[tshiggins]

(...continued)

Sergei dropped the barrel of his rifle to his left hand, pointed at Henrietta, and shouted again for them to halt. Sunmi drew her Glock as Stephen’s long-range pistol-shot took Sergei high on the right side of his torso and spun the Russian to the ground behind the tree that had concealed him.

Henrietta dropped down into the gully as fast as she dared and began to work around the east end of the tree as two Cossacks to the southwest and northwest stepped from behind cover and took aim. A.45-70 caliber rifle round from the sharpshooter on the first hill hit Stephen between the shoulder blades and smashed him, unconscious, to the floor of the buggy, where he began to bleed out rapidly.

Sunmi snapped off three shots at the Cossack a bit behind them, to the northwest, and he threw himself prone. Henrietta had just about cleared the west end of the tree when a rifle-shot from the Cossack to the southwest took her in the chest. She immediately passed out, but her prepared Major Healing spell triggered and pulled her back up to within a single hit point of regaining consciousness.

Claudia, who disliked firearms intensely, grabbed the wheel of the buggy and reached over with her left foot to smash the accelerator down. She managed to bounce the buggy up out of the gully, as Sunmi plunged down the north side and got her left front wheel stuck in some soft sand by the trunk of the downed pine.

Up on the south bank, Claudia lost control of the steering and found herself heading for a tree, as the southwest Cossack (now almost directly behind her) pulled out his cap-lock cavalry revolver rather than reload his rifle, and charged. Desperately, Claudia tried to slam the buggy into reverse so as to run him down. She couldn’t reach the clutch but tried to force it, anyway, while still moving about 20 mph forward.

The buggy’s suspension tore itself apart and the vehicle lurched to a halt short of the tree, filling the air with the smell of smoking oil.

Sunmi managed to back up out of the gully, fired three times at the northwest Cossak, tagged him once, and then the sharpshooter put a rifle round underneath her left armpit. Sunmi’s prepped healing spell triggered and she managed to remain conscious as she drove the buggy down into the gully where its banks offered cover.

Over on the other side, the Cossack ran up beside the front buggy, pointed his pistol at Claudia and pulled the trigger as she smacked it aside at the last second. The caplock smashed into a metal bar of the roll-cage as the bullet buried itself in the dashboard. Claudia went for a grapple and just managed to get a good grip as the Cossack pointed his pistol at her face, pulled the trigger and heard the abused mechanism click as the cylinder jammed.

Claudia tried to capitalize on her grapple and went for his throat, but her position (seated in the buggy) allowed him to break free and he cracked her left collarbone with the butt of the heavy pistol. Claudia’s vision went white for a second, but she managed give Henrietta a solid thump in the chest and shout at her to wake up.

The Cossack stepped back and got ready to smash Claudia again, just as Sunmi roared up from behind him. Badly wounded, Sunmi felt her buggy lurch to the right at the last moment and she missed running down the Cossack. She slammed on the brakes and jerked to a sudden halt before she hit a tree.

The man turned around and took a wild swing at Sunmi with the heavy pistol, but missed. Claudia managed to pull herself together, and realized the man had turned his back to her. She rose up out of the seat of the buggy and threw her right elbow around his throat as Sunmi picked her pistol up from out of her lap and shop the Cossack in the chest.

Stunned, the Cossack started to sag to the ground just as Claudia gave a solid heave, and she felt his neck snap. Horrified at what she’d done, Claudia dropped the paralyzed Cossack to the ground as Henrietta started to regain consciousness.

Sunmi had a second healing spell prepped with a verbal command as a trigger, and she reached back and cast it on Stephen just before he died. That stabilized him but brought him nowhere near consciousness.

In the other buggy, Henrietta regained consciousness and, despite her injuries, managed to see through the small copse of trees well enough to spot the sharpshooter advancing from the direction of his hill, as the first Cossack Sunmi shot paused to assess the situation. She also saw Sergi, badly wounded but still alive, moving toward the buggies through the trees on the north side of the wash.

Sergei spotted Henrietta just as she saw him, and he began to bring his rifle to bear. The stock of Henrietta’s nine-mil still lay under her palm and she raised it quickly and squeezed off three shots. Despite the range and the cover, she hit Sergei twice and he collapsed in a heap. (Great roll!) That was enough for the other two Cossacks, one of whom was badly wounded, himself, and they beat a hasty retreat.

The group spent the next 30 minutes, or so, binding wounds and doing general First Aid on one another. They sorely missed Doc Bascher’s services. Even though both she and Sunmi were badly wounded (and Claudia not in very good shape, either), Henrietta decided to use her second healing spell, also triggered with a verbal command, to bring Stephen around.

Remarkably, the spell worked like gangbusters and Stephen woke up to find himself in the best shape of anyone. As the women rested for a while, he assessed the situation, and realized that A.J. and Beatrice and engineered and built the buggies with just such a contingency in mind. Both the buggies and the trailers had solid construction and plenty of rings and cleats to allow one buggy to tow everything else.

Stephen got out some heavy rope and, with Claudia’s limited assistance (she had one good arm), managed to get everything lashed together. Although limited to no more than about 15 mph by the jury-rigged tow-harnesses, Stephen felt it was good enough. He took the wheel of the first buggy while Sunmi remained in the driver’s seat of the second to steer (and because she really didn’t want to move, much).

The slow speed meant the battered quartet didn’t reach the ford until mid-afternoon of Dec. 21. Stephen managed to get across with one buggy, but the second buggy and its trailer got stuck as he tried to tow them across, even though the icy river was quite low.

Stephen got out and took a look, moved a couple of rocks, and said he might be able to pull it free if at least two of the ladies got out and pushed. Henrietta and Claudia clambered out of the second buggy and did just that, as Sunmi remained in it to steer. After a bit of a struggle and a thorough drenching of Henrietta and Claudia, Stephen managed to get the buggy and the second trailer to the western shore.

There, Henrietta saw that Claudia’s face had gone white and that her lips had turned deep blue, and that the scientist had started to shiver uncontrollably. The archaeologist immediately recognized it as the early stages of hypothermia, got Claudia out of her wet clothes and bundled her in some of the (mostly) dry Indian blankets and a thick plastic tarp.

Henrietta wedged Claudia between her and Sunmi in the front seat, and Stephen began to tow the train again. About 30 minutes later, he heard a buzz and looked up to see a worried A.J. overhead, in the ultralight.

Arthur landed in the desert nearby, and dashed over to check on everyone. He ran back to the ultra-light to grab a thermos, but held off on the use of magic until the group got back to camp, just before nightfall. There, he pumped a healing spell into Sunmi and got a quick briefing about the events of the day. Realizing the rest of the group were stable, A.J. took the good buggy back through the portal.

Once there, A.J. quickly drove home to his sacred space in Moab, where he healed himself so he could pay the blood-toll again, and then prepped two more healing spells, triggered on verbal commands. That took him to the wee hours of the morning of Dec. 22, and he decided to get a few hours’ sleep.

Just after dawn, A.J. took to the road again, and made it back to through the portal and drove to the camp-site. There, he got everybody mostly healed, and listened to a fuller account of the trip to Valle Grande and the subsequent ambush.

Deeply frustrated to discover that the Russians had somehow managed to catch up to the travelers despite the better buggy engines, A.J. recommended everyone return to their own world, rather than attempt a second trip.

With that, the session ended.

##

GM Notes: This one turned out rather more fraught with hazard than I expected. I make combat rolls openly, and the sharpshooter just couldn’t miss, the first couple of shots. He proved devastating, even with a single-shot breech-loader. As soon as Sunmi had to make a roll to stay conscious, I started to fear the fight would turn into a TPK.

Fortunately, the ladies mostly made really good decisions throughout the combat, although they had some bad rolls (Claudia crit-failed her Driving roll, at minuses, and destroyed the transmission).Then my dice-luck shifted and the Cossack with the pistol crit-failed and rolled a jam. The fact that they actually remembered to hang healing spells, this time, saved their bacon.

I did fudge a bit when Stephen failed his HT roll to stay alive, after getting shot. Rather than kill him, immediately, I gave him 10 seconds to bleed out. This was Jeff’s first full session in which his character got to take the spotlight, and I knew the party had healing spells prepped. I just didn’t want to force him to generate a new guy almost immediately upon joining the campaign as a full-time player.

(continued...)