This week the heroes spent an afternoon and early evening in Bingham, Oklahoma.
Ralph flipped through the bible he bought from Mortimer and found a note in a child's handwriting:
My name is Lloyd. My daddy is Mortimer. You bought a bible from him. He thinks god is a snake called Yig and that I have been chosen by him. I am scared of snakes and don't want one to chose me. Can you help me?
Vivienne and Maddie returned to the hotel and filled in Colt and Ralph, and Ralph showed everyone the note. They decided to go check out the church, then head to the lumberyard. Walking down Main Street the ran into Sheriff Benson outside the police station and he engaged them in some conversation. They came away from that feeling that Benson is aligned with Reverend Kornfield and the new direction the town is taking.
Entering the church the heroes met Reverend Kornfield as he was chatting with Mortimer and Lloyd Allen. Maddie walked over to a desk along a wall and saw some pictures children had been colored, as well as Kornfield's bible, which was open and heavily notated in pen. There was also a roughly 8" by 10" stitched decoration that appeared to show an individual tied to some kind of table, with another person standing next to them and a massive snake dripping something into the restrained person's mouth. Kornfield chatted with the heroes and bit and offered Maddie Yig's blessing, which she allowed and during which he whispered to her that he could see she was already blessed. Young Lloyd looked at the heroes with a bit of desperation in his eyes.
From there they went to the lumberyard. Maddie introduced Colt and Ralph to her true love Paolo, and they also met his co-worker George Hensen, who had supposedly been healed by Kornfield after a major accident. Hensen was very nice and gregarious and engaged Colt in a push-up contest, which he won easily. He suggested that if they wanted to see more evidence of Kornfield's power, they should go see Peggy Shaw's babies. Leaving the lumberyard, Ralph began to give Maddie a bit of a hard time about the potential powers of Yig's blessings, and out of frustration she grabbed him and tossed him five feet into the air (successful Cthulhu Mythos roll...), which left everyone, including Maddie, a bit stunned.
The heroes went to the Shaw residence and talked their way in, being surprised about how warm it was inside the house - though Colt and Maddie felt it was very comfortable. While Peggy made tea she told them about her newest babies, and pointed to the sand-filled box sitting under the wood stove, which contained a clutch of rubbery eggs, some of which were beginning to bulge at the sides (Sanity rolls!). This left everyone uneasy, but they also asked to see her son Severus, so she went upstairs and brought him down - the boy covered in snake-like scales and with a forked, darting tongue (more Sanity rolls!!). Vivienne went temporarily insane at this point and simply begain making tea as if none of this were even the remotest bit unusual, shutting her brain down completely to the unfolding horrors. Peggy asked Ralph if he wanted to feed the baby and pulled a mouse from her pocket. Ralph held it over the baby's face and saw his jaw distend as he swallowed the mouse (more Sanity rolls!!!). The group thanked Peggy and got Vivienne outside. Out in the street they ran into Peggy's husband Greg, and he suggested they go have a drink. As they walked up Main, they noticed the sheriff was watching. Maddie separated from the others and went back to the hotel.
At the saloon Greg gave some additional insights about the schism in town. There they also met newspaper reporter Baxter Fandyke. When he learned that Colt was a reporter from the east coast, and that they'd seen King Kong, he offered to pay Colt to write an article for the local paper about it, if he could do so by that evening. Colt agreed.
Earlier in the day Maddie let the hotel keepers know to let Lloyd know she had a present for him next time they saw him. Lloyd showed up at Maddie's room and they discussed his fear of snakes. Maddie gave him a flare, which she called a "special birthday candle", that he could use if he was afraid.
The evening found Vivienne and Ralph in their respective hotel rooms, Colt over at the newspaper offices, and Maddie at the lumberyard to continue her romance with Paolo. Ralph was considering going back to the Shaw residence with some dynamite and blowing it up. And... all of them heard bells ringing and people yelling. Looking out upon the town they could see flames rising up from where the church sat, and townsfolk running toward it.
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