DARK HERESY: Suffer Not the Alien ... [IC]

[Hack Writer]

ENCRYPTION: Obscurio Code.113.6_gamma
DATE: 4050917.M41
SENDER: Interrogator Conrath Grimlain, via astropathic relay Abal Hirah

++MESSAGE BEGINS++

It is the year 917.M41, and mankind’s domain encompasses the galaxy. Untold billions of human beings reside upon a million different worlds, each one little more than an island of relative sanity in an eternal midnight sea filled with rapacious alien intent. In a sector wracked by conflict and beset by perils best left unspoken, your qualities have proven sufficient to catch your Lord’s eye.

Kaarl Beastongue: Perceived Imperial wisdom deems your feral soul tainted, riven by the canker of psyker-malice and fit only for destruction or tethering. Yet Inquisitor Graven is a pragmatic man, and he recognises the qualities that dwell within your animal psyche. He will bend you to his will and tame you, or else he will break you. Be grateful, beast, for your chance to serve a worthy master, and do not squander your opportunity for redemption.

Felicia Hemming: A slight thing, inconsequential, you move through a lightless underworld beneath steel skies, flittering like a moth between one pool of darkness and the next. But did you think your paltry glamour, that callow witch-power you so desperately try to conceal, would buy you anonymity from the God Emperor’s eyes? The inquisition is His eyes, and they see all and know all; and no mutant will go unpunished – unless it proves useful.

Prove you are useful, and maybe your insubstantial existence will earn some meaning. Otherwise, you wings shall be clipped and your existence shall be expunged; and then, little moth, you shall have the obscurity you seek.

Ministorum priest Cahal: Piety suffuses you, padre Cahal, or so it seems at first glance. But yours is a light tainted by dubious blood – blood of you void-twisted parents, blood of the gangster that stains your calloused hands. Is your dedication to the God-Emperor true, padre Cahal? Or is it yet another mask, intended to disguise the dark taint of your void-born soul. Lord Graven wishes find out.

Therefore find the alien, fight the alien and kill the alien – or be killed by it, if you must. There is victory in death, padre Cahal, and the Emperor will know his own.

Inferux Novus: And finally I come to you, Inferux Novus, the self-appointed administrator of the Emperor’s Will. Many daggers lie in the backs of many men lining your path to lord Graven's door, but a dagger hovers behind your back, too. It is a dagger of light, wielded by the Emperor himself, and it shall smite you down should you prove unworthy to wield the blade our master has gifted you.

Together, you four will serve Graven in his battle against the multitudinous threats that dwell in the darkness of the Skylla-Kharybdis sector. Serve your lord well and serve him true, and remember: only in death does duty end.

Interrogator Conrath Grimlain

++MESSAGE ENDS++
press < rune to repeat.


ENCRYPTION: Obscurio Code.113.6_gamma
DATE: 4050917.M41
SENDER: Inquisitor Krador Graven, via astropathic relayTzung Mai

++MESSAGE BEGINS++

Acolytes,

You are to take passage on the charted conveyor Hecator’s Burden, bound for the hive world of Moribidia (see attached data notes for details). Know each other by the symbols you bear - my heraldry, embossed in a silver pinwheel, which I have entrusted to each of you as a sign of my patronage. The journey will be short and uneventful; use such time to focus your minds and acquaint yourselves with your fellows. You are my sworn right hand now; and as the fingers of a hand must work in unison to grasp the material universe around it, so too must you cooperate to fulfill your obligations to me.

Upon reaching Morbidia, seek out my servant, a man named Guillaume, who by his last report will be lodging at a space farer’s rest house known locally as the House of Cold Comfort. Attend to him and heed his words as if delivered by my own lips. He is a worthy and trusted Acolyte, his qualities proven countless times before. Do not mistake his garrulousness for inanity, and heed his wisdom - for it is hard earned.

Remember; a good servant will be marked by the diligence of his work in his master’s absence. Prove my faith in you has been wisely placed.

In the name of our protector, He whose light keep the darkness at bay,

Krador Graven

++MESSAGE ENDS++
press < rune to repeat.


PLANETARY DATA REPORT

Planetary Name: Morbidia

Tithe Grade: Exactus Minimus. An effete world long since past its usefulness, what little of material worth that still remains beneath the enveloping pack ice has been deemed too inconsequential by Admistratum exactors to warrant the labour required to export it off surface. Tithe Grade downgraded to Minimus as of 141.M39.

Geography/Demography: A bleak world eking out its last few remaining millennia before the sight of its elderly half-dead sun, Morbidia is a planet bound for eventual destruction as the heat of its ancient star slowly bleeds out into the ether.

Extant planetary topographical data indicates 85% of Morbidia’s total landmass currently lies beneath the world’s rapidly advancing polar ice caps, with Magos geo surveys (see planetary analysis report, data stamp 748.M41) putting the remaining landmass as an even distribution of sub arctic ice packs, type M1-1.7 snowfields and equatorial taigas (cross-reference Xaiberia, Ursa-Meintoff X, Valhalla). Decreased solar emissions from Morbidia’s waning sun have diminished daytime average illumination from 8.3 hours standard Terran to 4.4 hours (approx) Standard Terran, with an decrement decrease in daylight hours of 0.02 every sidereal century. In summary: Morbidia is dying; galactic entropy has claimed another victim.

Cultural overview: Morally, physically and spiritually bled dry by the parasite that is human necessity, Morbidia wallows in the grip of an irreversible ennui, exacerbated by the decaying of its ancient sun. Adminstratum officials are happy to leave the world to its fate, downgrading its tithe status to Minimus, and reducing Imperium presence to a skeletal staff of Arbite Enforcers and tech adepts.

Excluding a few nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes and eremitic arctic hermitages, the sole major human conurbation on the planet is the baroquely carved City of Burning Tapers; a crumbling degenerate mass of aeons-old black stone crowned by grotesque spires and suspended walkways.

As with many hive worlds in the Imperium, life in Morbidia is stratified, with the wealthy occupying delicate baroque spire-manses overlooking shadowy lower environs, filling their days with bleak expressions of artistry and studying the last vestiges of their terminally declining star through the aid of specially manufactured obsidian spyglasses. The poor and destitute wallow in the stygian gloom of their half-abandoned city, subsisting on meagre interstellar trade, petty criminality, and an enterprise known only to the truly desperate.

Native Morbidians are prone to apathy and slothful indolence. Resigned to their fate, the inhabitants of that ever-decaying world have passed beyond feelings of despair, anguish and melancholy, embracing their eventual dissolution with a black-tinted humour and caustic stoicism.

[Hack Writer]

Okay, this is the first in-game post, officially starting the campaign. The time between your receipt of the communique and your reaching of Moribund is roughly about a week - that's also how long you've known each other. You all travelled to the merchant conveyor individually, summoned to the meeting point by Graven's commandments (that took you longer, time dependent on the individual). That means you don't know a whole lot about each other, possibly only what has been listed in the background section of your character profiles (or considerably less, if you prefer to be enigmatic). Enjoy, guys!

http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs15/i/2007/015/0/3/Ice_Planet_Digital_Matte_by_Krats.jpg

The small interplanetary lander breaks through the billowing wall of slate grey cloud, out into a cold and lifeless expanse of flat, dirty-white ice fields. Gazing out of the brass view port of the rapidly descending vessel, you catch sight of the rearing spine of a distant mountain chain, the jagged snow-capped peaks glowering like sullen melancholy giants through the insipid half-light of the all-but-forgotten ochre sun far overhead.

“Touch down in seven minutes,” the soulless voice of the mono-tasked servitor pilot hardwired into the lander’s forward compartment drones. The lander is small, spartan -- and devoid of luxury. Compared to the gunmetal grey livestock pens that passed for passenger cabins on the battered old merchant vessel that bore you to this planet however, the lander’s interior seems an exercise in opulence.

You measure you progress through the desolate wilds by the slow swell of the approaching mountains. The ancient wall of stone begins to rear through the twilight air, gaining form and shape as the harsh, brooding delineations of its dagger-like peaks reveal themselves to your approach. Soon the lander is up in the great mountain chain, tacking its way artfully through icy chasms and wind swept escarpments of monolithic stone. Silent moments pass, and the servitor’s voice rings out again. “Touch down in five minutes.”

At last the mountains give way, revealing a vast crater, like a giant pox scar in the flesh of the land; the remains of a long-dead culdera, it plunges deep into the frozen earth. Rising from the extinct volcano’s heart, a bleak yet oddly beautiful sight greets you: The City of Burning Tapers, its vast coral-like exterior of bonded ferrocrete and obsidian thrusting out into the open sky like a tangled forest of desiccated trees. Tens of millions of slowly burning electro-flambeaux gutter like fluttering pennons of saffron silk from the countless battlements that girdle it, and a feint halo of lambent yellow illumination suffuses its pitch black walls with a light that far surpasses the wan glow of the world’s distant half-forgotten sun.

The city’s baroque, darkly beautiful walls embrace the lander and swallow it up, and you feel as if you have slipped into the belly of some giant chthonic sea monster. Grotesquely leering gargoyles of sculpted obsidian greet your lander’s entry with cold jet coloured eyes and frozen expressions of wry amusement, and you catch glimpses of the hive’s native inhabitants as they shuffle through the arctic winds and permanent semi-darkness of their sepulchral city, lantern staves clutched tight in heavily gloved hands. The hive’s interplanetary spaceport spears into the grey sky above the gloomy mass of ornately worked black stone. A sombre, skulking mesa of grey ferrocrete and rusty steel stanchions, its summit is crowned by a winking red haling beacon that pulses in three-second intervals through the tenebrous half-light of the eternally bleak atmosphere. Navigation vectors broadcast by the tower’s guide spire feed into the mechanical cogitator stored in the servitor pilot’s brain case, causing it to bank the shuttle a hard right in a manoeuvre that catches you all by surprise. The jostling craft soon settles down into its new approach pattern, and the spaceport aligns itself with the shuttle’s forward view screen.

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/333/7/5/hive_city_by_columbussage-d4ho4s9.jpg

“Thirty seconds to landing...” The servitor states, easing the shuttle down.

Use this time to post introductions about yourselves; internal monologues, character interactions, etc. Give me and the other players a handle on your character, tell us what you're about.

[Donan]

Felicia had taken the apparent role of nothing more then another worker and rating on the vessel, preferring to hide in plain sight. The baggy clothes she favoured matched with her thin frame to have her pass as a young man if someone didn't look too closely, and she'd learned a number of tricks about making sure people didn't pay her much attention.

She had worn the symbol she was given as a clasp for her cloak, once again showing her habit of hiding in plain sight and ensuring the others could spot her easily enough. While quite willing to talk at length if engaged, she showed a skill of talking a lot while saying very little and avoiding revealing too much about herself. The one quirk that had been openly seen was a liking for gambling and while her coins were still thin on the ground, she had picked up a couple of thrones on the journey.

Right now however, the Hive Worlder was pressed into her seat, mouth fixed in a thin line as she dealt with the only second trip between a starship and a planet's surface in her life.

[TheEmperor]

One of the people sitting in the ship was Inferux Novus, a pale and wiry fellow who sat with his head sunk in his hands, and a rifle on his back. He had his eyes wide open, as he felt the shuddering of his surroundings, and his eyes surveyed his surroundings, even after he had exhausted the location of new things to find. It was a jarring experience for him, and although he was pretty used to the metal surroundings, he was still not quite over the concept of being in space. The utter emptiness of the void, with small islands of sanity that were planets...

The whole concept was terribly difficult for him to wrap his tiny little head around, but he kept his mind proper by continuously whispering the litanies of the Emperor's Grace that he'd been taught since childbirth to rely upon.

The Emperor was with him, always, and he now worked for the holy Inquisition, so he had to become much more in control of himself. He removed his head from his hands, pulling himself up to lean on the walls, as he looked at the people surrounding him once more, for what seemed to be the millionth time.

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl was terrified, he had been since they left the calm of space, and even that had unnerved him. This was his first time travelling into an atmosphere as he had been sedated when the Inquisition had first found him through fear of what he may be able to do. It was a curious sight to see a heavy set man covered in scars, hugging his knees with his eyes shut tight, but there he sat. He had kept to himself most of the journey, which suited the crew fine, his foul smell and ragged clothes had deterred most from approaching him. Instead he had spent his time talking to the many rats and other vermin which inhabit the bowels of a starship, when he wasn't talking to them he was exploring through their eyes.

He had been given a set of adepts robes in an attempt to disguise his true talents, though these were now in disrepair, with grime layering them and rips where he had caught it on various points. He had the silver pinwheel dangling from his left ear after he managed to fashion it into an earring of sorts, his other equipment was stowed away with only his staff clenched across him holding his knees high.

[Acco Spoot]

Any enterprising criminal would be envious of Cahal's position, most of those who knew directly of his deeds had been killed, and those who had only glimpsed upon the surface had taken him into respectful employment.
It seemed as though the life of the penitent monk had finally come around, as he had been taken from the discomfort of planetary work, to which he found the forces and environment unsettling, and found himself upon a vessel. The past few weeks he had taken as a pilgrim might a holy day, filled with merriment and diversion, during which he had found the first of his new allies; a young rating who had been his scourge at the gambling tables.
Alas, business came before pleasure, soon he had made the other members of the group. An unsettlingly filthy individual, he had little chance to introduce himself, not that he desired any prolonged exposure to that aroma. Lastly the sickly fellow begging for comfort and safety, incomprehensibly perturbed by the comfort and safety of space.

The vessel broke atmosphere and Cahal felt his stomach knot. Brethren, so our ordeal of faith begins. he started upon the rousing sermon, We have made ourselves known, and know each that we shall fulfill our lordships duties, I ask then that under the holy light and zeal of the Emperors watchful gaze... He draws a card from the Tarot deck, it is the strong force of the Inquisition searching, warranting from their handle, the holy Emperor. That we make our confirmation; Suffer not the alien to live, he who allows the alien to live shall share in the crime of its existence.

[Donan]

A thief and small league con artist she might have been, raised on the streets of a hive she wasn't sure she even knew the name of, Felicia nevertheless responded to Cahal's words, head lifting slightly from the miserable pose the descent had caused her to assume. No matter the strife and struggles of her life up to this point, she had always held herself to be faithful and true to Him on Terra and gray eyes focused on Cahal's face.

Her quiet voice echoes his as she looks to the deck, an earnest note detectable. "Suffer not the alien to live, she who allows the alien to live shall share in the crime of its existence. Hallowed is the Emperor."

[Hack Writer]

Okay, I posted again, just so that you've got another scene to tackle before the week starts.


The spaceport sits upon an elevated island of black stone and winter-rimed steel, surrounded by the cold expanse of Morbidia’s freezing arctic sky.

Descending from the lolling tongue of the lander’s embarkation ramp and out onto the ice-laced asphalt of the spaceport’s docking platform, you watch as a half dozen trundling caterpillar-tracked maintenance servitors roll towards your ship and set about securing the lander ready for its descent into the mesa’s internal hangers. The rest of the platform is barren and unoccupied, a sure a sign as any of the world’s forgotten status.

Exit from the mesa is via cable tram, and as you ride down from the vertiginous heights of the docking platform you take in the vast, bleak sight of the City of Burning Tapers through the frosted window: a expression of singular taste and morose thought processes, it seems more of a crypt for the dead than a home for the living. Below, the depths of the hive bottom are hidden beneath a whirl of cloudy fog, the hot vapour of a million steam vents rising to form a dreamlike sea of serpentine mist beneath the ponderously swaying cable car.

Disembarking at one of the gloomy hive’s titanic branch-like terraces, you log your passenger indents with the officials at the port’s half deserted transfer lobby without incident. Inquisitor Graven has seen fit to furbish each of you with cover stories to justify your visit to the city; you are adepts bound for the world of Plenopotatia, stopping off at Morbidia to alleviate the stresses associated with prolonged travel in the Warp. It’s a shallow fallacy, but not one the effete civil servants that punch your details into the port’s visitor database seem interested in pursuing.

After the process of registering your identities is concluded, you set out of the transfer terminal and into the vast, vaulted candle-lit pedestrian concourse that links the shuttle docks with the Hive proper. Barring the half-glimpsed sight of the occasional shuffling city dweller and blank-faced maintenance servitor, the concourse is entirely deserted, a gloom ruin of black stone and wetly gleaming candlelight.

http://www.artscientific.com/photogal/hiresgallery/images/dark%20cathedral%20interior.jpg

Bloody hell, that photo's big! Anyway, you guys need to discuss what you're going to do next; you need to meet your contact at the House of Cold Comfort, wherever that is. Maybe you guys should discuss things a little? Also, Moribida is very dark and very cold, and those without proper foul weather clothing will eventually start to feel it and become fatigured (rolls dependent on how long you're exposed to the atmosphere), so keep that in mind!

[Acco Spoot]

Blast the Throne! It's gruddamn freezing! Exclaims Cahal as the group touches down on solid ground, remorseless regard for the light blasphemy therein. My faith be my shield, but there are moments when a thick therma-weave and a warm synth-caff appear mighty righteous, wouldn't you say? He addresses the group whilst wrapping his hands deep within his stole and dancing uncomfortably from one foot to the other, looking for any two bit market stall that might be offloading a thick garment or two.

[TheEmperor]

"I would agree, although your statements are not endearing." said Inferux quietly, as he hugged himself in an attempt to conserve heat, as he stepped out along with the rest of the acolytes. His bodysuit did not help much in the way of protection, and so his first concern was to get better clothing. He'd experienced cold like this, when he'd gone out onto the surface of his hive, once. It was extremely unnerving to him, but through constant chanting of the Death Cult litanies, he managed to stay in control of himself

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl finally got a grip of himself when the got onto a close to solid ground as they were likely to. He was gripping his robes tight having never experienced cold such as this before, he had thought the starships cold. He came from a desert, and from near the poles which meant temperatures were often close to boiling. "I agree, this cold is unnatural. And where is the sun?"

[Hack Writer]

A stooped and slightly dishevelled city dweller shuffles up to you while you’re engaged in conversation. His crooked body swathed in a heavily insulated foul-weather coat, he clutches a bulbous-headed lumen staff between his gloved hands and smiles obsequiously from behind the ragged curtain of his lank white hair.

“Honoured newcomers,” he says, his voice thin and scratchy, little more than a sibilant whisper, “I beg a moment of your time.” He hobbles closer, leaning on his lumen staff, a half-smile of greeting dancing in his rheumy eyes; the first show of warmth you’ve experienced since making planet fall. “I am Umbolto, guide and friend to all travellers whom the fates have seen fit to deposit on fair Morbidia. But our city, wondrous though it is, is strange to foreign eyes, and it does not reveal itself readily to outsiders. Come, only three glitters apiece and I shall light the way for you!” He smiles the same obsequious smile once more and waves his lumen staff in front of you in a practised display of theatrics. “Tell old Umbolto now, where do you wish to go?”

Reply how you want, being as pleasant or surly as you care to be.

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl eyed that heavy insulated coat with envy, "Take me anywhere I can trade for one of those fancy coats." he was rubbing his hands together with his own staff gripped in the crook of his elbow. I don't know how you can stand such cold." he grinned a toothy grin, though his yellowed and broken teeth may have spoilt the warmth he meant to convey

[Donan]

A scam. Four people completely new somewhere and here's an offer of help, mystically gifted help with an air of theatrics who, naturally, is asking for money. That may or may not be true, but it's how Felicia reads the situation.

She reaches out with a hand to lightly touch it to Umbolto's coat, long fingers testing the material as she tips her head back so he can better see her face. "Coats like this, that's just what we need.. we're freezing all sorts of bits off out here."

Her conversation is used to try and distract the man whilst her fingers move in a familiar pattern.

Not sure if you'd count a pickpocket effort as agility or fellowship, given she's using a mixture of both, but I'll do a dice roll and let them fall where they will.

[roll0]

[Hack Writer]

Umbolto’s smile widens at the Felicia’s show of tactility. “Frozen bits, an affliction all too common among outsiders to Moribida’s shores. But I have the, uh, solution, madam, or my name’s not Umbolto!” He shivers slightly as Felicia’s hand glides between the outer overcoat and explores the long-hemmed cassock beneath. “You can buy them from my store – at the low price of five glitters apiece. It’s just inside the transit lobby, back from where you came.”

Felicia withdraws her hand and takes a step back. It’s empty, unfortunately. Still, the old lumen bearer’s merry grin remains fixed behind his thin white hair, and perhaps another opportunity will present itself soon?

Umbolto interprets Felicia's attempted pick pocketing as simple curiosity. The other characters don't see it occur.

[Acco Spoot]

Everything about this diminutive goblin shrieked of deception, his eagerness to illuminate for strangers at a favourable pass, his hands tendril like in many pies, was there a throne spent in this hole that didn't eventually make its way by his palms? Cahal presumed to have made a friend. Tell me my man, how does the Glitter stack up against the Throne these days?

[Hack Writer]

Everything about this diminutive goblin shrieked of deception, his eagerness to illuminate for strangers at a favourable pass, his hands tendril like in many pies, was there a throne spent in this hole that didn't eventually make its way by his palms? Cahal presumed to have made a friend. Tell me my man, how does the Glitter stack up against the Throne these days?

"Forgive the colloquialism, my well-travelled friend. Here in the blessed candlelight of Morbidia, the Thrones catch the glow of our city’s holy tapers and glitter, hence the name!”

Umbolto hobbles to the transit terminal and withdraws a small flick-knife shaped electro-key capped at the end by a fork-like plug. He inserts it into a socket in the wall next to the terminal entrance, causing a set of heavy, ice-caked shutters to roll upwards concertina-like, revealing a small alcove separated from the main concourse by a tiny kiosk. You hear the dumb hum of a power generator then, and moments later a gaudy halogen sign in florid typeface spelling out the words "Umbolto’s Emporium!” flicker into reluctant life; the exclamation mark fizzes intermittently, though whether for emphasis or through neglect you’re not too sure. “Now,” he says affably, hobbling behind the kiosk, “perhaps you’d like to peruse my wares?”


Glitters is just a native term for Thrones, so there's no exchange rate involved.

Item
Backpack 12
Chrono 50
Filtration plugs 20
Digest travel guide 5 (+5 to navigation checks in the Hive)
Charm 5
Thermal overcoat 5

These prices are inflated, probably due to a lack of competition and the desperation of ill-prepared travellers; he can be haggled with. Also, the thermal coats are extremely poor quality, consisting of a single high-collared gown fitted with a cheap clasp at the throat, and it lacks the insulated under layer Umbolto's wearing. It'll keep you warm though, but only just.

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl had followed Umbolto to his kiosk quite eager for a warm coat. As he looked at what was on offer he wasn't too impressed, though the concept of glitter and thrones was lost on him and so he had no idea if those prices were good or not. He did however have experience of trading and knew any peddler would inflate their expectations of what they wanted.

"I will take four coats and the guide. In return I offer you my own staff." He offers with another rotten toothed grin.

not sure if you will accept trades, but it is all Kaarl understands of "shopping"

[Hack Writer]

Umbolto looks at the rangy, semi-wild feral worlder with clear puzzlement painting the pasty white canvas of his face, "No, no, no, my, eh, unsanitary friend. On this world, Moribida, we deal in glitters -- in thrones -- only. You know, money!" He smiles, waves his own staff in front of Kaarl, and speaks very, very slowly, "Look, see here: I have a staff already, and it glows!" to the rest of you he says: "now, do any of you have a serious offer to make?"

Umbolto's shooed away Kaarl's offer but not dismissed it out of hand; you haven't rolled anything, Col.Straken, so until you do -- barter at half fellowship (good luck there, buddy!), intimidation, persuade, whatever -- I won't change his alignment to you, which is currently ... no, I won't say.

[TheEmperor]

Inferux looked at the wares that this Umbolto fellow was selling, and deduced that they weren't entirely the best of things one could find in the markets. He figured, however, that they weren't too bad, considering the horrendous weather.

However, something seemed odd, and out of place to him. Why had this fellow appeared as soon as they had arrived? In his training, everything was dangerous, and he had suspicion naturally ingrained into him, so he did not trust anything far too easily...


[roll0]
Awareness.

[Donan]

"He bites." Felicia comments idly. "Do be careful with him? We've had such trouble in the past.."

She steps forward, giving a rueful smile. "Trouble is, you can see the sort of clothes we're stuck with. Your items look good to have, but we're not in any sort of place where we can afford them, not at their current rate.

And if we can't buy them, you can't sell them. You wouldn't be able to offer any sort of small discount?"

Fellowship check

[roll0]

[Hack Writer]

"He bites." Felicia comments idly. "Do be careful with him? We've had such trouble in the past.."

She steps forward, giving a rueful smile. "Trouble is, you can see the sort of clothes we're stuck with. Your items look good to have, but we're not in any sort of place where we can afford them, not at their current rate.

And if we can't buy them, you can't sell them. You wouldn't be able to offer any sort of small discount?"

Umbolto yelps, and steps back. "What?!" he exclaims. "He b-bites?! Madam, I am a simple tradesman attempting to make an honest living shepherding the God-Emperor's own sheep to warmth and comfort!" Umbolto seems earnest, and a little offended. His gloved hands fumble behind the folds of his thermal cloak for a second, reappearing a moment later with a cheap copper scroll holder. "Look, see here: my writ of trade, signed by the masters of the Moribidian commercia guild!" Then his tone becomes hard-edged, and the warmth in his eyes retreats; gone is the affable demeanor of the cheery-faced tour guide, and in its place is a man very much intent on ending this meeting here and now. "Please, I must ask you all to make up your minds regarding the purchasing of wares from my store."

Nope, didn't go too well, that one. Umbolto takes offence at the prospect of being bitten. He's cooler with you all now, like, as cool as Morbidia's sun. Ouch!

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl frowns at the suggestion he would bite a person, one he wasn't fighting anyway. He fumbles around inside his robes at the belt round his waist and pulls out a small pouch. Rummaging around inside the pouch he pulls out a handful of Thrones. "I like your staff, I have these that glitter." He states as he opens his palm. Taking a step forward he offers ten shining thrones. "Ten shiny stones and my staff for the coats and your staff. Sounds like fair trade to me."

Kaarl had been completely lost when he had been given his collection of Thrones, he had just assumed that they were just a handful of pretty trinkets. Now it started to make sense, though he didn't see why people would want masses of shiny stones for useful items.


[roll0]
fellowship I guess as Kaarl is trying to be friendly (like he had seen the traders in his tribe be)

[Acco Spoot]

So, it's of the sharp tongue his companions trade, no-no, that won't do. My man, I apologise for the crassness of my travel companions, with exception, it has been a long journey fraught with much suspicion and adventure, we are naturally made unkind to see honest peddlers. Taking a quick look at the wares Cahal dips his hand into his coin purse. I shall take four of the coats, and your guidebook, he turns to Kaarl waving away the primitives offer, No-no my man, I shan't see brethren of the Emperor go without a good case of charity, save your coinage. Altogether he puts twenty-five thrones on the kiosk and holds another five in his hand, and, er, was it the staff too? How much?

[roll0]
Fellowship to try and bring Umbolto back a bit friendlier.

[Hack Writer]

Umbolto’s eyes narrow, mere fissures in his pale white face. But you see him appraise the coins, weighing the thrones up against the injury to his wounded pride – and perhaps sniffing out further opportunity for profit. At last he says: “I am not a parsimonious man, father; the God-Emperor knows, you’ll not find a more honest member of his flock on this planet. But you companions have spurned my kindness and threatened only injury to my person, and I think it only right I ask for recompense for the offence, say five glitters more…?” A wet tongue slides over ice-dry white lips, and the cold, hard gleam of opportunism enters his eyes.

The promise of thrones has him hooked, though whether it's enough to reel him in is down to you.

Failed fellowship roll upped the price a little; however, Cahal’s well-intended attempt to smooth over any crossed wires didn’t go unnoticed (Umbolto seems a opportunistic money maker and thrones are thrones, after all), so he’ll graciously accept Cahal’s offer – if you, the group, pay just a teensy-weensy bit more.

[Acco Spoot]

Cahal gives a stern look at the vendor, they both hold for a moment in a silent wrestle, but the priest knows he's going to break, no use fighting it. Gah, fine, fine. He throws another five on the counter-top and then turns to the group; I make that Amasec, your round. He flippantly demands, taking the thin fleece coat for his own.

[Hack Writer]

With the quicksilver alacrity of a coiled viper the old lumen bearer snatches a handful of coins from the counter top, quickly holding them up to the light of his staff. He places one in his mouth and bites down, testing the worth of the metal. “Throne gelt, good quality!” he says cheerfully. The coins make a feint tinkle like thawing icicles as they cascade into the depths of his voluminous overcoat.

The cold disapproval retreats like a rapidly melting ice cap then, to be replaced by the familiar fawning smile, mouldering yellow teeth and all. The old man makes the sign of the Aquilla over his chest, and stoops low to the ground. “Praise the Emperor,” he says to Cahal, “Praise him indeed! Father, your beneficence is an example to us all.” And then he says: “Please, allow old Umbolto to escort you some place warmer; you’ll find nothing but lung rot and scratch-throat standing out here too long.” As if on cue, he coughs twice, a bronchial and unhealthy noise, “Ah! Tis an affliction I know only too well ...”

Cahal needs to cross off 30 Thrones from his character sheet for the transaction; if others want to help him out with the cost, state your intentions and adjust your sheets accordingly.

Also, please all add +20XP to your character sheets, for the meaningful interaction that just played out. I'm awarding XP on a scene-by-scene basis, and this warranted something for your pains. Also, Umbolto's favourable to Cahal now (Cahal's persuade checks as Ordinary +10).

[Acco Spoot]

Cahal rubbed his temples, sore from the loss of gilded coffers but maintaining the zealous optimism he had learned so well. Yes, quite, I should think we would all like a place to warm our spirits. And perhaps claim some coin back on whatever exoticism that passed for a card game in this miserable place. Though, please tell us my man, are you aware of a lodging known as the House of Cold Comfort? It was given to us as a recommendation, you see, and I should like to know whether that promise was decietful. He quickly lied to cover his intentions, no use letting all the world know the Inquisition was here and there was someone they were looking for.

[Hack Writer]

Cahal rubbed his temples, sore from the loss of gilded coffers but maintaining the zealous optimism he had learned so well. Yes, quite, I should think we would all like a place to warm our spirits. And perhaps claim some coin back on whatever exoticism that passed for a card game in this miserable place. Though, please tell us my man, are you aware of a lodging known as the House of Cold Comfort? It was given to us as a recommendation, you see, and I should like to know whether that promise was decietful. He quickly lied to cover his intentions, no use letting all the world know the Inquisition was here and there was someone they were looking for.

“Why I do indeed!” Umbolto replies. “A common rest stop for travellers new to our world, it is a warm and welcoming place, and I know the owner well. Let old Umbolot escort you the way there, I’ll even put a good word in for you with the owner, secure you a better rate!”

[TheEmperor]

Donning his newly acquired thermal coat, which was all of sudden not as delightful as he'd imagined it to be, Inferux muttered thanks to the generous member of their group in the form of "May your soul eat at the Emperor's table."

Cahal seemed to have the right idea, though, since they were going to get right to it, and down to the place they were supposed to go. "Oh good. Right down to business then." his mind muttered again.

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl gratefully accepted the offered coat and quickly donned it taking at least the worst of the chill out of his bones. "I will repay this debt." He says simply.

He followed along trying to keep as low a profile as a scar covered brute could. "Do you dice at this cold house?"

[Donan]

Wrapped firmly in the thick coat, Felicia smiles warmly at the old trader. She's not too bothered about the cost as she didn't pay it, and while the coat's not the best protection, it's better then nothing. "We'll buy you a drink when we get there, I'm sure." Cahal receives a wink.

[Hack Writer]

Next post, moving you all along to your rendezvous with Guillaume. Interact with Umbolto during your journey to the House of Cold Comfort if you like; he's a pretty talkative chap, and he'll answer whatever questions you have for him.

Umbolto closes the kiosk, and reactivates the shutters; hidden gears grumble and echo in the darkness as the metal barrier concertinas back into place. The neon sign flares briefly in farewell before dying to the cool afterglow of worn metal electrodes. Darkness swoops – a predatory thing; as hushed and cold and morbid as a mortuary shroud cast hurriedly over a corpse.

“This way, friends. This way!” Umbolto says cheerfully, flourishing his lumen staff and beckoning to the east: a wide oesophagus of ferrocrete shimmering with the dull light of ensconced candles. Following in the old man’s shuffling footsteps, you make your way into the Hive’s interior.

Beyond the docking terminal’s entrance, the city’s streets stretch like are like a skein of fine and knotted steel threads, like blood vessels laced in ionised dye. Countless narrow, interconnecting avenues, flanked by serried processions of flickering candles, weave a haphazard course between towering stacks of frowning hive tenements. The little flames guttering from the candles bob and dip as you pass by, like the hooded heads of monks genuflecting in prayer. Errant snowflakes find their way into your path, dancing through the empty concourses and reminding you of the anaemic sky and its wounded, moribund sun. But the cold never leaves you, even trussed up in your threat-bare thermal suits and shielded by hundreds of meters of ferrocrete and steel. The architecture is vast, the stygian gloom close and oppressive, but the City of Burning Tapers lacks the one thing to truly help dispel the feeling of perpetual winter -- it lacks people.

What few there are skirt the edges of the pale light cast by the ever-present lumen poles and flickering tapers, their flittering shadows, like after images in flash-blinded retinas, often all you see of them. Silent but for the whirling of ancient gears and the arthritic thud of graceless feet, sallow-skinned Servitor units, bearing candle lighters and bags of tallow fat in frostbitten hands, are the only constant presence. Moving through the streets like a funeral procession, they busy themselves with the act of replacing the thousands of dimming tapers with brighter ones.

“It’s a tradition.” Umbolto says as you pass a pair of flesh-spare worker units attending to the guttering torches set deep between the pillars of a long wall of black-stoned blind arcading. “While the lights remain lit in our city the God-Emperor’s favour will stay with us, and the sun of our world will continue to burn a few years more.” He shrugs, “I don’t if it’s true, mind you. But it can’t hurt to keep believing.”

The air becomes musky as you press on, the walls wet and feverish with the running traces of wet candle wax that dribble like tears from the burning tapers. Ahead of you, leading the way with the aid of his bright lumen-staff, Umbolto utilises his peerless sense of navigation to chart a course through the labyrinthine gloom, regaling you with a well-recited litany of anecdotal asides on the city he knows so well.

“There are three levels in this hive,” he says affably, the rhythmic tap of his lumen staff echoing like the tongue of a bell through the empty streets. “This level, the one we’re head to now, is Half Light; most people in the city live here, about three million or so. Above us, in the Meridian Spires, the nobles freeze their blue blood cold in the open air and the chill of the sky. Below us – not that you’ll ever want to go any farther down, mind you – is the Utter Dark. Savage place. Pitch black and freezing cold. Dregs and mutants and all forms of light-hating monstrosities call that place home.”

“I only mention it to make sure you stay well away; old Umbolto’s conscious would be keeping him up all night if he knew he’d let some poor pious band of off worlders go traipsing into places best left to the imagination. No, there’s nothing down there but cold death and misery.”

The rest of your journey consists of small talk and idle banter. Umbolto fills you in on some of the recent local news, none of which amounts to anything substantial.

Eventually your guide stops, and motions to a large low-frowning building fronted with pale blue stone carved in a spiral knot work of cosmological symbols and stylised flames. The building’s shuttered windows can’t keep the heat and light and noise from spilling out into the empty street, and the sound of laughter and the sight of life feel at odds with the sepulchral silence draping the rest of the hive.

“The House of Cold Comfort,” he says with a conjurer’s flourish, almost as if he’d bid the building appear through some artful contrivance. “Umbolto never steers a friend wrong, no sir. Now, uh, about payment…five Glitters, wasn’t it?”

Pay the man or don't pay the man, haggle with him or not -- it's up to you. I'll post the next scene when you guys feel you're ready.

[Col.Straken]

Kaarl was utterly lost by the time they reached the House of Cold Comfort, he was used to open deserts and rocky hills. "I think every world had its hidden daemons." He said in reply to Umbolto's talk of the Utter Dark.

Once they reached their destination Kaarl dug out five of his own coins and dropped them into Umbolto's waiting palm. "You place odd value in such worthless trinkets." He observed about Umbolto's greed.

[Hack Writer]

“If only the rest of the galaxy thought as you do, friend.” The wily old swindler replies solemnly. Then he coughs -- a hacking, bronchial noise like a blocked drain being forcibly cleared, “Alas, the scratch throat that assails my body grows stronger by the day, and only a very specific tonic is capable of assuaging it … oh, and prayer – lots of prayer!” He concludes hastily.

Before he departs, Umbolto turns to Cahal and hands him a small scrap of paper, upon which have been scrawled in crude italic quillwork his name – Umbolbto Nuntz, and an exceedingly long list of services he is capable of providing, ranging from timepiece repair to vermin eradication.

“In case you need anything else whilst sojourning in our fair city!” He says cheerily, before bidding you all farewell and shuffling off back down the gloomy streets. He shadow vanishes into the dark embrace of the candle-lit city, and you enter the warm light of the House of Cold Comfort.


-----------

The taproom is wide and spacious and brightly lit, its black walls obscured behind brightly sequined curtains and patterned tapestries imported from foreign worlds. A faint arras of ihor smoke veils the air, coiling languidly in the sweaty alcohol-laced atmosphere. Pausing for a second to adjust to the sudden flood of stimuli to your long deprived senses, you take stock of your surroundings.

A battered old autoclavier sits in one corner of the room, playing out the tune to Saint Kastella’s Garters, an impious little ditty composed in honour of the selfsame 'saint' whose singular virtues raised her to dubious beatification in the eyes of the Imperium's more bawdy adherents of the Faith. Most of you are aware of the song, even if – like Cahal – it is only to guard against the heresy of impious verse. About two-dozen patrons crowd around a scattering of tables or prop themselves up casually against the main bar; judging by their styles of dress and the babble of dialects, most are off worlders, stopping over at Morbidia on their way to greener pastures and healthier stars.

A group of rough-looking spacers crowd eagerly around one of the taproom’s central tables, dicing and playing some obscure game of cards using a deck of stylised imperial tarots. Pasty-looking Morbidian women – their eyes too large, their skin as fine and white as Sirrican porcelain -- orbit their table like errant moons or desperate carrion birds. The prettier ones find a seat beside the drinkers; the more forthcoming ones find a place upon their laps.

A couple of deep space mariners sit by themselves at a small corner booth to one side, their expressions distant and haunted -- the look of men who have stared too long into the darkness of the Empyrean. They stare down into their drinking cups for now, studying the surface of the still liquid as if all the answers to their questions lie somewhere within. Another loner sits in a booth opposite; baroque long-las holstered in lizard skin, his own cold eyes focused on alien horizons.

Near the bar: a slight fellow in the robes of an adept, with horn-rimmed glasses and a fidgety demeanour; beside him: a loose assortment of tavern dregs; mostly off-worlders, judging by their complexion.

All eyes turn briefly to take in your arrival, but all eyes turn eventually back to their own distractions. Here in this interstice between worlds, you’re just another group of fellow transients keen to escape the looming oppression of the gloom-haunted City of Burning Tapers.

So, Guillaume should be here…somewhere. You haven’t been furnished with a description of your contact, so your best bet might be to ask around. I’ll leave you all to discuss how best to handle the scene. I’ll contrive a few encounters here before moving on, should the situation warrant it. It would be cool if we could use this scene to showcase your PCs’ personalities and how they tackle interaction with others. Have fun!

[Donan]

Felicia's eyes gleam brightly upon her sighting the ongoing card game. Either it was fully legitimate, or it was a set up by a crew to fleece random offworlders out of their coins. Either way, it drew her in like a moth to flame and she flashed Cahal a smile.

"I can start there, a few rounds, a few drinks and people will start talking to me like I'm their new best friend." She smiles wryly. "Could use a few extra Thrones as starting chips though."

[Hack Writer]

For whatever reason, this game didn't find enough traction, and it's now officially CLOSED. Ah well, that's how it goes. I'll see you all on the boards soon!