"Oh, three days ago. It wasn't always deaders, though. We had a pack o' nasty wolves come in here too, all rabid, bitin' folks week before that. You wouldn't believe the shit we been seein' these last few weeks. Hell, I wouldn'ta believed it a month gone," he said.

"I'm just glad the Doc got here in time to help us out with it, thank God for that. He taught us how to kill deaders, and shown some folks how to use fairy power."

Having no interest in horse-trading and 'shinys,' Randolph leaves the crowd and walks into the village, trailing his horse behind him. As he goes, he keeps an eye out for a resident who might be able to direct him to Doc Whateley.

Korpi tilted her head at Dalix, wondering what he wanted her over there for. All the same, he could probably help polish things...the raven crouched, then leapt with a single flap to take her across the distance to Daniel's shoulder, more a jump than a flight. Once back in balance, Korpi leant to hold the tobacco tin in front of Dalix's mouth.

"Ha! There are many kinds of those," Sky Dog remarked of Europeans, then to his new friend: "Very good! It is done."

He began removing his own goods from the black and transferring them to Igor, addressing Gabby as he did so. "They were not hostages...true undead, the pumpkin-men - they were spirits called into the flesh. Any witch or even a shamán can do this, they do not need machines. It may be a rival for me, as with the good gunslinger, yes?" This statement lacked Sky Dog's usual levity, almost as though he was speaking of someone else. He placed the spare saddle on the ground.

"If it is Comanches that are become angry, and I see them, I will speak with them," Sky Dog told the men, dusting off his wrapped hands with a growing smirk. "-but I think if the Comanche had become angry they are like the Mongols, yes? You would know very soon who had wrath!" The news of an outbreak of the wolf disease quickly made the shaman concerned. "The bitten ones, are any taking a small bite but still alive?"

The would-be horse trader spat in his palm and extended it to Sky Dog, to handshake on the deal.

Sky Dog was clearly taken off-balance a moment, but quickly unwrapped the strip covering his right palm and little finger and licked the exposed skin before shaking hands. "I am Sky Dog," he offered.

"Jared," he offered in return. "I own the stable just down yonder, and if you bring your horse over there I'll give you what we agreed on. You can take a look at the thing yourself, to see if you like it or not first. But if you do, then we do the deal."
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:01, Fri 28 Feb 2014.

Sky Dog nodded, clearly belated in realising how easy it might be to cheat him with the casual manner of civilised lying and touched by the trader's honesty. He took up his riding-pole and lightly touched Igor into motion with it, walking with his reindeer clicking at heel and the black in tow, tack over the saddle of the latter.

"The wolves that were diseased - if they did bite any here, I think I might be able to save those ones...it is a bad death, or hard living, the wolf disease."

"Can't say I fancy the idea o' folks rasin' the dead without machines none." Gabby mutters, then looks back at Turner. "Say...how much o' this weird stuff you been havin' before this Doc Whateley fella came here, anyhow? And what do you mean by fairy powers?"

"As for the fairy powers, I ain't got mucha the talent m'self. None of us heard 'bout that 'fore he came to town. Says its some old kinda Christian religion from where he is, from off. He said that God sent us the fairies - like some kinda fallen angels or somethin' - and we can use their fairy powers to fight off the evil. I done seen it too. He took out some deaders with black lightnin', sprung from 'is fingertips," said Turner, shaking his head.

"He's teachin' some o' the other folk that took to it how to get the fairy power. Rest of us just gotta use our guns."

He turned to Sky Dog. "Wolves did bite a few people. Some of 'em done died, and some still dyin'. Doc saved a couple that wasn't that bad wounded, but others he couldn't do nothin' for. Said they got some kinda infection."

Sky dog paused and pressed a fist to his forehead, then pitched his voice to carry: "Mansfield! Perhaps it is well to come with me when I have gone to the stables, yes? The wolf disease is in the settlement."

To Gabby, he added: "Be wary of this doctor: he is a very great fool, or maybe a sorcerer." Turner got a frown. "The fairy - little spirits, yes? - they do not like you, for you have the power of iron over them. It is stronger than most spirits! But if you will make sure the people have knives it is well, for this calling the little spirits without sense, without balance is why your...luck is crazy."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:07, Thu 20 Feb 2014.

"Is this the wolf disease you were talking about earlier?" he asked Sky Dog first, then turned to the smith. "Is it rabies?"

"Nah, it ain't that. Somethin' different that I ain't never seen," he replied.

Daniel's attention had briefly turned to assisting Korpi with making her shiny tin even shinier, paused in the middle of what he was doing at the mention of lightning. "Black lightnin' ya say? An' teachin' udders? Gotta be a good one ta meet 'fore long. Seems ta be helpin' folks round here though, right?"

"We sure wouldn'ta survived any o'them attacks without 'im," Turner agreed.

Korpi happily polished the breathed-on tin shinier on Daniel's head.

Sky Dog made his usual hand-away-from-self shrug, confused by the blacksmith's conflicting description. Of the good doctor, he simply pressed his lips together a moment, then shook his head. "This doing is as to drive a bear into your home to get rid of drunking cossacks - yes, they run away, but now you have another problem!"

Daniel furrowed his brow at Sky Dog's comparison. "Let's don't be assumin' nuttin' bout him. Mebbe he ain't like no bear atall. All the same - Mebbe he is." He shrugged, then looked toward the town, curious about what might be in store for them within.

"Ha! Perhaps not the doctor, but many little spirits all together, yes..." the shaman looked about as though staring down the same, the dust-scoured beasts on his shirt adding their own flashed glances. He thought a moment.

"If many are badly infected when I go to look on them, it may be that I will need another helper in the Middle World to try and save them...I am not sure when - it will depend - but would you help me to fight wolf-spirits if I ask it?"

"Where might we find this Fella? Sounds like a person I'd like to meet, alright."

"Doc's usually up at the church. See, we didn't have no pastor or priest or nothin' before. Every once in a while we get a revival preacher come in and put up a tent. 'sides that though, all we got is ourselves, our bibles and Jesus," he said. He pointed right across the street where the church was.

"So Doc set up shop in the church when he got here, started talkin' on his old religion, and for me, it holds up well."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:58, Thu 20 Feb 2014.

He addressed Gabby, Coraline, Daniel, and Sky dog. "If you folks are gonna go up to the Church, me and the boys are gonna examine the perimeter. Find the points of attack and the approaches, scout out a bit. Maybe take Caleb with us. We'll meet back up here after we get the lay o' the land."

"Turner, tell your folks we ain't no banditos or bushwhackers. We're lawmen from Dodge City, some of us are anyway, and friends besides. Came up here to help, as these folks've told you."

"I'll pass the word to the sentries," he said, and told some of the other folks there to get back to their watch posts and pass the word.

Gabby gives Sky Dog a glance. "Let's pay our respects to the Good Doctor, then, eh?"

"Maybe you will tell me how he explains himself, yes?" Sky Dog smirked, himself occupied with horse-trading. "Korpi-" he looked up at his sister and switched to Evenki for a few sentences.

Korpi considered, then tossed the tin to her brother and cleaned her beak on Daniel's shoulder, clearly intending to stay there for a bit. Sky Dog cached the object in his shirt for hiding properly later.

"Will do." Gabby says, and heads off to the church.

Clementine, in the meanwhile, goes about sniffing new and interesting sents around Sky Dog ant Turner. She seems fond of Turner, rushing up to him and barking, looking to be pet.