A Heretek on the Quest for Knowledge [40k] [Complete]
- Thread starter BurnNote
- Start date
Update 67: CSI Izen
Update 67: CSI Izen
[X] Document the crime scene before touching anything. Once done, investigate more thoroughly.
-[X] Check the body for traps. In fact, check the area for traps.
-[X] Check to see if the body is actually your master and not a fake.
-[X] Check to see if there are any hidden sensors about that might have documented anything.
-[X] Check your old master's possessions to see if you can find anything.
-[X] Check his cogitators to see if anything of note was stored on them.
You're missing something. So obviously you're going to look for it. You call up a servo-skull to take document the scene. A paranoid voice at the back of your mind wonders if it's all a setup to frame you.
A reasonably cautious voice makes you hurry back to the waiting transporter. You pull out your shield generator, and plug it into its power socket. Hopefully, that will provide protection in the case of 'everything explodes'. Who knows how much boom is buried around here?
Then you take over the skull, and sweep the area for traps. You don't find any energy signatures associated with the more interesting kinds of explosives, or the spectrographic signatures of the more mundane kind. That doesn't mean there are no traps, just that there shouldn't be any that could punch through the shield.
You activate one of the construction servitors Arial brought along. It trundles out, and after a bit of work, pulls the table free. You have it moved outside the dilapidated building the old fuck used as an office, in the hopes of avoiding any surprises left inside. Then you remotely check the body for traps.
You find several dozen, as expected. The old fuck was paranoid about people stealing his stuff while he pretended to sleep. Speaking of, all the various bits of archeotech he liked to brag about are still there. Say what you will, and you have a lot to say about him, but the man had some really good stuff. It's his body. Somebody who could fake the body wouldn't need to.
Of course, one thing is missing: The head. The old fuck was into the whole machine replacement shtick enough that it's the only thing that he needs. And you do note that the body itself is remarkably intact. You estimate that it would take less than an hour to get it operational again (if you could deactivate the security measures). No proof of foul play, but perhaps suggestive.
Maybe you can find some sensors to tell you something? Really, it's a toss up whether he was paranoid about people sneaking around, and so put up a huge sensor net, or paranoid of people spying on him, and therefore put up a signal jammer. Or he did both, thereby screwing up his countermeasure against either.
As it turns out, you do find something. In one of the walls, there's a high fidelity seismograph. Enough to read sounds hitting the walls. Too much data to analyze in detail right now, but it has been silent for a while now. If you can trust it.
You take a look around to see if he had any neat stuff conveniently lying about, but nope. Unless he has completely changed, it's all scattered in little caches through the whole scrap yard. That always seemed incredibly inconvenient to you.
Next, you check his cogitators. They are heavily encrypted, two of them implode when you look at them, and you suspect the rest contain junk data anyway. They did the few few times you tried way back when. Maybe you'll use them as an exercise for your minions? On the other hand, perhaps you might find something, this time. And it would just be nice, in general.
"Magos Iracundia?"
You turn to Ruth. You're the expedition leader, so you have operational control. However, she's not really part of the expedition, and outranks you as well. You're going to listen to her, and keep any comments about the stupidity of her suggestions to a minimum.
"Would you like to call the Fabricator-General? I'm sure he'd love to hear what has happened here."
Do you really want him to bother you? You busy with important things!
What are you going to do next, anyway?
You can take several actions. Some things take longer than others. The order in which you perform your actions matters, and will be give by the order in which they are listed in the plan.
[]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h)
[]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h)
[]Break the encryption. It's going to take a while, but maybe there's something to be found. Beyond an endless flood of images of various immature mammals, anyway. (~1d)
[]Dive into the seismographic readings. See what you can you find there.(~0.5d)
[]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
[]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d)
[]Leave and observe. If the old fuck really faked his death, he might try to get his good stuff back. (1d+)
[]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d)
[]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)
[]write-in
[X] Document the crime scene before touching anything. Once done, investigate more thoroughly.
-[X] Check the body for traps. In fact, check the area for traps.
-[X] Check to see if the body is actually your master and not a fake.
-[X] Check to see if there are any hidden sensors about that might have documented anything.
-[X] Check your old master's possessions to see if you can find anything.
-[X] Check his cogitators to see if anything of note was stored on them.
You're missing something. So obviously you're going to look for it. You call up a servo-skull to take document the scene. A paranoid voice at the back of your mind wonders if it's all a setup to frame you.
A reasonably cautious voice makes you hurry back to the waiting transporter. You pull out your shield generator, and plug it into its power socket. Hopefully, that will provide protection in the case of 'everything explodes'. Who knows how much boom is buried around here?
Then you take over the skull, and sweep the area for traps. You don't find any energy signatures associated with the more interesting kinds of explosives, or the spectrographic signatures of the more mundane kind. That doesn't mean there are no traps, just that there shouldn't be any that could punch through the shield.
You activate one of the construction servitors Arial brought along. It trundles out, and after a bit of work, pulls the table free. You have it moved outside the dilapidated building the old fuck used as an office, in the hopes of avoiding any surprises left inside. Then you remotely check the body for traps.
You find several dozen, as expected. The old fuck was paranoid about people stealing his stuff while he pretended to sleep. Speaking of, all the various bits of archeotech he liked to brag about are still there. Say what you will, and you have a lot to say about him, but the man had some really good stuff. It's his body. Somebody who could fake the body wouldn't need to.
Of course, one thing is missing: The head. The old fuck was into the whole machine replacement shtick enough that it's the only thing that he needs. And you do note that the body itself is remarkably intact. You estimate that it would take less than an hour to get it operational again (if you could deactivate the security measures). No proof of foul play, but perhaps suggestive.
Maybe you can find some sensors to tell you something? Really, it's a toss up whether he was paranoid about people sneaking around, and so put up a huge sensor net, or paranoid of people spying on him, and therefore put up a signal jammer. Or he did both, thereby screwing up his countermeasure against either.
As it turns out, you do find something. In one of the walls, there's a high fidelity seismograph. Enough to read sounds hitting the walls. Too much data to analyze in detail right now, but it has been silent for a while now. If you can trust it.
You take a look around to see if he had any neat stuff conveniently lying about, but nope. Unless he has completely changed, it's all scattered in little caches through the whole scrap yard. That always seemed incredibly inconvenient to you.
Next, you check his cogitators. They are heavily encrypted, two of them implode when you look at them, and you suspect the rest contain junk data anyway. They did the few few times you tried way back when. Maybe you'll use them as an exercise for your minions? On the other hand, perhaps you might find something, this time. And it would just be nice, in general.
"Magos Iracundia?"
You turn to Ruth. You're the expedition leader, so you have operational control. However, she's not really part of the expedition, and outranks you as well. You're going to listen to her, and keep any comments about the stupidity of her suggestions to a minimum.
"Would you like to call the Fabricator-General? I'm sure he'd love to hear what has happened here."
Do you really want him to bother you? You busy with important things!
What are you going to do next, anyway?
You can take several actions. Some things take longer than others. The order in which you perform your actions matters, and will be give by the order in which they are listed in the plan.
[]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h)
[]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h)
[]Break the encryption. It's going to take a while, but maybe there's something to be found. Beyond an endless flood of images of various immature mammals, anyway. (~1d)
[]Dive into the seismographic readings. See what you can you find there.(~0.5d)
[]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
[]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d)
[]Leave and observe. If the old fuck really faked his death, he might try to get his good stuff back. (1d+)
[]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d)
[]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)
[]write-in
- Location
- Brazil
Maybe we try to secure the body for later looting, head to sector fourteen to see if he's alive while we call techpriests for a more through sweep?
Well,
[]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
[]Leave and observe. If the old fuck really faked his death, he might try to get his good stuff back. (1d+)
Those two are kind of a time limited, so that first then...
[]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)
[]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h)
[]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h)
[]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d)
And all the Log stuff later, it's not like they go anywhere. Maybe loot the Scrap heap in generall.
Also
Are those kittens? Maybe some long lost Archeotech data?
[]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
[]Leave and observe. If the old fuck really faked his death, he might try to get his good stuff back. (1d+)
Those two are kind of a time limited, so that first then...
[]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)
[]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h)
[]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h)
[]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d)
And all the Log stuff later, it's not like they go anywhere. Maybe loot the Scrap heap in generall.
Also
Are those kittens? Maybe some long lost Archeotech data?
I just wanna point out that if there was a ship outbound, figuring that out now rather than later would be very important.
[X]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h)
[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h)
[X]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d)
[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h)
[X]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d)
@BurnNote are the flack guns still up? Also have we stole the archeotech yet?
The way I see it we should
-call transports for looting
-keep cognators for decryption later
-keep body for lootin later
-alert the ship to keep a log of warp departures
-send Arial to sector 3
-head to sector 14 ourself
-deploy some of our drones to monitor the area in general (we still have those right?)
-let the fabricator know what's up
The way I see it we should
-call transports for looting
-keep cognators for decryption later
-keep body for lootin later
-alert the ship to keep a log of warp departures
-send Arial to sector 3
-head to sector 14 ourself
-deploy some of our drones to monitor the area in general (we still have those right?)
-let the fabricator know what's up
[X]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h) (So he can maybe have someone else look at the travel logs, its not like its hard, just time consuming, better for others to do so, while you do more productive things)
[X]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d) (Granted, you may have to if the General is parting over your former Master's death, you do admit it is slightly tempting yourself, and you've been away from him for decades)
[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h) (Better for them to blow up then you, and its a valuable learning experience... or at least you remember being told that)
[X]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d) (Make sure he hasn't done something like make his head a robotic spider that can rebuild is body if need be. It's slightly optimistic of you, but until see his head, then you can't write him off as dead. He tried that trick way too often around you before.)
[X]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)(He put good stuff in his body, best not to let it go to waste in a body other than yours.)
[X]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d) (Finally, get the stuff you came here to get in the first place, if he is dead you may loo- gather up some additional items on your way if you see them.)
[X]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d) (Granted, you may have to if the General is parting over your former Master's death, you do admit it is slightly tempting yourself, and you've been away from him for decades)
[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h) (Better for them to blow up then you, and its a valuable learning experience... or at least you remember being told that)
[X]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d) (Make sure he hasn't done something like make his head a robotic spider that can rebuild is body if need be. It's slightly optimistic of you, but until see his head, then you can't write him off as dead. He tried that trick way too often around you before.)
[X]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)(He put good stuff in his body, best not to let it go to waste in a body other than yours.)
[X]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d) (Finally, get the stuff you came here to get in the first place, if he is dead you may loo- gather up some additional items on your way if you see them.)
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Yes, and no. You'll have to find the off-switch for the first (if there is such a thing), and the second is booby-trapped.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
[X] Plan Squid
-[X] Put the body and the cogitators on the transporter. You're sure as hell taking them with you, but you don't want to spend the time digging stuff out right now.
-[X] Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. Anyway, he has minions. They're likely more competent than your minions... and so you can have *his* minions going through the travel logs. After all, if the travel logs show anything, they'll show that someone snuck onto his planet and killed one of his high-ranking tech-priests. That's "external affairs" and "diplomacy" and all that horrible nonsense. That's *his* job.(~1.5h. You'll wear him down.)
-[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. Once they've searched, have them set up some sensors. You sure as hell aren't going to wait around for the old fart, but if he shows up, you'd rather know.(~3h?)
-[X]The old asshole spent a solid year one time insisting that you communicate in that one deeply obnoxious variant of binary that he found on an archive-dive. Well, fuck him. While you're waiting for the techpriests to show up, spend some time composing a particularly insulting limerick in it that basically says that you have his body, and if he wants it back, he should come ask nicely. Then leave the result somewhere findable in the cave.
-[X] Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
Covers most of the time-critical stuff in our own inimitable fashion, and covers down reasonably well on tracking his two most likely objectives if he's not dead.
-[X] Put the body and the cogitators on the transporter. You're sure as hell taking them with you, but you don't want to spend the time digging stuff out right now.
-[X] Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. Anyway, he has minions. They're likely more competent than your minions... and so you can have *his* minions going through the travel logs. After all, if the travel logs show anything, they'll show that someone snuck onto his planet and killed one of his high-ranking tech-priests. That's "external affairs" and "diplomacy" and all that horrible nonsense. That's *his* job.(~1.5h. You'll wear him down.)
-[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. Once they've searched, have them set up some sensors. You sure as hell aren't going to wait around for the old fart, but if he shows up, you'd rather know.(~3h?)
-[X]The old asshole spent a solid year one time insisting that you communicate in that one deeply obnoxious variant of binary that he found on an archive-dive. Well, fuck him. While you're waiting for the techpriests to show up, spend some time composing a particularly insulting limerick in it that basically says that you have his body, and if he wants it back, he should come ask nicely. Then leave the result somewhere findable in the cave.
-[X] Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
Covers most of the time-critical stuff in our own inimitable fashion, and covers down reasonably well on tracking his two most likely objectives if he's not dead.
- Location
- Attempting to cast animate object on a black hole.
Cutting off his head and either putting it in stasis, or rushing it to a apothecary, is probably the safest way to abduct him, and if he left willingly he wouldn't have left evidence and his stuff. Anyone from the Mechanicus wouldn't have left his stuff, so I'm guessing Inquisitorial abduction. If it was leaving willingly, he wouldn't have left his stuff, unless it was for a lot of stuff.
Like this. A few thoughts:
1. Send Arial too sector 3? Since we are asking for stuff from the Fabricator might as well finish his errand
2. Check out the seismograph first, it's our best chance of seeing what happened in the room.
3. Maybe try for shutting down the flack guns? It would make life a lot easier.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
1. We've told Arial that she can ave some time to herself. Pulling her back from that? Well, she's in a *mood*. Wed really prefer that other people deal with that particular mood.
2. Checking out the seismograph is going to take half a day, and is arguably less time-critical than maybe finding our old master while he's in the process of constructing a new body.
3. Shutting down the flak guns is goign to require finding their off-switch (if there is one). I'm not willing to spend an arbitrary amount of time looking for a switch that may or may not be there. As far as general searching (which might uncover such a switch, at which point we'd presumably use it), that's already part of the plan with the calling in the techpriests.
[X] Plan Squid
2 and 3 fair enough. Based on my reading of the update I thought Arial joined us. All that stuff about the construction servitor.
2 and 3 fair enough. Based on my reading of the update I thought Arial joined us. All that stuff about the construction servitor.
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- Location
- va
[X]Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. (~1h) (So he can maybe have someone else look at the travel logs, its not like its hard, just time consuming, better for others to do so, while you do more productive things)
[X]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d) (Granted, you may have to if the General is parting over your former Master's death, you do admit it is slightly tempting yourself, and you've been away from him for decades)
[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h) (Better for them to blow up then you, and its a valuable learning experience... or at least you remember being told that)
[X]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d) (Make sure he hasn't done something like make his head a robotic spider that can rebuild is body if need be. It's slightly optimistic of you, but until see his head, then you can't write him off as dead. He tried that trick way too often around you before.)
[X]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)(He put good stuff in his body, best not to let it go to waste in a body other than yours.)
[X]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d) (Finally, get the stuff you came here to get in the first place, if he is dead you may loo- gather up some additional items on your way if you see them.)
[X]Check the travel logs. If someone killed him, they might have left a trace. At the least, it will tell you how many ships came by recently. (2d) (Granted, you may have to if the General is parting over your former Master's death, you do admit it is slightly tempting yourself, and you've been away from him for decades)
[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. (~3h) (Better for them to blow up then you, and its a valuable learning experience... or at least you remember being told that)
[X]Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d) (Make sure he hasn't done something like make his head a robotic spider that can rebuild is body if need be. It's slightly optimistic of you, but until see his head, then you can't write him off as dead. He tried that trick way too often around you before.)
[X]Loot the body. Just for the sheer satisfaction, though maybe you can keep some of the stuff. (1d)(He put good stuff in his body, best not to let it go to waste in a body other than yours.)
[X]Head out to sector 3. Officially you came to get a hybrionic energy simplifier, and chances are that's where hes them stored stored (1-3d) (Finally, get the stuff you came here to get in the first place, if he is dead you may loo- gather up some additional items on your way if you see them.)
- Location
- Australia
[X] Plan Squid
We continue to see that our PC came through his training amazingly sane.
We continue to see that our PC came through his training amazingly sane.
williams1996
Alba gu bràth
- Location
- Scotland
[X] Plan Squid
- Location
- Reno Nv
[X] Plan Squid
Sanity? What is this sanity you are talking about? Everything we are doing is so that we can get more shinies and gank the inquisitor that almost ganked us in the first place.
Sanity? What is this sanity you are talking about? Everything we are doing is so that we can get more shinies and gank the inquisitor that almost ganked us in the first place.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
In my opinion, that's a fairly sane reaction to being shot in the head.
- Location
- Reno Nv
Sane? We are planning to kill one or multiple members of the scariest and one of the highest part of government in the entire imperium of man! Sanity left us waving outside of the train and crying at the determination that we have put in to survive. For aren't we all a little mad?
Without that madness or determination we wouldn't wake up in the morning. And try to gank an inquisitor. Or ram our ship in the hope of getting more shinies.
- Location
- Brazil
Hey, to be fair, this is M32, the Inquisiton is on its infancy.
Hell, what is later known as conservative Mechanicus has just popped up, too.
Update 68: Limericks and Fire
Update 68: Limericks and Fire
-[X] Put the body and the cogitators on the transporter. You're sure as hell taking them with you, but you don't want to spend the time digging stuff out right now.
-[X] Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. Anyway, he has minions. They're likely more competent than your minions... and so you can have *his* minions going through the travel logs. After all, if the travel logs show anything, they'll show that someone snuck onto his planet and killed one of his high-ranking tech-priests. That's "external affairs" and "diplomacy" and all that horrible nonsense. That's *his* job.(~1.5h. You'll wear him down.)
-[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. Once they've searched, have them set up some sensors. You sure as hell aren't going to wait around for the old fart, but if he shows up, you'd rather know.(~3h?)
-[X]The old asshole spent a solid year one time insisting that you communicate in that one deeply obnoxious variant of binary that he found on an archive-dive. Well, fuck him. While you're waiting for the techpriests to show up, spend some time composing a particularly insulting limerick in it that basically says that you have his body, and if he wants it back, he should come ask nicely. Then leave the result somewhere findable in the cave.
-[X] Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
-[X] Call the Fabricator-General. He is kinda paying you. Well, he will pay you. He better pay you. Anyway, he has minions. They're likely more competent than your minions... and so you can have *his* minions going through the travel logs. After all, if the travel logs show anything, they'll show that someone snuck onto his planet and killed one of his high-ranking tech-priests. That's "external affairs" and "diplomacy" and all that horrible nonsense. That's *his* job.(~1.5h. You'll wear him down.)
-[X]Order a group of techpriests here, to do a more thorough sweep. Once they've searched, have them set up some sensors. You sure as hell aren't going to wait around for the old fart, but if he shows up, you'd rather know.(~3h?)
-[X]The old asshole spent a solid year one time insisting that you communicate in that one deeply obnoxious variant of binary that he found on an archive-dive. Well, fuck him. While you're waiting for the techpriests to show up, spend some time composing a particularly insulting limerick in it that basically says that you have his body, and if he wants it back, he should come ask nicely. Then leave the result somewhere findable in the cave.
-[X] Head out to sector 14, where all the robot parts are. If the old fuck lost his body, he might go there to make a new one. (~1d)
You sigh. That's right, other people sadly continue to exist (and commit stupidity) even when you're not looking at them. Especially when you're not looking at them. So you should at least tell you're nominal, thankfully temporary boss what you're up to, so he doesn't bomb the place from orbit, or reposes you ship, or send someone else to screw things up without your input.
But first, you need to order your guys to start loading up the stuff here. There's no real point in sticking around, but getting through the boss guy's think head plate is gonna a take a while, and you're not about to waste that time.
You order your dudes to pack up. For the body, you politely ask Ruth if she's willing to lend her eyes to making sure they don't fuck up anything. She clicks her needles, and you know you've just earned yourself several hours worth of lectures about screw/nut combinations from across the Imperium, and all the awful, awful standards thereof. The sacrifices you make for mankind...
For the cogitators, you just have them cut out parts of the wall. Not the most efficient way, but the most efficient way has a great chance of being trapped. Granted, there's probably a trap for this kind of thing, but that won't stop you from destroying as much of his stuff as you can justify.
Of course, looting a Magos isn't easy, of safe, and when it's a paranoid lunatic like the old fucker, then it's more dangerous than taking on an Ork Boss in single combat while wearing only a slightly wet towel. It's not even safer for your dignity.
Body:
1d100+20 Archeotech=62+20=82 vs 85, failure
You're enormous skill allows you to compensate for you're underlings failings, so you this sweet (not currently) walking pile of archeotech doesn't get damaged. Bad news is that you do that by hitting the emergency lock-out, which means actually getting this stuff will be a chore. At least. Possibly several chores.
Cogitators:
1d100+1/2*20 Imperial Tech=33+10=43 vs 70, bad failure
It finally happens, something explodes. One of the cogitators was thoroughly sick of serving humans, and committed murder-suicide. Well, attempted murder, he can just replace the arms, and legs, and torso. And that part of the brain. As you've proven, high velocity bits to the brain are overrated, he just needs to tech up.
The real issue is that it exploded. Somebody might have heard that. Somebody who's either in the habit of murdering Magi, or the old fucker. And while you might enjoy meeting the former, it would preferably not be in person, because of said habit.
Or it might be somebody who's just watching the sensor net for this place. That's also possible. Now might be the proper time to call the idiot in charge.
It take a while to get through the various layers of bureaucratic nonsense, but eventually your charm (and knowledge of automated systems) wins out, and you get a direct line.
"Hey, Fab G. Since I'm doing this whole trip thing for you, I thought you might wanna know one of your dudes as been murdered."
.
.
.
"Omnissiah damn it, he was broken when I arrived. First, if I did it, it would be proactice and retroactive self-defense. Second, I got witnesses. Third, he might have faked it. Fourth, even if I killed, you sure as hell would never be able to prove it. "
.
.
.
"Look, just put some of your guys on this. Even you should be able to find at least a handful of halfway decent Techpriests on a Forgeworld."
.
.
.
"Look, if the travel logs show anything, they'll show that someone snuck onto your planet and killed one of your high-ranking tech-priests. That's "external affairs" and "diplomacy". That's *your* job."
.
.
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"You know what, if you can't be bothered to do it, I'll do it. I'll go right ahead and call all those fuckers. They gotta help, since I'm doing this in your name. Can't let a murder go unpunished, right? Oh, and send some guys down to the crime scene. I'm going to catch the villain here, but that place should be watched."
Finally he gives in. You never understand why people have to argue with you so much. It's quite pointless. At least he finally accepted that.
So now you get to wait for the new guys to come in. Part of the wait time is filled with the promised lecture from Ruth. It's not as bad as you expected, in the sense that a Gellert field failure is not as bad as being stranded on a Daemon World. The rest is spent composing a ransom demand for his body in the form of a limerick. Feels good, even if that dialect makes you nauseous.
When the reinforcements finally make it here, you tell them to be really fucking careful, and then move the transporters of to watch over the search with remotes. Because there's no such thing as too much caution when you're dealing with somebody who would trap a toilet, a bomb defusing kit, or the list of his traps.
Sweep:
1d100=1, critical failure
You gotta hand it to your guys. After all this time, they have learned at least one thing: When you tell them to stop that right now, you suicidal moron, they stop, drop and roll, or at least cringe into immobility. Didn't help this time, sadly, because the guys from Izen haven't learned that lesson yet.
On the plus side, the firestorm looks to be letting up, finally. In an hour or so, the ground might even be safe to drive across, and then you can get going to the sector 14. Not like there's anything left here. Well, at least you already recovered the body and cogitators.
You're a bit torn what to do about the limerick. Seems like a real waste to just forget about it, but leaving it in his hovel isn't really an option anymore. Fire does not, in general, improve readability. In the end, you just leave a broadband sender behind. It'll get the message across.
Then you get moving towards sector 14. The element of surprise is now long gone, but it's still a good place to look for clues.
-*-**-*-*-**-**-**-**-**-*-**-*-*-**-*-**-**-*-*-*-**-*-
Searching the logs
1d100=96
Four hours into the journey there, you get a call from the guy going through the shipping logs. They haven't found any evil assassins (or morally neutral assassins, given the target), but they have found something interesting.
One Magos Davos Darian, who apparently has a place on an outbound flight, who has been in the registry for about a century, and yet no one has ever met him, and he appears in no other files. How interesting.
-*-*-*-**-**-*-**-**-**-*-**-*-**-**-**-*-**-*-*-
You arrive at sector 14 roughly a day and a half after finding the body of the old fuck. You're not the first. One Magos is currently commanding a small work team of a few techpriests and Servitors.
The Magos steps forward when you slew to a halt a respectable distance from the group.
"May the Omnissiah be with you. I am Magos Darian. Do you know happned in Sector 3? We noticed the explosion but have not heard any further information. Is there reason to be concerned?"
Oh.
You work very hard to suppress your grin. You'll enjoy this.
[]Write-In
AN: I seems Master Cerritus has trapped the dice. Seriously, the only way to get an outright bad result for the sweep roll was to get a Natural 1.
Of course, they then immediately turned around on the next roll. I don't even know.
If I had more time, I would've tried to write a limerick, but I sadly didn't have the time. This already took longer than usually.
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[X] Since he is not in the proper records, he is not a proper techpriest. Which means that all of his techpriest specific implants are illegal. Impound him.