Mission Incomplete [Reiner, Eitan]

[Reiner Dornkirk]

"Aye, Cap'n!" Reiner replied with a sharp, albeit less than formal salute as he hadn't seen fit to strap the rifle he'd been handed over his shoulder between checking the ammo and speaking to the Seeker. He jogged over to join his comrades in the direction of the audible fray outside. Once he had a visual on the source of the danger, his already pale face seemed to lose what little of pink showed up around the ears from certain angles.

"That's a lot of fucking corpse-walkers..." He muttered half to himself. It was loud enough that no one would have heard, but the attentive Brinkler would have seen his lips move for those few moments before he got into position, climbing on top of a barricade composed mostly of an overturned carriage and taking aim.

"Feuer frei!" He barked to Brinkler, who was stunned to stillness for half a moment longer than Reiner himself. Heeding his own instruction, he started firing into the mass of choas-warped flesh. It didn't take much skill to make a hit when aiming into a horde that dense, which might have been satisfying if it wasn't so freaky, scary and overwhelming.

He winced at the sight of the air warping in front of him, reflexes prepared for the bad kind of unexpected. When it turned out to be the good kind- a gift from the Captain Seeker- he let out an unthinking cheer, which was echoed by a few of the others. It seemed their bullets had no problem penetrating the barrier, so he took a few more shots before it started seeming like a waste of precious, dwindling ammo under the circumstances.

Once it seemed like the barrier was neither a fluke nor a fleeting plaster attempting to cover this gaping wound, Reiner leapt down and joined a few of the others. He looked where Brinkler's gaze was fixed as he posed his concerned query.

"Yeah, it's strange. And fuckin' disgusting." He added, with revulsion more evident in his expression than it had been in his words. "Oh fuck. Oh fuck fuck fuck... If they penetrate we're gonna need to fall back." But that was a hope, not an order. PFC Dornkirk was far from the ranking officer of either branch represented here today. He'd stay put until he was ordered to do otherwise.

[Eitan Angevin]

Angevin did indeed feel the drain on the wards, not just the expected drain from attacks on the ward, but as though something were feeding. It felt terrifyingly familiar, and when his warder articulated it, his dark gaze roamed the invisible barrier. His face went sallow, but he showed no other outward sign of fear.

"I will hold the wards," he said, voice making whipcrack orders. "Go kill the fucking things. The... spider things... they are devouring the aether."

The warder nodded and went running, picking up other people from the relief expedition. They spread out to where the little monsters were most concentrated, spreading the word.

Sharpshooters from the Noble Gambit were not so frugal with their bullets. One bullet for one entirely dead monster seemed a fair trade. They were taking headshots where they could, thinning the ranks against the wards, which absorbed their kinetic energy and made it their own, strengthening them.

The warder found himself next to PFC Reiner. His bayonet went through the ward and into the eye of one of the somnambulant dead. His face went decidedly green, even as the ward cleaned his weapon as he pulled it back inside.

"The... spiders... aim for the spiders," he gasped. He trained his sights on one of them, but his shot went awry. They were fast.

Back at the anchor, Angevin attempted to work a new task into the wards, something quick and messy that would bleed energy, but that energy would react explosively to the parasites they had found in the Warrens so long ago. He could only hope that was close enough to what these new things were to work, and that more of them didn't arrive in numbers such that he couldn't hold the line for his men.

"A double-edged sword, these creatures, wot?" he growled to himself through teeth gritted with effort and concentration.

[Rune]

The sound of gunfire from all around, and above assaulted the eardrums of all within the hotel complex. Word passed with militant efficiency of the order to target the creatures. Marksmen from the Noble Gambit took to the task with intent, bullets shredding through the few insect-like creatures that had made it near the top of the invisible ward bubble. A few pleased shouts, angry and triumphant came from the men, followed by sounds of surprise, fear and pain from other voices among those manning the line.

The reason for the first set of cries was obvious, the reason for the second became so momentarily as wounds bloomed in red over seemingly random parts of several soldiers. Shouting and swearing from the ship above was indistinguishable from the ground but the wounds stopped appearing. It seemed that the precision rounds from the ship's sharpshooters were not only shredding through the creatures but proceeding right through them to the ground below. After a pause the fire from above resumed, the shots coming more slowly now aimed to skim through the top sections of the ward without hitting the ground inside it wherever possible.

The men on ground, taking their cue from those above, tried to only aim their shots such that they would not hit the hull of the ship, however unlikely a single bullet might be to penetrate the armor-plated hull. There were plenty of targets to aim for which did not require lifting the butts of their rifles above head height as the rushing mass of undead mist-twisted beings began to rip apart in every direction began to shudder and burst forth with the insecticide aether eaters. Even though the wave of undeath was dying (if such things could be said to die) in droves more were appearing from around the houses and buildings as though drawn by a scent or sound undetectable to their living counterparts.

It was at this moment that the captain in charge of the Schiller chose to step back out of his makeshift office and observe why so much of his carefully hoarded ammo was being used. The man's eyes traveled around the building, seeing both that it was surrounded by horrors and that they were not penetrating through the invisible barrier, then his eyes traveled upwards. All but falling over in horror he tripped over nothing but was heading toward Seeker Angevin before he'd fully righted himself.

"What are you doing?!" He demanded, all but taking Eitan by the shirt front. Attacks had been sporadic and had seemed more like accidental encounters than concerted efforts to push his men out. Despite the horror and deprivation the posting had been relatively mild compared to the border fort he'd been expecting to ship out to before the calamity had changed all plans. What was currently occurring appeared to be a disaster and the ranking officer could only imagine it had been caused by the meddling of the Order in matters that should have been left well enough alone.

Near the front of the action Private Brinkler watched, wide eyed, as the neck of a soldier who slept two bunks from him exploded, spattering blood and bits of flesh over his face. He was facing Reiner, whose back had been to the now dying man, so he had a perfect view when Brinkler bent was messily sick so quickly it looked like a helpless reflex.

[Reiner Dornkirk]

"Aye, sir!" Reiner replied to the warder, as his hazel eyes scanned for the insectoid targets in lieu of the humanoid. Everything was moving so quickly around him and his focus was so fixed that he didn't distinguish the joyful shouts from the anguished ones. He wasn't even aware of the friendly fire that tore through the bodies of his brothers just a few yards away from where he continued to pick off chaos creatures. Instead, his mind took a strange path. Perhaps it was his way of girding himself against being overwhelmed, but as he fired away as if on instinct alone, his conscious thoughts were not on the possibility of his death or that of those around him. He wasn't wishing for a nice meal or a warm bed with a cool pillow. He was wondering whether the man at his side actually outranked him and whether he'd breeched decorum in calling him 'Sir', to his own slight degradation.

These queer sentiments were short-lived for better or worse, but the reason for such definitely fell into the latter camp. Blood splattered Brinkler's face, and the man responded physically. He held fire for just a moment to look at the other private and, through snarling teeth, demand:

"Pull yourself together, man!" He started to turn his face to look over his shoulder at whom they'd likely just lost, but he halted himself. There would be time enough for the grieving and chest-beating if they survived all this. Right now it was only a distraction, just like Brinkler's getting sick when he ought to have been picking off hell spiders.

"Just... wipe your mouth on your sleeve and get back to shooting!" He barked, before returning to the latter himself.

[Eitan Angevin]

The sounds of men shouting in pain were not the accompaniment he had planned, and then Major Trier had put his hands upon his person, which was ineffective at turning the tide of the battle. He outranked the major, but this was his posting, and so Captain-Seeker kept his cool.

"The insects are eating at the wards," he admitted. "And they weren't complete when the attack began. Some friendly fire has gotten through." When he calculated—as best he could under the circumstances—how long it would take to complete the wards by himself and task them against this new threat, he cursed under his breath. Then he picked up two rifles and shoved one into Trier's hand. "Bayonets aren't ballistics. We are going to have to get our hands dirty."

Without waiting, he trotted toward the line. He wasn't going to let a Dornkirk fall. As he made his expeditious advance, he got a feel for the heft of the rifle, checked that it was loaded just in case he needed to fire a round or two, but it was hand-to-hand mêlée that would work best for the humans in the fight. The wards, such as they were, maintained a tie to him and he continued to pour aether into them, continued to try to make the surface of the wards react explosively to the presence of the insects. He had drained himself to the dregs before in defense of Zaichaer and her citizen's; he could do so again.

And in the meantime, he would help to eliminate the current threat.

"Stechpalme! Sod it—."

The good doctor turned the corner in front of him and began to assess the damage to the downed private. With a grim set to her lips, she turned to the man Angevin had sent ahead and began to bind a glancing gash on his arm. He struggled against her.

"Stand down, Aspirant," Angevin snapped tersely. "Stechpalme, take him back around the corner. I will take his place on the line."

"Aye, Seeker," said the one. The doctor merely complied. Angevin stepped shoulder to shoulder with Dornkirk and Brinkler, irked that the wards looked to his eyes like one of those alpine cheeses with "eyes" in them. That wouldn't do. "The wards are imperfect for now." He stabbed one of the shamblers that had reached its arm through one of the holes in the invisible field. Invisible was relative, of course; parts of it were smeared with ichor that gave some semblance of its structure. "That will be rectified once the immediate threat is put down."

He took a moment to glance up at the Noble Gambit; they appeared to have sussed out the problem and adjusted. Good soldiers.

[Rune]

If anyone had been paying close attention to the attitudes of them men aboard the ship hovering above the hotel, they might have been more alarmed then they currently were. As things stood, the insects, as awful as they were, did not seem interested in the men inside, only in the magic they could siphon from the wards. If they fell among the defenders, it would be unpleasant, but the undead still 'living' outside the barrier trying with what strength they still had to force their way inside were the actual threat to lives. Bullets continued to tear through them from above and within, and things from the ground appeared, if not ideal, not hopeless.

From above, where the Searing Victory flew, the outcome was significantly more grim. At first to movement of additional undead had been a slow trickle, but the tide was rising, literally, as bodies three months gone to rot rose from the streets, shambled out of houses, pushed their way from piles of refuse. As it became obvious that, should the wards fall the men on the ground would be literally buried in undead flesh, the captain of the Gambit's expression turned grim.

"Lower the ladders!" He called, the order echoing down the ship in the voices of his officers, some more shrilly than others. "Signal a retreat to the ship!"

The signal man, a stalwart fellow, gave a sharp nod and began repeating the order his bosun's whistle. Likely, only Eitan would know how to interpret them, if he could make them out at all in the chaos. Stepping closer to the man, the captain told him to signal that overwhelming forces were immanent. Hopefully, even if a few of the soldier's on the ground understood they wouldn't be enough to panic the unit.

The snipers stationed on the roof of the hotel had themselves began to notice the larger numbers of undead making their way, like moths to a flame, towards the relative sanctuary. One began trying to shout a report to Major Trier, but gave up after it was obvious the information wouldn't be heard. Shouldering his rifle the man began running down the stairs.

[Reiner Dornkirk]

Reiner had endured more experienced like these than anyone would have liked. It was one of those crucibles of action and emotion in which one was acting as if purely on instinct and reflex. He might look back on this experience in the future, but it would be viewed in third person- detached, for that was how it felt. Or how it would have felt, if he could process anything so complex. In these moments, his thoughts were only aim, fire, repeat... and then stab, slash, repeat. Had he the capacity, at present, for metaphor he might have felt like a machine, or at least part of a stalwart assembly line in some proud Zaichaeri factory like the one that now soared the skies over their broken realm. Reiner was a cog in the bloodworks, repeating his function ad nauseum until his orders changed or his circumstances rendered him unable to persist.

Reiner felt the gap in their ranks filled, glanced over to ascertain that it was an ally and not a threat, then continued his onslaught. It would take him a few moments to register that said ally was not some simple grunt, but the Captain Seeker joining the muck. He wasn't sure whether to be impressed or to dread what that might betoken. Fortunately, he hadn't the bandwidth to explore that, or any train of thought, beyond stab, slash, repeat.

The sea of undead seemed endless, even before they began to pile high enough for the private to see over the heads of those rushing up at point blank range. It wasn't until he started to hear the retreat being sounded, that PFC Dornkirk gasped back into his humanity.

He hazarded the briefest of glances over his shoulder, to see whether he could glean if the civilian refugees were being prioritized, as the soldiers held the line. Gritting his teeth, and crying out with renewed fury, Reiner promptly dispatched a trio of Mistborn. He'd heard the retreat, but he couldn't just rush off situated as he was, without putting Brinkler in jeopardy.

"Brinkler, get to the Gambit!"

[Eitan Angevin]

"Retreat!" called someone who had heard the whistle. In his single-pointed focus, Angevin had not. The call was taken up, and all the warder could do was attempt to prevent a rout.

"Orderly now," he shouted over his shoulder. "Civilians and wounded first!"

A beat, then, "Warders to me!"

When Dornkirk ordered Brinkler's retreat, Angevin added, "Brinkler! Take the fallen. He deserves better than to be reborn as some mists-begotten abomination."

Then he fell back into the clockwork of Dornkirk's imagination, piercing the decaying flesh with blade and bullet, and pouring energy into the unfinished protections that were more net than barrier at this point. At least the net tangled their foes, allowing them to easily dispatch them.

"Seeker?" The warders.

"Stabilize the anchor. As the hotel is evacuated..." The sharp retort of his rifle, and then he was reloading. "I will pull back slowly, collapsing the perimeter of the ward net as I go. If this goes well, they can retrieve the supplies as well." If not, he thought as he stabbed a creature through the rotted eye socket, hoping a perforated brain would prevent it from moving. "I will be the last one up the ladder, and I will collapse the ward entirely once I am out of harm's way."

"Yes, sir!"

When they were gone again and he was alone with Dornkirk and the walking dead, he grimaced. "So much for a forward base."

And then he began to slowly retreat. The ward seemed to follow him, dragging some corpses along with it like some macabre broom caught on dust bunnies. But they weren't balls of lint and hair, they were the corrupted bodies of his countrymen. It required less energy to maintain what was there as he reduced its size; he let some layers fizzle away to focus on the ones charged against flesh. Its creeping tide was yet held at bay. Here and there, it crackled against the parasites that sought to devour its power.

[Rune]

Chaos erupted in some directions, in others, order and commands were still being followed. For minutes that flashed by in the sounds of gunfire and screaming the two reactionary forces seemed to hang in the balance, and then, as though suddenly, order won out. Soldiers, seeing their comrades retreating in formation, aiding civilians and carrying out the wounded as the Warders did just as their name suggested, fell into line, literally and figuratively.

The position might have to be abandoned, but that did not mean all need be lost. Even the recently dead were thrown over shoulders, tied to ropes and hauled aboard the Gambit. They could be afforded greater honor once the living and supplies were safe but they would not be left to join the undead legions.

The circle contracted, the men inside it stepping back as the wards slowly shrank, taking their cues from the Warders, then, just as all looked as though it were going to plan, one of the insectoid creatures squirmed and pulled its way through a hole in the ward and landed, with a plop, on one of the soldiers holding the line. One those closest to the man even noticed the thing on his back until it righted itself from an awkward landing and sank a dozen needle sharp legs into the man's back on either side of his spine. The high pitched wail that rose from him hardly sounded human, until one realize the creature was matching him, screeching in time and pitch to match its prey.

The sound went on, longer than it seemed human lungs could hold, ending with a sickening splatter when someone had the good sense to put several bullets through the thing's carapace. Man and beast fell together, not to rise, but, into the seeming silence another sound came, that of another creature falling. This one landed, mercifully, on the ground, and men drunk on adrenaline and fear put half a dozen shots through it before it could get to its feet, but more were wriggling their way through the aether net before it stopped twitching. A mad scramble overtook these last protectors as everyone made for the ladders.

There were only about thirty men left on the ground and there were five ladders lowered. None were willing to pull another man off a ladder to climb themselves, but they were doing all but. The snipers on the Gambit were doing what they could, but in the scramble it was often more dangerous to fire than to not.

Angevin held his nerve to the end, Dornkirk at his back as even the Warders made their way up and the ward shrank to barely ten feet across. The pair grasped a ladder each and began the climb as the Gambit, seeing they were the last, began to pull away. The aether-eaters saw this too and made a mad dash across what was left of the upper ward to reach their last opportunity for a meal. Though the snipers did their best it was still a mad, swatting mess as the two men tried to keep hold of the ladders and clear the creatures from themselves and each other as they swung through the air.

Reiner felt a sharp limb pierce just below his ribs on one side, skidding off the bone and deeper into his body before it was knocked off him, by his own flailing or a sniper, he would never know. Eitan made it all the way to the railing before the final creature bit hard into the soft flesh behind one knee. Instinct had him kicking it off hard with his other leg even as arms wrapped around his upper body to pull him aboard.

The last two landed beside each other on the deck, panting and damaged, but alive, duty done.

[Rune]

R E V I E W

Lore: 20 each

Points: I am awarding Challenge: Moderate XP for this thread since both players chose to roll for wounds and the thread went on significantly longer than I had planned due to my own delays.

30xp each, Eitan may use for magic

Injuries/Ailments:
Reiner: A deep pierce wound under his right side ribs, scraped the bone and caused mild shock but did not puncture any organs. He will need it cleaned out and stitched or otherwise seen to by some form of healing magic.

Eitan: The back of his left knee was punctured by the mandibles of one of the creatures, while it is painful and badly torn the ligaments and bones are intact. He will also need medical attention asap to keep the damage from growing worse and will have to be off the leg for at least a week. Afterwards he will be able to move with crutches should he choose, but not weight will be held by the leg for a month.

Loot:
A new group of soldiers, a few civilians, much needed supplies and some information about the undead plague that has risen in part of Zaichaer city.

Notes: Thank you both for putting up with me being so slow about this, despite that I really did enjoy it and hope we can do more like it in the future.

Mod XP: Rune - 8