Morgan cussed himself as Bob charged Gabby. The Marshal was enraged at his own weakness, for allowing his own curse to blind him to the danger the undead giant presented. Leveling his Colt at Bob's head, he took careful aim, doing his best not to hit Gabby. The moment he had a shot, he fired.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:31, Sun 25 Nov 2012.

Darling angles to his right, looking for a shot that wouldn't endanger Gabby. The Gatling is by no means a precision weapon.

He gritted his teeth and growled in frustration as his attempts to crush the old man in his grasp seemed to be meeting with failure and dropped him as a bullet ripped part of his head away.

Gabby was expecting to be grabbed, and clenched his teeth as the giant swooped at his He felt his breath near driven from his old bones in the monster's grip, but Gabby was a tough old bird, and managed to fight against the crushing power of the man-thing's grip and remain conscious. When Bob dropped him, Gabby took a quick shot at his head, but missed entirely thanks to still being a bit winded and disoriented from the bear hug.

As the grotesque creature dropped the old miner, Randolph saw his chance. "Stay down, Gabby!" he yelled and cut loose with the Gatling in a long burst that probably expended half his ammunition.

"Let that man go Zachary!" he ordered, though the thing that had once been Zachary Hanover didn't seem to respond at all to the aggression in his voice. The rage lurking behind the hulking thing's eyes didn't care that it had once been something - someone - more, once upon a time. It no longer knew or recognized Zachary Hanover or Dan Phelps. It no longer seemed capable of thinking through anything. Zachary Hanover had once been a good man, but this was no longer him, and Phelps was certain that this wasn't what Zach had wanted for his life. It certainly wouldn't be what any God fearing person would want after death.

Staring at Zachary over the barrel of his Peacemaker he fired his gun, and it roared in pain but seemed only to grow enraged.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:56, Thu 29 Nov 2012.

Gabby didn't need any more urging. He planted himself flat as the gatling pistol went to work, then rolled a few feet away from the monster and chambered a round.

Last shot. he thought as he took aim at the monster's head, and squeezed of a round...

But Bob jerked about as Phelps shot him, and that carefully aimed shot missed the monster by a hair.

Damn.

"Damnation,", Morgan muttered as giant kept coming, still fighting despite its numerous wounds. Praying he might hit something vital (though what was vital on a dead man?), Morgan lined up Bob's head in his sights and fired another shot.

Daniel screamed out, "Nooooooo!" as the thing went after Gabby. In his exuberance, Daniel lost a bit of his concentration, and never made any solid contact with the thing's noggin. He so wanted to stop it from hurting his uncle, but wasn't quite able to do so.

At close range, bullet from the Marshal's weapon ripped into the Bob's face, sundering bone and tearing into putrid, rotting flesh. Riddled with holes, the face that was once recognizable as Zachary Hanover was now barely there - nothing but a mass of oozing unnaturally dark and thick blood, torn flesh and shattered bone. For a moment, he slumped backwards, leaning into the wall and was still before lurching back into action as it lunged at Caleb slamming its fist into his stomach.

An idea flitted across Cora's mind and she quickly grasped it, letting it take root and worm its way into her unconsciousness.  It was crazy!  It would never work.  Would it?  All she could do was make the attempt and let the cards (coughcough) fall where they may.  Taking a deep breath, she reached for the cork that stoppered the other dimension and kept it from flowing out.  Easing it open with the flick of her fan, she pulled the phantom cards from the ether and paled at what she saw.  Still, it would be enough, no matter the cost she had to pay.  The cards disappeared and invisible power flowed into her hands and to the giant monstrosity.  What had been done would be undone, and in typical grisly fashion.

Just as the giant man pulled back to strike another wild and powerful blow, something unusual happened and a fey energy seemed to inhabit the room for only a moment. The crude sutures holding the patchwork man together began to unravel, and what was left of him - bullet riddled and bloody as his body was from the barrage of attacks he had withstood - fell to pieces on the ground before them. Now that he was not held physically together, whatever forces had animated the man into a cruel state of unlife seemed no longer to persist as his arms and legs lay there at rest.

But that wasn't all that unraveled. Quickly, the stitching in the thread of Coraline's maroon dress began to come apart, falling down around her. Daniel's white shirt began to come apart around him, as did that worn by Randolph and Wilder. On the other hand, the denims worn by Gabby, Caleb and Phelps seemed to suddenly fall apart as their stitching unraveled. Radcliffe's clothing didn't seem to hold at all, save for his socks, shoes and undergarments.

Gabby blinks. He looks at the mass of meat that used to be Bob, then at the flaps of denim that used to be his Levis. "Wha...?" was all he managed.

Daniel had just taken a step forward to try to slice the bob in half when he started to become undone. His brow furrowed as he stepped back, though he leveled his sword in the direction of Radcliffe, just to let him know that Daniel was still aware that he was alive. He looked around at the others, suddenly glad of his suspenders, though he averted his gaze when it drifted too close to Coraline. "What in the name of-", he started, but didn't complete the thought. With a sigh he asked, "Anyone got a clue of what's goin' on here?" His gaze eventually settled on Radcliffe, though it wasn't an accusatory look so much as it was a safety precaution. That and he wanted to assess the man's wounds. He would probably need to patch him up to keep the man from bleeding out. Fortunately, there was a lot of cloth usable to staunch wounds just about now.

He removed his duster and held it out away from his body at arm's length in case anyone else might want to make use of it.

"What the hell!" asked Marshal Phelps as he saw his denims come unstitched around his legs, falling down around his boots, leaving him standing dressed as before but only with his drawers on where they had been covered before. Looking about, he saw clothing unraveling from the others around him. Being a proper gentleman, he averted his eyes when they fell on Coraline as her dress looked like it was unraveling around her.

"I've never seen anything like it," mused Wilder, as he held the component pieces of what had once been his shirt. "Quite the phenomenon. Something happened to cause Radcliffe's abomination to come apart at the stitches, and quite subsequently our clothing seems to be falling apart at the stitches. Or at least some of it. Inconceivable!"

The scientist seemed to have forgotten about the current predicament as he pondered the situation until his eyes fell upon the still form of Radcliffe. "Is he...dead?" Radcliffe's unmoving body was on the floor as it had been, all blood and buckshot.

Randolph let his Gatling hang from its sling as he removed his duster and draped it smoothly around Coraline's shoulders.

"I apologize for the weight," he murmurs, "But at least it will spare your modesty."

The marshal decided that there was not much that could be done about his lack of pants and knelt by Radcliffe, shaking his head as he examined the man's leg. "His leg is pretty fucked up," he said, looking up at Coraline for a moment and then tipping his hat to her, adding "pardon my language ma'am."

He cleared his throat and continued talking to the group. "But this is beyond my ability with first aid. We need some kinda surgeon to get him a fixer up. We can probably carry him over to that buckboard and take 'im back to the train like that. Maybe somebody back there can fix 'im up."

Coraline gasped as her dress suddenly fell to pieces and clutched frantically at the front pieces to cover her under garments.  Her eyes widened at the result of her spell, though the guilty blush in her cheeks was easily explained away by her condition.  She blew out a breath as her gaze touched the pile of dead flesh that lay scattered across the floor, undone by her magic.  Despite the backlash they all suffered, she had to stifle a grin at the result.  The demon had wielded its power well, though the strength astounded her.

Throwing Randolph an appreciative glance as he draped his duster about her shoulders, she slid her arms into the sleeves and pulled it tightly around her.  Once it was fully buttoned, she let her dress drop to the ground.  "Goodness," she said aloud as she bent to pick up the pieces.  Her gaze flitted to Phelps at his swear, but she only smirked.  "I think we should leave this place before something else... strange... happens."

His abdomen still throbbing from the giant's blow, Morgan paused to consider the situation, first feeling relief at the disassembling of Hanover, then confusion when he saw that he and the others had lost various articles of clothing. As he listened to Phelps' suggestion about Radcliffe, he decided to let humor prevail. Hell, it could be worse. At least it wasn't wintertime.

Worse than his physical injury was the lingering knowledge of his momentary weakness about Hanover. A hard lesson learned. He couldn't allow what had befallen him to keep him from his duty again. Monsters were monsters. All of them had to be dealt with at the proper time.

Turning to Phelps, he said, "I'll help you get Radcliffe loaded up, Marshal." He paused, then added, "I'm sorry for what became of Zachary. I'll do my best to see that Radcliffe gets what's coming to him in Dodge."

Addressing d'Alex, he asked, "Daniel, could you have a look at Radcliffe? See if you can't keep him from bleeding to death 'til we can find a doctor. Dying here would be way too easy on him."

He studied the mangled mess Gabby had made of Radcliffe's leg and smiled. "At least he won't go running off on us."

Daniel shook his head. "No, no runnin' anymore. I'll see what I c'n do." Daniel bent down by the man and checked to be sure he didn't have any weapons on him that he might decide to shove into Daniel if he awoke. He then began to work on the man's leg to see if he could keep him from bleeding out before they got him back to a surgeon.

Gabby struggles to his feet, the strips of denim from his pants flapping about giving him the look of wearing chaps, beneath which his white long johns were visible. "Well...I don't reckon I know how I'm gonna explain that to the folk back at the train..." he says idly as he picked up the shotgun shells that had scattered from his ruined pockets. He loaded his shotgun and shoved the rest into the pockets of his shirt. "Damn. You reckon this is a result o' that machine I blowed up?" He asks Wilder.

"It could be, though I haven't seen its like. But science is strange these days, and we're always discovering new things that we didn't think were possible the day before. Usually when one of these inventions misbehaves it has something to do with what it does. Maybe he used it to make that monster, and when you shot it...I still don't see why it should affect our clothing. But who can say?" He shook his head and shrugged.

"It would have to be studied more, and I don't think I'm up for that. As far as I'm concerned, all the things he's done should be left here and not used again."

Gabby nods. "I done hear that. So why didja make that thing there, anyhow?" He points to the creepy hand with the eyeball. "Gives me the screamin' heebie jeebies, it does, but it done alright getting us here. Is it like a pet or somethin'?"

"Just to see what I can do, I guess," he said, shrugging. "I got a link with it to my mind, and I can get it to run around and do stuff if its close to me. If it's not close to me, it'll try and find me. It's not too terribly bright on its own. When it got close to me earlier is when I had it write that message to you to come help me."

"It's as far as I wanted to take that, but I suppose I didn't think through the consequences of my research - that they might make someone try to take dead people and do things with them. I never knew that Radcliffe was a madman, I just thought he shared my appreciation for scientific discovery."

Morgan sighed, surveying the wreckage of Radcliffe's machine. "Truth is, Mr. Wilder, that hand of yours served a good purpose. It helped save your life. The sad truth is, there's a lot of good things that can be used for evil, should they fall into the wrong hands."

"Once you have your nerves back, sir, I'd appreciate it if you'd write down what happened to you, before we part ways."