Scene 1 - And the gunslingers followed...

By RossExpresso, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Deed license, found on DeviantArt.

Your ka-tet of gunslingers have been travelling together for years now. Travelling together on your shared quest for The Tower.

And lighting your way on that path has been your pursuit of Dancing Jack. The Man in Black. Who flees before you across the desert. Sometimes that light is the glimmer of a far-distant campfire - or maybe not, maybe that's just your eyes playing tricks on you. Sometimes the light is a rogue misbehaving star in the heavens above you. And sometimes it's the all-consuming blaze of a town or a city or a homestead - a blaze caused by the mischief and evil of Dancing Jack.

Following Dancing Jack - sometimes, very rarely, you do actually catch up with him, and these are always doom-laden dark encounters. He always manages to slip away from you, out of your grasp.

More often you almost almost catch him, but he delays you with some evil, some trick, some obstacle that he leaves in your path, something in which you have no choice but to intervene and delay yourselves.

Sometimes his trail seems dead. But somehow, whenever that happens, you always find a sign, a sign of The Tower, that leads you back to the path of death and mayhem left behind him.

It's more than a month since you last spoke to anyone other than your ka-tet. You have been following Dancing Jack across the desert, occasionally seeing the light of what you assume is his campfire off in the far distance, sometimes coming across the dark marks left by these fires, marks left in the shape of some awful joke or spell or insult.

You are resting for the night, the sun has gone, around a campfire of your own, the moon huge and high and looming in the sky. Despite the compulsion you all experience to your oaths, to your quest - these times are also ones of fellowship, of connection, of reassurance. Your travel together is a Good Thing. You are together with The Right People in your ka-tet.

And so you ruminate together over some of your past experiences. Tell again some of the stories and narratives that have brought you together. Gathered, as you are, around the light and warmth of this campfire, pulling you together as it does against the bitter cold of the desert night.1. @Adrasthea/Mattie
You've been traveling together, as the World Moves On, united in your oath, in your quest for The Tower.

You each started questing, your journey to the tower, alone. You met, together, several years ago - united by fate, by other powers, by the great Doom of your shared purpose.

Was it a common enemy, a common goal, or sheer survival that brought you together? And which of those three caused you to STAY together?

2. @DragonDweller62/Rose
After you met, you realized that each was following the Man in Black, that he had fled before each of you, across the desert, across your desert. That you had each known him by a different name, that he had wronged each of you differently, had abused your trust, thrown his sorcery, at each of you differently.

Together, you followed the Man in Black for more than a year. Perhaps? Maybe many years? Time moves strangely in these worlds. Sometimes in the distance? You were close enough to see the glow of his campfire? For sure, however, you were often waylaid by some nefarious mischief he conjured into your path. But then, eventually, you finally caught up with him, the sorcerer, finally found a name, a new name, to call him by, that he claimed as his true name - Dancing Jack.

What happened when you finally met Dancing Jack all together? What trap did he lay for you? Who did you have to kill to be able to move on, to continue your pursuit?

3. @SenorDeebs/Henry
Your pursuit of Dancing Jack brought you to a saloon where you found a doorway to another world - for there are other worlds than these. How was that world different from your own? What filled you with wonder? What filled you with fear?

4. @microtheMacroBear/Oscar
Your journey to The Tower follows a Spoke, and that Spoke supports, stabilizes The Tower, and that Spoke is the Spoke of Thinosho the Armadillo. But Thinosho - along with the guardians of the other 7 Spokes - has become feral, uncontrolled, has abandoned their task of protecting, of holding up, their Spoke. Despite their feral flailing, Thinosho still embodies their virtues of perseverance (sheyi) and simplicity (shute).

How have you encountered Thinosho's influence during your quest? Tell us about some of the signs you have experienced of their presence.

5. @Aegis/Maxim
You are all on a quest for The Tower. Sometimes you talk about The Tower together, often in whispers, as you huddle together in the wastes, as you dig deep for that inner strength that has carried you already so far in your quest. As you talk, you learn that each has had visions of The Tower, that these visions, while different in some ways, speak to some shared powerful sameness and truth.

You all see a Tower. Surrounded by a vast spread of roses.

What else do you see, together, in your Tower? What is its form? How does it feel? What has happened before its gates, within it?

Your night passed quietly. While on watch there were only night noises. Owl calls. Nocturnal rodent rustling. Even the wind was quietened after its strong blowing of the previous day.

As the sun drags itself up into the sky, you get your first good look out in the direction you sense was taken by Dancing Jack. Yesterday's winds had stirred up the dark black desert dust - this is a rocky desert, not a sandy one - reducing visibility to maybe a hundred yards. But today is clear, the wind has dropped. You can see for miles.

You look out from the top of the low hill you camped on, down into the low flat valley, rimmed by craggy rock cliffs. You've not been following a road or trail for several weeks now - but in the distance you can see a dirt track. And on the side of that, a lonely farmstead. Some mean sparse scraggly tilled fields surround the mean sparse scraggly buildings. You can see a couple of figures moving outside the buildings, tending to what look like the daily tasks of a farmstead.

@microtheMacroBear: Bertie looks up happily at Oscar once as he makes his way carefully towards the farmstead - always happy to be there for Oscar, to protect and help him.

Understanding exactly what Oscar wants from him, Bertie gets up real close to the farmstead, quickly and quietly, far ahead of the gunslinger. In the distance, as Bertie gets close to the farmstead, Oscar looses sight of him - it's still quite far away from them, the figures moving are hard to make out in detail. Suddenly, though Bertie re-appears at Oscars side - a big doggie grin on his face, tail wagging, seeming to gently urge Oscar to make his way towards the farmstead.

Mattie heads down the gentle slope towards the farmstead, while Bertie walks with her - sometimes rushing ahead, sometimes racing back, looking around at them all, but especially at Oscar.

Henry follows them, his beast of a weapon glinting in the sun behind her, with Rose and Oscar pulling up the rear.

The rude farmstead is maybe half a mile away from them.

Once they've closed about half that distance, they can all spot the moment when the two figures spot them. The figures stop to stare up at them - one shorter, stouter, wearing a shall over their head, the other taller, thinner, and with a head or face that seems strangely indistinct.

After a moment's consideration, both figures move swiftly into one of the buildings and emerge a minute later carrying shapes which look like they could be weapons. They are also joined by an animal - four legs, low to the ground, fairly small, but with somehow, hm, waving extensions moving above its back?

If they were weapons they brought out, they haven't raised them to point at the ka-tet - however they are standing still, the two human figures and the dog, watching up at you.

Seeing Henry's gestures, hearing Henry's words, the human figures and the small animal visibly relax their postures. You can all see this, despite being still 200 yards or so distant from them.

The figure with the shawl-covered head raises their hand in a mirrored greeting and calls out, in a gruff weathered - yet loud and penetrating - voice.

"Prithee, pilgrims, you are welcome here with us. We will sit in palaver, share our table together, and hear your news of the outside world. We expect, in these rotten days, to hear more sorrows than triumphs"

As you come closer you realise that the second figure isn't wearing a hat, or obscuring it's face. Rather, the figure has the head of fennec - broad high pointed desert ears dynamic, twitching.

And the low animal. It's a dog. You can even recognise it to be a corgi. Although that'd be a corgi with a set of four octopus-like tentacles waving out of its back. The corgi is sitting looking at you, tongue lolling.

At Oscar's words, the figure in the head-shrouded shawl nods at him.

"Thankee-Sai. Ol' Podge here don't get himself too many treats these days, I'm'a sure he'll take what you got there for him."

And with that, the tentacled corgi - apparently "Podge" - makes his way out towards the treat thrown by Oscar, reaches out with one of his tentacles, delicately picks up the treat, and passes it to his mouth. Couple of chews, a swallow, and down it goes. Podge looks hopefully up at Oscar, his tail wagging fairly vigorously.

Now Oscar is closer, he sees that the dog holds two wicked-looking knives, one each in a tentacle. Podge isn't menacing them at the ka-tet, or pointing them in their direction. It's just, you know, he happens to be carrying a couple of knives with him. Just in case.

Oscar also sees now, more closely, the weapon-looking object being held by the shawled figure - it's weapon-looking because it's an AR-15. And the fox-headed figure next to them is holding a hefty revolver in one hand. Again, as for Podge, their weapons aren't raised - and you get a sense that both figures are relaxed now about the party moving towards them. But they haven't put their weapons down on the ground because, well, you don't want them getting dirty, do you?

The shawled figure, the fennec-headed figure, and the corgi Podge pay close attention to Henry as he introduces the ka-tet. Once he's finished, all three respond in kind, putting a fist to their forehead (Podge bunches up the end of one of his tentacles and taps it between his eyes).

"May we be well-met, you guests and travellers." intones the figure in the shawl.

"I am Beretta, mistress of this here humble farmstead."

"And I am Spline, master of what little we have here to call our own." says the fennec-headed figure. His voice is high-pitched, almost like he is barking - but his words remain clear.

Podge looks between the members of the ka-tet. Then lets out a couple of yips. And indulges in some vigorous tail-wagging.

"The world moved on a good while ago, but it seems to be moving even further on, even faster, than it used to. And that even-faster-moving-on world, that seems to be bringing even fewer vistors to our simple home than the few there once were."

Beretta looks awkwardly up at Spline and makes eye contact with him. He acknowledges this, and nods.

"Ah, yes, you be right there, Beretta - having said that, it's not so long ago, now I think of it, that we did have a guest here, someone to break bread and more with."

Beretta speaks up and says

"If I may ask... Seeing by your company, by the colour and presentation of your iron, by that force of will I seem to sense just a'radiating off of y'all... Could it be that you are true Oathtakers? Gunslingers? Followers of the Way of the Gun?"

Beretta looks over at Mattie, and narrows her eyes.

"Well, young lady, yes, all things do serve the Spoke, if that's what you be a'meaning. It ain't for nothing that this here farmstead came with the name 'Armadillos Rest'"

"As for putting away our guns - well, I ain't dropping this here sweetheart down into the dirt for no body. This damned desert dust gets all over everywhere, if you know what I mean. And by the look of your there clothing, I think you do know what I mean. Been out in plenty of that dust yourselves."

"I don't say I like all your manners - standing there in front of me, trying to threaten me with your outstretched arms, as you walk here towards MY home..."

"But Podge, and I, and Spline here - despite this young lady's, I think the name was Mattie? - rough manners, we get a good feeling about y'all - and are happy to offer what meagre hospitality we have. Mayhap it's enough 'hospitality' for you if we just all turn around now and head in for a sit-down, a meal, a chit-chat together inside out of the sun. I trust you enough not to shoot us in the back."

With that Beretta beckons you towards the largest of the buildings on the farmstead - a wooden-planked structure, with a corrugated metal roof. A simple door with a fly screen faces towards you, and on the left side of the building a set of concrete steps descend, presumably towards a cellar.

She, Spline, and Podge then ostentatiously turn their backs to you and walk towards the building, a low throaty chuckle and a shake of the head coming from Beretta. You have a feeling that she's seen a lot in her time, and ain't gonna be put out by a couple of rough-mannered guests.

You're headed towards what appears to be the living quarters of the farmstead.

Other buildings include a cow-stall, a storage barn, what appears to be a small workshop, an out-house, a bath-house, and a roofed-structure without walls that is set up with some simple tables and chairs - presumably a place to rest from the sun while still having access to some breeze, some light.

The farm consists of several fields of crops including maize, barley, potatoes - together with a sizeable vegetable garden. The soil is dusty and stony.

The crops aren't flourishing - and yet, they are doing much better than you would expect given the dryness and heat and the poor soil of this desert valley.

It doesn't look like there is accommodation or space for anyone other than Spline and Beretta. Your guess is that the house, from what you can see through windows as you approach it, has within it a kitchen, and private space and accommodation for your hosts. Not much else.

There's no obvious lock on the door to the cellar as you walk past it.

Your hosts open the front door of the house, Spline and Podge make their way inside, while Beretta stands outside, holding the door open for you to enter if you choose. She seems genuinely welcoming, a wry smile on her that you feel is in response to Mattie's "sass", as she says

"Long days and pleasant nights." Beretta formally greets you with, as you approach her.

"If you be wanting to join us for some food, some company, some chit-chat and palaver, then at this time o'day, that'll be most comfortable here inside."

@microtheMacroBear/Oscar You keep your eyes peeled as you walk through the farmstead, and make your way inside the living building. You remember that Beretta already referenced The Armadillo, the spoke, when she said:

"It ain't for nothing that this here farmstead came with the name 'Armadillos Rest'".

However, in addition to that, you see no obvious signs or signals on display that you would link to Thinosho the Armadillo, Dancing Jack, or any other nefarious or evil forces, influences, or people.

As Mattie comes to the door, Beretta stops her and says:

"Aye, it's been rare quiet out here these last years - I dunno, maybe once or twice a year the travelling merchant comes through with her wagon. Might buy some crop or vegetable seed off her, exchange a trinket or two when she does. But foot, horse, wagon traffic - almost none of it these days.

But, aye, mighty strange, we had a visit just a few days ago from the durndest twiddling musical sorcerous type. Stayed with us a night and a day and a night, he did. Felt quite bewitched by him. Left a sour taste in the mouth once he'd gone, know what I mean?"

"Aye, young'un." responds Beretta to Oscar.

"Kinda like that."

"You know how memory and time these days, how they feel kinda ragged, hard to hang on to, worn out?"

"With him here, it was all'a that but turned up to 11... or more like 20 or 30..."

"He came upon us of an evening. Spline here opened the door to him, it were already dark - and you know how damn dark it gets out here in these here wastelands."

"Spline opened the door, his gun at the ready, backed up by Podge here - I was elsewhere, myself - attending to, er, business."

Spline takes over the story.

"He stood there, black cloak and black boots and black hair against that star-bright black sky, a pitch-black guitar strapped to his back."

"'Why hello there, strangers!' he said to me and Podge. 'You'd like me to join you for your evening victuals, I can tell that - I'll make my way in here, make myself at home, join you, and entertain you...' and in he came and we just stood there, and turned, and joined him, as though it were the only thing we'd ever wanted to do".

Beretta joins back in:

"Aye, and then I turned up and that black-hearted grin turned to me and he said upon me 'Ah, but you, ma'am, we're not strangers, are we? We've met before, in your days as a gunslinger...' and you know, I often forget that I was one'a you once upon a time, I too were part of a ka-tet, I wielded this little beauty here in the service of Arthur Eld until... until that ka-tet and my wandering and my oath were no more... I don't rightly remember how that all happened. But so it did, of that I have a surety."

"Black Francis, he named himself, 'Black as this here midnight geeeee-tar' he told us, and played for us he did, upon that darkest of instruments, dark songs and light, classics and awful tunes that mayhap were never heard before and I hope never are heard again. I know that the first song that he threw out at us was one we all knew - that I think, that I expect, we all know... that one about that underwater guy who controlled the sea... and the monkey..."

"I can't rightly relate much more to you than that."

Spline nods at this and adds

"He did, though, leave a package behind. And I think it's intended for you all..."

"Thank-ee kindly ma'am, for those kind words - and I sense good heart - a'yours" says Beretta, addressing Rose.

"That about the True Aim might'a been true a time ago, but now, aye, there's a fair bit more spray and pray on the rare times I need to use this sweetheart in anger."

"Luckily for us, ol' Spline here still have a mighty fine eye - and you'd be surprised the amount of trouble a wrathful tentacled corgi like my Good Boy Podge here can cause for someone who's looking for that self-same kinda trouble..."

"That package - wrapped in deepest sunken black paper it is - we bundled it up, hid it away at the top of our barn back there. Didn't feel right, didn't feel good having it any nearer to us than need be. I sense a kinda wrongness and dirtiness stralling out of it - but at the same time, we couldn't bring ourselves to destroy it."

"Sit with us a while, break your fast with us, let us talk, let us chit-chat and palaver, and then I think we'll be ready to bring that dark-marked dark-wrapped thing out for you."

As the ka-tet make their way inside the house - as each of them offers their heart-felt respects, as they each honour their hosts with their words and actions, the travellers notice a change. At first sight, their now-hosts were cautious and wary - ready to protect themselves. With recognition that the party is a travelling ka-tet, this shifted to dutiful welcome and acceptance. But now, as their guests attitudes have changed, so too has that of your hosts. They now appear to be genuinely pleased to welcome you into their home.

Mattie's continued attitude of challenge, hostility, and distrust stands out starkly in contrast to that of her companions.

But their hosts - perhaps to the surprise of some of the ka-tet - do not respond to Mattie's aggression with more aggression.

Instead, they take their seats around the worn large wooden table that fills half the kitchen in their uncomfortable light wooden chairs. And beckon their visitors to join them. Podge heads over to a pile of blankets in the corner and lolls his head down to look up at them, his tentacles gently waving, occasionally giving him a scratch on the head or under the chin - occasionally shifting his head to look at Bertie and send friendly feeps and a cocked head his way.

"Well, Mattie? I think that was your name? I hear you. I hear your words, but I also hear a whole lotta pain and hurt and trauma and sadness in your voice and your manner. You remind me a lot of myself at your age" says Beretta.

"Aye, Beretta, I think I feel a lot of heart and hurt in all'a them. Ain't no surprise there - hard to avoid all that if y'all are doomed to follow in the path of Black Francis or whoever that joker, that chaotician, that malevolent spirit may be or call himself - doomed to follow him yet still managing to keep up that weary relentless chase..." says Spline in his high-pitched barking tones.

"We're not going to sit here and try and force you to comfort or trust - when you've so clearly been hurt and betrayed already so often. With an open heart I invite you to join us here at our table, talk and eat with us. Or not. Take a turn outside if that suits you better" adds Beretta.

"One thing I could offer you... offer us all..." says Spline.

"I could work an enchantment here for us all to partake of. I can make it such that we can all tell, we all know, that the words spoken here are words of truth..."

"There is a personal cost to me for making such magic."

"But I ken the truth and rightness of your quest, and that is a cost I am prepared to accept, in service of that which you seek. Of."

He pauses a while.

"Of the Tower. That I too once sought after."

"Any of you, that would join me in this, simply let me know, and it will be made so."

With that Beretta looks up at him, a sad look on her face. But her face is also weary with acceptance, and she offers a faint nod to Spline.

Spline looks up at Beretta and says

"Looks like Mattie here ain't able to join us or trust in us. I guess that's just how her trials have moved her. If you should'a change your mind, Maddie, we're here for you. A sense of fellowship and trust and belonging is a rare treat in these dark days, and part of me feels a sadness for you, that you don't seem able to share that with us. But as they young'uns say these days 'You do you'."

"For now, aye, here's some food, here's some gut-rot - the best we've got here to drink, more's the pity - and if you head out to that barn building over there you'll find shelter and some warmth."

"And if you look up at the top of the loft, you'll see the parcel left for you, or I s'pose it's for you, by that ol' laughing daemon Black Francis. You choose whether you wanna bring it in here to open with your companions, or, yeah, to do with as you will."

"Oh, and in case you are making the mistake of confusing our openness and generosity with weakness" tones in Beretta.

"I'm'a guessing that Spline, Podge, and I could rid the world of you and your friends here pretty damn quick smart if we had a mind to. But we don't have a mind to. We don't want to do that. But if you were to do something as foolish as draw on us? Well. If you force our hand, then you force our hand.

You all get the sense that Spline and Beretta have seen a lot in this here sick broken seeping fractured world. That they've lost a lot but also gained a lot. And that part of what they've gained is some pretty deep empathy and wisdom and even a deep love for their fellow people out there struggling against it all. But at the same time, they are made of something as hard as the iron in gunna of Elden Steel.

Spline now turns his head to the rest of the party. He's clearly curious - and hopeful - about how they all will respond to his offer and Mattie's refusal to accept it.

Spline responds:

"I'm reminded of that saying - you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink? Feels somewhat apposite given this here world and this here meeting of folks.

"And I'm glad that you'll join me in this, Henry Spatchcock. I have the feeling that we will both know it to be meet and right that we entered into this communion together."

Mattie moves towards the two-storey wooden barn - it's just 20 yards or so from the living quarters. The building is sturdy enough to look fairly safe - but it has definitely seen better days. Or months. Or more like years...

Entering, there is a heavy sweet dusty smell of hay and straw. For a farmstead out here in this desert wasteland, they seem to be surprisingly well stocked.

As she nears the top of the wooden ladder leading up the loft, Mattie spies the package.

It almost anti-glows - seems to rightly suck the light out of the shadowy dark-woven air of the low space, suck it down into and through itself. It's about 8 inches square, nestled in some hay on the floor.

And as she spies the package, Mattie hears a voice in her head...

"Ahhhh come now, gunslinger, yes, Mattie, come to us... for we have such sights to show you..."

Spline indicates to Rose and Henry that they should sit with him at the table - Spline in the middle of one of the long sides of the table, Rose and Henry opposite him on the other long side.

"This here glamour, this magic, this is a big thing, just so y'all know. We'll be using that thinning that has been'a happening more and more these last... years? To tap into that power and the visions that come from it."

"I offer this gladly to you, with the hope to aid you in your righteous and god-blessed quest for the Tower. And doing this will require some hard choices, some harm, some giving up of things you will not want to give up, to make it happen, to make it work right."

"I offer it to you, with the knowledge that a lack of trust between you, our guests, and us, your hosts - that this could be a'holding you back from your path to the Tower."

"But that Mattie there, she is the one trusting us the least - and as is her blessed and god-given right, she is not sitting here with us."

"If you still want to join me in this, we'll do it. But I need you to enter into this with your eyes wide open."

With that, he lets out an involuntary fox-like vocalisation - high-pitched, pained...

"This here glamour," says Spline "it'll only be worth it, will only have done it's here job, if builds trust between us."

"Part of its power comes from forging bonds of dark connection. It's not a gentle thing, this bonding, not for none of us."

"If we do this, you'll'a find we suddenly a'sharing some of each other's memories."

"Being suddenly aware of a darkest most awfullest of shameful secret memories, something we know could destroy us if it made its way out into the world. One such memory from each of us."

"After the glamour ends you will remember these secrets. If you had a mind, you could tell them to others. In the awful logic of this spell - this ain't good holy magic, ye can tell - that shared knowledge witnesses to us all the power of the spell to see into each of us, to speak truth - and gives us the power to destroy each other - trust of a kind..."

"The other part of the spell's power comes from a choice we must make for each other. Each of you must choose one thing that I, the spell-caster, will loose, to power the spell. It could be a year of my life - bringing me a year closer to my death. My most cherished memory. The love of someone I hold dear.""And then - then you can ask me three questions. Anything you like. I will tell you all and everything I know in response to those questions. I've been around this here world many a long year. I've seen many things. I've been a gunslinger. I've loved and hated and killed and fathered. I hope there would be some things I could help you with, some knowledge or thoughts, that would speed you on your way, that would be worth the cost of this spell."

"Or..." adds Beretta, cocking her head at the two of you from where she is standing behind Spline "you could just go ahead and trust our words, and not be doing with any of this dark glamour magicalness..." and she lets out a throaty chuckle.

As Oscar catches sight of the deeply dark compellingly wrong package he hears a voice in his head...

"Ahhhh dear soft lost childe, dear Oscar, come to us, we want you, we like you, think of all the fun we could have together..."

"Plain words it is then, gunslinger" says Spline - who then switches to the Arch Speech, something Henry hasn't heard in quite a time, a speech that manages both to be clear and unambiguous yet also formal and respectful.

"The cost to me is chosen by the people who join me in the spell - if you and Rose join me, then each of you would choose a cost to me."

"The cost needs to cause harm to me, and it needs to be a harm that I will carry with me the rest of my life."

"For example - you could choose that the length of my life is shortened by one year; you could choose that I loose my fondest memory; you could choose that I loose someone I love dearly; that I loose my ability to shoot my gun."

"I offer this freely, and hope I will not feel resentment towards you for the costs you choose - although I'm just a man, and maybe I will resent it once the cost is extracted. I'm afraid I have no way to know if that will happen or not."

"I see your heart, your commitment to your quest, gunslinger" says Spline, still in the Arch speech.

"If you already feel you trust me enough, I can work the spell so that instead of compelling me to truth, each of you will instead receive a boon. A gift from me, to help you in your quest to the Tower".

Maddie opens the cellar doors to expose a dark space, from which wafts a strong earthy, rooty, smell. She was surprised by the door that led to the cellar - shiny reflective metal. Not iron. Something else. Not a blemish on it.

About a second after opening the door, her view abruptly changes as there is a flicker of light, a second flicker, and then the space is suddenly filled by bright blue-white light shining down from strips in the ceiling.

The room is roughly 15 yards square. The ceilings, walls, and floor, are covered in shiny white tiles. In the far wall, opposite to the door Mattie is looking through, is another such metallic door - this one has a sign on the middle of it that says:

"North Central Positronics - No Admittance Except For Employees"

In the centre of the room is a metal table, with a basin at one end. Over the basin curves a metal faucet.

At the far end of the room are several piles of wooden crates - in which can be seen what is presumably the farmsteader's root vegetable crop storage. Carrots, potatoes, turnips, and more, can be seen in the crates.

Apart from the crates, the room is spotlessly clean - the tiles shining back the reflected light from the ceiling lamps.

Both Spline and Beretta stand up as Henry and Rose leave their house, and touch their foreheads at their parting.

"Fare thee well, gunslingers" says Beretta.

"If we meet again - which would be strange, and unexpected, but much less so than many things we experience in these perhaps-end-of-days - I hope we can be more help to you on your quest."

"We wish you all well."

And with that, they sit back down again, and wait for Mattie and Henry to leave.

As Henry and Rose make their way out of the house, they notice a source of light coming from the cellar door-steps, that wasn't there before.

They don't see Oscar as he is standing at the bottom of the steps, in front of the door, and is hidden from view to them.

Mattie's hand is cold against the door, as she would expect from a plate of metal like this. The metal is smooth, impeccably clean.

As Mattie puts her ear to the door she can hear a faint humming sound - the kind that might be made by a refrigerator. There is also a faint sound of irregular tapping - like something light but hard clicking on metal. These sounds can only be heard with her ear against the door.

Mattie tries the handle, but the door is locked.

However, as she tries the handle, the sounds behind the door change. There is a loud sound of dull, deep barking - it sounds like a challenge of some kind? Sounds of objects being knocked around.

And then, the sound of something pounding against the door from the other side - pounding hard enough to be making dents in the door, a deafening sound in the white room Oscar and Mattie are standing in, the sound bouncing off the tiles that line it, echoing around and amplifying.

The dents in the door are the size you would expect from a fist that is considerably larger than a typical human's. They are appearing peppered around the height of Mattie's head.

There isn't a keyhole. To the right of the door, on the wall at about shoulder-height is a hand-shaped depression.

It seems unlikely that whatever is behind the door will be able to actually make a hole in the door - however, it is starting to shudder in its frame. If it comes down, it will probably be because the hinges or the lock is broken.

Henry and Rose hear hurried sounds from behind the door from which they just exited the house.

Hah!

The sounds are growling and barking, a clattering of heavy objects to the floor, and muffled shouts... sounds nice and friendly to me......!

Oscar taps into the gaps between reality, into The Shimmer, and around him anyone watching him would see a distortion in the air around him, a sense of some other darkness intruding into this world, some disturbing noises somehow echoing faintly in the back of their minds...

As he tries to reach out and touch the mind of whatever is behind the door, the sounds of pummelling against the door cease - although sounds of deep harsh barking continue, which might be sounds of pain, or fury, or both...?

As Oscar backs out of the room, there are sounds of metal objects clattering behind the "Employees Only" door, sounds of things being pushed over, pulled around.

Closing the outer door, Oscar meets up with Rose, Mattie, and Henry. At the same time, the ka-tet is joined by an AR-15-toting Beretta, a huge-revolver-lugging Spline, and a furious looking Podge who has a wicked knife in one tentacle, a spiked bat in another.

"What in TARNATION is going on down there?!" demands Beretta, a look of bemused fear on her face.

"Is 'what is down there' dangerous?'?!? Henry, until now there WEREN'T any 'what is down there' that could have been dangerous!?!"

"There's just that metal table with the basin and the faucet - them there crates with our store of root vegetables - and that door that doesn't open."

"No pets, dangerous or otherwise!"

"Sweet Man Jesus!" barks Spline - who then makes an effort to calm himself to reply to Mattie.

"Yes, Mattie, that's right - when we were led here to this farm, the room was already there. Pretty freaky place, I know that. 'Specially when we first got here. That strange lektrik light, something I never saw before in this world. How damn clean it stays. Not to speak of the cracked-open mummified body we found there lying on the table."

"But that tap, that gives drinking-pure water, as many times as you press the button next to it. We have our good crops, and our health, to thank for that."

"So we cleared out the body, gave it a decent burial, and when nothing else seemed to change in that room - after we'd tried several times to open that door at the back and failed - we started just using it to store our potatoes and such like, and as our source of water."

"Never had anything problematic or anxiety-inducing make its way out of there the whole time we've been here."

"But that's before that man Black Francis, and you, turned up. I can imagine that might set some wheels in motion, so to speak. And that some of them there wheels might be, hm, inconvenient for you and for us..."

Currently there are no loud noises coming from behind the closed outer cellar door.

It's still morning. You woke up, saw the farmstead, it was maybe 30 minutes walk away - and since you got here, not so much time has passed.

As Henry is talking to Spline and Beretta, a new, deeper, louder sound starts to come from the cellar. The sound of metal thudding against metal, with about 4 seconds between each thud.

Rose, Oscar, Beretta, Podge, and Spline look on apprehensively at the outer cellar door. From behind it they hear more thumps of metal on metal, and they are now accompanied by sounds of that metal twisting, and groaning - it sounds like the inner door is being pounded off its hinges, and doesn't have much left in it before whatever-is-behind-it gets through...

Henry and Mattie enter the barn together, and Mattie pulls out the package. As this happens, Henry hears in his head...

"Ahhhhh and here's another, Henry, I was looking forward to meeting you... come, open me, I'll give you what been searching for, what you need to fill that empty hole you've always carried inside you..."

As the voices speak to Henry, he finds himself lunging at the package, desperately trying to grab it of Mattie, to take and open on his own, without anyone else around...

There is again another shimmer, a thinning of reality, around Oscar as he projects his antipathy out towards this thing...

While at the same time, whatever it is, has managed to finally blast through the metal door, you can hear as the door is finally ripped off its hinges, you hear it clanging down, out, and into the clean room.

And the hoots and barking and clanking are all louder now the door is no longer in the way - but the noises also don't seem to be getting any closer. It doesn't sound like the thing has made its way yet inside the clean room - presumably because, for it, there is acid, the floor is acid. It burns... and so will not allow itself to come in contact with it.

The hoots and barks have a ring of frustration about them.

Henry gets his hands on the so-very-dark so-very-black package and it feels so GOOD to feel it, to get his fingers into it...

And it feels so GOOD to open it - the urge is so strong that he literally rips it open, sliding his fingers into the folds and flaps, and pulling and yanking it open so that its contents spill out, tumble out, onto the ground in the barn and the feeling of relief and GOODNESS is just overwhelming...

Lying now on the floor, Mattie and Henry see:

1. An envelope with the names Mattie, Rose, Henry, and Oscar written on it, sealed with a blob of wax, and apparently containing several - lots of - folded sheets of paper.

2. A wooden cube with various occult symbols garishly painted on its six faces, and a small flap on one side that looks like it folds outwards. This cube took up most of the space within the package.

3. Two tarot-like cards. Both have landed face-up. One is labelled The Monkey, and shows a hollering furious baboon beating its chest, baring its fangs, against the background of a room filled with electronics. The second is labelled The Sanatorium, and shows a bone saw and a heart monitor against the background of a gray corridor containing a medical gurney.

In the background, you had heard the sounds of barking and howling and hooting become louder - you assumed because whatever was in there had gotten rid of that first door - but as the package is being opened, the sounds diminish and become quieter again.

Outside the cellar door, the sounds of whatever being is trying to get out quietened - although they could still be heard.

After maybe 30 seconds of that, the beast-like sounds get louder again, and they are accompanied by new sounds of metal thumping against metal. And is that also metal against tiles? Is that the sound of tiles cracking? And is that the sound of... wheels? These sounds are loud, and seem to be coming from close behind the outer door they are waiting outside of.

"Spline! Get the trap! The big one! If that thing gets out here - and I am pretty damn sure it will - maybe we can slow it down with that a bit!"

Spline nods, and runs over to one of the out buildings and disappears inside.

Mattie finds the missive is addressed to all of them, all the gunslingers. It is written in hard-to-read elaborate cursive, making it slow hard going for Mattie as she works her way through it.

Mattie reads the first two pages of the letter...


Long days and pleasant nights to you, dear gunslingers!

Our fates are entwined, yours and mine. If God wills it - some other greater god than I, that is, for doubt not, gunslingers! I am deific! I am divine! - we shall meet again. Before the gates of the Tower, you may set your watch and warrant on it - perhaps also before that.

I need you to get there, gunslingers. Or at least to try. For I need you there, at the end - or at least some ka-tet like you. You are not the first I have both guided and harried to the Tower - others tried and failed, tried and died, tried yet chose to resit the compulsion of their oath. Three of those last you have likely just met, given that you are now reading this note.

But I also, gunslingers, I also have to live and manifest my nature. I am a force, a power, of chaos, of malice, in this world, and in many others. So as you follow me towards the Tower, you will must needs be part of these shenanigans, these chaoses, that I must make around me.

And yet you know, gunslingers, you know that if you can make it to the Tower, you will be there, will be within reach of fulfilling your destiny, of righting those wrongs, of making your peace, of finding what you've lost, of coming into GLORY! You know what it feels to be compelled to do a thing. Otherwise you wouldn't be here reading this note!

So, my merry band of gunslingers! What awaits you?

I have drawn for each of you a card, a card that brings you power, that can help guide your journey if you will it. And I drew two further cards, a random draw, to add a bit of that chaos I am compelled to manifest to your next 'encounter'. You will find those last two cards here in the package - the other four you will find... once you make your way through and around what you see on the two cards in this package. And with those cards you will also find a door. A door through which I have now passed. A door that will bring you somewhere new, somewhere different, somewhere closer to the tower...

Spline rushes back out of the out-building, a huge metal bear-trap in his arms. He sets it down in front of the cellar door and calls up:

"I could sure do with some help down here, getting this big ol' beast of a trap set up as a nasty surprise for whatever is trying to get out here at us!"

The letter half-read, the trap fully set, six people and two dogs staring down the cellar door...

Again you see the air weave and hatch and phase around Oscar and something CHANGES...

Something changes in the sounds - the howls and barks intensify, are accompanied now also by screams and shrieks...! Whatever is inside seems to have reached the door just in front of you, and this door is much less substantial than the one at the other end of the clean room... it takes just one or two crashes against this door and it flies off its hinges and you see...

It's all hunched over, this vast baboon. Pulling its way out of the door in front of you, you guess it might stand seven or eight feet tall if fully erect. It is a howling barking screaming BLAZING ball of fury, muscles rippling across its chest, its arms, its legs - huge fangs bared at you all as it SCREAMS in your faces while its fur is in FLAMES!

And it stumbles out through the door and straight into the waiting bear trap and you didn't think it could scream more loudly but it does, it does, the trap slicing deeply into its leg but it looks like it's going to just try and keep moving up and out of the cellar, up and at you, dragging the leg and the trap behind itself...

Oscar and Henry's attacks pepper the baboon with bullets - blood sprays from it, it roars with rage and pain and also... fear...? You get the sense that whenever this beast has gone to war in the past, it has destroyed and killed and hardly taken a scratch.

Not today, though, matey...

Because this time it's standing there, hindered by a huge trap on its leg, engulfed in flames, while looking like more than half its life has been sucked out of it...

Mattie's brave move totally comes off.

She moves up into the neck of beast and completely destroys it - shredding its flesh and while also bending and distorting the metallic skeleton that lies beneath the flesh, rupturing what look like transparent rubber tubings that are spraying dense white fluid out, mixing with the blood from the flesh wounds.

The baboon slumps to the ground. Many of its joints - its ankles, its elbows, hips - are savagely twitching. If you got real close to it, you could easily get hit by one of its limbs, or worse one of its knife-like claws.

A few moments after the shotgun blast that ended it, an extremely loud voice blares out from the chest of the beast:

"This unit, monicker "Babs the Baboon" serial number 712415 is fatally wounded. Please report unit destruction to your nearest North Central Positronics representative to affect safe recycling of the remains. Estimated time to complete shutdown of this unit is two minutes."

This message continues on a loop, with the time to shutdown decreasing each time.


Spline, Podge, and Beretta look towards you all approvingly.

"That's some pretty iron y'all are packing there, my friends!" exclaims Spline.

"Aye, and you sure as hell knows how to use it too!" adds Beretta.

She continues "Us retired gunslingers didn't even get a chance to make our contribution to this sorry business. It is beyond doubt that you remember the faces of your mothers."

As Henry turns to Mattie he feels a tickle at the back of his mind. That rapidly grows into an itch and then a scratch and then a THUD.

And then the feeling clears.

And then maybe, faintly, at the back of his mind, he can hear the sound of... humming?

Henry realises - he's not sure how or why - that only he is hearing this humming.. The tune is very simple. Basically just bouncing up and down between two notes,.with some up and down tones either side of them. Henry thinks he knows the line, but can't put his finger on it...

Henry rumages around in his mind. And finally it catches.the humming is a guitar line. It's the intro to Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus"...

And with that realisation the humming starts to change into singing. A deep gravely voice starts up with

"I'm your own. Personal. Demon..."

The singing breaks off and the voice changes to talking...

"Well howdy there, partner! Good to talk with you, demon to man, so to speak. You got a fine mind here, Henry. I can see that you do indeed shoot with it! Dancing Jack sends his regards!"

And with that the voice and the presence Henry feels with it pulls back, retreats, moves away to a deeper part of his mind...

Right at the back of his mind, Henry hears more faint humming, and a quiet distant voice that says

"Oh, nothing for now, dear Henry, dear Henry. But worry ye not, I'll let you know when I am a-wanting something - you may set your watch and warrant on it..."

As the ka-tet makes its way down into the cellar again, this time all together, Beretta looks down to them as they descend and says to their backs

"Well, gunslingers, I can see by the look in your eyes and the determination writ on your there faces that you be wanting to make your trips down into yon cellar without us - although do stop me if I'm wrong there."

"It god will it, we'll still be here if you've a mind to return back this way - we can offer you a place to rest, catch up on your sleep, if that's something you be needing. And mayhap there are things in our ken that could be useful for your quest. But also, maybe not."

"Godspeed to you, gunslingers."

The four comrades make their way down into the clean room - two of them for the second time.

Things have, er, changed somewhat since they were last in here. The 'clean room' isn't so 'clean' any more...

The biggest difference is that the room is now full of sprawling medical gurneys. They seem to have been hurled around the room on their wheels by Bad Monkey - who hurled enough of them into this room until it was able to cross over to the outer cellar door, and to then punch and slam its way through that final door.

The inner door - the one with the

"North Central Positronics - No Admittance Except For Employees"

label - has been wrecked, lying on the floor, ripped off its hinges, covered in dents. In particular, you see a set of dents all at the same height, presumably where Bad Monkey slammed a medical gurney against it once Oscar had convinced it that the door was red hot.

The monkey's rampaging around the room, the hurling of gurneys around the room, has damaged many of the boxes of root vegetables that were being stored in here. Potatoes, turnips, swedes, and other tubers, have rolled all around the room, several having been pulverised into mush.

Through the door at the far side of the room, the one with the label, you see another room, also lit by fluorescent light. There is still one medical gurney in that room, lined up against the wall at the back. Both sides of the room, as you look through it, appear to be covered in a set of square doors, each a bit more than a yard square. At the back of the room you can see another locked metal door. A computer terminal is embedded in the wall next to that door.

In front of two of the doors, one on each side, Bertie's hackles are raised, and he glares at them, growling.

The terminal does seem to be active - there is a screen above a keyboard. On the screen a sign flashes that says "Audio input enabled. To address terminal say 'Hey, <unit name>'. This unit name is 'Baby D'"

As Oscar, standing in the hatch-walled room looks back towards Mattie, while Mattie is putting the objects on the metal table in the 'clean' room, and sees a sign above the door to the clean room that says "Autopsy".

Long days and pleasant nights to you, dear gunslingers!

Our fates are entwined, yours and mine. If God wills it - some other greater god than I, that is, for doubt not, gunslingers! I am deific! I am divine! - we shall meet again. Before the gates of the Tower, you may set your watch and warrant on it - perhaps also before that.

I need you to get there, gunslingers. Or at least to try. For I need you there, at the end - or at least some ka-tet like you. You are not the first I have both guided and harried to the Tower - others tried and failed, tried and died, tried yet chose to resit the compulsion of their oath. Three of those last you have likely just met, given that you are now reading this note.

But I also, gunslingers, I also have to live and manifest my nature. I am a force, a power, of chaos, of malice, in this world, and in many others. So as you follow me towards the Tower, you will must needs be part of these shenanigans, these chaoses, that I must make around me.

And yet you know, gunslingers, you know that if you can make it to the Tower, you will be there, will be within reach of fulfilling your destiny, of righting those wrongs, of making your peace, of finding what you've lost, of coming into GLORY! You know what it feels to be compelled to do a thing. Otherwise you wouldn't be here reading this note!

So, my merry band of gunslingers! What awaits you?

I have drawn for each of you a card, a card that brings you power, that can help guide your journey if you will it. And I drew two further cards, a random draw, to add a bit of that chaos I am compelled to manifest to your next 'encounter'. You will find those last two cards here in the package - the other four you will find... once you make your way through and around what you see on the two cards in this package. And with those cards you will also find a door. A door through which I have now passed. A door that will bring you somewhere new, somewhere different, somewhere closer to the Tower...

When you find the cards, you will know which belongs to each of you by looking at them. I drew them, but I also DREW them...

Your own personal card, then? How can this help you? Well, gunslingers, each time you move a step closer to the tower, you can take your fingers, move them around that card widdershins, and then? Well, something different will happen to each of you. Although have a mind, gunslingers - each time you use your card, you risk moving a step closer to your doom.

OOC:

Mechanically, using the card requires a roll of your Doom Die.

Rose, you'll be able to distort the world just enough so that any move you have made that did not work out, you'll be able to make it not just succeed, but to succeed exceptionally

OOC:

an automatic success on any failed roll, plus you get to take the narrative control at that point and describe what fancy additional stuff happens as a result of the success

Henry, you'll be able to move almost entirely without notice, as you make your way past some watchful obstacle. They won't hear you, smell you, or see you as you do this.

Mattie, you'll be able to visit another persons mind, briefly, to sense their thoughts and feelings, including whether or not they believed they were telling the truth about anything they just said.

Oscar, you'll be able to have a vision of what happened in another place and time.

Use your cards wisely, though, gunslingers. You won't be able to use them again until you've moved another step closer to the tower!

OOC:

If you feel the gift associated with your card is too underpowered, overpowered, or just not something you would be interested to have, then let me know, and we can work out something that you feel is a better fit.

Also, gunslingers, I wouldn't want you to be lost or confused about your best way forward, your best way towards the Tower. So within this package you find another Jack. This one in a box. Crank up the handle, and the little demon will come out and tell you fair and true the direction you need to go, to reach the tower. No cost for using this little fella, gunslingers - apart from having to listen to this Demon Jack's potty-mouth while it does tell you the way.

And finally, I included a little special extra gift to the one of you who opened this package... but I'll leave that for you to discover for yourself... I'm guessing it was either Mattie or Henry who got this extra special bonus...

And so, dear gunslingers, sending you all best wishes, faithfully yours, Dancing Jack

Bereta, Spline, and Podge bid you farewell.

Spline notices how Henry is looking at his revolver and ask Henry:

"Would you like to have my gun? Would that help you in your quest for the Tower? If so, gunslinger, I'm happy to gift it to you. We'll find some other iron here for me to carry, I'm sure of that."

Spline walks up to Henry and bows before him - right leg out, heel on the ground, his chin to his chest.

He then holds out his revolver to Henry with both hands and says to him:

"I'm so glad, gunslinger, that we can be of some aid to you in your quest with this. This here beast was my reliable dependable companion while Beretta, Podge, and I were ourselves still questing for the Tower. It shot often, and true. I wish for you that it serves you the same.

It's an honour to have met you all - we hope this will not be the last time we meet."

It's hard to spot expressions on Spline's fennec head - but you get a strong sense that he's smiling after you release him from the embrace.

"Why yes, gunslinger, she does have a name. My pleasure to introduce you to my good friend and companion, Clarice"

In response to Mattie announcing herself to the computer terminal, a voice comes out of the wall, just by the computer terminal. It is a masculine voice, not particularly deep, and it comes out at a relatively low volume. If someone else in the room was already talking, it would be hard to make out what the voice was saying.

It says:

"Hey, this is Baby D. How may I help you?"