Worse Than the Disease 2 IC

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean and Richard let loose a hail of lead, prompting the the targets to dodge and drop.
Sean only manages to hit one man once, tearing his arm off at the elbow. He screams in agony and clutches the fresh stump.
Richard's target on the elevated platform gets hit by three bullets, he goes limp as the shots penetrate his heart. From this distance, it's hard to tell if he's dead or simply unconscious.

The dogs stay by Bart's side as he aims his gun.
The militiamen also aim their firearms, watchful for easy targets.

No-one can see if the prone targets still alive are doing anything but cowering...or writhing in pain.

[u-b]

Sean quickly reloads and shoots another long burst and the men, left to right, targeting the arms again, then makes a step to the left not to stay in the same plafe where the muzzle flashes have been. Between the darkness, the crouched posture and a slight change of position, Sean doubts he will be succesfully targeted, but is ready to dodge anyway.

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Using extra effort to reload with a full magazine. Now at 9 of 12 FP. Will dodge with extra effort if attacked.

Will need to know the following before deciding if Bart shoots:
1. How many men are there visible on the ground level? Sean targets three to the left. Is there another one to the right?
2. If not, has Bart seen whether the man he is targeting had just been hit?

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean manages to shoot up two men in the arm, ripping them off with high powered bullets. They quickly break down into absolute terror, blood spraying.

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1. All the enemies are visible on the ground. No one is on the right.
2. Bart's target has been hit and he saw it.

[Volthawk]

Seeing the state of the enemy after that last burst, Richard starts approaching the camp, shouting out. "Anyone left alive, surrender now and we'll let you live!"

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OC: combat over.)

The last hostile to remain conscious eagerly accepts Richard's offer. He surrenders and begs for medical attention. He puts up no resistance as Richard and his friends approach to capture him. Everyone notices a strange chemical smell in the air as they walk through big bushels of weeds around the camp. Noisemaker traps were set up just before the rush of weeds, meant to catch anyone sneaking up on the camp.

When the exiles and their entourage finally get to the campfire, they make note of the encampment’s “features” - it is fairly barebones outside of the big wooden box-like semi-cabin which the elevated platform was built upon. An attempt at camouflage was made, but the men here were too inept to make good use of it.
A pair of big plastic barrels that look to have been recently dug up out of an adjacent hole - now kept next to the wooden pseudo-cabin.
Rows of stacked firewood have been stacked close to the firepit.
Behind the cabin, hidden from the exiles’ viewpoint up until now, is a big hitching post where seven horses with riding gear on have been tied to the post.
The cabin’s door is shut.

The enemies are easily tied up. Only the sniper on the raised platform atop the cabin is dead without a prayer. The rest are merely bleeding profusely and close to death.

[u-b]

Having confirmed that there's no one in the cabin, Sean disarms and tourniquets the survivors, then scotches them, then, provided they agree to talk, proceeds to give proper first aid. The later is bound to take some time, so Richard can as well start to ask questions. Of particular interest:
1. Who are these guys (rank, unit and the rest of the affiliations).
2. Who's their boss.
3. Where's their boss (we want both the coordinates and the whereabouts).
4. Where are everyone else of theirs.
5. What's the smell.
6. What were their friends trying to smuggle out of Bread Basket.
7. Where that substance was to be delivered.
8. How it was supposed to be used.
9. What do they know about earlier similar operations, whether successfull or not, and/or the other sources of the substance.
0. Anything else Richard can think of (or, actually, the guy can think of, if he would like a premium treatment).

UPD: Oh, and who are their men in the city.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The captured enemies agree to talk in exchange for first aid. They're completely shaken, however, and in great pain.
(OC: Make 3 First Aid rolls to treat them. The Interrogation rolls are unopposed, you just need to keep them focused and calm during questioning.)

The cabin is empty of people, yes. But it is where the raiders have stored their supplies...and the corpses of five dogs, preserved as best as they can. The dead dogs seemed to have died from violent animal attacks, throats or bellies ripped out. Stacked next to the door is two weeks' worth of animal feed for dogs and horses. The rest of the cabin is devoted to lockers, barrels and chests.

Sean finds in the containers; 40 loose pistol bullets, 10 loose rifle bullets, 5 loose shotgun shells, an empty (no magazine) Walther PPK pistol (HT99, HT101), three 10-dose tubes of antibiotic ointment (HT226, each tube worth $40), 40 morphine doses (HT226, each dose worth $2…more to an addict), an antitoxin kit for snake venom (10 doses, HT226, $40 per dose), 6 doses of truth serum (HT227, $40 a dose), an antitoxin kit for treating curare poisoning (4 doses, HT226, $40 per dose), 4 doses of curare poison ($100 each), and 50 cans of food. The raiders also kept a thick stack of papers (one of which is a map of Vermont) on a desk. From a quick glance, the papers look like scouting reports.

In addition, there's 100 pints of clean water in a small plastic barrel, and a total of 75 gallons of alcohol kept in one large drum and a wooden keg (6.8 lbs. and $2.60 per gallon for the booze, another 50 and 55 pounds respectively for the weight of the keg and drum, HT53-54), all stored at the back of the cabin.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean helps the injured captives. He stops the bleeding from the severed arms.
When he checks the horses, he finds them without saddlebags but with horseshoes, saddles, bits and bridles. They all look worn and somewhat scarred by past injuries.
The dead sniper had a Rolling Block rifle, one rifle bullet chambered.
The pair of big plastic barrels are empty, and are in addition to the containers found in the cabin.

(OC: Anyone got Veterinary skill?)

Richard's questioning of the captives is slow going at first.
He finds out they're all raiders, part of the larger army that has been terrorizing the state and trying to murder the exiles. They have the usual black tattoos on their necks. These ones depict two dice, one showing a 3 and the other showing a 4.
Their unit patrols the roads around here and maintains this encampment of supplies for other units. They also provide back-up for other units, which is what they were doing at Bread Basket.
Their boss is dead, disease got him a few days ago, they've been following standing orders out of inertia since, until an unit in Bread Basket requested backup.
Their boss answered to a nasty raid captain, but they know little about him and they have not heard from him in weeks.
Other raiders come and go to this encampment, giving reports, mooching supplies, hiding out, delivering supplies, and so on. They're all jerks.
The smell is a highly flammable chemical the raiders have coated the bushes in, as part of their defenses. The idea is, at the first sign of trouble like the noisemakers going off, the raiders would toss lit firecrackers or flares into the brush, setting them ablaze. The fires would prevent enemies from hiding there, and frighten off animals.
The raiders from the city did not inform the camping hostiles what they were doing or why they needed backup. It could have been a drug dealing thing, or just simply an attack on security forces.

After one hour of Richard interviewing the captives and Sean securing the camp, everyone starts hearing a great mass of people slowly walking towards their position. Looking to the east, they can see at least 20 humans(?) approaching from 35 yards away in the darkness. None of them seem to be carrying much of anything, and they all sport ghastly injuries or are grossly sick from what is visible of their skin.

[u-b]

Looking at the approaching men(?), Sean thinks of no better plan than to kill them if they would seem to be dangerous. He points at the captives. "You three get inside. Bart, you are with them." He then addresses the militia. "You three on the roof." He then reloads the rifle and prepares a lit flare to throw at the soaked bushes to the east. "You do as you will, Richard."

[Volthawk]

Richard frowns as he sees the approaching group. Sick and injured. He feels obligated to do something to help, but some of them look pretty badly ill and he can't afford to get sick. He looks back at Sean as he sets himself and the men up. "I'll try to talk to them - from a safe distance, of course. If they don't listen, turn violent or try to close the distance...we'll see." Richard really didn't want to see them shot. It's probably not a surprise to Sean, given their time together so far, that he doesn't even directly bring up the prospect of shooting the group.

That said - or not said, as it were - Richard walks forward a few steps and shouts out into the darkness. "You lot! Stop there! We can give you help and supplies, but you have to stop approaching! Some of you are sick!"

[Shoot Da Moon]

At first, Richard thinks the approaching people do not hear him...
They simply keep lurching over, as if in a trance.
Sean sees it first, through his vision aides. About half of the people coming closer suddenly start twitching violently as they approach...

Then their heads open up like gory blossoming flowers into strange insectoid stalks of wet flesh, and their necks twist and bend in unnatural ways as if something within is whipping it around. He notices that almost all of them appear to be days old corpses that somehow still amble. What on earth...?!

(OC: Sean, Richard, both of you roll a Fright Check at -2. Roll the same for your NPC companions.)

[u-b]

Sean is shocked by the sight he is seeing and takes some time to get his bearings together. Luckily, the approaching things are not very fast...

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Sean is stunned and will remain so for a total of 4 seconds. The militia men react differently, but the details depend on their respective Wills. Not sure when they are able to see what is happening (they have no night vision aids) and thus when the effects start. If they take long enough to notice it, maybe we will be already in combat by that time, not sure if that gives a +5. Bart in the cabin will probably take some time to notice that the things are amiss, after which he will fail his fright check, unless +5 for being already "in combat", because by that time shooting will likely start.

[Volthawk]

Richard keeps his nerve a little better than Sean, and the fact that they're clearly not human any more quells any hesitation about shooting them. There's a lot of them, so Richard just keeps firing into the approaching horde, trying to thin their numbers while the rest of the team get it together.

[u-b]

The first thing Sean does when he can get his senses together is to throw the lit flare at the fuel-soaked bush.

[Shoot Da Moon]

For the next five seconds, Richard let loose his fury as hard and as fast as he can. The awful monsters are less than 30 yards away...
He shoots down two horrors in the first second.
His next burst ends on a slight fumble as the gun turns in his hand. He still manages to nail 3 more monsters hard enough that they fall down.
He quickly corrects his slip.
Then goes back to the comforting roar of automatic gunfire. He easily tears through the horde but only one of the hellish things gives up the fight...
On second number five, as Sean throws the flare, Richard scores another horror downed in the blaze of bullets...

The mass of monsters still numbers over two dozen, and they are now only 10 yards away.

As he ends his shooting, Sean recovers from the fear and throws a flare into the soaked bushes and enjoys the sight of a blaze starting up right away. It immediately begins to spread...

The fire in the bushes catches the middle of the horde quite well...

[u-b]

Standing his ground for now, Sean shoots a long burst at the approaching lot, trying not to spread it evenly, but instead to concentrate it where Richard is not targeting. He shouts: "Meh, shoot the back ranks!".

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The militia men on the roof now see the illuminated baddies and, to the extent able, probably aim.

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OC: Does switching to your rifle require a Ready before you start shooting?)

Sean lets loose with his rifle. He easily gets some hits in on all his targets.
His first target seems to swallow the two bullets coming it's way, and ignores them both even as the holes leak black fluid.
The second target is hit twice for identical effect.
The third horror also takes the bullets like a champ.
The fourth one to be shot at gets knocked down by the bullets, out of the fight.
The fifth monster is hit once, to minimal effect, blasting away a chunk of flesh that it barely reacts to.
The sixth target also barely reacts to the two bullets that penetrates its chest area.

Sean realises, worryingly, that his gunfire seems far less effective against these targets, like throwing pebbles into tar...Everything he knows about human biology tells him that these monsters do not have vitals, somehow.

[Volthawk]

Seeing the subpar effectiveness of their rifles, and how clustered the...whatever these things are...were together, Richard pulls out a grenade. Fragmentation might not be up to much, like the bullets, but the raw explosive force might hopefully do something.

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Doesn't look like any of Richard's potentially-relevant things are relevant (Lightning Fingers does gun gadgets, he just has gun, sword and ammo Fast-Draw specs and grenades are probably separate), so that's a Ready to pull it out. One more after this to pull the pin, and then he can throw it in the third second overall with it detonating on the fourth second since Richard finished his bursts, for the ninth overall (grenades have between a 2 and 4 second fuse, given we're the people who modified grenade launchers to ignore the safety short-range mechanism I figure our fuses are on the shorter side).

He's going to take a step back for this action and the next Ready, just in case.

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OC: okay, while Sean and Richard are acting, what will the NPCs on top of the cabin do in the meantime?)

[Shoot Da Moon]

When Sean first fired his gun, the men on top of the cabin froze in the face of the horror for varying moments of time.

They eventually aim and then open fire on the back ranks of the horde.

The hardiest militiaman recovers after a second and blasts two monsters right where it works, knocking them down.
The second militiaman shakes like a leaf for 2 seconds before getting his nerve back and shooting the monsters...to minimal effect.
The third militiaman also shivers for 2 seconds before he manages to make his shots. He hits twice, but none of his targets seem particularly beaten down.

(OC: the NPCs are now mostly acting alongside the PCs. I think we can safely enter combat time officially, after five seconds of action. Now the monsters are 10 yards from the PCs, one fifth of them are on fire, more will be on fire every second as the fire spreads. The NPCs all managed to Aim for 3, 2, and 2 turns after shooting as Turn 1 begins...)

TURN 1

Sean is on the ball. But can he make a difference?

[u-b]

Sean moves a few yards back and shoots another burst at he approaching lot, not quite satisfied with the effect he is having on that lot as a whole. "We retreat. Will cover the ladder and lure them through the fire again and again." That leaves a question of Bart and the captives, but Sean is not sure he can do anything about that now.

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The mass of monsters still numbers over two dozen, and they are now only 10 yards away.

Now the monsters are 10 yards from the PCs...

I mean, again?

...after five seconds of action...

Sean should have just thrown the flare allowing the men on the roof have a clear view of the targets. And Richard should have just finished shooting after which he is to spend two more seconds getting a live grenade in hand.

I think we should be now after 7 rounds of action and so the opposition should be a bit closer.

Bart probably looks at the scenery and tries to barricade inside.

Defenses: if they can reach Sean, he'll dodge and retreat.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean moves a few yards back and shoots another burst at he approaching lot, not quite satisfied with the effect he is having on that lot as a whole. "We retreat. Will cover the ladder and lure them through the fire again and again." That leaves a question of Bart and the captives, but Sean is not sure he can do anything about that now.

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I mean, again?

Sean should have just thrown the flare allowing the men on the roof have a clear view of the targets. And Richard should have just finished shooting after which he is to spend two more seconds getting a live grenade in hand.

I think we should be now after 7 rounds of action and so the opposition should be a bit closer.

Bart probably looks at the scenery and tries to barricade inside.

Defenses: if they can reach Sean, he'll dodge and retreat.

Sean sweats heavily as he fires a long burst from his rifle. His shots all hit, but only one of the horrors gets knocked down and out of the fight. He counts about 30 of the monsters still active!

(OC: Richard, your turn. I believe you have a Ready grenade on hand, which you had a chance to pull the pin before combat time proper began? You can throw it this turn, right? The NPCs act after you, they all had 2, 2, and 3 seconds of Aim by now.)

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Yeah, the 10 yards figure came up twice because the post was covering the same five seconds again. They were acting at the same time as Sean and Richard. It does not cover the seconds after that in detail. Sorry for the confusion.

[Volthawk]

Richard lobs the grenade a short distance ahead of the horde and starts following Sean backwards.

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The grenade goes off after they next move, but unless they speed up or down compared to before Richard should have it about right to catch as many of them as possible. It does 16 crushing damage point blank, 5 crushing a yard away, 2 damage at two yards (I figured we'd rather not do the "roll damage for everyone caught in the blast separately" approach given the number of enemies involved - let me know if you'd rather they all get a roll each GM).

The fragmentation suffers a -3 range penalty to hit Richard (he moved 2 yards back, factoring in encumbrance and the whole moving back is 1 yards per 2 normal movement thing), so he gets hit by 2 fragments, both hitting the torso and thus doing nothing against his steel plate. For the enemy, given size and posture mods are both -0 for them, that makes it so those within three yards get hit by 3 fragments, and those further out get hit by 2. That includes any of our people within 10 yards of the grenade, which may include Sean (oops). I'm also not sure if I should've rolled fragmentation damage separately against everyone - given I didn't, and I'm not sure how many will be left when it detonates, I'll again leave that call to you GM.

[Shoot Da Moon]

The militia backup steels themselves with more squinting down the barrel, bracing their guns.

The horde of awful things keep moving towards Sean and Richard, the grenade is not going off yet. They move another 4 yards towards the exiles - not too far from the cabin structure.

But the fire keeps burning, catching an extra handful of the horrors. The exiles count an even dozen of them set alight...

And every single one of the unnatural horrors succumbs to the fire, falling down in a seizure-like manner and letting out unnervingly not-quite-animal screams as they blacken into carbon under the red and orange illumination. They are out of the fight and into the cookout.

TURN 2

Sean finds himself just less than a handful of meters away from the frontline of the monsters.

[u-b]

Having observed that (1) we don't have the bullets to kill every monster and that (2) the fire works, Sean comes with a plan to just let them die in the fire. This could require some creative maneuvering, but he's quick enough on his feet to do as much. "Men, defend the cabin only! Don't just shoot at the crowd!" shouts Sean as he is moving around.

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The goals are...
1. Not get hit by fragmentation.
2. Not get caught by monsters.
3. Not get caught in the fire.
4. Keep luring the monsters...
4.1 Away from the cabin.
4.2 Where they will burn.

Sean is moving fast (move 7), but in no particular hurry to finish the task as long as the overall plan works.

[Shoot Da Moon]

Sean is fairly sure the fire is doing much more harm to the monsters than his bullets did, yes...and he spots something peculiar about the monsters at this close range; despite their heads appearing quite gruesomely inhuman at first glance, he sees a strange fleshly bulb the size of a brain at the center of the flesh stalks that is being encased in some translucent shell and engulfed by smaller stalks.

[Volthawk]

Seeing that Sean seems to have a plan, and that he only had the one fragmentation grenade, Richard keeps moving towards the cabin.

[Shoot Da Moon]

(OC: Noted, both of you keep track of your distance from the monsters. NPCs' turn now. Do they open fire?)

[Shoot Da Moon]

The men on top of the cabin follow orders and brace their guns on the platform's guard rails.

A monster catches fire from the spreading blaze, and instantly screeches in agony as it is engulfed by the burning brightness. It is out of the fight.

TURN 3

Sean feels sweat putting down his forehead and from his armpits. He has put himself through his paces in this fight and the last.

[u-b]

Sean keeps moving away, quickly reloading the rifle, then turns back at the monsters. The plan was well and good, but he had some new information to check. "Just testing a little hypothesis..." he says and shoots a long burst at the nearest lot.

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Round 1: 2 yards => 5 yards (3 steps back, end up facing the monsters) => monsters move 4
Round 2: 1 yards => 6 yards (turn 2, move 5, end up facing away) => monsters move 4
Round 3: 2 yards => 7 yards (move 5, turn 2, end up almost facing the monsters) => ...

Extra effort to reload and extra effort to move and attack, ending up with 5/12 FP.

If this has the desired effect and the men on the roof get it, they might want to aim at those brains-like things.

UPD: What about the grenade?