"Yeah," Mike said. "That red square is Ryker's property, and the dot is his base. We're up north of him, over here. The terrain is completely forested, but the ground itself is pretty clear and easy to get across. The only cover is the ferns, though, so it'll be hard to get close without being seen. With that in mind, we were thinking of going in after dark, maybe a little past midnight, so we can have the element of surprise. The attack will probably go long past dawn, but hopefully we can have the kids out and the base effectively trashed before midday. We may not have a second chance at this, so we don't want to tire out our troops before we're done."
(Off to bed, seeya tomorrow ^^)
“What about Ryker’s troops? How many men does he have? We might be a sizeable force but if this guy has more then that then we might be screwed. Yes, we have over a hundred magic users but… your friends with Tanrial, you know that after a while it becomes tiring, exhausting.” Thranion crossed his arms with a small sigh.
(Sorry I wasn’t on much, family stuff and school was busy today. Seeya ^^)
(np, I probably won't be on much today either)
Mike nodded. "Yeah, she told us. That's one of the reasons will have to be really strategic about this and use what we have to our absolute best advantage. Ryker was very secretive about the amount of soldiers he employed, but from what we saw and heard, I estimate his force to be around two-fifty, maybe a little more. That gives us a fair margin over him, but on the downside we'll be less coordinated and we all have different ranges of specialty–not to mention a real high potential for conflict in our own ranks since we have no clear chain of command. We'll have to work together smoothly if we want to make our numbers count for anything. So, that brings me to my first question: what's everyone's specialty when it comes to combat? What are your troops best at?"
"Close-quarters over water," Polla volunteered. "But we can fight easily on land as well. We use pikes, blades, and bows once in a while."
"Great. Thanks. How about you, Thranion?"
(welp turns out I can't be on at all tonight, sorry TwT)
(Okay)
"Most are more long range fighters, bows and such. With the magic it's harder to use in close combat in fear of injuring one of our own. We do have soldiers who specialised it close combat fighting and magic so that can be used. We don't have many of them, though." Thranrion replied.
"Most of my men are close combat fights, mainly blades but we have a few guns we can use." James said, shrugging.
"I'm only one guy," Rick piped up, "But I can use both long-range and close-quarters tactics. I got plenty of guns and I'm pretty good at hand-to-hand."
"Any good with a knife?"
"Oh, acourse."
"Great. Trouble?"
"We don't use guns," she replied, "But we're good with pretty much anything else. Sneak attacks are what we're best at."
"Good. Dane?"
Dane sat up proudly. "My soldiers specialize in night attacks and we mostly use close-quarters combat with blades and small-caliber firearms. Everyone is trained to handle at least two weapons and to understand both verbal commands and hand-signals. I and the team of commanders under me even have a set of two-way radios we use to stay coordinated on the battlefield."
Mike brightened. "You have radios? That'll be beyond useful. Between that and telepathy, we should be able to talk to each other pretty well." He paused, thinking hard. "All right, magic users, question–can you do magic on a target without being able to see it?"
Thranion sighed a little, "Short answer, yes. Some of us can."
"You brought some of the Night Stalkers, didn't you?" Tanrial narrowed her eyes at Thranion who nodded.
"Yes, I thought their skills would be useful and it turns out, they might need to be used."
(Sorry I wasn't active today, was super busy ^^)
(It's okay ^^)
Mike seemed interested. "Okay, tell us about them. What can they do?"
Tanrial sighed, “They are… a special race of Eyvn. Born blind, they use thermal vision and some form of night vision to help them hunt without being able to see. Apart from that, they use this kind of energy we call Stalker Energy, it’s like darkness only it can basically desintegrarte a person in a second.”
“They’re super deadly, powerful and I wouldn’t reccomend going anywhere near them unless you’re with one of us.” Thranion added.
(sorry I'm late)
"Okay. So…" Mike scratched his chin and stared at the map for a minute. "Okay….so the basic plan so far seems to be: After midnight we sneak in, make a ruckus and try to draw them out, then bring in the 'dozer–did I tell you guys we found a bulldozer?–and dig out the back while they're distracted. Then we find the kids, round 'em up, and get out. Once we're clear we can collapse the base so they can't use it anymore. Oh, and somewhere in there we can deal with Ryker. Any questions or objections so far?"
Thranion and James shook their heads, “That sounds like a good plan.”
(Okay)
The others nodded as well. Mike glanced at Thranion again. "So before we launch the attack, what would be really nice is if we had a better idea of what's gonna be underneath us. These Night Stalkers…can they see through things enough to maybe get a visual of the base and its contents? If not, do we have any magic-users here who could do something like that? You know…like X-ray vision or something?"
Thranion rubbed at his chin, “Some can, yes. I can ask them and see if they would be willing to do that… I can’t make any promises.”
"Thank-you. Do what you can–the more we know about our enemy, the fewer soldiers we risk by going into an unknown situation. Now, Trouble: you said you do sneak attacks. You guys okay with going in first and causing a ruckus?"
"Sure thing," Trouble said with a grin. "Long as Mister Thranion here is willing to tag along with some of his folks. You seem like a good person to have on our side."
Thranion rolled his eyes a little, “Don’t call me Mister. But yes, I’m sure a few of my men will be willing to come along.”
"Okay," Mike said. "So Trouble's and Thranion's soldiers will go in first. When they've made enough noise to get the doors open, who wants to go in next? Somebody who has enough manpower to hit pretty hard while they're still confused." He glanced up and around. "I'm thinking either Dane or the rest of Thranion's people. What do you guys think?"
“Why not both?” James suggested, “Thranion has enough men to spare for it, and my men could help, too.”
(sorry I'm being slow, working on my first ever attempt at voting for things T.T)
"Mmm….try to fit too many shooters through a doorway at once and they're liable to shoot each other, if you know what I mean. Plus, the more we space out our attacks, the more tired our opponents will become, and the lower their morale will get over time."
"I'll go first," Dane volunteered. "Since we're best at night attacks, we might as well do our part while there's still some night left. We can also get our radio guys set up around the battlefield so we can all run more smoothly in the second wave."
Rick cleared his throat. "Hey by the way, I'm able to go pretty much wherever I'm needed. Anybody feelin' understaffed at the moment?"
"Same over here," Bernon said.
(gtg, seeya tomorrow! ^^)
(It’s fine, don’t worry about it, seeya ^^)
“We could always send you both with the Night Stalkers. They don’t tend to… talk so having someone there it communicate what they find to us could be useful.” Tanrial suggested, shrugging a shoulder, “Just an idea.”
"That could work," Bernon said. "I have telepathy so I could keep in touch with Tanrial or somebody else. And Rick could be there to protect us from any guards we run into."
Rick actually looked a bit dissatisfied with this suggestion. "Eh. Sounds like these Night Stalkers could protect themselves pretty easily. I'd rather go somewhere I can really be of use."
Mike raised an eyebrow. "Such as….?"
"Well, I was thinkin', that bulldozer's gonna need an honor guard to give it space while it digs, hey? You'll be poking the ant's nest pretty hard, sand we wouldn't want anybody to shoot whoever's driving."
Mike sighed. "This is getting complicated…..okay, any more on that topic, or do we move on?"
“I say move on, we can come back to this later if we need to.” Tanrial said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Okay. So after Dane brings in his guys and goes at it for a while, then it's probably time for Thranion's men to come in and mop up whatever's left. Focus on the big guns first, then clean out the rest. I'm sure you all know how best to employ your men, so I'll leave the details of the fight up to you."
"What about us?" Polla asked.
"If you guys are willing, I'd like you to be the team that spirits away the kids once we get them out of there. They need to get far away as fast as possible, without being seen and followed. The safety of the lake should be your goal, unless you know of a more defensible spot in the area."
"No, that should work."
"Great, thank-you. Once we're all clear….anybody got explosives specialists on their team?"
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