Tale #1: The Camel Train

[jemmus]

Brimston reins Trigger in. Thinks, "I was wrong, it wasn't caskets. I guess that's a good thing. Maybe. Let's take some weight off of Trigger's hooves before we punch a whole big enough to drop us to who knows where." He dismounts, holds Trigger's reins, and examines the hole in the wooden surface, trying to see what's under it.

Smooth (Investigate) [2d6-1]=6-1=5

[Samwell Turleton]

Brimston peers through the broken board into the thick darkness below. The air is still and odorless. A piece of debris clatters below and the sound echoes up but it is hard to determine where it came from or judge the depth. Brimston keeps leaning closer and closer to look into the thick darkness.

Clink

The silver pendant of overlapping clouds around Brimston's neck slips out of his cassock and sounds against the wood he is leaning towards. The symbol catches Brimston's eye and he recalls the circumstances that led him to become a preacher.

[Samwell Turleton]

Feel free to roleplay the memories of Brimston, if you are interested. Otherwise, hang tight and I will post again this weekend.

[jemmus]

I'm working on something about Brimston's memories.

[jemmus]

Brimston recalled how he came to be a believer of the Bearer of Burdens. The general store in their town got in a shipment of canned corned beef. It must have been pretty old, because the cans were rusty and Mr. Ledbetter was selling them for about a tenth the usual price for canned bull. Brimston and his older brother (who the family called "Cow" because the amount of food he wanted to eat everyday) bought a can each, took them home, and finished them off. Their daddy said, "You boys better have buzzard guts for guts or you'll regret eatin' that old bully beef."

When morning came Brimston and his brother were laid out flat on the floor on their pallets. Couldn't move. Couldn't hardly even roll over. The rest of the family thought it was a big joke. "Cow and Hez got hungry and found them a good deal on some fine dining!" But it wasn't food poisoning that flattened them. Everybody found out later that chigger fever had hit the town. Some thought it was brought in by mules from a trade caravan. Some thought it was caused by drinking excessive amounts of water. Most thought it came from too much washing your face, brushing your teeth, and bathing. A lot of people was laid flat by the fever. Some permanently. But nobody knew that at the point in time when Cow and Hez were on the floor, cooking in hot heat, burning from the inside with fever, craving water, having delirious notions of floating in the pond behind a pond dam. Well, Hez was, at least. Momma just thought they ate old beef and they'd soon get it out of them, either through one end or the other.

Brimston went back and forth between being mostly alive and mostly dead. One time when he was mostly dead an angel, cherub or seraph appeared in his hot, hot bedroom. It was wearing shining robes and a shining hat, and it didn’t seem to be neither a man nor woman. And it was cool, it wasn’t sweating at all.
It said, “Hezekiah Brimston, the Great Mystery, what’s called around this corner of the big, big universe, bigger than you ever imagined, which it’s a good thing that you even tried to imagine how big it is, because almost no people even try that, anyway what’s called around here the Bearer of Burdens (B.O.B.), has sent me to speak to you. You see, right now you are partly alive and partly dead. Mostly dead, but still, you are in a very special place. Because you are on both sides of the coin at the same time. Everybody is at all times, but they just don’t realize it. They believe in what we call the Illusion of Time. That’s where you think that things happen one after another. Where you don’t have the wisdom to understand that they’re all happening at once. You’re busy hanging onto your life in the Material, not realizing that you’re also already dead and existing in the Real.”

“Well, anyhow, now I’m going to teach you a song that you can sing with the other believers when you’re a priest of the Bearer of Burdens someday. It goes like this.” The seraph in the shining robes and shining hat started to sing in a beautiful voice that was neither a man’s nor a woman’s.
“Shall we gather at the river
The beautiful the beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river
And jump in and swim around.”

With that, the cherub said, “Alright, I’ll be seeing you around, Hezekiah Brimston” and departed.

On the second day of the fever, Brimston was still flat, but he could kind of think again. He was craving either of two things, or really both of them: a boiled chicken egg and/or one of the deceased gordita Juana’s refried beans burritos with orange cheese, sauce, and onions. Those not being forthcoming, his body and most of his mind resumed being flat on the floor for another day or two. By which time his momma had realized that the boys had chigger fever and not poisoning from old canned beef. She gave them some water, but she was careful not to give them too much. And she only wiped the sweat off of their faces with a dry-- not wet-- rag. Brimston debated it, but he had to tell somebody about the angel, and his momma was surely the least likely to scoff at him about it. So he did. His momma said, “Hez, I believe you take after your Aunt Nettie.” Aunt Nettie was a fortune teller and playing cards reader who had to be restrained and locked up from time to time.

[Samwell Turleton]

Brimston kneels over the thick darkness recollecting his experience with the seraph and its beautiful voice. As the words of the song roll through his memory,

"shall we gather at the river
The beautiful the beautiful river
Gather with the saints at the river
And jump in and swim around"

Brimston begins to hear faintly the singing of other voices in a gruff chorus,

"I asked him what tools would I need in the place.
'Very few,' said the boss with the grin on his face.
'One number six shovel and damn little space
While you're down, down, down."

Peering into the thick darkness, your eyes begin to adjust as a faint light begins to describe the surface of a stone floor far below. The voices grow a little louder and the light gets a little brighter at the stone floor. As you look down at the light on the floor, fast black shapes move across the pool of light.

Trigger shifts his weight and the boards creak and groan.

[Samwell Turleton]

I really like the background - the brother called "Cow", the fever visions, the misunderstanding about the cause of the fever. That was a lot of fun to read and reread.

[jemmus]

Thanks! It was based on a true story, I don't have enough imagination to make something like that up. I was in the Peace Corps in Yap, Micronesia and lived with a family. I shared a room with two teenage guys and the family called the younger one Garabau ("Water Buffalo") because he ate so much. The dad bought a lot of canned corn beef that everybody thought was out of date. We ate it, and coincidentally the same day Garabau and I got hit with dengue fever. And everybody did laugh at us for being down for 2-3 days from getting food poisoning from old beef. (It was a remote island with no electricity or phones. So we didn't know about the dengue fever outbreak until around a week or so later). And I did crave a boiled egg and a bean burrito.

We all kept eating that "out of date" Champion corned beef and nobody got sick. But it turned out not to be out of date after all. It was from France, and the cans had the date it was canned stamped on them. Not like in the U.S., where an expiration date is stamped on. They hadn't expired almost a year ago, they were canned almost a year ago.

[jemmus]

Brimston doesn't like the idea of busting through the boards and dropping down to those singing dark shapes. Come on Trigger, let's get you on solid ground. He carefully leads the horse by the reins, back the way they came. If he can get her back on solid ground, he'll tie her reins to something solid. Then go back to observe the hole in the boards, lying on his belly.

[Samwell Turleton]

Brimston leads Trigger back to a solid looking post that is sticking up out of the ground at an angle. The horse appears grateful and bows its head a few times as Brimston ties it securely to the post. Brimston cautiously steps back towards the hole in the boards, crawling forward on his belly. It takes a few moments for Brimston's eyes to adjust to the low light levels but he sees that there are lights bobbing around at the bottom of the dark shaft in a wavy line. The gruff chorus below continues,

"When I was a boy said my daddy to me:
'Stay out of the mines, take my warning,' said he,
'or with dust you'll be choked and a pauper you'll be,
Broken down, down, down."

The lights are primarily focused on the floor below but occasionally flash up and illuminate the stone wall. The dark shapes Brimston saw before, moving quickly across the light, are still there and appear to be agitated by light when it flashes up on the wall. One of the lights flashing up the wall passes over Brimston's eyes and blinds him for a moment. It takes a few minutes to adjust again to the dim conditions and you see a few of the lights start to disappear into another opening near the floor far below.

"I asked him what tools would I need in the place.
'Very few,' said the boss with the grin on his face.
'One number six shovel and damn little space
While you're down, down down."

[jemmus]

Brimston thinks, "That's a mining song. There's those two miners in town what are good prospects of becoming believers before long. (Which reminds me, I need to find a little time to work on tomorrow morning's sermon). But I kind of doubt that those fellas go down into this particular hole every day. And what kind of mine is a big hole covered with boards? This mine looks like it's not part of the Mundane. No sir. I've never seen a miner that moved around like those dark shapes. Or heard of a mine that has flashing lights."

He raises up on an elbow and draws his hag's eye from his cassock pocket. He lies on his belly again, holds the stone up to his eye, and peers through one of the holes bored through it. "Let's see what the ole Hag's Eye has to say about those lights and dark shapes." O Hag's Eye, consecrated implement and instrument of divination, diviner of the truths of the Mundane and the Real, as created by and continuously, eternally, and infinitely guided, steered and herded along by the divine Bearer of Burdens.... What's going on with this place? I'll take that answer if you'll give it. If you demand more specificity-- what are those dark shapes and that light? And if you're going to be tight-lipped and secretive, like is most usual when divining things-- what are them dark shapes, and why don't they like that light? Brimston felt a little satisfied about that last question. It was a trick one, and actually no less specific than the earlier ones.

[Samwell Turleton]

Brimston pulls the Hag's Eye from his cassock and rubs the shiny black stone between his fingers. The stone's flaked surface comes to sharp edges forming a roughly circular opening a little off of center. Brimston holds the stone up to his eye and peers into the darkness. Thoughts form in Brimston's mind as he looks through the stone. He doesn't know how the Hag's Eye works exactly but has come to trust that the thoughts coming into his mind hold truth about what he is seeing. Brimston thinks about the miner's he saw earlier and about not knowing a lot about the mining operation in the Casketlands. He thinks about working underground and wonders about how the miners breathe when they are deep underground. The thought pops into Brimston's head that this must be a ventilation shaft for the tunnels below.

You think that the lights bobbing along below must be a part of the equipment of each miner and you are seeing the line of workers heading deeper into the mines to explore a new section of mine. They are passing between two tunnels beneath the shaft of this ventilation tunnel where you are able to see the lights emerge and disappear on the other side.

A flash of light from one of the miners extends up the shaft wall again and illuminates a soft writhing mass on the surface of the shaft wall. You can make out a little more detail that there is a colony of some kind of small creatures. A few of the creatures come and go as the light is flashing around the vent. The creatures appear disturbed by the light and start to stir until the light disappears, plunging the shaft back into darkness, and causing you to lose sight of the activity of the creatures.

[Samwell Turleton]

The true story is just as interesting. I like writing from personal experience in role playing and appreciate the little insight into you as a player and the character.

[jemmus]

Thanks!

Brimston thinks, "Brimston, looks like you let your imagination run away with you. Those appear to be ordinary miners flashing lights around, and ordinary creatures what don't like the lights. Bats, maybe. I wonder what they're minin' down there. Gold? Gems? Salt? Anyhow, now if those two miners what listened to my preaching this morning will bring some of their friends there to sermons, we could reveal the Real to quite a few gentlemen." Before putting the hag's eye back in his cassock's pocket, he says, O consecrated and blessed hag's eye, I thank the Bearer of Burdens for putting you on the earth and in my possession, for whatever reason in his complicated and hard to guess plan for things.

"Well, I guess lying here watching miners and creatures isn't going to do much toward getting Ned found," he thinks. "Come to think of it, I don't really know why I'm still searching for that sick man Ned. I suppose because I told Molly I would." He goes to Trigger and leads her toward the rock that shed its face, making sure to circumvent the ground with the hollow boards sound. Once he gets past that, he climbs up into the saddle and walks the horse toward the hoodoo.

[Samwell Turleton]

Brimston hears a loud clap of thunder in the distance and as he returns to Trigger sees the sky has grown darker and the storm is raging violently in the distance. The sky is rich with dark gray clouds flashing violently with lightning. The clouds are reaching to the ground with dark bands of heavy rain. Before putting the hag's eye back in Brimston's cassock pocket, he says, "O consecrated and blessed hag's eye, I thank the Bearer of Burdens for putting you on the earth and in my possession, for whatever reason in his complicated and hard to guess plan for things." It is in that moment that you recall the rains that came through the Casketlands a number of years back and how the waters rushed through the ravines wearing them clean and floated caskets, bodies and all, right up out of the ground and made work for a year for all the grave diggers to put those bodies right back in the ground.

Brimston turns and walks Trigger towards the hoodoo and looks down at the wooden planks where he saw the miners walking only moments ago.

As you walk towards the hoodoo you feel a deep thirst and take a drink of water from your canteen.

You walk on and the ground starts to rise as the terrain changes at the foot of the hoodoo. A large black bird circles the hoodoo and another, just as large, circles in the opposite direction. They soar making long swooping arcs so that their flight inscribes the shape of a figure eight against the sky.

[jemmus]

Brimston says, Trigger, that looks like a real gully-washer. He knows the horse doesn't speak the lingo. But he also knows that she can sense what his attention is on and get the gist of what he means. And it's good for a horse to get some conversation from its rider along the way. She has to carry his weight around all the time in exchange for nothing but feed and rubbed down, after all. Yep, might be another casket-floater. But at least it will cool things off. As the B.O.B. said, "It's better to look at the bright side of things. Being all hang-dog is no fun for you or anyone else. Things might be generally terrible, but there's no use spending your life miserable about it." They ride on toward the hoodoo for a while.

And the B.O.B. also said, "Misery loves company." By that he/she, really neither, meant that thinking about things negatively causes you to make more negative things happen. But in the Material and in the Real. You know, Trigger, I think I have my topic for tomorrow morning's sermon right there.

Brimston sees the black bird and the other bird flying figure eights. He thinks, "Birds again. Like that lark what probably wasn't Ned and what flew off toward the storm." He fingers the copper interlinked clouds pendant hanging from the thong around his neck. "Now that might be signful. Not many people know it, but I know it from my education. That's the sign for Infinity. Same shape more or less as the symbol of the Real and the Material and Alive and Dead. All of which have been around for infinity going back, and will be for infinity going forward. Of course, it doesn't really work like that. Time is all happening at the same time, and places are all piled on top of each other. They're not really separated by distances. Though I'd bet Trigger here carrying the weight of a rider in the hot sun toward that hoodoo would laugh at that idea, if a horse could laugh. But the Infinity sign also means something that's never going to end or go away. I'll take those big birds up there flying over that hoodoo as certainly signful."

Trigger, I don't like approaching that hoodoo much more than you do. But being on higher ground in case that storm washes in might be a good idea. And we'd have some nice, cool drinking water, of that I can assure you. They ride on toward the hoodoo, picking up the pace a little. Brimston thinks about the little bottle from Ned's room that Tex Arcana tossed him, and wonders what would happen if he drank it. "First and way in the front of things, I have to fulfill my promise to deliver a sermon to that girl from Molly's and those miners tomorrow morning. Drinking medicine from Ned's room can be next."

[Samwell Turleton]

Brimston reaches the base of the hoodoo. The ground is treacherous with loose rock and Trigger stumbles when the brittle stone shifts under its hooves. The birds continue circling in the sky, riding the wind rising off the face of the hoodoo. As Brimston gets close to the hoodoo he loses sight of the big birds but feels they are probably still up there watching him. The path is too treacherous to stay mounted on Trigger and it will take some effort to lead Trigger further.

The sounds of rocks clatter down off the hoodoo.

[jemmus]

Brimston said, Whoa, Trigger, this place isn't safe for a horse. And maybe not for a man either. He dismounted, led the horse to the shadiest spot he could find and fastened her reins to a good-sized rock. He then turned around and headed back toward the falling rocks. "Now I wonder what's making those rocks fall like that," he thought. "And Tex Arcana and his canine didn't even notice it. Well, the Bearer of Burdens said, 'I will give a wise man protection, so that he doesn't even dash his foot on a rock or stub his toe on it. But a foolish man, hardly anything can be done for him.' I hope by looking around here I'm not falling into the latter category."

From what he judges to be a safe distance, he looks up at the area of the hoodoo the rocks are falling from. Then he looks at the fallen rocks themselves. "What's making this hoodoo fall apart? It must have something to do with those big birds." He'd like to use the hag's eye again, but it's already done righteous duty just a little while ago and he doesn't want to push his luck.