The Old Man's Story

Previously, on The Crazy Old Man and a Giant Robot,

And now...

Hey Y'all? The name is Coot Jenkins. The Prospector. Ringin’ any bells?

If you know any history, you might remember I put together a couple score of your kind back in the 1890's to fight the Reckoners, the monsters responsible for all the stuff that happened in the “Weird West,” as the papers used to call it. For that, me and my little army had to go into the spirit world—the Hunting Grounds as the Injuns say—where the Reckoners lived.

We had no problem gettin’ there. It was that army o’ demons waitin’ on us that gave us a few problems. Worst part of it was the demons took control o’ most of my soldiers and turned ‘em against me. I shoulda known the same demons that keep many of my soldiers dealt with in some way would have an easier time gettin’ control on their home turf.

We still won—the battle at least—but we lost the war. Me ’n’ what was left o’ the meat put down the bad ones.

Then we got “lost” somehow. The last dozen o’ my soldiers and I wandered around the Hunting Grounds for a long time before we found our way out again. I didn’t know how long we was gone ’til a few weeks back.

While I was in the Huntin’ Grounds, I ran into the spirit of an old shaman who told me the world was not right. I already knew that, but somethin’ about the way he said it made me listen. He took me to a strange path made o’ black rocks cut right through the land itself. He said this was the “path of stone,” and that it was a bridge to my time and another. I said “whoopee” and hopped on it, but he told me it was not the path of stone, it was the Path of Stone. Confused? So was I. Then he explained it.

The shaman said the whole world had been betrayed by two men. One was Raven. The other was a dead man named Stone. Right, he’s Harrowed. Only, according to the shaman, this one’s so mean his manitou gets nightmares. Stone was from our time, and he survived all those years into the future, but here’s the real shocker.

We won.

Me and my stiffs never returned, but enough heroes on Earth fought back against the Reckoners that they’d all but dried up ’n died! Then those sons o’ bitches cheated. They sent Stone into the Hunting Grounds and gave him the power to rip through time itself. They can’t do it again, I’m told, but once was enough. Stone went back to our time and started huntin’ down heroes. Every one he killed meant some horror continued to live. The Reckoners grew more powerful, Hellstromme built his bombs, and the whole thing went boom in 2081.

This time, the Reckoners won. I ain’t afraid to admit I bawled like a baby, what with wanderin’ and fightin’ all that time just to find out we’d lost. When I finally came around, that ol’ shaman was gone. I knew I had to go back and warn someone, so we could stop Stone and change things again, but I didn’t know which way to go on that damn path. As you can guess, I chose poorly and ended up here. It’s already taken me one Hell of a month to figure out what’s happened here.

Once I do, I’m gonna try to find a way back into the Hunting Grounds. But I ain’t doin’ it without someone to guide me this time! I ain’t wanderin’ around in Hell for 200 years again!

That’s why I saved you now, I figure someone as mean as Stone and as powerful as the Reckoners won’t let just anyone slip back and forth between worlds, so I might not make it back. If’n I don’t, you and the others gotta fight the good fight here. I know it seems like a lost cause, but there’s a lotta folks still sufferin’ here, and you got the power to save a whole mess of ’em.

And, I you can figure out what those Anubis goons, and Stone have been working on, you might be able to do enough good to rebuild this blasted place.

How? Look around you. Looks a lot like it did back in our day, don’t it? There’s more rubble, but the desert’s the same, and the folks are the same. Sure they got sykers, Doomsayers, Templars, and junkers where we used to have hucksters, priests, and mad scientists, but they all do pretty much the same thing. The towns also look a lot like they did back in our day.

They’re days apart and pieced together from whatever folks can get their hands on, though maybe with a little more metal and glass. The only real difference out here is there’s a whole lot more bad guys and hordes o’ critters. That’s okay, though, ’cause the good guys have bigger guns to shoot ’em with.

Most importantly, the Reckoners are the same as well. Sure, they’re here instead o’ the Huntin’ Grounds, but they still live off everyone else’s misery just like they used to. Just like 200 years ago, the Reckoners wanna keep things in a constant state of fuss. An’ just like then, there ain’t much government out here to give people security, there’s monsters in the wastes, and gangs o’ outlaws rapin’ and ravagin’ everything in their path. It’s Hell on Earth, buster, and that’s just the way the Reckoners wanna keep it.

An’ that’s why we gotta fight ’em the way we did it back in 1876. The hard way. Only this time, there won’t be no showdown ’til we’ve crippled ’em first. That means goin’ around and bringin’ some hope back to folks. That means fightin’ monsters, savin’ villages, and rescuin’ damsels in distress. Yep, hero stuff. Then we gotta tell everyone we meet about it. Spread every last bit o’ hope as far as it’ll go. And maybe, just maybe, we got an advantage this time. Maybe now that the Reckoners are stompin’ around in the flesh, we can kill ‘em.

Whatever happened to y'all in that hole was part of a greater plan, and that 'bot blowin' to hell might have been enough to slow 'em down some. But whatever those Anubis boys are really up to can't be a good thing. Finding out what they have to do with Stone mat be a way to stop that bastard in a permanent fashion, or at least slow down whatever the hell his plans are.

Almost due South is a settlement called Junkyard, it might be a good place to get information about Anubis or Stone, and maybe you can help a few of those desperate folks along the way.

Break's over. There's a cloud of dust comin' this way. Time to move out. We got work to do.

Next, The Big Friggin' Wurm

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