Part I: Sealed OrdersTurn 1
Andrew GallagherAndrew peered though the mist towards their new home, a frown on his face as he runs his hand across his unshaven chin. After a moment he turns with a grunt and stomps back to the huddled mass of men that were unlucky or unstable enough to become his responsibility. "You. You. You. You. You. You." He says, pointing towards half a dozen of them that most closely matched some criteria for physical fitness and who's disappearances would cause the least upset. "Follow. Rest of yous, get our stuff into the least wet space we find." Andrew then turn back to the trench, paused, turned back to his men and grabbed Christopher by the collar before the boy could shirk off to find something flammable. Protesting firebug in one hand, axe in the other and followed by six grim men, Andrew descended into the trench.
Andrew descends into the Trench to explore, looking for a safe place for men to stay and to find whatever been left behind for use or for burning.
You and, strangely, the woman take point in the exploration. Christopher begins to object to you manhandling him, but the words curdle on his lips as the woman passes, a flamethrower equipped soldier from one of her own units tracing her at a 'safe' distance. The silence wasn't due to her gender, long years had taught that a rifle held by a woman killed just the same - and countless horrors had largely damped the reflexive hormones of the cockerels that still made up the entirety of the official army. No, this woman terrified the rest of the men in her own strange way - hell, she sets even you on edge. Not because of the queer silence of the units under her command or that half-there way she seems to look at reality, but because everything about her trips that hole in your memories. Her name seems to be the only thing about her that stays fixed, with even her features hazy in memory the instant she turns away. You
know she's earned the right to command, you
know she's a peer to you, but every repeating thought tells you that there's nothing special about her - that she must somehow have gotten to her position by a quirk of chance.
It hurts your head to think about, and you're not the only one. Outside of her command she's avoided, an inarguable monument to the gaping holes in your collective memories you can't think about. Perhaps its a blessing for her. At least it keeps young fools like Christopher from trying to hit on her.
"Sir," Christopher finally pipes up as Matilda and her 'purifier' split off in another direction in their exploration.
"Is it possible to be scaroused?"Or not. Boy would stick his dick in a steam boiler if you put a skirt on it.
Christopher's forever-conversational attitude aside, the early hours of the morning are well spent. This trenchline had been dug in the first year of the great war, back in the time when both sides had assumed the fortifications would be extremely temporary and quickly leapfrogged forwards and over. The duckboard and wall bracing are rotten throughout, and the sandbags that used to line the top of the trench are more notional suggestions of mounds and tatters of thoroughly rotten sack cloth. Fortunately, in a way, this trenchline has been abandoned for long enough that some vegetation - mostly hardy yellow grasses and thick stemmed shrubs, as well as the omnipresent flowering moss - has settled into the trench soil and kept it from degenerating into a soup of churned mud and rotten timber. Granted, it'll quickly become just that if command decides to really run troops through here, or if the sky decides to open up and let down rain, but for the limited displacement of your company the actual traversal of the trenches shouldn't be an issue. While some of the connected traverses between trench lines have undergone wall collapse, there's more than enough redundant passages for people to make it around such blockages without exposing themselves. It'd take some man hours, but most of those blockages could likely be cleared to give better access if needed.
As far as dug in structures, what remains is... poor. Much of what you find immediately around the command center the captain has claimed have partially collapsed. Their hasty construction, neglect, and constant damp rotting timber and letting the weight of sodden earth claim them. Still, there are enough spaces intact, or at least stably collapsed, that you
should be able to squeeze the company inside a relatively right section of the trenches - though far from comfortably. The defenders of this line did leave quickly, but clearly in an orderly enough fashion to strip most everything they could carry back with them, and time has taken a bat to the rest. You set your boys to sweep through the dugouts that you think are solid enough to not drop in on their heads, and start to think of how you can fit the men in here while they work.
On the one hand, there is technically enough room now. No one will like it, but they'll be out of sight of the sky and in cover and that's more than they've had reliably for a goodly while. On the other hand, if you take some of the collapsed trenchlines and get some of the boys to work together and pull material that isn't too rotted out of the firebays and collapsed dugouts, you might be able to roof over the dead-ended traverses. They wouldn't be able to be used to expedite travel between trench echelons, but it would provide the space for the men to spread out a
little more comfortably. In times like this, a little bit extra comfort could do a lot for morale.
A pair of your soldiers break you from consideration, returning with a report of an intact supply dugout that nearer the forward trench.
On investigation the soldiers are as good as their word, guiding you to a small door set in a traverse line just behind the no-man's land trench; a forward resupply for the first line of firebays. The door has canted backwards as the crude frame its set into settled with the trenchwall, but it's otherwise intact with a heavy iron padlock on the front - and even in the dim light you can see through the slit at the top of the door enough to get a view of an intact chamber within replete with wire racks and mildewed wooden boxes. It's the very definition of too good to be true, and every instinct screams that this would be intentionally rigged as a trap - a sweet spot on the front line for looters to run into blindly and lose their balls trying to claim easy goods.
Breaking through the traps
might yield rewards if the defenders had been forced to leave items behind, but it's a gamble. If you lose, then everything inside could burn along with whoever tries to open the door. If the defenders did empty it and left it as a tempting trap, then even getting in without setting off any potential booby trap could yield nothing but wasted time.
ChangesLocal trench area 1/3 explored
Minimal Troop accommodations secured
Opportunity Actions Found1. Clear Trench Traverses: Difficulty 1 Leadership OR Guts. No failure penalty. Mutually exclusive with Turn Oxbow Traverses Into Quarters.
2. Turn Oxbow Traverses Into Quarters: Difficulty 1 Leadership OR Savvy. No failure penalty. Mutually exclusive with Clear Trench Traverses.
3. Disarm and Open Forward Supply Depot: Difficulty 1 Savvy OR Intuition. Moderate failure penalties, cannot be retried.
Garrick StormeGarrick checks the equipment, making sure it's all in working order. He also gets a list of the injured.
While Raven and Gallagher spearhead exploration into the old trenches, you stay back and assign duties to your own sergeants. One with you to help check equipment as it comes in and Gallagher finds a place to stow men and materiel, and the other to give a once over of the men themselves to see who's still well enough to fight. The former you oversee personally, and as soon as one of Gallagher's men returns with news of a surviving dugout in which to start apportioning people you begin the work in earnest. You'll be able to check equipment and redirect the bulk of the forces to new dugouts as Gallagher and Raven find them, and hopefully since everyone will end up channeled through you at some point you'll be able to catch any major issues.
The dugout you find yourself acting as quartermaster and armorer in is root riddled and fuzzy with the peculiar moss endemic to the warmist regions. Still, it's sturdy enough with most of the main timbers still wholly intact and the warm light of lanterns actually makes the chambers feel more human than anything under the diffuse light of the distant rising sun. There's very little left from the soldiers that abandoned it - retreat appears to have been orderly if in earnest - but there is furniture that's still fit to use and before long you and your squads are as comfortable as you've been in weeks. Time flows freely as men rotate through the dugout, presenting arms to you or your subordinates. Most have weapons that are in decent enough condition to be returned immediately to the soldier in question for a more thorough cleaning by them alone, but several you retain to work on personally. The constant damp of the environment makes rust a constant issue, and the mud and grit have a tendency to wear down the finishes that would normally retard such corrosion even when they don't foul mechanics by their direct presence. Steady use and poor conditions mean that not one weapon in ten could be made parade ready with a day to work on it, but you can at least ensure that they'll work during the next fight.
During inspection and repair, however, you note several abnormalities. The first is that the fuel in the flamer tanks has all been... modified. A few quick tests show that it's still extremely flammable and gels as expected, but the flames actually flicker with dark off-green color, particularly towards the end of ignition, and the nozzles themselves show unexpected levels of corrosion. The smoke is similarly green-tinged, and has an extremely bitter smell that you can't match to any chemical agent from the reference kit you were trained on. You think... you think you remember helping make this modification to the fuel. A field modification, after significant... significant losses to attacks from...
Flaring pain between your temples renders that line of thinking briefly untenable. You're nearly certain the fuel mixture is the result of intentional modification, and it has a purpose, but it would take a concentrated effort to remember what that modification was or what it's for- and there are other tasks at hand that may be more deserving of that concentrated effort. Tasks, for instance, like the increasing amount of strange charms and engraving that soldiers seem to be applying to their weapons and ammunition. It's not exactly unexpected; if you had a penny for every superstitious soldier... well, you definitely wouldn't be here. Most are harmless, but some of it is inviting rust into rifle innards, clogging bolt travel, or (in the case of the bullets) disturbing ballistics with the depth and frequency of marks. Etched crosses do not make for sound ballistics. On the one hand you could give the men a talking to about how the hell they should actually treat their weapons, but on the other hand it might be better for morale to use your sergeants to indirectly disseminate information on how to make these little gris-gris 'modifications' without hampering the effectiveness of weapons.
Lastly, and strangest, is the state of the machine guns. Each and all have seen substantial modification to their feeding mechanisms, cooling jacketing, and several unusually light alloys in their frame- as well as a slightly more standard swap to a lightened tripod. Together, the modifications make the weapons considerably lighter than they would be otherwise, but you have absolutely no memory of these changes or their actual practical effects. Stranger still, the parts kits required to convert them back to their stock configurations are included in the meagre supply of spare weapon parts. Converting them back to the configuration you know well should be a cinch, but once done you're not confident that you'll be able to put them back as they are now. There has to be some benefit to their current design... though what that is exactly and what the drawbacks are would require further testing and probably firing of the weapons.
You're broken from your consideration of the strange alloys used in the machine guns by one of the sergeants you assigned to assess the wounded coming back with their report. It's as inconclusive as you'd feared, with self-reported injuries being markedly low at a bare dozen, with the sergeant's own observation being near to double that on moderate injuries and including several soldiers who shouldn't even be walking but whose squads are keeping them going. Apparently there is considerable fear among the men that those too wounded to continue will be left behind, which is ridicu-
A flash of memory assaults you. A reek like tobacco spit into a fire, a keening wail that split the mist and a spray of... bullets? taking the knees of three soldiers trying to run. Something out of the mist. Ropes? Hooks on ropes? Dragging. Screaming. Choking. Screaming. Panting breath and still running.
The moment passes, leaving your eyes and lungs burning as though you'd forgotten to blink and breathe. You steel yourself by reflex, amending your prior thoughts. After the past weeks you can understand attempting to feign strength, even if that itself turns out to be a greater danger than simply admitting injury. That will need to be seen to directly by you or another of your own tier, if not brought up to the captain himself, before your company tries to hold this trench against anything.
ChangesQuirk discovered: -Modified Flamer Fuel: Flamers have at least one additional unknown special tag.
-Modified Machine Guns: Machine guns have at least one additional unknown special tag.
Opportunity Actions Found4. Investigate Flamer Modifications: Difficulty 1
ধাৰণা No failure penalty.
5. Investigate Machine Gun Modifications: Difficulty 1 Sciences. No failure penalty.
6. Revert Machine Gun Modifications: Guaranteed Success. Removes opportunity action 5.
7. Reprimand soldiers for weapon 'charms' and enforce standard care. Difficulty 1 Leadership OR Guts. Minor Failure Penalty. Mutually exclusive with 8. Discretely allow unobtrusive gris-gris modifications.
8. Discretely instruct unobtrusive gris-gris modifications. Difficulty 1 Sciences. Minor Failure Penalty. Mutually exclusive with 7. Reprimand soldiers for weapon 'charms' and enforce standard care.
Arnaldo KafkaArnaldo turns to his men. "Two of you to me, I need hands for repair. Rest of you go find some place to sleep. And tally up the supplies, I wanna know how long 'til we die." He then walks into the trench and begins checking any leftover equipment to see if it works, weapons checked first. If it doesn't, he sets to work fixing it.
While Storme sets to work making sure the current supplies are in working order, you split your own men to divide some of the endless labors ahead of you. The most battered work closely with Storme's own, getting the inventory of what the company still has available and can reasonably leverage while getting some much needed respite. The halest ones work with you instead, following in behind Raven and Gallagher to see what spoils have been left behind in reasonable condition by the retreating friendly forces.
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, it isn't much. War materiel is largely absent from the crude bunkers and dugouts, as this line was evacuated after the mistfall but before the
কাৰণ ই আনন্দ ভাল পায়ভাল পায় bloomed out from the waters of -
You startle awake, suddenly keenly aware of several lost seconds of time and memory as well as burning marks in your hands where your fists have clenched tightly enough to drive your fingernails into your palms. Carefully, intentionally, you shift your thoughts away from faces in the seething white of the first warmist and back towards things you can safely consider without pain or absence seizure. Furniture, for instance. While Gallagher's people continue to find new chambers, your people work to separate useable and useless. There's little chance to work with any combat capable equipment, but there's plenty of living amenities that need to be sorted through for what's going to become firewood, what can be used as is, and what needs to be fixed up. It's necessary, though unexciting, work. In short order you and your men are able to sort through enough to make sure that, even if their conditions are cramped and filthy, the company will at least be warm and not forced to sleep on the ground.
Mercifully, you abilities aren't wasted with that. One of the finds from Gallagher's men turns out to be a small bunker with an armorer's workshop contained within. The bunker and the workshop within have been stripped for anything useful that could be reasonably carried out, so no tools, no weapons, no supplies of any kind remain. The retreating forces, however, did neglect to carry with them the armorer's pile of defective items. To be fair to the retreating forces, most of that pile is trash. Most, but not all. Among the write-offs, dead barrels, and unusable brass are little treasures.
The first are pair of light machine guns, both substantially damaged. The similar type of damage, as well as the fact they're here together, makes you think that both were part of a group that fell unfortunately victim to artillery. They are, however, not in completely irreparable condition. You might, emphasis might, be able to get at least one working through cannibalizing the other, and potentially even get both working if you can pull enough spare parts from other useless items.
The second is a considerable box of infantry grenades, with a tattered but still legible label reading: "DEFECTIVE, DO NOT USE" on the side. Sure, she's the kind of woman who's collectively several dozen kilograms of explosives, labeled as defective, and then left alone and abandoned in a hole for several years, but you can fix her. Maybe. If nothing else it'll be less inane than playing termite bingo with the cots.
Sadly, you're distracted from the box of grenades by the report of the company's supplies. In a word, it's bad. You're intentionally cut off from resupply, so you don't have any reinforcements, no more bullets than you've carried with you, and no real way to get back into contact. You're out of grenades, low on bullets and shells, spare parts are absolutely minimal with only three fresh barrels to spare between all the machine guns, medicine is strictly rationed, potable water is limited, and the food... You double check the rations numbers, then look back up at the soldier who brought you the report. He breathes a slow breath out through his nostrils, but nods.
"It's accurate," he says without elaboration.
The captain had always overseen ration checks before, and while water had always been collected and purified when possible, he'd given the impression that food supplies were at least adequate. Your company has enough food left for a week, maybe. The soldier who brought you the report does add that this doesn't include anything that the squads the captain took with him into his new command post might have been carrying, but both of you know that isn't enough to offset the quiet truth in the numbers. You don't have enough food to make it back the way you came. Unless those sealed orders contain a plan for resupply or Jesus' own bread and fishes, you're going to have a lot of hungry soldiers in a few days. A few days after that and all that firewood you've been sorting is going to end up grilling long pig.
It's sobering enough to make you forget the box of defective grenades for a minute.
"I've had... suspicions," the soldier goes on after you've reread the numbers.
"I did the rations inventory personally, didn't tell another soul but you. Still, if I'm suspicious, others are too, and nothing to be said for the boys that actually been doling those supplies out. We'll trust your call, sir," he adds after the silence goes on a little too long
"but people are going to take this ugly however they learn about it. " ChangesMoral Has improved slightly due to better living conditions and warmth.
Status Changes: Materiel: Marginal --->
Materiel: Marginal; items with [Charges: X] do not regain charges per combat. Special weapons have a chance to be damaged after combat. Injury recovery is less likely at all tiers. Provisions: Marginal --->
Provisions: Dire (Hidden); If no action is taken, company will begin starving within a week. Company is currently unaware of issue. Opportunity Actions Found9. Repair LMGs: Difficulty 2 Sciences. Cannot be retried.
10. Cannibalize one LMG to repair another: Difficulty 1 Sciences. Removes opportunity action 9. No failure penalty.
11. Repair box of 'Defective' grenades: Difficulty 1 Sciences. Moderate Failure Penalties. Cannot be retried.
12. Ensure (momentary) secrecy of ration shortage: Difficulty 1 Guts. Cannot be retried, mild failure penalties.
Global Action FoundG1. Reveal Dwindling Ration Stockpile Problem
-a: Tell the men what's going to happen.
-b: Resolve to keep the secret as long as possible.
-c: Delay Action
Matilda RavenMatilda stares at the hazy trenchline with a blank expression, and deep suspicion in her heart.
"Flames. Behind me."
Explore the trench personally. If someone has to die doing this, let it be me, a lowly grunt. If I find anything suspicious, have it incinerated.
You pass by Gallagher as you and your burning shadow flow into the depths of the trench. They try not to look at you. You don't below here, you're not right. Not that anyone really belongs here at all. People belong to war, in their own way, to struggle and survival, but you know deep down that this place is no simple child of war. No person should be breathing in this misty air, trying to live among man made gashes within the earth that time, decay, and something far worse has inflamed with a fever of little yellow mossy flowers. It's an odd thought among many odd thoughts, but it makes you question whether or not you're a person, since you clearly are breathing in this misty air.
You put the thought away as the moss regards you warily. Circumstance has placed you above where you rightly belong, and you note Gallagher and a younger man with a flamethrower glancing at you as you pass by. Likely as not they're as uncomfortable with the bizarre turn of events that led to you having command. ... ... Whatever those events were. You feel you should remember them, but that feeling comes in sluggish waves that recede into a deep sense of duty. Whatever the reason, you're here now. You might as well do the job as best you can.
The trenchline spiders in all directions, but you keep a careful mental map as you travel. You're not exactly certain what guides you as you take note of side structures around the command bunker the captain has claimed. Intuition leads you down the turns and traverses of the unknown, and you're confident that your path is correct somehow. The moss regards you with increasing hostility as you and your purifier continue to spiral outwards, mapping exhaustively, but becoming increasingly aware that you're looking for something you don't know you're looking for. The sun climbs treacherously high as you work, but you're guided undaunted forward. Despite your early suspicions, nothing emerges to attack you. A brush of your fingers against the flowering moss confirms that it would kill you if it could, but you've yet to fear its reprisal. The purifier could make short work of a few patches, but it's so omnipresent that it'd be a waste of time and fuel to rise to the vegetation's idle threats.
Finally you come to a destination. Not the destination. That's not here yet. Your head twinges as you remember that you can't remember what isn't yet. You didn't know this destination you've found was here, so it's safe to think about. You nod to yourself as the pain fades, happy to have made sense of things. The moss squelches wetly as the purifier behind you shifts their weight. This destination is a crater within the trench, one made by an explosion of such force as to excavate a clearing a good twenty feet in radius in the otherwise claustrophobic trench. You can see at the edge of the crater what looks like the mouth of a mossy cave, but in reality it's likely just the remains of the rest of the structure of the forward ammunition bunker which was forcibly converted into this crater by way of artillery, happenstance, or sabotage.
The bottom of the crater is a small pool of water, almost perfectly circular even after all this time. The dawn air is cool, but seems oppressively still and heavy here. The flowering moss crowds in around the border of the pool, but it doesn't have the strength to get within more than an inch of the glassy edge. You step forwards, the purifier behind you tensing. Yellow mossflowers scream beneath your feet as they're crushed under your incomprehensible weight. Now that you're closer, at the very edge of the pool, you can see that the warmist rotates faintly here in the utter stillness, moving of its own accord above the water. You hinge forwards, bending enough to trace your fingers just at the surface of the water. It isn't wet. The water ripples.
Then it seethes. They seethe. They seethe with anger and surprise. It wasn't supposed to be like this, none of it at all like this. The water roils, infecting the muddy ground with that latent betrayed rage. The moss screams in truer terror now. It knows what's happening. It might not understand your gravity, but it understands this. The purifier takes two measured steps back, checks their igniter but doesn't light, and braces their flamethrower. You remain still. The mud churns, tearing into the flowering moss and pulling it below. In seconds the entire crater is clear of the vile stuff, but it is not the end. It is not enough. This place still remembers. It does not hate, only the unloved truly hate for so long, but this destination still angers. The water boils as the bodies rise from below the surface, face up and glassy eyes the color of mist staring into nothing. You do not recognize the bodies in the water. The pool spirals outwards, it greets the horizon, bodies floating up around you in all directions. Their eyes find yours, mouths open and screaming silence, pleading and looking for something you can't give. You're nothing. No one.
The bodies aren't real. None of that just happened. You look again. The crater is just a crater, the little pool at its center is still glassily calm. You must not have touched it after all. You imagined everything. The purifier must be thinking you looked quite silly standing there over a puddle. All of the flowering moss in the crater is gone.
It must have been the wind.
ChangesLocal trench area 2/3 explored
সেয়া বিষ কিন্তু: বিষOpportunity Actions Found13.
ভাল ভুল ধাৰণা the crater pool
সেয়া বিষ কিন্তু: Difficulty 2
লভুলধা. No failure penalty.
Current Global and Opportunity actions are collated in the Camp Status.
Your next actions will be the last before the sun rises too high and you're forced to take shelter and rest for the day.
Situation SpecificLocal trench area 2/3 explored
Minimal Troop accommodations secured, with firewood and spartan amenity (+Morale)
সেয়া বিষ কিন্তু: বিষSituation Quirks: -Modified Flamer Fuel: Flamers have at least one additional unknown special tag.
-Modified Machine Guns: Machine guns have at least one additional unknown special tag.
Opportunity Actions1. Clear Trench Traverses: Difficulty 1 Leadership OR Guts. No failure penalty. Mutually exclusive with Turn Oxbow Traverses Into Quarters.
2. Turn Oxbow Traverses Into Quarters: Difficulty 1 Leadership OR Savvy. No failure penalty. Mutually exclusive with Clear Trench Traverses.
3. Disarm and Open Forward Supply Depot: Difficulty 1 Savvy OR Intuition. Moderate failure penalties, cannot be retried.
4. Investigate Flamer Modifications: Difficulty 1
ধাৰণা No failure penalty.
5. Investigate Machine Gun Modifications: Difficulty 1 Sciences. No failure penalty.
6. Revert Machine Gun Modifications: Guaranteed Success. Removes opportunity action 5.
7. Reprimand soldiers for weapon 'charms' and enforce standard care. Difficulty 1 Leadership OR Guts. Minor Failure Penalty. Mutually exclusive with 8. Discretely allow unobtrusive gris-gris modifications.
8. Discretely instruct unobtrusive gris-gris modifications. Difficulty 1 Sciences. Minor Failure Penalty. Mutually exclusive with 7. Reprimand soldiers for weapon 'charms' and enforce standard care.
9. Repair LMGs: Difficulty 2 Sciences. Cannot be retried.
10. Cannibalize one LMG to repair another: Difficulty 1 Sciences. Removes opportunity action 9. No failure penalty.
11. Repair box of 'Defective' grenades: Difficulty 1 Sciences. Moderate Failure Penalties. Cannot be retried.
12. Ensure (momentary) secrecy of ration shortage: Difficulty 1 Guts. Cannot be retried, mild failure penalties.
13.
ভাল ভুল ধাৰণা the crater pool
সেয়া বিষ কিন্তু: Difficulty 2
লভুলধা. No failure penalty.
Global Actions PendingG1. Reveal Dwindling Ration Stockpile Problem
-a: Tell the men what's going to happen.
-b: Resolve to keep the secret as long as possible.
-c: Delay Action
Supply Status: Cut-OffMateriel: Marginal; items with [Charges: X] do not regain charges per combat. Special weapons have a chance to be damaged after combat. Injury recovery is less likely at all tiers. Provisions: Dire (Hidden); If no action is taken, company will begin starving within a week. Company is currently unaware of issue. Morale: Grim+Special Items:- None
InfirmaryFilthy Dugout
No one currently receiving treatment, likely several dozen who need it.
Player SquadsArnaldo KafkaGreen Squadron7/7 Riflemen, 1/1 Marksman, 1/1 MG Crew
Blue Squadron7/7 Riflemen, 1/1 Marksman, 1/1 AT Crew
Andrew GallagherThe Bloody Fools9/9 Trenchfighters, 1/1 Shotgunner
The Firebugs9/9 Trenchfighters, 1/1 Flamer
Matilda RavenA Squad7/7 Riflemen, 1/1 Flamer, 1/1 MG Crew
Another Squad7/7 Riflemen, 1/1 Flamer, 1/1 Mortar Crew
Garrick StormeFire Breathing Rubber Duckies9/9 Trenchfighters, 1/1 Shotgunner
Mighty Morphin’ Flower Arrangers9/9 Trenchfighters, 1/1 Shotgunner