Grim Dark Tech Support: A Dark Mechanicum Quest
- Thread starter Uniquelyequal
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]Stay
-[X] Physical Defenses: Palisades. Moats. Pitfalls. Sling Traps. Poison Darts. Some toxic gasses, perhaps? Securing your campsite against physical attacks will be labor intensive, but also defend against the most likely avenue of assault
-[X] Empyrical Defenses: Salt Circles. Blood Wards. An attack from the empyrean is harder to ward against, but guarding against it's outpours seems a good way to stop anything that might trample your more physical defenses with ease
-[X] Sustainable Energy: The Generator of the Pod runs on prometheum, of which you only possess rapidly disappearing stores. Setting up a refinery process for new fuel will be difficult, but several of the fungi around you do possess promising materials for it.
-[X] Physical Defenses: Palisades. Moats. Pitfalls. Sling Traps. Poison Darts. Some toxic gasses, perhaps? Securing your campsite against physical attacks will be labor intensive, but also defend against the most likely avenue of assault
-[X] Empyrical Defenses: Salt Circles. Blood Wards. An attack from the empyrean is harder to ward against, but guarding against it's outpours seems a good way to stop anything that might trample your more physical defenses with ease
-[X] Sustainable Energy: The Generator of the Pod runs on prometheum, of which you only possess rapidly disappearing stores. Setting up a refinery process for new fuel will be difficult, but several of the fungi around you do possess promising materials for it.
My god, it's the reddit planet.
[X] Stay
-[X] Secure Genetic Material
-[X] Physical Defences
-[X] Retrieve The Sword
- Location
- Dresden, Germany
Giving it about another day
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Stay
-[X] Sustainable Energy
-[X] Retrieve The Sword
-[X] Secure Genetic Material
-[X] Sustainable Energy
-[X] Retrieve The Sword
-[X] Secure Genetic Material
- Location
- Dresden, Germany
Vote Closed
Spheres and Other Heresy: Part 2
- Location
- Dresden, Germany
The three of you, for all that you have fallen on hard times, are members of the True Mechanicum. This means that all of you hold a plethora of highly sophisticated tools, capable of great feats of craftsmanship and precision that would seem utterly miraculous to the unaugmented person.
Unfortunately, none of those tools include a spade, an axe, or a saw.
There is something oddly liberating, about fashioning these most basic implements of human artifice. None of the materials you have to work with are optimal, of course, but some of the taller mushrooms have sturdy enough flesh to fashion tool handles, and the metal of the escape pod proves sufficiently stable for fashioning the tools.
You leave the digging of the initial moat to Theama and Myges, taking cover in the meager shelter of the pod to see to your own project.
Obviously, purely rationally, the odds of any remaining genetic material deteriorating further then they already have in the indeterminate amount of time the gauntlet was stored in the vault are low. On the other hand, they are not completely absent, and losing your chance to decipher such a valuable secret would truly be a shame.
You would, of course, prefer to have use of your laboratory, but the field testing equipment will have to do, for now. The Chymistry Probe you have is fairly sophisticated, anyways: enough to identify any transhuman tissue that might have been left behind, though perhaps not its degree of purity.
The first results you get, however, are not promising: traces of ethanol and urea, as well as all the myriad and exciting toxins that a Space Marine's Bletcher's Gland might produce. The gauntlet has plainly been used and abused by people with no respect or appreciation for science or the sort of knowledge that might be gleaned from it, but a lot of notion of juvenile dominance rituals.
The Emperor, in his infinite wisdom, chose children as the base material for his supersoldiers. It is at times like these that you cannot help but wonder if it was that decision above all other that led to Horus' Rebellion.
[Roll: Eta-Nu 9-35: Biological Engineering: 4d6. Roll: ?, ?, ?, ?. Result: ?]
You almost give up, on finding the remnants of a drug that you are pretty sure could induce six days of hallucination before killing the subject even in its current concentration. Surely, whatever sample might be left is long gone, subject to the endless abuses and ravages the gauntlet has been exposed to ever since it was prised off the hand of whichever hapless Custodes happened to fall to the Renegades. Then, hidden inside the joint of one of the fingers, you find it: a speck of dried blood and a few skin cells. It will not be enough to decode the Emperor's secrets, of course. You doubt that ten full Bodies and a lifetime of study could do that, even for one as talented as yourself. It will, however, possibly yield something: some secret of the Emperor, capable of improving other organisms just that little bit that is needed to give them an edge. You retrieve the sample, and drop it into your internal storage container. Then you stand up, looking around, taking in how much time has passed. It is strange, you reflect: despite your inbuilt chrono, the general lack of changes in the light seem to be messing with your sense of time tremendously. You have spent three hours, stooped over the gauntlet: a quick glance outside shows that in that time, the improvised moat has grown quite a bit, now encompassing almost a quarter of the intended circumference, dirt piled up behind it quite highly: the lack of proper roots besides the omnipresent mycelium appears to be helping quite a bit.
The general lack of binaric chatter and the discarded tool grips does suggest that the task is a long and thankless one. For a moment, you weigh the option of just pretending you are busy for a while longer, but ultimately the moat being duck is for your own protection, and the quicker it is done the better. You step forward, and in the tight confines of the pod, your mechdendrites brush against a hollow compartment that had, apparently, become quite deformed by the crash: deformed enough to spring open and reveal the set of tools for an emergency just like this.
They are, of course, made from sturdy, dependable Munitorum-grade steel: the sort of tools that can survive for years and years without breaking out.
For some reason, the revelation of your discovery does not cause the sort of universal joy you would have expected.
Surely, you consider, this is not because of you claiming the one good spade for yourself. It is only fair you do, of course: after all, you are the one who discovered it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In the end, your defenses are not all that impressive: a moat with sharpened stakes at its bottom surrounds your camp side, with the displaced earth piled up and compressed behind it, additional digging ensuring that the breastwork can hide a ducking body, should the need arise. As far as it has been possible, the mushrooms within the campsite have been left intact: there are potentially more of the flying monstrosities around, and though any top cover provided is flimsy at best, especially after the first daemon engine shredded the top cover going in and then rushing out again, you still judge it better then nothing.
You do give consideration of deforesting an area surrounding your improvised fortifications, until Theama-Nul pointed out that you have auspex scanners and weaponry that can at least theoretically pierce through the mushroom stems to quite a large extent.
The forest is not cover, to your enemies: it is a trap, and an obstacle.
You work for about twenty-four hours straight, finishing up your defenses, half-sleeping in shifts as needed. Your bionic limbs were obviously not made for mechanical labour, but they are still stronger than any weak flesh, and so you make good progress. It takes another three or so hours to find the necessary material to refine something that should at least be useable for the generator, though setting up the accelerated ethanol reaction does cost you the last bits of hyperyeast you still carry with out.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is then, of course, just as you are settled down recharging and preparing your next steps, that they arrive.
Despite everything, despite the auspex and the general awareness of your survival, you almost miss the Scout: she is a slip of a girl, barely older than sixteen standard Terran Years by your best evidence, and covered in a coat of supple leather.
There is a layer of small pyramids below the first layer of her coat, made from a material you cannot quite get a grasp on. Whatever it is, it is distorting your auspex: not enough that you cannot get a fix on her location, but enough to make her appear in a strange, lumpen way, distinctly different from an ordinary human silhouette. It would have worked too, probably, but you are used to the strange shape your fellows in the True Mechanicum can take, and so she tripped your alarms still: later then she would have otherwise, but early enough to have an early warning nonetheless. The fact that she has what appears to be warding signs in silver sown into the outside of the cloak does help you spot her visually, ultimately: her camouflage is quite good though, apart from that.
An additional layer of defense against daemonic attention has been judged a sufficient reason to break stealth, it seems.The people who live here appear to be pretty reasonable, all things considered
She observes you for a while, close to an hour: long enough for you to finish charging your internal energy stores, and long enough to trot to the outskirts of the earthenwork.
You could kill her, of course: quite easily, in fact.
That would be a pointless waste of ammo, however: it would simply prompt the sort of investigation that would happen anyways, and you doubt that she can tell her group much in terms of damaging information: for all their savviness, you doubt that you are anything remotely within their context.
So of course, when the assault begins, it does so with the bursting of a clay vessel above your fortifications, followed by the slow descent of metal stripes that make your auspex utterly unusable.
You do not think that the arrows that impact you are intended to do anything but distract.
Runes have been inscribed on their shafts, and you see a viscous mass that is probably quite toxic in the hollow channels of their stone tips.
Still, they feel like a formality, and a distraction: an opening gesture attempted primarily because, for all that it will probably not work, it might, and that would probably safe everyone a lot of trouble.
As it is, all it does is ensure you have arrows stuck in your outer robes and glancing off your metal limbs, and then a group of mutants is rushing at you, breaking through the slowly falling stripes.
They are dressed in more of the supple leather, with metal and bone sewn into them to provide additional protection, and several of them sport mutations: patches of see-through skin seem abundant, revealing the bone and blood vessel below.
Also, the Leader sports a pair of quite impressive curved horns, sprouting forth from his temple: a fact that becomes abundantly clear when he attempts to leap over the moat and atop the Earthenwork and almost gores you, before a solid jab sends him reeling backwards and into the trench below.
Neither the fall nor the stakes seem to have killed him, but judging by the screams of pain he should stay down for a while. Several more of them attempt to climb the wall, and largely fail. Towards your rear, you hear Theama-Nul open up with a Las Carbine you did not know he had, using the continuous power supply of the generator to send shots at the onrushing attackers in a continuous barrage.
On your other side, there is a hiss, and a roar, and then Myges Talef does after all deforest a fairly broad swathe of the forest as he depletes the last of his Chem Munitions.
You do not see all this, except from the corner of your eyes: you are quite busy fending off your own assault, spider legs kicking men off the rampart, monofillament wires cutting hands and bone-clubs in equal manner.
One of them comes periously close to getting you. A woman springs up onto the earthenwork, eyes wild, swinging her club. She is screaming, of course, swinging her club.
You turn it asideat the last moment before ramming your hydraulic blade through her stomach, severing her spine right below her stomach. Only then do the words register with you, and you realize she is speaking a version of High Gothic: garbled, perhaps, mistranslated, but still more than legible. The chants, of course, are more then familiar, for all that some of them have apparently fallen prey to linguistic drift.
"Blood for the Prince!", the mutants scream, as they rush on. "Skulls for her Seat!"
Despite this, they break quickly. Really, break is not the right word: they simply abandon the assault when they realize it is not work, retreating back into the cover of the fungal forest, dragging their wounded with them where they can.
[Roll: Eta Nu 9-35: Combat/Regicia's Cybernetics: 4d6+1d6(Cybernetics) 5,3,6,5+1: Full Success]
[Roll: Myges Talef: Combat: 1d6+1d6 (Fortifications): 5+6: Full Success]
[Roll: Theama-Nul: Combat: 2d6+1d6: 4,3+6: Full Success]
The dead and dying, you note, have been left behind: an oddly cold piece of triage, though you suppose they can always collect them later, once you have been dealt with.
You choose, for the time being, not to waste ammo by firing at their backs.
Their initial assault has failed. If they try again, you can always shoot it at their fronts.
A quick survey reveals a surprising lack of casualties, though obviously it is hard to tell in the bio-organic slurry Talef's work has left behind: you spot less then a dozen bodies, littered across the field.
You do not know, of course, how many of them there are: it could be that these losses are utterly crippling, the sort of defeat that can utterly wreck a tribe like theirs appear to be.
Yet something tells you that this is not so: the same thing that has your spines stand up, perhaps, when less then a quarter of an hour later a woman appears, dressed in a long, flowing robe made of leather that is strangely translucent, the faces covering her shoulders leaving absolutely no doubt as to its origin. She, too, is mutated: translucent skin forms a strange pattern on her face that seems to continue down her neck, revealing bone and muscle beneath it, and her left hand has been transformed into a crab-like pincer. Curved horns jut from her head, a mane of black hair spilling forth around them: several skulls have been woven into the hair, as well as rings of precious metal: you identify some gold, alongside aluminum and silver.
In her right hand, there is a staff, and it is formed from wood: actual, real wood, not the matter of the fungi that stand all around you.
The staff thrums with quiet power, actinic lightning sparking between the horns of the skull that tops it: this one is quite a bit more obvious, and its prolonged shape finally helps you identify why her own horns seemed so familiar.
It is the skull of a Bloodletter, or at least of something that looks suspiciously like one.
The woman, the psyker, raises her paradoxical staff, and waits until she can be assured she has your full attention.
"We should talk", she says, her High Gothic strangely formed and accented, but more than understandable.
For a moment, you consider simply shooting her. She had an opportunity to talk: it was before her people launched an immediate assault on you.
Something, however, makes you pause. Without doubt, she knows the risk of you doing just that.
So why does she think you won't?
The reason for this becomes apparent very quickly. You had disabled your auspex, when the chaff had started raining down: no use splitting your attention for something that had been decisively countered. That means, however, that you do not see the engine before it steps smoothly between two of the fungal trunks.
It strides forward on two massive, digitigrade legs, sharp talons churning up the soil with every step. It is affixed to an elongated, segmented body, the metal of its carapace scarred and pockmarked by age and exposure to the elements, any heraldry long lost under a layer of grime and glowing fungal fluids. You are reminded, in a way, of a wasp, though without the characteristically thin waist between thorax and abdomen. Sharp-edged metal Tendrils jut out of its body where you would expect its first pair of legs, swaying back and forth with significant speed that belies a sort of nervous energy: more of them jut out from the hood that covers what must be it's primary sensor pod, equally twitching and feeling around.
The hood, you find, is interesting: made of more of the supple leather, metal wire forms a mesh beneath its surface: more silver, unless you miss your mark, tied both as a cage to contain the motive force and as a decently effective sigil of warning. A harness runs out from the hood: lines of sinew and hair run too and fro across the carapace of the engine. There is no lead, but it does not need one. As you watch, the psyker raises her pincer-hand, making a slow gesture from left to right.
There is a whirring, deep within its: the buzzing of what sounds like a billion flies.
"I do apologize for the violence that has occurred", the Psyker continues, "we are not used to metal men in these shrooms that are not hell-bent on our destruction."
She cocks her head, regarding you curiously. "But you are different, aren't you? We might be able to help one another. We should talk."
You cock your head, curious despite yourself. You do not have anything to counter that daemon engine: neither wards that might hold it back nor the sword that might counter it. You may be able to run: flee towards the sector of the forest Myges has carved out, banking on your superior firepower to keep the organics from following and on your mobility to outmaneuver the engine. Alternatively, you might stand your ground, seeking to break whatever means the Psyker is using to control the Engine: rip that harness, tear down the hood, and it turns from their most dangerous asset to a liability.
Or you could just talk, and see what she has to say. Who knows, perhaps it is, against all odds, reasonable.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Reaction]
[] Fight
[] Flee
[] Talk
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Unfortunately, none of those tools include a spade, an axe, or a saw.
There is something oddly liberating, about fashioning these most basic implements of human artifice. None of the materials you have to work with are optimal, of course, but some of the taller mushrooms have sturdy enough flesh to fashion tool handles, and the metal of the escape pod proves sufficiently stable for fashioning the tools.
You leave the digging of the initial moat to Theama and Myges, taking cover in the meager shelter of the pod to see to your own project.
Obviously, purely rationally, the odds of any remaining genetic material deteriorating further then they already have in the indeterminate amount of time the gauntlet was stored in the vault are low. On the other hand, they are not completely absent, and losing your chance to decipher such a valuable secret would truly be a shame.
You would, of course, prefer to have use of your laboratory, but the field testing equipment will have to do, for now. The Chymistry Probe you have is fairly sophisticated, anyways: enough to identify any transhuman tissue that might have been left behind, though perhaps not its degree of purity.
The first results you get, however, are not promising: traces of ethanol and urea, as well as all the myriad and exciting toxins that a Space Marine's Bletcher's Gland might produce. The gauntlet has plainly been used and abused by people with no respect or appreciation for science or the sort of knowledge that might be gleaned from it, but a lot of notion of juvenile dominance rituals.
The Emperor, in his infinite wisdom, chose children as the base material for his supersoldiers. It is at times like these that you cannot help but wonder if it was that decision above all other that led to Horus' Rebellion.
[Roll: Eta-Nu 9-35: Biological Engineering: 4d6. Roll: ?, ?, ?, ?. Result: ?]
You almost give up, on finding the remnants of a drug that you are pretty sure could induce six days of hallucination before killing the subject even in its current concentration. Surely, whatever sample might be left is long gone, subject to the endless abuses and ravages the gauntlet has been exposed to ever since it was prised off the hand of whichever hapless Custodes happened to fall to the Renegades. Then, hidden inside the joint of one of the fingers, you find it: a speck of dried blood and a few skin cells. It will not be enough to decode the Emperor's secrets, of course. You doubt that ten full Bodies and a lifetime of study could do that, even for one as talented as yourself. It will, however, possibly yield something: some secret of the Emperor, capable of improving other organisms just that little bit that is needed to give them an edge. You retrieve the sample, and drop it into your internal storage container. Then you stand up, looking around, taking in how much time has passed. It is strange, you reflect: despite your inbuilt chrono, the general lack of changes in the light seem to be messing with your sense of time tremendously. You have spent three hours, stooped over the gauntlet: a quick glance outside shows that in that time, the improvised moat has grown quite a bit, now encompassing almost a quarter of the intended circumference, dirt piled up behind it quite highly: the lack of proper roots besides the omnipresent mycelium appears to be helping quite a bit.
The general lack of binaric chatter and the discarded tool grips does suggest that the task is a long and thankless one. For a moment, you weigh the option of just pretending you are busy for a while longer, but ultimately the moat being duck is for your own protection, and the quicker it is done the better. You step forward, and in the tight confines of the pod, your mechdendrites brush against a hollow compartment that had, apparently, become quite deformed by the crash: deformed enough to spring open and reveal the set of tools for an emergency just like this.
They are, of course, made from sturdy, dependable Munitorum-grade steel: the sort of tools that can survive for years and years without breaking out.
For some reason, the revelation of your discovery does not cause the sort of universal joy you would have expected.
Surely, you consider, this is not because of you claiming the one good spade for yourself. It is only fair you do, of course: after all, you are the one who discovered it.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In the end, your defenses are not all that impressive: a moat with sharpened stakes at its bottom surrounds your camp side, with the displaced earth piled up and compressed behind it, additional digging ensuring that the breastwork can hide a ducking body, should the need arise. As far as it has been possible, the mushrooms within the campsite have been left intact: there are potentially more of the flying monstrosities around, and though any top cover provided is flimsy at best, especially after the first daemon engine shredded the top cover going in and then rushing out again, you still judge it better then nothing.
You do give consideration of deforesting an area surrounding your improvised fortifications, until Theama-Nul pointed out that you have auspex scanners and weaponry that can at least theoretically pierce through the mushroom stems to quite a large extent.
The forest is not cover, to your enemies: it is a trap, and an obstacle.
You work for about twenty-four hours straight, finishing up your defenses, half-sleeping in shifts as needed. Your bionic limbs were obviously not made for mechanical labour, but they are still stronger than any weak flesh, and so you make good progress. It takes another three or so hours to find the necessary material to refine something that should at least be useable for the generator, though setting up the accelerated ethanol reaction does cost you the last bits of hyperyeast you still carry with out.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
It is then, of course, just as you are settled down recharging and preparing your next steps, that they arrive.
Despite everything, despite the auspex and the general awareness of your survival, you almost miss the Scout: she is a slip of a girl, barely older than sixteen standard Terran Years by your best evidence, and covered in a coat of supple leather.
There is a layer of small pyramids below the first layer of her coat, made from a material you cannot quite get a grasp on. Whatever it is, it is distorting your auspex: not enough that you cannot get a fix on her location, but enough to make her appear in a strange, lumpen way, distinctly different from an ordinary human silhouette. It would have worked too, probably, but you are used to the strange shape your fellows in the True Mechanicum can take, and so she tripped your alarms still: later then she would have otherwise, but early enough to have an early warning nonetheless. The fact that she has what appears to be warding signs in silver sown into the outside of the cloak does help you spot her visually, ultimately: her camouflage is quite good though, apart from that.
An additional layer of defense against daemonic attention has been judged a sufficient reason to break stealth, it seems.The people who live here appear to be pretty reasonable, all things considered
She observes you for a while, close to an hour: long enough for you to finish charging your internal energy stores, and long enough to trot to the outskirts of the earthenwork.
You could kill her, of course: quite easily, in fact.
That would be a pointless waste of ammo, however: it would simply prompt the sort of investigation that would happen anyways, and you doubt that she can tell her group much in terms of damaging information: for all their savviness, you doubt that you are anything remotely within their context.
So of course, when the assault begins, it does so with the bursting of a clay vessel above your fortifications, followed by the slow descent of metal stripes that make your auspex utterly unusable.
You do not think that the arrows that impact you are intended to do anything but distract.
Runes have been inscribed on their shafts, and you see a viscous mass that is probably quite toxic in the hollow channels of their stone tips.
Still, they feel like a formality, and a distraction: an opening gesture attempted primarily because, for all that it will probably not work, it might, and that would probably safe everyone a lot of trouble.
As it is, all it does is ensure you have arrows stuck in your outer robes and glancing off your metal limbs, and then a group of mutants is rushing at you, breaking through the slowly falling stripes.
They are dressed in more of the supple leather, with metal and bone sewn into them to provide additional protection, and several of them sport mutations: patches of see-through skin seem abundant, revealing the bone and blood vessel below.
Also, the Leader sports a pair of quite impressive curved horns, sprouting forth from his temple: a fact that becomes abundantly clear when he attempts to leap over the moat and atop the Earthenwork and almost gores you, before a solid jab sends him reeling backwards and into the trench below.
Neither the fall nor the stakes seem to have killed him, but judging by the screams of pain he should stay down for a while. Several more of them attempt to climb the wall, and largely fail. Towards your rear, you hear Theama-Nul open up with a Las Carbine you did not know he had, using the continuous power supply of the generator to send shots at the onrushing attackers in a continuous barrage.
On your other side, there is a hiss, and a roar, and then Myges Talef does after all deforest a fairly broad swathe of the forest as he depletes the last of his Chem Munitions.
You do not see all this, except from the corner of your eyes: you are quite busy fending off your own assault, spider legs kicking men off the rampart, monofillament wires cutting hands and bone-clubs in equal manner.
One of them comes periously close to getting you. A woman springs up onto the earthenwork, eyes wild, swinging her club. She is screaming, of course, swinging her club.
You turn it asideat the last moment before ramming your hydraulic blade through her stomach, severing her spine right below her stomach. Only then do the words register with you, and you realize she is speaking a version of High Gothic: garbled, perhaps, mistranslated, but still more than legible. The chants, of course, are more then familiar, for all that some of them have apparently fallen prey to linguistic drift.
"Blood for the Prince!", the mutants scream, as they rush on. "Skulls for her Seat!"
Despite this, they break quickly. Really, break is not the right word: they simply abandon the assault when they realize it is not work, retreating back into the cover of the fungal forest, dragging their wounded with them where they can.
[Roll: Eta Nu 9-35: Combat/Regicia's Cybernetics: 4d6+1d6(Cybernetics) 5,3,6,5+1: Full Success]
[Roll: Myges Talef: Combat: 1d6+1d6 (Fortifications): 5+6: Full Success]
[Roll: Theama-Nul: Combat: 2d6+1d6: 4,3+6: Full Success]
The dead and dying, you note, have been left behind: an oddly cold piece of triage, though you suppose they can always collect them later, once you have been dealt with.
You choose, for the time being, not to waste ammo by firing at their backs.
Their initial assault has failed. If they try again, you can always shoot it at their fronts.
A quick survey reveals a surprising lack of casualties, though obviously it is hard to tell in the bio-organic slurry Talef's work has left behind: you spot less then a dozen bodies, littered across the field.
You do not know, of course, how many of them there are: it could be that these losses are utterly crippling, the sort of defeat that can utterly wreck a tribe like theirs appear to be.
Yet something tells you that this is not so: the same thing that has your spines stand up, perhaps, when less then a quarter of an hour later a woman appears, dressed in a long, flowing robe made of leather that is strangely translucent, the faces covering her shoulders leaving absolutely no doubt as to its origin. She, too, is mutated: translucent skin forms a strange pattern on her face that seems to continue down her neck, revealing bone and muscle beneath it, and her left hand has been transformed into a crab-like pincer. Curved horns jut from her head, a mane of black hair spilling forth around them: several skulls have been woven into the hair, as well as rings of precious metal: you identify some gold, alongside aluminum and silver.
In her right hand, there is a staff, and it is formed from wood: actual, real wood, not the matter of the fungi that stand all around you.
The staff thrums with quiet power, actinic lightning sparking between the horns of the skull that tops it: this one is quite a bit more obvious, and its prolonged shape finally helps you identify why her own horns seemed so familiar.
It is the skull of a Bloodletter, or at least of something that looks suspiciously like one.
The woman, the psyker, raises her paradoxical staff, and waits until she can be assured she has your full attention.
"We should talk", she says, her High Gothic strangely formed and accented, but more than understandable.
For a moment, you consider simply shooting her. She had an opportunity to talk: it was before her people launched an immediate assault on you.
Something, however, makes you pause. Without doubt, she knows the risk of you doing just that.
So why does she think you won't?
The reason for this becomes apparent very quickly. You had disabled your auspex, when the chaff had started raining down: no use splitting your attention for something that had been decisively countered. That means, however, that you do not see the engine before it steps smoothly between two of the fungal trunks.
It strides forward on two massive, digitigrade legs, sharp talons churning up the soil with every step. It is affixed to an elongated, segmented body, the metal of its carapace scarred and pockmarked by age and exposure to the elements, any heraldry long lost under a layer of grime and glowing fungal fluids. You are reminded, in a way, of a wasp, though without the characteristically thin waist between thorax and abdomen. Sharp-edged metal Tendrils jut out of its body where you would expect its first pair of legs, swaying back and forth with significant speed that belies a sort of nervous energy: more of them jut out from the hood that covers what must be it's primary sensor pod, equally twitching and feeling around.
The hood, you find, is interesting: made of more of the supple leather, metal wire forms a mesh beneath its surface: more silver, unless you miss your mark, tied both as a cage to contain the motive force and as a decently effective sigil of warning. A harness runs out from the hood: lines of sinew and hair run too and fro across the carapace of the engine. There is no lead, but it does not need one. As you watch, the psyker raises her pincer-hand, making a slow gesture from left to right.
There is a whirring, deep within its: the buzzing of what sounds like a billion flies.
"I do apologize for the violence that has occurred", the Psyker continues, "we are not used to metal men in these shrooms that are not hell-bent on our destruction."
She cocks her head, regarding you curiously. "But you are different, aren't you? We might be able to help one another. We should talk."
You cock your head, curious despite yourself. You do not have anything to counter that daemon engine: neither wards that might hold it back nor the sword that might counter it. You may be able to run: flee towards the sector of the forest Myges has carved out, banking on your superior firepower to keep the organics from following and on your mobility to outmaneuver the engine. Alternatively, you might stand your ground, seeking to break whatever means the Psyker is using to control the Engine: rip that harness, tear down the hood, and it turns from their most dangerous asset to a liability.
Or you could just talk, and see what she has to say. Who knows, perhaps it is, against all odds, reasonable.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Reaction]
[] Fight
[] Flee
[] Talk
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Talk
The fact that she's not trying to attack despite the clear advantage gives room for hope.
The fact that she's not trying to attack despite the clear advantage gives room for hope.
[X] Talk
Hopefully this woman can get us in contact with our ship.
Hopefully this woman can get us in contact with our ship.
[X] Fight
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Talk
Well, she certainly knows how to pique interest.
Well, she certainly knows how to pique interest.
[X] Talk
Can always kill 'em later under more favorable circumstances, if the locals want to talk we lose nothing by humoring then and might gain some chance of getting off this rock.
Can always kill 'em later under more favorable circumstances, if the locals want to talk we lose nothing by humoring then and might gain some chance of getting off this rock.
[X] Talk
Anyone that can both claim the skull of a bloodletter AND wants to parlay with us is worth hearing out imo.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Talk
- Location
- Dresden, Germany
Giving it another day, as usual
- Location
- Texas
I think you took the wrong tally, but the point is still made.
[X] Talk
If nothing else it lets us learn about this obnoxious place we've crashed into, and we can always glass the planet after we get out of here.
KnightofTempest
The Man who would be King
- Location
- Chicago
[X] Talk
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vote closed
- Location
- Dresden, Germany
Interlude: Back Home
New
- Location
- Dresden, Germany
A/N: So the Update has been seriously fighting me, and work has been kicking my ass to boot. It is still coming, I am committed to that, but in an effort to get at least something out before I go on the vacation I'm about to go on, have this little thing.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Fulcrum Nutonium was not nearly as impressive as its grand name suggested. In truth, it was little more than a former water tank that had been haphazardly but thoroughly outfitted with every method to counter surveillance that had passed through the mind of the cabal of Magi that had originally appropriated it. Between the wards, totems, and sensor baffles, there was not a lot of space left at the bottom of the old basin, especially not if one took the augmentations those that would use it might sport.
Still, it was one of the few meeting spots upon Nuton's Folly where one could meet and talk with relative certainty of remaining unobserved, and it was remote enough and obscured enough that the risk of assassination was minimized: it would be difficult to strike it from orbit, and any larger forces would be funneled through the labyrinthian corridors that led to it.
There remained a risk, of course: an engine small enough or lone operative dangerous enough might still be able to strike and kill those meeting at the Fulcrum, and a sufficient commitment of forces or ordinance would be able to bypass the limitations it imposed.
Still, these risks were deemed worth it, for to those that used the Fulcrum as a meeting place, communication was deemed invaluable. They called themselves the Cabal of Minor Concerns: a deliberately self-effacing title that belied what were, in truth, exceedingly grand ambitions. Those that met within the Fulcrum were, at least within their own understanding, the rightful rulers of Nuton's Folly: having taken it upon themselves to resolve all the minor concerns far below the notice of the Council of Eight and whatever hidden masters it served.
The meeting that was being held now, in the early hours of what passed for morning upon Nuton's Folly, was about just one such matter. Specifically, it was about the way it was running the risk of becoming something of a major concern.
"We have lost another of the Lights of Charov"
The woman that had canted had not been recognisable as such for three centuries: the ravages of the warp and the augmentations that had replaced most of her flesh had not cared for petty social distinctions, and she had clung on to the identifier mostly by long force of habit. Phess Nexiel had long sought to purge herself of petty human emotions, and certainly her binaric did not betray any hint of them. The Warp, however, had undermined all efforts she had made to this effect: the stuff of raw, distilled sentient sensation running through her had outpaced anything she could do through the replacement of glands and the reduction of neural matter. To those that could read the arcs of warpstuff that danced across the frames of her skeletal augmetics and blazed behind octupled lenses that had replaced her eyes, Nexiel was an open book.
To those that had to deal with her regularly, such skills became a simple matter of survival. Trantian Eyronivo had dealt with her often, and so it was abundantly clear to him that news of another light being extinguished had aroused more rage within his fellow than he could entirely understand. The Lights were useful, yes: beacons for Navigators to lock on to in the absence of the Astronomicon or the Eye of Terror, tremendously simplifying navigation at least within local areas. Losing them would be catastrophic to the glut of would-be empire buildings that had broken forth from the Cicatrix Maledictum.
Nuton's Folly, of course, was not amongst these. "I do not think I am aware of all the details, honored brethren", Eyronivo canted carefully, expending every effort to keep his pinions from fluttering nervously, powering down his augmetic arms to stop his fingers from fidgeting. He had seen the warp-infused Volkite of Nexiel at work before, in enough detail that he did not even wish to simulate a damage model of what it would do to him. Best to tread carefully. "Nuton's Folly is not dependent on it to meet its obligations, and Charov is one of Bile's Acolytes, not ours. It is neither to our detriment nor our responsibility: merely an inconvenience."
There was a whir within the depths of Nexiel's robes, immediately identifiable to Eyronivo as the power drill that tipped one of her Mechadendrites. It was not the integrated Volkite, of course: very likely he could react before she closed the distance and sunk it anywhere vital. Still he rerouted power to his reflex circuits, and readied his internal refractor field for rapid deployment. He did not plan to die to a temper tantrum. For a brief moment, the drill continued to roar: then it subsided, and the flickering of the warp light across Nexiel's limbs subsided slightly.
"Jux-Plea went silent with it", she canted, finally, when she had calmed down sufficiently. There was a sense of embarrassment about her, now. She did not like to be in thrall to irrationalities and emotions.
Of course, Advos Jux-Plea potentially having gotten himself killed meddling in something that had up to that point been none of her business was, as far as Trantian Eyronivo was concerned, more than enough reason to get at least a little angry. The Magos had been young, less than four decades by his reckoning, but he had been a promising up and comer. He had been a savant when it came to psykers, but more importantly he had had a knack for diplomacy: it had been the hope of the Cabal to bring him into their fold more firmly, as soon as he had returned from his excursion. The wasted potential stung. Still, it did not sting enough to call a meeting such as this, nor enough to cause an outburst such as the one he had witnessed from his peer.
Something else was afoot, here. Trantian Eyronivo felt a pit open up within his stomach as he considered the possibility.
"He made assurances, didn't he?", he asked, and nearly flinched when another surge ran across her body. "In his last communication to me Advos Jux-Plea assured me he had ensured good relations with one Skyraal of the Apostles of Blasphemy, by pledging his support in fixing the Lights of Charov."
Eyronivo powered down his augmetics again, though he could not prevent his wings from starting to flutter nervously.
"Suboptimal", he canted out, once the initial flutter of nervous energy had passed through him. "Is destroying them an option?", he inquired. A thousand Warbands plied the dark side of the Great Rift, these days: pruning one or the other might prove the better option.
"He is of Abbadon's lot", Nexiel replied tersely, "and has gained the allegiance of many more of the Warbands in our immediate surroundings, directly or indirectly."
That was a no, then, though not surprisingly: an answer in the affirmative had never been extremely likely. Jux-Plea would not have made a deal with a bit player, after all: for all that he had apparently gotten himself killed needlessly, he had been fairly shrewd when it came to politics and power.
"What resources can we deploy to ensure the Lights do not fail in their entirety."
The energy surging across Nexiel's body subsided slightly: she enjoyed solving problems such as these, even in a situation as dire as this one.
"Zeta Van Hex wanted to take a closer look anyways", she canted, "and that should cover any issues with the warp. Jingh Soliatid is nearby and would be able to cover any of the more technomatic . I am sending 37-Thaulk along with Van Hex for protection."
Eyronivo nodded, mentally calculating the favors Nexiel must have called in to ensure the cooperation of such esteemed Magi.
There was, however, a gap within their shared and considerable expertise.
"What about the biological component?", he asked, and saw the energy across his peer's limbs surge almost immediately.
"None of the Magi Abominus are available", she canted out, spitting out the binaric like a projectile. Gwauss Balphanust is away to brew disease for the Death Guard, Iota Plure is working with the Sixfold Excruciators in turning that Eldar World they captured, and Phul Tallene still hasn't gotten in touch with us after they went to make beasts for the Choir Annihilus, which isn't terribly surprising."
She was working herself up into a rage again, and so he took great care to ensure his defensive measures were ready before he made his own suggestion.
"What about Eta Nu 9-35", he asked, and ducked under the Mechatendril sweeping through the cramped space with enough force to take his head off.
"They blew up a moon", Nexiel canted, binaric heavy with enraged artifacts.
"They have an exemplary record for putting getting a project done before any other consideration", Eyronivo argued, "both before their exile and since."
"Didn't the Beacon of Perfection get sucked into the Warp after he arrived", Nexiel inquired archly, and he could only shrug. "It resolved the complaint, didn't it? Possibly there wasn't another way."
"They're….", Nexiel began, and he interrupted her, ignoring the annoyed surge of light at his impudence. "...the best for the work, and also perfectly expendable. My sources tell me they're working with the Sorrowful Martyrs right now, at least going by their last report. It should be perfectly doable to redirect them to the Lights, once that message has been resolved."
"If the Word Bearers don't torch them for being unable to keep their opinions to themselves", Nexiel canted, quietly.
Eyronivo gave a reluctant cant in the affirmative, shrugging his wings and shoulders both.
"I am very open to better ideas."
She did not have any. He had been afraid of that.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Fulcrum Nutonium was not nearly as impressive as its grand name suggested. In truth, it was little more than a former water tank that had been haphazardly but thoroughly outfitted with every method to counter surveillance that had passed through the mind of the cabal of Magi that had originally appropriated it. Between the wards, totems, and sensor baffles, there was not a lot of space left at the bottom of the old basin, especially not if one took the augmentations those that would use it might sport.
Still, it was one of the few meeting spots upon Nuton's Folly where one could meet and talk with relative certainty of remaining unobserved, and it was remote enough and obscured enough that the risk of assassination was minimized: it would be difficult to strike it from orbit, and any larger forces would be funneled through the labyrinthian corridors that led to it.
There remained a risk, of course: an engine small enough or lone operative dangerous enough might still be able to strike and kill those meeting at the Fulcrum, and a sufficient commitment of forces or ordinance would be able to bypass the limitations it imposed.
Still, these risks were deemed worth it, for to those that used the Fulcrum as a meeting place, communication was deemed invaluable. They called themselves the Cabal of Minor Concerns: a deliberately self-effacing title that belied what were, in truth, exceedingly grand ambitions. Those that met within the Fulcrum were, at least within their own understanding, the rightful rulers of Nuton's Folly: having taken it upon themselves to resolve all the minor concerns far below the notice of the Council of Eight and whatever hidden masters it served.
The meeting that was being held now, in the early hours of what passed for morning upon Nuton's Folly, was about just one such matter. Specifically, it was about the way it was running the risk of becoming something of a major concern.
"We have lost another of the Lights of Charov"
The woman that had canted had not been recognisable as such for three centuries: the ravages of the warp and the augmentations that had replaced most of her flesh had not cared for petty social distinctions, and she had clung on to the identifier mostly by long force of habit. Phess Nexiel had long sought to purge herself of petty human emotions, and certainly her binaric did not betray any hint of them. The Warp, however, had undermined all efforts she had made to this effect: the stuff of raw, distilled sentient sensation running through her had outpaced anything she could do through the replacement of glands and the reduction of neural matter. To those that could read the arcs of warpstuff that danced across the frames of her skeletal augmetics and blazed behind octupled lenses that had replaced her eyes, Nexiel was an open book.
To those that had to deal with her regularly, such skills became a simple matter of survival. Trantian Eyronivo had dealt with her often, and so it was abundantly clear to him that news of another light being extinguished had aroused more rage within his fellow than he could entirely understand. The Lights were useful, yes: beacons for Navigators to lock on to in the absence of the Astronomicon or the Eye of Terror, tremendously simplifying navigation at least within local areas. Losing them would be catastrophic to the glut of would-be empire buildings that had broken forth from the Cicatrix Maledictum.
Nuton's Folly, of course, was not amongst these. "I do not think I am aware of all the details, honored brethren", Eyronivo canted carefully, expending every effort to keep his pinions from fluttering nervously, powering down his augmetic arms to stop his fingers from fidgeting. He had seen the warp-infused Volkite of Nexiel at work before, in enough detail that he did not even wish to simulate a damage model of what it would do to him. Best to tread carefully. "Nuton's Folly is not dependent on it to meet its obligations, and Charov is one of Bile's Acolytes, not ours. It is neither to our detriment nor our responsibility: merely an inconvenience."
There was a whir within the depths of Nexiel's robes, immediately identifiable to Eyronivo as the power drill that tipped one of her Mechadendrites. It was not the integrated Volkite, of course: very likely he could react before she closed the distance and sunk it anywhere vital. Still he rerouted power to his reflex circuits, and readied his internal refractor field for rapid deployment. He did not plan to die to a temper tantrum. For a brief moment, the drill continued to roar: then it subsided, and the flickering of the warp light across Nexiel's limbs subsided slightly.
"Jux-Plea went silent with it", she canted, finally, when she had calmed down sufficiently. There was a sense of embarrassment about her, now. She did not like to be in thrall to irrationalities and emotions.
Of course, Advos Jux-Plea potentially having gotten himself killed meddling in something that had up to that point been none of her business was, as far as Trantian Eyronivo was concerned, more than enough reason to get at least a little angry. The Magos had been young, less than four decades by his reckoning, but he had been a promising up and comer. He had been a savant when it came to psykers, but more importantly he had had a knack for diplomacy: it had been the hope of the Cabal to bring him into their fold more firmly, as soon as he had returned from his excursion. The wasted potential stung. Still, it did not sting enough to call a meeting such as this, nor enough to cause an outburst such as the one he had witnessed from his peer.
Something else was afoot, here. Trantian Eyronivo felt a pit open up within his stomach as he considered the possibility.
"He made assurances, didn't he?", he asked, and nearly flinched when another surge ran across her body. "In his last communication to me Advos Jux-Plea assured me he had ensured good relations with one Skyraal of the Apostles of Blasphemy, by pledging his support in fixing the Lights of Charov."
Eyronivo powered down his augmetics again, though he could not prevent his wings from starting to flutter nervously.
"Suboptimal", he canted out, once the initial flutter of nervous energy had passed through him. "Is destroying them an option?", he inquired. A thousand Warbands plied the dark side of the Great Rift, these days: pruning one or the other might prove the better option.
"He is of Abbadon's lot", Nexiel replied tersely, "and has gained the allegiance of many more of the Warbands in our immediate surroundings, directly or indirectly."
That was a no, then, though not surprisingly: an answer in the affirmative had never been extremely likely. Jux-Plea would not have made a deal with a bit player, after all: for all that he had apparently gotten himself killed needlessly, he had been fairly shrewd when it came to politics and power.
"What resources can we deploy to ensure the Lights do not fail in their entirety."
The energy surging across Nexiel's body subsided slightly: she enjoyed solving problems such as these, even in a situation as dire as this one.
"Zeta Van Hex wanted to take a closer look anyways", she canted, "and that should cover any issues with the warp. Jingh Soliatid is nearby and would be able to cover any of the more technomatic . I am sending 37-Thaulk along with Van Hex for protection."
Eyronivo nodded, mentally calculating the favors Nexiel must have called in to ensure the cooperation of such esteemed Magi.
There was, however, a gap within their shared and considerable expertise.
"What about the biological component?", he asked, and saw the energy across his peer's limbs surge almost immediately.
"None of the Magi Abominus are available", she canted out, spitting out the binaric like a projectile. Gwauss Balphanust is away to brew disease for the Death Guard, Iota Plure is working with the Sixfold Excruciators in turning that Eldar World they captured, and Phul Tallene still hasn't gotten in touch with us after they went to make beasts for the Choir Annihilus, which isn't terribly surprising."
She was working herself up into a rage again, and so he took great care to ensure his defensive measures were ready before he made his own suggestion.
"What about Eta Nu 9-35", he asked, and ducked under the Mechatendril sweeping through the cramped space with enough force to take his head off.
"They blew up a moon", Nexiel canted, binaric heavy with enraged artifacts.
"They have an exemplary record for putting getting a project done before any other consideration", Eyronivo argued, "both before their exile and since."
"Didn't the Beacon of Perfection get sucked into the Warp after he arrived", Nexiel inquired archly, and he could only shrug. "It resolved the complaint, didn't it? Possibly there wasn't another way."
"They're….", Nexiel began, and he interrupted her, ignoring the annoyed surge of light at his impudence. "...the best for the work, and also perfectly expendable. My sources tell me they're working with the Sorrowful Martyrs right now, at least going by their last report. It should be perfectly doable to redirect them to the Lights, once that message has been resolved."
"If the Word Bearers don't torch them for being unable to keep their opinions to themselves", Nexiel canted, quietly.
Eyronivo gave a reluctant cant in the affirmative, shrugging his wings and shoulders both.
"I am very open to better ideas."
She did not have any. He had been afraid of that.