(4) GATE! (Inactive)

Game Master mdt

When he's not driving the car or standing watch, Scott learns the language from the girls, making notes in his notebook.
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"I agree with Daniel. Especially now that we know the Alshee can hide well - it will be easy for them to ambush us."

This thing exploded after I went to sleep, trying to keep up, 15 posts is just a lot to sort through might have missed something.

"We still have a main objective, perhaps mark the location and investigate on the way back to base?" Laine asks not really wanting to go in against a people who can hide entire cities for his eyes.

Debbs shrugs, "I understand that it isn't our main objective, but if there's a chance that our guys could still be out there and alive, I'd hate to see us just move by and not at least try to find them." She then turns to her commanding officer to see what he has to say.

Let's expedite the fuel depot's then go parley.

"What are your orders, Sir?"

Jacob listens to the group and says we do thr main objective and hope something gives us opportunity to circle back for at least information. I will not endanger us against superior foes in their territory. Lets move to primary objective.

The night is somewhat somber, with frequent glances north, toward the Forest Primevil, but in the morning routine continues as it has for the last week. Another day of driving, another fuel depot, more training, dinner, and then a night in a cot.

The next day sees the first change of routine. No more fuel depots have been deployed, and the convoy is now traveling ground that no Earth citizen has traveled before.

The gentle hills near the mountains have long since given way to flat grassland with small dotted copses of trees here and there, even the occasional batch that's big enough to be called a small forest. A lone wooden structure comes into view, briefly raising excitement that it might be civilization, but upon approach, the convoy finds a partially demolished home, the back wall broken in and down years before by something attacking the inhabitants. A brief stop to look around finds long abandoned clothes rotting in piles, broken dishes, and broken children's toys. No sign of the original inhabitants, either bones or flesh, is found. Brona and Calia seem to find this not unusual, and comment on stupid people trying to live in the wilderness without the means to protect themselves, as if this is foolishness that deserves death.

Finally in the afternoon, the convoy finds a flat stony area that could work good as a fuel depot, and even better, the upthrust stone outcroppings are shallow enough to climb easily, gaining almost a hundred feet in height, with a flat top large enough to mount a repeater tower and solar panels to power it.

As Elephant Alpha unloads it's container and the transport crew begins the work of using metal cables to secure it to the stone with compressors powered by their trucks, the heavy jackhammers slamming metal rods several feet into the stone, making a loud noise that echoes off the stone outcropping like a gunshot with each hit, Calia pulls out the map, and gathers the primary Squad.

"We are at crossroads now, and you will need to decide. We are parallel with the Sardath River, to the north. We are about to reach the East Elsath, a tributary that leads from the mountains to the Sardath. The Sardath is, here, about..." She pauses, and begins doing conversions of the local lengths into US units. "5280 ft to a mile, 12 inches to a foot..." She mumbles to herself, and then nods. "The Sardath is a little over a mile across here, and will remain about that wide all the way to the sea. It's depth is highly variable. We could go along it and hope to find a section that has built up enough to cross, but it's unlikely. Our best bet would be to cross the East Elsath, and enter the Wild Kingdoms, and hire locals to build a bridge that can acomodate your vehicles if you wish to go north with them. None of the local bridges would be able to take the weight of anything beyond your Humm'Vi's. We could attempt to find a way to cross here, but it's unlikely. Your objective to investigate the Wild Kingdoms will require crossing the Sardath, unless you only plan to investigate the most southern portions."

sounds like an excellent plan, we will cross at the Elsath and look for locals to build better bridges, which while the do we will investigate and least put down on more depot in the southern portion before using the new bridges to cross.

"I agree while we look for locals we might aswell take note of the land on the otherside, maybe we can fine a stonequarry to help in building better bridges. And we can get a good feel of areas worth setting up outposts to keep track of things in this region."

"And the bridges will help us in the future scouting missions or, and I hope it won't come to that, in combat operations."

With her background in civil engineering, Debbs feels right at home with the plan to build a bridge. Using Calia as a reference she tries to learn as much of the local language as she can so that she can communicate with the locals to help with the building of the bridge. She also starts making a detailed inventory of everything that might be needed to build a bridge and the best place to begin construction.

Does this require me to make a roll?

Yes, but Debbs will need to see the river, and the surrounding land, to start making those rolls

Bridging the Sardath is not something we can do anytime soon. I have a feeling that even if we had the know-how, building barges that could float us across wouldn't be feasible either. Dawn looks at what they have for a map. Their path had been more north easterly than expected. So much for following the base of the mountains. She traces the Sardath river.

I expect that we can follow the river east to the coast, drop south and then turn back towards Gate. Dawn traces a finger across the route she indicates. If there are people to meet, a river that big should have some towns.

She waves at the Sardath forest. Otherwise we might have to backtrack and go north along the western side of the forest, then cut east.

Calia shakes her head. "Ltn. Svanswan. You miss the small red lines I drew." She runs her finger on the map. "The Wild Kingdoms end a hundred miles or so south of the Sardath. The only thing south of them is wilderness and death. There might be an isolated village of a dozen people here and there somewhere, outcasts from the outcasts. But you saw the cabin, the wilderness is not kind to those without numbers to tame it. If you want to explore the Wild Kingdoms, you will need to cross the Sardath." She points to the mountain edge. "If we had gone the way your command originally planned, we would face two rivers your trucks cannot pass. That is why they agreed to take this route." She points to the route that was agreed on and used before you left. "However, I did not realize just how heavy your 'semi' trucks are. I cannot imagine how big an actual truck would be." She looks to the fuel tanker and the PLR's. "I had thought your LAV the heaviest vehicle, and it was able to swim. I did not realize your semi-truck vehicles could not swim until we were already past your 'radio range'."

Laine stays a bit in the background letting the higher ranks decide on a course. "I should probably learn to read maps, but I'm better at finding my way without it on intuition once I'm out in the wilds."
"Mostly our vehicles ain't made to drive through water, they can handle shallow rivers, but if water gets into the engine they might break down. We have some vehicles able to go through water but they are often small and light and not able to carry alot of package."

The next day, the convoy reaches the feeder river, and then goes about 20 miles south along it before finding a shallow place that can handle the semi's.

On the other side, they drop off a second fuel depot. Per the orders, they can't bring the convoy into foreign territory without scouting first, so the only option is to leave the convoy behind and take the LAV into the country by itself.

The next morning, they quietly enter the first of the Wild Kingdoms. There's no border marking, things are too fluid for them to be realistic. However, the wilderness begins to break up now, land that was cleared and once used but now lying fallow is the first sign of civilization. Then the LAV comes around a small forest of trees and runs smack dab into a small town, about 2 miles across with a 10 foot stone wall around it. They are less than half a mile from the town, and to the north of the town are obvious farms stretching out. A road leads north east.

Brona looks at the city, and smiles. "Welcome Wild Kingdom. No sure which one."

Calia nods. "Not sure myself, haven't been to the Wild Kingdoms before personally. Just learned about them and saw them on maps. Not sure why your command wanted me to come here instead of the other end of the continent, where I knew people." She shrugs. "It's ironic, I was on my way to the Wild Kindoms when I turned south to destroy you folks. And now I'm here."

Visible through the binoculars and targeting scopes people coming and going from the town can be see, and guards on the walls stroll along. Those on the west end are looking in the LAV's direction, hands up to shade eyes as they try to pick out what they heard in the distance.

Looking through the scope of his sniper Laine relies what he sees "I see some people around town, there are guards patrolling the walls and they have already spotted us. So I guess we have to announce ourselves to have a chance to get inside?" He takes his eye from the scope, puts the sniper down and turns to Calia "Do you think it save to enter this town?" He then returns to study the walls.

Calia shrugs. "Define safe."

"Well will we be able to move around unharmed inside or do we have to be ready to fight if we try to enter?"

Calia looks at Laine. "I do not know much about your world, but surely you have cities where people have weapons? And thieves and thugs? You are all wearing extremely fine uniforms, which look as if they were painstakingly stitched. Anyone who looks at you will assume you are either rich, or retainers for someone rich. And you do not carry obvious weapons. Honest people will likely not bother you, and thieves and thugs will descend upon you like a starving wretch on a feast."

then perhaps we should send Calia in and purchase local clothing to look the part better and then see about these folks building a bridge for us. Thoughts?

"Well sure everyone can within the law of the most countries own a firearm, and we do ahve some major cities where some districts of the town is kinda ruled by gangs of people even the lawenforcement would rather avoid dealing with. So I get your point, would have to keep the knife and small gun ready if we have to enter."

Turing to Jacob "Do you think it would work? I mean the guards have kinda always spotted us, I'm sure they might have made a call to ready for anyone from the LAV to approache the town."

Calia smiles. "I did put in regular armor and clothes in the Pee Ehl Ehs container. I thought you might need some. If you look like normal soldiers, nobody will try to steal from you, even if you come on a demon wagon. Everyone knows soldiers are paid nothing and have nothing worth stealing."

alright crew, lets get changed. Women firat inside with men outside, then men inside. Then we ride up to the gate in style.

on the other hand, it might only take one demonstration to show we are too dangerous to touch. We should stop just outside bow range, set up a target, then blow it up with some fancy hand waving. They'll think we're mages. Then wait to be invited in. Im not comfortable being out of uniform. What happens to the next group of soldiers to visit? Lwt them learn now that we can, and will, defend ourselves.

Calia nods. "That's also a very good solution, after you kill a few thieves, the other thieves will leave you alone."

Brona nods, grabbing her sword hilt with a bloodthirsty grin.

"It would be better if we don't need to shoot anyone in a city. It's unnecessary troubles." Frowns Scott.

"Sir, what if they talk to us?" Scott asks his commander.

Calia shrugs. "I'm not sure why you're concerned about the lives of thieves, muggers, and brigands. I assure you they will not be concerned about your life."

Jacob considers and says we destroy the first idiots who try something and its lawful here to do so stopping a thief, then we do so and make a show that soldiers are not to be messed with. I like that, lets head in

Debbs checks in with the locals before heading out. "Have you heard any talk about strange customs in these parts? Things we should or shouldn't do? Also,
is there a way that soldiers act here that marks them as soldiers or mercenaries?"

Calia shakes her head. "As I said, I'm much more familiar with the west coast areas." No doubt why the army sent her to the east coast until they could confirm some of her story independently.

Brona nods. "Mercenary no have crests on armor, soldiers have crests on armor. Both have armor and weapons." She tilts her head in thought. [b]"No strange customs hear of, not here."

WO1 Debbs looks around at her platoon. "So what do we do? Do we come in like ourselves or disguise ourselves as local mercenaries?"

we come in as ourselves and handle it as is if we are to negotiate a bridge they already see our vehicles. The next 100 people in that city are going to be suspected to be us or with us. Let us drive up and establish straight out mission driven relations

The HUMVEE's, the PLS's, and the R11 all remain stopped just outside the area where people have begun building up farm land.

The LAV has to about 2 miles north before it can hit a road that heads over without trampling farm land. Animals react poorly to the rumbling diesel, and farmers and their farm hands stop work at stare at the rumbling metal beast in their midst.

At least two arrows bounce off the armor of the LAV as it drives to the main road into the city.

At the main road, the LAV turns toward the city, and drives slowly up to the gate. The wagoneer outside the city gate remains safely in his building.

City guards hesitantly form up in front of the gate, weapons lowered against the metal beast that has rolled up.

Finally, someone in fancier armor comes running out, with a woman in leather armor and a bow next to him. The woman has an arrow drawn on the LAV, and as she pulls the string back, blue energy crackles inside the bow, and the arrow head glows.

"HOLD Whatever you are!" The man shouts, his voice echoing and rolling out, as if he were speaking from a megaphone. The woman with the bow suddenly says something, although exactly what it is doesn't carry. The man with his hand up stops, and squints at the front of the LAV. "You bear the mark of the Bisharan Guardians, identify yourself!" He's speaking the local dialect

Calia, in the LAV, watches with rapt attention. Brona leans over and whispers to her in Low Bisharan, and Calia nods, whispering back in Low Bisharan.

Jacob pops top and brings his hands out first where they can be seen and he says I am Jocob David, and we are here to ask if you will build us a stone bridge for our metal beasts to cross so that we may explore further in peace. Calia, please translate for me.

Calia raises an eyebrow, and then nudges Brona, who stands up in the cramped LAV and makes her way to the back loading ramp, lowering it so she can climb up on top of the LAV. The guards mutter as the very tall lanky woman comes into view, settling her great sword on her back.

"This is Luftenas Mina Jacob David. He comes to ask you to build a stone bridge over the Sardath for his horseless wagons to cross over, so they may make peaceful contact with this kingdom's lord. Whoever that currently is." She says in the local tongue.

The man looks from Jacob to Brona. "What the Hades is a Luftenas Mina? I've never heard of that rank."

Brona rubs her chin. "That was all we could think of, the Army of the Green has more ranks than the Empire. They have two Luftenas, one out ranks the other, so Luftenas Mina and Luftenas Maja." She walks to the front of the LAV and hops down, landing lightly. Obviously Jacob has no idea what she said, although the others inside could translate for him.

The man shakes his head. "Strange, why do they want to speak to Queen Luceria? She's not beholden to the Empire. Are they going to invade the Wild Kingdoms as well when they're done slaughtering the Empire?"

Brona looks back up to Jacob. "He want know why you want invade Queen Luceria when done murdering Empire."

Dawn face palms, and then mutters, sure, tell them what we want as the opening position in negotiations...

Dawn thinks about the last question. tell him that's for Queen Luceria?

"So they think we're invading them? Maybe we should tell them we're just exploring the area? That might clear out the misunderstanding. I'm not quite comfortable with her glowing bow pointed at us."

ask them to please put the weapon down, we are here in peace otherwise we would have struck already. Our business with the queen is our leaders eventual business. We are here to explore and start peaceful conversations

Brona turns to the soldiers. "Please put down your weapons, they come in peace, or they would have killed you already Their business with the Queen is not for you, it's for their leaders and the Queen. They are here to explore and start peace talks."

The man snorts. "They don't seem very peaceful. Why do they ride with a Bisharan Guardian mark?"

"I too would like to know that. The answer will inform my actions in the next hour." A voice says, and a woman in full plate and blue robes jumps from the wall to land next to the man who was speaking. Her hair is white, and her eyes a pale lavender color. A diagram of glowing runes appears on the ground as she lands, somehow cushioning her landing.

The soldiers begin to fall back away from the woman, as if she were dangerous. The woman with the bow spits and falls back as well, but keeps her arrow trained on the LAV.

Calia sighs. "Oh dear, this is unexpected. Excuse me..." She says, in English, as she gets up and acrobats herself to the top of the LAV. She draws her sword and takes off at a run. "Sorry Ltn. Jacob David, I must kill someone now. Please stay back." She says as she passes him, and then leaps from the LAV to bring her sword down on the woman.

The woman responds by bringing her sword up to guard, and then the two begin to fight in earnest, trading blows of their sword. The man leaps backward, away from the two, and then scrambles back, as do the soldiers, leaving a good 30 ft between them an the two battling women.

Climbing back up on the LAV, Brona begins to root for Calia in the local language, hooting and hollering.

The soldiers in the background begin to talk amongst themselves, and occassionally a small pouch is passed back and forth.

Laine is surprised when the woman in full plate drops down and Calia rushes to attack her. As the soldiers begin to form a ring he sticks his head up and takes a look around on them all, looking to Brona "Do you have any idea why they are fighting?"

After he has had his respodns Laine sits down again and says "It seems some of the soldiers is putting up bets on who is going to win the fight. What do you think we should do? prepare for any eventualities?" he says looking towards Jacob.

"No know! Good fight, bet 10 gold Calia win!" Brona calls back to Laine, and begins yelling Calia's name.

Calia and the woman trade blows, and then Calia's blade strikes the woman in the chest, near her throat, where the skin is exposed. Pink blood glitters as it sprays through the air from the cut. Some of it hits the LAV, and the metal armor begins to smoke, and then there's a BOOM as the right front tire explosively deflates, some of the blood having hit the rubber.

The blue garbed woman leaps back and holds out her free hand, and shouts loudly. Ice crystals form in the palm of her hand and fire at Calia, ripping through her armor on the side and sending a spray of pink blood back that hits the wall and gates, causing them to begin to smoke and stone to begin to bubble.

The soldiers all fall back another 30 ft, taking cover and watching. The archer and her companion race over to the stairs and go up to the top of the wall, watching from cover.

The two women continue to trade blows.

"I don't think it's a good idea staying near them." Scott backs away from the fight. "Let's ride the Humvee away from here until the fight ends. Unless anyone wants to try and stop them?"

"I've always learnt not to get between two women 'working' things out, and I'm not really fond of going in between two who wields swords and can cast spells to make me a pile of ash." Laine says with a grin and adding "But I think it would be good to get some distance to the fight I don't think we have to many spare tires to keep loosing them here."

Calia holds out one hand and writes on the air with pink blood from her wound, and then moves the fingers sideways, as if striking out what she just wrote. A burst of flame pops out of her hand in the shape of a snake, that then lunges for the woman in blue. The flames wash over her, singing her hair and clothes and leaving burn marks on her.

The two trade blows again with their swords, and then the woman blue snakes a heel behind Calia's ankle, and jerks her foot forward, sending Calia falling back.

The blue robed woman leaps forward, bringing her blade down in a point with all her weight behind it. At the last second, Calia manages to get her own, shorter blade point up.

The blue robed woman's sword punches through Calia's right breast, and sinks into the ground under her. Calia's sword, meanwhile, punches through the back of the blue clad woman's back, sending a spray of pink blood out.

The two are frozen like that for about 15 seconds, and then the blue clad warrior slumps to the side, pink blood pouring from her mouth. Calia coughs up a pink froth and then slumps herself.

For the next 10 seconds, all is quiet, other than the ground hissing and bubbling from the pink blood.

Then the town soldiers begin to move back out, some of them bringing forth buckets from a nearby building. They begin to spread handfuls of white powder over the pink blood, making it bubble and hiss in a frenzy that sends up white smoke like steam. Then the blood stops bubbling at all, and the soldiers walk on it with no apparent harm, the acid neutralized.

They continue spreading the powder around, including on the two bodies. Robed figures move to the bodies after a couple of buckets of powder are dumped on them, and begin to remove the armor and apparently treat wounds.

The man in the armor, and the archer woman, approach the LAV again. "Now that the Ni'Bisharan's are done showing off, either exit to talk under truce, or get out of here." He says in local parlance.

Brona, looking disappointed, sighs and moves back up to Jacob David. "Armored man say get out of Ell Aye Vee and talk peace or get out."

Dawn walks over and shoo's people from Calia's body. Beat it! She's ours!

Brona, please tell them that we take care of our own. Calia will be given an honorable rite.

Brona looks at Dawn confused. "She not dead, she not win fight. Let healers finish, please? Before she die?"

The healers, meanwhile, are glaring at Dawn and one of them puts a hand on her dagger. The other three continue carefully pulling armor and clothing off to get at the wounds.

Seriously? That sure looks like a mortal wound.

The healer with her hand on her dagger shakes her head. Assuming you spoke local, not english "Did not hit any vital organs, just lungs and intestines. Both pass out from blood loss, body shut down, brain go to sleep. Will not wake up until healing of flesh complete and blood replenish. Will need to drink acid to replenish blood supply." Then she goes back to work on Calia.

Once the armor is off, more white powder is poured on the body to counteract the pink blood. Then the healers pull out large curved plates of bright white material. Large jugs of semi-transparent blue goo is then opened, and the goo very carefully smeared on the convex sides of the curved white plates. Then being careful to never touch the blue goop, the healers press the plates and goo against the wounds, causing a hissing sound. Each plate is slightly different size and shape, to better fit the part of the body the wound is on. Once the plates are pressed down, they seem to stick of their own accord. Finally the healers begin to wrap the bodies in strips of cloth, different colors, blue, red, purple, pink or green. There seems to be some pattern to it, as each wound gets one and only one color, but what the pattern is would require some inquiry.

Consider the above to be happening in the background as Jacob and the Armored Man talk through Brona.

Jacob exits and carries a rifle, side arm, and a k bar knife and walks out with a crisp salute. your name and rank?then using the name... what cost will there be to build a stone bridge big enough for our vehicle to cross?