"You caused the Margrave to retreat? How did you do that? Most of the time our solar guns are ineffective against him."

"Well, apparently I happen to have a weapon they hate. Something about 'concentrated sunlight' if I had to take a stab at it." I maintain cover. They are still fighting something. "By the way, what are you shooting at, and do you need me to kill it from a particular direction?"

"Our weapons fire that too. but it's not enough to go though his armor."

He fires off a few shots.

"We're fighting off a raid from the undead. We could use some help."

"Okay, let's try this again." I am not bothering to hide my irritation. "What would make you happy, that I can do right now? I swear if you say 'we are fighting them' or anything that obvious again, I'm shooting at you."

He looks a bit irritated at your comment.

"Sneak into a flanking position and start firing. We'll give you covering fire"

"Gotcha. See you once they are dead or routed." Well, I'm off to a fantastic start with my would-be allies.

My unit and myself will be moving away from his unit, and we move with our heads down to flank the enemy force. This is when most of the stupid things in battle happen: when two forces with a tenuous alliance converge on a foe. We need to be very careful not to shoot one another.

You move out to flank the enemy and find them to mostly be skeleton archers and zombies with putrid green skin that spit our gobs of purple liquid at the defenders. they are using cover against the defenders Unfortunately they are not in cover against you although you are somewhat exposed out here.

Archers? Okay, so the vampire overlords normally disdain tech. The robot suit is not normal for them, and normally these holdouts do what they can because they are not held back by some misguided notions of "superior" magic and "fair play."

That balance is changing, and I'm thinking even Captain Kirk would say his non-interference law doesn't really apply here: someone else beat me to the punch.

As long as I'm exposed, I might as well do what I do best. I get prone, and open fire, taking shots at the zombies. I figure liquid could behave like a grenade, or make poisoned zones that burn your feet off while the archers kill them with direct shots. So I say, change that equation: kill those rotters.

You aim...and boom Headshot! The Undead turns into dust from the force of your solar bolt. This alerts the others but they don't know where you are yet.

Well, hopefully, the other guys will start actually threatening them before my team gets turned into pincushions.

My tactic is simple: keep firing rounds into them until there are no more enemy. I can't readily shift my position, because I might roll into my own team's line of fire. My weapon is also not an assault weapon, so moving and firing are out of the question.

You blast a few more as your team moves into position. By the time they figure out where you are, your team opens fire on them and forces them to retreat with heavy loses.

Me and my impatience. And here I thought I was going to have to resort to harsher measures. I calmly shoot anyone among the targets who is dumb enough to look backwards.

I rally with my newfound allies. "So, now that they are gone, and I've picked a side in your dispute, you mind filling me in on details? I'm all ears about that battlesuit in particular."

"We've been fighting the vampires for most of our history. It was always back and forth with no side staying in the lead. That changed with their introduction of the Casket Armors. Most solar guns can't put a scratch in it. And that Damn Parasol system they have makes it hard to gather a charge. I hear the Casket armors have something to do with it. But We don't know much about them."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 01:09, Tue 29 Sept 2015.

"If I had to guess, they are foreign to this world. Any outsiders come in other than me, ruins get dug up, vampires known for being open to new ways to subjugate his cattle? This is probably the source of your armor."

Maybe I can give this guy some ideas. At the very least, he might be able to point me to someone who does know.

"We've have many people die trying to find that info out. We suspect that someone off planet is helping them but we haven't found out who yet. The Alchemist Sheridan probably knows the most about the armors though."

A name. That's a good sign. "Where is Sheridan at? They sound like someone we should both be talking to more frequently."

"His Mansion is about 30 miles northeast of here. Be careful though, going in a straight line will take you by The Hunting Mansion of the Mangrave."

"That's rather direct. So why would I go in a straight line with that knowledge in mind? I'm not in any rush, unless you are about to explain why I should be." I can think of one reason I need to hurry.

"How much added time would it take to go around?"

"Eh. It's just a warning. You seem like a offworlder. It should add about 3 or 4 hours to the trip if you go around."

"And the Hunting Mansion of the Mangrave, as you call it. What is a Mangrave?" These are need to know things. If it is an ally of my present foes, I will end up dealing with it anyways.

"Rymer Mangrave is the vampire that rules this area. His Hunting Mansion is where he is based. He goes out in his centaur like Casket Armor and hunts down humans to send to the Vampire city of New Culiacan."

"He has a custom battlesuit? That's news. Just how long have these vampires had access to this kind of tech for variants to exist? Or have I only encountered the one?"

"Scratch that question: how many types of these armor exist that you know of?"

"There is four casket armors that I know of. One for each of the elements of Earth, Fire, Wind and Ice. There may be more but they don't take them out of the Vampire City. They got the Armors and the Parasol System about Ten years ago."

"Ice?" Guess water only counts if it's zero Celsius. "Nevermind. What element is this Mangrave? I don't think I'm bypassing this thing in any event."

"He uses a fiery crossbow and produces flames behind him as he charges."