I just don't want to kill anybody because, well, who are we to judge? We don't really know anything about these people aside of what the reports say, and well, fuck the inquisition.
tbf it looks like the astartes murdered a ton of people on a shrine world and everyone ran away refusing to explain anything, and they were technically correct about us being in a chaos cult. We were tricked into that though, and it's significantly harder to be tricked into murdering a ton of priests and pilgrims and then running away. Especially as an astartes, who have an enormous support network and the widespread worship of the Imperium. Things only got this bad for us because we're a psyker and most of the imperium would burn us alive over that, he has fewer excuses.
I just don't want to kill anybody because, well, who are we to judge? We don't really know anything about these people aside of what the reports say, and well, fuck the inquisition.
After all, our own report would hace described us as a dangerous agent of a chaos cult.
Especially as an astartes, who have an enormous support network and the widespread worship of the Imperium. Things only got this bad for us because we're a psyker and most of the imperium would burn us alive over that, he has fewer excuses.
Some Astartes have an enormous support network and the worship of the Imperium.
Others have the misfortune to be the Lamenters, or the Mantis Warriors, or they're one of the weirdo fleet based Chapters who shun and are shunned by the wider Imperium like the Marines Malevolent or the Carcharadons.
For that matter, the Ecclesiarchy's relationships with the many Chapter Cults run the gamut from "PRAISE THE GOD EMPEROR'S HOLY ANGELS!" to the repeated attempts at launching crusades against the Space Wolves, the Steel Cobras and others.
Your drop pod lands on the wrong Shrine World and you have the wrong markings on your armor or you don't repeat the proper catechism to the first priests you meet? Hello angry mob of screaming fanatics trying to murder the false angel with farming tools and cobblestones.
Alternately, could even be as simple as Arthas in the Culling of Stratholme. Had to do something super fucking shady on short notice because inaction would be worse, and everyone threw him under the bus for it even though he was right.
Some Astartes have an enormous support network and the worship of the Imperium.
Others have the misfortune to be the Lamenters, or the Mantis Warriors, or they're one of the weirdo fleet based Chapters who shun and are shunned by the wider Imperium like the Marines Malevolent or the Carcharadons.
For that matter, the Ecclesiarchy's relationships with the many Chapter Cults run the gamut from "PRAISE THE GOD EMPEROR'S HOLY ANGELS!" to the repeated attempts at launching crusades against the Space Wolves, the Steel Cobras and others.
Your drop pod lands on the wrong Shrine World and you have the wrong markings on your armor or you don't repeat the proper catechism to the first priests you meet? Hello angry mob of screaming fanatics trying to murder the false angel with farming tools and cobblestones.
The Carcharadons choose to avoid contact with the Imperium and the Marines Malevolent are so callous to Imperial citizen's lives that the Inquisition has problems with it. There are plenty of good reasons as to why he could have been locked up. Too late now I suppose.
I expect the reason we'd be safe is PRECISELY that they are more threatening to each other, and we're all focused mostly on getting out. The Space Marine and the Eldar put each other in check, they'd be focused on what each other can do.
The Navigator/Sorceror, the Magos and the Psyker take up the second circle, where they can threaten each other but really do not want to when theres an Eldar and Space Marine already there as bigger threats.
YES! WE SHOULD GET TEAM TATTOOS! They can show that having met in adverse circumstances, these five people have come together to try and survive, and in doing so have laughed and cried, learned and loved - becoming best buds over their journey
I'm excited to meet our new friends, I'm confident we'll all get along like a house on fire.
----
[x] [Aeldari] Free the Prisoner
[x] [Nadia] Free the Prisoner.
[x] [Ciro] Free the Prisoner
[x] [Bore] Free the Prisoner
Taking a pragmatic view, you cannot deny that all of your fellow prisoners likely have some manner of skill or experience that they can contribute towards your escape. The chance that their inclusion creates more problems than their omission is not one you can reasonably calculate in advance, so it is better to err on the side of caution and inclusion. Such thoughts are all well and good, but what of the moral level? Can you truly bring yourself to kill or abandon those who have been spared by some higher power, even while so many others died around them? Would the Emperor Of All desire such a thing?
Does He even desire you? Traitor, heretic, witch-thing. You are cast out, no longer welcome in the embrace of mankind or its God.
Gritting your teeth, you banish the dark thoughts with a shake of your head. You've grown very good at doing that, and right now survival demands that you stay focused. Who to free first… Lady Nadia, you think. You will need her expertise and experience with voidships to effect your escape, and on a personal level the common ground of dealing with a noblewoman in need of a protector ought to be comforting, a touch of the familiar in this hostile and alien place. True, Rogue Traders are not quite kin to other nobles, carrying most of their domain with them as they venture to and fro across the stars, but she is certainly closer to anything you have experience with than the other options.
Finding her stasis casket, you take a moment to study the woman - the fratricide - through the small window on the surface. She seems beautiful enough, slight of build and dark of skin, with long tresses of curly black hair hanging limply around her elegant shoulders. Nodding to yourself, you tap the opening command into the casket's small control panel, and step back as it vents strange gasses across the room and disgorges its occupant. Nadia staggers blearily from her confinement, reeling and falling, and with practiced ease you step in and catch her before she can hit the floor.
"Easy, good Lady," you say in a soothing voice, for all that your charge is dealing with stasis sickness and not overindulgence in their cousin's liquor cabinet, "find your centre, regain your balance. The feeling will pass shortly."
She tenses in your arms, a faint tremble wracking her frame, but why… oh, of course, you are a fool. A strange man lays hands on her, while she is unsteady and her thoughts are clouded? Such would be grounds for unease even without any recent experiences involving the guards, so after a moment's thought you guide her to the nearest casket she can lean on for support, then release her and step away.
"...my thanks, stranger," Nadia Black says at last, after a few moments have passed and she has some control of her limbs and tongue. You see her eyes flicker to your hands, to the sword at your side, across the width of your shoulders and height of your head. She smiles then, cocking a hip slightly, and her voice adopts something resembling a purr. "Certainly you are a sweeter sight to the eyes than the guards who woke me last."
You smile politely, recognising her words and gaze for what they are. She's identified you as a man armed and dangerous, with all the advantages of build and knowledge and a clear mind, and so she smiles and offers a compliment to buy herself time. Men with egos can be dangerous at the best of times, and women without power know better than to provoke them.
"Vincenzo Leonardo Borgia, my good lady, late of the planet Malfi," you say politely, sweeping your hat from your head and offering her a low bow of courtly respect, "and should thought of the guards concern you, please take comfort in the knowledge that they appear to have all perished of violence or old age."
You see the glint of calculation in her dark eyes, the sudden spasm of joy tempered only by the need for further information. "Fine news indeed. And the other prisoners?"
"Largely dead, it seems, from malfunction or deliberate termination," you say, blinking slightly. You were able to push down the sudden shock and loss of two hundred years sacrificed to the void, but Nadia scarcely seems to care. Were it not for the intelligence in her eyes you might have thought she missed the implication entirely. "There are some handful of us yet alive, whom I intend to free in turn. It seems unwise to overlook any aid, even that granted by a simple twist of fate."
"Ah yes," Nadia says with a brief smirk, "Fate. Well, I cannot deny your logic, but while you attend to that… I assume that our possessions are close at hand?"
"Third door on the right, Lady Black," you say, realising only when she frowns that she never told you her name. The frown disappears a moment later as she pieces together the logic, but you still feel like a fool. To presume such familiarity on Malfi would be call for people like you to step in, and while she does not seem to be inclined to take offence, you will need to pay more attention to proper etiquette. "I shall see to the next of our comrades, and see that you are afforded proper privacy."
"My thanks, Vincenzo," the Rogue Trader says with a smile, brushing up against you as she moves to the door. You turn to follow her with your eyes as she goes, action without thought, and you know you're not imagining the deliberate sway of her hips as she leaves. The shapeless jumpsuit robs the gesture of some of its allure, but the mere thought that she wishes to make such a display for you... grunting, you shake your head and try to focus. Is she seeking to disarm your threat, or entice you into protecting her against someone else? You are familiar with such games from your clients, but that hardly means you are immune to a lady's charms after so… no, damn it, focus.
If she knew you for what you are, she would have handed you over to the Inquisition herself.
Grunting, you shake your head and move to the next chamber, the one that holds the Magos known as Hephastius Bore. You know little of the Mechanicus and their ways, for though they maintained a presence upon Malfi they were always a bloc unto their own, isolated and divorced from wider society and concerned with their own inscrutable goals over the ebb and flow that dominated the rest of the planet. You note that unlike every other prisoner, this one appears to have been permitted the use of the rich red robes of his office, and the cybernetics that glint at his hand and below the pasty flesh of his jaw seem functional enough. Did the Inquisition plan to hand him back to the Mechanicus, then, or perhaps sought to avoid insult to that august body? You do not know, and it matters little in either case. You simply check the casket one last time, then lever it open.
Unlike you and Nadia, Bore does not immediately come staggering out of his coffin. Indeed he scarcely even twitches, lying there insensate as cooling fluid vents and the faint hum of residual power slowly dies down. You're just beginning to wonder if he's managed to die somehow absent all technical malfunction when the tech-priest abruptly levers himself upright and leaps from the casket like a shot from a cannon.
"Ah, hello world once more, marvelous! Is it time for another interrogation?" He says, rocking back and forth on the spot while you take a step back in instinctive alarm. The motion draws Bore's eye, and he peers at you with filmy eyes like some kind of reanimated vulture. "Ah. You are not one of the guards. The guards are not present, you are, the ship shows… significant signs of structural decay, and the other prisoners are deceased. The situation has changed, then?"
"I… yes," you say, because it doesn't matter if he's not what you expected, if he just put all that together in a matter of moments, you can't let him rattle you. If you're off balance you're vulnerable, if you're vulnerable you're dead. "There was an inconclusive revolt, some two hundred years ago now, and the damage it dealt has come due. Some handful of us survived, you and I among them, and now we must escape."
"Aha!" Bore straightens up, corpse-flat eyes twitching back and forth violently, "Yes, I see. Quite logical, logical indeed, the benevolence of the Machine Spirits for their chosen knows no bounds. By technology I am preserved through the years, by faith I am released, by intellect we must now escape. Go, release the others. I must recharge."
You blink, but it seems like the tech-priest has already dismissed you from his thoughts, brushing past you to approach the cogitator column at the centre of the room. Strange writhing tendrils emerge from beneath his robes, some of them metallic and others pulsing with unwholesome life, and before you can say a word each is inserted into some socket or overlaid on some wire on the console. The lights flicker and dim slightly, while Bore's spine arches with a sickening crack, and in the end you decide to just leave him to it. Whatever 'it' is.
Two of the four have been released, each without incident, and yet as you cross the hall to the chamber where the third is held you find yourself hesitating. Nadia and Bole were both human, treacherous and twisted though they may be, while the thing in the next casket is nothing but. You hesitate on the threshold, staring in at the simple tube resting against the far wall, at the faint impressions of a humanoid form you can see resting within. The small window allows little in the way of vision from where you stand, only the faintest impression of a face too smooth and elongated to be called human, of grey-black hair strung with tiny icons of bone and feather.
Abhor the alien, for they are as a scourge upon your back, a locust that would feast on all that goodly folk toil to achieve…
"Quite the looker, isn't she?"
You blink, jolted out of your thoughts, and when you turn to face the speaker you are reduced to blinking once again. Nadia Black is… well, she appears to have discarded whatever finery she was captured in in favour of a battered old lasgun and some flak armour with all the iconography scraped crudely away, the plates and satchels strapped haphazardly over her shapeless prison jumpsuit. It looks distractingly good on her, and from the wicked edge to her smile she knows it.
"Ah, the constipated look of a man weighing what he needs against a life of ecclesiarchial indoctrination. I know it well," she says with a laugh, reaching up to pat you lightly on the cheek. You flinch away from the touch, echoes of Crane's fist behind every brush of skin on skin, and Nadia frowns for a moment before adopting a more sympathetic expression. "Don't worry, sweet Vincenzo. Go attend to the others, and I will see about getting our alien comrade released. Rogue Traders are licensed to make contact with such beings, after all."
Are they? You think you remember something about that, from those fragments of study and hearsay you picked up concerning those who hold a Warrant of Trade. Perhaps, in that case… Yes, it's only sensible to leave dealing with the Aeldari to Nadia, isn't it? She probably knows how to speak to them as well. Nodding, you step aside and allow the Rogue Trader to enter the room, before turning aside and heading for the last of the coffins yet functional.
Prisoner Triple-Zero One is the only occupant of the chamber furthest from the general quarters, his stasis tube standing alone and untouched in an otherwise empty room. Where the other caskets were solid tubes with small windows, his is almost entirely transparent, a museum case to properly display the treasure held within. Drawing close, you cannot help but be struck by the perfection of his features, the elevation of the human form to a level you can only describe as artistic. In strength and size and bodily form he is simply more than anything you have ever seen before, and with one glance you understand why it is that people came to refer to the Astartes as the Emperor's Angels. Taking a breath to steady yourself, you hit the release lever and step back, just in case.
There is no delay this time, no extended period of waking or stumbling nausea. The cover of the tube slides aside and the Space Marine steps out like he was waiting for you, an insensate statue transformed to a sculpted titan of flesh and soul in the blink of an eye, looming over you like the hive spires of home and just as approachable.
"Are you scale or fang?" He says in barely-accented gothic, looking down at you with eyes the colour of winter steel. That's clearly some kind of pass phrase, but you don't know how to answer it, and before you can even begin to think of an answer your confusion speaks for you. "A comrade of circumstance then. Very well, report."
You're not a soldier, you've never been one save by perhaps the most technical quality of adjacency, yet when the Marine - no, Ciro, when Ciro speaks - you find yourself snapping upright and responding almost without thought.
"An inconclusive uprising left the ship damaged and the guards dead," you say swiftly, "It has been two hundred years, by the log. There are three other prisoners, two humans and an Aeldari, who I have freed already."
"Good," Ciro nods decisively, clapping you on the shoulder, his hand broad enough to almost completely engulf that whole side of your chest, "Fine work. Stick close to me, free man, and we will have our victory yet."
Your heart thumps wildly at that, an offbeat staccato in your chest as conflicting emotions war for control of your heart. This is not one of the Emperor's own angels, surely it cannot be such in the custody of the Inquisition, and yet…
He could kill you in a heartbeat. He will, if you step astray.
It felt good to be complimented by such a man. A scrap of validation, honestly given, from someone like that, it means a lot. Did he do it deliberately? Do you care? You don't know, but right now Ciro is in motion and heading towards the exit, and you are already moving along in his wake. You don't want to be left behind.
-/-
You remember visiting the main prison holds of your transport before, yesterday and a dozen lifetimes ago, and though your memories are fogged with half-recalled pain and the aftereffects of induced stasis the sight of the vast cavernous expanse before you is enough to bring it all back. Endless rows of cages piled from the hidden floor to the ceiling lost in shadow, ten thousand metal bars holding thrice as many prisoners in slaughterhouse conditions, the filth of the upper levels dripping through the bars below to choke and dismay all who had the misfortune of incurring the Inquisition's curiosity.
Once the cages were linked by gantries and wire stairways, a spider's web of metal spun around the looming bulk of the panopticon tower at the prison's heart, where the Inquisition and its torments could see and be seen. Battle damage and the passage of time have left their mark, however - more than half of the connections have tumbled into the gloomy abyss below, often dragging nearby cages down with them, while the rest sway and creak in the uneven wind of malfunctioning air processors.
"It must run half the length of the ship," Nadia says with a bemused frown, resting the butt of her lasgun against one hip as she stares out over the abyss. "To cut so much of the internal structure out… this ship was never meant to see battle, or even a rough transition. One hull breach and the entire prison compartment vents to the void."
"It reeks," the Aledari adds, in gothic no less disturbing for the utter lack of accent. She named herself 'Sidhe', but you remember enough old legends to know that is an alias at best, and the liquid pools of her over-large eyes are discomforting in the extreme. To you, that is, since the rest of your motley band seem to have no issue with that or the strange insectoid armour the alien has reclaimed from the armoury. "The vermin feast upon fossilised waste of forgotten ages and the corpses of the dead, and the survivors feast upon the vermin. An apt metaphor for your species, though inelegant."
You should… probably say something, right? What do you even say to that kind of comment, though, short of reaching for a weapon and undoing the work done in liberating the alien in the first place?
"It appears the gantries were mobile," Bore says, peering into the middle distance with his corpse-flat eyes, "If I can find a control box, I can construct a path across despite the missing elements."
Nadia opens her mouth to answer, but before she can speak Ciro shifts slightly behind you. He's claimed a set of heavy armour from the lockers, the powered suits that you have seen featured so prominently in manuscripts and temple windows, but it is bare ceremite stripped of any identifying symbols. Not that you would recognise it if there were any, you suppose, nor would you speak over its wearer regardless.
"Too loud," Ciro says simply, advancing to the side of your small landing platform and grabbing hold of the nearest of the metal bars, "We climb."
Vincenzo rolls Strength + Athletics, DN 2. Roll is 2; 4; 5, pass.
This game is running on the Wrath and Glory system, in which all rolls are made with a six-sided dice. Results of a 4+ generate one "Icon", while a 6 generates an "Exalted Icon", which is worth two icons and might also offer bonus effects.
In the above example, Vincenzo had to take an Athletics test, a skill linked to the attribute of Strength. He has Athletics 1 and Strength 2, so he rolled three dice. The 2 was a failure, the 4 and 5 generated one icon each. Since the DN (Difficulty Number) was two, he passed.
You would have preferred virtually any other option, personally, but the Space Marine is already climbing and getting left behind seems like a terrible idea, so you grit your teeth and follow in his wake. The bars are slick with condensation and often skewed, the cold wind of the air cyclers batters at your skin, and when you stop to peer into the cages you pass you are greeted by the sight of prisoners who failed to escape or crawled back into their holes to die centuries before. Many of them have been gnawed on by rats and things distressingly larger than mere vermin, and you can only swallow and press on, even as your arms shake and your muscles burn.
Ciro has no problems with the journey, of course, and the Aeldari seems to find the prospect of touching the bars at all rather more difficult than merely climbing across a few hundred metres of rough terrain. Bore extrudes more of those unsettling flesh-like tendrils from beneath his robes and scampers across like a spider, leaving only you and Nadia to struggle like mortals, and by the time you reach your destination you are gasping for breath and trying not to gag at the stench wafting up from the filthy mire far below.
"...running on a tertiary power source," you hear Bore say as you clamber up onto the landing where he and Ciro have come to a halt, rolling over onto your side and taking a moment to catch your breath, "Remaining lifespan is impossible to estimate from our current position."
"I see. Thank you, Magos," Ciro says in a calm, even voice, staring down the length of a single darkened corridor. He glances back as you rise to your feet, Nadia grunting with exertion behind you as she hauls herself up in turn. "Lady Black. Are there likely to be other routes out of this bay?"
"How… the hells would I know?" The Rogue Trader says roughly, stopping to cough before squinting at the corridor, "In a normal ship, certainly, hundreds of them. In an Inquisitorial prison barge… still a few, most likely, power conduits and sluice pipes, that sort of thing. I'd expect grills at least, some way to stop an escapee crawling up, but you can't seal them entirely. Why?"
"Because this exit is defended," Ciro says with a smile, as if he's telling a joke, letting you in on a little secret. "There are at least six turrets waiting to deploy from the wall panels and ceiling, and I cannot speak to their armament or functionality."
Blinking, you look past him, squinting down the corridor once again. You can't see anything of the kind, save battered deck plates and faintly shadowed alcoves hidden behind looming statues of imperial saints, but then you suppose any such defences would be hidden beyond the reach of mortal senses to detect regardless.
"The presence of this control panel renders the existence of a key a likely supposition," Bore puts in helpfully, patting a strange brazen skull protruding from the nearest wall fondly. You have no idea how that qualifies as a control panel, but better to be thought a fool than speak and confirm the impression. "Likely of a common pattern, carried by wardens and Inquisitorial agents. However, I am not presently detecting any transmitting devices in the near vicinity."
"And, uh," you speak up, because fool or not you can't let the others dominate the course of this conversation entirely, "Where might such a key be found, in your estimation?"
"Two possibilities present themselves, of the locations within reach," Bore says, rocking on his heels in an almost enthusiastic kind of way, "The central tower appears unbreached, and so any key held by a staff member there can likely be found within, if we can affect an access. Alternately, a key born by a warden overwhelmed by the uprising may still be with his corpse in the bilges."
You blink, and lean back a moment to look down towards the lower level of the prison hold. The streaks of brown filth across the bars and walls look to have become a semi-solid layer down there, a swampy morass of biological waste in all its forms punctuated only by collapsed gantries and fallen cages. The thought of searching through that in pursuit of one particular corpse and the key it might not even be carrying… does not appeal.
"There is nothing for it," Ciro says with a firm nod, "We shall have to force the corridor, and destroy the turrets as they emerge. Free man, you bear a force sword - are you capable of conjuring lightning?"
You blink, taken back by the sudden attention, by the way Ciro identified you for what you are in a moment. "I… yes, I can."
"Good," Ciro nods, smiling at you, "Then you and I will dispose of the turrets. Magos, I need you to create…"
"Hold on!" Nadia interjects, only to swallow when Ciro falls silent and raises a single eyebrow in her direction. "I, that is to say, surely it makes more sense to at least attempt a search for the key first?"
"Such a search will take too much time," Ciro explains patiently, and you get the distinct impression he is humouring the talkative woman rather than anything more serious, "Time we cannot afford to waste. Our caskets were built to terminate us when their power looked to fail. I have no doubt an Inquisitorial vessel is similarly designed to self-destruct, rather than risk its inmates escaping."
"There have been no indications of that," Hephastius Bore points out, his robes rippling slightly with hidden movement, "I favour searching for the key."
"I see," Ciro says, terribly reasonable and accommodating, nodding calmly to the Magos, "And you, Aeldari?"
"I will not grub through human waste in search of some key, nor spill my blood on your foolish stratagem," the alien that calls herself Sidhe says with a disgusted expression, "Better to seek the alternate passages the mariner spoke of."
"Mm. How very like your kind," Ciro says with a faint sight, before turning to you, "And what of you, Free Man? Shall we fight side by side, or do you prefer another path?"
You hesitate, struck by the sudden weight of four sets of eyes on you, four monsters each awaiting your response.
Article:
How do you favour escaping from the prison holds?
[ ] Ciro's Plan. With your powers and the battle prowess of a Space Marine, surely a handful of ancient defence turrets are no challenge at all.
[ ] Nadia's Plan. Why waste time and blood forcing a door when you could instead find a key? Surely Bore has some way to narrow down the search.
[ ] Sidhe's Plan. Climbing is not your strong suit, but you can grow wings if needs be, and you refuse to believe there is but one way out after two hundred years of neglect and damage.
[X] ] Ciro's Plan. With your powers and the battle prowess of a Space Marine, surely a handful of ancient defence turrets are no challenge at all.
Oh boy, we're gonna go into battle alongside a Space Marine of the Iron Snakes Chapter! It's just like one of my holoslates!
More seriously, we're a swordsman with a big hat and a billowing cloak and our sword can shoot lightning. Time to sword things and look damn good doing it.
[X] Ciro's Plan. With your powers and the battle prowess of a Space Marine, surely a handful of ancient defence turrets are no challenge at all.
-[X] find something to send out first to act as a decoy to both distract the turrets and expose them before we attack @Maugan Ra is this viable ?
and when you stop to peer into the cages you pass you are greeted by the sight of prisoners who failed to escape or crawled back into their holes to die centuries before
[X] "We survived this long by chance, and there were many prisoners before. My guess is that if this ship were designed to destruct upon our release, it would have been set to destruct when the guards/inquisition lost control. I suggest finding a key, and failing that, attempting to find another route. We have no supplies or medicine"
-[X] To the Alderi: "Survival and success before pride is my perspective"
Hell yeah! Give us ten updoots and we shall SHOW THE UNIVERSE WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH THE ULTIMATE POWER: FRIENDSHIP!
[X] Ciro's Plan. With your powers and the battle prowess of a Space Marine, surely a handful of ancient defence turrets are no challenge at all.
-[X] find something to send out first to act as a decoy to both distract the turrets and expose them before we attack @Maugan Ra is this viable ?
Possible, though really Ciro was planning on doing that anyway. I tend to reserve write-ins for more significant changes to the core vote, rather than just details like this, otherwise in my experience voters drive themselves mad trying to come up with everything the GM might punish them for missing.
She tenses in your arms, a faint tremble wracking her frame, but why… oh, of course, you are a fool. A strange man lays hands on her, while she is unsteady and her thoughts are clouded? Such would be grounds for unease even without any recent experiences involving the guards, so after a moment's thought you guide her to the nearest casket she can lean on for support, then release her and step away.
Hmm. That rather tells in favour of her being framed or otherwise not nearly as bad as she seemed - it could be a reaction to recent circumstances and nothing more, but conservation of narrative detail says this is too much of a... regular person reaction? For her to be some hardened daemonologist.
Are they? You think you remember something about that, from those fragments of study and hearsay you picked up concerning those who hold a Warrant of Trade. Perhaps, in that case… Yes, it's only sensible to leave dealing with the Aeldari to Nadia, isn't it? She probably knows how to speak to them as well. Nodding, you step aside and allow the Rogue Trader to enter the room, before turning aside and heading for the last of the coffins yet functional.
Ah. And here we have the first sign of the downside of freeing everyone; we get considerably more help, but that help carries the risk of taking control of the situation away from us. It's also worth noting that if Nadia is the treacherous figure her Inquisitorial report made her out to be (but again, biased sources and all...) we might see this as the beginnings of a bloc, letting her handle the Eldar, and therefore putting them on 'her' side, should there be cause to choose sides.
It's also interesting to me how very... Imperial, Vincenzo's perspective still is. Both the passages about freeing the Eldar and the Astartes quite effectively drive home the sense of culture ingrained (indoctrinated) into even renegades like a rogue psyker.
Options wise... It is only sensible that a Space Marine seeks to achieve their objective by swift and decisive violence, but the rest of us, even if we're fighters, are rather more vulnerable to getting shot full of holes. We probably could win through, but it seems like an unnecessary risk. Ciro may be correct that we're racing a doomsday clock, but there again Bore may be correct - we presently have too little information to tell. Therefore I am inclined towards...
[X] - Write-In: Split the difference between Sidhe and Nadia's plan. Ciro and Bore should try the central tower; if we have any way of finding a key quickly, Bore unlocking its doors or Ciro forcing them will be our most likely prospects. Vincenzo, Sidhe and Nadia meanwhile have the mobility and familiarity with voidships to best search for an alternative route. We leave according to whichever party can open the way first, and avoid putting all our eggs in one basket into the bargain.
Apart from the practical concerns, this also puts ourselves forward as a decision maker in their own right rather than just a follower of somebody else's plan.
[X] - Write-In: Split the difference between Sidhe and Nadia's plan. Ciro and Bore should try the central tower; if we have any way of finding a key quickly, Bore unlocking its doors or Ciro forcing them will be our most likely prospects. Vincenzo, Sidhe and Nadia meanwhile have the mobility and familiarity with voidships to best search for an alternative route. We leave according to whichever party can open the way first, and avoid putting all our eggs in one basket into the bargain.
