Anpetu emerged out from the front, looking into the carnage that was before the deadly mist. There was the smell of blood, of men, and of machine. The mist still approached and the fire from his fellow dragons and the psychic flames seemed to do nothing to it.
"I must flee."
His wings would beat into the air and he would soar into the sky, much like his weakened brother.
You feel your mother's mind calling out to yours. You sense a spike of relief, satisfaction, and pride that some of her first brood survived. However, the brief contact also lets you feel that she is desperately weary. To the bone, and she will likely not be able to travel far. She will have to rest, with no den, and no protection.
K-842 takes one step toward the escaping leather fetishist and the Borg and then freezes. His tactical HUD suggests withdraw. The situation is clearly out of control, there is a vampire or something trying to eat people. Jace is injured but Thumper is helping him. But whatever is left in the meat parts of him really doesn't want to let these jerks withdraw.
Feeling that sense of contact, the flame wind hatchling turns in the air towards his mother. Her exhaustion was palpable and two different instincts began to pull at him; to flee or to go to her aid. She would not be safe, her life would be at great danger alone in the forest with no den around her.
Looking towards the others gathered below him, Anpetu watched them fight to protect their own. His mother's imprints pushed into his mind; the tribe she had traveled with protected their own as well. Looking between the two groups, one of them fleeing with a man dressed in leather and the other being a Borg. The other group looked damaged, a man missing his arm and the others retreating.
"I must help Mother." From his memories she left him with, one of the easiest ways to earn the trust of others was to try and help. They would likely be scared, as scared as he was, but he had to try anyways.
Thumper would be greeted by the sound THUMP of a massive form landing behind him. Over his shoulder would come the dragon, who spoke in a low, rumbling growl. It was as if a deep boiler somehow gained the ability to speak.
"Let me help. Then, you help me protect Mother."
Anpetu will place his head against the downed man and energy would coalesce through him. The dragon would growl though, pulling his head away before speaking again.
"I cannot help him. I am....sorry." Turning away from them, Anpetu would begin to take off once more. If a trade fails, there would be no trust gained. He would have to protect Mother on his own. At least, so the dragon believed.
Hyperkinetic skidded to a stop and dropped the person he was carrying without a word before turning and tearing off to recover the person he had carried out of the cave with him before the mist could reach it.
I say, if you're going to count Wounds past 3, the Healing Power should be able to heal Wounds past 2.
Looks at the dragon startled, "You can speak?"
Thumper:
Anpetu:
Arsenio runs up, a little later than the rest as he drifted backwards most of the way to watch what was going on.
"Report, is, Bellerophon ok...ay..." he trails off as he notices there's a dragon standing next to their APC.
"Hello there. I'm assuming you're friendly, since these guys aren't on fire?"
"I think Jace will live, I juice his system with alot of magic, pun intended, I do not know what that will do in the long run," pointing at the wyrm, "The little guy is real nice, but he wants some help"
The human spoke quickly, the words flooding to Anpetu's mind for a moment. The dragon seemed to think for a few moments, nodding his head.
"I....can. You words are slow coming. Difficult. Not...natural." Anpetu would swing his head back to the other man, quirking an eyebrow softly.
"Friendly?" The dragon would seem to think on it for a moment, looking back at the injured man on the ground. "Maybe. Will you...help save Mother?" Lowering his snout towards him again, he would focus once more before that psychic energy would shimmer along Jace's body.
There would be a sudden channel of energy around Anpetu, his face grimacing in pain as he growled. "Too...much...too...sooooon." A wave of psychic backlash channel through Anpetu, causing the dragon to roar in pain for a moment before he spoke again. "No more. Can't help him."
Looking towards the others, he would nod to the Zone Ranger and speak. "Will you help Mother and Brother? They need...shelter. The mist hurts."
Androva nods her ascent. "I will do whatever I can to help them, you have my word." She attempts to reconnoiter the situation from this angle.
Thumper's smoke screen is dissipating, growing thinner and thinner as time passes. As it does, you can see the mist spreading out from the rock and cave, seemingly in an even circle with the outcrop at the epicenter. It is moving at a fairly steady speed, and will reach your position in another minute or so. You can see a lump under the mist where Androva's APC was located, and you watch as it moves over the position of the fallen mercenaries.
Unless it starts to slow down, you get the distinct impression that you should have this conversation somewhere else.
You can see the two remaining dragon's, one large and one small, circling on a thermal up above. Neither is moving a single muscle more than necessary.
"I say we get away from that mist as soon as possible - it seems immediately deadly to living beings."
"I agree. We should leave with all haste and extreme prejudice!"
The team all clambers into Thumper's Zone Ranger, and he lays down some tread, the three dragons trailing after slowly. Even offroad, the APC is able to make good speed. The mist was moving perhaps 20-25 mph, and you are able to maintain an average speed of around 35-40, allowing you to get ahead of the mist.
Once you reestablish contact with the Tomorrow Legion, and get the go ahead that the connection is scrambled and secure, Ansenio gives a brief report.
"Understood. Please stand by for instructions."
A minute passes until the single crackles to life again, this time with a different voice, "Doloso, this is Major Grimjack. Your intel has been received; we are analyzing now. You are ordered to return to base with your wounded with all reasonable speed. We are withdrawing any ground personnel and patrols from the area and dispatching aerial observers to track the movements of this emergent mist. We are putting Castle defenses on standby, should they be needed. Tell those dragons, if you're able, we'll find a spot for them to bed down if they need to recoup, but that they better behave themselves. Grimjack out."
Arsenio puts his head out the window and calls out to Anpetu.
"Follow us, we'll get you a place to stay for a bit while we figure this out!"
The dragon will nod before taking to the sky once more, letting the strength of his wings take him higher and higher.
"How awful it must be, to be stuck to the ground." Anpetu thought to himself as he soared higher and higher, towards his circling mother and brother. The strange tongue of men was hard to say but their native tongue, Dragonese, came swiftly from his mouth.
"Mother! Brother! These ones want to give us shelter. Let us follow their metal machine. It'll be safer together!" The dragon looked down at that spreading, swirling mist that promised only death. Where did it come from? What did it want? It had killed so many of his brothers and sisters. He could feel an emotion boiling inside of him. Hatred. Anger.
Hyperkinetic managed to grab the young woman right as the mist was cresting the indenture he had placed her in. He then raced towards the fleeing vehicles. Running up along side the driver, he would shout out "Ya'll got room for one mo'" while pointing at the young woman he was holding.
Arsenio rolls down the window, barely even surprised any more.
"You sure you need it?" he asks, sounding tired. "Looks like you can cover ground just fine all on your own...whoever you are."
"The side door in unlocked, hop in,' he looks in the mirrors as the spreading mist. 'but I can't really afford to stop right now"
Hyperkinetic opens the door, then places the unconscious woman inside. "Thanks ya'll. She wuz real heavy-like. So, whar we be? At-Kansas? New Mehico? Mebbe onna them blue states?"
The APC continues to cruise back towards Castle Refuge, as ordered. About 30 minutes into the trip, the vehicle's scanners detect a pair of Titan flying suits zip overhead, each bearing a Tomorrow Legion transponder. Evidently these are the aerial observers you were informed of.
The curious teen continues to run alongside the Zone Ranger, evidently showing no signs of flagging or fatigue, despite running more than 40 miles per hour for an extended period. He jabbers on in that bizarre accent that makes his speak so hard to follow. The 'woman' he passed inside is if anything, an even more bizarre sight. Wrapped in a black silk cloth, underneath she is wearing a skin-tight leotard not unlike the one worn by the kid outside, but in a different pattern and colours. Her flesh is transparent, almost to the point of invisibility, while her bones appear as solid as any. She feels solid enough to the touch however; her skin is cool, but not far outside the normal human range, and if checked for a pulse, the medic would find she has one, even if it is weak.
The trip proceeds in relatively uneventful fashion, and the urge to sleep nags at everyone, who was expecting action tomorrow, and not a nighttime excursion tonight. The standard checkpoints are passed, codes exchanged, and it appears the APC's approach has been hotly anticipated. A double contingent of guards stands at each of them as you pass.
When you finally pull into the courtyard of Castle Refuge, it is to a force on full alert, and the amount of activity is a jarring juxtaposition against the early hour. A woman with short red hair, worn in a spiky arrangement flags your attention as you pull in. A medical team stands beside her with a few gurneys ready, and blood supplies ready to be applied. As you pull up, the medics dash forward to retrieve Jace and move him to the gurney. They check the tourniquet your team applied en route, and hook up the blood supply to his Bio-Comp intake. The limb you placed on ice goes with them, just in case it is salvageable. They take the strange entranced woman with the translucent skin as well, placing her onto a gurney, and beginning to check her vitals as they start rolling the bed towards the infirmary.
As the redhead turns to Arsenio, you are able to note the linked bars of captain's insignia on her collar, "Captain Deloso, if you are able, you and any other unwounded personnel from your unit are ordered to report to briefing room C. Major Grimjack will be meet you there. Wounded may report to the infirmary. I understand there are some wild dragons accompanying you? A space has been prepared for them in the Aerie." She gestures up to the castle's tallest tower. Looking up, you can see someone on a wingboard circling the tower, high up in the air, waiting to guide the dragons into the space when they arrive.
Speaking to Hyper-kinetic she says, speaking unusually slowly, and with deliberate emphasis on her words, the way someone does when they are not sure they will be understood, "She will be well looked after young man; we will do everything we can to see to her needs. If you would come with me, I would like to ask you some questions."
"We'll be right there. Everyone else is mostly fine, Bellerophon caught the worst of it." he grimaces.
He gestures for the rest of the team ro follow him to where Grimjack is waiting.
"Nawt a problem, miss. You lead tha way and I'll shor nuff follow."
Stopping briefly, he turns back to the crew unloading the woman and says "Ya'll take care to make sure she's not a Skurge now, ya hear?"
He then turns back and follows the woman.
Slipping in and out of consciousness, Jace vividly remembers his fight with the hide armored man. Every detail, every movement. He counted the mistakes, forced them to memory and passed out again. Something was rushing into his bloodstream and it wasn't the usual Juice... No, something was missing...
Thumper grabs his tool belt and a large canvas bag full of what most people would call junk and follows to the briefing room.
Androva follows to the briefing room, her wounds superficial enough that she needn't report to medical.
Ace, having climbed out of his armor in the landing bay, follows the others to the briefing room.
The only wounds K8 suffered were to his pride. He clanks into the debriefing, silent and sulking.
The team makes their way up the stairs and files into Briefing Room C. Major Grimjack is already there, leaning over a holographic display table. As a dwarf, the grizzled looking old veteran isn’t tall enough to loom, but if anyone could manage to hold an audience’s attention by stern force of will alone, he’s the one.
The table itself is displaying a projection, apparently of the very battlefield you were just involved with, the rocky spire standing up from the table at the centre of the display. You can see the vague shape of the destroyed APC and that of the dune-buggy underneath a thin layer of rolling, creeping fog. That would seem to indicate that this is either a fresh image, or potentially even a live feed, being relayed by the Flying Titan scouts. A few burst of magical energy crackle about the air above the spire, indicating that this is at least a recording, but more likely a live feed. While still present, the intensity of the Ley Line storm is definitely dying down. The layer of mist covers the entire area presently being displayed. As you approach and look over the display, Grimjack switches it to a second viewpoint, probably that of the other Titan. The mist covers an area of over about 5 miles in every direction from the rocky outcrop, and if watched closely at this distance, the edge can be seen to continue to slowly roll forward over the fresh ground ahead of the leading edge.
Grimjack looks up at the team focusing his good eye on each of the team members in turn. ”I don’t care much about ceremony, so whoever can tell this story best can lay it out; what the hell is going on out there?”
"The kid with the funny accent seems to know as far as the fog. Kept screaming something about a "Skurge" right before everything went down."
"As far as the rest of it, we arrived to investigate the late patrol, and found them under attack by another group. A female dragon seemed to be the object of intention; the hostiles were intent on killing her. We fought for a bit, their mage managed to beat our Juicer in a sword fight somehow, and then the fog showed up out of nowhere."
"After it killed one of the hostiles and seemed immune to fire we pulled back, and the dragons came with us."
"The fog seems to be intelligent, sir," Androva answers. "It targeted us intentionally."
"Or it could just be life seeking, or drawn to body heat or something." Arsenio points out. "It attacked indiscriminately and seemed to be 'growing' in every direction at once. Not ruling out you're right, we just need more info."
"We need to get that high-speed kid in here to answer some questions. Where did the red-headed captain take him?"
Thumper looks up from his junk, "I am fairly sure that a rift opened just before the kid and the mist arrived. The mist is resistant to Dragon Fire. Which is a little scary"
He looks nervously around the room before looking away trying avoid attention.
Grimjack waves off Ace's question with a gnarled hand, "Captain Fairbairn will be conducting a thorough debriefing of our visitor, whomever he might be." While most of you have probably not met her in person before, the name of Captain Alison Fairbairn carries a reputation as a rather potent burster. "Debriefed in a fire-proof room, if you follow my meaning." The normally sour faced dwarf flashes a very brief and rather malicious smile. With a sustained fiery aura, anything in a tight, confined space with a burster like her could likely be reduced to ashes in seconds, regardless of how fast it could move.
Gesturing back to the table, Grimjack continues, "Our 'Line-Walkers haven't been able to get in there, on account of the mist, but we sent one up to a different point on one of those lines from that nexus in order to get a feel on it. He said he can't be too confident of his impressions given the distance, and given he could only touch one of the lines from his position, but he said he thinks the Ley-line storm is dying down, but that he is pretty sure at least one rift opened during the event. Chances are the Mist came through from there. What we need to know is if the kid is from the same dimension, or if he just happened to pop in near it. If he is, we need to know how he survived and what he knows about it, presuming he's not the cause of course."
"At the rate it is expanding, it will reach Castle Refuge in about 36 hours. We've already mobilized evac crews to get the civies out of that area. There are a few farms in the way, and while the people should be no trouble, moving the livestock is going to be a problem."
"As for the rest, I want some background! Who was this mage you mentioned? We need a description and an identity. If this is something he deliberately summoned, we are going to need to track him down. What can you tell me about him? What was he doing there, what kind of team had they put together, and what is your assessment of what he was after?"
Arsenio gives a brief physical description of the mage, and offers his speculations.
"The mage doesn't seem like the source. They decided to evacuate once it appeared and devoured one of their crew. They seemed to be after the dragon, or more specifically her eggs."
"I'm interested to hear your assessment, Ferelli. You were on the scene before we were. Did you notice anything interesting, or hear their orders before they started firing?"
"Negative. We arrived on the scene and they started firing. We took a hit almost immediately. Roderick and Pietersen were killed in the crash, Anders bought it a few seconds after."
"The mage was definitely afraid of the Mist. He was also very tough."
The major grabs a remote off the table and hits a button. A viewscreen pulls up from within a counter on one end of the room, and an image flickers into view. It has a large section on the left that shows the teen in the leotard sitting left, and the redheaded burster her uniform sitting across the table from him on the right. The right side of the viewscreen is divided into an over the shoulder view from Fairbarne’s side, and a second image showing a close up of Hyperkinetic’s face.
As they are talking, subtitles pop up under the main image, deciphering what is being said by the boy.
”This is in real time. About a year back, we encountered a group that emerged through a Rift. Appears that they were time displaced from a period likely just before the Rifts. There was nearly 100000 of them. We were able to evacuate a large portion before the Coalition swept in to investigate, but not all of them. We had a hard time debriefing them because of the accent. Pre-Rifts talk is kinda like American, but different enough to cause confusion. Accent is different, but it’s it’s the slang that really kills ya. One of the survivors was a computer specialist, and working with a linguist was able to work up this translator. This kid’s talk is a bit different than theirs, but it’s it’s pretty close. Captain Nguyen, the survivor, reckons this kid is from a dimension that represents a time period about a hundred and fifty years earlier than his; early to mid-twentieth century. Of course, in our world, there was no vampire invasion pre-Rifts. From the sound of things, this kid’s world was not so lucky.”
He picks up another remote and hits a button, and two more monitors snap to life. On one is a handsome asian Male in his mid thirties or so, and on the other is an old caucasian white woman who looks like she must be a hundred.
”Nguyen, Madam Tarn, are you both receiving this feed?” Both nod. ”Thank you both for making yourselves available. Your expertise in these situations may help a great deal in getting to the bottom of this.”
The debriefing continues for about two hours, with Nguyen adding a bit of commentary here or there on an unusual turn of phrase or expression that the computer translation misses, or places where it makes mistakes.
It concludes pretty normally, with Hyperkinetic non-incinerated.
”So, it appears that what we have here is a fellow from a pre-rifts equivalent world; one of those called the Heroic Worlds, where individuals with exceptional powers and abilities live side by side with mundane peoples, and divide into heroes and villains. Except in this version, they were overrun by of wild vampires. Appears that Hyperkinetic and his friends were trying to track down the Master or Intelligence that was directing the hordes. The found one, and by interfering with some sort of ritual the Master was conducting, accidentally precipitated shifting them to this reality.”
”Long story short It appears the kid is trustworthy. At least inasmuch that he believes what he's telling us and does not appear to be under any form of mental manipulation. He was definitely Rifted in, and came from a world overrun by vampires. The type they were dealing with seem pretty similar to our vampires, but there are differences too, though those seem mostly minor, and relate more to how they are organized than any specific differences in powers and vulnerabilities.”
He sighs and picks up a tablet from the table, scanning through his most recent messages.
”Looks like the mist stopped expanding when the Ley Line Storm started to dissipate. Most recent report states that the second the sun came up, the mist was gone. Didn't burn off, didn't fade, but was just gone.”
”I'm going to send in a Specialized Vampire cleanup squad to sweep the area and the cave. If this Master follows the pattern, he’ll be sleeping, or at least restricted to the cave in order to stay out of the sunlight. I'll give you a follow up briefing to let you know how that goes. For now, get some rack time. Your squad is dismissed. Report back at 2100 hours for briefing and your follow up assignment.”
Thumper looks up from the scratchpad he has been making drawings on since Vampires where mentioned.
"I have a couple ideas I want to try out. I have been trying to find out and no one is talking, Is Jace going to make it?"
You able to find out with just a few questions that he has been stabilized, and his remaining injuries are considered to be non life threatening. He will pull through. The only question is whether or not his limb can be reattached or regenerated, or whether a synthetic replacement limb will be required. Apparently a Mystic Healer has been recalled from a field mission in order to perform a greater healing ritual. If successful, he should be good as new. If not, synthetic limbs will be the order of the day.
Greater healing can also heal Permanent Crippling Injuries. This requires an arcane skill roll at –4, 1d6 hours of time, and 20 Power Points. Only one casting is permitted per injury—if it fails, the injury really is permanent.
"Tat's whut I'm try'n to tel ya. Thar's a masta scourge running around and we taint got time to be wastin here, jawin' about. It's gunna start makin more of itself, and you do not wanna see that." said the young man, his native patois clearly on display.
"Look bud, you get Powerman or da Defender here, they vouch for me. I met um both when I was sidekickin for El Diablo."