Scourge of the West

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Rhysis

Rhysis

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The whole town of Dustbrook was in an uproar. The mayor, a man nobody could remember why they'd voted for, had just appointed a new sheriff, and nobody was happy about it. They'd discussed turning the sheriff's position into an elected official at the last town meeting, but the mayor had talked them out of it. Now they knew why. The problem wasn't that Blessed Arrow was raised by natives. It wasn't even that he was unpopular. THe town bylaws clearly stated that the mayor could appoint any man he wanted to the position. But it was that exact phrase which caused the controversy. It said "man" and up until now that's all that had been in power in Dustbrook. But not now. True, Blessed Arrow was male, but he was no man. He was an elf!

Dustbrook had successfully stayed out of the business of their cousin races for fifty years since the town was founded. Now, with an elf as the sheriff, they were sure they would draw the attention of Twinhorn, a ruthless centaur who made even the worst of Earth's outlaws look like candy thieves. What the citizens of Dustbrook didn't know, was that Twinhorn already had his eyes on the town, as a primer for his plan to dominate the region. The fact that the new sheriff was from a rival native tribe just made it all that much sweeter.

Twinhorn redied a few of his favorite lackeys. One was another centuar, there was also a unicorn and a drachnid, for addition intimidation. The man and his underlings which had been called everything from criminals to plagues mounted up. Twinhorn's favorite title was "Scourge of the West". It had a certain ring. The four creatures turned to the south, and started on the path that would begin their destructive reign. Twinhorn...was coming.
 
To say that the man who rode into town was well armed was an understatement. There were throwing knives tucked in a belt across his chest. There was a rifle strapped to his saddle. A pistol holstered at his belt. Not to mention the footlong bowie knife strapped to his right leg. The man was like a lethal chainsmoking hedgehog.

A couple of the locals spotted him and edged back inside the general store they had just left. The man trotted past them and tipped his battered looking, dust covered bowler hat in their direction. "Ladies" He said in and accent that made him sound like he was from far out of town. Too proper an accent for the scruffy man with a cigar resting just below a shaggy mustace.

Eventually he stopped outside the saloon,and tied his horse of before walking inside the saloon. He was really filthy, he looked as though he'd been riding for weeks. The once proud coat he wore stopped just above his knees, and under all that dust, it had been black once, but by the looks of it that could have been years ago.

(Holding here)
 
He walked with an ease that would not be expected from a walking arsenal such as this. He slid onto a stool by the bar and grinned a sleazy grin and the hostess. "A bottle of brain rotter and a glass please my darling", he smiled at the hostess and slid a pile of creased Ayenee dollars across the bartop.

((Rhysis, just post. People might join in as we get going))
 
Enter the Gypsy

His name was Gypsy-Man.

At least, that's the only name Dustbrook had ever known and nobody cared to recollect if he'd ever disputed the nickname. He rode into town nearing sunset atop a coach loaded with every bizarre trinket and mysterious bauble one could imagine, and even some one could not. When he leaned back on the reigns and clicked the horses to a stop outside the saloon, people half gathered expecting him to don a top hat and break out a high throated speech about Dr. Stranger's Miracle Snake Oil. Instead he sauntered in half sore, and gave the town something to talk about for the next week.

Gypsy-Man was unique in the town, and most common folk immediately swore he was a warlock in league with the devil. He was lithe, but far from attractive, with a face mired in grooves and eyes locked in a squint, as if he'd spent his life staring at the sun. What hair he had on his head was shaved clean, but a shadow on his jaw didn't get the same tlc and was a permanent fixture. He wore a light cloth duster like a mage would wear a robe, and a hemp necklace jingling with bleached copperhead skulls threaded on through their eye sockets. Chicken bone bracelets rattled on his thin wrists, and his rifle was probably a Winchester at one time, but had intricate runes and symbols carved into the stock and crows feathers whipped onto the barrel and butt with thin strips of rawhide. Gems and stones of every color encircled the barrel and action, and his steps were always accompanied with the thud of the stock meeting the floor. If the duster was akin to a mage's robe, this old level action rifle was his staff.

His conversation with the tender was brief, and a nearby group of rough looking ole boys playing poker nearby tried to overhear. Later they'd exaggerate the details, but all it amounted to was him looking for a place to settle down. Unfortunately enough, all he managed to find was an abandoned chicken coop a stones throw out of town, so after swig of bourbon and a tip of his hat, he groaned back atop his carriage. Gypsy-Man made quick work of the coop, and turned it into a pretty modest shelter in short order, though he carried the faint odor of chicken shit for a month or two. But he made a hell of a scapegoat early on. Every time a head of cattle came missing from the range, it was likely that devil Gypsy-Man performing some blasphemous rituals. It was likely wolves or dragon, but it was easy for the dumb and superstitious to believe him to be at fault, and he didn't do anything to prove otherwise.

So needless to say, Gypsy-Man was more or less left to his machinations that sweltering mid-day when new faces started riding in to town. He had a hand rolled cigar hanging from his lips, with a blend of tobacco and opium that left an unusual smoke in the air. He was in his rocking chair, lent over a small bench where he was turning over his infamous deck of cards. They were your run of the mill deck of 52, but on the back were large runes painted in thick pigs blood that had dried brown. The recent sheriff appointment was the talk of the town these days, and he appreciated the break in suspicion on his doorstep. His eyes lifted to the casual business of the mid-day, then dropped to the cards as he would slide them from the deck in careful arrangements. Most mistaken it for solitaire. Others saw the runes and pretended he wasn't performing his hoodoo in the middle of the saloon. Today he was taking long drags from the cigar, and studying the face of each card as he turned them over one by one. After a moment, he sat down the deck and looked to the horizon. "There be some bad juju comin" he muttered, but another long drag and it was out of his mind.

OOC Note: Figured I'd just jump in, but if it's closed or what have you, it's no sweat. I'm just working off the top of my head and it's been a small millennium since I've done this, so forgive me in advance. If anything isn't in line with the concept, lemme know.
 
Blessed Arrow paid little attention to the criticism he encountered, both directly, and moreso indirectly, as he made his rounds through the town. He had been appointed a job, and he was going to do it. The local boy who darted out into the street in front of a carriage which nearly toppled in an effort to avoid hitting him received a harsh reprimand and was instructed to inform his parents of his carelessness. The owner of the general store and the man infamous for being a petty shoplifter were in a heated argument which was quickly settled with a threat of sharing a jail cell for the night.

The elf made sure to take note of the new faces in town, and informed his deputies to keep a watchful eye on the strangers. Weapons were not prohibited in the town, but heavily armed men were generally a sign of trouble, and he made certain that each of the deputies carried a second pistol and a rifle with them on their patrols until further notice, to help make up the difference. He was a bit peculiar looking with his crossbow strapped to his back along with the two pistols at his side, but Blessed Arrow was not a name he had earned easily. He trusted the bow far more than he ever would a firearm.

Twinhorn and his men continued their travel as dusk began to settle over the land. To say the underlings were tired would have been an understatement. None of them were actually mounted. To do so would have required extremely unnatural manipulation of their bodies. Still, any horse and rider would have been hard pressed to keep up the pace Twinhorn was setting. Even the drachnid, with the advent of extra legs, was pushing himself to the limit. But Twinhorn showed no signs of slowing, and to complain would have meant a fate far worse than death.

Twinhorn...was coming.
 
Twinhorn wasn't the only outlaw with his eyes on Dustbrook, but he was the strongest, and the most noticible. Even alone out in the dusty wilds, it didn't take long for Fjorn Steffanson, also called "The Hulking Hurler†by the survivors of his raids spread throughout the area, to find the bizarre caravan of outlaws racing through the wilderness. Fjorn was just a man, but he must be a man with a giant’s blood running through his veins.

He was fully twelve feet tall, with shoulders nearly as broad, and a mass of brown hair that looked like it used to be blond, back in the last time he bathed, and when he came before the Centaur and his assembled gang, he carried with him a home-made rifle so large it looked like it could blow through the lot of them with a single shot. His only other possession (Besides clothing!) – was a small silver cross that hung around his neck.

His arms crossed in front of his chest, body raised up to his full height as though demanding the entire gang stop for him, he broached his offer in a ridiculously overdone Nordic accent. “Twinhorn, Scourge of tha west, I’m hearing yor heading fur the town of Dustbrook. Leet me in with your gang, fur a double share of the looting, and I’ll make sure yur raid is successful.â€
 
Twinhorn made no attempt to conceal his presence at any time. The massive dust cloud that was thrown up from their forward movement could be seen for miles on the open plain. So it came as little surprise to him that someone managed to see them coming. The centaur saw the man standing before him long before he reached his location. His initial thought, given the size of the creature, was that it was some vigilante come to seek justice for some past wrong Twinhorn and his marauders had done. But as they neared, and the powerful voice cried out, even above the sound of their stampeding legs striking the compacted dirt, the Scourge of the West smirked and slowed, followed in kind by the three minions he chose to take along with him.

When they came upon the man, the four of them, in a practiced movement, circled around him, sizing him up with interest. He had several feet on the unicorn, three over the other centaur, and something just under that above the head of Twinhorn. From his vantage point, the outlaw leader couldn't determine if it was his drachnid lackey or the giant man who was tallest amongst them all, but he was unconcerned. Twinhorn feared no creature, and had proven why on numerous occasions when someone amongst his ranks felt the need to compete for leadership of the gang.

The four of them stopped, still surrounding the man. Twinhorn held in front, the drachnid behind, and the unicorn and other centaur to his right and left, respectfully. Twinhorn made no attempt to make himself appear larger, an intimidation tool he could generally take advantage of. He spoke with a thick Eastern accent, but his words were still easily understandable despite their peculiar pronunciation. "I have encountered many a fool in my day, stranger. Never before was one so foolish as to approach me with such a request." If there was a hint of any emotion in his voice whatsoever, it was not cockiness, but pure, uninterrupted, confidence. He had a good idea who this massive stranger was, but testing had to be done before any decision was made. "For what reason should I not turn this barren spot of emptiness into your unmarked grave?"
 
Fjorn knew his boldness wouldn't go unchallenged, but knew he'd only be dead if he gave even an inch now. His response to Twinhorn's challenge was a cryptic, "Seems to me that yur short one man in yur gang, Twinhorn."

Before any of them (besides, perhaps, the quick-witted Twinhorn) could have enough time to realize what he really meant by that, there was a flash of movement and a deafening boom out of Fjorn. He'd survived all these years, in part, because people underestimated the speed with which the hulking hurler could move. When the black smoke from his overlarge rifle cleared, Fjorn had it pointed straight at the Drachnid's chest, the soon to be second victim of Twinhorn's confidence. Fjorn didn't fire again, he wanted to be part of a gang, not part of a duo, or dead (even he knows he's not fast enough to take them all, maybe not even fast enough to take on Twinhorn alone...)

The first, assuming everything went according to plan, should be the Unicorn, whose head would be spread across the wasteland for about a half-mile from the short-range impact of that rifle, if it didn't somehow react in time to save itself. Fjorn spoke, if the rest of the gang hadn't already started firing back at him, "Now Twinhorn, I'm here ta fill that empty spot in yur gang. Do we have a deal?"
 
Twinhorn: Ironically, the unicorn was actually the slowest of wit and movement of the group that had been brought. There were others, back at the hideout, who were just this side of retarded, and more who would have had trouble keeping up with a anyone that had something which could be considered fast feet. But of the five of them, the unicorn was the only one who, upon hearing the giant man's words, didn't immediately take a step to the side and produce one form of weapon or another. Thus, the aiming point of the rifle was more at the drachnid's shoulder, and the man would find one triple crossbow pointed at him from the second centaur, two rifles from the drachnid who also held a pair of knives in his front two arachnid legs, and a shotgun and a pistol from Twinhorn.

The gang leader noted that he hadn't heard the familiar sound of the unicorn's magic crackling in the air. He looked to the side and saw the massive trail of blood, then erupted into thunderous laughter. Between massive fits of what he viewed as comedic response, the centaur spoke to the cause of his mage's death. "Then you are the Hulking Hurler. Ho ho hoo. Few men would have the guts to pull that on one of my men!. HA! So be it, manling. Ha ha ha! Serves that little puke right. He knew better than to trust his life in front of a stranger. HA!"

After a few seconds, upon gathering up the unicorn's gear, the centaur calmed down and spoke once more, tossing the black bandana that had been around one of the unicorn's legs and had the simple devil horns embroidered on it, to the newcomer. "You had best be able to keep up. We don't travel slow and I'm not about to wait for you."

Blessed Arrow: The citizens of the town quickly got word that Blessed Arrow wasn't going to give any slack to the town for the sake of being liked. He was just as strict, if not moreso, than his predacessor, who had been rumored to flog repeat offenders behind the saloon.

The elf decided to go to that very same saloon, again taking note of the gypsy and the man with the overabundance of weaponry. He moved to the counter and nodded to the tender. "Mornin' Carl, seltzer if ya please." The kind tender was quick to oblige the new sheriff, and the elf took his drink and started making rounds through the establishment, nodding to those who cared to acknowledge his presence. He stopped at the heavily armed man and nodded a greeting before speaking one. "Mornin', stranger. Just passin' through or you plan on stayin' at Miss Deborah's inn?"
 
The man took a sip of the amber liquid in his glass, and then put his cigar back between his bottom lip, and the bushy mustache. He looked the sheriff up and down for a moment before he spoke. When he did, he let out a puff of smoke, took the hand rolled halfling cigar once more between the fingers of his left hand and offered the right to the elf.

"Joseph Swan" He said and nodded "I will be staying I think. I heard there were matters beyond the capability of your deputies and yourself, and there was money to be earned. Just rumours of course, but I alway did have a knack for finding my way into trouble, especially trouble that pays well."
 
"Leets Go." Was Fjorn's response, wrapping the black Bandanna around his head to symbolize his taking the place of the fallen, unnamed Unicorn. Even with his huge, powerful legs it would be a challenge keeping up with the multi-legged outlaws, but he hadn't come this far to let a little feat of endurance stand between him and the prize.

The Scourge of the West and the Hulking Hurler were coming...
 
The man who next stepped through the door may not have been as well armed as Joseph Swan, but it was definitely a close race. A rifle slung over the shoulder and a pair of pistols slung low over the hips were clearly visible. A knife was in the left boot and what appeared to be some sort of axe or tomahawk hung from a sling over his back. The hat on his head was worn, and traildust flaked off his clothing with each step.

Through the window, you could see his horse, a big black-haired devil of a mare who looked like she could ride all day and never get tired. The reins were looped loosely over a post and as she dipped her head to take a drink from the trough, one might notice an odd marking on the forehead that looked vaguely like the number seven, made from a few tufts of white hair.

The man glances at Swan, like one dog eyeballing another to see if it was worth a fight. He gives a bare tilt of the head, acknowledging the other man's presence, and then headed over the bar. No scrapping this early in the morning apparently... He takes a seat and says simply 'Whiskey' to the tender.

Everything about this man said he was the type to survive on his own... one of those strange mountain-men who live off the wilds of the land, and avoid clusters of civilization. The type who might shoot you for not saying 'please' and 'thank you' in the presence of a lady, but at the same time, knew how to swear like a sailor and drink a dwarf under the table. The mountain men were a rare breed to be sure.
 
Finnigan LeRoy, a well known bar fighter hunched with a long rope extending from his shoulder sauntered down the dirt road his face drawn tight in strain, his eyes bloodied as if he had been chocked till all the vessles in his eyes had burst. About twenty yards behind him at the end of the rope was his dead horse. It was clear from the stench the beast had died a few days ago. The bar fighters cloths laidened with dirt and dust seemed to be a pale brown like the street. He had only one weapon a big knife well a sword to a halfling, but he called it his knife none the less after the poor halfling was too drunk and made a comment about being a great fighter in the wrong pub. His boots were clearly worn to the point the soles were starting to flap of thier own accord with each step he took. Reaching the front of the saloon his eyes mingled a look of joy and apprehension.tieing his horse's body to the tie post in front of the saloon he looked at the big front window with a longing before he swayed a little on his feet and dragged his feet towards the door.
 
The black mare tied at the post pulled at the tether and began stomping the ground in agitation from the smell of death brought by Finnegan.

The man inside, picked up his drink and moved towards the window to see what had upset his horse. Taking in the sight of LeRoy, the man gulped back his whiskey and set the glass down on a nearby table with one hand as the other slipped back the leather strip that tied his pistol down in the holster.

When LeRoy entered, the man was standing there, ready to greet him.

"You're upsetting my horse, Stranger."

The words were spoken with an even tone, but the set of the man's jaw gave away the gravity of the situation. LeRoy was in serious danger of making an enemy. The man's hands were empty, but hovering closely to butt of the pistols.
 
LeRoys eyes narrowed on the man, blood filled whites surrounding the black pupils seemed to swivvel from the mans jaw to his gun and the leather strip that had been released. He knew the situation, but frankly the man was between Finnigan and his drink that would parch the growing desert in his throat. He knew instinctivly the man would not stand down peaceably.

He would have spoken a warning or something but he knew full well he was far to parched for that kind of thing, clentched his fists, and knew that the man would not jump at his warning and wimper like a beaten dog. Stepping in to the saloon a few paces more. Cutting down the space between then to around four feet or so he looked beyond haggered. His skin like a worn leather bag with metal shavings for wiskers.
 
The elfy hadn't responded yet, but things were starting to get interesting at last. When he'd spotted the other well armed man, he'd had high hopes for the stranger. That gentleman hadn't dissapointed. All he could wish for now was a good brawl, one he might be able to work his way into. Nothing final, just good old blood on the knuckles, and perhaps a broken bottle or two.

"Struck dumb are you sherrif? Looks as though you'll have some work on your hands in a moment or two."

With that said, Joseph took hold of his bottle and poured another glass of whiskey.
 
The man looked over to the one who Joseph had identified as the Sheriff. He shifted his stance slightly, taking a more relaxed pose. His hand never strayed from the pistol grip though.

"Sheriff, eh? Well, Sheriff," he says, drawing out the title, "its your town. You want to handle this feller's rudeness, or can I take care of my own business?"
 
The elven man stared awkwardly at the horse for a moment. He had seen some strange things in his time with his family. Never, though, had he seen a man drag a dead animal for anything other than food. But this man was obviously either too loyal to the beast, or too intoxicated...possibly too stupid...to know it was dead. He couldn't really decide. His thoughts had raced back to a bit of his training to become a warrior. He finally managed to shake himself out of the half daze with one of the newcomers addressing him. He cleared his throat. "No. I've got it."

He knew all, too well, the look of a man who needed a drink. He'd worn that expression himself on many occasions. He moved to the bar and ordered a stout beer and two more seltzers. Carl seemed to know what the elf was thinking, and wasted no time getting them. Blessed Arrow then approached the two strangers and handed a seltzer and the beer to the man who'd drug in the dead beast of burden. "Mornin', friend. Must say yer the first feller round here ta be pullin' in an animal in that condition. Care fer a drink?"
 
The grizzled man looked somewhere between upset and disappointed that the Sheriff had actually stepped in. Clearly, he would rather have handled things on his own. But he knew that the Sheriff had the right to step in, since they were in his town, so the man checked his emotions and slipped the strip of leather back over his pistols.

However, he didn't move from his spot, and he kept his eyes trained on LeRoy. The danger for the short brawler wasn't over yet.
 
Swan took another puff on his cigar, and then a drink.

"Fancy a drink?" He said and gestured with his glass to the man who'd been about to shoot LeRoy.

This town was definately going to get interesting. He just hoped the bad guys would show up soon. It had been two weeks since he'd shot at anyone and he was beginning to worry he was out of practice.
 
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