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

[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.

Spoiler: Knowledge: Arcana DC 13, free to roll.

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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.

Spoiler: Attacks and developments!

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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!

(1d20+6)[16], (2d6+3)[14],
Second attack (1d20+6)[23], (2d6+3)[10].

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.

Spoiler: Rolls

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

(1d20+9)[17] for (2d10)[8][9](17)+(1d8)[5]=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.

Spoiler: OOC

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

Attack 1: (1d20+6)[12] or (1d20+6)[25]
Damage (1d8+4)[5]

Attack 2: (1d20+6)[13] or (1d20+6)[15]
Damage (1d8+4)[12]

[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.

Spoiler: Tunnels Actions!

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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, 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.

Spoiler: Ramp Actions!

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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.

Spoiler: Rolls

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Added Temp HP: (1d8+5)[9]

Hellfire Rife: (1d20+9)[23] or (1d20+9)[17] for (2d10)[6][8](14)+(1d8)[5]=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.

Spoiler: OOC

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

Attack1: (1d20+7)[14] or (1d20+7)[24]
Damage (1d8+5)[10]

Attack2: (1d20+7)[10] or (1d20+7)[9]
Damage (1d8+5)[9]

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.

(1d20+7)[18]

[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.

Spoiler: The doin's a transpiring:

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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?

Spoiler: OOC

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Investigation (1d20+2)[17]
Perception (1d20+4)[9]

[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.

Spoiler: Salamir...

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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.

Spoiler: OOC

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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.

Spoiler: OOC Stuff:

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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.

(1d20+7)[10]

[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.

Spoiler: OOC

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Intimidate if needed: (1d20+5)[16]

[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.

Spoiler: OOC

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Persuasion on the enemy soldier. (1d20+5)[18]
Investigation (1d20+2)[14]

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.

Spoiler: OOC

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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.

Spoiler: Rolls

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Investigation of Button: (1d20+8)[15]
Tinker Tools on Key: : (1d20+8)[13]

[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.

Spoiler: OOC:

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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 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.

Spoiler: Investigation

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(1d20+8)[18]