- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not that you are aware of.
Incident Eliph at Kianid [Original Weird War Fantasy/Horror Quest]
- Thread starter Havocfett
- Start date
- Original
Not that you are aware of.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
For sure. I like mysteries
- Counting Corpses: We know someone left with the folding boat. Besides with all the gunfire we will not be able to say for sure if each of these creatures only had one brain or if we scattered a multi brained creature all over the place.
- Investigating the submarine more thoroughly: I don'T want to stay in a place that is almost certainly a spiritual hazard of some sort longer than necessary, and it pulls manpower from the perimeter we must establish.
- Regrouping outside cedes any initiative and in case any of these creatures remain, and they might escape via water, and we can hardly post a perimeter watch in the water.
However, I think that our djinn-blooded should use Sense Life judicously; overall I think that sweeping the submarine and terminating these abominations or forming a proper perimeter is the best option here.
The former because it means we are safe from immediate threat, the latter because we'd be safe from our commanding offier having us jailed for not following proper doctrine.
And don't forget that we voted for having a horrible connection up the chain of command due to the death of our Yuzbasi, Fuat Sakir.
For sure. I like mysteries
The question here is...
- Counting Corpses: We know someone left with the folding boat. Besides with all the gunfire we will not be able to say for sure if each of these creatures only had one brain or if we scattered a multi brained creature all over the place.
- Investigating the submarine more thoroughly: I don'T want to stay in a place that is almost certainly a spiritual hazard of some sort longer than necessary, and it pulls manpower from the perimeter we must establish.
- Regrouping outside cedes any initiative and in case any of these creatures remain, and they might escape via water, and we can hardly post a perimeter watch in the water.
However, I think that our djinn-blooded should use Sense Life judicously; overall I think that sweeping the submarine and terminating these abominations or forming a proper perimeter is the best option here.
The former because it means we are safe from immediate threat, the latter because we'd be safe from our commanding offier having us jailed for not following proper doctrine.
And don't forget that we voted for having a horrible connection up the chain of command due to the death of our Yuzbasi, Fuat Sakir.
- Location
- in the trash
We have to assume that this thing is going to start disappearing civilians unless we somehow manage to institute an airtight quarantine/curfew (hahaha), meaning that unless we can get an accurate headcount there as well we won't be able to estimate numbers properly anyway.
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LaRed
Are you stupid or something
- Location
- Mou Ikkai hell
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
If all else fails we can just hide the pages in our stomach.
[X] Regroup outside. Get the platoon together and form a perimeter to make sure no-one accidentally stumbles on this mess and none of these creatures manage to slip out.
If all else fails we can just hide the pages in our stomach.
[X] Regroup outside. Get the platoon together and form a perimeter to make sure no-one accidentally stumbles on this mess and none of these creatures manage to slip out.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
YEAH I LIKED OATS TOO HAVOC
fuggin law students man
d'awwwww, these gays
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
I'd say it's a bit of a no-brainer but that's kinda grim considering the follow up. Our chain of command is fucked to pieces anyway so anything we kick up to high command we might very well never see again.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
These things aren't seamless, you can pretty obviously tell where two or more were stitched together. It's not a matter of just the brains but the trunks, the skulls, that we can also track. And absolutely, it'll be ugly, grisly work but it's necessary I think. We need to know how much meat is out there, what the scale and the scope of the threat is. We know its nature now, and we know something of it's -for want of a better word- logistics. We know how it works and the mechanisms behind its proliferation. Now we need their numbers, their disposition, and their equipment. We need to assess the size of the enemy force and we need to know how many people (or ex-people) made it off alive ("alive").
Look at it this way: are we missing a few brain-spider skulls and thus need to be on the lookout for infiltrators or are there, like, twenty five out of the fifty straight up gone? This'll inform a lot re: the initial response and how we progress from here.
fuggin law students man
d'awwwww, these gays
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
I'd say it's a bit of a no-brainer but that's kinda grim considering the follow up.
Our chain of command is fucked to pieces anyway so anything we kick up to high command we might very well never see again.[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
These things aren't seamless, you can pretty obviously tell where two or more were stitched together. It's not a matter of just the brains but the trunks, the skulls, that we can also track. And absolutely, it'll be ugly, grisly work but it's necessary I think. We need to know how much meat is out there, what the scale and the scope of the threat is. We know its nature now, and we know something of it's -for want of a better word- logistics. We know how it works and the mechanisms behind its proliferation. Now we need their numbers, their disposition, and their equipment. We need to assess the size of the enemy force and we need to know how many people (or ex-people) made it off alive ("alive").
Look at it this way: are we missing a few brain-spider skulls and thus need to be on the lookout for infiltrators or are there, like, twenty five out of the fifty straight up gone? This'll inform a lot re: the initial response and how we progress from here.
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SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
I have to concur with everyone else here, Command is not the one dealing with the Necromorph horde, we are. As the guy "on site" so to speak we're going to need to grab every piece of intelligence we need to survive whatever horror was locking in that box.
[X] Investigate the submarine more thoroughly. You don't want any further surprises once you've declared the area secure.
Honestly the monsters have already shown the ability to reproduce, so I think counting corpses isn't going to be as productive as the other options when they're already looking for fresh victims to cannibalise (in both senses of the term). Right now we need to sanitise this vessel right the fuck now while we try to figure out what that abomination is planning. That said I am amendable to having my mind changed, having some kind of early estimate of what to expect could be useful.
I have to concur with everyone else here, Command is not the one dealing with the Necromorph horde, we are. As the guy "on site" so to speak we're going to need to grab every piece of intelligence we need to survive whatever horror was locking in that box.
[X] Investigate the submarine more thoroughly. You don't want any further surprises once you've declared the area secure.
Honestly the monsters have already shown the ability to reproduce, so I think counting corpses isn't going to be as productive as the other options when they're already looking for fresh victims to cannibalise (in both senses of the term). Right now we need to sanitise this vessel right the fuck now while we try to figure out what that abomination is planning. That said I am amendable to having my mind changed, having some kind of early estimate of what to expect could be useful.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
I gotta say, I like how (at least as far as we're aware atm) our forces haven't been horrifically murdered by the score already. Like sure you gotta build heat for your monstars but it's still gratifying to see these small units of soldiers working together and being able to kill the monsters by shooting them full of lots of bullets, rather than everyone splitting off into ones and twos and staring longingly into ventilation grates dripping suspicious Woolie-slime and the like. That these monsters are getting killed relatively easily doesn't lessen their threat when there's still so much about them we don't know and need to know before this becomes a way bigger fuckin' problem, or contain the huge problem it's already become while we weren't looking.
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
Obviously we continue the already-present theme in this story which is "Command? Pshhhh whatever lol"
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
Agreed with Tenfold, it's important to get a sense of just how much of the crew we're missing before we have to jump straight to the 'hot wire in blood' tests. And I feel like there's enough logical overlap with the 'keep investigating the sub' choice (because hey maybe some more necrophorphs will spawn out of the vents with ear-shatteringly loud orchestral stings while we're backtracking) for me to be confident in this one.
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
Obviously we continue the already-present theme in this story which is "Command? Pshhhh whatever lol"
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
Agreed with Tenfold, it's important to get a sense of just how much of the crew we're missing before we have to jump straight to the 'hot wire in blood' tests. And I feel like there's enough logical overlap with the 'keep investigating the sub' choice (because hey maybe some more necrophorphs will spawn out of the vents with ear-shatteringly loud orchestral stings while we're backtracking) for me to be confident in this one.
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
A probable side benefit from doing this is that we may be able to throw off suspicion from command whether or not we are hiding something by providing some tangible results to the enemy's force compositions.
@Havocfett, we haven't heard of gunshots yet from outside of the submarine, yes?
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
A probable side benefit from doing this is that we may be able to throw off suspicion from command whether or not we are hiding something by providing some tangible results to the enemy's force compositions.
@Havocfett, we haven't heard of gunshots yet from outside of the submarine, yes?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not yet.
Sarpedon
Knight Errant
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] Command will seal these and Allah knows when you'll learn the information within. Nevermind anything else they've learned. The logbook must be handed over, of course, but your report need not mention journal pages.
[X] Count corpses. These things were all made of people and machines and rats, these things each have a brain. The ship had a crew of fifty. Use the journal and the monsters, figure out how many human corpses are missing. How many more monsters might be out there.
We need a count of how many other monsters might be wandering about or still in the hull, and we need to know very bloody soon.
7. Trespassers
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You raise a hand and the room falls silent, an eerie lull, for you cannot hear the hum of electricity or the sea breeze despite the quiet. "Bad news my friends, we're not done here! I need a count of the corpses," you say, "Brains or hearts, whichever you can find. We need to know how many of these things there could have been when the sub crashed. We need to know how many of these things might be on the island. Stay together, stay safe, and get me those numbers."
You split into groups of three and set off across the submarine. Pulling bodies from air pumps, cutting hearts and skulls from twisted abominations to ensure they aren't double-counted, checking corpses to see what was taken from them. It is grim work, and slow work, and sees you crawling back across the submarine as you find all the hidden places there exist for a man to die, and to have their corpse gnawed upon by rats.
You're in the rear torpedo room when you hear the gunshots, and the screaming. You run out, leaping over a dead thing sprawled across the engine room and see Ali Ahmed helping Yaqub from first squad stand up. The barrel of Ali's gun is bent almost in half, while Yaqub has been shot in one arm and his shoulder is dislocated.
"It-" starts Ali, but you see a glimpse of the thing running for the battery room and you don't stop to ask questions as you take off in pursuit. Short bursts of gunfire and yells of surprise erupt before you. Four men are trying, and failing, to shoot the creature when you arrive. It's smaller than the others, flesh and bone and canvas wrapped around a stripped-down carbine. Rat legs and make-shift feet scuttling at inhuman speeds as it flees. You run past your subordinates, dropping to one knee as the thing leaps through the rent in the submarine's hull.
It hits the sand heavily and begins to run. A moment of hesitation, and scattered impacts begin to pockmark the sand around it. Third squad, you hope. You inhale, steadying your shaking arms, following the things run up the beach, and you fire.
It collapses in a spray of blood and gore.
You take a single step forwards, still kneeling, and fire again. A moment passes as more men file into the engine room, guns at the ready, and the thing does not move.
You nod to Faysal as he enters, then drop out the hole, onto the sand. Up the beach, half of third squad points their guns towards you, then lower them as they seem to register that you're no Russian. The rest level theirs at the dead thing in the sand. And, inexplicably, three civilians stand next to Cavus Atun, looking on in horror. You recognize Elaheh and her friend from the park. The third is a young man in western clothes, save for a rich and fashionable turban that marks him as local nobility or someone else rich and educated enough to dodge the draft.
You turn away from them for a moment, kick the monster over. No heart, but you've cracked its skull, wrapped almost around the trigger mechanism for the carbine. A swift hand motion returns Faysal and the others to their grim work. You, on the other hand, stalk up the beach to Cavus Atun.
"What's going on here?" you ask, "When did they show up?"
Elaheh turns to speak and Cavus Atun turns to glare at her, then mutters indistinctly at you. He sounds as if he was trying to whisper a message from across a stage, distant and indistinct. While technically an improvement over talking to him, you can't make out a thing that he says and you imagine that you glare at him oddly, for he begins to trail off. "I can't hear you," you say.
Atun attempts to speak again, once more to no avail. Something clicks. "I'm shouting, aren't I?" you say. Atun, Elaheh, and the rest of third squad all nod. "Serves me right, getting in a gunfight in a submarine." You had thought that you had muttered the phrase, but by the reaction of those around you you must have been quite loud indeed. You utter a short prayer, think on your plight for a moment, and think of what Fuat Sakir would do in this situation. Had done, when he had lost his hearing for a day when a shell landed outside of his latrine. Then you remove the alcohol from that plan and come to a decision.
"I am going to sit atop the cliff," you say, "You will all write your reports to me until I can hear you."
The cliff, at least, is relaxing. You have a good enough view of the bay, and the submarine, and the corpses and your makeshift quarantine. You see the second squad approaching, dragging two corpses in Russian uniforms behind them. You see the sun rise through the sky, light glittering upon the waves of the black sea, slowly climbing as noon approaches. You feel the sea breeze on your skin, and smell salt in the air. And you hear very little, and when you close your eyes it feels as if the world is immeasurably far away. Separated from you by some great, invisible barrier. An enormous expanse of nothing, a better shield against the noise than any wall.
Cavus Atun delivers his report first. It is...very him. Elaheh is a Persian spy, according to him, who has beguiled some poor local woman into being her guide. His suspicions as to her motivations, and how she knew of the submarine, are the majority of the report and you almost miss the name of the man the Third Squad has in their custody. He is Ibn Aziz, and evidently showed up well before Elaheh. An amateur geologist and student of theology who had been making maps of the island and wandered into this disaster as he charted the cove. Atun had been far kinder about his assumptions of Aziz' intentions than he was about Elaheh's. The dense theorizing means that you almost miss that Elaheh said she had friends who would be aiming to join them after Dhuhr. You bellow for the fourth squad to set up a perimeter in the forest, and to turn them back home when they arrive. Then you ask for Elaheh's version of events.
It is simple and fast, and arrives before Faysal has his headcount done. She says that she is not a spy, but a reporter as she claimed yesterday. She has her press pass among her things, which does not disqualify her from being a reporter and a spy but at least indicates that she is not brazenly lying. She came her to go swimming with her friend, and to enjoy the beach and the sun before the rest of their friends arrived. She swears that she took no pictures before she ran into Atun, which of course you cannot confirm without developing the film.
Faysal does not write his report, but sits upon the cliff next to you and relays it to you. You imagine you are yelling at each other rather loudly, but the civilians are in the cove and in a corner of the cove at that, so you imagine that it will be fine. Including the men Second Squad killed, they can account for twenty seven hearts and twenty five brains, for the brains of the two corpses found laying outside of the submarine had been removed but the rest of their bodies lay untouched. Your own perusal of the journal, or at least Mehmet's translation of it, leads you to believe that as many as six were thrown into the sea by the submarine's crew, but you do not know if whatever did this, whatever inhabited that box, had some way to retrieve those corpses. And so, seventeen to twenty three hearts, and nineteen to twenty five brains. You had seen some that operated without a heart, the thing that ran onto the beach could not possibly have had one, but all you have seen so far, and the one that had victimized Ruslan, had brains. As many as twenty five monsters, then, and you had been lucky so far in fighting them.
So be it.
Cavus Osman's report is the last and the most lacking, and parts of it were clearly written by members of his squad. His voice is as dry as it has been since Krasnodar, and his handwriting has faltered from the beauteous calligraphy he was so proud of when you first met him. They encountered two townsfolk and three russian sailors in the woods, and killed the Russians. That is it. On some level you are annoyed, that he didn't take any alive, that he gave you so little to work with, that you don't know if the Russians had been on the submarine when it landed, or had made it onto that lifeboat, or had some other means of escape. And on another, you are simply happy that Second Squad did not lose any more men.
Your runner returns after Dhuhr. Your hearing is not back, but your men translate ably enough. More men will be here within the hour, you are to hold position, establish a perimeter, and entrench.
After Action Report: Submarine
Now you've gotta explain everything that just happened to your command. And that means choosing what to emphasize and encourage in your report. Keep in mind that your CO is dead and that command's relationship to intelligence on the ground is often...suspect during the period, this may well be more about how you see the danger than what command actually does about it.
[ ] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
[ ] Play one is the Population. Recommend evacuation plans be drawn up, but under a pretense that will not cause panic. Emphasize the ability of this thing to turn a population and equipment into an army and weaponry. Whether you say it's stormfront, plague, or weapons testing you need to start getting civilians out of the way without causing a panic and you need to be able to start moving people en-masse if and when things escalate.
[ ] Priority one is Information. Recommend that this be kept quiet, the Cove locked down, and a covert investigation launched. Command will do what command will with the news of an impending Russian attack, but you need to know what's going on, you need to know what caused this. Your greatest weapon against the Monster is that it does not know that you are hunting it. Your greatest weapon against the Russians is that they are not yet aware that you know they're on their way.
How hard are you sequestering the civs Third Squad grabbed?
[ ] They've got freedom of movement, so long as they stay in the quarantine area. They may have seen one of the abominations but that means they also know exactly how serious this is. You trust that they're not complete idiots.
[ ] They will be heavily monitored but will be allowed run of the cove. It's the most heavily defended and hardest to escape. It'll also keep them safe.
[ ] They are staying in one dugout with armed guard. Secrecy, security, and you're not letting this leak or them put themselves in danger doing something dumb.
[ ] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
You split into groups of three and set off across the submarine. Pulling bodies from air pumps, cutting hearts and skulls from twisted abominations to ensure they aren't double-counted, checking corpses to see what was taken from them. It is grim work, and slow work, and sees you crawling back across the submarine as you find all the hidden places there exist for a man to die, and to have their corpse gnawed upon by rats.
You're in the rear torpedo room when you hear the gunshots, and the screaming. You run out, leaping over a dead thing sprawled across the engine room and see Ali Ahmed helping Yaqub from first squad stand up. The barrel of Ali's gun is bent almost in half, while Yaqub has been shot in one arm and his shoulder is dislocated.
"It-" starts Ali, but you see a glimpse of the thing running for the battery room and you don't stop to ask questions as you take off in pursuit. Short bursts of gunfire and yells of surprise erupt before you. Four men are trying, and failing, to shoot the creature when you arrive. It's smaller than the others, flesh and bone and canvas wrapped around a stripped-down carbine. Rat legs and make-shift feet scuttling at inhuman speeds as it flees. You run past your subordinates, dropping to one knee as the thing leaps through the rent in the submarine's hull.
It hits the sand heavily and begins to run. A moment of hesitation, and scattered impacts begin to pockmark the sand around it. Third squad, you hope. You inhale, steadying your shaking arms, following the things run up the beach, and you fire.
It collapses in a spray of blood and gore.
You take a single step forwards, still kneeling, and fire again. A moment passes as more men file into the engine room, guns at the ready, and the thing does not move.
You nod to Faysal as he enters, then drop out the hole, onto the sand. Up the beach, half of third squad points their guns towards you, then lower them as they seem to register that you're no Russian. The rest level theirs at the dead thing in the sand. And, inexplicably, three civilians stand next to Cavus Atun, looking on in horror. You recognize Elaheh and her friend from the park. The third is a young man in western clothes, save for a rich and fashionable turban that marks him as local nobility or someone else rich and educated enough to dodge the draft.
You turn away from them for a moment, kick the monster over. No heart, but you've cracked its skull, wrapped almost around the trigger mechanism for the carbine. A swift hand motion returns Faysal and the others to their grim work. You, on the other hand, stalk up the beach to Cavus Atun.
"What's going on here?" you ask, "When did they show up?"
Elaheh turns to speak and Cavus Atun turns to glare at her, then mutters indistinctly at you. He sounds as if he was trying to whisper a message from across a stage, distant and indistinct. While technically an improvement over talking to him, you can't make out a thing that he says and you imagine that you glare at him oddly, for he begins to trail off. "I can't hear you," you say.
Atun attempts to speak again, once more to no avail. Something clicks. "I'm shouting, aren't I?" you say. Atun, Elaheh, and the rest of third squad all nod. "Serves me right, getting in a gunfight in a submarine." You had thought that you had muttered the phrase, but by the reaction of those around you you must have been quite loud indeed. You utter a short prayer, think on your plight for a moment, and think of what Fuat Sakir would do in this situation. Had done, when he had lost his hearing for a day when a shell landed outside of his latrine. Then you remove the alcohol from that plan and come to a decision.
"I am going to sit atop the cliff," you say, "You will all write your reports to me until I can hear you."
The cliff, at least, is relaxing. You have a good enough view of the bay, and the submarine, and the corpses and your makeshift quarantine. You see the second squad approaching, dragging two corpses in Russian uniforms behind them. You see the sun rise through the sky, light glittering upon the waves of the black sea, slowly climbing as noon approaches. You feel the sea breeze on your skin, and smell salt in the air. And you hear very little, and when you close your eyes it feels as if the world is immeasurably far away. Separated from you by some great, invisible barrier. An enormous expanse of nothing, a better shield against the noise than any wall.
Cavus Atun delivers his report first. It is...very him. Elaheh is a Persian spy, according to him, who has beguiled some poor local woman into being her guide. His suspicions as to her motivations, and how she knew of the submarine, are the majority of the report and you almost miss the name of the man the Third Squad has in their custody. He is Ibn Aziz, and evidently showed up well before Elaheh. An amateur geologist and student of theology who had been making maps of the island and wandered into this disaster as he charted the cove. Atun had been far kinder about his assumptions of Aziz' intentions than he was about Elaheh's. The dense theorizing means that you almost miss that Elaheh said she had friends who would be aiming to join them after Dhuhr. You bellow for the fourth squad to set up a perimeter in the forest, and to turn them back home when they arrive. Then you ask for Elaheh's version of events.
It is simple and fast, and arrives before Faysal has his headcount done. She says that she is not a spy, but a reporter as she claimed yesterday. She has her press pass among her things, which does not disqualify her from being a reporter and a spy but at least indicates that she is not brazenly lying. She came her to go swimming with her friend, and to enjoy the beach and the sun before the rest of their friends arrived. She swears that she took no pictures before she ran into Atun, which of course you cannot confirm without developing the film.
Faysal does not write his report, but sits upon the cliff next to you and relays it to you. You imagine you are yelling at each other rather loudly, but the civilians are in the cove and in a corner of the cove at that, so you imagine that it will be fine. Including the men Second Squad killed, they can account for twenty seven hearts and twenty five brains, for the brains of the two corpses found laying outside of the submarine had been removed but the rest of their bodies lay untouched. Your own perusal of the journal, or at least Mehmet's translation of it, leads you to believe that as many as six were thrown into the sea by the submarine's crew, but you do not know if whatever did this, whatever inhabited that box, had some way to retrieve those corpses. And so, seventeen to twenty three hearts, and nineteen to twenty five brains. You had seen some that operated without a heart, the thing that ran onto the beach could not possibly have had one, but all you have seen so far, and the one that had victimized Ruslan, had brains. As many as twenty five monsters, then, and you had been lucky so far in fighting them.
So be it.
Cavus Osman's report is the last and the most lacking, and parts of it were clearly written by members of his squad. His voice is as dry as it has been since Krasnodar, and his handwriting has faltered from the beauteous calligraphy he was so proud of when you first met him. They encountered two townsfolk and three russian sailors in the woods, and killed the Russians. That is it. On some level you are annoyed, that he didn't take any alive, that he gave you so little to work with, that you don't know if the Russians had been on the submarine when it landed, or had made it onto that lifeboat, or had some other means of escape. And on another, you are simply happy that Second Squad did not lose any more men.
Your runner returns after Dhuhr. Your hearing is not back, but your men translate ably enough. More men will be here within the hour, you are to hold position, establish a perimeter, and entrench.
After Action Report: Submarine
Now you've gotta explain everything that just happened to your command. And that means choosing what to emphasize and encourage in your report. Keep in mind that your CO is dead and that command's relationship to intelligence on the ground is often...suspect during the period, this may well be more about how you see the danger than what command actually does about it.
[ ] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
[ ] Play one is the Population. Recommend evacuation plans be drawn up, but under a pretense that will not cause panic. Emphasize the ability of this thing to turn a population and equipment into an army and weaponry. Whether you say it's stormfront, plague, or weapons testing you need to start getting civilians out of the way without causing a panic and you need to be able to start moving people en-masse if and when things escalate.
[ ] Priority one is Information. Recommend that this be kept quiet, the Cove locked down, and a covert investigation launched. Command will do what command will with the news of an impending Russian attack, but you need to know what's going on, you need to know what caused this. Your greatest weapon against the Monster is that it does not know that you are hunting it. Your greatest weapon against the Russians is that they are not yet aware that you know they're on their way.
How hard are you sequestering the civs Third Squad grabbed?
[ ] They've got freedom of movement, so long as they stay in the quarantine area. They may have seen one of the abominations but that means they also know exactly how serious this is. You trust that they're not complete idiots.
[ ] They will be heavily monitored but will be allowed run of the cove. It's the most heavily defended and hardest to escape. It'll also keep them safe.
[ ] They are staying in one dugout with armed guard. Secrecy, security, and you're not letting this leak or them put themselves in danger doing something dumb.
[ ] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
LaRed
Are you stupid or something
- Location
- Mou Ikkai hell
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
[X] They will be heavily monitored but will be allowed run of the cove. It's the most heavily defended and hardest to escape. It'll also keep them safe.
[X] They will be heavily monitored but will be allowed run of the cove. It's the most heavily defended and hardest to escape. It'll also keep them safe.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Play one is the Population. Recommend evacuation plans be drawn up, but under a pretense that will not cause panic. Emphasize the ability of this thing to turn a population and equipment into an army and weaponry. Whether you say it's stormfront, plague, or weapons testing you need to start getting civilians out of the way without causing a panic and you need to be able to start moving people en-masse if and when things escalate.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
——
Our job here is to keep the population safe without causing a panic. Our new guests can stay someplace unobtrusive until we have a better plan to deal with them.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
——
Our job here is to keep the population safe without causing a panic. Our new guests can stay someplace unobtrusive until we have a better plan to deal with them.
[X] Play one is the Population. Recommend evacuation plans be drawn up, but under a pretense that will not cause panic. Emphasize the ability of this thing to turn a population and equipment into an army and weaponry. Whether you say it's stormfront, plague, or weapons testing you need to start getting civilians out of the way without causing a panic and you need to be able to start moving people en-masse if and when things escalate.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
- Location
- Upon the back of the Great A'Tuin
[X] Play one is the Population. Recommend evacuation plans be drawn up, but under a pretense that will not cause panic. Emphasize the ability of this thing to turn a population and equipment into an army and weaponry. Whether you say it's stormfront, plague, or weapons testing you need to start getting civilians out of the way without causing a panic and you need to be able to start moving people en-masse if and when things escalate.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
I am now highly concerned about where those two brains ended up. They may still be running around as part of something.
Damn it! Those Russians would have been very nice to be able to interrogate, Cavus!
[X] Priority one is Information. Recommend that this be kept quiet, the Cove locked down, and a covert investigation launched. Command will do what command will with the news of an impending Russian attack, but you need to know what's going on, you need to know what caused this. Your greatest weapon against the Monster is that it does not know that you are hunting it. Your greatest weapon against the Russians is that they are not yet aware that you know they're on their way.
[X] They've got freedom of movement, so long as they stay in the quarantine area. They may have seen one of the abominations but that means they also know exactly how serious this is. You trust that they're not complete idiots.
If we're lucky, the civilians will find something. If they're less lucky, something might find them. And Information warns Command of the Russians' coming and let's us hunt this thing, but not cause a panic yet. This thing on the sub got worse when fear started to make them come unglued.
- Location
- Pilipinas
[X] Play one is the Population. Recommend evacuation plans be drawn up, but under a pretense that will not cause panic. Emphasize the ability of this thing to turn a population and equipment into an army and weaponry. Whether you say it's stormfront, plague, or weapons testing you need to start getting civilians out of the way without causing a panic and you need to be able to start moving people en-masse if and when things escalate.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
TenfoldShields
Lounging on a Hoard of Words
- Pronouns
- He/Him
ffffuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Potentially half the ship's crew repurposed which is very much into, like, the worst-case-scenario side of things. Especially since we know that not only can they be cut up and scaled down into basically skittering, scuttling, ambush-prone-autonomous-guns but scaled up into walking siege engines. Potentially shit that's able to go toe to toe with dieselpunk Ottoman armor. God on the one hand I'm kinda pissed that the Russians died and sorta kicking myself 'cause no shit the Squad that was traumatized and shredded fighting Russians might also, y'know, coincidentally fail to take Russians in alive. But honestly if we had them on the perimeter it's pretty likely that gun-thing could have gotten out too, or at least mauled them, (Atun's an absolute fuck but he was quick on the uptake at least). And I am really, really glad we didn't tackle the submarine with anything but two of our best.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
The monsters are already loose on the island and, very conceivably, already hiding themselves and readying to prey on the population. The best way to mitigate losses from both the Russians and our unknown creature, then, is to prioritize the Thing in the Box, to hunt it down and go on the offensive. There aren't just a few industrial necrormorphs free there's as many as two dozen, of immensely variable abilities and arrangements and I think- mnm. I think if it had access to the crew via the rats, and then access to their brains, if not their thoughts, it's probable that the Thing knows about the impending attack. Whatever it is it's definitely intelligent. Strategic. It systematically picked the crew apart until it had everything it needed and was exactly where it wanted to be. It had to assume that the submarine would be discovered at some point. It's possible it's planning on using the Russian invasion as cover for whatever-it-is-it's trying to do and in that kinda chaos and hell it'll be hard to make use of any kind of plan.
Hunting it down might -might- tip our hands to the Russians but we've held off Russians before and the island itself is well fortified.
Plus, this way, when Command ignores Oziri's recommendation he can have a bitter "I warned them," moment like any good protagonist of a horror thing.
But, yeah, we got a pretty solid secondhand look at how this thing works and what it did over the course of two weeks while it was quite literally caged up. It's only more dangerous now that it's not even pretending to be trapped and has a small army at its beck and all. We need to address it appropriately.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
Out of the way, gentle enough touch, works I think.
Honestly there's no real good option here I think. Intelligence preserves the element of surprise against the Russians and also gives us more of an opportunity to gather, well, intelligence but it also leaves the Monster basically free to start on the next phase of its plan. Readying the population might interfere with its harvesting operations but it'll be hard to put any evacuation plans into effect when we're suffering immanent attacks from within and without and that kind of chaos is basically blood in the water for this thing. Burning it out is the most overt but I think we need to go aggressive early. We saw what this thing did when it was allowed to slow burn.
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LupineVolt
Now with 200% more Puns
- Location
- Michigan
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
I think I agree with Tenfold's logic. And, well, everything else I feel is a touch more predictable and easily respondable than 'Horrifying Monster'.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
I think I agree with Tenfold's logic. And, well, everything else I feel is a touch more predictable and easily respondable than 'Horrifying Monster'.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
BLugh god this took me too long to catch up on and post in. Much as it makes me feel like a brainlet I have to go with Tenfold's plan, it makes the most sense and if there were ever a time to go hard early to try and stop the premise of the horror movie from ever happening then it's now.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
Possible Necromorph Dracula weighs kinda high on the priority list compared to Just Some Angry Russians.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
[X] Get them onto the patrol boat you're getting for the cove. Not too restrictive, not your problem, and hard to escape, and if a patrol boat is at risk things have escalated far enough that the quarantine area might not be safe either.
Possible Necromorph Dracula weighs kinda high on the priority list compared to Just Some Angry Russians.
Sarpedon
Knight Errant
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] They are staying in one dugout with armed guard. Secrecy, security, and you're not letting this leak or them put themselves in danger doing something dumb.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
Look letting curious busybodies run around while we try and secure the area is no bueno and we want them to keep their mouths shut.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
Look letting curious busybodies run around while we try and secure the area is no bueno and we want them to keep their mouths shut.
SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
[X] They are staying in one dugout with armed guard. Secrecy, security, and you're not letting this leak or them put themselves in danger doing something dumb.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
Let's be honest, Russians are only human and we can take back the island later but Rat Necromorph Dracula is something I'd really rather not let out of sight any longer than necessary.
[X] Priority one is the Monster. Recommend immediate and drastic action. Quarantine, increased garrison, martial law and searches. You risk tipping off the Russians that you know of their planned attack upon the island, and risk telling whatever did this that you know of its existence. But anything less than drastic and dramatic action risks catastrophe.
Let's be honest, Russians are only human and we can take back the island later but Rat Necromorph Dracula is something I'd really rather not let out of sight any longer than necessary.