A War Story

[ArtDrake]

You apply some of the salve to your leg wounds from before, both in your very first skeleton fight and in your battle with the five-skelly squad. Then, you place some on your scratches from the skeleton that clawed at your side before you had armor [holding your vest up as you do so -- being caught without it equipped could be regrettable] and on the spot where your ribs had been broken by the burst of machine-gun fire. You also try to put the last bits of the salve in your hand under your hair so as to at least deal with the surface bruise, though you could very well be concussed, which a salve would be unlikely to help. You do all of this while generating as little noise as possible, lying against the counter in the infirmary, so that if a skeleton happens to be animated after all, it won't necessarily "wake" from its apparently dormant state.

After doing so, you just sit and try and reflect on the events occurring in the last two hours, and find that you're actually very tired, and, quite accidentally, drift off to sleep.

Some time later, you wake with a start as you feel yourself falling to your right, responding in time to break your fall and prevent hitting your head again, and as you sit up again, you feel that all over your body, the wounds you had had before are no longer hurting -- the salve had done its work. You also remember that your were unsure of whether the two skeletons in the room with you were animated or not, so you get up and find you can do quite easily, without any trace of injury but a dull ache in your head from a beating taken from the skeleton's gun. You pick up your bat and walk over to each of the skeletons in turn and bring down your bat on their skulls heavily, breaking them. With the first, all of the other bones jump in place, much as an animal's dying twitches, but on the second, there is no reaction from the bones assembled in front of you indicating that they were animated at all.

(It's getting a bit late at night for your character, and it would probably be best for him to go to bed soon. Whether you want to stay the night on the ship and only leave a note for your mother at home, or just sleep in your own bed is up to you guys.)

[Kaseke]

Ah.. I'd like to still go with my plan of leaving the note and asking the Lieutenant for something that'd help you recover with maybe less sleep? It's a warship so the soldiers don't have much time to sleep at times so there could be something like that couldn't there?

[bugfartboy]

I like Kaseke's idea.

[The Holy namelesskitty]

agreed

[ArtDrake]

You walk back through the library and the Ballroom and the dining car to the cockpit, where the Lieutenant is still sitting in his chair. As you reach him, he turns around, his gruesomely stretched body not fitting properly as he tries to maintain his posture with his damaged vertebrae.

"I wanted to discuss something with you," he says, just as you are about to speak. "This is important. I need you to stop destroying the skeletons." You're quite surprised, and ask him why. The skeletons are a menace, after all. "Yes, I know this. But do you know how these skeletons are animated?" he asks.
"Yeah, by something like a runic flow spell from the sorceress."
"And this requires active effort to maintain," says the Lieutenant.
"Yes. What are you getting at?"
"One moment. Do you remember when the ship's computer told you that I was capable of flying the ship, on board, but dead?"
"Yeah, sure," you reply. "But that can't be true."
"Ah, but it is true. I'm clinically speaking, dead. Beyond the grave, I've bought the farm, kicked the bucket, and the rest. The same magic that animated the skeletons distended by body and stopped my heart, but at the same time is the only animating force in my body, other than my thoughts at the moment."
"Wow. I didn't realize. So, why don't you want me to kill the skeletons? Wouldn't decreasing the amount of bodies animated by the spell increase your vitality and such?" you ask.
"Technically speaking, yes, but if the skeletons keep dying and only one body the sorceress animated remains, competently flying the ship, she'd get suspicious. In fact, she might be suspicious as it is, which is why my biological processes are just asking to go out any minute, since she could cut off the flow of magic with ease if she knew what was going on here."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Well, most of the skeletons are actually dormant at the moment, so they won't pose a threat to us, except in the case that they should realise that their mission aboard this airship has failed completely -- that is, if we land. Don't you think that the shock throughout the ship would be enough to alert the dormant skeletons that they had screwed up, and through the mass waking of these animated corpses, alert the sorceress and then cut off all the necromantic magic. Normally, I'd say that would be a great idea, but right now, that dark magic's a bit like my life support. Fortunately, there's really good biomagical care given to Danish Air Force officers, so there's a slim chance I could survive this ordeal.
"I need a Marine detachment to board the ship, bring the medical crew aboard so they can operate on me, but at the same time, keep the Marines from being gun-happy in the rear of the ship; again, there might be other survivors like myself. In order for that to happen, I have to explain the situation fully to them, albeit making the skeletons sound more dangerous than they really are, in order for them to get that they oughtn't go to the back of the ship. Now, I'm guessing that the operation will take many hours to perform, and I can't have you seen in that time, so you have to either be through that hole in the wall you go through, or you have to be in the rear of the ship. It's your choice, but I need you to be back there if you want any chance of finding the other survivor."
"The other survivor?" you ask.
"I did a shipwide bioelectrical reading, and it looks like there's one other survivor like me; the computer recognized him as the Warrant Officer. I tried to look for the man on the cameras, but all I'm getting is occasional blurry shots of some roundish shape as it goes past the camera at high speed. Goodness knows what the magic did to him, or how he escaped it. What I do know, however, is that he's well worth the trouble. Good man, highly skilled in certain practical enchants, and a damn good knippelsuppier, too. Best we've got in the whole division of the Air Force.
"Either way, I want you to wait in the hall of the officer's quarters, which I'm also going to section off from the Marines, and make sure no skeletons come out of their rooms. They shouldn't do anything like that, since they're probably dormant anyway, but in the case they do, you need to stop them. Also, when the operation's done, I'll ask someone to switch the lights in that room on and off, so you know that either I'm okay, or the procedure failed and I'm dead. Either way, go on to the farthest-back part of the ship where the Warrant Officer will be. The most important part of this is clearing a path to him, so he can escape. I assume he's pretty much surrounded by the skeletons, but kill only as many as you need to -- the sorceress can still cut the necromantic rune flow spell at any time, and we can't have him dying on us."
"If you need to restock on weapons, ammunition, runestones, whatever, or buy a spell from the vending machine in the library, do it now, since you can't be seen until you're coming out into the Grand Ballroom, with the Warrant Officer in tow. If the Marines see you before you've got the WO, they'll figure out that I've got a kid in there doing their job and go in there guns blazing. That's best-case scenario. Worse-case probably involves you getting shot. In the head."
"Well, now that I've told you what has to happen, I've also said that it could take me a while, possibly even a whole day, to get the skeleton situation under control and get them confined to the back of the ship. Some time in between kiling the skeletons would be a good way to ease the sorceress' suspicions about the goings-on on the ship, and you can get some well-deserved rest."

"How did you know I'm tired?" you ask.
"Just look at you! You're completely wiped out. For a trained soldier with proper field experience, I'd just say to take a serotonin suppressant to keep you awake, but for one, you're a kid, and secondly, you don't have the look of a child soldier, hardened by harsh experiences in battle to the point where suppressing your body's need to sleep would be cake compared to pains you've been through. You just don't. You're just someone who really wants to help the people around him. Any questions about the plan?"

[Ertxiem]

(I would like to read later from the library something about portals. Perhaps we could pick a book about it and read later while we're waiting. I would also like to know what is the pink glop for. Did it look like the salve? And how fit are we, are we as good as new, except for the tiredness? And there is the ceremonial sword and the other portal into the prison cell that we haven't explored.)

It might be safer to sleep at our house. Do we have time to sleep at home and come back and give a hand to the Lieutenant? Or would it be more helpful if we sleep in the ship?

Regarding the plan, is it possible to place some furniture or even better, to lock some doors to keep at least some of the skeletons confined without causing trouble?

Ask what is a knippelsuppier.

(I don't recall any useful spells from the machine, but I might be wrong. Some more runestones may be useful. It would be great if we had something else that would allow us to attack the skeletons at long range with some efficiency. I fear that guns will not be the best choice, unless there are some special bullets, perhaps with a rune...)

(I'll be away for a couple of weeks and I might have limited access to the internet, but I will try to keep an eye on the story!)

[ArtDrake]

You ask about furniture for barricading important doors:

"Yes, that might work. How about those tables in the Ballroom? They're pretty huge, and we could use them to block off, say, the door between the Ballroom and the enlisted men's quarters, and between the officers' quarters and the enlisted quarters. Of course, you'll have to remove the latter of the two barricades to get in once my procedure to get me back to normal again is done, but you know that. None of the doors really lock, except the ones to the officers' individual quarters, since privacy is one of the luxuries not afforded during wartime, so the barricading will have to work."

You ask what a knippelsuppier is:

"Why, it's someone who pilots a knippelsuppe, of course. The Warrant Officer is damned good at it, too."

You ask what a knippelsuppe is:

"Oh, I see. A knippelsuppe is a very thick metal ball of steel a foot thick which flies about under magical power. It is enchanted heavily [and therefore very precisely] on the outside and inside for two important characteristics. The first is lift. The second is much more complex, but basically boils down to the ability to chose arbitrary anchor points in airspace, to which the knippelsuppe is attracted, causing it to revolve about that point in orbit. Choosing a new anchor point in mid-orbit can cause an increase in speed if done right, and the vehicle is strong enough that it can simply smash into enemy aircraft and knock them out of the air, utterly destroyed. It's a highly effective weapon for breaking up formations and establishing air superiority, as well as raids on the Nazi air bases. Actually, there's really not much it's not good for, since there isn't anything much that can destroy it, and there isn't much it can't destroy with enough momentum. The best part is that the interior is also enchanted to negate the effects of inertia on the pilot, so the incredible g-forces involved in flying this device don't cause the pilot harm. And the walls are invisible from the inside.

As you might guess, it takes a very special type of person to fly this thing. We're lucky to have the Warrant Officer on our side."

(Okay, finding a book on portals will be the next order if you have nothing else you want to do in light of any information I give you right now.

(As for the pink glop, I have been entirely too cryptic, so I shall be slightly less cryptic, but still a little bit cryptic. Try spilling it on the floor in front of a skeleton, or painting it on the floor in two places, and messing around with it.

(We're fine, except for a dull ache in the head, and generally being pretty tired.

(I don't see why guns wouldn't work. If you're accurate enough with them to destroy the skeleton's skull, they're fine. And usually, it's the guns that you enchant and not the bullets. I mean, you could enchant a bullet, and it might be slightly more effective than just enchanting the gun that shoots it, but it would be time-consuming. As for enchanted ammunition, it's not really something commonly produced.)

(You do have time to go and sleep at home. The Lieutenant will stall the Marines for as long as it takes, and it'll be fine. Do make sure you don't forget to come back. He has to land eventually.)

[Kaseke]

hmm... I think we should go to sleep and then use the tables to build a partial barricade so the areas we haven't cleard out don't give us any suprises. Then we should go check the library for those portal books. (We've cleared the whole area onwards from the library, yes?)

[Ertxiem]

(On the other hand, barricading before going to sleep may prevent future problems... at least a quick placement of the tables and perhaps painting the passage with pink glop... We can improve it after sleeping.)

(A few key areas to leave easier access to are the library, the infirmary, the armoury and the cockpit. They may have to be partially blocked from us while we're hiding, so we should take what we need before hiding. And choose a few places to hide runes and stuff like that in case the skeletons organize an attack and we need to make a strategic retreat.)

I suppose that the Lieutenant is briefly seeing a knippelsuppe on the security cameras... we can ask him about it.

We can also ask him what is the pink glop for (and we may later look for the meaning of the rune inscribed on the bucket handle).

(We should also think about things to take with us while we're hiding, after we sleep at home. Runestones are a must, the bat, some food, a book about runes, the armour we're wearing, perhaps a machine-gun with a frost rune like the baseball bat - I suppose we don't have train at shooting things, otherwise, a sniper rifle may be better. More ideas?)

(We must not forget to hide at home, before going to sleep, the things we already have. Oh, and take a bath and brush our teeth. It's too risky to try to take down skeletons with halitosis, I prefer long range attacks.)

[Kaseke]

(Yeah.. We should get some more weaponry.)

(I think after we're done with the whole ship thing we might want to go investigate the other world, and find out about the things in there. We could use the knowledge we have from the other world in there, and maybe get something handy from that world as well, but might want to leave it for later.)

(The pink glop might turn out to be a sufficient way of building magic walls that the skeletons can't pass. We could read a book about fortifying runes after sleep? For now maybe move some tables to block any way to the library/armory. I don't want any skeletons in there. Also maybe block all the ways into the dining room so we'd have a big area where we can walk freely.)

(Also, as I suggested before, we could make some magic walls with runes while we clear the way for that knippelsuppier. Lure the skeletons to some room and seal it off. That'd also take care of that "no de-animating problem.)

[bugfartboy]

If I remember right, didn't the power emanating from the tune collection in the library de-animate a few skeletons before? Or are we trying to keep them away from the library to avoid de-animating them?

[Kaseke]

Yeah, I'd like to make walls that they can't get through, but that they don't get de-animated when touching/trying to get throught them. And if we only de-animate a few with a lot of time between doing so, it'd seem only natural that they'd stumble upon places like the library or fall off and shatter or something. The skeletons don't seem to think too much about where they're going, as long as they complete their mission.

[ArtDrake]

You ask the Lieutenant whether the fast shape he is seeing flying across the camera screens could be one of the knippelsupper, but he shakes his head: "It's much to small to be a knippelsuppe; they're on the order of three metres across, while what I'm seeing is hardly one fifth that. Besides, once those things get momentum, they aren't in the habit of stopping, so the ship would probably have a hole or two in it by now."

You thank him, and then go over to the Ballroom to haul the oak tables into position. While you are in the hallway outside of the officers' individual quarters, the door directly across from the table you're pushing through the hall opens, revealing a skeleton wielding a very large pistol. It fires shots at you, one of which misses, and the other of which hits you in the chest, knocking the wind out of you. You duck under the table to avoid its shots, and with your bat (which you had been holding with your thumb while the rest of your hand pushing the large oak table), smash at its legs, knocking it to the ground. Before it has a chance to shoot at you again, you finish it off with a smash to the head.

Unfortunately, this seems to wake another skeleton in the room directly to the right of the table, which blocks the door. You decide that you can't risk waking any more of the skeletons, and instead try to destroy the skeleton quietly. You wonder if arcane fields can penetrate wood well, and press yourself up against the door, along with your enchanted bat, in the hopes that the strength of the runes alone will be enough to disanimate it. You wait there, kneeling on the table, trying to stick to the door as best you can as it's battered from the opposite side. Slowly, ever so slowly, the battering slows down, and stops completely. Finally, you hear a clatter as a pile of bones fallls to the floor. Success.

You finish pushing the table to the far door at the aft end of the hall, and make an executive decision to go to bed, since your decreasing coordination is hurting your ability to do the things required of you. As you pass the Lieutenant, you tell him, "Good night. I'll need about half a day more." at which he is puzzled, since it's actually around 3:30 in the afternoon on the ship, and says nothing in response.

(You brush your teeth and change into pajamas, too, Ert.

(Don't worry, I'm not forgetting anything: books on portals, pink glop, finding alternate routes to the library, infirmary, and armoury if possible [cockpit is out of the question, since that's where Marine presence will be greatest], hiding spots for runestones, restocking runestones, the Compendium, food, a rifle or two to try and enchant, magical barriers, and possibly methods of maintaining stealth in order to minimize killing of skeletons.

(And the Lieutenant, as he rather implied earlier, doesn't really know anything about the pink glop. It's experimental, mildly dangerous if used improperly or without the proper equipment [like the runestones in that respect], and still being tested by the military.)

[The Holy namelesskitty]

ooc,
1. how do you smash the legs of a skeleton that came in on the other side of a ballroom?
2. why not just break their arms and legs but leave them animated, they're essentially helpless but still animated exactly how you want them.?

[ArtDrake]

When you wake up, you turn to your right to see that it is 9:45, meaning you have a little more than two hours or so to get ready for the Marines to arrive. You quickly write up a note to place on your door, saying that you've gone out with friends for the day, and that you'll be back in time for dinner. You also put on a watch, since you don't want to lose track of time while you're doing research in the ship's library, like you did last time, and go through the portal again, into the cockpit. The Lieutenant asks you,
"Are you ready?"
"No, not quite yet. I need to do a bit of research in the library and stock up on weaponry, but that's pretty much it. I'll let you know, okay?"
"Okay. Look, if I don't make it through my operation -- it'll be a complicated and messy biomagical procedure, since there's necromancy mixed into the picture -- if I don't make it, I just wanted to say that you've done more to help the Allied Forces today than most people do in their lives. You just saved thousands of lives by keeping this airship from crashing while I battled with the huge amounts of pain that sorceress inflicted on me; I wouldn't have recovered in time to save the ship if you hadn't intervened. You understand that, right? And whatever happens, whether I live or not, you're a hero."
"Thank you, Lieutenant."
"Call me Erik. Erik Jakobsøn."
"Then thank you, Erik."

You then go to the library, where you look for any books that might explain the existence of the portals. Sadly, you find none. At the end of an hours research spent on pursuing false leads in scholarly papers on teleportation, on temporary suspensions of force allowing soldiers to potentially walk through walls, and on the potential existence of alternate realities, due to an observation of the loss of force-carrying particles over lengthy distances, the idea being that they are escaping to these other universes. In the end, you have only one true lead, from a report in a file on failed intelligence missions, indicating that the Third Reich mages were working on a side-project of remote transportation via portals that could be opened up on any surface to allow greater troop mobility. However, the report had been discredited and promptly declassified, as the agent delivering the information turned out to have been working for the Nazis after all, meaning it was most likely that he was just feeding the Allies false information to make them fear magical innovations which had not arisen.

The document went on to say that true teleportation or any form of magical translocation was impossible, given that no known element or wood or rune in any of the millions of tested combinations could do it in a meaningful way, since teleportation was not a manifestation of a natural phenomenon in any way, other than perhaps quantum teleportation, which had a serious flaw in it; it was completely random. All the constituent particles of the person to be teleported would be scattered finely throughout the range of the device, rendering it completely unsafe.

Curious about this supposed dead end, you move on to finding information about the pink glop. Since all you know about it is that it is pretty gloppy and very pink, you find it difficult to research, and move on. Next, you find the Compendium you were fishing your practical enchants out of earlier and found quite useful, and decide to take that as well. You carry the book, and the portal document back downstairs, where you pick up your bucket and alternate armor, and carry the whole mess back to the officers' quarters hallway.

(I'm trying to split these into manageable-sized posts, since I find it hard to organise my thoughts when I can't see most of them, and it just becomes a huge wall of text to me. Instead, I'm keeping each post somewhat self-contained as far as content goes. Also, it gives me some time in between them without making you guys wait for a long time.