War on the Horizon

[MarkWarrior]

Pathfinder Sidestory: Part One

So, what is this?" Yaddle asked as she entered the cleared cargo bay of the Archon's Favor.

"Oh, this is a tabletop RPG," Lieutenant Hober gestured to a seat at the table. "I'm GMing, and we just started a fresh game. I've got a few character sheets prepped if you want to join."

"I am intrigued by this," Yaddle sat down. "Now please, explain how this is played."

"Well, this is going to be a one-off dungeon crawler that I homebrewed up. But I based it off of an old Pathfinder book that I had lying around," Hober handed her a small bag of dice. "Pick your character, and we'll get started."

---

"You and the party find yourselves in a small village before a castle," Hober begins, the board on the table holographically representing the characters and the scenery. "What do you do?"

"I want to see what rumors there are in town," the man who was playing a Rogue said.

"Alright, give me a perception and awareness check," Hober nods as he rolls some dice behind a small raised board.

"Sixteen," the rogue smirks. "And with my stats, that means I've got a twenty-five on this."

"The news around the town is that there's a festival beginning soon. Apparently a powerful wizard sealed a sword in a stone with the inscription "Whoever is worthy shall draw this sword from the stone."

"I relay this information to the rest of the party."

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I kinda wanna see what this magic sword is all about," the fighter of the group said while she was in character.

"Yes, I am strong, I may be worthy," Yaddle used a voice synthesizer to sound out her barbarian impression.

"The party makes their way through the open markets to the small stone altar that the stone is set into," Hober explains. "I take it each party member is going to try to take the sword out of the stone?"

"I'm not," the sorcerer of the group shakes his head. "I'm going to see if any of the shopkeeps in the area have good regents."

"Any of you want to do anything else?" Hober asks.

"I'm gonna see if there's anything worth stealing in the area," the rogue slips off, leaving the Paladin, Fighter, and Yaddle's barbarian behind.

"Paladin's first," the fighter gestures to the bigger character. "Maybe you'll have luck."

"Unfortunately, you do not budge the sword, no matter how hard you try," Hober shrugs. "And the same thing happens for the rest of you. It seems that none of you are the chosen ones."

"I want to lift the Altar and use it as a hammer with the sword as a handle," Yaddle says after a minute. The character sheet you gave me says that I'm half-Giant and able to lift heavier weapons or supplies."

"Roll a strength check to see if you can lift the sword and the Altar," Hober gives the longsuffering sigh of a DM.

"That is a twenty, I believe," Yaddle says as the two numbers are reflected at the party.

"You heft the sword, the stone altar coming with it. You have now acquired a bludgeoning weapon."

"Explain what the party will be doing for the rest of their time in the town. After that, we'll call it for this session while I rewrite all of my plans."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Those Left Behind

August 25, 3007

"After much review and investigation, we find the Wolf's Dragoons were not at fault in the disappearance of the Marksman mercenary company and as such are not liable for any damages," A reporter from CNN (Comstar News Network) read off of her teleprompter. "With the Capellans denying any involvement in the disappearance of the unit that shattered a third of their premier Mercenary unit, Maccarron's Armored Cavalry."

"So, did we have anything to do with this?" Ian muted the Tri-vid before glancing at Michael Hasek-Davion.

"Not that I'm aware of," his brother-in-law shrugged. "But there's always something that passes us by."

"I knew that they had worked with the Taurians before," Ian slid an intel brief over. "But the brief didn't give how closely tied to them they were."

"The Taurians are shifting forces away from our border with them for the first time in a hundred years. We should move to strike now."

"Negative," Ian shook his head. "They're positioning their troops along the Capellan border, and it looks like they're getting ready to launch some raiding parties. I want us to 'leak' some information to the Taurians about where known Capellan strong points are, maybe they can divert some of Max's forces so we can push them further back."
"I'll get on it," Hasek-Davion nodded. "We ever get any details on that strange Powered armor they were using?"

"We've got full samples, but until we can replicate the power source, we're only able to use the ones that they sold to us."

"Damn, are they of any use to us then?"

"Turns out we can recharge them using kit we can replicate," Ian smirked. "So we've at least got them for some of our high tier units."

"Well, it's something," Michael shrugged. "Anything else I need to be made aware of?"

"Yeah, I'm pushing the Wolf's Dragoons further up," Ian stated. "I want the Big Mac gone for good while they're already hurting."

"I can't believe I'm about to say this, but you might want to see about deploying some units to the Combine, ensure that they don't decide that now is the time to move while we seem distracted."

"Agreed," Ian wrote something down. "I'm assigning Hanse to New Aragorn. He'll make a decent military governor for now. Then we can start working on the rest of the problems at hand."

---

"Sir, these suits are clearly not inspired by the Elemental suit," an engineer informed the Wolf brothers and Natasha Kerensky. "And, while there are some signs of this being partly an old SLDF think tank project, there's enough differences that I think they found two different technologies and put them together to get this."

"So, it's smaller and less capable than an elemental," Jaime repeated.

"I wouldn't say less capable," the engineer shook his head. "Just different purposes. The Clans focus heavily on one on one combat, but if you put a double squad of these together in the formations that the Marksman fielded before they vanished off the face of the earth, I give good odds that the Elementals would be outmaneuvered."

"I know we were exonerated in the investigation," Kerensky glanced at the lightweight powered armor. "But what happened to them?"

"We may never find out," Jaime shrugged. "There is simply too much that we do not know about the universe."

---

"I know we normally blame the Davions for shit like this," Zarantha looked around at her inner council, pausing to stare at Thomas Calderon. "But even they're not crazy enough to frag a unit that just handed them a victory on a silver platter. So that leaves the Capellans."

"With the Toro's that were brought on his dropships, we were able to outfit another two battalions of light 'mechs," Thomas Calderon stood up and flipped on a Tri-vid viewer with a picture of said 'mech. "And with the unfrozen scientists along with the salvaged equipment, we're going to be able to restart production of spare parts within a month, and by the end of next year, will be producing the 'mech in its entirety again," another image popped up on the viewer. "The scientists also possessed the schematics for a Talos refit, that fixes some of its problems, and gives us an easily built medium trooper that will be able to be built out of industrialmech parts to begin with. And don't even get me started on the infantry armor and Drost IIB refits that we have the intel on."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, the man who provided us with all of this is dead," Zarantha glared. "A man who nearly refused both a landhold and a noble title, I might add. And I'm not going to allow the murderers of those who have done the Concordat a service to live. We're going to build up, and in the next five years, we are going to liberate the worlds that the Capellans took from us," She held up a hand. "The Davions might hold worlds that were once ours, but at least the people there are relatively free. The Capellans are little more than slaves, and I believe that it is time we stood against that."

"Our plan is to begin resurrecting old and destroyed units," Thomas took his place again. "Most factory production from the local heavy 'mechs will be going to us instead of the mercs. From there, we're going to be training hard, we're going to sweat and bleed here in the Concordat so that we don't bleed against the Capellans later."

"You have your orders," Zarantha stood up. "Let's get to work, people."