Discussion topic:
1.
Tangle - me
2.
Marceline - Hystrix
3.
Carol - [d]
4.
Avalon - Rock
5.
Roscoe - CatDotJayPeg
6.
Xyle - Echo
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Raiding the Coffer
A tiny farmhouse
Occupied Etruria
As bases of operations went, it was perhaps not the grandest. They sat in the middle of the neglected remains of an abandoned farmhouse. There was a hole in one wall, as well as numerous ones in the roof, allowing bright sunlight to trickle down into the otherwise gloomy interior. Outside, songbirds and insects maintained a constant level of cheerful background noise.
Tangle couldn't help but smile with anticipation: It would be a good day to strike a blow for Etrurian independence. Not that there was a
bad day to do that! But nice weather always made everything better.
They all stood or sat stood around a surprisingly-intact table. It was made of polished oak, decorated with numerous woodland creatures and characters out of myth. Clearly, it had been a labour of love for many years by a master carpenter. With casual violence, Tangle drove a nail down into the battered map that sat in the middle of it, easily driving through the parchment and into the formerly-flawless wood beneath. She was tall, classic-Etrurian blonde, and dressed in a travel-worn dress and cloak. The frayed embroidery along the edges indicated that, once upon a time, her clothing had been expensive.
"We are
here," she said. Her dramatic alto practically dripped enthusiasm as she stared intensely around the table. "In about six hours, the caravan will pass through
these woods." She rammed another nail through the map in the place in question, near to the first. "We have until then to make a plan to liberate it from the Lyician forces." Tangle had conspicuously avoided any use of the word "rob" or its cousins in the time any of the group around the table had known her. As if what they were planning was something entirely different.
"The coach will be under heavy guard," she added. "20 cavalry -- but the forest road will make it hard for them to maneuver." The way she said this made it sound like 20 armoured soldiers on horseback was only a minor complication, rather than trained and well armed force that outnumbered their own party four times over.
Avalon Raang was new to the area, her group had been told to move into Etruria in order to help bolster the resistance forces in the area. Honestly the Bernese knight preferred her old job of hunting down bandits on the border. It was hard enough to get to this point anyways, sneaking through Lycia was a job and a half then keeping hidden until they were contacted by the resistance wore her out.
Now the fun part was about to begin. Rather what everyone else considered to be fun. Avalon hated killing in general. The small cell of people was far smaller than what the knight had expected honestly. She was hoping for at least a dozen men or women and was met by half that. Not that she was in charge, she was mainly concerned with just following orders.
Thankfully in the case of the operation the terrain was favorable. The forest would tie up their target forcing them to move slower while they maintained their standard movement. Avalon nodded as she placed her hand on the pommel of her sword.
"Maneuverability or not we need to be careful with that many men in play. We could easily be swarmed." She hated to be a naysayer and that wasn't what she was trying to do but it needed to be said.
"Crackers, we know what we're doing. We don't have to beat up twenty horses, just give 'em a chase long enough to rob the coach."
Feet on the table, Marceline leaned far back on her chair that only two of its legs kept her in perfect balance. She barely even glanced at the map, and preferred to stare upwards towards the many tiny holes that peeked sunlight into the farmhouse. In all accounts, she looked like a slacker with a mess of red hair.
And yet she was the cleric of the group. If things went wrong, as it often did, their lives were in her hands. A pirate without a ship and an eye, but with plenty of reasons to commit sabotage on Lycian lines. She looked pretty smug in her current position.
Though if anyone wanted to be a jerk, her position was also precarious enough that kicking the chair would have knocked her over.
"Six hours enough to set a quick trap, I'd reckon."
Xyle's mouth twitched at Tangle's careless abuse of the table. Liberation from Lycian forces, indeed; he doubted the woods would care who occupied them. But any way to drop morale in the invaders was worth the effort. If the Lycian army didn't want their pay getting stolen, they should have rethought the trade route agreement that started this mess - and much more besides.
As far as anyone around the beleaguered table knew, Xyle was a swordsman with a harp hobby. He didn't bat an eyelid at their odds, only propped his elbows on the table and nodded in agreement with Marceline. "I can disrupt some of the horses, at least. Hopefully the riders as well." His brow furrowed. "No telling how many would be left to guard the wagon itself, though, assuming they fall for a decoy at all. Enough to deal with a group this size, if they have any wits."
Twenty men and women on horseback? Hmm. Caroline didn't have the highest opinion of land based cavalry. Horses were, after all, a lesser form of pegasus that were far more clumsy and much easier to spook - or so she had been trained to think, anyway. Her eyes poured over the table and the map upon it. Caroline's lance and shield were propped up against the side of the wooden table.
She hadn't really been taught any great secrets of tactics, but an idea sprang to mind once the red-haired woman mentioned traps. "Do we have access to any rope?" she asked the group at large, casting her gaze about the group. A strange gathering of mercenaries, but one she could work with. Hopefully.
"If a distraction or a decoy doesn't work, we could set up a rope-line - about chest height - between two sides of the trail." Caroline's hands lifted into the air and and illustrated what she meant - most of the fingers pointing tall, representing trees, while the indexes pointed towards each other. "If it's tight enough, it could catch some of them off guard and knock them clear off their mounts." Presuming that the cavalry was traveling quickly enough, anyway.
Roscoe let the women and other man talk, at first. It was all the better to let people air out ideas, steal any of use, and then present a masterstroke once they'd all gotten their say in. Properly phrased, a plan that synthesized everyone's plans into a single whole could make everyone feel like they had contributed.
He stepped up, twirling the end of his mustache. "Twenty men are nothing," he began, for the drama of the phrase. "Not as individuals. They're only a challenge to be overcome when they pull together. That requires either everyone to work things out, a single leader to take control, or trained instincts to kick in."
Roscoe traced the planned route with a finger, delicately. "Horses are not of much use in thick woods. What we need to do is hit them with enough variety of sights that they cannot coordinate, and take out the leader. Do both, and the remainder should scatter long enough for us to claim our prize. The trick is... everything. A disruption, a rope-line, an attack to take out their leader, all before they can realize anything is amiss. I could either act as a second distraction by buzzing them from the air (it's one of my better stunts), or Curtiss Jenny and I could help transport someone to the battle once it's joined. The prize isn't the fight, after all. We just need to disengage with the funds and we have won this day. The disengagement part is probably the most pressing to figure out."
"We can find some rope without too much trouble," Tangle said, excitement not abating. She started to pace back and forth as she spoke. "I like the way you think," she said, pointing a finger in Roscoe's direction without actually looking at him. "Throw as much at them as we can; if we set the rope trap up a ways down the road, we lead as many of them into it as possible if the diversion works -- by the way, what is that going to be, exactly?" she addressed this question to Xyle without warning, before continuing without waiting for his input. "Then we'll need to subdue or kill the soldiers still around the carriage. We'll still have surprise on our side, but that might not be easy..." she trailed off, as if lost in thought, before finally concluding:
"Whatever we do, we want to avoid damaging the coach too badly or hurting the horses tied to it. That much gold is too heavy to do much with if we lose those."
Marceline pulled her feet off the table, bringing down the chair back on four feet.
"Hmm." She leaned under the table and pulled out a bundle of staves wrapped with a leather cloth. The cleric unwrapped the bundle and brought out a oak staff with a large red ruby planted on top. This Torch staff helped a lot through nights at sea, whether to navigate the darkness, or illuminate the monsters beneath the waves.
"Never thought I'd use her like this, but she can put out enough light to make a scene. If we did it at night, I'd really get them by surprise, but gotta take what we can get."
"I can play to unnerve the horses, make them unruly." Xyle motioned to the harp he'd set in the cleanest corner of the farmhouse. "As for the carriage, few would refuse a footsore bard on his way to improve morale." He smiled wryly. "I play up sympathy, get on the carriage. Lull them into a false sense of security - a lone man safe on the road, what have they to fear? That close, my music would have more effect.
"However, they are likely to realize my playing is the cause of the horses' upset. If you have another distraction to set the cavalry off first, I can sew more confusion, focus on disrupting the soldiers who remain behind; I may be able to affect them directly if there aren't many of them. Then once the guards are clear, I take control of the carriage and drive it to an arranged regrouping point."
He opened his hands in a shrug. "I could also stay out of sight and set the horses off before you attack, or upset them in tandem with another distraction. Or focus only on getting the carriage. They all have their risks."
Avalon sighed. She apparently was the only one who wasn't a hopeless optimist, she hated that. She had always been that way though, most of her team made fun of her for it. Of course it had saved a few of them their lives on occasion but she was still the one who was overcautious and a pessimist. But maybe it was time for her to change that she had only one talent to bring to the table so she needed to just throw it our there.
"I'm not sure on the distraction or anything involving that." She said a little hesitantly. "But I want to be of help in any way I can. My armor is well built and nothing has ever gotten past my shield so if I even just serve as an obstacle then I'd be happy to do it." She bowed her head slightly, allowing her bangs to fall in front of her eyes. She knew it wasn't much but she was good at getting in the way.
"Frankly, love, I'm not sure how much good that armor will do against a charging horse and spear." Marceline shrugged. "We definitely need a big shield with us when things go sour, but I prefer a distraction. I'll spook the front with some fire, Xyle makes the horses go crazy, the rest swoops in and seize the damn carriage before they even realize what's going on."
Hmm. Everyone was offering their opinions and plans, and while Caroline wasn't surprised it wouldn't be hard to find rope (they were, after all, in an old farm house), she was beginning to suspect that this was becoming a situation where 'Tangle' needed to pick a plan and move forward. The mustachioed man and the bard seemed to want to complicate things. Caroline knew what she would do, but, well, she wasn't in charge here.
Crossing her arms, she stepped back and decided to wait and see what 'Tangle' would go with. These southerners had some bizarre names.
Roscoe seemed delighted with Xyle's suggestion. "Can you spare the carriage's horses from the effect while you bother the rest? If so, that sounds like exactly the key. You join the caravan, we hide someone with rope in the woods, and as the carriage passes, with combine you and that to throw off all pursuit. At that point, the rest join to deal with any guards in the fore, overpower the guards on the carriage itself, and make off before they can regroup. I think Curtiss Jenny could probably land on the carriage, if we pick a point where the woods are broad enough to accept her wingspan. I can drop off your backup from the sky itself!" Ever the performer, he accompanied this with a sweeping gesture.
"Okay, okay, okay!" Tangle said. "So we've got our plan, then!" She swept a hand in Carol's direction. "You'll wait with the rope up the road. We'll set it up so that you can draw it taught and keep it that way once the carriage has passed." Absently, Tangle was fairly certain that she remembered seeing a pulley lying around the farmhouse somewhere. It probably wasn't too rusted to use. "Then you--" She pointed to Xyle "--you do your horse magic stuff. Try to lure as many of the riders back up the road toward the rope trap as you can. Once you two get them, run into the trees to try and draw off any of them who can still fight after that -- hopefully there will be too many of them for you to fight all on your own."
She turned to Marceline. "The fire's a good idea; you and me can hide in the trees, try to throw some around the horses to make them hard to control. We can keep moving, keep them guessing where exactly it's coming from. We'll just need to be careful to avoid the coach horses. Speaking of which..."
Tangle turned finally to Avalon. "If Roscoe drops you onto that coach from the air, do you feel like you can knock a few fools off fast enough to drive away with it? I promise that the horses pulling it won't need a lot of persuading to run by that point."
"The two of us, starting the fire?"
Marceline brushed back her hair, and smiled. "Yeah, that sounds good. We should set up fast."
Avalon's mind went blank for a second or two while her brain processed the idea of her jumping from the back of a pegasus onto a moving wagon, knocking out a few armed men and then taking control of the cart. All while not falling off during any of the maneuvers. She considered laughing out loud for a few moments but thought better of it. She was here to represent Bern and cowering in fear was not going to leave a good impression on anyone.
"Yeah I can do it." She said. She was sure that she could beat up a couple of distracted drivers. "As long as Curtiss Jenny can handle the load I have no problem with the plan."
Caroline nodded. It sounded like they were going to try everything. Perhaps not the best possible plan - at least, in her opinion - but it was something. She'd do what she could to see the plan through.
"Wouldn't landing beside the carriage and boarding quickly risk fewer broken bones than trying to drop on top of it? I think I can arrange an opening." Xyle smiled wryly. "And I think you assume too much of my fighting skill. Still, it should be workable." He had other ways to defend himself or he wouldn't have volunteered for this half-baked plan. Just as well he wouldn't be boarding it; his first idea was too overcomplicated, in hindsight.
Roscoe seemed somewhat startled. "You'd rather just land next to it than jump from a flying pegasus onto a moving carriage?" This seemed addressed to the group at large instead of just Xyle. It was impossible to gauge from tone if he was joking or genuinely confused.