Fantasy Bounty

[Vudukudu]

The town of Junction, Colorado, was never a particularly well known place, and that may be why no one really noticed when it disappeared one foggy day, the fourth of July, 1861. Perhaps in the turmoil of the American Civil War, a small town of only some 180 people was forgettable. Though there is only dust where Junction once stood, the people of Junction are not gone. They’re just.. Somewhere else.

On the fourth of July, 1861, the people of Junction woke up to an unfamiliar scene. Instead of the familiar mountain valley their town resided in, they found themselves transported to a sagebrush steppe. The transition had been silent, and not quite perfect. In the teleportation, some buildings collapsed, some disappeared, and a few people were either crushed by rubble or vanished entirely. The town immediately went into a panic, especially when they found their fancy telegram machine was no longer connected to its wires. That evening, a keen eye discovered something peculiar - the night sky just weren’t quite right, and a keener mind drew a quick conclusion - they weren’t on Earth anymore.

And that gentleman was right. The stars weren’t right, because the folk of Junction were somewhere else. They now call this new place Bounty, and there are a lot of things that ain’t quite right about Bounty.

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OOC: Bounty OOC
Lore: Bounty Lore Info
Character Page: Bounty Character Sheets

 

[Vudukudu]

Junction:
Concerning: AssassinHD , Epiphany , marshmarrow , ShakinMcBacon hostage
Date: July 4th, 1861, between the hours of 12 A.M and 4:15 A.M.
​

The date is July 4th, 1861. As many small towns and even large cities across the country did, Junction celebrated the birth of the great American experiment with all the patriotic extravagance that could be mustered. The town was festooned in red, white, and blue, as were the people who gathered about the little town's three saloons. The whole populace was present, all 183 citizens of Wyatt County, whether they be from the city proper or the town's surrounding lands. In the middle of the Civil War, Junction, a staunchly pro-Union town, would not pass up the opportunity to drink and revel in their young nation's glory. Men in suits and women in dresses danced well into the evening to the cheery piano tunes booming out from the saloons, and children played in the streets or watched a few of the adult men shoot off the crate of fireworks they'd had shipped in on one of the great steam engines passing through Denver.

Jared Kelly, presiding priest over this little corner of the world, had never been one to pass on a little bit of debauchery. After all, he wasn't exactly ordained, and he considered his work more of a public service than a religious one. He drank and danced and sang with all the rest, making his way from Zang's to the Orient to the Imperial. He wore his Army uniform from all those years ago when he fought his way across the Indian Wars, a badge of rank upon his shoulder and a ribbon pinned to his chest. The old blue shirt rarely came out, except for events like tonight's. It tended to get him free drinks and more than a few claps on the back.

The festivities went well into the evening, until every liquor-besotted reveler and sober adult or child had fallen asleep, either at home in bed or strewn about unconsciously across town. Jared Kelly had managed to return to his small church, and in it, the tiny private quarters he called home.

Somewhere in the Milky Way:​

The comet streaked across the stars, leaving behind it a dazzling ribbon of purple and green light. It careened wildly through space, emanating heat even in the cold darkness of the void. In the distance, the faint glint of a blue and green planet came into view, and the comet continued to hurtle towards it.

It was hungry, and when it felt the pulse of life, still countless trillions of miles away, it thrummed with desire.

Junction: ​

The object struck the center of Junction at 4:17 A.M, and in so doing, threw off the entire course of Junction's existence. When it touched ground, it left an eight foot deep impact crater before exploding, setting the Sheriff's Office, Barbershop, and the Imperial Saloon aflame. A purple wave of energy rippled forth, enveloping the entire town and miles around it, transporting the whole of Wyatt County to a far away world. Its people wouldn't likely notice until their new sun rose - even with the glowing flames licking across town, it was too dark to truly see beyond the town limits. The unfortunate few sleeping on chairs near the impact site would not live to see their new home. The comet's impact site sprouted tendrils, wicked looking things pulsing with otherworldly vigor, and they rapidly sought out prey. Those they grasped only had time to loose a scream before their flesh boiled away, seeping into the dirt beneath. Apparently sated, the tendrils go slack, still pulsing with life but no longer hunting.

The people of Junction awake to chaos, their town in flames, and a dark new world.

 

[ShakinMcBacon]

Time: After impact.


Raymond awoke to what seemed like hell. Rising from his cot with a start, he saw the ominous flicker of flames from the centre of town through a window across the room. He scrambled to get his clothes on, and hesitated with his hand over the old baker rifle. Thinking it would be foolish, he continued towards the front door, then hear the muffled screams from the town. Mind made up, he grabbed the rifle, checked the frizzen had its pinch of gunpowder, and knocked loudly on the door of the blacksmith's room.

"Fire in the town!" he yelled through the door, then rushed outside with the rifle slung over his shoulder, almost tripping over the threshold in his haste.

He arrived to a scene of horror. Three buildings were alight, and he paled at the sight of the crater and the things that seemed to guard it with an eerie stillness. The other townsfolk were just as shocked as he was, and some of the more quick-witted began a bucket-line at the nearest building. Raymond ran to join it, keeping a tentative eye on the tentacles as he passed the full bucket along, his hands shaking. The master blacksmith joined behind him, nodding to his apprentice and remaining remarkably calm. And so, with flames in the sky and monsters in the street, Raymond worked, slowly coming to terms with this new and terrifying world.

 

[Epiphany]

Like most of the town, Laura had greatly enjoyed her time out that night. Her son John had stayed up long enough to watch the fireworks before being put to bed, the toddler still needing plenty of sleep. With her sister-in-law on hand to watch out, Laura had taken her husband Richard out to go dancing. She'd always been a standoffish woman to most of Junction, in part because she spent most of her time hunting and trapping, in part because she was always a little self conscious about being half-Indian. But for the Fourth of July, Laura put on her nicest dress, kicked up her heels and let her husband lead her across dance floors. She drank just a little past tipsy and finally settled into bed with her handsome man late that night.

The last thing she expected was to be woken up, shaken by the impact of...something. Earthquake? Here?

Laura and Richard sprang out of bed, him to check outside, her to check on the still sleeping John. Drawn to the window, she gaped in mute horror at the sudden spectacle of fire enveloping downtown.

Her husband dressed and joined the water bucket line. Laura passed John on to her sister-in-law and, seeing the water line well in hand, circled around the buildings to look for wounded or stray children. With such a celebration last night, all sorts of people might be where they usually weren't, confused at the least and hurt or killed at the most. Laura aimed to round up any looking puzzled and put them to work, while collecting unattended children and passing them off to her sister-in-law for parents to pick up after the disaster.

She eyed the vines near the impact point, shook her head and set that mystery aside for now. When the sun rose, there'd be time enough to look to that particular puzzle.

 

[AssassinHD]

Tobias Jameson

"Eh what, who's there?"
Toby wakes with a start resulting from the shaking ground. His head and upper body bolt up, forming a right angle with his legs, but his eyes remain closed and his arms remain limp, as if only half of him woke up. Which isn't entirely untrue. He rubs his eyes open and then moves on to rubbing his temples.
"You know it's kinda hard to function on like 3 hours of sleep," he yells, thinking that there's someone knocking on his door or something. He then focuses more on the sounds he's hearing -- fire crackling, people screaming. Did some drunk idiot play with fire near the leftover fireworks? Nice, he thinks. He kicks off his tattered blanket and puts on the typical, comfortable clothes. He staggers out of his bedroom and through the foyer, opening the door to the...
"What in tarnation is that!" he says. He stands on his porch, looking down and rubbing his temples, and lifts up his head to see the weird purple tentacles sprouting from the ground around a massive crater?
"Alright real funny, world," Toby says, blaming whatever is happening on severe sleep deprivation. He hasn't quite gotten enough the past week, with preparing for the Fourth and running a bakery. "You interrupt my much needed sleep for something as unbelievable as that! Yeah you done screwed up, brain," he continues, walking back inside his house and going back to bed, falling asleep with an instant.

 

[Vudukudu]

Jared heard the impact and rose from bed, the sound reminding him of cannon fire more than anything else. Confederates, out here? At Junction? Why? He pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt, then fumbled in his nightstand for his pistol before holstering the Colt Army Model 1860 at his hip. He rushed outside, slamming open the heavy oaken doors of his small church and surveying the scene. It didn't take long to discern that this wasn't a military attack, but some other sort of incident.

By now, the water brigade had doused the minor flames consuming the sheriff's office and the barbershop, which were spared the worst of the flames. The Imperial Saloon, however, roared with heat and destruction as it had absorbed the worst of the comet's strike. Jared trotted down the steps of the church, waving at some of the gathered children and the wounded. "Into the church! Is anyone injured?" He called out, ushering those incapable of helping with the firefighting towards the open chapel.

Jared, like many, was hungover, but the dull headache throbbing in his skull quickly washed away as adrenaline set in. He joined the firefighting line, just in time for the second tragedy of the evening to strike. The Imperial Saloon's beer casks, massive, 210 gallon affairs, ignited. The pressure, coupled with the immense heat of the roaring flames, caused all four of the casks to explode like watermelons, sending a hail of splintered steel and dumping almost six hundred gallons of beer into the saloon. Jared took an inch long piece of the shrapnel to the stomach that caught in his gut, and the person next to him was decapitated by a spinning shard of metal. Then, the cascade of liquid poured out, washing Jared and the corpse next to him out into the street, down into the crater the comet still occupied.

The Imperial Saloon, burning ever more hotly and in ruins, was the last thing Jared saw before being seized by one of the tendrils. Blood pooled beneath his shirt, staining the white cloth red in a growing circle around his stomach, and he loosed a scream as the thing pulled him over the lip of the crater. His fingernails scrabbled for purchase in the dirt before his eyes rolled into the back of his head. The sensation of cold fingers probing his skull plucked his consciousness free of his mortal body, and he saw things ancient and unknowable.

Fire. A legion of corpses, stretched as far as the eye could see, shambling across a plain. A creature dressed in yellow rags, cackling as its three-fingered hand pushed its claws into a screaming infant, silencing it. A dark swamp, flashes of impossibly fast movement behind every tree. A person, their stomach swollen and stretched, exploding into a cloud of insects. The vastness of space, and the distinct knowledge that something is watching him back.

 

[ShakinMcBacon]

The explosion knocked Raymond off his feet, and he heard a piece of metal shrapnel whistle past his head as he fell. Some, as he saw, weren't so lucky. The blacksmith, Raymond's caretaker and instructor was hit in the neck with a metal shard, his warm blood splattering across Raymond as he fell, wide-eyed and coughing. Each cough brought forth more blood, and the man died slowly, his wild, pleading eyes meeting Raymond's as he fell still. Raymond sat dumbfounded, the man's blood warm on his face and splattered across his chest, then he heard a man's prolonged scream behind him, towards the crater. Turning, he saw Jared, the revelling preacher being dragged towards the crater by one of the tentacles. Scrambling towards his rifle, which had been tossed a few feet away from his fall, he brought the rudimentary sights up. He blindly fired towards the tentacle mass, felt the brass back-plate kick into his shoulder, and tried to roll free of the powder smoke.

An unearthly scream filled the air, causing the already dazed townsfolk to wince, and Raymond saw a tentacle shoot towards him, bleeding an obscene green from its flank. Screaming and kicking, Raymond scrambled backwards, and the tentacle grabbed the blacksmith instead, dragging the eerily silent body into the mass. Realising he had missed the tentacle with the priest, he swore vehemently, tears stinging his eyes. He watched the cascade of beer flow into the street, looking oily in the flame's reflection, and felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

 

[Epiphany]

The preacher's opening of the church solved at least one issue.

Laura ushered on the children and wounded she'd collected so far. Once they were settled, she returned to the streets to put her strong arms to work. At least that was the intent. By the time she reached the line, the Imperial Saloon exploded. And people in trouble took priority over a flaming wreck.

She searched through downed bodies, yelling for help and pulling the wounded away from the crater lip and the flaming brewery, noting the dead as she passed them in search of more living. Laura still hadn't noticed the tentacles, at least not consciously enough to really register their inexplicable presence. The gunshot, though, she noticed. She spun at the sound. The look of horror on Raymond's face drew her back towards the disaster in time to spot the priest snatched, along with several others.

With a cry, Laura snatched up a flaming board of wood and brandished it before another tentacle ambling for a prone body in the muddied street. With a swing, she slammed it against the tendril, over and over, even as she cursed that she'd left her guns at home. For a brief time, Laura prevailed and the vine fled before her wrath.

The elation ended when two others snaked in from her flanks, seized her and pulled her into the crater.

 

[Vudukudu]

The sound of the gunshot brought Jared snapping back to reality. When the black shroud obscuring his vision faded, he saw someone else had joined him in the pit, seized by two of the monstrosity's tendrils. "Shoot it!" He yelled, digging his fingers into the dirt. His handhold came loose, and he slid further down the hole. Without something to hold onto, he reached for his pistol instead, cocking the hammer with his thumb and aiming unsteadily at the center of the alien thing.

It was green, or it was until something happened to Jared's eyesight once more. The world around him changed, turning an opaque dark red. The people gathered around town were reduced to flickering blue lights contained within transparent skeletons, and the tentacled monster beneath him glowed an angry shade of orange. The gun in hand, and all the buildings and inanimate objects around him, turned to little more than hazy outlines of their former selves, barely translucent. The sky above was a roiling storm, covered entirely by clouds with peals of distant thunder and lightning flashes across the sky. The sky shifted, and a massive tentacle burst through the cloud cover, swaying gently in the sky. Jared wasn't sure how, but he could feel its malevolence even miles beneath it, and in that moment he knew that thing had always been and always would be.

His gun bucked in his hand as he pulled the trigger, putting a bullet into the center of the creature and jerking his vision back to normal. The beast swelled and let loose a high pitched hum, leaving Jared's ears ringing as he pumped round after round into it as it dragged him downwards. His gun clicked, and the tendril around his ankle lifted him up before slamming him into the side of the crater, knocking the air out of him and leaving him bloodied and gasping for air. "Kill it!" He wheezed, looking upward.

The alien thing ceases to bleed, but instead pumps out a noxious smoke, obscuring the area and making the air almost impossible to breathe. Still, its long-reaching limbs flail wildly, though they have started to slow as the beast slowly begins to die.

 

[ShakinMcBacon]

Raymond watched as a woman was snatched, and decided to take the initiative. He heard multiple consecutive revolver shots, and saw the preacher being thrown about like a ragdoll. Whatever he did seemed to work, as the creature's movements became more sluggish, but still deadly. Clasping his belt, he made a brief prayer that his rifle's powder pouch was still buckled on. He had neglected the lead ammunition, but the powder would work in a pinch. He rose quickly, yanked the powder pouch free, and scrambled for a fire source. His search was not hard, and he found a smouldering splinter, feeling the oppressive heat of the larger fire pressing onto him as he stuck the splinter into the pouch, closing the lid to keep it secure. And so, with makeshift grenade in hand, he ran closer to the mass, lifted his arm back, and was promptly thrown forward by a tentacle. The unearthly creature wound around him, muffling his scream. His consciousness began to dim, and he felt the leather pouch slip from his hand.

A young one..........lost...........forgotten..........

He heard a deep, resounding voice in his head, and the words seemed to be branded in his vision. The words faded, and instead he saw a blurry scene. A blue sky, green grass, puffs of cloud, all began to form. A lone man on horseback entered the scene, dressed in a brilliantly embellished blue uniform. His cap rested on the saddle pommel, and his dark brown hair played across his forehead in the cool breeze. At his side was a scabbard, and Raymond recognised the sword as his. The blade was new, bright, polished. Turning his head, the man seemed to see Raymond, and his smile seemed to reflect the afternoon's idyllic warmth. The peace was shattered by a low boom, and the man become an explosion of blood and bone. Raymond saw a black round shot, streaked with blood, pass through the man. The horse skittered away form its fallen master, and the mangled corpse fell with a heavy thud. Another explosion rocked the earth, and Raymond awoke from his daze with eyes blurry with tears. He was lying a couple metres from the crater, and saw two severed tentacles writhing near him. Their green blood pulsed out, soaking the soil, deafening Raymond with their scream. They writhed for a couple more seconds, then became still, twitching occasionally. The rest of the tentacles still moved, but they were now much slower than before, and had let go of any victims. In one instant, Raymond's ears stopped ringing, and he felt an overwhelming amount of pain in his leg. Looking down, he paled at the awkward angle of his foot, but otherwise was miraculously in one piece.

 

[Vudukudu]

Jared's vision blurred and his ears rang with the force of the explosion. He jolted as mud kicked loose by the blast caked his face, slapping his head to the side and jamming him back into the side of the crater wall. He couldn't hear what came next, but he felt the tentacle around his leg slacken and he took a glance upwards, vision obscured by the mud covering one of his eyes.

At the lip of the crater, a few men had finally gotten their weapons together and let loose on the creature, sending volley after volley of Colorado lead into it. Even once the thing stopped moving, they continued to fire until one by one, their ammunition ran out. Jared felt a few hands grab onto him, and the stunned preacher was heaved out of the crater, his clothes spattered with the thing's green blood. Out the corner of his eye, he saw two more people tugged out of the hole. It was hard to tell exactly who they were at first, but after some focusing he took a guess that it was Raymond and Laura. He still couldn't hear anything, and when the men tried to speak to him, to ask if he was alright, he mumbled incoherently and closed his hands over his ears, trying to shut out the tinnitus. It didn't help, but it got his point across.

Someone parted the crowd briefly with a pair of kerosene lamps and dumped their contents onto the monster, and someone else hurled a lit torch into the pit. The creature's skin burst like an overripe fruit as it ignited, its green ichor bubbling like boiling water. Jared could hardly process what was happening any longer, but it seemed people had already organized somewhat to bury the thing. Wheelbarrows of horse and cow manure, shovelfuls of dirt, and whatever litter could be gathered were heaped into the pit and packed down by beating the earth with the flat of spades. All this took place over the next fifteen or so minutes, in which Jared had been dragged a short distance away to sit and be checked out by the town doctor. He blacked out when the doctor gave him a dose of laudanum, and his last sensation was the feeling of poking around in his stomach. When he would wake up, he'd find the shrapnel from the saloon explosion had been removed.

Bounty:
Date: July 5th, 1861. Early and Late Morning.
​

Once the creature out of space had been killed and buried, the citizens of Junction were given the opportunity to take a look around them. The children and those not capable of helping with the fires, the beast, or the clean-up process were the first to notice. Peering out the dusty, plain windows of the church, a young girl with a keen eye discovered something strange in the evening sky. As one large, dark cloud shifted, she became the first to see the second moon hanging in the sky above. She prodded her peers, who went to their parents, and soon word spread like wildfire. A few stargazers took a look in the early morning sky, just as the stars were beginning to fade, and came to a disturbing realization. They were not viewing the same night sky as usual.

Most could not remain awake any longer as their bodies burned out on the adrenaline and lack of sleep. When people rolled out of bed a few hours later, they found their small town not only rested under a new sky, but it also no longer lay between its familiar mountains. Instead, Junction lay in a wide, flat plain covered in brush. The bushes looked much like sage, but lacked the characteristic smell. Unfamiliar types of grasses and trees stuck out among the plain, and the cattle which hadn't run off during the night grazed idly on the new landscape. Stranger still, however, were the other creatures among them. Scaly, six-legged rodents scampered between bushes, slim tongues grabbing at seeds and vibrantly colored insects. Further out from the town, in the direction of a large forest, a pack of ten grey quadrupeds with single horns wandered about before bounding off like scared deer. Out of the bushes near them, a striped black and tan beast the size of a small bear sprinted off after them, chasing them into the woods.

In town, most were still trying to clean up from the night before, or wandered in a daze. By now, most knew their world had changed, and dozens of theories were passed around, none proving particularly satisfying. Those who hadn't completely lost their cool turned to cautious exploration of their new surroundings, herding the cattle back into their ruined pen and examining the landscape more closely.

Jared, and anyone else who had been injured, were still in the care of Doctor Weissman as the sun rose, though most had been stabilized. In total, between the explosion and the creature's assault, ten of the town's men and women had perished. The town's graveyard had disappeared in the teleportation, and a hasty row of graves were dug out back behind the church to entomb the deceased, who, lacking coffins, were merely wrapped in spare sheets of linen.

 

[ShakinMcBacon]

Raymond saw the victims released with relief, and watched as the beast was filled with round after round, killing it. He felt friendly hands lift him gently, carrying him from the fiend and to the town doctor. Since his wound was less pressing than others, he was placed at the back of the rudimentary line. Someone had retrieved his rifle for him, and he held the familiar weight in his lap. Soon it was his turn, and in a blur his leg was set in a splint and he was carried off to the church with the rest of the wounded. Placed on a cot, he laid in a daze, then dozed off into a fitful sleep. The image of the cavalry officer entered his dreams often, always out of reach and vanishing before Raymond could reach him.

~Next Morning~

Raymond awoke to the murmur of voices in the church. All the wounded lay on cots or re-purposed pews, and some chatted idly, while others laid in silence. Last night's events seemed so distant now, but the view of bloody bandages brought the memories back to Raymond. What had he saw? And why? Thoughts swirled in his head, and he lifted the blankets partially to see his leg. It was bound tight, the splint expertly placed. He realised just how lucky he was, he had seen his master go down in a gout of blood, and here he was with a bandaged leg and bruised rib. Another realisation came to him; he was now the town's blacksmith. This sudden responsibility did not unsettle him; he had already started to take over for the ageing blacksmith, although he doubted horseshoes and nails would be the most of people's worries now. Rising to a seating position, he swung his legs over the cot, wincing as he put the slightest weight on his right leg. The window was not far, and using the rifle as a makeshift cane, he hobbled his way over, leaning against the sill as he stared out the glass. The landscape was not the one he remembered, and instead of the usual hawk soaring above, he saw a devilishly deformed vulture. First the monster, now a new world? Raymond did not consider himself wise or insightful, but he knew with confidence that this new life would not be easy. He hobbled back to his cot as vultures circled the sky and unseen creatures lied in restless wait.

 

[Epiphany]

The world burned. It wasn't just the town but Colorado, and beyond it the States themselves. Westward lay the Indian and they alone rose, steeled against plague and the perished. Though the tribes died in countless numbers, their spirits weren't ensnared like the white man. One bare-chested brave met her eyes and there was flame in his, flame and condemnation. The white man's ways couldn't save her, couldn't save any of them. And then he fled. Leaving her to at last look up and behind her at what caused it all, at what watched them all from the impossible depths of the stars...

Laura came to and she honestly didn't know up from down for a good several minutes. Her rescuers left her to flail weakly in the arms of her husband. Richard held her until she'd regained her senses once more.

"What?"

It took her another minute to realize he couldn't really hear her or she him over the thundering boom of guns giving the monster in the pit their all. Instead, she watched the display as someone lit the thing up. When people took up shovels to bury it, Laura staggered to her feet and made to join them, only to be led away by her husband and brother to see the town doctor. The sight of the preacher being dosed did little for her spirits or her confidence. But when it came for her turn, no such measures were necessary for her. Though an examination by the doctor showed livid bruises across her legs, her belly and arms. Across her shoulders judging by the mirror, bruises that looked almost like lash marks.

Hobbled with the battering she'd taken, Laura had reluctantly agreed to spend the day helping her sister-in-law with the children rather than contributing directly to the clean-up. Richard at least understood. She wasn't stuck at home because she was a woman or helpless (interchangeable terms to too many men). Everytime she rose from her seat, the pain across the length and breadth of her body reminded her to take it easy.

By that evening, she was in better spirits and content to cook dinner. She and Richard watched their son John amble around and get into mischief, smiling as they saw to the house and their usual chores. It was a bit of normalcy after a day of insanity.

The sight of the night sky ended all thoughts that this was a fluke.

"Two moons?"

They slept on it then, for all the good it did them. The morning brought more madness in the form of impossible vegitation, bizarre creatures and not a familiar sight to be seen. Laura especially felt it keenly, for she'd been born in the mountains around Junction. She'd lived her whole life there. Laura had never so much as escaped the sight of those mountains. Their absence and the flatness of this plain left her in shock.

She stopped by the town's doctor by lunch time, dressed once more in her familiar shirt and pants beneath a sturdy coat. This time, Laura carried her Colt and kept her Henry sheathed in her carrying case. She aimed to see this foreign land for herself, assuming the doctor cleared her as Richard had insisted.

While she waited, Laura paused before the others injured in last night's attack. Her eyes drifted from the preacher to the blacksmith. Then those eyes squeezed shut at the onset of a sudden, swift headache. The world burned. Shuddering, she dispelled the horrific flashback once more and said "Heal up quick, the both of you. We're going to need all the prayer and steel we can put together, I reckon."

 

[Vudukudu]

Jared's morning was largely spent in states of either drug-induced delirium or terrifying hallucinations. He couldn't for the life of him decide which was worse. As it turned out, his wounds were largely superficial with the exception of the shrapnel wound which would likely leave him sore for weeks if not months, according to the doctor's estimate. Jared hardly slept once he regained consciousness, his eyes bleary and red with exhaustion. He'd seen people turned to ash, a figure wreathed in crows with eyes of bubbling pitch, and more. Sleep, he thought, would only make him vulnerable. He heard the murmurings and confusion of those around him, but did not respond until the blacksmith appeared.

This man knew. He'd seen, too.

His gaze turned on Raymond, a blank, unflinching stare that did not falter until Laura's arrival. His vision jolted and flared red, as it had earlier, and Raymond and Laura's hearts burned with searing blue lights. The other people in the church were mere coals compared to the wildfires before him. When she spoke, the thundering of his heart and his otherworldly vision faded. He coughed and clenched one of his hands before clearing his throat to muster a response.

"Wherever we are?" He started, raising an eyebrow curiously. "I don't think even God's heard or seen'it." He went on, raising one arm to gesture broadly before vaguely pointing at Laura and Raymond. "But I get the feeling y'all knew that already, too." He finished.

 

[ShakinMcBacon]

Raymond had been meticulously dismantling his rifle, and looked up to reply.

"We're certainly not in Colorado," he said, looking back down as he pulled the flint free. He hesitated, then continued. "When the thing grabbed me last night, I saw things... what about you two?" This time his voice was less confident, although he felt comfortable in sharing it, seeing as these people presumably experienced the same thing as him. The rifle was now apart, and he began scraping out dirt and other debris collected from the fall. "Oh, and Laura? If it's not too much trouble, can you find me a pair of crutches? I don't want to be dead weight here for Mr. Weissman." He asked and looked up at her, then glanced at the preacher. They both looked tired and beaten, but he felt the odd inkling of a companionship, a connection of sorts which he could not put to thought. A sharp pain coursed briefly through his head, but he dismissed it as a side effect from his injury.