We got off the boat.

We followed Hades’ who is now rich enough to basically own us.

Bought an airship.

I hired some guys to find some guys.

Some guys approached us in the saloon with a job for Baron Lacroix. We had to find some guy in a swamp.

We were given a gift to hand over to the local spirit of said swamp.

We went to the swamp. Gave the gift.

Crocodiles and crocodile men were about. Killed loads of them. Nakomi and Raft tried some diplomacy, the end result was still violence. Many dead crocodile men.

((Enthusiasm for this log is very low.))

((Mild confusion here as I was mostly absent last session))

The party we were at was beginning to wind down. I decided to go see how this demon boat was powered, as something so infernal couldn’t simply be left alone, surely? People selling their souls for poker chips? Demons running the boat as it runs along a parallel dimension?

I found out that the boat was powered by body parts, and damned souls did all the work.

Keeping my sanity during events was a serious effort. The 3 Pinkertons from before were on the boat to guard some guy, who turned up dead during the night. Professor Lindman was here for the poker tournament, as her gambling winnings funded the University, this wasn’t her first time.

Most of our group were playing in the poker tournament, myself and Raft excluded. I went to scout the ship again later, at times with Nakomi or Raft to aid me. I found some weaknesses to the ship, however it was almost certain we wouldn’t be able to deal with it’s captain, Mr Scratch. I had to accept this was a situation we could not win, the demon boat would continue it’s route and continue to take new souls from it’s victims.

Trying to keep busy, I entered the shooting tournament, I don’t feel like describing events. I decided there were no souls on this boat that were innocent. I won the tournament. Hades’ won the poker tournament, and is now rich enough to own at least three towns.

We left the boat in New Orleans. Although we had only been on the boat a few days, and it should be 18/9/79, it seemed to be.. thanksgiving?

Dear other players. Halp.

We decided to head to Gunville, Arkansaw to find Shojo Masamune, the legendary magic gunsmith. Once we arrived we noticed a Wulfe airship in the distance. We wasted a little time at a gun shop that turned out to be filled with nothing but junk. I ask about, and make my way to Frederik’s shiny gun store. I purchase myself a shiny new Winchester 78 rifle, with a modified scope. It makes me feel better to hold it, the worries of recent days seem to melt away when I look through the scope. I also get a heap of special magnum ammo for it.

It’s definitely going to help me with what I’ve decided I have to do.

I then headed to a saloon with Nakomi and we both got to drinking. Everyone else headed to speak to Shojo. He asked for some assistance with his business.

Elric tried to break in to his own families business, and met with his brother. He tried to help connect Shojo with the Wulfe family business.

Nakomi decided to try her hand at gambling, and somehow ended up murdering a guy with magic. The law arrived, trying to figure things out. Elric’s brother got them to leave.

At this point I’d drank so much, I passed out, but the following was told to me later;

Elric decided to leave, like a cowardly, deserting scumbag. We had business together and he left me all alone. If I hadn’t gotten drunk.. I’ve been struggling to deal with recent events. Elric was my rock, my solidarity, I could talk to him and he would always be there. He seemed to understand, and was always there to help. Until he left, for selfish, petty reasons. Abandoning all of our shared goals, dreams and commitments.

My goals have now changed.

Wulfe and Shojo go in to business.

During the night there was a fuss, some hobo was being attacked by townsfolk, the others helped him out even though he murdered one of them and apparently has a drug addiction.

We then headed off, with the goal of spending some leisure time on a pleasure boat. The hobo was joining us, for some reason I don’t care to understand.

Elric began to dissect the rattler corpse whilst the rest of us prepared for the upcoming duel. I noticed a face I’d thought that I would never see again.. one of the people responsible for the death of my Father. I had Nakomi track him to his tent, for later. Raft prepared for his duel with Dr Fortune.

Elric went to fix up the mines.

Hades attempted to get Dr Fortune drunk, so the duel would most likely go Raft’s way.

I helped Nakomi break Dr Jameson out from his imprisonment by distracting the guard.

Once the duel began, it became apparent that Elric had set a dynamite trap underneath the spot Dr Fortune was to stand under, somehow, she survived the blast and shots were fired.

Raft took a pile of bullets, and was incapacitated despite the best efforts of Hades’ and Elric. Hades healed both duel participants with potions.. for a fee.

Jameson was escaping on a horse. One that wasn’t on fire, fortunately.

I asked Elric for help catching one of the horrible creatures from the mines.

Raft, Nakomi and Hades headed back to town.

I and Elric kidnapped the guy I saw earlier, his name was Lazarus. We took him out in to the wilderness.

I don’t think the rest of the day needs to go in this journal.

I should be on the lookout for Jamie Cadwell, Doc Brown, and Jessie Claxton. They were the people who killed my father. Jessie was the main instigator.

We all met up in town, and took the train out the next day.

Just as we were about to head in to the caves, Elric arrived. He had made his own way here after recovering from his sickness.

We made our way in to the caves and came across a strange stone column that looked to be some kind of altar. It seemed to have been brushed over by Dr Fortune’s group. We were then set about by the horrific little creates that we had seen outside, but we made short work of them. At least I don’t think anyone’s pregnant with demon dinosaur babies.

We later came across a rather smooth tunnel that looked like, according to Raft, it had been made by rattlers. Elric blocked it off with explosives. We didn’t die. The ground kept rumbling after this.. like something was underneath us. We fought off another attack by the smaller creatures. Helped mostly by Raft, shooting his lantern in mid air to cause the fire to scare them off.

Further in to the caverns we find the current dig spot, and begin to brush away at it, soon coming across another perfectly preserved dinosaur skeleton. We hoisted it in to a mine-cart and covered it with sheets before moving it out of the mine shaft.

Once outside, we were met by Dr Fortune. She didn’t seem to believe our stories about what we were doing in the mine. Raft challenged her to a duel but..

It was interrupted by an enormous rattler worm attack! Along with what seemed to be it’s young. Dr Fortune and her group joined us in killing the giant beast.. an alliance I expect to be short lived.

At the University, we received the latest in our apparent series of odd-jobs. Professor Jameson from the Paleontology department had asked for our help with something. He was awaiting us in Wakehold, Utah. It took us a few days ride on the rail network to get there. On the way, we stopped by the Tombstone Epitaph offices to let them know we had actually dealt with the train cult that people were apparently going wild hunting for.

Once we arrived in Wakehold, we headed straight for the saloon, The Dispute Hole, and met with the professor. He claims that his rival, Dr Amelia Fortune, had recently made a grand new discovery and he would like us to check it out to ensure it was legitimate. Black River railroads were seen to be working with Dr Fortune.

Hades and I went to read up on paleontology for a bit, as we intended to bluff our way in to Dr Fortune’s dig site. Raft and Nakomi stayed in the saloon to talk to 5 Black River goons who had arrived to get drunk. Apparently something has been killing their workers at the dig site.

Hades and I also went to fake a telegram from Dean Lockwood, the dean of Miskatonic university which would help “verify” our employment at the dig site.

The next day we followed the Black River workers to the dig site. I and Hades were claiming to be paleontologists with the others guarding us. Hades bought me a vocal unction elixir to help me smooth talk our way in.

We reached the dig site. I spoke to Dr Fortune and convinced her that we should stay. She doesn’t seem too interested in the actual science of paleontology, which at least helped us wrangle our way in. She showed us her discovery – 3 pristine dinosaur skeletons of a brand new species she had named “Fortunasaurus.”

Hades took pictures of the remains using the epitaph camera. We then got a short tour of the area. Hades distracted Dr Fortune and I examined the remains, they did seem like legitimate dinosaur bones.

Two wounded men suddenly came bursting out of the mines near the dig site. 1 of them was missing half of his leg so I took charge with my medical experience, oddly there was no bleeding. Some kind of coagulant had sealed his wound and he had been subjected to some form of paralyzing agent. He also had a strange, sharp wound in his abdomen inside of which I found various roe-like eggs.

Nakomi headed back to town with the pictures Hades had taken, as evidence for Professor Jameson. Hades went off with Dr Fortune to drink alcohol.

I removed the eggs from the wounded man and placed some of them in a bucket filled with spare blood. Since Elric wasn’t here, I felt the need to improvise some science. It could only help us in future to learn a little bit more about the creatures this would spawn. They began to grow extremely quickly in to strange quadrupedal creatures with cricket-like back legs and humanoid heads.

We then heard some gunshots. Nakomi had returned and she had brought Professor Jameson, who was now stuck underneath his fallen horse on the outskirts of the dig site. He claimed to have been attacked by something and his horse was paralyzed. The horse had the same kind of injury as the wounded man from before. Nakomi put the beast out of it’s misery by smashing it’s skull in.

Then we set the horse on fire.

The single egg that I was science-ing had hatched. I killed it, as it had served it’s scientific purpose. Nakomi had heard some horror story about mythical beasts that paralyzed their victims and buried people alive. I wasn’t taking that much risk for science, I’m not Elric.

The dig site had also found a lot of old Navajo artifacts, one of which Nakomi felt drawn to – a strange bow that had a spirit inside. She took it.

We managed to smuggle the Professor inside the dig site, and he examined the skeletons. He thinks they are real, but it is a strangely perfect circumstance.

Raft spent the night with Kate Barlow, the leader of the Black River goons whilst the rest of us were busy investigating mythical beasts, and burning horses.

We decided the best thing to do was to investigate the mines for the source of the beasts.

Best? Eh, we decided it was a thing, that we were going to do.

After the proceedings at the party, Elric was taken ill. It seems to have taken a lot out of him to have that new arm attached.

The next day, 2 strange men approached us, Mr Jones and Mr Smith. They sounded Scottish. They had a discreet job to offer us, having heard of us due to our ever improving reputation. Improving?

Increasing?

The job had something to do with another version of Lawrence, something similar to the quantum parallel dimension thing Mr Persons has going on. Because we are sane individuals, we agreed. Next thing I knew, a bright flash of white light took over my senses and I was on a stagecoach with the others. I was certain that I was already in Lawrence, but now we were approaching it by stagecoach.

Our mission was to keep Elric safe. Not our Elric but Paralelric. This version of the universe has it’s own versions of certain people apparently..

I felt a bit lost, so did what time with Hades and Elric have taught me to do- I just shrugged and went with it. We were given a little gauge thingy to track how much of the timeline we had changed, because that is also now a thing.

This version of Lawrence was a lot smaller, it didn’t have the university and was most definitely more old fashioned. Frontier style. We head to what appears to be an engineering shop. The owner tells us that some German engineer guy lives to the east.

We head out in that direction and come across an old farm. We meet what appears to be Elric inside. He looks a little different, as if he was our-Elric‘s twin brother. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. This version of Elric was not fond of weapons, he was in to “aetheric science”. I wanted to put my head in a trough. This place is weird.

Paralelric says there is a cattle baron attempting to buy out his land, and he fears force for not complying. Raft heads out to check the area and I set up on top of a windmill. I didn’t say this, but it was mostly to get away from the nonsense I seem to have found myself a party to. It was a lovely little spot to collect my thoughts and take in some peace and quiet.

At the scheduled time, the cattle baron and his goons attacked. Myself and Raft opened fire, taking a chunk of them out before they even got close. I took my time, and aimed directly for the leader. I blew a hole clean through his head. The rest of the attackers fled. Nakomi later healed the guy to try and talk to him, but that was fruitless so she bashed his skull in.

We then head out to the local saloon. We took Paralelric with us. It turns out, this version of Elric is incredibly annoying. Every time he opens his mouth I want to shoot him in it. Not only is he annoying, but he’s as inept as a drunk badger trying to fly a plane during a windstorm on christmas night, with a blindfold and no arms.

I hope none of this negativity finds itself transferred on to our Elric.. hm..

Nakomi beats some guy, Dicky, at arm wrestling. He then challenges Raft to a duel, which Raft wins with ease, disarming the poor fool.

I beat Nakomi in a drinking contest.

Dicky ran off, having lost at just about everything he tried competing at.

A strange priest bust in to the saloon, claiming it was time for a lottery. A lottery it turns out, in which the winner gets murdered by a magical ghost train in the same fashion as Urias Thornden over in our universe. Hades’ fixed the results with his magic, and Dicky was sacrificed, handy, as his mother was a major crime figure in town and would have wanted to kill Paralelric otherwise.

Me and Nakomi took Paralelric home. He nearly killed himself just climbing up the stairs.

I want him to die.

I want to crush his skull with my rifle.

I want to shoot him with my pistol.

I want to stab him with my knife.

I want to push him out the window.

I want to hire a train, tie him to the tracks, and run him over.

I want to force him to choose between auto-erotic asphyxiation and dynamite up the ass.

These thoughts are so out of character for me. I don’t know why I’m having them.

I just really want to kill this Elric.

I want my Elric back.

(We then headed home, mission complete. Apparently there’s a rogue person in the time stream screwing things up.)

Our stupid train arrived late! On today of all days. I had almost no time left to get ready for the party. Don’t these people understand how long it takes to get ready? There’s the bath, the shaving, and then the makeup and the laboriously intricate outfit!

I am reminded why I usually don’t bother with these things.

The first thing we noticed upon our arrival in Lawrence, Kansas is.. well, Mr Persons should really be called Mr People. There were.. a lot of him around. He met us at the station, and he was also our stagecoach driver.. He took us to a huge University building made out of wooden planks, as if it were actually some kind of art installation designed to look like a real University from England. The whole town looks like some kind of frontier town.. despite the University, it doesn’t really look too developed. I thought these guys were all scientists.

We met the Dean, who it turns out has been our employer all along. I am a little saddened by this development. I felt like we were doing serious work and now I’m not so sure. His name is Rockwell Chronister. A rather cheery little man. He invited us because he has a team of psychics, who suspect the party is going to be attacked. He had some of his faculty institute a magical field around the University that prevents guns from working. This was absolutely the worst idea in the history of ideas, actually scrat that, Elric has come up with worse.

Why was I even here! Without my rifle I’m just a woman with no fighting prowess and a bum leg. I should have just gone to the saloon for the night instead. Ah well, hindsight.

Apparently all the Mr Persons were popping about due to some quantum experiment going wrong in the quantum lab. Whatever that means.

There were rather a lot of members on staff. The names I managed to take were;

Dr Lovegood – Cybernetics professor
Dr Rachel Harold – Quantum Physicist
Dr Hawkmire – Defense against the dark arts professor and creator of the anti-gun field
Dr Livingstone – Anthropologist
Dr Lindman – Gambler, I don’t know what her actual job title is.
Dr Akage – Studies cheese, or something.

Raft, Nakomi and Hades went to talk to Dr Hawkmire about the anti gun field. Hades I am told knew this Hawkmire guy, from his childhood.

I was too busy getting ready for the party to keep up with most of the goings on.

The time for the party came about quickly.

Elric went to speak to Dr Lovegood, he was trying to get one of his arms replaced with a mechanical version. I think Dr Lovegood was capable of doing this, Elric seemed very… excited.

I took Nakomi’s hand and led her through the party. I wasn’t exactly well educated in how to act in these matters but I seemed to know more about it than she did. I drew rather a lot of attention in my dress, as I often seem to. I have a good fashion sense.

We engaged in small talk with various people, and faculty members as we drifted about. Dr Lovegood made me uncomfortable with all her patronizing speech about tribal matters and horses.

Chancellor Steinmeyer soon arrived to the party. (This was the guy who was shot in the psychics visions.)

The Chancellor mentioned to us something about “Those who know” as a group of people the wizard we had fought likely belonged to. A group of guys focused on magical things. Apparently a group called “The brass order”, who loved science, had been trying to poach scientists from the faculty staff.

I found a side table topped with the BEST sausage rolls.

I think Hades and Elric were fighting Dr Hawkmire in the side rooms, or something. I didn’t follow, and they haven’t really told me the whole story.

Those sausage rolls. I want the recipe. Did I tell you about the cherry cake? I think I gained 5 pounds in one night.

Worth it.

At some point here, Elric left to have his entire arm replaced with a mechanical monstrosity.

This was a thing that happened.

Seriously.

In reality.

Literally.

I’m not joking.

A mechanical arm.

And he WANTED it.

A little later in to the party, Elric had returned with Dr Lovegood. The lights all went out. (Did I mention the lights were electric? No? Well they were and it was pretty cool!) And we noticed some guys sneaking in under the cover of darkness, dressed in dark cloth and wielding blades.

Blades.

I TOLD THEM that an anti-gun field was stupid. I want a pay rise.

Everyone else dealt with the ninja guys real quick. I just fumbled around and ruined a stack of sausage rolls. And got stabbed.

I love Nakomi. She makes everything better.

Hades and Raft seemed to be going a little.. crazy. They were trying to intimidate a corpse. The corpse Elric had just been arrested for interfering with.. Yup. Crazy.

The dead woman’s mother arrived, her name was Eugene. She was very upset about what we, sorry -everyone apart from myself and Nakomi. were doing/had done to her daughter. The Doctor arrived also, and Nakomi helped him move the corpse to his office. Hades went off to the saloon, for gambling I presume.

I talked my way in to staying the night with the corpse – to be sure beyond all doubt that it was not a vampire. I assisted the Doctor (Doctor Delaney) with the autopsy.. nothing out of the ordinary happened.

I also found the opportunity to rummage through some previous case files about other victims of Jesiah. There were lots of cases where people had traits that could have made them seem unnatural to a lunatic. Hairiness, pointy teeth etcetera. The autopsies didn’t really make these clear, it could have been supernatural.. but it also may not have been.

Maxine Truth arrived in town the next morning. She prefers to be called Max. She was asking an awful lot of questions about Denver and the blood magic circle Elric accidentally used. We tried to cover for him.

Hades and Elric apparently had some grand plan to expose Eugene to sunlight to see if she was a vampire. Apparently, according to that hypothesis, she is not.

We went to speak to Jesiah again. He was still adamant that the goggles were real, and stated that a “wizard” gave them to him. We managed to get the Sheriff to understand the situation by allowing him to try the goggles on.

Outside, we bumped in to Mr Persons. He says our employer wants to meet us and he has invited us to a faculty ball in Kansas.

Somehow, Jesiah was able to kill himself as a gunshot was heard.. no gun was ever retrieved though. I wonder where Raft was?

We boarded the train for Kansas.