The Blazing Gun Saloon

[MWBailey]

"That's 'commodore,' Commodore J.S. Dreyfuss,  but no matter. Sure, you kin buy me a drink, sir. What's your status? You look like Madame Musketball found you and left her mark on you, if you don't mind me saying so."

[CorneliaCarton]

Cornelia looks at the two men exchanging words, her blue eyes examining them both. She sits at the bar, her skirts swishing as she does so. On her top half is a black tunic, revealing arms adorned with tattoo's. Around her hips sits a holster with a holder for a gun on one side and a sheath for her sword on the other side.
She runs a hand through her long dark hair, before resting her elbow on the bar, waiting to be served.

[MWBailey]

*finishes the drink that the kind fellow was neighbourly enough to buy, as the bartender set his two bottles and the shotglass  on the bar. Turns his head to the door as a very loud, strident steam horn sounds from outside and above, and turns back to the neighbourly buyer of drinks, saying, "It's sorry that I am to say it, but you'll have to make it quick, mister, apparently we're running a bit late. If it's employment or a ride you're seeking, we have a full crew already, complete with a full company of air rangers, and passengers usually don't like the situations we get into."

The steam horn sounds again, repeated three times.

reaches into his pocket and squeezes one of the studs on te eoutside, sending in wireless abbreviated morse code, "what is hurry?" the answer comes back, "Call from Home Office; M requires our presence."

I'm sorry, friend, but I have to dash, seems we have a bit of a change of plan. perhaps another time? HE dashes off and climbs aboard the carne cage, which is drawn up toward an open rear cargo bay. the bay resembles a bomb bay, complete with clamshell doors, and is just aft of teh suspended gunboat, which is situated below the zeppelin envelope, even before he manages to close the safety gate.

The airship rises and begins to move off to the east, picking up speed fast after the Commodore is taken inside and the cargo bay doors close.

[Miles (a sailor)Martin]

not this time commodore ,i had an encounter with a rock filled cloud a couple of days ago and am getting my bird patched back up ,nice to see a neighbor though, sir .

sorry you have to fly off now, Commodore, texas has been a right fair set o' neighbors to us o'er in New Mexico of late and i wouldn't mind making a few more freinds downeast. Safe flight.

miles watches mw dash out the door then goes over and settles onto a chair with a groan from his knee and a prononced click-pop.
as he does he sees Miss CorneliaCarton , and tips his stetson in her direction"pardon me ma'am i didn't see you come in.  I am usually more observant but I 'm a bit off my game at the moment."  he then leans back and unbuttons the side of the  knee of his bellbottoms and aplles several drops of oil to the brass and steel mecanisim thus revealed, working it back and forth a few times the click-poping gets much quieter, he then proceeds to button the leg of his  bellbottom trousers back up.once done it is apparant that the trousers where custom made as the modification is barely noticable.

[Thalesia Turnblood]

I enter the dim, smoky bar and look around. It doesn't appear that anyone here is looking for me.

How do you do? My name is Thalesia. Thalesia Turnblood. I'm instructed to wait here for a certain gentl... er, a certain man who holds a contract for me. You see, I'm a mail-order bride.

I didn't need to share that information, but I am, I admit, a trifle nervous. It's not every day that a lady meets her future spouse in such inglorious circumstances. The barkeep asks what 'my poison' is.

A cup of coffee would be wonderful, thank you.

Holy gods. This stuff could dissolve iron. I ruthlessly put away the memory of perfect cups of pale tea in the sitting room of my family home. Back when I had a home. And a family.

It's lovely coffee. Very nice. Very flavorful. Very robust. My eyes are watering, but I sip quietly, looking up every time a new person enters the room. After a while, I realize that a man is creeping closer. Hopefully not my future husband, because he has every appearance of having been very drunk for a very long time. And the smell is not to be believed.

Iffen yer man don't show up, I could mebbe marry you, purty lady.

How kind. I give him a brittle smile. But I believe I'll wait.

He does not take my rejection kindly and reaches out to grab my arm. Instead, I grasp his hand in mine. My left hand. The one that had been crushed in a carriage accident so long ago. The one that my father repaired with malletium, the strong, yet malleable metal that now reinforced the bones of my left arm and leg. With only a small amount of pressure, I feel the structure of his fingers begin to bend and crackle within my grip.

The barkeep has come around the end of the bar, prepared to intervene on my behalf, but I do not require his aid. Already, the drunken man has pulled away from me, cradling his injured hand, whimpering like a wounded pup. I return to my coffee and do not look up as he stumbles out, leaving nothing more than the creak of the swinging doors in his wake.

I don't suppose you have any sugar for the coffee, do you?

Or was that too much?

[Thalesia Turnblood]

Oh dear. That was too much, wasn't it? I'm sorry. I'm rather new here and don't quite know all the proprieties yet. I'll simply sit in the corner and drink my coffee.

[Thalesia Turnblood]

I broke the Saloon! I'm sorry!

[MWBailey]

Outside, a sudden gusty squall blows clouds of dirt, sand, and silt down the street. The wind rises higher still, and the air out-of-doors darkens, and lightning and thunder play an anvil chorus of crashing sound and blinding flashes of light. The wind rises to a shriek, and then to the tell-tale sound of a freight train passing on tracks in midair. The sound and the twister scream down upon the tiny saloon and its occupants... but the saloon holds firm, and though cattle and other less-likely things can be seen being carried off by the wind, the building stays in place, though the walls do shake and wobble, slightly, now and again --

And then there is nothing but blowing sand, again, making a yellow light in the early evening. In the hazy distance, seen through the open doorway and under the swinging shutter-like doors, one can suddenly see (if they happen to be looking, that is) what is apparently a freakish trick of the light, as though a softly-amber-glowing curtain of the sandy haze had been slit from top to bottom, and then hastily drawn and sewn shut again, like the wind-flap of a red man's teepee. From (apparently) behind this region of the hazy afternoon, a top-hatted figure emerges, seemingly both walking around the anomalous optical illusion (for such it has to be, surely!), and pocketing what appears, even at such a distance, to be a small, slim box of some kind.

The wind picks up again, then, and tosses around the dark silhouette a rustling, flapping mass of what appears to be cloth; apparently he is wearing a duster; momentarily exposed by the gust, as the duster whips up behind the person like a pair of oddly-shaped bat-wings, the teardrop outline of the handle of a pistol and the blocky, boxy holster it rides in can be seen. as the figure nears the saloon, a sensation of foreboding accompanies it. as if in thrall to the foreboding, the evening sky begins to darken, the still-omnipresent sandy murk darkening to russet tones as the sun begins to set, and the figure sets foot on the boardwalk outside the saloon. framed by the doorway and the swinging shutters, one can now see a begoggled face beneath the tall, black, sand-stained, wide-brimmed tophat.

Brown eyes, revealed as the man pulled the tarnished-brass, amber-lensed goggles loose and let them dangle at his throat. Eyes that bore the look of having once been soft coals for the light of the love of a paramour now long gone, but were now become hard as flint and guarded, as if he expected an attack from any quarter at any moment. Graying dark hair tucked behind the skull-hugging ears, a wide, curled, obviously-waxed moustache curling up and away to either side, and a mouth and chin that looked to be designed for a melee, ruled over by an aquiline nose that had never been broken. All of this carved and hammered into a face made of pinkish tan granite (or so it appeared before he stepped into the light of the saloon, which the proprietor had come out and lit before disappearing yet again).

The lanky form, mostly concealed beneath the duster, did show a few points. The pistol, a recent-model self-loader, by the look of it, carried in a holster that also was usable as a shoulder stock. the travel-stained dark pinstriped pants that might once have been predominately darl gray, the weskit of the same material, of a complimentary cut, and teh once-white pinstriped shirtallspoke of many hard years ion th etrail-- or would have, if teh fellow had arrived on a horse. Thus, he was a contradiction in dusty-sandy clothing.

"BARKEEP!" he shouted, but the man never appeared., so the fellow lenedover the bar, snaggged a bottle and a shotglass from under it, and poured himself a shot, the POOMNP! of teh oulled cork sounding loud in the darkening, lamplit saloon. He knocked it back, and coughed and wheezed as the traildust washed down his throat.

"Lordy." the man said, then, "What place is this? and what's the year?"

[Darkhound]

A deep, soft, voice rumbled gently from a dark corner. "There, sir, you have asked a large question."

The man who spoke was very large, and should have been conspicuous, but somehow wasn't. When he spoke, or otherwise inserted himself, there he was, a bulky gent of 6'5"  in a black frock coat, reddish cravat and  grey waistcoat, with rather long silver hair, a heavy grey moustache and large, thick spectacles. But when he sat quietly contemplating, somehow no one quite looked straight at him. He didn't know how he did this himself, but found the trait professionally useful on many occasions.

"In a blow like this, we might be as far north as Moosejaw, or as far south as Chihuahua, and anywhen from 1866 to 1907. I've never known the Blazing Gun to go west beyond the Sierra Nevada, nor east past the Front Range, but it is blowing very hard tonight. I haven't been here in a flat calm, but in what sailors call "light air", the place is usually within two days by horse from Durango, Colorado, and it's September, 1887 more often than not."

He returned his attention to the Register of Curiosities the he was updating. The saloon that was as much of a home base as he had was one of the most curious things in it.

[MWBailey]

"I take it that the preceding was hyperbole, and the bit about Durango, the Gospel portion of the message," The toppered, dusty fellow replies and says further, "judging by the looks of things, though, one might think the winds of time had done this place a disservice. Was there a twister, just now?"

Travelling by the whims and auspices of the Black Box tended to rob a person of the recent history of one's eventual point of egress from Threadspace, Brantley observed. He was closer to Durango than he had thought; perhaps it would be prudent to do as the strangely-unnoticeable fellow in the shadows had inadvertently sugested, and complete the journey in a somewhat more conventional manner.

An Egyptian Nile Woodlouse hopped from his shoulder to the wooden floor; I guess it hitched a ride from Cairo on the sleeve of my coat, Brantley mused to himself, as he ground the vermin into the floorboards with the heel of his right cavalry boot.

"I thank you for the information, sir, in any case. Might I buy you a drink?"

[Thalesia Turnblood]

1887? Great poisonous toads! I'm not supposed to meet my intended for five more years!

Oh well. Anything might happen between now and then. Barkeep? A little paint thinner for my coffee, please. It might tone it down a step.

[Rockula]

Yup. Reckon so.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Having gone outside to pack away the little accordion, Sarge notes that the weather seems to be taking a turn for the worse, and so decides to lead his Appaloosa mare and his pack mule down to the Livery stable, and is glad he did, as he's no more than got them bedded down when a huge wind buffets the outside of the big barn. He pulls his fringed leather jacket with the Navajo beadwork from a saddlebag, and shrugs into it as he goes back out, securing the door behind him. A small lad from the freight office, coat collar turned up against the blustering wind approaches him along the boardwalk.
"Hey, are you Sargent Gunn? Jedidiah Gunn?"
"Shore am, boy."
"Got this here package fer ye, Sarge, come in on the Wells-Fargo this mornin."
"Thank yuh, lad." Sarge flips the boy a nickle, and turns his attention to the package, wrapped in wax paper and twine. Opening it, he gives a low whistle. "Now, ain't thet purty...I been waiting fer this un." Inside the wrapping is a nicely turned wooden box, and in the box is a LeMat revolver, nine shot .44 percussion, double barrel over and under, the lower barrel being a sixty-five caliber shotgun. He returns to the stable, and puts one of his .45 Remingtons in the saddlebag, replacing it with the LeMat...it's a tight fit. "Hmmm. Reckon I'll have ter go around to th' tannery and have Gonzales make me up a custom holster fer it..."
He returns to the Saloon, and orders up another whiskey, and has just taken a sip when, accompanied by another gust of wind, another individual enters. Glancing in that direction, he grunts, and his lip turns up in an almost involuntary sneer. "O'Callahan." Quite possibly the meanest hombre in the territory, the fellow is tall, dressed entirely in black,with a black, hooded duster which almost drags the floor. Gaunt, pale ( almost albino white, in fact,) and whipcord thin, his black,deep set eyes give the impression that one is staring at a skull...the very picture of the Angel of Death. This impression is reinforced by the fact that the one bit of white in his whole costume is a square beneath his Adam's apple...the dog collar of a Priest. The big nickle-plated Colt slung low on his right hip belies any impression of a man of peace, though, and he carries a Sharps buffalo gun with a brass telescope mounted on it which is almost as long as the barrel of the big bore rifle. O'Callahan is still a priest, but a very unusual priest. A bounty hunting priest. He only takes "Dead or Alive" contracts, and has never yet delivered a man to the law alive. He is an expert tracker and man-hunter, and when he finds a man, he forces him to "convert and repent" at gunpoint, and then immediately shoots the poor fellow, "to prevent him from back-sliding." He genuinely believes that by so doing he is saving the souls of these hapless individuals. He's as crazy as a bedbug, and more dangerous than a rattlesnake. He glides noiselessly up to the bar,throws back the hood to reveal a shaven head, and says, almost in a whisper, "Irish whiskey, barkeep...make it a double."

[MWBailey]

The toppered fellow removes his watch from his pocket again, makes a few adjustments, and re-pockets it , being certain no one looks over his shoulder as he does so, for it is not a regular watch, but a Regulator multi-positiochronograph, and a bit of a guarded secret -- but it is also a gift from a loved one, for the inside of the hinged cover is painted beautifully in the trompe-lois style,with an idyllic scene from a Verne-inspired musical, but with Top Hat's Commanding Officer's (and as close to a sweetheart as he has had these thirty standard years) portrait as the leading lady. An embossed, polished-gold oval beneath the scene reads, in very tiny engraved letters:

To M. Brantley
Tempus
~en~
Tempus
~est~

Congratulations on completing your first mission, my love.

~A. Sally

He resets the date, as well as the time, and calls up the geared-scroll tabulation of relative longitude and latitude, and sets the watch accordingly, and finally sends a terse electric wireless modified-morse message by repeatedly squeezing the relevant nub on the outside of the watch's bezel.

HERE IN 87, THREAD 400c[STOP]
VARIABLE LONGITUDE AND LATITUDE, AT PRESENT EQUALS 33 BY 70[STOP] DURANGO TWO HOURS BY HORSE[STOP] PRIEST MAYBE NAMED CALLAHAN, WEARS CAPE SHAVED HEAD AND DRINKS , APPARENTLY ALSO KILLS-SMELLOLDBLOOD SEE NICKLED REVOLVER GET FILE IF ANY[STOP]PLEASE ADVISE THREE HOURS FROM NOW[STOP]
He pocketed the watch, then, and happened to glance at the whiskey-drinking fellow wioth what appears to be a military bearing, and at the bald fellow with the collar. He couldn't be sure, but from the slightly-crazy, predatorial way that he moved his head and eyes around, he'd be willing to swear that preacher - if he was really a preacher- was a bounty hunter!  

As far as he knows, no one is still chasing him after that train job, and that was a whole dimension away and at least a year in the future from the present time; besides, he had his badge and his papers, albeit he couldn't show them to just anybody, so he was basically a lawman, even if his was a rather odd and wild section of the lawless multiverse that he had the dubious honor of overseeing. He wished he had the time-and-space-travelling blimp the S.S. Beau Rosin, but the exigencies of causality -- and Aunt Sally's ire -- had robbed him of that comforting asset, after the recent rout of teh Martian's third attempt to invade Earth, and to and invade Time itself-- using the very time machine he had originally constructed at the flegdling MIT university. Heh. Lucky I'm still mostly here, he growled mentally.

He turned back to the now-present bartender, paid his bill and a deposit for the bottle, as well as for the obscure fellow's next drink - since he hadn't answered Top Hat's offer of a free drink. he then took the bottle to the table where the tall-ish lady who'd piped up about her "intended" sat, since he sensed a fellow time-wanderer, and asked, "do you mind if i sit here, Ma'am? We seem to share a common interest." He set down the bottle, and took out his cigarette case, pretending to inadvertently also pull out his badge folio, which clattered down to the tabletop such that the badge was exposed: the shield, with the clock with the astrological calendar face in the middle of it, and the newly-assigned US CUSTOMS on the top, while at the bottom of the shield the newly-assigned "Div. 16, Ret." resided. All was struck in polished bronze.

Beggin' your pardon again, Ma'am," he said, smiling, but allowing only a brief glance at the badge. The Division 16 boys and girls were not timecops, not usually, but they had been called in more than once when dealing with problems caused by rogue time-travelling devices, and the ruffians and general malcontents who generally stole them, killed their original pilots, and used the various devices without responsible forethought. He didnt know why Aunt Sally had seen fit to guide his Black Box to this place and time, but having even one other person who was so obviously concerned with either the recondine or the intra-temporal (or both) in one place at one time with him... well, it was just entirely too convenient to be coincidence...

(OOC: yep, it's Brantley again. C'mon, you knew this was gonna happen, didn't you?

[Thalesia Turnblood]

The gentleman who approached her didn't reek of drink the way her earlier assailant had. Neither did she catch the whiff of blood and gunpowder emanating from the bounty hunter who had entered previously.

A pox upon the timestream anyway. She'd had enough of dancing through the years and was quite determined to find a nice place to settle down. If she'd realized this ragged little saloon sat in the midst of a vortex, she'd have waited outside the general store, instead.

Ah well, at least she had her valise. It looked quite small and ordinary, but as father (gods rest his soul) had liked playing with folding space, it actually contained everything she needed to set up a small laboratory on the go. It wouldn't do to let that out her sight.

"And what do you suppose might be our common interest, sir?" she asked, peering over the rim of the battered tin coffee cup.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

Sarge pushes away from the bar without acknowledging O'Callahan, taking his glass with him, and turns to survey the room. The fellow with the top hat looks to be an alright sort, sitting with the filly that called herself a mail order bride. He lopes across the room, and stands beside the table. "You folks mind if'n I park my carcass here with ya'll fer a while? The air over ta th' bar got kinda tainted a bit...smelt o' death and brimstone." The gent waves a hand, and the lady nods her head, a little primly. Sarge takes off his hat, and introduces himself, "My handle's Jedidiah Gunn, oncet upon a time I'se a scout fer J.E.B. Stuart, but thet's a coon's age ago...folks still calls me Sarge, though." He sticks his calloused hand out toward the gent, at the same time making a little gesture which might be taken for a bow toward the lady. "M.W. Brantley," grunts the fellow, and the lady maintains her silence. Sarge replaces his hat, sets his glass on the table, pulls out a chair, and sits.
"What's the story on the cadaver over there that just come in?" inquires Brantley.
"Coldest, meanest sumbitch I ever knowed, or even heard tell of," replies Sarge. He takes a sip of his whiskey, and continues, "Lawd knows I ain't no prize myself...after th' War I drifted out here, and bein' handy with firearms, I got inter th' pistoleer's trade. Don't much ask after th' right an' wrong o' things, just hire on with whoever wants ta pay...but I ain't never been no bounty hunter. I got throwed together with thet there ranny oncet, though...I'se workin' a job fer the Pinks, and we ended up trackin' the same feller, what robbed hisself a bank in St. Joe...we's up in th' high country, two feet o' snow, and we spies this feller makin' fer th' pass. I'se all fer shaggin' on down thar, callin' 'im out fair 'n square, but this here 'priest' just falls down on the snow, props thet buffler gun o' his up on a forked stick, and lets loose. Just one shot...put it through thet fellers leg, and lunged his hoss with th' same shot. We walks on down ta where he's a-tryin' ta crawl away, and O'Callahan there makes this galoot kneel thar in th' snow, and swear thet he believes in God. Then, sure as I'se a-sittin here, he shot 'im right between th' eyes, quick as a blink. He loaded th' feller's carcass up on his mule, and started away. I hollered at him, "Ain't ya even gonna put his cayuse down?" He says, not even slowin' down, "Horses don't have souls." Well, I put th' hoss outta his misery, and when I left thar, I cut a different trail. I ain't laid eyes on him since thet day, 'till now. Thet thar ghoul gives me th' creepy-crawlies, I tell ya true...an' I ain't no sissy by a long shot."
Sarge drains his glass, visibly shaken by the memory.
"Almost enough ta make a feller give up and head back fer th' Virginny hills...but I ain't seen th' elephant yet, so I reckon' I'll stick 'till I get enough of a grubstake ta make it out ta Californey...they say th' gold's just layin' around on th' ground out thar." Sarge signals the barkeep for a refill, then continues, "Dangdest thang is, tho'...I cain't seem ta get outta this hyere town..I rode in right enough, but ever' time I tries ta ride out, I get turnt around, and th' next thang ya know, I'se a-ridin' back in again...dangdest thang..." The barkeep brings his drink, Sarge hands him an eagle, says, "Keep 'em comin' 'till I say when, mister..."
He lapses into silence, staring into the smoky liquor, eyes not focused on the glass, though, but more like he's staring at something a thousand yards, or a hundred years, away.

[MWBailey]

"Ma'am, we both seem to be interested in this particularly...heh...'captivating' little anomaly of a town that we seem to have been plopped down in the middle of; though I expect for different reasons." His voice, when he used it, came out gravelly but smooth at the sam etime, as if he had grown up with a perpetually-sore throat, but had recently discovered a miraculous cure, which left him with such an oddly-pleasing sound.

He took his watch out again, pressed the nub on the opposite side of the bezel from the wireless telegraph button, and the engraved oval below the portrait on the cover 's inner face swung aside on a left-hand pivot to reveal a very small, very flat dial, upon which three needles appeared to swing freely, but which soon all aligned with three main influential points, all equidistant from one another around the circumference of the dial. "Damn!" he breathed, far enough under his breath that the other two people at the table would not have heard him had the noise level been normal for a saloon in the early evening hours; unfortunately, the room seemed oddly subdued, as if all had been inconvenienced by the vorticular nature of the little hamlet, and were all getting moody about it.

Brantley knew from experience that the oddly-formed "replacement parts" that were substituted for some of his irreparably damaged insides after his first firefight with the first Martian horde twenty standard years before would enable him to leave the vortex, and that if he was not meant to stop here and deal with the problem, Sally'd have the techs reroute his black box (which was impossible to separate far from his person, as if it were tied on by an invisible and indestructible rope) to yank him out of here, hard and rough if need be. It had already been demonstrated, brutally, that he was quite powerless to resist its influence on his ability to stay in one causal thread or cluster of threads. If A.S. wanted  him here, then here he'd be here until he solved or helped to solve whatever the problem was, whether he liked it or not. Sure, he'd probably get an hour's walk or ride away from the vortex, but A.S. would snap him right back into it if they wanted.

So, he decided to play it by ear until the update came through in another hour and a half.

"I'm a lawman, myself, or sort of one, so to speak, he said, half-conversationally, half-authoritatively, "US Customs, Retired, but rehired to consult on special cases. I was on my way to Durango to deal with one such case, but I seem to have been re-routed here. What else can you two tell me about this area? How big is it, for one, and does it seem to have any extra magnetism or ambient Aether -- pardon me, I meant any ambient static electricity? In other words, an electrical field so strong in some places that your skin, whether clothed or exposed, feels all greasy and prickly at the same time?" Brantley feared he already knew the answer...

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

The gaunt, pale priest takes his drink, and moves over to a table in the far corner, where it's darkest. Barely visible in his black garb, his face looks even more skull-like in the dim light. He takes a Bible from the inside pocket of his duster, leans his rifle against the wall beside him, and begins to read. The flickering kerosene light in the wall sconce highlights his cheekbones, and his deep-set eyes disappear in their sockets, save for an occasional red gleam as he glances up from his reading to scan the smoky room.
Sarge, meanwhile, considers Brantley's question. "Come ter think on it, Mister Brantley, th' hairs on th' back o' my neck stands up ever' time I go past th' blacksmith's shop...kinder like when thars a storm comin' up, and th' air gets still. Got that smell, too, like...umm..I dunno...hot iron, I reckon. I jus' allus figgered it was somethin' ta do with th' smithy."

[MWBailey]

Brantley's mouth quirks to one side as he thinks, a certain part of his "alien-augmented" brain for once provging to be useful, as he calculates the odds of various gases that could smell the way the Sergeant describes. Finally, he takes out his watch again, turns the setting stem, holds the watch over under Jed's chin, thumbs the telegraph stud, and asks, "does it smell like that?" as the ozone rises from the electrical contact thus engendered.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

"Yep! Thas it perzackly, Mr. Brantley."

[Thalesia Turnblood]

Thalesia had been eyeing her valise, trying to see if there were any discernible leaks in the casing to account for the peculiar odor. It appeared whole and sound, but one could never be certain.

Mr. Brantley's pocket watch took the onus off, but she made a mental note to check the seals on her case as soon as she was able.

[Sgt.Major Thistlewaite]

O'Callahan's hearing is almost preternaturally keen. Years of tracking men through the wilderness have trained him to be able to pick out the snap of a twig, the crunch of a boot breaking through frozen snow-pack, even, if the wind is right, a human heartbeat. All the while his interest seems to be on his reading, he is listening..."lawman...electrical...aether....ozone..." He's heard enough. Finishing his drink, he rises in a fluid motion, retrieves his rifle, and, duster swirling around him, glides across the room and out the door, the smoothness of his gait giving a curious impression of floating. Outside, four beautifully matched ebony horses wait, their traces attached to an ornate, solid black hearse, gleaming, polished, with heavy cut glass windows on either side. There is, at present, no corpse in it. The bounty hunting trade has been good to O'Callahan...no more saddle horse and pack mule for him. In one sweeping motion of swirling black, he rises to the high bench seat on the front, and puts the Sharps rifle in its scabbard. He makes a clucking noise, and the expertly trained horses, in unison, back away from the hitching rail...they were not tied, just patiently waiting. He pops the reins once, and they trot off down the empty street, under the overcast sky, towards the Blacksmith's shop on the edge of the town, near the main wagon road in, with the town's name painted on a weathered board..."Purgatory. Pop.=?"
His grim slash of a mouth lifts a little on one side. It's as close as he ever comes to smiling. Lightning flashes once again light his features, and he looks for all the world like some dark, avenging angel...or demon.

[MWBailey]

Brantley watched the ascetic-like preacher leave, recognized the fellow's gait for what it was, and nodded to himself. The newly-caught always acted that way, eager to prove to themselves that they weren't among those who were caught in the same web of the vortex.ego and innate intelligence determined how long the new catch would struggle in vain against the anchoring effects. Then would come acceptance, , and depending on the native intelligence, either giving up or settling into a pattern of aquiescence interspersed with attempts to test the boundary and/or escape, much like prisoners in a prison. He shifted uneasily. The closer he got to the woman at the table, the more..."itchy" he became; it was as if his cerebral cortex and everything else about three inches under his skin tingled and itched with myriad caustic ant bites.

"Well, seems to me...we (or perhaps I) should go ahead and try to find the source of this anomaly, so's we can figure out a way to break out if it," Brantley said, taking his watch and cigarette case in hand HE also took the opportunity of the bounty-preacher's absence to ask the young woman, "Miss, I don't wish to pry, and Lord knows I don't wish to be insulting, but what, exactly, is the nature of that valise there? I'm sensitive in a number of ways to several different types of phenomenae, and to be as plain as I can be, it's making me itch down inside, like I've been hooked to a a shock table and plugged in..."


-------------
(OOC: Sorry for my absence; its been crazy around here, and what little time I've had on teh computer has been interrupted almost by the minute. It also looks as if, for the near future at least, it'll continue to be be catch as catch can, to use the hackneyed expression. Again, my apologies)

[Thalesia Turnblood]

"Gracious, good sir. It sounds as if you might need a doctor for such an internal itch. As for the valise, I can assure you that it is completely safe." She thought for a moment. "Well, perhaps 'completely' might be an overstatement, but it is safe enough for the moment."

Thalesia looked out the window at the blowing dust, sprinkled with the glitter of sparking aetherons -- a hint of the aetheric turmoil surrounding the town as it continued its untimely journey.

"It's merely a matter of being able to pack a lot into a small space, really. Very useful for traveling. I do, however, recommend that it not be opened until we're at a settled spot in the timestream. Time is one thing and space is another. It wouldn't do to get them mixed up."

[MWBailey]

"all too true, Ma'am, all too entirely true..." Brantley stated, and then rose from his chair. The cigarette case pocket device (with its myriad tiny black-and-multicolored switches, dials, intensity sliders and potentiometer knobs, and tiny, nearly-microscopic Jewel-lights chasing one another all over both faces of the opened case) in one hand, and the watch, (with twelve tiny dials now unfolded from and stacked en echelon above the main face, while three more un-scissored out from the sides of the bezel), both began to show different directioins and triangulated locations of nodes of power and force, as well as concentrations of temporally-affected physical compounds.

He faced in three directions before concentrating on the left side of the table, facing directly toward where Brantley vaguely remembered the valise to be located, two of the triangulation arrays centering on the valise, and readouts correspondently showing on the cigarette case's dials, indicating, of all things, darksteel alloy (commonly used in very old timeships used by a a now-extinct race that had once existed outside of time, and whose shipwrecks were regularly pilfered for their a-temporal metal resources), and at least one tightly-contained astronuclear power source, very similar to the signature of a full-fledged stellar core, all within three feet of his right ankle.

"Ma'am, I now highly agree with not opening that valise of yours, especially if it has a usuable standing and/or travelling space inside of it; however, it might be good to keep it in reserve just in case, as my devices can't carry an entire town's population. Not that I anticipate such an action, but its best to stay prepared." He looked her in the eye, now, and very seriously, and said "Just be sure that you have that astronuke reactor well-shielded before you open up; I have Martian organ transplants (er...it's a long, tedious story) whose exact functions no-one even now is sure as to what their function might be, but there's no guarantee they'd make me able to withstand or absorb that much radiation that fast. No, it's alright," he said, to her look of scandalized  discretionary training, "our fellow citizens will most likely benefit psychologically from the explanation, even though most of it would probably be over their heads." I hope, he thought to himself, thinking of Sally and her Committee's ire should he guess wrong on that issue....