You had nothing else to tell her that you reckoned she wouldn’t ignore; you ruled it was better to keep moving ahead. Perhaps, though unlikely, her hopes would ring true, and she would find her brother an unchanged man. Else, the devil would get his dues. You glanced at her with brief pity and then moved ahead, your soles drifting through the sand and leaving your imprint on the Graveyard Frontier. With a seething expression, Goldie looked as you ignored the watch hand guiding towards Henry and instead trudged to where you deemed right to go. You were not going to be led by a child, neither were you going to walk to your death … even though Bill said the El Dorado Warren was not a nice place either.Another couple of hours passed in trudging silence, the soreness of prick marks boohooing in mild annoyance. The bullet wound crackled in your luminous flesh as if it was a sunken knife that chipped and then shattered into dozen shards while still inside your shoulder. You grasped your joint but it did little to veil the pain. The only thing keeping your attention from the wound was your thirst: what meagre drops of cactus juice you had in your body were becoming a memory. If Prickly Nicety’s nectar was a drink of choice in the Graveyard Frontier, then you hoped you would chance upon it again, even if it was going to dress in the flesh clothing of someone you knew. It wouldn’t be another Mercedes. Would it? You knew other people the welcoming and kind presence who could try and challenge your reason besides her, true?As you recollected their names and visages of them, you heard the sound of creaking metal and then, once you focused your gaze, a dazzling spectral monument in the shape of a windmill—no, a windpump. Standing there was a tower of abandoned opaque lumber that was curved and shifting like mist, similar to the ranch you saw not so long ago. Its eerie glow shifted from pale blue to intense green and cast a dim light which battled but soon faded into the fog. The many unmoving blades flashed under the moonlight, scintillating rust gnawing on the outlines. The rotor ground and groaned, but barely moved an inch. You neared underneath the phantom construction towards the empty pipe, as dry as your throat. You swallowed and scratched your head, was this some sort of joke on the behalf of the underworld?
> Continue moving on; screw this potential way to quench your thirst. > Climb the scaffolding to reach the blade and attempt to push it along.> Ask Goldie to climb up the tower and then attempt to pull the blades.> Tell Goldie that with the thirst it’s possible you’ll “die” and re-emerge somewhere else—God knows where—which will complicate it for you and her. Tell her to help.> You are being followed by the Leftovers, luck would have it, they are still on your trail. The powerful wind follows them, it seems. Make camp and wait for them …> [Write In]
___________________________> UPDATES?Once a day.> PREVIOUS THREADS?https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Wanted%20Dead:%20A%20Western%20Quest> OTHER QUESTS?https://pastebin.com/raw/4sBYKVqL
>>5607743> Tell Goldie that with the thirst it’s possible you’ll “die” and re-emerge somewhere else—God knows where—which will complicate it for you and her. Tell her to help.
>>5607743> You are being followed by the Leftovers, luck would have it, they are still on your trail. The powerful wind follows them, it seems. Make camp and wait for them
>>5607743>> Continue moving on; screw this potential way to quench your thirst.best keep moving
>>5607743>Tell Goldie that with the thirst it’s possible you’ll “die” and re-emerge somewhere else—God knows where—which will complicate it for you and her. Tell her to help.
>>5607743>You are being followed by the Leftovers, luck would have it, they are still on your trail. The powerful wind follows them, it seems. Make camp and wait for them
>>5607743>> Tell Goldie that with the thirst it’s possible you’ll “die” and re-emerge somewhere else—God knows where—which will complicate it for you and her. Tell her to help.
>>5607743>You are being followed by the Leftovers, luck would have it, they are still on your trail. The powerful wind follows them, it seems. Make camp and wait for themThirst won’t kill us from what we were told, but we could use something to barter before we hit the town.
>>5607743> Tell Goldie that with the thirst it’s possible you’ll “die” and re-emerge somewhere else> Ask Goldie to climb up the tower and then attempt to pull the blades.She's thirsty too, I bet.And betting on Leftovers to come close enough to move the windmill that might not even work in the first place, is gamble I don't want to make.
>>5607791>>5607798>>5607799>>5607853>>5607854>>5607918>>5608058>>5608074>>5608706You dragged your hand against the ghastly pipe. You struck it with your knuckles to no avail.“Are you thirsty?” you asked her.“Why should you care?” Goldie said. She crossed her arms and, after a pause, remarked, “No … I’m neither hungry nor thirsty nor do I feel tired. That's how it works here, it seems.”“Lucky you,” you said, not putting much weight into your words. You pointed to your throat. “Looks like your brother’s thorns didn’t bedevil your body in any way,” you said, “but as for me, I feel as dry as a tumbleweed, thirsty enough I can imagine myself biting the dust. If that happens, I’ll reemerge God knows where from here.”“Yes, I get it—you are in pain, how bad. How horrible. If we followed into the town instead as I said, you could’ve found a drink there.”“You suggested we go there before we even stumbled upon the Prickly Niceties,” you sighed. You nudged your head up, “We need to pull the blades to see if that’ll get the rotor and the pump movi—”“Us?” she asked, furrowing her brows and scowling.Your fingers trailed a path through your greying hair. “You got an unbreakable soul when you got here, girl. Do you want me to disappear out of your grasp or nay?”Goldie pouted. Her eyes rolled up to the top of the windmill. “I don’t really like” —she swallowed— “Do it yourself, you are making it hard for me so why should I make it easier for you? The more in pain you are the breezier it’ll be for Henry.” She cocked her head and, for a second, her irises shrunk. “I know you are going to resist.”You exhaled through your teeth and then spat on the ground. Rolling your shoulders and flexing your arms you approached the twisted timbered tower and, grabbing into the vague spectral wood—chilling, fizzy and wispy to the touch—you began to ascend it. Slowly. Irregularly, your fingers slipped through the wood like it was rotten but it returned to its unstable firmness when you removed your hands and it didn’t repeat the trickery on your second tries. Eventually, you stood near the decaying blades. You peered towards the horizon but the hanging haze hid anything of interest, the shadows of the hanging billows shrouding everything else.You approached the edge of the platform, steadying yourself in the harrowing moonlight as if you were closer to it than it was within the Graveyard’s Frontier law. You reached beneath the closest blade with your fingers, and, as soon as you brushed against the rusty iron, you feel a piercing bite, your shining skin cut to the bone.> Use only one hand to pull the blade against the clock with as little pain as you can.> Grab the blade with both hands and use all your strength to pull it, ignore the pain.> You would like a drink. You really need a drink … but maybe it can wait a little more. Climb down.> [Write In]
>>5608975> Use only one hand to pull the blade against the clock with as little pain as you can.
>>5608975> Grab the blade with both hands and use all your strength to pull it, ignore the pain.
>>5608975Yeah, that went like I expected. Good to know she’s afraid of heights though.Iron might hurt more than usual against soul stuff too. Bullets are usually made out of “feeble iron” and Bill’s knife was iron too. Could be practicality, could be a known weakness.> Find some wood to clutch in your hands to keep the iron from biting deep, or possibly at all.> Grab the blade with both hands and use all your strength to pull it, ignore the pain.
>>5608975> You would like a drink. You really need a drink … but maybe it can wait a little more. Climb down.What's the point in relief for our thirst at the cost of one or two hands? Both pains are going to come back, might as well just suffer with one than two.
>>5608975>> Grab the blade with both hands and use all your strength to pull it, ignore the pain.
>>5609017This, find something we can use as a tool. I know last thread this dude hugged a cactus but how did he survive 40 years if he’s retarded enough to grab sharp rusty metal with his bare hands in the age before tetanus vaccines
>>5609370He's normally not a parched ghost in a hell-realm, operating on a time-limit and in a place with limited access to supplies and tools, being hunted by vengeful apparitions with the instincts of homing pigeons. Though...>>5608975If>Find some wood to clutch in your hands to keep the iron from biting deep, or possibly at allis viable, please add it to my vote at >>5608994
>>5608975>>5608991Changing my vote to support >>5609017
>>5609017+1
>>5609017+1, let's not get ghost tetanus
>>5608975>Do the wood.
>>5609059>>5609122>>5609154>>5609370>>5609382>>5609395>>5609452>>5609804You released the blade with a flinching gasp. You took a look at the wounds, the ghostly flesh shifting back onto its place, mending the cuts but not the pain of it. You cursed—Fuck!—and waved your hands to make sure the only damage was the burn of the cut. You sighed and turned to a piece of the scaffolding, grasping it first and then pulling it to break to use it as some sort of clutch. The devilish wood hissed at your touch, its palish glow dwindling the closer you came to breaking a piece of it. It tonelessly cracked as you pulled a clutch-worth of lumber; big enough to use as a medium between you and the sharp iron. Almost weightless, it lost its fiendish light and, moments after, vanished from your hands into a cyan mist. You held into the dying sparks, but the dust soon resettled where you broke it off and reappeared.It didn’t seem like it was made using nails, at least. With an annoyed sigh, you took off your vest and covered your naked hands with it, approaching the blade for the second time. You grabbed into it and felt the edge cut into your soul, the thick cloth doing not much short of nothing. You yelled in pain as you turned the blade with a hollow grind. The gears rang above your head like a slowly cracking bell as the edge cut you again. You pulled the blade all the way down below yourself and further … Shuddering from pain you approached the tower’s edge, clenched your fists, bit your lip and then spent an unpleasant moment with the anguish.“Is there anything at all?!” you yelled, your voice cracking from a duet of pain and thirst.You could swear Goldie rolled her eyes. “Yes! There’s something,” she yelled back, “but you better climb down faster, there ain’t much there!”Your palms felt as if they were cut by an executioner’s clean sever, only to regrow to be cut again—an existence worthy of a damned Hellworld. You took a moment to bargain with the fresh sensation before you began the descent. Your hands infrequently passed through the unstable scaffolding but it was less worry climbing down. You jumped off and onto the ground when the height got negligible, raising a dust cloud beneath your feet. You came within the reach of the damp pipe …Goldie stood not far from it, her palms cupped together with a murky black liquid held in them.You raised your pained arm. “Don’t even think about it, brat.”She smirked. “Think about what?”“About drinking it yourself.”She cast her gaze at the drink. “There’s no way I’m drinking this shit.”“ … or about throwing it on the ground.”She frowned. “I hate you so much I would really like to, just so know that,” she said. “Fine. Do you -want- to drink it?” she rose her hands.
> Approach the girl and drink it from her hands.> Come towards Goldie and cup your hands. Ask her to pout the liquid onto your hands instead, though probably in less quantity.> That does not look drinkable. Sure, you already made the sacrifice to get it, but maybe it’s better to leave the liquid alone.> [Write In]
Don't suppose we could filter the liquid using clothing, wetting and wringing.
>>5609984So some structures follow the same rules we do? They get injured, they break apart and reform? Wonder if that means cover regenerates.I’ll back>See if you can filter the water at all using cloth. Place your vest over your hands and have her trickle the water into your own cupped hands. Either the vest will hold the water entirely or it will be absorbed to be wringed out and leave behind… some black residue.No idea if it really makes a difference but at least we’re learning things about how stuff behaves here.Whether we filter the water or not, I say we drink the final product in small amounts. If the cloth doesn’t absorb the water then it’ll make for a good bowl to hold the water while we drink sips.
>>5610034+1
>>5610034If we have a hat we should wring the vest out into it.
>>5610034>>5610491+1
>>5610034+1>>5609991
Apologies, no update today.
>>5609991>>5609993>>5610034>>5610096>>5610491>>5610534>>5610603You stopped in front of the girl and looked at the spirit, blackish and watery, shifting the visage of her glowing skin and bones. It didn’t look that appealing. You took off your Stetson hat and span it in your hands to point the crown downwards. You removed your vest and a part of it on top of the under brim, gently pressing a cavity.“Drop it here,” you said."Tsk." Goldie clicked her tongue and opened her hands, pouring the efforts of your sweat onto the cloth. The black water trembled as it fell on top of your vest but then it settled still, and, very slowly, began to filter through the canvas and cotton. Goldie waited impatiently as you watched, drop by drop, the fluid seep through the fabric without leaving any stains or muck. Your hands quavered from the cuts as you kept the hat steady. After several long moments, you removed the vest and looked inside.The liquid was as black as before. Either the makeshift filter wasn’t good enough or this is how the underground water looked in its purest form in this hellhole.> Drink the water in slow sips.> Keep it for now in your hat. You are not sure how long it’ll last there without starting to seep through, but maybe El Dorado Warren is just a few minutes away.> Insist that Goldie takes a sip to see the effects, although there’s not that much to share.> Drop the liquid on the ground, you would rather not take the risks.> [Write In]
>>5612255> Drink the water in slow sips.We did what we could. May as well buck up and try it.
>>5612255>> Drink the water in slow sips.
>>5612255Smell it first then if it doesn’t smell like anything obviously poisonous or make us wanna hurl then sip it slow
>>5612255> Drink the water in slow sips.
>>5612255> Keep it for now in your hat. You are not sure how long it’ll last there without starting to seep through, but maybe El Dorado Warren is just a few minutes away.Man fuck this
>>5612255> Keep it for now in your hat. You are not sure how long it’ll last there without starting to seep through, but maybe El Dorado Warren is just a few minutes away
>>5612255> Drink the water in slow sips.So... Thirsty...
>>5612255> Keep it for now in your hat. You are not sure how long it’ll last there without starting to seep through, but maybe El Dorado Warren is just a few minutes away.This is a fucking oil well isn't it?
>>5612263>2>>5612413>>5612638>>5612644>>5612746>>5612806>>5612933>>5613139You hesitated yet eventually rose the hat to your chin, smelling the onyx fluid. It had no smell, no foulness that anything not meant to be drunk should have had. Then again, this was the underworld, the Graveyard Frontier, things didn't act, feel, or smell the way they were supposed to. You glanced at the still steel blades of the windpump; someone had made this thing, somehow, to pump the liquid from the grounds below. Would someone go through all that trouble just to pump poison? You reckoned it to be unlikely...but if this windpump was truly crafted by Purgatory herself, then it wouldn't make sense for it not to try to seduce you with the blades already spinning and the water pouring.You took a bitty sip, swirling the water between your cheeks for any faults. It tasted like water, freshening and quenching; there was also a strange mellow bitter taste, noticeable but sparse; it tasted like an over-roasted coffee, tolerably charred and smoky. You swallowed and, after a brief pause, you then raised your hat to take a second drink. There was only a handful of the strange liquid for you to drink, and in only half a dozen mouthfuls you emptied your hat off it. Your thirst was sated, just a tad, but there was also something else … you felt heavier and tenser, your feet sinking deeper into the sand.Goldie narrowed her eyes.“What in all hell is happening to you?” You didn’t feel like you were dying, however, but something did feel different. Wrong. You stood up, your body denser and heftier than before. Underneath the luminous skin, your ordinary alabaster bones had become charred black and had a rugged grainy texture. Your unsteadily shining flesh felt constricted as if the bones clung to it tighter than ever before …“My bones turned black,” you said.“I can see -that-,” she huffed and then pointed her finger at your chest. “Anything else?”You paused, looking over yourself; your every bone was blacker than before. “I feel a tad different,” you said, “but I’m not sure what exactly is happening.” Your thirst was delayed. You looked over yourself once more and then took a step forward, your body lowering slightly yet much deeper into the desert plains as if it was snow.In the distance, beyond the veil of mist, a shifting light caught your eye. It was in the very loose semblance of a horse, its shape burning a pure white hue with dancing spectral outlines. It drew nearer, or so it looked that way. > Bare your empty gun and wait to see if there is any rider mounting the horse.> Quickly leave the windpump before the horse approaches any closer and sees you.> Try and hide behind the windpump together with Goldie (tell her to be silent) and wait.> [Write In]
Apologies for no update, decided to make it Chore Day yesterday.
>>5614646> Try and hide behind the windpump together with Goldie (tell her to be silent) and wait
>>5614646> Try and hide behind the windpump together with Goldie (tell her to be silent) and wait.>>5614650No worries, QM. IRL comes first!
>>5614646>> Try and hide behind the windpump together with Goldie (tell her to be silent) and wait.
>>5614678>>5614680>>5614932>>5615984You shifted your gaze from your bones to the spectre. Cursing through your teeth, you took hold of Goldie's elbow and scorned her once she complained. “Be silent,” you said, motioning towards the figure which you put hope in that she noticed too. Goldie grumbled at you initially, then quickly covered her mouth, as if trying to stifle any sounds or words that might escape through her hands. The both of you hurried behind the construction that was neither tall nor especially wide, but enough to take cover behind. Leaning against the tower's shimmering emerald and sapphire tones, you waited for it to draw nearer; and it did. It was a stallion, a ghost, with a rider on top. The horse paced, his hooves flowing above the untrodden sand as it neared the windpump and halted with a whine.The rider, his bones blacker than yours, took his hands off the reins and slid off the fiery horse, his boots landing on the ground with a hollow thwack. He was without a hat. A loose-fitting oilcloth duster covered his body together with similar-looking leather trousers. Dropping down over his upper lip was a thick horseshoe moustache. The man approached the steed's backside and from it deftly pulled down another shadowy figure, whose flickering flames emitted a dim yet distinctively sharp purplish-white hue, unlike the bluish glow emanating from your, his, or Goldie's flesh. The rider picked the man off the ground and then pushed him towards the tower’s hulk. His victim let out a mournful sound as he wobbled to the tower, all of his body shuddering and his eyes hollow of any life. Once he approached closer, you saw that chains with links of different sizes and shapes were wrapped around his chest and lower body. Around his neck, a large, opaque metal collar hung like that of a slave. His wrists and ankles were bound in bracers, shackles, and leg irons, each tethered to a ball of metal with thin links that seemed almost invisible, like strands of spiderweb glinting in the light but real and burdensome to him. The prisoner grasped the planks of the half-corporeal structure and, gasping for air and then clenching his jaw, pulled himself up. The wood creaked echoing your attempt, but the weight of the heavy anchors seemed to be nonexistent to the structure, as there was little difference. The windmill's traps were the same, and as he ascended higher, the man's hands phased through one of the scaffolds. In a moment of panic, he grasped onto the one below, but lost his grip and tumbled down to the ground with a clamorous clatter.
The cowboy snapped the whip, thick as a snake’s body it cracked in the air inches away from the poor man’s face and the thorns surrounding the braided leather scarred over his body. “Don’t go dying on me, you rascal! I brought you here to do a job, and you are going to do it,” he said. “Now, start climbing!"The man stood up, his empty irises briefly glancing to where yous stood. He then turned his attention back to the tower before him, leaving you wondering if he had truly seen you or not.> Continue watching.> Try and escape into the mist while the two men are preoccupied. > Leave the shadow of the tower and present yourself to the man and his prisoner.> Bare the empty revolver and show yourself to the man, demanding answers from him.> [Write In]
>>5616962> Try and escape into the mist while the two men are preoccupied. Not our kind of people, I reckon.
>>5616963> Continue watching.
>>5616963>> Try and escape into the mist while the two men are preoccupied.
>>5616963>Have Goldie try to distract the slaver(?) so you can club him with the revolver.Ought to have some things we can loot if nothing else.
>>5617418Maybe if I trusted the girl and her ability more.
>>5617428I trust her to shrug off wounds and be a little hellion. She can run up and attack him as the distraction for all I care. And doesn’t she want to be a hero?Maybe the slaver has some way to bind her, but getting her carted away would solve one of our problems.
>>5616963>Try and escape into the mist while the two men are preoccupied.I hope by drinking the black liquid we haven't Persephone-d ourselves.
>>5616986>>5617125>>5617219>>5617418>>5617428>>5617437>>5617438As soon as the cowboy became distracted by well the captured climbed the malignant windpump you stepped back, and then walked into the thick graveyard mist. Swivelling her gaze from you to the two men, Goldie let out a low-volume hiss and then her darkened figure followed you. With her petite limbs, she scurried to catch up with you, to avoid losing you in the fog. She glared at you in silence once she could see your face; you had no intention of getting rid of her right now, but she didn’t need to know that. You put two fingers to your lips and then turned away from her, quickly and quietly moving forward from the sights of the two men—one a slave and one a slaver.After a few minutes, you halted your stride and glanced behind your shoulder. Bedevilled blades howled in the distance. You could no longer see the blades—nor the windpump—but their churning and clattering rang out like a pleading presence. The deep invisible cuts on your palms burned in response to those sounds. You met Goldie’s gaze. “For a moment, I wondered if you were going to stay and lend a hand to the man in chains,” you said.“No” —she swallowed and looked up from her childish height with her eyes squinted— “the only thing I care about is Henry, no one else.”“Good,” you stalled on the last two syllables. “Good, we are on the same page. I don’t care about the man's well-being to help either.”You walked, your charred bones now lumbered with vehement weight and strain, tempered by the water you drank. The other man, you reckoned, he had a horse, he had a whip designed by devils, and his bones were black like yours. You didn’t know the exact effects of what changed within you, but either it was a drug you now had to deal with or something beneficial; you prayed it was the latter … You saw Goldie look behind her shoulder a few more times until the sounds were muted by a long distance. The elusive El Dorado Warren remained hidden from your sight. Were you even going the right way? Was it even there? How convinced even were you that Bill didn’t lie so that you wouldn’t find him? And even if he didn’t, you only had a single direction given to follow, and you had plenty of distractions since. There were no landmarks but the moon to readjust your inner compass, and though you made notes in your head, they were just that. You had to hope that the harvest moon wasn’t here to harvest your suffering but to—passively—assist you.
> Do not speak about anything until you stumble upon anything interesting, hopefully, the Warren.> Make Goldie feel bad by mocking her morals and how she left the shackled prisoner to wallow in slavery.> Ask Goldie what she plans to do after her brother kills you and the two of them return back.> Ask Goldie if she is aware of any way to return to the wild west USA if, by chance, her brother is unable to kill you.> Ask Goldie if she is willing to tell you about the deal she made with the Devil, and the details of how it was achieved.> [Write In]
>>5617983>> Do not speak about anything until you stumble upon anything interesting, hopefully, the Warren.
>>5617981> Ask Goldie if she is aware of any way to return to the wild west USA if, by chance, her brother is unable to kill you.Hey, it’s possible someone else could kill us first. This is also an indirect way of asking how we could escape ourselves. I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t have an answer though.
>>5617983> Ask Goldie what she plans to do after her brother kills you and the two of them return back.Get her talking, she might slip up and give us something useful.
>>5617983> Ask Goldie what she plans to do after her brother kills you and the two of them return back.
>>5607729I apologize for no updates, been busy with work. I'll continue with new updates tomorrow.
>>5617983> Ask Goldie what she plans to do after her brother kills you and the two of them return back.> Ask Goldie if she is willing to tell you about the deal she made with the Devil, and the details of how it was achieved.Start with this. Build trust. If we ask for a way out point blank, she'll clam up real quick.
>>5618256>>5618311>>5618499>>5618539>>5620044>>5620122Goldie shadowed you like a ghost, like the Grim Reaper she pretended to be. The silence was deafening and tense.“Well now,” you said, “do you already have a plan on what are you going to do once you drag your brother out of here?”She paused and smirked ever so slightly. You glanced elsewhere to not see her face. “You want me to believe you accepted your fate? Well if you did, we should be walking to him.”You let out a loud sigh. “Whether I did or not, we are still going to need bullets.” The ill-fated burden of your weighty bones had Goldie easily keep up with you—even soon catch up.“I guess,” she said, obviously annoyed. She cleared her throat and then spat out. “Why are you asking?”You shrug one of your shoulders. “Just wondering.”“For someone living on your own in a far-away cabin you sure crave for any scraps of a conversation, brother killer.”“Forget I asked.”“What are we going to do after,” she said as if ignoring your last words. “Anything we want, together, as a kind. We’ll find a job, prove our worth, build a life somewhere safe.”You blinked and turned your head back at her. “You … you got no damn ideas or plans on what you are going to do after this?”“Screw you, I just told you,” she said. “What did you expect me to say?”“I had no expectations, and you still managed to come up short.” You saw her brows furrow. “Do you think the fact that your once-dead brother is alive won’t be a problem?”“Why would it be?”“The people who saw him die? The people who buried him? His grave? His bounty?”She waved her hand as if waving away all the concerns you raised. “Our only relatives probably never heard, and no other people cared. As for bounty, it was five years ago.”"You might be right, you might not. I haven’t even heard any tall stories about the dead coming back. Will he raise from his grave, his body rotten?”“No.” Goldie looked you in the eyes and hesitated. “No, his body will be alright. I think.” Her brown hair rippled as she rocked her head. “I know, that’s what the Devil promised me!”“The Devil promised you,” you said with sarcasm. “Anything else he said?”Goldie scratched her head, tightening her locks within her grip. “You think I’m some dumb kid, do you? I’m not. He didn’t say anything that’ll help you escape if you are wondering.”“Can’t say I wasn’t, but if there’s a way for both you, me, and your brother to leave this place in one piece, wouldn’t you reckon that would be for the best?”She harrumphed. “Even the way I’m doing it is unconventional, brother killer. I doubt there’s another one to make everyone happy, and I doubt I want you to be happy.”“Do you care more about bringing back your brother, or having your revenge, brat?”
“Both,” she said with no hesitation. She pushed her finger at her head. “I would prefer both, those five years I lived without him are still here.”“You’ll barely remember them when you’re as old as me,” you said with a sigh. “So, did you sign some kind of written agreement, a piece of paper?”“Of course, and if I don’t keep my part of the deal he’s going to take me to fiery hell court with hell judges and I’m going to have to hire a hell lawyer or two to defend me.”“Fine, fine. I get the gist: no contract.”Goldie kicked the dirt and then leaned towards you. “There was, he ain’t tricking you, he made sure a few times that I understood the deal.”“Were you not afraid of him?” It’s the Devil for God’s sake!She hesitated, her voice as firm as a string. “No … he ain’t that monstrous, least not from what I saw. He was a black, dressed as any other man. Only his eyes were red; that and his voice were the only giveaways. Well, and the fact that he appeared to me in the middle of the highway crossroads, in the middle of the night.” She paused to remember. “He said he was waiting for someone else, but my request would do.”“You -really- aren’t bothered by your deal?”“If he had offered me to sell my soul in exchange for my brother’s … well, I would have to think. But he didn’t ask my soul, he said he would allow an exchange of Henry’s for yours.”“And if it fails, then he’ll get yours,” you corrected her.“ … I’m not going to. You won’t go to Hell if Henry kills you, you’ll stay here in the Graveyard Frontier, like everyone else. Henry will go back, and so will I. What is there for you to return to?”> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you would rather die from an illness or old age, as Bill said, and see another afterlife.> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to reconnect with some of your relatives and friends with the last years you have.> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to live the last of your years to the fullest instead of withering away in retirement.> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to return to your bounty hunting days and kill people whose victims await them here.> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to make others aware of it as well.> [Write In]
>>5621222>Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to return to your bounty hunting days and kill people whose victims await them here.Another day, another dollar.
>>5621222> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to reconnect with some of your relatives and friends with the last years you have.We’d stay here if Henry kills us? Wouldn’t that mean someone else could kill us too and be freed? That’d mean two freed souls in exchange for ours, and assuming we stick around after the second pass then even more could be let loose.Seems too straightforward to be true. We shouldn’t be that valuable to the devil.If we want to keep the conversation alive,>Wonder how many people could be living here. A soul can be freed if they kill their killer, a one-for-one trade. If that’s the only way out then the number of trapped souls could only go up.
>>5621222> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to return to your bounty hunting days and kill people whose victims await them here.Let the dead get their due.
>>5621305+1, funnily enough a similar desire to what she has.That conversation addon makes me think how packed the place would be in modern times.
>>5621305A killer can only be judged one time. Only one person gets to kill Aug for their ticket out, according to the first thread. And our ticket is to kill Goldie, who is unkillable. A bit of a problem. Maybe there's a window after Henry kills us where we can kill her? Probably just sends us on to Hell itself though...
>>5621371Thanks, I misremembered how it worked.I’m not sure killing Goldie is our way out. The bullet didn’t hit anything vital, just our Shoulder. It seemed like we ended up here before we truly “died”. Something about how we ended up here is different than usual, same as her.It’d be funny if killing the killers actually sent people to Hell for murder. Seems like the kind of lie the devil would spread to give people false hope and encourage violence.
>>5621222> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to make others aware of it as well.Ain't fair that God set things up this way and never told no one.> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to return to your bounty hunting days and kill people whose victims await them here.Ain't fair that regular innocents are stuck in this pit, either, just for being gunned down.Before she asks, no, Henry doesn't count as an innocent... But plenty others do.
>>5621222> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to return to your bounty hunting days and kill people whose victims await them here.> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you want to reconnect with some of your relatives and friends with the last years you have.
>>5621222>> Tell Goldie that now that you know of the Graveyard Frontier, you would rather die from an illness or old age, as Bill said, and see another afterlife.
>>5621291>>5621305>>5621361>>5621364>>5621371>>5621392>>5621420>>5621521>>5621557You shook the still-wet hat by its crown. “Now that I’m aware what sort of afterlife awaits me here? First things first, I’d like to reconnect with some of my kin and my old pals with the time I've got left. I never knew what to expect, but if it’s an eternal purgatory, then sharing a drink and a few tales with them would be downright grand.”Goldie narrowed her eyes. “You want to meddle with Henry’s one chance just so you can say your goodbyes? Try better.You glared hard at her. “I’m not bothering to convince you, you rodent. Were you even asking in earnest?”“Not really.”You cracked your blackened joints, dismissing her. “ … and now that I’m aware of the Graveyard Frontier, I want to return to my bounty hunting days and sent a few killers whose victims await them here.”Her pace slowed down, the raised dust settling on the bottom of her jeans. “You want to kill … more people?” she spoke, her voice almost choking. “Am I understanding it right?”“It ain’t fair that innocent folk are stuck in this pit, either, just for being gunned down. Don’t you think people here deserve some sort of justice? At least one of them per killer?”“I know that Henry deserves his damn justice.”“If we ignore Henry—”“Why” —she raised her voice, her tiny fists clenching— “should we ignore Henry?” You sighed and rubbed the hairy edges of your neck. “For fuck sake kid … is there anything else in your mind besides him?"Her irises sharpened like polished daggers, whittling you like silver birch. “Why should there be?” she said, tameless impatience growing.You sighed again. It’s not healthy, you thought to yourself. You walked furthermore in silence. However, the words neither of you spoke were only a small part of the cacophonous whole as if the open plains sifted every sound through a fine mist of echoing. Your bones creaked and cracked, your clothes rustled, Goldie’s teetering steps crunched the sand beneath them, the rolling tempest clouds rumbled like cracking ceiling, and the forlorn moon hummed as if waves splashed on its unseen white terrain.
Then you heard a whistle, a quiet and distant one. You broke your stride. The swollen fog lightened and settle into the blue-grey plains. Granite flats, cracked into stretching expanses of hundreds of massive ragged tiles, appeared to you, no longer hidden by the mist. Your boot stepped on one such unyielding rock, covered in a grainy crust that fell as if barely clinging to the surface of the piece. The moon shimmer began to dance on the now-cleaned coarse-grained stone. Each monolith plate was unlevelled, stretched, bumped and fractured by a few inches between the other, yet the land still appeared as flat as a pancake. White gold, iridescent with intense colour, connected each fissure and crack, solidified yet seeming liquid and flowing. You took a moment to admire the scenery before heading to the whistle. There, a few yards away, almost unseen unless one was looking for it, was a deep crevice, veiled by the scintillating white light of its walls and uncarved steps descending into eventual darkness, large enough to be a mineshaft. A pile of pickaxes laid in a pile nearby, emitting an eerie green and blue glow from within their opaque forms. Another whistle echoed from within the tunnels beneath and then a blurry shadow jumped off the wall, trembling and then slowly growing with each moment after.> Not many places to hide but try anyway. Wait for the figure to come out before deciding on what to do next.> Grab a hold of Goldie and push her down the descending steps to meet the approaching figure as you watch from a safer distance.> Climb down with your gun lifted and meet the figure head one.> Wait patiently for the figure to appear before you with your iron unholstered and your expression void of threats.> Take one of the pickaxes and begin your descent, pretending to be another miner like the one, hopefully, ascending … or, do you have to pretend?> [Write In]
>>5622745> Wait patiently for the figure to appear before you with your iron unholstered and your expression void of threats.
