Ame no Woto - In Character

[Polly]

Private Noel Milner

Health: 14/14 | Will: 21/21 | Fatigue: 11/15
On hand: Lee Enfield Mk III, 8 rounds
In pack: 5 x 10-round magazines, Flamethrower


Noel took a long, bored look of Corporal Tex. The impression that her newly acquired hat left on Noel was... well, it didn't really do much to improve the girl's already low opinion of her new corporal.

"It makes you look like a clown," she retorted, "Fitting, I'd say."

Not sparing Tex another glance she turned to seeking out any hand-grenades around the camp, then went down the mountain slope to retrieve the flamethrower which she had left behind before the battle.

[Five_X]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Mountain Plateau

Your loot pile is quickly assembled and glorious. The bandits or raiders or whatever they were didn't carry any sidearms on their persons besides hunting knives, but they all - save for the knight - had rifles. The one by the campfire had one just like yours; the man who was wearing the white hat you've now got on your head had a scoped Lee Enfield rifle, and you imagine that you could just take that scope off and screw it onto one of the squad rifles if you felt like it; finally, the poor sod the Sergeant shot dead to start all this was wielding a Carlian-style Springfield rifle-musket, a hefty thing with a matching punch. Not that it really did him any good in the end.

There's really not much besides that. Some rations and sleeping bags in the tents, flasks of water that you really don't want to drink from... nothing you couldn't get for cheap from your own military. You wouldn't be at all surprised if these people stole what they have here from the Carlians and your own comrades. Your thoughts drift, naturally, to that big fat piece of iron no one has touched yet, the old model field gun that you can tell without a doubt now is of Dover manufacturing. No way in hell did this rag-tag bunch make this themselves.

And then there's the question of how they got their hands on that strange saw-sword, and the armour.

In the fallen-down tent, though, you come across something potentially interesting: a square object, manmade out of a material you're not too familiar with; it reminds you of the syringes the Sergeant's carrying around with her. It looks... sort of like a radio? But it's small, and it fits in your hand, too light to be an explosive and it doesn't look like any trap you've ever seen. There are what look to be buttons on the side, and out of curiosity you press one to see what happens.

Out of nowhere, it starts making sound. A woman's voice. Just like a radio, as you thought, and you listen closely.

Mercy... hell of a name. Irony, isn't it? Don't ever go there again, nothing but heat and burnt rubble, as far as the eye can see. Glad we got out of there as soon as we could. Now back into the mountains again, bit of a problem with this goddamn armour. Worth it, though, if we get another load of these 'kettensaws' again. Good old Carlian engineering."

The sound stops, the recording ending with a click. You're sure someone a bit better with machines - or just more canny overall - could figure out exactly what this thing is and how it works, but for now you stuff it in your pocket. It's certainly something to report to the rest of the squad, but it doesn't seem like as big of a catch as the cannon.

[ILurkNoMoar]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Lee Enfield Mk. III: 7/10 rounds .303; 5x10 round Magazines .303
Health: 6/13 | Will: 33/33 | Fatigue: 17/17

Haley let out a long sigh of relief as the newly revealed armored woman collapsed to the ground, the stress from battle leaving as her body relaxed and the adrenaline started to fade away. Despite their wounds every member of the 33rd had survived another fight and would likely make a full recovery before long, a small blessing but better then sharing the fate of the brigands who now laid dead or dying atop this lonely mountain plateau. For a moment she wonder whether it would've been possible to avoid the fighting and talk peacefully, but the thought was quickly banished from her mind. Her girl's were still alive, and that's all that mattered for now.

As Haley looked out she could already see the rest of the 33rd going about post-battle clean up: recovering discarded equipment, bandaging wounds, and in Jane's case looting and slitting throats. Nasty business that last bit, but better safe now then sorry later.

In any case it seemed they had everything well enough in hand for Haley to leave then to their own devices, and there was still the matter of the final man by the campfire stubbornly holding on to what remained of his life. If nothing else trying to pry whatever he knew before passing on was worth a shot, a dead man tell no tales after all... and the dull throbbing from the bullet wound in her shoulder still needed attention, which would give Ford something to do if nothing else.

"Galatea, come with me, I'm going to need your help. And Ford, patch me up while I talk to the man over there."

So after a short detour to the plateau's ridge to retrieve her backpack and round up her privates, Haley walked over to the mortally wounded man.

It was a rather gruesome scene, the man desperately clutching his belly to try to keep from bleeding out while in what was likely excruciating agony. From what Haley could see the bullets ripped straight through his gut and probably punctured the stomach, which would've caused bile and stomach acid to spill deeper into the gut exasperating his injuries. It would no doubt kill him within the next quarter hour without medical attention, and that's if the pain wasn't making him wish he were already dead.

Either way that was something Haley could work with.

As she neared the fallen man Halley made sure to pick up his discarded rifle and handed it to Galatea who stood behind her, then sat down next to him slightly out of reach and removed the side of her uniform's shirt with the bullet wound for Ford's convenience. After letting her head come to a comfortable resting position braced against her open palm Haley spoke.

“Seems to me you're in a tough spot, Mister. See, I've seen people die in a lot of ways over the course of my life, and let me tell you being shot through the gut is probably among the worst ways to go, especially if the stomach gets hit. Stomach acid and bile rupture everywhere, and it's just nasty business all around, absolutely excruciating, as you're no doubt currently aware,” she said staring into his eyes.

After making sure she had his attention Haley continued.

“Now it just so happens that you are a very lucky man, see you know some things that I am very interested in learning and I have a piece of Old World technology that's just a prick away from saving your life,” Haley said while waving Galatea over to her side, “Now you might be familiar with my Private Galatea here, shot her straight through the lung not a few minutes ago and here she is standing before you hale and hearty as the day she was born. See? Not every a scar left behind!”

To demonstrate Haley pulled up the shirt of Galatea's uniform to show her now unmarred flesh, then dug one of the P-STIMs from her pack and held it before the man as her voice turned deadly serious.

“Now here's how this is going to work; you're going to tell me everything I want to know, and if I like what I hear I'll use this to save your life. We'll then bind you and send you off down the mountain to find your way after we leave, if you refuse... I will have Ford keep you bound to this earth for however long she's able, without any anesthetic, until you either change your mind or die.

It's your choice, so what will it be?”

[Five_X]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Mountain Plateau

When you first start speaking, the man looks at you as if just wanting for you to get it over with; you can see the utter doubt in his eyes, obscured somewhat by his abject suffering - your words about his condition certainly aren't off the mark, but he seems to take it as you rubbing it in his face. You're still bloody from the shot to your shoulder, a wound you won't forget. It was this very man who fired that bullet, and he doesn't seem at all sorry about what he did. It's only when Galatea comes near - Galatea, with her huge sword, still dripping wet with the blood of the man she brutally killed - that his eyes widen in what you know well to be fear.

So when you show him her wounds, or the lack thereof, and dangle the magic syringe in his face, he quite quickly changes his tune.

He spits out blood onto the ground, and his eyes turn vacant, completely resigned to whatever fate you have in store for him. He gives you a weak nod, and you take the look in his eyes as assent. He doesn't seem to know quite what you want to say, and you catch him looking at the emblem embroidered on your uniform's shoulder, the symbol of the Andover military. Perhaps he's familiar with it? You can't be sure of anything until you ask him specifically, and more than anything he's getting closer and closer to death, bleeding out from the well-aimed bullet you put in him. Whatever you want to ask him you ought to ask quickly, or skip over that and just give him the Old World serum that'll heal him up and get him in more proper condition to actually speak with you. For now, you'll have to get what you can out of him; if nothing else, he's your prisoner.

Any wrong moves, and you can be sure that Galatea will end him just like his friend in the white hat. Just to be safe, though, you keep any rifles or pistols or weapons of any sort well away from him.

You're on the clock now. Time to get to interrogating before he fades away and passes out for the last time.

[Five_X]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Mountain Plateau

Who are you people, and why were you here?

He takes in a wheezing breath, preparing himself to speak. He's really not in a very good condition right now. "We're... the fucking Red Devil Boys, eh? Gotta make the convoy from The City way up to Furnace... stop through Carlia along the way, maybe. Can't believe you Dovers' never even... heard of us. Hah." Closing his eyes for a moment - just long enough to make you start worrying - he coughs up blood, but otherwise he's still alive.

Do you know anything about what's inside the ruin, and if so what?

"Ruin? Ffffuck if I know," he says, shaking his head. "When we got here we found you - found Dovers, and found their great big gun. Nice... catch." He hitches his thumb towards the slope of the mountain towards the back of the camp, and you realize that there's a large sheet of cloth draped over the rocks. Then, you notice that there are two large bumps under the sheet, and your heart stops. For better or for worse, the bandit's answered the third question you wanted to ask, as well. It's hard to look away from the covered figures on the mountainside, the thought of what's underneath that cloth turning knots in your stomach when you look back to the man you have here at your mercy.

You start to ask your last question, but he just smiles a bloody smile at you, starting to laugh; that laugh soon turns into a fit of coughing, and his eyes go wide. He sits up quickly, gaining a last burst of strength as he realizes how fragile his own mortality is, death encroaching on him perhaps more quickly than he'd hoped. Staring at you, mouthing indecipherable words at you, he grabs your arms with what power he has left, trying to fight his way away from death. It's a fight you imagine, sooner or later, will become inevitably futile, but he's yet to realize that.

You wonder if he's already too far gone for even the Old World medicine to heal his failing body.

[Tobias]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Mountain Plateau

Tex was in good spirits, all thinks considered, as she took a cautious swig from another of the pillaged flasks. True, the spoils hadn't contained anything to amazing, about the only readily marketable goods were the guns themselves. And it was also a fact that this crew had been, to a man, skint broke. Tex had sworn like a sailor when she turned over the last body and had come up empty feeling around for a coin purse. But all and all, not a bad days take. Some of the gear looked promising, that musket looked like it might fetch a decent price, and whatever little sister said, Tex was sure she was cutting quite the dashing figure in her new hat.

Plus, even though she hadn't struck gold yet, Tex thought as she unstoppered another bottle of nasty water and tasted it before tossing it behind her, this was a bandit camp. Surely one of them had to be hiding something with a little kick!

"Oy!, Lil' lady!" Jessie called out, striding purposefully out from behind the collapsed tent towards Leigh.

"Got sum'at what seems more up yer alley then mine." Tex walked up, handing over the small recorder. "Know you got yer hands full 'n all, but ah dont know whats whats 'bout this sorta thin'."

And there was the other reason Tex was feeling optimistic. The old device looked like it might have been old world. Even trinkets from before the shit hit the fan tended to at least rank as a curiosity to the right sorta folk. Plus who knows? Might could be someone like Leigh could pull off worth hearing. Either way, it seemed a good find.

...But Tex's good mood turned out to be short lived. Because as Tex strolled over to Haley and the doc, she caught a sorrowful glance Haley was sending to a covered tarp across the way. Tex's eyes wouldnt miss the foot that stuck out from underneath one side.

"Ah hell..." Tex said, realizing the truth.

"Ah really thought they woulda been alive. Guess that hootenany fer bring'n home will end up being a glass in 'er honor." Tex smiled, a little bitterly. Even she knew it wasn't funny. "Doncha worry 'bout it Seargent Haley. Ah kin take care of it from here."

...It probably said something that for once Tex had used something close to military decorum.

When she went over...Tex had a complicated feeling in her heart. People died all the time. Hell, sometimes Tex enjoyed the hell outta ventilating a skull. But these folk...well, Tex didn't really like being in the army and all, but...it was her uniform the bodies cooling under the sheets had wore. If they had walked by each other on base, they would have saluted.

Well, picking up bodies to transport back was completely impractical, but the military had solved that problem ages ago. If you collect the dog tags, you had something to lay a feller or lady to rest. Something to give honors to and then provide closure for a sweety back home still holding onto hope. Tex pulled the tarp back with a single motion.

[Five_X]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Mountainside

Unfortunately, there is no beer, nor is there whiskey, nor even a drop of cider. You find no traces of any alcohol in the hip flasks belonging to these bandits, which is ultimately fairly responsible of them all things considered, even if it didn't save them in the end. There are reasons why the army has regulations on when and where you can drink - not that you in particular really care about those regulations. Up here in the frosty mountains, no one's going to court-martial you over drunkenness.

Sadness falls over you when you pull the cloth away and see the pale, pitiful bodies: two women, about as old as you and dressed just the same, too. One of them's blonde, reminds you a bit of yourself; Adaryn was her name, according to her dog tags, and it looks like she died here along with her comrade, named Sarah. Neither of them deserved this fate, and it strikes you then that this could be you. Had things gone just a little differently, it could be the lot of you tossed onto the mountainside just like these two scouts. You wonder what their struggle was, and if they managed to kill any of the bastards who did this before they went down. There's a little bit you can tell from looking at them: a bullet hole, just one in each of their foreheads, like an execution. There probably wasn't any struggle at all, and more likely than not they were taken by surprise one night and killed without a hint of remorse.

When you turn over one of their bodies, looking about for somewhere to bury them so that they're not out here exposed to the elements, when you feel something heavy. The two look small, just a bit bigger than Galatea - and then you realize that Adaryn was hiding something even in her last moments. Under her coat you find a tied-up satchel, and it's hefty, maybe fifteen pounds or more.

When you open the satchel up, you find what was so important for her to need to hide: a seventy-five millimetre shell, just the right size for the average Dover field gun. Your eyes turn to the cannon on the plateau, and you focus on where its barrel is trained: upwards and ahead, over the ridge in the mountains. Something else seems strange, too: there are never just two soldiers in a squad; most are four, five, six or seven strong, but never any less than four. These two women must have brought this gun along with their squad - and it must have been one hell of a journey rolling it through these winding mountain passes - and stationed it here, ready to fire, for some specific purpose.

Looking up the ridge, you take your time, measuring your footsteps as you climb up the side of the mountain. Thankfully it's not too steep at all, certainly not something you'd consider dangerous - if you'd consider anything dangerous, that is - and you're soon at the top, overlooking a small path curling up the side of another rise, beyond which is a concrete structure. Atop it is a strange metal dish, maybe about twenty feet wide and standing considerably taller than that, pointing upwards into the sunny sky, the daylight reflecting dully off of its aged, moss-encrusted surface.

The structure, whatever it is, is built into the side of the mountain, no doubt with plenty more to explore within. It's about one hundred and fifty feet distant, but you can see what looks like a steel door in its side, closed tight. Even with your sharp eyes, you can't see any other entrances, but assuming there's nothing lurking in the shadows around here, you should be able to clamber over there given time and reach the entrance of what you can assume is the Old World weather station you're looking for.

Whether you'll be able to actually get in, however, is another question entirely.

[ILurkNoMoar]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Lee Enfield Mk. III: 7/10 rounds .303; 5x10 round Magazines .303
Health: 6/13 | Will: 33/33 | Fatigue: 17/17

Whatever sympathy Haley once had for this man drained away with each word he spoke, revealing that not only was his group a collection of common bandit, but also responsible for the disappearance of the previous expedition squad sent to investigate this Old World weather station. It was a danger they had accepted when they enlisted, but the thought that these bastards had cut the lives of her countrymen short left a foul taste in Haley's mouth. There was still hope that the rest of the scouting group survived, for two bodies was far too low to account for an entire squad, especially one that had hauled a cannon up a mountain, but the two who lay dead under the sheet would never return to see whatever family and friends they once possessed. If nothing else Haley would ensure they received a proper burial and their next of kin were informed of their passing, hopefully it would be enough put their restless souls at ease.

But there was still the matter of the man who had a hand in killing them, now dying himself from a bullet to the gut.

By all accounts it was a pathetic sight as he weakly gripped onto Haley's arms, the man desperately clinging to her like some life preserver that would somehow ward way his inevitable death, but it would ultimately be in vain. As much as Haley might've liked to leave him suffering there were more important things to do then watch a bandit writhe in pain as penance for the suffering he'd inflicted on others.

"Your assistance is much obliged."

So without an ounce of fanfare Haley broke the dying man's grip upon her and quickly drew her knife before slitting his throat in a quick motion. She had never intended to use one of the P-STIMs to save his life, but perhaps she would've ended his suffering instantly by simply shot him through the head had he not confessed to murdering the scout squadron. Either way it no longer mattered as he fell to the ground clutching his open neck, his life's blood dying the ground a deep red as Haley stood up and began walking towards the bodies of the fallen Dover scouts to collect their identification tags and see if their bodies held anything else of note.

[Five_X]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Mountainside

Surprisingly - for what you know of her - the new corporal is already paying her respects to the dead, and you can see, clutched in her hand, the dust-washed dog tags glimmering faintly in the sun. More notably than that, though, is that she's cradling in her arms a large artillery shell. You've seen its kind before on base, even though you've never personally involved yourself with them. Big guns aren't quite your thing, are they?

From all you can tell, the two young women laying there on the mountainside were stripped of all their valuables: no rations, no rifles, or even spare rounds. You couldn't find any of that in the camp, either, so maybe they hid them somewhere to pick up later, or they have some accomplices working with them in their convoy. Hell, if you're particularly unlucky, maybe these thugs just tossed all of their weapons into the small lake at the foot of the mountain so that it's useless to everyone. They knew as well as you do that excess baggage is entirely inadvisable. With that in mind, it must have been a real challenge to get that field gun all the way up here through the winding and treacherous mountain paths; there's no doubt in your mind that the scouts were going to put it to good use, and you're going to make sure that their mission isn't in vain.

The Red Devil Boys... you'll remember that name.

[SeiKeo]

We didn't touch the bodies. There weren't enough of us - you don't know how long it takes to dig out a man's worth of dirt, and this wasn't even dirt. The ground up here was layers of slate and rock, chipped off the mountain over hundreds of winters. Nobody else would be up here - the bodies picked apart by the fall, bones ground down in the winter, bits of metal washed into the lake. I pulled a cloth over my face, warding off the smell.

Even with that, I wandered off to the lakeshore to work with the little radio, turning my back to the rest of the scene. Funny, how familiar it looked, like if a child had grown up being told about radios and drew out his mind's eye: the same but different, buttons set out strangely, screws unnaturally small, perfect fitting o the parts even under the scratches. "Don't ever go there again, nothing but heat and burnt rubble..." It was hard to coax anything more than the original message out of it up here; I stuffed it in a sock.

Of more importance to all of us was the gun. Recoil stabilized, recent production. It would have taken a donkey to get it up here with that trail, presighted even farther up. Defensive from the wrong direction, so, well, it wasn't my decision to call whether to walk towards the place they'd been scared of or not, even if it was dumb. It worked, so maybe that was the backup plan.

[Polly]

Private Noel Milner

Health: 14/14 | Will: 21/21 | Fatigue: 11/15
On hand: Lee Enfield Mk III, 8 rounds
In pack: 5 x 10-round magazines, Flamethrower


Noel wasn't sure what to make of the cannon.

She might not have had much experience in the military, but she was pretty sure that that gun wasn't supposed to be there under normal circumstances.
The valley behind them was still Andover territory, so if one wanted to deploy artillery around here, it'd make sense to dig the gun down in the flat terrain, from where it could spray any part of the mountainside with fire. Either that or find a good spot on the other side of the mountain range, from where it'd command a view over whatever lay beyond.

Putting it here, and pointing it to the cliff?
There was a possibility that the Andover troops had simply been ambushed before they could point the gun elsewhere, but she quickly crossed that one out. For starters it still made no sense to point the gun to Andover territory, and secondly, the cannon seemed to have been properly placed, set, and loaded.

Suspicious no matter how you look at it.

Noel inspected the weapon closely, tinkering with the loading and firing mechanism, trying to figure out how the gun worked. She had plenty of experience with sidearms, rifles, machine-guns, and explosives of all kinds, but she never fired a cannon.
It didn't seem too complicated though, and there were enough shells in the camp for them to try it out a few times and potentially learn from mistakes.

While she was pacing up and down by the gun, pondering over why those soldiers brought a piece of artillery all the way into these mountains, an idea struck her.

"Hey, Sarge..." she said, not turning to Haley but instead to the cliffside above them, "I think I might have an idea what our troops were doin' around with this gun."

She didn't have any proof other than gut feeling, but her instincts had rarely failed her before.

Turning around to face the rest of the squad, Noel couldn't suppress a small grin that had been forming on her lips.

"I think they needed it to blow a hole in that mountain."

[ILurkNoMoar]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Lee Enfield Mk. III: 7/10 rounds .303; 5x10 round Magazines .303
Health: 6/13 | Will: 33/33 | Fatigue: 17/17

Haley frowned at the lack of supplies from the deceased Andover scouts, it would've been small, but the profit from recovering military hardware was always a pleasant bonus at the end of a mission if an expedition ended with a less then impressive haul. It may be unfortunate for the people sent before the 33rd, as they would've needed to die to allow this, but the dead had no need for material possessions... In any case that only left opening the steel door that sealed the weather station from the outside world, and the field gun currently being examined by the rest of her command.

Not wishing to interrupt Mitchell and Milner's work Haley instead began to walk towards the station's steel door to discover whether it could be opened without blasting the damn thing off its hinges, assuming they could get the cannon in working order. As she was finishing Haley heard Milner call out to her...

"Hey, Sarge... I think I might have an idea what our troops were doin' around with this gun. I think they needed it to blow a hole in that mountain."

Giving a soft hmm Haley considered this in light of what she had found from examining the door, perhaps the scouts hadn't found a mechanism to unlock it and intended to blast it open by force? Regardless Haley still had to lead the 33rd into the weather station and recover whatever secrets were held within, as well as try to find the rest of the scout squadron who remained unaccounted for.

In light of this there was only one order to give, "I'm going to see if I can get the station's door opened, if I can't then we'll blow the damn thing in with the field gun. Have the others help you reposition it while I do so."

Orders giving Haley turned back to the closed door and started her own work.

[Tobias]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Mountainside

Tex was having trouble getting Adaryn's name out of her head as she went to have a mosey around. How had she managed to keep that shell hidden? And why had that been her last act? There was a couple of reason's Tex could think of, the easiest being she wanted a chance to thumb her nose at the folks what killed her...

But another answer lay in the fact that her and Sarah made two.

"That ain't half right, is it, lil' darlin..." Tex muttered to herself looking at the big steel door. Two girls of a platoon. There should have been at least four or five. So that raised the question...where were the rest?

"Yer gals are in there. Yeh was try'n teh protect 'em. Mah guess is yeh came to sabotage the cannon, got yerself caught, n' yeh found a way to keep that away from them folks what killed you. Without that mean ole' gun, they can't be gett'n in."

Tex stood at the overview thinking, the cool air causing her breath to mist out and drift away in front of her.

"Well, go ahead and get yerself some rest lil' lady. We dun did fer the folks es popped yeh. An' if any of yer gals is still breath'n in that there building, we will get em out, doncha werry about that. So leave it to big sister, ah'll take it from here."

When Tex got back to camp it looked like Noel was giving the once over to that huge Dover gun. Since that was the the case, she had some good news for once in the day.

"Lil sister! got summat fer yeh!" Tex said, trying to work up to her usual level of cheer. "That monster's just a big paperweight without a round inna chamber!"

Tex gave Noel the round. Honestly, she kinda wanted to stick around and watch noel get ready to fire it off, but the Sarge wanted to go check things out first. Tex honestly had hoped she wouldn't. if they got the door open some other way, then they wouldn't need to blow it up! Still, the sarge had already got her ass shot once for going off without a second pair of eyes.

"Gimme just a minute boss lady! Ill keep yeh company, just wanna do summat first."

After that, Tex walked over to the meager pile of gear they had collected. After a bit of thought, Tex slung the standard issue rifle she carried into the pile and drew out that massive musket. She replaced the ammo accordingly and sheathed the new gun. It didn't quite fit in the old holster, but the new weight was a bit reassuring. Another asshole in big armor showed up, sand Tex would definitely have something to say now!

"Don't forget gals, still a nice scope here, even iff'n nobody wants to lug the rest back home fer sell'n, we shouldn't let good gear like that go to waste."

After Tex was finished reshuffling her equipment, she and Haley set off to check out the door. On the way, she decided to tip off Haley about her guess over on the ridge.

"Hey Boss, might just be me hop'n, but them gals we found is to few fer a posse. Might could be the others found a way to hole up in 'ere. Might could be that was the reason the lil' darlin Adaryn was so keen on hiding that round she died a doin' it. Might just could be iff'n we can get that door open and we dont bring the roof down on 'ere heads, we might still be after doin a rescue after all."

[Five_X]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Mountainside

The door is almost completely featureless, a grey steel slate sunken into concrete, which is itself built into the granite of the mountain. There are no keyholes, no levers or other sorts of mechanisms; it reminds you of that big door down in the church catacombs you explored the month before, but at least that had a missing part to solve the puzzle. This has nothing, not even any hinges. You try pressing on the cold metal, shoving all your weight against it, but it resists as though it's not even a door at all. You look for windows, but there are none, nor are there even any opportunistic cracks in the concrete wall. Nature has partially retaken this old piece of human civilization, but only partially.

Thinking about it, you realize how this entryway makes sense: it isn't an entrance at all. It must be an exit, with this door here only opening from one side. It's certainly sealed up tightly enough to last for centuries on end, at least until the present day. Maybe this was meant as an emergency escape route, but then that raises another question: if this is the exit, where is the real entrance located?

Looking around the mountaintops, you can't make out anything that looks like another doorway. No wonder the scouts and then those bandits must have been trying to get in with the field gun; searching for the main entrance of the weather station - if it even exists anymore - would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

The cannon was already pointed towards this part of the weather station, and you'd imagine the rest of it is deep enough underground to not be damaged by the explosion of an artillery shell. The question still remains as to where the station's entrance is, but that may have to wait for later. At the moment, there appears to be no easy way of getting inside the station - it's either blow up this one-way door, or spend untold hours searching for one that actually works the way you want it to. You wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if that's what those poor scouts tried to do at first, but it didn't end well for them. You've gotten vengeance for their souls, for whatever that may be worth, and now it's clear as well that those bandits were going to make use of the same gun.

You suppose that, if two different groups of people came to the same conclusion, there's a good chance that it's the only way forward.

[ILurkNoMoar]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Lee Enfield Mk. III: 7/10 rounds .303; 5x10 round Magazines .303
Health: 6/13 | Will: 33/33 | Fatigue: 17/17

"Hey Boss, might just be me hop'n, but them gals we found is to few fer a posse. Might could be the others found a way to hole up in 'ere. Might could be that was the reason the lil' darlin Adaryn was so keen on hiding that round she died a doin' it. Might just could be iff'n we can get that door open and we dont bring the roof down on 'ere heads, we might still be after doin a rescue after all."

"I had similar thoughts myself, but we can know for sure until we get this door opened. Now let's clear the way so we can blow this door out of our way."

Once Haley and Jessie had moved into cover Haley gave to order that would aloow them to continue their mission.

"Fire!"

[Five_X]

33rd Infantry Expedition Squad
Mountain Camp

You all take cover on the plateau among the tents, with Private Milner working the field gun. She's not strictly familiar with cannons like these, but owing to her expertise in both explosives and regular firearms, when given the shell recovered from the scouts, she becomes almost a natural. No problems at all arise when she loads the gun, and after closing the breech and double-checking the firing angle with Sergeant Clarke, all is set to go. You hesitate for a few moments, vaguely unsure if this is the best course of action, and also somewhat suspicious at the fact that nothing has gone wrong with the cannon yet. You've become all too used to things going wrong just at the worst of times, and this hardly feels any different. As you wait for Private Milner to fire the gun, the atmosphere in the camp becomes tense, the only sound to be heard that of the rustling wind among through the mountain passes.

That relative silence is shattered at once by a boom like few you've ever heard. The cannon sways up from the recoil, and before you can recover from the shock you hear the explosion of the huge artillery shell; the sound reverberates through the mountains, hanging in the air, and in the aftermath you can hear the crumbling fall of blasted rock like rain from an empty sky.

A huge plume of dust and smoke rises up beyond the ridge ahead of you, and hesitantly you step over, watching your every move in case of a landslide. Even the smallest stone tumbling out of place seems suspicious to your eyes, and you glance around, looking for any signs of danger - not that you would know them, having lived in the land of hills and farms all your lives.

After a few minutes the dust cloud has dissipated, giving you a stunning view of what used to be an outbuilding of the weather station. Not long ago you had been right here, standing beside it, touching its thick walls and the steel of its impenetrable door, and now all of that has broken away before the might of Dover artillery. You can only imagine what kind of weapons the people of the Old World had access to; no doubt the cannons they were able to build must have been able to level cities, if this is the kind of destruction a modern field gun can wreak.

Station Outbuilding

The concrete has crumbled apart like a castle in the sand, leaving a battered-in hole that works perfectly as a door for your purposes. Seeing no immediate trouble, the mountains having settled calmly after the shock of the blast, you walk inside the fallen structure, stepping between piles of rubble to see what lays within.

You are greeted by the sight of half of what used to be a person.

Her, or his, lower half is buried in the scattered concrete, completely unrecoverable unless you had some dedicated equipment - unfortunately, you've got little more than combat trowels. Time has reduced them to little more than bone, their expression gone, their clothes little more than blackened, dusty rags. Their hands are clutched around an ancient book, its pages frail and eaten away but still partly intact. You wonder if the book is important at all, or if it simply happened to be what they were holding onto last when the end finally came. Thinking about how this person died is a far cry from a happy topic, and dampens the excited mood of exploration; you move on to other things in what remains of the room, and see very clearly a door on the opposite side of where you entered, slightly ajar and leading somewhere deeper into the weather station. No doubt you'll want to go through there at some point, but there are also some things of interest around here to hold your attention.

Against one of the still-standing walls is a desk half-covered in debris, and atop it is a strange, smashed assembly of glass, metal, and a copious amount of wires. It's an electronic of some sort, but you can't discern the purpose it once had from a glance. You're still getting used to dealing with Old World technology, but the more you encounter, the more familiar you'll become with the oddities of life in the distant past. Someday, you hope, the mysteries of those days will open themselves to you, but first you must explore and find what secrets you can.

The concrete has covered up much of what used to be in the room, so perhaps with a good deal of strength or effort you could clear it away and see what's underneath - as of now, you only see centuries of dust, but there's something in there with a metallic sheen to it, something which has either survived mostly intact after so many years, or is perhaps a recent addition.

You've barely scratched the surface of this Old World ruin, but nonetheless its many questions are piling up, with no answers yet to be found.

[Tobias]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Mountain Camp

Do it...do it...do it! Jessie inwardly exulted as she plugged her ears. Little sister was getting ready to fire the giant gun, and Tex was in a state of mind that approached religious ecstasy. She had been wanting to fire that mammoth gun since they had reached the mountain camp. Before, really. When she had first laid eyes on it, even before she had warned the boss, her first thought had been "I want one!"

Even if they couldn't keep it, getting to shoot it off was the next best thing.

It was everything she could have hoped for. The impact rocked the entire artillery gun back, as the shell spun through the air. The sound itself was indescribable, the wave hit Tex like a physical mass. She pitied the little doc, whom Jane vaguely remembered as having sensitive ears. And that was just the bullet being fired, when the heavy artillery round impacted against the mountain Jess caught a moment of a tortured, high pitched shriek. It was the sound of metal tearing, right before a wave of dust and grit slammed into her and literally knocking her on her ass right through the cover of the ridge.

Tex coughed out a mouthful of soot, an entirely out of place grin on her face and in her bright eyes as she looked at the rest of the shell shocked crew.

"Holy MOLY little sister, you know how teh make an entrance! Remind me not teh get on yer bad side, ill be pick'n dirt outta my nethers fer a week!" Tex laughed again, making an ineffectual effort to wipe some grit out of her ears using gloves covered with grit.

First chance tex got, she was going to need to give her wolf fur gloves a good cleaning, she noted idly.

"Whelp, aint no use a lolly gagg'n around now dearies, come on. Adaryn's posse might just be a wonder'n what just interrupted tea time."

When they got ready to go, Tex was surprised to see the little scope hadn't been claimed.

"Shit y'all...hell, I'll hang onto it I guess. if anyone wants it, just ask big sister! No use leaving good gear behind. A piece of good glass like this is worth 3 bottles of good whiskey or 8 bottles of bad hooch."

It went without saying that between the two, Tex would go for the hooch, of course. Tex placed the scope in an empty slot in her bag, right where the little silencer she had given to the boss had been.

"don't forget that big mess of a sword neither. But that sonuvagun is way to heavy fer lil' ole me!"

The path down to the weather station had changed drastically since Jessie and the boss had last been there. Tex kept a whether eye on the cliff side, looking for signs of a collapse, but if she wasn't naturally sure footed, she might have ended up on her ass a few times. Even then, it was a sure thing when a clod of loose dirt spun under her foot, prompting her to spread out both arms to catch her balance.

As they approached the weather station, Tex gazed with admiration at the lingering signs of the overwhelming blast. That ridiculously solid door was completely unrecognizable now. What had once been impenetrable steel was now just so much broken scrap now.

Awesome!

If there was a con side, it was that the wreckage didn't tell her much. Normally Tex's eyes were good enough that she could tell just about everything she needed to know about a building and its occupants at just a glance, but between the unfamiliar old world tech and the force of the artillary, Jessie felt a little blind. This room could have been anything or held anyone. There was really no way to tell if Adaryn's crew had been there neither, unless someone tripped over a body.

In a different life, she might have been first at the debris. There was something cool that had been buried that Jessie was really curious about, but her arms were better suited for waving around a shooting iron, not lifting.

Leave that kinda stuff to the little gal wuts had her eye on the sword, Tex reckoned.

Instead, Tex made her way over to the skeleton. She was pretty sure it was an old world corpse, or a scavenger who had been at old world gear. The book in its hands was a welcome sign, meant nobody had turned it over looking for gear. Bodies were one of tex's favorite places for a quick score back before she entered the army, and things weren't no different now. She was just about took ease the book out of its hands when the skitter of rocks alerted Jessie to motion. Without even thinking, she unholstered her shooting iron and drew a quick bead on...

A pair of red eyes, staring straight back at her.

A pair of tiny red eyes, to be precise. A garden variety cave rat was already picking through the rubble, glaring back at Tex with a scarred ear raised. The two locked eyes for a moment.

Then Tex rather sheepishly shoved her gun back in its place, leaving it streaked with dust still caked onto her gloves.

"Sheesh, lil' critter, yeh startled me. don't look to proud though. been a bit since Ah had any real meat. Rat stew ain't sound'n so bad right about now."

Completely unconcerned with the idle threat, the little critter took a few steps through the rubble before scurrying down a heretofore unseen hole.

Tex shook her head, amused at herself, and went back to the process of turning over the corpse.

[Five_X]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Station Outbuilding - Ruins

The skeletal figure gives way almost as soon as you put your hands on it, its bones not snapping but instead breaking up like so much sand where you touch them. Anything of note on them, to give them an identity or a purpose in these ruins, has long since faded away into almost nothingness. What has lasted until the present day amounts to just that book in its ashen hands, and gingerly you pull it free, leaving it laying on the dusty concrete floor.

Worried that the book might be as fragile as the bones that held it, you practise exceptional caution, pinching the hard cover between your thumb and index finger, turning it over bit by bit until you're finally comfortable with letting it down, the first page visible to you. There's barely anything on it at all, just some stained, dried ink, washed away, the paper long past yellowing, having gone a slate grey from age. You can make out some things with your keen eyes: numbers, letters, some lines you think might just be part of Morse code - if these ancients, with their advanced technology, still used such a system. You gently leaf through further pages, and to your fortune, the deeper you get into the book, the more is preserved, until just shy of the middle you manage to find a single, complete page. There are no words on it, not in your language, but from what you can tell what's written is some kind of code, making no sense to you at all.

T316###PTRYES
F578>>&NLGAOF
A114<<=OILVEATCY
R715""%NEACLEOCRD
U550^^*UEFOTUERN
A998//?EASTMAR
S318;}~SILVAE
J192{+@OAWEJPN

Underneath that is not more writing, but a picture of a stylized bolt of lightning, set in front of the silhouette of a solitary mountain. It's a symbol of some kind; you keep it in mind, in case you might come across it elsewhere in the weather station, once you get deeper inside. Unfortunately, the book doesn't seem to have any more legible information than what you're given in that code. It's all very unfamiliar, but it may just be important, even though you can't tell their use yet. There's still a bit more left in this room to examine, and if you're in luck, some of that might help lead you to some answers.

You have another thought: if there's a rat in here, somehow it must be able to find some kind of food, right? Which implies a way in and out, or something left behind from the Old World more substantial than encroaching moss and the odd insect.

[ILurkNoMoar]

Sergeant Haley Clarke
Health: 6/13 | Will: 33/33 | Fatigue: 17/17
Station Outbuilding - Ruins

Haley raised an arm to use the sleeve of her uniform as a crude filter against the veil of centuries old concrete and residual dust that hung suspended in the air by the prior explosion, acting as a powdery haze that reflected incoming light this ruin's interior likely hadn't seen for some time. Needless to say the room the 33rd had blasted their way into was a right mess, with Haley having to watch her steps carefully in order to avoid tripping over the clumps of debris, but luckily it seemed like many other Old World structures this weather station was built to last as it remained mostly intact despite the best efforts of Dover artillery. That wasn't to say whatever of interest once within this room were as well off though.

Off to one side was a mummified corpse half buried in rubble, the only thing of immediate value on its person a decrepit book that looked fragile enough to crumble away at the slightest provocation; while along the opposite wall was a relatively intact table with some broken of broken Old World tech atop it, its purpose likely a mystery to all but the more technically inclined until closer examination was possible. Which only left some kind of metal object buried under a pile of debris waiting to be uncovered with a small application of manual labor.

"Mitchell, take a look at whatever is on that table and see if it's worth salvaging, the rest of you are going to help me recover something buried under this rubble in the mean time. And Jane, you find anything useful inside that book you took off the corpse?"

[Tobias]

Corporal Jessie Jane
Station Outbuilding - Ruins


"Its all Greek to me boss." Tex said, her face twisted into a puzzled grimace. Almost unconsciously she pulled her six iron out and spun it a few times on her index finger, reversing or increasing the rotation with her other hand.

...Considering the hair trigger and Tex's near constant withdrawal shakes, this was a risky proposition, but it seemed to help her think.

After a moment, Tex summarized what little she found, adding "Well missus, wut Ah got for you is this feller weren't no army boy. No tags, no metal, no iron, shooting er otherwise. Cain't figure wut he saw in this book neither." Tex scratched out an ear, doing little more then driving dried dust further inside of it. "Might be some codes er somethin. Each time we get a letter with three numbers. And lookie here, this here lightning looks like a mining symbol I seen once. Might could be iff'n we find this here symbol or like, Ah dunno, a locker with one of these here sets ah codes..."

Tex shrugged.

"Ah dunno boss, Ah am here to shoot folks es wants yeh dead. This thinking shit is fer the birds!"