(Skeleton Keys) Hunting Coturi

[Hildegarde Bingen]

"Mmm... More like automata. Uh... Robots." Hildegarde enunciated the word very carefully, as if she were not fully comfortable with the term. "From what I observed before they are more like puppets - they can perform simple actions and are totally under Cotouri's control. She need not speak with them, only touch... Its a very elegant form of Domination I must say. That being said, when one notices you... it does not take long at all for the rest to see you either. I learned this the hard way. If Baldwin and the others had not broke out of the bunker when they did I might not have made it."

She paused, eyes tracking back to the camp.

"Be careful of Cotouri. She is a hunter. And she uses a bow so you will not hear her until it is much too late. I do not recognise her techniques but from what I have heard from others, it would seem that she is from some rare bloodline of ... hive queens. Maybe if she could be lured out in person and neutralised her thralls would... eh... stop? I do not know. As to your question on luring out the thralls - I could not say. I doubt it. Whatever Art she has woven over them takes that kind of initiative away. They simply follow their set of instructions until something disturbs their pattern sufficiently."

[Konrad Roth]

That's at least it's something to go on, though not all of the information is new to Konrad. The Savage doesn't wait for feedback from the rest of the group to answer.

"Alright. First off, I'm going to have Cody head back to the van. With this many creeps around I don't think he'll be able to do much to help. Cody, hand that flak jacket to Ale, you stay in the van, lock the doors, and wait for my call. If you see anyone else coming, hide in the cargo space and text me. Speaking of that, the rest of us keep our phones off or on silent, no vibrate. And Ale, put on the damn flak jacket."

"As for these robot zombies, I guess we could play this a few ways. We could try sneaking past them all without disturbing these patterns of theirs and try to find Coturi before she finds us. Best case scenario we get the jump on her and she loses control over these robot zombies. There's a lot of risk with that because of unknowns."

"Another way is to stick to the original plan and lay out the traps. We cause a disturbance and lure the robot zombies into the traps which might take a few out. Coturi will get baited and we hope that we see her before she sees us. We take cover from her arrows and force her to get closer before we try a coordinated assault. The only problem with that is if she does see us first and takes us out or that the traps don't take out the robot zombies and we get overrun behind the cover."

"Or...we do both. Since none of you put on the goddamn camo I brought, I go alone with a flare and a headset and see if I can get eyes on Coturi. I radio back her location and then keep tabs on her while the three of you work on making and setting up traps. On my signal Ale will fire some shots into the Kine and see if she can take a few out, leading them into the area of traps. Fall back as needed and let the traps do the work. Coturi will no doubt be on the move so I'll shadow her to wherever she gets set up. That's when I use the flare to mark her position. Soon as that happens we all converge on Coturi. I'll try to keep hold of her until you all get to me."

"So, any questions, or do any of you have a better plan in mind?"

[Alessandra]

As Hildegarde explains how the Kine were being run, she hated to admit it, but it was impressive! Too bad the woman was squatting and causing the Domain so many issues, she’d be tempted to ask for pointers.

And then there was the mention of a bow. She hated those and they were such a pain! Efficient weapons, but thankfully caused small holes which were easy to heal. Well, granted she wasn’t a good aim, then they could be in trouble.

She glances to Konrad and takes the flak jacket. Your Priscus says put on the damn jacket, you put it on, no questions asked.

And why would she have put on the camo? Her clothes were black, not to mention she said she wasn’t used to being sneaky. Being dressed in black, in the forest at NIGHT, made more sense to her, but what did she know.

Firing some shots into the robots sounded like a great plan to her. Gun fire was sure to draw someone out of the bunker, cause lets face it, two .357’s weren’t quiet.

She couldn’t help the smirk from appearing as Juan made zombie movie references. He didn’t strike her as the type of watch those movies, maybe there was more to him then he let on.

“Her going into a frenzy would work out to our benefit.” Nothing like a Kindred in a Fear Frenzy, psycho can’t unrun a bullet.

[Hildegarde Bingen]

Hildegarde made a thoughtful face.

"Assuming the camp is... as it was... there should be a shed or storage place where drums of fuel are kept. They used the fuel to burn out the bunker... I don't know if that was to destroy my comrades or simply to clear away the evidence within the bunker itself. If it is still there, you would find it over... there. I think. Perhaps would set the place afire, yes? Fire usually brings out the Beast in the best of us."

The Lord pointed as best she could. She could have been talking for going on an afternoon stroll for the amount of emotion in her voice.

[Konrad Roth]

"As long as we're all on the same page. If we're going for a frontal assault we better be prepared to run if things don't go as planned. We'll hang onto the caltrops and smoke grenade to cover our escape if that's the case."

At the talk of setting things on fire, Konrad can't help but roll his eyes. "As a last resort, right? Well anyways, we're wasting time. Let's just get started on rigging some traps. Ale, I'll take the shovel and start digging us a pit. Juan, grab that bowie knife from the bag and start carving us some stakes to fill it with. Ale and Hilda, try to find some wood branches for him to work with and then one of you keep an eye out while the other sets up the jaw trap. Once that's set up we can work together with the rope to make some snare traps but honestly we don't want to be here until daylight so we may have to hope that's enough."

Konrad breaks from the huddle and begins looking around their surroundings for a suitable spot to dig his hole.

And if his Ghoul hasn't left already for the van, Konrad instructs the man to get his ass in gear.

[Konrad Roth]

Hearing no complaint, Konrad takes it that the others understand their roles. For the first twenty minutes, Konrad gives himself the task of searching out a strategic spot to work on the pit he plans to dig. He scans the area and begins to stealthily move about, but finds that there's just nothing around him that has a strategic advantage. But then again he's not a strategist, just a Gangrel who's spent some time in the wilderness and a personal sense of reasoning. His Beast keeps getting in the way too, whispering in his ear about the need to hunt as an animal would. Not using tools and lures, but by scent and by claw. Finally Konrad realizes he's wasted enough time and figures he just aught to start digging.

  Rolls: Strategic Location | Failure | 20 minutes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-05-15 23:37:23		Konrad Roth rolls 8 to stealthily avoid detection 2st 10 min [DEX+Stealth+Sp(Darkness)] (10 Again)		9, 5, 9, 2, 2, 1, 7, 8		3 successes
2015-05-15 23:37:01		Konrad Roth rolls 4 to locate a strategic spot for pit trap 2st 10 min [INT+Surv] (1s Subtract)		6, 2, 1, 8		failure
2015-05-15 23:30:50		Konrad Roth rolls 8 to stealthily avoid detection 1st 10 min [DEX+Stealth+Sp(Darkness)] (10 Again)		3, 1, 9, 4, 10, 5, 5, 3, 7		2 successes
2015-05-15 23:29:55		Konrad Roth rolls 4 to locate a strategic spot for pit trap 1st 10 min [INT+Surv] (1s Subtract)		10, 4, 3, 1		failure

Shovel in hand he chops away at a 10x10 area of dirt near their equipment. Metering out the perimeter he gets maybe a foot deep before he realizes another half hour has gone by. He looks over at how Juan and the rest of them are doing. If they're idle he'll instruct them to start on the snares as he continues his digging. It doesn't go by quickly, but then they're planning on going up against a bunch of brainwashed Kine. Doing a quick half-assed job wasn't going to win them any awards.

  Rolls: Spiked Pit Trap | 5suxx 10x10 | 1 hour 30 minutes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-05-15 23:56:37		Konrad Roth rolls 5 to dig a pit trap 3rd 30 min [DEX+Crafts+1(shovel)-1(spike mod)] (10 Again)		8, 1, 5, 3, 10, 6		2 successes
2015-05-15 23:55:07		Konrad Roth rolls 5 to dig a pit trap 2st 30 min [DEX+Crafts+1(shovel)-1(spike mod)] (10 Again)		9, 9, 6, 3, 1		2 successes
2015-05-15 23:43:06		Konrad Roth rolls 5 to dig a pit trap 1st 30 min [DEX+Crafts+1(shovel)-1(spike mod)] (10 Again)		2, 9, 3, 6, 2		1 success

[Hildegarde Bingen]

Hildegarde nods and starts backing away.

"Ale, I'll help you with those branches," she whispers hurriedly.

  

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2015-05-16 01:38:16		Hildegarde can sneak rolls 4 to Dexterity + Stealth (10 Again)		5, 4, 5, 8		1 success
2015-05-16 01:37:19		[03] Hildegarde looks for wood rolls 3 to Wits + Survival (10 Again)		2, 7, 10, 4		1 success
2015-05-16 01:37:19		[02] Hildegarde looks for wood rolls 3 to Wits + Survival (10 Again)		4, 3, 2		failure
2015-05-16 01:37:19		[01] Hildegarde looks for wood rolls 3 to Wits + Survival (10 Again)		1, 7, 5		failure

To be clear: Hildegarde will ASSIST Ale.

[West]

Feel free to proceed, everything is A-OK