Dead in the Water (Dark Heresy IC)

[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

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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.

Spoiler: OOC

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Literacy Test: (1d100)[39] 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.

Spoiler: OOC

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Willpower 42 versus Insanity: (1d100)[52] and so it begins

Invocation, with +10 from the psy-focus, so against 52: (1d100)[19]

Trying to manifest Glimpse with three dice. Target number 18, +4 for WP bonus, additional +4 if the Invocation was successful. (3d10)[7][3][10](20)

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. (1d100)[9] (1d100)[29]

[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:

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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:

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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.

Spoiler: OOC

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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

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Annie is ready to move on whenever.

(1d100)[40] vs 35 for insanity.

(1d100)[24] 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."