Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2461705" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter 88, "The Dirigible", Friday, March 17th, 1882:Arcade, Hank and Sam watch as the airship moves closer to the train.  It flies at an altitude of eighty feet above the train from the caboose to the engine.   It then begins to drop back and descend.  Once it starts to lower Arcade yells, “Let’s go!”   The three exit the passenger compartment and climb the ladder up to the roof of the car.  They soon see that their assumption was correct as the dirigible is now matching the speed of the train and hovering twenty-five feet above the roof of the freight car where Louie, Morgana and Qualtaqa are inside with the artifacts.   A trapdoor beneath the dirigible’s passenger compartment opens and a rope ladder is dropped down.   Arcade and his gang members are two cars back.   They move as quickly as they can upon the roof of the passenger compartment, being careful of their footing as the engineer has poured on extra steam and now increased the speed of the train to fifty miles-per-hour.    The train engineer has the train barrel through Fabens, Texas, which had been the last scheduled stop before El Paso.   The Fabens Stationmaster quickly tends a telegram twenty-five miles up the line to El Paso alerting them that it appears that a train robbery is in progress. The three gunslingers successfully jump from the passenger compartment to the rear baggage car, one car back from the one with their friends.   Just then a man begins to descend from the rope ladder.   He is facing forward towards the front of the train, so does not see the three on the roof.   He is attired in a uniform of the French Foreign Legion.  “Well, I guess that answers one question,” Arcade says.  They move forward across to the front of the railroad car roof.   The first French soldier is now ten feet down the ladder and a second one has now started to descend.  “Cover us Sam” Hank exclaims and he jumps across onto the next freight car.   Sam draws his revolver as Arcade then makes the jump.  Inside the car, Morgana and Qualtaqa both hear the thumps on the roof.   They shake Louie to awaken him.  Hank and Arcade both draw their own revolvers and move forward towards the end of the rope ladder now dangling fifteen feet in front of them.   Sam tucks his gun back into his belt and jumps across himself.   Hank fires a shot into the back of the French soldier who is lowest on the ladder.  The shot is not fatal but does cause the man to release the ladder and fall the remaining ten feet to the train roof.   The man hits hard and is unable to grasp the roof before he slides off, landing on the rail as the train wheels then crush him. Hank grabs onto the ladder and begins to climb up.   Arcade fires up into the other soldier, killing him with the second shot.  The man’s body falls the fifteen feet down, barely missing Hank, and bounces off of the train’s roof.   Below, Louie and Qualtaqa have both drawn their weapons, uncertain of what all the sounds above them mean but fearing the worst. Hank scurries up the ladder as quickly as he can, having an easier time once Arcade also grabs onto it and adds the extra weight.    Hank is less than five feet from the dirigible’s trap door when a French Soldier holding a rifle looks down below from the compartment.   Hank had anticipated that and had his magical rope ready.   He lasso’s the man's rifle, pulling it from the man’s grip.    The man reaches out through the trap door to grab the rifle, unable to do so as Hank flings it to the side.  Sam reaches the bottom of the ladder now and Arcade yells, “Just stay there and anchor it.”  Sam does as instructed, which pulls the ladder taut.  That enables Hank to quickly ascend the next two rope rungs, grabbing the arm of the man who had reached for the rifle.    Hank pulls him down and through the trap door.  The man falls the twenty-five feet down, kicking Arcade as he passes by.  “Hey, be careful,” Arcade exclaims.    The man lands on the passenger car next to Sam, who uses his foot to immediately shove the soldier off the train.  At this point Hank reaches the trapdoor and pulls his upper body inside, revolver still in hand.   He sees seven men inside.   One is the driver of the vehicle, who is at the front of the compartment and concentrating on steering the vehicle forward.   Five are French Soldiers attired identically to the three who had left via the ladder.  The soldiers are all carrying rifles, which they draw to their shoulders and take aim at the intruder.   The remaining man is human with a thin mustache and attired in a suit.    Upon spotting Hank he begins to cast a spell with the incantation in French. Hank ignores the firing squad taking aim at him and fires his revolver into the spellcaster.   The man is hit in the chest, stopping the spell.    The five soldiers fire, with four shots missing and going through the open doorway with one hitting Hank in the shoulder.   Ignoring the pain for the moment, Hank takes a second shot into the French mage, fatally striking the face.Hank is then pleasantly surprised to see that the soldiers are using older single-shot breech loading rifles and have to all stop to reload.   He empties his revolver into them, dropping two and wounding two more who manage to remain on their feet.   The remaining three shoot, again with only one connecting, for a serious shot in the chest.   Hank manages to remain awake and lowers himself out of the doorway and a few rope rungs down the ladder as Arcade climbs past him, revolver in hand.  Before Hank passes out from the pain he uses his magical rope to entwine himself to the rope ladder.  Meanwhile Arcade draws his arm through the doorway and peers inside as the soldiers are finishing reloading for their next volley.   Arcade shoots one between the eyes and yells in French “Surrender.”   Ignoring his yell, the two remaining soldiers both fire.  The shots hit Arcade's newly acquired magical long coat and deflect off for no damage.   Arcade pivots and gut shots two bullets into one of the men who Hank had previously wounded, causing him to drop.   The remaining soldier drops his rifle, raises his hands and yells out in French “I surrender!  I surrender!”   Sam is halfway up the ladder and Arcade yells down, “It’s under control.  We won.”   Arcade climbs up into the airship and points to the pilot.  “You going to cause me any trouble?”   The pilot shakes his head and replies in a German accent “Nine, No.”   Sam reaches Hank and says, “He’s passed out, and we need to get him down.”   Arcade says, “No, get him up here.”  He points his gun at the surrendered soldier and commands him to help Sam pull up the ladder and Hank.  Once they are inside Arcade kicks the trapdoor shut then tells the pilot “Pull up and away from the train but keep pace with it a quarter mile back.”  “Yah,” the pilot answers.    Arcade has Sam cover the pilot and soldier while he searches the body of the French wizard.  He finds three vials of elixirs one of which is marked with the French word for “Heal”.   Arcade pours it into Hanks’ mouth saying, “What the Hell, he’ll be dead otherwise.”  Hank regains consciousness and mutters, “Did we win?”  “Yeah, you just stay put,” Arcade replies.   They continue to follow the train as the skies darken.   Once they see the buildings and lights of El Paso in the distance Arcade commands the pilot to land, stopping the airship behind a hill around two miles south of the town.    They help anchor and tie down the vehicle down to rocks and trees.    The prisoner is made to remove the bodies of the soldiers and wizard from the airship, finding one of the ones that Hank shot to still be alive.   Arcade allows the man to give him basic first aid.   The two soldiers and the pilot are then tied and gagged.   Arcade tells Sam “I’ll stay here with these guys.  You head into town and get the others.”   Sam heads off on foot towards El Paso.</blockquote>

Verification