Polk looks to Doc, "Smart Vampires use tripwires and traps in the dark halls of the ship. I think slingerpire lead us here as a trap. Careful my friends. Should we wait for Nyx and Kalista ?"

"Doc, can I have my Ax back ?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:22, Thu 01 Mar 2018.

Kalista turned to the entity floating the trigger. She only had seconds to decide how to act. She dropped her weapon0 and tried to grab the trigger out of the air.

Ethan clung tightly to one of the spines on the back of Polkitain as the dragon dived for the bow of the ship. He could see the ship now that they were so close to it despite the fog. “If there are prisoners in there, they could need medical attention,” he thought, shuddering at the images his mind conjured of how these monsters would treat any prisoner that fell into their grasp. “Why don’t you rip open a new entrance?” Ethan asks Polk in response to the dragon’s concern about traps.

Though he was concerned about possible prisoners and their probable condition, Ethan was foremost concerned about his wife. He knew how tough she is, both in spirit and body but that didn’t stop him for worrying. He resolved to give her another minute before risking distracting her by calling her on the radio.

Kalista is now holding a remote with a great big button on one end. The vampire facing her sees a slim opportunity for escape and begins tunneling into the dirt with its claws.

I hope this dome holds. She triggered the bomb...

++ What's happening brother? ++, snarled Nyx as he discarded his six-shooters and let sparks fly from his fingertips into the remaining coyotes, ++ It's a furball full of furballs here! ++

Use his Energy Expulsion power to strike out at the remaining coyotes, 3D6 SDC per 2 ISP. Do you need rolls to Strike?

Doc tossed the ax to Polk, "Severance got away, it seems, Polk wants to go back in the ship... have some trouble up there did you? I thought you liked them hairy... he teased his brother.

Polk hugged the ax to himself and he swelled with pride.

"Thanks Doc."

Polk was happy to have the gift the last town had given him again.

Nyx finishes off the last of the coyote pack with his psionic power. These critters might have slowed him down, but they posed little actual threat to him after all. His outfit, however, is extremely dirty now even the standards of a dusty saddletramp.

Polkatain catches the axe tossed to him. Feeling properly armed now, he tears into the steel hull of the ship. Although the steel is thick, it's also old and corroding. It doesn't take him long to rip a dragon-sized hole into it. He along with Doc and Ethan can see through the hole into a dark interior cabin. More fog flows out of the hole. The ceiling is low here, but if they duck slightly, they could enter inside and drop a couple of feet onto a solid deck floor.

Kalista gambles on the integrity of her armor backed by her natural Sea Titan toughness. At least the vampires didn't get a chance to steal any fusion blocks. With a push of a button, all of the grenades on the vampire's belt engage at once. The vampire has time to only glance down at surprise when his straps begin humming.

BOOM!

Okay, I want to pause and give a little explanation here. These grenades were looted from the equipment of the new players. I didn't pick out the type. Now that I'm looking at the stats, these particular grenades have a blast radius of only six feet. Since the vampire is trying to dig under the force field, he's at the edge. Kalista is likely outside of that small radius. Well shucks, Kalista escapes taking no damage yet again. She sure as heck isn't on her feet when that pressure waves reaches her though.

The vampire gets liquified by the intensity of the explosion, right down to its bones. The blast in a tiny fraction of second reaches Kalista. It picks her up off her feet and sends her sailing back towards the far end of the dome. A hundredth of a second later, Ethan's force field, buckles, cracks, and vanishes completely. Kalista picks herself up from the ground, her ears ringing and seeing double. She checks her armor and finds it surprisingly intact despite all of the damage around her. Looking through the cloud of dirt and fog, she sees another figure stirring in the crater of blasted earth. The vampire, now naked and shaking his own head, pulls himself up to a kneeling position.

Ethan will feel his force field collapse. Nyx and Arulas are in a position to have seen the flash if they like.

Polkitain moves aside to let the others in and then the explosion happens and Polk drops his ax and falls to the ground. He rolls around in pain claws going to cover his ear holes. His world becoming fog, ringing, and smells.

Whimpers coming from him.

He had been like this early when Doc and Nyx found him and had fired their guns. They found out the gang that had bought Polks egg and enslaved him fired guns near his ears as punishment or as cruel jokes with his sensitive hearing. It took time for him to overcome Nyx and Doc firing their revolvers around him but he did it. Explosions were something he was still working on.

Polks rear claws dug into the ground.

"Polk bad, Polk bad ?"

Doc's face twisted in anger, Polk was the strongest in the group likely, but he was also basically a toddler. Relatively speaking. Doc placed a hand on Polk's back, "No, Polk good. Those booms mean these leeches are having a tough time and we're doing our job, I'd wager. You just do your dragon stuff Polk. You see anything strange you let me or Ethan know. I'll take the lead then, Polk you stay with me, see anything, point it out. It may get loud. Stay calm."

When Polk saw Doc he could see his mouth moving but couldn't hear so he used telepathy.

"Polk will protect. Yes let you know if I see things." Polk said too loud like someone who couldn't hear their own voice and so spoke louder then necessary.

Polk tried to pull himself together and recover his Ax.

He shook his head to get rid of his tears and brought up his sensitivity to evil focusing it more to be better help to Doc and Ethan.

"Nyx ok ? Kalista ok ?"

Ethan felt the force field dome he had created to contain two of the vampires while Kalista dispatched them, shatter an instant before the sound of the explosion that had done the shattering reached him. He jerked in response, as if he had touched a live wire. It wasn’t so much the sensation of one of his force fields failing that caused his body to spasm but rather fear for his wife. She had been under that dome. If she had destroyed the vampires and wanted to be released from it, she had only to call him over the radio and he could have removed the bubble of force instantly. The fact that she hadn’t called him, even now that the rolling thunder of that explosion rolled over the landscape, worried him. It worried him enough that he barely noticed Polk’s whimpering about ‘Polk bad? Polk bad?’.

He was already sliding off the dragon’s back when Polk’s overly loud “Nyx ok? Kalista ok?” registered with him. “I don’t know,” he shouted back as he hit the ground and took off at a dead sprint for the where his dome had been. He keyed the radio and Ethan’s normally calm voice was filled with emotion as his concern for Kalista broke through the icy serenity he normally used when speaking in combat. “Kalista?...Kalista come in, over!”

OOC - Running full speed towards where the dome was.

"Nyx is fine, he's just draggin' ass like always." he grinned.

Polk couldn't hear Ethan before he could focus telepathy on him Ethan ran off.
He did telepathically get Doc's thoughts and nodded.

~Ethan looked scared, Should radio Kalista ? Please radio Kalista Doc, she not lay egg yet.~

Polk remembered some of the lore about vampires from the last town and carved crosses out of the metal for people.

Doc reached out to Kalista on the radio, "Hey lady, you ok?" Polk can easily hear Doc's words as his thoughts echo them... hadn't laid an egg... a baby!

All this time, Sir Aluras has been playing cat and mouse with the vampiress. The former scout was wrong about which one was the cat. She had thought that forcing a melee ranged confrontation would play against the elf's strengths with firearms. The cyber-knight was actually the most deadly of the Lumberjacks at close range. As they circled around each other in the fog, the vampire thought she found an opening and lunged for his back with intention of tearing her fangs through his throat. With a single fluid motion, Arulas twisted in his saddle, formed his psi-sword with a long katana-like blade, and carved the fiend's head off her neck. It would have been an impressive display had any of his teammates been able to see it.

The outcome of this fight was inevitable. I decided to use some handwave and get Arulas caught up with everybody else since his player has been occupied.

Kalista's head rang. Muffled voices were shouting. She did not have the time of concentration to deal with it. She had two vampires to destroy again. She did not know where the second sprang from, but it would die along side it's comrade. She shouted the way a person who was deafened shouted, without knowing, "I'll kill you both. Have at thee, bloodsuckers!" She reformed the chain weapon and reinitiated her assault.

++ Shiny ++, is Nyx's singular response to the radio check-in, as he tumbled one of coyotes off him and rolled to his feet. He paused for a moment, reloading both six shooters and summoning his robotic horse to him - swinging aside as it swept past and nudging it with his heels to a canter towards where it's internal compass suggested the pre-Rifts ship still lay

++Leech down. Headless. Get me a target or bearing guys. Do we have eyes on the orc?++ he says a little winded into the comm set. The run had been a blur, but the orc had to move so it accomplished something.

~Doc these smart Vampires what if we all go in and he comes out to unstake his playmates ?~

Doc paused, Polk was clever. "You saw inside, how many he got left? we can wait here for Nyx, if you want."

"Think he has living people they were butchering meat.  Saw only some of ship so dont know."

Polkitain starts to inhale inflating his chest. There was still ringing in his ear holes and do when he let out a roar it was far louder then it had to be, because he was trying to hear his own roar.

~There Doc, Nyx and others should know where we are so they can come here.~

The dull thud sound rings out from deep inside the ship. It sounded like someone struck at the steel bulkhead with a sledgehammer.

Kalista moves into a sprint at the same time that she touches her tattoo to summon a fresh morning star flail. She pursues the tall vampire who is attempting to vanish into the fog and get away from her. The tall vampire moves quickly, but the Sea Titan keeps pace well enough to keep it in sight.

At the same time, Ethan is moving at an incredible sprint around the ship's hull. He turns a corner at the ship's aft. He sees another figure coming his direction far too late for him to slow. Ethan and the tall (now naked) vampire slam into each other, knocking one another onto their backs. They take no damage.

Nyx catches up with Arulas in the shadow of the ship's hull. Nyx looks grizzly, covered in blood and gore. Arulas has his glowing sword out, and a headless body rests beneath his horse's legs.

As Polk and Doc peer into the darkness of the ship's hull, a blur of movement catches their attention from the corners of their eyes. Severance, on a robotic horse, is bolting out of the ship's entrance and riding hard westward into the fog.