Lance’s alarm woke him 2 hours later, he got up ‘Duplicated’ the 30 pack of beer, reset his alarm, and crawled back into bed. The disturbance was no different than having to verify changing of fire-watch or ammunition and weapons guards on a field exercise. 2 hours later he repeated the cycle, this time making another box of 5.56 mm ammo. The next time the alarm went off, he got up for the day. He went to the cab of his truck and duplicated one of the cases of artillery simulators, and packed some of them in his assault pack. He climbed back in the camper and grabbed a bottle of water and a toaster pastry for breakfast.
Finished with all that, he geared up, grabbed his AR and headed toward the center of the clearing. There he saw Bj?rn, Grimble, and the two men he had seen with Bj?rn during the bandit attack standing next to the small rekindled fire. They were drinking some kind of warm drink that they offered to Lance. Taking a drink, he found that it had a slightly bitter, but not unpleasant, taste somewhere between tea and coffee. The others appeared to be finishing up their drinks, so he downed his and asked what the plan was.
One of the álfar men named Viggr Skuggihelm, said that they would have to travel up the mine trail on foot. They didn’t have any riding stock except for Bj?rn’s daleva (the llama draft horse looking beast), and Lance’s vehicle made too much noise. Lance was fine with dogging it (marching or foot patrol) to the mine. And asked about scouting ahead, what to do about traps if there were any, their objective on target, how they were going to exfiltrate (leave after completion or in retreat), what each person’s role was during each phase of the operation. Lance had trained many junior leaders in preparing an operations order or Op-order as they were called in jargon, and gave each of these men a short tutorial in what an abbreviated op-order consisted of and what it meant.
Breaking it down into op-order format, he presented them with:
Situation
unknown persons, possibly aggressive or
belligerent, located at an indicated bandit
camp, with unknown resources.
Mission
reconnoiter, and capture or kill identified
bandits, rescue possible captives, and collect
intel and/or resources (food, supplies, loot)
Execution
Travel will be conducted in column formation,
order of march will be Viggr (scout/rogue),
Lance, Grimble, Bj?rn, and Skyti.
Upon arrival at the objective, Viggr and Lance
will observe for lookouts, traps, and impediments
and adjust tactical assault as necessary.
Entry will be made to the camp/mines to clear
them of any bandits or captives.
Sensitive site exploitation (searching for
intelligence and/or resources) will be conducted
before exfiltration on foot.
Service & Support
All equipment, food, and water will be
individually carried. Medical support to be
provided by Grimble (designated medic) or
Self-aid.
Command & Signal
Bj?rn will have overall command and decision
to proceed or abort. Lance will have tactical
command for activities on target. Verbal signal.
Ready to proceed with their mission, they found the caravaneer that Bj?rn designated as his second-in-command, Vilhelm Fartegn, and Lance impressed upon them one other thing that he had ingrained from his deployments and training. The GOTWA: Who was Going, what Others were going with, the expected Time of return, What to do if they didn’t return on time, and Actions to take beyond that. So Lance was going and he was taking Bj?rn, Viggr, Grimble, and Skyti with him. They expected to be back by nightfall. If they hadn’t made it back by nightfall, Villhelm was to wait until approximately two hours after sunrise the next morning, and proceed on to the next city, upon arrival he was to report the bandit activity and their camp location to the city guards and the local Union chapter. Apparently the Union was what passed for an adventurer’s or mercenary guild.
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Leaving the clearing, they shifted into column formation (single file) and Viggr set the pace up the road. About an hour-and-a-half later, Viggr stopped their progress and said that they were getting close. Over the next half hour, he would range ahead looking for sentries or traps, and then come back and lead the group forward, to then stop them and repeat the cycle. Viggr came back to the group for the final time in their travel and indicated that just over a crest in the road, they would be able to see the campsite and mine. He said that there were no sentries in sight. Lance crept up to the crest of the road on his belly and barely peeked over. He agreed with Viggr that there were no apparent lookouts or guards. Based on the number and size of the tents in front of the mine entrance, he could easily believe that they had dealt with all of the bandits on the road. But they couldn’t be sure until the cleared the camp.
They left Skyti, with his bow, and Grimble at the crest in the road for overwatch and crept down to the nearest ten. Bj?rn was a surprisingly agile and quiet man for his large size, and they arrived at their destination unseen and unheard. In this situation, Lance’s rifle was a double edged sword, it gave them the tactical advantage against opponents at range, but would alert anyone left in the camp if he had to engage. Slinging the rifle behind his back, he checked that his pistol was secure but easily freed in his holster, and drew his Arkansas Toothpick from its sheath on his load bearing vest. The knife was his pride and joy. 12 inches of tapered, double edged, damascus steel, with a sharkskin wrapped walnut handle, he had handcrafted it himself under the direction of a blacksmith friend of his. Not quite a short sword, it was well into the fighting knife category. Ducking into the tent, with Bj?rn right on his heel, he broke to the left and Bj?rn to the right. There were empty bedrolls and bags spread about, but no bandits present. Exiting the tent, they moved to the next. Viggr and he repeated the exercise on tent number two with the same results. The third tent had Bj?rn and Viggr repeating the process. They continued on until they had cleared all six tents with no sign of bandits present.
With the tents and surrounding space clear of any bandits, they waved for Skyti and Grimble to join them. All together again, they moved to the shack built into the entrance to the mine. With the shack having a stick through a hasp on the outside of the door, Lance was relatively sure there would be no bandit inside, and even if there was, they wouldn’t be getting out on their own. He and Bj?rn stacked up beside the door, while Skyti stood back with an arrow aimed at the doorway. Lance motioned for Viggr to remove the lock and pull the door open. Tossing a couple of light sticks through the door first, the entered to find a simply furnished room with a bed, table, and chair. There were two doors off the room one latched closed with another stick, and one with a somewhat durable looking lock.
They moved to the door locked with the stick first. Copying the same procedure that they had used coming into the shack, Viggr swung the door open . Lance tossed the light sticks in through the open door, and they bounced off the wall. Illuminated by Lance’s headlight and the glow from the light sticks, there was a thin weary woman probably in her fifties sitting on a small ramshackle cot. She drew back in fear, but other than that just sat there. Seeing no weapons, and interpreting the fact that her gender and being locked in what was basically a closet indicated she was a captive of some sort, Lance stepped back and waved the others off. He then motioned for Grimble to step forward to interact with the woman.
After Grimble’s ministrations of nature magic, the woman sat a little straighter and had a little more color in her cheeks. It turned out that she had been a prisoner of the bandit leader for a couple of years. She was expected to fix his food, wash and mend his clothing, and keep his space generally clean. She said that he protected her from the other bandits’ advances, and had never tried to compromise her virtue. His taste apparently trended in another direction. Hearing from her that the bandit leader had locked her in her “room” because they were all going to go on a raid yesterday, Lance allowed himself to lower his guard slightly. According to the woman (her name was Hedda), the other locked door led to a room where the bandits’ cache of stolen goods was, and beyond that was a door into the mine.
None of them had seen any kind of key when they were dealing with the bodies of the bandits. So, Viggr approached the door, and took some slim metal tools out of a pouch on his waist. Lance assumed they were some sort of lock picks. It was only a matter of a few minutes before Viggr had the door unlocked. Dropping back into breaching formation, just in case, they opened the door and tossed in the light sticks. Lance followed them in, breaking to the left, and then sweeping around in a 180 degree turn panning his light across the whole room. There was nobody in the room and it was partially filled with crates and chests. Lance moved over to one of the crates and pried the top off of it. Inside were bolts of cloth. Breaking open another crate, he found simple daggers. Viggr was kneeling in front of one of the chests working on the inset lock. What he found when he opened it was an assortment of jewels and jewelry.
Bj?rn cleared his throat and spoke. “Well gentlemen, it looks like there is much here to recover. I am not sure how we will do so, but we must take it with us and check with the Union first to see if there are any reports identifying any of these goods or items.”
Lance spoke up then, saying that he had seen a wagon on the far side of the camp. If it was rigged correctly, he could hook it to the pintle hitch on the back of his truck and they could load everything in it. They went out and checked the wagon, and the tongue had an iron ring that would fit perfectly on his hitch. Making plans with Bj?rn, Lance would hurry back down the road to the caravan and bring back his truck, while the others emptied out the store room and loaded it into the wagon.
Lance hurried down the road. Without having to worry about encountering bandit lookouts or traps, he was able to move much faster than their pace up to the mine. Keeping his eyes peeled for beasts, he quickly hiked back to the caravan. Entering the clearing, he found Vilhelm and updated him on how things went and what they were doing. He then climbed in his truck, backed out line, and drove to the road. Without Grimble here, the small wall of bushes that camouflaged their entryway would not be easily moved out of the way. So Lance pulled up to them with his brush guard on the front of the truck, put it in 4 wheel drive low, and drove over the bushes and saplings. Hopefully Grimble would be able to rejuvenate the plant life when they got back.
When Lance arrived back at the mine encampment, he had been gone for less than an hour total, but the rest of the group had already loaded the wagon up and were carrying the last bits out of the storeroom. Lance moved his crates of pyro from the back of his truck to the camper, took a moment to ‘Duplicate’ another case of soda, and grabbed his gear. He wanted to take a look into the mine before they headed back to the caravan. Getting Viggr to come with him in case there was a lock on the door, he headed back into the storeroom. Once again, Viggr made short work of the simple lock on the door. Just to be on the safe side, the treated it like another door breach, and Viggr pushed the door open as Lance chucked in some new light sticks. Everything looked clear, and they were just about to step into the mine when they heard scratching and screeching coming from further in.
Lance handed a flashlight to Viggr, and kept his headlamp aimed into the mine tunnel. Then as a precaution, he grabbed one of his artillery simulators out of his pack. In moments, their lights reflected off of a hoard of eyes. Lance could barely pick out the shape of rat looking creatures from the size of a beagle up to as large as a Rottweiler. Along with the rats, there were enough softball to volleyball size spiders crawling along the ceiling to make it look like the ceiling was moving. Lance shouted out, “Oh heck, naw!!” He pulled the fuse on the arty sim chucked it into the tunnel and jerked the door closed. There was a muffle whump and he felt the shock-wave blast against the door, but the heavy wooden door held up just fine. He slapped the lock back on the door as he got a “DING”
Rats of Grotesque Proportions x 35 Slain. Energy Gained 350.
Cave Spider x 20 Slain. Energy gained 200.
Level increased by 1. 3 Free Attribute Points Gained.
New Profession Skill Gained – ‘Sapper’.
He would need to look over his status and assign points tonight.
Pretty sure he had seen more than 55 critters stampeding up the tunnel. He made the decision to take a hard pass on exploring the mine right now. He would want to be properly rested and outfitted before even thinking about tackling that again. They now knew why there was a lock on the door. Heading back outside, the others had already gotten the wagon tongue hooked to his pintle hitch. He had Hedda, Skyti, and Viggr sit in the back seat, while he, Grimble, and Bj?rn squeezed into the front. Bj?rn was a very big man. Pulling the wagon, Lance kept the truck in 4-low and they moved down the road pretty slowly.
Just as they were arriving back at the clearing, Grimble spoke up. “Lance, you need to unhook the wagon, and travel back to the Traveler’s Ring as soon as possible. Another traveler just arrived!”
