RQ Network Feed Drop – Ain't Slayed Nobody

Hi everyone, it's Anusha Battersby here.

Today, we are sharing the first episode from one of our incredible RQ Network podcasts, Ain't Slayed Nobody.

Ain't Slayed Nobody is a gold any-winning actual play podcast, with this first episode being from their first season, set in the American Old West.

The production blends tabletop role-playing and audio drama, with fast-pacing and immersive sound design.

The posse begins their quest in grand old western tradition, with a hanging.

Bullets begin to fly as a shady priest, a rough and tumble miner, a suave former outlaw, and an earnest hobo join vengeful deputy sheriff Ellie Bishop on the Canateo Railroad Bridge.

Little does this ragtag posse know of the cosmic horrors that are about to unfold.

Would you look at that sunset?

How could anyone ask ask for a better place to be than Canatillo?

Go west and you smack dab against the Rio Grande.

Turn around, you've got mountains cutting the sky in half.

Now, folks here are up to their usual business, which is to say, unusual of late.

Not just thievery and depravity either.

The strangers that recently paddled down to Canateo from the north, They're fleeing something.

Their stories are starting to make everyone here more skittish than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Say, have you ever heard of a

oh, hell, those Tubbleweeds are best left to themselves.

The fine Texans here have other personal matters at hand.

You see, three years ago back in 1888, old Sheriff Bishop got cut down by Colin Brock.

the most vicious cowboy in West Texas.

Now, Bishop's daughter Ellie, the new deputy sheriff, she is a pistol.

She got one of Brock's old gangmates to turn on his crew, and there's fixing to be a hanging in the morning.

Now, if someone let on the Brock about what's happening,

I'd bet he's stirring up some kind of shit.

I

am a dead man

walking

I

see the light

coming in

And it it feels warm on my face, but I can't tell it's gonna burn me down.

Dawn breaks on July 12th, 1891, and it's already hotter than hell.

Six people are standing atop the Canetillo Railroad Bridge, silhouetted against the Rio Grande.

Maxwell Posey, a mustached man in dusty tattered clothing, looks over the edge as his boots sink into the gravel.

His hands are bound behind his back, and a rope encircles his neck.

Just behind him, Ellie Bishop is planted firmly across two rail ties, the glint of her beat-up deputy badge catching the morning light.

This is just the beginning of a reckoning.

But first, let's learn more about some of these characters on the bridge.

Starting with you, Alex.

I am playing Ellie Bishop, who is a sheriff's deputy.

I'm sorry, I was born in Texas and raised in the South, but I have no southern accent, but I'll work on it.

She's a charming, very focused, very guarded woman, completely driven by a need to protect those around her, people who need it most.

She believes in loyalty above all else, loyalty to her job and her beliefs, so it makes it hard for her to see the world as anything but good or evil.

She's driven by the fact that her late father was the town sheriff, and his unsolved murder is what pushed her to follow in his footsteps.

And she carries around her dad's pocket watch with her to remind her of that.

She's aggressive, pretty sassy.

I would say like five, five, you know, you know, she's cute, but but she's like,

she also wants respect.

Yeah, that's really nice.

I like that.

Five paces to Ellie's right, a Leary Cowboy is watching this unfold.

If I'm not mistaken, he's the turncoat responsible for Maxwell Posey's capture.

Jay, what can you tell us about Lance Kilkenny?

He is an outlaw from Donegal Island.

Kind of a bigger guy, but deceptively strong.

He looks like he'd be lanky, but he's not actually lanky.

He's got dark hair, green eyes.

Looks pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

You know, he's got the good old cowboy clothes, but they're all kind of a darker color.

As far as his personality, he's a quiet, careful kind of guy.

He's an outlaw, but he has a strong moral code.

Because he's not an outlaw by choice.

He was kind of forced into it by disputes with the wrong people.

The folks there don't know too much about him, but one thing they see immediately is he's got those two tied-down pistols.

How cute is he?

Your appearance score is not very high.

Well, I mean, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, right?

So he has cauliflower ear, which I think makes him cuter.

Which makes you the only one.

At opposite ends of the bridge, there are two ragged gentlemen standing guard.

They're about 20 yards away from Ellie and Lance on either side.

Let's hear about Johnny first.

Howdy, my name is Chuck.

I will be playing the character of Johnny Rhodes.

His occupation is hobo drifter.

He is relatively new to town.

Not a lot of people know a whole lot about him.

He sort of showed up with not much more than the shirt on his back.

He's been doing odd jobs around town.

He's pretty slight of build, a little bit skinny,

not a big man.

He's kind of scruffy and stubbly.

He wears clothes that would be nice if they weren't so old and grimy.

He's got a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

He's got a

vest that is sort of gray pinstripe with matching pants.

He's got some brown boots and a brown bowler hat, but all of it is a little sweat-stained and a little bit grimy.

Very nice.

I was hoping we'd have a grimy character.

Let's head to the other end of the bridge to learn about who Wes is playing.

I think you're talking to Jeremiah Fenceworth, y'all.

I'm uh I'm from Ketcho-Mito and uh I just kind of got no mannequin wound up in this town.

You know, uh, my grandpappy gave me this axe and you're gonna have to pry it from a cold dead hand.

Uh, I'm six foot five, but I look like I'm six feet because I've been hunched over in them mines all them years.

Uh and And I'll tell you what, life doesn't give you a damn thing.

You just have to dig, scratch, claw for anything you want.

Keep a six shooter to guard me gold.

And you know what?

I'll fucking shoot you.

So good.

I feel like I'm being accent-shamed right now.

What?

You rat bastard.

And finally, flanking Maxwell Posey with Ellie is a priest.

He's making the sign of the cross in the direction of the prisoner.

Brandon, what's going on?

I am not Brandon.

I am Father Flint Westwater, man of God,

45 years old, born in Chicago, Illinois, lives in Missoula, Montana.

What I do is I go from town to town, sleep with their women, steal their money, and move on to the next pair.

So I'm not necessarily the best man of God you've ever met, but

you're Joel Osteen.

I am the West's Joel Osteen.

So hopefully there's no hurricane, and I think we will all be okay.

Why don't we begin the story with Father Flint administering last rites to Posey?

You are damned, but

the Lord looks upon you.

as you deliver your final breaths.

Be gone from this earth.

Those are some dark final rites.

I'm a very specific denomination.

Maxwell Posey doesn't look impressed, Father Flint.

He is flustered.

He looks like he's growing more and more impatient.

Oi, let's just get this over with.

Miss Ellie, if it's all the same to you, I'd just soon get this on with.

So Johnny yells from 20 yards away.

Did I not project enough?

Let me stand back and yell.

Miss Ellie, I'd just soon get this on with.

I'd like to ask that low lady a question.

Is that all right?

Yeah, that's okay.

No role needed.

Real quick, you want to just get this over with?

I'll just shoot that guy right in the head.

No, that's too easy.

All right, have it your way.

I'll just remind you that Maxwell already has a noose around his neck, which is tied to the rail.

So...

you might want to save your ammunition.

We're all kind of deferring to the authority.

But I'm not the one actually doing it, right?

Like, I have my crew who can take care of it.

Oh, no, no, it's you.

What's that Game of Thrones quote?

The man who passes the sentence to swing the sword.

Miss Ellie, if you ain't got the stomach for it, I'd be obliged.

What's Game of Thrones?

Maxwell looks a bit confused, to be honest, as you all yell back and forth about what's going to happen.

He's going to say what he assumes are going to be last words.

Y'all fixing to kill me unarmed like a dog, and I should have gone down fighting.

As for the yellow belly who turned me over,

he looks at Lance right in the eyes and then turns back toward the river and spits.

And Brock, the redeemed family man up north.

Well, I hope I see you both in hell.

Now let's hurry this up.

So, Johnny

comes on down from his post over to where this guy is,

and he takes an old rusted knife out and sticks it in the guy's belt.

And he says, there, now you ain't unarmed anymore.

He feels that knife, even though it's a small knife, he feels it.

He didn't stick it in.

He didn't like shove it in his gut.

He just sticks in his belt.

Oh, let's run that back.

I thought you stuck it in his belly at the belt.

Chuck just stabbed him.

I mean,

Jesus.

So Johnny, he arms him.

He puts a knife in his belt, even though his hands are bound.

So he symbolically does that for Maxwell.

And he left his sentinel post to do that.

I mean, unless you're telling me something else, as soon as he's done with that, he's going to walk back to his sentinel post, or are you telling me something's about to happen?

I'll let you walk back over there.

Let's kick him off the bridge and run.

Yeah, Ellie, go ahead and kick him off, please.

What if the prisoner suddenly gets tired of the delay and jumps off himself?

He's considering it.

Is being a game master that bad?

Can I just be walking over to the president and give him a shove off?

I appreciate your dedication to killing this guy.

I would give Ellie the option to oppose that action if she wants to.

I wouldn't oppose it.

I think it makes sense in the chaos for somebody to

die

to just push him off already.

Ellie, you look over and you see that Lance has kind of a wild eye.

How is Lance going to do this?

I'm just going to give him a shovel.

I'd like to whisper in his ear before, though.

The only reason I've done this

is because you have no honor on you.

There's nothing good about you, nor calling.

And that's why you have to die.

And then I shove him.

Oh.

So it's a clean, hard break of the neck after he's pushed off the bridge.

And Maxwell's just dangling there, lifeless, with any information he might have had in his brain now gone.

Are you suggesting that maybe we should have investigated that further?

I am simply speculating.

In our role as investigators, are we maybe not doing any investigating?

We are just leaping to murder.

I'm not going to recount his last words, but maybe there was something going on there.

I want to roll for necromancy

As he falls off the bridge, he screams something about Colin Brock's location.

Well, I thought you told us that Colin Brock was up north

when he was saying his last words in the beginning.

Yeah, I think Maxwell said something to that effect.

So maybe Maxwell can tell us the location that we maybe should have heard from the dead man.

Maxwell is the dead man.

Welp, job well done.

Hey, Cup, can you describe to me this bridge that we're standing on?

I'm a structural engineer.

I need to hear these things.

Yeah, it's about 40 yards in length.

The surface is mostly consumed by railroad sleepers and rails.

You know, just a regular old railroad.

There are metal beams on both sides, and there's a lot of space in between them.

But we do have cross beams and arches on each side.

So it does have kind of trusses up above.

Exactly.

I lost the term.

Gotcha.

So now what we have is a dead man hanging from the railroad bridge with Ellie and Lance kind of looking over the edge.

They're pretty sure that old Maxwell's dead.

I don't like the way you said that.

They're pretty sure he's dead.

Oh, okay.

Did you want to

put a bullet in him?

I don't know if I'll be trusting you.

I offered to shoot him.

Okay, with the distraction of this hanging scene and the sound of the Rio Grande rushing beneath you, I'd like everyone to roll for listen.

And you're going to be meeting a hard success here.

So I just rolled a 74.

If Father Flint doesn't hear anything, you're just...

What'd you say?

I rolled a 100.

So you failed on anything no matter what, right?

Yeah, that's a fumble.

Jeremiah, you do hear something.

It's a loud rustling sound coming from your side of the bridge.

And you think you see someone duck behind a tree.

Ambush coming on our side of the bridge.

Johnny is not exactly leaping to set up a defensive perimeter.

I am waiting for everyone to run with me because I'm already five paces ahead.

You're running toward the ambush or away from the ambush i'm running away from the ambush because i don't have any weapons okay so father flynn is moving toward the texas side the canatillo side of the bridge

i think that johnny likes the cut of his jib and he's also he's going to take one look at that and go yeah that seems like the right move now i tell you what now i heard it i heard the damn ambush wants kill him let's go

Now, can I elect to do a thing or do I have to wait for you to tell me to roll for something?

You tell me what action you want to do, and I'll make a decision about whether there's a roll.

And you tell me if this is a legit thing to do, but I would like to roll spot hidden.

Okay.

To see if I can tell what is coming and where.

Yeah, that's a legitimate reaction to Jeremiah screaming that there's an ambush coming.

All right.

That is a 39.

So Johnny peers over to the New Mexico side with his eagle eyes and doesn't see anything remarkable.

He's really starting to doubt that testimony from Jeremiah that you're about to be ambushed.

Y'all, I think that Jeremiah might be full of shit.

I'll tell you what's full of shit, you.

This is the rest of the episode.

You know what else is full of shit?

That deer over there, man.

He's leaving him.

We have a drifter and a roaming miner arguing.

I guess this is what happens when you set them up as guards.

So there's something happening now about a half mile east of this necktie social on the Canateo Bridge.

It's on the side opposite Jeremiah's hollering.

Two riders appear and then vanish like ghosts.

They're bobbing in and out of the heat rising off the Texas plain as their horses are barreling through the brush.

The cries from the birds might have tipped you off if you weren't distracted by Jeremiah.

The riders draw rifles without breaking stride.

It looks like they're taking aim at Lance Kilkenny, the man in black.

I'm gonna let them fire with a bonus die because of the surprise attack.

So they'll roll the tens die twice, and if they beat their number with either roll, they're gonna inflict some damage.

The first rider takes aim

and hits.

So he has successfully shot Lance Kilkinny.

Ow.

It's 1d6 plus 1 damage.

And that's three.

It doesn't cause a major wound, but Lance did take a shot through the thigh.

Blood squirting out, getting on Ellie a little bit.

And with the rifle shot, everyone's quite aware that you're under fire.

Even Jeremiah has to acknowledge that the ambush is coming from the other side of the bridge.

Okay, so I have nine hit points now.

Yeah, Yeah, it's not so bad.

I think it was more of a calf shot than a thigh shot, to be honest with you.

Well, it's not through the thigh bone, but kind of off to the side.

Well, you gotta worry about the arteries in there.

I mean...

I'm not too worried about them.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, if it gets infected or you bleed out later, we'll just deal with it then.

Fair enough.

I actually rolled for the location of the shot, which is something I can do.

If it was three damage to the head, we might have had to get creative with the rifle.

It would have popped one of my cauliflower ears, that would have been fine.

The second rider also fires off a shot.

He's clearly a bad shot because he's in range with his rifle, but he misses everybody.

So, we have two riders, they're making an approach toward the bridge about 30 yards away at this point.

Now, this is optional in this game, but I'm going to ask you to roll for initiative.

So, you'll roll against your dexterity, and this will determine the order of combat for you and the enemies.

So it's just a success or not?

Well, I need to know your degree of success.

So, like, I have a 93.

That's pretty bad.

Generally, higher is worse in this game.

So, you're probably going last.

I got a 19, which is a hard success.

Okay.

I rolled a 14.

Okay, so that's extreme success.

So, your dex is 70, and that's one-fifth at 14.

So

yeah,

amazing.

Alex, what did you roll?

A 62.

And Jeremiah.

Oh, I failed like hell.

So I guess it's up to me.

Yeah, what is Lance going to do?

I guess I'll just go ahead and take a shot.

Of what?

Whiskey or rum or...

Well, they only have two riders, right?

Is what you said.

As far as y'all can tell, there are two.

Two people shot at you well see i i don't like the way you said as far as you can tell

i guess i'll roll for it

it's a 21

all right so go ahead and describe the action of lance hitting one of the riders

i level up my pistol i aim it at the rider on the right

and i squeeze the trigger and it hits him Do I need to roll for location?

Well, what you can do is roll 1d8, see how much damage you did, and then use that to describe the wound you've inflicted it's a seven

the bullet hits him right in the torso

straight out the back uh the blood squirts he leans off to the side falling off his horse and his his friend kind of looks over at him realizes his friend's been struck i don't know if he's down and out yet but he he's taken a good wound

point of order do we get to decide yeah he fell off the horse Well, you can describe whatever you think is appropriate, and then what I'll do is veto you when I feel like it's excessive.

Oh, good.

This shot that Lance fired off was a brilliant one, and it did.

It struck him in the torso.

He fell off his horse and appears to be unconscious.

So you are now up against a single rider.

Shit, yeah.

Yeah, that was a devastating shot.

That's what you brought me along for, wasn't it?

And now, the real hero, Johnny Rhodes, it's your turn.

Is there a role to hide?

Yeah, you could move to the side of the bridge and get behind a steel beam or something.

Then that is 100% what I am going to do.

Yeah, I assume he's going to see me do this.

Yes, but if he decides you're the person he wants to attack next, he's going to have to take a penalty die because you've taken cover behind this structure.

That's where Johnny's at right now.

Very good.

There was one more person who beat me on the roll, and I think it was Ellie, an actual gunfighter.

Thank God for that.

So this cowboy's pulled up his horse about 25 yards away from you.

Johnny's a little closer to the situation,

but he seems pretty startled by what happened.

He probably wasn't expecting his partner to get taken down by a long-range shot from a pistol.

I mean, is she strapped with her rifle?

Yeah, that was probably the first thing you did when you realized you were being fired upon, drawing up that rifle and starting to take aim at these cowboys.

And the other writer, he's shaken

and like he looks back.

Yeah, he's trying to slow things down a little bit.

He is looking around, trying to assess maybe whether he can find cover.

But right now, he's out in the open.

So you could fire on him and see what happens, or you could fire on the unconscious man, try to finish him off.

Don't you worry about him, Miss Ellie.

I got him.

But yeah, one of them's threatening you imminently.

I'm gonna fire on him and hit him in the chest.

Well, you may not hit him, so go ahead and roll your percentage dice and we'll figure out that piece of it.

72.

Unfortunately, Ellie, you have a bead on this man, but when he stops to pull up his horse, it throws your aim off and you fire your gun, but the bullet sails.

It's just nowhere near the rider.

All right, so it is the lone rider's move again, and he's going to do something a little different.

He's maybe trying to decide whether he wants to tussle with those dual pistols of Lance Kilkinny before he takes another action.

He's going to shout out to y'all.

I just want the body.

Cool.

Perfectly normal thing to want.

What do you want the body for?

Now don't you worry about that.

I just need need that body.

That sounds suspicious.

Hey, real quick, group huddle.

Are we giving this guy the body?

Can I look at the body first?

Can we look for any suspicious things?

It's an odd request because the body is dangling, you know, like 10 feet off the edge of this bridge.

Do what you want, what you want with the body.

Anybody got a knife?

Reckon we could cut the rope and drop the body in the water.

Then nobody gives the body.

I think Maxwell has a knife.

Can I roll to climb down

to the body to get the knife?

Did Johnny recover that knife?

That was not my good knife.

I was trying to say that that was just some rusty piece of shit

because that was not giving him my good fighting knife.

I just reckon one of them would be useful right now if anybody didn't strap it to a body that was about to be hanged.

Yeah, this was a butter knife, basically.

i feel like we flubbed one thing already so we might as well be thorough about looking for this continue to flub things

i reckon somebody wants a body they got a dark story

sheriff what's the policy on body giving

I think we need to ask that we can kind of like recover what we missed before when we just let the guy die.

Obviously, since the guy connected to, what's his name?

Brock?

Colin Brock, yes.

Your

mortal enemy.

What was that guy's name?

Ain't that the guy that maybe killed your pampy?

I think we should

ask him if he has any connection to him.

Like if you want him, then

are you associated with Brock?

Give us a character voice on that.

I can't do a character voice.

I really can't do a character voice.

Then don't worry about it do your regular voice but make sure you holler he'll twang it in post what do you want with the body right reckon he's far away miss

what do you want with the body there it is

i got orders i don't even know just give me the damn body

where you gonna take the body

oh shit

Who are your orders from?

Look, y'all ask too many damn questions.

Just cut that body and let me load it up on my horse here.

You want us to cut up the body?

Little save-by-the-bell timeout here.

Can we, and I'm asking the team, is there some sort of subterfuge we can engage in here where we act like we're gonna give him the body and somebody gets the drop on him?

I don't know what that looks like.

I don't hate that.

It's a cool idea.

Let's do it.

I think what we'd be trying to do here is one of us makes to look like we're cutting the body down and then we draw as we're cutting.

When he gets close to collect the body, we could just dangle him over the bridge as such, and he could give us information.

How about you get off that horse?

You put that gun down, you come over here, and we'll get you that body.

All right, so why don't you give me

a fast talk roll?

Hey, guess what?

I'm not awesome at

that.

Is a 38, which is a fail.

He He looks skeptical.

Good job.

Hell no, I ain't getting off my horse.

But the good news is, he's stalled combat long enough that he's essentially lost his turn.

So if you re-engaged him, you would have the drop on him in the sense that he'd be last in the order.

Hey, somebody shoot this motherfucker.

Let's kill him.

Let's try to kill him.

I reckon if y'all need some help, I got me a gun here.

I could shoot.

Good old Jeremiah.

You're probably a good 35 to 40 yards away from this rider.

That's fine.

Jackrabbits out in the mines in Idaho are always like 50-60 yards.

Grandpa's got a firearm.

Let's just do that.

And you have

remind me of your weapon.

I got a 45.

Jeez.

Hell yeah.

I'm going to turn this guy's femur into mist.

Oh goodness.

All right.

This is going to be long range for your weapon.

Long range for your weapon.

It's just range for me.

And you're going to need.

Wow, your handgun skill is phenomenal.

I told you, I'm going to wax this fucker.

You're going to need a hard success, though.

Why don't you go ahead and roll to see how you do?

He's going to roll another 100.

I rolled a five.

I think his head's gone.

God damn.

So I want you to roll for damage and then describe what happens.

I believe he said femur into mist.

So damage is the d8.

For you, it's a d10 plus 2.

God damn.

All right, well, I rolled a 10.

You gave him a lead salad.

Yeah.

When you describe what happens, be aggressive.

After I watched my whole party kind of do half-ass, I decided to pull weapons since I was getting paid a fair day salary.

I thought I might help out.

So I drew down on him and shot him in the leg, blowing him clean off his horse.

He cartwheeled down the hill, lands right next to the body.

He's still alive, though.

Well, I didn't give you a penalty for calling your shot, so I do think he's dead.

No, he's alive.

I told him.

That's what I was trying to do.

He's very dead.

Hey, it's Alex Cookinni checking in here.

I could be wrong.

I could be mistaken.

But didn't Cup say the other guy was still alive there?

He is unconscious, yes.

Yeah.

Maybe we just hold on to that body for a little bit then.

Are you suggesting that maybe we should investigate something at some point?

I'm thinking that may be something we ought to do.

The characters are called investigators and not like bloodthirsty murderers, right?

Yes.

So you have one quite dead former rider.

Lots of famer mists going around over there.

This might be the most unsuccessful ambush of all time.

I think General George Custer might have something to say about that.

I would like to know which one of you has first aid because I heard one of you give some points to it earlier in the game.

I'm sorry about that.

Johnny drops his first aid kit.

I just dropped it in the river.

If you're willing to give me half your day's pay, I'll patch that wound up for you.

I'll be honest with you, Jeremiah.

You called an ambush from the absolute wrong side of the bridge.

I don't want you anywhere near me.

Yeah, but the thing is, is I like

blew the guy in half.

This does seem like it was your fault.

All right, that's fair.

I'll come patch you up for nothing.

The other thing is, I think I still have femur mist on me.

reckoning the mines people be falling down and getting all scuffed up and nothing i done sewed up a couple of stumps for people uh and satisfactorily attached and affixed twigs and uh various branches on so they could be bipedal again

I got no proper medical training, but my grandpappy gave me a book when I was young called You Have a Body, and it showed it.

reckon i have a neck for it though

the creepy thing is that with cup i'm sure that this is exactly how he expected this to go

here's what i worry about cup had said the the ambush did come from the texas side of the border did come from the town that would be the nearest town to go get first aid i'm afraid the only option i have for my first aid is to rely on old jeremiah over there yeah it's a good decision right here we're on the field i can take care of it for you All right, so let's see if this thing's about to get infected.

Hold on, I got to spit on this here needle to disinfect it.

I hope that you roll 100 and his leg falls off.

All right, here we go.

I'm rolling one.

I got a 73.

Which is fine because you have 80.

I'm 80.

Okay, yeah, I know.

It just makes me laugh because I keep rolling these fucking.

So what does the first aid look like?

The only thing you're good at is murder.

Reckon one time I found myself with some natives walking down from Dakotas.

We was ambushed and the blood mist I took and made a paste out of with some dirt powder and rubbed it on the wounds and it helped.

Which helps Lance recover one of his hit points.

Woo.

You feel better, big guy?

I feel a little bit better.

I'm not gonna lie to you.

I have no idea what that paste was you made.

Some homeopathic medicine here.

I told you I done had a knack for it.

I would like to go investigate our unconscious friend over there.

And I'd like to investigate the body.

I'd like to investigate the body as well.

See what's so interesting about it.

When you say the body, we have racked up a count.

Which one are y'all referring to?

I'm talking about Maxwell.

I'd also like to get the knife back for Johnny, if at all possible.

Much obliged.

How are you going to do that?

Well, I'm going to pull the rope back up.

I'll help.

Thanks, Flint.

Who would like to do a thing?

I would like to do something besides drink whiskey over here.

So, Father Flint and Lance Kilkinny mosey over to the railroad bridge with the ambition of pulling up the corpse of Maxwell Posey.

Why don't you both roll strength for me?

God's way though.

15.

Oh, wow.

So you, the two of you, effortlessly, almost in just one tug together, pull the corpse of Maxwell Posey back onto the railroad bridge where he is strewn about lifelessly.

Dinner is served.

That ain't the first time you've done that, is it, boys?

What?

Finish something in one tug?

Oh, boy.

Damn it.

Johnny collects that old butter knife.

I'm going to let you do that without a roll.

But we want to take a look at the body to figure out why the other guy wanted it, right?

What are you looking for?

Are you searching pockets?

I don't know.

Like, I kind of want to just cut him open and see if there's anything freaky we should know about.

Did you say cut him open?

Well, I mean, this is supposed to be like spooky, right?

We got to get spooky at some point.

Are you saying this character?

Hey, our lives are supposed to be spooky, right?

The spookiness might be a slow burn.

Well, let's cut him open.

I am going to go over to the unconscious gentleman.

Can I confirm he's definitely unconscious and not about to like

leap up and grab me by the throat?

Or do we need to put a bullet into this guy, too?

Poke him with a stick.

Can we tie him up?

Because we need information out of him, so.

Let's tie him up.

I like that.

Do I need to roll not tying?

for the five of you to tie up an unconscious man i'll say that's something you're capable of doing

he's now bound at what the ankles and wrists no we we hog tied him so hell yeah bound at the ankles and wrists but then they're tied to each other behind his back

what would i need to do to try and wake up the unconscious guy it might not be something you're able to do at the moment he's making constitution rolls to see if he's going to live

Should we all just wait and see how that goes?

I will say you could apply medicine or first aid if you'd like.

Well, Jeremiah, you worked out well for me.

Go ahead and give it a shot.

I very much want that to happen.

I reckon I've done some necromancy in my time.

Ah, yeah, it looks like a 28 right there.

Okay, so you do enough to get him into this kind of woozy, hazy state.

Why don't you describe the first aid you just applied?

I did that thing from Karate Kid where Mr.

Miyagi claps his hands and rubs them together real good and then applies it.

This is just enough to jar this man out of unconsciousness temporarily.

He's looking up at you, Jeremiah, like you're an angel from heaven.

Do we have anybody who is good at fast talk?

I have a 12.

Is that good?

It doesn't seem seem like it is.

That feels bad.

You are the best, Johnny.

I am?

Yeah.

We're bad at that.

All right.

I would like to interrogate this guy to see if I can find out why they wanted that body.

All right.

Let me roll first and then I'll tell you what exactly I think.

Ooh.

That is a 32.

Hey, man, listen here.

No hard feelings, nothing.

We can get you back to Cantia.

We get you patched up and everything.

I mean, sure, you probably have some legal issues, but you know,

we'll get you patched up.

You're going to live.

I just need to know why you guys needed this body.

Take it to Alvido.

To El Vido?

Need his body.

You're going to take the body to El Vido.

Where's that?

Where's that at?

In Alvido.

Now I understand, but what were you gonna do with it?

Gotta

take a look.

Take a look in El Vido?

I think we need to go to El Vido.

El Vido, Alvido.

Hey, did that start with an E or no?

Oh!

I think this boy's bleeding out.

Oh, wait, is he saying, oh, is it hurt?

Oh!

Oh, oh, okay.

Oh, God, yes.

Oh, you're so correct.

Okay.

Oh, oh, Vito.

All right, friend, we'll get you right as rain.

And he dies immediately.

Okay.

Well, you know, you win some, you lose some.

Jeremiah's first aid was just enough for him to have a last breath.

Flint, can you can you get over here and apply your last rites or whatever you do?

Yes.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit, we're going to old video.

I want to see if this guy's got a gun on him.

Yeah, he fired that thing at you.

He doesn't need it anymore.

I reckon you ought to arm yourself.

All right, let me tell you a little bit about the rifle you've acquired.

It's a 22-bolt action rifle.

Sorry, it's not very good.

Weak sauce.

Brandon, Father Flint can have one too from the other dead guy.

It's the same rifle.

It's better than my fists.

Are there saddlebags that we could go through on the horses?

Yeah, one of the horses got really startled by that last brutal murder and ran off.

But one horse is just walking around another murder scene.

You know, I'm calling them murders, but perhaps they're justified.

Alex, give me a spot hidden for Ellie to see what you make of the findings.

When it's a double zero plus a number, is it just...

It's a single-digit number or a fumble.

So I have three.

Three.

Wow, that's an extreme success.

Yeah, so Ellie has this great idea to look through the saddlebags on the horse and finds all kinds of provisions, jerky, water, and with the Texas sun beating down on all of you, this is a welcome sight.

More importantly, you find what appears to be a crudely drawn map, and it looks to Ellie like the map has the Rio Grande drawn in, so this snake-like shape, and there's a pretty clear marking for the origin and the destination.

You immediately recognize Canatillo as the end point,

and it looks like, as far as you can tell, the origin is somewhere in the northwest in New Mexico.

I say, let's hit the road.

Let's get to it.

Can ito or Alvido?

Oh, Ovidio.

And we have no idea how far Alvido is, right?

Well, I feel like Johnny and Jeremiah are the most likely to understand what's going on in New Mexico territory just because they roam around a lot.

Why don't the two of you make either intelligence or navigate rolls for me?

I rolled at 29.

I rolled at 97.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, Jeremiah doesn't know shit.

And with a hard success, I know exactly how close it is, right?

Yeah, Johnny knows that if you follow the Rio Grande North, you're going to run up against Olvedo in a couple of days.

Okay, I'm going to relay that information to the team here.

I think if we ride a couple days upriver, we're going to stumble across it.

I'm fine with that.

I think you're an idiot.

Johnny is clearly saying this to Ellie.

All right, Ellie, hearing this from Johnny, why don't you make a law roll?

82.

Ellie, you thought maybe with a town name, you might know somebody working the law there, maybe a local deputy, but you've got nothing for Alvedo.

You've never even heard of this place.

And

now you're just needing to figure out if you trust Johnny.

Or do you feel like you've got to get back to Canatillo to regroup?

Or you could just hit the road and start looking for Colin Brock.

So we've all got to stay together, right?

It's a good idea to stay together, especially across long distances.

And if you do decide to go to Olvedo as a group, I would like to know your motivation for going there.

Yours is obvious.

Wait, whose is obvious?

Ellie's been searching for Colin Brock for three years to bring him justice.

Oh, yeah.

Now she's got an indication that maybe he's an Alvedo.

And I'm sticking with Ellie because I hate every last member of that gang that I used to be a part of.

I reckon she paid me for an honest day's work.

And if we actually come across a man that killed her pappy, I'd like to help.

Johnny, he's actually very intrigued by these people wanting to take that body.

And Father Flint

is really not welcome in any town.

So he's willing to go to a new town and try to see if he can scrounge up some money and some new parishioners.

So let's give it a go.

So in terms of getting there, Ellie, you have your horse.

Your trusty mare is there.

Father, you rode in on a horse as well.

And Lance, you also have a horse.

Awesome.

You, Johnny.

And Johnny walked, right?

You, Johnny, just kind of materialized.

No one knows exactly how you got there.

No, that's fine.

I'm comfortable with that.

And maybe Jeremiah just hopped on the back of Lance's horse to get out here.

So you had three horses, but, of course, there is that horse wandering around in circles.

Its rider was burst to pieces.

Johnny is making a move for that horse.

Jeremiah, I don't know if if you have any interest in this horse that Johnny's going after.

If you want to oppose this, I oppose because I want a pony.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Are you opposing physically, or do you want to have like a battle to see who can break this horse?

Is this Black Beauty?

What are we doing?

We're just going to make 5% animal handling rolls until someone succeeds.

Reckon I'm going to challenge you to breaking this horse down

we gonna call it and whoever it comes to it loves

that's good i think that's fair to the animal

i'm sorry for this johnny but i'm gonna ask you to persuade this horse persuade it instead of using animal handling

Why don't you sweet talk it like you did that unconscious man over there who's dead and hogtied.

I'm going to say, hey, hey, hey, little fellow, come on over here.

Roll for this.

That's a 56.

I got an 11.

Okay, so Jeremiah, how do you sweet talk this horse?

Hi, hi, horse.

Ah, you know, if you come over to me, I'll let you choose your name.

Through a series of nods, I will respect you as a fellow creature on this earth, and then I will give you various vegetables.

What do you think about that?

If you agree, why don't you come over here and give me a nudge on the chin?

The horse just straight away walks to Jeremiah and plants a big kiss on your face.

And Johnny, you are still drifting literally through this world.

Wait, you said I materialized here.

As soon as they start to ride off, I just sort of phase out of existence and I keep reappearing on the horizon.

It's like a race car game when you go too far off the track.

Yeah,

I'm the blue shell.

Yes, you just reappear miraculously.

So you could, Johnny, request to ride like a tandem horse with one of these other riders.

Well, I think the only one I'm going to ask is Ellie because I hate everyone else.

So, Ellie, I won't make you roll forward or anything.

I'll just give you the decision of whether you want to let Johnny ride along.

Yeah, come on.

Thank you, Ms.

Ellie.

Which is generous because Johnny hasn't bathed in probably a couple of weeks.

But I am slight of frame.

True, that could be helpful.

I'm not taking a lot of space.

And you are, if I'm not mistaken, the most attractive member of the party.

That is alarming.

Is that true?

Yes, it's true.

Wow.

Yeah, I mean, he's not well bathed, but there's sort of a rakish charm there.

It's that McConaughey thing.

Yeah, exactly.

He's a McConaughey.

Welcome horns, baby.

So the posse on four horses rides ceremoniously across the railroad bridge, trampling over Maxwell Posey's body, breaking his neck one more time.

And a little bit of time has passed.

It's probably

on that.

It takes a little while to pull things up.

Play it six times in rapid succession.

This is every horse walking over Maxwell Posey's neck.

I got something back there.

I got to ride my horse back five feet.

Okay, I got it.

I got it.

Oh, wait.

Look, they're standing lines.

I want to go look at them closer.

Okay, I'm really coming back for real now.

So there's actually no more bone to break.

And we're moving on to cartilage.

Well, that went further off the rails than Maxwell Posey, but

nonetheless, your party sets forth single file.

Your horses are already huffing in the heat of day, and you're creeping toward a landscape that's washed out by a white-hot sun.

Echoes in the dry wind blow in from the north, carrying bad omens from Ovido.

So am I going with him or?

Who is that?

Wait, he's got to ride over here.

He's going to walk over the neck again.

It's me.

It's me.

It's your boy Lance.

Lance had stated that you're going to go exact revenge on Colin Brock's gang.

So I believe that you are going.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure that...

I'm fucking crying.

And then...

I don't even know.

You look back and one of the beams from the bridge has fallen onto poor Maxwell.

All right, so we are in some ways ready for the next session.

Sweet.

All right, let's start right now.

Yeah, let's, yeah, this is fun as shit.

I love this.

You can enjoy the next episode and explore 10 additional seasons of Ain't Slayed Nobody, featuring a variety of RPG systems and unique settings, from highly produced narratives to improvised adventures.

Listen wherever you find podcasts, linked at the description or at rustyquill.com.

Thanks for listening.