WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER: THE CITADEL OF SKULLS (Roleplaying on the Farthest Frontiers)

The door opened to reveal the best painters and craftsmen on the ship, following your instructions, putting their final touches on the blue and gold highlighting on the armor. The paint set and dried, but were mere ship's paint, not the heavy duty interlaced coloring that Mrs. Agincornt had done, so it'd be easy to burn off paint remover without damaging the proper coat beneath. The metal and wire that had been painted as well for the horns just completed the look, transfiguring the armor into...fairly approximate replicas of the armors used by the Thousand Son sorcerers, a cabalistic sect of Traitor Legionaries who were known for their sly tricks and sorcery and...psychic powers.

"What on Terra..." Em whispers.

"Now, we just need to never take our hats off," you say, brightly. "With voice modulators, Ryia and I will sound as male as you."

"Not sure if I like that," Ryia grumbles, crossing her arms over her chest. "Isn't this...dangerous?" She blushes. "Like...f-for our...souls?" she mutters that last bit, like she's worried anyone might overhear that Iluryia Rackamore Vendigroth Scourge might care about something so ephemeral and soft as her soul.

You shake your head. "Not in the slightest. Using any tool to smite the enemies of humanity is justified, so long as you do not break your own morality. And is it against any law to wear the uniforms of the enemy to sneak into their facilities and defeat them?"

"Yes, in the uniform codes," Em says, dryly. "But those don't apply to pirates."

"Oh. Well." You huff. "They are. So, it's fine!"

Em looks unconvinced.

And, as the helmet clamps down, and the teleportarium begins to warm up, you think a quick, tiny little prayer to the big man upstairs.

It'll be fine, right, sir?

And you feel just a tiny bit better when you are not immediately struck by lightning. Maybe it will be all right.

The teleportarium cracks to life - and brings you, at last, down to the single settlement of Inequity - home to the tattered support structure of Karrad Vall and city to the Citadel of Skulls...

Skaarsdelve.


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CHAPTER THREE...

COMPLETE
Objective: Use Skar's Plan To Approach Inequity (25 AP)
Objective: Come Up With Your Own Plan (50 AP)
Objective: Defeated The Maw of Gluttony (100 AP)
Objective: Rescued Soulcages (100 AP)
Objective: Reaching Inequity (200 AP)
Objective: Took the Bulwark (100 AP)
Objective: Lost more than 75% Hull (-50 AP)
Objective: Lost more than 75% Hull (-50 AP)
Objective: Lost Nova Cannon (-25 AP)

CALCULATING BONUS AP
Bonus AP From Talents: 0 AP
Bonus AP From Components: 1,750

Total AP: 3,515/1,200

EXPERINCE REWARDS
500 - Participation
500 - Good Roleplay
500 - Defeated the Maw
500 - Took the Bulwark

NOTE: The last 500 XP of your expenditures get to get to 6th. Also! If you manage to get two skills at +20, then at rank 7...you qualify...for LEGEND OF THE EXPANSE. Oh, also, it may not be clear, but you can buy physical perfection one more time! Also, while it may seem odd that if you just cut and run now without claiming the Vault of Secrets, you'll make, like, 23 Profit Factor, think of it like this: You just came in, captured a 10,000 year old archeotech studded ship, took and destroyed Karrad Vall's biggest spaceport, and then left with your lives and souls. It's basically the biggest defeat and insult that Karrad Vall has seen for, what, two centuries? And it was pulled off by a trio of Rogue Traders who are in their mid twenties!

The CRAKC of purple lightning dissipated and you found yourself standing upon a small hillock of grayish material, silty and shifting under your feet. In the skies overhead, you can see the ochre vastness of the gas giant, reflecting a dullish red glow across the gray and black landscape around you. The space port that had been captured and now flew Scourge colors hung between giant and ground, casting a dark comforting shadow against banded rings of atmospheric gas on that distant, swirling world. The light of the Dioskori star was gone for now, obscured behind the bulk of the giant...leaving nothing but the lights of the settlement stretching before you.

Through the crystal clear optics of your helmet, you can see the spaceport that fills the valley ahead of the hillock you've landed on. It is approximately two kilometers wide and three kilometers long, surrounded by the high stone walls meant to capture and direct the blast of crashing shuttles upwards into the air. Stablights thrust into the heavens above it - and surrounding it were narrow roads and pathways that picked their way through the blasted, smoggy landscape towards Skaarsdelve itself.

The city looked as if it had metastasized rather than being built - ramshackle buildings of corrugated steel and salvaged wood, bricks of grayish stone mired over with industrial pollutants from the distant foundry smoke plumes of the manufactorum that perched on the cliffs to the eastern edge of the area you could see. Some buildings rose taller than others - built of sturdier materials, and with glowing holoneon signs proclaiming services from joygirls and obscura. Blazing lights cut along the roofs of buildings, shining from lumenvines that were twined here and there, and glowglobes that had been kindled to golds, reds, yellows and greens were dangled from bailing wire that ran between posts that were thrust up to provide structure for tarpaulins that covered sooks and bazaars.

And among it all were people.

Thousands of people.

Tens of thousands.

Millions.

You were beginning to think your estimation of this place's population was wildly off.

Em squares his shoulders. Through the vocodor, his voice sounds resonant and bassy and, honestly, quite sexy. "Come on."

The three of you begin to stomp down the side of the hill and head towards the capital of Inequity herself.

Entering into the outskirts of the town, the first thing you hear is the distant sound of a siren wailing to the heavens, and the voice - femme and gruff - calling out to the night. "Ware orbital bombardment! Enemy fleet tethered overhead. Ware orbital bombardment!" Despite this, the first few people you walk past are desperately poor looking men and women who glance your way, then go back to cooking what meager foodstuffs they've managed to catch - it looks like much debased rat meat - over their fires. There's no sign of fortification, evacuation, hell, you don't see a single sign of shelters or bomb-holes. Everyone you walk by is sullenly waiting for the lances to turn their entire lives to kindling.

"Well, at least they're preparing themselves adequately," Ryia says, sarcastically.

Em nods.

You come to the edge of the spaceport section and here it is that you see the first sign of actual organization. A quartet of men in Vall's colors are patrolling with lasguns and stablights underslinging them - and they're following after a creature that makes Em and Ryia tense up - and you feel a cold prickle run along your spine. The creature is a red canid, spined, with a ferociously drooling mouth and blazing warpfire eyes. It has a massive, banded collar around its throat that is riven into its flesh, and is made entirely of brass. Despite that, it does not bleed, and it has no leash that the men hold. If anything, they are more deferential to it...and you hear it's breath whuffing as it snaps its head to you and Em and Ryia. It growls...and you swear that the growl forms a word.

"Grrrykers..."

The stablights shine upon you and the men gape in shock - but the creature has already begun to lope forward, rushing straight at you. It leaps at you and you draw up your power blade with a flash. Its teeth crash into the power field, and where you expect it to lose a good chunk of its body, it ignores the crackling power field. You grunt, shove the creature upwards, then slash with Aria in a single quick motion - and the creature sails over your armor and smashes down onto the ground behind you with a wet splash. Blood rains down on you and you grab the severed haunch, holding it, and see it is already beginning to dissolve.

Daemonflesh.

You look to the men and immediately say. "This is how the Faceless Lord greets his honored guests, then?"

You toss it down to the ground between you and the gaping, terrified men. They looked at you, at Em, and at Ryia, and you notice your sister and your husband have taken position to your flank, clearly planning to let you take lead, considering you were speaking with pure and utter authority - and you had to admit? It was kind of fun to pretend to be a big bossy Space Marines. You tried to have a slightly softer touch as a Trader, but...it was nice to see bastards cringe for once.

The leader stammered. "W-Who...wh...who are you?"

You feel inspired. You take a step forward. "Who am I? Who am I? I am a sorcerer of the Third Circle, Master of the Cat's Cradle, and servant of the Lord of Change. I am a Space Marine, immortal warrior against the rotting throne and the corpse worshipers who flock to it. I am Abraxis Mentas Ur and you explain why your BEAST dared to set CLAW to my BLADE!" You strode forward as you did so, and focused and let the rocks and rubble around you ripple and start to lift up into the air about you, as if the very world itself was growing more and more furious. The man gulps and steps backwards as you glare down at him.

Then he drops to his knee, bowing low.

"I beg your pardon, D-Dread Sorcerer!" he stammers. "My master, The Faceless Lord, has ordered us to keep Inequity secure. With him away, we still have the flesh hounds, they've been tasked to sniff out any, uh, any infiltrators. But they are...they're very uncontrollable, sometimes, being...daemons and all."

"How many of these crude beasts do you have loping about?" you ask.

"Oh, uh, hundreds," the man says, hurriedly. "Master Blackstaff, on the bastion, gave warning, the corpsers had a teleportarium, so...we're on high alert. Assuming they don't just bomb us."

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What do you do?
[ ] Demand they show you to the Citadel and continue your bluff
[ ] Direct them on their way and attempt to return to stealth - avoding any more of these beasts
[ ] Kill them all, then return to stealth
[ ] Write In