The Blazing Gun Saloon

[The Abiliegh]

"Well... Wasn't that the strangest thing..." She muttered, distracted momentarily from the larger airship.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

(OOC-Abi, I edited in and appended some additional material...you posted {possibly while I was doing so,} and I notice that yours came in at the top of the new page, so if you haven't seen the material written in red, click back one..I think you'll like it...of course, none of the characters in the story can have any idea that O'Callahan's in Hell. He'll be back soon.)

[The Abiliegh]

[[OOC: I hadn't. Thank you, and AWESOME!]]

[Miles (a sailor)Martin]

   "Son of a b###ch , what the heck happened to the preacher' yelled Miles as he comes back through the alley pushing his wheelbarrow as fast as he can.  Carefully  approaching the Beau Rosin  making sure that the watch on deck can see him , he calls up to the deck and asks" Got any better idea what is happening around here than you did before Mr.Brantly? .

[The Abiliegh]

[[OOC: So, last night, me and the girls went out to celebrate Johnny Cash's birthday, and a photo caught of me inspied a bit of editing, as it seemed somehow appropriate. This is hardley how I envision Meta, but, it's certainly of her writer, and I'm sharing!

Spoiler: ShowHide

I encourage more of this! It was a great addition to the Extended Steam Salon!]]

[MWBailey]

(OOC: I really need to stop staying up so late... this time I went to bed early, and woke up REALLY early, so maybe it'll be OK. Sorry about not posting again for so long, but I was performing on Banjo (both "minstrel" and "modern" type), folk fife and Neoceltic flute (all flutes are of wooden construction) with the North Harris County Dulcimer Society up at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park, for the Texas Birthday Celebration (commemorating the signing of the Texian Declaration of Independence).

I had a huge supper on the way home, (fried fish) and so the combination of massive carb intake, fatigue, and the after-performance adrenaline slump, all combined with the knowledge that I needed sleep befor the AM, caused me to more or less fall into bed the second I laid the instrument cases down. I slept until I awoke with a start, remembering that several costume items needed repair before performing again Sunday (today, now, lol), and I have been working on those. Now here I am back online.

I'll try to get something ripped out -er, I mean, written out - by late tomorrow evening. I'm about to nod off and I'm up and running off to WOB again in about two hours...hopefully (lol)).

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

(OOC- Have a great day, MW, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TEXAS! YEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWWW!! One of these days, maybe we'll get together and do the "dueling banjos" thing (written, btw, by Arthur Smith, not the pretender Mac Wiseman.) I've been working on some 'different' banjo stuff, lately, kind of Bill Keith (Banjoistics), not quite as far out there as Bela Fleck, but different...I've almost got a "Star Wars" medley worked out. ~J)

[Thalesia Turnblood]

[OOC: Thalesia's eye takes up a permanent tic at the idea of quite so much banjo music. But whatever floats your airship!]

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

(OOC- It could be worse, Thalesia....I also play the accordion.  )

[MWBailey]

(OOC:
(Eh, well, Capn Robert of Abney Park plays the button accordion, or at least I think that was what I saw in a video on youtube... Don't look now, but Dreyfuss plays the minstrel banjo as well...mwa ha ha ha... .

O'callahan's gonna mess his pants at Dreyfuss and Irene, because she's immortal (Dorian Gray style), and Dreyf's a White Flame technomant \; he throws and/or uses white fire that enhances or disrupts technology/modifies organisms, sometime to the point of death (ahem...more like "creates the possibility for the next step of existence to occur instantaneously," since it's ostensibly a creative, rather than a destructive, force ). They, the fireman/chief engineer Jock Lough-Malley, and the newly-signed-on Captain Lemuel Ishmael have just succeeded in rescuing (inadvertently) Timothy, the son of an as-yet-unnamed British Peer (what kind of peer? Not stated yet, beyond a certain "Lord"), and were in the process of disposing of the last of the Pirate fleet (the Commanders of which had been Timothy's kidnappers).

The very last pirate, a female assassin and former Marauder Contemporary of both Dreyfuss and Mad Jack (fellow junior officer until her fall from grace), a ninja-trained female assassin named Miss Merovingia Harper-Chen*, managed at the last second of the final ship-to-ship battle between the pirates and the  St. Elmo and Mad Jack aboard the Beau Rosin, to slip aboard Dreyfuss' ship, via a hand-thrown grapnel-and-line. Dreyfuss (as will be shown in the next chapter of Between the Threads, whenever I get around to writing it  ) has just fought Miss Harper-Chen sword-to-swashbuckling-sword on the obs deck atop the envelope of the St. Elmo, finally running her through with a splinter of the signal-mast's spar (she was also an immortal vampire, you see (I know, I know, its getting really farfetched, but teh whole latter part of Steam London circled around character sthat were patterned after the "sparks" in the Girl Genius Comic, and my own are/were patterned to fit that template)), resulting in her disintegrating demise, a la the Van Helsing flick...

Character info for Dreyfuss and Irene:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Irene skirts the recondine with her immortality, and is brazen, impulsive, fiercely independent, and implacably loyal to her crewmates and cousin/guardian...for now, at any rate. She's patterned more or less after Revy of the anime Black Lagoon, and not actually my own creation, but that of E. A. Claringbold, a fellow Brass Goggles Steam London alumnus. Part of the deal for my being able to use Irene in the Between the Threads series of stories is that she is not to be cast as a "nice person," So I tend to make her the "unsympathetic" or insanely-brutal and unstoppably-violent  component of the team. O'Callahan dcan't kill her. neither can Dreyfuss, even with his whitefire; she''s as cl;ose to indestructable as a person can get and still be nominally human.

Dreyfuss is rather complex, and at this point in time a bit conflicted; he knows that he is hunting pirates by decree of the Queen, but like most of teh former Marauders, he is a pirate himself at heart. Unfortunately for him, he's also an officer of the Republic of Texas Air Fleet, and a gentleman at heart, and has given his and the St. Elmo's word to serve the Republic of Texas as an active military liaison to a foreign ally, and member of the Texian Diplomatic Sortie to the Crowned heads of Europe (but quasi-permanently berthed in London, England when not abroad or at work within the empire, mostly as a "supernatural threat hunter." So far he has yet to hunt any threats other than the pirates who kidnapped teh peerage's scion.

Dreyfuss was the other person aboard the Beau Rosin when Jack and Meta and He plied the privateer's trade aborad the Beau Rosin, several years before Dreyfuss moved to London and Joined the crew of the Airship APF Boheme.
----------------------------

(ever notice how almost all my characters have mixed ethnic origins?)  )

[The Abiliegh]

With the preacher quite obviously gone, she returned her attention back to the men on the vessel and to the vessel in the sky above them.

"I guess the first question, should either of ya be able t'answer it..." she paused, glancing upward. "friend or foe?"

[MWBailey]

Brantley looked upward, as if he could see the somewhat-oddly-formed airship above, and slowly descending to ward the blimp, but via a circuitous route, as if the crew and passengers on board are determine to not cause a massive alert.

"Well..." he began, "Seeing as how the Preacher has disappeared instead of splatted on the dirt of the street, I'd say he's gone someplace besides here, and probably isn't dead, or not completely dead." he hears Miles'question as he steps up close to the Beau, and answers, "Yes, Mr.  Miles, I am somewhat better informed, especially now that this new ship has arrived." he addressed Pulsifer then, asking, "Jack, is that the St. Elmo?"

"yep, that's her, and no different from when I saw her last," Jack answered, "so I'd say they came back to try and figure out where I went, and got sucked into here, wherever "here" really is" he looked slightly aprehensively and very apologetically at Meta, and said, "I'm Sorry, Meta, I don't mean any offense, its just all a bit much to take in all at once. I'm still chewin' on the 'jumper not workin' right, and just how I managed to land in a town where God's own rabid bounty hunter happens also to be; everything else is just gonna have to take a number and wait, if you know what I mean.

"Miss Thalesia, be careful of Jasmine; you're right, she's precious as a princess about 99 percent of the time, but every once in a while she gets moody, and when that happens, look out! She's about as strong as four full-grown men, an' she packs one hell of a hook punch in both hands, and yeah, I do speak from experience."

Brantley spoke up again, then, and said, "friend or foe? that kind of depends--!"

"AAooww, stop sugarcoatin' it, MW," Jack howled. " I really hate it when you wheedle like that. Miss meta, Dreyfuss and his firemanning n' engineering man are good people. Salt o' the earth. But miss Irene? you'd best watch it around her, I've not had direct experience around her, but Dreyf's had plenty, and the stories of her from the Cold One war and the assault on St. Petersburg and the winter palace...

Th' story goes, she showed up one day out of the blue, drivin' a tracked Land 'Clad tank with a plow in front, makin' a trail in the snow fer itself (that was Siberia in deep winter, don'cha know), an' proceeds to help drive off the Cold Ones' attack on the crashed Boheme, then takes off, meanin' flyin', no less. Tank just folds out set of wings, and props unfold out the back, so the story goes, and she goes flyin off after the boheme, and persnally rams about three-quarters of teh russian air Navy, makin 'em all but a few crash an d burn, lit'rally. Then, when she rams that final ship, first one and two of her four props snaps off, and she crashesto t' ground ad is rescued by a boheme crewmrmber and placed on board teh Boheme. but she was just playactin' all along...

"She's got turncoat in her blood, Miss Meta, to make a long story somewhat shorter; the only reason she didn't throw in with the enemy and kill the other members of the Boheme's crew was a-cause ol' Dreyfuss pulled his pistol and cocked it by her ear, an' stuck the muzzle to Irene's head, while she had Miz Lighton in a chokehold, and her own pistol aimed at Miss Lighton's head. Between Miss Lighton and Dreyf, and the other members of the crew, they managed to talk Irene down and into surrendering, and even joinin' the final assault on the Tsarina's chamber. All o' that I got from Cap'n Hudson, pilot cap'n and master of the Boheme when I ran into 'im in Dublin last month.

"I hear from Dreyf and elsewhere that she's been amazin'ly docile ever since, or at least she hasn't actually killed anyone...well, anyone she wasn't supposed to...or who didnt deserve it...er, much..." He shrugged. "But she's reportedly still sort of a loose cannon, whom Dreyf just barely manages to either control or keep appeased, take your pick." Jack paused, seemed to consider something before speaking, and then said, "But she's immortal, Irene is. You cut 'er, or shoot 'er, or whatever you do to 'er, she heals instant-like, and she ain't aged since her birthday two year ago, or so I got it from a stevedore in Liverpool who knew her dad, and saw her at that party, and then again the day the Boheme's crew (them 'n' Dreyf an' Miss, I suppose I should really say, Dame Irene, and him Sir Jaisen Dreyfuss, now) were knighted and what not by the queen in that big ceremony after the Battle of London, two, three months ago." you'll want to brace yerself fer seein' teh left side of 'er face, Meta...she was burned in an argument over a man several year ago, and the burn cost her the left eye, which was replaced by a mechan'cal proze-theddick eye (Jacks accent and speech habits caused him to pronounce "prosthetic" word as two weirdly-accented words). Burns red, it does, like a conductors lantern on a dark evenin', so she keeps it and the horrible scars on her left face covered by a veil,. and reveals it for shock value now and agian...

"What's not scarred is gorgeous, she sure musta been a beauty when she was younger..." Jack trailed off, musing...

-----------------------------------
(OOC: Irene always keeps her daguerreotype on her person, in a specially-constructed, sealed, latchless, hingeless, leaf-less, no-way-to-open-it silver box that Dreyfuss made for her. (he's well aware of her faults and dormant traitorous streak, but is a doting guardian nonetheless -- heck, she's the daughter he'll never have (so far as he knows), so no wonder...   )

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(OOC- Have a great day, MW, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TEXAS! YEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWWWW!! One of these days, maybe we'll get together and do the "dueling banjos" thing (written, btw, by Arthur Smith, not the pretender Mac Wiseman.) I've been working on some 'different' banjo stuff, lately, kind of Bill Keith (Banjoistics), not quite as far out there as Bela Fleck, but different...I've almost got a "Star Wars" medley worked out. ~J)

Sounds impressive! Think it'll mix with clawhammer? (that's the style that I play, plus a little stroke and just plain old frailing at different spots on the plectrum...)   ).

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

O'Callahan strides off in the indicated direction, and the trail rises, the air gets slightly cooler, and before too long he glimpses daylight...real daylight...above. Between him and the cavern mouth, however, is a dog, approximately the size and shape of a very large rhinoceros, with three heads. Not used to being approached from behind, the creature jumps up and whirls to face the priest, a rumbling triple growl coming from its three throats. When it recognizes him, however, the growls turn to whines and yips of pleasure, and it genuflects, wags its tail, and rushes up, then rolls over, massive paws in the air, to get its belly scratched. O'Callahan obliges, all the while making cooing noises and talking 'baby talk,' "Who's a good boy? Cerberus is a good boy! Who wants his belly rubbed?...good ol' boy, good boy!" The dog whimpers with pleasure, and O'Callahan jumps back as the massive, Rottweiler shaped body rolls back to its feet, and three tongues the size of bath towels try to lick his face. "Down, boy, down...I'm sorry, old fella, I've got to go..." The hound whines, and three pair of dinner plate eyes look sad and pleading. He scratches each big head in turn, between the eyes and behind the ears. "I know...I know, but I've got to go...you be a good boy, now, and maybe I'll come back and bring you a mountain lion to play with.." He slips past the dog,  and out through the double iron gates at the cavern's mouth.

"That monster," thinks O'Callahan to himself, " is the only living thing in the Three Realms that actually loves me....correction-the Almighty loves me, I suppose...but He doesn't like me." He shrugs, hitches the Sharps on his shoulder, squints at the sun to get his bearings, and begins to walk west, toward the overcast portion of sky. He's outside of town, true enough, but his horses, his hearse, and his quarry are still in Purgatory...even for a thinking man, this presents a conundrum. He considers it as he lopes back towards the town with his flowing, ground-eating gait.

[MWBailey]

A glow as of golden, heavenly light slowly makes itself visible beside the point at which O'Callahan re-entered the world of the living, and a face composes itself from the vapors and tendrils of brighter glow that float within; it is a celtic/welsh kind of face, all golden skin and bright Ginger-colored hair and beard; it is, in fact, the face of the little "ginger man" who first manifested to accost Dreyfuss at the Tinker's Row Airdock, where he had his interview and was hired by Captain Hudson of the APF Boheme, a little more than a year before.

HE casts his eyes skyward, and asks, "Are ye sure we canna be warnin' Dreyfuss o' the danger that's approachin'?" there is a far off rumble of thunder, and teh Ginger Man says, "Alrigh', I unnerstan', but one paladin wi' the tharty piece o' silver's going tae 'ave a toime of it keepin' Miss Irene an' O'Callahan from shootin' one another, aye, I know O'Callahan needs thae comeuppance so's he'll stop killin' off people whats only damned far as E's con-sarned, but I 'ope 'e's not gonna have tae be shot 'n' white-fired both afore 'e learns it..." Another rumble, but more like a reassurance of rain to end a drought than a negative expression of anger. "Aye, I know, trust in ye, but ye did create my koind tae intercede, y'know!"

And with that, the glow winked out, just as O'Callahan topped a small knoll and loped down the far side of it...

[The Abiliegh]

"Dreyfuss is on that boat?" She ran her fingers over her chin, thinking a moment, muttering. "I wasn't aware it was old-home week..."

She looked around. "Miss Turnblood, if you'd be so kind, might you convince the animal to return t'me my firearm?" She watched, and apparently it took a fair bit o'convincin', but eventually she was able to settle the revolver into her obi in such a way that it was very nearly concealed, to an untrained eye.

"Jack, you say he's got a half-cocked, traitorous beauty on board. The type who is as deadly as she is charmin', I take it. Sounds like only thing he has up on ya is if I'm shot to the temple, I'm sure to keel over. On the plus side, I'm not covered in scars...." Vanity played through her voice, and it was clear she wasn't really talking to anyone in particular, despite the monikers. She often "thought aloud" to cover much more calculating internal endeavors.

I've been lucky so far, with Jack not being sore at my sudden disappearance, but there is no saying how this next reunion will go. I might want to make myself scarce. But postponing or facing... neither leaves me with as much control as I'd like in this.... Kinda makes me wish I hadn't fenced all that when trying to get over to Egypt...

She was glad, momentarily, that she'd dressed in the non-restrictive kimono, because she eventually settled on staying on the deck. Perhaps she could use Jack's apparent lack of irritation to her advantage.

That didn't stop her from depressing the little button in her glove.

[Miles (a sailor)Martin]

 (OOC  Sgtmaj, MW, it is nice to meet other 5 string players, i was enthralled at westercon45 by Joe Bethancourt playing his "Martian" Ironwood 5 string banjo nearly 15years ago(darn but the years do get away from you don't they) i just need to get back in practice again myself)

Miles says "thanks for the info as i was wondering if we was about to be ground zero for a war or a wake, or just maybe a rock concert?. but the given some of the concerts an wakes I've been to the difference wasn't that much!!!"  Turning away he says "Ill be around back  re filling my airships liftcells and getting her ready for launch, and praying for the wind to drop to something under twenty miles per hour ".  He stops turns back fises around in a pocket and tosses a modified bosun's pipe up to Brantley, then says" Just blow on that and  as long as I'm within two miles I can hear it and will come as fast as I can ." he then departs in the direction of the largest barn in town pushing the wheelbarrow containing his gas generator and the orange painted tank that has L-Hyd stenceled on it.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

O'Callahan arrives at the outskirts of Purgatory. When he entered the first time, it was night, and he noticed nothing...now however, in daylight, and looking for it, he notices a slight distortion, like a heat shimmer mirage, just at the edge of town. He doesn't cross it. He can see, down the street, that something has the attention of those near the Beau Rosin, they're looking up. He casts his gaze skyward, and sees a big..really big...airship, making a slow circuit, and very slowly descending. It is like no ship he has ever seen, with a propulsion system that he can't identify. "Likely to be more time travelers," he  thinks. At this end of town, there are few buildings, but he can see the smith still standing outside his shop, also gazing upward. Thinking that a shout won't carry far enough through the howling wind, he loads the Sharps with a powder charge only, with a piece of wadding above it, cocks it and fires it into the air. The blacksmith does hear it, and, looking around, spots the priest standing on the edge of town. He hastens over, and stops fifteen paces away as O'Callahan raises his hand, palm outwards. "Can you hear me?" he shouts. The smith bobs his big head, "A-yuh, I can..but you sound odd..like an echo or something. Are you a ghost?" The priest shakes his head. "No,...well, not exactly....not what you mean by ghost..Oh never mind, that doesn't matter now. Listen-go get a winch, and use that line I put up to crank that gasbag back down...Mr. Pulcifer will probably be glad to have it back...then secure the blimp, disconnect the line, and bring it back over here, with that harpoon. Do you have a black powder muzzleloader?" The smith shakes his head. "No...I don't. Traded mine in on a newer cartridge gun a couple of years ago." O'Callahan says, "Well, see if you can find one, and bring that over here, too. Only things going faster than 88 miles an hour can cross this barrier..I've got an idea. I need you to get that line across the barrier, with one end on either side. Get those things, and come back-I'll wait here."
The smith walks back towards the middle of town, puzzled, but too dumbfounded by the things going on to do anything other than what he's been told...sometimes that is just the simplest way to go. He collects a big ratcheting winch and a length of chain from his shop, and heads over to where the cord still hangs from the gasbag spinning overhead.

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss took over control of the St. Elmo, and piloted her the rest of the way down to about 100 feet above the rooftop-level of the town, taking special care to avoid the church's steeple, which was teh tallest bit of architecture in Purgatory.




He gave the engines an added push of steam, and fought the winds out to the edge of town, where some kind of invisible barrier seemed to be resisting their efforts to go farther. He didn't want to risk landing and destroying a crop of sod, or the vegetable gardens that seemed to proliferate outside the business district, so after Jock gave him the go-ahead from the ship's magazine, Dreyfuss fired two grapnel rockets into the ground, actually within the barrier itself, if he had only known, and very close to the tree that O'Callahan had gone to lean against, their impact resounding with a solid THUNK! into the rocky soil not twenty feet away. Dreyfuss then ordered a third grapnel rocket to be loaded into the rear rocket tube,and fired it into the ground behind the stern of the St. Elmo, so that the ship now floated approximatekly 200 feet in the air, anchored at 45-degree angles by solidly-impacted grapnels, rocking slightly in the gusting wind.

"Irene?" he said to the presence beside and slightly behind him, "let's go and break out a life blimp and see what we have to do to break out of this burg... "

------------------------------
The  smith saw the St. Elmo as she came down to almost the level of teh rooftops and then to the edge of town, and fired the rockets into the woods where He had seen O'Callahan go to ground. he blanched, gathered teh equipment prescribed just in case, and then hurried to inform the people around the smaller airship about what had transpired.

"WHAT!?" Callahan's ALIVE!!?," Jack nearly shouted. "but we all saw...we saw--!" What had they seen? Now that he stopped to think about it, he realized that Callahan's body had not actually reached the ground at all, but had disappeared into what had looked like a pyrotechnical display of some kind...

Brantley, for his part, said nothing other than, ""Really...you don't say, hmmmm..." and looked bemused, and more than a little smug...And then leapt, flatfooted, over the railing, and took off striding briskly down the street after the retreating back of the Blacksmith, in the direction of the large silvery-white bump, surmounted by a mast that flew the Texian Battle-Jack and the British Union Jack, a building of some kind, and a single shielded cannon on a deck mount, on the near horizon;  that was, clearly, the location of the St. Elmo, and hopefully O'Callahan, and the answers to some very perplexing questions...

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(OOC: I made a picture Tube of the rendering of the St. Elmo that I did for the Shanghai Knife story in Between the Threads (see the 2nd Art Thread, in the tactile section for the digital painting, and Textual for teh story). I knew I'd find a use for that tube! I didn't copy and paste anybody's zeppelin to build this  version of teh St. Elmo(nor have I ever), but I did use an old pic of the Graf Zeppelin as a Guide for perspective's sake, the same way as an artist paints a painting from a photo clipped to the easel.  (I have trouble with end-on angles of less than about 45 degrees, which makes stern-views of ships of any sort a little dicey unless I use a real-life reference example). I did admittedly use  heavily-altered photos from the web for the rooftops in the picture. Hopefully this illustration makes clear some of the things about the St. Elmo that people often have trouble visualizing...

TEH  fellow in teh glow that watched O'Callahan as he walked away from where he re-entyere dteh world of teh living was a being that appeared to Dreyfuss during the end of his first day in London. It was very much like a ghostly manifestation, but the "Ginger Man," whose name is Mahon, is no ghost, but rather an emmissary from the Bright Ones, who are what pass for "angels" in the Steam London multiverse, and though he does not yet know it, Dreyfuss is a very, very fledgling (and very, very clumsy) member of that body, by a couple of twists and turns of spiritual and genetic fate and the whim of a certain rather borderline-insane RP participant (LOL)...

I should hasten to add, however, that while Mahon, Dreyfuss and his rather uncommon origin are my invention, the Bright ones, their place in the world, Dreyfuss' Destiny, Mahon's hierarchical status, and countless other aspects of that bit of in-storyline mythology, The Cold Ones, and the War et al, are not my invention, but rather the creations of fellow Steam London RPers Stella Gaslight, Nigel Wetherby, Vancouver Air Privateer, and Trip Taylor (I Miss you folks,and hope you're all well).

[The Abiliegh]

She followed, more to check on the preacher than to meet Dreyf... knowing how to get out of this place was becoming valuable information, and she still meant to talk to O'Callahan more. Rigidly psychotic or not, she was intrigued.

[MWBailey]

(OOC: How do I get myself into these situations...Can you say "Multiple Personality Disorder?" Even though  one of the characters was invented by someone else, I'm still writing for her -- which means i'm going to talk to myself in duplicate... ).

The speaking tube from Engineering to the Commodore's quarters in the stern galleries of the St. Elmo's gunboat portion whistled and popped its whistle-plug;the tinny, tube-affected voice of Jock Lough-Malley could be heard immediately after. "Commodore, sir, the ASA shows two persons approaching on foot; they appear to intend to keep coming until they are directly beneath us."

"Sound the lowest note on the calliope, and the regular Klaxon simult-- simutannis...at the same time,"  Dreyfuss called loudly into the tube in response."I'll yell down and tell 'em to hold off 'til we get down there in a blimp." The two notes sounded, deafening even in the racket made by the storm around the ship,

"Aye, Sah, me an' Mister Timothy already pulled and gassed th' envelope on number 1 for ye, Sah. She's on the aft hull Door, waitin' for ye, an' her engine's fueled up and oiled, sah."

"Cut it out with the 'sah'  molarky, Jock, we're not in the Bengal Lancers"

Aye, Sa-- Er, oi mean sir, beggin ye're pardon, Sir.

"That's OK, Jock, Dreyfuss Out" HE repostioned the plug and hung the tube on its hook in the corner, then buckled on his saber, and donned his Greatcoat (the Garishly-silver-braided one; his regular everyday coat had been badly slashed by Miss Harper-Chen during their fight to the death. Dark blue wool and bright silver bullion gleamed in the storm-light shining in from the rear window of the cabin, which was located on the Starboard stern corner. He strode to that window, opened it, and saw the two figures, A tallish man in a dark brown duster and black tophat, the ubiquitous Western-American weskit-and-trousers outfit, light-colored shirt, and sturdy boots, wearing goggles, presumably against all the dust blowing around; the other person, a woman of sturdy build (but attractively so), dressed in a kimono of all things, and bearing apparently an obi with something oblong and heavy inside, judging by the stretches and bulges. The man bore no weapon that he could see, but his left arm was slightly akimbo in comparison to his right, which suggested something in the coat's inside pocket, or maybe a shoulder holster. "AHOY THERE!" he shouted down to them, and got the stout answer,

"AHOY YOURSELF!" the man and woman halted, and the man yelled back up, "What Ship are you, and where bound, and what is your purpose here?"

Dreyfuss nearly pulled back in shock; the man below could be a younger version of himself! and the woman...

META?!" Is that YOU?!

Composing himself, he answered the most pertinent question, "We are the Republic of Texas Air Fleet pocket War Zeppelin St. Elmo, liaisoned to the Service of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria Regina of The British Empire. We became caught in a storm of some unfamiliar kind and pretty much blown here by it. We seek one Captain Jonathon Pulsifer of the RTAF Beau Rosin; a comrade lost in apparently the same storm. And yourselves?"

[The Abiliegh]

[[OOC: She's not wearing the hip holster, the gun is tucked in her obi. And, I'm tired, so I'll post something of substance tomorrow. Caught this while checkin one last time before racking out, and thought i might as well be useful in the meantime ]]

[Thalesia Turnblood]

(OOC: I'm still here, just reading along at the moment. Y'all are making my brain hurt -- I'm not nearly this clever. I usually work off of existing mythology and folklore and worldbuilding is extremely difficult for me. Y'all have no idea how incredibly impressed I am, as well as how useful this exercise is proving to be!)

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Jed Gunn, finishing a whiskey, finally gets curious enough to go outside and see what all the commotion is about. He squints upward at the big airship hovering over the town, secured by three lines. "Tarnation, thet's a big 'un," he drawls. As he watches, a small craft emerges from the big one, and drifts downward, and Jed notices Brantley and the pretty woman standing in the street as if waiting. "Tain't none o' mah affairs," he says to himself. Past them, down near the smithy, he spies the burly smith engaged in setting up a large crank handled winch, and decides to amble on down and lend a hand. As he approaches, however, he then sees O'Callahan, far off down past the smithy, leaning against a pinyon pine. "Looks like he ain't got hisself a care in all th' world, and half these folks a'wantin' to kill him dead as a hammer." As he passes the smith, he says, "Mr. Farnswuth, I'se a-goin down hyere ta jawbone with thet priest fer a moment, an' I'll be back and give ya a hand direckly." Approaching the edge of town, he hails the gaunt clergyman. "Hey, O'Callahan, ya crazy sumbitch...what'r ye a-doin jus' standin' around hyere? Don't ye know thars fellers down thar thet want you dead? Hain't none o' my business, I reckon, an' I don't even like ya wuth a hoot, but I jus' thought ta give ya fair warnin'." O'Callahan pushes off the pine, and comes over to the slightly shimmering barrier. "Best to stop there, Mr. Gunn," he says. "There's a barrier you can't cross, or at least I don't think you can. I am well aware that Mr. Pulcifer would like to put me away..he has good reason to...and you may, also. I'll be direct-have you ever gone by the name of McKay? Let's just say you look familiar." The two men are six feet apart, the barrier between them. O'Callahan, should he wish to, could cross it going in, but Gunn cannot cross it going out...but bullets can cross it in either direction. O'Callahan pulls the deck of cards from his pocket, removes the Jack of Clubs, and shows it to Jed. "Is this you?" Sarge squints at the card. "Naw, hit ain't...but I'll tell ye who hit tis..thet thar is my half-brother Clem. He's a bad 'un. We had th' same Momma, differnt Daddies. Momma's kinda strong-featured, 'n we both tookin after her side of th' fambly...we looks summit alike, sometime's folks get us confused one fer t'other." O'Callahan nods..he takes the fellow at his word...he knew something didn't feel right, this man Gunn is simple, and straightforward, with no guile in him. "Good, then." He replaces the card in the deck, and puts the deck back in his pocket. "Mr. Gunn, I have an idea about how to remove the barrier from this town...are you willing to lend a hand?" "Shore, preacher, I reckon I got as much stake in a-gettin shed o' this place as anybody." "Alright, then, Mr. Gunn, what I'd like you to do is to go to the livery stable, and bring my hearse over to the back corner of the smithy...don't hitch up the horses, just borrow a mule from the hostler to move it, then take the mule back to the stable. Then see if you can rustle up the carpenter...I know for a fact this town has one...and both of you come back here. I can't come in there with you, or I'd be stuck again, too, and I'd hate to have to go through ...all that.. again to get back out. You just get the hearse over to the smithy, and then you and the carpenter come back here for more instructions. OK?" Jed nods, "Alright, preacher, I'll string along with ya fer now." He turns and heads back for the other end of town, and as he passes the smith, who has by now chained the winch to a corner post of the porch of the smithy, attached the line, and is cranking down the gasbag, he says, "Sorry, Mr. Farnswuth, I'd give ye a hand, but thet priest has asked me ta do sumpin' else..." The big smith just nods, and grunting a little with the effort, continues to crank down the errant blimp.

[MWBailey]

Having asked Brantley and the Woman to wait, Dreyfuss collected Irene, who had changed back into her regular "working" attire; namely the standard sparsely-decorated shell-jacket-and silver-inseamed-trousers, with sturdy cavalry-style boots and homespun white shirt of the standard field dress of the  Airship crewman, but with lieutenant, Junior grade bars on her shoulders, and and the braided Foreign Diplomacy cord on the left shoulder. The standard low-crowned forage-shako topped off teh outfit, save for the wepons she normally carried. Her saber and her pistols were scabbarded and holstered at her hips, and she carried a much-plainer blue standard-issue Texian Airship Officer's greatcoat (sans rank or more than the hem-and-seam piping decoration common to all ranks) over one arm. Her veil, as always, was in position over her left facial area.

"You'd get better protection from the built-in mailshirt if you'd actually wear that thing, you know, M'dear." Dreyfuss nodded at the coat.

"You and Jock keep the radiators on this tub so hot it's all I can do to not sweat buckets, Sir," said Irene. Dreyfuss wasn't sure what he'd done for her to get so riled as to get sarcastic with the honorifics, but he let it go for the moment.

"Jock says the lifeblimp's already set up and waiting in the stern Hull-Door Bay," he said, "I think he's getting altogether too good at listening through the tubes..."

'Be glad it isn't squawkboxes, sir," Irene shot back, "I heard tell everybody can hear everybody all the time on those things, since they seem to be getting installed with the wires all wrong way around."

Dreyfuss 'Hmmpfed"  in answer, as they had reached the aforementioned Bay, and they climbed aboard what was pretty much just a platform with simple 2x4 railings built on what looked like a short longboat, with a seat and tiller by the engine and altitude and azimuth controls for the steersman, which position Dreyfuss took for himself, while Irene, now wearing the plain blue greatcoat, manned the forward gatling gun, a 90-caliber five-barrel crank-type monster, with the standard gravity-fed vertical "slab" magazine, on a sheet-steel pylon mount with the wooden railing built around it it on both sides. The lanyard hooked to the quick-release latch lever for the Bay Doors, which were designed like those of a bomb-bay, had been draped thoughtfully over the railing beside the pilot's chair.

Dreyfuss checked and added gas to the gasbag, then yanked the lanyard, and the hull doors opened downward, as Dreyfuss dialed out a small quantity of gas, which was pumped into the reservoir by a pump which ran off of a PTO shaft  from the engine, itself a twin -cylinder kerosene affair; they floated downward, and as they cleared the both the door and the keel of the gunboat, Dreyfuss released the catch on the clockwork starting mechanism, and the small engine sputtered to life, sounding like a large, rabid species of bumblebee as they slow-motored forward downward. Dreyfuss noticed, right about then, a man standing next to a nearby tree, looking at them with appraising eyes. Something about the fellow made Dreyfuss think he might be slightly "off" mentally, but he could be wrong, he mused. They came to rest softly beside the man and the woman with whom Dreyfuss had held teh shouted conversation a bit earlier.

"Climb Aboard!" Dreyfuss called out, "we'll give you a lift down the street!" As teh man and woman came aboard, Brantley introduced himself and Meta.

" I'm MWBrantley, US customs, Division 16, and this," he said, indicating his female associate, "is Miss Meta McKinley." Dreyfuss took their hands in the traditional manner, while Irene merely nodded from her position on the gun. Dreeyfuss introduced himself and Irene, then.

"I'm Commodore Jaisen Dreyfuss of teh Republic of Texas Airfleet, and you already know the rest o' that mouthful," he said, eyes twinkling. "And this is my ward and Lieutenant, Junior Grade Dame Irene Frost."

"Order of the Scarlet Garter, Ma'am, Sir," Irene said, using the old tongue-in cheek colloquial term for 'Camp Followers' with a twisted sort of half-smirk. The veil slipped slightly, revealing a flash of gnarled-and-wrinkled scar-flesh, a mockery of a female-proportioned face, fearsome in it's malformity, and a weirdly-glowing, glass-and-brass mechanical implant eye, the red glow seemingly as hot as heated Iron -- then, just as quickly, Irene hitched the veil back in place with a rather predatorial half-smile, almost as if it had not been accidental...

"Irene..." Dreyfuss intoned, slightly chuckling, warningly.

[Miles (a sailor)Martin]

Leaving the smaller door open Miles goes inside and loads the gear back aboard using a chain fall winch to lift the tank aboard, then  stepping out he looks about for a youngster to go to the livery for him but doesn't see any, thinking about it he doesn't remember seeing but two children in the whole town,and no school,  funny that,usually the school went up about the same time as the church, but this place had three chapels and no school.  "Well my darling I guess I will have to go myself, be back in a few moments,"miles says as he turns to go out the door heading for the saloon.


OOC( the real Purgatory Colorado actually had seven saloons three churches and a jail before the first school was built.) 
                                                     Miles (a sailor)Martin