The Ranger stands still for several seconds, looking at the darkness, then her hands, then Ward. "I'm going on," she says, soft and steel-willed. "Th' Lord has sent power to my hands, Ah don't know why but I figger it ain't to jes' die of some bad air. If it be willed, th' same God as delivered Shadrach an' his amigos from the burning fiery furnace will deliver me from this cloreen stuff."

Carl had been frowning with the vague idea that chlorine might be a kind of salt, that ghost rock was probably not a kind of salt, distracted by the irregular nature of his own chest hair, then frowned the more as his hazy thoughts circled back again. Pa always had claimed Wendell over-packed the charges...what else had they done? What did they find, that needed killed so badly?

Abruptly, he realises the Ranger's been speaking, grasping the sense of it rather than the words as she briefly catches his eye. He nods her on, though watches her step forwards a little way before looking at the patch Jeb was last heard from and nodding him on, too, pushing off the wall to silently follow, his stride easy, confident as on his own ranchland. Each step is a demonstration to the rest that he believes the Ranger's faith is founded, and that he won't die.

Wildcat bites back a small kind of smile, out in front, and raises her voice to the dark enough to carry. "Deputy Bear! Charging Bear, fall back!"

"What say the rest of you?" Ward says, turning to the rest of the crew. "Do we rely on God's will not to die of poison, or should we attempt to find a better path?"

---

Jeb floats on down the tunnel, eventually reaching the wandering form of Charging Bear. "Hey! Hey! Listen! I found help!" he says, as urgently as he can. "The Doc's there...come on back, mebbe see him about that gas you got exposed to."

Charging Bear leans against the wall of the mine for a moment as his head clears though his lungs are still more than willing to argue with against the current air quality they've received. Coughing hurt like hell, his chest aches, while his eyes felt like they had just been on fire. It had been a  rough day ... night .. honest just a hard past few days for the native son.

Looking up, he notes the sound of voices and mutters to himself, "Jeb, Ward, Wildkitten ...? The dead come and decide to do a lot of talking."  Easing himself back to standing, Charging Bear attempts to find his way in the pitch blackness of the mine by following the voices. Part of him can't help but chuckle at the current state of his clothing.

((OOC: If it helps, think of the situation this way: [places on the D&D hat] "You are in a dungeon, and you have come to a hazardous place. To proceed, you will need to find a way of dealing with the hazard or going around it. Your time before the wizard finishes the ritual to summon the dragon is running low, so time is of the essence. What do you do now?"))

"I don't like to rely on God.  Yes, I know you do.  Hush, they don't know.  I always think it's better when people help themselves."  With that, Augustus walked forward.  He pointed his crazy-quilt scattergun down the tunnel, he spent a few second adjusting the dials and switches.  "No, not that one, we'd bring down the entire tunnel if we did that.  And no, not that one either, I don't want any mangoes."

He closed one eye, then squeezed the trigger.  A sound like a thousand tubas making love to a walrus blared down the tunnel, shaking the walls and nearly deafening everyone nearby.  As the ringing faded, Augustus lowered his gun and started to dust himself off.  "Well, that should do it.  Or it'll collapse the tunnel over our heads, killing us all.  Either way, we don't have to worry about the gas anymore."

Murphy stares at Spotswood. "You are a bloody Englishman, aren't you?"

He takes a few steps forward. "Lord, if you kill me now, I do have to say that I appreciate your sense of humor, but you really could have achieved that with less. So I'll be trusting that mad man's contraption has worked" he mutters under his breath, looking up at the tunnel ceiling.

"Can we find that bloody shaman now? I miss having the sky over me head."

[[Augustus...you owe me brain bleach, you wonderful heap of cheese.

For those of us in the way of the Pummel:
23:50, Today: Carl Allans rolled 8,3 using d8-1,d6-1, rerolling max with rolls of (8+1)9,4. strength! Rawr!

23:50, Today: Wildcat Hawkins rolled 4,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,4. strength! CB's luck is improving, since he does not get taken out by a ballistic Texas Ranger.]]

Carl catches himself on the tunnel wall, wincing at the drug-distanced grind of new-set bone. Looking very annoyed, the wrangler catches Mike's eye and makes a slight nod at Augustus accompanied by a flicking gesture with his free hand.
"..."

Ahead, the Ranger looks at the ceiling, frowns, and mutters something about snakes. Even she doesn't bother pointing out they've just woken every Injun to their presence, focusing on calling for Charging Bear. "Charging Bear! That was jes' our sine-tist warmin' up - if'n you're out there, might as well holler like a steer on fire, cain't make much more noise..."

"Keep moving ... they'll have light." Charging Bear says reassuring himself before he hears the others' voices echoing. "Glad to see folks were lookin'."

"Smelling more than looking, like." Murphy quips.

"Sooo... shall we sing a little shanty now while we go? Good for morale and it'll make them quiver in their pants, if they're wearing any. I hear the red men hate to fight the insane."

Carl looks at the ceiling with an air of 'sure, why not?' resignation. They might as well hi ho and blow the man down fit to be heard in France at this rate.

"Guess you'll have t'teach us some of that Irish fancy dancin', too." Mike grins over at Murphy. He nods back at the hesitant doctor. "They see Ward doin' that they'll git scared of his crazy medicine for sure."

Wildcat, ignoring the banter, has gone straight to Charging Bear. In truth she's so glad to see a decent man she could hug him, but this isn't the time or place for such foolishness. "Wheer'd you go off to anyhow? We've got to check that shaman feller befor he's done chanted th' Snake up, but we cain't shoot him so as he drops th' picture, 'cause if that breaks we all go boom an' so does half o' Texas..." the glowing Ranger trails off, frowns at Charging Bear, then looks back at Carl, who just gives her an unfocused stare, and finally at Charging Bear again.

"There devil-moths down here too?"

"I was informed that this picture was the source of the Comanche's protection from harm." Dr. Ward says, coming up behind Wildcat. "Destroying it was Mr. Murphy's main objective. Where are you getting this information from, and what, exactly, were you told? I need to know precisely what it is we are dealing with here if I am to be of any use developing a counter."

"Tar-nation, feller, don't sneak like that, I'm armed an' jumpier'n a long-tailed cat in a roomfull a rockin' chairs...like I done tole you, it was some ol' shaman as warn't a Comanch' warned me...said Something Moon had planned t'kill a buncha whites an' bring the wounded back here to sacrifice on some heathen altar so's the Snake could use the power from their souls t'git hisself up. Only we messed that up back at town, so the only souls he's got handy are th' Comanch' souls in his photergraph."

"I weren't right sure 'bout the details, but I think breakin' the picture works out the same as killin' all the Comanch' at once - if th' Snake's there to eat 'em, they git et an' Scaly Belly comes up like a burst boil at a birthday party. If th' Snake ain't there, I think all them souls kinda...shoot into the Rock at once, which is too much ennergy or souls or somethin', an' it sets off a flash fire through the seams. I reckon your boys'd know more 'bout that." Her understanding of physics exhausted,  Wildcat nods back towards those that had been miners.

"Th' shaman said we had ter break up Ol' Moonie's ritual somehow, steal th' picture or kill him so's he fell real gentle-like, though I don't much like to try that last way nohow." She scans their way forward before drawing the party subtly back into full motion. "Figger if we could talk to the Comanch' somehow we could prolly tell 'em 'bout Blue Moon's plans, but I ain't sure as they'd be keen ter communicate. I got some Spanish t'rub together, but that's 'bout it."

[[In case anyone else was missing the walls of blue text...]]

Murphy yawns and rubs at this temples.
"Soooo... the new plan is now to go and talk to these lovely people and asking them to not mind our wee bit of business here, so that maybe they could please put their pointy things not into us while we go and have a nice chat with the bloody shaman?"

He shakes his head. "Ah, I love it when a plan comes together."
He looks about the group. "I do believe that we don't have the right team for the job then. We have a bloody Saxon with a trumpet", he points to Augustus, "who, no offense, seems to have been dipping a wee bit too often into the loony bin. Henry here is one prime Texan longhorn steak away from having a bloody heart attack, and we got fucking Tex here!" He shrugs, apologetically, at the huge burned muscular man. "No offense, mate, but you don't look like your coming to enjoy the spring dance."

He scratches at a speck of dirt of his shirt.
"Please excuse meself for rambling on like that, but I think it is time to re-examine our options again. Somebody mentioned something about a part of the group making a ruckus and drawing them off, with the rest sneaking in and taking care of the picture?
Just means we have to steal it before we burn it, innit?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:12, Fri 21 Nov 2014.

Ward rubs his jaw in thought. "If the worry is that the shaman will drop the picture and break it, then what we are dealing with is the plate itself, not any paper pictures made with it. This would be made of glass--it won't burn, and would be fragile. Which means that Mr. Spotswood's weapon would be less than ideal against the shaman himself. Drawing some of the band off then stealing the plate would be the ideal course in that case. I'm gathering that we want to break the plate well away from the mine, or at least the parts of the mine where the Ghost Rock can be found."

In reply to Dr. Dexter Ward (msg # 228):

"Is that the only problem?  We have to break something?  I can do that.  I tend to break a lot of things.  People are always telling me to not break things.  Hush, no, I will not tell them about the time we broke Minnesota.  I'm sure we can easily break whatever you have in mind."

Charging Bear report his findings, his slight unease of the reappearance of Wild Kitten kept at bay by his military training.

"Ran into a lot of chlorine gas ... General Kursch loved the stuff ... this strangeness here made some of the gas come to life and attack me. Thus my lack of much clothing... afterwards I came back this direction. Nothing more to report."

"Ya reckon there's more of it?" Wildcat asks, missing Carl's small gesture to Tex behind her.

"Bloody luck o' the Irish, lady. What d'ye think?" Murphy grins.

The native son shrugs slightly at the question, "With all the energies that are roaming around this place ... I won't doubt it. Regardless we need to push on, find the shaman and deal with him." Charging Bear's eyes scan the group for reactions as he continues. "We've got a lot of mine to cover and not much time."

He glances at his own sorry looking state and frowns, "Anyone got a pair of pants?"

Murphy shrugs. "Sorry, mate. Didn't think to bring a spare. So, who's gonna do the drawing off and who'll be doing the stealing?"

Augustus raised his hand.  "I'll help distract.  You're going to need a large, explosive display to get their attention, correct?  We're good at that.  We still have that enhanced-yield dynamite sitting around somewhere...."  with that, he began rummaging through his bags, and carelessly lit a cigarette.

The lumbering, reddish-grey giant looms over Augustus, grabs the hand holding the cigarette, and squeezes. It hurts. Quite a lot.

"No smokin' in the mine. Mine blow up if you do." Tex growls. He grabs Augustus' trumpet gun, clearly intending to pull it away from the mad scientist.

Augustus dropped the cigarette, but looked in alarm as the big man tried to take his scattergun.  "Don't do that!  Put that down before you--"  The gun began to emit a low, pulsing whine.  "Oh drat.  Let go right now!  Either we're all going to be torn to bits and have our molecules flung halfway to Chicago, or we're about to be waist-deep in banana slugs.  I'd prefer to avoid both, thank you.  And no, fifty dozen banana slugs and five pounds of chicken would not be useful right now."

The lumbering giant of a man frowns, trying to make sense of what molecules were and whether banana slugs were good to eat. His grip on the device slackens. He glares at Spotswood. "No boom. Not 'til we get out of the mine. You make booms before we leave, I twist you into funny shapes."

Augustus starts to adjust a few dials, and the whine slowly fades away.  "The plan is to cause 'big booms,' you mendicant neanderthal. Only my 'booms' can hurt those native warriors.  If you want to survive, you best do as we say, and not get in our way."