The database of the Wilful Eternity is woefully inadequate. it holds precisely no information on Zerom 9, whatever the Court of the Hollow Idol might be, or what the Precogitator might be. At least on that last one the name gives some manner of idea, although in your experience technology that purports to predict the future with any sort of accuracy tends towards being inaccurate at the best of times. Most of the things just spit out random vague allusions their adherents then interpret as the truth.
If that is the case, fixing the thing is at least going to be fairly simple.
That thought soothes you somewhat, during your journey through the Warp.
Not very many other things do. The strange communication device starts wailing and wildly trashing its letters about as soon as the Gellar Fields are raised, so you seal it in its room and resolve to shoot it if it doesn't stop the moment you arrive at your destination. You don't see your new subordinates at all, for most of the journey, and that suits you quite well. It gives you time to finish the setup of your laboratory. In the end, the installation process is a quick one indeed: the most complex task is ensuring the cages are affixed to the walls sturdily enough to stand up against the full body weight of the pair of Ventraptors you're keen to run some tests on in the near future.
Instead of bothering with your laboratory, you are able to occupy your time making the decrepit Arvus Lighter found within what passes for the Willful Eternity's Hangar fit for purpose again: you will, after all, need to both get to the planet and get around on it, and you do not trust it to have orbital facilities that will or even can accommodate the ex-Freighter. The work is a decent distraction: quite simplistic but also outside of your usual area of expertise and without the facilities you had access to on Nuton's Folly.
You are not the only one that has decided to indulge in this project either, it seems: when you come back to the Lighter one day, intending to patch up a particularly thorny issue with it's thruster assembly, when you found that somebody had installed a twin-linked pair of autocannons underneath it's cockpits, sporting ammunition storage you would classify as 'daring', the targeting array decorated with a skull that appears to be more freshly taken then you are at all familiar with. A couple days after that you find what appears to be a Scrap Code Generator linked up to a parabolic vox transmitter upon a roof, it's dish lovingly painted with the ugly mug of a Nurgling. As though to compensate, a few days after that you find that somebody has begun lovingly cleaning up and painting the Lighter: when it is finished it appears to be a dazzling alternating pattern of gray, black, and white stripes, which will likely make visually tracking the Lighter a pain. The only thing that interrupts the paint is the lovingly rendered drawing of a scroll. It seems, for now, to have remained clear of any name: seems like they wish for you to choose it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Lighter Name]
[]Write-in
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Still, they have left your own work well enough alone, and so after a few weeks you have created what should at least be a workable mode of transportation, although it isn't truly remarkable in any way. For that, you would need better facilities and better material than those you currently have at your disposal.
As though it had waited for you to be finished, the Wilful Eternity's Warp Transit Warning begins blaring as you check the integrity of the final weld taking the Lighter from a wreck to somewhat functional. You make your way to the bridge slowly, without undue haste. It will take days to make your way from the Mandeville Point towards Zerom 9, perhaps even weeks. And yet, you are still interested to catch your first glimpse of your own very personal hell.
It is an utter mystery how a woman like Ludmilla Kapriosa ever came into the employ of a Dark Forge. From her neon-green hair to the spiraling abstract tattoos crawling over every exposed bit of skin, the woman practically screams of gutterscum: the sort of low-life Space Pirate lucky to ever make it out of whatever backwater debris field she preyed on local traffic from. Her implants, at least, show that she has had the good sense to be let herself be rewarded for her service properly: her shorn temple reveals a plug for some sort of Mind-Machine Interface, and one of the sleeves of her defaced Imperial Navy Uniform has been torn of to display a cybernetic arm. That one you consider a bit pedestrian, in truth: a simple thing of metal and hydraulics, its fingers replaced with long, sharp claws. There is a power field generator built into the base of that hand. Very likely, the woman can handle herself in a fight. In the sort of petty squabbles she is probably used to, she likely even dominates utterly.
Where you are headed, though, those sorts of fights are going to be exceedingly rare. The opponents you are likely to be up against are of the sort that would rip her apart and toss her aside without sparing a second thought.
You stifle an outburst of annoyed binaric as you identify the shape of the ship now growing larger on the Oculus. Gladius-Class, your built-in database supplies, although something delays your identification for a few microseconds longer than it should. It takes a few moments longer for the image to resolve sufficiently to tell you what that is: an Aquila, seemingly taken from the tip of some Mega-Cathedrum or some sort of Pilgrim Ship. It has been shattered into pieces in a way some more brutish-minded people might call artful, it's broken pieces splayed across the bow of the ship like some sort of grisly trophy.
You spend a few microseconds trying to discern what sort of message that is meant to display, before deciding that you do not care. The more immediate and relevant fact to consider is that represented by the Gladius-Class Frigate itself: that sort of Escort Ship is only rarely seen outside the hands of Space Marines or their loyalist brethren.
The Court of the Hollow Idol is a Space Marine Warband, then. That is, in some ways, worrying. The Emperor's fallen Gene Creations are a genuinely fascinating subject of study: a breed of gene weapons capable of self-replicating and self-propagating with relative ease, their armament designed to complement their gene-gifted abilities. Whatever else the False Omnissiah was, he
was a masterful genecrafter. Unfortunately the exaggerated sense of self-importance he imparted upon his creations is detrimental to proper conversation more often than it is useful, and at least those examples of their kind you have met are not particularly stable emotionally either. They are beings of violence and violence alone, and so view every problem as solvable through the application of such.
All this makes them both exceptionally tedious and unbelievably dangerous. If Madame Kapriosa is worried, though, she does not show it. Instead, she gives a broad grin in your direction, revealing a mouth full of gleaming metal and rotting, stained teeth, and then ignites a Lho-Stick by flicker-activating her power claws. "Well, boys, do we have identification?", she asks, and a mutant sporting a beak and feathers instead of hair answers in a nervous, chittering tone.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The ship, it transpires, is the
Iconodule, a vessel in service to the Court of the Hollow Idol. It further transpires that they have been expecting you, and are here to grant you escort towards Zerom 9.
It takes much shorter than you would have expected. Zerom 9, it transpires, is a mere half day of travel away from the Mandeville Point. You stay on the bridge for most of that time, content to loom over the Captain as she handles much of the menial chit-chat necessary for securing you a berth. What you see is enlightening.
Apparently, Zerom 9 is something of a meeting point for all sorts of Pirates and assorted gutter scum: a vast armada of warp-capable ships orbit around the planet, ranging from the small Raiders favored by so many pirates taking refuge within the Eye of Terror to vast freight ships not unlike the Wilful Eternity, though perhaps slightly less beat up. There's orbital facilities catering to their needs, you note: vox buoys that direct traffic around the planet, orbital stations that might serve habitation, entertainment, or storage, even cage-like berths where damage to ships might be repaired in at least an improvised manner. Smaller craft fly around and between their bigger Brethren: Lighters and Tug Boats, personal shuttles and Mass Personnel Conveyors, policed by Swiftdeath Fighters and squat, ugly Gunships of no particular make you can identify.
In the middle of all this, relatively motionless in the midst of the constant movement around her, hangs a Battle Barge.
"Identified as the…hang on", the beak-mouthed Master of Augurs chitters, waiting nervously as his screen stutters, then resets itself, green lines streaking across it for a few painfully drawn out minutes. The mutant looks panicked, as though expecting to be punished for his failings at any moment. For a moment, it seems like Kapriosa is considering it, but of course the man can hardly be blamed for the general state of repair of this ship. "The Sword of the Hollow Idol", he finally finishes, as the screen finishes its lengthy reboot.
[Skill Check: Cogitator Architecture. Roll: 6. Success]
Something bothers you, about the entire process, though it takes you a moment to process it. The glitch on the screen looked like it may have been caused by a loose contact or something similar, but it resolved itself far too quickly and without any proper maintenance. What you saw looked a lot more like a short period of jamming, though you couldn't fathom why the Sword of the Hollow Idol would try to prevent you from picking up its name for a few seconds.
You file the information away for possible later use. It is not likely to matter much,at least right now.
Instead, you turn your attention to the planet below.
It isn't very much to look at, at least from Orbit: an unbroken cover of clouds blocks whatever visuals you could hope to gain, and the Wilful Eternity doesn't boast the sort of sensors that could hope to penetrate the cloud covers.
Any closer inspection will need to be conducted during the flight down.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
You let Kapriosa handle the rest of the formalities: you not having to bother with them is, after all, a big part of why she is there. Instead, you go to corral your subordinates into the Lighter. You are forced to put up with them either way. They may as well pull their weight.
Myges Talef and 8-Doxa-Krainaima are already at the Lighter when you yourself arrive there, both of them seeming eager in their own, terrifying way, the whir of Talef's cooling unit intermixing with the intermittent buzzing of 8-Doxa's Chord Claw to create a truly nerve-wracking clamor. Regicia Ko-Bea arrives next, her robes now supplemented by carapace armor that gleams even in the low light of the Hangar,several bejeweled rings sparkling on her fingers.
[Skill Check: Weaponry. Roll: 6. Success]
Closer inspection identifies these rings to be digital weapons of unknown provenance: at least potent enough to allow an escape from any potential adversary. It is good she is protecting herself: Talef, by contrast, seems to be going entirely unarmed.
Theama-Nul, of course, arrives last, though it is uncertain how long he has been there when he melts out of the crowd of Hangar Crew that is fueling up the Shuttle. You can tell he is armed. You cannot tell
how he is armed, which annoys you to no end.
As you bundle into the shuttle, it occurs to you that these people might be able to tell you more about the strange incident of apparent jamming you saw earlier. Of course, telling them about such a thing might distract from the mission at hand. It seems unlikely that it has anything to do with the Precogitator, at least.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Share Information?]
[] Share
[] Keep Quiet
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
You fly the Arvus Lighter down yourself, interfacing with the machinery directly to direct it with your very thoughts. The trip itself is quite boring, simply following Vox Guidance down towards a landing strip. It
does allow you to use the picters built into the hull of the Lighter to take in the environment.
Water Condensators held aloft by lighter than air balloons dot the surface of the clouds, though your approach window steers well clear of them. This makes sense, you suppose. Water is a commodity of no little value to the residents of the Eye of Terror, and though this planet lies some way out of it, harvesting it makes sense. The Lighter pushes through the clouds, and for a brief moment, visibility drops to zero.
Then you burst through the surface of the clouds, and you see the surface of Zerom 9 for the very first time.
Once, Zerom 9 must have been a ball of immaculate, white ice, stretching on as far as the eye could see. The instruments mounted upon your Lighter are not precise enough to determine just how deep the ice goes, but the rudimentary Augur Readings you can gather can not determine its precise depth. Judging by the cracks that run through the ice below you, it is several hundred kilometers at the lowest estimate. Whatever immaculateness the ice plains might once have had, however, are long gone. Signs of human inhabitation are everywhere, as are signs of heavy industry.
Ferrocrete Stacks break through the surface of the ice, spewing forth vapor. Mobile Refineries crawl across the plains below you, visible even from your high vantage point. Entire fleets of tracked vehicles leave vast plumes of snow behind them, the marks of their passage etched into the icy surface, made much more stark in the kilometers of territory that appear to be covered in soot. It is an impressive vista: the imposition of human industrial ingenuity on seemingly unconquerable nature. You receive appreciative outbursts of binaric from Ko-Bea and Talef, though Krainainima keeps quiet. Theama-Nul is as impenetrable as ever. Then he sends a burst of binaric on a narrow channel. <Sophisticated for a minor Warband>, he cants, though the lack of inflection markers makes deciphering what exactly he wishes to say by this a non-starter.
You are distracted from inquiring further for the time being, when your Lighter begins screaming warnings at you and the Fortress of the Court of the Hollow Idol finally comes into view.
The Fortress is, as these things go, fairly standard: a vast slab of reinforced ferrocrete sunken deep into the ice. Anti-air cannons stud its vast buttresses, their barrels tracking you and every other vessel as it approaches the area. Vapour wallows out from gargoyles along its walls and across the plains in front of it, concealing most of what the glimpses you do catch reveals to be extremely broken up terrain. You sweep the Arvus Lighter down, still following the Vox Beacon, before putting it down gently inside a somewhat more outlying hangar.
The heavy doors close behind you at vast speeds, yet frost still rimes every surface by the time you step down the Lighter's ramp. Your legs scuttle across the slippery surface without issue. You watch Myges Talef almost fall onto his back, held up only by putting stresses on one of his Mechandendrite that it is probably not designed for. Ko-Bea slides across the floor with the grace and poise of a dancer, and Krainaima stomps forward, leaving behind little holes where the metal spikes no extruding from his soles have hammered into the ferrocrete ground. Theama-Nul appears unbothered, but then of course you wouldn't be able to tell if they were.
Once again, you cannot help but notice how
new everything looks. A mere century or so, you guess: a long time by the standards of a human life, but not so much by those applied to the ancient fortresses of the Eye of Terror. Something this massive should not be this new: especially not if it is inhabited by a Warband that you have never heard of before.
A man waits for you, and you can tell at a glance that this is a Savant: one of the conditioned organic calculators the rich and powerful of the Imperium are so very fond of, taken and reused by new and more chaotic masters.
The man is wearing a coat of fur, lined on its interior with heating elements, but he still looks miserable and cold within the freezing air of the Hangar. He is modified, of course, and modified in a manner that suggests rich patrons before those he currently holds: cables trail from his temple and into the depths of his coat, the plugs and deformations of the skin suggesting what is likely a cerebral implant below them. One of his eyes is also replaced with a gold-rimmed red lens, likely to keep the man plugged into a constant stream of data from all around the fortress.
His white hair is thin and unkempt, and his face looks well and truly old: the sort of age that occurs despite rejuvenant treatment instead of without it. An Aquila has been branded into his forehead, though it is now defaced by a star of chaos imposed above it.
"I am Ishmael", the Savant introduces himself, "Seneschal to the Hollow Idol. I have been sent to receive you. The Master is currently engaged in Communion, and sends his regrets that he cannot bid you welcome himself. If you do not mind, I shall tell you why you have been asked here somewhere that is not so miserably cold."
He turns and begins walking away. True to his word, he does not begin to talk until you have passed through an airlock and entered into the Fortress itself, which is, apparently, kept slightly above freezing instead of well below it.
"The Precogitator is a device built into the very foundations of this Fortress", the Savant begins, not even noticing your approval at the lack of preamble, "it can determine the future to a certain extent. Magos Lavand Gwo built it, alongside the rest of this Fortress."
[Skill Check: Hierarchy of Nuton's Folly. Roll:5. Partial Success]
Now that
is a name that rings a bell, if only distantly. Lavand Gwo is a Magos Esotericus, one of that somewhat rare breed on Nuton's Folly specializing in the utilization and replication of Xenos Technology. Of course, you don't know his exact specialization: he was as cant-sparse as any other Magos on Nuton's Folly, in addition to you never really caring about it at all.
You are regretting that, now, but then of course there is a long list of things that that applies to.
"What's the issue with the Precogitator, then", Talef asks, and you are grateful he did: the Savant does not seem set up to receive binaric, and you really do not want to be bothered using your organic voice on such a triviality. You note Talef seems deeply fascinated and engaged, and start worrying proportionately. "The Masters have used it to predict shipping routes, mostly. In theory, it can do other things, but its reliability tends to break down outside of very narrow, very defined parameters." He stops talking then, for a brief moment, as he offers his finger to a gene-reader's needle, a heavy steel door sliding into the wall to reveal a rail cart, which starts moving at impressive speed as soon as you step onto it. The Savant seats himself on one of the steel benches, breathing heavily even after that relatively short period of exertion
"So what's the issue?", Talef repeats impatiently.
"It works very well, up to a certain date, and then it simply…stops", Ishmael tells you. "No false predictions, not garbled nonsense, just nothing." You do not exchange glances with your subordinates, but you do not need to. You can feel the change in their noosphere as they take in the information: something between dread and anticipation. The tense silence lasts exactly twenty-nine seconds. You break it to ask the obvious question.
"How far into the future is said date?", you inquire, and Ishmael looks at you wistfully. "When we called for your aid, it was years away. Now, though, I'm afraid that time frame has narrowed down to only six."
"Six", you say, relaxing slightly. That amount of time is plenty enough to fix whatever ails this strange device. Hell, you can probably do it within a single year, if you are quick enough about it.
"Six Days, that is", Ishmael clarifies, neatly shattering your hopes and dreams.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It takes you about an hour, to reach your destination: an hour spent, in order, traversing via rail cart, lift, and then on foot for a length of time that you would classify as 'regrettable', though largely because the elderly Savant is damnably slow.
It does give you the opportunity to come to one conclusion, at least: a fact that is unavoidable as you walk past row upon row of Data Looms and Auxiliary Cogitators, cooling snakes running all along them in vast, silvery coils, Servo Skulls flying throughout the room laden with data probes. The Precogitator is, strictly speaking, the entire fortress, at least in some capacity.
[Roll: Myges Talef: Cogitator Architecture. Roll 3d6:4,4,2. Partial Success.]
"Not the heart of the Precogitator", Talef cants, the whirring of his cooling unit rapidly speeding up as he regards the sheer degree of calculating power on display all around himself. "It looks like they're sifting through and analyzing a truly staggering amount of data, but you can't predict the future like that. The presence of the warp alone makes a purely determinative path to the future impossible. It's infinite possibilities."
[Roll: Eta-Nu 35-9: Cogitator Architecure. Roll: 6. Full Success.]
"But if you had some way to narrow down those possibilities", you cant back, somewhat thoughtful, "then it would be, in theory, possible to narrow them down further, even if that would take a truly staggering amount of calculating power."
"That is certainly on display", Talef admits, and you can hear the calculating undertones in his binaric, even as he looks around with greedy eyes.
The Savant, of course, cannot follow any of what you have been saying. He is wheezing now, the long path on foot almost too much for his old frame. You consider if you have been insulted or flattered by this man being made envoy to you, then decide that you do not care at all.
The social games of the unenlightened are of no relevance to you. The Savant pauses, for a moment, then presses an inhaler of some sort to his mouth and breathing in deeply. Your chymical sensors catch only the barest whiff of what he is inhaling: some sort of potent stimm, enough to bolster him for a few hours before the inevitable crash.
That is interesting enough, you suppose. It means that whatever comes next, Ishmael is determined to be in his best form for it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Another door parts in response to a drop of the Savant's blood, and then you are in what has to be the inner sanctum. The constant humming of the cogitators and the cooling units stops instantly, replaced by profound silence.
You step into a vast and high hall, bathed in flickering light of braziers burning high above you in the arched ceiling. Whatever they are burning produces black, acrid smoke, which pours down and obscures much of the room, leaving the figures within undefined and akin to silhouettes. To your left, there is a grand door, by which you can just make out the vast, power-armored forms of two Space Marines, the lenses of their helmets glowing red and ominous through the gloom. They are too far away, and the smoke to thick, to make out much of their colors and the iconography with which they bedeck themselves. Ishmael guides you onwards to the right, pulling a breathing mask across his face. Something golden has been piled up to your left and right, temporarily forcing you to move single file in what would otherwise be a hall broad enough to drive three Chimeras side by side through. It is only upon closer inspection that you see what the pile consists of. They are Aquilas: from small ones as they would be worn in a pendant to large ones like those mounted to tanks or the tops of Cathedrums. Each of them has been ritually defaced in some form or the other: some are half-melted, others broken in half, some marred by scratches of the eight-fold star and others simple bent vastly out of shape. The floor too is decorated, and it takes you a moment to recognise what the nonsensically arranged mosaic made from shards of stained glass must represent: the windows of Imperial Cathedrals, shattered, carefully gathered up, and then transported to be brought here.
The room widens up again, and suddenly the smoke parts as though it is a curtain. More Space Marines stand on either side of the path, and now you can see their colors: red and black and gold, like a parody of Imperial Priest's garbs, Aquilas defaced with Stars of Chaos much like that marring Ishmaels features upon their Pauldrons.
Hollowed out by it, you realize, and then don't bother suppressing a burst of annoyed binaric at the lack of subtlety on display.
There are, you are fairly certain, Imperial Cardinals less preoccupied with the works of the Imperial Faith then these Space Marines.
People mill about before you, many clad in similar heated furs to Ishmael. Some of them are preoccupied with some conversation or the other, but most of the attention is fixed towards the front of the hall. A messenger pushes his way through the crowd and towards Ishmael: a young man, clearly out of breath. "Master Savant, there has been another attack-", he gets out, but Ishmael cuts him off with a sharp gesture of his hand, sending scurrying away with profuse apologies both to the Savant and to you. You file the interaction away for later. Something else of much more immediate relevance draws your attention.
At the very end of the hall is a raised. Space Marines form a line in front of it, looking out over the assembled countries impassively. Behind them and towering above the rest of the room, is an eight-pointed star slick with blood, suspended by vast chains that run into the ceiling of the room. Upon the star hangs the body of a woman, hooks driven through the flesh of its arms and legs. She is wearing the robes of the Ecclisiarchy, and by the way she writhes upon the Star she is alive, if only barely. Before her, clad in Terminator Armor adorned with shattered bones, kneels a man who can only be this Warband's leader. His head has been shorn bare and is adorned with tattooed runes of a provenance unknown to you, an eight-folded star partly visible upon its crown
A hooded Priest stands by his site, chanting and reading from his book in a low, droning voice.
The woman screams, an inhuman sound of pain and suffering. She convulses. More blood runs down the icon of Chaos from the hooks in her limbs. Her back arches in agony, further and further, to a point that should surely see it snap. Then, suddenly and all at once, she falls silent, breathing in deep, ragged breaths, her eyes closed.
When she opens them again, they aren't human anymore. Black orbs glare out over the crowd, then narrow down rapidly to slits in the center of yellow, reptilian eyes. Horns push through the skin of her forehead like cancerous growths. She smiles, and the skin at the edge of her mouth seems to tear apart under the force of her inhuman mirth, the smile growing farther and farther across her face. The teeth it reveals are not human: not anymore. They are triangular and serrated, like those of a shark instead, blood staining them already. One of the arms rips loose from the hook that holds it, and you see that it has grown into a claw, the bone of the finger breaking through its skin, lengthening and sharpening. You go for your Needler for a moment, but then realize this is not the ritual going out of control: it is working exactly as intended. The daemon-possessed woman holds the tip of her claw atop the head of the kneeling Space Marine like a Priest delivering a blessing, and you realize that is precisely what she is doing.
She says something in a language you do not understand, her voice booming and deeper than any mortal voice box should be capable of producing. The kneeling man responds in the same language, as though in inquiry, and whatever he says, it causes the woman to laugh, throwing her head back with enough force to snap her neck with a reverberating crack. Her head lolls about for a moment, which seems to amuse the daemon that inhabits the Priest's flesh more than anything else. Then it straightens again, eyes coming to rest upon the kneeling man. A response is given to whatever question is asked, short and to the point, and whatever it is seems to not be to the Space Marine's liking: he stands, in the ridiculous speed his kind is so famous for, backhand smashing through the rib cage of the possessed woman with a wet crack. Silence falls across the Audience Hall, giving you just enough time to try and come to terms with the fact that the person you are going to be forced to work with is a bloody fanatic prone to conversing with the random gibberings of the Warp.
The man turns, revealing more bones upon his armor, and a face covered in further runic script. Studs have been rammed into the skull above his brow, and as he snarls you see a flash of metal teeth. He looks upon you with yellow, blood-shot eyes, and you see the crowd part around you, dropping to their knees in obeisance.
Do you bow alongside them?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Bow?]
[] Yes-it is clearly expected, and there is no reason to risk the wrath of a man that is even now covered in the core of the last being that angered him
[] No- the last person you bowed to was Horus himself, and even there you barely bent. Compared to him, this upstart is nothing at all.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Space Marine steps forward, the stained glass of the floor shattering under every thread of his heavy boots. He points at you, the claw attached to his left crackling with energy, and when he speaks, he speaks with a voice deep and loud enough to be heard even above the roar of a Marco-Cannon.
"I am Taal Voyos, Lord of the Court of the Hollow Idol. You are the ones sent to clean up Gwo's mess?", he asks, the menace in his voice palpable. "And how, pray tell, do you intend to do this?"
That is a good question, isn't it?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Each of your tasks will include what I am tentatively calling the 'diagnostic phase': in it, you will pick from a number of pre-established approaches to figuring out what the problem is. Those familiar with Blades in the Dark might recognise where I am drawing inspiration from here. All these approaches can, in the end, lead you to solving the issue at hand, though not all of them will do so in a straightforward manner. Note that due to Eta-Nu 9-35s obsessive nature, once an approach is picked it will be stuck to, no matter if the obstacles that might present themselves could be avoided simply by picking a different approach.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Diagnostic Approach]:
[] Material-You have looked at some of the outlying physical components of the Precogitator, but whatever device lies at its center still eludes you. A flaw as fundamental as the one described can probably be found right there, and even if it isn't, interrogating the core of the Precogitator's function is likely to provide further leads that may be tracked down.
[] Spiritual- The Precogitator is a vast and complicated machine, but it
is still a Machine at its core: as such, it holds a Machine Spirit that can be interfaced with and interrogated. Doing so potentially allows for a far broader picture then any investigation of material components might yield, though of course messing about with the Machine Spirit of a device such as this will always bear it's own risks.
[] Empyrical- Whatever else sort of technology the Precogitator used, almost no machine made by the True Mechanicum that does not hold
some connection to the Warp. Everything about this particular case, from the predilections of the apparent commissioners to the aim of prophecy makes it exceedingly unlikely it is not involved in this case too. The Warp and it's effect has never been your primary area of study, but you do, by necessity, know a few things. Approaching the problem from this angle is a little unconventional, but it is for just that reason that it might yield exceptional results.
Of course, before you can even begin to start, you discover a nasty surprise: three of your four subordinates seem to have used the distraction of the moment to slide away into the bowels of the Fortress, no doubt seeking to apply their own solution to whatever problem is at play here. You shudder as you consider the potential havoc they may cause
Which subordinate do you manage to catch before they run off?
[] Regicia Ko-Bea-Magos Malefactor, Cybernetics Specialist and Artist
[] 8-Doxa Krainaima-Magos Mactator, Combat Specialist
[] Myges Talef-Magos Infofector, Cogitator Expert
[] Theama-Nul-???, ???
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is time, now, to establish the way this Quest will run mechanically a little bit more. You may have noticed the rolls that already occurred within the text. I am, for the purpose of this Quest, taking inspiration from Blades in the Dark. This means that rolls will be done by d6, with 1-3 being a failure, 4-5 being a partial success or a success with consequences, 6 being a success and more then one 6 being a critical success. It is assumed, in this case, that as a Magos you have a broad understanding of the lesser mysteries of the Cult Mechanicum, translating to a minimum of 1 dice used for most technical abilities. In addition to this, Eta Nu 9-35 and every other member of his crew have access to six other skills: three rolling 2d6, two rolling at 3d6, and one rolling at 4d6. Your own skills are known to you: the skills of your crew shall be revealed over time, as they become apparent to you. There will very likely be updates and further addenda to these fairly simple rules, but this ought to be enough for the time being.
Included below are Eta Nu 9-35's skills:
| Biological Engineering | | |
| Cybernetics | Medicae | |
| Mobility | Ecology | Xenobiology |
I don't think bundling these votes makes very much sense, so please don't vote by plan.
