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

[MrAbdiel]

The Liberated Town Of Tranquille - 2 Miles From Naphto Beach

Tranquille once had a population of six thousand, including the farmers on surrounding properties and the fisherfolk who trawled the waves off Naphto beach, hoisting their catches up the cliffs on ingenious pully systems before spending the night on the peaceful sands, gazing up at the stars. Once the war began, as the Kreig spearhead rolled relentlessly over Aquiteaux's resistance, the population expanded somewhat - at the extreme west of the continent, there was no where for the people to run; and a healthy number of refugees had fled into the region ahead of the tide of iron. When the Kreigers came and made occupation, the refugees dispersed but the presence of occupying military kept the population high, the supply priority up, and the trade remarkably healthy for those folks who had not, on principle, refused to engage in merchant activities with the dour and dominating peoples of the Vult empire.

When Albinon entered the war in earnest, the population dipped down again. Dogfights over the channel regularly resulted in bombing punching through on one side; and easilly fifty percent of the significant structures in Tranquille have blasted out sides, shattered roofs, blacked and burned interiors or, at worst, unexploded ordinance awaiting the inattentive approach of future casualties.

Now, with the seizure of Naphto beach and the full retreat of the occupying Kreig forces, the population of the town has ballooned back to around its starting level, less a few hundred civilian casualties of Amcaran and Albinonese bombing, plus a few hundred refugees flooding back into the last free patch of land on the western end of the Old World.

And of course, plus several thousand Amcaran foot-sloggers, diesel-jockeys, fly-girls and Skyknives.

With most of the invasion force bivouacked in and around the towns and farms, rapidly dispersing into new objectives across the countryside, Echo Company enjoys a few days of respite. Some of it is general rest and recoup after a job well done; some of it is because of the grim reality that so many of the Skyknife companies fared so badly in the face of the highly disrupted drop that drastic re-organization is required.

The casualty list for Echo Company, 3rd Platoon is grim enough on its own. First squad suffered catastrophically, being first out of the plane and in many cases being blown directly into the midst of the entrenched and aware enemies, with only Catchell and Monroe ending up with relatively safe landings outside of a hot zone. But no squad got out unscathed.

Spoiler: Casualties.

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	1st Squad	2nd Squad	3rd Squad
	Sgt. Nikolai Farley (KIA)	Sgt. Ladaran "Xilo" Xiloscient	Sgt. Alston Hillfield (MIA)
	Cpl. Spade (KIA)	Cpl. John Falcon (MIA)	Cpl. Eugene "Wolf" Vognar
	Pvt Ssassten Monroe (WIA)	Pvt. James O'Hara Jr	Pvt. Thaddeus "Doc" Helmholtz
	Pvt. Jason Catchell (WIA)	Pvt. Bruce Gamble (WIA)	Pvt. Salamir "Sal" Malichinni
	Pvt. Deliandi Jukbar (KIA)	Pvt. Gabriel Ginger	Pvt. K'Ral Burnfaire
	Pvt. Kruz Brassbeard (KIA)	Pvt. Jukebox (WIA)	Pvt. Jenya Moore (MIA)
	Pvt. Omniel Madan (KIA)	Pvt. Kuzzank Stronghunter	Pvt. Lynnova Xenyss
	Pvt. Harvey "Creed" Douglas (MIA)	Pvt. Enshun Xanderthrax	Pvt. Brikenya McCleod
	Pvt. Marguerite Curry (KIA)	Pvt. Hector Longfoot	Pvt. Tarron Chaegwyn (WIA)
	Pvt. Gladys Hayden (WIA)	Pvt. Xu Nandreth	Pvt. Tristain Ordo (WIA)
	Lt. Temperance Bathory	Spl. Vivienne Pierce (WIA)

Most platoons fared better. Some never made it off their planes. But with such dramatic reshuffling of resources, the fighting-fit survivors are rearranged into two newly minted squads. Lt. Bathory is peeled off to lead Fourth Squad, with Pvts Nandreth, Longfoot, Xanderthrax, Stronghunter, McCleod and Xenyss, with the newly promoted Cpl O'Hara. Expectations are she'll raise some NCO's, then form another squad from injured soldiers as the recover and return to the field.

Fifth Squad is assembled mostly from the soldiers who acted with outstanding instinct and ferocity during the initial assault. Pvts Ginger, Burnfaire, Malichinni and Helmholtz form the core of the compact Fifth Squad; led by the now Sgt. Vognar, and under the competent direction of Lt Xiloscient; one of a host of field commendations rolling out through the division after the disastrous first victory of the Skyknives. A host of recommendations for specific medals and recognitions are being processed through a bottleneck of other command decisions - perhaps, later, people will understand and recognize the nightmare the soldiers had to fight through. Perhaps they never will.

The operations centre for the invasion force has taken over the battered town square. Operation Command is set up in what in better times was a town hall; the impressive remnants of a building that was once the lower floor of the military fort of the ancient empire preceding the modern age, revamped for modern life; battered by explosions; revamped again for military function.

The Field Hospital is operating in a near-miraculously untouched convent if the Sisters of Sunlight; a Pelorite order who, up until recently, had operated for five hundred years without a man - atleast, an unordained one - setting foot inside their consecrated buildings. Now, they have thrown open their doors; and the wounded from Naphto make appreciative use of their hospitality.

The Mess was once a swanky little U shaped hotspot of cafes and regional fine dining. Half of those establishments have been smashed to rubble or looted to uselessness by the fleeing Kreigers, but the chefs and staff have banded together into a force devoted to a task more herculean than the seizing of the beach itself. Their mission: Make Army Food Edible.

The Greasepit, more formally the Motor Pool, is an open air, tarpaulin littered field next to the commandeered Krieger airstrip, on the edge of the town proper. It's a bit of a hoof from the centre of operations, but one can hardly have a constant stream of suffering and straining war vehicles peeling through the centre of the poor town, and relegating them further afield, near where allied planes now land and take off in organized, unharassed fashion, seems appropriate. A core of engineers work around the clock to get the mechanical veterans of the Naphto landing functional again.

The Munitions Office manages the several munition dumps around the town, and keeps them organized and meticulously documented to resource squads as needed. A stream of polite soldiers enter, and a stream of cussing, irritated ones leave - grenades, weasels, and other highly desired war kit are being dispensed judiciously, or else not available for resupply at all; and the logistics officers are unthreatened princes of their petty domain. Only very canny soldiers walk away with everything they came for; and more than one has left bewildered at how he managed to have equipment confiscated instead of acquired.

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc spends most of his time at the Field Hospital, putting in long hours in the OR and doing rounds of the makeshift wards. The familiarity soothes him somewhat after the hellscape the company has been through. However, his ministrations to the wounded (special attention given to Private Monroe) and the opportunity to practice his l'aquitaire to bandy surprisingly saucy jokes with the Sisters, do little so assuage his guilt though. Guilt both for the wounds he failed to heal and those he was forced to inflict for the first time in his life.

Each night some kind soul or other scrapes him off the floor of the mess or a nearby alley, where he has self medicating with something that only the very charitable (or those rom Albinon) with ever call wine.

[Continental Op]

Unless the newly-minted Lieutenant has other orders for him, Wolf spends some time visiting Monroe and Catchell at the hospital and tries to re-outfit the squad at the munititions office. But most of his time is spent at the mess hall. Wolf has no real skill at cooking but he loves eating, so he is very motivated to help make the meals better. He is willing to scavenge through the rubble for extra ingredients, or offer his (probably unhelpful and unwanted) memories of his gran's cooking to the harassed chefs.

Edit: And if Wolf sees Doc one night, he tries to help him. "Woah, Doc, you have nothing to feel guilty about. You saved a bunch of lives already and from what I can see you are saving more every day. You didn't ask for this war but you are doing a damn fine job helping people through it." The next morning he adds, "Doc, if you can take a little advice, the bottle doesn't help you sleep. Just focus on your patients. We have 90 yards left before we reach the end zone, this is too early to get into bad habits."

Spoiler: OOC

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What gear is the squad missing? Mostly grenades and healing kits, right? Do we have a radio operator?

[JbeJ275]

After a disasterous expedition where Sal almost set the munitions office on fire in a dispute over construct parts to replace those worn out on the beach Salamir has mostly been elbows deep in the greasepit. It's a return to form for him as he chats to the other grease rats, trainworkers being more common among them than anyone else. He spends long hours there, most of the way inside some behemoth of an engine or another and stumbles back barely awake and mumbling about fuel compression.
,
He's avoided the field hospital apart from one private talk with Catchell, and only heads towards command to ask if there's any news about Sergant Hillfield. More worrying he seems to fill with nervous energy day by day, being interrupted once when he was most of the way to accepting a drunken bet regarding a barn lacking a roof due to unexploded ordiance now lying in haystack.

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger
After attempting to acquire supplemental explosives several times without specific need, has been temporarily banned from the munitions office. Correspondingly he has taken to going on long walks looking for and collecting unexploded ordinance.

[Waistcoatwill]

Doc may or may not have heard Wolf's kind words as the shifter carried him back to their bunks, but the small halfling form was definitely snoring into Wolf's shoulder by the time they got there.

The next morning Thaddeus appears in the mess bleary eyed as ever, putting the final touches to another horrendous make-shift hangover cure.

Oofeugh....that's the stuff...cough...that's better.

Some colour has returned to Doc's face and his bloodshot eyes are lost in though for a moment.

Ever heard the phrase "Primum non nocere?"

He takes a breath, almost like he was about to explain, but seems to think better of it when there isn't a spark of instant recognition from the new Sarge.

Hey, never mind that anyway. You know, booze actually does help you sleep, it just ain't as good quality or for as long. But who the heck is getting their eight hours round here anyway, am I right? It's more of a hobby than a habit at this point anyway, but it got me through med school and it'll get me through this.

[MrAbdiel]

(OOC Note: These are scenes all happening roughly contemporaneously, but they're not private content; feel free to read them all, I just like using spoilers to organize. Greasepit for Sal, Unexploded Ordinance Treasure Hunt for Ginger, and Command Tent for Xilo to come hopefully tomorrow.)

Spoiler: Field Hospital

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The Field Hospital

The sisters should have expected it. They had allowed themselves to be lured in with the unusually meandering build up; and four young women in their no-longer-pristine white habits with yellow trim lean in, wimples bumping at the flared edges as they crowd to the halfling's tale. Then comes the punchline - an invitation for both the rube in the story, and by extension the rubes listening to the story now, to consider that if they think the story is long, then...
The sisters scatter like pigeons, in a flutter of overstarched linens and unappreciative scoffs. All but Sister Adelaide, a rivergnome lass with a more versatile sense of humor, but the good sense to hide her smile and not laugh out loud. She leans in to chastise, with no chastening in her voice. "Monsieur Thaddeus, you must stop zis! You are going to get men banned from ze grounds again after proving the Sister Superior right about zem!" She makes a smacking gesture, possibly the most aggression of which she is capable; and it's not alot, because it's targeted at the air a few inches from the ribald halfling's shoulder. Perhaps she means only to convey the idea of physical reprimand? Either way, she flutters off after that delay, falling in with the bouncing catch-up strides which all smalls are familiar with laboring to make.

The other two members of Doc's audience are in no position to escape; though they wouldn't if they had the option. In the bed to the right of the stool on which the medic perches is a huge iron cylinder resting on its side and built into the recovery bed's frame; with Catchell's pale head poking out of a rubber membrane at one end, resting on a pillow. Another membrane at the other end is pulled out, then let to relax at regular intervals; and the pressure changes cause the soldier's lungs to inflate and settle. All this mechanical motion is acheived by virtue of a bound work spirit, a tough little formless elemental conjoured by certain clerics for just such purposes. The magical motor of the machine hums along; loud enough to be obvious all through the room, subtle enough to be tuned out for folk to sleep. Catchell has no trouble sleeping; he looks perpetually exhausted now, because - Sister Adelaide had told Doc - he kept waking up gasping in his sleep, his body's natural rhythms troublingly insufficient for the task of breathing now. The wretched gas has thrashed his lungs, and he possesses now maybe one third the respiratory function of a healthy man. The act of breathing deep enough exhausts him; and the machine takes enough of that work that he is not doomed to die of exhaustion in his sleep. He sleeps a lot, now that the machine helps him out.

On the left of the stool is Monroe's bed; the lizardman offering some valiant brightness for the various visits he's received. His bare torso has many places where the black scales have been ripped away, featuring grey skin and pink scar tissue in a stitched and healing constellation of toothmarks, and claw-grooves. His left arm is bandaged almost completely to the shoulder. The smell has been mitigated by the judicious use of some Gentle Repose spells, but as Doc predicted, there is no saving the limb. Now that a backlog of triage has been manage, the sisters and the army medical corps have slated his amputation for tonight.

His lizard mouth, not really able to form a smile or frown, goes a long way to hide the anxiety that Doc can easily detect in him.

"They ssay there'ss a twenty five percssent chancsse that it will regrow all the way to the fingerss... Lizard blood, you know...? But no garaunteess. It iss what it iss." His weird, side-blinking eyes flutter closed and open a few times; extra blinks required for some reason just now. He moves on. "But it'll be a while before I'm ready to pitch back in for the Sskyknivess, however I can." Then, conspiratorially... "...Is Ssalamir alright? He vissited Catchell oncsse, and sseemed... off."

Spoiler: The Mess

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Sgt. Vognar has had a hell of a time wrestling with the bean counters over at munitions. It's easy enough to get bullets - bullets are cheap and plentiful. But with the ongoing reshuffle of Echo Company and much of the Skyknives in general, discretionary dispensation of Weasels, Behirs explosives broadly seems to be bloody impossible. He manages to finagle a total of two frag grenades out of them, after great argumentation, with the unhelpful advice offered along with them: Just use the Kreiger grenades you pick up in the field, for gods' sake. They've got plenty of them, atleast. Least they can offer us for all the trouble of coming over here.

But his experience at the Mess has been much more positive. Monsieur Barbe-épicée, the self declared leader of the volunteer cooks at the Mess, has accepted the sergeant's help in Le Projet. He is irritable and particular; but so are most dwarves, and Wolf is used to being harangued in this way by the now missing Sgt. Hillfield. The monsieur, in turn, is pleased to have a helper around who understands his flares of temper and long strings of overwrought swearing are not personal; and soon enough the red bearded dwarf, who speaks almost no common, welcomes him every time he swings by with a flapping of arms and an urgency of gesture, gabbling out his needs in a now mutually understood pidgin.

Pvt Lynnova Xenyss was once part of 3rd Squad with Wolf; now she's slated for 4th Squad, in the reshuffle. The petite drowess spent most of Naphto advancing with Sgt. Nikolai Farley of 1st Squad, behind a waterlogged, groaning tank about a hundred meters up the beach from where Xilo's Psychos (a name that is unfortunately catching on) made their wild push. Wolf knows her to be dependable and softspoken; 3rd squad's best shot at night (with the exception, possibly, of K'ral), and its worst in daylight. Right now, she's just the latest grateful beneficiary of Le Projet, coming back for seconds to clear our the trays as the lunch crowd peels away to briefings, training, and various tasks.

"Damn if this isn't the best I've eaten since we joined the war, Wolf. Honestly, maybe before that for some time, too. There's not much of a Little Underdark district up in Great Harbor; hard to get real deep mushrooms that aren't sunblanched to start with, so what passes as home cooking is... Well. It's bad." She holds out her plate for another ladle's bounty of gravy, over her dish. "There's still no word on Sergeant Hillfield, or Moore. I keep trying to get a pass to go look myself, but no dice. And there's good news for Ordo, who seems to be recovering well considering how well stabbed he got. Bad for Chaegwyn. The sisters dodge all my questions about his recovery options. That's how you know it's bad. Might die in the field hospital on the other side of the world. How sad is that..?"

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: The Greasepit

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"No one can deny Sparky's effectiveness, Sal; but you're blind to your own genius. Even if the little blighters were mass produced - and that's a big if, because I can't begin to guess what exotic components you have whirling around in its cognition core - they'd still need an engineer of your calibre to keep them from breaking down after the opening volleys of a firefight. Sparky's great because you made it great. Until they can crank out eccentric machine-prodigy hellions from an assembly line, we're out of luck."

The dainty boots belonging to the giver of this grim if flattering assessment poke out from beneath the chassis of a jeep, under the shade of one tarp-shaded outdoor workshop of many on runway one. This first runway having been mangled by allied bombing was rendered useless for allied aircraft to take off or land; but there's plenty of patchy tarmac for ground vehicles to go in for their important surgeries before they, like their drivers, are flung back into the storm of war. The air is filled with the sound of grinding, welding, revving; punctuated with the occasional rough but effecting thump-thump of percussive maintenance, all tied together into an industrious symphony with the sonorous staccato whining of impact wrenches. To many, such a clamor would be hell on earth. To some hellions, it may well be heaven. Sal has been able to spend scads of time here at the Greastpit.
There's no hard shortage of mechanics and field engineers, but Salamir was tapped for the Skyknives because of his excellence, and few of the other hands here are precious enough to turn down such an assistance. Between hopping on the latest Kyton pattern recovery tank, hauling the warped carcass of one vehicle or another out to the airfield and catching a ride back into town on the back of one purring refurbished truck or another, he's had the opportunity to work on cars, trucks, tanks, and an Albinonese Raziel fighter-bomber that for some bloody reason just wouldn't spin back up after its last flight.

It's still not working right; but it's been spared the fate of being rendered for parts by the intervening plea of another top-end mechanical specialist: Gloria Mayfair. Effortlessly elegant starlette of the moving pictures, having begun as a child performer, she survived the transition of the medium from movie to movie with sound; a type of art that is very pleased to have an actress of such a mellifluous, smoky contralto; and with the authentic refinement of her native Albinonese accent to boot. She might have been find had the movies stayed silent, however; she is gorgeous. Startlingly gorgeous. Confusingly gorgeous, in a way that is almost disorienting for those susceptible to feminine charm until a few rounds of meeting her have sufficiently built up their baseline immunity. A famous photograph of the Aasimar emotionally farewelling her two brothers as they boarded the H.M.S. Myrmidon, a month before the battleship was lost with all hands in the Battle of Claxby Bay. After that, she apparently felt no choice but to sign up herself; and forsaking the morale boosting events the crown was carefully shuttling her to and from to survive the Blackening (the sustained air raids of Albinon with such sorties of enemy planes as to blacken the sky), she took up the tools of her father and demanded deployment. Fearing the possibility that the tabloid darling would wind up dead or captured, her handlers managed to restrain her until Naphto was secured.
But she showed up on the first supply plane to the captured airstrip, and has been a fixture of the Greasepit ever since. With golden curls restrained in an almost blasphemously pragmatic bun and ivory skin that shows every smudge and smear of dust and grease clearly, she has displayed a previously unknown technical talent, as well as an intuitive capacity to boss around the other grease rats without anyone actually feeling bossed around as much as talked to by Gloria Mayfair!.

The boots under the jeep scuff at the ground as Gloria rolls the mechanic's creeper out from under the chassis so she can look Salamir in the eye. Her sleeves are rolled up, and she tosses aside a ratchet for a welding torch, squeezing its pump handle a few times to agitate the fire spirit within to the appropriate blue flame.

There is a joke hovering in the air somewhere, nearby; something about her spending so much time on her back, or hey, while you're down there; the kind of off color japes that either establish a tone to which a whole crew adapts, or reveal that this is not that kind of crew.
So far, no one has attempted to harness that joke and fling it at the celebrity Aasimar, likely for fear of crashing and burning in the effort. The whole operation at runway one, since her arrival, has become obscenely well behaved.

"Want to get under here with me for a spell, Salamir? I could use a fireproof hand on this cracked axel for a minute."

Spoiler: Treasure Hunting

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Picking through the shattered remnants of the blasted elements of Tranquille is a daunting task, but someone has to do it. There is supply, in there; as well as the occasional survivor trapped under rubble (ironically caused by the air raids that liberated the town).
But Pvt Ginger knows those are secondary priorities, right now. Well - survivors are obviously a top priority. But what he's interested in is the unexploded ordinance present hither and yon throughout the town. And strictly speaking, this task is one that should belong to a subset of the engineer corps. But their solution is typically to explode the unexploded ordnance, and the building it's in; why should these poor people suffer more damage than they already had, to their homes and livelihoods? And if Echo Company ends up with a little more firepower to bring to the Vult for their trouble, who is harmed?

It's a fair question. Especially since Gabriel is one of those specialists who has both the technical expertise to disarm ordnance, and the magical expertise to do it from thirty feet away. In this side task, Gabriel has two allies. The first is Pvt K'Ral Burnfaire; the Eladrin scout similarly skilled as Gabriel, and known in Echo Company as second-to-none in his navigation talents and recall of the manifold maps of the operation areas over which the bombing sorties were run. He very quickly has a knowledge of the town's layout that is as detailed as the local's, and is the friend-of-choice when performing feats of urban sneaking, salvaging and occasionally deception.

The other ally is Timéo, a local human boy of about ten who seems to have a good deal of information about places to scavenge, and is happy to be paid in pilfered pumpkin and buttermilk scones that are judiciously smuggled out from the Mess. He has the same battered, dusty, and yet dignified look of most of the locals of Tranquille; and is pleasantly upfront about his origins, in his thickly accented common.

"Actually, I was already an orphan before the Kreigers got here. Eet ees funny, yes? Before zis, I 'ad no 'ome and only one pair of pants. Now I sleep in a different bed every night, and I 'ave zix pairs of pants 'idden under my favorite one. Bed, I mean, not pants. I wish zey 'adn't come and zat noone 'ad dropped all zese bombs - it was very scary - but since zey did, I might as well get new pants. 'Ey! Zis one!"

The lil'est war profiteer, having led the two rogues over a heap of brick and beams that was once some manner of pub, points from the vantage of the ruinous hilltop down to a squat civilian home that backs on to the ruin, whose back fence has been smashed by the collapse of the pub's back wall, but whose general structure seems largely intact. Except, tellingly, that the roof is partly caved in from a heavy impact, and remarkably unexploded. "In zere. I saw zis one hit, myself; but no boom. Monsieur Dorreaux lives zere; but I 'ave not seen him. 'E left ze day before ze bombing started, but 'e is not in there. I checked. Now I 'ave 'is 'at." He pats the flat topped, paperboy style hat on his head; its slight oversize now explained. "Do you need, ah, ah... a wheelbarrow? To take ze bomb away?"

Spoiler: Operation Command

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The interior of the command 'bunker' is a beautiful collision of history. There is some mililtary gear - radios, maps, cases of supply - that is Amcaran made and stencilled so on army-green surfaces, manufactured in the last year and dragged in recently to establish the HQ. Then there's the beams and woodwork of the interior, which seems to have been installed by the locals as part of a restoration project for the fort maybe forty years ago. But some of the surviving furniture, the fireplace, the sconces, bear the grace and quality of the old Aquiteaux Imperia, before the social upheaval known as la tourmente, and the staggering, stumbling, bloody start to the Republique du Aquiteaux. Some powdered noble might very well have been lounging upon that stylish lounge, before they were dragged out by the ankles hand hanged in the streets.
And while the Aquiteauans were tearing themselves apart, far across the ocean, the Parliment of Princes was ratifying the Compact, confirming the Princedoms' fidelity to one another and birthing a new world while the old bled, and wilted. There was history here, as old Amcara was as a nation; and much older. The fort itself was once one of the westmost defensive hardpoints of the Natio Draconem, the old Half-Dragon empire that sprawled wide and proud two thousand years ago before buckling in on itself. The Dragonato of Verati had seized power of their own nation around the time the Vult had ascended in theirs, and were conducting their own parallel invasions in hopes of regaining some sniff of the glory of that ancient time. But by all accounts, the Dragonborn families of Verati had produced a much inferior partner to the Vult, and Amcaran marines had been handilly tossing them off one island after another if the newsreels were to be believed. History in the wood, and in the stones. The space, itself, seemed to demand deference.

Lieutenant Xiloscient had the priveledge of being within that storied building for his first briefing as a commissioned officer. The room buzzed with the activity of officers, like himself; a healthy preponderance of Second and First Lieutenants like himself and Bathory respectively, a tapering handful of Captains, two Majors, and atleast theoretically, a Colonel; though Tatterfield's authority was towering, his stature was not, and it was impossible to spot him in a room packed with bigs. First Lieutenant Temperance Bathory, Xilo's superior by degree now rather than by kind, is no help in this regard; not quite five feet tall herself, the Dhampir is almost as short as the gnomish and halfling officers. But she has kept true to an earlier promise to not abandon him as he is flung into the challenging world of upper command without the benefit of formal academy training, and the interminable vastness of meetings, and briefings, and catch-ups, and pow-wows that officer-culture entails. "Smart money is on us all being shoved east good and hard. If we can keep the Vult retreating in poor order, we can keep on them all the way across the continent. But when we stop to let them catch their breath, the whole thing slows to a typical Old Kingdoms war-crawl. There's no helping it after something like Naphto; but if the gods permit to smile, that's the worst we'll have to deal with."

The 1LT's sentiment was a common one from officers and enlisted men alike. The blooding had been bad at Naphto; and now those with legs still under them were eager to run down and punish those responsible. Still, it was hard to hope things would go smoothly from hereon out with the only operation performed so far being so... unsmooth.

Through the sea of gossiping officers comes a familiar form - the elven grace of Captain Longsummer, left arm in a sling, but undiminished in spirit. She smiles faintly, at Xilo; this expression of quiet pleasedness perhaps a hard ceiling on her positive display, and more valuable for it. It's the same expression she wore when she surprised him with his field commission, the evening of the day after Naphto.

"Lieutenant Bathory; Lieutenant Xiloscient. I'm glad we've been able to peel you away from 3rd Platoon, for a little while. If I may, let me introduce you to Colonel Tatterfield..."

Stepping out of the wake the elegant elfess carved in the crowd, Colonel Tatterfield is exactly what one might expect a gnomish colonel to be. A compact commander with crisp lines at the edges of his uniform (possibly accentuated by some tasteful cosmetic illusion?) a thin but sufficient crest of iron-grey hair parted sharply on the left, and a thick, curled moustache that he might care for more than he cares for his grandchildren. His copper rimmed pince-nez valiantly grips the flanks of his profound nose. Bathory has met him, of course; but Xilo's only foggy memory of the man is the top of his head bouncing along in the passenger seat of a jeep zipping by, one day back in training. The formal saluting for such a meeting long dealt with, he is free to thrust out his little hand to shake first Bathory's, then Xilo's. "Lieutenant Xiloscient! Let me extend first my congratulations on your promotion, and thanks for the actions that earned it. Gond-damn if there aren't a lot of men out there in the tents tonight that owe you their lives; and a lot in here who owe you atleast the cost of a washcloth to get the egg off our faces. Temperance - " He gestures to the 1LT, apparently confortable with first names at their level of association, "-says you're just about the most natural field commander she's seen, and that the beach-bound element of 3rd Platoon pulled through because of you most of all. You never expect it from enlisted men, but it's my favourite kind of surprised. What's your background, son?"

[JbeJ275]

Spoiler: Greasepit

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"Hey Miss Mayfair, I'm just saying putting on in the landing craft or the trasport planes can carry on of the damn things. Even if most of the corps can't get a handheld working through a firefight. Besides, they got to have something in Albion to turn a starlet into a mechanic this good quickly as they did, share your secrets there and I'll give you plenty of Yankee Hellions with the tricks of the trade."

Having long since been through the arguments about retrofitting and timetables with both Gloria and every other brain willing to talk to him on base Sal forsook and further words on the subject, instead he continued to fiddle with a pressure gague and a series of tubes leading into the jeep before Gloria asked for his help.

"Would be a plesure, let's see if we can't get it back in one piece.

With that he descended under the jeep himself, bought his hands to his lips and jokingly sparked up an illumination fire between his teeth as he helped work on the cracked axle.

Tinker Tools Check: (1d20+11)[15]

[Cavir]

Ladaran Xiloscient, elven warrior

Once the relief forces arrived to take control of the enemy command center and prisoners, Sgt Xilo focused on the wounded. He didn't have the medical skills needed, but he had some rank in a sea of chaos from heavy losses, units getting all split up, remaining enemy resistance, and higher commands focused on their own missions to create order for a new command center. These skyknives not only won the day but they had helped him survive the slaughter fest. Anything Doc needed to keep the others alive became Xilo's sole mission, which then became the sole mission of those in the unit still mobile and with the skills of "discovering" supplies amidst all the chaos. They weren't going to lose any more of their numbers that day. They didn't.

The next day Tranquille became a giant bee hive. A different kind of chaos. No blood being freshly spilt by the enemy but there were still the occasional troops getting injured, maimed, or even killed as will happen when massive amounts of troops, vehicles, and equipment were being moved in every direction as chaos still reigned. Echo Company escaped those duties short of setting up their own quarters. There were plenty of grunts for the logistics symphony going on.

That evening after chow Captain Longsummer called the company together outside of the Sisters of Sunlight convent. Here at least most of the wounded of the company would be able to look out the window to watch. Lt. Bathory was called up to front and center, who in turn called Pvt. James O'Hara Jr to front and center for his promotion to corporeal. O'Hara returned to formation followed by Sgt Xilo being called up. Xilo assumed he was getting a rocker added. He was proven quite wrong when he had a butter bar pinned on. Lt Xilo was then given his first task, to promote his new 2nd in command, Sgt Eugene "Wolf" Vognar. Captain Longsummer then gave out the new organization of 4th and 5th squads.

After formation and the numerous congratulations, Sgt Vognar was informed of his task to keep 5th squad out of major trouble while the new LT had to tend to other duties.

In the ancient town hall for the big operational briefing, Xilo was in a sea of officers. He wasn't as lost as most anyone else would be who had just made the jump from NCO to officer. He grew up in elven nobility though he didn't let it be known. He figured Captain Longsummer could read more into his elven upbringing than she let on. He was very much looking forward to seeing the bigger picture. He had been expecting to be raiding across the countryside with limited intel at this point but the enemy druids changed all that.

Captain Longsummer arrived with Colonel Tatterfield. Xilo kept to proper etiquette, shaking the Col's small but powerful hand when offered.

"Thank you sir. I am from the White Mountains. Spent many years training with weapons of all sorts. I have always had an interest in tactics and strategy. I look forward to the situational update and next phase plans."

[Continental Op]

At the mess hall:

Wolf is content at the Mess to do his part and learn a bit from Barbe. It's nice being part of something good. And Barbe's just a kinder, gentler version of Wolf's grandmother, who used to grow fangs and bite him at the slightest provocation (or for no reason at all, in Wolf's memory).

At Xyness's question, Wolf grimaces and shakes his head. "Yeah. Going slow like that...and I've not known penguins to be all that gentle. Hey, if you want I could put in a word with Doc--you know, Helmholtz--and see if he knows anything about Chaegwyn. I've got to do the rounds and check in with the squad later anyway."

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger

K'ral and I have this little buddy. By the sound of your tale, it looks like we might be looking at an E101 "Raindrop", I do not think we will want to be carrying it by anything other than magic.

To Kral
Lets get eyes on this baby, so we can give the kid his coin.

[Waistcoatwill]

Ma sœur Adelaide, as you well know guys and dames are pretty alike. Do you think the Mother Superior is any different? She surrounds her self with masseurs and makes you call her Mommy, think about it

He smiles after her as she leaves, she's the best nurse here. Technically she's great, but she also knows how to play the game, keep the babter going, don't let the team think harder than they need to about what they're doing. Without her he wouldn't be able to keep up his usual bedside manner with the boys.

Hey Catchell, these sisters are a real gas, am I right? Now you just keep resting up and taking it easy and you'll be chasing them round before you know it.

His smile almost falters listening to Monroe, but he does his best to bluster on through.

That's right, we've got a good team here including the sisters. We're going to give you every chance of being in that 25%. The sisters ain't in the habit of letting people down and neither am I.

He passes for a second.

Despite being a midtowner, I don't think Sal is either. He'll be working hard, trying to help things so he can do more next time. Who knows what that creepy spider of his will be able to do next? Now get some rest, I've got to finish my rounds and get another case done before I'm coming back this evening.

[PartyOfRogues]

”Alright, time to see what we’re working with.”

K’ral climbs onto the roof of the building and peers through the hole caused by the fallen explosive

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: Field Hospital

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Monroe lifts his remaining hand as Doc rises to leave him with his encouragements; holding up thumb and small finger extended and pointing upward - a strange short-hand his lipless people use to convey cues for the unscaled. This is a smile - and the tired extension of those fingers carries the same telling sense of shallowness that a faint, thin smile would on another man. Catchell has a lot to be not-happy about; but he does seem appreciative. Doc's positivity, however futile it may seem to him, carries value; as does the revolving visitation of the other Skyknives who fought the dragon, cracked the Defiant wall. He is unlikely to have his arm back, and his life will not be normal; but the halfling medic is left with a strong sense that despite all that, he will be okay.

The same can not be said for Pvt Chaegwyn, whose state is more presently complicated.

Spoiler: Flash...

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

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

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

"Monsieur Thaddeus!"

Sister Adelaide's wail cuts through the thrum of chatter and machines in the room. The rivergnome, and a pair of the other Sisters of Sunlight, are gathered around a bed at the extreme end of the hall. The lines between army doctor, civilian nurse, and field medic are blurred almost to the point of uselessness even this early in the campaign, but her cry suggests something is happening beyond her ken to resolve.

In the bed is Pvt Tarron Chaegwyn; the strawy haired half-elf with the wild tattoos up his arms, who had been so ready for the first dance after hitting the ground with Marguerite Curry. But Marguerite was dead, now; a casualty of the jump's disastrous execution. And Tarron, who had ended up on the beach by himself in a sea of grunts he didn't know, had done his level best to push up the beach in hopes to reunite with his unit, only to take eight pieces of shrapnel in the torso when a Kreig ground-pounder smashed a tank to his right. The surgeons had removed four peices of Amcaran battle tank steel and two pieces of Krieger scrap-iron from him, after the battle; two were deemed so close to his heart that removing them was far too risky until he was shipped home to more sophisticated equipment and specialists. He had been battling infection valiantly, mostly winning, sometimes losing. But now something else was happening entirely.

The sisters strain to hold his arms at his sides, as his legs begin to thrash; and Doc gets to the bedside just in time for the pain to overwhelm the private's restraint. The battle for Naphto beach is over, and the enemy is retreated; but even here, even now, someone is screaming, and maybe dying right infront of him. A pair of white doves, roosting in the rafters as a kind of pleasant omen of peace, are so startled by the sudden clamour that they trill and take flight, scattering a few downing white feathers to the floor below.

Something is swelling, pushing up at the skin near Pvt Tarron Chaegwyn's heart; certainly, near where those two pieces of shrapnel lay with damoclesian warning.

"Somezing is wrong, Thaddeus! Ze shrapnel - it's killing him!"

From across the room, sitting up in his own bed, Ordo catches on to the happening. One of the few patients with the power to assist, he lifts a hand and utters a word of celestial that creates a flicker of healing light. For a moment, Chaegwyn seems to calm - but whatever relief the spell provided doesn't seem to take.

Spoiler: Trauma for the Trauma Surgeon

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Time to suffer for my narrative amusement more, Thaddeus. Make me a Medicine check. The extraordinary nature of this medical happening means you're going to have disadvantage on the roll - but you have assistance from Sister Adelaide, so you're rolling flat. The DC is 20, to save Chaegwyn's life - but getting over 12 will yield certain results that are not unhelpful in a longer sense. Good luck!

Spoiler: The Mess

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"That'd be swell, Wolf. I know the all the integrated saw-bones' are flat-out working putting people together. The medics who duck in to lend a hand might be about all the flexibility there can be that isn't just... you know, cold, war-winning math. Who's most valuable."

The drow gives a smile she doesn't seem to be really feeling as she turns away, tray in hand, preparing to leave Wolf, and the hard working volunteers at La Projet, to close up and clean up. She wheels back, a few paces out.

"...Wolf... Do you think this is worth it? Coming over here, fighting people we don't know for other people we don't know in a country we don't know?"

It's a question that has been asked a lot, and will continue to be asked in various forms well after the war's conclusion. How much spilled Amcaran blood is are the old, mad, fractious kingdoms worth? A great many of the people Pvt Xenyss trained with and came to know and perhaps even love are maimed, vanished, or dead now. She is discouraged. Perhaps she has good reason to be.

Spoiler: OOC

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If Wolf wants to try to encourage, empathise, or whip-into-shape the slowly deflating private, he may select a skill that is at least in some way appropriate to his approach. He can have advantage on the roll, because the good food is a small relief that predisposes the private to hear him out.

Spoiler: The Greasepit

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Sal's hands, made to work, snake inbetween the machinery and brace the crack; and Miss Mayfair angles the welding flame through. Less infernally blooded hands would be blistered and burned for the experience; but a Hellion's hands are merely warmed. In a few minutes, they have the weld set; and she seems satisfied.

"You're a handy lad to have around, Salmarir. If it were possible to run off a production like of Yankee Hellions like yourself, I expect the war would be over very soon indeed."

This ominous praise is immediately followed by a gabble of amazement and technical jargon from the other mechanics in the Greasepit; and both tiefling and aasimar are compelled to skate out from beneath their recent repair job, and see what the fuss is.

A heavy hauler's diesel motor squeals as it strains to haul the carcass of a Kreiger tank into one of the empty bays. It is banged and battered, but in reasonably good nick; stained on one side with a streak of blood suggesting a crew-kill. What's interesting about it is that it's too heavy and obviously wrongly styled to be a Verschiebenier light panzer variant; and too long, and heavily armoured on the rear to share any design philosophy with the common Säbelzahn heavy tanks that sheared through the Old Kingdoms and led to the current occupation. In fact, it doesn't seem to map to any panzer pattern any of the engineers was briefed on - a weirdly unique creation, in the first war backed by assembly lines of steel and diesel.

"...What the bloody hell are we looking at...?" Miss Mayfair wonders aloud; and the throng of engineers, mechanics and grease monkeys don't seem to have an answer.

"No clue, lady." The dwarven driver of the heavy-hauler swings down from his rig, and begins disconnecting the chains from the sled-board responsible for getting the killed tank this far. "But I figure you've all got about fifteen minutes before the boys from Quiet Operations come and black box it. Can someone sign?"

He flaps around a clip board, and Gloria signs for it distractedly. Her attention, like everyone else's, is fixed to the enigma lying wrecked before them.

Spoiler: Mechanical Autopsy

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I'm going to want an Investigation Check, and a Tinker's Tool's check. The first is with advantage, because Sal's got Gloria's help. The second he will have to make unassisted - only one hand can hold a screwdriver at a time.

Spoiler: Investigation DC 10

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The armor is heavy tank thick. It looks like it was only stopped because a lucky AT round happed to hammer right into the nadir of a dent made by atleast two previous rounds; and the hit killed the engine, and followed through to some of the crew. Under normal conditions, you'd expect this vehicle to soak up a hell of a lot of anti-tank fire.

Spoiler: Investigation DC 15

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There are no part numbers on this machine. This is a prototype, part of some Kreigvolk engineer's magnum opus, not yet dissected by a team and put into production. It's possible that it just happened to be here when the invasion began, and was killed trying to escape.

Spoiler: Investigation 20

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This machine is so... strange. It's perfectly functional as a machine on its own, heavily armored with a light cannon turret. But there are articulated joints where there don't need to be, on a tank; and the thick panelling on the back of machine is grooved and studded in a way that reminds you off a shoe's tread.
In fact, you suspect that if the front plates weren't so warped and banged, if you could pry them off, you'd find not just an engine but a series of sockets and cable connectors...

It's not just a machine. It's part of a machine.

Spoiler: Tinker's Tools DC 10

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You manage to pop open some panels on the turret, and poke around within. Your suspicions are correct- they've isolated the ammunition for the turret within the turret itself, reducing the lethality of possible ammo explosions to the crew. Something Amcaran engineers haven't been able to work into their designs, yet.

Spoiler: Tinker's Tools DC 15

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You hold your stomach, and slip inside the open hatch, ignoring the dried blood and scraps of humanity left by the poor schmuck who caught the AT round in the chest and out the other side. The engine is definitely dead, but you puzzle around the controls, remove the face of one of the control panels, and manage to pry out a tan coloured strip of laminated paper, perforated with dozens of small rectangular holes. Squinting past the receptacle you pried it from, you think there must be hundreds in there, racked up in slots within the guts of the controls. But what the hell kind of purpose would they serve, inside a machine?

Spoiler: Tinker's Tools DC 20

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You rush to remove the control panel to get deeper inside the machine, and find what you have suspected - the interior of the control panel, all the faces of the 'box' containing the mechanisms by which the will of a living person is transmitted to the machine, is covered in arcane scribbling. It's a form you can't understand, but you intuit something of its purpose - it's not unlike the forms you use to give Sparky's limbs articulated, magically coordinated life, and a limited form of independent will.

Spoiler: Treasure Hunting

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Timéo looks almost insulted that they intend to go in without him - he's the guide, after all - but his moods are fickle, and he shrugs.
"Okay, zen. Hey, I keep looking, okay? You keep bringing Amcaran food, ah?"
he nods as he skips backward into the street, as if trying to conjure their acquiescence with the force of his positivity. Before they can actually acquiesce, he pivots, and he's off.
"Okay zen!"

K'Ral and Gabriel approach with an abundance of caution. There's thankfully no ambush; no wolves or spies squatting in the house. The urchins have picked the cupboards bare, certainly; but there in the centre of a small living room, in a crater in the floorboards surrounded by a halo of splintered chunks of what might have once been a nice coffee table, is exactly what they came for: a big ol' E-101 Raindrop.

It is rare to see such a thing this close, after it has fallen from a plane, without shortly after being blown to pieces. Three hundred fifty seven pounds of cast steel exterior, flanged tail, and interior strutting. Olive-drab paint on the pill-shaped shell, with black stencilled lettering identifying its type for the benefit of munitions officers, and the occasional speed-reading recipient. Splashed by paintbrush, in hazard-line yellow, are the words "EAT SCAT VULTIES". The red ignition cap of the bomb is buried in the floor, but you must assume it's damaged, or ineffective. But any modification of dropped ordinance is wildly dangerous for the very fact that the tamperer cannot be sure if their explorative actions will 'fix' whatever was broken and set the damn thing off. But there's no other way to get what the soldiers came for - inside that steel interior, having forsaken its teleological duty of flinging fire and metal in all directions, likes a suspended slug of one hundred and fifty four pounds of good old Albinonese Amatol 80-20; the good stuff.

Spoiler: Easy Peasy...

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To extract the explosive interior - enough to effectively replenish the squad's supply of Weasels, plus enough to barter for the parts to fashion them and your missing Behirs - you lads will have to pass some checks!

A Theives Tools check to delicately open the casing, at a DC 20. You're equally skilled with the tools, but I'll ask K'Ral to roll with advantage provided by Gabriel, on this one.

On top of that, I'll need two Slight of Hand rolls from Gabe, the handsy-man.

The first one is DC 16. That's to reeeally carefully unsheath and expose the Amatol core. This can be done with the Mage-hand from a distance; that's why it's a separate roll, and not just an addition to the last one. Rolling extremely badly is less likely to result in tragedy.

The second is DC 16 as well; but because the Amatol core is about a hundred and fifty pounds, the little Mage Hand won't cut it. That's going to require both of you being really careful. Gabriel leads this one with Sleight of Hand. Even though K'Ral isn't trained in slight of hand, I'll allow him to grant you advantage on this roll because much of the task is just steady lifting.

If you guys fail any of those, there may be consequences depending on how badly, and which rolls, are failed. If you make it through, I'm happy to say that you guys have a casting of Tenser's Floating Disc loaded into one of your Skyknife rings, to cart it back steadilly. Good luck!

Spoiler: Operation Command

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Col. Tatterfield nods along, impressed; Capt. Longsummer raises a slender eyebrow, but doesn't pierce the young Lieutenant's delicately understated veneer. Captain Longsummer, it seems, knows a little more about the military legacy of the Xiloscient family, but sees no reason to drag it out here, when its scion has chosen not to.

"Well," The gnome colonel continues, "may the gods pour blessings on the White Mountains, and the Mountains pour them out to the enlistment offices. I expect more good reports. Keep it up." He reaches up to punch the sergeant enthusiastically in the arm - the height differential meaning it's more forearm than shoulder, but the avuncular encouragement is communicated - and then he moves on, greeting other young officers.

Shortly, the briefing is called to order, and Tatterfield leads it while everyone takes the notes they cannot immediately memorize.

"Naphto was a phyrric victory, ladies and gentlemen. When you get home, all the newspapers will have said we whipped those Vulters up and down the beach; but you know the blood that paid for this foothold. Our only option is to make that sacrifice worthwhile, now, and roll these bastards back as quickly as possible and get all these other kids home.

Obviously, La Jayou is the key to Aquiteaux. Has been for hundreds of years. A lot of the Vult hierarchy has moved their operation centres in the western front there to soak up the centre of the Old Kingdoms culture and impose their own. Our goal is to get there quickly enough that we can catch the slow ones before they scamper. That's a long way off, and there's a lot of roads, villages, and hedgerows between now and then; but from now on, you are all part of Operation: Whiplash."

Tatterfield lays it all down. Mountains of Amcaran war material and soldiery were about to flood into Aquiteaux from captured Naphto. The Kreigsvolk were bound to counterpush as hard as they could to take the beach back before that flood became overwhelming, so much depended on the speed at which the eastward-moving coalition of the free could seize land, roads and rivers - ideally, even taking the capital La Jayou before the balance of power evened up in the conflict. If they could do it fast enough, they'd be in the Kreiglands by the end of the year.

After the broad briefing is over, officers peel off into groups for specific assignments.
Echo Company, 3rd Platoon's assignment is specific indeed - Captain Longsummer briefs just the two Lieutenants in a smaller operations tent, tapping a long elegant finger at a mark on a map. "This is the village of Alonn. Population one hundred and six, and a lot of sheep. It's a satellite village of the town of Agoreau, where the Kreigsvolk 99th Caribineers are quartered. It's Echo Company's job to seize Agoreau, in tandem with Archer, Baron, and Deva. They'll be supported by elements of the 22nd Rifles and the 4th Armored. But 3rd Platoon is being divided off to it's own mission, in Alonn."
She produces a more detailed map of the village - little more than a long main road, with six angled lanes flying off it like the leaves of a fern. "We would have had no idea that Alonn was so important, if 3rd Platoon hadn't grabbed those maps from the Defiant bunker. Between that, and some scattered intelligence now stiched together, we figured out what this is."

She produces a small, knucklebone-sized brass sphere with a single depressible button on its exterior. The Captain's elven eyes regard the item in her palm with muted disgust.
"It's a beacon. The Vult forces have a deep-running pact with a coalition of blue dragons... as you certainly know. They can't outfit those dragons with communication equipment. Their electric affinity burns it out very quickly. But these little devices emit a subsonic chime that dragon ears can hear from across a battlefield. The Kreig officer hits the button, and throws it like a grenade. It's so small and innocuous that most people wouldn't pay it heed in a firefight. But then the trench where it lands will get raked clean by dragon-lightning. But the devices are not easy to make, and they burn out after use."

"...I'm suddenly glad I didn't press the button," 1st Lt. Bathory states flatly. The way things might have played out on the beach differently if they Kreig warriors at the forward bunker had survived long enough to call a dragon-strike... is an ugly imagining.

"...And now we know that the entire western front is supplied by the one artificer coven operating out of obscurity in Alonn. Somewhere in this sleepy village, there's a workshop where they are cranking out these things as fast as they can - permitting them to make precision dragon strikes with a minimum of friendly fire. Those are air-dominant units with functionally unlimited ammunition. Right now, that coven is desperately packing up their operation and preparing to move it east. Tomorrow, while the rest of our attack force is seizing Agoreau street to street, your squads are going to stealth drop into the fields beside Alonn, enter the town, locate the beacon production facility, and destroy it. Primary objective is damaging whatever machines are required to cast and refine these machines, and killing the senior artificers who have the knowledge to recreate them. Secondary objective is to capture one or more of them alive for interrogation. We don't expect much resistance - the Kreigers have had the sense not to fortify Alonn so that it doesn't appear strategically relevant to aerial scans. But we're dealing with Kreig artificers here - you can expect a certain amount of irregular, custom machinery and traps. We have no advanced intel of how many artificers have the critical knowledge, so you'll have to either find an org-chart or pry the information out of someone you find there. But if we shut these dragon-strikes down now, we're going to have a much easier time rolling west. Any questions?"

Spoiler: Roll!

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No rolls to be briefed as such, we can assume Xilo is listening studiously. But give me a Persuasion roll to make a good impression on the other officers during your debut. It's a graded success check, with bronze, silver, gold levels of success at DC 10, 15, 20 respectively.

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger

Spoiler: Rolls

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Mage hand assisted sheathe removal
(1d20+10)[18]

One core removal
(1d20+10)[17]
Adv 2nd roll (1d20+10)[29]

[Waistcoatwill]

Confronted with this bizarre complication, Doc went back to the basics.

First check for danger. No knowing what could happen if this went wrong.

Sister Adelaide please grab me a basic surgical kit with thiracotomy restractors and then give me a hand with the patient. Could the rest of you give us a bit of space, 12 feet ofcyou can manage it.

Right, inspection, palpation, maybe not percussion if some of the ordinance could be live. Airway is clear. Breathing, tacypneic but uncompromised. Circulation, threatened by whatever the hells that shrapnel was doing but the lads pulse was strong. Not exsanguinating yet at least. Disability, not relevant. Exposure, nothing obvious happening elsewhere. Still no real clue whats driving this, he'd have to dive in and see.

Back so soon Adelaide? We must stop meeting like this. No time for a proper surgical field, be liberal with the iodine and we'll see what we can do about this fresh Krieger atrocity.

Spoiler: Roll

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Medicine (1d20+8)[24]

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: Field Hospital

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The nurses, minutes ago tutting and scowling at Thaddeus' bedside manner, become consummate professionals. The sisters give the requested space, darting in only to help apply restraints as necessary. But all of Doc's medical instincts tell him he has no time to waste here. Adelaide sends one of the other nurses for morphine, but it's too late - all Chaegwyn is going to get is a bundled corner of sheet to bite on as Doc's steady hands slice open the stitches and healing wound nearest the half-elf's heart.

A puff of black smoke wisps out of the wound, bringing with it the stench of scorched flesh and a fresh muffled scream from the patient. When doc pulls out the shard - a three inch long, sharp piece of tank-steel - it's glowing red hot, boiling blood and charring flesh until it is plucked free and tossed sizzling and spitting into a kidney pan. This mystery is forced to wait - the cavity immediately begins filling with blood and pericardial fluid. At this point Adelaide's runner returns with a sedative kit, though the moment is passed for morphine. The river gnome breaks out small tin coin, snipped almost completely through, touches it to Chaegwyn's head then twists it apart; and the modified Blindness/Deafness spell within it robs the poor soldier of his pain and tactile senses. After that, he's an ether-soaked rag away from blissful oblivion - and the half-hour of surgery that follows is done blessedly beyond his witness.

The searing shard has lacerated the pericardium and nicked the right coronary artery - as the initial diagnosis had feared would be the case. But when the alternative is being burned up from the inside out, there's little alternative but to try. The heat of it has left a fair amount of seared skin and burned, blackened clumps of blood; and Doc has to work fast, and precisely, and perfectly, to clean the wound, excise the burned tissue, stitch the pericardium and coronary lacerations even as they ooze and bleed, and then apply neat, non-excessive lines of pos-gel and neg-gel to the stitch lines so that the shallow pool of Pvt Chaegwyn's capacity to absorb healing magic goes where it most desperately needs to be.

Thirty four minutes feels like four hours, and by the end of it while Adelaide is dumping the rib-spreaders in a bucket of antiseptic and closing up the incision, Doc's hands are left shaking with the adrenal come-down.

But Chaegwyn, atleast, seems stable - amazing, considering the awful death he very nearly experienced. The scrap of offending metal is now blacked and cooled in the pan, hoarding its bizarre reasons for acting so maliciously. What could cause such a terrible fate? Why Chaegwyn? Why now, and here?

"We are clear, Monsieur Thaddeus. All clear."

Adelaide's assurance, once the wound is sealed and the healing flicker is applied, precedes a gentle, spaced clapping: it's Monroe, across the room, gently patting his good hand into the bandaged other; offering up to Doc the last round of applause he will ever be equipped to give. The whole room of soldiers have been witness to the event, Chaegwyn's condition permitting no time to isolate him for surgery and Doc being trained to block out his surroundings; and the silence with which they have observed the miracle that has occurred gives way to a dull but hearty rumble of applause as the stricken soldiers in the other beds join Monroe's gesture.

[Waistcoatwill]

The bizarre sound finally filters into Doc's consciousness as he strips off his blood-soaked gown and gloves. He looks around slightly stunned for a few moments, eyes flickering around the room fir the nearest exit. First, he puts on a big grin and gives a little bow to the room.

Thanks folks, I'm here all week. Try the shrimp and remember to tip your server.

He makes quickly for a door into a slightly secluded corner of a courtyard and hunches down in the corner. He rocks backwards and forwards, trying to slow down his loghtly ragged breathing. After a few minutes his hands stop shaking quiet so much and he stands up again. He takes a final deep breath, then turns back towards the door, there were plenty more poor young bodies he had to oatch up before he could head back to the mess.

[Cavir]

"But if we shut these dragon-strikes down now, we're going to have a much easier time rolling west. Any questions?"

Visions of the dragon tearing apart planes full of troops ran through Xilo's mind.

"Just shut them down? Why not take advantage of them too? We've broken their code. Use that to lure dragons into kill zones. Get the dragons to take out the enemy for us. Heck, throw one into the workshop chimney and let the dragon do the work. Have our bombers drop some. Even if the dragons get smart about it, that code being blasted everywhere would disrupt their dragon communication. Give Sal a little time and he could probably duplicate it."

"What time is assembly tomorrow? We need to go get prepped. We could really use more grenades. Used them all in that final assault. Supply has been blocking requests. The whole company could probably use more. The request from higher up may help."

"Once on the ground do we have time for a stealth approach? Once we achieve our objective, do we hold the town or head to Agoreau?"

Lt Xilo's eyes turn to focus on the layout of Alonn, probable workshop locations, the village's surroundings especially the intended LZ, and the routes to Agoreau.

[JbeJ275]

After ten minutes of rummaging, unscrewing frying and the occasional removal of unidentifiable goop Sal stops handing out parts to the surrounding technicians and ends up crawling out of the machine himself.

"Okay." He says, brandishing a strip of laminate. "I think I found that things brain, or at least the brain for this bit of it. The channels all line up to connect with something else, and not just for refueling or something, or slotting out weapons systems the way they sometimes do on ours, this is just a part of something much bigger. It's the only thing to explain the articulations, and the interior embedments for connecting ports. Anyone know any Krieger or just mainland arcanosign? I've only touched the Amcaran stuff."

[Continental Op]

Wolf is about to respond to Xyness with a quip, but then sees she is really concerned. He turns to the kitchen and shouts, "Hey, Steve! Can you cover for me for a minute? I need a break." He then grabs a roll and guides Xyness to a seat. He sits beside her.

Wolf takes a bite and chews for a few seconds, holding up a finger if Xyness tries to talk again. "The way I see it, we need to be here. Yeah, it sucks. But if it wasn't us, who would stop the Kriegers? I don't they would stop for anything, unless someone can stand up to them. And no one else can." He shrugs. "So we have to be here. No one else can do this. No other countries, I mean."

He takes another bite, and thinks. "I played tackleball back home. Then, it was all I lived for. I've had teammates go down, wash out. Some nasty knee injuries, you know? And for what?! A damn game where you move a ball from one side of the field to another. But here. This means something. Yeah, the hurt is worse, but that's because it means more. And if we weren't here...I think it would be even worse."

Wolf jumps on that thought, and keeps going. "I wish I was in your unit, Xyness. I've seen you, you have a real gift. The things you can do in the dark...You and me, we need to look out for the rest of our team, and try to keep everyone else in one piece through this mess. You know?" He finishes his roll and looks at her.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Wolf is not the best at persuasion, but he felt this was necessary. Rolling with advantage:
(1d20+2)[15]
[roll]1d20+X[/roll]

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger hums a jolly tune as the disk floats behind him.
Now we get to the second funnest part, making the ordinance.
Briefly looks back at the core
Plenty of material to work with, what more could you ask for.

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: The Greasepit

Show

"Here, let me see." Gloria, naturally, pipes up first; though a couple of the other wrench-twiddlers are Albinonese and have some bilinguality as well. But before any of the volunteers can follow through on a bid to help, the investigation is thwarted.

"That's enough; everyone one of you put back anything you've taken from this vehicle. Put it on the chassis and back up, NOW, soldiers!"

A column of some thirty uniformed men and women spill into the scene from around the blind created by one of the great transport planes. These are Blueguards - military police, whose presence was frequently essential in imposing order on the complex bivouacking and basing conditions of such a massive operation; and whose presence was much more often resented as stifling, needlessly meddling, and deeply intrusive on the drilled and learned lines of loyalty and order that military folk know. Their formation was part of the Great Muster thirty years prior, when Amcaran sentiment turned away from the isolated politics of its internal princedoms and out towards the convulsions of the world. The smaller princedoms wanted some assurance their incorporated personnel would not be badly served by the overbearing multitude of those from the more populous princedoms; and part of the accord was a dedicated, neutral office of law enforcement specifically for the United Princedoms' army, navy, air force, and marine corps. They policed the bases; investigated disruptions; managed the courts-martial and, when necessary, arranged the firing squads. They are as popular as one might imagine.

But even less popular is the figure striding ahead of the column: a massive, bronze scaled dragonborn squeezed into a charcoal grey suit, wearing a homberg style hat whose felt has been pinched by an expert milliner to fit neatly between the wearer's horns. It is no military uniform; but it sports neat epaulets at the shoulders just the same, each side bearing a badge featuring a sword, tip down, infront of a hemi-circular sunburst. An Agent-Clandestine; one of the Archon of the United Princedom's hand-picked men; furnished with more than enough political weight that he could afford to throw some around. The Blueguards didn't seem particularly happy to have been commandeered for this purpose, but conformed all the same; encircling the strange vehicle, confiscating the extracted parts from the technicians, dragging a great black tarp over the carcass and establishing a perimeter.

The Agent's voice is unpleasantly rough; and his tone inflexible. "This vehicle and all its components are now an Operations-Clandestine resource. You're all compelled by the Great Muster Code, Addendum Niner-Three, to immediately cease discussion of what you've seen here. If you're smart, you'll make a good faith effort to forget it entirely. I'll take that." Nearly eight feet tall, he towers over all the techs and grease monkeys. His bright green eyes are fixed on Gloria, who frowns quite openly at the forceful seizure of the scene; but surrenders a doodad from the belly of the machine she had been looking over, into the palm of the dragonborn.

"Well. When you ask so nicely," she offers drylu, and gives you a communicative look - one that suggests she has found her curiousity to be outweighted by the prospect of trouble if a fuss is made.

The Agent hands the doodad back to one of his flunkies; and extends his hand again - looking at you, expectantly.

You don't know if he saw the strip of laminate ... or if he's bluffing.

Spoiler: Treasure Hunting

Show

With a display of skill and precision that is strictly speaking illegal to attempt without specific orders, the two of you handily remove the explosive core from the warhead and set it on the hovering silver disc, covering it discretely for travel. Some might have looked at the dangers and called this ambition suicidal. But who's laughing now?

You are, but quietly; because even though this didn't literally blow up in your face, it could still figuratively blow up in your face. But the hard part is done; the rest, realistically is easy. You set up shop in an empty house closer to base camp; one which Timéo scouted out for you. Getting the rest of the components to make Weasels is easy enough; they're made to be skinned and combined into larger single charges when required, so there's plenty of bags and blasting caps floating around in the other Skyknife units. Making the Behir mines is more tricky, since it requires some alchemical expertise and the more rare Behir mine casings; but plenty of Skyknife squads are keen to trade their Behirs for Weasels, since the second is sometimes more versatile. Over a few days with dilligent work in your free hours, you've replenished the explosives of your squad, and engendered the quiet goodwill of a number of sergeants from the other companies. When you're done, there's no explosive components left, so nothing to find and indict you over; just a baffled munitions office, who suddenly find demand for certain supplies to dip for no good reason.

4th and 5th squads have their Behirs and Weasels refreshed, back to 1 of each per soldier. You have gained some esteem from the other Skyknives; specifically, their undersupplied enlisted men.

Spoiler: The Mess

Show

Xyness listens. Each time you pause, she mistakes you for being done, and opens her mouth to speak; but then you're on again, apparently anticipating something close to what she was about to say; because at the end of the roll of seems-to-me wisdom, she thinks a little longer, apparently with no follow up questions remaining.

"I guess you're right. It just sucks, is all. My parents fled from the old country to Amcara two hundred years ago because of stupid, old kingdom nonsense. Mom disbanded her harem and elevated dad to consort prime. It's technically viable, but all it takes is one nosey neighbour to raise suspicions of a respect-love relationship; and it's hard to die it when that's what it is. So they came to Amcara, and got legitimately married by a priest of the Sun, and learned the language and how to run a topside-farm. They did a lot of work so I could grow up Amcaran, and free; and not have to strangle my sisters for clan dominance or navigate a malicious maze of political hatreds and power-games. So when they put out the call, I signed up by instinct, like we were really under attack, because I just... love that a place like that exists, you know? Where a minor matriarch and her consort prime can just become a woman and a man raising hogs and growing sorghum. When we got here though, I couldn't stop thinking that if I'd- if we'd all just stayed home, what difference would it make? Are the Kreigers really going to try to sail across the ocean and take the New Kingdoms? Probably not. But you're right." She gestures to La Projet, and the industrious volunteers bustling around within. "These folks didn't ask for any of this. It sure as hell matters to them. If we're not willing to stand up to evil abroad, maybe we wouldn't deserve all the good we have back home." She gives you a resolved look, a smile, and then a punch in the shoulder. "Thanks, Corporal. Or... Sergeant. I'm gonna eat while I head back, but I'll ask for about your medic and Chaegwyn, like you said." She says something else, but it's through a mouthful of food shovelled into her mouth as she stands up and wheels away, but she looks back and waves with her fork, so you have to assume it wasn't important.

One more full belly; one more soothed nerve. Wars are won, in this way; by the small, deliberate actions of attentive sergeants, just so. You finish up at the Mess, and smuggle a plate of leftovers back to 5th Squad.

Spoiler: Operation Command

Show

As you rattle off what seem like obvious suggestions and requests, you catch Lt. Bathory's look from the corner of your eye; a lofted, pale eyebrow, and an expression of incredulity that translates to something like slow down, cowboy.

Of all the superior officers to possibly over-supply suggestion to, Captain Longsummer is probably one of the best; but the mildness of her response does not completely hide a modicum of warning. She is not expressly required to explain the reasoning of the higher command structures to a lieutenant, much less one that has been a lieutenant only for heartbeat. Still, she indulges you.

"The dragons aren't foolish, and they aren't automated. They're typically more intelligent than you or I; only bound into this service by some agreement with the Vult heirarchy we don't completely understand. The moment they, and the artificers responsible for these devices, become aware that we've compromised the devices, they're likely to modify or alter their use in some way. If we capture a few and start throwing them at Vult targets, we might get one or two lucky strike before the Vult recalibrate. And we can only do that if we don't reveal we know about the workshop, since any disruption of that facility will cause them to assume they've been made, and recalibrate. So our best chance to deeply damage their ability to use these dragon strikes is an swift, hard attack on that workshop; and Command has decided they trust you as a more competent, precise, and discrete alternative to a simple bombing. You breached one secret bunker full of Vult intel. You're getting a chance to do it again. And whether we were running bombers over it, or if we got lucky with an impetuous dragon using this one beacon, neither of those options contains a possibility of taking one of the enemy artificers alive. You don't know this yet, but this isn't the only piece of baffling tech coming out of the Kreiglands." She holds up the little sphere to eye level between herself, and you. "Let me be clear when I say we don't understand how this works, and we have a lot of dedicated brains working on it. What this is, right now, is intel, not a weapon. Intel rapidly decays in value as soon as the enemy knows you possess it. Our best move is for them not to know we know, until their facility is liquidated and, ideally, we have one of the Kreigschmitten squirming in a cell."

With that clarified, she moves on to the next question: "Assembly is oh-four-hundred hours. You've got a few hours to brief your squad and prepare before you ought to have the resting up. I wish I could give you more time; but a lot parts at this level of command move really slow; and others move inconveniently fast. And the munitions office has been blocking requests for grenades because they don't have grenades to spread around. In case you forgot, half of the Skyknive's supply pallets got blown into the ocean, along with half the Skyknives; and the supplies didn't swim out again.
You're going to have to make do with the little you have. Prioritize captured enemy explosives. Leverage your spellcasters. You're looking to take priority captives anyway, so maybe you won't need as many grenades as you think, upon reflection. I've plenty of faith in your capacity to get it done, Lieutenant Xiloscient. Even if you're down to teeth, and pointy sticks. You're being deployed with stealth measures, so a subtle approach is preferred. After you take your objectives, hold position and wait for extraction by road."

The Captain waits for more questions if they are forthcoming; but she has her own part to organize in the events tomorrow - and that of the rest of Echo company - and her own frustration with the compressed timeline is obvious in her demeanour.

[JbeJ275]

"Well, a please wouldn't kill you." Sal says, handing over the laminate strips, it stung that he wouldn't get to know what was on them, but in the likely case that they were reliant on other parts of laminate inside the wreckage to inform and explain thier full function the Princedoms were better served with a complete set being looked at by some Fed spooks than fed spooks with an incomplete set and the real engine-runners with a few scraps.


Still, while they were packing the shiny little box of secrets up Sal couldn't resist one last little crack, so with a cigarette back in his lips he said. "Don't suppose you know how many more divisions I've gotta help save before I can ask ever so politely what the spooks pull out of this pretty little box here."

Then he turns back to Gloria and the other techs with a but of a shrug, and an apologetic look, followed by whispered promises to tell them about what he saw in the wreck of a totally different cracked Krieger vehicle.

[Cavir]

Lt Xilo got the point about keeping the enemy in the dark. If the enemy only had a few dragon allies the trap might help but he had no idea how many there were. He was still disappointed with the lack of priority for gear. Hopefully this time they would actually achieve surprise.

He made his way to the mess hall to find Sgt Wolf. "We've got new orders. Have everyone gather at the barracks in thirty minutes."

With the squad gathered at the barracks around a table and no one else around to overhear, Xilo places some objects on the table to give a layout for the briefing.

"Operation Whiplash. Several companies will be capturing the town of Agoreau here. Just outside of Agoreau is the village of Alonn. Echo Company third platoon 4th and 5th squads will be stealth dropping into the fields by the village here."

The LT rearranges the objects on the table to match the village layout he had been shown, particularly roads, buildings, and fences.

"Somewhere in the village is an artificer coven producing the knucklebone-sized brass spheres we found in the initial assault. Ends up those are used to call for blue dragon support. If we had pressed the button things would have gone very different. Unknown what else they are making."

"The area is not heavily fortified in order to hide their presence but the artificers probably have some tricks up their sleeve. Our mission with 4th squad is to destroy the artificer operation before they can withdraw and to take prisoners, including at least one senior artificer. The more of them the better. Which means we can't just blow up the whole thing from the outside. Once complete we hold for extraction by road."

"Assembly is oh-four-hundred hours. Sgt Wolf, make sure everyone's gear is in order. We have what we have. Make sure the radio is in working order. Any questions?"

[Novabomb]

Pvt Gabriel Ginger
El Tee, whats the plan to deal with the dragons that do show up? Last time we needed to blow a crate full of grenades and ammo, and a Behir to chase it off.

[Cavir]

LT Xilo

"Plan A is to use stealth and avoid any traps so we can snatch up the whole lot without dragons being alerted."

"Plan B is we need you, K’ral, and/or Sal to make a package where a Weasel is used to set off a Behir when we want it to blow, whether by shooting the Weasel, a booby trap, or just plain throwing the package."

"Plan C is we rush the artificers to get in real close so the dragon will have to kill them too if they kill us. Primary mission complete and we save a lot of other lives." He pauses with the grim news then continues more upbeat. "But let's stick to plan A and think about how to make plan B happen if need be. I want us all to live through tomorrow too."

[JbeJ275]

"There are even odds the artificers hiding away beneath the earth as well. Dragons don’t fight as good in cramped tunnels, especially if you can outrun the breath.

One other thing to remember, Sparky has some great tricks but there are bigger badder constructs out there. Keep an eye out for them. Remember that poison won’t touch the things, and the best spells to blast them would blow our stealth. They’re often repair-capable as well, so blow focus on turning them to rubble, not scratching a lot of them at once."

[MrAbdiel]

Operation: Whiplash

"We're comin' up on it now, boys and girls. We're flyin' into the sun right now, but at least it ain't a cloudbank. I want to see every one of you back at The Mess after this, you hear? I'm going to sell my soul to get five pounds of shrimp; get you all some Lusanna cooking in your bellies before I let you go again. Godspeed, kids. Red light's up."

Mama June and the Sunday Best had, after all, made it back to base in one piece. Some of the larger holes caused by the flak taken over Naphto beach have been patched up, but the smaller ones were triaged to later jobs that never quite got off the block. Whistling away on the floor of the fuselage, particularly prominent, is the entry hole of the round that flashed up between Pvt Ssassten's feet, before the jump. No one sits over it, now; it seems to invite a repeat occurance; and with only two small squads instead of three large ones, there's plenty of room to avoid the bad luck spots. Just the newly minted 4th Squad up first, with Pvt. Xu Nandreth, Pvt. Enshun Xanderthrax and Pvt. Hector Longfoot on one side of the plane and Pvt. Lynnova Xenyss, Pvt. Kuzzank Stronghunter, and Pvt. Brikenya McCleod on the other. The newly minted Corporal O'Hara stands up front of the fuselage near the jump door, where the red light buzzes into life. His bulky shell occupies more than a single soldier's worth of plane; but by his side is the petite 1st Lt. Temperance Bathory, who occupies less; so it all works out. Of the three squads that jumped from 3rd Platoon into the fires of Naphto, these two ragged understrength squads are all that remain alive, and able to fight. This sober fact seems to echo in the hollow, perforated interior of the Sunday Best.

But the jump approaches; and the time to think about those things rapidly passes. Outside the open jump door, the morning light is beginning to melt the blues of night into purples and oranges.

"Stand up!"

The LT's petite vocals do not carry so well over the roar of plane engines; but you know the routine by rote; and can intuit the command by context.

"Hook up!"

A familiar clicking and clacking of lines being rigged to the ceiling mounted cable, whose precision triggering of the Featherfall in your rings is key to a coordinated drop. Atleast, under more ideal jump conditions than those you faced at Naphto. Fortunately, the weather report seems fair; even if the precise methodology of today's jump is atypical.

As per a pre-jump briefing, both O'Hara and Bathory begin to cast their respective magics; the LT producing a specially assigned want to assist the task. Her incantation completes first... and she vanishes. And the Corporal vanishes. And a swift glimmer of light races out from the epicentre of the casting, washing over the Sunday Best and all its occupants; and they all vanish.

The drone of the engines continues; the sudder of the plane under your feet as it pushes through the lazy morning air is the same; except now your vision is not a crowd of Skyknives in a tin-can hurtling through the sky, but a brilliantly beautiful Aquiteaux morning, with the sun directly ahead and creeping up over the hillocks on the horizon to illuminate great spans of green land; hedgerows and orchards, pastures and villages connected by winding little roads. It is only partially marred by the presense of the planes nearby; a 'V' of flyers with their bellies full of Skyknives forming an iron arrow advancing in the sky just above you, infront and either side. The dull green, scraped and pocked Amcaran flyers seem childishly crude compared to the manicured and curated natural loveliness below, even with its periodic spans of desolation from the initial conquest of the region two years ago. You do spot one familiar sight among your neighbouring aircraft - the cartoonish, jaunty artwork of a well dressed halfling boy leaping up and clicking his heels together features on the flank of one of the flyers in the V. This is the Fancy Lad, whom the Sunday Best followed in desperate, near fog-blind conditions during the approach to Naphto. The Lad, like the Best, has taken the best the Vult could pitch up at them and come back for more.

Spoiler: Roleplaying Prompts, if you desire them!

Show

This is the your second combat jump. You've taken no enemy fire so far, and everything seems to be going to plan, unlike the first time. That may be a source of hope - if you survived the last circle of hell, how bad can this be?

On the other hand, it's hard not to focus on how empty the fuselage is (before it turned invisible).
Your Platoon, Echo Company 3rd, began the war with three ten-strong squads, a LT and a Specialist aide to that LT. Of those 32 individuals, six are confirmed dead, eight were severely wounded.
Four more were never heard from after the jump, and might have been captured by the enemy or blown into the sea to drown. Two of those missing are Sgt. Alston Hillfield (The dwarf sergeant that Wolf, K'Ral, Doc and Sal trained with all the way up to the war) and Cpl. John Falcon (the laconic human who came up with Gabriel, and upon whom Xilo had been able to rely as a steady second).
Eighteen of the thirty two aren't here right now; and those are rough odds. Pretty sunrise or not, it's a grim calculus.

On the other hand, it might be the novelty of racing through the sky in an invisible plane that is most exciting or upsetting to your character. Whatever the case, describing your character's state of mind before the jump isn't mandatory, but it is fun; so consider it!

Invisibility when sneaking up on an enemy has some unadvertised complications; it's not hard to trip over your own feet when you can't see them, and the absence of the frame of your brow and nose in your vision is a little unsettling, for some. Praise must be held aside for Mama June then, who is left for this duration of the next five minutes flying the Sunday Best with a tight grip on the invisible throttle with her invisible hands, and no help at all from any of her instruments. Corporal O'Hara's spell completes, and gives everyone a small visual reference to orient their senses - wisps of pink faerie fire manifest in the air and crawl over the rim of the jump door, and the ready lights. For the enemy below, a glowing pink rectangle and a translucent ghost of a red light would not be disenable against the vibrant dawn sky, a thousand feet in the air. For you, it's something to focus on to settle your senses in this unique experience; and importantly, it's enough to stop you messing up by missing the edge of the plane when you step up to jump, and starting the operation in a painful tumble.

You feel - and see - the angle of your craft tilt away from the rest of the V, which carries on towards the village of Agoreau. The attractive maroon shingles on the buildings, and the crazed-but-charming character of its cramped roads and alleys give it an inviting look even from up here; but you can see grey armored cars and canvas covered trucks streaking through the streets as the Kreig soldiers, backfooted by Naphto, strain to recover as much of their materiel as possible as they retreat. Soon, they will have mustered fighters to engage the attack force, and the pilots of the new kingdoms and the old will be jousting in the air above that town as Skyknives plunge to make disruptive attacks, and the ground forces sweep in from the west. Your target is a little away, but coming up, as you leave the main force behind: the village of Alonn, which consists of one main road lined with perhaps forty homes, two churches, a war memorial, and a sumptuous manor on a hill overlooking the village itself. Somewhere, inside this sleepy village, a cartel of Vult artificers are performing their dark works. They are atleast fabricating ultrasonic beacons to coordinate dragon strikes - but what else might lair here, a product of twisted science, beneath a row of houses, or a sumptuous manner, or an unassuming church?

Lieutenant must have called for the sound-off. You don't hear her do so; but Cpl. O'Hara's gravelly baritone rings through the din:

"TWO O-KAY!"

With the predictable sequence from 4th squad before you precipitating:

"THREE O-KAY!"
"FOUR O-KAY!"
"FIVE O-KAY!"
"SIX O-KAY!"
"SEVEN O-KAY!"
"EIGHT O-KAY!"

... until it's 5th squad's turn. After the last-in-line's fourteen-o-kay, there's not much to do but wait; and only another minute and a half of that to do before the translucent, magically revealed red light blinks off, and one below it registers green; and the line starts moving, one invisible foot after the other towards the jump door, and the ripping wind of the open sky. As the jumpers from 4th squad preceed you, they blend back into the visible spectrum once they've dropped thirty feet from the plane; but at that point, they're just flecks in the sky to any attentive onlooker; nothing a Kreig soldier would mistake for an enemy without the visual context of a plane.

That, anyway, was the theory preceeding Operation Whiplash.

Spoiler: Echo Company! Let's Gooo!

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Feel free to do as much flavor as you want in your post; pre jump, and post; you all obliged me with a few posts worth of tension building on the first jump, but we're getting straight into it this time.

I will, however, require some rolls!

1. Constitution Save against DC10, or else throw up into a flight bag, or if you’re a less prepared sort, maybe your helmet or lap. If you roll a natural 1, you’re also sickened (the poisoned condition) for an hour. If you passed this last time, you may roll with advantage!

2. Wisdom Save against DC 10 or be afraid. This is not to be confused with the frightened condition; there's no mechanical detriment to failure here. It just means that within the narrative, for your consideration, something about this - the weird invisible jump tactics, the flashbacks to Naphto, a general superstition of dread - has given you the willies. The willies wear off, when you no longer find them interesting to flavour your posts.

3. A flat d316 roll for equipment malfunction. If you roll a 1 on your d316, your ring of spell storing does not deploy your featherfall spell. Gods help you.

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

I recommend you roll all these in the OOC thread, so you can populate your post with the outcomes!