rogue trader: the road to el doratlantis

[bramblefoot]

scintilla, the mid-hive:

the players are all drinking in a small establishment waiting for the paperwork on your warrant to be finished. please describe your character and all the general goodies

[boj0]

Bartholomew Achilles Sherman VIII smirked, looking down at the Regicide board; while he was not on the level of the true masters of the game, any born and bred son of Artunjak IV could easily apply the Tactica Imperialis to such a simple simulation of battlefield positioning...or so he thought.

Taking a long, yet controlled sip of his brandy, he then meticulously moves his last piece into position. "You know, if this was an actual battle, this position could simply hold and bleed out your forces." A smug Scintillan looked up from his data slate, a bored tone escaped his lips, "I am sure, however Mister Sherman, this is not the battlefield you have mistaken it for, and your lack of foresight it appears, has cost you this match. I would thank you for a riveting game, but such blatant falsehoods are beneath me."

The Sherman line had long been competent officers in their native Imperial Guard regiments, and Bart certainly had the training to prove it, while he hadn't been promoted to an active field commander position, due to his older brother Sunzi still alive and kicking, it still stung to see his lack of experience showing in such a simple game. But he would not be bothered. He smoothed his hair back, slightly longer than the crew cut he was accustomed to, and twisted his mustache back into a proper form. "Well, I suppose I must acknowledge your superior ability to play games, especially those mastered by pampered factotums and lay abouts pretending at Warmaster." Bart straightened his greatcoat, the medals from the Achilus Crusade reflecting the smoky light of the establishment. "Unfortunately the Artunjak One-Eighteenth was too busy crushing the weak spirited Xenos to have such distractions become a prominent focus of training."

As he stands from the table, he draws a lho stick from his pocket and flicks open an engraved lighter, showing off the holsters for his twin bolt pistols as well as his officer's blade affixed to his hip. Placing the lighter back he buttons his coat up to the masterfully ornate gorget on his armor. While Bart had no intention of telling the powder-wigged man that his great uncle/commanding officer had informally relived him of duty in order to act as a bodyguard and military adviser for a Rogue Trader dynasty, payment for services rendered a few centuries prior, he still felt as though he could dress down a lower ranked man one last time.

"You fiend! I will not have this noble and exalted game, honored by millennia of officers be so callously dismissed by some...some uncouth gunslinger! I demand you resign the game and admit defeat at once!" No amount of servant-applied whitewash could hide the scarlet of the man's face as he made a scene.

"Sit down boy before you embarrass yourself any further," he tilted the hilt of his sword, the pommel embossed with his symbol of rank, catching the glow of embers, "I just so happen to be on pleasant terms with the commander of your regiment, and I would hate to miss the ceremony of Lady Bloodmane's Warrant presentation to give him my strong recommendation for you to take latrine duty for the next solar year."

The Scintillan blanched at the statement, horror across his face as he looked at Bartholomew Sherman, his stern eyes giving no hint to this being a hollow threat. Bart simply sighed, grabbed his drink, and walked over to the good Lady Bloodmane; "Emperor's teeth, this paperwork cannot come back fast enough, I think we'll only have a week before that brat realizes I don't outrank him anymore." He swirls his drink and stares out the window of the spire, he would certainly miss the comfort and excitement of the guard and his family, but a true man of the Emperor was what he survived, and after shootouts with pirates, Orks, Kroot, and whatever else raised the ire of the Artunjak 118th, Bartholomew Achilles Sherman VII was ready to see who he would be after a challenge beyond his wildest dreams, working with a Rogue Trader.

[Janwin]

Observing the game from across the room, the tech-priest known as Arcturius, was a bit of a strange sight in the establishment filled with high-ranking humans enjoying the finer points of life. Though he didn't have the utility mechadendrite protruding from his back like many of his brothers, the red robes ordained with the cogs of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the cybernetic implants visible under the robes gave no question as to his role in the Imperium.

Even so, it was clear that this tech-priest was...different. First of all, he was willing to even be in this establishment in the first place. Second of all, he moved with the appearance of one who had seen combat and held his own, which made him fit in strangely well with all the officers who were enjoying their leave; but it was obvious this wasn't just some book-smart tech-priest. He had served for years as a tech-priest aboard the ship of an ordo-Xenos Inquisitor prior to the Inquisitors untimely and early grave (along with his ship) while exploring a strange, ancient world filled with murderous robots--fortunately his new posting aboard a Rogue Trader's vessel would likely be one with few questions asked and fewer concerns given.

He observed the interaction between the Scintillan and Bartholomew Sherman with interest. Simple games of logic remain of interest even to those often incapable of logic; it has always been one of the oddities of civilization., he thought to himself.

He took a sip of the drink he had ordered a while ago and completely forgotten was in his hand while he continued to observe the establishment's patrons.

[Lord Raziere]

Esailla Bloodmane:
She is drinking amasec, her red hair under a wide brimmed hat with a feather, she is dressed in a white frilly shirt, purple long coat with a various gold lining, decorative pauldrons and golden skull buttons, black pants, long boots, with a power sword sheathed at her side. This was ridiculous. The Imperial Navy tried to exile her through promoting her to Rogue Trader and giving her this warrant so they get her out of command but they couldn't even do this right. Typical. She was the only competent captain in the entire navy, she was sure of it. She will be glad when she leaves to find El Doratlantis. No more putting up with the Administratums geographically slow bureaucracy-she finally got her own birth certificate a week ago. One could only hope that this paperwork doesn't take decades as well.
"If we're here only a week I'll consider ourselves lucky, Bartholomew. I wonder if this was their plan: promote me out of leading a crusade fleet and becoming a ruler just so they can keep me here waiting so that I'll never get on a vessel to actually search for El Doratlantis. I'll show them, Bartholomew. The riches that it holds can be ours, if only we could reach out and grasp them."
She raises and clutches her hand into fist. Maybe she needed to go and speed up the process a bit with some bribes, money is the oil to speed the cogs of these things after all.

[boj0]

"Hmmpf," he snorts under his breath, "if these puffed up, powder covered, do-nothing-without-a-servant, man children could bear the indignation of taking Thrones from us, we could have a shot."

Another swirl of his drink as the all-too-rare ice cubes clink and spin about the glass; "But, until we get the official stamp and the ship, we're just well dressed and playing at nobility, which these jackals feed on." He had worked enough theaters of combat with the Scintillans and those who knew them, to have a gut feeling about this whole thing being bait, make a mistake and pull the warrant out from under them. Well...he assumed so, in truth he knew very little about the workings of Rogue Traders, including if you could deny someone the Warrant of Trade. Regardless, his job was to protect the Captain, even if she wasn't a captain yet.

"I say we sit tight, keep our ears open, and prevent anything sensitive from slipping out." He pulls out another lho stick and offers one to Esailla. "Besides, we can always run up the tab on this amsec in the meantime," he lifts his drink to Arcturius, "join us Priest of Mars, social acts of camaraderie improve group efficiency by .07 percent!" A little trick he learned from the armored divisions, if you tell a Tech-Priest that something was more efficient, they would usually come around to it.

[bramblefoot]

suddenly, the door crashes open and a bleeding man staggers into the establishment, a knife buried to the hilt between his shoulder blades. he staggers over to esialla and passes her a blood-stained data-slate before collapsing to the floor dead. about thirty seconds pass in dead silence and then four rough-looking individuals stalk in. they see the man and the slate and draw weapons

two of the four rough customers are within a half move and have drawn swords and stub pistols. the other two have a little heavier kit, which looks like a boltgun and a heavy stubber

wdyd?

(1d10+3)[5]

[Janwin]

"I suspect your calculation is flawed, Mister Sherman, however--"

As the man stumbles in bleeding, Arcturius makes no hesitation to stepping over toward Lady Bloodmane; if only possibly to see what data might be contained on the slate of such importance.

As the ruffians enter, a bolter is produced from under his red robes faster than you might ask yourself: "where the hell was -that- hidden?"

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Quick Draw - Bolter

[Lord Raziere]

Esailla Bloodmane
"Gentlemen, gentlemen."
She says with a charming smile. She has talked her way out of situations like these before.
"There is no need for a fight here, come now, put down your weapons and talk, and I'll pay for your drinks or double whatever you were paid to kill this man. I'm Esailla Bloodmane, Rogue Trader. I assure you, you want to negotiate with me."
Her hand will drift down to her power sword, just in case
"Good things come to those who negotiate with me. Why, I come with my crew and you might even get a chance to see the legendary El Doratlantis!"

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Fellowship, Charm target number: 71
(1d100)[88]

[boj0]

The lho stick was immediately replaced with a bolt pistol aimed squarely at the one holding their own bolter. Let the Lady do the talking, let me do the shooting, he thinks to himself. A twitch of an arm and the gorget on his armor cracks and glows with power as his power field kicks in.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Quick Draw a bolt pistol, and active my power field

[bramblefoot]

the lead thug huffs and says "im afraid my orders were quite clear. retrieve the slate" the thug holds out a hand for the slate

[Janwin]

With a brief calculation in his head and a scan of the apparent foes with his cyber-eyes, the priest comments to the thug, "You have an approximately three-point-two-five-one-nine-one-nine-one-nine-repeating chance of success upon your current path. I advise an alternative course."

With that, he raises his bolter into firing position.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Full Action: Aim at the lead thug

[bramblefoot]

the thug huffs and turns on his heel "this aint over" he growls, and the rest of his bunch stalk away

[boj0]

Bart keeps his pistol aimed in the direction of the thugs well after they sulk away, making sure a sudden change of heart didn't leave them caught off-guard.

Chancing a quick look down at the man bleeding out, he shouts to no one in particular, "Will someone grab a damned medic?!"

[Lord Raziere]

Esailla Bloodmane
She grabs the bloody dataslate, wiping it off while looking at.
"Sure you guys find one if you want. Don't remove the knife, its probably staunching the bleeding."
She will read it, not being real concerned about the dying or dead man in front of her. If she needs to she will give a short eulogy about this man's sacrifice in the name of whatever he just gave her. Everyone in the Imperium loves a martyr after all.

[Janwin]

As the ruffians leave, Arcturius once again lowers his bolter, satisfied that they have been dealt with...for now.

He turns his attention back to the curious dataslate in the Lady Bloodmane's hands before his curiosity is interrupted by Bart's outburst.

A servo-skull floats over to the dead man on the floor and appears to do a brief scan for any bio-signs. "I assure you, Mister Sherman, that he is no longer in need of a medic."

The servo-skull then nonchalantly floats around behind Lady Bloodmane to try and get a view of the dataslate's contents.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Assuming auto-success on Tech-Use to use the Auspex since the guy was described as dead in an earlier post.

Not even bothering to roll for stealth for the servo-skull to be subtle about trying to peek over Bloodmane's shoulder. It's not. Arcturius doesn't care enough to be subtle.

[bramblefoot]

the data-slate contains a fractured star map with annotations, several locations are circled with el doratlantis? in red. can i get a common lore (koronus expanse) at -20 for a clue?

[boj0]

With a heavy sigh, Bart looks to a random Scintillan, "Get this body out of here, Emperor knows what tomfoolery will come from leaving corpses about."
No stranger to sudden and violent deaths, he shakes off the dead man and turns his attention to Lady Bloodmane, curious to know what was on this dataslate that involved such cloak-and-dagger skulduggery.

[bramblefoot]

the map on the data-slate has circled burnscour and a set of coordinates. in barely legible handwriting, it reads be careful, nothing is as it seems

after that, all of you get a incoming call on the vox. it says your warrant has been finalized and you can go

[boj0]

Bartholomew shrugs, holsters his pistol, finishes his drink, and waits for everyone else so they can get out of the Hive.