It apparently is not.
You feel (still no hearing or actual sight) movement around you.
Rockrete pieces are grinding over your body, disturbed by someone around you moving.
You start and try to move yourself.
Roll an athletics test modified by:
- D2: 1 means negative modifier, 2 means positive
-d5*10: your modifier
If you succeed, you can free yourself, otherwise you are stuck and start to suffocate!
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Thud doesn't get anywhere near all the words, but his prayer is in every way sinsere and loud as he follows along with Krish in prayer as the world shakes around him and his Lit'le 'Uns.
"A spit you domino us,
Domino, living knots,
From da Lit-nin and the tents,
Our Emprah, di-Cover us."
"From page, de-sit, temtun and war,
Our Emprah, di-cover us.
"From da surge of da Crackin',
Our Emprah, de-lover us.
From da Blast femie of the fallin',
Our Emprah, de-lover us."
"From da bee getting of de mens,
Our Emprah, de-lover us.
From da curse of da moo tint,
Our Emprah, de-lover us.
A marty pepper trust,
Domino, liver nose."
"That ow wood bring dem only death,
That ow shedest spare none,
That ow shedest perdon none,
We be searchin dee, destroy them."
A...alive am I? I can...feel my fingers.
Taking a shuddering breath, Cormaeg attempts to roll over on his stomach and push himself up into sitting position.
-20
Simmins knows only one thing. He can't move. He tries to move, to struggle, to scream, anything, but he cannot. Worse, he can't breathe!
Krish grips Thudd's arm as their prayer ends and the world vanishes into nothing.
********
Krish's senses finally stop reeling and, like Cormaeg, for a heartbeat or two he wonders if he is dead. Then the multitude of bruises, contusions, and other minor injuries register. Only life would hurt this much...
Experimentally flexing his muscles, Krish is able to shift the rubble leaning on him, and he rises slowly to his feet. Seeing the assorted shapes of his squad and piles of rubble where some of them should be, Krish starts digging, trying to account for all of his squadmates.
Grey. Grey all around. Like fluffy Quanik snow in the evening. But the air is not cold. No prickle of still-faling Quanik. No cool swell of cold air in the lunges. Weight. Weight all around. Pressing down from behind. I lay on my belly.
Rocks, sticks, sand, presssing... pressing. NO! Dark! NO!
In the rubble you can hear Thud whimper, then breathe heavily as he starts to panic, then roar and burst out of his rockcrete and rubble cage. Bits of the building rain all around him as he emerges. He stumbles for a second, getting his bearings.
Mammy-Leni! Sarge! Sims! Krish! he calls.
Krish responds, choking on the dust, "Here, Thudd. Help me dig them out. Have to be careful or shifting pieces can hurt them."
Thud staggers toward Krish. The air burns in his lungs, his back is burned Again, and several of his wounds are making themselves known, but he's not about to abandon his Lit'le Unes! He carefully assists, only lifting the bits Krish tells him to.
Being unable to see aggravated Cormaeg, and he clawed at his eyes for a moment.
Ah, the goggles...broken maybe...
Eventually he managed to get them of, and managed to have a look around.
"S...squad, s...sound off!"
Even Cormaegs stubborn pride wasn't quite able to keep him from exhaustion now.
Taking a moment, he looked around, spotting Krish and Thud already at work he instead looked to see if he could spot signs of anyone else he could help while they worked.
Cormaeg's roaming gaze does not manage to spot any clue as to where the others might be, possibly due to the spots dancing in front of his eyes.
Touching his microbead he groans before speaking.
"If you can hear me, give us a sign where you are, anything!"
On a 4, your combead is still working and you hear the call of Cormaeg and can answer.
On a 1, you can bear him but can't send!
As Leni hands over the binoculars she takes off her googles and is hit by the view. She stands there with her hand still outstreched.. and enjoys it?
"Well, you know what? This is actually quite beautiful. Nonono, I'm not off the deep end. Really. We're so high up - up here is somewhat clean air. You'd have to be the highest of hive nobility to get a view like this if it wasn't for the war.
Sure there's a crawling mass of filthy xenos stinking it up and we're probably about to die, but when are we not about to die since we joined up? And we're about to throw them all onto a nice bonfire to boot!"
She stands there for a few more moments before letting out a deep sigh. She turns around and sees what she can throw in for the effort to actually get out of this alive.
Seeing Thud struggle with the table she goes to help. But Her rather average strength isn't able to do much to make it better.
Either way as they start to huddle together and Krish starts to pray his heart out she leans back - probably into Thud, most of this cobbled up mess of guardsmen seems to consist of Thud - and actually makes herself comfortable while she rumages around the medkit - now containing the drained supply of two of them.
It takes a bit before she finds what she's looking for. Despite her vow to Aubrey to keep it neatly ordered it is a mess now. She takes out 2 large, shimmering cloths, still neatly folded and held together by a see through membrane. They immidiatly unfold to be person - and a bit - size.
"Those are insulation blankets. They are supposed to be used to keep you warm in ice cold weather. You know so you won't go in shock. But they might just do something against the heat of the blast. Not that it will do us any good if we get hit by something solid tho..."
She throws one over Thuds large back and drapes the other over Krish as he prays his heart out. Then, she goes back to leaning on Thud. As the high pitched whine of incoming aircraft fill the air she closes her eyes, content to have done everything she can. But as her hands touch the Medkit she has a flashback to Aubrey, and her hands start to methodically sort the medkit, like she did back then. Keeping her hands busy and her mind off the moment.
As the sound gets louder she loosens her jaw - standard procedure for explosions to keep our ears intact. As she told the squad many times before... no need to tell them... right?
Wait. Thud and Simmins are the only ones from her old squad. Simmins always has his head too full with riddling orks with bullets. Not to mention Thud... Frak. Sarge is comming now, too la... BOOM
It is dark. But there is pain. So much pain. But you know what? She always told her patients feeling pain ment they are still alive. She wasn't feeling so smug about that comment right now but it focused her thoughts in this world of hurt and darkness. For now it focused on 'survive'.
Leni struggles with whatever it is that is keeping her down. She can't get out... but her hand is free to push it. And it brushes against something else. Her trusty medkit is still with her!
As the moments pass each new breath gets harder and harder and her lungs start to hurt. Frak. Air pocket too small...
But didn't she just brush against the medkit? Yeah it is still there. And there's something in it that could help her. She'd breath a thanks to Aubrey for making her order the kit in those last moments. Except there's not breath for that right now. She slips out the small breathing bottle full off concentrated oxigen. Those are ment for carbon monoxide poisoning. But frakk it. Oxigen is oxigen.
Of course she can't reach her mouth to take a breath. But it's not like that oxigen can run from her in this air poket. so she breaks off the breathing aparatus with a bit of struggle, letting out the contents. She takes a deep breath. Feeling good. For now.
Now not immidiatly dying she starts to pat around what else her free hand can find around her.
"If you can hear me, microbeard or not, find something metallic and tap against the stone, in short rhythmic bursts.
Help us find you!"
That being said, hearing in itself is still a problem.
You can hear your own voices only very distorted and from seemingly far away. Over all sounds, there is that annoying ringing and beeping that is drowning out nearly any other sound.
Your other hand is pressed hard against your left side. Feeling around with that one, you could reach the hilt of the combat knife or a small, metallic, roughly cylindrical object... one of your grenades.
Your left hand is completely stuck, but the right still has something in an iron grasp.
It feels like the grip of something...
"Grokk it...still can't see properly, or...hear..."
Thud is rooting around in a pile of especially large rockets chunks (as he's the only one who can effectively move them). He lifts a particularly wide slab to peek underneath and notices something: a stubber's stock!
Sarge! Kishi! I got 'im! he bellows. He squats down and puts his shoulder under the multi-ton chunk of ceiling and grunts as he squats the thing up to a good angle for recovery. Simmons lays in between two large chunks of plasteel that barely managd to support the weight of the falling slab and missed crushing him by mere centimeters.
Hang on Sims! We comin'!
Simmins can't move, can't speak, he panics and pulls at whatever he has on his right hand. If it turns out to be a trigger he stops immediately. He might be in a horrific situation, but he did NOT want to be responsible for an Imperial death.
As your vision already starts to get blurry, you hear a very distant, muffled sound like someone shouting, followed by the incredibly welcoming sound of grinding stone and then the sight of Thud'drs face peeking under the rockrete block that buried you!
After you are helped out by the Ogryn, Krish and Cormaeg, you look down to your right hand.
It is clasped around the grip and stock of your trusty stubber.
Only the stock.
Simmins look like a ghost. He is covered in grey-white dust, his left hand hangs limb and in an odd angle, the right has the poor remains of his stubber gripped in an unyielding grip. The better part of the weapon must have been smashed to scrap by the massive block of once-ceiling.
Considering the places you found yourself in and now Simmins, allows you to make an educated guess as where the others should be.
"G...good to have you b...back Olways, no t...time to rest though.
Get searching, we're still missing three..."
Cormaeg takes a moment to rest against one of the larger blocks of stone, wheezing a little from his dry mouth and lungs full of dust.
Simmins nods, very reluctantly letting go of the now useless gun. As if on autopilot he follows orders. Casting about with his one good hand. No time for pain.
"The militiaman was already unconscious, so he won't panic, but he also won't conserve his air.
Tivnan is a steady sort, she'll hold out the longest.
Cort...better than the militiaman, not as good as Tivnan."
Grenade... only one left is the other smoke grenade. That's not what I want in here. I already know this pocket is airthight...
Leni briefly considers hitting the surrounding rocks with her hand, then the already present pain persuades her otherwise. Instead she pats aroud with her free hand, trying to reach her trapped hand as much as possible.
Thud starts poking about carefully in the area close by whe he found Sims. He really doesn't want to step on a friend.
Krish pats Simmins shoulder reassuringly, the ringing in his own ears and the weirdly muffled and distorted sounds letting him know that talking is probably not very useful. Turning back to the pile of rubble, Krish tries a methodical search.
Krish had never been the most observant person, and now he curses silently at his own inablility to find either of their three missing people. Simmins hand looks bad enough that Krish needs to find Leni.
Though he does not find anyone, Krish thinks that he can identify some pattern to the places where those who have been found (or extricated themselves) were buried. "Thudd, come lift these pieces. Sergeant, I think Cort might be over in that area."
Trying to move her 'free' hand doesn't get very far at all. Rather than free it is just trapped close to her head and medkit.
Shoot... Ah well, maybe?
Not having anything better to do Leni tries to rock the medkit back and forth. Nothing louder than a metal box with more metal bits clinking around inside it.
Not that the sonud will get far with her prison being air tight, even if it works. But it beats lying aroud waiting to die.
Thudd moves over to a jumble of fallen pipes and rockcrete. It looks like some kind of pipe system junction has fallen into a twisted mess. Thud carefully starts extracting pieces of that mess and tossing them away from where the others should be by Kish's guess. None of the bits require two hands, so he makes fairly rapid progress.
Another few seconds of Ogryn-excavation© later and ...
... you indeed do find Cort!
Simmins loader looks very much like his gunner, white as a ghost, bleeding from the mouth (bit on his tongue at some point) and is cursing pretty much anything, including but not limited to the navy, orks, artillery in general, orks, skyscrapers, orks and the navy again.
Then he vomits a dark-grey slime and shuts up in favor of breathing through his (dusty) uniform.
With enough time to analyze your environment you notice a slight rain of dust particles from 'up'.
So, your prison is not perfectly airtight.
It probably is not enough to prevent you from suffocating though...
"Stow the cursing soldier, you can vent your spleen AFTER we find the rest of our people!"
Normally, Cormaeg wasn't one to step in overmuch, but right now he had NO tolerance for wasting time, and he made sure Cort knew that with the most fierce glare he could muster, underscored by patting the most famous tool of the Comissariant...
Simmins stumbles over to where Krish is pointing and starts to move rubble.
Shoving another rock aside he sees a hand Found... 'nother. Praise th'golden.. throne
"Good work Olways, we're only missing one now..."
Following his own advice, Krish digs where a person should be. Warp-enhanced strength letting the psyker shift bits of rubble far larger than he should be able to do unaided. Some are big enough that Thudd might have needed to use a second hand.
Finally, just as Simmins announces finding one of their missing, Krish sees a twitching boot poking out of a pile of braced pieces of rockcrete. "Here is the other! We found them!"
During the short seconds of scolding the dusty trooper, you think to notice a movement further back - where once was the lower level, hushing through on of the many detritus-valleys.
You would not bet a tenth-month wage on it, considering your current condition...
In between frentic working you have only a few sideway glances to spare but it is enough to get a (very) rough picture of your (new) surrounding.
It seems that several floors above you did not took well to all the detonations and vibrations and came down in a landslide of rockrete, iron wiring, torn cables and furniture.
There are no more 'levels' but rather a single chaotic mess of heaped up rockrete and narrow valleys of rubble and flying dust particles.
The next to be found is the militiaman. He is a worse shape than any of you.
His leg is pierced and nailed to the ground by a ragged metal bar produding from a large junk of rockrete.
He is shakey and barely concious, his face sticky with sweat-dust.
Still pondering what to do, you feel rather than hear, that someone is starting to dig you out of the heap of rubble pressing you down.
A few more moments and finally you can start to move again and then you feel strong hands grab you around the hip and drag you out!
And then, all of you are out.
Everyone looks like a ghost due to all that grey-white dust clinging to you like a shell.
There are bruises, small open wounds sticky with blood-dust-grime, a broken bone or two and that pierced leg of the poor militia - but, everyone is still alive!
"Good, everyone in one piece, more or less..."
"Now, I doubt the vox survived, but we should check just in case, if it DID survive, it would help a lot, if not, fine.
Just another problem eh?"
Cormaeg checks both set of magnoculars, if either is in working condition he takes a sweep down towards the area where he MIGHT have seen some movement.
As soon as everyone is out Thudd starts smiling and doesn't stop. His heart leaps that all his Squad made it! He does feel bad for the not-squad guy though. Mommy-Leni? He gonna be ok?
Krish makes sure that Leni is intact, relief clear on his face, then starts prepping the militiaman and Simmins for treatment.
Leni starts coughing as her pretty breathable air suddenly consists of rubble and dust again. Still, she can move again and gets back up with a vigor. And regrets it a moment later when the pain sets out to spoil her good mood for being free.
"Ah haha.. gaaaah~ouch!"
Yeah, those sounds are not supposed to flow together like that. Not that Leni _wants_ them to do that anyway.
Looking at no one in particular she states:
"You know, it feels like the sister JUST got finished with my last patch of artificial skin. Probably going to b#*+~ at me for that bit..."
Then she starts really looking around, to see how the others fared
She tries to focus on the others but after looking, looking again, then looking once more notices she's _looking_ but doesn't _see_.
So she looks around for her canteen of water, eager for a splash, a sip and a bite of that terrible ration bar stuff someone in the monitorum calls food.
"I... I'll take a look in a moment, big guy. Just a second to get focused... Looking for water bottle."
"Thud, you remember where the vox was? The talky box? Go see if you can find it while..."mommy-Leni" works on the wounded one."
Even half blinded, Leni can figure out that the iron-bar through leg is by far the most urgent injury around.
From the repeated coughing and dry gagging of Cort, you may guess he has a bad lung but he is standing, so he probably won't die from it ... soon.
The nods is understanding and goes looking for the Talkie-box.
[ooc]Basically we're on top of a hill of rubble that was once a building?[/b]
How's... it.. look... Sarge... did we get 'em?
"Once everyone has been looked over, we're going to have to try and find a way out. We're sort of trapped now it would seem.
Without the vox, and we should probably expect it not to work even if found, we have no way of getting into contact with anyone.
We're on our own soldiers...nothing new there I admit."
Thud comes back from where the window used to be and reports, (per discord) It ain't there, sarge. Window went... he mimes, with sound effects, the entire side of the building sloughing off dropping several hundred meters and landing in a heap on the ground below.
The old sergeant, weary and battered takes a seat on one of the more comfortable pieces of rubble and groans.
"Everyone, take a moment, catch your breath, have some water...we're going to need to be as whole and able for what is to come."
Fishing around for his canteen, Cormeag follows his own advice, rinsing his mouth and spitting out a wad of phlegm that is more dust than anything else.
Giving up on the quick bite - for now - Leni takes a deep sigh and starts slouching over to the militia man.
She takes out the somewhat hydralic cutter and starts cutting a bit above his leg. It take a while but after she's done she does the same once more - bellow his leg. After she's done with that she disinfects it - and a large-ish area around it - and applies a very fluffy padding and bandage over it. She then turns him around into a stable side position and asks around.
"Anyone got water for this guy? A splash to the face and a few sips would be really good."
Can only use a pistol with one hand Sarge Simmins coughs as he gestrues to his right arm hanging uselessly from its socket. Someone else can carry the shotgun.