A War Story

[Kaseke]

I'd like to know what day it is in the hero's own dimension, since if he has school the next day it could be a little awkward. He has homework so I don't think he's having a vacation of any sort? But even like that the time would go in the other dimensions and the aircraft might have to land and that'd quite ruin the whole plot with what's happening inside the aircraft? I'd like to know more about the flow of time in these dimensions. Is it the same in all of them, or does it slow down when you go to another one?

[ArtDrake]

You remember that today is Friday, or rather, it was; now it's been Saturday for six minutes. It's actually the Labour Day weekend now, so you have three free days to spend on something other than your homework, since you threw that into the prison cell portal, and it's now lying scattered there unless someone else has picked it up since then. You also make a mental note to conduct a simple experiment or two to determine if the flow of time is different on the two sides of the portal.

[Kaseke]

Go and make the salve, and after that get back to your room, and make a note for your mother that you're gonna go out with your friends for the whole day, but will come back before your father gets back. (In case she comes to wake you up in the morning) After that ask the Lieutenant if there is anything that would take your exhaustion and sleepines away.

[ArtDrake]

You go up the stairs to the right of the door into the Grand Ballroom, through the library, and into the infirmary, carrying your bunch of foodstuffs in your pack. Once there, you see that three soldiers had taken ill and were in the infirmary when the attack on the ship occurred; now, they have been reduced to skeletons, though they all seem to be unanimated. You walk over to a large basin with two simple runes on it along with two hand-sized metal surfaces on the front also marked with runes, none of which you recognize, and conclude from the food stains near the top and the pinkish stains at the bottom that this is the salve mixer. Simple instructions are written on it trilingually, so you read the English version: "Insert organic matter into basin. Close lid and lock in place. Set hands on rune interfaces on front. Wait at least thirty seconds before opening valve for healing agent. When done, allow to drain -- agent becomes caustic after thirty minutes."

[Kaseke]

Follow the instructions, use the salve, and then continue on what I wrote before..:D

[ArtDrake]

You dump all of the food you took from the kitchen into the mixer, close the hatch, and lock it in place. Then, you place both of your hands on the rune-inscribed plates, and the food inside of the mixer stays still, doing nothing, doing nothing... then it starts to sort of melt and bubble, rendered down into chunks, and then into a sort of sludge, but at this point in the process, you hear a sudden clacking noise behind you. Turning around, you see that one of the skeletal soldiers has gotten up, and is now pointing a machine-gun at your head.

(I stopped halfway through completing what you asked to be done because you could have checked to be sure that the skeletons, which are kind of suspicious in the first place, were actually unanimated and not just unaware of your presence.)

[Ertxiem]

(I saw this coming when I was reading... Oh well, that's what we get for going away for a few days! :) )

How close is the skeleton?
How fast can we pick up our bat?
Or, even better, will it be possible to grab the machine-gun (if it's really close) while deviating ourselves from it and pull the skeleton against the runes? The magic in the runes may help disabling it. (The salve mixer may be damaged by the impact, let's hope not, but some bullets in it may also damage it.)
Where are the other 2 skeletons, are they also up?
(And not really important right now, but I would like to know, if we survive, if the salve mixer been working for more than 30 seconds.)

[ArtDrake]

The skeleton is eight feet from you, and your bat would be quite easy to pick up from where you are, since it's leaned against the counter on which the salve mixer is sitting. You might be able to grab the machine-gun from where you are if you leap forwards and to the side in a way that you can grab the gun quickly enough that the skeleton won't have time to turn its firearm around and turn your head into a lead-filled strawberry smoothie.

The other two skeletons are still in beds, motionless, and they still appear to be de- / un- / dis- / non-animated, but since this one was able to surprise you, you might want to check the other two when you're done dispatching the one with the machine-gun.

(The salve mixer has only been working for fifteen seconds, so the food is reduced to a somewhat uniform-ish soup of small pink chunks. The salve mixer still needs to break down the chunks a bit more and separate out the liquids. In short, no.)

[Ertxiem]

(Mmm... 8 feet is about 2.5m... I'm more used to the metric system... but perhaps most people around here isn't. :) )

So, now I have two choices:
1 - Grab the machine-gun and pull the skeleton against the slave mixer runes and hope that they can disable it. A variation would be to it against our baseball bat.
2 - Since the bat is handy, we may also pick it up with one hand while we move forward and grab the machine-gun with the other hand. Taking advantage of our speed we can (hopefully) hit the skeleton with the bat. Having the risk of being too specific, I was thinking that since we've turned around, the bat may be on our left side (assuming we're right-handed), so we would pick it up the bat on our left side with the right hand while advancing quickly. The left hand would grab the machine-gun while the right hand would move outwards and hit the skeleton in the chest in a rotating movement slightly upwards, and then downwards smashing the skeleton's skull... if things go as planned...

(I prefer the 2nd tactic, but I would like to hear the other players own ideas before making a definitive choice. I fear that the other skeletons may also have firearms near them and if we aren't fast enough we may be hit by them.)

(On a different note, is the soup starting to look like the pink glop?)

[The Holy namelesskitty]

How fast are these skeletons? human fast? faster? zombie slow? this really matters right about now

[bugfartboy]

Go with Ert's second tactic. Ert's been handling most of the skeleton combat, and seems to know what he's doing.

[The Holy namelesskitty]

I noticed, he seems to have the best solution, but the speed question still stands

[ArtDrake]

You decide in the fraction of a second you have to respond to pick up your bat, which rests to the left of you, and lunge forward and dive to the left, delivering a backhand blow to the machine-gun, whereupon you hear a breaking sound from the gun. The skeleton retains its grip on the firearm, however, and points it towards you, ready to kill you where you lie on your side after your frantic leap. You start to scramble up in order to club the skeleton, but it already has its bony finger on the trigger. The the skeleton fires a burst of fire into your side, completely knocking all the wind out of you and huring like hell, but it looks like something you did to the gun made it catch on its ammunition belt and cease firing. Regardless, you've just been pummeled badly and broken a few ribs, and you're having a hard time getting up, so while the skeleton is fumbling with its gun, you grab on to the skeleton's legs and hold your bat up next to the naked bone, waiting. Your efforts are rewarded when the skeleton's leg collapses out from under it, and it falls to its side in front of you.

However, it manages to club you with its now-useless gun on its way down, and you grimace from the blow to the head. However, you manage to reach over to your attacker's skull with your bat, and let it start to work. The skeleton gets in two more whacks to your head, each one weaker than the one preceding, before its bones finally fall apart with no arcane forces to animate them. You lack the anger and the energy to freeze and shatter the skull, and besides, with no malevolent will behind them, destroying the bones would be a desecration.

You lie there for a moment, waiting for your vision to clear, but it doesn't. You're bleeding internally, and you're not sure you can walk. Instead, you drag yourself over to the salve mixer and put your palms on the plates while sitting up with your back against the counter, hands reversed on the runic mechanism, and wait for the healing salve to finish, giving it twenty seconds to account for having been interrupted. When it finishes, you heave yourself to your feet, grimacing from the pain you're feeling, open the salve valve, fill your cupped left hand with the stuff, promptly collapsing back to the floor. You'll just have to hope beyond all hope that the other two skeletons aren't animated.

(To answer your question, the skeletons move at about the speed of a normal human being, with a similar dexterity to their movements. They have no capacity for complex reason, so they couldn't solve a puzzle lock if such a thing were to exist, but they can carry out most of the basic actions a mercenary sorceress working under the Third Reich would want them to be able to do.

(Oh, and guys? Don't think that you screwed up this fight or anything -- it was kind of inevitable that you'd get yourself hurt here.

[bugfartboy]

Use the salve, and pretend to be dead as best as you can, hoping the other skeletons aren't animated, or are gullible enough to think you're finished. Make sure your bat is close at hand, however.

[Ertxiem]

Good thinking to pretend we're dead.