GROUP 3: SO I OPEN MY DOOR TO MY ENEMIES—

[dipolar]

WHO? group three, see below links.
WHAT? hrhr: retreat missions.
WHEN? february 9th, you're here forever.
ANYTHING ELSE? planning and submissions.

CHARACTERS WILL ENCOUNTER THESE OBSTACLES:

—Locating the base and arriving without interference by the Turks or the Regency.
—Getting at least one person past the soldiers and into the base.
—Scouting the base and locating Atatürk without causing an incident.
—Handling soldiers who might interfere with attempts to reach Atatürk.
—Combating any Regency soldiers assigned undercover to the Turkish side.
—If anyone is captured by Turkish or Regency soldiers, you'll have to stage a rescue.
—Successfully gaining an audience with Atatürk and acquiring amnesty.
—Returning to Lone Pine in one piece.

RAISING THE DEAD AND SCOUTING, 18/30
yoshitsugu otani, dorian pavus, jon snow, jeyne westerling, sebastian michaelis, ashitaka, hei, noctis lucis caelum, chiron

"Raising the dead and scouting goes well, if not smoothly. You have to dodge enemy combatants the whole way, and it's a little hard to get the intel and supplies you need when you're also trying not to get shot. Somehow, you manage it! Probably through the power of positive thinking. And murder."

—chiron and hei do an initial scout to map out the turkish base and find entry points
—hei stresses that everyone stays with at least one other person so as to not get separated/held hostage
—yoshitsugu uses his spell to raise the dead for an hour to gather information about the turkish base/plans
—yoshitsugu experiences convulsions as a result of using the spell and dorian will use his revival spell on him to help him recover
—entire group stops to plan out specific teams and what they’ll been doing, team a and b are born
—sebastian recounts the letters he found in the tunnels verbatim to the group, mostly sharing the atatürk part
—entire group decides that non-lethal action is to be taken, so they can easily discuss terms with atatürk without killing his men
—noctis and jeyne act as contacts between their separate teams to keep information fresh and to relay important updates
—jon provides the bottom halves of turkish uniforms so their disguises can be put together; they steal the top halves from the dead soldiers yoshitsugu has raised because we're here to demean literally everybody

COMBAT WITH THE REGENCY, 13/30
hei, noctis lucis caelum, chiron, sebastian michaelis, ashitaka

"Combat is where things get difficult. While nobody dies, a few characters are seriously injured. You can decide who and how. Likewise, if you have anybody due for a kidnapping, now would be a good time. But, essentially, this is a close call. You lose ground to the enemy, some ANZAC soldiers might get caught in the crossfire, some precious resources may be lost! Your choice, but something goes to shit."

—chiron using magical detection to weed out the regency agents and the entirety of team b engages the three regency soldiers in combat
—hei uses his ability to shock memory out of the people who may have spotted them using their powers, with the exception of regency soldiers
—noctis will be using warp-strike takedowns to reduce their chances of detection, as they're near-silent and an instantaneous skill
—ashitaka gets kidnapped by the first of the undercover regency agents somewhere in the middle of this because he's literally and figuratively cursed, leaving them down a group member
—sebastian leaves team b and joins team a to fill ashitaka’s empty diplomat position, because he can do anything and likes to show off
—yoshitsugu avoids his kidnapping somewhere in the middle of this, with chiron on rescue duty to facedown the second undercover regency agent
—dorian will use blood magic in a desperate attempt to save himself from capture from the third undercover regency agent

ACTUAL DIPLOMACY, 16/30
yoshitsugu otani, dorian pavus, jon snow, jeyne westerling, sebastian michaelis

"Actual diplomacy is terse, if only because it feels difficult to get a foothold. Atatürk gives little away, and is very quiet and cautious in his delegations. He doesn't fill you with confidence. But in the end, he does come around, admitting to seeing your point. He'll do what he can to call a cease fire."

—team b attempts to come to an agreement and work things out with atatürk
—yoshitsugu attempts to talk atatürk down from a strategical point of view, "there's no sense in attacking when your enemy is already retreating"
—jeyne uses the locket to take the stance of women missing their husbands and lovers, as well as their children having no fathers; she's especially good at calming people when tempers run hot, as well as appealing on more personal levels
—jon speaks with atatürk on a personal level: "no more men have to die - i know you've watched your countrymen fall, i know everyone values bravery, we do too, but these deaths mean less and less when no one is fighting anymore”
—dorian has a gift for politics and has sat in on war counsels and engaged in political debates, making him approach this from a political angle
—if things start going badly, yoshitsugu will use his guilt spell to sway atatürk to their side of the discussion

Comments

CLOSED— DORIAN AND HEI'S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY

[dipolar]

Hei's been hovering by their Team A's entrance into the Turk base for a while now with the other combatants who've spread further out into the trenches to nip the approaching forces in the bud. Loathe as he is to uproot, he hears a struggle from the far exit, a familiar voice that spoke tranquility into him when he was experiencing a crisis of self— Dorian, engaging the enemy? His first thought is that the man's more than capable of taking care of the target himself.

Curiosity, however, killed the cat. His area is clear and he leaves it unoccupied in a low sprint down the line of a trench with a very grim setting of his jaw. The closer he gets to checking on the situation, the more dire it sounds. Not good, considering the known amount of Regency soldiers left to the Turkish team is a number they don't know and one peek over the edge of the mud-and-rock wall of the veritable gutter of bodies Hei stands in is enough to confirm it: Dorian needs assistance.

The Regency's struck.

He's up and over the wall in less than a second, whipping the barrel of his rifle up with three shots aimed at the soldier's chest — missing, of course, but he wasn't intending to hit so much as distract with a dark look down the sight, slapping the lever to reload it, firing another three shots with a steady walk forward.

"Hey—" a jam in his gun, no bullets left in the damn thing, hastily unscrewing the bayonet from the end with deft fingers, "you alright?"

[excelsus]

He bloody well wasn't alright. Dorian only wished he could communicate as much, but there were a few things happening simultaneously inhibiting his ability to engage his gift for gab perk. The first of which had to do with these Regency soldiers and their ability to reinforce reality as to make it somewhat less mutable and therefore leaving the mage's magic grasping in the air for some purchase. He thought that was something only Templars could ever achieve...and perhaps it wasn't the same, but it felt the same. He realized he couldn't tap into his magic when he attempted to melt the face off of one of his assailants and it did not go according to plan.

Then there was whatever they had daubed the darts with. A drug...a poison? He didn't know which, but he knew it made him feel helpless, it made him feel detached from his own body and his own feelings, unfit to do anything other than permit. It wasn't a pleasant feeling--it vaguely reminded him of repulsive things that mages were subjected to in his world and the dreadful anticipation preceding the loss of control. He couldn't help himself, he couldn't help anyone unless...

...and there it was, temptation. All too present like a buzz in the back of the skull easily ignored until becoming a fully fledged concept to flirt with. He could have ignored it if the serum from the darts would stop humming words of mutiny through every vein and artery pathway in his body, singing to him like the Calling. He might have been able to ignore it if he didn't hear a familiar voice vibrating through dampening walls he felt surrounded by--distant, low, distorted, but familiar all the same. That familiarity meant he couldn't just lay idle, let himself be taken just because it would be better than the tempation to do anything he had to do for the sake of self-preservation. If he was alone it would have been easier, but he wasn't and intuition more than anything else told him that he wasn't the only one in danger.

Dorian had enough wherewithal to lever himself out of the dirt, threads of blood and viscious gunge threatening to tie him to the earth if he couldn't force his body obey his commands. A series of complex order that involved moving, grabbing, and cutting. Dorian never went anywhere without his mage's staff, but he couldn't bring it with him on this particular mission, not that it stopped him from sneaking his staff blade along for the ride. Reliable, familiar, accessible, and when his fingers finally fumbled their way around the hilt he ripped the blade from it's moorings without really considering his actions. There were no words of reassurance or warning, only a significant look that he threw Hei's way that indicated somthing unpredictable on the horizon.

What was he saying?
Help?
Run?
Stop me?

Before he could assign a meaning to the expression, Dorian was cutting into himself--it should have hurt, he should have been screaming from the pain. Maybe he'll scream later, but the pain is as far away from him in the moment as Hei's voice, and the only thing that mattered was trying to save the both of them. The only way he could do that was if he could access magic and while the Regency soldiers might be able to mute his abilities they couldn't control his blood. He carved into his chest and down the inside of an arm, it might have looked like a moment of madness, but blood magic was madness and weakness anyway. Give it a moment and the method becomes clear, the Regency soldiers suddenly appear to be afflicted with pain that had no visible source save for the world around them taking on a sepia haze with a blood and mud mixture. It would be a reprieve if not for the fact that the kind of magic Dorian was using came with the price of his own life.

Blood leaves the body at a gallop first and the it hobbles. His body knew when the blood loss had him hobbling, when the black started creeping in from the edges of his vision. His magic knew how to respond to that even if his brain did not--take from the nearest source. Hei was the nearest source, the sacrifice for his continued use of this magic, this weak and horrifying magic.

A trained blood mage would take from their enemy, but Dorian was only academically familiar with blood magic and therefore couldn't wield it to distinguish friend from foe it simply acted without his hand guiding it and suddenly he was pulling the blood he needed from Hei to feed his own life-force. In addition to this there was the coctail in his system and the violent struggle that had also left him incapable of full control over a magic he understood only in theory. He was able to terrify the Regency soldiers with the invisible attacks, the manipulations of their bodies, the boiling of their blood, and while a novice in the use of blood magic he had just enough self-preservation and drive to will his own survival and send them tearing off in another direction. This shit wasn't worth it.

What he didn't have control over was the damage he was doing to Hei to supplement himself, pulling from any wound available, tearing them open, widening them so that he could continue to take and take as much fuel as he needed. He couldn't control this and he couldn't control the danger just around the corner. The price of blood magic.

THIS IS SO LATE

[dipolar]

'Drastic' is the word he'd use to describe Dorian's expression and it's far too late for him to do anything about it.

He should be concerning himself with the Regency agent who's doubling back to get away from whatever trick the mage is pulling, but the sight of him dragging a blade from chest to wrist is enough to distract both of them. Self-harm is never something Hei's cringed at; he's used knives against himself as a means to an end to escape enemy clutches before. He knows it'll do the trick, if their conversation about how taboo the art is was any indication of its power. That's the only shred of faith he's willing to spare.

And it works, for a time. The agents bow and writhe and Hei's grip tightens around his dagger, springing into action — all the while keeping an eye on a flagging Dorian whose energy wanes with the exertion. Hei makes a quick and dirty fighter, merciless as he takes point against one of the Regency agents who's staggered, kicking up mud at a jackal mask with his foot before cutting the blinded enemy down at the stomach. It risks his own exposure to the second who aims their blaster at his side and he feels the burning bite of plasma strike him below the ribs, singing a hole in his uniform. Bad, he realizes, when the almost gooey energy splashed him scrapes at layers of skin and muscle until he's certain stained bone is peeking out of his jacket.

There's no time for the shout that should come and Dorian knows this as well, the two of them silent through their tribulations. He thought he could keep it up, fight through in their dangerous states, but — he's dreadfully unlucky. Things rarely ever stay good, souring quickly. 'How can it get any worse?' a popular phrase that sums up the majority of the sad years he's spent clinging to this wretched life.

The sudden wrenching of old injuries barely healed by time. Hei can hardly recognize why his own body reacts as violently as it does when he knows he can withstand pain on a scale no human could cope with, but, when his eyes dart to Dorian, it's the warning look that sends a thrill up his spine and promises him that he's wrong — because it can always get worse. There's no lag in his step when it dawns on him, immediately wrenching a tired body away from the Regency to rush at his comrade as the agony spikes and his vitals go haywire.

He activates his ability and slaps a hand over his wounds with a sudden jolt of electricity, trying to cauterize the bullet wounds that rip open and bleed at Dorian's word. "Dorian!"

Hei knows why he's doing what he's doing, forcing a comrade into becoming his weapon against too-strong opponents who have the upper hand, but it puts their lives at risk. He'll need someone close who can fend off the fools who get too close while acting as the blood bag necessary to hold their ground and finish the mission — it's worrisome that they've targeted him. Ashitaka was first, Dorian is another, and he's lost track of Noctis which makes his discomfort grow all the more unbearable, but the only way to find him and check on him is to finish this. Kill these bastards who've been brainwashed into obsessing over the True Peace to a degree that makes them mindless murderers just the same as their enemies.

"T-Take them out," a strained order, yanking impatiently at the collar of his own uniform to make the drawing of blood from his shoulder and bicep that much easier — helped along further with a press and wiggle of his own dagger into a pockmark scar from an age ago.