Nacrine Tide 01 — Alabaster's Panorama

Alabaster's Panorama was the first session of Nacrine Tide, played on the 19th of September 2021. It was the Muted Requiem's first Sortie.

Content warnings: Gun & edged weapons used in mech combat. Threatening with edged weapons at human-scale. Bug mention.

Cast

 * C, a former cop in hiding. (they/she)
 * Danica Arkose, a spy of many faces. (she/her)
 * Meory Virgo, a self-taught tactician. (she/her)
 * Symbol, a mysterious Psalm. (she/her)
 * Pace Ouedraogo, an experienced commander. (she/her)
 * Spartak Alabaster, a reclusive painter. (he/him)
 * Lambros Fern, a gregarious mercenary. (they/them)
 * Sgt. Nada Larvikite, a fed-up guard commander. (she/her)
 * A nadezhdan greenhorn figurehead.
 * A lapsed noble of a dead House.

Briefing
It's a sunny afternoon on the Nacrine Sea. Far off the shore from Lullaby, the Muted Requiem floats, as its crew are buffing out the last scratches form a rough previous mission. In the hangar, C is doing maintenance on the AQA-939, Meory is giving a crew member a tarot reading, and Symbol is chatting with Deeds while feeding it fish. Over the loudspeakers, Captain Pace Ouedraogo summons the Strike Team to the Intel Room, where she has a mission briefing for them.

Pace, a tall woman with frizzy curls and a stern but warm face, beckons the team over to the large wooden table by the window, where a giant map of Teter is unfolded. She tells them the score: The Heaven in Blue—an art movement closely tied to the Nacrine Tide—has given them a tip about a perfect opportunity to strike against the Garnet Eye, the Wolfram Union's nationalist propaganda machine. Spartak Alabaster, arguably the most well-known and culturally important painters in Teter's living memory, has been largely absent from the public eye since the beginning of the Union War in 802. Now, suddenly, rumours are floating around wealthy circles in Old Ixaldar, saying he's going to be holding a very exclusive gallery show on a high-end, all-day passenger train from Ornstead to Apollimir. He's rumoured to be showing off a new collection of his famous panoramic paintings—landscape scenes depicting the Zonnebak Coast in full 360-degree beauty.

The catch: Once Alabaster arrives in Apollimir, he's going to be placed in a cozy, well-guarded home somewhere deep in the Wolfram heartland, where he'll while away the rest of his days painting the most beautiful propaganda a state could ever ask for. If the Muted Requiem can recover him and his last painting collection, it'll be a serious blow against the Garnet Eye and their public image. However, they're only going to have a limited window to do it. For most stretches of the train ride, conducting an ambush is going to be hard — but between the small desert city of Zandroost and the outposts of the Heather Pass is approximately 4 hours of uninterrupted nothing. That's their time to strike — if they miss the window, Alabaster is as good as gone.

Departure
The Muted Requiem promptly sets course for the outskirts of Zandroost, where it docks. During the night, C and Danica sneak into the train station and rig the Heather Line train's engine to cut the fuel supply after approximately 45 minutes. Next day, around afternoon, Danica arrives on the scene in disguise; she's dressed as the rich socialite Nervena Ruby, and she's got the ID and RSVP to prove it. Without a hitch, she boards the train, and it takes off towards the east. It's a nice, hot day, but clouds are beginning to gather far on the horizon. Inside, it doesn't take her long to find Spartak Alabaster. His art show has a dedicated wagon, and in it, he seems to be trapped in a conversation with a nosy couple. He's an old man in his mid-late seventies, a moose/bear nadezhdan of considerable size. Danica can tell he looks miserable in the conversation, but waits her turn to speak to him.

Once it's her turn, she approaches Alabastar and introduces herself, flashing a Heaven in Blue card. A guard spots her gesture, but Alabaster understands its meaning. He agrees to accompany her to a clandestine meeting in a well-isolated booth in the smoking lounge. She begins needling at Alabaster's confidence in the Wolfram Union — he makes it clear he's not interested in 'politics' and only wants a place to live out his twilight years in comfort, but when Danica begins to prod him about the propagandic use of his art, his assuredness wavers.

Ambush
Elsewhere, approximately 45 minutes by train out in the dunes, the strike team has set up an impromptu ambush camp behind a dune, and have brought a buggy as an escape vehicle as well. Symbol and Meory play a sort of 'divination game' that uses tarot cards while they wait for the signal indicating the train's about to stop. It's not long before it does, and for Danica and Alabaster, the train is shaken as the rigged fuel line ruptures — no time to go collect Alabaster's paintings before things heat up. Over the train intercoms, the staff attempts to assure the passengers that their stop is just a simple maintenance issue. The train stopped a little ways out from the ambush team's dune, but the ambush team has the initiative.

As they all hop in their mechs and rush over the dune east of the train, they spot the Naruchi Frameworks Talon unit on the back wagon of the train stand from its kneeling position. Talons are a standard in the Union's armed forces — they're effectively mascots and symbolic idols more so than machines of war, looking like knights with wolf head shaped helmets, all in deliberately simple and striking shapes so as to be easier to draw and make figurines of. This one is painted deep red, outfitted with a dark blue cape embroidered with golden heathers, and carries a beam glaive and an auto-targetting vulcan cannon; standard equipment.

On the front of the train, just behind the engine, a swiveling turret comes to life. It has no opportunity to do any damage before Union — the Psalm comprised of Symbol and her Chord, Deeds — dash onto the scene, dodging its fire. Deeds quickly forms a sword out of its tehomic nanoclaws and begins to pry the turret off like the pull tab on a can. C in their AQA-939 approaches the turret from the opposite side, the south side of the train. As one of its arms, built with bio-mechanical muscle, begins to expand into a huge, powerful arm, the automated turret easily draws a bead on its radiant heat signature, but it's not enough that it prevents the AQA from ripping the turret off the top of the train.

Meory, meanwhile, dashes past Union in her own mech, Stella, to meet the approaching Talon head to head. The Talon pilot, clearly inexperienced, opens fire with the auto-vulcan — but Meory is able to easily predict where they're firing, and circles around them until they empty their clip. The pilot — a young 20-something recruit, an ermine-hare nadezhdan — calls Meory on her comms, angrily mouthing off at her. Meanwhile, Meory picks up another presence; a big tarp is thrown off something on one of the back two cargo wagons, revealing a Varonn Mechyards Malbork-series mech, which slowly begins to step off onto the south side of the train, where the AQA is. The Malbork is a centaur-like mech carrying a shield and a lance. It's commonly used in jousting by nobles, but it's not uncommon nowadays to see them in limited military use as well.

Recovery
Meanwhile, inside the train, the commotion and the attacks on the train turret are shaking the smoking lounge wagon. Glasses and ash trays are falling off tables, and with a wide-eyed look, Alabaster can't do anything but agree to follow Danica to safety. Only one problem: Between them and the gallery car is half a dozen civilian passengers, a guard, and the apparent captain of the guard — a middle-aged, grumpy-looking lynx/wolf nadezhdan woman.

Danica decides she's done talking; with Alabaster's hand in hers, she makes for the door, shoving the guard into the captain, causing a commotion as she heads straight for the door to the gallery. She and Alabaster both make it through, but her plans to barricade the door are cut short as she comes face to face with two more guards, pointing weapons at them. Thinking fast, she signals to Alabaster to get on his knees, and she puts a knife to this throat. A glint of confidence suddenly comes over Alabaster — who seemingly was something of an actor in his youth — who plays his role as hostage well, helping Danica intimidate the guards.

Back outside, the Malbork charges at the AQA-939 with its jet-powered feet, lance down and shield up. C holds their ground, unloading the AQA's vulcan cannon at the Malbork and with their focused fire they're able to all but destroy the Malbork's shield, but she's not fast enough to avoid being clipped by the incoming lance in the process. Its pilot, an older woman with owl-like features (the sign of a descendant of the long-absent House Orn) calls C an amateur over comms.

Union, signalled by Danica, begins to enact the peeling part of the plan: Moving over to the gallery car, Deeds channels immense levels of tehomic energy into its claws and begins to pry the top of the train car off, while turning the top of its torso around to keep watch on Stella behind it. Stella, meanwhile, is rushing at the Talon with her flame jets primed. She covers the mech in flames, leaving its well-protected armour relatively unscathed, but partially melting its leg joints. It's not going anywhere fast. However, before anyone can finish the Talon off, Meory notices a faint biometric reading on her scanners, revealing something approaching under the sand to the north-west.

The gallery car's roof is loose, and Deeds sticks its tehoma-clawed hand in, carefully brushing away the two guards still pointing guns at Danica. They think better of fighting, and escape into the dining car. However, before Danica and Alabaster can begin gathering up paintings and escaping, the door to the smoking lounge opens again. She's just barely able to turn around in time to face the guard captain and the other guard she knocked into her earlier, both pointing guns. But, with the help of Alabaster's acting again, Danica's threat gives them pause — for now.

Outside, C goes in for a follow-up strike on the Malbork, but it's faster — its pilot turns on a dime to face them, then drives an explosive-tipped lance into the AQA's centre mass, where it detonates and tears apart its frontal armour — and all but dissolving the Malbork's lance. Seeing the trouble C is in, Union decides to leave Danica hanging for just a little longer, and leaps to help out. Deeds hops over the train, and lands on the back of the Malbork, almost snapping its mechanical spine. In the chaos, the AQA is able to slip away.

Pseudoceros
Stella goes in for the coup de grâce on the Talon using her pile bunker (a weapon that pneumatically drives a 'stake' into its unfortunate victim), but the Talon pilot manages a last-ditch parry with their beam glaive, and dodges out of the way... leaving Stella in the path of whatever has been burrowing through the sand towards her. Out bursts a huge mech in the shape of a mix between a fish and a flatworm, rippling in colourful biomechanical pseudo-flesh and sharp, ablative blade-fins. This is the Legato Biotech Pseudoceros, and it grips Stella in its titanium jaws, holding her tight as its mouth takes on a warm yellow glow.

However, the Talon's luck doesn't last that long. Its pilot is completely unaware when the AQA-939 comes up behind it, smashing through its torso with its giant arm, spreading machine guts all over the dunes as it siphons the mech's power back into itself. In a fit of rage, its pilot begins cursing them out as their comms cut out. C quickly proceeds to try and help Stella struggle out of the Pseudoceros' jaws, but its grip is too tight, and it releases the gaseous blast it'd been charging up. It's a cloud of corrosive gas, which begins to melt away both Stella and the AQA's armour — but thanks to Meory firing Stella's flame jets, some of the gas is burned away, mitigating some damage.

In Meory's cockpit, another figure appears on the comms — a dodonan person with a wild, grey-white beard (who doesn't look old enough to have gone grey) and tan skin, who wears an oversized yellow jumpsuit. They greet Meory in a strangely friendly tone, introducing themself as Lambros Fern, and bidding her to stay put. Meory retorts that if they're just going to keep her here, her friends are just going to escape with the cargo — but Lambros insists they're not worried; "I've got backup coming," they grin. Up in the north-eastern sky, thunder cracks in the distance, as storm clouds are rolling in, and in that cloud — far, far up — is a huge airborne dreadnought. It's coming this way.

Escape
The team needs to act fast to get away. With the Malbork at Union's mercy, she brings Deeds' sword down on it hard, driving it into its back and wedging it through the point between the equine and the humanoid part of its centaur form, slicing clean through it and separating its two torsos. "You little shit," its pilot screams before her comms go out too — like the Talon pilot, she's alive, but she's going to have her work cut out for her crawling out of that wreck. With that threat out of the way, Union swiftly makes its way back to the gallery car.

Inside it, Danica is standing off against the guard captain and her subordinate — the latter of whom is holding his gun with shaky hands. The captain, named Nada Larvikite, curtly tells Danica to drop it; she doesn't need this shit today. But, to her surprise, Danica gently pushes Alabaster aside, before striding up to her and sticking the knife in her collar. At the sheer audacity of the threat, Larvikite drops her gun, and meekly commands the guard next to her to do so as well. In the commotion of it, Alabaster stumbles back-first into one of his paintings and puts a hole in it, but aside from his sudden anger, the gallery is clear of threats.

As Meory continues to struggle to get free, she begins to overheat Stella, releasing hot steam into the mouth of the Pseudoceros while overheating her own systems — but not even this is enough to release the grip on its own. It's only when C in the AQA backs up and unloads a ream of bullets into the Pseudoceros that Lambros, angry with the interruption, leaves Stella an opportunity to slip out.

As the Muted Requiem approaches on the horizon (barely out of the dreadnought's sniping range), the team has their chance to run now — or they can stay and fight Lambros. They debate amongst themselves for a brief moment while Deeds picks Danica, Alabaster, and the paintings up with two of its hands. As the Pseudoceros gets poised to strike again, a deafening blast suddenly erupts from the sand some fifty-odd meters north of their location, as a crackling lightning strike coming from the dreadnought strikes, pelting the mechs and the train in beads of glassed sand. That was just a warning shot, but it's enough for them to make their decision: Run.

Meory uses Stella's magma sinks to buy the team some time. The little drones circle around the Pseudoceros and dispense a magma-like substance that fuses the mech to the sand (at least for now). Lambros courteously compliments her on the play, as Deeds leads the final escape. The team makes for their ambush camp, where Deeds quickly places its passengers in the buggy, before strapping it to its back and running on all six limbs to the Requiem, with Stella and the AQA in tow. They manage to board in just minutes, as another lightning strike barely whiffs by the carrier — and the crew quickly takes off, with the chilling knowledge that that one was not a warning.

Mechanical Notes

 * The Garnet Eye has lost 1 asset, of 3 required to become vulnerable.
 * C deepened 2 hooks.
 * The AQA-939 gained the peril "shattered armour."
 * Danica and Symbol gained a GRAVITY Clock with each other.
 * Symbol: "Danica: A melody that acts like she's harsher than she truly is."
 * Danica: "Union: My Hope, even if I try to play it cool."
 * Danica added a GRAVITY Clock for her old partner, Annapolis Winter.