<hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/7/7f/Marshallbadge.png)</div><br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 16th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Night<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Gomorra<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Ginny, Rita<br/><hr/><em>The following is a vivid dream experienced on the night of the 16th, just before midnight.  The language is Cantonese, but is understood by the dreamers, Virginia 'Ginny' Mary Lou Whateley and Marguerite Marie Henri Dieudonné d'Artois Tuerny .</em><br/><hr/><div class="floatright">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/e/e4/Natehunter.png/437px-Natehunter.png)</div><em>They’d hauled him over the side of the Typhoon, and dumped him unceremoniously in the middle of the ship.  A survivor clinging to the walls of the Maze, or even slumped against a rock wall, was an odd enough sight in the waters around Gomorra.  Even more curious when he had one been well dressed, before days of thirst and starvation and exposure had worn his clothes and rot from the water had begun to claim the edges.  <br/><br/>They dumped him on his back, one of the Maze Rats leaning to retrieve the pistol from his belt, and another leaned in to turn his face, the days of facial hair not obscuring his features.<br/><br/>“It is him.”  The Maze Rat’s brow furrowed, teeth clenching in anger.  “This is him.  The man who came to our camp.  He fucked my little honeypot, and two nights later the entire camp exploded.  Took her with him.”  Big Rooster cracked his knuckles, lip curled in anger.  He’d fled from the camp to work with the Maze Rats - every guard on duty that night had been executed, each boiled alive until their screams echoed over the camp.  He tugged at his rough moustache, then looked up to the man at the end of the boat, the man in a dark suit and with a bowler perched on his head.  “This man destroyed my life.  Took my honeypot.  I owe him <strong>blood.</strong>”</em><br/><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/1/1b/Captainsim.png/389px-Captainsim.png)</div><em>Captain Sim Yut-San tilted his head, his eyes drifting over the unconscious man on the deck of the Typhoon.  He stepped closer to his feet, reaching for the pistol taken from the fallen former Deputy.  <br/><br/>“I have met this man.  Four times.”<br/><br/>His eyes slid up from the body, to Big Rooster.  “His name is Nathan Hunter.  The first time, I believe he had never handled a gun before.  I had four men, and he had found us in Dragon’s Breath.  One of the men in my company had murdered and raped a woman in Gomorra.  There was a bounty on his head.  He had pursued us through the Maze, nearly a hundred miles.  He faced down five armed men and demanded Po-Ming surrender himself.  We laughed at him.  I was the only man who survived.  It was not… skill.  Fortune.  Fortune jammed a gun, fortune made our bullets miss him by scant inches at point-blank range.”<br/><br/>He paused, and ran a hand over the scar from the bullet he’d taken to the leg.  He paced around the Deputy, regarding him soberly.  He continued to hold the gun, cracking open the barrel, slowly loading bullets into it while Rooster frowned.<br/><br/>“The second time, I sought revenge.  A debt of honor.  Shun Xi was the most skilled swordsman I have seen in many years, quiet as a cobra.  I sent him to kill him in his sleep.  Shun Xi had never failed in such a task - and never failed to kill a man with an arm’s length of him.  A man who could walk as quiet as a feather fell, stepped upon a board an arm’s length from his bed.  The board cracked.  His foot fell through it.  In his moment of surprise, he glanced downward, and when he looked up, it was into the barrel of a gun.  I saw it all, from the next room - and the bullet which travelled through Shun Xi’s head passed through the wall and struck my chest.  I barely survived to flee the city.”<br/><br/>He slid another round into place, the chambers half filled.  Rooster’s uncertainty had grown into a sneer.  The ship gave a little shudder, keel grinding against an unseen rock beneath the surface of the water.<br/><br/>“The third time, we lay an ambush.  I sent six men into a mine claimed by Sweetrock.  We had murdered the white devils there, and our brothers lay in wait.  Swords and knives - but the mine had been filled with ghost-rock fumes.  A pistol in that place - the spark of fire - would have brought the entire mesa down.  We fed information to the Law Dogs, and as predicted, this man appeared.  He had set his first foot upon the ladder up to the mine when it exploded.  I still do not know what transpired - I know only that there was a spark, and as the mesa exploded and rained down stone and rock, this man plunged into the water.  Though tons of rock rained down upon the water, and the Typhoon nearly capsized in the wake, this man survived.  This scar upon my cheek?  A chunk of rock that sliced it open.”<br/><br/>He slid the last bullet into place, locked the chamber with a snap, and offered the gun to Big Rooster.  <br/><br/>“You may think me foolish, but I have learned the folly of taunting fate.  This man… he is protected by the Celestial Heavens.  I do not know why.  It is not my place to question such things.  Bury your vengeance.  Perhaps - perhaps it is your destiny to kill him.  But I do not suspect it to be so.”<br/><br/>Big Rooster slid his hand around the pistol.  His eyes narrowed.  “He’s an unconscious, unarmed man on the deck of the ship.  What’s he going to do?”<br/><br/>He levelled the gun, and Captain Sim Yut-San take a careful step backwards.  He looked to the unconscious lawman.<br/><br/>“I have no idea.”  There was a vague note of amusement, of curiosity, and he turned his gaze back to Big Rooster.  Big Rooster frowned, looking down the sights of the pistol - and then the ship’s draft ground against an unseen obstruction, and as Big Rooster pulled the trigger, he stumbled forward, the bullet slicing through the deck an inch from Hunter’s face.  Hunter’s eyes snapped open, and Big Rooster’s eyes widened.  Underwater, the bullet continued to travel, spinning through the murky motors of the Maze and striking the obstruction they’d just ground against.<br/><br/>“Impossible!” Rooster scowled, and levelled the gun again.<br/><br/>The waters off the port side of the Typhoon parted with a crash, and the massive maw of a Maze Dragon opened in an outraged roar.  The Maze Rats eyes drifted upwards as the dragon loomed over the Typhoon, and guns were drawn, pointed, fired.  Rooster snapped shots into the dragon’s maw, only to see the head descend and snap around his torso.  Rooster was ripped up into the air, shaken in the massive maw, and then tossed up into the air to be swallowed in a snap of teeth.  <br/><br/>A pistol fell from the air, bounced across the deck, and Hunter’s hand snapped out for it, plucking up his pistol and staring bleary-eyed around.  Maze Rats were running to gatling guns, turning and aiming them, while the dragon roared and scooped up bites of Maze Rat like they were mobile kernels of popped corn.  It’s head battered down into the deck, cracking through one level, as Captain Sim Yut-San stared, and then glared at Nathan Hunter.  The Typhoon was taking on water, the Maze dragon devouring his men, and he saw the Law Dog scrambling for a row boat in the confusion.<br/><br/>Clearly, the Celestial Heavens hated him.  <br/><br/>Screw the gods.  He teetered as the ship shook, threw out an arm for balance, and took aim at the fleeing Law Dog.  A dragon’s maw closed around his arm, lifted him into the air, and ripped the arm from its socket with a shake.  Captain Sim fell with a scream - </em><br/><hr/><br/>The dream ended on the high shrill of the scream and terror, snapping the dreamers awake.<br/><br/><br/>