The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 1A - Two Hundred Yards Of Nightmare

[MrAbdiel]

Your featherfall spell wasn’t meant for such an extended time in the air; and as you tumble at the whim of the Vult druid-line’s wind manipulation, you feel the featherlightness depart from you, the burden of your gear suddenly manifesting on your spinning body, and then a sickening two seconds of freefall.

You hit something. You are choking, and blind, and slowly your senses right to tell you that you are under water.

The water you’ve landed in is a little under five feet deep - or 1d8 feet deep, if you'd like some extra randomness to inspire your writing. If you’re particularly tall and beefy, you might painfully bounce off the sand as your mass carries you through the water. If you’re particularly small, you might find your feet can’t touch the bottom and you’ll have to swim. In the interest of not making you roll for every possible misfortune, these things are not hazards with a mechanical effect; but they’re the kind of things that might be fun to remark on in your post, as your soldier experiences the trauma and exhilaration of the defining moments of their life.

As you thrash your way to the surface and blink the stinging sea brine from your eyes, you see you’re surrounded by the madness of the main troop landing on Naphto beach. Behind you, light seacraft chatter away with their machine guns toward the shore and beyond a bank of fog flash the big guns of the UPA and Albinon warships. In front of you is thirty yards of choppy surf leading to a bank of shingle and a row of ten foot high concrete seawall the Vult have constructed all along the coast with strategic breaks, encouraging attackers to funnel through into the defender’s primary kill-zones. There are other breaks in the wall, where the big guns behind you have smashed open new gaps that are less hazardous, but slower going through the jagged rubble. Past that, you spot concertina wire behind the seawall running for miles up and down the beach; tanktraps made of welded steel beams; and two hundred yards of craters, hidden land mines, and open ground being raked with enemy fire. A hundred and seventy feet up past that is the legendary Defiant Wall: your own personal confrontation with one and a half thousand miles of defensive sea bunkers, trenches, and concrete malice pointing their weapons back at the Aquiteaux channel. Massive emplacement guns thump away in their extended duel with the allied battleships. It is a fight they are likely to win, for when the Kreigvolk munitions hit, they do intolerable damage to small craft and significant injury to battleships. But you watch a volley of naval shells that should split bunkers and rend stone burst harmlessly on a lambent purple field of energy that flashes visible only at the point of impact, and then winks back into hiding.

A visual reference, if it’s helpful; from a similar conflict. It’s high tide.https://www.britannica.com/study/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Obstacles-found-on-a-typical-section-of-Omaha-Beach-during-the-Normandy-Invasion.jpg

The merciless sea behind you, the carnivorous cliffs of Aquiteaux infront; and all around you to either side, the flower of Amcaran valor pushing through all the gunfire and horror. Other paratroopers from other companies of the Skyknives - Archer, Baldur, Corban, and Diver - are still crashing down into the water, spluttering and struggling to adjust to the calamity. Those are the luckier ones. A handful of the less fortunate take the twenty foot fall after their rings give out onto the hard sand, the vacated landing craft of the landing troops, or onto the seawall itself.

The faces of the men and women struggling out of the water near you are mostly not familiar to you. The majority are humble infantry, whose landing craft have gotten as close at they can to the shore before striking sandbars, and submerged obstacles, forcing the desperate soldiers to struggle through neck high water with rifles high over their heads, hoping they still fire when they get to the beach. With the drop having gone so terribly for you, there’s only two sensible priorities right now: try to survive, and try to regroup with Echo Company.

You’re in an active warzone, but not technically in combat time yet. The concrete sea wall is preventing you from engaging the enemy and protecting you from them, once you scramble up on the shore. But every individual’s primary objective right now is to regroup with Echo Company. You’re all stranded in a sea of allied soldiers and cannot locate anyone else right away - but you’re entitled to “see” and move over to anyone else in the scene who has posted already. Thus, the first one or two people to crawl out of the surf will do so alone, and after that you should feel free to snowball together and heal, check gear, have a mental breakdown, or do whatever you like. Leaders should naturally be thinking about how to make lemonade from this particularly awful lemon of a landing.

[stanleyindraven]

Quickly finding a footing in the chest high waters, Bruce peers around for his team. "Sulphur!" he shouts, hoping the others can hear him over the water and gunfire. "Sulphur!" Bruce starts to push his way up to the shingle, atempting to help anyone he runs into along the way. He starts grabbing at the other soldiers around him and pushing them up the line, "No time to lag boys, those bastards aren't going to kill themselves."

[Awful]

The tiny vampire thrashed wildly in the water before she settled and sank. Finally there was sand underneath her water-logged boots and she could walk herself out the surf. Thank god she didn't need to breathe; activating your lifejacket meant you were an easy target, bobbing on the water, and not meant the weight of your weapons and equipment would drag you down to Davy Jones.

"Echo company!" Temperence shouted, "Echo company! To me! To me!"

The gods alone knew if any of them had lived. She added her voice to the clamour, trying to rally any of her wind-scattered forces.

In the general bedlam, she could hear a deep rumble she recognised. Nearby, the distinctive size of Pvt Rumble was shoving about soldiers. She staggered forward, still a little unsteady, feeling seawater aggravate her cuts. Nothing too deep; she'd live.

She focused her mind, and over the noise of battle, she spoke directly to Pvt Rumble's brain. Within his head, the sharp, hissing tones of Bathory's mental voice sounded:

"<Rumble! Over here! On your three-o-clock!>"

Taking the moment of respite, her crimson barrier flickered in and out of existence as she began recharging it. It had already saved her a nasty injury, if not her life, on the way down; she doubted any Volk bullets would be inclined to be kinder.

[Cavir]

Sgt Ladaran Xiloscient
2nd squad, 3rd Platoon, Echo Company, 101st Skyknives

Splash! The tumbling into the water disoriented the elf. With flailing limbs he finally found where the water wasn't and up righted himself. It took a few moments to get the water out and air in but the overwhelming sounds of gunfire and explosions quickly put him back into focus. I'm on the wrong side of the fight! This was a situation never thought of. He swore to himself in Dwarvish as he took in the situation. Keeping his head barely above water to be less of a target he waded to the beach while calling out. Many were around him but known that he recognized. "Skyknives! Form on me! Skyknives!" Skyknives or not, Sgt Xilo gave a quick hand to those around him who stumbled in the surf. The more that made it forward the better for himself too. "Up to the wall. Go Go GO!"

"Skyknives! Form up!" He didn't care which platoon or company they were from. He just wanted more competent soldiers around him. He heard the call of Sulphur! out to the right. He looked and saw Pvt. Gamble herding the line forward. Xilo kept moving forward as he used magic to contact him. All of Echo company knew his and the LT's ability and their voices through it. "I'm off to your left. Don't care what company they are from, bring any skyknives. Meet at the wall in front of me. Move!"

Xilo kept moving forward and calling out. Hitting the shingles and looking left he noticed a much smaller figure moving in a familiar commanding way. He shifted in that direction some to get within range of his magic. "LT, looking inland I'm off to your right. Found one so far. Meet you at the wall." With the surf not hindering him anymore he surged forward to the wall to take cover. From there he alternated between belting out orders to the waves of troops behind him to move forward and calls for seeking out more skyknives.

[JbeJ275]

Salamir got a head start on cursing compared to most, doing it pretty much as soon as the jump started and continuing without pause or repetition until he slammed into the shallow water, freezing cold saltwater jumping up into his nose and mouth. Stggering forward, he drew out pipe and shield emitters from his interior webbing, quickly forming a protector mode eldritch cannon and binding its legs around his left arm.

He slams his other arm into the controls a few times, staggering forwards until the saltwater isn't getting into the intakes and a silvery bue shied emerges around him and any nearby incoming soldiers protecting them from the long range small arms fire as a few other soldiers unload into the surf. Now with a moment of calm he catches sight of the vampire Lt and pitches towards them, limping up to her and allowing ttheir respective shields to overlap, giving an island of relative safety on a beach of nightmares.

"Hey. LT, I'm here. Where we going?" He shouts as he stumbles forwards towards the seawall.

[MrAbdiel]

Your small group of four coheres behind the concrete wall. Ones and twos of the grunts dragging themselves to the shore gravitate to the seawall too, as quickly as they can; their squads pooling around them as they arrive. They're hesitant to move up in tight squads, and you know why. A grisly marker twenty feet to your group's right tells of a lesson learned by all who watched; six men from the same squad dead or dying in a halo around an exploded mine, just as they emerged from the transport. Another is weakly crying out for his mother, as the remnants of his squad drag him, riddled with shrapnel, into cover.

With your group's members shouting over the din and trying to pull elements of the platoon, or company, or hell, anyone else in the 101st to yourselves, you find limited success. You must have men scattered up and down this beach - or gods, you hope so. You pray those you can't see have landed well, and out of the firing line, and that they're grouping and making something of this disaster too.

Finding their way to your patchwork squad are a human and an elf from Baldur company, whom you recognize loosely but do not know by name. On the battlefield, 'private' will do; and they look over the squad in dismay as they find no one they recognize well themselves. Along with them are three from your platoon who splashed down close enough to be caught in your orbit: Corporal Spade, the warforged from first squad; Private Jukebox, the kenku from second squad; and Private Tristain Ordo, the human from third squad. Spade is dented and oozing what his people have in place of blood, but seems alert and combat ready. Jukebox, the little bird-man he is, has one badly broken arm and is shivering as the adrenaline overpowers the shock of that injury. He has the hand of that arm, his left, stuffed into the webbing of his uniform in an extremely crude replication of a sling immobilizing effort, and has his pistol in the other hand. Private Ordo, a paladin by trade and rifleman by training, has been Doc Helmholtz's typical offsider for medical interventions; and being the closest thing the squad has to a medic now, he takes it on himself to reorganize Jukebox's attempted sling into something more functional.

You hope more of your brothers in arms will arrive, but this seems to be it for now; and a more immediate problem is arising. The landing troops are pooling up against the wall near you, the normal flow out into the field of fire to find improvised shelter and to push the offensive line forward having staunched. "We can't bottle up here, we're going to get strafed by that *^%&ing dragon!" screams a nearby sergeant of the 62nd Infantry. "Go! Go!" And leading by example, he surges through the gap in the wall along with a dozen young Amcarans who had dreams, and families, and friends and sweethearts they had promised they would see again. They make it about thirty feet past the opening, and then a raking blast of machine gun fire scythes left at leg height. They all go down, some crying out for moments before going silent; others destined to cry out for hours to come. Their attacker, you see as you peek out of cover after the burst, is a pillbox that sticks only two feet up from the sand, with a narrow slit out of which two side-by-side machine guns traverse seeking new prey. The concrete bunker is about a hundred feet out from where you are now, and must mostly exist underground. Presumably, its purpose is to do just this - to pin down allied forces long enough for high yield weapons to hit the clusters. And it's doing that job very well. Behind you in the surf, the answer to this problem vanishes as quickly as it manifested; an allied tank, modified for amphibious assault with air bladders and a water-screw propulsion system, suffers some kind of malfunction and sinks bubbling into the water. Its crew scramble, drowning, to the surface, and like you, begin to adapt to the dynamic reality of war fought on terms other than those they'd anticipated.

Spade's deep voice, perspicacious, brassy and strong despite his injuries, raises the question everyone's already asking. "What do we do? We don't even have a full strength squad, let alone a platoon. And our objective is on the other side of the Defiant Wall - the sabotage of which was our purpose. And retreat is..." He looks back pitifully at the beach; a graveyard of broken and discarded landing craft, more and more accumulating behind them. "...Impossible."

It looks pretty bad. In a situation like this, your training would be to get back in touch with command - but Specialist Vivienne Pierce is nowhere to be seen with your radio, and the one strapped to Cpl Spade's back is no doubt ruined by the impromptu baptism you all took. Your soldier instincts tell you, however, that you can always abstract your mission up a left, and up another if you have to - from Platoon, to Company, to Battalion, to Division, to Corps. And it's the purpose of the U.P. Army Corps here today to take this beach, to move up regardless of the danger, to disable the enemy defences as much as possible so those landing soon will have an easier time than those who have already landed. If any elements of the 101st landed on mark, they'll be trying to accomplish their original objective. The best you can do for them now is add to the pressure the Vult are feeling from the front, so they aren't inclined to look too hard behind.

[stanleyindraven]

"What do you say I take this bomb and plant it in that bunker? Gets these men through," Bruce shouts over the munitions at his superior officers. He looks forward trying to gauge just how far he can run before he'd have to launch the bomb to get it in place.

[JbeJ275]

Damn. Ordo at least someone made it. Shouts Sal, trying desperately not to think about where the rest of his squad is. Then turns his focus to the issue at hand, leafing through his webbing for exposives and trying to remeber the tricks the rest of the company could pull. He was no born tactician but he was an engineer working with miliatary kit and that requires you be a problem solver.

"Hey Lady!" He cries, something which in a more rational our he'd of been even the slightest bit more diplomatic about as he was talking to a superior officer. "Reckon you can fog the bunker? Then Brucey and I can crack the bunker and we can bloody die in the tunnels rather than on the beach!

[Heavenblade]

James looks towards the bunker I can hold a position in the front. If Ill get close enough, my blessed bullets are sure to live a mark on anyone who tries to pop up and shoot us - and I might have something more serious at store, just in case...but even with the blessing of the almighty, their bullets will eventually find their mark into my shell. So, I can give cover if you need the space for a few seconds

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo finally pulled out his M1 as he responded rapidly to Cpl Spade so that they rest of the unit could hear too. "Our mission hasn't changed. Get to the acolytes and break them. Just a few more obstacles to get through first. Look around you. We aren't alone. They aren't skyknives but they're here and have the gear so they'll do for now. Who knows, maybe the tunnels get us past the Wall, or we kill all the Vults while they're too busy shooting at the beach. Plenty of options left."

"Fog will help. We can blow this section of wall first or use a grenade to blow the wire on the other side. What'll it be LT?"

[MrAbdiel]

The other skyknives nod in slow assent and then more firmly in resolve. Corporal Spade eyes the goliath and the tiefling, as they begin to concoct their reckless and possibly necessary charge. "Suppose we can't let these foot-boys keep all the bullets. Gamble, you're not a subtle target. You're going to risk eating a lot of lead out there. It's probably better that you cut right with anyone brave enough to pull fire and Sal goes left with anyone who can keep their head low. A pillbox that compact doesn't have enough room to get a charge through the slit; you'll need to get close enough to wedge it, or it'll detonate externally and it'll be for nothing. It could work; it's just...louder than we like." The warforged looks to the Lieutenant, quietly hoping she has a better idea that 'try not to get shot', which is the best advice he can offer.

"Hey! Skyknives! You lost?" Striding through the battlefield that makes most present instinctively hunker and crouch is a stupendously athletic tiefling with skin so dark a red it straddles the border between burgundy and black. He's a lieutenant of the 62nd Infantry Battalion, and looks to have stepped down out of a recruiting poster to lend a hand. Tall and broad shouldered, with the sleeves removed from his uniform to reveal snaking white lines of stylized tattoos that remind you of fire, and smoke; with his helmet - customized to thread over his horns, as all hellions require - perched smartly on his head, unbuckled chinstrap swinging. He addresses your group in a voice that drawls with the winsome smoothness of the princedom of Kin-Tah-Ki. "Hey, are you gonna to rush that pillbox? They're all the way up and down this part of the beach, far as I can see; but I've got boys and girls all around here waiting to rush their own guns. Might as well go all at once, seeming as there's only so many rounds in the air at a given moment, so I figure." He pauses breifly, eyes flashing with some interior fire, and he swivels at the waist to reach up into the air and makes a fist in a moment so sudden it seems like he is attacking an unseen aggressor. Then he opens his palm, drops the bullet he caught to the sand, and shakes out his wrist to banish the sting it apparently caused. "If you give a signal, we'll all bumrush; but if you got something more pressing, we'll go up without you."

The pillbox is a hundred feet away from you, though you have to cross atleast ten feet of shingle (difficult terrain, half speed) and barbed wire (potentially damaging and entangling, if not successfully negated) to get into the open. That's atleast one turn at a standard double move of 60ft; and then the next move action would get you a further 30ft and have you 20ft away from the pillbox - close enough to throw things, not close enough to plant explosives if you want to be sure they wreck the pillbox. Throwing from this range will be a ranged attack roll at disadvantage. But if you can manage to get within 5ft of the bunker, you can just drop the charge without so much as a roll, as long as you have a plan to get out of the blast!

I'll give the LT a chance to read this stuff and respond!

[stanleyindraven]

"Well, no time like the present guys. Let's get some!" Bruce pulls the Weasel bomb from his pack, turns and sprints full speed up the beach at the pill box. Never let it be said he was a coward when the time came to be a hero. Bruce goes into a rage and continues along his path.

[JbeJ275]

"Frackin Idiot!" Is about all Sal has time to bark as Bruce begins the charge, before he starts moving in the same direction, then realising he's moving in the same direction. Then remebering about a thousand reasons why this is a terrible idea only after he's already started sprinting over sand. Unwilling to try and take the lead on Bruce's charge he instead just focuses on staying vaugely within shielder range, then hitting the sand prone whenever he reaches the barbed wire and clearing that out the way so the goliath can hopefully at least reach he bunker before biting it.

[Cavir]

"Dammit!" Xilo swore in Dwarven then switched to English. "Sir, there's your signal. Send'em! Must be tunnels connecting them all."

Short of his own LT cutting in he continues. "Cover fire! Don't hit friendlies. Aim for the guns themselves." He sticks his head and rifle just over the wall enough to starting firing.

Two shots, one at each gun in the bunker ahead of us. Within regular range of 150/600.
Attack1: [roll0]
Damage1: [roll1]

Attack2: [roll2]
Damage2: [roll3]

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11

As the bedraggled squad had dripped into place around her, Bathory had raised her voice.

"We're not being paid for a beachside holiday, ladies and gentlemen: we push!"

As the tiefling came over, she gave him a tight smile.

"Thought we'd drop in for a visit, but they're being terribly rude to guests. We'll help push: if we get close we'll blow the damn bunker. I can block its sight with fog, might help a-"

Without hesitation, the oversized private let out a merry cry and charged. None could accuse him of cowardice; neither could they accuse him of intelligence. The tiny vampire let out a frustrated noise.

"Hell's teeth - consider this the signal! Push, push!"

She cupped her hands, and within them a tiny red sphere appeared. She crushed it, and crimson fog burst out in front of the bunker, blocking its sight lines. At least now they had some kind of cover.


Yup, casting Fogcloud in front of the bunker to block its sight.

Didn't have time to actually read the DM's post before people acted so I guess let's just wing it, heh.

[MrAbdiel]

With Bruce scrambling up the remaining shingle and around the gap in the wall, and with Lt. Bathory making the decision to back that reckless play, everything snaps into motion. The tiefling officer wheels around and lets out a bellow with thaumaturgically enhanced volume:

"Makin' a MOVE!"

This howl-to-action ripples out up and down the beach. It triggers off a a number of Magic Mouth spells embedded in the rank insignias on the NCO's up and down the beach, repeating the making a move command across the battlefront at the speed of sound. The collective response from a tens of thousands of Amcaran throats is so loud that for a moment it drowns out the gunfire, and the pained screams, and the persistent growl of this hell-on-earth.

"HOO-AH!"

Pvt Gamble is out in front, first off the rank in the beachwide push. With him go just two soldiers, making the split second decision to be part of the pincer that is likely to attract the most enemy fire for reasons of their own.

Corporal Spade stumbles after Bruce, struggling to haul a crumpled wad of red, white and blue silk from the pack he is otherwise ditching. He has just enough time to rig the top corner to the bayonet lugs of his rifle, and to grip the bottom corner pinned in his fist on the stock. All thy Skyknife corporals have one, packed with the intention to fly them over bunkers they'd seized on the Defiant wall as they closed in to kill and capture the faltering defenders. For the battered warforged from first squad, that seems a forlorn hope now; but he honors his unfurled young valor as he runs in Bruce's wake, colors held high in the storm of lead.

https://i.redd.it/suhxpsq0mr611.png Young Valor has gone through a number of iterations, since the principalities of the new world banded into their alliance and grew to a host of fifty represented provinces. But the form has remained largely the same - a bed of red and white stripes, with an overlaying intersection of blue and white stripes and a shield emblem.
A white silhuoette of the Amcaran eagle, one talon gripping a bundle of arrows and the other gripping a branch of the olive tree, spreads its wings just as a coalition of young princedoms shook off the ancient and inscrutable pacts and grudges of the old world. It is a fact of great spiritual contemplation that the free princedoms would fly this flag at the forefront of their effort to deliver the old world from the very whirlpool of dynastic violence they fled two centuries prior.

After the goliath and the warforged goes private Jukebox. He is a short bird, and his race was made to fly before they were cursed to walk; so when running the hinging of his hips makes his gait into a bobbing waddle that is far from elegant. But when the order is given, he goes from shivering and cradling his broken arm to following after Cpl Spade. As he goes, he emits a mimic-sound that serves as his verbal component for a thaumaturgy cantrip - a sound like a record player's needle skipping to find its groove. Then he begins mimicking, with his preternatural mastery of the his people's curse blended to his bardic gift, the sound of the 22nd Infantry's marching band and mens' chorus, that entertained the soldiers and their families before they shipped off to Albinon. The sound is fine, and loud, and heard far up and down the beach from the salient of the push; at once too cheerful and upbeat for the moment, but also creating a mobile island of hope to push back the slamming waves of despair the scenario creates in so many.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5camus8IiMQ

Naturally, you might imagine our version contains some slightly altered lyrics; but the heart of it's there.

Lt Bathory, Sgt Xiloscient, and Pvts Ordo, O'Hara and Malichinni make their move shortly after, bending right as the flag group bends left. From out of the crimson fog, the murderous pillbox wildly fires across the immediate front, though blind in the effort and losing much of their focus.

But the first hitch in the plan comes about as Kreigvolk troops make a counter-move of their own. A stuttering series of pops, more like fabric giving way to tearing under pressure than like gunfire, ripples across the beach. With each burst comes the sudden and unwelcome manifestation of a pair Kreigvolk Grabenkämpfer.

This is unexpected. The conventional military wisdom is that using teleport spells on a large scale is impractical because of how resource intensive it is and the possibility of catastrophic failure. But Kreigvolk arcane warfare has focused more on defensive uses of teleporting, leaving aggression to their warmachines and fighting men in coordination and precision of the martial kind. The embedded trenchwarriors here must be issued with dimension door scrolls to be used to rapidly redeploy in just such a case of a coordinated rush, wildly multiplying the amount of firepower available to pour on attackers who are exposing themselves to harm. Wherever they came from, it must be within 500ft; thousands of soldiers suddenly appearing to turn this charge against static defences into a charge against static defences AND an entrenched opposing force. They're appearing in twos, which means they're making full use of their resources. It's likely that they're issued one scroll to a soldier, so they can probably do this once more - maybe to fall back and escape if the defence fails.

Thousands of them appear along the beach, blocked to support the pillboxes and dropping right away into trenches beside the emplacements previously concealed by sand-covered tarps. Near the box you're targetting, there appears four troops now entrenched to the waist on each side. Their great coats drape over heavy plate armor, their faces covered by stylized skull masks rigged into their distinctive Kreiger helms. As the tide of Amcaran troops rushes into the teeth of danger, the enemy take their shots at the color party, and test the mercy of the gods they serve.

Then it's Hi! Hi! Hey!
The Army's on its way.
Count off the cadence loud and strong (TWO! THREE!)
For where e'er we go,
You will always know
That The Army Goes Rolling Along.

Firstly: you all get Inspiration from Cpl Spade's Young Valor; use it wisely. Additionally, Pvt Gamble gets a D6 of bardic inspiration from Pvt Jukebox. He's a college of creation bard, so you get a http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/bard:creation (Note of Potential) that appear revolving around you as a small, five pointed white star that you instinctively know is Greater Carolean's star on the flag.

Your immediate field of danger contains 1 Pillbox and 8 Grabenkämpfer soldiers. The soldiers get the drop on you because they had prepared actions to dump them into the combat after they were given an order to do so, and then their turns go off. They move into the concealed trenches either side of the pillbox, clustering to the edges so not to be engulfed in fog, and open fire. One fires at Jukebox, One at Spade, and Six at Gamble. The combat begins in earnest here, just as you all clear the sea wall, with 100 ft between you and the enemy. The first 10ft are shingle, which will cost double movement to cross under normal conditions. After that 10ft, there's a barbed wire obstacle (Athletics DC14 to leap over mid stride). Contact with the barbed wire deals 3 damage, and will Restrain you if you fail a DC 10 Wisdom save not to thrash about like an idiot and make it worse than it needs to be under pressure. At any point in crossing this intervening space, you can throw yourself prone behind tank traps to gain cover; but you'll have to stand up to move again when you decide it's time. Finally, for every 20 ft you traverse through the intervening ground, I need you to roll a d100. Try not to roll a 1.

I'm going to use average damages to expedite some of these larger combats. Enemy actions:

1. The pillbox fires blindly at everyone. It's a DC 12 Dex save, or take 15 Piercing Damage; save for none. You all get advantage on this save, because of the very helpful fog.
2. A shot at Pvt Jukebox (AC 14). [roll0] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
3. A shot at Pvt Jukebox (AC 17). [roll1] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
4. 6 shots at Pvt Gamble, one from the Grabenkämpfer sergeant, (AC 20):
[roll2] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
[roll3] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
[roll4] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
[roll5] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
[roll6] for 9 piercing damage, or 14 on a critical hit.
[roll7] for 11 piercing damage, or 16 on a critical hit.

Edit: 20AC is a hell of a drug.

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce clears the shingle and leaps over the barbed wire. His pace has not slowed, he crosses the sand like an Olympic runner and charges straight at the pillbox. Bullets fly all around him as he is grazed by one of the new drop soldiers. His focus unchanged and his courage bolstered by the magical inspiration. He carries himself ever closer to his destination, seemingly unconcerned with his wellbeing.

[JbeJ275]

Ducking under the spray of enemy fire Salamir initially took the foremost position in the rightenmost group, at the end of his run he threw his shield barrier cannon towards Jukebox and Gamble and they carried made their advance, it's small crablike legs sending it scuttling over the low dunes as waves of silver blue light are emitted, reinforcing Gamble's shield and reforming Jukebox's. Turning his head from his advancing companions he then sets at work with shears and ferromagical spools to clear away the barbed wire quickly.


To try and clear a patch as I don't have the movement to lay a grenade then get clear: [roll0]

[roll1] to Gamble and Jukebox


In a voice that's barely audible between cracks of gunfire and the rolling explosions of mines and artillery he makes some attempt to report to the officers present.

The crack volkies can't do that again, we got them BOOM sared this time. Gut the guys who came in guns in hand and they should have some scrolls for us, plllus their forward barracks can't be more than five hundred feet out.

[Cavir]

"GOoo!" Fully embracing the new plan Sgt Xiloscient leaps into action, literally. In two bounds he is past the shingle and over the wire. With elven fleet of foot and athleticism he takes the lead, leaping through the air again to avoid a possible mine. Pulling out a grenade, he chucks it at the closer group Kreigvolk Grabenkämpfer to give them something to focus on other than shooting accurately.

Rolls made here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25275459&postcount=95). All rolls to get through terrain were successful.
Grenade
Attack: (1d20+8)[16] (Dex +5, Proficiency +3)
Damage: (3d6)[7] piercing, (3d6)[8] fire

[Heavenblade]

oh no, you don't O'hara mutters to himself and sprints forward, loading his blessed ammo into a heavy submachinegun, and starts unleashing burning heaven on the enemy.

He looks around, trying to make contact with the ally who has the best chance to bring the charge all the way to the pillbox. He raises his hand and shouts with the blessing of the almighty...send these bastards to hell



Rolls for combat zone
Athletics
[roll0]
Wis saving throw
[roll1]
Dex saving throw
[roll2]
[roll3]

Casting sacred flame on one enemy soldier. They must make a DC 15 dex saving throw or suffer [roll4] radiant damage.

As a bonus action, casting sanctuary on the ally who will need to make it all the way to the pillbox

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11

"Go on! Go! Go!"

Bathory began to run, hopping between the stony debris before throwing herself down by the barbed wire as enemy soldiers teleported in. Machine gun fire snarled at the sand but didn't come close.

"Keep their heads down! Grenades if you can!"


She aimed along her finger, cocked like she was doing fingerguns with her left hand. It was almost comedic: her actual handgun remained holstered on her hip.

A brief, bright beam connected Bathory and one of the enemy soldiers, a burning ray of fire that lasted only for a second. There was a sharp crack of superheated air - not all that different from a pistol shot.

Passed my save, 18 to hit and 13 damage.
Maintaining conc on fog cloud.

[MrAbdiel]

Spellfire and gunfire zips to and fro as your unit closes on the pillbox, and the entrenched Grabenkämpfer soldiers. The engineer's skittering little construct draws up into line with the color squad, and blooms is defensive protections over them again, restoring what was lost to earlier glancing impacts and insuring them somewhat against the coming attacks. Sal shears through a segment of barbed wire, and the other Skyknives barrel past him through the way he's made clear for them. Far to the left, there's a loud prakk! of shaped explosion, as one unlucky soldier charging the pillbox adjacent to yours steps on a landmine that blasts him instantly into a scattering, crimson mockery of the bugbear he was moments ago. With every step, each of you fear you'll suffer the same fate - but not yet, it seems. Jukebox and Spade keep running after Pvt Gamble, but are now 20ft behind him because of his olympic stride. Ordo runs, fumbling for one of his grenades as he goes, and prepares to toss it next turn.

Xilo's grenade bounces and skids into the Grabenkämpfer trench on the left side where the majority of the Skyknives are heading. There's muffled shouting from them, and you see them move away from the grenade as best they can; but amazingly, they both remain within the blast radius and seem less damaged by it than you would have hoped. The plates under their coats are sheared and pocked, the coats punctured and ragged, but some combination of specialist equipment and specialist training leaves them bracing their weapons to attack, despite a host of flesh wounds on all four in the trench. One of them barely ducks as the gold-gleaming tracing rounds from O'Hara's machine gun whip through the air where his head was a moment ago; and popping up when he thinks the danger has passed, he instead rises up into the oncoming firebolt from the Lt Bathory's hip-shot. That one soldier, now grenaded and firebolted, reels back from the battering, but the soldier beside him steadies him, and rallies him to put his final energies into their duty. These trench warriors are sterner creatures than the common Kreiger soldier; and it's just your foul luck that they're your first encounter with the enemy directly.

They marshal a response. One of the troops in the grenaded trench rips off his mangled and blasted mask, revealing a rugged spill of russet waves, keen green hunter's eyes, and the pointed ears of an elf. He seems to be in charge of the squad; and calls orders to them as his hands spin in the air and produce a wash of blasting wind that shears away the crimson fog from the pillbox - unmasking your approach to its guns. The order seems to be to focus fire on the goliath approaching with the satchel under his arm like a slamball - yet as six of the troops level their rifles at him, four seem to be unable to bring themselves to pull the trigger on their approaching target. They slip their sights to other targets not so supernaturally warded; Lt Bathory, Sgt Xilo, Pvt Spade, and Pvt O'Hara! The eighth and final Kreiger in the trench tries to focus on Pvt Gamble, struggles, and manages to point the bayoneted rifle at the goliath before a flickering violet lance of energy snaps from the undermounted blade, and strikes him in the forehead; the invading power striving to lock up his muscles and arrest his heroic approach in the middle of the kill zone.

This may be the first time your character has encountered someone from the Kreigsvolk. Masked, they are the skull faced killers you expected them to be; but unmasked, the one soldier you can see now looks just like a wood elf you might otherwise know back home; just wearing an enemy uniform, and fighting to take your life. Does this rattle you? Or have you already come to peace with this horrible element of nature of war?

First things! Pvt OHara would see all guns trained on Bruce, so the Sanctuary goes to him, forcing four of the soldiers to spread their fire elsewhere.

One manages to cast Hold Person on the rampaging barbarian however; so before resolving attacks, he needs to roll a DC 15 Wisdom save or be paralyzed. In the event that it's a failure, those who are firing at him will have advantage.

1. The pillbox fires at everyone. It's a DC 12 Dex save, or take 15 Piercing Damage; save for none. The leader of the trench warriors is using a gust of wind spell to disperse the fog, so no help from it this round.
2. Two shots at Pvt Gamble, possibly with advantage.
[roll0] (Advantage roll [roll1]); 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
[roll2] (Advantage roll [roll3]); 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
3. One shot at Lt Bathory: [roll4], or [roll5] (disadvantage to shoot her, because she's prone). 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
4. One shot at Pvt O'Hara: [roll6] 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
5. One shot at Pvt Jukebox: [roll7] 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.
6. One shot at Sgt Xilo: [roll8] 9 damage on a hit, 15 on a crit.

Your turn again! Don't forget, a 1d100 roll for each 20ft you move.

The right trench's soldiers are unharmed; one is possibly maintaining the Hold Person spell. The left trench's soldiers are battered, one is maintaining a gust of wind, and one of them is badly injured, close to casualty.

[Cavir]

Sgt Xiloscient continues his sprint to the trench. He's hit by the return fire but his flak jacket absorbs stop the bullet and his adrenaline boost absorbs the remaining impact. He eyes the unmasked leader in the trench as he moves. His teeth clench but he continues his run still risking setting off a mine along the way. As he closes the final feet to the trench Xilo uses the mass of his M1 to help his leap up and over the Grabenkämpfer. Landing just on the other side, safe from the pillbox, he stops and turns back. He aims his rifle at the wood elf and speaks in Elvish. "You are about to be swept aside. If you wish to live to see another dawn surrender in the moment left." He was giving a fellow wood elf one chance to show wisdom. It was all he could afford.

OOC: Dodged the pillbox shots.
9 damaged absorbed by temp hp. 2 temp hp remaining.

Dash move including a jump over the trench.
Are we using flanking? If so the idea is to provide flanking for those following me for 1-2 of the enemy.

Mine check [roll0].

[JbeJ275]

Salamir kept his head low and continued to sprint up the field, pulling his own weasel bomb from the inside of his webbing as he approached the bunker, panic and gunfire driving any attempt at conversation into futility.

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11


Bullets plucked at her barrier, causing the protective crimson coating to crack again. She held up a hand as more rifle rounds clawed at it, reinforcing it briefly. She shot back, but it was a difficult **** with bullets throwing up the sand nearby, and the bolt merely made a patch of molten sand elsewhere.

[MrAbdiel]

With the Hold spell taking effect on Pvt Gamble, that half of the pincer's advance is halted; though OHara's protective enchantment makes it mercifully hard for enemies to target the exposed and paralyzed goliath. Spade and Jukebox catch up, and hunker as low as they can behind the private's huge shield; the attack halted just twenty feet from the enemy trench and the blazing guns of the foe. Hearing the Lt's order, Spade diligently produces and whips a grenade into the nearby trench, for a detonation that produces harm but not dissolution of the enemies within - damaged, but not deterred. Jukebox, still conjouring stirring song from his open beak, conjours an extra dose of the bardic arts and imbues Pvt Gamble with the Owl's Wisdom - a potent clarification of the mind which begins to loosen the enchantment holding him in place...but not finishing that process. All the goliath can do is growl through gritted teeth and sweat as three of the enemy soldiers pour fire onto him, while three others pick their shots at alternate targets - two at Ohara one at Sal. And the pillbox continues its murderous interjection, relentlessly filling the air with lead.

Shot at Pvt Gamble, at advantage[roll0] or [roll1]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt Gamble, at advantage[roll2] or [roll3]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt Gamble, at advantage[roll4] or [roll5]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt OHara, [roll6]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt OHara, [roll7]; 9 or 14 on a crit.
Shot at Pvt Malichinni, [roll8]; 9 or 14 on a crit.

Once again, the pillbox fires at everyone! DC 12 Dex, or take 15 Piercing!

On the left approach, as Sal prepares his charge and dashes ahead, Pvt Ordo hurls a grenade at the Lt's direction, and it goes off in the trench along with a radiant flash of Ohara's blessed rounds striking home - one of the soldiers slouching out of sight with the blast despite their impressive resistance to the blast. Bloodied now, one cheek slashed and oozing from the grenade, the elven leader of the Grabenkämpfer looks up at Sgt Xiloscient, standing over him in the trench. "Fool that you are," he replies to the offer in elven, thickly impacted by his Kreigvolk heritage, "To make such claims. You wage war not on mere mortals, but on the advance of nature herself!" With that, he makes a wildly impressive standing jump and heel kick, landing with palms together and turning the torrent of blasting wind on the other elf.

The elf is making two shove attacks with his action, though each of them will have disadvantage because he's attacking someone standing over him in the trench. That's the heel kick - if he succeeds at either, he'll knock Xilo prone. So Xilo will have to oppose these rolls with Athletics, or Acrobatics to remain on his feet.

Shove One, Athletics: [roll9] or [roll10], whichever is lower.
Shove Two, Athletics: [roll11] or [roll12], whichever is lower.

Then he uses his bonus action to turn the gust of wind of Xilo - that's a DC 14 Strength save or be punted back 15 feet along the ground. That'll put Xilo 15 feet into enemy territory without support and, importantly, will trigger 2 more d100 mine rolls. Good luck!

The assault started well, but is starting to falter - and then, when it seems nothing could make it worse, the squad witnesses one of the supporting flyers - a Tempest fighter craft - swooping low to lend a covering strafe to the advance, only to be smashed out of the air by concentrated anti-air fire. The carcass of the plane roars down and detonates further down the beach, enveloping a close skirmish of allied and enemy soldiers in the wreck entirely; but one wing sheared off by the enemy rounds scythes down toward the immediate combat, making landfall in the mess of barbed wire near Lieutenant Bathory - and then exploding as the wingtank is torqued open and exposed to flame.

You drew the short straw, LT. Part of a wrecking plane explodes near you with the force of a fireball. That's [roll13] fire damage, Dex 13 for half.

[JbeJ275]

As a bullet slams into the side of his enhanced armour the construction holds firm leaving Sal free to cover the final twenty yards to the pillbox, posting a weasel bomb into the crack and doing a quick and dirty job of rigging it to detonate. The second it's firmly wedged in Sal leaps over the back of the bunker, next to the rear lip of the trnch to take cover from his own exposion and jams his hands over his ears bracing for the blast.

The Shielding unit skitters for further cover over the sands, sending it's shielding pulse o those arond 20ft from the trench then skittering forward towards the trench to aid as the soldiers press into close quarters combat.


Dex Save Against the Spray of Bullets: [roll0]
Shielding Pulse: [roll1]

[Cavir]

The Grabenkämpfer elf makes an impressive leg sweep from inside the trench. Sgt Xiloscient sees it coming but the sand beneath his feet does not give him the expected control and down he goes. Instead of resisting he goes with the sweep and uses that momentum and the gust of wind to go into a back roll away from the trench even with all his gear on. Ending up in a crouching position, he fires at the delusional elf then tosses his other grenade into the trench. "So that's the poison they are feeding their minds." He looks to see how the rest of the squad is doing.

OOC: Resisted the Gust, failed the foot sweep. Avoided the mines.

Roll/step back to be clear of a grenade blast in the trench. Fire a shot at the elf then toss a grenade.
Shot: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1]

Grenade: [roll2]
Damage: [roll3] piercing, [roll4] fire, Reflex 13 for half

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 3/15, THP 11

Another wave of machine-gun fire swept over the officer's head, which was bad but missing, right up until a plane exploded on the vampire. Able to force herself as far into the ground as possible, her ward flickered madly as flames washed over it from the flaming wreckage.

She grit her teeth and ground her fangs together.
"This," she growled low to herself, "Is getting on my nerves."

She pulled out a bullet from a spare magazine for her pistol, tossed it into the air, and as it span in a lazy arc-

"Bang!"

The bullet exploded into three, a trio of shots that unerringly flew to strike the elven enemy officer.


Cast magic missile to inflict [roll0] force damage as an automatic hit

[MrAbdiel]

Sal's weasel wedges in the firing slit, and as soon as it's placed, the gun tracking left and right stops moving.

The elven squad leader of the Grabenkämpfer takes a slug to the gut from Xilo's point blank shot, and growls as he tries to focus his spell more intensely on his opposite number. Sgt. Xiloscient feels the gust's intensity kicking up, threatening to lift him off his feet. Then the wavering thread of Pvt Ohara's machinegun fire, and Lt Bathory's mystical missiles, crash into the back of the enemy leader; cutting off his spell and leaving him standing, perforated a half dozen times in the body and once through the back of the left side of his jaw; standing idle in that state of dead-but-not-knowing it. The soldier beside him grabs the patch on his shoulder, rips it open to reveal a leather scrap of scroll integrated into his uniform, and begins to cast some kind of spell, but then Xiloscient's grenade goes off. The Trench Warriors are resilient to such blasts, and have will to match their hardiness; but even they cannot withstand repeated detonations at point blank range, and the four in that trench are left ruined and blasted, elven leader and all.

In the other trench, rightly detecting how badly things are going, cut their losses; two of them tear patches from their uniforms, grab the other two by the upper arm, and with a mystical snap they are ripped from the field of battle to some place of refuge. This does not solve the immediate crisis completely, but it's a relief of pressure; and you see up and down the beach that units of Grabenkämpfer are pulling back in the same way.

A deadly stripe of fire, bright with tracer rounds, stitches down from the cliff and begins chewing up the sand around Pvt Gamble, still locked in place with his bomb under his arm.

Heavy Machine Gun from the bunker down at the group. It's firing three shots; two at the paralyzed Gamble, one at a random additional target in the cluster. 1 for Jukebox, 2 for Spade, 3 for the Shield Construct. Disadvantage on 1 or 2, since they're taking the dodge action this turn! [roll0].

1st Gamble: [roll1] or [roll2]
2nd Gamble: [roll3] or [roll4]
3rd Random: [roll5] or [roll6]

The Kreig HMG does 14 damage on a hit, or 25 on a crit.

Then Sal's bomb goes off. There's a tremendous explosion, a shower of concrete chips and sand and deafening sound; and confined blast shreds the barrels of the pillbox's guns, and pushes up on its lid so hard it splits the concrete and drops it in shattered chunks inward into its hollow; the device well and truly inoperable.

Wisdom save to protect one's ears in timing with the blast. DC is 10, you get advantage because it's a friendly's explosion; but the penalty for failure is that you're deafened for one minute! Sal gets a free pass, because he set the device.

Jukebox: [roll7] or [roll8]
Spade: [roll9] or [roll10]
Ordo: [roll11] or [roll12]

The trench warriors retreated, and the pillbox busted, your immediate targets are gone; but the danger has not passed. Pvt Gamble remains frozen in the open by a nefarious spell now being maintained by a caster who has quit the field. Jukebox and Spade hunker behind the shield of the frozen giant, not willing to abandon him but powerless to snap him out of it. The trenches are now vacated for your use; and ahead of them is a hundred yards of suspiciously clear ground before the base of the cliff wall, and the beginnings of a track that winds right up a narrow ramp up the cliff face; just wide enough for one tank, or a squad of soldiers abreast. There's two machine gun points on the length of it, each of them hosing away at the troops below from relative safety, but who could easilly turn their fire down the ramp at enemies moving up the slope with nowhere to hide.

[Cavir]

The heat from the plane's explosion washed over Sgt Xilo, followed by the bunker's blast much closer to him. He hopped into the trench with the dead enemy to get cover. He looked in Sal's direction. "Excellent work Private! Get in here and help me find their teleporters from their shoulder patches." He took a moment to look back towards the water. He didn't know if anyone had remained behind and was hit by the plane crash.

His eye was drawn to the three out in the open. "JUKEBOX! SPADE! CARRY HIM TO THE TRENCH!"

Xilo glanced back to the cliffs to see if there was anything coming at them then focused at the dead enemy. He wanted whatever teleporters they still had and needed a resupply of grenades.

Hop into the trench for 3/4 cover then dipping out of sight to quickly search the dead. Working teleporters and grenades (not limited to 2) were priority but if something else seems useful too it'd be welcome.

Would we be able to use the shoulder patch scrolls?

Are the machine gun nests bunker style or more like an enhanced fox hole? Are they level with each other or is one higher up and can look down at the other?

[JbeJ275]

Got it Sarge! Yells Salamir, as he too ducks into the best ccover availible to him, finding it in the remains of the bunker he just blasted. With Xilo having salvaged anything in his trench, and the Grabenkämpfer in the other having withdrawn in good order he instead investigates the ruins of this bnker, hoping to find similiar patches there, or perhaps some sign as to how they entered without just trapsing over a minefield whenever maintinenece needed to be done.

[roll0]

Meanwhile, the shielding construct skittered over and crawled down into the trench they'd just taken, ready to refresh the shields of anyone using that as thier rallying point before pressing on.

[roll1]

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce finally breaks the hold of the spell and stumbles into the sand. He looks over at the broken bunker, then at the bomb under his arm. "Well, here we are," he says to himself. He pulls himself quickly to a trench.

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 3/15, THP 11

Gritting her teeth, one hand upon her helmet, Bathory darted toward to leap into the forward trench. She tapped the sand and it surged up, making a higher protective barrier to give more cover.

That done, she sat with her back against the damp earth wall, ignoring the corpses at her feet.

A vampire always had death as a cousin, after all.

"Good work!" she called to the tattered squad. "But its not over yet. Any ideas on taking those nests out? While I could clear a path through the minefield, it'd be far too slow to do while I'm being shot at all the while."

[MrAbdiel]

Rolled everyone's mine checks to hustle up to the trench line, and (sadly) no one kicked a 'sploder. We're sort of our of immediate combat time, so everyone can consider themselves to have crossed that 100ft dash with no mines triggered, and now taking cover in the trenches or behind the ruined pillbox.

Spade and Jukebox begin the awkward but valiant process of tilting the paralyzed goliath over enough they can begin to drag him, but movement returns to Pvt Gamble's limbs and he and the color party are able to proceed to the regroup under their own respective motion. "Godsdammit, Gamble!" Cpl. Spade half laughs, half growls; "I'd say you were dumb as a bag of rocks, if you weren't so clearly as tough as one."

Sal sifts through the smoking rubble, a mess of reinforcing bars and concrete chunks; Pvt Ordo moving up to give him a hand in the investigation. They clear enough to see what the rough insides of the pillbox were like. Interestingly, most of the rubble has falling in large chunks on a steel grate designed to prevent that collapsing rubble from plunging into the space below - though enough has gotten through that there have been clear repercussions for the Kreig soldiers who were once here.

There must have been two operators, one feeding ammo belts, one swiveling the guns back and forth in their tracks. But the design is either excessive, or ingenius. The pillbox sinks down like a silk ten feet into the sand, and the ammo feed is on a long, now mangled mechanical sprocket system that hoists it up in good order to the side mounted heavy machine guns. The narrow sit from which they fired would not be enough to sight out of, even if the operators were on the same level as the weapons; but instead, a pair of steel mirrors mounted along side each gun reflect their images down to a matching set of mirrors below. Those mirrors are part of a mechanically rigged set up where the firer may use this 'periscope' to get a sense of the battlefield he is ten feet below. The gunner would stand on a swivelling turntable and turn a mechanical wheel which rotates the guns along their rail, along with turntable. The design is imperfect - Sal can immediately see ways it could jam up, or be vulnerable to malfunction; but its existence suggests no shortage of technically adept minds working in the Vult's engineer corps and development pools.

The two operators have mostly escaped - through a heavy steel hatch in the floor that leads, presumably, to some kind of tunnel that either connects to other pillboxes or, less likely, all the way back to the Defiant Wall. The second of the two gunners to have attempted their escape has done so a touch too slowly - a gnome's arm has been sheared off just below the elbow when a concrete slab fell through the grate above and hammered the closing hatch shut prematurely. You wonder if the solider on the other side of that misfortune survived; but there's no way to answer that speculation. The hatch is closed, and apparently barred, from the other side, now.

Interestingly, the HMG fire that was peppering Gamble and the others dries suddenly up, harassing no more as they move to cover.

Most allied squads are relying on the fact that mines cannot be placed too densely over such a large area as the Defiant Wall covers, and are surging forward with the blood-freezing knowledge that some of them are just going to die as a result. You can see one pair of engineers about a hundred feet up the beach desperately arguing with an officer, gesturing with their mine-sweeping gear with tearful alarm.
They're getting stonewalled, and perhaps with good reason - there's no use doing careful minesweeping work while the battle's ongoing.
That work comes after the beach is captured, to make it safe to reinforce.

Most of the tanks that have been deployed with the invading troops have met with disaster, with amphibious modifications made failing, or leading them into submerged tank snares, and the hulls of a few Archon class Amcaran tanks are visible in the surf, monuments to the price of military gambles. One Archon, a Dumathoin class variant with a huge forward mounted rack of chains designed to be spun by connection to the driveshaft specifically for the purpose of mineclearing in combat,
, sits idle and smoking about 50ft back and 100ft up the beach from you.
It main cannon has split open from some ammunition misfire like a twisted metal flower, and the coaxial machine gun now warped off true; but a couple of the tank's crewmen are visible behind it every now and then, popping up and arguing with each other as they try to figure out what's gone wrong with its motive systems so bloody early in the invasion.

Far up the beach, you see some creative magicians doing their best in a bad situation; one elven sorcerer casting a lightning bolt low enough that it detonates a handful of mines along its 100ft path, glassing the sand as it goes; but the likelyhood that physically marking out the path that squad intends to take across the intervening ground will draw enemy fire seems high.

[Cavir]

"LT! I have one of their teleporting scrolls. It's in Kriegspiel. Can you use it to get us inside one of those nests? From there we can take out the other one. There's a small copper ball here with a button on it if you know what that is."

Xilo pops his head up to do a 360' scan of the situation. The tanks weren't going to be of help anytime soon.

"Sal. Is there a tunnel entrance in there? LT, if we can go underneath we may get lost in a a tunnel complex that they know better and may be heavily barricaded. On top, it's the mines and gun nests. Mission is the mages up and over. Let the groundpounders deal with the tunnels? We can engage the gun nests from here and or charge."

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce drops into the destroyed structure and starts clearing rubble from the hatch and looks for a lever or button that will make the hatch open.

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 15/15, THP 11

The LT took a momemt to once again recharge her barrier. It had certainly proven its worth over the frantic charge over the beach.

"I don't like the idea of the tunnel, but depending on how things go, you ​might have to risk it. One good trap and everyone down there is buried... Or a choke point could shoot you to pieces.

OK, here's what we're doing.I need a volunteer. I can take one person with me using that teleporter paper you got. We'll take out that HMG nest still shooting. Then engineers can clear the mines, or hell, maybe enough rounds from the MGs might clear a path.

Anyone got a flag? Pass it here. I'll hang it out the bunker if this works. If it doesn't... Well, then it's up to you, Seargeant. Maybe get our engineer to take a look at the flail tank. "

When someone volunteered, she examined the paper with one hand and placed the other - admittedly while standing on tiptoes - on their shoulder.

Damn, but she wanted a cigarette.

" Good luck, " she said, and teleported with her bonny brave meat shield, aiming to be near the door to the bunker up there.

[JbeJ275]

Bruce, you glorouis dummy, they're not gonna have a button for it. It's a damn blast seal hatcch that's barred from the other side. Let me at it.

With that, in an Inspired feat of engineering Sal takes a small metallic tool and levers the hatch a quarter inch open, then slides another one into the gap which prompty starts spinning, running against the bar and removing it from one side of the hatch. The whole process is the work of perhaps thirty seconds, during which the shield construct skitters down into the buker and wraps back around Sal's armoured bracer.

There. You ready to go clear out the rest of these bunkers? Let boys at least get to the minefields before they bite it?

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo hands the scroll and small copper sphere to the LT. "The bunker up high seems stopped for now. Maybe a gun jam. Take the nest on the left and we'll keep the right one busy from here. Once you have one use it to take out the other with the machine gun and grenades. Using the machine guns to make a path for us through the minefield would be appreciated."

Xilo shouts down into the broken bunker. "Stop lollygagging down there. Get up here. Gamble, I've got just the job for you. You'll teleport with the LT right into the nests and you can smash them up close. Then take out the other nest. The rest of us take out the right nest from here before the LT has to do it herself." He takes as much cover in the trench as he can as he aims up to the right side nest.

[stanleyindraven]

"Yes Sir!" Gamble shouts as he clambers out of the hole.

[MrAbdiel]

"Here!"

It's Cpl Spade, limping over on legs of steel and wood toward the LT. Hunkering low in the trench, he takes a moment to detach the flag from his rifle - careful not to let it touch the ground - and rolls it up quickly for the officer's keeping. "Good luck, LT. Hey, if my flag's the first to fly on top of the Defiant Wall, it'll be a national treasure. My old man'll be tickled."

Spade, Warforged as he is, does not have a biological father; but the corporal has oftentimes piped up about patriarch of the human family that 'adopted' him; his 'old man', that served in the last Grand War and whose service inspired Spade himself to enlist. "That old rag was the first Amcaran flag to make it into Orgueil du Aquiteaux, last time. Don't lose it!"

As the group splits into the tunnel team and the dimension door team, there's a clatter of reloading and checking of supply. Jukebox gives his lungs a rest, and leans shivering against the trench wall. Ordo snags a Kreig pistol for a souvenier, and heads over to the hatch; Cpl Spade a few strides behind him.

The Warforged, battered but in much better spirits with this small victory than they they first regrouped, taps his helmet and looks back at Pvt Gamble, and Lt Bathory. He taps his helmet with two fingers mischievously.

"Don't-"

And then he's gone. Particularly perceptive eyes might see the shell actually cleave through his metallic frame before detonating on the ground beneath him; a sighting round for a coming barrage of field artillery that have not failed to notice the daring little salient produced by the displaced Skyknives.

The transition from living, talking comrade to crater, and shrapnelized fragments of brass, steel and wood is so quick and shocking that it's almost comical. There's nothing left that is discernably the corporal at all - scraps of blackened metal that might have been from the munition, or a mine, or any other part of this gods-awful debacle of a war.

No time to mourn - with this round comes the telltale whistling of others, and all that remains is to rush onward with the plan.

I want DC15 Reflex saves from everyone as they desperately get away from the incoming artillery barrage. Lt Bathory and Pvt Gamble can have advantage, since the teleport is a much quicker way to leave than funnelling madly in to the tunnels. Successful saves mean you avoid damage entirely; failure means you're clipped with fragmentation for [roll0] piercing damage.


The hatch leads to a ladder which, slid down with all haste, the soldiers find a concrete walled, sealed tunnel that angles off to a horizontal after about fifty feet of drop. Yellow, electrical lamps are fixed to the ceiling at regular intervals, all intact, all casting the same jaundiced illumination over the sterile interior. You can still hear the thumping from above, and dust shaking free and pouring down; but it seems the structure beneath is well suited to holding against such suffering. The tunnel proceeds for another 30ft straight ahead (toward the Defiant Wall), before terminating in a T-Junction whose branches are presently hidden from you.

I'm gonna need good ol' fashion marching order from you, Sgt Xilo. If anyone wants to do anything as/before you move up, like searching for traps, healing after that barrage, or making any other preparation, now's the time to do it. Past that, I want stealth checks from everyone (DC 13, but advantage because there's a war going on.) Whoever is on point can make me an open Perception check as you sneak forward, too.

If you decide to slow down to check for traps, that's an investigation roll you can through out too. Anyone who is trained in Theives Tools or Investigation (or something close enough) can make that check; but naturally, if you're marching last, you might not notice the thing until the guy at front has kicked it.

Meanwhile, Gamble and Lt Bathory vanish through the flickering magics of the combat scroll, leaving the storm of shrapnel behind. When they reappear, they're precisely where the Lt targetted them - standing behind the machine gun nest halfway up the ramp on the cliff wall. From here, you see the madness of the war sprawling away up and down the beach; tanks churning the sand and struggling in the surf; the silhuoettes of big ships in the gloomy west as the sun begins to rise in the east; the thousands, and thousands of men and women rushing selflessly on into the lead and fire of history's ravenous maw. And just infront of you, a team of four operating the large, heavy machinegun mounted on a pintle sunk with a concrete footer into the ramp's edge. A human man with short blonde hair is feeding the ammo belt into the gun, chattering away under the skillful direction of a goliath woman - the vibration of the powerful weapon barely shaking her powerful arms and shoulders. Her hair, like the hair of the dwarf woman peering through binoculars to her right, is woven close to her scalp in a combat-capable Aquiteauxan braid. The fourth member of the team, marked as a krieg Oberleutnant, is an awkward looking halfelf with the most awful, hunched posture you've ever seen on an otherwise elegant people; crouched uncomfortably, scouting, hair greasy, short and black beneath his cap.

All four are facing forward as they pour fire out on the advance below. And not one of them seems to have noticed your arrival.

We're gonna call that a surprise round for you guys! All the targets are relatively close - but if you're planning on making use of the concrete skirting wall and the sandbags to cover your ambush from outside fire, it'll be hard to use explosives without threatening yourselves here too. But then again, fortune favours the bold!

[JbeJ275]

Sal doesn't play witness to the thoughtless impersonal murder of his warforged comrade above, insead stepping neatly into the grate just as the first artillery shells impact into the bunker system above him, one particularly large piece of metal shrapnel flying just above the tips of his horns as he slid down the ladder to below. The construt unwinds itself from his arm, and lathes onto the topmost rung of the ladder. Sending out shielding pulses to anyone who get within ten feet of the hatch and trying to somewhat extend the safe area, or at least ensure those hit can make it to safety before the barrage finishes them off.

Once down, he immedietly sinks low, and starts down the tunnel. Watching to determine the path of the soldiers that beat their retreat here and looking for any traps they either wound around or may have stopped to activate. He also keeps a general eye ahead of him for unexpected visitors in these tunnels, or the sounds of ambush. And fiddles with healing syringes on his belt that he'd personally cooked up after "borrowing" the morphine and herbal tinctures from Doc, hoping anyone wh needs one will stay intat long enough to recieve it.

[Cavir]

Something inside Sgt Xiloscient's head told him to move or be dead. He desperately jumps out of the trench then down into the busted bunker but it wasn't fast enough to fully beat out the speed of an incoming artillery shell and it's death boom. The blast catches him just entering into the bunker, bouncing him around in the concrete and rebar rubble, before falling down through the hatch. He's able to grab a rung and catch himself before some body part gets tangled up and broken. The rest of the way down is controlled but not as quick as usual since he was feeling like a rag doll in a pinball game.

He shook himself to get back into the moment and took in the surroundings. "Only one way to go for now. Jukekox, keep up with with Sal. Ordo, you're with me. Keep your intervals. Expect company up ahead." Once Jukebox is moving he nods to Ordo to follow. Xilo takes the rear for now to fully regain his senses.

I think it's just the four of us left. If wrong I'll updated the post. Are Jukebox and Ordo Riflemen?

At 22/51hp with 8 temp hp
Second Wind, healing [roll0]

[stanleyindraven]

Private Gamble pulls his weasel bomb from his bag and tosses it into the midst of the four operating the gun. Then he puts himself between the explosion and the Lieutenant.

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 26/32, ARCANE WARD 0/15,

Even as she was whisked through space, shrapnel raced towards her and won. Her shield cracked and shattered, its energies spent, and red-hot metal clawed at the vampire's flesh.

<Head down, you big lug! >

Even as the giant hurled his bomb, the ground between them and the enemy heaved itself up in an ungainly heal to shelter the pair from the explosion. Behind layers of mud and meat, Bathory ducked and covered her head.

[MrAbdiel]

On the ramp...

Gamble throws his Weasel, and covers Lt Bathory; Lt Bathory manipulates the earth to cover them both; and with a quartet of alarmed shouts, the gunning team lurches into panicked action. The goliath woman and the dwarfess are both in motion as the human ammo-feeder shrills the alarm. The hunched, ugly looking officer blinks in bland surprise, caught entirely offguard. In a moment of something like heroism, the ammo-feeder dives at the bomb, snatches it in one hand, and pitches it up - but too slow. It detonates in the air above him, catching him, the dwarf spotter, and the Oberleutnant in the blast, with the goliath woman just able to hurl herself over the sandbags in time. There's a deafening boom, (this one a little more co-ordinated, so no deafening occurs), some mortal screams, and the twisted metal sound of the machine gun blasted into several large pieces, hailing down on the field below. The dwarf's body is mutilated, the humans rendered to portions none larger than a man's fist; but the Oberleutnant staggers back, and remarkably, doesn't fall. What does fall is the guise he wore, the shape melting away with the damage dealt, and giving rise to an entirely new frame. Still hunched, still lank haired, still ugly as sin, but now green-grey skinned, with fields of gnobbly warts and scars; huge, long limbs invested with bone-twisting power and jaundiced yellow eyes... And all this, in a tailored, if not especially clean, Vult Oberleutnant's uniform. The troll gives an offended, barking shout, wraps its great, long fingers around the hilt at his hip, and draws a gleaming cavalry sabre large enough to be anyone else's falchion. And far at the top of the ramp, you see the other HMG team beginning a well earned freak-out, and preparing to remount their gun facing down the slope.

I'm going to need Initiatives. The Kreigers here are going on a 16, so if you beat that, you can take another action before they go!

Oh, and while we're rolling, I'm going to need Dex saves against that blast!. It's 27 damage, and the DC is 15. You can both have advantage from the canny use of Mold Earth. There's no real provision for body-blocking increasing a reflex save... but I like to reward cool stuff, so here. The DC is going up by two for Gamble for being a meatshield, and down by two for Bathory for being meat shielded. That's DC 17 and 13 respectively, with advantage, or suffer 27 thunder damage.

Down in the Tunnels...

Jukebox and Sal moving up first, with O'Hara hustling along in the middle, and Ordo and Xilo at the rear, the squad begins to move through the tunnel. The T-Junction ahead provides no clues as to which way is best - and after some deliberation, you choose once, and move on. This, in turn, leads to another T-Junction, where you are confronted with a similar problem. This you bypass in a similar way, down another corridor of sterile electric lights with the sound of the war overhead bleeding through the earth. Then another; and another. And at about that time, at the fourth junction, it begins to become clear you are not experiencing the world, precisely, as it is. The corridors are identical. Backtracking does not yield a return to the shaft leading back to the surface. Rapidly, the tunnel stops seeming like a way to navigate the hazardous battlefield, and more like some purgatorial trap from which there may be no escape!

1. A DC 10 Wisdom save. One again, against generalized fear of death. You can remake the failed save at the end of your turn. If you roll a natural 1, you should consider that your character may take his time in this place as an ongoing source of haunting dreams and trauma.

2. A DC 17 Perception check. There's someone breathing in this corridor. Or, more specifically, there's two sets of breathing in this corridor that do not track to any of the soldiers you have with you. You're being watched by something or someone capable of being unseen even in this well lit empty hallway.

3. A DC 17 Arcana check, if you're trained. This is some kind of illusion trap. There must be some way to navigate it, perhaps with a magical talisman or known pass phrase or some other action or thing to pierce the illusion. But without some kind of inside knowledge as to what it is, you might be here for days trial-and-erroring - or you might simply starve in the attempt.

4. A squad initiative check, using Sgt. Xilo's initiative.

There's 5 of you there - O'Hara, your tortollan light machine gunner and cleric of the Almighty, is present, if a little quiet. And still in need of making his save against the artillery, I think. Ordo and Jukebox are both riflemen.

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo got the other attention with barely a sound then kept his voice low. "Hold up, gather in and keep alert."

"There's something not right here. Must be some magic. Fix bayonets. Keep in physical contact with the one in front of you. We stay in a group at least."

He suddenly stops and raises a fist. Slowly he points to his ear, signals two, then points in the direction that he heard the noise. Keeping his ears focused on triangulating the noise he quietly draws his bayonet and affixes it. A basic skill any skyknife can do in pitch darkness without a thought. Once everyone is ready he has the group move toward the sound with whoever closest leading, whether it's himself or not.

[JbeJ275]

"It's some illusion glamer. Maybe a fey thing I dunno. Leaves this area unmapable unless you have the right phrase or some sorta physical key. Anyone loot the ones we got and see anything likely? It seems unlikely the guys who ported in would be left totally unable to retreat in case their scrolls were targeted. Or if it's a phrase keep your ears out, with the wedge we put in that bunker line we might be hearing a few more of them attempt to retreat soon and if they're yeling a passcode it'll be good to know. Or if anyone is kitted out with illusion popping magics you might be able to save us a lot of trouble.

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 26/32, ARCANE WARD 0/15,

<Up and at them, Skyknife!>

She snapped off a hasty firebolt towards the troll officer, but her head was still ringing from the blast; the shot went wide.

[Cavir]

"Illusion. Right. Need to keep in contact with each other. Even if they seem to become some a monster, keep your head on straight."

[MrAbdiel]

On the Ramp...

The goliath woman peeks over the sandbags, ears blinking and drawing her sidearm with one hand; but forced out of her cover, she's just desperately trying to understand what has just transpired and how to avoid small arms fire from the beach, and the sudden attackers on the ramp.

The Oberleutnant troll, blood pouring from one ear, totters for a moment with the LT's fireball ripping past his shoulder; then he lunges forward with regathered fury, slashing out wildly at the raging Pvt. Gamble and intending to make a quick, messy end of this ambush. Further up the ramp, the other machine gun team is shouting and reacting; but it's hard to discern their motion with such frantic danger so much closer.

Goliath-frauline uses the dodge action; she's exposed from all angles right now and doesn't like it. The Oberleutnant troll slashes out with his sabre, however, at Gamble.

Sabre attack 1 [roll0], for [roll1] slashing damage.
Sabre attack 2 [roll2], for [roll3] slashing damage.
Bite Sabre attack 1 [roll4], for [roll5] piercing damage.

And, if you care to roll as a free action...

Based on the tone of their shouts and the fact that you're not getting shot right now, they've deemed the tight melee too close to fire into. If they see a target on the ramp that isn't in close with one of their own living troops, they're lightly to swivel the gun and start hosing down the ramp. A pair of offsiders from that team are squinting down their ironsights on their rifles, trying to track a shot on Lt Bathory, who isn't absolutely adjacent to the melee just yet.

The LT went, the bad guys went; now we're back into the easy cycle of all-you, all-them. So Gamble and Bathory can take turns before the enemy attacks again!


Down in the Tunnels...

Pvt. O'Hara, hearing the warning about glammers and interpreting the handsign about enemies unseen, lets his machine gun sag to the side in one arm and extends the fingers of the other hand to gesture lambent gold symbols in the air. "What is done in the dark will be brought to the light..." He murmurs. A burst of swarming golden motes, like fireflies of divine energy, whirl from his hand and over to the indicated zone. A flicker of irregularity in the light indicates two shapes moving hastilly away, man-sized, but too quick to be caught in the burst; but a third, not so quick, is suddely outlined in golden accusation. A clear, golden silhouette of an invisible stolder holding a pistol in one hand and some kind of upraised baton in the other suddenly jerks back in its place some thirty feet away, looking down at its revealed self, and hoarsely whispers in panic to some other party in the room - someone to his immediate right, based on the inclination of his head. There's an angry shushing from the empty space, and then the golden-outline points its baton at O'Hara with some desperation. There is a swirl of wind, as something approaches; and combat is joined in this desperate place.

Autopilot-O'Hara flings a divine faerie fire at the place Xilo indicated, and is rewarded by catching an invisible enemy in the burst! If he'd failed, the enemy would have a surprise round. But since he didn't, combat joins all at once!
Roll initiatives! Anyone who beats or equals a [roll6] can take an action right away; then it's the enemies; then we'll be back into a comfortable cycle of all-you, all-them.

There's one 'visible' faerie fired enemy 30ft away, and you're pretty sure there's atleast two more nearby. You have advantage to attack the target who is lit up, though!

[stanleyindraven]

"Bring it!" Bruce shouts as the troll lays into him. Bruce pulls the a large bat from its resting place in his pack and brings the fight back to the troll.

Bat swing one [roll0]
damage [roll1]

Bat swing two [roll2]
damage [roll3]

Check that perception [roll4]

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo steps to the side to not be in the line of fire from his small squad behind him. "There's at least three. Use grenades, I'm out." He shoots twice at the outlined enemy.

Next time, requisitioning more grenades :smallannoyed:
Two shots, with advantage.

Shot1: [roll0] or [roll1]
Damage [roll2]

Shot2: [roll3] or [roll4]
Damage [roll5]

The maneuvers (PHB p 74) talk about using superiority dice with weapon attacks. Does that include ranged weapons? I have Commander's Strike, Precision Attack, and Rally.

[MrAbdiel]

Pvt Ordo pulls the pin on a grenade with his teeth, and flings it down the corridor at the golden-lit shape. The figure itself throws itself clear, tumbling and getting up holding its head as it covers from the blast and the shrapnel. But another figure, previously unseen, is thrown back, suddenly visable, to skid bloodily to a halt on the ground, lifeless. Mangled by fragmentation, a black uniformed Vult soldier lies - a half-elf male, blond of hair and tan of skin. The left eye is covered with a black patch, partially skewed by the killing blast. Jukebox burbles out a warning - "Use grenades," the snatch of sound replicating the order given; but with his shattered arm, the little kenku awkwardly fumbles one handed to stow his weapon under his arm and draw a grenade, the window to use it without endangering his comrades rapidly closing.

The other isn't fast enough to avoid Sgt. Xilo's bullets, however; splashes of blood painting the walls behind the golden outline, the air filling with sourceless, pained cries. The figure gestures with its baton, and fires with the shape of a sidearm in the other hand; both pointed at the sergeant. The sounds of the pistol are a muted clap in the ear-ringing aftermath of the grenade... but then there's another assault on the sergeant, coming from the empty air with malice unseen, but certainly felt; slamming, buffeting force trying to thrash the elf with skull-cracking force against the walls of the tunnel.

Pistol shots: [roll0] for [roll1] damage.

Invisible Assailant attacks:

[roll2] or [roll3], for [roll4].
[roll5] or [roll6], for [roll7].

Ordo tossed his grenade, which killed one invisible guy and missed the others. Jukebox fumbles to produce a grenade one handed. The enemies gang up on the sergeant. Then it's your turns again!

[JbeJ275]

Salamir is in motion as the bullets begin to ring out towards the commander, moving towards him and sighting his Hellfire rifle at the invisible disturbance, from one arm a fire bolt seeks their uninjured assailant. From the other arm a now familiar shielding pulse emits from his other arm to once more cover his squad.

To Hit: [roll0] or [roll1]
Damage: [roll2]+ [roll3]=15

[Awful]

Lt Bathory
HP 30/32, ARCANE WARD 0/15,

Concious of the enemy machine-gun position, Bathory pulled on the energy stored in her ring to knit together some of her scrapes. As she did so, she tossed up a grenade. In mid-air, her familiar caught it and let it drop smoothly onto the position of the goliath soldier. The grenade fell much as the skyknives had; ready to bring an end to one of the Volk's trained killers.

[MrAbdiel]

On the Ramp...

The grenade is deposited with tandem precision, mistress and minion working together. The goliath woman scrabbles back as the grenade drops, but then she's at the edge of the cliff - and there's nowhere to go. The grenade bursts with a bang! and the Kreig woman goes down, howling in pain, contorted in agony as the right side of her body is a mess of blood and fragmentation.

The Oberleutnant swats aside the heavier of the bat's blows, and catches the second on the temple; but even as Pvt Gamble goes toe to toe with the monstrosity, it seems to be recovering from damage as fast as it can be dealt to him. This seems to occur to the troll too, who sheathes his sword, and lurches forward attempting to grab both Private and Lieutenant, in left and right claws respectively.

The goliath woman is extremely badly injured, though not dead. The Troll-Oberleutnant is regenerating, and looks barely scratched! He makes two grapple attempts, one on each of ya.

[roll0]
[roll1]
If he hits your AC, you're Grappled. You can spend your action rolling Dex/Acrobatics or Str/Athletics to break the grapple, if you so wish; and he'll oppose you with Str/Athletics.

Bad guys, done, it's your turn!

[Cavir]

The pistol shot cleanly misses Sgt Xilo. The invisible attacker manages a glancing blow mostly deflected by Sal's shielding. Xilo responds with a bayonet stab and issuing orders. "Sal, keep up the firing."

One hit for 12 but 8 is absorbed by the shielding, which is then refreshed back to 10. At 33/51hp, AC 17.

Attack with disadvantage.
Stab: [roll0] or [roll1]
Damage: [roll2]

Use a superiority die for Commander's Strike. Sal gets to attack again with [roll3] extra damage.

[JbeJ275]

Sir Yes Sir!!! Barks back Sal as his fingers dance over the hellfire rifle, attempting to empower and discharge it beyond it's usual rate of fire, spitting further flames at the enemies surrounding them.


Attack: [roll0]
Damage: [roll1]+[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

Down in the Tunnels...

With a shower of high velocity, precision fire bolts, Pvt. Salamir plugs a shot into the vacant space where the assailant seems to be, the bolt dissipating as if making contact; and then mows down the helplessly illuminated soldier, who tumbles to the ground with a wheezing gasp, then gasps no more. With his invisibility stripped, it's apparent that this figure is a human male - dark haired and armed with a heavy pistol and a carved rod whose function is not immediately apparent. Curiously, this soldier also has a patch over the left eye.

With a shout of conviction, Pvt. O'Hara once again releases a bloom of glittering divine light. This flash of firefly motes attracts and adheres to the figure assaulting the Sergeant, and it catches it true. The figure illuminated it not entirely humanoid - freakishly slim, long fingerless arms and a body that terminates in a trailing wisp of nothingness, though presenting a gaunt shoulder, torso and head arrangement that is reminiscent of a humanoid figure. Something about its posture seems almost offended to be revealed in this way. Jukebox, whose window to use grenades has passed, struggles to stow the grenade he couldn't manage one handed, then draws his pistol and snaps off a shot at the outline; Ordo, likewise, waiting for a moment when it's not lined up with his comrades, pours on the lead. Both bullets seem to hit... something. They strike the space, and deviate and tumble as if punching through a form, but then zip out the other side, clattering off walls and spinning on the ground with their velocity drained from them. The creature seems pained, but not overly so; not as much as you would prefer, in an enemy you had shot twice.

This is an Invisible Stalker - a hunter-killer elemental spirit often summoned by mages and used as assassins. It seems the two soldiers with it were directing its malice with those rods, though you think with their deaths those instruments have lost and directing power they once had. Now, the thing is going to do what it most prefers to do - maliciously strive for the death of mortals.

With an aggravated howl like a stormwind whipping through fluted rocks, it lashes out again - but this time, gliding away from the sergeant and visiting its ferocity on Salamir - specifically, the instrument on his arm, which has caused such displeasing mischief for it.

O'Hara faerie fires the last enemy in the room! Jukebox and Ordo pop shots at it, but do little damage. In the meantime, it turns its focus on Salamir's shielding construct, the emitted pulse drawing its malice. It's no longer invisible, and so it does not have advantage to attack!

[roll0], [roll1],
Second attack [roll2], [roll3].

After that, we cycle back around to the squad's turn!

[JbeJ275]

After swiftly coming to terms with what's in front of him, Sal for a second contemplaes leaping for the control rods, only to realise the things will have lost power and that they don't really have the time or kit to re-empower them. Instead he blocks the first blow of this creature, then watches the second break apart the shield over his contruct while he tries to level his hellfire rifle at the thing at point blank range.


Fairie Fire Cancels Out point blank range penalties so rolling normally.

[roll0] for [roll1]+[roll2]=22


We're dealing with a Stalker with it's control rods broken. If you got magic bullets to break out nows the time!

[Cavir]

With the illuminated enemy moving away and turning its back on Xilo, Xilo moves up behind it, surrounding it, and drives his bayonet into the beast's back twice.

Never got the result of stabbing it last round.
Believe I'll have advantage from flanking here.

Attack 1: [roll0] or [roll1]
Damage [roll2]

Attack 2: [roll3] or [roll4]
Damage [roll5]

[MrAbdiel]

Down in the Tunnels...

It's a beatdown now, with five soldiers in a circle around the revealed invisible stalker putting boots and bayonets in. Or it should be; but the thing is hard to make substantial marks on, and hard to tell when it does; the troops can only go off its sounds of hissing displeasure when they get a good blow in. The creature has identified the necessary first target, and buffets mercilessly: striving furiously to destroy the little shield construct that has done such yeoman work. The fire does the job well, and it doesn't like that; but it manages to duck under a chattering blast of sacred flame carefully plugged into the combat by O'hara, while mostly ignoring the stabbing and kicking and clubbing coming from the Sergeant, and the privates thrashing away in the melee. "Spirits need the juice, Sergeant!" Ordo growls, at the risk of stating the obvious pointlessly before, in a break in the action, he reaches over to grab the stock of Xilo's rifle. A paladin's prayer leaves his lips, and flashing script of celestial races up the weapon and coalesces around the bayonet, which now shines with a divinely foreboding golden sheen. Jukebox has a hard time contributing much, but he does know music, atleast; and opening his beak, the living gramophone begins flawlessly emitting The Dread Slash of Corellon as sung by the Utaria Elven Men's Choir; a thrilling elven ballad recounting the time the patriarch of the elven gods bested the patriarch of the orcish gods. To most, it's beautiful. To some, it's a reminder of ancient truths to which they are the inheritors.

The Stalker slams the construct for 14, then 9! Lots of bayonets hit for reduced damage - not that you can tell, because it has no visible profile! But setting up for the next turn, Jukebox gives Xilo bardic inspiration (1d6) and a Note of Potential (http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/bard:creation), for use at his discretion. And Ordo casts Magic Weapon on Xilo's bayonet, so it's now a magic +1 Bayonet, and capable of bypassing the resistance of the stalker! Players can act again!

On the Ramp...

The troll oberleutnant roars as the slender little officer slips through its grip, but it gets a hold of Gamble; and hoisting the goliath into the air above its head, it snarls and hurls him off the ramp!

Atleast, that's its intention; but the goliath sinks one hand into a fistful of the greasy troll's hair and makes himself impossible to dispense with so easily. Seething and frothing, he lays in with the bat one handed around the troll's head and shoulders, causing a muted crunch of bone inside its body. Another blast of flame licks out from the Lt's weapon - this one strikes home, neutralizing the beast's regeneration for a moment, and for the first time securing the damage dealt on it for another round - inching closer to the battle turning in their favor.

Autopiloted, but it all worked out well! Gamble clobbered the troll for 11 then 7 damage; and the firebolt hit and nixed its regeneration for 6! The troll tried to use its grapple to throw the goliath of the ramp, but raging gives you advantage on strength rolls, so... wub-wub-wuuuuub. Be less clever, troll. Players can act again!

[JbeJ275]

As the stalker buffets the shield contruct, shaking it almost into inoperability Salamir waits for it to pulse out once more, then ducks back 15 feet and lines up another hellfire shot, trusting in the shield to absorb any oppurtunistic strike as he retreated, and hoping the others could bring he creature down if it went to persue him.


Added Temp HP: [roll0]

Hellfire Rife: [roll1] or [roll2] for [roll3]+[roll4]=19

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo smiles. "Juice, excellent!" Even just the first few notes of The Dread Slash of Corellon further inspires the elven sergeant. "Beast if you had any brains you'd be fleeing now!" With renewed ferver Xilo continues his assault at the semi-invisible foe.

Two attacks with +1 bayonet. Will decide which one to apply the bard inspiration after the roll. Advantage from Faerie Fire.

Attack1: [roll0] or [roll1]
Damage [roll2]

Attack2: [roll3] or [roll4]
Damage [roll5]

EDIT: From OOC:
Bardic Inspiration on the second attack, with the Note of Potential only applying to the stalker.
(1d8)[5]

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce attempts to free himself of the grip of the troll.

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

Down In The Tunnels...

Finally, the spirit-foe begins to give. Its buffeting loses strength slightly, then a great deal quickly; the whole squad gathered around it to stick it with bayonets, making openings when Salamir calls to fire in his deadly munitions. It's hard to tell who gets the killing blow, but finally, with a sound like an overlapping score of pained gasps, the form slumps, strikes the ground, and blows apart like an unravelling of bound winds, echoing down the corridor; snuffing the faerie fire as it goes and leaving the corridor silent, but for the panting of aching soldiers; with no company beyond themselves except the corpses of two indentically ​eyepatched soldiers.

On The Ramp...

Pvt Gamble is the biggest and toughest single soldier in all of Echo company. But he's not troll big; or troll tough. The towering oberleutnant redoubles his grip as the goliath valiantly struggles to become free; and at full extension of one arm with a clawed hand around the goliath's throat, the Vult officer dangles the big man over the edge of the ramp preparing to drop him. Lt. Bathory takes the opportunity to rake the creature's back with blazing fire, but smoking flesh and all, the creature revels in its dominance, and certainty of success. Then, improbably, there is deliverance from above.

This entire operation from landing to beach charge to artillery and teleport ambush has been fraught with poison fortune. A gambling man would suggest that such sour fortune cannot remain so forever, and must eventually turn; and this happens to be true, for the man named Gamble. A flammenwagon, a heavy motorcar with a flamethrower mount and auxiliary fuel tanks to arm it, tumbles from the top of the cliff and slams nose-first onto the top of the troll, flattening it concertina style into a meaty knot of bone, suffering, and an impossible will to live. This entails a sudden adjustment of the creature's height from the maximum extension of ten feet tall to a much humbler one foot tall, as a greasy ruin only alive by the unholy potency of its trollish regeneration capacity. With that reduction, Gamble is jerked wildly, swinging in that choking grip, now suspended from a single spasming green arm protruding from a bleeding mess beneath an upright motorcar. Gamble is not a smart man; but his intuitions are good - and he likely knows he has about five seconds to pull free, scramble up and over the chassis of that vehicle and leap away, before it tumbles forward off the ramp down to the beach below.

Tunnel Team: You did it! The enemy is slain, leaving you to continue to puzzle over the strange place in which you find yourself, now free from invisible predations.

Ramp team - The troll does 9 and then 10 damage to the raging barbarian - that's 4 and then 5, with the rage discount - before being prematurely smooshed by a mysterious falling vehicle. Lt. Bathory, you're no longer threatened - but that does mean that there's no Kreig soldiers for the gun nest up the hill to worry about hitting with their fire. Gamble, you failed to break the grapple, but you're free now -sort of. Make an Athletics check as the first thing on your turn, DC 12, to pull free of the dying trollfist and climb up and over this vehicle before it falls! Then you can confront the possibility of being shot at by the gun nest further up the ramp, or taking cover in the sandbags, as you prefer!

[JbeJ275]

Breathing deeply, and fiddlig with the hellfire rifle to let it vent Salamir advanced towards the fallen foes, first poking them to see if they were dead or merely dying, then going rifling through their pockets for any charms or codebooks that might indicate a way to move on from here.

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo

"Good job everyone. Stay alert. Ordo keep watch. O'Hara, can you help out Jukebox? Jukebox, I can take one of your grenades since I'm out. Sal, anything on the dead? Why the eye patches? Take anything of note."

While the others are busy cleaning up, Xilo takes in their surroundings. Were they still in the illusion? Anything special about this place the enemy were at? Any idea where the skyknives had come down from? Any signs of more enemy coming? Anything of note to direct their path from here?


Investigation [roll0]
Perception [roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

Down In the Tunnels...

The hard shelled machine gunnermove up and spares a flash of healing light to ease some of Jukebox's suffering; the humanoid corvid having suffered that bad break of the arm in the fall and just white-knuckled through ever since. He can't form his own articulated response to appreciate it, but the two understand each other just the same. Ordo, his features tight with understandable stress, nods and keeps watch, after ferrying Jukebox's spare grenade to the sergeant.

Xilo casts his senses down the maddeningly plain and repeated corridor, and finds nothing to help him solve the connundrum. The mind that conceived of this chamber must be advanced - a mouse-trap for invaders, a safe haven and ambush-zone for the waiting Kreigers. But there don't seem to be any more coming - not that he can see.

Salamir searches the bodies. One has a notebook, but it's mostly blank; and after an exited moment, the disappointing truth seems to be that this is, quite simply, a soldier's notebook, in which he is drafting and redrafting letters to people he knows - or knew - back in a town called Stadtengart. But at the sergeant's instigation, Sal checks out the eye patches, and finds the eyes beneath perfectly intact to the best of his medical knowledge. The possibility that these eyepatches are magical comes to mind, but his artificer instincts don't think that's the case. Then, on a hunch, closing his own left eye, he finds himself in an entirely new place - or rather, the same place, with the disorienting repeating veneer stripped away. The 'key', such that it is to this place, is simply monocular vision. With that, it might be finally possible to progress without getting turned around and bamboozled.

[JbeJ275]

"Ah hells." Salamir says rising to his feet and putting one of the eyepatches on, throwing another to the sergeant. "This place has selective optical mind polarised illusion overlapping the whole place. Everyone get an eye covered and the illusions should bleed out, just remeber to take them off when we're out of here and in another firefight."

With that Resolved Salamir pressed on quickly, attempting to make up for this delay and reach the shield generators that were their original target.

[Cavir]

Xilo catches the eye patch from Salamir and puts it on then scans around again. "Perfect find. Hang on." He pulls out his kabar and uses it to cut four long strips from a dead soldier's pants to make four hasty eye patches. While doing so he notices the discarded notepad. He flips the pages and sees the many blank pages. He's a little disappointed. "You know how tricky they are. Probably using invisible ink." Xilo tucks the notepad into his gear then hands out three patches to the others, keeping one as a spare.

"Put these on. Feeling better Jukebox? Alright, time to get back into the game. Let's go."

[Awful]

She clicked her fingers: the bird soul-bound to the vampire disappeared from view in a puff of reddish fog. It'd worked well beforehand; Bathory tossed her Weasel bomb to her unseen familiar and sent it spiraling upwards, so it could swoop down and drop the explosives on the other gun nest.

<You still with us, Gamble?> she broadcast to the larger man as she crouched in the dugout and started quickly rummaging for anything of use.


Casting Invisibility on the familiar and sending it to bomb the other machinegun nest.
Going prone and searching the bodies quickly for anything useful.

[MrAbdiel]

Down in the Tunnels...

With nothing else exceptional to loot from the dead, the now eyepatched squad heads onward through the suddenly navigable corridors. There's a great deal of branching, but with a couple of minutes care, you find you way back to where you came in, and then pivot attempting a straight-shot to get across to the other side of the minefield above. But searching in that direction does not take you out and up - atleast not yet - but to a door not locked but closed. You line up beside it for a routine breach, and when it's thrown open, the scene is unimpressive. A small room with a trio of chairs, a small control panel for what looks mostly like a telephone switchboard. A ladder leads to the underside of a thick steel hatch in the ceiling of one corner. It takes the only occupant of the room, a short little human without the muscle or situational awareness to be much use as the soldier his uniform purports him to be, an extra moment to notice you. He's presently battering at the console - "Hallo? Hallo?" - vainly it seems trying to get some function out of the malfunctioning thing. He is glancing over his shoulder at you slowly as he does so, clearly expecting someone else; but his eyes go wide at the intrusion, and he lets the phone receiver drop from the cheek-shoulder hold to commit himself to a single action: he leans across the control panel to the right edge, where a partially transparent plastic domed cover shrouds a conspicuous blue button, jams a small key into the keyhole just beneath it, and violently snaps it off in the lock. Then he's fumbling, falling out of his chair, reaching for the obviously neglected pistol holstered at his hip.

It's not exactly an initiative worthy combat - if you want to kill this man rather than permit him to reach his gun, you need only be the first one to describe doing so. If you want to try to disarm and subdue him instead, that'd require some rolling; but we won't worry about initiative as such.

Friends up on the Ramp, I'll hold off there until Gamble's had another chance to post!

[JbeJ275]

Once the door was breached Salamir had his hellfire rifle up and pointed at the man’s chest right away. As it began to glow with the flames of Phelengtos itself Salamir spoke a few words in Kriegspiel giving this guy one chance to surrender, backed by a grin that was pure menace.”

“Bad idea, buddy.”

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce struggles against the wretched arm.

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

On The Ramp...

The upright flammenwagon tips, totters, and then finally slides down off the edge of the ramp, smearing the troll's gore down as it goes. The living remnant of the beast may well survive even such punishment - but not the huge orange fireball that follows with that vehicle's detonation. Scrambling up, over, and springing off the vehicle just in time, the Pvt Gamble feels the wash of heat and light racing up his back, but manages to claw his way back to firm ground. This, just in time for the machine gun nest at the top of the ramp, seeing there are now no friendly targets in the fire lane, begins stitching puffing lines of dirt around the recently vacated companion nest. Both officer and grunt are forced into the limited cover, the sandbags and concrete fractured and blown out by their explosive entry. Then another explosion, and a chorus of screams from up the ramp; an invisible helper delivering delayed wrath. Two of the occupants of the nest are thrown bodily out and over the beach below, one unlucky sap landing on a mine when he hits the sand and having even his tattered body reduced to scattered remnants. The other two - from the distance, humans or half elves, it's hard to tell - bail just quick enough to be mortally wounded instead of killed outright, and are left howling on the slope's top; a two part discordant melody, amidst the relentless crash and thunder of war.

Above, lost somewhere in your more proximate explosions, a huge blast has devastated the bunker above you that might have posed a threat, too; and the great wyrm perched atop it - you're sure, the same one that raked the plane beside yours out of the sky - retreats into the smoky sky, howling its pain to the air. Looks like someone's made it to the top of the slope before you; and not a moment too soon. The possibility of trying to use any of the machine guns to pulverize a path through the minefield has past - a slim chance made none by the necessary deployment of explosives to clear the nests, wrecking the guns - but you've knocked some of the teeth out of the enemy, and back on the beach you see the hordes of soldiers making their own way. Some have magi blasting holes in the minefield to minimize the deadly distance to run; some handful of the mine-flail tanks beginning to chew their way forward with squads hunkering in their wake; and a tragic, but heroic multitude who can do nothing but run, and try to imagine they can see the bumps in the sand, and hope.

It'll a lot of slow moving forward, falling back, covering fire and maneuver to make it as far along as you teleported; but you suspect they'll get there. As for the other half of your team, who went underground.. you've no instinct of where they are now.

In the Tunnels Below

The operator doesn't appear to be in the state of mind to interpret the warning linguistically, but the weight of it comes through tonally. Sweating, fearful, surrounded by enemy soldiers, he takes his hands away from the pistol on his hip. Ordo disarms him, but frowns and quietly looks to the other soldiers. "...I'm not sure we can tow a prisoner. But we ought not kill a man who has surrendered."

[JbeJ275]

"Heh, no worries. I've got this."

After taking any weapons or useful looking tools or keys from the prisoner and seeking permission in common he returned to speaking Kriegspiel as he talked with the prisoner.

"So, my new friend this is what will happen now.you will tell us, what that key and lock does, you will tell us who you were calling on the phone there and you will give us directions to the shield generators atop this cliff. I suppose it's evident what we'll do if you think of keeping your secrets. Then I will give you directions to a stairwell, which you will travel to and stay nice and cozy at until some nice men come to pick you up. And if you think about running the moement you're outt of sight..."

With that Salamir stopped speaking and instead smiled at him, tapping the entirely defunct invisible stalker control rod with his other hand.

"You'll want to be extra sure none of your old friends are around to see you break your word won't you.


Intimidate if needed: [roll0]

[stanleyindraven]

"Where do we go from here lieutenant?" Bruce questions, partially out of breath. Bruce scans the remains of the nest around them to see if there are any usable guns or grenades laying about.

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo strides into the room as Sal gets the draw on the enemy. Xilo gives an approving nod to Sal then uses his command presence to give a look to the prisoner, non-verbally telling him it is in his best interest to comply.

"Jukebox, keep watch. Ordo and O'Hara, see what you can make of their radio. Be good to make out what's being said. Even better if we can send a false message, like 'all units fallback to secondary line.'"

When Sal finishes his talk with the prisoner, Xilo adds while pointing to the hatch at the top of the ladder: "Ask him what's up there too."

With the others busy, Xilo takes a moment to follow up on a thought he had on the way to this room. He pulls out the captured notebook and flips through it again, this time with the eye patch on.

Persuasion on the enemy soldier. [roll0]
Investigation [roll1]

How healed up is Jukebox's arm? Good to go?

[MrAbdiel]

Down in the Tunnels...

The Kreiger panel operator receives his interrogation glumly. He's scared, in fear for his life... but not so scared out of his wits that he's willing to babble everything he knows. That kind of explication requires the kind of specialist that the history books do not illuminate in detail.

He does, however, offer some things; a kind of offering to keep you interested in keeping him alive.

"The telephone line through here is down - the hard cable has been cut, probably by your guns shelling the beach. The hatch there leads up to the beach at the base of the wall - but the position is covered from the wall, so if you use it, you will be shot dead. I was trying to call out to the coordination bunker, to warn them the tunnels in this segment have been compromised - but they dispatched a stalker team, which means they sealed the side passages before they engaged you, even if you have killed them. My protocol would be to ensure the coordination bunker was informed and then extract myself - but here we are."

What he doesn't say, pointedly, is anything about the Kreigshields, or the function of the key-locked case. Further interrogation, sweet or sour, does not seem to have the force to free the prisoner's tongue on this particular matter. But he flinches in irritation when Ordo approaches, eyes the plastic dome, and simply breaks the plastic off at the hinge - the locked cover designed to stop it from being accidentally pressed, not to prevent insistent, forced efforts. The paladin looks up to the hatch, back to the blue button, then hovers his hand over it and looks to the sergeant for confirmation.

Private Jukebox is mostly healed. He's still cinematically down to one arm, but it won't affect his combat performance.

[Awful]

"The troops down there should be able to get through here at least a little easier," the short vampire replied, wiping the dirt of combat from her face. "We're not done yet, however. Take anything worth taking while I work here."

She knelt next to one of the corpses and placed a hand on their forehead. She was silent, but occasionally the corpse would twitch and judder before it abruptly cambered to its feet, eyes glowing an eerie red. She handed it the flag, and told it to wave it, standing out in the open so it'd be easily visible from the beach (and incidentally drawing attention away from the officer and her squaddie). She told it the standard list of commands: after twenty-three hours without orders to the contrary, destroy yourself; attack any living Volk you see; do not attack any Allied forces, even if attacked yourself by them.

Undead: create them responsibly.

"That should help draw any skyknives or ordinary soldiers towards here," she said finally. "Now let's see if there's anywhere else we can drop in to.

She looked about for the next likely target or place to go.

[MrAbdiel]

As the lieutenant scanned from the ramp, her assessment was interrupted by a sudden, but perhaps not unwelcome mental impression:


Pvt Gabriel Ginger
Lt, this is Pvt Ginger reporting. We are a small team up here, but the bunker above you has been cleared. Awaiting orders. (Cantrip)

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo

"Hold on Ordo. Seem our new friend is expecting it to blow without the key turned. Sal, the key may be broken off but it's in there. Have a tool to get the whole thing to turn now? Any idea what it is? How is he supposed to extract himself?"

Xilo checks the prisoner first for a shoulder patch like the trench soldiers had, then searches the rest of him for anything useful.

[JbeJ275]

With the call from the Sarge, Salamir steps back from where he was looking at the hatch, he'd been considering if there was any hope of pushing through it with the right shields, wards and other spells but fiddling with this mechanism seemed better for his health. He then started looking over the mechanisms of the key, button and bench, examining where any wires below ran from the button mechanism to have a better guess as to the function of the button, and then trying to so so carefully pry the key out of the lock.


Investigation of Button: [roll0]
Tinker Tools on Key: : [roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

In The Tunnels... The prisoner remains sullen and silent, as Pvt Salamir produces his field tools and, with a few seconds of effort and the masterful torque of pliers, removes the snapped key from the barrel of the lock. A swift investigation with the engineer's eye reveals the lock for the key isn't infact part of the button mechanism at all - indeed, it's a simple tumbler and bolt arrangement designed to allow the plastic dome to lock to the control panel, securing the button from access - or atleast, making it as secure as the weak hinge on the other side, which Ordo so effortlessly busted. The button's wiring ultimately vanishes through its conduit into the wall, but it's a very simple arrangement; an open/closed circuit, nothing that would be capable of carrying information beyond ON and OFF; or perhaps, LOCK and UNLOCK. It's very much the kind of wiring one would expect for remotely activating or deactivating a magnetic lock on a hatch like the one in the roof.

[JbeJ275]

After examining this, Salamir pressed the button, while sending the shielding construct to open the hatch above them, aware it was the most replaceable should machine gun fire start pouring down.

[MrAbdiel]

Down in the Tunnels...

Click click click bzzt.

The button is depressed, and some internal electronic system clicks and buzzes in response... but the hatch in the roof does not open. The button remains depressed, having been activated for whatever that has caused; but whatever it has triggered is apparently not visible. A frustrated, moments longer search permits the engineer to find a lesser switch, scattered among those on the console, which seems likely to be the ticket - and when it is pressed, the hatch audibly clicks and swings down on slow gas struts, permitting the ascent of any willing soldiers on a ladder that the shield construct's spidery legs skilfully deploy from the shaft above. They lead up into a darkness, with a single faint amber light high above at what might well be the trapdoor to ground level.

Everyone is ready to escape these tunnels, even if it means returning to the hell of the firefight above; and with the construct in the lead, the O'Hara, Ordo and Jukebox begin preparing to ascend. With all this, there is no clear indication what the blue button did, if anything - perhaps they'll never know.

Up on the Ramp...

The reanimated Kreiger - the goliath woman being most intact for the spell - staggers up the ramp, waving Young Valor high, attracting confusion from enemy soldiers below who wonder if there's been a major line breach, and distant cheers from allied soldiers who see their own colors beginning to fly on the other side of the minefield - the holder of those colors too indistinct and ruined by blood to be considered. But above you, you gain your own reason to hope.

You can both see them now - of your Skyknives, on top of the ridge above you, standing over the ruined carcass of an exploded bunker near where the truck came down before, where the dragon was roaming and spitting. Pvt. Catchell sees Gamble and the LT below and, thinking it easier to give them a way up that doesn't require travelling all the way up the ramp and risking contact with enemies further along the line, throws down a knotted rope in effort to reunite these fragments of Echo Company.

Gamble, Bathory, you're being let up to join the other thread - if you climb the rope to join them, head over to The Best Laid Plans (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?638866-The-Ballad-of-Echo-Company-Episode-1B-The-Best-Laid-Plans&p=25341576#post25341576) and enjoy a moment of releif - you're off the beach. Now to get back to the objective.

[JbeJ275]

Salamir makes his way to the bottom of the ladder and starts scrambling up, preceded very slightly by his construct and checking for any sign of traps or ambushes as he goes, or dappling in the amber light to indicate movement.


[roll0]

[Awful]

<Come on, Private. Up we go.> Bathory sent to Gamble, but she couldn't help the small smile that quirked her lips. More of her Skyknives were alive, and working towards the mission.

She looked back towards the beach. The squad she'd left behind were out of sight, and presumably were in the tunnel systems below. They were in good hands with their leadership, however; she was sure they'd pull through.

She didn't need the rope: she just walked right up the cliff face, in seeming defiance of all manner of gravity, the rope in one hand as a measure of security, and right up into another game thread entirely.

[MrAbdiel]

“What do you see, Sal? Is it a way out?” Ordo half-whispers from behind. Above Sal, the hard working little machine clickity-clacks up and up, reporting no traps, no missing rings, no movement; and soon, after a climb up as long as the climb down at been at the other end, the device waits obediently at the underside of a hatch with a presently deactivate magnetic lock, just waiting to be dared open. And when pressed up a little to gain a little insight as to the location of the egress, the construct is not washed away on a surge of bullets, or stomped flat by jackboots. Indeed, careful peeking through the cracked-open lid of the shaft shows a lacuna of safety in the hurricane of violence. Ahead, not ten yards away, is the cliff wall, with a burning, crumpled vehicle at its base; above it, the halfway point of a the ramp to which a dynamic pair of skyknives had teleported - now clear, and not hosing bullets on to the hatch. And above that, the figure of Pvt. Gamble, scrambling up and over the top of the cliff on a knitted rope let down from above. Immediate attention on the zone appears to be on another Goliath entirely, a Kreiger, staggering up the ramp with an Amcaran flag in hand, being riddled over and over with bullets from snipers and back-shooting trench warriors in the field, but not quite going down. These factors combine to make the proverbial coast amazing clear… even if just for a moment or few more.

[Cavir]

Sgt Xilo

With the rest of the team on their way up, Xilo has his Garand pointed at the prisoner still. He nods his head to the way they came into the radio room. In Krieg he orders the prisoner: "RUN!" As the enemy moves through the door, Xilo keeps the door open with his rifle aimed to encourage him along. Once out of sight Xilo returns to the ladder, slings his rifle and climbs up after the others.

If I assumed too much with the prisoner I'm fine with redoing.

[JbeJ275]

For a few seconds Ordo, everyone stay on my six and take it at a sprint! We have a clear shot here but only if we grab it.

Can anyone send a message up to the sky knives up there on the cliff? Have the throw a rope down?

Sal waits for that to be done, or if no-one there is capable of sound so shouts up the cliff with a thaumaturgy enhanced voice, then waits breathlessly. Desperately fighting nerves as he waits for the rope to be lowered.

With that Sal scrambles out of the trapdoor, quickly getting to his feet and breaking into a sprint towards the safety offered by the rope up to the top of the cliff. His construct had once more latched around his arm as he began the sprint to rejoin the other skyknives.

[Cavir]

"I can do that." Sgt Xilo, last on the ladder, follows the rest up and out of the hatch. He looks up to see who is up above while he darts to the cliff wall. He then calls on the minor magic taught to him, pointing a finger up at Gamble.

"Gamble, more skyknives down here, throw us a rope."

EDIT: Story continues here. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25352412&postcount=113)