Promethean Farm Raiders Incomplete - RPLOG
Participants
Date
29/3/2013
Log
A worrying distress call makes its way to the likes of Zephyr, any available Promethean, and that of RSX. After checking the message over, both Zephyr and RSX filter through their list of agents and determine who is best fit for a job of this magnitude. With a loud and static pop, a request is sent in to the chosen few over their communication devices. "Agents, it would seem that our Promethean "friends" are in a bit of trouble," booms a commanding voice. "Their farms have been the victim of raids from various and unknown mutants. We can't let such a wonderful source of food fall to acts of thievery. You have been chosen based on your credentials and will meet up with other comrades at the designated area. Expect resistance and good luck." Afterwards, the coordinates from the distress call are uploaded. They seem to be quite far away from the farm.
In the middle of running errands in Fairhaven, Rihko stops to listen to the message. The kitsune mulls it over for a few moments, then turns and sets off towards the farms. Although she's traveling on foot, she's been walking and running and patrolling for years now and makes good time, carefully approaching the location with her ears perked and eyes alert.
Deerchild arrives in a small weather-beaten Volkswagen mini-van, pausing somewhat outside of the drop off point. Engine running roughly as the side door opens and the hydra piles out in a mess of coils, before a furred arm hands them their pack. "Got it--" hisses one of their heads. "We'll pick you up some chicken." "If we find any." "Thanks for the ride!" The van sputters back into gear and does a circle in the middle of the crossroads before departing in a cloud of blue smoke.
Arlan continues to be alarmed about how an engineer keeps pulling soldier/thug duty assignments at Zephyr, but reports in as ordered with his weapons ready and his form disgustingly (but battle-effectively) mutated. He follows the map directions and flies to about a half-kilometre away from the map location in the shape of a crested wyvern, then changes to his battle from and advances to the location on foot using available cover, checking his angles for signs of friendly or hostile contact.
As the group nears the supposed distress call coordinates, they all converge on on a west/east running road surrounded by various buildings. Much further to the east is the supposed farm, yet the coordinates definitely match up to this location. It doesn't take a keen ear however, to hear the viscous sobbing of a sad and confused mutant sitting up against a brick wall. "Why? Why?! Who would do this?" the poor and naked blue gryphon female chants in between sobs.
Rihko watches the sobbing gryphon, ears twitching, and then sniffs at the air. She glances around and, knowing it is a trap, steps onto the road and begins moving towards the woman. As she gets closer, her expression becomes concerned, and her tone is quiet and gentle as she calls out. "Hello? Ma'am? What happened?"
Deerchild orients themselves and makes their way down the road towards the farm, the serpent's colors a little bluer than the scenery. "Hello, agents," they say in greeting as they approach the others. Deciding to approach the gryphon as well, Deerchild's tongues flick the air, sometimes a person's flavor tells you more about their feelings than one's eyes can. "Hello--" they call out, "--are you the one who sent the distress call?"
Arlan searches for good cover locations and then picks his third-choice spot for a sniper nest to climb to, planning to cover Rihko, whom he thinks he recognizes, as she investigates the unconfirmed contact. He meanwhile contines scanning for the expected ambush, covering the agents with his tesla cannon.
The blue gryphon continued to sob almost uncontrollobly. She eventually rolled over onto her side and unleashed her various accusing cries against the world. At first, she wasn't aware of the agents approaching on her location due to being stuck in her own little world at the moment. The grypon attempts to pull herself together and at first spots a kitsune coming right for her. "G-get away from me!" She yells while scooting backwards and starting to cry again. A genuine look of fear crossed her visage with each step the kitsune took. As Deer approached the grypon and tasted the air, shi would note a sweet taste that's been somewhat dulled. Perhaps an indication of a good personality. The gryphon for some reason didn't feel as scared with the hydra. "Y-yes, I sent the distress call..." She looks down in a shameful way and continues. "My name's Linda. I'm a regular worker over at the farm that's currently being raided. I was the only one who got away..."
Rihko lets one of her ears flick, but stays back from the woman, letting the hydra talk to her; then she sniffs and frowns slightly, looking around the small area. Her nose wrinkles, but she remains quiet.
Deerchild's heads nod as the hydra slithers somewhat closer to the gryphon, "We are Deerchild, all of us are from Zephyr, and here to help." A pair of heads turn to look towards the farm as the hydra asks, "You were the only one to get away?" "--how many workers does the farm have?" The two looking towards the farm turn back after a moment and look over to Rihko. "We probably surprised her, no doubt." They inquire of Rihko in a quieter tone, probably thinking their conversation is private, "(Did you want to introduce yourself? We think sshe may be able to help us.)"
"I'm the danged engineer, I'm not supposed to be the only one with knowledge of lines of fire tactical placement," Arlan mumbles as Rihko and the other agent bunch up into a nice grouping with the unconfirmed contact that could be hit with a single RPG round. He continues keeping overwatch with the tesla cannon and checking possible locations for an ambush.
Linda gradually begins to calm down now that she's realized help has arrived. Certainly an interesting group, but the farm needed all the help it could get. "You're the help? My message actually got through? Thank the Gods!" Linda, without thinking, immediately gets up and hugs Deerchild with all her might, which isn't too strong. "Thank you! Thank you!" The gryphon eventually notices her squeezing and lets go with a blush. "Sorry about that... I- well... There are six workers total including me working today. The head administrator for the farm is also on shift. When the raid came, I was a far enough distance away to run off and make the call." Linda looks sad once more and sits back upon the ground. "I abandoned all my friends. I feel so ashamed, but... I'll do what I can. I'll try and answer any question you have."
Rihko frowns, and her ears go flat. "The others. Are they safe? And how many raiders were there?" Her tails gather together and flick back and forth, and the kitsune rocks a little on her feet, ready to go... but the survivors have lasted this long, if they lasted at all. A question or two should be fine.
Deerchild's coils slide over each other as the hydra's heads wave about, making aborted attempts to ensnare the gryphon as she comes close. "They will be happy to know that you've gotten help for them," one of their heads hisses. "The message said the raiders were ferals? What kind?" Another of the hydra's heads flicks its tongue at Linda's ears, to watch them flick before drawing back again. "You can answer our colleague's questions first, then ours as we travel to the farm perhaps."
Arlan listens in with his mutant powers, and wants to ask questions about tactics used and how the opposing force was armed, but expects that this gryphon probably doesn't have much useful information about that anyway. He shakes himself from that distraction and continues scanning angles of attack and covering the agents.
Linda looks much less afraid of the kitsune this time around. She picks her head up and looks at Rihko straight into her eyes. "I didn't get a very good look since I had to run away as fast as I could, but I'm pretty sure everyone is still alive. I think I saw them being pushed into the administrations building right next to the farm. The raid was so sudden, but there were at least ten mutants of various infections. They didn't look all that high tech or organized either." Linda turns her head towards Deerchild and quirks a brow. "I don't think they were ferals. They seemed normal to me, just angry and with melee weapons..."
Rihko thinks for a moment, and nods her head. "Good. They might even be reasoned with." She smiles at Deerchild and nods, then motions along the road. "Let's go, then. I'll take point; hopefully nothing crazy happens though."
Deerchild drones as their heads put out an annoyed hiss as one of them says, "It seems we were mistaken, then." "(--I never said anything!)" They turn a couple of heads towards Rihko and nod, "We will keep our eyes out for any surprises." The heads addressing Linda mention, "It might be best if you come with us, you could help us find a way to rescue your friends." "Or locate some weapons so they could assist us if there is a fight."
Realizing he's spent too much time in one position, Arlan sneaks to his 4th-choice spot for a sniper position, looking for where the imminent ambush should be arriving from and hasn't yet. He's worried about the imminent engagement that should be arriving shortly because there are remarkably few agents around for a mission group. It doesn't help his nerves that he hasn't worked with Rihko much and he isn't sure he even knows who that strange hydra is.
Linda gets up from the street floor again and starts to dust herself off. "O-okay, I'll come with you guys and try not to be a liability..." The gryphon points down the road and towards the farm area. "It's only a couple minutes walk down east. This way, we should be covered by a large storage building that blocks vision to the farm. It should give us the surprise we need... Before that however, we should be safe I think. They seemed only interested in the crops." Linda pauses and tried to collect her nerves. "Are we ready? Is this everyone," she says, not noticing Arlan.
Rihko shoots the gryphon a big grin. "Hey, we're all you need. No worries." Her tails wag, and then she looks back down the road, picking up her pace. "And if you just want to point the admin building out, then run and hide again, that is perfectly acceptable. Not everyone's been built to handle the rough stuff."
Deerchild's heads look out on all sides as the hydra slithers down the road, "Your message got the attention of a lot of people, so we can't ssay if some of them are late." The hydra looks over at Rhiko and hisses, "In this case you may be right." "If someone gets here late, they can not miss the farm and we can always come back to reinforce." The hydra's coils leave waved tracks in the dust as they move down the road.
Just settling in to his new position Arlan hears that the unconfirmed contact is now going to be leading the agents towards the mission objective. So he silently curses and then makes a graceful bouncing arc down from his sniper perch, bouncing twice on his latex bottom before coming to rest a good seventy metres behind the rest of the party as they begin to set off. He shadows their advance, keeping to cover.
Linda nods to the group and travels in the back, at least to her knowledge having still not noticed Arlan, as they walk closer and closer to the farm. Upon first glance from about 60 meters, various mutants can be seen on a farm. They seem to be stuffing whatever crops they can find into large brown bags. None of them seem to be brandishing projectile weapons, but things such as bats and pipes are quite visible on the skunk beasts, gryphons, felines, and other mutants that make up the raiders. They aren't wearing armor but instead, regular clothing or none at all.
The group comes up to a large storage building that hides both the farm and the Admin building. "H-here," she says while pointing forward, "That's the admin building. This one we're at now is storage. Not much in the room of weapons except farming supplies I suppose, at least as far as I'm aware..." Linda pauses and looks at the admin building. "Eep!" she stifled under her breath as she notices a guard walk out of the administrations building and take post by the door. "W-what do we do now?"
Rihko leans against the building, out of sight of the thieves. Her nose wrinkles, and she thinks a moment. "Two options," she begins, holding out two fingers. "First, we," she pauses, glancing over at Deerchild with a smile, "go try and talk to them. Get them to set aside their scoundrelous ways. Or two," she pauses, "we use a brutal display of horrific violence to crush their will to fight and send them fleeing." Her tais flick, and then curl. "I prefer the first one. Ideas?"
Deerchild's pupils widen as the hydra shows alarm, its heads turning to look behind it in turn as it moves. "There is someone behind us too," they hiss. "But they haven't done anything--" "--yet. Maybe we should wait and see if they make the decision for us." The hydra flexes their torso and attempts to get a higher look on things, turning to look at the harvesters in the fields. "We have another equally viable tactic to ssugest." The hydra flicks their tongue, "They have bags and they are taking things rather quickly, so maybe they don't want to stick around?" Deerchild suggests, "Perhaps we can wait until they have gathered as much as they can and then when they are slowed down by the load we capture them once they have left the farm." The hydra hisses, "Free harvest."
Noting that the visible opposition seems to lack military organization, or at least that he can't see the true dimensions of the threat and these are just quickly-recruited thugs, Arlan decides to catch up to the group. Coming close, he announces his presence by making a throat-clearing sound out of his scratchy, robot vocalizer, then introduces himself: "Arlan, Corrundum Engineering section of Zephyr, not sure why they wanted me to come on this mission. I'm ready to take sniper position if you want to try talking, I can probably bounce over pretty quickly if you need some close support after that doesn't work so well. Careful, someone else probably is organizing these folks to do this, or at least informing them what to do here so expect more resistance than just pipe-wielding thugs. I'm gonna go climb to the second from top story now and take position."
While the newly arrived guard had the discipline to stay at his post, the helmet wearing sunk beast sets his bat aside against the wall and pulls out a cigarette. He lights it, puffs, and stares out into space for a bit, probably not expecting any sort of resistance. Linda sits against the wall and listens to the group's ideas. "Ah!" The gryphon grew a surprised look as the newcomer approached them. "Y-yeah, sounds good..." She takes a moment to regain her normal state. "W-when they raided us, no one got hurt physically. I-I don't think they're random thugs... Perhaps someone should check out the Administrations building as well? Although, maybe splitting up would be bad... You guys could start shooting too, but that also might damage the farm."
Rihko gives Arlan a thumbs up. "Right, then. Watch my back." The kitsune gives the other two a big grin, then slips her paws into her jacket pockets, circles around the side of the storage building, and sets her course straight for the guard. Or, well, for the door to the building; her rolling walk will take her right past the guard and into the Administration building, and she gives the guard a little 'what's up?' nod and a wave of her hand. Clearly, she is an important person with business to see to inside.
"(Like that--?)" "(We don't--)" Deerchild talks amongst themselves as they keep a pair of heads looking towards Arlan. "Good to know you are on our sside!" "Best to get a good look at things first." They move to the edge of the storage shed to keep tabs on Rihko as she moves out into the open. "We would have waited." "(Yes, but perhaps the boss is in there?)"
Arlan mumbles to Deerchild, "They're holding on to hostages, we don't know how or how long, or how they intend to leave that situation. They are also probably harvesting the crop prematurely and the longer they continue the more damage they do. Speed is of the essence." After explaining this he rushes up to take position, thankful that his latex parts allow him to move mostly-silently except for some squeaking noises when he moves quickly.
The smoking guard continues to puff away at his cigarette even as Rihko strolled on by towards him. Perhaps the skunk beast had contracted a serious case of apathy, or maybe he was just plain stupid. "'sup," he says with a nod and continues to blow smoke into the air even as the kitsune enters. No need to raise an alarm, one kitsune isn't a threat. Perhaps she was there to keep the captured workers in line, but it didn't concern him.
As Rihko enters the Administrations building without so much as a struggle, her eyes catch rows upon rows of computers, cubicles, and other typical office environment stuff. Along the western wall are tied up and frightened looking mutants, five in total. They also look uninjured in the physical sense.
"I-Impressive," Linda says as she watches Rihko just walk right into the building. She looks back at Deerchild and gives hir a questioning look. "So, d-decided what you're gonna do? You can help her out in the building or see what you can do here... It looks like that new man has you covered if you decide to handle the raiders..."
Rihko takes a moment to make sure that no other guards are lurking nearby, then grins at the hostages. She motions for them to be quiet. "I'm here to help. I'm going to get you free, but you have to stay calm and don't raise a fuss." She moves to the first one, drawing her knife to get to work on the captive's bindings. "Where is the head administrator? I only count five here."
"We don't know much about farming, but it's probably not so good to be picking things this early, we don't we go out there and stop them?" The hydra takes a look around the equipment shed and asks, "Is there anything in the shed that could help us?" Another one of their heads reaches into the seabag about their neck to withdraw their communicator, "(Ops twenty here,)" they hiss to Rihko, "(do you see any guards inside the building?)"
Arlan elects to cover with the death ray instead of the lightning gun in this case, since it's less likely to give away his position due to it being tuned to invisible, high frequency bands. The Improved Flashlight had as its main problem that it left enemies capable of fighting for as much as a minute or more after it had assured that they would die from its radiation bursts, but it was a pretty accurate weapon for longer ranges. He began surveying the action below from his chosen spot, trying to figure out which targets were more important..
The tied up hostages wiggle in their bindings and whimper when Rihko comes near them. Once she states her attentions however, they begin to relax and quiet down. The first one down the line is a male german shepard. Once freed, he makes a motion with a paw towards the other end of the room. "Down there. The head admin locked himself up in his office once he heard the raid coming. Something's a little strange here I think."
"I-I don't think there's anything in storage that can help you. It's just farming supplies and such. You might be able to pull out some farming vehicle, but that's a risk..." Linda sighs, still afraid of the possible damage that could happen if things turn sour. As Arlan takes his position and scans the crowd, he notices a lion beast not carrying a bag or doing any work really. He seems to be standing there and watching over the other mutants.
Rihko nods her head. She continues freeing the workers until the last of them is ready to go, then turns towards the door. "Right. Is there another way out of this building, too? Or just the front door?"
"Lets get rid of that guard," suggests one of Deerchild's heads to Linda. "--we don't like to hurt skunks, but we can't have him alerting the others." They take a look around the corner again and explain their thinking to the gryphon, "None of the others can see him from this side of the building." The third head reports, "No news from inside." Deerchild uncoils a bit and hisses, "Now we could rush the guard if you don't think he would run away and give an alarm--" "--but we have another idea." They flick their tongues, "We bet he will come over to investigate if you step out from behind the shed to get his attention and then run back." "Do you think you can do that?" "--we'll take care of him when he follows."
Continuing to survey the situation Arlan wonders what sort of lead led this group here, who is really behind it, and if this is inter-faction politics gone foul or not. It could be just that someone who wanted a cut of the take played informant to a group of non-faction, relatively organized and intelligent mutants, but if so that person was probably either hostile-sociopathic or vengefully angry about something. He notes the actions of the figures in the field down below, and looks for bosses and particularly dangerous individuals to target preferentially.
The german shepard continues to hand out the information as requested. With a paw, he points east. "There's an eastern exit over there that goes straight to the farm. It's not too far away from the big man's office either. Good luck with all that shit." As the door is approached, a golden nametag upon a sturdy looking wooden door can be observed. 'Nicholas Rodgers' it reads in nice bold letters. The door is quite firmly locked, but slight muffled whimpering can be heard.
"Y-you might want to come up with something. W-why not try talking to them? If you d-din't notice, I said that no one's been hurt so far. If you come out without a weapon or something, maybe they won't attack you?" Linda points up, indicating to Arlan. "You're covered anyways, right?"
Rihko stands there a moment, ear flicking a couple of times. Then she taps on the door, lightly. "Hey. Nicholas. Time to go, man." Rihko's tails swish back and forth. "Unless you want to stay here to play with the bandits when they're done. We're hoppin', though."
"We might find it hard to come out without a weapon," Deerchild hisses, flicking the copper scythe on the end of their tail meaningfully. "But this doessn't mean we can't talk to them first, if they are willing to listen." As the hydra uncoils, one of its heads mutters, "(I still think we had a good idea...)" Flicking their tongues, Deerchild moves out from behind the storage shed with a final comment to Linda, "Maybe it would be best if we don't point up at him?" "It might be better to just imply we have a hidden threat." They advance towards the skunkbeast, keeping quiet and staring off indirectly.
Arlan continues watching, and his supicions continue building because this just seems too simple, too easy. Why would a gang of thugs like these think they could get away with attacking the Promethean faction like that without reprisals? This smells very strongly off to him, considering how impressively fortified Zephyr and RSX are. He knows that the Prometheans are much less hostile to unaffiliated mutants in general, and ferals in specific, but tactical weakness on this level just seems unlikely to him. Farm or not, if folks get away with attacking the Prometheans like this then attacks like this would happen regularly, and the Prometheans would be accordingly much weaker for it.
"NO, FUCK OFF," says the supposed Nicholas in a deep gruff voice through his door. The freed German Sheppard seems to have wandered off somewhere through the offices until he ended up at a computer. He taps this, clicks that, until eventually he prints out a pile of papers that seem like spreadsheets. With the papers in hand, the canine walks over towards Rihko and hands her the papers. "I don't know much about this shit, but something ain't right here. Maybe you should try looking at these papers. They're our reports of stock and finance."
The skunk beast notices Deer walking towards him and drops his cigarette on the floor. He picks up his bat and slams it against the wall, causing a loud noise to echo through the area. Arlan would notice that the workers continued to grab up what they can while the lion beast made his way towards Deer with an angry expression on his face. "Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here? Leave, now," he commands in a booming voice.
Rihko scratches at her ear. She takes the stack of papers from the canine and gives him a smile, rifles through them for a moment, then nods and stuff them in her bag. "Alright, then. I'm taking your records with me, though. Have fun!" She gives the worker a wink, then moves over just to the side of the door to wait for a reaction somewhere out of immediate line of sight.
Deerchild hisses in annoyance as the skunkbeast guard does exactly what they expected. "(Jusst as I expected!)" exclaims one of their heads. Fanning out in a hemisphere, Deerchild's head observe the results of the alarm, spotting the lion beast coming over. "We're Deerchild--" one of the heads hisses, "and you should know we repressent Zephyr." The hydra smiles at the lion with four wide fang-filled smiles. "We have come in response to a call for assistance--" One of the hydra's heads moves closer and asks, "--are you claiming to be in charge here?" They hiss, "Then, if you want us to leave then you'd better find a way to assure us that our assistance is not needed."
Arlan pays more attention, since it seems like it might be time to start giving people terminal cases of radiation poisoning. The mutant down below facing off against the hydra agent seems like he's not the easiest to intimidate, but against a hydra that should at least be an even fight. He's more worried about if it's time to start dropping the field-looting thugs so he's carefully watching for signs that they're about to start being either raging thugs or skulking cowards with loot.
"Have fun? Yeah, whatever... Just get someone to look at those files, would you?" The canine goes back with the others and attempts to get their spirits up with fine sounding words. The way he speaks and acts towards his co-workers implies a manager-like personality, or at least one of more experience. Besides the bat ringing sound that echoed earlier, the whimpering boss, and the freed hostages, nothing seems to be going on in the office for the moment.
The lion looks at the hydra, laughs, and spits on the ground in front of hir. "Came alone, did ya? Hmm, or is this a trap..." The lion looks around and feels rather suspicious that someone's watching him. "Whatever, you say you got called here? Well, go back from where you came. Either help, leave, or I'll make you leave." The raiders's bags have gotten much more full by this point. Two of the faster raiders have already filled up their bag and have sat down for a nice rest.
Rihko shrugs her shoulders. "Oh I was planning on it. This isn't, however, the best time to perform an audit." Her ear twitches again, and she sighs... whoever was on the other side wasn't taking the bait. She stands there a moment, considering her options... then she shrugs. "Alright. Let's get you out of here."
Deerchild puts their smiles away, yet their heads keep darting forwards and pulling back as the lion glances about to give him something else to consider, if he thinks it wise to turn his back on the hydra in front of him. "We have a deal then. We'll stay and help." The hydra hisses and darts again, "Just explain what you are doing." One of Deerchild's heads remarks knowingly, "--isn't it too early to harvest this crop?"
