Lennon79 Member

Duncan tried not to smirk as Jericho led Gracelyn out of the bunker. While the assignment was little more than a joke, he had in fact given them the best of the work at hand, or at least the least worst; the rest of them would be setting up camp bed and clearing the plumbing all night... Just as he was about to begin giving out work assignments, one of the others spoke up. While he doubted that Freya had met many of the others in the team, Duncan himself had spent some time examining her dossier before adding her to the roster; he had after all handpicked his entire team this time around, a rare treat. Her tutors had marked Freya as an excellent melee fighter with a strong moral compass; she would be useful as a foil to other members of the team who were possessed of less scruples. That manner of speech though... He paused for a long moment after she finished talking, mentally translating as best he could. **'I... I'm sorry, I have no idea what you just said. Give me one minute and I'll, wait shi- the hell Xerox?'** Before he could finish what he was saying, his ex-student has fielded an entire rifle at Duncan's face. It took a few moments to get a handle on the gun's unique design, but along with Xerox' explanation he soon had it figured out. The paramagic intake system was simple enough and the sighting system not too dissimilar to his current rifle. _I might actually be able to hit stuff with this,_ he marvelled. **'You never cease to amaze me mate. You ought to patent this y'know. The Galbadian Army uses a similar system in their mechs and airships, but they've never been able to miniaturise the system; a weapon like this, if mass-produced could change the face of modern warfare... and make GFs almost obsolete. Thank you, I will use it well. Probably.'** It was only after thanking Xerox that Duncan realised his benefactor had already wandered off. Frustrating, but by now expected of Xerox; the guy was a mad scientist at heart. Turning back to Freya with an apologetic smile, Duncan tried to resume his mental translation. After a few seconds, he hoped he had the gist of what she had said. **'A gift is one way of looking at it, but don't worry; I requested that you be on this mission. Your skills and attitude are well suited for it, in a way.'** _At least for the daytime missions,_ he thought cynically. **'Luckily there's not much for us to do here; I brought a couple of techy guys to finish the hard work, all we've got to do is make it more homely... well, and we've got to sort the toilet out...'** He grimaced, remembering how foul the tiny cubicle had been when he checked it earlier. A stray thought struck. **'Kein, clean up room T1 on the floor plan, will you?'** Kein's nonchalant acceptance of the order made it clear that he hadn't seen the room yet. **'In the meantime, shall we look at the comms room? I'd like to signal our contact soon.'** As he beckoned the others to follow, a despairing scream could be heard from the direction of the toilet.

It was with mixed feeling of hope and guilt that Harald sent the two girls off on their mission. Of the part of his squad still with him, they had adapted best to actual combat; he had to take it as an article of faith that they would meet them at the rendezvous point. After they had filed out and down the street, the Sergeant waited at the shop entrance for a minute to put some distance between the two groups, before waving his remaining two soldiers out. They were clearly nervous and unarmed too; the squad would have to stop at the armoury before risking a move northward. As they slunk down the road, Harald opened up communications with Krauss and Varrot once more. **'You guys still there? Another change of plans, we're running out of time. Head northward ASAP and begin scouting for a motorpool. The Imperials have probably left a few trucks or APCs out there and we need transport. Procure if possible and camp out somewhere in the bocage, otherwise meet us at the grain silo. We'll be there in thirty, Harald out.'** Static interference obscured any response they may have given, so Valk knew if they had received the message or if they were even still... Thrusting the thought from his mind, Harald set himself on the task at hand; arming his squad and getting the hell out of Rinneheim. The trip across town hadn't been easy on the Captain. Two minor gunshot wounds, a bayonet to the thigh and carrying Bons for over an hour had taken a toll on him. At nearly sixty, he decided, Tarquin was getting a bit old for this shit. **'Corporal are we... nearly there? This is near the edge of the city bu...'** His voice trailed off as the two militiamen froze and took to cover; whatever they had spotted was enough to spook them. A tank perhaps? Finding himself with an unpleasant feeling of uselessness, the Captain relieved Bons of his sidearm and bayonet. If push came to shove, Meulemann could take a few Imperial soldiers with him. The Corporal had gone prone, sighting down his rifle with the Private feeding him information. An enemy sniper by the sounds of it, covering the route across the road yet out of line of sight... a problem then. The four of them waited for several long minutes, with Krauss unwilling to let the sniper go and unsure of their own safety if they dared cross over. In the end, Meulemann took it upon himself to deal with the threat. Propping the still unconscious Bons up against a wall, he quietly took his leave of the two militiamen, who were still engrossed in watching the sniper's movements. A five minute detour later and the old man was on the other side of the street, working his way slowly toward the offending building. Suddenly a gunshot rung out above. _Damnation, a second one..._ Lucky that he had taken this chance; had they tried to cross the street without taking out both snipers they would have been cut to ribbons. Nevertheless this was a prime opportunity to show the young ones how to punish the foe. It didn't take long to infiltrate the building as he picked the lock with his appropriated bayonet. The fools hadn't even posted a lookout on the ground floor; if this had been _his_ unit, then heads would have rolled. He crept upstairs, taking his time to locate the sniper by the sound of his breathing and the odour of dry sweat. Wishing he could sigh, Meulemann drew himself up as he took long, slow steps toward his prey; the poor boy was clearly a rank amateur, probably a conscript. His situational awareness was lax, his self-discipline ragged... Tarquin almost pitied the lad as he pulled him into a choke hold and opened his throat with the bayonet. Once the body had stopped convulsing he took the time to loot it clean before setting up his newly acquired rifle on the other windowsill, sighting directly on the other sniper's unknowing head. He pulled the trigger.

/sigh Fair enough. Welp, if anyone else decides to start up a new LH thread send me a PM. In the meantime 

Well the standards for grammar are there as a guideline mainly, so there is certainly some leeway. If you'd be interested caliban, then I'd welcome your CS. Good to hear. I might just move us on tonight or tomorrow to wrap up the Rinneheim scene. /edit I'll leave it up to you guys to decide whether the snipers Meulemann killed were the same ones pinning Lilly and Brenna.

Ostarion has apparently logged on recently. Has he contacted anyone or do you think he's abandoned this one?

so... should I write this one off as dead or..?

So uh... you guys all fall down a well or something? I guess this counts as dead, unless anyone is planning to defib the thread.

Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but Ryukyu is even more retardedly difficult. Ulm is Catholic, has Western tech and is part of the HRE. Ryukyu aka Okinawa is Animist, Chinese tech and shares no borders with anyone, so the only way to start conquering is gloriously suicidal no-CB wars. Admittedly easier since Ming got balkanised. Fun though.

Hm. Recruiting for this is pretty damn hard at the moment. At the moment we have, what four of us?

**'Thanks for your patronage, enjoy your dungeoneering!'** Business was pretty good in Tolbana, with a steady stream of players looking for reagents in preparation for the Floor Dungeon; unfortunately Pyotr wasn't the only entrepreneur in the area and competition had driven her prices down by a third. She had still made a healthy profit, almost enough to invest in another job lot of trade goods or hire an escort to grind some decent leather. Tapping a fork against her now empty plate as she considered her choices, Pyotr was caught off guard by a small voice on the other end of the table. She paused for a long moment before replying, struck by how young the girl was. Scary thought that kids like that had gotten mixed up in this crazy stuff, but it made a kind of ironic sense too. What could a kid possibly want more than the world's first proper VRMMORPG on the day of release? _The poor girl must have been terrified..._ **'Yes, obviously. Pyotr Gubbins; has a certain ring to it, no?'** _Wait, no... Gubbins Pyotr._ It took a moment to mentally correct herself; with the use of usernames to identify people as opposed to real names, Sword Art Online had a way of making you forget which way around yours went. It probably didn't help that she hadn't used hers online for years... **'Joking, joking. Gubbins means... well, it means bits and bobs. Stuff you sell, like... this.'** A sly smirk crossing her features, Pyotr tossed an apple at the girl, one of the many things she had had out to sell. **'On the house. So... do you have any, uh... friends around here? Are they still asleep?'** A part of her prayed that the girl had companions, but another, more cynical part suggested that a lot of people might take advantage of a little kid in this situation. Besides, even if they were benign it took a special kind of moron to bring a child into a life or death situation; she belonged back in the Town of Beginnings or at least somewhere safer than the front lines.