DH2e: Broken Mould [IC]

[Miraqariftsky]

Previously...

Across Askellion, several new Acolyte recruits received missives from their respective Interrogators. Some found these folded messages simply passed under their doors. Some found them beeping into their dataslates. Some were even delivered with a knock on the door, a pat on the shoulder, and a smile on the lips.

They were given tickets for the passenger cabins and told to get to the nearest starport, where the freighter Cartwright's Crucible was to dock soon. From there, they were to disembark at Juno Orbital, and then get down to the Inquisitorial Palace at Vesuna Regis to have their first formal meeting with Inquisitor Khawla of the Ordo Xenos.

Boarding and the first few days of these fresh servants of the Inquisition went by uneventfully, for the most part. They were just five people amongst countless other passengers.

Their cabins were sparse affairs, having just a cot, a footlocker, a ventilator and a small shrine to the God-Emperor, wrought from simple resin cast. One could not even fully spread one's arms before hitting both walls.

Nearby were the mess halls and the galley, the rec-deck and the shipboard chapel. Beyond the designated passenger quarters were the canyons upon canyons of containers. In the shadows at the feet of these ravines of freight were little shantytowns of voidborn dregs, hawking their wares, offering lodgings, and teeming with the eagerness of genuinely friendly people. Beyond those still were the guts of the ship, the dank bowels where few men dared to tread, where mutation and corruption were wont to fester. Beyond those still was the Enginarium, awash in a perpetual blue glow.

Presently...

On the thirty-second night...

Out of nowhere, alarms suddenly jolted through the designated night-cycle on the freighter Cartwright's Crucible. Colours shifted through an iridescent sickliness, gravity distorts in several places, inhuman voices crawl along creeping seams of rimefrost.

The hull rumbled, entire decks groaning. Emergency lights flickered on and the captain's voice crackled over the comms, "TO ALL PASSENGERS AND CREW: PLEASE REMAIN CALM. PROCEED TO THE NEAREST ESCAPE PODS. THE EMPEROR PROTECTS."

Outside, once-faint screams grow louder, closer, more desperate. Scents of lavender and rotten flesh clash in the nostrils. The hull groans, as if the ship is breaking apart.

[Ionbound]

Acadia snaps from peaceful sleep to wide awake as she hears the alarms. She listens closely to the announcement, then makes the sign of the Aquila across her chest and offers a brief prayer to the Emperor for protection before collecting her belongings, donning her armour, and heading out into the ship, looking not for an escape pod, but rather the source of the disturbance.

[Morovir]

Icharus Darrial comes online, already fully clothes, and immediately notices the disturbance. Muttering a benediction to the Omnissiah, and making the cog symbol to bless his weapons, he advances into the corridor, his shock maul activated and clutched in his hands and his mechadendrites outstretched before him. He ignores the panic of the weak flesh, and heads towards what he perceives to be the source of the disturbance.

[DukeGod]

Wolfram starts to put on his gear. Immeadiately proceeding to escape pods was it, not unarmored and unarmed, that's for sure.

Throwing the Skiitari robe on top of the armor, he grabs his autogun and stomps his way out of the little room, already whispering prayers to the gun's spirit.

He extends his optical dendrite and sends it ahead, using it to look around corners before making any turn

He's headed towards the bridge.

[whoiam]

Eos, too, took a minute to properly arm herself. Not because she felt any particular desire to be a hero (she didn't), but because who knows where the escape pods would take her? Some feral world, probably. Having your weapons on-hand for when you're shipwrecked on a planet of primitives was always useful.

Certainly more useful than trying to intimidate them with your mechadendrites, anyway.

Alas, she did find herself with something of an issue. Yes, she had just left her room, armed and armored, and ready to bravely leave the disturbance behind. But what she didn't know was...

...where the escape pods were.

&*^%.


Fine, static maze-solving program brute-LH-alpha engaged. With a light clunk, she tapped her Mind-Impulse-Unit interface mechadendrite against the wall to the left of her cabin door, turned to the left, and began following the wall her mechadendrite was touching.

[Checkmate-Pony]

Buce was already heading for the escape pods, for some odd reason never leaving his wargear despite the smell. Feeling protective and duty bound to have it be part of him now that he was givin this holy task.

His equipment was his only belongings, and they would be with him, despite the normal procedure of abandoning ones belongings during an emergency, a normal civilized person would have done so in a heartbeat if it meant their lives in exchange for their material goods.

[Miraqariftsky]

The five disparate Acolytes set out on their self-appointed missions to do what they can, whether it be to try to get to the bridge or the escape pods...

...even as the hull continues to groan around them.

There is a sudden metallic click that resounds through the decks. Something grinds and whirrs to a stop.


+0 Lore: Tech (or related Skills)
+10 if Voider/Hiver/Forgeborn.
+10 if AdMech

Failure by 2 or more degrees.

Eh, everything is fine and normal. Somebody simply needs to recite the proper prayers to the machine spirits.


Failure by just a little bit.

Fans are just busted. Somebody ought to repair that sometime.


Success by just a little bit.

Ventilation systems are damaged. Biological units will likewise suffer if these are not restored soon.


Success by 2 or more degrees.

Life support systems compromised. Hull structural integrity is compromised and dropping fast.



As they continue, the corridors seem more and more degraded. Busted conduits spark. Holes in the walls hiss with steam and noxious fumes. Breathing slowly becomes more laboured.



+0 Toughness test

Failure

The air is too thin. Breathing has gotten a bit more difficult. Take -10 to any further tests until oxygen levels can normalize.


Success

BAH! Just this? You've taken worse and come off none too bad.



Oil and blood stain some patches of deck plate.

A few crumpled corpses litter the floor. Here are half a dozen crew, their mouths flecked with foam, their eyes rolled up into their heads, their ship-issue shotguns dropped and impotent.

Elsewhere is found a fried body, almost utterly charred. From what remains of the clothes and the augmetics, it seems that it was once a techpriest, and even in death, tendrils of a mechadendrite still suspend the red-robed corpse from a busted console.

All throughout, alarms continue to blare. As does the captain's announcement, "PLEASE REMAIN CALM. PLEASE REMAIN CALM. GET TO THE LIFEBOATS. YOU HEAR ME? GET OFF! GET OFF, NOW! THE EMPEROR PROTECTS."

Through the static, of the vox, faint roars could be heard, as well as gunshots.


+30 Scrutiny

Failure

The captain is lying, and, for some reason, wants to offload everybody ASAP by getting them to the escape pods.


Success

The captain is telling the truth and, the emergency is real. Furthermore, even his voice is showing signs of cracking under the strain.


-40 Tech-Use test to determine what the dead techpriest was trying to do before they got fried: (Also, if this test is attempted, from having been disturbed, the cadaver crumbles all the way into several charred pieces of flesh and metal.)

Failure

Of course they were trying to fix... whatever it was that was going on with the ship going haywire.


Success

There is still a tiny spark of functionality left in the console. It is gleaned that the last operation that was run on this console was a communication to elsewhere on the ship. Before anything further than that can be learned, the battered machine breaks down totally.


+0 Medicae

Failure

Those crewmembers died from an obvious case of poisoning or otherwise chemical ingestion.


Failure by more than 2 degrees

Those crewmembers died from a clear case of hyper-rabies and it is lucky that they died THIS quickly.


Success

Those crewmembers died from a severe case of Voidfarer's Blight, an exacerbated form of the common sickness, similar to motion sickness, that people experience during translation into and out of Warpspace.


Success by more than 2 degrees

Those crewmembers died from a severe case of Voidfarer's Blight, an exacerbated form of the common sickness that people experience during translation into and out of Warpspace, with complications from the effects of a damaged or fluctuating Gellar Field.



~~~~

Presently, the Acolytes' disparate paths converge on an intersection of corridors. One branch of the corridor crossroad leads to a lift. The doors are a mangled metal mess as if they were torn off and ripped apart, but the lift itself seems functional. Opposite this is a length of corridor with a series of circular doors along the floor. Black and yellow hazard paint ring their frames, at least, where rust and dust still haven't totally taken over. Besodes these frames are control panels. Most of these--- the ones that aren't broken--- also have a status light, and of these, only a few are still green. All the rest are red.

On top of one of these is a woman's body, facedown, her back a bloody mess. Slowly, it shudders, crying softly. A small hand reaches out from beneath the mother's protective bulk.

~~~~

The vox system crackles once again. The voice on the other end isn't the captain's anymore.

"...haaaaah... haaaaaaahh... haaaaaaaaahh.

...Throne forgive me."

A single gunshot rings out before static claims the channel again.

~~~~

[whoiam]

[roll0] vs a target of 73 (1 + 3 + 1 = 5 degrees of success)
53 Int
+ 0 Known Skill (from Infused Knowledge)
+10 Calculus Logi Upgrade (on all Scholastic Lore checks)
+10 Adeptus Mechanicus background


+1 Degree of Success if the check is passed (Infused Knowledge)

[roll1] vs a target of 45 (2 degrees of success)
45 Toughness

[roll2] and [roll3] vs a target of 71 or 81 (5 or 6 degrees of success)
41 Perception
+30 (check difficulty)
+0 Known Skill
+10? For visual Perception checks (optical mechadendrite)

[roll4] vs a target of 23/33 (2 degrees of success)
53 Int
-40 (check difficulty)
+10 (trained skill)
+10? Mind Impulse Unit

[roll5] vs a target of 33 (1 degree of success)
53 Int
-20 (untrained skill)


Okay, so, the ship's breaking apart and I'm still stuck on board. In front of me is an old comrade-in-arms who I've never met before, but whose implants and mechadendrites may or may not still be salvageable.

...Getting off track here. Stopping for impromptu limb removals isn't a hobby I should indulge while this ship's still breaking apart around me. No-one wants to die for the sake of an arm, especially when it's not my own!

But that panel's worth checking out. Carefully. If they were trying to fix the ship, I might be able to pick up where they left off. Ideally with fewer fatal electrocutions...

Eos runs over to the panel, carefully coaxes (i.e. Hits) it into life, and checks what the other Tech-Priest had been up to.

Sadly, if that internal call had been intended to save the ship, whoever was on the other end of it would have to do so themselves. She didn't know who the priest had been trying to talk with, what they'd been trying to achieve...

...and now she didn't have a console anyway, as it promptly dies on her. Again. Another swift whack with her utility mechadendrite gives her nothing more than ominous sparks, and she wisely decides not to attempt any more field repairs.

The oxygen probably won't last long enough for her to do actual maintenance.

Coming up to the crossroads, Eos glances one way, her optical mechadendrite glances the other. And moments later, she cries out, "YES! Escape pods! I KNEW I'd find them eventually!". Her moment of triumph probably didn't need to hear that she'd been less worried about whether she could find them, and more worried about whether or not she'd have run out of air before she got there...

But as she turns to head for the series of circular floor-doors (what she assumes to be the remaining handful of escape pods), she spots others coming up the corridor behind her. "Ooh, survivors!" She sounds perkier than she feels, and it's easy enough for the others to spot - since her hand is lingering around her hand-cannon's handle, just in case...

...after all, with no idea how the ship got into this state (so quickly), for all she knew, these could be the people responsible...

"I was just heading for an escape pod. Ideally before the life support breaks down completely. I am partial to breathing, after all. Care to join me?"

[Ionbound]

Acadia's breathing grows laboured as the air thins. She attempts to regulate her breathing, but fear creeps into her mind, just keeping her from being able to stay calm enough to avoid getting slightly hazy. She frowns as she hears the Captain's voice over the intercom, and keeps moving towards the bridge.

When she meets Eos, Acadia gives the tech-priest a look and says, "You're joking, right? Gellar field down, combat over the ship, men dead to a highly exaggerated illness...Odds are this is a full scale deamonic incursion. If the Captain has been subverted..." She pauses, listening to the shot ring out over the intercom, "As evidenced by that if nothing else, then we should do the opposite of what he said. It would not surprise me if that was a ploy to get us in a helpless state where the ship could fire upon us."

She pauses, noting the small hand for the first time, and lifts the woman's body, half-curious and half intent on helping what she perceives to be a baby.

[whoiam]

Eos is more than happy to return Acadia's 'look'. With a little interest - after all, if you count the optical mechadendrite, she has three eyes to Acadia's two...

"How good are you at breathing vacuum on a disintegrating ship? I'm not exactly great at it, y'know. So I have to ask myself, can I fix, a) the hull, b) the life support and c) the Gellar Field Generator? And while the answer to all three is technically 'yes', " You'd probably have to hold a gun to her head to make her admit there was anything she didn't know how to fix - other, perhaps, than people - "doing so in the time between now and asphyxiation seems pretty unlikely. Not least because if you put your hand on the wall you can feel the bulkheads twisting as the ship begins to rip itself apart, and I have neither the spares, the heavy tools, nor the army of servitors needed to fix that in the field.

So, rather than refusing the escape pods because 'that's what chaos is expecting us to do!', I think the best option is to grab one, pray to the Omnissiah that we're in real-space right now, and hit 'eject'."

As Acadia goes for the woman's body, Eos draws her hand-cannon. She's not pointing it at anyone (they're not attacking her, after all), but she's clearly worried about (amongst other things) what Acadia will find under the corpse...

[DukeGod]

The ambiance of the ship was...weird

Before he had reached the spot with the rest of the bunch, a number of them tech priests themselves, the picture painted by the events was one that didn't agree with itself. Clicks that were okay, air that was slightly thinner but not to the point of bothering someone

The dead tech-priest was the worst really. Well the crewmembers dead seemed to indicate the Gellar field was damaged and that they had come out of warp.

"I can see your point, but we need to hold. Stand ready to eject the evacuation pod, but wait until the last moments. Gives it more time for us to hit real space if we aren't already there. Brother, can you ask the machine spirit if other pods already launched? And what happened to those?"

Wolfram chooses a route and keeps his Autogun trained on it.

[whoiam]

Eos, a touch theatrically, puffs out her chest, then sticks her optical mechadendrite down the front of her robes. "Nope... still haven't turned into a 'brother', " she notes, "difficult though it can be to tell under the armor and the robes." The robes did rather swamp Eos' actual figure, after all.

"I think the ship's machine spirit" Eos decided to leave the 'open your eyes, sheep! There's no machine spirit and there never was!' talk for after the imminent death. And possibly after her actual death. Some conversations were never good to have with another adept... "is rather too stricken to talk right now, I'm afraid, so ship status may be out of reach."

Still, she'd turn back around and at least examine the control panels. If they looked in decent condition, she might try risking one... though in the back of her mind was the other Tech-Priest, who was in a condition that said 'massive electrical discharge' rather too eloquently for her liking...

[Checkmate-Pony]

Buce would stand there sweaty yet calm, as if he was not too concerned about all of this. He seemed to have a constant look of indifferent sandess on his hairy face. Listning to the others being busy talking.

When talk came of using the escape pods, and Eos already working the control panel did the brute step closer to Eos from behind and put a meaty paw on her shoulder

He had a deep and gentle voice, at odds with his size and appearance.

"Gurl... sshhh" "be calm and listen, all of you present" he looked around

"I am scared too, and I will not pretend I know anything of ship or the spirit world"

he maintained his calm and slow tone of voice

"But you are keepers of the machines, Eos is atleast, and we are not alone on this ship, if we can keep the ship alive just a little longer, there might be other people like us who have a chance to escape whilst without they will die"

"How can we dare leave in such a hurry, and not attempt to save anyone else, what of the captain and those calling for help on the vox? who says they do not need our help right now, us and only us in this moment can save them, how can you all turn away?"

"I want to fight what is here, or if not, save others, there must still be some left, we cannot be alone, the enginum-" he called the enginarium level incorrectly "might have survivors trying to make things right again, we could help them"

"And the Bridge, they clearly need our help, they use the speakers so we could hear them, and you all want to turn away, I don't want to ignore them"

He took a more firm grib on Eos shoulder and pulled her around to look him in the eyes "I know this however, we won't be safe outside the ship, there is no safety waiting for us outside; in the void"

[whoiam]

Buce's attempts to physically reposition Eos do end with her facing him... but also with her hand-cannon (which she'd drawn earlier in case the thing Acadia unearthed turned out to not be a baby... or not be a baby anymore...) doing the same, now pointing... somewhere he'd probably rather not get shot.

The second or so it takes Eos to work out he's not attacking her probably felt a lot longer. But she does, eventually, point the gun off to the side.

"How... exactly... did the meat-pile learn my name?"

Still, there were more urgent things to attend to than an overly-beefy stalker.

"Look, this ship's dying, we'd find it difficult to stop that even if the crew was still alive. Delay it a little? Possibly. But we'd have to rush, because if we're slow, there won't be any time to get back to the pods afterwards. So if you want to do it, we need to get into the elevator now. So where are we going? Bridge? Engines? Or the pods?"