[Jean] Chapter 18: Hostilities

[pringerbeam]

     Jean's lips curled into a grin as the dwarf's blood sizzled and cooked off the spear's tip.  He inhaled a whiff of the smoke, invigorated by the bloodshed.  "Ah!  That wasn't too bad!  Looks clear, everyone come on in!"  He yelled as he stepped into the outpost, pulling up his status as he waited for everyone to get inside.

Checking Status to see HP

     Once everyone was inside he started to direct everyone into the elevator.  "Hmmm...  I guess we should probably make a battle plan.  Anja should stay in the back, Dalina can stick with her and support from range with her magic.  Charles...  I think you could stay back and defend our casters.  Karn...  I'm not sure where you would fit.  You seem to be pretty versatile with your skills.  would you rather stick in the backfield or get up close and personal?  Also...  It's going to get a bit cramped...  I'm not sure the dragons will have an easy time getting around in the confines of the city.  How good of a combatant are they in their human forms?"

[Throndir]

Mt. Velothia Peaks
Day 10 (Jean), Day 12 (Rosalie) - Time: Noon

You brought up the status page. Honing into the hitpoints section, you realized that the bullets you took, wasn't really all that bad.

HP: 231/236

Heading into the outpost, the dragons in your group, Alyona and Olga turned into their human forms. You hadn't seen Olga yet in her human form, but you immediately realized that she looked much older than Alyona. If you were to guess, she may even be older than Valeriya, Alyona's sister.

Alyona clutched on to the hem of your robe, while it was Olga who responded for both the dragons.

"We have magic... Though, Alyona here probably isn't as strong or powerful as mine. Dragons prefer to fight in our dragon forms after all... However, I will support Captain Ash and the rest of you from the back." The woman said.

"Oh to fight alongside a hero of legend! Stories will be told of this, I assure you." Captain Ash commented as he glanced around the outpost.

As for Karn, he only nodded. "Between the backline and the front is where I will be most useful." He stated. "An uprising to quell dwarves isn't something I've been involved in before, but I doubt we'll have any trouble if all it took was a few seconds to take down that mechanical contraption behind us."

Taking that as a cue, Lili spoke up, having crouched down near the mech that was destroyed earlier.

"We suspected th' clerics hud weapons lik' these, wasn't kent fur sure, bit this confirms it." Lili sighed as she picked herself up.

"Anyways... Where are we goin', Jean? Thare is a bunker in th' palace that th' king is likelie in. Bit Telamon is likelie at th' refineries in th' city itself. She did say a quarter o' th' city belongs tae th' priests, bit how much o' it belongs to th' city guard?" She asked rhetorically.

Everyone was able to fit inside the elevator, though it was indeed a tight fit. It was spacious enough when it was just you, Lili, Telamon, and Dalina. But with the addition of everyone else, it was a lot more cramped.

[pringerbeam]

     "Okay then, Alyona you should stay in back with Anja.  Use your magic and stay safe."  Said Jean as he turned and kneeled, coming down to Alyona's level.  "Anja, watch after her."  He said, raising his gaze back to his apprentice.  And you, watch after her.  He thought, using his link with Alyona. "I guess that leaves the frontline to me and my beautiful fiancee.  Probably appropriate given the circumstances." Jean stood and put an arm around Lili, tilting her head up with a gentle index finger curled under her chin.  "Time to go reclaim our kingdom."  He said before they crammed into the elevator.

     "Now...  where to go first..." Pondered Jean after Lili reported.  He pulled out Telamon's drone. "Telamon, we've arrived at the entrance to the city and are making our way down now.  What's your situation?  How are you holding out?  Do you have any word a far as how the loyalists are faring? And Lili, where would the priests stronghold be? They must have done seat of power that they are trying to run this rebellion from."
     

[Throndir]

Mt. Velothia Peaks
Day 10 (Jean), Day 12 (Rosalie) - Time: Noon

"You can count on me, Jean!"

Mhmm...! Alyona responded through the link.

Lili blushed when her eyes met yours. It was easy to tell that she wasn't quite comfortable with all the attention she was getting, but you did notice her step a bit closer to you when you tilted her head up.

"A-aye... oor kingdom..."










Telamon's voice soon popped in.

"Master, great, you're here. The drone's telemetry is telling me you have a lot of others with you... Which is good. I only have myself and a single- One second." Telamon's voice cut off, but came on again shortly after.

"Had to toast another dwarf." Telamon explained. "They're a persistent bunch, they were built to be hardy, and hundreds of generations after they still take to that... Anyways, we're going to need help. Surprisingly... but perhaps not that surprising, most of the armed forces of the dwarves are commanded by the priests.

I've been defending the refinery we've been setting up with the help of two dwarven lords and their clan but it's not enough. I need to seriously consider abandoning the refinery, they'll get heir hands on what I've built here so far, but we're losing too many, too quickly even with me here. But... I don't want to leave a large amount of our technology here.

As for Ren, she is with the king in their palace. I believe they're safe. Most of the royal guards are there, but they've been surrounded, so I'm not sure how long that will last. They've since retreated to a more fortified location in the palace, but we haven't been able to get any updates. All I know is that the enemy is still trying to make their way into the palace, which tells me they have yet to secure their objective. We can't count on them holding out forever though. They have an easier place to defend than where I am right now, but the enemy have been putting more people into flushing the king out.

Two dwarven lords have pledged their allegiance to you, master. Another two more are remaining neutral. The last dwarven lord have allied themselves with the priests. The most of them have congregated around the clocktower."

It was then that Lili interjected in.

"Aye, the clocktower. That's a pairt o' th' temple. If anythin', th' temple will have where they're commanding th' coup from."

"We need you at three places. The palace. The refinery. And the clocktower-" There was a pause as Telamon's voice grew in alarm. "They've brought their mechs to the Ramparts!"

[pringerbeam]

     Jean weighed his options for a second.  "Cutting the coup off at the head would be ideal but we can't risk the loss of The Ramparts...  We can't be everywhere at once and I don't want to split our forces...  Lili, they wouldn't kill the king if they breach the bunker would they?  But then there's Ren...  She won't go down without a fight and I doubt that even if they spare the king they would be as gentle with her...  We need some way of luring them away from the palace and the Ramparts.  Lili, is there any mass communication system that could be used in emergencies to talk to the whole city?"

[Throndir]

"Thay wilnae murdurr th' king. Th' rest o' th' Lords wid turn against thaim. Bit aye, A'm worried fur Ren." Lili confirmed. "Thare be a broadcast system near th' town square, 'twas used more often back in mah grandfather's time whin oor tunnels wur aye dangerous. It shuid still wirk."

[pringerbeam]

     "Then that is where we need to head.  Hopefully it's not too heavily guarded.  The sooner we can get control of it the better."  Said Jean.

[Throndir]

Mt. Velothia Peaks
Day 10 (Jean), Day 12 (Rosalie) - Time: Noon

When you finally reached the bottom of the elevator, it opened up to the next room beyond. The first thing you noticed were a couple of circular metallic devices, each one linked to each other by cable. All in all there were 8 of them altogether strung up in a row, with four on each side of the tunnel.

"Dinnae a'body move. Tremor charges. They'll explode 'n' cause a cave in if tis triggered." Lili said, pointing to the devices.

[pringerbeam]

     "You've got to be kidding me. They mined the entrance?"  Jean took a cursory glance at the charges at a distance.  "What sets them off?  Or more importantly how are we going to bypass them?"

Knowledge: Engineering (If applicable)

Rolled 1d20+14 : 12 + 14, total 26

[Throndir]

You can roll Knowledge (technology) to identify them.

Knowledge (engineering): 26
the 8 'tremor charges' that Lili pointed out were positioned in a way that covers a large section of the hallway. If what they did was a tremor, at least 20 ft. of the area in front of you would probably collapse. You noticed there were lights on them that seemed to shine itself in its immediate area, perhaps a 5 ft. radius, and long enough to cover most tunnel. The cable running through them were linked in some way as well, giving you the potential idea that if one went off, the rest probably will.

"Entrance ye cam in from. It wouldn't sprise me if thay mined th' rest, especially if th' isolationists wanted na connection tae th' surface world." She began to point towards each of the charges.

"Each o' they mines are triggered to explode if ye git within 5 ft o' thaim. Ye see how they're positioned on th' walls? Even if we were to fly near th' ceiling, they'd trigger."

Normal disable device checks will get over it, or any other creative ideas.

Karn frowned.

"Might I remind everyone, that my daughter, at this very moment, is accomplishing this same task with the hero Rosalie."

[pringerbeam]

     "Well unless they're really booking it I think we will have a decent lead to warn them..."  Replied Jean before Karn's speaking up reminded Jean of the circumstances of their first meeting.  "Hey wait, couldn't you just make a tunnel to go around the charges?"

[Throndir]

"That's precisely what I was hinting at. I have little to worry about Amie or her chosen hero." Karn replied as cold as ever, but he moved nearer the exit of the elevator. Before actually hopping out of the elevator car, he tapped on the inside wall of the elevator, then using his finger, seemed to inscribe a simple rune on to it. The glow of mana was visible to yours eyes, and soon enough the wall started to cave in. First the metallic wall, then the hard rock beneath that. Eventually a pathway formed, one that avoided the traps altogether, but seemed to connect back together farther on.

[pringerbeam]

     "Okay then, onward my princess."  Said Jean as the tunnel finished, leading the way at Lilli's direction towards the nearest broadcast site.

[Throndir]

Mt. Velothia Peaks
Day 10 (Jean), Day 12 (Rosalie) - Time: Noon

Surpassing the mines altogether, Lili lead the way, going back to the familiar train cart that you had used before. Lili gave everyone else a brief explanation of how everything was like, similar to the introductions you were first given when you first arrived here. The trains were surprisingly still in working order, though Lili mentioned that at junctions closer to the city, with the battle that was going on, there was potentially blockades for the trains, or even lines that were shutdown altogether.

As everyone shuffled into that next train, and Lili used some controls to make it move, the passengers were all but amazed at the level of technology that they were experiencing.

"Quad-tracked trains... Interesting design." Karn even let out a small compliment as he himself took a spot on the train examining the dwarven work.

Kherngolarr
Day 10 (Jean), Day 12 (Rosalie) - Time: Noon

Eventually, up ahead, one of the first junctions towards the city was visible. It was the same viewpoint you had seen the entire view of the city, where those dwarven work-mechs were being shipped off into further reaches of the underground network of caverns. However, instead of the regular bustle that you had once seen, the sounds of battle were heard from up ahead.

There was the unmistakable sound of gunfire, much like the machine-gun you had taken down earlier, along with the shouts of dwarves.

"Train incoming!" One of the dwarves called out when they noticed the sound of your train car making its way along the tracks. The dwarves up ahead were disciplined however, and even though they were being pressed from one side, they seemed to shift their attention quickly.

Up ahead you see 6 dwarves pointed guns at your group. Though one of them eventually called out.

"Hold yer fire, that's Princess Lili!" The dwarf who called out looked familiar, and it took you a moment to realize that it was one of the dwarves you had drunk with back in the hall.

Roll Knowledge (nobility) to see what you remember of him

[pringerbeam]

     Jean racked his brain as he tried to remember the dwarf. He dug through the booze marinated memories to gain some recollection.

Knowledge (Nobility) (untrained)

Rolled 1d20 : 3, total 3