EVENT #16: CRITICAL INFORMATION

[vivalamods]

Event #16: CRITICAL INFORMATION

Snow covers the Upper and Lower Isles. People gather indoors to keep warm and enjoy good food and company. However, in the halls of the Varschein Palace tensions are high. The Emperor grows restless and hungry for battle. He summons several high ranking officers and advisors to meetings behind closed doors.

Then Corsair spies intercept a risky cry for help from near the palace, aimed to the Isles Below. A leader in the Treasury, Odilo Durst, wishes to surrender to the Corsairs in exchange for protection for his family. Corsair spies confirm that he has been in attendance at the Emperor's closed-door meetings, which no spy has infiltrated, meaning Odilo's claims of having vital information are believable.

After intense debate, Corsair leaders accept the exchange. Spies are sent to smuggle Odilo off of the small capital island of Varschein, while elsewhere his family is taken to safety. This mission is in the very heart of the Empire and carries high risk for all involved, with Imperial Intelligence already starting to take notice of a possible threat.

Additional information for the setting and NPC is written in the comments below.

MISSIONS

Winter Traditions: The final month of the year brings the annual feast, as the Great Sea Monster Hunt comes to an end.
Description: Once again Flotsam is alive with celebration and heavy with grog. The Vault has dug through their archives to find decorations from the Old Religion for winter celebration. Characters might help prepare and decorate, enjoy the celebrations, learn old traditions, play in the snow, or slip in a final sea monster hunt.

Informant Extraction Branch 1: The Corsairs must get Odilo Durst out of the Varschein Palace.
Status: Open
Description: Imperial Intelligence is vaguely aware that the Corsairs are after information about the Emperor's secret meetings and have their eyes on all officials and officers who have been in attendance. Once it is discovered Odilo has disappeared from his office, all guards will be on high alert. Be careful of the skills of the Palace Guards, and choose carefully where to hide and who to trust. There are servant entrances and plenty of large decorations to hide behind, but the palace has many more competent guards than the streets, and the outside is even more heavily guarded. Bring Odilo to the agreed upon meeting place right outside the neighboring forest.
2-3 participants may take part in this prompt.

Informant Extraction Branch 2: The Corsairs must transport the Informant, Odilo, from the edge of Varschein to a disguised Corsair airship with the Empire now searching for them by land and air.
Status: Open
Description: With the informant finally out of the palace, there's a limited time before the guards are sent in pursuit. Odilo must be led safely through a few miles of snowy field and forest with the palace's armor pilots doing aerial sweeps overhead.
2-3 participants may take part in this prompt.

Informant Extraction Final Branch: The Corsairs must fight off the Imperial forces on their heels, and return to Corsair controlled territory below. Odilo, or at least the information he carries, must make it to the Lower Isles.
Status: Open
Description: With Odilo on board, Corsairs can turn their attention either to defending against those chasing, or to rushing to recording the information Odilo has for the Corsairs. Odilo is not used to battle, and might struggle to speak coherently at first.

2-3 participants may take part in this prompt.
As the final step in the mission, players are welcome to decide or roll a dice whether the Informant lives, is injured, or dies in this battle. Please inform the mods what the result will be for next month's event.

OOC INFORMATION

-Each branch of the Extraction Mission is meant to be carried out by different characters, with the Informant NPC being handed off to the next group. If after a few days we are short on participants, you may have your character participate in more than one branch.

-No log leaders are required for these missions, but Odilo may be played by any participants. Feel free to throw a particularly difficult enemy into your threads- we didn't want to introduce an NPC enemy that demands a log leader in December.

-Keep in mind that major injury to your character might mean they cannot participate like usual when the final battles begin in January.

-Odilo must survive and can only receive minor injuries within the first two branches. His ultimate fate is determined in the final branch. If he is uninjured or lightly injured, he will aid directly in providing information for the finale events. If he is seriously injured or dies, the basic information he has for the Corsairs will be passed on. Either result will give the Corsairs what is needed for January, but the approach and ease can be affected.

-If desired, we can allow up to 2 player characters to be captured during the extraction mission. They will have to escape imprisonment during the chaos of the final battles in January, and may be in terrible physical or mental shape after being tortured for information by the Empire. Please message the mods if you take up this offer so we can discuss.

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Comments

Re: INFORMANT EXTRACTION BRANCH 1 THREAD

[frost_and_shinies]

Perhaps it was too predictable for Kaitlyn Saunders to be providing oversight on this. But in the dead of winter? She was very much in her element - turning basically entirely invisible in little bursts of snow, and passing signals to Natalia as to safe paths, one step at a time.

Just keep setting the path, blades at the ready for if - well, really, when - this operation turned loud. She was confident it would, and quickly.

Re: INFORMANT EXTRACTION BRANCH 1 THREAD

[theriflespiral]

It feels like that every step of the way. "When is it going to go loud."

"When are they going to notice."

"when will the gunfire start."

Step by step, hallway by hallway, down steps, towards one of several exits.

What shocks them both is that the gunfire starts well away from them. "I see the Office found my presents. We'll have to hurry, now."

She opens the door, shouts to the guards. "You two! I'm moving this VIP out of the danger area. Make sure no one escapes!"

They stand, salute, move to guard the exit as Natalia breaks into a hurried march, with Odilo in tow.

Not that she's expecting that to stop Intelligence Office for long.

But it doesn't need to be confusing for long: Only just long enough.

Re: INFORMANT EXTRACTION BRANCH 1 THREAD

[frost_and_shinies]

Kaitlyn has to resist the urge to chuckle as the guards move for the exit, while Kaitlyn makes a silenced jump - not yet revealing herself to Natalia nor Odilo.

The only clear mark of her presence is a single icicle flying into a tree, well clear of hitting anyone, but enough of a cue to mark her presence to the aware. It might be good for Natalia to signal that she's got an ally following.

She'll only move when someone finally gets suspicious. Which so far, isn't yet...

Re: INFORMANT EXTRACTION BRANCH 1 THREAD

[theriflespiral]

"A friend will be meeting us soon," Natalia says, quietly, as they walk towards the outer walls. "Be not afraid."

Breathe in. Breathe out. Let the lotus and your anger burn. Let its crystalline heart crack and spatter.

Sadly, it seems like word has already reached through the phone lines to the outer walls. This might be a little tricky.

Re: INFORMANT EXTRACTION BRANCH 1 THREAD

[frost_and_shinies]

Fortunately for Natalia... Kaitlyn has also reached the outer walls. Presumably not through the phone lines.

Two unconscious guards are collapsed around a corner.

"I'll try to keep paths clear, but no simple step through the front like the original Plan 'A'."

[theriflespiral]

"How's B looking..." Natalia closes one eye and looks to the wall into the castle-town. "Nn, still looking better than C."

God. A basic sidearm. She could still use it, but it felt... Bad. She can't believe she's already missing her rifle. "Odilo, I'm going to perform a leap. You're going to have to trust me."

"W-what!?"

[frost_and_shinies]

"You'll be landing in soft snow, at least!", Kaitlyn adds, as she finally makes herself slightly visible past a corner, looking out a window. "... Path's clear for this."

Immediately, she hopped out the window - using her climbing power to get on the wall outside, scramble down, and start creating a large pile of snow suitable for absorbing a fall.

Hopefully, no complications would come up for Natalia or Odilo in the time it took Kait to do this - not that that was very long.

[theriflespiral]

Reports of gunfire from the exit. Intelligence Office, it seems, is hot on their tail.

Natalia gets Odilo into a... Perhaps unromantic carry, bunches up, and launches herself and him into the air, reinforcing their bodies with Life magic. She lands, pistol out, and runs from one side of the wall to the other.

Pillboxes atop the towers in the corners begin to open up. Natalia fires one shot with the pistol. Two. One pillbox goes silent. How anyone could be that precise with a shot at that range with a pistol and hit two people with ricochets is simply a matter of Natalia being Natalia.

But...

They have gained the wall, and are over it.

"Now, we need to cross this no-man's land..."

[frost_and_shinies]

And that's when the snow on two sides begins to solidify, some of it gusting away to make something like a trench.

"They'll be able to figure out a way past this soon enough," Kaitlyn says, "So let's move."

Kait's powers couldn't create super thick ice - enough to slow bullets, but not stop them entirely. Their best hope was keeping moving. And now, she was directly moving alongside Natalia and Odilo.

[theriflespiral]

"Understood. On your feet, Odilo, it is time to run."

"W-- wait. I- I've seen you two's wanted posters! They sent--"

"Their very best operatives. You shall meet more soon, but first we speed our feet." Natalia's powers kicked up the wind into a tailwind, and obscured visibility. "We run!"

[frost_and_shinies]

"For the record, that poster of me is crazy off," Kaitlyn noted, even as the snowgusts, ice wall, and partial trench offered... A semblance of a path. A path she was already moving to take.

"They'll probably think to send people on foot eventually. Obscuring the route we took with wind gusts will screw that up!"

[theriflespiral]

"H-hold on, I've only worked a desk job, give it a second--"

"We're running 'til we barf, friend, here, a breath." A simple expression of rhythm and Life to restore Odilo's breath, something he clearly found most uncanny.

"... So this is why you two are feared."

"As for obscuring, I can only circulate air so much, but..." Step. Turn, tap, down, and the flurries rise and fall and rise, shifting the drifts. "I might as well make us a puzzle to solve."

[frost_and_shinies]

"Honestly, we're not very high up in how dangerous we are," Kaitlyn clarified, as she tossed up some extra bits of ice to possibly trip followers.

"Effective is more the word."

She's not watching her work particularly carefully - favoring quick bits that may only trip one person and hoping that'll be enough.

[theriflespiral]

"Oh, sure, that submarine of that one captain's just insane as destructive force goes. And we don't even have an Armor. We're not military assets, really." Says the woman who has personally killed or aided in the death of three legates.

[frost_and_shinies]

"Point taken," Kaitlyn observes. "Right now, though? Our goal's much, much simpler. We get you out of here."

Were those shouts of soldiers trying to pursue? They couldn't even see well enough to try shooting yet.

"Just gotta plot course carefully..."

There were still visible landmarks to work off of, thankfully.

[theriflespiral]

"Speaking of-- No time for talking, time for moving. Rendezvous past the tree-line." The moment Odilo hesitates, she picks him up in both hands and continues booking it as if he were a bunch of grapes.

[frost_and_shinies]

Natalia's sheer strength is impressing Kaitlyn, not that she's saying anything as she keeps moving... Stopping when she recognizes a chokepoint to throw a solid wall of ice up and screw any pursuers up even further.

Is it overkill?

No. Not with what she knows Imperials to be capable of.