The Journal of Cassandra Kane: Her Adventures in the Wild Wild West

Dime Novel: The Ship in the Sand

Real World Date: February 2007

Game World Date: May 1878

Episode Two

April 26, 1878

Billings, Montana
Train station

Talked to Mr. Parker – he said we done good. He wants to send us to California to work in the Great Maze.

He said there is a house in the town of Freedom that we could use as a base of operations. Mr. Parker said he would be joining us in Freedom.

Mr. Parker also introduced to new hire of Mr. Conklin’s a Lieutenant Gabriel William Seymour Harrison III.

The Lieutenant is the new member of our gang. Well actually he and his men joined us. He’s a solider but none of them were wearing uniforms – he must be part of some “covert operation” or so says Corman – he knows a lot of stuff about soldierin’. Corman gets along well with the Lieutenant cuz of all the soldierin’ stuff. But the Lieutenant is a lot friendlier than Corman. Must be cuz he’s not as old. The Lt. Likes hearing about all the stuff I’ve learned in my books. He’s smart, must be why he’s in charge of his own command. He even taught me how to chew tobacco.. though I don’t think that’s for me. It didn’t settle well with my stomach and I didn’t even swallow it. Not sure I’ll be tryin’ that again.

We spent 12 days on the train first on Union Blue then taking a transfer to Wasatch to Virginia City, Nevada.

I wanted to ride out to Freedom but everyone else felt it wasn’t safe and that we should take the train.


May 8-12, 1878 Wednesday

Getting off at Virginia City was a five-day travel by horse to Freedom, CA.

Travelin’ by horse Aiselynn hears chantin’ and Corman realizes that there may be others out there. After convincing Corman and Reggie we should check it out we followed some tracks to a gulch. There were 8 men in robes around a bonfire chantin’. Looks like there were summonin’ something out of the fire. Once we started attacking the men 9 additionally men hiding in the brush around the hill popped out and started attacking us.

The Lt.’s and his men started shooting at the men in the hill, as did Corman & Mr. Parker. I shot 2 of them that jumped up at me. Until the demon jumped out of the fire and ran up the hill to attack Miss Marguerite cause she did some sort of voodoo spell to attack the demon. I jumped in between the attack used my cards to hit him with a blast of magic. Reggie tried to shoot the demon and couldn’t hurt it.

My bolts must have hit it somethin’ fierce because it stopped aiming for her and directed most of it’s attack on me. Though it did hurt her even though it’s effects washed right over me.

I managed to hit a few more times before my final blast using all my energy hit it full in the chest leaving a huge smokin’ hole through it. My magic worked on it better than it did on those damn zombies!!

The body of the demon eventually fell over and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Easy clean up that was.

Almost all of the robed men died too except for one guy that Miss Marguerite wanted to question. She was doing all right even though the demon had paralyzed her. She was lucky it could have been worse. Miss Aieslyn patched up all the hurt and everyone made it except two of the Lt’s men. We buried them on the hilltop. The robed men we burned in a bonfire. I thought we should give everyone a burial but the others insisted we just though the evil men in a bonfire.

Miss Marguerite questioned the survivor he said he was a worshipper of some Egyptian God (Anubus). I was busy helping with the bodies and seein’ if they had anything important on them – I did find 3 amulets that looked like that Egyptian stuff Miss Marguerite and Miss Aieslyn were talking about. Miss Marguerite took one. Someone ended up killing the lone survivor and we tossed him in with the rest of the evil men.

May 13, 1878

We got to our new home in Freedom. Mr. Conkling had bought us a house & barn for us to stay in. There wasn’t enough room for the Lt’s men so he for now is staying at the hotel with them.

Mr. Parker made an appointment for us to meet with a friend of Mr. Conkling’s who could use our help. A Mr. Sirus McClennan – an entrepreneur who owns a stagecoach service. We meet with him tomorrow. For now we explored some of our town and most of us even got some mail.

I even got some. Someone I don’t know named “C” gave me 1855 edition of the Hoyle card book. The letter said he hoped I’d like it and that he thought it would help me with my destiny! How exciting!!

May 14, 1878

Met Mr. McClennan at the Douglas Saloon.

Mr. McClennan is having problems with his stagecoach. He’s been using a horseless stagecoach to travel between Freedom & Hackensack. No driver as hit runs on a track. The stagecoach was an hour late and when it finally arrived the passengers were gone. It’s run on some sort of antennae.

Mr. Thomas O’Hare & his wife, a solider, and a reporter.

Mr. McClennan said right after that stagecoach showed up empty he didn’t book any more passengers on his coach and sent out men to see if they could find they missing folk.

Mr. McClennan tinkers with all sorts of inventions and crated a gun that shoots lightening. Aieslyn wanted nothing to do with it.

We followed the trail on horse and came across a tornado on the path. A non-moving twister. It looked like there was somethun inside the twister but couldn’t get a clear look.

Meanwhile some of us got the feelin’ we were being followed. Thought I saw a man on a horse pretty far away but whenever I looked back I couldn’t see him.

Corman & Reggie decided to go up on the nearest mountain range and get a better look at the guy on the horse. He said that the guy on the horse looked like a dead man. He was wearing the uniform of the 51st infantry which was the unit that Corman used to scout for back in the day. He said he retired because he didn’t like the commanding officer. Said he got a lot of men killed. But this dead man was aiming right for Corman. In a spectacular display of athletics and dexterity Corman jumped out at the dead man with his tomahawk and knocked him off his horse and loped his head off with one swing!!

It was pretty amazin’ to see.

After that excitement I took a better look at the twister. Remembering a trick I learned with the cards I got a vision of a weird looking building made of stone. When I described it Marguerite said it was an Aztec Temple, then I saw an old large boat (Spanish Galleon), a guy in a funny metal hat (Conquistador), and then a gold bowl and a statue that was holdin’ it. The bowl was full of blood.

I told the others what I saw; I’ve got to say everyone believed me right away, except for Corman. He’s always doubtin' my stories!

But we passed through the standing twister and the shape that I thought I saw from the outside was the boat from my vision. I don’t know how the heck it got out here miles and miles from the ocean. Add to the fact that the trail through here not a few days a go was clear. I’m thinkin’ the men that Mr. McClennan sent out when he was setting up the stagecoach path might have mentioned a boat.

We climbed inside the ship and had a look around. It was pretty creepy and dark and we heard something skittering in the dark. We climbed lower into the boat and were attacked by some small monkey things. Reggie scared them away with some well-aimed gunshot. In the bottom of the boat we ended up finding a tunnel that led underground. Like the boat was sitting on some abandoned mine or something. We didn’t get far into the tunnel when the Lt. got possessed by some spirit. Possible the captain of the boat I saw in my vision. He spoke a different language, Spanish I think, but what he said didn’t sound particularly pleasant. The little that Corman was able to make out was something about that we was going to kill us and take our hearts. The Lt. had his shotgun pointed right at Reggie, and I think Corman was gonna shoot the Lt. but somehow he was able to shake off the spirit and nobody got hurt. We had to tell the Lt. what he had said.

We found some zombies shambling around in the tunnels. Reggie’s been getting pretty good at killing them and so has Corman. It was pretty strange though. Coman yanked out his tomahawk and hacked into the zombies and then as soon as they feel over he grabbed his chest and fell over. Aieslyn went over to help him and was able to fix him up some. She said he had a heart attack and he was all pale like but alive thanks to her.

In one of the cul-de-sacs in the tunnel we found the Captain in what looked like a study. It had a desk and bookcase and such, but he was just as dead as any of the men. We killed him for good and found a map to the tunnels with a mark that made us think that maybe it was the idol I seen in my vision.

After taking down a couple more zombies we found the room with the idol in it. It was in the back corner of that cave and it had the golden bowl in its hand. Aisylnn tried to touch it and some magic started to shoot out towards her. It made me remember a story about an artifact that with a demon trapped inside of it. And the only way to defeat it was to make the demon come out of the idol so it can be killed. We just didn’t know how to get the demon out, so we just kept hitting the statue and we could feel that the demon was getting cranky. Finally it showed up and Marguerite started blessing some of our weapons and bullets so we could hurt it. It was getting pretty hairy, as it was pretty hard to hurt this thing.

Then an even weirder thing happened. A group of men in leather dusters just appeared inside the cave with us! One second they weren’t there and then the next moment they were between us and the demon. There was no other way for them to have gotten in the room. I didn’t know if those guys were there to help us or the demon until the started attacking it as well. One of them even pulled out a deck of cards!!

All of us together managed to finish the demon off. And then one of the men came up to us and introduced himself. He said his name was Charles Fairfax and that he was happy to finally meet me! Me – as in who knew exactly who I was! He introduced the rest of his men as well: Gabriel, Jebediah, William and Thomas.

They walked with us back to town and Mr. Fairfax said that we should tell the story of how we defeated this demon to people. That they needed to hear about heroes who fight against things that go bump in the night. He said he and his men would go back to town with us and we could all talk and trade stories.