The Ballad of Echo Company - Episode 2 - Toujours En Avant

[MrAbdiel]

The ground continues to race up toward the brawling warriors of the greatest war ever known. Screaming prisoners of war tumble and flail away, grabbing helplessly at each other. But now, within a few thousand feet, you can make out the shapes of allied vehicles below; and the insect-speck clusters of friendly soldiers staring up, watching the spirally dots fall toward them; some stupified, some taking cover.

One soldat remains harassing Wolf and Ginger, and another locked in combat with Xilo now that Sal has drawn off; but both see this as their time to disengage. Breaking from their combats, they reach to the sleeves of their fallschirmjager uniforms, rip free a patch; and at once slow their fall rapidly before reversing it and 'falling' up into the sky; legs together, arms as their sides in a bullet-dive up into the blue above.

Spoiler: OOC: Trained in Arcana?

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Incredible - the Vult jump troopers seem to have a minimized, field-usable version of the Reverse Gravity spell - though that tends to impact a small, cylindrical zone, and this seems to 'stick' to the activating party allowing them to 'abort' their fall and retreat upward.
Presumably, they will use the same techniques you have learned to angle your downward falls to 'fall' toward their departing skybase, and safety.

Now there are no enemies left, for the Psychos to fight - none that aren't spinning slackly through the air, unconcious or dead. But there IS - danger: the prisoners, plummeting to earth!

Spoiler: OOC:

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The enemy has withdrawn, but we're still in combat time! It's Xilo's turn!

[Cavir]

Xilo

With Sal back in the game, the LT turns his attention to saving as many scientists as he can. "Doctor, we need to fly to them. Angle yourself like me and hang on." Xilo angles their combined mass to shoot towards the unattended panicking labcoats. "Come on! Fly to us!"

Spoiler: OOC

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Move+Dash action (base 35')

[MrAbdiel]

Dr. Schiller and Lt. Xiloscient carve through the air, the pale, leg-shot scientist grimacing all the while. They get close enough to the cluster that one of the technikers is able to flail out and grab on to Xilo; but the trio beyond spasm and wail as they fall, utterly bereft of the skills required to guide this fall in a meaningful way. With one thousand feet to go, Wolf veers back to the technikers he had abandoned and almost crashes into them with the ferocity of his lateral glide through the air; releasing his sidearm to the wind and snatching the collar of the one who had previously been K'ral's burden, and towing him into contact with two others so that the bloodied, battered sergeant and three of the technikers cling to each other and spin toward the earth, awaiting the deployment of the featherfall spell.

With Xilo minding both the Dr. Schiller and also Doc's prior passenger, and with Salamir once again awake and capable with his own helpless companion, most of the chaos of the moment begins to stabilize into something like a predictable outcome.

The exception is over by Doc, and Ginger. Ginger's maneuvering in the fight first brought his techniker lower than most of those falling; but after leaving him to engage more fully, the marksman has ended up almost five hundred feet in the air above where the Vult techniker is falling - preceding Doc toward the ground by half that.

Spoiler: OOC: Actions!

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No more enemies, so it's everyone's turn, more or less. Most are at 1000ft, which means this turn you'll be using your reaction to activate your featherfall ring most likely.

Importantly, the Vult Prisoners have initiative 1 - their actions will resolve either on the turn of someone grabbing them, or failing that, at the end of the round.

Prepare for impact!

[JbeJ275]

Sal glides a little to the south, grabbing a second one of their prisoners and drawing Sparky in close to emit another shielding pulse before finally activating his feather fall just as he approached the ground.

Spoiler: Rolls

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(1d8+5)[12] for wolf and to potentially boost me and Frosch.

I think I'm gonna take 2d6 on impact for carrying passengers, but only after another 5 rounds of falling giving me more shots to get to a full 13 THP.

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc

Launching himself back towards the main clumb of his allies, Doc draws a vial of adrenaline and aims himself at the group. Like sole kind of flying squirrel, he lands on the central labcoat next to Sarge and plants it as squarely in thr big man's keister as he can.

Told you I'd come back!

He activates his ring and looks for a way he can edge ever so slightly closer to Sal on the way down.

Spoiler: Actions

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Move onto the middle labcoat next to Sarge (should work as Doc is only wee).
Action to use a med kit heal (1d6+9)[12]
Bonus to activate feather fall.

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gaberiel Ginger
Not bad. Now just need to stick the landing.

He dives past the spinning Krieger, failing to get a solid grip. With barely any room to spare, he slips under the krieger, activating his ring barely 3 meters from the ground.

The magically slow, and then crash into the ground.

[MrAbdiel]

The assembled Amcaran forces below gaze up at the spectacle, fighting over regimentally issued binoculars to do so as everyone hurtles toward the ground. From the air, they are apparent only in clusters and around vehicles. One by one, the Skyknives warn their passengers and activate their rings so the last few hundred feet are a controlled, slow drop.

For a moment, it seems as though Ginger's ring has failed; he blitzes past his comrades in a bullet dive, misses the grab on his charge once, and then vanishes from distinct view as he blurs with the distant ground. The crowd far below scatters, and who can blame them?

They had assembled ready to give aid and welcome to their returning Skyknives. And a few hundred yards north, a similar group greets 1LT Bathory and her squad as they drift to earth with their prizes.

But here, beneath Xilo's Psychos, the landing of these heroes is preceded by a much less welcome arrival: the bodies and bodyparts of ten Fallshrimjager, hurling and spinning and slamming into the ground with speed unmitigated by spell expertise. To most of the squad, the bodies plunge away and impact far below; their gory remnants becoming visible only as markers to dodge with their own gentle landings, and a hideous reminder of the fate that becomes of jump-troopers whose magic, or training, fails them.

To Ginger, who manages to secure his grip on his prisoner when he's close enough to the ground to see the bugs in the grass, the nightmare is much more visceral. As the magic harshly bleeds off Ginger's momentum so he and his passenger bang bruisingly, not breakingly into the ground, he is exposed to a chorus of horrified shouts and screams from the Amcaran troops who flee from the ghastly hail; and the sounds of the bodies hitting, splitting, rupturing with impact will rattle around inside Ginger's mind and feature in his dreams for some time to come.

Like fruit, comes the unbidden thought.

Sounds like fruit, hitting a wall.

But between Doc's airborne medical efforts, Sal's miraculous impact-shielding machine, and Xilo's uncanny knack for making unlikely allies, the rest of Xilo's Psychos come to rest twenty seconds later. They find the Amcarans crowding back in; their allies touching down with lambent sparks from Sal's device's shield burning off the impact damage, and the final Techniker that Ginger rescued from oblivion, crying hysterically.

"Holy Pelor!" Blurts a trooper from the groundforces; one who seems to be possessed of more of a sense of amazement and victorious delight than most of his fellows who are digesting horror, confusion, and stunned silence.

"...What happened?!"

Spoiler: OOC:

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Congratulations, Skyknives. Mission accomplished. I've tee'd it up - the pithy line to sum it up or downplay it heroically belongs to whomever posts it first.

You have accomplished all your objectives despite extreme obstacles. We'll do a little cooldown scene here - but feel free to RP, for flavor, now that you have breathing room.

Everyone is still pretty badly stabbed and shot, but stable; your prisoners are traumatized but alive; K'ral never made it to the ground. Ginger nearly pancaked and took a crazy, but successful risk to save the life of an enemy prisoner.
You may feel free to react to any of these things. You may also assume you'll level up!

[JbeJ275]

"The Vulters up there started a fight. Us Airborne finished it." Says Sal as the dust and dirt thrown up by his shield breaking settles down.

"Now you boys got a medic? And a closed truck too maybe, we got a few fellows here who'll be needing a chat with half the officers mess, they got smart and defected under fire. Might be able to tell us more about why this fair country is missing a hill."

The stabs and slices that cut around his ballistic vest are clear to see, but between Doc's work and all natural American adrenalin he's still on his feet, seeming almost unaffected by the bleeding at least for the moment.

[Cavir]

Ring activated but still a couple of hundred feet in the air, Xilo magically tries contacting Bathory. "Enemy assault countered. One Friendly KIA. Nearing the ground now. Have priority prisoners. Your status?"

Looking downward, Xilo sees the gathering friendly forces. Curious if his company commander is among reinforcements he tries reaching her too, whispering in elvish. "Captain, Xiloscient here. Fifth squad coming down. One friendly KIA. Have priority prisoners. Beware dead Fallschirmjager coming down hard. Over."

The LT ensures his human cargo lands as softly as can be to protect the Dr's injured leg then eases him down into a sitting position.

Standing back up Xilo looks to the most senior NCO nearby that wasn't part of his squad. "I need medics for my men and the prisoners as well as MPs to secure the prisoners who are to remain within my sight until I say otherwise. Understood? Thank you."

He speaks to the the growing gaggle around. "Xilo's Psychos kicked ass and took prisoners once again. The war is not over yet though. If you do not have a reason to be right here, then get back to your units and kick some Vult ass when you have the chance. You saw it in the sky. We have them fleeing in fear!"

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc hangs in the air, the feather fall spell giving him ample time to see the shattered forms scattered below them on the ground. No sign of K'ral...he hadn't had much hope, but the cold hard truth still hits like a punch in the gut

He tries to come up with a quip whilst mechanically checking over his squadmates and prisoners...something something, magic beans?

With a sigh he gives up thinking. I need a... he looks guiltily at Sarge before slumping down on his knees, I'm so damn tired.

[Novabomb]

Pvt Ginger
Nailed it.
He passes his canteen to the prisoner, then gives him a smoke.
Good job on your first jump he says to the uncomprehending Kreig.

[MrAbdiel]

The allied reinforcement wing crowds in around the team, now. As per Lt. Xiloscient's request, in moments an infantry squad with a competent NCO takes custody of the prisoners, taking caution and advisement on their nature (especially the tricky Dr. Schiller). In the shy beyond, the colossal form of the departing village of Alonn - what will later be known to the Kreigers as Luftwaffenstützpunkt Null and to their enemies as The Skyberg - hazes as it slips past the cloud layer and continues east. A squadron of Amcaran and Albinonese fighters chase a trio of young blue dragons in the same direction, but are forced to peel away after the Skyberg begins replying with chattering, rapidfire puffs of flak that would have raked bolder pursuers from the sky.

On one hand, you have succeeded - you have your valued prisoners and intelligence, despite the additional obstacles. You have completed your objective despite radical oppositional surprises.

On the other hand, any sentiment that existed that the war was essentially over because the Vult had been put on the backfoot at Naphto vanishes before your eyes. The enemy has been concealing this much remarkable technological aptitude, and presumably more - and it's anyone's guess as to whether the allied coalition can complete the drive to the Kreiger Capital before they start fielding the automated killing machines, and hovering fortresses, alongside the rest of their remarkable firepower.

On the third hand... the adrenal shots and stimulants Doc has been plying everyone with to keep them trucking are beginning to wear off, now that safety has come. And every surviving member of Xilo's Psychos has been either shot several times, stabbed, or kicked around by a walking tank. The eyes of the soldiers around suggest they find it miraculous that any of you are alive at all.

Spoiler: OOC: Transit Arrangements.

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You can decide how much of the trip back to Tranquille your characters remember. They might be delirious in the back of an ambulance for the bumpy hour back to the allied operation centre; or they might be sitting in the back of the jeep in sleepless, thrumming pain. Or hell, they might just be happy to be alive - given that not everyone is! But with the prisoners secured, you are returned to Tranquille for medical treatment and rest, after the ordeal. Bathory's squad is also - but they're much less badly mangled that Xilo's Psychos.

Feel free to decide how the warwounds are affecting your character or not.
We're in a world of magical healing, so it's possible you get a few vials of the good stuff prescribed and you come out the other side with no scars. But if you want some scars and lingering cinematic pains, hey - that's the kind of thing that loosens the old Inspiration purse strings. As far as most grevious injuries go, I beleive Xilo took most of his damage from being booted by the Angriefer; Sal got stabbed pretty hard in mid air by a couple of the Fallshirmjager; Ginger took some fire from enemies on the base and also got a little stabbed in the plunge; and Doc... I think might have gotten his worst injuries when he got into a grapple-knife-fight with a soldier in the base itself. But to thine own imagination be true.

* * * * *

Tranquille

The roar of trucks and vehicles moving out of Tranquille is constant. They're moving the motorpool up to a new forward base, leaving only a hospital and a backline headquarters here far behind the current line of press. But the hospital is what the squad most needs most; and everyone is required to take atleast a day of bed rest and recovery. Even Doc - the order comes from Regimental Cheif Surgeon Nydas Falk; an erudite half-orc with no sense of humor but a surfeit of professionalism and enough compassion to point it in the right direction.

There are familiar faces, here - Chaegwyn, whom Doc pulled a shard of alarmingly hot metal out of, is recovering well though still bed ridden as he recovers from the damage to his organs. The paladin Ordo is being discharged as you come through - having brawled through Naphto together, he is inclined to visit each of your beds, shake hands, impart blessings, before he is sent off to be rolled into Bathory's expanding squad. Pvt. Ssassten has been through his arm's amputation, and his lizardman physiology is making a go of regrowing the limb; it has restored the length of his forearm so far, and being otherwise healthy, he has fashioned himself into an unofficial, one armed orderly in the hospital at the disposal of the Sisters of Sunlight. From 4th Squad, only the young frown Pvt Lynovva Xenyss and the longsuffering halfling jokester Hector Longfoot suffered injuries requiring confinement to medical quarters; but neither as serious as the wounds laid on 5th squad. Still, most everyone is able to get out and about the base for moments during their confinement...

Salamir

The Aasimar starlet-turned-army-mechanic Gloria Mayfair visits you during your recovery day. Having looked over the anomylous Kreiger tank with you before it was snatched away by Operations-Clandestine, she is extremely animated in her interest about what you saw and found in what turned out to be flying village worth of Kreiger labs. On a bench outside the repurposed shrine to Pelor, she insists to know; her voice low, so not to be too cavalier about what is obviously secret information.

"Well? Don't tell me you saw nothing interesting up there except the little brass dragon-buzzers and fact that the town itself is flying on gravity-repelling engines. The spooks were far too sharp about snatching away that captured chassis. How far ahead are their Artificers?"

Ginger

You are uncomfortable, but semi-mobile as you rest in the hospital. The surgeons have done a good job sewing you up, and the painkillers they have you on keep you on a nice, heady buzz. But you're not so buzzed it doesn't strike you as unusual when you're approached by a tall soldier in olive drab cut through with a say of bright blue - one of the Blueguard, the military police. You wrack your brain for what he might be coming to ask about - the less than official recovery of explosives from unburst allied ordnance, perhaps? - but it turns out to be no crime of your own.

"Private Gabriel Ginger..? There's, uh... One of the prisoners is asking to speak with you directly. The interrogators think he's likely to open up more to you, given his fragile state. It's unusual, but... Can you come with me, please?"

Xilo

You are relieved to find that 4th squad made it down mostly intact. They had intelligence in their possession; but not prisoners, and had a much more relaxing descent than yours. But this part, at a desk set up for you in the corner of the church-turned-field hospital with a medical curtain for privacy, is not particularly relaxing. First Lieutenant Bathory shows you the template the officers use when composing the letters required to inform a lost soldier's family back home about the circumstances of their demise. Cpl. K'Ral is the first soldier under your command killed in action - he died sacrificially and bravely, but the specific circumstances of his death are both somewhat classified, and also perhaps too traumatic to commit to ink for his family to read.

It occurs to you how many of these Lt. Bathory must have needed to write, after Naphto.

"My advice is to mention one conspicious act of bravery, if you can do so without being graphic. A mention like that will go a long way to making the loss... digestible. Sometimes they write back demanding details - where, and how, and why. I figure if they're desperate to know, then I ought to answer in the detail they want. Maybe it helps them. But I suspect you'll want to put in for a posthumous medal, given what he did. And while you're at it, if you have any other service citations for the rest of your squad, I can show you the format to apply."

Spoiler: OOC:

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You don't need to actually write K'ral's whole casualty notice!
Even I have limits to the trauma I want to inflict on my players. But you might consider deciding how detailed, embellishing, matter-of-fact, or poetic Xilo would try to be in such a document. Incidentally, feel try to make up some bogus "Bronze Star" esque commendations for the squad's members, as you feel appropriate to apply for.

Doc

The river gnome Sister Adelaide enjoys too much having you bedridden in her hospital. She knows exactly where your wounds are, and when you try to get out of bed to check on patients in the place, she has made a game of chasing after you and poking your stitches until you scramble back into bed. You can hardly fight back against a Sister; and if you had imagined she would be more Sisterly, you should have thought of that before you bombarded her with your bawdy camaraderie when you were here previously. She is even more delighted to see the pair of doves have taken to roosting over your bed; but she is disappointed to find they have, so far, confined their droppings to the rafter, and have not blessed you directly.

But she does let you out, as R.C.S. Nydas Falk takes a detailed report of the condition of Sergeant 'Wolf'; presently in his chemically induced coma as he struggles to recover.

The serious half-orc invites you, as the one to address Wolf's wounds as they occured, to give you your opinion, before he gives his.

"Well, Specialist - the fact that the sergeant is here and breathing is a serious credit to your skill. I've had difficulty being certain if we've pulled all the bullets out - we won't know until the X-Ray machine is hauled in, in a day or two. What do you think?"

Spoiler: OOC: Medic!

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Wolf got hit atleast twice with light machine gun fire, and was stabbed nearly to death in mid air. He's held together by scotch tape right now; but I invite you to give a more professional account of his dire condition.

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc doesn't know it at the time, by Sister Adelaide's tyranny is enough to stop him from sinking into a psychological black. Eventually worn down, he limits himself to eavesdropping on ward rounds and brow-beqting a junior medic into changing the odd care plan or prescription he doesn't like the sound of.

...

Doc looks fondly down on the Sarge, whose normally tough features are softened by the sedatives.

I'm sure your happy with the thigh wound, clean through and through, no neurovascular compromise.

The gut wound is much harder, I'll admit. Goes in the right iliac fossa at an angle, here. See this whole mess more posterimedial, above his big hairy keister? The initial round went through into the peritoneal cavity but missed the bowel, or if it nicked anything it looks like the omentum plugged the hole. Give the would a sniff, doesn't smell nasty, right? Then as far as I can figure it must deflect off his iliac crest and tumble out here at the same place as this otherwise shallow stab wound.

Any haematuria...no? Then at most this one aimed at his kidney did a superficial lac or subapsular haematoma.

As for the rest of the stab wounds, I think his rib took.the brunt of this one and nicely stopped a haemopnemothorax. Must be broken though. Everything else is just a flesh wound, and it'll take more than that to tenderize this hunk of meat.

Don't skimp on the analgesia though, the last thing he needs is catching pneumonia cos he ain't breathing in deep enough. And wash your damn hands, carefully before changing the dressings, fahrstayn?

More quietly he whispers in the big man's ear.

Come one Sarge, you can pull through this, I owe you a root beer float!

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger
Holds it together until he gets into the truck at which point he promptly faints. He is completely unaware of his trip back to the sisters.

*****

(Shortly before the Blueguard speaks)
Ah crap, which misuse of resources is he here about?
Uh, let me check. He shifts his body off the bed, and finds that it will support him.
Alright, lets get to it. His optimism is undercut by the slowness of his stagger following the Blueguard.

[JbeJ275]

"Yeah... it's bad." Says Sal beckoning the ex-starlet forward and speaking quietly. Not wanting to do more than whisper when discussing something like this, and straining the bandages that cover a messy stab wound in his side. "There was a lot of stuff up there, we only saw a couple of the rooms. But the stuff they had ready to turn on and push at us? They had something they called the Assailant. I've looked at the best work rolling out of the labs right now, and we've got some genius constructs but they all need moment to moment supervision. No iteration of Sparky, no tank, no battleship can survive forces that shred a crewman. That thing had the IFF systems to only accept certain orders and the independent operating directives to blast its own soldiers. Probably the vulters have decided it's alright if one of those things occasionally cooks one of theirs, but if it really is able to understand the world in that much detail without any supervision? That's damn dangerous. And we took it down, but it took half the squad hosing it down while I practically disassembled the thing as it was walking. Small arms did nothing. Tanks would still probably shred it if they ever got in an open field but a single one of those in a concrete factory? It'll bleed our boys dry until we have time to drop the factory on it. Don't get me wrong, smart money still says the Vulters are screwed, but if they get those to production half the army might be going down with them."

[MrAbdiel]

Salamir

Gloria huddles in with you for the quiet exchange; her faintly lambent eyes troubled by your assessment. "Full autonomous uprights? I know they've deployed golems on some fronts; but atleast golems have the prohibitively expensive magical creation process. If they've developed a sophisticated, semi-intelligent decision making capacity they can manufacture at a relatively low cost, and the rest is just assembly-line panzer stuff..." She shakes her head. "Messy. Still... speaking of Sparky, I think you can expect a tap on the shoulder, soon. I saw some of the big-wigs tampering with a prototypical shielding device working on the same frequency, so all your haranguing the brass about exploiting your design to save lives might be bearing fruit. They're trying to make big ones, to mount on armored vehicles. You know - an APC that doesn't require the P to give up all the A once they stop being C'd."

Spoiler: Successful DC 17 Arcana Check:

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You tell me - what the critical issue that other artificers are going to run into when trying to create a large version of Sparky's shield function - and how dangerous is it? Feel free to concoct your own impenetrable layers of jargon.

Spoiler: Failed DC 17 Arcana Check:

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You tell me - what the critical issue that other artificers are going to run into when trying to create a large version of Sparky's shield function - and how dangerous is it? Feel free to concoct your own impenetrable layers of jargon.

Ginger

The Blueguard escort is not talkative, but is sympathetic to your agony; you're a hero, after all, and he slows to accomodate your gait and, you intuit by a certain readiness in his posture, he is prepared to reach out to help if you look like you're going to stumble. But after a short uneventful walk, you find yourself at what used to be the local sheriff's station of Tranquille - but now serves to sequester prisoners of war before they are transferred to longer term internment and processing. You pass a few cells used for town drunks and the occasional spouse-beater or troublesome transient, as you are escorted. Now they are occupied by prisoners of war. All but one of the technikers are crowded into one, smoking and talking sullenly to each other. In another, a shaven-head half elf sits cross legged facing the tiny barred window in the exterior wall; a small 'shrine' of sorts marked on the wall beside him, fingerpainted on the concrete with, you hope, some elements of the food he is being fed. But at the end of this entry walk past the cells, you reach a small, smoke-filled conference room where your escort leaves you. There are three figures here: one is Captain Lorana Longsummer, who offers you a faint, almost maternal smile. The other two you don't recognize; a human woman and a bronze scaled dragonborn, both in charcoal grey suits with cigarettes between their fingers. The dragonborn has a homberg style had he is twirling on one clawed fingertip before you arrive.

"Private Ginger. I'm glad to see you're mobile," Captain Longsummer offers with warmth, and a tone that is almost apology. "I'd have let you rest longer if the matter wasn't potentially urgent. These are agents Feldspar and Jasper, from Operations-Clandestine. They need your help."

The human woman, "Jasper", takes out a notebook and turns to a fresh page; while the dragonborn, "Feldspar", cracks his neck and then peers down at you more directly from his near eight feet of height.

"I'll make it short," the scaled spook rumbles, "one of the Krieger technikers asked for you by description, and my partner feels he's more likely to respond to carrot, than stick. Our current operating procedure is I.C.R.D. - Independant Corroborated Redundant Discovery. That means we don't trust anything we're told about enemy ops that isn't corroborated by multiple prisoners whom we are satisfied have not fabricated a story together. We have some information. We'd like to see what this schmuck is going to say, and how much of it matches up. No time to train you in technique, but just be normal. Personable. Willing to listen. He asked for you because he wanted to talk; so let him talk. Steer him gently - he knows he's giving up information, so you're not trying to trick him, but he's flinchy and he's had two panic attacks already which, quite frankly, I'm getting sick of accomodating. Jasper, what are we looking for?"

Feldspar's partner reads off from her notepad's previous page, after flipping back to it. "Projects the Kreiger Artificers have underway. Names of high ranking individuals in that organization. Whether there are more flying fortresses. How many dragons. And sundry general curiosities about the Vult army's leadership and structure."

"There you go." The dragonborn takes a final drag on his cigarette, before flicking it into a dead pot plant in the corner where, you notice, many cigarettes have been flicked before. "Any questions, or are you ready to go in?"

Doc

The R.C.S. might be impressed, but he's not very expressive at the best of times. The nearby orderlies, managing Sarge instead of the sisters in this instance, take your tone and prepare to change the dressings... washing their hands first.

"It's admirable work, Mister Helmholtz. I'd been meaning to talk to you - since your squad is being dissolved anyway, you might care to come to work for me more directly. Get you out of the path of the bullets, I mean. You've saved lives under fire, but you have incredible instinct for the work and you could save just as many, if not more, at a properly resourced hospital instead of a forward operation location, like this. And the pay is -"

Sarge begins thrashing, which cuts your conversation short. The orderlies are back and holding his arms and legs so he doesn't hurt himself, but he is having some kind of reaction that is compelling an extreme pain response even through the sedatives under which he can't strictly be considered conscious!

Spoiler: Successful DC 17 Medicine Check:

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You notice the spasming of his torso muscles - there's something causing extreme discomfort within the gut wound, but the rapid onset of the response is mysterious. Unless it's some kind of psychosomatic late response to the trauma there, in which case opening him back up is likely just to cost him blood and healing time. But if there's something in there doing damage and you don't get to it right away... As always in your job, you are given no time at all to make decisions requiring much long consideration.

Spoiler: Failed DC 17 Medicine Check:

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You can't tell what the hell is going on here - a full body convulsion which doesn't seem like a seizure as much as a pain response. But with Sarge being sedated, he can't tell you where!
What can you do!?

[JbeJ275]

"Good to hear that at least." Says Sal, a little of his nervousness bleeding away now that his secrets are shed and they're on to good news. "I just hope they're ready for the thermal dispersion issues."

He pauses for a moment at Gloria's slight confusion then goes on.

"Right yeah, Spark was built as a semi-autonomous shielding platform. But if you'd have visited our old barracks on Albion you'd have heard the stories about how he could light a cigar from twenty feet or explode one from a hundred. That wasn't really deliberate, the shield matrix pours out so much energy that reworking it into a weapons system was really the only thing that made sense. But that requires me to pull sparky apart and jam him back together to get it coupled for dispersion over shielding. Or just break it apart and manually cool it off. Otherwise he'd fuse solid inside an hour at a push. Making it bigger? More heat, less routes for dispersing the energy, and re-configuring the system for dispersion isn't ten seconds and a touch of magic but a real field operation. Too much bigger and the arcadia and disforged cycles start melting into each other after just moments of unbroken interaction. What you get then... well I've never done it with Sparky, but I figure if the Vulters ever try and capture it while I'm in range and I can shed the shielding core they're in for a nasty surprise. It might be possible to get around that somehow, but the heat and weight tolerances are already so thin it'd take some real special work."

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc

Doc holds up a hand to the R.C.S. before lunging for antiseptic and a surgical kit.

Orderly, hold him down, I need to go in.

The R.C.S.sentence had barely had time to trail off before Doc was scrubbed and Sarge prepped for an emergency laparotomy.

Sorry, I'm a little busy, we can chat later.

[MrAbdiel]

Sal

Gloria follows along once you make an effort to be clear. She doesn't know the proprietary specifics of your design, but she has a good head for the principles - the right kind of mind to make the leap from engineer to artificer some day soon.

At the conclusion of the explanation, her brow furrows. She glances down the street, toward the long road that shoots to the edge of Tranquille then hooks south along its length for a while before finally terminating at the commandeer Kreiger airstrip that serves as the Greasepit.

Then she gets up with swiftness in her step, jogs over to the jeep she pulled up in and hops elegantly over the door into the passenger seat where she can access the radio. You can hear the conversation that takes place clearly.

"Motorpool, this is technician specialist Gloria Mayfair, read?"
A pause; then a distinctly teenage male voice replies back after two beats.

"Uh, check, Miss Mayfair - that's a, that's a big copy, proceed. Please."

It's impossible to tell from the voice if the radio-op at the other end is nervous because he's new, or talking to Gloria Mayfair.

"Motorpool, I understand Colonel Tatterfield is over in the secure hangar - I need you to dispatch a runner immediately and warn the Colonel to halt the exercise underway. I have the specialist he needs with me and it's dangerous to proceed without him, acknowledge?" She leans over the radio handset, her golden eyebrows arched as she looks over at you with suspended concern.

"...Say again, Miss Mayfair?"

Shorter, this time; both in tone and length of the message.

"Motorpool, I need to speak to Colonel Tatterfield immediately. It concerns the safety of the tests in the secure hangar, acknowledge?"

"Ma'am, I'm under orders to take messages but not to disturb the secure hangar for the next four hours.
Is it urgent?"

Gloria remains calm, but her face shows more frustration than her voice permits. Actor's training, you assume, to confine her mood in that way.
"Motorpool, message is urgent for Colonel Tatterfield, affirmative. Must precede scheduled operations in the secure hangar. Get up and run their yourself if you have to. Acknowledge."

That pause again.

"...Ma'am, I'm sorry, I can't do that - when my partner gets back from the john, I'll go get my rotation lieutenant and you can escalate it up the chain. Best I can do."

This, of course, isn't good enough. If they are testing Sparky-derived technology without a complete understanding of its heat dispersion issues, there's a very real chance that someone could get hurt or killed - perhaps even the Colonel. Gloria's eyes flash luminous gold with restraint, and she purses her lips.

"Negative, Motorpool; Negative. Matter is urgent concerning real-time dangers. Need dispatch of that runner now. Acknowledge."

The war against the radio bureaucracy seems to be destined to be slow fought... perhaps too slow. As she continues the fight on the airwaves, she makes eyecontact with you, and thumps the steering wheel in the drivers seat. It might all be for nothing - but on the other hand, a little haste might save the lives of some reckless engineers, if you can get to the secure hangar in time; and it's anyone's guess as to whether Gloria will succeed getting a runner successfully or not, before!

Spoiler: OOC: Hell On Wheels

Show

Hmm. What to roll for driving? I'm willing to say Sleight of Hand, what with the gear changes and precise, high speed turns.

Give me a Slight of Hand roll, presuming you're willing to drive at potentially reckless speeds to prevent Sparky's technology from being misused disastrously by those who don't understand it.

Basic success is DC15. Superior Success is DC 20.

Doc

With considered haste, you one again begin surgery on your friend, Sergeant Eugene Vognar. The orderlies erect a curtain around the bed. Someone on the other side starts praying. Even with helpers holding Wolf down, you have to practically climb up onto his torso to steady your hand enough to open him up down the same line he was sewn up on. But when you do, you are immediately assaulted with a nauseating, familiar smell combination: burning flesh, and cooking blood. When you open the cut, an immediate blurt of boiling, blackened blood from Sarge's liver spurts up and splatters you and an orderly under pressure from a gout of steam building beneath. You've had blood blisters before - but you're sure there will be a speckling of blood-induced blisters just above your eye.

You have seen this before. Somewhere here - somewhere in the pooling blood by Sarge's liver - is a piece of metal... probably another fragment of, or whole 8mm ratte round, from the Angreifer's machine guns - and burning hot. You went through this once before, with Private Chaegwyn. For him, it was a chunk of shrapnel too close to his heart to safely operate.. forcing you to operate unsafely when it suddenly heated up, narrowly saving the privates life. Now, it's happening again - probably with a smaller piece of metal, but no less mysterious or desperate. Sarge is tough, but his body can't take much more punishment. If you find it and get it out quick, you'll still probably have to excise an unfortunate chunk of his liver.

If you're not quick...

Spoiler: OOC: Trauma for the Trauma Surgeon, Part Deux

Show

It was DC20 to save Chaegwyn's life.
You were searching for a large piece of metal then, and Chaegwyn was healthier than Wolf is right now; so the DC to deliver Wolf from his critical condition is DC24.

However, at that time, you had advantage from an assistant and disadvantage from the bizarre nature of the complication. This is your second time around, so you can roll with advantage.

Failure by less than 10 will yield certain information that may yet be helpful, even if insufficient to save Sarge's life.

[JbeJ275]

"Alright." Says Sal in response to Gloria’s gestures. "But hold on tight, this is gonna be a wild ride."

He then takes a moment to see the path out before him, mapping the best route with a mind used to extremely hostile situations. Then he pulled something from his webbing, a mixture of coffee concentrate, borrowed medical adrenaline a few compounds tinkered from tar and diesel fumes. After a few moments of grimace he started sucking on half of it and threw the other half into the fuel tank, then absolutely floored the vehicle.

"GET OUT OF THE DAMN WAY!!!" He screamed, shooting up the road at the very limits of the engine as they tried to get to the laboratory where a potentially fatal mistake was being made.

His eyes flashed black with grim anger and a hint of fear, and one hand rocketed to Gloria’s shoulder on some of the tighter turns, making up for a seatbelt designed to keep you alive but do little else.

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc

Pausing only to let the orderly mop his nrow before the blood dripped into his eye, Sarge set to work.

Right, what segment is this damn thing in? IVb? What does that even mean, lousy Romans stillbutting their huge noses in. Why can't it just be four like a sensible number!


He gets to work incising the liver to find the vurning fragment, cauterising as he goes. The heat remains intense and he has to cut and cauterise fast to prise it out and stop the burning from extending to the right lobe. Out damn spot! He flings it off to the side where the orderly barely manages to catch the offending fragment in a kidney bowl, but not without slipping on the surrounding gore and landing on his ass.

The huge bulk of the Sarge is both help and hindrance. His expertise with paediatric patients makes identifying and protecting/suturing vessels as much child's play as the incision had been a wrestling match. He neatly removes the remains of the wrecked left lobe of the liver, leaving the right lobe intact.

He mutters to himself whilst closing up. I might even be able to out drink the great lummox now if he hadn't got me cutting down!

Still covered in blood he rounds on the R.C.S. Look here, we're sending these kids into a meat grinder. If anything, working in one of your hospitals makes that worse! You want me to patch them up so you can send some of them back again and draw this whole mess out for longer!?

He gestures angrily at the orderly, or more likely the smoking contents of the rapidly warming kidney dish they're juggling.

That ain't to say I like the Kriegers. Some of them are downright monsters! I want to get this whole damned war over with, that's the only real way to save lives! By this point he's red the face and shaking. It takes him a second or two to ragain some measure of composure. As I see it, the only way I can do that is by helping the sky knives. As much as it cuts me up inside to see them like this I ain't leaving them.

[MrAbdiel]

Sal

The tyres roar and spin on the dirt road, the engine screams in protest to the chemical goosing, and then the jeep explodes into movement, pinning both you and Gloria to your seats as you slew out out of the short road beside the field hospital and out to the perimeter road that leads to the Greasepit. There is a checkpoint manned by two Blueguard military police at the junction to the perimeter road. A human and a dwarf, you think, but you might be wrong; they are blurs to you as you smash through the black and white plywood boomgate and rip on down the road.

Gloria tucks low into her seat as she flinches away from the debris bouncing off the windshield, but barely pauses in her radio haranging.

"Negative! Negative, Greasepit - we're coming now, ETA four minutes. Alert your perimeter gate that we're coming in and not stopping. Priority - do you understand? Priority arrival!"

You're making excellent time. A Kyton class recovery tank is ahead of you, towing a Hamatula light infantry fighting vehicle; without changing gear, you weave off the road, steering against the camber of the road's edge and drift the jeep in a stretched crescent that leaves a shredded arc of grass behind it. You rejoin the road missing a street sign ("Avertissement! Nid d'oies ici!") by an inch and the front of the Kyton by about three. You hear a brief shout of protest as someone pops the lid and leans out to shout, but you are gone.

You're maybe a minute down the road when something snaps and bangs under the hood; the tormented jeep begins pouring black smoke from its abused engine, and slowing down.

You've made good time so far - you'll lose some, if you have to stop for a repair of continue on foot. But if you can just squeeze another minute of function out of the machine...

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Give me a Tinker/Artificer's Tools test, DC 15, to pull something out of your ear to get the Jeep to go the rest of the way - otherwise, you're on foot!

Doc

There's no applause from the hospital, this time. When the curtain is pulled aside, there is just the field of worried faces gazing at the once again still and resting Sergeant Vognar; dead but for the grace of the gods and the skill of your hands. It must be hard for them to wonder if they will be the next mysteriously struck by the hellish, shrapnel-burn malady's seemingly random attacks. The sound of the doves in the rafter above taking flight is almost comically loud, in the silence. Then R.C.S. Falk cuts through it to speak with you, and conversation blooms slowly back into the ambience.

Nydas Falk doesn't seem shocked by your outburst. He manages a great many medical professionals embedded in the armed services of what is considered the "underdog" side of the greatest military undertaking in the history of the world. Perhaps frustration is not an uncommon sentiment. He might have a riposte, or a defense for his invitation; but he doesn't offer them.

"I understand. A lot of field surgeons are reluctant to leave their companies, whatever the reason; but if you ever want some light reading, there's a fine little report floating around the officer's tents, of late. It's called the Whipcrack paper. Not a particularly confidential document; you might appreciate it." And with that, he heads off; taking the kidney dish with the cooked liver lobe and the still burning hot fragment with him.

"Oh, Monsieur Thaddeus. I am glad you are 'ere for zis one. Zere 'ave been anozer seex 'burning cases' since the first. Ze officers say it is probably zome chemical munition, but ze soldiers are calling it a curse. We saved four of zem... lost two. But we are all must safer, wis your skill 'ere."

She pats your stitches, affectionately. "I 'ope you are shot every time you go out, so you come back 'ere, ah?"

[Novabomb]

Pvt Ginger
None Sir, lets see him
He waddles into the interrogation room and sits down.

You were asking for me?

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc

The halfling just stands there for a while staring after Falk. He'd been spoiling for a fight, something ti rage against, but the lack of opposition leaves him deflated and hollow. Only the sister's words breath a little bit of life back into him.

I'd be back like a shot to see you anytime, but I'll pass on the actual bullets. Say, do you happen to have a copy of that paper lying around?

[JbeJ275]

Sal drifts for a moment until they end up on a straightaway, then yells to Gloria. "Hold the wheel! I'm about to do something stupid!"

With that, he swings the door open and navigates his way onto the hood and cuts a small section of the hood open to access the engine without throwing himself off. Once inside he spies the issue, the pressure on the engine has caused a piece of tubing to wear on the seal and drift out of alignment. Sparky scuttles up his arm momentarily and creates a shield over Sal's hand which he then sticks directly into the overhesting engine, ripping out the failing tubing and replacing it with a small piece from his webbing, then swinging back around the front pillar of the car in time to veer around a parked staff car and keep up the momentum as they approached the testing site,

"Sorry about that. Fuel induction jet was misaligned! He shouts to Gloria as way of apology.

[MrAbdiel]

Sal

Gloria gives you a distracted nod, and secures the wheel with one hand while she continues her back and forth with the radio. She gets gradually less composed and more furious with the refusal to be helpful for the sake of protocol. Eventually, when you clamber back into the driver's seat and boot the gas again, she is just about fed up and slams the unit back in its cradle, and releases a very unladylike (but perfectly mechanic-worthy) profanity. And then, almost blandly, seems to notice the problem that you solved, and gives you a consoling, impressed look.

"No good. Still, they know we're coming, and they'll recognize us, - hopefully enough not to shoot us, but you'd better tear through to the secure hangar anyway. There's no telling if we're early or just on time, but I don't want to be too late."

Fortune throws you a bone as the boom gate into the Greasepit us raises from another entrant. The guards in the towers overseeing the gate and the checkpoint next to the gate themselves see a jeep ripping down the road. You're sure they're training weapons on you - but playing a part for herself, Gloria stands up in the seat, braces her hands on the windshield frame, and is suddenly haloed in radiant light; great, luminous translucent wings fanning out behind her. Those wings have featured in such films as 'Do We, Or Do We Not Got It?, and 'Lady Espionage'. It might be judicious restraint from the soldiers, or celebrity shock that does it, but no bullets fly as you zoom through the open gate and finally skid to a halt outside the secure hangar. They still chase you, of course - and as you pile out, the two infantrymen with submachine guns standing by the door, blocking your way, boggle at the angel and devil climbing out of the jeep, and then again at the dozen or so frantic gate guards dashing towards you in the distance.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

No roll required, you've rolled enough; but I do what to hear what Sal says to immediately convince these guards to let him through. And, especially, how he says it.

Doc

The sister tilts her head and then shakes it. "No no, nossing like zis 'ere. Not a medical paper; or not one given 'ere. Per'aps check with your officer - but later. For now... Bed! Back to bed for you!"

Ginger

The Krieger looks almost ... shocked when you enter; amazed to see you. And from the moment you step in to when you sit down and speak, his eyes watch you very carefully. He's human, with unremarkable short brown hair and hazel eyes. His face is a little bruised from the landing - other than that, he seems alright - though he clearly hasn't slept well.

"M-my namen ess... Oli. Oli Pfefferburg..." He offers, with slow, faltering efforts to speak your native language rather than his own. "You saved me. Jah? Yes? When we fell. I nearly hit ze earth. I could... I saw all ze soldiers watching for me to hit and break... and zen you grabbed me and saved me. You could have died yourself, yes...? Infront of your men. But you saved me. Why...? Why did you do zat? You have all ze others... Why would you do zis..?"

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Whatever your answer, make me a Persuasion (or Deception) check, as you prefer.
It's an open test - to see how much he trusts your response, whether it's sincere or not.

[Novabomb]

Pvt Ginger
(He puts his hand behind his own neck, scratching the base of his skull)
Ah, well it was my fault you almost got splatted in the first place. It was only right that I fix it.
Besides, you're a scientist, a non-combatant. Once we finish saving the world, I am sure you will do much good.


(Once he has had a chance to absorb that)

Mind ya, I am not saying there isn't some things some stuff you can help with right now...

Spoiler: OOC

Show

(He is 94% sincere, there is a small bit of thrill seeking he is omitting)
I spend his inspiration on this roll

Persuasion:
(1d20)[15]
Adv: (1d20)[2]

[JbeJ275]

"Hey!" Shouts Sal as the guards converge toward him, slowly moving towards the doors as he does so. "I get it, you've got orders from a lot of people with big scary ranks to keep us out. But none of those big scary ranks are gonna stop the bomb that they've managed to build in there blowing up in their faces, no-body outranks an explosion, nobody except a technician like me. An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody when they're playing with power sources that unstable, so are you gonna sit us down here and complain we didn't have enough pips at the court martial? Or are you gonna listen to the only people who know what's going on right now and save some damn lives!"

Sal at this point was sweating, this was a maxim he'd learned when bulets were raining around hem, not something that would hold up for a second if someone held a grudge against these guards and the guards knew that too. But they also knew the grudges you get when you let a grease monkey mess with the brass and the grudges you get when a roomful of officers turns into finely ground carbon powder are very different. Sal just has to hope that they know what he actual rules at play here are better than they know what the rules written down neatly in their books are.

Just to be safe, he pulls Gloria closer, just to make sure that if any bullets do start flying they've got to get through Sparky and then him before person with he best bet of making the brass listen goes down.

[Cavir]

2LT Ladaran Xiloscient

The Psychos had reached the safety of friendly forces but Xilo's mind was still racing. He took note of the names and unit handling the prisoners, ensuring an officer was involved who he could track down later. Next he ensures his unit get any immediate medical aid possible before a trip to the hospital.

It is during this time that Captain Longsummer and 1LT Bathory arrive on the scene. Before allowing himself to be escorted onto the ambulance he gives a brief verbal report to them and emphasizes the prisoner situation. "I can't speak for the other lab coats, but Doctor Schiller was the head of his division, creating an advanced and semi-intelligent walking tank. I was able to convince him to side with us. He actively aided our escape. I highly recommend top priority be placed on his current intel and his line of work. He wants to continue his work and he should be given a lab to do so. Watched carefully, of course."

In the ambulance, he gives congratulations to the unit. It is not long before the adrenaline begins to wear off. The left side of his body aches. No broken bones, but plenty of them are bruised. In Tranquille, he is temporarily confined to the hospital. His body aches but it will heal and he is close to his unit. He does what he can with his rank to get what his men need. He turned to the letter he knew he needed and wanted to write. Xilo had always focused on his own survival first, but it was not beneath him to honor those that did not make it. It was his first next of kin letter home and he knew it would be reviewed it to ensure no classified information was included.

Spoiler: Pvt. K'Ral Burnfaire

Show

Dear Mr and Mrs Burnfaire,
It is with sincere sympathy and sorrow that I write this letter to inform you that Pvt. K'Ral Burnfaire was killed in action. In action against a numerically superior enemy Pvt. Burnfaire continued to engage the enemy despite being wounded, enabling the rest of the team to accomplish the mission. The unit was then ambushed by an elite and still numerically superior unit. Pvt. Burnfaire placed his duty and fellow skyknives above all and sacrificed himself to single-handedly take out the vast majority of the enemy unit. His actions not only allowed the mission to succeed, but saved many Amcaran lives and very well may help speed the end this horrible war.

Pvt. Burnfaire was a superb soldier and hunter who will never be forgotten by those he directly saved through his skill and heroic deeds.

Sincerely,
2LT Ladaran Xiloscient
Xilo's Psychos

The letter for K'ral complete, he had plenty of forms to complete. Highly deserved awards of valor for actions in Naphto and Alonn for all of those under him.

[MrAbdiel]

Ginger

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Well, a 15’s a pretty decent roll; and given you have proficiency to kick that up to an 18, that’s not too shabby at all.

Oli Pfefferburg, former techniker of the Vult Supremacy and now prisoner of war, talks with you. You have a certain amount in common - you are both men of the technical sciences, after all. Not wonderworkers, not artificer engineers like Dr Schiller or like Sal; but you are both the measure-to-tolerance, that’ll-do-until-we-get-back, add-another-stick-and-tell-everyone-to-step-back-more technical men. He worked in a more typical development lab trying to produce shoulder-fired rockets that would (and now have) pierced Albinonese tank skins. Then he was noted for his sharp intellect and taken to the Oberes Laboratorium - the village-sized compound hidden under the town of Alonn which both you and Oli learned at the same time had the capacity to fly.

“Politics… so many politics, in ze Vult Accord. And ze Nexus Powers altogether, you see..? Try to appear united at the front, but inside it is all jockeying for favor… politics.”

He tells you a little about the politics of the Kreigers. The Kreigsvolk nation has its massive armed forces that have been riled up and pointed against the rest of the Old Kingdoms. The ones who have done the riling are the Vult Accord; the political movement, then political party, then reigning authority, and now interwoven symbiotic driver of the Kreigsvolk. This you already know; about the typical Old Kingdom fueds that the princes who founded the United Princedoms of Amcara left that continent to escape; about the ascent of the mysterious leader, “der Königlichster” who seized on the lingering resentment of the nation and molded it into the vessel for his vision of destiny and conquest. You have seen video reels of him - a man or elf most likely, though the trademark wolf mask that shrouds his face prevents you from knowing which. It seems most Kreigers don’t know either.

“But ze pressure to produce marvels and machinery is immense… Not from ze Vult precisely, you see… but from ze Handwerkers…”

This part is new to you.

Der Pakt der Handwerker - the Pact of the Artificers.
Der Pakt der Waldes - the Pact of the Forest.
Der Pakt der Zauberer - the Pact of the Magi.

The three pillars of Kreiger military power, all of them working tirelessly to outshine the others and earn enduring favor from the Vult Accord above them. The Vult’s officers integrate and deploy their resources throughout the Kreiger military, and braid them into a ferocious fighting force that has taken the combined efforts of much of the world to contain. The “Handwerkers” are the artificers whose mechanical menaces you most recently met. And you’d bet the Magi were responsible for those tremendous arcane shields protecting Naphto. And it might not be outlandish to imagine the staff wielding figures on the cliffs of Naphto, who summoned the winds to hurl back the Skyknife deployment and turned your first drop into a scattered and desperate nightmare, were druids of “der Waldes”.

“Zey resource and work together, yes; but zey know zat when ze war is over, zey will become princes and barons over ze new territories of ze new world - and each is very hungry to earn a bigger domain…”

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

If you have anything you’d like to ask from your compliant indebted prisoner, now would be a fine time to ask! Feel free to harvest suggestions from the others in the OOC if you like.

Salamir

There are a few things that a soldier fears. Most spend a long time preparing themselves for the possibility of dying in battle. For some, that’s half the attraction - a good way to die, according to a certain martial sensibility that mostly died out around the time of the invention of the landmine. But most soldiers fear very much that they will be seen as an incompetent soldier; and given the untennable possibility that they will be seen as fools for allowing access to unlisted entrants into the secure hangar, or that they will be seen as fools for letting the building they were guarding explode behind them while they were busy preventing any mitigation of that circumstance, the guards give each other a helpless look and then yield. You and Gloria barge through and rush toward the sound of shuddering, spooling energy cyclicators.

Colonel Tatterfield is there behind a concrete wall with a narrow blast-glass window. The gnome is standing on a stool to see through that window, along with a small crowd of flanking officers that average to the rank of Captain. On the other side of that free standing wall inside the hangar is a Hamatula with heavy machine gun swing around on the pintle to point at what you immediately recognize is a massively scaled up version of Sparky’s shielding apparatus. You can see the experiment about to unfold - spool up the device, fire a few rounds at it to prove its efficacy. The officers behind the freestanding wall are safe from deflected rounds - but perhaps not safe from, for example, that blast-glass being oscillated into shards and exploded back into their faces, or the bricks flashing into slag and washing back over them.

Landigger and Phelps are the two engineers running the test. Landigger - human, young, fearless, brilliant, foolish - sits in the turret of the Hamatul, in ballistic shielded gear. Phelps - tiefling, old enough to know better, deeply experienced but mostly equipped to work on the machines of the previous war - is slowly scaling up the power of the device. Phelp’s fiendish features are less pronounced than yours; skin that could pass as tan, small horns that he could cover with a flop of his silver hair if he wanted, but it would be hard not to have noticed each other in the motor pool. Phelps is an extremely effective engineer - but he’s no artificer. The principles involved in the devices individuals like you produce are generations ahead of the slow march of the sluggard sciences. He, let alone Landigger who has probably egged him on in this endeavor, does not know how close they have come to a terrible error. But having blazed hear with all speed and overcome all obstacles without sacrificing time, you have made it here before it’s too late - you can tell just from the sound of it the knock-off device can be cycled down harmlessly, and no one has paid with their lives.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Well, you totally succeeded in all ways, so best ending for you. If you’d like to storm in and shut down this dangerous proceeding before anyone loses their skin, you may do so - and you may feel at liberty, as always, to jargonize it to the max. Gain a point of Canned Inspiration - that’s Inspiration that doesn’t count against your ‘one at a time’ limit of inspiration.

Doc

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

I should have said so in the last post, but: you totally succeeded in all ways, so best ending for you. Gain a point of Canned Inspiration - that’s Inspiration that doesn’t count against your ‘one at a time’ limit of inspiration.

Xilo

One Lieutenant Adrian Crighton takes custody of your prisoners. Later, when you get out of the hospital and seek after him, you find that they have been taken for processing by Operations Clandestine, the Alliance’s intelligence division. There, they will be squeezed for information in a manner they deem appropriate. If Schiller is as cooperative with them as he was with you, he should be alright. For now, he’s out of your hands.

With K’ral’s letter composed - the first of its find from your hands - you get towards more paperwork, with Lt Bathory nearby to offer assistance on elements of the reporting procedure that she learned in officer school which you did not, at boot camp. The diminutive dhampir is helpful, which is good; she is not among those officers who bear a grudge against NCO’s given field commission. Your elevation from her subordinate to her peer has not once seemed to phase her. Then again, you think she’s the only dhampir in the Skyknives, and possibly in the Amcaran military. Perhaps she can’t afford to spare the friends she has.

But when Captain Longsummer arrives and asks Bathory to give you a moment, she does spare you a speculative glance before taking her leave. Captain Lorana Longsummer takes a seat next to the writing desk in the officer’s hall.

“I wanted you to hear it from me, Xilo. You’re not getting reinforced. I know the plan we talked about with 4th and 5th squad. But you might have succeeded too well - first at Naphto, now this. Secret elevators, airborne skirmishes with elite Kreigsvolk troops - you flipped one of their chief automatists, Xilo. After shooting him and blowing up his automaton!” The elven captain laughs her musical laugh, even if only briefly. “That’s quite something. I’ve, ah… Well, I’ve done some things, but I never convinced a ranking prisoner to change sides in an active combat situation. It’s quite something.”

She pushes up from the chair and walks to the door; opens it so the cigarette she lights up doesn’t smoke up the small building.

“Looks like you’re not getting Sergeant Vognar back. He’s in for months of recovery. Likely, we’ll fold him into Bathory’s 4th squad when he’s up to it. Thank means you’re down to four. And four’s not much of a number for a squad, but it’s a perfectly fine number for a special task unit. Technically you’ll still be Skyknives. In every general mission briefing you’ll get a set of orders which assume you’re a flying attachment to Bathory’s squad. But she’ll know the real matter; after that, you’ll talk to me, and get your real orders. You and your… ‘psychos’ are too valuable doing what you’ve ended up doing twice, now - infiltration, elimination, destruction. Operations Clandestine might lean on you from time to time, but all they can do is make you offers. Whatever you work out with them is your business. I don’t want to know about it. But I expect whatever comes next is going to keep pushing you boys to your limits. More bullets; more shrapnel. It’s the least I can do to try to get you better outfitted. I don’t know what’s next, but… as far as what you just went through - what did you find yourself wishing you’d been issued, that would have made your lives easier? That might have saved some suffering… or lives?”

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Time for a wish list. And an open persuasion roll! Feel free to shoot for the moon as far as the list goes, but as far as what you’ll get, that depends on the roll. Given that you’re the golden boy right now for flipping Dr. Schiller, you can roll with advantage.