The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

[BowenSilverclaw]

"Will do. Can you take care of my horse until we meet up?

Ow, and before I forget, any chance you've got some more of those silver bullets to pass around? It wouldn't hurt for us to be prepared." Frank asks before he starts to follow the tracks.

By the way, J0lt, how 'bout them silver bullets I asked about a little while ago?

Edited post, Diplomacy was 17 as I mentioned a while ago

[j0lt]

Smirking to himself, Ulysses turns back to Frank.  "Listen kid, I appreciate that you guys are helping me with this and all, but these things ain't free, and they sure as hell ain't easy to come by.  If you want, I'll sell you a few.  Five dollars for six of 'em."

[BowenSilverclaw]

"You drive a hard bargain, Ulysses. But I'll take it, can't have that thing runnin' around freely...
You don't happen to have 'em in 44-40, do you?" Frank smirks as he hands Ulysses the money.

[j0lt]

Jackson shakes his head in disbelief as he pockets the bills and hands over half a dozen silver cartridges.  "That thing hit you in the head, son?  Not twenty minutes ago you asked me the same question.  Hey preacher, you wanna take one o' these horses, I'll hitch the other'n to my saddlehorn and we can get to findin' our way through this here maze."

[MasterVega]

Cedric nods to Jackson and then tries one more time to scale the slope.

Taking a ten and Extreme Effort-ing for a total of 15.

After pulling himself up and walking over to Frank, the man glances down at the trails to see if he can catch any additional clues to aid the more experienced tracker.

Survival Check for Aid Another: 1d20+8=11

[jacemachine]

"I reckon, seeing as I'm about as useful as a milkless cow." I almost said '...as useful as tits on a bull, but I had a profession to uphold, and I found that if you give a man one impression of you, you could get away with just about anything. I slid back down the hill, towards the horses. "Which one of you fellas is willing to allow you horse for the moment?" As soon as I got to a town, I'd buy one of my own, as I had planned all along... or maybe win one in a game of faro or poker.

[BowenSilverclaw]

"You can ride mine for the time being, he's pretty tame so that shouldn't be a problem." Frank calls down as he finishes reloading his Schofield with the silver bullets.

[jacemachine]

I gave Frank a cordial nod as I grabbed the brim of my hat. "Much obliged."
I took the reigns,  climbed the stirrups, and swung my leg over the horse's saddle.

I bow my head.

"Dear Heavenly Father; We ask that you guide our path in this endeavor. We ask humbly that you give us keen senses so that we may track down this despot, and remove its infernal vileness from your Earth. Bless the hands that hold these firearms, oh Lord. We seek to glorify your Name. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen." That should do it. Though I don't believe that there is a caring God, prayer still helps to soothe that part of Man that he refers to as his soul.

"Right. Shall we get a move on?"

[j0lt]

Frank and Cedric begin to follow the trail of bootprints and bloody patches while Jackson, Zeke and Bones work their way through the winding canyons in an attempt to keep up with the more direct route of the two trackers.

Frank and Cedric

You follow the trail of the Jumping Jack for nearly an hour when you come across another trail that merges with the one you're following.  The new trail shows two sets of bootprints, but not traveling together.  The owner of the second set of prints appears to be tracking the first.  When this trail merges with the first, most of the original prints are wiped out with the exception of an occasional spatter of blood.

[MasterVega]

"Frank, can you tell how recent it is? We might not be the first to track this guy..." Cedric examines the tracks himself to see if he can pick anymore details out of the second set.

Survival: 1d20+8=15
Spot: 1d20+2=4
Search:1d20+1=20

[BowenSilverclaw]

"Gimme a minute to see if I can work this out.

Sure am curious to see who these new guys are though..."

Spot: 11
Survival: 10

Ugh, that sucks. What's the deal with taking 10 or 20 in D20 Modern/Sidewinder? Can I use either option instead?

I've never really looked into that and am AFB right now

[Bozwevial]

Thump!

"DAMN this horse!"

For the third time since they had begun tracking, the doctor struggled back to his feet, glaring at the bony horse he had, up until a few seconds ago, been riding. The animal seemed almost smug as it watched his efforts to beat the dust off of his clothing yet again.

Bones plucked the hip flask from his pocket, took a carefully rationed sip, then grabbed the horse again. "Keep it up, Chuckles. We'll see who has the last laugh when I'm shipping you off to a glue factory." A heave, a distressed whinny, and Bones was seated once again. He dug his heels into the horse's side in a spirited effort to catch up with Cedric and Jackson, but the horse merely snorted and sauntered forwards at a pace likely to be outstripped by an elderly man. A blind, elderly man. One with a cane.

[jacemachine]

I sat high in the saddle of Frank's horse. The sun beat down, and I pulled the brim of my hat a little lower on my forehead in an attempt to cut the glare. I watched the doctor behind a concealed smile as he struggled with his own horse. It was amusing, but I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate my finding humor in his predicament.

I turned the horse around as I sat on top of it, and made it seem like I was keeping an eye on our backtrail. In reality though, I had fished that flask of mine out of my coat pocket and was downing the last of the contents. The Apple jack whisky burned as it went down my throat into my gullet, but I broke out into an immediate sweat upon my face that helped cool me in the occasional breeze. I screwed the cap back in place, returned the flask to my pocket, then brought the horse around once again to the rest of the group.

"What do you reckon happened here? Do you think our jumping friend ran afoul another traveler?"

[j0lt]

Frank

The tracks are so mixed together that you find it hard to see which prints came through first.  You can tell, however, that none of the prints are very old.  You'd bet your life that all three sets are less than an hour old.

Cedric

Following alongside Frank, you see many of the things he does.  One thing that he missed catches your eye, however.  A single drop of blood resting on top of several footprints.

Your shadows begin to stretch across the ground as the sun slowly moves its way west.

You may make a Survival, Knowledge (earth and life sciences), Navigate, Intelligence or Wisdom check to determine how many hours of sunlight are left if you so choose.

[BowenSilverclaw]

Survival (take 10): 14

"Looks like these tracks are at least less than an hour old...

Question is, who's following who?" Frank ponders out loud.

[MasterVega]

"I dunno... what do you think of this?" Cedric points out the lone drop of blood before turning his gaze skyward.

Survival: (take 10) 10+8=18)

[BowenSilverclaw]

"Could be from anyone of them, I suppose. I know I hit that jumpin' maniac, don't know if those new guys are wounded though..."

[jacemachine]

I'm going to take 10 on Spot and Listen... so: Spot 14, listen 19

I kept my eyes and ears open, just in case anyone in my present company missed something. I looked up at the sun-- judging by its arc in the sky, we only had about 3 to 4 hours of daylight left.

[BowenSilverclaw]

"By the way, it looks like we've only got about 3, maybe 4 hours of daylight remaining, so I hope we can catch this guy before that. If not, we've got a lot of catching up to do tomorrow." Frank says to Cedric as he gets up and continues to follow the tracks.

[MasterVega]

"I'm not sure if catching up will be the problem..." Cedric replies grimly as he follows, keeping his eyes open for anything Frank might miss.