You know, I say this a lot, but I have gotten so much mileage out of The Weird. Best system-agnostic RPG purchase I ever made.
Anyway, Pugmire. Here's last time. Moving on!
The Pioneers are in the (former) lair of It That Keeps the Wild, a powerful nature-demon. They are exhausted and wounded. Boomer Pitbull and Peppa Papillon have the worst of it, but are recovering.
They talk about what to do next - they need to go back to Ellendonk and talk with Graff Doberman, to tell him the good news. There's also the Doberman Mine to deal with. But for the moment, they need a rest, and Petunia Pibble just can't resist poking around.
She goes a little deeper into the lair and notes that the impenetrable forest surrounding it seems a bit less impenetrable. Past the (now burning) wooden statue of a tortured Man, she finds a stone wall. It looks like it was once part of a building; the edges are crumbly and jagged. But she's more interested in the markings on it. Painted in red, blue, green, black, and other colors she finds symbols and letters that she cannot read. Some of the markings, however, look...rude. Simply put, they look like genitalia. But not dog genitals, so...?
She calls the others over. Dire Newfoundland, whom you'll recall recently made his devotion to the Church of Man, recognizes some of these markings. They are indeed naughty bits, but the Naughty Bits of Man. Blasphemy? Maybe.
The dogs continue to look around. Petunia walks around the wall to the other side and ignores a creeeaaaking sound too long, and falls right through the floor into a pit. "I'M IN A HOLE."
The others come running (well, most of them. Boomer has passed the hell out). Gelert Sausagedog lowers a rope and climbs down with Petunia. Peppa imbues a rock with Sacred Flame and tosses it down, lighting up the room. The floor is stone, as are the walls, and the whole room is full of dirt and debris.
Peppa wakes Boomer up and has him come to the hole, and she casts a Prayer of Healing to mend some of their wounds. Boomer hops down into the hole, as does Dire, and they start looking around.
They find a smashed-up staircase in one corner and figure it led to an exterior door or hatch. But then Sausagedog finds something in the corner - a bit of white cloth. He touches it, and it has an artificial feel to it, almost like it was made of...plastic. He tugs it a bit, and the debris shifts. A skeleton tumbles out, a skeleton that is wearing a white coat made of this strange material...and is clearly not a dog.
Dire has a look, and can tell it's not dog, cat, bird, or lizard. (Sausagedog: "Maybe some kind of frog?") Peppa comes down to see it, and can barely speak. This appears to be the skeleton of a Man.
Such things are not unknown, but they're extremely rare, as most remains of Man have long since decayed. Sausagedog opines that he must have been very wealthy to wear clothes made of money, but Peppa suspects he might have been a priest of some kind. The coat has a square of plastic clipped to it, and it may once have had writing or pictures, but time and grime have yellowed it out and made it unreadable.
Peppa sits down and prays, and the others keep looking. Petunia goes up the rope and starts poking around where the staircase would come up. Down in the pit, the others find a metal door in the far wall. It has a bar across it, rather than a handle, and pushing on it does nothing - it might be blocked from the other side or simply rusted shut.
Petunia scrapes dirt away and finds a metal hatch. She tries to open it with Magic Paw, but can't exert enough force. She calls the others, and Boomer comes up and pulls it up open. It leads down to the smashed staircase.
The dogs try and suss out what happened - this Man doesn't seem to have been laid to rest here, and they found the skeleton in a pile of wooden and metal bits. It looks more like he died in an accident or something. A bit more digging doesn't reveal anything over where the metal door would lead to, so it might be collapsed, but without more work it's hard to know.
They decide they need to get the Church of Man involved here, as this is clearly a holy site (which, considering it was a demon's lair yesterday, is a little strange, but it makes sense that a demon would try to corrupt such a place). They decide to spend the night and recharge, and then Dire, Petunia, and Sausagedog will head back to Ellendonk and inform Brother Corbin of this place. Peppa and Boomer will stay here and make sure nothing demonic happens. The night passes uneventfully, except that four of the dogs (everyone but Peppa) wake at various points in the night and think they hear knocking from the other side of the metal door. Probably just the wind.
In the morning, the three dogs head back to Ellendonk and meet with Brother Corbin and Graff (who is recovering nicely). They inform him and, after a moment of shock and prayer, he decides he will write a coded message to the Church higher-ups and send it with his assistant acolyte Ricky Beagle. He, meanwhile, will accompany the dogs back to the site.
When they get back, everything is pretty much fine, other than Boomer having gone a little feral ("this happens whenever we leave him in the woods for too long"). Brother Corbin looks the place over, and opines that the best defense the place has now is its secrecy - no one knows about it, and it's out of the way enough that others are unlikely to stumble over it. Peppa agrees, and the dogs turn their attention to the next issue - the mines, the Doberman family, and the Nagayaga.
They discuss the matter a bit. None of them are comfortable leaving the miners to the mercies of the Dobermans, especially not knowing that the Nagayaga is pulling strings somehow. Dire is less interested in the politics of the situation ("we're Pioneers, this isn't what we do"), but the others figure that the presence of demons at whatever level makes this their concern. Boomer suggests that the workers in the mine should be given control of the means of production (Brother Corbin: "You've clearly read the works of Karl Barx. You just need to take care that you don't go full-on into cat ideology on the subject. You know, Maoism"), and Petunia says that Ellendonk should be involved as well.
The dogs decide to get the mayor of Ellendonk, Gerald Beauceron, involved. If they have his support, and they can dislodge Ute Doberman and (perhaps) Hotch Wiener from the mine, they can put Graff in charge at least in a transitional way.
They head back to Ellendonk and take a meeting with Gerald. He's thrilled that they've solved the Night Ripper problem, but is initially unwilling to cross the Dobermans...until the Pioneers tell him that demons are involved and trying to restart the War of Cats and Dogs.
Gerald is stunned. While he never quite says as much, he's clearly a Friend of Man, but hearing that the Friends' ideology aligns with the Nagayaga's shakes him pretty severely. He agrees to lend support to the mine once Graff takes over, and to keep control local. All the Pioneers have to do is get Ute to step down (Hotch is the mine manager, but he works for the Dobermans). Dire is hoping that getting her to step down involves hitting her stupid snoot with something, but Graff warns that she's a powerful artisan in her own right.
The dogs trek out to the mine and meet with Hotch Wiener. They explain the situation to him and that they'll be taking control of the mine (rather, Graff will). Hotch, like Gerald, is in no way interested in helping demons, and he hates this job anyway. He just asks that Boomer and Dire help him pack and load his stuff after the dust settles.
Hotch calls a meeting of the miners and has Graff explain to them what's happening. The Pioneers go to meet with Ute, and she rallies the guards around her. Things get tense - the Pioneers might win this fight, but they are heavily outnumbered and would have to injure or kill a lot of dogs.
But between Peppa's puppy-dog eyes, Petunia's logic, and Boomer's threatening muscles, they manage to convince Ute that a fight isn't in anyone's best interest. This is especially obvious when Peter Pibble, Petunia's cousin, talks to Graff and then tells the guards that anyone loyal to King Puckington Pug had better listen to the Pioneers, not the Dobermans. Ute is too smart to start a fight she's clearly going to lose, and leaves with a couple of guards that are clearly loyal to her.
Over the next month or so, the Church sends people out to the holy site to establish a mission and secure the area. The miners take over the mine's production, with support from Ellendonk and guidance and protection from Graff. And the Pioneers head back to Pugmire to regroup and plan their next adventure!
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