Un dollaro tra i denti
General Summary
It's late afternoon here in the dryest place on the Longgrass Plains. Seventh of Grolm. Year Five seventy-eight.
Bruthazmus and the SNAFU Guild have rescued the mail coach from not one, not two, but THREE herds of Hell Bovines on a coordinated stampede in the dead of the midday heat. Yes, indeedy, you beat the Secret Cow Level on Normal Mode! Why, I don't reckon that Nightmare Mode can be as terrible as legend claims....
You have got a number of possible enemies to consider, none of which have truly revealed themselves. Might want to come up with a list ahead of time as to what inquiries you will be makin' now that you are back in the heart of Purgatory Gulch.
Also who you are going to ask. Seein' as how the Purgatory General Store has got its blinds drawn and its door locked, and there's no signs of the Mayor being upstairs in his residence. . .
At first, return to the main street of Purgatory Gulch goes smoothly for The Snafu Posse. Padre Cirino De Mario, monk Lee Chung, and apprentice Chef head for Jasper Chapel to check on Ranger Horn and do a little recovering of their own. Sorcerer Miro Teague shadows Freecities League Assessor Euphoma 'Scorpion' Hillbough as she walks out of sight beyond Purgatory Gulch General Store. Ranger Bruthazmus hangs around Oat Livery to examine the Stagecoach while the rest of the team gather in Purgatory Saloon for the round of drinks promised by Suka Threewood and Chooly Greatwatcher.
In the saloon, information comes from proprietor Roselli Amore at first, until the distinctly orcish stagecoach team finish sorting the mail from the mailcoach and walk in.
Lee Chung sets to interrogating "Ranger" Horn about his experiences in captivity. Ranger has strong feelings on the topic of rescuing his best friend and partner Baldy Ironbender from duress. Ranger knows that not only cattle but also sheep exhibit the hellish tendencies already witnessed by the Snafu Posse. He also knows that there's something about "the Foreman" (that would be Vic "Bull" Hester, but Ranger could not think of the name at that time) which seems equally as unnatural as the beeves themselves do.
Ranger does not feel that a rescue mission at night is a good idea -- the hell bovines are most active and functional then, most able to perceive their surroundings and quickest to react. On the other hand, a rescue mission during the day will fail because the largest number of the hellish beasts are gathered close to the barns and ranch houses. He does not know for certain which of the five stone barns would be the place to aim his rescuing, and those barns are scattered wide across the Whippetal Ranch territory.
He therefore wants to try for a rescue right at dawn: the fiends will be losing their keen edge on their senses, they will be settling down for the day, and perhaps Rhea Lightgiver will bless our work as she peeks up over the eastern horizon.
"Sundown" and "Dusty" tell their rescuers -- fellow obvious outsiders to this town, Zhang Sephia being a Harpy and Jesse Devonshire being a minimally-dressed Human with a gigantic bee riding on his back -- some context about this town that no local has the perspective to provide.
Examples:
Additionally, Sundown and Dusty give a general impression that Miss Amore is not disposed to treat the orc duo with an inch of generosity.
Further gossip is derailed when the crack of a river whip snapping a wooden slat echoes from the street.
At the entrance to Purgatory Gulch General Store where the closed blinds have mysteriously reopened and the front door swings wide, Miro Teague and his new acquaintance Assessor Scorpion Hillbough engage in combat against the undead scorpions raised from the dead scar in the land east of town. With bellows of keelhauling intentions, Miro brings his friends into the fray, starting with Bruthazmus who has a special animosity for the undead.
The aftermath of this battle leads most of the Snafu Posse into cleanup and repair work, but they do find some interesting bits of information that Mayor Jaeke Blaze had stored in his place. He had separated out four years of purchase and mail order receipts for Miss Melinda Naknirore. He had also separated out about eight months of purchase and mail order receipts for someone listed as "Master Kerner", whose purchases dwindled away a month or so ago. In a secret compartment in Mr. Blaze's desk was kept the census of Oatman Canyon, complete with attached physical artifacts for most residents of the town in case a magician needed to boost a targeted spell during an emergency. And in a box of cardamom was hidden the ledger of registered brands and appointments that make up the core of Miss Melinda's Alchemy and Branding across the street.
Sunset plunges the late summer afternoon toward darkness while the Snafu Posse decides what to do with their current mysteries.
Among the townsfolk:
Not to mention: Miro Teague recovered, shared with Scorpion, and subsequently concealed for safe keeping a journal of Miss Naknirore's research that impacts "the troubles". Melinda Naknirore may have started out inventing a harmless-to-people alchemical deterrent that would keep ranchers' cattle and sheep from grazing on crops. At some point she switched to analysis, reverse engineering, and finally defeating such plant "defenses" as vampiric animated border plantings. Naknirore might have been trying to combat the works of a monster creator? In which case, where is she now?
Not currently assigned any specific part in this mess, the stagecoach team of Suka 'Sundown' Threewood and Chooly 'Dusty' Greatwatcher continue on with their plan to camp out in the scrubland nearby. They might arrange themselves just south of the schoolhouse, within sight of the sheltered back door into the lower levels. They might instead set themselves up at the old two grave cemetery near the school playground. In the tired summer night's air they are not much fussed about the afternoon's events.
Rewards Granted
- Each Player Character and each Companion (Chef y Los Tres Amigos Voladores even if they did mostly communicate "that's weird!") receives 1400 XP for defeating 18 freshly risen undead Oatman Crawlers and 2 freshly risen undead Purgatory Sidewinders, plus a nice bit of deducifying in regard to the scope of "the troubles" in these parts
Character(s) interacted with
- Freecities League Assessor Euphoma Hillbough
- Stagecoach team driver Suka 'Sundown' Threewood
- Stagecoach team guard Chooly 'Dusty' Greatwatcher
- Purgatory Saloon proprietor Miss Roselli Amore
- Pastor of Jasper Chapel 'Padre' Cirino De Mario
- Proprietor of Oat Livery Frederico Bianchi
- Recovering blacksmith 'Ranger' Horn
- One unnamed buzzard, possibly a close equivalent of a Crested Caracara, who is unusually laid back and interested in dead things for a predator. Possibly he has done a little too much eating susliks that in turn had snacked on Fairy Cactus.
Notes
Named for the 1967 Spaghetti Western film A Stranger in Town, first of four movies about this character. I ditched most of the important parts of the movie but I kept the incoming shipment of gold coins and the poncho.
