As the power-armored bandit nicknamed "Gasket" roars towards his enemies on wings of fire (heedless to the fact that most of his friends have got completely trounced), a long trail of sooty black smoke hangs in the air and joins the faint glowing trails left by the teleports to give the appearance of a giant three-clawed hand reaching out to strike the heroes' defensive position. A flurry of activity breaks out among some of the train's defenders, while others hang back and watch or keep their defensive readiness. This isn't suprising - among a group of nobles and adventurers, even experienced warriors, it takes some time before they can truly coordinate and act as a unit, even *if* they are expecting to have to fight on any given outing!<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Well I was a bit delayed myself, so I'm definitely not going to wait for Sevana and Cassandra's actions before moving forward. They will get one last, brief window to take an action at the end of this round, but tomorrow morning I'm going to post a tiny update consisting of the new initiative order!<br/><br/>First action: Quill drenches the psionic alligator in delicious goop. <a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358245">agility evasion (goopzooka)</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d4</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">2</span>. IT'S SUPER-EFFECTIVE! As an enemy with high toughness but low agility the gators are an ideal target for Quill's weapon. However because of Quill's so-so roll, she doesn't score a raise and so the beast is only partially entangled, giving it a -2 on pretty much everything.<br/><br/>Cass and Sairif hold their actions. Sevana and Ludwig, I'll rule, can see the cannon aiming at them, and thus will automatically use their actions to drop prone. <br/><br/>Arcea cleverly turns to keep her shield between her and Gasket and then uses her sword to make some fillet of alligator. Yasha tries to fire off her fearsome blaster rifle again but it breaks (remember that energy guns always malfunction if you get a 1 on the shooting dice REGARDLESS of wild die!). Then it's the enemies turn.</span><br/><br/>The telegator, like most ambush predators, suffers from tunnel vision once it chooses a target and decides to attack ( some bandits, as one could wryly observe, suffer the same fixation). It has evolved to bring down prey with one good chomp from behind followed by a death-roll. It doesn't give much thought to actually defending itself while launching it's little flank attack. As the big reptile lunged, eyes flashing with hunger as well as psionic energy, it watches blankly with its jaw half-open as a sword goes right into its skull. Its tough hide isn't enough to deflect a blade wielded by one with Arcea's strength. When Arcea pulls her arm back, the gator looks intact except for a tiny red mark on the top of its head - but the precise strike slays it so instantly that it just lays down its head and gives a little annoyed grunt before going still.<br/><br/>The other one, flaring its nostrils as it picks up the delectable scent of elf-flesh in front of it, doesn't even try to dodge the glob of rapidly-expanding fruity slime which thuds into its side. Its jaw gets halfway covered with the goop and when it yawns its may wide to try and get a taste of Celrie, the goop stretches stubbornly like chewing gum, putting half of its teeth out of action in addition to its foreleg getting stuck to its belly. The reptile lashes its tail angrily but doesn't take its eyes off of Celrie...<br/><br/>The poor smoldering marten on the ground is still twitching. Although her sister rodent seems more interested in pressing the attack against any noble small enough to get her jaws around, the distant cannon crew couldn't help but notice the burst of bright energy fire which Sevana had just pumped out, and considered her an even more prominent threat than Yasha's deadly aim. The big wolf at Sevana's side worries them too. Seeing the barrel pointing right at them, the perceptive Sevana prepares to scramble towards cover and directs her pet to do likewise.<br/><br/>After being stalled for some time, the explosion-loving cannon crew bandits decide that even if they're going to run, they would be most disappointed if they didn't get to fire off the cannon they dug up from an old battlefield in earnest. There is a thunderous blast and a big puff of smoke appears on the horizon as it fires at Sevana!<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic"><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358278">explosive shell centered on Sevana (shooting)</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d6</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">4</span><br/>The shell is on target! the 3-inch radius hits both Sevana and Ludwig unless they can make an agility roll to avoid it. To speed up the game I'll go ahead and so so for them:<br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358284">agility evasion</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d8+1d6</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">8</span> (7 and 1). This agility test is at a -2, so Sevana's 7 becomes a 5, which still allows her to dodge the blast, taking no damage.<br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358289">agility evasion</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d8</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">7</span> Same result, 7-2=5, so Ludwig also dodges the blast easily.</span><br/><br/>There is an ear-splitting boom and a plume of earth gets thrown skyward as the shell hits where Sevana had been a mere moment ago. Yasha is close enough to the blast to get showered with flying dirt, but fortunately she had enough experience as a pirate to cover her sensitive ears as a reflex upon hearing the cannon shot. Ludwig whines unhappily in the ditch he dove into but seems unharmed as well.<br/><br/>Just as the first explosive projectile bursts, another high-speed projectile is striking its home - but this projectile is of the manned, armor-encased variety. Gasket first looks like he's going to crash in a heap without quite reaching Arcea... but then he extends one of his armor's long clawed forelegs (the claws themselves seem to be made from farming implements and kitchen utensils - apparently, this eccentric bandit ran out of good blades when building it because one of the claws is a salad fork)... Using the engine-wings and tail as a counterbalance, the bandit mech tries to bring down all of the force of his descent concentrated in that one blow. Rather than trying to hit any vulnerable spot, he seems to be just trying to hit Arcea with as much force as possible to knock her to the ground where she'll hopefully be at the tender mechanized mercies of his claws..<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Gasket makes a (wild) push attack on Arcea. The +2 to hit from momentum and the -2 from multi-action (he sprinted before jumping) cancel out. It's at this point that the rules get a little complicated. Theoretically, since Arcea had a held attack action, he's attacking at the same moment that Arcea strikes the gator down, since it's all on the same initiative count. For the moment, I'm going to err on the side of drama and assume this gives the power armor the "ganging up" bonus on his attack... but then I realized it doesn't apply to strength rolls anyway *facepalm* The power armor and Arcea make opposed strength checks - if Arcea fails she'll be knocked prone.<br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358299">Push Attack on Arcea</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d12</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">8</span><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358300">strength (resist push)</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d10+1d6</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">9 + 4</span><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358301">Push Attack on Arcea (GM bennie)</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d12</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">5</span><br/><br/>Arcea holds her ground and absorbs the hit without falling.</span><br/><br/>The male and female crossbow bandits, advancing briskly while reloading, give an excited whoop when Gasket makes his rocket-assisted charge. However, they falter in their advance when they see the catgirl leader stop his headlong rush cold! But since they're still receiving supporting fire and Yasha's blaster just went out, they decide they still like their odds; they're still smiling, despite the carnage and chaos.<br/><br/>"Hey, pirate girl!" The bikini-armor clad raccoon girl said, still clutching her scythe as she poked her head up out of the tall grass. "Looks like those there Imperial bitches have sabotaged your gun already! Once this is over they'll say you was with us and arrest ya! C'mon, help us take 'em! Boss, get back here and offer her a share!" she shouts at the squirrel with a note of desperation in her voice, taking a moment to look over her shoulder to try and coax her cowering leader back into the skirmish.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic"> Taunt attempt on Yasha. <a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358310">taunt at Yasha</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d6</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">1</span> Since she rolled a one, no roll to resist is necessary.</span><br/><br/>Seeing Cassandra and her canine companion blocking her path to Quill and bristling with defenses, the remaining marten girl chitters angrily and flinches away from the explosion before nimbly darting around Sevana in a crouched posture and launching herself towards Yasha, who was left without a weapon in her hands! "This is going bad but I can still get a nice LUNCH!" she shouted in her squeaky voice.  Unfortunately Yasha wasn't distracted... except by the stun baton the marten feinted with as she made a leaping, wide-mouthed lunge at the famous squirrel...<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Fighting of 1d8... -2 for sprinting before the attack, +2 for an unarmed defender when attacker is armed, +2 for wild attacking. I'd like to see the NPCs get a belly hostage so, full disclosure, I'm going to dump all available GM bennies into this one (and since Maribel is an ally now I'm not deducting the ones spent on her!). <br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358314">vore grapple on Yasha</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d8+2</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">5</span><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358315">vore defense vs marten</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d6+1d6</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">4+4</span><br/>Yasha is grappled and partially swallowed, unless she decides to use bennies of her own! If she doesn't escape the grapple during her turn, she'll be automatically swallowed at the start of the marten's next turn. Too bad the cute little bandit had to dive into the middle of a bunch of much stronger enemies to get her meal! But don't forget that any attacks on her whilst she's grappling will hit Yasha instead if you roll a 1 on the attack die!</span><br/><br/>...and all of a sudden, Yasha has bigger problems than her now useless rifle. Even if it hadn't overloaded itself (shoddy craftsmanship perhaps, though any weaponsmith who could make blasters that at least failed non-explosively when they misfired was good enough by most folk's standards). Yasha now found herself with a sudden great weight bearing her down from the front and could see nothing except inky blackness and a little bit of pink throat-flesh. The sound of a rumble coming from the space underneath her head drowned out the sounds of the battle outside.<br/><br/>The gummed-up gator decides it'd rather go for Celrie even with its impariment, and tries to fit its jaw around one of her feet to start in on her.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Since we're on the subject and I think Celrie would rather get gulped than chomped up, I'll go ahead and have the entangled gator have a try against Celrie. It is getting a -2 on its attempt from the entangling but still has a fair chance:<br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358318">vore attack on celrie</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d8-2</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">1</span><br/><a class="postlink" href="http://orokos.com/roll/358319">vore defense vs gatr</a>: <span style="text-decoration: underline">1d6+1d6</span> <span style="font-weight: bold">3+6</span><br/></span><br/><br/>However, it is too encumbered by Quill's marvelous concoction to even have a chance of getting the nimble elf's shapely legs in its maw.<br/><br/>And throughout all of this chaos Alexis proceeded on her way, ears flattened against her head as she bore the satchel of explosives towards the logs blocking the track. She stays pressed against the train cars themselves most of the time to hopefully dissuade the gunners from targeting her.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">And end of round, whew! I'll post new initiatives next time but initiative will honestly be pretty loose. In fact, I'm considering just switching to a 'first posted, first resolved' system alternating between PCs and enemies. We can discuss that sunday. Either way, if Cass and Sevana don't take any (additional) actions before the first post of the next turn they'll be considered to have full-defended.</span>