Dead in the Water (Dark Heresy IC)

[Destro_Yersul]

Dead in the Water
Chapter One: Still Waters Run Deep

OOC Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?364430-Dead-in-the-Water-%28Dark-Heresy-OOC%29)

Lumen globes flared to life in the dark room, casting shadows across the faces of those assembled. The remaining two members of Acolyte CelL Sigma, after the others had been re-assigned, sat across from Inquisitor Valle of the Ordo Hereticus. The room they were in was sparse, no more than a desk and chairs - this wasn't a formal interrogation, though. They'd submitted their reports, the Inquisition had been informed of what they'd found under the sands of Klybo, and that discovery itself was what had led to them being here.

The Inquisitor shifted in her chair, servos whirring as her impassive death-mask of a face turned upwards from the dataslate she'd been reading. Being this close to an almost entirely mechanical being, especially after Klybo, was an unsettling experience, and the Inquisitor's patchwork voice didn't help, defaulting as it did to a harsh metallic rendering anywhere the tech-adepts hadn't been able to find a suitable clip.

"Tell me again," she said, "what you found on KLYBO. Describe it."

"Death." Joss rasped, shivering a bit as he recalled what they had endured. "We found Raltus' camp on the surface and followed his trail into the caverns. At every step we found evidence that something, somehow, had gone horribly wrong. And then we began to encounter them."

"The Metal Men," Valle tapped the dataslate.

"Yes, but first we met smaller ones. Like insects. They seemed harmless at first, until they swarmed. We fought them off, but then the tunnel into the cavern collapsed, charges Raltus' crew had set there exploded, trapping us. We had to press forward for a hope of finding a way out. In doing so we discovered the city. Massive structures occupying a cave, a pyramid at the center, all lit in a twilight of green."

"It was something I never want to see again, ma'am," Gabe added. "A vast xenos city, drilled into the planet like ants. Or Hivework, with an immense central chamber, all revolving around that slick, black pyramid. Everything was laced with some sort of green energy and glowed. Runes everywhere. We have some rubbings for you. The building were a perversion of Imperial architecture. Squat and sturdy, with that same awful green-and-black. The majority of the heretical xenotech we found inside were silver metal perversions of the Holy shape of Man, with the green lines running though them. The filthy pseudo-eyes and blood..." The priest trailed off, and Joss continued.

"We followed Raltus' trail through the city, and that is when we began to encounter the Metal Men. We were forced to retreat into tunnels beneath the city, but that brought us no protection. We found..." The assassin's voice falters, a mix of anger and disgust on his scarred face.

"A Flayed One."

"It was a mockery of my order! Of everything I have dedicated my life to! A blasphamous monstrosity! A direct insult to the Emperor Himself!"

"All Xenos are. All Heretics are." The Inquisitor looked at the slate again. Her voice was firm - a trick of the synthetic voxcoder she used to speak, perhaps. It was difficult to convey emotion through prerecorded vox clips.

"We blew a hole in it's chest," Gabe explained, "and the wound healed quickly, scabbed over, and the monster stood ready to fight again. I got a look at the circuitry, though, I was looking for a way to disable it, take it and the abominations like it down more quickly. Or even all of them at once. It was an order of magnitude beyond me, and your servant could not figure out a way to do so."

"You destroyed a device in the city."

Joss nodded. "At the center of the pyramid. There were cages full of human bodies. And the chair...They put people into it. Human beings used... I don't know how. As some sort of power source? As part of some cruel experiment? I don't know. It was evil. It needed to be destroyed."

"RALTUS' notes answered that. Did you read them?" Valle didn't wait for an answer to that question. "It was designed to alter humans. No good would have come from keeping it in one piece. Necron technology is not to be trusted." Moving on from the subject, the Inquisitor consulted her dataslate again. "How was the Navy Installation destroyed?"

"The majority of the xeno warrior-heresies carried rifles which fire green lightning." Gabe said, "I swear to you, I saw it strip a naval provost's flesh clean off, and then muscle, and then bone, and then reduce the bones to desert dust." He paused, his train of thought continuing. "Come to think of it, that may be what happened to the planet itself, so long ago. If the xenos had a reason to scorch their planet, with such arms they could reduce it all to ashes and dust, unfit to hold life. Maybe they were crushing a rebellion? Those green lightning guns have an absurd effective range, ma'am. And giant ones sprouted from under the planet's surface to lance out at the moon. The rest is evident, and the Imperium is short a few thousand more faithful servants."

Joss' answer was in agreement with Gabe's. "After we found our way back to the surface, those... Necrons? followed us. We fled in a shuttle, and beams of light were shooting past us. I thought they were trying to hit our ship, but when we got into orbit... the station was in ruins." The warrior hung his head, guilt washing over him. Had they done something to cause the death of those thousands?

"Unsurprising." Silence hung in the air as the Inquisitor watched them, the only sound the idle ticking of hydraulic compressors. Abruptly, she spoke again. "Do you know what the survival rate for encounters with Necrons is?"

The acolytes shook their heads; no.

"It is so low that, for a long time, even the Ordo Xenos did not believe any still existed. Nobody who fought them lived to tell of it." Valle placed the dataslate on the table, her chair creaking as she leaned forwards. "That you survived speaks well to your competence. I am not often impressed. You have impressed me."

The Inquisitor allowed a moment for that to sink in, spending the time retrieving another dataslate from a pouch hidden within the folds of her robes. Handing it to Gabe, she inclined her head towards them. "The details of your mission are on the slate. In brief: The other members of your cell have requested re-assignment. I will make up the difference with some new recruits. One you," a glance at Gabe, "have met before. The others I am unsure of. They are skilled but untested. I expect you to watch them closely." Another glance at Gabe. "Especially the Psyker."

"You will travel to Landunder. RALTUS mentions that world in his communications. R.A. has been staying there, and may still be on the world. You are to identify and locate them. Capture them if possible, kill them if you cannot capture. Do you have any questions?"

Both of the acolytes voiced the same question: What would happen to Klybo?



The Inquisitor's answer was still ringing in their ears months later, when the Invincible dropped out of warp just outside the Landunder system's Kuiper belt: "Quarantined. Cordoned off. It is an Ordo Xenos matter now, do not think further on it than that." Of course, during Warp Travel, all they had was time to think. They'd met the new members of the Cell when they boarded the Invincible. Sure enough, Gabe had recognised the adept Mouse, who looked as though Sephiris Secundus had been the last place she'd been able to see a sun. With her were a dangerous-looking woman who, by her accent, was from Gunmetal City; and a gaunt, sallow man carrying an aquila topped staff.

Now, the five of them stood together, looking at Landunder through the scratched armaplas of a shuttle viewport. The planet was a dull brown, with only the barest visible trace of Imperial construction on its surface. Beneath the crust, they knew, the world's great cities hung suspended in subterranean oceans, their occupants working day and night to extract valuable chemicals from vents near the planet's core. It was a watery grave waiting to happen, and everyone who lived there knew it.

The acolyte's shuttle touched down on a steel-grey landing pad tucked amidst the squat towers of Hiveport Adraxis, the spaceport complex to which most of the surface buildings belonged. Nobody was present to greet them. The briefing materials told them that a residence had been secured for them in Neptune Spire, one of the shorter hive towers near the outskirts of the city. They found an elevator, and dropped off the face of the earth.

Below was like another world. The entire city had been constructed, by some ancient and skilled Imperial architect, with reinforced viewports into the ocean beyond. Sidewalks ran through glass-plated tunnels, the swirling water that surrounded them held back by Imperial engineering. Lights glowed in the water, marking the position of other parts of the hive. Neon signs had been placed on the sides of buildings in some locations, advertising the sorts of services one could expect to find within. In the distance, the imposing shapes of Mechanicus facilities loomed through the murk, tangles of piping jutting out from their vast bulks. Suspended guiderails for transit shuttles were woven around the buildings, and every so often one of the shuttles would zip by, floodlights mounted to the front illuminating the way before it. The Hive was a massive place, full of winding corridors and towering spires. Sobering in its immensity, it couldn't quite quell the little thought that rose up unbidden in all of their minds:

Somewhere, in all of that, their quarry lurked.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie drummed her fingers on the hilts of her pistols as she rode the elevator down. Occasionally she broke off to tap the steel toe of her boot heavily on the elevator's deck.

"They don't allow guns here" she announced to the company at large. "I ain't biased, right, but how do you run a city when people ain't got guns. It don't work."

There was a pause, punctuated by the tapping of dirty fingernails on custom-tooled stocks.

"Knives ain't no good. You can run away from knives. Ain't right."

With a certain amount of huffing, Annie began cinching her pistols into holsters high on her flanks, under her jacket, where they wouldn't be visible to the casual observer. The more-than-casual observer could go stick his ass in the sump. Her knife, a stamped plastek blade less than six inches long, slipped into her belt easily enough.

"I don't like this place," she considered. "But at least there ain't no sky."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse is a shorter woman, barely five feet in height with pale skin and slightly curly dark hair that reaches her shoulders. At least, on the right half. The left half of her head has been shaved to the skin and replaced by a socket that's been implanted into her skull. The scarring around it is still bright pink and fresh. Her eyes are somewhat wearier than they used to be, but the small smile on her lips betrays the fact that she's happy to get out of the stuffy libraries and finally back on the job.

She wears an overly large set of plain brown robes covered with pockets and when she heads off the ship she picks up a large backpack, slinging it onto her shoulders. The only thing sticking out of the backpack is the butt of a shotgun that Gabe will probably recognize as the one she looted off the Skiitari months previous. Perhaps she's finally gotten herself trained in its use.

Once they reach the elevators she shrugs her hands out of the sleeves of her robes, lacing her white-gloved fingers together. She gives a bit of a smile when she views the city through the porthole. "I think I'm going to enjoy this world."

...what?

Mouse doesn't hate the planet?

[Artemis97]

"It is harder to outrun an arrow." Joss Falkenrath rasps in response to Annie's comment. The assassin's form was shrouded in a heavy mesh combat cloak and his lower face covered in a roughspun scarf, mostly concealing a large burn on his face. Yellow eyes with slitted pupils darted left and right, taking in details of their surroundings. The scabbard of a sword extended out from the folds of the cloak, and a longbow was slung across his back. The prohibition against guns caused no issue for the feudal worlder, indeed, it gave him an advantage.

He peered out a veiwport, staring at the strange depths beyond, and shook his head. "How can you live in a place without a sky?"

[Thragka]

The psyker clutched his Aquila staff during the descent as his ears popped from the pressure. There was something of a gleam in Enoch's eye as Cell Signa dropped into the depths of Hive Abraxis. The topsy-turvy structure reminded him of Hive Tarsus, and the place a different young man had once called home. How strange that so soon into this mission he would be haunted by the phantoms of his old life - a life he had spent over a decade putting behind him before being called into the Inquisition's service.

Up to this point, he'd made little effort to get to know the other members of the cell, but he had not been unfriendly - safe perhaps a little standoffish with the priest. Most of the time they had seen him he had been sitting at tables, his two decks of cards on front of him. One deck came in a paper case and it seemed he was incessantly shuffling them, knotting his fingers over and over again, causing the cards to fall and perlite in various rhythms. The other deck was kept in a leather wallet, and he barely touched them.

Now his laspistol was tucked away under his cream Scholastica robes, though his sword and mercy blade were openly hanging from his belt. But he, too, felt a smidgeon of annoyance at having to hide the Mark IV. But seeing the structure of the hive, the prohibition made a lot of sense.

"It is clear why they proscribe firearms, however," he said aloud. The vox inducer snagged on the end of the sentence, sending his voice into an odd pitch. He coughed. "So fragile ..."

Enoch lapsed back into silence, staring out at the depths of the sea.

[Destro_Yersul]

The elevator reached the bottom with a creak and a lurch, iron grating sliding aside to admit them to the city proper. Below the spaceport was a wide thoroughfare lined with industrial buildings, glimpses of the sea visible through plated glass windows in and around the structures. There was a transit hub nearby, its outer surface exposed to the sea. As they watched, heavy airlock doors rumbled open, and one of the shuttles slid out on its guiderails, vanishing into the murk within moments. That would be the fastest way to get to where they needed to be - it looked like the city didn't have much in the way of cars, whether of the air or ground variety. In a place like this, space was at just as much of a premium as on a voidship.

A blinking sign over the entrance to the station advertised departure times to various parts of the city. Neptune Spire departed in fifteen minutes. The board also served as a list for the other spires. There were seven in total, including Neptune: The Governance Spire, The Cathedral Spire, the Mechanicum, the Deep Spire and two other residential areas, Vestus and Jove.

[Artemis97]

The blinking sign caught Joss' attention. His cat-like eyes squint in concentration as the feudal-worlder deciphers its meaning. "The transport to our quarters will be leaving shortly. Should we settle in before or after we meet our contact? Or do you think they will meet us there?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"I say we settle in before hand. Give us ground to run to, if it comes to that," the priest offered, with only a mildly disarming smile.
"Until we're done with the meeting, though, stay on guard."
On the one hand, they were in a Hive, a beautiful, beautiful hive, and the glow-globes didn't suspend themselves in the sky unaided. On the other, the prohibition against guns made the Metallican wary. He had planned to openly carry the laspistol looted from the remains on Klybo, while keeping his old sidearm hidden, as was his custom, but circumstances prevented that and he carried the archaotech hidden away next to the silent autopistol. He hoped he wouldn't draw the wrong one.
Still, having each piece of iron close to his heart centered him and kept him focused.
"You could cause a lot of damage down here, eh, Gunarke-Pard?" the priest offered to Annie, slipping into his mostly-disused Gunmetallican drawl and dialect. It's odd how the accents and dialects of home come back to you.
He patted the hilt of his scimitar fondly.
"You may look a bit out-of-place here with 'only' that knife, though. Push comes to shove, you mind comin' with me and we can look for somebody forgin' a real blade?"

[LeSwordfish]

There was an unnerving sparkle in Annie's eye as she imagined the damage a single round could wreak in here, but she put it aside. "It'd 'ave to be pushing proper hard, but i ain't saying never, aye?"

As for the question of what to do next, she shrugged. "Might's well settle in. How often do the shuttles go, anyway? An what're we doin till the neptune one goes?"

[UncleWolf]

"Until then, we simply wait." Mouse says, frowning a bit as she looks around. "Though I don't relish the idea of being stuck on a shuttle with too many locals. Even if we don't show our arms we more than likely stand out too much." She explains. "A word of warning. If people try to cause issue with us, be they gangers or simple thieves, we can't afford to show them any mercy. We need word to spread that we are a force to be reckoned with if it comes down to it. Otherwise we'll be treated like trash and walked over."

[Thragka]

Enoch smiled and raised an eyebrow - tilting the focusing band around his forehead slightly. "That," he said with a nod to Mouse, "I agree with. And that we find our lodgings first of all. As for passing the time - " and the psyker took the paper pack of cards from a pocket " - perhaps a quick game?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

Gabe spared a glance and the deck of Tarot cards.
"More of a Regicide man, m'self. Too much luck involved with cards." he opined, before addressing Mouse.
"You know, I don't know if I ever got around to saying it on the ship, but it's good to have you around again, Mouse. Looks like time has treated you well."

[Artemis97]

"Surely such a show of force would spook our quarry?" Joss summises. "Of course, we could use that to our advantage." Although it was unlikely a small altercation on a train car would even be a blip on the radar in a hive like this. However the assassin probably couldn't comprehend the size of the numbers involved when considering the population of a place like this.

There may have been a smile behind his scarf when the cards came out. "I'll play a hand or two. What did you have in mind?" Games differed from village to village, and certainly world to world, but they all had their similarities. Joss had played quite a few games around the soldier's camps back on Acreage.

[LeSwordfish]

"Nah." Annie opined. "Beating the snot out've some scavkids aint hard, an' we don't want to raise any attention, savvy? Not with the biters, or with the gangers. I'd play a few hands, if yer offering."

[Thragka]

"I'm partial to a flutter on Amasec," said Enoch, "but we don't have the time. How about a few hands of Exterminatus?"

[Artemis97]

"I may know it." Joss admits, "If by a different name. If not, well, I will learn." The assassin shrugs and looks for a place for them to play cards. If there were no convenient tables, he would simply find a seat in an out of the way corner, although the others might not like sitting on the floor.

[UncleWolf]

"I do not play for I don't believe in chance. Particularly when it involves people like us." Mouse says, addressing them all in general. "Count the times we've all cheated death and you may fall in line with my way of thinking as probability most certainly isn't in our favor at this point." She says before giving Gabe a weary smile. "Flattery gets you no where, but thank you. It is good to get out of the libraries and tomes and cogitators. It is...soothing to be in a city once more. If this were a forge world, I might even be pleased."

[LeSwordfish]

Annie settled down for the game with Joss. "Normally i'd say play for thrones but I aint gonna take your money 'fore i knows yer proper."

OOC
Because Annie plays to win: [roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

The group found a table in the corner of the transit station, settling down for a game of cards. They only really had time for a few hands before their shuttle arrived, trundling into the station through its airlock, water dripping off the hull as doors opened to admit new passengers. They were one of the first groups on, which meant they got seats: by the time the shuttle had finished boarding it was jam packed, slipping into the water filled with jostling hivers.

If one thing could be said for Landunder's transit system, it was that the shuttles themselves didn't make much noise. By the time they arrived at their destination they had each been bumped into half a dozen times, as people moved about the cabin. Stops were few and far between, and the crowd on the shuttle never seemed to get any smaller. When they disembarked at the base of Neptune Spire, the shuttle seemed to contain more people than it had when they started out.

The apartment they'd been assigned by the Inquisition was in one of the more rundown buildings they passed. The Landrian Arms looked as though it hadn't been properly maintained for years: the facade of crumbling stone fallen in places to reveal solid metal beneath, and the windows that opened to the street were covered in grime. Some time in the past someone had gone to the expense of installing carpet in the lobby, and rattling elevators that had probably been nice when they were new. The room keys they'd been given with the rest of their briefing material opened apartment 1480, which featured faded carpet in a pattern even uglier than the lobby, and furniture which at first glance appeared to be wood, but was proven on closer inspection to be entirely synthetic. There were two bedrooms, a small kitchen unit, a living area with a voxphone and phonebook, a battered old holoviewer, and a vast plate of glass that looked out into the ocean beyond. Of everything in the room, the window seemed to get the most attention from maintenance - the sealant around the corners and bolts in its fixture looked fresh.

On the desk with the voxphone, someone had left a business card. "Det. McKaren, Adraxis Constabulary, Central Branch." On the back was scribbled a personal vox code, and the message 'call upon arrival.'

[Thragka]

When they arrived at the apartment, Enoch tapped the window a couple of times with the tip of his staff. "Let's hope this is as sturdy as it looks." He had to admit to being a bit unnerved by the fact that only a handful of centimetres stood between him and a soggy, ignominious death - but then, it was probably no less safe than any shuttle through the void. He hoped, anyway.

He spared the business card a glance, then frowned and moved on. Clearly, he was not going to do the honours.

[Artemis97]

"Well, don't mess with it, then." Joss advises, frowning at the furniture. Wood that wasn't wood. That wasn't natural. He then moves to check the food supplies in the kitchen.

"I am surprised we have been given such spacious accommodations." There was no sarcasm in his voice. Something this size would suit even a large family on his homeworld, and he'd heard some very absurd things about hiveworlds.

[UncleWolf]

"Someone else call. I have preparations to make." Mouse says as she sets her pack in a chair and pulls her robe off over her head, revealing a white armored bodyglove beneath with the legs tucked into a pair of matching white combat boots. "Hate the thing." She admits before stretching herself to work kinks out. When she finishes, she begins to unpack some of her gear, pulling out guns, holsters, ammo, and finally a tank of promethium and bundles of det-cord with tape. "Any objections to me rigging the window in case we have unwanted visitors and need to vanish completely?" She asks everyone.

[Artemis97]

Joss does a bit of a doubletake at Mouse, his cat-like eyes going wide. "Didn't I just say not to mess with that?!" There was an awful lot of water outside that window. He certainly didn't want it to be inside with them.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie slung her kitbag onto the table and jerked a thumb at the apartment's entrance. "If that aint watertight blowing the window'll kill a lot of people."

[Destro_Yersul]

The door of the apartment was made of the same faux-wood as much of the furniture. It looked reasonably solid, but by no means watertight.

[UncleWolf]

"The door isn't. And the threat of such might be precisely what we need at a moment's notice. Particularly if this all ends up being an elaborate scheme to kill us." Mouse points out as she gets the bundles of det-cord and tape and a remote, heading over to the window to work. "I'm not going to go into another situation without a backup plan. There isn't much difference between being trapped underground and trapped under water."


[roll0]vs90(60+30)

[Thanatos 51-50]

With the rest of the cell getting ready to make preparations, Gabe sauntered over to the phone and business card, snatching both up and deftly dialing their contact, casually leaning the desk's chair on its back two legs, gently rocking himself with his toes.

[Destro_Yersul]

The Kitchen unit was small, and contained a fridge, stove and assortment of cupboards. They had been left a modicum of cooking equipment for anyone who felt inclined to try their hand. The equipment was of as reasonable a quality as could be expected, but the food on offer was less than stellar. It consisted primarily of synthetic spices and cans of nutrient paste. The freezer had several packages of Brontian Synth-Bacon in it, and a single loaf of bread, guaranteed to contain up to 20% wheat and wheat byproducts.

Meanwhile, Gabe had picked up the vox. The number on the card rang twice before being picked up by a harried-sounding man with a clipped accent that Gabe couldn't quite place.

"Hello? Who's this?" Once Gabe had identified himself, the voice on the other end sounded more relieved and less harried. "Ach, that's right. You lot were supposed to be arriving soon. Detective McKaren, 1st precinct. Am I right in thinking you're here to help with the investigation?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"The wonders never cease! Business cards that don't lie!" Gabe quipped through a smile, shooting glances around the apartment, and quickly gauging whtehr or not there was too much noise to put McKaren on speaker before deciding against it and dialing his commbead to transmit and replacing the receiver by his ear.
"Investigations are our forte, of course. I assume you'll want some face-to-face time to discuss details?"

Charm Test![roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

"That'd be right. Do you want to come down to the precinct, say in an hour or two?"

[LeSwordfish]

Annie leaned against the doorframe and made various "let me hear" gestures at Gabe.

[Artemis97]

Joss sighs at the food supplies. More synthetic nonsense the imperium favored. He understood the need for it, how else would you feed the uncountable citizens of Humanity? Still, the feudal worlder would take a fresh-caught, fire-cooked rat over this stuff any day. Though, the only people who could afford fresh meat in a hive were the nobles. Smirking, he wondered how much they would pay for a rat.

He turns to watch when Gabe picks up the phone. Hearing the conversation over the comm, he simply asks. "Where?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"We're going to need a little more than 'at the precint' if we're seeking to avoid attention by altering every hiveworker to the presence of heavily armed, gun-toting offworlders. Directions would be nice."

[Destro_Yersul]

"You're in Neptune Spire, right?" There was a pause, and the sound of shuffling papers. "You'll have to take the shuttle to Governance, less you fancy a long walk. Main precint building is near the Administratum block. As long as you don't go flashing your weaponry around, I don't expect the quill-pushers in there will give you much trouble. Tell the desk-sergeant you're there to see McKaren and I'll ring you up. Think it's Haas on duty today."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse takes a few moments, idly listening to Gabe's half of the conversation as she pushes her det-cord into the fresh caulking in the window. As a final touch she implants a little remote transmitter in with it, but unless people know what they were looking at, they'd be hard pressed to see the results of her work. The Saboteur hums a bit to herself afterward, messing around with her dataslate with a small smile, linking her charge with the device so she can activate it remotely if it's ever needed.

When she hears the conversation begin wrapping up, she pulls her robe back on with a slight look of disgust at it before filling her pockets with her various pieces of equipment. Dataslate, rebreather mask, grenades, det cord, a pair of pistols with their ammo, a small tank of Promethium, and then she pulls her beautifully ornate Mirror Shield from her pack and slings it onto her back. Finally she takes a moment to pull her shotgun out of it's own long holster and gives it a smile before putting it back and strapping it to her back over her shield, willing to wear that one openly as a threat to any would-be gangers.

Overall she probably looks a little ridiculous except that she's carrying way too many explosives to be laughed at.

[LeSwordfish]

"That's a nice bit of kit that." Annie said, inspecting the mirror shield. "Shiny. I aint seen no-one with one of them before. Where'd you get it?"

[UncleWolf]

"I traded for it on a world of ice and death." Mouse says with bitterness clear in her voice. "It's the same place where I got the shotgun, though I took that from the dead hands of a Skiitari." She admits before reaching back to pull it out, showing the gunslinger. "Vanaheim model. Integrated laser sight and bayonet, though if I'm forced to use the last part, we're dead meat being shipped to a Resyk center anyway." She points out before offering it to Annie to see for herself if she wishes. "Took me a long time to learn how to use it correctly. As for the rest of my gear, it's meant for emergencies. It'll be dire straights if I have to use even a quarter of it."

[Thragka]

"But you are prepared," said Enoch with a smile. "For whatever Fate may throw at you." He nodded to Mouse slowly, in what he probably thought was a gesture of respect. "An admirable attitude for one still bound by Time."

It was, possibly, meant to be a compliment - however little it sounded like one.

[Destro_Yersul]

Prepared she may have been, but Mouse's gear drew a lot of strange looks once they had left the apartment and boarded the shuttle. None of the people they saw down here looked like enforcers, and none of them looked like they wanted to cause trouble with such a heavily-armed group of offworlders, but it was clear that the shotgun was drawing a lot of attention. It drew more once they reached the Governance Spire's administratum bloc, near where the Precinct house was located. There, rows of shuffling, grey-robed adepts shot them looks of shock and surprise. Annie noticed that where, on other worlds, the bureaucracy drones might have been carrying a Phobos stubgun, these wore straight-bladed knives in long sheathes. Of course, it was doubtful any of the paper-pushers would have been a match for a ganger even without guns involved.

The Hive's Central Precint was an imposing building of steel and stone, the scale-bearing fist of the Adeptus Arbites taking up a story's worth of window space on the building's facade. The back section was built into the hive wall, dimly lit offices visible in the water just past the large plate viewports that they were coming to realise were typical of everywhere on Landunder. It was as though the hive dwellers wanted a constant reminder of how inhospitable the outside of their city was to life, and what would happen if one of the windows were ever to break.

The desk sergeant at the precinct choked on his recaf when they entered, hastily shoving his mug to the side and leaning forward in his chair behind the front desk's perspex protective window. "Do you have any idea how many ordinances that thing violates?" he asked them, pointing to the Vanaheim.

[LeSwordfish]

"You're the copper," Annie said cheerily. "Shouldn't you know?"

She took a long look around and whistled. "Swanky. We're here to see Detective McKaren."

[UncleWolf]

Those who know Mouse well will notice that she seems oddly...pleased by the attention the weapon draws. When she reaches the desk sergeant though, she doesn't smile and instead gives a respectful bow before speaking. "I am not aware of how many, no, but I am ever grateful that I am still allowed to carry this with me. I am sure you understand how one feels about a trophy being held dear to one's heart. This weapon was gained at a cost I should never forget, through horrors I'll always remember, and I'll carry as a reminder of a burden to duty one must always shoulder. To hide it would be to act as if I were shameful of it, though I do apologize for the troubles the sight might cause. Tell me, do members of your organization or yourself have such keepsakes? Something either you or your men would never part with?" She asks, genuinely curious and keeping her tone respectful the entire time.

[Thragka]

On the walk to the precinct, Enoch's facial expression became a little sullen - he almost seemed perturbed that he wasn't the centre of attention. He held himself upright and carried his stave proudly. The austere composure was maintained when the cell arrived at the precinct; he said nothing to the desk sergeant, copying Annie in soaking in the surroundings, though not vouchsafing any opinion.

[Destro_Yersul]

The Interior of the precinct, now that they could get a good look at it, was laid out in a manner that Mouse at least suspected was similar to deep-sea vessels. There were heavily reinforced walls and most of the doors were actually thick bulkheads. Here and there an attempt had been made to disguise the nature of the place with the installation of a potted plant, but for the most part the central division was an austere building. Function over form.

"For McKaren?" Sergeant Haas raised an eyebrow at them, then realisation set in. "Oh, Emperor. The Offworlders. Suppose you don't know, then." Reaching over, he keyed a button on his terminal. "McKaren, your guests are here." Then he refocused on them.

"The detective will be down in a minute," he explained. "While we wait, I'll tell you. The shotgun violates three seperate firearms ordinance, plus one for reckless endangerment if you fire it, and a fifth for destruction of vital property if the shot hits anything important. I've seen your paperwork, so I know you've what kind of authority you've got, but carrying it like you are is still going to make a lot of people very nervous. Even for us..." reaching below the desk, Haas brought up his sidearm. It was a complicated-looking thing with a flared muzzle and pressurized canisters on the sides. "Web pistol. This is the closest you'll find to an actual projectile weapon on Landunder, and they have to bring these in special. If you're going to go around with one of those..."

Mouse never found out what would happen if she kept going around with 'one of those.' At that moment, the sergeant was interrupted by a loud voice with the same thick accent they'd heard on the vox.

"Ho there! Sorry to keep you lot waiting." Detective McKaren stepped through the door from the direction of the main precinct, greeting them with a wave. He was a big man with a neatly trimmed red beard, who looked as though he barely fit in his uniform. He had a web pistol like Haas on his belt, and a large curved knife in a sheath next to it. Extending a hand twice as big as Mouse's to the closest of them, the Detective smiled. "Come on up to my office. I'll start the briefing on the way."

Leading them back through the precint, McKaren headed for a set of stairs. Central Branch didn't appear to have elevators of any sort, opting for compact stairwells instead. Annie noted that these, especially, were favoured with bulkheads to seal them off from the rest of the station. No space had been wasted, down here. Where on other worlds there might have been large lobbies or open balconies, Landunder had only windows to the sea beyond. They passed several of these on the way up to McKaren's office, light from wall mounts outside filtering in with a soft green tinge to it. "Damnable business," the detective was saying. "We've kept it quiet so far, but it won't be long before someone important turns up dead. We've had four in the last month, once a week like bloody clockwork. Wouldn't have thought much of it, always someone killing someone else in a place this size, except they've all got the same MO. Doors locked, dead in their beds, and when the chirurgeon opens 'em up for autopsy he can't find anything as makes bloody sense. Hearts exploded, organs all scrambled up, and not a mark on their outsides. Every one the same. I've got slides if you want to compare."

McKaren's office was a mess, with papers all over the desk, spilling out of file folders. A stack of dataslates was sitting in the inbox, a fishtank with some sort of exotic schooling fish was perched on top of the cabinet, and rows of books in various states of disarray filled the shelves under the window. About the only thing spotless was the outbox. "I'm in the middle of a few cases right now," he said. "Hoping to get this one good and wrapped up with your help. Take a seat if you can find one."

Dropping heavily into the swivelling chair behind his desk, McKaren smiled again, though this time with far less enthusiasm. "So. Thoughts? Questions?"

[Thragka]

"So you think these murders are related to the man we hunt, Detective?" asked Enoch coolly. "Anything linking them besides the nature of the injuries?"

[UncleWolf]

Mouse gives the sergeant a respectful nod as she's taken away, making a mental note to try and come back to talk to him later, perhaps over a cup of Recaff. He seemed a rather knowledgeable sort on things here, and she supposed he'd have to be if he had advanced so far in the local Arbites. If anyone was to notice something odd on a different level than this detective, it'd likely be him. Especially if it involved personnel here. "I actually wouldn't mind viewing the slides. And any other information you have available on the case. Time, location, occupations of the victims, that sort of thing." She asks as she fishes her Data-slate out of one of her many pockets. "Any objection to transferring a copy onto this? That way I don't have to come here every time I wish to review it." She asks, offering it to the detective. "If you have any parchment only material, I can review it here for now and make my own notes. Also, I don't know the regulations for animals within the city, but if there are any, has anyone reported similar signs in pets or livestock?"

[Artemis97]

Joss stands to the side, listening to the conversation, but not yet commenting. Rather, he watches the fish in the tank swim back and forth as he thinks, putting facts together. Deaths, once per week, all killed in the same, seemingly impossible, way. Was it some sort of ritual? A test? The doors were locked. The killed must have locked up when they left, or came in and left in an unusual way. Did the victims know their killer? Did they know one another?

"May I see a map of the locations of each death? Hunters often roam in patterns." The assassin requests, turning to face the detective, his cat like eyes glittering. Oh it was good to be on a proper hunt again!

[Destro_Yersul]

"Well," McKaren said, reaching across his desk for a file perched on top of one of the cabinets. This particular cabinet, Joss noticed, had a very large sword leaning against it. "It's tenuous at best, especially since the Inquisitor wasn't too keen on giving out details. Seems that our murder spree started at the same time as... Raltus? started sending messages here. It might be nothing, of course, but I've done this job for too long to pass up a funny coincidence."

He passed the file to Mouse, and continued. "Most of the animals people keep down here are fish. Haven't heard anything about those mysteriously dying. It's just people, and I'll be damned if I can see any links between 'em." McKaren broke off, scratching his beard. "Except, so far it's all been midhivers. Working class stiffs, in different industries. We haven't extensively catalogued all of their things. Chirurgeon says he figures they all died about 9 at night, give or take. I think someone's put up a map in the War Room, if you want locations."

Spreading his hands, he indicated his desk. "There's a lot of material. Goes all the way from the first victim, Gaius Mihal, to the most recent. Six days ago, Mr. Thaddius McCall died in the same way as all the others. Before this month, though, it wasn't quite so regular. Weeks got missed, here and there."

[LeSwordfish]

"Sounds like psyker buggery." Annie opined. "Anyone with the sight bin looking at the bodies? Or where it was done?"

[UncleWolf]

Mouse frowns in thought as she begins looking through the information in the file passed to her. "I'll look over everything in a moment, but it may take me a while if there's this much. It strikes me as odd that whatever is causing this is going after mid-level civilians. I'd have thought it'd have started in the lowest class. Maybe it has and it just hasn't been reported." She says, pursing her lips before continuing. "If it's becoming more regular, that means the person is either perfecting their technique, or they're working with a timeline. Neither prospect is a good one. What industries did the victims work in?" She asks as she heads to the pile of information to grab the top few pieces before sitting down in an open chair(if there is one), and beginning to go through it all at a steady pace.

[Thragka]

"I myself may be able to try to detect 'psyker buggery'," Enoch said carefully. "If the bodies are close at hand. Or if you give me those slides, I can attempt to divine something from the images here and now ... ?"

The question trailed off into thin air. Enoch gave the Detective a questioning look - eyes briefly flicking over to Gabe. He seemed to be waiting for permission - if a little impatiently. "After all, no time like the present."

[Destro_Yersul]

"We don't really keep any psykers on staff," McKaren said, with a glance at Enoch. "Makes the recruits nervous. If you want to go down to the morgue, we might have one of the bodies still there. Most of them have been released already. Let me find the slides."

The detective stood up, shifting some of the files on his desk. He ignored Mouse's insinuation that some of the victims had been missed. "Biggest industry in the hive is deep-mining. Harvesting minerals and things from vents at the bottom of the ocean. There's something solid down there, at the center of the planet, but I've never seen it. It's dangerous work. None of our fellows was involved in that, though. Thaddius, our most recent? He was in processing, turning all the sludge the deep-miners bring up into useful things. The one before him was a warehouse worker, and before that it was..." McKaren had to pause to think. "Accountant? Something with numbers, anyways. He had stacks of old ledgers in a closet."

Coming up with a sheaf of slides, he passed them to Enoch. There were two or three per victim, the first of which showed them pre-autopsy. All looked perfectly healthy, but once they'd been opened up it was a different story. Their insides looked like so much ground meat, and of the parts that were recognisable, none included a heart.

OOC
Mouse, make a literacy test to navigate the terrors of paperwork.

Enoch, make a WP test vs 1 insanity point for looking at the horribly graphic autopsy photos.

[LeSwordfish]

"So, no geographical similarities?" Annie asked. "I'd 'ave a gander at that map, if yer offerin."

[UncleWolf]

"If you have any of his ledgers, I could take a look at those too." Mouse points out as she takes a deep breath. She looks at the stack of papers and shuts off listening to the others for a bit as she works,trying to analyze every bit of it.


Literacy Test: [roll0] vs 60

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Mid-Hivers, worker-class." Gabe mused aloud.
"Do you happen to know if they were involved in any linchpin operations? How about their replacements? Coming from outside, or internal promotions?
Exploding hearts suggests a non-traditional weapon. Injected stimulants? Any track marks on the victims? No forced entry -- perhaps the perpetrator had a key?
Any connection between the victims?
D'you have any recaf?"

[LeSwordfish]

Do you have any recaf?

"It's important to our investigations." Annie explained. "Black, no sacc, ta."

[Thragka]

Enoch tried to keep his face blank as he flicked through the slides, but he couldn't prevent a muscle under his eye from twitching.

Once he'd given them a once-over, he sighed. Making his way to the nearest flat surface, he placed the slides down in a single pike. From the folds of his robes he retrieved the leather wallet and reverently, carefully, he withdrew the Tarot deck. He placed those cards in a pile beside the slides.

The psyker took several deep, rhythmic breaths, and then picked up the Tarot deck. Eyes closed, he began to shuffle them.

He slapped a card down on the desk, and flicked the top slide off the pile to come to rest beside it. Ever so briefly, he opened his eyes and glanced at the combination. Then more shuffling - and another card, another slide. His breathing became faster, and the vox-inducer in his throat began to hum. Shuffle, card, slide, blink, shuffle, card, slide, blink ...

Clearing his mind of all distraction, Enoch opened his mind and bid the Warp reveal the truth.

Willpower 42 versus Insanity: [roll0] and so it begins

Invocation, with +10 from the psy-focus, so against 52: [roll1]

Trying to manifest Glimpse with three dice. Target number 18, +4 for WP bonus, additional +4 if the Invocation was successful. [roll2]

Forbidden Lore (Psykers) to see if bad juju could have caused these injuries. +30 if Glimpse was successful. Will use Fortune/Fate/whichever it's called in this system. Int is 37. [roll3] [roll4]

[Destro_Yersul]

"Map's in the war room. Victims so far have been at home, in the residential spires, when they died. Let me see about the recaf, and then I'll show you where the map is." Detective McKaren stepped out of the office, just in time for Enoch to start doing his tricks with the Tarot deck. By the time he returned, holding a battered plate covered in mugs of hot recaf, the psyker had finished.

"Wasn't sure what you like, so I left it all black. Add whatever you want." McKaren distributed the mugs, talking as he did so and taking the last one for himself. "It's been a good mix, as you might expect with this many people. I think only the second fellow did anything really vital. He was maintenance, but not the Mechanicus sort or they'd have been all over this already. His job was sealing windows." A glance at the office window reminded them all how important that particular job was on this planet especially. "Some got replaced from within, some got replaced by new hires. We're not short of idle manpower in the city. Always somebody looking for work."

Enoch Only:
It was impossible to tell for sure without direct access to a body, but it was a definite possibility that the men had been killed by a psyker, and the cards supported that. Death. The Wheel of Fate. The first few cards were simple enough to interpret, and easy to guess that they might come up. Then came the Tower Reversed. Destruction and ruin, and the bodies were somehow involved. If nothing else, the drawing of that card confirmed that forces beyond a simple murderer were at work here.

Strangely, the last card Enoch drew was the Astropath, which came up apart from the others. Someone cunning, then, but opposed to the Tower Reversed.

Mouse:
There was a ridiculous amount to go over, but Mouse had recently recieved a lot of practice in rapidly searching paperwork. No matter how disorganised McKaren's files were, it was nothing compared to the data-looms in even the smallest of Administratum complexes. So far, it seemed, there had been sixteen recorded victims. They were warehouse workers, labourers, and low-level maintenance personnel, plus the one accountant. Most were men, but some had been women. Always, they were alone when they died, or at least when they were found, and the best efforts of the Constabulary had been unable to uncover evidence that anyone had been in the room with them. Doors were frequently locked, and one could hardly go out the windows on Landunder. None of them showed any signs of damage until they were opened up by the chirurgeon, either: outwardly, all of the victims appeared healthy. Mouse couldn't see their locations on a map just by reading the reports, but their addresses placed them as living across all three of the residential spires. Given the effectiveness of Hive Adraxis' public transportation system, on the other hand, they could have gone to a lot of different places on the day they died. The accountant's ledgers, by a quick glance, did not seem to have been left in McKaren's office: it was all official documents, up here. They'd probably been transferred to Evidence.

Shall I move you all to the War Room to look at the map?

[LeSwordfish]

Annie leaned over Enochs shoulder, slurped her recaf loudly, and winced at the gory autopsy photographs. "Ech. Ain't pretty."

She took another long slurp, and shuddered.

OOC
Annie is ready to move on whenever.

[roll0] vs 35 for insanity.

[roll1] perception vs 26, just a general "what can I see?"

[Artemis97]

Joss accepted a drink from the tray and added what passed for cream into it. He pulled down his scarf, revealing that his lower face was covered in old burn scars, and took a small sip and nodding to the detective to lead the way. The assassin felt the map would be most useful to him.

[UncleWolf]

Mouse frowns at the evidence before her, cogs turning her her head. It seemed that it was obvious that this was psyker work, but...why? Why these people? Maintenance, laborers, men, women...it seemed to be utterly random. But then her eyes settled on one person.

"Pardon me." She says, speaking up with a frown of concentration. "If you don't mind, I'd like to head down to the desk sergeant and get him to take me to wherever the accountant's ledgers are. They don't appear to be in here. It's only a slim chance, but the accountant seems to be the odd-man out. Maybe something in those ledgers can point us in the right direction or finally connect two or three of the victims together." Mouse gets up from her seat to get one of the cups of ReCaff, nodding to the others. "I've gotten enough of a picture of the locations from the reports, so I don't need to see the map for now, and I'm likely the only one of us with the head for these kinds of books."

[Thragka]

The first thing Enoch did when he was finished reading the cards was to quickly gather up the Tarot deck, slide them back into their leather wallet and slip it into his robes. Only then did he remember to breath.

"These are foul scenes," he said to the others. "I shall need to see a body to be sure ... but indeed there may be the taint of the Warp in these murders. And they are not the end, but a means to some other end; but what that may be, I cannot tell."

There was something else on the tip of his tongue, trying to find shape, an idea that needed the right words to be said. "And yet ... I think we are not the only players in this game. There is ... someone else? Another hunter, perhaps, that seeks our quarry." He shook his head, and then shrugged.

He took a cup of recaf and sipped it slowly, more so that the bitter taste would drag his attention back to the physical sensations of his body and the Real, than for any desire to actually drink it. Clutching the cup in his bony hands, he followed the detective to the War Room. "The map, then. But I would like to visit the morgue after."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie
The photos, having been taken at autopsy, didn't say much about where the people in them had died, but the how was obvious enough. Nobody could live when their organs looked like THAT. The photos had all been taken from the same angle, and no attempt had been made to hide their contents. These were for the police files, and their chirurgeon seemed to know what he was doing. Certainly better than the underhive sawbones back on Scintilla.

Mouse

Taking her leave from the others, Mouse found her way back down to the front desk. Sergeant Haas was still there, filling out some paperwork with an autoquill. "Back so soon," he said, without looking up. "And without the others. I take it you want something, then."

There was a pause as he scratched out something on his form, initialling the change. "That, or you're just the first one down."

Not Mouse

"Of course." McKaren said, leading the way back out of his office. "Morgue's attached to the precinct, but it's a bit of a walk to get there. I'll take you down later, and hopefully doc Morton won't be busy with anything."

The Detective pushed open a door marked 'Conference 3' and stepped inside. The room had been given over to one large central table, on which was arranged a series of crime scene photos with careful labels. One wall had an overhead map of the hive, with sixteen red pins pushed through it, string ties leading from the pins to more photos, with more labels. Each pin had also been labelled with two sets of numbers. Another wall featured a schedule with names and dates. A battered voxphone had been mounted near the schedule. Unlike McKaren's office, this room had no windows.

"This is where most of the planning happens," McKaren told them. "We've been putting together a strategy for response and confirmation of more cases in this string."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

The adept takes a seat on a corner of his desk and sets down the untouched mug of ReCaff in her hands, handle turned towards him. "A few things, yes, but I also figured you'd likely enjoy a cup before we get started." She admits with a small smile as she slips her hands into the sleeves on the opposite arms of her robes. "That, and you were cut off earlier when you were trying to explain the intricacies of the policies regarding firearms. I would like to hear the rest of what you were saying."

[Thragka]

Enoch stepped over to the wall with the map of the hive, reading the labels on the photos, slowly taking in the locations of the pins, trying to spot if there were any obvious patterns.

Int test to recognise whether, say, the murder locations from a BIG EIGHT-POINTED STAR or the like: [roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

The sergeant looked down at the empty mug he'd pushed off to one side. "Suppose I could use a refill."

Taking the proferred mug, he took a sip. "I think I got past the number of ordinances. Thing is, people here aren't used to seeing guns, they're used to NOT seeing guns, and one look at the structure of this place should tell you why. I guarantee the more legally-minded citizens are going to start reporting it. If it gets reported, it comes to us, and since we can't verify if it's you or not without sending somebody to look or trying to find the right camera feed, it wastes our time and resources tracking down firearm violations that we can't do anything about."

Enoch

The various labels on the map wall were at first indecipherable, but there was a careful method to them. They'd all been labelled to the same standard, with numerous abbreviations to save space: "Vc" meant "victim," all of whom had their own number based on the order they happened. The labels by the pins were based on location in the hive - sector and level, since otherwise it would have been impossible to geolocate something on a 2d map of the very much 3d space inside Adraxis. The photos that had been arranged by the wall, interestingly, included mostly location shots of buildings and rooms, plus one head shot with the obvious backdrop of an autopsy table for identification. The psyker himself couldn't make anything of the pattern, if there was one. None of the victims had lived very close to each other, so there weren't even any clusters to consider.

[Thragka]

Enoch spent a moment looking at the schedule of names and dates, checking that the murders had in fact been as regular as McKaren claimed, before stepping over to the table of crime scene photos and examining that.

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

Mouse can't help but smile slightly at that. "I can carry the shotgun beneath the robe with just the butt sticking above the collar. I wore it this way to make sure word got through to the local gangers that someone new was in the Hive. Someone that they will want to stay away from. After all, wearing such a gun right in the open shows that they are afraid of little, especially if it's in defiance of local laws." She points out before standing and unslinging the shotgun and shield from her back, setting them both against the desk gently. "That said, I do request that should you ever get reports of someone firing a trio of shots into a hard surface or into the air, that you send aid as quickly as possible. On many worlds it is a sign of distress, so it would be prudent to keep such a method in mind." Finally she pulls a few straps and buckles on her robe, opening it before taking it off and setting it down as gently as possible, mindful of everything that's hidden within. "Just how many people carry firearms here anyway? At a guess. And are there any other groups sanctioned to carry such?" She asks as she reslings her shotgun on her back, adjusting the strap so it's held tight against her armored body glove. Only once that's finished will she put the robe back on, adjusting it to settle exactly how it'd been before except this time it has the shotgun's butt sticking above the collar, hiding the rest of it.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie leaned in close to the pins, placing her finger on the first, and then tracing one to the next, following the killer's footsteps. "Something ****ing wierd for sure."

Any pattersn when you go though temporally?

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse
"How many gangers did you really expect to find in Governance?" The sergeant said, raising an eyebrow. He tried his best to avoid watching Mouse change, she noticed, bodyglove or no. "All of the rakehells and shivjacks tend to stay further down, closer to the tangle of hiding places and far from the constabulary."

The sergeant shrugged. "As for who's authorised to carry firearms? Pretty much nobody without influence. Senior Arbitrators might get away with a sidearm, and the Mechanicus, or your lot, can get away with whatever they like. Though, the cogs don't like bringing guns down here, by my understanding. Too much risk of damage to something important or otherwise sacred to them. Maybe a couple of the more eccentric upspire nobles would own guns, but I doubt many of them carry the things. Trust me. You run into anyone down here carrying something bigger than a cheap stubgun? They've got some friends in very high places indeed."

Not Mouse
The schedule on the wall wasn't, as it turned out, for the murders. Rather, it was the schedule for the constables and detectives assigned to work them. McKaren's name was near the top, and it looked like the detective was putting in quite a few hours on this case. Looking at the killings in chronological order, Annie didn't find it hard to appreciate why. Everything about the placement seemed random.

The crime scene photos, naturally, were for the murders. They went into less detail on the bodies than the autopsy photos Enoch had seen earlier, but more detail than the few photos pinned by the map. They covered the crime scenes and all the evidence that had been collected from them. Possessions of the victims were prominent, including credsticks and the ocassional valuable accessory. Robbery could be crossed out as a motive, but robbery was already unlikely enough just from the methods on display. Looking over the photos, Enoch was able to piece together a reasonable picture of each crime scene. The layouts of the apartments differed, but they were all small, firmly hab-class dwellings. Perhaps a little more upscale than most, given the outward facing windows.

[LeSwordfish]

"'Ang on. They all got outward-facing windows? Like, onto the water?"

[Thragka]

"So it would seem," said Enoch passively. He hadn't really been listening to Annie, but then he realised what she'd said, and his brow furrowed. "... All of them?" He checked.

"Is there any other link?" he muttered aloud. He started comparing the victims' possession, looking for anything that might indicate shared interests - religious icons or charms, ID cards, gamepieces. Books? Probably not, he guessed, if these were hab-class workers - sometimes Enoch found it difficult to relate to the interests of the common man.

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

"None right off, but that doesn't mean word doesn't spread." Mouse points out, finishing adjusting her robes after strapping her shield to her back. "People will hear through friends, relatives, and so on. If there's anything that can travel faster than a ship in The Immaterial, it's a rumor." She adds with a wry smile. "Now, onto my other reason for coming down here. I would like to go to the Evidence room and examine something related to the killings that have been going on. I believe you should have some items from an accountant stored there."

[Artemis97]

Joss frowns at the map, trying to form a mental picture of the unfamiliar hive-scape. When the windows are mentioned, he wonders aloud. "The windows are all sealed, though. It could not possibly be an entrypoint. A viewpoint, however? Possible. Would the killer swim up to the window and do... whatever magic it is he's doing." The feudal worlder waved a hand, dismissing the thought. Magic, or the Psyker's arts, were beyond his comprehension. He took a careful sip from his mug, thinking. "Our quarters has a window." He points out, his frown deepening.

"Where were each of the victims found in their apartments? Within view of the window? Is there some way to travel out there? A... what is it called? Like a spaceship, but for underwater?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

"It's my experience that gangers tend not to mingle with the habbers much, but you're the expert." Haas leaned over, pushing a button on the vox by his desk. "Warren, one of our friends up top wants to see the evidence box from Victim 14."

The comm buzzed for a moment, before a voice came through on the other end. "What? Oh, yes. Send them down."

Nodding, the sergeant pointed down the hall. "Third left," he told Mouse. "Warren will probably meet you at the door. If he doesn't, bang on it a couple times."

Any more questions for the sergeant before you continue?

Not Mouse

"Yeah, they did, actually." McKaren scratched his beard, doublechecking the photos. "You can't open those, though. They're sealed shut, and I wouldn't recommend swimming, either. A lot of the stuff in the water is bad for your health, if you take my meaning." He tapped on one of the photos. "They were all within sight of a window, though. If a psyker could do this with just line of sight, it might work if they had a pressure suit, or one of the scubs off a deep-mining rig. You think that's possible?" he asked, glancing at Enoch.

To Enoch, the possessions of the various victims looked distressingly mundane. There were no books, the assorted icons of devotion to the Emperor, for the most part, appeared to have been made in different places. Some of them had matchbooks with the same logo on them, usually accompanying a half-full pack of lho sticks. Most of them had carried an ID card of some form or another. About half of those looked like standardised citizen IDs, while the rest appeared to be workforce cards issued by specific employers. All of them had credsticks and old-fashioned metal turnkeys.

[LeSwordfish]

"You can bust someones heart through their ribs, you can bust their heart through glass. This aint, like, a stabbin'"

Annie glanced at the window as if daring a spook in a diving rig to arrive outside. "Maybe this aint a human thing though. Some kind of spook fish. Anyone gone missin' when swimmin?"

"Course, if it is human, lot of fuss ter pop some random civvies. Get in a suit or a shuttle, head out there, kill Joe Pukeface and go home happy? Nah, gotta be a reason."

[Thragka]

Enoch shrugged, and nodded his agreement to Annie. "It could be done that way. Though it seems a lot of effort. But as Ms Lee says, the death is not the goal."

He tapped a couple of the photographs, indicating the matchbooks. "These matches. This logo. Relevant, or just a common brand?"

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

The woman smiles and gives a grateful nod. "Thank you, Sergeant. Enjoy the Caff. Maybe once this is all over we can share a flask of amasec and share stories if we have the time." She proposes as she heads on where indicated. She actually has a bit of a bounce in her step when she walks now, actually cheerful now that she has a problem she can work on instead of being chained to a desk in a dark library. Even if this was just a red grox, she didn't mind. She was out, about, heavily armed, and actually got to stretch her legs and mind a bit.

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

"Maybe. Time's a bit short, with what's going on here."

Officer Warren was, as it happened, waiting for Mouse by the door to the evidence room. A thin, somewhat pinched-looking man in a carefully pressed uniform, he reminded Mouse more of an Administratum quill-pusher than an officer of Imperial Law. It was probably this that had led to him running Evidence, instead of being put on recruitment posters. He ushered Mouse through the door, shutting it behind them. Evidence was full of barred shelves, the wire-mesh doors secured to them held shut by tiny locks. The light was dim, and while windows had been included in the room's design, they were narrow and high-up, looking out onto the underside of the floor above rather than any great oceanic vista. One box had been placed on a metal table in the center of the room, next to a small pair of scissors and a dataslate.

"Victim 14," Warren said, indicating the box and then pushing the dataslate towards Mouse. "Sign here, please. All access to evidence must be logged."

Once Mouse had signed, Warren took up the scissors and snipped the red mud-tape holding the box shut. "I have work to do. Evidence does not leave this room unless authorised by the Captain." His piece said, he ghosted off between the stacks of evidence, retiring to a small office near the back. Between rows of boxes, Mouse could see him hunched over a cogitator terminal. The box he had left her with was filled with small black ledgers, and little else. An annotated list of other items belonging to the same victim, and their current location, had been placed on top of the ledgers. The list was short, mentioning only a handful of personal effects, including a knife, and what looked like another two boxes worth of the black ledgers. Checking the first book in the box, Mouse noticed that they had been arranged by date, with the most recent ones first. The writing inside each was tiny and cramped, consisting primarily of numbers in red and black ink.

Roll Literacy to sort through the books if you're looking for anything specific. If you want a more general idea of what the accountant was accounting for, roll Logic instead.

Not Mouse

"Spookfish are harmless," the Detective said. "Get a few reports every month of someone being startled by one, or insisting the damn things are watching them. Nobody's died or gone missing yet. As for swimming, you don't do that here without protective equipment, and it's not exactly a recreational activity. Water'll kill you if you stay in it too long."

As he was speaking, McKaren walked over to where Enoch was to look at the matchbook photo. The detective scratched his beard, picked up one of the images and peered at it, trying to make out more detail on the matches, or just buying himself time to search his memory. "It's not a brand," he said, "It's a club. Think it caters mostly to the artistic set, which none of these people were. Could be they just liked bad poetry. We checked it out, but the owners came up clean. I can get you the address, if you want a closer look."

[LeSwordfish]

"If they aint the artistic set, 'ow come they got the matches?" Annie asked. "That address might be pretty 'andy. An' the results of that check you did."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse nods to the man as she signs. It didn't bother her that he wasn't the poster-boy sort, after all she didn't exactly look like the type either. Well, not any more. She admits to herself, reaching up to scratch at the itchy implants in her skull before settling down to look over the ledgers slowly, wanting to see what he was accounting for at first. It'd be best to get an idea first before looking for anything specific.


Logic Test: [roll0]vs60

[Thragka]

Enoch raised his eyebrows at Annie in appreciation, which made his brow furrow around the focusing band. For such an ... uncouth-looking specimen, she was pretty clued-in.

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

The ledgers, somewhat unfortunately, contained little in the way of labels to explain what all of their numbers meant. The red numbers were probably deficits, but there wasn't anything in the latest book to explain whose deficits. The numbers weren't large enough to belong to a large establishment or interest, but they were far too large to belong to the accountant himself. A man who lived in a mid-spire apartment wasn't likely to have thousands of anything to throw around, but the operating budgets of your average noble-owned venture frequently reached into the millions. It was all very odd. The further back Mouse went through the ledgers, the smaller the numbers got. Many of them were unfinished, instead of just one, and the notations in the beginnings were different for all of these. Seperate accounts, perhaps? Anything that wasn't a number had been written in a form of shorthand with which Mouse wasn't familiar.

Not Mouse

"Bad poetry," McKaren suggested again. "Or they stopped by for a drink and had run out of matches. Bad lho habit will burn through those pretty fast. I'll get a copy of our results run off. Back in a tic."

Leaving the room, the detective left them waiting amidst the various records from the different crime scenes. He wasn't gone long, though, returning with a manila report folder and a slip of parchment. The folder contained background checks for Saul and Vanna Tarsus, the owners of the Darkroom Club. Neither of them had ever committed a major crime, certainly nothing against an Adeptus establishment, though Saul had some ties to gangers from several years ago that appeared to have been severed. There was also a spire blueprint included for the Club itself. It looked like it had a stage and seating area instead of a common dance floor, plus several private rooms in the back.

[LeSwordfish]

"Couldn't hurt ter stick our heads round the door and ask "any bugger exploding hearts in here?"" Annie ruminated. "Nobody got a better idea?"

[Thragka]

"It seems the place to start," Enoch agreed. "Though perhaps we can be a little more subtle, hmmm? And I still wish to examine the deceased, in the morgue, before we leave."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"It's certainly a common thread, and common threads cannot be ignored," Gabe agreed, having sat in studious silence throughout the meeting, playing with variable in his head to make this whole thing seem focused, instead of the seemingly random killings.
Because randomness would mean something terrible.
"Every hunter has a home den, and they range out from there. If many of our victims have visited this establishment, then our hunter may very well have, as well. You looked at the staff, no? Did you look at the regulars?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Not Mouse

"Subtle might be a good idea," McKaren agreed. "We couldn't really get a list of everyone who goes to the place. Owners had no reason to ask for names, lot of the time, and the rest of the time they didn't get addresses to go with them."

Turning, he beckoned for Enoch to follow. "You wanted to see the Morgue, right? Follow me."

The Morgue turned out to be deep within the precinct house, far below the level of McKaren's office. The steel grey and green sea-filtered light of the station above gave way to sterile white and harsh flourescent luminators as they descended. Knocking on an unmarked steel door, the detective poked his head in. "Hey, Doc, d'you have any of the serials still here? Offworld Investigators have arrived, and they'd like to see one."

"Last one hasn't been sent yet," came the reply, and McKaren waved them in.

"I'll leave you here," the detective said. "I've got paperwork to get back to. You've got my number if anything crops up, hm?" Then he was gone, hastening back up the stairs and leaving them alone with Doc Morton.

The Morgue and autopsy room was the same sterile white as all the halls down here, and Medicae-Chirurgeon Morton's white coat would have matched, if it wasn't speckled with the red of undried blood. The doctor was a tall, thin man, hunched over his operating table in a manner eerily reminiscent of an oversized spider. He had a pair of wire-rimmed round spectacles perched on the end of his long nose, and his left arm had been replaced at some point with a bulky augmetic featuring an assortment of medical attachments. The one presenty active was a rather sharp looking scalpel, which the doctor was using to make a v-incision on his current 'patient.'

"You'll forgive me for not shaking your hands," he said cheerfully. "Mine are a bit full at the moment. Never a dull moment down here. The one you're looking for is in drawyer five, on the wall there." He gestured with the scalpel. "Hope you haven't eaten recently."

[Thragka]

"Thank you, Doctor," said Enoch, imitating the chirurgeon's cheer, even if he didn't feel it. Walking over to the drawers, he leaned his staff against them, out of the way. He paused for a moment, just to take a breath, and then slid drawer five open.

He steeled himself against the sight of the body. Looking at the slides had been one thing, but actually seeing the mutilation in the flesh - oh, Throne, shouldn't have thought that - was not a little disturbing. He swallowed hard.

After a moment or two, he seemed to come back to the present. Again he took out the leather wallet, and carefully withdrew the Tarot deck, holding the cards high above the desecrated flesh. Shuffling them, he stared deep into the empty human vessel, sending his mind out to caress the horrid wounds, and gently laid some cards down on the slab, wherever there was room beside the corpse.

Since Enoch believes he might get a clearer understanding by actually examining the body, I'll do the same as before: going to Invoke, and try to manifest Glimpse.

Invocation off 52 (WP 42 + Psyfocus) [roll0]

Manifesting Glimpse with 3 dice. Target number 18, +4 WP bonus, additional +4 if the Invocation is successful. [roll1]

Forbidden Lore (Psykers) to examine the body. Int 37, with a +30 if the Glimpse was successful. I will spend Fate if necessary.
[roll2]
[roll3]

[Destro_Yersul]

Not Mouse

The body, despite the chirurgeon's warning, was less disturbing than they might have expected. For one thing, it was mostly covered by a plastic sheet, and for another, the autopsy incisions had been sewn up. Morton was good at his job, it seemed. Enoch had seen the autopsy photos, and if he hadn't he wouldn't have been able to tell that key organs were missing by the body's outward appearance. That said, it was still a dead body, lent an unnatural greyish colour by a combination of death and the clouds of billowing condensation spilling out of the drawer's refridgeration unit. The cold void between the stars had claimed this soul already.

Perhaps that thought was distracting to Enoch, but the psyker couldn't get a clear reading on the cards this time. It was all cryptic, moreso even than normal. Still, he came out of it reasonably certain that the man on the slab had been killed by sorcery.

[LeSwordfish]

"Guess that at least means it aint some kind of fancy cogger thing." Annie said. "Weren't exactly a surprise, though, were it?"

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

Mouse sighs as the numbers just muddle around in her head, unable to form them properly in her mind. She'd have to look over them again later at her own leisure and with any luck it'll come to her in time and repetition. The Adept shakes her head, clearing the too-many numbers from it before looking at the shorthand. She takes a few moments to take in the entire picture before running her fingers along it, trying to decipher the language.


Literacy Test: [roll0] vs 60

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

It was slow going, and not the easiest work. The accountant hadn't used a form Mouse knew, or he wasn't talking about things she recognised. Gradually, she put it together: There were a lot of initials here, too many for a businessman or his own work, which supported the numbers. A private accountant, then. A few of the words that showed up repeatedly seemed to reference the numbers, either going up or going down. It was probably a transaction log, or multiple transaction logs, and given the amount of money involved the logs probably belonged to nobles, or at least people who were rather well-off. Try as she might, though, Mouse couldn't find anything that indicated what they were buying. All the purchases had been marked with individual sets of numbers or initials. There was not one in common that she could find, across all of the books she went through.

[Thragka]

The Morgue

"No," Enoch replied to Annie. "It certainly 'weren't'. Well, I think we've seen enough here. Thank you, Doctor!" he called in a cheery singsong manner. He turned back to Annie. "Back to the others?"

[LeSwordfish]

"After you." Annie said, and took the opportunity to make a rude hand gesture at the psyker's back.

[Destro_Yersul]

Not Mouse

"Of course, of course. I'll let you know if there's another victim, and you can sit in on the autopsy, hm?" The medicae made no indication that wanting to witness an autopsy was anything other than completely normal.

Leaving him, the group had little trouble finding their way back up to the main areas of the precinct. Mouse must have still been looking at the records, because she wasn't in the war room with the maps.

Ok, so. A quick inquiry with the desk sergeant, or Detective McKaren (who is in his office) will allow you to find Mouse. No roll required. Where would you like to go and what would you like to do now? Sound off IC or OOC, I'm not picky.

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

Mouse quickly begins recording some of the initials, amounts, and numbers when she realizes that most of the money would have had to come from powerful people. It was a long-shot, but if they could find someone who knew the names of some of the more powerful people in the Hive, they might be able to compare them. "Hey, has anyone else shown interest in these ledgers or the man's belongings?" She asks out loud, looking up to look for Officer Warren. If he's not nearby, she'll find the evidence log and look through it to see if there's been anyone else looking for "Victim-14".

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

Warren was still in his office, but he looked up when Mouse called for him. "Not that I've heard of," he explained, "but then, we've been keeping this quiet. Anyone interested probably wouldn't know we have them. If they do, then they become a suspect."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

Mouse shakes her head in wonder. "I'm surprised. This man was dealing with people with enough money to be nobles, guild leaders, and others of the like. If there's a more secure place to put these, it'd be a good idea. I don't know what the accounts are for yet, but with this kind of money it's bound to be important enough to whomever he was working for. More than enough to kill over so someone might attempt to get these or destroy them. I recommend getting full copies made as well." She suggests before giving a sigh. "Alright, thank you, Officer Warren. I believe I'm done here for now."

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse

"Noted. I'll make backups. You think all the murders are because of these, though?" Regardless of Mouse's answer, Warren printed and applied a label to the box Mouse was working on. Then he went back to work.

Everyone

Leaving the precinct, the acolytes set off towards the address McKaren had given them for the Darkroom Club. It would have been a long way if they walked the whole distance, but one of the city's underwater shuttles was headed towards a nearby stop, and that cut a significant length of time off their journey. It was possible, they were discovering, to get around Hive Adraxis shockingly quickly for a place its size, largely thanks to those shuttles. A short journey through dark ocean, with the lights of the city appearing as glowing pinpricks of light in the water around them, and they had arrived.

The Darkroom Club was located in a neighborhood that wasn't as run down as the one their apartment was in, wasn't as organised as the one the precinct was in, and wasn't as nice as some of the ones they'd seen from the elevator as they descended into the city. It was right on the edge of a central shopping district for Vestus Spire, a black-painted facade with a flickering neon sign tucked in next to a curiosity emporium and a storefront with all its windows boarded up. The sign told them they were in the right place, but there didn't seem to be any sort of guard on the door, which was unusual for spire clubs, in Annie's experience. Back in Gunmetal City, the midhivers liked to have big guys with bigger guns minding their doors, but down here it seemed that the rules were different. Aside from the front door, the blueprint McKaren had given them showed a back door, and it looked like a nearby alley might loop around to that if they fancied an alternate way in.

[LeSwordfish]

"So 'ow we doing this?" Annie asked the group at large. "I says, back door. Place like this, probably don't want my sort in the front way."

[Artemis97]

"A few could take the back, the others the front." Joss suggests. "Take a soft approach, at first, asking questions. May lead to nothing, but it may flush the quarry, and we will be set to catch them." It was strange how the feudal worlder spoke of hunting people as if they were animals. Stranger still, as he spoke, his eyes were not on the club or any of the others, but the boarded up store front next door. "I know little of hive contruction." The assassin admits. "These two places could be connected, yes?" He asks the others.

[LeSwordfish]

"They won't 'ave doors, or they'll be proper sealed, but they probably got the same vents an' such."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse sighs and turns to look at the group, seeming...annoyed. "It doesn't matter which way we go. Front or back, we stick out like a seized up servo arm. We're carrying exotic weapons openly, I doubt we could be confused for locals, and not just that, it's a poetry club." She points out. "Even if everyone visited this place, what are the chances they'll know our purpose? They'll be skittish already due to the guns, so what we're going to do is go in, ignore the stares, buys a few drinks for a few of the patrons if possible, recite poetry if we must, and keep an eye for anyone or anything suspicious. It doesn't have to be good poetry either. We can just explain it as being the style from our homeworlds." She adds, crossing her arms. "And we're not going through the back. It makes us look seedy. Almost as bad as us standing out here discussing this for so long."

With that, Mouse just starts to head for the front door unless physically stopped.

[LeSwordfish]

"Speak for yerself." Annie muttered at the 'carrying weapons openly' comment, but she followed Mouse without further complaint, mostly out of a sort of morbid fascination.

[Destro_Yersul]

None of the people passing by spared them a glance as Mouse opened the door of the club. Stairs inside led down a few feet before opening into a small foyer, painted the same black as the outside of the club. A podium that looked as though it was made of wood, but was probably just panelled veneer, stood next to a large doorway that led to the club proper. Next to the podium was an artist's easel with a painting standing on it, depicting a number of hive buildings. It was probably a local artist, given the glimpses of ocean in the background, and seemed to be for sale. Standing behind the podium was a young woman in a uniform shirt and dark makeup, idly scratching at a writer's dataslate with a quill and only half watching the door. Beyond her was the rest of the club, which was quieter than expected - the Darkroom had none of the pumping synth music common to clubs sector-wide, being filled instead with the low murmer of conversation. The echoing clink of glasses from the bar mingled with the dull hum of an air recycler hidden somewhere within the depths of the building to give the place a sense of enclosure, which combined with the black walls and subdued decor to make the place feel a lot smaller than it acutally was. The stage was where the blueprint said it was, but the spotlights were turned off and the stage was empty for now. A rectangular signboard had been placed in front of it, the time of the next performance scrawled on it in chalk. From where they were standing, it looked like the tables around the stage had only half filled, and they could just see the opening of the narrow hallway that, on their blueprint, led to the back rooms.

"Table for four?" The podium woman asked, not looking up from her slate for more than a second. Next to the slate, Mouse noticed, was a glass bowl filled with matchbooks. "I can put you by the stage or the bar. Your preference."

[LeSwordfish]

"Bar, cheers." Annie said, helping herself to a matchbook.

[UncleWolf]

"I'll take a seat at the stage if possible, thank you." Mouse says as she glances around. With a shrug she reaches to take a matchbook if allowed to do so. "Are there any specific rules or courtesies I should be aware of? This is my first visit to the establishment." She admits with a smile. "I'd just rather know beforehand and don't want to be impolite."

[Thragka]

It had been a long time since Enoch had been at a club like this. "Here, Lee," he said, tossing the gunslinger ten Thrones. "An Amasec, if you're heading to the bar." He frowned. "And have one yourself."

The psyker tried and failed to look inconspicuous as he wandered over to the painting at the podium to inspect it, and then the list of performances on the chalkboard, eventually wandering around near the other patrons and trying to overhear their conversations.

[Artemis97]

Joss soon realizes that making a plan to cover the exits of the place was for naught. So much for trying to be clever about this. Offworlders. What did they know about hunting and tracking prey? The assassin rasps, "I'll cover the back door." Acknowledged or not, he'll work his way around to the back alleyway behind the poetry club. Once there, he'll wait by the door, preferring to stick to any shadow there might be. The man from Acreage waits in a relaxed, but readied stance, prepared to leap out at anyone who ran out of the back door. He keeps a dagger in his hand as well, lightly concealed beneath the folds of his cloak, so the shine of its edge would not betray his position. This was only just in case their spooked subject fought back, however, despite the Moritat's training.

[Destro_Yersul]

Not Joss

The matchbooks that Annie and Mouse picked up looked like the ones they had seen in the photos from the precinct. The hostess ignored their helping themselves, abandoning her dataslate and picking up a stack of battered leather-bound menus.

"Seperate seating, then." She said, stepping through the door into the club's main area. Annie was shown to a stool by the club's long bar, which featured brass piping and more wood-panel veneer, as well as a bartender with spiked hair and tattoos running up and down his forearms. He was occupied with wiping down some of the bar's collection of oddly-shaped glasses when Annie arrived. A number of other patrons at the bar already seemed to have drinks, and most were chatting idly.

Mouse and Gabe were seated at a table for four, near the stage but not right up next to it. Those seats seemed to be spoken for, even though half of them were currently empty. "Only one real rule," the hostess explained. "Respect the stage. Anyone's welcome up there for open mic night, but if it's a booked performance or whatever, don't heckle the artist. You got constructive criticism, talk to 'em after the show. Mister Tarsus hates it when people cause a scene."

Enoch's inspection of the painting didn't tell him much. It looked like a good job, by common standards, but the Psyker didn't know all that much about Art. It was a local scene, that much was obvious, but the array of painted buildings didn't match any he'd seen on the way to the club. There were no people present in the painting, which was odd for a hive, but since the apparent title was "Architectural Study in Grey, #5" it was probably a deliberate ommission by the painter. It was listed at a price of 200 throne gelt, which put it rather beneath the notice of any nobility who might be looking for such a painting. Abandoning that, and taking a look at the chalk signboard instead, he noted that there was supposed to be a poetry reading of some sort in two hours, but that nothing else had been scheduled for tonight.

Conversation amongst the other patrons, for anyone who tried to listen in, was largely mundane. Talk of jobs and popular holo-vids abounded, though there was a higher than usual amount of conversation regarding the activities of the local art scene. Sculpture was out and paintings were in, according to one gentleman in a dinner jacket, who was opining loudly on the virtues of some painter or other as Enoch passed by. He was seated at one of the tables next to the stage, and had a crowd of five or six similarly attired fellows gathered around listening to him and nodding politely. Another pair was discussing tonight's poet in hushed tones - the man appeared to have a small following, by the way they were going back and forth about how much they loved his latest work, and it was just too bad he hadn't published anything yet.

Can I get Awareness checks from the folks by the stage?

Joss

The alley was a short one, its walls lined with conduits and slowly-spinning ventilation vans. It was reminiscent of the horrible Xenos halls beneath the sands of Klybo, except that the pipes were good, solid Imperial steel. A tattered leaflet fluttered along the ground, blowing in the unnatural wind created by the Hive's air circulation system. The backdoor of the poetry club was painted black, and had a brass 'no entry' plate riveted to its face. It was shut tight, but looked like it was only secured by the old-style key lock in the handle. Evidently maglocks had been outside of the owner's budget.

[Thragka]

Enoch sat down with Mouse, glancing around to see where Annie had got to with the liqueur. He glanced down at the menu as he spoke.

"We should ask the clientele if our friend the dearly departed was a regular. I would, but my appearance tends to upset people." He sniffed. "Can't think why," he muttered bitingly - it was sarcasm, but with a core of real bitterness.

"Excellent, an Ebrius," he added, examining the Amasec available.

[Destro_Yersul]

Mouse and Enoch

After a few minutes of waiting, the table was approached by a young man with a clipped goatee, wearing a uniform shirt similar to the hostess'. He had a small dataslate in one hand.

"Good evening," he said. "Can I get you anything? Drinks?"

Annie

Annie didn't have to wait long for the spiky-haired bartender to finish wiping glasses and notice her. "What'll it be?" he called over, loud enough to be heard but not enough to disturb the conversations of the surrounding patrons. It was probably a well-practiced skill.

[LeSwordfish]

"Wotcher. Two amasecs, cheers."

She looked around the bar, taking in the clientele. "Odd crowd you got here. Smarmy suits and tattoos. Not yer usual combination."

[Thragka]

"I think my compatriot at the bar is handling my order," said Enoch, nodding in Annie's direction. "We're waiting for a ... friend. Or perhaps acquaintance. We haven't heard from him in some time and thought we might find him here, since nobody else has had hide nor hair of him ..."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

"You want the good stuff, or the cheap stuff?" Once she had chosen, the bartender filled a pair of glasses and pushed them across the bar. "It's an odd sort of place. Artists, y'know? The suits are from further uphive, come down here to appreciate the atmosphere. Slummin' it, so to speak. The others are here for a quick drink, or to support a friend, or because they're an artist themselves. We do a pretty good business with those last. You saw the painting in the foyer?"

It's 5 thrones each for cheap amasec, and 15 each if you want the better quality.

Others

"He one of our regulars? I know most of the people who come in here." The waiter said, tucking his slate into a pocket on his apron.

[Thragka]

"A man called Thaddius," Enoch said, and described the latest victim's features. "And incidentally," he added, without pause, "I don't think I gave my associate at the bar there enough gelt for the Ebrius." He slid forty thrones across the table to the waiter.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Hm." The waiter took the money, tucking it into a seperate pocket on his apron. If he thought the extra was a bribe, or a tip, he didn't say. "Thaddius? That sounds familiar. It'll come to me. One moment, while I fetch your drink." He left the table, weaving his way through the tables towards the bar. He stepped in next to Annie, pushed some money towards the bartender, and pointed at one of the bottles behind the bar. The bartender raised a finger for Annie to wait one moment, and prepared another glass of Amasec. With that in hand, the waiter returned to Enoch's table, walking quite slowly. On the way, he stopped a waitress and spoke to her for a moment before continuing.

"Ebrius. A fine choice, sir." He placed the glass on the table, in front of Enoch. "I've jogged my memory. If it was the same Thaddius, your friend came by a few times, maybe a week ago? Hadn't seen him much before, but he came in with one of our other regulars. Hiram, over there by the stage?"

Hiram was a middle-aged man with black hair, older than Thaddius looked to have been, and was leaning casually back in his chair and examining the bottom of a cocktail glass. He was wearing browns and greys, and had a thick leather overcoat draped across the back of his chair. Enoch saw dark lines under his eyes, as he raised his glass to get at the last few drops of alcohol. Hiram wasn't a small man, but he didn't look like an underhive bruiser, either. More someone used to heavy work.

[LeSwordfish]

Seeing Enoch purchase his own drink, Annie ordered a cheap amasec.

"I seen it. Intr'sting one, aye. One of yer own artists?"

[UncleWolf]

Near the Stage

"What are the rules for those who wish to perform?" Mouse asks after a bit. Despite there not seeming to be much out of place here, she couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Poetry wasn't unheard of in her Forgeworld home, but she'd always considered it a crude artform. Real art was the sound of gears, smelters, forges and massive machinery. The perfectly crafted items of the Omnissiah. That is art. Not...words. Words were so easily twisted and misused, crude things made by imperfect people. How could people consider listening to such pleasurable?

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

"It is, yeah," the bartender told Annie. "We give 'em exposure, and the boss man takes a cut of any sales. Guy we have showing his work now started a little while ago, and he seems happy with the deal. Artist we had before wasn't selling very well, though I hear he's working on some very popular new stuff these days. Maybe we'll get something in once he's done his latest."

Table by the Stage

The Waiter didn't need long to consider MOuse's question. "Well," he said, "if it's open mic anyone can go up. Other than that, we book the performers ahead of time. If you upset the owners you don't get another show, but it's pretty hard to do that."

[UncleWolf]

Near the Stage

"Is there any sort of theme set for the night?" Mouse asks. "Or do you mind at least telling me what sort of topics are usually spoken of?" She says, giving a slow look around the room. "I might be willing to try some myself, but I'm not from around here and just want to make sure I'm not going to cross any cultural lines."

[LeSwordfish]

"'Ow long d'you keep 'em for? When'd this guy start?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

"Couple months ago, I think." The bartender shrugged. "I don't keep track too much. We've sold a few of his, mostly architecture."

By the Stage

"There's no rules about content. We get a lot of different stuff. I wouldn't do anything about fish, though, most of the amateurs go for that sort of thing. It's been done, y'know?"

[Thragka]

Enoch tasted the Ebrius, and as he let it slide down his throat, his face softened. But unwelcome memories were hot on the heels of the welcome ones that the liqueur had conjured. His features were suddenly contorted in a display of unbridled rage.

The psyker blinked and shook his head. "Just as powerful as I remembered," he said half-heartedly to the waiter by way of explanation for the paroxysm. Realising this was probably not quite enough to overcome the moment of oddness, he cleared his throat. "And thank you, that is most helpful."

He took another slow sip of the Amasec - this time capable of enjoying it almost entirely without a surge of bitterness - and then, picking up his glass, he wandered over to Hiram. He sat down at the other man's table, and nodded knowingly. "Greetings," he said, before taking another sip of his drink and just staring off into space.

[LeSwordfish]

"Any paticular places?" Annie asked. "I'm new round here, wonderin where's impressive."

[Destro_Yersul]

By the Stage

Hiram barely glanced at Enoch when the psyker sat down, his eyes alternating between his empty glass and the stage. Close up, Enoch was able to confirm his earlier assessment of the man: Hiram looked like a labourer from one of the hive's many industrial areas.

"Well met, friend." He said by way of greeting. He had a precise way of speaking that contradicted his appearance, and carried with it the same sort of accent as Detective McKaren's. "You here to listen to the poetry of Mr. Connolly?"

Annie

"Hive's a big place. I think he's done one of Neptune Square that's sold a lot of prints. It's one of the bigger open areas in the hive, sits right in front of St. Elana's Cathedral. Packed with Pilgrims on the holy days, of course. He painted it when there weren't so many people around. Most of it's just buildings, though. I figure that's just what he likes painting. Most artists are like that, y'know?"

Someone down the other end of the bar called for drinks, and the bartender moved off to fix them. Annie watched money and banter being exchanged, the bartender's hands never ceasing to move the whole time. He liked to talk with them, when they weren't holding glasses or a dishrag. High energy sort of person, with a casual manner of speaking. If he didn't make a killing in tips, it'd be surprising.

He came back to her end of the bar before too long. His other patrons hadn't seemed much interested in talk. They'd probably heard it all before. "Sorry, was saying. Everyone's got a topic they love to work with. D'you ever do anything artistic? Tattoos count." He grinned.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie was proud of her tattoos, even the ones that had been lasered off her face as a condition of undercover work. "These ain't mine, nah, but I told'im where to put most'f'em."

She tipped her head back, revealing a ring of bullets below her jawline, before showing off the snakes twisted around the ornate hand cannon on her bicep. "I'm Metallican, case you can't tell." Not like it wasn't obvious. "So, s'pose it'd be pistols." She resisted the urge to draw her weapons- the musketeer was impressively artistic, in any case.

She took another swig of the cheap whiskey and leaned forward, bringing the hilts of the dual pistols on her collarbones into prominence. "I'm Annie. You speak like yer know 'bout artists- you one yerself? What'd be your specialty?"

OOC
Let's throw out a speculative Charm test: [roll0] vs 48

No specific goal but boosting his disposition. Annie's not above a little flirting to get a contact at a suspicious location.

[UncleWolf]

By the Stage - Mouse

The Adept gives a small nod to the waiter. "I had guessed that might have been the case. Still, thank you." She says, ignoring that the psyker had moved over for now. If she got up to move with him, it'd be a tell-tale sign that something was going on and she didn't want to spook anyone just yet. "I'll be sure to keep it in mind. I think I'll watch a couple performances before going up myself." She admits, giving the waiter a small smile. "To work up the courage really. I tend not to do well in front of crowds, but I like to try."

What the cogs have I gotten myself into? I'd give my shotgun to go back to that icy mining settlement at this point... She thinks to herself.

[Thragka]

"I am not familiar with his work," said Enoch. "Or the scene in general, really. No, I'm hoping to meet a friend here. Apparently he's a regular, and I haven't been able to track him down for the past week."

The psyker took the mundane deck of cards from out of a pocket and began shuffling them.

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

The bartender shook his head. "I've done a little engraving, but most of what I know I picked up hanging around here. Place like this, you learn things, enough to know that's some nice ink you've got. Course, place like this also doesn't sound like the sort anyone from Gunmetal would go on vacation. I've never been there, but the gunslingers are famed enough for a few stories to make it out here. What brings you to Landunder? Business?"

By the Stage

"Sure. You need a refill, or anything, let me know." Enoch could see the waiter moving on from his former table from his seat at the new one, leaving Mouse sitting alone with Gabe. The priest had been very quiet since they got here. Watching, more than talking.

"Friend?" Hiram was saying, as the psyker shuffled his cards. "Well, I'm here most days. After work and all. Who might you be searching for?"

[LeSwordfish]

"More or less. Some mid-hive business bod wanted a bodyguard with a bit of glamour fer his trips out here. Never really cared what he did. We arrive on landunder, he announces he can't pay me for the journey out but might be able to once we get back. 'Course, I don't work for free, so I tells him "sod that" and i tells him to guard his own body on the way back. That were a couple of months ago, an' since then, bin doing odd jobs here. Standing behind blokes and looking nasty, mostly."

[Thragka]

"A man called Thaddius," said Enoch. He dropped the pretense of staring off into space, catching Hiram with his gaze. "I'm afraid he's gotten into some trouble."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

"Makes sense. Who's the guy you came in with, then? Some other odd job?" The bartender leaned on the counter.

Enoch

Hiram frowned, tilting his head at Enoch. "You knew Thaddius too? I haven't seen him since the last time we were here. What sort of trouble you think he got into? I never knew him to be much of a rabble-rouser."

[Thragka]

"I heard he got in trouble with the wrong sort," Enoch said flatly. "And then I found he's not the only recently missing hiver that frequented this ... place. Do you know anything about that, Mr Hiram?"

[LeSwordfish]

"Aye, ye could say that." Annie said, glancing at Enoch, and his oddly flat demeanor. "Keep half an eye on him. Some folks can't keep 'emselves safe, savvy?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

"Sure thing," the bartender said. "Don't think you need to worry too much about our clientele, but I'll keep an ear open in case voices get raised."

By the Stage

"He did? He isn't?" Hiram raised a big hand, rough with callouses from hard work. "Slow down there, a moment. You don't think I had anything to do with it, do you? I'd have looked out for Thaddeus, if I thought he was into any sort of trouble. He told me he'd happened on an interesting prospect, and I figured that was just his roundabout way of saying he fancied one of the hens in here. Last I saw him he was off towards the restrooms over there, and when he didn't come back, well, I figured that meant he'd got lucky. Only he didn't show up at work after that, and that's not like him."

[LeSwordfish]

"Cheers." Annie said, and, because it lead there so beautifully, "course, some things a bird with a knife can't do nothing about. You hear about the folks turning up around town with their hearts exploded? Nasty, that."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

The bartender's eyebrows shot up. "No, haven't heard anythin' about that. How many people you mean?"

[LeSwordfish]

"Fair few." Annie said, deciding not to be too specific, in case it was suspicious. Also, she'd forgotten.

[Destro_Yersul]

"Damn. Somebody must be burying that in a thousand fathoms." This was, by the way he'd said it, probably not literal. Some local expression, most likely, or so it seemed to Annie. "Usually news travels pretty fast down here. We got a lot of people in a confined space, y'know, and bad news travels faster than good. Assuming you got a good source. You think there's some sort of crazed murderer running loose in the hive?"

He looked like he was watching a holo-vid, rather than discussing actual murder. Crime-holos were fairly popular, even on Gunmetal, though in Annie's home city the adventures of Arbitrator Ominus were usually passed over in favour of vigilante revenge tales featuring Marius Morrison or some other big-name actor. Maybe the bartender was a fan.

[LeSwordfish]

"'oo knows?" Annie said, shrugging. "I wouldn't consider this bloke a good source, exactly. Said it were his cousin it happened to... some bloke called Thaddius."

[Thragka]

"He didn't get lucky," said Enoch. "He got killed. In quite a nasty fashion. And as mentioned, he wasn't the only recently expired piece of meat that used to come to this ... vicinity."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse's Table

Once the Adept was left alone for a while, she pulls out her dataslate and begins typing and retyping, attempting to formulate some sort of poem. As she works however, she steals looks over the top edge of her dataslate, attempting to see if anyone has taken a rather peculiar interest in her companions that were making themselves a bit more known at the time.

Eventually though, regardless of whether she spots anything interesting or not, she'll flag down a waiter. "Excuse me, but do I just go onto the stage whenever I'm ready, or is there a procedure to follow?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie

The bartender shook his head, showing little recognition at the name. "Well, if it's true, it'll be the next big thing once it gets out. Everyone loves a good murder. Headlines in all the news slates, I'd wager. Now it's none of my business, but if that story looks like it's about to break, I'd find that bloke of yours and get the first interview. Make a mint selling it to the hacks at the Adraxis Tribune."

Enoch

Hiram nearly choked on his drink. "What!?" Again, he held up a hand, coughing a few times before he could continue. "Emperor's teeth, man, when you said trouble, I didn't think that meant dead. What happened?"

The shout had drawn a few looks from other patrons, Enoch noticed. This place was a lot quieter than most clubs, and being overheard was thus much easier. Hiram looked like he expected an explanation, though, no matter who was listening in.

Mouse

Nobody seemed interested, in the few glances Mouse was able to steal while still working, until Enoch dropped his bombshell a few tables over. As absorbed as she was in the problems of vocabulary, it was impossible to miss Hiram's outburst, or the attention it had garnered. Unfortunately, it was equally impossible to tell whether any of it was more serious than normal human curiosity. Even the waiter she'd flagged had stopped to look, for a moment, before returning his attention to her.

"Let one of us know, we can take you around the back. You won't be first in line, though. First performance is due to start in just a few minutes."

[LeSwordfish]

"Well, keep it down-low." Annie said absent-mindedly. "We don't want no panic."

After Hiram's outburst, Annie took advantage of her raised position at the bar to scan the room for anyone following the conversation too intently.

Awareness test: [roll0] vs 32-I-Think

[Thragka]

Enoch was starting to get uncomfortable. Accessing this information was proving more difficult than his usual research - at least in the library, the books didn't snap back at you. Not the ones a Silver Aeon had access to, at any rate.

"That's the mystery," he said unhappily, his gaze dropping to the table. "But he's in the Constabulary morgue at this moment, and his entrails are in quite an unusual condition ..."

[Destro_Yersul]

Enoch

"Well, if he's up there that at least means someone's looking at it." Hiram said, as those around them went back to their drinks. Apparently their curiosity only extended as far as verifying there was nothing more interesting going on. "You with the constabulary? You don't much look like an officer."

Annie

From her perch at the bar, Annie had a better view than Enoch. The occassional glance went in the psyker's direction from the other patrons, but the bar had its disadvantages as well: Annie was too far away to read the expressions of the observers, and couldn't tell if it was anything out of the ordinary.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie caught Enoch's eye and mouthed "need a hand?"

[Thragka]

"Not ... exactly," Enoch replied. Catching Annie's eye, he nodded desperately.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie nodded at the bartender and sauntered over toward Enoch and his friend, stopping behind the psyker's target.

"Evenin'" she said mildly, holding herself where Hiram would have to turn awkwardly to see her. "'Aving a chat, aye Enoch? Mind if I join yis?"

[UncleWolf]

Mouse

The woman winced at the outburst, but she keeps herself from looking at him and gives a nod to the waiter when he turns back to her. "Alright, I'm ready to head back." Mouse says, holding her dataslate close to her. The poem on it took some work to make, mostly because it wasn't just a poem. It certainly had been tricky to work in windows and exploding hearts without outright saying it.

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie and Enoch

Hiram half-turned in his chair, craning his neck to look in Annie's direction. "Hello," he said, somewhat shakily. "Are you a friend of..." trailing off, Hiram straightened. "Enoch. I didn't ask your name, earlier. Or give you mine. I'm sorry. Call me Hiram. Normally... there's not much normal about this, though, is there?"

He paused, patting his pockets and collecting his thoughts. "Please, miss, sit down. If you can tell me anything more about what happened to Thaddius, I'd like to hear it. This place has always been more my style than his. If I hadn't asked him to come along, well. I suppose you wouldn't be here, would you? I'm afraid I'm still not sure why you're here, actually."

Mouse

"This way, then." The Waiter indicated to Mouse that she should follow, then headed towards the hall that lead to the back of the club. The hall was narrow, with an alcove off to one side containing a pair of restroom doors, and beyond that Mouse could see a swinging gate with an 'employees only' plaque bolted to its face. They turned, heading away from the restrooms, along a hall with a number of closed black doors to the left. Undoubtedly, these led to the club's compliment of private rooms. One of of the doors opened as they passed, a tall gentleman in a dinner jacket much like those worn by the fancier patrons out front emerging to close it behind him. He tipped his hat to Mouse and made his way down the direction they'd come from.

"Must have recognised a fellow creative," the waiter remarked, rounding the corner at the end of the hall and stopping near a final door with a gold star painted on it. He opened the door, holding it for Mouse. "You'll be on after Carlyn. It'll be about a half hour, so you might want to spend it rehearsing." Then he was gone, leaving her with the room and its other occupants.

The room was small, and mostly filled with chairs. There was a low table in the center holding a collection of ashtrays and dog-earred periodicals. A humming refridgeration unit in the corner was stocked with bottled water, and next to that was a full-length mirror, cracked and unframed. A curtain-covered opening to her right looked like the other side of the identical one she'd seen on the stage. The whole place was painted black, and poorly lit by a single old lumen-globe hanging from a chain. It looked shabby, which served as a reminder that this wasn't exactly the classiest of environs.

Then, there were the room's occupants. There were three of them: The first, a man with wild grey hair dressed in a suit that looked either behind or ahead of the current fashion, sat kicked back in his chair with legs resting on the central table. He was holding a notepad and spinning an autoquill around in one hand, reading his words back to himself in an accent thicker than Detective McKaren's. The second was sitting next to him, arms folded across her chest. She wore a plain white shirt and a black vest, and was trying her damndest to look wholly uninterested in what the accented man was saying, smoking a lho stick and sneaking glances at him whenever she thought he wasn't looking. She had a dataslate sitting on the table in front of her, but it looked like it had been turned off. The last was standing, pacing back and forth in front of the mirror, his every other step punctuated by the whirring hydraulics of a poorly maintained augmetic limb. He looked up when she entered, tired eyes regarding her from an otherwise handsome face. "Hello."

[LeSwordfish]

"Annie." Annie said. She had hoped to stay standing, but she didn't mean to attract any more attention than necessary if she could help it, so she grudgingly took a seat next to Hiram. "I 'magine you've been very nice and all helpful to me buddy here an' I 'magine you'll be wanting ter continue wi' that."

OOC
I'll let Thragka/Enoch drive this, since IC Annie would start blurting out "he were killed by psykers" and so forth. If you've run up against a wall with Hiram, might be worth trying a few other victim names on him, but I didn't want to OOC spoil anything.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

As Annie's thinly veiled threats roll off her tongue, a man sitting at a nearby table stands abruptly. Previously unassuming, if impeccably dressed, he strides purposefully towards the discussion with a look of mild annoyance on his face. You are suddenly uncertain how he could possibly escaped your notice, as a wave of palpable self-importance radiates from him. The tap of his exquisite cane ceases as he reaches the table, he tips his hat to the group as he inspects the two newcomers critically, somehow managing to look down his nose the entire time.

He addresses Enoch, ignoring Annie's presence entirely.
"The patrons of this fine establishment are not interested in being interrogated Mr. Enoch, call off your dog before she bites someone. Mr. Hiram, we have not had the pleasure of being introduced, but as a a fellow respected patron, I will be sure to look into this matter personally and notify you of the result. I assure you that I have the necessary qualifications."

His attention returns to Enoch.
"May I have a word with you, outside?" clearly a statement, not a question. He turns and begins walking towards the entrance. His tone and manner obviously expressing his automatic assumption of compliance.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie visibly bristled, her hackles rising like the "dog" she was being accused of being. It was only with great force of will that she resisted the temptation to shout at the posho as he berated Enoch, but she did stand and stalk after him towards the door.

"I don't care if you come or not." she said to the psyker. "But you" -she pointed at Hiram "you stay here. We aint done with you."

[Thragka]

"Thank you, Ms Lee," Enoch managed, his sunken eyes studying the newcomer in cold, reptilian calculation, far removed from the warm-blooded thought processes of a human. "Sir. I am certain your precocity is born of ignorance rather than malice." The words came flowing back to him from some hidden groove in his soul; this was communication, not the vulgar prattling of the lesser classes. He rose to his feet, clutching his stave. "I am not 'mister'. I am Enoch, The Silver Aeon, and you will do well to remember that when you interrupt me."

Enoch don't take kindly to jumped-up Johnnies-come-lately thinking they're better than him. Manifesting Fearful Aura on two dice. Target number 7: [roll0]

[Destro_Yersul]

By the Stage

For the second time, the room suddenly got very quiet. Most of the people in it were staring oddly at Enoch. Hiram, under a combination of Annie's threats and Enoch's power, had shrunken in his seat, and was quietly gibbering under the table. Those farthest from Enoch edged towards the washrooms and the back hall, looking unnerved. Then all hell broke loose, as patrons upended tables and chairs in their newfound haste to be as far from the psyker as possible. From her position just behind Kane, Annie could see the bartender, along with the rest of the serving staff, disappearing through one of the 'Employee Only' doors. The group of men in dinner jackets had fled for the back hall, and everyone near the front doors was bolting flat out for those, all but trampling each other. A few of the braver men and women remained, cowering behind upturned tables and glancing fearfully at the exits, as though wondering whether or not they could make it.

When Enoch had risen from his chair, the club had contained dozens of people. Now, less than ten remained behind, leaving Kane, Annie and Enoch standing in the middle of a suddenly deserted space, amidst smashed glasses and scattered food.

Mouse

From behind the curtain that led to the club's main stage came the sudden sound of raised voices, followed by scraping furniture and running feet. The man with the tired eyes stopped his pacing to stare at the curtain, and the woman stood up from her seat near the table, taking a few steps towards it before pausing, evidently wondering whether or not she wanted to know what was happening out there.

Joss

Over the hum of the air circulation, Joss became distantly aware of a new sound. The background noises of the hive had been replaced by shouting, the sounds of many people running, and.. was that a scream? Yes, someone out front of the club had definitely just screamed. Then the backdoor Joss was ostensibly guarding burst open, a good dozen of the club's patrons scattering in every direction.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

The unfortunate nobleman stares at the psyker with wide eyes, briefly transfixed by the apparition that has materialized before him. He begins to stumble backwards, dropping his cane, and nearly falling flat on his back as he trips over a discarded plate. His eyes shift sideways to the exits, calculating, as he does his best to keep the monstrous being in his field of vision.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie reeled back from Enoch, nearly falling over herself- but the brunt of the power was aimed away from her, and she managed to remain standing. Shaking her head to clear it, she started to round on Enoch- and then thought better, turning to the newcomer.

"Look what yer done now." she grunted. "Complete bloody ****-up. I could shoot you, right? Legally speakin', right now, I bloody could. You too." she added to Hiram."

Resisting the temptation to punch the newcomer in his smug face, she turned away. "Mouse! Shield-lady! Where've you gone?"

[Artemis97]

Joss tenses at the sound of screaming. Something was going down, quarry being flushed. It was like the baying of hounds to the Acreage native. The instant the door opens he lunges to tackle the first person to exit from it, not entirely expecting the whole herd of people following. The assassin will attempt to hold on to the single fleeing patron while rolling both of them away from the door to avoid being crushed under the stampede.

[Thragka]

"Pathetic," Enoch muttered of the fleeing patrons, before turning to glare at Kane. "You were saying?" He held the skeins of the Warp taut as they stretched between himself and the noble.

[UncleWolf]

Mouse



Mouse had been smiling to the other poets until the all-too-familiar sound of "Everything-Goes-To-Warp-In-A-Handbasket" begins to play through the air followed by someone calling her name. When she finally gets up the will to acknowledge it, she can't help but give a loud groan before standing from her seat. "I apologize, but I recommend you all leave through the back door. It doesn't sound like things are going well out there and I fear that my friends might be the result of it. Again, I apologize for the interruption to your nights. Just...um...next time I'll have to come alone."

With that terrible apology done, she turns her back and heads out the way she came, a perpetual scowl on her face.

When she gets out to the others, she gives a glance at Enoch. She feels her skin grow cold as she starts to sweat and her hands tremble a bit, but she bites her cheek to distract her from the terror welling up inside of her. She could feel it and it made her unsure, but she had to take care of this before it got out of hand.

Those watching her will see her walking up behind Enoch, drawing her shotgun from her back as she does so before pointing it at him. "Enoch. Put it away or I'll put you down." She growls,knuckles white on her shotgun. "I don't give a frak about what happened here, but you've probably blown whatever chance we have at doing this properly."

[LeSwordfish]

"'zactly." Annie said, heading round behind the bar. "Thass why i'm searchin. Fer something."

Mostly she seemed to be taking the more expensive, more alcoholic bottles and slipping them into her pockets, but she was also poking around for papers, a safe, or any kind of record. "Might need someone who can read here. Pref'rably some bugger who can read and hasn't just dropped the fear of the gods on a poetry club to win a ****ing pissing contest."

She raised her head above the bar so they could see her roll her eyes. "Seriously, men."

[Thragka]

Anyone in front of him could see the disgust on Enoch's face as Mouse gave him an order. Nonetheless, he relaxed, and the currents in the Warp slackened and drifted away from him. He was a smaller, meaner man when the psykery departed.

"I didn't see you trying to interrogate anyone," he muttered. "Frankly, at least I got some information about one of the corpses. And this man," he indicated Hiram "might be a little more ... pliable, now, for all you know."

[Destro_Yersul]

Joss

Joss' chosen patron was evidently quite surprised to see someone waiting in the alley, much less a very dangerous Imperial assassin. He stopped for a moment, and that was all it took for Joss to crash into him, sending them both rolling to one side. The other patrons fled down the alley, not seeming to care which direction they went as long as it was away from the club.

"You've got to let me go," The man in the Assassin's grasp squirmed. "There's... thing. In there." He was trying to get away, but Joss held firm until he stopped struggling. From the brief glimpse the warrior had caught before barreling headlong into the fellow this was one of the more midhive class people, simply dressed and probably not all that much good in a fight.

"I'm not sure what happened. One minute he was normal, the next... Great black thing looms up behind him." He gave a rough description of Enoch, and from his terrified ramblings it became evident that the Psyker had tried to intimidate someone in a rather spectacular fashion. Like as not the screaming from out front had been the rest of the patrons scattering.


Mouse

The others nodded acknowledgement, standing and heading out the way she'd come in. They looked unnerved, but anyone would have been unnerved by the sounds that had just come from the main room of an otherwise sedate nightclub. Mouse had just seen the last of them stpe out the door when the curtain fell to block her view of the little backstage room.

The Main Room

Annie's search was slow going, and hampered by an inability to read most of what she found. There were a stack of bar tab parchments on a spike behind the bar, and a dizzying array of alcohol, expensive and otherwise. She'd never be able to carry it all, but a few of the choicer bottles were easily pilfered. There was no safe: that was probably in the back, and the employees were probably still hiding out in there. Most of the important records were probably back there as well. She did locate something that looked like a reservations book in the little podium by the lobby - the painting here had been knocked over by someone when they were leaving, and the canvas was lying on the floor with a dirty bootprint on it. It was worth a lot less now, Annie was sure of that.

Getting backstage was easy, using the little curtained stage door that Mouse had come out of. There wasn't much of worth back there, though: A few magazines on a low table and a refridgeration unit full of water. The bar had been a better haul than this, and the possibilities there had been shortly exhausted. If she wanted to find anything else, she'd need to check the private rooms or the staff areas, and either of those places could easily still be occupied.

From out front, she caught snatches of conversation: Hiram was talking again, now that Enoch had dropped the psyker buggery. He still sounded slightly hysterical, but it was an improvement over the wordless nonsense he'd been spewing a moment ago.

"Pliable?" the man was saying, "But I told you what I knew. Who are you? What are you?"

[LeSwordfish]

Annie re-entered the main room. "There might be more stuff to find in the other rooms. They probably got people hiding in them too, but I reckon that don't stop us, like? I reckon we're in fer a throne, might as well be in fer a titan. Make this look like a proper raid, like, make it seem all gang-y and get McKaren to squash any investigation."

[ArtifcerProdigy]

As Enoch released his grip on the terrors of the warp, and the shadows of the room faded to normalcy, the petrified nobleman began to regain his composure. Leaning on a nearby table he closes his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply.

When his eyes open, he turns and strides over to retrieve his cane before slowly and carefully moving to greet Mouse, avoiding both shotgun barrel and psyker as best he can.

"Ah, I hope that the room's average common sense has just increased slightly, I am glad to see someone else who is, mmm... disturbed by this turn of events."

As he approaches mouse, he greets her formally. "Kane Verspasien Talbec Theophilus the second. More detailed introductions must wait, I'm afraid, I must see what I can salvage here before the arbitrators and enforcers arrive and McKaren starts respectfully asking questions about why you're starting riots."

Once he finished conversing, Kane moved to look through the paperwork Annie was rifling through, memorizing the bar tabs and name list for cross referencing when he had time later.

"I will point out that people were scared off by a monster, McKaren has no power to squash the rumors." Kane responded offhandedly to Annie's comment as he works. "Plus, if we wait, there will be... paperwork..." he adds, with the utmost disdain.

OOC:

My post is a bit long, if someone wishes to interrupt, I will modify Kane's response.

Otherwise, if the others go into the staff areas anyway, Kane will reluctantly follow and continue investigating.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie raised a finger. "Oi. Yeah, excuse me. One question. The **** are you doing?"

She let that hang in the air for a second, before correcting herself. "Two questions, sorry. The **** are you doing, and how ****ing dare you talk to me like that."

[Artemis97]

Joss growls out a single name "Enoch." As he hauls his captured patron to his feet and back into the bar.

Inside the main barroom the assassin glances around at his comrades, looking the stranger Kane over with his cat-like eyes, sizing the man up, before finally settling on Enoch. "What spell did you cast on these poor people?" The fuedalworlder rasps.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

As he hears Annie's questions, Kane sighs and replaces the papers he was perusing over by the bar. He fishes through his jacket for a lho-stick and lights it up as Joss drags his victim inside.

"Ohhhhh good, a primitive, and with mid-hiver prey to boot..." he says under his breath, in that distinctive noble fashion, such that he can be heard perfectly across the room.

While Enoch responds he leans against the bar, shaking a tiny bit, still attempting to banish the horrors echoing through his mind. After a long draw he places his hands on the bar. He glances around the room, hoping that the stragglers had enough sense to get out by now, and drops all pretexts.

"Now, I assume everyone has arrived. I was hoping this discussion could wait until we were in a more secure environment, but since subtleties and deduction are clearly not your strong suit, I will make the situation painfully clear."

Kane reaches into another coat pocket to withdraw and display an arbitrator badge.

"Taking interest in your case, probably long before you arrived on planet, I had taken on the role of a disinterested noble adventuring into the seedy mid-hive to investigate correlations between victims. As this was approximately my real identity minus my profession, it was quite easy. After many days of setup, I was just beginning to ingratiate myself to the other members of the targeted poetry club to gather the required clues to proceed. At this point a group of gun-toting individuals enter the picture. These individuals start questioning and threatening the patrons in a fashion even more conspicuous than their dress, obviously in imminent danger of tipping off my quarry. I attempt to dissuade these people from their current actions so I can explain the situation before it deteriorates further."

Kane opens his arms in a gesture encompassing the room as he puts on a wry smirk.

"As you can see, that worked handsomely... So here I am, explaining myself to a group who has ruined my investigation, done their best to frighten me to death with supernatural powers, are quite angry that I insulted them while undercover, threatened to shoot me because it is legal, and have given me little to no reason to have any respect for their opinions or abilities. All the while time is wasting as the paperwork inducing authorities approach. Are there any further questions, or has this been sufficiently exhaustive to return to fixing things? Or perhaps, as Enoch The Silver Aeon has suggested, you can get all the information you need by continuing to frightening the patrons you have captured until they turn into gibbering wrecks. I must admit, that sounds like a solid alternative to my investigative plan."


OOC:
If nobody starts yelling at some point and nobody shoots him, I'll count myself lucky, and he'll turn to continue investigating. :smallbiggrin:

[Artemis97]

Joss narrows his eyes at Kane and unceremoniously drops the mid-hiver he'd captured. The assassin's face showed little expression, except for a gleam of curiosity in those strange eyes, studying the nobleman as he spoke. Hidden behind his scarf a small smile formed as he approached the new man before, in a blur of motion, hauling out to punch Kane right in the nose.


[roll0] vs 43 WS, to see if I can hit him. Not meaning to cause actual damage, here, however.

[Destro_Yersul]

By the time Kane started speaking, the only stragglers left in the room were Hiram, who had been specifically told by Annie to stay put and showed no signs of intending not to listen, and the fellow Joss had dragged in, who looked distinctly unhappy about the current arrangement. He looked even less happy when Joss took a swing at Kane, who as far as he was concerned was the only reasonable person left in the building.

When Kane finished his tirade there was a moment of silence. Then Gabe, who had until now been sitting somewhat quietly with his head in his hands, looked up and cleared his throat.

"Paperwork won't be a problem. We can have all that nicely brushed under the rug, so to speak." The priest stood, setting his glass down on the table beside him, one of the few that hadn't been knocked over. "That said, we've undoubtedly drawn attention. Well, some of us. This place isn't yet a dead end for Mouse, Joss, or myself, if we leave before somebody worse than the authorities shows up: the press. None of us wants our faces on the evening news, yes? Yes."

He pointed once each at Hiram, Kane, and Joss' victim. "I'd like you to come with us, for now. If nothing else, I can apologise for this little incident with drinks, purchased from somewhere other than here. Kane, you said your name was? You're with the arbites, and you've been here longer than we have. I want to hear what you know about the case before we decide our next move."

Even standing there in the middle of a half-destroyed nightclub, Gabe was ever the clever politician. A smile here, a compliment there... Joss was inadvertently reminded of an entirely different Gabe, weapons in hand, staring down blank-faced metal horrors beneath the sands of Klybo. Even then, the priest had remained focused on the mission.

His point made, Gabe started walking towards the door.

OOC:
Apologies to Thanatos for borrowing his character, or if any of this seems out of character for our good priest, but I need some way to help resolve this amicably, now don't I? :smalltongue:

[LeSwordfish]

Annie barked with laughter as Joss swung at Kane. "Point've order, though. I aint shooting you cos it's legal, i'm shooting you cos I want to, and cos legality don't really apply to us."

She was unwilling to say more in front of the bar's patrons, but she'd have paid a lot of money to see the jumped-up topper's face when he realised who they were.

"Fine then. New plan. We help the staff get away from the scary thing and do some raiding while they're gone. Pillers of the ****in' community, then, but we 'ave ter do it now." This was addressed to Mouse- she'd have dropped her pistols down a sump-hole before admitting that Kane might have something approaching the edge of the tiniest smidgen of a point.

[Artemis97]

Frustrated, his slitted pupils narrowing, Joss considers drawing the dagger he had readied for the fight he'd prepared for in the back alley. His anger, however, was quickly headed off by Gabe clearing his throat and speaking. The assassin had marched through a practical hell and back at that man's side, and was inclined to listen to him, and his words carried even more weight as one who served the God Emperor.

Joss took a deep breath and stepped back out of arm's reach of Kane, though he was wary for any retaliation the man might pull. But what nobleman would sink so low to fight back against a 'primitive'? Then again, how many might've died at this one's hands? Was he the kind to just give orders? Certainly talkative enough. Or did he like to get his hands dirty? Was that why he was here?

"You're right." Joss agreed. "We need to retreat for now, and quickly." He moved to collect the man he'd caught in the alleyway and escort him out the back door again. Hopefully the others would have enough sense not to walk right out the front door.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

As Joss leapt forward to strike, Kane was forced to dance backwards, the surprised look on his face shifting into one of exasperation.

Once the feudal worlder seemed unlikely to continue his pugilism practice in Kane's general direction, Kane resumed ignoring Joss' presence and quickly returned to work. Trying to get a look at all the paperwork before the group manages to get out the door, he quickly strides out after Gabe upon completion, grumbling quietly.

"Paperwork may not apply to you... Who would have thought, that the cleric has the most common sense. The wonders never cease."

Kane zones out a bit as the group walks, falling into his habit of disassembling the statements of those around him when frustrated.

"Also, barring insanity, it is practically a logical impossibility to do something you do not want to do. This implies that stating an interest in shooting me also implies desire, making your clarification unnecessary. The ability to do so legally is simply an enabler and component of the circumstance..."

He trails off into silent thought, processing the events of the day, and taking a cursory look at the data he collected.

[Thragka]

"Fires of Terra, do you ever shut up?" Enoch muttered in Kane's direction. He had spent the past minute or two vigorously massaging his forehead - perhaps the brief tangle with the Warp had adversely affected him, too. Despite his confrontational tone, he didn't make eye contact with Kane - he seemed to have deflated in comparison to the arrogant force of personality he'd exhibited moments before. Gaze low, he turned to Annie. "If that's what we're doing," he added, "I'm taking the Ebrius."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse is silent during all of the talking and simply puts away her gun as she looks around once more. "Yes, we need to leave. Give things a night to settle down before we show ourselves again. Otherwise we'll be moving too fast. If we head back to the apartment, we can discuss things there and formulate a plan. I have an idea of how those of us who were exposed here can proceed." With that she gives everyone a quick glance before shrugging and heading for the door. "But we need to leave first. Meet you back at the tram."

[LeSwordfish]

Annie looked at the labels on the two bottles in her hands, before throwing one at random to Enoch. "Sure."

She shrugged. "Fine, we do things your way. Probably easier to get the arbites to search this place anyway." Taking a swig from the bottle in her other hand, she tucked it in her pocket and followed Mouse and Gabe to the exit. She studiously ignored Kane as she did so, and clinked with every step.

[Destro_Yersul]

Gabe had picked the back exit to leave from, rather than risk just running out the front door. Taking the alley was a short detour, but less likely to connect them to the club if anyone saw. The party of 8; five acolytes, one noble, and two 'hostages,' stepped out into the evening crowd of the street at the other end of the alley without so much as a second glance from most of thepeople hurrying through it. This seemed to be a busier thoroughfare than the little street that the Darkroom Club was on, though the businesses here were just as rundown. Neon lights glowed outside the plate-glass windows to the sea, and up ahead a tram was travelling past, headlights stabbing through the murk. They caught a tram back to their home spire, but Gabe evidently felt it was not the best time to take their newfound friends back to the apartment, instead picking a streetfront cafe that was still open across the street from the tram station. The selection made sense to the more stealthy-minded of the group. Hide in plain sight, act natural, and nobody will think twice. Plus, they were far enough from the club now that running into any of its patrons was extremely unlikely. Managing to find a booth near the front of the cafe, big enough to hold all of them and removed enough from the street to afford privacy, they settled in.

Calling for drinks, Gabe started the conversation. "So, Kane? Now that we've got a moment to sit back, I'd like to hear your thoughts. What have you found?" He glanced to the side at Hiram and the midhiver that Joss had dragged along. "My apologies to you two, by the way. It's in your best interests to tell us what you may know, and also not to repeat this conversation to anyone."

During the tram ride, they'd had time to go over the few items Annie had managed to pillage from the club, as well as to impress upon their captives the need for silence. Hiram seemed willing enough to cooperate, though he kept nervously sneaking glances at Enoch, as though he expected the psyker to explode at any given moment. The midhiver was a bit more surly, having been essentially tackled by Joss and forced back into a situation he didn't much care for. Kane's arbitrator badge had been enough to keep him quiet for now, though.

Annie's haul, in total, consisted of a stack of bar tabs, both paid and incomplete. There was a good-size pile of them, but it was only for the one day. They wouldn't be able to tell repeat customers from this, just who had stayed for a while, at what times, and how expensive their drinks were. The reservations booklet was more helpful for the repeat customers. It would take longer than a single tram ride to go through effectively, but anyone who made a regular habit of appearing at the club was sure to show up. On the less-helpful side of things, Annie had also managed to make off with half a dozen bottles from behind the bar, in varying states of emptiness and quality.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

As the group entered the cafe, Kane found space between the booths to store the painting unobtrusively before sliding into the group's booth, picking his seat to place himself optimally as far away as possible from Enoch, Joss, and Annie in order of priority.

He orders a fancy, but extremely potent drink with about 4 kinds of alcohol.

At Gabe's statement, Kane raises an eyebrow with a sidelong glance at the captives. He surveys the room briefly to determine how many people might be within earshot while responding.

"I thought you lot handled bystanders differently." he said, skeptically.

"If you find the questionable present locale and company to be acceptable, I am prepared to give an in-depth analysis of my suspicions, hunches, and deductions. As infiltration of the club was my first step as far as investigation, I have access to no more information than yourselves. However, there are countless avenues along which to proceed."

[Thragka]

Enoch ordered recaf, black as the depths of the ocean, bitter as his humour.

"By all means," he said when he'd sat down with the others. "Since you interrupted our earlier line of inquiry, I'd say you owe us that much."

[LeSwordfish]

"Yeah, he cleared the club out proper. No, wait..."

Annie was bad-tempered. Aside from the collapse of a promising line of enquiry, her stomach wound meant she was no longer able to drink enough to get properly rat-arsed. This had frustrated her in the past, but never before had she been holding quite so much alcohol. She felt like a kid in a sweetshop, unable to eat sweets due to a massive chunk of buckshot in her lower intestine.

[Artemis97]

"Just get to the point." Joss rasps in a low tone. "Quickly." He added. Kane talked too much for his liking, and, though, hiding in plain sight was a sound idea, the assassin felt somewhat exposed here. He wanted to return to the apartment to regroup and formulate a new plan. He also wanted a better lead, someone to track or follow. Sitting and talking was not his favorite activity, knowing there was someone out there killing innocent people. The longer it took, the more likely it became another would die. While the others would certainly ramble on, he put his mind to the memories of the maps of the attacks, searching again for a pattern he couldn't quite see.

[Destro_Yersul]

"That seems a good place to start, actually." Gabe said, glancing again at their two captives. "Limit the depth, for now. These two can speak up if they have anything to add."

"But I don't know anything," the midhiver protested. "Your man tackled me while I was running away from..." he shuddered, gesturing at Enoch. "Who are you? What do you even want?"

Gabe smiled. "We want answers. As to who we are..." his gaze slid across the table to fix on Kane. "'You lot', you said. My guess is you already know. Care to enlighten our friends?"

[ArtifcerProdigy]

Kane addresses the party in a bored drawl, briefly turning to speak to the civilians before returning to the matter at hand.
"Very well then, since you all seem intent on involving them, I shall take no responsibility for what happens to these people."

"Our friends here are an inquisitorial cell of some sort, on the trail of some offworld heretic I would assume. Look on the bright side though, they haven't shot you yet."

As he reviews the facts of the case, his voice picks up excitedly.

"As for the investigation, the MO is constructed in such a way as to make second hand accounts and information about the crime scene mostly useless for targeting the culprit. All they allow is interpretation of motive and the ruling out certain possibilities. Though correlating the schedule of killings or missed killings with events in the city could give us additional clues. If you are here looking for someone connected outside, then looking into the methods used to communicate could also yield results. If behavior is changing on a weekly basis, that could merit investigation of the astropathic choirs. Further info will have to be obtained at previous crime scenes, or the new one tomorrow, assuming of course that they don't lie low after this debacle.

Kane pauses to take a breath and steeples his hands as he continues, speaking even faster than before, picking up further into stream of consciousness.

Determining motive may be easier than following crime scene evidence for this case. When we know their purpose, we can predict them and counter them. Destruction of the city? Possible, check blueprints, assess damage based on current murders. Check crime scene and new occupants. Windows rigged? Operative placement? Who filled old jobs? Who filled old apartments? Thorough analysis required. Could be industrial espionage, noble feud, heretics, combination. Where do the financial records point? Different motive, body delivery? Doubtful. Links: poetry club, can't be a coincidence. How do they target? Get employment logs, find appropriate assignments. Cross reference attendance sheets. Access to patrons now difficult. All questions need answering.

Trailing off into silence, he stares blankly into nothingness for a moment. Snapping back to reality and blinking a couple of times, he speaks, much more calmly and softly.

"Oh yes, and Enoch, the Silver Aeon, examine that painting for interesting psychic phenomena. Questions?"

[Artemis97]

Joss's eyes bore into Kane as he spews hypotheses into the air. When he asks for questions, the assassin speaks. "Which do you think is most likely? Though, I agree looking at who would have benefitted from these crimes is a good place to pick up the trail again." What pawns got promoted in this game?

[LeSwordfish]

Annie shuffled the pages of records in her hands. "I weren't listnin ter most of that but this is definitely something with a motive. Too much bollocks about it ter be random, like. Means there's a pattern. Someone want ter read these, see if they can see what that is?"

[UncleWolf]

"You've missed a couple things." Mouse says plainly, watching out the cafe's window instead of looking over the group. "Aside from the club, the victims all had one thing in common. Windows to the ocean. This gives us two points to work off of which leads to a third. The club is the person's hunting grounds most likely, but it is through the window that they are able to commit the crime. Line of sight seems a necessity, so we're looking for someone who not only has access to the exterior of the city, but has extensive knowledge of the layout to where they can find their victims wherever they may be. I find that part unlikely to rely on just intellect however as they'd have to spend days following the victim home to see just where they live. Specific rooms even. It is more likely they have a psychic tracker on them if such an object is possible since they are already known to be a psyker. In that case the killer can exit the Hive and home in on the signal." She supposes before finally looking back at the group, specifically at the psyker. "Which might be why each of the victims had matchbooks from the club. Do you think you can check for any sort of psychic imprint?"

[ArtifcerProdigy]

The nobleman returns the feudal worlder's steel gaze for a moment before responding, head cocked slightly to the side.

"Making predictions at this point would only provide a biased perspective on future evidence. If under duress however, my unfounded gut feeling is that these are targeted assassinations on people of importance to a plan, and for some reason I can't shake the feeling that xenos are somehow involved."

Kane stands up briefly to grab a chair from a nearby table.

"Of course it isn't random, even the insane have patterns, sane people just generally lack the ability to comprehend them. Thankfully, it appears we are most likely dealing with someone a bit more focused than that."

As he returns to the booth, he sits down in the chair and takes the papers Annie offers. Propping up his feet on the table and leaning the chair back to it's tipping point, he flips through the documents, checking for anything he missed earlier and memorizing it.

"Your listening comprehension skills are peerless indeed Ms. Shotgun. Certainly listing flooding the city through destruction of the windows present at every crime scene as a motive has no connection whatsoever. You have also made dubious assumptions which may compromise your ability to see facts clearly. Do you think it wise to assume that a door locked from the inside is absolute proof that a user of dark sorcerous arts MUST have attacked through a window? The windows could be MO, motive, or both. I do however find it strange that all the victims died in exactly the same position, at the same time, exactly on schedule possibly even originating from the same location. It tells me more is going on here than we can determine yet, we need more data."

His check complete, he rights his chair with a clunk and hands the papers back.

"I'll analyze them properly once I'm in a more conducive thinking environment."

[LeSwordfish]

"Its "ms pistols" if yer don't ****in' mind." Annie said sourly. "Shotguns are for **** who can't aim. That weren't offensive." This last was directed at Mouse.

"An what's the point of killing'em afore breaking their windows. Yer just drawing attention to it. I reckon whatever they were doing needs these people dead."

[Artemis97]

"The schedule worries me." Joss growls out. "It stinks of witchcraft. Though I am sure the local authorities have thought of that. I wonder if there is some celestial connection." The assassin muses. "They said back home that witches would dance in the forests under a full moon. Never saw any of that, myself, of course."

"Still, I will ask again, who gains from their deaths? You say Xenos? I say only humans would need to be so precise."

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"As it turns out, I was actually referring to the person carrying the shotgun. At least YOU admitted you weren't listening. The point of killing people before breaking the windows is that breaking a single window will probably cause only moderate damage. Rigging multiple windows might get noticed. So you kill off the current occupants of key locations and install operatives. Once everyone is in position, you give the word, and suddenly half the city is underwater. More underwater, whatever."

Kane stands up, hops up on his chair and sits on his feet.

"And I will say again, baseless speculation without proper data is a waste of time. My xeno suspicion is exactly that, and deserves little consideration. We are wasting time sitting around discussing things when there is a trail to be followed. Question the civilians, bring them with us, get rid of them, whatever, but get on with it. I have work to do."

[UncleWolf]

"No offense taken. I can't aim very well." Mouse admits. "But if he insults me once more, he'll find out that I don't have to at this range." She says coldly. "The theory about a plan flooding half the city is...crude. It doesn't fit the method being used to kill people. There's no purpose to it other than death and destruction while the killings have...finesse. Either way, there are two simple ways to find out if that is the goal. We let the psyker check for any sort of trace, and we go to one of the murder sites. Unless we have someone better at dealing with explosives, then I'm going to be your chance to discover if there are any, inside or out. For the latter we'll have to go into the ocean however. One way or another, we'll have answered questions about what is going on."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Access to the hive exterior isn't easy." That was Hiram, who had recovered reasonably well from the revelation that he was sitting in the middle of a group of, if not exactly INquisitors, then certainly people who had met one. The fellow Joss had dragged in had taken it less well, and was quietly wringing his hands and glancing at the door. Hiram continued without looking at him. "There's the public shuttles, but those are all on rails. You can get outside to do maintenance, or if you're a miner. That's it, less you got friends in the right places. Most people will never see the outside of the hive, except through a window."

Gabe listened, and nodded. "I agree with Joss. I think we're dealing with a human, not a Xenos. Most likely a Psyker, though if Enoch could look at the matchbooks and painting, that might certainly help narrow it down. Joss, unless you have more questions for our friend, I think it might be best if he leaves." The cleric gestured at the whimpering midhiver. "You won't say anything, will you?" He was rewarded with a shake of the midhiver's head.

"As for a murder scene, if the pattern is followed there will be a new one tomorrow night. Better chance of picking it up there. Still, you may be right. Certainly we've said all that can be said sitting here."

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"We have more than enough information gathering and analysis tasks to occupy us until the next murder. I doubt either line of investigation would allow us to prevent it, so we might as well wait for a fresh crime scene. We can check previous scenes afterwards if we find a reason to do so, but without a particular objective, they are less likely to yield results. Right now we need a place to work with significant access to the records we are interested in."

Kane leaps suddenly out of his chair, knocking it to the floor, before striding towards the exit. His face becomes more grim.

"We may get everything back at HQ, but if not, we may be forced to deal with the administratum. Regardless, I need my kit. I will meet you at the precinct."

He turns his head back towards the group with another appraising glance, lingering on any exposed weaponry.

"I'm guessing, perhaps, that I should come more heavily armed? Maybe with something that would normally get me thrown in prison around these parts?"

[Artemis97]

Joss shifts his gaze to look at the man he'd captured. Indeed, he was no longer of any use, and even if he did talk, what would he say, he'd been detained by the inquisition? The man's bad luck, and Enoch's spell, had thrown him into their hands. The assassin was fairly certain he was innocent in all this, however if that proved to be false, the look in Joss' eyes showed it would lead to his death. "Go." He growled, presumably sending the man running for the exit.

The feudal worlder sighed. "I do not like the idea of waiting for another man to die. If we had a better idea of who might be hit, I would suggest staking out their apartment. However, I doubt we will find such valuable information in time" He frowned, thinking. "Do you believe it would be possible to put some sort of watch on the outside of the buildings? Borrow some mining... submarines?" The Feudal worlder chewed on the unfamiliar word. "for our purproses?"

To Kane, he says. "I don't know if the local authorities would like that, especially if we're going back to their headquarters. Still, if you can be subtle about it, it won't hurt." At the mention of subtlety he looks significantly at Mouse.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie made an expansive gesture. "It's a dirty great city out there. A whole bloody hive. Way I sees it, it'd be like trying to watch a whole city from one groundcar. Or, like four. Dunno what we can do. Maybe if we got all the 'biters involved... nah. Wait until it happens, be right there in a few hours."

"Plus, like, we aint trying to solve these, right? We're after whatsisface. What d'you think he'll do if he finds his magic secret murder-buggery shut down? He'll bugger off, that's what."

[Artemis97]

"You're right." Joss agrees. "Emperor forgive us."

[ArtifcerProdigy]

Kane stops in his tracks and turns, eyes narrowed again.

"Wait. We aren't trying to solve this? Maybe you should enlighten me as to what I SHOULD be doing then, since that IS my job. Oh, and my remark about weaponry was more an implied question about whether your authority extends to allowing me to carry such. Since I have to accompany you, and based on your armament, I'd say your operations probably end poorly. I'd like to be able to defend myself rather than being forced to run."

[LeSwordfish]

"Not your job?" Annie said archly. "Ach, it's almost like we're entirely unrelated to you aint it? Are yeh plannin' on buggerin' off and followin some other line of enquiry? 'Cos that'd be a shame." Sarcasm dripped from her words.

There was a brief internal battle, which she seemed to lose, becoming a trace more conciliatory. "There's more ter this than murders, aye, but best we don't say it in front of the p-r-i-z-n-r's, right?" She jerked a thumb at Hiram as she 'spelled'.

"Actually, 'ang on. It's not possible to get outside without powerful friends?" She gave Hiram a hard look. "Would it be possible... fer the biters or such, to get a list of all the ways outside? All the folks with shuttles an airlocks an such."

[Destro_Yersul]

Hiram watched Joss' friend go scurrying out the door, and into the street. He almost looked like he wanted to follow. He also looked like he wanted to correct Annie's spelling, but sensed it would be a bad idea. He chewed his lip. "All registered shuttles, certainly. Anyone owning one is supposed to have it registered with the Administratum, and you've enough authority to request those records, I should think. Airlocks might be harder, since you'd have to speak with the Adeptus Mechanicus. Creepy blighters, and I stay out of their business. I don't know if they keep track of all the exits."

Gabe nodded thoughtfully, rising from his chair and holding up a hand to forestall Enoch, who was reaching for the painting Kane had taken from the club. "Not here, Enoch." He took a napkin from the table, scribbled something on it, and handed it to Hiram. "Your insight has been most helpful, sir. If you think of anything else, you may reach us at this number. Is there anywhere we can find you, if we have more questions?"

Hiram coughed, and nodded. "I'm at the club fairly often. I don't own a vox. I'll..." he paused, took the quill from Gabe, scribbled something of his own down and handed it back. "That's my address. If I'm not working or at the club, I'll be there."

Gabe waited until Hiram had left, then followed Kane out. "Annie's right," he said, "To an extent. We believe the a person related to these particular crimes is wanted for larger crimes elsewhere. We're after him. Actually solving the crimes is a secondary concern, provided we get our man." The cleric smiled disarmingly. "See you at the precinct. Discreet firepower is preferred."



A brief trip to the apartment later to store the painting while Enoch checked it, and for Gabe to look over Annie's stolen material, and they were standing in front of the precinct waiting for Kane. Enoch's probing had proven unsuccessful, any psychic trail that might have been there clouded out by the many, many patrons of the club who had examined the painting while it was sitting on the easel. There was nothing, he told them, that he could get from this item, though if they could find another he would be able to try again. The looted paperwork was slightly more forthcoming. There were many, many pages of repeat customers in the guestbook, and in the time he had Gabe couldn't look through all of them. All he was able to do before they had to leave to meet Kane was confirm that every victim known so far had, on the day of their death, visited the Darkroom Club.

[LeSwordfish]

"Well, I'm feeling less bad about crunching it now." Annie said at the last revelation. "We probly saved lives. Lot of buggers won't be going back there again."

She left her other thought unspoken - R.A. would be watching their back now.

[Artemis97]

Behind his scarf, Joss frowns. "So the club was the hunting grounds, and it's been spoiled. Will the club open again before the next scheduled killing? If so, some of us should go back there. If not, we may have thrown our murderer off. He may need to find a new hunting ground, and quickly, if he must stick to this deadline. If not... Then we have simply delayed and inconvinienced him." There was a small opportunity here, but not much of one.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

After a short wait outside the precinct, Kane arrives, now clad in some sort of light armor reminiscent of arbites carapace festooned with all manner of gadgets, pockets, vials, and other miscellany.

"Are we ready to begin? I have identified several likely suspects, as well as confirmed that ALL the victims attended the darkroom club."

He motions the group inside as he talks.

"One or more of these patrons must almost certainly be involved. We will research them in parallel with the other potential leads."

OOC:
What facilities are available to the arbites for the kind of research we've been discussing?

[LeSwordfish]

"Sounds like an idea to me." Annie said. "Want me to go do the talkin' stuff? I'm right persuasive when I needs to be."

[Destro_Yersul]

"That matches what I found out," said Gabe. "The club was certainly important. You said you'd identified some of the patrons who were there on the days of the murders?"

They stepped inside, and were waved through by the desk sergeant. It wasn't Sgt. Haas, this time, but the news of their arrival had evidently gotten around and Kane was a known entity. It was getting to be quite late, and the precinct house was largely empty. Many of the officers seemed to have gone home, though a few detectives were still around, drinking recaf and working on reports. The sound of tapping cogitator keys from distant offices mingled with the background hum of the hive to chase away the quiet, but it was otherwise very silent inside.

"It shouldn't be a problem to stop by in the morning," the priest continued as they moved through the mostly vacant halls. "See if the club plans to open."

OOC:
Remind me what exactly you wanted to do? The Constabulary have a coroner's office, records room, evidence lab, etc.

[Artemis97]

"If it does open, I will infiltrate, try to spot our predator." Joss offers. "Since I didn't terrify the entire place earlier." With magic or guns or anything like that. He didn't even stab the one guy he caught! It was real restraint for him. Okay, he did take a swing at Kane, but that was for his own honor's sake. The assassin was not a primitive. He could read and write, keep a farmstead and home, hit a squirrel in its eye at 100yards and properly skin, season, and roast it. Let's see Kane survive on Acreage. Primitive... bah.

[Destro_Yersul]

"You and Mouse are the best choice for that," Gabe agreed, consulting a wall-mounted map of the station that someone had put up as part of an evacuation plan. The records room seemed like the best place to start with what they were looking for, and so the group headed there. Like the evidence room, the records room was packed high with boxes and had a little office off to one side for the officer on duty. Right now that was a very tired looking young woman with a mug of recaff in one hand, who waved them towards the cogitator stations against the far wall and went back to staring at numbers on her own cogitator screen.

The cogitators in the precinct house were capable of connecting to the Administratum's network, with the use of a high-level authorisation code. As Inquisitorial acolytes they had enough authority to request one, and the database opened up for them, green lines of text scrolling across the cogitator screens. Most of what they were looking for was in here: There was a millions-strong list of people officially present in the hive, though they all suspected it didn't count underhive gangs and other people caught on the fringes of Imperial society. The Administratum's love of minutiae ran strong, and employment details, age, weight, everything that could be collected had been collected, and was now buried somewhere in the great data-stacks of the Administratum's central archive for anyone who had a few months to spend looking for it. There was so much information that Mouse suspected an Adeptus Mechanicus Magos would have trouble processing all of it, but fortunately they didn't need all of it. The cogitator took a long time to run their searches, making disconcerting mechanical noises the whole time. While they waited, Kane cross-checked names with the constabulary's own archive.

He found a little. Nora was especially hard to look for, without a last name to go on, and he couldn't find anything for her. Dragos Kantor and Theo Petrov weren't in the Constabulary archive either, as best he could tell. Tomika Skye had a few incidents listed, mostly along the lines of "questioned regarding intent of artwork," which usually translated to "annoyed somebody important." Each time she'd been questioned and ultimately released. She probably wasn't important enough to worry about. Viktor Kriek had his occupation listed as gelt-broker, but the long list of extortion and confidence charges implied his real job was decidedly less legal. It was a wonder he'd stayed out of lockup.

Eventually, the cogitator returned their Administratum records, spitting out a ream of paper two meters long. Again there was nothing on Nora, and the barest acknowledgement that Tomika existed. Viktor was indeed on a list of licensed gelt-brokers, and held accounts with a number of banking guilds. He probably had more under other names. Dragos turned out to be an upper mid-hive craftsman, specialising in scrimshaw and engravings, who owned his own shop. Still barely a step above working schlubs, and the archive didn't include picts so they couldn't look at any of his work, but the premises he was listed as occupying had a reasonably high rent, so it was a safe assumption that he did alright. Theo's full name was Theophanes Petrov, and he was a member of the Landrian Tithe Guild, which meant money. Lots of money. There wasn't much else about him, once you got past vital statistics, place of residence and occupation, so it seemed he'd kept out of anything especially interesting. After him came the list of licensed and registered sea-capable vehicles, which accounted for most of the printout. There were easily a thousand, quite possibly more, owned by everyone from deep-mining affiliates to noble houses to Imperial Adepta. None of the people from the club were personally on the list, going by a quick glance. Gabe ran off a list of noble houses with property in the hive, for later reference.

The last thing they looked at was previous access to the same material. Most of the records had been accessed recently, but whoever had done it had expunged their access with an authorisation code more powerful than the one the acolytes were using. All that was left was ++INFORMATION REDACTED++ and a timestamp.

[Artemis97]

"Alright, so long as she leaves that big gun of hers behind, or hides it extremely well." Joss agrees, reluctance clear in his raspy voice. "I'll be packing light as well, unless you think we'll need to worry about being attacked?" The club didn't strike him as a place of violence, well, until they had shown up, anyways. Still, the murders occurred in the people's apartments, not the club itself. He hoped for a chase. Prayed for one, honestly. However, the confines of the hive did not leave him much open space to use his bow. No, this one would have to be closer, and he'd need the subject alive.

[UncleWolf]

"If I am to be without the shotgun, I'm taking my krak grenades." Mouse says, deciding she's not going to budge at all on that compromise. It took her a good while to find all of the information they'd been searching for, but it didn't bother her as much as it could have since she'd spent the last few months using systems like this. At the end though, she freezes, looking at the message saying they didn't have access. Those watching her will see her pale a bit as she leans back in her chair and pulls the MIU plug out of the cogitator and puts it back in the socket on her shaved head. "This...is bad. There aren't many people who can keep us from accessing information, and that code means they are [I]way[I] above our level. This is bad news. We'll need to keep an eye out for anything similar as we progress. With luck it's just a one time thing, but...look at the time stamp. That was right after our target got to planet and around the time the murders started." She looks at all the others, frowning. "We might be after a rogue throne agent."

[Artemis97]

"Just don't carry them openly, so we don't frighten the patrons. Again." Joss agrees, hoping no reason to use them would arise. He doubted their hosts would approve of them blowing holes in things, especially if they led out to the waters beyond.

The assassin perks up when he hears a potential clue about their target. "A throne agent? As we are? Higher? An Inquisitor?" He speculates. It certainly would make things more interesting. They would have to be careful.

[LeSwordfish]

"Might be worth passing that one up to her in gold." Annie said. "If it aint a proper throne guy it's some bugger who nicked their details, right?"

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"Since every victim so far came from the club, and considering the culprit's schedule is accelerating, my money is on another victim from the club tomorrow. Exercise extreme caution, they know we're here and may very well run interference, or even possibly target you, depending on their objectives."

He pauses thoughtfully for a moment.

"This Viktor Kriek may be a good place to start interrogation. He has a record that can be leveraged, an eye for shady activity, and has probably been present in the club with the culprit, as well as each victim. My guess is no involvement, or possibly nominal/forced involvement. Who knows, maybe he tried to con the wrong person at the club. Regardless, hopefully his self preservation instincts will be as strong as ever. I would suggest picking him up."

OOC:
Using whatever database info is available, Kane is going to try to find a link between the accountant's documents and Petrov or the tithe guild.

Literacy(?) vs. 68 - [roll0]

Also, he'll start a request for any info he can get on the victims that wasn't already available.

I assume there was no blueprint data available?

[Destro_Yersul]

"We could send an Astropathic Communique to the Tricorn Palace," Gabe suggested, "but it'd take a while to hear back. We don't have a direct line to Valle." While he was talking, he tapped a few commands into the cogitator he'd been using, searching for Viktor Kriek's address. He found one listed, and ran that off as well. It was up-spire, closer to Landunder's surface. Probably a nice spacious apartment.

Kane
Kane, meanwhile, was running over the accountant's books in his head. The books themselves were back in evidence, but he'd looked at them before. Theo's initials weren't in any of the ledgers he'd seen. Numbers and math floated around on mental pages. Decoding the accountant's peculiar shorthand had been a chore, but he'd managed it. There were different ledgers for different clients, stacks of them. The numbers in the ledgers were too small to be tithe guild business. He had seen one set of initials from one set of ledgers somewhere else, though, and recently. The painting, that's where they had been. The painter had signed their work, as was custom, and part of the illegible painted scrawl was two very legible capital letters that corresponded exactly to the client listed in one of the more recent books. The price of the painting matched, too, thinking of the last sets of numbers. Very likely there was now a painter who would need to find someone else to handle their finances.

OOC:
Kane would already have information on all the victims as part of the official investigation. Also, you're correct on there being no blueprints. Have to ask the Mechanicus if you want those.

Took some liberties with your request for Kane to try linking things with the accountant, by the way, putting thoughts in his head and whatnot. Hope you don't mind? If you want, I can re-write it a bit.

[Thragka]

"Wheels within wheels," mused Enoch, "and fires within fires." He'd been circumspect since the scene in the club - cowed, perhaps, by the admonishments of Kane and Gabe, a dog with its tail between its leg. He kept his gaze low; when his eyes did meet others', they were mono-edged with bitterness.

Still, he felt the need to elaborate. "Even if there is another Throne Agent, they may not be our enemy. Their purviews are broad, and our comprehension shallow. One hears tales of Inquisitors working at cross purposes ..."

He cleared his throat, and his vox-throat warbled down a harmonic scale. "Petrov. Kriek. Money, and the power that comes with it. I should think they are the ones we might be most wary of."

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"Indeed, I think we have enough information to take action. Gabe, Ms. Pistols, head to Kriek's address and pick him up. Bring him back here for questioning. Joss, Enoch the silver aeon, head to Petrov's place and keep an eye out for anything... interesting. Keep your heads down, I tag him as the most likely suspect. Shadow him discreetly if possible and remember to watch out for any psychic activity. The adept and I need to go have a little chat with the cogheads."


OOC:
Before anyone leaves the station, if we decide to split up, I'd like to see if the arbites has any equipment to let us stay in contact.

[LeSwordfish]

"Right you are, O glorious leader." Annie snarked, but her heart didn't seem to be in it. The posho had a point. Viktor Kriek was rich, right? He'd have something worth nicking. Who said that it couldn't be fun working for the emperor?

OOC
I'm not sure whether this plan is for now or tomorrow, but either way Annie is happy to go along with it, taking a shuttle-sub to Kriek's hab and scouting out the place. She'll also take the free microbead.

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie (and Gabe)

Viktor Kriek turned out to live in, while not exactly a mansion, and not as far upspire as Theo Petrov's place, certainly a very nice home, even for a gelt broker. He had, Annie saw, probably the finest security system money could buy, with an imposing fence featuring multiple alarm boxes and the distinct bulk of a high-voltage wire running along the top. Furthermore, she was almost certain that the little domes worked carefully into the building's facade hid concealed picters pointed at everything from the front door to the buildings opposite and halfway down the street. Kriek's house was a fortress, but a very tasteful one. Getting around the back might be possible, but without backup it probably wasn't the greatest idea to try breaking in. Gabe raised an eyebrow at the extensive security measures, looking to Annie as they neared the front gate.

"How do you intend to play this?" He asked.

Joss and Enoch

Armed with Theophanes' address, Joss and Enoch found themselves travelling upspire, away from the more rundown environs of the hive. Up here there were fewer windows, and more looming stalactites of rock visible through the windows that were there. Theo lived in a house big enough to command its own building, the imposing rockcrete and plasteel facade looming up over the street. Large bulkheads seperated the residence from the rest of the street, and Joss noted that this seemed to be a theme, up here. If any of the houses suffered from structural integrity failure, it wouldn't have any effect on the rest of the row. Currently the entrance to Theo's house was dark, but then, he likely wasn't expecting any visitors this late. Going around the back would require a diving suit, and the front gate was securely locked. There was a buzzer by the gate, but that would hardly be inconspicuous. Of course, if they only wanted to conduct surveillance, there were plenty of shadows to skulk in...

Mouse and Kane

It was easier to find the Mechanicus than it was to gain an audience with them. The central temple-forge was located amidst the refineries and processing plants lower in the hive, where there was more access to the open ocean. The Inquisition code bought them access, but from there Kane and Mouse were kept waiting for a long time in a small antechamber while an adept busied himself finding someone unimportant enough to deal with them. Eventually such a priest was located, and the pair were ushered along corridors lined with devotional shrines and cogwheel icons of the omnissiah to the office of Technographer Ulm, which was more of a small storeroom than an office. There was a desk with a cogitator terminal, sure enough, but there were also many many shelves filled with a bewildering array of currently nonfunctional pieces of machinery. The technographer was still more or less human, with a minimal number of visible implants. Likely he had not yet risen high enough in the Mechanicus heirarchy to warrant more.

Waving at them to take seats on a pair of crates that apparently doubled as visitor chairs, Ulm didn't look up from the collection of tiny cogs he had spread across his desk. Evidently he expected they would tell him what they wanted soon enough.

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"Ahhh... The legendary hospitality of the adeptus mechanicus."

Kane remarked derisively as the trio entered the office and moved to take their seats.

"Technographer Ulm, we require access to city blueprints to further an investigation. Where might we acquire access to, or copies of these type of documents?"


OOC:
Tech use/common lore (tech)/awareness/whatever to try to determine what he's working on: [roll0] vs. 58

[Thragka]

Joss and Enoch

"I understand you prefer to do things the subtle way," Enoch said. "Why don't we make ourselves inconspicuous for a little, and I will see what I can ... see."

Invocation test against Int 42: [roll0] - failed.

Manifesting Sense Presence on one die. Target number 7, +4 to roll for WP bonus, addition +4 if the Invocation succeeded. [roll1] +4 = 7, success.

[Artemis97]

Joss and Enoch

"Alright." The feudal worlder agrees, finding a shadow to make himself comfortable in while watching the front of the building, and studying it to perhaps find a way in. Would vaulting over the gate be easy enough? Though that was just him itching for action. The hive was too enclosed for his liking and the day that was spent pouring through data for evidence had bored him to dullness. The assassin puts a conspicuous amount of space between himself and Enoch, uncomfortable with Psykers in general, and perhaps wary of whatever strange magics the man was employing.

[LeSwordfish]

"Not really one for plans." Annie said, eyeing the security while purposefully striding for the front door. "Rather make it up as I go along, if'm honest."

She scrutinized the gate for some kind of buzzer or bell, activating it with a firm press of her thumb. "Fer example."

[LeSwordfish]

"Not really one for plans." Annie said, eyeing the security while purposefully striding for the front door. "Rather make it up as I go along, if'm honest."

She scrutinized the gate for some kind of buzzer or bell, activating it with a firm press of her thumb. "Fer example. Stand quiet, look priestly an' armless."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse and Kane

Unlike Kane, Mouse seems perfectly at ease here, even smiling a bit as she waits. "Reminds me of home." She admits before following the clerk to the office. "My apologies for my comrade's brashness. While he speaks truth of what we seek, he is unenlightened towards the intricacies of The Mechanicus and lacks patience." She says, hoping to placate any hard feelings before they begin. "First off, thank you for seeing us, Technographer. We understand your time is important."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie (and Gabe)

There was a button on a box to one side of the gate that produced a satisfying buzzing noise when pressed. Above the button was a vox grille. It took a minute or two, and multiple presses of the button, to get a response.

"Whatever you're selling, we don't want it."

Joss and Enoch

The gate could be vaulted, Joss suspected, if one had enough momentum and managed to avoid spearing oneself on the ornamental spikes along the top. Once on the other side, though, getting into the actual building was likely to be considerably harder. There were plenty of handholds, if somebody wanted to try climbing up to a window, but it looked like the windows weren't designed to open. You would have to break one, and that would be noisy and messy.

Reaching out through the warp, Enoch searched for the tiny candles of human life. He tuned out the background noise as best he could - this was a hive, and he was surrounded by humanity, but by focusing only on the building in front of him he was able to pick out the people inside. There were four. Three together, on one of the upper levels, and the fourth down below, nearer the back of the house than the front. It seemed that Mr. Petrov had guests.

Mouse and Kane

"All time is important," the Technographer said, finally looking up from his work to focus on them. One of his eyes had been replaced by an augmetic, one of the few implants he seemed to have, and it gave him a curious uneven stare, since the bulky augmetic protruded much further than his natural eye. "Yours too, I assume. I regret that mine is perhaps the least valuable we have to offer you. You want hive blueprints? Which ones? I have..."

His augmetic eye whirred and unfocused for a moment, and then he shook his head and looked back at them. "Your authorisation just cleared. It's a little more robust than I'm used to seeing. Very interesting. An investigation, you say? Well, I have been cleared to inform you that the Mechanicus is prepared to co-operate, to an extent. We will happily provide you with all public and private building plans you may require. The hive's construction has been documented extensively, though there are sometimes..." here his head twitched to one side. "Unauthorised modifications in the sublevels. It is most vexing. I must assert that all documents dealing with the inner construction and working of the Omnissiah's mysteries will not be made available to you at this time. Now. Which do you require? All told, the plans for this hive take up a significant amount of noospheric storage space in our cogitator banks. It would be inefficient to take all of them on a portable medium. You would need a small fleet of mid-class haulers to transport them..."

Ulm was typical Mechanicus, Mouse recognised. If they let him, he'd ramble on like this for ages.

[Thragka]

Joss and Enoch

Enoch shivered as his attention returned to the mundane. He moved closer to Joss to report his divining. "Four people inside," he said to the assassin. "Three together, upstairs. One down the back - a servant, or guard, maybe. What do you think? We could just knock, though I am not very ..."

The psyker lapsed off into awkward silence.

[Artemis97]

Joss and Enoch

"We'll knock. It's polite, after all." Joss decides. "If no one answers, or if we're turned away, I'm vaulting the wall." The assassin straightens up and adjusts his cloak so the weaponry he was carrying was better concealed and also pulled up the scarf that covered the lower half of his face. "You had best do the talking. I am not so good with people." He admits in a raspy growl. He'll follow just a step behind Enoch as they approach the door, looking much like hired muscle to guard him.

[Thragka]

Enoch made a kind of strangled noise in his throat. "Fine," he managed.

Walking up to the gate, he pressed the buzzer.

[LeSwordfish]

"Good to hear that." Annie said. "Nice ter meet a savvy consumer, aye?" She searched the back of her mind for a second. "You'd be Mr Kriek, right? Me name's Annie Lee an' this is Father Gabriel. We was hoping ter have a word. It's important, like."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie (and Gabe)

"Father? As in, Adeptus Ministorum?" There was a pause, during which the intercomm crackled. "Forgive the assumption. I am Mr. Kriek's butler. You may call me Sergey. Mr. Kriek does not usually accept visitors at this hour. May I inquire as to the purpose of your visit?"

Joss and Enoch

The buzzer sent a set of chimes reverberating through the house, audible even from the front gate, though badly muffled. Joss had plenty of time to consider vaulting the fence before it was answered, by a soft-spoken male voice. "Good evening. Are you here for the party? Ah, but let me see... no, I don't believe I have seen you before. Your names, please."

Mouse and Kane

Ten minutes later, Ulm was still going. "...and I don't think you will be able to fit more than a half a sector, maybe the plans for the whole thing if it's a small one and has been greatly, ahem, edited before being deemed suitable for disbursement, onto a standard dataslate. I've got some with a marginally higher capacity around here somewhere, though I can't really give them out for free, you understand, so if you want one of those there is the small matter of the fee to negotiate, but they're well worth it really. I believe I could store up to 1.66 times as much information, suitable compressed, onto one of these and retrieval of the information happens at a greatly increased speed. The units themselves are somewhat bulkier than you might be used to, you see on the back here, this vent? You must be careful to allow adequate ventilation to the unit at all times, or its machine spirit may become sluggish and unresponsive, in which case I must insist that you take it to a properly sanctioned techpriest to perform the maintenance rituals. Unsanctioned tampering with the unit's machine spirit is an affront against the Omnissiah, of course..."

He showed no signs of stopping any time soon, even having resumed his task of carefully re-arranging the cogs arrayed on his desk. He talked as he worked, and had probably recieved a number of intrusive cranial implants to go with his more visible eye, if his ability to multitask was any indication.

[Thragka]

Joss and Enoch

"Enoch. This is my ... companion, Joss." Ha paused awkwardly. "We, ah, met Mr Petrov at the Darkroom Club."

[Artemis97]

Joss and Enoch

A party?! Emperor help us... Well, at least it would be easy to keep an eye on things. Maybe there'd be some real food, too.

[LeSwordfish]

"Ministorum, aye. If you could kindly inform Mister Kriek that we're not his usual visitors." Annie said. "An' that he'd find it very much worth his while ter have a chat with us."

She thought for a moment. Top of the line security? What did Viktor Kriek value? Easy money. "We 'ave reason ter believe Mister Kriek aint entirely safe."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse and Kane

Mouse didn't mind the blather all that much, used to such, but eventually enough is enough and she pulls out her dataslate to pass it over. "We don't need that much detail unfortunately, though there might be a day we could use your expertise in such matters. If so, we'll be certain to ask for you by name." She says, sounding firm even though she smiles. "We need just a basic map of the outline of the city near here, with the entrances to the ocean marked." She adds before nodding to her companion to finish. This was his plan, he could relay the rest of it.

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie (and Gabe)

"Hm. I shall check with Mr. Kriek." The voice on the other end sounded uncertain, but a few minutes later the gate swung open to admit them. They were met at the door by a man in a suit, sporting a neat mustache and a skeptical expression.

"Good evening, Father. Miss Lee. Please follow me." He led them down the hall, a little bobbing servo-skull with a glow-lamp slung under its jaw lighting the way. The interior of Kriek's home was done in a baroque, richly ostentatious style that Annie would never have been able to afford. There was gilding on everything, from picture frames to wall trim, and the furniture looked like it was made from real wood. Sergey stopped at a tall paneled-wood door, holding it open and gesturing them inside. He followed them through, shutting the door behind himself, and took up position to the side of it.

They found themselves in a high-ceilinged drawing room with narrow windows, their velvet curtains drawn nearly shut. Through cracks in the velvet, pale light filtered in from lamps outside. Kriek's house wasn't close enough to the edge of the spire to have a direct view of the ocean, but that probably suited him just fine. He didn't have any windows with a thousand tonnes of water on the other side. The skull that had lit their way flitted upwards, joining two or three others in idly circling the room, their dangling lamps sending shadows flickering across the walls of panelled wood. Opposite the windows was a large fireplace, unlit, and a mantle dominated by a large portrait of a scowling man with an aggressive jawline covered in a thick black beard, complete with mustache, and short, neatly combed hair. He was wearing expensive looking clothing, and was the twin of the man sitting in front of the fireplace in a high-backed chair, smoking a cigar and watching them carefully.

He tapped the cigar on an ashtray to his left and leaned forward slightly. Annie noticed the hilts of several knives sticking out from under his coat. "Sergey tells me you believe I am not safe," he said.

Joss and Enoch

"At the club? Of course. I'll send you up. If you'll just give me a moment..." Several more minutes passed, before the door opened and a small-ish, unassuming man in a white shirt and bowtie. He beckoned them over and stood aside to let them enter. "Mr. Petrov says he doesn't remember your names, but you are welcome to join regardless. He is a great patron of the arts, Mr. Petrov, and says he is always happy to meet other like-minded individuals."

Most of the doors in Theo's home were closed, but the overall impression of the house was refined sophistication. Paintings covered every wall, spaced at aesthetically pleasing intervals. Upon inspection, each proved to be an original item, many signed twice by the painter. Most appeared to be local, but there some that had been acquired, at no doubt great expense, from other worlds in the sector. The sound of music floated up from somewhere deeper within the house, and the servant in the bowtie ushered them towards it, allowing them to pause every now and then if a particular painting caught their eye. There were landscapes and religious scenes, paintings depicting portions of famous legends, and many, many images of fish. The room they eventually found themselves in was a ballroom, though a little on the small side, with thick purple curtains and pale, cream-coloured walls. Large plate-glass windows covered the far wall, opening into the ocean beyond. The floor was carpeted, and seating seemed to consist entirely of chaise lounges and piles of cushions arranged about the room. A little table had been set up along one wall with a platter of, yes, actual food. Not a great deal of it, and rather a lot of alcohol, comparatively, but food nonetheless. The host was seated on one of the lounges, a crystal goblet of amasec in one hand, talking animatedly to two decidedly attractive women.

Theophanes Petrov didn't look like the typical image of a mercantile guild member, which is to say he was not fat and pompous. He was wearing a waistcoat and cravat, was clean-shaven with strong features, and had a voice that made people sit up and listen. Small wonder he seemed to be so successful. He sat up when he saw them come in, waving them the assortment of cushions.

"Joss and Enoch! Afraid I don't remember you, at the moment. I do hope you'll forgive me? I meet so many people, it can be a challenge to remember everyone." He gave them a wide, disarming sort of grin, earning himself a series of giggles from his female companions.

Mouse and Kane

"Hm? Oh, yes, I can arrange that." The technographer stopped what he was doing for a moment, clicked something in binary, and then resumed working. "I'm having a dataslate brought over," he explained. "Is there anything else?"

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"Are any of the blueprints available for the hive at large specifically targeted at safety documentation? Bulkheads and such, features unique to Landrian hives. Seeing as space is obviously at a premium, I can provide more specific locations for higher detail material. After examining them, I may have to impose further and make additional requests, depending upon the results of my analysis. I'm sure I can manage with the higher capacity dataslate."


OOC:
Kane will give the general location for the surroundings of each of the crime scenes, if that will narrow things down enough to give us better data.

[Artemis97]

Joss and Enoch

The assassin inclined his head, a slight but respectful gesture. "Thank you for having us." He said, his voice low and rough. His cat-like eyes flicked towards the table of food. Real food. Actual meat. He tried hard not to drool. "May I share in your bounty?"

[UncleWolf]

Mouse and Kane

"Yes, knowing what is expected should the hive flood would be more than a little useful. We aren't aware of the safety protocols ourselves." Mouse adds, trying to make it seem more like she's concerned with their own safety rather than anything that might happen while on duty.

Especially concerning the explosives she's lined their apartment window with.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie resisted the urge to grin broadly- it was always a pleasant surprise when one of her plans actually work. "'Zactly. I'm an investigator hired ter investergate a string of recent murders." She drew the matchbook from her pocket and flicked it onto the desk. "Recognise this?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie (and Gabe)

"Murders?" Viktor Kriek raised an eyebrow, and leaned forward slightly to examine the matchbook. He didn't pick it up. "I presume you don't suspect me, or you wouldn't be warning me. What does this have to do with the club?"

Joss and Enoch

"Help yourself." Theo gestured at the table. "Good of you to call, y'know. Not enough people show an interest in the arts these days. I didn't tell you about my collection, did I? We might have to have a look at it later."

He had an easy manner, Enoch noted. Confident, self-assured. And he liked to talk, possibly for the benefit of the two women hanging off him. Certainly they were hanging on to everything he said, though that could have been due to the amasec - over by the refreshment table, there was an empty-looking bottle laying on its side.

Mouse and Kane

Technographer Ulm considered the request, closing his real eye while his augmetic one stared at them. "Hive Safety and functioning is the domain of the Mechanicus," he said at last. "Such technical documentation is not normally made available to the public. I can pull schematics for the locations specified. Are you aware of a threat to the fabric of the hive?"

Their dataslate arrived after a short while, carried in to the office by a servitor which waited with infinite mechanical patience for someone to take the dataslate from it before trundling off on some other errand. Kane's requested changes to the contents had been made before the slate arrived, which explained the slightly extended wait time. The flickering green screen was slow to load, and the vast amount of data caused the slate's machine spirit to protest loudly if they tried to change the view too fast. Still, it was a good resource - bulkheads had been marked in block colours, and it was clear that if there was a failure in hive structure somewhere, the water wouldn't get far. At most it would take out a street, maybe two, before the hive's largest bulkheads slammed into place to block the flow.

[Artemis97]

Joss and Enoch

The assassin was genuinely happy, almost joyful, to hear that he could have some of the food. Real meat! Actual vegetables! He hadn't had that since he'd left Acreage. Perhaps a bit too swiftly than was polite, the assassin was at the table, filling a plate. He was careful to leave some for Enoch and the others, should they want more, but he may have gone a bit heavy on the fruit, if there were any to be found. A rare commodity in any system.

Somewhat sheepishly, Joss pulled down his scarf to eat, revealing a face marred by burns decades old now. He even remember to use utensils like 'a proper imperial citizen' instead of the poor feudal world farmer he had been born as. After a few bites he speaks up.

"Your art collection? We saw some on the way in. It is quite extensive." Joss compliments. "You truly are a good patron." Joss found himself liking their host, despite himself. Men like him were good with their money, spent it to support people less well off than they. To spend it on artisans, who often had less than good reputations in the Imperium, was honorable almost. Back home, he certainly would have been well liked, as the support of an artisan trickled out through the rest of the community, and brought glory to the Emperor's name.

[LeSwordfish]

The club, Annie noted- he was a regular.

"Can't say too much." she allowed. "There's a pattern emerging though. We 'ave reason ter believe yer next on the list. Might be soon's ternight."

[UncleWolf]

Mouse and Kane

Mouse looks over the security features carefully, mindful of the machine spirit. "Actually, looking this over, I think it is safe to assume it is not a threat to the Hive's structure. Thank you, this allows us to rule that possibility out." She admits, sounding quite relieved. "Have you had anyone else recently asking for data such as this?"

[ArtifcerProdigy]

"Hmmmm, it would appear that such a contingency would be difficult to orchestrate. Unless we find further evidence, it seems safe to discount that particular objective. We must assume different motives, perhaps we should rejoin our compatriots in pursuit of suspects, given that our only alternative is investigating a correlation between the professional positions of the victims."

Kane thumbs his commbead to check in with the rest of the team, ignoring the tech adept.

"What is our current status? Adept Mouse and I have determined relatively low threat to hive structural integrity."

[Destro_Yersul]

Annie (and Gabe)

"That so? Well, if you have no other details..." Viktor looked like he was about to ask them to leave, but he'd left an opening. If Annie wanted to stick around for much longer, she'd have to come up with something else to tell him.

Joss and Enoch

Joss found Theo's refreshment table to be distressingly short on fruit, though there was a bowl of ploins. Most of the food was of the variety involving crackers and assorted things to put on the crackers - cheese, bits of smoked meat, and the like. Good quality, but not the sort of thing to make a full meal of. Theo must not have been expecting many guests.

"Ah, you've only seen the half of it, on the way in. I've got quite a large gallery. Mostly paintings, though I've got a few statues, and the like. There's a flourishing local art scene, and I'm always looking to add to it. Though, I'm sure you'd know that, if you visit the Darkroom much at all. We do weekly meetings there, looking at new artists, what people have been working on, that sort of thing. Very exciting, some of it. How's the food?"

He seemed sincere, though how excited it was possible to be about painting was up for debate. In any case, he was now looking at Joss expectantly.

Mouse and Kane

"Not that I can think of. Certainly not from me. Now. While I am glad you find our safety measures adequate, I really do have work to be getting to." Ulm looked at them, then pointedly down at his collection of springs and gears. Momentarily, they found themselves being politely ushered out by a red-robed adept. Clearly, the Mechanicus had helped as much as they were going to.

[Thragka]

Joss and Enoch

Enoch actually relaxed a little as they were admitted into Petrov's house. The setting felt familiar. Old habits die hard, and from beneath the tempered shell of the sanctioned psyker, memories were surfacing - of how easy it was to live with privilege, and how comfortable this world was - when you belonged to it.

He assembled a small plate of titbits - a single cracker, a few cheese slices, whatever crudités were available. But he enthusiastically accepted a glass of amasec. He examined the colour and raised the brim to flaring nostrils before he took a sip.


"Good of you to call, y'know ...

"Our pleasure," the psyker said. He smiled, and it dragged his pale skin tight across the unnerving structure of his face, making his jaw all tendons and bone ridges for a moment. "As for remembering us, we were a little unsure whether it would be appropriate to turn up, I must admit. Joss and I only met you briefly, one evening, and we were all a little ... worse for wear." He raised the glass of amasec and nodded to it. "So we hemmed and hawwed as to whether your invitation was sincere. But as I am quite new to the art scene in this Hive, I thought we should grasp the opportunity to meet some of its other creators and patrons." He gave that alien smile again. "You really must show us your whole collection later, when you have the chance."

[Artemis97]

Joss and Enoch

"Delicious." Joss answered in regards to the food. He wasn't looking for a full meal, to be honest, simply taking the opportunity to enjoy what was available. Enoch earned an odd look when he started smelling the amasec. The assassin wondered if he was worried about poisons? But then why be so obvious about it? He sniffed his own glass carefully, confused and suspicious. It seemed alright, if a bit weak.

On the subject of art. "We happened to acquire the piece that was on display there the other day." Perhaps their new friend would want it, since it didn't seem to be of use to their investigation any longer.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie laughed, a noise like a stubber. "Ahahahahah, mister Kriek. I don't think you understand. What's coming fer you... them shiny knives won't stop it. It goes through walls. It goes through yer ribs, an' it bursts yer heart. Good luck stoppin' that with an alarm."

She leaned forward, putting her knuckles on the desk. "Twelve names, twelve deaths, mister Kriek. You're number thirteen. That list's in blood and looks like we're the only ones who can stop this. Sure you want me to leave?"

Annie is lying out of her arse and watching Kriek like a hawk- if his reaction is "that's not right" rather than "thats ridiculous" or "i'm scared", she'll escalate. I leave it to you to roll that, since i suspect it should be secret.

On the chance that Kriek might believe/disbelieve this, a Decieve roll: [roll0] vs48+10 skill.

[Destro_Yersul]

Joss and Enoch

"Oh, excellent, excellent. Of course, I'll show you the paintings. Once you've eaten, perhaps? I'll have Wilkins fetch another bottle of amasec, if we need it." He frowned slightly, obviously thinking. "Ah, yes, the landscape artist. That's the fellow who did the print at the club, yes? Fine work, though a tad uninspired, I feel. I belive I own a few of his. They make excellent decor in a subdued environment."

Carefully extracting himself from the company of the two women, Theophanes sprung to his feet. "More drinks for you, m'dears?" he said to them, taking a couple long strides towards the refreshment table, and tutting when he found the first bottle he came across was already emptied. It seemed to Joss that he moved remarkably quickly, for someone who'd had an evidently considerable amount of alcohol already, but perhaps he was accustomed to it. Amasec wasn't the strongest thing around, after all. And all the while, Theo was talking, to them and to his other guests.

"You'll have to meet the others, of course," he said to Enoch as he tipped more amasec into his personal goblet. "Drusus and McKenna and the rest of them as come to the meetings. I think one of them might show up tonight, though this is really rather a small party I'm having, today. The ladies there, and a couple other close friends." At mention of the ladies, he gave an appreciative glance backwards, collecting a pair of glasses from a side table and filling them as well. "I'm sure they'd love to hear some other perspectives. Have you seen Moran's latest work? Lovely use of depth, don't you think? And of course there's... oh, what's his name..." Theo made a face. "Well, in any case he paints nothing but Spookfish, and I've never understood why." Here the thread of conversation broke off, while he delivered fresh drinks to the ladies. "Just amuse yourselves till I get back, hm? Shan't be long, I expect." Then he picked up his glass and headed for the door, calling for Wilkins.

"Don't mind him," one of the two women said to Joss, her words slightly slurred. "He's always like thish when he talks about art." For some reason, this set both her and the other off in a fit of giggling. "He's a lot of fun, though."

Annie (and Gabe)

It didn't take a master of reading people to tell that Kriek looked skeptical.

"Miss.. Lee, was it?" he said, putting his cigar down for the moment. "I assume from the presence of a Ministorum priest that this..." he waved a hand. "nebulous threat of yours is unholy in nature. You've not made an especially convincing case for it. Bursting hearts? Things going through walls? By all means, tell me how you can stop that and I can't. The Emperor protects, does he not? I attend services, same as anyone. I've not heard of any of them turning up with exploded internal organs, so please, tell me."

Viktor held up a hand to forestall Annie. He wasn't quite finished. "Or, better yet, why not tell me what you actually want? In my experience, people don't turn up on the doorstep promising salvation and offering help without expecting some form of compensation. So let's just have everything on the table, shall we?"

[Thragka]

Joss and Enoch

Enoch blinked at the women. This bit of the conversation was going to be more difficult. He did not have much patience for soused airheads. "Are you also art lovers?" he managed.

OOC: Enoch's views are entirely his own and do not reflect those of the player.

[LeSwordfish]

Annie grinned. "Now yer talking my language. Good part of me is hanging around here to get a good looksie at whatever turns up to eat yer eyeballs- an' opefully put a 'ole in it- but i ain't going to lie, the opportunity for financial gratitude ain't one i'll ignore should it 'appen to fall inter my lap, savvy?"

She leaned back and turned to Gabriel. The priest was a metallican, right? For all his bollocks about bladed weapons.

"Oi Squire, looksie gavner 'ere 's sniffin' vermin. Clog the sump, aye? Bit'er lead'll an' chamberin' it be well-oiled, I sez, but I ain't loaded."

She followed up with another rattling laugh.

"'Pologies. Old sump joke. Somethin' like money ter save yer life's always well spent, since some bugger'll take it off yer body anyway."

OOC
Oh wait, I totally can talk to Gabe without Kriek understanding - We both have the same Hive Dialect, right? First time i've ever used this skill.

What Annie's saying is basically: "He's suspicious. Block the door. I'm thinking of drawing pistol and taking Kriek prisoner, but i'm not convinced. Thoughts?"