Suffer Not the Witch (Warhammer 40k Psyker Quest)

[Maugan Ra]

(Credit to Inkary for the image, found on their Deviantart page )

Suffer Not the Witch
A Rogue Psyker Quest​

It's cold in your cell. That's the first thing you notice when you regain consciousness, every single time. The air is chill and sharp with the scent of antiseptic, and when you slump bonelessly to the ground the metal deck plates burn your skin on contact. You moan, twitching weakly in a liquid heap, and when the heavy gauntlets of the overseers close around your arms you can do nothing but hang there limply in their grasp. It takes time for the sedatives to leave your system, and by the time you have control of your muscles again the collar is back in place, sealing itself around your neck with a harsh metallic click.

"Prisoner Oh-Four-Two-Five," says a voice, blunt and flat with boredom and routine, "Your presence is required in interrogation. Do not resist."

"...'ave a name," you mumble, your lips tingling and your jaw left half-numb by the same drugs that dull the pain in your shoulders. The guards haul you upright, uncaring of how it hurts, and hold you in place until your feet consent to bear your weight. You can't see them, their features hidden beneath insectoid carapace and mirrored visors, but it's not like they can speak anyway. You caught a glimpse inside their mouths once, and the sight of the ragged nubs of gristle where their tongues once were has stayed with you ever since.

"No," says their commander, a hatchet-faced man in a pale grey overcoat, "You don't."

He's afraid of you. It's ridiculous, really, almost comical. You're drugged and collared, malnourished and beaten, unarmed and outnumbered, and he fears you. You can see it in his eyes, sharp and hard though they are. He is afraid of you, and through the alchemy of zeal that fear becomes hate, and that hate blames you for the qualm in his heart. How dare you make him afraid. How dare you make him weak. For this and this alone, all your suffering is justified. It is always like this, with little men and their little minds. His name is Crane, you know that much - he introduced himself to you, before the beatings first began.

Crane clicks his tongue, and with a grunt the guards push you into motion, forcing you out of your cell. You leave behind a dozen stasis tubes, one of which held you until mere moments ago, and enter a branching corridor that blossoms with other chambers of similar design. There must be hundreds at least, judging solely by the brief glimpses you are afforded as you stumble your way forwards, and this is but one deck. Are all within as feared and hated as you? Were their crimes as great, in the eyes of the only law that matters? You have no way of knowing. You will die never knowing.

It's almost funny - once, a place like this would have been reassuring, strange in design yet of clear and comforting purpose. Once the iconography would have faded from your mind, the aquila and its scrolls so commonplace as to be all but invisible. Once, but no longer. Now you feel the gaze of the twin-headed eagle on the back of your neck with every step, the cold metal talons clenched tight around your heart. Now the scrolls hang heavy with the weight of your sins and the echoing corridors of this vast prison ship threaten to swallow you whole.

"You know," you say weakly, talking to hide the fear as you are dragged ever onwards, "You could brighten up the place. Put some portraits up, the odd statue. Wouldn't take much..."

Crane clicks his tongue again, and without a word the guards draw to a halt, their hands like iron bands around your arms. You blink, confused and disorientated, and do nothing with the moment's warning as Crane lets out a breath and steps in front of you. He hits you, a balled fist to the gut, and you double up with a gasp as your innards force their way into your throat.

He doesn't stop there. Again and again he hits you, sharp workmanlike blows raining down upon your chest and shoulders, and just when you think he might be getting tired he takes a step back and brings a polished boot swinging up into your groin. The world spins, your body burning with fire and ice as pain and nausea battle for control of your senses, and when he finally stops the commander is breathing heavily, his fear exorcised through pain.

"Speak when spoken to, four-two-five," he says, wiping his hands against your ragged jumpsuit, "And only then. Am I clear?"

You can't speak. You can barely even think, your face wet with tears and your chin dripping with half-solid bile, and the one thought in your mind is that you could end it now. The collar around your neck is a bomb, but would not that be a kinder end than what your captors have planned? Is it not better to go out on your own terms, and perhaps if you are lucky to take some of these monsters with you? You think it might be, you almost go through with it… but no. While you live, you hope. While you hope, not all is lost. There might yet be a way out of this, a way to change the stakes and escape your chains, and while that hope exists you will not resign yourself to death. Not yet. Not yet..

You can't really walk now, your legs are too weak to support your weight, so the going is slower and your guards soon grunting with the exertion. You scarcely notice, drawing your thoughts inwards, hiding from the dull ache of pain that radiates from every inch of your body. Distantly you are aware that you've exited the warren of corridors and entered some large, cavernous space, but nothing really registers save for the gleam of cell bars and the looming bulk of a central tower. A watchtower, a panopticon to keep the prisoners at bay, and at its heart… the titanic, chiselled symbol of your judgement made manifest.

A singular gothic I, crossed with three horizontal bars. His Imperial Majesty's Holy Inquisition. Your gaolers, your masters, your executioners-in-waiting.

A door unseals with a pneumatic hiss, allowing you and your escort inside, and the shadows swallow you whole. There is nothing to see save gloom, nothing to feel save pain, nowhere to go save on whatever path your captors choose… and then, at the end, a bench. A wirework frame to hold you, shackles and manacles to bind you, a single burning bulb to set the metal tools to gleaming. Knives and spikes and razor-tipped syringes, vials of strange liquid and wands that glow red hot. You've seen many of them before. You know what it is they do.

"No, no please," you moan, thrashing weakly as the guards strap you in place and disappear into the gloom, "I already told you everything, please, don't… there's nothing else, I swear..."

"I believe you."

Your eyes adjust to the gloom at last, and in the shadows at the edge of the chamber you can make out the newcomer, the second man to speak to you today. He is as different from Crane as night from day, a small man with hunched shoulders and a wiry frame hidden beneath a coat of some strange reptilian leather. His hair is wispy and white, his eyes soft and kind, and on the bridge of his nose perch a set of silver eyeglasses. He looks like someone's favourite grandpa, a kind-hearted elder here to indulge his descendents with treats and stories of a mischievous youth.

There is a rosette pinned to his lapel, and next to that detail all else is trite and meaningless.

"You have been most forthcoming, prisoner oh-four-two-five, and we have been equally attentive," the Inquisitor says, folding his hands in front of him and peering down at you with a kindly gaze, "but now it is time for us to speak, and you to listen. Will you be quiet, and do just that for me?"

You nod, heart beating erratically in your chest as you try to contain your terror. You've never met an Inquisitor before, even after weeks (or is it months) in the care of their pet monsters, but you've heard the stories. Your mother used to invoke their gaze to make you and your siblings behave, and though you thought you were beyond such childish fears, the cold sweat beading your brow proves such confidence wrong. It's not childish to fear the Imperial Inquisition. It is only sane.

"You will? I'm glad. But before we begin, let us first establish some context," the Inquisitor says with a soft smile, one hand brushing almost absently against the metal tray and the tools it contains. "So that we both know where we stand."

You nod obediently, seizing even this faintest scrap of civility as a suffocating man would grope for a rebreather, even though on some level you know the trick for what it is. He's training you as a man would teach a hound, balancing the fear of punishment with the safety brought by obedience. Is it working? Would you even know if it was?

"You were born on the hive world of Malfi, capital of the subsector of the same name. A quite detestable place, in truth," the Inquisitor says, and your fist clenches without thought at the slight. He notices, of course he notices, and his smile is almost sincere as he raises his hand in apology. "Please know that I bear no animus towards you or any other singular resident of your homeworld. It is the culture that vexes me so, the traditional love for deception and double-dealing, for vendetta and preening. A world afflicted with such egotistical sophistication produces no end of headaches for the Holy Ordos. You understand, of course."

Of course you understand. You understand that this man is a liar, that his smiles are tools and his eyes keener than he would have you think. There is no way he is unaware of what his soldiers and subordinates have done to you, no path that leads him here with hands unstained by blood. Crane and his fists, Crane and his fear and his sadism, Crane is the truth of the Inquisition. You cannot allow yourself to forget that.

"You were loosely connected to the nobility, a bastard's by-blow five generations removed, but though your diluted blood gave you access to the powerful you were never truly one of them," the Inquisitor continues in a sympathetic voice, as though you should be angered by this, as though your place in the tapestry of society is some manner of insult or transgression. "A servant, an aide, a tiny cog in the machinery of an empire built on lies. It is surprisingly common, you know, how a flaw in such a tiny piece can produce tragedy out of all proportion to its size."

"One might almost think you were flattering me, Inquisitor…" you say dryly, or at least attempt to. Your voice fails you midway through, becoming a hoarse wheeze that draws the last word out in the semblance of a question.

"Tahr. Inquisitor Tahr, if you must know," your tormentor says with a kindly smile, "and such was not my intent. I suppose it cannot be helped, however. You're not all that used to flattery, are you, zero four two five? I suppose it was hard to come by, given your service as a…"

Article:

Who were you? The life you had on Malfi is done and finished, but one never truly outgrows their birthplace, and your formative years and principle trade have left marks still visible to this day:

[ ] Duelist. Malfi is a world obsessed with appearance and the art of vendetta, and often such performances turn violent. You were a champion-for-hire, a blade and gun available for coin or favour, at once a respectable professional and a thuggish pawn in another's games. (++Combat, +Social)

[ ] Tutor. Those of ambition seek both advancement and reminders of victories already won, and among the greatest accolades of the latter is a noble's education. You taught your charges of politics and lore and the shape of the cosmos, and tried not to despair at the uses to which they inevitably put it. (++Mental, +Social)

[ ] Veritor. Despite its sinister reputation, Malfi remains a civilised world, and with civilisation comes law and those who enforce it. Yours was a softer and more restrained hand than some, your victories won through guile and reason and only ever as prizes granted by the culprit's peers. (++Social, +Mental)

"Honest work, I think," you say, though the pain in your ribs makes the words quiet and fragile, injects a note of doubt, "Lawful, honest work. Virtuous, even, one could say."

"Honest work, on a world like Malfi? Hardly," Inquisitor Tahr smiles, as though you told him a joke, as though the idea that your life held meaning compared to his own is too absurd to even be offensive. "No, your life was much like any other, filled with all the myriad sins and failings of a mortal soul. Most were petty things, far beneath our concern. Then, at the age of twenty five, you became a psyker. Such awakenings typically occur in puberty, but a late bloomer is far from unusual, and even in this you were unexceptional… until, that is, you ran."

It isn't a question, you know it isn't, but he pauses anyway and you're feeling defensive enough to argue.

"You make it sound so simple, Inquisitor. I knew what being a psyker meant, everyone does," you say, your voice cracking slightly beneath the weight of the collar around your neck. "I knew what the law would do, what my neighbours would do, I knew…"

"That your sin was born of cowardice does not lessen it," Tahr says, and though his voice is that of a grandfather admonishing a wayward child you do not miss the way his hand comes to rest on the branding iron by his side. Your throat closes and your voice falls silent, and only when he is satisfied does the Inquisitor continue. "You ran, fearing the just application of imperial law, and after several near misses and misadventures too tedious to recite, you found the Menagerie. A malefic cult of the very worst kind, responsible for acts of blasphemy and atrocity across the subsector and beyond… and a haven for renegade psykers."

"They found me!" You protest, shocked out of your silence, silencing the gibbering voice of doom with a desperate grasp for innocence, for the possibility of an Inquisitor's mercy. "I didn't know, not who they were, not what they were. I thought it was just another syndicate, some hidden sect in service to a House, I didn't… I'm innocent, I swear!"

"Innocence, zero four two five, proves nothing," Inquisitor Tahr shakes his head, sighing at your naivete, " Your intent was venal and cowardly, your actions provided aid and comfort to the forces of darkness. Doubtless the Menagerie had no end of uses for one such as you…"

Article:

In what field do your psychic talents lie? It will be possible to develop and expand your capabilities into multiple disciplines in the future, but this is your foundation, the core competencies you will come to rely on.

[ ] Biomancy. Channelling the energy of the warp through the physical form allows you to manipulate flesh and bone with a thought, bolstering your capabilities and draining those of your foe.

[ ] Divination. Peering beyond the veil of reality, you may glean fragments of the truth about the future, the fate of you and others, or some distant point in space. With care and practice, you might even begin to manipulate them.

[ ] Telekinesis. By enforcing the superiority of mind over matter you may exert and manipulate physical force and energy. Magnitude is often less challenging than precision, but in extremis even gravity might be bent to serve your will.

[ ] Telepathy. The subtle realm of the mind is yours to command, the mere possibility of your perception and manipulation of both thought and emotion enough to make you feared, regardless of your deeds.

You swallow thickly, unable to speak. You learned much from the Menagerie while you were their guest, their prisoner, their agent. Little secrets, little truths, tattered fragments of a greater whole designed to bait you ever further into their coils. You undertook light favours for them at first, and then more serious tasks, and had the Inquisition not taken you doubtless greater and more terrible deeds still, but… you didn't know. Malfi is built upon such bricks, layers of fealty and obligation hidden behind masks of etiquette and guile. That this cell was worse than the others, that this deserves damnation where another would scarce merit an eyebrow… it's not fair. It isn't just. It isn't right.

"Nothing to say, no more denials? A pity. Perhaps you are not quite so committed as I believed," the Inquisitor says with a sigh too easy to be natural, "but no matter. Rejoice, zero four two five, for though you have sinned, the God-Emperor has seen fit to offer you redemption."

There is a finality in his words that snaps you from your horror, that fills your guts with lead and makes the world seem distant and quiet all around you. "What… what do you mean?"

"Your body is honed, and your talents quite impressive, but the mind is weak and the soul too soiled for any righteous use," Tahr says, as though this is a thing any man can possibly hope to judge. "So we shall grant you another. A new life, a new purpose. Upon arrival at Scintilla you will be taken for processing, and with your memories excised and your personality grafted, you will know the peace of righteous service in the Inquisition's name. Death, when it comes, will be the capstone upon your redemption."

He thinks it a mercy. You can see it in his eyes, hear it in his words. He thinks that condemning you to such a fate is a kinder end than you deserve, that he is being generous by merely promising to scrub away all that you are and ever have been, that a life of mindless service is preferable. He is going to kill you and parade your corpse around on strings, and he honestly expects you to be grateful.

"You… you can't!" you say frantically, straining at your bonds, reaching with your mind though the collar beeps in warning, "You can't do this!"

"Now now, zero four…"

"THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" You roar, and the leather cuff around one arm snaps, and the Inquisitor lets a brief flash of alarm enter his eyes as he backs away, "I HAVE A NAME YOU BASTARD! I HAVE A NAME! I HAVE…"

There is a hiss, a pneumatic whine, a touch of ice against your neck and you are falling. Falling down into darkness, into the welcoming embrace of death, into the void that is all they would make of you, and in that void you scream and shout and cling to the one thing that matters with all the fervour of a dying sun.

Your name. You won't surrender your name. You won't let them take it from you. You won't. You refuse…

Article:

What is your name? Malfi tends towards space!italy with a heavy dose of the byzantine and baroque, if you need inspiration or guidance.

[ ] Write in

You may also include other details such as gender and physical description if you wish, though this isn't being taken as a strict vote.

 

[Maugan Ra]

It's cold in your cell. That's the first thing you notice when you regain consciousness, every single time. The air is chill and sharp with the scent of antiseptic, and when you slump bonelessly to the ground the metal deck plates burn your skin on contact. You moan, twitching weakly in a liquid heap, but this time there are no guards, no bands of metal and plasteel closing around your neck and arms. You lie there insensate for a time, a beached fish on a metallic shore, and bit by bit the sedatives leech from your flesh and life slowly returns. You roll over onto your back, limbs flopping weakly, and from your new position slowly make sense of the world around you.

The lighting is dim, that's your first clue. The lumi-strips across the ceiling are flickering and faded, running on reduced power or otherwise damaged and in need of repair, and the light they cast serves mostly to darken the shadows behind every tube and console. The door on the wall is shut, a brown-black smear of rusted decay splashed across the hinge and wall like a stroke from a mad painter, and in the background the ever-present hum of the ship's engines has given way to cold silence. That something has gone terribly wrong here is apparent, but as for the how and the what, you are left in ignorance with answers not yet forthcoming.

Slowly, you pick yourself up, a tingling warmth spreading across your skin as your gifts dispel the last of the lingering chill of stasis. It takes you a moment to regain your feet, and several more before you feel able to stand without leaning against the open rim of your casket, but compared to true sleep-sickness the symptoms are relatively mild. No guards come, no alarms begin to blare, nothing serves to break the silence as you rise and regain your self control. This too is a sign of something wrong, the clue to some disaster in the making, for never since you first fell into their claws has the Inquisition left you free and able to act.

This is a test.

You shake your head, banishing the thought. On Malfi you saw such things done all the time, a prisoner or debtor given some free slack in their chains just to see what they would do with it. If a man has the taste of freedom betrayed often enough, he will soon come to learn that escape is impossible, his bondage unbreakable. That the Inquisition could and would do such a thing you do not deny, but you do not think this is among them. The quiet, the rust, the absence of guards, these things are signs of weakness, not omnipresent strength.

Is it even real? Perhaps you are already at Scintilla, your mind running through the same routine over and over again, smoothing away the little details…

You bite your lip, hard, and bury the whispering thought beneath the brief spike of pain. It doesn't matter if that's the case, staying still and cowering in your cell won't get you anything worth having. You need to move, need to plan, need to take action of some kind. The other caskets seem like a good place to start, so with a decisive nod you approach the one next to your own and brush away the layer of ice that covers the window. What you see inside…

There's not much in your stomach, which is perhaps the only mercy. It takes you some minutes to stop retching even so, and when you rise to your feet again you take several deep breaths of stale air to regain some manner of equilibrium. Then you look once more, just to confirm what you saw, and mutter a prayer to whichever god or spirit might yet be watching. It seems to you that whatever strange technology the Inquisition uses in keeping their captives sealed and quiescent is less than perfect. The man in the casket next to you was clearly held immobile and insensate as designed, but the fungi that apparently got in there with him was not nearly so inhibited. By now, there's not much there but rot in the vague shape of a man, the surface broken by stained finger-bones and the surface of a twice-filled skull.

Did he feel it, somehow, even in his slumber? Did he know what was happening to him?

Growling, you shake your head. One thing at a time. Taking a moment to brace yourself, you check the other chambers in turn, just to be sure. The inhabitants of each are dead, though thankfully none in quite so organic a manner as the first. Instead, most of the caskets hold nothing but blackened bones and small piles of ash, the small display panels on their side blinking warnings about termination protocols into the silent air. You can only assume those were meant to happen with your own casket as well, but… yes you can see the same warning flashing on your panel, but for whatever reason they failed to activate. Was that by coincidence, or design?

Frowning, you discard the caskets and turn your attention to the strange cogitator column at the chamber's heart. You're used to such things being built into walls or upthrust plinths, but the elements seem the same - crystalline screens, an alpha-numeric pad for inputting commands, a few blinking lights that you assume have something to do with the appropriation rituals. The console responds to your touch, so it's not gene-locked or entirely nonfunctional, but a brief attempt to access the ship status update is thwarted by a demand for clearance codes that you do not possess. Well, that's fine, obviously there would be limited information for a cogitator in the prisoner storage area. Instead you focus on local reports, updates on the stasis chambers themselves and status updates, and swiftly find the last report about you - prisoner zero four two five, how lovely they don't even use your name in the records - being returned to slumber. Three months after that… aha!

Alarms triggered in main prison hold... General prisoner uprising in effect... Emergency lockdown protocols active... Sealing Sanctum Gate between Prison Hold and Upper Decks... Sealing stasis crypts I-XX on Medicae Deck 3... Sealing Investigative Laboratoriums I-V on Medicae Deck 3... Medicae Decks switching to tertiary reserve plasma power generators… Lockdown protocols in effect, pending uprising resolution… pending...pending...pending…

With a sinking feeling in the very core of your being, you scroll forwards through the seemingly endless date stamps next to each inconclusive update. A month, a year, a decade… two centuries. You remember screaming at Inquisitor Tahr, the touch of cold steel against your neck, the sudden enforced slumber of sedative drugs. You remember it like it was yesterday, and yet if the data in this machine is to be believed, it has been two hundred years since first you were imprisoned.

Two centuries, locked in stasis. Everything you knew, everyone you knew… no! Focus. Focus. Everyone you knew might as well have been dead the second the Inquisition took you regardless, certainly they would have better sense than to willingly pick the association back up even if you did manage to escape, you dealt with that and you can deal with this. Push it down, box it up, put on your mask and think.

Gritting your teeth you return to the Cogitator, keys clacking under your fingers as you pull up every piece of information your nonexistent clearance can grant you. It looks like there were several warnings spaced across the years as the power supply to this branch began to run dry, none of which were ever heeded, while the most recent one was followed by an immediate activation of the termination protocols. That makes a grim kind of sense, you suppose - the Inquisition would prefer to keep you and those like you in custody, but if the stasis chambers were about to run out of power they'd naturally default to a fail-deadly solution, venting what you think might have been plasma from the main reactor into each casket in turn.

The process failed in your chamber, but it was clearly supposed to have happened regardless, which means that your survival was a matter of… not chance, nothing ever really comes down to chance, but rather insufficient maintenance and whatever damage the prisoner revolt managed to inflict before being put down. And it must have been put down, else the other prisoners would have come for you, but the lack of guards or other representatives of authority suggest that the solution found was an ugly one. Like a street brawl with knives, you suppose, or an unsanctioned duel - one side might have died first, but the winner's prize was the privilege to bleed out in the infirmary a short while later.

Well, that gives you a starting point, some manner of structure and direction to everything. If the ship is abandoned and drifting, as it apparently has been doing for two hundred years, then you need to find a means to escape before you starve to death or go mad from isolation. You know little of voidships save that they can be the size of a city, which means that you ideally need some form of assistance and backup. The authorities won't help you, any surviving prisoners who rose up… well, their descendents by this point you suspect, if they haven't fled already there is something stopping them, which in turn means they won't help you. Ergo, your best choice is those in a similar position to you, any potential survivors of the faulty termination protocols.

Satisfied with your logic, you set about escaping from this chamber. Thankfully the hatch isn't locked, just stiff and unmoving from centuries of neglect, and though you sweat fiercely and nearly pass out at the effort you manage to get it prised open soon enough. That done, you slip out into the corridors beyond, looking for the other stasis chambers and the prisoners held within. The silence is oppressive, the complete absence of the droning engines and cycling air vents putting you constantly on edge, but between your gifts and the complete lack of life signs you feel safe enough to eventually creep along the various passages in search of your quarry.

Most of the stasis caskets, as it turns out, are either empty or filled with nothing but corpses. At least a hundred people died when you woke, you think, but it's hard to really take an accurate count given the condition of many of the facilities you have access to. There are, however, four that seem to have similarly survived the purge, each with data-screens helpfully listing the nature and crimes of their contents.

Prisoner Zero One Three Two Nadia Black

Name: Nadia Black, Lady
Species: Human
Crimes: Fratricide and Daemonology

Interrogator Notes: Third in line to House Black, Rogue Trader Dynasty (c/ref: Marcus Black, Asset). Turned to daemonology in an attempt to secure inheritance, partially successful. Interrogation priority is source and nature of unclean tutorial, potential access to Black family void charts and reports.

Prisoner Zero Three Three Six Hephastius Bore

Name: Hephastius Bore, Magos Biologis
Species: Human (Disputed)
Crimes: Unsanctioned Experimentation, Heresy

Interrogator Notes: Magi of the Lathe Worlds, cast out after experimentation on splicing warp-flesh with mortal tissue. Numerous self-inflicted surgical augmentations, appears sincere adherent to Omnissian Creed. Interrogation priority is nature and potential replicability of augmentations, insight into Lathe Magi politics and factionalism.

Prisoner Zero Three Nine Nine Unknown

Name: Unknown
Species: Aeldari
Crimes: Piracy, Trespassing, Murder of Inquisitorial Operatives

Interrogator Notes: Aeldari of unconfirmed faction, current speculation 'Crow Spirits' corsair band. Ambushed meeting of xenos-smuggling cartel, disrupting Ordo Xenos sting operation in process. Interrogation priority is identifying motive for ambush and potential information source of xenos-relic smuggling rings ('Cold Trade') in Calixis sector space.

Prisoner Zero Zero Zero One Ciro

Name: Ciro (disputed)
Species: Human, Adeptus Astartes
Crimes: Blasphemy, Mass Murder, Sedition

Interrogator Notes: Subdued and captured on Shrine World Maccabeus Quintus, capture later believed to be a willing sacrifice aimed at providing distraction for accomplices (c/ref: Vault Primus intrusion). Chapter or Legion origin unknown, subject extremely dangerous. Interrogation priority is learning motive and identity of accomplices and any further operations in Calixis space.

It's the last one that breaks you. Not that you notice it at first, two focused on your mission and your goals as you read through the little details on the side of the functioning casket, but when you begin to hyperventilate there's no escaping the little voice at the back of your mind any longer. That's a Space Marine, that's an Angel of Death, one of the God-Emperor's own holy servants, how can it be here, it's not fair, it's not possible…

Stop. Focus. Compartmentalise. You can't deal with this right now, so focus on what you can, on how you can improve things for yourself. Deal with everything else later.

So, step one. You have four potential assistants in navigating this ship and escaping. None seem to have been freed by their stasis caskets, but given the dregs of power still in the system you'd be surprised if the power held for any more than a handful of days. Each could be useful, you think, pushing past the little part of you that scoffs at the notion of an alien being any kind of ally and the rather larger part that gibbers at the thought of an Astartes aiding a renegade. Of an Astartes being a renegade.

If you free them all, you'll have the most aid possible, but the least control over the remaining situation. More voices, more rivals, more chances that someone else will take charge and exert control, this is basic stuff, the most fundamental of survival skills. Thus you need to make a decision for who to release, and who to leave… or, perhaps, whose casket to sabotage. You're not a tech adept but you are fairly sure that cutting some of those power conduits would be very unhealthy for whoever was inside. Once you have made that decision you need to settle on how to convince them to help… well, no, that's obvious, you have a shared interest in escape. Instead you need to focus on that first impression, the meeting that will define your relationship in their eyes and your own.

Nobody looks good in prison rags and half-faded bruises, so you go in search of your equipment, the tools and equipment you had when you were taken. Logic says there is no particular reason to think that after two centuries your gear would still be useable or even present, intuition tells you to check the third room from the right just outside your cell, and sure enough inside the room you find several rows of blank metal boxes stacked high against the wall and marked with dry, featureless numerals in loose procession. For a moment you hesitate, unsure which to open to make use of… then you sigh, hunt down box number zero four two five, and crack it open to find everything you were wearing and carrying at the time of your capture neatly in a neatly folded and organised pile.

As a duellist, your chief duty was of course the spilling of blood for your noble (and not-so-noble) patrons, but Malfi is no place for a blunt instrument and actively hostile to those who lack a certain degree of panache. The slashed doublet and half-cloak that await you are as much a piece of your role as any soldier's uniform, as are the neatly polished boots and the rakishly offset feathered hat. Donning each in turn grants you a real sense of peace, of focus, of security in a world that has been so very difficult of late… though, you must concede, after two hundred years your sense of fashion is probably wildly out of date. You'll need to amend that before you set foot on a civilised world once again. Still, one thing at a time, if they kept your clothing then surely… ah!

Malfian duelling is an ancient and respected art, tightly bound by codes of etiquette and chivalry developed over millennia. As such it is absolutely riddled with ways to cheat in a respectable sort of way, the use of poisoned or otherwise augmented weapons among them. Given such, you thought little of it when the Menagerie provided for you a dueling sabre inlaid with psycho-conductive wires and ritual foci, designed to channel the might of your mind and soul into the cutting edge of the blade. Given that it was your use of such a distinctive weapon that ultimately betrayed you to the Inquisition you should probably have been more cautious… but you cannot deny that you feel much better with the force sword belted by your side and hidden by your half-cloak.

Taking one final breath to steady yourself, you return to the incarceration chambers and make your choice.

Article:

There are four other surviving prisoners here who could be freed and convinced to aid you, each with their own advantages and drawbacks, especially in combination. For each you have the option to free them, to leave them imprisoned, or to restart the termination protocols (naturally, this will be done before freeing anyone else).

Prisoner 0132 - Nadia Black, the treacherous voidfarer. Has great knowledge of void ships, likely the easiest to get along with given your complimentary backgrounds. Also ambitious, treacherous and willing to use daemons in pursuit of her goals.
[ ] [Nadia] Free the Prisoner.
[ ] [Nadia] Abandon the Prisoner
[ ] [Nadia] Terminate the Prisoner

Prisoner 0336 - Hephastius Bore, the Heretek Magos. Vast knowledge of technology and biology (thus a skilled medic), likely to be relatively logical. Also quite possibly insane and a mutant, given he spliced his own flesh with that of summoned daemons.
[ ] [Bore] Free the Prisoner
[ ] [Bore] Abandon the Prisoner
[ ] [Bore] Terminate the Prisoner

Prisoner 0399 - Unknown Aeldari, the lone alien. Apparently highly skilled at information gathering, stealth and infiltration, which could be of great use in escaping this prison hulk. Is also an Aeldari, with all that implies.
[ ] [Aeldari] Free the Prisoner
[ ] [Aeldari] Abandon the Prisoner
[ ] [Aeldari] Terminate the Prisoner

Prisoner 0001 - Ciro, the renegade Astartes. A space marine apparently skilled in infiltration and guerilla warfare, his combat prowess would be of immense aid should the ship not be as abandoned as it appears. You have very little ability to contest him if he decides to take charge or ignore you.
[ ] [Ciro] Free the Prisoner
[ ] [Ciro] Abandon the Prisoner
[ ] [Ciro] Terminate the Prisoner

 

[Maugan Ra]

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.

Spoiler: Basic Mechanics

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.

[ ] Write in

 

[Maugan Ra]

"I would try forcing the corridor," you say with as much confidence as you can muster, "the further from that cell and the faster we move, the happier I shall feel."

It is not your true reason, of course, and from his momentary start you suspect that Ciro knows it, but your home and its ways stay with you even here. To admit your true motive is to give your enemies an insight into what you value and a lever with which to move you, and those who survive to adulthood on Malfi know better than to be so trusting.

"Good man," the Angel says, clapping you on the shoulder once more, and while the others seem vaguely dissatisfied, none appear willing to try insisting on their preferred course. "Magos, I should have your input - a sheet of deck plating, or other metal of at least my size, if you would. As for you, free man, a word in private."

There isn't much privacy to be had, stuck together on this tiny little balcony suspended above the cavernous expanse of the main cell block, but Ciro takes you as far aside as he can before speaking. He kneels that you do not have to crane your head to look up at him, and when he speaks it is with a voice both soft and unyielding as the tide.

"What is your name, free man?" He asks, and there is something about his face that snags at your attention, something about the artificial perfection of his cheeks and brow that insistently reminds you that this is a man made not born.

"Vincenzo," you say, a trifle awkwardly, "Vincenzo Leonardo Borgia, of Malfi. Uh. My lord?"

"Hah. None of that, Vincenzo," the Astartes chuckles, and you can feel the vibrations of his humour through the hand that yet rests against your shoulder, a seismic motion of mirth constrained, "I am no one's lord, not yet. But allow me a speculation - you bear no brands or marks of rank, and yet hold a force blade and were imprisoned by our side. You are a rogue, then? Unsanctioned, to use the Inquisition's terminology."

"I, uh, rather suspect their terminology is not quite so polite as that," you say dryly, fighting the urge to swallow, "But yes. What training I have came from… fellow travellers, so to speak."

"I thought as much," Ciro nods thoughtfully, "Then you have spent your life since awakening to your gifts in hiding, fearing the consequences of any accident, the doom of the slightest slip. You fled the Inquisition's hounds because you feared what they would do if you were discovered, correct?"

You nod once, a jerky motion that does little to hide your shame or regret. All those plans, all that guile, and still you were caught out in the end, those you thought your allies revealed as monsters of the most malignant sort.

"Then know this - you have no cause for shame," the Angel says firmly, taking his hand from your shoulder so that you may stand unsupported and look him in the eye, "You have done what you needed to do to survive, and no matter what the priests or their inquisitive hounds might say, this is no sin or disgrace. Now, however, you need to stop hiding, and bring your power to bear against that which stands in our way. Will you do this for me?"

You swallow thickly, your throat suddenly tight, and nod. "I will try."

"Ha! No, Vincenzo, do not simply try," Ciro smiles with a killer's confidence, the kind you have seen all too often in your past, and on his face it looks strangely appealing. This is a face of one born for war - of course the promise of violence and glory fits it so smoothly. "Those who talk in terms of tries and effort, those who concede that failure is possible or even likely, they are the ones who fall short in times of trial. You must simply act, and let the world respond."

You nod again, with more conviction this time, and Ciro regards you fondly for a moment before rising to his feet and returning to the doorway. Bore seems to have taken his instruction quite literally, for as you arrive the Magos is busy prying a large section of metal plating from the nearest wall, the edges glowing faintly from whatever tool he employed to cut it out. Ciro nods, then bends to collect a loose scrap of cast-off metal, tossing it with a simple underhanded throw down the corridor.

With a sattaco rattle of metal and bone, the sides of the corridor unfold and disgorge monsters to bar your path. Corpses crucified on metal spurs rasp in binary jitters as they pivot to face the crude projectile, long barreled rifles emerging from between withered ribs and age-browned jawbones with a hissing buzz of gathering power. The weapons discharge at once with a flash like the setting sun, lances of ruby light piercing the debris in a dozen places and scattering it in white-hot giblets across the deck, and your small team can only dive out of view as the gun-servitors turn to fire on you next.

"Motion-based targeting," Ciro notes thoughtfully, his back to the wall as the open ground before the corridor is scorched black with rampant discharge of las-fire, "And no signs of advanced cognition. Perfect."

"Fool of a mon-keigh," Sidhe growls at you from the far side of the platform, her long hair twitching in evident agitation, her liquid eyes almost aglow with rage. You notice Nadia is sprawled on her back at the Aeldari's feet, having evidently been yanked bodily out of the way. "Would you kill us all for lack of proper warning?"

Ciro ignores her, save for a considering glance at both alien and the woman she saved, turning to Bore instead. "Magos. You recognise the make?"

"Indeed," Bore makes a derisive sound, somewhere between a wet cough and the grinding of poorly oiled gears, "Meant for suppressing unarmoured prisoners, the machine spirits never trained for opposition or granted proper maintenance rites."

Spoiler: Enemy Threat Rating

Wrath and Glory divides enemies into one of three tiers - a Troop, an Elite, or an Adversary/Monster. Which tier a given enemy falls into depends on who they are facing - A squad of Imperial Guardsman might pose an extremely dangerous threat to a band of Inquisitorial acolytes, but is little more than chaff before the advance of a Primaris Space Marine.

• Troops use a simplified stat block, possessing one wound (or hit point) - any hit that penetrates their armour will put them down - and cannot generally score critical hits or take advanced combat actions.
  • Large numbers of troops are combined into mobs for ease of book-keeping, but they are essentially there to be mowed down in dramatic fashion.
• Elites use the stat blocks as presented, and most of the same rules as the protagonist.
• Adversaries get bolstered stats and a wider array of GM-side options and tools, the better to reflect their status as the centrepiece of a given fight.

These gun-servitors, being meant for unarmoured prisoners and run down after centuries of neglect, are treated as troops.

"I thought as much," Ciro says with a nod, picking up the heavy bulkhead plate and bracing it before him with a two-handed grip, "Ready, Vincenzo?"

You swallow, then let out a slow and shaky breath. Without thinking you reach for the source of your power, the burning coal in your chest and the serpent coiled around your heart. It was never an external thing to you, never some gift from beyond or trade learned at another's hand, only ever part of you on the most fundamental level. The power comes quickly, crawling easily to your will, and all around you the air grows suddenly thick and greasy.

"Ready."

Ciro nods and steps out into the corridor, holding the metal sheet up in front of him, and you walk in his shadow. The power gathers where you will, and as the turrets begin to whine back into life, you lift your hands and unleash it.

Vincenzo rolls Psychic Mastery (Willpower), DN1 - 2; 6; 4; 6; 5; 6; 3; 3
Success with Eight Icons, Eight turrets destroyed!

The lightning that pours from your hands is no natural thing, as different from the burning flashes of the arid wastes as night is from day. It does not splash against metal or burn through flesh, instead piercing all in its path with a thousand radiant bolts, leaving naught but glowing holes where matter itself has simply ceased to be. The turrets are armoured and set in shadowed alcoves and behind simple barricades, and this avails them nothing before your power, one and then another exploding in sparks as you pour the unfettered power of your soul into their fragile innards.

Mortal soldiers would break and flee before the onslaught, you've seen it happen before, but the gun-servitors have no hearts to quail or minds to know fear. They open fire in response, testing your light with brilliant bolts of ruby, and Ciro grunts as the deck plating in his hands shudders and begins to buckle beneath the onslaught. A single shot penetrates, robbed of force by the metal until it merely staggers you like a strike from a hammer, and you bark a curse as the sudden pain breaks your concentration and the flow of power both.

You are still reeling, still hastily cutting the flow of power through your outstretched hand for fear of losing control, when Ciro acts. He hurls himself forwards, metal bulwark rattling beneath the deadly rain of the remaining turrets, and with an explosive grunt slams the crude barricade into the first he reaches with meteoric force. The turret crumples like discarded parchment, and a moment later Ciro is before the next one, one hand tearing critical wires free while the other hurls the scrapped metal at the third. You watch, stunned into silence, as the Astartes dismantles the remaining weapons in the time it takes you to draw a breath.

Spoiler: Mechanics

Friendly Turn
The twelve turrets in this corridor are represented as a mob of size twelve. They have a defence of 1, being stationary emplacements, and as a mob each additional icon over the defence generates another hit. Thus, eight turrets are hit.

Normally, the turrets would benefit from a very high resilience value, allowing them to soak damage. However, Smite inflicts d3 mortal wounds, which means the damage it deals bypasses all resilience and cannot be soaked. This is the use power of Smite - it deals significantly less damage than most attack powers, but it bypasses virtually all protection.

Enemy Turn

On the enemy turn (combat in wrath and glory alternates turns between friendly and enemy combatants, there is no initiative roll) the turrets return fire. Normally they have a pool of five dice to shoot things - as a mob, they add dice equal to half their remaining strength (+2) and since the range is short another +1. Thus they roll eight dice.

3; 4; 4; 3; 6; 6; 2; 4 = 7 icons

Vincenzo has a defence of 3. However he is also behind full cover, thanks to Ciro, so his effective defense is 5. Thus the turrets hit him, and have an exalted icon spare (since they can drop one of those 6s without failing the test), which they shift for extra damage.

The base damage of the weapons being used here is 10 +1ED - that is a flat value of 10, and one extra dice. Since they shifted for damage, this becomes 10 +2ED. Rolling the dice, I get 2;4, for +1 icon, for a total damage of 11.

Vincenzo has a resilience of 7, due to his toughness and armour. He takes 11-7=4 wounds. He then rolls his Determination pool of 4 dice, getting 3; 4; 6; 3 for a total of three icons. Three of those wounds are converted to shock, while one remains as a wound - he is hit, but it is more of a painful glancing blow than anything more serious.

Friendly Turn

Ciro goes next. To conserve ammunition, he elects not to use his bolter, instead charging into melee. He has a pool of nine dice to stab things, with a +1 bonus for charging, and rolls 6; 5; 1; 3; 6; 5; 5; 1; 5 for a total of eight icons. This means he hits every remaining turret (he also scored a critical hit, since his first dice was a 6, but this is not immediately relevant)

What counts as a high resilience in most cases helps little when an Angel of Death decides to bludgeon you into the ground with a piece of hull plating. Ciro's minimum damage is higher than the resilience of the turrets, and thus each hit kills one turret, finishing the fight.

"Ow!"

"Good job, handsome," Nadia says with a sing-song laugh, moving past you and down the corridor to rejoin Ciro. You blink stupidly after her, one hand briefly rubbing your backside, and then flush briefly as the Aeldari simply walks past you without a word. Did she just… Well, deal with that later.

"You are injured," Hephastius Bore says, coming to a momentary halt at your side, "Do you require medical attention?"

"...no," you say, because the thought of giving this man access to your internals or even your bare skin is deeply disquieting, "It was but a glancing blow. Let us proceed."

Rejoining the others, you find that past the exit corridor from the prison decks the route ahead branches wildly, multiple potential paths criss-crossed by thrumming power conduits and gurgling vents all stamped with the regal aquila. The lighting is poor here, a bare few dim lumen strips striving against the gloom, but already Nadia is pulling chemical torches from her stolen webbing and passing them to you and… well actually just you, it appears everyone else finds the dark no obstacle at all.

"Where do we go now?" You say, and only realise a moment after the words are spoken that you addressed them to Ciro, that the Astartes has all but fallen into the position of leader by default.

"The bridge," Ciro replies, studying the paths available to you before nodding firmly to himself, "There we shall inform ourselves of the full scope of the situation, and our options for escape."

There is little objection, the others having already lost out in the contest of ideas to the Marine once and seeing no reason to try again. You shake your head in resignation, and together the five of you set forth.

Of course, as with virtually everything in your life to date, it seems easier to state a path of progress than follow it to its conclusion. The lower decks were decaying and abandoned, but as you rise through the main body of the ship - you really must learn its name, this has been nagging at you - you begin to come across more and more signs of the fighting that wracked the vessel in its final hours and the damage dealt by long centuries of abandonment since. There are decks that have collapsed and walls that have caved in, whole compartments which are flooded by oily-black water or scorched bare by a ruptured plasma conduit. You find yourself having to scramble and climb, backtrack and reroute, and soon enough even the light fails you and you are left picking your way awkwardly through a maze of debris with only the light from the chemical tube in your hand for company.

In truth such tight confines are no great trouble for you, similar to your home hive as they feel, but it is that very familiarity that leads you astray. A void ship is not a hive, and by the time you realise your mistake and look back you have somehow parted ways with the rest of your companions, lost in a tangled maze of collapsed corridors and passageways wracked by subsidence.

"Damnation," you mutter, the word echoing back to you from a hundred tiny nooks and crannies all around. A moment later something else repeats a rough mockery of the word, and when you wheel to face the sound it is to the sight of a pale limb vanishing around the corner of the nearest pile of wreckage. You stand there for a moment, then draw your sword and wait to see if your stalker will emerge.

Something growls in the darkness, and you swallow.

"Prisoner Zero Four Two Five."

You yelp, spinning and dropping the chemical lamp at your feet, one hand scrabbling at your belt for the pistol holstered there… and then you spot the speaker, and your fear turns to bafflement. It's a servo-skull, the polished and etched remains of some faithful imperial servant turned into a useful drone, and where its lower jaw once would have hung now sprouts a compact vox-speaker like some strange metallic cancer.

"Interrogator Crane," you say, when you can trust your voice again, because there's no way you wouldn't recognise those cold and focused tones, "you survived. A pity."

"The God-Emperor demands my survival for His divine plan," the servo-skull replies, faithfully conveying the words of the far-distant monster, and in the cramped confines you slowly turn until your back is to a solid wall. You'll not get caught out so easily, if this is meant as some distraction. "Your life too has been spared, it seems. You should rejoice."

"Oh? And what should I be celebrating?" You say sharply, glancing left and right and then checking the ceiling above you on reflex. No killers looming from the shadows or strange monsters falling from above, good. "A chance to yet be dragged to Scintilla, my mind scoured away and a stranger granted control of my body?"

"Perhaps not," Crane says, and you note that the skull has a small waylight in one empty eye socket. Does it have a camera as well? Is the Interrogator even now staring at you from some distant chamber, hatred in his flinty eyes? "That was my master's plan, and he is not here. He may be dead, given the passage of years. So it falls to me to devise an alternative path."

He must think you are simple, if he expects you to fall for such a basic rhetorical trick. It might have been his master Tahr that proposed the mind-wipe, who treated you as nothing more than an errant component to be polished and replaced, but your treatment at Crane's hand was scarcely any kinder. Does he imagine you have forgotten the beatings, the torture, the cold contempt in his eyes?

"What do you mean?" You say cautiously, for you will not betray yourself with a hateful word, not so easily.

"You can still redeem yourself, Zero Four Two Five," Crane says, and it is an effort not to snarl at the number, he can't even be bothered to use your name while he bargains with you, "An Imperial ship is en route, our distress call answered. When it arrives, everyone aboard will be taken into custody. It will go better for you, if you are found assisting the Emperor's servants in restoring order, rather than a renegade seeking some hidden sanctuary like a rat."

An imperial ship… is he lying? You can't tell, the servo-skull gives you nothing to judge by, and the transmission is too scratchy to betray the subtle parts of the speaker's tone. You need to draw him out a bit more. "You expect me to believe that, what, I'll go free?"

"No," the servo-skull flutters briefly in the air, a dead man speaking with a monster's borrowed voice, "Your old life is lost, but you may yet build another. As an Acolyte of the Ordos you may yet reach heights your former self could never have dreamed of, and make the galaxy a brighter place in the doing."

You laugh. You can't help it, no matter how much your training and upbringing says you should not betray yourself like that, the notion is just so… so utterly ludicrous, you cannot help yourself.

"An acolyte? One of your servants, then?" You say, and your voice is half a hair from a snarl, "After all you have done to me, you expect me to… what? Kneel at your feet, polish your branding irons, suck your cock upon command? You tortured me, Crane, you tried to break me in every way that matters, and you think I will offer you my allegiance?"

"There are worse things in this galaxy than the Imperial Inquisition, Vincenzo," the skull says in a flat monotone, "Some of them aboard this ship. Our methods are harsh, but no more so than this galaxy demands. Set aside the squalling child, and consider your path with care."

You stare at the servo-skull for a long moment. Then you raise your pistol and pull the trigger, a sharp crack of lasfire splitting the grisly relic into a dozen broken shards that clatter against the ground like rain.

"Bastard," you mutter, bending over to pick the chemical lamp back up even as you return your blade to your belt, "As if you can just…"

Ciro is there when you rise, filling the darkness with his mountainous bulk, looking down at you with eyes that betray nothing at all of the thoughts that drive him.

"An interesting decision, free man," he says in a calm, level voice, and your instincts shriek at you that you are in danger, that if you say or do anything he does not like he could crush your head like a grape with one hand. "Why did you make it?"

Article:

Why did you do it?

[ ] Distrust. Crane hates you and all your kind, you learned that much. You do not trust him to set that hatred aside and give you any reward he promises.

[ ] Hatred. After all Crane and his master have done to you, you would sooner spit on his corpse than accept even the sweetest of deals.

[ ] Loyalty. Ciro has been kinder to you than any since your powers manifested, and you would not spit on that bond for such a paltry prize.

[ ] Write in (QM reserves veto)

 

[Maugan Ra]

You would not have thought a giant clad in ceremite capable of sneaking up on anyone, much less in such confined quarters, and yet Ciro is apparently here to prove you wrong. You can only assume you were too distracted by Crane's rambling to hear the footsteps and dull thrum of armour, though perhaps you are being too generous. Was it by design that you lost your way, that you were separated from the group and presented with a perfect opportunity to betray your loyalties in secret? Regardless, the Angel will not wait for you to prepare, and if you would forestall judgement you must do so now.

"It wasn't a genuine offer," you say, and on instinct your hand twitches towards the hilt of your weapon. Ciro's eyes narrow, and you make a point of moving that hand away again. It's not like you could draw your blade faster than he could kill you anyway, not given the speed and strength you've already seen him display.

"And if it was?" Ciro says softly, studying you as might a collector, "Would you have turned it down?"

"You… misunderstand," you say, a tad awkwardly, sighing when Ciro does not take your contradiction as reason to smear you across the bulkhead, "From Crane, or any man like him, an offer like that is never genuine. Even if he meant it in the moment, if he approached the whole deal with the very best of intentions, it would not last. He would find some reason to doubt, some excuse to break faith. He hates me too much to do otherwise, for the simple fact of what I am."

You had plenty of time to get to know the man during your interrogation, after all, even if at the time the agony of torture and fear of execution clouded your immediate perception. If he had simply been a sadist you could have worked with him, made yourself too useful to serve as a target of his cruelty, but there was too much hate in his heart for that. It was there long before you crossed his path, and it will be there long after you are dead, unless you manage to claim him first. One can make truce with those you hate, but never a lasting peace.

"Mm. I will not say you are wrong," Ciro says thoughtfully, and you let out a shaky breath as the air of immediate danger fades away as though it never were, "but you seem very confident in your judgement of the man's heart, over anything his words or deeds might say."

"It is the Malfian way," you say with an uneasy shrug, trying to get your pulse back under control, the smaller gibbering voice in the back of your head no longer obsessing over how big and strong and murderously lethal your companion truly is, "words are as air, and deeds a performance. Only by understanding why someone acts the way they do can you hope to predict their future course."

Ciro laughs at that, a short bark of amusement that ricochets from the walls like the sound of gunfire. "Well said! You remind me of another comrade I once fought beside… and that tells me that I have been underestimating you. I offer my apologies, and assurances that it shall not happen again."

"Ah… as you say," you blink, trying to wrap your head around the notion of an angel in the flesh feeling the need to apologise to one such as you, "No offense was taken."

"Still, if I might make an observation," Ciro says, his voice dropping into the gentle tones one might use on an injured bird or frightened child, "if Crane cannot be trusted to ever treat you well, no matter his words or actions to the contrary, how then can any who claim his service? The Imperium is filled with men of power who hate and fear the psyker, and they have made their rancour a matter of policy and dogma both."

You cannot help but wince at that. It is true, of course, but you had done rather well thus far by simply not thinking about the matter.

"Sometimes one must simply make the best of a bad situation," you say in resignation, "The Imperium is not kind to my sort, no, but what alternative is there?"

"Oh, several," Ciro says simply, as though it were not heresy to even suggest such a thing, as though an Angel speaking such words is fine and normal, "though most I grant have their own challenges and adversities."

You stare at him, your mind running in a loop as you wait for the world to make sense, and he meets your gaze with a level stare. Slowly it comes together, facts and observations clicking into place like pieces of some great puzzle. The confinement, the attack on a shrineworld, the comfortable ease with aliens and psykers, a hundred little details…

"You're not one of the Emperor's Angels, are you?" you whisper, the sound of your own blasphemy taunting you with its echo.

"I was, once, until I saw at last what it was I fought to defend," Ciro says gently, still and quiet, like he's afraid of spooking you into some kind of panicked flight, "As you were a loyal subject, until you crossed the line from citizen to threat. Now I act to defend humanity, a champion of our people rather than the nation that seeks to rule it. It is a harder path, a more treacherous one at times, this I will not deny. But it is a path well worth walking."

"How can I possibly trust you?" You are pleading now, feeling the bedrock shift and crumble beneath your feet, Angels aren't supposed to be led astray, they're not supposed to speak heresy and sedition, "You are… you are everything the priests warned us of, the devil in pleasant seeming."

"Am I?" Ciro raises his eyebrows, an almost comical look of innocent confusion on his face and you want to smack it off but you'd die if you ever made the attempt, "Do you truly know my heart, then? As you yourself said, words are as air and deeds a performance. I ask not for your trust, but merely an open mind and a keen eye."

An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded…

You nod, shakily, but do not speak. What can you possibly say? The teachings of the preachers are clear on what you should do next. You should slay Ciro, or at least part ways with him, turn yourself over to the Inquisition and accept their judgement in lieu of that which awaits you beyond the grave. The slightest deviation from orthodoxy is damnation in the purest form, and yet… you didn't turn yourself in when first your powers manifested, and when Crane made you an offer you turned it down because you knew it to be death in disguise. You have fled the reaper's scythe twice now, will you truly turn and face it willingly on the third?

"Good. You have much to think on, I know, but here is a poor place for such contemplation," Ciro nods, turning away from you, his unmarked armour thrumming softly in the gloom, "Let us return to the others, and continue our journey. When the path next forks, then a decision can be made."

You follow him in silence. What other paths are left, that you did not burn or shun?

--/--

You return to find that your three remaining companions seem to have discovered other sentient life. Bore and Sidhe are lurking by the entrance to what you think must have once been a mess hall of some kind, squinting carefully into the room without leaving cover, while ahead of them Nadia stands alone and unafraid and attempting what you can only assume is some kind of first contact with… humans?

The term is a little ambiguous, for though humanoid the members of the small group facing Nadia across the room are considerably shorter and more hirsute than any given group of humans you have seen, with red-tinged eyes and teeth sharpened to a razor point. You'd call them mutants, but from what you understand mutation is rarely so common across so many… an abhuman strain of some kind, then? Your studies in the secrets of the flesh have been fairly limited, but you know it's possible for environmental contamination to have significant physical effects, so dwelling in the ruins of a drifting starship for centuries…

"Ah, there you are!" Nadia says happily as you arrive with Ciro, gesturing momentarily to her new acquaintances, "I do believe these poor souls are the descendents of the ship's crew - note the rank markings?"

Blinking, you look again, and… yes, now that she's pointed it out, you can see that each of the abhumans bears chevron markings across their shoulders or down their forearms, or else stylised aquilas or small starbursts. Those with few or simple markings wear nothing but rags cut from ancient scraps of uniform and bear crude spears of sharpened metal, while the bigger and more impressively marked sort wear whole jumpsuits and carry what must be old solid-shot firearms from the ship lockers. They were squinting suspiciously at Nadia when you arrived, but as soon as they see Ciro they begin chattering between each other in strange pidgin that sounds almost like a dialect of gothic. Eventually one of them steps forwards and bows low towards your small group.

"Queen would meet, Queen would speak," he says, his face fixed in the carefully contorted expression of a man remembering formal words he's never had real cause to use, "Follow?"

"Of course," Ciro says, nodding to them, and you note that you are not the only one who seems inclined to stare at this being of perfection made flesh when he deigns to address you, "Lead on."

The survivors (tribesmen? Ferals? Abhumans?) do so, hurrying away at a brisk pace and a gait more suited to crawling through half collapsed corridors than walking beneath the open sky. Your small group follows in their wake, curious and watchful, and in short order you are led out of the more wretched and ruined areas and into what you can only assume are the locals' dwelling places. Here the decks show signs of repair work and the walls have been reinforced, while over there rooms and antechambers have been converted with the aid of salvaged goods into bunkrooms and armouries and feasting halls. Always there are more of the strange and twisted people, watching you cautiously from behind doorways of hanging cloth or standing boldly but not quite in your path as you pass.

"Their adaptability is to be commended," Bore chirps with some enthusiasm, stopping for a moment to examine what looks to be some kind of repair work done on a vent shaft near the perimeter of what you take to be some kind of familial gathering place, "This work is surprisingly functional given the materials to hand, and look - offerings to the machine spirits! Their rites are incorrect, of course, but the intent is sincere and the creativity significant…"

"They call themselves the Carrion, I think," Nadia offers in her turn, listening intently to one of the locals who seems to be a talkative sort, "A grim title, but it speaks to at least some kind of shared mythology or creed. I wonder… we must be the first to force the sanctum gate below and escape from the prison decks. What role does that give us, in their mythology?"

"Devils in pleasant seeming, perhaps," Ciro suggests in a dry voice, pointedly not looking at you, "What of you, Sidhe? You have offered cutting commentary on virtually everything we have encountered thus far, I was rather beginning to enjoy it."

"To see your own people laid low, those who once commanded passage across the void reduced to barbarians squatting amid the ruins?" The Aeldari says in a soft and distant voice, somehow contriving to look straight ahead while perceiving nothing, "This alone, I would not mock."

You want to ask her about that, but you know little of the Aledari and their ways, and more to the point it seems you have reached your destination already. One glance tells you that the room ahead once served as a temple for the ship's crew, but while their memory of it as a place of significance survived their reverence for the purpose clearly did not. The pews have been torn out and their materials repurposed, and where the sacred altar once stood now sits a throne of scraps and debris, topped by the broken form of a stone aquila. Seated there, surrounded by muscular warriors and wizened advisors, is the Queen of the Carrion.

She bears little sign of the mutation that has blighted the bodies of her subjects, save for eyes the colour of blood and nails curved into the start of slender claws. She wears nothing save a crude loincloth sewn from discarded vestments of the ancient priests, and her naked skin is marked with hard-won battle scars and loose dry folds of one who has known starvation more than once. Paint mixed from oil and lubricant has been used to cover her in sharp, jagged marks of power and authority, and when she looks at you there is a gleam of sharp intelligence in her eyes.

"Voices rise from the maw below, echoing in the halls of Queen Scarna," the Carrion's leader says in accented gothic, her words blunt and clipped until they sound half a shade from insult or accusation, "Be they meat for the gullet, or souls for the service?"

"Neither, Fierce Majesty," Nadia says smoothly, stepping forwards to speak for the group before anyone else can respond, "We are but wanders, walkers from the world beyond the world. We seek only to pass through with peace, and return to our distant homes."

That is not how you would have thought to introduce yourself, but you can see the sense in it - crude though her people are, this 'Scarna' clearly holds herself as their ruler and leader, and by emphasising your distant origins Nadia both diminishes the implied threat to her rule while stoking the flames of curiosity in the Queen's scarred breast. It works, too.

"The world beyond… such sights have I seen, in scrolls passed down from Queen to Queen," Scarna says thoughtfully, leaning forwards in her throne of scrap to study you all with inquisitive scarlet eyes, "Worlds with no roof, where the air is clean and the land rich and green. Claim you to be from paradise, then?"

"There are many such worlds, Queen Scarna," Nadia demurrs, lowering her gaze so that she does not meet Scarna's eyes with anything that could be interpreted as a challenge, "Some are verdant and lush, others harsh and cold. Each is claimed by those who have risen to conquer and rule, shaped by the land as they shape it in turn, as you have done here. We seek only to return to where we belong."

"Hmm, hrm, yes… yes, the Queen grants you leave of passage, to seek such goals," Scarna says with a decisive nod, gesturing broadly at her assembled courtiers, several of whom begin repeating the declaration quietly to themselves, "But know there are others less generous than I. Two there are worth knowing - the Doom in its lair by world's edge, and of late the Voice from on high. One you must pass by, the other will seek your service or your end. Mighty and strange though you are, five walkers will not suffice to overcome such foes."

Nadia smiles, and in an instant you glimpse where this is going to go. She will propose an alliance, a pact of common interest that plays on Scarna's pride and evident curiosity about the world beyond her realm. Perhaps she will leverage your arcane power, Ciro's might or Bore's strange knowledge to secure better terms, it matters little, you have seen enough such negotiations from the sidelines to know how this one will go, and unless you miss your guess she will likely succeed.

She will succeed, your entire venture and plan for escape will be that much closer to completion, and Nadia Black will have obtained the allegiance and assistance of a tribal warrior-queen with an army that knows the local terrain better than you could ever hope to, in addition to whatever it is that exists between her and the Aledari. The power will all be in her hands, and yet… is that a bad thing? More importantly, what can you do about it? To sabotage her efforts would be foolish, to attempt to out-talk her would be self-defeating, but… perhaps you could change the terms of this meeting instead. The Carrion clearly have some manner of martial honour, and if those scars are any indication Scarna has fought for her throne more than once. If you challenge her and win, then the Carrion would be yours to command instead of hers, the Queen your ally instead of Nadias. A tempting thought, a promise of something approaching safety and power, but… only if you win.

Either way, you will need to decide quickly.

Article:

How will you proceed?

[ ] Let Nadia lead. Your pride is not so fragile as to overrule your good sense. Let your comrade win the allegiance of these Carrion, that you might focus on getting out of here without making more enemies than you need to.

[ ] Challenge the Queen. With your abilities and experience you are confident in your chances of victory, and having won the Carrion Throne you will be able to do more than mutely follow in another's wake.

 

[Maugan Ra]

You consider the possibilities for a moment, then force yourself to relax. Nadia may not be entirely worthy of unquestioned trust - who in this galaxy is? - but she has given you no cause to doubt her, and even less to make an enemy of her by such a public act of subversive theft. Besides, you are a champion and a duelist, not a war leader - your place is at the side of someone who needs your talents, not taking command for your own.

Your place is burning on a pyre.

Grimacing, you thrust such thoughts out of mind and turn your attention back to the ongoing negotiations. Nadia, it is plain to see, is clearly in her element here, dangling bait in the form of worlds unseen and the prosperity of a brighter tomorrow in front of the Carrion Queen's face, playing as much to the assembled court of warriors and wisefolk as to the monarch herself. If this was your homeland you would expect a flow and counter of wits and repartee, but as it is your companion's words fall uncontested like fresh rain on parched soil, and soon enough it seems she has the whole tribe a shade away from dancing to her tune.

"Many fine words you speak, walker of worlds, yet many foes stand between you and the threshold," Scarna says at last, settling back into her throne with a calculating look in her blood red eyes, "Seek to make common cause with the Carrion, yet you speak little of the Doom and how it may be bested."

"We have with us a mighty warrior," Nadia says with a smile, and on cue Ciro chuckles and bows politely with a faint whine of armour, "With such a champion at our side, even the Doom might be overcome."

"'Tis a big man, this is clear, yet the Carrion have fought the Doom before, and many of our finest have died in the attempt," Scarna says with a frown, "It has power of storm and silence, torn from the world beyond the world. No strong arm will help there."

Well, that sounds rather like your cue, and with a wry smile you step forwards in your turn. "A thing of the outside world? Such is why I am here."

Scarna frowns at you, even as Nadia nods and yields the floor with a shallow step, supporting your bold claim without a word. The Queen seems dubious, and you suppose you cannot blame her, ignorant as she must be. "You? What can you do, small man?"

You smile, and if the expression is a brittle one by the standards of your home, none here are so practiced at seeing it. You smile, and you let the power come, and the heat drains from the world around you. Ice spreads across the metal in a shimmering blanket, static gathers around your hands, and distantly the faintest echo of scratching can be heard. You hate doing this, hate exposing who and what you are, but that you hate something is no reason to refrain in times of need.

"I can best your Doom," you say, calm and steady, and as the tribesmen mutter uneasily and your companions exchange glances you reign the power back in and allow heat to return to the world, "Trust in that, if not the strength of Ciro's arm."

"Hmph," Scarna scoffs loudly from her throne of scraps, but you can see the wariness in her eyes, the faint trembling that she quells with an iron grip on the throne. A Queen cannot be seen to know fear, after all, and so you do not begrudge her the skepticism. "Tricks of light and heat, to fool children and steal fools."

You nod, and with a single smooth motion draw your sword, ignoring the startled oaths of the Carrion as they brandish weapons in response. "A fair point, Majesty. Name a champion, then, and I will demonstrate my 'tricks'."

The Carrion Queen stares down at you for a long moment, strange thoughts dancing in her scarlet eyes, then turns to one of the young warriors lurking by her throne. "Go. Bring the hunter."

The other Carrion barks an acknowledgement and scurries off, while the others begin grinning and spreading out around the room, forming a crude arena with their bodies. You've seen this sort of thing happen more than once, whenever some insult or challenge demanded immediate response rather than even the small delay of moving to a proper arena, so you nod calmly and move to the centre of the throne room.

"Dead hunters yet hunger," Scarna says with a laugh, lifting one sinewy arm and twisting to display the ragged scars that run from her wrist to elbow, "Give scars to even the mighty. Carrion must fight them, kill them, to stand near the throne. Must do so alone to be Queen."

Well, it seems you were right about the martial traditions of these people at least, though you have to wonder what kind of foe is still out there to be slain in ritual challenge after two hundred years adrift. A few moments later the young Carrion returns, having apparently corralled a few of his peers into assisting with your opponent, and you have your answer - a corpse.

Granted, few corpses are quite so lively as this one, snapping with stained teeth at its captors and glaring at all present with hollow eye sockets, long claws of gleaming steel protruding from withered hands and flexing with the movement of stick-like limbs. Pins of tarnished bronze protrude from beneath the leathery skin in a dozen locations, and fibre cables twitch and glow beneath an obscuring layer of fossilised meat. A servitor of some kind, you can only assume, made for combat and patrol duties - a way for the Inquisition to keep its captives under guard without the worries of a mortal and corruptible crew? Either way, you can see why the Carrion value those capable of beating one.

Well, there's no point engaging in the normal preliminaries, the boasting and taunting and recitation of your patron's lineage, not against a man-made beast without ears to hear or tongue to speak. Nor is there much point in wearing your long coat of flak armour, those claws are clearly sharp enough to tear right through and you think you can smell the ozone stench that tells of power blades held currently inactive. Instead you make a show of shrugging off the coat and loosening the collar of your shirt, before stepping forwards and touching your brow to the hilt of your sword in respect.

Scarna calls a command, the Carrion release the chains, and with a rasping howl the murder-servitor leaps for you. It is aggressive and fearless, augmented beyond human norms and equipped with gleaming claws that can rend through plate without slowing, but it is also functionally mindless and thus easy to predict.

Your lunge pierces it in the sternum, the blade empowered by your will until even metal plates and ancient bones part like paper before its edge, and with a twist you pull the blade up and through its rib cage even as you step past. Had it been human the spray of gore would have fallen all across the metal floor, but as it turns out a servitor has reservoirs and internal systems quite out of sync with the being from which it was made, and as the construct falls into pieces it contrives to coat you from head to foot in a stagnant spray of oil and reeking ichor.

It is disgusting, but you are quite practiced at holding your nerve through such things, and so you resist the urge to gag as your opponent falls to the floor in a broken heap.

Spoiler: Combat, such as it is

As the protagonist, Vincenzo gets the first turn. He draws his weapon, moves forwards and makes an attack, rolling Weapon Skill (I) for 1; 6; 1; 3; 2; 2; 6; 4

This is a total of five icons. The murder servitor has a defence of three, so Vincenzo hits. He also has a spare Exalted Icon (one of the 6s) which he 'shifts' for extra damage.

• When you make a test in this system, if you can take away an exalted icon from the result while still passing the test, you can exchange it for various bonuses. In this case, an extra dice of damage.
• Other potential benefits include upgraded results, taking less time to complete a task, complicating things for your opponents and activating talent-specific bonuses.

However, Vincenzo also rolled a complication! The first dice in any test is called the 'Wrath dice' - if it rolls a 6 then you get a bonus effect like a critical hit, if it rolls a 1 then you generate some manner of complication. In this case, Vincenzo has ruined his lovely clothing by getting it covered in blood and engine oil.

• Psykers can roll more than one wrath dice when invoking psychic powers. Complications on psychic powers trigger Perils of the Warp, with additional 1s increasing the severity of the result… but sometimes you're willing to take the risk in order to go all out and sling vast amounts of power around.

Next, we come to damage. Vincenzo's force sword has a base damage of (Str)+5, and due to the force quality it also adds half his willpower to his effective strength. Thus his base damage is 2+3+5 = 10. He also has dice of extra damage - four normally, five because he shifted an exalted icon on the attack test. He rolls 1; 5; 3; 2; 6, giving him three extra damage for a total of 13.

The servitor has an armour value of 1, representing built in plates, but the force sword has an AP value (armour penetration) of -3, which bypasses this. It also has a general resilience of 5, which reduces the 13 damage to 8.

As the servitor only has six wounds, Vincenzo kills it in a single hit and the combat ends.

There is stunned silence in the throne room, and in that gap before sense returns you wipe the oil and lubricant from around your eyes at least and give the court your finest bow.

"Hah!" roars the Queen, hammering a fist against the arm of her throne as she laughs, "Well fought! Proof of your valour is enough - together, even the Doom shall know fear!"

"You are too kind, mighty majesty," you say smoothly, trying not to gag on the taste of rotten oil against your lips, "I regret only that I could not see your own triumph, for surely it was a fight worth knowing."

"Hrm. Pretty words, the small man has," Queen Scarna says with a smile, her pointed teeth shining in the flickering light as she looks you up and down, "Pretty face as well. My bed is cold and lonely…"

"Alas, I am filthy and tired," you say, a smile quirking at your lips as you deflect the proposition. Ah, it's just like being back home - something about watching a man kill something stirs passion in the hearts and loins, and rarely do your admirers wait for the blood to be cleaned away before making their interest known.

"Then a room for rest and cloth for cleansing, shall you have!" The Queen proclaims, rising to her feet and lifting her hands to the vaulted roof, "Time will be taken for word to spread and Carrion to muster, for scouts and hunters to bring word of the path - use it well, for when we march, it is to strangle Doom and silence Voice!"

The room erupts in cheers, warriors young and old raising their voices in exultant roaring, and you take the opportunity to slip back to rejoin your small group of comrades.

"Nice work, handsome," Nadia says with a laugh, clapping you briefly on the shoulder, and this time you do not flinch away, "You know, when we're out of here, I could use a champion to help reclaim my birthright…"

"Might I suggest we focus on escaping first?" You say mildly, because you know better than most the risks of signing yourself unthinking to the first cause to come your way, "There are yet challenges in our path that I feel unwise to disregard."

"Hah! So melancholic. We'll find something you enjoy eventually, I wager," Nadia chuckles, leaving you where you stand and heading back to rejoin the carrion and her court, to build on the foundations she has already laid. You watch her go with a bemused smile, then pause to sniff yourself and wrinkle your nose.

Damn it all, you liked this shirt.

Article:

There is a chance to rest here, while waiting for the Carrion to muster and the reports of the scouts to come in, and you spend at least part of it getting to know one of your companions a little better. Who do you speak to, and of what?

[ ] Ciro, about Singing. It's amazing the kind of notes one can hit when blessed with a body so much larger than the average man and three lungs to work with.

[ ] Hephastus, about Sport. An enthusiasm for pursuit of perfection-in-flesh leads to some odd pursuits, and some strong opinions on rules meant to mandate 'fair play'.

[ ] Nadia, about Fashion. Is it heretical to wear clothing without at least one aquila or skull on it, or merely universally unfashionable?

[ ] Sidhe, about Art. Is there any common ground to be found in the aesthetic senses of Man and Aeldari, or are you doomed to forever be snippy about the other's lack of taste?

 

[Maugan Ra]

The Carrion grant you the use of a small room, really more of an antechamber, and a ragged selection of poorly stitched clothing alongside a pail of water that gleams with an oily residue. You suppose you shouldn't really complain about either - you've seen the lichen farms where they grow the closest thing to fabric and the handful of steam cyclers that make the ship's water reserves safe for drinking. They can't spare much of either for your vanity, and in that light the sleeveless vest you end up donning is actually fairly generous, even if it clashes somewhat with the tailored pants that you managed to preserve despite the stains. It doesn't take you that long to wash and change, really, but by the time you're finished everyone else appears to have wandered off on their own accord anyway.

Cautiously, you set out to look for them and explore the Carrion's… well you'd call it a camp, but really it's closer in scale to a town, supporting a population that you expect numbers in the low thousands. There is a strange and rigid order to everything, not an inch of space wasted or taken for granted, a fact you can only attribute to the immense effort necessary to carve a safe living space from the corpse of a drifting ship. The Carrion watch you wherever you go, and you take pains to avoid anything that you think they might regard as private - personal space is a rare commodity in a hive, so how much more must it be in such a constrained and hostile space such as this?

There is one exception, as it turns out - a wide chamber that you think must have once been some kind of mess hall or workstation, long since stripped of its furnishings but otherwise left abandoned and untouched in the very heart of the Carrion's domain. It's easy to see why, for across one entire wall of the room is carved a grand mural of the God-Emperor on his Golden Throne. The structure is inset and embossed to create a shockingly lifelike vista, and no sooner have you entered the room than the judgemental eyes of the divine seem to fix on you, pinning you to the spot with an immortal's unflinching gaze. Even you feel uncomfortable here, knowing who and what this is - how much more unsettling must it be for these abandoned descendents of sailors and slaves, knowing only the threatening assessment of those ancient eyes? Hunching your shoulders, you turn to retreat from the room.

"What's the matter, mon-keigh? Is the gaze of your own god truly so unbearable?"

You flinch, spinning to scan the empty room for any sign of the threat… and then lift your gaze to the heavens, only to find Sidhe there instead, reclining in a small nook of the room's vaulted ceiling. The Aeldari looks down on you with a curious expression on her sharp face, and in the shadows of her perch the beautiful craftsmanship of her armour stands out all the more. It looks like beams of moonlight caught and worked into a thousand segmented plates, each of them overlapping with its neighbour to hide her from the world, and it occurs to you that none of the Ecclesiarchal sermons you attended on Malfi ever made mention of the idea that product of an alien's artifice could be beautiful.

"If one believes in priestly orthodoxy, then my god despises me for what I am and condemns me for what I have done," you say honestly, trying not to fidget beneath the alien's inquisitive gaze, "So, yes. A tad uncomfortable, as you might imagine."

"You must learn to abide and embrace the feeling, then, or else never walk on an imperial world again," Sidhe says with what you think is a smile, though whether it is meant as encouraging or malicious is harder to tell, "Though perhaps that would be a kindness, if it spares your eyes from the ugliness that so encrusts the land wherever your kind spread."

Raising your eyebrows, you cross your arms and lean back against the chamber wall. "Is there something wrong with imperial art?"

She could have been talking about humans in general, you suppose, but in an effort to be charitable you will act as though she merely meant your art and taste in architecture. Which is a fair concern by itself, you will admit - the feeling of the aquila's judgemental gaze, inciting fear and paranoia where once it meant benign security, will not leave you any time soon.

"It can hardly be called such, garish and crude as it is," Sidhe sniffs, looking down on you in more ways than one. You're not actually sure how she's staying up there, you can't see any real platforms to support her weight. Magnetic pads in the armour, maybe? "Hasty and inelegant propaganda, all of it, made to bludgeon the masses into reverent obedience."

"That is rather the point of it," you say with a nod, and are pleased to note that the unexpected yield wrong-foots arrogant Aeldari every bit as well as overconfident duelists, "The nobility maintain private galleries filled with more varied art, but the public installations of art exist to shape the thoughts and deeds of the populace."

"Purpose? That you speak of the purpose a piece of art holds is already a sign of blind assumptions," Sidhe shakes her head, the fetishes of bone and metal in her hair clinking softly with the movement. "Art exists for its own sake, bereft of such petty concerns and mundane goals, else it is not truly art."

"Art is created with the intent of inspiring reaction," you counter, smiling as your points are met and new ones brought forth. Sidhe seems a little surprised, but really, what did she expect? That you would merely grit your teeth and endure, or simply shrug off her critiques of your people and their crafts? "Be it joy, contemplation, or as you put it, reverent obedience. The artist who thinks their work exists absent the reaction of an audience is wilfully blind."

"Oh? And do you suppose the gods were thinking of us, when they filled the galaxy with their work?" Sidhe sneers, but you catch the genuine interest underneath the surface layer of contempt. Or you think you do, anyway, how would you even tell with an alien? "Or would you deny the beauty of a sunset, or the splendour of the stars at night?"

"They are beautiful, to be sure, but not everything that is beautiful is a form of art," you reply, and to your own surprise you find yourself enjoying this, flexing these old muscles and engaging with another being on a level above mere steel or lightning, "by extension, not all art is beautiful. Something repulsive that makes us think about the nature of the world or our own bodies can, I think, be quite artistic."

"I have had this conversation before, and it was no more pleasant or bearable then," Sidhe says with a disgusted sigh, detaching from the roof and dropping to the ground. It is impossible to forget, when watching her move like with such liquid grace, that she isn't human. "Let us depart, and speak no more of it."

"Of course," you incline your head gravely, "If you would rather retreat with some dignity, instead of proposing an alternate framework to judge the worthiness of art, I accept your concession."

Wow, those shining eyes are really well suited to expressions of rage and withering contempt, you're actually rather impressed. "And now you remind me of my peers, as well as my home. If you must know, Aeldari prefer our art to have some subtlety and grace to it. Our emotions run hotter than yours, our senses are sharper… the average imperial hymnal might as well be a malfunctioning drone screaming in our faces."

"Interesting," you murmur, frowning in thought. You'd never have thought of that by yourself, in the abstract you always assumed that everyone saw the world more or less as you did, but the possibilities add context and nuance that you had never quite expected. "I suppose, by that same measure, many pieces of Aeldari art would likely seem minimalist to the point of confusion or ambivalence."

"Ah, proof of your clumsy inferiority," Sidhe proclaims archly, for which you reward her with nothing but a flat look. "Oh, fine. In truth you are correct, at least when it comes to… what is the word, when one wishes to describe a widely accepted standard?"

"Tradition, perhaps," you offer, "or in a more religious sense, orthodoxy."

"By the standards of artistic orthodoxy, you are not wrong, much art produced by my people is minimalist to the point of being tame, most rhetoric obscure and subtle," Sidhe says with a faint sigh, "Though it was not always so. I left my home behind to wander the stars out of frustration with such staid, limited vision, in hopes of seeing the galaxy as it truly is. Thus far, I have spent more time staring at drab imperial architecture or answering the questions of stunt-minded fools than anything else."

Huh. You study Sidhe for a bit, trying to discern the truth behind her words, the clues in her slender build and the way she carries herself. After a few moments you give it up as impossible, for you have not met nearly enough Aeldari to have a proper point of reference, but a story such as that one is… not entirely unfamiliar.

"If I might hazard a guess… you are not very old by Aeldari standards, are you?"

"That seems entirely irrelevant," Sidhe replies sharply, glaring at you with those large, liquid eyes. Yeah, you think you have the right of it. She's young by her species' standards, right at the age where she rebels against conformity with the demands of society and runs away to see the world and indulge in some wild adventures. Which means she's filled with just as much pride and ambition as any hotheaded noble teenager, more than one of whom was entrusted to your protection once upon a time.

"As you say, my lady," you bow, hiding a smile, and Sidhe's glare intensifies. She seems like she is about to retort, but before she can speak the air shivers with the distant echoes of loud drum beats, the pounding answered by raised voices from the Carrion beyond the hold.

"...it seems your degenerate cousins have finished preparing their muster," Sidhe says instead, turning deliberately away from you and making for the doorway, "Let us rejoin the others, and get this whole sordid business over with."

Smiling, you follow her down the path, pleased at both the discussion and what you've learned about your fellow escapee in the process. The Aeldari was easily the most mysterious and distant of the four, and it is good to have at least some basis for future predictions. You always felt safer when you could…

Crane...

You stop, blinking rapidly, one hand rising to your temple. The whisper didn't come from outside your head, but within, a voice like nails against the inside of your skull echoing in the confines of your mind.

Crane is your enemy… our enemy… he sends his minions to control the murderers, the servitors…

"Mon-keigh?" Sidhe says, but the disdainful voice might as well be a hundred leagues away, the world shimmering and distorting around you as though some great pressure is resting on your eyes.

They are on the Gun Deck. You must hurry… hurry!

A final phrase, a snarled exhortation… and then the voice is gone, the world snapping back to normal in its absence. Sidhe is staring at you with evident curiosity from further along the corridor, and you think you can taste blood in your mouth.

"Mon-keigh? You look unwell…"

"It was nothing," you say in reflex, shaking your head, even as your mind races to put the pieces together "Or, rather, it was momentary. A lingering effect of the stasis sleep, perhaps."

You're lying. You know exactly what that was - someone tried to reach out to you with telepathy, to you specifically. It was faint and short-lived, the sign of a weak user or perhaps some manner of interference or confusion, but it was distinct. The only question then is one of motive, and by extension identity. Any psykers among the prisoners would have been kept in the stasis tubes like you, any among the crew would surely contact the Carrion instead of you… who then? The Inquisition, some gambit by Crane and his people to send you to a certain place? The voice called itself Crane's enemy, but short of a daemon you don't…

Oh. Well.

Shit.

Article:

Vincenzo has been contacted telepathically by what he thinks might be a daemon, or at the very least some manner of renegade hostile to the Inquisition, with what it claims is a warning about Interrogator Crane's current goal. How do you want to react to this information?

[ ] Head for the Gun Decks. This is a diversion from the bridge, and may well be some manner of trap or danger, but can you really leave it to chance?
- [ ] Get the others. You will need to tell them and perhaps the Carrion of your source and reasoning, but to go alone would be folly.
- [ ] Go almost alone. Sidhe won't let you wander off alone, and between your gifts and her stealth, it should be fairly simple to confirm the truth or falsity of the warning.

[ ] Confide in Ciro. Tell the angel what you have heard, and let him make the decision. You can trust him.

[ ] Do Nothing. Whispers from a daemon? Nobody has ever, in the history of the galaxy, ended up in a better place because they listened when a daemon whispered in their mind. Ignore it, and act as you would have if it never happened.

[ ] Write in

 

[Maugan Ra]

"You are a terrible liar," Sidhe says flatly, one arm cocked before her in something approaching a defensive stance, "and none of your peers have had any such reaction."

"Only one of them is human, hardly a proper sample size," you point out, before pausing to consider whether or not Bore should count, "but in this case, yes, I lied. In truth, I think I know what Crane is up to. He's trying to seize control of the murder servitors."

"Crane?" Sidhe asks, and such is her honest bafflement that you can only blink in surprise, "The… bird?"

"The man," you say, a touch awkwardly, because… well you don't understand. Did he reserve his bile for you alone? "The Interrogator who, uh, took point."

"Oh," Sidhe blinks, then nods, "Him. Very well, let us intercept him. Do you know where?"

"The gun decks, but," you hesitate for a moment, "Are you… I confess, I was expecting some hesitation, or questions."

"The mon-keigh may detest and shun the warp-touched, but my people are not so foolish," Sidhe says primly, which you think might be an attempt at reassuring or validating you, its hard to tell beneath the level of almost reflexive contempt, "Without the guidance of a seer's visions, none of the Craftworlds would have endured beyond a handful of centuries."

Part of you wants to explain, to clarify the evident misunderstanding stemming from an entirely different paradigm of psykers and their place in society, but what would you even say? What value is there in highlighting that your insight comes from a strange voice whispering in your mind, rather than any kind of precognitive gift? It's easier to simply work with the assumptions of others, and to that end you grab one of the nearby Carrion, instruct it to pass on a message to the other members of your little band, and set off.

"The gun decks will be on the ship's flanks," Sidhe says confidently as you pass beyond the Carrion's perimeter guard, "as the engines are at the rear, and the bridge mounted atop and towards the aft. Your mon-keigh ship designers are so staid and unimaginative."

"You've fought human ships before, haven't you?" you say, because you cannot imagine a merely peaceful experience enough to say such things with confidence. Not when the speaker is an alien feared and distrusted even above most tales of xenos granted to the average citizen.

"I have," Sidhe admits without hesitation or shame, "The Crow Spirits - when I left my home to travel the stars, I joined the ranks of the anrathe, what your kind call corsairs. We fight as a fleet, a roaming band of ships and planetside raiders independent of any Craftworld, seeking to preserve the territory once held by our ancestors from any who would despoil it. More than any other, of late, that means vessels of your Imperium."

You are silent for a time, as past the lands of the Carrion the ship rapidly returns to its state of crumbling decay and that requires some concentration to navigate. As you shimmy around sharp crevices and scramble down ramps made by collapsed decks, you find yourself wondering just how independent these corsair bands truly are. Malfi is often blighted by bands of wasteland raiders and savage gangs in the lower levels of the great Hives, but you know from experience that turning over the right rocks will inevitably uncover the strings tying them to one or another of the great Houses. There is always a use for deniable agents and the ability to strike at someone via proxy, especially if the force would exist regardless of your intervention. Could the Aeldari operate on the same principle - hotheads like Sidhe leaving their homes to find adventure among the stars, but still serving their Craftworld and its interests indirectly?

"You referred to it as the territory of your ancestors," you say at last, though the comfortable silence was far from displeasing, "as distinct from that claimed by your people today."

"The Aeldari never truly claimed territory in the way of the younger races," Sidhe nods, running up and across a broken wall with ghost-light steps and then waiting patiently for you to awkwardly clamber over the broken ruins below it, "Our dominion was in zones of influence, scattered points of light united by the craft that allowed us to walk from one world to another at will. Even today, the Craftworlds in themselves have room enough for all our people."

Yeah, this isn't your first time listening to a once-great noble with some pretensions to their old status and glory. You doubt she'll say it outright, but you can read between the lines - Sidhe talks of her ancestors and heritage because the Aeldari of today have nothing worth boasting of. If you are right and she is young for her kind, that would make the Crow Spirits some manner of revanchist group, likely ruled by the old and spending the blood of the young in pursuit of an impossible dream.

"If you do not need the territory, why do you fight for it?" You say instead, trying to make sure your voice does not come across as too accusatory, "I could consult the archives of any family on Malfi, and find there records of some shipment or transport lost to the depredations of your anrathe. Why spend so much blood for a prize you do not truly need or desire?"

"The word is anrathe," Sidhe corrects you, though you cannot actually determine any difference in how she pronounced it compared to your own attempt, "and is it truly a cost, when we are not the ones who bleed? Beyond that, however - survival is not enough. If the Aeldari desired naught but to endure to the end of time, we would hide ourselves in pockets of the web, or lurk in the void between dead and unpopulated stars. Such would be a living death, unworthy of any capable of more."

Hmm. On one level you feel you should respect that, and certainly the bloody ambition to settle for nothing less than excellence in place of mediocrity is familiar from the virtues that Malfi teaches its children, but the fact that she expresses that drive and grandeur through murdering humans does complicate matters somewhat. Not that humans have any greater scruples about taking the lives of other humans, to be fair, but even so.

Left alone with your thoughts, you are only brought out of your introspection when Sidhe's route brings you to what is clearly one of the most damaged parts of the ship. Here the walls are twisted, the compartments gutted and left to fall away into ragged chasms, the air increasingly chill with the nameless hunger of the void. You know little of ships and their construction, but Hives are familiar to you, and what you are seeing now bears all the hallmarks of some great disaster. A power conduit breached, perhaps, or some stockpile of fuel or ammunition struck in the fighting, sparking a rolling series of detonations that tore the guts from the Inquisition's private prison. You doubt it was deliberate, but that's always the risk of fighting in a hive - there is so much danger and so much power all around you that the chaos of battle inevitably trips something that you would have been best served to leave undisturbed.

"The true gun decks will be above us," Sidhe says, halting at the edge of an enormous shaft. You think at first it might be more battle damage, for the cold wind howls through the cavernous space without cease, but after a moment you spot the heavy chains that run down the sides and the tightly clamped platforms that are attached to each. Some kind of loading mechanism, you would guess, or perhaps a lift to carry crew from the lower levels to their destination. "Though getting there might yet be a challenge."

You can hear the implied exception in her words, the barely veiled assumption that you will have difficulty here that she will not. And it is true, the Aeldari is more graceful by far than your own stumbling advance has shown you to be, but that was in tight confines and broken terrain. This open space, this vast gulf that runs across floors filled by nothing but the wind, is a different question entirely. With a smile, you reach for the power within your soul.

Invoking 'Shape Flesh' at Unbound level - 5; 6; 3; 2; 6; 5; 5; 1; 1. Seven icons, success with critical.

Spoiler: Psychic Levels

The default pool for invoking psychic powers is Psychic Mastery + Willpower, as with any other skill. However, it is possible for a psyker to open the gates of soul wider for a burst of additional power, adding extra wrath dice for potentially greater success… or more dire consequences.

Bound is the default power level, with the base pool rolled without modification.

Unbound adds an additional wrath dice, capable of generating criticals or complications/perils as normal.

Transcendent adds (higher of rank or tier, plus one) wrath dice, currently three, but also inflicts an equal amount of shock as the power threatens to exhaust and overwhelm you.

The gates of the warp are slow to close, once opened. A psyker who invokes at unbound or transcendent level is locked to that level or higher for all additional powers in the same scene.

Since Vincenzo rolled a 6 on one of those Wrath dice, he triggers a critical, and gets to apply a potency upgrade to the power without the need for shifting dice. He opts for wings as his base effect, and hardening his own skin to provide additional protection (+4 resilience) for the critical upgrade.

The first lesson that the Menagerie teaches those that fall into their clutches is this - the world is a lie, the soul the only truth. Their ideology is toxic, scattered fragments of temptation and justification to draw the aspirant ever further in, but in this at least they spoke true. Your body is a vessel, nothing more, and with the right application of power it turns to liquid and reshapes itself beneath your command. Your bones grow slender and light, the excess mass shunted to your skin to harden it like armour, and from your back sprout great avian wings to bear you aloft upon the chilling currents.

On a whim, you shape your flesh in the manner of an angel, adding feathers of purest white and tinting your skin like marble. It is an impressive display, you have seen yourself in the mirror often enough to know that for sure, but Sidhe looks frankly disturbed by the whole process in a display of honest emotion you weren't sure the Aeldari could muster.

"You mon-keigh value your bodies so lightly," she says, taking a step back as though you might somehow lunge forward and devour her, "to shape and remould it so, to weave steel in place of your limbs and connect armour through cables as the astartes does. No Aeldari would let their self-image waver thus."

"You speak as though your fragile ego were a virtue," you say with a brief laugh, pausing to tweak the shape of your throat and remove the metallic timbre from your voice. At least the loss of your shirt provides some edge here, for the vest you wear now needs only the most minute adjustment to let your wings move freely. "But come, let us not linger here."

Sidhe nods, and hands you a slender cord that spools from her arm like a spider's silk. You take it in hand, marveling at the silken texture, then flex your new limbs and take flight. Air beneath your wings, the freedom of movement that flight brings with it, these things are the truest prize of your condition. You thought once to return to mortal life, to hide yourself away and deny to all that you were ever cursed with the psyker's gene, but once you took to the skies even once the possibility could no longer be born. Alas that this flight is not overly prolonged, for within half a minute you find yourself at the top of the shaft attaching the rope to an out-thrust gantry, to be joined a few heartbeats later as Sidhe ascends with the whispering murmur of some hidden motor in her armour.

The gun decks proper are in no better state than the carnage below, many of them saved from explosive decompression solely by the presence of immense corroded hatches across every port and entry. Great chasms rend the deck plates and sparking power conduits provide the only real light, while here and there you see piles of discarded ammunition and partially decayed macro-shells that rolled free of the great gun assemblies that punctuate the deck at frequent intervals. Naturally you choose to remain high, sweeping from one elevated perch to the next on silent wing while Sidhe follows behind you in her turn, the pair of you scouring the decks below in silent search for the threat that drew you hence. You see nothing, until at last you reach the prow, where lies a vast hollow tube of metal buckled and rent apart from within.

"A boarding torpedo," Sidhe murmurs, as the pair of you come to rest perched atop a creaking gantry in the highest reaches of the vaulted ceiling, "Your kind use such things when a ship must be captured intact, but is flighty enough to outrun conventional pursuit."

Peering down, it does not take you long to spot the deadly payload that the torpedo once carried. Murder servitors prowl the deck below with silent, predatory grace, their withered limbs twitching hungrily and their silent eyes combing the darkness in search of some unforeseen prey. You can well imagine the terrifying carnage that they must have wrecked when unleashed into an enemy vessel, the razor claws that tip their limbs swiftly stained with blood and gore. Many are broken and discarded, their immobile corpses stripped for parts by their still-active peers, and even the ones you can see moving sometimes shudder silently or wheel in circles as some internal process glitches and fails… but there are still dozens of them down there, hundreds perhaps in the darkness beyond, and you can only imagine the carnage they would wreck if mustered against the lightly armoured Carrion.

A moment later, you see others drawn here by the same imagined carnage. Far below you, picking their way across the uneven floor, is a half-squad of humans clad in light carapace armour, a tech-adept in crimson robes at their heart. Each bears the crossed I of the Inquisition on their pauldrons, and your fist clenches silently at the sight.

"Two hundred years adrift," Sidhe murmurs quietly to you, a strange fluted firearm resting in her hands, "and yet these ones carry weapons and move with training. Has our ship been found already?"

"No. These must be Crane's men," you whisper in turn, studying the group below as they navigate their way towards the boarding torpedo, "if we have been adrift all that time, they must have sealed themselves in stasis like their master… awaiting rescue, perhaps. But now we are free, and they are forced to attempt a reclamation of the ship or die in their sleep."

You fall silent then, because beneath you one of the prowling servitors appears to have caught the scent of the intruders. It begins prowling towards them with a lurching gait, claws raised and gleaming… and then the tech-adept raises its hands and blurts some kind of code or invocation at the monster, which sees it twitch and turn aside. The others do not relax, however, and you think you can see why - such a measure only temporarily dissuades a single hunter, and judging by their tense wariness it is not entirely reliable. The boarding torpedo must have some manner of booster or coordination network for the swarm, and if they can reach it they can extend that somewhat tenuous control over the entire complement.

Unless, of course, something were to go wrong.

Article:

How do you make sure that something goes wrong?

[ ] Death From Above. Half a dozen soldiers with light armour and small arms - manageable enough foes you think, especially with Sidhe to assist and the advantage of surprise. Cut them down and end this threat before it can truly begin.

[ ] Death by Proxy. Servitors such as these respond to noise and movement. Use that to bait a swarm of them into overrunning the small team, then pick off any survivors. There's a certain irony in killing them with the weapon they sought to wield against you.

[ ] Retreat and Regroup. Return to the other prisoners and the Carrion, bearing forewarning of what is to come. With prior preparation and proper coordination you can use the impending attack to eliminate the Inquisition and the servitors both.

[ ] Write in

 

[Maugan Ra]

"On my homeworld, there is a parable that they tell over-eager students," you murmur thoughtfully, studying the tight-knit team of Inquisitorial operatives from your perch on high, "about a sword that can cut any foe, but for every blow struck takes a tithe in blood and flesh from the wielder. The intended moral changes with the telling, but I always considered it a warning."

"We have similar tales, though in ours the blade is a gift from Vaul meant to teach as well as aid," Sidhe replies, an edge of amused approval in her voice as she charts your plan through implication, "Typically, the hero is meant to prove his wit and cunning by cheating the forge-god of his due."

"Shall we see, then?" You smile, drawing your blade and flexing your wings, "How do these hunters measure up to the Aeldari heroes of legend?"

You lean forwards and take wing, the cold air of the gun decks rustling silently beneath your feathers as you glide across the chamber in solemn silence. The great dust-owls of the Malfian wastes are said to hunt in this fashion, giving no sign of their approach until the final deadly blow, but you cannot quite match those fearsome hunters for grace. Instead you lash out with your blade as you pass another gantry, wire and frame parting beneath the razor edge like so much paper, and with a clattering roar the whole assembly comes crashing down to the ground.

You can hear cursing and shouts of alarm from the intruders, almost drowned out by the crushing rumble of the falling gantry and walkway… and then, beyond it, a dry and ragged howl that rises first from one throat and then a legion. The sound touches something deep within you, a primal fear of the monsters of the night, and you almost stumble and slam into the ground before correcting your path at the last moment. Shaking your head, you beat your wings and swoop along the ground.

Considering their age and corroded state, the murder-servitors of the Inquisition remain surprisingly, horrifyingly agile. You almost don't spot the first as it leaps at you from an elevated pile of wreckage, dodging only at the last second, and a few moments later there are over a dozen loping in your wake with blade-limbs gleaming and corpse-dry mouths screaming. Some stay landbound, others pursue you with great bounding leaps, and a handful sprout pitted claws on their lower limbs and race along walls and ceiling in pursuit of your flitting, taunting form. You gather as many as you dare, accepting a handful of near-misses as the price to keep their interest, then turn and lead them straight towards your real prey.

The Inquisition's fireteam knows their trade, and by the time you reach them they've already pulled together an improvised bastion, taking cover behind scraps of metal and twisted wreckage and covering every angle of approach with as much firepower as they can spare. It's a good idea, betrayed only by a mistake in judgement - you see the horror in their body language as they realise your intent, and though one or two snatch shots in your direction the effort is perfunctory, swiftly replaced by a desperate attempt to cull the horde before it can arrive. You sweep over their heads and then rise into the air, beating your wings to hover as you observe your work.

There is a moment, a single fraught and unnerving instant, when it looks like your scheme might come to naught. The tech-adept stands out of cover and raises its hands to the heavens, singing a hymn in binary that sees the murder-servitors stumble and veer aside… and then there is a faint hiss, a sharp crack, and the priest's head snaps back and it falls. The defence collapses in that instant, an instinctive fear of snipers taking attention away from the oncoming swarm that cannot be pinned or subdued by mere covering fire, and before a correction can be made the murder-servitors are upon them.

"Good shot," you say to Sidhe, as you alight upon your chosen walkway and slide your sword back into place at your side.

"A child could have made it," the Aeldari says with a dismissive sniff, before glancing down at the carnage you have left behind, "Should we not be certain?"

"Amateurs linger at the sight of their crime," you shake your head, already moving along the walkway towards the far side of the gun deck, "Let us depart, before the servitors tire of their sport and go looking for fresh prey."

You leave, and do not look back, no matter how shrill the screams or how terrible the wet rending of meat.

-/-

To your relief, finding the others is almost childishly easy. The Carrion are on the move, and where they go they are preceded by the dull boom of war drums and the harsh clatter of weapons rapped against the wall and floor. They sing as they move, chanting hymns of war and glory vaguely reminiscent of the shanties you've heard off-duty sailors roar, and at their heart is Queen Scarna in a litter carried by the brawniest of her soldiers. The guards raise their weapons when you descend to land before them, hissing in alarm at your strange appearance and sudden arrival, but before they can do something unwise Ciro steps forward, the crowd parting around him like water.

"Vincenzo, there you are!" He proclaims with a broad smile, looking you up and down with unabashed interest, "We were beginning to grow worried."

"Crane sent soldiers to the gun decks, in hopes of taking control of the servitors there," you say, suddenly aware that you probably should have provided your messenger with a few more details, "Sidhe and I took care of it."

"An excellent display of initiative," Ciro nods, and for a moment you feel like you're a teenger again, preening before the compliments of a superior in the courts. You cough, brushing the feeling aside, and note that Sidhe has apparently slipped back into the assembled group without so much as a word. "The rest of us shall need to strive to match your contribution, it seems."

"Where are we headed?" You ask, falling in with the group and noting how conspicuously everyone is saying nothing about your marble-hard flesh and feathered wings. It feels… not nice, as such, or even validating, just strangely noticeable in a way you don't have the proper words to express.

"To the place where the prisoner uprising was most focused - the central armoury, and the bridge access beyond," Nadia interjects before anyone else can reply, and you note that while the rest of you are walking, she has managed to get herself a place on the Queen's litter. You'd be jealous, but frankly you always preferred moving under your own power. It makes it easier to dodge the assassins. "They call it the Bloody Path."

Well, you'd have to be a far colder man to not feel even a twinge of curiosity at something so theatrical as that, and as fate would have it bare minutes later your interest is rewarded. Where the rest of the ship is comprised of twisting corridors and half-collapsed caverns, the Path is a single straight line that runs from the last of the habitation decks all the way up to the bridge access lift, a clear gauntlet absent even the faintest shred of cover that must be run to reach the most critical parts of the ship. Two hundred years ago, a host of thousands tried to do just that.

Tried.

You've seen the aftermath of hive riots before, but even those manmade disasters pale in comparison to the legacy of the Bloody Path. From one end to the other the corridor is carpeted in corpses, thousands upon thousands of bodies from prisoners and guards alike lying broken in ragged heaps and tottering mountains of void-brittle flesh. You can see the tidal forces that ended their lives writ across the carnage, lines of advance and retreat demarcated by thick clumps of the dead, and soon you are left with no choice but to walk across the bodies of the slain to make even the slightest progress. Some are withered mummies dried long ago by the void, others as fat and wet as though cut down mere moments ago, and everywhere there is the stink of death and the sweet after scent of corruption and rot.

"It is said, in tongue and script, that the dawn war was stillborn," Queen Scarna rasps, rising from her litter to walk across the bodies with the rest of you, her Carrion following in her wake with fearful, reverent silence, "None could cross the Bloody Path, so peace was offered and considered. Then came the Doom, with poisoned words and lying eyes."

She jabs at one of the corpses with her spear, the body giving a faint choking gasp at the motion that has your hand fly to the hilt of your sword. "The Doom gathered the people and led them here, hope in hand and lies on tongue. It spent their lives like air, froze the bodies in memory, spent the world as coin for promise of victory… and failed."

You've reached the end of that ancient battle now, the highwater mark of death beyond which the surging prisoners never reached. Their blasted and broken bodies lie in heaps just beyond a heavy blast door, scored and pitted and sealed by a single codepad that glows faintly in the failing light of distant lumens. Bore hums for a moment at the sight, then steps forwards and punches a series of numbers into the pad, to be rewarded a moment later by the faint hiss of hydraulics slowly dragging themselves back to life.

"Fine work, Magos," Ciro says, a touch cautiously, "Did you manage to obtain some manner of override code?"

"That… was not me," says Hephastus Bore, staring at his own hand in confusion and intrigue, "I simply… knew the code."

You draw your weapon at that, and nor are you alone, but though Ciro is ready to blast the foe apart and the Carrion present a thicket of spears, there is no immediate threat to be seen. The blast door hisses and then rumbles aside, revealing what you can only assume to have once been a well-stocked armoury, the kind of thing the Inquisition might keep to hand for uprising just like this one. Now the place is a mess, with racks overturned and weapons discarded in piles across the floor, expended shell-casings shining in the light and the dark smudge of old blast marks on the otherwise pristine walls, and though you step cautiously inside you see nothing of real note.

There are bodies here too, of course, corpses left by guard and prisoner alike united in the solemn embrace of death, many of them torn apart by some ancient and feral claw or burned to cinder like a wasted candle. You can't really read the pattern of battle here, why the prisoners would have made it so far as the armoury and no further, but…

"Stop!" Nadia snaps, and beneath the hard command of her tone is a note of deepest, ice-cold fear. "There, on the floor - those are binding runes!"

You look where she is pointing, confused and curious, and… yes, you can see it now. Here and there on the floor of the armoury are scattered faint symbols and arcane marks, each carefully scratched into the metal with the aid of what you can only imagine must have been a powered blade or industrial tool. Some are glowing faintly, you see now that you look, but there seems to be no real pattern to their arrangement save for the single fire-blackened corpse at their centre. Was it some manner of trap, an explosion or hidden inferno? Or was it…

The corpse opens its eyes.

"Hello, my friends," it says in a rasping voice, charred lips pulling back from fire-blackened teeth in a rictus grin, "I am Karnak Zul."

That voice. You know that voice. The air has gone cold, your skin is frozen, your heart is pounding in your ears and all you can think is that you know that voice. The voice that whispered in your head, that sent you to the gun decks.

"...you are a daemon," says Sidhe, somewhere behind you, and the loathing in her voice is as sharp and bitter as a poisoned blade, "This 'Doom' that the broken ones spoke of."

"Just so," Karnak Zul replies, stale yellow eyes coming to rest on the Aeldari. It is still smiling, a horrible rictus grin from a broken corpse, and small spots of blood are welling up at the corners of its stolen mouth. "I am also the architect of your salvation, the reason that cold slumber did not steal life from your bones."

You can taste copper on your tongue, and desperately you try to focus your mind, clamping down on the wild speculation running rampant through your thoughts. Focus, you need to focus, you can't afford distraction at a time like this, in front of a thing like this.

"You are claiming to be the one who derailed the termination protocols," Bore says, and unlike the alien he appears calm, almost detached as he peers at the daemon with his corpse-like eyes. Of course he's calm, you suppose he must have encountered creatures like this before, but… daemons aren't supposed to be able to linger in the material realm, you know that much, how is this Zul still here after two hundred years? "You possess dominion over the machine spirits of this ship, then?"

"No more than any soul has over its neighbour," Zul replies, the blackened and withered limbs slowly straightening out now, lifting him up in defiance of all leverage and strength, "We've spent two hundred years together by now. Enough time, I think, for even the staunchest of foes to come to certain accommodations."

"You called yourself architect of our salvation," Ciro says, and you take some comfort in the fact that his boltgun is trained unwaveringly on the daemon's skull, that there is none of the violent trembling wracking his frame as it does yours. You take inspiration from that, breathing in and out in slow and careful motions, getting your instincts back under control. "You would not have done such a thing without motive, nor would you have trusted to mere gratitude to secure repayment."

"Most perceptive, Legionnaire," the daemon chuckles, a horrible rasping sound like nails through rust. It is still rising, its feet leaving the floor behind to hang weightless in midair, and you can see the withered stick-like limbs are each crowned with manacles of tarnished silver, the chains clattering softly against the deck. "I desire to be freed, for which I require your assistance. You desire to escape, for which you need mine. This ship lacks an astropath or navigator…"

"Because you killed them?" Ciro asks, in a tone of deadly quiet, his aim unwavering, "There are few other reasons we might still be drifting after so long."

"Details, details," Zul chuckles again, the exact same sound as before, a recording on repeat, "The Interrogator sent a light-speed distress call, and went into stasis with his acolytes to await rescue. It will not be long now before one arrives. If you wish to be elsewhere when it does, then you will need guidance through the other realm, guidance that I can provide."

"Be careful," Nadia says in a terse voice, torn between staring at Karnak Zul and the runes etched on the ground around it, several of which are glowing fire-bright by now, "It will have been made with bindings to guarantee loyalty to the Inquisition."

What? Why would it…

"Hardly a current concern," Zul says with that same horrible smile, and you realise in that moment it doesn't know any better, it's trying to be friendly but doesn't know how, "Master Tahr thought himself clever, and in his pride grew complacent. I squirmed free of those chains some time ago."

Tahr. Inquisitor Tahr. The Inquisitor created this thing? But that would… all the time he was tormenting you, all his proud words about innocence and sin, at that very moment…

"That's my point," Nadia replies, smiling grimly, "You were bound, daemon, and yet you managed to wriggle free… and your first act upon attaining even this slight degree of liberation was to butcher thousands and set us drifting through the void in a broken husk. What kind of bargain could possibly be made on such unsteady grounds?"

"You would me, my friend. Can the deeds of two centuries ago be taken as iron writ today?" the daemon replies, the rictus grin slowly starting to fade from the face of the corpse it is bound to, before gesturing at you with slender, taloned hands, "I have demonstrated my good will already, by guiding your compatriot to a possible threat. Trust in our mutual interests, at least."

Everyone present turns to look at you, with expressions that range between the expectant and the curious, and you… and you…

Article:

It appears that Inquisitor Tahr, the man who judged and condemned you, is also the man responsible for binding the daemon Karnak Zul into a prison of mortal flesh. When the shock wears off and your thoughts make sense, what is your emotional reaction to this news?

[ ] Anger. He dared, he dared to sneer and judge and condemn you? Your crimes were born of ignorance and fear, but compared to this monstrosity they are nothing! Anger at Tahr's hypocrisy, and hatred for the system which judges him superior to you, will guide you going forward.

[ ] Confusion. You simply… don't understand. The righteousness of the Inquisition, the blasphemy of demonology, so many other precepts of your life and belief are in conflict. You cannot reconcile them, and that means one or more must be wrong. Soul searching will wait for now, but you need to make this make sense, somehow. It has to make sense.

[ ] Relief. You're not damned, no matter what others might have said, no matter what you might have thought. If binding a daemon is not grounds for damnation, then sheltering with a dark cult in ignorance cannot be either. You are not a wicked man, and so you do not need to embrace death or damnation outright, not yet.

[ ] Write-in

More immediately, your companions are looking to you for your reaction and response to the daemonhost Karnak Zul. Your voice is not the only one that matters, going forwards, but you have a chance to make your opinion known before any decision is taken.

[ ] Common Interest. Trusting a daemon is madness, but you can believe it wants to be free as much as you, and will not sabotage its own chances of success. Watch it carefully, and part ways as soon as your mutual desires are fulfilled.

[ ] Direct Control. Between Nadia and Bore, surely there must be some way to control the daemon, to make certain of its actions and loyalties? You cannot allow it true freedom, but it did not lie when it said you needed it, so use it as one would a dangerous tool and be done.

[ ] Safety First. Kill it, kill it now. Working with a daemon is madness, as is taking its presentation of the path ahead on trust. Destroy the creature, and between the lot of you, find some other way to escape from the Imperium's retribution.

[ ] Write in

(NOTE - Each of your companions has their own opinion. If you think they might not agree with yours, sub-votes presenting any arguments or reasoning you wish to employ would be a good idea. In particular, arguments to persuade Ciro might be wise - this isn't a democracy, after all, and he could fairly easily overrule the lot of you and crush any dissent. Possibly literally. )

 

[Maugan Ra]

The ice cracks, the silence of shock and the world unbalanced falling from your mind like empty shackles, and in its place comes… relief? A soothing balm of calm and self-assurance, quieting the little voice in your mind which worried endlessly at the subject of your own damnation. Ever since you were taken by the Inquisition, since you came to know who and what you were, you have known fear for the fate of your immortal soul. You were a witch, you were a heretic, surely you were bound for the flames of eternal damnation once death finally claimed you.

And yet here you stand, in the presence of a daemon summoned from beyond and bound into servitude by an agent of His Holy Majesty's Imperial Inquisition. That such a deed was conceived and undertaken by an inquisitor, that the very beings in the position to know and understand the full depths of sin and the heights of virtue would do such a thing, outweighs your own crimes by an order of magnitude in any sane world. You do not need to worry, for if you are damned, then so too are the watchmen who claim the right to pass such judgement in the first place.

Such is far from impossible, of course, but how often have you seen this now? One rule for me, another for thee, tools of control and domination masquerading beneath righteousness and proper order? The nobility, the priesthood, every layer of the Imperium rests upon such selective decisions, and now the Inquisition that would stand judgement over them all proves itself to be just another cog in the machine. There is no external authority, no objective measurement by which a man might be called righteous or wicked, only the subjective judgement of men like you. The control is yours again, the chance for a brighter future is yours again, and now… now you just have to decide what to do with it.

"You warned me of Crane's men on the gun decks, it is true," you say, nodding to the demon that stares at you with golden eyes, "but playing one enemy against another means nothing."

"Enemy?" Karnak Zul hisses, tilting its head until the dry flesh of its neck crackles like paper, "We are not enemies. We share enemies. We are friends, united in common interest. Allies."

"I expect you told them much the same," you say grimly, gesturing to the blasted and broken bodies of the original mutineers, scattered across this hold and the hall beyond in the thousands. "Credit me with the wisdom not to make the same mistake."

"The Interrogator, the bird without wings, trapped me here," Zul hisses again, and you think you can see the tip of a forked tongue behind those fire-blackened teeth, "The bargain struck was broken by the action of our foes, not by me."

"A fine excuse, if it is true, but you're banking on trust you simply don't have," you say flatly, because you've heard such deflections before. The last survivor always has a reason why you shouldn't blame them for making it out, and nine times in ten it is a lie. You won't trust this daemon to be the exception, and with that resolve in mind you turn to face the others. "We should kill it, now. Finish the job that Crane started, and find our own way out of here."

Sidhe nods with evident pleasure at that, a slender sword in her hand and a shark's smile on her face, but the others… the others are looking more thoughtful, resistant to your ideas. Nadia is rubbing her jaw, eyes glittering as she weighs up the relative merits of the courses before you, while Bore just makes a strange sort of flapping sound you think is meant to be a tut and shakes his head. Ciro says nothing, does nothing, an emotionless statue that nonetheless draws in the attention of the rest of the group like a whirlpool, until you're all hanging on his decision.

"Lady Black," the angel says at last, his voice low and smooth, a flatterer taking you into his confidence, "what is your assessment of the daemon's current bindings. Are they enough to hold it in place?"

"I would say so," Nadia frowns at the runes on the floor for a moment, folding her arms and chewing her bottom lip, "The lexicon isn't the sort I'm used to, but the basic elements seem similar enough. If I had to make a call… they'll hold it as long as nothing crosses them."

"Crane always was a diligent student," Karnak Zul chuckles wetly, a small bubble of blood forming on its lips and trickling down the chin, "No match for his master, not yet, but diligent and strong of will. Perhaps he will overcome you, even now."

"I see," Ciro says evenly, nodding once, "Everyone, leave the room."

"What?" You step forwards, glancing between the marine and the daemon as though something in their expressions might bring sense to this decision, "You mean…"

Ciro looks at you. He does not glare, does not snarl, does not speak a single word. He simply fixes you with a single level gaze, and just like that the words die in your throat. What do you hope to accomplish, throwing defiance in the face of a man like this? What mad hubris moved you to object to an angel's command? You don't have an answer, and before any conscious thought can form you find your gaze lowering and your feet carrying you from the room, the others following silently in your wake. Ciro watches you go, and a moment later is lost to sight as the bulkhead door slides back into place behind you with a dull thump. Leaving him alone in the room with the daemon, and the rest of you exiled to the corridor like naughty school children.

Why did you obey? You didn't even want to, your reasoning is sound, Ciro owes you at least some kind of consideration but… he just told you to leave, and you did. You hesitate for a moment, trying to sort out your feelings, but wherever your eyes come to rest you find only another corpse, another splatter of blood, another reminder of the brutal tragedy that occured here while you were lost to slumber. Eventually you seek sanctuary in conversation instead.

"This feels like a mistake," you sigh, turning towards Nadia, "doing anything except killing it feels like a mistake. You're the demonologist, tell me how it's not."

You want there to be an answer. You want an explanation that Ciro perceived and you did not, a justification for his decision to exile you all while he handled whatever he seeks to do from your prying eyes. You want the insult, the backhanded dismissal, to stop stinging.

"It could work," Nadia says uncertainly, chewing her lip and letting your hopes fall in the gore at her feet.

"Could isn't a good word to hear, given the consequences of getting it wrong," you snap, gesturing to the broken bodies all around you, and Nadia flinches for a moment before rounding on you with a gleam of fire in her eyes.

"What do you want me to say, Vincenzo? Do you want me to pat your head and tell you everything will be fine?" She says in a voice like poisoned honey, drawing warning looks from the Carrion lurking further down the corridor, "I can't do that. Not without knowing the language and methodology of its bindings, or speaking with those who do. I cannot even tell you what kind of daemon it is!"

She stops there, breathing hard, and you wince before bowing your head in silent apology. She doesn't deserve to become the target of your anger and frustration, not when she's in just as much turmoil as you. "I see. Does… does the nature of the daemon matter? It's still a daemon."

"Emperor save me from confident amateurs," Nadia groans, waving off your apology with a smile and rubbing her brow for a moment. She looks to Bore, but whatever expertise the tech-priest has he seems disinclined to share it. "We don't have time to get into the full details, but yes, it matters, quite possibly more than any other single factor. There are… hmm… there are daemons and there are daemons, if you follow?"

"No, but I suspect you weren't expecting otherwise," you say dryly, your confidence returning with the conversation, "My experience of daemons has just been a sense of… well, hunger, a sense that there is something just on the other side of a thin divide that wants to eat me. Instinct, you know? I've never seen one."

For a moment Nadia looks intrigued, her eyes tracing you up and down with a thoroughness that feels intimate enough to verge on violation, but she doesn't address your words. Perhaps she intends to wait for a more palatable setting to probe you for your instincts on matters daemonic.

"Most daemons are feral beasts, mindless expressions of hunger and instinct. They're dangerous, certainly, but in the same way a sabretooth is, without anything more than animal cunning to pit against you," she says instead, her voice taking on an almost lecturing tone. "Unfortunately, those are also the weakest of the immaterial hosts. The stronger the daemon, the smarter and more complex it becomes, the more developed the concept it embodies, and consequently the harder it is to summon and bind with any success. Thus, the demonologist's work is a constant balancing act, a trade off that you hope you judged correctly, a gamble on your understanding."

Ah, this speech. You've heard the likes of it before, whenever your noble patrons liked to wax philosophic about men like you, and other hired killers in their employ. The belief that keeping an unstable murderer with a bunch of poorly managed personality quirks and psychoses around was a sign of intelligence and wit, akin to a weapon that required mastery to wield. Frankly, you always found the concept rather insulting. A madman with a sword is considerably less dangerous than a professional like yourself, they simply talk a big game and confuse bravado with capability.

"And this Karnak Zul?" You say, because bringing up the comparison is unlikely to result in anything productive, "How… powerful, complex, developed… would you say it is?"

"I have no idea," Nadia says with a sigh, "Which is why I would never be so foolish as to attempt a binding. It is clearly intelligent enough to maintain a false identity and stay reasonably coherent after two hundred years, but not powerful or cunning enough to have breached the wards that hold it. It could be anything or nothing, and I should dearly like more time to determine which before I place our lives in its hands, but we might not have the option."

Well, that's far from a reassuring thought, but it seems it is all you are going to get. The door behind you slides back open with a low roar, and Ciro steps out into the corridor. Your heart leaps into your throat for a moment as you turn, but… no, the daemon has not been released, it yet remains floating in the middle of the room where the bindings yet hold it.

"You are done with the Doom, wanderer?" Queen Scarna calls from atop her palanquin, sounding thoroughly bored of the whole theatre, "Where go we now then?"

"The bridge of the ship, for that is where we shall find Interrogator Crane," Ciro says in a calm and confident voice, gesturing further down the corridor to the point where the corpses cease. "It has only one intended entry, a lift shaft that opens into a killing field, but can also be accessed via a series of ducts that carry air and power cables. Bore and the Aeldari have the mobility to exploit these, and so shall use them to cause a critical diversion at the moment of our attack."

He turns to you, smiling, and you are struck by how flawless his face is. The strength of his jaw, the perfect contours of his bald scalp, it's all distressingly appealing and yet undeniably artificial. Was he a man once, or did some celestial smith simply carve another angel from the stone of the heavenly mountain?

"Vincenzo and I will take the main lift, along with Nadia and the Carrion," the Astartes continues after a moment, nodding to you, "I will draw their fire and retaliate, Vincenzo shall identify and engage Crane, and the Carrion will deal with any other agents that the Interrogator happens to have. The priority is to secure the bridge without any damage to the systems or machines there, for we shall need them in order to effect an escape."

...he's not asking for your opinions. This is an order, a battle-plan being handed down by a commander, the assumption of authority. You did not discuss such a thing, did not agree to it, and yet… the memory of that look, of the silent promise of death when he found you in the wake of Crane's spurious offer. Will you, dare you, defy him on this? Do you have an alternative, will the others support it, will you refuse his authority?

Will you survive it if you do?

Article:

This is not a debate over tactics, or a vote on how to proceed. Ciro is asserting command over your group and giving orders. Are you with him, or against him? Will you obey his authority, or defy it? Why?

[ ] Obey. You will follow Ciro's orders, both today and in the future.
- [ ] Begrudgingly. Ciro is not an enemy to be made lightly, and you do not think he will take defiance well. Bow your head, follow his orders, but keep your eyes open. An opportunity will come sooner or later, you just need to be ready.
- [ ] Sincerely. You could do much worse for patrons than a charismatic space marine, and you need a patron to survive and prosper in this galaxy. He seeks authority? Let him have it.

[ ] Defy. Angel or not, you will not simply stand by and let Ciro step into the role of your master.
- [ ] How will you persuade the others to support you? (Write in)
- [ ] How will you survive, should Ciro take issue with your defiance? (Write in)