Clementine stops running as the panic passes. She can't just leave the master to those...those things!

She turns, and rushes back to the room, leaping and snapping at the monster that seemed to be the weakest.

Gabby grits his teeth as one of the critters gnaws on his boots, but the one trying to get out held his attention. He focused on the monster, took a deep breath, sighted, and squeezed the trigger, sending buckshot into the tiny demon.

Korpi stopped preening her breastfeathers on top of the wardrobe and watched, wondering why the crazy white men wanted to break up each kikituk individually rather than corraling them into a corner under a blanket and stomping them. She startled a little at the shot, twisting to nip at some stray fragment that had nicked her side.

The raven raked her beak through the base of her feathers a little more. Nothing there, not a drop of blood or fleck of lead...and no longer any pain.
"Yaponsky bog," she cursed.

Korpi flew down to the windowsill, completely ignoring the kikituk, and leant to see whether it had got the window open.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:40, Tue 04 June 2013.

Watching the one at the window drop, Gabby continues taking aim and shooting at the heads around him, trying to thin the herd. His third shot splatters one across the room, but by now the things were getting wise to him, and his last shot is wide, blowing up a lamp rather than the head that he'd been aiming for as it dived away.

"I'm out!" Gabby called to Danial. "Cover me while I reload." he sees blood fly as the boy lays into the things with his sword.

Daniel seemed to be in his element while swinging his sword about, connecting with nothing but heads and gonads. He even occasionally gave it a twirling flourish before slamming it into the head of his next victim, splitting it like a ripe melon.

He gave his uncle the barest of nods, since Daniel was concentrating on all the skittering things, but as requested he slid over to protect his elder kin, the pointy end of his sword leveled at the remaining mini-constructs.

Korpi strangely, and very suddenly stopped fooling around with the window, and turned her attention on the monstrosity forged from the hand and head of a dead man. With a cry, she landed upon it, and began to viciously savage it with her beak, resulting in a sickening display of blood and gore flying about around it till there was little left recognizable of the head that came attached to that hand.

Daniel wrinkled his nose at the mess Korpi made. He would have to either give the bird a bath or remind her brother to do so. Once they were done with these heads, anyway.

Daniel saw the last of the things nearby. He took a step and almost nonchalantly slammed his sword home.

"Izzat th' last of 'em?" He looked about for any more that they had missed, taking a moment to wipe his blade on the alredy messed bedsheets before sliding it back into its scabbard. He looked over at the bird. "That weren't very ladylike, Korpi. Yer gonna need ta wash yer plumage now. Lemme know if ya need a hand."

Korpi flicked a last piece of bloody brain matter to the floor and bent to clean her beak on the windowsill.

Something about the way her shadow moved over the darkened glass behind made it seem that for an instant there was a larger bird behind, or, as she looked up, a crouched figure wearing some kind of feathered headdress. An instant only: with a wink of the gaslight behind the curtain the dark glass showed only mild distortions.

Korpi jumped onto the foot of the bed, shaking her bloodied pinions and settling down to trying to preen off the sticky before she clotted. "Krrk rrk rr rrb..." she grumbled, picking bone shards off her back, then looked up at Dalix. "Saui."

She tilted his head to focus on him. "Saui."

Gabby shudders a bit as the raven goes to work on the heads, but he was glad it was over.

"I reckon most o' these poor devils weren't made here." He says as he bends down to examine them. "Earp would have mentioned other beheadings to us. We gotta stop this guy, Danny."

Daniel smiled at Korpi as she started picking away at some of the remains from the head. He slowly moved toward her and assisted as best he could. "No need ta be sorry, Korpi. We all gotta do what we gotta do, ya know? An sometimes we gotta peck through the skull o' some ill-begotten critter. I jus' hate ta see a purty girl like ya mussed up, s'all."

Daniel focused his eyes on helping clean Korpi, but responded to his uncle. "Yup, we gotta stop whatever bastards are doin' this. I ain't so sure Radcliffe ain't behind it, though. I still gotta sneakin' suspicion we're not done with that fella. Not that it really matters where th'trail ends up. So long as we stop whoever's doin' it." Daniel shrugged as he finished the rest of the cleaning and then glanced at his uncle.

"Radcliffe needed his device to control 'em." Gabby says. "I don't see no ghost rock chips here to receive signals. Also, these things were a bit brighter than Radcliffe's meat puppets. Remember the one goin' for the window? And they hid until we sprung open the carpet bag. Whatever these things are, they're at least as sophisticated as Wilder's fancy hand. Radcliffe's lot weren't bright at all."

Korpi perked at the appearance of sucessful communication and permitted herself to be rubbed down with a sheet. She fluffed and shook herself out before noticing Uncle bending, maybe to look under the bed.

"Nyet vodka," she informed him, and sprang with a single flap to perch on Daniel's shoulder, where she began to carefully preen his hair.

The owner of the saloon wandered back up to the room, first peeking his head around the corner, and then fully stepping into the doorway with a sheepish expression on his face. He had fled in terror at the sight of the things while Gabby and Daniel and even a bird and a dog had stuck around, and he didn't look incredibly proud.

"I tried to find Earp, but he wasn't over there," said Dog Eye. And then added, "Well, god damn," as he surveyed the scene. "What in the hell is this? Hands and heads and feet. Jesus."

"We're tryin' to figger that out, honestly." Gabby says. "We've run across somethin' like this before, but in that case the fella was usin' whole bodies, and wasn't killin' folk to get the parts. But I reckon Mansfield is our killer...all these things was waitin' to jump us. I just can't figger why. Why'd he start this collection in the first place? What's drivin' him to kill?"

"Well, I can't rightly say. Most of the time, he seems like a nice fella.  A drunk, but a nice fella. And then, I just...I just don't know," said McNary, shaking his head in consternation. 

"I suppose crazy murderin' folk don't wear no signs that say 'I'm a crazy murderer!' but you'd at least think you'd be able to get a whiff of it."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 15:17, Tue 18 June 2013.

Daniel frowned at the questions his uncle was asking. "Mebbe like we sorta been hearin', the guy just kills whoever happens ta be annoyin' him? S'pose we gotta be careful usselves now. As deputies, we prolly gotta take our cues from Marshal Earp, once we find 'im, though we could wait here ta see if the fella stayin' in this room ever returns. Not like we don't got rooms of our own here."

There's a lull, and for a moment, the fireworks seemed to have stopped. The moment of quiet is interrupted, however, by the sound of two gunshots. By the sound of it, they're coming from just down the street.

Daniel cursed under his breath and looked to his Uncle and to Korpi. "Sounds like there mebbe summore trouble. But I worry bout leavin' this mess behind. The fella what made these things ain't gonna be happy when he gets back here. And I don't wanna leave trouble fer Mister McNary here."

"Da," Korpi agreed to whatever Dalix had said, since he sounded concerned about the shots. The god, though neither inherently a friend or enemy to wingless beasts, did not dip his beak to free a warrior from the distraction of weak and childlike kikituks without reason. If her ancestor-son had taken an interest, it was important.

She nudged him urgently with the top of her skull as though trying to push him out of the door whilst still standing on his shoulder. "Da. Túda, Dalix."

Of course, what these Americans needed was a shamán, but a shamán's sister would have to do. Korpi glanced back at the window, nervous of the sky-lights' reappearance. She'd told Sky Dog it was dangerous.

"I got a feelin' that the trouble's connected somehow." Gabby says as he reloads his shotgun. He looks up at the barkeep. "I reckon he won't be happy at all, but I can't just sit by when trouble's happenin'. We're still on duty, after all." He racks a shot and whistles for Clementine to follow him as he rushes towards the sound of gunfire.

Daniel frowned briefly at answer, but followed on his uncle's heels. Korpi's urging certainly helped him with that decision. He looked at Hank as he sheathed his sword and got ready to follow his uncle through the door. "Mebbe play dumb er blame us fer this mess if the fella that did this comes back. Don't take no chances."

"Well, I'll just lock this sucker back up and let 'im figure it out for himself," said the saloon keeper, locking up behind them.

"That mess'll have to get cleaned up, and better sooner than later. But I guess it'll wait till you find the fella. Still can't believe it." Shaking his head, he lead the both of them downstairs, but he went back behind the bar and took up a seat. Pulling out a bottle of whiskey, he poured himself a half glass full and proceeded to start drinking it.

Soon afterwards, they found themselves on the front steps of the Dog Eye Saloon. The revelers seemed by and large to be removed from the streets, and the fireworks were going on still. A bright plume of red and blue lit up the night as they wandered outside.

Gabby looks in the direction he heard the shots from, trying to guess where the action was.

The member of the group with the most scouting talents was decidedly out of action. She stuck her head down Daniel's collar and pressed up against the side of his head, shivering at the violent cracking of the weird bright invaders of the air and trying not to watch, in case that gave them power to reach out and char feathers. "Nyet nyet nyet..."

Gabby heads east, near the office of Doc Smith. His foot aches a bit from where the critter bit him, but he's had worse wounds in his day. Clementine runs beside him, barking frantically at the fireworks.

Daniel stroked Korpi's feathered head gently a few times as she appeared frightened of the fireworks. "Don't gotta worry so long as ya stay outta the sky. Only too happy ta carry ya 'long." It momentarily struck Daniel that he was having a one way conversation with a bird, but he quickly put it out of his mind. He had already seen things more bizarre, and surely would continue to.

He moved as quickly as he could toward the sound of gunfire, hoping he could be there in time to help whoever it might be that needed it.