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Wednesday 30 May 2018

The Adventures of Becky - The Good Samaritan

The story so far:-

Becky received a letter from her dead father in the The Red Jade Buddha and she received more information including her fathers journal relating to a mysterious Red Jade Buddha in and The Mean Streets of Penrith, she and her friends had bad dealings with a gang of bikers led by Boris a bald headed thug, who stole this information from them in The Midnight Callers and then they retrieved it from Boris at his hotel in Boris and the Swan in Inverness, they discovered there was more information in the last chapter The Lost Information where they met up with suave sophisticated Sam Fernando another crook and now we are on with the latest exciting but very short adventure in the UK before going foreign.

If you click on Becky or the Red Jade Buddha on the right it will show you all the previous stories.


The Good Samaritan

The girls and Becky have now read the information that her father has left along with the stuff that they had liberated from Count Sparrk and so have a good idea of where to go next in the search for the Red Jade Buddha. They have decided that they should try and recover the idol, thinking that the trail to it might also throw some light on to what's happened to Becky’s father, how did he die and where.

Having made contact with the rest of her friends they are all going to meet up at Heathrow airport and set off on the first leg of their journey that will eventually lead to South East Asia. They will fly to Calcutta, drive down to the coast to a small sea port where they will board a commercial sea plane headed for Changoon, a melting pot for all the scum of SE Asia.
There they plan to meet with up with a pilot who operates a small private float-plane company and they also hope to recruit a guide for the rest of the trek into unchartered territory. This small float-plane and it’s mysterious pilot will fly them up river, flying over and bypassing the rapids and waterfalls on the Raffinika river into the heart of Cambodia where the trail really starts.
(Unless I can do a deal with Nickle and Dime Studio's and rent their river boat :) )

That is all in the future - hopefully, and meanwhile the girls have to get to the airport, there are evil forces at large who will try and stop them at all costs.

The road to Heathrow passes through some glorious countryside in the South of England, well bits of hardboard, lichen and old Christmas trees with a bit of horsehair thrown in.

Overview of the board, the girls will be driving down from the north (top) and exiting of the west (left) side of the board. The bad guys will set up a road block. This is intended to be a simple break through scenario.

The bad boys appear to have some inside information which is why they are ready and waiting to lay the ambush.

A white Range Rover, with no number plate. Looks very suspicious.

Becky has 1D6 of her friends including herself and threw 2. So just her and Susan Gunn, who was less than useful in Inverness having drunk too much whisky the night before, mind you if I remember, they all had too much whisky the night before.
They are driving down from Susan’s home in Gloucestershire to Heathrow to meet up with the rest of the girls before flying to India.

They are almost on the left so they must still be in England.

So the Range Rover appears to have had an accident and Fat Willie is lying unconscious on the road. Could this be a trap? Is that Tank hiding behind the wall, of course it’s a trap.

The bad blokes in ambush, there are also 1d6 of them, each armed with improvised weapons, clubs, tyre irons etc. Their task is to stop the girls from getting to the airport, they will break bones to achieve this, but aim to maim and injure rather than kill. This is England you know - the land of cricket and knife crime.

Bad roll for the Bikers only 2 of them, I guess the others were delayed in hospital. It will make for an even and short game.

The girls round the corner and see the “accident”, fail their Brains test and believe it is an accident, how dumb can they get, they start to slow down.

Isn’t that guy wearing biker duds, hummm. Maybe it’s a trap Susan mutters but Becky who was driving had decided that there is no way past the Range Rover and pulls to a halt.

It might be a real accident so they stop and get out to help. The Good Samaritan.

Tank rushes through the hedge straight at Becky, he's taking no chances with these deceptively demure girls this time and has armed himself with a sledge hammer shaft.

Becky ducks under the wild swing and hits him hard in the throat, agghhh. She hits him again, harder and he shudders and his fake tan turns white, then she hits him again, harder still and he falls with a loud thud OOF.

Fat Willie jumps to his feet, ha I was only bluffing he sneers at Susan.

Well I never would have guessed she sneers back.

Fat Willie attacks Susan with a base ball bat. This gives him 5D6 and she has 3D6 to fight back with. He fails all 5 dice and she hits with 2 of the 3 dice, not his day. With his Constitution of 2 this is enough to put him to sleep and down he goes.

These bikers are proving no match for the girls in fisticuffs even when they are armed with clubs and such like, things might have to get serious.

With the sun shining down Becky and Susan take the weapons, move the car and drive off with the ignition key leaving Willie and Tank without a ride. They head off to the airport at Heathrow to meet with the rest of the gang and then on to who knows what further adventures.

To be continued ……….

If you are still here - thanks for reading and let me know you passed this way in the comments.
Cheers

Thursday 24 May 2018

CinC - The Hunt for Mary Scroggins

"Hell’s Teeth – Jesus, Mary and the Holy Ghost – By the Love of God – where is that damn woman". It all went quiet. When Sir Marmaduke Langdale lost his temper everyone knew about it, but that is not why it had gone quiet.

"Oh no" he muttered underneath his breath. "Sorry Sisters it’s been a long day". This was addressed to the 3 nuns who had joined the column that should have set out early this morning to search for Mary Scroggins.

Things had gone badly from the start, the cart horse threw a shoe and had to be taken to the Blacksmith, who could not be found, they searched all over the small village before finding him drunk in Ruth Appleton’s bed.

Then there was the delay sobering him up, getting the forge going, bandaging his hand when he smashed it with the hammer. It went on, the Nuns went missing in the late afternoon ministering to the poor – for heaven sake, everyone was poor.

The final straw was when Maude Porter heaved her pack on her back and the strap broke. Maude was the most essential person in the column, she was carrying the brandy, so they had to wait until she could repair the strap.

By now it was early evening. Everyone else was looking forward to a few beers and then to bed, setting off early the next morning, however Sir Marmaduke was not a man to be deflected from a course of action once he had decided on it. There were a few Parliamentarians from the war that would have agreed with that. Only a few, because the rest were dead.

“We can set off now and make up for the lost day, it’s only 8 miles to Greater Piddling in the Marsh and we can search the road side as we go and see if she is still with her friend when we arrive”. “Not to worry” said Sir M “it’s a full moon tonight we will be able to see fine - it wont be a problem”.

This follows on from my previous post when Mary Scroggins had gone missing, the local landowner Sir Marmaduke Langdale had been informed of strange goings on in Little Piddling in the Marsh, there ensued a desperate night of very strange goings on and now he had decided that there was nothing else to do but try and find Mary Scroggins, hence the expedition. This was also posted on LAF - sorry Brian, the next installment will be original.

The sooner it was over the sooner he could go back to Langdale Hall and enjoy the latest shipment of fine wine from France rather than this foul smelling ale the villagers drank.

The outskirts of Little Piddling in the Marsh showing the road through the forest to Greater Piddling.

Yes the trees are bits of sponge, stuck on dowels, with a bit of hardboard for a base. Cost nothing and I have 100 off them. I took these to a local club and some young sprog said “I’ve never seen their like before”, he was brought up on a diet of G.W, where if each tree don’t cost £10 it can’t be a real tree. His mate said “Yes they are very old school” I don’t think he was being too complimentary. The tiles are 1’ squares of hardboard off an old door.

This is intended to be a road movie, so as the group move left to right, once they have moved from the 3 tiles on the left of the board, they will be cleared and moved to the right of the board and re-decorated with terrain and so on. Overcoming the limitations of only having a 3x4 table, this is the 2nd time I have tried this device and both games didn’t get to the 1st change over, ho hum.

The river on the edge of the forest and the only way over is the bridge.

This is a plaster of paris casting from a Bellona vacuum formed bridge and has served for many years, it could do with repainting, but as I threw away my river sections years ago it doesn't get much use.

The head of the column leaving Little Piddling with Sir Marmaduke leading with his faithful dog Baxter by his side.

The rear of the column, Mary Porter carrying the brandy and the three nuns, Sister ? from the Order of the Virgin Mary, carrying the staff. Sister Matilda of the Blessed Sacrament with a saddle Pistol and Sister ? from the Order of Perpetual Pain armed with a steely glare. The Sisters have only just been painted but not christened yet.

1st Turn and the column moves out, the encounter markers were then placed randomly, 14 of them, they move in a random direction and distance each time they activate. They can move off the table, when one moves into line of sight it is resolved by turning over a playing card and each card represents 1 of the 14 encounters which can be just the wind blowing in the trees (nothing) to any manor of things even the missing Mary Scroggins.

It’s starting to get dark and even with the moonlight, line of sight is only 12”.

How does it go – In all the bridges in all the world and you walk over my bridge. The Werewolf Lord (Big W), the most powerful of the likely encounters is the 1st one drawn. This may explain why Mary Scroggins is missing thinks Sir M.

Just a gratuitous picture because I really liked it.

The huge Werewolf sees the hated humans and failed to activate, stood there glaring malevolently and looking scary. Baxter the Dog, Jeramiah Pile and Samuel Smith, without hesitation charged forward and attacked the beast, no brains and too much testosterone. – Do dogs have testosterone? The wolf wins the fight against all three of them but fails to inflict any damage.

As the three musketeers move forward to attack the Werewolf they come within range of the encounter marker on the bridge – the Red Ghost with a terrifying aura of 10”, they are 11” away and so not affected.

The fight goes on, Baxter bites the wolf but his teeth are not sharp enough and he does no damage. J.P. and Smith are both hit again but take no damage.

This fight goes on and on. I may be misunderstanding the rules but it seems hitting is not too difficult but causing damage is harder and fights last quite a long time, this may be the intention, as vitality is lost bit by bit, but I'm not sure it works for me.

Moving randomly Brunn the Bear appears, sees the hated humans (does everything hate us) and charges. Simon Darkwood doesn’t like bears and runs away, but the others stand their ground and fire at Brunn, a musket ball reduces his vitality by 1 but a lucky shot from a pistol -4 vitality kills the bear. The fight with the Werewolf continues with some damage inflicted.

The fight had been going on for 6 turns before the 1st man went down, next turn Baxter goes down, Sir M steps up and immediately goes down, Jeramiah Pile goes down, it’s turned into a blood bath.

This is the situation on turn 10, Jasper is fighting Big W on his own, no one else passed their resolve tests to step in to the fight, although Daniel the Carter has moved forward when most of the fighting men have moved back.

The next turn is a little surreal. Daniel the Carter with a stick and a sick look on his face together with Sister ? from the Order of the Virgin Mary, with a staff (big stick) both enter the fray, just as the last fighting man Jasper goes to meet his maker.

Sister ? is laying about her - admonishing Big W as the spawn of the Devil to go back to the foul pit he crept from. Obviously embarrassed by the fact that a Nun and a Farm Labourer were doing all the fighting, and doing it better than the fighting men, Johnathan Hawke led 2 others into the fray.

Odds of 5 to 1 tell in the end and the Werewolf finally succumbs to numbers and goes back to meet his maker. Westwind I believe.

The relief is short lived as immediately the Red Ghost swoops into the fray.

Which is a big mistake because although everyone except the guy in the Monmouth hat were terrified by her terrifying aura, no one runs and she faces 5 determined enemies and is killed, or what ever happens to ghosts when they die. Laid to rest probably.

Well with 5 of the party down, 2 running for the hills and 4 terrified, the general consensus is to leave Mary Scroggins to her fate and go back and drink some more of the foul smelling local ale and have a good nights rest.


Conclusion of the Story


Sir Marmaduke Langdale made a full recovery, apart from the limp, but Baxter his dog lost both his canine teeth when he took hold of the Werewolf and wouldn’t let go, he now has his meat chopped finely.

However he has been test fitted with some iron canines that might just do the job and if so will give him a +1 bite. This was a suggestion put forward by Eduardo when he read the original tale and a damn good one I think.

The Nuns helped minister to the wounded and poor in spirit, and may continue the journey to Greater Piddling at a latter date.

Daniel the Carter decided he had enough of adventure and retired to his farm in Soggy Bottom.

If you are still here – thanks for reading.

Monday 14 May 2018

Chaos in Carpathia - actually - Chaos in Cambridge

For the past few weeks strange goings on, have been - 'going on' in Little Piddling in the Marsh.

First a sheep was found savaged, throat torn out, lots of blood spilt but the carcase was mainly intact. This was put down to wild dogs, foxes or even as one or two of the older folk muttered - wolves.

They knew it was common knowledge that wolves had been eradicated 150 years ago, but in the dark of the night, with the full moon shining, what else could have made that chilling howling but wolves, big ones at that.

Then a few nights later 4 of the village guard dogs disappeared without a trace. Great big beasts they were, steady and reliable dogs. Just disappeared into the night! People were starting to get nervous, no one left their homes after dark.

When farmer Prendergast’s bull was found dead, also with his throat ripped out but this time the carcase was partly eaten things were getting really scary. This was not the work of foxes or dogs.

Word was sent to the big house.

Finally when Mary Scroggins didn’t return home after visiting her friend in the next village, Much Piddling in the Marsh in the demesne of Mad Lord Snapcase, then Sir Marmaduke Langdale the local landowner with three of his friends and comrades in arms decided they would have to intervene.

This is a game I posted on LAF about a year ago - so sorry if you may have already read it, but I have been inspired by Greg to dig out the Gothic Horror figures and continue the story of Mary Scroggins, to do that you need to be aware of the strange doins that had been done before, this is part of the story so far.

Little Piddling in the Marsh on a moonlit but overcast night. The year is 1655, shortly after the bloody Civil War, what evil still lurks there out in the dark of the night!!!


Views of the village from the south. The inhabitants sleeping fitfully hoping that daylight will arrive quickly - and they will live to see it.

Most of the farm animals are penned in the fields to the north of the village.

Sir Marmaduke Langdale (ML), Jeremiah Pile (JP) and Baxter the dog are hiding in the hut partially in view closest to us. Simon Dark (SD) and Jonathan Hawke (JH) who drew the short straw are hiding in the pig pen in the field. It is late and they are all getting sleepy, if they fail their activation 3 times in a row they will fall asleep.

These houses don’t have lift off roofs so I use a 130% ground plan of the houses to place the figures. Sir Marmaduke is in the hut lower left.

This is as usual a solo game and I am playing the humans, so to maintain my surprise and suspense I'm using a number of counters to represent the monsters, for each counter when revealed I turn over a playing card each card has an allocated monster. There are a greater number of counters and cards than monsters, so that when a card is turned over and it could denote a blind card or a monster and also which monster. Hope that makes sense. Probably not.

Usually I would be hunting the monsters but this time I have laid an ambush for them and the bait is the farm animals. If anyone has any other ideas on how to create an attacking enemy and maintain surprise shout out with your ideas.

The monsters entered the board from here, 8 counters move left through the woods and 2 to the right towards the village. Their objective was to slaughter a goat and escape undetected off the board. The humans objective was to discover who was creating mayhem and stop them.

The wind is blowing right to left, the monsters counters have been moving forward for 4 turns, they can smell the humans but are fixated on the animals up ahead.

Sir Marmaduke has failed his activation for the 1st 3 moves and is fast asleep in the hut as they go past. Baxter the dog is also asleep and because of the wind direction does not smell the monsters and wake.

In the pig pen JH and SD have failed their activation twice and are almost asleep as well, must have been the wine they all drank earlier.

Not looking so good for the Sir Marmaduke and his companions.

The start of turn 5 and the monsters move forward to within 6”, of the pen, in the dark that is finally insight. JH passed his 3rd activation and did not fall asleep so sees them to be revealed as 2 hairless werewolves (quite rare I believe) a green ghoul and 3 of the village dogs, red eyed and slavering.

Food - thinks the animals and attack.

Shit – thinks the Cavaliers and fire.

JH’s shot goes wide but SD hits the Ghoul, good start I thinks but it shrugs off any damage and keeps coming. Humm not so good.

Savage fighting ensues but even though they are so outnumbered the good guys stay on their feet and even inflict some damage on one of the dogs.

The shots wake everyone.

Hopefully you noticed there were 8 counters moving forward on the left but they resolved as only 6 monsters.

Just out of camera Baxter the dog erupts from the hut barking a challenge, which is taken up by the howl of a werewolf as it turns to face him.

SD goes down under the teeth of the dogs and claws of the ghoul but JH remains standing inflicting some minor damage on the other werewolf. It is now odds of 5 to 1, it’s a good job he said prayers before setting out today.


The werewolf charges at Baxter. Sir Marmaduke and Jeremiah emerge from the hut in time to fire at the Werewolf as it charges, they both hit and cause enough damage ordinarily to kill it, but it passes the KO test and carries on (Should have brought the silver bullets). Baxter only has to bite it once and it’s curtains for the werewolf. Not that easy as the Werewolf is 2m high and Baxter is only .4m. Werewolf wins in the melee but fails to inflict any damage.

The Ghoul and one of the dogs have left the fight against JH and are going to help against Baxter and co. The remaining werewolf and dog continue the fight and inflict some damage on JH. This is a real ding dong battle, all three of them have now taken damage.

The Ghoul and ravening dog rush to the fight, howling, not to be thought slackers ML and JP draw their swords shouting their battle cry, For King and Country (guess which side they were on in the recent war) and attack the abominations. The Ghoul is injured but otherwise the fighting is inconclusive. Not so in the background where you can just see (if you squint) the werewolf has fallen to the keen sword of JH but he is still fighting two of the dogs.

A better shot of that fight.

The hairy Werewolf and another dog start to make their way to the fight but …

Richard Howe is looking out of the window and sees the dog, but not the wolf and shoots, hits and causes some damage but not enough to bring the dog down.

Whoops, ohh bugger, Richard sees the Werewolf as it passes the window, he is trying to reload his matchlock musket but is shaking so hard (bad Resolve roll) as the outer door bursts in. Just one door between him and destiny, and he just knows that he is not going to get that gun loaded in time. It looks like he is going to meet his destiny. Oh bugger.

Meanwhile Baxter has finally bitten the Werewolf in the leg and it is down and out. Baxter moves to help his master Sir Marmaduke.

The fights have finally reached a conclusion, total victory for Marmaduke, Baxter and Jeremiah. Ghoul dog and werewolf lie dead on the ground but disaster for Jonathan Hawke, he has killed one of the dogs but the other one has torn his throat out and he is down bleeding to death.

The dog looks around, all is lost and he runs away.

The final footnote, Ki the hairy Werewolf breaks down the bedroom door and devours poor Richard, before leaving with his hound at heel.

Our heroes in happier times - from left to right Jonathan Hawke RIP. Simon Dark RIP. Sir Marmaduke Langdale. Jeremiah Pile. Baxter the dog would not stand still for his photograph to be taken, he must be off fetching some ball or bone (who's bone?).

This was my first full game of Chaos in Carpathia, a variation from my normal rule set, the fights seemed to last an age, and I amended the rules a bit, especially activation, as this was a solo game my opponent agreed, sometimes reluctantly, with every change.
For me the jury is out on these rules, the mythos is good but I'm not so sure about the combat. They are sufficiently similar to the ones I usually use that I am thinking of making some conversions to them, or to my existing ones to make them compatible.

If you are still with me – thanks for reading so far and if you did pass this way I'm always pleased to hear from you.

I'm off to Warwick for a couple of days, to look at the castle and will catch up on my return.
Cheers

Monday 7 May 2018

Western Adventure - The Law Comes to Little Whiskey Pt2


With the thud of hooves on the hard packed desert highway, the Little Whiskey stage thunders in to town, its roof covered in strongboxes full of silver from the local mine. Chester who is driving, wipes the sweat from his brow, is it the hot desert sun or just relief that the first stage of this journey has passed without incident, even he’s not sure which.

He’s looking forward to a lukewarm beer in the Tail Feather Saloon followed by broth in the new brothel that’s recently opened in town, ahh the joys of civilised living, all the comforts of home he thinks. Mind you he usually sleeps in the livery stable and washes once a week in the horse trough.

However Big Jim has installed a pump that provides fresh (brackish) water, so now he doesn’t get too much straw mixed in with his beard afterwards. If only Jim had made the trough bigger, Chester could save the 10cents that Whiskey Jack charges for the use of the Bathhouse, although Bathhouse is a bit of a misnomer. It’s a bathtub round the back of the saloon, there is no ‘house’ to it, but the girls in the brothel stop serving broth to the smelliest customers in the height of the summer so needs must when the devil drives.

This is the follow on to the very lengthy introduction to the enlarged town I did nearly a month ago HERE

Chester’s view down Main Street as he drives into town, all looks quiet, the girls on the balcony are talking to some hard riding stranger with a Winchester in his hand. Nothing untoward there, everyone carries a gun in Little Whiskey and some even know how to use it. At the far end of the street a local rancher and his wife are coming this way as well as young Billy with his mule train of pack horses.

Donna lurching over to the Wells Fargo office, holding tight to her bottle passes Irene Adler (yellow dress) crossing to the other side, but Irene takes no notice of Donna, she has other things on her mind right now. She gives Billy such a glare that the young man, who knows no fear, slows his horse and lets her pass in front of him. Pedestrian crossings are not needed and jay walking is not a problem in the Old West when you have a steely glare to stop the traffic.

Donna makes it to the other side without falling over, what a constitution that girl has, she stares at the door into the office and like all drunks the world over thinks “why am I here, what did I come for, who am I” to which the universal answer is “I’ll have another drink and see if it becomes any clearer”

Well you can’t call this a one horse town, it’s getting quite crowded.

Almost a traffic jam.

I expected Irene to go and speak to English Bob the sheriff but she seems to be lurking on the sidewalk behind him, maybe she’s shy?

At this stage of the game she was not committed to a course of action, all the bit players had an open brief to play their role by ear, and when the time came, to go with the flow, or maybe go with the roll.

About this time and out of our sight because the cameraman didn’t take the shot, Dangerous Dave who was outside the Tail Feathers opened the door and uttered the cryptic words “Boss it’s time”

There is movement inside the saloon.

Nick pulls his gun, swift as a striking snake. “Hold it right there, put your hands where I can see them.” Jack who was expecting trouble was close to his shotgun but not close enough and complied but Ruben White the bar keep reacted differently.

I'll come back to Ruben later.

Bill Samuelsons crew had been drinking for quite a while and the drink, as it does, affected them all in different ways. Nick who was normally a bad man became really mean, and his reflexes fuelled by the alcohol were faster than ever. Some of the others slowed down or just got plain nasty, clumsy or braver, strangely none of them got happier.

This puts the scene into perspective, Lefty is looking out of the dirty windows of Jacks Emporium thinking it’s a good job it’s bright out there or I couldn’t see to shoot, the rest of them are bunched by the door waiting for the stage to get a little closer.

The cameraman gets a reprieve, he did take the shot and this is it, Dave is lurking in the shadows after warning his Boss the stage is coming.

Pans back to get an overview of the situation, Billy and the coach are at loggerheads, Chester needs to get close to the Bank at the far end of town to unload his valuable shipment but Billy who is a stubborn young man has carried on down the street after his contretemps with Irene earlier and does not want to give way a second time.

"You’re on the wrong side of the road" says Chester – "No I ain’t responds Billy". The man with no name, riding shotgun looks nervous.

Is this a head on collision.

Dangerous Dave is just visible behind the porch post, and believe it or not this is still turn 3.

Irene Adler from England moves closer to English Bob she must be about to introduce herself, they must know each other as they are both from the same country but Bob ignores her and moves forward towards Billy, “Now come on there, be a good lad and let the stage through, I need him outside the bank to unload and the sooner he gets there the happier I’ll feel. At this point in the game I resolved some of the bit players.

Billy is an ornery character and has an affinity of 2 so to do a bad deed he has to roll 3 or better on this occasion with 2 dice, he rolled 1 and 2, so he decided to comply with English Bobs request and move on over. “Just havin a bit of trouble with my mules there Sheriff, I’ll get them out of the way shortly” English Bob doesn’t like being called Shortly but he lets it go.

Irene needs 4 or more to do a bad deed and rolled 5 and 6, so I decided she was in league with the outlaws and would aide them. I told you last time she had a mean looking snarl on her face, another good sculpt.

Further down Main Street Jim is still stroking his beard and Mary is watching – fascinated.

For those of you who read Miles and Boon (we know who you are) this is the love interest in the story :-)

Ok we’re back in the saloon Nick has the drop on Jack. Ruben fails his Brains test and then fails his Guts test so decides to do a runner, he is next to the back door and dives straight through it. Nick doesn’t hesitate, the drink and his innate meanness, means he's happy to shoots a poor old, white haired fellow in the back.
He misses, this makes the old man run even faster, - well it would wouldn’t it.

The gunshots are heard all over town. That's sort of spoilt the surprise a bit.

Irene, Bob and Dangerous Dave are all shocked by the sound of gunfire and fail to activate.

In the Wells Fargo Office they all decide it’s none of their business – except Donna who crashes through the door, staggers down the step and into the street. Looking mean, moody and slightly rosy cheeked.

Further on up the street, Pearl and Lucille move back into the shelter of the Grocery Store.

Big Slim ushers his wife into the gunshop and picks up a double barrelled shotgun that he has resting close to hand. He didn’t grow old in the west without being able to recognise trouble when it came knocking on his door, nor without knowing the appropriate response, the 12 bore was usually the appropriate response.

Bill Samuelson and 2 of his men burst through the door, Lefty who was looking through the window fires at Chester the driver and wings him, not serious but he takes a few seconds to recover.

Bill is first through the door and he and the shotgun guard the man with no name fire simultaneously, Bill takes a load of buckshot in his left leg and falls to the sidewalk OOF, but as he is going down he gets off a couple of shots, Chester is hit again and is OOF and the second shot puts a big hole in the man with no name and he is also OOF and falls from the stage.

Steve grabs the reins of the lead horse and hangs on to prevent it bolting.

Billy is starting to move his horses out of the way, turning them in the street with the intention of getting away from the shooting, it’s none of his affair and there does looks to be a lot of them.

Marshal McAlister joins Bob on the sidewalk, fails to notice Irene until she cocks her pistol and murmurs, gentlemen, please keep your hands where I can see them and drop those shotguns. They both pass their brains tests and decide this is a reasonable course of action based on their pay scale.

You can just see Pete on the balcony with the good time girls. Donna stumbling across the road, she must have looked as if she was going to join in the fracas so Pete shoots her.

Donna is hit in the arm and falls OOF, she feels no pain, well that’s not really true because she was hit in the left arm and dropped and shattered her bottle. – That hurt.

Irene is facing down the two lawmen, I wonder if they will keep their jobs, of course that means someone else would be stupid enough to apply for them, so maybe they will.

Dora and Eleanor are horrified by Pete’s action and attack him with fists, teeth, feet, and anything else that comes to hand.

Beaten up by two girls, it’s not his day but it’s about to get worse.

Billy has turned his string of horses around and is riding out of town and sees Donna get shot and fall, so for the second time I tested to see whether he would do a good or bad thing and against the odds, he dismounted and tried to help her.

On the other side of the street, Dave has climbed up into the drivers seat and pushed Chester out in to the street. You might thing that Dave looks very much like the man with no name but of course you would be wrong, it’s only because they're both carrying a shotgun that they look so alike.

Frank moves to the door of the stage and a shotgun blast misses him by inches, there are two guards inside the stage. You didn’t think there would just be the man with no name guarding this valuable shipment did you?      You did!!!

Frank doesn’t take his normal course of action when shot at and run away, shows what a bottle of rotgut whiskey will do for your courage. He returns the fire, hitting one of them in the head, killing him instantly, but there is a sickening click as the hammer falls on a dud shell. Swift as lightening he pulls his backup derringer and puts 2 bullets into the other guard who is now OOF.

Bill is rolling around on the sidewalk cussing and moaning in equal measure as Temperance Jenkins and Miss Virginia look on horrified at all this violence and blood shed. They kept failing to activate and didn’t move, - no sense of self preservation, they’re not going to last long in Little Whiskey.

Billy has pulled Donna over to the side of the street and is protecting her behind the horses.

When asked about this later his response was "just loosening her clothing to let her breathe a little easier, you know, like it says in them books" I think he's been reading Miles and Boon, although I'm not so sure he can read.

Don’t mess with the girls from Blonde Edna’s Saloon and Brothel, not content with beating the living daylights out of Pete they threw him off the balcony and here he is lying in the street having taken further injuries from the fall.

Everyone else has decided that they don’t need to be on the street at this time of day, in the hot sun and all, so the outlaws are able to put the wounded into the stage and the rest mount up and ride on out of town, they did leave the two lawmen locked in their own jail.

Not an auspicious start to  - “The Law Comes to Little Whiskey”.


If you are still here - thanks for reading and let me know you passed this way.
Cheers

Mia Culpa/Tikki Coast if you are still visiting I just wondered if you are OK, your Blog has closed and my PM on LAF was returned, just a bit concerned is all.
Cheers