Round 85: The Long Haul, Part 8

[midpointmods]

PLAYERS: Rocket and Groot, Taako, Yoda, Jiro Azuma VS. Sam Wilson, Misty Day, Jo Harvelle, Sara Lance
LOCATION: Bank Town, the Ranch
GOAL: Keep hands on the cargo of the stagecoach travelling from Bank Town to the Ranch
WARNINGS: Attempted murder
OTHER: OOC post for plotting and questions!

The stagecoach isn’t ready for transport when the two teams arrive at Bank Town just before sundown, and the bank manager who is in charge of the shipment will only speak to someone on the driver team, so the bandits are shit out of luck even if they try to get to it first. There appear to be some delays, in fact, and the bank manager has many apologies, but the stagecoach isn’t loaded up with its cargo until noon the next day - as Bank Town has no inn, the teams had best find somewhere out of the wind to spend the night, whether by borrowing an empty house in the sparsely populated town or bedding down against the ravine walls.

There are two routes marked as safe for stagecoach travel on each team’s map: one that swings north following the railroad tracks and passing close to Midpoint, and one that swings south along the floodplains. It’s up to the drivers which path to take, and up to the bandits to guess the right one. It’s a breezy day: tracks won’t last for long. (The bandits might do well to check at Booker’s General Store before they leave.)

The stagecoach won’t make good time, burdened as it is, and the horses can’t run all day, but that’s why there’s a note on each route for the drivers on where to change horses. That might be a good place to wait out the darkness-- unless someone is foolhardy enough to drive the new team of horses all night. The cargo is due at the Ranch by the end of the third day, so there’s plenty of time... but there’s the threat of bandits to worry about.

Comments

II

[notabirdcostume]

Sam has lost count of the number of times he'd been in situations similar to this both when he was deployed and as an Avenger. Everyone knows about heroic action and fights, but no one thinks about all the quiet waiting and watching for the other side to make their move, to make themselves known.

It's boring as hell and there's not a whole lot you can do in the meantime.

He turns his head when Misty finally speaks up. This could be a unique opportunity actually, "What counts as interesting in this case?"

[shadowsran]

"Anything that isn't this?" It's left open ended so she can think a little after she says it. In the absence of anything more substantial, she nods and doubles down. "Anything that isn't just waiting around in a desert. Please."

[notabirdcostume]

That is strangely helpful -- after all it takes away most of his stories from the military tour of the middle east. Besides the fact that no one probably wants to hear war stories right now. Sam glances around for inspiration, he'd spoken up but now he had to think of an interesting story to share.

He decides to buy for time, "Childhood or a more recent story?"

[shadowsran]

"Doesn't matter. Childhood'd be neat, I guess-- not the kind of thing people are usually hustling to share, considering the circumstances. Which is a shame. Colorful folks we get, there's probably a lot of good anecdotes around we're not hearing."

Lovely as the beetle is, it's hardly holding attention as well as a story would. What she knows of Soldat's history certainly implies there's some wild potential, here.

[notabirdcostume]

Sam leans back, quietly thinking for a moment -- childhood or something else?

"I grew up in Harlem -- so all this wild west stuff was only something I saw in movies or tv. I don't think I even knew how big a horse really was until my mom took me to the zoo at a young age...they had one of those petting zoo things, you know? Horses, chickens, goats, ducks, that sort of thing. We weren't allowed to have pets in the apartment we lived in -- but I was always pretty good with animals. So, when we got to go to the petting zoo, I was having the time of my life, even managed to get all of the ducks to follow me around the pen."

He smirks, as he both tells and remembers the story, "Of course, my sister wanted to try it for herself. She thought she could grab them and get them to follow her too. The ducks didn't like that so much and started trying to bite her. She was screaming and crying, but for some reason wouldn't let go of the duck's wing -- so of course it kept at her. Mom was shouting at her to let go while trying to climb the fence, but I got to her first and managed to coax her hand away from the duck. Not without getting pecked myself a bit -- but by then we had riled up a bunch of the other animals too. Needless to say, my sister didn't go back to the zoo for a long time after that and even for awhile was convinced I had somehow gotten the ducks to attack her."