They part outside the jail. The Sheriff mounts up on a tall black gelding and rides off, straight-backed, without a single glance back. Charlie, nervously rolling his spur against the floorboards, watches him go. Then he clears his throat and nods to the ladies.
"C'mon," he says. "I'll show ya to the stables, and then see about findin' you some clothes. And spreadin' the word. And findin' the Sheriff." He looks stressed.
The sun's high in the sky. It's hot, and it's dry, and the midday glare beats their shadows squat and dark onto the hard-packed dirt. Charlotte and Avery gradually grow aware of eyes following them as they walk. Whispers trailing in their wake. Men turning from their work, their business, their path to look and stare. It's not simply because Avery is dressed so finely, and carries herself so well. It's not simply because Charlotte is so eldritch and so ... weird. Now and then they hear snippets:
That's them? Is that them?Yeah. 'S what One-Eye Joe said.How the hell are we supposed to beat off Sherman goddamn Kane under the command of two lily-livered ladies?...I don't know, I think maybe they'll pull this off. I don't know. But if they call for me, I'll help 'em. Can't be no worse'n doin' nothin'.
Word travels. It spreads fast.
--
The rangers' stables are at the north end of town. On the way there they pass an impressive structure Charlie points out as the mayor's house: built with the dark, square lines of an Eastern seaboard manor, with a heavy frame and solid walls, sloping shingled roofs. In comparison, the other houses around it look haphazard and rough, as flimsy-framed as that hotel Avery and Charlotte woke in, as seemingly prone to keeling over.
Not much sturdier, the stables. A low, long building with doors on either end, it houses a double row of stalls, perhaps six or eight to a side. The pungent scent of horseflesh and hay drifts out the open doors. Inside it's shadowy and cool, full of the dull thud of hooves, the whisk of tails, the low snorts and blows of the equine residents. A stableboy is forking hay inside, stripped to the waist, all skin and bone and sinew. He's perhaps the same age as Avery's brother, and he stops when he sees the women, goes a little wide-eyed, snuffles snot across the back of his hand, leans on his pitchfork.
Charlie points down the row of stalls, then. "Those two," he says, "are the ones the Boss was talkin' about. Third from the end on the left and fourth down on the right. If you like 'em, you can have Bert here," he raises a hand at the stableboy, who waves cautious back, "saddle 'em up for you. Or you can pick whichever you like best.
"I'll start spreadin' the word. While you're puttin' your horses through the paces, I'll send the kid over with clothes and have Clay and Pickett meetcha here. They're the other deputies. Alright?"
Black SheepCharlotte listens quietly though perhaps attends only in half-measure as Avery takes the sheriff's plans and alters them. What she attends to is the confidence and authority, not the disposition of men and women and marksmen. Otherwise, the girl-wolf's attention is split sharply between this world and the next, enough that she is surprised when she blinks back and sees the sheriff all straight-spined in the saddle.
Then they are left with Charlie, who will show them to the stables, who looks stressed and rolls his spurs against the floorboards and Charlotte feels suddenly and sharply sorry for the young man who is a young man and wolf-kin and wolf-blooded but is stuck in the body of a boy and doesn't know what it means to change or reach across the gauntlet or dream moon-dreams and wake to make them come true, so: she gives him a smile. Which she means to be reassuring but it is not. It is a wolf-ish smile, all gleaming eyes and flashing teeth and promise-of-the-hunt.
It is a pack-smile, see.
Avery offers Charlotte her arm, and Charlotte takes it, and so they make a very very pretty, very very strange picture, walking down the dusty street from the sheriff's office and jail and town hall to the stables, don't they? Avery in the sweeping hoop skirt and Charlotte in her rather more plain work dress and the roughhewn town raw and vibrant against the dry landscape of the high plains. When the dust from a passing wagon settles back over the rutted road (which is regularly befouled by chamber pots flung out of the windows of the apartments or the brothel or the inns or the shanties that accumulate and cluster around the edges of the place) the sky above the is so achingly clear they can still see the shadow of the slow-setting moon sinking in the west, above the sharp peaks of the front-range mountains.
--
Charlotte glances at the mayor's house as they pass it, pale eyes snagging on the structure, lingering around the frame. The solidity, the imposing presence as it looms over the rough-hewn shanties all around. Turns her head to keep watching it as they walk past and find the cool dark stables.
There, she offers her whispered confession and listens with her usual solemnity to Avery's reassurance in those dark shadows, the scent of sweet hay and horseflesh and manure organic and rich in the air all around them. Listens seriously and frowns, that bead between her brows again, and studies the stalls and at last the two the boy indicates. Easy to tell the bullheaded colt from the evenkeeled mare and the mare is small and gray with little spray of white on her forelock with lush dark eyes but still so much larger than Charlotte except: Charlotte can grow so much larger than the mare.
She asks the stableboy for a carrot or an apple or something sweet and holds it out to the mare they way she would offer gnosis to the spirits - with that same strange stillness, her awareness of the transaction of it all sharper with Avery's reminder than horses have served man for millennia.
"What's your Name?" Charlotte asks the mare, whispers really, and the mare does not answer because Charlotte cannot speak with animals but: perhaps Bert the stableboy supplies the name and Charlotte then asks very quietly if the mare will let her ride, the way she would take to the roots of an oak or the curl of ivy spreading up a brick wall: which is to say, strange and quiet and a little bit mad, but in the end Charlotte is satisfied and asks Bert to saddle the mare for her.
Reverence of Dawn"Noon," Avery confirms, guessing now that this is some time away. She meets the Sheriff's eyes a moment, her brows tugging together, and nods. "I will not say the same prayer for you," she says quietly. "I don't think that will be necessary."
--
Avery knows a thing or two about horses.
She knows that when they lie down to sleep, wild or otherwise, some of the herd will stay awake, standing, barely dozing, to keep watching. She knows that their first instinct is never to bite or kick but to flee unless they are guarding their young. She knows they are curious animals, and that even when they startle, they might wait around to see whether or not it's actually a threat. She knows they nicker and whinny and groom each other. Some think they can count up to four. They are creatures of habit.
They are not the natural companions of werewolves by any means, and she has never learned the gift of adjusting her scent to keep them calm. It makes her uneasy, but she doesn't show it to the men, to the kin, or to Charlotte.
Her skirts swish in the straw, and she lets it. They are introduced to a few horses, and the ones that Lark was talking about are pointed out, but Avery merely nods and looks over many of the animals thoughtfully. Most of them are quarter horses, obviously. She likes that; their speed, their hardiness, their closeness to the spirit of this place. As Charlotte meets the gray mare, offering chiminage and introducing herself, Avery drifts down the stalls.
To the bull-headed colt, who is a bay of about three years. His shoulders are stocky, his coat darker than most, almost a chocolate color underneath the deep black of his mane and tail, a white diamond blaze on his brow. He shies a bit when he sees her, chuffing and dancing slightly in his stall for a moment, but she remains where she is, very still and very calm. After a while he settles, and then he leans his muzzle forward, investigating, sniffing at her. Still she does not move, but she waits. It takes longer, but eventually she lifts her hand to rest it gently, firmly against his side. The feel him alive and powerful under her palm stirs some memory in her, but she nods.
"Bert," she says, without looking away from the horse who is sniffing her for treats, her hand resting on his withers, "I do not ride sidesaddle."
-black hat gunslingers-In the end, the Garou trust the judgment of the Sheriff, and he does not lead them wrong. The gray mare is, in fact, evenkeeled and calm, studying Charlotte with dark, gentle eyes so large that the Theurge can see herself reflected therewithin. Unlike most of the horses stabled here under the law's watch, her bloodlines might have some arabian in it. She is small, dainty, with a scooped profile and small ears.
Her chiminage, such as it is, is accepted. She can feel the soft lips of the animal nuzzling at her palm, and the big teeth carefully crunching the small treat out of her hand. The mare works her head gently up and down a few times as she is spoken to, and she flicks her ears.
"Her name's Misty," the stableboy supplies. Not the most creative name -- but appropriate.
Bert is waiting behind Charlotte while Avery is still drifting down the stalls. He has a saddle over his shoulder, though he -- perhaps a year or two younger than Charlotte -- is watching the girl rather than the horse with some interest. When she turns to him he blinks and looks rapidly away, then tips his battered cap.
"Will do miss," he says, and reaches over the door of the stall to unbolt it. The mare has a neat, precise step, and her tail swishes as she awaits the saddle.
--
Avery takes a little longer choosing her mount. She looks at each of the horses in turn, and perhaps somewhere in her mind she goes back to a time in her life when riding was something rather commonplace. She is not so detached from the trials and tribulations of the common man that she does not realize what a privilege that is -- but still, something about this must seem familiar and natural to her. The feel of hay beneath her soft slippers. The gleam of bridle and tack hung on hooks, over stalls. The warm smell of the animals, the low sounds they make. The stamp of their hooves as some of them, the more skittish ones, rear and dance in their stalls as she passes.
She passes, at one point, a lovely gray -- the sort of gray that whitens with age. This gelding is mature enough that he is nearly entirely white, with only nose and tail retaining some of his birth coat's color, which under the sun would be silvery. She would look utterly appropriate on the back of such an animal, but -- he cannot tolerate her. His eyes widen and he rears, backing away into the corner of the stall. She moves on.
The bullheaded colt, then. Young enough, stubborn enough not to shy. He dances sideways. She stands very still. After some time he comes forward, stretching out his neck to sniff at her, and then to blow softly. Soon enough he comes forward, curious, his chest pressed against the stall door, and this is when she reaches over the gate to rest her palm against his side. The animal chuffs; he begins methodically searching her pockets for a treat until he notices his friend -- Charlotte's mare -- being saddled and bridled and led out of her stall.
Then he nickers, a bright sound, impatient, quite envious. "You'll getcher turn," Bert calls over his shoulder, and this is when Avery informs him: she will not be riding sidesaddle.
Which makes Bert laugh, an open, cheerful, unmocking sound. "Well that's a good thing miss," he says, handing the reins over to Charlotte, "because we ain't got no sidesaddles anyhow."
--
Avery teaches Charlotte how to sit the saddle while Bert bridles the bullheaded colt -- whose name is, appropriately, Toro. She practices mounting, dismounting, mounting again. She practices mounting from the other side, and how to hold the reins, and how to control her mount with her knees. That's a bit advanced, but the mare is patient, tolerant, evengaited. She's a good choice for a beginner.
By the time Toro is led out to Avery, Charlotte is doing neat laps in the corral. Bert hands the colt's reins over to Avery, shading his eyes to grin at Charlotte.
"Lookin' mighty fine in the saddle, miss!" he calls, and then --
-- turns, swiftly, at the sound of approaching hoofbeats. The stableboy relaxes visibly as he sees who's coming. "The deputies are here, miss," he says.
And so they are. Two men tall in their saddles, one mounted on a blood bay, the other on a black-maned dun. They ride hard, and a little recklessly, a cloud of dust in their wake. Mere yards from the stableboy and the Philodox, they rein in, close enough to make the bullheaded colt snort, rear, stamp his hooves back down disgruntledly.
The riders thumb their hats up on their brows, tug down their dust-blocking bandannas. They're men who suit the land and the times; hard glints in their sun-faded eyes, rough-jawed, long and rangy. Only the stars pinned to their vests separate them from the more lawless elements in the west. One is sandy-haired, blue-eyed. The other
looks quite familiar to Avery indeed,
rugged-shouldered and russet-haired, dismounting from the blood bay in a slap of holster on chaps, a jingle of spurs.
"Ma'am." He tugs his hat but does not remove it. "Trevor Clay. This here's Rob Pickett."
Black SheepCharlotte does not seem to notice Bert's attentiveness, the way the younger boy watches her instead of Misty as she's offering the beast - yes, chiminage, as she would with any spirit. She's thinking about horses then and what horses want and how horses are, Avery's words in the back of her mind and the sense of both that solidity, that musculature, and those delicate legs on which they must carry themselves. Sees herself reflected in the huge round eyes of the mute little mare and seems - well, half-enchanted as the animal nibbles the treat from her hand. Spins around in a sweeping arc with an open mouth and this bright-eyed look of open delight to share with Avery, but Avery is walking on her slippered feet down the stables, seeking out her own rather more solid mount. Charlotte just finds the stableboy watching her and he did give her the handful of carrot but he's -
- well, poor Bert. Charlotte tries to give him a cross little look, which lingers in her brows and her mouth and not her eyes, drops her gaze and turns back to Misty.
Oh, maybe she'll like horses as much as she likes spirits, the spirits-of-things. Dreaming trees and twining vines and everything other and strange.
--
The moment passes. The animals are saddled - Misty first, and Charlotte takes to mounting and dismounting with a certain scramble-armed grace. Scrawny and slight as she is, she's a graceful little thing and that grace makes her seem like an awkward little sylph in the morning light, when she's mounted, the skirts of her long white daydress gathered and distributed over the leather curve of the saddle as modestly as breaches. She rides with a certain adaptable sway, but seems more inclined to give the mare her head than she should but -
Toro is saddled and bridled and being led out to Avery and this time when Bert calls out that compliment Charlotte flashes the boy a sunlight smile and forgets to be cross with him because riding is delightful and she thinks it reminds her of surfing, the rolling gait of the animal, the rolling sweep of the ocean, the power beneath you as you adapt and feel the swell and she's about to tell Avery this when -
- men.
Strangers, deputies.
Charlotte goes still in the saddle, studies them with a curling sort of frown, never quite looking at the hard, strange men directly. She breathes in deep, flicks a short, sharp look to the philodox.
Who will speak for them.
Who will have to speak for them.
Because as often with strangers, Charlotte has very little to say.
Reverence of DawnThe mare is named Misty, and as Avery overhears this, it pleases her. She smiles to herself, stroking the thick neck of the colt who is convinced she is hiding a treat for her somewhere in those voluminous sleeves. Or perhaps that bonnet. Failing a carrot or apple, he's betting that bonnet would taste just fine. He is wrong, but he is young. Avery doesn't watch his eyes much, and just exists near him without necessarily connecting too much; even as bull-headed as he might be, she is wary of making him start.
She notices Bert watching Charlotte, and notices the Look Charlotte gives Bert, and wonders if that won't just make Bert more determined to stare at her. She also wonders if Charlotte's that type of Fang: too fine, to arrogant, to accept the natural and overwhelming admiration of the peasantry. She doubts it. She would be surprised. But she doesn't understand the reaction.
They have no sidesaddles. Avery smiles, and pats the colt, drifting away while he's blanketed and saddled for her. By then, Charlie or someone has brought her some clothes, and she's excused herself to change -- scandalously -- in an empty horse stall, leaving the hoop and crinoline and even the bonnet in there. When she emerges, she is wearing a pair of black pants rough for 2013 and truly fine for the 1850s. She has, a bit rakishly, folded the sleeves of young Charlie's new white shirt up her forearms and she has tightened up his suspenders and she is wearing a black vest that holds leanly to her chest instead of shift and corset, the only sort of bra she could hope for in this day and age. Her feet are in Charlie's new boots, because Avery isn't going to try and ride in slippers, and because those new boots don't have spurs, which disturbed her. She's tied the upper half of her hair back with -- gasp! -- a tie from the bonnet, torn from its seam, a delicate floral strip of cloth like a haphazard ribbon against her hair.
The hat that she wears, because it is bright and she is not inclined to burn her eyes against the sun today, is the least fancy thing you can imagine. It's a hat for working with: for shading sun and rain, for fanning a fire, for swatting the hind of mount or stock. The tie dangles low beneath her chin; even if the wind kicks up, it will stay with her. The revolver once hidden in her skirts is holstered against her hip.
--
Outside, they practice. Charlotte in her white dress, Avery in her black and white men's clothes, her hat. Misty is more anxious about Avery than Charlotte, but she's gentle, and she's tolerant, and she responds easily to nudges this way and that. Charlotte practices, and Toro is handed to Avery. She raises her eyebrows at Bert's called compliment, a Look that invites him to mind his tongue that doesn't quite get the message across, due to the slight twinkle of amusement in her eyes. Her hands take Toro's reins, and she intends to mount, but then: hoofbeats.
Toro rears back, stamps, backing up a few steps, and she puts her hand on his neck, patting him, muttering to him while casting a level look at the deputies as they dismount. Bandanas down, hats up. Interestingly, even as they are pulling up and Toro is settling, Avery grips his pommel, sets her boot in the stirrup, and swings herself athletically, nimbly to her seat. When they walk closer, and when the one of them sweeps his hat off to reveal red-tinted hair, both Avery and Charlotte are high above them on their mounts.
That was a decision. The look that enters her eyes upon taking in the sight of Deputy Clay, as sudden as it is unbidden, is not a choice. Avery sips the air. "Deputies," she says coolly, by way of greeting. Her hand holds Toro's reins. He moves about a bit, and she sways easily with him, tugs back on the reins to remind him he is not let out today just to play or sniff at anything.
Charlotte, meanwhile, has actually come to enjoy this riding thing. She even smiled at Bert, though Avery missed that bit, and when she decides to turn Misty towards the deputies, it's with a familiarity and practice that belies how much time she's actually spent in the saddle. Avery glances at her, once, as she comes alongside, then looks back down at the deputies, her eyes particularly drawn to Mr. Clay as surely as iron shavings to a magnet no matter how many times she brushes her gaze clean of him.
She gets it into her head, at least fleetingly, that she is going to ride him next.
"You may call me Merriweather. My companion is to be addressed as Miss Lightfoot," she informs them, perhaps a bit more imperiously than she told Sheriff Lark. "When you and your mounts have had a minute to rest and water, we'll be on our way. We have a tour to conduct of the unfinished stone house and the Mayor's mansion. Your advice on defenses and opinions on where we dig in should be submitted to Miss Lightfoot; information concerning the management of the posse currently gathering at the Prickly Rose is within my jurisdiction and is equally welcome. Now," she adds, lifting her brows a bit, "Toro and I have some getting-to-know-one-another to attend to."
At that, Avery takes her eyes off the deputies, or her eyes off of Deputy Clay, and turns Toro towards the interior of the enclosure. He tries to take off underneath her, but she reins him in firmly, slowing him down to a steady walk to start.
-black hat gunslingers-So: Avery, dressed in men's clothes, mounts as the deputies approach. She addresses them imperiously, with the absolute expectation of being heeded. Avery might not be looking away from the dark-haired deputy often, but Charlotte at least can see the way his partner's eyebrow go up, and the way his lips flatten out -- not quite in anger, no, but perhaps something a little like ... amusement. Condescension? He keeps his trap shut, though; sets his thumbs in his gunbelt and stands back a little, his horse huffing over his shoulder.
Clay's regard, on the contrary, is neutral. It tracks upward smoothly as Avery swings into the saddle; follows her as her mount shifts her left, then right. The sun is high in the sky, not at zenith but close. When he squints into it, the light picks out the hints of green in the irises. He closes the distance until no one needs to shout. Only once does he look away from 'Miss Merriweather' and 'Miss Lightfoot', and that's when his approach takes him within arm's reach of Toro. The young quarterhorse stretches out his neck to nudge the deputy's shoulder, and the corner of Trevor Clay's mouth quirks up. He rubs a gloved palm over the colt's nose.
"Toro-boy," he murmurs. Then his eyes come back to Avery; then Charlotte. He nods at them, quick and curt. "We'll wait around front. Whenever you're ready, Miss."
He steps back. Avery turns Toro, and Clay turns himself. She can hear Pickett saying something, but the words are hard to make out; the tone is vaguely incredulous. And Clay's reply: even and mild as they walk away.
--
They find the deputies out in front of the stables, mounted up again and relaxed in the saddle, reins loose. Pickett is fanning himself with his hat. This is an era when people with even an iota of manners simply didn't wander around in public wearing single layers. Even now, at the height of summer, the deputies are in vest and shirt, hat and bandanna, jeans and chaps, boots and spurs. Pickett's unbuttoned his vest. Clay's shirt-sleeves are rolled up, and his gloves are tucked under his gun belt. Leaning on his saddlehorn, he straightens up as he sees the womens.
The wolves.
Perhaps Charlotte's changed into men's clothing by then. Or perhaps she's still in that plain dress of hers. If she looks back, Bert the stableboy waves at her, perched atop the corral fence. The deputies fall in, flanking her and Avery. As they reach the road, they rein in. Four-abreast, they wait for a wagon to pass -- pulled by a scraggly pair of oxen, containing a family of four and what appears to be their entire lives' possessions. The man of the house sinks his head between his shoulders; won't meet the eyes of the deputies or the strange shining females they accompany. He and his family aren't the only ones slinking away to try their luck on the road, though. Not everyone is staying to fight.
"Jeb Cromwell," Deputy Clay murmurs. "One of the first men to bring the whole family from back east. Built himself a right solid home and hearth while most everyone else was still pitchin' tents."
"Never thought I'd see him turn yellow," Pickett comments.
Clay shrugs. "Can't blame him. He's got more to lose than most, too. C'mon." He urges his mount forward with a squeeze of his knees. "Mayor's house." He looks across Avery to Charlotte. "Drawing room in the front. A scullery in the back, dining room next to it. Cellar stairs are in the scullery, staircase up is in the drawing room. Second story's two rooms, a bedroom and a library.
"Solid walls. Stop most bullets in their tracks. Small windows up front, all shutters. Close 'em and board 'em up, leave kill slots, and you got a pretty strong position. Back's a different story. Mayor got fancy there, put in plenty of glass. Breakable, harder to secure. Not impossible, we can still board it up, but it's tougher. Back door through the scullery too. Could serve as an escape route if we need one, but might be safer just to board it up entirely.
"Second story's small, but it could afford us some positional advantage. Put a couple sharpshooters up there, could do a lot of damage if the rest of us can keep 'em outside. If we lose the front room, though, the sharpshooters get pinned up there. Same story with the cellar. Good place to make a last stand, but if we get pinned in there it's gonna be a last stand all right, do or die.
"You ladies want to go inside, have a look?"
Black SheepCharlotte does change into her men's clothing in the interim; without fanfare, mostly huddled under her plain white dress in a far stall. The clothing is too big, but she has rolled up the cuffs of the rough-spun linsy-woolsy breaches and similarly turned up the sleeves of the woven cotton shirt. Her own vest is loose but even in the plain white(ish) dress she was not wearing a corset and does not seem to require one. The linsy-woolsy itches and the garments are rough but they are also made entirely of natural fibers. Nothing about them feels like an oilslick all around her so the theurge settles easily into the clothing for all that she looks absurdly childlike, all swallowed up in some poor boy's dubious finery. She finishes the get-up with the same pair of little lace-up leather boots she discovered with her dress in the chest in that rough-planked inn in which they awoke and the boots give her a bit of a jaunty air as she scrambles back up into the saddle and settles on Misty's back and shoots a look back at Bert the stableboy and frowns as he waves to her but: waves back anyway. Breathes in and wonders,
yes,
if he will survive today.
Charlotte has a far-away look on her face as they ride through the town, and that look sharpens and then bleeds into something even more distant as they approach the mayor's house. It is for the best that Misty is so placid as the girl's hands are slack on the reins and her pale eyes are distant and unfocused, staring into some bright middle-distance in the shadow of the wooden structure as (once more) she peers across the gauntlet to see how much of an impression the place has made on the other side. Very little, she expects, but even a shadow can be strengthened.
"Let's go in," Charlotte breathes in all sharp and deep when her attention swims back to the physical world, mid-way through the description of the strengths and weaknesses of the mayor's home as a place for a last stand, and she's listening again and now sliding out of the saddle, lightfooted indeed. This time she remembers the reins and loops them around the tie-ring and she thinks she could summon something to strengthen all that glass perhaps, waken spirits inside but -
- frowning up at all that wood, squinting beneath the shadow of the mayor's home in the early morning sun, she leans closer to Avery should the other Garou draw abreast of her, frowning with a quick little murmur, " - ask them how green the wood is. How quick would it go up if they set it on fire."
Reverence of DawnPickett keeps his mouth shut.
Pickett keeps his teeth.
--
They walk away, and Avery and Toro get to know each other a bit. She forces him to walk; she lets him trot for a good long while, and she posts to the trot to avoid being constantly, repeatedly jolted. It's obvious she's ridden before, and Toro can sense that, too; it's a comfort, one less thing for the young, mostly untrained horse to not need to worry about. She doesn't jar his spine or her own skeleton.
They exercise a bit, then, moving into a quick canter that excites Toro a bit, and Avery thinks what the hell and kicks him into a gallop, which is just so much fun. He takes off in the corrall, doing laps that have the two of them tilting inward at every turn. It's possible that Clay and Pickett hear Avery let out a
WHOOP
of delight, but they certainly hear Toro neighing and chuffing excitedly. Charlotte gets to watch it all, if she abides; she gets to see the flushed face and bright eyes that Avery has as she rides, a pleasure and a privilege she has lacked in her life since the night she changed, since the day she awoke from her first frenzy to see that whoever she had been or had intended to be before was gone, dead, and buried.
She slows Toro down, long before he's even worked up a sweat, and even when she rides him over to Charlotte again he's lifting and stamping his forelegs, getting a look from Misty that might be droll, or patient, or amused in her own equine right. Avery looks absolutely ravishing with her cheeks pink and her eyes shining and her hair tousled like that, but to be frank: Avery looks absolutely ravishing standing on a bike path with blood on her jaw and her body covered by a picnic blanket. Avery is a Silver Fang. Their beauty is not in outward adornment or even the intimations of purity and cleanliness; their beauty is in the blood, is grace and nobility no matter the arrangement of their bone structure.
And simply this: it is nice to see anyone so unabashedly, easily pleased by a quick ride.
--
They circle around to the stables, Avery's hat tilted back, a smile on her face. She notes the wave between Charlotte and Bert and grins to herself, even though the Theurge frowns. That smile fades though, gradually, as they walk their mounts across town, and as she sees people leaving. Clay and Pickett mention names, mention what there is to be lost, and Avery inhales slowly, breathes out as slowly. "Each according to the dictates of their own conscience," is all she says, which is a phrase most commonly offered in discussions of religious freedom. But then, ideals of machismo and courage and standing your ground no matter the consequence could be considered a sort of religion that some hold dear and some deny.
She agrees, however otherwise silent on it, with Clay. Mortals were not made to stand in battles like this. Truth be told, though she accepts the help of kin, no one was made to stand in battles like this. No one but she and Charlotte. They were born for this.
Avery turns her gaze away from the road towards the Mayor's house. She does catch herself looking at Clay a couple of times, and she simultaneously wonders things like what he looks like naked and what does Calden look like riding a horse? and how do we get home from here? and
are we going to get home from here? and this leads to thoughts of yes, Calden and the somewhat surprising poignancy of her own ache at the thought, but her father and her brother and her servants who, yes, she pays to attend to her but who she cares for and protects only slightly less than her own blood-kin. Avery is quite sober, quite serious, by the time she notices that Charlotte is not looking at this world. She looks from the Theurge to the two deputies while Toro thrums with energy beneath her.
Charlotte leans over and murmurs to her.
Avery just blinks at her. The look is a little bit pure startlement and a little bit R U SRS. Her eyebrows arch on her brow, but she is kind enough to lean over in her saddle and murmur back, rather than saying aloud:
"They will not respect you if I speak for you. And if they do not respect you when you speak, it could get them killed later. You must ask them yourself, -yuf."
A not-entirely-subtle reminder there: they are equals, in rank if not in heritage, in name if not in ancestry, because in both those respects, Charlotte is Avery's superior. She straights in her saddle again, her hand already absentmindedly stroking Toro's neck. There's a small frown on her brow, remnants of worry that as enjoyable as all this roughing-about and horse-riding and hats and spurs and six-shooters may be,
this is not her home. She does not belong here. And she doesn't know if she'll ever get back.
--
Avery decides to leave Charlotte. It's calculated, and it's harsh in its own way, but she turns Toro away from the deputies and the Theurge, walking him over to the side of the house to inspect things a little more. She stays within earshot and eyeline, but she does turn away, certainly too far for any games of telephone.
Good god, she realizes.
This is before the telephone.
Black SheepOh, Charlotte exhales sharply when Avery walks Toro away. Her cheeks flush a deep pink not unlike the color that rose to Avery's cheeks when she was taking great and simple pleasure in free reins, in the power and freedom of her ride. This color though is deeper, feverish rather than delighted, and the theurge seams her mouth quietly stealing little stitched glances at the philodox as she draws away.
Charlotte is dismounted, lost in the shadow of the mayor's house, squinting up and past it to the brilliance of the founderingly blue morning sky.
Her hands curve into fists and she takes in a big, deep breath, gaze darting between Clay and Pickett, settling at last on Clay.
"Uhm," an auspicious beginning, squinting against the sky. Says, all at once, in a toe-sweeping and rather bashful tone, "If I were gonna attack people in that house I'd just set it on fire." It sounds like If-I-were-gonna-attack and each word is a bit more quiet than the one before it. Ends, rather solemnly, "how green is the wood?"
-black hat gunslingers-Let's be honest. When Avery comes around the side of the stable flushed and gorgeous, a fucking golden goddess in this world where telephones, indoor plumbing and toothpaste haven't really caught yet, she gets her share of appreciative looks. There are men on the street turning in their heads for a glimpse of her hair in the wind, her legs in those scandalous men's trousers hugging the sides of that muscular colt of hers.
The deputies look like they damn well heard the galloping hooves and that whoop she let out as she and Charlotte approach. Pickett looks like he wants to say something, but some errant flicker of good sense makes him keep his mouth shut again. Clay half-smiles, though, straightening in his saddle.
"Lark's got a good eye for people," is all he says. "Matches the rider to the horse every time."
--
Later, in front of the mayor's house, and across the Gauntlet --
-- and compared to the Gauntlet of their own time, this one is so thin, so fragile, that it hardly seems to deserve the name. The Curtain, maybe. The Shawl. Anyway --
across the Gauntlet, the town, as expected, has little resonance. The Mayor's house is barely a shadow; the same goes for those near it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the saloon is one of the most solid structures in town, and if Charlotte were to go near it she'd find that its very proximity makes her head spin a bit. Makes her vision blur a little. The scent of alcohol and the sound of an off-key piano hang in the air around it. A little ways down the street, the bank has a presence too: solid, assured, heavy, imbued with the inexpressible taste and feel and scent of money.
And the jail. That has a presence. A curious blend of oppressive and righteous; strong walls and strong bars. Law and order, crime and punishment in equal proportion.
--
Charlotte returns to herself. She has a question. Avery won't ask it for her -- in fact, Avery maroons her with the deputies -- so she must ask it herself. And when she asks, Pickett makes this sound, this chuckling, patronizing oh, l'il lady sort of sound.
"Nobody builds houses with green wood, Miss," he says, all slow-like for the womenfolk to understand. "Not unless they want their floors wet and their winters cold."
"You're missin' her point," Clay interjects with a frown, "and it sure as hell ain't one I heard you makin'." Turning back to Charlotte, "Green wood shrinks when it dries, so it makes for leaky roofs and walls. Plenty of buildings in town are built green just the same because it's quicker and cheaper than seasonin' the wood. But I reckon the mayor's got the money and the time to do it right. Which means if the Kane gang have half the brains you do, they might just try and set it afire. And if they do, this'll go up fast. We'd be buggered."
--
Over by the house, Avery can see it for herself: the wood is seasoned, heavy, fine. The planks fit together with few cracks or flaws. The wood is dry to the touch and the scent.
One of the side windows is low enough that, sitting on Toro, she can look in. She finds herself peering at the mayor's dining room -- a long, fine table, a set of eight dining chairs. A maid is inside, busily packing the crystal and the silverware away to be hidden somewhere. She gives a start when she sees Avery, hand flying to her throat.
Reverence of DawnOf course Charlotte asks the deputies her question in the creepiest way possible, and even at the edge of earshot, Avery hears it and smiles. She wonders if Charlotte wants to know how close the wood is to life, how much it remembers of being rooted and growing. Doesn't bear questioning, really; Avery handles Theurges -- those who do their duty, at least -- by not asking too many questions about the How and Why. She learned that lesson quick.
Avery circles the side of the house a bit, and as she sees the maid gasp and clutch her pearls -- in a manner of speaking, since synthetic pearls are Not a Thing in this day and age and no maid would be wering the real thing unless she's a thief -- she smiles as gently as she can. She lifts her chin and turns her horse back towards the deputies and Charlotte, looking to her tribemate first to see how deliberations are going. When there is a break, she asks:
"We should check the unfinished stone house as well, while we have the time."
Which is, she knows, ticking away quickly.
Black SheepAvery remembers that the telephone does not yet exist. Here's something else: slavery still does. Not here, not out here in what will soon be Colorado territory, but Bleeding Kansas is not so far away, and is bleeding even now. The deep and terrible convulsions of the American Civil War are but a few years away, and then the Wyrm, which coils like a serpent around the deep south, infective and devouring, will gorge itself on the blood of hundreds of thousands of men and boys and women and girls.
See though, here, where the law exists only because men agree that it exists, where gold fever and the lawlessness that comes with it requires that men and women organize themselves: into towns and into territories, with all the attendant trappings of sheriff and mayor and deputies, with all the lingering strangeness that comes from raw creation, the lean-to like bars all but falling around, the raw wood from the old scrub pines, the constant stream of smoke from cook fires against the bright morning sky, the muck and dust and open sky. The maid packing up all those Eastern-bought and Eastern-brought treasures to preserve them from what-will-come.
Pickett makes that patronizing noise and Clay interrupts, explains, and shy as she was about the asking of that creepy-question Charlotte does not like Pickett's tone. Or rather: not Charlotte but the wolf-in-her and she shoots him a Look and shows him her Teeth and it is borderline absurd with those huge eyes and wide cheeks and the tapered, girlish jaw. The wisps of her cropped hair. Is it platinum here? Is it pink? She has not seen a reflection of herself since she arrived.
Did she arrive? Or was everything else the dream?
But: her mouth closes presently over her teeth and Clay is speaking and she listens to his patient and clear explanation of which three-quarters goes not over her head but to a different place than the place where she keeps the knowledge that she, crescent moon, Cheshire moon, eaten moon, really requires and she climbs up the steps to the stoop and lays her fingers against the house the way a physician might lay his ear against a patient's lungs, see - listening to something vital and tidal and whatever-might-be-buried in the wood and then stomps back down the steps and takes Misty's reins with a confidence that comes from merely not-thinking-about-it and scrambles up into the saddle and squints up at the sky, see, she is moon-lodge but oh, she knows the shining sun.
"Yes - A, I mean, Merriweather is right. I want to see the stone house."
She's imagining ruins, Charlotte. Standing stones, something from ancestor-memory, something suited-to-wolves.
"Let's go."
-black hat gunslingers-The stone house, then.
They ride through the town. The streets are emptier now than they were when they woke. Those who work the mountains, who mine the gold and the silver and the iron and the lead -- they have gone already, leaving behind them only the rutted tracks arrowing westward into those impossibly high peaks. Those who would flee have already fled. Look into the east, the north, and you'll see them; the distant dust of their pack-animals and their wagons fading into the midday haze.
Those who are staying, who are digging in their heels for the fight: they're gathering at the saloon. As Avery, Charlotte and the deputies ride past, they can hear music sifting through the batwing doors and the open shutters: loud, off-key, with a certain frantic cheerfulness.
They've already gathered, by and large, though now and then they see stragglers heading over. Dusty men with weathered faces, rough hands clenched around rusty flintlocks, pitchforks, enormous kitchen cleavers. Some of them halloo the deputies, wave their hats in the air with more blind hope than confidence. Some stare at the entire party with varying degrees of interest, distrust, and doubt. So far, no one cheers for Charlotte or Avery -- but then, they don't know them yet.
--
At the eastern end of town is the stone house. It is not quite a henge, but there is an air of antiquity and ruin about it. The first story was almost completed before construction was abandoned; the walls are solid stone mortared tightly together, but the windows and doors are blank holes. The second story only made it as far as two half-built outer walls. The edges of those walls, unmortared and exposed to the elements, have begun to crumble. Long abandonment and the passage of seasons have allowed moss to grow over the stones, in the shadowed crevices. Dust gathering in the cracks of the floor have begun to sprout weeds.
The deputies rein in beneath the structure. Pickett's horse dislikes the shadows in the house, and Rob Pickett gives him his head, guides him in wide circles to calm him. Trevor Clay comes to a stop between the Silver Fangs, lifting his hat off his head to let the dry wind cool it.
"Those walls'll stop anything short of a cannonball," he says, "and if the Kanes are bringin' heavy artillery to the fight we're as good as dead anyway. Structure's simple, though, just a front and a back divided by a heavy wooden wall. Gonna be hard boardin' those windows and doors too, what with stone walls and all. No real way to nail nothin' down.
"Second story's gonna be a problem too. Too exposed to put a sniper up there, but the staircase opens right up onto it. If Sherman Kane gets it in his head to climb up there, he could drop sticks of dynamite down on us, or send half his gang down on us from above. 'Least he can't set the whole damn thing afire, though."
Black SheepThe stone house then: is not a henge but it is a ruin. It is a place with openings that are not closed and cannot be closed. It is a building like a door and that is not ideal for the fight they will have but the fight they will have they will have on wolf-terms. Charlotte listens quite solemnly as Clay lays out the advantages and disadvantges of this place, the strengths (the thickness of the walls) and weaknesses: the places where the building can be blown apart. Can be used to blow them apart.
Once more Charlotte slips down from her mount and is lightfooted on the hard packed ground and once more she squints upward at the sky and cuts a narrowing glance back toward the town proper, where the makeshift posse already gathers for disposition by spectacular woman dressed in men's clothing, glorious and golden: a wolf.
--
"This one." Charlotte tells Avery quietly, but loud enough that Clay and Pickett can overhear and she needn't be abandoned to them and made to talk again when she doesn't want to talk to them at all, just Avery. "The things that made it are closest to what they were meant-to-be and I can offer the chiminage of leaving-the-stones, of loosening-the-stones, of giving them back to the bones of the earth, which they might like, or letting them feel the sun-and-moon and teething etch of lichen crawling over the declivities."
Charlotte smiles, dreamily. She likes these possible-promises, of letting the place sprawl to ruin and there remain, of pulling it apart. The thought gives her a queer pleasure but she is a queer creature and as simple as she is sometimes and as simply-happy as something like tea and meatcake and presents can make her she is was born under a waning moon and born to madness and is so finely wrought that the surface cracks that shine through her porcelain go all the way through her skin to blood-and-bone.
But: see her smile, in the advancing midmorning sunlight, shading her eyes to look up at Avery.
Lowering her voice to speak just to the philodox, who will handle the gathering posse. "If you put two men on each window we needed board them up." Maybe a few barricades to make the windows harder to access.
The stairwell, she does not yet have an answer for. But: she is thinking, oh she is thinking. "I'm going to cross and see what I can summon to fight for and why and by our sides - " she tells Avery then. She knows well they likely haven't much time.
Reverence of DawnOn the way to the stone house, Avery chooses to walk Toro beside Pickett, leaving Charlotte to ride alongside Clay. She does give eye to the people as they pass, noticing them, acknowledging them even if they don't quite acknowledge her.
They go to the unfinished place, the one that sounded best to Charlotte -- and in some ways, to Avery -- right away. Instantly she can see some of the cons as the men see it: simplicity, no roof, no real second floor, but it is wilder. Avery's eyes are keen on it beneath the brim of her hat, listening to Clay as her companion watches. She stays where she is, letting Toro munch some grass because she has no inclination to stop him.
This one, says Charlotte, definitively, after she has dismounted and looked around, after she has come back to say the words quietly to her companion. Avery looks down at her and gives a small, solemn nod: so be it. If she senses the other woman's odd pleasure she makes no comment of it, but leans over in the saddle, looking a bit like she's hugging Toro, listening. She nods.
"Go now," she tells her, straightening back up. "Whatever you can do."
For herself, she goes over to Clay and addresses him directly: "You've mentioned snipers," she says, which sounds like an odd term in this day and age, and nothing like the assassins of her own time, "which leads me to inquire if you have a particular rifleman in mind. If we could construct a barrier for him on the second floor, from whatever we have, we could put someone up there. And if need be," she says, her voice tight because she is suggesting they do the precise thing that was done to her, that makes her lose her mind with fury, "Miss Lightfoot or I on the roof could do quite a lot of damage to anyone attempting to climb up." There's a small pause. "And either one of us could stop a bullet. So there's that."
She rolls her shoulders back, taking a breath. "I need a brief time alone in that house to perform a rite of my own," since she would prefer, if possible, to give Charlie his fancy clothes again. "Before that, however: my companion suggests 2 men at the lower windows, rather than boarding them up. It sounds reasonable to me, if we have decent shots on our side. Your thoughts?"
-black hat gunslingers-If Charlotte crosses -- when she crosses -- she steps through a Gauntlet that feels fine as gossamer compared to the iron-knit walls of her own age and time. On the other side, again, the town-less landscape, with most buildings casting only the ghostliest shadow-outlines of themselves. Even this one: just a faint impression of stone, of strength, of the delusion of grandeur and riches, the all-too-real stink of bankruptcy.
It is not barren, though, the way cityscapes of her own time around. It is not devoid of all but the most hardened, adapted, newfangled spirit-life. There are Spiders, but they are few, they are far between. There's wildgrass still, whispering as it grows. Desert-life. Rugged plants, small animals. Bright-eyed hawks wheeling above, and perhaps even a nimble falcon or two. Coyotes, large-earred on the horizon.
Earth, too. Stone. Rain. And, in this season: Thunder and the Storm.
--
"With all due respect, ma'am," Trevor Clay drawls, "you can stop a bullet, but enough bullets will stop you. And up on the roof you'll be a mighty fine target, big 'n white as the moon." Beat. "Just guessin' at the fur color. Final call's yours, but might be better to keep you and Miss Lightfoot in the house, fightin' hand to hand.
"The only gunmen I'd stake my life on are the Sheriff and Pickett," he adds. "And the Sheriff's guardin' the women and children, so that leaves me and Pickett. He's the better sharpshooter between the two of us, but if your companion wants two men at the windows, we can set Mad Dog Caradoc on the roof. He's fed us so many tall tales about bein' some notorious highwayman back home, might as well let him shine." The deputy rolls his shoulders. "Don't know how well he shoots under pressure, truth be told, but he did win the shootin' competition last spring.
"Other than him, there are a couple others I've seen hit the broad side of a barn. Jack Taylor. Emmett Smith. Maybe Oliver Poll. They'll all be at the saloon."
Black SheepBefore Charlotte leaves Avery and the deputies to their work on this side of the gauntlet - the shroud, the velvet curtain - she requests that Pickett secure for her two bags of ashes. Returns to Avery when she has both bags of ashes - from a not-yet-rekindled fire in the closest of the lean-to hovels scattered around the edges of the town, abandoned by its inhabitants, stripped down to the nails and even then: the best nails have been pried out of the wood too. - and holds up the bags, dangling from her index fingers on rough leather cording, and flashes the philodox a quick little grin.
"I'm going to try to make a talen that will stop bullets. One-maybe-two. We can spread it on the second floor to protect whoever is up there, in front of the windows too."
Her plans are more or less whispered, offered quietly before she disappears into the stone ruin, with her two bags of ash and the 1858 equivalent of her little messenger bag, with all her supplies, tucked carefully beneath her right arm.
Before Charlotte crosses the gauntlet - alone in the middle of that house - she performs the rite of talisman dedication. Not for the same reasons Avery is considering performing the rite: but because she does not want to emerge naked from the umbra. The end result though is that: Charlie may indeed get back both sets of finery he has donated to the cause. Bloodstained, perhaps, but more or less intact.
--
And the first right performed. Charlotte does finally slip across the gauntlet. She is already a spirit sink so the traverse is easy, is easier than it has any right to be. She takes perhaps five minutes to explore what she can of the towns umbral landscape, then returns to the center of the stone ruin, with its hazy impressions of both fortification and ruin. There: she lays out her implements and tools while she still has the finely honed human hands to dig through her supplies, and then wills herself into Crinos to begin her rituals:
and they are solemn rituals, the summoning-and-the-binding. A marked circle traced out in the dust with the stub of a willow-wand still humming from its last cleansing ritual, a handful of stones piled in the center of a humming bronzed bowl. And so on:
- summoning, a spirit of the earth and
- binding, it to ashes.
Charlotte does peak across the gauntlet when the first set of rituals has been performed. Likely she even slips back into her human skin and then across to learn the latest intelligence on the whereabouts of the outlaws, returning to perform another set of rituals if and only there is time for the work.
Reverence of DawnAvery's eyebrows flick upward at Clay's assertion that enough bullets will stop her. Her hand is tight on her rein then, though it pulls no harder on Toro. Even when her eyes are steely on the deputy with an animal ferocity that would make most --
let's be fair: all
-- mortal men think twice, Avery can still feel the difference between someone who is saying something she does not like and an innocent creature whose only contribution to her afternoon is to carry her fearlessly and bring her joy. She only stares at Trevor Clay, and does not comment on his guess as to the color of her fur, the nature of her tribe. His answer moves on then, and when it does she looks away from him, looking over at Pickett from a distance.
--
Charlotte is going to make a clever little talen, and Avery nods quickly to that. "Brilliant," she says, but it's not a quip; she means it.
They perform the rite of dedication side by side, though, and perhaps the men outside can sense the gathering of strength, the wind moving differently through them, lifting and ruffling their clothes as the spirit world briefly reaches out to touch this place. Perhaps it is mere imagination that the clothing the women wear fits them better afterward, but in an entirely non-physical way: it absolutely does.
Avery re-mounts Toro, exhaling, finally turning to Clay again: "Let's get the rest of the men from the saloon," she says. "They'll need to build barricades, haul ammunition out here, and I imagine a couple of them will need some hard work to sober them."
-black hat gunslingers-The saloon:
crowded, hot, noisy with frantic offkey piano jangling and the nervous bravado of the gathered men. And they are all men, dusty and stinking of days or weeks of sweat; most of them young, without families, still foolhardy enough to commit themselves to a heroic cause. They are drinking to bolster their courage, and the drinking and the waiting has made them rowdy, hard to rein in.
When Avery enters, quite literally a vision from another world, every eye swings her way. She reads doubt in the faces she sees. Fear. Distrust. But: hope, as well.
The deputies are at her heels, lean shadows with stars pinned to their chests. Pickett whistles between his teeth, snapping at one of the men -- three sails to the wind already -- to get down from that table, you're makin' a damn fool of yourself. And Clay leans against a post at Avery's shoulder, narrowed eyes watching the room
as she takes the center of attention.
--
The Umbra:
Charlotte, having parted from Avery soon after they left the stone house, finds herself leading the patient little mare to the river's edge. As dusty as the town is, as devoid of civility and finery and interior fucking plumbing, the country is still so achingly pure. The water -- though muddied downstream of the ford and fouled downstream of the city -- is still untainted; clean in a way that has nothing to do with presence or absence of organic waste. Small trees, tenacious in the heat and dryness of the high desert, reach their roots toward the water. Charlotte tosses Misty's bridle over the branches of one
and slips across to the other side, where the heat of day relents, where the moon sails clear and enormous and calm over a landscape still teeming with spirit-life.
Reverence of Dawn[perception + empathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Reverence of Dawn[persuasion! charisma + subterfuge!]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1
-black hat gunslingers-[Overall mood is tense, scared, desperate. These men are, by and large, holding themselves together only by their thin veneer of bravado.
Of the ones Trevor Clay pointed out, Mad Dog Caradoc seems the least frightened and the most committed. But then, he also seems reckless and may or may not actually understand the scope of the situation. Jack Taylor seems steady enough, though he's one of the older men in the room, with a bad leg. Emmett Smith looks like he's still on the fence about joining in or hightailing it. Oliver Poll looks reasonably dependable too, but the deputies have some doubts about his actual combat ability.]
-black hat gunslingers-[Also: Persuasion definitely buys her some points. Her audience pays more attention. Spines straighten, eye contact strengthens.]
Reverence of Dawn[okay, so... her speech would definitely include some eye contact with mad dog whenever she's talking about just how dangerous this is and how vitally important it is that denver stay standing
and some for emmett when she talks about what sort of place this could be, juuust shying from actual future-telling, but about the mountains and the closeness to the sky and being in the middle of this incredible, wild land that will always BE a bit wild... if they stick it out and if they protect it
she'll probably wander over to jack at some point and rest her hand on his shoulder, not looking AT him but standing near him like that while addressing the rest of the room about just how furiously they'll need to fight to make this work, how none of them have any time for cowardice or selfishness
and a moment for oliver where she talks about the fact that if any of them have a problem taking and obeying orders from her or from the deputies she'd "rather see your horse's ass while you run out of town and just fight with the men who actually want to keep their families safe"
and probably lots of stuff about how they're all out here in wild country and none of them would be here if they were cowards and it's more than gold that brought them here and she knows it, and no one wants to see this place burned before it's even built
etc etc]
Reverence of Dawn[charisma (charming) + leadership (compelling) +2 for empathy-synced speech // -1 diff for successfull persuasion]
Dice: 10 d10 TN5 (1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 8 ) Re-rolls: 3
-black hat gunslingers-[It's literally not possible to put into words how much she bolsters the town's spirit. By the end of her speech, people are cheering, they're pounding the tables, they want to carry her through the streets on their shoulders. System-wise effects:
- Entire town is now effectively WP 7.
- The ones she interacted with most closely - i.e. the deputies, the ones she specifically called out - are effectively WP 8.
- Everyone gets +1 dice to all rolls made in defense of the town, allowing them to great efficiency and skill. This bonus also applies to PCs. I know Charlotte technically wasn't there, but the overall change in mood will bolster her as well.
- Avery gets her temp WP boosted to 8, rage regained, gnosis refilled, Platinum Mood applied. LOL.
- Her earthly forces now consist of the two deputies, Caradoc, Jack, Emmett, Oliver, plus perhaps two dozen townsmen. The deputies are probably the strongest units, followed by the named townsmen. The ordinary townsmen might be able to do simple tasks and collectively hold a single point, but if the deputies are rooks and the named townsmen are knights and bishops, they're pretty much the pawns on her board.]
Black SheepFirst: Charlotte will summon two small earth elementals to bind into Arrow Killer talens.
Black SheepThen she will try to summon a child of karnak to come and fight with them.And maybe a couple of earth and/or water elementals to either drown the dudes if they come across the water or make earthquakes.
-black hat gunslingers-[Done! No roll needed. Earth is everywhere here.]
-black hat gunslingers-[We'll just mark -1 Gn from Charlotte's sheet and assume she gets enough arrowkillers for her purposes. Next!]
-black hat gunslingers-[To reflect the purity of this earlier timeline, I'm going to give all spirits +1 to their highest trait. So if a spirit is Rage 3 WP 5 Gnosis 7, they would now be R3/W5/G8.]
Black SheepNext, since there are earth elementals all around, Charlotte will bargain with the earth elementals to see if they will materialize on the other side.
Not necessarily as monsters but to make a sinkhole or translate their umbraquake power? to unhorse bad guys.
-black hat gunslingers-[Roll Char + Expression, Leadership, or Enigmas, whichever is highest, to try to persuade them!]
-black hat gunslingers-[Oooor Wits + Enigmas or Occult, whichever is highest.]
Black SheepWits + Enigmas to find appropriate chiminage (offer them the stone house) and strike a bargain.
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
-black hat gunslingers-[The earth elementals agree to sinkhole-ify twice for her. She can call upon their power reflexively at any point.]
Black SheepNext Charlotte is going to try to make a similar bargain with the water elementals in the river. Just in case the bad guys come across the river.
Black Sheep
Wits + Enigmas to strike the bargain with the Platte River.
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
-black hat gunslingers-[The river will flood twice for her, Arwen-calling-upon-river-style!]
Black SheepAnd, finally, she will try to summon a Child of Karnak.
Black SheepRite of Summoning: Gnosis!
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Black SheepWits + Enigmas to convince the child of karnak to hang out and help! -1 difficulty because WYRM IS COMING.
Dice: 6 d10 TN5 (1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 3 )
-black hat gunslingers-[child of karnak is willing to help, and will fight until forced into slumber if need be!]
Black SheepFinally: Wits + Enigmas to regain Gnosis.
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
-black hat gunslingers-[+2!]
-black hat gunslingers-[All right, tally of bonuses so far:
- Townspeople = WP 7.
- Deputies and named townsmen = WP 8.
- Avery = WP 8, full rage and gnosis.
- Everyone on the side of good, PCs and NPCs and spirits, gets +1 dice to all rolls.
- Their forces consist of:
1) Trevor Clay and Rob Pickett, both of whom attack with 7 dice, base damage 8, soak 3.
2) Caradoc, Jack, Emmett and Oliver, all of whom will, for simplicity, attack with 6 dice, base damage 6, soak 3.
3) Child of Karnak, who materializes looking like this guy: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5qXlXsNkHt3D9-JYwUMrwpgDObvSOOemrGz-wQTQ43GKRHT2I47pm34zB2d0wk_1ZivZqL58rRea68EIjW_AYPpItXN3qHwyzWJEXigqbVAY82ffM5OTinKqVl_RqAuYkbI89pSuwBbDL/s400/armstrong-arapaho-5~.jpg -- and has 8 dice to attack, base damage 9, soak 8. Legends of the Invincible Injun will live for years in area folklore.
4) About two dozen townsmen, who individually have about 2 dice to attack, 3 to damage, 2 to soak, but collectively rise to 6 attack/7 damage/5 soak.
- Additionally, Charlotte has arrowkiller talens, 2x sinkholes and 2x flashfloods to use at will.
- Needless to say, I am not gonna be rolling out EVERY LITTLE THING. Mostly this will be cinematic, but in crucial moments there will be dice :D]
No comments:
Post a Comment