Sea of Stars - IC

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius is briefly floored by being winked at by one of his soldiers. He flounders for an answer. Well, erm, ahem, haven't we been paying you? Lady Vanhal handles that sort of thing. Quite. Do make sure we pay her whatever a proper dynastic champion should be paid.

He jumps on Hannabel's comment to restore his equilibrium. Precisely! Proper faith in the God-Emperor will see you through anything. Mistress Shanx's unshakable adherence to Him is an example for us all.

The Praetorian Guard has always been recruited from the House's best, so the Captain has had broad latitude in training. Of course they had more training facilities before. Back when they were a whole regiment rather than five men. He trails off, with a look of deep sadness.

[Kaptin Keen]

To be honest, without the power armor, I'm not quite sure I could take Almagor in a sparring match - but I'd take him to the firing range any day. I've met few enough marksmen who matched my skill.

To Macharius she adds:

In the Imperial Guard lower case marines, I had the rank of lieutenant, but our Drill Instructor had the rank of Master Sergeant. Now, Master Sergeant is actually a higher rank than Captain, but still placed lower in the command hierarchy. Which I suppose fits in this case?

Spoiler: OOC

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This doesn't fit the information online - but I have it first hand from a british special forces dude, who told me master sergeants aren't really a thing in the british military, but they have a few regardless, places just under colonel (!!) in rank, but outside the regular command structure - like pilots, in a way.

He also told me they get a baton. Felidae wants a baton too =)

[Leon]

++And official military designations tend to go out the window when its applied to a Traders personal force++

Ravia finishes setting the station up while people talk and look at the shattered remains of things

++All systems reading green and signals transmitting cleanly on this station++

[Destro_Yersul]

"Deal," said Almagor, "but we're using the company autoguns. No need to waste bolt shells on target practice when they could be spent on the Emperor's enemies."

The tunnel leading away from the crash site was similar to the one they had taken coming in. It too contained a crude barricade, which Felidae in her armour hand no trouble casting aside. This tunnel snaked back and forth, winding between damaged buildings and frozen statues, branching out in many places. The main tunnel, though, the one Ravia directed them down, headed consistently towards the center of the city and the final sensor site. Through the ice, they could see larger and larger towers looming around them, spires reaching for the windswept surface. The tunnel opened into a wide plaza, once a gathering place, now as cold and dead as the rest of the city. Once again their were Xenos bodies, clustered around the doors to the biggest structure they had yet encountered; a grand temple, with spiralling, flowing pillars and great fluted buttresses. The doors were broken, cast down and shattered into pieces. Anika recognised the architecture.

This was pure Kadath, cyclopean, palatial ruins covered in waving designs and intricate carven script. Dark things loomed above, graven stone tentacles reaching down to spread across the city. It was an ominous place, casting a lingering dread over the frozen plaza. The dead were innumerable, empty skulls staring up from every corner like grimacing sentinels. Their captive refused to approach, pulling at its chains and biting ineffectually at the cold metal binding its wrists. This was it, the dark heart of corruption.

Yet, there were signs that the aliens had fought back against their new gods, defiant to the last. Many of the inscriptions and carvings were defaced, the horrible idols smashed. The interior yawned open, tenebrous and terrible, and from within they could hear a faint and distant hum.

[Kaptin Keen]

Should we maybe have rooted through that crash site? Ponders Felidae, as they enter what feels like the center of the city, and the hub of both Ravia's sensor network and the Yu'Vath occupation of this planet. Then, she pondered the number of dead fish guys in this place.

Macharius, if those crystals can animate the dead once, they can do it again. I think we might want to call in some more marines before finding out if there are any more of those crystals.

Actually, does anyone else think that crystal before was a tad shady? I mean, it was shiny, but ... never mind. I don't think the crystal was doing anything on it's own. Is it possible it acts as focus for whatever vile powers the Yu'Vath have? That they can manifest their evil through those crystals?

Because if that's the case, there is a live one - somewhere.

[Leon]

++The Empyrean is infinitely mysterious with what and how it can do what it does, all the more interesting to study it, what we know about the Yu'vath is so very little beyond that they were Xenos Warp weavers with a once large and now fallen empire++

[Haval]

Anika shivers slightly at the sight of this place. It looked like the sort of building humanity used to build for the worship of other, older gods. 'Looks like a temple to me.' Anika notes the reaction of the prisoner to the sight of it. 'I wonder how he'd feel if we were to blow the place up when we've finished.' Although given the size of it, maybe they didn't have enough detonation charges on the Sting to do the job properly.

In response to Felidae's musing, 'If I wanted to be practical I'd start burning the bodies now just on the off chance Felidae's right.' What would be worst here? That there were multiple Yu'vath crystals that might be able to operate independently of each other or that there was a network with something intelligent controlling them all. 'If that crystal is connected to something else we might be able to track it's location through the auspex. Or if that hum is just a power source of some kind we don't know what other defences this place might have.'

Spoiler: ooc

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Always approve of someone using 'tenebrous' in a sentence

[rax]

Hannabel takes in the temple with an odd look on her face, something between delight and revulsion. Oh, you were just built to scare the living feck out of everyone, weren't you? But the handiwork...exquisite!

"Father Ornstein, Astropath. You think either of you could convey to our prisoner that we are enemies of whatever power built or resided in that temple? That we will destroy them if we can? It'd be nice it could start to think of us as possible allies in the fight against a greater evil."

"With some xenos, there's no way to know where the xenos begin and their technology ends," Hannabel replies to Felidae. "What with their reputation, I wouldn't put it past the Yu'Vath to have been able to build some sort of independent warp-based weapon system."

Spoiler: Testing...testing

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Did the crystal Felidae shot down and/or the undead xenos match any known Yu'Vath technology?
Forbidden Lore (Xenos) test (1d100)[87] vs. Int 40

[Destro_Yersul]

The undead hadn't been encountered in dealings with Yu'Vath before, though walking statues had, animated by fell power. The crystal thing matched descriptions of Yu'Vath entities generally known as 'Bone Conquerors,' albeit in a dormant form. Undoubtedly, if it had been given sufficient time to wake up, it would have pulled some of the bodies to itself to use as a war form. It did appear to be different from others encountered, in that it gave off heat, but that could have been an adaptation to this particular world's conditions. Whatever the case, there was no such heat-emitting crystal here; the bones were frozen, and the whole area appeared to have been carved out by hand rather than melted smooth, as the dome had been.

"He doesn't want us to go inside," Pytho reported. "I.. I think there might be some sort of power plant in there. The generators? It doesn't translate well, but he wasn't one of the maintenance team, and he wasn't supposed to go in. He attaches great significance to the machinery within." The Astropath pointed at the defaced carvings. "The anti-Yu'Vath faction may have won the civil war. If there is active xenostech in there, what do we want to do with it?"

[Kaptin Keen]

So ... we're assuming the good fish guys won, but then what? They built the generators, froze their own planet, because .. what, they couldn't kill the Yu'Vath, but they could keep them frozen? Why is it so important to them that the planet remains frozen?

Felidae glances at the yawning maw of the building.

Should I just, like, pop a real quick look inside?

[Leon]

++Like a power armoured canary++

[Kaptin Keen]

A power armored, bolter gunned canary.

What's a canary?

[Haval]

What's a canary?

Anika only has a partial answer to that one. 'Some sort of device the ancients used to test for dangerous underground gases.'

Points at the Xenos, 'Does he not want us inside because he's worried we'll break something important? I don't think our presence alone should be enough to affect anything.'

[Destro_Yersul]

"He's worried we'll break something, or turn something off." Pytho said. "This isn't like the mind link we used on the Terminus. This information only goes one way, so I can't very well tell him we won't."

Felidae stepped up to the temple doorway. Within the carved arch was darkness; her helmet systems worked to compensate, the interior appearing in the grainy green of nightvision on her display. The darkness felt almost palpable, even with the helmet's filtering, but there was no movement from inside, nor could she see what was producing the hum. There were four great statues near the entry, each of a tall fishman holding a trident. Unlike the other decoration, these had not been vandalised. Further in, she thought she could see the shattered remains of another statue, this one scattered around the huge plinth that had once served as its base. There was nothing resembling seating, but then for an aquatic race it had likely been unnecessary. Oddly, there weren't many bones inside. A vast number of bodies were in the plaza outside, but inside the temple there were no bones anywhere. Possibly they had all been thrown outside by the winners of the battle.

[Kaptin Keen]

Hm?

Felidae sights down her bolter, sweeping it's enhanced targeting package back and forth across the room. Nothing stirs on the sensors.

Well ... She shrugs her shoulders, and proceeds into the room, looking for the source of that hum. Also, she's slightly curious about that last, broken statue.

Spoiler: Oh!

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Helmet lights, right? Surely her helmet must have lights. She reaches up and switches them on, casting a come of illumination forward into the room.

[Destro_Yersul]

Felidae's helmet lamp flicked on, the harsh brilliance of the light cutting through the gloom. The nightvision filter flared and dimmed to compensate for the increased light, resulting in an overall better image of the interior. The temple's architecture was strange, subtly different from many of the other buildings they had passed through. Flickering shapes on the edge of vision turned out to be statues concealed in hidden alcoves, or thin graven lines beneath a layer of ice on the ceiling. The upper levels of the temple had been ignored by the excavators; Felidae could see holes in the ceilings, leading up to rooms above. Back when the place had been flooded, going upstairs would have been as simple as swimming towards it.

The large statue was deceptively far away. Her footsteps echoed as she approached it, the pedestal gradually growing in her field of vision until it was nearly the size of an Astartes Land Raider. The statue that had once occupied it was gone, broken into thousands of fragments. Given the vandalism to other aspects of the temple, the damage had likely been intentional. The pedestal had recieved less attention, however, and was still carved with many sigils. The stone had been worked into many tendrils, each still, but carrying with it the suggestion of horrible undulating life. Behind the pedestal, an archway led to a curved tunnel that spiraled downwards, the walls covered with images of serpents. The humming was louder here, a deep reverberating thrum from below.

[Kaptin Keen]

Upper level is empty by visual and sensor scan. Stairs lead below, which is where that hum comes from. I feel maybe this is as far as I should go alone.

Report given, Felidae will remain alert, and await instructions - or the rest of the crew.

[rax]

"Well then, all clear so far. Do we wait for more marines, or do we proceed?"

[Haval]

Anika will steel herself to go into the temple. If nothing else she wasn't sure anyone else would know what to look for.

'If nothing has tried to kill Felidae I don't think we're any immediate danger for going in.'

If the situation was much worse then they hoped it was possible that more marines wouldn't do much good, but then again they had been effective against the Bone Conqueror.

[PotatoGolem]

Macharius gestures to the marine sergeant. Sergeant, get a couple more platoons up here. Have them smash those bones before we go in. No sense risking another attack.

He turns back to the others. Having a few more good men on our side couldn't hurt, what?

[Destro_Yersul]

It took some time for the reinforcements to arrive, but without the immediate danger of Yu'Vath constructs, it was time they could afford. While they waited, the marines went around the plaza stomping on xenos bones and smashing xenos skulls in with the butts of their lasrifles. When more marines had arrived, they all entered the temple.

Lacking the nightvision of Felidae's helmet, most of the marines had to do with switching on their standard-issue lamp packs. Beams of light swept around the interior, catching on stone and glancing off ice. The atmosphere was oppressive, and they all felt as though there were things lurking in the dark that vanished whenever the light swept over them. There weren't, of course; Felidae and the others with photo-visors could see that.

Descending down the tunnel at the back, the humming grew louder. There were no stairs, and they had to proceed carefully or risk slipping and tumbling all the way to the bottom. At last, they came out into a large chamber, carved out beneath the ocean floor. Half of it, nearest them, was filled with rows upon rows of shelves, each holding xenos data crystals like the one they had found in the barracks. Many of these were cracked and dead, or lying in shattered fragments on the floor, but a few were intact. The latter half of the chamber was filled with the source of the hum.

Vast banks of xenos machinery rose to the ceiling, coral spires meeting the roof and spreading out across it. Sparks of electricity danced within faceted arrays of crystal, and multicoloured liquids rose and fell within membraneous gauges. There were what looked like control panels on the front, panels of depressions labelled with symbols in the xenos script. The floor here was warm, they noticed, no ice clinging to its surface. This must be the generator that the xenos captive was so concerned about. Unlike the temple, and indeed much of the city, it appeared to have been maintained over the aeons. Macharius could imagine legions of fishmen crawling over its many surfaces, opening inspection panels and fiddling with hidden, esoteric components.

[Haval]

On the way down it occurs to Anika that getting out of here in a hurry might be difficult. The lingering sense that they might not be alone down here didn't help.

At the bottom, 'Well this is impressive. I always did like libraries.' Assuming that was what all those data crystals signified. 'How do you work out what a machine does without say pressing a lot of buttons? We'll have to look at those data crystals for a start.'

Following her translation efforts upstairs, Anika will look to see if she can read any of the xenos words. 'Father Ornstein, can you make any sense of this?'

Spoiler

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Speak Language roll with the servo skull
vs. Int 53 /2 - 27
(1d100)[95]

Forbidden Lore (Xenos) to see if it makes any kind of sense
vs. Int 53
(1d100)[14]

[rax]

"I'm inclined to agree with fish-face," Hannabel opines, staring at the wondrous alien machine with delight. "Even if we manage to decipher the controls or something, we shouldn't touch it or muck about with it for now. He said there are maintenance teams that look after this place, right? We should try and make contact with them - even if they don't know how this thing works, they probably know what not to do if we want to avoid accidentally turning the planet back into a swimming pool."

[Leon]

++Until such time as we have had a length of time to study it and its workings++

[PotatoGolem]

Pythonissam, check for warp-taint. No such thing as too careful in a place like this. Examine the data crystals in particular. Anika, Father Ornstein, any clue what all of this means? I suppose if the crystals are free of taint we could use them in the reader we encountered earlier.

[Destro_Yersul]

"None nearby, Macharius." Pytho reported after a few minutes of walking slowly around the room, hand to his temple. "If there was anything once, it has long been cleared away."

While the Astropath performed his psychic inspection, Father Ornstein and Anika conducted a far more mundane one, trying to translate the control panel. The old confessor was known for being something of a grump, but the scowl he had on his face when he looked up from running his finger along the panel, careful not to actually touch anything, may have set a new record.

"Apologies, my Lord Captain, but I can't make heads nor tails of this blasted thing. The language is the same as the other Xenos script we've seen, but their labelling makes no sense. Some of these are simply numbers, some are phrases that probably lose something in translation." He pointed at one of the inscriptions.

"This one, for example, says something like 'Luminous Depths.' They were probably trying to be very specific, only they approached it assuming a particular cultural context. Given sufficient time, we could work out all of the inscriptions, but knowing what they say doesn't tell us what they mean."

[Haval]

"This one, for example, says something like 'Luminous Depths.' They were probably trying to be very specific, only they approached it assuming a particular cultural context. Given sufficient time, we could work out all of the inscriptions, but knowing what they say doesn't tell us what they mean."

'Luminous Depths. For a sea dwelling people presumably it refers to the bottom of the ocean? I can't say that I have any idea what that would look like. But you're right of course. I don't think it's a good idea to guess here.'

Anika will ask one of the armsmen to look into finding other surviving xenos. In the mean time, she will look into watching some of the data crystals.

[Kaptin Keen]

Or the um ... 'downtown'? City center would likely have been luminous. Well, unless they see in the dark. How deep would the ocean be here? We can see through the ice, right, so not that deep.

I dunno.

Can we set fish guy free? Ask him to bring his friends? I mean, not sure why they'd believe us, but we're not getting a lot of use out of him anyways, right?

[Destro_Yersul]

The message to look for Xenos who had been part of the maintenace team was relayed and, once again, the group found themselves waiting for the arrival of more men. This time, it took considerably longer, while the search parties remained in contact by vox. Macharius gave them specific direction on what to ask and how to ask it, aided by Anika and Father Ornstein on the language front. Eventually, the teams reported success, and started bringing the captives.

While they waited, Anika had time to review some of the data crystals with the player they'd found. The crystals were a mixed bag; many were sermons of some sort, delivered by one of the pre-freeze fishpeople. As best Anika could tell with her limited understanding of the language, he or she was describing the key tenets of the fishpeople's pre-Yu'Vath religion. Some of the crystals were floor plans for various buildings, including one of the central temple both before and after the Yu'Vath-inspired renovation. Others depicted artists, sculptors and dancers. One described the infiltration of the Yu'Vath, and the slow changes in society as the malevolent aliens twisted it to their own ends. Not one had anything to do with the workings of the machine: they were a cultural record, albeit an incomplete one.

As she turned off yet another floorplan for a building they had never seen, a pair of fishmen arrived, escorted by a fireteam of marines. The fishmen were quite agitated, gesticulating and warbling at the machine. One of them burbled questioningly at their original fishman, which Pytho reported as wondering if they had touched anything, while the other practically dragged its handler over to the machine and started inspecting the crystal arrays.

[Kaptin Keen]

Felidae - still not entirely certain which faction supported the Yu'Vath and which faction opposed them - will discretely raise the barrels of her bolter at the fish guy fiddling with the machine. A healthy bit of paranoia never hurt anyone.