Tuesday, July 3rd

Town is packed with inventors, mine owners, and tourists. Yes, there is bunting.

Sheriff Mac is making inventors with explosives register with him.

Herny R Hale, who we met before came in second in his steam wagon race. He's back with a big machine as his masterwork.

Thieves have come into town with everyone else.

Dr Wolf is associating with the other mad scientists, but most are cagey about revealing too much ahead of time. There's lots of small scale stuff - better explosives, lighting, air supply. Then there's big stuff... Hale claims to have invented a "mining tank". Dr Meretov Chintz has invented a mining robot with manipulators. A giant screw-type drilling machine which is actually shown to Dr Wolf.

Judith is visited by mad scientists interested in her glowing fungus - she provides samples to them if they want.

Wednesday, July 4th

Opening ceremonies begin - 10 AM

Parade, brass band, followed by all sorts of inventions. Robot with a glass globe on top; mining tank; at the end the mayor is riding a smoke belching digging machine.

Mayor gives a speech about the rich history of the Vulture Mine. Rumors of a ghost rock vein are completely unsubstantiated, but can't be discounted.

Events to come - fireworks, lectures and demonstrations by famous scientists through the area. Finale - digging contest between the machines. "Let the festivities begin!" Poof, a cloud of smoke, and the mayor is gone.

Dr Wolf has invented an item the size of a mini-fridge: a patent water condenser to draw water out of the air for prospecters. He also created a chemical fire arrow - pyro-kinetic arrows!

Father Michael goes looking for the mayor to congratulate him on the production, but can't find him.

Mac goes to find the fireworks makers. It looks reasonably secure, and the people aren't quite so sketchy as carnies, but not too terribly evil seeming.

Sun sets, everyone schleps out to the desert for the fireworks display. The assistant mayor welcomes everyone - more lectures, etc tomorrow, then the digging on Friday. And fireworks begin.

Mac asks Deputy Mayor what happened to the Mayor. Deputy Mayor confides to Mac that the Mayor could not be found. Last time he was seen was at the opening ceremonies.

Mac announces to the crowd, that no one will be allowed to leave town until we find the mayor.

The fireworks show is more subdued. Suddenly a knife comes flying out of the darkness - Dr Wolf dives to the side, but Mac gets a knife into his shoulder. Mac pulls the knife out and yells at to find out who did that. Dr Wolf turns on his lantern and the deputies search the crowd. He comes up with 3-5 drunk sketchy people. He searches them but doesn't find a knife sheath, or any other real evidence. He threatens them all, and they're obviously scared but no one fesses up.

Miss Judith goes to talk to the fireworks techs. They say they didn't have anything to do with the mayor this morning. But they ask and she encourages them to shut down the show and do it tomorrow.

Judith tells Father Michael and Michael makes an announcement to the people that the show has been rescheduled.

Thursday, July 5th

Judith grabs Onatah and checks out the stage. No trap doors, can't tell if he was dragged off or anything, nothing occult looking.

Mac and Dr Wolf go to search the Mayor's office, Mac taking little care as to the condition of the office afterwards. Talking to the secretary, he thinks he heard the mayor cry out when the smoke went off. Secretary says that he hadn't had any confrontations with people. Datebook and some papers are at his home.

Father Michael goes to visit Mrs. Love. She's nervous by nature but claims she doesn't know anything interesting. He spared her any news that might be upsetting on account of her nerves. Father M thinks she's playing up her nerves for sympathy, but is innocent.

Judith and Onatah go visit the fireworks people. Some smokebombs and propellent were missing. A scrawny 15 year old was watching the shack at all times. Says he was clocked on the head yesterday morning. Judith insists on taking a look at the wound, he was really hit in the head - may even have a bit of a concussion. Onatah doesn't think he's lying, any more than the average white kid. He didn't want to say anything earlier because he was afraid he'd get fired.

Mac and Dr Wolf show up at the Mayor's house to search, Father Michael joins them since he's already there. His clothes, etc are there - his office was already searched. Personal letters already gone. Smudge of dirt on the carpet. "Necessary ingredients" in a woman's hand - ingredients to summon and control a doppelganger. We head over to search the wife's house - we don't find much of interest. A sample of her handwriting confirms the "ingredient list" wasn't hers.

Mac heads to post office to talk to the post employee. The mayor doesn't get a lot of letters from women. He doesn't recognize the handwriting.

Mac goes back to look through the register of new people in town. As we're brainstorming in the sheriff's office, a young child shows up to hand a note to Mac. It's from the mayor, requesting we meet him at a warehouse at noon. Before we go, Mac leaves a note for the deputies in case he doesn't return by sundown.

We head over to the warehouse. Dr Wolf climbs up a building across the street from the warehouse. He can see Hale giving a demonstration of his mining tank nearby. The rest of us walk around the warehouse to check for traps, but don't see much of anything. We head in the warehouse, dimly lit. Lots of crates - not sign of the mayor.

Suddenly a scream from outside! The mining tank swerves from the demonstration as it heads to the warehouse bashing in the front door. We run for the exit - everyone gets out but Mac is bringing up the rear. We tries to dive to the side but isn't fast enough and part of his clothing gets caught up and dragged along as it bursts through the wall.

As we run, Judith turns and leaps onto the tank. Father Michael grabs a nearby rope, turns and lassos Mac - pulling him off the tank.

Judith opens the hatch and sees there's no one inside. She climbs in and tries to find a way to shut it down. Fortunately it's kinda weirdly set up like a wagon - so she grabs the "reins" and manages to bring it under control and stop it. But by then it's smashed through another building. When Judith pops up, everyone claps.

Hale is obviously angry - he yells that someone must have messed with his invention. He climbs in and begins to monkey with the machine.

Mac goes searching through the warehouse, but finds little of note. Maybe some illegal liquor, non-taxed.

Mac intends to round up everyone. A scream from down the street. Another invention has gone out of control - the giant robot is menacing a couple in an alley. Mac demands the inventor shut it down. He can't but tells them not to shatter the globe on top, but it is sensitive to electricity. We spring into action!

Dr Wolf charges down the alley with his electric sword! He stabs it's torso and electricity arcs from his sword; it is stunned! Mac runs in to grab the two people and pull them to safety. Father Michael lassos the robot, climbs on a horse, and drags it out of the alley until it finally breaks down.

Dr Wolf looks at the machines to determine what went wrong. The tank had a remote control feature that was clearly being exploited. Dr Chintz doesn't want Dr Wolf messing with the robot, but he's confident he can figure it out. "Your scientific honor is on the line, my friend." Dr Chintz is somewhat offended and has some helpers load the robot onto a cart and wheel it away.

We ask the other scientists to look at their machines for signs of tampering. We find no signs of tampering.

We split up to find the kid who dropped off the note. Dr Wolf finds the kid, and the scary looking German asks for information. The kid is terrified and hides behind Judith's skirt. Mac grabs the kid and says, "You know who I am." He says a tall man with a big nose give him the note.

Father Wolf gets the kid to lead him around until we come across an old miner. Timmy Torquelson is the child's name. The miner, Horace Sanderson, out of work. Michael wakes Horace, gentleman gave him a note for the sheriff. Gentleman weren't no miner, not a crazy inventor, tracking in a lot of mud. The bartender was in a state about it - nasty river mud.

Father Michael rejoins the sheriff and all; we head to the bar. We ask the bartender about the man with muddy boots. Bartender didn't really get a sense of who it was - it was too crowded last night to see who's fault it was but they found a lot of mud this morning.

We decide to head down to the river. As we head that way, Dr Wolf's attention is caught by a glint of light in the alley. He hears a voice say, "Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, it is you!" The giant robot steps out of the alley. (crazy monologue - stronger than when he was Gauss) Giant robot runs off.

We ask Dr Wolf - what the heck? Dr Wolf gives us the story. It's convoluted - Gauss's brain in a robot body; Dr Wolf wants to restore Dr Gauss to his proper grave.

But first back to the river! The sheriff and Onatah do some tracking - we find the prints of someone slogging through the mud. We follow them a site not far from the old ghost rock mine. Some old shacks, one appears to be inhabited from the smell of smoke. Onatah can tell there are 5 voices inside - one is the Mayor, another is a woman! They are talking about having trouble finding ingredients. One of the guys is bitching about having trouble killing off those damned meddlers. The Mayor is saying they'll never get away with it!

Mac kicks in the door! There's a front room (with the mayor tied up) and a back room with the guys and the woman. Judith pulls her door open and yells "Hands up everybody!" Mac yells out, "Surrender the mayor and you may survive, if you don't you won't survive!" Father Michael yells out, "You've been consorting with devils. Surrender now and you'll can save your live and your soul."

Judith runs in to deal with the mayor and the man next to the mayor tries to put a knife to the mayor's throat. Judith fires her rifle into him and Fate intervenes to protect him. The witch realizes she's in trouble and drops a smoke bomb and vanishes.

Father Michael backs away from the shack and starts to look around for signs of "invisible witchery" - footprints, bushes bending the wrong way, etc - but sees nothing.

Dr Wolf charges in and tackles the man with a knife at the mayor's throat. They fall to the ground with the mayor. Dr Wolf draws his dueling knife to stab the man, but the man is saved by Fate. Onatah goes around and breaks the window to let some of the smoke out. Judith reaches in the melee and drags the mayor a few steps out toward the door. Father Michael yells for them to go out with their hands up while still looking for invisible witches. Onatah goes around back and helps drag the mayor out.

Mac runs in and yells at the fighting man to give up. Onatah looks at the mayor to try and see if he's a doppelganger - he sure looks and sounds like the mayor. The three men inside surrender.

Man outside comes running up, yells to sheriff to come out, draws his gun. Father Michael suggests he put down the gun, lest he meet his maker ahead of time. Sheriff and Dr Wolf come out with mooks.

Strange man declares his enmity to the sheriff - sheriff's father killed his pa, he killed sheriff's pa. Now they duel. Dr Wolf will drop a coin to signal the fire time.

They pace off. The man prepares to draw (+2), Mac says, "You don't know who you're dealing with. You just stepped into a whole mess of trouble." Mac gets ready to fire. The coin drops. They go for their guns. Mac draws first and plugs him in the chest. (2 wounds), his second shot goes wide. The man fires back, hits Mac in the stomach (1 wound), the second shot misses.

Judith's had enough of this and shoots the duelist - killing him. "We have a witch to find, you idiot!"

Mayor says they planned to summon something to replace him. He even swears it on the Bible.

It's decided to keep the Mayor in protective custody (in Mac's apartment, we'll bury the man in town, we'll research in the occult library how to tell if someone's a doppleganger - they'll know, there's a test involving blood and mercury, and they do replace not duplicate the victim. We also look into witches and how to ward against them, coming up with a list of things.

Mac interrogates the mooks, one won't talk but the other spill their guts. They came to town with "this guy" and the plan was to deal with a witch in town to kidnap the mayor. They don't know who the witch is - she always wore a hood, but she was kinda short and she was white. The guy who came to town is Lindell Holden - but that was the man Mac dueled so he's dead. And that's it and then they were caught. Was there any other place they met besides the shack.

We go check on the Widow Love, on account of her husband being a Satanist. Mac basically asks her point blank if she's a witch. She swears on the Bible that she's not. Onatah asks about her relationship with Mrs. William Love - she's sort of a flighty sort but I don't think she'd hurt anyone.

We decide to give up on the witch for a bit and go look for the robot. And while we do, we go ask about the witch too. Dr Chintz is staying at a hotel downtown and probably has the robot nearby.

We split up again - Mac and Father Michael go to. Dr Wolf, Onatah, and Miss Judith go to find the robot again. They start at the hotel and are directed to the bar where Chintz might be. The bar sign has been replaced by "the Robot Arms". It's a chaos of mad scientists writing on walls. Dr Chintz is being yelled by a short Spaniard. Dr Wolf accuses Dr Chintz of putting a brain in the robot - it's not a robot at all! A gasp goes through the room. Where is this creation of yours?

Chintz is indignant and will not tell you. Dr Wolf challenges him to a duel, to first blood. Dr Chintz pales and says, "It's not my fault! Hellstrom made me do it." "You were forced! That fiend!" He admits the robot is being kept in a stable nearby. He tells the brief story - a berserk robot.

Dr Hale volunteers his mining tank to help fight the robot. "Science shall triumph over bad science! To the mining tank!"

They plan and attack. Judith drives the tank through the stable wall with a crash! Onatah runs into the hole and aims at the robot's head. Dr Wolf charges over the back of the tank and stabs the sword through robot's glass globe - a surge of electricity goes through the robot. The sword snaps off and Fate saves the robot from damage. The robots flails it's arms and happens to block a strike by Dr Wolf with his knife - the magnetic fighting knife finds a weak point and the arm is completely disabled. Onatah looses a carefully aimed flaming arrow at the robot's broken glass head and a burst of flame cooks the brain into near death (4 wounds). Dr Wolf jams the knife into the robot's torso (1 wound). Judith scrambles out of the tank and leaps from the tank, landing at the robot's feet, stabbing it in the leg (1 wound).

The robot Gauss yells "Damn you, Dr Wolf!" and sprays acid at him but his brain is malfunctioning and he misses. The second blast of acid is corrected and it sprays across Dr Wolf's guts. (Fate intervenes for two wounds, and only a light wound)

Dr Wolf springs back to the attack, but the knife can't find a weak point in the leg. Onatah looses another arrow for the head, but isn't aimed well enough. Judith scales the robot and tries to reach inside the brain case but the robot is moving too much. The robot tries to pry Judith off but can't reach her, and she gets her arm inside the braincase and scrambles the brains with her hand.

Friday

Final ceremonies. Digging contest - mining tank doesn't do well, the robot is out, the other two tie. The mayor asks the heroes of Vulture to come up; talks about how great we area and how we'd help defend the town against any threats.

Just as the wagons are rolling out of town, two strange men dressed all in black roll in.