# Forum > Play-by-Post Games > Ongoing Games (In-Character) >  The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

## MrAbdiel

*The Liberated Town Of Tranquille - 2 Miles From Naphto Beach*

_Tranquille_ once had a population of six thousand, including the farmers on surrounding properties and the fisherfolk who trawled the waves off Naphto beach, hoisting their catches up the cliffs on ingenious pully systems before spending the night on the peaceful sands, gazing up at the stars.  Once the war began, as the Kreig spearhead rolled relentlessly over Aquiteaux's resistance, the population expanded somewhat - at the extreme west of the continent, there was no where for the people to run; and a healthy number of refugees had fled into the region ahead of the tide of iron.  When the Kreigers came and made occupation, the refugees dispersed but the presence of occupying military kept the population high, the supply priority up, and the trade remarkably healthy for those folks who had not, on principle, refused to engage in merchant activities with the dour and dominating peoples of the Vult empire.

When Albinon entered the war in earnest, the population dipped down again.  Dogfights over the channel regularly resulted in bombing punching through on one side; and easilly fifty percent of the significant structures in Tranquille have blasted out sides, shattered roofs, blacked and burned interiors or, at worst, unexploded ordinance awaiting the inattentive approach of future casualties.

Now, with the seizure of Naphto beach and the full retreat of the occupying Kreig forces, the population of the town has ballooned back to around its starting level, less a few hundred civilian casualties of Amcaran and Albinonese bombing, plus a few hundred refugees flooding back into the last free patch of land on the western end of the Old World.

And of course, plus several thousand Amcaran foot-sloggers, diesel-jockeys, fly-girls and Skyknives.

With most of the invasion force bivouacked in and around the towns and farms, rapidly dispersing into new objectives across the countryside, Echo Company enjoys a few days of respite.  Some of it is general rest and recoup after a job well done; some of it is because of the grim reality that so many of the Skyknife companies fared so badly in the face of the highly disrupted drop that drastic re-organization is required.

The casualty list for Echo Company, 3rd Platoon is grim enough on its own.  First squad suffered catastrophically, being first out of the plane and in many cases being blown directly into the midst of the entrenched and aware enemies, with only Catchell and Monroe ending up with relatively safe landings outside of a hot zone.  But no squad got out unscathed.

*Spoiler: Casualties.*
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*1st Squad*
*2nd Squad*
*3rd Squad*


Sgt. Nikolai Farley (KIA)
*Sgt. Ladaran "Xilo" Xiloscient*
*Sgt. Alston Hillfield (MIA)*


Cpl. Spade (KIA)
*Cpl. John Falcon (MIA)*
*Cpl. Eugene "Wolf" Vognar*


Pvt Ssassten Monroe (WIA)
*Pvt. James O'Hara Jr*
*Pvt. Thaddeus "Doc" Helmholtz*


Pvt. Jason Catchell (WIA)
*Pvt. Bruce Gamble (WIA)*
*Pvt. Salamir "Sal" Malichinni*


Pvt. Deliandi Jukbar (KIA)
*Pvt. Gabriel Ginger*
*Pvt. K'Ral Burnfaire*


Pvt. Kruz Brassbeard (KIA)
Pvt. Jukebox (WIA)
Pvt. Jenya Moore (MIA)


Pvt. Omniel Madan (KIA)
Pvt. Kuzzank Stronghunter
Pvt. Lynnova Xenyss


Pvt. Harvey "Creed" Douglas (MIA)
Pvt. Enshun Xanderthrax
Pvt. Brikenya McCleod


Pvt. Marguerite Curry (KIA)
Pvt. Hector Longfoot
Pvt. Tarron Chaegwyn (WIA)


Pvt. Gladys Hayden (WIA)
Pvt. Xu Nandreth
Pvt. Tristain Ordo (WIA)







*Lt. Temperance Bathory*
Spl. Vivienne Pierce (WIA)






Most platoons fared better.  Some never made it off their planes.  But with such dramatic reshuffling of resources, the fighting-fit survivors are rearranged into two newly minted squads.  Lt. Bathory is peeled off to lead Fourth Squad, with Pvts Nandreth, Longfoot, Xanderthrax, Stronghunter, McCleod and Xenyss, with the newly promoted Cpl O'Hara.  Expectations are she'll raise some NCO's, then form another squad from injured soldiers as the recover and return to the field.

Fifth Squad is assembled mostly from the soldiers who acted with outstanding instinct and ferocity during the initial assault.  Pvts Ginger, Burnfaire, Malichinni and Helmholtz form the core of the compact Fifth Squad; led by the now Sgt. Vognar, and under the competent direction of Lt Xiloscient; one of a host of field commendations rolling out through the division after the disastrous first victory of the Skyknives.  A host of recommendations for specific medals and recognitions are being processed through a bottleneck of other command decisions - perhaps, later, people will understand and recognize the nightmare the soldiers had to fight through.  Perhaps they never will.

The operations centre for the invasion force has taken over the battered town square.  *Operation Command* is set up in what in better times was a town hall; the impressive remnants of a building that was once the lower floor of the military fort of the ancient empire preceding the modern age, revamped for modern life; battered by explosions; revamped again for military function.

The *Field Hospital* is operating in a near-miraculously untouched convent if the Sisters of Sunlight; a Pelorite order who, up until recently, had operated for five hundred years without a man - atleast, an unordained one - setting foot inside their consecrated buildings.  Now, they have thrown open their doors; and the wounded from Naphto make appreciative use of their hospitality.

The *Mess* was once a swanky little U shaped hotspot of cafes and regional fine dining.  Half of those establishments have been smashed to rubble or looted to uselessness by the fleeing Kreigers, but the chefs and staff have banded together into a force devoted to a task more herculean than the seizing of the beach itself.  Their mission: Make Army Food Edible.

The *Greasepit*, more formally the Motor Pool, is an open air, tarpaulin littered field next to the commandeered Krieger airstrip, on the edge of the town proper.  It's a bit of a hoof from the centre of operations, but one can hardly have a constant stream of suffering and straining war vehicles peeling through the centre of the poor town, and relegating them further afield, near where allied planes now land and take off in organized, unharassed fashion, seems appropriate.  A core of engineers work around the clock to get the mechanical veterans of the Naphto landing functional again.

The *Munitions Office* manages the several munition dumps around the town, and keeps them organized and meticulously documented to resource squads as needed.  A stream of polite soldiers enter, and a stream of cussing, irritated ones leave - grenades, weasels, and other highly desired war kit are being dispensed judiciously, or else not available for resupply at all; and the logistics officers are unthreatened princes of their petty domain.  Only very canny soldiers walk away with everything they came for; and more than one has left bewildered at how he managed to have equipment confiscated instead of acquired.

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## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* spends most of his time at the Field Hospital, putting in long hours in the OR and doing rounds of the makeshift wards. The familiarity soothes him somewhat after the hellscape the company has been through. However, his ministrations to the wounded (special attention given to Private Monroe) and the opportunity to practice his l'aquitaire to bandy surprisingly saucy jokes with the Sisters, do little so assuage his guilt though. Guilt both for the wounds he failed to heal and those he was forced to inflict for the first time in his life.

Each night some kind soul or other scrapes him off the floor of the mess or a nearby alley, where he has self medicating with something that only the very charitable (or those rom Albinon) with ever call wine.

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## Continental Op

Unless the newly-minted Lieutenant has other orders for him, Wolf spends some time visiting Monroe and Catchell at the hospital and tries to re-outfit the squad at the munititions office.  But most of his time is spent at the mess hall.  Wolf has no real skill at cooking but he loves eating, so he is very motivated to help make the meals better.  He is willing to scavenge through the rubble for extra ingredients, or offer his (probably unhelpful and unwanted) memories of his gran's cooking to the harassed chefs.  

Edit: And if Wolf sees Doc one night, he tries to help him.  "Woah, Doc, you have nothing to feel guilty about.  You saved a bunch of lives already and from what I can see you are saving more every day.  You didn't ask for this war but you are doing a damn fine job helping people through it."  The next morning he adds, "Doc, if you can take a little advice, the bottle doesn't help you sleep.  Just focus on your patients.  We have 90 yards left before we reach the end zone, this is too early to get into bad habits."

*Spoiler: OOC*
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What gear is the squad missing?  Mostly grenades and healing kits, right?  Do we have a radio operator?

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## JbeJ275

After a disasterous expedition where Sal almost set the munitions office on fire in a dispute over construct parts to replace those worn out on the beach Salamir has mostly been elbows deep in the greasepit. It's a return to form for him as he chats to the other grease rats, trainworkers being more common among them than anyone else. He spends long hours there, most of the way inside some behemoth of an engine or another and stumbles back barely awake and mumbling about fuel compression.
,
He's avoided the field hospital apart from one private talk with Catchell, and only heads towards command to ask if there's any news about Sergant Hillfield. More worrying he seems to fill with nervous energy day by day, being interrupted once when he was most of the way to accepting a drunken bet regarding a barn lacking a roof due to unexploded ordiance now lying in haystack.

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## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
After attempting to acquire supplemental explosives several times without specific need, has been temporarily banned from the munitions office.  Correspondingly he has taken to going on long walks looking for and collecting unexploded ordinance.

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## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* may or may not have heard Wolf's kind words as the shifter carried him back to their bunks, but the small halfling form was definitely snoring into Wolf's shoulder by the time they got there.

The next morning Thaddeus appears in the mess bleary eyed as ever, putting the final touches to another horrendous make-shift hangover cure.

Oofeugh....that's the stuff...cough...that's better. 

Some colour has returned to Doc's face and his bloodshot eyes are lost in though for a moment. 

Ever heard the phrase "Primum non nocere?"

He takes a breath, almost like he was about to explain, but seems to think better of it when there isn't a spark of instant recognition from the new Sarge.

Hey, never mind that anyway. You know, booze actually does help you sleep, it just ain't as good quality or for as long. But who the heck is getting their eight hours round here anyway, am I right? It's more of a hobby than a habit at this point anyway, but it got me through med school and it'll get me through this.

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## MrAbdiel

(OOC Note: These are scenes all happening roughly contemporaneously, but they're not private content; feel free to read them all, I just like using spoilers to organize.  Greasepit for Sal, Unexploded Ordinance Treasure Hunt for Ginger, and Command Tent for Xilo to come hopefully tomorrow.)

*Spoiler: Field Hospital*
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*The Field Hospital*

The sisters should have expected it.  They had allowed themselves to be lured in with the unusually meandering build up; and four young women in their no-longer-pristine white habits with yellow trim lean in, wimples bumping at the flared edges as they crowd to the halfling's tale.  Then comes the punchline - an invitation for both the rube in the story, and by extension the rubes listening to the story now, to consider that _if they think the story is long, then..._
The sisters scatter like pigeons, in a flutter of overstarched linens and unappreciative scoffs.  All but Sister Adelaide, a rivergnome lass with a more versatile sense of humor, but the good sense to hide her smile and not laugh out loud.  She leans in to chastise, with no chastening in her voice.  _"Monsieur Thaddeus, you must stop zis!  You are going to get men banned from ze grounds again after proving the Sister Superior right about zem!"_  She makes a smacking gesture, possibly the most aggression of which she is capable; and it's not alot, because it's targeted at the air a few inches from the ribald halfling's shoulder.  Perhaps she means only to convey the _idea_ of physical reprimand?  Either way, she flutters off after that delay, falling in with the bouncing catch-up strides which all _smalls_ are familiar with laboring to make.

The other two members of Doc's audience are in no position to escape; though they wouldn't if they had the option.  In the bed to the right of the stool on which the medic perches is a huge iron cylinder resting on its side and built into the recovery bed's frame; with Catchell's pale head poking out of a rubber membrane at one end, resting on a pillow.  Another membrane at the other end is pulled out, then let to relax at regular intervals; and the pressure changes cause the soldier's lungs to inflate and settle.  All this mechanical motion is acheived by virtue of a bound _work_ spirit, a tough little formless elemental conjoured by certain clerics for just such purposes.  The magical motor of the machine hums along; loud enough to be obvious all through the room, subtle enough to be tuned out for folk to sleep.  Catchell has no trouble sleeping; he looks perpetually exhausted now, because - Sister Adelaide had told Doc - he kept waking up gasping in his sleep, his body's natural rhythms troublingly insufficient for the task of breathing now.  The wretched gas has thrashed his lungs, and he possesses now maybe one third the respiratory function of a healthy man.  The act of breathing deep enough exhausts him; and the machine takes enough of that work that he is not doomed to die of exhaustion in his sleep.  He sleeps a lot, now that the machine helps him out.

On the left of the stool is Monroe's bed; the lizardman offering some valiant brightness for the various visits he's received.  His bare torso has many places where the black scales have been ripped away, featuring grey skin and pink scar tissue in a stitched and healing constellation of toothmarks, and claw-grooves.  His left arm is bandaged almost completely to the shoulder.  The smell has been mitigated by the judicious use of some Gentle Repose spells, but as Doc predicted, there is no saving the limb.  Now that a backlog of triage has been manage, the sisters and the army medical corps have slated his amputation for tonight.

His lizard mouth, not really able to form a smile or frown, goes a long way to hide the anxiety that Doc can easily detect in him.

_"They ssay there'ss a twenty five percssent chancsse that it will regrow all the way to the fingerss... Lizard blood, you know...?  But no garaunteess.  It iss what it iss."_  His weird, side-blinking eyes flutter closed and open a few times; extra blinks required for some reason just now.  He moves on.  _"But it'll be a while before I'm ready to pitch back in for the Sskyknivess, however I can."_  Then, conspiratorially... _"...Is Ssalamir alright?  He vissited Catchell oncsse, and sseemed... off."_


*Spoiler: The Mess*
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Sgt. Vognar has had a hell of a time wrestling with the bean counters over at munitions.  It's easy enough to get bullets - bullets are cheap and plentiful.  But with the ongoing reshuffle of Echo Company and much of the Skyknives in general, discretionary dispensation of Weasels, Behirs explosives broadly seems to be bloody impossible.  He manages to finagle a total of *two frag grenades* out of them, after great argumentation, with the unhelpful advice offered along with them: _Just use the Kreiger grenades you pick up in the field, for gods' sake.  They've got plenty of them, atleast.  Least they can offer us for all the trouble of coming over here._

But his experience at the Mess has been much more positive.  Monsieur Barbe-épicée, the self declared leader of the volunteer cooks at the Mess, has accepted the sergeant's help in _Le Projet_.  He is irritable and particular; but so are most dwarves, and Wolf is used to being harangued in this way by the now missing Sgt. Hillfield.  The monsieur, in turn, is pleased to have a helper around who understands his flares of temper and long strings of overwrought swearing are not personal; and soon enough the red bearded dwarf, who speaks almost no common, welcomes him every time he swings by with a flapping of arms and an urgency of gesture, gabbling out his needs in a now mutually understood pidgin.

Pvt Lynnova Xenyss was once part of 3rd Squad with Wolf; now she's slated for 4th Squad, in the reshuffle.  The petite drowess spent most of Naphto advancing with Sgt. Nikolai Farley of 1st Squad, behind a waterlogged, groaning tank about a hundred meters up the beach from where Xilo's Psychos (a name that is unfortunately catching on) made their wild push.  Wolf knows her to be dependable and softspoken; 3rd squad's best shot at night (with the exception, possibly, of K'ral), and its worst in daylight.  Right now, she's just the latest grateful beneficiary of _Le Projet_, coming back for seconds to clear our the trays as the lunch crowd peels away to briefings, training, and various tasks.

_"Damn if this isn't the best I've eaten since we joined the war, Wolf.  Honestly, maybe before that for some time, too.  There's not much of a_ Little Underdark_ district up in Great Harbor; hard to get real deep mushrooms that aren't sunblanched to start with, so what passes as_ home cooking_ is... Well. It's bad."_  She holds out her plate for another ladle's bounty of gravy, over her dish.  _"There's still no word on Sergeant Hillfield, or Moore.  I keep trying to get a pass to go look myself, but no dice.  And there's good news for Ordo, who seems to be recovering well considering how well stabbed he got.  Bad for Chaegwyn.  The sisters dodge all my questions about his recovery options.  That's how you know it's bad.  Might die in the field hospital on the other side of the world.  How sad is that..?"_

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## MrAbdiel

*Spoiler: The Greasepit*
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_"No one can deny Sparky's effectiveness, Sal; but you're blind to your own genius.  Even if the little blighters were mass produced - and that's a big if, because I can't begin to guess what exotic components you have whirling around in its_ cognition core_ - they'd still need an engineer of your calibre to keep them from breaking down after the opening volleys of a firefight.  Sparky's great because_ you made it great_.  Until they can crank out eccentric machine-prodigy hellions from an assembly line, we're out of luck."_

The dainty boots belonging to the giver of this grim if flattering assessment poke out from beneath the chassis of a jeep, under the shade of one tarp-shaded outdoor workshop of many on runway one.  This first runway having been mangled by allied bombing was rendered useless for allied aircraft to take off or land; but there's plenty of patchy tarmac for ground vehicles to go in for their important surgeries before they, like their drivers, are flung back into the storm of war.  The air is filled with the sound of grinding, welding, revving; punctuated with the occasional rough but effecting thump-thump of percussive maintenance, all tied together into an industrious symphony with the sonorous staccato whining of impact wrenches.  To many, such a clamor would be hell on earth.  To some hellions, it may well be heaven.  Sal has been able to spend scads of time here at the Greastpit. 
 There's no hard shortage of mechanics and field engineers, but Salamir was tapped for the Skyknives because of his excellence, and few of the other hands here are precious enough to turn down such an assistance.  Between hopping on the latest _Kyton_ pattern recovery tank, hauling the warped carcass of one vehicle or another out to the airfield and catching a ride back into town on the back of one purring refurbished truck or another, he's had the opportunity to work on cars, trucks, tanks, and an Albinonese _Raziel_ fighter-bomber that for some bloody reason just wouldn't spin back up after its last flight.

It's still not working right; but it's been spared the fate of being rendered for parts by the intervening plea of another top-end mechanical specialist: Gloria Mayfair.  Effortlessly elegant starlette of the moving pictures, having begun as a child performer, she survived the transition of the medium from _movie_ to _movie with sound_; a type of art that is very pleased to have an actress of such a mellifluous, smoky contralto; and with the authentic refinement of her native Albinonese accent to boot.  She might have been find had the movies stayed silent, however; she is gorgeous.  Startlingly gorgeous.  _Confusingly_ gorgeous, in a way that is almost disorienting for those susceptible to feminine charm until a few rounds of meeting her have sufficiently built up their baseline immunity.  A famous photograph of the Aasimar emotionally farewelling her two brothers as they boarded the _H.M.S. Myrmidon_, a month before the battleship was lost with all hands in the Battle of Claxby Bay.  After that, she apparently felt no choice but to sign up herself; and forsaking the morale boosting events the crown was carefully shuttling her to and from to survive the _Blackening_ (the sustained air raids of Albinon with such sorties of enemy planes as to _blacken_ the sky), she took up the tools of her father and demanded deployment.  Fearing the possibility that the tabloid darling would wind up dead or captured, her handlers managed to restrain her until Naphto was secured. 
 But she showed up on the first supply plane to the captured airstrip, and has been a fixture of the Greasepit ever since.  With golden curls restrained in an almost blasphemously pragmatic bun and ivory skin that shows every smudge and smear of dust and grease clearly, she has displayed a previously unknown technical talent, as well as an intuitive capacity to boss around the other grease rats without anyone actually feeling _bossed around_ as much as _talked to by Gloria Mayfair!_.

The boots under the jeep scuff at the ground as Gloria rolls the mechanic's creeper out from under the chassis so she can look Salamir in the eye.  Her sleeves are rolled up, and she tosses aside a ratchet for a welding torch, squeezing its pump handle a few times to agitate the fire spirit within to the appropriate blue flame.

There is a joke hovering in the air somewhere, nearby; something about her _spending so much time on her back_, or _hey, while you're down there_; the kind of off color japes that either establish a tone to which a whole crew adapts, or reveal that this is _not that kind of crew_. 
 So far, no one has attempted to harness that joke and fling it at the celebrity Aasimar, likely for fear of crashing and burning in the effort.  The whole operation at runway one, since her arrival, has become obscenely well behaved.

_"Want to get under here with me for a spell, Salamir?  I could use a fireproof hand on this cracked axel for a minute."_


*Spoiler: Treasure Hunting*
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Picking through the shattered remnants of the blasted elements of _Tranquille_ is a daunting task, but someone has to do it.  There is supply, in there; as well as the occasional survivor trapped under rubble (ironically caused by the air raids that liberated the town). 
 But Pvt Ginger knows those are secondary priorities, right now.  Well - survivors are obviously a top priority.  But what he's _interested_ in is the unexploded ordinance present hither and yon throughout the town.  And strictly speaking, this task is one that should belong to a subset of the engineer corps.  But their solution is typically to explode the unexploded ordnance, and the building it's in; why should these poor people suffer more damage than they already had, to their homes and livelihoods?  And if Echo Company ends up with a little more _firepower_ to bring to the Vult for their trouble, who is harmed?

It's a fair question.  Especially since Gabriel is one of those specialists who has both the technical expertise to disarm ordnance, and the magical expertise to do it from thirty feet away.  In this side task, Gabriel has two allies.  The first is Pvt K'Ral Burnfaire; the Eladrin scout similarly skilled as Gabriel, and known in Echo Company as second-to-none in his navigation talents and recall of the manifold maps of the operation areas over which the bombing sorties were run.  He very quickly has a knowledge of the town's layout that is as detailed as the local's, and is the friend-of-choice when performing feats of urban sneaking, salvaging and occasionally deception.

The other ally is _Timéo_, a local human boy of about ten who seems to have a good deal of information about places to scavenge, and is happy to be paid in pilfered pumpkin and buttermilk scones that are judiciously smuggled out from the Mess.  He has the same battered, dusty, and yet dignified look of most of the locals of Tranquille; and is pleasantly upfront about his origins, in his thickly accented common.

_"Actually, I was already an orphan before the Kreigers got here.  Eet ees funny, yes?  Before zis, I 'ad no 'ome and only one pair of pants.  Now I sleep in a different bed every night, and I 'ave_ zix_ pairs of pants 'idden under my favorite one.  Bed, I mean, not pants.  I wish zey 'adn't come and zat noone 'ad dropped all zese bombs - it was very scary - but since zey did, I might as well get new pants.  'Ey!  Zis one!"_

The lil'est war profiteer, having led the two rogues over a heap of brick and beams that was once some manner of pub, points from the vantage of the ruinous hilltop down to a squat civilian home that backs on to the ruin, whose back fence has been smashed by the collapse of the pub's back wall, but whose general structure seems largely intact.  Except, tellingly, that the roof is partly caved in from a heavy impact, and remarkably unexploded.  _"In zere.  I saw zis one hit, myself; but no boom.  Monsieur Dorreaux lives zere; but I 'ave not seen him.  'E left ze day before ze bombing started, but 'e is not in there.  I checked.  Now I 'ave 'is 'at."_  He pats the flat topped, paperboy style hat on his head; its slight oversize now explained. _ "Do you need, ah, ah... a wheelbarrow?  To take ze bomb away?"_


*Spoiler: Operation Command*
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The interior of the command 'bunker' is a beautiful collision of history.  There is some mililtary gear - radios, maps, cases of supply - that is Amcaran made and stencilled so on army-green surfaces, manufactured in the last year and dragged in recently to establish the HQ.  Then there's the beams and woodwork of the interior, which seems to have been installed by the locals as part of a restoration project for the fort maybe forty years ago.  But some of the surviving furniture, the fireplace, the sconces, bear the grace and quality of the old Aquiteaux Imperia, before the social upheaval known as _la tourmente_, and the staggering, stumbling, bloody start to the _Republique du Aquiteaux_.  Some powdered noble might very well have been lounging upon that stylish lounge, before they were dragged out by the ankles hand hanged in the streets. 
And while the Aquiteauans were tearing themselves apart, far across the ocean, the Parliment of Princes was ratifying the Compact, confirming the Princedoms' fidelity to one another and birthing a new world while the old bled, and wilted.  There was history here, as old Amcara was as a nation; and much older.  The fort itself was once one of the westmost defensive hardpoints of the _Natio Draconem_, the old Half-Dragon empire that sprawled wide and proud two thousand years ago before buckling in on itself.  The _Dragonato_ of Verati had seized power of their own nation around the time the Vult had ascended in theirs, and were conducting their own parallel invasions in hopes of regaining some sniff of the glory of that ancient time.  But by all accounts, the Dragonborn families of Verati had produced a much inferior partner to the Vult, and Amcaran marines had been handilly tossing them off one island after another if the newsreels were to be believed.  History in the wood, and in the stones.  The space, itself, seemed to demand deference.

Lieutenant Xiloscient had the priveledge of being within that storied building for his first briefing as a commissioned officer.  The room buzzed with the activity of officers, like himself; a healthy preponderance of Second and First Lieutenants like himself and Bathory respectively, a tapering handful of Captains, two Majors, and atleast theoretically, a Colonel; though Tatterfield's authority was towering, his stature was not, and it was impossible to spot him in a room packed with _bigs_.  First Lieutenant Temperance Bathory, Xilo's superior by degree now rather than by kind, is no help in this regard; not quite five feet tall herself, the Dhampir is almost as short as the gnomish and halfling officers.  But she has kept true to an earlier promise to not abandon him as he is flung into the challenging world of upper command without the benefit of formal academy training, and the interminable vastness of meetings, and briefings, and catch-ups, and pow-wows that officer-culture entails. _ "Smart money is on us all being shoved east good and hard.  If we can keep the Vult retreating in poor order, we can keep on them all the way across the continent.  But when we stop to let them catch their breath, the whole thing slows to a typical Old Kingdoms war-crawl.  There's no helping it after something like Naphto; but if the gods permit to smile, that's the worst we'll have to deal with."_

The 1LT's sentiment was a common one from officers and enlisted men alike.  The blooding had been bad at Naphto; and now those with legs still under them were eager to run down and punish those responsible.  Still, it was hard to hope things would go smoothly from hereon out with the only operation performed so far being so... _unsmooth_.

Through the sea of gossiping officers comes a familiar form - the elven grace of Captain Longsummer, left arm in a sling, but undiminished in spirit.  She smiles faintly, at Xilo; this expression of quiet pleasedness perhaps a hard ceiling on her positive display, and more valuable for it.  It's the same expression she wore when she surprised him with his field commission, the evening of the day after Naphto.
_
"Lieutenant Bathory; Lieutenant Xiloscient.  I'm glad we've been able to peel you away from 3rd Platoon, for a little while.  If I may, let me introduce you to Colonel Tatterfield..."_

Stepping out of the wake the elegant elfess carved in the crowd, Colonel Tatterfield is exactly what one might expect a gnomish colonel to be.  A compact commander with crisp lines at the edges of his uniform (possibly accentuated by some tasteful cosmetic illusion?) a thin but sufficient crest of iron-grey hair parted sharply on the left, and a thick, curled moustache that he might care for more than he cares for his grandchildren.  His copper rimmed pince-nez valiantly grips the flanks of his profound nose.  Bathory has met him, of course; but Xilo's only foggy memory of the man is the top of his head bouncing along in the passenger seat of a jeep zipping by, one day back in training.  The formal saluting for such a meeting long dealt with, he is free to thrust out his little hand to shake first Bathory's, then Xilo's.  _"Lieutenant Xiloscient!  Let me extend first my congratulations on your promotion, and thanks for the actions that earned it.    Gond-damn if there aren't a lot of men out there in the tents tonight that owe you their lives; and a lot in here who owe you atleast the cost of a washcloth to get the egg off our faces.  Temperance - "_ He gestures to the 1LT, apparently confortable with first names at their level of association,_ "-says you're just about the most natural field commander she's seen, and that the beach-bound element of 3rd Platoon pulled through because of you most of all.  You never expect it from enlisted men, but it's my favourite kind of surprised.  What's your background, son?"_

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## JbeJ275

*Spoiler: Greasepit*
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"Hey Miss Mayfair, I'm just saying putting on in the landing craft or the trasport planes can carry on of the damn things. Even if most of the corps can't get a handheld working through a firefight. Besides, they got to have something in Albion to turn a starlet into a mechanic this good quickly as they did, share your secrets there and I'll give you plenty of Yankee Hellions with the tricks of the trade."

Having long since been through the arguments about retrofitting and timetables with both Gloria and every other brain willing to talk to him on base Sal forsook and further words on the subject, instead he continued to fiddle with a pressure gague and a series of tubes leading into the jeep before Gloria asked for his help. 

"Would be a plesure, let's see if we can't get it back in one piece.

With that he descended under the jeep himself, bought his hands to his lips and jokingly sparked up an illumination fire between his teeth as he helped work on the cracked axle.

Tinker Tools Check: (1d20+11)[*15*]

----------


## Cavir

*Ladaran Xiloscient, elven warrior*

Once the relief forces arrived to take control of the enemy command center and prisoners, Sgt Xilo focused on the wounded. He didn't have the medical skills needed, but he had some rank in a sea of chaos from heavy losses, units getting all split up, remaining enemy resistance, and higher commands focused on their own missions to create order for a new command center. These skyknives not only won the day but they had helped him survive the slaughter fest. Anything Doc needed to keep the others alive became Xilo's sole mission, which then became the sole mission of those in the unit still mobile and with the skills of "discovering" supplies amidst all the chaos. They weren't going to lose any more of their numbers that day. They didn't.

The next day Tranquille became a giant bee hive. A different kind of chaos. No blood being freshly spilt by the enemy but there were still the occasional troops getting injured, maimed, or even killed as will happen when massive amounts of troops, vehicles, and equipment were being moved in every direction as chaos still reigned. Echo Company escaped those duties short of setting up their own quarters. There were plenty of grunts for the logistics symphony going on.

That evening after chow Captain Longsummer called the company together outside of the Sisters of Sunlight convent. Here at least most of the wounded of the company would be able to look out the window to watch. Lt. Bathory was called up to front and center, who in turn called Pvt. James O'Hara Jr to front and center for his promotion to corporeal. O'Hara returned to formation followed by Sgt Xilo being called up. Xilo assumed he was getting a rocker added. He was proven quite wrong when he had a butter bar pinned on. Lt Xilo was then given his first task, to promote his new 2nd in command,  Sgt Eugene "Wolf" Vognar.  Captain Longsummer then gave out the new organization of 4th and 5th squads.

After formation and the numerous congratulations, Sgt Vognar was informed of his task to keep 5th squad out of major trouble while the new LT had to tend to other duties.

In the ancient town hall for the big operational briefing, Xilo was in a sea of officers. He wasn't as lost as most anyone else would be who had just made the jump from NCO to officer. He grew up in elven nobility though he didn't let it be known. He figured Captain Longsummer could read more into his elven upbringing than she let on. He was very much looking forward to seeing the bigger picture. He had been expecting to be raiding across the countryside with limited intel at this point but the enemy druids changed all that.

Captain Longsummer arrived with Colonel Tatterfield. Xilo kept to proper etiquette, shaking the Col's small but powerful hand when offered.  

*"Thank you sir. I am from the White Mountains. Spent many years training with weapons of all sorts. I have always had an interest in tactics and strategy. I look forward to the situational update and next phase plans."*

----------


## Continental Op

At the mess hall:  

Wolf is content at the Mess to do his part and learn a bit from Barbe.  It's nice being part of something good.  And Barbe's just a kinder, gentler version of Wolf's grandmother, who used to grow fangs and bite him at the slightest provocation (or for no reason at all, in Wolf's memory).  

At Xyness's question, Wolf grimaces and shakes his head.  "Yeah.  Going slow like that...and I've not known penguins to be all that gentle.  Hey, if you want I could put in a word with Doc--you know, Helmholtz--and see if he knows anything about Chaegwyn.  I've got to do the rounds and check in with the squad later anyway."

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*

K'ral and I have this little buddy.  By the sound of your tale, it looks like we might be looking at an E101 "Raindrop", I do not think we will want to be carrying it by anything other than magic.

To Kral
Lets get eyes on this baby, so we can give the kid his coin.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Ma sur Adelaide, as you well know  guys and dames are pretty alike. Do you think the Mother Superior is any different? She surrounds her self with masseurs and makes you call her _Mommy_, think about it

He smiles after her as she leaves, she's the best nurse here. Technically she's great, but she also knows how to play the game, keep the babter going, don't let the team think harder than they need to about what they're doing. Without her he wouldn't be able to keep up his usual bedside manner with the boys.

Hey Catchell, these sisters are a real gas, am I right? Now you just keep resting up and taking it easy and you'll be chasing them round before you know it.

His smile almost falters listening to Monroe, but he does his best to bluster on through.

That's right, we've got a good team here including the sisters. We're going to give you every chance of being in that 25%. The sisters ain't in the _habit_ of letting people down and neither am I.

He passes for a second.

Despite being a midtowner, I don't think Sal is either. He'll be working hard, trying to help things so he can do more next time. Who knows what that creepy spider of his will be able to do next? Now get some rest, I've got to finish my rounds and get another case done before I'm coming back this evening.

----------


## PartyOfRogues

Alright, time to see what were working with.

Kral climbs onto the roof of the building and peers through the hole caused by the fallen explosive

----------


## MrAbdiel

*Spoiler: Field Hospital*
Show



Monroe lifts his remaining hand as Doc rises to leave him with his encouragements;  holding up thumb and small finger extended and pointing upward - a strange short-hand his lipless people use to convey cues for the _unscaled_.  This is a smile - and the tired extension of those fingers carries the same telling sense of shallowness that a faint, thin smile would on another man.  Catchell has a lot to be not-happy about; but he does seem appreciative.  Doc's positivity, however futile it may seem to him, carries value; as does the revolving visitation of the other Skyknives who fought the dragon, cracked the Defiant wall.  He is unlikely to have his arm back, and his life will not be _normal_; but the halfling medic is left with a strong sense that despite all that, he will be _okay._

The same can not be said for Pvt Chaegwyn, whose state is more presently complicated.

*Spoiler: Flash...*
Show

_...The requesting soldier - Pvt. Marguerite Curry, a half elf with blood red hair and a delight for dancing - wriggles in her harness, and whines. Oh, Jukebox! You picked too well! You cant play a tune like that when Im all strapped in! Youre killing me!

Hey, you save up that dance for me when we hit the ground, Twinkle Toes. Im good for it. Pvt Tarron Chaegwyn promises, with the cool-cat grin typical for his ongoing pursuit of Marguerite which both have entertained and delayed and entertained again. She responds.
You might be, but its going to first taker! Dont get stuck in a tree Hot Shot.

The predictable chorus of whistles and chuckles follows; the symphony of soldiers, who have become friends, doing their level best not to think about what is going to happen to them exactly sixteen minutes from now, at the scheduled moment for the jump. Or rather, fourteen minutes and thirty seven seconds from now, when things will begin to go wrong..._


_"Monsieur Thaddeus!"_

Sister Adelaide's wail cuts through the thrum of chatter and machines in the room.  The rivergnome, and a pair of the other Sisters of Sunlight, are gathered around a bed at the extreme end of the hall.  The lines between army doctor, civilian nurse, and field medic are blurred almost to the point of uselessness even this early in the campaign, but her cry suggests something is happening beyond her ken to resolve.

In the bed is Pvt Tarron Chaegwyn; the strawy haired half-elf with the wild tattoos up his arms, who had been so ready for the first dance after hitting the ground with Marguerite Curry.  But Marguerite was dead, now; a casualty of the jump's disastrous execution.  And Tarron, who had ended up on the beach by himself in a sea of grunts he didn't know, had done his level best to push up the beach in hopes to reunite with his unit, only to take eight pieces of shrapnel in the torso when a Kreig ground-pounder smashed a tank to his right.  The surgeons had removed four peices of Amcaran battle tank steel and two pieces of Krieger scrap-iron from him, after the battle; two were deemed so close to his heart that removing them was far too risky until he was shipped home to more sophisticated equipment and specialists.  He had been battling infection valiantly, mostly winning, sometimes losing.  But now something else was happening entirely.

The sisters strain to hold his arms at his sides, as his legs begin to thrash; and Doc gets to the bedside just in time for the pain to overwhelm the private's restraint.  The battle for Naphto beach is over, and the enemy is retreated; but even here, even now, someone is screaming, and maybe dying right infront of him.  A pair of white doves, roosting in the rafters as a kind of pleasant omen of peace, are so startled by the sudden clamour that they trill and take flight, scattering a few downing white feathers to the floor below.

Something is swelling, pushing up at the skin near Pvt Tarron Chaegwyn's heart; certainly, near where those two pieces of shrapnel lay with damoclesian warning.

_"Somezing is wrong, Thaddeus!  Ze shrapnel - it's killing him!"_

From across the room, sitting up in his own bed, Ordo catches on to the happening.  One of the few patients with the power to assist, he lifts a hand and utters a word of celestial that creates a flicker of healing light.  For a moment, Chaegwyn seems to calm - but whatever relief the spell provided doesn't seem to take.

*Spoiler: Trauma for the Trauma Surgeon*
Show

Time to suffer for my narrative amusement more, Thaddeus.  Make me a Medicine check.  The extraordinary nature of this medical happening means you're going to have disadvantage on the roll - but you have assistance from Sister Adelaide, so you're rolling flat.  The DC is 20, to save Chaegwyn's life - but getting over 12 will yield _certain results_ that are not unhelpful in a longer sense.  Good luck!



*Spoiler: The Mess*
Show

"That'd be swell, Wolf.  I know the all the integrated saw-bones' are flat-out working putting people together.  The medics who duck in to lend a hand might be about all the flexibility there can be that isn't just... you know, cold, war-winning math.  Who's most valuable."

The drow gives a smile she doesn't seem to be really feeling as she turns away, tray in hand, preparing to leave Wolf, and the hard working volunteers at _La Projet_, to close up and clean up.  She wheels back, a few paces out.

_"...Wolf... Do you think this is worth it?  Coming over here, fighting people we don't know for other people we don't know in a country we don't know?"_

It's a question that has been asked a lot, and will continue to be asked in various forms well after the war's conclusion.  _How much spilled Amcaran blood is are the old, mad, fractious kingdoms worth?_  A great many of the people Pvt Xenyss trained with and came to know and perhaps even love are maimed, vanished, or dead now.  She is discouraged.  Perhaps she has good reason to be.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

If Wolf wants to try to encourage, empathise, or whip-into-shape the slowly deflating private, he may select a skill that is at least in some way appropriate to his approach.  He can have advantage on the roll, because the good food is a small relief that predisposes the private to hear him out.



*Spoiler: The Greasepit*
Show

Sal's hands, made to work, snake inbetween the machinery and brace the crack; and Miss Mayfair angles the welding flame through.  Less infernally blooded hands would be blistered and burned for the experience; but a Hellion's hands are merely warmed.  In a few minutes, they have the weld set; and she seems satisfied.

"You're a handy lad to have around, Salmarir.  If it _were_ possible to run off a production like of Yankee Hellions like yourself, I expect the war would be over very soon indeed."

This ominous praise is immediately followed by a gabble of amazement and technical jargon from the other mechanics in the Greasepit; and both tiefling and aasimar are compelled to skate out from beneath their recent repair job, and see what the fuss is.

A heavy hauler's diesel motor squeals as it strains to haul the carcass of a Kreiger tank into one of the empty bays.  It is banged and battered, but in reasonably good nick; stained on one side with a streak of blood suggesting a crew-kill.  What's interesting about it is that it's too heavy and obviously wrongly styled to be a _Verschiebenier_ light panzer variant; and too long, and heavily armoured on the rear to share any design philosophy with the common _Säbelzahn_ heavy tanks that sheared through the Old Kingdoms and led to the current occupation.  In fact, it doesn't seem to map to any panzer pattern any of the engineers was briefed on - a weirdly unique creation, in the first war backed by assembly lines of steel and diesel.

_"...What the bloody hell are we looking at...?"_  Miss Mayfair wonders aloud; and the throng of engineers, mechanics and grease monkeys don't seem to have an answer.

_"No clue, lady."_  The dwarven driver of the heavy-hauler swings down from his rig, and begins disconnecting the chains from the sled-board responsible for getting the killed tank this far.  _"But I figure you've all got about fifteen minutes before the boys from Quiet Operations come and black box it.  Can someone sign?"_

He flaps around a clip board, and Gloria signs for it distractedly.  Her attention, like everyone else's, is fixed to the enigma lying wrecked before them.

*Spoiler: Mechanical Autopsy*
Show

I'm going to want an Investigation Check, and a Tinker's Tool's check.  The first is with advantage, because Sal's got Gloria's help.  The second he will have to make unassisted - only one hand can hold a screwdriver at a time.

*Spoiler: Investigation DC 10*
Show

The armor is heavy tank thick.  It looks like it was only stopped because a lucky AT round happed to hammer right into the nadir of a dent made by atleast two previous rounds; and the hit killed the engine, and followed through to some of the crew.  Under normal conditions, you'd expect this vehicle to soak up a hell of a lot of anti-tank fire.*Spoiler: Investigation DC 15*
Show

There are no part numbers on this machine.  This is a prototype, part of some Kreigvolk engineer's magnum opus, not yet dissected by a team and put into production.  It's possible that it just happened to _be here_ when the invasion began, and was killed trying to escape.*Spoiler: Investigation 20*
Show

This machine is so... strange.  It's perfectly functional as a machine on its own, heavily armored with a light cannon turret.  But there are articulated joints where there don't need to be, on a tank; and the thick panelling on the back of machine is grooved and studded in a way that reminds you off a shoe's tread. 
 In fact, you suspect that if the front plates weren't so warped and banged, if you could pry them off, you'd find not just an engine but a series of sockets and cable connectors...

It's not just a machine.  It's _part_ of a machine.


*Spoiler: Tinker's Tools DC 10*
Show

You manage to pop open some panels on the turret, and poke around within.  Your suspicions are correct- they've isolated the ammunition for the turret within the turret itself, reducing the lethality of possible ammo explosions to the crew.  Something Amcaran engineers haven't been able to work into their designs, yet.*Spoiler: Tinker's Tools DC 15*
Show

You hold your stomach, and slip inside the open hatch, ignoring the dried blood and scraps of humanity left by the poor schmuck who caught the AT round in the chest and out the other side.  The engine is definitely dead, but you puzzle around the controls, remove the face of one of the control panels, and manage to pry out a tan coloured strip of laminated paper, perforated with dozens of small rectangular holes.  Squinting past the receptacle you pried it from, you think there must be hundreds in there, racked up in slots within the guts of the controls.  But what the hell kind of purpose would they serve, inside a machine?*Spoiler: Tinker's Tools DC 20*
Show

You rush to remove the control panel to get deeper inside the machine, and find what you have suspected - the interior of the control panel, all the faces of the 'box' containing the mechanisms by which the will of a living person is transmitted to the machine, is covered in arcane scribbling.  It's a form you can't understand, but you intuit something of its purpose - it's not unlike the forms you use to give Sparky's limbs articulated, magically coordinated life, and a limited form of independent will.






*Spoiler: Treasure Hunting*
Show

Timéo looks almost insulted that they intend to go in without him - he's the guide, after all - but his moods are fickle, and he shrugs. 
 "Okay, zen.  Hey, I keep looking, okay?  You keep bringing Amcaran food, ah?" 
 he nods as he skips backward into the street, as if trying to conjure their acquiescence with the force of his positivity.  Before they can actually acquiesce, he pivots, and he's off. 
 "Okay zen!"

K'Ral and Gabriel approach with an abundance of caution.  There's thankfully no ambush; no wolves or spies squatting in the house.  The urchins have picked the cupboards bare, certainly; but there in the centre of a small living room, in a crater in the floorboards surrounded by a halo of splintered chunks of what might have once been a nice coffee table, is exactly what they came for: a big ol' E-101 Raindrop.

It is rare to see such a thing this close, after it has fallen from a plane, without shortly after being blown to pieces.  Three hundred fifty seven pounds of cast steel exterior, flanged tail, and interior strutting.  Olive-drab paint on the pill-shaped shell, with black stencilled lettering identifying its type for the benefit of munitions officers, and the occasional speed-reading recipient.  Splashed by paintbrush, in hazard-line yellow, are the words "EAT SCAT VULTIES". The red ignition cap of the bomb is buried in the floor, but you must assume it's damaged, or ineffective.  But any modification of dropped ordinance is wildly dangerous for the very fact that the tamperer cannot be sure if their explorative actions will 'fix' whatever was broken and set the damn thing off.  But there's no other way to get what the soldiers came for - inside that steel interior, having forsaken its teleological duty of flinging fire and metal in all directions, likes a suspended slug of one hundred and fifty four pounds of good old Albinonese _Amatol 80-20_; the _good stuff._

*Spoiler: Easy Peasy...*
Show

To extract the explosive interior - enough to effectively replenish the squad's supply of Weasels, plus enough to barter for the parts to fashion them and your missing Behirs - you lads will have to pass some checks!

A Theives Tools check to delicately open the casing, at a DC 20.  You're equally skilled with the tools, but I'll ask K'Ral to roll with advantage provided by Gabriel, on this one.

On top of that, I'll need two Slight of Hand rolls from Gabe, the handsy-man.

The first one is DC 16.  That's to reeeally carefully unsheath and expose the Amatol core.  This can be done with the Mage-hand from a distance; that's why it's a separate roll, and not just an addition to the last one.  Rolling extremely badly is less likely to result in tragedy.

The second is DC 16 as well; but because the Amatol core is about a hundred and fifty pounds, the little Mage Hand won't cut it.  That's going to require both of you being really careful.  Gabriel leads this one with Sleight of Hand.  Even though K'Ral isn't trained in slight of hand, I'll allow him to grant you advantage on this roll because much of the task is just steady lifting.

If you guys fail any of those, there may be consequences depending on how badly, and which rolls, are failed.  If you make it through, I'm happy to say that you guys have a casting of Tenser's Floating Disc loaded into one of your Skyknife rings, to cart it back steadilly.  Good luck!



*Spoiler: Operation Command*
Show

Col. Tatterfield nods along, impressed; Capt. Longsummer raises a slender eyebrow, but doesn't pierce the young Lieutenant's delicately understated veneer.  Captain Longsummer, it seems, knows a little more about the military legacy of the Xiloscient family, but sees no reason to drag it out here, when its scion has chosen not to.

_"Well,"_ The gnome colonel continues, _"may the gods pour blessings on the White Mountains, and the Mountains pour them out to the enlistment offices.  I expect more good reports.  Keep it up."_  He reaches up to punch the sergeant enthusiastically in the arm - the height differential meaning it's more forearm than shoulder, but the avuncular encouragement is communicated - and then he moves on, greeting other young officers.

Shortly, the briefing is called to order, and Tatterfield leads it while everyone takes the notes they cannot immediately memorize.

_"Naphto was a phyrric victory, ladies and gentlemen.  When you get home, all the newspapers will have said we whipped those Vulters up and down the beach; but you know the blood that paid for this foothold.  Our only option is to make that sacrifice worthwhile, now, and roll these bastards back as quickly as possible and get all these other kids home.

Obviously,_ La Jayou_ is the key to Aquiteaux.  Has been for hundreds of years.  A lot of the Vult hierarchy has moved their operation centres in the western front there to soak up the centre of the Old Kingdoms culture and impose their own.  Our goal is to get there quickly enough that we can catch the slow ones before they scamper.  That's a long way off, and there's a lot of roads, villages, and hedgerows between now and then; but from now on, you are all part of Operation: Whiplash."_

Tatterfield lays it all down.  Mountains of Amcaran war material and soldiery were about to flood into Aquiteaux from captured Naphto.  The Kreigsvolk were bound to counterpush as hard as they could to take the beach back before that flood became overwhelming, so much depended on the speed at which the eastward-moving coalition of the free could seize land, roads and rivers - ideally, even taking the capital La Jayou before the balance of power evened up in the conflict.  If they could do it fast enough, they'd be in the Kreiglands by the end of the year.

After the broad briefing is over, officers peel off into groups for specific assignments. 
Echo Company, 3rd Platoon's assignment is specific indeed - Captain Longsummer briefs just the two Lieutenants in a smaller operations tent, tapping a long elegant finger at a mark on a map.  _"This is the village of Alonn.  Population one hundred and six, and a lot of sheep.  It's a satellite village of the town of Agoreau, where the Kreigsvolk 99th Caribineers are quartered.  It's Echo Company's job to seize Agoreau, in tandem with Archer, Baron, and Deva.  They'll be supported by elements of the 22nd Rifles and the 4th Armored.  But 3rd Platoon is being divided off to it's own mission, in Alonn."_ 
 She produces a more detailed map of the village - little more than a long main road, with six angled lanes flying off it like the leaves of a fern. _ "We would have had no idea that Alonn was so important, if 3rd Platoon hadn't grabbed those maps from the Defiant bunker.  Between that, and some scattered intelligence now stiched together, we figured out what this is."_

She produces a small, knucklebone-sized brass sphere with a single depressible button on its exterior.  The Captain's elven eyes regard the item in her palm with muted disgust. 
_ "It's a beacon.  The Vult forces have a deep-running pact with a coalition of blue dragons... as you certainly know.  They can't outfit those dragons with communication equipment. Their electric affinity burns it out very quickly.  But these little devices emit a subsonic chime that dragon ears can hear from across a battlefield.  The Kreig officer hits the button, and throws it like a grenade.  It's so small and innocuous that most people wouldn't pay it heed in a firefight.  But then the trench where it lands will get raked clean by dragon-lightning.  But the devices are not easy to make, and they burn out after use."_

_"...I'm suddenly glad I didn't press the button,"_ 1st Lt. Bathory states flatly.  The way things might have played out on the beach differently if they Kreig warriors at the forward bunker had survived long enough to call a dragon-strike... is an ugly imagining.

_"...And now we know that the entire western front is supplied by the one artificer coven operating out of obscurity in Alonn.  Somewhere in this sleepy village, there's a workshop where they are cranking out these things as fast as they can - permitting them to make precision dragon strikes with a minimum of friendly fire.  Those are air-dominant units with functionally unlimited ammunition.  Right now, that coven is desperately packing up their operation and preparing to move it east.  Tomorrow, while the rest of our attack force is seizing Agoreau street to street, your squads are going to stealth drop into the fields beside Alonn, enter the town, locate the beacon production facility, and destroy it.  Primary objective is damaging whatever machines are required to cast and refine these machines, and killing the senior artificers who have the knowledge to recreate them.  Secondary objective is to capture one or more of them alive for interrogation.  We don't expect much resistance - the Kreigers have had the sense not to fortify Alonn so that it doesn't appear strategically relevant to aerial scans.  But we're dealing with Kreig artificers here - you can expect a certain amount of irregular, custom machinery and traps.  We have no advanced intel of how many artificers have the critical knowledge, so you'll have to either find an org-chart or pry the information out of someone you find there.  But if we shut these dragon-strikes down now, we're going to have a much easier time rolling west.  Any questions?"_

*Spoiler: Roll!*
Show

No rolls to _be briefed_ as such, we can assume Xilo is listening studiously.  But give me a Persuasion roll to make a good impression on the other officers during your debut.  It's a graded success check, with bronze, silver, gold levels of success at DC 10, 15, 20 respectively.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show


Mage hand assisted sheathe removal
(1d20+10)[*18*]

One core removal
(1d20+10)[*17*]
Adv 2nd roll (1d20+10)[*29*]

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Confronted with this bizarre complication, *Doc* went back to the basics.

First check for danger. No knowing what could happen if this went wrong.

Sister Adelaide please grab me a basic surgical kit with thiracotomy restractors and then give me a hand with the patient. Could the rest of you give us a bit of space, 12 feet ofcyou can manage it.

Right, inspection, palpation, maybe not percussion if some of the ordinance could be live. Airway is clear. Breathing, tacypneic but uncompromised. Circulation, threatened by whatever the hells that shrapnel was doing but the lads pulse was strong. Not exsanguinating yet at least. Disability, not relevant. Exposure, nothing obvious happening elsewhere. Still no real clue whats driving this, he'd have to dive in and see.

Back so soon Adelaide? We must stop meeting like this. No time for a proper surgical field, be liberal with the iodine and we'll see what we can do about this fresh Krieger atrocity.

*Spoiler: Roll*
Show

Medicine (1d20+8)[*24*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

*Spoiler: Field Hospital*
Show

The nurses, minutes ago tutting and scowling at Thaddeus' _bedside manner_, become consummate professionals.  The sisters give the requested space, darting in only to help apply restraints as necessary.  But all of Doc's medical instincts tell him he has no time to waste here.  Adelaide sends one of the other nurses for morphine, but it's too late - all Chaegwyn is going to get is a bundled corner of sheet to bite on as Doc's steady hands slice open the stitches and healing wound nearest the half-elf's heart.

A puff of black smoke wisps out of the wound, bringing with it the stench of scorched flesh and a fresh muffled scream from the patient.  When doc pulls out the shard - a three inch long, sharp piece of tank-steel - it's glowing red hot, boiling blood and charring flesh until it is plucked free and tossed sizzling and spitting into a kidney pan.  This mystery is forced to wait - the cavity immediately begins filling with blood and pericardial fluid.   At this point Adelaide's runner returns with a sedative kit, though the moment is passed for morphine.  The river gnome breaks out small tin coin, snipped almost completely through, touches it to Chaegwyn's head then twists it apart; and the modified _Blindness/Deafness_ spell within it robs the poor soldier of his pain and tactile senses.  After that, he's an ether-soaked rag away from blissful oblivion - and the half-hour of surgery that follows is done blessedly beyond his witness.

The searing shard has lacerated the pericardium and nicked the right coronary artery - as the initial diagnosis had feared would be the case.  But when the alternative is being burned up from the inside out, there's little alternative but to try.  The heat of it has left a fair amount of seared skin and burned, blackened clumps of blood; and Doc has to work fast, and precisely, and _perfectly_, to clean the wound, excise the burned tissue, stitch the pericardium and coronary lacerations even as they ooze and bleed, and then apply neat, non-excessive lines of pos-gel and neg-gel to the stitch lines so that the shallow pool of Pvt Chaegwyn's capacity to absorb healing magic goes where it most desperately needs to be.

Thirty four minutes feels like four hours, and by the end of it while Adelaide is dumping the rib-spreaders in a bucket of antiseptic and closing up the incision, Doc's hands are left shaking with the adrenal come-down.

But Chaegwyn, atleast, seems stable - amazing, considering the awful death he very nearly experienced.  The scrap of offending metal is now blacked and cooled in the pan, hoarding its bizarre reasons for acting so maliciously.  What could cause such a terrible fate?  Why Chaegwyn?  Why now, and here?

_"We are clear, Monsieur Thaddeus.  All clear."_

Adelaide's assurance, once the wound is sealed and the healing flicker is applied, precedes a gentle, spaced clapping: it's Monroe, across the room, gently patting his good hand into the bandaged other; offering up to Doc the last round of applause he will ever be equipped to give.  The whole room of soldiers have been witness to the event, Chaegwyn's condition permitting no time to isolate him for surgery and Doc being trained to block out his surroundings; and the silence with which they have observed the miracle that has occurred gives way to a dull but hearty rumble of applause as the stricken soldiers in the other beds join Monroe's gesture.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

The bizarre sound finally filters into *Doc's* consciousness as he strips off his blood-soaked gown and gloves. He looks around slightly stunned for a few moments, eyes flickering around the room fir the nearest exit. First, he puts on a big grin and gives a little bow to the room.

Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Try the shrimp and remember to tip your server.

He makes quickly for a door into a slightly secluded corner of a courtyard and hunches down in the corner. He rocks backwards and forwards, trying to slow down his loghtly ragged breathing. After a few minutes his hands stop shaking quiet so much and he stands up again. He takes a final deep breath, then turns back towards the door, there were plenty more poor young bodies he had to oatch up before he could head back to the mess.

----------


## Cavir

> "But if we shut these dragon-strikes down now, we're going to have a much easier time rolling west. Any questions?"


Visions of the dragon tearing apart planes full of troops ran through Xilo's mind.

*"Just shut them down? Why not take advantage of them too? We've broken their code. Use that to lure dragons into kill zones. Get the dragons to take out the enemy for us. Heck, throw one into the workshop chimney and let the dragon do the work. Have our bombers drop some. Even if the dragons get smart about it, that code being blasted everywhere would disrupt their dragon communication. Give Sal a little time and he could probably duplicate it."

"What time is assembly tomorrow? We need to go get prepped. We could really use more grenades. Used them all in that final assault. Supply has been blocking requests. The whole company could probably use more. The request from higher up may help."

"Once on the ground do we have time for a stealth approach? Once we achieve our objective, do we hold the town or head to Agoreau?"*

Lt Xilo's eyes turn to focus on the layout of Alonn, probable workshop locations, the village's surroundings especially the intended LZ, and the routes to Agoreau.

----------


## JbeJ275

After ten minutes of rummaging, unscrewing frying and the occasional removal of unidentifiable goop Sal stops handing out parts to the surrounding technicians and ends up crawling out of the machine himself.

"Okay." He says, brandishing a strip of laminate. "I think I found that things brain, or at least the brain for this bit of it. The channels all line up to connect with something else, and not just for refueling or something, or slotting out weapons systems the way they sometimes do on ours, this is just a part of something much bigger. It's the only thing to explain the articulations, and the interior embedments for connecting ports. Anyone know any Krieger or just mainland arcanosign? I've only touched the Amcaran stuff."

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf is about to respond to Xyness with a quip, but then sees she is really concerned.  He turns to the kitchen and shouts, "Hey, Steve!  Can you cover for me for a minute?  I need a break."  He then grabs a roll and guides Xyness to a seat.  He sits beside her.  

Wolf takes a bite and chews for a few seconds, holding up a finger if Xyness tries to talk again.  "The way I see it, we need to be here.  Yeah, it sucks.  But if it wasn't us, who would stop the Kriegers?  I don't they would stop for anything, unless someone can stand up to them.  And no one else can."  He shrugs.  "So we have to be here.  No one else can do this.  No other countries, I mean."

He takes another bite, and thinks.  "I played tackleball back home.  Then, it was all I lived for.  I've had teammates go down, wash out.  Some nasty knee injuries, you know?  And for what?!  A damn game where you move a ball from one side of the field to another.  But here. This means something.  Yeah, the hurt is worse, but that's because it means more.  And if we weren't here...I think it would be even worse."

Wolf jumps on that thought, and keeps going. "I wish I was in your unit, Xyness.  I've seen you, you have a real gift.  The things you can do in the dark...You and me, we need to look out for the rest of our team, and try to keep everyone else in one piece through this mess. You know?"  He finishes his roll and looks at her.  

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Wolf is not the best at persuasion, but he felt this was necessary.  Rolling with advantage:
(1d20+2)[*15*]
[roll]1d20+X[/roll]

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger* hums a jolly tune as the disk floats behind him.
Now we get to the second funnest part, making the ordinance.
Briefly looks back at the core
Plenty of material to work with, what more could you ask for.

----------


## MrAbdiel

*Spoiler: The Greasepit*
Show

_"Here, let me see."_  Gloria, naturally, pipes up first; though a couple of the other wrench-twiddlers are Albinonese and have some bilinguality as well.  But before any of the volunteers can follow through on a bid to help, the investigation is thwarted.

_"That's enough; everyone one of you put back anything you've taken from this vehicle.  Put it on the chassis and back up, NOW, soldiers!"_

A column of some thirty uniformed men and women spill into the scene from around the blind created by one of the great transport planes.  These are _Blueguards_ - military police, whose presence was frequently essential in imposing order on the complex bivouacking and basing conditions of such a massive operation; and whose presence was much more often resented as stifling, needlessly meddling, and deeply intrusive on the drilled and learned lines of loyalty and order that military folk know.  Their formation was part of the Great Muster thirty years prior, when Amcaran sentiment turned away from the isolated politics of its internal princedoms and out towards the convulsions of the world.  The smaller princedoms wanted some assurance their incorporated personnel would not be badly served by the overbearing multitude of those from the more populous princedoms; and part of the accord was a dedicated, neutral office of law enforcement specifically for the United Princedoms' army, navy, air force, and marine corps.  They policed the bases; investigated disruptions; managed the courts-martial and, when necessary, arranged the firing squads.  They are as popular as one might imagine.

But even _less_ popular is the figure striding ahead of the column: a massive, bronze scaled dragonborn squeezed into a charcoal grey suit, wearing a homberg style hat whose felt has been pinched by an expert milliner to fit neatly between the wearer's horns.  It is no military uniform; but it sports neat epaulets at the shoulders just the same, each side bearing a badge featuring a sword, tip down, infront of a hemi-circular sunburst.  An _Agent-Clandestine_; one of the Archon of the United Princedom's hand-picked men; furnished with more than enough political weight that he could afford to throw some around.  The Blueguards didn't seem particularly happy to have been commandeered for this purpose, but conformed all the same; encircling the strange vehicle, confiscating the extracted parts from the technicians, dragging a great black tarp over the carcass and establishing a perimeter.

The Agent's voice is unpleasantly rough; and his tone inflexible.  *"This vehicle and all its components are now an Operations-Clandestine resource.  You're all compelled by the Great Muster Code, Addendum Niner-Three, to immediately cease discussion of what you've seen here.  If you're smart, you'll make a good faith effort to forget it entirely.  I'll take that."*  Nearly eight feet tall, he towers over all the techs and grease monkeys.  His bright green eyes are fixed on Gloria, who frowns quite openly at the forceful seizure of the scene; but surrenders a doodad from the belly of the machine she had been looking over, into the palm of the dragonborn.

_"Well.  When you ask so nicely,"_ she offers drylu, and gives you a communicative look - one that suggests she has found her curiousity to be outweighted by the prospect of trouble if a fuss is made.

The Agent hands the doodad back to one of his flunkies; and extends his hand again - looking at you, expectantly.

You don't know if he saw the strip of laminate ... or if he's bluffing.


*Spoiler: Treasure Hunting*
Show

With a display of skill and precision that is strictly speaking illegal to attempt without specific orders, the two of you handily remove the explosive core from the warhead and set it on the hovering silver disc, covering it discretely for travel.  Some might have looked at the dangers and called this ambition _suicidal_.  But who's laughing now?

You are, but quietly; because even though this didn't literally blow up in your face, it could still figuratively blow up in your face.  But the hard part is done; the rest, realistically is easy.  You set up shop in an empty house closer to base camp; one which Timéo scouted out for you.  Getting the rest of the components to make Weasels is easy enough; they're made to be skinned and combined into larger single charges when required, so there's plenty of bags and blasting caps floating around in the other Skyknife units.  Making the Behir mines is more tricky, since it requires some alchemical expertise and the more rare Behir mine casings; but plenty of Skyknife squads are keen to trade their Behirs for Weasels, since the second is sometimes more versatile.  Over a few days with dilligent work in your free hours, you've replenished the explosives of your squad, and engendered the quiet goodwill of a number of sergeants from the other companies.  When you're done, there's no explosive components left, so nothing to find and indict you over; just a baffled munitions office, who suddenly find demand for certain supplies to dip for no good reason.

_4th and 5th squads have their Behirs and Weasels refreshed, back to 1 of each per soldier.  You have gained some esteem from the other Skyknives; specifically, their undersupplied enlisted men._


*Spoiler: The Mess*
Show

Xyness listens.  Each time you pause, she mistakes you for being done, and opens her mouth to speak; but then you're on again, apparently anticipating something close to what she was about to say; because at the end of the roll of _seems-to-me_ wisdom, she thinks a little longer, apparently with no follow up questions remaining.

_"I guess you're right.  It just sucks, is all.  My parents fled from the old country to Amcara two hundred years ago because of stupid, old kingdom nonsense.  Mom disbanded her harem and elevated dad to consort prime.  It's technically viable, but all it takes is one nosey neighbour to raise suspicions of a respect-love relationship; and it's hard to die it when that's what it is.  So they came to Amcara, and got legitimately married by a priest of the Sun, and learned the language and how to run a topside-farm.  They did a lot of work so I could grow up Amcaran, and free; and not have to strangle my sisters for clan dominance or navigate a malicious maze of political hatreds and power-games.  So when they put out the call, I signed up by instinct, like we were really under attack, because I just... love that a place like that exists, you know?  Where a minor matriarch and her consort prime can just become a woman and a man raising hogs and growing sorghum.  When we got here though, I couldn't stop thinking that if I'd-  if we'd all just stayed home, what difference would it make?  Are the Kreigers really going to try to sail across the ocean and take the New Kingdoms?  Probably not.  But you're right."_  She gestures to _La Projet_, and the industrious volunteers bustling around within.  _"These folks didn't ask for any of this.  It sure as hell matters to them.  If we're not willing to stand up to evil abroad, maybe we wouldn't deserve all the good we have back home."_  She gives you a resolved look, a smile, and then a punch in the shoulder.  _"Thanks, Corporal.  Or... Sergeant.  I'm gonna eat while I head back, but I'll ask for about your medic and Chaegwyn, like you said."_  She says something else, but it's through a mouthful of food shovelled into her mouth as she stands up and wheels away, but she looks back and waves with her fork, so you have to assume it wasn't important.

One more full belly; one more soothed nerve.  Wars are won, in this way; by the small, deliberate actions of attentive sergeants, just so.  You finish up at the Mess, and smuggle a plate of leftovers back to 5th Squad.


*Spoiler: Operation Command*
Show

As you rattle off what seem like obvious suggestions and requests, you catch Lt. Bathory's look from the corner of your eye; a lofted, pale eyebrow, and an expression of incredulity that translates to something like _slow down, cowboy._

Of all the superior officers to possibly over-supply suggestion to, Captain Longsummer is probably one of the best; but the mildness of her response does not completely hide a modicum of warning.  She is not expressly required to explain the reasoning of the higher command structures to a lieutenant, much less one that has been a lieutenant only for heartbeat.  Still, she indulges you.

_"The dragons aren't foolish, and they aren't automated.  They're typically more intelligent than you or I; only bound into this service by some agreement with the Vult heirarchy we don't completely understand.  The moment they, and the artificers responsible for these devices, become aware that we've compromised the devices, they're likely to modify or alter their use in some way.  If we capture a few and start throwing them at Vult targets, we might get one or two lucky strike before the Vult recalibrate.  And we can only do that if we don't reveal we know about the workshop, since any disruption of that facility will cause them to assume they've been made, and recalibrate.  So our best chance to deeply damage their ability to use these dragon strikes is an swift, hard attack on that workshop; and Command has decided they trust_ you_ as a more competent, precise, and discrete alternative to a simple bombing.  You breached one secret bunker full of Vult intel.  You're getting a chance to do it again.  And whether we were running bombers over it, or if we got lucky with an impetuous dragon using this one beacon, neither of those options contains a possibility of taking one of the enemy artificers alive.  You don't know this yet, but this isn't the only piece of baffling tech coming out of the Kreiglands."_  She holds up the little sphere to eye level between herself, and you.  _"Let me be clear when I say we don't understand how this works, and we have a lot of dedicated brains working on it.  What this is, right now, is_ intel_, not a weapon.  Intel rapidly decays in value as soon as the enemy knows you possess it.  Our best move is for them not to know we know, until their facility is liquidated and, ideally, we have one of the Kreigschmitten squirming in a cell."_

With that clarified, she moves on to the next question: _"Assembly is oh-four-hundred hours.  You've got a few hours to brief your squad and prepare before you ought to have the resting up.  I wish I could give you more time; but a lot parts at this level of command move really slow; and others move inconveniently fast.  And the munitions office has been blocking requests for grenades because they don't have grenades to spread around.  In case you forgot, half of the Skyknive's supply pallets got blown into the ocean, along with half the Skyknives; and the supplies didn't swim out again. 
 You're going to have to make do with the little you have.  Prioritize captured enemy explosives.  Leverage your spellcasters.  You're looking to take priority captives anyway, so maybe you won't need as many grenades as you think, upon reflection.  I've plenty of faith in your capacity to get it done, Lieutenant Xiloscient.  Even if you're down to teeth, and pointy sticks.  You're being deployed with stealth measures, so a subtle approach is preferred.  After you take your objectives, hold position and wait for extraction by road."_

The Captain waits for more questions if they are forthcoming; but she has her own part to organize in the events tomorrow - and that of the rest of Echo company - and her own frustration with the compressed timeline is obvious in her demeanour.

----------


## JbeJ275

"Well, a please wouldn't kill you." Sal says, handing over the laminate strips, it stung that he wouldn't get to know what was on them, but in the likely case that they were reliant on other parts of laminate inside the wreckage to inform and explain thier full function the Princedoms were better served with a complete set being looked at by some Fed spooks than fed spooks with an incomplete set and the real engine-runners with a few scraps. 


Still, while they were packing the shiny little box of secrets up Sal couldn't resist one last little crack, so with a cigarette back in his lips he said. "Don't suppose you know how many more divisions I've gotta help save before I can ask ever so politely what the spooks pull out of this pretty little box here."

Then he turns back to Gloria and the other techs with a but of a shrug, and an apologetic look, followed by whispered promises to tell them about what he saw in the wreck of a _totally different_ cracked Krieger vehicle.

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xilo got the point about keeping the enemy in the dark. If the enemy only had a few dragon allies the trap might help but he had no idea how many there were. He was still disappointed with the lack of priority for gear. Hopefully this time they would actually achieve surprise.

He made his way to the mess hall to find Sgt Wolf. *"We've got new orders. Have everyone gather at the barracks in thirty minutes."*

With the squad gathered at the barracks around a table and no one else around to overhear, Xilo places some objects on the table to give a layout for the briefing.

*"Operation Whiplash. Several companies will be capturing the town of Agoreau here. Just outside of Agoreau is the village of Alonn. Echo Company third platoon 4th and 5th squads will be stealth dropping into the fields by the village here."*

The LT rearranges the objects on the table to match the village layout he had been shown, particularly roads, buildings, and fences.

*"Somewhere in the village is an artificer coven producing the knucklebone-sized brass spheres we found in the initial assault. Ends up those are used to call for blue dragon support. If we had pressed the button things would have gone very different. Unknown what else they are making."

"The area is not heavily fortified in order to hide their presence but the artificers probably have some tricks up their sleeve. Our mission with 4th squad is to destroy the artificer operation before they can withdraw and to take prisoners, including at least one senior artificer. The more of them the better. Which means we can't just blow up the whole thing from the outside. Once complete we hold for extraction by road."

"Assembly is oh-four-hundred hours. Sgt Wolf, make sure everyone's gear is in order. We have what we have. Make sure the radio is in working order. Any questions?"*

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
El Tee, whats the plan to deal with the dragons that do show up?  Last time we needed to blow a crate full of grenades and ammo, and a Behir to chase it off.

----------


## Cavir

*LT Xilo*

*"Plan A is to use stealth and avoid any traps so we can snatch up the whole lot without dragons being alerted."

"Plan B is we need you, Kral, and/or Sal to make a package where a Weasel is used to set off a Behir when we want it to blow, whether by shooting the Weasel, a booby trap, or just plain throwing the package."

"Plan C is we rush the artificers to get in real close so the dragon will have to kill them too if they kill us. Primary mission complete and we save a lot of other lives."* He pauses with the grim news then continues more upbeat. *"But let's stick to plan A and think about how to make plan B happen if need be. I want us all to live through tomorrow too."*

----------


## JbeJ275

"There are even odds the artificers  hiding away beneath the earth as well. Dragons dont fight as good in cramped tunnels, especially if you can outrun the breath.

One other thing to remember, Sparky has some great tricks but there are bigger badder constructs out there. Keep an eye out for them. Remember that poison wont touch the things, and the best spells to blast them would blow our stealth. Theyre often repair-capable as well, so blow focus on turning them to rubble, not scratching a lot of them at once."

----------


## MrAbdiel

*Operation: Whiplash*

*"We're comin' up on it now, boys and girls.  We're flyin' into the sun right now, but at least it ain't a cloudbank.  I want to see every one of you back at The Mess after this, you hear?  I'm going to sell my soul to get five pounds of shrimp; get you all some Lusanna cooking in your bellies before I let you go again.  Godspeed, kids.  Red light's up."*

Mama June and the _Sunday Best_ had, after all, made it back to base in one piece.  Some of the larger holes caused by the flak taken over Naphto beach have been patched up, but the smaller ones were triaged to later jobs that never quite got off the block.  Whistling away on the floor of the fuselage, particularly prominent, is the entry hole of the round that flashed up between Pvt Ssassten's feet, before the jump.  No one sits over it, now; it seems to invite a repeat occurance; and with only two small squads instead of three large ones, there's plenty of room to avoid the _bad luck_ spots.  Just the newly minted 4th Squad up first, with Pvt. Xu Nandreth, Pvt. Enshun Xanderthrax and Pvt. Hector Longfoot on one side of the plane and Pvt. Lynnova Xenyss, Pvt. Kuzzank Stronghunter, and Pvt. Brikenya McCleod on the other.  The newly minted Corporal O'Hara stands up front of the fuselage near the jump door, where the red light buzzes into life.  His bulky shell occupies more than a single soldier's worth of plane; but by his side is the petite 1st Lt. Temperance Bathory, who occupies less; so it all works out.  Of the three squads that jumped from 3rd Platoon into the fires of Naphto, these two ragged understrength squads are all that remain alive, and able to fight.  This sober fact seems to echo in the hollow, perforated interior of the _Sunday Best._

But the jump approaches; and the time to think about those things rapidly passes.  Outside the open jump door, the morning light is beginning to melt the blues of night into purples and oranges.

_"Stand up!"_

The LT's petite vocals do not carry so well over the roar of plane engines; but you know the routine by rote; and can intuit the command by context.

_"Hook up!"_

A familiar clicking and clacking of lines being rigged to the ceiling mounted cable, whose precision triggering of the _Featherfall_ in your rings is key to a coordinated drop.  Atleast, under more ideal jump conditions than those you faced at Naphto.  Fortunately, the weather report seems fair; even if the precise methodology of today's jump is atypical.

As per a pre-jump briefing, both O'Hara and Bathory begin to cast their respective magics; the LT producing a specially assigned want to assist the task.  Her incantation completes first... and she vanishes.  And the Corporal vanishes. And a swift glimmer of light races out from the epicentre of the casting, washing over the _Sunday Best_ and all its occupants; and they _all vanish._

The drone of the engines continues; the sudder of the plane under your feet as it pushes through the lazy morning air is the same; except now your vision is not a crowd of Skyknives in a tin-can hurtling through the sky, but a brilliantly beautiful Aquiteaux morning, with the sun directly ahead and creeping up over the hillocks on the horizon to illuminate great spans of green land; hedgerows and orchards, pastures and villages connected by winding little roads.  It is only partially marred by the presense of the planes nearby; a 'V' of flyers with their bellies full of Skyknives forming an iron arrow advancing in the sky just above you, infront and either side.  The dull green, scraped and pocked Amcaran flyers seem childishly crude compared to the manicured and curated natural loveliness below, even with its periodic spans of desolation from the initial conquest of the region two years ago.  You do spot one familiar sight among your neighbouring aircraft - the cartoonish, jaunty artwork of a well dressed halfling boy leaping up and clicking his heels together features on the flank of one of the flyers in the V.  This is the _Fancy Lad_, whom the _Sunday Best_ followed in desperate, near fog-blind conditions during the approach to Naphto.  The _Lad_, like the _Best_, has taken the best the Vult could pitch up at them and come back for more.

*Spoiler: Roleplaying Prompts, if you desire them!*
Show

This is the your second combat jump.  You've taken no enemy fire so far, and everything seems to be going to plan, unlike the first time.  That may be a source of hope - if you survived the last circle of hell, how bad can this be?

On the other hand, it's hard not to focus on how empty the fuselage is (before it turned invisible). 
 Your Platoon, Echo Company 3rd, began the war with three ten-strong squads, a LT and a Specialist aide to that LT.  Of those 32 individuals, six are confirmed dead, eight were severely wounded. 
 Four more were never heard from after the jump, and might have been captured by the enemy or blown into the sea to drown.  Two of those missing are Sgt. Alston Hillfield (The dwarf sergeant that Wolf, K'Ral, Doc and Sal trained with all the way up to the war) and Cpl. John Falcon (the laconic human who came up with Gabriel, and upon whom Xilo had been able to rely as a steady second). 
 Eighteen of the thirty two aren't here right now; and those are rough odds.  Pretty sunrise or not, it's a grim calculus.

On the other hand, it might be the novelty of racing through the sky in an invisible plane that is most exciting or upsetting to your character.  Whatever the case, describing your character's state of mind before the jump isn't mandatory, but it _is_ fun; so consider it!


Invisibility when sneaking up on an enemy has some unadvertised complications; it's not hard to trip over your own feet when you can't see them, and the absence of the frame of your brow and nose in your vision is a little unsettling, for some.  Praise must be held aside for Mama June then, who is left for this duration of the next five minutes flying the _Sunday Best_ with a tight grip on the invisible throttle with her invisible hands, and no help at all from any of her instruments.  Corporal O'Hara's spell completes, and gives everyone a small visual reference to orient their senses - wisps of pink faerie fire manifest in the air and crawl over the rim of the jump door, and the ready lights.  For the enemy below, a glowing pink rectangle and a translucent ghost of a red light would not be disenable against the vibrant dawn sky, a thousand feet in the air.  For you, it's something to focus on to settle your senses in this unique experience; and importantly, it's enough to stop you messing up by missing the edge of the plane when you step up to jump, and starting the operation in a painful tumble.

You feel - and see - the angle of your craft tilt away from the rest of the V, which carries on towards the village of Agoreau.  The attractive maroon shingles on the buildings, and the crazed-but-charming character of its cramped roads and alleys give it an inviting look even from up here; but you can see grey armored cars and canvas covered trucks streaking through the streets as the Kreig soldiers, backfooted by Naphto, strain to recover as much of their materiel as possible as they retreat.  Soon, they will have mustered fighters to engage the attack force, and the pilots of the new kingdoms and the old will be jousting in the air above that town as Skyknives plunge to make disruptive attacks, and the ground forces sweep in from the west.  Your target is a little away, but coming up, as you leave the main force behind: the village of Alonn, which consists of one main road lined with perhaps forty homes, two churches, a war memorial, and a sumptuous manor on a hill overlooking the village itself.  Somewhere, inside this sleepy village, a cartel of Vult artificers are performing their dark works.  They are atleast fabricating ultrasonic beacons to coordinate dragon strikes - but what else might lair here, a product of twisted science, beneath a row of houses, or a sumptuous manner, or an unassuming church?

Lieutenant must have called for the sound-off.  You don't hear her do so; but Cpl. O'Hara's gravelly baritone rings through the din:

_"TWO O-KAY!"_

With the predictable sequence from 4th squad before you precipitating:

_"THREE O-KAY!"
"FOUR O-KAY!"
"FIVE O-KAY!"
"SIX O-KAY!"
"SEVEN O-KAY!"
"EIGHT O-KAY!"_

... until it's 5th squad's turn.  After the last-in-line's _fourteen-o-kay_, there's not much to do but wait; and only another minute and a half of that to do before the translucent, magically revealed red light blinks off, and one below it registers green; and the line starts moving, one invisible foot after the other towards the jump door, and the ripping wind of the open sky.  As the jumpers from 4th squad preceed you, they blend back into the visible spectrum once they've dropped thirty feet from the plane; but at that point, they're just flecks in the sky to any attentive onlooker; nothing a Kreig soldier would mistake for an enemy without the visual context of a plane.

That, anyway, was the theory preceeding Operation Whiplash.

*Spoiler: Echo Company!  Let's Gooo!*
Show

Feel free to do as much flavor as you want in your post; pre jump, and post; you all obliged me with a few posts worth of tension building on the first jump, but we're getting straight into it this time.

I will, however, require some rolls!

1. *Constitution Save* against* DC10*, or else throw up into a  flight bag, or if youre a less prepared sort, maybe your helmet or lap. If you roll a natural 1, youre also sickened (the poisoned condition) for an hour.  *If you passed this last time, you may roll with advantage!*

2. *Wisdom Save* against DC 10 or be afraid.  This is not to be confused with the _frightened_ condition; there's no mechanical detriment to failure here.  It just means that within the narrative, for your consideration, something about this - the weird invisible jump tactics, the flashbacks to Naphto, a general superstition of dread - has given you the willies.  The willies wear off, when you no longer find them interesting to flavour your posts.

3. *A flat d316 roll* for equipment malfunction.  If you roll a 1 on your d316, your ring of spell storing does not deploy your featherfall spell. Gods help you.

4. *A d1000*, for no obvious reason but to help me orient some of the randomness of events that are going to happen to your characters. I could roll it for you, but its more fun when you do it. The stop hitting yourself effect.

I recommend you roll all these in the OOC thread, so you can populate your post with the outcomes!

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
_They say the longer things go according to plan the worse it gets when things go arry.  This part is going too smoothly why couldn't we have hit some turbulence, or someone trip at call time.  What the hell am I thinking?  Get your head on straight, or its gonna get blown off._

So it was with growing dread that he made his jump.
Halfway down when his featherfall was supposed to cast it didn't initially

No you stupid ring, I refuse to be a statistic. (Hits ring a couple of times)

(Turns out to just be a bit slow on the cast)

Well, that could have been worse.  I am gonna need to get this checked out before the next jump
While the rational mind may have calmed, the chemicals released in response to his eminent demise have him shaking.

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal was halfway to overwhelmed with jittery nervous energy, the previous jump had let him quash his fear with this one, but the heavy pressure of waiting for the drop combined with the lack of any ability to do anything built up slowly. With a look, first at K'ral then with Wolf and Doc, then to the space left empty by Sarge Hillfield, who Sal had always annoyed almost as much as he loved, thus came the song, the one that Sarge insisted was never appropriate to sing when they did thier first training drops, and so which Sal naturally would start singing the second they left the craft on a trainer jump, knowing it would earn him a few laughs and the worst duty on base when they got to the ground. On a stealth drop like this he couldn't sing it on the way down, but if Sarge would come back for anything it'd be to yell at Sal for singing this, thus he went.

"He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright,
He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight;
He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar,
You ain't gonna jump no more


Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die,
He ain't gonna jump no more

"Is everybody happy?" cried the Sergeant looking up,
Our hero feebly answered, "yes" and then they stood him up;
He jumped into the icy blast, his static line unhooked,
And he ain't gonna jump no more."

Though heedless of any complaints, Sal eventually stopped as it was time for the jump, and so made that same plunge into the cold winds, plunging like a tiny strek of fire to ground below and managing to maintain a stupid grin on his face all the way down.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* looks around the starkly underfilled interior of the _Sunday Best_ and can't help but think of how young so many of his absent and departed Skyknives are...or were. Some barely older than the kids he was used to treating back home.

He couldn't decide if his mood was more or less terrible for not being hungover. He looked sideways to check on the big lug he had to thank for that dubious kindness. Neither if them were heaving their guts up this time, so maybe it had helped. He forced himself to give Wolf an encouraging smile but couldn't face attempting his usual banter.

He got lost in sullen reverie for several more minutes, only broken by Sal's catterwalling. He'd never warmed to the old Sarge but he loved the gesture of keeping the man, and through him all of their lost comrades, alive through annoyance. He raised an invisible martini glass to Sal and the Sarge's empty seat and joins in with gusto and slightly manic laughter! He barely even noticed that they'd all jumped until it was time.to activate his ring.

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf was nervous, given his sickness on the last jump.  But his stomach, filled with excellent food from Monsieur Barbe-épicée, seemed perfectly fine.  _I bet it actually was the food last time,_ Wolf thinks.  

Preoccupied with listening to his own intestinal issues, Wolf doesn't notice the emptiness of the Sunday Best, until it starts to disappear.  As soon as the fuselage below his feet vanishes, Wolf starts to panic.  _Oh shinola, don't look down, don't look down, don't look down,_ but of course, he does.  Seeing the ground so far away and rushing under his feet, Wolf gets the familiar tingling in his legs and stars around his field of vision.  _Maybe I should have told them during training how much I don't like heights..._

But Sal's song pulls him out of it.  Wolf laughs, thinking about the Sarge.  With his best impersonation of Hillfield, Wolf shouts over the engines and Sal's godawful caterwauling, *"You are in for it now, Malichinni!  Just wait until we get on the ground, and you'll see how deep you are in it!"* 

Grinning, Wolf takes up the rear of the group, and jumps out of the Best.  The radio makes things a little different, but Wolf is just happy to be heading towards the solid ground.  Nothing is worse than being up in the sky...

----------


## Cavir

The remains of third platoon lined the fuselage mid-flight. Only half of them left after one jump. How many would there be for the next jump? Squads the size of a team, and each of those led by those who should be leading whole platoons. Were things turning that desperate that quickly? 

Lt Xilo was standing at the cockpit entrance, staring out the front window but actually lost in deep thought. Mama June was used to having him behind her, using his elven sight to help keep an eye out for things that needed noticing. She noticed he wasn't focused on what needed to be focused on. *"Dreaming of that shrimp dinner LT?"*

The question snapped Ladaran back to the moment. *"Can't wait."* His eyes surveyed one more time all he could out the front cockpit windows, looking for threats and studying the land they were about to get dumped into for another kill or be killed struggle. It was time. He no longer had to look out the window. The whole plane was visually gone. Nothing to block the view below. His elven dexterity helped him back to his seat without stumbling as the Sunday Best banked toward their own target. 

It was time. He had to focus on the moment, the mission, and those entrusted to him. The mission and proving to himself more than worthy put him back into the right frame of mind. *"Let's go nab us some Kreig artificers!"* The timing was perfect. The responding cheer was met with the red light buzzing into life. It was time to go. The LT had no hesitation getting out the door. He was itching to go.

----------


## MrAbdiel

4th and 5th squads plunge through the sky, before in loose sequence, the time delay activation pops each _Featherfall_ spell; once more, the flawless implementation of the static-line system.  This time, the drop is a little more stark; not only are you required to drop much closer to the ground before the rings are slated to activate, but the dawning sun illuminates the ground as you race toward it.  You can discern individual pastures; then the fence lines of paddocks, and rapidly individual posts; and fascinated, bovine attention of a single cow watching this rain of people with admirable calm.  At about 150 ft from the ground, the enchantment kicks in; at about 20ft, you finish decelerating to _minimum descent velocity_ (10ft per second), and two seconds later your wobbly legs are finding the hush of fresh grass, or dried mud - or, in Wolf's case, one heel directly into a fresh cow pad.

*Spoiler: Ew, OOC.*
Show

Sorry ContinentalOp; you rolled lowest on the random d1000!  No obvious mechanical effect; just a confirmation that everything was going too smoothly.


But there is no wall of hooded, wolf-masked druids conjuring treacherous winds, this time; no storm of bullets that could rip you from the air; no prematurely expired _featherfalls_ leading to friends with broken necks.  Just a cow in the paddock; and all of 5th squad finding their feet and grouping up on Lt. Xiloscient as per the plan.  To the west, a brick and tile manor estate looms large enough to accommodate perhaps twenty rooms for most people or one overindulgent Old Kingdoms noble; untouched by the ravages of war, and offering no smoke from either of its chimneys.  To the south, a gentle downward spill of lumpen hills leads down into the village proper; the grassy terrain just rugged enough that you can thread a squad through the gaps between them and present little visible profile to the village below as you descend.  To the west, Cpl. O'Hara pulls open an old wire-and-timber country gate for the rest of 4th squad to hustle through; all their numbers similarly accounted for.  Only Pvt. Kuzzank Stronghunter, the thickset wild dwarf, appears to have suffered a misfortune - even as the squad approaches, he has produced a comb to hastily flick remnants of resurgent breakfast from his beard.

"On the whole, more pleasant than the first one, I think."  1st Lt. Bathory remarks, as she joins up; regarding you all with a minimum issue smile that suggests a stoic gratitude for the obvious statement.  Then she's all business, turning to 2nd Lt. Xiloscient.  "We hit the ideal landing zone any everything; so let's push our luck.  There's even odds the artificers are holed up in one of the bigger buildings in town, rather than under the smaller ones; so let's clear the big structures first and then, if we have to, go door to door; getting intel from locals and captives as we can.  I'll take 4th to clear the manor.  We're the bigger squad and it's a bigger place.  If we hit paydirt, we'll message you.  Otherwise, we'll meet up with you down the slope."

*Spoiler: OOC: Welcome to Alonn, Gentlemen.*
Show

Alonn is a small enough village that your characters are likely to have memorized the map, at least in its major details, from the briefing Xilo gave you.



Strictly speaking, 1st Lt Bathory is in charge but the distance between a 1st and 2nd Lt is not great, and there is more room for pushback and counter-suggestion; so Xilo has the right to suggest alternative approaches.  But if you do end up heading down into town, the first step will be a Stealth Check to head down the hilly slope unseen.  It's only DC 8 because of the favourable terrain.

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal smirks at Wolf's misfortune in the paddock, then nods at the officers direction. Rifle in hand he ascends the slope, holding a line towards the temple of Tyr. 

Stealth: (1d20+2)[*4*]

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xilo keeps his voice low. *"Sal, hang on."* 

He gets closer to Lt Bathory to maintain noise discipline and keeps to a whisper. *"Yes, so far so good. Sal's thought last night is they may have constructs and traps set up instead of troops since that's their specialty, like his. Like you said the manor is large. Whether you find them in the manor or we find them down below that means we'll be split up and unable to support the other. I'd suggest a bounding overwatch for both squads to get to the manor. One squad can take the front of the manor while the other takes the rear. If we want to search the inside we can speed it up with each squad taking a floor. Getting a view from the top floor down to the village may be useful too. If there's nothing there we can alternate squads per building to clear them and still be in a position to support each other." *

----------


## MrAbdiel

Lt. Bathory grimaces a little; looks to the manor, looks to the village, looks to the 2LT.

"Look, I'm about managing risk.  And the risk that we're going to get caught offguard by a superior force or disruption without being able to cover each other weighs less in my estimation than the risk of letting these Vult-geeks get away because we didn't cover enough ground quickly enough.  We're on a short clock, and sticking together gives them a real chance to get away if we don't luck out on finding their bolthole early - "

The Dhampir purses her lips, and looks up at the elven officer; extends a fingertip and pokes up at his right shoulder.

"...But we got off that beach because while I was weighing risks, you moved with your gut.  So tell me, _Lieutenant._  What does your gut tell you?  Cover twice as much ground, or concentrate twice as much power?"

*Spoiler: OOC:*
Show

Lt. Bathory definitely disagrees with the suggestion, but she trusts Xilo's instincts enough to yield to it if he's considered those downsides.

Whether or not Xilo chooses to follow his initial instinct or second thought, I'll take those Stealth Rolls from everyone - I'll just compare it to the DC8 if you're heading down to the village under cover of the hilly slope, and to a DC12 if you're bounding-overwatchin' towards the manor!

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
Is still shaking from the drop, so he keeps belly low as he snakes down the hill.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Stealth (1d20+10)[*24*]

----------


## Cavir

*Lt Xilo*

*"I figure the manor is the village prime location so it is either the HQ and/or our target. Even if it's just the HQ we could find a map telling us where our target is. The briefing mentioned finding a staff list to ID prisoners right? It'd be at their HQ. That's where the radio would be too. Need to cut that off. With all the positives I think it's worth having us hit it together for speed. If it's empty I'll peel off downhill while you finish it. It's your call."*

----------


## MrAbdiel

1LT Bathory looks up at the much taller 2LT Xiloscient, sucks her teeth pensively (incidentally drawing attention to the pronounced, sharp cuspids that spoil the daintiness of an otherwise perfectly dainty smile), and turns to the combined squads.

"Alright.  Let's all hit that manor together.  Let's get Burnfaire and Xenyss thirty yards up the front, and the rest of us chasing their wake.  We don't have much cover - just some of these hills at the top of the slope - so fast will serve us better than careful, but that's no reason to call attention to ourselves.  If we're lucky, it's the hot-spot.  If we're not, expect a handful of servants and possibly one very confused Dame of the Aquiteaux collaborators.  If we're spotted on the way in, we'll take it at a dead run.  Manor like that'll have stairs at both ends; 4th and I will take the top floor;_ Xilo's Psychos_, you're clearing the bottom floor.  West to East.  3rd Platoon, let's move out."

And then you're off, racing across the paddocks and open grass towards the manor.  For some of the trek, you are able to rush low around one the curve of one hill, across a stretch, and into the cover of another; but much of the approach is just spending as little time as possible in the open, and not doing anything foolish to make noise.  By the time you've made it to the eastern face of the two story building, you have stood on exactly zero mines, heard no shouts of _alarm!_ or _schnell!_, and lost no friends to enemy snipers.  The sounds of war are present, but distant - you can see smoke plumes spiralling up from Agoreau in the distance, and the rippling pop-pop-pop of bombers dropping their sequenced payloads.

You are immediately confronted by a set of locked glass windows, on the lower and upper floors.  4th Squad gets straight to work; Pvt Lynovva Xenyss is producing a sleek black baton with a spider icon on its top as she gets to the wall.  She flicks her wrist, and a slim metal shaft telescopes out from it, turning the rod into a 5ft spike she jabs into the ground, finagling the facing of the icon toward the wall.  The rest of the squad gets to the wall, and one at a time, sets feet upon the wall to carry on up to the second floor untroubled by the ninety degree violation of normal protocol

*Spoiler:  The L.I. "Drow-Ladder" Ascent Tool*
Show

When stuck into the ground, this useful device created by Drow artificers in Albinon enchants the man-made wall it is facing for thirty feet in all directions from the facing of the icon on its top.  The effect permits the wall to be traversed as if climbers were under the effect of a _Spider Climb_ spell.  It's a heck of a tool - you can't imagine what someone in 4th squad had to trade to get one.


Hector Longfoot is first up the wall, settling beside a window, peeking inside and, apparently not seeing anything alarming, flips out a couple of long-stemmed thieves tools to attempt to open the window quietly.  The halfling needs only four seconds before there is a promising _click_, the windows are pulled wide open, and 4th squad starts streaming up the wall and hopping inside, leaving Pvt Xenyss to pack up the Drow-Ladder and climb up a knotted rope someone tosses down.

On the ground floor, the first obstacle is the same - a locked window, infront of what seems like a personal library.  No one is visible, but the packed shelves defeat sight lines - so it's hard to be sure.  What is for certain is that you need to clear this building _fast_ as much as you need to do so quietly - but where's the dividing line between haste that wins medals, and haste that gets you shipped home in a box?

*Spoiler: OOC Breaching Action Time!*
Show

It's Breaching time!

The first step is someone proficient in thieves tools attempting to pop the lock - a DC12 Thieves Tools Check.  Anyone trained can make it - but after one attempt, pragmatism must take over, and you'll be forced to either break the window or else 4th squad will be ahead of you in the search, their movements above likely alerting people below anyway, and making the quiet entry moot - so break-and-enter it shall be.

I'd like actions from everyone.  I'm pretty open to suggestions.  The only mandatory one is the lock-pick (which defaults to a break-and-enter if failed) that someone ought to take; otherwise, here's some suggestions:

_Move ahead of the group, listening for occupants (Perception [Hearing] Check)
Search the library as you go for clues linked to the Kreig Artificers (Investigation)
Take point on movement, trying to lead the others around noise hazards (Stealth)
Assist someone taking an action (DC 8 of the skill the other is rolling, to grant advantage.)_

These are just suggestions; if you can think of a creative use of another skill or tool you have, fire away; the worst I can say is 'no, roll something else'.  Remember your objectives are to find the Kreig Artificers, who you suspect have some kind of secret workshop operation in Alonn; finding any clues toward that end, even if it's just eliminating this building from the list to check, is useful.  Of course, you could always just attempt to stuff your bags with things that look valuable, instead.  That, too, is a roll you could make! (Sleight of Hand)

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* makes a lame attempt ar the regimental hand signals as they move up to the window. He's either saying that he's taking point on breaking in and searching the library for clues, or something about a game of dominoes. Fortunately for the group he is quick enough on his feet to get to work before his goofing off in training can cause too much confusion.

Microretractors at the ready, he moves up to the window. Sadly a quiet screeching noise begins as the poorly maintained old world lock refuses to budget!

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show

Thieves tools (1d20+8)[*10*]
Investigation (1d20+8)[*14*]

----------


## JbeJ275

With a firm hand Sal, pulls Doc back a step by the shoulder and approaches the lock himself, he pulls a device from his webbing and places it in the lock then begins turning it, releasing a small squirt of oil and creating the audible sound of tiny intricate gears inside the device lining up with the interior tumblers of the lock. After these gears give a louder than normal click Sal pushes down a large button on the device and gives the handle a more forceful turn, opening the lock. 

Upon entry as the one best trained in artificery he goes to look over the records to check for any records that might indicate a position favourable to the artificers. He also has his own tinkers tools drawn, ready to take apart any unusual items that might be left from previous artificers or else to examine any artificeral digraams found. 

Investigation: (1d20+8)[*14*]
(If allowed_ Tinkers Tools: (1d20+11)[*20*]

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xilo quickly and quietly follows in through the window. Sal is already looking for clues. Xilo moves towards the door to ensure no one else was there with them. If the squad are the only ones in there, the LT keeps his rapid fire voice very low. "Sal, Doc, quick look here then follow to give us cover. Don't linger or you'll be left behind. Wolf, Ginger, take lead. No shooting if at all possible. Let civilians live if they don't resist. A friendly civilian could make this all this easier for us. Kral and I will be right behind you. Overwatch by twos. You two take doors to the left, we'll take doors on the right. Move those we find into side rooms to keep the hall clear. Stealthy and fast. Go." He slings his M1 and readies his pistol and kabar, ready to move out.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Perception (1d20+5)[*19*]
Stealth (1d20+8)[*20*]

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf nods to the Lieutenant, also pulling out his .45 and K-bar.  He makes sure Ginger is behind him and heads out into the hallway.  

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show

Perception: (1d20+8)[*23*]
Stealth: (1d20+7)[*15*]

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger* is slightly behind him to the left.
Affirmative ell tee

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Perception: (1d20+8)[*28*]
Stealth: (1d20+10)[*29*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

5th squad moves in, quickly, quietly, and orderly; the shuffle of rucksacks and the tapping of boots minimized and admirably efficient.

Sal and Doc move in first after the breach, both turning keen intuitions to the contents of the library for clues or suspicious finds.  Neither spots anything outright revealing or incriminating - but that's scoping the scene on the run; and perhaps once the house is secure and determined to be free of enemies, a more comprehensive investigation may yield better results.

Wolf and Ginger take the lead, and in tandem with Xilo and K'ral in a duo of their own, begin checking rooms and moving on when they prove threatless.  A closet full of towels.  A lavish bathroom with a clawfoot tub.  A dining room.  Another dining room. A _third_ dining room.  During this sweep, the sound of 4th squad's footsteps on the floor above continues at the same muted tempo, implicitly communicating that no enemy contacts have been made above.

Xilo and K'ral check another door, and almost move on - but the LT's intuition warns him that something is amiss about this particular room about halfway across the plan of the lower floor.  From the outside, it's spaced for decent sized room - perhaps a modest fourth dining room? - but within, the small office occupies too little space in all dimensions - as if the walls around this one room were four feet thick.  Not to mention, every other room in the place appears to be sumptuous, lushly furnished, and well stocked - exactly what one would expect of a petty governer of Aquiteaux.  But the office has a pair of undecorated, functional oak bookshelves and an uncarved oak desk.  These, among other hints from the room's decor, suggest an effort to furnish born of a much more utilitarian mind.

Wolf and Ginger, stalking like ghosts, are completely undetected as they nudge open a cracked door and duck quickly into cover behind a counter in the estate's lower kitchen.  It's a good thing, too; entering from the other side of the room are two figures, hustling with obvious haste and speaking with hushed desperation.  One of them, a slender blonde elfess in a black and white Aquiteauan maid's uniform that is exactly as frilly, lacey and frankly _suggestive_ as the comical depictions of such back home, is being driven by the hectoring of the other figure.  This second is definitely a soldier; and by the cut of his uniform, definitely a Kreiger; but you're unfamiliar with his specific association.  A black and grey flak jacket is loose open on the thick-set human's body, with a large red inverted chevron briefly visible on the back, beneath the submachine strapped to his body.

*Spoiler: Language: Aquiteauxan*
Show

*"Leave it!  Leave it all, Danielle; we must go now!"*, the man pleads.
_"I heard you, I heard you!  But I have money, here - if we are running, we will need it..."_


After a terse exchange, the elfess opens a wall mounted cupboard, moves some jars of preserves delicately to the counter, and fishes out a coffee tin that is too weighty in her slim limbs to contain only coffee.

*Spoiler: Language: Aquiteauxan*
Show

_"I - I need to go upstairs and grab some clothes, too!  I can't go anywhere like this!  I'll look ridiculous, Klaus."_


The man seizes her wrist - initially over firmly, then with obvious, desperate tenderness.

*Spoiler: Language: Aquiteauxan*
Show

*"There is.  No. Time.  This whole place is going up soon.  There will be more clothes in Casianata.  Come on."*


*Spoiler: Free Insight Check: DC 15*
Show

The man, obviously, feels protective of the maid; likely, he's in love with her, and she is returning the signs of affection.  But you catch a tension in her face when she's looking away from him and an exhaustion that suggest this elopement may be more pragmatic for one side of the pairing than the other.


*Spoiler: OOC: Contact!*
Show

Wolf and Ginger, the onus is on you.  Right now you know Xilo and K'ral are about ten yards behind you in the hallway checking out another room, and Doc and Sal aren't far behind them.  You've contact now with one apparent civilian and one apparent enemy combatant. 
 What do you do?

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*

Message Cantrip to LT:
Contact, Kitchen, 1 Krieg and 1 suspected collaborator

To Wolf: (Also whispered)Do you think you can get behind him?

----------


## Continental Op

At Gabe's question, Wolf tries to remember the layout of the room and shakes his head.  Not understanding their language and misreading the situation, Wolf decides to act now.  He holsters his .45 and K-bar, and grabs his M1 Thompson.  Wolf points to Gabe and signals him to go around the other side of the counter.  He then holds up five fingers and counts down.  

At zero, Wolf stands up and points his submachine gun at the Krieger.  In a low growl he says (in Amcaran) "Don't make a sound or we kill you now.  Step away from the fraulein, slowly.  NOW."

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Wolf is doing his best to intimidate the soldier.  He hopes the surprise will freeze the Krieger, or at least that him and Gabe being spaced apart and both trained on him will stop him from trying anything.
Intimidate roll: (1d20+5)[*20*]

----------


## Cavir

Xilo's keen senses knew the room was weird. He thought for a moment to relate the end of the previous room and this room to get an idea where the missing space was. He directed K'ral to help him search the probable area. His hand goes up, signaling Hold, as he gets the magical message from Ginger. Message received, he waves for Ginger to follow. Xilo quietly darts to the near doorway and peeks into the hallway across to the other side. He gets low and moves to get to the door across the way without being seen. 

It's just in time to hear Wolf taking charge in the room. Xilo uses that as his signal and shifts sideways halfway into the doorway with his pistol leading the way. This is the sgt's act, Xilo waits for the krieger's reaction.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Perception (1d20+5)[*17*]
Stealth (1d20+5)[*20*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

The Kreiger doesn't seem to speak Amcaran, but the sergeant's aggressive demand penetrates language barriers, and he freezes.  The tension in his arms is clear as he restrains a fierce instinct to grab for his weapon's strap; but instead he cautiously steps to cover the maid  from any possible fire from Wolf; one arm slowly reaching back to herd his elven companion back with him, toward the other exit of the room - unwittingly, towards where the sergeant has signalled Pvt. Ginger to go.  The soldier's other hand, he holds up, palm out, open, in a universally comprehensible gesture of _everyone is calm here.  Let's not let it go further._

But his expression is a familiar one to the Amcarans - the wide, alert eyes set in the stony, flat affect features of a man not unfamiliar with violence.

_"We leave!"_

The elven woman pleads, clutching the precious coffee tin to her stomach, staying close behind her protector as they shuffle back, in slow defiance of the demands. _ "We leave, we leave!"_

The declaration, imperfect as it is, seems to be offered as a compromise - _we'll go, and you won't have any trouble from us_ - but has the panicked tone and repetition of late-onset piety, in the face of oblivion.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Ginger* pantomines the action of sitting.  He keeps aim at them, but does sit himself.
He also uses this as a distraction as he attempts to mage hand to yank away the smg.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Slight of Hand: (1d20+10)[*25*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

As they back towards the exit, suddenly the Kreiger becomes aware that he is flanked by another Amcaran - wildness in his eyes suggesting that, for whatever rational sense surrender or cooperation might make to many soldiers, this one will not countenance it.  Perhaps he prefers death to dishonor.  Perhaps he is afraid of something else that surrender implies, more than the guns pointed at him.  But he snaps, and shoves his elven companion back so harshly that she stumbles roughly into the doorframe banging her shoulder and nearly falling.

*"Geh raus!  SCHNELL!"*

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel*
Show

"Get out!  HURRY!"


Then steps _away_ from the door in a move that seems calculated to draw fire lines away from the elf, and slings his weapon to bear on Gabriel just ten feet away.

Only, that part doesn't quite manifest.  He slaps at his side where the strap for the gun should be, but as he took the backward step, the faint, transluscent spectre of a hand has unbuckled the weapon and floated it well out of his reach.  Now disarmed of his primary weapon and having gone overtly hostile with two armed and trained enemies with their sights on him, he reaches for the sidearm at his hip.

*Spoiler: OOC Combat!*
Show

The enemy has been disarmed of his primary weapon, but seems to have elected to take his incredibly slim chances rather than surrendering despite Wolf's threatening command and Gabriel's good-cop 'settle down' gesture.  He and the elf woman are surprised -she from being shoved, he from finding himself disarmed - so everyone can take an action before we see if rolling initiative is necessary.  Xilo, Gabriel, and Wolf can all choose to attack if they want to; others can move towards the shouting and commotion to be in position to assist if it's necessary.

To be clear, no one failed an important roll or anything here - but some soldiers would rather fight to the death than go quietly, and it seems like this chap is one of those kinds!

----------


## Cavir

*Xilo's Psychos' Xilo going Psycho*

The LT at the doorway was hyper focused on the enemy. At the Kreiger's first instant of action, which ended up being to push the captive, Xilo sprung into action. He darted towards the Kreiger at a slight angle which ended up being perfect for dodging the elfess and ricocheting off the edge of the counter to go right at the enemy. Reaching the Krieger who was still reaching for some weapon, Xilo aims two quick strikes at the Krieger's neck with his kabar.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Strike 1: (1d20+8)[*26*] Damage (1d6+5)[*11*]
Strike 2: (1d20+8)[*22*] Damage (1d6+5)[*10*]
May spend a superiority die for Precision Attack, let's see how these go.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* hears a muffled commotion from further into the building and scuttles out of the library as quickly and quietly as he can.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Move dash and bonus action stealth. Waiting just outside the doorway.
(1d20+4)[*9*]

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal follows quickly in Doc's wake, trying to ensure he's ready to help his team.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger* should have suspected he had a holdout weapon.
Sitting down as he is, he not in a position to dodge effectively.  He was about to open fire, when he notices the LT come in for close quarters. He throws himself forward in an attempt to lock the soldier's legs.

----------


## MrAbdiel

*Spoiler: OOC Stuff*
Show

Looks like ContinentalOp is having a busy one, so I'll assume he means business with his knife and gets stuck in.


Fumbling for his pistol, the Kreiger has only one free hand to grab at Wolf's wrist as he moves in blade flashing; and none left at all when Xilo crosses the room.  An effort to pivot away is foiled by Gabriel's arrest of his legs, and at that point, it's all over; the Lieutenant's knife punches quickly once-twice down behind the soldier's collarbone, and after a few seconds of grunting denial with Wolf's free hand clapped over his mouth, he goes slack, and dies.

The maid, now denuded of her protector, is struck by the full exposure of her civilian vulnerability to the teeth of war; and her throat issues a hoarse sound like a scream that has been shivved and restrained as comprehensively as her companion.  Then she's bolting, heels clicking on the hardwood, clutching the coffee can to herself as she books out the back of the kitchen and into the hall beyond; and all while Wolf, Xilo and Ginger are discretely putting down the Kreiger.

Unengaged and able to spring to intercept, Doc and Sal are able to bolt down the hallway adjacent to the room to stop her from getting too far - but as they come into view of each other, the elf's otherwise pretty eyes are wide and near to delirious with panic.  Whether this is the innocent's fear of danger, or a collaborator's fear of justice, one cannot say for sure; but she has not started screaming blue murder just yet, for whatever reason.

*Spoiler: OOC!*
Show

Sal and Doc are free enough to intercept the civvie (K'ral keeps watch), but on the assumption they have one opportunity (each) to do _something_ before she continues to flee or kicks up a fuss, what are they going to do? 
 You're both in a situation where you can move an attack, if you wanted to attempt to grapple and restrain; but if you want to gamble that she's an innocent party, you might even be able to talk her into standing down.  Or, if you want to just give her the old expert goodnight-tap with the butt of your service pistol, you can make an attack with the stipulation you are fighting to subdue.  Or anything else you care to sell me; those are options too.

----------


## JbeJ275

Skidding to a stop with his hands empty and his hell fire rifle slung over his back Sal puts his hands up and in front of him and says as calmly as he can.

Look miss, I know this is scary but keep calm and well get you out of here to safety okay?

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Doc follows Sal's lead trying to calm down the fleeing woman. He launches into the l'aquitaire he'd learned on childhood holidays and practiced again in the field hospital.

_Mademoiselle, we mean you no harm. If you give us a moment we can get you to safety. We just all need to keep quiet._

*Spoiler: Action*
Show

Persuasion but I'm happy if giving Sal advantage is more appropriate (1d20)[*18*]

----------


## Cavir

Xilo watched as the others lowered the Krieger. *"He had a choice. He chose poorly. Search him quickly then let's keep going."* He wipes his blade on the Krieger then sheaths it. Heading back to the hallway he also puts his pistol away, assuming Doc and Sal stopped the elfess' escape. He hoped so, and that he could talk some sense into her, elf to elf.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Doc and Sal's result would come before Xilo gets to the hallway. Intent is to talk to her in elven (safe to assume she would speak it?) or with his limited l'aquitaire.

----------


## MrAbdiel

*Spoiler: OOC:*
Show

Well, that's two pretty decent persuade rolls.  Hard not to respect the team effort: sometimes the dice are kind.


Startled, doe-like eyes shoot between the tiefling and the halfling; and she squeezes the coffee can to her bodice as one might clutch a talisman to _squeeze_ its second hand divine guidance in a moment of struggle.

_"S'il vous plaît, messieurs. S'il vous plaît, je dois partir. Je ne dirai rien ! Je sais rien! Je ne suis que la femme de chambre, je le jure."_
*Spoiler: L'aquitaire*
Show

_"Please, sirs.  Please, I need to leave.  I won't say anything!  I don't know anything!  I am just the maid, I swear."_


The dual appeal seems to have been enough; buying her calm at least for a moment, and long enough for the team to regroup.  The addition of Xilo, and his elf-to-elf appeal, does not immediately accomplish the desired result.  He has just stabbed to death a man in the other room, after all; the presense of that slaying hangs on him, and reflects in her eyes.  But quickly it becomes apparent that whatever romantic notion the slain Kreiger was playing at, this woman is no romantic: she is a survivalist, and a pragmatist.  All that is required to win her cooperation is for it to seem more practical immediately and good for her longterm health.    Once it is clear to her they mean no implicit harm, she answers questions in a rapid-fire gabble that the listeners who know the tongue in part can piece together.

Her name is Danielle.  The soldier was Klaus.  The can is full of Kreigmarks and Amcaran dollars, which had been squirreled away for just such an escape when the time came.  But the ferocity of the reversal of fortunes in the war has been so swift, and the flight east from the front so catastrophic, that it has somewhat taken the region and its occupants by surprise, and scattered such carefully laid plans.  The regional magistrate who ostensibly dwells in this house is Dame Candeece le Velle; a human woman in her middle age, who - according to Danielle - is _wilting_ even as she enjoys the company of the high status Officers of the Vult who tour Alonn, as well as the other satellite villages of Agoreau.

*Spoiler: Wilting*
Show

_Wilting_ is the a somewhat tasteless term employed by some elves to describe the aging process which, famously, spares their race almost entirely.  Elderly elves encounter some thinning and silvering of the hair, but almost always in a distinguished and becoming way; and the edge they lose in mild physical deterioration they surpass with experience in all arenas of comparison to younger elves.  The Kingdoms of the Old World are considerably less cosmopolitan than Amcara, and elves tend more to isolate into cities and domains of their own, supported by a strong social class of merchants, diplomats and traders - called _rangers_ in the elven parlance as the spiritual inheritors of that dynamic rover mantle in an age where the maps have no more dragons.

For Old World elves, a world which has become choked with competing human dynasties within the past four hundred years (read: the last generation, in elf time) is confronting and sometimes disgusting.  Most races go through senescence, but humans being so numerous might be unfairly characterized by it.  To old elven eyes, humans shoot up like flowers one day, then wilt and shrivel the next.  Amcaran elves, being more cosmopolitan in the New World's Princedoms, are _all_ rangers in the continental sense, and accordingly do not often use such blunt descriptors.  It would not be unfair to consider the term condescending and even mildly bigotted against humans and especially human women.  Whether Danielle is aware of this or not is anyone's guess.


She continues in slow, sloppy common now that she's calmed down enough to attempt it.

_"But Dame le Velle 'as not been 'ere in sree days.  I see 'er with Kreigsmarshall Steiger and, ah... a labcoat man; 'is name I do not know, but 'e push ze Kreigsmarshall around.  But only ze Kreigmarshall leave in 'is car with 'is driver; zen we just wait.  Zere were soldiers quartering 'ere, until today; zey flee today.  Rupert - ze 'ead servant - keeps us tasked, but zome of ze others flee now zere are no soldiers.  Klaus came back for me; saying 'ze whole place will go up'. _ Explosifs_, you see?  Please, you must let me run!"_


A crack of a pistol shot echoes through the floorboards from above, followed by a thump, and a clatter of metal muted through the structure.  K'ral, who has been listening intently from the hallway closer to the sound's approximate issue, quickly looks over to the squad and gives a negatory shake of the head, and a rapid sequence of hand gestures.

*Spoiler: Amcaran Warrior Hand Sign*
Show

"One round.  (Sounds like) One of ours.  (Sounds like) Necessary kill.  Not broad contact.  (Sounds like) Operational subtlety still in tact."

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* flinched at the sound of the shot from upstairs. He keeps glancing towards the LT as he talks to Danielle, chexking that he isn't jeapoirdise operational security.

Mademoiselle Danielle, what happened to this lab coat man? Is he still in the village? Have you seen any other lab coat people?

We will help you escape to safety, but that information would really help us.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
Having overheard "explosives"
El Tee, if they have rigged the building, the main stash will be on the lower floors, probably the basement.  I will see if it can be disarmed.  I recommend getting ours off the higher floors.

Ginger will make haste looking for stairs down.

----------


## MrAbdiel

_"No no - yes, but... zey have many come and go, you see?  Ze Dame, she ah... entertain zem.  But I do not know where zhey are not.  Fled, per'aps.  I did not see 'im leave, but I 'ave but two eyes."_  Daniel confesses at once, oscillating on the spot like a child who needs to urinate, desperate to be permitted to flee.

But when Pvt Ginger starts looking for a way down, she shakes her head in a growing panic.  _"Zhere is only two levels, 'ere!  No wine cellar; bottles are run up from ze village."_


*Spoiler: A Message To 2Lt Xiloscient*
Show

The familiar voice of 1Lt Bathory chimes into your head.  "Xilo; top floor secure.  Just one civvy.  Tried to draw on us; too slow.  Still scouting.  One room with strange dimensions.  Secret compartments, doors?  Respond."

----------


## JbeJ275

"You heard the lady, the likely artificers are out of here. We can keep clearing this place for security, but let's hurry up about it."

----------


## Cavir

Xilo responds to Bathory in a silent whisper. _"Enemy KIA. Civilian being questioned. Said they're leaving due to building going to explode. Unknown when. Labcoat possibly here. Strange room here too. Searching."_ 

The LT gets his people moving. *"Sgt, Kral, take security. The Krieger had nothing of note? The rest of you search that room. Its size doesn't match what it should be. Illusions or secret passageway?"*

Xilo spreads his hands out in a calming motion to the elfess. He speaks to her in elven but quickly switches to common if she doesn't seem to understand it. *"Miss Danielle, we are here for the labcoats. This town will soon be clear of Kriegers and you won't have to keep running. You'll be safe."* He points to the room with the weird dimensions. *"Something different about that room. What was it used for? By who? The labcoat? A secret passage in there?"*

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Doc

As the LT continues to question Danielle, the halfling slips down the hallway to have a look at the strange room he mentioned. He looks for signs of a secret passageway that might not be so obvious from his tallet squad-mates bird's eye view.

*Spoiler: Action*
Show

Investigation (1d20+8)[*28*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

Mademoiselle Danielle shakes her head, in naked confusion.  "Who use it?  It is Dame le Velle's meeting room; one of several.  Ugly, I thought.  But the officials, and the Dame, zey use it sometimes; the labcoats, yes.  Discreet meeting.  Rupert maintains zis one personally, and ze one above it; ze ozer staff forbidden.  Lest we learn, ah..."  She strives for the word, failing in l'Aquitaire, failing in common Albinonese as much as she knows it; reaching then for another loan word.  _"Sasaeta?"_

*Spoiler: Elven Speakers: "Sasaeta"*
Show

  Probably refering to the general war discussions and intelligence that takes place in official discussions in the Vult heirarchy.

Sasaeta; noun.  Modification of _aeta_, with the emphatic prefix _sa_ to compound to _saeta_, and compounded again to _sasaeta_.

_Aeta_ is something like a secret, or special knowledge which is defined by its exclusivity.  _Saeta_ is then extremely rare knowledge.  The second emphasizer makes _sasaeta_ knowledge of utmost importance.

In this context, the import may be relative; classified war secrets may be only somewhat important to the officers who know them, but for a maid likely to be executed on suspicion of snooping and possibly being a spy... one can see how, in relation to her position, it is critically important for her not to learn things that make her disposable.



Meanwhile, with his eye for surgical detail, Doc rapidly eliminates the sparse furniture in the room from contention for important feature, and finds no secret doors or passages - but there is an _access panel_.  Hidden in the optical illusion of bland wallpaper, the halfling pries open the flap of plywood to find a fusebox, an orderly network of wires... and two barely glowing buttons; one featuring an up arrow, the other featuring a down arrow.  Elevators are a fairly recent addition to the world, only coming into wide use in the last twenty years or so and still viewed with suspicion and occasional superstitious dread by cloistered older folks.  But Doc definitely knows one when he sees one: the extra space around the walls must accommodate the mechanisms of the elevator's shaft.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc*

Doc rushes back along the corridor to he rest of the team. He can barely keep his voice to an operationally appropriate volume.

LT, that "secret room's" an elevator! No dea what's down at the bottom though.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
Lets get these doors open to see if the shaft has been tampered with.
(He is mostly looking for explosives)
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


(assuming some others help him open the elevator doors, or assuming that it can be opened via open lock)
Spot: (1d20+8)[*21*]
Thieves tools (1d20+10)[*15*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

Gabriel - and soon the rest of the squad - are probing over the mystery room.  A little curiousity and vigilance verifies Doc's initial analysis - not so much that the room contains an elevator, but that it _is_ one.  Gabriel finds a few more panels hidden around the walls; they reveal the hollow sides of the shaft, steel beams, a narrow two feet of crawlspace, functional cabling and wirework, and everything to indicate the health of the machine; and nothing to suggest a trap, or sabotage.

Hector Longfoot appears in the doorway; the scruffy halfling carrying word from 4th squad above: _"Looks like upstairs is clear, too.  Just one butler; rushed for a trenchgun hidden in an umbrella stand, but we put him down without incident.  But the room above this one is an odd-man-out, too; no controls up there, though.  Looks like the lower one is the one that sets the agenda.  Never seen a double-decker elevator before, but I guess war is a great time for innovators.  But if there's a giant secret elevator here, I guess Lieutenant Xiloscient's instincts were right about where we ought to start sweeping the town.  We might have lost a lot of lead knocking on doors down the hill."_

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xilo nods at the information from his men and Hector. *"The controls are here. We'll take this room and go down. Tell Lt Bathory I suggest they occupy the second floor part of the elevator while the elevator goes down. Our guest Danielle here is a civilian and will be leaving on her own."*

He turns to Danielle. *"Thank you for your help. You are free to leave. I suggest you head to the library, exit through the window and out into the woods beyond. That's the way we came so it will be safe that way. Don't go too far, the enemy will be gone from here soon enough and then you can come back to town even if this manor is gone. If I can and you are not too far I will send you a message through magic that you can return. Good luck."*

LT sets up their next move. *"Alright, everyone into the 'elevator'. Check your gear and be ready for a fight when the doors open. If the labcoats are down there and the staff didn't know it, there may be tunnels leading down to the town too."* With Danielle gone Xilo arms himself with his M1 and attaches the bayonet. With 4th squad having had time to be ready or at least send a message, signals the down button to be pushed.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* nods his assent the LT and even gives half a salute. He checks over his med kits and various webbing pouches before finally checking his gun. Hunkering down in the far corner of the elevator he hopes he'll be able to avoid any incoming fire long enough to start patching up his team.

Hey Sal, are they all going to be like you down there? I don't know whether to feel more sorry for them or us!

The slight tremble in his half-hearted jibe betrays the waves of epinephrine courses through his body.

----------


## JbeJ275

"I thought you'd finally managed to figure it out doc. There are no artificers like me on the continent. Neu Titansberg's the only place to get this smart and this mad."

As Sal is speaking, Sparky starts to crawl out and emit another shielding pulse, and Sal switches between examining his hellfire rifle and any signs of something untoward in the mechanics of the elevator

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Everyone gets (1d8+5)[*13*] Temp HP

----------


## Cavir

*Xilo*

*"This may be like the underground headquarters we faced at the beach. Sgt, set up the squad for when the door opens. Covering fire, assault, all the standard stuff. Remember, we do want at least some prisoners."*

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf nods to Xilo, enters the room, and looks around.  He says, mostly to himself, [COLOR="#008000"]"So, the way in is probably the only way out, right?  And we should assume they will know someone is coming down. "  He thinks for a second.  

In a normal voice (not shouting, but enough to carry through the room) Wolf addresses the group.  "You hear the Lieutenant, gents.  We don't want to get bottle-necked in here wherever we land.  So let's form up.  K'ral, you take the lead position.  Get out of the doorway and try to cover the rest of us.  Ginger and I will be right behind you.  Ginger, you break left and I will go right.  We move forward and try to find some cover, or rush any Kriegers shooting at us.  But remember not to shoot unless we have to.  Maybe we will be lucky and no one is down there to greet us." 

He turns to Sal and Doc.  Sal, can your doohickey give us some shielding on the way down?  And you and Doc should be the last out, in case the rest of us get into trouble and need saving.  In the meantime, watch out for any grenades thrown in here.  Doc, we all know you are handy at catching and returning grenades."  He grins.  

Wolf looks around again. "There.  Did I forget anyone?"

----------


## MrAbdiel

Pvt. Longfoot hustles back to 4th squad; and as 5th squad assembles in the mystery room, the shuffle of boots up top confirms their counterparts are doing the same.  Mademoiselle Danielle watches the Amcarans head back into the hallway, her expression washing through phases of surprise at her freedom, releif for the opportunity to flee it grants, and finally dread for the danger such a flight must entail.  Still clutching the coffee can, she backs off with a few clicking steps of her needlessly heeled shoes, and offers as a final, insistent point of wisdom:

_"Vous devriez courir!"_

*Spoiler: l'Aquitaire*
Show

_"You should run!"_


...And then takes her own advice; rushing off to another room and with the rattle and shuffle of a lock, out a door into the mauled and torn countryside.

Pvt. K'ral checks his weapon and hunkers in beside the doorway, as the rest of the squad squares in.  Then Pvt. Ginger hits the button... and nothing happens.  A minute of trial and error with with the combined minds of Gabriel and Sal reveals the problem - the circuit is incomplete, and completed by locking the door (accomplished easilly enough, from the inside with the handle's thumb-compression mechanism).  _Then_ there's a shudder; a sudden and horrifying one foot drop, and then a smooth and suspiciously quiet sense of lightness and motion.  Only the whizz and clink of chains revealed through the exposed panels assure the squad they're moving at all, marking a subtlety to the mechanism of the conveyance that must be some kind of extrusion of a _silence_ spell.  But it's only thirty seconds or so of presumable descent before it ceases.  Another thirty of caution with no intrusion before K'ral signals his intention and unlocks the door; peering through a crack of it then nudging it slowly open all the way with the barrel of his rifle.

Beyond is an antecorridor lined with brushed steel panels  held in place with blued rivets; a pair of red and black banners emblazoned with the four-fold lightningbolt of the Vult Imperative flanking the exit corridor.

*Spoiler: 2nd Lieutenant Xiloscient:*
Show

A now familiar voice, in your head: "Two levels here, atleast.  Ours spiders off three ways from here.  No bomb we can see; sounds like the officer Vults lie to their underlings to keep them scared.  Proceed on your level, we'll go on ours. We'll likely to loose orientation for Message, but if this is going to be all tight corridors, more than one squad'll just get in the way.  Split up and cover ground.  Only burn a Sending stick if you have acquired the primary objective, or some other critical result.  Godspeed, Fifth."


It's a short corridor, immediately leading around a bend to another unlikely sight.  To most of the squad, it's a novelty; to the Neu Titansbergers, uncanny in its familiarity.  A wide, long room divided down its length with bare, scuffed and scraped boards on one side which then drops in the centre of the room, butting up against the open ended tunnel that fills the other half.  The tunnel vanishes into darkness left and right; but on the ceiling, set into heavy bored fasteners in the stone, a pair of "I" shaped rails hang down.  They are patinaed with rust, but polished bright and smooth in long lines from one end vanishing into the dark to the other; suggesting frequent and consistent wear.  A single, tall lever stands tall at the edge of the platform.  The room is clean of materiel, except for a few empty hardwood and steel benches, and two large trapezoidal concrete footers with no-frills lamp posts set in them.  The twin globes atop them bathe the room in an warm, electric glow.  But there is no obvious way to proceed from here except to drop down into the tunnel and forge on into the darkness, to your left - east - or your right - west.

*Spoiler: Doc and Sal*
Show

It doesn't hold a candle to the Neu Titansberg _Lowrail_, but this is some kind of underground rail-car system for sure - one where the cars have to be hanging from the ceiling for some crazy reason.  The rails are far enough apart that they either draw a single huge car or two smaller cars going either way.  But damn - if it works, and the Vulties were able to bore and install any kind of subterranean shuttle system during their short occupation, then they have a level of industriousness and resource that borders on the miraculous.  But it sure wasn't the product of weekend work by Aquitainian dairy maids and vinters.


*Spoiler: Perception DC 20, Hearing*
Show

There's a rumbling sound - foggy and muted perhaps from the tunnel's accoustics - coming from the right tunnel.  And it's gaining in volume, as if something is approaching rapidly.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* didn't realise how long he'd been holding breath until he almost had a coughing fit in the antechamber with that damned squiggly flag. His breathing cut out altogether again at the sight of the two giant rails in the ceiling of the tunnel.

They might not be anyone like you over here Sal but they must have got a fair few distant cousins or something to build an upside down abomination like this. How could they dig these tunnels in such little time?

He looks from side to side as he listens carefully fornthe sound of an approaching Lowrail car.

I ain't seen a lever like this on the Lowrail platforms either. Any idea what it does? I won't even complain if you monkey around with it.

He pauses as his ears catch a familiar rumbling sound. His eyes open wide and he points to the right hand tunnel.

Better make it snappy though, sounds like the express is coming right on time.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Rolling Perception assuming it's open to everyone
(1d20+5)[*22*]


Edit: Included a response to the noise.

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xilo responds to Doc's announcement of Incoming. *"Quick look at the lever if you need to but we need to get ready for our guests. L-Shape Ambush time. K'ral and Doc in the corridor to provide cover. The rest of us up against the right wall so they'll go right by us. Ginger, can you then put up an image covering us? The train could have one person or a whole squad. Let's be ready for the later."*  Unless there's further input (which is known to be ok when there is time), Xilo quicksteps to the right wall about 5 feet in from the tunnel, to be the one closest to the wall. When the time comes he crouches down, back against the wall, M1 at the ready. Once the sniper crew is ready Xilo will throw up an Minor Image of dark shadows to cover them.

Xilo sends a Message to Bathory, not sure if they are in range but just in case. _"Incoming underground train. About to engage."_

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

What's our Inspiration status?

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
On it. (casts silent image making this section look like more wall)

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Perception (1d20+8)[*12*]

----------


## JbeJ275

Yeah, thier machines arent pretty and theyre too fiddly by half but they know how to make some crazy stuff work. And crap, no time to break it I guess. Good luck Doc. 

With that Sal joined the sniper team, Hellfire rifle in hand as he suppressed its active foresights and got ready to add his firepower to the upcoming ambush.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* hurries into position with a hasty nod to the LT.

----------


## MrAbdiel

The squad has just enough time to get into ambush position, before their precautions are validated.  A few seconds later and a railcar clears the tunnel entrance on the right.  An unusual railcar; a standing platform rigged to an arch of steel threaded through mechanized runners than zip along the insides of a ceiling mounted I-Beam.  It bobs slightly as it goes, at the allowance of some kind of suspension mechanism built into the carrying arch.  But the sides, back and front of the car are essentially open, except for a waist-high encircling guardrail.  It could accommodate, perhaps, ten men at a time.  One can guess this with some accuracy, on account of the fact that it presently contains ten men: grey and black uniforms with smart angles and Vult iconography, uniform caps rather than combat helmets, brown leather gloves on hand lightly holding the guardrail surrounding them.  They are mostly human, it seems; two in the back with elf or half-elf blood in them, though no one could reasonably assess for sure in this moment. They are whipping by at a fine clip, and are likely to be in the squad's view for no more than a couple of seconds.  One of them, a blond haired _korporal_, is first to notice the ambushes as the saga of their squad intersects with them.  The alarm in his features, the desperation to cringe away behind cover that doesn't exist, accrues in slow motion as the critical moment comes to pass.

*Spoiler: The Ambush*
Show

You have about one to two seconds before the car passes by.  There are ten targets, all squishes into a ten-foot by eight foot platform with no effective cover, and no drawn weapons.  They're moving fast, but between being so densely packed and having nowhere to hide, being surprised, and moving at least for some of the motion -toward- the angle of your shots, you can make any ranged attacks you intend to with advantage; though lobbed grenades are at disadvantage instead, because it'd be a hell of a trick to time one into the speeding car.

Additionally, I'll ask for an extra roll, just from the party Artificer here:

*Spoiler: Sal, Artificer's Tool Check: DC 20*
Show

In a flash of insight, you make a leap of logic: if this is a rail way, that lever must be some kind of braking mechanism - something to stop the car from passing by this 'station' when there's someone here to get on board, since there's plainly no driver on the car.  It'd be crazy to build something with a completely abrupt halting lever, inviting a mistake when a car is whipping by at fifty miles an hour like this one and then is halted instantly; but it might screech to a halt, if you dash out _now_ and throw it.  If the ambush doesn't go so well, that's just inviting a squad of guys with machine guns to fight your squad.  But it'll stop them going to wherever they were going, and might halt the cart for your use, if you think the ambush is going to clear them out good and quick.

If Sal spends his turn exposing himself by rushing out to throw the lever, he'll be vulnerable to return fire; but it seems likely it will halt the railcar.

----------


## JbeJ275

Gritting his teeth and with Sparky wrapped around his arm Sal screams. Cover me!

Then he dashes out to pull the lever, and dives to the ground once the lever has been properly wrenched into place.

----------


## Continental Op

When Wolf sees the recognition on the Krieger's face and realizes they have been seen, he doesn't hesitate.  Not even waiting to shout an order, he opens up with his M1 just as Doc starts running towards something (for no reason Wolf can figure).  He focuses first on the blond one who spotted them, ready to fan his fire out to the other fish in this metaphorical metal barrel.  

*Spoiler: OOC rolls*
Show

Shooting with advantage:
First shot to hit: (1d20+9)[*24*] or (1d20+9)[*23*]
Damage: (1d10+4)[*13*] 

Second shot to hit: (1d20+9)[*25*] or (1d20+9)[*26*]
Damage: (1d10+4)[*6*]

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Doc presses against the wall of the corridor, hoping in vain that the railcar will be carrying freight. As the faces of the occupants speed into view he pulls up his weapon but couldn't bring himself to squeeze the trigger.

His horror doubled as Sal ran straight into the face of danger, towards the infernal contraption he himself had pointed out. He cursed Sal when he really meant himself.

Dammit Midtown!

His hesitation broken, he sighted along the barrel once more. He aimed for centre mass, trying to ignore the soldier whose chest that mass belonged to.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Attack with advantage (1d20+7)[*11*] or (1d20+7)[*12*]

(4d6+4)[*16*] damage including sneak attack

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
Is unclear on what Sal is up to, but he get to work putting down these Kreigs.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Attack: (1d20+7)[*8*]
(Adv Roll) Attack: (1d20+7)[*15*]

Dmg: (4d6+4)[*16*] (Sneak attack)

----------


## Cavir

The ambush was seen but the enemy wasn't in any position to avoid it. The shooting had begun. The LT did more than just cover fire for Sal, each shot was made to count.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

They are packed in with nowhere to move. Even low rolls will probably still hit. Ginger doesn't get a second attack yet?

Shot 1: (1d20+10)[*22*] or (1d20+10)[*16*]
Dmg: (1d8+5)[*10*]

Shot 2: (1d20+10)[*26*] or (1d20+10)[*13*]
Dmg: (1d8+5)[*13*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

Pvt. 'Sal' Malachinni makes his rush from cover, throws down the lever, and follows it to the ground.  As he does so, two things happen.

The first is that the railcar full of stunned Vult recruits sharply goes from whizzing along at high speed to breaking _from_ high speed.  Some unseen circuit - voltage in the roof rails, or perhaps a magical trigger - causes the runners on the I-beams to shriek and throw fans of fat orange sparks to either side, and the passengers are thrown forward into each other; a mass of uniformed soldiery, crushed up against the rail and each other while the car rocks to a stop.

The other thing that happens is that Xilo's Psychos open up; and the outcome is much as expected.  This is a nightmare position for the enemy, and a near ideal ambush for the Amcarans.  Rifles, submachine guns and pistols all bark and blaze away at the trapped Kreigers, and they suffer terribly.  The blond _korporal_ takes a bullet that snaps his head back; and with the forward rock of the braking car, he goes tumbling over the rail in a ragdoll cartwheel.  Another towards the rear of the cart is shot through the chest and he sags limply over the rear rail.  But four others are also killed, and a fifth gutshot, and in the press there is nowhere for them to go; their bodies crowd and burden the three soldiers so far unstruck by rounds as they desperately try to bring their weapons to bear, and howl their panic and desperation, futilely, to each other.

*Spoiler: Surprise Round Resolution!*
Show

These are very green soldiers, and you've caught them in a very compromising position.  Cavir, you're right that most attacks will hit them - the magic number is 12, for these poor schmoes.  Enough rounds go past and bang off the wall behind so that someone like Doc can convince himself he missed and didn't contribute to the massacre.  But strictly speaking, of the ten soldiers:

Soldier 1 - Iced by Wolf
Soldier 2  - wounded Wolf,
Soldier 3  - Iced by Doc
Soldier 4  - Iced by Ginger
Soldier 5  - Iced by Xilo
Soldier 6  - Iced by Xilo
Soldier 7  - Iced by KRal
Soldier 8  - Unharmed
Soldier 9  - Unharmed
Soldier 10  - Unharmed.

Time to *Roll Initiative.*  The enemy's initiative is (1d20+1)[*16*].  Now that this ambush round is over, the fight _proper_ has begun, though you stand a good chance of wiping them out before they act.  If you beat their initiative roll, feel free to act immediately.  If you don't, they'll get a chance to act before your next action; so hang tight.

----------


## MrAbdiel

Pvt. K'Ral Burnfaire is a hunter by lineage; from a long line of eladrin whose grand pursuits tracked strange and fantastical creatures to the depths of the feywild.  In war, there had been similar glories - like the monstrous dragons whose summoning they were here to sabotage, or the mechanical monsters manufactured by the wild minds of men.  This... was not that.  This wasn't even execution.  It was like firing into a pen of braying goats, or caged birds.  It demanded no skill.  It was deeply inglorious.  And it presented no suitable alternative.  But he was not a hunter, anymore.  Hunters go on hunts. Soldiers go to _war_.

With a flash of elven dexterity that would be admirable to anyone who could afford to observe it, and who was not a recipient of its effects, he racked the bolt on his father's rifle and squeezed off another round before the spent brass had completed a full revolution in the air.

*Spoiler: Bang!*
Show

Roll is in the Roll thread.  K'ral hits and ices another soldier!  Two fresh, one wounded, seven dead now.


The round strikes one of the Kreigers in the throat, forcing him to drop the body of a colleague he had been holding by the armpits - perhaps as a shield, perhaps as a futile effort to save the dead man.  The throat-shot warrior, a human with the faintest whispers of chin fluff, leans against the rail with wide eyes, clutching at his neck.  He is dead - just seven or eight seconds away from confronting the fact.

----------


## MrAbdiel

With no alternative but doomed defiance, the remaining soldiers return fire.  They crouch as best they can, but they are trained well enough that their response is to attack rather than leap to the rocky pit at the bottom of the tunnel.  Their fire discipline is fair, too - the bloodied soldier lets out a gurgling, gut shot howl and opens fire at the concrete corner where Pvt Gabriel hunkers, and his two able companions loose chattering volleys at the same target - but all shots tickle off the cover, as Gabes reflex to duck back preserves him once again.

*Spoiler: Enemy Turn Complete!*
Show

Well, only the NPC KRal beat the enemies, so that was silly.  All three randomly targeted Ginger, but none got higher than a 13.  Thats a big oof.

Player Turns!  Time to finish them, Psychos.  All conditions the same - the enemy is still tragically exposed to your fire.

----------


## Cavir

Xilo squeezes the trigger twice more, carefully aiming one shot each at any enemy firing back.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

They are still packed together, some dead some not, so rolling advantage in case it still holds.
Shot 1: (1d20+10)[*23*] or (1d20+10)[*18*]
Dmg: (1d8+5)[*12*]

Shot 2: (1d20+10)[*22*] or (1d20+10)[*30*]
Dmg: (1d8+5)[*8*]

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf grits his teeth and continues firing at the cage, trying to put the few remaining soldiers down before they can hit Ginger.  

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show

First attack to hit: (1d20+9)[*27*] or (1d20+9)[*28*]
damage: (1d10+4)[*10*]
Second attack to hit:(1d20+9)[*10*] or (1d20+9)[*23*]
damage: (1d10+4)[*6*]

----------


## JbeJ275

Salamir forgoes firing, instead getting back to his feet and raising his gun in a bayonet charge against the cart position, meaning to put any survivng soldiers to flight. He knew well how shaking an enemy soldier sprinting directly for you could be, and further his engineering mind knew the danger of shooting volitile arcane incendiary hellfire rounds near delicate equipment that you meant to take intact. And for the boys that stood before them forcing their surrender was better than forcing their deaths. 

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show

Intimidation: (1d20+5)[*11*]

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* follows behind Sal, hoping that it might be possible to save someone or at least ensure that they don't suffer. As they get closer he finds it hard to focus, looking at each face in turn trying to remember in the blur which poor soul he had shot.

----------


## MrAbdiel

The hail of allied fire continues; and it's too much for the trapped _grenzsoldaten_.  Sal and Doc rush in, prepared to engage the enemy in melee or drive them to flight; but by the time they have closed the gap to the edge of the platform, and the short hop it would take to board the railcar, it's over.  One man lies twisted and dead on the rocket train-tunnel floor, having tumbled after his riddling the five feet of clearance between the bottom of the railcar and the ground.  The other nine lie, riddled with bulletholes and partially mutilated by the intensity of the gunfire, folded and tangled with one another in the car itself.  Somewhere in the mass, one can be heard wheezing and gurgling; a sound that competes with the creak of the rocking metal, the shuttling click-click of K'ral repopulating his weapon's magazine with rounds, and the irregular drizzling of blood, scattering like raindrops to the tunnel floor from the ends of the car at each of the diminishing ends of its pendulum swing.  A few seconds later, and the wheezing stops too.  The men were caught in an ambush; Sal's intuition prevented them from whizzing onto their destination with only partial casualties, and they were unable to produce any effective retaliation.  The assault had been perfect; the enemy stood no chance.

A quick search of the bodies reveals nothing thrilling.  Kreiger weapons, mostly unfired.  Clean, sharp, oiled bayonets in their sheathes.  Personal tokens.  In the corporal's pocket, the crumpled remnant of a circular token of cardboard torn in half - the halves, placed together, feature the word _"Sprechen"_.  It's reasonably to conclude this is the spent remnant of some kind of communication item.

*Spoiler: Decisions*
Show

A 'glorious' victory, gents.  The obvious questions outstanding:

These soldiers were going _somewhere_ during what you have been assured is an evactuation. 
 You can try to go in the direction they were going, or the way they came from, using either the tunnel, or the train car.

And if you intend to use the car, what of the bodies of the enemy?  Not a powerful mechanical decision; just a pragmatic and thematic one.  Kick them off, to the tunnel floor?  Something more time consuming and respectful?

----------


## Continental Op

"All right, guys, night ain't getting any younger," Wolf announces to the squad.  "We need to find whatever we can and get out of here before this whole place comes down around us.  What do you think, Lieutenant, if these guys were on their way out, we should go the other way?"  Wolf points down the tunnel in the direction the cage came from.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc*

Doc listens to Wolf but can't tear his eyes away from the pile of bodies in the train car.

Heading back the way they came sounds like a good way to find trouble. No way to know how far we're going but at least the thing's fast. Surprisingly quiet. We'll have to shift these...shift the bodies if we're going to fit on though.

----------


## Cavir

Xilo thinks for a moment. *"May not have a choice in direction. Sal, is that lever just stop and go or does it set direction too? This whole thing may be a one way loop."*

He slings his weapon and moves to the car. *"K'ral, keep watch to the left tunnel. Doc, to the right. Let's get the bodies off the car, quickly."*  The LT helped pulling the bodies from the car while waiting on Sal's response, just far enough to be out of the way of the car moving in either direction. It gave him a little time to consider which direction to go.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Thinking back from being outside above ground, into the manor, into the elevator, through the corridor, into the station... which ways were left and right tunnels going? Either headed towards the town below or away from it? 
Survival (1d20+5)[*25*]

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal takes a moment to examine the mechanism on the rail, trying to determine the extent to which it could be properly steered or controlled, and checking to see if there existed an ability to override the controls from somewhere else.

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show


Artificer Tools: (1d20+11)[*28*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

It's quick work; if grim.  Working together, the squad dumps the perforated bodies off the cart and into the base of the tunnel below.  Neither K'ral nor Doc spots more trouble; and with no word from 4th Squad in the complex rooms above, 5th Squad can only assume their comrades are searching this area, directly beneath the manor, for matter pertaining to the objective.  5th's mission, then, is unchanged - explore further, searching particularly for the artificers and facility behind the manufacture of the brass spheres.  But the presence of this rail system suggests the complex is larger considerably that the building above.  How big is this place?  What are they doing down here?  And will it be possible to fulfil that objective, before the Vult labcoats complete their evacuation?  A bloodslick chariot awaits, to convey you, perhaps, to some answers.

*Spoiler: 2nd Lt. Xiloscient....*
Show

The manor is at the extreme North-West of the village.  The train car was coming in from the east.  Recalling the map to your mind, if the east passage curves toward the south, it will quickly be travelling under the rest of the village.  If that is the case, it would suggest those soldiers were coming _from_ some other station in the village - perhaps, corresponding to another element of the facility.  They definitely seemed to be content to race on by to the west.  It would have to turn fairly sharply if it was staying within the confines of the village proper; but the alternative would suggest the tunnel continued to the west, perhaps behind the allied lines of operation.  That would be a clever manoeuvre - but not one you, as an officer, would send a fistful of green recruits on.

In short, the tunnel to the east would need a less drastic turn to head toward the interior of the village; but without more information, it's impossible to tell how these tunnels change after this boarding station, which seems to be oriented almost perfectly East-West.  The only clue you have, alas, is that this group of _grenzsoldaten_ were heading from the east, toward the west.

That, and quiet instinct in the part of your mind that has been prepared to be a leader of soldiers in operations of life and death, that if _you_ were evacuating a high priority facility in the face of enemy advances, you would not be sending soldiers away in orderly squads.  They would be escorting non combatants, carrying materiel, on their way to do one of the form, or else the _very last_ squad to leave the facility.


*Spoiler: Pvt. Salamir*
Show

At a guess - and your technical guess are pretty good - one of these rails is intended for traffic in one direction, the other for traffic in the other direction.

...But then, there would need to be a platform on the other side.  Or else some kind of deployable bridge from the far track to the single platform, but even then, what would stop a second car coming down the track and nailing that bridge and any poor schmuck crossing on it?  And now that you're looking at it, the furthest rail has considerably less wear on it than the closer one.  The only conclusion is that the close track is used for traversal both ways (or one way on a loop), and the second track serves a different purpose - maybe, heavy hauling cars requiring two runner mechanisms, and a function for cars to bypass each other, and perhaps turn around.

Futzing with the cart and the lever a little longer, removing a panel at the lever's base, you gain some validation of your instincts.  There are additional controls near the footing of the lever concealed for use by trained operators.  There's no 'turn around' button here; but there are some intuitive enough artificer enchantments that perform the function.  It's remarkable, really; the platform sends a message to the next platforms in the sequence forward and back, which in turn halt any incoming traffic or divert them to the secondary track for the next stretch of their journey.  It's a sophisticated system of signals built into the platforms which... seems overengineering, when you could just have built a second platform.  But such is the nature of some technical minds given free reign - overengineering spills out of the protoyping.  Still, you think you can 'tell' the car to turn around, such that when you board it it will proceed to whatever reversal mechanism exists in the tunnels between the stations, then turn around and head back the other way.

This, however, will necessarily 'warn' the platforms that your cart is turning around and coming back the other way.  It's possible that the chaos of the current situation in this base may cause this to mean nothing; or it might alert some attentive platform operator that something is amiss.  But to change the West bearing to East, that seems to be the intractable price.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*DOC*

Doc is greatful to the LT's mercy in assigning him to watch duty. He strains his senses looking for further threats whilst trying to block out the noise of the grim work happening on the carriage.

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal looks up from his work in the gears and announces his findings to the LT.

Well, I can get us going again they way they were no trouble, but if we want to turn around theyll be able to see us do it, the rail mechanism allows turning not anything in the track. Of course we could physically turn it around but thats take longer than we got.

On the other hand, if we do take this to the end station I might be able to turn off the signals and safeties. Leave this hurtling the other way to crash into anyone trying to catch up to us through these. Wouldnt be pretty but it could work.

----------


## Cavir

*"If they were leaving for good they'd have more gear with them. We'll see where they were heading to. I like that backup plan to send the car back if we won't need it. There's fewer of us so we won't be so packed in. We'll also be ready to jump off and deal with what's there. Reload, check your gear, and let's go."*  Xilo reloads a fresh magazine. In the car he'll be up front, M1 at the ready, and eyes peeled.

----------


## MrAbdiel

Grim work done and decisions made, 5th squad piles into the rail car, and gets underway.  The tunnel is not pitch dark; cold, sterile white electric lamps whip by on the walls, too distant from each other to provide consistent illumination.  It turns the journey into a strobing, unpleasant rush through stuttering darkness and light as the car zooms west; and quickly slows to take a sharp corner to the south.  It's quieter than it should be; no big rumbling engine, but the muted hissing of the bearings and a straining electric motor above you.  And it's hard not to remain aware that the last people in your position, standing in this car, were coming up blind on their next station not expecting an ambush either.  But when you come up on the next station, and the railcar slows to a halt for you to disembark, there is no hail of gunfire.  There is no reception at all; just another empty boarding platform, another lever and embedded control box, another row of empty benches.  Distinct from the last platform, there is a fork from the ceiling mounted rail-beams that  pulls over to one side of the playform, and three unused rail cars sitting unused; presumably waiting an engineer to task them and deploy them to the rail.  There's also a pair larger appertati; two great steel brackets with clamps, and each with a pair of runner-systems like those on the rail-car you came on - some kind of bulk hauling unit, meant to carry something heavy enough that it needs to occupy _both_ rails at once.  These, too, are untasked; even a little dusty.

Aside from that rail depot to one side of the platform, the exit from this platform to the complex behind is a huge archway - thirty feet high, and wide, with a closed mechanical shutter operable with clearly marked, _up_ and _down_ buttons.  And with that, a narrow iron staircase leads to a more standard sized door mounted in the wall above the main shutter.  The arrangement and construction of these entries suggests that they both lead to the same warehouse, or hangar behind; with the upper door likely leading to some kind of catwalk or mezzanine.  And beyond both doors, clearly audible, is the irregular stutter and whine of actively operated machinery, and the foggy sounds of people trying to conduct a conversation in _Kreigspiel_ above the din.

*Spoiler: Prepare for breach!*
Show

...Or don't.  You've definitely arrived at some kind of active part of the facility, now.  If your gut tells you to get back on the cart and move on to the next station, you can try that too.  Otherwise, you ought to decide what disposition of forces are going to try entry through the big main shutter, or the upper gantry entrance.  And if Salamir wants to try something tricky with the railcars - turning it around and firing it back the other way, or what not - let me know what you're trying to do, and I'll give you a DC!

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc*

Doc peers up at the huge doorway and then at the smaller one.

Looks hard to sneak in quietly through the big one. Risk of getting caught in a bottle neck if we get spotted at the little one though.

The diminutive medic pauses for a moment.

I could open the big one as a distraction? They might not notice me in a doorway so big. What do you say, LT?

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gaberiel Ginger*
Heads up the iron stair case, and considers the small door.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Is it locked or trapped?

Perception (1d20+8)[*15*]
Stealth (1d20+10)[*16*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

Pvt. Ginger gives the gantry door a once over, and concludes without too much trouble that it's not trapped - but it is, apparently, locked with an unusual key design he's never seen before.

*Spoiler: OOC!*
Show

The big shutter's not locked, but the big sneaky-sneak door is!  Expect a higher than usual DC for its lock.

----------


## JbeJ275

Salamir focuses on disabling the safeties on the track, then pushing the cart they arrived on back before the arrival station, hell wait until hes called upon to help at the other doors but is known to have some skill with opening doors quietly.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
_Its times like this that I wish I could just will the pins into the correct position.  Here goes_
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Thieves Tools: (1d20+10)[*14*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

With diligence and pluck, Pvt. Ginger tries his tools on the lock - but it doesnt budge.  The lock has an outlandish, counter-rotating secondary barrel that feels impossible to manage with a torque wrench.  The upper door may require alternate encourage - or be forsaken entirely.

----------


## Cavir

> *Doc*
> I could open the big one as a distraction? They might not notice me in a doorway so big. What do you say, LT?





> With diligence and pluck, Pvt. Ginger tries his tools on the lock - but it doesnt budge.


*LT*
"Not yet at least. I want us looking down at them, not the other way around. Sal, see if you and Ginger can work together on that lock? The machinery can help cover your work.

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf watches the others at the doors for a little and grunts.  "K'ral, why don't you and I go up and cover the guys working on that upper door.  Watch the hallway, but be ready to rush in if the door opens.  I'll do the same."  Wolf nods to Xilo on his way up.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
This is like nothing I have ever seen, do you want me to blow the door?

----------


## MrAbdiel

With a few moments of fast-tracked tinkering in the panel by the lever of this station, the bloodied car the squad came in on shudders... then begins sliding backward on the rail the way it came, picking up speed before it vanishes into the dark of the tunnel.  A little blinking light with the word "Achtung!" printed under it makes a nuisance of itself inside the panel - if there are any engineers monitoring the network, they'll know something is wrong here.  But then, the squad is about to burst into action in the next room - that might not have been much of a secret to keep.

But the service door at the top of the iron stairs proves elusive, even for Sal's tools.  Cutting through the hinges would take prohibitively long; and destroying the lock mechanism will only make it impossible to retract the bolts in the frame.  Ginger is right - if the squad is going to breach from two entries, they're going to need to go in the _loud_ way.

K'ral, having fallen into step with the sergeant at the command given, grimaces a little at the predicament.  _"Don't like loud,"_ he confesses.  _"Maybe we blow it, and all rush the lower door.  Use the upper as a phantom breach?  Or breach it then wait twenty seconds before skulking through.  Wait for the team on the floor to draw eyes and ears."_

*Spoiler: Decision Time.*
Show

IC, it's the LT's call to make or delegate to his NCO; but everyone's welcome to speculate in the OOC.  The door can't be quietly opened, it seems.  It could be blown open, but that will likely draw attention to that breach, which was not the initial hope.

----------


## Cavir

*LT Xilo*

The LT listened to what the voices on the other side of the door were saying. It might give some hint of what is going on in there. He wished they had better options. The train car had already been sent along its way back they way they came. If the enemy back that way wasn't aware of them, that would change soon enough.

*"Surprising these doors are so locked without the alert sounded. Too few of us to spread out so much. We'll blow the lower door and rush through. Two left, two center, two right. Push forward hard covering for each other and adjust to what we find. I'll take center. Sgt, assign positions. Remember, prisoners if we can."*

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Perception to make out what is being said on the other side of the door with lesser Kreigspiel. If it would change things let's adjust from there. (1d20+5)[*17*] 

Sorry for the long delay.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*

Plants the explosives generously donated by Doc on the upper entry.  Grinning madly, he waits for the signal.

----------


## MrAbdiel

The blast echoes in the tunnels like the end of the world, hurling the maintenance door inward to clatter on the interior gantry.  A clatter of reflexive gunfire peppers that smoke-haloed doorway; but no soldiers are there to receive it.  Instead, 5th Squad slips under the rattling shutter and into the huge Vult workshop beyond.  It's no trouble rushing to cover from the door - there are pallets of cast steel parts stacked and spaced by the door, one with a pallet jack still stuck in its side; an orderly person's attempt to force clutter to the extremes of the room, incidentally providing cover for enemies advancing by that vector.  Not a defensive layout; an auteur's spread.

Past this wide entrance, flanked by the rough hewn stone calls of the carved cavern, the room opens up into a vast, wide, tall complex; a hangar as much as a workshop, with the stone walls patched in places where structure is concerned, but otherwise left raw.  There are benches and tables to support many artificers working here, though most have been stripped of tools and projects and abandoned in the flight of the occupants.  But not all; not nearly all.  Dominating the room, a hundred feet in from where 5th squad moves into cover, a cluster of eight Kreiger _technikers_ peer up from where they have hunkered at the sound of the explosion; rattleguns in hand from their mechanical work, bewildered and variously fumbling for holstered pistols or gazing dumbly at the plumes of smoke.  Two squads of the same clean-faced young recruits in uniform caps and unstained greys reel in response, too; two of them have started blazing away blindly at the burst maintenance door, their korporals shouting at them to cease fire.  And just beyond them, quivering with fear and rage, is a shorter man in a white coat, with a hard-working comb-over, circular spectacles, and a lined face suggesting a life spend in consternation and focus: the very stereotype of a german _lab coat_.

_"Verzögert sie, ihr Idioten! Verzögern Sie sie! Wir können den Angreifer nicht zurücklassen!"_

*Spoiler: Kreigspeil Speakers*
Show

"Delay them, you idiots!  Delay them!  We cannot leave the *Assailant* behind!"


The _Angreifer_, it seems, is the machine to his left, upon which the teknikers have paused operations.  A huge, bipedal machine of cast steel and exposed cabling; twenty feet tall and broad at its greatest dimentions, easilly.  Retrograde legs lead up to a bulky, soft-edged core with a loose coffin shape that, coupled with the huge legs, gives it at first a sort of _froglike_ sihuoette.  But off to the left and right of the core are welded hardpoints, that beg the imagination to  suggest what powerful weaponry might be intended to mount there.  As it is, only a pair of guns visably exist on it - two chin-mounted heavy machine guns, fixed to a limited swivel.  Incomplete, it looms huge and terrible as a spectre of what you might have needed to fight on Naphto beach, if the operation had been delayed just a little longer.

The twenty startled _Grenzsoldat_ animated at the incensed command, charging toward the intervening space and throwing themselves behind chunks of abandoned machinery where they can, toppling desks for cover where they can't.  The technikers, appropriately harangued, get back to whatever assembly or disassembly they were performing on the  _Angreifer_, trying hard not to focus on the storm of death happening behind them.

*Spoiler: Alarm! Alarm!  Schnell, Schnell!  OOC*
Show

Breach successful.  You've earned a surprise round.  Right now, you're facing down _twenty_ active enemies - the same kind you ambushed on the tram.    They're moving to take 
 cover in the field of desks and artificer goods occupying the hundred feet between you and them; but your surprise round occurs before they get into any kind of cover, and they are loosely clustered.  A grenade or similar blast into the area will catch 1d4+1 enemies.

There are also eight technicians working on the machine, and one classic, furious scientist half-oblivious to the mortal danger.

The enemy's initiative is 11.  So give me an initiative roll in the OOC.  If you beat or meet an 11, you can act twice, on account of preceding the enemy in initiative and them spending their first turn surprised.

You begin this round in hard (+5) cover.  After that, there's about 40ft of open space, and the best cover you can get from that point on is soft (+2), behind whatever desk/stack of steel elbow brackets/whatever you care to describe.

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xiloscient darts to some partial cover, more focused on analyzing the situation. There was no time to come up with a complicated plan. Take action, or the wrong people die.

*"Jackpot! Rush through the left side. Stop them from starting up the big weapon. Capture the scientist. MOVE MOVE MOVE!"*

The LT takes the lead with his elven fleet of foot and a battlecry, rushing toward the enemy at his left. He throws a grenade toward the enemy soldiers on that flank, placing it between them and their intended cover so they are charging right into the blast. He follows it up by conjuring a fog cloud covering the enemy to cover the Psychos' own charge.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Without a map, I imagine the 2 squads are between us, side by side, with the scientists and their toy a ways behind that. Intent is to use the grenade to deal with the enemy on the far left and running around just to the left of that to circle around to the techs. Place a Fog Cloud over the 2 squads without hindering our path. If the 20' radius won't cover both squads then have it more to the left side so that as we swing around left the cloud is between us the the enemy soldiers not covered. The cloud will hide our movement, give cover, and hopefully have them looking the wrong way for us.

My Archetype gives me an extra attack. If I can't use that to throw the grenade and cast, then I'll use my Action Surge for it. Just let me know either way.

35' movement.
Grenade targets: (1d4+1)[*5*]
(3d6)[*15*] piercing
(3d6)[*11*] fire damage
Reflex 13 for half

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Doc

Doc surges forward in a panicked rush as soon as the gap in the door will admit his tiny frame. He runs practically  underneath the LT's feet, narrowlying avoiding taking them both down. The unfolding chaos is a blur as he runs to filing cabinet.

Somehow some part of the skyknives basic training managed to fix itself into his addled brain. He blindly mimics Xilo's motions. The grenade is out of his hands before he knows it, his eyes widening in shock as the pun hits the floor. A short scream of apology follows it through the air as if tumbles towards the a knot of wild-firing soldiers.

He can't watch the carnage he knows he will cause. His shirt legs carry him finally towards cover. He spots the lead scientist further on, his scrunched up face a welcome target to fling his guilt at.

I've got some Angrief for you right here! He spits at the man, following it with a hastily snapped shot.

Flinging himself to the left he finds a series of half emptied filing cabinets. With a hasty wrench he drags open the middle drawer and hops inside. He hunkers down amongst the few remaining folders, the cover hiding the battle from his as much as him from it.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Surprise round
Move 25 ft.
Toss grenade at soldiers (1d4+1)[*3*]
Piercing (3d6)[*15*]
Fire (3d6)[*8*]
Dex DC 13 for half

Second round
Move final 15ft to some.cover.
Fire at chief labcoat (1d20+7)[*26*]
For (1d6+4)[*7*]  piercing damage
Hide in drawer

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger* grimaces as he cannot watch his diversion in action....otherwise it would not be a diversion.
He races forward gently placing (mage hand) his grenade in a separate cluster from the LTs.
He takes cover behind some fabrication equipment, and starts picking off the highest ranked Kriegers he can see.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Surprise Round:
Move ahead to light cover
Std mage hand a nade (3d6)[*11*]Piercing (3d6)[*7*]Fire
Cunning Action Hide (Skulker feat allows hiding while lightly obscured) (1d20+10)[*20*]

Round 1:
Std Action: Attack (1d20+7)[*25*] Dmg: (1d6+4)[*10*] + (3d6)[*7*] (Sneak attack)
More hiding. (1d20+10)[*29*]

----------


## JbeJ275

Salamir was slower to react than normal, his attention momentarily captivated by the monstrous machine the vulters seemed to be working on. When he eventually recovered he dismissed the idea of throwing his own grenade, instead focusing on speeding towards the machine before it could be moved or activated. A forward sprint ended with him 60ft across the room and still proceeding at full speed. Sparky remained held tightly to his arm, marking him at the centre of a sphere of crackling guardian light.

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf, caught up in the moment, stands just inside the doorway and yells at the top of his lungs as he changes and becomes a feral beast.  He does not like the looks of the giant machine in the room.  He squeezes off a few shots at the labcoat he has the best line of sight to, aiming to kill.  

Then, after the grenades go off and the fog descends, he yells, "Come on squad, you heard the Ell Tee!"  His voice is slightly garbled from his elongated teeth and snout, but still recognizable to those used to it.  Not waiting for the others, Wolf runs towards the machine with his M1 Thompson in one hand (the shoulder strap helping to stabilize it), and his trusty k-bar in the other.  

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Wolf uses his bonus action to morph into his beasthide shape, gaining (1d6+9)[*12*] temporary HP and +1 to AC (making it 17).
Two shots at the unlucky labcoat, attack1: (1d20+9)[*23*] and damage (1d10+4)[*13*]
attack 2: (1d20+9)[*11*] and damage (1d10+4)[*12*]

For round 2, Wolf just dashes forward into the fog towards where the machine is.  He gets 60' this round, assuming he doesn't run into a soldier in the fog.  He does not bother taking cover (unless he runs through the fog cloud and finds something like a giant gun barrel right at his face).

----------


## MrAbdiel

The opening assault on the surprised enemy is textbook, and devastating.

Pvt. K'ral rushes through the door with the squad, and pitches his grenade with Doc's, Xilo's, and Gabriel's, before winking out of sight; manifesting from a rush of emerald mist amidst the smoke on the parallel gantry extending from the blown-open distraction door and snapping off a shot that that punches clean through the chest of one of the Kreiger _technikers_, dropping him.  Gabriel's round finds the throat of the _grenzsoldat_ korporal trying to direct his soldiers to cover; Doc's bullet, laden with projected guilt, sinks into the thigh of the hysterical scientist.

And then, with a ripple of booms and a chorus of screams, the grenades go off in rapid succession; and their toll is terrible.  In that small window, fifteen of the twenty soldiers caught gawping in the middle of the room outside of cover are dismembered, or else so badly riddled with shrapnel as to be our of action and probably dead very soon. With the Korporal shot down,  the volley leaves just four of the _Grenzsoldat_ operable, and one of those bleeding heavily from where he doesn't seem to notice a penetrating wound is his stomach.  On the heels of that devestation, elements of 5th squad roar forth; Salamir, and Wolf and Xilo all chewing up the ground towards the _technikers._  Two of wolf's rounds find marks, dropping two of them; leaving three of the technikers out of action and five still capable and active as the fog cloud billows out to engulf the Amcaran advance.

It is likely, in tactical retrospect, that the _grenzsoldat_ simply have no reflexes for dealing with casualties like that so suddenly, and so they operate on the last order they were given for the critical several seconds while their brains marshal the instinct to fear death.  Taking cover, the four of them blast away at the smoke where they last saw the advancing Amcarans...

*Spoiler: Attacks!*
Show

Two attacks from each remaining Grenzsoldat.  Two on Sparky, Two on Xilo, Two on Wolf, Two on Sal.  All with disadvantage because of the fog.

Against Wolf:
(1d20+1)[*18*] or (1d20+1)[*15*] or, for (2d6+1)[*9*] damage.
(1d20+1)[*19*] or (1d20+1)[*6*] or, for (2d6+1)[*9*] damage.

Against Xilo:
(1d20+1)[*17*] or (1d20+1)[*18*] or, for (2d6+1)[*7*] damage.
(1d20+1)[*4*] or (1d20+1)[*12*] or, for (2d6+1)[*4*] damage.

Against Sal:
(1d20+1)[*17*] or (1d20+1)[*4*] or, for (2d6+1)[*8*] damage.
(1d20+1)[*9*] or (1d20+1)[*9*] or, for (2d6+1)[*4*] damage.

Against Sparky:
(1d20+1)[*19*] or (1d20+1)[*9*] or, for (2d6+1)[*11*] damage.
(1d20+1)[*16*] or (1d20+1)[*12*] or, for (2d6+1)[*9*] damage.


But beyond the smoke, the _technikers_ process the hopelessness of their posture immediately.  Their retreat is discernible to K'Ral up high, and to the party surging forward by the scientist's mad objections.

_"Nein! Nein! Kommt zurück hierher, ihr Feiglinge! Es ist noch nicht fertig! Ich sehe euch alle erschossen!"_
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

_"No!  No!  Get back here you cowards!  It's not ready!  I'll see you all shot!"_


The remaining _technikers_ ignore him, as they bolt for the nearby egress from the room; a roller shutter like the one by which the Amcaran's entered, on the room's other extreme face.  It is only rolled up a man high, as it idles; and passing through, one hammers a panel out of view which sets klaxons hooting in the hallway beyond, and the shutterdoor trundles closed with a finalizing, mechanical _ka-chunk._

With a shriek of frustration available only to academics, the kreiger labcoat scientist - now realizing how he is hobbling, from the bullet in his leg - does the only thing he is capable of, with audible reluctance.  He detaches a bundle of cables from the machine before him, throws a switch, and slams shut the heavy steel panel on its side.  A roar of diesel engines almost drowns out one half of the conversation; but it cannot drown out the mechanically throated, booming second half of it.

*"Angreifer Aktiv. In Erwartung der Direktive."*
*Spoiler: Loud Kreigspiel:*
Show

*"Assailant Active. Awaiting directive."*


"Amcaraner sind da! Zerstört sie!"
*Spoiler: Kriegspiel:*
Show

"Amcarans are here! Destroy them!"


*"Anerkennen. Suchend. Suchend. Suchend."*
*Spoiler: Loud Krielspiel:*
Show

*"Acknowledged.  Seeking.  Seeking.  Seeking."*


With heavy steps slamming against the floor panels as it moves from its preparation dock, the _Angriefer_ steps forth, pivots to face the fog, and begins to apply whatever mechanical senses it possesses to finding its targets.

*Spoiler: Guten Tag!  Turn Summary:*
Show



Grenades do what they are meant to do - they rip apart lightly armored, exposed troops in clusters. 
 From twenty enemies, you're down to four, and one is already wounded.  The labcoat technikers have bolted, but the scientist, whose project this seems to be, has a bullet in the leg, and nothing to do but activate the machine he has proclaimed is 'not ready' and 'mustn't be left behind'.

It is a _TANK_, for rules purposes; an enemy type which we haven't used yet, but, as a refresher...




> TANK - A tank is immune to damage from weapons and spells that are not specifically listed as Tank-Buster weapons or spells.


However 'not ready' it supposedly is, you would be right to regard it as very dangerous to infantry. 
 Dealing with it may require unusually cunning strategies, since the only tank-buster weaponry in your possession presently are your _Behir_ mines.  I am, however, always open to cunning and cinematic suggestions.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*
_That aint good, but at least I now have a good excuse to use this!_
He reaches into his pack producing something reasonably large.
He mutters some low and gestures, and nothing appears to happen.  Then a few seconds later the item disappears.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Use movement to fetch Behir out of his pack
Std action: silent image, to place the image of empty floor a few inches higher just in front of the walker.
Bonus action, mage hand that Behir right in front of the walker.

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal continues sprinting towards the krieger labcoat at the control panel as he goes he yells back at the machine in Krieger.

"Direktive Zwie, Direktive Ein, Direktive Acht, Direktive Schieben!!!"

Trying to input enough results in the unfinished tank to leave it confused and reacting rather than targetting them until he could get to the control panel and try to implement some sort of shutoff command.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc's* shudders in the safety of his filing cabinet at the sound of the steel monstrosity activating. Peaking out at the unfolding fire fight, Doc sees only one course of action. 

The tiny lithe figure explodes out of the cabinet and sprints towards the scientist.

Call it off you Krieger maniac!

He almost climbs up the white coat to grab egghead by the collar. Suddenly top heavy, the Krieger nearly topples as the short doctor's feet return to the ground and scrabble to drag the scientist into the path of its creation 

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Move and bonus dash to get to the scientist if required.
Athletics (1d20+8)[*18*]
Using any of the 50ft of movement that remains to try and drag the boffin in front of the tank.

----------


## Cavir

Lt Xilo is nearly hit by the grenzsoldats' blind shooting but Sparky's protection does its job. Xilo focuses his run toward the walking tank studying the situation. With its guns facing forward he continues onward past it. Tanks aren't agile and hoped it was the same for this contraption. The more time it spends spinning around chasing targets the less time it spends aiming at them. Keeping a side eye on the tank, he checks out the cables the tank was just connected to. Were they detachable? Strong enough to trip up the bipedal tank?

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

7 damage absorbed by Sparky granted temp hp. Double move for 70'.

----------


## MrAbdiel

Ginger's _Behir_ scoots out infront of the scanning mechanical monstrosity, sheathed in an illusory suggestion of uneven but mundane ground.  A flickering matrix of red light skims out from the _Angreifer_  skims out over the sudden anomaly.. but doesn't seem to drive it to recoil.  Perhaps it is fooled; for now, it merely lacks incentive to move forward.

Doc and 1LT Xiloscient burst from the fog cloud at the same time, blowing past the remaining_Grenzsoldat_ and tearing across the cement to flank past the machine.  Xilo books past on the right; and as he does, the machine's right 'shoulder' mount swivels to track him, untethered cables sparking bobbing amidst naked sockets...

"Makro-Gattler engagieren."
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"Makro-Gattler engaging."

...But with a series of dry mechanical clicking sounds, nothing eventuates.

"System nicht gefunden."
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"System not found."

Simultaneously, Doc loops around on the left, as the left shoulder mount cranes by in time with his passage; a bundle of rubber tubes sputtering some fluid remnant of an unfinished job...

"Phosphor-Feuersbrunstprojektor engagieren."
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"Phosphor-Conflagration Projector engaging."


...But again, blessedly, yields no result.

"System nicht gefunden."
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"System not found."


The Kreiger labcoat wriggles and writhes as Doc latches on, his cry of outrage almost mewling in its tone.  His retort to Doc's command, atleast, is to the point.

_"Ahhh!  Get off!"_

Sal is quick on Doc's heels, close enough now to get a good look at the machine's construction and hopefully to find an accessible panel.... though it offers no response to his flurry of conflicting commands.

*Spoiler: Action Summary so far this turn!*
Show

Gabriel's Behir is deployed infront of the Angreifer, concealed with a silent image.

Doc and Sal have gone around the left. *The Angreifer took a Legendary Action with no visible effect.* Doc has grappled the labcoat and is dragging him toward the Angriefer - presently alongside it, but next turn all the way infront of it, if he doesn't escape.  Sal is close enough to have a clear view of the machine and to consider spending actions to find engineering access.  It doesn't react to the directive commands, however; however it is driven, it has a sophisticated enough Friend/Foe identifier to know who to listen to.  Xilo has come past on the left, so presently the squad is zooming around both sides of the walker.  *The Angreifer took another Legendary Action with no visible effect.*   Cavir, I didn't answer you before, but your speculation was correct that the grenade and a cast spell couldn't be used together with Extra Attack; it has indeed required your action surge to do so.  Didn't want to forget to bring that up again, lest it become important later.

Sgt. Wolf still to act, before K'Ral and then the enemy responds!

----------


## Continental Op

Seeing the walking tank up close almost unmans Wolf; he freezes for a second while it talks loudly and apparently tries to fire weapon systems it doesn't have.  Oblivious to everyone else, Wolf shakes off his indecision and continues his running toward the tank creature.  He lets go of his M1, which hangs at his side as it swings freely on the strap around his shoulder.  

Getting next to the walking tank, Wolf leaps onto its side and starts trying to climb the thing using his free hand and his K-bar if he has to.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Wolf attempts to climb the thing using a grapple check.  He still has his knife in his hand, but will drop it if he needs both hands to climb or hold on.
Str(Athletics) check: (1d20+5)[*11*]

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* continues to drag the protesting lab coat back towards the entrance, aiming to get a distance past the cunningly disguised mine. He tries to frisk Fritz as they go.

I'll get off when you call that thing off mister!

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Move and action dash to drag the scientist another 25 feet towards the entrance, trying to put the mine directly  between then and the "tank".
Sleight of hand to look for something handy in the labcoat pockets.
(1d20+4)[*22*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

From the catwalk, K'ral dashes head, trying to get an elevated angle on the Angreifer.  He pops off a shot at the _Grenzsoldat_ remnants on the run; sending a round through the calf of the man just now reckoning with the pain of his shrapnel injuries and toppling him to the ground.

The three remaining soldiers try to track the rapidly moving enemies, but before they can do much, the Skyknives have pierced their lines and are assaulting their support vehicle and VIP.  At once, dutiful and foolish, they charge to the aid of their bleeding, accosted scientist; surrounding Doc where they can, grabbing and pummelling with fists and weapon stocks while the scientist flails and tries to free himself, defiant to the last.

Finally, the Angriefer takes action.  The Amcaran assault had been swift and ruthless against a much superior enemy position; but whatever calculation of spool time the walking tank had required to calibrate its coming decision seems to have come to an end just as Wolf lays a hand on the armor plate of one leg.  It takes five huge, scuttling steps backward and away, the power of mass in motion hauling itself from the shifter's grip as the chin-mounted heavy machine guns progress from mechanical clicking to the sudden hideous barking that has been ringing in Echo Company's ears since they charged the emplacements at Naphto. It does not appear able to swivel and maneuver with the freedom of an infantryman; but it knows its capabilities, and with an adjustment in its position it puts K'Ral, Sal and Wolf in a strafing arc, and rakes their positions with a storm of Vult-forged lead.

*Spoiler: Achtung!  Remainder of Turn Summary!*
Show



Sal's assessment action fails - a 12 won't do it, but he can have a cumulative +2 to his next action spend hunting for an actionable weakpoint.

Wolf's grab-climb fails.  The big-boy has a lot of power behind him, so it's not outrageously easy to get on board while he's in motion;  but even if it were east, he rolled high and you rolled low, so them's the breaks.  As the Angreifer moves, he's stepping out of your threat range - so you can attempt another grab-climb as he goes, if you like. 
 You might as well; a melee attack of opportunity is unlikely to do damage.  But you'll be chasing his athletics roll to oppose that grab, which will be (1d20+14)[*27*]!

K'Ral shoots down the wounded Genzsoldat, but the other three rush to try to grapple Doc to get him off the scientist. 
 One has to doublemove to get there; two get there and make grapples, so Doc's going to need to oppose their grapple attempts.  One got a *12*, one got a *21*.  And the labcoat got a *17* trying to escape Doc's grapple! 
 I know you posted your next actions already, Waistcoat; feel free to adjust them based on this new information.

The real meat and potatoes of the round comes from the _Angreifer_, who actually attacks this turn.  He's only able to turn up to 120 degrees per turn, and can only target folks in a single attack who are within the same 90 degree cone.  Xilo has gotten well past; and the Angriefer seems unwilling to open fire at the scrum of Doc and friends.  Ginger's well hidden.  He's able to move back before opening fire (away from the entrance to the room and the concealed mine), so his attacks spray bullets over Sal, Sparky, K'Ral and Wolf (if he doesn't succeed wildly at that Grapple of opportunity and suddenly be onboard!).

It's a muscular *43* piercing damage, with a *DC17* Dexterity save for half.  Those attacked can also make a DC17 save or be PINNED - though the tank isn't suppressing deliberately, so even if you go prone with pinning, you'll have advantage to shake it off at the end of your following turn.

K'ral's Dex: (1d20+7)[*21*]
K'Ral's Wis: (1d20+3)[*21*]

K'ral takes 21 damage, and remains unpinned.

It is the _Psychos' Turns._  I'll try to get a map of some kind up this week, I think!

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* bristles the slimeball scientist slips out if his labcoat to evade the halfling's grip. To add insult to injury he can't even fend off both the young oafs in jackboots that cane to his aid.

Hey, Schmuck? Ever heard of the medial collateral ligament?

He lashes out with a foot at his assailant's knee, trying to loosen the humans grip.

*Spoiler: Action*
Show


Athletics tonescape the grapple. He might try to move off and heal Sal if he succeeds.(1d20+8)[*13*]


Hampered by the curse of leverage he fails to get a strong strike in. He digs out a bandage with one free hand, aiming to patch up any allies that come to his aid since he can't make it over to them.

----------


## JbeJ275

Sal takes a more direct approach to the situation. Dragging Sparky over and redirecting the output flow conduits from the fractured and leaking prismatic shielding powder, directly into sparkys fuel tank, making the device a fairly powerful flame thrower.

With that he turned to the gang of men around Doc and says. Drop the halfling or I toast every last one of you bastards. Ready to spray them down with exotic fuel if theyre not amenable to surrendering.

----------


## Cavir

*Xilo* had spent too long trying for a cable to trip up the Angriefer. It had started walking backwards towards him, away from Ginger's Behir. As it stepped back Xilo took notice of its movement as he pulled out his own Behir. He placed it where its next back step would take it then readied to run and get clear of the blast if the Angriefer took another step back.

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf drops to the ground as soon as the first bullet hits him.  Frustrated with himself for not being able to hold on to the machine, he tries to think of a different plan -- which is hard with the gunfire ripping everything around him.  His first order of business is to get some protection, so Wolf crawls towards the nearest cover he can, be it a desk, some machinery, or a Krieger.

----------


## Novabomb

*Gabriel Ginger* tries not to allow impatience spoil the eventual boom.
While maintaining the illusion he snipes one of the remaining kreigs that have not surrendered yet.  (Not the scientist)
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Att: (1d20+7)[*27*]
Dmg: (1d6+4)[*10*] Sneak attack: (3d6)[*7*]

Stealth: (1d20+10)[*17*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

K'Ral's steps carry him across the gantry with all the warrior élan of his fey-touched people.  With little cover on the walkway, his commanding view of the field leaves him empowered to target anyway - but also exposed, with no good place to hide.  Mid stride, he raises his rifle to shoulder and bangs off one shot, racks the bolt and then another towards that seems to be the 'head' of the Angreifer, trying to put enough punishment on its sensory apparatus that it 'feels' the need to cover up.  But it avails little - the machine has a clear understanding of its nigh-invulnerability in the situation, it seems; and all it does it swivel its attention to the shooter.

The sergeant is unhindered scrambling into cover, leaving a steak of blood on the textured metal floor plates; the lieutenant slides his BEHIR mine by the backstep of the machine in hopes it would continue reversing and activate it.    Now there are two active behirs - if only they can get the bloody thing to step on them!




> Hey, Schmuck? Ever heard of the medial collateral ligament?


The labcoat flees at his best hobble into cover at the back of the room, while Doc kicks out at his attacker - but remarkably, the Grenzsoldat who grips him pivots to remove his knee from the incoming blow.  In doing so, he worms an arm under the halfling's chin and hoists him into the air!

_"I have, actually.  Ever heard of the anterior cruciate ligament?"_

This response, in clear, barely accented common Albinese, is so unexpected that the medic barely has time to process. Then his grappler has dropped to his knees voluntarilly, driving Doc to his own, and the weight of his body crushing a knee into the back of Doc's as he torque's back on the halfling's neck.  The effect is awful - searing,  straining pain in the halfling's leg and neck as grappler applies pressure with the powerful implication that, with just a little more effort, either neck or knee has to give way.  The physical frame differential between human and halfling is made starkly plain, all of a sudden; all because Doc happened to sass the one Vult soldier who seems to have gone to medical school at Oxbrand University.

Just his luck, really.

But then another shot rings out, and the back of doc's helmet and neck is flushed with warmth, as Ginger's careful shot all but decapitates the cocky grappler.  The other two Grenzsoldat try to recapture him, but can barely lay hands on him - and then Sal's there, flamethrower pointed, promising a fiery reprisal if they keep it up.

_"Don't!  Halt, please!" _ One of them finally yields, raising hands and taking a backward step; and his comrade follows suit.  The massacre is catching up to them - and neither want to die here.

But then, no one wants to die in war; that is much of what war is about.

*"Wehrpflichtige Soldaten sind nicht befugt, diplomatische Entscheidungen zu treffen!"*
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

*"Enlisted soldiers are not authorized to make diplomatic decisions!"*


The Angriefer angles its frame, and with a disheartening _shoonk_, dispenses a bouncing, metallic charge from the underframe of its paired machine guns.  It erupts in a hideous bang amidst the cluster it had not been willing to fire on before - the flechettes shredding the surrendering soldiers, and spelling terrible danger for Doc caught in the spray.

Finally, it cranes its guns to the gantry from which it is receiving fire and begins blazing away with short controlled bursts - but in such volleys that sparks shear and erupt all over from the walls and gantry.  K'ral can't help but elicit a howl of greivous pain as he hits the deck, with only the sheer angle of the flimsy gantry to possibly protect him.  He's hit - but the lingering cry of pain suggests, atleast that he is not killed.

The machine begins retreating, keeping itself between the squad and the Kreiger scientist.  It lifts a leg back, and it hovers over Xilo's BEHIR... before _infuriatingly_ adjusting the step to avoid it.  The machine definitely has a forward facing set of superior senses - but it seems, with some effort, capable of perceiving its surrounding and dangerous anomalies within them, less perfectly.  Perfect enough to thwart the trap, still.

*Spoiler: Alarm!  Turn Summary!  OOC!*
Show

Doc failed to escape the grapple - a nat 20 on the opposed check!  What a champ!  But Ginger was there to take a shot, and I saw no reason he wouldn't target that schmoe first.  I was going to call for an intimidate roll from Sal to talk these guys down - but between losing 90% of their guys and having a flamethrower pointed at them by a furious devil-man... they gave up.

Xilo laid his mine; and I gave a DC13 to the Angreifer to perceive such an object undisguised on the floor.  He rolled with disadvantage because he's facing away, but man if he didn't ace the rolls.

K'Ral used his inspiration to try to button the machine with a pinning attempt, but didn't get the 1 in 10 chance he needed to blind it temporarilly.  He double moved with his bonus action to get to the end of the gantry.

And Sarge, a little worse for wear, was able to crawl into cover - he's likely to recover from pinning this turn.

But with the kreiger scientist running into cover,the Angreifer used a reaction to launch a grenade at the treacherous surrendering soldiers - and Doc!  the soldiers are splatted.  Doc probably ain't happy!

ROLLS I NEED:

*WOLF:*  At the end of your turn, give me that DC17 Wisdom pinning save again, with advantage because the Angreifer is not continuing to suppress you.  If you succeed, you're unpinned for your next turn.  If not, you're still pinned - but you can atleast stand up to a crouch behind your cover!  The DC of the pinning check will drop to 13, at the end of your coming turn - the base level for pinning checks by small arms, and after the enemy has not repeated the attack to 'refresh' the weapon specific DC.

*DOC:* You've got a grenade to dodge, my man.  DC13 to take half of *5* piercing and *11* fire damage!

And that's it.  So far the Angreifer hasn't oblidged to step on your mines.  Cavir - sorry I don't think I responded about the cable question, but no; the cables at the bay the Angreifer left from were not thick enough to be a trip hazard for it.  Getting behind it and placing a mine ain't a bad idea - I just rolled awesome.

Good Guy Turn!  Also, I've made a campaign on Roll20 with a map - check the OOC thread for that, to get the visuals of what's going on!

----------


## JbeJ275

Upon seeing the grenade drop amongst the surrendering foes Salamir was in motion, he ran toward the machine, coming up so that it was positioned between him and Xilo, repairing Sparky's legs as he went. Then he dropped to a knee looking at the machines lumbering chassis from up close, after a moment to examine it he turned to the theoretical prize here. The labcoat who'd set this thing in motion to begin with.

"Look buddy, I took shots from your little friend there and I'm still walking. How much you wanna bet you can do the same to my buddy?"

With that, he released Sparky again, who scrambled over the rubble to line it's flame emitter up with he labcoat's centre of mass, should the guy start doing anything funny.

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show


Intimidation: (1d20+5)[*23*]
Perception: (1d20+1)[*7*]

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc*

The gore covered halfling can barely react as the infernal machine slaughters its own comrades. Even the humiliation of his Grappling orthopaedic rival fades into the background in the face of such callous disregard for life. Doc stares in disbief, Sparky's shield the only thing preventing a similar fate from befalling him.

The disbelief turns into cold rage as his eyes cast over the behemoth._ It walks on two legs, maybe it keeps its vitals in similar spots too._

Groans from the Sarge finally break through as the ringing fades from Doc's ears. His reflexes finally kick in and he finds himself hunkered down in cover, stemming bleeding wounds. As he does, so he cranes around, looking for a route to climb up to K'ral.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Perception (1d20+5)[*24*] on the Angriefer.
Move over to the Sarge's cover (on my phone  making roll20 difficult to move tokens, sorry!).
Healer feat using one med pack (1d6+4)[*8*]

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf scrambles behind some metal crates and takes a deep breath, happy to still be alive.  

*"Is that the best you got, you half-finished rust bucket?!"*, Wolf shouts, trying to use the bravado to calm himself and hopefully draw its fire away from everyone else.  He risks rolling over on the floor and risks peaking around one of the containers, seeing how ineffectual his taunt was on a robot.  But in Wolf's defense, this is like nothing he has ever seen before.

----------


## Cavir

LT Xilo's face turned to a victory grin as the tank was about to destroy itself on his mine. The grin disappeared just as fast as the tank avoided termination. 

He called out to his troops. *"Hey! It's slow to turn and won't fire at the labcoat. Get out of its line of fire.  Wolf, get moving. Doc, when you can, get to the labcoat. K'Ral, keep its attention without getting killed. Sal, figure out how to stop it. It has limited weapons. I'll try to take it out. Everyone, get to it!"* Xilo follows his own command, slinging his M1 as he sprints at the tank, darting up its back side. Whether it works or not he has a new obstacle idea course idea for trainees. 

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Athletics (1d20+6)[*8*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

The Labcoat is too proud to raise his hands - but not too proud to die.  He intuits the threat's implicit follow up, and offers up a spontaneous, sneering fragment of information that seems too born of desperate arrogance to be false.

"You ought to flee, Amcaran dogs!  Even _I_ cannot shut down the Angreifer now that it is in engaged in combat - if I tried, it would shoot me for trying to surrender.  It is a...", then with nearly hysterical, transcendent awe, "...a semi-autonomous warrior-machine-being!"

Doc skids into cover with Sgt Vognar, and slaps Quik-Clot on his wounds to last the battle.  Behind heavy steel lockers, they are safe-_ish_; but the machine is moving skill, popping off threatening bursts; hunting for targets; periodically roaring its apparently thwarted commands.

"Makro-Gattler engagieren... System nicht gefunden."

As it goes, Doc spots what he's hoping to see -  a rounded, cast steel panel on the right-rear of the torso, kidney-high, whose screw-pilots do not flash with the steel gleam of fasteners.  An unsecured panel over something, perhaps?  Some way Sal might get a tool in and do some damage?

*Spoiler: OOC: Weak Points*
Show

With a couple of eroding attempts and a success, Sal and Doc have discovered a Weak Point.  These are pretty dynamic, narrative driven exposures of opportunity.  Here's the beta rules, as I'm trialling them with you guys.

The DC to exploit a weakpoint with any relevant skill is equal to the vehicle's AC - in this case, 16.

To exploit a Weak Point, you need to declare how you are using a skill to expose the weakpoint.  It's like a skill challenge, mid combat.  If you succeed, the Weak Point becomes Exposed - which means the enemy Tank can be attacked normally until it loses 1/3 of its total HP, at which point it will (in addition to the nature of the damage inflicted upon it causing some other debilitation), lose one Legendary Action per turn.  This Angreifer appears not to have much it's able to do with those - but it's worth knowing.

Once you've done a third of its HP, that's all the damage you can get out of that Weak Point - you'll find and expose another to do more damage.  Three times, naturally, and you'll have exposed all its HP to conventional destruction.

The great advantage to Anti-tank weapons, like the Behir, is that in addition to doing their damage, they immediately reveal and Expose a Weak Point.

So as it stands, Sal might, for example, make a check with his Tinker's Tools as his action to try to jam a crowbar into the panel and pop it off as the machine goes by.  If he succeeds, that weak point will be exposed, and everyone else will be able to lay on the hurt - atleast for a bit!


The LT makes a valiant effort to clamber on the machine's flank; but all of a sudden it's moving again, and it's all he can do to back up a step to avoid getting crushed in the moving components of the mechanical demon.

Ginger lends his fire support along with K'ral to keep some distracting pressure on the Angriefer while their comrades operate in dangerous close proximity to it.  The arcane trickster pops off a concentrated five shots toward the thing's "head" before diving away from his cover to another piece; fire and relocate well learned.

K'ral doesn't have that luxury; with bursts of machine gun fire hammering into the wall above him and sparking off the guard rail of the gantry, he can only grimace through the pain and flatten himself as best as possible.  Hearing the LT's commands, still, he isn't one to shirk duty; and while prone, he bangs off a couple of shots that spark off the 'head' of the machine, capturing its attention again.

The reprisal is immediate - the Angreifer lurches into motion, its metal bulk threatening to crush Sal as it goes, and its torso guns track onto K'Ral's position and unlease a burst of hell again.  From the gantry, the eladrin lets out  a gasping, pained cry, and then falls silent; blood sluicing through the grated metal on the gantry and pattering down onto the consoles and machinery ten feet below.

*Spoiler: Turn Summary!*
Show

Play-By-Play available in the Roll20 chat!

Xilo fails to grab - an 8 athletics won't get you far, unfortunately, even it it hadn't clobbered the roll!

Sal intimidates the Labcoat - he seems to have tentatively surrendered, and has offered up some information.

Doc spots a Weak Point with the DC that Sal eroded earlier.

Wolf keeps his head down and gets medical attention.

Ginger tries to pin the Angriefer, then hides again.

K'ral tries to pin the Angriefer.  Both attempts to score a pinned result, and therefore a chance to button the vehicle, fail.

The Angreifer moves through Sal's square, trampling him - with a 23 to hit, that'll do 27 bludgeoning damage to the Tiefling unless he has a trick to save himself from being slammed by Vult engineering power.

The Angreifer uses its action to shoot at K'ral again - he passes his save, but the  intensity of fire is sufficient that even with the damage halved, he goes down.  *K'ral is on 0HP,* and bleeding out.


Player turn!  Doc and Sal may want to act first, since their actions may open up opportunities to everyone else.

----------


## JbeJ275

As the machine bears down on him Sal gropes around for Sparky's reserve shielding circuit and jamps it directly into a powerpack. For a second blinging blue light flares up as the shield is produced across Sal's entire body but he knows the pack is merely seconds aware from wearing out with this unstable configuration. 

In those few seconds he runs to the patch Doc is pointing out and cries to the rest of the group. "This thing has a weak spot! I'm gonna try and crack this panel!"

A quick whistle has Sparky scuttle back towards him and jump up on his arm, refocusing the fire to act as a blowtorch and allowing Sal's flame resitant fingers to try and pry the panel off of it's housing, jamping a small tool from his belt into the hinge and pressing down on it as the metal begins to glow and warp.

(1d20+11)[*24*]

Unable to do much with his gun at so close a range, and knowing that this spot alone won't bring it down he immedietly tries to look at where the wiring behind this panel leads, and what other weak points in this robot it might suggest.

(1d20+1)[*2*]

----------


## Waistcoatwill

Hey midtown, give it a kidney shot! One of your access panel thingies is there!

As Doc finishes yelling about the weak spot to Sal he pivots on the spot. His eyes follow the fire ploughing into K'ral with horror. He begins to sprint, clambering over equipment and leaping up to the support beams holding up the gantry.

He frantically scrabbles to get over the top, trying to slide under the railing and start slamming a cocktail of syringes into the downed soldier.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Move plus dash if required to get to K'ral, climbing is bo extra movement due to Second Story Work.
Athletics check (1d20+8)[*28*]
Bonus action use inspiration to give a short rest heal to K'ral.

----------


## Novabomb

*Gabriel Ginger*
Promptly opens fire on the opening exposed.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Std
Attack: (1d20+7)[*21*] Dmg (1d6+4)[*9*] (Not sure if sneak attack can apply) (3d6)[*4*]
Bonus
Hide: (1d20+10)[*19*]
Mv
Fetch the weasel out of his pack. (If we gut the exposed section, I imagine the cavity formed might be a nice place to plant some weasel.

----------


## Cavir

Xilo grimaces as K'Ral suffers the Angriefer's fury. No time to dwell on it he goes for a mad dash, first picking his Behir mine back up then darting around again to the back side of the walking tank hoping it loses track of his movement. His eyes lock on the bipedal tank, watching for the best time to slip the mine under its foot and seeing if he can detect any other weakness they can pounce on.

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

I can't grab the mine and get behind it in one move. Will have to wait til next round to deploy it. 

Stealth (1d20+5)[*11*]
Perception (1d20+5)[*8*]

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf takes a second's respite behind the crates to think about where the walking tank may be exposed, or at least react to protect itself.  Making his decision, Wolf leans around one of the crates, bracing his M1 on the floor and aiming at one of the walking tank's gun barrels.  Edit: But once he gets the metal monstrosity in his cross-hairs, he sees that a weak point has already been exposed.  He fires off a burst into the exposed insides of the tank, then rolls back to the relative protection of the crates.  

He slowly rises and looks over the top of the crate to see if his shots had their desired effect.  

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Wolf will use his inspiration to counteract the advantage from still being prone.  So two normal attack rolls, and if he hits with one of them he will spend a superiority die on distracting strike.  And since I already successed on the Wis save (finally), he will move to a crouch or standing position at the end of his turn, depending on how tall the crates are in front of him.

Attack 1: (1d20+9)[*23*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*12*] 
Attack 2: (1d20+9)[*27*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*9*] 

If an attack hits, extra damage from distracting strike: (1d8)[*7*] and the next attacker has advantage against it.


Edited the text above to explain where Wolf is shooting.

----------


## MrAbdiel

Doc has just finished his efforts healing Sgt. Vognar before he's bounding off, flying up and over the machinery consoles and launching himself to the gantry where K'ral bleeds.  A moment later, K'ral lets out a screaming gasp as the curative shot drags him back to consciousness; and he has enough of himself to thank Doc with a croaky whisper from his bloody lips, and then to crawl off the gantry and drop into cover.  For Wolf, watching, this is just more proof of how fortunate their squad is to have such a capable medic - and one so gifted at climbing.

*Spoiler: OOC:*
Show

K'ral is back to full from that inspiration heal from the Doc.  He crawls down and into cover, and uses his action failing at perception, eroding the Weakpoint DC.

Wolf gains Inspiration from witnessing Doc's healing!


Sal's instinct proves out; he wrenches open the loose panel, and reveals the guts of the machine within; a core of pneumatic pistons, and wires, and rubber tubing.  Once it's opened up, there's no delay in the Psychos capitalizing on it - both Pvt Ginger and Sgt Vognar open up, pouring lead into the cavity until it streams sparks, and burning globs of machine oil like the infernal blood of some great steel demon.

"Technikerwarnung: Dieses Gerät ist beschädigt. Code Zwölf."

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

Technician warning: This device is damaged.  Code Twelve.


Some internal countermeasure goes off, and soon that open cavity hisses and bubbles as it runs with greasy, fire retardant gel, staunching the accruing damage.  But the machine is wounded; it favours the wounded side as it scans about with its sensory apparati.

*Spoiler: OOC:*
Show

Sal pops open the weakpoint, and erodes the DC a little more for the next one. 
 Between Ginger and Wolf, the weakpoint is fully exploited and the machine takes a chunk of damage - slightly over 1/3.  The Angreifer takes a legendary action to perceive his surroundings.


Xilo recovers his mine, and slips around behind the Angreifer; using the angles to try to escape its immediate attention.  But as it takes a backward step, it swings its leg out viciously, and only the elf's honed reflexes permit him to dive out of the way while gently cradling the active mine in one arm.  A second kick at Salamir forces the engineer to take evasive manoeuvres of his own; but they can hardly halt its movement.  The Angreifer backs up against the wall, putting all its foes in front of it, and opens fire with a hurricane of lead - at Sgt. "Wolf" Vognar, who has so greivously wounded it.

*Spoiler: OOC:*
Show

Xilo's stealth doesn't succeed, but the Angriefer fails to hit him with a legendary action, and then fails to hit Sal with its bonus action - rolled 2 2's.

Between Sal, Xilo, and K'ral, the Weakpoint Perception DC has eroded down to 19.

But the big deal is the way it opens fire on Wolf: the Sgt needs to make a DC 17 Reflex save (with advantage granted, from his cover) for the privelege of taking only half of *60 Piercing Damage!*

----------


## Novabomb

*Gabriel Ginger*
_Well, isnt that just the perfect place to place a weasle._
He rigs up the weasle, and tries to sneak that into the cavity.
*Spoiler: OOC*
Show


Slight of Hand: (1d20+10)[*27*] (Magehand Legerdemain)

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* uses the vantage point of the gantry to look for any more signs of weakness or damage. Surrounded by K'ral's blood, he realises the precariousness of his position he clambers back down off the gantry into cover close to Wolf.

*Spoiler: Roll*
Show

Perception (1d20+5)[*18*]

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf, now hiding behind the crates in earnest, grunts at his open wounds from the walking tank's barrage.  _Damn, that smarts, I just got out of the way in time_, he thinks.  He takes a deep breath to center himself, like in the huddle playing tackleball--but here, with much more at stake.  He looks over the top of the crates and uses the iron sight of his M1 to pinpoint the next weak point to take that walking monstrosity down.  

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Using bonus action for second wind: (1d10+5)[*6*] HP
And making Perception check to find a weak spot: (1d20+8)[*17*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

_There._

It's Wolf who sees it first.  Whatever internal fire-suppression mechanism the machine has comes at a cost; a discrete flap on the rear of the machine, near its armoured and metal-grated diesel-smoke spitting exhaust port, has sprung open about fifteen degrees to accommodate the air intake needed.  The canny sergeant can't see underneath it - but they wouldn't need an open-shut mechanism if it wasn't vulnerable, would they?  They'd just cover it like they did the exhaust port.  If someone can get that open, break it off maybe, it must have more of the machine's vital guts concealed within.

*Spoiler: OOC: Partial turn resolution!*
Show

Doc erodes the DC, and Wolf spots a weakpoint - a weakpoint that can be exploited in some interesting way.

Ginger's turn resolution pending, since I should ask a question in the OOC first!

----------


## JbeJ275

While the weasel bomb rocked the machine from one side, from the other Sal attempted to take advantage of the pause to weld open another section, a series of cables connecting its sensors to its guns. Should the steel plates be pried apart Sal makes to stick his Hellfire Rifle on the gap, and put a concussive round directly on its internal mechanisms, otherwise hell focus his efforts on avoiding the machines attacks.

Tinkers Tools: (1d20+11)[*14*]
Shatter: (4d8)[*14*] DC 16 Con save with disadvantage for half.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc*

The diminutive medic quietly peeks over the various crates around him. Spotting an opening he snaps off a shot before throwing himself flat once more.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Stealth (1d20+4)[*22*]
Firing at the machine, hopefully with advantage
(1d20+7)[*15*] Or (1d20+7)[*16*]
(1d8+4)[*7*] damage and hopefully (3d6)[*10*] sneak attack
Dropping down prone afterwards and hoping that puts the wee surgeon out of sight! For future reference, is it possible to drop prone after doing a Steady Aim?

----------


## Cavir

2LT Xilo deftly dodges the tank's attempt to squash him into some chewed up gum stuck to the bottom of its metal foot. Instead he found himself right in front of the deadly monstrosity. Even if it had shot elsewhere, his current spot out in the open was asking for trouble. Xilo drops the behir in front of the tank again and darts over to the enemy lab coat to make sure he wasn't trying something funny.

He called out to his squad. *"That's it! It's wounded. Focus on finishing it off. K'ral, Doc, keep those Wonders coming! Wolf, take the shot!"* 

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Drop the behir in front of the tank then move to the labcoat.
Grant Inspiration to Doc and K'ral. 50% chance to grant to a third. (1d2)[*1*] (a two is good)
Commander Strike for Wolf. He gets an extra attack now with (1d8)[*4*] extra damage. 3/4 SD left.

----------


## MrAbdiel

The 'Weasel' blasting device is named for the distinctive pop when it detonates with it shaping cap; more of a terribly loud _'TOHH!'_ than a _'BOOM'_.  Of course, when there's several packed together like the Psychos found themselves doing with the sealed door beneath Naphto, the sound is a little more a _'BOOM'_ to be sure.  But Ginger's slyly flung Weasel slots into the open cavity, explodes with its trademark pop that echoes in the warehouse-hangar, and causes the great machine to rock to one side with a gout of smoke and fire pouring out of that gutted side.

"WARNUNG - KRITISCHE FEHLER ERKANNT."

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"WARNING - CRITICAL FAILURE DETECTED."


Pvt. Salamir makes his move.  With Lt. Xiloscient calling for supporting fire over his shoulder, the tiefling makes his lunging effort with his 'sparky' torch in hand; but this time, the machine is ready with its punchcard-approximation of learned lessons, and human cunning.  As the head of the torch touches it, the Angreifer recovers suspiciously fast from the rocking blast of Pvt. Ginger's 'Weasel', stepping back and pivoting with  with a swing of its leg that catches the engineer full in the body, carries him into the air, and leaves him skidding limply to a halt amidst the mangled and perforated bodies of the _Grenzsoldat_ the Skyknives so recently blew through.  It looks to be ready to follow up, but a grinding disagreement of gears suggests some mechanical indecision as it confronts the mine Xilo has laid in its path.  Its guns swivel to the Lt, but with hunkering near the Kreiger labcoat, it defaults away from opening fire in that direction and pivots away, even as it approaches the labcoat and the lieutenant with a backwards gait.

K'ral, now on the ground level and shivering with the dual torments of blood loss and the brain-sizzling stimulants injected into him, pokes up to train his rifle on the Angreifer, tracking his scope over the vent that Wolf revealed to be a liability.  To make an impact from here, Pvt. Burnfaire would need to put a round not into a vent, but into one of the screws holding that vent in place; an incredible shot, but one a marksman like himself or Ginger could manage comfortably.  But to do so while the machine was in motion, making combat blows with its titantic legs against his comrades and coming about for tracking fire, was nearly impossible.  Still, nearly was nearly; and holding a breath and slowly releasing it, forcing his hands to still with a heroic effort, he remembers the days hunting with first longbow and rifle in the wild places of Amcara and the Fey realm beyond; how his father and uncle showed him not just to hunt, but to hunt as elves do; not just as elves do, but as _eladrin_ do.  He focused on the enemy, his _prey_, and fired.

The bullet rebounded with an audibly impressive _ping_, but a moment later, the vent on the machine's back, loosed by the blast within it, swings down on its one remaining screw, exposing its critical innards to the fury of the Pyschos.

The Angreifer's fury is not yet exhausted.  A punitive hail of bullets rakes across the lockers and crates where Gabriel hides, the machine apparently aware enough of his presence to be suspicious of him; or else choosing him at random for suffering.  Simultaneously, its backward stride accelerates to bring it close to the labcoat under its protection - close enough to slam into Xilo, whose nearness seems to have spared him bullets, but not intervention entirely.

*Spoiler: Turn Resolution!*
Show

Wolf identified the weakpoint.
Xilo blocks the Angriefer's path with the deployed mine, and retreats to the side of the Labcoat.
Sal fails to expose the weakpoint; the Angreifer uses a legendary action to kick him hard as hell, putting him on his back at 0 HP.
K'ral succeeds at his nature check in the skill challenge to open the weak point!  It's open!  A third of the Angriefer's total hitpoints are now open to conventional damage, and the remainder are open to damage to which it only has _resistance_, thanks to a little luck and Ginger's determination to get that Weasel into action.

Theoretically, all it'll take now is firepower to bring it down.

THINGS TO RESOLVE:

Lt. Xiloscient will take 30 bludgeoning damage if he's not slippery enough to avoid a 23 to hit his AC.
Pvt. Ginger will take a punishing 62 piercing damage from the Angriefer's fire, or half of that if he can succeed at a DC17 dexterity save.  Since he's in cover, he can have advantage on the roll.

Since Sal (and possibly Ginger) is down at the start of this turn, I'll ask the player(s) to hold off acting for the moment.  If someone manages to get you up, you can take your action as normal, starting prone; if not, then after the others have had their turns, I'll need a Death Save.

Doc, you made your attack prematurely - but it wasn't bad!  16 was the number you needed to hit, and with the Sarge's distracting shot, you'd have advantage and therefore the ability to sneak attack.  I'll let you carry that over to this turn if you want; but I know Doc's a medico first, so I'll allow you to nix that if you intend a different, probably more medical action.

----------


## Novabomb

*Pvt Gabriel Ginger*

Spent a bit too much time admiring his own work, and admiring the flames and gas escape from the death machine.  Hes several seconds too slow as it fills him with iron.  Even as he falls he has a smile on his face.

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc*

The sickening crunch as the machine connects with Sal makes Doc wince, but fortunately not look away. Cogs turn in his head.

_Blunt trauma...down but not pulped...must be fibrillating!_

Without thinking he sprints over, the limp form somehow less irritating and objectionable in this defenceless state. His fingers instinctively grab the crackling, cracked form of Sparky.

I've seen this work on mice!

He slams the doohicky into his comrade's chest, just to the left of the sternum, hoping to restore a normal rhythm and not just fry him!

At this point he sees both the looming monstrosity and the hail of fire felling Ginger. With a final burst of speed he desperstely tries to make it to his next patient, now left dangerously out in the open.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Bonus action dash. Action plus inspiration to use a med kit to give Sal a short rest heal. Using the remainder of his movement to head towards Ginger

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf follows the lieutenant's order, and takes aim at the walking tank.  But then the monstrosity spins around and hits Sal.  With half the squad down (and hurting himself), Wolf angrily tries to retrain his M1 on some soft part of the target.  Then he sees the vent blow open and the "soft" insides of the tank.      

*"This is it!"* Wolf shouts at no one in particular.  *"Time to make this thing scrap metal!  Yyyaaaahhhh!"*  He walks slowly forward, unloading a full clip at the tank and trying to make each round count.  

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show

Okay, so Wolf gets an "extra" attack from Xilo, which he will roll first.  He will then do a normal attack action, and spend his action surge for another attack action.  So that is five attacks, total.  He will spend any superiority dice necessary for precision attack, which I will roll in an OOC post after seeing how these rolls turn out.  I hope this is enough to drop the thing, because Wolf ends the round standing in the open like a rube.  
Attack A(from Xilo): (1d20+9)[*29*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*7*] plus the roll from Xilo's commander's strike? 
Attack B1: (1d20+9)[*24*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*9*] 
Attack B2: (1d20+9)[*11*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*8*]
Attack C1: (1d20+9)[*15*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*11*]
Attack C2: (1d20+9)[*14*] and damage: (1d10+4)[*11*]

----------


## MrAbdiel

With the sergeant's roar as he surges into the open, the rest of the battered and bleeding Skyknives - those who are capable of lifting their weapons - join him in pouring lead and wrath onto the machine.  Most of the rounds go banging off its thick steel hide; but there's enough damage done to the chassis that such a majority effect doesn't make the telling of the story.  Enough rounds pour into the opened and vulnerable vent; into the torch-cut, Weasel-gutted side; into the imperfect overlaps of steel created by the constant and relentless hammerblows of force against the warrior construct.  As the barking thunder of Wolf's weapon clicks dry and his hands begin flying through the ingrained motions of reload, the Angriefer pivots to bring its guns to bear; but in a gory puddle of its own burning oil and loosed hydraulic fluids, it slumps to one knee with a terrible _bang_, its torso sagging.

"KRITISCHER FEHLER. SELBSTZERSTÖRUNGSAKTIVIERUNG: FÜNF, VIER,..."

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"CRITICAL FAILURE.

SELF DESTRUCT ACTIVATION: FIVE, FOUR,..."


The last two words come with interspersed, flagging bursts of some internal klaxon; the machine's capacity to warn fading with its 'death', rapidly.  This time, no one needs to translate its speech.  You all know basic Kreiger numbers; and counting backwards from five typically preceeds only one thing.

"DREI,..."

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"THREE,..."


No time to get clear of the room.  The brave charge into the open is hastily reversed.

"ZWEI,..."

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"TWO,..."


Your hurl yourselves into cover.  It falls to Doc, and the groggy and recovering Sal, to haul Ginger out of harm's way; his previous cover shredded by high calibre gunfire that has pummelled him so viciously.

"EINS,..."

*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"ONE,..."


Bones jarred and possibly fractured, Lt. Xiloscient just manages to tow the hopping, wounded Kreiger labcoat with him into the cover of a tall and hopefully hardy piece of workshop machinery.  Everyone covers their ears, and braces.

"System nicht gefunden."
*Spoiler: Kreigspiel:*
Show

"System not found."


And with a final, anticlimactic wheeze of perishing motors, the whole chassis slumps to the ground, shaking the steel tiles; but failing to explode in a hail of deadly shrapnel.

*Spoiler: OOC: Victory for the Skyknives!*
Show

Enemy slain!  The room is yours.  Ginger still needs help, but with only one death save to make before Doc can attend him, he is not in danger of dying before he can be stabilized.  The Kreiger Labcoat, who was really counting on this machine to kill you all, is now miserably your prisoner.

The other loose ends from this room, from way back at the start of the fight, are the handful of technikers who escaped and dropped the shutter behind them, leading further into the facility, in the direction you are otherwise heading.

----------


## JbeJ275

For a long few seconds after the end fo the countdown Sal barely breathes, then with hands on his knees he leans over in shocked laughter, and makes his way to Ginger, applying a specially modified shield projector to contain the bleeding and reinforce his body while it healed, at least until Doc could see to it properly. Then he let Sparky descend from it's position on his shoulder, and walked over to Xilo and the labcoat, taking an interested look at the tank as he passed it.

"Good catch, Sarge. What are we doing with our friend here now, looks like he's got a lot of interesting things he could tell us."

*Spoiler: Rolls*
Show


Ginger gets (1d8+5)[*8*] HP back

----------


## Waistcoatwill

*Doc* applies a few bandages to Ginger's. Taking the opportunity provided by Sal to tie-off an otherwise tricky little bleeder. He scans the room to see how the rest of his squad are doing.

Nice one Sarge, remind me never to get on you're bad side.

You okay LT?

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Healer feat for Ginger (1d6+9)[*14*]

Looks like I got it wrong for Wolf earlier and he should have an extra 5hp from the earlier med kit.

----------


## Continental Op

Wolf nods to Doc and Sal, and looks around.  "Damn, that thing almost got us.  Is everyone up and accounted for?  K'ral and Ginger able to move?"" 

He turns to Lieutenant Xilo.  "Anyway, LT, do we need to track down more of those eggheads, or is this bastard enough?  We should ask him..." 
Wolf pauses, then leans in to the head scientist, and smiles menacingly, "You speak Amcaran, don't you?  If you want to live, tell us how to get out of here and how much time we have before the place blows up.  Better yet, how do we disarm whatever charges were placed down here?"

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

Thanks for the extra healing Doc, I noted it on my sheet.  

And in case an intimidation roll is needed: (1d20+5)[*17*]

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## Cavir

2LT Xilo hears the countdown. Knowing he can't get the lab coat out in time, never mind himself, he drags the enemy behind a desk and uses his own body to shield the valuable enemy scientist. When the explosion fails to come he gets up, making sure he wasn't pick pocketed in the meantime. 

*"Yes I'm fine."* He doesn't get in the way of Wolf's interrogation. *"Ginger, K'ral, take watch at either exit. See if the far exit door is operable. Sal, see what is useful here that we can carry. Do you think the railway we came in is usable to get back out? Doc, excellent work keeping us going. Finish up what you need. I'll see if I can reach the others."*

He magically tries to contact the other squad. _"LT, copy? Target scientist captured. New style tank is here, disabled and immobile. Over."_ 

*Spoiler: OOC*
Show

While waiting on the countdown, use my Second Wind for (1d10+6)[*14*] hp (was at 45/62).

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## MrAbdiel

> "You speak Amcaran, don't you? If you want to live, tell us how to get out of here and how much time we have before the place blows up. Better yet, how do we disarm whatever charges were placed down here?"


Now that the adrenal frenzy of the combat is over, the Vult scientist struggles with the pain of the bullet in his leg; trying to pressure his wound while the victorious soldiers of his enemy consolidate their victory.  He glares up from where he sits, at the glowering sergeant; unhappy, but not uncooperative.

_"Zere are many ways out to ze surface - including, no doubt, ze vay you came in. But..._ Was bedeutet das?_  Charges?  Zere are no charges.  Ve did not build zis facility intending to destroy it - you shouldn't even have made if off ze cursed beach!  You should not be here!"_

*Spoiler: Insight Check: 15+, for anyone listening.*
Show

The scientist seems... genuinely offended by the idea that Amcaran soldiers penetrated and trod inside this realm of sterile inquest and discovery. 
 The idea that the Vult forces would have been rolled back from Naphto beach to here sees genuinely shocking and disgusting to him.  You can never be sure with enemy confessions, but perhaps he's telling the truth that there are no bombs - or atleast, that he doesn't know about any.

Is it possible that the Kreiger soldier, hassling the elven maid to flee with him, was lying, trying to compel the comely girl to come with him for entirely less tactical, and more base reasons?


To Lieutenant Xiloscient, after a beat, 1st Lt. Bathory replies; though the message spell renders her voice softly, with the haze of interferance present in areas of many overlapping magical fields or an intensity of arcane radiation.  _"Copy, Xilo.  We went down furt-..."_
A static hiss.
_"...no sign of destructive charges or a singul-..."_
Another one.
_"...ey could overload, so we're stumped.  Took some captive staff who weren't evacuating, which is strange.  If they have the place rigged, it's not d-..."_
A third.
_"...where our sappers would have gone to do the job.  I think the tunnels lead all around the village - there's not a bomb in the world big enough to -..."_
A fourth, final hiss.
_"...ill keep looking.  Ask captive about the Dragonstrike weapons - tank tech good; dragons primary. 
   Over."_

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## Waistcoatwill

Doc listens in as he glances over the labcoat to assess his injuries. He whispers to the LT before crouching down to look at the Krieger's leg.

This schmuck might be a maniac but I don't think he's lying.

He starts cleaning the wound in a robust but not intentionally cruel manner.

Hold still now, I'm just making sure you don't bleed to death on us. I don't need the extra work.

*Spoiler: Actions*
Show

Medicine check to ensure the wound is cleaned and bleeding managed. He isn't trying to restore HP, just make sure the guy makes it back for questioning in one piece.
(1d20+8)[*24*]

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## Continental Op

Wolf, not hearing Doc and not putting 2 and 2 together, continues his questioning.  "Do you really want to die down here with us when this place blows?"  He looks at the scientist for a beat, before a (incorrect) lightbulb goes off.  "Wow, you self-important moron, they didn't tell you we were coming and they were going to destroy this place?  Shows you what the top brass actually thought of you, huh?  Does it hurt, being as expendable as all your underlings?"  Wolf snorts and shakes his head.  

He turns to Xilo.  "Well, what are your orders?  If everyone is mobile soon, should we follow where all the workers ran off to?"

----------

