Outside the cave stretches a rocky desert as far as the eye can see.

GM: What do you do?

Cole wondered what 'nest' Zeke could be talking about, as he bent down to pickup the fallen scroll. He unrolled it and tried to read it.

OOC
No Cole isn't crazy or stupid, he just never sensed vampires or saw them and no one has come out and said anything to him about vampires.

"For all the good the garlic did anyone here." Wolf finally spoke since meeting the others. His accent was strange, like a hybrid of two dialects from the far north and the locals. He addressed Joran, since his opinions carried over the misgivings of the others. "I'm Lieutenant Chaplain Wolf, CSA. We need to return for our vehicles before the sun goes down. After that, any bloodsuckers we missed will tear them open like tin cans."

"I should give a report to my superiors, but I will leave certain details about you out of it. The vampire is the bigger threat until we get out of here." He looked to Cole, with a strange cold look in his eye. "Did you field strip my unit? It is their service tags I will be needing for myself, but their weapons and armor don't do anyone any good just left in there. I'd rather someone willing to kill enemies of humanity, like you, be the heirs of their equipment."

Cade kept inside the mouth of the cave.

She noted the various warding herbs and purposefully avoided disturbing them.

She didn't remember a desert behind the building they went into, so she assumed they had been shifted somewhere.  Where, was the question.

So Cade took a look around to try and see if anything might suggest where they were in relation to where they had been.  Since magic was involved, even if she could just confirm they hadn't ended up on another world, that would be something.

She also tried to recon what time it was, since knowing how long until night fell was probably important.

Cade rolled 49 using 1d100.  Land Navigation@65

Cole looked up from his reading of the scroll at the Coalition soldier that had spoken to him. He could have gone the rest of the day without speaking with either of the CS city slickers, truth be told but the man, Wolf he said his name was, had seen fit to speak to him in at least a civilized if not polite manner. According to The Code, that meant he had to respond in kind until or unless the man disrespected him or The Code. There was also the little fact that his momma had raised him with 'right proper manners' and even if'n she weren't here to know, he would do her proud and exchange civilized words with the man. "Don't mean I have to like um though," he thought as he suppressed the urge to spit before speaking to Lieutenant Chaplain Wolf of the high and mighty CSA.

"Can't say we did," he says to Wolf. "You and your boys showed up bout the time we found the bodies. Didn't have time to take anything even if we wanted to. Now then, what's all this about vampires?"

The scroll is a map, of sorts. It is worn by age and dust, but it seems to point to an oasis somewhere far from here, perhaps a day or two walking.

Meanwhile, Cade tries to get her bearings on where they are. It was night when they were in Dallas, and yet it is day here. Everything about this area suggests they are still on their home planet, though. Perhaps they slipped through time and space?

Her best hunch is that they are south of Dallas, maybe even south of Texas, which would place them somewhere in Mexico.

GM: What do you do?

"Damn. I was hoping you had some information about the leeches. Apparently, we both learned all we were going to learn about them at knife point. The knowledge that they can die was a pleasant surprise." Those things didn't react right to silver, as far as Chaplain was concerned - it tore them up, same as any bloodsucker, but they just kept going without concern. He wondered if anything they had just acquired was going to matter. Vampires that stockpile the things that kill them really aren't worried about those things...or they are aiming to kill their own.

He noted the...what the hell was she? Dog Boy? Some kind of D-Bee that just looked like one? Either way, they were already making notes, doing what he was merely thinking.

He left the cave, considering the cache they had just acquired, and began looking for high ground. Once found, if any, he was going to survey the horizon with his bionic eye, and if he found no sign of hostiles or even life, he was going to jump to the highest nearby point, and search the horizons again. With no high point, he would consider his scan of the environs complete after a visual scan, and begin the next part of the plan.

While looking around, he asked his question to anyone listening. "You folks have names, like we do in the States? I've caught Cade, Zeke, and Joran so far."

He kept the names Hoss and Mikhail to himself. He figured they were dead, from the yelling about them.

It seems to me, the ogre rumbles just after finishing his ration pack, that this is someone's idea of a safehouse, if you are trying to stay safe from vampires.  Perhaps we should stay here until we get our bearings, figure out where we are and how to get back.
He collects his trash to stuff into his pack.  Garlic around the entrance.  Water guns.  Crosses.  I have to wonder what other protections there are here.

Miss intention was hard to tell through the black, faceless mask of her armor. But when the other one started talking, she relaxed visibly. Hands coming off her rifle, letting it hang from a strap around her shoulders. The offered food gets ignored for the moment, though. Because, frankly, there were other things to worry about.

A few hustling steps bring her toward the mouth of the cave. "Ah... Shit," she mumbles, voice quiet and with a bit of crackle as it broadcast's from the armor's sound system. She kneels down, inside the mouth of the cave. Compass coming off her belt as her finger begins to draft through the dirt.

OOC:
Land Navigation (72%): 08:26, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 68 using 1d100.  Land Nav
Wilderness Survival (64%):
08:27, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 59 using 1d100.  Wilderness.
Identify Plants (64%): 08:27, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 92 using 1d100.  Plants.

Wanting to know exactly where we are, how far we are from where we were, and as much as possible as to what's between the two points. Also what time it is.

Zeke shook his head grinning, "Good luck LT Chaplain Wolf, since we ain't rightly sure where we are, at findin' your ride before dark. Yeah, us folks all got names like in the states. you ain't special in that regard. We lost people, you did too. So, sorry for that. Never easy to lose a man."

Cade watched the two soldiers as they made their way to the mouth of the cave.

She then headed back down inside.

"Joran's right.  This place is safe, or at least safe as anything we are probably going to find."  Cade stated.

"I think we're south of where we were.  Don't know how far south, might be far enough that we're past Lonestar."

Nathaniel looks at the rest of the group and says "Do we really want to know where we are, if we are still on our Earth? If so, I will need somebody with a shiny mirror like object to stand outside in the sun."

If somebody volunteers, he will have them reflect the mirrored object straight up. He takes off his helmet inside the mouth of the cave, turns into light, flies outside the cave and then shoots straight up like a laser beam of light about 5 miles straight up. From there he figures out where they are generally or specifically depending on the obvious land marks that can be seen form that high up. If he needs more altitude, he gets it. Meanwhile, he enjoys the natural sunlight!

"Alrighty, seems I missed something. Ya'll going on and on about vampires but I ain't seen none yet today. Somebody want to fill me in?"

Joran volunteers to go outside with Nathaniel, stopping for a moment with the CS troops.  Than you for not attempting to kill us like most of your fellows would.  I also apologize for using my powers on you before.  Like I said, I just wanted to avoid a big fight between us all, and I will not do that again without your express permission.
He then continues out of the cave, being careful to avoid messing up the protections set at the entrance.  Holding the mirror in hand, he marvels at Nathaniel's abilities every time he sees them in use.  Especially when he absords or produces one of his "brothers"
When Nathaniel returns, the ogre queries, What have you figured out?

"There was a few, I think, back where we were in that basement, but they might not have been.  Something was off about them."  Cade informed Cole.

"And, someone worked to make this, I assume, a refuge from vampires.  Strung garlic all over the entrance, plus, obviously..."  She finished motioning towards the cache of anti-vampire equipment.

"Might be this area has a vampire problem.  It'll make it harder to get back to Dallas if that's the case."

Chaplain spoke quietly into his radio, nearly a whisper, directly to Julia. +When you have a moment, I'd like your professional assessment of this cave's value as a weapon's cache. I might need to lighten my load a bit, but I intend to return for it.+

He was glad the faceplate was down, because Zeke's transformation caught him off guard and he did not want anyone else to see what would have probably been an expression of surprise. He took a note of chanting, words, gestures - and if none, he resolved to keep a closer eye on Zeke, because he didn't know of any psychic powers that did that.

He was also taken aback by Joran's admission of power usage, and he quickly zeroed down what that power was, given where his mind was already going. No waving or strange chants, or I would have blown him up immediately and we would not be talking. Psionics, probably mind control - likely why I couldn't find the emotions needed to properly interact with him until just now.

"Don't mention it. It was crazy in there." He kept his tone flat and lacking in surprise. No need to be antagonistic, and I can swallow my pride for now. If the big psion decided it was time to seize his mind again, he was wondering if he plausibly could stop it - although he hoped he'd put up a better mental fight next time, so that he could simply kill Jozan if they ever tried that again.

Of course, given what they were dealing with, Jozan might not be the first suspect if he felt his mind under assault.

He decided to add to Joran's report to Cole. "The leeches talk a big game and fancy themselves wolves, but they don't normally fight to the death, and when they find out they have met someone packing silver who's as hard as them, they piss their pants, change their shape, and flee like the coyotes they really are. Or at least the ones I've dealt with in the past did. These ones didn't do any of that."

"And whatever the hell they were, they could come in here the same way we did. The garlic wouldn't have stopped them from doing anything except leave through the front entrance, if that, and the vampire killing weapons would be on their side, in their hands. This might not be a hiding hole for a desperate survivor or a resistance. It might be a terror cell, a base, for those things back there."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:43, Sun 19 July 2020.

Cole tips his hat back at Cade's words. He had known the strange Dog Girl for a while now and she wasn't one to spoke easy or kid about something like that. She also knew a thing or two about Undead critters. All of that told him he should take her claim seriously. Which left him with a problem, since from time out of mind, his people could feel whenever Vampires were nearby, and he hadn't felt a thing.

"So maybe they weren't true vampires or at least not the vampires we are used to," he thought to himself. "Not that it matters much right now. They are there and we are here." He proceeded to remind his companions of that. "Well, whatever they were, and I ain't saying they weren't vampires, they are back there and we are here, wherever here is exactly." He jerks a thumb at the cave entrance, "and where here is, has a whole lot of sunlight right now. Ain't no vampire made yet that can handle that much sunlight."

He tips his head at the chest and its still unclaimed items. "This whole place is just the next stop on the path to wherever the real treasure is." He holds up the scroll and map contained on it. "We might not know where we are but we do have a map on how to get to the treasure. We don't know if'n those vampires or whatevers can follow us so rather than stand here yaking about it, let's get out and use the sun to put as much distance between us and this cave as we can. We'll find the treasure, then get back to Dallas and then maybe back to Worth." He looks at the two Coalition soldiers. "Ya'll are free to go about your business. We came here to collect on a treasure, not fight you boys. You want to leave peaceful like, I ain't gonna stop you."

Nathaniel is able use a team member's reflective surface to turn to light and shoot up into the sky. He can tell that they are no longer in Dallas. For that matter, they are no longer in America. Stretching out in every direction is rocky desert dotted with settlements, villages and what look like some larger cities.

Meanwhile, Julia is able to surmise, based on the landscape and vegetation, that they must be somewhere in Mexico.

But why did a portal from Dallas lead here?

GM: What do you do?

"At least it will be true when I describe you as scavengers." Chaplain's tone indicated a casual relief. He pointed up. "That - unfortunately - is holding our most likely way back, and I'm not sure if you all understand exactly how we got here in the first place. So step one, get information. I'm going to see if anyone's chatting on the airwaves."

He started fiddling with his headjack, listening to radio frequencies, starting with CB ranges, and slowly expanding along the FM ranges. AM was hard to trace locally.

His own message to Corporal Hart would have been nearly impossible for anyone not on a Coalition channel, and in their case, they'd have to been almost right there, listening.

His current objective was simple - find any existing radio frequencies, track them to a source, and don't throw up any signals that would accidentally be overheard by anyone else.

He popped his face-plate up to look at Cole, although he was looking past him, concentrating on something else. Still, he felt Cole might need to see a face to realize there was, in fact, a human being under here. "So, I'm sure we have something we can bond over while we are together for the moment. For example, in the states, even among enemies, it is considered rude to not introduce yourself. Is that true out here?"

OOC: 22:05, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 40 using 1d100.  Radio: Basic - base TN 75.
22:07, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 100 using 1d100.  Electronic Countermeasures - base TN 60.
Well. At least to my knowledge, critical failures are not a thing. In another game, that roll would have amazing for a different reason. I can probably find a working signal if there is one, but my tracking of it is "no", unless some circumstance is giving me a high enough bonus to ECM that rolling was unneeded.

"Alright, so we either need to leave now, and try to make it to the spot on the map before sunset, or we commit to staying here and trying to gather more information."  Cade stated.

"It won't do us any good to waste hours fucking around with the magic shit that brought us here, then decide to leave.  If we're staying, we're spending the night."

Cole wasn't sure what to make of lieutenant Wolf. All of the Coalition soldiers he had ever met were always the shoot first, shoot again and if anything is still alive, shoot some more, types. At least when it came to anything or anyone non-human or human but magic. Of course he seemed smart enough to know he was way, way out of range of any help from the rest of the Coalition. Maybe that was why he was playing all nice like, going on about introducing yourself to your enemies.

OK fine, if he wanted to pretend to be nice, Cole could pretend too. "My name is Cole, lieutenant, Cole Adamos." He tipped his hat towards the man, in recognition of Wolf having lifted his helmet's face plate.

The bare minimum of courtesy having been observed, Cole turned his attention to Cade. "Whether we make it to the treasure before night or not, don't matter much. We can't stay here though. We got no clue if those vampires can use the same way we did to get here inside this cave. Kinda hard to defend against a threat that can just suddenly appear with no warning right in the middle of you. We also lost out rides so unless someone has a trick up their sleeves, we are walking. Best we put as many steps between us and here as we can, maybe find somewhere to hole up we won't be worried about vampires or zombies or whatever just magically appearing right up on us."

+Anything you leave here you're never seeing again,+ is Miss' reply over the channel as she stands up, turning back into the cave.


"Good news! We're all gonna die in the desert!" she declares to the other residents of the cave as she looks them over. They seemed to be peaceful enough. At least, they were before they knew the situation.

"Far as I can figure, based on the landscape, some of the plants I know, and just my own overwhelming optimism, is we're a good three to four hundred clicks south of where we were, oh, I dunno, fifteen minutes ago? That puts us way off the map, LT," Miss explains, a little laugh following it.

"If we start walking north now, today, and don't get eaten by... Something? It's weeks on foot. And that's for those of us have got a cooling system," she raps her knuckles against the white rib cage of her armor. "For those of you in leathers and fur? Fucked if I know, but good news is you'll have less of a ways to walk."

"We need to take an inventory. What we have for supplies, water especially. Ammo. Trade goods. Probably establish an engagement stance toward the locals, LT."

Once Nathaniel is back down, enters his armor as light in just the right position, and then turns back into his normal self. Grabbing his helmet he heads back down to the rest and tells them all what he saw. Looking at the map he lets the others know about what kind of overall terrain they will be slogging through. He seems much more animated than before.

He shares that on his back is an extra drum of ammo, a extra battery for the armor, two ration packs, one canteen a gulp or two low on water, and two thousand credits. He explains the credits are mostly for bribes, when needed on a mission. He notes he has only 4 days worth of power for the armor without a recharge, which takes 1 hour per two days worth of battery life.

A high pitched squeal comes from Chaplain's headset as he fiddles with it. He swoons a bit, the sound even bothering the others.

"Well, that's an unpleasant sound," says a gravelly voice. An old, reptilian mage in a light brown robe has entered the cave.

He emanates magical ability, but for those sensitive to it he does not appear to be evil.

GM: Chaplain - Critical fails are totally a thing in my games. -1 to strike, parry and dodge for a few minutes, hehe.

All - Are you all at the mouth of the cave? If so, that's where reptile man is too. If not, he is inside with you. I got a little fuzzy on who is where.

What do you do?

Nathaniel swings around to face the reptilian mage looking being. The railgun in his hands does not point at the mage, but it swings with him, pointed towards the floor.

"Greetings friend....who might you be?"

Joran brings his hands up to his ears at the feedback sound from the CS soldier's radio, not even thinking about how loud it had to be to Chaplain Wolf, since he is wearing the helmet.  At the sudden appearance of the mage-appearing lizard, Joran turns to look at him, or her, in surprise, though he did not seem to be worried.  His Sixth Sense had not gone off to warn him of danger.  He keeps a hand within easy reach of his Big Bore, neural mace, and knife, just in case.
Would this be your safe-place and cache?

Cole had listened to the Coalition woman speak her piece and wondered what in the hell she was going on about. "Leathers and fur? Something wrong with her eyes?" Everyone, including Cade, was wearing body armor, though to be fair, she did have fur underneath it what with being a Dog Girl and all. It was also true he wasn't wearing his helmet at the moment but he did have it handy, preferring to wear his hat and not close himself off from the air.

When she had said what she was going to say, he ignored most of it and focused on the one part that made sense. "We are good for water, if'n you don't care about it coming from magic," he says to her. "So it sounds like you two are fixing on joining us, is that it?"

And right about then was when the strange lizard man showed up with no warning, radiating magic. What he had said would happen, did; someone just popping in with no warning. Fortunately they were all awake, armed and he didn't seem like he meant to cause much trouble. Cole split his attention between the lizard mage and the CS soldiers, making sure to keep himself out of a line of fire between them. He didn't try to talk to the mage though, he figured Joran and Nathaniel were talking to him enough, no point in badgering him more.

OOC
Today: Cole rolled 18 (19 for vampires) using 1d20.  Perception.

Cole still has his rifle in one hand but it isn't being aimed at anyone, just held in the low ready.

Wolf and Julia: Me the player has nothing against you guys, just to be clear. Cole is not a fan of the CS as you might have guessed though so that is why he isn't especially friendly towards your characters. Give it time and some trust building episodes.

"Sounds more like they want to start walking north, and leave us to get fucked."  Cade commented to Cole.

"Which, fine by me, since I'm guessing we're not heading back north to get where we need to go anyway."

Since there hadn't been a consensus as to whether some or all of them were leaving sooner versus later, Cade unshouldered her pack and squatted down next to what was left of the contents of the chest after everyone else had claimed whatever they thought would be useful against the implied threat the gear represented.

She unbuckled the slim armored vambrace she wore over her EBA on her right arm and restrapped it to the left, then from her pack she pulled out and reassembled what looked like a TW version of a Coalition FIWS and strapped it in place in the space she'd just made vacant.

Cade then began dealing with the remaining anti-vamp gear, either loading it into her pack or strapping it to the outside.

Waste not, want not.

Chaplain winced, and simply - and quickly - flipped the face mask back down. Sound filtration upgrades would not have held that little malfunction off. He caught most of what was said, at least.

So he sat tight. For now. Cade seemingly just straight up did not care about the new being's arrival.

There was a radio signal in the area, but nothing that made sense yet. He couldn't add much to the conversation, yet, and no one else was pulling weapons. And he didn't know if this new being was friend or foe yet, so he was going to be tight lipped, with one exception. "Lieutenant Chaplain Wolf, CSA. Nice bolthole you've got here."

Zeke's revolvers are in his hands faster than even he realizes, aimed at the lizard mage, "You ain't tried to kill us yet buddy, you aimin' to? If so get on with it, we got shit to do. If not, how's about we all make nice and figure out a way for us to get back where we were and kill these vampires that took our friends from us."

The old lizard mage looks at our heroes with friendly amusement. He then glances at the cache and then up to Joran. His expression grows serious. "It would appear you used the compass. Tell me...how do you feel?"

Our heroes suddenly feel a weight on their shoulders, as though they are ships that have dropped anchor. Then the sensation is gone.

"Ah," says the mage gravely, "the compass has been damaged."

GM: What do you do?

This was not Chaplain's area of expertise. He knew nothing of the magical device that had brought them here. He was grossly out of his depth at the moment.

He almost wished the reptiloid had been openly hostile. It would have simplified things immensely. But he was CSID first, and a frontline soldier second.

"Fucking magic shit."  Cade muttered out loud.

"Old lizard man, you want to tell us what's going on, or do you want to ask us 20 more questions that sound like you already know the answers to?"  She asked him as she finished with her bag and swung it back onto her back.

Cole had been fine with the others speaking but now that the mage had let them know he knew about the compass, implying this was his cave, the Gunfighter decided he would enter the conversation.

"Howdy," he said to the Lizard Mage, tipping his hat at the man. "What my friend means is, yah, we used the compass to get here. Was it yours? Is this your place and stuff?" he gestures at the chest but keeps his eyes on the mage. "If it is, we didn't mean any harm. We thought it was legit salvage. We are guns for hire, not thieves." He looks sidelong at the two Coalition soldiers. "Well, we are, they are something else but it weren't their fault they got here. They just rode our coattails."

OOC
OK so still not saying Cole will be the leader but he will step up. I'll still keep him as a man of few words and no "big words" but will be more active in decision making. I do actually like the idea put forth by our GM. That could work out for the group, which honestly, all I care about is everyone having a good experience.

The moment the lizard man appeared, Miss' hand was on the pistol at her hip. It didn't leave- but she also didn't draw. Turned and ready should anything go south. But everything seemed to be playing out peacefully enough. For now, at least.

"We're soldiers. Lost is all. For the moment," she adds to Cole's introduction. "But we're not looking for anything like trouble. So- let's just keep it calm. Maybe you can explain what's going on here? Or where we are?"

The lizard mage stares hard at Cade then bursts into genuine, and kind, laughter. Once he has collected himself, he says, "Oh I like this one."

He shifts his gaze to the group. "This place is one of six doorways into the vampire kingdoms. The compasses are used to access them. They are very difficult to come by, as the adventurers that carry them are usually of some power and skill and would not let them go without a serious fight. This is not my cave, but is rather a sanctuary for those passing through the doorway. My own compass reacted when you came through. That's how I knew you were here. If the compass has been damaged, then I am afraid leaving Mexico will be very difficult. How did you come by the compass?"

GM: What do you do?

Wolf chuckled through the pain, a strange, forced sound from behind the spiked skull helmet. "A round of introductions would probably be the best start before we start volunteering information."

He hadn't put a hand near his weapons, although he was confident he could react faster than nearly everyone in the room, with maybe the exception of Cole - that one carried himself different from the others. There were few faster than him, he'd probably draw the correct weapon for the situation as it developed, and he knew it. As soon as the ringing in his ears passed and he could see straight again, he'd be back in control.

He recalled the condition of the compass upon their arrival, and realized this strange being had a functional compass - the shortest and most obvious path out.

However, working CSID had taught him that the most obvious path was generally the most heavily defended. That this reptiloid had survived out here in vampire country with no obvious means of defenses - Impossible. "Weak" was only reserved for those beings which didn't live on Earth as he understood it, and many of them didn't meet that qualifier.

So, he chose to wait. At least, until he knew what he was talking to. Hopefully, if the gunfire was needed, the ringing would stop first.

Nathaniel Ferrari introduces himself and then after that part settles down he answers the Lizard-Mage.

"We liberated it from a gang of crazies on a commission to bring one of the crazies to justice. Our dead employer used the compass to lead us to a spirit-zombie-vampire infested warehouse in old Dallas. We escaped by placing the compass-key into the slot, but the fighting damaged it and we were brought here. I believe El-Jefe believed that there was some kind of big time treasure to be had and that the compass lead to it somehow...."

"A sanctuary huh? I reckon that makes you what? The caretaker?" Cole says amicably to the Lizard Mage. "Like my friend said, we found that compass as part of a bounty. We thought it was supposed to lead to buried treasure, not some magic gateway to here. I don't suppose you could open the way back with your compass? We'd be happy to pay you for your trouble."

OOC
Today: Cole rolled 90 using 1d100.  Trust (65).

Well shoot, that was a failed attempt at trying to seem trustworthy. Frack you too RPOL dice roller.

"Well, I'm sure some asshole somewhere once claimed killing is its own reward.  Probably the only one we'll find if we run down that supposed treasure."  Cade complained.

Zeke shook his head “Fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into folks. Hoss usually ain’t wrong about treasure and money though. I do know that. So if there are six doors, that mean we got six compasses? And I’m Zeke, since you ain’t tried to kill us yet, good to meet you.” He says to the lizard man

"The compasses all lead to their own destination. Mine leads to another world, and I choose to keep it hidden. I am afraid your leader was mistaken. The compass did not lead to treasure, it is the treasure. The ability to travel easily between here and another land can be very valuable to the right people."

Our heroes look down at the compass. The glass on it is cracked, though it continues to radiate magic.

The mage looks at the compass. "It is as I feared. The six compasses are bound. When one breaks, they are all alerted. It is how I found you, but not all the compass holders as I am. Come, they will be making their way here even now. I can provide some measure of protection, but we must travel to my home. Until the compass has been repaired, you are bound to this land."

He stops and laughs to himself. "Where are my manners? My name is Agrus."

GM: What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:44, Fri 24 July 2020.

Cade muttered more colorful epithets about magic under her breathe again.

She then addressed Agrus.  "What do you mean by bound to this land?"  Cade asked him.  "Do you mean Mexico?  Or were we a lucky bunch of suckers and stepped through that compass thing, and ended up on another world that isn't the same as we came from?"

She also got to her feet.

"If shit's heading this way we should probably walk and talk.  Probably better we're on the move while you explain how fucked we are anyway.  Less tempting to dig a hole and throw yourself in when you have momentum pushing you in some direction or another."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:15, Fri 24 July 2020.

"Agreed with the walking and talking, although I doubt we are on a parallel Earth. Nathaniel's aerial report gave no indication we were on a different world, unless they have ley lines too." Chaplain began looking outside, wondering where they were about to go to...although he had a feeling that more teleportation or magic was going to be involved.

He was, however, addressing Cade. "I think when Argus cryptically says 'bound', it means we aren't going anywhere meaningfully or quickly without that compass working again. Our options for trust or distrust have a narrow window. We can take it up on its offer and risk that it is lying to us, or we can decline and find out shortly if it is lying or not. Barring more data, it is a coin toss."

Cole had lots of questions, just like his companions but they weren't really important at the moment. "Pleased to meet you Agrus, I'm Cole. You say trouble is coming this way, fine, lets scoot. You can answer more questions on the way to your place." He turns and looks at everyone, "Alright, gather up everything you can, we are moving. Joran, think you can lift that whole chest?"

He then turns back to Agrus, "We hoofing it to your place or you got another way of getting us all there?"

Nathaniel offers to take the other end of the test, just to make it less unwieldy for Joran. This way they can also keep one hand available for weapons. He follows the rest where ever it is they are going, volunteering to be in the rear if needs be.

"Sounds good, lets go."

Miss clicked her tongue a few times, concerned. But there didn't seem to be a lot of dissent. Her hand crawls away from her sidearm. "I'm hoping we're hoofing it," she mumbles to herself, feeling like that possibility might be slipping away.

"Oh, um. Miss. Julie. Miss. Let's just go quick."

Our heroes depart from the cave to follow Agrus to his abode. Agrus looks up and whistles. A shadow forms over our heroes as a winged bird comes into view. It lands on the ground, massive and imposing. The mage whispers something to it and it takes flight again.

"He'll meet us at my dwelling. Doesn't seem fair to make you all walk while I fly."

GM: What do you do?

"If we could get my walker here somehow, at least three of you would not need to walk in the first place. It's all-terrain transportation, shelter, armory, supply storage - there is a very good reason I want to get it if that is possible." Chaplain looked to the shelter, intent on remembering this place through visual clues. He radioed to Julia, quiet once more. +As soon as I can get confirmation of our location, I'll be plugging in coordinates. Do the same. If one of us dies, the other will still have the knowledge.+

He spoke up, walking somewhat behind Agrus. "But since we don't have that right now, tell me about these 'vampire kingdoms' while we are walking. I didn't know the leeches could make a kingdom. The ones I've seen are psychopaths and have no interest in building nations."

"Alright, so how deep into some shit are we old man?"  Cade asked the lizard as they all began walking.

"I don't do magic, but I know enough about it to know it can be a big pain in the ass if you're on the pointy end of the stick.  So the more we know about this whole mess, and why we can't just walk out of here, the better."

"And it will help us keep from getting lost," Cole said back to Agrus. What he didn't say it that it would also let the old Lizard Mage keep them under constant watch the whole way, not to mention the bird could be delivering a message to anyone or anything back at his place. "Momma would say I'm being too cynical, Papa would call it being smart, heh."

Not having anything to pack more than what he already had on him, Cole waited until he was the last one out of the cave, making sure that nothing and no one was left behind. "Probably won't matter much but lets walk single file for a while, try to keep them guessing how many of us there really is."

After the unlikely group had walked several paces away from the cave, Cole quickens his pace to get near Cade. "Why don't you hang back a bit, bring up the rear," he says to the Dog Girl. "I trust your nose and ears more than mine." He raised both eyebrows and looked back, hoping that she would get the unspoken part of his words; that he trusted her and didn't trust the pair of armed Deadboys at their backs.

Zeke starts moving along with his friends, eyes on the lizard mage at all times. He hadn't tried to kill them, yet... yet. Seemed everyone did eventually, lately.

"The compasses are objects of significant power," says the mage as they walk. "If damaged while while travelling, they bind the user to the land or their origin. The compass builders all came from Mexico many years ago, even before the Rifts, it is said. It is rumored they were meant for more than just traveling between places and dimensions. Perhaps when they are all brought together... "

He grows thoughtful as they walk, their boots crunching rocks as they walk quietly.

"Mexico has long been home to vampires. While there are some few non-vampire settlements, Mexico has been largely appropriated by varying kingdoms of vampires."

Our heroes who can sense danger suddenly feel their intuition sounding alarms. Agrus has stopped too, and peers off behind them. "It would seem others have become aware of the your compass."

Several vehicles have come into view and are barreling quickly toward the group.

GM: What do you do?

Joran introduces himself to the lizardmage, then turns to the chest.  Why must we take the chest with us?  If we just take the contents, we should be fine.  However, we should leave something behind in exchange for what we take.
Should it be decided that the group is going to take to chest, he will place his pack inside of it, and use rope to fashion shoulder and waist straps to wear it like a backpack.  As they leave the cavern, he takes up his grenade rifle, still wishing he had brought his staff.
At the approach of sensed danger, he stops and turns towards the approaching vehicles.  The grenade rifle comes up to his shoulder, but he keeps the barrel pointed downward.  Now what....

03:31, Today: Joran rolled 58 using 1d100.  Just in Case Skill.

03:31, Today: Joran rolled 7 using 1d20.  Just in Case Save.  +5 vs Awe/Horror Factor, 6 or 8 vs Pain, 04 vs Spell Magic, 08 vs Magic Rituals, 10 vs Faerie Magic, 09 vs Non-lethal Poison, 08 vs Harmful Drugs, 07 vs Lethal Poison, 08 vs Psionics, 10 vs Insanity

03:30, Today: Joran rolled 16 using 1d20+3.  Just in Case Perception.

This message was last edited by the player at 07:40, Sun 26 July 2020.

"If that's true, then they operate nothing like their northern brethren." Chaplain was unwilling to accept this without further verification, although he made a note to not underestimate his real enemy down here. "Do you know the status-"

He zoomed his telescopic eye in on the forces coming their way, to get a better look at them, and drew the massive over-under rifle on his back. "Hold that thought, and get into cover or concealment. Now!"

Being in a rush, he didn't have time for much on short notice. He chose to lead by example, searching quickly for favorable terrain or circumstances that would tip force in his favor. He was keeping an eye for heightened terrain that would favor him as well - he could fly, after all...

OOC: 21:43, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 39 using 1d100.  Camouflage, to try and hide something large on short notice - base TN 35.
21:42, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 28 using 1d100.  Detect Concealment, to find a good point for hiding - base TN 45.
21:41, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 2 using 1d100.  Detect Ambush, to find a good ambush point - base TN 50.
Well, they can't all be knocked out of the park. The last roll has low odds even when I do have time to prepare. Hopefully, though, I'll set up for someone else to spring off me.

Whatever they did, he wanted the enemy to not comprehend it.

Prior to the unknown vehicles being spotted...

"We are taking the chest with us for the same reason we didn't leave anything else behind; we touched it.," Cole says conversationally. "Bad enough we didn't have time to cover our tracks or hide our scents but everything we touched, like that chest, a good psychic could use to track us. So we leave nothing behind, not even garbage." Cole raised his voice then enough to make sure everyone in the single file column heard him. "So if you eat something from a wrapper, just put the wrapper in your pocket, we can at least do that much to make it harder."

Current time in scene...
Cole didn't need Wolf to tell him to find concealment or better yet, real cover. Neither did any of his team either, since they weren't greenhorns. He actually didn't take much offense by the comment though. He figured it was just the city slicker's habit, what with being an officer and all.

The Gunfighter did feel like a bit more direction would be in order, not so much for his team, as they already knew what to do in open terrain like this, but to let the two Deadboys know what they were about. "Wedge formation," pointing toward the incoming vehicles to indicate which way the point of the wedge should face even as he hits the sandy, desert ground next to a smallish boulder, more of a large rock. Cole is thankful that the ground here seems soft and isn't straight up caliche. His rifle is out and his right eye is on the scope, hoping to get a better look at what is coming their way.

OOC:
Rolls for trying to; find/make cover, making sure everyone got to cover and looking through his scope to see what is coming a bit better. Unfortunately two of the three rolls were less than stellar.

Cole rolled 13 using 1d20.  Perception.

Cole rolled 75 using 1d100.  Detect Concealment (65).

Cole rolled 97 using 1d100.  Detect Ambush (75).

Zeke shook his head, "Distance shoting ain't my specialty, let's get moving, they keep closing on us, we will deal with them. I'm bettin' they ain't the helpful type. Figure we got lucky with Argus."

09:33, Today: Ezekiel 'Zeke' Holliday rolled 9 using 1d20.  jic save.

09:33, Today: Ezekiel 'Zeke' Holliday rolled 3 using 1d20.  jic skill.

09:33, Today: Ezekiel 'Zeke' Holliday rolled 11 using 1d20.  perception.

Nathaniel follows Cole's lead and takes up the 'point' of the wedge formation. Having the most armor and a backup combat form in case that went sideways was why he usually volunteered for the more dangerous positions on the team. He might have the longest range weapon, but it also fired bursts which could be used for covering fire and he didn't need to reload any time soon. This should allow his companions plenty of opportunity to concentrate fire or reload as the situations required. If nothing else, he could pretend he was relatively alone and let those that could take cover be an unexpected surprise.

"Roger that."

He goes to a kneeling position behind a slight rise in terrain, which just so happens to have a still growing tumble weed at the top. Not much, but something. His railgun is out and he is using his sights, sensors, and knowledge of a vast array of vehicles to identify the ones coming towards them and their various modifications.

"Right, so how do we get unbound?"  Cade asked the lizard.

"I suppose it doesn't matter that none of us actually activated the compass, right?  Because we were transported by it, it tagged us all to never leave whatever it decided is its land of origin."  She said with a sneer.

"Fucking magic shit."

---

Cade looked around just as Agrus made mention of an incoming.

She fastened her armor's helmet and fanned out leftward and to the rear of Cole's 'wedge' shape.

In a few moments she'd squatted down and in a bit of a fountain of dirt, dug herself a nice depression which she promptly dropped herself into.

Wolf spots several boulders scattered about that he and the others could quickly duck behind. From what he can tell there are three small ATV's approaching that could fit anywhere from 4-5 people apiece.

Agrus quickly ducks behind a boulder and motions for the others to do the same.

GM: What do you do?

"These rocks are concealment, not cover, if they start hitting us with comparable force." Wolf thought a moment, as he was shouting at this point. The ringing in his ears hadn't gone away yet, although it wasn't quite as bad anymore. "We have a way of communicating with them that doesn't involve us getting shot by them? If I don't know how long we are going to be here, I don't want to waste the ammo on them."

He hoped they were driving by, although he seriously doubted it. He tried to zoom in with his eye on the lead driver of their convoy, hoping to acquire more information. He was hoping he could identify the ones talking the most into a radio, or the ones shouting orders.

"If you want to wave a white flag at them, knock yourself out."  Cade commented at the mention of trying to talk.

She herself took some additional time to deepen her position so she could get as much dirt between herself and the oncoming vehicles as possible.

It wasn't a great defensive position, but her hasty scrape was better than nothing.  She directed some energy into her armor in preparation for whatever was about to happen and waited.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:47, Sat 01 Aug 2020.

Ducking behind one of the larger boulders, Joran has his grenade rifle up and ready for a target.  He is unsure about the possibility of communication with the strong sense of personal danger he is feeling from them.  However, commandeering one or more of the APCs may prove useful.

"Lets not shoot the vehicles if we can help it. Talking to them, as part of an ambush to take their rides, if they turn violent, is certainly worth entertaining."

He ducks down below the small ridge and crawls over to a rock to get concealed behind, unless the group wants him to be point man and wave that white flag.

Miss readied her rifle, pulling it up against her shoulder. Ready to open up should it prove necessary.

"Think these assholes might be a Pecos raiding party? This far south, no idea what we're looking at," she grumbles the last part as she moves toward the rocks. Better than nothing.

As our heroes conceal themselves to the best of their abilities, the ATV's move closer. Chaplain can see into the front windows. The drivers appear humanoid, with goggles of their own on.

The ATV's come to a halt about ten feet from the builders.

The doors open in one and two armed individuals step out. Their rifles are pointed to the ground, but seem ready for action. They both appear human. One wears an eyepatch and is bald, while the other has a spiked mohawk.

"We just want the device," calls eyepatch, eyeing the boulders.

GM: What do you do?

Are these fools seriously not wearing a full suit of armor? He knew it happened often, but he was still astonished when he encountered people who actually fired CSA-grade weaponry without expecting equal fire. Maybe they aren't human.

Wolf was wondering if he needed to set a firm line here. Unfortunately, he hadn't yet gotten his current allies' radio frequencies yet, so there was no way to talk to them without throwing up a giant public signal.

He pointed the intimidating double barrel of the CP-50 around the edges of his boulder and called out to the two below him. "I'm Lieutenant Chaplain Wolf. This is official Coalition business. Pack up your militia and leave immediately. I repeat, leave immediately."

Everything he said was either technically true or a command. And he had said it twice, so they could understand. If they were stupid, well - that was on them.

Nathaniel translates the speech into Spanish, just in case the locals don't understand English all that well. It is nearly flawless with a little bit of the local twang the other guy used.


OOC: 08:55, Today: Nathaniel rolled 73 using 1d100.  Translate into Spanish TN98.

"Of course that lieutenant would speak first," Cole thought to himself. It might not be the smartest move but the way he saw it, all of their options were pretty lousy, so he stood up, slowly. He still held his rifle but like the men from the ATVs, he kept the barrel pointed toward the ground and not at them. Of course with his speed, it wouldn't make much of a difference if it came to picking a target and squeezing the trigger.

"So you want the device? Fine, we want a ride. How about we trade? We give you the device, you give us one of those ATVs. We then go our separate ways, no need for fighting."

Absolutely nothing about this entire situation made Cole happy. First he had lost his best horse of several years. Then they had lost Hoss to some weird vampires and spirits. Now they were stuck in Old Mexico, probably, with no rides, a busted magic compass and what did they have to how for it? A few weapons and a small pile of cash. Now these guys come looking for the busted, cursed compass? Sure, it was time to cut their losses on this non-paying job. They could have the damn thing far as he was concerned if they were willing to part with one of those ATVs.

Of course they might tell him to go to hell and that was fine too, considering the mood he was in. He was angry at the world in general right now and if these guys wanted to volunteer to help him work through his anger, that was alright. When he was calmer, he would look back and think it was stupid but anger had a way of clouding a man's judgement, not see future consequences none to clearly. All that mattered right now was he was pissed and sad and needed to channel those primal feelings in the most primal way; violence. He still had enough of a gripe to hold off if the men agreed to the deal but if they didn't, well, Cole felt sure they would be happy to oblige him in mutual violence.

One thing was certain Cole knew, there was no way they were going to just walk away all nice and peaceful, like Wolf wanted. These guys had come too far and armed too boot. They weren't just going to leave without what they came for without a shot fired.

Cade sighed from her dug out and picked up a rock and threw it at Cole.

"Magic shit!" she exclaimed, as a reminder that they still didn't know if the lizard's claim that they were somehow potentially "stuck" in Mexico due to the broken nature of the compass had any truth to it or not, but if it did they'd wouldn't be driving where they wanted until it was fixed, according to Agrus.

Zeke countered, "Don't reckon you wanna hear what my momma said bout what we may or may not want bub. You come runnin' up on us, holdin' heat expectin' us to just hand you some device we don't even know what you want."

There is silence and then the armed men burst into raucous laughter. "Thanks for the offer," says eyepatch, "we'll just take the compass. Light em up!"

They climb back into their ATV as a armored gunmen rises up out of the top of the vehicle behind a turret gun and opens fire.

GM: Right now you have some measure of cover behind the boulders. But not for long! What do you do?

Cade slipped out of her backpack.

She then sprinted fast, low, and at moments on all fours, for the nearest ATV where she slid herself beneath it.

OOC: Cade can cover 250 yards in a round, so I assume it isn't an issue to make it to where she's trying to go

Cade rolled 11.  Initiative.

Top of the vehicle. Acceptable collateral. He flipped on the megaphone in his headseat. Standard Coalition intimidation tactic, as far as he was concerned, as well as communication to the irregulars with him. "OPEN FIRE!"

Chaplain, from a near kneeling position, quickly cocked and fired multiple volleys of four-rounds rapid of microfusion into the guy on the turret, tiny blue suns momentarily being formed on the top of the ATV.

20:56, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 29 using 1d20+10.  Initiative roll...oops. No rolling initiative. Right. Saving this for dodging.
20:58, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 23 22 using 1d20+76.  Burst fire with CP-50, microfusion grenades x4.
21:06, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 66 using 24d6.  Microfusion grenade damage to approximately 12 6 ft radius of impact. Mega-damage, of course.

21:17, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 27 26 using 1d20+76.  Burst fire with CP-50, microfusion grenades x4.
21:19, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 95 using 24d6.  Microfusion grenade damage to approximately 6 ft radius of impact.

21:17, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 20 19 using 1d20+76.  Burst fire with CP-50, microfusion grenades x4.
21:21, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 81 using 24d6. That's damage I forgot to explain.

If I blow the armor off of that guy before the third burst, I will actually stop firing long enough for him to get off the gun, and shoot someone else (if possible) if he abandons the gun for the ATV. If he still fires the heavy weapon while unarmored, just replace the grenade burst with a single 2d6 laser shot. I'm not wasting four damn grenades on a regular unarmored human - but if he's dumb enough to keep fighting while unarmored, he's a valid target for continued attack.

21:32, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 12 using 2d6.  JIC - single laser shot.

21:33, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 10 using 1d20+9.  Dodge potential attack. Natural 1? Damn. I would have added the initiative of +10 to this one, too.
21:33, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 13 using 1d20+9.  Dodge potential attack.
21:33, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 10 using 1d20+9.  Dodge potential attack. Well, that's the second natural 1. Huh. Hopefully, I'm just a bad luck magnet, and that means no one else will get it.

Defaulting to 12 microfusion fired, potentially only 8 microfusion and 1 laser round.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:43, Wed 29 July 2020.

"And here we go," though Cole as Wolf shouted to open fire. "And so much for that ATV," was his next thought at seeing the Deadboy spray several grenades at it.

Even as those thoughts flashed through his mind, Cole's body was already reacting as he had planned when the shooting would break out. He dropped to one knee behind the rock. He knew kneeling behind it meant it afford less cover but it probably wasn't worth more than a shot or two anyways. Moving to the next rock or just plain moving to make himself a harder target would be easier if he started from a kneeling position, rather than prone.

While dropping to one knee, his left hand came off his rifle and touched one of his tattoos. He didn't like having to activate it since it cost him a lot of energy. He was no tattooed warrior like an Undead Slayer that had huge supply. However he would like holes blasted in his brand new armor, this far from a shop even less.

The instant after he touched the tattoo, a heart wrapped in protective chains, flared and then a shimmering blue aura of energy surrounded him and his body armor.

His left hand returned to the rifle and in with the quick smooth precision possible from countless hours of practice and experience, Cole sent two blasts at two different bandits. Each laser bolt a carefully aimed head shot.

OOC
1 action - drop to kneeling/dodge
1 action - activate tattoo - Invulnerability (450 MDC)
6 actions - 2, Aimed, Called Shots

NOTE: Using an action for the first dodge for the higher bonus. After that all dodges are Auto-Dodge and lower bonus. That was the theory anyways. RPOL had other ideas.

Dodges
Action Dodge - Cole rolled 15 using 1d20+9.  Dodge.
Auto-Dodge - Cole rolled 18 using 1d20+6.  Auto Dodge.
Auto-Dodge - Cole rolled 19 using 1d20+6.  Auto Dodge.

Strikes
Cole rolled 29 using 1d20+12.  Aimed, Called Shot (Head), Wilks 577 Laser.
Cole rolled 27 using 1d20+12.  Aimed, Called Shot (Head), Wilks 577 Laser.

Damage
Cole rolled 9MD using 3d6.  Wilks 577 Laser Damage.
Cole rolled 12MD using 3d6.  Wilks 577 Laser Damage.

Pretty sure I nailed those head shots. Hopefully their unarmored heads can't handle that modest amount of MD.

Nathaniel does something he has never done before....he sends a mental signal to his burst spraying rail-gun to go to single shot mode. While he is doing that his power armor is kicking up dirt as he runs around to the side of the ATV that Cole is not targeting. That is what a Wedge Formation does for you, it allows for flanking relatively easily. He comes to a sudden halt and his rail-gun waves into the correct position to shoot that ATV's driver in the head. A slight adjustment and the other guy in the ATV gets a head-shot as well, given the fist one was on target.

Joran was about to step out to say something to the armed men, but that Chaplain Wolf fellow spoke first.  And he did the complete opposite of what Joran would have done.  The ogre shakes his head as he peeks around the boulder to bring his grenade rifle to bear.
With everyone firing at the front APC, the ogre decides to target the rearmost one.  Blocking the retreat of the others can prove useful in this instance.  So, he begins popping off individual grenades to take out its mobility, targetting treads/wheels.

Called shots to the rear section of tread/rear wheel.
16:53, Today: Joran rolled 6 using 4d6.  Frag damage to 12'.
16:53, Today: Joran rolled 18 using 1d20+5.  Aimed and Called shot to treads/wheel.

16:52, Today: Joran rolled 17 using 4d6.  Frag damage to 12'.
16:52, Today: Joran rolled 17 using 1d20+5.  Aimed and Called shot to treads/wheel.

Cade darts for one of the ATV's and crawls underneath it. Just as she does, the ATV next to her explodes and she hears the screams of dying men engulfed in flames.

As men aflame pour from the ATV Chaplain easily picks them off, their bodies thrashing in burning fire.

Four men come out of an ATV with guns blazing, and Cole picks off two of them, their head popping like melons. Their buddies stumble back in surprise as their friends' brains splatter on them. Their own heads explodes a second later as Nathaniel's shots find their mark.

Finally, Joran tosses grenades to the rearmost ATV, the explosions take out the tires effectively. Gunners rise up out of both ATV's. These two are fully armored and begin spraying bullets at our heroes.

Chaplain attempts to dodge but slips as a boulder explodes next to him from the gun shots and covers him with debris, pinning him.

The ATV with tires intact then maneuvers out and begins to speed away.

GM: Cade - We'll assume you are under the ATV that didn't get exploded, lol. Do you grab on as they pull away?

Everyone else takes 70 MD. Remember, in our game if your MD is reduced to zero the damage doesn't pass along to your SDC. Your armor just explodes.

One ATV down and all inside are dead. Second ATV disabled. Third ATV fleeing the scene.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:58, Thu 30 July 2020.

"Hell's fire!" Chaplain's firearm stuck out from under the rubble as he furiously aimed his rifle at the escaping ATV. System damage suggested that his armor had taken an absurd level of punishment, and required repairs. He wasn't even fully removing himself from the rubble.

After he pushed the rubble off his sights, he aimed for the fleeing vehicle. This time, he wasn't going for the gunman on the top. He took a long breath, looked the devil in the eye, and fired a singular laser shot, aiming for where he believed the left tire was at on the fleeing ATV.

OOC: That is one attack to clear rubble out from in front of my line of sight, and three more attacks to hit the rear tire with a singular aimed shot.

23:47, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 12 using 1d20+8.  Aimed Called Shot to rear wheel of fleeing ATV with laser. Nope.
23:49, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 14 using 6d6.  Burst fire with CP-50, three-laser burst. ...I don't know why I wrote it as "burst fire" when it was a pulse. Habit.

Irritated, he growled and took a faster blast at the tire with less preparation, disregarding the hostile threat still alive around him in favor of cutting off the fleeing vehicle's escape. He was hoping some of these idiots he was fighting would live.

23:50, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 17 using 1d20+6.  Called Shot to rear wheel of fleeing ATV with laser.
23:52, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 25 using 6d6.  Burst fire with CP-50, three-laser burst.

Angry shot not only seems to have actually hit, but it did more damage, too. -6 shots from the long e-clip confirmed, one way or the other.

Unfortunately, this leaves me with no defenses except a thin layer of rubble.

30 MDC remaining on my armor.

Cole felt the many impacts of the high speed bullets strike his aura of protection, like having a fist full of pebbles flung at him. It was annoying but thankfully nothing more. If he had spent the energy, well, he would have broken his record for destroying body armor.

A quick glance was all he needed to see that everyone on his side seemed alive, including the two Deadboys. In fact Wolf was very much still in the fight, carefully laying down aimed fire at the fleeing ATV. The Gunfighter approved of the change in his tactics since it meant one, he was conserving ammo and two, they might be able to scrape together enough parts to repair on of the two remaining ATVs.

Since Wolf was already dealing with the escaping ATV, Cole focused his attention on the two bandits that had gotten on their crew serve guns and were still spraying bullets like they had an endless supply. He shifted his aim and sighted one of them, squeezing off two shots at the armored man's head. He then tracked left and fire off one more head shot at the second shooter. He had less time to aim but he was in a hurry and needed to stop him quickly.

OOC
6 actions - 2 Aimed Called Shots (head) on one of the bandits on the crew served weapon
2 actions - 1 Called Shot (head) on the other crew serve bandit.

Wilks 577 - Laser 5/20 shots e-clip 1
Invulnerability aura - 70/450 MD

Strikes
Cole rolled 22 using 1d20+12.  Aimed, Called Shot, Wilks 577 Laser.
Cole rolled <b>16</b> using 1d20+12.  Aimed, Called Shot, Wilks 577 Laser.

Cole rolled 11 using 1d20+10.  Called shot, Wilks 577 Laser.

Damage
Cole rolled 13MD using 3d6.  Wilks 577 Laser Damage.
Cole rolled 5MD using 3d6.  Wilks 577 Laser Damage.

Cole rolled 4MD using 3d6.  Wilks 577 Laser Damage.

Well RPOL dice roller wasn't as kind to me this time. That's 18 MD to the armored head of one guy and only 4 MD to the head of the other. Pretty sure that the second guy is alive and still firing.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:34, Thu 30 July 2020.

OOC: 70 MD! Owch!

Miss had her rifle leveled, waiting for a shot, when everything exploded. Knocking her back from the blast. Every warning and system in her armor firing off. Demanding she retreat, find an armorer, and get clear. But at least the damn thing was still working.

She picks herself up, shaken, head spinning. Rifle lifting.

OOC
2 actions - Called Shot (head) on the firing bandit Cole isn't shooting at:
17:31, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 10 using 1d20+3.  c-40 Pulse Rifle.

2 actions for dodges:
17:32, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 20 using 1d20+1.  Dodge.
17:32, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 8 using 1d20+1.  Dodge.

ooc: Cade will grab on, but it also just got the wheels shot out from underneath it, so I don't know that she'll be able to accomplish much if the driver just loses control and crashes the thing.

Nathaniel doesn't like the indicators on his armor showing as yellow for his overall protection. However, he likes that he still has protection. He starts walking over the half buried CS LT as he switches to automatic fire on his railgun. Slugs start zipping out at any soldier that is not engaged. He isn't worried about the buggy getting away, if needs be he can chase it down in light form and bring it back once he deals with the guys trying to kill his friends.

Joran had only peeked out from behind the boulder for a moment, when impacts peppered his torso and sent him staggering back to fall on his buttocks.  Damn!  The exclamation is muttered as he feels the armor that had just saved his life give up the ghost, and he looks down to see the shattered chest and abdomen plates fall away.  The back is still held in place by the strapped-on trunk, but little good that will do him now.  The body hardening exercise he had learned in Judo had strengthened his skin enough that he could possibly survive another assault such as that, but only if it is a graze, and not a solid hit.  And he is not rested enough to bring up a psychic shield, either.
Ducking behind the boulder again, the ogre decides to use his grenade rifle fire over the oversized rock so that grenades drop on to the the two gunners in the turret of the stuck APC.

Fg22:00, Today: Joran rolled 19 using 4d6.  Grenade damage to 12'.
21:59, Today: Joran rolled 13 using 1d20+3.  Indirect grenade fire.

21:58, Today: Joran rolled 19 using 4d6.  Grenade damage to 12'.
21:58, Today: Joran rolled 21 using 1d20+3.  Indirect grenade fire.

21:57, Today: Joran rolled 17 using 4d6.  Grenade damage to 12'.
21:57, Today: Joran rolled 15 using 1d20+3.  Indirect grenade fire.

21:57, Today: Joran rolled 15 using 4d6.  Grenade damage to 12'.
21:56, Today: Joran rolled 22 using 1d20+3.  Indirect grenade fire.
Those guys, and anyone and anything else with 12', just took 70 points of explosive and shrapnel damage!  They are going to be feeling that in the morning....

Chaplain struggles out of the rubble and opens fire on the fleeing vehicle. The tires blow out and it swerves and flips on its side, revealing Cade clinging to the bottom. Cade can hear the men inside shouting and groaning.

Meanwhile, Cole and Julia take out the gunner in the remaining vehicle while Nathaniel fires on the ATV, discouraging anyone from trying to come out.

Finally, Joran fires grenades into the turret bucket and shouts can be heard inside as a muffled THOOMP rattles the inside, with blood splattering the windows and fire beginning to billow out.

"That...was impressive," says Agrus.

GM: One ATV totally destroyed, the other on fire, the other on its side with blown out tires and some damage, but salvageable. Unknown number of dudes inside.

What do you do?

Joran looks at the mess they have made, and shakes his head sadly.  It might have been avoided, but he does not think that would have been likely.  I will close the turn on the burning vehicle, hopefully suffocate the fire.  The rest of you take care of the guys who tried to get away, the big man rumbles.  Then I will see if I can help right it.
He steps over to the burning APC, knowing it has not had much time to get very hot externally,and hoping the remains of his armor will protect his limbs when it does.  Maybe, if he is lucky, Nathaniel can cobble together some torso armor for him from some of the salvage.  Climbing up, he glances in the open turret for a hot moment, then grabs the hatch to wrangle it closed and sealed.

"Oh, we want a ride, oh let's not shoot the vehicles... ok"  Cade complained as she extended the blade from her left gauntlet and then jumped over the vehicle so she was standing next to the roof and its gunner's hatch.

"Sure, we'll just use every fucking grenade we have, that'll do the trick."  She continued ranting as she did her best to enter the vehicle through the hatch and stick her blade into as many non-armored or lightly armored body parts as she could manage while the vehicle crew was still disoriented.

"Looks like we're walking anyway.  Assholes!"  Cade kept bitching as she worked.

OOC:

Cade rolled 24,8,14,17,14,6,11,8.  Strikes vs fleshy bits.

Cade rolled 13,12,12,11,9,10,7,12.  (Potential) MDC Damage.

Chaplain flung the rest of the stones off of himself, firing up his built-in jumpjets for a split-second to add a bit of extra force to his ascension. The armor was battered badly, but at least he was still getting readings. At least Cade was still alive - and her gear was probably in better shape then everyone else's.

He needed this next order public. "Corporal, Cole! Excellent shooting! Cover Cade's flanks! And don't hit me!"

He slung the rifle away and drew a Vibro-Knife and the Wilk's Laser Sword without activating it yet. He engaged another jump-jet jump to move quickly to Cade's position and prepare to assist in the battle. Whatever his current allies thought of him, he had to convince them he was of value.

Thermals wouldn't get a reliable read with the recent engine heat and the fires. He figured there were three, maybe four still alive after that. Likely considerably fewer after Cade did her thing - she sounded like a dynamo of violence from where he was.

He didn't quite land in the right spot, though, landing a bit off course. I must be more banged up then I thought. Well, at least I'll be the second to get here.

00:40, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 85 using 1d100.  Jet pack short jump close to Cade. Base TN 54, unknown modifiers. Damn. Likely, I won't be in range to support her in the melee - too long or too short, likely the latter.
To be fair, I'm trying to quickly close with something that had 7-15+ seconds of head start from us in a very short amount of time.

I suspect all of my six attacks are burned up trying to close the distance and rotate my weaponry.

"Aw hell," Cole though seeing the second ATV burst into flames. Joran was quick, moving to shut the ahtch and hopefully starve the fire of air but considering the damage wasn't done with anything remotely like surgical precision, Cole wasn't going to count on there not being holes, lots of holes actually, not to mention blown out windows. It was or had been, only an ATV, a dune buggy, not a full up APC after all.

So Cole reached for another of his tattoos and used up more of his reserve of magic energy. In seconds a gray, cloud formed overhead, instantly providing shade from the blazing sun. A moment later, rain began falling, almost entirely localized on the burning vehicles. Smoke which had been rising on the wings of the desert thermals, was now smashed back down to earth. There would be no tell tale columns of smoke from this wreckage to attract the attention of anyone that might be within several miles.

Through the sound of the falling rain, Cole called out to Cade, "Try an keep one of them alive Cade!" he shouted at the former Dog Girl, even as he moved to get into a better position to assist her, if she needed it.

OOC
1 action - activate tattoo for a heavy rain on the two or three ATVs that are on fire. I'm including the one that was blown to pieces in that list since I have to assume it is burning/smoking wreckage.

1 action - Shout at Cade

All remaining actions - Move to better spot to help her without getting in front of the muzzle of Wolf's rifle. I'm not keen on getting showered with grenades ^_^

Wilks 577 - Laser 5/20 shots, e-clip 1
Invulnerability aura - 70/450 MD
PPE: 65/107

Just in case it wasn't clear, I'm counting up towards the max, not down, for my tracking numbers. So 65/107 means Cole has spent 65 of 107 PPE.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:17, Sat 01 Aug 2020.

Miss keeps her rifle trained on the ATV with the surviving bandits. Taking a knee, readying a shot. Ready to take out anyone foolish enough to pop a head, a hand, anything out of their cover.

"Keep the lines clear!" she calls out to whatever of these treasure hunters might listen, and the LT. But they were already well into their stabbing, from the look of it.

OOC: Holding all actions to pop off at anyone who might look to make a dumb move and provide cover for the melee-ists.

Joran sees no sign of life in the ATC, but the smel of chared flesh fills his nostrils.

A rain starts to fall as Cole uses his abilities. The fire goes out, black smoke rising up through the rain.

Meanwhile, Chaplain arrives at the ATV and stops short as he sees Cade's handy butchery. Just one man yet lives. Eyepatch. He sputters with blood as he bleeds out. He has mere moments to live.

GM: What do you do?

Cade emerged through the gunner's hatch dragging the one eyed man.

"Catch!"  She hollered out to Cole before she grabbed the would be robber with both hands and launched him towards the cowboy, the yardage between them not seeming to be an issue.

She then grabbed the roofline of the ATV that was against the ground and heaved it back onto its mostly broken wheels before moving to the front of the vehicle and beginning to push it back along the way it had come.

If Nathan was going to have any chance of getting it up and running, she figured it was probably better to have it adjacent to what remained of the other two.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:59, Sun 02 Aug 2020.

"Damn." Wolf's attention was going to be split, so he sacrificed the less important objective - or at least the one that could not be reversed. "Careful, Cade! He's on by a thread."

He considered the IRMSS kit in his pack, and growled. "This should be saving the life of someone far more deserving."

However, the man was still technically conscious. Surgery was out of the question at the moment, although in a matter of seconds that would likely change. "Stand clear. I'll stabilize the patient."

He hadn't done this very often, though, and it was something he kind of picked up on his own time. He applied direct pressure to the largest injury that would matter for, and used his other hand to keep the man's mouth open, so that breathing would not be impeded. "You do not get to die yet."

OOC: 00:43, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 11 using 1d20.  Paramedic to stave off death for raider. TN 55. Huzzah!

Seeing a mostly dead body being flung at him, and not wanting to release his rifle to catch said body, Cole steps to the side so as to not impede the flight of the gravelly injured bandit. The Gunfighter had hoped that Cade would control herself enough to not kill all of them but she had gotten her dander up and that was that.

He was no medic and had only the most basic of first aid kits, so he reckoned it was a good thing Wolf had one of those fancy mini robot kit things. "Still, seems a bit like trying to plug a broken dam with your finger," he thought. He watched as the Deadboy dropped to the ground to apply the kit and try to patch all the holes in the bandit.

Since the immediate threat was over and Nate would call him if he wanted his help with trying to patch up one of the ATVs, Cole just stood close by but out of Wolf's way as he rushed to treat the bandit. There was always a chance the man might say something useful and he didn't trust the Deadboys to share it with his team.

What he did do though was stop the rain. The fires were out so no need to keep it going. He figured Nate wouldn't appreciate working in a downpour anyways. Cole takes a deep breath, holds it and exhales. "I love the way the desert smells after a rain," he comments to no one.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:14, Sun 09 Aug 2020.

While the exterioe fires are being quenched by rain, the fire inside the APC is also quickly suffocating.  He steps away, heading over the where they have collected a prisoner.  Seeing the Coalition soldier working at trying to keep the guy alive, Joran offers his services.
I can close aounds and stop bleeding sith a touch, he rumbles as he kneels down next to both men.
Closing his eyes, he claps his hands together loudly, then rubs them like he is scrubbing them clean.  Once they seem to radiate heat, he reaches down to touch the injured enemy, allowing healing energy to flow.
03:17, Today: Joran rolled 2 using 2d4.  HP healed.  Does he need more?
This message was last edited by the player at 07:20, Tue 04 Aug 2020.

Nathaniel doesn't worry about the bandit or whatever he is, but is more concerned about the vehicles. He heads off to make sure that there are no little fires, leaking fuel, or other problems with the vehicles that need to be seen to immediately. He is also very thankful that he a basic set of tools as part of the power armor. The bad part is, he only has so much time before both batteries run out of power. He sets immediately to seeing if any of the vehicles have power transfer ports or functionality and if there are enough available parts to get get a single buggy powered up and enough wheels to have another be towed.

If there are no functioning power transfer ports, he starts working on that first.

"Fuckin'... Great greeting, Mexico. Real swell..." Miss grumbles as she hurries toward the (hopefully) extinguished ATVs. "These idiots had to have some supplies. Food, water, e-clips. Maybe something more fun. These look like the kinda cockroaches might come into a firefight liquored up? To be honest, I'm regretting the fact I'm not."

Miss hops onto one of the wrecked ATVs, and quickly starts searching through it. Questioning survivors wasn't her strong suit. But she was positive the LT could handle it. And that dog was clearly not in over her head.

OOC: Miss is going to tear these things apart looking for good stuff. She'll help Nathaniel get his suit powered up if it's possible.

20:09, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 44 using 1d100.  Salvage vs 69.

20:08, Today: Julia 'Miss' Hart rolled 22 using 1d100.  General Repair vs 69.

Walking out she openly gives last Rights then moved to protect surviving bandits, they'll be judged, but live.

Zeke, not caring much if the people who assaulted them live or die, moved to help Julia gather anything of value they bandits may have had. "Bottle or two of decent whiskey don't sound much too bad at all right now, Julia, that's for sure."

Moving to assist Cade in flipping the APC back on its wheels, Joran asserts his prodigious physical strength.  His tusks are fully bared as his lips curl in a snarling grimace, as a growl rumbles in his chest and throat.  The veins of his thick neck can be seen to bulge as he strains to right the vehicle.

22:54, Today: Joran rolled 30 using 1d20+26.  Bionic Level Strength.
That was a little shitty.

Our heroes are able to stabilize eyepatch, and get the salvageable ATV back on its wheels. The wheels have been blown out, but otherwise the ATV is fine, albeit banged up cosmetically.

They find some basic mega damage rifles, and the turret gun in the salvage ATV still seems in working order. Nathaniel is able to salavge two tires from the wrecked ATV's, and they find two spares in the salvaged one.

Eyepatch, having been so close to death, opens his eyes just barely. His face is pale from all the blood loss, but he lives.

"You may as well fuckin kill me," he mutters.

GM: Turret does 6d6 MD and can "sray" across a group for AOE damage.

Basic MD rifles take standard e-clips and do 3d6 damage.

What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:38, Sun 09 Aug 2020.

Chaplain simply shook his head, both at the man and at his failure relative to Joran. Whatever he had done, Joran had done more effectively. He made a note that they had a psychic healer here. "Not today, if I have a say in it. The irregulars that you made the mistake of attacking have some questions for you, and once they are done, I might have a few of my own if I think they have been inadequate."

He gave a quick message. +Corporal, how's salvage coming along?+

Cade left the eye patch man to the others.  She wasn't much for coercion, and people tended to not pay her mien much mind, let alone be afraid.

When she tried, they tended to just scream and cry in pain, and then die, without giving up any useful information beyond how much they missed their mothers right then and there.

So she concentrated on giving everything, the ruined vehicles, the dead, any bags or boxes, etc a good going over with her nose looking for anything of interest, especially anything magical.

She didn't figure they would be dumb enough to have the compass with the team sent to retrieve the broken one, but idiots had disappointed her before, so it was worth checking anyway.

Cole was surprised. He knew that Joran was pretty good at using his psychic powers to heal and he knew the robot first aid kits could work well too but even allowing for all that, he thought for sure the bandit was a dead man.

The Gunfighter was also surprised that Wolf hadn't jumped right in with questioning the man and actually seemed to be deferring to him to start. "Huh, maybe we can work together long enough to get out of here," he thought. He glanced at the smoldering wrecks of two fo the ATVs and saw that the last one was actually going to be fixable. "Of course it would work out better if they would stop hosing everything down with grenades but at least they aren't cowards."

Cole returned his eyes to the bandit. He had several questions but the one that seemed most pertinent was, "Where is your compass at?"

Eyepatch spits a laugh at Cole. "The Master said to just fetch the thing you carried. You really think he'd give us one of his treasures?"

GM: What do you do?

"I'm surprised it is 'master', and not 'boss', 'chief', or something like that. You have a means of contacting your master, and letting him know 'job well done' or 'we messed up'." Chaplain drew his survival knife from his boot and began idly playing with it. "Who is your master, and how would you contact him?"

He didn't feel the need to begin deploying interrogation training, although the vast bulk of it was worthless to him. Torture was good at getting a confession, but it was awful at getting the truth - this guy would just say anything he thought they wanted to hear. He could, however, mess with his head a bit.

He was prepared to escalate this to Stage Three interrogation techniques, although Stage Two involved explaining the interrogation process out to Stage Six. Most caved at that point. Eyepatch likely would not be different.

"Probably a sycophant, or a blood slave."  Cade commented as she continued sniffing around.

Joran walks up to where the CS trooper and Cole are attempting to question the one-eyed henchman.  He stands over the him, looking from one to another of his companions.
If he doe not answer, may I cut off and eat one of his limbs?  He then looks down at One-Eye.  If you lie, then I get to eat the limb whether you answer or not.  And I am an empath.  I will know if you are lying or not.

Horror Factor 10.....

"Idgit" thought Cole when the bandit blabbed about having a master.
 "Bet he thought he was being insulting too. Give an idiots a chance to feel smart and insult someone, they take the bait every time, even if it means giving away info." 

Cole kept his face expressionless, not wanting to tip off the chatterbox that he was giving away valuable info. He looked at Joran and shook his head. "Didn't you learn your lesson from the last feller you ate? Gave you the run something fierce. We don't know where this guy has been and what if he is sick?"

He looks back at the bandit. "Hey, where did you come from anyways?"

+Not bad. We'll be able to drive one of these things out. At least until the fuel tanks run dry. Who knows how far that'll get us... These dumbasses don't seem to ride around well stocked.+

Miss keeps working on the salvage operation. Gathering up what supplies she can, prepping the ATV for moving again.

"Well. Maybe we're about ten percent less screwed now," she grumbles to herself.

In reply to Cole (msg # 109):

Diarrhea is better than puking, Joran chuckles.  I have better control over that.  Let's not go into what happened when I ate that Pecos bandit.
He turns to One-Eye, with a big smile that reveals his tusks.  We could not get the smell of vomit out of that APC for a month.  And believe me, I tried.

Eyepatch's one good eye becomes distant, almost listful. "The master can promise me eternal life. I will not betray him." He regains his focus and regards our heroes. "Besides, if I betray him, I will die anyways, likely worse than anything you could do to me."

GM: What do you do?

I do not know about that, the ogre rumbles.  Sometimes I like to eat my food while it is still alive and wiggling.  Then, after about wight hours in my bowels, I leave as a steaming puddle of diarrhea evaporating in the middle of the desert.  He pats his stomach ominously.  And your master will never know of loyal and brave you were to the end.  No eternal life for you....

"Called it."  Cade flatly sing-songed.

Chaplain absorbed this information quietly. He had heard about vampire servants, but never encountered one. The unliving monsters he had fought before wouldn't be this sophisticated.

"Now hold on. Let's be reasonable and professional about this." Chaplain raised a hand back to Joran, deliberately letting the moment of hope sink in to the listener. "Right now, this is Stage One interrogation - we are just asking questions. Questions that, if answered, will not inflict pain on you today, and may even save your soul. After all, if we kill your master in the future, they don't have a hold on you anymore. They can't kill you from here, or I am pretty sure they would have done it already."

His off-hand pulled one of the jagged silvered K-bars from his belt and held it close to his eyes. "On the other hand, if you do not cooperate, and continue to seize up like this, we will move to Stage Two, where I explain Stages Three through Five in all the clarity and detail that I can, and you will find out if anything a vampire threatens compares to the reputation of the CSA."

He would not actually torture this man...and his understanding that torture usually didn't yield truth was backing his convictions on this. He could offer to do so, and hope that a vivid picture, along with the brutal reputation of the CSA for being willing to do it, would be enough. Mind games and psychic interrogation were currently on the table, which meant that Stages Three and Four were open. Stage Five would require sending Julia out to get ingredients for inhibition-breaking chemicals, and was a question mark - still, he was pretty sure peyote or a similar derivative grew around here.

Anything that could be distilled into consumable alcohol would also work in a pinch.

His variant of Stage Six was an accident as far as he was concerned, one that meant he had botched. Killing a prisoner was wasteful at best, and just vicious at worst. Still, he'd bring up the likelihood of Stage Six - he didn't know how patient his allies were.

And to be fair, SERE taught him nine stages. He just had no intention on even bluffing about three of them. Most of those lessons would survive with the others who took that course with him, and they were willing to employ those methods, but the parts he learned would die with him if he had a say.

Zeke continues with the gathering of loot. Keeping an eye out for anything that seems particular useful or unusual.

Eyepatch's good eye flicks from Joran to Wolf, betraying a brief moment of fear. "Master Enoch will drain you to the edge of death and keep you alive. He will take your precious trinket and drink of your lifeblood!"

Realizing he has let the name of his master slip, he grows quiet, his jaw set in defiance.

GM: What do you do?

"Master Enoch. Vampire. Sounds smarter than any I've encountered, as low of a bar as that is. I'm Lieutenant Chaplain Wolf. Now, he wants our trinket, which we knew because he sent you and your posse here. If I wanted to invite this Enoch fellow to give it his best shot at doing this personally, how would w-" Chaplain flipped his mask up and smiled, an idea having occurred to him. He flipped the knife to a backhand position, blade away from Eyepatch. "How would you go about letting him know where we were?"

"Must have sucked too hard on him and liquified some of his brains too."  Cade mused as she began hauling the corpses that were still mostly intact into the area with the rocks to get them out of sight.

Eyepatch laughs loudly. "You think the master doesn't have more soldiers? He will send more for you. And for me as well..." he trails off, his eye again growing listful.

Agrus muses a moment. "Funny, he almost made himself sound like bait just now."

Now, where would be a good spot for our heroes to lure the enemy?

GM: Remind me, who has the broken compass? Joran?

What do you do?

"Probably means it's time to go."  Cade called out from behind the rocks where she was presumably stacking the remains.



OOC: Zeke said he was picking it up back in message #346 in the Lone Star thread.  I don't think anyone's stated they'd taken it from him since then.

Cole just listened as the bandit continued to run his mouth. It was amazing what an idiot or hothead would say if you let them run their mouths. He didn't mind Wolf asking him questions, so long as he kept the bandit talking. As far as Cole was concerned that was something useful right now.

When Agrus spoke up agaon, commenting about using the man as bait, Cole shrugged. It wasn't that far fetched. That master vampire would want answers for what went wrong with his plan. The longer eyepatch was around them, the more he saw and heard no matter how careful they were. Plus if this guy was connected to that master vampire, Enoch he had called him, he might just be able to track or at least scent him. Maybe they could use that to set a trap but he doubted they would net the master. More likely a secondary. No matter who or what came though, it meant keeping eyepatch around, alive and hopefully running his mouth.

Truth be told, Cole wasn't much on torture. He liked to settle his differences with a fist or gunfight. Torturing for fun or even revenge just wasn't how he was built. Besides he had learned a while ago that all it really took to get someone talking was a little booze and a little sleep deprivation. People would say all kinds of things when they were too drunk and tired to think straight. Plus it kept a man's soul clean, there wasn't anything in The Code that said you couldn't give someone, be they prisoner or not, a few drinks and kept them awake and talking while doing the drinking.

Cole looked around at the rugged, hilly desert terrain. It was covered in low scrub and sage brush, plus the berms and ridges, giving anyone, like say a metamorhphed vampire or more of these short dune buggies, plenty of concealment for a ground approach. Setting up on a hill would help but having the high ground didn't matter squat if the bad guys could fly and vampires could. Besides just because this pack of his henchmen had dune buggies, didn't mean the next wouldn't have jetpacks or hovercraft or worse, straight up power armor.

Taking the high ground was such a elementary move though, everyone knew to do it when you could. "Which is why maybe we let them think we did the smart thing and setup on a hill but really its just eyepatch. We setup on a different hill, use a bunch of the sage brush for concealment and then wait to see who shows up for him," he thought to himself. He wanted to communicate his idea to his team and yes, even the Deadboys but not in front of the bandit. If that guy really was linked to his Enoch, Cole wouldn't rule out that the vampire could see and hear everything happening to this guy. "Best not chance it," he told himself.

"Hey," he said to Wolf, not wanting to use his name. "I'm gonna talk a little walk Joran, you're good here right?." He tips his hat at the CS lieutenant in the typical New West gesture of courtesy and hoped the man understood it. He then turns and walks several paces away from eyepatch, far enough that the man couldn't hope to hear any conversation. Once at far enough away spot but still with eyes on the prisoner and Wolf, he lets out a loud, short whistle. At the same time, he raises his left hand in the air, above his head, index finger up and waggles it in a circle; a sign that he wanted to huddle up.

While waiting for the others to come over, he talks with Joran. "I got an idea but wanted to bounce it off everyone. You remember that Rio Bravo job right? That contract to take out that highwayman that was a little too good at robbing? Only it turned out that after we bagged 'him' it wasn't him but his damn twin brother? Yah that job, I'm thinking of the hostage exchange only this time maybe we do it with a good plan instead of a quick but bad plan."

Joran looks down at the one-eyed henchman with a look that begs the question of why the ogre does not just stomp on his head.  He tries hard to show his good heart, but, sometimes, the aggressive ogre within just wants to crush heads.  He appears to be wondering if that might not be the best idea....
After several moments of looking down upon One-Eye like his face is just a bug to stomped into oblivion, Joran suddenly turns away to wander over to where Cole is standing.  I hate dealing with thralls.  You are never if they do what they do because they want to do it, or if they are controlled.
He shakes his head sadly.  I could not think of any reason not to grind his skull into the sand with my boot heel, other than it is against what I was taught.  How many people has this man brought before his master to be fed upon?  How many deaths are upon his hands, directly and indirectly?
He looks over at the 'Slinger.  What is your idea for how to play this?

He uses See Aura on One-Eye.  Does he have any psionic or magic abilities?  Does he appear to be possessed or otherwise controlled?
This message was last edited by the player at 15:13, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

Cade moved over to join Cole and the rest of the group.  She finished stuffing a black plastic garbage bag into her pack as she walked before putting the pack back on.

She listened to Cole, then shook her head.

"We don't know enough about how they're going to try finding us again.  If they're tracking the compass, fine, that's great, but how accurate is that?  Can Master Asshole just sit holed up in his underwear and somehow send instructions to the guys out here to know exactly what hill we're on?  Or did that last group only find us because they were sent to the cave where the compass told them the gate was activated, and was also in the direction the newly broken compass was in too, and then they just followed our trail?"  Cade grimaced as she continued.

"It might work, it might not.  It might just leave us sitting out here in one spot so even more groups who have a compass can track us down.  I think we should keep moving while we concentrate on trying to figure out the rules of this fucked up magic game we're playing before we decide how we're going to actually win this shit."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:32, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

"Alright. Cade's correct." Chaplain kept his eyes on the prisoner, but spoke outward. "I'd like to ask some extra questions, both for him and some of you, but we got to ask on the move."

He was skipping Stage Two at the moment. One didn't always have to hold to the pattern. "Your head is full of knowledge I want, and I'd love to advance to Stage Two, but three things work against me. We have a time limit right now, you are less than helpful, and I can't shake this feeling that you are less of a person and more some kind of surveillance device."

He focused on Prisoner One once again, his current mental designation for Eyepatch. "If only...if only you knew how to get that ATV rolling. Then it would be absolutely impossible to just abandon you here, dead or alive. After all, I'm pretty sure you have a compartment for storing people on that ATV."

He glanced at the ogre. "Well. Part of you, anyways."

It did occur to him that a living surveillance drone would be pretty useful for misinformation purposes - this man would make an excellent Doomed Spy. Wolf would just have to make sure he couldn't run until needed, and everyone else would have to know the game. Just casually drop a piece of information in front of him, make it look like a slip of the tongue, or even that we weren't thinking of the prisoner.

Of course, the consensus felt like killing him. He had moved with enough squads and packs to know how difficult restraining this often was. He was still sussing out whether this was a moment in which stopping them would be advised.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:47, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

Cole listened to his friend Joran. The big ogre had a weird sense of humor but he was a good man and solid in a fight. He looked him in the eyes as he replied, "Look here, I know how much that man's actions deserves death and we ain't exactly running a prison wagon. I'd just as soon strip him and leave him here for the desert to kill and the buzzards to eat." He pauses, looking back at Eyepatch for a moment. "Problem is we know a master vampire is involved. How much of the evil this guy's done was his own free will and how much was the master controlling him? Maybe the master has his kin or maybe he just hypnotized, we can't know and it don't really matter right now. Right now what matters is getting a better read on our situation and maybe convincing his master that he should back off, which will buy us enough time to get farther away. Remember how that idgit Crazy had the compass? I didn't see no vampire goons or anyone else's, trying to get it. So if we can just get away, send enough of the vampires goons to hell, then this all becomes just another one of our stories to tell over beers."

The Gunfight looks at his other friend or at least companion, Cade the simultaneously cold but fiery Dog Girl. "How good is your nose?" he asks her rhetorically. "Pretty good right? Well even wild vampires have great sniffers and," he jerks a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Eyepatch, "just because this bunch didn't seem to be the best trackers, ain't no reason to assume the next ones won't."

He looks from Joran to Cade, "Both of ya'll wanted to know my idea so here what it isn't. I ain't saying we stop here and setup some crazy ambush. That'd be a big waste of sunlight. We need to hurry up and fix that ATV and then get rolling as far north as we can towards the Rio Grande before sunset. We find a good spot, then setup an ambush. Look we can assume they can track us or that they can't. If we assume they can't and turns out they can and we didn't get set, we are screwed. If we assume they can find us again but they can't or don't and we setup anyways, its all good. Nothing wasted but a bit of sweat and shuteye. So let's play this smart, we plan on them finding us again and maybe bringing some vampires with them. Sure I don't think this master is going to show up and even if he did, he probably won't have his compass with him. I ain't trying to 'win' this thing tonight unless you count just surviving as winning, which I do. I don't give a good god damn about those compasses. We lived our whole lives without them and so far the one we got has been nothing but a heap of trouble. I'm saying we play to survive an play smart. We get back to where we belong, up north and worry about what to do with the broken compass then and there."
This message was last updated by the player at 14:19, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

"Don't forget, we're bound to this land, whatever the fuck that exactly means.  Might be we run north and get stuck by whatever magic shit binds us before we get anywhere worth actually getting to.  The lizard said he'd take us in.  I don't really care for getting stuck in whatever other dimension his compass leads to, but I'm betting it's safe enough that whomever is after us won't be able to cross over immediately.  Plus he's the only thing we know of, at the moment, who actually knows what's going on.  Maybe once he's back home he'll stop answering our questions with more bullshit, and actually give us the info we need to undo whatever magic we're dealing with, and then we can worry about getting back north."  Cade replied, just loud enough so the people who'd gathered around could here, but not so much that there was any danger of eye patch overhearing.

"I hear you Cade but you're talking about a wizard we met like two hours ago, we don't know anything about him cept the name he gave us. Hell he is the one that told us about that 'being bound to the land' stuff. Maybe he just told us that so we don't go running off. Maybe follow him back to somewhere easy for him to take us out and get whats left of our compass. We just don't know him and we know next to nothing about that compass. I'm saying we trust what and who we do know. That means we trust each other and we trust vampires have a hell of a time trying to cross a river like the Rio Grande. That's why they are down here and not already flooding the north. I'm not as good a vampire hunter as some of my kin but I know that much, we get across a nice big river like that, we can breathe easier."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:13, Thu 13 Aug 2020.

Cade nodded.  Cole had made valid points.  Her own senses influenced her about the lizard mage, but they weren't fool proof.

"What's the plan if we can't get across?  What if it's a boundary to us as much as it is to a vampire?"  She asked.

"Then we do what we always do, come up with a new plan," he says to her, offering a grin. "That plan may or may not include going with Agrus. The way I recall it, since showing up, he has told us we are bound, the compasses are valuable, people are after them and he has one. He then invites us to his place after sending notice ahead with that bird of his. That's all the things he has said. What he has done though is take cover behind a rock first sign of trouble and stayed there the entire fight. He just watches us, learned a good deal about what we can do no doubt. Hell I even used my rain trick to help put out the fires. You two showed him just how strong you are. Sure he probably figured Joran was strong, being an Ogre and all but you Cade are a lot of power in a tiny package. He probably wouldn't have guessed that. Not saying we still don't have some tricks up our sleeves but I want us all to keep in mind, he hasn't done anything to actually earn our trust. He's talked a bunch but done nothing."

He pauses and looks again at where Eyepatch and Wolf are, then back at his companions. "So is it decided? We head north? And do we do it with or without eyepatch over there?"

The ogre looks thoughtfully.  If we take One-Eye with us, that gives his master incentive to chase us.  If we kill him, that gives his master incentive to chase us.  If we leave him tied up somewhere with no gear, his humiliation gives him incentive to chase us.  We are most like going to be chased no matter what we do.
He looks at Wolf and Miss appraisingly.  We are going to have to trust the Deadboys; they have as much at stake as we do.  We are going to have to trust Agrus a little bit; we really do not have much choice in that for now.  Plus, he has done one thing to earn that little bit of trust:  He did not immediately attacked us like so many others would have, and he gave us information.  We are going to need somewhere we can hole up and regroup, renew some of our resources the best we can for now.  He probably has defenses that can only help us fend off our... antagonists.  He can not think of a more appropriate word in English, though, in ogrish, they would be referred to as hunters while the group would be the prey.

Zeke shrugs his slender shoulders, "Let 'em come. We got plenty for 'em if they do."

If Agrus had eyebrows they would have risen. "Luring them back to my abode had not quite occurred to me. My oasis is somewhat hidden, and I would prefer to keep it that way. Not to mention..."

He stop and mutters a spell. Eyepatch nods off asleep. "Can't have him knowing I also hold one of the six compasses. I understand your trepidation. My race tend to have darker inclinations. I suppose you could call me an exile. You may find rest at my home, but I understand if you must go your own way. As for him, I suggest taking him some distance back between here and the cave. This will buy you time and keep his master's gaze pointed away from the compass for a time."

He nods at Zeke. "The broken compass you carry must be repaired in order for you to leave the vampire kingdoms. While it is broken, other compass holders will sense it and track it. Be advised, should you decide to leave it behind, you will still be bound to this land. This is the curse of the compass. It brings great benefit, but wants to be united with its brothers. I have maps back at my home that may help you find the one who can fix it. Assuming they still live of course." 

Meanwhile, Joran regards eyepatch and senses no magic or psionics coming from him. He is just a human who happens to worship a master vampire.

GM: To summarize: The compasses are drawn to each other for some mysterious reason (plot hook!) but can only sense each other if they are damaged. It is a failsafe and a curse. It forces the compass holder to repair it (which breaks the curse of being trapped in the vampire kingdoms) which returns the compass back to its invisible state to the others. You can ditch it, but the curse will remain because...um...reasons.

If you move eyepatch, we can just do a bit of handwaving to pass the time. Remember, there are two intact tires salvaged form the wreckage of the other two, so if anyone has an automotive related skill or something we can count that for gettng the thing moving. We'll say it's about 1pm.

What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:40, Sat 15 Aug 2020.

Joran shrugs.  I say we tie him up and leave him here to sleep it off, and we fix up an APC so we can get going.  Either way we can be followed easily through the desert.  Unless someone knows a way to erase our tracks.
He then turns to face the way the men had come.  Or, we could track them back to their base of operations, get some information on them.

"How effective is tracking one compass, using another?"  Cade asked Agrus.  "Is the broken one magnetic north, meaning they'll have to have the tracking compass out in the field as long as we keep moving to have any hope of finding us?  Or is there some magical cheating involved?"

To Joran she answered, "I can cover tracks, but we'll be moving slow, and if they can track us without needing to pick up on and follow them, it won't matter much anyway."

As another thought occured to her she asked Agrus again, "How many other people do you think have a way to find the one who can fix the compass?"

Cole was conflicted about what to do. First there was what to do with the prisoner. Killing him or letting him go seemed unlikely to change the vampire sending more goons after them. If this batch could find them, it made sense the next batch would do, whatever they did to cover their tracks. They wouldn't need eye patch as bait for any trap. They or more to the point, their compass was the bait.

No his conflict was in leaving him here for his master to find and question or to kill him. As a general rule, dead men told no tales. Just because the master vampire could track the broken compass, didn't mean he knew anything else. If they let eye patch live, he would tell him everything he knew however despite his profession, Cole wasn't a stone cold killer.

Cole reached for his canteen and took his time twisting off the cap. He took a swallow, then another. Through all those motions, he reached back to the thing that had helped him so much in his life, The Code. It was a simple thing really, part collected wisdom, part guide to the good manners of The West. When his mind got to the sixteenth and final line of The Code, Cole found his answer. "Kill only in self-defense and in justice. The latter can include acts of revenge, eye for an eye, protecting others, using deadly force against those known to be killers. The only exceptions are vampires or other hellspawn. The only good vampire or demon is a dead one."

He recapped the canteen and placed it back on his belt. Eye patch and his bandits had rode up on him and his friends, threatened to rob them and then tried to kill them. Worse, he was willingly in the employ of a vampire, with who knew how many deaths on his hands.

He looked Joran in the eye and shook his head. "No, we ain't leaving him here alive. Sure, he knows too much about us but even with that, I'd be willing to let him live. He crossed a line a man shouldn't; he is working for a vampire because he likes killing. Probably killed plenty of people that didn't deserve it, probably kill more if he gets the chance. We can leave him but if we do, he won't be breathing."

He glanced at the preacher, who had stayed silent this whole time. If she said eye patch lived, than fine he would accept that even if he didn't like it. Otherwise, eye patch was a dead man, plain and simple.

He looked at Agrus. He still didn't trust the Lizardmage, how could he after only a few hours in his company. The things was he seemed so earnest about this damn curse he was going on about. Sure, a good liar would come across that way but Cole didn't think the man was lying. That was a far cry from Agrus not having his own agenda and reasons for offering to help them.

"Alright, we will go with you, maybe find that person that can fix our compass so we can get out of here. I just got to ask, are you just being neighborly or are you wanting something in return?" Cole's voice, while not hostile or suspicious, wasn't exactly friendly either. It was painfully neutral, the best he could manage under the circumstances.

Joran walks over to One-Eye, glaring angrily at the unconscious man.  He raises his foot.  Up to about where his other knee is, poised to slam it down on the head of One-Eye, and crush the skull intonpulp.  He holds it there for a minute that seems like an eternity, before setting it back down.
I know he deserves it, the deep voice rumbles.  But, I can not do it.  Not like this.  Somebody else will have to do it.
He turns and walks towards the dune buggy APC.  He offers Nathaniel his services as a living jack,or as a forklift, or whatever else may be needed.

Chaplain Wolf sighed. He didn't want his face plate open for what he was going to do.

"I will not be killing you or leaving you to die just yet. Unlike the ogre here, I do not bluff. I will trick, mislead, misdirect, and lie, but I never, ever bluff." He focused on Eyepatch and let an edge come into his voice. "This is how things are going to play out soon for you if you do not tell us anything we ask of you. First, I'm going to mess with your head so badly you will not know what is real and what is not, who is your friend and who is not. Gaslighting, abject humiliation, sleep deprivation as I question you at every hour until your judgement is gone, reducing you to bread and water rations and letting you feel your body mass disappear - things like that, which don't sound like much until you feel them all add up at once."

"I don't need to torture you, Prisoner One, when I have an ogre who can systemically peel your mind like a lemon and force you to tell us your darkest secrets. I'll find out if you like to wear women's undergarments or not. Hell, maybe I'll get him to make you like wearing women's undergarments if you don't, or if you do, to swear off women's undergarments. Your free will is not yours, nor does it belong to this Enoch. It is a privilege we have been granting you up to this moment, and we can take it from you should you continue to be obstinate."

"But let's pretend, for a moment, that your mind is either so alien or so thick that you cannot be mentally commanded or comprehended, either by my mundane techniques or Joran's psychic powers. I highly doubt that, given the vampire's influence on you, but let's pretend. Then realize that we are surrounded by nature, and her plentiful and very recreational bounty, and that we are back in reality. I will obtain fermented liquids and natural hallucinogens, I will cram them down your throat or slip them into your food, and you will cease to exist as the person you are right now. You will likely lose the ability to tell us who this Enoch is, or even tell us your own name, but rest assured, you will be of use to us as a broken, mad, babbling oracle of information who will have to be hand guided from place to place and aided in the chewing of normal food, because you will lose these abilities you take for granted. Because I will settle for unreliable information that I can filter down rather than none. And that is not pretend."

"So. We are going to ask you anything we want. And you are going to tell us the untarnished truth, with no nonsense. Because if you don't, everything I just spoke of will happen, and you will not be capable of even begging for death when we are done with you." Chaplain took a long breath. "Do you understand me?"

OOC: 18:49, Yesterday: Chaplain Wolf rolled 25 using 1d100.  JIC - Interrogation. TN 55.

I think he's going to cooperate. So if we want to know anything about his operation, like where he came from, how many others there are, what their defenses are - we can get it.

The Preacher approached the vampire her big cross held.

Then said boldly ,"Abomination may God spare you if He so deems it, destroy it Cole in God's name."

Looking at the Ogre she said ,"Break the Ogre."

Joran looks at the reverand oddly for a moment.  Um, Deborah, the ogre rumbles with a slight shake of his head, He's not the vampire   He is one of the vampire's thralls.
The idea of peeling away parts of One-Eye's psyche does not feel like fun to Joran, even if he could.  There are things he can do that would probably work as well, but he is unsure that he wants to actually torture the man.  It is not the Zen Buddhist thing to do....

The silence that follows Wolf's intensity is...the snores of Eyepatch.

Agrus awkwardly takes a breath and speaks. "My intentions in helping you are...boredom. I have long been exiled from my people and have been alone for some time. Coming to the broken compass came at some risk, but I figured, what the hell. The compasses do not point in a direction, so much as guide the holder. It is difficult to explain."

GM: What do you do?

Joran looks over at the lizardmage, a thoughtful expression upon his rough face.  I think I can accept that explanation.  Boredom and loneliness can be powerful motivators.  He looks to the others.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:30, Sun 16 Aug 2020.

"Magical psychic -!" Chaplain chained together a combination of specific Euro words spoken in the far north, a broken and pidgin variation of some strange language that showed up in old religious books, and what sounded like a touch of vile Spanish to make an extremely elaborate string of profanity before calming himself down. He breathed out slowly, and his voice returns to its prior calm. "We need this one alive, if possible, unless one of you can copy his brain and take it with us, or otherwise render his knowledge irrelevant. I may be repeating myself to him if he is not cooperative. For the first time as far as he knows."

He stood up straight, and breathed in and out once more. "I believe we can accept any aid out here until we get the broken compass fixed."

"Once we have a moment to breathe, I have some questions of my own about everyone who has a compass. Namely, if they are all accounted for or not."

"So, I say we shouldn't just kill him."  Cade offered, deciding to toss her 2 credits worth of opinion in, since there seemed to be some opposing viewpoints on the Eyepatch situation.

"But, I don't think we should take him with us either.  He might give up what you want, but if he's actually bound and not just some evil asshole in it for the kicks and fulfillment of his dreams to one day get turned into a fleshy juice box, then he won't.  No matter how much you threaten him, no matter what you put him through, no matter what you cut off."  She stated.

"Plus, Agrus would really have final say on whether he wants this guy wherever we're going, unless you think you can do your shit in the back of the truck."  Cade added, looking Chaplain's way.

"I saw we rig him up, leave him as bait, and if we're lucky he'll take out a few of his blood buddies when they come to find out what the hell he's doing out here."

Zeke gave the chaplain a quick grin, "You playin' with words, friend. Bluffin' is lyin' and trickin'. You just try not to get called on it. No different than with cards." Turning to the lizard mage, "Alright then, if you'd be kind enough to donate a map, I'd be much obliged, figure I can bring it back if'n ya need it. And, then, you got one of these how we go about uniting them all if we can only track them if they get broke? Oh, and am I the only one bound to the kingdoms, since I'm the compass man."

Cole was an unhappy man. Sure he hadn't been happy since shortly after waking up this morning, what with his horse being slaughtered by a giant demon, Hoss being murdered, being teleported to old Mexico, attacked by bandits and oh yes, being stranded with a pair of Deadboys just for a little extra salt in the wounds. Yah, it had been one shitty day and the crap storm showed no signs of letting up.

He didn't think eye patch had too much in the way of useful information left in him. The man also pretty clearly deserved to die. As he had told his friends, if it weren't for the fact that he'd tell his master everything he knew about them, he'd be content to strip him of everything useful and leave him for the desert to claim. Cole just couldn't risk the chance that more of his buddies would find eye patch before he shuffled off to meet his maker from heat stroke.

To Cole's mind that meant hurrying things along by just putting a bullet between his eyes. No elaborate or painful death, just one clean, quick kill shot. He hated to waste a perfectly good bullet on the man but it was faster and less painful than slitting his throat. Besides, they were dealing with vampires and he didn't want any of the man's blood splashing on him or else he would slit his throat with his Bowie knife and be done with it.

Problem was Wolf seemed all hell bent to get every last bit of info from the guy. Like it or not and Cole most certainly did not, the two Deadboys were going to be riding with them for the near future at least. That meant he had to try to play nice, at least until they, like the scorpions they were, betrayed them. "Maybe I'm being a might bit unfair to them," he mused, "so far they haven't been too bad. They even helped during the fight but that could just them saving their own skins too. Damn it, Pa is right, I think too damn much sometimes."

He looked at Agrus and decided to ask him directly what Cade had just said. "Agrus, you mind if we take eye patch here back to your place? Will your little sleep trick keep him that way for that long?"

If Agrus said he didn't want the prisoner coming to his place, that settled the argument right then and there, far as Cole was concerned. It would be a dumb idea to stay here a moment longer than they had to. In that event, eye patch would be staying but he wouldn't be breathing. Not unless someone could come up with a very good reason why it was worth letting him tell his master everything he knew about their numbers and what they could do in a fight.

Agrus takes a long look at Eyepatch. "All right," he says, "you may bring him if you wish. With the vehicle repaired, let's depart, shall we?"

GM: We'll assume the vehicle is ready to drive. Who is driving?

Fresh JIC rolls please!

With the decision made, Cade mounted up.

ooc: Cade rolled 2,11,83 using 1d20,1d20,1d100.  JIC.

"Alright. Find a compartment for storing people. They should have one that should not be able to be opened from the inside." Chaplain was going to help haul this guy however he could. "Will he be able to resist a psychic probe while sleeping? That could speed things up a lot if he can't."

He casually reloaded the grenade launcher with the microfusions, making sure the tube had a full complement inside once more. He gave the area one more quick back and forth, making sure nothing of value was being left behind. This time, his whispers did not hit the radio. "Detestatio sacrorum."

He made a quick sign with his hand towards the cave, a small rebellion of his own that he indulged every now and then, and helped haul Eyepatch on to the RV.

OOC: 22:51, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 7 using 1d100.  JIC - Skill roll. Yes.
22:51, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 18 using 1d20.  JIC - Saving throw. Yes.
22:50, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 6 using 1d20.  JIC - Perception. No.

Nathaniel is driving unless somebody has expertise in dune buggy piloting, seeing as Nathaniel can pilot anything he can physically touch.

"Hold on where you can, I will try and go slow enough to not throw any of you off. Our friendly magus gets the other front seat so he can tell me where to go. And next time, damn it, don't throw out so many grenades that you slag things."

He heads off where ever the lizard mage wants them to go or Cole tells him to go.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:39, Mon 17 Aug 2020.

As everyone else boards the vehicle, Joran helps to stuff One-Eye into the trunk, or whatever is closest to one.  He then climbs aboard to rest upon the roof with his grenade rifle at the ready.
Reaching out, he slaps a massive hand upon the roof with surprising restraint, to let Nathaniel know he is ready to go, then he grips a handhold so as not to fall off when the vehicle lurches forward.

03:15, Today: Joran rolled 27 using 1d100.  Just in Case Skill.

03:15, Today: Joran rolled 13 using 1d20.  Just in Case Save.

03:14, Today: Joran rolled 17 using 1d20+3.  Just in Case Perception.

Once Agrus gave his go ahead for taking eye patch to his place, Cole nodded his head and went over to the sleeping bandit. He double checked his hand restraints and then placed a blindfold over his eyes. After that he let Joran secure him however and wherever the Ogre could find space for him.

With that done, Cole finds himself a place on the captured dune buggy. If its standing room only, he will take one of the standing spots without comment.

Cole rolled 18 using 1d20.  JIC Perception.

14:55, Today: Cole rolled 11 using 1d20.  JIC Saving Throw.

14:55, Today: Cole rolled 89 using 1d100.  JIC Skill Check

OCC, doing this from my phone so no fancy colors and stuff.

Agrus confirms that Eyepatch can be probed with psionics while sleeping, and then the group is off. Nathaniel's driving is rough, with the ATV thundering along over the roughest parts of the terrain. Agrus directs them northwest in what is nothing but remote, rocky desert.

A cluster of boulder and rocks appear in the middle of nowhere. "We're here," says Agrus.

GM: What do you do?

Once they arrived at the odd spot, Cade jumped off from her spot on the ATV and had a look around.

She didn't think anyone might be around.  There certainly wasn't a lot of places to hide, but she wanted to check anyway.

Cade also wanted to see if she could sense any sort of telltale regarding the spot with the odd rock formation.  She assumed it represented where Agrus' compass could be used to transport them all, so she took a moment to see if anything stood out which she might later be able to match up should they find another compass spot, or that might remind her of something from the cave where they had arrived.

"Well then friend Argus, you have taken us to the place that is next to the middle of nowhere. Anywhere in particular in this nowhere near nowhere that you would like me to park this suspensionless contraption?"

Nathaniel tried to be nice about things, but he really didn't like the desert when he had to stay in human form and inside his armor because he didn't have much else to wear. He really needed some cloths!

The ogre slips off the top of the vehicle.  Big Boss my ass, he rumbles more to himself than to anybody else.  As he stretches and pops joints, he notices the indentation on the roof where he had seated himself, as well as the minor crumpling done to the supports but his.mass combined with that of his weapon.
I does little for you to complain, Nathaniel.  At least you had  a padded seat.

Chaplain had just found a nice spot and hunkered down for the ride. He had gotten in a half-doze along the way - the ride was rougher than usual, even by APC standards.

He had been saving his energies for Eyepatch and the near future. "We need basics. Repairs, time, and information. Ideally, some means of getting my mobile field base down here so we can get out of here, and fifty million credits to retire on while I'm making wishes."

He was preparing his questions right now, but he had an immediate thought. "I seriously doubt boredom is your sole motivation, Agrus. I can think of three motivations that make more sense than that. All events and information seem to be pointing us to a confrontation with this Enoch vampire, and specifically, an action that will make our magical artifact of doom work again so that we can get out of vampire country, assuming it actually works that way, and doesn't instead open a portal to hell or some reinforcements loyal to you."

"The idea of cannibalizing your compass to fix our own has been on my mind since I learned you had one too, and surely you know at least one of us would have thought of that. Taking us to your home is a danger to you and requires the luxury of trust. So seriously - what is in this for you?"

Cole hopped off the dune buggy and looked around. Agrus had taken them to as desolate a patch of desert as ever he had laid eyes on. Even a Gila monster wouldn't want to live to here. He reckoned that was a mix of good and bad though. It meant no one would come this way by accident and find his lair but whoever did, probably meant trouble.

After giving the area a quick glance, he turned to look at Agrus. "Alright we are here. You got a fancy way of opening your front door?"

Zeke listened to the chatter, letting the others talk for now.


21:33, Today: Ezekiel 'Zeke' Holliday rolled 74 using 1d100.  jic save.

21:33, Today: Ezekiel 'Zeke' Holliday rolled 4 using 1d20.  perception.

21:33, Today: Ezekiel 'Zeke' Holliday rolled 13 using 1d20.  jic save.

Cade peers at the rocks and they almost seem to shimmer like a mirage, but perhaps that is just the heat and exhaustion playing tricks on her.

"Well, I can see you all have a lot of questions," says Agrus with a smile, "so let's head in and and have some coffee, shall we?"

He starts walking toward the cluster of rocks. "Just pull up next to the rocks and park. It will be hidden."

Our heroes watch as the lizard mage seems to shimmer slightly and then disappear into the rocks.

GM: What do you do?

Joran opens the trunk to pull out One-Eye, checking to see if he is alive, or if he expired inside the overly warm storage space.  Placing the bound henchman over his left shoulder, and resting his grenade rifle against his right, he watches Agrus walk into the rocks.  He gives a lopsided grin at the shimmering of the lizardmage's entrance into his home.
Nice, he rumbles as he follows their host.

Cade spent a few more long moments giving the spot a once over once Agrus disappeared.

She was interested in how well concealed the magical effect seemed to be, and whether there was something there for her to pick up on that was just very subtle, or if it was completely hidden from even her senses.

Regardless of the outcome of her efforts, she didn't send too much time on them before stepping through the same area Agrus had disappeared into.

"Coffee sounds great."

After he disappears he says, "Hopefully it is the iced kind...."

"Well my Fellows of the Broken Compass, lets see what kind of digs the mage has and what we have to do to get him to fix the compass shall we."

He waits for the 'entrance' to appear or something to happen.

"Mages." Chaplain shook his head, and noted Joran had the prisoner. "Corporal, if this goes south, and I don't get out, pin the blame on me. You won't get blamed for following orders."

He didn't feel they had many options, though. This jalopy would probably break down well before they made it to the Rio Grande. So, in he went, with everyone else.

It's odd, but Cade can sense magic at work, but just sort of. It is like the space here is folded in on itself, and magic is just one of the ingredients.

Our heroes step into the rocks and feel an odd sensation, almost like vertigo mixed with static electricity, and find themselves in a lush little forest replete with streams, flowers and deep green trees covered in moss. Agrus' giant eagle drinks from a stream and stops to briefly regard the group. It then takes flight up into the trees.

A cozy little hut lies at the center of the forest. Agrus leans against it, lighting a pipe.



GM: What do you do?

As Joran follows the lizardmage, and others into the rocks, he chuckles a little bit at the tickling electric feeling, despite a touch of dizziness.  It is the sudden change in temperature and humidity that first gets his attention, then the beauty if the idyllic setting.
He looks around, taking as much of it in with his gaze as he can, and somehow appears unphased by what he sees.  Other than to rumble, Nice.  He continues forward to join Agrus near the cottage.  Is this a pocket dimension?  Or another planet?

23:34, Today: Joran rolled 21 using 1d20+5.  Humina Humina Humina Factor Roll.
I gave an HHHF of 18.

"This has 'circle of stone' badness written all over it. Like those stone sites back home that would light up during the Solstice, where messed up creatures would take your soul out, and you'd walk out a sixty year old." Chaplain had heard those stories, and he had spoken to a few people who had seen some crazy things out by the rocks away from the 'Burbs.

Now he was speaking directly to Agrus. "So, here we are, and you are home. This is a gorgeous potential death trap. When can we begin getting answers?"

Cole wasn't really surprised when the illusion of rocks gave way to this idyllic scene. He had been born on Earth but he was still an Atlantean. He had a better idea than many about the kinds of things magic could do, even if he wasn't a spell caster himself. The idea that a Lizardmage, likely a powerful at that, would be living under a desert rock was just plain silly to him. Seeing this pretty place reassured him he hadn't guessed wrong.

The Gunfighter had made sure he was the last to enter. Partly that was to make sure no one got left behind by 'accident' but also to take one last look at the way they'd come. Cole didn't think they'd been followed but it never hurt to be sure.

Seeing that Joran and Wolf were already peppering Agrus with questions, Cole kept his mouth shut for now. His eyes and ears though, remained wide open, taking in the scene and Agrus's response to the questioning.

As the group entered the space, wherever it actually was, Cade turned her attentions away from Agrus and to the space itself.

That it was lush with plant life was evident enough.  As they walked Cade perked her ears to listen for the sounds of any other birds in the trees, or animals scurrying in the undergrowth.  She looked into the stream as they passed for signs of fish or some other aquatic life.

She wondered if this place was just a bunch of living scenery or an actual slice of someplace real and fully alive.

Nathaniel is moving really slowly. It seems that he had turned off his power armor to conserve the battery power available. Probably one of the reasons the ride was so bumpy as he was using his normal strength to move the armors arms and the wheel at the same time. Once inside the 'sanctum' he takes off his helmet, attaches it to the side of the armor on a specific little magnetic hook and then turns into light. He flits out of the armor and kinda floats around there relaxing.

"So much better than the hot!"

"Not so sure about that myself," says Agrus, looking around the forest. "I suspect it is the result of a particularly nasty leyline storm that left its mark here. I found it when I first came to this world. My compass brought me here."

Casting a look over to Cade who is peering into the water, he calls out. "Rest assured, there are fish. This forest is quiet real."

Sure enough, Cade sees brightly colored fish swimming about the stream.

Agrus nods at Wolf. "Yes, let's get down to business, shall we? Come in."

With that he walks into his hut.

GM: What do you do?

With that potential resource noted, Cade moved to follow Agrus inside.

Joran, still with One-Eye slung over his shoulder, prepares to duck down, as he so often must do, as he flows the lizardmage.
So, you... inherited it from someone else.

Chaplain put two and two together. "I'm guessing these compasses detect stable weak points. Doors between dimensions. Ours detected a gateway to out here, and his detected a stable dimensional gate."

He shook his head. "Mages and their magic."

Of course, he was going in the hut.

Cole waited for everyone to go inside the little house, observing the area, before entering it last. He wasn't taking in the pretty scenery, he was looking for any hint of danger or treachery on Agrus's part. The Gunfighter didn't really have anything specific in mind, just anything that seemed out of place, like say a Brodkil hiding in the bushes with a railgun or a Gargoyle that wasn't just a stone decoration.

OOC
Cole rolled 14 using 1d20.  Perception.

Cole rolled 13 using 1d100.  Detect Concealment (65).

Cole rolled 70 using 1d100.  Detect Ambush (75).

Agrus points to a cot where Eyepatch can be laid down. He will not awake for a while longer.

A guilty look passes over Agrus' face. "Inherited? Not so much. I sort of...took it from someone."

"Close. They only detect the portal they are tied to. My compass is linked to a portal to another world."

Agrus taps out his pipe and walks over to a wooden shelf filled with rolls of maps. He grabs several and places them on a table at the center of the room.

Outside, Cole notes that there are a number of places, particularly the trees, where one could attack from, but he does not see any obvious signs of potential treachery.

GM: What do you do?

"So you gak'd someone and took the compass, or do you mean someone was already living in this another world when you popped in?"  Cade asked conversationally (aside from the verbal eye roll).

As Agrus went to unroll his maps, Cade found a spot to get a vantage of them from.  She didn't need to be up next to the table, her eyes were good enough for that, but she did need to not have something like a Joran in the way.  She could do a lot, but she couldn't see through walls, whether they be stone, metal, or meaty flesh.

Zeke waits for answers, and how they can fix their compass.

Chaplain started eying the maps with interest. "We'll start with the basics, then, and I'll be cross-referencing this information with Prisoner One. What is the objective, where is it, and what do we know about the area it is in?"

Nathaniel just hovers around looking like a ball of yellow-white light floating in the middle of the air. It has been a while since he has just relaxed, so he is doing just that. Half of an ear is on the conversation and the rest of his mental abilities are going over how to get the buggy to not jar the teeth right out of ones head when driving over 40mph.

"I didn't pop in, I am from there. This compass opens a portal to my home world. After I took it, I fled and popped into this world. And I have been here ever since."

Agrus spreads out maps and notes. "Now, there are said to be magicians that know the magic of the compasses and can fix them should they be damaged. One is possibly enslaved by a master vampire, while the other is rumored to be some kind of nomad. The nomad was last seen far south from here, while I suspect the other is enslaved by a master vampire near here. Perhaps Enoch..."

The group converse for some time, well into evening. Agrus cooks them a meal of meat and potatoes. He tells them a story of how he fell in love with a woman that was taken from him by a wealthy mage and forced to marry. He in turn robbed the mage of his treasured compass and escaped to this world. He has been here for years wandering the desert and trying to find out the lore of the compasses.

Eyepatch eventually wakes,and while angrily defiant, he is quiet and doesn't do anything stupid.

Suddenly, there is a loud cawing outside the hut. Agrus looks up alarmed. It is a warning caw form his eagle. "It cannot be...we have intruders."


GM: What do you do?

"So the compasses can do more than just one party trick."  Cade commented, now that she understood what Agrus was getting at.

"Good to know."

Peering at the maps Cade then asked, "So what would you say is important on these maps, in regards to these rumors?  Any particular places we should start looking, for either of these magicians?"


Once the conversation turned to Agrus' life story, Cade lost interest.  She passed on the meal and instead sat back silently as she contemplated going out to the river to catch some fish.


When the lizard raised his warning Cade reached out with her various senses to find out what she could.  "Your little sanctum here have any defenses?"  She asked Argus.

OOC: Cade will activate Sense Evil, in addition to her plethora of other ways to figure out who, or what, is out and about.

As the others begin to pester Agrus with questions, Joran slips into the background.  Finding a place to sit with his head resting on his arms, as they rest  across his knees, he closes his eyes and focusses on his breathing.  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  In with the good, out with the bad.  He does not pay attention to anything specific, hearing without focussing on anything in particular.  Even when food is prepared and a meal is ready, he seems distant; though that does nothing to hamper his prodigious appetite.  He simply eats, rather than engaging in conversation, keeping his focus on counting his breaths, letting thought wander throughout his head and then letting them go....
Until the mention of uninvited guests registers in his mind and he rouses from his meditation.  Why do uninveited guests always show up during dinnertime?  He carefully gets up and collects his grenade rifle.

Chaplain simply growled. "I. Need. Time."

He shot a single finger to Eyepatch. "Prisoner One! You are not granted permission to die! We will talk again. Stay there, and look sullen and angry."

He prepped the Dragonfire once more, and set out to meet his likely would-be foes. He searched for some decent concealment to fire behind, and made himself "comfortable".

Nathaniel zooms into the armor and solidifies once more. A switch at his fingertip turns it on and he brings the railgun up into firing position. At that point he waits to see what Cole or somebody else more tactically minded wants him to do.

"Ferrari operational," he says over the radio and to those nearby.

Cole had enjoyed the quite or what there had been of it while Wolf questioned the prisoner. The tranquil scene and quaint house had been soothing and while it didn't magically cure the pain of losing his friends, it had helped. From a purely tactical viewpoint, it had allowed him to regain his strength, physical and magical. Which, as it had turned out, would be important.

He, like his companions, was quick to respond and grabbed his rifle, automatically double checking that the e-clips were full ones and that they were firmly seated. He then checked the sights, making sure they were on. As he went through those motions he responded first to Joran, "Because the universe don't give a damn about your stomach big guy," he commented dryly.

Seeing Wolf run out to meet the enemy, Cole looks at Cade. He jerks his head towards the door, saying matter of factly, "Still need um alive. Go watch his back with those super senses of yours." He looks around at the rest of his friends and Hart, "The rest of you find places down here to hold the house, don't forget about the back. I'm heading upstairs." He then moves with a purpose towards the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Once upstairs he finds the upper level room he had seen during the walk up to the house. If the window opens he will open it, if not, he will use his vibro-knife to cut a opening just large enough to allow his rifle the maximum possible firing arc. Unlike the movies though, he doesn't poke his rifle out past the window sill, instead sitting back a pace so as to not give the attackers an obvious indication of the sniper's location.

AS he makes these preparations, he checks that his headset is on and does a radio check. "This is Cole, I'm set on the second floor."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:53, Tue 25 Aug 2020.

Just before the alarm is raised, Agrus makes a couple of marks on the map, rolls it up and hands it to Cade. "Those two places are my best guesses."

As the alarm is raised, Cade can sense evil closing in on them. Cole can sensenthat vampires are close. His sharp senses buy time to warn the others.

Cole heads upstairs and peers out the window, while Wolf and Nathaniel take position. A growling, hissing sound fills the air as figures begin to come out from behind the bushes and trees. The moonlight glints off their exposed fangs, and their red, baleful eyes scream hunger.

GM: Figured it was about time for some vampires.

What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:48, Wed 26 Aug 2020.

Nathaniels helmet opens up and two balls of light pop out of it. Both head upstairs and take up position near Cole. When the Vampires or whatever it is out there become visible, photon beams of something real close to sunlight sizzle out to light up their world.

Over the radio he says, "Anybody know how to permanently kill one of these things? Cause I figure we are going to need to do that here real soon."

Meanwhile, he isn't holding back either as beams of solid light sizzle out from his eyes sweeping out and ravaging any vampire that gets past Guido and Nuncio.

Cade pulled off her pack and stuffed the map in it.  At the same time she caught smell and sound of what was outside.

She pulled the excess gear they had collected from the chest out of her pack and unceremoniously dumped it in the floor.

"Water, wood, silver, magic.  Unless these blood suckers are armored anything else is just going to annoy them before they kill you."  She stated flatly, mostly for the female dead boy.  Cade didn't know what they taught the soldiers, but it wouldn't help them any now if it was all bullshit.

As she spoke she opened up a rather modern and significant looking compound bow and strapped a quiver of wooden arrows to it along with another at her hip.

"If anyone saved grenades, blow the shit out of that bridge like it's an ATV that owes you money!"  She hollered as she exited the house.

Cade charged up her armor and found a tree stump to jump up on.  She howled a challenge to try and draw their attention before she raised her bow and began loosing arrows, looking to put pointy wood through shriveled undead hearts.

Cade rolled 20,13,21,8,10 using 1d20+7,1d20+7,1d20+7,1d20+7,1d20+7.  Strikes (called shots vs hearts 19 or better to succeed)

2 shots found the targets (assuming no armor)

As they come within range, Joran can feel the supernatural evil of the charging vampires, and the danger they present.  He needs protection, but he knows his Telekinetic Force Field will be immobile, which leaves using it for himself is pointless.
I am not sure how to destroy them, but I know how to hurt them, he rumbles.  A white-glowing, sharp-tipped bar of psychic energy forms in his hand.
As soon as the first one comes in, the ogre charges it to try to keep occupied at whatever opening it used to enter.

01:20, Today: Joran rolled 20,31,32,21 using 8d6,8d6,8d6,8d6.  MD from Psi Spear.

01:18, Today: Joran rolled 11,10,26,15,23,19,24,10 using 1d20+8,1d20+5,1d20+8,1d20+5,1d20+8,1d20+5,1d20+8,1d20+5.  Combination Parry/Strike-Parry.

00:55, Today: Joran rolled 20 using 1d20+9.  Initiative.
23:52, Today: Joran rolled 47 using 1d100.  Lore:  Demons and Monsters @ 45%.
Sixth Sense activates automatically at 90', additional +6 Initiative, +2 Parry, +3 Dodge for first Melee Round, 2 ISP.
Activate Psi-Sword as a staff, 30 ISP.

This message was last edited by the player at 05:22, Wed 26 Aug 2020.

As the area swarms with vampires, one bounds up past Wolf and through the window. It is met by a psi-spear from Joran and shrieks as it is fried and falls to the ground, incapacitated. Its flesh quickly starts to regenerate and it will be back on its feet soon. Joran confirms that magical attacks indeed hurt these things.

Meanwhile, vampires sizzle and scream out as Nathaniel's photon beams find them. The smoke from their flesh quickly starts to fill the area.

Cade fires at the vampires with her arrows, felling two of them as they flail forward, arrows through their hearts.

Howls fill the forest as the swarm of vampires continue to pour from the woods, and are joined by hairy, canine humanoids.

"Great, werewolves too," says Agrus.

Two werewolves leap onto the tree Cade has climbed and start scampering up toward her.

GM: Where is everyone's MDC at? I just want to be current before the vamps attack and wolves attack.

What do you do?

OOC: I am down to 30 MDC, and then it is time for the all-or-nothing dance of the Cyber-Armor. They go over my A.R. 16 at that point, and I die. The end.

Chaplain would be hard pressed to solo a werewolf or wild vampire in hand-to-hand, which is one reason I was playing it up as fairly impressive that he had done that. With damaged armor? I don't like his odds.

"Fucking vampires and werewolves?  That's cheating you assholes!"  Cade yelled at the various creatures emerging from the undergrowth.

She slung her bow over her shoulder and out of the way as she eyed the two wolves climbing her tree.

Clicking on her radio she began giving a quick tutorial as she simultaneously began lashing out at the wolves.

"Werewolves, ergh!, need magic, or silver.  Just keep hitting them until they fucking die, and make sure it's dead otherwise it will eventually heal and become a pain in the ass again.  Fuckers!"  Cade did her best to explain in between cursing at the wolves she was fighting, with her fists, which seemed as effective as any silver bludgeon as she was the queen of cheaters herself.

"Vampires are a thousand times worse.  Wood, silver, water, magic.  Unless Nathaniel can turn his glowing, oohf!, ass into literal sunlight, just get wood into their hearts to stop them for now.  Whatever you do don't remove any stakes once they're in.  Blood, fuck off!, suckers heal in seconds so if they're not staked, they will still be trying to kill you.

Though if Cole gets the waterworks going, keeping them outside in the rain will work too!"

ooc: concentrating attacks on one wolf, then the other if the first is considerate enough to die.

Cade rolled 17,23,15,20,21,22,21,17.  Strike.

Cade rolled 17,15,20,20,17,20,14,20.  (potential) damage.


Cade rolled 22,14,20,28,20,28,22,16,30,28.  Parry (if needed).

Cade has 60 MDC on her ISP fueled force shield.

From his vantage point upstairs Cole could see that it was not just vampires but also werewolves that were coming for them. He blinked and took a second look, unable to believe what he was seeing. "Damn werewolves and vampires hate each other, so what in the hell are they doing working together?"

The sound of breaking glass from downstairs brought his attention back to the here and now. He forcefully shoved aside the question of why and how vampires and werewolves were working together. Concentrating for a second, he activated the tattoo he had used before to summon rain to douse the burning ATVs. An instant later a rain cloud; gray, puffy and full of water, began release that water in the form of rain. The downpour was centered on the house and spread outward covering an area nearly 15,400 square yards in size. Everything within sight was now being pelted with heavy rain drops.

Cole nodded his head when he saw how heavy it was coming down. When he had first been given that tattoo, he could barely cover the front porch of his parent's ranch house in rain. Now, it was no hurricane but it was still a mighty fine rain.

He was searching the area for werewolves since they wouldn't care much about the rain, unlike the vampires. That's when he saw a pair of them go after Cade. He released his rifle to let it fall, held to him by its single point single and drew his CFT Peacemaker. In one swift move, he switched out the cylinder loaded with the regular high energy CFT rounds for one with silver rounds.

He brought the archaic hand cannon up, picked his target, one of the werewolves attacking Cade, and squeezed the trigger when he was sure of his shot.

OOC
1 action - Summon rain
1 action - take in scene
1 action - switch out for silver rounds (love that Gunfighter ability)
3 actions - Aimed, Called shot (Head) werewolf
2 actions - Aimed shot werewolf

Strikes
Cole rolled 11 using 1d20+7.  Aimed Shot, CFT.
Cole rolled 10 using 1d20+7.  Aimed Called Shot, CFT.

Damage
Cole rolled 12 using 5d6.  CFT silver bullet damage.
Cole rolled 17 using 5d6.  CFT silver bullet damage.

Wow...dice roller hates me right now. barely broke the double digits despite a +7 to hit. Supposedly a D20 should roll "10.5, 95% of the time"...yah tell that to RPOL ^_^

For ease of the GM, depending on if you classify the rain as heavy or medium, it will do 5d6HP or 2d6HP per round to vampires. Reference Revised Vampire World book, page 80
This message was last edited by the player at 17:58, Thu 27 Aug 2020.

My psychic weapon seems to work as well, Joran rumbles into the radio.  How many of the werewolves are there, Cade?
He places his massive foot on the abdomen and crotch of the immobilzed vampire and goves his psi-weapon a sudden jerk to the side.  He then brings it out, the tip appearing to be about six inches shorter and jagged, as he leaves the psychic energy spear tip in the bloodsucker's chest.  He turns to go after the next vampire, the tip of the psi-weapon forming back into a spade-like blade without returning to its original length.
With a roar, he lashes out at the vampire, hoping to score another stab to the heart as he stabs, slashes, and uses feints to get through the defenses of his opponent.

22:42, Today: Joran rolled 11,20,21,19,14 using 1d20+6,1d20+6,1d20+6,1d20+6,1d20+6.  Automatic Parries.

22:41, Today: Joran rolled 19,24,23,26,33 using 8d6,8d6,8d6,8d6,8d6.  Damagebfrom Psi Spear.

22:37, Today: Joran rolled 13,18,13,15,19 using 1d20+5,1d20+5,1d20+5,1d20+5,1d20+5.  Psi-weapon attacks.  Called shots to heart.

This message was last edited by the player at 01:10, Thu 10 Sept 2020.

Chaplain slung the rifle away. The pack he had traveled with during the vampire hunt north of here, during his first assignment down in the Lone Star region, told him his arsenal meant nothing to the vampire. He drew his two silver-plated knives, took a breath, and got ready to fight as many of them as he could.

He figured they'd come to him. They likely wouldn't be able to resist the challenge of some CS soldier daring to fight them with knives. "Bring it, leeches! Faith, courage and blades await you!"

OOC: Engaging them with counterattack style - figure a taunting human who keeps not dying might be enough for them to not ignore me, especially if he starts dealing them serious damage.
22:01, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 15, 12, 9, 21, 25, and 21 using 1d20+8. Simultaneous Attack and Parry - Attack side. 3rd attack is a nat one - it misses.
22:09, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 18, 13, 16, 11, 13, and 21 using 1d20+9.  Simultaneous Attack and Parry - Parry side.
22:12, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 8, 3, 7, 8, and 4 using 2d4.  Knife damage.

"Then somebody needs to get on staking DUTY. I can knock them down, but I don't think they get knocked out!"

The triplets keep up the barrage of photon beams, concentrating on the vampires of course. The three of them are using the previous twins attack to light up the area so that they can aim. It is turning the battlefield with a weird strobe-light effect. A beam of coherent light leaves the house about every second.

"As long as you keep them on the ground, in the rain, that should be enough."  Cade assured Nathaniel.

Cade takes aim at the two werewolves climbing up the tree. The first gurgles a yelp as she smashes its face and feels bones break beneath her hands. It falls from the tree and onto the ground with a thump. She hits the second wolf hard, and then the air is filled with the call of an eagle as Agrus' giant bird swoops in and catches the wolf with her claws and carries it off into the woods.

Another werewolf begins climbing the tree, but is taken down by Cole as his rain begins to fall. The vampires suddenly scream in unison as they are burned by the rain. Their skin bubbles and sags as they scream, looking for cover.

Inside the house, Joran takes the other half of his psi-dagger and stabs it into another vampire that has burst into the house, skin melting from the rain.

Two vampires scamper wildly toward Wolf as their skin bubbles. His silver blades cut them like butter and they fall to the ground with a grotesque, splattering sound, bits of their flesh landing on his boots.

The battlefield flashes with lights as Nathaniel's photons continue taking down vampires. The flashing light refracts off the rain at one point, causing he and the twins to lose their focus.

While the vampires scatter and scream, werewolves come forward in full force. One werewolf comes through the door. Snarling, drool dripping from its maw, his snaps and Joran and bites him.

Another growls and lunges at Wolf outside, sharp teeth biting down on his armor.

The werewolf attacking Joran catches fire and howls in pain as Agrus fires off balls of fire. He steps out and does the same to the one attacking Wolf. Both werewolves dash off into the rain to douse the fire, but it buys our heroes a moment.

Agrus calls out to our heroes.

"The rain has slowed the vampires, but my eagle says more lay in wait outside of the forest. I have an escape route, and if you choose to come with me, I plan to leave now!"

GM: Joran - 7MD.
Wolf: 14MD.

What do you do?

"Cade, get back in the house!" Cole calls out over the radio. "Time to shoot and scoot!"

Cole holds his position on the second floor until the team is inside the house and ready to follow Agrus to his escape route. Only then will the Gunfighter move. When he does it is quick, leaping pastthe stairs rather than walking or even running down them. His riding boots land with a *thumps* on the wooden floor though he doesn't break the floor. He turns to face the front door and windows but says to Agrus, "Lead the way out of here,"

OOC
1 action - calling to Cade on the radio
1 action - leaping down the stairs
1 action - talking to Agrus
3 actions - Shooting at anything but team members trying to get into the house
2 actions - run for it with the team


Strikes
Cole rolled 8 using 1d20+5.  CFT shot.
Cole rolled 26 using 1d20+7.  CFT aimed shot.

Damage
Cole rolled 6 using 3d6.  CFT silver bullet damage.
Cole rolled 9 using 3d6.  CFT silver bullet damage.

Cade leaped back towards the house and made her way inside.

She scooped up her pack and slung it on as she then split her attention between looking for where it was they were supposed to be going and the various windows and doors which were opportunities for enemies to come barging in.

Nathaniel's brothers continue to provide covering fire, since they can literally fly along in the smallest of spaces over the heads of the others. Nathaniel drops the armors cowl and heads off with the others, shooting werewolves as the need arises, trusting his brothers to handle any vampires that survive to get close enough to the group to be a problem.

"We need the prisoner! Do not let - " Chaplain was falling back in the face of the werewolf chomping into his armor, multiple warning lights flickering quickly for him as his systems warned him of potential deterioration. "Is that as hard as you can bite, you - ?!"

He continued reactively and methodically carving away at the werewolf, screaming a declaration of what was likely a biologically impossible lineage for the werewolf before screaming out another command at full volume. "Get the prisoner!"

07:46, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 14, 26, 28, 25, 13, 11 using 1d20+8.  S-Attack and Parry - Attack side. One of these is a hand to hand crit - awesome.
07:50, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 17, 23, 28, 24, 26, 15 using 1d20+9.  S-Attack and Parry - Parry side.
07:52, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 4, 6, crit below, 4, 4, 5 using 2d4.  Knife damage. Attack #3 is a crit, detailed here.
07:53, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 13 using 4d4.  Knife damage with potential for KO.
07:53, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 5 using 1d6.  Rounds, if foe can be KOed.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:56, Sun 30 Aug 2020.

When the werewolf comes at him, Joran has little time to do anything but to shove his still armored left arm into the jaws attempting to clamp upon his throat.  Setting himself to prevent being pushed down, the ogre is about to jab his spear into the lycanthrope's side when fire erupts across the damnable creature's back.
As the beast runs out into the rain, Joran turns to face his companions and he grabs the grenade rifle once again.  You have a way out?  Then let us go, Agrus, he says to the lizardmage.  At the mention if wanting to take One-Eye, Joran reaches out to palm the smaller man's face.  It looks like you are with us a little while longer  He then flips the prisoner around and on his shoulder, with his massive hand covering One-Eye's back and bound hands, and his head laying against his barrel chest.

Our heroes lay waste to more enemies and dart out the back door of the hut and race through the forest following Agrus. Howls and screams ring out behind them as vampires melt beneath the rain and likely seek refuge in the now abandoned hut, and werewolves regroup and begin to pursue the group.

Eventually, Agrus leads them into a mossy cave. He takes out a blue device from beneath his robe. It is another compass. Breathless, he speaks quickly. "This will take us to my homeworld. I didn't suspect I would ever return, but necessity seems to dictate."

He inserts the compass into an engraving on the wall of the cave and begins to turn it gently. The wall begins to glow a blue hue.

There is a loud, startling howl from outside, as a mass of werewolves head to the cave. The spirit warrior Josue, and the good Reverend stare at each other and nod grimly. "We will buy you time," says the Reverend. "God be with you."

The two holy warriors make for the mouth of the cave and our heroes hear the clash of battle as they face off with the monsters. Gun shouts and battle cries ring out as werewolves are gunned down and killed.

Meanwhile, the blue hue grows stronger, and once again our heroes feel a strange vertigo as the cave twists and inverts. Just as they feel they might throw up their dinner, the cave settles.

All is quiet now except for the sound of crashing waves somewhere outside the cave. The smell of sea water wafts into the cave carried by a cool breeze.

GM: Head to the new thread!
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:41, Mon 31 Aug 2020.

Weeks have passed since our heroes escaped the horde of werewolves and vampires. They return now, smarter, wiser, and better armed.

The portal from the blue world opens and Agrus steps through.

GM: What do you do?

Chaplain had been silent throughout the entire trip, save for breathing. He had been testing the balance of the stakes he was handed and occasionally mock-throwing them at the edges, to see how effectively he can throw them and from what grip positions, or to see where he would have to grip them to throw them or use them as a heavy stiletto, practicing for clear heart thrusts in the case of the latter. He placed them in empty grenade slots and adjusted those loops, practicing quick draws with them and trying to find a balance between securing his weapons and using them quickly, all with little time to prepare.

Silvered blade in one hand, stake in the bionic hand for parries and finishing blows. He practiced familiarity as much as time would allow.

And then it was time. "Leaders lead."

He marched to the front, intent on avenging some losses.

OOC: 05:10, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 97 using 1d100.  Recognize Weapon Quality on stakes. TN 50. That is "no." Hopefully, this does not hurt my ability to use the weapons.

Symeril was new to the group... the social dynamic of the situation gave her little clout with the group.

She did not have 'skin', as yet, in their group dynamic.  So that said she felt it would have been particularly presumptuous to make moves or assertions as if she were.  She had no particular want to lead, and Cyber-knight's were not to demand obedience... they were to serve.  Serve those who were in need by defending and protecting.  She had felt she was pushing it by giving advice and preparing weapons for the party... and had it been ANY other enemy she would never have done that trusting those warriors around her to see to their own needs.  But Vampires were an enemy that conventional weapons did not work on!  To not give the group the best of her knowledge and prepare them for such a dangerous enemy would have been derelict of her primary duty as a Cyber-Knight to serve, to protect!

So.. Symeril waited for one of them to take the lead.  She smiled under her vizored helm when Chaplin Wolf took the initiative, indeed she was not surprised.. and in fact relieved Wolf stepped up to the plate of combat command. Someone had to and had she done it it would have been presumptuous and ill-timed.  But more importantly it indicated Wolf's acceptance of the party as his Unit of soldiers... a small step but a significant one.

Once Wolf moved through the portal Symeril was in motion following behind him with only a moment's hesitation...

Leading with the Psi-Sword she exited the portal To follow Wolf into the cave.

Not waiting, Symeril cast her Globe of Daylight centering the 50'ft globe of light on her crackling violet energy Psi-sword... filling the cave in golden sunlight radiance.  Stepping to the left-shoulder of Wolf she panned her Red & White panneled Flying Titan PA's twin wing mounted searchlights shining their twin large Red-Cross light beams around the cavern to scatter any 'Wild' Vamps hiding in the area.

In equal fashion in her right gauntlet-ed fist the GR-15AR Assault Rifle panned the room in equal fashion... the Flying Titan's Combat computer seeking targets to lock... like a shining blue-giant star her <AZUREHEART> Silver Bayonet gleamed from the Assault Railgun Rifle's barrel... somewhere in the last few days she had stained or enameled the silver blade a blue hue... a nice touch.

08:17, Today: Symeril rolled 3 using 1d4.  Globe of Daylight [1d4/day]. – [roll=1604927866.8852.349743] - 1/used
This message was last edited by the player at 13:25, Mon 09 Nov 2020.

Cole went through the portal with his team. He was of two minds when Cole decided to take charge and make his little comment about leading. On the one hand, he wasn't part of the team. He was Coalition and so the enemy of everyone in the group. On the other hand, he wasn't acting like the typical CS soldier or citizen. True he had done most of that when he couldn't remember he was supposed to hate and kill everyone on the team but so far, he hadn't tried to go back to what a CS Officer should be.

"And besides, I'm happier not leading and so far he's shown some good sense," he thought, not that he would ever tell the man that. One thought that didn't even cross his mind was shooting the CS Officer in the back. That would have been against The Code for starters, not to mention all of his actions since losing and then regaining his memory had been beneficial to the team or at least, meant to be beneficial. Cole was a firm believer in actions meaning more than words.

He had no weapons in his hands during the cross over. Partly that was because he was confident in the speed of his draw and partly because he wasn't sure exactly which weapon he would need. Oh he was confident his pistols could handle most things but smart enough to know they couldn't do it all. Sometimes it took a bigger hammer to solve your problem.

Cole rolled 3 using 1d20.  JIC Skill.

Cole rolled 17 using 1d20.  JIC Save. (And frack you too dice roller!)

Cole rolled 13 using 1d20.  JIC Perception.

Guido, Nuncio, and Antonio head through with the others, but Nathaniel waits till last just in case the 'magic' is tied to him to keep the portal open. When all of the others have headed through, he does as well, ready for a fight. This was something they had done to many times already, which didn't stop the adrenaline, but kept the fear down to an easily controlled thrum.

10:52, Today: Nathaniel rolled 20,2,12 using 1d100,1d20,1d20+2.  JIC Skill, Save, Perc.

John stumbles through opening into the cave, and thinks ~ohmygod I've gone completely blind~ before realizing his eyepatch has slipped to his other eye. Then he attempts to adjust the eyepatch and pokes himself in the eye.

16:05, Today: St. John-Smythe rolled 100,20,9 using 1d100,1d20,1d20.  JIC skill, JIC save, JIC perception.
dice roller possessed by an evil spirit

Cade waited a moment, and then leaned over and picked up a stone after Nathaniel did his thing with the compass.

As people stepped through, she double checked herself, and then followed.

Realizing the portal is too small for the airship, Joran shrugs resignedly.  He pats the vessel after disembarking from it.  Oh, well.  Maybe another time.
He lets Chaplain Wolf take charge.  The others had looked to him for leadership many times, and it had always been something with which he had been uncomfortable.  This time, he has both heavy weapons slung, and he holds the silver-bladed spear in one hand, and the shotgun modified to fit his massive mitt in the other; ten of the silver-plated slugs have gone missing from his bandoleer, to be replaced by standard 12 gauge shells.
Once more into the breach....

20:00, Today: Joran rolled 38 using 1d100.  Just in Case Skill.

19:59, Today: Joran rolled 8 using 1d20.  Just in Case Save.

19:59, Today: Joran rolled 5 using 1d20+3.  Just in Case Perception.  He still has his Sixth Sense....

The group emerge on the other side, back on their own turf. Agrus nods toward the cave exit.

"Smells like smoke," he whispers.

Indeed, they smell smoke coming from outside the cave. They also pick up hints of wet dog and rotting corpses.

GM: What do you do?

Cade stepped through and then couldn't help but roll her eyes.  "Oh, thank you wise one, knower of many things, and wielder of the power to state the fucking obvious."  She commented to Agrus matching his attempt at not alerting the things outside that probably already knew for certain they had arrived back.

She then threw the stone she'd picked up at him, still annoyed by his continued ignoring of questions.

Cade then asked Agrus another question.  Perhaps because she had decided she wanted another excuse to throw things at him.  "So, if we have to retreat again, how do we get back to Mexico from here?  The route we took getting here the first time wasn't so obvious from this side of whatever magical dimensional bullshit separates this place from there."

At least Chaplain now had all of his authorization codes back, and now had full access to his on-board computer. Still out of range for any CSA signals, though, so no new data from home. But he had the ability to access the full suite of abilities his suit could do, such as turning off the error messages permanently, or activating the full environmental functions so as to not be bothered by smoke or foul smells.

"I'm curious if we can somehow send the smoke to them. Block their vision, and when they come out to us, sunlight. Even if they have infrared, the heated smoke should overload their vision."

John says, "I'll just take a look."
Mumbling a few more words, he vanishes and silently moves toward the entrance to take a look around.

Invisibility: Simple and Prowl (made roll by 66)

"Well Cade, for those of us in environmental armor or in light form without a sense of smell, it isn't exactly obvious...."

Three light beings, dimmed to as low as they can go, float up to the cave mouth to take a look outside. They may not be invisible, but with only a single 'eye' creeping over the edge, it shouldn't be that noticeable during the daytime.


Prowl, whats prowl for a being of light that can float through the air? OR Nathaniel and CO don't have prowl. Daytime, not usually a problem ;-)
This message was last edited by the player at 15:10, Tue 10 Nov 2020.

"The magic light won't kill them, just hold them at bay."  Cade commented on Wolf's idea.

"If you want to kill a lot all at once, we'll need to see if Cole can make it rain."


She offered Nathaniel a smirk.  "You walking around with a blindfold on is your own damn problem."

Symeril held her ground not moving any closer to the entrance of the cave, hopefully to keep her Daylight confined to the cave.

Answering Wolf, "Sorry, I usually carry some smoke missile rounds but I have none currently.  But if Joran fitted some of his grenades with wood-pulp warheads he and I could fire into the building and fill the area with Wood-pulp shards.. THAT will force the Vamps out and not do much more than cosmetic damage to the building?"

"I only have 2x Wood-pulp warheads in my MM ordinance."

Turning to Cade, "..I can't make it rain per-se but I do have a water cannon with 100 gallon water tanks on my Powered Armor.  If we can flush them from the house."

Gesturing to Cole, "...if we also flush Werewolves from the house at the same time, his silver bullets and all of your spears should keep them occupied while I hose down the Vamps."

Still Addressing Cade, 'Shrug' "...your the stealth killer type.. might be more useful for us to know how many we're dealing with if you and St. John-Smythe do some quick scouting before we kick this hornet's nest?  Just a suggestion."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:54, Tue 10 Nov 2020.

Cole tipped his hat at Symeril. What she had said made sense. Taking a look see before coming up with a plan or getting all spun up over what could be nothing but a bunch of dead bodies made perfect sense.

For a brief moment he thought about using some of his magic energy to activate some defenses but decided against it. He wasn't a wizard or a tattoo man. His supply of magic energy was limited and he couldn't afford to waste it on nothing.

So he stayed silent and watchful, waiting to see what the scouts would report.

"Ouch," yelps Agrus as the rock hits him.

Meanwhile, John goes to the mouth of the cave and sees what he can see. There isn't much. Just a burned down forest, small tendrils of smoke still smoldering from the husks of trees.



GM: What do you do?

Joran looks over at their resident light-bringing technician as he sets aside the shotgun and unslings the Northern Gun railgun.  Hey, Nathaniel.  Do you have some of the wooden ammunition for the railguns from the chest?  I need as much as you have got.
Any ammo passed, he accepts, and removes the current mag from the railgun to replace it.  The spear goes on his pack where he would normally keep his staff.
This idiot is ready whenever the rest of you idiots are.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:08, Wed 11 Nov 2020.

Symeril, moves over to Joran's side... and detaches a Ammo box form the MLBE harness carrying gear on her Flying Titan PA.

"Here, Joran... I crafted a 100 round ammo belt of Woodpulp Railgun Rounds, just in case. My GR-15AR Assault Rifle does not use Ammo belts but 30-round magazines.  This Ammo belt was just for storage... use as much as you need."

23:54, Today: Symeril rolled 21 using 1d20+14.  Initiative w/Sixth Sense modifier 1st melee round of combat. – [roll=1605070491.63631.349743]

John steps to the cave exit, to see as best he can what awaits them. He squints, attempting to penetrate the smoky haze and see what's really there.
After a moment, he squints on the inside as he looks for things most humans will never see. After he gets as much information as possible, he backs up and returns to the group to inform them of what he saw.

23:45, Today: St. John-Smythe rolled 66,40,3,26 using 1d100,1d100,1d100,1d100.  Intelligence (67%), Detect Ambush(64%), Detect Concealment(58%), Lore: Demons and Monsters 44%.
John will also sense ley lines, ley line nexi,  open rifts, or magic energy. The sensing ability is so acute that the character can see things made invisible by magic and invisible things that are magic.

Chaplain simply moved ahead, noting that his own infrared was acting up from the overwhelming heat signatures. He was wondering how the fires had been kept up for this long, chalked it up to magic, and simply moved ahead, blade and stake in hand. Walking through the flames was not an option, as that risked damage to the weapons.

He kept his ears open, listening for anything out of place. He figured he might be able to take advantage of the smoke himself.

OOC: 23:59, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 20 using 1d20.  JIC Perception.
23:59, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 18 using 1d20+5.  JIC Autododge.
23:58, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 18 using 1d20.  JIC Save.
23:58, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 45 using 1d100.  JIC Camouflage - TN 75.
23:57, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 51 using 1d100.  JIC Prowl - TN 38.
23:57, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 5 using 1d100.  JIC Detect Concealment - TN 65.
23:57, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 90 using 1d100.  JIC Detect Ambush - TN 70.

So, nope on specifically Detect Ambush, and Prowl failed because of his heavy armor. The rest seem to be "yes."

Symeril follows Wolf, but letting him lead some 20 feet ahead... putting him just within the edge of her 50'ft globe of daylight centered on her Violet Psi-Claymore in her left fist.

She does not attempt to avoid any fires as her Powered Armor rad-counters show none could be nuclear fires... normal fires are insignificant to her sealed armor and her MLBE is metal mesh.. for high speed travel.

Reaching out with her psychic senses she opens her mind to the unseen... to see the invisible, mostly looking for laser trip wires or other magical wards.  Taking up Wolf's left flank she scans the terrain for ambush spots, camouflaged blinds, concealed trip-wires or traps, and prowling opponents... Psi-Claymore in left GR-15AR Assault Rifle in the right fist.

01:51, Today: Symeril rolled 10 using 1d20+6.  Perception +6 is lowest Modfier for check. – [roll=1605077496.32921.349743]
01:53, Today: Symeril rolled 18 using 1d20+12.  Sixth Sense - No Surprise possible Dodge [+12]. – [roll=1605077631.54505.349743]
01:55, Today: Symeril rolled 59 using 1d100.  Detect Ambush [TN60%]. – [roll=1605077707.65016.349743]

See the Invisible: -4ISP/ 87
This message was last edited by the player at 07:01, Wed 11 Nov 2020.

"Looks like they got tired of waiting for us to get back," Cole says softly before the team exits the cave.

He didn't like wearing the helmet that went with his armor but he fancied choking on smoke even less. He unhooked the helmet from his belt, took off his hat and put the helmet on, checking to make sure a good seal had been made. He placed his hat on top the helmet.

He looked at Dyna next. "You OK?" he asked the golden horse. He doubted any creature so fabulous that she could cross dimensions would be bothered much by regular ole fires but he didn't feel like making any assumptions where her life was concerned. He stroked her sinewy neck, as he spoke to her.

OOC
Cole is standing and walking, not riding Dyna at the moment. I wasn't sure how much head clearance there would be. Once we exit the cave, maybe he will ride her but he wants to see whats it like first.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:36, Wed 11 Nov 2020.

The three light beings report back. How in the world they talk without using air and vocal cords is a total mystery. Nathaniel suggests they get a view from higher up and check for ambushing werewolves and the surrounding area.



11:56, Today: Nathaniel rolled 20 using 1d20+2.  Antonio Perception.

11:55, Today: Nathaniel rolled 17 using 1d20+2.  Guido Perception.

11:55, Today: Nathaniel rolled 22 using 1d20+2.  Nuncio Perception.

HAH! Finally got some decent perception checks!
(Assuming that it is daytime, please correct if not accurate).

Cade stewed for a moment.  The lizard giving her the silent treatment certainly got to her a bit.

Briefly she considered what else might be at hand that she could throw at him.  A grenade felt like it would be deeply satisfying, but she didn't want to collapse the cave as digging out would be a pain in the ass.

She considered Joran.  His bulk would certainly help get her point across she thought, but that wouldn't be fair to the ogre.

"Fuck it."  She finally stated flatly.  "I'm going to go see what I can flush out.  Be prepared to kill it."

She then headed out of the cave to follow her nose to wherever things were hiding.

Our heroes file out of the cave, armed to the gills and ready to kill whatever thing, canine, undead or otherwise that cares to engage them. And then suddenly...

...they hear nothing except the stillness of a destroyed, and empty, sanctuary.

Agrus looks about with sadness and anger.

"They wish to flush us out, it would seem."

GM: What do you do?

Chaplain chuckled. "Let's clean the place up. Both sides are running highly mobile forces that wish to attack. Let's incentive them. Let them know they have until sunrise to swing, then we attack them, through John. They erred not attacking immediately. Let's turn this place into a beachhead."

Symeril nodded in response to Lt. Wolf, "...I concur, the Vamps & Lycans have made a mistake not attacking immediately. However, Agrus' abode could equally be a mistake on OUR part to assume it can be 'fortified'.  We have no idea how much time the enemy has had to prepare it with either magic or mundane traps... it could very well be a 'Killing Box'."

"But ~ that said, we should investigate it. I would not suggest assuming it is a position we can harden for siege at least until we can thoroughly access is functionality."

She looks to the sky, "If it is night... we will be attacked when they believe they have us pinned down, if its day... we should put as much distance from here as we can to find a location of our choosing to face them."

"We have a few moments to ponder our options... but not forever, my Globe of Daylight only lasts 16 minutes."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:01, Thu 12 Nov 2020.

Cade kept moving.

She was intent on finding out if anything was still here, or if they'd cleared out.

"The sanctuary is destroyed," Agrus counters. "It will take weeks, if not months-"

He stops and points, several of our heroes also seeing what he sees. A translucent blur bolts in between some burned down trees and and disappears. A screech rings out from somewhere near the border of the sanctuary. It almost sounds like...an alarm.

After a few breathless moments, howls rings up all around our heroes.

GM: What do you do?

I say we hunker down in here, Joran say.  Make them.come to us.  Use the cave as a natural choke-point.

Chaplain's face couldn't be seen under his helmet, but he was smiling. He was welcoming the chance to kill some more of these things. He ducked back close to the smoke, letting the play of the shadows and the sunlight spells conceal him.

In reply to Joran (msg # 236):

"If that screech is any indication.. they are coming for us Now!  You are correct, Joran... let's use the cave as a natural choke-point. Make our stand here."

She will let her GR-15AR Assault Rifle hang on its sling, and instead Draws her Claymore at her waist in her right fist... ready for close combat with paired Violet Psi-Claymore and Silver-Claymore...
This message was last edited by the player at 11:53, Sat 14 Nov 2020.

John slowly moves towards the trees, turning right after exiting the cave. As he moves, he adds enchantments, first allowing himself to see the invisible and then enhancing his invisibility with a chameleon affect. Prowling among the trees, he attempts to identify the number and type of creatures that are threatening them.

OOC:
12:07, Today: St. John-Smythe rolled 13,64,63,39,92 using 1d100,1d100,1d100,1d100,1d100.  Det Ambush(64%), Det Conceal(58%), Prowl (69%), Demons/Monsters (44%), Faerie (44%).

skill	roll
Det Ambush(64%)	13
Det Conceal(58%)	64
Prowl (69%)	63
Lore: Demons/Monsters (44%)	39
Faerie (44%)	92

Cade replied to the howls with a hunting cry of her own.

Since she was already out and about in the burned down remains of Agrus' little totally secure only apparently whoopsie totally not pocket hideout, she decided to just make use of the various noises going on to add to her nose's ability to zero in on something worth killing, and get on with it.

John sneaks out a but further and can just barely melts into the shadows before a pack of werewolves comes into view. He can make out six right away, with vampires in tow. He can make out an equivalent number of vamps too.

Cade howls back at the incoming creatures, which only seems to agitate them. But agitated enemies might make mistakes.

GM: What do you do?

Chaplain simply waited. The longer they took, the more comfortable his allies got, the stronger of a handle everyone got of exact time and data, the better their position would be. The best attack here was to goad the enemy into leaving defensive positions.

John slips back to the cave, his somewhat disembodied voice announces, "I count a dozen hostiles, half furry and half fangy. None appear to have the intelligence to be the leader, suggesting these aren't scouts, they're fodder. Someone's out there watching to see how we handle them. If we use minimal force, we'll deny that someone information about our capabilities."
"At least, that would be my take on the situation. No reason for you to trust it."
Claiming a cup, John gets a drink of water. "It's also a bit smoky out there, makes your mouth dry."

"They must really not like Agrus," Cole thought. "Or just want that damn compass, real bad." They had been gone for weeks. The enemy had no way of knowing when or even if they would come back yet they had hung around anyways? It boggled Cole's mind.

He shook his head at St. John's words. "I reckon you'd be right, if they weren't so damn patient. We hold up here, they'll just wait us out, try to run us out of water or food or ammo if they have too. I ain't about to help them turn this cave into our grave if you take my meaning. So how about we pick a direction and run fast as we can, get past whatever they got and keep going. We try to show as few of our tricks as we can but we run and don't stop until we are sure we are out of whatever corral they've thrown up around this cave."

Cade had a position on them now.

She reasoned she was quicker, as long as the wolves and vamps were on two legs at least, and a little confusion and harrying of the ranks would be a good thing.  Besides, she needed to break up the clump.  Fighting them all at once would be a pain.

So, at a full sprint she closed in tangentially on the pack and pulled one of her grenades free.  She armed and cooked it for a few seconds before lobbing it amidst the enemy and breaking off.

Cade knew it wouldn't hurt any of them, but that wasn't the goal anyway.


Cade rolled 26.  init

Cade rolled 22 using 1d20+7.  targeting

The rest of her actions will be oriented towards dodging and parrying if needed.

Symeril nodded to Cole and St. John, "Thank you St. John, Well Done!! That is exactly the intel we needed!"

"And you are correct this is an attempt to ascertain our capabilities and armament.  I concur Cole, we CAN'T run out of water in here", she gestures tapping the butt of one of her holstered pistols, "...but we can indeed run out of food and ammo."

"If we hold up in here it will just give them even more time to gather more forces to contain us.  We must breakout."

"So with Cade out there doing what she does best, we must join her... so we have Wolf, Cole, Joran, Ezikiel, Nathaniel {Guido, Nuncio, and Antonio}, St. John, Argus, and me ~ total eight plus three Nate Duplicates.  I would suggest we split our armament half and half for melee and ranged.  Cole and Ezikiel, I'd expect will prefer ranged, Joran and Wolf are probably best at melee.  Nate.. you and your brothers are on anti-vamp light duty.  Leaving St. John, Argus, and me.  I have water supplies that can harm the Vamps but not the werewolves.. and can do melee or ranged.  Does this sound like a good assessment... and which role would you prefer I do ~ Ranged or melee combat... keeping in mind we want to show as little of our abilities as possible?"

"In my opinion if we are just performing a breakout disengage maneuver... we should focus on melee to force our way through... and not waste our ammo.  I think I should not use my Flying Titan's abilities to hide our possession of Powered Armor assets. I can do two more Globe of Daylight today, and like Joran... I can also erect Telekinetic Force Fields, if we need to draw their attention away from the group... I can Demon Death Strike them ~ Werewolves and Vamps HATE Palladins.. our strikes do not bio-regenerate for Hours!!!"

Symeril moves to the mouth of the cave to allow her Globe of Daylight to repel and vampire approach, twin claymores in hand.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:46, Sun 15 Nov 2020.

"Just figure that the boys will be aiming for the vampires and I will be aiming for effect to either keep things down or bring them down so they can be staked or stabbed by silver or whatever. If we can sneak at least some of the way out, perhaps it will be daylight outside of this pocket dimension? Its a long walk once we get to Mexico...but at least it will be familiar and we should have plenty of daylight magic and what not to keep ourselves covered while one of my brothers goes back to Texas and gets us a ride....or something."

Nathaniel waits in his armor near the rear of the group. The three beings of light float at the top of the cave, ready to shoot out at anything that comes near.

Cade lobs a grenade into a nearby group of wolves and vamps. The rest of our heroes hear the explosion and subsequent confusion.

Three wolves and one vamp break off and pursue Cade. Her little reptilian/canine pet crawls out of the satchel and unleashes a growl that grows louder and deeper as she leaps off Cade's shoulder and changes form midair. She darts in the direction of the vamps and wolves.

The remaining vamps and wolves regroup and rush the cave.

GM: Cade - At some point we need to roll up some stats for your pet.

All - What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:44, Mon 16 Nov 2020.

Symeril reacts stabbing her claymore into the ground beside her for ease of grabbing it again... and unlimbers the Water Cannon on her powered armor's back turning the weapon on the charging Vamps.

"Three Wolves charging, Cole, Chaplin, Joran you got them?"

And she unleashes a 100'ft stream of high pressure water at the Vamps!  Hopefully the others will intercept the Werewolves charging in...

23:36, Today: Symeril rolled 9 using 1d20+6.  Water Cannon - 'Aimed' Shot 1# {2AT}.
23:37, Today: Symeril rolled 9 using 1d20+6.  Water Cannon - 'Aimed' Shot 2# {2AT}.
23:37, Today: Symeril rolled 21 using 1d20+6.  Water Cannon - 'Aimed' Shot 3# {2AT}.

23:39, Today: Symeril rolled 17 using 5d6.  Water Cannon Damage to Vamp 1# {Hit Points}.
23:39, Today: Symeril rolled 13 using 5d6.  Water Cannon Damage to Vamp 2# {Hit Points}.
23:40, Today: Symeril rolled 18 using 5d6.  Water Cannon Damage to Vamp 3# {Hit Points}.

Globe of Daylight - 50'ft Radius centered on Symeril's Psi-Claymore
{4 Actions remaining - Saved for parries or dodges}

Cade prepped herself for a fight now, and pulled her bow up to the ready, then stopped suddenly and turned towards the small group she'd attracted.

Knocking a wooden arrow she began pelting the vampire with the goal of driving one of the projectiles into its heart and disabling it, trusting the blue world creature to buy her a moment.  It seemed rather good at that sort of thing.


Cade rolled 24,11,23,26,15,16.  Strike

So that's 3 potential bullseyes on the single vamp target.

Any excess actions in the round will be saved for parry or dodges.

Cade rolled 19,31,27,20,24,22.  parry/dodge (as needed)

John calls up his own Globe of Daylight, centering it in front of the cave entrance. Then he takes aim with his laser and fires a shot at a werewolf.

---

Sunlight fills a 72 ft area at the cave entrance
00:23, Today: St. John-Smythe rolled 24,2 using 1d20+4,1d6.  aimed strike to hit, MD done.
well, critical strike with the intended distraction, anyway
knowing how the roller works, I figured I would get past the imminent lowest possible roll, so I rolled an automatic parry:
00:25, Today: St. John-Smythe rolled 5 using 1d20+4.  automatic parry, if needed.
oh, well, isn't that unexpected...

hmmm, forgot to roll initiative, here goes
23:04, Today: St. John-Smythe rolled 6 using 1d20.  initiative, betcha I get about a 7.
next time I roll a d20, I'm thinking it'll be between twelve and sixteen

This message was last edited by the player at 05:06, Tue 17 Nov 2020.

"Watch yourself Dyna," Cole says to the golden horse as he hunkers down and begins firing silver rounds out of his CFT revolver. He doesn't go for finase. He captures a werewolf in his sights and squeezes the trigger, again and again. If he had been shooting at vampires, he would have taken the time to aim for their hearts but with werewolves, he knew that high speed silver hitting them anywhere would hurt and if he filled them with enough, they would go down and stay down.

OOC
6 actions - 6 shots
1 action - reload
2 actions - 2 shots

Firing two shots each at 4 werewolves (I'm assuming there are at least that many rushing the cave)

Cole rolled 28 using 1d20+9.  Initiative

Strikes
Cole rolled 24 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot - Natural 20!.
Cole rolled 21 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot.
Cole rolled 21 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot.
Cole rolled 20 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot.
Cole rolled 24 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot - Natural 20!.
Cole rolled 21 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot.
Cole rolled 14 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot.
Cole rolled 22 using 1d20+4.  CFT Normal Shot

Damages
Cole rolled 26(52 - natural 20) using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 28 using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 19 using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 15 using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 25 (50 - natural 20) using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 24 using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 23 using 6d6.  Silver Round.
Cole rolled 25 using 6d6.  Silver Round.

Dodges
Cole rolled 9 using 1d20+7.  Auto-Dodge.
Cole rolled 13 using 1d20+7.  Auto-Dodge.
Cole rolled 21 using 1d20+7.  Auto-Dodge.
Cole rolled 9 using 1d20+7.  Auto-Dodge.
Cole rolled 8 using 1d20+7.  Auto-Dodge.
Cole rolled 25 using 1d20+7.  Auto-Dodge.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:34, Tue 17 Nov 2020.

Chaplain stayed quiet. Not even a radio transmission. Instead, he opted to stick to the sides. He wanted to find the ones in the back, giving orders.

04:52, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 17 using 1d100.  JIC Prowl - TN 38. It worked? Of course it worked.
01:15, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 26 using 1d20+12.  Initiative.
04:54, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 11 using 1d20+5.  JIC Autododge.
04:54, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 19 using 1d20+10.  JIC Dodge.

Fortune seemed to be on his side for the moment. His eye adjusted to nightvision. Vampires, if actually dead, would likely be hard to detect on infrared.

The three beings of light, brother-clones in light form, head up into the sky to provide covering fire and vampire sizzling. Nathaniel has the palm of one of his hands open up and sends beams of photons from ground level at those Vampires that get to close to the group or to provide cover for those staking or beheading. He makes sure to keep an eye out for his own defense, but that is not his main concern.

Cole is nothing but rapid firing as he quickly shoots down four werewolves, their chests exploding in blood and dog hair. Wolf slinks into the shadows, keeping his eyes peeled for the leaders of the packs, so to speak.

Another small pack of vampires, led by one larger vampire, join the fray and dash into the cave. The larger vampire hangs back outside the cave, watching the fight. Two vampires attack Cole, lunging forward with hisses and fists. He dodges most of their attacks, but several hard punches land on his main body.

The other two attack Nathaniel. While he is focused on his brothers, he absorbs a significant amount of damage from the attackers.

Two vampires catch up with Cade and attack her. They screech in frustration as the dogboy easily evades their attacks.

Back in the cave, John fires up a globe of daylight, and the attacking vampires screech and dash out of the cave. A werwolf dashes in but John takes it down.

Agrus charges forward and sends out fire balls from his hands, cooking more werewolves that have joined the battle.

Symeril takes aim at the retreating vampires and melts them down with her water guns, their gargles shrieks filling the air. A globe of daylight extends out from around her as well.

Cade takes down one of the vampires in the heart, and her pet leaps from the shadows and catches the other in its teeth and rag dolls it. The creature throws it into the air and Cade takes it down with another arrow.

Nathaniel's brothers make quick work of any remaining vampires and werewolves, leaving only the large leader who, for a vampire, looks a little worried.

GM: Just the leader vamp is left and he is just beyond any globes of daylight.

Cole - 26 damage
Nate - 45 damage

Symeril, satisfied with the results stows the Water Cannon... and takes up her Silver Claymore in her right fist twirling the crackling violet Psi-Claymore in her left fist as she approaches the Leader Vampire ...

A simple act of will leaves her globe of daylight centered on the entrance to the cave and not on her psi-claymore as she stalks toward the Leader Vampire.

"Don't Run.  You'll only end up taking it up the ass!", are only words she has for the Vampire as she leaps into melee with it... Her words not meant for THIS particular Leader Vampire... but directed at the Vampire Intelligences... listening to all it sees and hears. A reminder that Symeril does not forget what the Vampires did to her as a child when they molested her and killed her friends and she is back to return the favor!

The Battleangel becomes a whirlwind of bladed death as she strikes with both blades, one of mental energy and the other of pure silver in a dazzling display of sword skill.  With each Demon Death Strike her blades Flash with a Golden Burst of Divine energy searing the creature of darkness!

00:19, Today: Symeril rolled 11 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Psi Sword 'Demon Death Strike' [2AT].
- General MB Strike
00:20, Today: Symeril rolled 13 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Silver Claymore 'Demon Death Strike' [2AT].
- Called shot to the heart [+2ST] - Total: 15 'missed by 1 I think'
+ Paired Weapons = [-2AT] Only two attacks used

00:25, Today: Symeril rolled 27 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Psi Sword [1AT].
00:26, Today: Symeril rolled 26 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Silver Claymore.

00:26, Today: Symeril rolled 21 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Psi Sword [1AT].
00:27, Today: Symeril rolled 25 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Silver Claymore.

00:28, Today: Symeril rolled 23 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Silver Claymore 'Called shot-Heart' [1AT]. "Heart Hit-Immobile"
- Called shot to the heart [+2ST] - Total: 25
* 5 of 10 Attacks used

00:30, Today: Symeril rolled 26 using 1d20+7.  Paired Weapon-Psi Sword 'Demon Death Strike' [2AT] - Called shot Decapitate!


Damage Psi-Sword 'Demon Death Strike-No Bio Regen/FULL DAMAGE' [5D6 MD] 30 MD/hp!
Damage Silver Claymore 'Demon Death Strike-No Bio Regen/FULL DAMAGE' [4D6+4 SDC] 28 hp!

00:35, Today: Symeril rolled 14 [28 natural 20] using 5d6.  Damage Psi-Sword [5D6 MD].
00:36, Today: Symeril rolled 21 using 4d6+4.  Damage Silver-Claymore [4d6+4 SDC/hp].

00:36, Today: Symeril rolled 22 using 5d6.  Damage Psi-Sword [5D6 MD].
00:36, Today: Symeril rolled 19 using 4d6+4.  Damage Silver-Claymore [4d6+4 SDC/hp].

00:37, Today: Symeril rolled 15 using 4d6+4.  Damage Silver-Claymore 'called shot heart' [4d6+4 SDC/hp].
Damage Psi-Sword 'Demon Death Strike-No Bio Regen/FULL DAMAGE; Called Shot Decapitate' [5D6 MD] 30 MD/hp!
Total Damage: 193

4 Attacks Remaining for parries or dodges.

00:46, Today: Symeril rolled 33 using 9d6.  Demon Death strike PPE use [3d6 each].

OOC: Is the Leader Vampire using High-Tech Gear? If so HE is my Zen Combat-Tech Target, in which case ALL the above attacks were at +3 STRIKE higher!

PPE: 33/ 40
This message was last edited by the player at 20:17, Wed 18 Nov 2020.

Chaplain decided this was a good moment to steal Symeril's thunder - a side effect of what he was doing if this worked. He aimed, and flung the stake he was holding directly into the vampire's heart. Failing that, and he'd simply launch the silvered commando knife, while drawing another wooden stake.

OOC: 23:51, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 22 using 1d20+5.  Aimed Called Shot to heart of vampire bigwig. That looks like a direct hit from ambush.
23:51, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 21 using 1d20+11.  Potential Aimed Called Shot to heart of vampire bigwig (knife). I really hope I don't need this one.
23:54, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 26 using 1d20+11.  Parry with vibro-claws (either one). If I have a choice, I generally prefer to parry - bigger numbers.
23:54, Today: Chaplain Wolf rolled 7 using 1d20+5.  JIC Autododge. Life happens, though.

He figured the real commander of this unit would tip their hand and attack right about now. That, or they'd take the information they had acquired and wisely choose to not engage. One of the two.

Joran watches as the others engage vampires and werewolves.  However, he has eyes only for their leader.  So,he watches and waits until the leader's location is revealed.  As soon as he spots him, or her, he strides forward with the NG railgun.  Hey!  Leech!
He begins firing bursts of steel-laced wooden rounds at the vampire leader's legs, hoping to remove them.  They may grow back, but he does not care.  Until then, he will still be incapacitated.

Surrounds the vampire with a tight-fitting TK forcefield that covers the stumps of the legs to prevent regeneration without pain.  Airtight.  Field can not be moved.

03:04, Today: Joran rolled 6 using 1d20+3.  Initiative.

03:01, Today: Joran rolled 14,18,21,14 using 1d20+1,1d20+1,1d20+1,1d20+1.  Railgun burst, called shots at legs.

13:16, Today: Joran rolled 105,108,103,110 using 30d6,30d6,30d6,30d6.  MD.

This message was last edited by the player at 18:18, Wed 18 Nov 2020.

Cole wasn't happy that his duster had once again been reduced to tatters. It was the third time in as many weeks and this time there would be no helpful blue D-bees around to repair it.

Seeing that the only enemy left in sight was a single vampire, maybe their boss, and everyone else was busy piling on him already, Cole decided it would be best to hang back and not join that particular fracas. He used the moment to reload his CFT with rounds form his belt and kept his eyes open for any new threats.

The vampire turns to flee and his legs explode out from under him. As his top half continues forward his is shredded by a barrage of attacks from the others.

His torso lands with a wet smack on the ground.

Since stepping through the portal with the others, Symeril has felt a strange sensation of being pulled slightly to the ground. It passes after the battle, but she has a sneaking suspicion she is now bound to the vampire lands along with her new comrades.

GM: Symeril - You are now officially a part of the fellowship. It has to do with the magic of the broken compass and...um...other stuff.

Well done, dudes. What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:21, Thu 19 Nov 2020.

Cade had finished what she'd planned on doing, and it seemed whatever group had attacked them the first time around had only left a few behind to wait in case they came back.

So she assumed.

As such she began finishing up the job by making two piles.

In one pile she put the bodies and assorted limbs of the vampires, careful to not remove any wood or silver lodged in their chests that was keeping them down.

In another she collected the heads, which she ripped off the bodies with her hands, if someone hadn't bothered to use a blade or other implement already.

Chaplain didn't need to throw the knife, at least. However, he wasn't sure if lead vampire wasn't going to go mist on them or not. He wasn't sure if physics that tore them to pieces with the things that were supposed to be their weakness would actually kill them or not.

He hated fighting these things, mostly because of their many, many dumb magical rules, like how one had to cut off their head, keep the stake in their body, burn them both in separate piles but in a way that doesn't cause them to turn into mist and survive anyways, do ten jumping jacks, and pray to whoever is listening that all of this actually kills them. Some of that was not an actual rule as far as he knew, but if someone had told him it was, he would not have anything to disprove it.

He looked around to see if there was anything watching them, and if he found nothing, he'd move to help in the "finish the dead" effort.

Symeril, sheathed her silver-claymore, confident that her three demon death strikes would end the leader vampire's regeneration silver in heart or not at least for the next hour... plenty of time to finish the deed.

Dismissing her Psi-Claymore, she calmly drew one of her holstered pistols in her left hand... a Technowizadry Water Pistol from Arzno her hometown.  The weapon was already 'charged' so plenty of shots without expending any additional resources.

Then drawing, as needed wooden stakes from her thigh sheaths... she went around staking and water dissolving any vampire corpse destroying them permanently collecting their fangs!

Making her way to Cade, she first give the Canine woman a once over to make certain she was not injured then nodded to her and continued the process of stake and water dissolve as needed until all the Vampire corpses were permanently destroyed.

Once all Vampire corpses are destroyed by water dissolvement as usual collecting their fangs as she goes... she will recollect her stakes as they will have fulfilled their need.

Lastly she will return to the Leader Vampire's Corpse and loot any gear he possessed.

Holstering her TW Water Pistol she will approach the group, "Good work team, try to avoid destroying the vampires with fire. Water is more certain and with only a little PKE energy.. and my TW Water pistol we have unlimited water supply... plus water does not destroy their gear, which we can potentially use.  We should not tarry here, gather what resources we can and get moving."

"...I'm.. feeling a little drained, my fault I guess... two less demon death strikes would have been probably better tactical choice.  They are draining.  My navigation systems are having trouble getting their bearing in... this place."

Turning to Argus, "How do we exit?"
This message was last edited by the player at 12:53, Wed 25 Nov 2020.

Zeke, snapping to his senses, seeing the vampires destroyed, drew his silver plated revolvers and spun them on his hands, like out of an old movie before putting them away. "Nice work folks, everyone ok? Anyone bitten? No. Good. Let's see if they've got anythig useful and get somewhere safe."

"Lets not waste a whole lot of time on robbing their corpses. We need to get out of whatever net they've thrown around this place, fore more of them come."

He mounts Dyna, patting her on her neck after he is in place on her back. "With this place gone and us still being stuck with that damn compass, we need to find somewhere to hole up and quick. I don't fancy just sleeping out in the open while we come up with a plan."

John looks through the burnt wood in the area, and, finding a fairly heavy forked piece, drags his prize free from the other foliage. After some mumbling and whacking the branch with other sticks, he grabs the two smallest ends and straddles the other part of the branch. "I'll go up and take a look. See what our immediate surroundings appear to be."
John and his branch rise into the air, slowly reaching a fairly high rate of speed. Once he's about three hundred yards into the air, he looks around for a minute or two before returning to the ground.

No gear of note is found on the vampires. The leader, though, has an brand tattooed on his back that says, simply, ENOCH.

"Hmmm," says Agrus. "Enoch is a master vampire east of here in the vampire city of Milta. He holds one of these damnable compasses himself. Gods, I am starting to hate these things. I wonder what would happen if we just destroyed the ones we have? The pyramids between here and Milta are said to be places of power, that could be enough to destroy the compasses and release the curse upon you..." he trails off as though deep in thought.

He leads our heroes out of the destroyed sanctuary that he has called home for so long. His giant eagle caws mournfully and flies away. "Sorry, my friend," whispers Agrus.

Outside the sanctuary our heroes find a welcome surprise. Nathaniel's brothers, grinning, with Wolf's toys.

GM: Xmas came early! Heh.

What do you do?
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:56, Fri 20 Nov 2020.

Symreril lifts her visor and smiles broadly, "NATE! You found us! And apparently that Coalition vehicle camp!"

She strides forward to give the clone operator a big hug!

"I'd feared you might have trouble leaving Haunted Dallas or treking your way across Mexico!"

Chaplain, after having had what could only be described as a very, very long month according to his on-board computer, blinked in pleasant surprise, a sensation he had forgotten.

"I have no idea how you found this and got it across all of this desert." He walked up a put a hand on one of the legs, feeling if it was real. He used the jump-jet to leap up to the hatch, and did a test. "Authorization Charlie-Hotel-Four-Papa-Lima-Four-One-November-Dash-Whiskey-Zero-Lima-Papa-Hotel. Open hatch."

He jumped in, shutting the hatch. He began activating it, the controls covered in a thin layer of dust.

The Spider-Skull Walker activated, and slowly rose and squatted back down again, dull glowing red eyes lighting up the sensors in front of him with beams of infrared. He adjusted the loudspeaker to a low setting as his hands revealed that they had forgotten none of their skill with this unit. "Room for seven extra, door's in the back. Hey, anyone want to be a co-pilot? HOT DAMN! WE HAVE A MOBILE BUNKER! WE CAN WIN THIS WAR!"

He might have been excited at having his Walker back.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:11, Fri 20 Nov 2020.

John comes down, almost smacks into the ground, and as he stumbles off his branch grumbles, "I need my damned eye back."
"If I didn't think it would give an edge to the fang face that stuck it in my head, I'd try to fix the one I got. Enoch's was the base I was infiltrating when this thing was stuck in my head. I don't think he's doing it personally, but you gotta figure any weird-looking one-eyed men you see are feeding info back to the vamp, or at least to a lackey."
Still straddling his wooden courser, he floats over to Agrus. "If you got the time, I wouldn't mind discussing our methods of disturbing the ether. The active life hasn't been so good to me, and I'm considering pursuing a more restful profession."

Cole was glad to see Nate again. He supposed he was pleased to see that he had brought with him Wolf’s big, skull headed robot though he was at a loss on how Nate had found it and moved it here. However it had gotten here though, it meant more people could ride instead of walk and some more firepower for the group. “Assuming of course he stays with us,” Cole thought, wondering if the Coalition man would return to his people now that they were back on Earth. He didn’t think it likely or at least, if he did, he didn’t think Wolf would sell them out like some sidewinder. "He's spilled too much blood with us for that to happen."

The Gunfighter turned his attention to Agrus’s words. “Wait, we have to go to a pyramid controlled by a vampire intelligence to destroy the damn thing? And that’s the only way we can stop being stuck here in Mexico?” Cole pinched the bridge of his nose, and closes his eyes, a look of profoundly unhappy resignation  on his face. “Aw Hell, in the stories I know, people do that kind of thing with an army, not just a handful you know that right?”

He opens his eyes and lowers his hand, resting it on the base of Dyna’s powerful neck. “But what the  Hell. We stay here the bastards are bound to catch up to us with a big enough force to clean our clocks but good so sure, we go after one of the pyramids. Who knows? If we survive maybe they’ll sing songs about us. Maybe someday be as famous as Wild Bill or Annie Oakley.”

"We could also just go get the one we originally got fixed."  Cade reminded everyone.