Jackrum's Log 4

You know, I always thought that doing the right thing was a clear and simple choice, that those that did evil did so on purpose, out of a lack of empathy. Whenever a villain in a book I read when shout out “I was trying to make the world a better place!” I would laugh. What a ridiculous notion, that someone could ruin the lives of others without even realizin it.

Now, though, I know how it feels first hand. There’s a lot of blood on our hands now. I can’t deny it. But I’m not going to try an’ justify it. I know now what I have to do to make up for it. And I tell you what, I’m gonna get to it with a vengeance.

Startin’ with Mr. Canton.



Earlier-
The last time I wrote, everything was going good, and our town was lookin’ like it was growin’ strong. We thought we were developin’ stability in the area, that we were makin’ things better for everyone. That all changed on the mornin’ the Grim Reaper came to town.

I had just finished speakin’ with my friend Cameron about settin’ up a citizens organization to make policy decisions for the town. Sandra was there too of course, lendin’ her thoughts, and we were all set to break for lunch when we happened to notice a traveler approachin’, across the water. Somethin’ about him just felt wrong… He was a tall, huge man, ridin’ on a jet black horse, with some huge object strung over his back like a spear. There were a family across that way, buildin a farm near the entrance to the gulch, and as soon as he saw em he headed over to talk. Getting down off his horse, he seemed to embrace the farmer- and then the blood started sprayin’. The air filled with the screams of the farmer’s wife and daughters.

Our self-appointed sheriff Russell was nowhere to be seen, so we rushed for the boat to head across. Course’ that’s where we found Russell, dead drunk and lyin in filth. I’d of like to sacked em then and there, but there was an emergency goin’ on. We told him to get into town and get everyone to safety, to stay in they’re homes and get they’re weapons ready.
By the time we made it across the lake, the farmer’s wife and chillins were dead as well. It was a horrible sight- he’d cut em near in two, with that massive blade on his back. I was startin’ to get a really bad idea of who this fella might be…

We soon ran across more corpses- the remains of the loyal Briar Cats Leer had summoned up for us, killed tryin’ to defend the Oasis. When we found the assailant my fears were confirmed. It was Isaac Grims, a.k.a. the Grim Reaper of Vash. The man who killed half the town with a homemade scythe, who’d been hanged for his crimes, and had risen again from the grave unrepentant. When we met him and Vash and fought alongside him, I’d assumed the stories must have been mere rumor. Now, it was obvious they weren’t. Grims was here to do to Leer’s Canyon what he did to Vash, years and years ago.

Grim wasn’t in a talkin mood. He refused to stop, he was headed right for the middle of the canyon, where the main town had risen up around Leer’s grove. With no other choice, we opened fire. Now, I’ve never before fired a weapon at another man hopin’ to kill, and I still had hope that we could simply incapacitate him, but it was becoming obvious that Grims was gonna kill a lot more people if we didn’t stop him.

Me and Sandy had gotten very good at what we do. Everyone of our shots hit. Grims body was riddled with bullets…but he didn’t slow. He just kept walkin’ towards us, pullin’ that big scythe off his back as he went. And to my amazement, the bullet wounds just closed themselves up, the blood left behind on unmarked skin.

“Aim for the head!” Sandy shouted. I did, firin’ three rifle shots right in the head, takin’ out one eye. Didn’t matter. Just healed back up, kept on comin‘.

Sandy fired too, but Grims was suddenly chargin’ towards her, swingin’ that scythe. I put spurs to my horse and charged to meet him. Good ol’ Tornado ran him down, trampled under hooves, but Grims jumped right back up. We kept ridin’ round him in circles, pumpin’ em with lead. I emptied three rifles to no effect. Finally, Sandy had a plan.

“Maybe he can’t heal if the damage don’t stop. Jackrum, use the flamethrower!”

I had almost forgotten I even had it. We’d found it on Clutch’s horse, and I’d left it with Cloud ever since. I snatched it up fast and let loose with a huge stream of flame.

It worked…kinda. You could clearly see Grim’s skin tryin to come back together, but the flames kept burnin’ it away. The fire had made a difference, but it wasn’t gonna kill em.

Enough of this, I thought. Come into our town and start killin folks?! This is all we got for your kind here!

I drew Storm, my sawed-off ancient shotgun that fires depleted uranium shells. I only had one left, but when it hit Grims in the face it exploded with a massive show of light. All of the fire went emerald, and I could see Grim’s bones through what was left of his skin. There was a sound like a clap of thunder… and then he dropped. Grim’s body fell away into dust, leavin behind a broken scythe, a burned journal, and a smallish red stone that had come out of his chest. When I picked it up, it flowed back and forth in my hand, almost like liquid.



Time passed. We put the dead to rest in Leer’s Grove. I felt it was a small consolation that they’re deaths were not in vain- from each body, there would come another Elemental Seed, and with it, another little piece of paradise somewhere in the region. Still, I couldn’t help but notice an odd stench around the base of Leer’s tree. I’d assumed that the ‘recycling’ process would be clean and efficient…but it smelled like some part of Clutch was still down there. I hoped it would be absorbed soon, it made me squeamish.
I found Sandy fightin’ with Virginia. Apparently, Virginia was demandin Grim’s journal, the red stone I’d found, and frankly, bein’ a bit of a bitch. Sandy was tryin’ to teach her some manners. Virginia just switched over to me, shoutin and carryin’ on about the stone bein’ a “Philosopher’s Stone” and a source of immortality or some such nonsense. Of course, I didn’t think it was that crazy after what I’d seen Grims survive… but I was shocked at Virginia’s insistence that we should use the stone. She wanted to do to herself what Grim did and bust into Canton, take Gust back by force. She refused to see reason- that we didn’t know exactly what the stones effects were and that injectin it into her was a really stupid idea. We were interrupted by Leer, who had come off her grove for he first time.

“What is that!?” She looked horrified, much less composed than usually. “Get it away… get it out of the valley, do it now!”

“Now, calm down Leer, we’re still tryin’ to figure out what it does-”

“Get. It. Out. Now. I won’t have it in my Oasis.” I noticed the last surviving Briar Cat had turned up… and was standin’ behind Leer. Like a threat. “Don’t let it touch the water.”

“If you know something about it Leer-”

“Memory Fractured.”

Apparently, this was not something Leer was willing to discuss. I was frankly getting a little tired of Leer’s “memory problems” but we had more important things to deal with at the time. After a long argument with Virginia, we decided to head back to Vash, to investigate the Winchester Manor. We were hopin’ to find some clue as to why Grims attacked us and how he had gotten a hold of such a powerful relic. We also hoped to find something alchemy-related. Since our entire town was founded on alchemy, we hoped to understand it better and try and perhaps reclaim it for society, to see if we could use it to make the wasteland a safer and more prosperous place. We also hoped we might find something that could be traded for Gust’s release. Virginia was getting more and more upset and anxious, as the day of Gust’s execution was only ten days away. We brought Luck with us; to be honest, I didn’t trust him to stay out of trouble without me around, and the thought of treasure was incentive enough for him to come.
We reached Vash in the middle of he night, and managed to convince Virginia to get some rest and go in once the sun came up. Fortunately, Virginia was a lot more reasonable after some rest. Near midday, we broke through the manor’s doors and found ourselves in a cavernous space. A massive symbol of alchemy- a 5 pointed star with a horse, star, sun, dagger, and tree engraved on it was embedded in the marble floor. Half a dozen doors led off the main room. Me and Sandy decided it would be best to take one floor at a time, so we ignored the stairs and opened one door at a time. We found:

A hallway that stretched on for nearly a hundred yards, sloping down the whole way, ending in a shadowy stairway going down.
A massive windowless room, filled with chairs.
A long hallway that zigzagged out of sight.
A blank wall behind a functional door.
We followed the zigzagging hallway and soon ran out of light. Though many windows could be seen from outside the manor, we had yet to run into a single one inside. Virginia and Luck carried lanterns while me and Sandy kept our hands on our guns. I don’t know then what we thought we’d run into in this old ruin, but the place was severely creepy and we weren’t about to lower our guards.
After narrowing so that we had to walk sideways, single file, the hall curved around so that we were coming almost the way we had come in. I did some quick map making in my head- if I was right, this hallway should have opened up into the huge chair filled room, but that was obviously wrong. It must have sloped down or up somehow, so that we were above or below that room now. Of course, I hadn’t noticed any slope whatsoever…
The hall ended abruptly, in a single square room. The room was empty but for a well, and a single chair. Virginia walked over to the well and dropped a brass casing into it. I was shocked at this casual disregard for wealth, but I quickly noticed something far more alarmin’. The shell never struck the bottom.
With no other option, he started back for the main hall. Then Luck shrieked and shouted for us to run- he’d heard, from behind us in the empty small room, the single chair had been knocked over. I shouted for everyone to get behind me, and I drew my shotgun, waiting at the halls end. Anything comin’ down that hall would have no room to dodge, so if we were gonna fight I was thinkin’ to do it here. I slipped on my night vision goggles, but I couldn’t see anything in the well-room, just a thick black shadow. After a lengthy stand-off, I fired a round into the room. No response.

When he returned to the Great Hall I was lookin’ forward to seein’ some sunlight. But when we opened the door, only darkness met us. Though we had returned by the same hall, we were now in a different room altogether, though it’s proportions were similar to the Great Hall. Where the main door should be though, a tall tower rose and disappeared into the ceiling. We searched this room for a time, and found numerous secret passages leading to an old stable, a tree growing in a sunlit room, an empty room that seemed to stretch on forever, and a pair of long hallways. We followed one at random, no longer able to rely on logic or common sense. We discovered a small parlor lit by a kerosene lamp, and at it’s end there was a glass door with a dagger drawn on it’s window. It was locked, so we broke through and found ourselves in a small library. Virginia and Luck rifled through the shelves, lookin’ for alchemy books, but I was much more interested in the open window at the east end of the room. I breathed a sigh of relief as I came to the window- then stared in astonishment at the sight. The window did not lead to Vash. There was indeed as sky overhead, gently raining, and trees and mountains in the distance- but the ground was covered in wooden floors as far as I could see, and the geography was completely alien and dissimilar to the area around Vash. I explored the outside of the window briefly, with Sandra providin’ cover from the window, but found only an old boot.
I started checkin’ the shelves as well- Virginia had collected quite a few valuable books- and found one that looked interesting. When I tried to pull it out though, I heard a click, and the staircase pulled aside to reveal a staircase leadin’ down. I honestly don’t know what I was thinkin’ but I headed down. I found some… interesting things down there… it was… um, I found a Seed, let’s leave it at that. But on the way back up, I found myself in a different part of the house, all alone.

After wanderin’ alone for a long time, I found myself an exit. Feelin’ much relieved to be back on Vash soil, I nonetheless was quite worried about the others, so I started makin’ my way from window to window, shoutin’ for em. Finally, I found a window where I could hear a faint noise, the sound of distant speaking… unfortunately, I was far from certain that the voices were any of my companions. Still, it was all I had to go on, so I hopped inside and headed for the door. Behind me, the sunlight suddenly died out…
I turned around to see some kind wall of black moss blocking out my view of the window. Before I could ponder this conundrum, it suddenly lunged forward. Something sharp stabbed into me in four places, piercing through my tough coat like it was baby. I unloaded the shotgun in the darkness, and heard an inhuman squeal of pain. I rushed around the mass in front of me and leapt through the window. I was bleedin’ badly, but was far more worried about the creature that was after me. I waited, watchin’.
From the window, a tall, hairy leg emerged, taller than me and jointed in several places. It was followed by 7 more, and then a bulbous, shaggy body squeezed through. It was a Plague, but worse than any I’d ever seen before- a massive spider made of interwoven strands of moss and vines. The fight was desperate and frantic, but once I’d made it on to my horse it had become clear that I could not handle this thing alone. I came up with a desperate last ditch plan. If this failed, I was a goner…
I fired my rifle, blastin’ two of it’s legs. I hoped that would slow it down. Then I turned my horse and rode at full speed down the long ramp that led up to the manor. We were goin’ too fast, the horse was fallin’ as much as runnin’-I was worried he’d break a leg-but I had no time to slow it. I drew out my ace in the hole- a uranium grenade. I threw it as hard as I could, and when we hit the bottom I leapt off the horse and scrambled for the nearest bit of cover I could find. The blast lit up the whole sky green, and when I came around there was a massive crater filled with bits of glowin’ green spider.

Heavily injured, with no options for medical support, I ate the strange Seed I found in beneath the house.

I drifted, strange sounds and images in my head. The Seed worked as I had hoped, bolstering my bodies natural healing and givin’ me the strength to keep going- but it was doin’ something’ else too. When I came too, I saw Sandy’s face leanin’ over me, but inside and behind her I could see something too- some kind of outline of light, like I could suddenly see into the very fabric of reality. Very mystical like. I reached out, and my hand disappeared into the fold in the air before me. I tried puttin’ something else inside- a single bullet- and found that I could store things within and draw them out at will. For some reason, Sandy and Virginia did not seem too impressed with my reality altering powers. They seemed to think it was some kind of trick.
Anyhey, while I was trippin’ out, Sandy had run into some trouble of her own. She killed some Plagues, but eventually found the place where ol’ Grims had been stayin’. They’d found some paintin’s that looked important- including one of Leer, and another of Grims, some creepy young lady covered in crows (whom I surmised was Old Lady Winchester at a younger age), and an older man who looked like he could have been Dale Canton’s grandpa. Well, we’d got what we came for, so we headed back to Leer’s Canyon.

And that’s when things went south. We arrived at sunset, and spotted a single figure standing silhouetted by the light, seemingly staring directly into the sun. At the entrance to the canyon, we approached cautiously, and to are surprise, found the familiar figure of Clutch Gallows standing alive and well. His skin had gone grayish, the veins livid against his skin. His body was filthy, covered in dirt from his grave. And his eyes were a curiously pale color, and seemed to move independently from each other, staring in separate directions at once. In his hand, he held the Elemental Seed created from his life-force.

“Hello again…” He said. “I’m back… good to see you again.” He grinned, as though he were in on some private joke. “I’ll be back to see you… Right now, there’s something I have to do. I think I’ll take this Seed. It’s only fair. It’s mine, after all.”

If only we had thought to stop him. At the time, we were torn, feeling guilty over his death and mistreatment of his body, and we had no idea what he was up too. We rushed quickly to Leer, to see if she could explain this. Unfortunately, Leer was not in a talkative mood. She had barricaded herself in the tree and was covered in vines, sleeping. All of the graves dug for Grims victims were empty, dug up. They must have set out in separate ways, each with a Seed, ready to plant a half a dozen more of Leer’s cursed Oasis. And then, of course, she’d want to spread more. And all she needed to create more Seeds was more dead bodies…
It got worse. Cameron came and told me how, just this morning, he’d found ten people dead in they’re beds, strangled by some dark growth coming out of the ground. The townsfolk had buried them in the Grove- ten more Seeds in the making.
Now the town is broken up, everyone going they’re own ways. What we thought was our paradise, a new hope for the wasteland, is the fortress of a monster. I’m not sure what we are going to do, but we have to do something. This was our doing; our fault. We’re the only ones to blame.
Virginia found some useful information in that book of hers. It seems that the Philosophers Stone, when applied to water, will cause a quick growth of glass that will cover everything, just like in the canyon where we found Leer’s Seed.
We’ll see how Leer likes that, but I cannot feel hopeful. Her minions are already out there, growing.

Game Review: Bioshock

I recently played through the original Bioshock for the first time (yeah, I’m way behind on the times), so I thought I’d try and write up my thoughts on the matter. After I’d finished playing, I found myself thinking something along the lines of “pretty good, but it’s no Half Life 2,” Half Life 2 being the game that I essentially use as a quality benchmark for all games. The next day, while slaving mindlessly away at work, I found myself wondering exactly why I felt this way. After all, both games are First Person Shooters, meaning the vast majority of the time is spent using bullets to try and make enemies stop being alive. Naturally, this should mean that whichever game deals with the shooting best should be the better game. And at first glance, it would seem that Bioshock should win this contest by a landslide.
Half Life 2 has the Gravity Gun, and the usual assortment of typical shooter armaments. Bioshock has a wide variety of weaponry, each with not one but 3 types of alternative fire, and doesn’t stick to just conventional weaponry. The grenade launcher, chemical thrower, and crossbow are all notably absent from the “standard” 1st Person Shooter selection of weaponry, though it can’t really get too much credit for the crossbow since Half Life did it first. In addition to guns, Bioshock also has a wide selection of what are essentially magic spells, all of which do something other than simply make people dead. With all of these unique, innovative abilities, Bioshock seems like it should pull easily ahead of Half Life 2 in quality. So I’m going to try and figure out exactly why I found Bioshock lacking. The first thing I noticed was that things that make Half Life 2 so great and Bioshock less great are certainly not the sort of things you’d ever see mentioned on the back of the box. I’ve certainly never seen a game that advertises itself as having Great Pacing, Less Irritation, and Less Monotony!

Pacing:
It’s almost a misnomer to call Half Life 2 a First Person Shooter. It’s certainly 1st Person, and you do a lot of Shooting, but that’s hardly what Half Life 2 is all about. Just as a quick example, in the original Half Life 2, you start out weaponless, exploring an immersive, story driven area, are quickly thrown into an extended chase sequence, must solve puzzles, pilot a boat while being chased by a helicopter, shoot down said helicopter, more story, navigate a zombie infested area killing them with clever traps and improvised weapons, explore a wide, varied area with a vehicle you can get in and out of at will, lead an army of unlimited monsters into a heavily guarded prison, solve more puzzles, lead squads of not-unlimited soldiers through a social revolution, solve puzzles, then lose all of your weapons except for a supercharged, ultra-powerful Gravity Gun, then mow down hordes of enemies while solving puzzles. So, in other words, Half Life 2 is an extremely varied gaming experience, with each level having numerous changes in gameplay to ensure you never get bored.
In Bioshock, you kill people. Then you kill more people, find new and interesting ways to kill more people, then you kill some more people then you kill the cover art of Atlas Shrugged. This is probably the biggest problem with Bioshock. It doesn’t matter how much fun any one given action is, if you repeat it over and over for hours it will eventually lose it charm. Now, the developers were obviously aware of this problem, taking care to develop a wide variety of methods for killing people to mix up the combat and making sure to throw in a lot of (optional) hacking into the mix, but this is let down by some other flaws. After awhile, I noticed that I was having the most fun whenever I wasn’t killing people, and was able to just explore the area and take in all of the wonderful attention-to-detail and level design.

Enemy Variance:



While Bioshock definitely gets a passing grade for making sure they’re weapons are varied, they failed spectacularly with the enemies. In Bioshock, there are supposedly 4 or 5 types of enemies, but I only noticed 2: Splicers and Big Daddies. Now, I’m well aware that the Splicers can have a differing variety of equipment and abilities, but the problem is that they all look roughly the same. 90% of the time, I’d kill every Splicer in the room and only learn what kind of Splicer they were from the little text-display while I looted they’re bodies. Not only that, but the game seemed somehow reluctant to throw the rarer sort of enemies at me. I’d often go for more than an hour or so before I ran into another Houdini Splicer or Nitro Splicer, which are by far the most interesting to fight. Also, one should try not to make enemies different for no reason. Sure, the Spider Splicers can run around on the walls and ceilings and do crazy acrobatics, but in reality this simply meant they made themselves incredibly easy targets while they spent 5 seconds straight doing slow cartwheels while I poured entire clips of machine gun ammo into they’re stupid ballerina faces.
To contrast, Half Life 2 also has a very limited amount of enemies, which is certainly one of it’s weaknesses, but they are much more interesting than Bioshock’s binary enemy selection. Half Life 2 doesn’t just have multiple enemies, it has multiple factions, meaning you can go for an hour or so just facing one type of enemy and then switch to an entirely different type of enemy, which comes with an entirely different kind of gameplay. And most importantly, you can pit these factions against each other and just watch while they waste they’re resources fighting each other. I think three-way combat is one of the absolute most fun things you can have in a 1st Person Shooter, and Bioshock for the most part steers away from this. Sure, you occasionally find Splicers trying to kill a Big Daddy, but unless you decide to get involved the final outcome of such a fight is already decided. What’s worse is that Bioshock’s story, with Ryan vs. Fontaine and Tenenbaum on the sidelines, makes such a multi-sided conflict not only possible but likely.

Immersion/Believability:
I’m not really sure how to title this so I’ll give you an example to show you what I mean.
In Fallout 3, there’s this little segment that pops up whenever you use the game’s auto-attacking V.A.T.S. System that suddenly throws the game into slow motion, switches to a dramatic camera angle, and zooms in as you fire. It’s pretty cool (although it does get repetitive), but the problem arises when you fail to kill whatever your shooting. When the game zooms in and slows down to show me fire a hi-powered assault shotgun at point blank into someone’s face three times, only to have the keep on running and shooting, it makes me do a double take. Guns are pretty deadly, lethal things, and any game that decides to treat them like slingshots quickly loses immersion factor. I eventually found the only way to have fun with Fallout 3 was to max out my gun skill, keep my hp low, and ramp the difficulty up to the top. This made it so that every enemy died in one or two satisfying shots, but still did enough damage to keep the game challenging.
In Half Life 2, the game is rarely “hard.” After all, killing you requires you to submit to a flow-breaking, irritating loading screen, so the best way to keep a game fun is to avoid killing you while constantly making it feel as if you might die, and Half Life 2 does this pretty well. The enemies can do seriously large amounts of damage, but they still die as fast as you’d expect when you pump two barrels of buckshot into them at point blank. It’s a very good balance.
Bioshock, sadly, get’s the worst of both worlds.
The game starts out ridiculously easy, with most enemies dying from a single bullet to the toe. Quite often in the early game, I’d be prowling some dingy ruined room looking for glowy bits when suddenly a gibbering Splicer would jump out like one of those guys in a Halloween haunted house. I’d usually be so surprised that I’d instinctively squeeze the trigger button… and the enemy would drop dead before I’d even realized what it was. This even happened when I was faced with multiple enemies. I remember when I first picked up the shotgun and 4 Splicers ran into the room, I accidentally killed them all with the machinegun before I could remember how to switch to my new shotgun. And of course, if the enemies do manage to hit you (which they seem kind of reluctant to do, maybe they’re all squeamish or something) it barely fazes you and you can just scarf down one of the nearly unlimited Health Packs your lugging around.
“Okay, then.” says Bioshock. “You think my enemies are too easy? Well how about if I take the exact same enemies and occasionally give one of them around 9001 HP so that it can take an entire 40 Round magazine of machine gun bullets to the face without dying. That’ll learn ya. And for good measure, I’ll just make EVERY enemy for the last half of the game like that.”
Well, no, see this doesn’t really help. For one thing, it doesn’t actually make the game any harder. I killed these ridiculous bullet-proof psychopaths just as easily as I did the little hemophilic morons at the beginning of the game- it just took longer. In addition, it had the probably unintended effect of making every Plasmid-the game’s coolest and most notable feature- completely useless. Sure, it’s cool to be able to snap your fingers and set a guy on fire, but it sort of loses it’s charm once you realize you can kill him quicker by pelting him to death with stuffed animals. See, the game’s Plasmids can to a lot of cool stuff, but all of them boil down to Rpg Status Effects of some sort, meaning you still have to switch over to your gun if you actually want them dead. After awhile I just cut out the middle man and started using nothing but the machinegun.
That’s all for now, I’ve already written so much no one’s ever likely to actually read all this. I have some suggestions for how Bioshock could have been a much better game, but I’ll save those for a different post. Oh, and I’d like to make the disclaimer that Bioshock is by no means a bad game. It’s a good game, quite fun, atmospheric, and engaging and all that stuff. It’s just disappointing in that it was very close to becoming a Great game, but ended up bogged down by so many little problems along the way.

Jackrum's Log, Session 3

I actually really didn't like this session, as I was in a dark mood and had just come off a nine hour shift at work. Looking back at it objectively, it was pretty cool. Though I wish I had gotten a chance for some combat. I love roleplaying, probably more than any of my friends, but too much of it at a time and you just get burnt out. We played the 4th session last night though, and it MORE than made up for this one. Hopefully I'll have it logged sometime before Friday.

It’s been more’n a week since I last updated my log. To be honest, I just haven’t had the time. Been so busy, almost overwhelmed actually, and… well, I’ll just go ahead and tell it from the last point I left off. I’m gonna go a lot faster and less “in-depth” than before, cause we ain’t got time to waste these days. Here goes:

When last I wrote, we had just found accidentally caused the creation of a new Oasis, complete with an Alchemical plant girl who calls herself Leer. We were still reelin from the sudden death of Clutch, but we decided to go ahead and get him buried. Leer volunteered to take care of it though, saying that she could ‘recycle’ his remains, keeping them within her island’s roots and revitalizing him into another Elemental Seed. Naturally we were a bit split on this issue. It seemed pretty cold to go and turn our old comrades body into a priceless artifact- even if he was a backstabbin’ horse thief. On the other hand, creatin’ another Oasis in the wasteland would be a major point for the common good. After Leer assured us that it was a dignified method, we agreed, and Clutch was interned beneath the great tree’s roots. Leer informed us that it would be about ten days until the Seed was prepared.
We decided it was time we learned something about this alchemy girl, so we decided to ask some questions. It went something like this:

Us: “So how come we found you in that valley?”

Leer: “Memory Fractured.”

“How were you made, and who made you?”

“Memory Fractured.”

“How come you don’t wear any clothes?”

“Memory Fra- I mean, Leer does not require epidermal coverings.”

Anyway, it was obvious she didn’t really know much herself, but we quickly learned that this Oasis was going to be a pretty huge deal. The forest had spread to cover the whole canyon, which was around 2 or 3 miles wide- plenty of room for a small town. She informed us that the trees had grown fruit that was ready for pickin’- more’n 300 lbs of it. That’s worth about as much as 300 Arms. Back when I was runnin’ the Brass Twister, I was the 2nd richest man in Clearwater, and I never had more’n a 100 Arms in stock at a time. In a single stroke, the three of us had become some of the richest land owners in the whole Fort Wake area. Of course, if we didn’t want that fruit to overripe and decay, we had to get some people out here to start harvestin right away. Our Oasis needed some townsfolk to settle it.
Before we left, though, Leer showed us a nifty feature. She took 15 of the bloodseeds I had acquired- we called em’ Cranberries- and tossed em’ in the water. In minutes, five giant cats made out of briars and vines rose out, following’ our commands. Well, more like Leer’s commands, but she listen’d to us right, so same difference really. She called em’ Guardians, and we called em’ Briarcats. We left 3 to guard the Oasis and 2 to see us safely back to Clearwater.

By bizarre coincidence, we met a young man on the way back. He was tied to a horse’s saddle and was bein’ dragged around the wasteland. Obviously the work of varmints and scoundrels.
After Sandy lassoed the horse, I was surprised to see my young nephew Luck, the son of my brother who lives in Bakerton in the East. My brother had written to me about two years back ‘bout how young Luck had run off with his inheritance, and how he’d like to disown the fool boy. Lookin’ at em now, I’d guess the inheritance was long gone. Lost in a card game the way he tol’ it, along with all his possessions. Well, family is family and he was in no condition to brave the wasteland, so I loaned him a small arm and suggested he follow along with us to Clearwater. He were quite surprised to see our Briarcats, and all the way back I had to tell him the story of how we’d created our own Oasis.

By the time we got there, though, we quickly learned things had changed. After Luck got some rest and some water in em’, he told us a tale of how Clearwater had become an armed camp full of mercenaries and ruffians from Little Raindrop, hired on by the Water Baron to prepare for a fight with Mr. Canton. Virginia seethed and raged about how Mr. Cassidy were abandoning her brother Gust- still held hostage by Mr. Canton. I tried to calm her down, tellin’ her there were no cause for hysterics-

“Oh, Mr. Cassidy also changed the economic basis of the town.” Luck said. “It’s an agricultural export now, they forcibly made all the townsfolk trade in they’re Arms for pepper and spices.” “Pepper?!” I asked.

“Yep, good old black pepper. Huh, wasn’t yer son in charge of a Gun Shop uncle? I guess he’s probably rich in pepper now.” Luck said.

“Pepper!?” I cried. This was inexcusable. This was a travesty. My boy Jesse’s whole inheritance was in that shop! Mr. Janos Cassidy wasn’t gonna get away with this!

After me and Virginia calmed down, we decided to go in and try and reason with the man. Luck warned us our Arms would be taken at the border, so Sandy reminded us of an ol’ abandoned shed nearby where we could hide our things. We left em there and headed for the town, carryin’ only our personal weapons. Leer’s cats we left at the shed as well.

Janos agreed to meet with his daughter, and I forced my way in as well. The conversation did not go well. Janos admitted as much that he’d already written off Gust- his own son- as a loss and didn’t particularly care what happened to him. He was gonna keep his Oasis, and he was more’n less invitin’ Canton to come and try and take it. But in the process, he had ruined the town’s economy, and stolen away hundred’s of peoples wealth for himself. I told em’ he was no better than Canton. I had nothing much else to say to the man, so I asked him what happened to Jesse.

“Who? Oh, your son. Right, that little criminal. He was caught distributing contraband after the ban on gun sales. He’s been locked up in the tanty. Your welcome to pay his bale- the price is set at 100 Arms.” I longed to wipe that smug grin off his fat froggy face with a right hook, but I managed to restrain myself.
I couldn’t help Jesse if I were locked up with em’.

Back in the town, I came up with a plan.

“Look, all you have to do is glance around and you can see the folk here ain’t happy with this.” I said. Around us, folk were rushin from house to house, keeping they’re heads down, avoiding the swaggering hired scum waltzin around like they owned the place. Little freakin’ Raindrop, ain’t nothing’ good ever come out that place.

“So, here’s the idea. We don’t want to start no shootin’ here, so how about’s we just let people know there’s a new option? We get as many people as we can to leave town, take all they’re possessions and head for Leer’s canyon. We’ll start a new town there, a fair town with reasonable laws, and in the process Cassidy loses his work force. Without honest folk to steal from, he’ll not be able to pay his mercenaries, and the whole deal falls apart. Then folk can head back to Clearwater if they want… but we’ll still have the town up and runnin. It solves all our problems in a drop of a hat.” I smiled, pretty pleased with my idea.

“Yeah, except one.” Sandra said. “Jesse.”

“Oh don’t worry. I ain’t leavin’ without Jesse.”

Virginia and Luck headed back to the hidin’ spot to take our Arms- that bastard Janos number one slug Clint had informed us that all our Arms would be confiscated if we still had them within the hour. We spoke first to my good friend Cameron Smoke, owner of the Desert Eagle saloon. He told us all the dreary tales of the Baron’s latest outrages- and wholeheartedly agreed to our plan to start a new town. He pulled up some loose floorboards in his back room, revealin’ his Arms and a single Depleted Uranium Shell.

“How’s this do for my first month’s rent?” He asked with a grin. He agreed to get together those he thought we could trust and get them to move out to Leer’s canyon. We suggested they move quickly, as the Baron would surely stop them if he knew about it in advance. He assured us he’d get em’ movin’ by tomorrow morning.

Next came Jesse. I do have to admit, it was a sad sad sight to see my son in jailhouse stripes. He were surprised to see me in good shape- a bit too surprised. Seems like he thought I’d get myself into trouble out in the wasteland. Is a little confidence from my son too much to ask?
While the sheriff flirted with Sandy, I told Jesse I were planning’ to break him out tomorrow night, after the townsfolk had left. I ain’t never been one to scoff at the Law, but when the law stops protectin’ folk and starts trampling on em-

“Oh, hey a visitor! This your daddy?” I realized that Jesse had a cell-mate. To my dismay, I realized he were the same bearded man from the train- the one who’d refused to give back my shotgun.

“You, uh… planning’ an escape?” He whispered loudly. “I can help ya’ get out. I’m good with my fists.” I didn’t see no way around it. If I were bustin’ out Jesse, there wasn’t much of a way to not free this fella too.

“What’s your name sir?” I asked.

“Russell Tam. Oh, I’m sorry about that shotgun. I’d give it back, but I broke it over the deputy’s head when I ran out of ammo.” I’m sure we were gonna get along fine…

Later on, after the townsfolk had left and Virginia and Luck had come back, we set about breakin’ out Jesse. Turn’s out Sandy’s house used to belong to the sheriff, and had an old underground cellar that leads right up to the inside of Jesse’s cell. Huh. That sure is convenient.
Anyway, Sandy managed to convince the sheriff to meet her for a late night date (which she had NO intention of showing up for) meanin’ we only had the one deputy to worry about. Now, Sandy’s a right smart girl and has quite a way with words, so she came to the door and tol’ the deputy a story ‘bout one of the Little Raindrop fella’s tryin’ to sell her some Arms. Unfortunately, this deputy was surprisingly smart and saw through the trick. She quickly knocked him out while I broke through the cell wall with a pickaxe. We broke out the cell and found the armory- fully stocked with all the Arms taken from the townsfolk. Jesse picked the lock, while I took a brief detour into the kitchen. I returned as Jesse was loadin’ up ALL the stolen guns and ammo. Feelin’ very generous at the time, I decided to leave Baron Cassidy a little somethin’ in exchange.
I placed a single pepper shaker in the empty gun locker and locked it up for em’.

We escaped from the town with an old boat my Jesse got fixed up, and arrived at the Oasis just as Cameron was leadin’ the townsfolk in. They’d got lucky- no plague attacks- and were quite astonished to see they’re new home. Since then, it’s been an absolute whirlwind of activity, with us settin’ up a town, buldin’ houses, assigning public figures and all the things needed for a new town. A newspaper man came out of Canton to record it all- followed shortly by Mr. Canton himself. He wanted to buy Leer from us, and was quite rude, but we turned him down of course. We’re gonna go right on getting more and more seeds until we can fill the entire Fort Wake area with green Oasis’, and everything is going to change. I can feel it. Of course, Leer needs corpses to make more seeds… that’s gonna be hard to explain to the people. But honestly, where’s the harm in it? It’s not like we’re gonna be killin’ folk. We’re just gonna make the island into our cemetery. It’s dignified, and for the good of everyone.
We’re gonna make the world a better place, I swear. I just wish the island smelled a little more fresh. I would’ve thought the process would break down Clutch’s body… but I swear I can still smell it down there. Anyway, bringin all that up is too much of a trouble at this point in time, so we’re just gonna keep quiet about the whole thing until it’s necessary to talk about it.
Leer didn’t seem to like Canton much though. She seemed worried actually. Like she recognized him, and didn’t much care for em’. I tried to ask her what was up.

“Memory Fractured.”

-Jackrum Twister.

Pulp Sci-Fi Theater

I came up with this idea about a year and a half ago. It was just a quick little flash of inspiration I came up with in about 5 minutes of boring Spanish Class. I had no illusions that it was anything special, but thought I'd go ahead and jot it down just as an entertaining plot idea. One of my friends thought I was being a bit more serious than I was and promptly tore it to pieces, pointing out all of it's many cliches and logical inconsistencies, which I found amusing. Looking back at it, I agree it's nothing special, but I think with a bit of polish and a nice animation budget, it could be turned into a pretty cool action movie. Nothing all that intelligent or thought inspiring, but a nice action movie at least. I do think it's somewhat unique in that it's a Giant Robot Anime with only a single pair of Giant Robots; most of the combat is against conventional weaponry like jets, tanks, and ships. Here it is:

The year is 2035. Technology hasn't advanced all that much, but history is repeating itself as America and her allies face off with The Russian-Chinese Union in a Nuclear standoff, with the possibility of worldwide destruction a daily threat.
Out of nowhere, a giant humanoid robot (a la Gundam) appears and attacks a Russian missile base, killing thousands and destroying the base. Equipped with extremely advanced technology, the Robot can magnetically deflect any missile attack, move freely between land, sea, and air, and can reach speeds inaccessible by any modern aircraft. The Russian Air Force pursues the Robot, but it retreats to the east, into American air space. The Union quickly blames the U.S. for the attack, but the American President assures them they are not responsible and will shoot down the unknown bogey immediately.
Off the coast of Alaska, the Robot encounters an American fleet and swarm of aircraft. They are dealt heavy damage, and the Robot flees up through the atmosphere directly into space, crashing into a spy satellite and sending it crashing down into the ocean. From around the dark side of the moon, an unknown spacecraft approaches and begins repairing and rearming the Robot.
On the surface, the U.S. and Union call for a halt of hostilities and focus on the unknown enemy. Russian scientists work on researching the damaged pieces of the Robot recovered, while America works on the building of massive rail guns for attacking the Robot as it reenters the atmosphere. After thirty two hours, the Robot dives back down into the atmosphere, dodging the rail guns as it enters. It returns down to the sea and captures an aircraft carrier. It takes the crew hostage, and, using text-only transmissions, orders the crew to transport it to Japan. The Americans, hoping for time to develop a method of countering the Robot, agree, and battle ceases as the carrier sails for Japan.
Arriving at Japan, the Robot enters Tokyo and transmits to the country. Revealing himself for the first time is pilot Nataku Yamato, of 1/2 Japanese, 1/4 Korean, and 1/4 Nigerian descent. He requests Japanese citizenship and sanctuary from the Superpowers in exchange for military and technological assistance, on condition that if he is killed or his machine taken their country will be destroyed by his "allies". He gives the Japanese two hours to respond. While the Japanese debate, the American President and leaders of the Russian-Chinese Union meet in secret on board a battleship in the pacific.
Japan agrees to Nataku's terms and he exits his craft and meets with the leaders of Japan, giving them computer data to make extremely advanced technology including Alternate Energy Reactors. Shortly thereafter, America and the Union declare war on Japan.
Cut to 6 months later.
The Superpowers are at war with Japan, which is backed by a vast number of minor countries throughout the world, having given support in exchange for the Alternate Energy Reactors. Battle rages back and forth, encompassing the entirety of the world. The world is shocked as another Humanoid Robot appears and attacks the Japanese force and Nataku's machine. He is saved only by the use of the Temporal Disrupters within his machine, capable of bending time and space around itself. The new machine appears in Nigeria and aligns itself with Africa and the Superpowers.
Cut to 6 months later.
The war has reached the heartland of Africa, and as battles rage all around the two pilots duel with their machines on the plains of the African Savanah. As they battle with their Temporal Disruptors, a portal storm appears in the sky overhead and devastates the area. Both machines are damaged to the point of being inoperative. Nataku drags himself out of the machine and across the field to his enemy. He tries his own access code on the cockpit and is surprised to find that it works. Inside, he comes face to face with a pilot that looks exactly like himself. They both draw guns and fire, killing each other.

Cut to 20 years later.

The war is over, both sides having halted once the instigators of the war were dead. The Temporal Storm over Africa eventually transformed the bulk of the continent into an agricultural Eden capable of feeding 3/4 of the worlds population. Throughout the world, Alternate Energy Reactors are now common place. In the middle east, a 14 year cease fire continues as the Oil rich countries try to deal with the loss of their wealth. Despite these losses, the standard of living for the average people in these countries is increased as Alternate Energy is now available. The Union and American allies have ended hostilities, and a new era of scientific discovery has begun as the remains of the future machines are studied. In Africa, the bodies of the two Nataku's are displayed publicly at the Tomb of Two. Some call them terrorists. Some call them warmongers. Others call them saviors. No matter what the opinion, their name is known to all the people of the world.

Cut to Post Apocalyptic wasteland, where a small city in a dome is struggling to survive. A scientist, who appears to be Natakus father, considers the risk he has taken in sending his son back to try and change the past, not subtly, but with a hammer strike. Knowing nothing other than his son is now dead, he returns to his life of waiting for humanity to die.

Gainax WTF endings FTW.

So, would you go see it?

Game Design: Innocence

Hypothetical Game Design: Innocence

Here is a hypothetical bit of game design I came up with. This is only the very basic seed of an idea, not anything too in depth. I don’t think I’ll ever likely be actually involved with making games, so this is really just a fun exercise. Here goes:

Working Title: Innocence
Box Art: (Sigh, if only I casually happened to have epic art skills I could just whip something up real fast. As a writer, I’ll have to stick with text.) A twelve year old girl, standing with an exhausted slouch, looking straight towards the viewer with haunted, tired eyes. She is dirty, disheveled, with torn clothes and a bloody scratch on one arm. There is a handgun held loosely in her hand. Behind her is a dark and debris strewn room. I do have a basic character design for her but it's not really important to mention it right now.

Genre: 1st Person Shooter, but with considerable less focus on shooting than most such games. Basically a shooter, stealth, puzzle hybrid, consisting of frequent shifts between styles of gameplay to avoid boredom (in other words… like Half Life). Combat consists more of frantic running and dodging rather than firing from cover as in most modern shooters. Actually, it would probably be pretty close to 1st Person Survival Horror.

Goal: To place the player into the role of Hope, a twelve year old girl who is suddenly having to survive a terrible series of dangers. Basically, to shift from the typical Ultra Manly Unstoppable Killing Machine Space Marine 9001 to a ragged survivor type. The point is to make the player feel like they’ve managed to survive an impossible situation through ingenuity and sheer determinism.

Story: The player takes on the role of a twelve year old girl completely unprepared for having to fight for her life, mostly alone, and heavily outmatched. The story (which is purely in original inspiration mode right now, it would certainly be improved were this going to be truly worked on) is that Hope is the daughter of an important scientist at a secretive and highly funded research facility, isolated far from society in the mountains of Colorado.
During a weekend, her father brings her to the base to spend some time with him. On the way in she is introduced to several co-workers and has the opportunity to note that the facilities security force is quite large and very well-armed. Shortly after arriving, an experiment takes place attempting to allow the scientists to see into an alternate dimension. Something (of course) goes horribly wrong, and creatures from the other dimension cross over and begin to emit some kind of psychic wave. The wave causes all of the humans in the facility to become extremely violent and enraged. The only ones not effected by the waves are Hope and another young boy named David. This is because they’re brains are not yet fully developed, causing them to be unaffected by the creatures psychic powers. With all of the adults gone insane and the facility being invaded by monsters from another dimension, Hope must escape alive.

Game Design: Aside from simply being fun, the main goal of this game’s design would be too make the player feel they are playing as a young girl instead of a gun-toting-refrigerator-on-wheels. There are a number of ways I would try to achieve this.

Perspective- As a twelve-year old girl, Hope is rather short. Most FPS protagonists tend to be more than 6 feet tall, so the change in perspective would give Innocence a more unique look as well as being immersive. With the perspective set at a little over 4 foot, the player would only come up to most men’s chests, making the enemies seem to tower over the player and therefore making them more fearsome.

Combat Style- As a young girl with no combat experience, Hope is not suited to guns. Shooting causes significant recoil, making guns difficult to fire accurately and impossible to use at rapid fire. To balance this, I would make guns in this game considerably more effective than in most games. A normal enemy would typically die in 1 or 2 shots, making combat a frantic and quick affair. I would also take the opportunity to shake up the typical weapon sorting order found in most games. The first weapons to come available would be a shotgun and sub-machine gun, but the recoil on them would make them extremely difficult to use. Getting a small pistol later on would be a much more effective and easy to use weapon, completely reversing the way guns work in most games.

Weapon Carrying- In most Shooters, you can carry a ridiculous number of weapons and ammo around with no affect on your movement. This would be averted in Innocence. Guns are heavy for a kid, so the player would be restricted to carrying a single loaded gun at a time, a la Mirror’s Edge, and the larger the gun the more it would slow down movement. Hope would be able to run very quickly while unarmed, slightly slower when armed with a pistol, and much slower when carrying a rifle or shotgun. The player would be encouraged to remain unarmed (but for a melee knife) when not in direct combat. This would be handled by the fact that there will be a lot of dead security officers, and each one of them would be armed. This would lead to a gameplay style of sneaking and running, only picking up a nearby gun when you were spotted and under attack.

Maneuverability- Hope should be a lot more maneuverable than your average shooter hero. With the use of a catch all Action Button, you should be able to hop up on tables, slide beneath desks, scramble over debris, etc. Conversely, the enemies would be somewhat clumsy chasing after and single-mindedly attacking. Since guns would be a difficult to use weapon, a lot of gameplay would focus on avoiding enemies or defeating them through some use of the terrain (so long as its not exploding barrels. No FPS should ever have explosive barrels ever again). Imagine a boss battle in a cafeteria full, frantically ducking under tables while being pursued by a massive monster, running from body to body snatching up guns and firing off the remaining ammo until each one goes empty.

I’ll probably re-visit these ideas later on, as I have some more ideas (including one unique weapon that would really shake up the gameplay), but that’s all I really have to say about it for now. Let me know if it sounds like a fun game. Oh yeah, and let me know if you want to hire me to make it :). Especially if your from Valve.

Jackrum's Log Session 2

Today’s session was pretty crazy, made up of a bunch of little semi-related incidents leading up to one major event. It begins with the (expected) betrayal of our good old NPC pal Clutch. The ending was quite unexpected to me though, seeing as how badly I’m used to seeing in Tropes.

BTW, if I go all bold like this in the middle of the text, that’s me as the player breaking the narrative to say something about the game.

Here goes-

Jackrum’s Log, January 19th

Sigh… why are people so unreasonable? We all want the same things, we all want to get along, but there’s always some people out there who’ll want to cause trouble and screw things up for everyone. People who lie, rob, and kill. People who steal my horse! But I’m getting ahead of myself, it’s best to start at the beginning. So.

This mornin, after a nice cozy night at home, I awoke to a terrible surprise. Tornado, my faithful steed for the past 3 years, was gone, whisked right out of my stables in the dead of night. I was quite alarmed, woke up my son Jesse who unfortunately quite useless seeing as how he just can’t get started without a couple a cups o’ coffee in em. After confirming he truly was gone and payin a fruitless visit to the office of the Sheriff, I happened to run into Miss Sandra on the street, headin down to the saloon to meet me and Clutch. We had been planning to head out north to Canton today to see about selling that Elemental Seed we got ahold of yesterday. She was right annoyed to hear about my poor Tornado bein stolen, and as we were talkin a young lady I’ve seen around town before headed towards as though she had somethin to talk about.
The girl in question was Miss Virginia Cassidy, the daughter of Janos Cassidy, the water-baron of Clearwater and the only man in town in better finances than myself. She’s a bit of a tomboy to be honest, but she used to be Clutch’s girlfriend up until she dumped em about a month ago. Odd thing was, she was leadin three spry frontier horses, much stronger and hardier than a simple packhorse like my Tornado (though of course he’s always served me well).

“Ya’ll are talkin about Clutch aren’t you?” Virginia said.

“Um, no, Miss, not actually. We’re talkin about the thief that stole my horse!”

“Like I said: Clutch.”

She quickly explained as to how Clutch had showed up at her house last night, tryin to get they’re old romance started up again and talkin about how he was gonna be a rich man. She said she went by his house later and found out he was gone, along with everything he needed for a wasteland trip- including our priceless Elemental Seed. But more importantly, he stole my TORNADO!

“Uh, Jackrum, I think your missin the important aspect of the story here.” Sandra reminded me.

Right. So Clutch had our Seed and he’d done a runner, headed to who knows where to make a fortune off of our prize. With my horse.

“If your goin after him, you should take me with you.” Virginia said. “I know Clutch better’n anyone, and I think I know where he’s goin. If you help me out, I’ll let you keep 2/3s of the profit we make off of the Elemental Seed.”

Little pushy aren’t we? I was quick to point out that while I am an experienced, official Treasure Hunter, she was only a young girl who didn’t know anything about shootin and trackin. She claimed she could take care of herself, and against my better judgment, I decided to acquiesce. Virginia provided us with the frontier horses she had brought. Sandra took the white one while I ended up with the black. He was a good horse, fast, strong, solid, loyal and fearless too. But, he wasn’t Tornado.

“Anyway, I think Clutch is headin towards Canton.” Virginia said. “We can get there two ways: just head straight and ride for two days, or we can take the train and be there by tomorrow.”

Well we all figured that Clutch snatchin my horse was probably done so he could switch mounts when one got too tired- meanin he was ridin. After some discussion, we decided to take the train and head him off before he made it to Canton. I headed back home to get my gear and say goodbye to Jesse, givin some bullets to Virginia and Sandra to go and buy our tickets. Jesse was all worried I was gonna go off and get shot. He gave me a blunderbuss from the store to help out.

Well, we’re all here on the train now, and getting ready to ride. When I find that horse thief I’m gonna give him a good punch in the teeth.

January 19th, later.

Who would have guessed that goin by train would be so dangerous? Not an hour into our trip, there was a sudden screech and the train grinded to a halt. I heard screamin and hollerin from the front cars (we were in 2nd class. Sure, I could’ve afforded First, but hey, I’m not made of brass), so I decided to go and check it out. Sandy and Virginia stayed back.
Gettin a look at 1st Class, I was startin to regret my frugalness. I was just passin through the dining car when a pair of ruffians burst into the car, a young man packin a Desert Eagle and a woman with an AK-47. They made they’re intentions clear, and I put my hands up so they wouldn’t do anything rash.

“Now ya’ll want to be lookin very intently at your own belly buttons!”

We all got down on the floor while the two of them started makin threats and promises. Fortunately for me, I had all of my gear from my saddle bags with me in my luggage, and I had absentmindedly carried it up to 1st Class with me- meanin I had more’n a dozen guns on me.
Suddenly we heard a very loud flurry of gunshots soundin from the back cars-where I had just come from-and the man with the Eagle decided to go have a look-see. The woman with the AK took out a burlap sack and started goin around to the other passengers, gatherin up they’re brass and belongins. I slipped over to the nearest two passengers with my bag. One was a busboy workin the tables, the other was a large squinty eyed bearded man.

“What you say we take her out?” I whispered.

“You crazy?”

“I’m a gun merchant. Jackrum Twister, of the Brass Twister, Clearwater.” He disinclined to shake hands. “I’ve got so many guns here, we could easily over power her. There’s just one-”

Click. That lovely AK-47 was pointin right down by my face.

“You know what the definition of a hero is?” She asked smugly. “Someone that gets other people killed.”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy tryin to figure out how she had come across the room without me noticin. She reared back and smacked me across the face with her gun, which I have to say was pretty unfounded. As I collapsed, I made sure to drop the gold coin we’d found in the Crystal Valley right at her feet. As I had hoped, her eyes lit up at the sight of the sparkly metal, and she bent down to snatch it.
I kicked out, slammin my boots into her shin, and she stumbled back gruntin. I stuck my hands into my bag and pulled out the biggest gun. Her eyes flashed with fear as I aimed it up at her.

“You know what this is ma’am? This is a 20 gauge, antique, depleted- uranium-shell-firin sawed-off shotgun. It only holds one shot, but one shot is all it needs I can assure you. And if I decide to pull this her trigger, I assure you the results will not be pretty.” Now, I’ve never killed anyone in my life and I certainly don’t hope to start anytime soon, but she didn’t know that and I wanted her scared. From the look on her face, I was doin it right.

“Now, your gonna want to be reachin very quickly for the sky. Without the gun please.” I said. She shook her head, a stubborn look on her face.

“No. I aint goin back. Not again, not ever.” She said.

Sigh. This one has issues.

“Now I didn’t say anything about gettin arrested. Far as I’m concerned, you lay down your arms, you can walk off this train-”

“Like hell she will!” The bearded man shouted. He snatched a shotgun out of my bag, quickly followed by the busboy who grabbed an automatic. With three guns on her, she just looked more stubborn. Things were movin in a grim direction. I only pulled this stunt cause I wanted to protect the people on the train… but I wasn’t goin to sit by and let them shoot this woman if I could help it either.

The gun Jackrum’s got is a rather nice gun that shoots extremely rare ammo. It does a whopping 17 damage, and ignores all armor as well. 17 in our system is almost twice what is needed to instantly drop a default character, and even mine (who’s quite tough and has above average HP) would still likely die in a single shot. Problem is, I’ve also got a Flaw which makes it so that I’m obligated to help and protect people, and will not take a life unless it’s absolutely necessary to prevent further death. As a rule, I simply try to avoid killing whenever possible when I play a character with this Flaw (which is, so far, basically ALL of my characters).

I had to negotiate. I managed to talk the woman into dropping the gun… then had to smack down the bearded nut who tried to shoot her while she was unarmed! Fortunately he was less inclined to shoot at me what with the depleted uranium and all, so I took up her gun and marched her outside. I was plannin to get her to her horse and send her off into the wasteland where she couldn’t cause trouble. There was just one problem- they had another partner, keepin watch with a rifle. I never had a chance to talk, and he didn’t seem too worried about me holdin a gun to his partner’s back. He shot. Faced with no other choice, I pushed the woman aside and fired back.
His bullet whistled by my face with inches too spare. Even though I’ve only been a Treasure Hunter for two days, I’ve been practicin my shootin for years, just as a hobby. I’ve gotten quite good at it. My shot hit him high on the upper arm, and tore a hefty chunk out, just before exploding into an incredibly bright and spectacular lightshow of neon green energy, which I‘m really sure is supposed to happen. He screamed and fell straight off the train, collapsing on the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief. The shotgun I’ve got loses a lot of it’s kick after a few yards- had I been closer, the same shot would have torn off his arm at the least.

I know I said up above that the gun would have killed a normal character in one hit, so I’ll explain. The shotgun is a special weapon I made with our Special Attack ability, which is different from other guns. It does 17 damage, but it only has an effective range of 4 yards. Damage outside of that range is halved- meaning the damage dropped down to 8. Still more than enough to make him think twice about trying to shoot me again.

After some more talkin, I managed to get the woman to grab her friend and get on they’re horses. They rode off, leavin a horse behind. The man with the Desert Eagle was still in there somewhere, but I’d last seen him headin towards the 2nd Class cars, where Sandra and Virginia were. And then there was the matter of that loud gunfire I heard from back there earlier. These thugs didn’t seem to know about it- so did that mean there were more than one group causin trouble on the train? I rushed to find out-

-and found Mr. Desert Eagle with a bloody nose and black eye, unarmed, pushin past me too get on his horse. Bemused, I let him go, retrieved my guns from the passengers (except the bearded man, who insisted he had had the shotgun already and that he’d never touched my bag), and headed back to the girls. I stuck my head into the compartment.

“You girls okay?”

“Just fine.” Sandra said, reloading her guns. Virginia looked bored.

“Alright. Let’s get this train movin.”

Btw, while I was up dealing with the train robbers, Sandra was having a fight of her own which she handled quite easily. She dealt with the Desert Eagle guy too, and without killing anyone, which I found pretty unusual due to her player.

After some mild criticism to the conductor on they’re lack of security, we discovered the train’s equipment was heavily damaged, and that help for the train would likely take more than a day to arrive. Well, there was no way I was gonna sit around waitin while Clutch was runnin off with MY TORNADO, so we grabbed our horses off the cattle cars and took off through the wasteland.
Virginia took out her map and let us know what’s gonna be on the way. First up was a small frontier town called Little Raindrop, where we planned to spend the night and maybe pick up Clutch’s trail, then there was an old abandoned ghost town called Vash beyond that. In all likelihood, we’ll be reachin Canton by tomorrow night. Got a bit of a ride ahead of me, I’ll write more later.

January 19th, night.

This towns quite creepy at night and I’m not yet ready to fall asleep- though I’ve spent the whole day in the saddle- so I figured I’d write a bit. Oh, we’re in Vash, not Little Raindrop, for reasons I will explain now.

Little Raindrop turned out to be quite a mess. It was mighty annoying and I don’t much feel like rememberin it, so I’ll just sum it up in a few short statements. Clutch came to town, met with some old buddies, drew some fake wanted posters, and set his incredibly gullible buddies after us. They tried to arrest us for… I’m not really sure why, then Sandra did some dancin’ and made em all think twice about messin with us. Sigh, so as a result we couldn’t spend the night and went lookin for a good spot in the wilderness to make camp, when we came across this little town.

The town of Vash, an empty ghost town with shudders bangin in the wind. On one side of the town a tall cliff hangs over the town, and for some reason the townsfolk decided this would make a good place to make a nice cemetery. I have to wonder what kind of folk would decide to do somethin like that and how they went about convincing the people who weren’t complete morons to go through with it. Maybe they’re weren’t any. Anyway, we did a quick search of the town and found nothin alarmin so we decided to spend the night here. The girls seemed a bit jumpy, so when Sandy suggested we make camp on one of the low rooftops so as to have ourselves a defensible locale in case somethin came out of the dark at us I agreed. Well, I volunteered for 2nd watch and Sandra’s got the first one so I should probably get some shut eye. Oh, I forgot, I might as well recall the story Miss Virginia told us before I put this up for the night.

Once, the Town of Vash was housed by the ancestors of our own townsfolk of Clearwater. It was a small, unremarkable town, aside from the Winchester Manor on the hill. Nothin out of the ordinary happened here. Until the day Grim Reaper Grims came through.

Isaac Grims was his name. No one knew who he was, or what he wanted, but one day he came stridin up through the wasteland, draggin a rusty scythe blade behind him in the dirt. Before anyone could ask him his business, he tore into the town, slashin left and right, cuttin folk down like dry wheat. Three dozen men and women he slaughtered, near half the town, and when they finally caught him he refused to explain himself. He spoke, not a single word.

He was hanged from a tree in the cemetery over town, and the very next day the townsfolk packed up and left, every last one of them. And that’s how Vash became an empty ghost town.

Ha, I have to give it to her, Virginia tells a good ghost story. Still, a man aint got nothin to fear from a dead man, and chances are Grim wasn’t never nothin but a story anyhow. Well, time for sleep.

January 20th

Ok. So maybe next time I’ll pay a bit closer attention to the Miss’s ghost stories.

We awoke in the middle of the night to the sight of glowin eyes watchin us from the hangin cemetery. I unpacked my night vision goggles I keep for such an occasion, and we were quickly able to ascertain that the eyes belonged to a pack of coyotes… all save one pair. That one belonged to a grim lookin man, tall and gaunt, sittin on a gravestone under a tall tree. There was a rope around his neck, and he was fillin the air with the mournful sound of the harmonica he was playin. The strange man wasn’t doin anything threatenin, just watchin, but all the same I figured I should go and see what he was up too. Before I could though, Virginia got it into her head to go and do it herself! We had to rush off after her, leavin our defensive position, the horses, and all my gear behind. When we reached the top of the hill, the coyotes were gone, but the grim man remained. When Virginia tried to speak to him, he did not reply, not one word. Only stood, and from his side lifted a rusty old scythe blade stuck to the end of a long wooden plank. Me and Sandy drew our guns, shoutin for Virginia to get back, but old Grim only strode on past us, down the hill…
…right into the path of a dozen rabid Plagues chargin up at us. For the life of me I couldn’t figure how they’d snuck up so quiet, or how we’d past them by without spottin em. What followed was a desperate, chaotic battle, made all the more difficult for the fact that I’d only brought my sidearm and rifle. Grim slashed through Plague after Plague with that homemade scythe of his, and when all were gone, he just kept on walkin, disapearin off into the wasteland like a ghost.

Hell, if it weren’t for the others I’d have thought it were a dream.

January 20th, Evening.

By afternoon, we found Clutch.

He met us in a deep canyon, filled with a lake pierced by several tall spires of rock risin up out of the water. The no good bastard horse-thief shot me in the shoulder before we’d even spotted em, and I went down in shock while the others charged in. Virginia and Clutch shouted up a storm, and bullets and insults flew back and forth across the water. Sandy got in a few shots, and after I’d gotten back to my feet I managed to shoot his rifle, leavin him harmless. We started forth, and a huge burst of water exploded from the center of the lake. The biggest Plague I’d ever seen, somethin like an elephant-octopus, burst out and charged us, stabbin me in the gut (Treasure Huntin is dangerous business). We managed to kill it… but by the time we did, Clutch was already dyin.

None of us knew what to say. He was a backstabbin, horse-stealin lowlife, but he had been our partner. We tried to save him, but he told us he was sorry, that the money was too good, and breathed his last. The Elemental Seed rolled from his hand into the lake, mixin with the water and blood. A bright green glow rose up from the lake surface, and suddenly trees and roots were shootin out from everywhere! In minutes, we were surrounded by a veritable forest. And to our astonishment, a strange plant girl appeared from the middle of the lake, where an island had risen, and introduced herself as Leer.

Now we’ve got ourselves an oasis and a super powerful alchemical servant. Virginia was quite upset about Clutch… and about he money she’d demanded. She revealed that the money she wanted was what she needed to free her brother, who’d been kidnapped by that no-good Dale Canton. He was holdin him hostage, tryin to force the Water Baron of Clearwater to hand over the deed to our town.

Well I’m not sure what we’re gonna do, but we know we aint gonna allow that.

End of Session. I have to say I was pretty surprised by the developments in this session. And I'll I was dead right about Clutch- I'd originally predicted he would die or turn evil (lol, both)- I absolutely did NOT expect we'd actually get to use the Seed anytime soon. I assumed we'd be huntin after it for half the game. Turns out now we get to make a town. Lookin forward to the next session.

P.S. Yeah, there were a lot of little Firefly quotes in this session, I don't think I even got them all.

Jackrum's Log, 1st Session

Hello hello, this is going to be my introductory post for the series I'm doing (which is my excuse to finally start a blog). This is going to be a sort of post game wrap up, written in character, of the pen and paper RPG I'm currently playing, which is being run by my brother. The game is called, The Seed, and it's a alternate world Western style game in a trade society where the basic currency is bullets. I'll leave the rest for you to figure out from the story. My character in said game is Jackrum Twister, 36 year old Gun Merchant making the transition to Treasure Hunter. He's rather naive about the whole set up. Currently, we only have one other player, controlling Sandra Days (Clutch is an npc). The whole thing is going to be set up like a journal written by Jackrum after each session. Now I know this is an incrediably nerdy thing to do, but I'm cool with that, and my brother says it'll be good feedback for running the game. Note, I'm been running RPGs as a GM for many many years now, but it's been years since I've actually been a player, and then only for a short time... so this is almost as new an experience as it is to Jackrum.
Note 2- The system we're using to play is a homebrew system we're hoping to get published one of theses days, though it's got some work to do before we can completely finish it.
Note 3- As i have no plans to tell anyone about this blog until I get at least a half dozen posts on it, it'll be a long time until anyone I know sees it. If you just happen to stumble across this blog, welcome, and please tell me what you think in the comments. Thanks, here it goes:

Jackrum’s Log, January 17th
My first job as a Treasure Hunter!

Well, it’s finally come, the day I’ve been waiting for so long. Today I am to become a Treasure Hunter for real, and journey with Sandra and Clutch out to the wasteland to make a living. For nigh on fifteen years now I’ve been runnin’ the Brass Twister in Clearwater, buying from and selling to the Treasure Hunters that run through. It’s been a dream of mine to join them for so long, and now that my son Jesse’s old enough to run the shop, I’m finally gonna do it.

The sun’s comin up over the wasteland horizon now, and Sandy and Clutch’ll be comin to get me within the hour. I’d better go get ready.

Jan 17th, Later

Well…I’m just gonna say that didn’t go as planned. We spent four hours riding out to the location Clutch had picked- apparently he’d gotten a bit of info from someone about an untapped ghost town just brimmin with treasure- but before we even got there Sandra’s horse got bit by a snake. Poor thing didn’t last an hour. The ruttin snake tried to bite me too, but luckily enough I’ve got a good pair of boots. That wasn’t the last of our trouble though- turns out that Clutch’s “source” wasn’t quite as reliable as he had thought. There was a ghost town alright, but it was a bit lacking in ghosts. Turns out a rather large bandit posse had the place claimed. I, um, got a little hazy on the details. Got knocked on the head, next thing I know I’m wakin up in camp miles away from the place. Good thing they didn’t get my horse though, I’d hate to lose Tornado. Oh, and Cloud’s got all our gear on his back, so that’d be a travesty to lose him.

Hopefully we’ll do better tomorrow. I’d hate to return empty handed on my first trip.

Jan 18th

I’ve got so much to tell about today, but I don’t know where to start so I guess I’ll just start at the start. Here goes:

We were all slinkin back to town empty handed with our tails between our legs when ol Sandy caught a glimpse of something shinin off in the distance between two mountains. The two of them exchanged glances, and I didn’t know what was goin on but they both seemed to be a little intimidated.

“What ya think Sandra?” Clutch asked.

“I don’t know, Clutch. It’s quite a risky endeavor.” Sandra asked.

Now for those of you wonderin, Sandra and Clutch are my good old Treasure Huntin friends I’ve been supplyin at he Brass Twister for years and years now, and the only Treasure Hunters who’d be willing to let me join they’re posse, bein somewhat older and less experienced than most. That’s okay though, cause they’re my very first choice if I had to pick a posse.

Clutch is Clutch Gallows, 19 years old, wise beyond his years, a real true veteran of the wastelands. He’s a tough kid, carries a nice big Winchester Rifle with a bayonet on it so large you might not even notice the gun. That’s okay though, cause Clutch is strong enough to use it. He’s a real low key guy, quiet, dedicated like. Don’t know much about his personal life, he don’t like to talk about it.

Sandra (I call her Sandy sometimes), is Sandra Days, one of the famous Days Dancin Devil Twins, though I aint ever met her sister on account of her bein dead. She’s a nice girl I suppose…a bit tomboyish though if you ask me. Not near so elegant as my Maria, though she’s gone now too bless her. She’s a famous Gundancer, and no more amazing talent have I ever seen. She’s pretty close mouthed as well, doesn’t like to talk about her past, but that’s okay, ha, I make up for the both of them.

Anyway, we were sittin there on our horses, Sandy ridin Cloud on account of her horse bein dead, lookin off at somethin shiny in the distance, and Sandy and Clutch were havin themselves a discussion.

“What ya think Sandra?” Clutch asked.

“I don’t know, Clutch. It’s quite a risky endeavor.” Sandra asked.

“Er, what’s a risky endeavor?” I asked.

“An old ghost town, called the Crystal Valley.” Clutch gestured towards the distant light. “It’s a Plague Nest, so no one goes there.”

“If no one goes there… that means they’re might be treasure!” I said.

“Treasure… and lot’s of Plagues.”

In the end, we decided to go for it. I certainly wasn’t goin to vote for slinkin back without even a single piece of loot, and Sandra had a bit of a greedy look in her eye. She was always a hard customer at the Twister, and she hated to get cheated, so I knew she didn’t want to miss out either.
As we got closer to the valley, I started to notice bits of glass and crystal littering the ground, which I knew was worthless, and between the two mountain peaks up ahead a huge wall of the stuff rose up, cracked and pitted, a pale translucent green like jade here and there pierced with clearer bits. As we got close, I volunteered to scout ahead.
A massive chunk of the stuff was fallen across the path, blocking it completely, but I managed to find a way to climb up. I was tense as I can ever recall, hair standin on end. Truth is, I aint never had fought a Plague before, and though as an Arms Baron I of course know how to fire a gun I’ve never shot one at a livin soul before. Fortunately, I didn’t meet one though. Turns out we needed to climb down a rather steep cliff in order to get to the valley floor, so we had to leave the horses. I tied up Tornado and Cloud and tried to guess what equipment we’d need in the Plague Nest ahead. From Cloud’s saddle bags, I took an extra rifle, my personal Revolver “Cyclone,” my relic shotgun “Storm,” my custom rifle “Lightning,” four grenades, three stimpacks (which I passed out to the crew), and a hefty knife. I offered the others to pick out whatever they needed. Sandra took me up on my offer, takin a pair of submachine guns and a grenade as well, though Clutch declined. He swore by his rifle, which I think is kinda funny myself. The right weapon for the right situation, I always say.
In the valley, we were ambushed.
Clutch took out the first bugger before we’d even seen em, sniping from up on the cliffs, but the others jumped out from nowhere on either side of us. Me and Sandra drew up back to back, ready to go. In front of Sandra was a gigantic flew, the size of small dog and covered in black moss hanging out from between its armored chinks. It barked just like a dog too, which I had pegged as darn right disturbin. But in front of me was a much more worrisome sight- a giant ant the size of a German Shepherd, jet black, with bright green vines and moss growin all over its back. It gnashed its mandibles and charged forward on six legs.
I froze up, I’ll admit it, but Sandra shouted to get down and started doin what she does. Drawin her twin revolvers she spun and fired, dancing wildly and firing again and again in both directions. The critters seemed quite surprised, and the bullets bouncing around they’re feet made them stumble and fall. Sandy shot them both twice, but they just rushed on forward. The ant was right and front of me, and suddenly I had no idea what to do. Shotgun, rifle, pistol, what was the best choice. I pulled out my knife instead and leapt forward to attack. Honestly… I don’t know what I was thinkin.
My knife crunched right through that ant’s head but out splurted blood thick and green, and where it hit me it burned. I yelped and leapt back but it was too late, it sprayed out like a fountain and drenched me, leaving me lyin in a puddle on the ground, bitin my tongue and tryin not to scream. I think I must’ve passed out from the pain, cause the next thing I know Sandy and clutch were kneelin over me and checkin to see if I was okay. I certainly wasn’t, but I wasn’t goin to start whinin and cryin this early. I used my stimpack (thank god for alchemical medicine), which reduced most of the burn, but it still ached and chafed whenever I moved.

“Here, eat this.” Clutch said.

In his hand was a tiny seed, bloodred, veiny, and pulsating. It did not look very appetizin.

“What is it?”

“A Bloodseed. When a Plague dies, all of the moisture in they’re body is concentrated into a single seed. If we’re lucky, it’ll be a more mature blue, red, or green seed. If we’re not, we get these. They’re not good for much, but they help your body heal faster.”

“We call them Cranberries.” Sandra said.

The thought of eating somethin called a “Bloodseed” made me a bit queasy, but I didn’t want to look yellow so I went ahead and popped it into my mouth. I was surprisingly good- tart, sweet, but with an unfortunate coppery aftertaste. To my amazement though, it did make me feel more alert, as if I’d drunk a half a dozen cups of coffee all at once.

“The other one dropped a red seed.” Sandra said.

“Here ya go Jackrum.” Clutch told me, tossing it over. “That one’s yours.”

There was no more trouble till we reached the little ghost town, a scattering of five old shacks completely covered in a thin coating of green glass, though I was jumpin at every shadow and peerin around every corner. I’d be happy to never see one of those ants again. There was a gun bank, a saloon, a small chapel, a tailors, and a sheriff’s office. In the middle was an old rusty water tower. Clutch volunteered to provide support from the tower, and climbed up while me and Sandra carefully, cautiously searched between every building for more Plagues. We turned up nothin. It was time to get down to business- searchin for treasure.

“Gun bank first?” I asked. Sandy nodded.

We crept towards the door, but the thought of openin it up to find one of them big black ants lurkin inside made me second guess. Instead we creeped around the back, found a big dumpster and used it to climb up to the roof. Unfortunately… I had a little fall, and the dumpster made a bit of noise when I crashed down on it. From the front of the building we heard a shout from Clutch as the door burst open.

“There’s a whole swarm of em pouring out!” He shouted, as he fired.

Me and Sandy got to the roof and rushed across, to where three clunky skeeters as big as a cat were floatin up at Clutch. Called Vampires, Sandy had told me, but to me they looked like skeeters so that’s what I’ll call em. I can see why they called em that though- they went right for Clutch’s neck, jabbin long spikes in to suck out his blood. I lifted my rifle, but it was a hopeless shot- I’d just hit Clutch if I fired. Sandy nudged me and pointed- down below was another ant, climbin straight up the wall towards us.
Me and Sandy teamed up and pumped that ruttin ant full of lead. Its acid blood burst out, but we were too high to get hit and it died soon enough. By the time were done, Clutch had dealt with the skeeters, though they’d done him a bit of a bloody scratch. We gathered up the cranberries from the dead and went back to checkin the town.
In the gun bank we found a lot of old guns, but sadly, one look was enough to tell me they’re were useless. Every one of them was covered in glass. It’d be a waste of time tryin to fix em. We did find one nice bonus- in a sealed (but oddly unlocked) gun safe, we found a flamethrower. Clutch claimed it, as he was carrying the least gear. After that I headed up to the tower to take his spot. Sandy and him took the saloon and the chapel, found a good thick duster full of big deep pockets (I got that one, kept my grenades in there, though all of the sudden I seemed to have an extra one), and a big clunky suit of old armor that Sandy insisted on taking for some reason. Clutch had me switch positions (again) and me and Sandy checked in the sheriff’s office. It was a sad sight- dozens of inmates stuffed in the cells, all covered over with thick glass, hardly decayed at all, faces twisted and screamin. Made me shudder to see it, but Sandy had eyes only for the loot- on the person of the dead deputy we found an old antique coin of solid gold, covered in alchemic symbols. Would fetch a nice price to a collector.
Next was the tailors. More and more clothes were hung on the racks, all covered in glass, but Sandra managed to find a rather fetchin antique dress that she thought would look good on her. I was a bit distracted- in one corner was a little girl, face looked in an eternal scream, covered in thick crystal and glass. It was a sad sight.

“Hey Clutch.” I said outside. “What do you think happened here? This crystal stuff… it looks like it happened all at once.”

“Alchemy.” He answered. “Dunno more than that. Happened before I was born. Before you were born, even.”

After that we decided to have a little huddle and discuss our next plan. On ahead was a small island with a big manor house and a crystal forest. Somethin green was glowin in the forest, and that house may be loaded with riches just waitin to be found. Trouble was, on my turn up on the tower I’d spotted a giant hornet critter flyin laps around the lake, like it was guardin it or somethin.

“I got an idea.” I said. “Instead of headin into that forest not knowin what’s what, we should deal with them Plagues here, on our own terms. I’ve got some landmines back in Cloud’s saddle bags. I could go back and grab em, mine the entrance to this little village. Me and Sandra will hide in these buildins, you can get up on the tower Clutch. Shoot that big hornet from over here, and all the Plagues on the island will probably rush over. We can pick em off as they come.” And not have to get close to any more giant ants.

The others decided they liked the sound of that, though it took close to an hour to set everything up. When I gave the go ahead, Clutch’s shot rang out loud and clear.

“Did ya get em?” I asked.

“No.”

“You didn’t hit em!?”

“NO! It’s a long distance okay!”

It turned out I was right- as the shot rang out, half a dozen of the buggers burst out of the forest like an anthill and came chargin towards us. Two fleas, a couple skeeters, the big hornet, TWO ANTS, and a massive silver beetle that looked like it was made out of guitars and tentacles. I was startin to regret my decision, but with a few grenades, fix shots from my rifle, and all of Sandy’s gun dancin skill, we managed to take all out. That big beetle took three big rifle shots and a grenade before it would die though. I’m glad it never got up to us. After the battle we split up the seeds and I gathered up my landmines (not a single ruttin one of em had gone off, can you believe it?).
The house was a wreck, filled to the brim with Plague eggs. Clutch fired up his flamethrower and we set the whole thing a burnin. I gave Sandy a boost up into the attic to see what was up there.

“Find anything Sandy?”

“Nope, not a thing but dust and cobwebs.”

“Now don’t be thinking about lying Sandra.” Clutch said. “There’s no call for bein greedy.”

“Now, don’t start with that Clutch, we’re all comrades here, right?” I said.

“Of course. I’m just jokin. Sandra knows when I’m joking, don’t you Sandra?” Clutch said.

“Sure do boss.”

Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. We’d hardly found any treasure at all, though I certainly learned a lot about bein a treasure hunter. All that was left was to check the forest. We almost skipped it and went home. I’m sure glad we didn’t.
In the middle of a stand of trees was a big green pillar of crystal, glowin and pulsatin. Nestled inside like a bug in amber was a giant seed. Clutch dropped his gun and ran open eyed towards it, and Sandra was not far behind.

“What’s goin on? What is it guys?” I asked.

“Do you know what this is Jackrum?” Clutch said, eyes shinin with greed. “It’s an elemental seed. An ancient alchemical relic. They use these things to make oasis’s.”

“Oh, that’s good. We could make Clearwater into an oasis town.” I said.

“Are you crazy?!” Both of em shouted. “We could make a fortune off of it. More bullets than we’ve ever made in all our lives. More bullets than you’ve ever made with your shop Jackrum!”

Well, I wasn’t too sure about that- the Brass Twister is a pretty nice shop- but he two of them seemed pretty excited about it. We decided to head back to Clearwater and see about findin a buyer. Turns out it was a pretty profitable endeavor.

Back in Clearwater- my wife’s hometown, though I got here as fast as I could- we popped into the saloon for a celebratory drink. My old pal was there, runnin the place, but aside from two rough lookin gunslingers we had the place to ourselves. One of em kept leerin at Sandra, and the other was playin with a dice. The two of them were a bit unfriendly to start off, but they warmed up when I offered to buy em a round. I decided that the one with the dice might want to make a little wager, and put up the gold coin we’d found in the nest earlier that day against a golden gun one of them had (now why anyone would make a gun out of gold is beyond me). Clutch took off while we were talkin, wantin to get the seed somewhere safe. I watched carefully- and sure enough, the thug tried to cheat me. I have a quick eye though, and I caught em in the act. They blustered a bit, but decided not to mess with us and took off.

After that we headed over to the Brass Twister to resupply. My son Jesse (he’s fifteen years old, and runnin the place all on his own now, bless him) greeted us and resupplied us, though he haggled up my askin price like a pro. Sandra took off, and I was ready for some shut eye as well, when I happened to spot that same pair of scoundrels from the saloon out in the street, along with a shady lookin fella in sunglasses. He had a high reedy voice that carried in on the wind, and I have a good pair of ears, so turns out I could hear em pretty well.

“Well what’s the deal boys?” He asked. “Anything worth takin in this crappy town?”

“Nah, nothin pa, just this second rate gun shop. Nothin in there worth our time.” One of em said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” The shady man headed straight for my shop. I sighed and went to intervene. Jesse was sure to get offended if he started talking bad about the shop.

“Hello sir, can I help you?”

“I highly doubt it.” The man looked dissatisfied at the various weapons hung on the walls. “No Heavy Arms?” He asked, disdainfully.

“No sir… we have a blunderbuss.”

“How… old fashioned.” He snickered. “Do you know who I am? I’m Dale Canton. Of Canton. I’m the Water Baron of three towns… gonna be four soon.”

“Well you must be very proud.” I told him. I’ve been runnin the Brass Twister for a long time. I knew better than to get in a pissin contest with some big city man.

“Well. See you don’t forget it.” Mr. Canton left with his sons, headin over to see the Water Baron across town.

It’s been quite a day. I can’t to see what happens tomorrow, but I’d better get some rest.

-Jackrum Twister.