Jaquinta abruptly stiffens and ghost-stares towards the crack at the end of the valley, ears turned to follow her snout.

[[Ha! No, he's waaay away - a lot nearer the Mine Thread guys than anyone, in fact, and deeper still. Jackie can pick up the rumbling down there, though, now you mention it.]]

Knowledge (Arcana) roll for what Adrian might know of Native American cosmology, in terms of what they/the nature spirits think about manitou, etc. Adrian is a member of the Lady Luck Society, so while he hasn't specifically had a lot of contact with Indians, he might've come across some academic information about them in what he learned over there:

14:48, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 6,1 using d4,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (4+2)6,1.

"Some of your warriors came to attack us unprovoked above, but we managed to reach a standoff without bloodshed in the hopes that we could talk things out," he said. He didn't know everything, but he wanted to convince this man of his position. He holstered his weapon to show lack of violent intent. His hand, for a moment, contained only playing cards, though they faded away.

"I came to see if you could be a leader of your people and take them off the dark path Pale Moon has lead them down. The things Pale Moon is bringing into the world are wrong, and won't just cleanse it of the white man, but the red man as well. There has to be a better way than this. A shaman called Laughs At Darkness told us that perhaps you might work with us."

---

Deal with the Devil: Flush (automatic success and raise)
Boost Trait: Persuasion (d4 --> d8)

Persuasion: 12
15:56, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 12,5 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (8+4)12,5.  Persuasion.
14:48, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 6,1 using d4,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (4+2)6,1.
14:39, Today: Adrian Vega drew the 11 cards: 9D, 8S, 8D, KD, 4H, 10S, 2H, AH, 9H, 5C, 5H using the Deadlands system.  Deal with the Devil.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:58, Mon 05 Oct 2015.

Evans sighs. "All the options are bad ones, I'm afraid." He says to the girl. "You will need to be brave for a little while."

"Speaker is regretful: all options are unfavorable. Speaker encourages bravery for a temporary time."[Language unknown: "Ersundthi ho onretoin: sta artticich laint urehatardhoueen. Essvorver loicalulel arehatmen her p linherstiint iead."][Language unknown: "Noteveort i ncoltoic: wa theeraany om erendeionwerrom. Icssur cewhniteti lltosa wilul ha hasheringshe alla."]

He looks over at the coyote-woman. "I don't particularly care about that snake right now...what's the matter?"

"Speaker is disinterested in the serpent at present time. Speaker asks what the matter is."[Language unknown: "Entmanati p aveionredeauhouore ie les wernotati no undsomica ac. Naevce und arho ho icaareine a."][Language unknown: "Ioreio ic ticrutderwasundhou ar ort eiomse u alasck era. Eveastbut sspro yinna nde teckiv he."]

[[That'll just about shift him to Neutral. Ghost Wolf doesn't trust whites, but he's listening. Give him some good reasons.]]

Ghost Wolf lets a few moments of silence pass to be sure the slightly older man has finished. "Your presence is a provocation, paleface. Your people have acted as our enemies, unprovoked: they talk of invisible lines that mean the People cannot go freely by their law, and punish us; they shoot us on sight and take our scalps westward to pass off as Apache; they take our trust and laugh when they cheat us; why then should we not consider all white men coming uninvited to be enemies?"

Ghost Wolf gestures as he speaks, some of the signs clearly meant to nuance his even if accented English. The idea that Adrian would judge his fitness to lead brings an expression to his face that makes it feel like the temperature just dropped several degrees. "Do not patronise me, witch. Pale Moon has made...some decisions I would argue with were he not an elder, but he has much medicine, and much knowledge. He would not betray so many years of work and sacrifice for the People."

"Even now he calls to Tezcatlcoatl the Healer to make the land whole. Your madness, your 'borders' and slaughter of bands for the sake of access to rocks...all that will be cured, so that we can live sane lives again. What proof have you, stranger, that the one whose duty is to protect our spirits would speak falsely?"

His brow creases. "I do not know this shaman...what tribe is he, and from what lineage? I would be a poor leader if I trusted you without reason...I have lost enough to trusting white men. What other way is in your thought, and why is it I should listen to you, rather than having my men on the rocks shoot you, as you seem familiar with the paths of darkness?"


[[22:37, Today: Alouette, on behalf of Ghost Wolf, rolled 1,2 using d4,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,2.  Laughs at who? Derp.]]

[Language unknown: "Lewe un,"] Jaquinta responds distractedly. [Language unknown: "Seunss et n hisnteoreter areousast ven notthisti."]

[Language unknown: "Omcawhloec: thewhidaystr and llthpe astfi noheet."] "Observation: rumbling far under the earth," the Indicator puts out mechanically, though it seems to be intermittently affected by static.

"Look, if we're going to start with a list of all the bad shit whites have done to you over the years, I don't think we'll have the time. It's a long list. If that's a requirement for you to trust me, it's never gonna happen, so let's just forget about trust for a moment," he said.

"There's no proof that I could ever bring you that would make you believe me over one of your elders. I'm a white man. Nothing will ever make you trust me. So I won't ask you to. The most I can ask is to honor the fact that we haven't killed One Shot over here even after your people started shootin' at us. But you said it yourself - you think Pale Moon's decisions are questionable. Why is that? Maybe I'm right - not because of anything I say - but because of what you already know."

---

Persuasion: 5
Smarts: 6 (Do I know info about Laughs at Darkness?)

17:22, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 2,5 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,5.
17:26, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 6,5 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,5.  Smarts.

Ghost Wolf leaves that respectful pause, though his eyes have gone to dark slits as he crosses his arms over his chest, shirt-fringes swinging. Not all the decorative tassels are wool. "It is little to you, to put aside. It is much to me," he says coldly.

Not shooting the sniper or the youth still uncertainly hanging around the clank doesn't seem to impress him overmuch - they needed some lever to talk to him, after all - but he listens and, after a consideration that probably takes longer than the palefaces are comfortable with, does answer the question.

"Because Pale Moon is obsessed with white men sometimes, and risks good men to raid towns when we could raid cattle. Because he brought in Charging Bear, an Apache who is sick like a mad dog, and did not cure him but told my men to follow him, instead. It did not seem they were good spirits, that spoke to that one's madness. But..." Ghost Wolf struggles to articulate, great pain near the surface of that stony leader's countenance.

"...me, too. He took me in when I was lost, despite Owl's curse in my blood. He risked his standing and his life to take in one who survives, always, when those around him die. Were our roles reversed I would not have done as he did. You see, why I must believe he has a greater understanding than I. You see," he gestures at the silver warriors nearby, "he has used Mirror Serpent's power to protect those around me. How could he mean us harm?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:52, Mon 05 Oct 2015.

Adrian nodded, listening quietly. Truth was, he didn't have a great answer. "I understand. You owe the man a debt, so you don't question him, even though you have doubts about his actions. But sometimes the best way we can help people is to question them. Even the wisest person can do a wrong thing. No man is perfect, but maybe with the help of our friends we can make the best decisions. If no one questions us, we don't get the best advice." He gave a pause to accomodate any response, ready to move on to other subjects.

"You asked me about Laughs at Darkness. Maybe you don't know the name, but you mighta heard of a fella like him. He's from the southwest somewhere, though he never really talks about his tribe. He wears coyote skins and laughs a lot, poses riddles and challenges to people he meets, and sometimes changes people's true names," he said. "Laughs at Darkness said you might be able to help. Unfortunately, he didn't say how we could get you to budge."

"Tell me something - do you know what 'the fire of fires' is - or 'breaking the seventh seal'? Or what it means when I say the 'serpent's maw gapes for grey souls'?" he said. He had an inclination as to the latter, but not the former, though it sounded vaguely biblical. He never had paid enough attention in Sunday school.

Ghost Wolf frowns a little. "It is not the same, to make mistakes from lack of criticisim and to act corruptly, as a shaman. I do not believe one trained so many long years would not know the effects of his knowledges. It is the top-hat witch who has acted badly, and harmed the land; Tezcatlcoatl will undo his works."

The description of Laughs At Darkness gets a thoughtful look and a twitch of frown at the unfamiliar term 'budge'. "What did he want, that one?"

"I do not know what these things are," Ghost Wolf admits, glancing to one of the guards above to make sure the man is alert in case this strange riddling is a distraction. "What do they mean?"

"The seventh seal is the one after seals 1-6 in the vision of Little Rock," the clank chimes in helpfully. "That means when God is being a sheep and the censer is off the altar the Apocalypse will start in a place like wormed wood. Then plus plus fire falls from the sky and the ground shakes and the sea boils up so there are no more fishes. Or shrimps." The clank's lenses light a moment with a distant flash of lightning. Far, far below there comes a faint tremor from the deep.

"Except the ones in cans but they can't make more shrimps because they are dead," it adds in case they didn't know, finding itself under general attention.

"A-poc-a-lips?" Ghost Wolf queries.

"Apocalypse...the end of the world, basically," he said. "The top hat witch as you call him, I believe you refer to Dr. Ward, did act badly - but here's what you may not know - he was dealing with Tezcatlcoatl too. The demon serpent has been dealing with both the top hat witch and Pale Moon. The best proof you can ask for is in Dr. Ward's cattle. They all got the taint of Tezcatlcoatl," he said.

"Let me ask you another question: Does Pale Moon have a photographic plate with his warriors pictured within it? Is that the protection he gave them?" he asked Ghost Wolf.

He pulled out a flask of his and sniffed it. Whiskey. "Oh, and I have some whiskey if anyone wants it." He held it out. Maybe something of a temporary peace offering.

"What is this seal? Why did you speak of it?" Ghost Wolf asks, now about as concerned as confused by this thread of discussion. He shakes his head slightly.

"Pale Moon told us not to eat the cattle. Perhaps Tezcatlcoatl tricks Hat Witch, to give the cattle to other white men...the ones that want to put new words on old medicine, they do badly because they think they can understand it without the stories. Pale Moon understands the medicine: he is not the same." There's a touch of uncertainty in his tone, though, clearly a man speaking of things out of his depth.

The question of the plate gets a sharp nod. The whiskey, on the other hand, gets a look of irritated shock in the brief moment between the offering and the flask being co-opted with an enthusiastic whoop by One Shot.

The clank's standing very still again, static rising in its shell.
The scarred youth gets the flask next, egged on by his companion and one of the guys who's reappeared from the tunnel, who nabs a drink first and shoves it back in the lad's hand, smirking. Ghost Wolf bridles, watching, big and dangerous and  unsure of his control in this suddenly more volatile situation.

The static from Alouette rises to a sighing pulse, its lenses bright and golden as it stares at the sky.

[[Because negociating with sober Comanches wasn't enough of a challenge...? Adrian can give me a straight Smarts roll if he likes, to notice something a little odd about these guys (besides most of them being grey, shinyish and bulletproof)]]

"Peace offering," he said, holding his hand for the flask if they would pass it to him.

"Tezcatlcoatl did trick the Hat Witch, and tainted the cattle with bad medicine. Maybe he tricked Pale Moon too, or maybe Pale Moon knows what he's about. He's gonna have to make a sacrifice to bring down Tezcatlcoatl. You know he sent some Comanches to attack Blackthorn to take captives for his sacrifice? Well, we fended them off so they didn't get any captives, so Pale Moon don't have none to sacrifice. He does have the souls of his warriors that he trapped in photographic plates though," he said.

"I see you don't have that same color to you. He didn't get your soul, did he?"

---

OOC:

Adrian Smarts: 9
Harry Smarts:  4

19:21, Today: Harry Lazarus rolled 4,4 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,4.  Smarts.
19:21, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 2,9 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,(6+3)9.  Smarts.

There's not enough whiskey to get that many people drunk, just maybe a light buzz at best.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:52, Thu 08 Oct 2015.

The braves don't seem to be paying that much attention to Adrian for the moment, though when one - the newcomer with the wrapped braids - notices he seems to want something back he gives him a beaded bracelet.

[[It's bulletproof!]]

Ghost Wolf is still bristling with unease, and Adrian's words certainly aren't soothing. The frown mark between his brows etches deeper and deeper as the huckster talks. Someone throws the flask up to one of the guards above; there's a chorused 'Eii!' as drops of whiskey flick across the night before the shard of silver is caught and the catcher licks spilled liquid off his wrist.

One Shot pokes Harry encouragingly with his rifle butt and asks him something, gesturing to Adrian. Probably a query as to whether Harry has whiskey too.

"The...plate the white man's box painted of me...I dropped it before Pale Moon made medicine," Ghost Wolf says, with an undertone of dawning horror.

The braves are laughing now, talking amongst themselves. The young scarred fellow previously captured by Lazarus seems to be impressed by his first shot of hard suff, once he's stopped coughing, and not entirely steady. They're all pretty young, Adrian notices - whilst it's not particularly odd for a group of Comanches to have a low average, none of the raiders in town were that old, either. The few warriors that make it past thirty are usually the ones in charge, but even Ghost Wolf looks to be twenty-five at most.

It's like someone has been gathering outcasts like Ghost Wolf and "Charging Bear" - Itza-Chu, Adrian assumes - and essentially honing a band into an almost-permanent war party held together with the bare minimum of wives, slaves and children. With so few elders around, Pale Moon probably has a deathgrip on power dynamics.


[[It's enough to get them interested and potentially argumentative, plus historically you'd be dealing with about 1 in 6 full-blooded natives from western strains carrying that unfortunate genetic quirk from Asiatic Siberia that results in rock-bottom alcohol tolerance ('Sky Dog + half a glass of beer' is based on 'Malay-Korean friend + tablespoonful of champagne'): rolling up, it looks like Broken Face is one of 'em.

22:04, Yesterday: Alouette, on behalf of Comanche Raiders, rolled 10 using 3d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,4,5.  check for alcohol fail.

Ghost Wolf is tetchy because the short age gap and his curse of always surviving by fluke whilst everyone around him dies - which rumours blame him for, see his bio - don't get him much trust and respect, so his status isn't as steadfast as it could be.]]

"You can save them too, if you can break their plates," he said. "Otherwise...well, if it takes a sacrifice of a few of those to raise Tezcatlcoatl, do you think he'll hesitate? You have to make the call. I just needed to bring you the message. Now you have the information. What you do with it is your choice."

In reply to Jaquinta (msg # 133):

"I hope things are going well." Evans says.

"Speaker concern over situation." The box chatters. [Language unknown: "Unsast omofet werei redonsromstr."][Language unknown: "Hingta ivpaur thu yinwilsetain."]

Evans looks over the group remaining behind. He notices Jake not doing much. "Are you alright? You seem...a little tense."

"Speaker expresses concern. Speaker understates apparent tension in other."[Language unknown: "Tedounour waivtrno ntiousrom. Miroer iththaderavevor ndeprothistr vortercom u ivsaai."][Language unknown: "Artromsan ncevetsa ssperi. Adioei ekchunngce ulwatepa omcack at hillil."]

Jake glances up at Evans from the rock he currently is sitting on, "No ... just not much use talkin' with the natives. Snake seems to see and hear through me, figure I should stay here and keep an eye out for other things."

"What do you mean, The Snake sees and hears through you?" Evans asks.

Ghost Wolf's frown and the pain below it stay fixed. It seems the Comanche leader is still trying to process the betrayal and the implications. "It was one plate, with all the other warriors...you say to break it?"

"No." the clank says, stepping forward, then suddenly reaches towards Lazarus; the scarred youth's knife scrapes and clatters against its fingers from his stumbling, low-aimed stab at the dapper fellow's belly. "No," it tells him, gently pushing him back.

[[Harry failed that roll due to the -2, but fortunately he's looked out for.

Comanche Raiders rolled 3 using 1d8, rerolling max with rolls of 3.  Agility.
Alouette rolled 3,2 using d4,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3,2.  Agility.
Tie to defender.]]

The grace-haloed, static-hissing machine turns its attention to Ghost Wolf as the others abruptly quiet down (One Shot does try poking Harry once more, though, just in case). "Remove the false mirror and bring it for blessing...the souls, sharp-cracked in the Serpent's realm would...shake the seals."

Ghost Wolf shakes his head, utterly lost now and faintly alarmed by the clank's change in manner. "I do not know...what do I do? Why would he do this? Our women and children will starve or be t-"

The clank steps up to him and very gently brushes the edge of its 'beak' along Ghost Wolf's jaw.

The Comanche goes from alarm to awe...then makes a soft sound in his throat and closes his eyes hard, resting his forehead against the curve of the machine's 'beak'. Only for a moment, however - the next instant he's snapping orders in Comanche and barking down argument, all that power of his now filled with purpose.

The clank watches, lenses bright.

"I will clear my men from the tunnels and deal with Pale Moon," Ghost Wolf tells Adrian. "What will your people do here? My scouts told me there were more with you."


[[well, no-one said that Adventure Card couldn't be used for angelic awe-love.]]

"Far as I can tell earlier ... today ... is it still today ... I tapped into one of the big nasty spirits to use some magics. It's since been riding shotgun in my noggin like a constant pressure in my head," Jake attempts to explain.

"Ah." Evans says, alarmed. The machine seems to have stopped translating. "Well that...that might be a problem." He looks over at the priest. "Father, can you help him? Exorcise him, perhaps? I don't fancy having our adversary watching our every move...that might explain a few recent incidents, come to think on it..."

O'Rourke, shirtless and torn up as he is, looks about. "I'm rather short on materials for an excorsism, I'm afraid. I could bless him, but if his heart is closed to God that is a thing I cannot force."

He walks over to Jake and crouches down (Maria stands uncertainly a moment then crouches where she was and hugs Jaquinta). "Tank you for coming clean, my son. My previous offer still stands, but will you pray with me, at least?"

"One of Tezcatlcoat's brood is loose in the tunnel's somewhere. My plan was to try and track it down before it kills too many people, but we already sent one of our other warriors to try and deal with it so maybe I don't have to do that just yet. What would you prefer that we do? I'd offer to do what I can to help you, but I know that probably won't sit well with your men or gain you any ground with Pale Moon," he said. Adrian cautiously observed the scenario around him, unsure of what had just taken place between Alouette and Ghost Wolf, though he did catch the clank protecting Harry.

Ghost Wolf tilts his head back a little, expression hard to read. "I will let my men know one is awake. Two braves went missing earlier, and we have heard shooting and strange sounds in the tunnel. These are your people, I think. If we take you as close to where they may be as possible, can you find these white men and speak peace with them?"

There's certainly tension in the air, but it seems controlled for now. The youth with the facial scars is watching Alouette with awe, and speaks with quiet if tipsy enthusiasm to One Shot, who's not sure what to make of it. The guard above waits to query Ghost Wolf in Comanche and there's a brief back-and-forth before the man vanishes over the rocks. The man who came out last has already jogged back down the tunnel.

In reply to Father William O'Rourke (msg # 149):
"Sure padre ... sure." Jake says with a slight nod.