"Unexpected, but sensible.", Sigurd responds, "We can perform a sweep of the grounds, clear the area to avoid being surrounded and overwhelmed when we bring Rasputin within our reach."
He then turns to Victor:"If the tanks are automated, I suspect we cannot sabotage them? If so, we may want to try and take the smartest enemies out first - maybe the chaplains? Or we go and check out that forbidden shack, to see what they were trying to hide - any preferences?"]
How about we kille those chaplins?
How about we kille those chaplins?
"It's a nest of snakes. If we can behead some of the lesser snakes, maybe we can get to Rasputin more easily. What can you tell us about these chaplains, Viktor? Tell us everything you recall, please. Vampirism is troubling - that will require special talents to combat, talents that I lack for the most part." She looks at the new arrivals, especially Sigurd, to see if he offers anything to that comment.
Sigurd notices the look, but remains silent.
Titan pops in and out of troll form if he needs to seem friendly but he is mostly a huge looming monster.
"I should warn you the enemy uses firearms, all of my conventional defenses are useless. We may want to consider magical defenses like ashen path and fog spells as we did outside yesterday. This area is magically guarded I could not fully alter the weather."
"As I said, my God is the God of Wind of my people. I can petition him to help us for a few minutes, but in the face of firearms, I don't know how far his power will reach."
"What I can do, however, is ask my ancestors in his care for guidance on the creatures we are about to face."
Vasily looks slightly askance at Sigurd when he mentions his pagan deity, but he remains quiet. "I have the ability to make one more durable, or create phantom images, but each only effects a single person, unfortunately. I can also potentially blind a cluster of enemies."
Viktor sits and dwells for a moment trying to remember what he can of the Chaplains. With a shuddering sigh he starts, I have only seen them a few times and I do not wish to see them again. They come out at night to 'minister' to the troops. They spend about a minute with each one. 1 takes care of the riflemen, 1 takes care of the flame throwers, while the last takes care of the machine gunners. They supposedly live in the chapel but I don't know how they come and go from there.
Viktor actually smiles at the mention of the automated tanks. Ahh, those are my pride and joy, more sentient being than machine almost. They will run forever, never need to stop, never need to reload, and will attack any enemy in or around the camp. Their 1 weakness is that if you can get on top of one they can't fire upon you. However, they can try to throw you off and if they do their automated machine guns will make short work of anything.
That tree is a cross between a fairy tale and a nightmare. It is alive alive if you know what I mean. It can move around an all. It was peaceful until the towers were finished then the lightning started changing it.
Also be careful around some mist or fog. I don't know how it works but if something dies in there it comes back as not alive but not dead either. Those creatures will reach for you and if they get you they will eat your heart. If you manage to get away from them or kill them they explode covering you with their body parts that could turn you into one of them as well.
If we can find out where those vampires sleep in the day, we can put them down for good.
"The tanks, how do they know friend from foe? Could we turn them against Rasputins other minions, somehow? If we dress as Russian Soldiers, then attack them and flee, would they attack other Russian Soldiers assuming they are enemies now?", Sigurd inquires from Viktor.
Vasily straightens his Russian officer's uniform. "That'd be helpful." he says in Russian, translating for the benefit of the non-Russian-speakers.
"Hmmm I like the idea of stealing them but I don't remember seeing many lying around or we can try to grab them from a group of dead soldiers (we are often fighting troops so there should be many uniforms). We had one battle with many squads of troops away from the base. We could many get 5 uniforms from those bodies."
The tanks would defend themselves if attacked by anything or anyone. They will not attack any Russian troops that do not attack them.
"They sound like a golem. As their creator, do they recognize you or take your commands? They would be most useful if they fought for us."
While I created them they are at Rasputin's direct command. I could probably reprogram them should Rasputin give them the command to let me work on them for 'upgrades', however since he had me killed I don't think he will give that order.
”As I feared. They are probably smarter than the troops, too, and more difficult to fool.”
Disguise as some troops and go after those vampires.
Vasily nods. "That would be my preference as well."
"Then so be it."
"Well I guess I will need to find a different fighting form. None of you can lie well enough to convince these people a troll is a human, eh?"
You could be a yeti with an underbite.
"I am...not unpersuasive. But I don't know that I'm that persuasive."
"Short of actually blinding them, then telling them falsehoods, no. Maybe one of you could provide a magical veil or something? Or, if we are clothed as soldiers, we could pretend to have taken you prisoner, bringing you to the chaplains for interrogation - it could work better, albeit I am not familiar enough with their protocol that I'm confident I could pull off this bluff-", Sigurd looks at Vasily expectantly, hoping his comrade was more confident in his abilities or could provide some magical solution.
"Short of actually blinding them, then telling them falsehoods, no. Maybe one of you could provide a magical veil or something? Or, if we are clothed as soldiers, we could pretend to have taken you prisoner, bringing you to the chaplains for interrogation - it could work better, albeit I am not familiar enough with their protocol that I'm confident I could pull off this bluff-", Sigurd looks at Vasily expectantly, hoping his comrade was more confident in his abilities or could provide some magical solution.
Vasily nods, slowly. ”That’s…possible, but they likely have some sort of password system in place, and unless we can capture someone and ferret out the word of the day, that will probably trip us up. It’s also possible that that scum Rasputin actually employs some trolls, but I don’t know.”
Duardlara you think that vampires have no means to pierce invisibility unless they have learned that ability purposefully. Most vampires that you have heard about can just see in the dark. However, you remember that the spotlights reveal invisible foes.
Since you are looking to target the vampires you make plans for arriving at night as that is the only time that Viktor knows that they are out and about. The dark may conceal you from the regular troops for a bit, until spotted, then the camp would be alerted to your presence with the spotlights illuminating the camp.
Any magic to help all of us see at night? I don't have anything special.
"That was a joke. Sorry Taldan is not my first language. I can change anytime I need it is obviously advantageous to start a fight big and scary but I will make it work."
Any magic to help all of us see at night? I don't have anything special.
Vasily scratches his head for a minute as he runs through his spells. "Not as such, no. I could turn you into a man-sized dragon for about a dozen minutes, that would greatly enhance your senses. But that's a powerful spell to use for so minor a benefit."
"Sight in the dark, unfortunately, is a gift of the arcane - we'll have to rely on those of our companions who are better suited to that to lead us and evade patrols.", Sigurd shrugs.
Well after sunset sounds as good as any, we could also fly in at the wrecked horeman camp.
Duardlara shakes her head. ”We’ll be seen - the spotlights reveal people hidden with my spells. And my teleportation is more efficient so long as I can identify the destination sufficiently. Landing inside a hut would hide the tell-take visual display, a valuable tactic.”
"Those spotlights, could we possibly shut them down? They sound troublesome. Is their source of power beyond our reach?", Sigurd inquires further, "My apologies for not being better prepared, but we only arrived in the region recently and had would have spent some time observing before jumping into action - "
”Possibly, but they are well-positioned. They can cover each other quite well. However, we have had success once we were within the camp at avoiding detection long enough for a strike or two. I could prepare enough teleportation to jump in, jump across, and jump back out.”
”I would like very much to sabotage a tower, I confess.”
"If so, maybe it would be worth trying to hit a tower far from our objective, basically cause an alarm there, then jump over to our real target - the vampires, deal with them during the confusion, and get back out before the enemies manage to congregate on our position."
"I can get darkvision from my forms. I know of a spell the clerics in the grove used to cast called blessing of the mole. It does not last long but it is better than nothing."
Well I dun plum forgot I have these magical glasses of low-light sight. Hmph...Getting tired and forgetting things.
Well let's get going! Duardlara, time to transport.
"I concur. Lets go hit that spotlight tower, raise a ruckus, then go hit our real target. We can talk theory all night and not get something done...I think there is no optimal solution here."
Sigurd offers a prayer to his God, hoping for his assistance in what they were going to do - and manifests some of his will in the form of blessings bestowed upon himself and his allies.