These texts were originally published as part of Hunt's Scorched Earth, the live Event that ran from August 15th to October 7th, 2024. The excerpts featured here are a continuation of those from Scorched Earth: Part One. Are they fact, fiction, fable, or fallacy? We may never know for sure, but there's truth to every lie, and a lie to every truth. Read on, and decide for yourself.

Summary: After The Researcher separates from Marshall Brewer to investigate reports of screaming and unnatural happenings at Kingfisher Foundry, he discovers that barbaric experiments involving Bounty Tokens and innocent victims took place there, effectively starting the new Incursion. While leaving, he is kidnapped by Butcher's Cleaver and The Beekeeper. Thanks to some quick thinking on Hayalî's part, he is freed to find Marshall Brewer and report his findings. Between the information provided by the Trappers and what The Researcher discovered in his investigation, it is revealed that Wyatt Preston was the sick mind behind the Bounty Token experiments which may have spawned the fearsome Hellborn that now roams the gulch. As they're about to kill him, Preston bargains for his life by threatening to end the system of Bounty Tokens being paid and offering to provide information. They begrudgingly accept his terms and personally see to it that Wyatt Preston leaves Colorado behind.

CHAPTER EIGHT: SNARE

Tracks and the scent of monsters set Snare on a path littered with corpses.

Bait Locations and Conservation
Leatherbound Journal, 3 x 4 in.

Friday

Found two sets of tracks.

First Set: boot prints from the north. Running, fumbled, crawled over the dam, into the beaver lodge. Scents of fear, piss, oil used for rock splitters.

Second Set: Came north, Veered south. Lumbering steps. Still hot, burned everything they touched. Scents of tar, iron, overcooked meat.

Saturday

We followed both sets of tracks back to Graystone Pit. Found another Hunter ripped in half.

Lower half was smeared over a granite wall, then left in a kneeling position on the ground. Upper half was shoved into a ceiling crack above the rest.

The smell is different—heavy with sage. Must be the work of a different creature entirely.

Found a note and payment in a pack nearby:

I'm sorry to send you to the Pit with so little information. "Our" superstitions and rituals have become too dangerous. I don't know what Boss has done. He won't talk about it. I hope these cases of ammunition are enough to fix the current predicament. The sage bundles are for burning—may they keep you safe.

Stalk quiet and brave down there.

Signed – Delacroix

We circled up to the top of the Pit. Found some Hunter tending to a mountain bluebird. It was burned, sopped in oil with just one wing left. He sketched it, then crushed its skull clean.

We approached him. Offered the note. Delacroix is a Foundry man. He seemed half honorable, at least. We told this Hunter, Harold, that we've heard screams coming from Kingfisher Foundry for ages. It's haunted. Cursed. We won't go near it.

Harold sprung right for it. He's an animal hungry enough to lose a leg for a scrap of meat.

+++

CHAPTER NINE: THE RESEARCHER

Horrors performed at Kingfisher Foundry chart a path of unbounded cruelty.

Kingfisher Foundry Log, Mammon's Gulch
Comments: Harold Black
Original Author: Delacroix

Oil Reinvigoration Ritual #14

Observer: Delacroix

Change Log:

Iron plug casings have been strengthened to better bear the forces. Subjects are compressed and forged from the neck down, and only after being fed Tokens. (Convinced the Boss this was more humane. Ingesting the Bounties puts them into a trance.)

Bore Depth: 700 Feet, 3 Tokens, Elwraith Rite 9

Bandit 1 ignited. His tooth (a gold capped incisor) shot out of the bore shaft, buried itself in my arm. Had to dig it out myself, then Boss confiscated it for the gold.

Bore Depth: 984 Feet, 4 Tokens, Eyeless Navigator Rite 2

Bandit 2 begged for us to take care of his grandma out on some prairie, had to be sedated. Flesh bulged with enough pressure to break his casing, clogging the shaft. Had to re-bore the shaft to unclog it.

Bore Depth: 0 Feet, 0 Tokens, God's Grace

Bandit 3 convinced me over. He had a PLSS contract from the government on him. Last two subjects weren't bandits either, they were cartographers. Boss lied big time. I can't keep contorting innocent people and holding that guilt in me.

Bore Depth: 1,325Feet, 6 Tokens, Finch's Lullaby Rite 1

I won't abide threats and slander. I relieved Delacroix of his station by feeding him the final Tokens before encasing him in the plug.

His casing struck brimstone. The reinvigoration worked at last. It turned the clay into treasure. Oil spewed out every derrick but something crawled back out, dripping lava. It's a miracle the oil pools didn't catch fire.

***

Deduced Methodology:

I believe subjects ingested between 3-6 "Bounty Tokens" each. Rituals were performed. Subjects were “contorted" into iron plugs, which were dropped down boreholes of various depths. Seems as though spontaneous combustion and physiological metamorphosis resulted.

I'm unsure as to what "crawled back out" the bore shaft. Could it be the same thing that set fire outside the Foundry and then stalked me through the tall firs?

+++

CHAPTER TEN: HAYALÎ

A cursed opening at Grizzly Lodge sets the scene for Act II of Hayalî's puppet show.

Puppet Theatre Script: ACT 2
Found behind stage curtains, back-alley theater

Note: (Begin Act II with Pig and Bee puppets hugging the Mountain.)
Bee and Pig reveled in this devastated land. Cold machines ripped precious ores from the soil. Pipes sprayed black earth into the air. The mountains watched over the trenches and scars of the great gulch with no interest in those who suffered within it.

Note: (Kick rope so guillotine beheads Corrupted puppets.)
The pair were well versed in executing monsters. Their carnage was strange, for they worshiped the master of these many diseased puppets. Pig squealed in the oil fires. Bee prayed to hives.

With their senses sharp, they traced the hand of their puppet master to Grizzly Lodge. Sickness and evil gusted from its chimney like it was an ancient wound, a place of miraculous birth.

Note: (Make Bee crawl in first. Whisper a secret the audience can't hear.)
Inside were the lower halves of men kneeling in a circle, killed by some unknown monstrosity. Bundles of sage were tied to their waists, and Bee and Pig burned them to cleanse the air.

Note: (Dangle Cultist, Pig swings corpse to play with it.)
In the cellar was a pit dressed for rituals. Barrels had been hoarded, mounded, and blessed. There was a stench of Tokens. Bee and Pig fell to their knees and the traveller traced every symbol of salvation he knew.

+++

CHAPTER ELEVEN: MARSHALL BREWER

A deafening roar threatens to collapse the mines as Preston lets his secrets slip.

Addressed to Sheriff Hardin
Author: Phoebe Brewer

Hope this gets sent to you as promised, Cowboy.

You ever see a flaming body fall down a mine shaft? Pretty eerie. It made my hairs stand on end.

Preston had us clear a mine where Demented had supposedly dug in (we didn't find any, just some puppets and a tent. How did those assholes get up here in the first place?) Then there was this roar that almost caved in the tunnel. Preston said it was the oil reservoir shifting. He used fancy rockhound terms for roar, but that didn't explain the flaming body that suddenly fell from the pit entrance above us. Preston said that kind of thing happens all the time. Mine workers get sad and try to bring light to the darkest parts of the world. Can't say I relate to that.

We spent the night down there, and I took it as another opportunity to case Wyatt Preston up, down and sideways.

Preston isn't through-and-through evil, from what I've seen so far. He's the kind of boy who stole his daddy's gun to shoot ant hills. Trick with him is, you let him talk on long enough, he starts to let stuff slip.

Preston has friends with even more gold in their pockets, turns out. He said they're into occult stuff, chanting in masks and swallowing goat eyes and whatever else it takes for them to gain more, more, more—other than taking up the Hunt themselves, of course. That's for others to do for them.

After Wyatt finished off his handle of wine, I snatched a journal from his coat. Wrote down some names, sent 'em along. You've got digging to do while I keep playing this rich boy's nanny.

+++

CHAPTER TWELVE: HAYALÎ

Act III of Hayalî's puppet show concludes with lies, theatrics, and a new companion.

Puppet Theatre Script: ACT 3
Found behind stage curtains, back-alley theater

The oddsome trio tracked whatever was birthed from that haunted fireplace. Pig crawled on all fours, sniffing footprints and blood. Bee held amber to the moonlight and traced the paths it revealed.

Note: (Harold puppet's whistle, do not forget the timing, get it right.)

In the thick of night, they found not a creature in the woods, but rather a man of words and sketches—a researcher. Pig held a blade to the man's throat, but the traveler was intrigued by the dear word worm. An idea was born, something unexpected but exhilarating.

Note: (String Harold puppet from tree, bring in ghost elephants and tents with the flywheel.)

With quick deception and wit, the traveler bound the man as he would a most precious puppet. If his idea were to come to fruition, he'd need to lie, and lie well. So he told Bee and Pig that far away, a wandering spectacle of death and whimsy was approaching.

The traveler had been a member of this wandering spectacle long ago, he fibbed to his companions of the road. His voice rising, he continued to conjure fabulous deceits. This word worm had seen the show and mocked the poor traveler's every performance. Had jeered, booed, thrown bricks and cats at him! He even tore down his stages and spat upon on his art!

The traveler made sure to give his all to this performance, and he could tell it was working. Bee and Pig nodded as they listened, leaned in while the story continued. They knew how it was to feel the effects of sacred efforts fallen flat.

Now, the traveler said, his performance coming to a close, he would take a long-earned revenge on the word worm. He would punish the man privately until dawn as Bee and Pig continued their hunt. It was a personal matter. Surely, they could understand.

Note: (If tears are shed, lower clouds to let them be rain.)

And so the traveler found his exit. Bee and Pig applauded his demented hunger before setting off to hunt more lies and legends and things that should not have been born. With a pain in his heart, the traveler whispered goodbye after them.

Then he untied the word-worm and began to spin new tales to tell.

+++

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE RESEARCHER

Mysteries unravel as the source of Corruption in Mammon's Gulch comes to light.

Sketchbook #45: Colorado
Illustrations and Notes
Penned by Harold Black

I sketched the strange puppet fellow who saved me from Demented savagery. I owe my life to more people day by day, it seems. Hayalî took a liking to my ink, and so an easy gift of it was made.

As he recounted his tale, I divined the hunting lodge is the source of this Incursion.

The Lodge's chimney is covered in hardened pustules and forms a “birth canal," for lack of better terminology. Through it, the Demented and their jester found the remnants of a mass storage site of Bounty Tokens. The trio glowed in Dark Sight from its contaminated energies.

I cannot prove much, but if I were to venture at a cause for a Corruption springing forth from this Token depository, it would be ritual tampering.

We were no strangers to occult “experimentation" in the bayou. We recognized it here. It was as brutal and barbaric as always.

I was wrong about Preston.

My theory: He released Token energy deep underground and awoke the Corruption in Mammon's Gulch. Intense heat and fire were either a catalyst or byproduct of its awakening, possibly involving what became of the Foundry man "Delacroix." Victims include the 3 PLSS Surveyors from the destroyed campsite we discovered before.

As Preston seeks to pry dark secrets from the earth, I will pry the secrets out of him.

+++

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SNARE

A trap ensnares its human prey, and an interrogation leads to an ominous revelation for Hunters in Colorado.

"Journey to My Descendants"
Author: Snare
Handwritten Journal, 8 x 8 in.

We watched from afar as Harold laid a single bear trap in front of Pa finely carved chair. It was not hidden well, but the animal it would catch was not crafty enough to notice.

Tea boiled over the fire, and he shot a flare into the dark.

Preston came up the slope and took the nicest seat for himself. Iron snapped to his leg. His screams called Brewer over right away. I clung close to the shadows with Buckshot as we listened.

Harold wove together a tale of people stuffed with Bounties and dropped into oil. He gave locations of Demented rituals and summoning sites. While he was speaking, I watched Preston. He had the look of a lapdog who had wandered off into the woods.

We stepped up to the campfire and sidled up to Harold. The scars in Brewer's face met the scars in mine. She would stay calm in our territory, according to our agreement.

Buckshot told them that some tracks we found were filled with fire. Others led to severed bodies and witchcraft madness. Terror not seen in Louisiana was here, and it grew from Preston's properties.

Brewer did not pause long. She took her gun off Harold and set it to Preston. The man did not beg for his life. That is the confidence money gives you.

Preston threatened to end the Bounty System. Hunters follow gold above all else, he said. Corruption could spark again in the bayou, spread from Colorado, and we would fail.

He proposed a trade. Information for his life. Locations of more Bounty Token graveyards. Industry barons obsessed with the Sculptor. New Inoculations. Magics deeper than Dark Sight. “Old eyes" awakening in forgotten parts of the world.

The deal was made. It would be “our" Gulch. He would leave Colorado, and we would take his fortunes and cleanse his mess. We would take his gold and build with it a trap for all who might come after, telling us how to live and how we would be allowed to die.

+++

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DIME NOVEL

The history of Mammon's Gulch is laid out and casts a shadow over the future of the mountains.

Tortured Peaks, Excerpt
Rejected Dime Novel: July 1897
Author: Jasper Priest

Blasted was the landscape of the high west peaks, where men broke teeth on boulders for just a glimpse of gold. They bored into the earth and burrowed tunnels. They stole the river's soul with water wheels and severed trees for joy and industry. Blood and money tasted the same on their tongues. No amount of either could calm their greed.

Among these men, a fool sought out long dead secrets of the world. He believed some truth lurked in lakes of oil and the mountain's many treasures. He believed that truth whispered to him from precious veins of ore, from tar pits.

Once his drilling began, it never ceased. Black blood gushed from derricks in celebration. His efforts drew the gaze of more fools, darker fools with darker knowledge to trade. They slit the throats of goats under full moons and bayed in tongues with lungs full of incense.

Then the black wells ran dry. Whispers from the boreholes faded to silence. The fool searched for cursed treasures to extract more ichor and wealth from the mountains. He bound them to screaming victims and dropped them down into places they were not meant to go. Each life fell upon a long-sleeping evil beneath those far rocky ranges.

That evil awakened. The dreams within it rose and found new bodies to live inside. Ribcages were split open, and skin rotted to the ground. Devils took to the river as fire learned it could spread from the hearts of men.

Corruption granted the fool's wish and overtook all he owned.

+++

Want more? Experience the world of Hunt: Showdown 1896 on Steam, Xbox, or PlayStation.