carefully to the man's speech and to Alouette's response to it.  Muttering a prayer for protection, O'Rourke spoke up, addressing the blue clad figure. "What doom is it you speak of, friend?" he asked. "What sin have these people committed to bring such wrath upon them? The Lord is both just and merciful. Perhaps there is still time?"

"Might have an answer for you. Might not." It's face twists into a rictus grin. "I have a mission. Unhand me, let me fulfill it, and I might reveal it." Then Alouette dips into demon outcast mode. "Oh...so that is how it's going to be. Then it will be blood and fire."

At Father O'Rourke's words, it twists its head toward him and laughs. "Mercy!? You speak of a just and merciful Lord?" It continues to laugh. "Tell me, have you faced justice for your crimes? Was your just and merciful god there for the man whose blood stains your hands? I am a herald of a judgment that has already been rendered, and, if necessary, it's executor as well. And I am no friend of yours."

It turns and glares at Alouette again. "Now. Unhand me, that I may continue my work."

John had followed August out the door selecting river stones from his pocket as he did so. These were smooth but blunt more capable for his purposes that the more slender and pointed stones. Upon seeing Allouette grab the thing and tell it to cease he holds back sIting to see what might happen and trying to be prepared for anything. "That gentleman is right, the thing is an undead abomination but a town sheriff might not be so understanding." he said. He wouldn't hesitate if the thing gave him cause or things got hairy.