Trials of the Desert Republic (IC)

[Ipphli]

Search (1d20)[13]

[estradling]

Search (1d20+7)[24]

[Vazzaroth]

Search:(1d20+0)[3]

Kent can't make his mind up at first, but finally decides to go too.
sheeeit. he mumbles as he gets up and follows a ways behind Micheal, trying to stay out of site of any possible hostiles.

((Hide and Move silently taking 10 = 15 for both.))

[Townopolis]

Morgan

Morgan casually lopes along beside the others as they descend upon the abandoned park. He lets his gaze sweep over the debris as they pass through, but keeps one eye turned outward, keeping a half watch as they pass.

search - (1d20+1)[16]

[TwoBitWriter]

Brigham

Spoiler

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While searching through one of the trailers, you find a small wooden box hidden underneath a pile of debris. It is labeled as belonging to the DR Regular Army. The material inside seems to be the ruined remains of various army supplies. However, you find two MRE rations with the vacuum seal still intact. You also find an old Beretta 92f 9mm pistol. However, there is no ammunition for it and it only has an empty clip with it that can hold 15 rounds. It is also very rusty and appears damaged. It will most likely require the attention of a trained gunsmithy.

Morgan

Spoiler

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You nearly step on a rattlesnake and barely dodge its lethal strike. You quickly bash it to pulp with your hammer, then notice something metallic glint in the sunlight. Upon further inspection you discover a large machete that is surprisingly in almost perfect shape save for a small coating of dust and a bit of dried blood on the end of it. You also see a Ranger badge lying in the ground near where the machete had been.

Everyone

The trailer park is full of broken-down and rusted out trailers. You see the occasional signs of its former status as a military outpost, but anything that may be useful has long been abandoned. Upon further inspection you notice that there are several broken arrows and crossbow bolts lying around and sticking out of the ground. You see no bodies but in the large central area of the park where there are no trailers you see a flurry of footsteps and places where the dust had been pushed away or kicked up. There had been a battle here at some point, and it was fairly recent. Wagon wheel tracks and horse or donkey prints from at least two wagons head east, across the opening in the canyon toward I-40.

[Ipphli]

Bryan

Bryan looks around the battlefield in the middle of the park, then goes over to Kent. "You still want the rifle? You can borrow it if you want, at least until the mission is over. Then we can talk more about trading for it." He hands the rifle and the bullets over. "Just be sure to save the shell casings so they can be reused."

[Serje]

Michael

"Well, I can't find anything. Anyone have any luck?" He stares around the trailer park, looking at the signs of battle that had been left here. How'd he learn to handle a gun anyways.. he thinks to himself as he listens to Bryan offering away the gun. "You know how to shoot one of them things then Kent? I've never even had my hands on one before, nevermind long enough to practice with 'em."

[Townopolis]

Morgan

Morgan crouched to look closely at his find, and called to the rest of the group.

"Hey! Come 'ere!"

Picking up the machete, he swished it in the air a bit, and brushed off the dust, then poked at the badge a little with it before picking the badge up as well.

"Well, at least we know we're on the right track, eh? Wonder how that one guy with the gun got separated now..."

He rubbed his fingers over the ranger badge, slowly cleaning its surface of dust and dirt and generally fiddling with it as he waited for someone else to come over and provide their thoughts on it. The machete he held in his other hand, tapping it rhythmically against his leg.

[estradling]

Brigham

"I did." the young man replies to Micheal.

"A couple MRE's and a pistol thats in bad shape and has no ammo. I'm not sure I can fix it, and without ammo it of no use to us now right now anyways, but later on once back in town I might get it working again."

[Vazzaroth]

Kent

Kent accepts the rifle.

All right. I ain't never had a chance to shoot anybody with one... but I've popped quite a decent number of bullets in my time. Call it... a benefactor. See these right here? He holds up his two daggers, you now see they have small loops on one side of them. Bayonets. Right off of the guns my tutor used to own.

Kent smiles, then goes over and checks out the other's findings. He goes over to Morgan first.

Maybe he overslept, and they went on. Or was poisoned by the scorps.

[Ipphli]

Bryan

Bryan nods in agreement. "Or he went off to scout and never came back. Who knows? Although that's two dead rangers now. How many were in that squad anyways?"

[Townopolis]

Morgan

Morgan chewed his lip as he listened to the others and flipped the badge over in his hand.

"My guess is that he's the survivor o' this and got stung by the scorps while trying to get back in radio range...

Ah well, we won't find out standing around, now will we?"

Passing the badge off to the first willing taker, Morgan turned his attention elsewhere, noting the wagon tracks as he twirled the machete around in circles and figure-eights in his left hand.

"As for the rest of our buddies, They're in those wagons, bandits carrying them back... which means they may still be alive. Which means we should hurry before they're not, eh?"

[estradling]

Brigham

The young man's faces falls as Morgan tell the story. "That does seem to fit all the facts we have at the moment. The first group gets attacked here, and loses. That would imply an ambush and some advanced knowledge on the other side."

[Serje]

Michael

Michael accepted the badge from Morgan, putting it away in his pocket for safe-keeping. He takes another look around the battlefield, this time paying attention to the tracks leading away from it. "How many of them do you think survived this and went that way?" he says, pointing towards the canyon opening.

"The man back at that house. Well, he's dead now, but he could have escaped. Who knows how many others could have survived and escaped? Or survived and been taken away... You're right anyway Morgan, we should get goin' as soon as we can. Which would be now, really." He looks over to their newly appointed leader before saying "Permission to get movin' Doc?"

[Ipphli]

Bryan

Bryan shakes his head. "We should wait til dark. There's no cover out there. Who knows whether we've already been spotted? No point making ourselves easy targets. We've already shown we can handle the rads. Rather face them out there than who knows how many bandits."

[estradling]

Brigham

The young man listened as the other discussed options. There where pros and cons to either choice. Brigham didn't feel he had enough experience to make a good suggestion either way so he remained silent and waited

[Townopolis]

Morgan

"That's a point. That and rads seem a wee bit less likely to warn each other of our coming, guess we wait out the heat."

Poking around the park, Morgan finds himself a decent shelter, preferably something with shade and a general lack of venemous critters. There he roots around in his pack for something to wrap around the machete's blade for travel. He decides on his spare shirt, and carefully covers the blade before tucking it in the pack. After that, he leans back and waits for the sun to die.

[TwoBitWriter]

(Until Penril shows up again to post I am going to NPC his character.)

You find as comfortable a spot of shade in the park that you are able and rest for the day, catching as much shuteye as you are able and awaiting the night. It takes several hours, but eventually you see the sun finally beginning to set. You pack up your arms and gear and prepare to follow the tracks.

At night the air is quite cool, enough to even make you shudder and zip up your jackets.
The wagon tracks are harder to track at night than you originally though. Fortunately, the tracks are deep in the sand and only small sections are blown away by wind. However, the going is still very slow. It is pitch black outside and you cannot see far at all. You keep close to one another so that you don't lose sight of each other.

You pass by the dried out shell, turned white, of a rad scorpion about the size of a labrador retriever. There are no signs of any of the scorpions, but you keep your guard up.

At about four in the morning you reach the western ridge, and the I-40 highway. The tracks lead to the highway, which stretches far to the north and south, and abruptly ends. The highway itself is mostly bare save for the occasional broken-down and rusted out vehicle that sits on or just off the road itself.

Determining by the angle that the tracks left the sand on to the road your best guess is that the wagon turned south. After about another hour of cautiously following the highway you see two campfires in the distance. You pull out your binoculars and see the wagon, converted from the bed of a Chevy pickup truck. You see two horses off to the side, munching in their feed bags.

The wagon is empty and you see no sign of the Rangers. However, you do see approximately eight men sitting around the fires eating. Each one wears a bright red bandanna, the mark of Los Banditos.

Seven of the Banditos are armed with crossbows and various melee weapons ranging from knives to baseball bats. One of the men has a shotgun slung over his back.

(Everyone roll spot checks for additional information. I will roll for Penril unless he jumps back in.)

[Serje]

Michael

Looks like we found ourselves the bandits... Michael thinks to himself as the wagon comes into sight. He hunches down, making himself as small as possible, before pulling out his binoculars. As he stares at them through the lens he whispers to the others, "Any idea how we should go about this? Do you think they travel during the day or night? If they go to sleep during the night we could always sneak in, slit their throats."

Spoiler

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Spot - (1d20+2)[17]

[Ipphli]

Bryan

Bryan scans the camp carefully, trying to see any clue as to what happened to the Rangers. He frowns at Michael at the suggestion of slitting throats, but nods as he agrees to the wisdom of the suggestion. "Suppose we could always wait a bit and see. Need to keep an eye out for scouts though. Surprise is about all we got going for us."

Spoiler

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(1d20+4)[19]

[estradling]

Brigham

Hearing talk about attacking the young man gets a bit uncomfortable, "If I am remembering our orders correctly we are to find out what happened to our first group, and complete their mission which was to find the Los Banditos camp and report it back to HQ, so they could launch a strike. There was nothing about us needing to take them on ourselves. So the only real question I am seeing is, is this the main camp or just a scouting group making camp for the night?" Brigham hadn't looked through anyone binoculars yet so he didn't know much about the set up.

Spoiler

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Spot Check - (1d20+2)[16]

[TwoBitWriter]

You all spy another Bandit ride up to the encampment on a horse. He dismounts and begins talking excitedly to the Bandit with the shotgun. The shotgun bandit turns and starts barking orders to his men. All seven of the Bandits get up and gather their possession. After a few moments they, and the leader, begin following the man on the horse further down the highway.

They have abandoned their camp, and left the fires burning. They apparently were in too much of a hurry to bother putting the flames out.

[Townopolis]

Morgan

Not one to wait around, and still a bit unused to keeping to the orders of a leader or larger group, Morgan begins heading forward once the banditos are out of sight. He crouches low as he moves, and keeps an eye out for anything he might find, but he moves quickly.

After a short while, he draws his weapons, just to have them ready in case a rad jumps out at him, and keeps heading for the abandoned camp. Should he get within ten yards of the camp, he stops and hunkers down, scanning it first with his naked eyes, and then sweeping it more thoroughly with his binoculars.

Spoiler

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spot, moving - (1d20+1)[17]
listen, moving - (1d20+1)[14]
spot on camp - (1d20+1)[11]
search with binoculars - (1d20+1)[8]
When he looks over the camp, he's looking for anything that might be hidden or stand out, from a remaining sentry to a booby trap, so I used both checks. If the binocs give a bonus, it's not calculated in, nor are any penalties. Morgan isn't trying particularly hard to move silently.

[Ipphli]

Bryan

Bryan frowns as Morgan moves ahead. He pulls out his bow and sets an arrow on the string before moving after him. He keeps an eye out mostly for raiders either returning or moving to catch up to the others. He stops a few feet behind Morgan, making sure he has a clear field of fire between himself and the camp.

Spoiler

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Spot (1d20+4)[20]
Move Silent (1d20)[5]
Listen (1d20)[14]

[Vazzaroth]

When Morgan gets up, Kent quickly follows suit, keeping the rifle ready. He moves stealthily, he wouldn't put it past these bandits to set up an ambush.

Spoiler

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Hide if possible(1d20+5)[12]
Move Silently(1d20+5)[16]
Spot(1d20+1)[21]

[Serje]

Michael

Michael stays hunkered in his position until the other three had started moving. He considered following Morgan down quickly but decided being stealthy would be a better option, he'd prefer to get to the campsite slower and alive than rush down noticed by anyone still watching the site. Once he gets to the campsite, assuming no hostiles have appeared, he will begin searching for anything useful that they could have left behind.

Spoiler

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Move Silently - (1d20+7)[22] Hide - (1d20+7)[17] Listen - (1d20+2)[18] Spot - (1d20+2)[14] Search - (1d20-1)[8] Use those rolls as appropriate, I don't know how many are needed

[estradling]

Brigham

Not being good at the whole stealth thing, Brigham holds back until other get the all clear

[TwoBitWriter]

You sneak up to the camp, everyone does a good job of staying in the shadows and keeping quiet. That is, until Bryan accidentally trips over an unseen rock and trips in the sand, grunting loudly. You all freeze for a moment, listening for any consequences of what just happened. After a minute or so you decide to continue creeping forward.

You enter the camp, and the warm glow of the still burning fires. This is definitely not a permanent settlement, but the bandits left in such a hurry that they left many of their supplies behind. Michael even finds an old military fragmentation grenade in one of the bandit's packs. Kent finds four shotguns shells.

(Brigham, since you didn't go with the main group, roll a spot check.)
(Everyone else, roll listen checks.)

[Ipphli]

Listen (1d20)[17]

[Townopolis]

listen - (1d20+1)[16]
Seeing nothing particular in the camp, Morgan lets the others poke around while he waits.