Train Busters game thread

Saul thinks back to his life in the Amazon, and recalls how he noted similarities between the different languages of the tribes. In a flash of sudden insight, Saul realizes the connections between those languages and those of the North American tribes. As he tries to form the words, the veil is suddenly lifted, and he sees the inherent connections between ALL languages, leading back to when the world was new, and he speaks forth in the language from which all other languages sprung, the tongue of angels and all living things, and what he says, roughly translated, is this:

"What in tarnation is goin' on?"

Unfortunately, the language of angels is no longer spoken by the fallen people of Earth, and the result is that the Cheyenne are amazed and bewildered by this apparition who has appeared amongst them as two of their number have mysteriously perished, black as the night and speaking the tongue of the sky. The thunder and lightning clinch it, and they speak back to Saul, clearly importuning him to some action.

As quickly as it came, the insight into the underlying language of the universe fades, and Saul is just Saul once more.

Saul: 5 gum

Clarence feverishly begins to disassemble everything close at hand, rearranging it and clipping it together. The contraption that results is the size of a suitcase, with a large cone on the end and a large crank on the side. Clarence aims the cone at the window and cranks furiously. There is another flash of lightning above, a crack of thunder that momentarily deafens everyone, and Clarence releases the trigger mechanism. The air in front of the cone visibly distorts as an incredibly low-frequency wave billows out of the cone. Everyone's ears pop as the air is pushed away, along with the entire side of the train's dining car. The screaming of the passengers and the chanting of the purple robed figures, the whistling of the wind and the sound of cavalry bugles approaching from the south, all are silenced as the wave continues to expand outwards, rolling everything in its path south along the prairie. The sonic weapon fuses, growing hot in Clarence's hands and the cone turns molten and drips onto the floor, scorching the water there into jets of steam. The inaudible soundwave ceases.

Everything is silent for a long moment, and then the wave passes out of (non)hearing, and sound returns with another crack of lightning and thunder directly overhead. Chhun's serpentine body rears up from the water on a neck ten feet long, and continues rising up and up - twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet - as his body corkscrews into the air. The vast reptile that was the Emperor's messenger circles in the sky just below the looming black cloud, electricity arcing along its flanks.

Luke stands amazed with the others at the faro table, as the wind whips through the side of the train where a wall was moments before, and a dragon roars above them.

The screaming resumes on the other side of the train.

Clarence: 8 gum
Luke: 8 gum
Chhun: 6 gum

At this time, we take a pause from the action in the remains of the dining car, the fierce murderizin' in the coal car, the worshipful importunin' in the engine, and enjoy a brief intermission.



Aaahhh. Don't that just move yer soul?

Clarence strides forward and brandishes his wrench. The purple robed freak in front of him pays him no heed, as the light from his cowl finds another passenger. The passenger's flesh withers as he dessicates, the energy seeming to siphon off the life energy from his body. Clarence's wrench clobbers the cowled figure on the top of its head, and it crumbles with a gruesome crunching noise. Energy flares out in all directions, beams of arcing light flashing out to each of the nearby purple-robed figures, and they all grow noticeably taller as they absorb that energy. The darkness between flashes of lightning and the arcs of energy from the cowls is nearly complete.

Clarence: 8 gum

The engine lurches, even though the brake is applied. Then it jumps as Bonny begins to execute people in the area. The first shot punches Frank in the back, but the jumping of the train causes the shot to go wide. It doesn't sever his spine or pierce his heart; his shoulder shatters and the force and shock cause him to lose his grip on the revolving cannon, which drops to the floor onto its trigger mechanism. It proceeds to roll around, firing randomly at everyone's legs. Bonny's second shot hits a Cheyenne in the face, her third shot misses everyone and ricochets around the enclosed space, coming back and hitting her in the hip. She spins around and lands on her hands as the revolving cannon turns towards her. The engine lurches again and a large seam appears in the floorboards...

Bonny: 3 gum
Frank: 7 gum

Saul sees all this happen from dragonback, and notices that the engine is beginning to fall apart. The wheels have just popped out sideways. Could it be related to the evil ritual nearing completion?

Saul: 4 gum

The engine flips up on its hitch and everyone careens backwards towards the coal car. Bonny and Frank scrabble for purchase as the deck of the engine goes vertical and rises up into the air. They find themselves hanging by their fingers as long legs unfold from beneath the engine and raise it ten feet in the air.



The bugle call of the cavalry is heard again, as they ride back north after the seismic wave rolled them away from the train. Under Saul's musical guidance, Chhun dives down and crunches one of the cultists in his jaws. There is a flare of eldritch energy and the remaining robed figures grow even larger. Chhun's snout blazes with an unholy fire - devouring the cultist is not agreeing with him, and his flying becomes erratic. The last few passengers are fleeing pell mell away from the train, but the robed figures - now each at least eight feet tall - easily catch up to them with long strides.

The train engine, now converted into a giant (25' tall) humanoid figure with Bonny and Frank (somehow still holding on to his rotating, exploding blasty cannon) clinging to its thighs, releases a blast of steam and steps off of the track with a resounding CLANG. Clarence rushes out into the prairie as best he can with most of the ferrous objects in the dining car attached to him. The dark sky starts to turn an angry red color, as if fire loomed just above the thick black clouds. Each giant robed figure leans back and screams at the sky, releasing streams of energy that rise up like columns supporting the descending black clouds. Just then, Clarence reverses the polarity of his magnetic vest, and a fusillade of forks, knives, spoons, screws, and nails explode forth from him in all directions. Three of the giant purple figures are close enough to be shredded by these; they explode in flashes of flame, leaving black vapors in the shape of devils that slowly rise up into the sky. Chhun, already choking on the dinner of evil robed figure, is hit by several pieces of flying cutlery; with a shriek of pain he falls to earth again. Saul is shielded from the flying metal by the dragon's body, but the wind is knocked out of him as he hits the ground. The windows of the passenger car are blown out by pieces of flying metal, showering Ezekiel, Persimmon, and the reptilian thing holding onto Ezekiel with glass. The cavalry and the giant steam mechanical man that was the steam engine are all pelted with a rain of cutlery and hardware plunking down around them.

Bonny and Frank each pull themselves up onto surfaces that were vertical before and are now horizontal. Miraculously, Bonny retrieves her gun and each of them is able to stand, despite their gunshot wounds (they are so kick-ass they don't notice wounds). They are close to one another, but separated by at least two yards of open space (with a drop of about 10 feet) as each thigh groans forward and stomps the leg down in the process of the Mechanical Man's walking roughly East, parallel to the train and toward the cavalry and several of the purple-robed figures. All of the Cheyenne have dropped off of the engine. The furnace is above Bonny and Frank, in the thing's torso, and they can hear whirring and clicking of clockwork as well as someone muttering above that.

The black cloud, shot through with red and pierced by a few remaining columns of screaming light, begins to whirl into a vortex, a vast whirlpool above your heads. Anyone close to a standing purple robed figure is illuminated in piercingly bright white light; everything else is lit with a dull red glow. The cavalry arrives at the train, expecting to find the Cheyenne they've been chasing since they escaped the reservation, but finding instead...well, they plumb just don't know what they've found. Expecting a fight, a couple of the soldiers fire tentative shots at the Mechanical Man; the bullets ricochet off of the engine close to Bonny and Frank.

Bonny: 3 gum
Saul: 4 gum
Frank: 6 gum
Ezekiel: 6 gum
Persimmon: 6 gum
Chhun: 6 gum
Clarence: 7 gum
Luke: 8 gum