Worse Than the Disease 2 IC

[Shoot Da Moon]

For a few nerve-wracking moments, Sean creeps up to the gas station entrance. He can see the barricade is not all the way around, just blocking the front door. He finds a blind spot fairly easily, he thinks.

The raiders within the station did not think to set up more traps around the fuel pumps or directly outside the front door. Perhaps they did not to risk arousing suspicion?

Richard tries to draw a bead on a raider inside, only to be frustrated by the patroller moving in and out of concealment, thus blocking line of sight from the outside every few seconds or so. No doubt a deliberate precaution by the raiders. At best, he can manage to shoot one (they're spread out relatively far) with two seconds of aiming, if violence became necessary.

[u-b]

Staying next to a window and just out of it, Sean puts the rifle on the ground leaning against the wall, draws and arms a frag grenade, then throws it into that window without exposing himself all too much. He tries to hit the "bedding" area. The trow goes somewhere, a bit too far and a bit to the right, but at least it clears the obstacles. Sean quickly draws and arms another grenade, releasing the handle to have it cooking while he listens to the activity inside and maybe observes any lights turning on, as much as he's able to do it without exposing himself.

Spoiler

Show

That's two rounds worth of actions.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean did not nail his intended target exactly, he figures his arm was off by...1 or 2 yards? It certainly rolled a bit too much.

(OC: The range penalty for the throw was -3.)

Luckily, none of the sleepers or patrollers notice the grenade.

Sean grits his teeth and cringes as he waits for the inevitable boom...

(OC: Richard, you have 3 seconds before the explosion, what're you doing?)

[Volthawk]

Richard starts firing, a long burst at one of the more exposed raiders (as much as 'more exposed' was a relative term here), as soon as the grenade goes off - shooting earlier would make them pay more attention to his direction, sure, but it also means that they'd start moving before Sean could do whatever it was he was doing back there, and the explosion serves as a pretty good indicator to Bart and the others to join him in lighting the place up with gunfire.

[u-b]

Whan the first grenade should be about to explode, Sean throws inside a second one, this time targeting the active guards. He tries to draw another one, but the expected explosion startles him anyway, so the third grenade is dropped under Sean's feet.

Spoiler

Show

I want to know whether the dropped grenade is live. This covers all actions up to and including the round of the explosion. The grenade goes off for 8d cr ex [3d cut]. Another explosion is to follow.

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OC: Combat time starts as Richard opens fire. Sean, roll grenade damage. Is that dropped grenade live? Well, one of you has Unluckiness, IIRC...How long has it been since it last triggered, in-game time?)

Richard lets loose a stream of bullets into one poor bar-stead, tearing up his heart like a Saint Valentine's Day card sent through a paper shredder. He falls down dead without a prayer.

Then the first grenade explodes...

(OC: both of you control your NPC followers this combat. They act before the hostiles.)

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean hears one of the people inside shout "WHAT THE HE--!!", only to be cut off by the first ka-boom.

He definitely wounded multiple people with that grenade, judging by the subsequent screaming and a few nasty blood spatters.

He's not sure how many exactly got caught in the blast or struck by fragments - or how many died as a result.

Richard can only see the explosion, but he can't judge who got harmed by it. None of the patrollers he can see (3 of them) were caught in the blast.

The militiamen stand-by as Sean and Richard do their thing. They hold their fire until there is better illumination or the exiles give them the signal to move in.

Bart guards the rear.

Richard can see the patrollers inside the station move around, often behind cover. He sees one slip out, into the back rooms of the station. Now he can see only one raider, crouching down behind cover, peeking out only his head.

TURN 2

Sean's second grenade goes off. He thinks two guards are still within range of the explosion.

(OC: Roll the 2nd grenade damage. The third grenade at your feet is live.)

[u-b]

Sean bends down to pick up the dropped grenade. It's missing the handle and makes quiet fuse-burning noises which, given the circunstances, are hard to hear even for Sean. Inside the building the second grenade does a loud BOOM.

[Volthawk]

Seeing the movement inside, Richard gives Sean a warning of "One coming your way!" over the radio as he takes a moment to aim at the one raider he can see. Bart does the same.

[Shoot Da Moon]

More screams from inside follow the second explosion. Sean is lucky that the loud noises aren't affecting his hearing (so far).

He sweats a little as he picks up the live grenade.

Richard sees his target cringe in fear and go prone in response to the 2nd boom. He squints down the barrel and gets Bart to join him.

The militamen scan the area to make sure no-one comes from any blind spot.

The raiders inside the gas station move a bit more...Sean thinks. Richard's target does not move form his cover.

TURN 3

Sean's grenade continues to tick down to the inevitable...

[u-b]

Sean has no idea where the people inside will want to be in a second or two, so just throws the grenade inside according to his understanding of where the most of them are now, as scarce as this understending currently is.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean makes his toss. He spots a person inside the gas station towards the back wall.

Richard still has his target in sight...

[Volthawk]

He's not sure exactly what's going on with the other man, but Richard can at least handle this one so he opens up with another burst. Bart waits to see if the guy survives.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The target did not see Richard in the chaos and darkness, and so the burst hits him right in the head.

The raider does not survive. All that remains is a rather grisly scene.

The militiamen and Bart continue to hold their fire.

No-one can see what the raiders in the gas station are doing.

TURN 4

Sean thinks he heard people running around...

[u-b]

Sean grabs the rifle. He is not sure what he should do now other then maybe blasting apart the whole of the inside, but he is now more concerned with the possibility of explosive stuff being thrown the other way and with the Richard's warning. So he just starts to move towards the nearest corner of the building, crouching low under the line of the windowsills and keeping an eye on where he's stepping.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean spots no dangers as he moves. The night air is refreshingly chilly, or would be if Sean was not cold-blooded.

(OC: Sean, you're still outside the gas station, right?)

Richard and his comrades spy no active raiders from where they're positioned. They have no-one to shoot at. That might be comforting...

[Volthawk]

Richard considers approaching while the others hold their position, but they haven't checked the front of the station for any traps or the like, and Sean seemed to be handling clearing out anyone who isn't visible pretty well with grenades - and he's fairly sure that the only one left is the one that he saw heading to the back - so he stays where he is, waiting to see if he's wrong and anyone pokes their head into view.

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OC: out of combat time.)

Richard and his fellows brace for impact for a few seconds.
And then the third explosion goes off. It tears down at least one shelf inside, wrecking the various contents of the enemy camp. He thinks he sees a fire starting? Glass is breaking.

Much to his concern, Richard sees no-one active in the gates station. He hears no-one screaming their last as the last ka-boom rocks the gas station.

No activity. All is...quiet.

Richard yells out an order to surrender, breaking the silence, and gets no responses from the building.

Sean, meanwhile, stands his ground at the corner, away from the windows. He sees no-one else around, neither coming along the road nor coming out the back of the gas station.

[u-b]

Sean waits for some time. If he hears nothing much and there is no light or people coming from the inside, the next step is to clear the way for Richard. Sean is not very concerned about the noisemakers, but does not want Richard to step into something more serious. Leaving Bart as the only one man with night vision with the rest of the troops, Sean leads Richard towards some window. Then he looks in and, potentially, climbs in, to see if there are any survivors and what exactly they do.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean is relieved to see no-one is active inside the gas station.

He sees two fires have started thanks to the grenades. One looks like it came from something destroyed near the bedrolls. The other seems like a burst container of flammable liquid near the other side of the gas station.

About nine or ten people are knocked down and unresponsive. They are clearly bleeding heavily and probably KO'd or killed by the explosions. Most of their gear and belongings have been wrecked by those same grenades.

[u-b]

Sean quickly makes sure there are no other rooms, cellars, and suchlike, whence more people can emerge, then, if he's encountered no dangerous traps along the way, asks Richard to go fetch everyone else. The plan is to get everyone and everything out before the fire expands. Sean starts with the men/bodies closest to it, and proceeds from there.

Spoiler

Show

Assuming opening the door from inside will not be problematic.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean realizes that the explosions wrecked noisemaker traps that were set up inside the gas station.
He spies a back room with a metal security door that was let open. He figures raiders may have run into there but not leaving the gas station.
He finds at least one supply cache near the bed rolls that was destroyed by the grenades.
He and his men can drag out the injured and dead raiders with a few minutes of effort per 3 or 4 persons.
By the end of it, he counts 12 bodies dragged out - two of them are definitely dead.

[u-b]

Sean lets Bart and militia do all the lifting and handling while he and Richard do something about the back room. With the fire ongoing, the inside should be somewhat bright, so Sean proposes Richard takes off the NVGs and prepares to switch the tactical light if and when things start happening. He takes a position along the wall next to the open door and has Richard positioned next to him. Then he throws a flashbang inside, waits until it goes off and for about a second for any activity after the bang, then, if there is none, takes a quick look inside.

[Volthawk]

Richard's...not exactly happy to see the state of the place up-close, given his hopes to get information out of the place (at least a few of the people down aren't dead yet, he supposes), but while the men handle moving everything out his mood brightens when Sean points out the back room, taking his position next to Sean and waiting for the flashbang. Maybe they'd get something concrete out of this after all.

[Shoot Da Moon]

When the flashbang goes off, Sean and Richard move in.

Through the door, they find something unexpected; the room seem dedicated to a large electric cargo lift of some sort, next to a ladder hatch down.

The lift is currently raised. It looks like both it and the ladder lead to an underground room bigger than the square area of the entire gas station.

Looking down the ladder hatch, the room immediately below looks empty.

[u-b]

Sean proposes Richard remains in the room, guarding the lift and the ladder. He is not sure if the facility below is a dead end or people can leave it to run away or attack, but is willing to give the situation some time. The news are that we probably do not want this place burning to the ground (if only because this might restrict access to the facility below for quite some time), so Sean tries to organize an effort to fight the fires after we are done with evacuating the men next to them. It has to be seen how it turns out, but the things to do next are binding the men, stripping them of any vauables, bandaging them, looking at their neck tattoos, and choosing the most promising one to revive.

Spoiler

Show

If this does not go well and the man remains unresponsive, will solicite Richard's opinion on whether inject him with nanomachines or chose a second guy. If this does go well, will change places with Richard and let him do interrogations.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The men do their best to fight the fires.
(OC: Do you guys have any fire extinguishers in your gear? I believe you guys once found at least one scavenging.)

Sean successfully heals the injured.
Their armor is all wrecked by the bombs, as are their guns. Their ammunition is ruined, too. They were not carrying much else besides, at this time of day.
Large metal fragments got embedded in their bodies and it has to be removed with care. The shards hitting the torso merely cut up the body armor but hits to the limbs, extremities and head slice through much thinner protection.
Their neck tattoos are all black - depicting a seven of spades and a two of diamonds playing cards in a pair.
Once they regain consciousness, they can be questioned.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Meanwhile, inside the gas station, the exiles' back-up throws buckets of water onto the flames but only manages to dampen and slow down most of the blaze.

There is still a lot of the building that is being ruined by the fire.

One of the men yells for more water.

[u-b]

Having spent some water with minimal effect, Sean is reluctant to spend more. He orders people to withdraw from the building and to some spot nearby where the militia will wait near the cars until...
1. The fire dies on its own.
2. (Some of) the prisoners regain consciousness and are interrogated.

Sean himself will watch to see that nobody comes or goes in or out or from the woods or what not. That is, on his feet and moving around from time to time, for up to 4 hours.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The fire keeps going for hours. It spreads mostly around the interior, but only engulfs about three-quarters of the building's main room. It seems it will eventually go out by the morning rather than completely destroying the gas station.
The night gets deeper and darker in the meanwhile.

The captives only recover enough to start speaking after 4 hours of rest and triage. The brutal impact of the explosions really knocked them for a loop, it seems. The deep cuts make it hard for them to move.