Worse Than the Disease IC

[Volthawk]

Seeing the grenade go off-course, Richard backs away so he won't be affected by it.

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Nowhere near sure on the distances here, but if the grenade is on the other side of the bus and Richard's 7 yards away, he should be able to get out of the 10-yard radius (I have that right, don't I?) of the grenade, right? I'm a little lost at this point.

If I'm wrong and he can't get out, I suppose he'll just keep moving in (given that looking at the flashbang in HT, distances from the central point doesn't matter), and I suppose try u-b's suggestions of acting in a way to limit the effects (will that help at all, and would that slow him down or prevent him from moving?).

[Shoot Da Moon]

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Yup. Richard can just full Move this turn to escape the blast. Closing your eyes and not looking at the blast should give you bonuses to the HT roll. Tariq/Bart, you are in the spotlight.

[GnomesofZurich2]

Bart will take a shot at the nearest raider he can spot through the windows.

(OC: It looks like two pellets hit).

[Shoot Da Moon]

The shotgun blast does hit a raider in the back, but their armor absorbs most of the light pellets.

TURN 10

The burning bus makes for an appropriate centerpiece for the battle.

The surviving bad guys continue to run into cover. Now all of them are hiding and keeping their heads down.

[u-b]

Sean quickly gets the rifle ready for more action and moves to surround the hiding men while out of range of his flashbang.

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8 hexes of movement along the circle centered on the grenade. Will dodge with extra effort if attacked (and drop, if attacked with anything good he does not trust his torso armor to stop).

[Volthawk]

Unable to move forward while the flashbang is out there, Richard instead stays where he is and keeps a watch for any raiders showing themselves, hoping to pick off any who show themselves.

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Since (as I understand it) none of the raiders are visible now, Richard's going to take a Wait action and convert it into a shot at any raiders who do become visible.

[GnomesofZurich2]

Bart will back off, not straying too far from the injured Tariq, but will send his dogs after a fleeing raider.

[Shoot Da Moon]

TURN 11

The enemy bus is not going out anytime soon, it seems.

The enemy in hiding moves a little behind cover, trying to vacate the area.

[u-b]

Sean continues to move, mostly in the open, expecting to cut the retreat of those ducking down. He is keeping the distance to the grenade which he expects should go off at any time now.

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8 more hexes along the same circle. That should put Sean about 90 degrees around the bus relative to his starting position, so maybe some of the cover the targets are having would not be simultaneously effective against both Richard and Sean.

Will dodge with extra effort if attacked (and drop, if attacked with anything good he does not trust his torso armor to stop).

[Shoot Da Moon]

As Sean finishes moving, the stun grenade goes off, throwing up a great white flash and a very loud bang.

The bad guys in cover scream in horror and surprise at the sudden bang, but nobody seems to be within the flashbang's disrupting ground zero.

[Volthawk]

Now his way is clear again, Richard starts moving towards the bus again.

[GnomesofZurich2]

With the bus between him and likely targets, Bart is going to start re-loading his shotgun while keeping an eye out for trouble.

[Shoot Da Moon]

TURN 12

The raiders in cover keep crawling away from the camp and cabin, three of the men are now exposed to Sean (but not Richard).

The bus burns some more.

[u-b]

Sean shoots a burst at the exposed targets and tries to estimate whether the dogs are coming or not and, if they are, how soon they will be on the would-be escapees.

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Will dodge with extra effort if attacked (and drop, if attacked with anything good he does not trust his torso armor to stop).

[Volthawk]

Richard keeps advancing on the bus, calling out "Surrender! You're surrounded!" after Sean's bullets give them something to think about.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Pop, pop, pop.

Two men fall down dead as Sean shoots them in the back.

Finally listening to Richard's advice, the bad guys immediately throw down their weapons, raise their hands as they get to their feet, and cry out for mercy.

They surrender.

(OC: Combat over.)

The exiles move in to secure everyone and they quickly realise why those two dead men caused the survivors to lose their cool.

One of them was the commander of the battle bus reinforcements. Now he is meat for the dogs.

[u-b]

The enemies have surrendered, but there was still quite a lot of things to do. Sean reloads his rifle, makes sure the new prisoners and their weapons are properly separated, then looks at the burning bus to see if the loot therein can be safely salvaged. "Richard, you ask the guys about their other forces in the area and where this bus came from."

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If the inside of the bus can be reasonably navigated (e.g. mostly the engine compartment burns), Sean plans to take all the loot outside (along with the bodies if this seems to be faster, but starting with the things that are worth something and are easily moved, e.g. the weapons). If he spots a fire extinguisher while at it, he might consider to use it if it seems adequately sized relative to the fire.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The inside of the bus is still burning, and most of the bodies and stuff within is ruined by the flames. There is no extinguisher to be found, so much of the stuff is beyond safe grasp. Bullets in the guns have cooked off when the fire engulfed them. Armour is crispy, if not ashes. It seems the whole thing is a write-off.

The enemies outside the bus have a rifle each (Winchester Model 92), loaded with 10 rifle bullets each, and wearing minor metal armour (DR 4) on their torsos.

[Volthawk]

Relieved at the surrender of the remaining soldiers, Richard ensures that they're secure and puts Bart and the dogs on guard watching them. He heads over to Sean, "Tariq needs medical attention, and you're better at that than I am. How about you take a look at him while I get what I can from our prisoners?" He then heads to the prisoners, picking out the most scared-looking one and using his usual routine to see what he can find out about the situation with the rest of their forces in the area - he's primarily concerned that, given how badly their leadership seems to want the exiles, the bus might not be the last of what's coming.

[u-b]

Letting the bus burn by itself, Sean turns his attention elsewhere. He gets a suitable stick and then goes all around the camp, triggering all the traps that do not seem explosive. He sticks the stick into bear traps, throws the stick at the wire traps, and does something similar to other traps, as long as that does not endanger anyone. Specifically, he does not try to carefully disarm anything. He thinks it's rather fortunate that no one got hurt by the traps when people started to move around and does not want to test this luck any more than he absolutely has to.

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It seems the whole thing is a write-off.

Well, Sean will check the whole thing when it cools down if by that time he would be still around. Maybe some rifles will be good for parts (broken or cheap broken) and steel armor could actually sort of survive (just broken, needing re-hardening and new leather parts).

The plan is then to...
0. Continue securing the area (a Claymore if there is a reason to believe more opposition is coming, see #2 below; reloading the magazines with the ammo at hand).

If that is done and there is no urgency, then we...
1. Get Tariq into the house and bandage him. Then Sean would provide some more care (first aid) while Richard...
2. Interrogates the guys and gets as much relevant info as possible while not spending inordinate amounts of time.
3. Gets our cars to the site.
4. Contacts Funny Platoon to report and ask if they have means to triangulate a transceiver if we give them the frequency and induce some chatter.
4.1 If they say they can, and we still do not know the location of the radio operator Sean has contacted before (like, #2 above does not provide this info), we give Funny Platoon our coordinates and have Richard on the local radio to say there is no bus and solicite an extended response.
5. Contact the Waffle House and ask if they would want to send a vehicle with an armed prize team to our location to get their share of the loot.
5.1 If they do, and we have planted a Claymore, Bart is to stand guard where he is able to warn and stop them before they hit the mine.

We'll see how it goes after that.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The prisoners give up information. There are no more reinforcements coming - their battle bus crew is the designated backup for subordinate raider gangs operating in the area. Mainly, they assist the slaver camp here, responding to radio calls and/or flares launched. The rest of the local raiders simply operate semi-independently and stay on the move, taking new orders once very month.

The battle bus was kept at a little motor depot hidden 30 minutes from this camp, maintained and crewed by the men who respond to calls and fight. They have made a small base out of the place, staffed by various minor raider gangs working together. In all, there's five men left back at base now, the rest were on the battle bus.

The raiders explain that the exiles are wanted dead by the commanders of the raiders because they're from a Shelter, and thus a potential leak. You guys are hardly the first group of exiles they were told to murder. The commanders take general orders from some Shelter Overseer, who apparently likes to exile people just to mess with them, much to the annoyance of the gang bosses.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Letting the bus burn by itself, Sean turns his attention elsewhere. He gets a suitable stick and then goes all around the camp, triggering all the traps that do not seem explosive. He sticks the stick into bear traps, throws the stick at the wire traps, and does something similar to other traps, as long as that does not endanger anyone. Specifically, he does not try to carefully disarm anything. He thinks it's rather fortunate that no one got hurt by the traps when people started to move around and does not want to test this luck any more than he absolutely has to.

Spoiler

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Well, Sean will check the whole thing when it cools down if by that time he would be still around. Maybe some rifles will be good for parts (broken or cheap broken) and steel armor could actually sort of survive (just broken, needing re-hardening and new leather parts).

The plan is then to...
0. Continue securing the area (a Claymore if there is a reason to believe more opposition is coming, see #2 below; reloading the magazines with the ammo at hand).

If that is done and there is no urgency, then we...
1. Get Tariq into the house and bandage him. Then Sean would provide some more care (first aid) while Richard...
2. Interrogates the guys and gets as much relevant info as possible while not spending inordinate amounts of time.
3. Gets our cars to the site.
4. Contacts Funny Platoon to report and ask if they have means to triangulate a transceiver if we give them the frequency and induce some chatter.
4.1 If they say they can, and we still do not know the location of the radio operator Sean has contacted before (like, #2 above does not provide this info), we give Funny Platoon our coordinates and have Richard on the local radio to say there is no bus and solicite an extended response.
5. Contact the Waffle House and ask if they would want to send a vehicle with an armed prize team to our location to get their share of the loot.
5.1 If they do, and we have planted a Claymore, Bart is to stand guard where he is able to warn and stop them before they hit the mine.

We'll see how it goes after that.

Sean finds and foils punji stake pits, bear traps, tripwires and noisemakers.

The dead slavers have the same rifles as the battle bus crew, a total of 325 rifle bullets to be looted from the scum. The camp raiders were wearing front plate torso armour. The bodyguard has an outdated Bergmann SMG, loaded with one emptied magazine.
He finds three men have loaded flare guns on them, the other two have been fired.
The dead snipers had one heavy rifle each, loaded with 7 HMG bullets in total.
The three sneaky commandos had less gear than the slavers.

With all that done, Sean takes Tariq into the cabin and helps him with his injury.

[u-b]

Sean spends some time inside the house bandaging Tariq and providing other first care which seems to be at least not making him worse. While at it, and when Richard is also around, Sean raises another relevant question. "I think we also hit the motor depot, leaving Tariq with the Waffle House guys for the moment. The depot is not far from neither here nor there, so we can pretty much do it today before dark. That is, if we don't wait until the dark, which we probably can."

[Volthawk]

Concerned, but not surprised, with what he'd learned from the raiders, Richard reports back their findings and what happened here to the Funny Platoon and the Waffle House, and relays Sean's questions and plan to the relevant people. While he waits for a response, he considers Sean's question. "Agreed. Taking out the bus and the troops they had using it is a good result, but they have more men and, from what we've been hearing, enough resources to get another one of those buses together. Taking out the depot will at least delay things a little longer, and although these guys were just reacting to distress signals rather than recieving orders we might still be able to find some useful information there."

[Shoot Da Moon]

The exiles get their cars from their hiding spot.

They contact the Funny Platoon, who help them trianglate the receiver. The manage to figure out the location.

Next, they talk to Waffle House and get a team sent over. Bart takes watch.

(OC: Every Player Character gets 7 bonus Character Points for defeating the slaver camp and the battle bus reinforcements. They may all improve their Reputations.)

[u-b]

While Waffle House men are underway, Sean takes a knife and makes sure everyone looking dead stays dead, then searches the most promising parts of the house and the most prominent bodies, whether alive or not. When the Waffle House men arrive, Sean proposes the following distribution:
1. The team takes all weapons, armor and ammo that is still intact. We can negotiate about the fate of these tomorrow.
2. The team takes all papers, the radio and maybe some other stuff of particular interest.
3. Waffle House takes the bus, with all of its contents, in its present condition.
4. Waffle House takes whatever is left on the bodies (clothing, footwear, personal items and suchlike).
5. Waffle House takes the house after the team is done with it.
6. Waffle House takes all the bear traps and whatever else they might find in the vicinity.
7. We hit the depot before all of the above is searched, Waffle House men taking care about Tariq.

[Shoot Da Moon]

While Waffle House men are underway, Sean takes a knife and makes sure everyone looking dead stays dead, then searches the most promising parts of the house and the most prominent bodies, whether alive or not. When the Waffle House men arrive, Sean proposes the following distribution:
1. The team takes all weapons, armor and ammo that is still intact. We can negotiate about the fate of these tomorrow.
2. The team takes all papers, the radio and maybe some other stuff of particular interest.
3. Waffle House takes the bus, with all of its contents, in its present condition.
4. Waffle House takes whatever is left on the bodies (clothing, footwear, personal items and suchlike).
5. Waffle House takes the house after the team is done with it.
6. Waffle House takes all the bear traps and whatever else they might find in the vicinity.
7. We hit the depot before all of the above is searched, Waffle House men taking care about Tariq.

Sean finds the cabin has a cache of intel that looks much more complete and useful than anything he's ever gotten his hands on before. It includes an annotated regional map, a radio codebook with frequencies, the location of the slavers' hidden factory and mining operation in the north, the details of various slaving raids, abandoned government laboratories, scattered supply caches, the locations of various raider bases, names and postings of raider spies, and three Shelters (including the exiles' former Shelter).

It takes a hour before a team from the Waffle House shows up, all tooled up. They shake hands with the exiles and get down to work. The Waffle House men are interested in new rifles and armor. They let the exiles have the intel. The battle bus has burnt out completely and is a complete ruin, with no useful gear inside. AT best, they could junk the bus for scrap metal. They like the cabin, though! The men from the Waffle House make do with the bear traps and the other stuff.

As they see to nursing Tariq, the exiles travel over to the supposed motor depot.
(OC: The Waffle House men include a doctor with Physician skill 12, Tariq gets +1 to his natural recovery rolls, the doctor can roll daily to heal Tariq more, see B424.)

What they find is basically a small base built around a camouflaged mechanic workshop with a radio. The battle bus was kept in a garage and maintained by workers when not in use. They find only five raiders at the motor depot, none of them are in shape to fight and surrender immediately as the exiles assault the place. One of the bad guys is falling down drunk, two are caught doing chores around the workshop, and the last two...are in bed together.

All five of them are rounded up and secured.

[Volthawk]

As always, Richard is very interested in the new intel. This was damn good stuff, and in the time between them finding it and the Waffle House team arriving he's busy reading through everything, comparing it to their old intel and adding anything their old intel had but this set didn't to their new map. His other main priority is the book of spies - if any are described in the settlements he has the contact information of, he gets on the radio and passes the information on, and those in places he can't alert are noted down for future actions.

Once the motor pool is dealt with, Richard heads over to Sean, the codebook in his hand. "Looks like we can do some snooping now and see what they're saying, now we know their frequencies. Anything in particular you'd like to find out more about?"

[u-b]

Sean is genuinely surprised to see the depot guys so unready. Either they haven't got the memo or were so sure of their battle bus team. Probably suits them just fine as all five will live to see another day.

Having both places secured, Sean asks if Waffle House men would like to inhabit any of them, or maybe even both, or they would like to transport everything valuable to their home base. This would affect the number of radios Sean would feel adequate to allocate to their share. As for the guns and the armor, Sean confirms he understands the interest, but says he also has an interest in them, if only commercial one. He could spare most of the rifles and armor as an advance payment for... well, something - delivery service, detention service, computer repair, first choice of the gear looted from the Gutter, future military assistance and whatever else they can think of. So, winchester model 92 rifles and sentry armors won't be free, but Sean does not mind running a balance. How many they can effectively use by the way? Do they have 26 men to benefit from the rifles even after they just got a bunch of shotguns? As for the sniper rifles, these are not on the table. At least, not as of yet.

When asked about the codebook, Sean speculates that this might get stale sooner rather than later as codes should be scheduled to be replaced as soon as practical after they know we got Stone. So, he proposes to transmit them encrypted to both Funny Platoon and Radar Base and make them arrange among themselves who would be monitoring what. Richard should probably ask if they have enough reception channels to handle all the frequencies mentioned 24/7 or if some more radio equipment is desired. Richard himself could maybe join the pool, using the captured radios (our radio should probably stay on our freq), but Sean does not yet have specific desires beyond what seems to be their busyest HQ hotline.

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Sean is searching both the house and the depot, as well as some people. This was interrupted by the arrival of Waffle House men, but Sean still intends to finish it before evening (see the rolls in dice thread). He lets Waffle House men take it over from him when he's done.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Richard’s work on the list of spies gets several settlements on the horn, and he whispers in the ear of various community leaders and security forces.

Sean tosses the cabin, and finds Stone’s personal supplies in his radio room, his bedroom and the central living room. There are only a few other rooms in the cabin, mostly side closets (for a toilet and such) and a bed on the couch for his bodyguard.
A broken Glock 17 loaded with no magazine or bullets has been hidden under the bed’s pillow, it will need fixing up before it can be used. Someone left 2 trench knives and 2 tactical folding knives on the dinner table. A stack of 25 rations, 25 bottles of clean water, and a box of 10 rifle bullets has been put next to the radio.

Stone himself and his bodyguard were carrying a machete, a .44 Caplock Deringer non-repeating pistol, 45 paper cartridges, 9 pistol bullets and 28 SMG bullets, in total.

The workshop at the motor depot has a pair of tinted goggles and a pair of wire cutters left out on a worn table.
The place’s living quarters, meanwhile, contains 33 gallons of gasoline stored in cans (weighing 198 pounds in all) and one uneaten ration.

The guys from the Waffle House like the cabin and can camp outside as well. The doctor prefers to be inside, of course. The motor depot is okay, too. The Waffle House men notes that the rifles would be put to fine use back at the settlement, and they can pay for it by loaning out teams of security forces to back them up in battle and by sending settlers to join their radar base as staff.

The Funny Platoon has enough radios to monitor a good number of the enemy frequencies.