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First round summary. We'll wait for Nikos & Blackhart to show up and at least make their plans known. Just saw Nikos had to bow out for the time being
It all goes so fast, everyone struggles to keep up. When Adelita alerts the camp to the presence of the dogs, she's already surrounded with three hungry, bewildered dogs. They outnumber the posse and they know it. Adelita immediately runs to her lean, yelling "Holy Toledo!!!" as she retreats and fumbles for her weapon.
Bill opens his eyes wide to the alert and crawls out of his shelter, tomahawk in hand, and immediately a dog's teeth bite the empty air next to his face. He retorts with a swing of the tomahawk, crushing the dog's snout with it in a single swing, blood dripping out and splashing across the dirt. Satisfied, he stands tall in front of his tent, ready to crush more.
Through the corner of his eye, Jesus spots a big-ass dog, probably one of the packs' alphas, leaping at him as well and fortunately puts an arm in its way. The dog bites and rips his sleeve, then falls past Jesus, next to Adelita's retreat position. Jesus quickly recovers and draws his bowie knife, trying to stab the alpha in the back, but just about misses his move during the dog's leap. The two dogs that initially surrounded her now nip and bark at Adelita too as she's between the watering hole and three dogs, but her agility allows her to move her feet away from the angry teeth... for now.
Isaac meanwhile grabs a flask of lamp oil and starts tearing his fancy clothes with no regard for their costs, hoping to fashion an improvised firebomb to toss at the grouped up wild dogs, as he watches them ravage the unguarded camp.
Perhaps needing the most rest out of anyone, Kane is the one to crawl out of his lean last, but he wastes no time trying to understand the situation. He finds the biggest, meanest dog around and while getting up from his crouch, swings his tomahawk - that has already tasted dog blood before - wide in an upwards arc, but the Alpha isn't phased so easily and dodges backwards, only to then use the same movement to leap directly at Kane. Already, just the weight of the dog landing against Kane is painful, and he estimates the alpha dog must weigh at least 8 stone, and then a bite is added, ripping a piece of Kane's arm. It feels like the dog may have taken his pound of flesh from Kane...
The surprising dog ambush shook everyone as they scrambled. First, Adelita quickly readies her gun, brings the sights to her eye and aims for the nearest wild dog... but as she squeezes the trigger, her body betrays her and the shot flies wild due to her shaking, whizzing just past Kane, who's wrestling with another dog in front of his shelter. Instead of scaring it, the shot motivates one of the two biggest dogs to lunge at her, but fortunately misses its bite, instead just gives a gash with its paws as it lunges.
While Isaac is fumbling around trying to prepare his firebomb, another dog decides that it's the Undertaker who looks like a good snack. Perhaps it's the wound it gives Isaac that then prompts him to completely fumble his grenade throw when he tries to angrily toss it at the pack of dogs surrounding Jesus, but it goes high and wide, landing and exploding harmlessly past everyone, where the explosion does nought but kick the dust.
As the dogs are not deterred by the explosion when the fire doesn't touch them, three of them rip at Jesus, getting a few bites in, some are pushed aside, but he is hurting badly, at one moment everyone sees how Jesus lifts both his arms up in the air and has a dog biting into each. He lifts them off the ground and pushes down, getting free, but already badly hurt. Senor Cuervo is tough, however, and stays standing - if anything, the sight of his own blood motivates him to fight more.
Bill "Hawkeye" Williamson swings his tomahawk at the alpha dog who's fighting him and Kane at the same time, but either the blade isn't sharp enough, or Bill lost a bit of his strength in the surprise, as the large canine just shakes it off. When Jesus sees this, he runs - or more like stumbles - forward with all his strength and cuts at the Alpha himself as well, giving it a solid, bleeding gash, but this only seems to piss the pack leader off as it extends its head at Jesus' offhand arm, and in a loud click of its teeth, bites off Jesus' pinky and ring finger on the left hand.
On the other side of the camp near the watering hole, the pack of dogs follow Adelita into the shallow water, nipping and biting at her and Isaac meanwhile, however with little success. As if she was watched by a greater power, Adelita seems to dodge out of the way of all the lunges, jumps, bites and scratches of the dogs, and so it's all just a lot of splashing and dancing in the water.
Kane is pissed off. It's three of them surrounding the alpha dog, trying their damnest to take it down in the hopes of that driving the rest away, but they're. Just. Not. Succeeding. He curses his tomahawk as it again just barely rips the skin of the alpha dog, and then curses his luck even more as another dog comes leaping and lands its bite into Kane's forearm. He screams in pain and neither falls unconscious, but the primal rage inside of him pushes him onward. Seeing his comrade in grave danger, Isaac rushes forward to shotgun the smaller dog that nearly took Kane down - but there's a fumble, the dog's too fast, and just evades the nearly point-blank shotgun blast.
With so many near misses, weak hits and fumbles, Jesus nearly falls unconscious from the frustration. But as he closes his eyes for just two seconds, he sees a vision of his ancestors, of hunters tied so closely to nature, skilled trackers, butchers and warriors... the brief flashes of images spur him on, and suddenly he dives under the Alpha dog, bowie knife in his good hand, and as he slides under it, he extends the knife upwards and rips the large dog's belly right open. Blood and guts escape the cavity as the Alpha is eviscerated, it all drops on Jesus' badly hurt body, but he still laughs and elates himself with the glory kill. Pushed on, he gets up...
... few of the dogs see their alpha fall ... start running off ...
The second largest dog is still fighting, however, and has Adelita cornered. Kane runs after it, both to help Adelita out, and for the glory of killing at least the second largest dog, since the Alpha was taken away from him by Jesus. He wails at the "beta", but does not manage to kill it straight away. Most of the dogs are running now ...
... everyone is a little elated, the tide seems to be turning, and they are driving the dogs off ...
... Adelita finally regains her composure, and proves herself a Gunslinger with an accurate rifle shot into the "beta" dog, splattering its brain against the rock wall behind it. It collapses into the water they've been fighting in, and the water starts turning red quickly...
... Another dog is shot in the water ...
... and just as soon as the watering hole is more crimson red than clear, Jesus yells out, to the surprise of everyone - one of the smaller dogs did not run away, instead, it leaps straight at Jesus' jugular and violently chomps down on it, twisting and turning in mid-air. The grotesque scene is accompanied by Jesus' scream turning into a gurgle as he starts choking on his own blood, it sprays everywhere, and Jesus collapses onto his back, with the dog still tearing at its neck, until Jesus stops moving... forever.
Bill Williamson sees this happen right in front of his eyes and lets out a mighty roar before throwing expletives at the dog. He brings his tomahawk down, again and again, until it, too, stops moving and becomes a corpse lying on top of Jesus.
Kane hears the roar and lets one of his own out as well, bringing his own tomahawk up high and swinging at the last dog who didn't run, taking its head clean off. Its blood, too, stains the watering hole and Kane finally collapses from his wounds and exhaustion, falling face-first into the pond.
Isaac and Adelita drag him out and give the man first aid, stabilizing his wounds enough so that he is no longer bleeding. The posse laments how forgetful they were not to set up watch while they're camping, this could have been prevented if they saw the dogs coming... but alas, they must prepare to move on. Jesus is of course stripped of any valuables, then given an improvised, but proper, burial. Then they get to work on preparing supplies for their next trip, and get back to resting - this time, with proper watch...
As mentioned on Roll20, your rest is uneventful, no more wild dog ambushes or anything.
Before we move on, we figured you guys have about 1,5 days worth of food and drink (just enough to get to Black Mesa) and that you'll be passing by the Sand Creek massacre site.
One last thing before y'all get going that I'll need from you guys is marching order. Should have asked for it sooner, really.
Marching order? Well, I'll head out in front ah 'spose, on account a' my sharp eyes and knowledge of trackin an' sech. Neither man nor beast can catch a Williamson on the outs!
As mentioned on Roll20, your rest is uneventful, no more wild dog ambushes or anything.
Before we move on, we figured you guys have about 1,5 days worth of food and drink (just enough to get to Black Mesa) and that you'll be passing by the Sand Creek massacre site.
One last thing before y'all get going that I'll need from you guys is marching order. Should have asked for it sooner, really.
Marching order? Well, I'll head out in front ah 'spose, on account a' my sharp eyes and knowledge of trackin an' sech. Neither man nor beast can catch a Williamson on the outs!
"Don't mean to be knocking your sight none, but I will stand on front as well. Can't rush things from back and 'tween us both we oughta have most of the wild figgered."
Marching order? Well, I'll head out in front ah 'spose, on account a' my sharp eyes and knowledge of trackin an' sech. Neither man nor beast can catch a Williamson on the outs!
"Don't mean to be knocking your sight none, but I will stand on front as well. Can't rush things from back and 'tween us both we oughta have most of the wild figgered."
"Sounds fine. And that Mexi gal can keep up with the rear s'long as she brings the tequila an' makes them dog-meat burritos like she do. Got a hankerin' fer them."
Note you don't recover HP when resting in the wild (best thing that can happen is healing from negative HP to 0, if the character is properly stabilized), so you all keep your wounds.
Once everything's prepared and the party has taken stock of their rations and water, they set out at sunset when it's a bit cooler. For many hours, the trip is uneventful, sans the occasional wolf howling in the distance, vultures circling over the corpse of a mustang or some cattle. Kane and Bill also spot a mountain lion on a cliff in the distance, but the posse decides not to push their luck, with everyone still banged up from fighting off the wild dogs. Thanks to the two men of nature, you navigate away from any danger, circling around or knowing when to stay quiet and low to avoid attracting attention. As you progress, you notice the ground getting greener as you are further away from the arid environment.
Just on the brink of the next morning, you're walking along a small ridge and see that you're probably at the site of some old battle. There are graves marked by nothing but sticks splattered around the field, scorch marks and a few cattle, horse as well as human corpses that have been picked clean down to the bone. For a while, you walk along with the battlefield, it's a few yards to your north, but nothing really catches your attention until you reach a slight depression in the field. On the path there is what seems to be several broken down wagons and the ground is littered with fresh corpses. Kane and Bill count 5 or 7 wagons, and at least 10 corpses that they can see. Some of them are feasted on by vultures, so they have already been there for a while, but even from a distance, you can tell these are not part of the old battle.
It was probably a trade caravan, perhaps they got lost, or moved away from the Santa Fe trail for some reason, but then they were clearly raided. It's difficult to say what they were transporting as most of the goods seem to be gone, some crates and barrels are on the ground or broken. What catches your eye is that all the horses are gone, but one cart still has two working cattle tied to it, though they are lying on the ground with the cart tilted down, possibly dead.
You don't need to rest yet, have plenty of food, and just enough water to probably get to Black Mesa / Santa Fe trail without an issue.
You'd need to get closer to really evaluate that, from a distance, some seem to be standing upright, but whether or not they're still mobile, wheels on both sides are attached, etc, that's impossible to tell - you're up on a slightly elevated platform that's around 5-6 yards away from the caravan.
"If we can get those toros to pull that wagon it might make life easier. We could take all the supplies we want. We could take muchos barriles de agua. Not to mention tequila."
Then again, we would not move rapido."
Still the farm girl at heart, Adelita goes to check on the animals.
"If we can get those toros to pull that wagon it might make life easier. We could take all the supplies we want. We could take muchos barriles de agua. Not to mention tequila."
Then again, we would not move rapido."
Still the farm girl at heart, Adelita goes to check on the animals.
If you guys wanna search the carts etc, then either jump on roll20 and roll observations checks please, or let me know who's going and I can roll for you, let me know how you're searching, etc. All the wagons are more or less in a row about 30 yards long in the depression, the bodies are scattered around.
Adelita will check the living animals first, and make sure they are 'bueno.' Next, she will check the dead animals and look for signs of what happened to them. Then she will check the dead people on the ground. Then she will make a thorough check of the usable cart, with the animals attached.
The group moves from south to north-east, going through wagon by wagon. Everyone immediately notices bullet holes in the carts. The first wagon has a broken wheel and a corpse of a young man shot to death in it, so they quickly move on to the one that still has cows attached to it. While Isaac and Bill hang back to keep overwatch, Adelita goes to check on the cows and is elated to find out that they are alive and well, although probably very hungry - all the bits of grass that were on the dirt road that they could reach have been eaten. Kane hops up on the wagon and starts rummaging through its contents, finding:
- 2 full waterskins
- A crate of wheat grains
- A single pumpkin
- A box of dry lavender
Once he's finished, however, Adelita and Isaac both at the same time hold their hands up in the air. They observed something was off, and whisper or signal to the whole posse that they've both observed movement in the bushes to the north, as well as the south... it's an ambush that they've managed not to trigger... yet. But it's safe to say that whoever's ambushing them knows about their presence, they are just waiting for an opportunate moment...
Learned from their encounter at the watering hole, and well aware that they are not in the best shape, the posse approaches the abandoned caravan at the Sand Creek battlefield site cautiously. Bill "not so Hawkeye" Williamson hangs back with his rifle, while Isaac stays on high ground and near cover with his shotgun. It's almost right away that Isaac seems to hear some rustling in the bushes north that catches his attention. He rotates his head on a swivel and grips his shotgun just a little more tightly, darting his eyes around the plains. Meanwhile, down in the shallow valley-like depression, Kane and Adelita go cart by cart, stopping straight away at the second one which finds them two healthy, though hungry, cows still tied to it - what fortune! Kane feeds the cows with some cacti pads, then hops up onto the cart to search it.
That's when they, too, notice something - on the south side. It almost looks like one of the bushes is moving. Adelita quietly alerts her comrades and Isaac nods, confirming his suspicions. A quick plan is put together - Isaac will yell and point at the horizon to create a distraction, then they spring the trap or perhaps even turn the would-be-ambushers into retreat. There's a silent nod between the 4 remaining members of the posse and then Isaac indeed points out at the opposite horizon - "Friends! It's the law, we have to run!"
Unfortunately, all that comes in response is the command to attack - a bear of a man with a shaved head, standing tall 6'40" at least, emerges from a larger bush and answers Isaac's attempt at deception with "They're tryna trick us! AT 'EM BOYS!"
This time, the posse was ready - weapons already in hand and loaded. Bill immediately lets a shot off at the first bandit hat that pops out from behind a bush, but the bullet skirts the bush and rebounds away from its intended target. Senorita Adelita quickly jumps into the wagon they were searching to get higher ground and cover, takes quick aim and shoots true - the bullet finds its target, a masked bandit with a fancy hat, and rips his head open, spraying blood and brain matter on the grassy field before he collapses. Another bandit nearby screams in panic, "NOOO THEY OFFED BILLY!!!" and seems ready to high tail it out of there, however, one look at his leader, the shaved head muscular bear-man, and he gulps, shuts up, and the bandits stay in the fight despite Bill's promise to give them a chance to surrender. The call for surrender ignored, the bear-man rushes himself straight at Kane, sharing the idea that the biggest man should fight the biggest man, and wildly swings a hatchet ... but in his rage, it slips out of his hand and falls under the wagon.
Meanwhile, Isaac is suddenly surprised with another bandit showing his face from behind a large rock and before he can duck for cover, the already injured man is shot in the right shoulder, taking him out of commission for the fight. The rest of the posse look between each other briefly, but then Kane interrupts the moment of doubt with a wide swing of his tomahawk, tearing his opponent's chest with a large gash across it. The bear-man retorts with a punch, having lost his weapon, turning it into a fistfight while bullets are ringing and ricocheting all around them while the rest of the participants keep firing one round after another. Adelita makes another crazily accurate shot and another one of the bandits falls to the ground shot in the head, but other than that, it's a mess of near misses and fumbles. An ordeal such as this, a firefight in the open, normally resolved within seconds, seems to be dragging on as everyone is too shook up to take an accurate shot.
While the firefight is going on, Kane punches his opponent bloody after taking one on the chin himself, but the bear-man smiles at him toothily, despite the blood pooling up in his mouth. Kane only smiles back as he seems to have found a worthy opponent.
Nearby on top of the wagon, Adelita feels like the luckiest senorita in the world as three different bandits decide she's their next target, but bullets just keep whizzing past her, or embedding themselves into the wagon walls, as for the longest time, she is completely unharmed. She returns fire when she spots an opportunity - a reload or a distraction - and manages to inflict some major pain on the ambushers, but eventually even her luck runs out, as one of the bandits climbs a different cart on top of the hill, gets high ground and manages to shoot over Adelita's cover, nailing her straight in the shoulder. It pierces through, breaks a collarbone and exits on the other side, dropping Adelita straight to the floor of the wagon as she instantly loses consciousness.
Bill keeps reloading his Hawken rifle whenever there is small arms fire towards him, then poking his head out for a shot, but whether it's fatigue or Lady Luck, neither side of the intense firefight seems to land a shot, until there's a lull in the firefight because everyone looks in Kane and the bear-man's direction - after the big bandit kicks Kane in his private parts, Kane resumes fighting with the tomahawk instead of bare-knuckle brawling, having realized the bald man has no honor. This spurs the violent bandit to roll under the cart, pick his hatchet up and get back out armed again himself - he swings overhead - and the hatchet embeds itself terribly deep into Kane's skull, with enough force that forces the Wild Man onto his knees. The bear-man stares into Kane's eyes one last time, as Kane, somehow still conscious, perhaps through sheer will, determination, or rage - manages to speak - and smirk.
"Heh. Nice hit."
Kane's killer then withdraws the hatchet with an ear-grinding sound and yells out to Bill. "Yah were sayin' about surrenderin', old man?! Drop ye shit and we just might let ye go!"
"Fuck yerself, son. I's done made my prayers. You ready ta hear the maker?!" is the only response he gets, alongside a bullet that unfortunately strikes nothing but the wagon that Kane and his killer were fighting behind.
"Made yer bed, then! Boys, GET THE GIT!" the bear-man yells in response, and everyone turns their attention to Bill. The man's forced to stay sitting behind weak cover as shots ring past, which is when he hears a maniacal laugh and upon looking from behind the thick bush, sees the bear-man rush towards him, hatched raised up high in the air. In that very moment, one of the henchmen finally manages to take an accurate shot and grazes Bill's shoulder, sending the Mountain man into a charge of his own. No longer able to reload his Hawken rifle, the old man switches to his own tomahawk and rushes out to meet the bear-man in the middle of the field, exposing himself to enemy fire, tomahawk high up above his head, until the two men meet -- and Bill strikes first, bringing the tomahawk down straight into the frontal lobe of his opponent, bringing him down to his knees much like the same man did before to Kane. With zero appreciation for the irony, Bill only says stoically:
"Niggerlover."
Time seems to stop for the rest of the enemy crew. The remaining three bandits look between each other, lowering their weapons, before one of them yells: "HE DONE KILLED KNUT, RUUUN!" and they all turn to retreat across the field, quickly untying three out of the six horses they had hidden nearby, and ride off into the sunrise, straight east of the battlefield.
__________________________________________
Bill then goes to wake Isaac up first, urging him to help with stabilizing Adelita, who is still bleeding in the back of the wagon. Once that is done, the remaining crew mourn Kane for only a little bit, but then waste no time searching the rest of the area. They find the three remaining bandit horses and search the bodies, along with the rest of the caravan. Isaac notices, having examined the bandit bodies for signs of an allegiance, that the man called "Knut" had a tattoo of an Ace of Spades on the bottom of his wrist, a marking that is familiar to the posse - both Carter and Bugbear wore the same. Collecting scalps for possible bounties, and the hand with the tattoo, the crew loads up - having discovered a stranger's Snake Oil Cart, filled with ingredients and equipment to concoct potions, they use two of the horses to drag it, tie the spare horse to follow, and the cows - who miraculously did not get shot in the firefight - remain with the wagon full of food and water, as well as Adelita resting in the back of it. Bill takes the helm in the wagon, while Isaac follows with the car, and they set out to Black Mesa - with the ultimate goal being Santa Fe.
Loot recovered:
27x Pistol bullets
1x Knut's hatchet
9x Rations
4x Waterskins
Various mercantile goods - worth 50 Dollars (GP) if sold in town
2x sticks of dynamite
1x Bottle of whisky
Dollars (GP): 321 total / 107 each of the remaining three characters
XP: 242 each
Bonus XP: 25, Bill Williamson for "Niggerlover." as well as keeping the character colourful in face of nearly certain death.
