Episode 3: Marked by Death
The sun hadn’t even set on the party from last session when trouble came knockin’. The saloon fell quiet as a new shadow stepped through the doors—a man in black, badge gleamin’. A Pinkerton agent by the name of Mr. H. He wasn’t in town to drink or play cards. He came with questions, sharp as a Bowie knife.
He wanted to know about the widow—last seen in their company, now gone. Said he had a scene to show them. Leading the posse to the rear of the saloon, they found his men cordoning off a patch of dirt… with nothin’ but a puddle of blood and the lady’s hand fan layin’ neatly in the center. No body. No prints. Just blood in the dust.
Mr. H didn’t mince words. The posse were his prime suspects, and to make sure they didn’t vanish like the others, he posted his men outside their rooms. Come morning, he said, they’d all be headin’ back to the source of it all: the stretch of tracks where their souls got split from their bodies.
But the posse had other business first.
They made a call on Crazy Pete—an eccentric old coot said to have built himself a ghost rock-powered carriage or two. His shack looked like a thunderstorm in house form, but inside, he proved to be as polite as a Sunday preacher. To the mad scientist, he offered half a pound of refined ghost rock—high grade, unstable. To Two-Gun, a handful with explosive potential. His only request? Bring him back any rare “purple” ghost rock they stumble upon.
And ol’ Betsy? Turns out that vehicle they heard about was no stagecoach, but a mechanical donkey, forged of brass and gears. Betsy whirred to life and followed Mana like a pup with a silver nose. The party loaded up and set out.
At the tracks, the site of the ghost rock explosion still burned itself into the earth—a wide crater with train tracks somehow still hovering above the void. At Mr. H’s urging, the posse stepped over the crater’s edge, finding themselves suspended in midair, as if they were standing on solid ground no one else could see.
With Two-Gun distractin’ the agents, the mad scientist and Mana moved in deeper, guided by the eerie glow of Mana’s green gem. It led them straight to the center, where buried beneath the dust, they uncovered a block of black obsidian—cold and heavy as judgment. The moment it touched the gem, a shock rippled through the air.
And just like that, Mana and the scientist were yanked from the real world—ripped sideways into a shadow realm where ground once was. The air thickened, and through it drifted figures—ghastly, translucent shades in dark coats, each bearing badges that marked them as Agency.
One raised a ghostly pistol and fired.
The bullet hit the mad scientist in the other realm—but struck through Two-Gun in the real one, knocking the wind clean out of him. The fight was on in both worlds.
Mana unleashed fury with her bolts of fire. The mad scientist fired a crackling bolt into one shade, and the moment it exploded, its real-world counterpart did the same—Agent and shade both gone in an instant. The battle twisted as the last of the agents dropped screaming. A new presence emerged from the shadows—a tall figure, wrapped in feathers and bone, bearing the markings of an Aztec priest. His hands wrapped around Mana’s throat, attempting to choke the breath from her.
In the real world, Two-Gun reeled, in pain from the subduing rounds fired at him, managed to point. Mr. H, eyes narrowed, followed his aim and hurled a vial of holy water into the invisible void. It struck the air like it hit something solid. The priest screamed, its form flaring like fire on oil, and vanished. With a crack, the ground beneath the posse’s feet returned to reality. The crater was gone.
Mr. H helped them up, colder now. Said they’d been marked—by the Reckoner of Death. He didn’t have the means to contain that sort of business, not anymore. But he gave them one order: If anything happens—if anything else explodes—you come to me first.
Back in Redemption, the posse checked in on the Cleetus twins, who confirmed the black stone could only be handled by the Revived. Any other hand, it flies right through like a summer breeze.
Shaken, the party took measures. They rigged decoys in their rooms and holed up together in one. Doors bolted. Guns close. Two-Gun took the first watch.
It didn’t go well.
He began feelin’ strange. Off. Said he could feel somethin’, but all that came out was the slur of a drunkard. The others thought him pickled, restless from the ghost rock maybe. Mana took over next and that’s when she heard it—clip clop. A knock. The door creaked open.
It was Betsy.
The mechanical donkey had somehow found them, nose twitchin’, chasing the scent of ghost rock. The scientist tossed her a scrap from his stash and she clopped away into the dawn.
And then came the blood.
Morning broke red. Mana stirred, glancing around. The scientist was asleep in a chair, snorin’. But Two-Gun’s bed was empty—replaced by a puddle of blood.
No noise. No struggle. Just gone.
As panic set in, the drawing of the Aztec temple—a map of horrors if there ever was one—fell from the wall. Where once it showed a single figure on the altar, now it showed four. Three new figures stood behind the priest, their features… familiar.
What it all means, none can rightly say.
But death walks close behind, and the Revived may be runnin’ out of time.
