Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is good fanon and I vibe with it fully.
WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER: THE CITADEL OF SKULLS (Roleplaying on the Farthest Frontiers)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi Fantasy
- Location
- Virginia
[X] Plan Some Things, Money Can't Buy; For Everything Else, There's Profit Factor
-[X] Make for the cogitator core, but dispatch the Kriegers and First to secure as much treasure as you can.
-[X] The holy book!
-[X] The stasis containers!
-[X] The weapons!
-[X] The other weapons!
-[X] Make for the cogitator core, but dispatch the Kriegers and First to secure as much treasure as you can.
-[X] The holy book!
-[X] The stasis containers!
-[X] The weapons!
-[X] The other weapons!
- Location
- East of Sun, West of Moon
[X] Plan Some Things, Money Can't Buy; For Everything Else, There's Profit Factor
Well, as the lone dissenting voice in the previous vote I can proudly say that I have never been so happy to be wrong!
Also, Tine dunking on the Daemonettes by telling them that she's going to fuck her husband and they don't get to participate was perhaps the single most glorious piece of mid-battle banter I have ever read.
Well, as the lone dissenting voice in the previous vote I can proudly say that I have never been so happy to be wrong!
Also, Tine dunking on the Daemonettes by telling them that she's going to fuck her husband and they don't get to participate was perhaps the single most glorious piece of mid-battle banter I have ever read.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
*starts making secret, ominous rolls*
CHAPTER FIVE: The Vault of Secrets (1.6)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Okay," Em says, then turns to the First and the Kriegers. "We're not here for mere gold - secure the book, the containers, the weapons." he points them out. Bring them back to the elevator and we'll get the cogitator core."
"Got it, sir!" Lidda says, then gestures the group forward. They start to pick their way carefully through the piles of gold, and are soon lost among the heaping hills of the stuff as you and your loved ones start to move through the masses of lucre.
Ryia's helmet slips back with a clunk and she whistles as she looks around. "So, what do you think of that last vox we got? About weapons fire at the edge of the system?"
Em nods. "Vall must know that something is wrong - his Beacon is off, his navigation is shot to hell..." He shakes his head. "If his entire wolfpack is with him, he has the firepower and the ships to simply bull through the system and come straight at us - that'd cut his travel time down to a few days, maybe a week, depending on where he entered the system from the warp."
"Great," Ryia says.
"We're in no condition to fight him," you say, shaking your head. "Our ships are battered, our crews are exhausted-"
"We don't know how many of his ships he has," Em adds.
"We need to get the slaves, steal the loot, and we need to slip away," you say, nodding along with your husband.
"Yeah," Em says.
"Wait, don't forget the stealing the spaceport too," Ryia laughs, softly. "I'm sorry, just...we're stealing the floor. We're stealing his fucking floor! This is just..." she shakes her head - and then you emerge from the winding path and come to the cogitator core. It is sitting on a plinth of black stone, and is a remarkably small device considering the cogitator core of the Revenge could fill a room. But as you come close to it, you see that something...terrible has happened to it. Or at the very least, terribly strange. The edges of it are peppered with strands of white bone that look like they have plugged into the sides of the cogitator, then webbed outwards, as if the bone had grown into it.
"What the...hell..." Em shakes his head. "Is that Chaos corruption?"
It's...Wraithbone, Aria breathes in your mind. Tine, my dear, I must...can you...
You feel, instinctively, what she wants.
You hold up your hand. "Em, trust me on this," you say, stepping close, then focusing and giving a mental command to your power armor. Your gauntlet fingers hiss and chuff as pneumatic tubes and seal-catches pop open, causing your glove to bifurcate and then slide backwards, so your bare hand emerges from the stump of your power armor's arm. You hover your palm, just an inch before the cogitator and your electroo glows faintly. The cogitator flickers and you feel sluggish datum sprites beginning to flow into your own internal cogitation systems.
"Tine...we should really talk about how many augmetics you have," Em says, chuckling softly.
You smile at him - then grunt as the datum unfolds into your mind.
Screaming. Lots of screaming. Two voices. Two minds. Two thoughts. You close your eyes and-
Flee, flee, run run, fly fast, must escape!
Visions of your ship - she's huge, larger than the Triumph, older too...the cogitator is confused, memories intermixed. Its the voice of a human cogitator, designed and built for a ship, the Trumph...but the memories are alien, jumbled. In your mind, the cogitator tries to describe the memory, and you see an imperial ship, blown to ludicrous proportion, and carved of bone...flying, running, fleeing, fleeing, fleeing as fast as it can through a crackling strand of pure, rune-carved energy-
I can assist here, Aria says and you feel her psychic power thread into the memories...and with a twist...
She unweaves them.
The panic remains, but it is the mournful, alien song of the Eldar. The ship is no ship.
It is a world.
It is Lu'nasad - and it flees through the buzzing, crackling expanse of the Webway. Behind it, something dark and glorious and terribly bright is rushing after them, laughing. Thirsting. Reaching out a perfect hand to posses the craftworld and the millions of Eldar aboard her. The craftworld busts from the snarling passages under the warp, and for a moment, you feel the joy, the elation at escape...
Which makes the plunge the worse.
The laughter of the Thirsting One is boisterous indeed. And you can't not watch the memories - the pict-captors - playing out before you as the Craftworld slams into what it thought was realspace...but was instead a newly born warpstorm, roaring out and mixing realspace and the Warp. Her defenses already weakened, the craftworld begins to...
Not die, no.
Death would have been better.
You jerk your hand back, panting as the human memories from the Triumph's cogitator flick through you. Your eyes open as Em and Ryia go to your sides. "What happened?" Ryia asks.
"Four thousand years ago..." you say. "There was a ship, the Triumph. She was captained by Elizabet Soren, a Trader newly minted. Her first expedition? She found Lu'nasad. The craftworld. But it's not a craftworld anymore. It...it's been tainted. Corrupted utterly by the Warp." You can feel, faintly, Aria sobbing. She's trying to shield you from it, but the echoes of her grief and her pain are nearly overwhelming. "Em, you don't understand, imagine...imagine ten Port Wanders, each with a battleship's weapons. Imagine it able to maneuver like Universe class mass conveyor - sluggish, but considering the scale, improbably fast. Now imagine the entire thing is alive...and the entire thing has fallen to Chaos."
Em's face pales. Ryia makes the sign against evil, against her chest, her armored fingers rasping against her.
"And that's what Vall wants..." Em says. "To conquer the Expanse."
"Screw the Expanse!" Ryia says. "He could conquer the whole Emperor be dammed Sector! They'd need to call up a fucking Crusade to stop him!"
"Do you know where this thing is?" Em asks.
You nod. "The Triumph's navigation data is in my head."
"Okay, good," Em says, then looks back to the others - the treasure seems suddenly very unimportant. You can see that the elevator is stuffed with carefully stacked stasis containers, chests heaped with weapons, and a wrapped up cloth parcel that is definitely that holy book. The First are on their way back from the other major weapons cache, chatting with one another cheerfully as they walked along, with Xoti following up on the rear. "Lets..."
Xoti pauses in her walking, her eyes caught by something shining and gleaming.
"...get..."
Xoti hefts her container of weapons against her hip, then slowly reaches out towards a gemstone the size of her entire head.
"...ready..."
Xoti picks up the gemstone before you get your hand to the vox.
"to-" Em is cut off by the lights turning red.
The ground begins to shake.
And a voice booms from the ceiling. "IF YOU WISH TO SPEND ETERNITY WITH MY TREASURE...YOU NEED ONLY HAVE ASKED!"
The ground begins to shake harder. A huge rent opens up in the space between you and the elevator - the treasure rattling and tumbling straight down into the crack. Xoti drops her weapon container with a yelp as a hole opens up before her, only to get grabbed by Biggs before she pitches head forward into the hole. Biggs only manages this by dropping her weapon cache - and this is when Lidda calls out. "DROP EVERYTHING! RUN!"
Behind you, the cogitator core tumbles backwards as the plinth collapses. Your arms flail as you try and keep yourself to your feet, but you get pitched forward - only to get grabbed by Em and Ryia, who have kept themselves upright, and then the three of you start sprinting. A cascade of silvery coins rattles and clatters down into the pits that are opening to either side of you, while the pathway you run on begins to collapse behind you. You sprint as hard as you can, risking a glance backwards to see that the whole Vault is pouring down towards the planet core - towards lava and crushing pressure and damnation eternal.
You and the First arrive at the elevator, the Kriegers holding the door open, moments before the ground gives way. You pant as the doors slam shut - and the elevator jars, hard, swinging wildly on the cable that suspends it from the ceiling. Everyone in cries out, save for the Kriegers, who remain focused on gripping to anything to keep themselves from falling over.
Em puts his finger to his helmet. "Jessie, come in."
Buzzing, crackling static.
"Jessie, cutting out expedition to teleport out, if you'd please." Em says, his voice showing not a hint of panic or worry, even as that booming voice begins to play from the laud-hailers in the ceiling again - and it is nothing but a single, long, gloating laugh.
"AHAHAHAHAHA!"
"I note," Ryia says as the elevator slows in its swaying. "We're not going up."
"See, that's just cheating," you hiss.
The cable creaks.
Pops.
A detonation charge worked into it blows - and it is a multilaid hawser cable, so when the tiny det charge goes off, it just blows a few of the interweaved strands apart, leaving most of the cable intact. It's still enough to cause the elevator to veer hard to the side.
"VALL YOU DICK!" you shout up at the cable.
"Any second now, Jessie," Em says into the vox.
Hissing static is the only response.
Another det charge blows - and the cable yawns, sliced entirely in half, the remaining strands straining mightily against the weight. Then the elevator started to lift upwards. This, you see, is just some extra cruelty, because each centimeter of upwards movement causes more strain to the already half-sawn hawser, which snaps strand after strand until there's just one.
CRACK.
You stumble forward - and onto the floor of the Revenge. Your palms mash against the ground and you lift your head, blinking, as you see Phi on the console - and their body radiates relief on half the EM band as their fingers draw away from the control-lecturn of the teleportarium. You're then distracted by your children running up to you, throwing themselves against your armor. "You're okay! Daddy and Mom's okay!" Zeph says, while Junie hugs you tightly as well, armor or no armor.
You laugh, weakly, then look back at the others, to see Ryia sliding out of her armor with the fluid grace of a gymnast. She sweeps up Junie and Zeph into a hug, holding them tightly, while Em takes the more dignified measure of stepping into the disrobing niche and allowing the automated dendrites draw his armor off him. The Kriegers are looking faintly mystified, while Xoti tries to vanish into her uniform's collar as the entire First glares at her.
"Mom!" Junie squeals as Ryia kisses her cheeks again and again - while Em steps over and ruffles her hair. "Dad! Ack!"
"Do you have a report for me, Jessie?" Em asks his first officer - who you notice is here too. Crowded room, all things considered.
"Yes, sir. I've taken the liberty to deploy the 101st with air support," she says. "According to the 8th SAS and 5th BWS, a Starhawk and a Fury can fly in a moon's atmosphere reasonably well and, according to the reports, all it takes is for a few Furies to buzz an area and the ...'militia' break and run. The Elysians have taken light casualties, and liberation shuttles are running around the clock."
"Very good, Jessie," Em says, turning back to the treasures. "Do we have an ETA?"
"We'll be able to break orbit in two days," she says. "Restocked, refueled, and ready to go."
"And the Q'Sallians?" you ask.
"Ah, yes, them," Jessie says. "Who are they?"
You, Em, and Ryia exchange a glance.
"...they're...allies," Em says, guardedly. "For now."
You were watching the moon recede, languidly pleased with yourself. Em's fixing some anesac, and Ryia is tossing something small and slender between her palms.
"I think Em should do it," she says.
"Oh?" Em chuckles. "It seems like a very Ryia note to go out on, though."
"You two are crazy," you say. "I should get to do it, since I'm the Rogue Trader."
"...well, now I wanna do it," Ryia mutters.
The door to your room opens - after a knock, of course, and a jovial 'enter' from Em - and Junie and Zeph enter. "Do what?" Junie asks, her brow furrowing.
Ryia grins at her. "Push this red button, duh," she says, waggling the detonator in her hand.
"Oh," Junie looks less than excited.
"I wanna!" Zeph says, throwing up their hand.
"Absolutely not!" Everyone says at once, and in the laughter that this creates, you focus - and yoink the detonator from Ryia's hands with a spurt of telekine energy. She yelps, reaches for it, but you hold it above your head, then thumb it down.
In the window, the flash is visible from space. It is mostly contained and forced upwards by the construction of the Citadel of Skulls - sparing the poor bastards in Skaarsdelve. But the effect is still incredible: The entire Citadel balloons outwards for a solid half a second, then sweeps backwards, collapsing inwards as the vortex roars to furious life, swirling and crackling and flaring and then collapsing inwards, into darkness once more.
"All together, an entirely successful mission," Junie says, shaking her head.
Ryia's face falls slightly. Her captain is still comatose, recovering from his trials on the Beacon. "Yeah," she says.
"So, what's in the stasis cases?" Zeph asks. "And the book? And those treasure chests?"
Em chuckles. "That can wait until we're out of the system, and away from a mildly annoyed Vall...we're setting course for Port Wander. I want the entire Passage and the navy's guns between us and Vall..." he pauses. "For...long enough to get us equipped again..." his eyes look somber. Your feeling of elation fades and you nod. You've put a definite damper on Vall's ambitions - but he had the Triumph's cogitator core for who knows how long.
Your hand drops, slowly, to Aria.
Can he...control Lu'nasad? you think.
Maybe...it would be hard... she thinks back. Easy, if he had the right soulstone - Craftworlds were designed to be guided by our own souls. A properly broken and bridled Eldar soul would be enough. But...even without...if the Craftworld is truly as tainted and corrupted as the vision showed, then he could control it with raw force and daemonic assistance. But that would take time - months, maybe even years of ritual work.
You nod, frowning.
"For now?" Em says. "I think we all deserve a bit of a vacation."
"Hear to THAT!" you laugh, laying back on the bed. This makes you a tempting target for Zeph, who immediately starts cuddling with you.
"Can you believe that the Kriegers had never seen kids before?" Ryia asks, laughing.
"They'll get used to them," Em says, wryly, while Junie grins.
"Say, I've been wondering, can I take any of the cool swords from the treasure?"
"Not until we make sure they're not cursed! Or possessed!" you say, not sitting up under your Zeph burial.
Yes, we wouldn't want that, now would we... Aria murmurs.
You laugh.
And the fleet plunges into the asteroids - flying as hard and as fast as it can away from the flickering gunfire of distnat ships, with the true treasure of the Citadel of Skulls. Not the stasis containers, not the ancient and august weapons, not even the esoteric knowledge contained within books nor scrolls.
No.
You have gained time - time to prepare, time with your loved ones, and time for the slaves freed from short and brutal lives.
The most precious treasure the galaxy can offer...no?
"Got it, sir!" Lidda says, then gestures the group forward. They start to pick their way carefully through the piles of gold, and are soon lost among the heaping hills of the stuff as you and your loved ones start to move through the masses of lucre.
Ryia's helmet slips back with a clunk and she whistles as she looks around. "So, what do you think of that last vox we got? About weapons fire at the edge of the system?"
Em nods. "Vall must know that something is wrong - his Beacon is off, his navigation is shot to hell..." He shakes his head. "If his entire wolfpack is with him, he has the firepower and the ships to simply bull through the system and come straight at us - that'd cut his travel time down to a few days, maybe a week, depending on where he entered the system from the warp."
"Great," Ryia says.
"We're in no condition to fight him," you say, shaking your head. "Our ships are battered, our crews are exhausted-"
"We don't know how many of his ships he has," Em adds.
"We need to get the slaves, steal the loot, and we need to slip away," you say, nodding along with your husband.
"Yeah," Em says.
"Wait, don't forget the stealing the spaceport too," Ryia laughs, softly. "I'm sorry, just...we're stealing the floor. We're stealing his fucking floor! This is just..." she shakes her head - and then you emerge from the winding path and come to the cogitator core. It is sitting on a plinth of black stone, and is a remarkably small device considering the cogitator core of the Revenge could fill a room. But as you come close to it, you see that something...terrible has happened to it. Or at the very least, terribly strange. The edges of it are peppered with strands of white bone that look like they have plugged into the sides of the cogitator, then webbed outwards, as if the bone had grown into it.
"What the...hell..." Em shakes his head. "Is that Chaos corruption?"
It's...Wraithbone, Aria breathes in your mind. Tine, my dear, I must...can you...
You feel, instinctively, what she wants.
You hold up your hand. "Em, trust me on this," you say, stepping close, then focusing and giving a mental command to your power armor. Your gauntlet fingers hiss and chuff as pneumatic tubes and seal-catches pop open, causing your glove to bifurcate and then slide backwards, so your bare hand emerges from the stump of your power armor's arm. You hover your palm, just an inch before the cogitator and your electroo glows faintly. The cogitator flickers and you feel sluggish datum sprites beginning to flow into your own internal cogitation systems.
"Tine...we should really talk about how many augmetics you have," Em says, chuckling softly.
You smile at him - then grunt as the datum unfolds into your mind.
Screaming. Lots of screaming. Two voices. Two minds. Two thoughts. You close your eyes and-
Flee, flee, run run, fly fast, must escape!
Visions of your ship - she's huge, larger than the Triumph, older too...the cogitator is confused, memories intermixed. Its the voice of a human cogitator, designed and built for a ship, the Trumph...but the memories are alien, jumbled. In your mind, the cogitator tries to describe the memory, and you see an imperial ship, blown to ludicrous proportion, and carved of bone...flying, running, fleeing, fleeing, fleeing as fast as it can through a crackling strand of pure, rune-carved energy-
I can assist here, Aria says and you feel her psychic power thread into the memories...and with a twist...
She unweaves them.
The panic remains, but it is the mournful, alien song of the Eldar. The ship is no ship.
It is a world.
It is Lu'nasad - and it flees through the buzzing, crackling expanse of the Webway. Behind it, something dark and glorious and terribly bright is rushing after them, laughing. Thirsting. Reaching out a perfect hand to posses the craftworld and the millions of Eldar aboard her. The craftworld busts from the snarling passages under the warp, and for a moment, you feel the joy, the elation at escape...
Which makes the plunge the worse.
The laughter of the Thirsting One is boisterous indeed. And you can't not watch the memories - the pict-captors - playing out before you as the Craftworld slams into what it thought was realspace...but was instead a newly born warpstorm, roaring out and mixing realspace and the Warp. Her defenses already weakened, the craftworld begins to...
Not die, no.
Death would have been better.
You jerk your hand back, panting as the human memories from the Triumph's cogitator flick through you. Your eyes open as Em and Ryia go to your sides. "What happened?" Ryia asks.
"Four thousand years ago..." you say. "There was a ship, the Triumph. She was captained by Elizabet Soren, a Trader newly minted. Her first expedition? She found Lu'nasad. The craftworld. But it's not a craftworld anymore. It...it's been tainted. Corrupted utterly by the Warp." You can feel, faintly, Aria sobbing. She's trying to shield you from it, but the echoes of her grief and her pain are nearly overwhelming. "Em, you don't understand, imagine...imagine ten Port Wanders, each with a battleship's weapons. Imagine it able to maneuver like Universe class mass conveyor - sluggish, but considering the scale, improbably fast. Now imagine the entire thing is alive...and the entire thing has fallen to Chaos."
Em's face pales. Ryia makes the sign against evil, against her chest, her armored fingers rasping against her.
"And that's what Vall wants..." Em says. "To conquer the Expanse."
"Screw the Expanse!" Ryia says. "He could conquer the whole Emperor be dammed Sector! They'd need to call up a fucking Crusade to stop him!"
"Do you know where this thing is?" Em asks.
You nod. "The Triumph's navigation data is in my head."
"Okay, good," Em says, then looks back to the others - the treasure seems suddenly very unimportant. You can see that the elevator is stuffed with carefully stacked stasis containers, chests heaped with weapons, and a wrapped up cloth parcel that is definitely that holy book. The First are on their way back from the other major weapons cache, chatting with one another cheerfully as they walked along, with Xoti following up on the rear. "Lets..."
Xoti pauses in her walking, her eyes caught by something shining and gleaming.
"...get..."
Xoti hefts her container of weapons against her hip, then slowly reaches out towards a gemstone the size of her entire head.
"...ready..."
Xoti picks up the gemstone before you get your hand to the vox.
"to-" Em is cut off by the lights turning red.
The ground begins to shake.
And a voice booms from the ceiling. "IF YOU WISH TO SPEND ETERNITY WITH MY TREASURE...YOU NEED ONLY HAVE ASKED!"
The ground begins to shake harder. A huge rent opens up in the space between you and the elevator - the treasure rattling and tumbling straight down into the crack. Xoti drops her weapon container with a yelp as a hole opens up before her, only to get grabbed by Biggs before she pitches head forward into the hole. Biggs only manages this by dropping her weapon cache - and this is when Lidda calls out. "DROP EVERYTHING! RUN!"
Behind you, the cogitator core tumbles backwards as the plinth collapses. Your arms flail as you try and keep yourself to your feet, but you get pitched forward - only to get grabbed by Em and Ryia, who have kept themselves upright, and then the three of you start sprinting. A cascade of silvery coins rattles and clatters down into the pits that are opening to either side of you, while the pathway you run on begins to collapse behind you. You sprint as hard as you can, risking a glance backwards to see that the whole Vault is pouring down towards the planet core - towards lava and crushing pressure and damnation eternal.
You and the First arrive at the elevator, the Kriegers holding the door open, moments before the ground gives way. You pant as the doors slam shut - and the elevator jars, hard, swinging wildly on the cable that suspends it from the ceiling. Everyone in cries out, save for the Kriegers, who remain focused on gripping to anything to keep themselves from falling over.
Em puts his finger to his helmet. "Jessie, come in."
Buzzing, crackling static.
"Jessie, cutting out expedition to teleport out, if you'd please." Em says, his voice showing not a hint of panic or worry, even as that booming voice begins to play from the laud-hailers in the ceiling again - and it is nothing but a single, long, gloating laugh.
"AHAHAHAHAHA!"
"I note," Ryia says as the elevator slows in its swaying. "We're not going up."
"See, that's just cheating," you hiss.
The cable creaks.
Pops.
A detonation charge worked into it blows - and it is a multilaid hawser cable, so when the tiny det charge goes off, it just blows a few of the interweaved strands apart, leaving most of the cable intact. It's still enough to cause the elevator to veer hard to the side.
"VALL YOU DICK!" you shout up at the cable.
"Any second now, Jessie," Em says into the vox.
Hissing static is the only response.
Another det charge blows - and the cable yawns, sliced entirely in half, the remaining strands straining mightily against the weight. Then the elevator started to lift upwards. This, you see, is just some extra cruelty, because each centimeter of upwards movement causes more strain to the already half-sawn hawser, which snaps strand after strand until there's just one.
CRACK.
You stumble forward - and onto the floor of the Revenge. Your palms mash against the ground and you lift your head, blinking, as you see Phi on the console - and their body radiates relief on half the EM band as their fingers draw away from the control-lecturn of the teleportarium. You're then distracted by your children running up to you, throwing themselves against your armor. "You're okay! Daddy and Mom's okay!" Zeph says, while Junie hugs you tightly as well, armor or no armor.
You laugh, weakly, then look back at the others, to see Ryia sliding out of her armor with the fluid grace of a gymnast. She sweeps up Junie and Zeph into a hug, holding them tightly, while Em takes the more dignified measure of stepping into the disrobing niche and allowing the automated dendrites draw his armor off him. The Kriegers are looking faintly mystified, while Xoti tries to vanish into her uniform's collar as the entire First glares at her.
"Mom!" Junie squeals as Ryia kisses her cheeks again and again - while Em steps over and ruffles her hair. "Dad! Ack!"
"Do you have a report for me, Jessie?" Em asks his first officer - who you notice is here too. Crowded room, all things considered.
"Yes, sir. I've taken the liberty to deploy the 101st with air support," she says. "According to the 8th SAS and 5th BWS, a Starhawk and a Fury can fly in a moon's atmosphere reasonably well and, according to the reports, all it takes is for a few Furies to buzz an area and the ...'militia' break and run. The Elysians have taken light casualties, and liberation shuttles are running around the clock."
"Very good, Jessie," Em says, turning back to the treasures. "Do we have an ETA?"
"We'll be able to break orbit in two days," she says. "Restocked, refueled, and ready to go."
"And the Q'Sallians?" you ask.
"Ah, yes, them," Jessie says. "Who are they?"
You, Em, and Ryia exchange a glance.
"...they're...allies," Em says, guardedly. "For now."
***
The Excalibur darts away - a silvery arrow that cannot be more than five hundred meters long, propelled by spindly engines that are placed on equally slender nacelles - as your fleet breaks orbit, dragging with it the entire spaceport. Below you, Skaarsdelve is in utter anarchy. With most of the militia dead, the slave population evacuated, and the loyalists to Vall's vision left behind, the whole city is full of burning rubble and mobs fighting over what food is left. The Citadel of Skulls is still forted up - though they hadn't gotten their void shields back online thanks to the amount of damage you and Ryia had caused.
You were watching the moon recede, languidly pleased with yourself. Em's fixing some anesac, and Ryia is tossing something small and slender between her palms.
"I think Em should do it," she says.
"Oh?" Em chuckles. "It seems like a very Ryia note to go out on, though."
"You two are crazy," you say. "I should get to do it, since I'm the Rogue Trader."
"...well, now I wanna do it," Ryia mutters.
The door to your room opens - after a knock, of course, and a jovial 'enter' from Em - and Junie and Zeph enter. "Do what?" Junie asks, her brow furrowing.
Ryia grins at her. "Push this red button, duh," she says, waggling the detonator in her hand.
"Oh," Junie looks less than excited.
"I wanna!" Zeph says, throwing up their hand.
"Absolutely not!" Everyone says at once, and in the laughter that this creates, you focus - and yoink the detonator from Ryia's hands with a spurt of telekine energy. She yelps, reaches for it, but you hold it above your head, then thumb it down.
In the window, the flash is visible from space. It is mostly contained and forced upwards by the construction of the Citadel of Skulls - sparing the poor bastards in Skaarsdelve. But the effect is still incredible: The entire Citadel balloons outwards for a solid half a second, then sweeps backwards, collapsing inwards as the vortex roars to furious life, swirling and crackling and flaring and then collapsing inwards, into darkness once more.
"All together, an entirely successful mission," Junie says, shaking her head.
Ryia's face falls slightly. Her captain is still comatose, recovering from his trials on the Beacon. "Yeah," she says.
"So, what's in the stasis cases?" Zeph asks. "And the book? And those treasure chests?"
Em chuckles. "That can wait until we're out of the system, and away from a mildly annoyed Vall...we're setting course for Port Wander. I want the entire Passage and the navy's guns between us and Vall..." he pauses. "For...long enough to get us equipped again..." his eyes look somber. Your feeling of elation fades and you nod. You've put a definite damper on Vall's ambitions - but he had the Triumph's cogitator core for who knows how long.
Your hand drops, slowly, to Aria.
Can he...control Lu'nasad? you think.
Maybe...it would be hard... she thinks back. Easy, if he had the right soulstone - Craftworlds were designed to be guided by our own souls. A properly broken and bridled Eldar soul would be enough. But...even without...if the Craftworld is truly as tainted and corrupted as the vision showed, then he could control it with raw force and daemonic assistance. But that would take time - months, maybe even years of ritual work.
You nod, frowning.
"For now?" Em says. "I think we all deserve a bit of a vacation."
"Hear to THAT!" you laugh, laying back on the bed. This makes you a tempting target for Zeph, who immediately starts cuddling with you.
"Can you believe that the Kriegers had never seen kids before?" Ryia asks, laughing.
"They'll get used to them," Em says, wryly, while Junie grins.
"Say, I've been wondering, can I take any of the cool swords from the treasure?"
"Not until we make sure they're not cursed! Or possessed!" you say, not sitting up under your Zeph burial.
Yes, we wouldn't want that, now would we... Aria murmurs.
You laugh.
And the fleet plunges into the asteroids - flying as hard and as fast as it can away from the flickering gunfire of distnat ships, with the true treasure of the Citadel of Skulls. Not the stasis containers, not the ancient and august weapons, not even the esoteric knowledge contained within books nor scrolls.
No.
You have gained time - time to prepare, time with your loved ones, and time for the slaves freed from short and brutal lives.
The most precious treasure the galaxy can offer...no?
ADVENTURE PATH COMPLETE...
TABULATING PROFITS...
...
...
...
STARTING PROFIT FACTOR: 79%
AP TOTAL: 6,105
REQUIRED AP: 1,200
EXCESS AP: 4,905
BASE PROFIT FACTOR GAIN: +1
BONUS PROFIT FROM EXCESS AP: +49
BONUS FROM CHARTS: +1
ENDING PROFIT FACTOR
130%
You Have Earned the Rank of...
Hive Gang: 5%
Common Labor Guild: 10%
Manufactury Combine: 15%
Hab Collective: 20%
Outcast Rogue Trader: 25%
Impoverished Noble: 30%
Lesser Rogue Trader: 40%
Cartel Master: 50%
Wealthy Rouge Trader: 70%
Scion of a Great House: 90%
Legendary Rogue Traders: 100%
Lord Inquisitors or Great Houses of Calixus Sector: 120%
[[The Scourge Dynasty: 130%]]
Em, Tine and Ryia WILL return in their final adventure...TABULATING PROFITS...
...
...
...
STARTING PROFIT FACTOR: 79%
AP TOTAL: 6,105
REQUIRED AP: 1,200
EXCESS AP: 4,905
BASE PROFIT FACTOR GAIN: +1
BONUS PROFIT FROM EXCESS AP: +49
BONUS FROM CHARTS: +1
ENDING PROFIT FACTOR
130%
You Have Earned the Rank of...
Hive Gang: 5%
Common Labor Guild: 10%
Manufactury Combine: 15%
Hab Collective: 20%
Outcast Rogue Trader: 25%
Impoverished Noble: 30%
Lesser Rogue Trader: 40%
Cartel Master: 50%
Wealthy Rouge Trader: 70%
Scion of a Great House: 90%
Legendary Rogue Traders: 100%
Lord Inquisitors or Great Houses of Calixus Sector: 120%
[[The Scourge Dynasty: 130%]]
FALLEN STARS
Securing The holy book!: 16
Securing The stasis containers!: 2
Securing The weapons!: 15
Securing The other weapons!: 87! OH NO!
Tech Use check: 33 (With +20 from binary chatter and electroos) makes for 3 DOS!
agility checks: Em and Ryia pass, Tine fails
Securing The stasis containers!: 2
Securing The weapons!: 15
Securing The other weapons!: 87! OH NO!
Tech Use check: 33 (With +20 from binary chatter and electroos) makes for 3 DOS!
agility checks: Em and Ryia pass, Tine fails
- Pronouns
- He/Him
you did not get the Other Weapons
the first post of the final quest is basically gonna be leveling everyone up (since em and ryia haven't been leveled up) and opening all your presents!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nah, I'm gonna take a break!
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Reactions? More likely than you'd think!
--Us, apparently
--Also us
I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT I DON'T HAVE AUGMETICS, I AM RADIATING THAT SHIT THROUGH SHEER
FUCKING
WILLPOWER
The First, except Xoti: Let us give you something you can relate to. PURE FUCKING RAGE.
...Man, Krieg is such a shithole. I'm going to headcanon that our Kriegers are inspired by the Scourges and go back to lead a successful movement for sweeping social change.
jesus
fuck
Did... we actually gain more from this than from the whole Dread Pearl adventure arc? I guess "liberating" (except unironically because actually literally that) what I'm guessing has to be a million-plus slaves, a 10,000-plus year old Grand Cruiser that was an Imperial hero of the Heresy, a monitor and some transports just for style points, and oh yeah AN ENTIRE FUCKING SPACEPORT/ORBITAL FORTRESS AND MOST OF THE RAREST SHIT FROM VALL'S MILLENNIA OF PLUNDER counts for something!
Anyway, yeah, this was super fucking dope DC. Suffer Not will forever hold a very special place in my heart, but I think I should acknowledge that you're officially my favorite 40k QM ever.
"A treasure room full of amazing valuables with no visible defenses? Let's rush in hard without checking for traps, split up, and have everybody just start grabbing stuff!"
--Us, apparently
"Stealing everything that isn't nailed down is for QUITTERS."
--Also us
Oh, right. There's still some grim darkness behind all the swash and buckle. Fucking Slaanesh.
DAMN IT XOTI
WHOMP, THERE IT IS
FUCKING SAME PHI
I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT I DON'T HAVE AUGMETICS, I AM RADIATING THAT SHIT THROUGH SHEER
FUCKING
WILLPOWER
Kriegers: How do you human emotions?
The First, except Xoti: Let us give you something you can relate to. PURE FUCKING RAGE.
He's not wrong.
But THAT'S a real Ryia note.😁
Aria is technically midkey a possessed sword, isn't she. Eh, she's cool though, as long as we don't tell the Ecclesiarchy it's fine.
Yes. "Mildly annoyed." Why, I bet he may even be miffed.
Well, uh. Good news is, SEQUEL CONFIRMED!
This... actually explains a lot. And is consistent with their lore now that I actually think about it.
...Man, Krieg is such a shithole. I'm going to headcanon that our Kriegers are inspired by the Scourges and go back to lead a successful movement for sweeping social change.
holy
jesus
fuck
WELP
Did... we actually gain more from this than from the whole Dread Pearl adventure arc? I guess "liberating" (except unironically because actually literally that) what I'm guessing has to be a million-plus slaves, a 10,000-plus year old Grand Cruiser that was an Imperial hero of the Heresy, a monitor and some transports just for style points, and oh yeah AN ENTIRE FUCKING SPACEPORT/ORBITAL FORTRESS AND MOST OF THE RAREST SHIT FROM VALL'S MILLENNIA OF PLUNDER counts for something!
Anyway, yeah, this was super fucking dope DC. Suffer Not will forever hold a very special place in my heart, but I think I should acknowledge that you're officially my favorite 40k QM ever.
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- Location
- East of Sun, West of Moon
Well-earned; rest, noble dragon, and know that your
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Wait, I somehow missed one of the things I wanted to react to.
The rest of the setting is in grim darkness, and these motherfuckers are out here in hecking Warp Trek.😁🖖
I FUCKING KNEW IT
The rest of the setting is in grim darkness, and these motherfuckers are out here in hecking Warp Trek.😁🖖
i suspect the stasis containers contain someone, and not something... a living being rather then a inanimate item...
im REALLY crious about the haul we got from this adventure- or the future fate of that grand cruiser. not to mention all the people we liberated.
will we see more of that Q'Salian girl? the first impression is that their civilization is similar to Star Trek in Warp, somehow (which im very curious about how they achieved).
im REALLY crious about the haul we got from this adventure- or the future fate of that grand cruiser. not to mention all the people we liberated.
will we see more of that Q'Salian girl? the first impression is that their civilization is similar to Star Trek in Warp, somehow (which im very curious about how they achieved).
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
It's right next to Inquisitor Lords, which are straight up "Can casually buy or burn planets based on their own reputation, and influence segmentum politics if they put their mind to it"
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well, buying an entire grand cruiser off of someone is a -70 check, so you have a 60% chance to be able to buy an entire grand cruiser when at port.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Not that we need to, because we got a super swank one we can refurbish and purify and make good again.
(Seriously Repulsives just look so good)
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh! Speaking of grand cruisers, does being 10k+ years old mean the Defiant comes with some swanky archeotech? Or are you just taking the not unreasonable position that a whole ass grand cruiser is prize enough.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
It might have had swanky Archeotech at some point. Whether that's still the case after we shot the shit out of it is, I think, quite a valid question.
F0lkL0re
Officially not an Inquisitor
- Location
- Shetland
Xoti is a bloodthirsty adorable little murder gremlin and we all love her for it.
Nice one "Abu"