Panzer Commander Quest #9

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The attached image shows your local terrain according to the map. A more direct view is at the end of the last thread.

>>859950
The 13mm machine gun is based off a Naukland model aircraft machine gun; while the size of the bullet is similar to anti-tank rifles you know of, the power is not comparable. While not developed for anti-armor capacity it is capably of piercing the armor of most armored cars as well as the weakest portions of the turrets and rear hulls of modern armor. Many of Strossvald’s Sosalian rivals still used very old models of armor, and more of it light than not, so there was never really a need for a stronger weapon; some variants of the m/28 even use twinned 13mm MGs.

This seemingly unimpressive model gained infamy when a smuggler warlord’s force of fifteen obsolete but still dangerous tanks, entering Strossvald’s region of Altöss from the lawless nation of Sosaldt to the south, was discovered and later ambushed by a patrol of Altössian tankers. A pair of these tanks with what most considered mediocre armament butchered the entire trespassing formation within a minute.
For whatever reason, the armored car, of the model PzA-12, had a 13mm machine gun as it would normally have, but of a different make than the one mounted in your hull.

>twitter is @scheissfunker
>previous thread is still up, but probably won’t be by the end of the session. The link is here: >>844080

>>868546
>Seek the higher ground to attack the enemy

Think I missed the end of last thread, do we know what the enemy are/their numbers?

>>868682
No, as far as you've seen there's two vehicles and an unknown number of dismounted; this could be all of them, or only a fraction.

>>868721
I'll change my vote to evade then, the last thing we wanna do is run into that entire stolen armored battalion

>>868546
>Seek the higher ground to get a better view.

We need to see how large a force we're dealing with, then we can decide whether to engage.

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>>868555
thanks for the armament exposition tanq

>>868546
>>868834
This

“Tell the platoon to align south,” you instruct Maddalyn, “We’re going to go to higher ground and see if we can’t paint a better picture of our tactical situation. Driver, face half left.”

Your platoon gradually wheels to the left and up the hill, taking care not to completely expose the weaker sides of your armor at a flat angle.

You go up for a minute, and you almost reach a position where you can see the enemy’s chosen position, when you ran into a different ambush.

KR-KRANG!

A loud crack rang the tank like a bell. Another just like it hit soon after, and you hear Malachi swear in incomprehensible north tongue. You look quickly around the terrain, but you do not need to look long; one of your attackers flees his position, his long rifle as good as a flag in giving away his location, and by extension, his comrade’s.

He was close, very close, among a clutch of shrubs. You were lucky that he struck the armor plate so far, but this close a shot to any vulnerable viewports would likely kill one of you.

“Stein!” you shout to your gunner.

“I’m trying!” your gunner screams back. The coaxial spat, but the enemy was too close for the angle.

Something had to be done now, you didn’t have time to tell one of your platoon to aid you; the valuable seconds spent sending and receiving the message had to be spent decisively.

The bow gun was operated by the radio operator position, but in your rush to think you knew there was something problematic with that solution, but couldn’t recall quite what. Another option was to turn out the top with the submachinegun and shoot him yourself, but even less elegant was the option of charging forward and crushing him undertread.

It was also possible to try and back up to get the turret to a position where you could shoot effectively, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to test this opponent’s mettle and present them the opportunity to shoot again.

>Tell Maddalyn to shoot the bow gun
>Expose yourself to fire in an attempt to cut this foe down
>Squash this insect
>Pull back
>Other

>>870071
>Expose yourself to fire in an attempt to cut this foe down

>>870071
>Expose yourself to fire in an attempt to cut this foe down
>Squash this insect

Charge him so he tries to GTFO then shoot him as he flees.

“I’ll take care of this, Driver, forward.” You dig the submachinegun out of its holding case. It is a 1915 model Esterfabrik; a slight modification of one of many weapons bought off of the Reich after their disastrous war against Emre. Hopefully this one was not one of the many with poor quality control, based off of the rushed production of the late war weaponry.

You punch open the cupola hatch and point the prehistoric automatic weapon at the fool trying to kill you. You expect him to take the time to draw a handier weapon, but he instead hefts the ant tank rifle towards you.

This would probably hurt if you didn’t kill him. At the very least, the speed the tank was rolling towards him would require him to rush his shot, or be smashed into a grisly pulp.

>Roll a d100, low is good. Hope that you don’t have to take advantage of Richter’s stupid high shooting skill modifier

Rolled 47 (1d100)

>>870284

The submachinegun rattles with an ugly, mechanical coughing, and a line of red blossoms traces their way across your enemy’s stomach. Although he pulls the trigger of his rifle as he falls, the shot flies far away from anywhere near you. The aspiring hunter sags into a wreck on the ground, and emits high pitched gurgles and screeches punctuated with desperate pleading, clawing at his guts feebly.

“Judge above,” Stein says, agape as he watches the wriggling body through his scope, “What are you waiting for? Finish him off for God’s sake, I can’t watch that.”

“Wait,” Maddalyn butts in, “If there’s somebody out there that isn’t a threat, I can do what I did earlier, and we can question them. That way nobody would have to die…”

>Far too dangerous. Kill him and move while safe inside the vehicles.
>No need to show mercy to somebody who tried to kill you. Go out and see if you can interrogate the ambusher before he dies.
>Very well, drag out your witch and save a life, for a price.
>Other

>>870414
>Far too dangerous. Kill him and move while safe inside the vehicles.

>>870414
>No need to show mercy to somebody who tried to kill you. Go out and see if you can interrogate the ambusher before he dies.

Might as well try to see if he knows anything, keep the gun trained on him though

>>870414
>Far too dangerous. Kill him and move while safe inside the vehicles.

You empty the rest of the submachinegun into the mewling wreck before you, and he falls silent. “That’s not an option. We can’t leave the tanks when we don’t know what else is out here. Check on the others, now.”
Maddalyn wasn’t so impudent as to delay a command in order to protest your actions, but you could certainly feel her disapproval. Her soft attitude towards those who wished her dead would change quickly with time, or at least so you thought.

“No reports of any damage to the other vehicles.” Maddalyn said emotionlessly.

“Good. We’re resuming our movement, then.”

You heard the sounds of armored movement downhill. Perhaps your enemies would attempt to come up to you, where you could ambush them as they came into view, you thought, but when you got to a position where you could look upon your foes, you discovered that they were not so willing to fight. Two vehicles, tanks identical to your own set minus the armored car, were moving downhill with their walking allies, numbering roughly a dozen. The m/32, of course, having come from the train from the academy, would be armed differently from yours with its stock 3.7 cm instead of the 4.7 cm of the local make.

You would have to move slightly downhill but otherwise you had a good angle to strike them before they fled into the valley.

>Fire upon them to hasten their exit
>Chase them down and destroy them
>Let them leave unmolested
>Other

>>871476
Depending on range:
more than 1km
>Fire upon them to hasten their exit.
Targeting the m/28

less than 1km
>Chase them down and destroy them
Starting with the m/32. Once the m/32 is out of action the m/28 will be easy prey and the armored car can run down the infantry while we're dealing with the tanks.

>>871539
This.

Also try to take some prisoners to interrogate.

>>871539
Supporting

>>871476
are they reversing or do we have a clear shot at their vulnerable rear?
I say we harass them, and spray the tanks down with MG fire
If we're lucky the crew are novices and will panic & bail out of the tank

In the middle of something, will decide after done with said thing.

>>873175
You'v got a decent view of their rears. They're booking straight down.

>>873294
Ok then, try and take out the M/32 with cannon fire while focusing out 13mm MG fire on the /28
The armor on the 28 should be thin enough for the MG to spall the inside of the armor even if it doesn't penetrate
If we're lucky the crew are novices and will panic & bail out of the tank when they start getting wounded inside from splinters

>>873315
From what I understand, modern tanks are resistant to MG fire, either through having armor thick enough to resist spalling, or by having an anti-spall liner, such as lead or epoxied fabric. But I could be mistaken and spalling could be a problem for m/28's when hit with HMG fire.

>>873294
Let our M/32 and M/28 engage their own counterparts, then the HMG can mow down the infantry.

>>873466
relatively thin (~30mm) RHA is still susceptible to spalling from non penetrating hits, even from HMG fire.
http://asmrb.pbworks.com/w/page/9958925/Pulp%20Armor%20Penetration

>>874083
Yeah, but you would need to be close, less than 500m, probably less than 250m.
That's why I suggested taking out the m/28 with the 4.7cm if range was over 1km and popping the m/32 if we are closer. Takes out the biggest threat to our allies if close and the faster combatant if far.

On phone, Grammer will suffer.

>>874254
I thought we were relatively close. I suggested going after the 32 first because their 37mm gun is more dangerous than the 28's 25mm

>>874378
tanq never gave us a distance or est. range, but I agree with taking out the m/32, provided we are close enough to one shot, otherwise taking out the m/28 should be a priority, being the smaller, more mobile of the two.

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You decide that your actions would greatly depend on the distance you were from your target. You could reckon it somewhat, but this was important enough to be certain.

“Stein,” you get your gunner’s attention, “How far would you say that is?”

“A bit less than a klick.”

“You seem awfully certain.” You didn’t expect a pleasant surprise.

“The optic for the cannon isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen, it took some getting used to, but general increments are easy to find. There’s size reference marks, very useful.”

Unusual as well. Your research into military theory had made you familiar with much equipment used on the continent; Strossvald’s gun optics were never anything special, as their opponents never required improvement. The only place you had heard of placing particular importance on quick and accurate shots to the level of investing in optics development was the center of armored tactics development in the world; the Grossreich of Czeiss.

“Get ready to take out the big one on my order then.” You prioritize the more threatening vehicle, “Tell Metzeler to fire on my target as well.” Within less than a kilometer, the m/28’s relatively puny cannon was effective against the thinner plating of the m/32. “We stop that one, then we chase down the rest. Wipe them out.”

>Roll 2 d100s

>>875236
I've admittedly been slacking on the maps, so I've marked your approximate position as well as the enemy's based on these 4 2x2km grid squares, as well as the general movements.
I figured it might be neat to just have the whole map and not say exactly where you were but that seems to be more a pain in the ass than not so we'll dispense with that

Rolled 59, 90 = 149 (2d100)

>>875398

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The paired shots fly towards the enemy, while the armored car’s machine gun pours a stream of cracking fire down the slope. The 25mm shell goes wide, striking in front of the moving target, but the larger shot rends apart the turret of the enemy m/32, its right side twisted by the cavernous hole. It was serious damage, but the tank continued to flee, their group turning towards the hill to your north east. Before they moved out of your range of fire, your group managed to fire another time, but the shots were too rushed to be accurate, the two shots striking fore and aft of your target.

After the fusillade, you gave the command to close the distance some more. Before long, they would not only be out of the meager elevation of your cannon, but out of view altogether. The foot mobiles moved similarly, choosing to reposition rather than fight.

You stopped and prepared to fire again, but the enemy was almost to the hill.

>Chase them around the hill
>Move to the top of the hill and attack from there
>Try and rush two shots before they escape
>Other

>>875428
>Other
Each tank takes a careful aimed shot. m/32 at the chassis and the m/28 at the treads. Then begin advancing and open up on the infantry as we approach the hill, but swing wide and circle around rather than go over.

>>875428
Is the enemy M/32 still able to use its cannon? Otherwise we might decide to shift fire to the M/28.

>>875629
You aren't familiar with the exact properties of the 4.7cm shell's effects, but you do know that their standard ammunition type is of armor piercing high explosive type. It would be understandable to conclude that anything that was in the turret when the shell penetrated and burst is probably not capable of using the gun at the moment.

>>875795
Oh OK, then lets focus on mission killing the m/28 for now.

>>875795
>armor piercing high explosive type
oh, so shaped charges are a thing in setting? any panzerfaust/ AT grenade equivalents in setting?

I may have fallen into a coma accidentally.

In any case, roll a pair of d100s because it's time to shoot again

>>878059
Armor Piercing High Explosive in this case refers to normal armor piercing shot with an explosive filler. In setting, you don't really know if shaped charges are used in weapons (only having heard of them in demolitions), and if they are you haven't heard of them being used on a wide scale.

The closest thing to an AT grenade you know of is a bomb on a stick that works through the strength of the explosive, as well as similar relatively crude thrown projectiles.

>>878394
oh, more like a PZGR 39/40 type HE filling in a monolithic AP shell then an actual APHE shell then
your terminology threw me off there

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Rolled 57, 48 = 105 (2d100)

>>878403
So satchel charges kinda? Or more of a bundled charge kind of deal

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You instruct your followers to focus your fire on the lighter m/28, figuring that you have caused enough damage to the m/32 for it to be significantly less of a threat.

Metzeler’s tank fires first, and the rear of the fleeing m/28 is punctured. Your follow up shots strikes right at the seam between plates, carving a deep gouge through the rear plate and peeling away the top armor plate over the engine like an overripe orange. The vehicle vanishes in a gout of steam and smoke, and you barely spy the silhouettes of its crew leaping out and sprinting away with the infantry escort.

“You owe me ten Strossmarks, Hans,” Stein smirked at Hans for a moment as he pulled the hot shell out of the breach and dropped it on the floor, grabbing an armor piercing shell from the ready rack.

“We’ve still got plenty of time to die.” Snapped Hans before slamming the breech shut.

Rifle rounds ricocheted off of the armor with high pitched pings, the men ahead of you standing there uncertainly like mice standing against a Maned Pig about to devour it whole.

A burst of fire from the armored car echoed behind you and one of the resisting militiamen vanished in a plume of gore. The rest were soon driven away by machine gun fire, one more of them being cut down by the storm of lead coming from the three armored vehicles above, tumbling down clutching at his thighs as he fell facefirst into the dirt.

“We’re pursuing them,” you inform the platoon of your battle plan, “Hand wide to the left of that hill and chase them down. Don’t get too close in case they try an ambush as soon as we head around.”

You go as fast as you can, but when you go around the hill, you spot…nothing.

You know for a fact that you’d see some indication of where your enemy went, but the tracks simply stop near the hill, nearby a thick clutch of tall, deep green holly bushes.

You’d spent enough time outdoors to know that holly bushes weren’t a normal sight in Strossvald, at least not where you came from, more towards the center of the country. Perhaps they were more common here.

One of the men shot before has sat up. His weapon is thrown away, and all of his attention is focused on his upper thigh, blood leaking from around his fingers as he tries to squeeze it shut through force of willpower.

>We’re done here, they’re not going to bother us anymore. Keep an eye behind us as we leave, though.
>We’re not leaving until we find where those bastards went. Look for clues. (Optional: Specify What you want to do/look for)
>Take a souvenir in the form of a prisoner then leave
>Take a wider search around the perimeter to see if anybody has stuck around
>Other

>>878883
All sorts, really. Bundled charges aren't exactly standard to your knowledge; although kits to make them aren't difficult to find in the infantry so far as you know. The most common ones you know of used tend to be smaller versions of charges used to demolish fortifications and obstacles; heavy and unwieldly, but unquestionably powerful.

One curious experiment you heard of was a rifle launched set of bolas meant to entangle itself in the treads and wheels, developed in the Sosalian Country of Valsten, to the south, during their own civil war shortly after the Emrean War. This curious weapon only had limited effect in the field, its designers underestimating the ability of a user to fire the steel links in a way that they would tangle the mechanisms of the treads and wheels.

You had also read of experiments using larger and stronger grenades for rifle grenades. Rifle grenades were hardly a new invention, having been around in some form since the first Kaiser of the Grossreich conquered most of the continent, but these heavier charges had potential in the eyes of the more adventurous, even if critics pointed out the limited range and poor long range accuracy of the recent developments.

>>879004
>Take a souvenir in the form of a prisoner
Patch him up and interrogate him. See if he knows where they're hiding.

>>879019
>>Take a souvenir in the form of a prisoner then leave
Offer to patch him up if he'll talk, if he doesn't then leave him to tend to himself

also sorry for being so overly specific about weapons and armament, I'm mainly a /k/ guy

>>879004
>>Take a souvenir in the form of a prisoner then leave
>>We’re not leaving until we find where those bastards went.

Offer to have Maddy patch him up if he tells us where his friends went. If he doesn't talk investigate the bushes or something.

You hop out of the side door of your turret after the vehicles have assumed a defensive formation around the militiaman you plan on interrogating. Soon after you jump out, the spend shell casings fall out after you, bouncing away from you.

“Hey, watch it,” you scold Hans, before stepping lightly towards the wounded man. He looks at you with but a little spite. “Hello there,” you squat in from of him, “I’m new around these parts, and I’ve got a few questions. Can you help a fellow out?”

“Only if you need a punch in the face,” the young man says dryly, idly poking at his wound now. While it is rather bad, it isn’t the sort of thing that couldn’t be stopped with a bandage and a belt. Even so, from the position of it you can tell he’s not walking anytime soon.

“Some rather unfriendly individuals decided to take shots at us,” you brush off the sassy reply, “We just want to return the favor. We can make a deal, if you like.” You gesture towards his wounded leg, “We’ll let you walk away, completely unhurt, if you tell us where your friends are hiding.” You point back at Maddalyn slowly, unfamiliarly crawling her way out of the hull. “You may not believe it but she can literally make all your problems disappear. Just tell us where we can find the rest of you.”

“So you can kill them all?” the wounded man snorted at you, “Sure, I’ll take that deal if you let me do the ginger bitch up the ass first.”

You pleasantly inform him that your patience isn’t infinite.

“Shit, right in the nose…” he held his face with a free hand where your reminder had been addressed. “Who the hell are you, anyways? None of you were supposed to come up around here.”

> I’m the one asking questions. Tell us where your bunch is hiding and we might be lenient if you surrender.
>Supposed to? How do you know that?
>We’re a group of unruly tankers who don’t like worthless traitors shooting at us. If you don’t talk, when we do find the rest of you we’re executing you all.
>Other

>>879204
>Supposed to? How do you know that?

>>879204
>Supposed to? How do you know that?

“Supposed to?” You don’t like where this is going at all. Finishing up could wait a moment. “What do you mean by that? How do you know if we’re supposed to be here or not?”

The man’s expression shifts. “Wait. You mean…you aren’t….shit, there’s no way. How long have you been here?”

“A day.”

“Shit!” he swore through gritted teeth, “They told us it had all gone right, yet here you are.” He looks at you incredulously. “What, do you think I’m going to tell you what’s going on? You can piss off on out of here. The only thing I’ll tell you is that you’ll have all the answers you want in a couple of days.”

>You know, I could just kill you and every single one of your friends if I was provoked. You should be a little friendlier, it sounds like you’ve got a story.
>Nuts to you then. We’re out of here anyways.
>I’m sure we could reach some sort of agreement. How about you tell me just one thing I want to know, and I let you and your friends all go? (Write In Question)
>Other

>>879220
>You know, I could just kill you and every single one of your friends if I was provoked. You should be a little friendlier, it sounds like you’ve got a story.

>>879220
>I’m sure we could reach some sort of agreement. How about you tell me just one thing I want to know, and I let you and your friends all go?
>Who are "they"?

This'll be the third goddamn time posting this because I keep forgetting little things

“Who are ‘they’?” You demand of your captive.

“You already know, man, you came off the train.” He shook his head and smiled sardonically at you. “You’ve met. Hell you probably know them better than I do.”

The Dawnseekers down south had a much better idea of when they were beaten, although to be fair, those ones did not have tanks. Yet. “Everybody would appreciate it if you were so forthcoming with some other questions.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

You sigh heavily. “You know, I could just have you and all of your friends killed if I was provoked. Considering the circumstances, you should be a bit friendlier.”

“They’ll understand even if you do find them,” he proclaimed defiantly, “What we’re fighting for is bigger than any of us. Even if none of us live to see the Kaiser save us from you we’ll at least know we didn’t stand in the way of everybody else’s salvation.”

The heroic type then. “You must see that there’s no need for that, wcan come to some sort of agreement. How about this? You tell me just one or two things I want to know, and I let you, and all of your friends go. Would that be fair?”

Your injured inquisitee shifts a bit, giving this one more thought than before as the possibility of escape shines down. “No, maybe….fine, what do you want to know.” He prods your face with an accusatory finger, “I’m trusting you on this one, you silver spoon shit sniffer. If it’s anything like ‘where are your demimperi friends’ or anything I’m gonna throttle you and make you shoot me.”

>Fire away (Write In)
>Try to give yourself leverage by claiming that you already know where they are. Unless you can back that claim up with something though, it’ll be a faulty bluff.
>Have him healed before you ask your questions to try and sweeten the mood
>Other

>>879157
I've been meaning to get to this but I keep hitting the reply before remembering it. Don't worry about asking questions, I'm all for answering them as long as they fall within the view of what the character knows or can ask about.

>>879625
>Have him healed while you ask your questions to try and sweeten the mood

Do we have any supernatural thing that can function as a lie detector?

>>880576
We have a soul-seeing girl. Maybe she can do it.

>>879625
>"Oh but I don't need to ask where they are. By stealing a tank battalion they have radically narrowed the list of places they could be hiding. Finding them is a matter of a day at most."
>Ask who they intended to ambush here
>Ask what is that "salvation" from

“Oh,” you smile at your prisoner, “I don’t need to guess where you are. You know how much you’ve stolen? You can’t possibly hide it all. We’ll find you soon enough. I’d give us a day at most to root you all out.”

“Bullshit,” he says, but he can’t hide a flash of fear.

“I’m serious,” you half bluff. It was possible for them to spread everything out and hide it, if the people doing it were really, really good, but it wasn’t heard of to do in a single day. “Give me a moment, I have to ask my crewman where she wants me to put my boot.”

You saunter over to Maddalyn, who looks at you expectantly. “Is there something else you want me to do?”

“Well,” you scratch your head, “You can heal him I know, but I need the information he tells us to be reliable. Can you, for example, look at somebody and tell if they’re lying?” You try for a specific thing. As far as you knew, she could do anything she didn’t already tell you she couldn’t do.

“Richter,” she frowns at you, “Being blind doesn’t make me psychic. I can’t tell what changes in presence marks a lie, everybody’s different.”

“Psh,” you thought it was worth a try, “Well, can you mess with his head? Make him not be able to lie or something?”

“No...er, I mean, sure. Actually, of course.” Her tone reverses in the course of a second.

“Really? How?”

“It’s complicated.”

It always was, you say to yourself.

You expected Maddalyn to repeat the exact same ritual as before, but this time, she extracted two cards of translucent ivory; the patterns on both, you could recognize, were different from each other. One looked vaguely like the Heal Card from earlier, but the other one looked somehow more ominous, with more sharp corners and lines rather than curves.

“The hell is she doing?” the wounded man asked of you, but you just smirked at him.

The first thing she did was familiar. A touch of blood to the card, snapping it down the middle, then thrusting the strange luminescent fog into the wound, prompting a startled yelp of pain from your prisoner. With a twist, a pair of 7.5mm bullet fragments popped out just before the blood was sucked back under the skin, the wound sealing itself with a discomforting snap.

“Huh,” your captive almost made out a syllable of pleasant surprise when Maddalyn snapped the other card in two and pressed them into the center of his chest with a deep, ringing tone like that of a great bronze bell. “What the hell did you do to me!?” he tried to shout but his voice faded off at the end.

“You cannot lie.” Maddalyn said matter of factly, “Not even if you wanted to. You are bound to the truth by powerful spirits.”

“W-witchcraft…” the captive sputtered impotently. “It’s hot…it itches…”he starts scratching under his collar.

“Well, now that that’s taken care of, we can get to the interview.” You clap your hands together and rub them. “First things first. Who exactly were you waiting for here?”

“We weren’t waiting for anybody,” he spat, “You just came up here and barged right into us. Higher ups told us none of you were ever even going to come up here. We were as surprised to see you as you were of us.”

“You shot first.”

“Of course we shot first!” he spouted in frustration, “We run away from you and avoid you, we aren’t supposed to be your friends.”

“Why?” you press, “You weren’t as skittish as you claim with the trains down east.”

“I don’t know why,” he says, “We don’t know, keeps us from telling people when we have magic spells cast on us. The trains weren’t us, anyways. Those were the new guys.” You wait a second for him to guess what you want him to say. “I don’t know where they came from, but they’re bad ass. They’re soldiers from somewhere, I can guess that much.”

“Fair enough. Next one; what do you mean by ‘salvation’?”

“Salvation from you bunch,” he sat up and glared at you. “Do you really think everybody wants you nobles in charge? When the Reich were our rulers they made this country great. Everything you ever claimed to have done was really done by the Reich. Kaiser Henrik is the next Alexander. He’ll take away all of the things you’ve stolen from us over the years and give it back, and we’ll be free to pursue whatever desires we wish. In the new Reich, your greatness isn’t determined by blood.”

“Unless you’re the Kaiser.” Maddalyn interjected heatedly.

“Better him than you,” your prisoner turned his nose up at her, “You were the ones who rebelled against the Reich, not us. Maybe some thought you’d be better, but that was the Reich then, not the Reich now. You lot haven’t changed since before the Reich conquered you.” He shuffled uncomfortably, “Are you satisfied now? I want to leave.”

>That’s enough of you, then. Get out of here.
>You don’t have to honor obligations to a rebellious peasant. Restrain him and throw him in the back of the car.
>You don’t have to honor obligations to a corpse. Shoot him.
>You actually have some other things to probe him about (Write In)
>Other

>>885346
>>Other
Tell him that if he wants to not be eaten by the spirit thing that turns people into shadows that he should hunker down in a church for the next week or so, then let him go

We already did magic to him, lets spook the shit out of him like we did the other militia before we met Maddalyn. Demoralizing the weekend warriors of the militia will mean that we'll be killing a lot less people in the long run
With any luck he'll grab hid buddies and hold up until this blows over

>>885676
Seconded. See if we can do more occult things to scare him more.

>>885676
Supporting this. Maybe make him suspect the shadow thing is affiliated with us somehow

“You may leave,” you tell your impatient ‘friend.’ “I should warn you, though, strange things have been happening as of late. A monster walks among us, hungry for souls. If it finds you and your friends walking around outside, you’ll be reduced to nothing but a shadow.”

The Dawnseeker looks at you incredulously, mouth half open. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been cursed,” Maddalyn steps in, “Just as spirits bound you to the truth, they now hunger for your soul. They will feast upon you, as well as your friends, so long as you are marked.” She hastily pulls out something different from her bag, a little twig. When she snaps that in half, a few luminescent sparks flicker in the air for a moment before billowing into black puffs of smoke. "It comes now."

“Hey, that isn’t funny,” the militiaman tries to laugh, “You’re messing with me.”

“Can you really say that, seeing what you’ve seen?” You were half making things up, but he had no reason to doubt you.

“No, wait,” His expression turns pleading. “You can call it off, right? Have a heart!”

“No can do.” You say a bit more smugly than you intend, “You all will have to wait for the curse to go away in a week, or else every single one of you is dead. The ghosts can’t hurt you if you’re inside, or better yet, if you’re in a church. The Judge is the only thing they fear, it is said.”

“Crap, crap,” the scruffy volunteer gets up clumsily to his feet and hobbles away, not bothering to thank you for your advice.

“Well, that was fun.” You say as he disappears, “So how does the thing work where he can’t lie.”

“…Yeah. The way it works is that…it doesn’t.” Maddalyn said with apprehension.

“Oh.” At the very least, your prisoner had been fooled. “Then what did you do?”

“The second thing was just a light show. What I did first was, I suppressed his presence with my own,” she told you, “Different people’s presences don’t behave well when they’re forced to mix. If you shove them into each other hard enough, there’s a reaction that can hurt the body physically. I just did it enough to make him feel sick for a bit, a bit of payback.”

“I already hit him, you know.” You make a mental note to not make Maddalyn too angry, for fear that she might hurt you in a way you scarcely understood. Not that you could resist making fun of her. “Besides, he’s the first person I’ve met who assumed you were an adult.”

At least, that’s what you thought. Maddalyn didn’t reply, and just gave you a sideways glance like there was something you didn’t get that she didn’t want to explain.

From your little skirmish it isn’t long before you arrive at the site.

The place Maddalyn says is the location of the secret facility is a dip between a pair of little peaks, dwarfed by mother mountain but still respectably tall from the view between them. The slopes are covered with unkempt growth, with a giant pile of stone, pieces of the mountain that tumbled from the top, covered in nearly as much growth as the ground around you.
In the middle of one of its stonier outcroppings, there is a flimsy wooden door, sheeted with growth.

“Looks like nobody’s been here in a long time,” you comment on the apparent.

“It’s meant to look that way,” Maddalyn explains, “It’s been a while, but not nearly long enough for things to look like this. Progress on anything was slow ever since the Hermit stopped being able to think the way he used to, but they soldiered on until it was obvious the risk wasn’t going to be worth it. It only stopped this year.”

You push on the slab door, and it falls away with little effort, popping with a puff of dust before folding into itself and breaking into pieces of rotten wood and moss on the cavern floor.

Maddalyn steps up past you. “If you don’t mind,” she whispers, “Everybody else should stay out here, inside their tanks and everything. It won’t be dangerous if everything goes to plan, but we can’t have too many people out and around.”

You relay her intentions to everybody else. Von Metzeler does not question it, but your own crew does.

“You sure that’s a good idea, commander?” Stein speculates, “What if you end up needing help? Shouldn’t we come anyways?”

“Probably, but we have to trust Maddy.”

“Oh God, you’re calling her a pet name now.” Hans groans. You don’t dignify him with a response.

“Well, good luck.” Stein offers before shutting the hatch.

You walk back over to the door and put yourself in front of your charge, looking into the avalanche-formed cave.

File: tcqscene22.png (195KB, 800x467px) Image search: [Google]

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Directly inside the small, growth coated door is a colossal maw, made of tumorous masses. Beyond it is a simple, steel portal to someplace deeper inside, but the thing’s dark flesh flows over it slightly, twitching and pulsating.

“What the hell is that?!” you jerk back in shock.

“What the hell is what?” asked Maddalyn, “There’s nothing there. Come on, let’s go.”

“You can’t possibly not see that.” You say in disbelief, “Or is there some ghost that’s somehow invisible to you? I thought you could see in spirit or something.”

Maddalyn looks blankly at you, then squints at the horrific mass. “I don’t know, Richter, there’s nothing there. Whatever you see, it could be something I don’t know about, but I wouldn’t worry about it if I can’t see it. If I don’t see it that means it’s a really weak spirit.”

“That doesn’t look very weak to me.”

“For goodness sakes Richter, I can’t sense it. It isn’t really there.”

>This thing looks too awful to be nothing. We’re clearing it out with a hellfire shot.
>Don’t you have some magic spell or something you could do to see if anything happens? I don’t trust this…thing.
>Alright then, I’ll trust you. I think I’ll have to close my eyes on the way in though.
>Other

>>886506
>Alright then, I’ll trust you. I think I’ll have to close my eyes on the way in though

>>886506

"Nothing there" my ass. That room is covered floor to ceiling in some sort of demonic pulsating mass filled with teeth and I'm not going in there until you at least know what the hell it is.

>>887055
>>886506

How about we describe it to her in detail, so at least she knows what we're seeing.

>>887842
Supporting

You didn’t have a frame of reference to compare this toothed room to, but it looked plenty real to you. “If you can’t see it at all, I’ll tell you what it looks like.” You offer, “Imagine a pile of ground up meat, but it’s moving, and it’s covered in long teeth, tall as a man. It’s also got these glowing eyes in it, like the other big dark thing has for a head.”

Maddalyn thinks for a moment. “Is it talking?”

“I can’t imagine how this thing would talk, but no.” That was an odd thing to consider, so far as you knew these sorts of things had never talked, which was something you suddenly felt better not knowing.

“Then you aren’t being possessed, at least. There’s a sort of fragment…I mean, spirit, as you know them, called Hungry Darkness.”

“That’s a reassuring name. Does it eat people like the other thing?”

Maddalyn doesn’t seem concerned about it. “It does, but not the same way. In stories, Hungry Darkness hides in dark places and drinks presence as people sleep near it, under pillows and beds and things like that. It’s not very threatening, but it makes people weak over the long term. What it sounds like you’re describing is a bunch of them, which means there’s something inside the place that’s letting out plenty of presence for them to feed on. Otherwise, they’d never even form. I can’t see them because they eat what I see.”

“Neat,” you say, “So how do we kill them?”

“I don’t see why you have to kill them,” Maddalyn sounds bored. If she could see what you see you’d wager she wouldn’t be so unconcerned. “They dissipate if you expose them to bright light. You could hit them with a load of presence as well, but it would have to be big or else they’d just eat it and turn into something that might be dangerous in a hundred years.”

“Light?” you ask, “So I could just get an electric torch and it would leave when I got close?”

“It would have to light up the whole place or they’d just run off into your own shadow.”

“An explosion, then?”

“No.” Maddalyn says firmly, “We don’t want the place to collapse. If you wanted to shoot anything in there you should use the Hellfire shots, since those don’t affect nonliving things.”

You roll your eyes at her, not realizing until after you’ve done it that she can’t tell if you do. You’d make sure to do it more often in the future.

“If it looks that bad to you, I won’t object, but Hungry Darkness aren’t that aggressive. It’ll just feel funny walking through it.” Maddalyn is certainly sure of this.

>I’d prefer having a light in case it gets any funny ideas. I’ll get a torch.
>Whatever you say. Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you so, though.
>Humor me with the thing that turns dangerous in a hundred years. We aren’t staying for that long.
>If we have to hit it with something big enough then we’ll do that. That thing is eating a shell.
>Other

>>888020
>I’d prefer having a light in case it gets any funny ideas. I’ll get a torch.

>>888020
>I’d prefer having a light in case it gets any funny ideas. I’ll get a torch.

>>888020

>I’d prefer having a light in case it gets any funny ideas. I’ll get a torch.

Also, it may be a good idea to show our new crew members and officers this thing.

>>889003
>Also, it may be a good idea to show our new crew members and officers this thing.

...To make sure they don't get any sleep tonight?

“Let me get a torch anyways,” you turn to retrieve one from the tank, “I prefer to be careful when dealing with terrifying abominations I didn’t know existed until yesterday.” You go back and demand the light from inside, before asking Stein if he wants to see a spooky ghost. He declines.

“So can I have all the others look at this thing?” You ask Maddalyn when you get back.

She stares at you. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Might be better to be the first thing they see instead of the soul eating monster.”

Maddalyn firmly declines your proposal. “It’s surely come back by now, it’s best for everybody to be locked up safely. Everybody that needs to do anything other than hide has already seen it anyways.”

With that it was time to enter the gaping maw.

Although Maddalyn tries to walk brazenly ahead of you, you keep her from doing so. Her body being as tiny as it is, she cannot budge you from your position. You try shining the wide glow of the torch around the cavern, feeling some small marvel as the shadowy masses slip away from the light like melting chocolate, little white eyes blinking at you as new piles coalesce from the drippings made by the light, rushing into the spaces the light leaves. The little ones lack teeth, making them much more endearing than the rest of the room, in the way a bizarre pile of darkness could be endearing. The teeth themselves, you never get a chance to touch or even avoid, as they crawl away from you as you approach.

A pair of huge locks block the door, each with a long handle to turn to open the mechanism. You try them, not expecting any results; you are not rewarded for your attempt. Your more spiritually attuned companion brushes past you and traces an invisible pattern on the lock handles; they crack open with bursts of dust, leaving the door to swing slowly open.

“So how do they get in here without somebody who can see how those work? Those doors were, well, for lack of a better term, magic, right?” you kick the door open further with a slight touch of your foot.

“Those weren’t meant to be opened again,” Maddalyn lightly touches the locks again, “They were meant to keep anybody from going in afterwards.”

You don’t want to ask if she can shut it again. At this point, all you could do was hope she knew what she was doing.

File: tcqscene23.png (140KB, 600x700px) Image search: [Google]

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The thing in the next room is also a horror; a twisted bundle of ethereal fibers, terminating in a small thread into the ground, with an empty, hollow face, which it gazes at you with when you enter.

“Maddalyn,” you say warily, “What is that?”

“Nothing to be concerned about.”

“Nothing to be concerned about!” you comment derisively.

“It’s a Stareling. That one’s a really big one, but no matter how big they get they’re still harmless.” She pouts at your continued expression of skepticism. “It’s not going to eat you or anything, they just feed off of whatever presence floats off of you.”

“There’s probably a good reason why I’ve never seen one,” you say while watching the Stareling slowly turn in place to ‘watch’ you. "Considering that so far I haven't seen anything that didn't look like it was made of shadows or something."

“Well,” Maddalyn says slowly, paying the spirit no mind, “They don’t normally show up unless a lot of presence is gathered up somewhere, like they did here to make those shots. There normally isn’t enough of the presence anywhere for them to start growing. As for why you can see this one,” she went on thoughtfully, “I’m not sure, but I think it’s for the same reason there’s a big Stareling here. There’s so much presence around that it’s affecting your senses, because normally you wouldn't notice them at all.”

“Good, I was afraid I was starting to grow monsters in my eyes.”

“They aren’t monsters…” Maddalyn looks unhappy. Not in the way you’d quickly gotten used to where she was annoyed or offended, but the same sort of shamed expression she had when she first told you of her deficiencies. “…No, I…I guess they are ugly eyes, aren’t they…”

>That’s enough of that. As long as they work they’re fine.
>At this point, as long as they aren’t drinking me they’re simply lovely.
>No offense, but they looked like monsters to me.
>Other

>>889745
>[be slightly annoyed]Your eyes look completely normal unless you start stabbing them with sharp things. They aren't ugly at all.
>I doubt anyone's eyes would look pretty if stabbed.

>>889834
Seconded. Tell her that unlike certain people, we don't intend to put her down because what she might or might not have.

“For God’s sake Maddy,” you say irritably, “Your eyes are completely normal until you start stabbing them with sharp objects. Nobody’s eyes look good when that happens to them.”

“Sorry…” Maddalyn says, drifting off slightly.

“It’s really not important to me what you have or don’t have.” You reassure her, “Even if anybody else thinks it’s worth putting you down over. Don’t worry about it.”

Her eyes point away from you for a moment, but she replies “I appreciate that.”

“So anyways, there’s nothing in the next room that’s a horrible abomination, right?” you ask, “I’m doing my best anticipate how shocking the next awful thing I find out about will be but lately I seem to constantly find myself unprepared.” This room was noticeably barren; not what you’d expect out of a facility that produced anything. Most of the equipment must have been disassembled and moved out some time ago.

“There might be little things, but anything that could hurt anybody would have eaten the other creatures inside by now.” She moved on with purpose, past the creepy floating pile of rags and down a hall littered with small, pearly looking stones that cast bright, multicolored luminescence around them. You (probably unwisely) kicked a few around, but no ill fortune befell you, as the little things simply clattered about, completely still.

It occurred to you that had you not brought the torch, you wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all in here; it was pitch dark deeper inside, and Maddalyn hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights if they still functioned. It must have been easy to forget there was light at all if one never saw it in the first place.

When you caught up to the blind girl, she had already half buried herself among a pile of crates and various scattered items, the sheet once covering them cast to the side. Among the piles, when you passed the light over them, you could see the glitter of gold, silver and gemstones. It seemed unnecessarily gaudy for some place so otherwise practical. They were things that looked vaguely familiar; simple mechanisms and edges belied engraving knives, calipers, and other such craftsman’s tools, but they were just different enough to appear oddly alien.

“So where are the shells?” you ask your companion’s rear end, her fore buried among a pile of bejeweled junk.

“Er,” she starts sheepishly, “I thought they’d be here…but somebody…took…them.” She added quickly, “It’s fine though, I found what I was looking for.”

You aren’t fond at all of the thought of somebody other than you having hellfire shells, especially since you still don’t know exactly what they do to human targets, but that bridge would be crossed when it came. Maddalyn fell out of the pile with little grace, stumbling clumsily out of the piles of junk. She held up a little golden cylindrical object, about the size of a finger.

The little golden piece was covered in miniscule etchings, mazes running over one another and through each other’s corridors. A tiny light pulsed through the etchings every once in a while, a dull glow like hot metal.

“This is an earth core.” Maddalyn gingerly holds the thin golden cylinder between two fingers, “From what I understand, the guns you use today weren’t around back when this stuff was really going, so they futureproofed it. As long as you have something to put it inside, this should work in anything.”

“Anything?” you echo, “You mean it doesn’t just explode and kill ghosts?”

“I don’t know what else it does. Soulbinders don’t share their secrets easily, and the Hermit was no different. They have much better control over their presences than anybody else does, so they could probably do just about anything with them. From what I’ve read though, they mostly use them in golems.”

You have no idea what a golem is, you say.

“It’s what soulbinders bind their said soul to. They’re divided across multiple bodies, basically, but not really since they’re two different things. I don’t really understand it myself, but they’re part of what makes soulbinders so scary.”

“Then let’s hope we never meet one. How do we turn this thing into something we can shoot?” You ask as Maddalyn pockets the golden bit and dives into the pile again, finding a dilapidated looking 47mm shell with casing. The shell is open, and noticeably hollow; the place where a fuse should be is empty.

“You stick the tip in,” she says. “What are you snickering at?”

“Nothing. You mean the fuse.”

“Sure. That thing.”

You find one with an annoying amount of effort; naturally, it is under the last pile of crap you look under. In the process of looking for it, you get a good look at the incredibly valuable looking tools. It’s hard to draw your eyes away from them even after you find the crappy fuse.

>Pocket as many as you can surreptitiously
>Ask if you can take some souvenirs, not to pawn them or anything like that, of course.
>Ignore them, they’re probably cursed or some other horrible nonsense
>Other

>>891889
>>Ask if you can take some souvenirs, not to pawn them or anything like that, of course.

>>891889
>>Ask if you can take some souvenirs, not to pawn them or anything like that, of course.
If somebody took the shells who's to say what will become of these tools
also, what's the harm in taking them? Might come in handy some day

>>891889
Ask if you can take some souvenirs, not to pawn them or anything like that, of course.

No sense just leaving them to lie here, right?

“No one will miss any of this if I took it, right?” you say, pointing to the bejeweled trinkets in the mess. A family with a two story manor couldn’t be called poor, but you were hardly wealthy enough to turn your nose up at easy money. “If I took these things and sold them, that is.”

“Um, sure.” Maddalyn said, looking at what you were referring to. “I don’t know why you would, though, they aren’t worth all that much.”

“You and I have very different views on that,” you mutter while picking up some of the less sharp implements and ramming them into your pockets. Even the third daughter of such a powerful family likely had more inheritance than your whole family owned, despite her defective traits. Such physical features were not looked well upon when it came to deciding the future of a household, for fear of such weaknesses being passed further down the line, which was probably how you were able to punch that high above your weight when it came to intermarrying bloodlines in the first place.

“So how do we turn this thing into a beast killer?” you ask as Maddalyn tries to figure out how to merge the golden oblong and the fuse. “You said this was incomplete.”

Maddalyn doesn’t answer you for a long time. You’re about to ask if she heard you, when she tells you. “This doesn’t look like it’s going to work like I hoped.”

You feel your mouth involuntarily crease itself. “Yes?”

“I don’t want to make this decision, Richter. You’ve been very kind to me, and it’s far more than I deserved. The core needs a lot more presence than I hoped. I’ll have to infuse it until I hardly have anything left; I’ll faint for sure. Once that happens, you’ll need to screw the whole thing into the shell and take it back to your tank, then wait for the demiphantom to come here.”

“Wait,” you interject, “Why would we have to do that? You said this place was made to contain ghosts and such, couldn’t we just shut the door and wait for you to wake up?”

“When I turn this core into something useable, the demiphantom will definitely sense it. We don’t want it to not notice that, we don’t know if we’ll find it again in time. Enough people have suffered for my mistake, Richter. I don’t want to delay this at all. It’ll come running, and you have to be ready for it. Wait for it to go into the cave, then destroy it. You won’t be able to miss.”

“No, wait,” you feel she’s going far too quickly with this, “What about you? We can’t just leave you in there while we shoot this thing into the cave.”

“I’ll probably die,” her voice begins to quaver, “I’m fine with that. I know I’m being selfish, but…I don’t want anybody to dig it up and release that monster again. I want it to be destroyed, and it won’t go in here unless there’s bait. I have to stay in here.”

“Unacceptable. I haven't even received my dowry yet.”

Maddalyn tried to laugh, but it came out weak and toneless. "I already took care of that. Don't worry, you'll be fine, and you'll find somebody better." She took a final handful of things out of her bag. "You can try and shut the demiphantom in here, it won’t be able to escape if you shut the door on it, and the core will lure it just like my body would. You could do that, but the thing will stay here, waiting to be found again.” Maddalyn is struggling to get her words out by the end, “I can’t let myself think about this. I’m trusting you to do what’s right. I’m sorry, Richter.”

With that she unfurled a whole set of cards and snapped them in unison. A blinding light penetrated every corner of the room, and in an instant it was sucked into the little golden core, the patterns on it shining like the sun. Maddalyn fell backwards, completely unresponsive. You flinched as her head made a sickening crack upon hitting the floor.

“Damn you!” you curse. If what she said was accurate, you wouldn’t have time to do anything complex, or do more than take one thing out. You ponder taking both her and the shell for a second, but she said something had to be in here as bait.

>Leave her and kill the Demiphantom
>Leave the core and trap the Demiphantom
>Take both back, you’ll figure this out later. Hopefully she won’t be too pissed.
>Try to figure out something else (Write in)

>>893546
Couldn't we just throw them both in the tank, shove the core in the round and then kill the demiphantom when it comes for them with the shell? Or does it have to be within an enclosed space for the shell to kill it?

>>894507
The trouble is less with the theoretical ability to kill it than it is with the shell's area of effect. You don't really know what the hellfire shell does to a human body, just that even in a tank if you're too close to it going off even the armor won't protect you from the energy.

That was with a normal hellfire shell, this is a supercharged one. It's safe to assume that you don't want anything living that you care about anywhere near where it goes off. "Near" in this case being a bit of guesswork, but a normal one requires one to be nearly point blank to the shot bursting in order for the armor to not work, so while not being a matter of running for the hills caution should still be exercised.

Shooting the shell into an enclosed space is less about making it more deadly against the monster and more about making it less potentially deadly for yourself.

There also needs to be some sort of bait if you want it to actually show itself and approach. You wouldn't want to be outside though when it shows up, or when you shoot it, if you choose to go that route.

>>894581
Does the whole it can't get through metal thing also mean it can't sense things through metal? I imagine it would still come towards where it saw the big signal appear if it didn't have any devouring of souls to do and we would hopefully be able to see and nuke it from afar.

I'll let some other people chime in before I vote I think

>>894773
It can't see through metal, but as far as Richter knows, it has some level of intelligence that makes it able to figure out if there's something inside if you, for example, stuck your head out.

It's certainly coming, and you can try and snipe it, but you've only got one shot and you aren't sure where it's coming from. The only person able to definitely sense where it's coming from is out cold. You're also in the middle of a depression in the land, so you'd have to move to try and get a good far shot unless it comes from the south.

>>894809
I feel as though it might bite us in the ass later but
>>893546
>Leave the core and trap the Demiphantom

Could we cause a rockslide over the entrance to decrease the possibility of it being found and dug up?

>>895736
>Could we cause a rockslide over the entrance to decrease the possibility of it being found and dug up?

You certainly can. The pile is stable normally, but precarious enough that a few hits of high explosive on the inside should cause it to tumble in on itself.

>>895753
If say some of the rocks actually hit the core, would it go off? Killing two birds with one stone.

>>895753
Good stuff though you might wanna wait till tomorrow to actually right anything since it seems so dead in here, wouldn't want to make a decision without any of the other anons weighing in

>>893546
Richter's constant snarking was "kind"? Poor girl, what kind of life did she lead.

>Let's try and rig the inferno shell into a bomb, then leave it as both the bait and the killing device. Possible methods of detonation include shooting it with a normal shell or a long fuse line.
>If this doesn't work, we have burying the facility under a rockslide as a reserve plan.

>>896339
>what kind of life did she lead

Probably a pretty bad one considering how quick she was to leave it.

It seemed that Maddalyn had intended this from the start, you can’t think of any other reason she’d be so hasty with this decision. Not that the reason behind her actions made it any less of a pain. You would have had a lot more time to prepare if she hadn’t been trying to sneak some indirect suicide attempt under your notice.

You weren’t sure how much time you had, but you thought you could at least rig some simple sort of trap. So far as you knew, the demiphantom still obeyed physical laws, and could thus trip a wire. Maybe some sort of contraption with a lighter, perhaps some powder from the shell, you weren’t entirely certain if that would cause the core to explode, but it might be worth a shot. You were thinking of the best way to break into the shell to retrieve the powder when you heard a sound that stopped any plotting you were doing.

Even in the cave, you heard the most awful sound resonate. A thick, congested OOOOooooOORRGH blew through the rooms, echoing off every wall. You had no way of telling whether that sound was the demiphantom, it had never made a sound before, but you somehow just knew that was it, and that you didn’t have enough time to do anything clever.

“Let’s hope the rest of you isn’t as dense as your head!” You rush to pick Maddalyn up. She didn’t even bother discussing this deathwish with you, like she knew you’d object to it. She is thankfully as light as she looks, and you easily bundle her up under one arm.

You ran straight through the Stareling, and it twisted away from you as you charged towards the rapidly dispersing Hungry Darkness. The teeth were crumbling away as the creatures of shadow receded into whatever cracks they could fit into, their white eyes clustering around the openings.

“Open the god damn door, open the god damn door, open the god damned door!” You scream at your tank. The turret door flies open, and you toss Maddalyn into the turret.

“What the fu-!” Stein shouts before being packed deep into the turret by the kinetic energy of the flying girl. You scramble up after her, and slam the turret doors shut just in time to hear the cry of the demiphantom once more. Every hair on the back of your neck felt like an icicle; the same feeling as when you encountered the creature in the past, but to an extent you thought impossible. You could feel the thing’s hunger clawing out of your own gut.

No sooner had you jumped into your tank and peeped out of the cupola did the demiphantom charge past, squeezing itself through the open door and into the cave. You waited a few moments before making your move.

“Commander, where are you going!?” Stein cried after you.

You’d answer him later. You didn’t know how long the thing would be occupied with the little trinket called the earth core, and you expected the worst. Every part of your body screamed its protests but your voice as you clambered into the cave, thankfully not seeing anything waiting for you. The Hungry Darkness blinked at you from its crevasses; clearly they were not as appetizing as the core.

The door was unexpectedly heavy, but you were well motivated. You swing it shut with a single mighty push, and for what you hoped was good measure, turned the locks back. They both clicked shut as they were turned back, each feeling strangely hot as you closed them.

The thick door blocked any sounds coming from within, and all was eerily silent. You let yourself sag against the door. Maybe sometime in the distant future this would be a problem again, but you had excused yourself from this monster’s business for the foreseeable future.

A clutch of Hungry Darkness peeled itself out of the cracks, and slithered towards you. Maddalyn had said they were relatively harmless, but you still rose to your feet in anticipation. They ripple for a moment in front of you, then retreat, leaving a little point of light on the floor in front of you.

On closer examination, it is a little, radiant pearl the size of your fingernail. You had presumed these things were more like plants or fungus, whatever the spirits of those would be. As far as you could tell this was meant to be some kind of token of gratitude, for foiling a predator.
It was disturbing thinking of these things as thinking, living, if simple creatures, but without their teeth they were much less scary, and they were at least not Starelings.

>Yeah, sure, thanks. I agree, job well done. Pick up the pearl.
>No offense, but I don’t take presents from puddles of shadows that drink souls. No sense in picking up something you can’t identify. It might be an egg or some other evil thing.
>Other

>>897276
>Yeah, sure, thanks. I agree, job well done. Pick up the pearl.
We'll show it to Maddalyn later to make sure it's not an egg.

>>897276
>Yeah, sure, thanks. I agree, job well done. Pick up the pearl.

We can just ask Maddalyn about it when she wakes up

You pick up the little pearl gingerly between finger and thumb, regarding the Hungry Darkness with a quick look. “Yeah, sure. Thanks. I agree, I deserve a little bit of compensation for this.” They could be scorched out of existence with a light later. Maybe there was a less explosive method of collapsing the cavern. On your way out you note a few keystones that appear to hold up important parts, in case you felt like being irresponsible with the geography and causing a landslide.

You knock on the tank, and Stein pops out immediately. “Commander! You aren’t…eaten. Did it work?”

“It’s somebody else’s problem now.” You say with finality. “The big bad demon is having some military mandated alone time.”

“Holy smokes,” Stein breathed, “Hey, Hans, did you hear that? We beat a demon!”

“Whatever stupid charm you have now, I’d like to have a try with it,” retorted Hans. “First we don’t die on that train, then we don’t die in our first armor engagement, and now we’re bullying things that shouldn’t even exist. Surely that’s lucky enough for the dice to show up better than they have been.”

“The dice are all mine,” Stein tugged the little bracelet back into his sleeve.

Hans tragically has to reoccupy his intended post as radio operator to inform everybody else of a successful mission.

“Minty Fresh wants to make it known that we have other business now,” Hans shouts from inside, “All work and no play, I tell you.”

You feel something slightly odd, but not in the same concerning way as the demiphantom’s approach did. Your spiritually sensitive ad hoc “crew member” was still out like a light. You check her head, but it doesn’t seem like anything’s broken; it must have been a result of interacting with the core. You tousle her red, wavy locks; you’d have to have a talk about the dangers of unnecessary haste.

“Hello,” a voice you didn’t recognize resonated through the valley. It was thick, raspy, and had a strange, hollow quality to it, like it echoed onto itself.

File: tcqscene24.png (265KB, 600x700px) Image search: [Google]

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The bizarre figure was cloaked near completely in long, draping robes, decorated with intricate patterns so faded that they were barely visible on the faded brownish grey cloth. In one gloved hand, he held a strange, cross like instrument, the other pulling at the air, pinching each finger to his thumb and drawing them back deliberately. Over his head was a hood, the face in the opening covered by an old Reich model 1907 Gas Mask, one eye lens splintered by a bullet long ago.

“My greetings,” he called out, muffled by the mask, placing the cross somewhere deep inside his coverings. “I would like to ask you a favor. Would you mind terribly if you opened that door again, and did not do something such as collapse the cavern? There is something inside that I want. I will reward you, of course...handsomely.”

“No deal,” you reply immediately. “If you’re so keen on meeting what’s inside, you can go open that god damn door.”

The figure rattled a bit with low laughter. “No, that isn’t how it work, boy. You may not have intended it, but those locks are yours now.”

“What do you want?” you demand loudly of the shrouded man in the mask. “Who are you?”

“You are not of the sort who may know my true name,” the mysterious stranger bowed slightly, “but you may know me as Poltergeist.” A masked man with an ominous alias. There weren’t many people you had disliked this quickly after meeting them. “As for what I want of you,” he continued in a droning voice, “I would like you to open the doors to that cave, so I may have the phantom you trapped within.”

“…Why!?” He really didn’t answer any questions you wanted addressed.

“Because I wish to possess it. I promise that you’ll be well compensated, all you must do is open the door and let it roam free. It isn’t ready yet for me, after all.”

>Piss off. I don’t want to make any deals with cryptic freaks.
>Slow down there, you can’t expect me to make a deal without knowing anything about what’s going on here, what you are, or anything.
>What will you do if I don’t want to? Eat my soul?
>Elaborate on your “compensation.” I’m not going to give you this thing in exchange for a piece of candy.
>Other

>>897398
>Slow down there, you can’t expect me to make a deal without knowing anything about what’s going on here, what you are, or anything.
>What will you do if I don’t want to? Eat my soul?

If nothing else we can always try to pop him with one of the main guns if he starts getting uppity

>>897398
>Slow down there, you can’t expect me to make a deal without knowing anything about what’s going on here, what you are, or anything.
>What will you do if I don’t want to? Eat my soul?

>>897398

Sorry mate but that thing isn't ours to release; we're just a soldier acting under orders. If you want to negotiate for the thing you'll have to talk to the person in charge of the operation, which you can do as soon as she...wakes up.

“Slow down,” you put your hands up and wave them at Poltergeist, “You can’t expect any deals to be made if we don’t know the first thing about you or what’s going on.”

“You are not entitled to any answers at all. I only tell you of anything because it amuses me.” Poltergeist says coolly, “What could one who has never slept know of dreams?”

“Commander, who’s the creep?” Stein asks you slowly. You tell him that’s what you were trying to find out.

You give yourself a moment to get used to the idea of this new stranger engaging you so directly on this matter that was supposed to be completely secret. “In any case, mate,” you slowly slip your hands in your pockets, “That thing isn’t ours to release. We’re soldiers under Lord Von Blum acting under orders to lock it up. If you want to barter for it, you’re talking to the wrong person. You’d have to talk to the person in charge of this…when she wakes up.”

“Show me,” he says. You don’t have any chance to object or agree before he sweeps around to the open turret door, spying Maddalyn propped up against the side of the interior. He sweeps his hands about at seemingly nothing, but you catch what looks like sparkling threads in the sunlight for an instant.

Maddalyn jolts awake with a yelp. “Ah! Who, where, am I….no, huh?” She looks around wide eyed, “Did it…is it done?” She looks down at the thing that calls itself Poltergeist. “Oh…” she goes from being surprised to exhausted, “Crud. Not one of you.”

“What fascinating eyes you have. I see the Hermit has found a new plaything, another poor young thing to turn into a beast. How is he doing?”

“The Hermit’s mind is lost, and he’s slowly dying.” Maddalyn says harshly, “You have no reason to be here. Leave us.”

“His mind is lost? How incredibly amusing, immortality escapes yet another desperate soul. I suppose that means I don’t have to go and kill him, at least.” Poltergeist chortles to himself. “But oh, I do have good reason to be here. Forbidden as it is to create them, none say that you cannot do what you wish with a demiphantom you merely find. I would like to take the one you have trapped off of your hands.”

“Leave us!” Maddalyn says again, angrier. “There’s no deal for you here, Soulbinder. Go back to where you came from. If you don’t get out of here right now, I’ll have my escorts eject you from these lands by force.”

Poltergeist lifts both his hands palm up and shakes his head, “Please, there’s no need for that. I will leave, if I’m not wanted.”

You didn’t believe him for a second on that. “What, are you not going to eat our souls or whatever if we don’t do what you say?”

“I would not do such a thing as try and coerce you into cooperating unwillingly. That would be against my beliefs. I simply ask that you do not forget my offer.” He looks to you, not Maddalyn, when he says this. “You may change your mind at any time. If you ever wish to make a deal,” the masked man who called himself Poltergeist held out a beckoning hand, “Then utter these words. ‘Poltergeist, I am lost and you are bound.’ When you say this, I will appear…and we may speak about this again.”

With a haunting chuckle, Poltergeist vanished without a sound.

“Damnit!” Maddalyn slouched back, furious. “If it isn’t one thing it’s another.”

Despite the mystery of Poltergeist, he didn’t seem like nearly as much of a problem as the demiphantom was. That wasn’t what you wanted to address at the moment, though.

“Maddalyn,” you look at her sternly, “I won’t ask you to explain it right now, but I expect to know why you acted so damn foolishly in there.”

Maddalyn’s face turned crestfallen and she looked down. “I’m sorry,” she admitted, “I deceived you. The thing isn’t dead and now there’s a soulbinder pestering us, but I guess that’s more my fault than yours.”

“Good job everyone.” You say sarcastically. Maddalyn flinched. “Sorry,” you add quickly.

“No, you’re right.” She rubbed at her eyes, “I really am thankful, to all of you, for doing this. It’s…a lot off my mind.” She moves over as you climb back into the turret, watching you with a sideways glance.

>I think we deserve a break. Metzeler can do what he wants with the day, but we’re heading back.
>No rest for the weary, gentlemen. Time to investigate something we’re more familiar with, we’re done with ghosts.
>What, not even a peck on the cheek? I’m not feeling very appreciated here.
>Other

>>897752
>No rest for the weary, gentlemen. Time to investigate something we’re more familiar with, we’re done with ghosts.

Pls no bully Maddalyn.

>>897752
>No rest for the weary, gentlemen. Time to investigate something we’re more familiar with, we’re done with ghosts.

>>897752
>>What, not even a peck on the cheek? I’m not feeling very appreciated here. I sort of saved your life, you know.

>>897752
>No rest for the weary, gentlemen. Time to investigate something we’re more familiar with, we’re done with ghosts.

Alright, I'll stop things here because I'm expecting my time this evening to be occupied and I have to do some more planning. Thank you all for participating. The current vote will be considered for next thread, which I'll announce on my twitter a few days before running in case anything changes, but should be next weekend.

>>901698
Thanks for running tanq