Chuckling to themselves, the ranger bandits heft their weapons once again - the two with crossbows keep advancing, taking a couple of potshots at Arcea in the meantime in spite of Maribel's courageous positioning of herself in front of the shielded catgirl. The two crossbow bolts end up thudding into the snowy ground far short of the mark. The one with a rifle, however, straightens her cap and takes aim through the scope. Despite their aggression, they don't seem angry or vicious - watching their casual movements and chatter to one another, one gets the impression that this is all just a game to them. In any case, they seem to be shooting as much to send a message as to actually do any damage. Despite things not going so well so far, the bandits' trump card is still advancing rapidly, and Celrie's display has made them more determined than ever to claim her as a prize.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">The two crossbow rangers shoot but roll poorly and don't hit. Note: on the orokos history, the rifle shot was originally 1d8-2=5, but I forgot to factor in the cover that Maribel was granting - thus it is actually a 2. Since it would have hit otherwise, Maribel takes the shot instead, for 13 damage! This would wound (and possibly kill) her. I make a GM-bennie soak roll, which fails - then spend another GM bennie when the vigor roll to determine if she survives comes up a 2. At this point, the dice roller goes nuts and comes up with THREE eights in a row, a rare triple-ace for a total of 29. That's six raises - most of which is effectively wasted. Suffice to say Maribel's wounds are completely superficial. However, she still faints, and thus will no longer provide cover.</span><br/><br/>But in the process of trying to aim past her scantily-clad (and, from the shooter's point of view, quite crazy) compatriot, the buckskin-clad raccooness fails to account for the blustery wind pushing her bullet to the side, and Maribel's head jerks back violently as the large caliber bullet strikes her in the forehead! The cute raccoon girl drops like a sack of potatoes without making a sound. Arcea instinctively cringes, but when she peeks out from behind her shield, she notices that there isn't any of the... mess... that one would logically expect to result from a head-shot.  Miraculously, the bandit lass with a heart of gold seems to have a skull of some kind of metal as well (or maybe just incredible luck - it's hard to tell at a glance) - there is a bloody graze running all along the top of her head but it doesn't look like the shot penetrated. All the same, the shooter (who can't tell from such a distance) is visibly mortified and lets out a short wail of contrition. "OHNOOOO! I hit - I mean, someone hit Maribel!!"<br/><br/>The male over to her side just laughs again as he pulls out another crossbow bolt. "Ahh, don't worry about it, sis! Silly girl shoulda got out of the line of fire when we done told her!"<br/><br/>Of course, the bandits' attention can't linger for too long on that - as even from such a great distance, they can see the blue beam lancing out from Yasha's blaster rifle, striking a rusty weak point in the remaining armored bandit's breastplate... followed by the large cloud of sizzling sparks and vaporized blood that erupts from his back. The axe-wielding raccoon only stumbles a little bit in his charge, and he doesn't even show a wince of pain. Rather than heroism, this is due to the fact that a direct blaster hit vaporizes parts of the body completely, destroying them so quickly and completely that there is hardly any pain. He grins, thinking that the blast was deflected by his armor, and takes a few more steps forward - Yasha can then see the look of confusion come across her target's face as he feels a wave of sudden exhaustion and numbness come over him. Curiously, he looks down and sees the three inch wide smoking hole right in the middle of his chest. Unwilling to believe his eyes, he actually pokes a finger into the hole, feeling nothing but air. The scruffy raccoon male looks back up to Yasha and gives a helpless shrug of surprise and resignation as he topples over dead.<br/><br/>Back down by the train, the two swift-footed marten girls finally manage to close to within spitting distance of the train's defenders. They both seem very excited and eager to prove themselves, and thus have a sort of tunnel vision that prevents them from seeing that the other three allies who had been a part of their charge are either down, fleeing, or close to both. The one who has gotten closest stares at Quill and hisses loudly as she charges. "Not much good without your big friends covering you, are you, you pampered lil' fuzzball? Come on and see if you can take me on in a fair fight!"<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Via orokos: <br/>Description	taunt on Quill<br/>Results	1d10-2: 1 [1d10=3]<br/><br/>Since she gets a modified result of 1 on her taunt attempt there is no need for Quill to roll smarts to resist (since it's impossible to fail). Sprinting and taunting at the same time wasn't the best strategy, looks like! Especially now that she's plunged into the midst of the enemies without support.<br/><br/>I have to leave for dinner now but I'll get around to posted the updated map sometime tonight, as well as respond to some of Arcea and Celrie's words. Marten 1 is now within 1 inch of Cassandra and Sairif, within 4 inches of Quill, and within 5-6 inches of everyone else. All the others are still 10+ inches away and probably won't reach melee next round. Next in the init order is Celrie.</span>