The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 1 - Naphto Beach

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: OOC

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OOC Thread is here.

This is it.

This is the day the Kreigsvolk will learn they have lost the war.

Every moment of this day has felt thick with the weight of history to it. Every day for the past two months, you have been woken at dawn by reveille on bugle, or by Captain Lorana’s dragonborn First Lieutenant Shako Norraga screaming at you shortly before dawn for a surprise training exercise. You have run miles in freezing wind up mountainsides, and waist deep in choppy surf, and across churned muddy paddocks in rural Albinon. You have done endless firing drills and jump drills and close quarters drills. You have committed to memory the map of Naphto beach and its surrounding combat zones that you can draw it by memory and label its location. The image of the intersecting points of longitude and latitude where Echo company is to deploy is burned into your retinae from obsessive viewing; and despite having never been there, you experience a weird longing in your heart that is not unlike being homesick that commands you to be there. This little patch of field will be marked with holophane panels illuminated by minor illusion spells, so they will be visible from the air to guide the skyknives in; but not visible from the ground, for the defenders. That field is almost a square with the northwestern corner truncated by an unpaved road. It once grazed cattle. There is a windmill just south of it, and a treeline just south of that into which you are destined to go a-scouring for the Kreigshielder’s acolytes, whom you know will be remotely boosting the powers of the Kreigshielder abjurators. Execute or capture the acolytes, and the naval barrage will break the Kreigshields; and the quarter-million troops crawling through machine gun fire on the beach below will be able to achieve their directive. After that, with the Vult on their heels, you’ll roll them all the way back to Vultenshaung; and that’ll be that.

The hypothetical of this day has lived with you for all days and nights. But now it’s here. And it’s not the damnable bugle, or the benignly frightening commands of 1st Lt. Norraga that wakes you in the morning. It’s the ominously calm voice of Captain Longsummer herself, that breaches all but the heaviest sleeper’s dreams by virtue of the day’s fearful import.

“Wake up, Echo Company. It’s time. It’s zero hundred hours, and the bombing wings are on the move. We move out in twelve minutes.”

So you got up, and you checked your things, and you moved out in twelve.

Spoiler: RP Consideration:

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How would your character feel waking up to such a day? Are they like a dog on a chain, ready to be let off the leash? Or are they fearful of what the jump will entail, and not quite ready to believe the sanguine projections for the operation's ease?

The sky had been starless and cloudy - an unpleasant foretaste of what was to come. But the airfield is well lit, since the allied forces are on the offense, and any Kreigsvolk air squadron making their way across the channel from Aquiteaux to Albinon is going to be raked out of the sky by the full airborne might of the UPA invasion force. No need to keep the runway invisible for potential bombers, then.

This is good, because in the dark it would have been hard finding the right plane for you to board. But yours is marked with chalk on the exterior:

'Echo Company - Come to Mama.'

The plane is the Sunday Best, and her pilot you know well: a raucously flirty and uncompromisingly charming air lieutenant who appears as “Lt. June St. Valentine” on paper, goes by “Miss June” in purpose whenever she’s not in the presence of superiors who stickle for formal address, and whom Echo Company particularly have come to know as “Mama June”. A vivaciously beautiful tiefling with the classic crimson skin and black tresses tied back behind her rams-curl horns, she has indulged like all the other pilots in the combat-carrier wings in having herself depicted near the nose of the plane in a lounging pinup style. For the half of the flight pool that are male pilots, this is typically a jocular representation; artists rendering them propped up on one elbow with their best smouldering stare, and perhaps a rose in their teeth. A minority of the female pilots take the inversion of this approach, and have had themselves depicted reclining in full uniform with impatient looks on their faces. But others, like Lt. June St. Valentine, embraced the concocted tradition in earnest and glammed out completely for the rendering. Oddly, it’s not the glamorous loveliness of her self portrait on the plane’s exterior that means as much now as the reassuring constancy of her character, the same as it has been over all the practice flights and jumps you’ve done together.

The teifling herself, bright eyed and snappy in her pressed uniform, greets each of you by your names in her pleasing Lusanna bayou girl drawl. But there’s not much time to waste - today is the day, and the thirty soldiers of 1st, 2nd and 3rd squads are loaded up and buckled into their seats in the familiar tube of the plane, along with Lt. Bathory and her aide, Specialist Vivienne Pierce. Vivienne’s most prominent quality is her forgettability; a human woman unremarkable in all ways except her capacity as a secretary and bureaucrat. She silently checks off the arrivals as they step into the plane until finally you’re joined by Captain Lorana Longsummer, who has elected to drop with you and the rest of 3rd Platoon This puts the Sunday Best at a total load of 33 soldiers, and 4 air crew; the absolute capacity of this machine of war.

Pvt. Hector Longfoot pierces the stillness once everyone’s locked in with his signature, understated halfling humor.

“Awh, crap; I forgot my wallet.”

And the engines kick in with such comedic timing that most of the platoon is in stitches as the aircraft grunts its way to the end of the runway, lurches into the air, and falls into formation with the dozens, and dozens of others like her; a flying V of flying V’s, with more such compound V’s besides.

It’s been nearly the full five hour trip now. The sound of combat hasn’t begun yet, but you’re all waiting for it. Still, enough of the soldiers with you react to anticipation with conversationality and flippancy, and you’re all used to the roar of the engines now that you can shout over it to talk to one another.

“Whaddaya say, Jukebox? One more before the jump?” A flurry of cheers encourage Pvt. Jukebox to give the troops one more, as if he needed more encouragement. The kenku is a little under five feet tall, and looks a little goofy laden down with his jump gear; but his talent is undeniable. He opens his beak, clears his throat, and out of his throat comes not his voice, but the warm and rich tone of swing singer and his accompanying band, complete with the imperfections in the timbre he must have heard when he learned the track from a recording.


The requesting soldier - Pvt. Marguerite Curry, a half elf with blood red hair and a delight for dancing - wriggles in her harness, and whines. “Oh, Jukebox! You picked too well! You can’t play a tune like that when I’m all strapped in! You’re killing me!”

“Hey, you save up that dance for me when we hit the ground, Twinkle Toes. I’m good for it.” Pvt Tarron Chaegwyn promises, with the cool-cat grin typical for his ongoing pursuit of Marguerite which both have entertained and delayed and entertained again. She responds.
“You might be, but it’s going to first taker! Don’t get stuck in a tree Hot Shot.”

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

Spoiler: RP Consideration:

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The action will begin soon; but for now, I'd like to give all the characters a chance to use their voice and engage in the pre-jump chatter one way or another; whether that's obsessively checking your harness is buckled and your Skyknife ring is secured, or whether you're laughing along with the other larrikins who aren't in a hurry to confront the danger ahead. Choose a font color if you want, but because there's up to 10 characters in one scene, I'm not rigidly enforcing unique shades!

[JbeJ275]

The first ten minutes after waking see Sal rushing around the barracks, he has more to pack than most with modular artillery pieces going into webbing and a pile of overly fiddly little gadgets stowed away on his person but he has almost all of it packed away beforehand. He goes over it one more time, making sure he's not gonna need any of the stuff that'll only fit in his deepened webbing before going over to Doc in the last minutes before lift-off.

Hey, Uptown you old whiner, you gonna be on form today? It'll be good to see the others finally put their skills to use since they've been lounging around here... anyway I got a little something for you. Gotta keep you alive if I'm ever gonna show you a week in the city that you ain't gonna waste.

With that, Sal reached over for the Doc's combat fatigues and attached a pre-measured ballistic Gel Pack to the torso, the magic draining out of his own expanded webbing as he did so.

Don't die on me to quickly out there Uptown, you got a lot of boys to drag home yet.

Spoiler: OOC

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Until noted otherwise Doc gains +1 AC with his armour, and my webbing loses bag of holding capacity beyond the default.

...


Hey Mama be gentle will you? Don't think any of the boys are used to riding in such a pretty bird!

Sal shouts good naturedly as the Sunday Best leaves the tarmac. Laughing with the others and going over his fit one more time, the rest of the trip is spent half bantering and half in a mechanical tinkering focus, realigning his gear one last time, and practically jumping to mending the plane any time turbulence or steering makes it jump or swing.

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce springs to his feet and rushes into his gear, fear and excitement coursing through him. Today is the day he has trained for and he is ready to show what he can do. His face grim as he loads silently into the plane, only nodding and saying "Ma'am" on the way in. He straps into the plane and begins to smile as they take off. His grin grows as they fall into formation, it is obvious, he is enjoying this. Bruce checks and rechecks his gear and watches the others, checking for fear.

[Waistcoatwill]

A horrible groan from a shape stretched crosswise over a bunk heralds Thaddeus waking up with bloodshot eyes and a pounding head.

Dammit Sal, I'm nauseated enough without contemplating what swill passes for food in midtown! Oh...huh...thanks, this is good work. Maybe not everyone from the Station is a complete nebbish.

Without even sitting up he takes his pulse and capillary refill time, checks his eyes and tongue in a hand mirror, and takes his temperature. He then lurches off the bed and scrabbles around in a pile of assorted oddments underneath it.

Gods, this at least a grade seven, I hope I have enough stuff left to make a Wodehouse special invigorative. Here we are, the powdered eggs ain't great but the Wooster sauce should just about compensate! Heat that up to 103 degrees for me would ya?

As his little concoction brews he scrapes his various belongings and tools haphazardly into his pack and webbing. Tottering back he tries in van to nod to Sal in thanks without moving his head and downs the brew. After several minutes of coughing and spluttering he seems miraculously restored, just in time to walk out onto the runway.

Hey Mama June! Would ya help a little guy out?

He winks at her, angling to get his little 3 foot frame lifted up unto tbr fuselage. They both know he could make that jump, but where's the fun in that?

He spends the first couple of hours putting his jumbled kit in order, going over everything carefully and methodically multiple times. He grimaces in distaste every time he has to maneuver his rifle around in the process. Once that's done he sticks cotton wool in his ears and tries to get a little more sleep. His tossing and turning betrays a deep discomfort with the coming mission. Those with sharp hearing can hear snatches of him muttering to himself, "do no harm", "basically still kids", and "all of them on the beach too".

[MrAbdiel]

Lt. June St. Valentine knows every member of Echo Company by first name; and as much about their partners back home and their hometown stories as possible. If she weren't so fixated on being a pilot, she'd be a damn fine officer in the field - or at least, a damn beloved one. She enacts all the fun little rituals for each soldier as they board - flirting with her fellow fiendblood Sal, rewarding Bruce's consistent simple respect with a maternal smile and touch on the arm, and offering her hand daintily to Doc as he boards, in a cheeky inversion of the manner in which a gentleman might have helped a lady mount a horse, back in the olden times.

On the flight, she occasionally hands over to her co-pilot Lt. Othello Daniels so she can come back into the fuselage, there to both bask in and emit familiar approval. As the hours draw on these interludes become less and less frequent, until now, when she's glued to her chair and all the crew see of her is the occasional frustrated gesticulation to Othello and the flight crew as they puzzle through some avionics mess. The engines are too loud to make out the discussion, for almost everyone; but the flying is still smooth, so whatever's wrong can't be too bad.

Spoiler: {Fluff} Officers and Sergeants:

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Being the closest to the cockpit and furthest from the bay doors out of which you'll eventually jump, you can make out enough of the conversation to understand what's troubling Lt. St Valentine. Very early in the flight, the entire formation committed to radio silence to reduce the possibility of enemy detection. The operation is the largest aircraft logistics undertaking in the history of the world - over ten thousand aircraft in motion flying almost twice as many sorties in total to complete the plan. A wing of bombers was at the tip of the advance, tasked with pulverising as much anti-air weaponry as possible before the transport planes behind came through to deliver their human cargo. The formations of aircraft were staggeringly long and kept safe from air collision only by keeping visual confirmation of the guide lights of the aircraft in front of them in their particular V. But halfway into the flight, the invasion force began to strike sporadic cloud cover in defiance of the 'clear conditions' they'd been promised. And now, as they near the target, the fog is thick as hellsmoke. The Sunday Best has no visual confirmation on any other craft, with the exception of the dull bluish gleam of the guide lights of the Fancy Lad in front of her; and June is sweating as she tries to keep track of this marker in an ever gloomier and difficult circumstance. The fear of causing a mid air collision is considerable - but so is the fear of prematurely dropping low out of the cloud, revealing the Sunday Best to potential enemy forces and putting her in optimal firing range for AA weapons and artillerized spells. There was nothing to do but stick to the plan and pray; and no sense worrying the troops about an obstacle they had no power themselves to overcome.

[Continental Op]

Wolf was slow to rise to the sound of Cpt. Longsummer's voice and the others rising. He yawned and calmly collected his gear, checking the action and loading his M1 Thompson and .45 sidearm. He was also quiet entering the plane, smiling to Mama's comments but not saying anything. Wolf was glad the day had finally come, but he wasn't jittery or fearful. Those who either didn't know him or were uncharitable might believe he simply didn't understand the risk they faced, or lacked the imagination to appreciate the danger. But hopefully Echo Company, or at least those in his squad, knew him for who he was. Wolf faced only what was in front of him and let everything else wash over and off without sticking, like rain on a round rock.

During the flight, Wolf notices from Mama and the flight crew that something isn't right. Trying to distract those closest to him, he chimes in, "So what are the odds that the Vults have some decent food we can snatch, eh? Those Kreigshields should be eating well."

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc scoffs at this suggestion.

I wouldn't hold out much hope of that. If you like your cheese smelling of feet and covered in mould then you might like Aquiteaux rations. The Kreigsvolk love eating fermented vegetable peel, so doubt that'll be any better than the mush we had in Albinon.

Now, booze is a different matter. If we can liberate some of that Aquiteaux wine or Kreigsvolk schnapps I might at least die happy.

[Cavir]

Sgt. Ladaran "Xilo" Xiloscient

In the barracks Sgt Xilo kept a nightly watch schedule to keep up the squad's habits. Four shifts. One private during the first since he himself would also be up and about. Two soldiers each for the other shifts. Cpl Falcon was lefty to decide who had which shift. During first shift Ladaran worked on finalizing the day's events and reports along with making sure the squad's security and communication with adjacent units was set for the night. He trances during the middle shifts and is up during the last shift. Predawn hours he ensured the watch was still going, practiced his weapon forms, poured over the maps beyond their initial mission, and took some downtime for himself.

It's his habit to be up and ready before dawn that had him ready for Captain Longsummer's arrival. Finally. There were days to plan or dream of the future but today was a day to be fully in the moment. Sgt Xilo gave her a sharp salute of acknowledgement then focused on getting the squad up and fully ready in under 10.

It's the typical hurry up and wait with the Army. Hurry to get the troops ready and off to another location then wait. Second squad was on time to keep the Sunday Best on time. Xilo greeted Lieutenant Valentine with a warm smile and salute. "Finally dropping us for real this time Mama June?" Ladaran had and still was adjusting to working with non-elves who needed more downtime each day. Mama June was a good example for him, even if he had to fake it at times.

Once the hurry up and board was over this time it was a five hour wait. "Skyknives, time to put all that training to use. Listen to that thunder around and above us. Thousands of planes. The Volk won't know what hit them. We focus on our piece of the game for the overall big W Win."

Mama June knew Xilo had keen elven eyes and minor magics. In training for flying in bad weather he'd stand in the doorway to the fuselage staring out the cockpit window. He could communicate with her over the engine noise using his Message cantrip but was sure to keep it minimal to not disrupt her. The cantrip was also useful to pass messages along to the crew in the back of the plane as a backup. Unfortunately the formations were too far apart to communicate to the nearest plane. He could also make minor illusions which he used to make small outlines on the window to point things out.

With Mama's June's magically quiet permission he took his post at the doorway, full gear still hanging all around him. His piece of the game was keeping an eye on the Fancy Lad and marking it's location so that Mama June could do her part and focus on flying.

[Heavenblade]

James O'hara is excited. He was so excited, that he decided to go to sleep as soon as they were allowed, in order to wake up a bit before the time and pray. He was so excited that he stayed up all night, reading the scriptures and finding inspiration in the characters ans stories that were around him his whole life.

So excited that he woke up when their commander told them to, his face half buried in the pages. At least my kind doesn't drool, he mentally aighs to himself as he hurries up to gather all his things. He straps the submachine gun to his back and starts hie daily routine of blessing the bullets and bandages that will give his allies the strength to win - and then remembers they have to be on the plane, and runs as fast as possible to the plane.

Hi guys, just remember that if one of my bullets makes its way through your face, at least try to point your nose towards one of the other bastards - And I could count it as a double kill

He doesn't have his dad's talent for dry and precise dark humor, but that wont stop him from trying. Anything to stave off the excitement, excitement that is, even if he won't admit it, is muddled with just a little bit of fear.

You didn't finish your prayers today, whispers a voice in his head

no matter, he mutters to himself as he sits down and leans on the side of the wall Every soul I send up there will be like a prayer from my head to the almighty himself.

[MrAbdiel]

The laughter and chatter seems to peeter out at some natural, unconscious gradient as the time of battle looms night. Perhaps it is transmitted to the troops at the increased frequency at which the flight crew speak to Captain Longsummer. Perhaps it’s just a gut instinct, of the kind that has summoned folk from every corner of the world to know there was a move to be made; which was in turn what made the United Princedoms of Amcara the envy of the world in freedom and opportunity. Or perhaps it was the lurch in their stomachs as the attitude of the great transport began to pitch incrementally downward to drop them out of cloud cover.

The nearness of danger is definately communicated when a trio of high velocity munitions rip through the fuselage of the plane. They’re through-and-through, each shell busting through the lower skin, the decking, and the upper skin of the plane off into the night sky. Each leaves a hole the size of an Amcaran silver dollar in the floor and roof, with the night wind whistling through the latter and snatches of gloaming starlight visible beyond. The first punches right through the dead centre of the plane with unnatural mathematical precision; the next has walked six feet toward the rear of the plane and a foot to the left; and the last round is stepped back by the same distance again, frightfully close to shedding blood. Its incredible vector transfixes the plane and passes between…

Spoiler

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Squad - (1d3)[1], Trooper - (1d8)[3]

… Pvt. Ssassten Monroe’s feet on the floor before singing off through the roof of the fuselage and vanishing forever. The poor lizardman doesn't even flinch, he's so stunned by it. The sound of the near-fatal penetration is an unimpressive TCK TCK TCK and then whistle of air through the penetrations; but the Sunday Best’s response is immediate and nausea inducing. At once the craft rolls hard right and begins to veer, righting again and swinging back the other way. The aeronautics are not visible from the inside, but the churning and punishing physical forces of being thrown around in one’s harness inside a flying metal cigar tube are lost on no one. Weak stomachs are persuaded to give up their contents, a handful of troopers failing to keep their air sickness paper bags on hand and vomiting into their upturned helmets in their laps with unremarkable accuracy. Mama June and her co-pilot Othello have a largely indistinct but noticeable exchange of opinions that seems to be almost hysterical in pitch as the plane goes back and forth between level flying and sudden small evasions.

You begin hearing bursts outside the plane, loud enough to be heard over the road of the engines. Distant pop-pop-pops and more profound whumps; and one big, potent WHUMP which is followed by a sound like a thousand marbles being dashed against the skin of the plane, and another round of jerky manoeuvring. It’s all you can do to try to keep your wits, and your breakfast about you.


When the Sunday Best levels out again, the red light at the aft of the fuselage turns on. You know what this means; and you gather yourself in preparation as Cpt Lorana Longsummer makes her way to the aft to stand where that red light gives her reassuringly calm countenance a hellfire glow. Beside her is the ‘door load’; a pallet of munitions to perform the later function of dropping along side your platoon for field supply, and the immediate function of blocking the doorway in flight. It doesn’t fit the doorway precisely, and around the edges of it you can see flickering light and the indistinct turmoil of air-to-air combat. Somewhere out there in the sky, something roars murderously.

“Stand up!”

There comes the command, though you can barely hear it; but if the hand gestures didn’t convey the action, the rote learning would anyway. You stand up from your seat, grab a handful of railing above you or backpack of the trooper infront of you, and merge into a single file, thirty-soldier long column; like a bolt of liberty, resting in the groove of freedom’s grand crossbow.

“Hook up!”

Just like you practiced dozens of times, you take your drop line and hook it to the main anchor line running down the fuselage of the plane; the taller squad members assisting the shorter in doing so. Another WHUMP and a loud scattering of impacts on the skin of the plane; another near-miss you’ve survived.

“Sound off for equipment check!”

From the front of the plane - the back of the line - the call begins.
“One O-KAY!”
“Two O-KAY!”
“Three O-KAY!”
The familiar call echos down the line thirty times. Just before turn, you feel rustle of the trooper behind you slapping your pack, checking the drop line is properly secured and all your equipment isn’t hanging loose. You’re doing the same for the soldier in front of you when the O-KAY sounds for you, and you sound the next one in kind.
“TWENTY NINER O-KAY!”
“THIRTY O-KAY!”

And that’s it. You’re okay. All that remains is for that red light to turn green. Then the first man to jump - Sgt. Nikolai Brown, the big half orc leading 1st Squad - would shove the door load out, and go out with it. And one by one, you’d launch into the night. As soon as the light turns green.

And starting at the red bulb waiting for its alternate to light up, you begin to wonder if that will take a thousand years; or if the next WHUMP will wipe the plane from the sky, and you with it.

WHUMP. Would they even find your dog tags?

WHUMP. What would they bury? Maybe a box of your clothes; trinkets and things that you liked?

WHUMP. You shouldn’t think of these things. You run through operational facts instead. Right now, the U.P.S. Chernobog is leading the naval bombardment of the Kreigshields. Its sixteen inch cannons are stressing the arcane shields and punishing the forward bunkers on the beach from a range of twenty two miles.

WHUMP. A quarter of a million men and women are involved in this grand and righteous undertaking. Twenty four thousand of them, like you, are airborne troops being deployed behind the defensive lines for sabotage and critical objective seizure. A hundred and fifty thousand of them are going to slog up out of the surf onto the beach and charge through the teeth of machine guns and mortars toward the sea wall, until you complete your objective and make their survival possible.

WHUMP. The friend-foe call for this operation is “Sulphur”. The correct response is “Guano”.

WHUMP. Did you remember to empty the sick out of your helmet before you put it on?

WHUMP.

WHUMP.

The red light turns off. The green light turns on. The door load goes out, and first squad follows in good order. Soon enough, it’s your turn; and you look straight ahead for the horizon like you’ve been taught, and fling yourself out the drop door into the flashing, roaring, howling night.

You feel the familiar tug and pop of the drop line doing its job once it hits full extension. It’s hooked to a copper lug on your webbing that has a sympathetic magical bond to the skyknife ring on your hand. Its purpose is to up-charge the loaded featherfall spell to a longer duration, and activate it on a timer from the point of release, thus coordinating the deployment of the spell across the platoon and ensuring both that no one runs afoul of deploying their featherfall too early (or too late), and that your squads won’t be scattered from here to the Reichsgarten.

For the several seconds of freefall before the ring kicks in, you look around yourself and try to orient your fall. You see no holophane ‘T’ which should have marked your drop zone. The ground below is still dark and indistinct from this distance even for darkvisioners; a sea of blackness punctuated by points of stuttering light that stitch wagging lines of tracer fire up into the sky to speckle planes like the Sunday Best, now roaring off ahead of you as she deploys the string of soldiers after your jump. You’re falling in the dark; but that was the plan, and in a second your featherfall ring will kick in and jumble your world as you reorient, and you can start making real sense of things. But before that, still in the tumble of the sky and the initial disorientation and chaos of the jump, you see a sight you will never forget.

All the pretty “V” formations have been staggered and broken by the desperate flight through the clouds and now the evasive efforts of panicking pilots; and another transport is following the Sunday Best and just beginning her own deployment. You can see the doorload green-lit by an arch of light spread around its edged from the internal jump signal; but the load doesn’t deploy. Jammed? Stuck somehow?

At the same moment, another shape descends from above the transport. This one is not an aircraft. It is aircraft sized, but its enormous reptile shape, its beating wings, and its monstrous primal power are unmistakable. You see the dull silhouette, and then you see it lit from within as an unholy ripple of voltage begins at the tip of its tail and courses through every inch of its blue scales; over the fourfold Vult lightningbolt stenciled on its flank, up to backlights a mouth full of sword-length teeth, and then out in a shearing, cutting line that flashes straight through the body of the aircraft beneath. It comes apart in the air as if slashed by some giant sword, and then the fuel goes up with it a quarter of a second later.

It is impossible that anyone on the plane survived. Was that part of Echo Company? You can’t know. But you feel the blastwave of the explosion, and the zip and zing of metal shearing past you, and the hot slap of fragments of something battering you as you cover your eyes and vitals, straining with primitive instinct against a death for which no training could possibly prepare you.

Spoiler: Rolls you need to make!

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I need everyone to make me five rolls - a Con save, a Wisdom save, (both before the jump) a Dex save, a D316, and a straight d1000 (both for after the jump). Make all the rolls either in the OOC, or in here, then edit in your post describing how your character fares.

Before the jump.

1. Constitution Save against DC 10, or throw up either into a flight bag, or if you’re a less prepared sort, maybe your helmet or lap. If you roll a natural 1, you’re also sickened (the poisoned condition) for an hour.

2. Wisdom Save against DC 10 or be frightened,though the source of the fear is too ephemeral to be directionally constricting. As per the condition, it will still apply disadvantage to Ability Checks and Attack Rolls. I’ll let you know when you can save this off again. A natural 1 here means your character is somewhat traumatized by this experience, and will have to make a Wisdom Save against DC 10 when they attempt to long rest. Failure means the long rest is counted as a short rest. Success means you no longer make these rolls.

After the jump.3. Dexterity Save against DC 10 or be struck by the electrified shrapnel from the exploding plane nearby. Take (1d10)[8] slashing and (1d10)[10] lightning on a failure; or half on a successful save. This isn’t you so much dodging as it is having the reflexes to cover up in time to minimize suffering.


4. A d316 for equipment malfunction. There’s a lot of statistics around the likelihood of parachute malfunction, but I settled on the broad stat of 1:100000 chance for both main chute and reserve chute to fail mechanically. And since we’re in a fantasy world with a lot more risktaking and adventure than the real world (and because I am a bad person who enjoys random suffering), there’s no back-up featherfall ring, so I took the square root and rounded it down to 316. If you roll a 1 on your d316, your ring of spell storing does not deploy your featherfall spell. Gods help you.

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

Make them rolls; then a short post of how your character handles their results would be great, ending with you drifting toward the barely visible forested ground - or hurtling towards it, if your chute fails. Hit me up in the OOC with questions!

[Waistcoatwill]

Despite his watsrel nature off the clock, Thaddeus is all business once he's sober and on the Sunday Best. He reverentially takes his stickball card signed by the little Balor himself and tucks it into some webbing above him, well out of the coming splash zone. Sick bags (and spares) are arrayed in front of him with the same care as his surgical tools in an operating theatre. Familiar rumbling in his stomach gets progressively worse as the plane gains altitude.

Eugh, I'm like clockwork here, right on cue. Okay Wolf, we're going to try and do better than last time, just stick out your hand when you need it and I'll pass you a bag.

He glares at Sal out of the corner of his eye.

What are you looking at midtown? I can see you sneering. Of course you're okay, after midtown pie your stomach can take anything!

At the command he stands up, helped with his dropline by his comrades. He runs through his equipment in his head, blocking out the shrapnel noise.

TWENTY THREE O-KAY!

In a sudden panic he notices the card, still above his seat. He pushes off the floor with his carbine, swinging to grab it whilst hangingfrom his line. The stunt works, but leaves the gunstrap's buckle dugging painfully into his chest. In his relief he barely notices his jump, until that moment. All of those young lives lost for sure. He can only watch numbly as shrapnel arcs towards him, then WHAM.

The wind is knocked out of him but the pain is oddly duller than expected. He looks down, the carbine's buckle now a ruined mess just over his heart. The strap holds on by threads for a second then snaps, slapping him in the face as the carbine falls away into the dark, as if scolding
the medic forccarrying such a tool of murder. He's completely disoriented by the time he touches down.

[Continental Op]

Wolf bantered with the rest until the sounds began, the holes opened in the plane, and it began to bank. Alright Wolf, you are used to this by now, not a big deal... he said to himself, but then the retching began. He just had time to signal for a bag from Thaddeus and get it before doubling-over, loosing his meager breakfast as the plane leveled out. But then the retching continued, long after nothing was left in his stomach.

What is going on? It's never been this bad, Wolf thought. And then the warm knot of fear took the place of food in his belly. What if this is actually food poisoning? What if I die, and the last thing anyone thinks of me is that I was sick and afraid? What if we land, and I'm too sick to join the others and do my job?

The fear was almost paralyzing. Wolf was able, barely, to stand when the order came. He weakly sounded off in his turn, still clutching his gut. He more shambled out of the plane than jumped, and curled in on himself in the air. His eyes screwed shut, Wolf missed the other plane exploding. But at least the practically fetal position he was in left a small target for the shrapnel.

He opened his eyes and prepared, somewhat, for the landing. Though his entire body already felt weak and tired, he tried to steel himself for the rest to come.

[stanleyindraven]

Bruce stands with the others, then pushes his way out of the plane. "Waaaaahooooooo," he shouts as he sails through the air, missing all manner of projectiles. He watches the others descend and then notices he cannot seem to find where he is supposed to aim himself.

[Cavir]

Once the flying started getting dicey Sgt Xilo moved confidently back to his spot and strapped in. "Almost there. We'll be back on the ground soon enough. Breathe and keep your mind focused on the next steps. Keep it together!"

On the order to stand he checked his squad's status by how quickly and sure they stood up. With them all moving he hooked himself up to the cable above, thankful it wasn't hit by the flak. "Eleven O-KAY!" Reaching the back of the plane he never slowed down on his way out of the door. The faster everyone was out the door the better.

Out into the darkness in free fall, he shifted so he could look up and ensure his full squad was out in good order. The view also gave him a good angle to see the dragon smashing the plane to their rear. That gave him the moment needed to shift position again, briefly curling into a ball with his helmet and back of his flak jacket taking the brunt of the blast. From there he had to focus on regaining a proper free fall position and the ground below quickly approaching.

The landing zone markers were missing. Mama June probably had us bail early just to make sure we got out at all. Nothing he could do about that now except adjust to the situation. As he continued the fall he kept his eyes on the lookout below, trying to get a lay of the land based on any lights, sources of firing, or the reflection on water of the war going on up above. As he neared the ground he pulled out his .45 and focused his attention on the more immediate environment he was coming down to.

[JbeJ275]

As the journey sped on, Sal felt something rise in his gut, thankfully not the rations which were disttasteful enough going down the right way but instead a cloying taste of fear and hate for the Vulters below. The rocking didn't disturb him in the slightest, he'd rather sleep on shifting metal than unmoving earth, but still this fear rose on and on.

Heh, with your hangover cures you aint got room to talk there either Doc. He weakly joked back,trying to focus on anything but what waited below, only for his scrambling thoughts to be met with sharpnel and shouting. It wouldn't be entirely honest to claim he could remeber much of what came next. It was "TWENTY-THREE! O-KAY!", then the familiar and easy checking of simple mechanisms (he'd never tell doc this, but who-ever had made his system was either blind or cackhanded as they come, though it only took Sal a moment to fix), then a step into something worse than the most vibrant tales of hell that all fiendblood hear. Then shocking, biting pain slamming into several points along his shoulder and back, watching his blood drip from his side onto the beach below, and slowly following it down alongside the rest of his squad.

[Heavenblade]

Spoiler: Rolls

Show

Con save
(1d20+3)[20]
Wis save
(1d20+7)[13]
Dex save
(1d20)[11]
Feather fall roll
(1d316)[297]
Randomness factor
(1d1000)[688]

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger acts remarkably calm despite being shot at.
Please lord, don't let me die before I do something useful. he thinks to himself after the first shots come in.

Fifteen O-K

Once hes free falling, he is calmed, the rush of the air brings ease to him.

Once the shockwave hits, he thinks to himself Oh ****, we're too close, and though he does not realize it hes grinning madly.

[PartyOfRogues]

K’ral Fairburne was startled by the anti-aircraft fire and the plane’s subsequent movement, but he was able to steady his nerves, if not his stomach, managing to grab a bag before losing his breakfast. Once the light goes on he goes through the carefully practiced procedure, standing up, hooking himself on, and quickly checking Sal’s pack ahead of him before calling out ”TWENTY-FIVE OKAY.” Once the light turns green he follows the line and quickly heads out the door, eager to get back to solid ground. Upon seeing the plane that was once following them explode he quickly adjusts himself, his armor taking most of the shrapnel, and looks towards their landing zone, trying to find any of the landmarks that would be near their landing zone.

[MrAbdiel]

The sky is a blur of slowly falling soldiers, whistling electric shrapnel, and the unending thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of machine gun fire and flak batteries pounding away at the air. Far to one side, a drifting snowfall of your fellow skyknives is receiving the focused attention of a ground battering. Bullets chatter through the air around the, and a fireball projected to extreme range by sorcerous exertion detonates amidst three soldiers from what you think is Archer company. Their olive drab uniforms go up in flames immediately, and you struggle to look away from the helpless spectacle of three soldiers, blackening and screaming as they burn, slowly drifting through the air in a controlled descent that will ensure only that their bodies land without too much breakage. But the illumination from these living torches serves as a tracer for another spell, more destructive than the last; a shimmering distortion detonates amidst Archer company and suddenly you hear the panicked howls of another half dozen soldiers caught in the range of the dispel burst. They drop light stones into the blackness, out of your sight, to a fate you hate to imagine. Briefly, there's a flicker of hope as one of the falling soldier manifests glowing golden wings of translucent ribbons, turns his fall into a controlled descent, catches the hand of one falling trooper and strains to intercede for another. This is Lieutenant Amos Zabriel, you're sure - Archer company's robust and cheerful aasimar officer. But the illumination of the wings that save him from the fall also draws the teeth of the enemy fire into focus upon him; and three punishing streams of tracerfire overlap the angelic warrior, chasing him in descent, before some of the rounds find their mark and the light goes out, along with the forlorn hope of his heroic effort.

There's no time to dwell on that now. You can see the ground more clearly now. The windmill - or atleast a windmill; and a somewhat familiar treeline like the one your map described. But before your boots can hit the ground, fate torques you violently one more time to ensure everything, absolutely everything, goes as wrong as it can.

A booming, distant harmony of voices chanting in the Kreigvolk's precursor language tickles your ears. Squinting through the dark, you see handheld firey torches with green flames burst into life, held each by individuals spaced about twenty yards apart in a line stretching well out across the landscape to either side. Dozens of these robed chanters - hundreds, maybe. Not the acolytes you're trying to find, from what you can make out. These are not arcanists; they're more primal, with furs and lupine masks covering their faces as they incant and swing their torches; and the elements respond to their druidic beckoning with a mighty wind hammering into your airborn bodies and tumbling you over and over in the air just as your fall is nearly over. The hurricane force spins and disorients you, and any sense of direction or unity you felt is ripped from you as you spiral through the pitiless dark.

Spoiler: Next Scene...

Show

The company is scattered. Waistcoatwill, Continental Op, Novabomb, PartyOfRogues, and abwinningh42: You are blown back almost to the bunker line on the sea wall, near to the elevated machine gun emplacements and, importantly, not the Kreigshield acolytes you were hoping to smoke, but the full blown, powerful Kreigshielder Magi themselves. You'll be proceeding to The Best Laid Plans.

Stanleyindraven, Cavir, JbeJ275, Heavenblade, Rokku, and Awful - you've been blown back OVER the bunker line, all the way down to Naphto beach itself. You're going to splash down in the shallows, crawl up onto the sands, and have little choice but to join the poor grunts trying to survive in the storm of lead and spellfire as you advance up the beach and try to regroup with the rest of the company. You'll be proceeding to Two Hundred Yards Of Nightmare.

[Awful]

Bathory, for all her pride, felt the blood she'd had for breakfast coming back up.

She knew she shouldn't have had elf, B-! That had never sat well with her!

She at least managed to use a bag, which would be profoundly unpleasant for anyone dealing with it after. As her soldiers jumped one after another, she staggered her way closer to the cockpit.

"Good luck, Mama!" she shouted over the noise. Then it was her turn to jump and, a hop and a skip later, she was falling. For a moment, she was envious of her cousins, able to turn into bats- but then the ridiculousness of being sidetracked now forced her mind back into gear.

As the Vult dragon destroyed a plane, she hissed as shrapnel and lightning cascaded off her barrier. The magic swirled around her, a protective crimson layer over her skin, but cracked and slid away, leaving her battered but mostly intact.

Damn it. Looking down, this was wrong. They weren't going to land where they needed to.

As the wind caught her, summoned by the Volk druids, she let out a howl of rage. It was swallowed by the storm. No, she was getting tossed and tumbled all the way back to the landing beach!

[Heavenblade]

James almost yelps when he sees the wind close to pushing his friend into the minefield, and breathes out in relief when he sees him unharmed - for now. He loads a special bullet in the chamber, inscribed with a three-horned goat in the front.

"The servants of devil will be eaten by his flame", he mutters to himself, more shaken and scared than he cares to admit. Three rays of pure red flame blast forward, towards the eld who holds concentration on the gust of wind

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Casts scorching ray
Attack roll 1
(1d20+7)[23]
Attack roll 2
(1d20+7)[22]
Attack roll 3
(1d20+7)[9]

Damage roll 1
(2d6)[8]

Damage roll 2
(2d6)[6]

Damage roll 3
(2d6)[9]

[Cavir]

Xilo, a final heroic DC 18 Con save for 24 Necrotic damage, half on success.

There's room for a little medical madness

Xilo: pre final burst: 18/51hp. He might miss the undead suicide
(1d20+7)[21]