There was no shortage of things to do over the next few days. For one, Bruce was as good as his word, and started bringing in vehicles for Macharius to look at. The various other clans turned up with trade goods as well, from mining equipment to spare parts and men looking for work. There were a good handful of people who clearly felt Viatrames was inferior to whatever sort of job they could get from Macharius. Hannabel even caught a few whispers of 'the new Star Clan' while she was out experiencing the best of the local moonshine. Which turned out to be an especially corrosive brand of distilled algae ferment, mostly suitable for taking paint off things.

Echo and Anika went into the markets, escorted by the Rings at all times, looking for interesting things to buy and anyone who knew a thing or two about capturing wildlife. Between all the rusted-out hubcaps and glass bottles, they found a trader who had managed to scrounge up two entire crates of pristine webguns, still in the original packaging. He was less than forthcoming about where exactly he had found the weapons, but was more than happy to sell them. The ammunition supply was somewhat limited, but for someone with the resources of a Rogue Trader, that would cease to be a problem as soon as they found a more well-supplied outpost. Anika's asking around proved successful as well, and they wound up with a number of people who both knew how to handle a hunt, and were willing to jump at the chance to escape the dustball that served as their current home. Echo even got an interesting creature out of the bargain: A very fat grey-green lizard with a pair of horned ridges above its eyes, roughly the size of a small canine. It came with a pair of thick leather gauntlets, and a warning that, whenever it felt threatened, it was prone to shooting a stream of its own highly-acidic blood out of its eyes.

The list of vehicles Macharius had looked at by the end of the second day was very long indeed. Originally, the plan was just to acquire one, for use in the Election. Then Echo pointed out that they were unlikely to find a better deal anywhere else, Ravia was more than capable of rebuilding them to deal with any issues of quality, and the Dynasty motor pool had already been established as lacking. After that, a steady stream of shuttles carrying vehicles in various states of dilapidation could be seen carting things up to the Sting at all hours of the day. There were groundcars and motorcycles, utility trucks, a pair of Salamander scout vehicles, a worn Chimera, the list went on. Towards the end, and given the sheer amount of commodities Macharius was apparently willing to part with, the clans started scraping the barrel looking for more things they were willing to part with. This resulted in a small handful of vehicles bearing very non-standard modifications, including one which looked like it was actually a Leman Russ with a Tauros welded to the top in place of the turret. Nearly everything would need a very thorough repair job by their resident Magos, but once that was done they would be able to draw on quite the range of vehicles. The citizens of Port Davis would no doubt be pleased to recieve some of the surplus as well, as the Sting only had so much free space.

As the Election drew ever closer, Forge-Master Noctus paid Macharius a visit carrying a dataslate and a roll of parchment. "Lord Captain Absalom," the Techpriest began, "I've been doing some searching through the archival vaults, and I have a proposal I would like for you to hear. If you have a moment?"