In any case, you thought of a way to motivate Wolfe once more. Anger could be destructive both within and without, and wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was a quite the driving force; you knew from experience. So you moved to stir her wrath; to make a promise towards easing her pain through vengeance. Things had to get moving once more, you had to get back to your tank, and the unit had to move on to Delamil, and the Royal Family’s castle beyond; time was of the essence, and who knew how much you had already wasted bolstering your strength instead of going straight for the objective? Were you to take too long, all would be for naught, as you wouldn’t reach the Royal Family of Halmeggia to rescue them in time, and if that was for naught…then…

“Hey,” you told Wolfe, “Your friend here…Aiden Condotti. He died fighting against the Revolutionaries because he thought it was the right thing to do, right?” Your voice was kept low; even now you could hear the foreign speech of soldiers of the Revolutionary Army of Greater Vitelia, on patrol and looking for your ilk in the space between your lines and theirs. Another reason why you had to leave quickly; confident as you were in your fighting ability, you doubted you and Eidan could take on a patrol by yourselves, especially if help came for them. “I know that you want to stay by him, to say a proper goodbye, but we can’t stick around here. Come with me, we can get revenge on these Revolutionary bastards, for his sake.”

“Revenge…” Wolfe said distantly. She looked on the ground; picked up the rifle that had fallen from her friend’s grasp, then she pulled the sling off of him; it was weighted with ammunition pouches for said rifle. A good idea; Wolfe had come here with but a pistol, which wasn’t too much good in a typical firefight considering what you were up against. She opened the bolt of the rifle; a round popped out, which she caught and reinserted before closing it again. “Revenge. Yeah.”

“Right,” you said, feeling unsure now. You didn’t like the tone she was taking. “So come on, let’s get out of here.”

“The people who killed him will be close,” Eidan Wolfe said, still hollow voiced, “They might even be those voices, off over there.”

“…No, I didn’t mean get revenge right now, I was saying-“ your insistence was useless, though. The look in Wolfe’s eyes told you she didn’t give a damn about your considerations or opinions.

She knelt over her fallen friend once more, and…bent down and kissed him on his dead lips. “I’m sorry…” She whispered, “I’m so, so sorry…but I’ll make it all right, or I’ll be joining you soon.” With that, she sprang up and started running, far before you were ready for it.

“No, wait..!” you sputtered, swiping a hand out and letting your submachinegun clatter against your side, “God damnit, I, you can’t…Fuck.” The night in the woods was your enemy here; she’d dashed off and now you could barely even hear her stepping lightly away.

>Well, screw her, then. You weren’t about to get involved in this petty revenge, not for the delay and not for risking being harmed, either.
>Try to chase after her; maybe you could reach her before she did something stupid.
>Seems like you were involved, now; make your own way towards the enemy patrol, maybe you could win this if you attacked after she did.
>Remain still, and wait; moving and deciding hastily was unwise. You’d wait and see what happened.
>Other?


>Past Threads Archive Pastebin (Luftpanzer is at the top): https://pastebin.com/UagT0hnh
>twitter is @scheissfunker for updates and announcements.

Questions and such are always welcome and able to be answered; I know it's been a bit since the last thread, it certainly feels like it's been a long time for me, more than usual, because of the shows I've been helping with and rehearsals and shit, so it'll help me make sure I'm up to speed too.

>>3015282
>>Try to chase after her; maybe you could reach her before she did something stupid.
If things go loud hopefully our guys come looking for us. But seriously knock her out if we have to.

>>3015282
>>Remain still, and wait; moving and deciding hastily was unwise. You’d wait and see what happened.

>>3015282
>Seems like you were involved, now; make your own way towards the enemy patrol, maybe you could win this if you attacked after she did.

>>3015282
>>Remain still, and wait; moving and deciding hastily was unwise. You’d wait and see what happened.
Might allow us to get the jump on anyone who engages her.

Keep still, keep quiet, observe for now.

Writing.

Sorry about the delay, went out to chop wood.

Update soon.

The night was your ally as much as your enemy; so long as you didn’t move about, you were potentially just another shadow. This in mind, you put your hands back on your submachinegun once more, went into the dark pool under a tree still decorated with late autumn foliage, that hadn’t yet dumped it all yet despite being past October, and squatted down, completely still, with hands up to your ears for the slightest benefit to your hearing. Warfare wasn’t a healthy thing for the ears, but you’d managed to keep your senses; at least, so you tested out at your last physical examination. Chasing after Wolfe was an easy way to alert the enemy with a lot of noise, and there was no guarantee you’d catch her anyways. Making your own attack also carried risks; the best thing by your measure was to sit, wait, and see what happened. If you were lucky, maybe the blood would rush out of Wolfe’s head and she’d come back.

The night was bitingly chilly, divested of your jacket as you were; you hoped Owl 3 appreciated the sacrifice for her comfort, at least enough for her to consider letting you buy her a drink, or three, when this was all over. That is, if she didn’t vanish like you’d heard anybody connected with intelligence affairs did. Breathing through your nose slowly, you faded into the shadows like you were a predatory feline, waiting, watching, for any new developments.

Crrsh. Crrsh. Crrsh. The sound of boots crunching across leaves, twigs, brush. The Vitelians had cut their chatter, but if they took a step, lurking as you were, you could hear it.

”Over there,” one of them rasped, ”In the light. A body.”

Their footsteps indicated there were about five of them, and you didn’t dare move a muscle from within your darkness; you really hoped that you were close up enough against the tree to not be silhouetted against anything. Could you pretend to be a corpse, if you had to?

A pair of Revolutionaries emerged into the moonlight a few trees away; they kept watch while their cohorts moved on ahead, a single one of them investigating the body on the ground.

”Dead as a doornail. Think he was talking to himself?” The investigator babbled in Vitelian, which you could understand well enough. Girls loved the way it sounded; Emrean was supposed to be equally romantic, but, well, a lot of folks in the Reich were really not fond of that language. Either way, your knowledge of it had proven useful.

”No. There were two voices, I’m sure of it.” Another said, ”Maybe that other person is still close? Four of them with rifles, one with an odd looking rifle with a (relatively, for a rifle) long magazine coming out of the bottom; one with a light machine gun, a familiar one with a top loading magazine. You didn’t trust yourself to be able to spring an ambush and gun them all down without them being able to pop off shots back. All these people looked different from the typical Revolutionary troopers; they wore helmets that were painted black, and the typical bright decoration of kerchiefs was absent, their armbands noticeably duller; they wore what looked like thick, padded black vests.

”Maybe. How long has this guy been dead? You think he really just died right now?” The patrol leader, it seemed.

“Hell if I know. How’re you supposed to tell how long a guy’s been dead? He could still be warm from earlier.” The one on investigative duty ruffled about in the dead man’s tunic. ”Hey. There’s a letter here.”

A letter? Uh oh.

”Give it here.” The leader demanded. He gave it a short look. ”Written in damn Imperial. Do any of you read it?”

One of his men raised a hand, and the leader passed it off. The Vitelian read out loud, in a low voice as had been usual among them, but you were close enough to hear. The letter was…a rather saccharine sort. The language indicated either a family member or a romantic interest. No, on those later lines, definitely the latter. Eidan had kissed this boy before setting off- could it be?

”Stay safe, my love. If you find yourself in danger with my father, show his men this letter. There’s no name.”

”There may as well be a name. See that stamp? That’s Gunmetal’s emblem. Wolfe’s only got one daughter.”

”I thought he had a son in the army?” the Machine Gunner queried.

”No, that’s bullshit." Another said, "Heard it passed around when talking about special targets. He’s only got a daughter, that’s it.” A pause. ”Actually, one of the people talking sounded like a bitch’s voice. Do you think…”

”Don’t work yourself up over finding gold in a river. Just work on looking for whoever was here. No way did they just leave something like this here if they could help it, they’re still close.” The leader pointed off, away from you, ”This body’s not going anywhere, and we’re taking this note. Let’s all head off this direction. Don’t stray too far apart, who knows who’s out here, especially with those paratroopers the damn militants still can’t find.”

You’d scarcely even breathed the whole time as they started to shuffle off. Just from a glance, these black helmeted guys were a lot meaner than the rank and file Revolutionaries, far more than the militia, certainly. Their vests, too; they fit vaguely like assault cuirasses from the Felbach Conquest, or like modern Stormsuit plates; body armor was a luxury to most troops in the world, and only the Reich made a dedicated effort to spend the money to start outfitting the standard troops with protection against light munitions and shrapnel. These guys weren’t normal, that was for sure.

>Make your presence known, say something in Vitelian; if you tossed off your cap, maybe you could pass off as a militiaman?
>No matter how good these guys were, you had to try and take them out. Try and ambush them when they turn their backs.
>Stalk them. When Wolfe ambushed them, as you anticipated she might, you could join in and make her chances better.
>Remain there, then retreat when able; this wasn’t worth the risk.
>Other?

>>3015846
>>Stalk them. When Wolfe ambushed them, as you anticipated she might, you could join in and make her chances better.

I don't like the guns some of these guys have and I really don't like the body armor, but the woods have been a bad place for the revolutionaries so far, maybe it will stay that way.

>>3015846
>>Stalk them. When Wolfe ambushed them, as you anticipated she might, you could join in and make her chances better.

>>3015846
>>Stalk them. When Wolfe ambushed them, as you anticipated she might, you could join in and make her chances better.

>>3015846
>>Remain there, then retreat when able; this wasn’t worth the risk.
Personally, I think were way to outgunned and outarmored.
We only have an smg and a pistol(?), theyve got an lmg and a possible select fire rifle, aswell as armored up.
Dont like those odds, especially since our smg isnt guarenteed to kill or incapacitate in the first burst. We'd also have to be fairly close to them so even if their downed, an injured guy could just grenade us at that range.

Turns out people like to socialize on holidays, who could have thought? So that's why there's been a big delay here.

Anyways, Stalker Time. Writing.

Maybe your plan wasn’t a wise one, but if you were a wise man you wouldn’t have joined up with the Fallschirmjager. These people clearly wanted to nab Eidan, even if they didn’t know how close she was. How much regard did Major “Gunmetal” Wolfe hold his daughter in? Could holding her hostage be a decisive action? Who knew, but one thing was for certain; the Revolutionaries couldn’t be allowed to have that card if it turned out to be an ace.

These guys were good; they didn’t leave their backs open for long. You had to exploit some distance as well as the darkness to start moving behind them safely, and they remained at just the right spacing to keep from being isolated from one another. Picking them off one by one would be impossible; you just had to follow them for now, and hope for the best once Wolfe inevitably started shooting at them.

You had some familiarity with body armor. Reich Stormsuits, for example, were only really resistant to pistol fire and fragmentation from artillery. To be fair, that was still enough to reduce battlefield fatalities and injuries by a huge amount, supposedly (not that you could take advantage; the suits were too heavy and awkward to drop with), but only a fool would think they made a man invincible. Supposedly there was a new sort of Stormsuit that repelled rifle munitions as well, but you hadn’t had the chance to see such, or even have it confirmed that it existed beyond rumors. Point being, you doubted your submachinegun was as deadly as it normally could be in this situation.

At the very least, your light gear kept you quiet. There was only one magazine for the submachinegun, but that meant no bandoliers clanked about when you walked. After that it would be down to your pistol, but it was securely and quietly fastened down, as was your knife.
Of course, if you were noticed now, either you’d have to explain yourself really quickly…or you’d have to start running. Getting into a firefight with five guys was something that was generally not advisable.

>Roll up to 3 sets of 1d100, averaged, for Stalking. DC 60 roll under to pass.

Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>3016245

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>3016245

No pressure guys, its just 5v2.

Rolled 85 (1d100)

>>3016245
Pissin' in the wind.

>>3016260
>>3016271
>>3016513
Well crap....

>Roll Average: 78 – Failure

CRRK-BRKSH You stomped unwittingly on an unseen branch, which practically exploded underfoot for how badly it shattered the prior stillness of the surroundings. That terrible sound was nothing compared to what came after, though, as one of the black helmets ahead immediately turned around; the worst one, with the machine gun. You scarcely were able to duck behind a tree as the thunder of a dozen rounds cracking off beside you filled your ears. No, not entirely beside you; a few moments later, you felt a flash of pain on the outside of your leg, felt the blood run down. You clamped a hand to it. Little more than a graze, really, but just like that, your ability to flee had been compromised. At least it wouldn’t kill you quickly enough to not get shot a few more times, which seemed to be what was coming…

“Come out with hands up!” Came an Imperial phrase that had a train run on it by the ass end of Vitelia, “Or get shot!”

Actually doing that would be a stupid idea, but equally unreasonable would be to try and run away in your condition, or to open fire now having lost the advantage of surprise. It was only sheer luck- or an opportunity seen by the foe to take a valuable prisoner –that kept you alive right now, as they could have very simply flushed you out of cover with a grenade, if they knew where you were. Man, if only you had a grenade right now…damn, what could you do?

>Hell if you were going to be taken prisoner by Vitelians. Fight!
>Stay quiet and still; maybe you could still hide.
>Play dead
>You spoke Vitelian; maybe you could weave a convincing lie or at the very least a delay? (Specify what you say)
>Try to flee; what else could you do?
>Other?

>>3017285
>>Play dead

>>3017285
>>Stay quiet and still; maybe you could still hide.
Lets hope those missing paratroopers are somehow nearby.

So ugh, whos next in command of the Luftpanzers with Dolcherr dead and Bartholomeu WIA?

>>3017285
The Enemy shouted in Imperial, I say we don't respond back to it thus giving our allegiance away. Also there's no way they'll just believe nothing was there, at absolute best only one of them looks around the tree and we're still outnumbered.

tanq, do we still have a RAGV armband? If so wave it out like a surrender flag, I mean, the Emrean National Flag and:

>You spoke Vitelian; maybe you could weave a convincing lie or at the very least a delay? (Specify what you say)

>In Vitelian (add drawl where we can to hopefully cover up our deficiencies in speaking the language):
"Stop shootin'!
>In purposefully shitty Imperial:
"I no know speakee Impee good wat?"

When they respond and demand to know who we are say (in Vitelian) we're members of the Revolutionary Army, specifically the volunteer group from Birlau (from earlier in the quest). We were fleeing from the battle at the bridge when we saw some guy talking to a wounded person and even kiss him(!!!) before running off. We tried to tail him but got mixed up here instead.

>Other?
Basically delay as long as possible so hopefully Eidan heard the shots and can get the drop on them.

>>3017285
>Stay quiet and still; maybe you could still hide.

If we start talking they are going to know where we are, and we don’t want to throw away our last advantage just yet. If they come looking for us and find us we can try to bluff something from there, maybe something along the lines of us thinking that they are actually the paratroopers and not responding to them because we don’t want to be shot/captured. We don’t even have to do much acting for the last part.

>>3017304
>So ugh, whos next in command of the Luftpanzers with Dolcherr dead and Bartholomeu WIA?

It would fall to Lieutenant Covacs, and he wouldn't be happy about it. Then again he's rarely happy about anything.

>>3017336
>tanq, do we still have a RAGV armband?

It hasn't seen much use, but it's also not a bulky item, so it's just been inhabiting a pocket.

I'm going to make myself breakfast then come back and start writing after that, so whatever decision is come to by then; about half an hour or so.

>>3017339
Let's stay quiet for now and if/when they investigate use my last ditch idea when they get closer.

>>3017381
Works for me.

>>3017336
>>3017381
Honestly it'll probably be easier to pass ourselves off as Halmeggian considering these guys are from Vitelia proper. They probably have a better chance of knowing whether we're a native or not.

>>3017403
I think they idea is we pretend to be a Halmeggian volunteer from Birlau, and speak poorly in both Vitelian and Imperial to sell the idea we are just an idiot conscript.

Alright, my breakfast was punctuated by an errand, hence the delay, but I am here now, and writing quite soon.

Action being to keep quiet and hide, and if found bluff being a conscript.

Rolled 9 (1d100)

No good ideas coming to mind, you went with the only option that gave you any more time to possibly think of something better. You put your hand over your mouth, and gradually leaned into the tree, your other bloody hand keeping your weapon from banging about, and waited. Blood running down your leg told that it wasn’t a good hit, but there wasn’t quite enough to be so concerned that you’d sacrifice a hand to try and stem it, not right now. Hastily, you slipped on the RAGV armband you’d stolen earlier.

”Nobody’s coming out. Probably ran.” One of them postulated in Vitelian.

”Maybe. Maybe they’re still around too, though. Make certain we’re clear here, I don’t want to be caught between two admirers.” The team leader, it sounded like, again. ”Try to grab them alive.”

Aha, so they were after prisoners. Not that that made your situation here any better, especially considering that the first place these blokes would look would probably be where they heard the sound from earlier come from; which you were still right next to.

An electric torch clicked on, and you saw its pale gaze wipe back and forth over the woods. Closer and closer, the footsteps came, until right beside you, one of the black helmets came from around the corner, his flashlight in your face; goodbye, any night vision you’d had left; you could vaguely tell he had a pistol pointed at you.

”Some guy over here.” He said first, then, in broken Imperial, “What hell are you?”

You’d really appreciate it if he could stop pointing that damn torch in your face, you thought as you tried to shield yourself behind your hand. “I’m…” Would it be worth it to imitate the local accent? “Ey, would ya give a guy a break? Jes’ didn’t know who yous was, yeah?”

The machine gunner came up from your other side. ”Who the hell is he? Doesn’t look like any army I’ve seen, doesn’t have Levy clothes either.”

”I’ll ask.” the man with the torch said hastily, “Where you from?”

“Eh…Birlau, yeah Birlau.” That was the name of the town a bunch of revolutionary conscripts had been dragged from, you knew. Hopefully it wasn’t too far away.

”He says he’s one of the militia from Birlau.”

”Out here by himself?” the team leader had come up, ”We can’t be certain. Is he armed? Search him, we’ll take him back. If he’s really-”

>DCru 70

>>3017530
Suddenly, a crack, and the man holding the electric torch below you crumpled to the ground after you heard a metallic plenk from his head, the torch rolling away from a limp hand.

”Ambush!” the team leader cried out, and for a moment the machine gunner was distracted…

>Raise your submachinegun and make an attack
>Sit still and behave for now, you were still not in a good position to make a move
>Attack the machine gunner physically and try and take his weapon; it would laugh at these folks’ body armor.
>Try to flee
>Other?

>>3017532
>>Attack the machine gunner physically and try and take his weapon; it would laugh at these folks’ body armor.

>>3017532
guy that was shot, did his body fall near us, maybe we could scrounge up a grenade if he has one

>>3017545
He is right next to you, yes.

>>3017532
>below

This was meant to be "beside." I'm not entirely sure how he would be below you.

>>3017532
>>Attack the machine gunner physically and try and take his weapon; it would laugh at these folks’ body armor.

>>3017551
>>3017548
Yea dont know why I didnt register him dying beside us.
Regardless we need his rifle, itll serve us better then the smg and hopefully he was carrying grenades.

>>3017545
I'll support scavenging for a rifle and grenades, maybe we can even try to bring the body back behind our tree under the guise of checking to see if he is ok.

>>3017532
>Attack the machine gunner physically and try and take his weapon; it would laugh at these folks’ body armor.

I'm alive again.

Writing for attacking the machine gunner, he can't be too tough, right? Some grenades would be nice to have to.

With one guy watching over you having had his brains freshly blown out all over the woods and the other temporarily distracted, there wasn’t a better time, you decided, to try and regain the initiative. Up against four armed men rather than five put your odds from completely hopeless to somewhat less than that. When your life was on the line, even that cynical change in estimate was a huge boost to your confidence; especially if you could both disarm the machine gunner and get a hold of his weapon. While your submachinegun most likely lacked effectiveness against these people’s vests, the same wouldn’t be true of the machine gun.

The wound on your leg burned as you twisted yourself to the right and wound up a strike, managing to catch the machine gunner right in the jaw with a left hook, and then a jab to his nose, before grabbing for his gun. The black helmet was a tough guy, though, and even though you put everything you had into that initial punch, he was far from down for the count as he kept a firm hand on the gun and tried to elbow you in the nose; you threw yourself backwards in order to dodge, and pulled the two of you over the revolutionary’s fallen ally, stumbling out as another rifle shot cracked, this time answered with return fire.

You didn’t have long; the absence of the machine gun in returning fire would be shortly noticed, and you had to take care of this before you became the priority target…

>Roll up to 3 sets of 1d100, averaged, for CQC. DC is roll under 40 to take away the gun, 55 to also disable the opponent, and 70 to just keep the two of you occupied. You can lower your die score by describing how you intend to gain the upper hand.

Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>3017857

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>3017857
Try hitting/kicking this guy in the balls; that's definitely gonna hurt.

>>3017867
>>3017868
Rolls locked in, then.

>Richter goes for ball strikes
>Reinhold goes for ball strikes

The lowest roll should have been also to disable instead of the disarm, I messed up. Oh well.
>Roll Average 30 (-10 to one roll due to tactics) – Success

Your foe should have cried out a warning, but an opponent such as you obviously demanded his focus as he tried to push you down. The two of you wrestled over the gun, grunting, and he tried to put you off balance by putting his weight into one end of the instrument you were fighting over. It worked; you stumbled sideways, and then pushed you down onto a knee, but his mistake afterwards was his confidence in his strength. It blinded him to the possibility of dirty tricks; which you felt no shame in executing. You pried one hand loose from the tussle and, as the gun was pressed against your face, you drove your fist upwards and into the revolutionary’s crotch. A choked cough met you, and the man’s grip on the gun slackened for but a moment; all you needed in order to stand up again and tackle him to the ground; you knelt on top of his chest and slammed your fist into his face one, two, three times, each strike harder than the last, before socking him right in the nose again and feeling it crush beneath your hand. The soldier’s face a bloody, wheezing mess, you finally ripped his machine gun off of him and took a quick look about. Fortunately, the other Revolutionaries were still distracted by the sniper from earlier, who had been firing this whole time. A pop from that direction hinted at pistol fire too; if it was Wolfe, she must have run out the magazine on the rifle. Still, from five, to four, now three…your odds were much more manageable now. A quick frisking of the dead black helmet quickly provided fruit; a round grenade stored in a pouch on his belt. Not a type you were familiar with, but grenades tended to work in the same general way anyways.

What to do now, though?

>Get away; the enemy was distracted and nobody was facing you. A perfect opportunity to escape.
>Engage with your newly acquired machine gun. It would make you a new target, but that would probably help Wolfe anyways.
>Throw out the grenade and take cover; regardless of whether their armor protected against grenade fragments, the rest of their bodies would still be plenty torn up by its blast.
>Other?

>>3017890
A fair fight's one you win!

>>3017901
>>Throw out the grenade and take cover; regardless of whether their armor protected against grenade fragments, the rest of their bodies would still be plenty torn up by its blast.
If they aren't dead from that, open up with the MG.

>>3017901
>>Throw grenade. Use body as cover. Spray with MG

>>3017901
>Throw out the grenade and take cover; regardless of whether their armor protected against grenade fragments, the rest of their bodies would still be plenty torn up by its blast.

Rolled 3 (1d4)

You laid the machine gun down near the body of the revolutionary you had just stripped the grenade off of, and focused on figuring out how the grenade worked. If it was anything like a Reich grenade, the top should twist…Crkk. That…seemed like it? The cap wouldn’t pull off, and after a second you weren’t willing to hold onto the thing any longer. You chucked it out into the woods ahead and fell down behind the body, hoping it would shield you from the fragments about to head your way.

A pair of cries followed the blast, and you immediately rose up to take aim with the machine gun. In the moment while you were identifying your targets, you heard snippets of orders.

”Take Tibalt and leave now! I’ll keep back. Go! The team leader from earlier, apparently sacrificing himself. He was slumped against a tree, while his comrade was quickly moving to rescue the third of the remaining men; apparently they had decided they couldn’t stick and fight anymore.

>Shoot them all. They wouldn’t let you run if the roles were reversed.
>Let the two running away go; but the team leader would have to die, otherwise he might harm you.
>Demand surrender; you’ll let them go if the team leader gives up.
>Other?

>>3017944
>>Shoot them all. They wouldn’t let you run if the roles were reversed.

>>3017944
>Shoot them all. They wouldn’t let you run if the roles were reversed.
They're only a patrol, they're probably not worth squeazing for intel

>>3017958
We can always search the bodies later; also we don't want them to get reinforcements anyway. Just finish them off, try to get Wolfe to get her ass back to our lines and let's start heading towards the castle.

Let the Judge sort them out.

Give me 3d100s, roll under 80.

Rolled 88, 25, 45 = 158 (3d100)

>>3017965

Rolled 18, 78, 99 = 195 (3d100)

>>3017965

Rolled 81, 59, 44 = 184 (3d100)

>>3017965
aaaaaaaaa

>>3017966
>>3017969
I'm taking the result of these two, that is, two hit one miss.

>>3017973
All three as it turns out.

I meant it to be sets of 1d100, but, well, whatever. This is fine.

>>3017977
Yeah I realised after I posted. My bad. Though the results are kind of the same anyways.

You lined up the most threatening of the remaining enemies in your sights, the team leader, and held the trigger down. Immobile as he was, you had no doubt that all six or so shots plugged him directly in the torso, and he fell over almost immediately, but you weren’t watching to see how brutal his death was; you were already moving over to the other two.

The other incapacitated one was raising his gun to shoot you, but you were quicker. Your shots stitched their way up his body and a final shot threw his head back, knocking his helmet off as it did so. The final target, the target of his rescue having been eliminated right before his eyes, was too quick, though. You adjusted your fire towards him, but he had ducked down already, and put a tree between the two of you. You did your best to suppress the cover he had taken, but in the darkness, you saw just the faintest glimpse of him leaping to the left, and disappearing into the woods. As you stopped shooting, you heard his sprinting steps grow fainter and fainter. You left the machine gun where it lay, stood up, and once more became aware of the pain in your leg as you stood up, almost falling forward putting your weight onto it once more, before heading to the man whose face you’d smashed and looking down at him. Unconscious, it appeared.

Steps from behind; you guessed at who it would be.

“You know,” you said cockily, “I got shot because you ran off like that. I’d normally only tolerate that if I were doing it for a cute girl.”
Wolfe harrumphed, as she came up and stood by you. “You didn’t have to come and help.”
“A thank you would be appreciated.”

Wolfe said nothing of the sort, only looking down at the knocked out revolutionary. “Is he still alive?”
“Course he is.”

Wolfe immediately drew her pistol and began to point it towards the fallen machine gunner's head.

>Let her do it
>Don’t let her do this
>Other?

>>3017993
>>Other
Stop her first; after this little firefight is she willing to come back with us? Also loot the bodies for and intel.

>>3017993
>>Don’t let her do this

>>3017998
Supporting

I won't be back for a while, theater is doing a quick rehearsal and my presence is required. Should have announced earlier, sorry, but was getting shit ready for such. Should be updating after a few hours.
>>3017998
What sort of intel/loot are you looking for?

>>3018207
Any written orders, messages from command, identification tags. Kind of like what these guys were doing to our dead friend in the first place.

“No,” you grunted firmly and pushed Wolfe’s pistol to the side, “You don’t want to do that.”

Wolfe stared at you coldly, and tried to point her pistol again, but you wrapped your hand around it and kept it aside. Wolfe might have been able to disguise herself enough to pass as a boy to the lax standards of the Halmeggian Army, but she was still much weaker than you were. “Don’t tell me what not to do,” she hissed, “Not after you told me to get revenge. I don’t want to do that? Bite me.”

You had a good idea of how she felt. The boiling anger, the desire to lash out and let the world know of your pain, all of it the more rage inducing because of its futility, how no matter the intensity of the anger, the damage done, it wouldn’t actually make anything better in the end, but acknowledging such would feel like a defeat on its own. That helplessness was the true pain of loss, and even though the answer was to move on, moving on was…unacceptable. Could you tell Wolfe to do so, when you hadn’t? The beast within scraped at the walls of your skull, snarling its demand to be released from its dungeon. It had found a companion in fury, and it desperately wanted to share it with a mate, as any beast did…

Wolfe struggled once again to try and execute the fainted black helmet, but this time you twisted the gun out of her grip and pulled it to yourself.

“Give that back.” Wolfe demanded, her voice a dark growl.

“No.” you replied, “You’re a forward observer, you’re supposed to talk with people to get them to blow people up for you, not shoot them yourself. Now that we’ve indulged in this, are you willing to come back with me? We really have to get going.”

“Who cares.” Wolfe’s voice remained low, “How could you know what I’m feeling right now? Aiden, he…I…tch. Why am I even bothering to talk to you? There’s no way you could get it. If you did, you’d let me kill this piece of shit. Go back to your oh so important mission, and come back when you’ve lost something you couldn’t live without.”

>Fuck you. Go die then, I don’t care.
>Talking was going nowhere. She was smaller; heft her over your shoulder and carry her back.
>Try to get through to her [Specify how]
>Other?

>>3018654
>Try to get through to her [Specify how]
Reason won't work but emotion might. This whole shit with Douran is our only real connection to her.

Describe how Douran died, how we fucked up and got our best friend killed, and the horrid feeling of what we did to the man who killed him. I don't think it made Reinhold feel better, indulging the beast didn't help.

After all that ask her if she still wants to experience that horror and let her decide to shoot or not.

Either way she's coming with us because she's on this mission too where we both can do some good.

>>3018670
This. Also, if she is still focused on revenge, as a forward observer she can do much more to get back at them then capping random soldiers. Use the anger to focus on a task that matters in the long run and that can prevent future losses.

>>3018670
Supportan. She is coming back with us, it’s just better if she chooses to.

>>3018670
Supporting. Honestly I could imagine Reinhold snapping back himself at this point; after all not the first time he's a lost someone close plus all the stuff he's been suppressing about Dolcherr so far.

Yo, so sorry to say, I probably won't be updating tonight until rather late. I'll see if I can't get things done before a couple hours from now when I have to go and hit buttons, but since I have a few things to do in between besides that, I won't make any promises. Just enjoy your Friday nights.

Being told you didn’t understand something that you knew quite well pissed you off; you had the mind to make a snapping retort, but you also knew that Eidan Wolfe was young. She was feeling this sort of loss for the first time, most likely, considering Halmeggia’s peaceful position before now. So patience ruled out; Wolfe seemed an abrasive sort, but her anger wasn’t directed towards you, not really. You moved forward, and…hm, did you treat her as a man or a woman at this point? It didn’t seem likely that she was about to pretend that “he” was a faggot what with having smooched her boyfriend right on the lips; easterners were particularly prickly about that sort of thing. Girl it was, then. Eidan’s hair might have been shorter than Linda’s, but she was about the same height. That made it a simple matter to trudge up steadily, take your dirty glove off, and put your hand on her head. Wolfe was taken off guard by this enough that she didn’t even flinch, and only blinked in confusion.

“Aiden was one lucky fella,” you said softly, “You’re a good girl. Too good to mess up doing things you’ll regret, trust me. I know you’re angry, that you’re furious, and it’s all boiling over and you don’t know what to do other than find people that you’re allowed to rip to pieces. I know exactly how that feels, because I still feel that right now. You know where me and my people came from? The Reich, yeah, but I mean how we got here.”

Eidan shook her head, your hand still on top of her, and you took it off.

“We’re Fallschirmjäger. We fell out of the sky about…over there.” You gestured vaguely to the south. “We got blown out of the sky, so the drop went wrong. My best friend, who I’ve known since…I…” you cleared your throat, “Since I don’t even know. We went through training together. We were in wars, though we were hardly in the same place. His name was Douran Dolcherr, and he was a hell of a guy.” You could talk for hours, days, but now…now wasn’t the time. “Long story short, I fucked up. I fucked up and he died because of it. I was so furious I couldn’t even see. The guy who shot him, I ran up, and I cut open his belly and ripped out his guts with my hands.” You’d do it again, too. No. “This only happened…a few hours ago.” When you forced yourself down, though, there was enough fog in your head, that you could fool yourself…into believing it had never happened at all. With the memory of Douran’s death being hidden away, though, so did every other memory of him; the longer you stayed like this, the less of your own life, you felt, you could even recall.

Eidan’s face had fallen, and she looked from your face, to ahead, to the ground. “…I don’t know what to say. I didn’t mean…”

“It’s fine.” you cut in, “The point is, the guy whose guts I ripped out, I…shouldn’t have done that.” Don’t you regret that, you filth. Take it back or piss on Douran’s grave. “I knew Dolcherr better than anybody, and he…wouldn’t want me to become that person, or to stay that sort of person.” Traitor. Traitor to your friends, what worse sort of monster could you be than that? Your voice was starting to wear, and turn ragged like a beaten, frayed rug. “I don’t know what sort of guy this Aiden was, I don’t know you two’s history, but if he’s like any other guy I’ve ever met, he wouldn’t want his sweet little lady torturing herself after he’s passed on, when he can’t help her no more.” You held out Eidan’s gun again, grip towards her. “So if you want that, then go on and shoot this guy, but I think you really ought not to.” With that, you pressed it towards her, but Eidan simply took it and returned it to its holster, an empty look on her face. She remained quiet as you brushed through each of the dead revolutionaries’ things; you didn’t take much time to look at what you grabbed. Just some pages, notes, a few grenades thank you very much, and of course, Eidan’s letter. Naturally, you also took the time to finally bind that leg wound. You'd limp, for now, but at least there wouldn't be more blood.

When you returned to Eidan, she was still frozen. “You gonna hold up?” you asked idly.

“Can’t help…” Eidan whispered to herself, as she backed against a tree, slid against it, and rubbed her fingers against the clasp of the bola tie about her neck. “Aiden, he…he always knew what to do, what was right. Y’say you don’t even know when you met…Douran? Well. I remember exactly when I met Aiden. I…” Eidan pulled at her tie’s cords, still staring at the ground. “See, daddy got famous way before now. A lot of people gave me way too much slack, because I was his daughter. He always told me to not let people tell me what to do, that I could do whatever I wanted to in life, but…he never said what I should do, so I just did…whatever. Dad was always gone too, so a lot of the time, I was just alone.”

“What about your mother?” you asked. Here wasn’t a good place for it, but…the sooner Eidan got this out, the sooner her head would be back in the game. You waved to her to follow you nevertheless, to at least change locations. “Over here. People will be looking here soon.”

“Yeah…She and dad broke up about eight years ago.” Wolfe continued absentmindedly, walking as though she were an automaton. “She started fooling around with some other man, because dad was gone all the time…they divorced. Anyways. I was just, wandering through life. Six years ago, seven months or so, I just take candy from this store, because I can, nobody would do anything about it, when the shopkeeper’s kid follows me out and demands that I pay for it. I…” Eidan twisted a finger around a lock of her red brown hair and seemed to smile slightly in remembrance, “I told him to get lost, so he slugged me in the face. That was when I met Aiden Condotti. He was a wuss then, as ever, so I beat him up, but for a whole week…I couldn’t stop thinking about him. So the next time I saw him, he got up in my face and said I couldn’t just do whatever I wanted, so I…” Aiden started cracking up, in the strange, sad way one did when they were doing their very best not to cry. “I kissed him right on the mouth and demanded to know what he was going to do about it. Then he punched me again. Two years later I finally got him to drag me to a dance. I grew out my hair and everything for that. When he and I signed up, he…” You looked back to see how Eidan was doing, and you saw her stroking her short hair, “He wasn’t happy that I cut it, but even a man with long hair would have to cut it to join the army, y’know? Ha…Ha…”

Eidan was silent for a minute, until she suddenly started swearing under her breath.

“Are you…” you started, but Eidan got louder on her own.

“Stupid, rotten, cunt of a shit worm woman, he goes away, you just wait like a good little bitch for him to come back and tell you what to do, instead of cutting loose and getting over here, and now he’s a corpse. What are you going to do now? You’ve never known what you wanted to do. You going to run home and cry to daddy, even though that’s exactly what he said you shouldn’t do?”

“Er,” you looked back and forth for anybody who might have snuck nearby, “Are you-“

“I hate not knowing what to do!” Eidan Wolfe spat, “I hate that I don’t ever know! How many more people have to get hurt, get killed, for me to stop being such a fuck up!?” Eidan buried her face in her hands, and sobbed a single, terrible muffled screech before falling silent, letting her hands fall, and continuing forward. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, “I just…don’t know.”

“Are-“ you tried again, but once more, Wolfe stopped you short.

“I’m fine.” she choked out.

>Pretend she didn’t have that outburst, and just lay out what you’re heading back to do. It’d be for the better if she could bury this within, and it was clearly what she wanted.
>Poor girl. She really needs a hug, at least, because she most certainly is not fine.
>Reassure her that she’s done nothing wrong, and that if she helps you, it’ll all be for the better; it would help quicken the end of this war, where loved ones on all sides were being killed. She can certainly do more good with a telephone than with a gun.
>Other?

>>3020140
>Reassure her that she’s done nothing wrong, and that if she helps you, it’ll all be for the better; it would help quicken the end of this war, where loved ones on all sides were being killed. She can certainly do more good with a telephone than with a gun.

>>3020140
>>Reassure her that she’s done nothing wrong, and that if she helps you, it’ll all be for the better; it would help quicken the end of this war, where loved ones on all sides were being killed. She can certainly do more good with a telephone than with a gun.

>>3020140
>>3020437
To add to this, also mention how we don't know what to do either after this; after all we still have to go back home and tell Linda and Dolcherr's parents. However, if she comes with us and we can help hasten the end of this conflict, then there'll be less people like us in the aftermath.

>>3020140
>Reassure her that she’s done nothing wrong, and that if she helps you, it’ll all be for the better; it would help quicken the end of this war, where loved ones on all sides were being killed. She can certainly do more good with a telephone than with a gun.

For now, we just have to be good soldiers, we can figure out how to handle the future when it gets here, but right now we both have jobs to do.

Unfortunately, today's probably a wash. Things are just too crowded for me to likely get an update out today. Sorry about that.

Alright, so, normal updates should resume today...in the evening. After the matinee showing for the production I'm a button monkey for. Sorry that things have grinded to a halt for the weekend, but things should be better soon!

As always, if you have any questions concerning setting or characters or the like, feel free to ask them. I will answer as far as characters may know. Unlike proper updates, I can answer those by phone.

>>3025019
After the Emrean War, was there any kind of international laws set regarding chemical/biological warfare?
We know that Strossvald has (and maybe used we dunno) these weapons but was there any kind of League of Nations attempt or something?

>>3025384
> After the Emrean War, was there any kind of international laws set regarding chemical/biological warfare?
There were laws beforehand; that were conveniently ignored. Post Emrean War the Reich and Emre agreed to destroy their stocks of what was considered "cruel and unusual munitions" which meant the disposal of bertholite, mustard, phosgene and flayer gas munitions. Tear gas was exempt from destruction but nevertheless included in the ban list when regarding proper warfare. Post-Reich states generally followed this agreement as well. Gas was nominally banned in the east as well, after it saw use in the Valsten civil war, but not everybody actually signed the treaties banning its use, for example, Strossvald.

>We know that Strossvald has (and maybe used we dunno) these weapons but was there any kind of League of Nations attempt or something?
Strossvald makes no secret of the fact that its border with the Reich is stuffed full of flayer gas canisters and artillery positions. As for international organizations, basically of the continent's countries east of the Grossreich are (theoretically) united in a defensive alliance against the Reich, and said Pact of Free Nations is supposed to help ease tensions between its members; but is largely ignored because they hold no actual power. Strossvald's recent war for example was objected to by the PFN, but the PFN has so little actual power they could do little other than bark. the Pact of Free Nations also has presence in the west, but their power there is equally feeble. There is good reason they haven't really even been mentioned. Most treaties are between nations on an individual scale rather than the result of convening collectives; technically for example the Reich would have a different weapons treaty with Emre than with Valsten for example.

>>3025019
Is Reinhold an orphan given that he seems to live with Linda's family?

I have returned home but I may be a bit for an actual update.

>>3026101
He isn't an orphan; his family moved out of town and he wanted to stick around with the Falkensteins; he was of age where he was apprenticing anyways. That said he doesn't keep in contact with them as much as he should.

>>3025019
Are we potentially making a rod for poor piano boy Richter's back somewhere down the line, in building Roth Vogel up to be such an effective killer?

Punctuality aside, thanks for all the time and work you've put into these quests so far, tanq. A year of reading your story, amongst a few other things, has helped in inspiring my decision to apply for the position of tank crewman in my country's armoured corps. I hope the girls there are as nice as my internet roleplay waifus.

So I didn't get to it today either...sorry! Tomorrow for sure! Eh..

>>3026916
Well, I wish you luck in your endeavors then! Hopefully there aren't any apocalyptic wars soon.

Reinhold's a far more experienced warrior in the first place; it depends on how likely you think you'll be fighting the Reich; and the likelihood of involvement of Luftpanzers, particularly the survival of the project beyond this operation. Its survival does depend on this going well, after all.
"Nice" is a funny way to describe them.

Alright, finally, update soon. A lot of what I was doing was really background work for the near future, as it turned out; I considered just lumping more and more shit into one big update, but I don't think we need me dipping out of a third day.

What Wolfe must have wanted was for you to keep on walking like she hadn’t let all that slip, but you couldn’t fulfill that wish; not tonight. You took another couple of steps, and then stopped abruptly, giving the bald canopy of the woods your gaze, and seeing the stars upwards through the twisted black branches. “Y’know,” you said, with your hands tucked in your pockets, “You can’t keep beating yourself up over something you weren’t around to prevent. You didn’t do anything wrong. I know, you can’t rip anything to pieces in front of you, so it all turns inward, but you can’t do that. If you aren’t patient, you’ll just destroy yourself, and I know for damn certain that that’s not what Aiden would’ve wanted, if you’re this broken up.”

“But,” Eidan flared up, but cooled back down. She failed to say anything but that brief spurt, and instead fell quiet once more.

“It’s not the end, though,” you went on, “It’s only over if you let it be that way. If you keep on walking, if you help me, your fellows, in fighting, this war will be over that much sooner. Our situation’s not unique at all. Every soldier that falls was loved by somebody, and the longer a war goes, the worse it gets. So…” You turned around in a lazy gait, sloping your shoulders before straightening back up and grinning at Wolfe, “…the fewer people there are like us, the better, yeah?”

Wolfe…blushed. If that wasn’t surprising enough, she sniffed, and you saw her eyes start to water…not what you expected.

“I’m fine,” she quickly said, coughing, “It’s just that, that, that’s what…never mind.”

That particular stone you left well unturned. “We’ll have plenty of time to feel real, real shitty about this later, to get drunk, fight, or uh, whatever you plan on doing, after all this is over. For now, we have to be good soldiers, and keep fighting. We can handle the future when it gets here; we’ve got to keep busy while there’s still people wanting to kill us.” You were half talking to yourself; after you went home, you’d have to talk to Linda, to Herr and Frau Falkenstein, to Dolcherr’s parents, his brothers…you hated to brush that away from your thoughts but you had to, or else you started to feel feeble, and to want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

“…What’s your name again?” Wolfe asked, “Captain Roth-Vogel?”

“Reinhold,” you gestured to yourself, “I tell people to just call me that, but I can’t say that I don’t like the sound of Captain either. Now get your helmet back on, we’ve got to get back to business.”

Getting away from the front was refreshingly easy; a Halmeggian Aristocratic Union patrol came around, investigating the sound of the firefight you’d just been in, and after a brief explanation, you were waved on your way once more. Upon arriving back at your company (squadron, you’d prefer, but calling it a squadron would just confuse everybody who had to work with you) you noticed that the reinforcements the Aristocratic Union had provided, promised to you by the Duke di Vitelstadt, had arrived. One section of a pair heavy armored cars, a platoon of Helmeggian tanks that were at least equivalent in firepower to one of your Luftpanzer II Fuchs, and two platoons of Halmeggian regular soldiers, presumably in the trucks that followed. Said soldiers were of questionable quality, from what you’d seen, but were at least trained in basic tactics and weapons operation, presumably, which was more than could be said of the numerous militia you saw being used by all sides, though the Halmeggians were a far cry from Reich troopers, let alone the elite Fallschirmjäger. They would do fine for now, however.

“Alright, uh,” you wondered what to do with Wolfe. You could hardly shove yet another woman onto the back of your tank, even if this one was disguised. “Go link up with that tank platoon over there,” you gestured to the Halmeggian armored group, “They’re commanded by somebody called Lieutenant Alterwald, I think.”

“Alterwald,” Wolfe scoffed, “Fine then.”

You had met Alterwald while fighting the Revolutionaries just some time ago, specifically after you’d gotten your Luftpanzers dropped and moved to break through the Revolutionary Army of Greater Vitelia’s lines, and smashed through to the Aristocratic Union’s troops, whom you now worked with. He had been in command of a pair of much sturdier and more intimidating tanks, but both had been damaged in the battle, and while you had the option of requesting more of the same sort of armor, you had elected instead to stretch your resources further. Those heavier tanks were apparently rather rare, after all, and wouldn’t have been let go of very easily.

Once you reached your tank once more, you found out an unpleasant side effect of your wounding.

“Hrmph,” you grunted in pain as you tried to twist your wounded leg up to climb on the tank, “God damn it.”

This attracted Owl 3’s attention; your assigned intelligence specialist, a thin woman with a stern demeanor and long locks of wavy black hair, her bangs covering up one of her eyes and leaving a lone startlingly blue eye to look at you. She had revealed to you earlier that its companion was a different hue; you had to admit that the addition of that exotic trait made her…hm.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, letting herself down. “…You’re wounded.”

“Just a scratch,” you played it off, but Owl 3 had none of it.

“Let me see it. Take your trousers off.”

“Woah, hey,” you tried to smirk devilishly, raising your hands up, “You’re being a bit hasty, aren’t you? I prefer to at least have a drink and a chat before that.”

“Shut up,” Owl 3 put her hands on her hips. “I know something of medical technique. A leg wound isn’t as disabling to you as a vehicle commander, but it cannot be tolerated nevertheless. If you show me it, I can try to repair it with your vehicle’s medical kit. It should have some basic tools for suturing. Now take off your trousers, or I’ll remove them myself.”

>I’ll call your bluff, honey. Really, I’ll be fine. It’s just a nick. That bled an ugly amount.
>I like a woman who takes the initiative. Go on, then.
>Don’t try to tease Winnifred; just obediently show her the wound properly.
>Other?

>>3029203
>>Don’t try to tease Winnifred; just obediently show her the wound properly.

>>3029203
>Don’t try to tease Winnifred; just obediently show her the wound properly.

>>3029203
>>Don’t try to tease Winnifred; just obediently show her the wound properly.

We can tease her AFTER she puts the sharp needle away from our Schwanz.

>>3029286
I support this, a tactical delay to prevent any unnecessary damage in our time of weakness is just good practice.

>>3029286
Supporting

Tempted though you might be to make some lewd suggestion, you were wary enough of what stitching entailed to know that Winnifred would soon be holding a needle – in close proximity to a place where it could be rather painfully exploited as punishment for crass behavior. So you kept your mouth shut, and obediently pushed your trousers lower. Hopefully your briefs wouldn’t abruptly get too small in a moment, you thought as Owl 3 grew impatient with your pace and tugged them down further, pushing you down onto your rear so she could crook your leg. She removed the hastily applied bandage and peered at it, the blood still wet but the bleeding slowed much.

Her pensiveness would have prompted another crass joke; flirtatious jokes were normally great fun, but Winnifred was rather…dangerous to overindulge in such with. Granted, only a man who subsisted off of nothing but fruit and flour wouldn’t be allured by a dangerous woman, but the threat usually wasn’t of Owl 3’s sort. Whether that sort of threat was something you were into…well, you’d see. Linda wasn’t dangerous, though you remembered Grabb saying something of the sort when you first met and started hanging around one another. Perhaps living around Linda for so long had cut any potential fangs, but then again, Grabb was the sort of fellow who…well, considered most women dangerous.

Your rambling to yourself in your head about whether or not you thought Owl 3 was hot was part of normal idiocy, sure, but more of it was to distract from your intelligence operative threading the sterilized needle from the kit and preparing to stick you with it…

So to distract yourself, you started telling Owl 3 what you’d gone out and done, albeit in a quite abbreviated manner. She didn’t tell you to stop talking, so presumably it didn’t spoil her focus.

“Do you know who those black helmet guys might have been? Urf.” You grunted as you felt the needle slip in another time. “Are they like, elite soldiers?”

“Of a sort,” Winnifred said offhandedly as she tightened a stitch with a knot, “We heard of descriptions like that concerning the Revolutionary Party Police. They answer directly to representatives of the Revolutionary Government, rather than its armies. Either they were part of a favor to the commander here, or they were looking for something in particular. It's not likely that they were merely reinforcements, or line filler.”

“Well,” you offered, “They did seem interested in Wolfe. Were they looking for her, you think?”

Owl 3 gave a dismissive sigh. “I doubt it. Revolutionary intelligence is severely lacking, and they most likely had no idea where Eidan Wolfe was, perhaps not even knowing she was with the Aristocratic Union. More likely, they were looking for stray paratroopers. Alternatively, they may have been searching for the intelligence agent they lost.”

Owl 3 was quickly three quarters through stitching your wound, with the speed and precision of a tailor. Compared to the pain of the wound, the twinge of the needle going in and out was nothing. Was it worth asking after where Winnifred learned this? She seemed quite proficient. Actually looking at the process was sickening, though, so you continued to daydream. Nightdream? Awake dream? In a few hours, the sun would be rising. The sky was already a bit lighter now. Soon enough, morning would come, and most likely, Linda Falkenstein would wake up to a new day, and receive the letter from “you”- penned by Dolcherr. Perhaps by then the airfield at Santi Arrofini would be taken, and Lieutenant Bartholomeu would be sent back home to recover from his wounds.

“Say,” you asked, waking up from that train of thought, “You think I’m holding it together? Wolfe seemed to be losing it, and I tried to help, but…”

“No wound heals right away,” Winnifred replied, “It can be made to heal more quickly, but wishing it away won’t do more than build resentment.”

“I wouldn’t say that leg wound hurts that much.”

“I wasn’t referring to your leg.” Winnifred said, looking into your eyes. She seemed to expect a response, but you said nothing. She soon went back to finishing the last suture, before washing it and drawing out a spool of gauze. “It’s done,” Owl 3 said as she bound your wound again, “It won’t stay if you exert yourself too much, but this is far better than leaving it as it was before.”

“Thanks,” you pulled your trousers back to a comfortable level and tightened your belt, “You keeping warm?” you referred to your jacket, still on Owl 3.

She nodded, which was a step from the usual non answer she gave to such things. “You said you captured some documents? Let me see.”

After you dug them out and passed them over, you asked Owl 3 a few more things as her eye passed over the notes. “So do you think I should have run after her, then?”

“It was extremely foolish for her to run off,” Winnifred said without taking her eyes off the pages, “And you were wounded as an indirect result. However, if Wolfe were to be left alone, she most likely would have been captured by the Revolutionaries.”

“That would be bad.”

“It would be a disaster,” Owl 3 said with tone not befitting the severity of the theoretical, “Major Wolfe is known to be headstrong and emotional, much like his sole progeny. She would make an incredibly effective hostage, and would likely mean that Wolfe’s forces would join the Revolutionaries. His men follow Gunmetal, after all, not any particular ideology.”

“Couldn’t the Aristocratic Union do the same thing?” you asked. It seemed obvious.

“They very well could,” Owl 3 passed to the next page, “If they knew who she was. The most logical reason I can think of for that route being exploited is that the only people who know, are keeping it secret from those who would want most to exploit that knowledge. Perhaps to protect Eidan Wolfe, or perhaps even to prevent her father from having his position weakened.”

“And the less logical reasons?”

“The Aristocratic Union may harbor a dislike for Major Wolfe’s common origins, his popularity…” She crumpled up a page into a ball and threw it behind her, “The Halmeggian army was always rife with competition, and the same can be said for the aristocracy, despite their attempts at unifying. Additionally, it may be, as headstrong as Wolfe is, they feared provoking outrage rather than fear and submission. As much as our efforts to take down a complete and comprehensive analysis of the situation here bore fruit, I’m hardly omniscient.”

“How much did you people know about Wolfe, anyways?” you asked further, “You didn’t speak of him much before now.”

“I will admit that it was a surprise.” Wolfe saw something she found interesting, it seemed, from the look in her eye, but kept speaking with you, her brain apparently more than capable of handling multiple tasks. “Gunmetal Wolfe was indeed a very popular figure, but he was expected to be more of a follower in an event such as this. Instead, he gathered power to himself, apparently in a bid to install a military government. As lacking as the Halmeggian army’s reputation is, I would warn against underestimating Wolfe the same way. He attended the Zeissenburg armor academy, and did quite well there, and is known for being abnormally skilled.”

“Good thing I was planning on not fighting him,” you started, but Owl 3 cut you off.

“That may be more difficult than initially planned. Remember that Major Wolfe was a popular figure; many whom I would have once thought to be independent holdouts might sway to join him if they hear of his ascent.”

“Great,” you groaned. “More enemies. Just what I wanted tonight.”

Owl 3 finished perusing the documents, and you expected her to say something of them, but she betrayed your expectations. “If I may ask, Captain,” she folded the sheaf of papers over themselves, “Perhaps politics are not a special interest of yours, and it may be out of the scope of this mission, but do you have a preference for whom would come out on top at the end of this war? I will not judge your opinion.”

“I would hope I’m smart enough to give the right answer to an intelligence officer,” you chuckled to yourself.

“Not to an intelligence officer,” Winnifred corrected, “To me. I want to know your opinion.”

“And if I had the wrong one?” you asked skeptically.

“You do not mistrust me for being of a disgraced noble family,” Winnifred said simply, “Can you not trust me despite being a spy?”

>I suppose it’d be for the best if everything went back to the way it was before, wouldn’t it? Though I don’t know if that’s likely at all, after this.
>Maybe it’s just because we’ve helped each other out, but I guess the Aristocratic Union could avoid making a further mess of things. They’re the most likely to win after our help anyways, as I see it.
>This Gunmetal Wolfe guy seems like he has the right idea of it. I don’t see why we would have to be enemies if we both dislike Revolutionaries. Do you think he’d shack up with the Kaiser?
>With how much a mess this is shaping up to be, I’d like best if the Kaiser marched the army right through the protectorates and we got to clean up here ourselves, damn the expense to ourselves.
>Other? (Including queries and actions)

>>3030218
>Maybe it’s just because we’ve helped each other out, but I guess the Aristocratic Union could avoid making a further mess of things. They’re the most likely to win after our help anyways, as I see it.
Honestly the Aristos are probably the most stable of out of all the factions even though the commoners might hate their guts. If Wolfe came to power I wouldn't be surprised if Halmeggia dissolved into warlordism after his death considering how much his strength is based on his cult of personality. As long as they maintain friendly relations with the Reich I think from our PoV that's good enough.

>>3030218
Also as a side note, has the Parliament been able to form their own faction, since I'd assume the commoners and middle classes would be opposed to both the RAGV and the Union, plus Wolfe would likely be too authoritarian for them.

>>3030270
So far as you know, they still exist, as they Royal Guards and such would be aligned with them, but you haven't seen any; and reports don't seem to indicate that they are in anything that could be called a position of strength. Their best bet for survival as of now would be to form a collaborative bloc with another faction, as it appears they don't hold the influence all by themselves to survive on their own.

Of course, the objective of the mission itself is to recover the royal family, so who knows, perhaps the horse they've bet on is the Kaiser, who wouldn't be a Halmeggian faction they'd have to compromise with.

>>3030218
>Maybe it’s just because we’ve helped each other out, but I guess the Aristocratic Union could avoid making a further mess of things. They’re the most likely to win after our help anyways, as I see it.

>>3030218
>>Maybe it’s just because we’ve helped each other out, but I guess the Aristocratic Union could avoid making a further mess of things. They’re the most likely to win after our help anyways, as I see it.

>>3030218
>>With how much a mess this is shaping up to be, I’d like best if the Kaiser marched the army right through the protectorates and we got to clean up here ourselves, damn the expense to ourselves.

If the Kaiser could march in and consolidate the country, it would mean this war would be over that much quicker. From there it really doesn't matter who the government gets handed off to, just as long as whoever picks up the pieces has at least some interest in the good of the country.

>>3030349
If the Kaiser could march into the country we wouldn't be here in the first place honestly. I would also have liked to see a more direct intervention by the Reich but the Kaiser seems not to want to aggreive the Protectorates right now.

We like the AU because battle buddies, sort of. For now, at least. Writing.

>>3030366
This is indeed the case. It doesn't help that the protectorates have their own militaries, so they have the means to object to the Kaiser marching troops right through against their permission!

>>3030636
So theoretically what's stopping the rest of the Protectorates from banding together and seceding? That all the Reich's neighbours will dogpile on them?

>>3030650
That, and while they do have their own armies, they're dwarfed by the Reich Proper's. It's more advantageous for them to stay as part of the Grossreich and remain under the protective umbrella of the kaiser than it is to declare independence. Emre, for example, would just love to eat up the northern protectorates were it to get the excuse to get them for relatively little cost.

“Maybe it’s just because we’ve helped each other out, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’d guess the Aristocratic Union could avoid making this an even bigger mess,” you said to Winnifred’s question, “They’re the most likely to win after our help anyways, yeah?” you tried to put on a cocky grin. Really the minimum for a satisfactory resolution would be for whoever came out on top to maintain friendly relations with the Reich; such would at least mean your mission here hadn’t been for nothing. Who knew if Wolfe would pursue such were he to win, but you knew for certain that the Revolutionary Army of Greater Vitelia winning would be the absolute worst in all regards.

“You have an optimistic estimate of how long this war will take,” Owl 3 said, her face dour, “The civil war in Vitelia has raged for years.”

You touched your finger to Winnifred’s nose, and she blinked in confusion. “Careful honey,” you joked, “If you’re too negative you’ll get lines on your face early. Not that I blame you with what’s happened to you and all, but I’d like to say we’re making enough difference, hm?”

“Perhaps,” Winnifred backed herself away from your light poke, “But as you say, I do not come from a place where my confidence in a brighter future is overflowing.”
“Is that, as you say, a wound?”

“…Perhaps it is.” Owl 3 muttered. “Do you need assistance getting back into your tank?”

“Appreciated, really, but no,” you waved a hand, and stretched yourself out. “The wound hindering me has been cured by an angel’s touch. Hoop! Ha!” You vaulted into the tank, full of confidence that you wouldn’t smash into the gun breach. That confidence proved to be misplaced.

-----

Though, as you thought about your answer to Owl 3’s question, you wondered if the Aristocrats really were for the best. Being blue bloods, from what you heard of general opinion of their sort of the Kaiser, would they really maintain a friendly relation with the Reich, if their victory came? Perhaps it wasn’t so much that that was important to you as much as the war ending swiftly. Whom else would Halmeggia align to if not the Reich, after all? Centuries of that sort of relationship didn’t end on the drop of a hat. Of course, you bet you could have said the same about Emre and its war for its independence, and look how much had changed about that…

Ah, the goal of having the war end quickly was good enough. Politics turned your head screwy, and just made you want to go get a stiff drink. All the booze from earlier in the night had faded away, and you found yourself missing the buzz. Maybe you could pilfer a bottle somewhere along the way. If only the supply drops had crates of spirits in them; you could have really gone for a glass of brandy. Alas, the supply crates only held the only slightly less appealing cargo of ammunition for your tanks. Once you’d returned to your lines with your Halmeggian reinforcements, said supplies were sucked up greedily, machine guns and shells restored.

“Ah, right, Captain, I heard it brought up when we were checking these,” the supply officer you were meeting with showed you the resupply of white phosphorus marking shells- quite useful for a myriad of purposes other than mere marking smoke. “The level bombers have been loosed. You’ve got priority for any of them. You probably know they can dive too, but not too great. That said, they’ve got a ton of bombs, so if you’re feeling lucky and need a lot blown up…the top cover’s cleared to go for strafing runs too, if you flare up the targets.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” You said. Really, you didn’t think much of tactical strikes from medium bombers. Sure, they were the only things with the range for this sort of mission, but both in exercises and in actual combat you’d seen they lacked precision compared to dive bombers. Unpleasant memories of the time you had to hit the dirt for an off mark level bombing run came to mind; you’d remember, if there was a next time, to keep your distance.

Ideally, though, you would have liked to have proper artillery support. Such would have to be left up to the Aristocratic Union support you were given; more importantly, your designated forward observer, Eidan Wolfe.

“How are we looking for friendly support, then?” you sauntered up to her, “If we can plan a route where we can count on your peoples’ shells coming down for us the whole way, that’ll be swell.”

“…I’ve been given personal priority for fire missions, yes,” Eidan Wolfe still sounded ragged; so long as she was functional. “To keep us under the umbrella of artillery, though…we need to keep within seventeen kilometers of the batteries for the fifteen centimeter guns, twelve for the ten centimeters. I don’t think that gives you a lot of room to move about.”

“Hm, no, it doesn’t, does it,” you hummed, observing your map. From what intelligence you were given, the Aristocratic Union’s batteries wouldn’t reach to where you expected the heaviest fighting, especially if you went the initially plotted route of heading north from Santi Arrofini; you’d be too far west for the batteries to help at all, even though that was the most direct route to Delamil, and the castle north of it where the Royals were besieged. You supposed you could dog leg around to stay in the artillery’s shadow, and then break direct west when you were close…but that would take longer, when time was very valuable as is. “What about the possibility of us running into artillery on the way?” you proposed, “A whole lot of gear’s been spread about, yeah?”

Eidan shrugged. “I guess? They might not have proper communications or a fire control command, though. Worst of all they could be crewed by people who don’t know how to use them. Would you trust somebody who wasn’t good at math at making artillery calculations? For hitting a coordinate on a map they might not have?”

A decent point. It was time to make a decision on the route, though. You didn’t want to take any support from the Fallschirmjäger either, even though they had potentially very helpful mortars; to make it more difficult to attack the Santi Arrofini airfield would just make your exit harder, and you presumed that would have to be done in a hurry.

>Take the initial, shortest total distance northern route. There’d be basically no opportunity to use the batteries of the Aristocratic Union, but maybe that wouldn’t matter so much? (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries, Independents, as well as the advance of Major Wolfe’s militarists from the west.)
>Hug the edge of the Aristocrat’s artillery batteries going north before turning hard west towards Delamil; it would take longer, but you’d be safer, perhaps. (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries and Independents)
>Travel completely through Aristocratic territory until you were directly east of Delamil, then cut west. They were your allies, you could surely ask for such? (Longest distance total, but shortest potential through active combat area. Be warned, this will require passing through a front of very heavy fighting between the Aristocratic Union and the RAGV, and the latter will likely have an extremely heavy presence on this front!)
>Other potential ideas or actions, preparations?

>>3031254
>>Hug the edge of the Aristocrat’s artillery batteries going north before turning hard west towards Delamil; it would take longer, but you’d be safer, perhaps. (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries and Independents)

>>3031254
>Other potential ideas or actions, preparations?

I think a big part of this weighs on whether we try to contact Gunmetal or not using Eidan (hostage, ally or other),

Let's ask her, does she want to make contact with her father? Does she think she can sway him to at the very least let us pass through them?

If not or she thinks she can't do it then:
>Hug the edge of the Aristocrat’s artillery batteries going north before turning hard west towards Delamil; it would take longer, but you’d be safer, perhaps. (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries and Independents)

We're likely going to be fighting our way out once the enemy realizes the Royals are with us. Might as well arrive in the best shape we can.

>>3031254
>>Hug the edge of the Aristocrat’s artillery batteries going north before turning hard west towards Delamil; it would take longer, but you’d be safer, perhaps. (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries and Independents)
Tanq, can you show the general map of the region again so we can roughly see the proposed routes?

>>3031254
>>Take the initial, shortest total distance northern route. There’d be basically no opportunity to use the batteries of the Aristocratic Union, but maybe that wouldn’t matter so much? (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries, Independents, as well as the advance of Major Wolfe’s militarists from the west.)

If we need artillery to breakthrough then were facing opponents we shouldnt be fighting. Were light tanks, not an assault unit. We have the armored cars have them screen the main force, if they run into heavy fortifications then we go around.
iirc the map from the past thread had our initial path relatively flat. We can outrun any threat and if they try to keep up, their heavy armor will fall behind any faster lighter motorized units.

>>3031505
I'd need to make it more detailed for it to actually help, but sure, I can get that ready

>>3031254
>Hug the edge of the Aristocrat’s artillery batteries going north before turning hard west towards Delamil; it would take longer, but you’d be safer, perhaps. (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries and Independents)

>>3031254
>Take the initial, shortest total distance northern route. There’d be basically no opportunity to use the batteries of the Aristocratic Union, but maybe that wouldn’t matter so much? (Contact reported to be Revolutionaries, Independents, as well as the advance of Major Wolfe’s militarists from the west.)

We can’t go spending time we might not have. If the royal family is dead when we get there it won’t matter how good of a position we are in to fight our way back out.

Also, are there any leftover luftpanzer crew we can attach to our Halmeggian units so we can signal them if we have to? It might be hard to stuff someone in the tanks, but the trucks and armored cars might have room for at least one more.

Just want to point out that taking the shortest route might not save us time; as our air cover has reported to the Colonel it's likely there's going to be a huge fight up north which would probably have to make us detour anyway if we want to skip that entire mess.

>>3031649
Just arclight strike a path through with our medium bomber cover

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Super late map, here you people go. I'll give this a few hours so people can see and maybe change things up if they like. The dotted lines (with arrows) are the routes, the solid arrows are general attacks/movements, as vaguely seen by aerial recon. Lines are of course fluctuating, and reports may be unreliable, as well as general terrain precision and presence of woods, and small villages and other structures. This is a quite general lay of the land.

>>3031474
>I think a big part of this weighs on whether we try to contact Gunmetal or not using Eidan (hostage, ally or other),

This is likely to be very much the case if you plan on encountering anybody from the Militarists (name not yet run into). Of course, if you don't plan on running into him, then it may not be a factor, but...

>>3031642
>Also, are there any leftover luftpanzer crew we can attach to our Halmeggian units so we can signal them if we have to? It might be hard to stuff someone in the tanks, but the trucks and armored cars might have room for at least one more.

There is reserve crew available that were initially in 2nd platoon that you can retrieve, though you and the Halmeggians will be sharing a frequency (theirs) so there shouldn't be any difficulties with the wirelesses at least.

This is
>>3031474

I'll stick my vote to Hug the Edge and we can try to thread the needle between the RAGV offensive heading out and the Militarists heading in.

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There was an idea you had, that might have made one route potentially much, much easier. It depended on one person, though, so you went to go see her.

“Wolfe,” you addressed Eidan after finding her, “Come over and talk to me over here, we’ve got something to discuss.” While saying this, you made a waving motion, as if to say where nobody can hear. Eidan dumbly followed after you, until you were well away from the other Halmeggians, a vacant look in her eyes; empty, yet heavy, as though she were very, very tired. “I’ve got a question concerning your father. One of the potential routes we can take to reach the Royals would involves passing real close to his guys. Hell, we might run into them near the Castle Delamil anyways, so I’d like to be ready for him. Do you want to see if we can make contact with your dad?”

Wolfe stared blankly ahead. “I don’t know.”

“…Come on, honey,” you tried not to sound exasperated, “If you could talk to him, d’you think you could convince us to join our side? Or maybe just let us pass through without his guys shooting us up, if not? It’d be really, really helpful.”

“I…” Eidan took her helmet off once more, and let it fall, before looking wistfully up at the sky. Her hairpin, otherwise completely hidden by the helmet, shone in the moonlight. “I don’t know if I could do that. I could try, but, I know that he was expecting me to stay with him. I wonder…if he thinks I’ve betrayed him.”

“I’ve gotten the impression he’s a little too fond of you to think that,” you said to that.

“His sort of fondness isn’t like…” Wolfe trailed off, still looking at the sky and clutching the red loop about her neck, “He thinks what’s best for me is to go my own way. I’ve hardly ever been able to convince him to not do something after he gets it in his head. I guess we’re the same, like that. He told me what he would do, and I thought he was wrong, so…”

“Uh,” you noticed a few Halmeggians looking over, and coughed, “Not going to advise you too much on fashion, but, just thought I should say. Dudes don’t wear hairpins.”

Wolfe touched a finger to her hairpin, but let her hand fall instead of removing it. “…No, it’s fine. It’s not like I was ever doing this as a career, or anything. There’s no reason to hide it. Not anymore.”

“Maybe you should slip into something more comfortable, then?” you poked. Wolfe merely looked from the sky to you, just as blank as before. “Anyways, it’s fine,” you turned back to the mission from that very brief detour, “We’re planning on hugging you guys’s lines going north so we can get artillery support the whole way in case there’s anything too blocky in the way. So I’ll be keeping you busy; are you feeling up to it?”

Wolfe blinked, then frowned, then touched her finger to her hairpin again. “…Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“Alright then, well, get your helmet back on, soldier,” you picked Wolfe’s helmet up off the ground, brushed the dirt off, and tossed it into her hands. “Don’t need you getting taken out of commission by a random bit of metal. Also, uh,” you weren’t sure how to put this; you scratched your head for a bit before going on. “If we run into your old man, y’know, I uh, won’t make you confront him if you don’t want to. I’ll do my best not to get into a fight with him either. Just keep hell raining down on everything else, do we have a deal?”

“Mm.” Wolfe sighed. She went on ahead of you, back to Lieutenant Alterwald’s tanks whence she came. As you watched her walk away, you wondered if Alterwald could be trusted…around Wolfe. Actually, that thought started out as a suggestive, joking one, but turned into an actual concern. Owl 3’s words came into your head again, proposing that not everybody knew about Eidan’s identity. Did Alterwald know, or not? He was apparently the Duke Di Vitelstadt’s henchman, from what you had heard the Aristocratic Union soldiers speak of him. Questions and more questions…you elected instead to think that if he knew anything he had a problem with, he would have acted on it by now. Your mind returned then to the initial concern of balancing things out. Maybe you could pick up a golden eyed princess from the Royal Family, Halm-Auric, and you and Alterwald would be two for two for feminine companions.

-----

“Alright people,” you gathered your platoon commanders and their second in commands, even if one had started out as a third in command, as well as the officers and their second in commands of your Halmeggian allies. Owl 3 wasn’t in attendance, but you would tell her while on the path anyways. After you told them the basic situation and enemy compositions and the need to know, you went quickly ahead with the maneuver plan itself. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to be heading due north, trying to skirt behind the front lines of the Revolutionaries while staying close to the lines of the Aristocratic Union. Sure, that means we’ll have a simple escape route if things get screwed, but what we’re trying to do is avoid fighting unless we need to; and if we do get in a fight, we’ll be close enough to friendly lines to have a lot of help. Now, things won’t be just smooth sailing, even though this front isn’t one that’s reported to have a lot of enemy presence, so don’t get cocky. Keep an eye out, be careful, but be quick. Time’s a wastin’, after all. The scout cars will lead; make sure you keep reporting back. If you go quiet for too long, we’ll assume something’s gone bad. Any questions? Besides Covacs? No?”

“It’s concerning independent militia,” Lieutenant Covacs, commander of your 1st platoon, said dully, “Do we have any rules we want to follow on whether or not we engage ununiformed contacts?”

>Make sure you get the first shot off. I’m not saying blow them up on sight, but I’ll trust things to your judgment. If you have a bad feeling, then go ahead and shoot.
>Don’t fire unless fired upon. I know that’s risky, but we have a reputation to uphold.
>We can’t cause undue harm, even in the hurry we’re in. We’ll send people to meet with them under truce flags if we encounter a large concentration in our path.
>Other?
Also
>Determine your order of march. Mostly, this concerns whether you want the Halmeggians in front of you, behind you, or alternating, etc.
>Any other concerns, questions, or preparations may be proposed too. Once you set out, after all, you won’t be coming back until you’ve hit the Castle Delamil, your objective.

>>3033380
>>Don’t fire unless fired upon. I know that’s risky, but we have a reputation to uphold.

If they are itching to fight a tank convoy then we'll give them hell, and if they get in our way we'll give them hell too.

Speed is the keyword though, if they look to be blocking us then maybe we send them a reason not too. Or several.

Luftpanzers at the front, the Aristo tanks at the rear. Infantry trucks towards the middle.

>Any other concerns, questions, or preparations may be proposed too. Once you set out, after all, you won’t be coming back until you’ve hit the Castle Delamil, your objective.

Maybe work with the scout cars some kind of flare system for emergency contacts if they don't have radios built in.

At some point just as we're about to leave artillery range we should have them hit a target further away from us, even briefly just to confuse any enemies about our goals. At least this meandering path doesn't make it too obvious initially.

>>3033380
>>Don’t fire unless fired upon. I know that’s risky, but we have a reputation to uphold.

>>Determine your order of march.
Armored cars up front, one of our tank squads, Alterwald and his armor, the trucks and infantry followed by us and the remaining tank squad

>>3033380
>We can’t cause undue harm, even in the hurry we’re in. We’ll send people to meet with them under truce flags if we encounter a large concentration in our path.
>Alternate between Halmeggian and Reich platoons.

>>3033401
>Maybe work with the scout cars some kind of flare system for emergency contacts if they don't have radios built in.

These ones have radios; they're not quite as beat up old piles of crap as what else is out there. Any of your vehicles save for the trucks have radios; the infantry have a communications vehicle that they can draw a field telephone line to if need be.

>>3033409
Could we get a new oob with the AU units on it.

Also is 3rd squad permanently attached to 1st now or can they remain as an independent understrength squad?

>>3033380
>Don’t fire unless fired upon. I know that’s risky, but we have a reputation to uphold.
Scouts to our front, Armour in the middle and the infantry brings up the rear

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>>3033411
You happen to be in luck! I've had something like that ready for...well, something else.

Don't worry too much about the numbers and such; they'll be expounded upon once I actually format the new rules in a proper way, instead of being a messy clump. They should be seeing some use soon, though.

I'll have to drive people somewhere in about an hour, and while I'm planning on starting writing after calling this vote in about twenty minutes or so, it's quite possible that I'll have my writing interrupted before it's finished, so pardon that.

>>3033411
>>3033425
Forgot to mention, no, you don't have to keep units arranged as such. For example, in that setup, each "single" platoon is technically two parts stuck together.

And in case you don't want to translate from rules I haven't explained, your current force is as such:

Luftpanzer Company:
You- x1 Luftpanzer II Fuchs
1st Platoon- x3 Luftpanzer II Fuchs, x2 Luftpanzer II Ein (One of each damaged)
2nd Platoon- x1 Luftpanzer II Fuchs, x2 Luftpanzer II Ein
2rd Platoon- x3 Luftpanzer II Fuchs, x2 Luftpanzer II Ein

Halmeggian Aristocratic Union Detachment:
x4 m12/27
x2 m7/28
x2 Infantry platoons, with trucks

>>3033425
Did you hand draw the icons or do you have 3d renders now?

HOI4 mod when?

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>>3033434
In most cases, if I have a vehicle show up, or maybe even if it doesn't end up showing up but I plan for it to perhaps be able to, I'll have modeled it. Most of my drawings of vehicles are over a model to keep things relatively precise, combined with a reference sheet, so basically the answer is yes.

Full conversion mods are way beyond me.Not that I don't have something planned in the...relatively far from now future, that I get a bunch of material for as a side benefit of running this.

Anyways, not really sure now what the order would be...it's pretty certain that the ROE decided on is don't shoot til shot at. I'll force myself to figure things out once I'm through being chauffeur tonight.

“If you see anybody suspicious, don’t shoot them unless they shoot first,” you told Covacs, and the rest of the attending leadership, “I know that’s risky, but we’ve got a reputation to uphold. Anybody who you know for sure if an enemy is fair game for first shots, though. Got that?” There were no objections or further queries at the time; not necessarily because there wasn’t interest in such, but the situation you were going ahead into wasn’t one where much could be certain anyways. The best the lot of you could do was know what way you were going, and what you hoped to find in a state better than smoking ruins. That said, you couldn’t help but feel rather confident. The whole formation was mechanized, and thus was quite swift. Should you avoid being hindered too much, it was likely you’d reach the objective in (relatively) no time at all. That, and the bunch of you had a full tank company plus, with armored recon and infantry support. There would be very little that could stand in the way of your firepower.

The company (and friends) were arranged in a staggered column of platoons for now, each one in an echelon left or right depending on the side they were on. The scout car section was first, of course, and a fair distance ahead as to survey the way ahead properly. From there, the vehicles alternated. Covacs led the formation behind the armored cars with his 1st platoon, the Alterwald’s Halmeggian armor contingent, then yourself and 2nd platoon’s remains, as well as 3rd platoon, and then the two Halmeggian infantry platoons. It meant that all your force was heavily directed to the front, not that you counted on ever not having the initiative.

“What do you think,” you asked Owl 3 as you returned to her, and your tank, after explaining the plan and what it involved. “We’re not heading straight there, but this way we’ve got plenty of support along the way.”

“Hm.” Winnifred looked at your map, then at you, “You are afraid?”

You blinked in surprise. “I don’t think I am.”

“You are sacrificing speed in exchange for a more secure route,” Winnifred pointed out dully, “Clearly there is a reason you have chosen this option. Are you concerned about taking more casualties?”

“Maybe I am,” you admitted defensively, “So what? I’ll still make it with time to spare.”

“As long as you are confident of that.” Owl 3 almost seemed critical. Would she have preferred you take the quicker route? You asked as such, and she replied, “I am not the commander of this operation. Whatever plan you choose, it is my job to support it. I am an intelligence agent, not a superior officer. Though if you were to ask my personal opinion,” She stared with a cool, blue eye, “I anticipated that you would be more daring. Has being wounded hurt your confidence?”

…That felt like something you shouldn’t just let lie. You tried to smirk; “Hey, does recklessness and derring-do turn you on? I’m not planning on just lying back and being careful from here on out. Besides, if we took the initial path we were planning on, we wouldn’t be able to have Eidan Wolfe call in the Aristocracy’s big guns in support of us. It’s a good bit of insurance.”

Owl 3 didn’t answer immediately as you expected her to. Maybe she was actually considering what to say to the first part of your response? The raven haired waif didn’t address that, though, and instead replied to the subject of Wolfe. “Wolfe’s personal skillset is far less useful than whom she is herself. Pardon me for pointing this out, but a soldier’s life on the battlefield is expendable. Each person in an army is recruited, trained, equipped and paid with the full expectation that they may have to be sacrificed. In this regard, Wolfe would be no different than any other soldier under your command in that while she would be preferable alive, if it were tactically expedient to do so, and the commander were hard hearted enough, she would be but a number.” Owl 3 raised a finger. “However, Wolfe is more than some mere soldier. She is the daughter of an important player in this civil war. Taking this route may make more use of her skills as a soldier, but were you to take the initial way,” Owl 3 traced the finger she had raised on the map, “You would have much more likely an opportunity to exploit Wolfe’s lineage to your advantage.”
“I don’t much like the term exploit,” you coughed, “Poor little lady just lost her boyfriend. She’s a bit out of things, I don’t want to shove her back into her dad’s face if she doesn’t want it.”

“Whether she wants to or not is hardly the matter of importance,” Owl 3 said quickly, right after you finished talking, “Is one young woman’s comfort and happiness worth the lives lost now, those that could be lost later? You are a romantic, Captain. I only ask that you keep such from clouding your judgment.”

“I promise that it won’t. Though, d’you think being a romantic’s a bad thing?”

Owl 3 paused. “…No. I don’t think so.” There was silence between the two of you for an uncomfortable minute, before she pursued something else. “The documents you procured earlier. I had a better chance to examine them, and I’m afraid there’s little of value in them, but there was one particularly important factor I found in them, mentioned off handedly. It was their unit identification, and where said unit was. Apparently, they were a detachment of a greater force directly attacking the Castle Delamil.”

“So their elite units are besieging the castle.”

“As could be expected.”

“And that’s it?”

“Unfortunately. The rest is information too incomplete to conclude upon by itself.” Owl 3 said dully, “It would be reaching, and I prefer not to do such.” Another pause. “Captain. You have noticed the reports concerning the progress of Gunmetal Wolfe and his militants?”

“Yeah.” You nodded, “They’re running right up into the castle.”

“Which means that the likelihood of you encountering them is guaranteed,” Winnifred finished for you, “Excepting some miracle which allows the Revolutionaries to continue their attack, or if the castle were to fall before the militants managed to break through. You will encounter the militarists, and Eidan Wolfe will no longer be allowed to merely be a humble forward observer. Therefore, I have a proposal for you. You are in the unique position of having been near Wolfe during times she was suffering greatly this night. You took exception to the use of “exploitation,” so perhaps I will put this another way. I’ve been observing her, and I’m sure you know as well or better than I do, that she is vulnerable right now, and you have a chance to help her, to help all of us. I don’t think there’s enough time to do much significant, but…” Winnifred looked over in the direction of the Halmeggians, “If you do not mind coercing her, then I can guarantee that we can avert potential tragedy.”

“Wolfe said she thought otherwise,” you said. “I already asked her about the possibility of her negotiating with her father.”

“She is still not in a state to assert herself in such a way, no,” Owl 3 crossed her arms, “Trust that I know how she is feeling. Her mind is most malleable at this moment. You won’t have as much time as would be ideal if you wanted to be able to most sway her actions, but the potential benefits would be worth the effort. Gunmetal Wolfe would be an extremely imposing opponent were you to encounter him, and I believe that a friend, or perhaps something closer, would be more advantageous than a hostage in such a situation.”

“Honey,” you snickered, “I’m full of myself and even I don’t think I’m that good.”

Owl 3 very slightly raised her shoulders and let them back down again. “If you would rather not, then do not. I know that your attention is pulled in many different directions, but you were the one who ran into the woods after her, was wounded for her sake, and spoke with her in the woods, fought alongside her. No others here have done that. So if you would rather spare her feelings and fight Major Wolfe and his tanks, then that choice is up to you.”

>Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t work that way, and besides, Wolfe’s not my type at all. Couldn’t do it if I wanted to. Besides lacking curvature, it feels too dirty to go after a man’s girl the day he died.
>I’ll try my best, I guess, but I promise nothing.
>C’mon. I’m not so scared of her father that I need to resort to playing with her heart or taking her hostage. I’ll do this fair and square.
>Other?

Wow update that was supposed to drop evening of was delayed a full day. I don't even know what to say other than kill me.

>>3036068
>C’mon. I’m not so scared of her father that I need to resort to playing with her heart or taking her hostage. I’ll do this fair and square.

>>3036068
>Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t work that way, and besides, Wolfe’s not my type at all. Couldn’t do it if I wanted to. Besides lacking curvature, it feels too dirty to go after a man’s girl the day he died.

>>3036068
>Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t work that way, and besides, Wolfe’s not my type at all. Couldn’t do it if I wanted to. Besides lacking curvature, it feels too dirty to go after a man’s girl the day he died.

>>3036360
>>Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t work that way, and besides, Wolfe’s not my type at all. Couldn’t do it if I wanted to. Besides lacking curvature, it feels too dirty to go after a man’s girl the day he died.

Also we're riding into an active warzone, not a jazz bar. If jazz is a thing in the Reich.

Also also, part of the reason for we're not heading the quickest route is to maintain as much unit fighting capacity as we can, skirt around as much Militarist action as we can AND when we do free the Royals we're likely going to be fighting our way out in a straight route back to friendly lines.

>>3036068
Whatever we end up doing when we meet dad Wolfe, I’m pretty sure we only want to do it once, so taking the long way to probably avoid him is probably good.

Sorry for the delay, fellas. I think with the rehearsals then three weeks of performances, my energy's just been low. Either that or I'm just getting some good old seasonal disaffectiveness. Anyways, I'll have an update out soon.

>>3037475
>If jazz is a thing in the Reich.
It, in fact, is, and quite popular, though not with the nobility. In general, it is something popular across the continent, save for Strossvald and west of the Reich.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” you laughed, though not as to mock Owl 3, “I don’t work that way. Besides, Wolfe’s not my type at all. Couldn’t do it if I wanted to. There to be at least something between the neck and stomach, you know? Heh. But uh, more seriously,” you scratched your cheek, “Besides lacking curvature, it feels way too dirty to go after another guy’s girl the day he died, you know? Maybe if that weren’t the case, and if I was driving to a jazz club and not into a pack of Revolutionaries.”

Owl 3 betrayed no disappointment. “If you do not think you can juggle the tasks, and have moral qualms concerning it, I will not insist.”

“Also,” you felt the need to elaborate on an earlier point, “Part of why we’re not going straight in is because I don’t expect the hardest fight to be getting to the Castle, so I’d like to keep as much of our people and gear around as possible for when the shit really hits the fan.”

“Having the Royal Family with you would indeed make us the most wanted people in the country, although,” Owl 3 postulated, “Our presence here, and your tanks, are likely not so much of a shock after the initial encounter. I did my best to sow misinformation concerning our numbers and goals, but I predict that as soon as we move towards the objective, it will become quite obvious what our intents are. We still have little information on just how numerous our enemies are, and it would not surprise me if once we began our maneuvering, the RAGV command regarded this unit as a priority target. Consider that Halmeggia was hardly a country with a large and prestigious panzer corps. It is entirely likely that with the aid of the Aristocratic Union, you are now in command of one of the most heavily equipped units in the country.”

“Damn, does that feel good.”

“I’m sure that it does,” Winnifred wasn’t swayed by your boast, “It also makes you the most valuable, the most threatening. The Revolutionaries are the most familiar with you and the effects of your presence now, so moving primarily through their territory makes it so that they will be the most driven to assemble what they can to try and stop you, if not destroy you.”

“I don’t suppose there’s a good way to make myself seem weaker, is there?” you asked, “I was already thinking of moving with our formation pretty far apart from each separate section, so it’s not immediately clear that we’re a whole company plus heading up. We’re also not heading straight for the castle, not at first, at least. Do you think we’ll start running into serious trouble before then because we’re so big and bad, or after we start gunning for the castle?” A quick aside, to your loader, “Hey, Jalsen, keep an ear on the radio. Everybody should be getting ready real soon, and I don’t want to be the one holding things up.”

“That depends,” Owl 3 answered your question vaguely, “On how accurate the Revolutionaries’ picture of the events are. There are several distinct possibilities. They could believe that out movement along theirs and the Aristocrats’ lines is meant to disrupt them and allow the AUSC to take ground, in which case they will redistribute their forces south to counter us. This would be the most ideal scenario, as they would move the bulk of their strength to oppose a movement we never planned on taking. Another is if, instead of taking up a blocking posture, they felt confident enough and had the resources to strike us directly. However, there is a worse possibility as well. That signs of our unit advancing cause cautious minds to prevail, and instead of attempting to continue to fight the Aristocratic Union, they withdraw and concentrate, trading ground and thinning their lines, so that they present a stronger face to their enemies. This is a strong possibility with Wolfe’s men attacking eastwards; if they feel they cannot handle all three threats to their south and east, then any mind with a sense towards tactics will not linger.”

You cracked a grin. “So you’re saying I should avoid scaring the Revolutionaries with my massive, hard formation.”

Owl 3 half-closed an eye and sighed, regarding you with a withering glare. “…Ideally. Otherwise, your prediction of the difficult fight being the one on your egress is one I predict being…not false, but worse than before, potentially. Of course, there is the fact that this very well equipped company and reinforcement is quite quick. If you believe you can simply outpace any reaction to your force, then were I you, I would concentrate our assets, as you have been until now, and care not who is frightened by the weight of the formation.”

>Not that I’m not feeling cocky enough that I could smash through them no matter what, but I prefer the idea of going hard and fast. It’s what tanks are good at, after all. We’ll keep close together so we can roll over absolutely anything in the way, then.
>If we can go just as quickly, then I suppose we may as well keep dispersed. Avoiding big conflict’ll be for the better, and if what you’re saying is right the more we bunch up the likelier it is we’ll have a big fight.
>What if we sort of did both? We’ve all got radios. We can split the unit up in two and make it even less clear where we’re really heading, while seeming weaker. Though we’ll still sort of follow the same general route.
>Other?

>>3039783
>>If we can go just as quickly, then I suppose we may as well keep dispersed. Avoiding big conflict’ll be for the better, and if what you’re saying is right the more we bunch up the likelier it is we’ll have a big fight.
Disperse but make we're not far enough apart from each other that each group can't reinforce the other quickly. Also as long as we're under artillery cover we can always use them as diversion or concealment (smoke shells)

>>3039783
>If we can go just as quickly, then I suppose we may as well keep dispersed. Avoiding big conflict’ll be for the better, and if what you’re saying is right the more we bunch up the likelier it is we’ll have a big fight.

>>3039783
>If we can go just as quickly, then I suppose we may as well keep dispersed. Avoiding big conflict’ll be for the better, and if what you’re saying is right the more we bunch up the likelier it is we’ll have a big fight.

>>3039783
>>If we can go just as quickly, then I suppose we may as well keep dispersed. Avoiding big conflict’ll be for the better, and if what you’re saying is right the more we bunch up the likelier it is we’ll have a big fight.

Sorry I didn't put out an update last night, social obligations. I'm also unsure if I'll get one out today until rather late; last day of production is today and we have to strike the stage (ie: haul all our shit out) which might occupy me for...don't know how long.

However, with the play finished running, I'll have my update schedule resuming to being something slightly less than absolutely abominable. Sorry for all the delays!

>>3042221
Thats okay, its Post Scriptum free weekend anyways

“I think I like keeping the Revolutionaries from doing anything too big,” you said, putting a hand against your tank and leaning on it, “If we can go just as quickly, then I guess we may as well keep dispersed. From what you’re saying, the more we bunch up, the more likely we’ll get stuck in a big fight, and avoiding that’ll be for the better.”

“Captain,” Jalsen leaned out, “Radio says we’re ready to move.”

“Aight,” you said up to him, and then, getting ready to heave yourself up in the half hobbling way your wound forced you to, even after Owl 3’s treatment of it, you looked to the intelligence agent. “Hey, so, there’ll be a signals truck that’s meant to keep out of any fights. You can go along with them if you like, instead of having to keep you either riding up top here or hanging out the door. They’ll be on the net so you can talk to me whenever.”

“If you are not ordering me to,” Owl 3 mused, “Then I would rather arrangements remain as they have been.”

“You’re sure? I might get shot at and have to dump you on the ground again.”

“I’m sure.”

“Then, urf, load on up, honey,” you climbed aboard, “I’d tell you not to get comfortable, but there’s no chance of that happening anyways from what I know about this rig.”

-----

“Alright, gentlemen,” you started saying over the radio, “Keep our current order of march, but we’re going to change how we move out. We don’t want to spook the enemy too much, so we’ll keep nice and dispersed so it doesn’t seem like there’s so many of us going one direction. We’ll want to make sure we can still reinforce each other if we get into trouble, so keep our spacing at about two hundred to three hundred meters over open ground, we can be closer if things get rougher, like in woods or irregular terrain. Don’t hesitate to call out any targets you want blown away either, we’ve apparently got priority when it comes to calling on the big guns.”

“A question, captain?” It was Sergeant Dohdt, a Halmeggian scout section leader, in charge of the armored car section heading up your group. “If we get shot at…”

“Run away,” you said back before he could finish. It was an odd fact of Halmeggia’s peace that their mechanized units lacked the skills to make the best of their equipment. A side effect of training plenty but never actually fighting. “That gun on your car is only for if you get trapped. If you start cracking off shots, you’ll get more attention than you bargained for. Do not fire unless you are fired upon, and cannot evade.”

“Er,” Dohdt didn’t seem confident of your opinion, for some reason. “Lieutenant Alterwald?”

“As the Captain says.”

“Alright, sir.”

It would have irked some to be treated as such, but you didn’t particularly mind. Successful campaigns built up an aura of confidence. Successful…except…

Owl 3 cuffed you twice on the cheek. “Captain.”

“Ah, right,” you shook your head, “If you’re done second guessing your CO, it’s time we got moving. Remember, we have to move quickly. If it seems like we’re getting bogged down too badly in a fight, make sure you leave enough space that we can cut and run. Dohdt, take us out. Covacs, be ready to take out anything that stops the Sergeant from leading out front. Sergeant Dohdt, if you see anything that even looks remotely interesting, or could be of interest to anybody at all, I want to hear about it. Now, let’s get moving.”

-----

“Er, Captain Roth-Vogel?” Dohdt came back on the net only roughly five minutes after you’d left what could be tentatively considered your “lines.”

“Tell me what you see.” You clamped your hand around your throat microphone in haste. “As much as you can.”

“The revolutionaries have heavily fortified a village,” Dohdt explained nervously, “There’s er, a lot of guns, and I see some tanks there too… To the west of it is a bunch of woods, I can’t really see into them, but they stretch up and around, almost towards us, while the village is in a big clearing. The east is…well, there’s some fighting, I guess we want to stay away from, can’t see it anyways.”

“A new strong point to replace the ones we seized,” Covacs put forward.

“When you say there are many,” Fischer asked of his own accord, “Do you imply an insurmountable quantity?”

“What? Er, there’s…at least three facing this way, but there’s a lot of holes, and covers, and…oh…”

“Focus,” you tried to drag Dohdt back into the game, “What sort of guns? About how many men do you see, what sort of tanks?”

“They look like…M12 and M11s, similar to ours, except, you know, the M11s,”

“Twin turrets, I know." You said, "Keep going.”

“O-ok. The guns are…light ones, and there’s machine guns too. I guess there’s…about a platoon, maybe two, of footmen. Six…no, seven, no, five tanks? There’s really a lot of them. Should we…call artillery?”

“Wait!” Fischer called out over the radio, loudly. “This is a village. Is it inhabited?”

Silence. “…Uh, I can’t tell. Oh, uh, wait,” Agonizing minutes passed, and you called Dohdt back repeatedly, but he was away from the radio. Finally, he returned. “Captain?”

”Where the hell were you?” You wanted to demand, but you simply asked, “What is it?”

“A few people from the village, uh, found uh. They want our help.”

“Then we shall-“ Fischer began to spout proudly, but you cut him off.

“Cool it, Fischer. This isn’t a great time and place for that.”

“You didn’t promise them anything, did you?” Covacs inquired.

“Captain,” Sergeant Schneider, so far tending towards being quiet and obedient, made his presence known. “I don’t think it would be much trouble to come back together and overwhelm this enemy, would it? If we all showed up at once, maybe they’d do the smart thing and flee?”

“Sergeant, that would go against everything we planned,” you said coolly. “Taking that village would need to be worth our while, and if we delay too much for it or lose too much, we won’t be able to help more by breaking through to the royal family.”

“Er, if I could say,” Dohdt spoke up again, “The villagers want our help…and they say the Revolutionaries in the village know we’re coming, and that if we don’t surrender our stuff, they’ll line up all the people in it, women and children and everything, and shoot them. I don’t think…”

That…would certainly change up things.

>Tell them they can count on our aid, then. I’d like to see them execute anybody while they’re being attacked by the finest unit in the west.
>I hate to say it, but we don’t have much a choice. We have to go wide around the village. The woods should help hide us and move safely.
>Something’s way too fishy. I want you to ask those villagers a few questions. (What?)
>Other?

>>3044841
>Something’s way too fishy. I want you to ask those villagers a few questions.

Ask who exactly they expected, when the revolutionaries fortified their village and when were they sent out to look for us.

I’m already a bit suspicious of these people, only a five minute drive from the aristocrat lines and they decide to hole up in their village and wait for someone to occupy them? I don’t quite buy it. I’m of the mind to just go around after sending back a message that if the town isn’t abandoned or if the civilians are not released or if we hear shots from the village, we will do bad things to them with artillery guns.

>>3044841

>>3044960
Seconding this

>>3044960
Supporting.Something definitely is going on in this village.

“Hold on,” you considered asking Winnifred’s opinion, but you were at least clever enough to see that something was fishy here. Not like fried fish or chowder, but like a dank and dirty dockyard. “I want you to ask these villagers a few questions. For one, who exactly were they and the revolutionaries expecting, when they dug in and sent people out to meet us?”

“…Uh,” Dohdt went silent again, then came back on the net. “I asked them those things, and they said they were waiting for us. Our group.”

“Our group?”

“…You know, us.”

“Yes, but who is us?”

“I dunno, captain, that’s pretty philosophical…”

“Did they actually mention who they were expecting, I mean,” you explained patiently. “Like, the Aristocratic Union, the Reich, who?”

“Oh. Uh. Should I ask if they were expecting the Reich, then?”

“No.” You snapped quickly, “Don’t tell them anything. Did you tell them who any of us were when you asked them who they were expecting?”

“Uh, no.”

Thank goodness. You kept your fingers off the throat microphone as you turned to Owl 3, half in and half out of the tank, and asked her opinion.

Winnifred was ill impressed by the development, and pushed her bangs away from her one exposed eye dismissively. “Of course they are suspicious. Why be so vague if they had nothing to hide? Remember that the Revolutionaries have sympathizers within the country itself. It would be much easier for everybody if the village had nobody, or was full of militia putting themselves off as mere bystanders, but what if there are actual civilians, and they are intended to be used as hostages? What will you do?”

“What are the coordinates of the village?” You heard Wolfe’s voice on your headset, though in its form disguised as a man’s, “Is it…” She rattled off the grid coordinates, and received a confused but half certain affirmation from Dohdt.

“I’m of the mind to just avoid the mess, maybe going through the woods on the flank,” you said, “If not skirting the edge of that to get even further away in case anything might be hiding. The messengers sent to Dohdt can be reused to tell the Revolutionaries to either abandon the town or release the civilians unless they want us to shell the crap out of them.”

“Playing chicken with innocents, Captain?” Jalsen growled.

An explanation was forthcoming from you, thankfully. “If the villagers are closet revolutionaries like Lady Löwenkreuz proposed, then they’ll all get out. If they aren’t, we can get the carrier pigeons to be less cagey about what they’re telling us. I’m not anything near heartless, but I’m betting the Revolutionaries’ll blink way before I do.”

“But if they don’t?” Winnifred asked, “Then what? The Revolutionaries see enough good in their cause to die for it, after all.”

>Then that’s on them for exploiting the innocent. I warned them, they chose to keep people there. Now let’s send that message back and be on our way.
>If it comes to that, then sure, I won’t do it. Send the messengers back anyways.
>Hm. Well, could we be blamed for never receiving the message, in that case? We can capture these folks and just drive on.
>I don’t know. Let me ask a few more questions, and see if I can get a better look around.
>Other?

>>3045515
>>Then that’s on them for exploiting the innocent. I warned them, they chose to keep people there. Now let’s send that message back and be on our way.

>>3045515
>Then that’s on them for exploiting the innocent. I warned them, they chose to keep people there. Now let’s send that message back and be on our way.

If the civilians die, the ragvies follow. They must know that we are going past and not stopping, and if they kill their insurance we don’t even have to turn around to blow them to pieces. I hope that this situation isn’t what it seems, but no amount of rationalizing will make the decision easier to make.

>>3045523
>Other?
It might be best if they never got a reply and instead a very slow rolling artillery barrage towards the village. Are they really going to waste time executing everyone if they have perhaps 10 minutes before everything over there gets leveled?

But before that we never did get an answer from the 'villagers' so ask them again, slowly, who they were expecting. It could be that RAGV was simply waiting for the Noble Social Club to start their advance and set up this little situation as opposed to knowing our mission to slow us down.

Ask them how long ago was this village occupied and just how many people are in there. If our answers aren't satisfactory we start bombing.

Hey fellas! Thanks for sticking through this thread, I know not much happened, but next thread I can guarantee things'll pick up again, as I'll have proper mechanics and a guide to them up. I'll start it up tomorrow, to make up for time spent not updating.