|||| INIT ||||
Belmarniss
Marisol
Sammad
Blue Collective
Red Collective
Purple Collective
Flint
Ordyt
Bold are up
In the moments that the confusion buys her, Mari slides open the other door off the tram and throws herself against the wall immediately opposite, pulling her hunting rifle off her back in the process.
Bel follows after Marisol, getting out a weapon and preparing herself .
----
Meanwhile the Collective guard that ran towards the linecrawler squawks in surprise when he spots Bel and Marisol. "Th-there's two more of 'em over here! Hiding to the side! Quick, someone, contact Horizon House!"
|||| INIT ||||
Flint
Ordyt
Belmarniss
Marisol
Sammad (6 dmg)
Blue Collective
Red Collective
Purple Collective
Bold are up
Flint strides out of the linecrawler next to Mari and moves to flank the Sunrise Collective member who moved up. His eyes glinting with holy fire, Flint swings in a flat arc at the enemy, hoping to take him down quickly (move and attack, photon attunement 1).
"Yup, captured. That's me." Ordyt hefts his frosthammer and darts out of the linecrawler towards the other Collective guards, arms cocked back for a powerful swing.
Mari blinks once at the Collective guard, marks him for her exocortex, then snaps her rifle up into a firing position and lets one fly.
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Sammad yelps with pain as he's hit, but manages to fall back away from the rapidly advancing soldier, drawing his pistol in the process. Gritting his teeth, he calls to Flint and Marisol, pointing to the nearest grunt as he does, "They-they f!%+ing shot me! Take them out, quickly!"
--
Flint's dueling sword strikes the blue guard's temple with great force, almost knocking him out immediately. Marisol follows with a rifle shot that grazes the guard, a wound that doesn't quite manage to finish him off.
Ordyt's swing knocks the purple guard soundly on the arm and he lets out a cry of pain. A gasp of "There's so many of them!" escapes him. Bel's guard barely dodges away from her swing, but it's clear he's sweating already.
The blue guard takes a guarded step away from Flint and turns to run for his allies... only to almost run into Ordyt. He skids to a stop before he accidentally exposes a side to the oread's hammer. He rapidly looks from side to side as he hopes for a clear way out.
The red guard attempts to tumble away from Belmarniss, but almost trips on the steps as he does so . Once at the top of the steps, he spins around and fires a shot that catches the technomancer in her thigh.
The purple guard backs off, trying to make sure he has a way out to the east. He fires a single shot at Ordyt that deflects off the oread's armor.
|||| INIT ||||
Flint
Ordyt
Belmarniss (8 dmg)
Marisol
Sammad (6 dmg)
Blue Collective (12 dmg, get em)
Red Collective (provoked from Bel)
Purple Collective (4 dmg)
Bold are up
Flint nods at Sammad and moves to engage the blue collective thug, leaving a clear shot for Marisol to take as well. He swings again at the thug, this time in a misleading thrust as his eyes glow ever brighter...
Advancing in grim silence on the guard he struck before, Ordyt reverses his grip on the frosthammer and slams the head into the lashunta's knee.
Sammad draws a bead on the Collective grunt, murmuring under his breath as he does. "Fascist scum...your end will come with ice..."
Having lost sight of the goon around the corner, Mari switches her attention to the one she just saw shooting Bel. Unfortunately, there's too much interference and the round never comes anywhere near her target.
Belmarniss and Marisol have a lot less luck against the final red Collective grunt. Bel's swings are a little sluggish, while Marisol's rifle misfires and she sends a slug through the ceiling tiles.
Red backs away once more, fumbling with his armor to try to call for backup with his suit comms. As he rounds the corner to the north, you hear him loudly whispering "T-Terrorists at the station. Clearlight side. H-help!"
|||| INIT ||||
Flint
Ordyt
Belmarniss (8 dmg)
Marisol
Sammad (6 dmg)
Red Collective (provoked from Bel)
Bold are up
As the guard next to him goes down Ordyt surges into sudden motion, tearing up the hall and rebounding off the wall as he tries to corner too quickly. Scrambling in from of the Collective guard, he brandishes his hammer.
"Surrender and be spared. I swear it in Sarenrae's name."
Flint races to join Ordyt, skidding to a halt right next to him and saying, "Asanatown for all, including Lashunta." He does have his blade at the ready, though (still set to stun, as normal).
Over their squad comms, he adds, "Mari, is there a way you can lock down the linecrawler so it blocks Collective reinforcements from Asanatown?"
"You bet!" comes the reply. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, Mari runs back into the tram and straight to the controls. Working quickly, she does her best to prevent it from being summoned to the other bubble or, failing that, tries to disable it entirely.
The remaining Collective member is rapidly surrounded by the group, taking a pair of slicing blows from Belmarniss in the process. His call for backup seems to go unanswered, and very rapidly you see panic enter his eyes. He looks for a way out, finding no good one, and tries running anyway.
Taking a solid blow, the final Collective guard falls. You're left with one dead and two KO'd guards, and not a whole lot of time to decide what to do next.
Out of Combat
Marisol quickly jumps to hack into the linecrawler to prevent it from returning to the Asanatown bubble, but she finds the system is well protected against intrusion - likely to prevent potential hijackers from endangering travelers by stranding them outside the bubbles. It might be possible to put the linecrawler in "maintenance mode" with an easier hack, but anyone with proper authorization to control the linecrawler system would be able to reverse such a change without hacking.
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Hearing Mari's description of the linecrawler security, Flint suggests, "Best not to chance it. Maybe just throw something on the rails and see if its collision avoidance logic keeps it from rolling if it is recalled later?"
Turning to Ordyt, Flint says, "Let's restrain these thugs, take their weapons and comm equipment--maybe we can leave it on and passively listen in on our enemy's plans." To Sammd and Belmaris, he asks, "Is there anything else significant here at the station, or should we move on, perhaps up those stairs to the northeast?"
"Good thinking, Captain." Ordyt grabs a pair of chairs and tosses them onto the rail tracks, one in front of the linecrawler and one behind.
"I volunteer to take point, sir," the oread says as he returns to the group. Hefting his hammer, he waits for a nod of readiness from the others before advancing on the northeastern stairwell.
Flint allows himself a small smile and nods briskly at Ordyt, ready to follow.
Ordyt tosses a chair onto the track behind the linecrawler, and you hear a low repeating alarm resonate through the Station as the systems detect an obstacle.
On each of the Collective guards, you find a hunting rifle and a longsword, as well as a single frag grenade I. You're easily able to restrain the living ones. While most of them have only integrated comms in their armor, you find that one of them has a hand-held comms device, which you're able to lift off him. As you do, you hear >>"Linecrawler's saying Out of Service! What in the hells is going on over there!?"<< and >>"Converging on the Station right now!"<<
You gather together and head up the stairs to the northeast. The stairs stairs run up a floor and emerge from a platform entrance into Clearlight's streets. With the coast still clear, you dash into a nearby alleyway. Less than a minute afterward, you hear your stolen comm crackle to life with >>"Harissi, do you read us? We're heading down toward you now! Can you give us status?"<<
Flint allows himself a smile and says, “”With much of their force over in Asanatown and these new guys headed to the station, the Horizon House will hopefully be lightly defended. Let’s go, but stay under cover and off the main streets—we don’t want to run into their reinforcements.”
”Oh, and turn down the volume on the handheld—we don’t want it to give us away...” he adds.
Mari nods in approval at Ordyt's low-tech but effective solution. "Follow me!" she says, with entirely too much confidence.
Indeed, you have little trouble following Marisol through the streets as she stays in view and makes a significant amount of noise. Thankfully, it seems your disturbance at the Station has the attention of the Collective for now, and you're able to heard toward the Horizon House.
As you travel, you heard a few more bits of communication across the captured comms, before >>"Altin's comm isn't here, the terrorists probably took it!"<<. A few moments after that, a mellifluous voice you recognize to be Zeylan Trinipol speaks >>"I know you can hear this, terrorists. We will not have you ruining our great achievements. Asanatown is for us. Always has been. Always will be. Your speech means nothing. The fools you got to show themselves are in our custody. If you have any sense at all, you will come in front of Horizon House and surrender yourselves. And despite the way you've killed and maimed the Collective's members, WE will treat you with dignity and respect."<<
>>"Think about it."<<
After a minute of silence, you hear a different voice say >>"All switch to backup channels."<< before suddenly there is no more chatter.
-----
It takes a few minutes to wind your way carefully between buildings until you come to the edge of a massive park, with soft green grass and tall native Castrovelian trees. Off in the distance, in the center of the park, stands the Horizon House. There's enough shrubbery around the park for a stealthy group to approach without drawing attention, but it would be tricky.
From a distance, all you can see is the House's large front doors, currently open. You don't spot any Collective members.
”Well, we know he is exaggerating about the killing of Collective members—he had more of his own people killed just to make us look bad than we have killed, and we have done a good job of keeping that to a minimum. Of course, the surrender offer has to be a trap. I wonder what other lies and half truths are in that statement,” he concludes.
...Once they arrive at the Horizon House...
”Does anyone have any good ideas about sneaking in to the building?” asks Flint.
Thinking a moment more, Flint adds, ”We should move quickly before their team returns from the Clearlight Station.”. Checking his equipment, he says, ”If you are thinking a second floor intrusion, I still have this grappler from the Breath of Embers.”
Even from a distance, you can see that Horizon House is a stately, sprawling single story structure. Its walls are built from massive white blocks of stone and its entrance is flanked by tall ridged columns. You're not close enough to see what other entrances it might have beyond the front door.
Flint's impression of Trinipol is that he's being perfectly honest.
"He wouldn't be the first idealistic leader to be left in the dark about what his lieutenants are up to in his name..." Ordyt muses aloud about Trinipol's message as he sizes up the Horizon House.
"Well, at least we can all agree the whole thing is definitely a trap," Mari says, scanning the park for potential threats. "Should we look for another entrance? That can't be the only way in."
”I’ll trust you on the ground assault, Ordyt—it is certainly not my skill set,” says Flint humbly. Turning to Mari, he adds, ”And we’ll need you, Mari, to keep an eye out for the electronic countermeasures. Do you think they can track this handheld comm?”
Looking around, Flint asks, ”Belmarniss, Sammad, you two have been quiet. How do you think we should approach? Any ideas on perhaps a distraction at the front door? Should we go straight for the commander or try and free the scientists first?”
Mari thinks for a moment before she responds with a nod. "Don't know for sure, but it's a reasonable assumption. How precise that tracking is, though, depends on their budget. Doubt they'd really need to track it to guess where we're headed, though."
Sammad pauses to consider, then looks at Flint. "We should go for Trinipol first. If we free the scientists, we have no idea what condition they'll be in...they could slow us down, at a time when we can't afford that.
Once we have Trinipol in custody, we'll have all the time we need to free the scientists and restore proper law & order to this place. But for now, we should be swift and efficient, where possible."
"Sammad is right," Ordyt hunches down, grinding his teeth as he stares at the Horizon House. "Goddess, I hate ops in standard grav. Going through the front door seems like a good way to get killed. We should try to flank around--a side entrance or even the roof would be preferable"
Flint hands over the grappler (with its coil of titanium cable) to Ordyt and nods...then suddenly startles and a slow smile starts to spread on his face. "Mari," he asks, "Do you think you could rig this handheld comm to believably glitch and transmit on its previous channel? I am thinking Sammad and I could have an argument about accepting Trinipol's offer of surrender and our plans to walk straight into their trap."
Turning to Sammad, he adds, "Do you think it a worthy diversion?"
"Potentially, though I think we could probably just have you two act it out yourselves, no technosorcery required. Also assumes they're still listening on the old frequency," Mari says, giving a noncommittal shrug.
[dice=Computers]1d20+13
[dice=Engineering]1d20+9"Potentially, though I think we could probably just have you two act it out yourselves, no technosorcery required. Also assumes they're still listening on the old frequency," Mari says, giving a noncommittal shrug.
Sitting at the edge of the park for a moment, Marisol takes her tools and starts messing with the comms device, peeling its face plate off and fiddling with the internals. With some finesse, she manages to induce just enough faults that the comms device functions only barely. Sammad and Flint take the comm and start talking about accepting the offer of surrender. Their speech is convincing - full of earnest seeming emotion. However, you don't hear any acknowledgement or response from the Collective end of things.
Ordyt leads the party through the park on a circuitous route. You trudge through low bushes and dash from tree to tree, but you know that this approach is not particularly stealthy given your party's skills. Hopefully the distraction will prove enough to cover your approach. After about five movements on an arcing route through the park, you get close enough to the House that you can observe all the potential entry points.
A broad set of marble steps rise up from the gravel path into the front entryway of the Horizon House. The columned portico inside has a number of internal doors, and no obvious guards in sight. The east wing of the house sports a service entrance facing eastward. The west wing is shaped oddly to accommodate a massive outdoor orrery that stands amid a circle of low benches to the south west of the House. Tall windows look out to the orrery area, but other than those, the House has no other windows to speak of. The room inside the windows appears to be darker than the outside and you can't get a clear look inside beyond the outlines of some furniture.
The building is tall despite being only a single floor, with 15ft high ceilings. In about the center of the building, a tall stately white dome rises to a height of 30ft.
"So...service entrance? We rush in, move quickly, capture the local jackboot enthusiast, and we're home in time for dinner."
”The service door seems promising, but don’t forget the saving of the scientists,” replies Flint to Mari. Turning to Ordyt, he asks, ”What’s your call?”
"You're right, Cap. Sorry, just got overexcited about the idea of being done with this madness," Mari says, chastened.
"All we've got are small arms, Captain. Through the side door seems to be the only remotely decent game in town," Ordyt pats their hammer for emphasis. "Luckily they don't seem to be packing much ordnance either. Move fast, cover each other, hit them hard. And check that door for any nasty surprises!"
As you approach from the east, you see that the side door appears to be more of an emergency exit. A key card scanner rests in a depression in the wall next to it, presumably to allow the door to be unlocked in other circumstances.
Other than the rustling of leaves in the trees, induced by an artificial breeze that runs through the bubble, you hear no sounds except those your allies are making. It's quiet. No sign of the Collective presence.