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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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She swept the heavy barrel across a line of mercenaries hiding behind a hedgerow, the fifty round drum spitting a continuous stream of .45 caliber hollow points that shredded the thick bushes and the men hiding behind them into absolute ribbons. Arthur moved with the unstoppable, terrifying momentum of a freight train. He didn't bother taking cover. He walked straight down the gravel path, his gold inlaid M-1911 pistol barking with metronomic, deadly precision. Every time he pulled the trigger, a Gray guard fell.
It was a very, very bloody affair. The red dirt of the pathways was quickly turning into a dark, muddy crimson sludge. The air was incredibly thick with the gray, acrid smoke of burnt smokeless powder, and the sharp, metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the winter air.
Meanwhile, inside the sprawling, luxurious interior of the plantation mansion, the reality of the situation was entirely different, but no less chaotic.
The walls of Caliga Hall were physically shaking from the sheer volume of gunfire erupting just yards away. Fine plaster dust was falling like snow from the vaulted ceilings, and the massive crystal chandeliers were rattling violently above the grand staircase. The Gray family, under the frantic, terrified lead of Tavish and Leigh Gray, was desperately trying to evacuate.
The grand foyer was a scene of absolute, pathetic panic. The arrogant Southern aristocrats who had sipped mint juleps and plotted the downfall of Saint Denis just twenty four hours ago were now scrambling like cornered rats.
Aunts, cousins, and wives were weeping hysterically, clutching the hems of their expensive silk dresses as they rushed back and forth.
Tavish, wearing his linen suit still completely stained and plastered with the drying blood and brain matter of his own gate captain, was screaming at the top of his lungs. He was shoving heavy velvet bags into the hands of his terrified servants.
"Pack the bearer bonds! Get the silver from the dining room!" Tavish shrieked, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his face pale with sheer, unadulterated terror. "Leave the clothes! Just get the deeds and the gold! We have to get out the back doors before they breach the porch!"
As for Leigh, he was leaning against the mahogany banister, hyperventilating, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold his revolver. "Tavish, they're slaughtering everyone out there! The guards and the mercenaries are dying! We can't hold them back!"
"Shut up and pack!" Tavish roared, slapping a bag of jewelry into his brother's chest.
In the midst of the frantic, deafening chaos, Tavish suddenly looked around the crowded foyer, his panicked mind realizing that a crucial member of the bloodline was missing. They needed every able bodied man holding a gun to cover their retreat.
"Where is Beau?!" Tavish yelled, his voice cracking as a particularly loud shotgun blast rattled the front windows. "Where is that useless, poetry reading boy?! Beau! Get down here this instant!"
Tavish took a step toward the stairs, fully intending to drag his nephew out of his bedroom by the collar. But then, he froze.
A sudden, bitter realization hit him like a physical blow to the stomach. He remembered. Beau wasn't here. Beau was already gone. Just weeks ago, the boy had completely abandoned the family, turning his back on the Grays' legacy, and had run off to the North with the Braithwaite girl, Penelope.
For a fraction of a second, Tavish's face contorted in sheer, venomous rage at the thought of his nephew's betrayal. He wanted to curse the boy's name. But as the terrifying, mechanical roar of a Sweeper submachine gun tore through the front doors, shredding the heavy oak into splinters, the anger vanished, replaced by a hollow, sickening irony.
The boy who had abandoned the family feud, the coward who had run away with the enemy, was going to be the only Gray left alive by the end of the day.
Tavish violently shook the thought from his head, his survival instincts completely overriding his pride. He turned his focus entirely back to evacuating the family.
"Forget him!" Tavish barked, shoving his weeping sister in law toward the rear hallway. "Get to the back! Move to the carriage house! We take the horses and we ride for the eastern swamps! Go! Go!"
Back outside, the shootout continued to rage across the manicured lawns.
Caleb, his mind was operating the tactical capacity needed for this battle, anticipated the exact cowardly move the Grays were making. He knew that wealthy men did not fight to the death in their foyers; they ran out the back door.
Standing behind the cover of a massive stone fountain, Caleb dropped his empty Vanguard rifle to its sling. The water in the fountain was boiling with stray bullets, but Caleb didn't flinch. He raised his voice over the deafening cacophony of the firefight, issuing a rapid, decisive command to secure the perimeter.
"John! Javier! Dean!" Caleb roared, calling out the seasoned outlaws and one of his most trusted, ruthless Italian capos.
John, reloading his repeater behind a marble statue, snapped his head toward the Don. Javier and Dean, a heavily scarred mobster with a vicious reputation, immediately looked to Caleb for their orders.
"They are going to run!" Caleb commanded, pointing a leather gloved finger toward the sprawling, decorative hedge maze that bordered the eastern side of the mansion and led directly toward the rear carriage house. "Take a squad! Take the left flank through the gardens! Get to the back of the property and lock it down! I want the carriages disabled and the horses scattered! Make absolutely sure that the Gray family does not leave this area!"
"You got it, Caleb!" John yelled back, instantly understanding the objective.
John, Javier, and Dean immediately gathered a couple of the fastest, most lethal capos from the firing line. They broke away from the main frontal assault, sprinting low and fast across the bloody grass. They vanished into the thick, towering walls of the hedge maze, navigating the twisting pathways with ruthless speed.
They encountered a small pocket of Gray guards trying to cover the rear retreat. Dean didn't even slow down. The Italian capo raised his Vanguard rifle from the hip and fired twice, dropping a guard instantly. Javier fanned the hammer of his revolver, putting three rounds into a mercenary's chest, while John used his repeating rifle to clear the path.
They burst out of the hedge maze and rushed the carriage house, shooting out the wooden wheels of the luxury coaches and firing a few warning shots into the air to scatter the terrified carriage horses into the swamps. The back door was completely, hermetically sealed.
Meanwhile, the main shootout continued directly in front of the mansion.
The Grays' inner perimeter was finally collapsing under the sheer, unbearable weight of the Thorne-Marlin weapons. The ex Confederates were dying in droves. They had never faced a force that could lay down continuous, automatic fire while simultaneously picking off targets with high velocity sniper rounds.
The morale of the mercenaries shattered completely. The few survivors threw their weapons into the mud, holding their hands in the air, or turned and blindly fled into the tree line, only to be cut down by the capos' merciless crossfire.
Caleb stepped out from behind the stone fountain. The resistance was broken.
He seamlessly transitioned through his entire arsenal, demonstrating the absolute, terrifying supremacy of his creations. He drew his gold inlaid M-1911 pistol, walking forward with a slow, predatory stride. A wounded mercenary tried to raise a shotgun from the dirt. Caleb didn't even look down, he simply extended his arm and put a single .45 caliber slug through the man's shoulder, pinning him to the ground.
Caleb and everyone else finally pushed through the last line of shattered wooden barricades and entered directly into the massive, circular cobblestone courtyard of the mansion.
The courtyard was a scene of absolute devastation.
The white gravel was stained dark red. The beautiful rose bushes were shredded to pieces, and the bodies of the Gray family's finest guards lay scattered across the pristine lawns. The heavy, suffocating silence of a conquered battlefield began to settle over the yard, broken only by the groans of the dying and the hiss of steam escaping from a ruptured decorative water pipe.
Caleb stood at the base of the grand, sweeping marble steps leading up to the massive wrap around porch of Caliga Hall.
He calmly ejected the partially spent magazine from his M-1911, sliding it into his duster pocket, and slammed a completely fresh, fully loaded magazine into the grip with a sharp, metallic clack. He racked the slide, chambering a round.
He didn't look back, but he knew exactly who was standing behind him.
Gathering at the base of the steps alongside Caleb were the absolute elite of his empire. Arthur Morgan stood to his right, his massive frame coated in dust and gunpowder residue, his green eyes burning with a cold, protective fury. Silvio, the towering mountain of an enforcer, stood to his left, racking a fresh shell into his smoking Auto 5 shotgun.
Sadie, her face smeared with mud and her eyes wide with the adrenaline of the slaughter, stood ready with her Sweeper. Bill, Lenny, and the dozens of surviving, heavily armed Italian capos formed a tight, impenetrable wall of dark coats and blued steel behind their Don.
They walked up the marble steps in perfect, terrifying unison. The heavy thud of their boots on the stone echoed like a death knell for the Southern aristocracy.
They reached the grand front doors of the mansion. The heavy oak was already splintered and riddled with bullet holes from the earlier suppression fire.
Caleb didn't bother knocking.
He raised his heavy boot and kicked the massive double doors squarely in the center. The damaged brass locks completely shattered, and the heavy oak doors violently slammed open, bouncing off the interior walls of the grand foyer with a deafening crash.
Caleb, alongside Arthur, Silvio, Sadie, Bill, Lenny, and the capos, stepped over the threshold and entered into the mansion.
The interior of Caliga Hall was a stark, pathetic contrast to the militaristic perfection of the men invading it. The chaos inside could still be plainly heard echoing down the rear hallways. Women were sobbing openly, servants were cowering under heavy oak tables, and the clattering of dropped silver and spilled jewelry echoed across the marble floors.
But as the heavy front doors crashed open and the cold winter wind swept into the warm foyer, carrying with it the sharp, metallic scent of blood and gunpowder, the chaos instantly died.
The sudden, terrifying silence that fell over the room.
Standing in the center of the grand foyer, caught completely off guard in the middle of their frantic retreat, were Tavish and Leigh Gray, surrounded by the weeping women of their family.
Tavish was clutching a heavy leather bag stuffed with bearer bonds and property deeds. Leigh was holding a trembling revolver, pointing it uselessly toward the floor. They had heard the gunfire at the carriage house. They knew John had cut off their escape. They were completely, entirely trapped in their own home.
When the doors opened, and the Grays actually laid eyes on the men who had just slaughtered their entire army in less than twenty minutes, the reality of their situation crashed down upon them with the weight of a collapsing mountain.
They saw Caleb standing in the center of the doorway, his leather duster sweeping the floor, the gold inlaid M-1911 resting casually in his hand. They saw Arthur'd massive, imposing figure blocking the light. They saw the cold, dead eyes of the Italian capos leveling high velocity rifles directly at their chests.
The Grays froze completely. The arrogant, wealthy plantation owners looked at the smoking barrels of the Thorne-Marlin weapons, and then looked into the merciless blue eyes of the Don of Saint Denis.
Tavish's hands began to shake so violently that the heavy leather bag of bonds slipped from his grasp. It hit the marble floor with a heavy, definitive thud, spilling gold coins and paper deeds across the pristine tiles. Leigh let out a pathetic, whimpering gasp, his knees giving out beneath him as he slowly, inevitably sank to the floor in complete surrender, dropping his revolver.
They didn't scream. They didn't try to negotiate. As they stared at the army of killers standing in their foyer, the Grays realized that everything they had built, everything they had plotted, and everything they had hoped to achieve was entirely futile now.
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Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl MAX)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Dead Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Bow (Lvl MAX)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl MAX)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl MAX)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl MAX)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 100x100x100)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl MAX)
- Leadership (Lvl MAX)
Money: 2,772 dollars and 60 cents
Inventory: 283,392 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 74 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern, 3 Diamonds, & Important Documents & Deeds Of Cornwall
Bank: -