Ghostslinger
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
This article about a character is a stub -- a small, but growing, work in progress. If you're the creator of this character, why not consider expanding it?
I believe in giving credit where it is due. I had a number of sources of inspiration when I was building this character. My father was born during the Great Depression and raised on farms in the Little Rock, Arkansas area. He taught me how to clean a fish, shoot a gun and cook grits. He remembers listening to the radio reports of WWII and that led him to becoming a Marine during the Korean War. He shared Johnny Cash, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood with me and taught me how to grill a mean steak. It's without shame I call my dad one of my true heroes. Then there's the in game influences I've had. Dead Eye Jake, Calamity Blaze and Two Gun Jessie have all had a strong influence on me when I was building this character. And last, but certainly not least, is the comic book character GrimJack.
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Ghostslinger | |
| Player: @Delinquent Behavior | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Mastermind |
| Threat Level: | 41 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | ? |
| Known Aliases: | Ruby, Sweet Ruby Jean, Diamondback Annie, Ame, Amethyst, Crystal |
| Species: | human |
| Age: | physically 21 |
| Height: | 5'11" |
| Weight: | 159 |
| Eye Color: | one missing, one blue |
| Hair Color: | Dark brown |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Confidential |
| Place of Birth: | ' |
| Base of Operations: | ' |
| Marital Status: | Confidential |
| Known Relatives: | deceased |
| Known Powers | |
| ' | |
| Known Abilities | |
| ' | |
| Equipment | |
| Confidential | |
| No additional information available. | |
Contents |
Character History
The cycle begins
Some cycles never break. They endure, thrive and repeat... and repeat... and repeat.
The start
Ruby Jean Preston was the fourth born of five children and the only girl. Born in the fall of 1845 to a wealthy family in western Tennessee, Ruby lead a spoiled life. She lived in the manor house and was raised to be a débutante. When Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election she learned that the perfect life wasn't guaranteed. Her father and older brothers volunteered for the Confederate Army and left the ranch to fight for the life they'd always known, as slave owners.
In the spring of 1861 everything changed. Ruby's mother, Emmaline, was of a delicate constitution and used laudanum to calm her nerves. At the tender age of 15, Ruby was left running the ranch. She learned quickly but there was little be accomplished as battles raged across the landscape. More and more head of cattle were being taken to feed the soldiers of both sides and the slaves were slipping away in the night. Emmaline spent more and more time in a drugged stupor and after two years, she quietly slipped away in her sleep the night her youngest son left with a rifle over his shoulder.
Finding herself alone, having no word of her brothers or father in months, Ruby quietly buried her mother in the family plot and tried to keep going with what was left of the ranch. In the last two years she'd gone from a child of privilege to a young woman competent to run a farm and ranch. She could work a vegetable patch, cook meals for all the ranch hands, mend a fence, sew a wound and kill a snake that was threatening her hens. Ruby had also gone from a sweet friendly girl to a worn and weary woman.
Two years further on Ruby had added her father's and three of her brothers' bodies to the family plot. By that time most of the wealth of the family was long gone, either pillaged or sold for survival. There were unflattering rumors of how she'd kept the ranch hands around during all this time. Being a proper southern lady she would only smile and tell people that it was nice to have such reliable help during such difficult times.
In early November 1864 General Bedford was harassing the Federal strongholds in the area and the war finally came to the Preston Ranch. She was woken in the night and had enough time to grab a few small items before she and her men ran for their lives. The last thing Ruby saw of her life long home was the flames shooting through the roof.
The descent
Ruby and her men moved south, away from the Mason-Dixon line, joining in the flood of crushed humanity. By the time they made their way to New Orleans it was just Ruby and three men left with her. James Hays, Isaac Matthews and Nathan Brooking stayed with her, protecting and caring for Ruby as they headed into New Orleans. They all hoped to find passage on a ship west and away from the fighting. Sadly, they weren't the only ones and the city was teeming with refugees.
With in a week what little they'd brought with them had been sold or traded for basic survival. At first the thieving was a way to get by, but Ruby took to it quickly. She found she liked the rush of both getting away clean and having to run with her prizes. It was a wet night and she was running with the silver candlesticks she'd picked up when she was hurt.
Ruby's men knew she was out stealing again and didn't like it, but they knew they all had to survive somehow. When they heard the yelling and running feet coming their way they slipped out of the shack they shared and into the rain to run interference for her. They chased Ruby's pursuers back into the night and made their way back home.
Isaac was about three blocks away when he heard her screams. He started running fast as he could and came bursting through the door and into a fist. There was just enough time for him to see Ruby fighting like mad as two men tried to pin her to the floor before he slipped into unconsciousness.
Nathan and James came in quieter and took down the three men in the shack before they could actually get Ruby's bloomers off but not fast enough to save her from injury. When the fighting was done there were three corpses and a lot of blood all over the single room shanty.
Ruby's face had been cruelly cut and Isaac was laid out like a sack of potatoes. With little hesitation Nathan threw Isaac over his broad shoulders and barked at James to carry Ruby. They went quietly into the night, Nathan leading them to the edge of the bayou in search of a Voodoo witch for some stitching and healing herbs.
The awakening
Broken, bruised and half blinded, Ruby slowly came to in a dark, smoke filled hut. The sounds and scents around her were all wrong and she cried out sharply thinking she'd been taken by the men that hurt her. As she looked around fearfully there was a soft cackle from the shadows.
"You be safe here, girl. Your hommes de serment, they wait outside." The gentle voice gave no indication of gender. "They been waitin' near on a whole day for you to wake."
Ruby calmed as she listened and reached up to explore her injuries. The whole right side of her face was bandaged and what wasn't covered was bruised and swollen. She started to pull at the bandages and felt her fingers slapped away.
"If you doan wanna die of the blood poison you'll be leavin' them bandages on, girl."
"How bad is it?" Ruby finally found her voice, scratchy and soft as it was.
"Bad enough without you putting fingers on it. Leave it be and the hurt will be fully known later. We be needing to talk other t'ings, child."
Ruby looked up and tried to see the person in front of her but they managed to keep always in the shadows, never letting the light cross their face.
"You have the sight, girl. And you be the first milky skinned child I seen with it. Doan you look at me like I be crazy, I been teaching the sighted for longer than you been on God's green eart'. You mark my words, you got the sight!"
Had anyone else said these things to Ruby she would have laughed in their face, but the Voodoo's voice had power. Soft power reached down in Ruby and tugged at something deep inside. For a brief moment the whole world around her lit up brightly and she SAW. The world was fully alive in ways she'd never noticed before. But with everything she'd been through recently she flinched away from the new and unknown.
Her mind pushed the images away as she scrambled to her feet. Quickly she found her clothing and started pulling them on, ignoring the protests of her host.
"You gotta stay here, girl! This ain't no little thin'! You doan learn to take control of that you be askin' for all kinds of trouble!"
Ruby just shook her head and and pushed gently past to the curtain covered door and out into the night, calling to the waiting men. Ignoring the continued protests of the voodoo she half fell into Nathan's arms and let him lead her away to the waiting boat. Issac pressed a few coins in the hands of the voodoo as they were leaving in exchange for the help and the medicines. As they paddled away from the hut the gentle, genderless voice called out.
"You come to regret this, mark my words girl."
The new life
The four of them decided that they needed to move on from New Orleans after leaving bodies in thier wake. They quietly gathered some supplies and started making their way northwest. It wasn't long before all three men had taken up pistols to earn income and, despite one eye being scarred and stitched shut, Ruby was working in dance halls. They never settled for long in any one place and there was more than one brawl over the fact that Ruby wouldn't put up with being handled.
Ruby's reputation as a dancer grew, even with the troubles, and she started being advertised as Sweet Ruby Jean in the places they would settle. One place was a small town called Riley's Switch in what is now eastern New Mexico. Ruby was on stage kicking up her legs and smiling her sweet smile when one of the men in the bar decided he was going to take a taste.
Being a quieter night it wasn't noticed right away when she didn't come back on stage quickly. The bartender, a young man by the name of Billy Emmerson, came looking for her. When he heard the scuffling he kicked in the door and pulled the knife he kept under his vest just in case of trouble. In seconds another man had killed in defense of Ruby's honor.
Billy quietly slipped back out to the bar to clean the money from the cash drawer. When he went back to the changing room he found Ruby pulling the gun belts from the body on the floor. He helped her finish the job, wrapped her in a cloak and quietly led her back to the men waiting for her to finish her night's work.
As she wept on Isaac's shoulder, Billy calmly explained what happened and handed over her earnings from the money he'd taken from the bar. Nathan quickly offered Billy a place with them and he accepted, only asking that his younger brother could join them. Leaving town they gathered young Virgil with them and headed west again.
The next morning the gang woke in the desert to the sound of gunfire. The men quickly lept to their feet, drawing weapons, only to discover that Ruby was the one shooting. They watched in amazement as the young woman fired with an uncanny accuracy, the rocks she targeted leaping and dancing through the air. She emptied both pistols, only missing once, before returning them to the holsters at her hips.
"No one will touch me again. Not without my permission. No more dancing, from now on we take what we need."
The gang
From that day on they were a proper gang. Ruby started using the name Annie and they liked to hit the wagons and stages carrying the pay for the men laying the train lines. Usually easy work for a decent pay off.
Annie was cold blooded and quick to shoot but rarely to kill. She was quickly given the name Diamondback Annie and she and the boys came to be known as the Diamondback Gang. As their reputation spread they needed to fire their guns less and less.
During one robbery one of the men they were robbing followed after them, shouting and gesturing but making no obvious threats. For days he kept after them, even ignoring the shots fired in his direction to chase him off. Eventually they just ignored him and a few days later let him join them at their fire.
Most of the time they couldn't understand much of what he said but they caught on that he knew who they were and wanted to join them. Quickly dubbed Crazy Mick because of his thick brogue, he brought knowledge of explosives to the gang making bank robberies easier.
When the heat would get too hot they'd often take work helping herd cattle for ranchers. Annie fell back on her life during the war to be a good range cook and the boys kept a careful watch over the cowboys, making it clear after a shooting or two that she was off limits.
The change
It was during one of these times cow herding, just before Annie's 25th birthday, that she met rancher Shane Bader. Unlike many of the previous employers, Bader treated Annie with respect and dignity. He also wasn't afraid of getting in the saddle with his men, so Annie found herself riding with him and his men, moving his herd for the winter.
Bader was intrigued by the relationship Annie had with the men with her. It was obvious to him who was in charge of the little group and he quickly dismissed the rumors of her bedding them all. He found himself drawn to the taciturn woman. As he used all his charms on her to get her talking her found a sharp mind and by listening as much as he talked picked up some of her story.
Annie found herself looking forward to their conversations. They discussed things that no man had ever wanted to hear from her and things her boys never thought about. As they approached the end of the ride, she found herself wishing it would last but knew that a landowner like Shane Bader wouldn't declare for a woman that traveled with men. She would take what enjoyment she could from the time they had and go back to her life.
Bader realized he didn't want to let this woman ride out of his life. He'd figured out a day before who she and her men were. At first he was worried but then realized that the infamous Diamondback Gang had quietly been riding with him for days without incident. With more subtle prying he learned about her enough to realize that he might just have met his match.
When they reached the end of their ride Bader sought Annie out with his hat in hand. He watched her quietly ordering her men to unload and stow the stores of food left from the ride he smiled slightly. Even the man everyone called Crazy Mick looked sharp and followed her orders.
He caught her eye and pulled her aside, nervous as a school boy at his first dance. After mumbling and fumbling his words and finding himself discussing the weather they had during the ride. Annie watched this normally eloquent man stammer with utter curiosity, wondering what could bring him to this point.
"Ah... Annie, it's been a long time since I've been at a loss for words. What I'm all worked up about is... I want you and your boys to stay on. Mostly you. The time spent talking with you has been better than just about anything, Annie." With that he finally locked eyes with her, trying to gauge what she thought.
She stood there staring at him for a long moment, not quite processing what he'd said. Once Annie understood, she nearly gaped at him. When she heard the loud guffaw from Isaac she shot a brutal look at him then refocused on Shane.
"Are you asking me if we want to stay on working for you, Mr. Bader?" Annie spoke softly and with the sounds of the gentlewoman she was raised to be. Then her voice dropped to a very soft tone, "Or is there something more you're asking here?"
"I was hoping to have the chance to spend more time with you, Annie. I was hoping you might want that too." Not many would recognize Shane Bader acting this way. He'd always lived decisively and didn't allow things to slow him down. As he stood there waiting for an answer he felt more unsure of himself than he could remember.
As she considered his words Annie's hand slowly came up to her scar. As he started to speak she cut him off, "I need to talk with the others, Mr. Bader. I'll come find you in a while if you don't mind."
She turned and walked quietly away before he could do more than nod. As she walked over to her men Isaac and James were snickering together. When he saw the expression on her face Nathan reached out and slapped both of them in the back of the skull, making them smack foreheads together.
The men sat up and paid attention when they got a good look at Annie's expression. They watched her fuss around with a few small items before she was stopped by a light touch on her shoulder from Nathan.
"I ain't good with words... but I know what I just seen. I reckon it's time we settled. If that's what you be wanting."
Annie listened and slowly nodded as a rare smile spread across her face and for a heart-breaking moment Nathan could see the beautiful woman she should have been. "I reckon I'd like that a lot, Nate. I got a feeling this will be a good place for us."
The new beginning
Annie found it amazingly easy to settle into the ranching life. Bader's operation was large enough that it was fairly easy. Annie quickly took over organizing the meals for all the ranch hands. She found the work, while tiring, rewarding. And the evenings were heavenly.
Shane would take Annie out walking or riding every night after dinner. Always with one or two others with them, but they never felt the presence of the others. They talked easily and argued amicably and quickly found themselves utterly at ease with one another.
As winter strengthened its hold on the ranch Shane went to Nathan, who was clearly the father figure to her in her little group, and asked his permission to ask Annie for her hand. Shane quietly explained that he knew who they were, what they'd done before and that he didn't care. After some discussion with all of Annie's men, Shane was given the blessing of the whole gang.
Shane planned the night he proposed carefully. When Annie arrived at the main house for their usual evening of talking, instead she found the front room empty except for Shane and he was dressed in his Sunday best. He'd set out tea and cookies and there was a box sitting on the table next to the tea service. "Annie, would you mind sitting with me tonight? There's some things I would like to discuss with you."
Surprised but curious she agreed and sat down gracefully in the chair he pulled out for her. Sipping her tea, she was surprised to find it lightly brewed and sweet, as she always took it.
Shane sat himself across from her and smiled nervously, "I want you to know some things about me before we get to the rest of our conversation tonight." He pulled out some scraps of paper from the box and handed them over. The first thing she found was documentation of a marriage... his, to be exact.
Annie looked up, puzzled and a little hurt, "You're married?"
He shook his head gently with a sad expression, "Widowed. Small pox took her while I was off to war. I never found our son. He was taken in by a church and by the time I got news of Maddy passing and got home... he was gone."
Relieved and guilty for feeling it she kept looking through the papers he'd handed her. It told a short story of a man that had worked hard to get to where he was, despite the trials he'd been through.
When she was done looking he started talking, "After Maddy passed... well, I thought that was it. I had a good life with her and our son is out there somewhere making his way through the world with whatever good family the church saw fit to give him to for raising. So I started working. Building up this ranch and my herd. And it's been a good life, if sometimes a hard one. It wasn't until this last autumn I realized it was an empty one too."
Annie smiled softly and colored a bit as he continued, "I thought that I'd end up selling things here when I got too old to keep up with the work and retired to luxury in some town. Then you showed up and turned all those thoughts on their ear. I had a long talk with the men that came with you. Mostly with Nathan. I know enough of what you and those men have been through before this to know I just don't care one whit about it all... Ruby Jean Preston."
At the sound of her given name she looked up at him sharply, stunned and more than a little afraid, "Shane... I haven't been that girl in some years."
"I think you never stopped being her, she just had to hide from the world to get by. And, if you're willing, I'd be proud to make you Ruby Jean Bader. Marry me." With that he reached into the box again and pulled out a ring, setting it on the lid.
Annie sat there stunned to the core before she gave him one of sweet smiles, tears forming, and nodded, "I'd be proud to be your wife, Shane."
The curse
They planned for a simple wedding at the church in spring, as soon as the weather allowed for safe travels to town. Now that she'd reclaimed her name and found a future, Ruby seemed to be more at ease with everything and everyone.
Winter seemed to drag by, but soon enough the weather broke and they gathered her men and headed to town the day before the wedding. Ruby had sewn herself a beautiful dress for the next day and was more than ready to become a settled, honest woman.
As they passed through town and headed to the bank to take care of some papers someone shouted out, "Shane Bader is a thief and lying sack a shit!"
Ruby whirled, hand dropping to her bare hip instinctively. The men gathered around her protectively. Shane turned to face the ragged looking man that had called out.
"Henry, that deal was fair and you know it. It's not my fault you squandered the money I gave you for those cattle."
"Bullshit! You never paid me no fair money and ain't no one gonna tell anyone different!"
Ruby saw movement out of the corner of her eye and called out to everyone a moment after the first shot rang out, dropping Issac in an instant. Suddenly the street was full of gunfire and then a soft, deadly silence. She looked around and saw that all of her men were down and if not already dead, hurt terribly. Then she turned and threw herself at Shane, hoping to save him from the pistol in Henry's hand. Instead she just managed to catch him and fall to the ground with him as the bullet took him in the chest.
In one short moment her whole world had come undone before her eyes and a rage she'd never known consumed her. Ruby looked up at Henry and whispered in a dark, ominous voice, power dripping from every word, "I will hunt you and your men and all your families to the ends of this earth. I will not rest until the last of all your blood lies dead and buried. Shane and I will NEVER be parted, even if he dies here today. I swear this on my immortal soul."
For a short brief moment the whole of town went silent then heaved slightly in a loud rumble as the power released from her, binding every soul involved.
As she laid there on a wooden sidewalk, feeling Shane take his last breath in her arms, she heard a foot step behind her, "Damned witch!" There was a loud sound, one sharp pain in the back of her head and then everything went dark.
The returns
That one moment of grief filled rage bound Ruby to do just as she swore. The men with her that day had all left children behind as they traveled and as she returns and events from her first life are mirrored in her next ones, their descendants find her or she finds them. Her pistols, those same ones she took off that man at the saloon find her too. As she soon as she loses her eye, the memories of who and what she now is come back to her and she starts hunting again, unable to break the curse she inadvertently put upon herself and all those men.
The men that work for her now are all of the blood of her original gang and start to remember what happened with their forefathers. Saddest of all, the shade of Shane Bader walks behind her, no matter what, waiting for the day her vengeance is done so they can finally rest together.
