3-6: Dust to Dust

The gang leaves the Black Dragon Ninjas' tower early in the morning, back on the trail of the Dust King. The path along the ridge winds this way and that, but eventually they round a bend that gives them a clear view southeast. There, the next hill over, up against the ravine cliff, stands another watchtower. At this distance, it gets marked on the map simply as Unknown Tower.

Dust bandits man the turrets on the outer wall. This must be the place. The fact that there are turrets and that there is an outer wall, however, presents an issue: If someone approaches to pick the lock on the gate, they'll get shot to pieces while they work. The gang will have to use the cover of night to sneak up. It is once again nearly night-time, so they could enact their plan soon, but the level of fortification here gives them further pause. This place has some muscle behind it. It won't be easy to pick off like the ragtag bands of dust bandits they've faced so far. They shouldn't be starting the assault still wounded from their fight with Dimak and the Black Dragon Ninjas.

The gang chooses caution, opting to rest up back at the waystation overnight. The next day, they're back in front of the fortress. It's only late afternoon by the time they get there, though—they've got time to kill before dusk.

Looking for something to do, the gang descends into the ravine. They barely take a few steps before they're accosted by dust bandits. In retrospect, so close to the Dust King's tower, they should probably have expected this.

Well, the attack gets the gang warmed up for the coming raid. The next couple hours make for a pleasant stroll through the ravine, perfect for focusing the mind. When the gang returns to the Dust King's tower, they manage to find a vantage point to peer through the gate without getting shot at. The spy the Dust King in all his glory.

That man is all beef and a yard wide. Decently armed and armoured too, unlike his rag-clad, bare-stomached subordinates. He'll make for a tough fight but nothing about him is so outrageous as to change the gang's approach.

As night falls, the Dust King heads indoors. That takes luring him away from his minions off the table but that's alright. Much more welcome is the sight of the turret guards leaving their posts for the night as well, leaving just a few bandits on guard outside the tower. As Ells gets the gate open and sneaks up behind said guards, that gives the rest of the gang space to sneak through the gate undetected and set up positions, blocking any bandits that might want to run for the turrets once the alarm is raised.

Having now gotten right up behind the bandits unseen, Ells decides to see if he can put his finger on the scale before the fighting breaks out. He tries to knock out one of the bandits without alerting his fellows.

A sneaking character can attempt to knock out a nearby NPC that doesn't know they're there. This is governed by the Assassination skill—a skill oddly named considering those knockouts are explicitly non-lethal. Still, it gets the point across. A character with a high assassination skill can pull off some pretty ludicrous stuff; Ells is nowhere near that level of virtuosity but he does at least have a decent shot at taking out basic dust bandits. Rolling the dice on a 64% chance, he succeeds on his very first try, dropping the bandit to the ground with a *THUNK*. He steals the bandit's weapon and armour and moves on to the next. He gets a bit of a fright as a couple more bandits shuffle out of the tower but they don't seem to see him or even care that their comrades have been knocked out and looted, merely taking up the vacant guard positions and staring off into space.

Ells takes advantage of this, knocking a third one down. His confience growing, he winds up for a fourth. He strikes out. The jig is up now; the battle begins.

The Dust King keeps a bunch of dust bosses at his beck and call, making the fight a bit more serious than if it was just the King and a bunch of basic bandits. They put the gang through their paces. In the chaos, the King winds up squaring off against Pilaf and Keys, two of the gang's weaker fighters. It's clear from the first few blows that he's going to overpower them but they hold steady, weathering what they can while the others work their way through the rest of the bandits. Ultimately, though, he cuts them down.

Jam squares off against him next, going blow for blow until their legs are about to give out. A few paces away, Silvershade is forced to quit the fight, arms too injured to hold their sword. Jam's gaze darts across the battlefield, looking for a friend to swap duelling partners with. While holding off the Dust King until they can no longer stand might be brave, it'd be a waste when Jam is still fighting fit enough to overpower the King's bandits.

As it so happens, Outlaw Hana just put the bandit she was fighting down for the count. She catches Jam's signal and pivots, bringing her mighty polearm to bear against the King. Taking the offensive to give Jam room to retreat, she starts hectoring the King with jabs and slashes across the chest, wearing him down little by little. He scores some vicious blows in return. After nearly taking out her right leg, he follows up with a slash across the face that sends her reeling. She doesn't yield. Just as the Dust King winds up for another mighty blow, she lashes out, cutting a deep gash in his chest. The King crumples to the ground.

It's just a matter of cleanup from there. The gang strips the bandits of their stuff and enters the tower, the wounded crawling into the numerous sleeping bags on the ground floor. Silvershade, not able to use their arms again, is about to get settled in themself when they decide to open up a weapon cabinet beside their sleeping bag-to-be.

I've mentioned a few times that before giving someone a heavy crossbow, I wanted to find a lighter crossbow to train them on. Tooth picks are those lighter crossbows. One of the big limitations on crossbow use is that when shooting into a crowd, an untrained user will hit a friend just as often as an enemy. With a heavy crossbow, those misplaced shots can be devastating. With a tooth pick, they're not so high stakes, and the much faster shooting will also equate to faster training. I could go even further to mitigate friendly fire by starting with a lower quality tooth pick but I would like the well-aimed shots to mean something.

Silvershade takes the crossbow and gathers up the errant bundles of bolts the gang's collected. Then they tuck themself into bed, leaving Horse and Burn sitting around while everyone else sleeps. Burn's used to this—they've had thousands of years to deal with the concept of organics having to sleep—but Horse is only staying awake because, as one of the least wounded, he volunteered to carry the unconscious Dust King. He quickly becomes bored.

Horse decides he doesn't feel like waiting for everyone else to wake up to explore the rest of the tower. He and Burn head upstairs. The second storey holds a trove of backpacks, food, and some medical supplies. The two stuff it all into their pockets and continue. The third storey serves as a prison and much to Horse and Burn's surprise, there's actually someone chained up here.

Horse can't really fault the man for being weird when he's been cooped up in here that long. He goes to start picking the lock on his chains before he remembers he'd need both hands to do that and he's sure not about to let the Dust King go. Burn has to do it instead.

Cat is a skilled medic and scientist. He'll make a great addition to the gang. He's completely lacking in combat skills but conveniently, there are a bunch of training dummies on the first floor. Burn points the way.

When Cat gets on the dummies, the gang notices these are advanced dummies, allowing a character to train their melee attack skill up to 15. A damn sight better than the Shinobi Thieves' melee attack dummies, which only train up to 5. Keys and Silvershade could actually still benefit from them too, if only barely. The others fill them in when they wake; they climb the stairs to join Cat. The Dust King can only watch helplessly as the rest of gang snacks on his food and puts their feet up on his furniture.