Because I'm really bad at followup, I've just been getting around to editing the Evil Possum adventure that started this blog. In the process, I decided to write out something I had thought of before, a quick prologue to introduce the character, setting, and plot point or two I cut from my first draft because I didn't want to take extra space explaining them. (I had trouble enough already...) Here's the vignette that resulted, in case it wasn't clear enough this was supposed to be a spaghetti western. While I'm at it, there's links at the end.
The scene could be timeless, except for the shape of the participants. Four figures crouch around a table, peering intently at the cards in their hands and the crudely stamped coins on the table. Their whiskers gleam in the sunlight, and their tails twitch behind them. The cards are quite large, bigger than paperback novels in proportion to their clawed hands, and the printing is all black. After a moment, one of them squeaks in triumph. He reveals his hand to the other players, briefly silencing their chittering. But then, as he leans in to scoop up the pot, a card pops out of his vest. Teeth and red eyes flash. In a moment, the table is upended and the other patrons are engulfed in the brawl. When the door opens, the rest turn on the newcomer as a matter of instinct.
It took just a few busy moments for the newcomer to reach the counter, where a pair of the more grizzled patrons still sat on their barstools. The others mostly lay sprawled about the saloon floor. Two had departed through the windows. Another had exited through the door, without opening it in the process. The bartender looked up almost calmly at the figure before him. The newcomer stood a third again his height, topped by saucer-like ears and a slicked back mane that did not quite conceal a very high forehead. His right arm ended in a hook, the other was thickly muscled. The bartender was calm enough to further note that his clothes were made from the hides and pelts of creatures larger than even himself.
“I am looking for a town
called Ninguna Parte,” the newcomer said. “Is there anyone here who can give me
directions?”
It was one of the patrons at the bar who spoke up first. “Say, I know who you are,” he said. “I ‘eard you were ‘alfway across the Oldlands. They say you’re one of a kind, maybe the only one that ever was.” He started to rise, but his companion restrained him.
The bartender spoke up.
“No, that’s not right,” he said, nose twitching. “There were others. Once.”
Only then did he address the newcomer. “I know who you are. What you are, too.
I’ll help you, any way I can.”
“Very well,” the newcomer said. “Then tell me, is there a town called Ninguna Parte? And if there is, how do I get there?”
It was the second patron
who spoke. “’Tisn’t no town,” he said. “But there’s a place by that name, not
too far off. If you follow the road that brought you here, if’n you came from
the north and not the east, you’ll find an abandoned road. Go east on that, all
the way to Hell’n’ gone, you’ll find the way to Ninguna Parte.”
The bartender nodded. “That’s right, as far as I know,” he said. “I’ve never been that way myself, but I’ve served people who were going there. Some of them came back.”
That was when the first patron did rise. “See, there’s something I can’t help thinking,” he said as he rounded the corner of the bar. “They say you’re the only one of your kind, and then they say nobody ever beat you. So it seems to me, whoever takes you down is Number One for all time…”
The next moment, the newcomer lowered a booted foot. The patron had departed, leaving a hole in the wall behind him. The newcomer surveyed the other patrons. “Leave,” he said. It took bare moments for them all to comply, or haul away those who couldn’t. He turned wearily to the bartender. His hook sank abruptly into the countertop. “How often do you open a bottle of poison in the presence of your guests?”
The bartender backed
away. Then, belatedly, he held up a very small bottle. “It’s insurance,” he
said. “Same as you have. Only if you wouldn’t leave.” His eyes darted to a
revolver at the newcomer’s hip.
“Fair enough,” the
newcomer said. “Have you used it before?”
“I opened it once before,” the bartender said. “For Long John Raeder. I suppose you know about him. Then you’ll know why I didn’t have to use it.”
The newcomer nodded. “Show me,” he said succinctly. The bartender put a stopper in the bottle and handed it over. “It would not have harmed me,” he said, then amended, “Not in a quantity I could not taste.” He set it on the counter.
“I will go now,” the newcomer said. “I suggest you return to the north. This place does not suit you.”
Within a day, the bar
would be sold, for a tidy profit. For the remainder of his career, everyone
would say the bartender was the most fearless of all in his line of work. The
only time anyone asked, he just said that he had met the Unconquered King, and
the questioner never came to his establishment again.
And here's the full link list for the 1st draft of the adventure:
Part 1 The original intro.
Part 2 The overlong exposition, introducing a vehicle I would have cut just to tow something else.
Part 3 The 127 Hours homage, so tasteful you might not figure out on your own.
Part 4 The least read chapter!
Part 5 The most read chapter after the intro, where the Possum crashes a human church!
Part 6 The final showdown, in a drainpipe under a church
Part 7 The twist ending I assumed was obvious, if anyone read it!
And why not the "sequel", the Evil Possum Vs. The Eurypterids, which is kind of a Die Hard knockoff?
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