Steam and Sand Game Thread

[Skinner]

"Ms. Skinner, glad to make yer acquaintance." Malc said, extending a hand and shaking with the redheaded pilot. "Malc McCrory's the name. D' you need any water? I've got my siphon ove rthe side out there, and the water's fresh, i checked it myself."

"I  wish I could spare you some coal, but my bunker's only half full just now. I was toyin' with switchin' over to Naptha or alky for a while, maybe get rid of some o' th' creosote in th' flue. but that'll have to wait. it takes about four hours to do the switch right." H# pause dfor a minute, then said, it seem sto me we need to get away from these anglians and get to the mansion chop-chop; thw others just might gettrapped." he pulled an ancient roadmap out of his back pocket, and opened it to the Isle. "Here's where we are; I'd say we're about mid-channel. it'll take at least twenty more minutes to get to shore and the ferry to line up with whatever its setting us off on. I'm guessing it'll be about right here." he pointed to a spot on the Isle's shoreline. "there's this old cart track goin' up on this side; we can make it easy, but lookin at most of their rigs, I'd say they'd have hell with it, and will probably take the Coach road here' as you can see, the cart track will knock off quite a huge chunk of the trip, if we can get disentangled and up there.

i'd say be ready for teh least distraction, an bolt when the opportunity presents itself, you leadin' and me followin' since they just might start shooting and I've giot somewhat to shoot back with."

Skinner's lip twitched as she listened, raising her eyebrow and some, and wincing at others. She did not take the offered hand just yet.
"First off, mate." she grumbled, darkly, with a voice so gruff and deep that it almost sounded at first as if a male crewmember had started speaking over here. "I am not a Ms." she spat to the side.
"If yeh have to call me anyfink, it's Skinner." She did not offer Charlie, strangely, as she had done with other 7-7 crew members. Perhaps it was to hurry the conversation, or perhaps, belied her reservations about the Bounty Hunter.

"Second. Water, we could use. We have surplus coal, in return. But... What's to say you won't scupper us if we bolt, and leave us to them Anglian pig-dogs, anyhow? I don't know exactly what I've missed here, bucko, but I've a splitting headache, and a "once bitten twice shy" taste in me mouth."

She turned back to her engine, almost dismissively, but kept speaking.

"I don't know anything about mansions, or roads, or why exactly we're goin' to an Island in the first place. All I know, is that my boss is over there, and is about to be cornered by a mob of Anglian swine. Which, fer all I know, yer leadin'. And-" now she whirled around, a slight smudge of grease now on her nose, "Why does a bounty 'unter, know so much about drivin' rigs? Which one are yeh? How do yeh know Royce?"

Then she rounded on Red. "And exactly why was I out to miss all o' this vital info, anyhow?!"

[Mina]

Kat's attention was grabbed immediately at the mention of Malc being a bounty hunter, and she quietly sneaked behind Skinner and out of the cabin, being sure not to be seen.

She made her way to her bunk, where she cast herself down and began rummaging through her satchel. She found her ammunition belt and harness, strapped them on under her vest, and placed her flintlock in the holster.

She then returned to the cabin, and with a sly grin held her open palm out to Skinner. "I believe you misplaced this, Charlie." The silver, dented timepiece glinted in her palm, and as she offered it to Skinner she was sure to inconspicuously allowed her gun and bullets to be seen by the newcomer.

[MWBailey]

"Number one, Skinner," he said, emphasizing the surname slightly; he was a bit put off by her tone and manner, " I'm a Merc when I'm not chasin' miscreants fer the cash of their reward. WHICH bounty hunter? I'm "McCrory, the Nice Guy."  I've never killed a prisoner 'cept one time, and that was 'cause he was tryin' to shoot a kid." I know Royce slightly, because we were both in the Yorkshire Guards, and I drove  for him a couple of times when his regular driver got ill. that's as well as I know 'im. He might or might not remember me."

'ow do you know I won't "scupper" you when we bolt? "cause if I do so, they're just crazy-smart enough to realize that a man who sells out his mates that quick (or at all) is a bad risk as a guard, especially with them bloody Scots boar-bandits hangin' about. YEah, sure, I've 'eard of teh old dodge where one joins and then turns around and surrenders and gives up 'is mates as collateral to make his own escape, but I'm not like that. How do youse lot know I'm not like that? Well, beyond me not having done so yet, having already had ample opportunity to do so, and not having done so, thats one item way of knowin', but the only one I can think of. Truth to tell, beyond that there's no convincing argument I can give other than me word."

"As fer rigs, I was drivin ' before I was fifteen, for me Da while he shot back at Raiders and whoever else was after his Rig for the Cargo he carried. I built my tank from a wreck, which is a damn sight more than the Anglian scum, or anybody else for that matter, can say. She's as hard as she is odd-lookin', and probably faster'n this rig, fancy as it is. Me Molly could swim this sewer easy, but I'm ridin' with you lot because you're my mates as long as you'll have me, because there be safety in numbers, pardon  me expression. And my acquaintance, your captain, is over there now," he dropped his voice to a whisper so that none outside the rig would hear, "probably under siege from the Anglian advance party, and I don't abandon a friend, even if I just met 'er five minutes before."

"pardon me tone, m-- sorry, Skinner. I can't blame ye for the treachery suspicion, I guess. and if I hadn't offered to throw in with you, I might have made it seem that I'm like that. But I did offer to throw in, so I won't be throwin' you lot over. 'In for a penny, in for a hundred pound.' me Da used to say."

"And th' Anglians already know me for a merc and a bounty hunter, since I had to tell that cavalry Lordship about myself when I rescued a li'l girl from the Scots a couple weeks ago; her father figured I was 'ard enough to pull it off, and couldn't think of anybody else to ask. I'm no hero, I 'm just ruffian enough to be able to talk to other ruffians -- so it's not likely they'd let me lead a garbage detail, much less a troop of tankers." his voice turned just slightly bitter, then. "I gots th' smell of the commoner on me, you see."

"No need to show me yer gun, Miss," he said to Mina, "I don't recall your face on any posters, and even if I did, you'd still not be mine to try and take down, or in, or both,, because you're part o' the group I've thrown in with. There're those who would do that, mind you, but I'm not one of 'em. like I said to the big hoo-haw out there, I'm a Sometime bounty hunter -- not full-time. I prefer to soldier rather than apprehend."

"That's all I gots to say, Skinner. shoot me or let me live, just let me run the hose over like I promised."

[Skinner]

Skinner paused for a long, tense moment after she took the time peice from Mina. Then she extended her empty right hand to McCrory.
"Welcome aboard, lad. Good teh 'ave yeh with us."

She smirked, rather than smiled. Maybe it was her headache, or she felt sheepish for doubting him. But, he proved a good case, and didn't look to be lying.

"So... What's the plan?"

[MWBailey]

There's no' enough info for a really good plan, Malc said. My two cents stays the same; work our way top the back and bolt for the cart track as soon as we get clear and somethin else happens. A crowd like this, they're all gonna be pressin' forward, tryin' like always to get in with the peerage. Somebody trying to get to the back might be odd, but there's always at least one family damn'd to sit below th' salt for eternity, so it's plausible to fade back; 'sides, like I said, I'm a known merc and bounty boy, so I'm automatically lucky to sit at the table at all.

There'll be a distraction of some kind; there always is, in a shoring action with civvies like this. Somebody's always gettin' shoved off the trail, or somebody's golden-haired precious angel's goin' missin'. Jus' wait 'til it 'appens, and if it does so afore we get clear, we can use it to get clear, and if it happens after we're clear, 's a safe bet they won't notice we're boltin' 'til we're half gone already. I don't see any artillery on this rig, which means I ought to take the rear so's I can take any fire they throw at us, and you ought to let me get between you and any artillery in any case. Molly can take it, she's got a full inch o' bath-hardened armor at the thinnest points (you can't imagine the hell I 'ad getting that much oil together in one place all at th' same time), and most of th' usually-targeted surfaces have two or more. The Anglians are notorious for their shots shatterin' on hard armor.

Once we get to th' top of th' hill, take th' main road for about a mile, then get off at th' curve tha' goes to the right, an' go cross-country. There's  suppos'dly anti-personnel boobytraps all over these woods 'ere, or so th' innkeeper in th' village said awhile back, but we'r eboth in tracked rigs, so that shouldnt be a problem. Just make sure nobody leaves an arm out or a window open or somethin'. I'd suggest duckin' around in back of the Mansion, " he traced the edge of the gardens," through 'ere, and come out close to the 'ouse at the front door, so we can load up or give cover, or whatever Royce wants. And there will be an Anglian advance party already there, I saw 'em depart while we were loadin' up."

After the meeting broke up, perforce in very short order, Malc climbed aboard Molly through the driver's hatch, and went to the back, past the steam engine's meshed-in area, and added the rear door lift to the gear train, opening the throttle directly through the linkage at the boiler, and raised the intentionally-ponderously-heavy rear hatch. (it could be counterweighted so that its half-ton weight would swing upward at the touch of a hand, but Malc had found that to be a bit of a liability in combat situations, so he had left it in the hard-to-open mode).

He then grabbed the spare hose, attached it to the pump at the bottom of the water tender, beside the boiler (it was set up like a docksider railway tanker engine, with the water tank on one side and a walkspace beteen teh wall an dthe boiler on teh other side), and ran the hose over to the 7-7, Red taking the hose and putting it in the proper socket. Malc turned off the siphon pump, then turned on the secondary pump, and filled the 7-7's tanks. They must have been nearly dry, judging by the time it took to fill them. That done, Malc topped off his own tank again, took the hose off and stored it, and coiled up the siphon hose, putting it back into it's porthole. He looked to the rear door then, and saw Red looking at the longboat that was lashed to the inside right wall of Molly's cargo area.

"I found that up on th' far end o' town, back that way," he said, pointing. "somebody had leff' it there, all shot fulla holes! I managed to plug all th' holes below th' water line, and most of 'em above, but I lacked the skill to patch the big holes that looked like somebody tried to cut the gunwales off; them I just whittled those planks for outta heather root, and pegged 'em on like you see. Lots o' work, and it looks like I might not need the thing now, but it kept me outta trouble for a couple o' weeks. She'll need a good soakin' for about a 'alf-day before she's seaworthy, though. Might benefit from havin' some oakum stuffed in th' cracks, as well."  there was a ponderous BUMP as teh ferry made landfall, and crawled up on the shore, and they parted company then, Red to teh 7-7, and Malc back aboard Molly, closing and locking the rear door, and releasing the gear train for driving. The big doors of the ferry opened, and the exodus began,m teh 7-7 and Molly going ahead and trying to get to the rear of the massed vehicles. finally, they were at the edge of the throng, the cart track only a few tens of yards away, or rather the 7-7 wasclear; a trilobyte tank and its driver were singularly unwilling to budge, effectively blocking Malc in. Malc decided to just go ahead and run the bothersome thing over, and opened the throttle, scaring the trilobite's driver, and causing him to hurriedly reverse, right into a rig that looked like a conestoga wagon on tracks,which lurched forward in response, and so on...

The chain reaction finally resulted in the screams of what looked like a halftrack-load of camp followers, as they rolled backwards off the edge of the shoreline, hanging on tyhe very edge over  the water about ten feet below. All attention being diverted  in that direction, Skinner took the hint and made the rig dash for the cart track about five yards away, Malc following after he got down out of the turret (closinbg and locking the turret hatch), took the drivers seat in the cab, and remotely rotated the turret around to the rear, loading the 35mm (it used a circular magazine, rather like a gargantuan revolver cylinder) and clanking the safety off on the Lewis gun as he made Molly gallop along after the 7-7.  Amazingly, the 7-7 was already at the top and lumbering onto the main road to the Mansion, and Molly at the top of the track, before anyone noticed what they were doing and tried to put a shot over their bow, so to speak.

Malc responded byfiring the 35mm and thus blowing the turret off of teh trilobite tank that had fired at them, and lashing its wreckage and its fellows with 30-caliber rounds from the Lewis gun. Then he was gone, and the Anglians were left to fall all over themselves for the next 30 or so minutes; it took at least that long for some bright individual to come up with the novel idea of pursuing the turncoats...

[Aeryenne Tederich]

Scarlette had been keeping a low profile throughout all the commotion, merely listening in on the introductions and conversations whilst lurking back near the wall, eyeing up the newcomer appraisingly. He seemed perfectly genuine enough and she had no reason to doubt him - no doubt he'd be an asset to them in times to come.

When the gathering broke up, she stayed in the main cabin with Skinner and therefore got a decent view of the little scuffle going on behind them as McCrory saw off the Anglians and and skittered after the 7-7. Nice bit of manouevering from him there. Yes, she figured he'd fit in very well indeed...

[Skinner]

"He's Stark. Raving. MAD."
Skinner repeated the mantra at least a half dozen times all through the maneuvering, past the scuffle, and belted the throttle- the engine wasn't so good up funny tracks and climbs, and much better suited to long, charging drags, but she handled it better than the Anglian swarm. Most of the vehicles had collided so badly they were now tangled and attached, and a big rig swung right back over the shoreline and into the drink. There couldn't be that much after them now.

When they crested the hill, she slowed the ring and hung out of the window to get McCrory's attention.
"Where's the forward party? I want to be swinging her around in an arch just in front, then back the rest of the way practically up to the manor's gate so they can load the loot in." She also had the mind to set the wheels to halt with an easy catch release, so that their getaway was a case of releasing the breaks and letting Gravity aid them- After all, that's why the beasty had a cow catcher. She could better withstand plowing through the smaller tanks, than trying to shoot them all.

"We do have a gun-turret, yeh know. If someone clambers up into it, we could try an' take some o' them out."

[Titus Wells]

"Figures the strongest of us should be on the ground to shift as much as quickly as we can. Anyone not up for labour had better provide us with covering fire."

The mansion was within sight now, a couple of rusted iron gates leading up an overgrown path towards the side of the house. By the looks of things this entrance was pretty unused, the advance party of Anglians must be around the front Red thought.

[MWBailey]

"See them gates? lemme up front, an' I'll drive through em!" Malc had his blood up, now. "See that crab tank, through them shrubs there? That means the advance party's already at the front door. Lemme go first an' knock a few off th' road, and then you do your drivin' and backin' up. if you can get a gunner up top, tha'd be splendid!" He clanged the armored shutters shut, then stopped until he could get down into the cab and the driver's seat, and then buttoned up, and drove through the conveniently-opened gates, which were politely opened by a very large...KNIGHT?! with steam escaping from his head... he recovered his composure quickly, and started remotely operating his own turret, Firing off three 35mm rounds, and blowing the visible crab tank and three others beside it to shrapnel, raking the Anglians on the lawn and front porch with rapid-fire Lewis rounds. He did all of that while accellerating forward, and then rammed the big battle-class tank down low, turning it over and thus making its turrets pop off (on eof which exploded with a very loud BOOM), and then knocking the last tank in line around so that something catastrophic happened within, which caused it to blow up as if the magazine had been hit.

The remaining tanks and rigs took off after Molly, Malc leading them on a twisting, turning, mad chase around to the back of the house. The Anglians performed up to their usual standard, firing their cannon and mostly missing; the few shells that hit the APC did as predicted and shattered on the hardened armor, or exploded on the flat, and did little or no damage. malc spun the turret around to the rear, and so thoroughy demoralized the fellow immediately behind him with rapid-fire Lewis gunning that the fool swerved and ran his rig into one of the huge brick pilasters that held up the gates. He fired the 35mm once more, and another rig blew up. A few more apparently were taken out by the 7-7's gunner as he led the mad merry chase around to the front of the house once more, since he didnt fire his cannon, and they didnt do anything odd...

[Skinner]

Skinner nodded the affirmation, and shifted the rig to let Molly up ahead. Then she started the delicate U-turn that was needed to get the back of the rig towards the back door.

"Someone, up in the turret. Kat and Red need to get inside the house and tell them we're out here. Even if it means abandonin' the manor and the treasure, just get 'em out sharpish! We don't leave anyone be'ind.

[Nigel Wetherby]

As the massive rig headed for the gate, the iron thresh hold swung open at the hands of an armored titan bearing a familiar coat of arms.
"Good to see you, lads!"
The voice of Conlan thundered from behind the helmet of the steel giant.
"Look at what I found!" He delcared cheerfully.

"There's a whole storage of weaponry in the house, but you had better ask Dear if you can use them. Also it helps if you have chocolate on hand."

[Aeryenne Tederich]

Scarlette reacted rapidly, darting out of the cabin and scurrying up into the gun turret to provide covering fire when necessary. From where she was perched she could already see the advance party lurking up ahead and she tightened her grip on the trigger, readying herself for the coming conflict - hopefully this would all go according to plan. She doubted it would, but you know - it never hurt to hope. They had to get lucky sometimes, after all.

She did feel a little twinge when Skinner mentioned the possibility of leaving the treasure, though. Her thief's nature didn't like to hear things like that, but she assured herself that the lives of the others inside were far, far more important that shiny, materialistic goods, no matter how she might have felt in the years before she joined this motley little crew. Getting them out was the priority now.

[Titus Wells]

Red dived from the cabin and landed at the feet of Conlan's titanic armour.

"You've put on a bit of weight since we last spoke, Conlan. Better get stuck in and see if you can shed a few pounds. A few pounds worth of ammo at any rate. Where can I find the others?"

Red barely waited for an answer before scrambling to the door. A small mortar shell cannoned into the ground where he'd been standing as a Crab Tank pulled out of the shrubbery. He figured the knight would have his hands full. He could find the others by himself.

He paused for a while once inside the shadowy mansion to let his eyes acclimatise, then headed off down the hallway. He could hear voices up ahead and followed them around a bend in the passage. Suddenly the stone under his leading foot gave way and he slid to the floor. A set of iron railings crashed from the wall above his recumbant form. Sliding gently from under them Red took a moment to run a finger along one of the spikes. Blunt and rusty, but at the speed they'd emerged no less deadly. Thanks goodness he'd lost his balance or his knees would be pulp. He resolved to go very cautiously and call out frequently. If Dear had got the advance party safely into this deathtrap her assistance getting items out would be essential.

"Royce! Ben! Are you there? We have to get moving NOW!"

[Stella Gaslight]

Dear peered out the windows at the big metal thing coming up the drive.  Her metal man was taking to them so she suposed that made them nice and not like funny hat man.  She grinned as she got a very good idea. There was a second story balcony that was fairly well protected and she had a whole pouch full of rocks and the explodey things. Dear climbed out the window and looked below her.  The funny hat man was getting ready to brake the door.  Well she wasn't having that and blew a raspberry from above.  As soon as they looked up she started pelting them with rocks.  Many had taken their hats off for the hot work of using the battering ram and Dear was an excellent shot.  They scattered backwards tripping some of the traps they had missed before.  "This is Dear's house." she crowed.

[MWBailey]

Something about something his mum had told him when he was small, a legend about a little girl in a big house all alone on a big, white Island, and her being "such a dear little thing and all" suddenly clicked in Malc's mind. The Isle of Wight...White island? Dear? Dear little girl?then he remembered she was a princess. Nah, what an imagination you've got, Malc, he thought as he doubled back and rammed the big troop transport that was following him closely but not closely enough. The thing gave a wheeze and then white steam WHOOSHed out of a side porthole as something inside pierced its boiler, and it turned over, twice, before coming to rest against one of the massive oaks in the back garden.Your mum was batty, Da always said so, said she couldn't ha' been a servant in a big 'ouse like this 'un. She just 'eard the story from some ol' peddler or summat. Still... he wondered. what if "Dear" really was the princess form the old story...

There were only two rigs left of the former posse that had been chasing him, now, and they began to run from HIM, as Malc turned around and proceeded to try to shoot or ram them...

[Skinner]

Skinner would have left the rig cabin, if she wasn't shaking from the tense combat around her. It seemed all too easy.
"Nothin's comin' for us, thanks to Malc, out there... Somethin's spookin' the forward group... How yeh holdin' up there, Scarlette?" She called up, her fingers drumming on the controls, keeping the engine ticking over, lying in wait and ready to bolt.
"They better hurry up... the rest of them Anglians are gonna be 'ere soon enough..."

[Aeryenne Tederich]

"Not bad." She stayed tense and ready, firing whenever it was necessary but holding off on all-out shooting for now - didn't want to waste more ammunition that was necessary. Things seemed to be running smoothly enough for now, but Scarlette was not foolish enough to believe that it would stay that way - their fortunes could change at any second, and she wasn't prepared to let her guard down and risk anything suddenly kicking off or catching her unawares.

[JohnSix]

"Damn!" thought Ben as he hurriedly shoved more books into his bag. "I wish we had more time to sort out these books."

Just as we was leaving he noticed a rather large ornate tome on a bookstand by itself.
He pick it up and flicked through the page.
Inside there where pages and pages of handwritten notes, chemical formulas, mathematical equations and mechanical blueprints.
He turned back to the title page which read: "The Plan to Rebuild the World".
Below this there was a list of all who had contributed to the book. At the very end was the name: Charles Babbage, Ben's father.

[Titus Wells]

The voices were getting closer as Red neared the end of the passage. The door ahead stood partially open and he prodded at it with his foot. Overhead, something clunked ominously, like a ratchet slipping. He glanced around for something to push the door with and noticed that a strip of skirting board to the right of the door was loose. Wrenching it away from the wall he inserted it under the doorknob and pushed. There was more clunking from above and a cloud of dust filled the doorway. After a few seconds Red crept up to the door and looked up. A heavy oak board hung above the doorframe but the brackets that should have slid aside to let it fall, blocking in whoever had opened the door, had wedged solidly with years' worth of grot and rust. Red stepped through the frame and into the passage beyond. A doorway to the left was lighter than the rest of the house, suggesting windows. He sidled along the edge of the passage to the door and peered round. Ben was stood in the room beyond, which appeared to be filled with books.

"Hi Ben, wow, we'll never get all of this onto the rig. Any favourites? If we can get these windows out and the 7-7 up against this wall we can load pretty well defended."

[MWBailey]

As the last of the Anglian tanks skittered ahead of Molly as Malc rammed it out through the back gates, thus reopening them and removing that first rig that had rammed the brick gatepost at the start of the merry chase, and making the last tank explode in a fireball, several black-robed figures darted out of the trees across the road, one of which aimed a missile launcher at Molly and shot her high up on her left side, ringing the APC like a bell, the concussion momentarily stopping the Stanley Steamer truck drivetrain and stopping Molly in her tracks. "Blast, that bastard...hey, wait, them's the SCOTS!" he opened the drivers hatch and shouted bloody murder out of it, while intermittently sounding off six-blast  groupings of Whistling (six being the age-old distress call). "SKINNER! ROYCE! RED! SCOTS ON THEIR WAY IN!You got the Scots convergin' on the house, and Molly's STUCK!" he sounded the whistle six more times, and repeated his shouting, which earned him several SMG  and rifle shots from the black-cloaked villains. He then buttoned up the hatch, and moved back to the steam engine, and realized that it was fine, all he had to do was benddddd...thisss barr baccckkk... and then the pistons started pumping again, and Molly lurched forward and ran over a Scot's bike, the rider not getting clear in time and screaming as he went down under Molly's treads.

HE then barrelled back toward the house, running over Scots and bikes, and managing to get to the 7-7 ahead of them, and shout for skinner: "SCOTS! the BOAR BANDITS are HERE! EVERYBODY ARM YERSELVES AND get SHOOTING!" and he was off again, swerving and thus throwing a black-robed figure that had climbed on top of Molly into a tree as they passed it. HE pulled up next to Conlan in the steam armor, and shouted up at him through the drivers hatch, Mr. KNIGHT! we got SCOTS! THEY WAITED TIL WE TOOK CARE O' THE ANGLIANS FOR 'EM, NOW THEY'RE ATTACKIN' US!" Then he was up and out of teh drivers hatch, pulling the trigger of the grapeshot cylinder of his Lemat revolver, and firing the 20 mm explosive round the pistol had been modified to carry in that barrel, nailing a Scot sidecar bike whose gunner was already bouncing bullets off of the back of Conlan's armor. One bullet did get through, however, and slammed into Malc's shoulder, eliciting an enraged "Gaaarrhhhgghh!" from him before sending him tipping backward and falling headfirst through the Hatch he had just exited, falling painfully, upside down, in the driver's chair.

Bloody b--ards! he thought, I'll teach them!, to shoot a tanker! He got himself upright, slammed Molly into gear, and opened the throttle wide, skirting around Conlan and ramming through and running down three of the bikes and chasing after a third...

[Stella Gaslight]

Things had gone crazy. Dear watched as black bikes swarmed chasing more of the funny hat man's men away.  She waved down to them and then suddenly her arm hurt worse than anything she had ever felt before.  Dear screamed, it was loud and almost more animal like than human.  Dear curled up on the balcony, she had no idea what to do and wished her mama was there.

[Nigel Wetherby]

Conlan heard Dear's cries and rushed to her side. The massive steel being kneeled down to her and scooped her up in cold metal gauntlets. The visor of the steam armor slid upward.
"Dear, are you alright? Oh no! That looks like a gunshot wound.."
The armor lay her upon the soft, grassy grown and hunched over her. The chest opened up and revealed the chocolate dispensing metal man who kneeled to her side to examine her arm.
"Thank god. It was just a graze."
He reached into a white box strapped to the side of the armor's interior and dabbed her wound with a stinging alchohol rub. He wrapped her arm in a strip of white gauze and a little square of chocolate to alleviate the pain.

"Some bad men did this. Bad men who want to hurt the house and all the things inside.We have to keep the house safe. Can you throw those round, metal rocks like I showed you?"

[Stella Gaslight]

"Dear can.  Dear and the metal man can make all of those bad men go away."  She was coming out of the shock of being injured and getting angry.  She ducked half behind Conlan and lobbed a black ball at the nearest black bike.  There was a monetary pause where the rider tried to figure out what hit him and then here was a rather large boom that answered his question.  Dear smiled now they would keep Dear's home safe.

[Skinner]

Skinner pulled the rig forward enough so that the turret had a better shot or two at the Scots, and the windows to the storage cars were accessable to the house.

Then she picked up the hunting rifle she had grabbed back at her house from the side of the cabin, and started shooting.
She was a terrible shot, but she did manage to pick off one scot who was trying to jump onto the rig, striking him in the elbow, then again in the side.

"Bloody Guts an' Glory, where ARE they?!"

[Nigel Wetherby]

"The metal giant has a safe box on his back. You are safe inside it and make sure no-one sneaks up on the giant, alright?"

 He lifted the armored lid of the box in the back. it was large enouigh for her to stand, sit, or even lie down in. A bulging bag of tomes sat at the bottom of the armored bin. Conlan helped Dear into the armored bin, making sure she would be able to look over the edge and throw her bombs safely and acurrately.

After making sure dear was secure, Conlan boarded his armor, taking up his shield and mace before charging into the combat. With a sweep of his mace black-cloaked boarsh head raiders were sent flying from their cycles. The limbs of the steel giant hissed as it approached the 7-7. A swing of its mace disposed of three scots attempting to attack the 7-7.