Prologue - The Awakening

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May 18, 2015 1:07 pm
The following posts are meant to reveal something about the world through the eyes of each player. There has been some interpretation of character by the GM, and adjustments can be made if necessary.

This thread is background information only - gameplay will start in Chapter 1.0.
May 18, 2015 1:08 pm
Colonel Douglas Mortimer and Louis Garderose stood in the street, 30 paces apart. On a horserail between them, a haunting lullaby played to its inevitable conclusion. When the music stopped, they would draw.

Both men were older, but while Garderose showed his advanced years, with his wrinkled time-worn skin and his white, wispy beard, Mortimer could be said to still be in the prime of his life. As the pocket watch played the last few notes, his hand stilled with his breath, ready to draw. The last note played and with his mind, he freed his hand to twitch and fire. He did not think about the process, he simply released his arm and body to do what it had down hundreds, thousands of times before.

But nothing happened. In silence, the two men stood still, facing each other in the street. A strange sensation came over Mortimer, as something new was transpiring. Were they both waiting for the other to draw first? No, this was new, this was… an awakening.

Mortimer relished the feeling, as if coming alive for the first time. All of his life had been as yesterday, an endless loop of repetition, remembering a distant past, and awaiting a future that never came. But today, everything changed.

Later that evening, as he watched the townsfolk of El Paso repeat the actions of the day before, as they had everyday before that, wondering what was different, why he alone felt awake. He thumbed the card Mr. Garderose had given him before riding north. "Rio Grande City, June 4, L. Garderose." He knew, now, finally, that he had a destiny. A destiny half-way across Texas, but somehow, by instinct, he knew that he could be there in only two days.
May 18, 2015 1:08 pm
Diego Rey walked out his room that morning, pulled on his boots, and stepped into the bright, morning air. He stretched his arms, blinking at the too hot sun, and saw Maria Contessa Villa-Lobos. She marched up to him and slapped him hard, her hand scraping roughly against his unshaven face. Just like she did every morning, he thought.

Wait, what was that? Every morning? No, last night he had been drinking in the cantina, and he had made called some comments to her, and everyone had laughed. Emboldened, he had stood up, and roughly began to dance with her, laughing with the other men who were falling out of their chairs. Then the stranger had placed his hand on Diego’s arm, and when he turned around and met the old man’s gaze, he sobered right up.

He tried to remember what else had happened last night, but it was hard. His mind kept remembering the prior nights, a thousand back-to-back nights of exactly the same, until last night. He shook it off and dunked his head in the fountain, the cold water freezing his head. With a shock he pulled a card out of his pocket. "Rio Grande City, June 4, L. Garderose." June 4! He better leave now.
May 18, 2015 1:08 pm
Clancy Winwood woke and started the campfire, rekindling the banked coals from last night. His proficiency was growing he thought, and he paused with deja vu. He snapped a twig, and said "Good morning, Mr. Baker" as the so-named man stuck his head out from under the wagon.

"How you do that?" Wilbur Baker said, as he shook his boots unconsciously. Clancy knew that it was for snakes and scorpions, even though he had yet to see any such beasts emerge from a boot. Still, it was a good idea. Again, deja vu.

His hand brushed his coat pocket, where he carried a letter, from a man he had never met. A spark of the coals was simultaneous with a spark in his clearing mind, as if a fog was lifting. The letter had arrived and he had abruptly left his church. He had only been at the church for less than a year, but he felt, in his heart, that he had only ever lived there. His mind remembered differently, he remembered England, and his wife. But when that letter arrived, he suddenly knew that it had all been a kind of dream. A heady dream, rife with triumphs and heartache, but a dream none-the-less. When he had opened that letter, God told him it was time to wake.

He met up with some pilgrims travelling west, and then lost himself in the journey. They had been on the trail for two months. No, his mind fought back. It was only four days ago. In four days, they had made their way from Alabama and deep into Texas. Devilry, he thought. He hadn’t been in Alabama, his church was in … did that place even have a name?

He had to leave them, and find his own way south. The pilgrims were headed for California and rumors of gold, but they didn’t really get anywhere each day. They were trapped in Purgatory, just like he had been, doomed to repeat each day anew, unaware. His eyes peered south, and he saw a stagecoach tied up a mile or so away. He grabbed his gear, didn’t bother saying anything to the pilgrims, and he began to run, waking a little bit more with every stride.
May 18, 2015 1:09 pm
Alexander "AJ" Johnston dropped his arm, lowering his rifle. He had been sighting on that old man, but the old man hadn’t moved in some time. A shiver ran up his neck, as if a cold wind had blown, but the Texas sun beat down on him with nary a sign of relief. That old man, just sitting there. That’s not like Dex Carter, he thought, that rustler couldn’t sit still if he was hiding in short grass from a platoon of marshalls on tall horses.

He hitched his rifle over his shoulder and walked over. It was a fair walk, four hundred yards or so, but it seemed much longer. With each step, he grew aware of his surroundings. The insects hopping in the range grass, the two buzzards circling the old man, the flash of light from rippling water in the crick.

Soon, he was drinking whiskey with the old man, straight from a bottle. Seemed like the thing to do. They were leaning against a rocky embankment, looking south over the crick to fields beyond. Longhorns were grazing several miles away, and a coyote stalked game hens near some brush. The old man said "You got any sense of this at all?" It was a ridiculous question, could be taken any manner of ways, but AJ understood somehow.

"Sir, I’m not sure what it all means. What is this place?"

"It’s Texas, son, just not the Texas you think it is. But it’s real, none-the-less, and that makes it important. Some sleep through life, but others, well, we got a bit more reckoning of what it all is. You want to find out more, then meet me in Rio Grande City on the fourth of June. It’s a thousand miles away, your heart will tell you, but believe you me, son, it’s just a bit past that hill over yonder. You could walk it."
May 19, 2015 12:32 am
Eli "Quickfeet" Buckholtz watched the man for some time with a smile on his face. His horse had floundered trying to ford the Rio Grande, and it was just funny. The horse would be okay, as soon as that townie stopped fighting and returned to shore. Soon the man, Henry Darling he was called, gave up and floated downstream a bit before grabbing a rock.

Eli tipped his hat back on his head and wandered down. The horse, freed from its troublesome burden, splashed its way back to the bank and shivered in exhaustion. Eli walked up to it and pat its nose before removing a length of rope (brand spanking new, he whistled to himself) and heading down the river. Once abreast of the man on the rock, he threw one end to the man, who grabbed hold. Soon, he was safe on the riverbank, lying on his back soaking up the hot Texas sun.

Eli gave him a few minutes, then knelt down beside him. He drew his weapon, and aimed it at the man's belly. "You about ready to go back to Rio Grande City, Henry Darling?" The man's head fell resignedly and he held up his wrists weakly.

As they returned to town on the stolen horse, Eli's mind began to wander. He couldn't place it, but he suddenly had the feeling that he, too, was a townie, and had never held a gun before. Never ridden a horse, never stared a man down from starting trouble. He shook his head and concentrated on the man.

Henry Darling spoke, stumbling over the words with a strange accent. "Look, shadow. You have my thanks for dragging my hide from the river, and for that, I won't kill you. But you have got to let me go." Darling paused, as if trying to get the taste of river out of his mouth. "I got a magic trinket in my pocket that will start fires, even in the rain, and you can have that. You could sell it for a ton more than you would get for me, enough to buy a car, er, a fast horse, that is." A hard jab with the gun in Darling's kidney and he shut right up for a moment.

"You're no shadow, are you? Are you working for Louis Garderose? Damn, you must have translated here. I missed getting all the shinies taking ye olde paradox express." Another brutal jab and Darling shut up and took to coughing.

They returned to town, Eli delivering the stranger to the sheriff. The strangers words echoed in his ears, and as he looked around, it seemed like the townsfolk were mere, well, shadows, of people. There was old what's his name, the barber. He knew that he should know the man's name, but couldn't recall it. He gazed about, recognizing these 'shadows' but nothing really standing out about them. They were just plain townfolk, his mind told him. Not really real.

This was crazy. He better find somebody who could tell him what was going on.

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