Glancing around Jake takes stock of who's still alive and notes his own exhaustion along with the pain in his hand.  He ponders for a moment cutting of the hand as that might make him feel better.

"... anyone know how to deal with poison ... I'm sort of tapped out up here."

"Gnn..." Hardin seconds the thought from where he's curled up on the ground.

"Get yourselves up to the altar over there," he said, pointing.

"We got the priest over there, and he can heal you up. I'll see if I can't give you a lift first though," he said, examining a series of spectral cards in his hand.

When they faded, he moved over to see if he could help give Hardin a hand on moving.

---

OOC:

Deal with the Devil: Full House (QD,QH,QC,KC,KD)
Automatic success with double duration for a two step Vigor boost for Bitter Waters.

Deal with the Devil: Full House (3D,3S,3C,2C,2S)
Automatic success with double duration for a two step Vigor boost for John Wesley Hardin

Strength: 4

12:35, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 3,4 using d8,d6.

12:28, Today: Adrian Vega drew the 11 cards: QD, 10D, KD, QH, 7D, 6C, KC, JD, 2H, 3H, QC using the Deadlands system. Deal with the Devil Boost.
12:30, Today: Adrian Vega drew the 11 cards: 2S, 8C, 3D, 7D, 6C, AS, 2C, BJ!, 3S, 5D, 3C using the Deadlands system.

Also...Jokers Wild?
This message was last edited by the player at 17:35, Thu 09 July 2015.

Still hot to the touch, Adrian is able to haul Hardin off the ground and support the man in an uphill limp. Looking across the altar space, however, shows only the Mayor looking at a blurred pale line in the air where once was a portal, Lazarus looking sort of...drunk? -and the patient heap of bones beside the altar.

[[I'm...not sure what boosting their Vigour right now will do, but Bitter Waters' roll was so good I'll think of something. Do you want to keep hold of Harry for a bit?]]

"I swear he was here when I left. Where's the priest?" he asked Lazarus.

OOC:

I didn't know what it would do either, but I figured if they were having trouble walking it might help or resisting any continuing damage effects from poison. I was trying to think of some way to help them.

Yeah, I'd like to hang on to Harry, especially now that he can see through time and space and around corners.

"He went after the other snake," he said, pointing.

"Fuck," he said. "Wait right here," he told the others.

OOC: Why boost vigor to lift something?

A creature so large would surely not be so hard to track...over earth and through grass, at least.

[[@Jake - Yours, not his, ya dope - go get a joker chip.

Adrian, Tracking +4 to strike the serpent's trail (that the priest is also following).]]

He came upon the priest as quietly as he might, though he knew that despite his best efforts, the serpent would detect him. Nevertheless, he didn't speak. He merely pointed out where the serpent had gone to the priest, motioned for silence, and indicated the priest let him go first.

OOC:

Tracking: 11
Stealth: 7

13:52, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 7,5 using d4,d6, rerolling max with rolls of (4+3)7,5.

13:23, Today: Adrian Vega rolled 8,11 using D4+2,d6+2, rerolling max with rolls of (4+2)6,(6+3)9. Tracking .
This message was last edited by the player at 18:53, Thu 09 July 2015.

Jake goes and does whatever it is other folks want him to do as that's what he's been doing... cause yeah good times

Adrian jogs along the trail left by the serpent, guided by the deep ruts in the grass and brush ahead when the track across stone and scree is not apparent. He finds himself circling the hill, over its crooked ridge and back around to a point a little below the head of the trail they came up.

Here, it is clear the creature coiled himself and laid low against the earth, spring-tensed as steel...and looking onward at the range of such a flying strike Adrian sees the priest bent over a body lying on the ground.

"Could you find me some fresh water?" O'Rourke asks, having looked round sharply at the sound of Adrian's approach.

He looked at Jake Lawrence curiously. "I'm guessing you all managed to kill the other snake? Maybe we should go help Adrian. Will you come with me?"
This message was last edited by the player at 19:06, Thu 09 July 2015.

Adrian peers down to see if he can identify the body.

Jake shrugs as he puts away his knife, "Wasn't me. I just got bit by a little rattler and flailed about wildly at the big one." He shakes the hand then picks up the borrowed pistol which he'd dropped in combat.

"Sure ... why not."

"Please," the priest says a little more firmly, shielding his patient with the remains of his cassock as he continues to apply pressure to injuries Adrian can't currently see. Presumably it's Evans, though, since the flamethrower tank lies nearby, and the pale bare foot visible looks more like a slim man's than anything.

The priest's harried actions and urgent request begin to make sense as Adrian notes the torn, bloody heap of cloth beside the feet, and that the visible half of the Marshal's legs are bare; in all probability O'Rourke is holding one of the major arteries surrounding the groin closed with the heel of his hand.

[[yeah, Ixi's aim is terrible.]]

"We can find the priest and perhaps he can help heal you," he suggested.

"Do you have a knife of any sort? Using the snake venom is the only way to kill these snakes. I gave my knife to the surly, violent one that tried to shoot Mr. Vega in the back earlier, from what I hear," he said. He fished out a sharp shard of bone from the multitude of bones that seemed to be laying there and envenomed it, as easily as if it was something he did every day.

"Just slide it into this punctured venom sac and coat it with this snake's poison," he said, instructing Jake Lawrence in the manner of making snake killing weapons.

"Sweet Jesus," he said. "Uhh, sorry father," he said, plucking the canteen clipped to his belt and handing it to the priest.

"It's all I got on me. Will it be enough?" He pulled out a small flask of whiskey he carried on him too, dropping it on the ground. "Got some whiskey as well, case he needs it. Or in case you do. Hold onto your Faith, father. We can't let the Marshal die," he said.

---

OOC:

Deal with the Devil: Flush (JC, 4C, 3C, 9C, 8C)
Boost Faith for Father William O'Rourke by TWO STEPS

14:49, Today: Adrian Vega drew the 11 cards: 5D, 7D, JC, 4C, 3C, 3D, 5H, JH, AH, 9C, 8C using the Deadlands system. Boost/Lower Trait.

"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life," the priest affirms, gripping the offered canteen with his free hand.

Murmuring in Gaelic he pours the water across the unseen wound and gingerly lets up on the pressure, flicking blood off his red right hand before attending to a puncture somewhere under the ribs. After a moment's thought, he takes up the whiskey and washes the wounds lightly with that as well. Stripping his upper half, O'Rourke lays the clothes on Evans' lower half and props the Marshal up as much as is safe to trickle just a little of the spirit down his throat. "Come on now..."

Evans coughs. Very much in disarray with mud plastered across his face and the shirt pulled up from what is now only blood-smeared skin, the Marshal looks a wreck, but he coughs, winces, and opens his eyes a little. "...is this some fresh Hell, or just the old one?"

"Try not t'move so much just yet," O'Rourke advises.


[[It feels like there's something deeply, deeply wrong with using Deal With The Devil to boost a Blessed's Faith...nothing about it in the rules we started with, though, so:
Father William O'Rourke rolled 5,4 using d12+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 4,3. Faith vs. incap. (-wounds, +boost, Healer & holy water)

Father William O'Rourke rolled 12,3 using d12+1,d6+1, rerolling max with rolls of 11,2. holy healing, Batman! Nice. That'll heal Evans, though he needs trousers badly.]]

"A little bit of both," he said. "I don't know what happened to you, but Harry Lazarus and I went up to go save the priest here. I killed a giant snake-demon using its own venom, like I read about in that book we found at the Moonie place. When it died, it powered some kinda ritual that opened up a portal and let two more snake demons out. So I killed another snake demon. There's one more left out there. Mayor Bruebaker is trying to close the portal somehow. Found you out here on the way to deal with the third snake-demon. How bad are you doin'? We could use your skills. If you could weaponize that snake venom, it might come in handy in case we gotta deal with more snake demons."

---

OOC:
Wrong, yeah, but kinda hilarious. Forcing a demon to use its power to make someone believe more in God (or whatever increased Faith means practically)? Good times.

In reply to Harry Lazarus (msg # 201):

Wasn't I just holding and using my knife. Jake thought with a look of puzzlement on his face. He then looked down at the blade currently residing in its sheath on his hip. Yep there it is. His eyes turned back to Harry as though the man was speaking a strange language or perhaps was wearing a dead cat as a hat.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:06, Fri 10 July 2015.

"There was...a sensation much like simultaneously being slammed in a door, stabbed in the liver and recieving the attentions of a crowbar extremely hard in the tender parts; I'm afraid I passed out," Evans says a little testily, taking the flask from O'Rourke and drinking deeply. "I...think I can walk it off, but, ah...whatever happened to my pants? Or my underthings, for that matter?"

"I had to cut them off t'be sure you weren't...cut off, too," the priest puts in, professional as anyone who'd spent time alongside army surgeons. Cannon and shrapnel could do terrible things to a man, and he'd seen most of them. Evans goes a bit grey. "The serpent must have got you just as you turned t'see it."

"I don't recall...it's like a blasted dream, I thought I saw these withered hands and lumps of flesh flying though the air, and a kind of solid starlight...but venom, yes. Hm. I'm not sure I can do much better than simply coating bullets in the neurotoxin, but if we have a container to sample the stuff..."

[[ecksdee. You know, what with this and the mine thread, I'm starting to see where Ancient Greece's heroic nudity might've come from...]]

"Pull yourself together, man! Come on! Dip the knife in the poison and let's go fight another snake. That gun won't do much. It has some kind of face mask protecting its poison glands," he said, wondering what seemed to have come over Jake.

Jake says nothing and does what he's told cause apparently people think this shit is normal.

"Well, I'd give you an extra pair of pants if I had one, but turns out, I don't," he said. "If we were fightin' folks rather than snakes, even deaders, you could take their pants once we put paid to 'em."

---

OOC:

Or if you could trade for Mysterious Treasure or Relic cards, you could give Evans some Magic Pants. What's better than Magic Pants?