13:47, Today: William Pierce rolled 5,13 using d6+4,d6+4, rerolling max with rolls of 1,(6+3)9. Super-Notice!

Surprised, William grits his teeth, but stops moving after a few protests from the birds. He tries to relax as good as he can, scanning the ground with his glowing eyes...

Peering through the stinging sheets of hail as he circles into the sky, William can clearly see the chupacabra dragging a man's body towards the open end of the carriage house.

There are a lot of slow-moving dark shapes around - the cows, he realises, just beginning to shake off whatever influence had caused them to leave and starting to re-form herds. A quarter-mile distant towards the creek that scores town- and seaward from the low hills, he sees a rider clutching something pale. The figure flickers through the scrub.

"D'ya see cowboys?" asks something on his head.

Being so high up, William can also note a pattern of dented shrubbery heading more directly for those rocky hills. It's like the track of a serpent through grass, only on a huge scale. Glancing back towards Blackthorn as they circle, Pierce spots a lone, very dark figure wandering the scrub. It's horribly thin, and some once-human part of him isn't keen to look at it. For a moment, as a flash of lightning brightens the Blackthorn road, he thinks there might be an old roadworker leaning on his shovel grinning up at him, but by the time William's blinked the afterimages away there's definitely nothing there but potholes.

Hank follows as best he can from the ground, though the ranch house roof is clearly getting in his way and he can't really see what's going on.

Having previously discovered Bitter Waters sleeping on the floor in the carriage house, but also previously banned from touching him to move him to where there are sheets/see if he needs fixing, Alouette patters out and stands over the man. Then drops a piece of still-smouldering charcoal on the man's middle, in case the problem is that he's out of fuel.


[[ Alouette rolled 3 using 1d6. just checking. Jake is not on fire.

Give me a normal Vigour roll to see if being slightly toasty wakes Jake up, though.]]

The huckster woke with a start, his hand going in front of his face in a protective manner. He then felt the hot coal on his abdomen which he quickly tried to remove without burning himself. "Wha huh?!"


OOC:
09:17, Today: Jake Lawrence rolled 3,4 using d6-1,d6-1, rerolling max with rolls of 4,5. Vigor (-1 WP).
This message was last edited by the player at 15:09, Wed 14 Jan 2015.

"Howdy Bitter Waters!" the clank chirps, noting that providing fuel is Helpful. "...why were you sleeping on the ground?"

"Don't really know Clank. Though I imagine that the floor is where people slept before the bed was devised," Jake said with a slight eye roll.

Jake took a moment to see if he could put the still live coal somewhere it wouldn't burn down the house. Once that is done he look back to the Clank and said , "Last thing I recall was being run at by a chupacabra and a vampire cowboy."

"Angel-" Alouette corrects cheerfully. It watches Jake scuff the coal out of the carriage doors with curiousity.

"What is 'chupacabra'?" it asks when he comes back, then: "Where did they go?"

It ticks for a moment. "Did they bite you?"

"Jake." Jake corrected back with a lack of cheer.

"Chupacabra is Spanish for goat sucker. It sort of looks like someone skinned a coyote then stuck it full of barbs ... not terribly pretty.

No clue where they went from in here," he shrugged

"The Chupacabra yes, the vampire no."

"Howdy!" Alouette responds.

"Like the Pointy Dog Lady who wasn't a leprechaun? She said she was going to help Names William Pierce and Names William Pierce's Differently Alive Friend whoop the ass of a vampire...she shouldn't bite mortals, though; self will tell her that biting mortals is a sin and self is not required to protect her." There's a pause after this is established: the clank wanders up to the doors, cranes a bit, then comes back to pester Jake.

"Where is the priest?" it asks.

"I see dead people", Pierce replies.
When he spots Jake and Alouette, he adds: "There, take me to them."

"Don't know ... upstairs maybe. Probably where everyone else is ... so go find others and they'll likely know" Jake said with a shrug.

"Okay," the clank chirps, then is distracted by a blot against the clouds rapidly approaching the open end doors.

Jake sees lots and lots of little black-beaky birds decending to funnel in upon them. Stranger yet, in their midst rides a pale man...

"Howdy, Names William Pierce!" Alouette chirps as the crows let go.

[[Jake, William, Agility please.]]

OOC: As requested
16:02, Today: Jake Lawrence rolled 6,2 using d8-1,d6-1, rerolling max with rolls of 7,3. Agility (-1 WP).

22:45, Today: William Pierce rolled 2,7 using d10,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,(6+1)7. agility.

William shouts in alarm, then focuses on bringing his feet under him and falls to the muddy floor, hard. He lands on his feet,then falls forward, but catches his fall with his hands.

With his fangs bared, he looks up at the clank.

The clank misses both the snarling and Jake's narrow escape from being taken out by a ballistic vampire. "Howdy Tiny Crows!" it chirps at the birdies, who clearly want nothing to do with it, starling-flocking away in a chorus of disdain and alarm when it steps closer.

Instants later an extra hail-patter on the carriage house roof suggests the lot of them are listening in from above. The clank just tilts its shiny metal head for a bit, rosary tapping against the side, then looks down at William.

"Do you know where the priest and/or Dog Lady went?" it asks him. "Bitter Waters was sleeping on the floor but he didn't know why but self gave him fuel and he woke up...why were you in the sky? Do you have crow friends now too?"

Jake's instinct was to pull his gun which he attempted to do but since said pistol was now sitting outside rusting under a bush ... Jake simply slapped his empty holster. The huckster took the lack of attention to leave the clank and vampire to their own devices. His eyes land on the door to the kitchen which was where he headed.

The clank seems more interested in Pierce's decent from the heavens for the time being, though Jake should probably move fast if he doesn't want the damn thing following him with its eternal curiousity.

[[That'd be the bit of the And The Crows... thread Adrian's in, if William doesn't call you back for anything.]]

"Lawrence! Get back, you fool. There's one vampire left... if we don't find and end him, he might spawn another family."
Pierce growls after Bitter Waters.
He rises from the ground and answers Alouette: "Something took the priest as well as the nun. Not sure what and where, but I'm pretty sure it's all related to what's caused the whole town going to Hell. Once the last of the bloodsuckers is a pile of ash, I'll go after what took the priest."

The clank ticks for a bit.

"Where is Called Charging Bear?"

Jake glanced back at Pierce, "From the look of things, there are at least two more." The huckster smiled and kept walking. Though he kept an eye out for any firearm or weapon that might be about.

The clank looks at Pierce, trying to determine if he's doing anything mysterious. "Are you spawning, Names William Pierce?" it asks.

William shakes his head.
"You know I don't. Besides, I haven't fed on the blood of humans. The way I understand it, that's kinda necessary. Have you seen the other vampires?"

"Self has seen many other vampires," the clank states, possibly wondering at the question since Names William Pierce has seen other vampires too.

William sighs. "I meant, like, recently... Oh, nevermind."
He'll probably say: "Of course! you!" the gunslinger thought.

He peered into the darkness. One had been done in by the crows. The other one... and then there was the question what that Lawrence fellow had meant with "two". Like, two more or two including the crow victim?
He had half a mind of slapping "Bitter Waters" in his face.

Pierce slowly turned, nodding in Hanks direction as the boy turned around the corner, seemingly out of breath. He either truly doesn't know or he's faking it.
He still wasn't sure how he felt about someone from his past catching up to him. Who else was out there, following him all the way to this godforsaken piece of shit town?

He looked for the crows, to see if he could determine a vampire's location from where they were gathering.

11:26, Today: William Pierce rolled 6,7 using d6+4,d6+4, rerolling max with rolls of 2,3. Super Notice! Vampires, come out where ever you are!

The clank does point at William, but doesn't get as far as talking before being told to forget it.

Hank slows, seeing Pierce is in no danger, and looks around. "Where'd the chupe go?"

The crowlets are on the carriage house roof, mostly huddled in the shelter of the house. Small groups occasionally rise up into the buffeting wind to watch something going on far off then flutter back to chatter commentary to their fellows.

William notes that something very large headed for the hills, and that a shod horse started running a little later than the cattle trample, but otherwise any tracks are much-confused and collapsing fast as mud slides onto mud. The hail seems to be passing over, and the thunder less frequent, though the clouds out seaward suggest another soaking before dawn. Puddles are beginning to form on the saturated ground.