Augustus Spotswood, Charging Bear, Alouette

Sunset, April 9th, 1879. The Circle W Ranch, just outside Blackthorn, Texas.



Musical selection: "Carillon," Ennio Morricone, "For A Few Dollars More"

The coach drivers on in silence for a while. The sun begins to dip below the horizon, painting the clouds orange against a dark blue sky.

There's a chill in the air as the shadows lengthen. It isn't caused by any breeze, or the dying end of the day. It's the sort of chill that settles into the spine. Weeds stretch up like grasping claws, and the grass rustles as if something's hiding within.

The house towards which the carriage travels is a Queen Anne-style mansion, painted a dark blue that seems almost black in the waning light. Several other structures, including a corral and a barn, loom in the shadows.

"Well. Here we are. My home." Ward says to the gathered scientist, Indian, and automaton. "You may enter and make yourselves comfortable in the sitting room while I secure the carriage and carry this poor gentleman to a room. You may ask my servant Abraham for refreshment, if you like. I will return shortly."

With that, he opens the carriage door to allow Augustus, Charging Bear, and Alouette to step out...

[[OOC: Feel free to do any backposts about the ride, as well as any thoughts you'd like to cover before you enter the house. Also, note that the Fear Level has risen as you've come closer to the property...the Fear Level is now 4. If you have any reactions to that, feel free to post them as well]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:42, Wed 04 Aug 2010.

The automaton shows no signs of taking up the offer of hospiality. It'll help move Danny if requested, but otherwise it'll just stay near is 'albatross' and pace behind the one moving him...which makes it mildly startling when renewed movement brings a soft murmur of static in the dying light, cut through by speech.

"God is watching you."

Augustus seems quite ready to quit the carriage.  Bags in hand, he steps out onto the drive before the mansion.  Taking it all in, he nods a bit, very impressed.  A man of means and thus, most likely, a man of skill.  At the offer of hospitality, Augustus bows his head a bit, "My thanks, good sir.  I would very much enjoy settling in to some comfort.  It has been too long."  He starts to head towards the mansion, but manages to catch the automaton's mysterious and, un-nerving, words.  Turning back about, he casts a curious eye on the machine as it starts to follow the "injured" man, "I'm sure He is...  But, that man is in good hands.  Can...you...join me in the sitting room?  I would like to ask...you...a few questions."  He stumbles over the word "you" as he speaks to the machine.  As though his mind just won't accept that as the right word when speaking with a machine.

Charging Bear spent a majority of the carriage ride with his eyes fixed out the window. Perhaps it was old habit, wanting to know where he was going, looking for landmarks, that sort of things. Or he could've just been pondering what had happened as of late, so much strange happening going around in this little town for no obvious reason. His hand occasional drifted the doll around his neck and would linger on it as if the doll had a strange texture to it which he was drawn to.

"Yes. I'm sure He is." Ward remarks absently as he and his driver tie up the coach and remove Danny.

"I think that is an excellent idea." Ward says when Augustus speaks up. "And besides, I have work to do, and I would prefer privacy while doing it. Do not be concerned, Friend Alouette. I will take good care of this man."

With that, Ward and his driver pick the boy up, and carry him up a narrow flight of stairs, leaving Alouette and Augustus alone in the foyer.

[Private to Alouette: you can try to follow, but as Alouette isn't the most agile thing I'll need an Agility + Wild Die roll from you if you attempt to clank your way up these stairs.]

"Possible, AUG-US-TUS, but self is angel, primary command: protect." It points "Protect Dr.Ward, also."

It sidles in and, if Augustus doesn't remove himself immediately, lays two gentle brass fingers on his breastbone.
"You can cease to have sickness now," it informs him, then turns and clanks, clangs and ricochets its way up the narrow stairs after its albatross.


[[OOC: Sorry, Augustus. I really want to see them interact too, but it has a terminator-like determination where it thinks mortals are in danger - its primary commands override all others.]]


[Private to GM: Trying to pique the manitou's interest and bribe it to keep its head right down, hiding attention-drawing symptoms - would a power point transferred by touch work? Augustus can shrug it off as placebo]

Ward and the other man leverage the boy into a guest room on the upper floor. The boy is laid on a bed, and Ward sets his bag down, His driver fetches a bowl of water and a washcloth, but has to struggle past Aloutte's bulk to get by. Dr. Ward sighs, unamused.

"Friend Alouette. I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time." his voice is calm, but strained. he's clearly losing patience with the clank. "I have work to do, and I have neither the space nor the patience to let you observe. I give you my word as a gentleman and a doctor that I will cause no further harm to this man beyond what he has already endured this evening." He stands, and stares deeply into the automaton's dark lenses. "Now, would you kindly return downstairs and await my return?"

And as he speaks, his fierce will battles with the controls and command mechanisms of Alouette's long-vanished creator...

[Private to Alouette: Congratulations. You've managed to annoy Ward enough that he's breaking out the magical compulsion. Alouette with need to roll a Spirit (+ Wild Die) check and beat 5 in order to resist the command to return downstairs.

On the subject of "bribing the manitou"...it's already laying low as much as it can. It can't hide Augustus' cough, nor the fact that he's really a walking dead man. That's part of what being a Harrowed is. It's already making Augustus as alive-seeming as it has the power to. It can rebuild any future wounds he takes, but it can't fully heal the cause of his original death]

In reply to Alouette (msg #6):

Augustus seems too surprised by the automaton's approach to attempt any defensive maneuvering.  He looks down at the brass hand, then up into the strange "eyes", as he is told his illness is gone.  As the automaton turns to go, Augustus has just a moment wherein he actually begins to almost believe that some great power is actually at work....  But then he is forced to drop a bag and grab for a handkerchief to cover his mouth for a coughing fit.  Ah well.

The light far down in the automaton's eyes flares a little with a spark of static; for an instant so brief it might be passed off as fancy there's the sensation of meeting the eye of some wild thing as one stumbles through the wilderness, the sharp gaze of a hawk perhaps...a hawk of a size that could block out the sun.

"Dr.Ward needs protecting too. Albatross could get more wendigo; would eat magic-for-protecting, then people," the automaton states in its usual guiless way.

"Self can remove outside room, for plus space," it suggests.

[Private to GM: Almost tripled his score. I'll still do it for attention, then. The consumption's purely psychosomatic, though - if Augustus truly believed he wasn't sick he'd stop coughing and constantly re-opening the lesions. I told you right at the start/before I knew he was Harrowed the entity wasn't picking up disease: it's as dead as he is]

In reply to Alouette (msg #9):

Ward looks surprised as his will meets resistance much stronger than he was expecting, then sighs and seems to resign himself to the automaton's presence.

"Very well. That will be acceptable, if it must be." Then he turns and begins dabbing at the boy's head with a cold compress, mixing medications from his bag, and heating a needle in a candle flame before re-stitching the wounds in the boy's leg and back. After about ten minutes of treatment, Ward washes his hands in the basin and wraps the wounds in bandages. He pours a spoonful of the medicine he mixed, and gently pours the mixture down the boys throat.

The boy begins to blink awake. "Wh...where...?" he groans in a thin Irish accent, before his eyes focus on Ward. The eyes grow wide, and the man starts screaming...

[Private to Alouette: It's not really psychosomatic, and it's not consumption. It's Augustus trying to cough the water that drowned him from his lungs and only being partially successful. The water always returns.]
This message was last edited by the player at 19:00, Thu 05 Aug 2010.

Charging Bear shivers visibly as he exits the carriage. This land was wrong in a way that touched Charing Bear's very soul. His face turns a slight shade of pale as he looks about, as though he could identify what was tainting this place. He follows the others inside but his pace is a bit slower than the others. Staying in the foyer he remains quiet as his eyes scan the house for signs of what is causing him to feel ill.

Then comes the scream...

OOC: What was/is the fear level of town?
And a Guts check just incase
15:07, Today: Charging Bear rolled 3,5 using 1d4-3,1d6-3, rerolling max with rolls of (4+2)6,(6+2)8. Guts (+1 Grit, -4 Fear Level).