Winona mounts back up and starts making tight rounds along the edge of the herd to keep them from straggling or bolting.
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"Aight. See anything we can use for cover? It might not come out if it spots us."
"Yeah, there's nothing here. Let's save the cows that we can and see if we can move the herd a little. Maybe whatever did this will break cover to follow."
Winona stays mounted and keeps her eyes peeled for other trouble while Rufus checks the cattle. "Hope it's not something catching. We already lost too many heads to those ticks, last thing we need is an outbreak of something that'll rip through the rest of the herd."
Winona sits up and stifles a groan. She glances over at Flying Eagle and sees that he's already getting up, so she stands and heads over quietly to try to wake up Chin, hoping that he's not too hung over to function.
"Why not both? If we expect trouble, a tree is better than nothin' if you're gettin' shot at." Winona grins and runs her hand along the brim of her hat. "Nice an' easy. Keep 'em hale and hearty for when they reach the market."
"Let's get 'em goin', then," says Winona. "And make sure that when we make camp, there's a tree or two in case we need cover from a gunfight."
"Huh. Haven't seen many of these prairie-wagon contraptions."
"That's the rail line run by Hellstromme Industries, as I recall."
Winona's pretty strung out after the prairie tick incident, and only notices the most basic features of the riverlands.
Winona wipes down her forehead and neck with some water and a kerchief. "Tough work, but that's why they pay us. If we can't find any more infected cattle, time to get movin' again..." She glances in the direction of the sun to figure out how much daylight they have left. "... unless that took so long that we're better off campin'."
Winona follows along behind Rufus, ready to wrestle a cow down as he ropes it.
"Time for some ropin'. This shouldn't be too different than bringin' one down for a brand."
Heh, I had the opposite experience. I got excluded from the jury for saying that I didn't give LEOs special preference with regard to testimony, and if they wanted me to believe something, show me the evidence.
Winona nods and tips her hat in acknowledgement. She heads to find a group of the cattle with the original herd brand, as mentioned previously by Bill and Luke.
Having missed the body in all the commotion of being knocked down by the herd and trampled, Winona takes off her hat and beats it back into shape. "Poor kid. As for castor oil... dunno, normally we'd have to get that in town. But usually you can get it in a big bottle."
Winona pours a little water onto a kerchief and wipes down her face. She coughs up some dust. "Ugh. Could've been better, could've been worse." She stows her shotgun and climbs back into the saddle. "C'mon, boys, we can't let the herd wander off without us."
Winona grabs her shotgun and shouts, "I hope someone knows how to get the cows to puke up these ticks, otherwise they're gonna kill a bunch of the herd!" She starts stalking the tiny terrors, blasting them to pieces whenever she spots one, and watching for falling cows so that she can kill the tick that emerges.
"There's cuts on the inside of their lips, like they ate something that tore up their mouths. Check some of the live cattle, see if they have the same symptom. We could be in for a real bad time with the rest of the herd."
Total 10.
Sick cattle are not to be taken lightly. One sick cow could bring down the entire herd. Winona spurs her mare over toward the cow, then dismounts smoothly and kneels down to check on the creature. Bleeding? Any injures? Foaming mouth? Oozing? Pustules? Damage to the hooves?
To get someone else's attention and call for help she simply unholters her pistol and fires it into the air at a slight angle (so that the bullet eventually comes down harmlessly in a field some distance away).
Winona is a bit perkier, having gotten a good night's rest and a decent meal while in town before saddling up again. "Quite a new mess o' cattle!" she comments idly. "No wonder we needed more hands. This is gonna be quite a handful, especially if they get spooked on the trail."
"I'm curious to see if the chow is going to be better, or worse," says Winona with a wry grin. "Let's get back to camp. I wanna check on my horse, give her a good rub-down."
"Well, having some equity is a good motivator. Good reason to keep the cattle healthy and get 'em all to market," says Winona. "I wouldn't say no, personally."
"Got a backup money-maker, eh?"
I may be misremembering, but I thought there was a Harrowed edge that let you intimidate animals into submission, so you don't take the -2. I'm probably wrong though.
Harrowed usually only have to worry about two things, the smell (which you can cover with booze if you pretend to be a drunk) and their wounds, which if you're lucky are covered up once you get a shirt or hat without a hole in it. Being a chi master Harrowed means splitting your advances a lot between power sets, but you do have the advantage of being pretty hard to kill! Since Chinese rail workers are fairly common, it's not hard to have a character who came east on the rail and wound up where we are now (Colorado, I believe).
I would find it challenging to fit into backstory. Might have read something about him, in reports from the Ranger service.
We don't really have a strong face character or stealth character. I don't worry about overlap. Some good, right-in-the-middle-of-genre choices might be a huckster with some schmoozing social skills, or a martial artist with stealth skills.
We also largely suck at stealth. I am not concerned about overlap. Since you are a long-time fan of Deadlands, we don't have a huckster/witch, a mad scientist, a harrowed, or a martial artist.
"Aight. What a day. Let's head to the saloon I guess, see if we can pick up any more trailhands. I'd say we could check the blacksmith and see who's having horses shoed, but any trail hand who owns a horse probably already has a job at a local ranch."
Thank you! Working on updating. Advance 4 (Seasoned): Edge: Combat Reflexes.Advance 5 (Seasoned): Vigor d6->d8 I'm not opposed to picking up a recruit.
Winona stops by the telegraph office to send a terse report to the territorial marshal's office about what happened, just so they know what actually happened when rumors start trickling out. "Gents, let's get back to the herd, eh? I almost crave the reliability of the trail. But maybe we have a good meal in town before we leave and are back on canned beans and bacon."
Also you guys can take an advance and reset bennies This pushing us to Seasoned?
"Yeah. We'll see what the home office says. I have a feeling that I'm gonna have to come back and clean up the mess left behind at some future point," says Winona wryly as she hoists into the saddle and takes the reins. "Let's get outta here. Sooner the herd is on the move again, sooner we can get to the end o' this sordid trail tale."
"The problem isn't ghosts and goblins, it's engaging in bandit-like destructive activity. Probably gonna lose my badge."
"Dunno how I'm gonna report this..."
I guess we finished that sidequest, with an absolutely terrible resolution. Any carnies who are just folks who were dragged along are now homeless and penniless. All of their worldly possessions have been blown up. The whole landscape in the area is now a haunted Fear site that is going to have monsters and ghosts for decades to come, becoming a source of local legends about abductions, murders, and horrors. Yet it seems our characters lack the skills to have done things any other way. Real feel-bad moment.
"Should we move the unconscious people out of the remains of the blast radius? Could they wind up possessed or somethin'?"
Winona stops, shrugs, flips her knife and puts it back into her belt. She starts placing dynamite around the inside of the wagon instead.
Winona climbs into one of the wagons and holsters her pistol. She pulls out her knife and carefully removes the seal and cover from the jug to find out what the hell people are dying over.
Winona secures her bandana over her face, puts some water from her canteen on it, and advances quickly into the caravan to check on the suspicious jars that the team spotted before. As she goes she kicks weapons away from unconscious bodies, so that it will take them a little more time to respond when they do wake up.
Winona stays crouched with pistol in hand, ready to provide covering fire if needed.
I also have 3 advances listed.
Winona, conversely, stays quiet. Best to have a hidden gun in reserve in case there's resistance.
Winona lobs her improvised knock-out grenades and lands them pretty much exactly where she wants them.
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