Early Evening, April 11th, 1879. Blackthorn City hall. Good Friday.

some mood music

Mad Irish pushes his way into city hall...and begins to wish he hadn't.

The sense of misery and terror here is almost palpable. Men, women, and children fill the hallway, spill out of doorways, lie huddled in corners. mothers try to comfort their crying children, but none of them seem to have any hope left in them to share. The old sag against the walls, weary of everything. Several old miners, crippled from the cave-in that shut the mines down before Murphy arrived in town, trade stories about the last time things had gotten so bad.

Elliot and Big Tom are discussing something near the stairwell. Tom notices Murphy and waves him over.

"Well? What'd the Preacher say?" he asks once Murphy gets closer. "He got some mojo he can bring against the Comanche?"
This message was last updated by the GM at 16:27, Mon 21 May 2012.

OOC: Right... forgot to ask about that.

Murphy looks around, distressed. "No... but he said something about a feller that escaped from the camp, might know a thing or two. Someone from out of town, fany feller. You've seen him?"

"Who, the tinhorn?" Elliot says. "Yeah, I think he and Bill were swapping monster stories. Bill wanted to get somewhere where they wouldn't be heard, said he didn't want to frighten folks none. I pointed 'em toward the roof."

He points to the stairwell.

"Thanks mate." He takes a step toward the stairs, then asks: "Have ye seen me wife about?"

Tom opens his mouth to answer, but he needn't have bothered, as Hurricane Flora descends on Murphy with a shower of kisses and a hug tight enough to squeeze blood from a stone.

"Where have you been!?" She cries, smothering him with another hug. "I've been worried sick, Paddy! Everyone's so terrified!"

"Had to look out for me girls, Flora, you know that." Murphy grins, somewhat embarrassed by the public display of affection - not something he usually minds, but it seems inappropriate with all those scared people about.

Well, a little love never hurt anybody.

"And you needn't worry, mo mhuirnín, we'll be fine. Where's Rose?"

"She's sleeping. Poor dear's been fretting all evening." Flora says. "Everyone's been so upset since the bells rang. Molly was attacked by a giant cougar, the one that killed Donald Sutherland, and poor Danielle Landers was hurt during that awful fight at the church when the mayor started shouting things about the Ranger...and everyone's so terrified of the thought of heathen Indians..."

Murphy pushes Flora gently away from him, but holds her shoulders.
"A cougar? Where's Molly? Was she bit? What happened to the cougar?"
Then he realizes the harshness of his voice and sighs.
"I'm sorry, Flora, I need to know."

"Molly's here...she got patched up by that new Preacher. They say he's the best healer in these parts next to Ward! A regular miracle worker, if you'll pardon the pun." She says. "As for the cougar...I heard Carl got it. Good thing, too, because they think it might have been rabid!"

"It was... Sally Robertson got attacked by him, too. Poor thing didn't make it."

He pulls his wife back into his arms.
"Emma and Joel will need our help, love. They're with the marshal. I hear he has a knack at healing, too."

He looks around the room full of despaired people.
"I'll be right back, but I need to go find Bill and that feller from Back East. I hear he escaped from the camp, he might have some useful information."

Her face falls. "Oh, no..." she whispers, and blinks back a tear. "Poor dear...of course! I'll talk with the other women...We'll do everything we can for them."

She gives him another tight hug. "Come back soon."

"Don't I always, me love?" Patrick smiles and kisses her, then sighs as he tears himself away from her.
He bows down to give her another kiss on her growing belly.
"Be good boy. Daddy's back soon."

Then he goes upstairs, looking for Bill and the tinhorn.

The second floor is just as packed as the first floor. The third floor is much sparser, but almost the entire population of Blackthorn must be within these walls.

When he arrives at the roof, he can see Bill up there, eagerly speaking with some dandy in fancy (though trail worn and torn) clothing, who squints at him in the darkness and makes notes on a pad.

"...glowing eyes and great big fangs!" Bill says.

"Fascinating. And you say bullets didn't harm her?" the dandy says.

"No! She ate them up like candy!"

"Oy! Billy!" Patrick raises a hand in greeting as he steps up to the roof and takes a heavy breath or two.

He walks closer and tipps his had toward the be-spectacled stranger.
"Patrick Murphy, I didn't catch yer name. But I heard ye escaped from the Comanche camp."

"Irish!" Billy says, waving. "Glad you're here. We got some problems!"

The dandy touches the bridge of his nose as he looks up, looking for all the world like he's adjusting some nonexistent spectacles. He squints at Murphy. "Dr. Oswald Franklin, Ph.D, Walker in Stars in the Enlightened Society of the Weeping Moon, at your service, sir." Yup. Definitely a tinhorn. Sounds like a Yankee, too. "And yes, I was until recently a guest of the Comanche people. Thank you for reminding me of that unpleasant experience. Would you also like to stab me a little? Perhaps rub a little lemon juice on the wound after?"

"I got to talk to this feller here for a minute, Bill. I'll be right with you. Make yerself useful and be the lookout, will ya?"

He pats Bill on the shoulder, then answers Franklin. Well, starts talking to him as he ignores pretty much everything after the introduction.

"I need ta know if ye saw something in their camp. Was there anybody takin pictures?"

"Sure!" Bill says, and walks of to chat with slim, which mostly consists of Bill talking and Slim giving the occasional nod or laconic "uh-huh."

"Was I taking pictures?" Dr. Franklin says, incredulous. "Good god, man! Your town is on the brink of total war with hostile savages, your dead are rising for reasons as yet unknown, and I've just learned there's some sort of bulletproof blood-drinking abomination wandering your streets, and you want to know about my photographs?"

Don't hit him quite yet.

"Listen, doctor, I was riding from the Circle W ranch back to the town, minding me own business, when I'm suddenly attacked by a bloody indian. I shoot the bugger. Right. There."
For the third time when he tells the story, he tipps right between the eyes. Only this time, it's Franklin's, not his.

"So you'd think the bugger's, on account of being a bloody heathen and all goes to meet Ol' Scratchy or wherever Christ knows they go when they shuffle off their mortal coil and all. But this bloody bugger. Stands. The. Fuck. Up. Again. Pardon me French."
Murphy stepped real close to the doctor now, with the last few words.

"Now while throwing a dead girl at him ta distract him while trying to figure out what ta do here, I notice that he looks like he stepped out of a bloody photograph."

Murphy pushes on, forcing Franklin to take a step back or two.
"Now tell me about those bloody photographs you took and why it makes them indians unkillable."

Franklin goes pale.

"Oh dear god..." he whispers. "No. That...that isn't possible...that's...that scientifically...it shouldn't have...it couldn't have...Oh god...oh god...and I'm responsible..."

He swallows and collects himself. "I am a paranormal investigator for the Enlightened society of the Weeping Moon. We're an organization dedicated to investigating instances of the supernatural, defining it, and then figuring out ways of putting the phenomena to use for the benefit of mankind. My colleague and I were traveling to Blackthorn at the behest of the local Malviosin, a Doctor Dexter Ward, to assit him with some problems he had been experiencing. We had no idea what the nature of the problem was...we weren't told anything specific."

"We arrived at the outskirts of the Circle W ranch and were being escorted to see Dr. Ward when the Comanche attacked. My colleague and I were separated, and I was captured. One of my captors took an interest in my photography equipment, so I demonstrated it. Now, my equipment is rather specialized. I own an Epitaph camera for capturing objects in motion, and a Smith & Robards Aetheric resonance camera, which can capture the image of aetheric entities...what the layman might refer to as 'spirits.' These two cameras seemed to be of great interest to their Chieftain, a disagreeable fellow called Pale Moon, who ranted about having some sort of vision where I'd make his troops immortal with silver or some such. I honestly thought he was high on that peyote stuff."

"I conferred with another prisoner there, a fellow by the name of August, and together we hatched an escape plan. I would humor the crazy old Indian and take pictures of his warriors, while my companion would secure horses and prepare a distraction that would allow us egress. To that end, I double-exposed a plate, once with my Epitaph camera, and once with my Aether camera. That's all! A double exposure. It came out a bit strange, I admit, but there couldn't have been any way it could do what you're describing! No possible way! But..."

"But he seemed so sure I could make his warriors immortal. That 'the pictures will take the wounds the warriors suffer into them, and will preserve them from harm.' That silver tears would drop from the moon, and when his people were washed in them bow, blade, and bullet wouldn't harm them. Silver...like a photograph. The photograph I developed was like one I'd never seen. It was all in vibrant living color. And I had to leave it behind when we escaped. I had to leave it all behind."

Patrick listens intently to the rambling. He had had some training in that, too. The leaders of the Irish Brotherhood had a way of grandiose rambling about freeing the Irish race from English oppression that usually went on for 10 or 15 minutes - before finally revealing in a few short sentences what target was to be bombed or who was to be eliminated, followed by more reasoning how this single and simple task would bring the English to their knees.
Maybe if they'd had spent more time on the how and less on the why, we might have gotten somewhere.


"Good, then the pictures will still be in the camp, then. So we just need to get there, destroy them and we'll have a fighting chance. Lovely. We'll just need to fight through them in the first place to get to the bloody pictures."

That is quite the conundrum, my dear fellow.

He pushes the thought away. He turns away from the doctor and drums his fingers on the railing at the edge of the roof.
"How would you go about destroying a photograph, then? If not with blade and bullet, I mean? And assuming that photograph is coming at ye, screaming for yer scalp?"

"Assuming the chief isn't carrying the plate with him, that is." Dr. Franklin says. He frowns. "There are many things that damage photographs. Blades and bullets among them. Long-term exposure to sunlight, though that's hardly an option. Moisture damage, solvents such as acetone or potassium cyanide, fire...but I am not convinced that these are solutions you can rely on." he begins pacing back and forth. "This sounds like a sympathetic aetheric transference. These savages didn't step out of any photograph, sir...they had their essential essence transferred within it. Incapacitation and restraint until the plate is found and the essences contained within are released would be the surest path to solving this crisis."

Murphy scoffs. "That sounds easy enough, let's just do that, then."
He throws up his hands.
"Any idea on how, though, doctor?"
He shakes his head, then thinks of something. "How many pictures did ye take?"

"If the shaman had intended it to be easy for the defenders of this town, he would not have gone to this trouble in the first place." Dr. Franklin shoots back. "I'm not versed in the arts of warfare, sir! This is a matter far beyond my depth!"

He takes a deep breath and collects his temper before he continues.

"I took two pictures in the camp. One was of a single warrior, who went by the name of Ghost Wolf. That one was a simple Aether picture, and the plate was cracked shortly after it was developed. The second was a group photograph, encompassing all the warriors in the camp. That was the one that received the double exposure treatment I mentioned, the one that came out in color. I didn't make any prints of either photo...those two plates are the only copies. The singular one had an anomaly, but one that was expected, as Aether pictures are intended to capture impressions of Aetheric entities. The other one, the group photo, was much stranger. I would hazard that that is the focus of whatever heathen powers the shaman conjured up."

"Great. Glad I got that picture taken when me wife and I got married. Maybe he'd like to trade."

His tone of voice is clearly sarcastic, but he's trailing off, already lost in thought.

What ya gonna do now, lad?

Wishing for Carl to be here was first on his mind. That reminded him: Where was he?

"Billy! Slim! Any idea where Carl went?"

OOC: No idea if Murphy already knows about him going to the camp.

"Last I saw o' him, he was headin' out trying to track down that Yankee cocksucker what tried to escape again." Bill says. "But...but that were too long ago. He shoulda been back by now. I can lead you to where he was headin', if you want."

((OOC: All the Dust Adders know right now is that he's not checked in in a while. They're getting worried about him, but don't yet know he was captured.))