Two players down this week, so my friend Tommy and I dusted off his enlightened Martial Artist, Jubae...and Jubae's NPC companion, Creighton Kennedy.

Jubae, in Deadlands Classic, was last in Texas, near the Mexico border where he and one-armed werewolf Spencer Crane were seeking some kind of healer that could restore Jubae's leg and Crane's arm.

We begin with Crane having disappeared in a feral freakout, and a bodycount that is rapidly rising in the area, the victims all being horribly clawed up.

Jubae and Kennedy are on the trail, hoping to bring Crane in before he gets himself into the kind of trouble he can't get out of.

Now:  Traveling North through Texas,  Kennedy thinks about the lay of the land and recalls that a small town called Prosperity should be nearby.  Kennedy can't recall the details, but it seems as though Prosperity has some kind of reputation for buried outlaw gold or something.  Jubae senses danger afoot, and warns Kennedy of an impending ambush.  Jubae slips behind his horse for cover, as Kennedy and Jubae spot a pair of Apaches hiding in a rock formation.  One launches an arrow at Kennedy, who twists with it and manages to avoid wounding, while the other shoots Jubae's horse, but it's barely a scratch.  Jubae snatches up a rock which begins to glow, and streaks through the air as he tosses it...but it bounces off the rocks of the formation.  Kennedy opens fire, dropping one Apache where he stands.  Jubae hears something in the distance, but shrugs it off as an arrow whizzes at him and misses, while Kennedy drops the second archer with a well-placed shot.

Scouting the area, Kennedy now hears what Jubae did: Horses, riding in fast!  Jubae and Kennedy scurry up to the rocks, lying low as seven men on horseback ride onto the trail.  They shout something about "finding the injuns and the stuff they stole, then headin' on to celebrate", while another chimes in that he knows a guy paying a fair price for Apache scalps.

Kennedy recognizes the leader of the men, a brutal ruffian named "Snake" Johnson.  Kennedy and Jubae hunker down low, listening close until Snake gives the order to "fan out and find those red bastards".  Kennedy sensed that they had a small window of surprise...so he charged out of the formation guns blazing, shooting two of the men off their horses!  Jubae launched another glowing rock from the formation, but missed.

Kennedy and Jubae pressed their attack, Jubae moving in and slugging one of the men, while Kennedy blasted two more.  One of them fired at Kennedy, who again had to twist to avoid damage (chipping to suck it up).  Snake Johnson opened fire on Jubae with his shotgun, but instead clipped his own man's horse.  When he moved in for a second shot, his man got directly in the way, and had his chest blown out with shot.  Kennedy blasted the other rider, as Jubae knocked Snake Johnson off his horse and to the ground.

When Snake came to, Kennedy and Jubae were riding alongside him, with Kennedy informing Snake that he was being turned over to the law in Prosperity as soon as they arrive.  Snake laughs and says "There ain't now law in Prosperity!"  When Jubae presses him for elaboration, Snake just says he's gonna let them figure it out for themselves.

Jubae, Kennedy and Snake ride into town, shocked to discover it appears to be completely deserted...until a scream of agony rips through the air, snapping them to attention!  Jubae tries to find the source of the scream, but fails.  Riding up near the old well, which has a noticeable fire ant nest next to it, he looks around the town:  A church, a grocery store, a livery, the sheriff's office, a telegraph office and a saloon.  Jubae decided to check out the sheriff's office...to lock up Snake Johnson while they investigated the scream.  The door creaked open with a knock, but no sign of anyone or anything was inside.  Snake asked if they were seriously going to lock him up, to which Jubae said yes...and he did.  Snake beat on the bars screaming, while Jubae and Kennedy walked away...Snake unleashed a bloodcurdling scream, which was then cut short!

Jubae and Kennedy quickly ran back inside, to see Snake slowly stumbling backwards, the sheriff's badge sticking out of his head.  The ghastly form of the Sheriff – long dead and partially eaten - appeared in the room, and a fountain pen snapped from the desk and drove itself into Kennedy's arm!  Jubae snapped at him with his flying claw, but it passed through harmlessly.

Jubae summoned his chi and the claw came to life, ripping through the Sheriff and inflicting noticeable damage.  Kennedy staggered, then let loose a moan of horror as the Sheriff stuck his hands in Kennedy's face!  Jubae pulled him away from the ghost, and Kennedy went into defensive mode.  Jubae and the Sheriff fought back and forth, before Kennedy screamed out something about "ghost-killing rock salt" and flung it at the Sheriff, making him shriek and cover up, before Jubae slashed the Sheriff "apart" with the flying claw!  Jubae asked Kennedy about the rock salt, which Kennedy shrugged off, saying he'd had a pocketful of dirt from hiding behind the rocks when they were ambushing Snake's men, and figured the ghost wouldn't know any better, which it didn't.

Kennedy, attempting to remove the pen from his arm, twisted it wrong and opened an artery!  Blood poured out of Kennedy's arm, leaving him in shock at his own foolishness.  Jubae quickly tied off the arm, then decided to escort Kennedy to the church, thinking it would be safer there.

Inside the church, Jubae helped Kennedy get settled, then Jubae looked around out of the windows...seeing lights on at the old grocery store!  Jubae decided to go check it out, shutting the church door tight behind him.

He entered the grocery store, not noticing the fire ants swarming up behind him, transforming into a humanoid shape.  Inside the store, Jubae was put off at the fact that the store was lit up, without a noticeable light source...and that things kept falling off of shelves.

It took an apple, a cookbook, a child's doll, several coins, a Nevada Smith dime novel and a glass jar falling on the floor before he finally decided to check the floorboard and realized it was loose...so he pulled it up and found a diary inside!

Heading out the door, he ran headlong into the fire ant monstrosity, in one of the most agonizing battles I have ever ran in Savage Worlds history, because Jubae would hit it repeatedly, making it Shaken, it would recover and be utterly unable to strike him due to his parry (the exception being on attack I blue chipped, which did enough to shake Jubae, but that didn't last).  Jubae finally harnessed his chi on his Flying Claw and did enough damage to wear the thing down.

Meanwhile, at the church, a swarm of fire ants had entered under the door, but Kennedy leapt off a pew and squished them.

Jubae arrived at the church with the books and news of the fire ant thing, and he and Kennedy traded tales of their attacks.

Kennedy and Jubae noticed, stalking outside the church grounds: the fire ant thing again.

Kennedy read the diary, and discovered that it belonged to a girl named Jessica, who was the grocer's daughter.  It told how she fell in love with a drifter named Kit Harding, and how the town was up in arms about it.  She details how they came to lynch Kit, and how he fought back, killing or mortally wounding four of the townsfolk.  He read aloud to Jubae how the townsfolk strapped Kit to the fire ant nest, and how his screams of agony led her to shoot herself in the head so she didn't have to listen to her lover suffer.  Kennedy concluded that Jessica must still be at the grocery store, and the two men snuck out to it.

Inside, Kennedy called out to Jessica, who appeared and struggled to say: "Must...stop Kit...bury him...tree..."

Jubae decided to head to the Livery to find a shovel, while Kennedy rounded through the town, trying to avoid the monster.  Jubae entered the livery, and his instincts allowed him to see right away, the form of an older man appearing before him, and a horse shoe on the wall beginning to shake.  Jubae grabbed the shovel and dove for the window, just as the horse shoe hurtled past him.  He took off toward the old oak tree, where Kennedy was waiting.

Jubae looked confused, not finding a body, but he began digging anyway.  Kennedy seeing the ant-beast approaching again, opened fire and unloaded with several well-placed shots that scattered the creature once more.  Jubae dug down, finding a skull, then a skeleton still attached to it...and tree roots having grown through the skeleton.  With a sense of urgency, Jubae channeled his chi through the shovel and drove it through the roots of the tree, shattering it...and just in time: The fire ant beast was returning again!

Kennedy and Jubae managed to cut around the telegraph office (a variation of the "Head 'em off at the pass" adventure card") and ran into the cemetery.  Jubae stumbled into a grave, where he began pulling dirt onto the skeleton of Kit Harding, while Kennedy unloaded on the fire ant beast again.

As the burial finished, the fire ants erupted into a blue flame, and an agonizing howl came seemingly from the entire town.  Inside the livery, the saloon and the telegraph office, blue light briefly shined, then vanished...and inside the grocery store, the lights gradually faded away, leaving Jubae and Kennedy alone, and alive, in prosperity.

Unfortunately for Kennedy and Jubae, what they didn't see was – falling out of the pack on Snake's horse – a Wanted poster...offering a decent reward for The Shanghai Slasher, which bore a decent resemblance to Jubae.

Notes:  Fun times.  Other than the agonizing battle between Jubae and the fire ant beast in which Jubae just could not do more than wound it most of the time, and the Kit's fire ant body just could-not-touch Jubae, it was a nice little one-off session.  This was the One Sheet called Ghost Town, but with Jubae (a selfless martial artist) and Kennedy (a filthy rich gunslinger) the promise of gold meant nothing, so the hidden treasure was never searched for.

What Jubae is soon to discover is that he is being framed for a series of murders.  In our Classics campaign, we played the dime novel Perdition's Daughter, and the pacifist Jubae hit a brutal one-hit kill on Edgar DuChamp, the second-in-command villain of the adventure.  DuChamp has tainted the instrument of his death: Jubae's Flying Claw, and has now begun to manifest a claw that he is using to kill people within a mile of his anchor (DuChamp is now a ghost haunting our heroes), Jubae's weapon...so really, as long as Jubae keeps traveling towards civilization, he is putting people at risk, and DuChamp is leading him where he wants to go, appearing a mile ahead of Jubae and killing people off.

Next time we pick up this game, I do believe we are going to see a run-in with a Texas Ranger.