- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure you can do that but it wouldn't be an automatic success, you'd have to roll to see how well the Vallian sorcerers do against your set up!
WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER: FALLEN SUNS (40k roleplaying on the farthest frontiers)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
Sure you can do that but it wouldn't be an automatic success, you'd have to roll to see how well the Vallian sorcerers do against your set up!
Well, it may or may not be worthwhile, but as it's exciting I'm personally willing to trust in Von Strauss' preparations and tradecraft, and the providence of the Emperor upon Terra, and roll those dice!
...And then re-roll them if it does not work the first time!
[X] Plan Rally at Wander with Von Strauss's Failsafe
-[X] Send a message to Port Wander to warn them, using Balthazar's Inquisitorial ciphers
--[X] Spend an FP to have there be an Inquisitorial contact who Balthazar can contact there who will be able to authoritatively convey a message to the Navy's authorities
-[X] Port Wander - it's possible you can add your strength to their defenses when Vall arrives.
-[X] (FP) Von Strauss reveals an authentication system she set up in case our ciphers were breached, where a codeword is sent in a normal message, and one of her agents in the communications staffs of the Acheron and Pax should (if they are able) inform the bridge crew that our ciphers are compromised and we need to switch, and send back an engramatically-implanted response code. Attempts to force the response code telepathically will trigger an ego-implosion.
(Cheers to @Fayhem, whose plan I really like.)
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Can we do that.
This implies
This implies
That we only have the ability to send one message, not 3.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, you can, currently, only send ONE message. You're low on astropaths and a lot of them are beat to hell.
Yeah, woops, I was doing the classic quest player thing of coming up with over-complicated plans for us to have our cake and eat it.
Nevermind! 😅
Voting for @Fayhem's plan without modification:
[X] Plan Rally at Wander
-[X] Send a message to Port Wander to warn them, using Balthazar's Inquisitorial ciphers
--[X] Spend an FP to have there be an Inquisitorial contact who Balthazar can contact there who will be able to authoritatively convey a message to the Navy's authorities
-[X] Port Wander - it's possible you can add your strength to their defenses when Vall arrives.
Nevermind! 😅
Voting for @Fayhem's plan without modification:
[X] Plan Rally at Wander
-[X] Send a message to Port Wander to warn them, using Balthazar's Inquisitorial ciphers
--[X] Spend an FP to have there be an Inquisitorial contact who Balthazar can contact there who will be able to authoritatively convey a message to the Navy's authorities
-[X] Port Wander - it's possible you can add your strength to their defenses when Vall arrives.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
[X] Plan Rally at Wander
- Pronouns
- He/Him
All right! Start rolling for your sailing!
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
- Location
- USA
🎲
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
My turn now, I guess. Hope for the best. Decent.
The major consolation of these bad rolls is that for once I am not the one rolling them.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
ngl p jelly rn
Seriously though, do we need to vote on using FPs for re-rolls, or will we just take it as read that we do not want to keep catastrophically bad rolls in our time-critical journey to fight the final boss?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well wait hold up! The rolls may not actually be bad! Like if they end up being the rolls for encounters, then you evade the encounters, the badness is negated! But I will use FP if, when I do the update tonight, the rolls turn out to be bad and sad, okay!
- Location
- USA
What? Then what's the point of rolling at all?
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Fayhem's asking whether DC will spend Fate points where a bad roll strikes, or whether we need to vote on the expenditure ourselves. That's all.
CHAPTER FOUR: The Storm (1.2)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"There's only one place to make a stand," Em said, nodding and standing up as he did so. "Tine, you will take this message to the surviving astropaths..." He scribbled the note quickly. "And have them broadcast it with our finest ciphers and best encoding."
Tine took it, then nodded. "So...it's there then," she said, quietly.
"Seems the best place, doesn't it?" Em said, his lips quirking slightly.
Tine nodded, then hurried off - and the import of sending her was felt by everyone in the room. Symbols meant a lot - and delivering the message to the surviving astropaths by the hand of the Lady Amaranthine herself? It would give just that tiny bit more luck to it. In the best hopes of of a better fate.
Ryia gave him the thinnest smiles. "You do know...all our reinforcements were aimed at Purgatorio, right?"
Em nodded, grimly.
"There are half a million people on that station - and another million around her. She's the best bastion before the Sector herself." He clicked his teeth together.
Ryia sighed, then stood, then walked, then sat down on his lap and kissed his cheek.
They sat, in silence, as the fleet made ready to sail.
Milo Sans simply rolled back to bed, mumbled something about 'if it's orks, do tell me to put out the bad porcelain' and then went back to sleep. Thus fortified, Larius stalked to the door of his cabins and opened the door, to find himself glowering at a terrified looking Lieutenant from the Signals division, her gold and red piping looking freshly creased and her hat knocked slightly askew. "S-Sir, we got a code gold Aquillia transmission-"
"Gold?" Larius asked, his face going pale. "Has it been ciphered?"
"No, sir, not yet, the astropaths are working on it, but..." She trailed off. "Regulations, say, I mean, that..."
"No, you were right to do it, good work," Larius said, nodding. "I'll be at the command bridge in a trice."
The command bridge of Port Wander put all but an Emperor-class battleship to shame - and it was arrayed in a circular pattern, with vast windows that looked out across the full sweep of the station. The current mood of the place was a quiet hubbub - meaning that it was an eminently normal, dull day in the Port. Larius arrived with a mug of rekaff, his uniform slung on, and his face not even shaved. He downed the cup and advanced towards the Station Master, Mr. Gebbeling.
"It's nonsense," Mr. Gebbeling huffed.
"I'll let the Governor make that decision, Mr. Gebbeling," Colonel-Flight Valkyrendotter said, her cold blue eyes flashing. The leader of the certifiably insane collection of barely controlled maniacs that the Imperial Navy gave the staid and restrained name of 'flight crew' looked every bit the part of Imperial pilot. She still had her tattoos visible, despite the fact she was an officer and a gentlewoman thirty years now and not a single one of Larius's subtle...and not so subtle...hints had seen her to the chirgeons to get less unseemly.
"Have the astropaths finished their work?" Larius asked, frowning as he looked between the Station Master and his flight-commander. The two were vital for any defense of the station. Mr. Gebbeling was possibly the finest long lance man that Larius had ever worked with, and while he hadn't seen Valkrendotter's pilots do anything but light convoy and rock-hopper duty, he had read nothing but positive evaluations of her.
"Yes," Mr. Gebbeling huffed. "And it's...it's...Rogue Trader guff, it is!"
He slapped down the document and Larius leaned over it.
"Wasting a Emperor's blooded gold channel signal with THIS!?" Mr. Gebbeling asked, his dudgeon getting increasingly pronounced as he slapped his palms down on the central planning table. "To just let us know she's arriving? I tell you, I've been telling you, these Scourges are nothing but upstart troublemakers - poking the hornet's nest of the Expanse, riling up the knife-ears-"
"They stopped a Waagh in its tracks," Valkyrendotter said, her voice dry.
"Oh so they say, but has any of our ships been to this 'Damaris' place?" Mr. Gebbeling asked.
"Yes!" Valkyrendotter snapped.
Larius held up his hand, silencing both of them. "Marlow, you're being unfair," he said, quietly. "I met the Lady Amaranthine and her husband...and more than that, I knew his reputation even before he left the navy. Emil Vendigroth got his step before he was thirty and commanded a Dauntless for his entire career." He looked, seriously, at Mr. Gebbeling, who looked a mite chastened. "Do you think that that kind of man would send a gold encrypted message without good reason?"
Mr. Gebbeling harrumphed. "Well." He paused. "I suppose not."
"So, what are we to do, Lar?" Valkyrendotter asked, softly.
"Susan...I think we're going to run out the guns," he said. "And see if we can't be ready for anything. Double patrols, have the starhawks fueled and their crews at the ready." At her nod and running off, he turned to Mr. Gebbeling. "Marlow, bend the ear of Proctor Garrisanti, see if she can't drum up some extra knife and gun fighters. If we face anyone who prefers the close in fight, I want the nacros and the gangers on our side for flanks and sallies." Mr. Gebbeling nodded and stomped off, while Larius looked down at the map of the station.
It was strange...
He knew that he was groping, blindly, towards what might be a deadly fall. He felt like a ship in a lee orbit, with her auspex dead and her vista-plate locked, unable to know if she burned towards or away from the orb that gripped her, and simply had to trust on what few messages could be relayed from the skin of his ship - the right decision made too late would be just as deadly as a wrong decision made too early.
And yet, despite that, he felt an odd growing confidence. He might be jumping at shadows, but trusting this message from the Scourges felt, in his stomach, to be the correct call.
He looked up from the map, towards the vista-plates and the cold stars beyond. His shoulders squared. Louder, he called out.
"Send for the astropath. I have a message I want to pen."
The mid sprinted off.
Larius' voice was soft, so soft even he barely heard himself. "I suppose I'll owe you, Olo."
"I can't know," Em said, quietly, as Desh and he walked to Desh's chambers. "The passage is...a mere three days. Our navigatrix found us quite the route. That could give us time. It's...good confidence we'll get there by the 39th of this decamonth."
"I see..." Desh said, nodding. He looked somewhat grave. He turned to face Em, then placed his hand upon his chest, in a strangely intimate gesture. His head bowed. "I thank you."
Before Em could respond, Desh turned and stalked into the room. The door closed and Em was left, frowning, at the doorway as he shook his head and then started off, his mind already distracted by strategies. Battle tactics. Worst case scenarios.
Desh stood within his room. His palm pressed to his face and he felt the calling of the knife in his closet - the blade that would cut his palm, draw his blood, and form the Wailing Doom. He dropped to the bed, and hissed out in pain, as if he had been stabbed already. "It's not fair!" The words escaped his lips - in the human tongue, he spoke them, unable to bear using his own language to express the...the utter pettiness of what he felt. It was galling, like a blade already twisting in his belly, grinding against his bones, but just as one could not withdraw a knife without pain, he could not unsay the words, unfeel the feeling. It was beneath him...but...
He put his hands to his face, his shoulders shuddering. "It's...not fair! I don't want to die!" He sobbed out between his gasps, his eyes burning as he shuddered.
In his bones, he knew the time was near.
He knew, that the end of this flight...
Thump.
Desh lifted his head. He stood, then stalked towards the closet, from where the sound had come. He flung the door open and found himself looking down at Ensign Lucinder Noceda, who was frozen stiff as a board inside of his closet. "I can explain-" She exclaimed. Desh felt a humiliation and wrath unlike anything he had felt in his long, long, long life. He grabbed onto the mon'keigh's ear and dragged her from the closet and roared at her.
"Then explain!"
She trembled, her eyes wide, terrified. She shook like a leaf as she choked out. "I-I was c-cleaning your r-room a-and then I found the knife a-and I realized you hid it and I was trying to hide it a-and you came and the Captain was there and s-so so so so I hid and why are you scared!?"
He thrust her towards the door. "Go! And never return, mon'keigh! Never again darken my presence with your mayfly life!" He advanced towards her, fury replacing shame - for fury was a better fit to his skin. "Go, lest I wring your neck!"
Noceda backed against the door, slipped out, and left, dropping the knife upon the floor.
Callie sprang up from the small table, where Xoti was using two long forks to gesture to the stuffed lower intestines of a grox that she had hauled up to the chambers. Callie threw her arms around Luz, hugging her, but using this primarily as a pretext to whisper in her ear. "Thank you!"
"Huh?" Luz blinked as Xoti beamed.
"Hey Luz," she said. "I was just showing Callie my favorite meal - haggrox!"
"...that's a meal!?" Luz exclaimed, bringing a scowl and a huff from Xoti. "Also, nevermind, Callie, I messed up, I got Desh so mad, help!"
"Huh?" the young farseer asked. Then her face set. "What did you do, exactly?"
"I-I just found this knife in his-" Luz shut up at the expression that settled over Callie's face. It was an expression unlike anything that Luz had seen on her features before. "What's going on? Is the knife something important? He said he was going to die."
"...oh..." Callie whispered. She stepped away from Luz, then sat down on the bed in her chambers. Xoti frowned, putting a lid over the meal, then stood, ambling over, and sitting down next to Callie. She narrowed her eyes, then grabbed onto the Eldar's chin and cheek, making her lips purse outwards as she was swung around to face her.
"Spill," she said.
"Sp-Spi...Spill what?" Callie stammered, slapping Xoti's hand away.
"Spill what you know, it's obvious you know something!" Xoti said, then crawled up behind Callie. "I will twist your ears off, you Farseeing bozo, if you don't!" She grabbed onto both of Callie's ears, the same way you'd grab onto the handlebars of a motorcycle. Luz gaped as Callie froze, her eyes going wide. "I'll do it! I swear I will! I'm fucking crazy!"
"Ow ow ow ow okay fine!" Callie said, which got Xoti to release her ears. She sagged. "It's...it's called the Avatar." She blushed. "Our god of war, Kaela Mensha Khaine, was shattered...shattered into a million pieces." She looked aside. "If...an exarch undertakes a ritual...he...he dies and the Avatar is born in his stead. A...a terribly powerful warrior...one that can shatter whole armies by himself."
Luz and Xoti both exchanged a look, their eyes wide.
In quiet prayer.
In contemplation.
In moments of togetherness.
And, for one Ensign, in a desperate attempt to speak to the Captain - an attempt stymied by discipline and duty and the grim request from Desh that she be kept far from his person.
After the three days of quiet...
The storm broke.
Ensign Noceda felt the shuddering of the ship entering into the Warp and squared her shoulders. She knew what she had to do. She started down the corridor. "Ensign," the local boatswain started, about to tell her to return to her duties at her plasma-conduits.
Lucinder Noceda broke his jaw with a pipe wrench and broke into a sprint.
On the bridge, the two Farseers stood, side by side as they watched the vistaplates lower. Desh was in his full regalia - together, the three could briskly head to the shrine ship, to begin the rite. Unaware of this, Tine stood beside Desh, saying: "Now, if we arrive and get to actually visit Port Wander, I do want to show you this lovely bistro that...we..."
She trailed off.
The vista plates came down...and showed the pits of Hell itself.
Ruddy red light from the primary star shone upon the glittering flanks of sleek, arrowlike ships - Chaos ships, bedecked in runes and sigils and symbols, their spines thrusting into the air. Their lances glowed as they lazily orbited around Port Wander and fired on her. Blazing infernos consumed entire decks of the hovering city, while refuge-barges launched from her lower spinal decks...launched into the swarming masses of Chaos fighter craft, who darted among the civilians that tried to flee, emptying them into space with a gleeful, vicious abandon. The prow of an Imperial Cruiser drifted by - slowly, burning from her end and showing the empty decks of a completely bisected ship. Other hulks drifted in space around the Port, showing flames, gutted hulls, and bodies.
Bodies by the thousands. By the tens of thousands.
Floating, a mere hundred thousand kilometers beyond the main bulk of the Chaos fleet, was Lu'Nasad. She looked as if her heart had been ripped out - and replaced with pulsating, throbbing flesh, flesh that grew and grew and intertwined with the unmistakable hull of an Emperor class battleship. It was impossible to tell the difference between hull metal, flesh, and wraithbone...they intermingled, fused, creating a perversion that staggered Em to his core. He refused to let it show.
Em's voice was tight. Grave. "Give me a situation report."
Lt. Desna spoke up. "There are two grand cruisers, nine cruisers, nine pocket-carriers, and nineteen frigates. I'm detecting salvation beacons - we've lost the Liberty, the Undefeatbale, the-"
Em lifted his hand, silencing her.
Lu'Nasad's main lance arrays spoke. Silently, a purple beam nearly as wide as the Argent Scourge swept from the prow to the top of Port Wander. The whole titanic structure began to slowly drift in half, flames pouring from her hundreds of decks.
---
Your orders, Rogue Trader?
[ ] Speak into the Vox, fleetwide. "Ten thousand years ago, on this day, the Emperor took his throne. Ten thousand years ago...our forefathers faced the evil that is at our door. Ten thousand years ago, they chastised them with scorpions and Horus fled and fell upon a reed, which did not bear his weight and he was broken - so it is written in the Book of Psalms. We are not as we once were. We are not our forefathers. But here? Today? While we do not fight above Terra herself...we fight for our homes. These ships, this fleet, is our home. And so, my brothers, my sisters, today...today, we shall not merely defeat the enemy. We will not merely drive them from the field. We shall chastise them with shell, shot and lance. We shall sunder their shields and set flame to their decks. We shall burn them to the voidline and fire into their smoldering wrecks until not one atom of their filth hangs above our worlds. We shall kill them! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL! FOR HOUSE SCOURGE...AND FOR THE EMPEROR!"
[ ] Withdraw to Purgatorio.
Tine took it, then nodded. "So...it's there then," she said, quietly.
"Seems the best place, doesn't it?" Em said, his lips quirking slightly.
Tine nodded, then hurried off - and the import of sending her was felt by everyone in the room. Symbols meant a lot - and delivering the message to the surviving astropaths by the hand of the Lady Amaranthine herself? It would give just that tiny bit more luck to it. In the best hopes of of a better fate.
TO: PORT WANDER [NAVAL AUTHORITY]
FROM: FLEET SCOURGE_ASTROPTH CHOIR.11A-0pherias
TEXTSIGN...
WARNING! KARRAD VALL APPROACHES! (20+ SHIPS OF THE LINE, 20+ FRIGATES, 200+ STRIKE CRAFT, UNCOUNTED BOARDING PARTIES, EXTERMINATUS LEVEL PARANORMAL ASSETS.)
REPEAT! KARRAD VALL APPROACHES! (20+ SHIPS OF THE LINE, 20+ FRIGATES, 200+ STRIKE CRAFT, UNCOUNTED BOARDING PARTIES, EXTERMINATUS LEVEL PARANORMAL ASSETS.)
MAKE READY: SCOURGE FLEET WILL ARRIVE TO ASSIST
EMPEROR BE WITH YOU
In the quiet of the office, Em sighed. He twirled a small, elegant hat pin between his fingers.Ryia gave him the thinnest smiles. "You do know...all our reinforcements were aimed at Purgatorio, right?"
Em nodded, grimly.
"There are half a million people on that station - and another million around her. She's the best bastion before the Sector herself." He clicked his teeth together.
Ryia sighed, then stood, then walked, then sat down on his lap and kissed his cheek.
They sat, in silence, as the fleet made ready to sail.
***
Governor-Militant Larius Sans was roused from his bed and the arms of his husband by a hammering on the door. "Sorry, Milo, my apologies," he muttered, thinking to himself: I will have whoever did this flogged.
Milo Sans simply rolled back to bed, mumbled something about 'if it's orks, do tell me to put out the bad porcelain' and then went back to sleep. Thus fortified, Larius stalked to the door of his cabins and opened the door, to find himself glowering at a terrified looking Lieutenant from the Signals division, her gold and red piping looking freshly creased and her hat knocked slightly askew. "S-Sir, we got a code gold Aquillia transmission-"
"Gold?" Larius asked, his face going pale. "Has it been ciphered?"
"No, sir, not yet, the astropaths are working on it, but..." She trailed off. "Regulations, say, I mean, that..."
"No, you were right to do it, good work," Larius said, nodding. "I'll be at the command bridge in a trice."
The command bridge of Port Wander put all but an Emperor-class battleship to shame - and it was arrayed in a circular pattern, with vast windows that looked out across the full sweep of the station. The current mood of the place was a quiet hubbub - meaning that it was an eminently normal, dull day in the Port. Larius arrived with a mug of rekaff, his uniform slung on, and his face not even shaved. He downed the cup and advanced towards the Station Master, Mr. Gebbeling.
"It's nonsense," Mr. Gebbeling huffed.
"I'll let the Governor make that decision, Mr. Gebbeling," Colonel-Flight Valkyrendotter said, her cold blue eyes flashing. The leader of the certifiably insane collection of barely controlled maniacs that the Imperial Navy gave the staid and restrained name of 'flight crew' looked every bit the part of Imperial pilot. She still had her tattoos visible, despite the fact she was an officer and a gentlewoman thirty years now and not a single one of Larius's subtle...and not so subtle...hints had seen her to the chirgeons to get less unseemly.
"Have the astropaths finished their work?" Larius asked, frowning as he looked between the Station Master and his flight-commander. The two were vital for any defense of the station. Mr. Gebbeling was possibly the finest long lance man that Larius had ever worked with, and while he hadn't seen Valkrendotter's pilots do anything but light convoy and rock-hopper duty, he had read nothing but positive evaluations of her.
"Yes," Mr. Gebbeling huffed. "And it's...it's...Rogue Trader guff, it is!"
He slapped down the document and Larius leaned over it.
TO: PORT WANDER [NAVAL AUTHORITY]
FROM: FLEET SCOURGE_ASTROPTH CHOIR.11A-0pherias
TEXTSIGN...
0DNU(EE2I+S,FOAPAR!0P0EEUCR P ROCE DH MT+DITR GVECPS LU ALI,ATKNRXAE!RNIT L0RO, T,FWNLS SR N ARETRR2TI+VAN 2SFKAAIAGAIB ES HPEE INAGAH SLOT NORMAL ASSETS.)
REPEAT! S HE L!A+(GP GUREANRN0AUS2EOD0E+PS2LOA,TIMAEHVO2 S0,S0 TC,LR UA RNB.KCSDRENEIOIAR ,A +FOFMTDNRI TEALIECAESLELTT KSTAP ARERPA S AT)RV NTIXR HPSFI
MAKE READY: SCOURGE FLEET WILL ARRIVE STSTOIS A
EMPEROR BE WITH YOU
"Wasting a Emperor's blooded gold channel signal with THIS!?" Mr. Gebbeling asked, his dudgeon getting increasingly pronounced as he slapped his palms down on the central planning table. "To just let us know she's arriving? I tell you, I've been telling you, these Scourges are nothing but upstart troublemakers - poking the hornet's nest of the Expanse, riling up the knife-ears-"
"They stopped a Waagh in its tracks," Valkyrendotter said, her voice dry.
"Oh so they say, but has any of our ships been to this 'Damaris' place?" Mr. Gebbeling asked.
"Yes!" Valkyrendotter snapped.
Larius held up his hand, silencing both of them. "Marlow, you're being unfair," he said, quietly. "I met the Lady Amaranthine and her husband...and more than that, I knew his reputation even before he left the navy. Emil Vendigroth got his step before he was thirty and commanded a Dauntless for his entire career." He looked, seriously, at Mr. Gebbeling, who looked a mite chastened. "Do you think that that kind of man would send a gold encrypted message without good reason?"
Mr. Gebbeling harrumphed. "Well." He paused. "I suppose not."
"So, what are we to do, Lar?" Valkyrendotter asked, softly.
"Susan...I think we're going to run out the guns," he said. "And see if we can't be ready for anything. Double patrols, have the starhawks fueled and their crews at the ready." At her nod and running off, he turned to Mr. Gebbeling. "Marlow, bend the ear of Proctor Garrisanti, see if she can't drum up some extra knife and gun fighters. If we face anyone who prefers the close in fight, I want the nacros and the gangers on our side for flanks and sallies." Mr. Gebbeling nodded and stomped off, while Larius looked down at the map of the station.
It was strange...
He knew that he was groping, blindly, towards what might be a deadly fall. He felt like a ship in a lee orbit, with her auspex dead and her vista-plate locked, unable to know if she burned towards or away from the orb that gripped her, and simply had to trust on what few messages could be relayed from the skin of his ship - the right decision made too late would be just as deadly as a wrong decision made too early.
And yet, despite that, he felt an odd growing confidence. He might be jumping at shadows, but trusting this message from the Scourges felt, in his stomach, to be the correct call.
He looked up from the map, towards the vista-plates and the cold stars beyond. His shoulders squared. Louder, he called out.
"Send for the astropath. I have a message I want to pen."
The mid sprinted off.
Larius' voice was soft, so soft even he barely heard himself. "I suppose I'll owe you, Olo."
***
"We shall be facing combat when we arrive?"
"I can't know," Em said, quietly, as Desh and he walked to Desh's chambers. "The passage is...a mere three days. Our navigatrix found us quite the route. That could give us time. It's...good confidence we'll get there by the 39th of this decamonth."
"I see..." Desh said, nodding. He looked somewhat grave. He turned to face Em, then placed his hand upon his chest, in a strangely intimate gesture. His head bowed. "I thank you."
Before Em could respond, Desh turned and stalked into the room. The door closed and Em was left, frowning, at the doorway as he shook his head and then started off, his mind already distracted by strategies. Battle tactics. Worst case scenarios.
Desh stood within his room. His palm pressed to his face and he felt the calling of the knife in his closet - the blade that would cut his palm, draw his blood, and form the Wailing Doom. He dropped to the bed, and hissed out in pain, as if he had been stabbed already. "It's not fair!" The words escaped his lips - in the human tongue, he spoke them, unable to bear using his own language to express the...the utter pettiness of what he felt. It was galling, like a blade already twisting in his belly, grinding against his bones, but just as one could not withdraw a knife without pain, he could not unsay the words, unfeel the feeling. It was beneath him...but...
He put his hands to his face, his shoulders shuddering. "It's...not fair! I don't want to die!" He sobbed out between his gasps, his eyes burning as he shuddered.
In his bones, he knew the time was near.
He knew, that the end of this flight...
Thump.
Desh lifted his head. He stood, then stalked towards the closet, from where the sound had come. He flung the door open and found himself looking down at Ensign Lucinder Noceda, who was frozen stiff as a board inside of his closet. "I can explain-" She exclaimed. Desh felt a humiliation and wrath unlike anything he had felt in his long, long, long life. He grabbed onto the mon'keigh's ear and dragged her from the closet and roared at her.
"Then explain!"
She trembled, her eyes wide, terrified. She shook like a leaf as she choked out. "I-I was c-cleaning your r-room a-and then I found the knife a-and I realized you hid it and I was trying to hide it a-and you came and the Captain was there and s-so so so so I hid and why are you scared!?"
He thrust her towards the door. "Go! And never return, mon'keigh! Never again darken my presence with your mayfly life!" He advanced towards her, fury replacing shame - for fury was a better fit to his skin. "Go, lest I wring your neck!"
Noceda backed against the door, slipped out, and left, dropping the knife upon the floor.
***
The door to Callie's room burst open and a trembling Luz stepped in, her eyes wide, her hands shaking. "Callie, I messed up, I-" She stopped, blinking. "What the heckin what is going on in here?"
Callie sprang up from the small table, where Xoti was using two long forks to gesture to the stuffed lower intestines of a grox that she had hauled up to the chambers. Callie threw her arms around Luz, hugging her, but using this primarily as a pretext to whisper in her ear. "Thank you!"
"Huh?" Luz blinked as Xoti beamed.
"Hey Luz," she said. "I was just showing Callie my favorite meal - haggrox!"
"...that's a meal!?" Luz exclaimed, bringing a scowl and a huff from Xoti. "Also, nevermind, Callie, I messed up, I got Desh so mad, help!"
"Huh?" the young farseer asked. Then her face set. "What did you do, exactly?"
"I-I just found this knife in his-" Luz shut up at the expression that settled over Callie's face. It was an expression unlike anything that Luz had seen on her features before. "What's going on? Is the knife something important? He said he was going to die."
"...oh..." Callie whispered. She stepped away from Luz, then sat down on the bed in her chambers. Xoti frowned, putting a lid over the meal, then stood, ambling over, and sitting down next to Callie. She narrowed her eyes, then grabbed onto the Eldar's chin and cheek, making her lips purse outwards as she was swung around to face her.
"Spill," she said.
"Sp-Spi...Spill what?" Callie stammered, slapping Xoti's hand away.
"Spill what you know, it's obvious you know something!" Xoti said, then crawled up behind Callie. "I will twist your ears off, you Farseeing bozo, if you don't!" She grabbed onto both of Callie's ears, the same way you'd grab onto the handlebars of a motorcycle. Luz gaped as Callie froze, her eyes going wide. "I'll do it! I swear I will! I'm fucking crazy!"
"Ow ow ow ow okay fine!" Callie said, which got Xoti to release her ears. She sagged. "It's...it's called the Avatar." She blushed. "Our god of war, Kaela Mensha Khaine, was shattered...shattered into a million pieces." She looked aside. "If...an exarch undertakes a ritual...he...he dies and the Avatar is born in his stead. A...a terribly powerful warrior...one that can shatter whole armies by himself."
Luz and Xoti both exchanged a look, their eyes wide.
***
The Scourge fleet screamed through the Warp - the only real trick of navigation requiring the evasion of a temporal reef that might have agrouned them centuries out of time - forward, or backwards. But other than that trick of sailing, the time was spent entirely in quiet preparations. In the readying of weapons. The work of dozens per ball, chiseling the macroshells so they might fly straight and true. Consecrating and blessing the replacement lenses for the long lances. Splicing plasma rigging together, to ensure each ship would have their share.
In quiet prayer.
In contemplation.
In moments of togetherness.
And, for one Ensign, in a desperate attempt to speak to the Captain - an attempt stymied by discipline and duty and the grim request from Desh that she be kept far from his person.
After the three days of quiet...
The storm broke.
Ensign Noceda felt the shuddering of the ship entering into the Warp and squared her shoulders. She knew what she had to do. She started down the corridor. "Ensign," the local boatswain started, about to tell her to return to her duties at her plasma-conduits.
Lucinder Noceda broke his jaw with a pipe wrench and broke into a sprint.
On the bridge, the two Farseers stood, side by side as they watched the vistaplates lower. Desh was in his full regalia - together, the three could briskly head to the shrine ship, to begin the rite. Unaware of this, Tine stood beside Desh, saying: "Now, if we arrive and get to actually visit Port Wander, I do want to show you this lovely bistro that...we..."
She trailed off.
The vista plates came down...and showed the pits of Hell itself.
Ruddy red light from the primary star shone upon the glittering flanks of sleek, arrowlike ships - Chaos ships, bedecked in runes and sigils and symbols, their spines thrusting into the air. Their lances glowed as they lazily orbited around Port Wander and fired on her. Blazing infernos consumed entire decks of the hovering city, while refuge-barges launched from her lower spinal decks...launched into the swarming masses of Chaos fighter craft, who darted among the civilians that tried to flee, emptying them into space with a gleeful, vicious abandon. The prow of an Imperial Cruiser drifted by - slowly, burning from her end and showing the empty decks of a completely bisected ship. Other hulks drifted in space around the Port, showing flames, gutted hulls, and bodies.
Bodies by the thousands. By the tens of thousands.
Floating, a mere hundred thousand kilometers beyond the main bulk of the Chaos fleet, was Lu'Nasad. She looked as if her heart had been ripped out - and replaced with pulsating, throbbing flesh, flesh that grew and grew and intertwined with the unmistakable hull of an Emperor class battleship. It was impossible to tell the difference between hull metal, flesh, and wraithbone...they intermingled, fused, creating a perversion that staggered Em to his core. He refused to let it show.
Em's voice was tight. Grave. "Give me a situation report."
Lt. Desna spoke up. "There are two grand cruisers, nine cruisers, nine pocket-carriers, and nineteen frigates. I'm detecting salvation beacons - we've lost the Liberty, the Undefeatbale, the-"
Em lifted his hand, silencing her.
Lu'Nasad's main lance arrays spoke. Silently, a purple beam nearly as wide as the Argent Scourge swept from the prow to the top of Port Wander. The whole titanic structure began to slowly drift in half, flames pouring from her hundreds of decks.
---
Your orders, Rogue Trader?
[ ] Speak into the Vox, fleetwide. "Ten thousand years ago, on this day, the Emperor took his throne. Ten thousand years ago...our forefathers faced the evil that is at our door. Ten thousand years ago, they chastised them with scorpions and Horus fled and fell upon a reed, which did not bear his weight and he was broken - so it is written in the Book of Psalms. We are not as we once were. We are not our forefathers. But here? Today? While we do not fight above Terra herself...we fight for our homes. These ships, this fleet, is our home. And so, my brothers, my sisters, today...today, we shall not merely defeat the enemy. We will not merely drive them from the field. We shall chastise them with shell, shot and lance. We shall sunder their shields and set flame to their decks. We shall burn them to the voidline and fire into their smoldering wrecks until not one atom of their filth hangs above our worlds. We shall kill them! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL! FOR HOUSE SCOURGE...AND FOR THE EMPEROR!"
[ ] Withdraw to Purgatorio.
2 to auger: Travel time between 1-4 DAYS !?!?!?!? OBSCENE!!!!
100 to spot the astronomicon, fail!
41 to navigate at a -20 astronomicon check, for a total DOF of 1! It takes a grand total of three whole days. Three days. THREE DAYS!? It takes you THREE DAYS?!?!?! Fucking THREE DAYS. Bonkers. Wild. Absolutely nuts. Fuck you!
98 and 54 for your first encounter check, 98 is used. Temporal hole! 8 to detect, 93 to evade. 62 on a re-roll gets you just barely to evade it.
You emerge from the warp with -1 FP to Em.
And it actually matters now, I'm going to roll for the astropaths! did you know there were rules for astropaths? I sure did, I just never used them! The transmission is within the same subsector, requiring 10 PR. Fortunately, you have at least 10 PR2 astropaths together who can send as a choir. It is a focused message, giving it a -20 penalty, but the astropaths engage in ritualized harm to give themselves +30 to focus themselves, so we're at a 60% shot!
85! This nets you a 2 DOF, for a totally garbled message. The recipient astropath gets a -30 to their check. They roll a 28 against their modified skill of 10%, giving them 1 DOF!
So, the message arrives after 23 hours (on 304, approximately) and they get 1/4th of it.
You arrive on the 339th.
...Karrad Vall arrives on the 38th.
100 to spot the astronomicon, fail!
41 to navigate at a -20 astronomicon check, for a total DOF of 1! It takes a grand total of three whole days. Three days. THREE DAYS!? It takes you THREE DAYS?!?!?! Fucking THREE DAYS. Bonkers. Wild. Absolutely nuts. Fuck you!
98 and 54 for your first encounter check, 98 is used. Temporal hole! 8 to detect, 93 to evade. 62 on a re-roll gets you just barely to evade it.
You emerge from the warp with -1 FP to Em.
And it actually matters now, I'm going to roll for the astropaths! did you know there were rules for astropaths? I sure did, I just never used them! The transmission is within the same subsector, requiring 10 PR. Fortunately, you have at least 10 PR2 astropaths together who can send as a choir. It is a focused message, giving it a -20 penalty, but the astropaths engage in ritualized harm to give themselves +30 to focus themselves, so we're at a 60% shot!
85! This nets you a 2 DOF, for a totally garbled message. The recipient astropath gets a -30 to their check. They roll a 28 against their modified skill of 10%, giving them 1 DOF!
So, the message arrives after 23 hours (on 304, approximately) and they get 1/4th of it.
You arrive on the 339th.
...Karrad Vall arrives on the 38th.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
[X] Speak into the Vox, fleetwide. "Ten thousand years ago, on this day, the Emperor took his throne. Ten thousand years ago...our forefathers faced the evil that is at our door. Ten thousand years ago, they chastised them with scorpions and Horus fled and fell upon a reed, which did not bear his weight and he was broken - so it is written in the Book of Psalms. We are not as we once were. We are not our forefathers. But here? Today? While we do not fight above Terra herself...we fight for our homes. These ships, this fleet, is our home. And so, my brothers, my sisters, today...today, we shall not merely defeat the enemy. We will not merely drive them from the field. We shall chastise them with shell, shot and lance. We shall sunder their shields and set flame to their decks. We shall burn them to the voidline and fire into their smoldering wrecks until not one atom of their filth hangs above our worlds. We shall kill them! Kill them! KILL THEM ALL! FOR HOUSE SCOURGE...AND FOR THE EMPEROR!"
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, general situation that you do know: The Port Wander fleet and Port Wander sold themselves dearly. While their capital kills are light (3 cruisers, 1 light carrier, and 5 frigates), the real damage that you can see has been in the squadrons. while there are no signs of any of Port Wanders flights, the Chaos flights appear to be at half strength - the Wander's fliers sold themselves dearly.
- Location
- USA
[x] Withdraw to Purgatorio.
- Location
- Denton, Texas
Discretion and Valor kids. There isn't a lot to work with here and we lack any assets on hand to turn a fleet outside of beaming aboard the planet and telling the ship to fuck off to Purgatorio I say. We either take what intel we have and run home or you decapitate here and risk the ensuing inferno your on to consume your whole being