Deadlands – Session 4
Scrambling through the slimy warren, the posse emerge from the rattler’s nest, savoring the sweetness of the air after their time within the mound. Several miles away, the citizens of Coffin Nail are in trouble. Turning towards the sound of screaming, the posse witness the enraged mummy rattler erupting from the dusty ground in the center of the town. Several of the slower (older/fatter) townsfolk are engulfed by the worm’s gaping maw as the slithering behemoth rises to its full height.
“Well, bugger me sideways,” Bob Twofeathers swore, as the beast crushed several buildings into kindling beneath its massive, scaly coils, “I’m sure relieved that thing ain’t our problem.”
“It is our problem,” Cobb said, “We enraged the adult rattler by killing its brood. It’s our fault that the beast is attacking Coffin Nail.”
“We have a responsibility to slay that monster.” Theo Shabaz added, quivering with righteous fury.
The posse mount their horses with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Antonio has polished off his last bottle of tequila and is eager to reach the town’s saloon before it too is destroyed.
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After a brief detour to steal dynamite from the nearby mine, the posse ride for Coffin Nail. Cobb spots Miss Appleby’s clockwork gyro-copter circling the imperiled town. Distracted by the droning whirr of the flying machine’s rotors, the rattler weaves its blind head to and fro, determined to knock the tenacious schoolmistress out of the sky. Trailing smoke, she is forced to crash land her damaged gyro-copter in the street.
“Looks like Miss Appleby is going down hard.” Bob Twofeathers grunted. Fortunately, Antonio is already dashing towards the Gilded Cactus and doesn’t hear him, else he would likely have said something lewd in response.
Theo pulls Miss Appleby from the wreckage of her flying machine. She’s still a little shaky, but otherwise unscathed following her ruinous landing.
“We have to get to my workshop behind the school house,” she insisted, shrugging off the slayer’s lingering hands, “I have a device there that will lure the rattlers away from Coffin Nail.”
“Like the one in Dune?” Cobb Whately asked, “Hold on – what do you mean rattlers-plural? There’s more than one of those things?!”
“The one here now is the adult male,” Miss Appleby explained patiently, “The adult female is much larger and much more dangerous. I dare say she’ll be along presently. We should gather my equipment before she gets here.”
“We’re too late…!” Austin cried, as the ground beneath his boots began to buckle.
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In the Gilded Cactus, Antonio Attano was busy ‘rescuing’ several bottles of strong alcohol from behind the bar when he felt the entire building tremble. To the Mexican’s drink-addled mind, the room was already spinning, so this new development did not cause him any undue alarm. The bar shook again and several bottles fell to the floor and shattered. Antonio mewled in dismay and crawled over to where the spilled liqueur was pooling on the floor.
Suddenly, the floor exploded upwards as mummy rattler popped out of the ground beneath the bar. Antonio found himself clinging to one of the long, fleshy tentacles snaking out of the worm’s monstrous gullet. Striking a match off the coarse hair growing on his nuts, Antonio ignited the fuse on his bundle of stolen dynamite and dropped it into the rattler’s mouth. Moments later, the explosives detonated inside the worm and a pillar of fire roared out of the worm’s throat. To avoid being flash fried by the blast, Antonio released the tentacle he had been gripping and plunged towards the ground. Fortunately, his trajectory deposited the Mexican in a pig pen on the edge of town and his landing was cushioned by a sheet of warm, brown filth.
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Peeking around the corner of the general store, Bob Twofeathers watched the mummy rattler writhing in pain following the explosion in her stomach. While the giant worm was clearly injured, it was far from dead. By the light of its burning gizzard, Bob noticed a pulsing, fleshy organ deep in the rattler’s throat and – being Bob – he shot it. Mummy rattler did not like that at all!
“Here, try these instead,” Austin suggested, handing out handfuls of magical bullets as though they were candy. The metal casing was bitterly cold to the touch. “I’ve imbued them with elemental magic, they should be more effective than regular bullets.”
Bob Twofeathers and Theo Shabaz eagerly accepted the hexslinger’s gift, but Cobb Whately turned his nose up at the magical bullets, preferring to rely on his own sorcerous capabilities. Noticing that his own supply of power points was dwindling, Cobb decided to deal with the devil. This turned out to be a mistake and the backlash of magical energy from the Deadlands caused his head to explode – or would have done if the GM had not allowed him to re-roll the critical failure on his soak roll.
Bob and Theo shoot at daddy rattler with their elementally enhanced bullets, focusing their fire on the weak point at the back of the worm’s throat. Somehow, they manage to penetrate the behemoth’s armor and inflict sufficient damage to slay the monster.
One down, one to go.
To be continued….
