"Captain," Pembleton calls, "you'll want your people to aim small for the pilots so that they can miss big and hit the ornithopters. If the pilot goes down, the entire blasted contraption goes down with everyone in it. Right? Right, then."
Sending Simon mobile on the deck, Pembleton unclasps the bipod on the end of Bessie, positions himself behind the cover he has found and begins to track the attackers through the scope. He hums lowly to himself and prepares to fire at earliest opportunity.
Weapons loaded and ready, Simon moves to where he can get the best (and closest) view of the ornithopters, and will being to fire when they are in range.
As you slip into the ship the location of the arms isn't much of a location as you spot Vada standing outside of a store room on the second floor, grabbing a variety of guns and a few boxes of ammunition. She looks completely panicked. A crewmember walks up to grab some ammo boxes. "Are we..."
"Just get to the deck!" she barks.
Taking full advantage of the chaos of the fight, you get to work sorting through the papers. After a little while, you come to the bomb threat, clear as day. The letters seem burned into the paper.
MISTER PARKES. AS A CELEBRATION OF YOUR MEDIOCRITY AND POLITICAL CONNECTIONS AN EXPLOSIVE DEVICE HAS BEEN PLACED ON THE EMMANUEL. TRY TO FIND IT ALL YOU WANT. YOU WILL NOT FIND IT. AND THE SHIP WILL LAUNCH ANYWAYS BECAUSE OF YOUR DAMNABLE PRIDE. AND IT WILL EXPLODE, AND YOU WILL DIE IN A FIREY MONUMENT TO YOUR OWN HUBRIS. GO TO HELL YOU BASTARD.
You position yourselves along the deck - the ornithopters are starting to follow in the wake of the airship and are at an extreme angle, making firing difficult. They are also starting to come up very fast. STill, you can get a few shots off.
A quick glance over his shoulder to see if Pembleton is watching, before grinning and squeezing off a series of shots.
Eileen hesitates, watching Vada's frantic behavior.
This is a bad idea. Never draw attention to yourself. She fights her every impulse to remain unseen and unnoticed, rooted in place for what feels like an eternity but what ultimately amounts to only a few seconds.
She steps forward, right into Vada's line of sight. She ostentatiously brushes off her dress, attempting, on some level, to draw Vada's attention to her clothing more than her face.
"Our people are on deck fighting them off," she informs Vada crisply. "I can help give the boarders a bad time, but I need some things."
She holds up one finger. "One, any knives you have lyin' around. If they get on board, I can make things hard for 'em. And two," she adds, holding up a second finger. "If ya have a few people who can't fight - gather bottles, a bedsheet or two, an' fuel - anything that burns ya can stick in a bottle. If they get close enough to board, we can make 'em regret it."
Here, she leans close and speaks for Vada's ears alone. "An' to be clear: I don't care about yer other plans. Far as I'm concerned, the captain sounds like a ratbag."
A quick glance over his shoulder to see if Pembleton is watching, before grinning and squeezing off a series of shots.
Pembleton pays absolutely no attention to Simon's shots, tracking his own target: the woman with the maul. He fires long distance, squeezing two off without much expectation.
ROUND ONE
Undaunted by the two expected misses, Pembleton clicks a toggle switch on [ib]Bessie[/i]'s side and reveals it's true power. The low humming noise the weapon normally gives off when active suddenly roars to an angry din. Blue electricity, usually small sparks, now crackles off the sides of the long weapon in long, continuous bands. Sir Ian tracks the woman on the ornithopter again, "leads" her, and fires.
ROUND TWO
Bolt Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 1
Bolt Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 6
Explode: 1d6 ⇒ 5
Bolt Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 2
Ammo Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 4
Ammo Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 2
Ammo Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 6
The game designs a savant weapon so it can ONLY fire using the bolt power. However, that's boring. I'm happy to let you use the rail gun like a normal rifle which you can then 'amp up' with the bolt power.
For 2 PP you can fire a single shot at 3d6 damage. Or you can fire 2 shots for 2 PP or three shots for 3 PP. For 1 PP you can have your rail gun take on extraordinary qualities that seem appropriate.
In the future you don't need to roll the bolt and ammo damage separately.
Bolt 1: 1+4 = 5
Bolt 2: 6+2+5 = 16
Bolt 3: 2+6+3 = 11
When attacking, you have to hit your opponents' parry. In this case, it is 8 so two attacks hit, and one wounds her.
Vada freezes, paling a little as you approach her so boldly. She looks you over with a panicked look on her face before she composes herself, realizing that you're - at least at this point - not an enemy.
"If you lot can fight we can use you, I don't know what this madness is," she mutters. She turns to a crewman, speaking up. "Get some of the auxillary fuel and fill some of the empty bottles with it and then get some rags, you know how it works."
Vada rummages in the armory, producing a particularly menacing-looking bowie knife. "You want other knives, check the kitchen. I doubt anyone'll stop you right now."
Although Simon has a miserable time shooting down their opponents, Pembleton's rail gun has better range, and he manages to crack a few brilliant shots two of which hit and one of which barely misses. Although she shrugs off one, another shot from the railgun takes her clean through the shoulder and she roars in pain, but keeps coming to the ship!
The ornithopters all rush up alongside the ship and the pirates all push through the force field, their flying machines clattering to the deck as they leap off. The huge bestial woman is a little behind while the pirates brandish weapons.
"AWRIGHT YE DOGS GET ON THE DECK AND NOTHING FUNNY!"
Eileen - Queen of Spades
Simon - Jack of Clubs
Pembleton - Queen of Diamonds
Lottie - Four of hearts
Scary Lady - Nine of hearts
Mooks - King of Spades
Crew - Eight of hearts
Mooks
---
Eileen
Pembleton
Simon
---
Scary Lady
---
Crew
Lottie
Holstering one pistol in favour of his rapier , Simon grins: "Begging your pardon, madame, but there appear to only be six of you..."
Eileen gives Vada a grateful nod, accepting the knife. "Good luck," she offers, turning to scramble in the direction of the kitchen.
There, she spends only a few moments surveying the kitchen with the practiced eye of a thief, trying to spot what she's looking for. She commences quickly gathering up any knives that seem small enough and balanced enough for a halfway decent throw, ignoring any blocky cleavers, heavy knives, or argumentative kitchen staff. She contents herself with grabbing whatever is visibly lying around, in too much of a hurry to rummage through drawers or cabinets.
After her work in the kitchen is done (and assuming no complications), she hurries back through the ship, trying to find a place with a good view of the deck and reasonable concealment - an overlook, if possible. Failing that, she tries to get to the area leading out to the deck as quickly as she can, remaining just out of sight.
Lottie looks over the note and she folds it neatly before stuffing it into her handbag. She continues to search around the office, muttering to herself. This time, she's looking for information on equipment being loaded onto the airship, anything about its build.
The two of you are on the top deck and move to intercept the landing pilots with Simon moving into melee range while Pembleton remains back, sending his dog into attack. Simon quickly dispatches a pirate as he lands on the deck, firing into him point blank before running him through. He collapses to the ground, instantly dead.
There's an electronic whrrrrr sound as the rail gun charges up, and a CRACK as it fires through the shoulder of another pirate. He screams before he is taken down by Palamedes at Pembleton's command. After grabbing a nice assortment of sharp knives, Eileen makes her way to the deck, heading up a maintenance ladder. She pokes her head up to see an ongoing fight as Simon kills one of the airship pirates.
The pirates quickly try to recover their losses as two of them move in on Simon and Pembleton while the ones on the main deck head towards the terrified crowd. The huge, bestial woman stalks behind them.
"LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND NOBODY DIES!" one of them yells. The woman simply snarls.
Up on the deck, Pembleton manages to just duck a shot. Simon is less lucky and is shot right in the chest, causing him to crumple. Around you the screams of the fleeing crowd sound out as the pirates approach the captain.
The captain holds up his hand. "What in the blazes are you here for?!" The snarling woman suddenly shouts. "BRING ME PARKES!!"
Oh bloody hell," mutters the captain before he draws a pistol and shoots at her. The bullet glances off of her arm and doesn't do much. She grins and moves in with the pirates to attack.
As she emerges, Eileen just has time to see Simon take a bullet. Her hair swirls awkwardly around her face as she twists her head to look in the opposite direction, zeroing in on Simon's attacker. Hefting the knife she was already gripping during her ascent, she gives a little toss to shift it into proper throwing position. She quickly gauges the distance and elevation before leaning out on the ladder and letting the knife fly.
Eileen pokes her head out of the trapdoor with a knifetip balanced in her fingers. Leaning out, she lets fly and it takes one of the pirates directly in the neck. He collapses, clawing at his throat in a bloody mess.
"Palamedes!", Pembleton commands, pointing to the pirate in the aft. "FASS!"
Palamedes rockets across the deck past Eileen, silently targeting the pirate on the far side.
Pembleton turns towards the bow, targeting the bestial woman directly. He amps up his weapon, blue chain lightning leaping off the sides and an audible hum underneath an electrical crackling noise.
Minding his position, Sir Ian rambles to the port side, ducking behind the ledge near the dead pirate for cover.
Palamedes charges across the deck, and manages to land a solid bite, pulling the assailant down but not out of the fight. Although Pembleton's shot hits, it only wings him and doesn't do any serious damage.
Simon shakes his head, rubs a hand over his chest where the bullet penetrated his protective clothing ("Damn, now I'll have to buy a new suit"), and staggers in the direction of the large woman with the maul.
You continue checking into the various information on the ship as the firefight rages on the deck. As you look through, you finally find something of note. An engine inspection that appears to have been signed off by a meaningless scribble, not any of the signatures you've spotted thus far. THis happened immediately before takeoff.
Simon doesn't get up to much as he tries to recover from being shot. He makes his way over to the main part of the deck.
Meanwhile, on the deck the captain is shouting at the terrified crew as this strange, hulking woman lurches towards them. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU FOOLS?! SHOOT HER!" All five level their pistols and have absolutely no luck. One of the bullet thuds into her, and ricochets off. The captain starts to panic.
"Parkes isn't on the bloody deck if you want him he's hiding somewhere on the ship!"
"[i]Well send someone for him," she snarls. "Otherwise my men and I start gutting all of you like trout."
The captain grimaces, and then nods quickly at one of his crewmen. "Find me Parkes then. Whatever will get this ogre off my ship!" Two of the crewmen make their way to some trapdoors on the deck, flinging them open and disappearing belowdecks, hollering for Parkes.
On your end of the ship, your firefight is almost ended as the last pirate has no luck getting free of Palamedes' jaws.
Vaulting up the last few rungs of the ladder, Eileen keeps low as she scurries towards the railing near Pembleton. She makes sure to keep her head down, avoiding possible observation from the deck below. Scrambling to draw two more decently-balanced knives, she hisses in a low voice, "Where do ya want me?"
Staggering up to Eileen, Simon gasps out: "Sounds like that coward of a captain has given up before the fight even got interesting. Let's see if we can draw their attention this way."
Pembleton reloads some solid slugs into his bizarre weapon as Eileen and Simon appear. He nods at Simon’s words and lowers his voice as they regroup.
”I need you around the back of their leader,” he replies to Eileen. ”If she falls, they will break. Simon and I will draw their attention here and get you free for an attack from the rear. We will need to do this ourselves, now that the Captain has... surrendered.” The old man chambers his last round. ”I do not intend to.” He nods to Eileen, speaking to her like the soldier she is without thinking about it. ”Go. We have you covered.”
Sir Ian looks up to Simon as she goes, shouldering his weapon. ”Ready, my boy? You’d best get closer to intercept Parkes. I’ll cover you, too.” He then rises, whistles loudly for his hound’s attention, points towards the enemy and targets the leader as he fires.
”FASS!”
I'll say you guys are out of combat at this point. The guy you've shot doesn't seem to want to get up. For crossing the deck you can either just go across the top, head below decks and pop up through a trapdoor, or try to do something clever with the huge blowers or the ornithopters or what have you.
Pembleton targets the leader, using regular shot from the rail gun.
Palamedes hears the call, but needs to finish with his pirate first.
Eileen hisses, "Be ready to distract her. I'll try ta signal when I'm ready."
With that, she slips over the railing, landing with relative ease on the deck below, behind the bar. There she crouches, watching from just around the corner.
Simon casually reloads both pistols before moving to block the head of the stairs to await Eileen's signal.
Eileen leaps over the railing, landing neatly behind the bar and crouching behind it.
Pembleton's railgun whirrs and fires its long projectile, which rips through the air, just cutting over the huge woman's shoulder. She grunts and whips around, staring Pembleton in the face. She seems to recognize the old savant for a moment before quickly shaking her head and snarling.
"YOU KILLED MY BOYS!" Realizing she's between you and a crowd of terrified crewman, she stalks to the nearest crewman, and with a roar, smashes his head in with her maul.
"DROP THE GUNS BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE GETS IT!"
The two pirates keep guns trained on the crew and captain. Several of the crew start dropping weapons. The captain hesitates, looking to you two pleadingly. She nods over to the two pirates, who give up their quest for Parkes and instead train their arms on Simon and Pembelton, having not spotted Eileen. Their shots go wide while the pirate with Palamdes at his leg doesn't have any luck getting up.
Simon - 5D
Eileen - 7H
Pembelton - 4S
Boss - QS
Guards - AC
Vada, Eileen thinks. Now would be a good time for you an' your peeler mate to show up.
Keeping her head down, she stashes a few knives in easy reach behind the bar, close enough to retrieve at a moment's notice. She keeps the formidable-looking Bowie knife with her along with a spare held in her other hand.
She remains otherwise still, waiting for her target to take the bait and approach.
"DROP THE GUNS BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE GETS IT!"
Pembleton drops to one knee in a shooter's position behind the railing, looking for cover. "I think not! he shouts back, trying to draw their fire. He aims at the leader and fires with a regular solid slug.
As the shot goes wide, Palamedes moves to finish off his quarry.
Pembleton shouts at the crewmen who have dropped their weapons. "Are you lot completely daft? She's killing you - pick up your weapons! WHAT WILL YOU THINK OF YOURSELVES TOMORROW?!"
Simon sneers at this woman's vulgarity, extends both arms, and fires.
Unable to communicate to the others without potentially giving away her position, Eileen keeps her head down and surveys the area behind the bar. She briefly considers putting together a makeshift fire bomb from any bottles that might be handy, but the prospect of the fire spreading abruptly pushes that idea from her thoughts. Still, she quickly takes stock of her surroundings, looking for anything that might be handy - bottles, cloth, glasses, water, or any other implements or supplies that might be stashed within arm's reach.
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Pembleton's shots go wide but Simon's crack shot manages to wing the huge woman, causing her to grunt and grab her shoulder as he draws weird, black blood.
Eileen takes stock of what's behind the bar. As one would imagine, there are array of bottles for liquor and wine as well as a few casks of beer. Various tools for making drinks are also available. Knives, ice, glasses, water, and different fruits.
Eileen grabs a medium sized bottle of whatever looks most flammable, figuring that even if it isn't used as a makeshift firebomb, it might serve as a reasonable distraction. [i]Might as well be prepared.[i]
In her quick survey of the area, she tries to spot any matches, perhaps for lighting cigarettes or pipes. If she finds any, she grabs them. She also snags a rag or cloth and plugs it into the top of the bottle - again, just in case.
Otherwise, she remains out of sight, hoping for an her quarry to stray close enough to provide an opening.
Eileen successfully fashions a quick molotov cocktail.
Pembleton starts shouting at the various terrified crewmen who are very clearly not soldiers. However, they appear to be caught between two different alternatives. The captain finally speaks up. "YOU HEARD THE MAN DON'T BE COWARDS!"
"Pick up your weapons, miscreants, or I'll drub you all when I'm finished with this troll."