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Story Hour
"They Rode to Perdition" starring Arcade's Gang (D&D/Boot Hill)
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<blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2469937" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p><strong>Chapter 89, “Down in the west Texas town of El Paso”, Friday, March 17th, 1882, 7:00 P.M.</strong></p><p></p><p>Louie, Morgana and Qualtaqa were unsure of that was happening outside of the moving freight car. They had heard a number of loud thumps and bangs on the roof above them, followed by gunshots, and then the sounds abruptly ceased. The train continued on for another twenty minutes before coming to a stop. They then heard sounds outside which Morgana interprets to be military officers giving orders to a large number of troops. She instructs Louie and Qualtaqa “Keep your weapons handy but not drawn, we don’t want either of you getting shot by accident.”</p><p></p><p>The freight car doors are then opened from the outside and they see around a dozen armed United States Army troops facing inside. The train conductor is standing beside them and he tells the sergeant in charge “It’s alright, they’re supposed to be in there.” “At ease men,” the sergeant says. Morgana asks the sergeant “What is going on?” He replies, “Attempted train robbery Ma’am. Nothing for you to worry about right now since the Engineer managed to outrun them. But you’d best get away from this area as soon as you can just in case those robbers may not have completely given up. Don’t worry though, it’s nothing that we can’t handle.”</p><p></p><p>Louie goes to the passenger compartment to find the others. They are nowhere to be found and the conductor does not remember seeing them leave. He returns and tells this to Morgana. She replies, “Well, they’ll just have to find us. Let’s get all of our things unloaded.” She uses another Floating Disk spell from the scroll to again levitate the casket as Louie and Qualtaqa act as pallbearers, moving it to the side of a building at the far end of the railroad depot where Morgana maintains the spells so that she can continue to move it later. Louie and Qualtaqa go back to move each of the four trunks of artifacts and the group’s luggage. </p><p></p><p>While all of this is going on a battalion of nearly one hundred soldiers have taken up positions around the train depot in anticipation of a possible enemy attack and are now in the process of moving two cannon into position. Amidst all of this Sam soon wanders into town. He reaches the train station and soon locates the others. He updates them as to what has transpired. Morgana has him go with Louie to rent a wagon and horses to haul the things back to the others. The items are loaded up and the wagon is ridden out of town. </p><p></p><p>As they ride around the hill two miles away Louie is flabbergasted by the size of the airship. Morgana is still maintaining the Disk spell and asks Arcade, “Are we loading onto that thing?” Hank is feeling much better now, having now received both of Arcade’s healing spells and exclaims, “Hades Yes, I’m keeping it!” </p><p></p><p>They check out the size of the compartment and conclude that all of the items should fit inside but that the weight might be too much. Morgana says that she will keep the Disk spell running under the casket to keep the weight down. They have a debate as to what to do with the prisoners. Louie says, “We could just turn them over to the Army. They didn’t seem to be too happy about the train being attacked.” Arcade says, “They’ll be even less thrilled when they find the attack was by a foreign country.” Hank says, “That’s why we keep a large army around here. There are border disputes regularly, although those are usually with Mexico and not France.” </p><p></p><p>Qualtaqa points out that the horse and wagon should be returned. He offers to take them back along with the prisoners. Since he is not overly thrilled with the concept of flying through the air he offers to travel back overland in his centaur form rather than flying. He says that he will meet back up with the party in Promise City. Arcade agrees to the plan. They decide to leave the dead bodies where they are but make sure to search them first for any valuables. Qualtaqa becomes a centaur again heads north, leading the horses and wagon back to town with the two French soldiers, the German pilot having been left with the others to provide flying service. </p><p></p><p>Since the Disk spell only has a couple of hours left on it they decided to head off right away. Morgana unties and ungags the pilot and asks him his name to which he replies, “Hans Schmidt.” He then asks, “Who are you people?” She replies, “Your new bosses.” She then tells him their destination. Hans consults his maps and estimates that the winds are in their favor so they can expect a cruising speed of forty-five to fifty miles-per-hour, which would get them to Promise City in approximately three-and-a-half to four hours. “That sure beats the three-and-half to four days it would have been overland,” Sam comments. </p><p></p><p>Hank fastens his Texas flag onto the dirigible. “What are you doing that for?” Louie asks. He replies, “It’s my message. Don’t mess with Texas.” “Shouldn’t we fly the country’s flag?” Sam asks. Hank replies, “Son, haven’t you ever heard of the Republic of Texas. We were a country.” Arcade tells Sam, “Stop arguing with the guy. Nobody’s going to see it at night anyway.”</p><p></p><p>The dirigible is untied and takes to the air. Morgana has the pilot fly low and well south of the town to keep from being spotted and then due west towards Cochise County, Arizona. The first one hundred miles of the flight are along the New Mexico/Mexico border. Hank is as excited as a kid in a candy store. He gestures to Hans and tells Arcade “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Arcade replies, “You’ve never seen a German?” Hank says, “No you idiot, the airship.” </p><p></p><p>Morgana asks, “So Hans, what’s the story on this contraption?” Arcade interjects, “And why were you working for the French Army?” Hans says, “Ah, this airship is a German and French collaboration. It is a prototype that was pressed into service prematurely by French wizards who were financiers of this project. They arrived at our Mexican factory early this morning. That wizard who you shot ordered my employers to have me fly the craft to Pecos, Texas. That is where those soldiers boarded.” </p><p></p><p>Arcade says, “So you aren’t a soldier working for the French Army?” Hans replies, “Nine, no. I am a civilian under the employ of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a retired German General.” Hank says, “You aren’t any more. You now work for Arcade’s Gang!” Hans blinks and says, “The American gunslingers?” Arcade says, “Yep, that’s us. And you can consider this airship to be officially confiscated. Do you have a problem with any of that?” Hans replies, “Nine, no. Although the Count should probably be notified of these developments.”</p><p></p><p>“So who is this Count?” Morgana asks. Hans says, “Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born in Konstanz, Germany back in 1838. He joined the Prussian Army when he was twenty. Five years later he traveled to the United States as a military observer and consultant to the Union Army during your American Civil War. That was when he first went aloft in a balloon, which the Army used for reconnaissance of Confederate troops prior to battles.</p><p></p><p> When he returned to Germany he tried to convince them to invest in balloons but found little interest. He fought bravely during the Franco-German war of 1870 to 1871, which had begun when Emperor Napoleon III invaded Germany. France had some initial victories but then Germany fought back with a vengeance and eventually defeated France. Zeppelin was promoted to Brigadier General during the war. He was in charge of one of the Brigades that occupied Paris during 1871. </p><p></p><p>That was when he met the French balloonist Henri Giffard. Giffard had created the first dirigible almost twenty-years earlier. Giffard had come up with the cigar-shape for the craft and the use of fore and aft rudders and propellers but consistently had difficulty making the concept work. He used a series of helium-filled balloons fastened together but had difficulty keeping them together in the aerodynamic shape during flight, his longest flight being only seventeen miles. His steam- powered motors could also achieve a maximum speed of only three miles-per-hour, making them impractical compared to other modes of transportation such as rails. </p><p></p><p>The Count von Zeppelin and Henri Giffard then began a collaboration that has now lasted a decade. The count introduced the idea of using a rigid frame covered by a single rubberized cloth and using hydrogen rather than helium in the balloons. They realized that the key to better speed was a better engine and developed the idea of a battery-powered electric propulsion device. Unfortunately that also substantially increased the weight, so magical levitation devices were needed to counterbalance it.</p><p></p><p>When political upheaval occurred they realized that Paris wasn’t the best place to develop the craft, but German was also impractical due to restrictions on the use of magic. They eventually settled upon establishing their factory in the city of Chihuahua, in the Mexican Province of the same name, which is immediately south of west Texas and New Mexico. This airship was the first full-sized working prototype. The Count will be very upset when he hears of its loss.” </p><p></p><p>Arcade asks, “Won’t he just build another one?” Schmidt replies, “He was strongly opposed to the French backers taking it today. This will most likely end the collaboration with Giffard. The Count was becoming disillusioned with that relationship anyway and this will just be the last straw. The Count no longer needs him anyway to continue this work. I’m sure that he’ll just build a new factory somewhere else.” Morgana smiles and says, “I think I know just the place to suggest to him.” </p><p></p><p>Arcade says, “That’s not a bad idea. If this von Zeppelin worked with the United States Army before he can build upon this relationship. I’m sure that he can blame this current mishap entirely on the French.” Hans says, “That would actually be rather truthful.” Morgana says, “We can work out the details later. Let’s just continue back home.” </p><p></p><p>As they reach the southwestern tip of New Mexico, where Hidalgo County dips thirty miles further south for the border to then continue parallel to Arizona, they see lights and movement some forty miles south above the Mexican town of Ascension. As they continue west they see this light moving away from Ascension to the northwest. Hans says, "Those are probably the other Frenchman." "WHAT!" Louie exclaims. </p><p></p><p>Hans says, "The dirigible only had space for ten people and they had five wizards and three dozen troops. The other French wizards in Pecos spoke of using teleport spells to bring them to Mexico where some cannon were stored. I believe they were going to set up somewhere between El Paso and your home, assuming you would be traveling overland." "That would have been helpful to know before!" Arcade exclaims. </p><p></p><p>Hans replies, "Why?" It looks like they are travelling to the high ground of the Animas Mountains. We have no lights on and are too far away for them to spot us and will be long gone by the time they reach the mountains. "Unless something goes wrong," Sam states. </p><p></p><p>Fifteen miles later, as they approach the first of the Animas Mountains, Sam's words ring true as the Floating Disk spell ends and the one-ton weight of the stone sarcophagus is added to the compartment. The added weight is too much for the dirigible, which begins to rapidly loose altitude, dropping towards the mountains at a steep angle.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 2469937, member: 8530"] [B]Chapter 89, “Down in the west Texas town of El Paso”, Friday, March 17th, 1882, 7:00 P.M.[/B] Louie, Morgana and Qualtaqa were unsure of that was happening outside of the moving freight car. They had heard a number of loud thumps and bangs on the roof above them, followed by gunshots, and then the sounds abruptly ceased. The train continued on for another twenty minutes before coming to a stop. They then heard sounds outside which Morgana interprets to be military officers giving orders to a large number of troops. She instructs Louie and Qualtaqa “Keep your weapons handy but not drawn, we don’t want either of you getting shot by accident.” The freight car doors are then opened from the outside and they see around a dozen armed United States Army troops facing inside. The train conductor is standing beside them and he tells the sergeant in charge “It’s alright, they’re supposed to be in there.” “At ease men,” the sergeant says. Morgana asks the sergeant “What is going on?” He replies, “Attempted train robbery Ma’am. Nothing for you to worry about right now since the Engineer managed to outrun them. But you’d best get away from this area as soon as you can just in case those robbers may not have completely given up. Don’t worry though, it’s nothing that we can’t handle.” Louie goes to the passenger compartment to find the others. They are nowhere to be found and the conductor does not remember seeing them leave. He returns and tells this to Morgana. She replies, “Well, they’ll just have to find us. Let’s get all of our things unloaded.” She uses another Floating Disk spell from the scroll to again levitate the casket as Louie and Qualtaqa act as pallbearers, moving it to the side of a building at the far end of the railroad depot where Morgana maintains the spells so that she can continue to move it later. Louie and Qualtaqa go back to move each of the four trunks of artifacts and the group’s luggage. While all of this is going on a battalion of nearly one hundred soldiers have taken up positions around the train depot in anticipation of a possible enemy attack and are now in the process of moving two cannon into position. Amidst all of this Sam soon wanders into town. He reaches the train station and soon locates the others. He updates them as to what has transpired. Morgana has him go with Louie to rent a wagon and horses to haul the things back to the others. The items are loaded up and the wagon is ridden out of town. As they ride around the hill two miles away Louie is flabbergasted by the size of the airship. Morgana is still maintaining the Disk spell and asks Arcade, “Are we loading onto that thing?” Hank is feeling much better now, having now received both of Arcade’s healing spells and exclaims, “Hades Yes, I’m keeping it!” They check out the size of the compartment and conclude that all of the items should fit inside but that the weight might be too much. Morgana says that she will keep the Disk spell running under the casket to keep the weight down. They have a debate as to what to do with the prisoners. Louie says, “We could just turn them over to the Army. They didn’t seem to be too happy about the train being attacked.” Arcade says, “They’ll be even less thrilled when they find the attack was by a foreign country.” Hank says, “That’s why we keep a large army around here. There are border disputes regularly, although those are usually with Mexico and not France.” Qualtaqa points out that the horse and wagon should be returned. He offers to take them back along with the prisoners. Since he is not overly thrilled with the concept of flying through the air he offers to travel back overland in his centaur form rather than flying. He says that he will meet back up with the party in Promise City. Arcade agrees to the plan. They decide to leave the dead bodies where they are but make sure to search them first for any valuables. Qualtaqa becomes a centaur again heads north, leading the horses and wagon back to town with the two French soldiers, the German pilot having been left with the others to provide flying service. Since the Disk spell only has a couple of hours left on it they decided to head off right away. Morgana unties and ungags the pilot and asks him his name to which he replies, “Hans Schmidt.” He then asks, “Who are you people?” She replies, “Your new bosses.” She then tells him their destination. Hans consults his maps and estimates that the winds are in their favor so they can expect a cruising speed of forty-five to fifty miles-per-hour, which would get them to Promise City in approximately three-and-a-half to four hours. “That sure beats the three-and-half to four days it would have been overland,” Sam comments. Hank fastens his Texas flag onto the dirigible. “What are you doing that for?” Louie asks. He replies, “It’s my message. Don’t mess with Texas.” “Shouldn’t we fly the country’s flag?” Sam asks. Hank replies, “Son, haven’t you ever heard of the Republic of Texas. We were a country.” Arcade tells Sam, “Stop arguing with the guy. Nobody’s going to see it at night anyway.” The dirigible is untied and takes to the air. Morgana has the pilot fly low and well south of the town to keep from being spotted and then due west towards Cochise County, Arizona. The first one hundred miles of the flight are along the New Mexico/Mexico border. Hank is as excited as a kid in a candy store. He gestures to Hans and tells Arcade “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Arcade replies, “You’ve never seen a German?” Hank says, “No you idiot, the airship.” Morgana asks, “So Hans, what’s the story on this contraption?” Arcade interjects, “And why were you working for the French Army?” Hans says, “Ah, this airship is a German and French collaboration. It is a prototype that was pressed into service prematurely by French wizards who were financiers of this project. They arrived at our Mexican factory early this morning. That wizard who you shot ordered my employers to have me fly the craft to Pecos, Texas. That is where those soldiers boarded.” Arcade says, “So you aren’t a soldier working for the French Army?” Hans replies, “Nine, no. I am a civilian under the employ of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a retired German General.” Hank says, “You aren’t any more. You now work for Arcade’s Gang!” Hans blinks and says, “The American gunslingers?” Arcade says, “Yep, that’s us. And you can consider this airship to be officially confiscated. Do you have a problem with any of that?” Hans replies, “Nine, no. Although the Count should probably be notified of these developments.” “So who is this Count?” Morgana asks. Hans says, “Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born in Konstanz, Germany back in 1838. He joined the Prussian Army when he was twenty. Five years later he traveled to the United States as a military observer and consultant to the Union Army during your American Civil War. That was when he first went aloft in a balloon, which the Army used for reconnaissance of Confederate troops prior to battles. When he returned to Germany he tried to convince them to invest in balloons but found little interest. He fought bravely during the Franco-German war of 1870 to 1871, which had begun when Emperor Napoleon III invaded Germany. France had some initial victories but then Germany fought back with a vengeance and eventually defeated France. Zeppelin was promoted to Brigadier General during the war. He was in charge of one of the Brigades that occupied Paris during 1871. That was when he met the French balloonist Henri Giffard. Giffard had created the first dirigible almost twenty-years earlier. Giffard had come up with the cigar-shape for the craft and the use of fore and aft rudders and propellers but consistently had difficulty making the concept work. He used a series of helium-filled balloons fastened together but had difficulty keeping them together in the aerodynamic shape during flight, his longest flight being only seventeen miles. His steam- powered motors could also achieve a maximum speed of only three miles-per-hour, making them impractical compared to other modes of transportation such as rails. The Count von Zeppelin and Henri Giffard then began a collaboration that has now lasted a decade. The count introduced the idea of using a rigid frame covered by a single rubberized cloth and using hydrogen rather than helium in the balloons. They realized that the key to better speed was a better engine and developed the idea of a battery-powered electric propulsion device. Unfortunately that also substantially increased the weight, so magical levitation devices were needed to counterbalance it. When political upheaval occurred they realized that Paris wasn’t the best place to develop the craft, but German was also impractical due to restrictions on the use of magic. They eventually settled upon establishing their factory in the city of Chihuahua, in the Mexican Province of the same name, which is immediately south of west Texas and New Mexico. This airship was the first full-sized working prototype. The Count will be very upset when he hears of its loss.” Arcade asks, “Won’t he just build another one?” Schmidt replies, “He was strongly opposed to the French backers taking it today. This will most likely end the collaboration with Giffard. The Count was becoming disillusioned with that relationship anyway and this will just be the last straw. The Count no longer needs him anyway to continue this work. I’m sure that he’ll just build a new factory somewhere else.” Morgana smiles and says, “I think I know just the place to suggest to him.” Arcade says, “That’s not a bad idea. If this von Zeppelin worked with the United States Army before he can build upon this relationship. I’m sure that he can blame this current mishap entirely on the French.” Hans says, “That would actually be rather truthful.” Morgana says, “We can work out the details later. Let’s just continue back home.” As they reach the southwestern tip of New Mexico, where Hidalgo County dips thirty miles further south for the border to then continue parallel to Arizona, they see lights and movement some forty miles south above the Mexican town of Ascension. As they continue west they see this light moving away from Ascension to the northwest. Hans says, "Those are probably the other Frenchman." "WHAT!" Louie exclaims. Hans says, "The dirigible only had space for ten people and they had five wizards and three dozen troops. The other French wizards in Pecos spoke of using teleport spells to bring them to Mexico where some cannon were stored. I believe they were going to set up somewhere between El Paso and your home, assuming you would be traveling overland." "That would have been helpful to know before!" Arcade exclaims. Hans replies, "Why?" It looks like they are travelling to the high ground of the Animas Mountains. We have no lights on and are too far away for them to spot us and will be long gone by the time they reach the mountains. "Unless something goes wrong," Sam states. Fifteen miles later, as they approach the first of the Animas Mountains, Sam's words ring true as the Floating Disk spell ends and the one-ton weight of the stone sarcophagus is added to the compartment. The added weight is too much for the dirigible, which begins to rapidly loose altitude, dropping towards the mountains at a steep angle. [/QUOTE]
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