Express Train to Hell
The Adventure
The posse investigate the stops along the Denver Pacific line, search Hopper's Creek station and discover everybody has been abducted and modifications have been made to the train.
The posse are hopefully on their way back to the City O' Gloom with the intent of volunteering to "test drive" the Wasatch Rocket Car. When the posse break the news to the work crea they are delighted and begin showing the posse the controls for the Rocket Car: a lever controls the speed and there's another that controls the brake. There's also an emergency air catcher that is released from the rear of the vehicle if they need to stop in a hurry but the rocket booster must be turned off first else the catcher will be burned to a cinder.
They let the posse know that work on the Rocket Car will be completed around 1900hrs tonight and can be tested in the morning..."But that's too late!" comes the cry from the posse. Well, they'll have to tell the mechanics what's going on then, all about the hijacking and so forth. This will get Wasatch Agent Anderson assigned to join the posse in the race to stop the train. Hellstromme wants one of his men present to see things run smoothly. The crew are told by Anderson to get cracking with the modifications so the posse have time to catch the train. Any posse member who knows Science:Engineering or Physics can help out, rolling a 5 will reduce the tweaking time by 15 minutes, a raise knocks off another 15 minutes. Using the notes from Zach's lab coat (or simply handing them over) knocks off a further 15 minutes. Then the Rocket-Car is ready for transportation through the city to the rail track. The earliest the car can be primed and ready to go is 1900hrs, if the posse could not help in any way then this time is nearer 2000hrs, just before the next train is due to leave for Denver.
The Rocket Car can house all the posse at a squeeze, plus Agent Anderson. The car doesn't need steering but the posse are warned that if they take a corner too quickly the whole thing will come off the rails, they are given goggles and the blessing of the Rocket team before the thrusters are ignited and the vehicle picks up speed slowly but surely until it reaches a blistering 100mph! Scenery whizzes past the posse on their ride and any type of conversation is impossible due to the deafening roar from the engines. The heroes are told they will pass 3 stations before the Rocky mountains, Bulloch West, Reeves Station, and finally Hopper's Creek, after that it's uphill into the mountains and downhill on the other side. Hopper's Creek is 150 miles away so it should take about one and a half hours to get there if there are no problems...
The heroes may want to stop off at the first two stations to see if everything is okay there. The Rocket Car draws quite a crowd but Anderson keeps them away from the vehicle. Questioning the crowd reveals that the train passed through here as normal today, stopped for 15 minutes and then left as normal. Nothing seemed out of place. This story is the same as both Bulloch West and Reeves Station. Hopper's Creek, though, is deserted.
Hopper's Creek: Nobody comes out to greet the posse and no lights are on, even though it's probably dark by the time the posse get there. A Search (5) of the area reveals it is deserted, but there is a body stuffed under a table in the main station house. Kent chose one of the passengers and sucked his soul dry to give himself a final boost before the last leg of the journey, the poor fellow is nothing but a dried out husk, but an effort has been made to hide him from the casual eye.
There is also evidence of mechanical activity having taken place around the track where the train stopped. Bits of metal, greasy rags and a few tools lie around the place as well as plenty of tracks left by the cultists helping Zach rig the train and weld some of the carriage links together. There is nothing else of interets at Hopper's Creek so the posse had best get moving again. If there is a scientist amongst the posse then perhaps you can add a little excitement by having the rocket car fail to start! The scientist must do some Tinkering to get it going again. You can also pretend to be rolling reliability for the Rocket Car from time to time, roll it in secret as you don't really want it to fail as the adventure would come to an abrupt end (and you'd probably have a dead posse on your hands to boot) only have it break down if you know the posse are capable of fixing it!
Work out how far away the train is at this point (it's running at about 30mph until it reaches it's destination 90 miles from Hopper's Creek) and then work out how long it will take the posse to catch the train at their speed - they should be just about able to manage it. Once the train is in sight in the mountains the posse can see flashes of light coming from one of the rear carriages (the cultists are preparing a sacrifice - but only Kent knows the fate of the poor woman at the centre of the ceremony!) and the posse can tell they are nearing their goal - this is when the Rocket Car should sart to splutter and lose speed (some of the wheel fastenings are beginning to melt due to friction at such as high speed!) and the posse should realise it is only a matter of time before the they will come to a permanent halt. The Texan gang have been told to keep a lookout and will easily spy the jet-trail of the Rocket Car, but their attention is diverted for a while by the cults ceremony. This should give the posse chance to catch up without being shot up too much...
Posse make it to train: 1 white chip each