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Twilight 2000 - The Modern Dark Ages : The Abridged Version Chapter 9
GM - Fusilier
Chapter 9 - Czestochowa - Tomb Raiders : September 2, 2000
Summary: The team heads to Czestochowa on a mission to recover the Black Madonna. A big fight takes place against the French Foreign Legion. Spooky shit happens in some catacombs. The team joins a Silesian warlord's personal army.

Mad Dogs Unit Roster:
John Jameson McCarthy - player
Helmut Meyer - NPC
Varis Babicevs - player
Arthur Fox - NPC
Francis "Frank" Benucci - player
Mike Catchings - player
Anna - NPC
Caleb Mulcahy - player
Ferro - player
Luis Ortega - player
Steve (Will) Williamson - player
Billy “Crack” O’Brien - player
Alex Michaels - NPC
Joe Morgan - NPC
Thomas Cooper - player
Aleksandar Mazurek - NPC

PC Assets:
Nothing

• The Chinook flies south through Poland, and after landing briefly at a hidden refueling station, starts to experience mechanical failure and lands somewhere west of Łódź.
  1st Engagement west of Lodz
  
• Babicevs gets into a firefight with a new American soldier who was off by himself, Thomas Marshall, before they realize they’re on the same side and Marshall joins the unit. The shooting also scares some local townspeople, who fire upon the Mad Dogs. JJM appears to calm down the locals during a parlay, but the Polish townspeople are under influence from nearby Soviets and some of the others attempt to attack the Mad Dogs. At the same time, a squad of soviets approaches from the opposite direction, and the Mad Dogs are stuck in between the groups while the flight crew tries to frantically repair the helo, at least get it in working order for another short hop before a more thorough repair is needed.
  
• During the ensuing firefight, Thomas Cooper gets separated and lost.
  
• Babicevs takes a graze to his thigh.
  
• Continuing the firefight, Babicevs throws a grenade that bounces off a tree and rolls back toward him. He curls up and when it explodes, he’s hit with shrapnel in his ass, the back of his left arm, and a fragment that hits his ear and lodges into his neck. Babicevs sees a vision of Madonna (the singer Madonna, not the painting). Morgan takes a fragment or rock to the cheek.
  
• The Chinook lifts off just as the grenade goes off, and hovers above the ongoing firefight between the Mad Dogs and some villagers. Catchings attempts to fast rope from the chopper to the ground to help with Babicevs, and manages to do so safely, despite his lack of climbing ability.
  
• The team manages to recover Cooper, who had been taken captive by the locals, and then with the wounded Babicevs in tow they all clamber back aboard the Chinook.
  
• They fly another ten minutes, then set down in a sheltered meadow, far from any buildings, with the exception of a lone farm about 3 klicks away. The helo flight crew engages in a more thorough repairing of the aircraft this time.
  
• Thomas Marshall is officially indoctrinated into the unit and the helo takes off again that evening. After doing some false landings to throw off any radars tracking them, the Chinook finally reaches its destination. Below, a single figure is seen waving an IR lightstick. It’s Per Kolstrup, who joins the party. It's revealed that Ferro used to work with Kolstrup for Wright, along with the other men from Wright's "A team". The helo then leaves the party at their designated step-off point, and takes Babicevs to an unknown location for medical attention.
  
• Per lets the Mad Dogs know that his previous unit, his A team, sent by Wright to recover the Black Madonna. They were all killed however except for him. He also mentions that Polish calvary were on patrol and went right through his team’s position while he was out sourcing some fresh water. He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence, and wonders if the enemy perhaps managed to triangulate onto their position based on A team's radio transmissions.
  
• The Mad Dogs then march through the night, ending up north of Klobuck. Hearing sounds of fighting, they keep on til morning, and end up north of Częstochowa. They decide to take refuge for the day in a tractor shed, and send out the scouts to get a better idea of their position. Everyone's feet hurt from the long march.
  
• The Recce team manages to identify the shed’s location in relation to Częstochowa, and they see a UAV being flown over the city. Częstochowa appears to be mostly destroyed, with the majority of buildings burnt or destroyed. In the meantime, the rest of the group recovers more from the long night march. The Mad Dogs wait until the next night, and travel south around the east side of the burnt out city. Fox gets sent to forage near a river for the group, and stays out in the wind for a few days.
  
• Meanwhile, Babicevs wakes up in what appears to be a Soviet military hospital. He’s worried about being found out, but a nurse tells a Soviet officer that he has brain damage and covers for him. Babicevs also appears to have earned himself a Soviet medal.
  
• The next night, the Mad Dogs move into the southern portion of the city, an hour’s hike from the Jasna Gora Monastery (where the Black Madonna is supposedly located) and make camp in an empty grocery store. Rats almost eat Williamson while the team sleeps, but he rouses before they start biting and they scamper off.
  
• In the morning, moving toward their objective, the unit diverts through a structurally unsound building. Benucci, JJM and Williamson fall through the floor. JJM is found unconscious but unhurt, and all of the fallen Mad Dogs quickly make it out of the basement. Kolstrup and O'Brien take up position near the front door of the building and watch as a Polish patrol passes by outside, oblivious to the unit. The team then reconvenes on the north side of the building.
  
• A block further, and they’re at the monastery. The unit hears jackhammering coming from within the objective, and see two men carrying French weapons on the rampart. There’s also an MG nest, and a working BTR covering the entrance to the monastery.
  
• The team pulls back and sets up camp a few hundred meters away in an abandoned apartment building, and sends out another patrol to better understand the surrounding terrain. When the patrol gets to the monastery, they hear a loud boom from within it (demolition in the rubble), and a number of bats fly out, revealing an unforeseen cave.
  
• The team decides whether to attack the French, or try a sneaky infiltration through the cave. They decide on a full assault and maneuver into position.
  1st Engagement at Czestochowa
  
• The French however, must have seen the Mad Dogs getting into position and were waiting for them. A full scale engagement follows.
  
• The unit launches an rpg into the BTR.
  
• Williamson takes a shot to the arm.
  
• The team knocks out the BTR with a second rpg hit, and then an enemy sniper hits Ferro with a devastating pair of shots to her torso. At the same time, an enemy grenadier launches a grenade that lands right in between some of the troops, hitting Benucci in the arm with a fragment, and hitting Ortega in the wrist.
  
• The assault progresses. Jaromir (the forger) makes a run for the rear but Mike grabs him in time to see 30 Polish soldiers advancing into the Mad Dogs rear. Jaromir also gets shot in the hand at this point. The unit completes their assault of the monastery at the same time and the French surrender. Everyone at this point is in the monastery, except for Williamson, who stayed back and is single-handedly attempting to stymie the Polish assault in the unit's rear.
  
• There’s a new problem however, as now there sounds like more fighting from deep within the monastery. JJM consults with Capt. Beloq of the French Union (leader of the French Foreign Legion forces at the monastery), and the two decide to work together to defeat the new Polish threat. The Mad Dogs pull back into the monastery while a few set up in and near the burnt out BTR, hoping that the KPV is still functional. According to Beloq, there’s a French team in the catacombs. At that time, two French soldiers come up from the catacombs, one of them wounded badly. The unwounded Frenchman claims that there’s one man down in the catacombs killing everyone, but that there might be other French soldiers still alive down there.
  
• Meanwhile, Steve (Will) Williamson puts up a heroic effort, but finally succumbs to the assaulting Polish force and is shot multiple times before dying. O’Brien manages to climb aboard the BTR and works the KPV, blunting the enemy advance. The Poles start encircling the monastery. JJM asks Beloq about getting the Black Madonna for the French, and about Beloq possibly taking the Mad Dogs out of here and letting them join the foreign legion if he's successful.
  
• JJM and the unit descend into the dark, labyrinthine catacombs. In the dark, they see a human shape and put it down. Mulcahy freaks out and starts shooting at the rear, and Marshall reacts to the threat of a crazed teammate. Marshall shoots Caleb 3 times to prevent Mulcahy from hitting the rest of the Mad Dogs. This naturally doesn't go over well with the rest of the Mad Dogs. Upon checking the corpse of the random man the Mad Dogs had put down, they find it to have been a French soldier, but his face had been badly mutilated by some type of blade. Then the group sees another soldier approaching from the rear, and lure him toward them until they can capture him. It's another man from the French Foreign Legion - Johnny Leota joins the party.
  
• Catchings works on Mulcahy, stabilizing him, but the Ranger doesn’t have a lot of time before he needs additional medical attention.
  Engagement in the catacombs of Czestochowa
  
• At the same time, O’Brien is in the lead down in the catacombs, and sees a man up around the corner - a specter perhaps. O’Brien throws a grenade and after the explosion, rushes the man. O'Brien's weapon fires only three times before jamming, seemingly hitting the man, but the lone enemy appears unhurt and unloads an entire mag back at him. Spooky stuff. O’Brien is hit 3 times, but the wounds are largely superficial. A round from the unknown specter also strikes Ortega in the back of the right leg.
  
• The team retrieves the wounded O’Brien, and decides to pull back with all of their wounded. Now leading the way, Kolstrup accidentally gets turned around and ends up leading the unit deeper into the catacombs, eventually leading them to a strange candlelit chapel, lined with dead Polish soldiers wired up to look like an honor guard. On the alter itself, is the Black Madonna.
  
• The team goes into action securing the room, and Kolstrup finds a back room behind the alter, which appears to be the specter's lair. At the same time, one of the dead honor guard surprises everyone and drops two smoke grenades - it’s the specter. A crazed firefight ensues in the smokey chapel, with Catchings bravely taking a shot to the back (stopped by his Kevlar vest) while using his own body to protect Mulcahy. JJM ends up shooting the specter in the head in a fitting end to the encounter.
  
• The Mad Dogs take the Black Madonna and extract back to the surface, only to be immediately betrayed by the French, who take Ferro hostage (she was in possession of the Black Madonna). The Poles have taken control of the entire area, and have everyone surrounded. It seems that Captain Beloq has agreed to work with the Polish unit in apprehending the Mad Dogs. Even Jaromir, who had been hanging back, points a pistol at the Mad Dogs. The Polish company commander is one Maj. Kieslowski, who seems like an honorable man and offers the Mad Dogs a respectable surrender.
  
• The unit is disarmed and searched, and the Black Madonna is tossed aside without the Poles realizing what it is.
  
• The unit is then rounded up aboard a pair of wagons, in which are a few other prisoners, along with all of their gear and possessions that had been tossed aside. Major Roy Barnett is one of the seeming prisoners that joins them in the wagons, as is Staff Sergeant Owen Hollister. The last is Emil Strama, who is kitted like a civilian, but is a Polish freedom fighter. Emil tells the team that these Poles are part of local warlord’s band. The unit is then carted off away from Częstochowa.
  
• The Polish column takes all of the prisoners to Pyskowice. Everyone is left in that town except for Emil, who continues on with the column, unsure of his fate. The Markgraf/Markgrave (warlord) of Silesia is also present in Pyskowice.
  
• Then taken to the Markgraf (Maj. Gen. Julian Filipowicz / The Markgraf of Silesia), the Mad Dogs are offered employment in his army in return for loyalty. JJM accepts the offer, and the Mad Dogs are rearmed with their former gear, only some of it having been stolen by unscrupulous members of the Polish unit. The Black Madonna has disappeared, for now.

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