We follow Grey Owl/the kid east then north off of the path.  The terrain gets rockier and more hilly.  There is a small mining shanty and he fiddles with the lock on the door.  It is nasty inside, with papers strewn everywhere. They are drawings, some of which we recognize.  At the center is a drawing of the dragon.  The kid says it is a manifestation of greed in the area.  They are primordial evil spirits that live in other realms, but this one has come through to our side. They work through others to undermine communities and make chaos.

We start poking through the mess and find a map of the mine.  Grey Owl says that the kid is Seth Fry and he has ability to manipulate energy as well as see  and document it.  His father was a famous gunslinger who was killed and his mother relocated to Paradise Falls.  She died and he went into foster care, but ran away and lived as a thief.  He was approached by a consciousness and was able to observe and draw what he saw.  He has some sort of connection to the powers, but because he only watched he was not corrupted.

We also find a box with a spot for a gun and knife, but they are missing.  The box is monogrammed with his fathers initials, MF (Merton Fry).  However the marks left by the weapons look plain, so they must be unadorned.   He says the weapons were there when he left the shack last summer.   The letter says Merton left Seth the weapons, but that they take a terrible toll.  We look for some other stuff but find nothing.

Poker Alice realizes that the Man in Black had a powerful gun that could be one of the missing weapons.

We take the box for the gun and knife. We head back to town, and on the way Grey Owl explains that our bodies are still in the Hunting Grounds where the dragon is still living.  The fact that we are still alive means that he has not killed our bodies.  Grey Owl used his last magic to move us away from there.  The dragons body does occasionally appear on this plane in the secret chamber in the mind.   Grey Owl can get us back there, but needs special herbs and time to complete the ritual.  We help collect the herbs.

The blacksmith and Lawrence go back to the shop and get a few more guns, 2 pistols and a shotgun.  He also makes a battle axe from spare parts, and grenades.  Poker Alice steals some dynamite from the mine store.  Glenn Reese has the Poker Boys start gathering the herbs Grey Owl needs.  Lorelai gets laid.  Robert Ford goes back and manages his club.

In the middle of the night we are awakened by commotion on the north end of town.  It is the Man in Black.  We run after him and shoot at him.  The blacksmith hits him with a grenade.  He shoots and wounds Poker Alice/Fossar.  He shoots a burst of flame out of his hand, and Fossar is wounded.  We all shoot at him again with no effect.  He guns down Poker Alice, and Lawrence tries to drag to her to safety.  Maverick hits him with a hammer, which he shakes off.  Then he slashes Maverick with a vicious looking knife.  We shoot more with no effect.  Maverick hits him again but no damage.  Lawrence keeps pulling Alice to safety, and she is slowly bleeding out.  Poker Alice dies.  He slashes the blacksmith one last time, then wheels and charges out of town.  Maverick hits him with one last grenade, to no effect.  Jimmy also misses him.  The only good thing is we confirmed he has the knife and the gun.  We all head back to the Triple Tap.

We  finish slaughtering the ghouls.  We realize that the ghouls are actually slaughtered miners who were brought back to life.  We also see that this part of the mine opens into a natural cavern.  We then spend 20 min debating about burning or burying.  We decide on burning, then move on into the natural cave.

Jimmy and Thaddeus slip but both are OK.  We continue down until it opens up into a bigger cavern.   We hear dripping water, and the corridor ends in a pool of water.  Magnus casts environmental protection on the party and we walk into the water.

The water feels viscous but not necessarily evil.  It tastes oily.  We go about 30 feet and emerge and the liquid sluffs off us.  We can’t see anything, even with the magical assistance, and we no longer feel the water behind us.  Fossar sees something glowing in the distance, and we can still hear each other.  The point starts glowing brighter, and Lucille recognizes it as the dragon moving towards us.  Orange tendrils envelop us.  Thaddeus throws a potion but it has no effect.  A disembodied voice says “Very clever Thaddeus”.

A huge orange dragon head looms over us.  The voice says its has been waiting to meet us.  He says he has influence and asks us to join his legions.  We see idealized vision of ourselves.  He says we have much to offer each other.  All of us have arrived hear by running from our past.  Thaddeus tries to persuade him that we will not be changed from our present course.  Magnus hit him with a bolt, but it passes right through.  The voice says you have lost an ally and we see   Grey Owl on the same slab that we rescued Jenkins from.  The voice says you have made your choice and the tendrils start pulsing and we see Grey Owl look at us.  He pulls out a pouch and crushes it. Dandelion fluff or something swirls around us and we see the dragon head withdraw.  The sense of vertigo increases and we all black out.

We each see a different scene when we awake.  Thaddeus senses someone else that he has a psychic connection with someone else.  It is Madame Lorelai.  When he opens his eyes he feels someone pressed up against him, and it is actually a young man, named Jeremy.  Looking into a mirror he looks like Madam Lorelai.

Fossar wakes up and sees blinding light.  When his eye clears he is under a tree and is a woman.  He is guarding the perimeter of the town.  The dragon is still in his mind, but he just senses that this is good. He is Poker Alice.

Jimmy wakes up and is stirring a pot of food in a teepee.  There are many more teepees upside and he is in the camp of the Dust Boys.  He is Glenn Reese, manager of the dust boys.

Maverick is a blacksmith.  He looks down and he is shaping a buckle for a horse bridle.  A boy runs in and says Dad, everybody is saying that there was an explosion in the mine.  He is Roland Chambers, the blacksmith.

Lucille is pouring something, then takes a shot.  Then one more.  Then one more.  He invites people on the street into his hotel.  It is really a tent.  He is Robert Ford.

Magnus is sitting comfortably but realizes he doesn’t want to be the guy in charge.  He is playing poker and wins $200, but thinks about parking it in and heading to the bar.  He is Lawrence.

Our consciousness is fighting with their consciousness.  Thaddeus heads to the Triple Tap.  Roland/Maverick also heads to the bar.  Fossar touches herself then heads to the mine.  Magnus heads outside from his bar, but heads toward the mine.  Lucille walks outside, and feels that the dragon was trying to corrupt our souls, but Grey was sacrificed himself to save us and send us to another body.   She heads to the Tripe Tap as well.

Magnus and Fossar sees that the entrance to the mine is collapsed.  They  see people holding back the crowd.

Magnus and Fossar meet at the mine, and then decide to head to the  bar as well.  Jimmy finally wanders in after some pointless screwing around.

We decide to see if we can find the back entrance to the mine and get in to recover our original bodies.  First we hit the blacksmith shop to look into the cellar where Roland has some weird magic stuff.  We see that he has a hydraulic pump that can wash away the stuff in the mine.  We find a small ghost rock boiler.  Thaddeus also sees some bottles that can give off toxic caustic vapor pills.  Also some oxygen tablets that can be used to breathe under water.  There is also a salve that can heal, some rusting oil,,and some slippery oil.

We head to the mine and find the kid standing at the entrance.  He has Grey Owls spirit riding shotgun.  He leads us toward a different path, and we follow.

Thaddeus gets together some supplies and takes them to Grey Owl.  As we are leaving Charlotte comes up and she is dressed very well.  Charlotte explains that she is back in the business, and Madame Lorlelai is her mistress.  We fill her in on our adventures.  She says the town is starting to come back to life, but she is concerned about the guy running for mayor, George Riley.  He is giving speeches saying that we are taking over the town.  She also says we should tell the town how we will be distributing the food, because they are starting to get worried.

We get to Grey Owls camp.  He is not currently around, but we see one set of hours tracks that arrived recently then headed off east.

Magnus wanders around town and meets Robert Ford.  Robert is trying to get the dance hall reopened.  He agrees to go talk to the mayor with Magnus.  The mayors office has been cleaned and organized.  Rusty is there and greets them.  He is happy to see them and they talk about how to distribute the supplies.  Rusty suggests giving them to the general store owner for distribution, but Magnus suggests the church.  Eva is giving services there and she will distribute the food.

We get back to town and find Lucille’s worshippers outside the Triple Tap.  Maverick suggests they should not bother her, but go do good deeds.   Jimmy steps up and says “I am Good Deeds”.  <ba dum dum>. We look around for the invisible drummer.  Thaddeus brews more of his potions.  Everyone turns in early.

Next morning, April 28th, we wake up and the church people show up to help us load the food.  We take the food over to the church.  Eva meets us and thanks us for the food.  Magnus realizes that she was one of the people in the vision where we also saw Lawrence being possessed.  She is free now.

We go to see Riley speak.  Lucille casts puppet on him.  Magnus engages him in conversation. Riley starts to say some bad things about us, but Lucille has him say other things.  He challenges Magnus to run for Mayor, and Magnus accepts.  Riley starts  to say he learned something about us, but Lucille uses telepathy to threaten him if he says anything.  He goes pale and endorses Magnus.  People keep coming up to him and introducing themselves.  We ask Rusty to help organize them into work crews to help building the town. We decide to head to the mine, after stopping at the Triple Tap for supplies.

We get there and starts head in, bu the meet the assayers on the site.  They head up with us.  He tells us that the mine is publicly owned so if we can get it going again the whole town will benefit.   He takes us to the junction with the older part of the mine then heads out.  We stealthily head back to where we saw the zombies.

As we get to the bottom we hear walking coming towards us.  We come to an open room and see 11 ghouls.  Fossar shovels one.  Another attacks him, but he kills it.  Lucille casts havoc and 3 of the ghouls fly against the walls.  Jimmy steps up and kills one of them.

Anita backs away from the barn, cursing and calling for help.  Magnus hits her with a bolt but she shrugs it off.  Jimmy tries grabbing the bag of spices from her neck, but she dodges.  Fossar taunts her and Thaddeus hits her with a potion, but she ignores them both.

Fossar taunts her a second time.  This time she seems affected.  She screams and moves away.  Several zombies appear from the old Indian longhouses and start moving toward us.  Thaddeus shoots and misses.  Magnus tries to pull out a new gun from his magic sack, but it fails miserably.  The gun blows up and injures him.  Jimmy runs up and slashes her.  Her head scarf flies off and the top of her head is missing.  Her brains are exposed, but she took no damage from the axe slashes.  He yells and swings again, aiming at her brain. Brains spray out and she seems injured for the first time.

Fossar keeps up his taunts, and Magnus shoots her again but with no damage.   The zombies move in and swarm Jimmy.   One hits but does not damage Jimmy.   One of the miners is killed by another zombie.  Jimmy swings wildly and kills Anita but smashing the last of her brains.  The zombies go crazy.  Thaddeus hits Jimmy and the zombies, trapping all of them.

Thaddeus shoots another zombie and kills it.  Fossar runs up and smashes another with a shovel.  He splatters it and is covered in infectious gore, but shrugs it off.  Jimmy breaks free and eliminates two more zombies.  The last zombie shoots Magnus with a bow and wounds him, but Fossar removes its head.

Thaddeus grabs the spices and gives some to Maverick, but it has no effect.  He starts to feel better after a while.  We drag the bodies into the barn and light it on fire.  We heal everyone who was hurt.  We search the town and find some newer tracks going into the homes.

We follow the tracks and find tons of supplies in some of the houses. We load up the wagon, and scrounge up another wagon as well.  What we can’t carry we hide in a cellar and booby trap.   Knowing it is too far we decide to spend the night before heading out.  We stash the wagons in a barn and set up watches.

About 4 am we hear noise coming down the street.  A tall man in black is dragging something.  As he gets closer we see that the man is dragging a body.  He talks to Fossar and says come down here, you got a live one.  Fossar walks up to him and sees it is Bat Masterson and he is moving.  We buried him because he was dead and cold.  The man in black says the dead around here don’t stay dead, so he helps by giving the dead an elixir that keeps the animating demon at bay.  The person can then lead a normal life, they just aren’t breathing.

The man in black introduces himself as the prospector.  He gives a bottle of the elixir to Fossar, then he says farewell and leave.  The condition of the recovered dead is “harrowed”, returned to the land of the living.

We head to Spar City, spend the night.  There is no one around.  We head out early and get to Paradise Falls in mid afternoon.  There is a large encampment that wasn’t there when we left.  They are the dust brothers, Jimmy’s kin and friends.  Jimmy greets them and talks to them, and so does Magnus.  We take the supplies to the Triple Tap.

We are greeted as heroes when we come in with the supplies.  We see several of the buildings have been repaired and the town is slowly coming back to life.

You also see a lot of signs talking about the new guy running for mayor.  We get to Triple Tap and a bunch of people are outside chanting.  Lucille is sitting in a chair in the corner, and these are her worshippers.  She leads the crowd out, then comes back in to talk to us. We bring in the rest of the food.  Thaddeus heads up to his lab to work on the new potions and the spices.  He realizes he can replicate the  Elixir but needs to find some more rare ingredients.  He can talk to Grey Owl to get the rest.

The noise is coming from all around the campsite.  Jimmy lets the party knows that the creatures like to attack from the side.  Maverick deals with the devil and now can see very well in the dark.  He flies around looking for the source of the noise.  They hear more grunting calls from across the hearing.  Jimmy backs into the clearing and closer to the. Fire.  Fossar keeps shouting “Where are they?”

Magnus preps a spell and Maverick lands inside the clearing.  Everyone is still waiting for something to happen.  Jimmy starts having more flashbacks about how he was attacked by a large female Sasquatch after he stumbled into its young.   Fossar thinks he sees one of them off in the distance.

Thaddeus stumbles into the clearing. The group tries to get a fire going but fails.  The miners say they want to go and start heading back to the road.  We follow them as a group, with Maverick and Thaddeus flying above them.

As we were are strung out we are attacked by a group of large creatures.  Maverick shoots one but it shakes it off.  Fossar also swings at one but does no damage.  Bat and Lawrence are terrified and take off.  The wendigo swings at Fossar and misses.  Another one attacks the miners and hits, leaving him shaken.  Fossar swings but misses.  Thaddeus drops a potion on one and shakes it.  Jimmy screams and run at the female that he remembered from his flashback.  He sinks two tomahawks into it, leaving it shaken.

Magnus blasts one with a ray gun.  Fossar swings at the same one and takes a huge chunk out of it, but it returns the pain with interest. The other one attacks Jimmy but misses.  Jimmy hits it again and Thaddeus blows up another one.

The combat continues until all of them are dead.  The last one falls on Jimmy as it is dying.  Only Fossar and Jimmy were wounded.  The posse pushes the dead thing off of Jimmy, and he and Fossar both drink a potion from Thaddeus and feel better.

Jimmy remembers being discovered, half-dead and mute, by the Dust Boys after his first encounter with the female beast, and being given his name by the leader, Glenn.

We get back to the horses.  Lawrence comes out of the woods.  Bat and Ollie say they are going on to solve the supply train problem.  We realize that is just 5 miles away and decide to head there too.

Chuck tells about his visions and says we will run into zombies at the supply station.

We get into town and it feels like Del Norte.  The supply depot is completely burned down, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.  There are teepees and long houses of a Indian settlement not far away.  There is smoke coming out of a chimney from a ranch house on the edge of town.  We head there and see hunting rifles on the porch and see deer hanging.  We smell cooking food.  We knock and the door is answered by a short Native American woman, Anita.  We come in and talk to her.

She says that Soapy’s men arrived in town in February and burned the supply depot, and drove everyone away, a whooping and a hollering.   Anita and her husband hid in the cellar and have lived off of hunting ever since, but it is dangerous here and they do not venture outside often.  She says we will need to go NW to Lake City (25 miles) to get more supplies.

She serves stew and puts some extra spices in Jimmy’s.  When Maverick asks for spices she refuses. He eats it anyway.  Maverick decides to go upstairs and see the husband who is supposedly resting.

Meanwhile we go into the barn to see if we can help her repair it.  It smells like chemicals but we can’t place it.  She asks us to replace some of the rotten wood as it’s causing the barn to be unstable. She asks Jimmy to go get some wood from behind the farmhouse. He obliges, but suddenly we hear shots from the house.

The group in the barn moves back out, except for Anita, Thaddeus, and Magnus.  We hear Maverick shout from the house “Husband’s dead!”  Anita shouts “Kill them!” and runs out of the barn.

Several moaning shapes jump down from the hay loft right behind Magnus. They appear to be undead Indian braves, all covered with disgusting pus-oozing sores.

Thaddeus chases Anita and hits her with the butt of his shotgun as she tries to close and lock the door.  She takes no notice of the hit, and is definitely not of this world.  She hits him back with magical energy and he stumbles back.

Magnus brings up a barrier at the back of the barn, and throws a stick of dynamite over it to pulverize the zombies.  The blast is so powerful that it goes through the barrier and wounds him, but it does destroy the zombies. However a substance sprays onto Magnus and he is infected with the pox.  Maverick starts convulsing from eating the stew, which was apparently poisoned. He vomits blood and looks exhausted but is still standing.  The miners also vomit, and Bat and Ollie collapse to the ground. It appears that they aren’t breathing.

The heroes return from Spar City after having saved the remaining survivors. On the way back into Paradise Falls, the wagon train finds Alice on the edge of town. Magnus hops off the wagon to speak with her. Turn out  she is out there to get a breath of fresh air. She confides to Magnus that she’s doing what she can to behave and watch out for the town, but it’s difficult. She hasn’t had a drink in several days. She also admits that she has a Pony Express message for Magnus, and is curious why someone would risk sending a rider to such a volatile area, and questions his motives. Magnus takes the message and then proceeds to talk to Alice about her importance in the town. The two hop back on the wagon and make their way into town.

Once in town, the refugees meet family members they haven’t seen in months and there are lots of tearful reunions. Everyone throws praises at the posse and calls them heroes.

Magnus calls the group together and explains that he received a message from a friend in Salida who told him that the Priest and the Irishman were seen in South Fork. The group realizes that they will need to get some rest before they continue on with their next task, and head to the Long Draught.

After a while, Rusty comes to the posse and lets them know how much he and the town appreciate their help reuniting those who had left a few months ago. However, he notes that the supplies are in a dire situation and they have only a week left of food before nothing is left. In the posse’s absence, a group of people including Lawrence, Bat Masterson, Ollie O’Malley and six minors when to Clearwater to finally discover why the supply chain has been down for so long.

The group breaks and goes their separate ways. Magnus sees Alice hanging around the outside of the Long Draught and invites her in. She agrees, not expecting an invitation from him but not hating the idea, either. She and Magnus go up to his room and spend the rest of the afternoon up there.

Jimmy and Fossar head outside to spar. As they fight, a crowd gathers and Maverick takes bets from the townspeople. After a long battle, Fossar finally lays Jimmy out. Maverick pays out the bets and keeps 20%, but takes the two fighters to the bar for drinks.

Alice can be heard from Magnus’ room by the other posse members. Magnus summons some assistance for Alice’s pleasure. Magnus and Alice continue and Alice collapses from exhaustion and the two fall asleep.

The rest of the gang drink and fight through the night, and return around midnight. Maverick gambles with the locals and loses for the first time. He quits while he’s behind and heads back.

In the morning Alice has left Magnus’ room and the rest of the group begins to rise about 10 am. Maverick makes his way to the stables and tries to buy a horse to feed the town, saying that if they don’t start eating the horses that everyone will starve. He tries to intimidate the owner and the owner runs to get the Sheriff.

About this time Chuck the miner comes running into to town. He is all distraught. He goes on about Lawrence, Batt and the rest being ambushed by some sort of creature with huge claws.

As the rain moved in the group hurriedly gets on their horses and begin back to where Chuck was attacked. On the trail Chuck explains how he is able to see the supernatural.

We come upon a broken wagon with a dead horse on the side of the road. The horse’s throat has been ripped out. Fossar looks the site over and determines that there are tracks in and out of the woods. Maveric flies into the air and sees the tracks go off quite a ways and the tacks coming back have a longer stride (the person was running). Tommy sorts through the wagon and finds just a torso under some grain.

Maverick finds a camp site off the road. Fossar enters camp and investigates a pelt. He looks at it and it not something he recognizes. He rips it off the tree. There are six bodies littering the camp site.

Some mumbling can be heard coming from one of the tents. Fossar approaches the tent and and throws some dirt at it. Lawrence pops his head out and asks who’s out there.

Inside the tent Bat Masterson is lying very injured. Fossar just wants to bury everyone. Ollie is in there also. Ollie looks at the pelt and is not able to figure it out.

Magnus enters the camp and makes his way with Tommy and Chuck toward the tent. Magnus calls out to Fossar and he comes out of the tent. Lawrence and Ollie beckon Magnus to come help Batt. Magnus enters the tent. He states that he needs some room and then pulls a device out of his bag. Magnus puts it on Batt and fixes him up. They then lead Magnus to the other tent and Magnus fixes up the two wounded guys in that tent.

Shortly after that a sound comes from the woods.

Bar names; Triple Tap (marms, veins, beer)