"Ah, I assumed it was magic based. Hmm... The power needed for something that big..."
He ponders his knowledge and experience to see if anything resembling a coherent thought comes up...
Ounce ponders the situation. "I wonder if maybe someone added that field to trap the Coalition inside. Doesn't seem likely, but keep an eye out for others around the perimeter."
As Bart prepares to reconnoiter, Ounce asks, "Do you need darksight? I can give it to you for an hour."
"Since we're close to a ley line, I can try Divination, see if the spirits around here know anything."
She meditates for a minute, concentrating on any nature spirits in this wild area.
Ounce successfully elicits a response from a nature spirit. She asks it who created the energy field around the warehouses and when?
Bart smiles, "Well, being able to see in the dark would absolutely help. Thank you!"
Before Bart goes on his solo reconnaissance mission, Ounce communes with the local spirits. They show her a vision of a woman dressed in what appears to be clothes made from the hides of several creatures. She has bones and twigs and other materials tied on and around the clothes. Though she seems older than most of you, her eyes betray a power you have never felt before.
From what you can tell, this field is definitely magical in nature. There are no emitters, wires, or other telltale signs of high technology and even if there were, this would be way above the Coalition's current technology level.
You can not get close enough to see anyone through the barrier, but getting close to it sends a jolt of electricity through you, and that is standing a few meters from the edge. You feel if you get any closer, the jolt will be far more than just a tickle.
You are able to see the vehicle and it is inside the barrier, near the warehouses. From what you can tell, other than this barrier, there are no other defenses. So far.
"Can anyone here teleport?"
Bart returns, his short hair standing on edge.
"Bad juju over here. It's definitely magic."
He then relates all he learned.
"We can't teleport," Ounce says, gesturing toward Gummitch as she does, "but we can both fly. Does that barrier extend up indefinitely or does it form a dome?"
"If we can't get in, maybe we just watch for a while. What the spirits showed me suggested someone like a druid or shaman could be responsible for this, which doesn't seem something the Coalition would have on their side. Maybe some local powerful native entity is isolating them for some reason."
"Hey Burgurk. Got any magic type sensing you can do on that thing?"
I know, i got nothing that might help.
As you discuss how to get past the barrier, you watch as a low flying craft comes into view. At first it looks as if it might crash right into the field, but a small hole opens up and the craft flies right in. The hole then reseals itself. You lose sight of the craft once it is beyond the barrier.
"Well, there's our answer, boys."
"The question is, does that hole open automatically for *any* craft, or did it radio a password to open it, or is there someone watching who recognized the craft and opened it?"
"Or is there some dingus on the craft that opens it automatically. Well. Hard to experiment on. If it's automatic we can steal a vehicle and try it. I'd suggest a basic ground vehicle and bail out just in case. If it's radio, we'd need to know some password. Plenty to consider..."
Bart looks around to see if there is a small vehicle he could, er, liberate as a test subject.
As Ounce fiddles with the radios, Bart tries to find something that you can use to get in, other than the Mammoth you brought with you. Unfortunately, the only other vehicles he sees are on the river and manned. However, he does note that the barrier seems to stop right where the land meets the river.
Barbara hops on her frequency scanner and starts idly checking for anything that might be an encrypted comm. Or heck, something in the clear. You never know, some days you get lucky.
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After taking a quick look around Bart returns to find Barbara scanning darkly.
He jumps in to help.
Between Ounce’s turning of dials, Barbara’s tuning of her scanner and Bart’s seemingly savant knowledge of radio frequencies, you manage to pick up the following message:
”…Badger Two Five, this is Badger Den. You are cleared for approach. We will open the gates at precisely thirty degrees, azimuth 45 degrees. Do not deviate from your current heading. You have two minutes before the gate closes again. Do you copy?”
”We copy, Badger Den. Transferring command runes now.”
There is then a strange static that covers the frequency and when it is over, you see what appears to be a hover sled flying towards the barrier. At precisely one minute, a hole opens. As the craft goes through, you watch as the hole begins to slowly close.
"Huh. Now, how do we use this..."
After taking a quick look around Bart returns to find Barbara scanning darkly.
He jumps in to help.
[dice=electronics] 1d6
[dice=electronics xplode] 1d6
[dice=wild] 1d6
Ounce tries to glean some information from the speakers' accents to figure out something about them.
After taking a quick look around Bart returns to find Barbara scanning darkly.
He jumps in to help.
[dice=electronics] 1d6
[dice=electronics xplode] 1d6
[dice=wild] 1d6
Ounce thinks that the speakers are probably local, based on how they enunciate their words. Human more than likely.
The river itself is flowing at about 3-5 mph (1.3 meters per second to 2.2 meters per second) according to readouts from the electronics aboard the Mammoth and Barbara’s Glitter Girl. It seems that the barrier is only connected to the land and the river’s water stops it. Swimming would be difficult, but not impossible. The real question would be how to get your vehicles through once your people are inside.
Could one in full eba be able to walk along the bottom, and come up on the inside.
He quickly cheks the tank for air, then ties the end of a roe to himself.
Hold on to this end pleasse
He starts a slow walk into the river after checking his compass bearing
"Check the depth too. See if we can get the truck or the glitter girl under there..."
Terry starts his march towards the water and as soon as he enters, he can feel the pull of the water against him. While it doesn't take him off of his feet, he knows it will be difficult going. Though the edge of the river is fairly shallow, the slope of the bank tells him that it will be deeper than thirty feet by the time he reaches the middle. The temperature readout on his armor tells him the water is approximately 20 degrees Fahrenheit. For either foot or wheeled vehicle, it would be slow going, but doable.
Terry takes his time, and slowly walks across the floor of the river, and looks to see if he can come up under the dome.
As soon as Terry has rewrapped himself around a warm drink, he passes on all that he found on his underwater walk
Gummitch watches the Terry's progress with interest and listens to his report. Then he says, "I know I can get to the other side fairly easily. I can change into a fish or an otter and swim over. I can swim in my dragon form as well, but that would be more noticeable. I could change into something like a cat and scout the area without drawing much suspicion or I could become invisible. I'm also good at sensing arcane energy, so perhaps I could scout the area to find out what is going on."
Bart listens intently as well. When Gummitch speaks up, "Hmm.. a good idea but I do fear for your safety still. Perhaps a quick recon. If you can find a spot we can pull the truck out of the water and hide something this size and the Glitter girl. Now, IS this truck designed to go underwater? Anywhere we need to plug a possible leak?"
Terry continues his foray underneath the river until he comes to the shore. As soon as the barrier hits water, it ends. He also notes that it does not extend underneath the waves and you could slip beneath the barrier if you could somehow keep water over you. The barrier seems averse to water. To test his theory, Terry sticks a soaked glove towards the barrier and it bends a bit, but then snaps back as his glove dries.
Bart looks over the Mammoth and as he does, he notes several place where water could get in, other than the main cab and the troop areas. Those are environmentally sealed.
"Terry, what kind of earth was right at the water's edge? Sand, dirt, rock? Maybe we could dig a very short 'tunnel' into the ground but under the water, so that the water stops the barrier at water level, but we could crawl in the water-filled tunnel until we're past the barrier. I hope that makes sense. But that would mean we could only get ourselves inside - no Mammoth, no Glitter Girl."
Bart says "Hmm..." and walks out.
He walks back in a few minutes later."Yep. We got one. So hear me out. Water stops it. The river seems pretty open. When we try to pull this beast out, good chance someone's going to see us. I'm sure there are better places to enter. We have water plentiful and... a good sized hose to wash this beast. Think we could spray enough to get her through? Any of the magic folks, can you control water to form a shield?"
Terry takes the time to pass on all the information on the other shore, the river bed, along with anything else that he can think of
"I'm going to scout for a secluded spot that I can use for supporting fire if you need to make a hasty retreat."
Gummitch is game to try to work with the others to come up with a way to hit the force field with water long enough to get a vehicle through. He wonders if other elements might affect it similarly, such as lightning.
"We can get your Glitter Girl through as well if you want to join the party!"
Burgurk says "Has anyone scouted the area to see if there's a place next to the force field that's far enough away from the buildings and any possible sentries that the Mammoth and Glitter Girl could even approach the force field without being noticed? Because if there isn't, we'll be under attack by who knows what as soon as we clear the force field. It might be better if we go in without the big machines, we'll be much less noticeable."
"Good point. We can send some in to do a little recon. A wet body or two should be easy to slip in undetected. Now, let's go find a good spot..."
Sneaking around is not my forte. I will do my best if selected, but I am not the best at it.
He heads over to a covered spot and tries to dry off, while being in a spot that is not to obvious.
"Didn't bring a swimsuit for this one, but if I need to go in without the armor, I'll do my best."
Burgurk pulls a pair of goggles out his pack, and puts them on. "These should give me a good view of the entire area, to find a suitable entry point."
Bart smiles at Barb, "A might cold for a swim today though."
"No worries, Terry. I can go in. I hear someone can turn invisible as well. Just a quick look to check things out."
Burgurk scouts the area and notes that there is a spot that is on the opposite side from the river that appears to be uncovered by any sentries. It has an escarpment that bends inwards and is out of sight because of the buildings inside. Unless someone happened to be standing underneath it, they wouldn’t see a person coming in through that area. A vehicle would be out of the question though. Unless it was expected.