"Don't!"
Faust moves ahead and puts his hand on the front of Arthur's barrel. If he plans to shoot now, he's either going to have to shoot through his palm, or kick him out of the way first. That should give Nine enough time to react, right?
"Sir, please. I apologize for him, he's a bit anxious. We all are. We're mostly civilians, we have children with us, and we don't know what's going on or who you are. Please don't hurt him, or any of us for that matter... Can you tell us what's happening? Who are you?"
He is genuinely terrified. Especially of Carl. If it comes to it, can they even be enough of a distraction to give kids the time to get away? The odds of that were dropping rapidly.
(d10 plus charisma is 10+6 and idk if Heartthrob would work here?)
Arthur lowers his rifle, enough to seem less threatening, but still ready to put a laser through someone's chest at a moment's notice.
"It's time for Arthur now, not Colour sergeant Fairfax. You can dial back on the psycho sniper mask." Not Becca's words this time. Nimah's.Spoken a few month before she died, before he found a need for that mask again as he hunted him down...Not important now. I've been done with Ireland for years now.Focus on the now.The circle of men doesn't budge an inch at Arthur's tone, nor do their weapons lower at all. The man in the longcoat chuckles. "Might have a bit of trouble with that one, son. Trust me - I'm faster than I look. But there ain't much call for too much unpleasantness. Just wanted to make sure what came crawling out of the vault ain't another group of madmen, or worse, abominations. Lost too many good people to such. So how about this. You put yours down, take your people a bit of a ways back where we can keep an eye on you, and a couple of my boys will head back down that elevator to scope out the vault and to make sure you're as human as you look." The grey-haired man shrugged. "Course, if you really want a fight, Carl over there'll oblige you."
Something moves out from the shadow cast by one of the trailers dotting the hilltop. It is roughly eight feet tall, with bright green skin, covered in crude armor. It is carrying a cannon that probably used to be put on an armored vehicle of some kind.
That is probably Carl.
Probably-Carl grins at the party, showing teeth that have roughly the same texture as paving stones. "Yarp."
"We got an understanding, bluesuit?" the old man asks, one hand hovering near the revolver holstered at his hip.
Arthur begins to speak, in his natural suffolk accent, rising and falling throughout each sentence, throwing in plenty of slang. It's hard to be rash with someone if you have to ask them what they're on about half the time.
"Sounds pretty reasonable. If yer willing to bringing this level of gat, you must get some pretty gopping shite in these"
He taps the elevator with his foot, and continues
"We found some massive cockroaches, 'bout the size of cats, killed them, then some old security robot with a diffy processor, it shot me, so I shot it in the faceplate, then Charlie here"
he gestures with his elbow towards Charlie
"Hossed a bottle of water at it, it brewed up and keeled over. But go ahead and search it if you like, there's still some of families frozen down there if any if you lot're boffins or riggers that fancy having a shufty."