Red on Red (Mission 1)

The Seychelles sun glares off the steel decks of Mother Base, casting long shadows across the floating fortress. The air hums with the distant thrum of helicopter rotors, the clang of metal from the R&D platform, and the occasional bark of a Diamond Dogs drill instructor putting new recruits through their paces. The ocean stretches endlessly in every direction—a prison of open water for some, a sanctuary for others.

Life here is a rhythm of waiting and war.

Soldiers move through their days with the practiced ease of men who know combat could come at any hour. The mess hall buzzes with low conversation—war stories, betting pools on the next deployment, complaints about the chow. The medical platform reeks of antiseptic and the lingering scent of blood. The brig sits quiet but never empty. And above it all, the Command Platform looms, where the Boss and his inner circle plot the next move in a war without borders.

You’ve been here long enough to know the drill. When a mission comes, it’s never with sirens or panic—just a summons, cold and efficient.

---

The call comes in the late afternoon, when the heat has settled into the metal bones of the base like a fever. A voice over the PA, calm and unhurried:

++All assigned operatives, report to Briefing Room Alpha. Mission parameters ready for review++

No urgency. No alarm. Just business.

You file in with the others, taking your seat in the dimly lit chamber. The Handler stands at the front, arms crossed, face unreadable behind his usual scowl. The holoscreen flickers to life behind him, casting blue light across the room. The handler hands dossier folders to team. Map included with annotated routes, LZs, and threat zones.

OPERATIONS ORDER

"Listen up," he says, voice dry as gunpowder. "We’ve got a job in San Marino. Not our usual theater, but the pay’s good and the client’s connected."

A photo appears on-screen—a young man with a smug grin, dressed like he’s on his way to a yacht party, not a warzone.

"Thomas Vout. Rich kid. UN envoy’s son. Decided to play hero with an NGO and got himself stuck between two factions who’d rather see him dead than fed."

The Handler taps the remote, and the image shifts to a topographic map of the Acarai Mountains—thick jungle, jagged peaks, and a single clearing marked in red.

"You’ll HALO in here, three miles south of the hot zone. Find the kid, pull him and his NGO buddies out, and get them to extraction before the RAL or Rivera decide to use them for target practice."

He pauses, scanning the room.

"This isn’t a rescue. It’s a retrieval. The kid’s a liability, but he’s a valuable liability. Questions?"

Extract will be set upon confirmation of Vout's status.

This is what we know about the other NGO members. But keep in mind the priority is Vout.

Andrew Welling, English;
Tchike Arone, Ghana;
Marco Manelli, Italian;
and Okita Shuji, Japan.

The NGO they work for is based out of Geneva, Switzerland and they take oaths of pacifism. It's highly unlikely they'll be of any use to you all in a firefight. If anything they'll most likely get in the way.

You may not need the vests at all. These types usually have body armor that identifies themselves as NGO members or press in some cases. I'd bring at least one for Vout, but the others aren't the priority. You're HALOing and then rucking through some pretty dense and steep terrain, so weight is probably your main limiting factor.

Altitude: 25,000 ft | Airspeed: 150 knots | DZ HADES in T-minus 90 seconds

The C-130 bucks violently as a rogue updraft slams into the fuselage, rattling teeth and equipment alike. Red jump lights flicker against the cargo bay’s ribbed metal walls, casting long shadows over your team. The loadmaster braces himself against the bulkhead, his voice cutting through the engine’s drone over the intercom:

"30 seconds to green light! Check static lines—last chance to puke, ladies!"

Outside the open ramp, the night is a black void. No moon. No stars. Just the occasional flicker of distant lightning stitching the clouds like artillery fire. The storm wasn’t on the intel brief, but intel’s never met the Acarai Mountains. The jungle below doesn’t care about weather reports.

You adjust your oxygen mask, feel the weight of your rig, and run the checklist one last time:

Altimeter – Check.
AAD – Armed.
Weapons – Locked and taped.
Drop zone – Somewhere in that inkblot of jungle

The loadmaster slaps your shoulder, his grin visible even through his visor. The light snaps green.

"GO! GO! GO!"

TOUCHDOWN – DZ HADES

The jungle swallows you whole.

Your boots hit the ground with a muffled thud—not the clean dirt of a drop zone, but the spongy, rotting detritus of the Acarai rainforest. The air is thick with the stench of wet earth and decay, the canopy above still shuddering from your chute’s disruption. Around you, the forest breathes: the skitter of insects, the distant screech of a howler monkey, the relentless drip of condensation from leaves as broad as a man’s chest.

Moonlight barely penetrates the triple-layered canopy, reducing the world to shades of charcoal and ink. Your NVGs paint everything in ghostly green—vines like nooses, buttress roots like skeletal fingers, and the occasional glint of eyeshine from creatures watching from the dark.

I think your Wild Die is incorrect btw, it should always be a d6 unless you have the master edge from the list of legendary edges, and only for the trait you're an expert in.

++This is Control, read you loud and clear, proceed to rally point, over.++

The jungle resists you every step of the way.

As your team pushes west toward the river (Rally Point STYX), the terrain conspires to slow you down. The ground is a slick, uneven morass of decaying leaves and hidden roots, each footfall threatening to slide out from under you. The air hangs thick with humidity, turning your fatigues into a second skin. The distant rush of the river grows louder—but so does the rustling in the underbrush.

Actually instead of damage the rules suggest fatigue here. So you have fatigued the condition from rolling your ankle or something.

The riverbank provides a brief respite—but not safety.

The team regroups at Rally Point STYX, the river’s current carving a natural boundary between them and the objective. The ankle injury is minor, but in this terrain, even a slight limp could mean death. A quick field dressing, a muttered curse, and it’s time to move.

The NGO camp lies 1.5 klicks north, nestled in the largest clearing on the slopes of Pará Mountain.

---

The jungle peels back to reveal a scene of fresh violence.

The clearing is a wound in the earth—tents slashed open, medical supplies strewn like garbage, and the sour tang of gunpowder clinging to the air. Three bodies sprawl in the mud.

The campsite is looted, to include identification notes on the body, such as a wallet or ID. What's confirmed is your VIP is not present nor among the dead.