Express Train to Hell
The Adventure
The posse search Zach's room at the Rathouse, find clues hinting at Zach's "secret project", and bump into some members of the Sacred Gate Cult, possibly learning of Kent and his plan in the process
The posse should by now know who commited the robberies, who the Wasatch employee is who tipped them off, and where the culprit lives. The only remaining avenue is to go and see Zacharia Smithe and have a word in his ear.
The Rathole is by far the worst accomodation one could ever fear to call home. There are two hundred rooms in this 4 storey hell-hole and up to five people squeezed into each cramped appartment room. It costs $5 a month to live here (that's not $5 a room, but per person!) but most people are not expected to survive that long. Disease is rampant in this building as folks tend not to bother making the trip to the outhouse if you know what I mean. There's also the chance that you'll get shot for the change in your pocket. Nobody tends to pay much attention to gunshots or dead bodies around here.
Incidentaly, the Rathole is formally known as A.Warren's Apartments, but due to the infestation of cat-sized rats that live in the crawl-space and garbage filled alleys around the back the place adopted a different name...
When the posse get here, A.Warren's wife, the massively bloated Margery Warren, is on duty on the desk. She is smelly, foul-mouthed and short of patience, paying more attention to her dying mutt under the desk than anybody who wishes to talk to her. Money, however, makes her sweet as honey. If the posse want to know anything about Zacharia, or want to "borrow" the keys to his room a Persuassion (9) check is needed, with a raise to get the keys. Every $5 the posse offer up lowers the difficulty by 2. Of course, they can always go and knock on Zach's door on the third floor, but he's not in.
Margery remembers Zach, if the posse ask. He was a quiet individual and had a room to himself as he didn't like to be disturbed. Still, he piad $30 a month so Margery didn't mind too much. Zach often brought home young people to his room, men or women in their late teens or early twenties. Always locals. She isn't sure what he got up to in his room with those young 'uns but she can hazard a twisted guess (Zach was actually recruiting new cultists, younger people tended to be more impressionable). She also adds that Zach worked for Hellstromme and the last few weeks he was bringing in bits and bobs and hammering away in his room into the small hours of the morning. Two nights ago he had some boxes picked up from his room and transported away somewhere by wagon, she doesn't know where (this was Zach's devices being sent away to Kent at the farmhouse).
If things have been going a little slow, or your posse just love a fight, the Rathole is a haven for confrontation. Perhaps a gang of thugs who ought to know better choose to rob the posse of their belongings, or even better the posse witness a women being pushed around and bullied for her money - just a couple of dollars. Alternatively the local rats could be feeling a bit plucky and try to make a meal of a stray posse member. They grow up to two feet long and hang around in packs of 10-15! You know your posse better than I so it is entirely up to you as to what happens and how tough their tormentors are. I'd better mention this though, if anybody suffers a wound from a ratbite they should pass a Vigor (9) check or suffer some kind of illness, equivilent to the Ailin (1) hindrance, until treated by a doctor!
Zach's room is about halfway down the corridor on the left wing of the third floor. The door can be forced with a Strength (7) roll, the lock picked on a Lockpickin' (5) roll, the handle shot off with one bullet. One could always try using the key if they obtained it from Mrs Warren...
The room inside is dark as the curtains are drawn and besides, the glass of the window is blacked out by the soot of the outside world. Not that the view was particularly good. Steam pipes, metal girders, and clouds of smog obscure everything past a couple of yards. Zach's bed is unmade, his Wasatch uniform hanging up on a peg, and his basin full of dirty, cold water. The posse may want to put on heavy gloves before Searching the place...
If anybody thinks to search the pockets of his lab coat (he wore it last night to meet Ace at the dance hall) they find a note with a date, time and place to meet Ace (namely last night at 8 at the dance hall) this should confirm that he's definately the man who met Ace. There's also a few scrawled notes on his rocket car design for Wasatch, giving approximate top speeds, a few problems it's having and so forth. this would be fairly useful to the rocket car crew as they can make necessary adjustments. It's noted here that the car is capable of speeds up to 100mph!
Anybody of a scientific persuasion (or anybody passing a Smarts (5) roll) can tell that this room has been used recently for the construction of a gizmo. They can even find a few lumps of Ghostrock around the place if they look hard nough!
Carlton Kent knows all about Zacharia's bad memory and when he told the scientist to destroy all evidence of any gizmos or maps linking him to the cult, or the cult to the train hijacking he didn't want to be let down, so he arranged for three young cult members to visit Zach's appartment after the scientist had left. He also knew that the law may be smarter than he hoped so gave the three cultists false information about his plans lest they get captured or questioned. Three cultists arrive at the Rathouse around the same time as the posse with the intention of taking with them all the evidence in Zach's room.
There are 2 young men and a young woman, all dressed in normal, but clean clothes (and wearing the cult rings) who turn up to do the deed. If the posse have been cautious and staked out Zach's room when they arrived then the posse can catch them in the act, otherwise the situation may be reversed, the three cultists showing up as the posse are rumaging through Zach's room. They are not armed and will not attack the posse (they're not that sort of folk anyhow) and will try to act is af they have made a mistake and have the wrong room. They are fairly inexperienced at subterfuge though and it only takes a Scrutinize (3) roll to see they are acting "odd". They flee if the posse try to stop or question them but fight with their fists if caught. Anybody who draws a weapon makes them panic and they make a blind run for it!If the posse capture the three youths, who are aged 17, 20 and 22, with the girl being the oldest, they remain quiet as to who they are and what they're up to. Overawe or clever use of the Bluff skill may threaten or coax the following information out of them:
Finding most of the clues/plans: 1 white chip (each)
Apprehending the cultists and stopping them destroying the evidence: 1 white chip
Without causing them too much harm!: 1 red chip
Deciding to get along to the cult HQ: 1 white chip
Putting together all the clues and realisng they have to stop the train before it's too late!: 1 blue chip (and go to chapter 6!)