Albert listened to the quiet conversation, then nodded. "I ain't got no better idea." He understood the concern, but didn't have a good feel for what sort of problems the door might give them.

Wordlessly, Horn passes Kansas Kate a pair of shotgun shells.

Equally wordlessly, she accepted the "Skeleton Key" and retrieved the double barrel scattergun.  Well, they had a proper breaching implement.

"Well thar's step one, who's gonna kick th' door in?"

As it was rudely dismissed as an option, Dr. Wayland put away his pocket gun.  He gave it a soft pat of apology.  In answer to Kate's question, the scientist walked over to the door...  He shifted to the side of it, just in case, and made sure that no one was standing directly in line with the door.  If everyone seemed ready, he tested the door to see if it was even locked.  If not, he will push it quickly open.  If it is, Wayland will deal with that in a more dramatic way.

To be clear, he'll check to make sure folk are ready and waiting before he knocks open the door.

Trying the knob, Dr. Wayland is unsurprised to find the door locked. Placing his right foot against it, level with the lock, the bounty hunter activates the steel spring loaded in the heel of his boot. The spring shatters part of the door, sending the knob bouncing into the room beyond and scattering wood chips in every direction.

The door flies open, revealing a room that has been completely overtaken with black vines which are rife with long thorns. They are everywhere, occupying every available inch of space. The posse members can make out the remnants of furnishings among the dense entanglement, some of which have been crushed and ruined by the invading vegetation. Once a bedchamber, the area now has the appearance of a ruin, of a place that has been long abandoned to the elements.

The group sees no one in the immediate vicinity. On the left side of the overgrown room, the dark vines have separated to form an opening, a tunnel that travels though the threatening greenery. The makeshift passage is only wide enough for one person to pass through at a time, and leads into darkness.

Kansas Kate just glared into the room.

"Now that's just dumbass."  She seemed angry and disappointed at once.  "Leave it up to a man ta deckerate a room like that."

Was... was that a joke?  Granted it would be a sexist joke, but that part was on brand for Kansas Kate.

Albert couldn't help but chuckle at Kate's jest. He pushed the brim of his hat up with his right forefinger as he regarded the gunslinger. "Doesn't exactly have a lot of comfort or warmth, does it?"

Albert did take a look at the vines to see if they might pose any threat.

OOC: Let me know if you need any kind of roll.

"Miss River, you don't happen to carry any sort of an herbicide on your person do you?"

Lee looked at the room, attempting to gauge the distance to the portal.

"Reckon we'll need to go in there. Anyone got a light source?"

Cooper looks at the vines closely, recalling having encountered them before in Lincoln’s schoolhouse and the deteriorating farmhouse where some of the town’s children had been held captive. The overgrowth is motionless. Cooper does not perceive that the strange plants themselves are moving, or that anything is lurking within the dark tangles. Outside of the need to avoid the discomfort of the thorns, the gunslinger sees no other danger.

Lee estimates that from the doorway, the entrance into the narrow passage through the thorns is roughly fifteen feet away. The lawman feels certain that the bedroom was originally quite spacious, most of it now lost to the dense foliage.

"Doc, could that device bust off these here hinges? We could separate this door and use it to get by these thorns - make it through to the other side."

Doctor Wayland worked a catch and kicked his boot down, resetting the springs with a series of ratcheting clicks.  While he was doing so, he looked over the room with the others.  The mention of an herbicide began to tick through his mind as he mentally inventoried what he had on him.  The light source question was more easily answered.  Wayland reached for...his pocketwatch.  He gave it a gentle shake, then clicked it open.  In the dim and dark of the strange room, the watch glowed and shone a bright green flare of light like a bull's-eye lamp or the lamp at the head of Hell's own locomotive.

He swept the light through the thorn room for all to get a good look around.  To Lee, Wayland casually answered, "Ah am sure Ah can remove the door any number of ways...  Ah can also do a number on the thorns...  Though Ah am unsure the room would survive it... Sometimes the only way is straight on through."  He set the the watch-light on the path through, "He left us a path theah. Probably not safe, but what is, really?  Ah'll be glad to go first and test the theory...  Scientist, after all..."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:33, Wed 24 Mar 2021.

"We could just toss a lantern in and burn the entire bloody house to the ground," Jactina suggested.  She'd brought her lantern with her from the basement and held it aloft, adding to Ezekiel's illumination.

"We's overthinkin' it.  That's what 'e wants."  Kansas Kate concluded, agreeing with the Fancy Man, as he was known in her subconcious.  "In 'n through, likely ta kill whoe'er goes first.  Roshambo ya fer it?"

Without batting an eye, Dr. Wayland firmly shook his head at Kate's notion, "No.  You have already had your turn.
Selfish. " To Jacinta, he could only shrug, "If only it could be so easy...  The the only way we can truly be sure is to pull him out root and stem".

The Doctor glanced back at everyone, tipped his hat politely, "Ah'll be right back...". He then stepped into the room to dare the road less traveled.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:31, Fri 26 Mar 2021.

"Hm. Vines ain't currently movin'. Seems like only them thorns ta worry 'bout." Cooper looked over at the doctor. "Zeke, mebbe we should all head through? Still got my uncle's machete if we run inta any vines that need cuttin'."

"Let'em in a step 'er three, just ta see if they react to 'im, we cain't help 'em none if'n they does something."  Thinking about the machete comment, she smoothly switched over to the Toothpick.  A machete it was not, nor was it really a chopper, but it was still a big knife.

”I’ll follow along with you,” Bonney tells Dr. Wayland, unholstering both of his pistols as he speaks, ”I’m eager to see this thing done.”

Dr. Wayland and Bonney follow Kansas Kate’s suggestion, venturing into the narrow passage a few paces, watchful for any reaction from the surrounding vines. The plants remain inert, the long, thorn covered tendrils unmoving.

The pair, along with any who follow, press forward, noticing after several more steps a gray light up ahead. Continuing on, they see the passageway broaden, then end at an opening that is washed with a pale glare.

The group find themselves on a rocky plain, the sloping earth suggesting that they are on a mountainside. The tall skeletons of ancient pine trees, long dead, dot the landscape, which is canopied by an overcast sky the color of slate. A wind stirs through the lifeless pines, its touch chilling, its soft moan lonely.

The ground is littered with bones, the long abandoned remains of those fallen in a forgotten battle; bows, clubs, and tomahawks laying beside many of the sun bleached skeletons. There are around fifty of the dead resting on the incline, seemingly left at the very place where they died. Glancing about, the posse members can see arrows speared into the trunks of nearby trees, and angled into the hard packed ground.

Further up the slope, perhaps sixty yards away, sits a small shelter, built from raw timber and adobe. In front of it, a campfire burns within a circle of gathered stones, the crackling of the flames audible within the hush that envelops the mountainside.

Seated cross legged in front of the fire is Lawrence Murphy, clad in a buckskin shirt and dusty jeans. His focus shifts from the flames to those that have just arrived, who he regards with mild curiosity.

”I imagine it was a long walk to get here,” he calls down, ”Not sure it was worth all that trouble.”

Tamsin's hands know their way around plants. Her fingers carefully weave between thorns on vines as she follows quietly. Everything is dead here.

Lee followed cautiously, making sure everyone was alright as they made it into the tunnel, then moving forward. The scene they were in unsettled him. The sight of the dead, the weapons that lay so close by. It gave him a sense of pause, though he did his best to appear unruffled.

"I'd have to agree. Bringing in common criminals is rarely worth the trouble."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:50, Sun 28 Mar 2021.

"Ya oughtta arrest his gardener.  Ah've seen greener thin's growin' in a Union soljer's arsecrack."  Kansas Kate walked along, looking, well, disgusted.  "Course ah guess this here's yer dumbass plan fer th' whole world ah reckon, long as ya gets yer way who gives a damn if everythin' else goes ta hell."

The starch was back in her voice, that sound like nails on a chalkboard.  Whether she slipped into that voice purposefully or not was hard to tell.

"Thar's one thin' missing he ain't showin' us though."

When Dr. Wayland arrived on the other side without being torn to shreds by terrible, bloodthirsty thorns.  He sagged, just a little; possibly disappointed.  The somber scene he stepped into of an impossible place that you should not be able to get reach from a bedroom did catch his attention.  He straightened back up and readied his lightning gun.

He looked first to Lee as he spoke, then Kate as she did...then back up to Murphy on his hill of death.  The Doctor didn't seem to be in a chatty mood just yet...  More waiting for the moment...

Albert nodded at the others and then shrugged as his response. "Ain't nobody here afraid of a bit of hard work. I tend to enjoy long walks m'self. Good fer yer health, and yer mind."

”Long walks indeed,” Murphy says with a smile. He prods the fire with a branch, a small shower of sparks emerging from the burning wood.

”A question for you, Ranger,” he calls to Lee, his gaze still fixed on the flames, ”If I elect to come with you, to submit to arrest, where will you take me? Obviously I would be jailed, but I’m genuinely curious about where exactly I would be.”

"Not terribly far, Mr. Longley. We would transport you to Roswell to stand trial for your crimes," he said.