Tonight I fired up Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, but couldn't get in the groove.  The call of duty issued by General British couldn't be ignored.  And I succumbed.

Spoking out from Alia Das (my first duty station after boot camp) I found a lot of already-experienced soldiers running around.  The heavy gunners are unmistakable, accumulating chafing blisters under their wide-set armor, I'm sure.  More than one engineer jogged around camp with some hovering robotic contraptions in tow.  Some guy stripped down to his skivvies while using the head.

Running past the night-vision glow of the AFS (Allied Free Sentients) signage -- broadcasting Hospital, or Barracks, or Weapons & Armor in three different languages -- I ground-pounded my way down to Lower Eloh Creek.  The creek itself is an embarrassingly unremarkable geographic feature.  But the trench-warfare infrastructure dug into both sides of the creek are significant.  It's obvious this is a long-contested site, but the tons of sandbags and multiple bunkers entrenched along the creek bed will ensure that no side is going anywhere soon.

I reported into a sand-bagged AFS station so that I could program in these teleportation coordinates into my map.  That would save me the steep jog back up to the Alia Das camp if I got lazy later on.

But it was time for some trench running.

I maneuvered along the low-points on the AFS-held side of Lower Eloh Creek.  Mortar fire kept my head down, and more than once a rocket explosion sent me sprawling in an opposite direction.  I was even rocked when I was hunkered down inside of a wide-windowed bunker.  I crouched for cover inside of the fortification and took aim at a small platoon of enemy Thrax soldiers touching down on the other side of the creek.  Two other players were on the enemy side and opened fire immediately.  I took aim and started sniping (though I didn't have a sniper rifle, per se).  Us three AFS soldiers never acknowledged one another before, during, or after the heat of combat, but we all contributed to taking them down. 

I moved on, sticking and moving, putting barriers between me and the Thrax's line of sight.  A couple times I found myself in a pinch as a Thrax-controlled turret zeroed in on me and opened fire.  I crouched behind a wide tree, and the automated turret ceased fire.  Another dropship put five more Thrax soldiers on the ground, not 30 yards away from me.  Keeping myself out of the turret's cone of fire -- mainly by not moving -- I sent pulsing rifle rounds their direction, pounding away at their armor, and finally digging heavy rounds into their bodies.  If it bleeds, that means it can die.

The turret was still trained on my location behind the tree, and I had to get out of there, fast.  With a shot of adrenaline I engaged my Sprint ability, bolting out from behind the tree, leaping over a concrete barrier, and crouching on the other side.  I took a little splash damage, but I'd safely-enough  exceeded the turret's range.

Pressing on, I left Lower Eloh Creek and headed back into the wilderness-thick uplands, crashing through the brush along the perimeter of an impassable forest until I finally reached a well-worn path in the woods.  I made my way back to Alia Das, ready to sell of some random items I'd looted from Thrax corpses.