The Men In Black Robes [IC]

[Morganatic]

No-one ever said that the Mechanicum of Mars were good hosts. It is not who they are, and, to many of their number, the notion of providing excessive soft furnishings and edible delicacies is anathema. Despite this, they've tried, in an awkward, slightly condescending manner to Iron Hand and Rogue Trader alike, to keep you comfortable these past few months. Exquisitely prepared has been brought to you, carried by technographers who look decidedly ill-at-ease with their new roles in hospitality; libraries of gleaming dataslates and sparring arenas have been made available to you; and attempts to leave have been met with kind but firm dismissal. The noise of something big - very big - happening outside has been a constant companion, but, beyond that, you've been unable to get communication in or out.

It's not been entirely clear why they've had you in this gilded cage for this time. Orders are clearly filtering down from some lofty authority in the Cult that you are to be kept in one place for some sort of purpose. There's been no trial, no interrogation or torture; it's more like they've kept you tethered in place until you prove useful.

That day seemed like it might never come, but, eventually, it seems like someone's found a use for you. The doors of your comfortable cell slide open, and, flanked by a pair of skitarii, whose robes bulge alarmingly with long, boxy shapes, a single, delicate female-bodied servitor glides forth. Literally, glides - she hovers a few centimetres above the floor on a column of force, the better not to ruffle or sully her cloth-of-adamant robes.

'Gentlemen! We - apologise - that - due - to - unplanned - engineering - works - you have - been - detained - for - this - time. Arch - Magos - Luol - Rho - Master - Of - The - Lathes - Wishes - To - Offer - Her - Personal - Apologies - And - Explanations. If - You'd - Follow - Me?'

With that last word the servitor snaps round, one arm extended down the corridor and towards the waiting Archmagos. Your incarceration - in these rooms, at any rate - would seem to be over.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Wulfram strides forth towering over the dimunitive forms of the Skitarri, his Omnissan pattern axe- a badge of office clutched in his massive armoured fist as the floor echoes with the massive clamour of his footfall. He barely deigns to acknowledge the guards or the servitor as he follows them, internal auger arrays scanning and tracking any signals or fluctations in the surrounding air temperauture, pressure or anything else and the vox caster in his squat helm open to any and all frequencies.

The temerity to incarcerate an Iron Father of the Iron Hands Astartes had come close to unleashing his pent-up rage but he had been patient. The ancient written copy of the Codex Astartes, his copy hand written and dating back some 6000 years , had filled his head with wise words of patience and finally his calls had been answered. At the floating servitors words he glanced down at the female-like form, voice booming through the speakers affixed to the helmet. "I would speak with this Magos-Lord and have it known the dangers of treating an Iron Father so"..

At the gesture he continues to stomp down the heavy metallic corridors, enjoying the feel of bustle and industry on the Lathe worlds around him. Entering the presences of the Techno-Mages he looks around those who would be his equal and waits for answers.

[Morganatic]

It happens very seldom to Iron Father Wulfram that any being would stand up to his wrath, unblinking, unflinching. And yet, the messenger does just that, not twitching a muscle, a faint reassuring smile faintly showing on its face. After a moment, it replies to the towering Space Marine.

'Gentlemen! We - apologise - that - due - to - unplanned - engineering - works ...


Whether it can say anything else is, at this time, unclear.

As he strides through the corridors of the Lathes, it's also evident that he's not being followed by the guards - at least, not in the way that a prisoner might expect his guard to follow him. They seem to have a little more of their free-will intact, and hang back with a nervous respect, not wanting to make eye-contact with any member of your group. They only approach, or come forward, to open a series of increasingly majestic doors and gates - seemingly by drawing a transfusion of blood from a shrivelled homunculus-type creature that one of them cradles his arm. They slide open with well-oiled precision, and you make your way deeper and deeper into the Lathes.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Putting the mindless servitor out of his mind Brother Wulfram glances around at the rest of the entourage that he is part of. Looking around at the finely dressed humans that make up the rest of the group his baritone voice rumbles "Would you have knowledge of why the Arch-Magos has requester your presence?".

At they walk through the baroque and extravagant doorways he'll glance with professional interest at the mechanisms that he can see and anything that he can witness through any viewing windows on the corridors.

[Morganatic]

This section of the fortress is not exactly replete with windows or colonnades - such foibles are the work of weaklings and aesthetes, who would rather look out of a window than have a wall protecting them. Besides, the Lathes are hardly a pretty sight.

There are certainly things to see inside the fortress, however. Great columns of young, fresh-faced (at least, the metal on their respirators isn't corroded) skitarii, each bearing the 'ח' symbol of Lathe-Het, file past you, clearly at a state approaching combat readiness, their weapons carried loosely at their sides, and their sergeants alert, looking at the visitors with awe and interest. On the walls, there are a series of mounted cogitator displays, displaying a sea of dull umber lettering on a sepia liquid-crystal background. You're moving at too much of a pace to easily read them, but anyone who's worked extensively with such interfaces before should be able to glean something from them.

Anyone interested in looking about can make a speak language (techna-lingua)/common lore (tech) or an awareness check, either at +10 (you've not got much time to look around - the skitarii aren't exactly escorting you, but they seem to be worried about being late for the appointment, and so begin to pull ahead if you're moving slowly). The two tests will give you different answers, so pick wisely.

[Vizzi]

Appreciating the fine workmanship and subtle delicate curves of the servitor was almost enough to compensate the incarceration. But to hold a Rogue Trader even from a dynasty that has fallen from so high without due cause is something deeply insulting and worrying. You know you have not wronged the Adeptus Mechanicus and your family has a long history, from the the acts that caused your ancestors to have been gifted your warrant until the very last act of your father. The Mechanicus keeps its debts.

The apparent impatience of the Space Marine is worrisome, although feel the same you know better than to waste your breath, you know not what chapter he is from, but from what you observe especially his numerous adornments to the Mechanicus Adeptus leave no doubt he is a Tech-Priest.

Walking with an easy swagger i respond to the mighty space marine "I have no knowledge of why they have done such. But i am quite sure soon we will have an answer!" i say with a slight grim smile trying to pay attention to our path and surroundings.

"I am a Rogue Trader, name is Torvalus Augustus, a pleasure to meet you all" i bow slightly while continuing walking.

I am going to make a Common Lore (tech) [roll0] and i am useless.

[Morganatic]

Vizzi
You are useless, yes - Rogue Traders shouldn't have to get their hands dirty reading screens after all, as they have underlings to do that sort of menial work for them and report on the results. The spectacle of the skitarii and his homunculus - which you now see is linked to him by a thin skein of wire and quasi-umbilical cord - unlocking doors is somewhat distracting, as well, especially since you've noticed he seems to twitch in pain each time he performs the procedure. Eurgh.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

The short man in military fatigues didn’t even glance at the sights along the path they walked. He has seen similar things all his short life, why bother with repeat performances?

He didn’t seem to care much about being held, or anything at all. He always had this blank expression during their mutual incarceration, and any replies to questions asked of him before their release had been monosyllabic. Until the Iron Father voiced his desire to meet the Arch-Magos. When he thought no one was looking, he sneered at the space marine and shook his head in disapproval.

“I’m Cymbry.”

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The massive techmarine keeps silent as they continue walking, augers scanning and eyes and ears open for information that he may need should things not go well.


Awareness [roll0] TN 79
-39 basic +20 autosenses/heightened +20 auspex

[zenon]

While following the skitarii Lucius ignores all servitors and nods respectfully towards any tech priest and skitarii officer that looks at him. He also looks around to see if there's anything interesting or dangerous.


Common lore (tech) rolls [17] against 30


When he enters the latest hall, and see that he is being guided towards a group consisting of a space marine, a rich looking man and a man who is clearly a warrior, he smiles. While walking towards them he considers who they are and why he is there. As he stops in front of them he says:
I take it I'm your pilot, I'm Lucius by the way

[Morganatic]

Zenon
Lucius, unlike his comrades, is evidently fairly familiar with quickly scanning screens and scouring useful data and information off them. Each screen seems to be marking an individual rally point, the sort that a military unit would use when people were on maneuvers. Maniples of Skitarii are checking in at each one, waiting for some sort of signal, then proceeding to the next rally point, in groups. The first few you saw were for groups of ten skitarii, then fifty, then a hundred, then five hundred, and so on. They're being gathered for war, or at least for maneuvers.

After what seems like an eternity of identifying yourself at ever-more extravagantly equipped security checkpoints, you finally reach one door that's different. A sheer slab of adamantium, with no lock, keypad, or means of entry. The two skitarii stand in front of it for a couple of minute, then turn around sheepishly, apologetic looks on their faces, behind their bionic augmentations. After another two minutes, seemingly of its own accord, the door swings open, cushioned on a shell of magnetic force.

From within, a soft, distant, voice - the same voice as the servitor had, only a little less disjointed, and lacking the recorded timbre that you heard earlier.

'You've been kept waiting long enough, gentlemen, Battle Brother. Come in.'

The room on the other side of the door is enormous. It's not got the high, vaulted ceilings of an Administratum Basilica, or the heroic, ten-times-life-size frescoes of a Cathedral, but it does still stretch away into a nearly invisible distance. You're on a balcony that rings its edge, and one floor down, lie rack upon rack of cogitators, humming and whirring away to themselves. The heat they throw off is fighting a constant battle against the arctic chill of the coolant pipes, causing the air in the room to shimmer and warp.

Out of this cloud of distorted air, a figure begins to emerge, rapidly striding towards you, skittering across the metallic tops of the cogitator housings. It rests on eight articulated mechanical legs, wrought in immaculately polished brass, which support the torso, abdomen, and upper body of a human - or at least humanoid. The intricately etched armour that it wears covers every inch of its body in angles and proportions precisely machined to provide the most protection, but don't reveal anything underneath, and where the eyes should be, there is just a single, softly glowing amber lens. It proffers a hand - no, a claw, sheathed in a faintly rippling power field - and then, thinking better, withdraws it.

'My name is Arch-Magos Lhuol Rho, master of Lathe-ח, and one of the Mechanicum Triumvirate that rules this sector. I hope you will forgive me for not shaking your hands, after all this time - though I have been waiting for this moment for some time. I'd hope also that, if you would not forgive me for locking you up on Lathe-ח, you would at least understand my reasoning. It was for safety's sake, yours, your souls', and that of this operation - we could not have you put at risk by those who would seek to extract certain information from you by force, and nor did we want it obvious that a group of rag-tag, open-minded Mechanicum allies had suddenly disappeared at a critical moment.

You would not believe the trouble that we went to to give you a set of convincing, unconnected fake deaths. Father Wulfram, you were shot down, presumed lost when your drop-pod failed to properly account for wind-patterns on Medusa V; Cymbry, you died heroically defending an important Skitarii tribune from a Slaughth ambush; Lucius, I believe you were lost with all hands in your wing during a skirmish off the shoulder of Orion; and Mr. Augustus, I'm afraid that we had to make it out that you were killed in a brawl on Footfallen.

They're all deaths of mixed honour, but they serve the purpose - they got you here, and they got you here without anyone knowing that you are to be operating as a unit, and they have kept you in the dark. Until now.'

[zenon]

When the figure stops speaking, Lucius quickly says:

And what are we to do? Given the number of skitarii and the fact that they appear to prepare for transport, makes it seem as if we're going to war. Along with the fact that we have Father Wulfram, an astartes, Cymbry, for whom it apparently would seem natural to fight and Mister Augustus who could look like an officer out of his uniform, plus the secrecy. It would seem that we are at the very least going somewhere dangerous, and I for one would like to know where that is.


When he finishes speaking, his eyes quickly dart around to see if he's being supported by the others, or if they're about to rally against him.

[Vizzi]

After hearing Lucius speak i quickly interject.

"Indeed, i agree and frankly i am somewhat insulted that i was killed in a brawl, could it not be on a situation with a little more nobility? Perhaps fighting a group of traitors to save a child! Or something else! I would have thought the Adeptus Mechanicus would at least kill me in a manner befitting the supposed end of my Dynasty!" i say with a slight anger, i pause and take a deep breath. "Forgive me Arch-Magos, although i hope you understand my anger. And from the wide group of skill displayed here i would think we were sequestered for a shall we say quest of importance to the Mechanicus?"

I lean on my heels observing the others as well as the great expanse that appears before me.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The eyes of the amrine narrow slightly and there is a faint crunching noise as his jaw clenches and tightens. "You would have my Brothers believe me dead Magos? You should know they will go to great lengths to retrieve my gene seed, as I would for any fallen Brother." He pauses to consider the magnificent metallic creature in front of him. "Before I consider the depths of the crime you maye have perpetrated in keeping me here and taking me from my Chapter I would have you answer plainly why you have brought me," and glancing around at the others "and these other people here to this place?".

[Morganatic]

A chuckle emerges from beneath the brass faceplate as Arch Magos Rho sees the explorers before her react in their own individual ways. The Rogue Trader looks to his honour, the pilot assesses his new compatriots for their reactions, and the Marine reminds her of - threatens her with? - the might of his Chapter.

Worry not, your legacies are safeguarded. Chapter Master Stronos has been notified as to your status in confidence, and I assure you that the Mechanicum's lawyers have snarled the inheritance of the Augustus Warrant in so much bureaucratic red tape that, unless an Augustus was to mysteriously reappear,'

Rho gestures to the Rogue Trader with a single burnished claw.

'It's unlikely to emerge from Administratum limbo for the next ten thousand years, I'd say.

Indeed, inheritance is exactly why I've had you all brought here.

Magos Castir is dead.

Magos Castir, the former Lord Dragon of Mars, hand and agent of the Fabricator General.

Magos Castir, whose treachery during the Age of Apostasy cost it one of its greatest agents, and much of its sacred lore, never to be seen again.

Dark Magos Castir, master of the Pseudo-Daemon World of the Hollows, Lord of Iron Skulls, friend to Daemon and Necrontyr alike, he who razed Ganf Magna, and quite frankly acquired so many menacing and intimidating titles that there is little point in listing them all.

I think the proper reaction to the death of a heretek and apostate is to rejoice, no? To toll the Great Bell of the Lathes over and over to mark the passing of our enemies, and another step towards humanity's final victory. In this case, however, it's a little more complicated.

Castir just happened to have a death-bed conversion. As the dark powers of the Great Unmaking fled him, as his augmetics failed and died, one by one, the Omnissiah came to him in a vision. He saw the face of the Emperor. The rightness of the Imperial Truth flooded upon him like a light. I do not know why, but, in his last hours, surrounded by his trusted comrades and friends, he turned back to our cause, and sent us a message to that effect. While we cannot be absolutely sure as to its sincerity, our analysts assure us that it almost certainly is - Castir, even after turning traitor, abhorred the notion of falsehood, claiming that it was a sign of weakness and moral cowardice to lie. And so, three months ago, we received this message.

This puts us in rather a difficult situation. On the one hand, there are many among the Mechanicus who would simply say a prayer for his immortal animus, hope it went on to the Machine-Emperor, and then forget the whole embarassing incident ever happened. I cannot, and nor can many of the other Sector Arch-Magi, for we know something that they do not. As part of his last will and testament, he made the Martian Cult into the executors and prime beneficiaries of his estate - a rather large cache of weapons and other machines from the Dark Age of Technology, and, if the archives on Mars are correct, a handful of as-yet unknown Standard Template Construct print-outs. To fail to take this opportunity to reclaim our lost heritage would be anathema, would be an insult of the highest order to the Omnissiah. We must have this cache.

And so, that's where you come in. We have gathered together a group of personnel who we believe possess some of the correct skills and talents to reclaim Castir's legacy, but who are - I'm sorry - disposable and deniable enough to send in without the potential fallout that might result from dealing with what less faithful and strong-willed minds might dub 'heretics'. We will provide you with a ship - the Valles Marineris - to enter the warp storm known as the Screaming Vortex, allegedly under the pretext of putting down Chaos raiders there. There, you are to proceed to the Hollows, and take custody of the bequest from Castir's rogue Skitarii, who have been holding it - just - and take whatever steps are necessary to restore it to Imperial control. Upon your return, you will be rewarded with a moiety of the recovered technology, using a system of division that we can agree upon at a later date.

Does that seem like a sufficient justification for the awful crime of having kept you in bed and board for a few weeks, gentlemen?'

[Vizzi]

With the Augustus Warrant in the hands of the Administratum and the Mechanicus lawyers working to keep it that way, you feel secured.

As you hear the Arch-Magos speak you feel somewhat elated, from the promises of technology, adventure and profit to make your Dynasty and the name of Torvalus Augustus one of importance, to be remembered for his deeds and perhaps more importantly to have the Adeptus Mechanicus remember you fondly.

"Indeed, at least for me Arch-Magos it does. Furthermore you have me convinced to do what i must to accomplish what you want!" i turn to the others and strike a pose and say dramatically "For Rewards and for Adventure to the Screaming Vortex!" i pause and mutter more quietly but still loud enough to hear "And probably to our deaths." i pause leaving the pose i took and say "Sorry about that. Sometimes my sense of drama makes me do such things." i turn to the Arch-Magos again "What equipment does the Valles Marineris have? And what resources do we have available? And i also assume the Skitarii will be detached under my command?" i say leaning slightly forward.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

While he was glad to hear that he died while performing his duty, he wasn't quite sure what to make of the deed that the Arch-Magos wanted done. Surely, he thought, this cache of technology would be of use to no one, tainted as it all likely was.

But, this was the Adeptus Mechanicus. If they calculated that this was the course to follow, then they were probably right. They rarely made mistakes. Cymbry performed a small bow. “Yes Arch-Magos, it is most acceptable. I shall perform my duties to the utmost of my skill. And beyond."

[zenon]

Lucius starts grinning while saying:
The screaming vortex eh? Sounds interesting. He looks thoughtful for a moment before saying: I assume we'll be well paid, so the only thing left to ask is when we leave, but given that we're here, I take it that we'll do that as soon as we've loaded our things, so if there's no objections, let's get going
Again he looks around, to see both if people are going and which way.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Wulfram ponders the Magos's words before slowling nodder. "I am glad that Iron Lord Stronos has been informed and approves."

Glancing at the others he is pleased to see their zeal in questing for the death of cultists and the retreival of ancient STC templates. "Very well magos. I will look forward to the destruction of any of the chaos stain in the Vortex. What class of vessel if the Vallaes?"

[zenon]

Lucius looks as if he just remembered something"Father Wulframs question is a good one, since I take it, I'll be flying it."

[Morganatic]

'The Valles Marineris is a Repulsive-Class Grand Cruiser, retrieved from reserve duty in the Battlefleet Obscurus, and outfitted as the very last word in gunboat diplomacy. It is a fine ship, and should be capable of being of supporting a number of approaches, depending on what you feel to be most appropriate - including the annihilation of as many traitor scum and military assets as is feasible on your way out.'

She nods to Wulfram.

'On your way out, that is. Recovering the technology cache is to be your priority, and the return of the Valles intact would be appreciated, too.

We've packed as many military assets aboard as we could, given the short notice. Twenty centuries of Skitarii trained in boarding maneuvers are to accompany you, along with servitor support; you have been assigned a very discrete cabal of navigators, and an astropathic choir; all of the above have been instructed - in some cases programmed - to show you absolute obedience while you are on your mission. Oh yes, and one last thing - flight wing that bears an uncanny resemblance to the one you were lost with, Lucius.

The Valles sets out the day after tomorrow - in that time, I recommend that you peruse the various strategic information that is available (I admit that there is not a great deal - we have few assets in the region), formulate any initial approaches, and familiarise yourself with your crew and ship. I shall provide whatever assistance I can before you leave; otherwise, good luck, and may the Omnissiah watch over each and every one of you.'

Assuming there are no more questions, the two Skitarii withdraw a few paces, and offer to lead you to the Valles.


On whatever medium your characters are most comfortable with - paper, dataslate, or direct cognitive uplink, you are provided with the following data. It is not much, but, even minor Daemon-worlds are little known for the ease with which they can be mapped.

http://i.imgur.com/aBnti.png

[DrK]

Brother Wulfram

The marine nods a respectful thanks to the Magos Lord before adjorning the meeting and joining the others in the ante-room. "Skitarri, show us to the ship" he'll order summarrily before turning to the others. "Shall we see this fine vessel before we embark on our own crusade into the accursed Vortex".

"What skills do you bring that the Magos sought to recruit you?"

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Cymbry bowed to the Arch-Magos as they left. He would smile when Father Wulfram questions their skills, harsh humorless smile. "I will not mince words Iron Father. I am designed to be the best solder under Mechanicus employ bar none. I guess you could say I’m an ‘improved’ Skitarii. Somewhat similar to you Astartes I’d imagine." He was testing the Iron Father of course, seeing how easy it was to bait him by comparing himself to the (in his opinion) overly lauded Space Marines.

[zenon]

Lucius makes the cogwheel symbol, before he leaves the Arch-magos, and says "As I've said, I'm probably your pilot. I guess I'm here because of my ability to fly pretty much anything, well.. that and the fact that we're going to the screaming vortex, and I have combat experience. Lucius follows the skitarii, looking for his flightwing, and trying to get an idea of the ship.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Cymbry nodded to Lucius. "Yes, I'm sure you will be a great asset to the mission. Otherwise the Arch-Magos would have passed you over in the selection process. If I may be of any aid to you in the future, please make it known. That goes to all of you." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stares ahead. "I will not allow this mission to fail."

[Vizzi]

I turn slightly towards the others and say "And i will be the face of the group i assume for i am an expert trader, outstanding commander and impressive negotiator, although i must admit my theoretical knowledge of many things is somewhat lacking, even if i do not show it." i say with an easy going voice and a serious face "And we seem to have a pretty good grouping of skills." i take turns pointing towards everyone as what i assume their roles are "The juggernaut, the soldier, the face and the wings! And i am sure we will do our very best to make this mission a success!".

[Morganatic]

Your skitarii guides lead you back through the winding passages (now largely empty of errant maniples), retracing your steps and performing the ritualistic Opening of the Door another few hundred times. The door-opener is looking decidedly faint by this point, his skin somehow taking on a colour even more bloodless than the norm. Eventually, you arrive at a long, semi-organic boarding umbilical, of the kind used to board spacecraft moored at ground level. The change in gravity is startling - the umbilical's floor is nearly perpendicular to the ground - but you make it up, and ascend to the ship's airlock.

You are met by another pair of skitarii, these ones clad in baroque horned power armour, and covering the approach to the portal - and your group - with mechanical precision. One of your guides hails them, however, and, with a degree of reluctance - they seem to begrudge every second during which their hands are not on their weapons - they snap off perfect salutes, and allow you to pass. The interlocking plates of the ship's airlock noiselessly slip over each other, sliding into place, and revealing the decontamination chamber. You feel a slight tingle (and, in a few day's time, mild hair-loss and impotence; Wulfram just gets an unseasonal tan from his melanchromic glands), and then you are aboard the Marineris.

-30 scrutiny check, please.

It is not like other Imperial ships. Surfaces are flat, complex geometric shapes tessellated in faintly eye-watering patterns to form bulkheads, ceilings, floors, blast doors. Mosaics of legends from Old Terra cover much of the walls, formed from chips of finely made faience. Heroes clad in full silver plate do battle with dragons and hydras, and titanic inhuman figures hurl bolts of lightning down upon pastoral landscapes beneath an occluded sun.

The overall effect is odd; it feels as if you are walking about inside an unfinished architectural model, all smooth, unfinished, perfect halls; halls which have then been assaulted by a psychotic master mosaicist. It is a little eerie - if all Repulsive-class Grand Cruisers had this sort of internal architecture, let alone this decoration, it's not entirely inexplicable that so many crews went mad - but you would suspect that you're strong of will enough for it to be of little bother to you.

Its effect is also limited by the sheer amount of human and post-human activity on board. Skitarii and Mechanicus serviles are everywhere, swarming through the ship like a reverse plague of locusts, fixing military materiel in place, storing supplies, and sorting out duty rosters - all in all, kicking up a dry and icy storm of order and reason. The nod to you as you pass, however, and, should you appear lost, insist on guiding you back to your quarters, to the bridge, or to wherever you are needed.

En route to the bridge (for everyone heading up there)
Immediately before you enter the bridge, you pass through a cavernous ante-chamber - a vast and echoing space, its tiled heights lost in shade. A vast glittering Skull-and-Cog is visible above a single, human-sized door in the middle of the far wall, an entrance to the holiest-of-holies - the comparatively tiny bridge, the command-and-control centre, the pulpit from which the great machine-spirit of this ship can be invoked. Before you can enter, however, you are accosted by a small group of ship's crew in a range of (somewhat clashing) finery - from a cadre of scarlet-clad enginseers to a small contingent in the subtle teal robes of Astropaths, by way of a number of clearly important black-clad personages who nonetheless occupy rather less clear roles.

The Master of Astropaths detaches himself from the group, tap-tap-tapping a wrought-iron force staff. Strangely, he seems to be genuinely blind, moving without the easy certainty of other astropathic practitioners. This does not stop him from performing a low, sweeping bow, however, taking in all your number.

'Welcome, brothers, captains, to the Valles Marineris. My name is Ibranum, chief of the astropaths aboard this vessel. With me are Enginseer Amelech, representing the more lowly agents of the Omnissiah, and Acquisitionist Emahsini, who is to Seneschal, in his own special way, this ship.'

Despite the barbs and jibes hurled their way, the leaders of the scarlet and the black factions bow to you, upon being acknowledged by Ibranum.

'I hereby relinquish command over this ship to the four - or only three here, it would seem - designated agents of the Arch-Magi of the Lathes. Let it be so witnessed.'

A scribe has already whipped out an alarmingly large and prolix document, and, with exacting care, is transcribing the astropath's words.

'Now, is there anything that would please m'lords?'

Lucius
Lucius, after several abortive attempts, manages to slip away from his escort, and follow signage and his ship-nose to the Marineris' flight decks. These are of the kind made in the lathes, open to the void save for their void-fields, and shut off during flight. At present, however, they are open and unshielded, admitting the weak and anaemic light of the Lathes' star. Both port and starboard launch bays seem to draw their charges from a single reserve in the heart of the ship, whence they are shuttled to the launch bays and catapulted out.

This reserve is not immediately accessible, but during a little wandering around the comparatively empty flight decks, the void master happens upon a currently vacant service lift of fantastic size. Next to it, a panel, with twelve buttons, each labelled.


B-413 Wing Primus
B-413 Wing Secundus
B-413 Wing Tertius
B-413 Wing Quartus
F/A-612 Flight Primus
F/A-612 Flight Secundus
F/A-612 Flight Tertius
F/A-612 Flight Quartus
C-1487 Volley Primus
C-1487 Volley Secundus
[misc] Flock Primus
[here, a recently scrawled note - 'Venris']

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine strides through the baroque and bizzare corridors with purpose, a faint smile on his face as he views the strange interior of the ship. Greeted by the senseshal, enginseer and astropath he will nod at the greeting. "We would like a complete status report on this fine vessel including the capabilities that she posseses."

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Cymbry jabbed a thumb at the good Father. As he said. I would also like to know where my quarters and, if applicable, my office are located. Along with a roster of armed forces aboard the ship, I would like to know who will be giving their lives for this mission."

You don’t have to give every single soldiers name down to the last latrine digger, I’d just like to know the officers among our standing force.

Oh, and scrutiny check [roll0] vs. –13 :smalltongue:

[zenon]

In the deconamitation chamber I roll (1d100)[2] against 21

Lucius walks into the lift and press 12, hoping it will lead him to his flightwing.

[Morganatic]

On the Bridge/Antechamber

Enginseer Amelech speaks up, in a hushed, reverent tone. For him, this entire vessel may as well be a cathedral, it seems.

'The Valles Marineris is primarily outfitted as a ship of war, bringing the light of the Omnissiah - and the heat of Sol to the ships of heretics and aliens from afar, by means of a number of long-range broadsides capable of destroying ships from beyond the detection horizon of most other vessels, and annihilating any that dare to close with lethal torpedo volleys and daring aeronautical strikes. It also carries a large military contingent, should they become ... necessary for you, in carrying out your work.

He stifles a giggle of joy at the thought of Skitarii being sent out to fight and kill.

It also possesses a number of utilities and amenities useful for a wide array of uses you could put it to - a limited manufacturing capacity, electronic warfare suite, and more servitors than you could ever know what to do with - a number that grows every day!

As to general capabilities, well, it is a Grand Cruiser - well armoured, and mounting multiple over-lapping arrays of void shields. This particular ship, however, is particularly fast for a vessel of its tonnage, allowing you to out-manoeuver, outrun, and overtake enemy vessels. Oh, and there's the curse thing too. Though that's just a rumour, spread by jealous captains in their Avenger and Exorcist GCs.

At your leisure, mighty Astartes, I suggest you might cast your eyes over our acquisitionist's report as to the current disposition of the ship.

Emahsini hands you a dataslate, describing the current state of the ship. It is fully provisioned, with enough raw materiel, food, and fuel to last roughly eight months, and to fight a two month war. There are 53,631 servitors and crew aboard the ship, a large number of whom were recruited from Medusa's technical elite, mostly from Clan Sorgall. There are also 3,098 military personnel, who are detailed on a report delivered to your Arch-Militant. Morale on the ship is very good, but largely predicated on a swift departure and a perception of the righteousness of the cause.

Cymbry

One of the two skitarii leads you to your office-space and quarters. They are towards the prow of the ship, but still deep enough inside it that they have a 'padding' of less important quarters and personnel around them, that will be destroyed first in a battle. The mad mosaicist doesn't seem to have got here either, so it's all smooth, white, peaceful walls.

Once within, the guide pulls off his helmet, revealing a fresh-faced (yet heavily bionically augmented) young man with a commanding but enthusiastic bearing.

'Cymbry, late of Orn? Pleasure, sir. I've followed your career with interest. I am Arch-Tribune Malicant, commander - pardon me, sir, now you're here - subcommander of all military forces aboard this vessel. 'cept birds, which are Venris' job, and the ship itself, which falls more to our new Rogue Trader. I took the liberty of pre-preparing you a dossier of what is under your direction - please send for me if you wish for any further elaboration or any advice.'

Field-capable assets aboard the Valles Marineris

- Nineteen Skitarii Centuries.

Each century contains one hundred soldiers, and comprises

- Seven skitarii hypaspist maniples, each twelve strong, and possessing a range of man-portable tactically appropriate special weapons.

- One Sagitarii maniple, containing twelve heavy-weapons operators.

- A Skitarii Tribune, with command over his or her century and other responsibilities when the Tribune Council is in session. Each is accompanied by three Praetorian Protectors.

Each century is relatively independent, and vastly superior to any ordinary Imperial Guard or PDF regiment. They are well-equipped, trained to fight in most theatres, and possess a faith in the Omnissiah (or just lobotomies, if they weren't quick enough to believe) that renders them resistant to terror tactics or low levels of warp taint. In the end, however, they are only rank-and-file humans, with a few augmentations, so I would be careful with them.

- One Praetorian Century

This comprises one hundred semi-autonomous elite shock troops, equipped with powered armour, bionic augmentations, and heavy weapons. Nothing quite as sophisticated or advanced as an Astartes or geno-engineered warrior, but in certain circumstances - like, say a boarding action - you might find them to be of use, as it can be useful to have half a ton of augmented muscle to guard your back, without the fussy autonomy that Astartes tend to demand.

- One Cataphracti division

This includes 36 Cataphract Chimerae; enough to mechanise four Skitarii centuries. Deployment might be an issue with them, as we do not possess the bulk lifters to deploy them en-masse. I would suggest liaising with your void-master to arrange aeronautical support while small craft are used to land the Chimerae.

- Servitors

The ship possesses a large number of labour-servitors that could conceivably be re-purposed into military use, but expect high casualties. There are also 300 murder-servitors aboard, locked in stasis, but due to their propensity to sadistically murder everything they can see that is not a murder servitor, they are not suitable to deploy in battlefield or defensive situations.

- Legio Cybernetica Maniple

The maniple includes 2 venerable Castellan-class robots, and 2 Conquerors. Magos Rei suggests that theses specimens are very old, and cannot attest to their battle-readiness at short notice, but encourages me to reassure you that she will do her best to ready them with all haste if they are needed.

- Adeptus Mechanicus personnel

Of the 230 ranking tech-priests, some 131 have indicated that they are capable of participating productively in combat situations. Losing them, of course, would impair (though not drastically) the functioning of the Valles Marineris, but they have been selected for their aptitude with unusual weapons, tactics, and knowledge of a wide variety of foes. Automation and the high degree of specialisation on the ship mean that the rest of the crew is comparatively few in number - only about 50,000 souls - and are not equipped or trained to repel boarders, meaning that it would be advisable to keep some military personnel aboard. Many are from the home world chapter of your friend in the Astartes, but they were chosen for their clan ties and technical skill - all the good fighters are, of course, now Battle Brothers.

With that he gives a textbook salute, then leaves to let you peruse the document in peace.

Lucius

Lucius' time spent among mercenaries has given him an exceedingly sharp eye as far when reading people, especially in a military context, and can see loyalty and allegiance in a person. It was very noticeable that the Praetorians at the door, and the skitarii and non-Medusan menials in the corridors of the ship were saluting your Skitarii guides, as opposed to you.

Lucius rides the massive lift - clearly designed to carry ships, not people - all the way up to the twelfth deck, and steps out, to examine the flight-wing marked with his name.

He's slightly taken aback at what he sees.

There are ten of them, sleek grey flying wings with the organic curves and uninterrupted surfaces characteristic of stealth aircraft. They're bigger than the average gun-cutter - hell, maybe even a little bigger than the Thunderhawks that he's seen carrying Astartes to war, and transporting them between the surface of Forge Worlds and their orbiting ships. Worrying looking clusters of weapon systems nestle like lethal fruit beneath their wings. Inside, each one possesses the worn, patched grandeur that marks them as very, very, old technology - from the temple-inspired passenger compartment (that's bigger than many temples Lucius has been in), to the MIU-linked cradle in each cockpit, they are clearly state of the art.

10 stealth guncutters (that look suspiciously like repurposed Storm Birds), with all the trimmings. Two twin-linked long-barrel lascannons, three twin-linked autocannons, and eight mountings for missiles of your choice. Do as thou wilt.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

He nodded along with the Arch-Tribune's words, throwing in a grunt or two to show he was really listening. But actually, he was thinking back to what he said at the start. Cymbry, late of Orn? He wasn't aware that the knowledge about the Orn experiment was so wide spread that a Tribune would know. What did he know, was it the Arch-Magos' doing?

Accepting the dossier he returned the salute and began reading as he walked over to his desk. The slasher smile soon spread across his face. "Mm, I approve." He placed the data-slate dossier onto his desk and pulled out the one he carried. The list of bounties.

He doubted it would be too useful, considering they were about to enter traitor space. There would be little time for bounty hunting. He opened the top drawer on his desk and tossed it in. He eyed the dossier for a bit, and then decided to put it in too. Leaning back in his chair, he stared up at the ceiling.

Were they ready? For the trip maybe, but not for the Vortex. Anything could happen, literally where the immaterium was concerned. He would have dwelled longer on the journey ahead, but he was interrupted by hunger. He stood up and stretched, then walked over to the door. Opening it, he walked outside and would try to flag down the next person he sees to get pointed in the right direction of the mess hall.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine skims through the report on the disposition of the ship committing the dataslate to memory- both flesh and implanted. "She is a fine and ancient ship. I can feel her machine spirits, and they are old and venerable."

Looking back towards the High Enginseer. "Master Enginseer Prime, I would wish a tour of the ship. I desire to undertsand her and her great spirits." Glancing around he'll look for the Rogue Trader, "Would you joinme on the tour young Master Augustus?"

[zenon]

After looking over the gun-cutters, Lucius takes the elevator one floor down to look over another wing. He keeps doing this till he has seen all the flight wings. He chats with any crew present, to get an idea of who they are and how they work.

[Vizzi]

I turn towards the space marine and say "It would be my pleasure." before heading out i say to the Enginseer Amelech "If you would be so kind to have a someone bring a dataslate to my quarters with all the information you can get on the Screaming Vortex" i bow slightly and follow the space marine.

[Morganatic]

All
Tell me when you're ready to head off!

Lucius

Lucius inspects the craft available to him. None are quite as fine as his personal flight wing, but the flights of boarding rams, Starhawk bombers and Fury Interceptors are very well-maintained, and the slightly rag-tag band of Aeronautica include enough heavy lifters and Arvus Lighters to land a considerable force, albeit piecemeal, or to transport a significant quantity of goods.

Further exploration reveals a small, slickly upholstered mess off the flight deck of B-413 Wing Primus, full of pilots in battle-ready void suits. The pilots themselves, however don't look particularly battle-ready - clearly enjoying a quick pre-departure night of debauchery and drinking, before they start being at battle stations every waking and sleeping minute of their lives for the next few months. As you walk in, they fall silent, and look moodily and suspiciously at you. After a few awkward seconds, one of them, wearing a Squadron Leaders' colours, gets to his feet unsteadily, and bawls out a harshly worded rebuke to the others.

'Get the **** up, men! Salute your bloody commander! Lucius Venris! Sir!'


Cymbry

Cymbry, using a panoply of hard-learned battlefield techniques and skills, tails a group of off-duty skitarii to a mess hall, where he is met with an alarming panoply of pastries, meats, and fresh fruit - clearly an attempt to cram in as much of this sort of food as possible before going on the long journey. As he sits down, it becomes apparent that many of the Skitarii - especially the younger ones - are behaving in a curious way towards him. Ones sitting next to him a scooting back a couple of metres, but no further, while ones further away move in for a closer look. Judging by their faces, they're struck with a mixture of fear and amazement, both of which seem totally genuine. As Cymbry goes to replace the meal-tray, one of the older balisteria falls in alongside him.

'My apologies, Master Cymbry, for the impertinence of my men. Know that it is only awe at rumours of your achievements, and perhaps a little jealousy of your particular augmentations. Whether you like it or not, about half of them want to be you, I think.'

Next time you are in contact with your Rogue Trader, it might be worth examining his information on the Screaming Vortex with an eye to looking for bounties. You could bag and tag practically anyone (or anything) you run into there, and it'd be worth a lot to someone ...

Wulfram and Torvalus

Wulfram and Torvalus have a good survey of the ship's interior. It's highly instructive - you get to verify the high quality of the ship's workings first hand, and see new technology and wiring installed, its plas-cote wrapping and packaging barely hitting the ground before it's whisked away by industrious packs of menials.

It is, however, rather a long walk. As the crow flies, it's ten miles from stem-to-stern and back again, and you are most certainly not travelling as the crow flies. Torvalus' legs begin to ache, and though Wulfram is genetically engineered not to feel exhaustion and psychologically conditioned not to let his mind wander, even he begins to tire of ducking under what must be the forty-thousandth exposed pipe. You see a lot of the mosaic-work, as well - it's not everywhere, but there are certainly clusters of intense amounts of detail - shirtless, rippling-muscled hoplites grappling with ophidian Medusae and Sslyth cover the entirety of the interior of one dormitory, while elsewhere, occasionally, there's just a rather lonely-looking woman in a stole, on a field of blank white ceramite.

All in all, however, the trip does help to verify the report that the Acquistionist reported to you - people all over the ship are in very high spirits. Attempts by Wulfram to commune with the ghosts in the machine all over the ship meet with very similar results - the Machine Spirits are chomping at the bit, functioning above expected optimal levels in the expectation of action. Indeed, the only problem is that they are too eager to get going - they feel a little erratic, like someone on a low dose of 'spur. When Torvalus returns to his chambers, he receives the a dataslate on the Screaming Vortex. A fair amount is censored out - someone (almost certainly the Calixis' resident busybody on the Daemonic, Justicar Maligante) clearly doesn't want you reading up on everything that it has to offer - but you manage to gather the following.




The Screaming Vortex is a significant warp storm and area of traumatised space, named for the terrifying psychic wail that it emanates constantly to all psychic sensitives. While nothing on the scale of the Eye of Terror, the Maelstrom, or even the Hadex Anomaly, it is still a significant base of operations for Chaos, alien, renegade, and renegade Chaos alien forces. Non-chaotic groups, including human pirates, eldar, orks, and even Necrontyr have been sighted in the region.
While other major, permanent warp storms tend to have fortress worlds and Marine Chapters (such as the Astartes Praeses, or the Astral Claws) to watch over them, the Screaming Vortex is comparatively lightly guarded. This is because no single group ever seems powerful enough to unite the various warbands of the region into a Black Crusade. This multipolarity does not seem to be accidental - many of the Vortex's major players seem very happy with the arrangement, as it gives them a fairly level playing field to negotiate and cut deals on.
There are three 'layers' to the Vortex. The outermost would be the 'Gloaming Worlds', a group of worlds caught on the brink of the storm. Despite being bathed in the constant glow of the warp storm (to the extent that on many, night never truly falls), they have been deemed safe for Imperial personnel to spend short periods on without requiring mind-scrubbing or sanctioning for moral threat. They are, however, the most heavily contested of the Vortex's worlds, due to the relative ease of access and safety for non-Marked transit. The 'Ragged Helix' marks the second layer, the 'event horizon' of the storm. It is the Imperium's largest known asteroid belt, and includes a number of large asteroids with anomalous laws of nature caused by interaction between the fringes of real- and warp-space. Beyond them lie the 'lower vortex' - Maligante has helpfully elided the entire twenty-page section with black macro-stylus, except the phrase 'daemon worlds' which repeats about a hundred times.
The Screaming Vortex is best accessed from the 13th Station of Passage, near the Maw. From there, your Navigator has already plotted out a series of jumps to take you to The Hollows while avoiding most of the more travelled areas of space.

[zenon]

Lucius salutes the men, and says: As you were". After that he walks on.

I'm ready to go

[Vizzi]

Torvalus is lounging at his desk in the very luxurious room while drinking tea. Studying the dataslate on the Screaming Vortex as well as the reports from the ship, trying to make certain everything is prepared and ready, as well as tactics using the currant resources available.

I am good to go. And i still want to know what that wildcard on the ship is :smallsmile:

[Morganatic]

Lucius

The pilots respond with a drunken roar and salute.

'LU-CI-US! LU-CI-US!'

While that might just be the amasec talking, they certainly seem enamoured of their leader.

Torvalus

The tea is excellent.

Also check your PMs.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The tour of the ship left Wulfram feeling something he hadn't felt for a very long time. Excitement. A small crew carrying a crusade into the heart of the Realm of Chaos, the only tinge of regret that his fellow battle brothers would miss out the opportunity to ride the huge 8km glorious piece of ancient many millenia old technology into battle.

As the mooring clamps are readied to be released Wulfram will stand on the vast and ancient command bridge, filtering out the massive flight control table and the hololithic sensorium screens that domainte the room. Standing at the front of the bridge he'll stare out of the large dome of armoured glass using his natural eyes to take in the space...


All ready to go

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Cymbry calmly turned and replaced the meal-tray, then returned to address the Balisteria. “There is no apology necessary Balisteria. The awe is well deserved, and the jealousy is only natural seeing as the Omnissiah in many ways blesses me. Believe me, all is as it should be. Now if you will excuse me, I must attend my duties. Carry on." Cymbry performed a crisp salute and left the mess heading to the bridge where he will await the others if they aren't there.

I'm ready. I can catch up on the info in transit.

[Morganatic]

The signs of imminent departure are everywhere. The great plasma drive at the heart of the Valles begins to cycle about half a day before you're actually due to leave, beginning with a low insistent hum and only getting louder and more all-pervading as the day wears on. Skitarii drill and prepare for combat and evacuation, and gear is stowed. While you're welcome to the bridge, you're not actually permitted to carry out any of the boring but vital functions of negotiating with the ground crew and establishing flightplans, which Ibranum takes responsibility for instead (although Torvalus, an old hand at ship-board organisation, is very adept at easing the progress of the preparations). Clearly, no-one off the ship (with the exception of the Arch Magos and a few others) is to know of your presence.

The first few warp jumps are easy, smooth journeying. The Valles Marineris gracefully pulls up through Lathe-ח's thin atmosphere, and, makes its way over to the warp-jump point. You make your way to the Malfi system, then on to Port Wander, where you take on more supplies. Damaris is your next port of call; you spend a couple of days hovering above the planet's dandruffy layer of Ork ship wreckage. This gives a few opportunities to test out the ship's various functions - a fun few hours is had vapourising the wrecks of kill-kroozas in high orbit, and Venris' various fighters and other craft are put through their paces.

And then, it is time to leave the beaten trail somewhat. Your navigator has assured you - at least, Ibranum assures you he's assured you, as all you can see of the House Nostromo representative is an indistinct shape gurgling in a tank - that the Mechanicum has discovered a relatively stable route via the Thirteenth Station of Passage that will drop you out of the warp near the Hollows. The plans are set, the instruments calibrated, and you enter the warp.

And Chaos reigns. At first, it's nothing more than a particularly bad warp trip - you seem to catch no fewer than three minor warp storms, and suffer the expected amount of psychosis and mutterings amongst the crew. The odd flickers in the Gellar field are deeply alarming, even if the threatened collapse never manifests. Over time, though, tempers fray, and things slowly get worse - until the night of the seventeenth consecutive day in the warp ...

Wulfram

Wulfram is ensconced in a quiet monastic cell deep in the heart of the ship, surrounded by his clan-mates. Their conduct is flawless, demonstrating the truth and wisdom of the Iron Hands' teachings about human weakness. Around them is madness, confusion, ten thousand exemplary lessons of the effects of the Ruinous powers writ in miniature, with even hardened skitarii falling prey to it. But the scions of Medusa? They stay strong. They keep faith.

And so, Iron Father Wulfram's infrequent periods of sleep are relatively untroubled, all things considered, and he has time to rest, recuperate, and meditate, passing easily into a trance state. This is abruptly broken, however, by a knock at the door.

'Father Wulfram - may I enter?'

Without bothering to wait for an answer, whoever is outside quickly makes their way in, stooping to fit under the Astartes-size doorframe. They are clad in Tyrian purple artificer armour of unbelievably fine workmanship, adorned with finely engraved gilt eagles and, on one pauldron, a single great wing curving up and behind their head. Their head - yes, that bears a little examination, too. It's the head of a bird, richly coloured, with the red-gold plumage of a phoenix, topped by an incongruous shock of white flowing hair. In one hand, the intruder carries an elegant silver sword, while in the other, a heavy canvas sack. There's evidently something large in there, the size of a large melon, and whatever it is had stained the bag a deep crimson.

'Iron Hand. We need to talk.'

Common lore (Astartes) check, please, at +20.

Cymbry

Cymbry's no fool; it's not like you can sneak up on him while he's asleep at the best of times. And this is most certainly not the best of times - the chaos (Chaos?) that's been wracking the ship has honed his existing paranoia and threat-readiness to nearly superhuman levels.

And so, at roughly 0300 hours ship time, his eyes spring open. Something's not right.

There are ... sounds, from outside. This in itself is not peculiar - following unprecedented levels of mutiny and indiscipline, even among the otherwise stalwart skitarii, and so Arch-Tribune Malicant has placed a pair of his own Protectors outside the door. They've been there, for several days now, creaking and jangling quietly to themselves, occasionally hefting their long cupric power-staves, and letting them thud back down onto the floor again.

But those familiar and comforting noises are gone. Instead, something very big is moving up and down the hallway outside, testing the wall for some entrance to your room. It evidently can't, or won't, use the door - instead, it pads up and down outside, breathing heavily and scrabbling occasionally against the wall.

+0 awareness test to get a better idea of what's out there OR +10 agility check to hastily slap your armour/clothes on.


Lucius

Stuck on ship, without the ability to spread their wings and train, the pilots under Lucius' command are getting restless, and reacting the only way they can - getting blind drunk. This state of deep, deep inebriation, however, seems to have inured them from most of the madness that's gripping the ship - substituting an insidious, corrupting foreign influence for a numbing, alcohol-based one seems surprisingly effective. Even so, when the First Wing's Squadron Leader tracks you down during the middle of the night, eyes bloodshot, carrying a dataslate in his hands (it bears a chart of the ship and the nearby warp; worrying amounts of your surroundings are either denoted red, or flashing bright warning colours), it's clear that the grim reality has broken through.

'Venris! Venris! We need you on the bridge. Now. It's - it's - I can't say. So many of them. All pressing up against the visuals sensors. We need you to take direct control. Navigator's ... I don't know. Just ... we need you, sir.'

He gives you a desperate, pleading look, then sprints off in the direction of the bridge, not even looking to see if you're following.

Torvalus

The Rogue Trader is relaxing in his palatial quarters, reviewing the latest Prognosticator-engine reports on the state of the warp, and the likelihood of getitng out of here any time soon - it's not looking good - when a pair of familiar red-cloaked skitarii burst through the door. They don't bother to stand on protocol, although Arch-Tribune Malicant, joint commander of your military contingent, does make a distracted salute, the hellpistol clasped in one hand clanging against his visor.

'Torvalus? We need your help, stat. Get those fancy pistols of yours - we've got company.'

With that, he ducks back outside, where a pair of eviscerator-toting Praetorians and one of Malicant's Protectors await him. As he sprints through the corridors of the ship, barging past panicking serfs and crew, he gasps out quick bursts of speech and explanation, assuming Torvalus follows him.

'Some thing - some things - made it through the Gellar field. Empyreal predators - we're thinking lesser daemons, communications are packed to hell and back - can't get a good impression on what they are. Twenty-eighth deck - seem to be heading towards Arch-Militant's quarters - just gotta hope we're not too late -'

A dodge or strength check would be nice here, to see how quickly you get through.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The intervening days and weeks of travel had proved quiet for the towering Iron Hand. He had wandered the ship, he had greeted the mindless servitors that crewed the ship and had inspected the ancient weapon batteries and massive plasma and mysterious warp drives.

Whilst others had socialised with the crew he had been reserved, for the Astartes treating with the regular mass of humanity was challenging at best. And so he had trained, he had meditated on the teachings of the Omnissah and had continued the secrets of the Codex Astartes.

Now, 17 days into warp travel he had yet to leave the massive suit of ancient power armour that he annointed with holy oils each and every day. With the disturbance he'll look at the figure that enters the near empty metal space that is his quarters. He slowly rises, the servos in his arms and legs whirring and clicking as he surveys the strange figure in front of him with his internal auger arrays before carefully asking "I do not recognise you Brother. I was led to believe I was the only Battle Brother on board this mighty ship". Glancing at the sword and the bag he'll motion to the Ominssan axe of office on its ceremonial stand in the corner "Do you wish me ill?"

[Morganatic]

Wulfram
'Not if you listen to me, Brother!'

The creature sheaths its sword, little droplets of blood flicking off the blade and onto the tiled floor, and sits on a simple stool across from Wulfram. Even on such a low perch, it's still distinctly taller than an Astartes.

'As to recognising me? Why, you're right that you're the only Astartes aboard, that much, well, that much is certainly true. But please - don't they teach you anything in the scout companies these days?'


It laughs softly to itself - inside its beak is a row of immaculate human teeth.

'But that's beside the point. I've come to visit you to exhort you not to go on this journey. Mine own children are already in the Hollows, and I cannot get them away in time, but you - yes, it's not too late for you. Dropping out of the warp now would kill you of course - you could end up anywhere, and that's if you could even get out - but, at the first possible opportunity, turn this ship around. Castir's legacy cannot be allowed to leave the vaults that it now lies idle in, despite what lies Magos Rho may have told you. She sees perfection in the old Dragon's bequest; perfectly deadly, more like.

And what of your travelling companions - can you trust the moral character of soldiers for hire, who'd bend their life's work to blindly following orders they don't understand, all for a ship? A gun-cutter? A pair of brothers? They'll take the archaeotech, oh yes, but it's tainted with worse things than Chaos, and the Imperium will suffer for it.

I only ask that you consider my words; that you consider the harm that bringing back Castir's work might bring us all, and that you avert it. You thought I wished you ill? On the contrary - I wish to save you!'

Common lore (Astartes) check at +20, please.

[Vizzi]

The moment they informed Torvalus of a relatively stable route he hoped everything would go well and while it seemed like a particularly bad warp trip the moment they arrived at my quarters he knew something had happened. I followed them and listened closely.

"The perils of warp travel. We must move fast! Where are the others?" he says while trying to move as fast as he can through the corridors of the ship, past panicking serfs and crew while checking his guns and storing them again.

[roll0] Dodge (Ag) (Mastery +30)

[zenon]

I follow the squadron leader as quickly as I can, possibly even overtaking him on the last stretch to the bridge. As soon as I arrive, I try to get a hold of what's going on, and seeing where I fit in.

[Morganatic]

Torvalus

Torvalus and the small war party duck, weave, and sprint their way through the corridors of the vessel.

'Assuming Cymbry - still in room. Can't tell though - can't raise either of his Protectors on vox. Could be just interference, but ...'

The Tribune turns a shrug into a vicious shoulder charge, smashing aside a menial who gets in his way.

Passed Venris on his way to the bridge - something bad's happened there, but he's the one with the best chance of handling it. Haven't heard from the Marine - with his clan-kin, I imagine. Safest place on the ship.

Eventually, you manage to fight your way over to a service elevator, and hit the button marked 28. The doors slide shut, and you begin an agonisingly slow ascent through the ship. Malicant flexes the fingers of his power fist experimentally, while the Praetorians rev up their six-foot long chain-glaives. Even the Mechanicum's elite seems anxious about what they're going to find out there - one of the Praetorians, slightly startlingly, begins to speak, in a husky yet grating voice.

'Have - you - fought - daemons - before - sir?'

[Morganatic]

Lucius

The bridge doesn't really look like a bridge any more. Things that should be solid aren't, colours are beginning to become less and less respectful of the borders that they should occupy, and, what's worse, the slow dissolution of reality appears to be spreading.

The epicentre of this seems to be a rupture in the Navigator's cocoon. Draped over the shattered remains of the cocoon is the body of the Navigator, either dead or unconscious. Every so often, it shivers, sending off another few ripples through the matter around it, but it doesn't seem to be doing this itself; rather, it almost looks as if some enormous invisible hand had gripped the body by the head and was shaking it violently. As you watch, the third eye feebly opens, trying to make eye-contact with you. The Squadron Leader, who's caught up with you by this point, flinches away from the warp gaze, but nothing happens - the Navigator's eye is full of welling blood.

Apart from this disturbing spectacle in one corner, the bridge is empty, save for the Astropath Ibranum, who is cowering and gibbering in a corner. It would seem that everyone else on the bridge has fled in terror - at least, you hope that's what happened ...

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Instantly on edge, he activated his implants intending to flood his system in combat drugs, but was destracted by some unexpectedly foul odor. He was rewarded with the familiar sting of a missfire somewhere in his chest, blury vision, and the taste of copper.

He would have to make due without drugs this time. Putting it out of mind for now, he tried to picture where in the dark he had stored his gear before resting. Fairly confident he knew where, he sprang out of his bunk and rushed for it.

Agility test to quickly get on Trooper Carapace [roll0] vs. (52) = 42 + 10
Willpower test to use the Lostok implant to inject Slaught [roll1] vs. (62) = 42 + 20
If the implant works: Slaught dose lasts [roll2] minutes.

[Morganatic]

Cymbry
Cymbry finds and dons his armour easily enough. Trooper carapace over nightclothes will chafe, but it's certainly worth it for the protection it offers. Something - some brimstone-y tang in the air - fogs his concentration, and causes him to cough and splutter, losing his mental grip on his Lostok glands, but it's nothing a little rest won't be able to fix. His weapons - his hellgun and power maul - are both right where he left them, and fully charged and ready to use.

He might need to use them soon - whatever's at the door has got tired of pacing, and has now begun to repeatedly headbutt the door, releasing a clamour of metal on metal with each strike.

[DrK]

Wulfram
'Not if you listen to me, Brother!'

The creature sheaths its sword, little droplets of blood flicking off the blade and onto the tiled floor, and sits on a simple stool across from Wulfram. Even on such a low perch, it's still distinctly taller than an Astartes.

'As to recognising me? Why, you're right that you're the only Astartes aboard, that much, well, that much is certainly true. But please - don't they teach you anything in the scout companies these days?'


It laughs softly to itself - inside its beak is a row of immaculate human teeth.

'But that's beside the point. I've come to visit you to exhort you not to go on this journey. Mine own children are already in the Hollows, and I cannot get them away in time, but you - yes, it's not too late for you. Dropping out of the warp now would kill you of course - you could end up anywhere, and that's if you could even get out - but, at the first possible opportunity, turn this ship around. Castir's legacy cannot be allowed to leave the vaults that it now lies idle in, despite what lies Magos Rho may have told you. She sees perfection in the old Dragon's bequest; perfectly deadly, more like.

And what of your travelling companions - can you trust the moral character of soldiers for hire, who'd bend their life's work to blindly following orders they don't understand, all for a ship? A gun-cutter? A pair of brothers? They'll take the archaeotech, oh yes, but it's tainted with worse things than Chaos, and the Imperium will suffer for it.

I only ask that you consider my words; that you consider the harm that bringing back Castir's work might bring us all, and that you avert it. You thought I wished you ill? On the contrary - I wish to save you!'

Common lore (Astartes) check at +20, please.

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine looks at the strange visage perched opposit him, he focuses his towering intellect on trying to identify the strange figure.
Common lore check +20 [roll0] TN 77

The commotion from the rest of the ship also begins to shake the massive tech marine from his revelry as the MIU connection to the ship registers the problems on the bridge and the helmet's comm systems pick up scared chatter and the faint ghost of weapons.
"Whatever you are, whoever you are. I fear I am needed elsewhere on this vessel. My bolter and my axe will be used I fear."

[Vizzi]

I turn my head slightly to the side while looking closely to the door and say "I have twice fought Demons. Once on a ship i fought Astral Spectres that appeared, they were horrifying to behold, and they seem to have possessed some members of the crew. And once on a planet i faced other daemons, ones with greater abilities and more purpose. But men, trust in the God-Emperor! Kill the daemons and prepare yourself in mind and in body!" i say while readying myself to face them, to kill them. And to conquer my fears.

[zenon]

Lucius curses as he draws his pistol and moves to cover the bridge. He tells the squadron leader: "Cover the corridor". He then activates his microbead, trying to get a hold of Torvalus or a high ranking skitarii, and says: "Venris here, the bridge's FUBAR, standing by for orders"

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Taking aim at the doorway, he waits for the beasty to break through. The second it does, he plans to give it all he's got.

Using a Full Action, I'm going to enter Overwatch with the doorway being the kill zone. I'll be using the Semi-Auto Burst on my hellgun as soon as I get a visual on the critter.

[Morganatic]

Cymbry



There are a few more exploratory snuffles, and then a loud crack as something works its way between the doors. They buckle, then begin to be wrench apart by something long, gleaming, and metallic, and then simply give way.

What stumbles into the room is a monster - something like a horse, or a hippopotamus, only remade out of unworked pieces of scrap metal - mostly brass, but a few shards of copper and tin glisten in there as well, hinting at blasphemous patterns and sigils. It's lit by a furnace glow which seems not to have a source, and seems to be distorting the air around it slightly with each heavy breath. It swings its head round, vaguely aware that someone is in here with it, stomps its hooves a few time, rolls its eyes back into its head, and emits a whinny that sounds as if something's tearing loose inside it.

Combat map - next one will have proper transparencies, I promise!
http://i.imgur.com/XIghq.png

The Juggernaut is in red, you are in light green. Your bed and the tables are difficult terrain, and 3 point cover - 6 points if flipped over (+20 strength check, half action).

Overwatch attack goes off, then it's initiative for each of you.

[roll0] for it.

Torvalus
Somehow, you detect the lift slowing from its already agonisingly slow descent; the others variously flex power fists, rev eviscerators, and evoke small lightning arcs from power staves. In the warp, it seems that even unfeeling machines can get nervous. You overshoot slightly - judder to a halt - then ease back into the proper place. The doors slide open, and you are on floor 28.

Something nearby is on fire. The smoke gently wafts across the T-junction ahead of you, in the direction of Cymbry's quarters, but the automated anti-fire systems, for whatever reason, don't seem to have kicked in yet. Apart from that, the corridor seems empty.

But somehow - it's not. Uncurling from impossibly narrow gaps between pipes, unpleasantly angled shapes move with a broken-legged, but somehow graceful percision, horrifically reinflating their withered formed into thickset, metal-skinned brutes. One of the draws out a long gleaming dagger, points at you - at Torvalus specifically - and releases a keening wail.

Combat map - I'll label the daemons next time, and give coordinates
http://i.imgur.com/J909E.png

For the Ad Mech -
Malicant - [roll1] (hellpistol, power fist)
Protector - [roll2] (electro-stave)
Praetorian 1 - [roll3] (eviscerator)
Praterorian 2 - [roll4] (eviscerator)

For the daemons - [roll5] for the lot.

The copper pipes are 15 point cover, that, if penetrated, will go up like a firebomb grenade due to the volatile chemicals inside. That could be a good thing, or it could be bad.

Wulfram


'But of course; while your planet-brothers maintain such excellent and perfect discipline, the rest of the ship quite literally goes to hell. I understand. Here,'

It hands you your bolter and power axe.

'May I walk by your side?'

As you're leaving your cell, your armour-vox crackles to life. Odd, since it was switched off earlier.

Venr


_________________________bridge FUB-


__________ by
for______ orders

It's heavily distorted, but you can make out what sounds like Lucius' voice, gurgling worryingly. He doesn't sound exactly like himself.

Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children was known to wear winged purple armour, until the battle of Istvaan V, where he achieved Daemonhood by defeating his brother Ferrus Manus in a duel, and offering his head to the warmaster.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Unperturbed by the entrance of the metal monstrosity, Cymbry unleashed a salvo of las shots. Unfortunately, he overestimated its height and overshot the beasty.

Okay, Ballistic Skill test for Semi-Auto Burst: [roll0] vs. (64) = 44 + 10 (Semi-Auto) + 10 (Weapon Master)
Number of Hits: Aw, a big fat 0.
Damage: [roll1] Energy with 7 penetration.
Additional Damage rolls (if applicable): [roll2], [roll3]
Ammunition remaining: 27

Initiative roll: [roll4] (4 is from Agility bonus, +2 is from Weapon Master)
I think I'm somewhat unlikely to loose initiative to it. :smallbiggrin:

[Vizzi]

"Men, ready yourselves!" i say while drawing my Laspistol and Bolt Pistol "For the Emperor!" i shout out.

Initiative roll: [roll0]

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Standing by the door to his cell, bolter and omnissian axe in his hand he'll slowly reach the conclusion about who he is speaking to. The creature that caused the death of his primarch! But he died, thousands of years ago? Surely the vile formation of the warp must be affecting him?


WP test [roll0] TN 41


Still there he'll turn to the monstrous creature slowly rising up to full battle stance, slinging the bolter at his side and grasping the axe in both hands. "Beast of Istavaan, Betrayer of the Gorgon. You have escaped the left hand of justice for 10000 years but today you will answer for your crimes, your betrayal and your murder of Ferrus".

With that he attacks....


WS roll [roll1] TN 39
Damage [roll2] PEN 6

[Morganatic]

[b]Floor 28


Cymbry

The equiform juggernaut's eyes roll further back, tracking the line of craters that Cymbry's rifle tracks in the wall beside it. It then slowly, oh so slowly, looks back, along the line of fire, and straight into Cymbry's eyes, which are gleaming in the forge-light. It paws the ground, once, twice, bracing itself to charge ...

C'est a Cymbry - your action!


Torvalus

The Protector knows his role, and cautiously interposes himself between the captains behind him and the nearest daemon.

The daemon is no fool, and seems rather more circumspect than your average servitor of the Lord of Skulls - it darts right, drawing a quick cut across its body and into one of the Praetorians, who are also advancing (although perhaps more due to faith in their power armour, than a sense of self-sacrifice).

Spurred on by this opening, another bloodletter darts forward, ready to engage the other Praetorian, and break through to the Rogue Trader.

Protector spends a half action readying a shot against Bloodletter 4.

Bloodletter 2 attacks Praetorian 1.
vs. WS 50 + 30 (berserk charge) = 80.
Re-roll (blademaster).
Parry (Praetorian) - [roll1] vs. WS 50 - 10 (unwieldly) = 40.
If hits: [roll]1d10+13 R damage, fully penetrates armour.

Bloodletter 1 attacks Praetorian 2.
vs. WS 50 + 30 (berserk charge) = 80.
Re-roll (blademaster).
Parry (Praetorian) - [roll3] vs. WS 50 - 10 (unwieldly) = 40.
If hits: [roll]1d10+13 R damage, fully penetrates armour.

[Morganatic]

And the damage on 1 -

[roll0]

2 -

[roll1]

[Morganatic]

Torvalus

The Bloodletters may only have been using knives, but they cut as if they were power swords, scoring deep gouges across the midsections of both Praetorians. In unison, they step back, pausing to admire their handiwork.

http://i.imgur.com/XOhmk.png

The daemons have stepped ba ck far enough that there's no risk of hitting the Praetorians in combat. Handy, that.

Wulfram

Fulgrim reacts to the Iron Father's cut by drawing up his own sword to parry it. When Wulfram attacked, his sword was still in its sheath, where the Primarch had stowed it earlier - but the blade seems to liquefy and flow back into his hand, to block the blow. Either it hadn't quite resolidified, or Fulgrim's approach to metalwork was more artistic than practical, as Wulfram's axe cuts neatly through it, lopping off the blade, which falls to the floor as a puddle of coagulating metal. The bite of the axe sails straight on through, through his armour, and nearly guts him - but where you'd expect there to be blood, instead shines ... daylight.

Taking advantage of the momentary surprise, the Primarch, snarling in pain, reaches out with one mailed fist and tries to leverage his superior size and strength against the smaller Astartes, attempting to mash him into the floor.

Parry vs. WS 60. [roll0].

The Phoenician will respond with a knockdown attempt of his own. Opposed strength test - [roll1]. S 70.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

"Oh hell no." Raising his rifle again, he lets loose another burst of las fire.

Full Action - Ballistic Skill test for Semi-Auto Burst: [roll0] vs. (64) = 44 + 10 (Semi-Auto) + 10 (Weapon Master)
Damage: [roll1] Energy with 7 penetration.
Additional Damage rolls (if applicable): Hit 2 [roll2], Hit 3 [roll3]
Ammunition remaining: 24


Argh, damnit to hell. I'm a poor shot. :smallmad:

[Vizzi]

"Hold fast!" i say while trying to make the nearest pipe explode.



Targeting Pipe at 16L

Best Laspistol [roll0] vs (?) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll1]
Best Bolt Pistol(Ceres) [roll2] vs (?) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll3] Penetration 4

No penalties for firing both.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Wulfram looks on, mild confusion starting to fog his mind as the light shines forth from the towering armoured demon prince. The crushing blow hammers into him sending him tumbling backwards...


Strength scheck [roll0] TN 50
-though need ~24 or so I think to do as well as him


As he lands with crushing force, near halt ton weight denting and scraping the murals on the wall he'll roll back up to his feet, axe raised to parry the follow up attack before swinging it down "The Gorgon!" the battle cry on his lips...


half-action stand up
half-action attack [roll1] TN 39
Damage [roll2] PEN 6

Dodge against him [roll3] TN 41

[Morganatic]

Cymbry

Cymbry's bolts go wide again - not surprising, given the chaos of the ship, and the smoke that seems to be drifting down the hallway towards him - and he feels something go pinging off into the dark as something on his hellgun overheats. It still seems functional, and will be good as new with a little maintenance, but that doesn't seem like a priority right now, as the juggernaut charges.

It doesn't seem to have an enormous amount of sheer mass for its size, and doesn't have quite as many horns or spikes as the average servitor of Khorne is wont to, but it makes up for it with wildly flashing hooves and teeth. It simply bursts through the intervening tables, splintering them and sending papers and equipment flying, before trampling the archmilitant beneath its brass hooves.

It's using its 'Furious Impact' ability to smash the table with a charge, and hit Cymbry too.

[roll0] impact damage to the table (Pen 0).

[roll1] impact damage to Cymbry (Pen 0) (it auto hits, but you can dodge it at +10 to roll out of the way. Your gun remains unjammed, too which might come in handy.

Torvalus

Both of Torvalus shots hit, the las-round glancing harmlessly off the polished copper surface of the pipe, and deflecting off into the ceiling. For a second, it looks like his bolt round has also buried itself in the metal of the pipe without detonating, but an instant later, the tiny cogitator in the prow of the warhead decides that yes, it has hit its target, and sends the signal to explode. And explode it does - the pipe ruptures, spewing a torrent of white phosphorus into the hallway. It almost instantly causes the Rogue Trader's eyes to water, to say nothing of the acrid chemical smoke that begin filling the hallway, but he should be pleased to see that the blast catches all three of the nearest daemons.


Bloodletter 1: [roll2] E damage. Ag test to not catch fire - [roll3] vs. 40.
Bloodletter 2: [roll4] E damage. Ag test to not catch fire - [roll5] vs. 40.
Bloodletter 3: [roll6] E damage. Ag test to not catch fire - [roll7] vs. 40.
I'll resolve the actions of the Mechanicum personnel in a subsequent post.

Wulfram

With a single blow from the Primarch's gauntlet, the Iron Father is brought to his knees. Wulfram's armour protests with a screech of grinding ceramite, and he can feel the artificial muscle fibres of his armour beginning to snap and give way one by one, but eventually, it's the floor that takes the brunt of the damage.

The attack is not pressed; the Phoenician seems content to have the Space Marine kneel before him, his beak softening and curling downwards in a sneer. This is his undoing - Wulfram rolls to the left, blocks an attack that isn't coming his way, then reverses his axe, his battlecry lending him strength.

And takes off his head. Somehow, the axe finds the tiniest weakness, the tiniest flaw in the Primarch's armour, and striking it, widens it, gouging through the Immaterial flesh of which this being is composed. Light spilling from the stump of its neck, the body stiffens, hands reaching out in a fruitless, reflexive gesture to ward off pain, and then it topples, slumping to the the floor spattering the room with liquid brightness. The head rolls away into a corner, trailing its own sticky bright viscera behind it. For a second, there is silence in the cell, before the sounds of battle and alarm klaxons filter back in from the rest of the ship.

Wulfram suffers [roll8]damage from the knockdown attempt, but I don't think that gets through his prodigious toughness.

Nice to-hit roll, by the way. I think, operating under CoC-esque critical success rolls, a nice decapitation was merited, although you're welcome to kill the simulacrum in whatever way you might find appropriate.

[Morganatic]

Torvalus
Malicant levels his hellpistol at the nearest Bloodletter, aims down the barrel, and snaps off a single shot to its head, while the two Praetorians, much more wary of the Bloodletters now, make cautious sweeping strokes at their two attackers, attempting to keep them at a distance. Beside them, it seems the Protector has had enough of charging his staff, and, with a tremendous crack attempts to incinerate an approaching daemon with a lightning bolt. Only his shot strikes true, but it blows the daemon off its feet, sending tiny crackling worms of energy slithering over its body.

Malicant shot at - [roll0] vs 70. If he hits - [roll]1d10+5[roll]E.

Guarded strikes from the two Praetorians - [roll1] vs 40 at Bloodletter 1. If hits - [roll2] or [roll3], whichever is higher.

Guarded strikes from the two Praetorians - [roll4] vs 40 at Bloodletter 2. If hits - [roll5] or [roll6], whichever is higher.

Protector - [roll7] vs. 70, [roll8] E damage if hits, at Bloodletter 4.

[Morganatic]

Torvalus (again)

The Bloodletters are not in good shape. One of them is literally melting, the fire causing its body to bubble and slough away, pooling in spitting puddles of bright metal on the ground. It assays a desperate attack, which would have killed the Praetorian outright, but it blocked by suprisingly adept block on the part of the elite shock trooper. The other one is in slightly better shape, but the incandescent phosphorus covering its back is clearly causing it serious pain, and it simply stands where it is, wailing in a shrill, keening cry, drawing another pair of bloodletters around the corner to investigate.

The third of the three near to you, however, somehow managed to avoid being covered in incendiary fluid, and takes the opportunity to draw close on the human who immolated its two brothers.


http://i.imgur.com/Rngus.png

Damage from fire and white phosphorus. -

Bloodletter 1 - [roll0]
WP test to act - [roll1] vs 54.
If they can act, they'll try to attack the Skitarii again, all-out attacking.
WS - [roll2] vs 60.
Skitarii parry - [roll3] vs 40.

Bloodletter 2 - [roll4]
WP test to act - [roll5] vs 54.
If they can act, they'll try to attack the Skitarii again, all-out attacking.
WS - [roll6] vs 60.
Skitarii parry - [roll7] vs 40.



Bloodletter 3, however, is a bit more cunning, and is going to advance up to Torvalus, at L19.

Your turn!

[Vizzi]

"Hold Fast! And put your backs to it Men!" he says while quickly targeting the Bloodletter going after him and shooting again "Taste my steel! Foul Demon!".



Best Laspistol [roll0] vs (?) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll1]

Best Bolt Pistol(Ceres) [roll2] vs (?) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll3] Penetration 4
Tearing Damage: [roll4] Penetration 4
Ag test to not catch fire - [roll5] vs. 40 (Inferno Shell)

No penalties for firing both.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

DODGE! [roll0] vs. 52 = 42 A + 10 bonus.
Oh, and I just realized I wasn't addding short range bonuses. :smallsigh: It probably wouldn't have helped with those rolls, but still.

EDIT: Ouch, I guess I take damage. I can soak 11 points (5 Toughness, 6 Armor if it helps against this attack) so I take 5.

[DrK]

Iron father Wulfram

Hearing the shouts and the screams the marine realises there are serious problems on board. He spends a moment dousing his las cannon the light of reason in holy oils beforeventuring forth in search of prey...

[Morganatic]

Torvalus

Torvalus's shots both hit home, and, while the lasbolt again is hampered by its low 'calibre', the bolt buries deep in the thing's belly, then detonates with deep, wet, thump, spraying a fine mist of burning metal out of the wound. It falls to its knees, trying to staunch the loss of fluids by clamping its hands over its wound, and literally pushing the edges back together.

Emboldened by the sudden explosive reversal in fortune that their commander has engineered, the Rogue Trader's Mechanicum allies take the opportunity to press the attack against the variously screaming, flaming, and bleeding daemons - the Praetorians use their newfound distance to their advantage, swinging their eviscerators in great sweeping arcs, bisecting one with ease. Malicant, clearly disheartened at the lack of effectiveness his pistol has shown, even charges in with his power fist, bearing the daemon to the ground and taking both out of Torvalus' line of fire, finishing it off.

Meanwhile, the Praetorian begins to ready another explosive blast against the oncoming advancing two daemons.

Malicant charging 3 -

[roll0] vs 80. Damage - [roll1].

Prateorian 1 vs daemon 2 - all out attack - [roll2] vs 70. Damage - [roll3] or [roll4]

Prateorian 2 vs daemon 1 - all out attack - [roll5] vs 70. Parry - [roll6] vs 50. Damage - [roll7] or [roll8]

Back to your turn!

http://i.imgur.com/XUDur.png

Cymbry

The beast lances out with a single mighty hoof, catching the Arch-militant across a shoulder. Some small bone snaps, but he's had worse, and his armour takes most of the blow. The thing glares at him, with a mad, suddenly almost desperate intensity, trying (and not entirely failing - he can feel a momentary heat on his face) to hate a hole through his skull. As it tries to recover from the charge, and regain control of its flaiiling limbs, however, it's having momentary trouble getting closer to you.

It's kinda awkwardly rearing up in the wreckage, so you could go in with your power maul, which will allow you to easily strike its softer underbelly (loses its daemonic toughness from below), or go for a point-blank (+30) shooting attack, since it's not close enough to stop you from bringing a hellgun up and hosing it down.

Wulfram

Lascannon cradled under one arm, power axe in the other, trailing streamers of the still-glowing blood of the being claiming to be Fulgrim, is a terrifying sight, and the few Sorgall serfs he meets are petrified in fear for a few seconds before falling in behind him, clutching wrenches, rivetguns, and blowtorches, creating an impromptu war party that slowly gathers pace until it's some thirty strong. As you leave your clan-quarters, one of them pipes up.

'Iron Father, sir! Pardon me for speaking out of turn, but if you're wanting to use that lascannon, I've heard some things on the ship vox - it's shot to hell and back - but apparently there's some sort of skirmish down on 28, near the arch-militant's quarters - explosions and all. There's also something fairly bad going on on the bridge - some shouting, shots fired, and the Navigator went berserk.

Course, wander about and I'm sure you'll run into a daemon or ten fairly sharp-ish! No match for the Sons of the Emperor, though, eh?'

Awareness check at +0 to notice something as you walk through the ship.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Gritting his teeth, Cymbry dropped his hellgun and drew his power maul. He touched the activation rune, sending arcs of electricity jumping from the handle to the tip. "Abomination! I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED BY THE LIKES OF YOU!!" Holding the maul in both hands high above his head, he dove in with a wicked overhead chop.

Okay, All Out Attack with the power maul: [roll0] vs. 74 = 45 + 10 (Best) + 20 (All out)
Damage: [roll1], Pen 4
And if the attack lands, I'll use my Furious Assault talent to give up my reaction next round for another attack.
Second Attack: [roll2] vs. 74
Damage: [roll3], Pen 4

Wounds: 24/29
Ammunition remaining: 24

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Turning to face the improptu crew that had followed him Wulfram nodded. "We shall report to the bridge loyal men of the Emperor. Once there we shall take the bridge and then we shall retake the ship. FOR THE EMPEROR!

With that said Wulfram will start moving more quickly, the coridors shaking under the momentum of the the near half ton of ceramite and muscle...


Awareness [roll0] TN 79 (39+20 autosenses +20 auspex)

[Morganatic]

Cymbry

Cymbry rockets up inside the creature's guard, its long reach and great bulk, so dangerous earlier, serving to hinder its attempts to swipe him aside.

He delivers a pair of savage blows with his power maul, hitting it in a comparatively soft spot between its caparison of armour plates. It writhes in agony, whinnying and rearing back, stunned.

Shocking for it - vs. 55, vs 55.


Wulfram

Your war party marauds its way through a surprisingly empty ship, occasionally dodging (or simply walking through) showers of sparks, and clouds of venting ice-cold gases. A few more crew members join you, some confer with others before running off to go and enact repairs - it seems that something interesting is being planned in the Enginarium.

When you pass through the cavernous, temple-like antechamber to the bridge, however, and begin to pass down the , you find yourself looking down the barrel of a hellgun or three, pointed at you by a trio of Lucius' flight captains - one of them - the most senior - is ashen-faced, and sweating profusely.

'Hold your ground! We've got warp corruption in the bridge behind us - Lucius went in there, navigator got possessed, I heard gunfire - and how do I know that you're what you say you are?'

The gathered Sorgall crew do not seem pleased at this, and menacingly heft their improvised weaponry.

The mosaics seem to have changed since you last came this way in your tour earlier. Lots of classical heroes killing, or being killed by, strange horned leering figures, naked, save for loincloths and blades.

This is a mosaic of a human and a daemon. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. The human is laughing. The daemon is curled up in a foetal position. The daemon menaces with spikes of adamantium.

[Vizzi]

"Very good Men! Kill them All! For the emperor!" he shouts out while again sending another barrage of fire towards the nearest incoming demon.


Targeting Demon 5.

Best Laspistol [roll0] vs (54) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll1]

Best Bolt Pistol(Ceres) [roll2] vs (54) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll3] Penetration 4
Tearing Damage: [roll4] Penetration 4
Ag test to not catch fire - [roll5] vs. 40 (Inferno Shell)

No penalties for firing both. And as soon as possible i am going to substitute that laspistol.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine, standing some 2.4m tall in his ancient suit of power armour and close to 1.5m wide carrying a human being sized lascannon and crackling servo arm stares down at the impudent human that would dare bar his way.

"I bear a portion of the Emperor of Mans' blood in my veins and have serve his word, his law and his creed on the enemies of man for over 3 centuries before you were even spawned. You will stand aside or will rend you asunder

He looks back to the brave and loyal men that had followed him "No matter what lies beyond those doors you will not flinch, you will not step aside and you will not flee. You are true men of the Imperium and the manifest destiny of the Emperor's will...

With that he strides forward towards the bridge with his mixture of assorted brave men following, as the doors seem sealed he'll stare at them for a second expecting them to open up by sheer force of will...


Edited as hadn't realised the door was locked!

[Morganatic]

Torvalus

Both of Torvalus's shots hit true, and, while the daemon might not be out, it's certainly down, clutching at its wounds and hissing balefully. The tribune, clambering to his feet and dusting himself off, follows his Rogue Trader's lead and tries to put another shot through the daemon's head. Spurred on by Torvalus' encouragment, he actually hits for a change, tearing off half of it with a hellbolt.

The two Praetorians mob up on the remaining daemon near to them, carving it apart with their eviscerators and making short work of its suddenly small and vulnerable form, while the protector produces another thundercrack of lightning that knocks the other two daemons flying. They're not dead yet either, but they pick themselves up, and begin to advance gingerly, with cautious, limping steps.

Tribune - [roll0] vs. 60. Damage - [roll1] if hits.

Prateorian 1 - [roll2] vs. 80, all out attack. [roll3] or [roll4] if hits.

Praetorian 2 - [roll5] vs. 60, standard attack. [roll6] or [roll7] if hits.

Protector - [roll8] vs. 80, all out attack. [roll9] to number 4, arcs to number 6, [roll10]. if hits.

http://i.imgur.com/QwCM7.png

Wulfram

The flight marshal melts away at the Iron Father's words. Already terrified by what's going on behind him, the appearance of a vengeful angel with a lascannon slung under his arm like it ain't no thing, and a horde of intimidating looking clan-kin with plasma cutters does little to his composure, and he flattens himself against the wall, tears streaming down his cheeks. As Wulfram begins to knock down the door, however, a fresh warning klaxon (this one operating on an especially ear-splitting frequency, reserved for the very worst case scenarios).

http://i.imgur.com/YS59f.gif Warning. Unshielded Warp Jump Imminent. Warning. Unshielded Warp Jump Imminent. Warning -http://i.imgur.com/YS59f.gif

In short order, it cuts out, and the lighting throughout the antechamber begins to flicker ...

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine stares at the klaxons frowning slightly as he mentally prepares himself for the onlsaught to come should they jump unshielded into the immaterium. If he were to die then it would be with armoured gauntlets wrapped around the throat of a demon.

Back in the present on the ship he ignored the flickering lights and the wails of terror from the men behind him. AND THEY SHALL KNOW NO FEAR was the core of every Astartes.

Leaning against the door lock he activates the multikey as he plugs into the door cirtcuitry besseeching the reluctant machine spirits within the doors to open up and allow him entrance to destroy whatever foul demonspawn lay within...


Secuity check with multi-key and the MIU to open the damned door...
[roll0] TN 81 (41 basic +30 multi-key +10 MIU)

If this doesn't work I'll have to do something far more violent and direct :smallwink:



The machine spirits within the door reject the venerabel tech priest, their agonised screeching a terrible feedback of crackling static and machine agony as chaos viruses and corruption causes bolts to twist and seal. "Chaos corrupts" is all Wulfram has to say as he stares at the door before hefting the lascannon round and the servo arm lurches forward, the blinding las light blasts the door in a sustained blast like an advanced blow torch as the servo arm lashes forward to tear the doors off their hinges and hurl them metres down the corridor....


Rolls in OOC thread
The lascannon does 51 PEN 10 damage
The servo arm passes a Str check by 46 (+1 DoS for unnatural srength) and does another 20 PEN 10 damage.
- If it needs to be in a combat round then the servo-arm attacking the door used up my reaction for the round.

[Vizzi]

Hearing the warning for a unshielded warp jump was like a death sentence, but his dynasty would end like it began, fighting against the enemys of the Emperor and Mechanicus,

"MEN, give it your All!" he shouts out and shots his guns again. "THE EMPEROR PROTECTS!"


Targeting Demon 6.

Best Laspistol [roll0] vs (54) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll1]

Best Bolt Pistol(Ceres) [roll2] vs (54) +10 (Laser Sight)
Damage: [roll3] Penetration 4
Tearing Damage: [roll4] Penetration 4
Ag test to not catch fire - [roll5] vs. 40 (Inferno Shell)

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Emboldened by his success, Cymbry threw away all finesse to just hit it as fast as he could.

Going to do the same thing again. All Out Attack: [roll0] vs. 74
Damage: [roll1], Pen 4
Second attack if first connects: [roll2] vs. 74
Damage: [roll3], Pen 4

[Morganatic]

Cymbry

The Arch-Militant's attempt to press the advantage is a resounding success, and he clambers up onto the wrecked table, preparing to strike another blow. The daemon's legs thrash wildly at him, trying to knock him aside, but they're uncoordinated, and easily sidestepped - clearly, a massive electrical shock disrupts the unnatural nervous system of a metal-skinned daemon just as well as it does a human. With a series of mighty blows, he plunges his maul straight through the creature's belly, sending up a shower of molten metal, some of which splashes Cymbry's face, spitting and hissing.

Before he can finish the creature, however, there is a sound like that of a colossal bell, the size of the Imperium itself, and everything goes dark. Stars dance in front of his face for a second - real stars, sprinkled against the darkness of space - and then the ship rematerialises around him. The juggernaut's still kicking weakly beneath him, but it's rapidly losing strength.

Splashes of molten metal, spitting out around the power maul deal [roll0] damage ignoring armour and toughness. In the morning, they also leave some rather significant scarring, to his [roll1] (face), which, while easily removable using modern Imperial medical technology, will be extremely useful should Cymbry want to impress potential romantic partnersthe next time he's at a bar.

The juggernaut's hanging on by a single point of critical damage, stunned, and at half S/T/Ag. A full action can finish it off in a suitably gory cinematic cutscene, which I'll leave you to determine the specifics of!

Also - WP check at +50, for a warp transition with an attenuated gellar field, a fact for which you have your pilot to thank.

Wulfram

Having failed to get the door open by conventional means - the Flight Marshal, in his terror, really did a number on the panel - the Iron Father takes a more ... direct approach.

The lascannon blast, intended to threaten super-heavy tanks, slags the interior bulkhead, reducing what it does not vapourise to hunks of twisted, metal, streaked by bright rivulets of liquid steel. The servo-arm dashes these out of the way, and the Iron Father strides through (his entourage remain nervously behind; while his armour renders him largely immune to the mess of molten metal that he's made of the door, their overall are not quite as sturdy.

Inside is, well, an odd and disturbing scene. The navigator's cocoon has been shattered, and has a couple of bullet holes in it; the Navigator himself is flopped limply over the side, and slowly bleeding out from a deep gash in his side. The astropath, Ibranum, is on the floor in a heap, not conscious, but seemingly not wounded save from a thin trickle of blood from his nose and eyesockets. The void master, on the other hand, is more than fine - he is beaming, plugged into the helmsman's chair, whispering what seems to be a prayer under his breath, and his fingers dance with nearly superhuman speed across the controls. Around him, held at bay as if by some strange bubble of force, are skeins of sickly, pus-coloured warp energy, tinged through with veins of angry orange-red. Something similar can be observed on the few monitor screens that have not burst out, or gone dark. Mere moments after Wulfram steps through, Lucius hits a button, grins, waits a second, and everything goes black.

There is a clangour, as if of a gigantic bell being struck, and slowly, everything begins to piece itself back together. You're still standing in the wrecked bridge, Lucius is still at the helm - hitting buttons madly - although the unnatural half-light seems to have waned somewhat.

And now, welcome back to the thread, your void master. Roll a WP test at +50 for warp transition.

Torvalus

Torvalus' pistols blow away an arm and a leg from the daemon, and it is spun round before collapsing to the floor, where it rapidly begins to decompose into corroded fragments, like a statue left out in the rain, sped up ten-thousand fold. Spurred on again by a combination of the Rogue Trader's words, the fear of the imminent warp transition, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, they're getting out of this alive, the Skitarii bundle on the remaining daemon in a welter of whirring eviscerators, flashing electro-staves, and gleaming power fists. They tear it apart, but, just as they finish doing so, there's a horrible lurching sensation, the tolling of a great bell, and darkness. When you regain consciousness, a fraction of an instant later, everything feels ... different. More dirty. More ... real.

Malicant - [roll2] vs. 70. [roll3] damage. Parry - [roll4] vs. 55.

Protector - [roll5] vs. 70. [roll6] damage. Parry - [roll7] vs. 55.

Praetorian 1 - [roll8] vs. 70. [roll9] damage or [roll10] damage.

Praetorian 2 - [roll11] vs. 70. [roll12] damage or [roll13] damage.

[zenon]

Agility: (1d100)[29] vs. 67
Perception: (1d100)[45] vs. 42

Since Lucius can't turn around and see who entered, he simply grabs his bolt pistol flips it to semi auto, and hold it in the general direction of the sound before saying: "Identify yourself!"

[Morganatic]

Lucius

Despite piloting essentially one-handed by this point, Lucius' full transit out of the warp goes well - the eerie light from the monitors recedes, and the tendrils of light from the navigator's cocoon fall away and coagulate into a sticky, dark red mess on the floor. The instrumentation suggests that the vessel has lost some hull integrity (but since the diagnostics are themselves damaged, the extent is hard to determine with absolute certainty), but is otherwise intact. The footsteps behind him stop, once he draws his weapon, but Lucius can be fairly sure he's aiming in the right general direction.

[roll0], low is good.

Wulfram

The strange light around the pilot begins to die down, to be replaced by the much more mundane light of the backup lux-globes mounted about the bridge. Their harsh illumination reveals a lot more damage - blown-out instrumentation, damaged servitors, and a lot of blood - but, with the exception of Lucius and Ibranum, there are no other hostiles in the area.

Wulfram doesn't seem to be out of danger yet, however - the pilot, without turning round, has just pointed a bolt pistol in his general direction, its safety off.

'Identify yourself!'

[Codemus]

Cymbry

"HAAHAHAHA! WHATS THE MATTER, FINISHED ALREDY?" He walked over and put his foot on its neck. "What a disappointment." Putting the tip of the maul onto the side of its head, he pushed down on it with all his remaining strength, allowing the power field to do most of the work boring a hole through its skull. If that proved enough to finish the beasty, he is going to search around for his now messy room his combead and medkit.

Oh yeah, full action for insta-death. I decided to dial it back from ultra gore though. I found this to be suitable enough.
Willpower Save: [roll0] vs. 92 = 42 + 50

Final Tally- (I figure this was all the combat for now)
Wounds: 23/29
Ammunition remaining: 24
Observations: Wow, I was just super unlucky at shooting, but really good at melee. Funny that, since I kinda halfway built him for melee. I'll admit I was a little scared going up mano-a-mano against a juggernaught, even if it was only a welp. It was a great fight, loads of fun and lots of options. Great job. :smallwink:

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Standing amidst the molten ruin of the door, armoured greaves glowing near red hot Wulfram will pause for a moment surveying the scene before answering, his voice booming across the bridge amplified by the heavy speakers. "Is the bridge secured Master Pilot?" he will ask. Looking about and seeing nothing else living he'll turn back to the flight marshal and the men who followed him "Secure the bridge. Ensure the void master's survival. His skills are all that averted a death, and worse, a loss of your soul in the realms of chaos."

With that said and as long as Lucius consents he'll then turn to leave and seek something to kill...

[Morganatic]

Cymbry

Cymbry easily finishes the beast off, making a mess of the weak flesh under its jaw with his power maul. The last remaining warp energy flees its base material form, screaming away through the walls with an audible hiss. The base metals, though, well, that's a little more complicated. They remain where they are, without the animus and will of the daemon to give them motion and sentience. And so, the Arch-Militant is now the proud owner of a cooling statue of a juggernaut of Khorne, its belly torn open and its head bashed in, that's pretty firmly welded itself to the floor of his bedroom. A few exploratory taps, once it's cool, reveal that it's not going anywhere right now. After sealing up his wounds with a medpack, and admiring his scars in the mirror and fist-pumping a few times, Cymbry is now free to deal with the utter chaos and confusion that's gripping the vessel.

Actually, juggernauts really aren't that nasty - compared to the bloodletters that ride them, especially. Compare them to the bloodletters that nearly killed the Praetorians with Torvalus - they've got a comparatively weak attack, and are quite easy to beat seven shades of brick dust out of, if you can stand up to them. In other games, I've found they're at their most dangerous when they're actually functioning as a mount for a Herald of Khorne, or Chaos Lord - they use their big nasty charge ability to get up close, bashing through your lines, and then the dude on top decapitates you. That said, it was a pretty damn good fight from Cymbry, even if he was a rubbish shot. ;)

Wulfram

Wulfram's hunt for things to kill does not go particularly well, which is either a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on perspective. The mosaic walls of the ship reveal extensive new, perfectly laid tilework of screaming, suffering daemons, but none of the real things are in evidence. The Space Marine's presence does, however, quell a great deal of the chaos and panic aboard the ship, however - people had nearly lost their minds on hearing the 'unshielded warp jump' message, but the reassuring bulk of the Iron Father comforts them, and they slowly begin to return to a state approaching, if not calm, then at least the usual state of agitation onboard a warship.

One odd thing remains, however. In Wulfram's room, lying headless where it was, the figure of the not-Fulgrim is still present.

Everyone (after Vizzi and Zenon have posted)

Whew! That was an ... interesting diversion, occasioned by the Navigator's flubbing of the rolls. You're out of immediate danger for the moment, back in realspace, with no (obvious) daemons stowing away on board. But, there are a few things to think about -
Repairs. You're not in bad shape, given what just happened, but the ship has lost [roll0] hull integrity, [roll1] population, and [roll2] morale due to the daemonic attack, and the after-effects of Lucius' clumsy (:smallbiggrin: I kid!) jump back out of the warp. Some time spent repairing might be a good idea.
What just happened. That seemed like particularly bad luck, even for a voyage into the Screaming Vortex. If it was bad luck ...
Crew reorganisation. Some of the crew have died, some have gone a bit mad, and the navigator's in a coma. Might want to see to that. On the plus side, you each get to choose an appropriate Ship Role, since you've proven yourself capable of command, or at least murdering baddies.
Playing with new toys. You might have found some interesting things during your time in the warp. Also, Torvalus is probably looking for a slightly beefier pistol.
R&R - you might be repairing things for a while, and so there's time to kill. Might even find a way to boost crew morale!
Whatever you think would be productive.


I'm going to bring forward a bit of XP for you all to train with during the next few weeks, plus each person gets an elite advance (you'll be getting PMs, soon). If you can just outline what you want to do during this period, that'd be great! :smallsmile:

[zenon]

Lucius clicks the safety back on the bolt pistol and says "bridge's secure, but you better check on the others, they blacked out when we left the immaterium". He then puts all his focus towards not hitting anything. (anything big anyways)

[Morganatic]

Lucius

You're in a small system with a lukewarm red giant star, two terrestrial inner planets (rocky), and a single large Jovian planet (gasesous) - nothing seems immediately likely to hit you. None of them seem to be habitable - it's a new and unknown system, by all of your records, which gives you the right to name it. You are currently 40 days away from the Hollows on sub-warp engines.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Standing in the doorway to his Spartan cell he stares down at the body of the not-Fulgrim. Armoured fingers roughly pull at the body as he seeks to turn it inside out slightly looking for some clues as to what the creature is and where it came from...

As the chaos on the ship ends he places the annointed lascannon back on its rack before turning and slowly making his way back towards the bridge, Omnissian Axe topped with sacred tools in hand.

Arriving on the destroyed bridge, stepping over the wreckage of the melted doorway he'll reappear and confer briefly with Lucius "Master Lucius, the Emperor was surely guiding your hands as he shielded us from the warp. Where are we? Is there anywhere nearby where we may seek temporary solace to repair the damage to the ship." As he speaks he'll plug into the damaged consoles around him and attempt to soothe the tortured machine spirits while assessing the damage to the Valles. "Hmm. It would seem that we have some minor damage pilot."


I'll have a wee ponder tonight about what the Iron Father will be doing for his few weeks

[Vizzi]

Torvalus looks upon the men he fought with and says with great calm and a bit of humor "That was a nice way to start the day. Everyone that is wounded go to the infirmary and get patched up. And good work everyone!" he turns around and heads up to the bridge, still in his very expensive pajamas.

Upon reaching the bridge he sees the destroyed door and stops slightly admiring the destruction, and enters looking upon Lucius and Wulfram and says with his command voice booming "Status Report as soon as possible please! But first lets make sure the crew knows everything is stable for now." he pauses slightly.

"Is the ship communication system up?" upon confirmation that it is working he will head towards the nearest console transmitting to the entire ship "We hit a slight spot of trouble as everyone noticed. But the Emperor protects and with the skill of our men and the strenght of the machine spirits we have PREVAILED!" he shouts out and pauses slightly before continuing with a inspiring tone "Nothing shall stand in our way! AVE EMPERATOR!" he stops the transmission and leans back on the chair, turning slightly to the others asking "And where is Cymbry? And good work Lucius!".


Torvalus is looking for a better pistol, anything better. The laspistol did jack and squat. I should have used the Inferno Pistol.

And for Ship Role, well its Lord-Captain of course, was there any doubt?

As for what to do, well at the very least develop a contingency plan in case something like this happens again, as well as beefing up guards during warp jumps. And moving around the ship, getting to know the people under my command and boosting morale. As for what else? No clue.

[zenon]

Lucius looks at the screens and says: We're in Venris Primaris, about forty days away from the hollows. There're no docks where we can get repairs, but there're a pair of rocks and a gas giant, so just tell me where you want to go. The damage report's here". He then opens a report on one of the screens.

Over the next weeks, Lucius will run some drills with the flightcrew, and help with the repairs. Other than that, I don't really know.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine glances at the screens before motioning to one of the rocks. could you hide us here? Then we may begin repairs. after that he will begin to help organise repairs.


He will attempt to help long term repairs [roll0] TN ~77.

Aside from repairs he will study the demon and any info on the fallen primarch fulgrim.

Looking at maybe bosun to inspire the crew as my ship role.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Once he was done seeing to his wounds (the broken collar bone will have to be set later), he activated the officers’ channel on his combead (I am assuming we have said channel). “Cimbry here. I had quite the wakeup call. A broken bone and some bruising, but nothing serious. I’ll be on the bridge shortly. Out.” Gathering up his weaponry, he spared the melted hulk one last look before exiting his cabin and proceeding to the bridge.

Okay, so ship role time. I’m thinking Cymbry is naturally the Master-At-Arms, a role that he will have to grow into over time seeing as he has no experience in a command role before now.

And new toys? Hells yeah new toys. I’d like to track down a Motion Predictor for my hellgun. Also, I’d like to get my hands on a Thunder Hammer. Because if the power maul was so good, its big brother must be even better.

[zenon]

"Shouldn't be a problem to hide us here, I doubt anyone's gonna come looking" When no one is looking, Lucius writes the newfound system into the ship system, and pretends he didn't just name it.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Distracted for the few days of repairs by the trouble demonic attack he becomes a virtual reculse searching the annals of the ship's pict recorders and written scrolls for information on the traitor legions.

Some answers found and the corspe of the demon burned and destroyed along with all it possesed he returned to the rest of the ship attempting to inspire the crew with words of wisdom from the Codex Astartes ever at his side and his skills with the machine spirirts...


500XP spent on Forbidden Lore (Traitor Legions)

2 more repair attempts [roll0] TN 77
And a forbidden lore [traitor legions] check to uncover wat this straneg being was and what he can find of traitor legions within the Hollows and the Vortex [roll1] TN 57



Aside from that he will spend much of his time in his cell training and meditating or on the bridge staring at the cold and lifeless surface of the asteroid beneath. "Master pilot. Is the rock below inhabited or possessed of mineral wealth? If there is anything of interest I would be willing to accompany you on an expedition to the rock beneath. Some reconissance before we reach the dark magi of the Hollows may prove important"

[zenon]

"I doubt it's inhabited, about the minerals, I can either try to scan for any, or we could go down and take a drillsample"

500xp used on navigate (warp)

[Vizzi]

Torvalus during the intervening days, moved across the entire ship checking to see if everything was stable and trying to increase the faltering morale. Using his command presence and astounding charm to make them see this as something to conquer, to prevail against for the glory of the Emperor.


Boosting Morale:

Command: [roll0] Mastery +20
Charm: [roll1] Mastery +20
Command: [roll2] Mastery +20



On one of these trips his hand moved towards his guns and he remembered the disappointing performance of his Laspistol and he contacted Cymbry with a request "Cymbry my good man, see if you can find a pistol better than my current Laspistol, since it failed miserably! I await your response." he turned back to his duties.


500xp on Master & Commander.
And what xp i had on improving skills.


As usual Torvalus was on the bridge checking on the ship, and everything he thought should have his personal interest when he overheard the conversation between Wulfram and Lucius and he quickly interjected "Perhaps a scan first and then we go down, i do feel the need to stretch my legs." and he continued to drink his tea.

[Morganatic]

Wulfram

Despite some abortive first efforts, doubtless caused by the lingering confusion and loss of personnel aboard the ship, Wulfram succeeds in organising repair details to fix up the worst of the damage. Strangely, the ship itself seems eager to rid itself of the warp-taint, with cosmetic damage undoing itself over the course of the weeks spent in Venris Primaris.

The two successful attempts restore [roll0] and [roll1] damage respectively, leading to a current hull integrity of (drumroll) 100%.

Your research on the Fallen Astartes of the Hollows does not reveal much of use, nor much on the subject of the Daemon Primarch Fulgrim that you do not already know. You did, however, receive a briefing (http://i.imgur.com/aBnti.png), which mentioned the presence of Traitor Space Marines on the Hollows.[/spoiler]

Lucius

While the Iron Father may be a skilled tech-wright, Lucius knows ships, and helps out with the repairs considerably, putting his already close knowledge of the Valles to work. The rest of the time, he spends flying with his various small craft wings, establishing better group cohesion and helping to dispel any rancor that built up during warp travel.

Repairs restore [roll2] hull integrity, and your flying practice will give your flight wings a +20 crew rating bonus on their next engagement, due to good camaraderie.

Cymbry

Cymbry settles into his new responsibilities well, but still has time to tend to his wounds, which heal cleanly, and find some interesting equipment down in the ship's armoury.

His attempts to whip his troops into shape do not have an unparalleled success; despite being as close to the perfect warrior as the adepts of Mars could make him, he's not a perfect leader of men, and is not as given to inspiring speeches as his comrades. Nonetheless, he can lead by example, and by inspiring sheer physical awe - at the fact that he faced down a daemon in his bedroom, and has its body welded to the floor to prove it - and by overbearing a few rowdy skitarii who though that metal beat flesh in a brawl - he has got his troops relatively sorted out, and back in order.

Pending your choices for what you do during this time, you'll get new/different benefits for your time during the next few weeks. You also find a shiny new maul (forgot to add that it's good-quality), and a plasma pistol for your captain.

Torvalus

Torvalus makes a few orbits of the ship, checking in on his crew - who are at first shocked, then alarmed, then heartened, to see their captain wandering the decks of his ship (and in his uniform this time, too). The shock of the warp has made the men, women, and post-humans under him scared, and pliable, meaning that they're rather amenable to the Trader's pious words and grandiloquent speeches (for now, at least). Something about his words rekindles the grimly joyous spirit and passion for the mission that suffused the crew when they set out.

Torvalus restores 6+5+2 = 13 morale, taking us back up to full morale.

Venris Primaris

An orbital scan of Venris Primaris, made using the Valles' formidable sensor array, reveals the following about the small planet closest to the sun.


There is no obvious sign of prior intelligent presence on the planet's surface.
Indeed, barring some trace evidence of mono-cellular life having developed at some point in the history of the planet, it is not capable of supporting life, and has not been so for at least a million years.
Storms of hot air and turbulent gases would make communication from the ship difficult, as would any mining efforts.
The whole planet's radioactive as hell. Looking at its electromagnetic emissions, it looks as if it is extremely rich in heavy actinide metals, most notably a significant quantity of plutonium. You possess the equipment to extract it, but it might be at the cost of some of the lives and health of your crew. If you did extract it, though ... it's practically weapons grade straight out of the ground, and could certainly find a buyer.
A focused augury check at -20 (so, a straight scrutiny check) would be necessary to obtain more information, and then analyse it in a useful way.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Master Torvalus. How much longer shall we remain in orbit? The ship is restored and the men are hungry for our holy crusade.

He stares down at the scanners and then out of the viewing port towards the large star and the central small rock worlds. "Pilot, are there any sytems with possibly life containing planets between our current locaion and our target? Reconnissance is key to successful battle. A smaller planet or colony may prove an ideal testing ground for the flight wings and the plasma broadsides."

[Vizzi]

Torvalus turns towards Wulfram and says "Well since you men were curious about this world i thought we were going to explore it. But first lets do a focused augury scan on this planet before leaving. If nothing interesting shows up lets follow your plan, the crew do need a some experience. And of course preparing for any more unpleasantness." he says with a cold smile.


Focused Augury Check:
[roll0] at -20.

Well we arent looking at nothing!

[Morganatic]

Everyone on board

There is nothing on Venris Primaris. Literally nothing at all. Certainly nothing you're absolutely going to need when you get to the Hallows. No sir.

1

The repairs are complete, the crew - only slightly diminished in number - spurred on tales of heroism and emotionally manipulative rhetoric - you are ready to go. Your navigator remains in a semi-comatose state, still leaking vaguely Immaterial fluids from the torn hole in his head that was his Warp Eye. It's unclear if he'll get better, but for the moment, you're mostly relegated to realspace journeys.

This isn't much of a problem. Most ships have a maximum advisable realspace velocity, that they can't exceed without beginning to tear themselves apart and turning passing asteroid into a high powered cyclonic torpedo, but the Valles, with its spectacular armoured bulk and heavy void shield arrays, blithely ignores all such safety guidelines, and rockets off into the Screaming Vortex at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. The journey goes well, and you all have time to train, drill, and bury yourself in reading for a time. Things look a little dicey when, half-way through the voyage, Lucius has to slew the craft round, and begin flying backwards, engines at full thrust - something that no Imperial ship is really designed for - but thankfully the ship doesn't get torn apart. You come to a halt, gently rotating in space, roughly five astral units outside the Hollows system.

Space here is, to put it simply, not what it is elsewhere. The Screaming Vortex lies before you, and, at first inspection, seems rather normal - just another stellar cluster, rather dense with colourful nebulae, but nothing too out of the ordinary. But then you really look, and things don't seem so comforting. Stars glitter alluringly in the endless void, their occasional occlusions by unseen things seeming to spell out patterns, that, if only you'd stay forever, perhaps you could understand, while the blackness between the stars seems to heave as if full of dark, invertebrate life.

And in the centre of your view lies the Hollows system.

The planet itself is barely visible to the naked eye, just a tiny dot making a transit of the solar disc, but arcane sensors swiftly brought to bear by Lucius and Wulfram reveal it to be an irregular telluric planet, roughly the size of Luna - inhabited, with three major population centres, a space elevator, and a small and irregular battlefleet, if the snarls of wireless communication traffic that loop and curl around it are anything to go by. The whole image has a strange distortion and flicker to it, that Astropath Ibranum can't quite bear to look at.

But worse - oh so much worse - is the star behind it. 1.88B-Mistral is enormous, easily twenty times the mass of Sol, and casts a sickly, cloying, coppery light that, even filtered through the newly repaired vid-screens, seems to age everything it touches and casts shadows that don't quite match what their owners. It's not a normal star, either - no perfect solar disc for it, but rather a roiling, irregular knot of flaring gas, a convocation of luminescent worms, a solar ratking. Even as you watch, a portion breaks free, and, with agonisingly slowness, caresses a field of shattered planetoids, instantly vapourising and annihilating chunks of rock the size of battleships. This star is not good news, and its ocean-deep malevolence is palpable to even the most psychically insensitive of the crew.

The ship-to-ship vox, silent for months now, crackles into sudden life. The first fifteen seconds or two are meaningless data, raw machine code, that the onboard cogitators have trouble parsing, but it soon manages to lock onto the signal.

-t we just can't, Archon Aestra. You know as well as I do that I have to reset the bloody Skhuds every time you head out to indulge your little predilections -

Within seconds, more and more vox channels begin to be plucked from the aether.

'-oot! Kroot! Good kroot for service! No quest-'
'-ght thousand eight hundred and eighty eight blessings and mercies of the Emperor upon his Brazen Throne-'
'-flesh is cheap! Come worship at our feet, and it can all be you-'

None of them seem to be directed at you yet - clearly, the Valles hasn't been picked up on the long-range scanners of the orbital bases of the planet yet, and this is just a snatch of business as usual for a Dark Forge world and home of some of the servants of the arch-enemy. For now, the Explorers have the luxury of surprise, and the liberty to prepare their approach. After all, the appearance of an Repulsive Grand Cruiser out of nowhere, flying the Cog and Aquila, is likely to make the denizens of the hollows just a little antsy ...

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine stands stoic and silent on the bridge watching the unfolding panorama of chaos and hell out of the view port. The past few weeks had been a slow descent into the Vortex and he wondered if this had been what his ancient cousins the XVII legion had experienced when they discovered the Eye.

"Passive scans only lest we alert the heretic to our presence." The order to the sensorium crew curt and short. "Scan the immediate area for space faring vessels".

He will turn around and look at the rest of the senior command crew. "A vision of hell. Emperor protect and Omnissah shield us as we descend into those depths".

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Sneering, he emitted a short, mirthless chuckle. “There isn’t anything down there that we can’t kill with enough know-how and elbow grease. But caution is advisable in this situation. We don’t need them all turning on us at once.” He scratched jaw in contemplation, and then put his balled fists on his hips. “So… just how are we going to get in there anyway? I mean, for thrones sake, you’re a Space Marine. You are a little unsubtle.” There was a little venom in his words when he said space marine.

[zenon]

"Speaking of unsubtle. There's the ship to remember, I can probably get us closer without anyone noticing, but we'll be seen at some point. We have to remember that many might turn hostile when they see a grand cruiser with the cog and aquila, but hopefully we'll outgun them."

[Morganatic]

Passive scans of the Hollows reveal:


1 Devastation-class Carrier-Heavy Cruiser, 3 Slaughter-class cruisers, and eight raiders divided between Idolator, Infidel, and Iconoclast classes.
2 Kabalite Eldar cruisers, designated 'Torture class', with six 'Corsair' class escorts between them.
One fairly large, six-hull Stryxis Xebec.


There are almost certainly more ships in the region - you're picking up rather more IFF transponder signals than there are visible ships - but these would seem to be either on the other side of the planet, or the star, and not visible without switching to active augury, and trying to ping them with a direct hit, which would send word of your presence.

Acquisitionist Emahsini, who has tended towards withdrawn silence for most of the journey, pipes up with a dry, withered voice, something like rustling leaves.

'Remember that at least someone on that planet peacefully invited you here. I do not know how much stock to put in the word and sword-arm of an ancien regime, particularly one of a traitor and heretek, but whoever was holding the planet three months ago guaranteed you safe passage, and just happens to hold the codes to the planetary surface-to-orbit defences.'

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine looks down at the small militant. A hint of a smile crossing the weathered face. Many were the mortals jealous of the touch of the God Emperor within each of his chosen sons.

"Can we creep closer staying within the debris fields of asteroids and other planetary ejecta?" he asks of Lucius. "While there was an invitation I would not trust the word of any scion of the dark gods. If we hunt in the debris field away from direct sensor view of the planet we may find a raider that we can interrogate"

That his blood thirsts for the blood of heretics and information on any of his fallen brothers he will not deign to mention.


To all.

I'm afraid that some real life job stuff has come up and I have to move house (again) so am moving on Friday. But the broadband can't be reconnected till the 14th Dec so will be without internet till then. I'll still have my phone and mobile network but its pretty patchy and slow.

Morgantic, please feel free to control Wulfram in the meantime

Sorry for the incovienence.

[Vizzi]

"Agreed, i will no go towards such a place without information." he say towards Wulfram i pause slightly to drink tea and continue "But if we are detected be prepared to use those codes Emahsini, and for everyone be ready for battle if it is needed." he leans back on his throne.

[Morganatic]

There are indeed a number of potential asteroid fields and banks of super-heated gas that it might be possible to hide behind, and secure your approach. They won't take you all the way there, though - beyond a certain point, your navigation systems (which are great big blazing etheric torch) will give you away, and, anyway, anyone pointing an auspex in your general direction will see something.

Having received the instructions from the Lord-Captain, Emahsini slithers off, and retrieves the requisite data-slate.

No problem, DrK, Wulfram will be in good hands. I'll try to keep him out of danger for you - well, as much as possible. What are his immediate priorities for the mo'?

Also, it's an ordinary pilot (spacecraft) + manoeuvrability check to make your approach silently, Zenon, so pilot spacecraft +11.

[zenon]

"I'll take us as far as I can"

Pilot(spacecraft) (1d100)[28] vs. 118

[Morganatic]

Lucius ghosts the five-mile long warship, its sensors blazing, its weapon systems all at combat readiness, through the drifting clouds of stellar debris that surround the Hollows system, and draws you all up a little closer. This allows you to learn a little bit more about the ships clustered around the planet.

Among the human vessels, there are a variety of colours, heraldries, and signs of allegiance. More than a few explicitly belong to the disciples of the Dark Gods, and display eye-watering iconography and sigils that declare their loyalties to Arkhar, Onogal, and Tchar (so, at least, a very nervous Ibranum tells you). There are also a pair of small, sleek, fast assault craft whose very coloration makes Wulfram curse and spit, his words literally corroding a small portion of the deck-plating. One is bedecked in midnight blue and sea green, the other in bronze and a lighter blue, but beyond that, they're too small to make out clearly. Clearly it's a space marine thing.

The vessels on the far side of the planet remain invisible - it's as if they're jockeying for positions close to the sun, to bask in its radiance. From this new vantage point, however, a dozen or so degrees above the ecliptic, you do get a few glimpses of them - there are rather a few large, craggy-looking vessels, approximately the size of cruisers, surrounded by a number of small craft; these seem to be vying for position with a sleek, oddly proportioned metallic crescent of a craft, that ducks, hovers, and weaves oddly.

As you move closer, you begin to be able to listen in on more and more vox signals, to the point where you have to order some of your more morally sturdy Skitarii vox-experts to keep track of some of the channels. As you wait, it seems like a pattern begins to emerge ...

Between the party, there are several tests you can have a go at.

A -20 forbidden lore (xenos) test.
A -30 forbidden lore (xenos) test.
A +10 common lore (war) test.
A +0 scholastic lore (tactics) test.
A -10 common lore (navy) test.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

Upon seeing the Traitor Astartes vessel Wulfram strides over to the ordinance controls, his spittle still sizzling and burning a sizeable hole in the deck plating. For a moment his armoured gauntlets hang over the torpedo controls before he refocuses on the task at hand. The revenge on the traitor Astartes will come and he swears an oath to himself and his fallen kin that neither of those ships will leave the Hollows intact.

Staring at the view screen he considers the enemy...


Lore (War) test [roll0] TN 67
Ciphers (Xeno) test [roll1] TN 37 or 27


The number of ships here is most concerning. A fleet gathers for war. They should not be permitted to leave intact. Continue to passive scan for enemy ships entering or leaving the sector. Interrogation should reveal some information on the disposition of the planet and its inhabitants. The thirst for heretic blood is obvious to all the others.

Returning to view screen he'll magnify the screen to see if he can ascertain any more information on the two Traitor strike craft.

Forbidden lore (Traitor Legions) [roll2] TN 57
Common Lore (Astartes) [roll3] TN 57

As applicable. To see if the class of ship, the names or any marks have any signifigance.

[Morganatic]

There are indeed a number of ships entering or leaving the system, usually looking like 'errand-running' vessels. Over the day or so of watching and waiting, you'll observe one or two small ships proceed out to the safe warp jump area at the edge of the system, vanish, but then return after eighteen hours or so.

Wulfram
The Common Lore (war) check:

Wulfram is half-right - the ships do seem to be gathering for war. But they aren't doing so as a fleet, so much as a number of fleets, all preparing for war against each other. The silver ship and the rocky ships seem rather concerned about keeping their prow aimed at each other, and, if they weren't not firing at each other, the Chaos ships around the main space port would look an awful lot like a picket defence line to keep the Kabalite and other ships out. They're not doing a great job, what with the Eldar tendency to appear without warning in great crackling storms of dark webway energy, but there's just a hint of a Necromundan Standoff in the way everyone's moving.

The Ciphers (Xenos) check:

This doesn't give you anything on the two ship types near the sun, since they aren't broadcasting anything that you can hear. You get quite a bit of Kabalite Eldar material, though - they appear to be being deliberately lax in their communication security, and mostly seem to be being running a campaign to wind up and make trouble for the other Chaos pilots, and the Dark Mechanicum orbital flight controllers. You also get snatches of the Stryxis chatter, which mostly seems to be related to the hiring of a lot of Kroot mercenaries.

The Astartes/Traitor Legion checks:

Blue and green (in some, often changing, combination) are the colours of the Alpha Legion. Bronze and blue is the Celestial Lions, as far as you're aware, but it seems likely to be them, in this part of the galaxy, and with the fact that they're pretty staunch loyalists.

As to their ships, they're not the usual Astartes vessels, since traitor Astartes never lost their Naval assets, and tend to operate under different tactical approaches from loyalists. The Alpha Legion ship might be a 'Sunburst'-class escort, but it's unclear.

There's more to be learned on all these fronts, so more rolls will give you more material.

[Vizzi]

As Torvalus sees Wulfram stride over towards the ordinance controls with great anger he ready's the failsafe to keep him from doing something stupid. He sights with some relief when he backs down. And continues to study the sensor feeds.


Forbidden Lore (Xenos) Int 55 [roll0] -20
Forbidden Lore (Xenos) Int 55 [roll1] -30


"I doubt its for war, well at least all of them, there are to many groups, most likely preparing for raiding sorties or trying to look fearsome enough no one will try to gun them down." he pauses slightly trying to decide how to explain to Wulfram his point of view on their next actions "And while i would also like nothing more than to destroy them all for the Glory of the Emperor, we will not do so if it threatens our mission." he pauses drinking a bit of water "And our mission is of paramount importance, the recovering of the technology cache and all its wonders is our top priority" and he spits out the next words with some disgust "We will do what we must!" he breaths in deeply to calm himself down.

[zenon]

Lucius scrathes his chin and says"I think our presence will keep us from being attacked. If annyone tries, they'll expose themselves to others and will be attacked in turn, so in theory we'll be safe because we can all destroy each other. So we should appear strong, but not too aggressive, or they might team up against us." He takes a sip of recaf and looks at Torvalus for orders and/or reactions.


CL (navy) (-10)(1d100)[27] vs. 30
FL (xenos) (-20) (1d100)[93] vs. 20
FL (xenos) (-30)(1d100)[54] vs. 10
SL (tactics) (+0)(1d100)[13] vs. 40

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Cymbry crossed his arms and grunted. "So, what is it going to be? Should we just move right in, or give it a bit more time? I'm for moving in. I know I vouched for saftey before, but Torvalus has a point. We can't keep delaying, we need to do our job."

[DrK]

Iron father Wulfram

The marine stares about the bridge looking serious. It would be prudent to. ambush a small vessel. A day or so will not make a difference to our mission. Any raiderwill do. Either on board this or via strike craft.

[Morganatic]

The identities of the two fleets circling each other in the distance remains unknown.

That said, between the various tactical and naval experts represented on the bridge, a few things do emerge. What this situation resembles most is a traffic jam - a great big, highly murderous, cyclonic-torpedo armed, traffic jam. The low ID numbers on the various ship-to-orbit communications suggest that the other ships have arrived here fairly recently - within the last few months, or even weeks - rather than being stationed here on a long-term basis. The factional jockeying for position would seem to reinforce such a theory. It's almost as if they're here for the same reason that you are.

If push came to shove, and there was combat - initiated, say, by a hidden Imperial warship - then it's not entirely clear that it's doubtful that they'd be able, or even willing, to mount a coherent defence, at least at first - you'd have to move quickly, though, or they'd bring their vastly superior numbers to bear. The Valles may be the largest thing here, but it still wouldn't stand a chance against all of them together.

While your warship remains safely ensconced in a bank of fractured rock and stellar debris, its position might not be undetected for much longer. One of the 'messenger' ships seems to have decided to make a warp jump rather close to you, and is heading your way. Ibranum estimates its time of arrival as thirty minutes away, if it maintains traditional warp jump preparation protocols. Your position above the plane of the ecliptic will be fairly effective at hiding you, but it's a close thing.

[zenon]

"We could get a target lock on them before they sense us, hail them, and say that if they try to hail anyone else we'll kill them. Then we could start interrogating them, or I might be able to hide us, but it'll be close". Lucius looks at the sensor screen, to get an idea of how to pull of such a manoeuvre with minimal risk.

[Morganatic]

The best odds of achieving such a maneuver could probably be achieved by acting as Lucius suggests, and then rapidly boarding their vessel with your Skitarii troops, ferried across by means of your troop transports. You wouldn't have much time aboard the ship before the Hollows flight controllers realised that the approaching Infidel-class destroyer hadn't left the system - maybe about 30 minutes at most - unless you were willing to jump away with the ship.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine looks to the bridge. I would be honoured to lead the boarding party. Is all he says as he views the intercept traces on the sensor holo displays.

[Vizzi]

"Well, lets do such then, Wulfram and Cymbry will be leading the boarding party, Lucius where do you think your skills will be of better use, here on the bridge or on the Transport? Also the boarding party will be on a tight schedule." he says while rapidly reading a dataslate "And prepare for a surprise gift towards everyone else. Start preparing targeting solutions, and readying the crew for combat, we have a range advantage so we should use it. Ready the codes to the planetary surface-to-orbit defenses. The moment we notice them changing their behavior we will unleash the Fury of the Emperor upon them!" he says while leaning back and wondering what everyone else thinks.

[zenon]

"I think I better go with the transports that way if they try anything, you'll have your best pilot at the stick to get you there alive. If there's nothing else I'll go get the squadron ready." Lucius stands up and looks around, to see if the others have something to say, if not he jogs off to the flightdeck.

[Morganatic]

The boarding party

The scramble is at exceedingly short notice, but Lucius' recent drills pay off, and the pilots are ready to depart within ten minutes of being given the order to ready their ships. Five Storm Birds, matte-black stealth coatings immaculate, await you in the flight-deck, waiting to accept the boarding parties.

Even with all the rush, Cymbry and Wulfram still have the opportunity to marshal a rather intimidating number of Skitarii and other Mechanicus elements who, with immaculately well-drilled grace, buckle on armour and webbing, and check weapons. They're combat ready within a few heartbeats of receiving the order, and begin to converge on the fighter deck with you.

So, basically, for the boarding party, I presume it will be Lucius (leading the stealth gun-cutters?) transporting them, Wulfram and Cymbry leading the boarding party, and Torvalus maintaining command of the ship?

I presume you'll be leading a few of your own men, rather than going it alone - if so, what are your preferences regarding the sort of people you take? You've got room for ~200 people aboard five ships, yourselves excluded - Praetorians and Murder Servitors would count as two people each.


Skitarii hypaspists are your basic troops - they're carapace-armoured, have hellguns, and light augmentation, but they're between guardsmen and stormtroopers in training - depending on what's aboard, you might get outmatched, especially if they don't have space to maneuver and bring their military training to bear (they're infantry, not marines). You've got a lot of them, though.
Skitarii Praetorians would be the next step up - they've all got heavy power armour, less than 40% of their flesh is unmechanised, and they're well-equipped with numerous sorts of grenades, fairly heavy assault weaponry, and lots and lots of chain-weapons. They're not particularly well-coordinated and good at fighting as a unit, and every loss would hurt more, if things got nasty, but they're not an awful distance behind Space Marines in their effectiveness in this sort of action.
Murder Servitors. Yeah, you've got rather a lot of these. They're easily capable of slaughtering all the unaugmented crew on the Destroyer, and it's not certain that they couldn't give Traitor Astartes a run for their money, given favourable conditions. The problem is, though, they're rather an 'all or nothing' weapon, and are unlikely to leave many easily interrogated survivors. Might just turn on you, too ...


On the Bridge

Torvalus waits in the Lord Captain's throne, the progress of his fellow crew as they rally an impromptu boarding party to go and take on the Chaos vessel.

Ibranum approaches him with a report (still scorchingly hot from the printing press) on the Infidel-Class destroyer, the Talon, and what can be learned about its status, ownership, and capabilities. Not much, evidently - it's got a few markings dedicated to Chaos Undivided, but is hardly festooned with them. As far as its capabilities go, it's a fairly tough little ship - just a little faster than your own - but the Valles could squash it fairly easily, although it might take a few scratches from the Talon's plasma torpedo rack.

Once he's finished reading, the ship is 5 minutes out, and closing fast - it doesn't seem to have spotted the Grand Cruiser yet, though, what with its rather poor augur systems. Ibranum has prepared a narrow-beam vox transmission - boosted with the aid of the ship's laud-hailers, and proffers the mouthpiece to the Rogue Trader. The responsibility to hail the Talon, intimidating it into not broadcasting an SOS, and then launch the boarding party is now in his hands. It's Torvalus first real combat experience at the helm of this ship - all aboard are looking forward with a mixture of fear and excitement to see how this goes.

The surface-to-orbit defence codes don't allow you to disable the Hollows' planetary defence cannons - they're more like a set of keys that will verify who you are and enable you to pass unmolested by their range. They're perfectly capable of firing on you, but the understanding is that if they know you're the one they invited, they won't.

Let's have an opposed intimidate check vs. a willpower check to see the initial tone of the encounter (although I still want to hear Torvalus' opening argument! :smallsmile:

You get +30 on the roll based on the fact that you're coming from an unexpected angle, from stealth, with a ship that's 7x the size of theirs, and have a loud and booming transmission system.

[roll0] vs. 20.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The marine boards the shuttle that Lucius is piloting, massive and billing with axe, bolter and lascannon. He glances at the soldiers wishing they were his fellow brothers of the astartes before activating all of the systems and synchronising his box with soldiers and the bridge of the Valles. Emperor's blessing master lucius, I stand ready. is all he says as stands by the edit door, servo ARM easily balancing him. He will lead the charge when the boarding ramp opens...
I would suggest praetorians.

[Codemus]

Cymbry

Cymbry will board a secondary landing craft, so if the primary was shot down, they wouldn't loose too much of the command staff. He activated his com. "Cymbry here. Father, if you will lead your teams to the bridge, I'll co-ordinate the rest of the teams and push for the engine room." This has got to be the worst idea we have come up with yet. Regardless of his opinions, he was ready.

As to troop disposition, I’d suggest (as a compromise to what DrK said) 170 hypaspists and 15 pratorians. The pratorians going with him.

[Morganatic]

Wulfram

A cadre of 20 Praetorians are waiting for the Iron Hand at Storm-Bird 4, clad in their power armour gleaming darkly, and their combat webbing bristling with an array of eye-wateringly lethal weaponry.

They nod reverently to the Astartes, allowing him to take the co-pilot's chair, and proceed to file with literally mechanical precision into the craft's loading bay. The lights go out - there's no point going half-measures when stealth is concerned - but the bay is illuminated by the nearly invisible light of forty infrared helmet-lenses.

The pilot invites him to sit next to him, and offers you a cable-jack on the off-chance that Wulfram might want to supervise any of the craft's functions himself.

Craft: void sealed. Prepare for departure . . .

Cymbry

Forty skitarii are waiting for the Arch-Militant at the loading dock, formed up into immaculate lines. He's got 160 of your most combat-hardened warriors with you on this mission, but the ones here seem to be the cream of the crop, with a number of special weapons troopers carrying all the paraphenaliea of boarding actions. Melta-cutters, gas grenades, and nightfire flamers abound, in addition to some rather more esoteric wargear. Upon seeing you, the tribune barks an order, and they rapidly form up and board the vessel. Once they're aboard, he strides up to you, salutes, and walks aboard with you, handing you a bulk combined set of goggles and rebreather, with a number of extra tanks mounted on a handy belt clip.

'You'll be wanting this, sir. So we're going to head out and immobilise the ship, then? We won't disappoint, I can assure you of that. What sort of level of collateral damage are you willing to acce-

He's cut off by a booming vox-transmission, from the cogitator aboard Lucius' ship.

Craft: void sealed. Prepare for departure . . .

[Codemus]

Cymbry

He accepted the equipment with no comment, and waited for the automated message to cut off before he began. "To answer your question, some collateral damage is acceptable. However, try to avoid damage to any shipboard systems necessary for its continued operation. If that cannot be avoided, then so be it. Caution is the name of the game tribune. I will not tolerate needless any loss of personnel. I hope I have made myself clear.”

So how many troops do we have going? I thought that 200 number was across all 5 landers and our maximum occupancy, but if I'm bringing 200 and Wolfram has 20 praetorians then I was a tad off. :smallredface:

[Morganatic]

Cymbry

The tribune snaps off a crisp salute.

'Very well sir! We'll try to minimise combat between us and completion of the mission objective, but if that can't be helped, we'll have 'em reeling anyway.'


Each Storm Bird has room for forty people, with each Praterorian or murder servitor counting for two people. You've got five Storm Birds, so 200 spaces all told.

[Vizzi]

It's his first first real combat experience at the helm of this ship, and perhaps the first of many, and he the first taste of combat would show how the future will follow, and he continues to give orders for the men to prepare to combat. And towards the the boarding craft he sends a simple message "You have your objectives. For the Emperor!" he pauses to think.

After a few moments he prepares to use the narrow-beam vox transmission that are massively boosted with the ship's laud-hailers he wonders how he should go about intimidating the Talon, if he should keep it simple or more grandiose, and if they will fear him, like they rightfully should.

He signals the Vox transmission to start and in the instant before speaking he decides "This is Lord-Captain Torvalus! Of the Rogue Trader Dynasty Augustus on the Grand Cruiser Valles Marineris. You are to continue on your current heading and you will not contact any other ship. Failure to comply and i will consign you to OBLIVION!" he roars out.


Intimidate check [roll0] +30 bonus

And i am guessing this roll is going to suck :smalltongue:.

Sorry about the delay, i got busy and i couldn't write anything good for this part. Still not that happy with what i wrote.

[DrK]

Iron Father Wulfram

The void craft jinking and twisting in the void, shaking and rumbling as it hurtles towards the chaos ship is virtually silent. As they near the target Wulfram turns to face the lesser mortals clad in their imitation power armour. Remember your training. Remember your faith. Purge the heretic and burn the mutant. Make ready for combat landing. Prepare for close quarter combat.

That said, he moves towards the doorway, holding the side of the armoured gangway with his servo arm, lascannon cradled in his hands, bolter and axe on his hip and back.

[zenon]

Lucius leads the crafts in a mix between evasive manoeuver and directly flying towards the Talon. At the same time he waits for the message that Torvalus has completed his objective, while looking for signs that he's about to be shot down.