Knowledge Is Power [Dark Heresy] - IC

[LCP]

(OOC thread here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157939))


Chapter I
Vigilance is the Brother of Truth

Prol VII – the Library Planet. The seventh of ten grey little worlds that made up the Prol System – the Scrivener’s Star – it belonged, with its nine brothers, to the Administratum, the entire system ceded to that sprawling bureaucracy in the early days of the Calixis Sector as a vast depository and data store. Controversy was currently raging among the hereditary Decatalogues of Prol over the overflowing databanks of Prol IX, but the Library Planet remained serenely untouched by such troubles, revolving imperturbably on about the distant light of its faint sun.

Here, every document that had ever been published in the Calixis Sector was stored – every learned treatise, every work of fiction, every hymn-book and gospel of the Emperor’s Word catalogued and stored in hard copy on 8.38 billion kilometres of shelving. The number was known to within seven decimal places – it had been measured and recorded in Postulo’s Units and Dimensions, located in Section Upsilon, Segment Gamma, Sub-Segment 63AQ, Repository 14, The Gryle Wing, Chamber 27, Row 91, Shelf 2.


http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll99/campbellbaines/dwlibrary/vlcsnap-1686578.png

It was over this dull grey orb that the freighter Gilded Ark was descending into orbit, three days out of Warp on the last leg of its journey from Sector capital of Scintilla. The merchant vessel was bringing food supplies to Prol IX, but instructions from the Tricorn Palace had forced a diversion to the Library in order to deliver a small parcel of passengers. The space-lanes above the planet were practically empty – Prol VII was not where people came to read, at least with any appreciable frequency. It was where books went to die.

Staring out of an armourglass porthole at the planet below, the Acolytes of Inquisitor Al-Subaai beheld their destination, invisible to the ratings who went about the task of preparing their transport to the surface. The crew of the Ark seemed glad to be rid of them: the diversion had been costly in both fuel and time, and without the intimidating presence of an Inquisitor to back them up, the Acolytes had been treated with the barest minimum of respect.

Their patron was still on Scintilla – in the weeks following the cleansing of Sector 963, disturbing reports had been filtering in of portents and omens in the Drusus Marches, making necessary a convening of the Tyrantine Cabal. In his absence, Inquisitor Al-Subaai had dispatched acolyte cells – how many, the passengers of the Ark did not have the privilege to know – on the trail of the Byzantium, the mysterious vessel thought to have delivered the Xenos-consorting heretic Alexei Lysenko to Hive Sibellus. This specific cell had been brought here by the merest trace of a lead – a report by one of the few Adepts who lived planet-side, of an instance of the same clearance protocol that had been used to encrypt Lysenko’s documents in the Library databanks.

Their transport was ready – one of the Acolytes, in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, smiled wryly to himself as he saw it was an Arvus Lighter, stubby wings extended and engines powering up as the pilot primed the craft’s robust systems. Over the cargo-bay tannoy, the voice of a bored-sounding petty officer crackled.

“Cargo bay depressurisation in fifteen minutes. All passengers for Prol VII please to embark; all crew to vacate the bay. Repeat, all crew to vacate the bay.”

They had taken on two new faces since leaving Scintilla, to replace the two they had lost – the guardsman Phrenz, torn in two in the tunnels beneath Sector 963, and the assassin Olympus, taken off the mission for reasons the Inquisitor had declined to share. There were whispers that his encounters with the enemy beneath Hive Sibellus had affected the man more deeply than he had shown at first – that he had been dragged away raving, about dark corridors and doors. Such information was not shared with acolytes: when men and women of their rank were worn out, they were replaced. That was all they needed to know.

Their replacements were certainly unusual – a woman with a disquieting gaze, in the vestments of a Sororitas novice, and a slight man with a hideous sanctioning scar that marred a full half of his face, clearly marking him as a psyker. They had rendezvoused with the Ark on its arrival in the system, having been waiting on Prol IX on the Inquisitor’s orders, carrying a simple certificate of authorisation from Inquisitor Al-Subaai, and a note for the other acolytes explaining that their talents might be required in the investigation. Red couldn’t decide whether that boded well or ill...

Heironymous Only
Psyker witch. Sororitas bitch. I wonder whether she’s here to watch him, or us?

“Repeat, all crew to vacate the bay. Passengers please to embark.”

[Thanatos 51-50]

Acolyte-Armsman Red moved fluidly from his position towards the hatch of the Arvus lighter.
Such a dependable little ship, it had saved his bacon more than a few times, on the field of battle, and more recently, during his escape from the Scintillian Underhive. He had received needle, thread, and a good deal of time to freshen his uniform, the half-hearted black and grey creased crisply and his flak armour newly cleaned, it shone with its black gaze like almost-new.

He took a moment to check the intricate webbing on his body which had replaced his old gear lost during the incident in Sector 963, the bow and rifle were both new and mildly unfamiliar. He had spent plenty of time acquainting himself with the lasgun, though. It was the Sollux-IX pattern, and, as such, packed considerably more punch than the old Mars-pattern rifle he had served with in the Guard. As he was wont to do, Red passed his time obsessively maintaining his weapon and sneaking in some time at the ship's shooting range.

It was his own fault that he never really spent a good deal of time getting to know the new arrivals. He would have to rectify that on the flight down. Shipping out with the Soriatas, at the very least, should prove to be educational.
The Psyker, on the other hand set Red off his balance. He had fought agents of the Warp with the Guytogan 345th. He had seen first hand what ruin the aptly-named Ruinous Powers could cause. He was also aware that, at any moment, Psykers could lose control. He had heard the oficers in the trenches chatter idly about "Mercy Blades" and "The Psykatana", and hoped that somewhere, Al-Subaai had given them a method to defeat whatever perils of the Warp their new companion could bring down.

The first of his party to reach the Arvus, Red smiled and nodded at each of his companions as they boarded, waiting just outside the hatch, and ensuring he was the last man of his party inside.

It was going to be another interesting assignment.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus Bosc, former Imperial Navy Provost, took his time stepping away from the viewport. His uniform was not quite so neat as Red's; it didn't fit quite right, and he had never bothered to repair the stitching torn off with the patch displaying the insignia of his ship. It was in space that the tall, red haired man felt most at home, and he was not eager to go back dirtside, especially after Scintilla.

Memories of the black tunnels beneath the hive danced through his mind as he turned from port and walked silently towards the tiny lighter. Olympus had saved his life twice on Scintilla. Three times, if you counted the time he had kept the Xenos beasts from disemboweling them both with his blade. But Olympus was gone now, as was Phrenz. Hieronymus had, for his own reasons, kept well away from the two sent to replace them. He had seen enough of the Warp's horrors to be wary of a psyker, and there was something about the Sororitas that he didn't much like.

As he took his seat on the cramped dropship, he tightened his grip on his sword and his pistol to remind himself they were still there. Both had also been nearly lost on Scintilla, and he had never been able to properly thank Olympus for returning them to him. While the Irontalon pistol, with its plaque displaying the same ship's logo that had been torn from his uniform, was unaltered, the sword had been changed from its original design. The blade had been sharpened, and a tiny motor installed in the hilt that would cause it to vibrate rapidly, sawing quickly through armour and flesh.

Newly engraved on the sword's blade was Hieronymus' personal birth divination: "A Job Worth Doing is Worth Dying For." Time alone would tell if this was such a job.

LCP Only:
The voice in the Provost's head, on the other hand, was not new. Hieronymus replied to it only with thoughts, as always. He couldn't have his friends learning about Rhakarn, after all. Does it really matter, Daemon? You'll have to be careful with those two around regardless. There's something off about the Sister, and Psykers are a trouble all their own. Besides, if they learn about you it'll be a bullet in the head for me, and I don't want to die just yet.

[senrath]

Ignace twitched slightly as he climbed into the cramped interior of the Lighter. He didn't like the prospect of spending any time at all in close company with that thing, and being forced to be so close to is during the trip back down to the surface would be very painful indeed. Why Al-Subaai had seen fit to pair him with such a creature was beyond him, although he was hoping it had to do with the potential dangers of this particular mission, rather than being a comment on the Inquisitor's opinion of him.

He had rather wished to get to know the other three Acolytes that he was to work with, but they had all avoided him so far. Understandable, really, but regrettable none-the-less. After all, the common perception of Psykers were that they were time-bombs, ready to blow at any moment. And although that perception wasn't entirely accurate, it wasn't far from the truth. While the brand on his face indicated that he was trusted to have enough control to not suddenly rip a hole into the Warp there was always a possibility that he would make a mistake when he was consciously trying to draw on that dangerous power.

[EleventhHour]

Katyra looked idly at the straggling group, blank eyes giving away nothing, as she inspects them. Hardly what the Sororitas had rumour of Inquisitorial groups looking like, but then, who was she to question the works of He On Terra? Noone, is who. Noone. And with an absently motion she reaches up to run her fingers through her flowing copper hair and back over the black of the flak armour she'd appropriated before leaving the hospice of the Sisterhood. White fluer-de-lys stamped onto the breast and shoulders, and a broad silver-touched Aquilla across the back of the shoulders.

Extraordinarily flat eyes, despite the blazingly bright magenta and black lines that she considers them with, there's something lacking as she mechanically locks the belts in place, and setting a black and white flamer across her lap, carefully adjusting the nozzle and feed lines. There was nothing to say, yet. So she would say nothing.

Not to the Guardsman, who sits trim and polish, not to the Provost, sitting in his disrepair, and certainly not to the psyker, who's soul soars beyond the norm. Jelousy? Prehaps, but at least her head had far less of a chance to explode.

[LCP]

Clambering into the dingy hold of the lighter, the Acolytes strapped themselves in: behind them, the hatch pulled shut with a hiss of hydraulics. Over the comms, the voice of the pilot droned – Red recognised it as the same airman who had dropped them in Sector 963 those two months past.

“Hello again,” crackled the speakers. “Let’s try not to leave this place in flames, eh, chaps?”

Outside, a klaxon began to whoop, the noise loud enough to pierce the Arvus’ hull. A bass, metallic rumbling began to reverberate through the landing gear: outside, Heironymous knew that the vast cargo bay airlock was grinding open, venting the hold’s atmosphere into the freezing immensity of the void. The drone of the lighter’s engines rose to an ear-splitting whine - there was a sudden roar that shook the craft as the void jets kicked in, and the sudden acceleration pinned them to their seats. Leaving their home of the last two months behind, their little vessel streaked out of the hold of the leviathan towards the grey little planet below...

[hr]

The landing gear struck ground with a merciful thud – engines powering down, the Arvus’ hatch whooshed open, blessed sunlight streaming in along with a sharp gust of frigid air. Unbuckling themselves, the Acolytes stumbled outside, a little unsteady on their feet from their tooth-rattling orbital descent.

The lighter had set down on an octagonal landing-pad: supported by a flying buttress that adjoined a stocky, gleaming spire that rose far above the surrounded buildings, it offered a view that stretched out to the horizon. An ocean of architecture surrounded them, extending as far as the eye could see – a sea of verdigrised domes and weathered stonework, untouched by the grime of pollution and overpopulation that the Acolytes were accustomed to. This silent world had been alone with the elements since the day of its construction, its skin of masonry and metal pristine except for what the touch of the wind and the rain had wrought. It was beautiful in a way, the rosy fingers of the morning sun creeping over the intricate forest of stone in complicated patterns of light and shadow. Somewhere in the far distance, a lone speeder glided across the clear sky, the only speck of movement in the whole vast scene.

Two other vessels, however, were docked at adjoining landing pads to the one they were on. Both much larger than their lighter, one was a sleek, silvery thing with the look of hive nobility about it – a sky-yacht, redolent with the scent of wealth. The other was a bulky, rust-red, square-nosed gun-cutter: the unmistakeable symbol of the Machine Cult (http://www.deviantart.com/download/108530730/Adeptus_Mechanicus_Wallpaper_by_Kjiverx.jpg) picked out in bas-relief on its flank, it carried the kind of armament that made it clear that its designers had had a very tenuous grip on the concept of ‘overkill’. Both craft seemed to be unattended: crime on Prol VII was, of course, non-existent.

Hurrying towards them across the gantry that linked their landing-pad to the central spire, a figure in heavy Administratum robes was approaching, fur-lined hood raised and hands thrust into his deep sleeves to guard against the biting cold. As he drew near, he raised his head to look at them – they found themselves looking at a gaunt, slender face, with a protruding, knife-like nose on which rested a pair of thick-lensed spectacles.

Coming to a halt, the man extended a bony-fingered hand for the nearest Acolyte to shake.

“Hello! Hello. Welcome to Prol VII!” He seemed excessively enthusiastic about their arrival. “You’re Al-Subaai’s men, yes?” He noticed Katyra. “And, ah, woman. I was told to expect you. My name is Ichabod Vale – Decatalogue Ichabod Vale - and, ah, you were probably told to expect me. Please, come inside, come inside. You’ll catch your death out here.”

He gestured to the spire behind him, and made to lead them back across the gantry to the doors that led into it.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus nodded, looking up at the sky. It was far too open for the provost, who had grown up in the cramped corridors of an Imperial warship. He hurried after Vale with almost undue haste, eager to get himself inside again. "We were expecting you, yes." He says as they walk, hoping to prompt some further explanation.

[LCP]

“I sent word as soon as I got the communiqué from your Inquisitor,” gabbled Vale, volubly, as he led the way inside. The doors to the spire opened to a long, oak-panelled corridor, leading up to a single set of brass-chased elevator doors at the far end. “Truth be told, I’m glad you’ve come – don’t know what to make of it all myself. Usually visitors report into a Hub, like this one – but not a peep out of this fellow, whoever he is, not even a log of how he got here.”

The elevator doors slid open with a choral chime: stepping inside, Vale flipped back a control panel, inputting a floor number to the number-pad underneath.

“I suppose I’d best start at the beginning, although you’ll probably want to be asking Lira the real questions. Two months ago or so, we logged someone accessing the Proscribed Vault – authorisation cleared, perfectly permissible – but no trace of them to be found. No idea how they got onto the planet, where they got inside the Library – not even any traces of them on the surveillance systems. We’ve been having some problems with them, you see, a few glitches – in any case, you can go for months in this place without seeing another living soul. If any of the Servitors have encountered the fellow, they haven’t logged it.”

The lift doors whooshed shut, and it began to descend.

“Anyway, a few days afterward, I received Inquisitor Al-Subaai’s request, for records of this Lectoprioritas code that they’d dug up on Scintilla or somesuch, and of course, it was the same one as our mystery guest. I sent word back as soon as I could via the Astropathic Choir on IX, and so here you are. With luck, the fellow might still be around – there’ve been no incidents of him accessing the data-banks, and manual searching can take weeks. Years, sometimes,” he said, gloomily. “Of course, that’s if he exists at all. Still no sightings of him, I’m afraid. A ghost in the machine.”

Having descended what felt like a great height, the lift doors whooshed open again, revealing an almost identical oak-panelled passageway leading away towards the centre of the spire. The only difference was that here, the walls were lined with books, their shelves set into recessed alcoves: on Prol VII, even the corridors were needed for shelving-space.

Leading the way out of the lift, Vale struck off again, seeming to know where he was going.

“Is there anything I can get for you? Recaf, water – the Servitors can make a passable cup of tea, if you lay everything out for them just right.” The Adept made a brief face, as if recalling an unpleasant memory. “You must have had a long journey.”

[senrath]

After thinking for a moment, the aged Psyker spoke up. "I think a cup of recaf would be wonderful. Thank you." Ignace didn't particularly like most varieties of recaf, but he needed something to steady his nerves, and alcohol would be suicidal. Looking around he took in his surroundings, fiddling with his ring as he did so.

[Destro_Yersul]

I've you've got any good amasec, I could use a refill. Hieronymus removes a flask from his pocket and shakes it, producing only the barest sloshing sound. It was nearly empty.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red has stood there quietly, visibly wincing every time the Adept mentioned the Inquisition, but holding his tongue all the same. But the old autoquill jockey just kept prattling on heedless of what he was saying.
"Dectalogue Vale." Red began, in the calmest voice he can summon, drawing on his training and experience with sergeants that reprimanded with a cold, steely anger. "While I am aware of the sparse human population upon this planet, I might be inclined to remind you that the walls have ears. I may also be inclined to suggest you immediately and forevermore desist in speaking of mine and my comrades' Master whilst we are anywhere that such things may be overheard, this includes - but is in no way limited to, any established and populated area of this planet." the Armsman let his words settle in the air for a bit before casually adding "And, since you offered, I would be quite pleased with a cup of recaf."
Though his words were as cultured as he could muster, there could be no
doubting from the tone in his voice that his statement was intended as a reprimand, and could quite easily be upgraded to 'Threat'.

[roll0]
As usual, this is a base roll, with no assumptions as to modifiers.

[LCP]

"Oh - of course," said Ichabod, quite surprised. "Mum's the word. You're quite safe to talk, though - lowest population density in the Calixis Sector, you know."

He opened another set of doors, and led the way down another corridor. "Nearest adept is at Hub 1/B, five hundred kilometres away. There are these newcomers in the vaults themselves, but we're the only people in this spire, I promise you that. And all our surveillance is centrally controlled."

Passing an austere-looking statue on their right, they took a turn to the left, finding themselves in a small, rather aged-looking hospitality chamber. Rummaging in the cupboards, Vale produced much-used-looking canister of recaf powder, and a bottle of amasec. Pouring a glass for himself as well, he made up the drinks with surprising speed, appearing almost eager to please.

"Please, take a seat," he said, indicating the various items of beaten-up old furniture scattered around the room. "I suppose you'll be wanting to talk to Lira as soon as possible, but if there are any simple questions you want to ask, I can do my best to answer them now."

[Destro_Yersul]

Who is Lira, exactly? I hadn't heard of them until we arrived here. Hieronymus takes a careful sip of the amasec and, finding it to his liking, follows that up with a larger one. He also sees about getting his flask filled back up.

[LCP]

"Oh, Lira runs the place, really. She'll have any specifics you need - data logs, passcodes, anything like that." He looked around at the Acolytes. "Would you like to see her now?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Is she some sort of high-functioning servitor or something?" Red asks, casually sipping at his recaf.

[LCP]

"You could say that, I suppose," said Vale, looking a mite disappointed at having been rumbled. "She runs the Library cogitator system - or I suppose you could say she is the system. Housed here, in Hub 1/A," he added, with a hint of pride.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red stares at the Adept for a few seconds before shooting their tech-priest, Jericus, a meaningful, and partially confused gaze.
Naming rifles wasn't unheard of, but the adept here was naming the machine spirit that ran his entire habblock? This was... more than mildly confusing.
"Well, then, um... Lira? What can you tell us?" he asked the empty air.

[Etcetera]

Jericus seemed to snap out of his reverie. He nodded at Vale and made his way over to one of the servitors.

After conveying a few brief instructions in binary to the servitor Jericus turned back to Vale. (He asked for a cup of hot chocolate, or the nearest equivalent. Also for any recent unusual occurrences and the like)

"By all means, take us to this Lira. I never give up an opportunity to see new cogitators and integrated servitor systems."

Jericus looked very enthusiastic at the idea of being in a library without having to covertly search records.

[LCP]

Red stares at the Adept for a few seconds before shooting their tech-priest, Jericus, a meaningful, and partially confused gaze.
Naming rifles wasn't unheard of, but the adept here was naming the machine spirit that ran his entire habblock? This was... more than mildly confusing.
"Well, then, um... Lira? What can you tell us?" he asked the empty air.

Vale chuckled to himself.

"She's a phenomenal piece of craftsmanship, but not quite omnipresent, I'm afraid. You'll have to come to the Sanctum to talk to her, I'm afraid," he said. "Would you like me to take you there now?"

EDIT: Ninja'd - response to Jericus below.

[EleventhHour]

"Yes, please." Kityra comments in a soft voice, she hadn't had much else to say since they'd come on down from the shuttle, and had stayed quietly following in the back, watching everything. It's not that she was shy, certainly not, but that there was noone to talk to, of course. What's spending some time with less savoury fellows, though they mustn't be if they are in the employ of an Inquisitor, right, compared to killing maddened cultists screaming?

Entirely offtopic now in her trail of thoughts, she broods over it all, returning to being quiet and hiding in the back.

[LCP]

“Excellent!” said Vale, clapping his hands together and practically leaping to his feet. “Excellent. This way!”

Flourishing a hand over his head, he led the way out of the room: they hurried down another set of wood-panelled corridors, black charybdite statues of Administratum luminaries frowning down at them as they passed. On their way, Jericus recognised arterial pipelines running vertically through the walls – square brass housings that carried a spinal cord of power, ventilation and other systems up through the Hub winding their way between the bookshelves.

An elevator dropped them six floors down: another corridor, and Vale’s clearance unlocked another lift, heavy security doors admitting them inside. The carriage dropped like a stone, plunging them into the bowels of the spire – when it finally came to a halt, three sets of gates had to be opened in succession. The third pair were a set of heavy blast doors stamped with Administratum heraldry, the crimson ‘A’ alone six feet high.

On the other side, a cavernous, vaulted chamber yawned before them – vast and dark, screens flickered in its shadowed walls, a hundred data read-outs a second flashing briefly in the gloom. There was a steady, warm, downdraught from the direction of the ceiling, sharp with the scent of hot metal – looking up, the Acolytes realised there was no ceiling in sight. They were standing under a forest of cogitator units, suspended on a vast spider’s web of girders – the strange breeze was the downdraught of a thousand whirring cooling fans.

From the centre of the hanging server-bank, a great tangle of machinery descended: to Jericus, who was privileged to know such things, it bore a faint resemblance to the internal workings of a sacred Mind Impulse Unit, albeit wired up in reverse – and magnified to gargantuan proportions. Descending in a narrowing cone of brushed steel and coils of tubing, it terminated a few feet above the object that stood on a raised dais in the centre of the chamber – the focus of it all.

It was a steel throne, bulky and imposing - it held an eight-year-old girl in a plain, grey gown, feet dangling almost comically off the ground. Life-support tubes ran from the throne into her toes and fingertips, while thick bundles of cables emerged from empty eye-sockets and the crown of her skull to rise up into the great machine hanging overhead. She was chalky white and hairless, blue veins visible through the parchment-thin skin of her scalp: as the Acolytes entered the room, she turned towards them, read-outs on the machinery surrounding her flickering and fluctuating at the movement.

Stamped in gilded letters at the base of her throne were the letters: L.I.R.A.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/LordChilipepa/Lira.jpg?t=1278004981

Heironymous Only
Remind you of anybody? whispered the daemon blasphemously, stirring at the back of Heironymous’ skull: he could feel its slithering in the dark spaces of his mind. I wonder if the old fool has started worshipping her, too.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” beamed Vale. “Archaeotech, the finest specimen in twenty systems. Lira’s been functioning ever since this place was founded, and we haven’t had to change the donor body once.” He paused. “The name is an acronym for something, but we’ve the lost the records as to what. I personally believe the ‘L’ stands for Library.”

From somewhere up in the darkness, a ragged shape detached itself, floating down in a smooth, silent arc to alight on the grinning Vale’s arm. Of all things, it was an owl – its eyes replaced with brushed chrome augmetics that whirred as they turned to the newcomers, iris lenses rotating and contracting to bring the Acolytes into focus. Tubing ran from the back of the bird’s skull into the rear of its ribcage, thin aluminium plating showing where its internal workings had been... improved.

The Adept removed a pellet of something from one of his pockets, tossing it to the owl, which caught it with a snap of its beak.

“These are our surveillance systems here. Mobile, and silent. Can’t be having with servo-skulls, of course – that infernal buzzing they make as they fly. We must have quiet in the library, after all.” The owl hopped up onto his shoulder. “And therefore,” he added, “they are Lira’s eyes and ears.” He scratched the owl under the chin, although its mechanical demeanour showed no response. “This little fellow means she’s listening. Ask away.”

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red looked with awe around in order to better take in the vast cavern, and finally let his eyes alight on L.I.R.A.
"Well, this is not what I was expecting." he muttered to himself, under his breath, and did a slight double-take when the owl alighted on the Adept's arms.
"That explains why it's so dreadfully quiet around here." he mused aloud, letting his distaste show through.
"LIRA. How much do you see?"

[LCP]

There was a pause, and a brief change in the sound of the humming fans high above. The girl's bloodless lips moved, and she spoke - the voice that came out of her mouth was a cracked whisper, but the voice that rang from the speakers around the room was smooth, loud and clear.

"I see the Library," said the voice. "I see Section Alpha, Segment Alpha, Sub-Segment 11AA, Repository 00. I see Section Alpha, Segment Alpha, Sub-Segment 11AA, Repository 01. I see Section Alpha, Segment Alpha, Sub-Segment 11AA, Repository 02..."

The voice was continuing, echoing exactly the same intonations with each slightly permuted sentence. It was clear it wasn't going to stop until someone stopped it.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"LIRA, do you respond to any inquiry posed by anyone?" the Guardsmen cut in, interrupting the voice.

[LCP]

"Personnel in the Sanctum are presumed to have clearance for all enquiries," replied LIRA. "Readers may access Library data via approved Library terminals on the presentation of a valid reader code."

[EleventhHour]

"Do you keep track of who asked the questions, and what questions were asked?" Might as well talk to this... thing, now, rather than later. It's like minicry of the Emperor. So strange, the Mechanicus, straying so close to heresy... Then again, this is the sort of thing that is probably allowed. The machine men have their own way, and there is no reason to upset them... yet. Talking to this odd bird was strange enough.

[LCP]

"All access is logged. All actions are recorded. The databanks must be complete."

[Etcetera]

Jericus frowned at the woman, and went over to inspect the psyber-owl. He reckoned, if he played his cards right, in a century or so he could get himself a nice, cushy posting here: ancient technology, no crime, and all the information you could ever want. Jericus shuffled off to the side to try and find one of the mentioned terminals.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"What is the current population of this Hab-block, and what percentage of those inhabitants are you able to sense at this time?"

[LCP]

“Hab-block.” There was a mechanical whum from the cogitator banks. “A structure for the mass housing of civilians.” Something whirred out up in the darkness overhead. “There are no such structures on Prol VII. Present population in spire classed Hub 1/A: six. All under current observation in Sanctum.”

The owl on Vale’s shoulder looked between them in turn, as if double-checking.

“Other readers in Section Alpha adjacent to Hub 1/A: fourteen. Thirteen under current observation.”


Jericus frowned at the woman, and went over to inspect the psyber-owl. He reckoned, if he played his cards right, in a century or so he could get himself a nice, cushy posting here: ancient technology, no crime, and all the information you could ever want. Jericus shuffled off to the side to try and find one of the mentioned terminals.

The entire chamber was festooned with terminals and data-screens, the central system controls - the nerve centre of the planet. Scanning them, Jericus settled on the nearest one that looked vaguely user-friendly: brass-cased and set into a stand that put it at an appropriate height for a man to stand in front of it. A green Administratum symbol rotated slowly against the black screen for no particular purpose, a keypad, clearance swipe and direct data-cable interface for the Omnissiah's blessed making up the sum of its inputs.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Include servitors." Red commanded off-handidly.

[LCP]

"Section Alpha contains 7,239 Library servitors of various classes and specifications, plus two foreign units."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Do you know who the two foreign ones belong to?" Hieronymus had been looking around the chamber idly until now, content to let the others ask their questions. As he was asking his question, he had stooped to take a look at one of the terminals.

The provost was making a point of looking at everything but LIRA. He assumed she wouldn't mind.

[LCP]

"Foreign units classify as Mars Pattern Ranged Combat Servitors, Mk IV design." LIRA's unseeing face turned to follow Heironymous as he moved. "Property of Secutor Ferox of the Adeptus Mechanicus."

"Secutor Ferox," said Vale, butting in - "that's one of the fellows who showed up before you. You might have seen his ship, out on the landing pad? Tech-priest. Not very talkative. Set off into the shelves right away." He laughed nervously. "It's been all go, these last few days. More guests than we've seen in months."

Jericus Only:
"Secutor" is a powerful and frightening title among the ranks of the Tech-Priesthood: they are the Machine Cult's lone warriors, seeking out and destroying the enemies of the Omnissiah wherever they are to be found. Secutors have a particularly fearsome reputation with regard to hunting down traitors within the cult, exterminating such rogue elements before they can draw the attention of Imperial officials outside the priesthood.

Secutors are typically heavily armed and augmented, and often have a kill-team at their disposal.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Does that strike you as a little odd, Decatalogue? Lots of visitors showing up shortly after the code was used?" Hieronymus wished he had a few more of the pieces to put together. "It could be nothing, though. LIRA, did you see who it was that used that code? Do you know what they accessed?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Firstly, determine if Secutor Ferox is currently under observation." Red leaped into the investigative line, having nipped at some fresh bait.

"Secondly, Excluding requests by those currently present in this room, when was the last time anybody requested information regarding the vessel Byzantium?"

"Thirdly, determine combat capabilities of those Servitors."

[LCP]

"LIRA, did you see who it was that used that code? Do you know what they accessed?"

"Please specify 'that code'," said LIRA - the words 'that code' were played back in an eerily accurate recording of Heironymous' own voice.

"Lectoprioritas 0050," said Vale, helpfully.

"Lectoprioritas 0050 was used to access the Proscribed Vault. No further usages logged. The user is unaccounted for: no visual records available. Diagnostics indicate possible cyber-owl malfunction in the Vault."


"Firstly, determine if Secutor Ferox is currently under observation." Red leaped into the investigative line, having nipped at some fresh bait.

"Secondly, Excluding requests by those currently present in this room, when was the last time anybody requested information regarding the vessel Byzantium?"

"Thirdly, determine combat capabilities of those Servitors."

"Servitors equipped with heavy automatic weaponry and integrated targeting systems."

There was another whirring noise from the machines overhead. "No inquiries regarding Byzantium on record. Secutor Ferox is in visual range of two cyber-owls. Do you require a visual feed?"

[Destro_Yersul]

The provost glanced back over at LIRA when she played his voice back. It was a little unnerving, hearing it come from somewhere other than him. "That would be nice. Could you also tell us what's in the proscribed vault, and what information you have on record for the Byzantium?"

Turning back to the terminal, Hieronymus muttered to himself. "Malfunction. Right. And I'm a grox."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Stubbers?" Red asked instinctively when the "Rapid-fire" weaponry was mentioned.
"Also, yes. Visual feed, as well as a timestamp on his arrival and a timestamp on the usage of code Lectoprioritas Double-aught five-oh."
At the provost's "I'm a grox" comment, Red gave Heironymous a hearty slap on the back.
"I bet you taste delicious."

[LCP]

Could you also tell us what's in the proscribed vault, and what information you have on record for the Byzantium?”

“The Proscribed Vault contains copies of all Calixis Sector publications deemed unfit for public consumption since the founding of the Library. Approximate content of 0.87 million volumes.”

Vale nodded. “A lot of it’s dross,” he murmured. “Cheap fiction that accidentally made a blasphemous joke, or satirical pamphlets that crossed the line. Shelves and shelves of the stuff.” He shrugged. “Not that there aren’t some genuinely nasty articles in there as well. But the whole vault is high-security. I’m not too familiar with Mechanicus ciphers myself, but this Lectoprioritas thing must be high-clearance to allow unlimited access.”

As the adept finished talking, LIRA finished processing Heironymous’ second request.

“There are four vessels in the Sector history designated ‘Byzantium’. Mentions in trading newsletters and the Naval Gazette are available to the general public. Forge blueprints are available with appropriate clearance.”


"Stubbers?" Red asked instinctively when the "Rapid-fire" weaponry was mentioned.

“’Stubber’” said LIRA. “Slang term for automatic weaponry of varying patterns. Wide usage.”

The owl turned its head towards Red. “Weapons in question match profiles of a Lathe-Pattern MkVIII Rapid-Fire Suppression Device. Lexicon scans indicate this would be referred to as a ‘heavy stubber’.”


"Also, yes. Visual feed, as well as a timestamp on his arrival and a timestamp on the usage of code Lectoprioritas Double-aught five-oh."

“Opening visual feed.”

One of the screens in the wall nearby crackled with white fuzz, and then resolved itself into an image: it was practically a bird’s-eye-view, seen from a perch atop a precipitous canyon of shelving. Between the two cliff-faces of books, an octagonal, wood-panelled grav-platform had stopped: five figures in the red robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus were visible on it, as well as the two Servitors in question.

They had stopped the platform next to a brass-cased cogitator terminal, much like some of the specimens in the Sanctum - one of the red-robed Adepts was accessing it, while the others busied themselves with other tasks. In the centre of the motion, a hulking figure stood – heavily armed and armoured, with thick mechadendrites hanging over his shoulders, his motionless calm contrasted strongly with the busy bustle of his subordinates. The owl’s-eye camera focussed and zoomed in on him, magnifying his image to fill the screen. The glow of a plasma gun’s coil was visible on his right shoulder, the antique weapon tracking of its own volition: a Mind Impulse Unit.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/LordChilipepa/SecutorFerox.jpg

“Time elapsed since arrival of Secutor Ferox: eleven hours, fifteen minutes, forty-three seconds.” LIRA paused. “Time elapsed since use of Lectoprioritas 0050: two months, six days, seven hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds.”

[Destro_Yersul]

“There are four vessels in the Sector history designated ‘Byzantium’. Mentions in trading newsletters and the Naval Gazette are available to the general public. Forge blueprints are available with appropriate clearance.”

Only four? That's promising. "Get me the records of what happened to each of them. Unless I'm mistaken, Naval Regulations don't allow for two ships of the same name to exist simultaneously."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Annotate Lectoprioritas timestamp as 'Timestamp Able', and then tell me how many individuals were not being monitored at that time." Red commanded, sparing a quick, envious glance at the ancient plasma weapon.

[EleventhHour]

"Well, the Mechanicus fellow is a real looker." Katyra comments quietly, "And this Lectoprioritus hasn't been used by him, unless he's been here before." She mumbles a bit more, mostly about how seperated the machine men are seperated from the Imperial Faith, and takes her time in heading over to watch over Hieronymus' shoulder curiously, to see what's on this terminal, the flamer clacking conspicuously on her back, and she brushes her hair back as a stray lock falls over her face.

[Etcetera]

Jericus looked slightly jealous, but concentrated on his work. He plugged himself into the terminal and ran a search for any other mechanicus affiliated access

[senrath]

Feeling that he had nothing to add to the current line of questioning, Ignace closed his eyes and let his senses quest outwards. Although it was highly unlikely that the individual who had used the Lectoprioritas code was near enough to be picked up by his mental probe, it was about all he could do at the moment. This was assuming that the individual in question could even be picked up by mental probe, of course. Ignace had no way of knowing if the target was capable of bending the Warp in any way, but he had to try.

[roll0] vs 33. Success detects all warp disturbances within [roll1] meters (psykers and daemons being the most common). The range is extended by 1d10+3 for each degree of success obtained. See pg 105 for further details.

[LCP]

"Get me the records of what happened to each of them. Unless I'm mistaken, Naval Regulations don't allow for two ships of the same name to exist simultaneously."

“Voidfaring records are in Section Phi, Segment Iota, Sub-Segment 05PQ to Sub-Segment 05PS. Latitude forty-three degrees seven arcminutes fifty point four nine arcseconds north, longitude one hundred and thirty-one degrees fifty-five arcminutes twenty-five point seven eight arcseconds east. Estimated retrieval time three days. Do you wish for transport, or the dispatch of retrieval servitors?”


"Annotate Lectoprioritas timestamp as 'Timestamp Able', and then tell me how many individuals were not being monitored at that time."

“Across all systems, nine individuals unaccounted for at exact time of vault access. Eight subsequently accounted for.”

Ignace Only
The psyker’s unique senses could detect nothing untoward – only the psychic scent of stagnation and machine-worship that swirled in the stale air of the Sanctum.

Receiving Jericus' data-line, the screen of the terminal began to flash rapidly with dull, green characters. Watching, Katyra could make neither head nor tail of what was passing - the information was passing directly from the machine into the Tech-Priest's skull, without making itself comprehensible to the eye at any step along the way.

Jericus Only
Interfacing with the terminal, Jericus was unprepared for the sudden shock of the uplink – the terminal linked directly to the central system, the indexed and catalogued knowledge of a thousand worlds yawning before him. Somewhere beneath the surface of the ocean of information, the intelligence of LIRA moved, vast and distributed, a billion operations a second guided by the fragile, organic brain at the heart of it all.

Clearing his head, Jericus began to search himself: there were no other Mechanicus access codes in the current log – stretching back six months – except for Secutor Ferox, whose own high clearance allowed him to bypass the need for any Library code to be issued. The Secutor’s team had accessed the data-banks twice from terminals, performing deep searches for various peculiar odds and ends – the locations of specific books, with no particular connection between them, and the use of Lectoprioritas 0050. By the looks of things, Ferox’s adepts had been looking for further uses of the code that had been masked in the system – if they had found anything, there was no record of it.

His concentration was disrupted as he began to feel an input from the outside world. The Sororitas woman had approached close behind Jericus - the Tech-Priest felt an intense sensation of discomfort welling up in the pit of his stomach, feeling the urge almost to physically push her away.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Send the servitors, and keep a very close eye on them. I think we'll have things to do in the meantime, but I don't want those records vanishing. Actually, can you tell me how many individuals are in that section? If you have a video feed, I'd like it on this terminal." Hieronymus hadn't actually had anything on his terminal until, maybe, this point in time. He just wanted to avoid looking at LIRA.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red stood silently, seemingly oblivious to the discomfort of the provost and the seeming disinterest of the Tech-Priest.
"And the identity of the party not accounted for is..." he asked the machine, having grown a little bit more comfortable and conversing with it as if it were human.

[LCP]

"Send the servitors, and keep a very close eye on them. I think we'll have things to do in the meantime, but I don't want those records vanishing. Actually, can you tell me how many individuals are in that section? If you have a video feed, I'd like it on this terminal."

"Two readers registered in Segment Iota." The screen in front of Heironymous crackled and resolved into a split-screen image of two separate people: they seemed unexceptional, well-to-do civilian types, each in their own little pool of light amidst rows of dark reading desks, surrounded by stacks of books they had taken down from the shelves. For all the pictures showed, the two readers could be kilometres apart - and indeed, probably were.


"And the identity of the party not accounted for is..."

"Identity unknown. Clearance untagged. No surveillance records exist."

"That's the man," volunteered Vale, helpfully. "Or woman, I suppose, or whatever. LIRA logs every access protocol and information request, so when the Lectoprioritas code was used, she registered it as someone entering the Library. But we haven't seen hide nor hair of them since."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Why are the other eight unobserved being discounted as suspects?"
Red asked plainly. It didn't make sense to him to assume the perpetrator was an unknown.
"Were there any offworld visitors planetside at the time? How about cross-hab visitors? Migration? Are you in contact with the other hab-blocks? Planetary population isn't that high, it can't take too long to find out if anybody was missing from where they were supposed to be, assuming proper communication is in place. What about servitors on loan?" Red rapidly bombarded both the Adept and LIRA with these question, with no particular nonverbal form of address between each one.

[LCP]

"Why are the other eight unobserved being discounted as suspects?"

Lira paused.

"Figures given were across all systems. All subsequently-accounted-for personnel would have required hypersonic transport to reach the Vault in between their last recorded position and their coordinates when subsequently located."

"Big planet," said Vale, with his customary nervous laugh.


"Were there any offworld visitors planetside at the time? How about cross-hab visitors? Migration? Are you in contact with the other hab-blocks? Planetary population isn't that high, it can't take too long to find out if anybody was missing from where they were supposed to be, assuming proper communication is in place. What about servitors on loan?"

"I'll, ah, field this one," said Vale, making a staying gesture to the owl on his shoulder. "That's something of a... complex input for LIRA."

"All our visitors here are offworld - that's the nature of the Library, people come here from other systems to dig up things that have been forgotten, or lost. So yes, every reader - every sentient except us Adepts - would have been an offworlder. As for us, there's one of us staffing each Hub. We're not allowed to leave our zones except in exceptional circumstances, which LIRA would have logged." He smiled weakly. "She's quite... particular about the rules being followed. Every adept was in their appointed zone of operations - that was one of the first thing we checked."

He shrugged.

"As for servitors - well, the entire Library is automated. Each Section has its own maintenance and repair facilities. They're as much a part of the structure as the walls." He patted one of the walls in question. "There's no reason we'd be shifting them from one Section to another."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Thank you. Keep an eye on them as well. I want owls watching the servitors fetching those records at all times. Append one to follow them if you must, but I really don't want those books to vanish unexpectedly. Though, if they did, I suppose we'd know where to look..." Hieronymus considers this for a moment. "How many volumes do you keep in the proscribed vault, again?"

[LCP]

"0.87 million volumes."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"So, our only possible suspects constitute of off-world visitors?" Red asked, dumbfounded. Again, this didn't make sense to him. Everybody was potentially their Heretic, even Vale.
"At the very least, we're dealing with an individual who can -somehow - mask his presence in the system, who is to say that he isn't able to also create a 'dummy' of himself, so that he can appear to be somewhere else. LIRA isn't infallible."
Red paused for a moment to think.
"Assuming it's an off-worlder who has been able to hide - what does resource consumption look like? Out of the ordinary in any sector?"

[senrath]

"Note that we may by facing a Psyker. It is a relatively simple trick, hiding oneself from detection." Ignace said, contemplating the possibilities. If they were indeed facing a Psyker, there was a good chance that said Psyker was much stronger than he was, and capable of actually inflicting lasting damage.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Far too many to search manually, or even to know if anything is missing." Hieronymus sighs. "And of course, they might be a psyker... If it's so easy to hide oneself, who's to say they haven't left?"

[LCP]

"Assuming it's an off-worlder who has been able to hide - what does resource consumption look like? Out of the ordinary in any sector?"

Vale shook his head.

"We've scanned for traces like that - but the Library pretty much runs itself. There are units that readers can borrow from the Hubs for mobile accommodation, nutrition and such, but if this fellow has his own supplies then he wouldn't really show up. Heating, lighting, it's all uniform anyway."


"If it's so easy to hide oneself, who's to say they haven't left?"

"There's only one way in or out of the Vault," said Vale. "If he left, he ought to leave a trace in the security systems the same as he did going in. That's our main reason for believing he's still in there."

He looked around at the Acolytes. "I rather thought that was why the Inquisitor sent you - to catch our ghost. Perhaps not?" he said, uncertainly. "We've certainly had a lot of attention in the last few days. Three parties, including yourself - that's the highest frequency of readers at this Hub in years."

[Destro_Yersul]

"We're chasing that thread, yes. I can't tell you much more than that, I'm afraid. If we do find your ghost, we'll be more than happy to take him off your hands."

With that said, Hieronymus turned to the others. "I can't think of any other questions. Unless you all have something more to say, could I suggest we go talk to the Secutor? That gun cutter of his is much more heavily armed than us, and his assistance could be valuable in the future."

[EleventhHour]

"Three parties? Who's the third?" Katyra asks curiously, having wandered around to look at the other terminals, it's not like she was sure what any of them said, if anything, anyways. "Us, the Techpriest, and...?"

[LCP]

"A man called Octavian Rhodes," said Vale. "Arrived not long before the Secutor with quite a retinue of his own - Cantus nobility, I believe. His ship is the other one out there - he's down among the shelves now. Said he was trying to trace some obscure branch of the family tree."

[EleventhHour]

"I would believe a decadent noble to be heretic long before one of the Mechanicus.", Mostly because the techpriests are deadset in a way not entirely understandable, already. She adds silently, bright eyes flicking toward the techpriest that she had accompanied in, "And besides, I would expect a noble family to have thier own record, or to send a scribe rather than coming to hunt down a book themselves."

[senrath]

At Katyra's comment, Ignace nodded. He didn't like the woman, but she spoke sense. "At this point everyone is suspect. No one is above suspicion."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Except us and LIRA and probably the Decatologue here." Hieronymus puts in. "Let's get a look at the noble on screen, and then pick someone to go talk to."

[LCP]

Another screen crackled with white fuzz, and an image appeared – this time, the owl was perched at ground level, the book-lined chasm in which it sat soaring up overhead. Before it, human figures loomed, consulting the spines of the volumes and looking very studious.

Chief among them was a finely-dressed giant of a man, with a full, waxed moustache and jet-black hair that was beginning to go to grey – juvenat implant tubes on one side of his barrel-like neck betrayed that he was much older than he looked, like so many nobles who could afford the swingeing fees to stave off the predations of age. He walked with a cane, and slung over his back was a huge hunting-rifle: Jericus breathed in as he recognised it as a Fydae Pattern. Such a device was a show of incredible wealth – perhaps explaining why he was carrying it in a library. A servo-skull bearing a lumen-globe buzzed over his head, illuminating the bookshelf he was examining.

Close to him, a young woman in similarly rich attire waited on an octagonal grav-platform similar to the one the Secutor and his retinue had been using: she looked more than a little bored, and had a distinct family resemblance to the older man. Around them both were a squad of up-hive bodyguards in deep red uniforms, mostly helping with the search while a couple stood guard: they were well-equipped, guard-pattern lasguns slung across their backs. One who appeared to be their leader was at the moustachio’d man’s side, relaying the nobleman’s instructions to his men.

Finally, there was a slight little man crouched in one corner of the grav-lectern: clad in dull, black robes and wearing a pair of dusty spectacles, he looked old but not decrepit, clutching a heavy craftsman’s bag to his chest. Cranial plugs ran from his nearly-bald skull down under his gown, the scar-tissue where they had been installed leaving only a few wisps of white hair clinging to the sides of his head.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/LordChilipepa/Rhodesco.jpg?t=1278325648

Looking at the screen, Vale frowned – LIRA’s pale face followed suit almost simultaneously.
“Surveillance unit in inappropriate location,” said the child on the throne. “Reposition.”
The owl’s viewpoint didn’t change – there was a slight jump in the feed, and the video continued to look up from the peoples’ feet.
“Sensors indicate unit 936 damaged,” said LIRA. Watching the feed, Jericus couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong. As it played on, he realised what it was – the people on the screen were replaying the same actions he had seen a few seconds ago. It was on a loop.

Overhead, the cogitators began to hum.
“Scanning other units,” said Lira – there was a sudden change in the note of the machinery, and the girl on the throne convulsed. A keening, static scream echoed through the speakers surrounding the room, the child-servitor raising her knees clutching her tube-trailing fingers to her head – she sobbed as if in pain, the first human sound that had come out of her mouth.

Around the Sanctum, screens began flickering with binary output – dashing over to the nearest one, Vale pulled an access key out of his robes, fitting it frantically into a socket on the terminal. Numbers and codes flashed up in front of him at a dizzying speed – looking over his shoulder at the Acolytes, his face went white.

“Someone’s burning through the security systems on the Vault.”

[Thanatos 51-50]

Seemingly of its own volition, the sollux-pattern lasgun jumped from its holster in the webbing and rotated on its sling, flying into Red's hands.
Trained, solider's eyes scanned the room, followed by the death-spitting business end of the weaponsearching for anything that had changed, anything that was wrong.
If someone had infiltrarted their midst, it was about to suffer very, very intently.
Even has he moved and scanned, Red jumped into Giving Orders mode.
"Jericus, Vale, LIRA, attempt to find the source of whatever's going wrong, Hiernomous and..." Red balked. He had yet to learn the Sister and the Psyker's names. That was a problem he would need to rectify as soon as the current crisis had passed. "Sister, cover the entrance or sweep the room. he finished, after hopefully not stumbling too long over his companion's name. Psyker," he continued, again blanching at his ignorance "I'm not briefed as to your abilities. If the enemy is a Psyker, can you see if there's any changes to the Warp?"

Free Action - Ready Death Light
Full Action - Awareness [roll0]

[LCP]

Vale's fingers danced over the keys of his terminal with a staccato rattle, dredging up information from the depths of the system - LIRA seemed practically catatonic, her host body rocking and twitching on its throne. Katyra thought she saw a trickle of blood leaking from where one of the great tubes lanced into the girl's right eye-socket...

"They must be at the door of the vault," Vale said, shaking his head. "Direct interface via the security key there. I, ah - I don't know what kind of technology can do this. They're just murdering the locking systems, one by one."

He looked round. "The vault is six kilometres away. I can get you a grav-lectern - it'll get you there in maybe a quarter of an hour? I'm sorry, there's nothing faster."

Overhead, one of the flashing screens crackled and resolved itself into an image - the Secutor's face, staring sternly down into the Sanctum.

"ADEPT VALE," came the Tech-Priest's voice, a grating, mechanical monotone. "YOUR SYSTEMS INDICATE A DESECRATION OF THE VAULT PRAESCRIPTUS. EXPLAIN."
"I -"
"EXPLAIN! EXPLAIN!"
"I - I don't know, sir, your honour. We - we've only just found out."
"THE MACHINE-SPIRITS HAVE BEEN DEFILED. I WILL INVESTIGATE AT ONCE." The man's skull-like head turned as he noticed the Acolytes. "THESE PERSONNEL WERE NOT PRESENT ON MY ARRIVAL."
"No, sir - they, um, they've just arrived."
"SEE TO IT THAT THEY ARE KEPT CLEAR OF THE VAULT. THIS BLASPHEMY HAS BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST THE OMNISSIAH. HIS SERVANTS ALONE WILL METE OUT RETRIBUTION" He looked over his shoulder. "CEASE COMMUNICATION."

The screen fizzled and went black.

[senrath]

"Get us that grav-lectern." Ignace snapped, glaring at the now dark screens. Was it too much to ask for the different branches of the Imperium to actually work together? If he had a throne for every time his work had been interfered with by another branch of the Imperium, he'd be a wealthy man.

[EleventhHour]

"Seems that covering the doors won't be nessecary today." Katyra comments icily, sparing a glance for the enthroned girl. "I assume that as long as the damage continues, we'll have no survellience from here?" She doesn't need to add in regards to the lectern, it would be aquired in anycase, she heads for the door, carefully adjusting the crescent blades strapped down on her lower back.

"Katyra." She informs the Guardsman.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Sorry about that, Katyra seems introduction never really got off. I blame myself. Call me Red." he spares the time to flash a grin at the Sister before turning to the Dectalogue.
"Looks like you may, indeed, need a new 'volunteer' soon, from the look of your servitor. Let's get the grav-lecturn. It so happens we have a Servant of the Omnimessiah who is perfectly qualified to have his retinue look into this matter as well, don't we, Jer?"

[LCP]

I assume that as long as the damage continues, we'll have no surveillance from here?"

“No , no – no, LIRA should recover quickly,” said Vale, still typing furiously at the terminal. Katyra was not entirely sure from his tone whether he was answering her question or reassuring himself. “One security breach – just a shock to the system – should be fine.”

The girl on the throne was still rocking back and forth, clutching at her altered face. She didn’t seem to reinforce the Adept’s statement too much.

Tearing himself reluctantly away from the screen, Vale looked around at the waiting Acolytes. He was clearly hesitating to consider the Secutor’s instructions – but nobody questioned the Inquisition, even if it was working through the lowliest of pawns.

“The grav-lectern,” he said. “Yes. Right away. It’s, ah, this way.”

[Destro_Yersul]

"Looks like we get to meet the Secutor first. Pleasant fellow." Hieronymus' deadpan made it obvious what he actually thought of the Secutor. "Fifteen minutes... Well, better than nothing, but I want us there ASAP." The Provost strode to Vale's side. Hopefully the commanding note that had entered his tone would be more than enough to get everyone moving.

[Etcetera]

Jericus hastily accessed a map of the library from the terminal, unplugged himself, and quickly walked over to Hieronymus. He looked rather scared.

[LCP]

Leading the way into another oak-panelled elevator as LIRA’s spasms began to quieten, Vale punched one of the keys – the doors hissed shut, and the lift accelerated upwards, depositing them on another level of the Hub. As it opened up again, they were presented with an impressive view – a little grav-quay extended out into a great, dark space, many times the size of an aircraft hangar. Canyons of bookshelves reached up to the ceiling, the only glimmers of movement in the vast, empty space the occasional glimpse of a maintenance servitor picking its way over the access ladders.

Against the wall where the spire of the Hub adjoined the main library space before them were a row of platforms, much like the ones they had seen the Secutor and the nobleman Rhodes using – octagonal and surprisingly broad, they floated a foot or so off the ground, basic repulsor units keeping them in the air. A waist-high control column protruded from the front, their dark wooden veneer giving them the appearance of solemn antiquity that the architects of the Library seemed to have been aiming for.

“It’s very simple,” babbled Vale, gesturing for the others to gather round the nearest one. “This stick here controls horizontal movement – this knob here,” – he tapped a brass dial on the control panel – “controls your altitude, and this slider, your speed. Altitude gain’s quite slow, and the maximum horizontal speed is about twenty-five kilometres in an hour. There’s a paper map of the Library here,” – he slid a wooden compartment out of the column, like a desk-drawer – “but if you want detailed schematics, there are terminals that can access the main databanks interspersed through every section.”

“The Vault is straight ahead of you – just keep going down this aisle.” He gestured ahead of them with his arm, to one particularly broad lane between the towering bookshelves. “Arterial 00A, it’s called. Here,” he said, fumbling in his robes to produce a robust-looking little device, “is a Library communicator – I’ve got another one somewhere, so if you need to call back to the Hub for anything, you can raise me. That’s if you can’t find what you want from a LIRA terminal.”

He stepped back from the grav-platform, waiting for one of the Acolytes to take the helm.

“This is goodbye for now, I... suppose. I’ll be in the Sanctum, I think. LIRA should recover in no time, but I should, erm, probably run some... diagnostics and things. Just make sure she’s alright.” He laughed, nervously. “Good luck.”

[Etcetera]

Jericus hopped on to the lectern, eager to try out more technology. He waited for everyone else to board the lectern, then began to speed away as fast as the lectern would go. Without offending its machine spirit, of course.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red shot a callous glare into the Adept's back as he turned to leave, and then began to casually approach the control panel for the lectern.
When he noticed that Jericus was leaping for the controls, as eager as, in retrospect, Red should have assumed to the Mechanus would be. Reacting as quickly as his body would allow, Red scrambled, not for the controls, but for a steady grip on the lectern, and planted his feet wide and flat on the deck, shifting his weight slightly forward.
"Don't accelerate too fast, cogboy. We don't want to fly off this thing."

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus took the communicator from Vale. "We'll keep in contact. Soon as LIRA's running again, re-establish contact with those retrieval servitors fetching the starship logs, would you? I still want them watched at all times." Turning away, the Provost stepped onto the platform.

"At twenty klicks? That's really not very fast, Red. Don't think any of us will be falling off" As the platform began to move, he added "hopefully the Secutor arrived in time to catch someone at it."

[LCP]

Piling onto the grav-lectern, the Acolytes took off - their stately transport glided away with a barely-audible hum, bearing them away into the cavernous spaces of the Library beyond.

Bookshelf after bookshelf blurred past, the headings on the dusty shelves seguing into one another:

...Agriculture...

...Aphorisms of the Saints...

...Archaeoxenology...

The letter 'A' had not been exhausted by the time they reached the end of the aisle, around a quarter of an hour later - Katyra suspected it probably filled this whole hangar-like space, if not more. There was little time for contemplating the filing, however - as they approached the far wall, a heavy set of gates were drawing into view, automatic shutters locked in the 'open' position. Two small figures were visible, growing closer - a tech-adept in the red robes of the Mechanicus, and the hulking, inert figure of a gun-servitor. One of the Secutor's drones.

They had not yet seen the grav-lectern - one of the advantages of its silent progress, despite its sluggish pace. The Acolytes were drawing closer by the second, however: it was only a matter of time.

OOC: Your journey takes about 14 minutes: if you want to discuss anything among yourselves in that time, you should feel free to make a time-split post.

[senrath]

"I seriously doubt he did." Ignace said as shifted into a more steady stance. Unless the people they were chasing were much stupider than evidence suggested, they wouldn't have risked revealing themselves unless they were sure they could get away with it.

[EleventhHour]

"Don't discount anything. Heresy takes every form, and is as boastful as a proper servant is dilligent, and he very well could be trusting us to trust him. An unquestioning mind is a weak one." Katyra comments, but is defenitly not the first to approach the drone. Machines are hardly as reliable as people, and she wasn't about to confront a potentially hostile one.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Jericus, I think it might be best if you did most of the talking. The Secutor is more likely to listen to another Mechanicus. Make it very clear that all the technical things will be left to him, but we'll need to speak with the unsub responsible for the break-in. And to do that, we need them alive." Hieronymus cast a glance at the large combat servitor as he said this. The other one was clearly nowhere in sight, which worried him a little.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Like the provost said, you're the frontman right now. I'm your dim-witted bodyguard." Red said with a casual wink to the Tech-priest as he shifted his rifle into a combat-ready sling across his chest, finger off the trigger, but ready to snap up at any moment, like a good bodyguard should hold his rifle before walking into a potential hotzone.

Timesplit Spoiler
Looking slightly sheepish as he relaxed, Red glanced around as soon as the lectern was gliding along at a smooth speed.
"So, in the interest of no more little inter-party... incidents. I'm Red. As far as I - or anybody else even cares - that IS my real name. Imperial Guard DM, plenty of time driving a Chimera and a little bit in the cockpit. From an underhive. Was a ganger before a Guardsmen. Any other thrilling life stories to share?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Timesplit Spoiler
"Hieronymus, for those of you who don't know." The provost glanced over at Red. "I grew up on a warship, and joined the Provosts when I was old enough. I left the ship some time later. Now I'm here, because I've got nowhere else."

[Etcetera]

Jericus brought the lectern smoothly to a halt in front of the adept and dismounted.

He walked to the doorway, and began addressing the adept:
"[Adept's Rank], we seek to work with the secutor in uncovering who, or what has perpetrated this foul act against the machine-god's holy creation"

Peer: AdMech Fellowship 31
[roll0]

[LCP]

As the grav-lectern drew near, the servitor jerked upright, its torso rotating rather unnaturally on its pelvis to bring its main weapon to bear on the group. Red felt the red flash of a laser sight cross his right eye, finding himself staring down the wrong end of a powerful-looking heavy stubber. As one of them moved to follow Jericus off the platform, the gun-servitor's aim shifted, implying it would rather they stayed where they were.

The adept looked up at Jericus - from the nature and number of his implants, probably no more senior than Flange himself.

"This section is closed," he said, his voice emerging flat and almost bored-sounding through a voicebox in his throat. His eyes flicked sideways to the others. "Mechanicus business. Classified."

He glanced back at Jericus. "Identify."

[Etcetera]

Jericus gave the tech-adept a long, appraising look.
"Electro-priest Jericus Flange, identifier 2204355#J7R serving as a technical attaché to this group. You would be?"

[LCP]

"Mech-Wright Albus Verrin. Identifier 5704962#C1C. Serving as adjutant to Secutor Ferox of the Panopticon."

He gave Jericus an appraising look.

"You do not have Mechanicus clearance to access this zone of operations."

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red snapped a respectful salute to the Mech-Wright. "Sir, it is my understanding that the Machine Spirits have been defiled in this area. As Mechanus, should not Electro-Priest Flange be allowed to locate the source and burn the Heretic that did the defiling?"

[LCP]

"That is the sacred duty of Secutor Ferox," said the Mech-Wright, turning to Red. "Electro-Priest Flange is neither qualified nor specialised to fill that function."

[Destro_Yersul]

"The burning's the problem, actually. We need to speak with the heretic before that happens. They may know something vital to an ongoing investigation. Punishment would of course be your decision, as the defilement of holy machinery is your province. We just want to talk to them first." Hieronymus would rather not mention who he works for just yet.

[LCP]

The Mech-Wright's eyes turned to Heironymous.

"You have no recognised authority. State the nature of your 'investigation'."

[Destro_Yersul]

"We're interested in a ship called the Byzantium. The code used to access this vault two months ago is the same as the one used to lock down some information related to that ship. We believe that the same heretic who used that code burnt out the security here just moments ago. It's in both of our best interests to catch them. I don't know how much clearance you have, so I can't tell you more."

[LCP]

"Your motives are not in question. Your qualification and authorisation for such a task is unknown. Secutor Ferox will cleanse the Vault. All other personnel are to be prevented from entering."

[Destro_Yersul]

They weren't going to get anywhere with this, it seemed. Still, Hieronymus had one more card to try before they had to play their trump. "That's fine. But when you catch the heretic, we want to talk to him. And if we find him, we'll turn him over to you when we're done."

[LCP]

The Mech-Wright glared at Heironymous.

"You have no authority. You have no proofs. The culprit will remain in Mechanicus custody."

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red decided to take a gamble, and opened his mouth again.
"Heretics rarely, if ever move alone. If one is in the Library, we have to assume there are others, and he's doing these things for their benefit. His crime right now, as far as you can see, is defiling the Machine Spirits, but it's not too far-fetched to assume he has other plans beyond this, and those crimes will probably be against Him on Earth, whom we revere just as much - if not more than you revere the Omnimessiah. Surely, just as we wish to impede you not in your duties, your do not wish to obstruct our Holy task."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Perhaps we could speak with the Secutor? We may need to work together in the future, if not now. We don't want to hinder his work here, but there's ours to think of as well." Hieronymus tried to think quickly. He needed a plan and, more importantly, to gain the Secutor's trust.

[LCP]

The Mech-Wright was beginning to look more than a little irritated.

"Uncertainty parameters unacceptable. We have no reasons to believe your claims. This is a restricted zone. You have no authority, you have no clearance. You have no identification save Electro-Priest Flange. His rank is insufficient to access the Vault. You are not permitted to access the Vault. You have no acknowledged purpose to pursue the culprit of the attack. There is no need to 'work together' with unidentified civilians."

There was a slight pneumatic hiss from the direction of the Servitor.

"Turn your grav-unit around."

[senrath]

Sighing, Ignace straightened up before speaking. There was no avoiding revealing who they were. It was that, or start a fight. "We're operating under orders from Inquisitor Al-Subaai. You're interfering with Inquisition work. Stand aside."

[LCP]

The adept's head snapped round to Ignace.

"Present verification of your claim," he snapped.

OOC: The way for you to present direct verification would be to get Vale on the line.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Armsman Red sighed. Loudly.
"Well, I suppose it had to come out sometime, eh?" he asked nobody in particular, and tapped his comm-bead, attempting to tune it to a frequency the Adept in charge of the hub would be monitoring.
"Dectalogue Vale," he said in a calm, commanding voice. "Please respond."

[LCP]

There was a crackle of static on the other end, and a sudden, loud mess of noise, as of someone accidentally dropping the receiver. After a short pause, Vale's voice came over the line.

"Yes? Um, hello!"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Adept Vale, please switch to the following frequency:" Red said smoothly, rattling off the frequency he and his fellow Acolytes were currently using, before switching over himself.
"Mech-wright, if you would kindly begin using the same frequency." he offered the tech-priest.

The moment Vale came over the line, Red tapped his commbead again to transmit.
"As soon as you're both ready, Vale, please confirm our party's clearance with Mech-Wright Verrin."

[LCP]

"Ah - run into the Mechanicus?" crackled Vale's voice at the other end of the line. "I believe they're on encrypted communications: hang on a moment, I'll transmit the Inquisitor's message."

The communicator Vale had given them earlier flashed: on its narrow, boxy screen, Al-Subaai's reference to the Adept appeared, the lambent green glow of the text standing out sharply against the black display.

"Just show them that, and it ought to do," came Vale's almost-cheery voice. "Better than you having to call me up each time, eh?"

Examining the document, Verrin made a grudging noise of acceptance - a blurt of Servitor binary chattered from the speaker in his throat, and the gun-servitor stood down.

"Authorisation accepted. You may pass."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Thank you. Suffice it to say, it wouldn't do for the heretics to get wind of us. Keep our authorization quiet, please?" Hieronymus re-attached the communicator to his waist. "Could you direct us to the Secutor?"

[LCP]

Moving out of their way, Verrin looked up at Heironymous.

"Your clearance can be kept private," said the Mech-Wright, circumspectly. His face became set and stony, however, at the Provost's second request: an unreadable, emotionless mask.

"The Secutor's business here is private. We invoke the autonomy of the Mechanicus to keep it that way."

He gestured towards the Vault beyond.

"You are free to pass. Goodbye."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Alright. I guess that's fair." Hieronymus looks at the others and climbs back onto the grav platform. "Let's go have a look around, see if the heretics are in the immediate vicinity. If not, we'll go talk with those others."

That said, the Provost calls Vale on the library communicator. "Vale. How's LIRA doing? She back online yet?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red returns to the Grav platform, taking a moment to kneel down at the very front, and surveying the stacks in front of him, peering around cautiously for any signs of life.

[LCP]

With a low hum, the grav-lectern powered forwards once more: Verrin and the servitor turned to watch them as they left, the figures of the Mechanicus rearguard receding into the distance behind them.

The gates to the Proscribed Vault were clearly a high-security affair: they would have seemed impossible to penetrate by brute force, layers of blast doors visible in the fortress-thickness walls. As it was, the cogitator attack that had so affected LIRA’s organic host had left them standing wide open. Passing through the last set of inert metal jaws, the Acolytes emerged into the cavernous darkness of the Vault.

Like the Library outside, towering bookshelves reached up to the roof in great aisles, the place’s dusty stillness seeming to press its silence down on the newcomers like an invisible mattress. The only visible difference on this side of the blast-doors was the books: each volume was attached to its shelf by a heavy chain, attached to a shackle over the spine. Among the higher shelves, a solitary cyber-owl was picking its way over the books as if inspecting their titles, the faint flicker of light from its optical bionics illuminating its position amidst the shadows.

“Hello, hello? Hello!” came Vale’s voice again. “Yes! Yes, very happy to report, yes. Back online. All primary systems running. Should have full functionality back in a couple of minutes.”

The communicator crackled.

“You’ve made the Vault? I’ll have her transmit the map – it’s a big place, I’m afraid.”

The communicator clicked off - then buzzed again, the Adept seeming to have remembered something.

"Oh, one other thing - you might want to avoid reading the books. Which is to say, ah, don't." He coughed. "Most of them are harmless, but then you wouldn't know which ones aren't, would you?" The man's nervous laugh echoed over the line, before his voice clicked off again - and in its place, a green schematic of the Vault began to load onto the communicator's screen.

[Etcetera]

Jericus quietly drew his staff. It wouldn't do anyone any good if they damaged the books, and even silenced guns tended to be quite noisy.

He waved at the owl.

[LCP]

If the owl saw them, it didn't show it: it continued picking its way over the shelf it was on with a single-minded dedication.

[senrath]

Ignace nodded at Vale's warning. Although he was curious as to what knowledge these forbidden tomes held, they were forbidden for a reason. As he looked around, he drew his pistol, just to be on the safe side.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus was less curious about what the books held. Unfortunately, both of his guns would not do in such a setting as this, as the shotgun scattered its pellets over a wide range, and the irontalon's fragmentary ammunition would shred the books if it hit one. Out came his sword, as he consulted the map. "There's an uplink chamber past the central index tower. I'm no mechanicus, but I think that's the most likely source of the attack. Jericus, what do you think?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

Everybody was preparing for a close-quarters battle, drawing their silent, deadly arsenal of close-quarters Death.

Red was already prepared, with his trusty Monomolecular bayonet's blade gleaming in the light of his lamp pack as he switched the attachment on.
Besides, he mused to himself, I'm a crack shot. The only books that will burn will be intentional.

[Etcetera]

Jericus turned back to face Heironymus "That would be prudent" he replied "I'm concerned, though. We need to stay alert." Jericus powered up the lectern again, and began slowly making his way towards the tower.

[LCP]

The grav-lectern glided off into the gloom, the broad aisle between the shelves seeming to stretch on forever. Ghosting through the oppressive silence of the Vault, they could not see another living soul - only the occasional owl watching them from high above, cast into fearful silhouette by the lights of its mechanical eyes.

They had been travelling for perhaps ten minutes - the map showing that they were now close to the tower - when they heard it. Three dry cracks, followed by a throaty, juddering rattle, somewhere ahead of them. The noises repeated spasmodically, then died away.

Each of them had the experience to recognise weapons discharges. Lasfire, and something heavier, casting solid ammunition. From the volume of the noises that reached them, they still had a way to go before they stumbled on the source - but it was not far.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Unless I'm mistaken, I think we might have located the Secutor's other Servitor. Perhaps him as well. Hang on..." Hieronymus reached over and pushed the throttle on the platform forward. He had seen Vale's instruction on how to use the thing, and wanted to get there as fast as possible. "They must have found something."

[senrath]

"I really, really hope that they won't need our help. They probably will, but I'm hoping they won't." Ignace said, his twitch much more pronounced than before, now that they were heading directly towards a firefight.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Gunfire.
Lasguns and a Slug-thrower, probably the other Gun-Servitor tearing things apart with its Heavy Stubber.
"Give us the high ground." the guardsmen prompted over his shoulder, without really looking at Jericus and Heironymus.
He twisted his torso and the leading edge of the rifle towards the sounds of the firefight.
"Might not be Ferrox, I don't hear plasma discharge. 'Course, he might be going blade-to-blade, or packing a las, but if you have a plasma weapon attached to your shoulder you use the thing."

[senrath]

"He could be under orders not to damage the books. Plasma weaponry would do more damage to them if it misses its target. Ignace pointed out as he checked to make sure his pistol's safety was off. His shakes continued to grow, although the hand holding the pistol managed to remain eerily steady.

[Thanatos 51-50]

The Armsman spared a polite glance over his shoulder as the Psyker spoke.
His shaking while holding a gun was terribly unsettling.
"Makes sense." Red replied to Ignace's supposition. But locked eyes on the shaking arm as he did so.
"You okay to shoot like that?"

[senrath]

"Yes, although, between you and me? I'd prefer not to have to. But, I always get like this, and in my twenty years of service I've yet to shoot something I don't mean to." Said the psyker, his brow furrowing and his shaking diminishing slightly. His nervousness was obviously unnerving his allies, and he couldn't have that.

[EleventhHour]

"His aim will be fine, as he has affirmed himself. The Emperor demands no less, and damaging the tomes of this place... Well, it is not acceptable. In the meantime, we should find out what that is, can't this thing go any faster? At this rate, she was considering hopping out and sprinting instead. Might be a bit faster.

[LCP]

Ahead, the sporadic sounds of gunfire continued, growing louder as they came closer – short, sharp bursts from the heavier weapon, erratic snaps of lasfire echoing in reply. As if to prove Red wrong as he spoke, there came the unmistakeable shriek of a plasma discharge, a whitish-blue flash splitting the darkness somewhere far ahead. After that, silence.

Clearing the last of the walkways and balconies that ran between the bookshelves overhead, they were rewarded with a clear view of their destination – an octagonal slab of dark metal rising to the vaulted roof, spindly bridges radiated out from the Central Index Tower in all directions in a vast, three-dimensional cobweb of steel, joining it with the surrounding bookshelves. Its base was broader than its upper section, wide staircases leading up to an external platform that encircled the tower proper, like a general’s balcony. Heavy oak doors led inside, one for each point on the compass: the one nearest them hung open, its expensive-looking veneer riddled with more than a few bullet-holes.

Somewhere inside the tower’s walls, there was another chatter of gunfire. High overhead, a door hissed open in the exterior of the spire – two uniformed figures, little more than silhouettes in the gloom of the Vault, stumbled out onto one of the bridges to the upper shelves, hurrying in the opposite direction to the way the Acolytes had approached from. They were evidently retreating...

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red snapped his lasgun up to follow the retreating forms, they looked to be within range, and so he moved the Red Dot Sight on his weapon over the nearest leg of the lead form and took a moment drawing a bead, aiming steadily, and reciting the Litany of Accuracy as he slowly squeezed the trigger and listened for the resulting, satisfying snap-crack of lasweapon discharge.

[roll0]
<+10 Half-action aim, +10 Red Dot on Single Shot -20 Called Shot>
[roll1]
The weapon has two points of armour penetration.

[LCP]

The Sollex's shot seared through the shadows, striking sparks off a suspension cable to the left of the figures - they dropped low at the report, looking back at the Acolytes before continuing to scuttle towards the other end of the bridge, crouching low to minimise the profile they presented to the marksman on the ground. They moved fast - it would only take them a few seconds to reach the cover of the far shelves.

The flash of the lasbolt had illuminated the figures when it struck - it had only been for a moment, but it had been enough for Red to get a glimpse of their colours. Two men, armed - and wearing a uniform like the one he had seen on Rhodes' bodyguards on the looped tape in the Sanctum.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Let's get in there. Can't do much good out here." Hieronymus already had his sword out, and he wasn't in range of the two men above. He though he could get a good fix on the location of the bridge, though. Leaping off the platform, the provost took off running for the main door of the tower. He stopped just before it, poking his head around the side to look in. Better to be cautious than dead.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Give me a clearer shot, Jer." Red commanded over his shoulder, again without thinking, before switching back to Vale's frequency on his microbead.
"Vale. This is Red again. Can you patch me into whatever frequency Rhode and his guys are using?" he asked the Adept as he continued to peer through the sight on his weapon, taking careful aim and firing another solitary lasbolt at the lead runner, forgoing all pretense of aiming for the leg.

Half-Action Aim
Half-Action Fire Single Shot
Free Actions talking.
[roll0]
[roll1]

[EleventhHour]

Following after the Provost, Katyra has less of an issue with caution, and snaps a laspistol out of it's holster and holding it steadily ahead of her, as she steps around him and through the doorway, peeking around like that is asking to get shot in the face, better off trusting in the Emperor to keep you safe. And the inch of midnight flak armour. "Come on, they're getting away!

[senrath]

"Gimme a sec to hide myself." He called, hanging back a little bit. Breathing slightly easier now that Katyra was further away from him, Ignace began to draw out the connection to the Warp that lay within his body. Calling upon that power, he began to layer it over himself, shielding himself from view.

Using the Chameleon power. Gain a +30 to concealment tests, and all ranged attackers suffer -20 to hit me.
[roll0], vs 7.

I'm assuming I'm more than 2m away from Katyra. If that's not the case, add the following roll to the previous, and compare it to 17 instead of 7.
[roll1]

[Etcetera]

Jericus raised his gun to the targets, aiming and firing at the closer of the soldiers, and trying to conserve ammo by not wildly firing at the first target he saw. As fun as that would be. Hopefully it would give some of the other acolytes time to get into a better position.

Also aiming and firing with a red dot sight.
BS 38 + 10 for Aiming +10 for RDS
[roll0]
Damage:
[roll1]

And misses.

[LCP]

Jericus’ shot ricocheted off the high bridge – Red’s, however, found its mark, clipping the leg of the figure in the lead. The man stumbled, muffled curse-words echoing down from above: Red’s lasgun tracked with his movements, ready to fire again...

All of a sudden, the temperature seemed to plummet: Red felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise, a ghostly wind rustling out of nowhere to eddy and flicker between the Acolytes. Looking around, he saw Ignace – or rather, didn’t see him, his eyes sliding involuntarily off the psyker’s outline like water off a rain-slicker. The man was an unnatural blur of shadows, only the fact that Red knew he had to be there preventing his brain from completely editing Ignace’s presence out of his field of view.

Shaking his head, he turned back to the bridge – the fleeing figures, however, had reached the cover of the shelves, vanishing behind a shadowed cliff-face of books.

“Hello? Ahem. Hello. What’s going on down there?” came Vale’s tinny voice. “Can’t oblige you there, I’m afraid, Armsman. The only thing Lord Rhodes and his entourage took from the Library stores was their grav-lectern. If they have their own comms, it’ll be private. Probably encrypted, too. These hive nobles, eh?”

[hr]

Poking his head around the corner of the open door, Heironymous let his eyes adjust to the darkness inside – before he could make out the details, Katyra had stepped past him, the Sororitas novice pushing boldly into the space beyond with pistol in hand.

Heironymous Only
As Katyra passed him, Heironymous felt an uncomfortable sensation – the urge to escape rose in his gut, like an animal trapped in a confined space. A sharp lance of pain shot through his head, the coils of the slumbering daemon convulsing in their subconscious lair.

As she stepped into the room beyond, the feeling dwindled away to nothing.

Something is wrong with that wench... growled the voice at the back of his skull...

Thankfully, no ambush awaited them – at this level, the interior of the tower was a sombre, octagonal chamber, bookshelves set into each oak-panelled wall. Its stately tone had been rather marred by a spray of heavy-calibre bullets at some point in the recent past, scattering pulped volumes and shredded pages across the chequered tiles of the floor.

A wrought-iron spiral staircase ascended a dark stairwell in the centre of the room, rising up through the ceiling to the upper levels – near where it pierced the ceiling, a part of the balustrade had melted and run like wax, an elliptical hole torn out of the black metal. Crumpled on the steps behind it, something ashen and lumpy lay still. It looked like it might once have been human, before it got on the wrong end of a plasma blast...

[Destro_Yersul]

"I know." Hieronymus muttered. He stepped inside the room, trying his best to stay away from Katyra. There was something about her that he obviously didn't like. Then he started making his way up the stairs, ignoring the shredded books. He wanted a closer look at that ex-human.

[EleventhHour]

"Looks like the Secutor got one, at least. Unless they have a plasma weapon, too. We'll assume not. But then how did they get past him...?" Up the stairs she goes, ignoring the discomfort caused by her. No need to acknowledge it. No need at all...

[senrath]

Now hidden from sight, Ignace moved to follow Hieronymus and Katyra, his pistol held loosely at his side. He wasn't the most resilient of people, so he had to take extra precautions to not get shot. Seeing the pair climbing up the, he moved to follow, speaking softly. "Just as a heads up, I'm right behind you. Don't be alarmed if you can't see me."

[LCP]

Inside the Tower

The body on the stairs was for the most part a crumbling hunk of charcoal: one arm and most of a shoulder had been completely vapourised. The legs alone were untouched by the heat of the plasma discharge. They looked as if they had belonged to a man in the prime of life, without much fat on him.

The scorched remains of the man’s clothes had a semi-military look, like a somewhat dressed-down version of a Guard parade uniform – or the combat fatigues of some of the heavy infantry regiments, like the Mordians or the Jantine Patricians. Red and white seemed to be the theme here, although it was difficult to tell when the upper half of the whole outfit was a blackened mess. An unmarked lasgun lay on the steps under the body, where the dead man had fallen on it.

Above the Provost, Katyra emerged into the next level up: between the books here, Library terminals were interspersed in alcoves set into the walls, pipes and cabling running through the walls to connect them to the central system. Scorch-marks on the staircase indicated an exchange of las-fire – by the looks of things, a fighting retreat by someone headed upwards.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Well then, monitor unidentified communications and report back to me if any come up." Red ordered, snarling as his quarry disappered behind the stacks, and switched back over to the Acolyte's frequency.
"They've disappeared behind the first stack, no visual tracking. Jer and I are going to move to flank. There's only one way out and they're already routed, so let's catch them between us." He suggested to his comrades, snapping a las-bolt off to the side of the stack, in the hopes of keep his quarry under cover, even as he moved to increase the disk's altitude.

Can we just assume that Red is a good enoguh marksmen to not hit the stack and end up hitting the bridge or something?

[Destro_Yersul]

"I'll take that..." Hieronymus decided, picking up the lasgun and, if it had a strap, slinging it over his shoulder. Jericus could have a look at it later, see if he could figure out where it came from.

Hieronymus advanced further up the stairs, listening intently for noise from above.

[senrath]

Ignace held completely silent as he followed Hieronymus up the stairs.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

Repulsors whining, the grav-lectern slowly increased its altitude, turning ponderously around the central spoke of the Index Tower – peeling off into the aisle where the pair had fled, it wove under the bridge they had crossed, rising up to the level of the walkway and gliding into the book-lined chasm ahead.

The aisles of the Vault were a veritable forest of tomes – there were a hundred chinks between the shelves through which the fleeing men could have slipped, a thousand dark alcoves in which they could be crouched. Scanning back and forth, Red and Jericus could see no sign of movement, the long shadows of the library making every marble bust or cogitator terminal seem like an enemy lurking in ambush...

[hr]

Ignace, Katyra & Heironymous

Rising up onto the same level as the Sororitas novice, Ignace and Heironymous looked around the empty room. A circle of cogitator panels ringed the central staircase, the fat power lines and data-cables that fed the hungry machines snaking across the floor and clustering against the interior buttresses of the octagonal outer wall. There was clear evidence that the firefight had passed through here – if only briefly – on its way to the upper levels. Judging by the height of the tower as seen from outside, there were a lot of upper levels...

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus tried to remember which level the bridge had gone out from, while continuing to run upwards. It was there that they were most likely to find the Secutor, at which point, they would need to be careful to not get shot. The Provost didn't like to think too much about what a hit from the antique plasma weapon would do.

[Etcetera]

I wish I'd kept that auspex.

Jericus took the communicator from Red and voxed Vale.
"You wouldn't happen to have any security sensors apart from the owls, would you?"

[LCP]

Ignace, Heironymous & Katyra

Ascending the staircase, the trio of Acolytes rose up through chamber after chamber, the occasional evidence of the fleeting firefight that had gone before them showing along their way. The Index Tower seemed equal parts cogitator bank and filing cabinet, shelves of weighty reference tomes and maps of the various sections of the Vault sharing space with brass-chased screens and input terminals.

After what seemed like an entirely unreasonable number of storeys, Heironymous slowed his ascent – there was a light coming from up above, the greenish flicker of a cogitator screen in use...

[hr]

Red & Jericus

"Just the owls, I'm afraid," buzzed Vale's reply. "Are you looking for something?"

Holding their transport steady, the pair of Acolytes scanned the darkened walkways for signs of their quarry. Powering up his lamp-pack, Red swept its beam across the shelves: he saw no sign of life, only the reflective eyes of a cyber-owl gleaming back at him from the gloom.

There was no sound of movement. Unless the fleeing men were wearing silk slippers, their flight should have been audible – the grav-lectern might have been slow compared to a ground-car, but it was still faster than a running man. Either they were sneaking away very quietly, or they had gone to ground somewhere nearby...

[Destro_Yersul]

Secutor Ferox?" Hieronymus stopped just below the level of the cogitator. If it wasn't the secutor, he'd have cover, and if it was, the Provost felt it would be wise to announce their presence beforehand.

Surprised people, even Mechanicus, do rash things.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

There was no sound from up above - just the whirring of cogitators and the steady flicker he had noticed before...

[Destro_Yersul]

"Secutor, if you're there, I'm coming up. Don't shoot me." Hieronymus took a few more steps upwards, trying to get a view of the room without presenting much of a target, just in case.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Advancing as carefully as possible up the stairs, Heironymous raised his head through where the stairwell pierced the floor above. The lights on this level were flickering, as if there were some difficulty with their power supply: they only added to the gloom, cloaking the room in long shadows.

To his left, an oak-panelled door stood open – beyond it was the bridge over which the two men had fled, leading away into the bookshelf-forest of the Vault. Standing in the threshold was a bulky, asymmetrical silhouette: Heironymous recognised it as another gun-servitor, its formidable armament covering the entrance to the tower. Whether it hadn’t heard the Provost at all, or whether its systems were simply unresponsive to such a stimulus, it was unclear: it didn’t seem to have seen him.

On the right, amidst a bank of cogitator screens, a second figure stood – the Secutor, with his back to Heironymous. One of the gleaming mechadendrites that snaked from the Secutor’s back was plugged into the terminal before him – the man’s head was bowed, his whole body preternaturally still. Swathed in his red robes, one could almost have taken him for a statue – the only piece of exposed ‘flesh’ one could see was the polished gleam of a bionic hand gripping his cog-toothed axe of office.

No sound arose from the Secutor save the ticking and whirring of the cogitator to which he was connected: if he was aware of Heironymous’ presence, it didn’t show. Stillness reigned.

Slowly, the Provost became aware of something odd – there was a smell drifting on the air in here, like charcoal or burnt meat. The lights hummed and flickered again, erratically dipping the room into darker shadows – this time, the effect was duplicated in the chamber below, Ignace and Katyra looking around as the electronics buzzed...

[hr]

Red & Jericus

”Ahem – ah, sorry, hello?” came Vale’s voice over the comm-link again. “I was just trying to access the owls for your section, and, ah – something seems to be wrong. I’m not sure what – perhaps LIRA still having some residual problems. Just thought you should know.” There was a crackle of static. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can bring up the owls’ feed.”

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red began methodically sweeping the nearest library stack, increasing altitude for a better view and casting the lamp pack's harsh glare around.
"Hey, guys," Red said, raising Hieronymus, Ignace and Katrya on his microbead, "The Cyber-owls are on the fritz here. Looks like further evidence that the trick is controlled. Commencing visual scan."

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

Moving slowly over the walkway below, Red scanned back and forth with the beam of his lamp – he saw no trace of the two men, the only movement in the shaft of light the swirling of dust-motes.

The canyon-walls of shelving stretched up to the cavernous roof of the Vault, periodic chinks between the towering structures allowing communication between the adjacent aisles at the level of the walkways – it was quite possible that their quarry were in behind the shelves themselves. To inspect those spaces, however, would require them to investigate on foot – the corridors were too narrow for the grav-lectern to traverse.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus raised his hand to his ear and nodded as Red's message came through. Then he clicked his comm and replied to the guardsman. "Alright. We've found the Secutor, but he's nonresponsive and plugged into a terminal. I'm not sure if those two did anything to him or what, but there's something strange going on. Gun servitor's here too, thankfully hasn't shot me yet. Oh, and Jericus is with you, right? Ask him if there's any reason that being plugged into a terminal would leave a techpriest totally unmoving and also make all the lights flicker."

[senrath]

Frowning, Ignace moved as far from Katyra as he could, then closed his eyes. Once more, he let his senses quest outwards, looking for warp imprints.

[roll0] vs 33. Assuming I can get over 2m away from Katyra.

[Etcetera]

Jericus voxed back, a tone of outrage in his voice.
"No. Definitely not in these circumstances. A most holy Secutor of the Omnissiah would never just stop like that. To that point, there shouldn't be anything making the lights flicker either. I'd be very careful if I were you. Can you tell me anything more about him? Are his mechadendrites active?"

[LCP]

Ignace Only

The Warp was quiet here - on this nigh-dead world, it had been too long since living, breathing people had come this way to excite its attention. The traces of the firefight had left an eddying wake of disturbances in the still waters of the Aethyr, but the patterns were too weak and complex for the psyker to grasp.

[Destro_Yersul]

"No, everything's stopped. Even that mind impulse wired plasma gun he has. His servitor isn't moving either, for that matter, and it's pointed right at the door we saw those other two run out of. Why would it stop shooting? It certainly didn't seem to care about damaging anything on all those other levels we walked past." Hieronymus looks over at the silent techpriest and frowns. "And the cyber-owls have stopped, and all the security systems were burnt out in the main vault doors. I don't like this."

The provost has quite clearly drawn a conclusion that displeases him.

[EleventhHour]

"Simple enough. Either there was something wrong with the Secutor, which would have more likely revealed itself earlier... Or something is wrong with the terminal. Someone call Vale. Ask him what's on this one." Katyra stays well back from the immobile machine, leaving it to someone else's curiousity to check the screen itself, or not. "Why would he plug into a terminal during a gunfight is another question..."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Okay, whatever it is messing with the Cyber-owls is likely able to affect all tech in the area. Stay frosty, Acolytes, get ready to use primitive weapons if it comes to that." Red sends out over the com, right before he relied that even their communications could be compromised, if that were the case.
He thumbed the altitude switch to lower the grav-lecturn to safe jumping down-distance, and then jumped down to the floor, letting out a heavy whoosh of air as he felt the weight of his weapons and armour weigh down upon him.
"Jericus, that Grav-lecturn is a good escape vehicle. Keep it in the air, not so high so that a fall will hurt, but we don't want our quarry circling around and escaping. Keep in constant comm contact, I don't want one of us to be ambushed without the other knowing. If you fall quiet on the comm, I'm going to assume you got jumped." he transmitted, again over the channel for all Acolytes to hear, hoping they would pick up on the tactic.

With all that said and done, he swept his lamp pack over the gloom and began creeping forward, the business end of his lasgun leading him down the aisle, and making doubly sure to check his corners.

I guess this essentially a Search check?

[Destro_Yersul]

"Not all tech. Your grav lectern is obviously still working. And the lights are on, even if they're flickering." Hieronymus reaches over carefully to tap the immobile Secutor on the shoulder. If whatever's on the screen is interesting enough, it might catch his attention at this time.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Cautiously ascending the last few steps of the staircase, Heironymous reached over to tap the Secutor on the shoulder. It was like rapping on the side of a tank – the Machinator Array that had been built into the man’s torso had stripped away the flesh wherever it could, replacing it with cold, hard steel.

There was no response from the Secutor – his hooded head still slumped forwards, his whole bulky frame as still as the grave. Wrinkling his nose at the burnt smell – seemingly stronger here - Heironymous stepped around him, trying to get a better look at what was on the screen.

The terminal display was a flickering storm of code – rows and columns of binary characters flashed across it in a bewildering maelstrom of information. There was some regularity to their constant permutation, some kind of pattern in the chaos – but far too complex and rapidly-changing for the human brain to unpick.

The mechadendrite that had interfaced with the terminal twitched – the first movement he had seen from the Secutor. Turning to his right, Heironymous looked into the man’s face, wondering if the tech-priest might be waking from his strange slumber.

It was a skull. A blackened skull, charred scraps of flesh still clinging to its surface as the green light of the display flickered over the ridges of charcoal-coloured bone. The Secutor wasn’t unresponsive – he was a burnt corpse, his heavy augmetics still holding him upright...

[hr]

Red

Dismounting from the grav-lectern, Red headed warily towards the shelves, his lasgun’s light playing back and forth. There was no sign of their quarry anywhere on this side of the stack: heading towards the other side, he noticed a passage leading in between the shelves, its interior surface just as stacked with books as the outside.

Turning sharply round the corner, he swept the corridor of tomes with the beam of the lamp-pack: there was no sign of movement, but white marble busts of various Adepts and other luminaries stood at regular intervals, their plinths offering reasonable hiding-places.

Advancing slowly, the Armsman panned his lasgun from left to right, fixing its beam on each shadow – as he pushed further into the corridor, there was a skitter of movement from somewhere up ahead – like someone scuttling on their hands and knees, or perhaps dropping something.

With a sudden flash of shadow, a figure leapt up from behind one of the plinths up ahead and began to run – a second followed, both of them sprinting away from Red...

[Destro_Yersul]

"Emperor on Earth!" The provost cursed in surprise. Something in Hieronymus' mind told him he should be afraid, but the thought was gone as quickly as it had arrived, and then he was reaching for the comm and backing hastily away. "Bad news. The Secutor's not asleep or offline, he's been fried. I don't know what they hit him with, but whatever flesh he still had is gone now. I also don't know why he's plugged in, or how only two men managed this. Red, watch yourself."

Another thing Hieronymus didn't know was why the mechadendrite had twitched. First thing, though, was checking the servitor to see if it was 'offline' as well. And to do this, Hieronymus was staying well away from the side with the gun on it.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Advancing slowly behind the Servitor, Heironymous could easily see that it had not suffered the same fate as its master - its organic components, although of course the next worst thing to dead, seemed undamaged. In the dusty air, the flickering red beam of the laser sight on its weapon was visible, tracking back and forth across the bridge - it seemed to be on some kind of overwatch setting, watching for anyone who might come their way...

[Thanatos 51-50]

"CONTACT!" Red beeped over the comm, and, ignoring the Provost's warning for the moment, left the channel open as he recited the Litany of Accuracy and drew a bead on the fleeing figure's leg, spitting a solitary lasbolt at the fleeing form.

Called shot to the leg, aiming and Red Dot negating penalties.
[roll0]
[roll1]

After cursing under his breath, Red clears his throat and shouts at the fleeing forms.
"That was a warning shot! " he threatened.
"You will halt immediately or be killed. There's more than me looking for you, there's at least one Tech-priest and we've got a dead Secutor. He's probably angry and won't grant the same mercy I will."

[EleventhHour]

"Dead. Well... That almost simplifies things. How's that servitor?" Katyra heads over to inspect it. Well, the thing is dead, and seems to be watching the bridge, which means... "If they died up here... And the servitor is watching the bridge... The enemy was either already up here, or came up the stairs. Corpse downstairs would say they did, but the Secutor killed, and drove those back... Do you think the terminal killed him?" She pokes the zombie-like servitor. "...More importantly, do you think we count as targets?"

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

As the guardsman’s lasbolt scorched the face of one of the marble busts, the two fleeing men ducked for cover, taking shelter behind opposite plinths. Red was experienced to recognise the way they moved as characteristic of combat training – and he could see they were armed.

Squeezing into the narrow cover afforded by the stern stone face and shoulders of Adept Asclepius von Tassel the Seventy-Third, the first of them turned and thrust the muzzle of his lasgun out past the edge of the plinth, snapping off a searing crimson bolt in Red’s direction.

At the guardsman’s shout over the comms, Jericus brought the grav-lectern to an abrupt halt, locking its navigation and jumping down onto the walkway with his autogun in hand. The news coming over the comm-link was getting direr by the second, but this was a pressing problem – with a simple solution.

As he readied himself to head towards the sounds of gunfire, he heard the comm-link buzz and flicker as it came on again - Vale was hailing them.

[hr]

Ignace, Heironymous & Katyra

The servitor twitched as Katyra poked it – with a grinding of gears, its torso rotated on its hips, the muzzle of the machine gun that stood in place of its right arm swinging round to yawn in the novice’s face. A light flickered in one bionic eye, the iris lens rotating and contracting to focus on its target.
"
COMMAND #6: IDENTIFY", grated a mechanical command from a speaker in the thing’s chest. "IDENTIFY. IDENTIFY."

Behind her, Heironymous thought he heard a sound from the Secutor – looking round, hesaw the mechadendrite twitch again, a fat spark fizzing from the interface with the panel. With a croaking click, the head of the mechanical limb disengaged from the socket, slithering back behind the Secutor’s back.

In the stillness, there came the faintest hydraulic hiss – the skeletal steel fingers that held the haft of the axe tightened their grip. There was a squeal of blurted binary from the speaker in the Secutor’s chest, or whatever was left of it now – on the man’s right shoulder, the plasma gun was raising its muzzle level like an animal waking from hibernation, amber activation lights illuminating themselves one by one along its side...

"IDENTIFY", blared the Servitor. "IDENTIFY!"

There was a sudden hiss in their comms, the sound of the link coming online again - it was Vale.

[hr]

All

“Um – I say, are you fellows still there?” came Vale’s voice over the comms. He sounded more than a little worried.

“Having a spot of trouble here – something’s wrong with LIRA. I can’t understand it – all the terminals are shorting or just showing streams of gibberish. I can’t get through to her.” A burst of static crackled over the line. “This can’t still be a reaction to the doors. Something’s seriously wrong with the system. I” – another buzz of interference drowned out his words – “on your own...”

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Now engaged in a firefight." Red reported over the comm, as calmly as he could manage, even as he fought his instinct to dive for cover. The lasfire shot at him went high and wide, even as the Armsman drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders like the sharpshooters in the cheesey morale vids.
Those framilar with such things and listening in on his comms would be able to note that Red had suddenly switched from the Litany of Accuracy to the Litany of Invulnerability as he snapped his weapon over to the enemy not in cover and took careful aim with a smooth, steady squeeze of the trigger.
I count seventeen meters, assuming one square = one meter, and that makes this a short range shot.
Aim + RDS + Short Range = +30 BS
I'm assuming the lamp pack extends far enough so the the enemy doesn't get any bonuses for concealment via darkness.
(But do I The lamp pack clearly signals my position, but it doesn't light me up?)
[roll0]
[roll1]

[Destro_Yersul]

"Imperial Inquisition." Heironymus told the servitor, hoping that would be enough to get the thing to hold its fire. Right now, he was more worried about the Secutor. Or rather, what the Secutor's implants were doing. "Vale! Shut it down. Shut everything down."

The biggest threat right now was the plasmagun. Hieronymus looked for its ammo flasks, or any sort of feed line that could be pulled out to render the weapon inoperative. "Secutor, are you in there?"

[EleventhHour]

"Who's the target, and where at?" Katyra asks back through the vox, then looks nervously at the servitor and Secutor, rather eriee, "What do you think, alive?" She has no idea, they could be perfectly fine. Not likely, looking like that, but they could be.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

Hearing the snap of lasfire up ahead, the tech-priest sprinted forwards, turning right into a passage between the bookcases towards the sound of the reports. His back against the solid oak, he checked his weapon, ready to spring.

Throwing himself out of the path of Red's shot, the slower of his enemies dropped into the cover of the opposite plinth, firing off another wild shot in the guardsman's direction. Unfortunately for Red, the second man had found his aim - sending a semi-automatic spray of lasbolts at him from near ground-level, two of the searing bars of light hit home, striking Red square in the chest and making him stagger with the impact. His trusty flak armour had absorbed the worst of the impact, but one of the shots had cut through, leaving a long, semi-cauterised graze down the side of his ribs.

Trooper #1 attempts to Dodge (untrained, vs. half Ag) – [roll0] - dodges.

Trooper #1 drops into cover and snaps off a shot, same as his mate.

[roll1] (+10 for Short Range) - misses.
Dodge: [roll2]
Damage: [roll3]

Trooper #2 fires a semi-auto burst in Red’s direction.
[roll4] (+20 for Short Range + Semi Auto) - three degrees of success => 2 hits.
Dodge: [roll5] - failed
Damage: [roll6] - 2 wounds, [roll7] - soaked, [roll8]

Jericus Runs in order to position himself to attack next turn.


The lamp pack clearly signals my position, but it doesn't light me up?

I’m going to rule that it signals your position, meaning they don’t take the penalty, but renders you in silhouette, meaning that the penalty applies for called shots.

I'll update the map later today if I can - I have to travel between towns, so I don't quite have the time to do it now.

[hr]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

The servitor refrained for now from riddling them with holes – Heironymous was not sure whether due to his ‘identification’, or the fact that the Secutor was in its field of fire.

From the direction of the dead man, there was a slow groan of hydraulics – the bionic arm reached back, using the tall axe as a crutch as it began to lever the dead weight of its host around. Questing mechadendrites reached down to the floor, taking up the weight of the organic leg that dragged behind the Secutor as the heavy augmetic of the other limb thudded forwards – charred skull lolling slackly within the collar of its armour with a hideous grin, the corpse turned to face them.

With a movement far more sudden than before, one of the Secutor’s mechadendrites shot out between the Acolytes, plugging into a socket in the servitor’s armoured chest. There was a squeal of white noise from the battle-unit’s speakers, and the light in its mechanical eyes shorted and went dead.

The amber lights on the plasma weapon were reaching the end of their sequence, the weapon venting a puff of old coolant as its feeds gurgled into life...

[hr]

Comm-link: All

"...can't... ...-itator..." came Vale's voice, his message now cut to pieces by roaring bursts of static. "...-ot working... Emperor-damned mach-..."

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus spent a second wishing Vale just had an off switch he could flick. Unfortunately, nothing was ever that simple. The Secutor's gun didn't have one either. It did have those feeds, though. Wishing that he knew how they worked, the Provost slipped his sword through a set of them and flicked the activator. Hopefully the extremely sharp vibrating blade would be enough to cut the lines. Even if it failed, his next move would be to run for the stairs back down.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Oh, so they could shoot. Red snapped his rifle to his chest and broke into a flat run, rapidly approaching his targets, heedless of his wound.
The moment he passed the second set of plinths, however, he juked left and slid across the deck to take cover behind one.

Run Action. 8n2w

[EleventhHour]

"Corpse priest and deadly servitor. Is this time to run, or try and take them apart before... whatever goes wrong." Figuring that the Provost already has the techpriest, Katyra considers the mechanical tendrils, were they transferring the Secutor's mind? Spreading madness? Ordering the thing not to fire?

"I don't like this. I don't like it at all."

[senrath]

Ignace frowned and started to edge away from the dead, but still moving, bodies. While he was hidden from sight, his power didn't extend to masking detection via other methods. Sound or scent could still give him away, and he didn't know what method the machines were using. He also needed to back away from Katyra, or risk losing his camouflage.

If I can get at least 2m away from Katyra I auto-succeed on keeping my power active. Otherwise I have to roll higher than 17. Thankfully, I can't trigger psychic phenomena on keeping a power active.

[roll0]

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

The Provost’s sword flashed out, shearing through the feeds – one whipped and flexed wildly as it spewed frosty vapour into the dusty air, its wild thrashing dying away as the reserves of coolant lost their pressure.

Unfortunately, whatever else the feeds had supplied, they did not seem to include the gun’s power supply. As the last amber rune on the weapon’s side winked into readiness, the lights flickered and dimmed – then cut out completely, plunging them into near-total darkness.

There was a ratcheting click and a retracting slither of metal: with a slow whine, the lights of the servitor’s mechanical eyes welled up once more. By the glimmer of the servitor’s augmetics and the lights along the plasma gun’s side, Heironymous could see the silhouette of the Secutor’s corpse turning to confront them – mechadendrites coiled over its shoulders like serpents waiting to strike, the pilot-light of a compact flame unit adding another tiny light to the darkness.

“ORDERS UPDATED,” grated the voice of the servitor. “LIFESIGNS DETECTED.” The ammo-feeds of its cannon rattled into readiness, its torso rotating to face them. “COMMENCING LIFESIGN PURGE.”

INITIATIVE

Secutor: [roll0]
Servitor: [roll1]
Heironymous: [roll2]
Ignace: [roll3]
Katyra: [roll4]

Map & more to come in the OOC thread. Just so you’re aware of what you’re facing down: the Secutor has his plasma gun, a mechadendrite-mounted flamer of hand flamer size, a compact mechadendrite-mounted laspistol, and an Omnissian axe which he’s currently using as a crutch. The servitor has a heavy stubber instead of an arm. With the exception of the axe, they’re all pointing at you.

[hr]

Red & Jericus

Taking careful aim, the first of the mysterious men squeezed off a single shot at Red, the cover of the plinth limiting his angles. More exposed, but with a better view, the second maintained his hail of fire, a volley of lasbolts shrieking Red’s way. Minimising his profile by huddling in behind the plinth, Red managed to avoid taking a second hit - these men knew their business, however, their fire no hail of wild shots. They were clearly professionals.

Trooper #1 takes a half-action aim, fires single-shot.

[roll5] (+20 for close range, aiming) - miss
Dodge: [roll6]
Damage: [roll7]

Trooper #2 fires semi-auto again
[roll8] (+20 for close range, semi-auto) - miss
Dodge: [roll9]
Damage: [roll10], [roll11], [roll12]

Jericus, meanwhile, had reached the edge of the corridor – his back up against the bookshelves, he flicked on his comm-bead, trying to speak to Red without raising his voice too loud.

“Behind them now. Awaiting your signal, armsman.”

[Destro_Yersul]

Heavy Stubber. Plasmagun. Flamer. Laspistol. Having that many guns pointed his way made Hieronymus more than a little nervous, and there was nowhere to hide in here. There were, however, three ways to go. Up, down, and out the door. "Everyone, down the stairs. Now."

Heironymus himself darted for them, vaulting the first few in his hurry to get away from the superior firepower.

[EleventhHour]

Not much of a choice in the matter, is there?! Katyra flees as well, as quick as she can manage, and once out of sight (hopefully next round) she hefts the flamer off her back, flickers with the dials to bring it to a light hiss and ignition. "I hate cogheads. Them and thier little tinkertoys, hate, hate, hate..."

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red hit the comms on his ear.
"I'm going to take aim at the trooper on my right. Let's focus fire to bring him down. These guys are trained well, so stick your funny red robes behind some cover first." The Guardsmen instructed calmly as he controlled his breathing, chanting the Litany of Accuracy under his breath, and paid close attention to hos heartbeat at the minute sway of the assault rifle's business end.
full action to aim at Trooper 1. If I need to list expose bosy parts, left hand and forearm, right shin, and right side of the face make the moat sense. Red has also dropped into a crouch to stead his shot, but there's no actual combat modifiers for that.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

The beam of his lamp-pack lighting up the direction of his aim for all to see, Red hugged the cover of the plinth as a storm of lasbolts shrieked his way, biting charred holes in the plinth. The smell of burnt wood and vapourised marble hot in his nostrils, he avoided taking another hit: steadying his aim, he saw the edge of Jericus’ arm become visible around the corner of the right-hand stack, the tech-priest raising his autogun to fire.

Jericus (under auto-pilot) takes cover against the corner of the corridor, and fires semi-auto (full auto seemed like overkill, and I don’t want to be accused of trying to waste your bullets) into Trooper 1’s back. +10 for semi-auto, +30 for surprise, +30 for point blank, shadow penalties do not apply since Red’s lamp-pack is lighting this guy up: total of +70.

[roll0] - all three shots hit (right arm, right arm, body)
Surprised, may not dodge.
Damage: [roll1] - 5 wounds to the right arm, [roll2] - soaked, [roll3] - soaked.

A rapid burst of semi-automatic fire raked across the back of the man's shoulders, smashing him to the ground. Amazingly, he rolled and rose, head snapping round to search for his assailant - the men must have been wearing serious armour under their red uniforms, guard-issue or better...


OOC: Back to you, Thanatos. Map hasn't really changed (the squares are unfortunately not lined up properly to allow me to show Jericus edging up to the very corner of the corridor, but his current position works well enough for that) - although of course, next time it does, it'll have Red in the correct position.

[hr]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Darting back with impressive speed as a prehensile mechandendrite lashed vainly in his wake, Heironymous vaulted over the banister of the staircase. His boots hit the wrought iron of the steps with a loud clang, the Provost hitting the ground running as he began to flee down away from the smouldering corpse of the Secutor.

Robbed of its immediate target, the thing turned on Katyra: her eyes widened as the plasma gun rotated to face her, an actinic blue glow welling up in its power coil. The weapon fired in a flash of incandescent light – the Sororitas dropped low as the blinding fireball flashed over her head, turning a cogitator terminal on the other side of the chamber into molten slag.

With a lurch of its improvised crutch, the machine-corpse dragged itself one augmetic stride forwards, the muzzle of the plasma-gun glowing with red heat. A segmented mechadendrite snaked out from behind its left shoulder: Katyra found herself staring down the compact hand flamer on its tip, its little pilot-light burning a fierce, bright blue.

There was a dry roar as the weapon ignited: a wave of flame engulfed the Sister and the Psyker, Katyra feeling her skin blister and burn beneath the fire’s touch – the inferno was mercifully short-lived, the compact weapon’s fuel reserves limited by its size. As Ignace beat at the fires in his clothes, he heard a whir of servos – the gun-servitor had turned to him, the yawning barrel of its heavy stubber brought menacingly to bear.

With a chattering howl of machinery, the weapon opened fire – Ignace hurled himself out of its path, heavy-calibre bullets chewing up the furnishings of the chamber behind him in an erratic trail of destruction. The psyker’s shadow-field seemed to fox its targeting systems, the hail of death swinging back and forth across the unfortunate room without touching its target.

Ignoring the pain of her burns, Katyra turned and fled, leaping for the stairs – the Secutor was too slow to stop her, the Servitor not yet finished turning its surroundings into matchwood. As the deafening rattle of its weapon cut off, Ignace realised the others were gone...

OOC: You didn’t specify your actions, so senrath, your place in the initiative order is now. The map is unchanged, except for your mates, who’ve run away down the stairs.

[senrath]

Biting his lip to hold back the pain, Ignace turned and bolted towards the door. Additionally, he called on the power of the warp, willing it to aid him in evading his enemy's bullets. If all went well, the powers would give him insight into the future, allowing him to move out of the way before attacks even came.

Half-action to manifest Precognition, which'll give a +10 to dodge tests. Then a half-action to move in the same direction as the others, trying to stay out of Katyra's field (2m away), as well as avoiding standing directly between the others and the attackers.

[roll0] vs 6

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus darted down to the second floor, running over his options in his head. He could outrun the things, of that he was sure. They weren't fast enough to catch him, and the Secutor thing would probably have trouble with stairs. He could try shooting them, though that didn't sound like a very good plan. Their weapons were more plentiful and more powerful than his own.

Or, he could try engaging them in melee combat. The Secutor needed his axe as a crutch, and the servitor had nothing that would make it an opponent at that range. As a bonus, if he could get one of them alone, they wouldn't be able to shoot at him. He remembered something else, as well. The Secutor had no bionic eyes. He had to be tracking them with some sort of sensors. Heironymus stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and swept the chamber for any sort of visual device. Cyber-owls, cameras, anything. Because he remembered something else, as well. Back in the underhive tunnels, their auspex had trouble seeing the genestealer on the ceiling. The one behind a tangle of metal piping.

"Everyone, regroup, bottom of the stairs! Do we want to take them on, or do we want to keep running?"

LCP Only:
Daemon. If you're in there... I may need your help. I'm not sure yet, and I don't like that I might. But just in case, will you be listening?

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Arms up over his head, Ignace ran for the stairs, mumbling the words of a mantra to focus his thoughts as he did so – the Secutor’s ballistic mechadendrites tracked his movement, a red lasbolt spitting through the fyceline smoke of the flamer’s discharge. Precognition saving his skin, the psyker jinked out of its path, the laser discharge striking bright sparks off the stairwell at his feet.

DeadFerox takes a Half Action Aim, followed by a single shot from his laspistol mechadendrite. +10 for aiming, +30 for point blank, -20 for shadows, -20 for Chameleon.
[roll0] - hit
Dodge: [roll1] - dodged
Damage: [roll2]

The plasma gun was recharging: it would be a matter of seconds before it could fire again, but with its coolant feeds cut, its blunt snout was still glowing red-hot. The servitor’s solid-slug weapon had no such limitations: with a throaty rattle, it opened up, a maelstrom of bullets hurtling Ignace’s way. One clipped his side: it was only a glancing blow, the servitor's lobotomised brain still struggling with Ignace's psyker trickery, but it hurt like hell.

Full Auto, Point Blank, Shadow, Chameleon = +10
[roll3] - 1 hit
Dodge: [roll4] - already spent
Damage: [roll5], [roll6], [roll7], [roll8] (Pen 3)

2 wounds to the body

Ahead of the psyker, Heironymous and Katyra fled as fast as they could, their heavy footfalls making the metal staircase ring: the lights around them were dipping and flickering erratically. Cogitator screens flickered and buzzed with static noise, ventilator fans choking and spluttering: each of the tower’s systems seemed to be on the brink of failure in one way or another, anything mechanical that could malfunction doing its best to do so. He could catch no sign of any cyber-owls or pict-recorders.

Reaching the ‘ground’ of another level down, he paused to call his question up to the others: overhead, he heard the servitor’s gun thundering, the psyker clearly not out of harm’s way yet.

Heironymous Only
I’m always listening, Heironymous. It’s the only entertainment in this sad little skull of yours. The daemon stirred behind his brain. Defiling the works of the Machine Cult, are we? I never liked them.

[Thanatos 51-50]

After taking his foe was struck from behind by Jericus, Red centered his red dot on the trooper's skull and squeezed out a three-round burst.
Semi-automatic fire, Called shot to the head.
+20 for Full Aim, +10 for Semi-Auto, +10 for short Range, -20 for called shot to the head
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

The Sollex's searing lasbolts found their mark with unerring aim - the man's skull blew apart in an explosion of burning brain-matter, flames licking over his uniform as his headless body stumbled into the plinth and collapsed.

Witnessing his comrade's grisly death, the second of the pair seemed to change his mind about a static firefight - there was a momentary pause, and a small, metallic object arched up from over his cover, sailing towards Red.

Trooper #2 readies and throws a Blind Grenade.

[roll0]

The grenade landed a few feet in front of him - with a sudden hiss, it vented thick white smoke in every direction, a billowing cloud of artificial fog cutting off the guardsman's view of the corridor ahead.

From up ahead, there was a rattle of gunfire - Jericus' autogun, opening fire again on full auto this time. If it found its mark, Red heard nothing through the rolling wall of white to suggest it.

Jericus fires a fully-automatic burst at the grenadier.
[roll1] (+20 for Full Auto, +10 for short range, -20 for shadow) - miss.
Dodge: [roll2]
Damage: [roll3], [roll4], [roll5], [roll6], [roll7]

[senrath]

Hissing slightly, Ignace picked up the pace, opting not to take the time to heal his wounds. He could heal up when he was no longer being shot at. Rushing down the stairs, he hoped he could get far enough away that his defensive measures would protect him.

Running time now.

[Thanatos 51-50]

The Armsman didn't hesitate as the Blind grenade landed and spewed its load of smoke.
It was a simple matter to shift his grip to take advantage of the mounted bayonet. It was simpler still to swallow his fear and charge straight through the smoke, towards the last known poistion of his prey, letting loose a bloodthirsty battle cry and thrusting the deadly tip of his bayonet towards his foe.


Charge Action to the last known position of Trooper 2, 1NE 8N.
[roll0]
[roll1]

"You've lost. Surrender and you'll get to live a while longer."

[EleventhHour]

Katyra, feeling rather well roasted, and having to ignore the wave of blisters that'd formed over her back, is practically growling as she hefts her own flamer, her scorched hair brushing ash off the shoulders of the flak armour. "We need to do something about that thing. Think it likes being on fire as much as it enjoys burning?"

[Destro_Yersul]

"Stand and Fight it is, then. If you can hit them both, do it, though I don't know how effective flame will be." Hieronymus, sword drawn, ducked under the spiral staircase. With any luck, the heavy metal stairs would help mask whatever method of detection they were using.

"Concentrate on the servitor first. That heavy gun will tear us to pieces."

LCP Only:
Defiling one in particular, but he's already been corrupted somehow. I don't suppose you would know anything about that?

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Darting down the spiral steps, Ignace hurtled out of the Servitor's field of fire - feet hammering on his way down, he heard the others' voices, descending a level or two before he caught up with them. They seemed to be preparing an ambush.

Somewhere up above, there was a heavy clang - the sound of a ponderous metal foot hitting the stairs. They were being pursued - albeit apparently at a slow walking pace.

Heironymous Only

Not in the slightest, chuckled the daemon, its macabre glee at the prospect of imminent violence heating the inside of Heironymous' head like a coal fire. Shall we find out for ourselves?

[hr]

Red & Jericus

The man spat, drawing a vicious-looking combat knife from his boot. Twisting out of the path of Red's bayonet, he lunged at his attacker. Red darted nimbly out of the way, the slashing blade whistling through the air where he had stood.

Half action to ready combat knife, half action Standard Attack.

[roll0] - hit.
Dodge: [roll1] - dodged.
Damage: [roll2]

I'm posting this on my lunch break, so don't have my books: my memory of the damage may be incorrect.

Jericus, meanwhile, held his cover, the barrel of his autogun carefully tracking the melee erupting in front of him. The tech-priest had no desire to get involved in a brawl.

Delayed action to shoot the trooper should he disengage.

[Thanatos 51-50]

As Red twisted out of the way, he let his trained eye wander over his foe's stance, and attempt to find an opening in his guard to exploit, and drive the bayonet through.
Aim/Attack
[roll0]
[roll1]
(Also, knives are listed as 1d5 damage)

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

The man took the bayonet in his side with a grunt of pain, evidently made of sterner stuff: the knife flashed out at Red again, the guardsman having to leap back to avoid having his throat slit.

Thanks, but it was the Combat Knife (IH) that I was looking for - which turns out to be 1d5+3.

Dodge roll: [roll0] - failed, Red's blow hits home.

All-Out Attack: [roll1] (+20) - hit.
Dodge: [roll2] - dodged
Damage: [roll3]

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus pauses for a second, as though thinking, and then nods. "Alright. Katyra, make sure neither Ignace or I am in the field of fire when you shoot. I've no desire to be toasted. And find some cover. Bit of extra protection from those guns won't hurt.

The provost wishes he had some heavier armour. He'd have to see about buying or requisitioning something next chance he got.

[senrath]

Ignace continued to fly down the stairs, desperate to get away from their pursuers.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Give it up, Trooper." Red commanded, staying his attack for the moment, but still holding the gleaming point of his bayonet at the ready and not dropping his guard.
"You're outnumbered. You're outgunned. You're Surrounded. You're wounded. And most of all, you're worth a lot more to the Emperor alive than you are dead. You have some training, you might even survive a stint in the Guard. Put your weapons down now and I won't gut you like I did to every Heretic I ever met in those Emperor-forsaken trenches."

[roll0]
Unfortunately, Intimidate is a full action.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

"All right," said the man, raising the hand with the knife to a non-threatening position: he did not let it fall, however, no trace of his fear in his voice. "You want to talk, tell your friend to put the gun away."

Still holding his aim, Jericus glanced sideways at Red, waiting for the guardsman's confirmation.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red glowered back at the trooper, not relaxing his guard, either.
"My friend will shift relax his weapon, but he will not stow it, not as long as you have that blade in your hands." he said aloud, partially directed at Jericus and at the trooper, himself.

[LCP]

Red and Jericus

The man nodded, taking a step back - the knife, however, stayed in his hand.

"You killed Jant," he said, curtly. He didn't seem too cut up about it. "The sarge isn't going to be happy with you. How'd you get in here?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Both yourself and Jant were fleeing the scene of a firefight occurring between your squad and an Adeptus Mechanus Secutor after using a classified authorisation code to enter a Forbidden vault. Upon attempting to apprehend you, after giving you both a verbal and ballistic warning, you procceded to open fire. I was well within my rights to kill Jant, and remain in my rights to kill you." Red replied firmly and evenly, attempting to re-affirm his superiority in the situation.

"I want to know who's orders you are under, and what those orders were, as well as how you obtained the authorisation code."

[LCP]

Jericus & Red

"Yeah, well, I want to hump Anna DuPont*. What are we gonna do?"

He circled slowly to his left, keeping both of the Acolytes in his sights while doing his best not to make any movements that could be interpreted as threatening.

"You want answers? How's about we trade." He shifted his grip on the knife. "Starting with who the drek you are, and what gives you the authority to be 'apprehending' anyone."

*A singer and performer, popular across several worlds in the Golgenna Reach.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red inched forward and twisted his torso to track the Trooper.
"My name is Red, of the Imperial Guard. My authority is a Sollex Pattern-IX lasgun. Your turn."
He doesn't get more than two meters away from me at any time. If he bolts, he gets lasfire the moment he bolts. Semi-automatic.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

"Bromhead. Gonville Bromhead, and that's Jant Reynolds you just fried." He looked Red in the eye. "You said the cog-head was dead. How'd that happen?"

[senrath]

Letting the the powers that gave him slight precognition fade from his mind, Ignace let the same powers flow into the rest of his body, attempting to heal the wounds he had suffered.

Let's see if I can heal myself without completely messing things up. Threshold is 7 if I can stand at least 2m away from Katyra, 17 if I can't.

[roll0]
Healing for [roll1] wounds.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Katyra & Ignace

The slow footsteps grew nearer and nearer - a heavy clang as the augmetic foot slammed down, and a soft scrape as the remnants of the organic leg dragged behind it.

Thud-screech.
Thud-screech.
Thud.

The lights around them still flickering and dimming, the noise of the Secutor's progress came to a halt: coming as close to the edge of his cover as he dared, Heironymous tried to get a visual on their enemy.

The hulking figure of the Secutor stood silhouetted against the staircase - those mechandendrites that were not engaged in propping up its crumpled form quested through the air like hungry worms, the sights of their ballistic attachments scanning back and forth. The plasma gun twitched right and left with irregular, impatient movements, the smell of hot metal drifting through the air from its glowing coil.

Behind the corpse-thing, the Servitor was descending the staircase, its progress almost as clumsy as the dead man's. All around them, the flickering of the lights was becoming more erratic...

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus signaled to Katyra with a curt hand motion, then checked behind him to make sure that Ignace was ready as well. As soon as both of their targets were in range, he wanted them flamed and hit with the grenade. Then it would be time to cut them down.

[EleventhHour]

Carefully edging out only enough to see around the shelves of books, Katyra holds the flamer out from herself, waiting until the Secutor was cleanly on the floor, and in her sights, then with a hissing FWOOSH, letting loose a torrent of flame in the zombie-techpriest's direction. "BURN, IN THE LIGHT OF THE EMPEROR!"

Well, it's not really a surprise when you're starting with a massive burst of fire, anyway, right? And it's more of a distraction this way!

[Thanatos 51-50]

"The other half of my squad is the one who reported he's dead, I haven't laid eyes on the corpse, myself. Are we going to start answering my questions, now, or are we about to burst take lasbolts to the face?"

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

"Questions sound good."

[senrath]

Stepping out from behind cover just after Katyra, Ignace lit the fuse on, then threw, the grenade that he'd been given.

[roll0] vs 25.
[roll1] E, Pen 6. Blast 3.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Do you want me to repeat them? What are your orders, who gave them to you, and how did you come across the code to get in here?" Red replied, letting an impatient tone seep into his voice.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

"Lord Rhodes brought us here," said Bromhead, simply. "Bodyguard detail. We get our orders from Sergeant Summerson, he gets his from Rhodes. Jant, Aldric and me, we were supposed to be guarding the index tower, until the cog-head showed up. He had what you might call superior firepower, so after Aldric got toasted, we made a tactical retreat."

"As for the code... you'd have to ask Lord Rhodes." He shrugged. "He's got an adept with him, some kind of little tech-weasel or other. Bypassed the security systems."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"You wouldn't happen to have caught the name of the Adept? Or have your mercenary license on you?

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

"Mercenary license?" The man scoffed. "You want to talk permits and papers, you need to talk to the boss. We're House Rhodes troops." He thumped his chest. "Biggest family on Cantus, more or less - and just as legit as you are, far as I can see."

"As for the little man, he calls himself Vendrian Jessel. I don't know who he is or where they found him, but he knows his stuff."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"House Rhodes train all its troops like you?" Red asked off-handily, attempting to flatter the man, and make him drop his guard a little bit.
"I'll offer you a deal. We're going to take you into custody, and I will offer you my personal promise that you will not come to harm by my hands or the hands of my squad, and I will speak for you should the Adeptus Mechanus attempt to charge you with the murder of their Secutor. I have authority that they will listen to you need not know. In return, you're going to sit tight and relay everything you know about House Rhodes and its defenses, as well as why the Lord of the house and his retinue are here. You may even eventually find your way off this planet and on some Hive with a mercenary license and the freedom to live your life as you choose, provided you do not breach the Emperor's Law."

[LCP]

Red and Jericus

"So what, I tell you what you want and you take me along with your friends?" The man seemed sceptical. "We didn't murder your Secutor, and that's a fact, though he was doing his best to murder us."

He grinned.

"There's worse things in this Vault than you and your little flashlight, mister. Sergeant Summerson, for one. I don't know what your 'authority' is, but I can tell you now, it's not worth your time nor your lives to tangle with His Nibs."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"The sergant is in this vault? Who else came here with your squad?"

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

"See, now you're asking questions I oughtn't answer. You want to know how many of us there are? More than you can handle. You kill me, you're only going to make things worse for yourselves. So why don't you tell me who you're with first, and then maybe we can talk more."

[Destro_Yersul]

With both the grenade thrown and the flamer fired, Hieronymus got out from the on-fire cover as quickly as he could, approaching the two mechanicus at a low crouch. He swept his sword up as he reached Ferox, the blade humming through the air.

To hit:[roll0] vs 38
damage: [roll1] Rending damage, pen 2

EDIT: Well that sucks. Righteous fury, but I missed.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Well, let's see if you can't figure it out. My squad consists of representatives from quite a few of the more major Imperial Organizations. We're among the best at what we do, we operate semi-autonomously, and we had the clearance to get past a Mechanus without resorting to violence or stealth."

[EleventhHour]

Well, they did burn, more than she did, and with praise to the Emperor on her lips, she drops the flamer, lightly, since the provost had decided to step directly into the way of another burst of flame, drawing her Moonblade, and waiting for a clear path to charge into the melee herself, unless the psyker could do something about the mechanical monstrosities in the meantime.

[LCP]

The gout of flame from Katyra’s gun hit the Secutor square in the chest: with a roaring whoomph, his Mechanicus robes ignited, mechadendrites flailing wildly as the charred meat-puppet staggered back under the blast. The roiling wall of fire enveloped the Servitor too, skin blackening and peeling from the white flesh of its donor body – systems shorting and sparking, it staggered wildly, collapsing against the staircase with a blurt of scrambled machine code.

There was no respite for the machines – as the Sister’s fires cleared, Ignace’s firebomb came arcing in, bouncing off the Servitor’s armour-plated skull and striking the bookcases opposite them. The incendiary ignited in a blossoming inferno, a palpable backwash of heat rushing across the chamber – burning from head to foot, the Servitor writhed on the ground, trying to right itself with its one human arm. The books themselves were ablaze, black smoke pouring up towards the ceiling as the fires began to spread.

Heironymous barrelled through the thickening vapours, his sword slashing round – the Secutor’s lolling skull rolled in its armoured collar as the thing lurched forwards, the Provost’s sword slicing through empty air alone.

Taking one stamping, hydraulic stride to Heironymous’ left, the Secutor’s augmetic leg dragged the rest of his body after it – mechadendrites shot out, anchoring themselves to the shelves like metallic lampreys to support the weight of the Tech-Priest’s charred remains. Tongues of flame still dripping from its robes, the thing’s bionic arm hefted its axe off the floor – Heironymous’ eyes widened as a blue power-field crackled into being around the head of the weapon, the mechanical limb driving it towards him with inhuman strength...

DeadFerox takes a half move to prop himself against the bookshelves, then attacks with the axe.

[roll0] - miss, which is good, because I botched the damage roll.
Dodge (I assume you don’t parry, since the axe has a decent chance of obliterating your sword if you do): [roll1]
Damage: [roll2] (Pen 6)

The axe hummed over Heironymous' head, the augmetics' movements slow enough to predict - Heironymous knew that a single hit, however, could well reduce him to little more than organic slurry.

The Servitor, meanwhile, was hauling itself to its feet: preserved flesh still blistering and burning, it lumbered forwards, scanning erratically for a target...

Burning damage for the end of the round: the Servitor is immune due to its Machine trait and armour plating, while the Secutor takes [roll3] - 7 wounds: soaked

OOC: Back to you guys. here's (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v700/LordChilipepa/IndexTowerMapII-3.jpg) your map.

[hr]

Red & Jericus

"Not too keen on guessing games, myself," said Gonville, warily. "Sounds like you could be anyone from Segmentum Command to the cog-head's boys."

[Destro_Yersul]

"None of that." Hieronymus growled at the Secutor. He flicked his sword at the axe's haft, aiming to knock the deadly thing to the ground where it could be kicked away.

Taking a full action to disarm the Secutor. Opposed WS test, here's my half: [roll0] VS 38, or 43 if this is an enclosed space. That's a pretty good roll. If I manage to beat the Secutor by three or more degrees, I end up holding the axe instead of knocking it away.

Interestingly enough, I just read the description of power field. Apparently, it's a defensive quality. Rules as written, you can parry an attack from one without destroying your weapon, but any parry made by a weapon with power field could destroy the attacker's weapon. The axe, though, is unwieldy, and can't be used to parry at all.

[senrath]

His part now done, the cowardly psyker moved quickly to the north, trying to keep himself hidden and hoping that his chameleon power would keep him from being detected.

Silent Move test (opposed by Awareness):
[roll0] vs 17. Please roll well.

[EleventhHour]

Katyra deciding to take her chances, and seeing as she's already burning and blistered from the secutor's attack, decides to take on the enflamed servitor, bounding toward it's downed frame and trying to slit the thing's throat while it's still down.


Roll Vs WS (37) : [roll0] - Not sure of the modifiers (if any)
Damage : [roll1]

:: Ooh.

[Thanatos 51-50]

"The correct answer, Trooper, is that we're any one of a bunch of guys who can make your life difficult or very easy. You will answer my question, or I will kill you and interrogate your corpse."
Even as he speaks, Red relaxes his rifle out of a shooting-ready stance in an attempt to project confidence.
Ready action: Ready weapon (free action), semi-auto burst (full action) if he shifts into an agressive stance, readies a weapon or begins running. There's no way he knows I have Quick Draw. :smallamused:

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Charging into the lurching Servitor, Katyra’s blades flashed out in a flurried frenzy of blurred metal – there was a dull shearing noise, and the unit’s head span into the air, trailing brackish preservation liquid behind it. The body’s reaction was a little more dramatic, the pressure of the dead Servitor’s fluid transport systems spraying the stuff in all directions like an agrarium sprinkler as the flaming body hit the deck.

Servitor is very dead; Katyra must pass an Agility test or take a -10 penalty to WS and BS for one round as blood/stuff gets in her eyes.

Taking another lumbering swing at Heironymous, the ex-Secutor found its power axe twisted from its grasp – mechanical fingers flexing and unflexing for a moment, it lunged at its opponent, trying to smash him to the ground. The force of the impact threw the Provost off his feet, the augmetic arm punching with the strength of an Ogryn - rolling as he hit the ground, he avoided the whirring blades of a mechadendrite that slammed down after him, a searing blast from one of the ballistic attachments pinging off the deck inches in front of him as he arrested his movement.

DeadFerox attempts a Knockdown on Heironymous for a half-action.
[roll0] vs. [roll1] - 3 degrees of success, Heironymous is on the floor, suffers 1 level of fatigue and takes damage (see OOC)
He then makes a Standard Attack with a utility mechadendrite
[roll2] - miss
Parry: [roll3]
Damage: [roll4] (pen 2, non-primitive)
He then uses his Reaction to fire the laspistol ballistic mechadendrite.
[roll5] - miss
Dodge: [roll6]
Damage: [roll7]

[hr]

Red & Jericus

Gonville shook his head.

“Like I said, mister,” he said. “Worse things.”

He cocked his head to one side. “’Sides, I don’t reckon you’re going to pull that trigger. You kill me, you’re stuck. We string this along, maybe I’ll slip up.” He shrugged. “Right now, I’m thinking I’m all you’ve got.”

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red's lasgun snaps to his his shoulder and spits three red lances.
+30 point blank, +10 semi-automatic
[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus turned his roll into a spring, and was back on his feet in less time than it took to blink. The wind had been knocked out of him, but the provost wasn't about to let that stop him. He took aim for the dead Secutor's center mass and stepped forward, stabbing with his sword.

[roll0] vs 38. -10 for fatigue, but +10 for aiming

Aaaand that's a miss.

[EleventhHour]

Grinning with the power of the Emperor's grace running through her, covered in oil, blood, and who knows what else, with burning all over the back, and a dead servitor, Katyra does the only thing a reasonable Imperial servant would do. Tries to jump the Secutor, blade whirling.


Agility : [roll0] vs 33
WS : [roll1] vs 37
Damage : [roll2]
Crit Confirm : [roll3] vs 37
Crit Damage : [roll4]

[LCP]

Heironymous, Katyra & Ignace

Lurching forwards, the Secutor's bionic arm made to swing for Heironymous again - before it could do so, Katyra smashed into the smouldering thing from the side, her blades shrieking off plate metal beneath the charred rags of its robes.

Turning, the mechanical revenant's writhing mechadendrites lashed out towards its new attacker, its steel hand still reaching for Heironymous...

Standard Attack on Katyra with utility mechadendrite.
[roll0] - miss.
Parry: [roll1]
Damage: [roll2] (pen 2)

Uses reaction to fire laspistol mechadendrite at her too.
[roll3] - miss
Dodge: [roll4]
Damage: [roll5]

The lashing tendrils of metal missed their mark, a las-blast singing over Katyra's shoulder as the Sororitas novice danced out of its path.

Behind them, the fire ignited among the bookshelves by Ignace's borrowed grenade was spreading, practically the whole shelf now alight - with black smoke boiling up towards the central stairwell, antiquated fire systems fizzed and spluttered into action, ports opening in the ceiling to lower little octagonal brass sprinklers into the room. With a quiet whssssh, they activated, sending drifts of water downward to quench the flames.

Steam rose from the Secutor's robes as the artificial rain enveloped them, bringing with it the sharp smell of metal from its storage reservoirs: their organic fuel already practically exhausted, the last few tongues of flame that licked the Tech-Priest's frame guttered and died.

Final round of fire damage for DeadFerox: [roll6] ARGHWRONGROLL

[hr]

Red & Jericus

The first two of Red's shots slammed into Bromhead's arm, the man dropping his knife with a howl of pain - the third hit him squarely in the chest, smashing him to the ground with a smouldering hole in his fine red uniform.

Rolling for critical effects (+2 to the right arm, +5 to the body):
[roll7]
[roll8]

The armour beneath the crimson tunic seemed to have taken the worst of the damage upon itself, Bromhead's chest still moving as he breathed - however, either the shock or the wound itself had rendered him unconscious.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red immediatly seizes the oppertunity present in his incapacitated target, scoops up the fallen knife and immediatly begins looting the unconcius body of weapons, armour, ammo, and valubles.
He also checks the Trooper's ear for a commbead.

[Destro_Yersul]

Steadying his aim, Hieronymus slashed downwards at the Secutor once again. The thing was damaged now, he could see that. It would take just one good hit to end it.

[roll0] vs 38
[roll1] Pen 2

EDIT: Three for three. I think the roller is back to hating me.

[EleventhHour]

Drawing the blade across metal was expected, but she was hoping to get it through rather than glancing off, and switches hands for an overhanded strike, waiting for the mechanical man to be distracted, as much as a robotic zombie can be distracted, then striking.


To Hit* : [roll0] vs 37 + 10
Damage : [roll1]
Crit Confirm : [roll2] vs 37 + 10
Crit : [roll3]

* See OOC

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

Rummaging through the man’s effects, Red located two spare power-packs for the man’s lasgun, as well as the menacing scored cylinder of a frag grenade: Bromhead seemed to be carrying nothing that would identify him, nothing about his person that was not a direct tool of his trade.

The knife itself was a heavy, long-bladed affair, easily the equal of a guard-issue bayonet; the lasgun standard-pattern but well-maintained. Beneath the scorched fabric of the man’s uniform, the dull gleam of some kind of mesh armour was visible – badly damaged now, punctured first by Red’s bayonet and then again by the point-blank volley from the Sollex. Nevertheless, the fact that its wearer was still breathing spoke volumes for its efficacy.

[hr]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

Weapons flashing through the stagnant rain of the sprinklers, Katyra drove forwards as the Provost’s attack caught the Secutor’s attention – if you could call it that. One crescent blade ripped through the socket of the mechadendrite that was holding the tech-priest’s body upright against the shelving, shearing through the mechanical tendril in a spray of sparks: the lumbering corpse toppled forwards, its skeletal steel arm flailing out to arrest its fall.

Stepping into its path, Katyra caught it instead, letting the hulking monster’s own tremendous weight do the work of driving her blade’s point through its torso. Somewhere within the charred ribcage, something sparked and crackled, noxious smoke venting from the Secutor’s augmetics. Twitching erratically, the nearest mechadendrite coiled up to reach for Katyra’s face, its intricate tool-head expanding in an intricate array of gleaming, whirring blades: as it reached for her, it grew slower and slower, juddering like a dying auto-engine before cutting out and falling slack mere inches from her eyes.

The other implants seemed to have fallen still as well – looking down, the Sister realised the Secutor’s bionic hand was in fact clamped around her ankle, sparks still spitting occasionally from the joints of the arm. The severed feeds of the plasma weapon had ceased to hiss, the only sign that the whole apparatus had ever moved at all the hot glow of the slowly cooling gun...

Heironymous Only

Taking out the Secutor, Katyra had stepped directly in front of him – Heironymous felt the same lurch of revulsion he had felt before, the watching daemon scrabbling at the walls of his mind.

Getawaygetawaygetawaygetawaygetaway...

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red immediately busied himself removing the man's shirt and armour, using the knife to cut the sleeves off the former and use them as impromptu rope to hog-tie their captive.

He slid the lasgun and rolled the grenade towards Jericus, and looted the charge packs for himself, stuffing them in his bandoleer.
"We may want to check the other guy. If he was packing a frag as well, the grenade cooking off would be bad. Liberating the charges packs from the fire would likewise be useful."

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus hastily backed away from Katyra, moving around the side of the fallen Secutor. "Think it's dead for good this time?" He asked her, looking down at the pile of broken augmetics. Then he looked at the axe in his hand. His sword would need another notch. For now, though, it was time to make sure the Secutor wouldn't be a threat if it 'woke up' again.

"Go find Ignace, and call the others. Make sure they're fine." With that, Hieronymus busied himself with clumsily using the axe, its humming power field active, to reduce the Ex-Secutor to its component parts.

[EleventhHour]

Staring the whirring machine in the face was one was to get a lot of tension, fast, and practically heaving out a breath she didn't know she was holding, she takes a halfstep back away from the robotic corpse and gives it a hard kick to the head. "By the Emperor's Thone I'm sure." Katyra anwsered him in kind, then turned to peer at the bookcases, "Where are you, psyker?"

[LCP]

Heironymous & Katyra

Ignace poked his head around one of the rows of shelves as yet untouched by the flames - the psyker didn't seem particularly embarassed about having hidden himself away, still looking rather wary about approaching the fallen thing as Heironymous began to hack it into pieces with the glimmering axe. The sooty augmetics sparked and twitched under the dismembering blows, but whatever Katyra's blade had hit, it had clearly knocked out their power supply.

The bookshelf fire was still blazing away, too fierce for the sprinklers to immediately extinguish - nevertheless, their steady spray was slowly drenching the rest of the room, turning the books around it into sodden lumps of parchment and leather that stubbornly refused to ignite. They were also soaking the Acolytes to the skin, the water flattening their hair against their scalps and washing the soot and smoke of the fight from their clothes. Where it fell onto the Secutor's cooling plasma gun, it flashed into steam, the muzzle of the weapon still red-hot...

[Destro_Yersul]

Once his messy task is complete, and the Secutor thing is not likely to ever be a danger again, Hieronymus tries to raise Red on the comm. He's become increasingly relaxed now that Katyra has moved away. "Red? Status update, soon as you get a moment."

With that taken care of, the Provost made for higher ground, taking the Secutor's axe with him. It was time to get out of the downpour from the sprinklers. On his way up the stairs, he tried the Library comm again as well. "Decatologue Vale. Do you copy?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"One target KIA, the second unconscious. Prisoner has been hog-tied, currently policing weapons, ammunition and armour. No ID or licenses present. Trooper claim to be House Rhodes troop. Implied there were others on-scene."

[LCP]

From Vale's end of the line, there was only comm-static. If the Adept could hear them, he wasn't responding.

[Destro_Yersul]

Abandoning the hope that putting the Secutor down might have opened the Comm channels again, Hieronymus flips the library comm back off and answers Red.

"Secutor's been put down again. Mechanicus isn't going to be happy, but he was dead already. I've got his axe for safekeeping. What's your location? The others and I will come meet up with you." Turning back down the stairs, Hieronymus calls to the others. "Ignace, Katyra, let's go find Red. Potentially other hostiles in the area, so keep an eye open."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"We're down in the stacks where the runners escaped to. Going to be moving back to the lectern as soon as we're done policing their effects. Where do you want to rendezvous?" Red replied simply.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Meet us on the bridge." Hieronymus clicked his comm back off, and focused on climbing the stairs, hoping the others would follow.

[EleventhHour]

Grabbing her flamer back up, and slicking her wet hair back, she smiles. Judgement meted. The dead, dead. One soul, mechanicus or not, condemned to the Emperor's Judgement, hopefully not forgivingly, Katyra added, somewhat spitefully, making the sign of the Emperor over the corpse. "More cosigned to thier fate, more to burn in the holy flames. Let us find the heretics, and show them."

She peers at the psyker, "Come along, coward." It's true, isn't it? And it's not like the psyker could do anything about it, even if he was inclined.

[Etcetera]

Jericus frowned and took the combead. With a sharp intake of breath (and a fingernail kept long for just the purpose), he attempted to flip open the casing of the combead and lay the vox-function to rest.

As confident as he was in this fairly simple task, the presence of a disabled secutor was laying heavily upon him - a secutor was one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of the Mechanicus. If the Rhodes could take over a secutor and combat servitors, what would they do to his comparatively weak party. Since the mercenaries didn't seem all that competent, it spoke of the power of the rest of the intruders.

In a round-about way, Tech Use +20, Intelligence 35.
[roll0]

Jericus mumbled something about damaging his fingernail.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

The comm-bead beeped sharply three times: Jericus realised he had triggered a tampering alarm.

There was a buzz from the other end, and an unfamiliar voice came over the line.
"Bromhead, you fooling about with your comms?"

OOC: For the other group: if you're just ascending to wait on the bridge, I'll hold off making an update for you until I know that these guys are meeting up with you.

[senrath]

"Being a coward is the only reason I've survived 20 years of service, thank you very much." Ignace said as he headed along with Heironymous.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Thinking quickly, Red snatched up Bromhead's lasgun and ran back over to Jer.
"Open the line, like you're about to respond." He said, shouldering the weapon.

As soon as the Tech-priest opened the line, Red fired off a three-round burst, attempting to broadcast the sound of weapons discharge.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

(Assuming Jericus opens the line as asked)

The comm-link crackled again.

"Bromhead, those Mechanicus bastards still on your tail?" came the voice again, more urgent now. "Confirm!"

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red sighed and shot Jericus a quick "I'm sorry" look as he snatched the commbead from the tech-priest's hand, dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his boot.
"Sorry for destroying technology, Jer, but we should, um, probably carry our friend Bromhead to the Lectern and pick up the others as soon as possible. You can berate me for destroying a microbead later."

With that, the Guardsmen ran over to their captive and threw him into a quick fireman's carry.
"Grab the spoils from the other guy and meet me there."

[Etcetera]

Jericus took the rest of the equipment from the corpse and returned to the grav-lectern, flipping the lift control and silently hovering away.

[LCP]

Ghosting through the shadows between the stacks, the grav-lectern slowed to a halt alongside the bridge - emerging from the tower onto its narrow span, the others appeared. Katyra and Ignace looked rather the worse for wear, and all of them appeared to be soaking wet, as if they had walked through a sudden rainshower.

Looking down, Jericus could see tendrils of smoke rising from the tower archways that led out onto some of the lower bridges...

[Etcetera]

Jericus brought the lectern down slowly to inspect the wreckage on the ground. He stared down at the slightly blackened axe. That wasn't a good sign. Jericus muttered something, and relieved the provost of the artefact. It was only proper.

[Destro_Yersul]

"I think Decatologue Vale is going to be unhappy." Hieronymus climbed onto the lectern, looking down at the smoke issuing from the lower levels. "One less thing to worry about, though. Secutor Ferox could have been a powerful ally, or a terrible enemy. Now he's neither." As he's speaking, the Provost looks down at the Omnisian Axe clutched in his right hand. His sword is back to hanging at his waist.

When Jericus goes to take the axe he hands it over somewhat reluctantly. "Mechanicus will want that back, right? We should make sure we get it to them."