- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Plan: Stick with what worked!
[X] Plan Three-Armed Sky Bandits
[X] Plan Three-Armed Sky Bandits
WARHAMMER 40,000: Genestealer Management Quest 2
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Banditos!
Legacies, Legends and Losers (0.3)
New
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The ship was called the Lex Imperailus Supremitatus.
The trip was to take six months, subjective ship time, and twenty three months by the chronometer of the Administratum scribe in charge of managing route from the sector capital to Thedias Prime to Aquiocrypt.
The Lex Imperailus Supremiatus arrived after sixteen years, nine months, five days, and fifty six thousand corpses.
She smacked her lips.
Counted her teeth with her fingers.
Then she got her third arm under her and shoved herself up, sighing softly.
"Fuck my head..." she moaned, rolling her head slowly on her neck, twisting it around and around with a cartilaginous crack and crackle that reverberated up along the back of her head, to her forehead ridges. She had gotten drunk last night.
Really. Really. Really drunk.
She stood and walked to the window of her small, scrap metal room and peered out through slitted eyes at the clamor and shouting of the Break. The streets were the same corrugated metal as her floor - lashed together over the lapping water, thick with algae that grew in strands and froths, sometimes cut apart by skimboats as they buzzed under the walkways. The buildings themselves were a mixture of the corrugated metal and steel and the spire-tips that thrust up from beneath the seas. The tips still had some measure of grandeur, despite age, wear, and chiseling them for building materials. White stone glittered and ancient statues that hadn't been completely obliterated peeked out around it all.
Past the spire-tips, there were the bright blue sky, the white clouds, the distant glint of a whalesland hunter airship, their long spears dangling from the back of the vehicle like the fins of a parrageet. Frey stepped away from the window, her headache fading moment by moment - thanks, Mom - and started considering her plan for the rest of the day. She was running low on thrones from her last job. She pursed her lips.
Getting a new job was always touch and go, even in the biggest city on the planet. The Break was as lawless as any place in the Imperium, and even they looked askance at mutants. Even mutants as useful as she was. She stepped away from the window, brushing her third hand through her hair and rubbing her lowers together when-
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The reverberations of the fist against the door were remarkably loud. Frey tensed.
"...who is it?" she asked.
There was a muffled click of iron and steel shifting in well oiled grips. Frey's ears perked and she hesitated, then called out.
"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't Frey the Mu-"
Three holes exploded into the doorway - large caliber bullets ripping through the thin sheet metal as if it wasn't even there. Frey flung herself to the side, rolled, and came up against the wall, her narrow frame barely protected by the only other piece of furniture in the flop-room: An old wood cabinet that had been carved by a not particularly skilled craftsman. She snatched her snub-revolver from it, her eyes shifting subtly. For a moment, she saw the blurry outline of warmth. Two shooters, one of them was lifting his foot.
He kicked in the door.
She snapped her pistol up and shot him in the head.
The shooter sprawled with a spray of blood and bone, while the other - he had the Slagdog's traditional red paint, tossed something.
Frey saw that it was a flash grenade seconds too late. She kicked at it once...and everything went blinding white and ringing. She slashed, clawed, and even got her teeth into something tough and possibly fleshy. She worried at it until something cracked into her temple. Then everything made her fleeting hangover seem like the caress of a particularly handsome man. When she blinked away the pain, she was laying on her back, with her third arm lashed to her lower two, and her pistol was in the hand of a furious looking Slagdog, while his buddy's corpse was being checked by two more who had arrived from downstairs.
"Did you really think you could piss of the SCS and not be in a whole ocean of trouble, Frey the Mutant?" The Slagdog who had kicked her in the head glowered.
"Yeah, I was kinda figuring," Frey said, before she could stop herself. "What with the whole general level of-"
He didn't even let the quip come off - instead, he kicked her in the stomach. Frey grunted low in her throat, wheezed. "Fuck!" She gasped it out around a rising gorge.
"Listen, mutie," the Slagdog said, kneeling down, his voice a quiet growl. "You put three of my men in the hospice and two into the morgue. And you think you can just...make jokes about it?"
"F...For the last...time!" Frey hissed out through her clenched teeth. "If...you don't...want to get shot...don't open fire at a fucking orphanage you piece of shit!" SHe glared at him. "You assholes were the ones who took the job that got between infront of my fucking gun barrels, you can't get mad at me because I'm fucking better than you!"
The Slagdog sneered. "If you're better than me..." he said, then nodded. Some people she hadn't noticed in her haze of pain and anger grabbed onto the rope and started to haul - and the netting she had around her legs perforce made her drag, drag, drag along the metal. "Then why do you have three arms and purple skin? Freak?"
"Because at least my mom had fucking taste, you ass-"
They did not try and make her route down the stairs comfortable.
That was the background to Frey's winching.
A grunt, the squeak of pullies, ropes and wheels, and then in the background, the servo skull's bleating voice.
"Bzzt! No sacred rift chip detected. Report to Omnisiah for immediate servitoriziation."
Grunt. Squeal.
"Bzzt! Unacceptable levels of rust detected. Report to Station-12 for immediate servitorization."
Grunt.
Squeal.
"Bzzt-"
"Yes, yes, we all get it, it's fucking trash!" Frey shouted from where she hung by her ankles, her body suspended over the thick, gloopy pit of recycling algae that the Break used as their various refuse pits and middens. A few youths had arrived to watch her execution, but most people had taken a glance, seen the extra arm, and decided that they had seen mutants being slaughtered before and carried out. The red robed scribe jerked his head around, blinking at her, as if he had never imagined a mutant - let alone one being winched - might talk to him.
The Slagdog mercs who surrounded her glowered at Frey.
"Shut her up," one said, but she was suspended far enough out over the midden that they couldn't reach her effectively with a gun butt. And it wasn't fun to laser her and then drop her in - she wouldn't scream as much then.
Frey, though, seeing the scribe's attention, added. "Also, this is an illegal operation! These stupid motherfuckers forgot! I! Did! My! Paperwork!" She wriggled as blood rushed to her head, pounding in her temples. It was a lie, but it was a lie that would get her a few more seconds.
"Is that the case?" the scribe asked, sounding genuinely shocked.
"This mutie bitch has been-" The leader of the Slagdogs said.
"It's in my left front pocket!" Frey shouted. "Just...let me down and check it!"
"We're not letting her down," the Slagdog leader said, while the scribe ambled over. He was a rail thin stork of a man and the faint hum of suspensors under his robes made Frey think he might have grown up somewhere with much, much, much less gravity than here. She gulped, licking her lips as she looked up at her ankles, then down at him again. She just had to get free for a few seconds, then-
"They're not even the Break's enforcers," Frey added. "These are Slagdog Corporated Solutions - they don't even know what corporated means, it's not even a real word, they're criminals! Thieves!"
"She's a mutant!" The Slagdog leader shouted.
The scribe looked between them, frowning intently. "It won't take much time to check the forms and ensure they're properly obeyed. After all, we wouldn't want this procedure to go off the proscribed traditions of Aquiocrypt and the Imperium et large - since, those traditions, those mores, those ways of life are precisely what it is that we, in the Administratum have been sworn to protect. One might say that proper procedures are as close to the divine majesty as it is possible to get in this unsacred and unclean world..."
Frey nodded, nodded again. "Yeah, yeah," she said, interjecting between words. "He's right. We have to do it by the book. You don't want to be impious."
The Slagdog looked as if he was genuinely considering shooting the scribe and throwing him into the muck pit. Frey, meanwhile, noticed that the people the servo skull had sentenced to a fate far worse than death had quietly started to leave, hastily throwing the stuff they had brought to show into the water before they did so. The Slagdog, his finger on his temple, breathed in, then breathed out through his nose.
Which was when Frey noticed the big red dot on his chest. It slowly tracked up to his brow.
He noticed her noticing.
"What?" he asked.
Frey opened her mouth.
Then the dot vanished from the Slagdog's head. Some instinct made her look down - up, actually, since she was hanging with her head towards the muck - and saw the red dot glimmering on the rope connecting her ankles to the scaffolding for her winching.
"Oh this is gonna suck," Frey said, conversationally.
A lasbolt punched through the synth-leather and steel with a hissing crack and dropped her, head first, into the muck. However, it did so while also freeing her ankles. She writhed in the thick, gloopy material, kicked hard, then burst out, splattering screaming people with her muck as she spun around to face the Slagdog, who was fumbling for his pistol, his friends having (wisely, but incorrectly) started aiming their lasguns in every direction but at her, looking around wildly for the shooter. Frey leaped at the Slagdog, slamming her feet into his chest, and dropped onto her back on the deck. One of the other mercs swung his lasgun around to shoot her - and then a lasbolt zipped through his ear as if he was a shot at a carny game. He dropped, superheated steam-blood shooting from his nostrils and opening mouth.
Frey meanwhile had rolled around, gotten her three hands close to the prone Slagdog leader, and snatched his knife from his belt. Her wrists sprang free with a splash of some of her own dark black blood - and then she snatched his pistol from his hands and started to run. She sprinted for the water...and stopped dead. She had planned to simply dive in and swim for it, but a skimboat had cruised up and two robed figures were on the back.
"Freyxiat, daughter of Terjia!" one shouted. "Heir to Shexi the Liberator! Get on the boat!"
"...oh no, not you assholes again!" Frey said.
"Get on the fucking boat, woman!" The other said, sweeping her hood back, revealing a furious looking, slender male with dark black hair. "We do not have time for the sixteen steps of the penitent warrior! Get on the fucking boat!"
Frey looked back. The Break's enforcers were starting to arrive, and the Slagdogs were pointing at her.
"Ah...warp fuck damn shit fuck fine!" She leaped off the walkway, landed on the boat, and nearly fell overboard as the motor kicked on and they screamed away from the center of the Break while lasbolts and small projectiles peppered the water after them with steam and splashes.
"We picked up your trail after the orphanage job," the woman said, then folded the map shut. She smirked. "Couldn't help yourself."
Frey scowled. "They paid well."
"An orphanage, run by the followers of St. Argentia?" The man asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "They paid well?"
Frey glowered at him. "I'm not a hero," she said, turning her head away and watching the waves. "I get paid, I move on. And I'm not picking any jobs that run me up against real mercs anymore."
The woman chuckled.
"What if you actually did something with your life?" the man asked.
"Like what? Try and get myself killed? Like my mother?" Frey asked, glaring at him. "I was born on Aquio! I was born here. Not on some far off planet, not on some voidship. Here!" She slapped the side of the boat. "And I'm not part of some...crazy fucking cult. I'm just a mutant."
"You don't even know what you are," the man said, shaking his head.
"A mutant, do...do you not know how to fucking count!?" Frey asked, waggling an arm.
The man pursed his lip, while the woman said: You've never known true connection, thanks to the terrors of the crossing, the difficulties of surviving on Aquiocrypt. I don't blame you for your fury, Frey.
Frey nodded. "Well, I-" she stopped dead, then gaped at the woman.
The woman gave her a thin smile. As I said, you've never known the connection of being in the Sisterhood.
Frey scowled. "Get out of my head."
I'm not in your head, the woman thought and somehow, Frey knew her name was Arjida. We're in the same mind - the same shared intelligence. We are part of one another. It is how humans are meant to be.
Frey crossed her arms over her chest, her third grabbing onto the edge of the boat. "Where are we going, Arji?"
"To that," the man said - and Frey knew his name was Torin. She had faint, faint memories of a Torin, from the terrifying days of her earliest life. She shied away from them - and then stood, slowly, her jaw dropping as she looked up...at the airship. The two balloons were merely stabilization for the triple set of heavy agrav engines, and the wide, metal hull gleamed with new paint. The gunports were well maintained, and the side opened onto a hanger with some scrap-built glidewings and heavy skimmers. Frey gulped, slowly.
"...what do you need me for?" she whispered.
"As much as you can give," Arjida said, her voice gentle. "And as much as you want to take."
---
Here is what is common knowledge on Aquiocrypt: There is a large and powerful merc company called Slagdog Corporated Solutions. The largest city is The Break, built at the very edge of ancient ruins that jut from the floor of the ocean. The Administratium orbits overhead, managing the purchase and sale of the planet's vast foodstuffs. Whaleisland hunters are nomadic tribes of hunetrs that hunt whaleslands. What are those? Well, the name is pretty indicative!
[ ] Attack BLANK (Might + Treasure VS Might + Territory)
[ ] Being Informed (Influence + Soverignty vs Diff 1)
[ ] Spying on BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Influence BLANK to do BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Increase your Sovereignty (Territory + Treasure vs Diff [Current Sovereignty])
[ ] Police BLANK (Might + Sovereignty vs Influence + Might)
[ ] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
[ ] Unconventional Warfare (write plan in)
The trip was to take six months, subjective ship time, and twenty three months by the chronometer of the Administratum scribe in charge of managing route from the sector capital to Thedias Prime to Aquiocrypt.
The Lex Imperailus Supremiatus arrived after sixteen years, nine months, five days, and fifty six thousand corpses.
***
Fifty Years Later.
***
Dappled sunlight shone in through the narrow curtains of Frey's room as she sprawled on her belly, her arms stretching above her head. She groaned quietly, and then pushed her head up, her brow furrowing. She was trying to think through the rumbling in her brain and the squirming in her gut.Fifty Years Later.
***
She smacked her lips.
Counted her teeth with her fingers.
Then she got her third arm under her and shoved herself up, sighing softly.
"Fuck my head..." she moaned, rolling her head slowly on her neck, twisting it around and around with a cartilaginous crack and crackle that reverberated up along the back of her head, to her forehead ridges. She had gotten drunk last night.
Really. Really. Really drunk.
She stood and walked to the window of her small, scrap metal room and peered out through slitted eyes at the clamor and shouting of the Break. The streets were the same corrugated metal as her floor - lashed together over the lapping water, thick with algae that grew in strands and froths, sometimes cut apart by skimboats as they buzzed under the walkways. The buildings themselves were a mixture of the corrugated metal and steel and the spire-tips that thrust up from beneath the seas. The tips still had some measure of grandeur, despite age, wear, and chiseling them for building materials. White stone glittered and ancient statues that hadn't been completely obliterated peeked out around it all.
Past the spire-tips, there were the bright blue sky, the white clouds, the distant glint of a whalesland hunter airship, their long spears dangling from the back of the vehicle like the fins of a parrageet. Frey stepped away from the window, her headache fading moment by moment - thanks, Mom - and started considering her plan for the rest of the day. She was running low on thrones from her last job. She pursed her lips.
Getting a new job was always touch and go, even in the biggest city on the planet. The Break was as lawless as any place in the Imperium, and even they looked askance at mutants. Even mutants as useful as she was. She stepped away from the window, brushing her third hand through her hair and rubbing her lowers together when-
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The reverberations of the fist against the door were remarkably loud. Frey tensed.
"...who is it?" she asked.
There was a muffled click of iron and steel shifting in well oiled grips. Frey's ears perked and she hesitated, then called out.
"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't Frey the Mu-"
Three holes exploded into the doorway - large caliber bullets ripping through the thin sheet metal as if it wasn't even there. Frey flung herself to the side, rolled, and came up against the wall, her narrow frame barely protected by the only other piece of furniture in the flop-room: An old wood cabinet that had been carved by a not particularly skilled craftsman. She snatched her snub-revolver from it, her eyes shifting subtly. For a moment, she saw the blurry outline of warmth. Two shooters, one of them was lifting his foot.
He kicked in the door.
She snapped her pistol up and shot him in the head.
The shooter sprawled with a spray of blood and bone, while the other - he had the Slagdog's traditional red paint, tossed something.
Frey saw that it was a flash grenade seconds too late. She kicked at it once...and everything went blinding white and ringing. She slashed, clawed, and even got her teeth into something tough and possibly fleshy. She worried at it until something cracked into her temple. Then everything made her fleeting hangover seem like the caress of a particularly handsome man. When she blinked away the pain, she was laying on her back, with her third arm lashed to her lower two, and her pistol was in the hand of a furious looking Slagdog, while his buddy's corpse was being checked by two more who had arrived from downstairs.
"Did you really think you could piss of the SCS and not be in a whole ocean of trouble, Frey the Mutant?" The Slagdog who had kicked her in the head glowered.
"Yeah, I was kinda figuring," Frey said, before she could stop herself. "What with the whole general level of-"
He didn't even let the quip come off - instead, he kicked her in the stomach. Frey grunted low in her throat, wheezed. "Fuck!" She gasped it out around a rising gorge.
"Listen, mutie," the Slagdog said, kneeling down, his voice a quiet growl. "You put three of my men in the hospice and two into the morgue. And you think you can just...make jokes about it?"
"F...For the last...time!" Frey hissed out through her clenched teeth. "If...you don't...want to get shot...don't open fire at a fucking orphanage you piece of shit!" SHe glared at him. "You assholes were the ones who took the job that got between infront of my fucking gun barrels, you can't get mad at me because I'm fucking better than you!"
The Slagdog sneered. "If you're better than me..." he said, then nodded. Some people she hadn't noticed in her haze of pain and anger grabbed onto the rope and started to haul - and the netting she had around her legs perforce made her drag, drag, drag along the metal. "Then why do you have three arms and purple skin? Freak?"
"Because at least my mom had fucking taste, you ass-"
They did not try and make her route down the stairs comfortable.
***
The only thing approaching Imperial authority in the Break was the administratum scribe who was handling, among many things, the list of shipments that were going to be launched from the wharves up to orbit, where waiting ships could haul the whalesland blubber, the distilled keplery, the fish caches, and the other assorted goods of Aquiocrypt to wherever else they needed to go. Some few of those shuttles included what odds and ends had been dived up from the Ancient City - which meant that the scribe had also been given a small servo-skull, which hummed quietly as it floated by his shoulder. Any time someone came up with a rusted, corroded trinket that they hoped might be techno-sorcery, the skull would scan it and, inevitably, state some ignominious error code.
That was the background to Frey's winching.
A grunt, the squeak of pullies, ropes and wheels, and then in the background, the servo skull's bleating voice.
"Bzzt! No sacred rift chip detected. Report to Omnisiah for immediate servitoriziation."
Grunt. Squeal.
"Bzzt! Unacceptable levels of rust detected. Report to Station-12 for immediate servitorization."
Grunt.
Squeal.
"Bzzt-"
"Yes, yes, we all get it, it's fucking trash!" Frey shouted from where she hung by her ankles, her body suspended over the thick, gloopy pit of recycling algae that the Break used as their various refuse pits and middens. A few youths had arrived to watch her execution, but most people had taken a glance, seen the extra arm, and decided that they had seen mutants being slaughtered before and carried out. The red robed scribe jerked his head around, blinking at her, as if he had never imagined a mutant - let alone one being winched - might talk to him.
The Slagdog mercs who surrounded her glowered at Frey.
"Shut her up," one said, but she was suspended far enough out over the midden that they couldn't reach her effectively with a gun butt. And it wasn't fun to laser her and then drop her in - she wouldn't scream as much then.
Frey, though, seeing the scribe's attention, added. "Also, this is an illegal operation! These stupid motherfuckers forgot! I! Did! My! Paperwork!" She wriggled as blood rushed to her head, pounding in her temples. It was a lie, but it was a lie that would get her a few more seconds.
"Is that the case?" the scribe asked, sounding genuinely shocked.
"This mutie bitch has been-" The leader of the Slagdogs said.
"It's in my left front pocket!" Frey shouted. "Just...let me down and check it!"
"We're not letting her down," the Slagdog leader said, while the scribe ambled over. He was a rail thin stork of a man and the faint hum of suspensors under his robes made Frey think he might have grown up somewhere with much, much, much less gravity than here. She gulped, licking her lips as she looked up at her ankles, then down at him again. She just had to get free for a few seconds, then-
"They're not even the Break's enforcers," Frey added. "These are Slagdog Corporated Solutions - they don't even know what corporated means, it's not even a real word, they're criminals! Thieves!"
"She's a mutant!" The Slagdog leader shouted.
The scribe looked between them, frowning intently. "It won't take much time to check the forms and ensure they're properly obeyed. After all, we wouldn't want this procedure to go off the proscribed traditions of Aquiocrypt and the Imperium et large - since, those traditions, those mores, those ways of life are precisely what it is that we, in the Administratum have been sworn to protect. One might say that proper procedures are as close to the divine majesty as it is possible to get in this unsacred and unclean world..."
Frey nodded, nodded again. "Yeah, yeah," she said, interjecting between words. "He's right. We have to do it by the book. You don't want to be impious."
The Slagdog looked as if he was genuinely considering shooting the scribe and throwing him into the muck pit. Frey, meanwhile, noticed that the people the servo skull had sentenced to a fate far worse than death had quietly started to leave, hastily throwing the stuff they had brought to show into the water before they did so. The Slagdog, his finger on his temple, breathed in, then breathed out through his nose.
Which was when Frey noticed the big red dot on his chest. It slowly tracked up to his brow.
He noticed her noticing.
"What?" he asked.
Frey opened her mouth.
Then the dot vanished from the Slagdog's head. Some instinct made her look down - up, actually, since she was hanging with her head towards the muck - and saw the red dot glimmering on the rope connecting her ankles to the scaffolding for her winching.
"Oh this is gonna suck," Frey said, conversationally.
A lasbolt punched through the synth-leather and steel with a hissing crack and dropped her, head first, into the muck. However, it did so while also freeing her ankles. She writhed in the thick, gloopy material, kicked hard, then burst out, splattering screaming people with her muck as she spun around to face the Slagdog, who was fumbling for his pistol, his friends having (wisely, but incorrectly) started aiming their lasguns in every direction but at her, looking around wildly for the shooter. Frey leaped at the Slagdog, slamming her feet into his chest, and dropped onto her back on the deck. One of the other mercs swung his lasgun around to shoot her - and then a lasbolt zipped through his ear as if he was a shot at a carny game. He dropped, superheated steam-blood shooting from his nostrils and opening mouth.
Frey meanwhile had rolled around, gotten her three hands close to the prone Slagdog leader, and snatched his knife from his belt. Her wrists sprang free with a splash of some of her own dark black blood - and then she snatched his pistol from his hands and started to run. She sprinted for the water...and stopped dead. She had planned to simply dive in and swim for it, but a skimboat had cruised up and two robed figures were on the back.
"Freyxiat, daughter of Terjia!" one shouted. "Heir to Shexi the Liberator! Get on the boat!"
"...oh no, not you assholes again!" Frey said.
"Get on the fucking boat, woman!" The other said, sweeping her hood back, revealing a furious looking, slender male with dark black hair. "We do not have time for the sixteen steps of the penitent warrior! Get on the fucking boat!"
Frey looked back. The Break's enforcers were starting to arrive, and the Slagdogs were pointing at her.
"Ah...warp fuck damn shit fuck fine!" She leaped off the walkway, landed on the boat, and nearly fell overboard as the motor kicked on and they screamed away from the center of the Break while lasbolts and small projectiles peppered the water after them with steam and splashes.
***
The Break was a rapidly dwindling edge on the endless horizon of water, peaks and tiny islets before Frey's heart stopped hammering. She leaned against the side of the boat, while the man who piloted it and the woman who had called her by her full name checked a map. "So..." Frey said, hesitantly, looking at the woman. She had a slightly higher forehead than most Aquiocrypters, and the very faint V of a ridge that reminded Frey of her own mutations. "...how long have you been following me?"
"We picked up your trail after the orphanage job," the woman said, then folded the map shut. She smirked. "Couldn't help yourself."
Frey scowled. "They paid well."
"An orphanage, run by the followers of St. Argentia?" The man asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "They paid well?"
Frey glowered at him. "I'm not a hero," she said, turning her head away and watching the waves. "I get paid, I move on. And I'm not picking any jobs that run me up against real mercs anymore."
The woman chuckled.
"What if you actually did something with your life?" the man asked.
"Like what? Try and get myself killed? Like my mother?" Frey asked, glaring at him. "I was born on Aquio! I was born here. Not on some far off planet, not on some voidship. Here!" She slapped the side of the boat. "And I'm not part of some...crazy fucking cult. I'm just a mutant."
"You don't even know what you are," the man said, shaking his head.
"A mutant, do...do you not know how to fucking count!?" Frey asked, waggling an arm.
The man pursed his lip, while the woman said: You've never known true connection, thanks to the terrors of the crossing, the difficulties of surviving on Aquiocrypt. I don't blame you for your fury, Frey.
Frey nodded. "Well, I-" she stopped dead, then gaped at the woman.
The woman gave her a thin smile. As I said, you've never known the connection of being in the Sisterhood.
Frey scowled. "Get out of my head."
I'm not in your head, the woman thought and somehow, Frey knew her name was Arjida. We're in the same mind - the same shared intelligence. We are part of one another. It is how humans are meant to be.
Frey crossed her arms over her chest, her third grabbing onto the edge of the boat. "Where are we going, Arji?"
"To that," the man said - and Frey knew his name was Torin. She had faint, faint memories of a Torin, from the terrifying days of her earliest life. She shied away from them - and then stood, slowly, her jaw dropping as she looked up...at the airship. The two balloons were merely stabilization for the triple set of heavy agrav engines, and the wide, metal hull gleamed with new paint. The gunports were well maintained, and the side opened onto a hanger with some scrap-built glidewings and heavy skimmers. Frey gulped, slowly.
"...what do you need me for?" she whispered.
"As much as you can give," Arjida said, her voice gentle. "And as much as you want to take."
---
THE AIRSHIP LEVITHAN
MIGHT: 2 | TREASURE: 2 | INFLUENCE: 0 | TERRITORY: 0 | SOVEREIGNTY: 2
Kelermorphs: +2d to unconventional warfare (not escaping)
Areospace Assets: +2d to might rolls involving airspace
Revolutionary Rhetoric: -1d to raise Sov or Might
MIGHT: 2 | TREASURE: 2 | INFLUENCE: 0 | TERRITORY: 0 | SOVEREIGNTY: 2
Kelermorphs: +2d to unconventional warfare (not escaping)
Areospace Assets: +2d to might rolls involving airspace
Revolutionary Rhetoric: -1d to raise Sov or Might
Here is what is common knowledge on Aquiocrypt: There is a large and powerful merc company called Slagdog Corporated Solutions. The largest city is The Break, built at the very edge of ancient ruins that jut from the floor of the ocean. The Administratium orbits overhead, managing the purchase and sale of the planet's vast foodstuffs. Whaleisland hunters are nomadic tribes of hunetrs that hunt whaleslands. What are those? Well, the name is pretty indicative!
[ ] Attack BLANK (Might + Treasure VS Might + Territory)
[ ] Being Informed (Influence + Soverignty vs Diff 1)
[ ] Spying on BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Influence BLANK to do BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Increase your Sovereignty (Territory + Treasure vs Diff [Current Sovereignty])
[ ] Police BLANK (Might + Sovereignty vs Influence + Might)
[ ] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
[ ] Unconventional Warfare (write plan in)
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Kellermorph gonna Kellermorph. Heroic shenanigans are literally in their DNA.
Also, I want to increase territory, so I've got an idea, but I'm not sure what it falls under.
[] The Break is the largest city on Aquiocrypt, but it isn't the only one. The others are smaller, jankier, and less well equipped …. But also much further from imperial authority, tenuous as it is already. And most of them need to worry about piracy or other unscrupulous business, whilst not being able to pay the "protection fees" of the Slagdogs. There are at least a few towns that would welcome cheap protection in exchange for a safe port and quietly ignoring any irregularities concerning their protectors. (Increase territory)
@DragonCobolt What would we roll for this? I'm thinking Influence and might or might and treasure.
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10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Increasing territory is done by stealing it from someone else, IIRC.
So we'd have to identify and attack a faction.
I figure we're not so much attacking here as showing up very heavily armed and offering to shoot pirates in exchange for land.
But mechanically we're "attacking" a small outpost/town.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
What you want to do is find them first, which would be a gather information check!
ANd if you can find a town and help them out and they incorporate into you, you can get territory that way!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
IMO we should increase our Might and Treasury first, then work on getting informed.
Well first I say we boost our influence, then do being informed, then incorporate a township. So….
[X] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sounds good to me
[X] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
[X] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
[X] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
-[X] There exists many an impetuous youth among the WhaleIsland hunters, and the village elders are often not unwilling to part with them in exchange for aerial spotting and aid with one their hunts. It's not entirely safe, no hunt is, but you can make friends and recruit some much needed muscle with ease.
Just a slightly different path.
-[X] There exists many an impetuous youth among the WhaleIsland hunters, and the village elders are often not unwilling to part with them in exchange for aerial spotting and aid with one their hunts. It's not entirely safe, no hunt is, but you can make friends and recruit some much needed muscle with ease.
Just a slightly different path.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
Actually I like that a bit more. EDIT: Nvm I think more info is better atm, maybe for next turn.
[] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
-[] There exists many an impetuous youth among the WhaleIsland hunters, and the village elders are often not unwilling to part with them in exchange for aerial spotting and aid with one their hunts. It's not entirely safe, no hunt is, but you can make friends and recruit some much needed muscle with ease.
-[] There exists many an impetuous youth among the WhaleIsland hunters, and the village elders are often not unwilling to part with them in exchange for aerial spotting and aid with one their hunts. It's not entirely safe, no hunt is, but you can make friends and recruit some much needed muscle with ease.
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DracoDracul
Transbian Communist
- Location
- Austin
- Pronouns
- She/They
I should note that to raise might right now we need to get a set of 2 or higher on just 2 base dice.
You know there would be something really tragic if when the Nids came down to a world with a lot of Genestealer cults most Kellermorphs died fighting to the last. Why work out a sophisticated double consciousness when you can make a hero for the downtrodden and just eat them when their purpose is done?
[X] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
I definitely think we need to know who the players are, and we need influence to do so.
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
I definitely think we need to know who the players are, and we need influence to do so.
We need everything. Let's go for what sounds most interesting.
[X] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
-[X] There exists many an impetuous youth among the WhaleIsland hunters, and the village elders are often not unwilling to part with them in exchange for aerial spotting and aid with one their hunts. It's not entirely safe, no hunt is, but you can make friends and recruit some much needed muscle with ease.
This setting is very fun so far 🤌
[X] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
-[X] There exists many an impetuous youth among the WhaleIsland hunters, and the village elders are often not unwilling to part with them in exchange for aerial spotting and aid with one their hunts. It's not entirely safe, no hunt is, but you can make friends and recruit some much needed muscle with ease.
This setting is very fun so far 🤌
[X] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
- [X] So we're clearly under informed. Good news, we can change that easily enough. Send out infiltrators, largely unmutated, to slip into the Break and whatever other community's we know of. They should have diverse covers, from scavengers to doorkickers, and be able to communicate back to the Airship via regular courier. Also, you know, spread our ideals quietly.
No? We have an asset that reduces difficulty of raising might or sovereignty by 1. So I think this is an auto success.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
All right that's a good plan! +2d (for a title of six dice!)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh, no sets!
Shite. Pressed the wrong button and deleted the last one.
Well, no sets. Blast.
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DracoDracul
Transbian Communist
- Location
- Austin
- Pronouns
- She/They
I think it reduces the difficulty so instead of needing a set of 3 or higher we only need a set of 2 or higher.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, it makes it easier, but you still need sets!
@DracoDracul, The action is this:
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
Our current might is 2.
Subtract 1 for the bonus and the new difficulty is 1, so I guess we're both wrong and any double would be a pass? If the write-in is really good and we get one of them wild-dice then it's an auto pass.
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
Our current might is 2.
Subtract 1 for the bonus and the new difficulty is 1, so I guess we're both wrong and any double would be a pass? If the write-in is really good and we get one of them wild-dice then it's an auto pass.
Welcome to the Airship Levithan (0.4)
New
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Getting aboard an airship that hovered on agrav engines several dozen feet above the surface of the ocean took some doing. Frey watched, skeptically, as the belly of the beast opened and huge chains began to clink and clatter down, while Torin adjusted the engine on the boat to keep them in place. Arjida continued to speak. "We've come up a bit in the world since '42, you may notice."
"I was a baby," Frey said as the first huge hook splashed into the water. Using a metal pole with an electomagnet on it that had been stashed in the boat, Torin guided the hook and slotted it into a cleat on the side of the boat. Frey, feeling decidedly useless, reached out with her upper arm, grabbed onto the hook on her side and slotted it home.
"So was I," Arjida said, grinning at her - her teeth were sharp.
THe boat started to rise up, swaying slightly.
"So..." Frey said. "What did I miss over the past...ten years?"
"It was touch and go. The surviving oldsters managed to get their hands on a surface skimmer," Arjida said.
"You've gone up in the world," Frey said, frowning as the maw swept around them and then closed as the boat was left hanging in a cat walked gantry bay, with several other surface ships in it. Men and women in work rough coveralls - most of them decidedly human looking - gaped at her. Frey put her hands on the edge of the boat and shoved herself to her feet and shot them a fierce glare. She spread her arms, claws opening, as if to say 'yeah, and what of it?' - but the worshipful looks only got more intense and she felt the tingle of their awe and heard the whispers, snatches of thought and conversation.
"Kelermorph..."
Arjida stepped onto the catwalk, while Torin finished putting the boat to sleep, murmuring soft catechisms to the machine. "Want a tour?" she asked Frey, while Frey glowered at a youngish man who was looking at her with undisguised fascination. Frey jerked her head at him, as if she was about to lean in and snap and he hurriedly looked away from her.
"Is everyone on this ship going to be looking at me like that?" Frey muttered.
"...yeah, probably," Arjida said, which immediately endeared her somewhat to Frey.
"Wow, sugar coat it much?" Frey snapped.
Arjida pursed her lips at her, then grinned. "You know you can't get me to stop liking you by being a bitch. You're just going to end up making yourself feel bad."
Frey crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't act like I'm a bitch!" she said, angrily.
Arjida turned and started to walk down the catwalk with a series of clangs - her boots rattling the structure.
"I am a bitch," Frey muttered under her breath.
Then she was off after her fellow cultist.
Fuck.
She had already started thinking of herself as being one of them. It made her skin crawl, her shoulders hunch, and her teeth grind.
They headed up into the airship proper.
And at the heart of the Break, there was a building.
This building, made of scrap stone and steel, caved wood and shaped plastics, was the oldest building in the city. And no one knew it. Once, it had been called the Procedea, and it had been the most interesting social club in the death era, when the world had been nothing but a hunting preserve for a rogue trader dynasty. Then, when the world had been reclaimed and resold to the Imperium, the Procedea had been abandoned and in its place, the building had been called the Merrywine. Then the Brookburb. Then the Twice Tapped Tavern. Then, finally, five years ago, the Twice Tapped Tavern had been shuttered and, for weeks, months, years, the building remained emtpy.
Now?
It had a new sign.
The Breakhead Tavern bustled. People laughed and shared drinks.
And in the basement, the owner knelt before the carven statue that she had found in the heart of the building. She didn't know it was a detritus of a detritus, a leftover scrap from people who, themselves, had barely known what they were doing. Her name was Kiz, and she had been born poor, desperate, starving and terrified that someone might notice the gills under the high collar of her customary jackets and tunics. She knelt in the basement, hearing the sound of conversation and the clink of coin and knew that, in part, it was the statue who had brought the people here. She didn't have the words to explain why people always found the Breakhead more appealing than the other, newer taverns. She couldn't have pronounced psychometric conditioning or parapsychological sexual enticement let alone spelled them.
All she knew was that couples who wanted a nice evening, a chance to cuddle and maybe more, came to the Breakhead and indulged themselves. They spent freely, distracted by the eyes and warm caresses of their lovers.
And the statuette of the small, beautiful figure glowed.
It was a faint glow.
But it was there.
In the dark.
In the basement, Kiz could hold the statue and open herself to the power she knew was there.
She felt something. There. Something. But she couldn't...quite...
She clenched her teeth. "Come onnnn!" she hissed, trying to open herself to the power, to the strength she could feel.
And then it wisped away, fleeting.
Gone.
The statue was not glowing anymore and she was alone in the dark.
And then the words came into her mind, clear as crystal.
Cut yourself.
The thought had not come from herself. It had come from somewhere...else. The image was clear in her mind. Take a knife, and slice open a part of her body. Feel the pain. Revel in the pain. Embrace the pain. Go beyond what she thought of...as pleasure. Open herself to the universe and the power. The power.
Kiz tossed the statuette into the corner where she hid it, threw the box lid over it, hurried to the stars, scrambled up, and spent the rest of the evening shooting surly glares at the laughing customers who were making her richer by the day.
And her eyes kept drifting to the knife left resting near the meat.
Then flicked back to the glass she was cleaning.
Then back to the knife...
Now, yes.
It was true that ASA-2-1-1-1-9 was given such a designation because it was the only space station in the entirety of the solar system from the innermost reaches of the solar orbits to the farthest edges of the heliopuase, and then it was lowest on the sub-sector scribe centers in terms of importance. But that didn't change the fact that Aquiocrypt was a vital and important part of the functioning of the Imperium. Every part was important, but food transport and food logistics were two of the underpinnings of her sacred duty!
"Why, if I make a mistake here, I might become a bigger mass murderer than Tenex the Butcher!" Vel said, aloud, as she walked through the lock and onto the tiled floor. SHe clasped her hands together and looked left, then right.
There was a servitor by the lock, waiting for orders.
And there was no one else.
Vel remained silent and still for a moment, then called out. "Hello?"
Her voice echoed off the stone walls and the massive stained glass windows depicting heroic examples of the Administratums efforts - she even recognized the relief of Scaint Telemenestros - who had died holding a quill as he wrote the last signature required to allow for the releasing of the Lemun Russ tanks required to drive the heretics skewering him to death with their spears out of the colony. She beamed at the image - and heard the faint tick tick tick of shoes on tile. She turned and stood up even taller - all one hundred and forty nine point three centimeters of her. The last third of a centimeter was very important to remember, she always made sure to include it.
The scribe walking towards her was tall and thin, the kind that grew up on void stations due to their irregular and intermittant gravity. He was holding a large scone in one hand and was halfway through eating it.
"Vellumee Rose," Vel said, primly. "Administratum Scribe, Junior rank, first of my class from Schella!"
The scribe bit into the scone, chewed, then wiped his crumbs from his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
Vel held out her hand, to shake.
"I'm Ros," the scribe said.
"...Ros..." Vel said, her hand remaining out. "...and?"
"Rosko," he said.
"Rosko...Administratum Scribe..." Vel prompted.
"Journeyman class," he said, casually.
Vel felt her optimism crack slightly.
"W-well, uh...master," Vel said. "I'm here and ready for duty, to do what is needed for the Imperium - to ensure the shipment of foodstuffs and assorted material from this class 2 agriworld to any of the worlds that require it. Anywhere a mouth is wanting for sustenance, I hope that our studious notetaking and record keeping shall ensure that they will get the succor they require, so that each mind and body can be united in the defense of humanity from the innumerable perils that beset it from every angle!"
Rosko remained silent for a bit more. "First in your class, huh," he said, slowly. "Which classes?"
"All of them!" she said.
"Right." He was silent for a bit. "Okay, come on."
He showed her the sleeping rooms - "we sleep over there" - and the refectory - "we eat over there" - and then led her to a small chamber full of what appeared to be feely printed phototypes. The kind snapped by what some of the older scribes referred to as 'birds' - orbital intelligence gathering. Seeing them all, Vel felt her excitement grow. Rosko gestured in, and grunted. "So, we get lots of orbsat shit. Sort it. Anything weird, uh, ya know, call a meeting about it."
"Got it, sir!" she said, then launched herself in.
Rosko managed to keep his straight face halfway down the corridor before he put his palm over his mouth, shoulder quivering. He walked past Yuline, who was kicking the kaf maker with the resigned attitude of an old man trying to kill a particularly lazy dog. Her cup was half full of sludge - but she lifted her gaze to him. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"I got the new kid sorting the 'orbstat' room," he said, laughing.
"Oh God-Emperor, you're an asshole," Yuline muttered, then shoved the kaf maker.
"Hey, she needs someone to teach her what we actually do around here, get some of the academy fluff knocked out of her head," Rosko said. "It's not like she's gonna spot...what? A floating barge of sky pirates or something?" He laughed, shaking his head.
---
Or something indeed... (Yes, the Administratum DID get a 2x4 to "be informed")
Also, remember, each roll is in the same month - once your stats are low, you can rest a month and let them recover!
[ ] Attack BLANK (Might + Treasure VS Might + Territory)
[ ] Being Informed (Influence + Soverignty vs Diff 1)
[ ] Spying on BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Influence BLANK to do BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Increase your Sovereignty (Territory + Treasure vs Diff [Current Sovereignty])
[ ] Police BLANK (Might + Sovereignty vs Influence + Might)
[ ] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
[ ] Unconventional Warfare (write plan in)
"I was a baby," Frey said as the first huge hook splashed into the water. Using a metal pole with an electomagnet on it that had been stashed in the boat, Torin guided the hook and slotted it into a cleat on the side of the boat. Frey, feeling decidedly useless, reached out with her upper arm, grabbed onto the hook on her side and slotted it home.
"So was I," Arjida said, grinning at her - her teeth were sharp.
THe boat started to rise up, swaying slightly.
"So..." Frey said. "What did I miss over the past...ten years?"
"It was touch and go. The surviving oldsters managed to get their hands on a surface skimmer," Arjida said.
"You've gone up in the world," Frey said, frowning as the maw swept around them and then closed as the boat was left hanging in a cat walked gantry bay, with several other surface ships in it. Men and women in work rough coveralls - most of them decidedly human looking - gaped at her. Frey put her hands on the edge of the boat and shoved herself to her feet and shot them a fierce glare. She spread her arms, claws opening, as if to say 'yeah, and what of it?' - but the worshipful looks only got more intense and she felt the tingle of their awe and heard the whispers, snatches of thought and conversation.
"Kelermorph..."
Arjida stepped onto the catwalk, while Torin finished putting the boat to sleep, murmuring soft catechisms to the machine. "Want a tour?" she asked Frey, while Frey glowered at a youngish man who was looking at her with undisguised fascination. Frey jerked her head at him, as if she was about to lean in and snap and he hurriedly looked away from her.
"Is everyone on this ship going to be looking at me like that?" Frey muttered.
"...yeah, probably," Arjida said, which immediately endeared her somewhat to Frey.
"Wow, sugar coat it much?" Frey snapped.
Arjida pursed her lips at her, then grinned. "You know you can't get me to stop liking you by being a bitch. You're just going to end up making yourself feel bad."
Frey crossed her arms over her chest. "I don't act like I'm a bitch!" she said, angrily.
Arjida turned and started to walk down the catwalk with a series of clangs - her boots rattling the structure.
"I am a bitch," Frey muttered under her breath.
Then she was off after her fellow cultist.
Fuck.
She had already started thinking of herself as being one of them. It made her skin crawl, her shoulders hunch, and her teeth grind.
They headed up into the airship proper.
***
The Break was the biggest city on the entirety of Aquiocrypt, ever since the planetary orbit shifted and the ancients drowned as their finely honed glacierized habitats were left floating in a sea of meltwater. It had formed around a core of survivors, and then grown over the years as prospectors and farmers alike came to Aquiocrypt, as it was laboriously and slowly shifted from Imperial to Dead to Agriworld.
And at the heart of the Break, there was a building.
This building, made of scrap stone and steel, caved wood and shaped plastics, was the oldest building in the city. And no one knew it. Once, it had been called the Procedea, and it had been the most interesting social club in the death era, when the world had been nothing but a hunting preserve for a rogue trader dynasty. Then, when the world had been reclaimed and resold to the Imperium, the Procedea had been abandoned and in its place, the building had been called the Merrywine. Then the Brookburb. Then the Twice Tapped Tavern. Then, finally, five years ago, the Twice Tapped Tavern had been shuttered and, for weeks, months, years, the building remained emtpy.
Now?
It had a new sign.
The Breakhead Tavern bustled. People laughed and shared drinks.
And in the basement, the owner knelt before the carven statue that she had found in the heart of the building. She didn't know it was a detritus of a detritus, a leftover scrap from people who, themselves, had barely known what they were doing. Her name was Kiz, and she had been born poor, desperate, starving and terrified that someone might notice the gills under the high collar of her customary jackets and tunics. She knelt in the basement, hearing the sound of conversation and the clink of coin and knew that, in part, it was the statue who had brought the people here. She didn't have the words to explain why people always found the Breakhead more appealing than the other, newer taverns. She couldn't have pronounced psychometric conditioning or parapsychological sexual enticement let alone spelled them.
All she knew was that couples who wanted a nice evening, a chance to cuddle and maybe more, came to the Breakhead and indulged themselves. They spent freely, distracted by the eyes and warm caresses of their lovers.
And the statuette of the small, beautiful figure glowed.
It was a faint glow.
But it was there.
In the dark.
In the basement, Kiz could hold the statue and open herself to the power she knew was there.
She felt something. There. Something. But she couldn't...quite...
She clenched her teeth. "Come onnnn!" she hissed, trying to open herself to the power, to the strength she could feel.
And then it wisped away, fleeting.
Gone.
The statue was not glowing anymore and she was alone in the dark.
And then the words came into her mind, clear as crystal.
Cut yourself.
The thought had not come from herself. It had come from somewhere...else. The image was clear in her mind. Take a knife, and slice open a part of her body. Feel the pain. Revel in the pain. Embrace the pain. Go beyond what she thought of...as pleasure. Open herself to the universe and the power. The power.
Kiz tossed the statuette into the corner where she hid it, threw the box lid over it, hurried to the stars, scrambled up, and spent the rest of the evening shooting surly glares at the laughing customers who were making her richer by the day.
And her eyes kept drifting to the knife left resting near the meat.
Then flicked back to the glass she was cleaning.
Then back to the knife...
***
The shuttle hissed and the salvation-locks snapped into place with a series of rattling bangs that reverberated through the entirety of Vel's body. Her bones were still shaking as the lock opened with a hiss and spray of noxious fumes, revealing the vaunted corridors and carven stone of Administratum Station Alpha-2-1-1-1-9. Not two one thousand one hundred and nineteen, no, that would have been a wildly improper nomenclature. The station's first digit was its orbital position in the local scared Lagrange points, then the other three numbers indicated its priority in orbital stellar space, local stellar space, local oortish space, and finally, sub-sector space, with one being the highest and nine being the lowest.
Now, yes.
It was true that ASA-2-1-1-1-9 was given such a designation because it was the only space station in the entirety of the solar system from the innermost reaches of the solar orbits to the farthest edges of the heliopuase, and then it was lowest on the sub-sector scribe centers in terms of importance. But that didn't change the fact that Aquiocrypt was a vital and important part of the functioning of the Imperium. Every part was important, but food transport and food logistics were two of the underpinnings of her sacred duty!
"Why, if I make a mistake here, I might become a bigger mass murderer than Tenex the Butcher!" Vel said, aloud, as she walked through the lock and onto the tiled floor. SHe clasped her hands together and looked left, then right.
There was a servitor by the lock, waiting for orders.
And there was no one else.
Vel remained silent and still for a moment, then called out. "Hello?"
Her voice echoed off the stone walls and the massive stained glass windows depicting heroic examples of the Administratums efforts - she even recognized the relief of Scaint Telemenestros - who had died holding a quill as he wrote the last signature required to allow for the releasing of the Lemun Russ tanks required to drive the heretics skewering him to death with their spears out of the colony. She beamed at the image - and heard the faint tick tick tick of shoes on tile. She turned and stood up even taller - all one hundred and forty nine point three centimeters of her. The last third of a centimeter was very important to remember, she always made sure to include it.
The scribe walking towards her was tall and thin, the kind that grew up on void stations due to their irregular and intermittant gravity. He was holding a large scone in one hand and was halfway through eating it.
"Vellumee Rose," Vel said, primly. "Administratum Scribe, Junior rank, first of my class from Schella!"
The scribe bit into the scone, chewed, then wiped his crumbs from his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
Vel held out her hand, to shake.
"I'm Ros," the scribe said.
"...Ros..." Vel said, her hand remaining out. "...and?"
"Rosko," he said.
"Rosko...Administratum Scribe..." Vel prompted.
"Journeyman class," he said, casually.
Vel felt her optimism crack slightly.
"W-well, uh...master," Vel said. "I'm here and ready for duty, to do what is needed for the Imperium - to ensure the shipment of foodstuffs and assorted material from this class 2 agriworld to any of the worlds that require it. Anywhere a mouth is wanting for sustenance, I hope that our studious notetaking and record keeping shall ensure that they will get the succor they require, so that each mind and body can be united in the defense of humanity from the innumerable perils that beset it from every angle!"
Rosko remained silent for a bit more. "First in your class, huh," he said, slowly. "Which classes?"
"All of them!" she said.
"Right." He was silent for a bit. "Okay, come on."
He showed her the sleeping rooms - "we sleep over there" - and the refectory - "we eat over there" - and then led her to a small chamber full of what appeared to be feely printed phototypes. The kind snapped by what some of the older scribes referred to as 'birds' - orbital intelligence gathering. Seeing them all, Vel felt her excitement grow. Rosko gestured in, and grunted. "So, we get lots of orbsat shit. Sort it. Anything weird, uh, ya know, call a meeting about it."
"Got it, sir!" she said, then launched herself in.
Rosko managed to keep his straight face halfway down the corridor before he put his palm over his mouth, shoulder quivering. He walked past Yuline, who was kicking the kaf maker with the resigned attitude of an old man trying to kill a particularly lazy dog. Her cup was half full of sludge - but she lifted her gaze to him. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"I got the new kid sorting the 'orbstat' room," he said, laughing.
"Oh God-Emperor, you're an asshole," Yuline muttered, then shoved the kaf maker.
"Hey, she needs someone to teach her what we actually do around here, get some of the academy fluff knocked out of her head," Rosko said. "It's not like she's gonna spot...what? A floating barge of sky pirates or something?" He laughed, shaking his head.
---
Or something indeed... (Yes, the Administratum DID get a 2x4 to "be informed")
Also, remember, each roll is in the same month - once your stats are low, you can rest a month and let them recover!
THE AIRSHIP LEVITHAN
MIGHT: 2 | TREASURE: 2(1) | INFLUENCE: 0 | TERRITORY: 0 | SOVEREIGNTY: 2(1)
Kelermorphs: +2d to unconventional warfare (not escaping)
Areospace Assets: +2d to might rolls involving airspace
Revolutionary Rhetoric: -1d to raise Sov or Might
MIGHT: 2 | TREASURE: 2(1) | INFLUENCE: 0 | TERRITORY: 0 | SOVEREIGNTY: 2(1)
Kelermorphs: +2d to unconventional warfare (not escaping)
Areospace Assets: +2d to might rolls involving airspace
Revolutionary Rhetoric: -1d to raise Sov or Might
[ ] Attack BLANK (Might + Treasure VS Might + Territory)
[ ] Being Informed (Influence + Soverignty vs Diff 1)
[ ] Spying on BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Influence BLANK to do BLANK (Influence + Treasury vs Influence + Territory)
[ ] Increase your Sovereignty (Territory + Treasure vs Diff [Current Sovereignty])
[ ] Police BLANK (Might + Sovereignty vs Influence + Might)
[ ] Rise in Stature (Sovereignty + Treasure vs Diff [Current Influence]
[ ] Train and Levy Troops (Sovereignty + Territory vs Diff [Current Might]
[ ] Unconventional Warfare (write plan in)