[DH1e] The Damocles Contingency (RPG IC)

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard watched with cold pleasure as Scourge lifted the monstrous hammer and smashed it down into the Golem's true physical form. The malign cube cracked under the mighty blow. But the enemy fought back, unleashing a torrent of filth against the crusader. Reynard could see that Bardas was also still struggling with the Abominable Intelligence, desperately attempting to regain control of the nucleonic stack. If the Adept did not succeed soon, they and the entire Hive would be obliterated.

 

That it would destroy the Golem along with them would, in his opinion, be only partial recompense.

 

Reynard looked around - what could the rest of them do to help their comrades overcome the daemon's final defences? His eye caught on the left-hand statue. Hadn't Nicios said something about them being… vanes…? coalescing the power of the warp in some way, feeding the Golem? If they were damaged, might it weaken or at least distract their foe?

 

"Quick," he yelled to the others who were no longer engaged, even as he hurried across the chamber with bolt pistols raised. "Smash the other icons, deny the Golem the power they draw!"

 

Even as he fired, he looked over at where Scourge and Bardas continued their attacks.

 

"It's on you now, my friends. Save Damocles. And please, kill that ing cube."

 

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

ROUND SEVEN CONTINUES

 

GM: With most actions/interactions declared I'm going to move us on. If you do want to stick narrative in, be my guest. Oh and Happy Birthday to this game as of yesterday. 

 

Golem Opposed Tech-Use:

D100: PASS, no DoS

Golem Wins, Bardas is kept out of the system (for now).

 

ROUND SEVEN ENDS

ROUND EIGHT BEGINS

 

+Initiative Order and Map remain.+

 

Restal [ ]

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

He could see Bar-Das feverishly keying away at an interface below The Golem.

 

Old skills were not needed now, new skills to send the anathema to the Emperor, to fate, were needed.

 

Stowing Huginn and Muninn, he raced against the tick of the clock to save Damocles, to aid his...

 

 

Companion.

 

"Exalted are the Khamsin Brotherhood!" yelled Kerr Restal, as he ran towards destiny.

 

 

 

 

(Full Action) Run to console at foot of The Golem. Burn Fate Point. Run to the end of Initiative

 

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Machine God
Tidy-up

[Mazer Rackham]

ROUND EIGHT CONTINUES

 

The Golem of Antares:

Psychic Power (Minor) Weapon Jinx

WP D100: Fail

 

The daemon attempts to batter you with psychic means, but the winds of the warp have shifted with the psychic loci removed.

 

It howls continually in rage and frustration - a shriek that ululates in pitch and strength, lodging in your ears and minds.

 

Players Actions [ ]

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

Spoiler

Tech-Use to access main terminal

 Int: 39 + 10 (Tech use +10) = 49

D100: 31, Pass, 1 Dos

 

Even as the Golem beat him out of the control circuits he had learned a little more of the terminals security architecture, enough perhaps to attack the problem from a different direction.  Some of the others had come to assist, and he was grateful for the extra eyes and hands that could man the ancillary parts of this master terminal. It had after all been built with a Magos and attending adepts in mind.

 

When he had a moment Bardas took out the dataslate with the ‘normal’ reactor data that they had been supplied days and days ago and propped it up where he could glance at it. The finer rites of a Hives reactor core were beyond him, and even if he got access to those system and drove the Golem’s influence out there was no way of knowing if they would stabilise by themselves. At least this way if he had to nudge systems and control spirits he had a guide point as to where things should reside.   

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

Seeing his foe battered and broken on the floor before him, Scourge sneered and raised Hywelesbane again for the deathblow. The golden maul bathed him and the wounded daemonic engine in a harsh radiance, and he snarled a final rebuke at the Golem of Antares, his eyes burning with the terrible light of religious fervour. 

 

"When thou returnest to the stinking pit from whence ye came, wretch, tell thy diseased kindred 'twere Petrus Kovac, Scourge of the Wicked who sent thee!"

 

Hywelesbane dropped like a fiery meteor, and in a flash of light he smote the daemon's ruin upon the steps of the defiled chapel. 

 

 

 

OOC: I get the feeling everyone is waiting for this, so here goes nothing...

 

Full Action: Banish the Golem

WS41 + 10 (master-crafted) + ??? 

Banishment Roll: 1d100 66: ??? 

 

Hywelesbane Damage: 2d10+4E+5(SB) + 1d10 (helpless), Pen 10, Power, Sanctified, Unwieldy, etc. 

Hywelesbane Damage: 3#1d10h9 1 0 0: 10 (d10) + 6 (RF) + 6 (d10) + 3 (d10) + 4 + 5 (SB) = 34E damage, Pen 10

 

Righteous Fury: WS41 + 10 (master-crafted) = 51

Righteous fury: 1d100 48: success; 0 DoS (was this the roll you wanted DoS for? If so, I am a blithering idiot!)

 

Burning a Fate Point to permanently slay the Golem via Righteous Fury. Cut to black. Scourge's fate lies in the God-Emperor's hands.

 

+++

 

Meanwhile, a dusty cogitator terminal in a dingy and long-forgotten cubicle in the Hive Primus manufactorum complex briefly flickers to life, bathing its surroundings in a pale green light before winking out again… 

 

+++Moderator Scourge, acting upon the authority of Server Admin Locke, has permanently banned user Golem of Antares from Reality Net, Damocles Server. Ave Omnissiah.+++

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Necronaut

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Falk knew that while he knew he could not aid Bardas directly in his workings he could at least shield him from the Golems growing malevolence, a terrible warp presence that seeped out across the room as Scourge fought his own battle of wills with the daemon.

 

Holding the suppression shield aloft he cast its shade across the console as the strikes of Hywelsbane illuminated the room with blinding flashes of light and a shower of white hot sparks. The thunderous strikes seemed to be escalating in force and frequency as Scourge pushed on like a man possessed.

 

 

Action - Aid Bardas

Edited August 1, 2023 by A.T.

[Mazer Rackham]

ROUND EIGHT CONTINUES

 

The peal of metal on metal is the dolorous sound of a combat ending, the titanic clash of forces beyond the ken of men, fought through angels with dirty faces.

 

And so abruptly does all sound cease after the monstrous hammering, that all are rendered deaf by it. The sound and fury of those possessed - one by the daemon, the other by holy zeal, comes to abrupt resolution. The poetic verse of Aldous Breakspear is writ upon the tide of war:

 

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.

 

The silence is the rush out of a tide, something terrible plunged into an ocean none but Nicios can perceive with any great clarity. The silence becomes a hissing of aether-static, swelling to a deep pounding roll. It is the reverberation of something being torn from the veil, from the meat of that which is Anathema, which defies logic and definition both. A terrible draught sweeps through the templum, a wash so powerful it is hard to keep your feet. It extinguishes all the candles in a breath of icy chill, and the barrier so thinned, the rushing waves become gibbering voices, torn and leering faces in the reflective surfaces of guns, blades, consoles and the glazed bulbs illuminating the room.

 

Laughter, dark and bitter thumps like a heartbeat through the jabber, as a spirit is swallowed and snuffed out without any mercy or remit. A servant of the ruinous powers taken back to the sea of souls as only a memory. Yet the warp hates. The power of the angry false-deities slam against you as your names fall and drop in the ebb and flow.

 

It is abundantly clear that you are known to the Dark Powers now, that you are their enemy, and a formidable foe awaits your future mistakes.

 

GM: ALL Players must take a Difficult (-10) AG Test or be knocked prone.

 

And - just like that - the storm abates with a whipcrack.

 

Of the Golem, its immortal shell, its effigies, blasphemous runes, fluids and scent, to its servants, and even the Warden - bar for a small holocameo of the Lady Gwynne, there is no sign.

 

Then normal silence returns, that filled with the hum and crackle of plasma turbines, of heartbeats and breathing, and the rumbling of hive about to explode.

[Mazer Rackham]

GM OOC: I'll make a new post for this, as the end of the Golem required its own, spectacular entry. 

 

GM: Bardas Tech Use happens simultaneously with the banishment, so we can resolve that here.

 

Bardas (Plus Assists):

The console finally yields and offers up supplication in the form of a few options:

 

//Interface Accepted//

+Welcome, Magos.+

++ Warning: Nucleonic Decay Imminent. Core Vent in Progress ++

CD/C: Re-engage Safety Interlocks? Y/N

CD/C: Activate emergency plasma vent? Y/N

 

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Falk turned against the fresh assault, the winds driving him down as he kept his shield as best he could between the source and Bardas rather than himself. It seemed a futile effort as the power seemed to twist and turn from no true direction but defiance was required no matter the futility, no step backwards taken willingly.

 

Agility test 58 vs AG 32-10 = fail

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

Unprepared for the vicious backlash from the Warp, Scourge was thrown from his feet and pinned to the ground by talons unseen borne from the howling aetheric winds, while his blind eyes were assaulted by horrific visions of gruesome, leering faces with burning black bonfires for eyes and toothed maws that opened into further nested maws of gnashing, serrated teeth. He sought to anchor himself with Hywelesbane, clutching the daemonhammer with a white-knuckled grip as he rode out the vile hallucinations. 

 

OOC: I hope you don't mind me taking a few creative liberties here, Mazer, considering Scourge was at ground zero of the Golem's site of banishment… 

 

Toughness Test vs Blindness: T41

Toughness Test: 1d100 94: fail; 5 DoF

 

Blindness Duration: 1d5 1: blinded for 1 round

 

Agility Test: Ag42 - 10 = 32

Agility Test: 1d100 82: fail; 5 DoF

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

Without warning the Golems reach was gone from the control system. Machine spirit flickered to life, freed from biting chains. A blessing from the Omnissiah, the reactor spirits knew what to do. Whoever had sparked them into being all those centuries ago had been a high practitioner of Cult Mechanicus for the machine spirits saw the damage and rushed to repair it.

 

Bardas at the terminal was now just a component, the conscious human mind, in the greater system, the safeguard against Abominable Intelligence. Let the Machine Spirits roam free for a while, or keep them at bay. Yes or No.

 

As he reached out to make the non choice, reality, was not. The Lawman tried to shield him, too little avail, or perhaps otherwise, for even as he fell Bardas felt his new limbs correct and compensate, springing him up back on his feet.

 

Before another aftershock of the banishing could render him to the floor again Bardas hit Y and N respectively, safety interlocks reengaged, venting postponed.     

 

Spoiler

AG:41 -10 =39

D100:63, Fail, 2 DoF, Fall over

Free Action: Leap Up to get back up

I hope that was the correct cobination of Y N

 

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Spoiler

Ag50 -10 = 40, Roll: 74, Fail.
Leap Up allows Reynard to stand up as a Free Action.

 

 

Reynard was further back from the terminal, but still the blast of warp energy spun him around, knocking him from his feet. He rolled with the force of it and stood, his pistols ready for whatever new horror might have torn its way into reality.

 

But there was nothing. Silence and darkness.

 

"Is… is it done?"

 

Damn me... Did we actually win?

 

[Mazer Rackham]

ROUND EIGHT CONTINUES

 

Bardas:

//Confirmed//

//CD: C-cmd.exe_interlock...

//Processing...

//Plasma vent containment: holding.

//Processing...

++ Warning, Core Vent at 85% and rising. Evacuate to 75Km safety zone.++

 

The hive continues to quake and shudder.

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

+Everybody get out of here, I’ll remain here to work the controls as needed, the emergency plasma venting protocol will have to activated to stabilise the core.+

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

"How long between switching it on and this place getting crisped? Can't you just get it going and then run? Or set us a few minutes timer or something?"

 

Reynard grimaced.

 

"I'll be damned if we all survive that, only to leave one of us behind now!"

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

++ STRUCTURED TIME ENDS ++

++NARRATIVE TIME BEGINS ++

 

Bardas:

 

Watching the datastreams, it becomes clear you will have to manually balance the four stacks that form the nucleonic core. You can do that, now the safety interlocks are engaged. You have control-rod arrays which will assist you. Whilst the plasma venting is routed to go around this control room (hence it's doughnut shape) there is insufficient air and thermal filters in here to support the meatbags you call allies.

 

Unfortunately, it's going to cook your Arbites teams above as the roiling heat streams out of the hive exhaust.

 

In short, it's about to get really hot around here, and sunblock 5k isn't going to cut it. The hot air will lead to asphyxia and heat-stroke, followed by severe dehydration. Your Technical ability and Medicae knowledge can be a curse at times, perhaps.

 

There is no time to escape. You must seal this chamber and seek to ward of the baleful energies of the powerplant which gives life to an entire planet's worth of people.

 

GM: You must make four Challenging (+0) Tech Use Tests. You may do this in one post. You may count assistance from people at the terminal with you (Max +20)

 

GM: You must score an overall FOUR Degrees of Success across all Tests. (So four in total, not four on each).

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Mazer Rackham
Being evil.

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

The Golem was dead, slain by The Scourge. Yet the Warp was not to be denied, it assailed everyone with its hateful winds.

 

Yet he was still running to the console to aid Bar-Das.

 

He was too cool to fall, He had an appointment.

 

His momentum carried him through the tempest, the song of the dance enabled him to surge forwards.

 

He slid down on to his knees and coasted on to the console, his hands a blur.

 

Plasma venting, plasma, something to do with blood. Yes he knew about blood.

 

 

 

 

AGL 40 = 40. Result: 12, Pass 2DoS

INT 33 +0 (Tech Use) +10 (Fate Point [Charmed: 3, Fate Point spent]) = 43. Result: 06, Pass 3DoS

 

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Machine God
Typo

[Trokair]

Bardas

 

+I do not know Fox-kin, and I’d rather not risk leaving it to a timer in case the Golem left some trap or part of itself behind.+

 

+I have all but died twice in the last few day, perhaps the Omnissiah was granting my such grace so that I would be here now.+

 

All the while he had been busy at the cogitator controls, not looking up at his colleagues, his friends.

 

+Although I may have been hasty with my earlier comment,+ he continued after a long silence, +the readout is all but clear that running would not have saved any of you, and even the Lawmen we left above will not escape once venting proceeds.+

 

+Personal survival  or not I can see that my work here is not done, the Golem perversion have left it so far into the unstable that the resident machine spirit cannot correct the matter themselves. I will have to finesse things from here. Falk, Kerr Restal, perhaps you could both help from the two adept consuls to either side.+

 

+Ah, perhaps there is hope.+ turning to face the others now, +it appears that the shields predated the Golem’s occupation, that they were perhaps part of defences for this control shrine. The lesser shields are now unpowered, and there isn’t time to repair that. But the main one might come back to life, though it probably only be a small area from here and not the entire chamber, I’ll see what I can do on that front once the reactor is stable.+

 

Back at the controls, attention split between the green glow of the screen and his comrades.

 

+If we can secure the shrine as best as possible then all gather here, then there may be hope+

 

 

+ Nicios, is there any craft you poses to either carry the others out to safety, or to add to the shield it can be revised?+

 

Spoiler

Tech-Use to balance stacks 1

 Int: 39 + 10 (Tech use +10) +20 (Assist?) = 69

D100: 93, Fail, 2 DoF

 

Tech-Use to balance stacks 2

 Int: 39 + 10 (Tech use +10) +20 (Assist?) = 69

D100: 67, Pass, 0 DoS

 

I'll do the remainder shortly.

 

Focused now on the controls he directed the other two what to watch out for, what to alert him about and what they could control themselves to remedy the energy in each stack. It was a rocky start, his attention split and a lot of build instability to overcome.

 

As he sank into the work, focused intensely, the outside world receding, he begun to get a hang of balance and feedback loops, both short and long, that existed in such a complex system. Without the data lade presenting what the system look like he would not have known which way to steer the mighty reactor.

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Retrieving the holocameo from the ground Falk set his vox system to pulse at maximum power, no hope of sending out a true warning at this depth but he owed the officers above any small chance he might give.

 

The golems scattered words still echoed in his head as he approached the console once more, six right arms. He looked down as the Inquisitorial symbol glistened in his palm... some riddle of the daemons twisted mind or had the beast sought ways to bypass locks it could not break. Perhaps some unformed vision twisted through time of what might be.

 

It was worth a shot, perhaps some part of the machine spirit long locked away behind safeguards might be roused by sign of the golems death.

 

 

Tech use: 7 vs 38 = pass plus three extra. Fairly sure I don't have any fate points left at this point after spending one on Restal :p

[Mazer Rackham]

Falk:

 

As you survey the control terminals, there is a palm reader for a right hand on a security panel. An Electoo will be required to activate it.

[Trokair]

Bardas

Spoiler

Tech-Use to balance stacks 3

 Int: 39 + 10 (Tech use +10) +20 (Assist?) = 69

D100: 05, Pass, 6 Dos

 

Tech-Use to balance stacks 4

 Int: 39 + 10 (Tech use +10) +20 (Assist?) = 69

D100: 24, Pass, 4 Dos

Will add fluff if I can think of some.

[Mazer Rackham]

Bardas:

 

The power connections and calculations pivot upon the knife's edge, and it is there, between the 1's and 0's of the Mechanicum's greatest language you find the gaps.

 

//Processing...//

//Cmd_dbal.dll responding.//

//Shunt_redirect online.//

++Stack One: Power bleed operating 9%

++Stack Two: Power bleed operating 15%

++Stack Three: Nucleonic Rampancy reduced by 13%

++Stack Four: Containment rods activated. Power bleed 26%

 

++ Warning: Core Vent IMMINENT. SEEK SHELTER. EVACUATE RADIUS 75 KM. ++

 

++Electromagnetic Field....ONLINE.++

 

The thump of a power field shunting into being is as welcome as the hard shields of the Golem being depleted. With the daemonic influence removed, the power to normal functions is no longer siphoned away. The heat is almost unbearable in the chamber, the air already dry enough to tickle the back of your throats, but the temperature gauge in the corner of Bardas' left augmetic eye gently ticks up, and holds steady at, 45 degrees of St Celcius' Matriculation. Everything becomes burning to the touch, the templum illuminated by the raw energies that propel battleships through the Emperor's firmament.

 

GM: If Falk/A.T wants to use the panel, he will find it opens an emergency channel. This will happen simultaneously with the core vent.

[A.T.]

Falk

 

A sword still hung over Damocles, one more duty to perform lest their work be for naught. "This is Falk, signal absolution and withdraw. Repeat signal absolution and withdraw."

 

With that Falk set down his shield at the side of the console and stepped back, pulling a flask of day old recaff from his coat along with a battered half-pack of lho-sticks that he offered towards Reynard and Restal.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Falk:

 

A bleep of acknowledgement occurs before the electromagnetic shield flares into being.

 

GM: Feel free to exchange banter whilst you're being mildly singed, gents. I'll move us on shortly.