Steam and Sand Game Thread

[Mina]

Kat ran to the front rails of the 7-7, where she could easily see what was going on. She drew her gun and began firing at the scots. She aimed carefully, and never missed a shot, only slowing down to reload or duck to avoid incoming shots.

"Scarlette!" she shouted up "I thought you had the big guns!"

She ran to the back of the rig, then climbed up on top near the turret where the higher standpoint gave her a better view of what was going on. Hundreds of the bloody bandits were coming up on foot behind the ones in the motorcycles. She swore and continued firing.

[Stella Gaslight]

All the traps that had kept the house safe were now going off almost simultaneously as the bandits crested the hill.  There were screams as the traps tore in to them but they just kept coming.  Dear saw friends of her metal man scrambling from her house arms full of all sorts of things and when the bad men decided to try and hurt them.  Dear showed them that was a very bad idea.  Men fell like rain for a moment.  A few got past her guard in the confusion and one of them tried to climb up her metal man and got a rock in the eye for his trouble. Some of the men coming up had torches and that made Dear nervous.

[Aeryenne Tederich]

Scarlette did indeed have the big guns, as became clear when she began firing them in earnest, taking out the motorcycled pests in waves. It was times like this - when a great deal of armed, violent and very dangerous attackers were swarming in one's direction like so many metal-plated, armoured ants - when big guns came in very handy indeed.

But they just seemed to keep coming. Bloody Hell. How many of them were there and why had they all suddenly converged into this one place? Clearly their luck had turned, and turned badly, as she'd had a niggling feeling it would. Still, no time to worry about that now - she swung the gun around and let loose into the band that were cresting the hill, taking down as many as she could.

[Titus Wells]

Red was pulling a bag of books, directed by Ben, out of the window towards the rig when the Bandits emerged. His mind whirled. He could fight his way with the bag to 7-7, but could these bandits tell him anything about his parents? This might be his only chance, but in this conflict situation there was hardly any room for pleasant conversation. Looking about the grounds he spotted an unattended bandit bike leaning against a wall. He heaved the books over to the rig, slung them up onto the running plate and dashed for the bike. He jumped on board and kicked it into life, tearing off up the gravel drive away from the action. He glanced back once he was a few dozen yards away. His flight had not gone unnoticed and he had three bandits tailing him, no Anglians or crewmembers yet. So far the plan was working. He continued up the track into the woodland.

[Nigel Wetherby]

As the armored Scots and Anglians marched foreward, behind them was a heavily armored tank walking upon four powerful crab-like legs. A menacing cannon rested atop its disc-shaped carapace. An armored dome-hatch lifted, revealing a familiar face to Conlan.
Shamus the Boar.

"Your quite a persistant lot, I must say!"
Shamus laughed clapping his hands in mock commendation for their skill
"Unfortunately, we need the contents of that little house of yours, and we're being Payed a hefty amount to aquire it. Now if you would be so kind as to hand it over, we may not kill you!"

Conlan heard the familiar, taunting brough and clenched his fist tightly, his armor gripping its mace. Conlan roared a ferocious battle cry and charged the tank, shaking the climbing bandits loose from his metal exterior. He swung the mace hard, knocking the legs out from under the tank but receiving a point blankt blast freom the tank's shell lobber into the armor's sheild, giving it a massive dent.

[Stella Gaslight]

When she heard the big bad voice Dear shouted back.  "This is Dear's house, bad man and you can't have it!"  Dear held on tight as her perch shifted. She peeked out of her little box and found herself above most of her enemies.  Smiling she launched bomb after bomb at the little figures below them.  They tried to fire back but she was safe in her little box. Dear responded by lobbing bombs at them as quick as she could.
 

[Nigel Wetherby]

Shamus raised the leg of his tank, striking the machine's leg with it before shooting a shell towards the house The uppermost onion dome was blown apart by the blast forcing Conlan to turn away to make sure the house was not harmed. Shamus took this opportunity to turn the cannon of his tank, smashing the back of the armor's head and sending the armor toppling to the ground. The tank stepped over the armor and continued along its path toward the house.
Shamus laughed, expecting no more trouble from the young steam knight and his feral companion. He lined up his cannon's sights and prepared to fire upon the mansion. However, the loud, satifying sound of an explosion never arrived. Instead, the loud, annoying beeps of a pressure overload filled the cockpit. Something had jammed the firing mechanism.

Deep within the machine's recesses was a rock. One hurled by a very cross young woman hiding within the safety of a metal box.
An explosionb did occur, however, except it was within the cannon of the tank. The blast sent the crab-like device rolling backward. The motors melted by the heat of the blast.

[MWBailey]

Malc had finally gone amok. he drove like a madman, running over brownshirts and blackcloaks alike, even across teh crest of the hill, running down walkers, riders, whatever got in the way, and firing until th ecylinder of teh 35 and the drum of the Lewis Gun were. empty. he put the tank in low gear at that point, and let it simply run slowly over every obstacle in its path, as he put a loaded drum on the lewis gun, and reloaded teh cylinder of the 35mm gun. then, he put two boxes of Mortar shells on the shelf he'd made for teh purpose, climbed into the turret (keeping it buttoned up, of course), and started cocking the spring-loaded mortar thrower, popping in shells, and launching them around the compound; he managed to clear the porch and the area around the 7-7 in this manner, and then put the tank into a higher gear and opened the throttle a bit wider, and went around crushing men and machines once again, now popping another mortar shell into a knot of fighting men, then accellerating forward to cut off anothe rwave as it attempted to outflank Conlan or the 7-7

At one point, a bit of an antitank round managed to get through Molly's cab shutters, and Malcs vision went red and black all at once; a bit of shrapnel had gotten through and ruined his left eyeball. he yanked it out, completely ruining the eye in the process, and causing himself to scream in agony and anguish; now he'd look just like his Da!(he had never been very taken with his father's looks, but he had kept the old man's eyepatchGuess I'll 'ave a use fer it, now, he thought to himself morosely). He managed to bring Molly to a stop, and rummaged in the first aid box for bandages and painkillers.

Finding what he needed, he bandaged and dosed himself, and then took to driving again. It was a bit difficult, now, since he could only see through one eye, but he managed to kill or disable a lot of the opposition, still. But he was getting tired. he'd already plugged the holes in the front and back of his shoulder (it had been a through-and-through), so that bit of blood loss was taken care of, but the eye just kept on seeping blood and Aqueous Humor.he looked down and realized it was seeping onto his shirt and Cuirass, and decided to stop the APC before he ran over one of their own. he parked catty-cornered to the 7-7, such that Skinner (or anyone else) could see him if they cared to look, and started gunning from the turret again, while he sat his position. he hioped he didnt look too bloody...

[Stella Gaslight]

Dear scampered out and tried to get Conlan to stand back up.  "Wake up metal man. The bad men are coming and I don't have many of the exploding rocks left." She tried to push the armor over to let him out but it was far too large.

[Nigel Wetherby]

The black steel giant slowly struggled to its feet. A tiny bit of blood trickled from the visor of the armor. Conlan had a nasty scrape across his head, but he refused to stay down.
"URgh...My name...Is.." He coughed loudly. "Conlan! The wolf of dublin!"
Conlan declared his title proudly, scooping up Dear in his metal hands and placing her in the metal box.
"Hold on tightly, Dear. We aren't letting those damn pigs get their filthy hooves on those books!"

Conlan hefted his mace, passing the crab tank, unaware that Shamus had crawled from the smoking wreck.

The flanged ridges of the massive weapon skidded across the green grass, sending boars bandits and Anglian guards flying., Their broken bodies twisting in the wind before hitting the earth like sacks of dry sticks.The crew of the Anglian rig peeked out of their windows and portholes, opening fire on the frenzying armor.
"A knight of mercia!?" One crewman cried in shock, firing eratically.
"What are they doing with one of those! Damn Mercians must have hired a band of mercenaries!"

The conversation ended abruptly as the rig rattled loudly, the cowcatcher of the front engine was torn away, exposing the crew to open air and the hidden visage of a cruelly efficient knight.

[Stella Gaslight]

Dear was tossed back and forth a bit by the movement of the armor and then she found her footing.  She stuck her head out and saw the big metal thing that Conlan had just knocked the front off of.  Dear scrambled out of her box and stood on top of it to fire the last of her exploding rocks over his shoulder at it.  There was a nice sounding boom and the whizzing of bullets. Dear jumped quickly back in to her box. She did not want to be stung by those strange bees again.

[Nigel Wetherby]

The black steel titan lifted the rig into the air, upturning the Anglian rig. The three cars behind it cracked like a whiplash and made a loud creaking sound before hitting the grassy earth. Those who survived the attack fled for dear life, their lungs emptying from screams of abject horror.
The armor turned to face the remaining enemies who seemed to now gather around the massive suit of armor.  Rifles cracked as shells collectively pinged off the front of the black shield.
"The damn sheild is make of lodestone!"
Conlan declared with a big, wide grin, hiding behind the black triangle of metal. He swung his mace once more, cutting through the crowd of raiders like a farmer slashing through black stalks of corn.

[Skinner]

Skinner caught a glimpse of a sight that sickened her to the core. She had shouted out to Red when he had thrown in a bunch of loot, but then suddenly turned away, leapt onto one of the Scot's bikes, and pegged it. Flanked by two others.

From the little she had seen, she had taken this to mean that he had turned against them, and was fleeing with some scots back into the woods.

"No... Not you!" she mumbled, winced, and went for her rifle. "That young bastard... had such promise!" she shouted, angered, as she cocked her rifle and aimed out of the window. By the time she had set the shot, he was gone. She screamed.

"RED! TRAITOR! TURNCOAT! I'LL SHOOT THY EYES FROM THY TREACHEROUS HEAD!"

And she was rewarded for that outburst with a bullet to the shoulder that put her right back on the deck again, with such force that she actually slid back across the floor, the back of her duster coating in her own blood. She stumbled around to get to her feet again, snuffling and sobbing.

[MWBailey]

Malc saw the man crawl out of the smoldering crab tank behind Conlan; It was one of increasingly few and fewer things he could see clearly; he looked over to see if he could see Skinner. He hoped she wouldn't think he was running off; he couldnt see her through the now-cordite-smudged windows of the 7-7.

He put Molly in gear once more, opened the throttle, and lumbered forward, intent on mowing down the man behind Conlan before he could do anything to the big Irish knight. He turned the turret slightly, bringing the Lewis gun to bear on the man, and then cut loose, knocking him to the ground. but he got up again, and kept on coming, and so did malc, picking up speed and swinging out and around to avoid the huge Steam knight, firing at that Shamus character the whole time, and the enemies that seemed to gather around him to surround the big Irish knight. Men screamed in agony and terror as he ran over them on the outskirts of the small crowd; they suddenly realized the knight was not alone as they began to die beneath the treads of a tank driven by a man who already believed he was dying, and was determined to take the enemy with him...

[Stella Gaslight]

She may not have had any of the rocks that went went boom any more but she still had regular rocks and some of the metal things they had been shooting at her.  Dear threw the spent bullets back at those that had fired them and shouts came from below as she hit her marks. Dear smiled, she liked her metal man.  The frantic passing of loot between the house and the 7-7 slowed, it looked like they had taken almost all they could.

[Nigel Wetherby]

Conlan saw the looting slowing down and decided to make his own rounds. The armor kneeled down, unvealing a pair of treads on either of the machine's shins. The armor began to roll into the back of the manor. The chestplate slid open and Conlan headed out.
"Dear, come on. I'm going to give the manor one last look over. I want to learn a bit more about this "big man" of yours."

And with that, Conlan rushed into the manor. Bullets had created holes in the walls and windows, making spears of yellow sunlight peirce the dark walls.
Conlan headed to the highest room of the tallest tower, ascending like so many knights before him had. He opened the door to find a strange sight.
A nursery.
The whole room was painted with fairy tale characters. the little mermaid wrapped around a sea-beaten rock beside a dust coated bed fit for a child. Conlan's Jaw dropped as he saw a modly skeleton laying on the ground. Around its neck was a tarnished silver locket. As Conlan drew closer, he heard the faint sound of cracking glass. He pulled his foot away, looking down to reveal a photo caked in dust. He picked the broken memento up and wiped away the dust. The sight behind the frame's thick glass made him gasp.
It was a picture of four people. A tall, barrel-chested man with dark hair and a dark beard. A slight, blonde haired woman with silky pale skin and a delicate smile, A rather wide built young maid with thick strawberry red curls, and finally a familiar face. Dear looked up at him with a healthy, cheerfulness. Her picture had been added to the frame, a singular cell seperated from the entire familial foreground. Beneath the picture, names had been written.
"King Jonothan the third, Queen Cordelia, Little Beatrice, and their maid, Madaline."

The black and whte clothing that sagged over the skeleton matched those worn by Madaline.
"Good lord..." He whispered before kneeling to the bones, making the sign of the cross and whispering a prayer for the soul of the dead woman. He pocketed the old photo, taking it from its frame and rolling it up. As he left, he took a music box that undoubtebly brought a smile to Beatrice's face as a young girl. He wiped the dust and a few odd brown stains he suspected to be blood.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Dear can't go in there. Dear can't."  She covered her eyes with her hands but she could still see the blood on Mama's dress and hear the big man wail with hurt and regret.  "No, no Mama!" Dear curled up lost in her own bloody past.

[Nigel Wetherby]

Conlan ran up to Dear, once called Beatrice, and hugged her tightly, removing his chest plate to give her a bit more warmth instead of the cold hard thing the metal man seemed to be.
"It's okay. Whoever did this isn't here anymore."
Conlan knew she could not stay in a house where such painful memories stayed. Nor could she live in the wilds, whatever was keeping this place green was running out of fuel, or energy or what ever kept it going. She would very likeley die if she stayed here.

"Dear, or Beatrice or what ever you are called. I think you need to come with me and the other good metal men. This place can't keep you alive forever. The fish are gone from the water, and the green is slowly leaving. I won't force you to come, but your always welcome aboard the 7-7. I can teach you how to read, and perhaps even train you in the teachings of the Steam knights."

[Stella Gaslight]

She looked lost and scared as she held on to him.  "Dear will come but we have to make sure the bad men don't get Mama.  We need to put Mama to sleep." She looked up at her metal man and smiled sadly.  "Mama said.." Dear choked up for a moment.  "Mama said it was good to make friends.  Conlan is Dear's friend right?"   

[Nigel Wetherby]

"Conlan is Dear's best friend."
The sound of shells and gunfire ceased, showing that the battle for the manor had ended.
"I'll wrap her up and dig a grave, You fetch flowers. and some rocks."

He hugged Dear tightly and wrapped the bones of her mother in a sheet before picking it up carefully and taking it out to the side of the house. Using a shovel coated in rust he managed to dig a hole six feet long and six feet deep. He wiped the sweat from his brow and lay Madeline's corpse in the soft, earthen tomb.

"Yea And I commend thee body to the soil, for it was Soil from whence you came, and to Soil you shall return. The lord shall let thee lie down in green pastures. As you walk through the valley of the shadow, you shall fear no evil. The lord is Thine sheperd, you shall not want."
As Conlan gave his rather mish-mash prayer he turned to Dear.
"Would you like to say something?"

[MWBailey]

With Conlan gone, his attackers had no one to fight...except Malc. One produced a missile launcher, and suddenly a vision flashed before Malc's eyes: Molly's treads broken, stranding her and him in this place where every hand would be against him. He couldnt let that happen, to him or to her, nor could he let somebody just wound his late sweetheart's namesake. he grabbed the headache bar overhead, pulled himself up out through the Driver's Hatch,  stood and drew both his revolver and his cutlass, screamed a warcry in Welsh, and dropped among his enemies, slashing, stabbing, parrying, and shooting them in wild abandon, chasing the at first surprised, then nonplussed, and then terrified Anglians around the sides and over the top of Molly, and finally back toward the 7-7, where the remainder were mown down by whoever was in the rig's turret, and somebody with a high-powered rifle...

He tripped over something, and fell forward, cursing. He stood back up looking in wonder at what he held in his hands: one of the Scots' rocket launchers! and there, still clutched it its former owner's left hand by the strap attached to it, was an ammo box with ten more rockets! he grabbed the strap, yanked it out of the man's (corpse's) hand, and shouldered the box and the launcher, flipped the 7-7 a salute, turned around, picking up his cutlass and pistol, and straightening just in time to fire the cylinder's last round in to the face of a sneaking Scot, and belly-slash his partner, who went down screaming.. He then coldly made his way back to Molly, picking up dropped weapons, mainly firearms and ammo bandoliers, especially the rifleman's belts, since they carried 30 caliber rounds that would fit his Lewis gun.

He finally made it back to Molly and threw the belts and weapons on top of the cab, and then climbed up and dropped them into the cockpit, and finally lowered himself into the driver's seat, where he blacked out for a moment. when he came to, the 7-7 was just pulling away from the house, and one of the crew was walking over to check on him (he had opened teh shutters by then, and waved to show he was OK -- to his own amazement as well.) he put Molly into gear and opened the throttle, and began to roll back to the house...

[Mina]

Kat had also seen Red ride away, but had not shot. Her gut told her that he hadn't betrayed them, though no other conclusion could she reach. Instead, she ran back down to the cabin, firing more shots as she went.

When she arrived she met a bandit forcing his way through the door, who she was quick to shoot, and Skinner, slumped on the floor, bleeding heavily from her shoulder.

She heaved the woman up to a sitting position, trying to staunch the blood flow. Muttering to herself, and glancing up to ensure there were no more intruders, Kat ripped open Skinner's shirt and quickly went about the job of removing the bullet. Thankfully no more came at them.

Once she removed the bullet, she dug out a rather large, curved needle from her satchel, as well as some thread. After threading the menacing tool, she doused it and the bullet hole with the brandy from her flask, poured some down hers and Skinner's throat for good measure, and sewed up the wound.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Goodbye Mama. Dear is going out in the big world now but Dear will never ever forget you." She put some snapdragons on the grave as Conlan made a simple marker from the gathered stones. Dear was crying but smiling a little too.  Life went on as Mama used to say.  "Let's go to your 7-7 before the bad men come back."  Dear took Conlan's hand, She looked more fragile now than the yelling girl that had pelted him from above.

[Nigel Wetherby]

He took her hand, leading her back to the suit of black steam armor. He  helped her into the armored box before re-entering the suit and rolling off after the 7-7. He hooked the armor's hands around the back hooks of the rig's rear.The armor would roll along behind the seven Seven, connected as solidly as any of the other cars attached to the engine. Conlan Helped Dear out of her compartment with the books over his shoulder and lead her into the rig.
"This is the 7-7. It's a salvage rig. We go from Atrium to Atrium, searching for interesting parts and machines we can Sell or trade."

[MWBailey]

Malc had no idea where they were going next, but he still had plenty of water, and almost half a bunker of coal, plus the third of the total capacity of the coal scuttle; he followed along after the 7-7 and the steam armor, and ate the day's ration of sausage, and followed teh others to wherever they might be going. He had attached a wheel adaptor to the tread control sticks, so that now all he had to do was steer with the wheel, as if Molly were an oversized steamvan.

He took another bite of the sausage ration; he was very strict with himself about how much he ate and what he carried, and always divided it up into rations; sometimes it could be as long as a month or more before he'd be able to reprovision. He realized, then, that if h3e could think about such mundane matters and not feel stupid for doing so, he had to be pretty much OK, and had not been about to die, no matter how real the possibility seemed when he was under the painkillers. He decided to stick to willowbark tea for the pain; it didnt deaden it much, but it also didnt send him into a black depression, either. He sipped more of the steeped-bark tea; he had gotten the hot water from the spigot on the secondary hot water tank, in one of his four tin cups, and put the willow bark (he always had some on hand) into the scalding liquid and just let it sit until it cooled.

The pain was still there, but it was all aches and tightness now, not the sharp agony of an open wound, in either the eye socket or his shoulder. he drove along behind the others, occasionally sipping the willowbark concoction, wondering where they would go next, the left shirt arm buttoned to his shirt, and steering with his right, his clip-on holster holding the reloaded Lemat  repositioned so it could be drawn crossover-style by the right hand...