Game Night Tales from around the gaming table

 

None.

 

I am playing Otis "TnT" Thorissen -- my first ever character for the Deadlands: The Weird West! d20 RPG.

 

 

 

It had been a long and complicated job, but at least part of the pay had been a ticket for me and Nitro -- my faithful steed -- to Roswell.  There I could either find another job or make my way West in the hopes of employment.

 

The train arrived late, it was almost 6 pm and much of the town was already closed.  I made my way to the stables and found a boy to take care of Nitro -- paying him twice the normal amount for stabling; the boy was quite eager to pamper him.  The boy told me where I could find the best food and lodgings for the night.

 

The Wilson Bed and Breakfast was a quiet ranch home just a few minutes outside of town.  Mr Wilson ran the place and was a cheerful old codger that had worked for the rail barons in his prime -- we got along just fine and I learned a few things that might gain me a job.

 

The next morning I went to the barber for a shave and a haircut -- I looked like a mountain man and it never hurt to look presentable when talking business.  Well groomed I went to the saloon to find a Mr Harold, it was said that he was looking for people to help with a mine cave-in.  He was there and interested enough in me to bring me to his offices at the rail station.  Seems he was a Bayou Vermillion man and he did need men, but not for a cave-in -- a ghost rock mine had missed two shipments and the people sent to find out why never returned.  He wanted diggers, but when I gave him my references he all but drooled over me.  Discarding the old contract, he pulled out a newer, bigger contract.  Seems that with all my foreman and explosives work he wanted me to run the show -- I'd be in charge of the workmen and he'd provide the gunmen to protect us.

 

The train with the gear, miners and gunmen would arrive at 5 pm; plenty of time to check in on Nitro and grab a meal.  Nitro was well groomed and the boy, Thomas -- who was the blacksmith's son -- let me know that he'd tossed a shoe.  Tousling his hair I headed off to the sounds of smith.  The man, like almost every blacksmith was large and wide -- being 6'6" and 300 lbs myself, that was saying something.  His name was Daniel and was pleasant in a gruff way; he was happy to meet me and even willing to shoe Nitro for 5 dollars -- normally it cost me almost twice that -- seems that most people don't think to treat his boy proper when he's taking in horses.  Pa always said treat people well and it'd come back to you.

 

The Saloon was... well to be honest its major draw must have been the whores -- the drinks and almost non-existent food were watered down and barely edible.  Just what an end-of-the-line rail town needed to take the pay of eager rail men, complete with an ass of a bartender.  I tipped a dollar on the bar and left, walked around town for a while to see what else this place had to offer.

 

Soon enough 5 pm rolled around.  Mr Harold was at the station waiting.  The train was late and he was agitated.  15 minutes later, it arrived and I was introduced to the man in charge of keeping us safe.  James Holden was a man without humour -- If he was not being paid to keep me safe I would never turn my back on him for fear of getting shot in the back.  His second was named Jesse and he was... to be polite, a gun happy maniac.  Only his fear of James kept him in line.  The mining crew was abrupt, close-knit and I could see they disliked the gunmen.  Their foreman went by Mr Williams.

 

Mr Harold informed everyone that we would start out first thing in the morning, but before that I looked over the explosives and actually got Williams to crack a smile.  Luckily Mr Harold set up the four of us at Mr Wilson's, with the rest of the men staying at the saloon.  The next morning showed many a hangover and stupidly grinning man, but we were underway in short order.  The trip out to the mine would take 5 days.  Although nothing happened, it was one of the spookiest trips I'd ever been on.

 

 

When we got to the gorge we were expecting to find a landslide or something blocking the entrance, but we found nothing.  In fact all the way to the mine there was nothing.  When we got there the place was abandoned and the front gate was chained shut.  Everyone was tense and wary, the whole place had an aura of... well... evil.  It was so bad that we couldn't even get the horses close.  We left them with Bob on his cook wagon and headed in on the 2 Steam Wagons.

 

A couple of gunshots took care of the padlock.  The 50 men that had worked the place were nowhere to be found; no bodies; no nothing.  It was as if they all just walked away leaving everything behind -- in some places it looked as if they had been in the middle of eating -- the place was a ghost town.

 

We searched the entire place but couldn't find anyone.  The mine was the only place left, unless they all walked out and the surrounding wasteland made that a certain death sentence.  The main Ghost Rock vault was sealed and would take more explosives then we had to blast through it.

 

Since my mission was to find out what happened and then to return with at least one shipment of Ghost Rock --Williams and I went back to the foreman's house to get any log books and hopefully the keys to the Vault.