[DH1e] The Damocles Contingency (RPG IC)

[Mazer Rackham]

The Spaceport:

 

"You'd better board then," the pilot responds, with a slight, lopsided smile. He leaves you there, tramping up the huge assault ramp.

 

Cephas strides within, creating a hammer on anvil racket.  As you peer up inside the lower ramp, you can see he's already reaching for a crash harness, folding his robe neatly before seating.

 

Bardas can hear the eccentric binharic chatter of a high-end servitor co-pilot.

 

"What do you mean the stabiliser's fallen off?" the pilot replies.

 

More chatter.

 

"Ah, a joke. Less of those."

 

The engines begin to spin up.

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

With a heavy heart, Reynard scanned what was left of the Freehold. By the standards of a good-sized Hive, this had been a thriving, successful community. Well, better than many. Surviving at least. Now it was… gone.

 

As he moved north across the market square towards the door Gheist had led them through only a few days ago, his stablight played back and forth over the bodies as he looked for any signs of survivors; Hef, the little girl…

 

Spoiler

Awareness Test: Per28 +10(Awareness+10) +10(HS:Sight) = 48, Roll: 43, Pass with 0DoS.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

The Free Market:

 

Reynard:

 

As you carefully search, you come across several mangled bodies, men and women among them. One burly individual is torn all to shreds, one arm is gone at the shoulder, a long slick of blood draws your eye to the disembodied appendage. Upon it is the tattoo of a Departmento Munitorium winged skull, and a Crusader Cross.

 

Clutched in the fist, is a one-armed, ragged dolly, with the stuffing torn out. The foam spills out from her chest, disembowelled and stained with blood.  The doll's lifeless eyes, in well-played with face look up at you with a strange empty look. Tufts of the fluffy stuffing drift across the floor, obscenely sticking to the man's wounds before being absorbed into the clotting mess.

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

 

Nicios looked at the market with sadness and distaste. Such waste of life, that could be serving.

Spoiler

Pysniscience Test

Target - 36

Roll - 84

Result = Failure, 4 DoF

Too much death colored the ether, washing out any traces of other psychic activity. He swallowed hard and double-checked his weaponry. 

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

The Penitent sat in silence for much of the flight, preparing himself for the violence and horror he knew awaited them. The lower hive would likely be in utter turmoil, the common folk tearing one another apart as they tried to escape the iron tomb. If previous experiences pacifying a rebelling Imperial world were anything to go by, hell likely awaited them.

 

He drummed his fingers on the receiver of Lady Valkyrie's boltgun and reflected upon the high honors Lord Inquisitor Locke and Cephas had each paid him, the former with the gift of the neural linkage and Costanza's warplate, the latter with an opportunity for a turn off the blade with an Astartes. An Angel of Death! A demi-god grandson of the God-Emperor. His body still ached from the surgery and sparring match, but he felt more alive than ever before. 

 

He shook his head in disbelief, and fished out the packet of bolt shells he had acquired from the Arbites quartermaster before departing. With a click the boltgun's magazine dropped free, and he carefully pressed each of the precious rounds into the housing. It was two-thirds full now; the ammunition was ruinously expensive and would need to be used judiciously.

 

He leaned back against the wall of the transport, and gripping the barrel of his lasgun, closed his eyes and dreamt of other worlds. 

 

+++

 

He took the point position when they disembarked, wanting to hide his waning discomfort in the new armor suit. The neural plugs which stabbed into his skull felt strange and ached, but he knew that would pass with time. The most disturbing sensation was of being able to feel the armor moving around him, almost as though he was controlling another person's body from within. He shuddered at the thought and pressed on, lasgun at the ready. The boltgun was still strapped across his cuirass, but the armor's fiber-bundle servo-musculature made it so he barely noticed the weight. 

 

As he thudded along he panned the stablight he had crudely mounted onto his sallet back and forth, taking in the general disarray and wreckage. The eerie quiet of the lower hive was unsettling, given the insane level of activity he had witnessed scant days earlier. He could not wait for their mission to be completed, and to be quit of this horrid place. 

 

+++

 

The marketplace was far worse than he had expected. It was a charnel house of twisted and ruined bodies, of broken girders and guttering flames. The stench of blood and gunpowder assailed him, and he took in a lungful of that familiar scent which told of the recent violence and horror. He watched, detached, as Reynard knelt beside the dismembered remains of a civilian. It was a sight he had seen many times before. Too many times.

 

He sighed and turned away. There was more killing yet to come this day. More innocents would die, either by the hands of the wicked, or by the degraded integrity of the hive superstructure. He would see to it there was a reckoning.

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Necronaut

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard sighed and knelt beside Hef's ruined body. Unfortunate. Part of him hoped the veteran had now found his way back to Tabitha and her son. The other, more analytical part wondered what kind of enemy could rip a big man's arm out of its socket…

 

Reynard wondered about the child too. He didn't see her body. But she had been a true survivor… and maybe something more too? If Dreyfuss had been sampling from her, had wanted to take her away, was she somehow afflicted with the curse of the Aldarios?

 

"Child!" he called softly, "Are you here?"

 

He wasn't sure if he wanted an answer. Something about the violence of Hef's death reminded him of Helene's savagery.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

The Free Market:

 

Reynard's whisper ebbs out into a silence which lasts for several heartbeats, but it sounds flat, minus any sibilance.

 

Yet, when the reply comes, it bounces from the walls, rasping with a gentle echo. It comes from a young female throat, trained to sing. There's an underlying steel in it, a promise and threat both. It is clear, cool. Imperious.

 

"When the box sings a pretty song...when it saves you from all that’s wrong..."

 

The voice dies off.

"When it then adds a sudden price...and your castle's infested with loathsome mice..."

 

All you can hear is the punch and thump of your own hearts. Nought else stirs in this graveyard.

 

"Handsome boys come out to play...but I must send them all away..."

 

It's coming from around the corner.

[A.T.]

Falk:

 

"Weapons ready", Falk spoke lowly as they entered the market, he had seen the aftermath of many conflicts within the hive and this was not it.

Where were the weapons and signs of a fight. Perhaps something tore through here as the hive shook, the frenzy of it like that seen in the lab, inhuman strength.

 

The song that replied to Reynard call chilled the air as Falk gripped his weapon more tightly, even as the implication dawned that the golems 'stolen hands' might not have been the servitors and servo-skulls they had assumed, but the survivors and their descendants.

[Mazer Rackham]

The Free Market:

 

As you tentatively and tactically round the corner, you see a slender figure, her black dress torn and red hair flailing out behind her like a crimson wedding train. Long legs and bare feet sweep and fold, propelling her on a swing made from long cables, affixed to a pole between two of the stanchions. One of her arms grips the cable on her left, whist the other holds a very pale, very frightened small girl.

 

Helene Aldario's arms are red to the elbow.

 

Broken and torn bodies litter the alley as she swoops and reels on the long swing, the seat of which seems to be a dead woman. Her limbs trail, flinging out as Helene reaches the apex of each pass.

 

"Isn't this fun?" she asks the girl.

 

Then she sees you.

 

"I know you," she says to Reynard, smiling, red vigour staining her fanged grin and sharp chin, which jerks at Nicios, "and you. But I forget from where."

 

She continues to hum the rhyme as she dallies on the swing.

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

"By the God-Emperor!"

 

He swore and snapped his lasgun up, drawing a bead on the gore-drenched woman swinging back and forth on the macabre folly. He could barely comprehend the insanity of the tableau unfolding before him. Her scarlet tresses framed a halo of madness around her deranged and feral features. 

 

Sighting down the barrel of his trusty rifle, he asked the other members of the demi-cell in a loud whisper, "What is this new devilry?! And may I have thy leave to execute this heretic with extreme prejudice?"

 

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Scourge actually had it right. No point in trying to negotiate. The woman was as mad as a box of frogs. Reynard grimaced and loosened his weapons. This was a task he'd hoped to avoid.

 

Haven't we already played this hand? Fine, this time stay out of the way of the heavy hitters.

 

As inconspicuously as he could, he edged around to one flank. Keeping one eye on Aldario and her hostage - her familiar? - he looked towards the door used by Gheist. Was it open? Did he have a way out that didn't involve being shock-mauled into insensibility?

 

"Use the damn bolter," he muttered.

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

Routes to Drexler's office, as well as the route Geist used to take the Judge and Seeker to Lady Gwynne are open/available to escape down. It is also quite apparent that the girl is absolutely terrified, and is clutching onto Helene not out of enjoyment or fealty, she's clinging on for dear life.

 

The Western Desert:

 

The gun-cutter 'Voivode' roars out of the spaceport and executes a tight turn to swing onto vector for the wreck of the Black Ship. It takes two hours to get out there, during which Cephas sits in the crash-harness, hands on his knees. The mortal sized bucket seats keep Bardas and Restal quite comfortable, if secure. As the gunship slows to a speed which permits movement within, you can hear the pilot sing out on networked vox-links.

 

+Might want to come up here, we have surface contacts.+

 

The Voivode thunders forward, Cutter banking gently to provide a view.

 

It looks just like the orbital picter, albeit as the scads of sand in the polluted sulphuric air allow.  The craft is crumpled from terminal arrest impact. There's a deep furrow perhaps a mile long, in the crust of the world where the brutal, blunt-faced vessel ploughed into the ground. Around it, along with the ground-scanning auspex chirps are some kind of tents, the sides encrusted with solar panels.

 

Small figures in rag-tag rad suits cluster like ants around a section of the ship which would hold the sublight drive complexes.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal: 

 

For a wreck, the Voivode looked alive. A grasping spider living on death... 

 

Bardas had imparted to him the mantras and catechism's. 

 

From the scan he was revolted. Hands grasped rope for his drop-harness and he pocketed a couple of frag grenades. The Golem needed to be purged. 

 

Kerr Restal spoke in a hateful gasp:

 

+Anathema!"

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Machine God
Might come in handy

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Insane but waiting, prepared, he had seen before that Nicios had needed focus for his actions and perhaps a choice word might break her train of thought, "The Dark Sister serves only her own whim", he echoed Gwynne as in the corner of his eye he saw the others shift their weight in preparation, "what does she care of the box?"

[Mazer Rackham]

The Free Markets:

 

Helene cocks her head, and stops pumping her legs, to slow to a stop.

 

"The box? It fixes things!" she replies, brightly. Her face takes on a sly cant. "What do you know of the box?"

 

The girl looks at you, recognises Reynard. Her eyes glue to his, pleading.

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

 

Pistol in one hand, his other spinning his ring, Nicios looked with loathing at the witch. His Wrath fills my heart, His Purity my soul.

Spoiler

 

Invocation Test

Target- 53

Roll - 35

Result = Pass

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Lord_Ikka

[A.T.]

Falk

 

"It hides. It fears the one who captured it before", one hand never leaving his weapon he holds up the other, holding Kreavus' ring, "it demands only for itself".

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Damn.

 

Moving had given him a better view of the girl. Terrified. Hostage, then. Reynard suddenly remembered what Locke had said earlier.

 

The best death you'll earn is that you'll vanquish something evil, putting your soul at risk for people who won't know your name, because you stopped them being slaughtered, or enslaved, or turned inside out.

 

People. Giving your life to save thousands? Millions? Maybe worth it. But one little Hive girl? Hardly a good trade, right?

 

...

 

...

 

 

 

 

 

As Falk spoke, Reynard started moving slowly towards the pair on the swing.

 

"Lawman's right, Governess. You said it - sung it - yourself, the box always asks a price. It's not your friend. You know that's the truth. It is our enemy… but you don't have to be? Imagine it. You could rule this world, like you were always meant to, without interference from the Adeptus or the other Houses or the damn box. We could help you make it happen."

 

He was lying, of course. Locke would undoubtedly see her dead, or caged on another Black Ship bound for Terra. But maybe he could distract her from the kid. He shrugged and offered his most winning smile, his hands held wide.

 

"We could be friends?"

 

 

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

Scourge's lasgun clattered to the ground, and with a nod to Ryenard he raised the boltgun to a firing position, gripping it tightly in both of his powered gauntlets. Clearly this was the witch that the others had encountered previously, the one who slew Lady Costanza. His helm hid a rictus of barely restrained hatred and fury. Not wanting to interrupt Falk, he shifted nearer to the fanged woman as subtly as could be managed by a man in a salvaged suit of powered armor.

 

He looked over at Reynard and was surprised to see the charlatan taking a similar tack. Good. The Penitent racked back the charging lever on the boltgun while Reynard spoke, inching ever closer. At virtually any distance, the weapon was capable of rendering unarmored foes into meaty viscera with ease, but being at close range all but guaranteed that outcome.

 

But they could not risk the girl. 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

The Western Desert:

 

Primitive arms are brought to bear, the Voivode's hull pattering with a handful of pebbles as the dregs below are eclipsed in smoke and smog. Cutter takes the gunship out of reach as Restal and Bardas hold onto the seats or zero-g mantling rails.

 

The rear-facing cargo hold is filled with a throaty roar. +Get me to ten metres,+ Cephas says.

 

On the cockpit monitors you can see him astride the bike, and as Cutter complies, dropping the sturdy hull further to ground, the back door opens, and in a billow of fumes and snapping robes, the biker launches out onto the wastes, a tonnage of ceramite plummeting through the poisonous fumes in a single dark brick. The sealed hold closes and vents any dangerous toxins. Outside you can hear the muted cracking of twin-linked boltguns clearing the decks.

 

When Cutter brings the nose back around, you can see Cephas tearing around the wreck, churning up sand behind him, a ripsaw spewing sawdust, circling in lazy ovals.

 

The Voivode comes on station, hovering above the wreck. Cutter turns round in his pilot throne.

 

+Think you boys better get dressed. Rappelling gear is in the back. Have fun.+

 

The Free Market:

 

Helene looks at each of you in turn, a wary interest writ on her features.

 

"A Queen does need loyal subjects," she muses, a half smile revealing her bloodied teeth. "And one does tire of the constant demands."

 

She gently slips off the seat, and the body starts coughing weakly. The person she was sitting on is barely alive, now only being slowly being choked by their own weight. The woman manages to put her arms and knees down, and you can hear the gasp as she begins to breathe freely.

 

"Family is all about blood and obligations," Helene croons, her fingers lengthening into long, dark claws. "Shall you join my royal house?"

 

She steps closer, cradling the child, caressing her throat with wicked nails. The small girl would be tiring to hold for so long, but appears to weigh nothing in Helene's arms.

 

She is no more than three metres from you.

 

Falk/Scourge/Nicios/Reynard must mow make an Opposed WP Test.

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

The woman's ego assailed him as she walked closer, her bare feet padding deafeningly upon the plasteel decking, reverberating maddeningly within his mind. Her horrible talons made him shudder and want to flee, but in that moment as he held the boltgun in a deathgrip, he felt a stab of pain from his left palm and remembered his blood oath. He would not fail Locke or the others. 

 

 

Opposed Willpower test: 33

 

Opposed Willpower: 1d100 86

86: failure, 5 DoF

 

Spending 1 FP to reroll… 

Opposed Willpower: 1d100 15

15: success, 1 DoS

 

 

"Vile sorcery will avail thee nought, witch," he growled. "Release the girl and the God-Emperor will show thee His mercy." 

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

The Free Market:

 

"Mercy?" she spits at Scourge, unimpressed. Her retinas are afire with crimson light. "Being dragged screaming from your bed, like this little princess? Is that mercy?" Helene grips the child. "Destined to die at the foot of a throne?"

 

"No, Crusader. It is better to reign in hell, than serve in what blinkered nonsense you call heaven. Can you even see truth through that fog in your brain?"

 

Although you can feel her presence heavy on you, it gains no further foothold over your defiance. (You tied).

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Here it comes, thought Falk. He had read the reports, knew from experience that those given doubt wall fall back on old habits. Madness did not learn from its mistakes.

 

No more words, cut out the world and focus on the task. Let Scourge stoke her fury and turn her thoughts away from other things. Her lips moved but the words faded... a little closer...

 

 

Willpower test 17 vs target 41 - pass

 
Ready action...  (and be prepared to spend a fate point for an extra DoS on the willpower if needed)

Edited April 2, 2023 by A.T.

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Spoiler

Wp Test: Wp25, Roll: 11, 1DoS

(Likewise, if needed will use a FP for an DoS if makes a difference?)

 

Reynard swallowed, hard. He had to force himself to focus on what he actually saw, a monster drenched in blood up to its elbows, surrounded by the bodies of its victims. Had seeing the beast before, facing Helene in the throne room, somehow inured him to her witchery? Or was it his desire to protect the girl? He didn't know. But it seemed to be working.

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

He unclipped from his harness and retrieved his war gear. He took a shot of Rad-booster, changed Rad filters on his void body-glove and pocketed rations. 

 

The gun-cutter loosed off multiple Heavy Bolter rounds into the solar arrays, whilst he got ready. 

 

He trusted Cutter to pilot the bird in any environment, yet he could not trust himself to a rappelling line. 

 

The gun-cutter swooped in lower and he jumped. As a Cat he fell, on making the ground he scoped for targets. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by Machine God
Typo