The man suddenly goes straight-spined and directs a venomous stare at John. "Sutton? SUTTON?! You are a vampire now?"

He laughs, hard and bitter, then snarls and draws back ready to fight again. "Ha ha ha! Yes, good! Good! I will show you whose kung fu is mightier, vampire Sutton - I will swat you like mosquito, like I...crushed your master! Yes! I...strangled him with his own undergarments! Weak old man!"

He's sweating, clearly making this up on the spot. Though his gaze is fixed on John it seems to look through him, something wild and glassy about his eyes.

There's a rapidly-approaching "Jingles, I will fucking kill you!" from the depths of the house - clearly the occupants are less than keen on that open door.


[[Tao Jing, rolled 0,-1 using d4-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 2,1. Taunting! Yeah...no. He's still in your way, though.]]
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:14, Fri 28 Mar 2014.

"Sir, I'm going to ask you to step aside." Evans says, a bit taken aback but rapidly adjusting. He raises his flamethrower. "There are no vampires on this porch, not yet at least, and I can assure I intend to keep it that way. Please, stop ranting, so we can get inside, liaison with the Enlightened Society, and figure out a way to end this mess in a way mutually beneficial to everyone except the bloodsucking fiends who are our common enemy."

((OOC: Persuasion Test of Wills! I have +1 Charisma after all the bonuses and penalties.

09:42, Today: The Amazing Evans rolled 3,4 using d8+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 2,3. Snakeoil salesman.

Going to use my last Red chip to pump that a little.

09:45, Today: The Amazing Evans rolled 2 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2. Red Chip. Total of 6. He needs to resist with Spirit, and whoever else is behind him might want to intervene.))

[[Tao Jing rolled 5,8 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5,(6+2)8. resist! Tao Jing does not care for you, wretched foreign devil!]]

"Become lost in a lake!" the ranty man snaps. "I have unfini-gggh" A grubby-bandaged hand missing the first two joints of its little finger catches the man's collar and yanks him to the ground.

"Goddamn-no! You don't move!" the mighty Dave Baines kicks the smaller man brutally in the stomach, then drops to one knee on Jing's shoulder with no mercy at all, shoving a pistol-barrel hard against the downed man's temple. "You do not move or I swear to God I will blow your fucking brains out, you hear?"

The Chinaman makes no reply, simply baring his teeth and breathing hard with the pain.

Meanwhile, an older man who's just run down the stairs lopes up, gun ready and a sharpened spoon in the other hand. He slows, seeing that vampires aren't immediately pouring over the threshold, but looks wary, giving the subdued man on the floor another kick for good measure. "The Hell you want, Evans? Come over if you can, I ain't invitin' ya."

Evans steps freely over the threshold. "Gladly. I've come from town, where just a few hours ago we were attacked by immortal Comanche. I need to meet with Dr. Ward immediately, because I fear his Enlightened Society of the Weeping Moon has stirred up something terrible, which I believe might have drawn the Comanche here in the first place. They seem bent on releasing something in the mine, something terrible, and I was hoping to enlist his aid in stopping them and putting the situation to rights. However, I can see that much more than that has been going on, so I think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement and I can lend my aid, both as a doctor and a man of science, to the troubles you face. My deputies and I stand ready to assist you. We are the Cavalry, such as it is."

The older cowboy snorts, watching them but alert for any other movement around the hall. "Guess you'll have to fight your way back out, then - Ward's gone to put the Snake down his own self an' right now all th' Moonies we got is some fancy feller and Widow Bradshaw, 'cause vamps got Whateley an' I just found Bruebaker cut up pretty bad on the top stairs." He nods to Dave's expression of enraged horror. "There's one in the house."

"We gotta tell Mrs. Bruebaker and the girls," Dave growls, half-ignoring the Marshal. The rough man looks up at John, now nearest the door. "Help me take this trash out - soon as I git off him, he'll start fightin'."

"Pigdog worthless foreign devil..." Jing begins, but trails off into a grunt as Dave shifts his weight.

The older cowboy frowns. "Ain't the time to be mean, Dave - you put him out, you shoot him in the head. Ain't right for even a chink t'git bit to death that way." He stands off, clearly guarding rather than helping.

Tao Jing just breathes, tense as a coiled spring. In the wan light of the hall, it's clear he's greyish-pale and extremely sick, shadows sticking to the lines of the skull beneath his skin.

John's gaze went cold. "You know my name? You know who I am" he asked as he stepped inside the house. His eyes on the man they called Jingles. "Now I ain't no vampire, and you're bluffin' so plainly even I can see it. If you know anything, speak, then if'n you have a grievance with me, I'll give you the fight you want." he said. Though in his mind the words 'and death' seemed to tack on to the end of the sentence.

He was struck by something in the man's demeanor, something personal, deeper than a mere grudge, there was a connection to his past, the foggy past he could never recall, and he believed he knew how to wound him with words "Otherwise, you can keep acting like an animal, and I'll ignore you and let one of these not-so-kind folks put a bullet in you like a rabid dog." Ultimatum, he never liked using such tactics, but answers and a fight (to the death?), or none, and an ignoble end.

"Of course I know you, vile breeder of pants-lice! Onry Jacob Sutton has ever walked away from fighting Tao Jing!" The man struggles until he can stare up at John Smith with a gaze from the black pits of hatred, though there's something odd and unfocused about his look.

"The first time, luck! The second, you had not the good sense to die when you were beaten," John dimly remembers something: not so much a fight as the briefest of call-outs before shanking him as he turned, the location some alleyway, some saloon, somewhere. Darkness beyond the lights of a porch and a blade that burned. "-nor the honour to stay and settle it! You man of low desires, you cripple Lao Fu Gang for your gang, break my face so I lose teeth and become unhandsome, kill Wu Dun - yes, he die after what you and you friends did to him - and after all of it, you betray them also! You ran away, you coward dog! Leave me dishonoured for not ending you!"

He swallows, wriggling some leverage under his uninjured shoulder and raising his head a bit now that Dave's distracted by the story. "You did not even tell your mother where you went, you lewd, mean personage of rude society," he says, tone dropping to a growl though his breathing is still harsh, ragged and pained. "I beat her thinking she was protecting you, and one of your brother when he came to save her, but they were telling truth all the time - ha! You have not the honour of a worm crawling in the shit of a corpse! They knew nothing! You bring this on them for a hollow purpose, you whore's decendant, you scurvy rat! Wretched half-faced horn-beast! It is below me that I have to crush such animal as you!"

Evans frowns at the talk of just killing the man, but then the thug starts ranting, and whatever little sympathy he might have held for the fellow diminished rapidly.

"Mr. Smith, this fellow is from your past. I, personally, have seen you act beyond reproach, so I'm inclined to believe your word over him. What is he talking about?"

"He is a mouldy rogue!" The guy on the floor rages almost desperately, his English deteriorating with passion. "Enforcer for Fat Sam of Sacramento - you ask there how many legs he break, how he does viorence...'beyond reproach'! He is bad guy of the very worst, contemptable and accursed...no faith to friends, emproyer or enemy."

"Yeah, all right," Dave says, disinterested. He gives John a look like 'you going to help me or what?'

Just then a more familiar voice rings down from upstairs: "Say, Marshal Evans, that you?" It sounds like Deputy Vega.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:09, Sun 30 Mar 2014.

John blinked, and winced, now he is confused, and thoroughly so. Could this man be telling the truth. Not even his Master, or so he believed, had known who John was before he stumbled into a camp. "I... I remember an alley, a knife." he said hesitantly, more to himself.

His desire to know more was burning and clashing with his anger at hearing what this man did to family he did not even know he had until he said it. "What he says might'n be right true Marshall. I know time is short, suffice to say, according to my Master I wandered in from the desert, half dead and poisoned. He nursed me back to health, though my head was never right with memory of any time 'afore that. No one in the town near by knew me, so I stuck with him, and he took me as his student."

He turned his attention back to Tao Jing, his eyes, surprisingly gentle. "I was delirious with pain for weeks from whatever poison stuck me. Almost died even. Seems I was given a second chance." He nodded to Dave. "I don't remember no family, don't remember much at all, but if you beat them, then it seems I owe you a fight." He even gave Dave an apologetic look before turning to Tao Jing, steel returning to his green eyes. "You say I didn't settle our fight, so lets fix that now."

OOC: John Smith drew the single card: 10S using the Deadlands system. Initiative! If necessary.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:10, Mon 31 Mar 2014.

Tao Jing's face remains stony, though he's shaking with rage at John's admission of having no memory of him.
Jake Lawrence slips in behind John, shouldering the martial artist aside slightly, and shuts the door - just in time, it seems, since through the door the men nearest can distantly hear shots and a vast, furious avian screech of vengeful wrath.

Seeing his prisoner is utterly focused on John, Dave lets him up, stepping back warily then moving to a point where he can see goings-on in the depths of the building in addition to the fight in the hall. Tao Jing rises stiffly, a lean column of shadow in the room, and takes up a fighting stance.


[[Do you want to do this as a martial arts-modified Duel - see post #9 on the rules thread or a straight-up fight?

Either way, Evans, John and Jake, please move onto the Big House thread.]]

10:45, Today: William Pierce rolled 7,2 using d8-3,d6-3, rerolling max with rolls of (8+2)10,5. Guts.

"What the..." William starts, as fear, no panic starts rising in him - but then his instincts kick in, and he shuts the fear away, his mind focused on the priest ahead of him and the monster that follows.
He tries to ignore the stupid thing at his feet, but he has no time now to get rid of it. Any second could count.

"Jump to the side, Father!" he hollers, his voice commanding, his tone threatening death.
He waits an instant more to give the priest a chance to react, then fires again, twice at the... thing.

<small>10:49, Today: William Pierce rolled 10,6 using d10+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 9,5. Doubletapping the scorpion king.

Spending two of Murphy's white chips for damage re-rolls (No Mercy edge)... but 18 is the best I get.
That might slow the thing down a bit.

10:52, Today: William Pierce rolled 17 using 4d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 4,3,1,(6+1)7. damage re-roll.
10:51, Today: William Pierce rolled 18 using 4d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 4,5,4,3. damage re-roll.
10:49, Today: William Pierce rolled 10 using 4d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 3,1,2,2. Ghost Gun damage.

10:53, Today: William Pierce drew the single card: 10D using the Deadlands system. Initiative.

</small>

[[Enough to make her wary of the Ghost Gun, for sure...
Summoned Spirit rolled 7,7 using d10,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 7,(6+1)7. soak. *considers other chip, throws it on*
Summoned Spirit rolled 4 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4. red chippit. 11'll soak 'em. (I have my reasons for this, partly related to keeping the priest alive, sorry.)]]

"N-!" The priest swerves aside, sliding and almost going over, covering his head. The Thing In The Dark switches instantly in its path like a shark to follow; it ignores the shots until one wings it, doing nothing obvious but causing the whole mass to flinch, twitch back and shoot away in a roiling cloud of thicker darkness like blood in midnight water.

The night closes in, as though the thing could clench its coils around the moon. Father O'Rourke rights himself properly and hastens over, only slowing when William's within the edge of the lantern's small glow.

"It can't touch the light," he tells Pierce, getting his breath back. "In the light, we're safe. That stuff," he nods at the thicker dark, "Seems to burn. Did you find who was screaming?"

*zrrrl!*

The priest startles at the blow to his calf, looks down and then just stares for a bit. "That's...what."

There's that soft, high cry like a baby's wail from the darkness again, the sound echoing and distorted by the walls and the black fog until it seems to come from nowhere or everywhere at once. O'Rourke shivers.


[[Aaaaaaanyway, the nasty does what it does best and hides in the dark: give me a Notice -2 vs...
Summoned Spirit, rolled 10,4 using d12+2,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 8,4. sneakin'. 10.

Initiative!
Black Death AC
William Pierce 10D
O'Rourke 8S
remaining melon 3D ]]

12:54, Today: William Pierce rolled 6,6 using d6+2,d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of 4,4. Notice

22:34, Today: William Pierce rolled 4 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4. and another red chip.
22:34, Today: William Pierce rolled 3 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 3. Blue chip adding to Notice.

Sigh... 13 total.


"Two vampires attacked two girls." William replies. He doesn't gesture at the two corpses with stakes protruding from their chest, nor does he explain the demonic melons.
He'd have to take care about the last one which kept bumping against his leg. It'd trip him if he'd move away, he was sure about that.
But for now he scanned the area for this new threat.

"Come out, come out where ever you are..." he whispers. Then he sees something. Or rather, doesn't see what he should see: a flash of lightning lightens up the side of the house. All of it except a shadow that shrinks down in a fractionally slower flinch from the light, as if something was lurking there.

It can't touch the light... The stakes seemed to work quite nicely on the vampires, even though William was sure that he wouldn't get Marina as easily as Vincent. Vincent had been a lucky sucker punch.

He flicks his Ghost Gun to his left hand, still keeping it trained on the Shadow Scorpion.
With his right, he pulls the sunlight grenade from his belt, arms it and throws it.
It clanks against a stone behind the... thing, then rolls under it.

William closes his eyes, and not a second too late, because a second sun seems to erupt, light burning through his closed eyelids.
When he opens them up again, he has spots in front of him and he sees the creature in all it's gory and terrifying detail.


William isn't draining Murphy's blood, but his chips...
Throwing total of 9
Damage: 13:04, Today: William Pierce rolled 5 using 3d4, rerolling max with rolls of 3,1,1. Holy Handgrenade damage. Well, fucking crap on a stick.

22:36, Today: William Pierce rolled 16 using 3d6, rerolling max with rolls of (6+5)11,4,1. Holy Hand Grenade damage.

13:05, Today: William Pierce rolled 1 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1. Catching Fire, tree?
13:04, Today: William Pierce rolled 2 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2. Catching fire?

13:01, Today: William Pierce rolled 7 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of (6+1)7. blue chip.
13:01, Today: William Pierce rolled 0,2 using d4-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 2,4. White chip.
13:01, Today: William Pierce rolled -1,2 using d4-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 1,4. White chip.
13:01, Today: William Pierce rolled -1,-1 using d4-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 1,1. Throwing, unskilled.

Initiative:
13:07, Today: William Pierce drew the single card: 8S using the Deadlands system. Initiative, again, due to Quick edge.
13:07, Today: William Pierce drew the single card: 5D using the Deadlands system. Initiative.


This message was last edited by the GM at 20:50, Tue 01 Apr 2014.

The thing shrieks.



"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

[[The Bad From The Barn actually takes an extra 2d6 damage from the light alone, bringing that up to a 22. She rolls to soak some:
A Summoned Spirit, rolled 1,4 using d10,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,4. epic soak attempt. Leaves her at 2 Wounds, Shaken]]

"Augh!" The priest grimaces, and starts into flight, beckoning William after him whilst the thing continues to scream and thrash, flames outlining a madness of long limbs, feelers and tentacles and running over parts no more substantial than smoke. The melon tries to get under his feet but the priest doesn't even notice, and the thing is too slow when it rounds on William to get under his feet.

[[O'Rourke Moves, the melon goes for him, you know the drill:
vampire watermelons rolled 8 using 1d10, rerolling max with rolls of 8. *zzrl!*.
Father William O'Rourke rolled 14,0 using d6-1,d6-1, rerolling max with rolls of (6+6+3)15,1. Agility. The priest is too awesome to be stopped, though.

vampire watermelons rolled 1 using 1d10, rerolling max with rolls of 1. attack! attack! That's a fail against William.

New round! Aie, and all the NPCs go before William...what is it with the Spirit and the Ace of Clubs?]]

The nightmare spasms, screaming, rolls over and over across the ground, then lunges like a black comet across the space between itself and the smaller beings. William feels his mind trying to turn itself inside-out to get away from the horror, or maybe that's just his passenger scratching to get away. Teeth slam into his shoulder: he can smell his clothes burning and rotting at once under the thing's touch, all the while choking on a stench like roses grown from the viscera of the charred dead. Behind him, something thuds heavily into the wall as the creature's coils thrash.

It lets go, throwing him down as though he were a plaything to turn back on itself in blind pain like a worm's, sending the melon skittering.


"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"


"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"


"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

[[A Summoned Spirit, rolled 4,10 using d12,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,(6+4)10. unshake nasty. She's really unshaken!
A Summoned Spirit, rolled 9,2 using d12,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 9,2. Bite William. (Blindsight, +2 Touch attack, -2 Wounds) Hit!

A Summoned Spirit, rolled 11 using 2d10, rerolling max with rolls of 6,5. damage can has? 1 Wound for William. Also, please roll Vigour.

There's also collision damage for your buddies there, which doesn't affect it, since it's non-corporeal...

A Summoned Spirit, rolled 11 using 2d6. collision damage, priest. 1 Wound Shaken for O'Rourke.
A Summoned Spirit, rolled 8 using 2d6. collision damage, melon. Melon is squashed.

Oh, and roll vs. fire, since we're still in the initial damaging rolls of the grenade.

Talking of which...Alouette rolled 39 using 4d6, rerolling max with rolls of (6+6+4)16,3,(6+6+4)16,4. extra toasty. Bloody Hell. She spends a white on the incap, but the dice gods say no.]]


The creature's maddened rolling seems only to fan the flames; lying in the mud, William gets a dim idea of what it must be like to slay dragons as the thing screams in weird harmonics like a thousand damned souls, burning and coiling in on itself, limbs scything the air. It flops over and discorporates into darkness with a spreading calignancy like a dropped bag of flour.

There's a sudden quiet.



[[Alouette rolled 5 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5. fuego! O'Rourke is Not On Fire. Out of Combat!]]

12:17, Today: William Pierce rolled 4,2 using d10,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,2. Soak.

12:17, Today: William Pierce rolled 1,9 using d10,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,(6+3)9. Vigor.

William lies there coughing, and his head hurts as if something was trying to burrow itself out of it.
Something else is amiss and it takes him a while to realize what exactly: His heart should be beating in a thundering rhythm due to the sheer panic that had washed over him as the burning thing had lurched at him.

But here is no heartbeat. There is no strained, heavy breathing. He just lies there, dead, yet walking. A monster.

A monster that kills other monsters. He glances at the Ghost Gun. The faces are gone, apparently having fled from the thing that he had just killed and it looked oddly... mundane. Expensive, yes, but mundane. Then there's a flicker on the metal, as if the spirits inhabiting the weapon were peeking out of some hiding place.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, then crawls to Father O'Rourke.
He wipes away some of the already rotting flesh from the demon melons and gently lifts the priest up.
"You alright, father?" he asks, his voice a hoarse whisper.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:42, Wed 02 Apr 2014.

The priest automatically tries to rise with William, then stumbles as his knees give way. He's staring unfocusedly into space, presumably at the after-images of that mad inferno. "Oh!...all the little...angels...!" He slumps against William's side.

"What..." He refocuses, just about levering upright but still very woozy. His coat bears a similar decayed-acidic burn to William's from the thing's touch. "It's gone?"


[[Father William O'Rourke rolled 7,1 using d10-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 9,3. unshake priest]]

"Looks like it..." William replies. He looks at the black, leftovers in the rain puddles. "Remind me to tell Evans that his contraption worked fine. Better than I expected, actually."

He shrugs his shoulders in an attempt to assess any damage the bite might have done to his body.
"Bloody thing ruined my coat", he grumbles, then chuckles. Yes, that was obviously a huge problem right now.

"Where are the others? We still need to find and kill Marina."

The priest rights the lantern once more and leans his back against the house to just breathe for a moment.

"Adrian..." he looks out at the dark and the odd dwindling patches of flames and seems to decide nothing sounds too crazy any more. "Adrian flew away into the sky with the birds, I think he went into the house somewhere on this side."

With a slight grunt, O'Rourke pushes off the wall and leans for a piece of glass. "I tink there's a window broken somewhere up there..." He squints upwards, then shrugs and lets the shard fall. "That...thing, scared the birds away. The angel threw out a great deal of light against it and Evans, Jake, and John headed for the house under that protection."

He takes a long blink, still a little shaken and in pain, then tries to see the staked corpses and things beyond, clearly having trouble with things obvious to William's eyes. "The girls...?"

"Ran off the first chance they got. There was another girl, Chinese, who carried off the girl who got bit by him", he points at the first corpse.
"The other stuck around to cover their retreat. Had real guts, that one. Think their names were Jenny and Abby, or something like that."

He squints into the darkness.
"There will be other vampires sired by Marina. She's close, I know it. If we end her, her offspring might be easier to take down. Remember how confused the girls were? I think they're lost when their mistress isn't close by."

"Hmm," the priest rubs his chin, thinking. "I hope they got to somewhere safe, though I don't know where that would be...that injured one with the moustache seemed so sure the vampires had broken into the house, and he didn't seem to know he'd been turned - why would he lie? It doesn't add up, unless...do you think Marina could be as persuasive as her girls? That would be some pretty powerful suggestion there, set against the concentration of a man dying from a blow to the head...good grief, an' Bitter Waters wanted to torch the house." He looks up at the same and shivers, chilled by the rain and the falling spike of adrenaline.

"All right. Where d'you suggest looking?"

"Everywhere." William replies as he pulls the stake from the first corpse and puts it back into his belt.
"But let's start with the buildings without large windows. Marina won't take the risk of being exposed to a stray ray of sunlight when she sleeps. And you are right. She is a temptress, father. You should pray for both of us that your faith and my hatred for her are stronger than her powers of seduction."

He nods at the carriage house. "As good a place to hide as any. Bring the light. Stay behind me."

The priest looks a little unsure what to make of that remark, then faintly wistful before shaking himself.

"All right," he goes to find and pick up his crowbar. "I wonder if this place has any cellars..." he muses, following closely enough to be of use to William without blinding the vampire's night vision.

There's an avian screech from the other side of the house, causing the priest to look up in concern. "I hope our angel's not in too much trouble."

Cellars.

William looks down at the ground, lost in thought. When he looks back up, he has a wicked grin on his face.
"Father, you're a genius. You should run for Pope. Hah!"

He finally holsters his pistol.
"Let's see to Alouette, then re-group with the others. One or two of these sunlight bombs down the cellar stairs will do wonders in frying Marina out."

"Providing we get the right cellar," O'Rourke puts in, amused. Not dying seems to render the priest pretty cheerful despite his wounds.

He's a little slower than William due to the injuries, but on rounding the carriage house they see the great pale glow outlining huge semi-manifested feathers, and soon enough spot the clank in the midst of them dodging a thrown lasso and chasing the thrower into the bunkhouse, wings flared in fury.