Down below, the relentless advance of the Stormtroopers and Sororitas now seems all but unstoppable. All but the last handdful of guards are dead, and even those unflinching fanatics are diving for cover. Those of the gentry who have chosen to resist are mostly laid out on the floor, already dead or slowly bleeding out. There is still a fight to be had, but it does not seem like it will last for too much longer. Even a quick glance down shows the white-haired woman in the black gown toppling, a ruby-red lasbolt punching right through the furniture she had been sheltering behind.

Behind the firing lines of her troops, the shining woman's duel has taken a turn for the unexpected. The daemon, disarmed and staggered, lunges back for her with a hateful scream, swiping furiously with its long black claws, raking her across the forehead. In response, she punches the thing, a golden-armored fist apparently enough to unbalance it. Before it can recover, a snarling Interrogator Altier lunges forward herself and plunges her sword right into the hellspawn's head. The shining silver blade punches through the beast's rough red skin as if it were paper, emerging from the opposite side of its enlarged cranium at a downward angle. The daemon lets out a long, unearthly shriek, flailing as if in panic as an unstoppable golden firestorm consumes its body. The the blaze only lasts for a split second, though. The abomination gives one final wail, then seems to implode in on itself with such force that even those standing on the stage can feel air rushing towards the vicinity. In the blink of an eye, nothing is left but the Interrogator, doubled over and visibly panting, blood trickling down her face, the tip of her sword buried in a pile of grey ashes.

Spoiler: Dyveke
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There is a harsh, barking laugh in your head, and you feel a cold chill running down your spine, a sense of excitable anticipation tinged with genuine uneasiness.


Spoiler: All
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Anyone with the skill can make a Forbidden Lore Daemonology test at +10 to realize what just happened.


Up on the stage, the psyborg lets out a wet, hateful hiss as H3X levels his integrated las-pistol for a another spread of shots, the disgusting sheen of his oily fluid leaking down the front of his ruined finery. The assassin's binary chant doesn't seem to drawn much of a reaction from him, but the flurry of las bolts certain do. The energy blasts catch the nobleman in the right shoulder, driving right through his coat and ablative mechanical parts to superheat the man's insights. The results are as spectacular as they are messy - his arm explodes at the shoulder, showering the stage with hissing bionic fluids, blackened blood, and red-hot shards of metal. The man lets out one final. nonsensical binaric wail as he fails, shrieking his agony to the world. He hits the stage on his back, his filthy life's blood and mechanical unguents pouring from the gaping wound in his side, twitches one more time, and then lies still. The lights in his blue ocular implants die away to nothing.

While the heretek expires, Dyveke and Matthias make a break for the exit behind H3X, the same one that Hrosavar disappeared down only a little while earlier. They are, for the moment, unimpeded in doing so. When the two of them throw open the unlocked door, they find themselves staring down a relatively wide corridor of bare industrial steel, intermittently lit with harsh white lumen strips on the ceiling but full of shadows nonetheless. The contrast between such stark, barren utilitarianism and the plush extravagance of the ballroom that they're leaving could hardly be more complete. As far as their eyes can peer into the darkness, they see no one ahead of them, and no branching paths.