Stone cold night in Dark Rain City

Lloyd Miller, known as “One-Eye” after an incident that deserves its own story, was just entering the crowded Saloon of Coyote’s Hollow. He put his Sunglasses on the counter and his cowboy hat on a stool next to him. Standing tall and wearing a long trenchcoat that gave him an austere posture, he ordered a whiskey.

“Hey Miller,” started another patron, “Glad to see you’re back in town. Did you manage to handle your business in Dark Rain City?”

“I did.” answered Lloyd before downing his drink. “Folks, you ain’t gonna believe what I’ll tell you.” he continued, taking off his trenchcoat, revealing his huge stature, and joining the one who asked at his table in the center of the room. “Molly, bring me a bottle and come sit with us,” he added to the bartender.

“As you all know, I went to the City to go look for Lolly,” he began. “She wasn’t answering my calls for a few days and it’s not like her to leave me hanging. I arrived there yesterday evening and the place was as bad as I remembered. For the lucky ones who never went to this hellhole, let me draw you a picture. Imagine a grim place, with huge, dark towers and trash everywhere. There is a smell of sewers and gas at every intersection, except when it smells like death, which it often does. The only lights come from the few street poles that aren’t broken. Between each of these buildings, you find dark alleys housing drug dealers, thugs, and the homeless. And that’s not mentioning the corrupt politicians, the violent police, and the shitty alcohol. Anyway, not a pretty place.”

“He’s right” added a small, dark-haired man. “We have it good here at Coyote’s Hollow, city folks don’t realize the filth they live in.”

“A toast to that, Danny” resumed Lloyd while taking a sip of his whiskey. “As I arrived in my sister’s neighborhood, I heard a paper boy screaming the headlines: ‘the news, the news, murder of George McLane weeks before the elections’. This fucker of McLane was my sister’s boyfriend, I didn’t lose no time and went straight to his place. Police were stopping people coming into the building, so I turned in the closest alley, looking for a way up through the fire escape”.

Most of the patrons of the saloon were now gathered around Miller, paying close attention to his story.

“And that’s when trouble began, people. As I’m advancing towards the escape ladder, four punks with baseball bats stop me, looking for trouble. I’m showing them my knife, trying to give them a chance to escape but their leader, a tiny guy with a rat face is like ‘nice knife you got here, ugly face. Give it to me.’. Now you guys know me, I ain’t gonna let a little shit speak to me like that, so I say to this bastard: ‘Aight, I’ll give it to you through your stomach into your throat.‘”

“Classic One-Eye!” laughed Molly, the bartender. “T’wasn’t very wise, did you fight the four of them heads on?”

“Was gonna. But somebody yelled in the back ‘What’s going on here?!’” continued Lloyd. “Rat face turned around, startled by the noise. Lucky fella, I ain’t the kind of guy to stab a fucker in the back.” He marked a pause. “I did punch him in the back of the head though. And as Rat face was trying to get back up, I kneed him in the stomach. His friends reacted and I couldn’t finish him, I dodged a few of their hits, weren’t very good with their bats those junkies, but still took a bad one on the shoulder.”

“But who yelled at the start?” asked Danny

“It’s coming, it’s coming, just wait. As I’m starting to think I’ll have to kill some punks this evening, a monster cop arrives and outed one of them with his baton. He was a literal monster, two meters and more than three hundred pounds, only fat, but he kinda saved me. With this distraction, I grabbed one of the other fucker, and threw him right into one of those giant garbage bins in the alley.”

“Lloyd taking out the trash I see” commented another patron laughingly, an older man named Joe.

“That I do, that I do. Another cop arrived and threw a pair of handcuffs at the feet of rat face, they clipped him. Last punk flew right away with his friend from the garbage bin. Long story short, the cops were here to investigate the murder, they wanted to take me in, but I promised I would burn down their car and still find my way to the murder scene if they didn’t let me come look for my sister. I don’t really know how, but they accepted to let me come with them. On the other hand, one of the bastard cops guarding the entrance of the building took my knife, some talk of illegal weapons or something. But how’s a man supposed to kill a wild dog or a bear without his knife?!”

“We don’t care about your knife, was your sister there? Stop disgressing!”

“Sorry, sorry, let me go on. So we pass the cops at the entrance and get to the flat of the stiff. There I learn that the huge cop is named Abgrog and is leading the investigation, the tiny one is a scientist called Ella. They also brought a witch with them, Destiny, twas her name. Didn’t feel a good vibe from this one from the get-go. In front of the apartment, two other cops were guarding the crime scene, they let us through and we started searching. The main room is a mess, like big brawl mess. I find clothes from Lolly, her purse as well and I start getting anxious. And then I find something that ain’t right. A lifesize statue of my little Lolly. Like old Greek style and all. But it’s a perfect replica of my sister, down to her rebellious strand of hair. While I was discovering that, the cops found a nanny cam almost broken in the room. They hoped to find out what happened by patching it up and reviewing the footage. The witch found a donut and said to us that twas weird, emitting some sort of magic. Then she fucking ate it. Don’t stop me now, it will make sense, it’s important I promise. In the kitchen, I took a knife to replace my own in case of trouble.”

Lloyd drinks another sip of whiskey. “Then I take a look at the dead guy. He was flung all over the place, sent from the couch to the library. It’s like a bull was let loose in the place. No way Lola did this, which pissed off the cops because they thought she would be a good culprit. We go back to the statue as the witch starts to sense a sort of aura coming from it. Suddenly we hear Ella in the other room screaming at us: ‘It’s the statue, the girl is the statue! She killed him!‘. As she says that, the statue of my Lolly moves, so fast I couldn’t even react, she grabs me by the collar and throws me height feets away. Her hands are bloody from her earlier murder. She then bursts through the door and disappears. As we rush to catch up to her, the two cops that were at the door turn toward us. They are now two statues coming at us with their emotionless stone faces ready to kill us. I didn’t even flinch. Grabbed my knife, stabbed the first one, blocked a kick from the second, planted my blade in his thigh. Ella shoots the first one, stones everywhere but he’s still standing. Abgrog slams his baton on its head and finally destroys it. The witch then yells something and the other one is projected against the wall in the corridor and crumbles in pieces.”

As he’s finishing his sentence, the room erupts in noises.

“This can’t be true, humans turned to statues? That’s a fairytale”

“Yes it could be, you weren’t there in the wilds during the last years, we saw some really strange things with Pa’, animals merged with trees or rocks”

“And ask the old Suzy, the woman is a witch, she saved Billy after he got impaled by that bull, was dead when we brought him in, but she saved im’!”

“Miller ain’t a liar, I beliv’ him. Y’all doubted him when he told us how he lost his eye, who looked foolish when it turned out to be true? Let him continue!”

“Thanks Danny. So after this, I rushed up the stairway, but couldn’t find any trace of the statue of my Lolly. I head back down and the cops tell me what they saw on the nanny cam. Lolly was home, and some donuts got delivered, she took em’ and ate one. Some time later, McLane arrived, she offered him a donut but he didn’t want one, so she ate the second one. More time passes, she has a kind of seizure, and as McLane rushes to help her, she turns into a statue, seizes him with one hand, and throws him across the room. I’ll be straight with you folks, right then, I was truly shaken to the core. My little sister, turned into a statue, and she did murder her boyfriend. And we also did kill the two cops that also got turned. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Poor girl. She was really sweet, it’s a shame.” “She was indeed. We’re sorry Miller.”

“While I was trying to keep it together, Ella spotted a camera in the hallway, we all headed downstairs to check it out. When we got there, the cops downstairs were all eating donuts. That’s when it clicked for me, they said those donuts were a gift from one old man in the building. Those guys were about to turn into statues, I was sure of it. I quickly went to the camera room and broke the door open with a kick. Then I let Ella check out the cameras while I searched the place for a more effective weapon. I found a huge fireman axe in the concierge room, and Ella found the old guy on the cameras, 17th floor. Outside, some of the cops were starting to feel sick, but they wouldn’t let us go, Abgrog kept them busy for the last few minutes, but we had to go up now, and they were close to transforming. One of them hunched over, coughing heavily, I rushed forward, giving elbows hits to the ones on the way to allow the rest of the group to get to the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, we started hearing some screams.”

Lloyd stopped for a moment and looked around the room.

“Well? You folks are slow tonight. No one gonna ask me about the witch now?”

“What about the witch?” said Molly. “Ho my, she ate a fucking donut!” yelled a youngster in the back. “Did she fucking turn in the elevator?”

“She fucking did. I was taking a breather, trying to find any way to save my Lolly when the witch’s arm started solidifying and went straight for an uppercut at Ella. One of her teeth went flying. She was not happy about that and managed to handcuff the stone arm to the rail in the elevator. Abgrog shoved Destiny away on one side, and in one fell swoop I cut her arm clean right before the curse went further up.”

“You cut her fucking arm?”

“I also cut the guardrail. I ain’t a weakling. The cops were a little taken aback by this, but after the stone uppercut, Ella wasn’t too sad, and Abgrog didn’t really like Destiny either. They patched her up, and she didn’t even cuss at me. Seemed like she understood the situation. We arrived then at the 17th floor, tired, our hearts racing. We took some time to rest and the scientist handed out some pills ‘just in case’ as a heavy silence weighed on our consciences. We shared a glance, and then, with all the determination and courage we could muster, we went looking for the guy. I split the door open with the axe, the cops stormed in guns out, found the old fella in his living room. The witch darted through the kitchen, her eyes locking on some kind of grimoire. It looked strange and was filled with obscure symbols that I could not understand. Next to it was everything needed to make those cursed donuts. After a quick look, the witch said that the guy was trying to create a bond with an entity from another world called Azgargoth.”

“Azgargoth?” gasped an old lady a little in the back, her voice shaking and her eyes widening in horror. “He’s the god of the statues from the etheral plane. But he’s more a puppeteer than a sculptor, taking control of his devotees. Very evil, very powerful.”

“If you say so Lady, I didn’t know that at the time, but the book sure interested Destiny. She said that she could cure my sis, twas enough for me. When we went back into the main room, Abgrog was approaching the old man, he tried to lay a hand on him but the old man entered a trance. He turned to stone, grew in size to be as big as me, and pushed back the big cop. A shadow was above him, dark figure that disappeared from my sight. He then bolted to the side and went through the wall.”

“The cops followed him and started shootin’ in the hallway, but the bullets just ricocheted off him like it was nothing. Destiny launched a shockwave at him again, but he brushed it off as well. As I was approaching myself, he disappeared through the floor, the cops rushed for the staircase, but a door exploded open behind me and the statue of Lolly rushed at me and punched me in the face. Destiny jumped on her, planted her hand on my sister’s chest and another shockwave of energy went through both of them. Lolly’s chest was not stone anymore, but her arms and legs were still trying to hit us! I grappled her and held her against the wall, using all of my force to block her kicks and prevent her from bashing my skull in while the cure was propagating in her body. Once her face healed, she recognized me and started crying. I kept holding her till she was no longer a threat, then I put her down on a nearby chair, she was shaking from fear, her eyes still crying. ‘Wait for me.’ I said, ‘I will come for you once it’s safe’. I tried to appear strong for her, but I had doubts myself. I needed to gut the bastard that did that to her, to be sure he couldn’t arm her anymore.”

“She’s safe? You couldn’t say that to us earlier you heartless bastard!”

“Don’t toy with our emotions! Where is she now, can we see her?”

“She’s at home right now with our mum, healing. We do what we can to help, but you know how it is… You never forget these kind of things, you learn to live with them. That said, if I see a single one of you tryin’ to bother her, I’ll start chopping arms again! Anyway, when I was certain she was no longer in immediate danger, I ran downstairs, and it looked bad, Ella was heavily bleeding and Abgrog was already on his last bullets. Destiny seemed to be alright and was battling with the dark shadow, although it looked like she was also fascinated by it. I launched myself at the statue and jumped on him, he stopped my axe with one hand and sent me flying back from where I came from. The statue punched Abgrog twice, he took it well but still got stunned for a moment, Destiny launched another shockwave at the spirit, and this time it did hurt him. I know that because I sensed the statue lost a bit of balance. I seized the opportunity and ran again straight for this monster, feinted a high hit, but then switched to his knee, twas a sharp axe, his left leg fell right off. He started to fall, and I split his head open to end this madness. The spirit vanished, and the rest of the stones turned into bloody disgusting flesh.”

The room stayed silent for a while.

“Damn… They didn’t give you any trouble after that?” relaunched Danny

“Nah they didn’t, they had their criminal, the old guy who summoned the devil, not my sister. Right after the fight, Destiny looked strange. And she had something under her coat, something that looked like the grimoire. When Ella requested it, the witch started to flee and the cops went for her. I went the other way for my poor Lolly. We escaped through the fire escape, avoiding any more confrontations. As we were taking our leave, I saw Abgrog carrying a handcuffed Destiny on his shoulder and bringing her to their car, probably for more questioning at the station.”

“You were right Miller, that was a hell of a story. Even better than the one that cost you your eye.”

“Hey, I’m just happy that Lolly is alright and that I didn’t lose any limb this time. Now, if you folks will forgive me, I need to rest as well. This was a hell of a night.”

---

For those curious about the game itself, we played using the Savage Worlds system.

Lloyd “One Eye” Miller had the following attributes:

Agility	d8
Smarts	d4
Spirit	d4
Strength	d10
Vigor	d6

And the following skills:

(Unskilled):	d4 -2
Athletics:	d8
Common Knowledge:	d4
Fighting:	d12
Intimidation:	d4
Language (Native):	d8
Notice:	d6
Persuasion:	d4
Stealth:	d4

3 Hindrances allowed him to have some bonus:

• One Eye (major): -2 to actions at 5” (10 yards) or more distance
• Outsider (minor, Cow Boy): The character doesn’t fit into the local environment and subtracts 2 from Persuasion rolls
• Stubborn (minor): The character wants his way and rarely admits his mistakes

One extra Edge + One Extra Ability point

And two edges:

• First Strike: Free Fighting attack once per round when foe moves adjacent to you
• Quick: Action Card must be higher than a Five

This ended up being quite a solid character with a Parry of 8 (how hard it is to get hit) and a Toughness of 5 (how hard it is to get hurt) which was increased to 6 thanks to his huge leather jacket.