- Location
- USA
[x] We should go insystem and check on those people - Chorda's Folly has seventy thousand souls, they can't have all vanished.
WARHAMMER 40,000: ROGUE TRADER: THE CITADEL OF SKULLS (Roleplaying on the Farthest Frontiers)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi Fantasy
[X] We should go insystem and check on those people - Chorda's Folly has seventy thousand souls, they can't have all vanished.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Kinda hot tbh. Though for Em's sake, I dearly hope those talons are retractable.
[X] We should go insystem and check on those people - Chorda's Folly has seventy thousand souls, they can't have all vanished.
CHAPTER ONE: A Ghost From the Past (1.2)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"We should go in system and check on those people - Chorda's Folly has seventy thousand souls. They can't have all vanished." You say, trying to still your fluttering heart.
Em nods, pensively, while Riya rubs her flesh hand along her gleaming, angular knuckles. "Yeah," she says, quietly.
"Mr. Marshels, send word to rig for a prograde injection," Em says. "I want us to bear in along the ecliptic and come into a high orbit."
"Aye aye, sir, prograde it is," the ship's sailing master, Mr. Marshels, tugs on his forelocks and hurries to the vox console to begin piping the orders through the ship. You feel the normal twinge of anxiety - there's rarely a fatality in this kind of simple action, but they always hit the worst. You know the people down there, better even than Em does, and you've attended to more than a few of their wakes over the years. But fortunately, the next twelve hours are as easy a rigging as you've ever seen and soon, the Revenge and the Demise begin to bear across the system, cutting a pair of perfect plasma wakes the whole way.
The week and two days it takes for you to arrive in orbit above Chorda's Folly only gives you more time to get...anxious. The lonely repeater signals from the orbiting buoys, the lonely ping ping ping of the automated orbit markers, the scratchy crackle of the asteroidal drift charts that are piped your way by servitors that have long since been left alone and untended. And through it all, there is no warp flash, no vox, no astropathic signal from the Colossus. Just silence and more silence.
The crew aboard the Revenge gets increasing prone to squabbling and starts and muttering among one another - the boatswains have their hands full keeping the hands from falling into drink, drunkenness and disorderly conduct that would eat away at the ship's good practice. Fortunately, Em and you have weathered this kind of tension before, and with your help, things are kept from drifting too afar afield.
And between it all, Ryia gets increasingly broody.
She's told you of him, of course. Of her first Captain after her father had tossed her out of the seal-lock of his ship for being a witch. Sly had picked her up from the void and took her under his wing as a likely pirate. She had repaid him with a mutiny and murder - and had assumed that he had been dead. Save that the scattered, fragmentary records aboard the Chaos Reaver you had faced in Damaris had mentioned his name - Jentan Hieronymus Slyvanta.
More commonly referred to as Captain Sly, of the Jolly.
He was supposed to be dead, Ryia had said, two days away from the colony, sitting with you in the sitting room, an unlit cigarillo rolling between her nimble, obsidian black fingers, the faint clink clink clink of metal the only sound other than the fire. But what if he's not? What if he's...worse? What if...
What if it's my fault?
She had every reason to be broody.
You'd given her a hug.
Then suggested Em give her a good dicking.
Then suggested, when neither of that had succeeded (well, okay, the dicking helped, but...not for very long) maybe a bit of port? But by then, the crews were busy in putting out the luffing jib to bring the ship to a relative stop, so it could fall into a high orbit above the world of Chorda's Folly.
"Sounds good to me," you say, starting to walk with him from the bridge as Ryia straps her sword - Spark - to her hip. She look grim faced, but she gives a little nod as the three of you step onto the bridge lift, that whisks you down to the spinal corridor. THere, you are met by the ever appreciated forms of the First. The First were the first squad of the first platoon of the 901st Elysian Ship to Ship Regiment. From left to right, you saw the dependable bulk of Biggs, then Slade (who was still sharpening her knife), then the ever nervous Catch-Twice, then their leader Corporal Lidda, and finally, Xoti. Everyone loved Xoti! She was beaming at you, like you'd just whipped out a huge present during Ascension Day.
"Heya Tine," she says. "Are we gonna go down to an abandoned colony? I've always wanted to explore an abandoned colony!"
"Private!" Lidda snapped. "That's the lady you're flapping your gums at."
"Oh, sorry, Corporal," Xoti says, nodding. Then she looks at you, beaming. "Heya M'Lady Tine! Are we gonna-"
Biggs, ever helpful, reached over, put a palm on Xoti's helmet (which had the mystifying words of BORN TO FRAG spray painted on it) and shoved it forward so the lip covered the shorter woman's manic eyes and a good chunk of her nose. "Ack!" Xoti yelped.
"We're going down, but we don't know what to expect," Em says, concealing his smile but not the twinkle in his eyes. "Keep yourselves ready - but do not fire on anything unless fired upon first."
"Yes, m'lord!" Lidda says, and the First fall in around you, while you walk a bit slower, so you can whisper, softly, to Xoti.
"Completely abandoned," you breathe to her.
"Eee!" she beams. "It's not quite a space hulk, but it'll do."
"...space hulk?" you arch an eyebrow.
"Childhood dream to explore a space hulk, m'lady!"
You blink, then shake your head.
The shuttle that you will be taking down is one that has been given to the Revenge by the grateful people of Damaris. The captain's yacht is not quite a sturdy enough vehicle to take in this kind of situation - but the Damarian variation on the Aquilla lander is a very elegant take on the lander pattern. Phi had declared it 'heterodoxy' which you supposed was reasonably good enough sign off on using it. It had a pair of heavy bolter sponsons mounted on the sides, with a back door that could let the marines off with ease, and comfortable seats up front for you, your sister, and your shared husband. The pilot, one of the deck crew of the Revenge, tipped his head to you three as you buckled in and the engines whirred to life.
Chorda's Folly filled the forward viewport within a few moments - and you had to admit...
It was an ugly planet.
Deeply ugly.
Russet red even without the red sunlight, with thick grayish clouds that streaked across it like decay on the corpse of a man ten days dead, it was had no polar caps, and any the only seas on it looked brackish and unappetizing even from orbit. The atmosphere wreathed your shuttle, and then broke away, the orange flames scraping off as the rattling got louder, then quieter as the wings took up the majority of the task for soaring along.
"There's the colony, m'lord," the pilot says. "Setting us down on the spaceport."
"I don't see any bodies," Ryia says, looking through the window to her left.
"Don't you mean people?" you ask, looking out your window as well. The colony is all huge pre-fab buildings, with aquillas spreading over their doors and narrow smoke stacks to vent any fumes from their internal workings into the atmosphere. Pipes and corrugated metal both encircle some of the structures, and you can see huge promethium tanks centered around the spaceport - made sense, since Chorda's Folly was a refinery planet for the precious glop that the whole galaxy seemed to spin on. The landing lights that normally guide down shuttles don't flick on - but the shuttle manages to settle down without much effort. THe back doors whir open, bringing with it the scent of engine exhaust...gritty dust...
And the sound of howling silence.
The First jog down the gangplank, each of them aiming their carbines around themselves, even Biggs and Xoti (who nominally carry more exotic weapons.
"Clear, sir!" Lidda calls out as Ryia, Em and you step down and out under the ruddy red sun. The air tastes of grit as you frown and look around yourself.
"I don't see anyone at all," Ryia says. "...something bad happened here."
You see that the docking lecturn, usually used for the direction of automated servitors in the refueling process for landers, was unoccupied...save for the servitor that was built into the console. His body is dessicated and his skull is partially exposed. As you watch, an ill tempered looking, four winged corvid drops from the sky from where your engine noise had frightened it. Your frown gets more fierce as the corvid begins to tap its beak against the servitor flesh, tearing away great chunks.
"The servitors are dead," you say, quietly.
"All right, first thing we're not going to do is split up," Em says.
Ryia chuckled. "Oh, really? I was thinking we could split up. Maybe have some premarital sex behind the promethium tankers."
"Too late," you say, elbowing her.
"I mean..." Xoti starts, before Biggs kicks her in the shin.
You look out at the desolation - seeing buildings rising from the gloom, cast in blood hues by the overhead sun, shrouded by the grayish dust that blows everywhere.
You don't like this place.
---
Where to go first?
[ ] The Promethium Refinery? (thousands worked there - maybe some yet live?)
[ ] The Commercia District? (a small bazaar - surely some clue can be found?)
[ ] The Enforcer Block? (a large concrete structure for the housing of the colonial justice...a jailhouse, too. Perfect security for survivors to hole up in?)
[ ] The Millita Barracks? (also, it seems to be the control system for a trio of heavy duty lascannon arrays...)
[ ] The Manufactorum District? (the only place more heavily worked than the Refinery...)
[ ] The Headquarters Forstress? (a heavy duty hab-block/command and control bunker combination, which appears to be the colonial heart)
[ ] Write In
Oh, also! While Tine remains in quantum flux...
[ ] Keep baleful eye
[ ] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
Em nods, pensively, while Riya rubs her flesh hand along her gleaming, angular knuckles. "Yeah," she says, quietly.
"Mr. Marshels, send word to rig for a prograde injection," Em says. "I want us to bear in along the ecliptic and come into a high orbit."
"Aye aye, sir, prograde it is," the ship's sailing master, Mr. Marshels, tugs on his forelocks and hurries to the vox console to begin piping the orders through the ship. You feel the normal twinge of anxiety - there's rarely a fatality in this kind of simple action, but they always hit the worst. You know the people down there, better even than Em does, and you've attended to more than a few of their wakes over the years. But fortunately, the next twelve hours are as easy a rigging as you've ever seen and soon, the Revenge and the Demise begin to bear across the system, cutting a pair of perfect plasma wakes the whole way.
The week and two days it takes for you to arrive in orbit above Chorda's Folly only gives you more time to get...anxious. The lonely repeater signals from the orbiting buoys, the lonely ping ping ping of the automated orbit markers, the scratchy crackle of the asteroidal drift charts that are piped your way by servitors that have long since been left alone and untended. And through it all, there is no warp flash, no vox, no astropathic signal from the Colossus. Just silence and more silence.
The crew aboard the Revenge gets increasing prone to squabbling and starts and muttering among one another - the boatswains have their hands full keeping the hands from falling into drink, drunkenness and disorderly conduct that would eat away at the ship's good practice. Fortunately, Em and you have weathered this kind of tension before, and with your help, things are kept from drifting too afar afield.
And between it all, Ryia gets increasingly broody.
She's told you of him, of course. Of her first Captain after her father had tossed her out of the seal-lock of his ship for being a witch. Sly had picked her up from the void and took her under his wing as a likely pirate. She had repaid him with a mutiny and murder - and had assumed that he had been dead. Save that the scattered, fragmentary records aboard the Chaos Reaver you had faced in Damaris had mentioned his name - Jentan Hieronymus Slyvanta.
More commonly referred to as Captain Sly, of the Jolly.
He was supposed to be dead, Ryia had said, two days away from the colony, sitting with you in the sitting room, an unlit cigarillo rolling between her nimble, obsidian black fingers, the faint clink clink clink of metal the only sound other than the fire. But what if he's not? What if he's...worse? What if...
What if it's my fault?
She had every reason to be broody.
You'd given her a hug.
Then suggested Em give her a good dicking.
Then suggested, when neither of that had succeeded (well, okay, the dicking helped, but...not for very long) maybe a bit of port? But by then, the crews were busy in putting out the luffing jib to bring the ship to a relative stop, so it could fall into a high orbit above the world of Chorda's Folly.
***
"Teleporting would be relatively easy, but..." Em says, shaking his head. "The atmosphere is clear of anything save a low grade dust storm and I want anyone who is alive down there to see a comforting Imperial lander coming down. Besides." He smiles, slightly. "We want the teleportarium to be warmed up and ready to yank us back, yes?" He nods.
"Sounds good to me," you say, starting to walk with him from the bridge as Ryia straps her sword - Spark - to her hip. She look grim faced, but she gives a little nod as the three of you step onto the bridge lift, that whisks you down to the spinal corridor. THere, you are met by the ever appreciated forms of the First. The First were the first squad of the first platoon of the 901st Elysian Ship to Ship Regiment. From left to right, you saw the dependable bulk of Biggs, then Slade (who was still sharpening her knife), then the ever nervous Catch-Twice, then their leader Corporal Lidda, and finally, Xoti. Everyone loved Xoti! She was beaming at you, like you'd just whipped out a huge present during Ascension Day.
"Heya Tine," she says. "Are we gonna go down to an abandoned colony? I've always wanted to explore an abandoned colony!"
"Private!" Lidda snapped. "That's the lady you're flapping your gums at."
"Oh, sorry, Corporal," Xoti says, nodding. Then she looks at you, beaming. "Heya M'Lady Tine! Are we gonna-"
Biggs, ever helpful, reached over, put a palm on Xoti's helmet (which had the mystifying words of BORN TO FRAG spray painted on it) and shoved it forward so the lip covered the shorter woman's manic eyes and a good chunk of her nose. "Ack!" Xoti yelped.
"We're going down, but we don't know what to expect," Em says, concealing his smile but not the twinkle in his eyes. "Keep yourselves ready - but do not fire on anything unless fired upon first."
"Yes, m'lord!" Lidda says, and the First fall in around you, while you walk a bit slower, so you can whisper, softly, to Xoti.
"Completely abandoned," you breathe to her.
"Eee!" she beams. "It's not quite a space hulk, but it'll do."
"...space hulk?" you arch an eyebrow.
"Childhood dream to explore a space hulk, m'lady!"
You blink, then shake your head.
The shuttle that you will be taking down is one that has been given to the Revenge by the grateful people of Damaris. The captain's yacht is not quite a sturdy enough vehicle to take in this kind of situation - but the Damarian variation on the Aquilla lander is a very elegant take on the lander pattern. Phi had declared it 'heterodoxy' which you supposed was reasonably good enough sign off on using it. It had a pair of heavy bolter sponsons mounted on the sides, with a back door that could let the marines off with ease, and comfortable seats up front for you, your sister, and your shared husband. The pilot, one of the deck crew of the Revenge, tipped his head to you three as you buckled in and the engines whirred to life.
Chorda's Folly filled the forward viewport within a few moments - and you had to admit...
It was an ugly planet.
Deeply ugly.
Russet red even without the red sunlight, with thick grayish clouds that streaked across it like decay on the corpse of a man ten days dead, it was had no polar caps, and any the only seas on it looked brackish and unappetizing even from orbit. The atmosphere wreathed your shuttle, and then broke away, the orange flames scraping off as the rattling got louder, then quieter as the wings took up the majority of the task for soaring along.
"There's the colony, m'lord," the pilot says. "Setting us down on the spaceport."
"I don't see any bodies," Ryia says, looking through the window to her left.
"Don't you mean people?" you ask, looking out your window as well. The colony is all huge pre-fab buildings, with aquillas spreading over their doors and narrow smoke stacks to vent any fumes from their internal workings into the atmosphere. Pipes and corrugated metal both encircle some of the structures, and you can see huge promethium tanks centered around the spaceport - made sense, since Chorda's Folly was a refinery planet for the precious glop that the whole galaxy seemed to spin on. The landing lights that normally guide down shuttles don't flick on - but the shuttle manages to settle down without much effort. THe back doors whir open, bringing with it the scent of engine exhaust...gritty dust...
And the sound of howling silence.
The First jog down the gangplank, each of them aiming their carbines around themselves, even Biggs and Xoti (who nominally carry more exotic weapons.
"Clear, sir!" Lidda calls out as Ryia, Em and you step down and out under the ruddy red sun. The air tastes of grit as you frown and look around yourself.
"I don't see anyone at all," Ryia says. "...something bad happened here."
You see that the docking lecturn, usually used for the direction of automated servitors in the refueling process for landers, was unoccupied...save for the servitor that was built into the console. His body is dessicated and his skull is partially exposed. As you watch, an ill tempered looking, four winged corvid drops from the sky from where your engine noise had frightened it. Your frown gets more fierce as the corvid begins to tap its beak against the servitor flesh, tearing away great chunks.
"The servitors are dead," you say, quietly.
"All right, first thing we're not going to do is split up," Em says.
Ryia chuckled. "Oh, really? I was thinking we could split up. Maybe have some premarital sex behind the promethium tankers."
"Too late," you say, elbowing her.
"I mean..." Xoti starts, before Biggs kicks her in the shin.
You look out at the desolation - seeing buildings rising from the gloom, cast in blood hues by the overhead sun, shrouded by the grayish dust that blows everywhere.
You don't like this place.
---
Where to go first?
[ ] The Promethium Refinery? (thousands worked there - maybe some yet live?)
[ ] The Commercia District? (a small bazaar - surely some clue can be found?)
[ ] The Enforcer Block? (a large concrete structure for the housing of the colonial justice...a jailhouse, too. Perfect security for survivors to hole up in?)
[ ] The Millita Barracks? (also, it seems to be the control system for a trio of heavy duty lascannon arrays...)
[ ] The Manufactorum District? (the only place more heavily worked than the Refinery...)
[ ] The Headquarters Forstress? (a heavy duty hab-block/command and control bunker combination, which appears to be the colonial heart)
[ ] Write In
Oh, also! While Tine remains in quantum flux...
[ ] Keep baleful eye
[ ] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
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[X] The Headquarters Forstress? (a heavy duty hab-block/command and control bunker combination, which appears to be the colonial heart)
[X] Keep baleful eye
Psy-spars are probably the superior choice but the eye is just too cool imo.
[X] Keep baleful eye
Psy-spars are probably the superior choice but the eye is just too cool imo.
samdamandias
Apprentice Plane Wizard
A refinery planet? Because refactory doesn't make much sense here unless 40K uses it in a completely different way than everything else.
[X] The Headquarters Forstress? (a heavy duty hab-block/command and control bunker combination, which appears to be the colonial heart)
Even if there aren't survivors there, they'd know that the HQ would be the first place any rescue would look, and leave some sort of message.
Assuming they were able to leave a message.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, refinery! Sorry!
ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] The Headquarters Forstress? (a heavy duty hab-block/command and control bunker combination, which appears to be the colonial heart)
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
- Location
- USA
[x] The Headquarters Forstress?
[x] Keep baleful eye
[x] Keep baleful eye
Abby Normal
High Clerk of the Ymaryn
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The Millita Barracks? (also, it seems to be the control system for a trio of heavy duty lascannon arrays...)
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Glad this is up!
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
Baleful eye, while cool, seems closer to Ryia's shtick then Tine's.
Nobody says 'they can't all have vanished' and then have it be a comm malfunction. It's always everyone vanishing.
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
Baleful eye, while cool, seems closer to Ryia's shtick then Tine's.
- Location
- USA
I could've sworn that in the previous quest, it was Iluryia who kept going for all the telekinesis and divination rolls. Yes, because the questers kept choosing those options, but still, that pretty much establishes them as Iluryia's "schtick."
[X] The Headquarters Forstress? (a heavy duty hab-block/command and control bunker combination, which appears to be the colonial heart)
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
[X] The Enforcer Block? (a large concrete structure for the housing of the colonial justice...a jailhouse, too. Perfect security for survivors to hole up in?)
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
As cool as the eye might be, I rather think the railgun gauntlets Tine's had for the two previous quests are much cooler. And those don't cause one of our eyes to stop working if they ever jam.
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
As cool as the eye might be, I rather think the railgun gauntlets Tine's had for the two previous quests are much cooler. And those don't cause one of our eyes to stop working if they ever jam.
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- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The Millita Barracks? (also, it seems to be the control system for a trio of heavy duty lascannon arrays...)
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
- Pronouns
- Reader
[X] The Millita Barracks? (also, it seems to be the control system for a trio of heavy duty lascannon arrays...)
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
[X] get the psy-spars for added telekinetic and divinatorial oomph
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Spars n' forts!
CHAPTER ONE: A Ghost From the Past (1.3)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Come on," Em says. "We'll get the best answers at the headquarters."
"All right, girls, keep your eyes peeled," Lidda says, moving front, while Xoti hangs back, and Biggs and Slade take the flanks. Catch-Twice hastily joins Xoti in the back as the three of you begin to walk forward. Ryia is frowning about herself.
"You have a bad feeling?" Em asks. Ryia is the better foreteller of you two - though you admit, you have a bit of the talent. Mostly comes in handy when orks are trying to kill you - though, sadly, you did never manage to best Ryia's count. Even if she cheated. The mecha-squigg definitely, definitely, definitely counted as just one, no matter how much she tried to argue 'but it was twenty stories tall, Tine' and 'fuck you, Tine.' Ryia frowns harder as your own neck prickles. THe faint crunching sounds of all of your boots is the only noise, other than the whistling wind, and the faint cree-clack, cree-clack, cree-clack of an opened door, being blown back and forth, back and forth.
"Yeah," Ryia says. "But also, no shit."
Em nods.
Your away party continues, skirting the refinery, sweeping past the commercial district - still no sign of life, not even pet canids - and...
Xoti opens fire.
Her las-carbine cracks and the gritty wind traces the ruby red path of the beam as she blows three glowing craters in a ferrocrete wall - right above the head of something that jerks back into cover. Xoti shoulders her carbine, then shouts: "Come out with your hands up!"
"Xoti, remember what I said about not shooting until being fired upon?" Em asks, his voice severe.
"Yeah, I shot over them," Xoti says as the head peeks out and your eyes widen. You put your hand on Xoti's weapon and push the barrel down, feeling the warmth against your palm. Your eyes focus and you zoom your vision in just a bit, your ears perking up.
"Wait," you say, then step forward, saying, gently. "Come on! Come out!" You clap your palms against your thigh. Slowly, timidly, the hiding creature peeks out - then scoots through the air, kicking up dust and bits of detritus as its grav-lifter worked overtime to push it at maximum speed. You capture the dear, holding his white skull to your chest as you pet the servo-skull on his smooth head, feeling the manipulator tendrils wrap around your wrist. "Aww, he was scared."
"It's a servo-skull, Tine," Ryia says, dryly, holstering her absurd weapon - a kind of crossbow that shoots Astartes bolt shells that she cobbled together beyond the fringes of the Imperium.
"Don't listen to the big mean Ryia," you say, softly, then hold up the servo-skull, looking into its gleaming ruby red eyes. Your finger caresses his temple, and your electroo flares on your wrist as you feel the communion with the machine spirit rushing through you. The skull is definitely frightened - both of Xoti and of something else - but most of all of its onrushing death. No one has tapped its power-cores for months. You shake your head, slightly. "He's been all alone for months." You look over at Em and Ryia. "This colony has been abandoned longer than we thought."
Em nods. "Any datums on it? Vid files? holos?"
"How about it, kiddo?" you whisper. "Got any holos?"
"It's! A! Servo! Sk-" Ryia starts, throwing up her arms.
But the skull has already chirruped helpfully - the machine spirits are always much more friendly than the Coggies ever said. Oh, yes, some are quite frightening, but you know that most of them are absolute dears who just want to help. Even the murder-servitors that your family has owned for generations are, once you get past their growly exteriors, more like big puppies than anything else. Well. Unless they were told to kill someone, then they got rather frightful. But this was no murder-servitor, this was a friendly, helpful servo-skull.
And so, it lifted up into the air and projects a hololithic recording of a man in a fine black and red robe. He crackles faintly with static, his form striding along the ground - tracing a path towards the nearby manufactorum as you follow the skull, Em and Ryia hurrying to catch up with you, the squad jogging after. The man comes to the outside of the manfactorum - and another man fuzzes into existence next to him, having reached the skull's captor range. They are hololithic ghosts, projected into where they had once stood, months ago...it fills you with eerie dread as the robed man begins to speak.
"Good morning, Ser Gawlin."
"Ah, good morning, Magistrate." Gawlin is a rough, broad shouldered, Cadic fellow - a contrast to the Magistrate, who has distinct Talleric features, accentuated by his official turban. "What can I do for you this day?"
"The Chorda family, through me, wishes to learn the current status of the production quotum," the Magistrate says. "We are, after all, not running a charity, and previous month outputs are falling below statistical haruspexis."
"Well, uh, Magistrate, I don't rightly know about them bones..." Ser Gawlin says, scratching his jaw. "But we can't make promethium when the crude's not pumpin', and this here sump's drying down something fierce."
"Hmm..."
There is a sudden buzz of static and the two hololiths blur into almost complete indistinction. When they are once more visible, they are bathed in a monochrome green light, as if the pict recorder had become significantly less advanced and impressive. From the strange cast to the shadows and features of the Magistrate and Ser Galwin, the light is coming from every direction at once, not slackening. There is an eerie, wailing shriek that comes from the vox on the skull. You'd almost assume it was a vocodor error, but...no, it was the recording.
Ser Galwain turns and walks out of frame, without a word.
The Magistrate stands perfectly still - and you step around to see his face, but sadly, the holo blurs there, not having enough data to recreate his expression. Then you step backwards as he reaches, your mind reacting to it as if it is a threat...for he has pulled a las pistol from his belt. He places it to his temple - and then the hololith cuts out with a pop.
"What was that?" Ryia asks.
Em puts his finger to his fox. "This is away mission to Revenge - beat to quarters and if anything comes in orbit that isn't beaming a friendly vox, open fire on it without hesitation."
"Aye, aye, sir," the voice crackles over the vox as Em lowers his finger, looking at you, seriously.
"It may not help, but I at least want to poke whatever did this in the eye...if it comes back."
You nod. "We should see what we can find at the base..." you say.
The three of you resume your walking - and Ryia says: "It doesn't make sense."
"Well, yeah, usually, officious magistrates don't kill themselves just to make foremen's jobs easier," you say, biting your lip, trying to cut some of the tension with a bit of a jape.
"No, i mean, if they killed themselves," Ryia says. "Where's the bodies?
We walked, chewing on that. A few months wasn't time enough for bones to vanish. Or even flesh to vanish, not with how sparse the scavengers were around here.
The headquarters rose ahead of us, a bulky dome of ferrocrete and armor plating with the House Chorda symbol emblazoned above the doorway. The only problem was that the sturdy looking place was built to withstand attacks from monsters and aliens and, more likely, rioting miners. The front doors were made of solid adamantine, and it looked to be pretty well thick too. Em shook his head as he examined it. "We may need to get a melta down here for this," he said, quietly. "Or some det charges."
You and Ryia exchanged a glance.
"...actually, there were those las-cannons," Em says, brightening. "We could take the cannons down, hook them up-"
You drew Aria and Ryia drew Spark at the same time.
"And..." Em stops as you sweep your sword up with a flurry of sparks and a glowing line of molten metal - and Ryia sweeps her sword down in a curved arc, spraying more sparks into the air. You step forward and kick the adamantine and the chunk that you two had cut into flew back into the hole with a distant crash, revealing a circular hole that still glowed brightly with the force swords contact. You beamed at Ryia, then at Em, who was blinking faintly.
"You are stronger than you look," Ryia says.
"I exercise!" you say, cheerfully.
Lidda and Biggs go in first, shining their stablights around. You and Em and Ryia follow after, stepping inside - and your good cheer fades immediately.
Here are the colonists. Their dead flesh fills your nose with a cloying stench and you can see a dozen or so bodies on the ground, scattered haphazardly here and there. Their faces are twisted with a rictus grin - the kind of expression that lingers, even after months of decay...the kind of expression that comes from pure, raw agony. But worse, you can see that the bodies are clumped...because they killed one another with their bare hands. You see thumbs pressed into eyesockets, palms wrapped around throats, jaws shattered by knuckles.
Ryia frowns. "What do we do first?" she asked, quietly.
---
A Grim Scene...you can pick 2 without penalty, but each after it will add a -10 to any roll due to hurrying.
[ ] Bring down the Chirgeon to investigate the corpses
[ ] Bury them and do the rites
[ ] Open your psychic senses and try to feel what might have happened
[ ] Have Ryia do a divination (she's better at it)
[ ] Find the cogitators and coax them to life
[ ] Secure Victuals and Supplies (your ships have 2 months of supply left each after the voyage here and you can secure a complete resupply)
[ ] Write In
"All right, girls, keep your eyes peeled," Lidda says, moving front, while Xoti hangs back, and Biggs and Slade take the flanks. Catch-Twice hastily joins Xoti in the back as the three of you begin to walk forward. Ryia is frowning about herself.
"You have a bad feeling?" Em asks. Ryia is the better foreteller of you two - though you admit, you have a bit of the talent. Mostly comes in handy when orks are trying to kill you - though, sadly, you did never manage to best Ryia's count. Even if she cheated. The mecha-squigg definitely, definitely, definitely counted as just one, no matter how much she tried to argue 'but it was twenty stories tall, Tine' and 'fuck you, Tine.' Ryia frowns harder as your own neck prickles. THe faint crunching sounds of all of your boots is the only noise, other than the whistling wind, and the faint cree-clack, cree-clack, cree-clack of an opened door, being blown back and forth, back and forth.
"Yeah," Ryia says. "But also, no shit."
Em nods.
Your away party continues, skirting the refinery, sweeping past the commercial district - still no sign of life, not even pet canids - and...
Xoti opens fire.
Her las-carbine cracks and the gritty wind traces the ruby red path of the beam as she blows three glowing craters in a ferrocrete wall - right above the head of something that jerks back into cover. Xoti shoulders her carbine, then shouts: "Come out with your hands up!"
"Xoti, remember what I said about not shooting until being fired upon?" Em asks, his voice severe.
"Yeah, I shot over them," Xoti says as the head peeks out and your eyes widen. You put your hand on Xoti's weapon and push the barrel down, feeling the warmth against your palm. Your eyes focus and you zoom your vision in just a bit, your ears perking up.
"Wait," you say, then step forward, saying, gently. "Come on! Come out!" You clap your palms against your thigh. Slowly, timidly, the hiding creature peeks out - then scoots through the air, kicking up dust and bits of detritus as its grav-lifter worked overtime to push it at maximum speed. You capture the dear, holding his white skull to your chest as you pet the servo-skull on his smooth head, feeling the manipulator tendrils wrap around your wrist. "Aww, he was scared."
"It's a servo-skull, Tine," Ryia says, dryly, holstering her absurd weapon - a kind of crossbow that shoots Astartes bolt shells that she cobbled together beyond the fringes of the Imperium.
"Don't listen to the big mean Ryia," you say, softly, then hold up the servo-skull, looking into its gleaming ruby red eyes. Your finger caresses his temple, and your electroo flares on your wrist as you feel the communion with the machine spirit rushing through you. The skull is definitely frightened - both of Xoti and of something else - but most of all of its onrushing death. No one has tapped its power-cores for months. You shake your head, slightly. "He's been all alone for months." You look over at Em and Ryia. "This colony has been abandoned longer than we thought."
Em nods. "Any datums on it? Vid files? holos?"
"How about it, kiddo?" you whisper. "Got any holos?"
"It's! A! Servo! Sk-" Ryia starts, throwing up her arms.
But the skull has already chirruped helpfully - the machine spirits are always much more friendly than the Coggies ever said. Oh, yes, some are quite frightening, but you know that most of them are absolute dears who just want to help. Even the murder-servitors that your family has owned for generations are, once you get past their growly exteriors, more like big puppies than anything else. Well. Unless they were told to kill someone, then they got rather frightful. But this was no murder-servitor, this was a friendly, helpful servo-skull.
And so, it lifted up into the air and projects a hololithic recording of a man in a fine black and red robe. He crackles faintly with static, his form striding along the ground - tracing a path towards the nearby manufactorum as you follow the skull, Em and Ryia hurrying to catch up with you, the squad jogging after. The man comes to the outside of the manfactorum - and another man fuzzes into existence next to him, having reached the skull's captor range. They are hololithic ghosts, projected into where they had once stood, months ago...it fills you with eerie dread as the robed man begins to speak.
"Good morning, Ser Gawlin."
"Ah, good morning, Magistrate." Gawlin is a rough, broad shouldered, Cadic fellow - a contrast to the Magistrate, who has distinct Talleric features, accentuated by his official turban. "What can I do for you this day?"
"The Chorda family, through me, wishes to learn the current status of the production quotum," the Magistrate says. "We are, after all, not running a charity, and previous month outputs are falling below statistical haruspexis."
"Well, uh, Magistrate, I don't rightly know about them bones..." Ser Gawlin says, scratching his jaw. "But we can't make promethium when the crude's not pumpin', and this here sump's drying down something fierce."
"Hmm..."
There is a sudden buzz of static and the two hololiths blur into almost complete indistinction. When they are once more visible, they are bathed in a monochrome green light, as if the pict recorder had become significantly less advanced and impressive. From the strange cast to the shadows and features of the Magistrate and Ser Galwin, the light is coming from every direction at once, not slackening. There is an eerie, wailing shriek that comes from the vox on the skull. You'd almost assume it was a vocodor error, but...no, it was the recording.
Ser Galwain turns and walks out of frame, without a word.
The Magistrate stands perfectly still - and you step around to see his face, but sadly, the holo blurs there, not having enough data to recreate his expression. Then you step backwards as he reaches, your mind reacting to it as if it is a threat...for he has pulled a las pistol from his belt. He places it to his temple - and then the hololith cuts out with a pop.
"What was that?" Ryia asks.
Em puts his finger to his fox. "This is away mission to Revenge - beat to quarters and if anything comes in orbit that isn't beaming a friendly vox, open fire on it without hesitation."
"Aye, aye, sir," the voice crackles over the vox as Em lowers his finger, looking at you, seriously.
"It may not help, but I at least want to poke whatever did this in the eye...if it comes back."
You nod. "We should see what we can find at the base..." you say.
The three of you resume your walking - and Ryia says: "It doesn't make sense."
"Well, yeah, usually, officious magistrates don't kill themselves just to make foremen's jobs easier," you say, biting your lip, trying to cut some of the tension with a bit of a jape.
"No, i mean, if they killed themselves," Ryia says. "Where's the bodies?
We walked, chewing on that. A few months wasn't time enough for bones to vanish. Or even flesh to vanish, not with how sparse the scavengers were around here.
The headquarters rose ahead of us, a bulky dome of ferrocrete and armor plating with the House Chorda symbol emblazoned above the doorway. The only problem was that the sturdy looking place was built to withstand attacks from monsters and aliens and, more likely, rioting miners. The front doors were made of solid adamantine, and it looked to be pretty well thick too. Em shook his head as he examined it. "We may need to get a melta down here for this," he said, quietly. "Or some det charges."
You and Ryia exchanged a glance.
"...actually, there were those las-cannons," Em says, brightening. "We could take the cannons down, hook them up-"
You drew Aria and Ryia drew Spark at the same time.
"And..." Em stops as you sweep your sword up with a flurry of sparks and a glowing line of molten metal - and Ryia sweeps her sword down in a curved arc, spraying more sparks into the air. You step forward and kick the adamantine and the chunk that you two had cut into flew back into the hole with a distant crash, revealing a circular hole that still glowed brightly with the force swords contact. You beamed at Ryia, then at Em, who was blinking faintly.
"You are stronger than you look," Ryia says.
"I exercise!" you say, cheerfully.
Lidda and Biggs go in first, shining their stablights around. You and Em and Ryia follow after, stepping inside - and your good cheer fades immediately.
Here are the colonists. Their dead flesh fills your nose with a cloying stench and you can see a dozen or so bodies on the ground, scattered haphazardly here and there. Their faces are twisted with a rictus grin - the kind of expression that lingers, even after months of decay...the kind of expression that comes from pure, raw agony. But worse, you can see that the bodies are clumped...because they killed one another with their bare hands. You see thumbs pressed into eyesockets, palms wrapped around throats, jaws shattered by knuckles.
Ryia frowns. "What do we do first?" she asked, quietly.
---
A Grim Scene...you can pick 2 without penalty, but each after it will add a -10 to any roll due to hurrying.
[ ] Bring down the Chirgeon to investigate the corpses
[ ] Bury them and do the rites
[ ] Open your psychic senses and try to feel what might have happened
[ ] Have Ryia do a divination (she's better at it)
[ ] Find the cogitators and coax them to life
[ ] Secure Victuals and Supplies (your ships have 2 months of supply left each after the voyage here and you can secure a complete resupply)
[ ] Write In
Tine succeeds automatically with the skull thanks to her Binary Chatter.
Ryia rolls damage: 17 (Pen 8)
Tine Rolls damage: 29 (pen 2)
The door has 16 AP, so that's 9 and 15 damage, for a total of 24, which slices a 2 meter hole through the door)
Ryia rolls damage: 17 (Pen 8)
Tine Rolls damage: 29 (pen 2)
The door has 16 AP, so that's 9 and 15 damage, for a total of 24, which slices a 2 meter hole through the door)
- Location
- [REDACTED]
[X] Bury them and do the rites
[X] Secure Victuals and Supplies (your ships have 2 months of supply left each after the voyage here and you can secure a complete resupply)
[X] Find the cogitators and coax them to life
Best not to risk the warp with an overwork penalty.
[X] Secure Victuals and Supplies (your ships have 2 months of supply left each after the voyage here and you can secure a complete resupply)
[X] Find the cogitators and coax them to life
Best not to risk the warp with an overwork penalty.
