[DH1e] The Damocles Contingency (RPG IC)

[Trokair]

Nicios

Spoiler

Relived, he just as deftly returned the pistol to its pocket.
 

Releasing the injured man his speaker returned to its normal volume.

+Let me help you with the injured+

 

 

Taking a step Bardas lists sideways and leans against the wall. Sliding  into a sitting position he calls out. As the shook of the gravity phaenomenon lessened his body made it clear how injured he was, he was not moving from this spot for a while.

 

+I can help tend the wounded, but they will need to come to me. +

Edited October 19, 2022 by Trokair

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Falk shadowed Bardas has he confronted the psyker, not ready yet to lower his guard. "we need to move the civilians to safety, find us an exit".

 

Warily he moved on to the Grox resuming for a moment his role as an Arbitrator to do what he could in directing the evacuation.

[Mazer Rackham]

Falk:

 

As you pass him, the small, spectacled, unassuming man calls after you. "Your pardon sir. Are you with the authorities? You...have that bearing."

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Hmm. Not much that identified their pursuers, except to say that they were professionals. Better equipped than most Guard units. Private army? Mercenaries? Hah, if he wasn't working for the Inquisition himself, he might have thought they were!

 

Quickly he stripped anything useful out of the pouches. Smaller items; pills, ration packs and tape, disappeared into voluminous pockets.

 

Then he checked the ammo, making sure the clips fitted into the magazine of his 'borrowed' autogun properly. Fine. In they went. The weapon, now he had a chance to look it over properly, was a short, sub-machine variant with a folding stock. (OOC: Like an Apache or MP5?) He fixed one of the carabiners and fabric loops neatly onto the back of the gun, allowing him to hang it from his belt within easy reach.

 

Finally Reynard gathered all the medical supplies and stuffed them into one of the larger pouches.

 

There were a few items he left behind. The harness was far too bulky. He wasn't planning on climbing around like some sort of monkey, and the thing would look ridiculous worn over his preferred garb. Especially if he had to go hobnob with the uphivers again. The laspistol also held no appeal. It was no better made than his own pistol, and far less stylishly. Likewise the combat blade - it simply could not compare with the beautiful work done by Verdict's armourer on his own knives.

 

"Few things you might want here, Restal? I'm not much of a climber, but this might fit you?"

 

Then he limped back over to where Nicios and Bardas were treating injuries. He handed the pouch to the Tech-Adept.

 

"With the doc gone, looks like you're the doc. Maybe you can make use of these? And maybe you could take a look at my ankle? I think my boot stopped it from breaking, but it's twisted pretty badly."

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Lysimachus

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Falk turned to the man, "I am. Speak your piece." Paranoia could go too far, these people were not those that hunted them but innocents caught in the crossfire.

[Trokair]

Nodding in reply, he was too tiered to talk Bardas took the supplies that Reynard had liberated and set about helping the injured as best he could as they came to him.

 

For the seriousness of the gravity phenomenon everybody seemed remarkably well intact. Only the blossoming and melting of rime on nearby surfaces showed that Nicios was lending otherworldly hand to make good the damage caused. Bardas hoped he did not push to far in its effort or it would have been all for naught.

 

Once no more came forward Bardas let his own bodies call for rest take him, quickly drifting off to sleep where he sat.

 

Spoiler

Medicae Test - First Aid

Int: 34

Pass will heal 1 on Heavily wounded and 3 (Bardas Int bonus) on lightly wounded, not sure who is in what state or whether the psychic healing comes before or after this.  

D100s

• Nicios:  21, Pass, 1 DoS, Heal
• Reynard: 41, Fail
• Falk: 56, Fail
• Bardas: 47 Fail
• Townie 1: 64, Fail
• Townie 2: 82, Fail
• Townie 3: 58, Fail
• Townie 4: 12, Pass, 2 DoS, Heal
• Townie 5: 24, Pass, 1 DoS, Heal

[Mazer Rackham]

Reynard:

The example you have picked up, one of the two left behind, is more carbine than submachine gun, but otherwise as you describe. It is not standard at all. The other one dropped has a stablight attachment bolted to a side rail. Both examples have a removable front grip for easier handling.

 

Profile:

Spoiler

Class: Basic

Range: 50m

ROF: S/3/10

Dam: 1D10+3 (Impact)

Pen: 0

Mag: 25

Rld: Full/Half (Slimline Magazines)

Qualities/Upgrades: Ambidextrous Controls (can be used in Left or Right without Off-hand Penalty, Compact (already in profile, folding stock etc), Front Grip may fire and move AB without penalty.

Wgt: 2.8Kg

Availability: Very Rare

Cost: 500 Thrones.

 

Falk:

 

The diminutive man smiles up at you benignly. "Hef tells me you are looking for Drexler?"

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Half looking towards the large man Falk nodded in assent, "tell me what you know citizen".

 

The populace had expectations and any who claimed the authority of the throne yet dithered in their words would be suspect. Hivers could appreciate the illusion that their hardships were driven by some semblance of structure rather than the whims and disinterest of those in higher station.

[Mazer Rackham]

Falk:

 

"I work for him. If you wish, I can take you to his holdfast. He has authorised me to do so."

 

The little man shrugs, his smile still in place.

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard stood up. The tech-adept and the psyker had actually done a decent job of wrapping up his ankle, barely a twinge now.

 

He scanned the marketplace again, wondering if the fallen locals had anything worth stealing. Then he noticed the body of the one named Kurt… and suddenly the face of the little man talking to Falk rushed back to him! The eyeglasses had thrown him off for a moment, but it was definitely the same person that had followed the wastrel from the Grox earlier!

 

Casually, Reynard paused by Kurt's corpse, kneeling down to confirm what had actually killed him. Then he got up and walked over to join Falk and the unknown follower, just as the man was revealing the identity of his employer. Interesting.

 

"My name is Bertram Von Graen. We do indeed wish to speak to Mr Drexler, on a matter of business. Where is this holdfast? And why should we accept that you are who you claim to be?"

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

Saint's Cut:

 

Reynard/Falk: The small man smiles at you both, his expression unchanged. Reynard's cover name doesn't even evince a blink.

 

"You may call me Geist. As to your question..." he waved his hands about. "You can listen to me, or not." He wanders off, going back to Hef. The small man nods gratefully to Bardas for his efforts, then moves to enter the boarding house.

 

A brief examination of Kurt reveals three solid-slug wounds to his chest in a tight group.

Edited October 20, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

No way to know how Kurt had died. He might well have been gunned down by the invaders. Or…

 

With a slight shrug, Reynard looked at Falk and then over to Bardas and Nicios.

 

"If I were setting a trap, I might try a little harder to get the mark to step into it… although, indifference is good bait too… either way, I'm not sure we have much choice except to go with him?"

Edited October 20, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

Tarrant had finished augmenting his drop harness with the parts from the combat rig he had acquired from the Weasel.

 

He wandered in from the shadows next to the boarding house, following the little man that he had overheard speaking to Falk and the Weasel.

 

 

"Hello little ghost, so you know who Drexler is. My name is Restal."

 

 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Machine God
Typo's

[Mazer Rackham]

Restal:

 

Geist looks you up and down, then peers over at the two bodies lying on the floor. One is the young man, the other is Tabitha, both of them crushed or boiled when the rudimentary cooking stove and equipment heaved over. He follows your path from the shadows, your gait.

 

The confidence and manner of your voice seals his conceptions, and his face hardens.

 

"Hello little killer. Nobody knows Drexler. Did you do this?" He points to the corpses.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal

 

"No this was not my work!" said Kerr Restal with a shocked voice. "These were goodly people, our hosts. I have come in here from the street to talk to you."

 

Looking around at the corpses, Kerr Restal made the sign of the aquila.

 

"There was a brief grav surge, you must have felt it. I blame Nixios the Psyker!"

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard followed Geist into the 'Knights, then stopped and let out a nearly audible groan at seeing the bodies and hearing Restal's words. This was a complication they did not need. Damn all psykers!

 

"Come now Geist," he interrupted. "My colleague has killed his fair share… more than, most likely... but only when he was being paid a fitting price. Who would pay for the deaths of these innocents?"

 

He spoke softly, reasoning.

 

"We certainly wished them no harm, for they showed us nothing but warm hospitality. Yes, the psyker acted, as is his right as Sanctioned by the Emperor… but he only did so in your defence! What might have happened here if he had not intervened?"

 

He paused, letting the little man remember the sudden darkness and the sound of bolter fire.

 

"Lay the blame where it truly belongs. At the feet of the monsters that attacked this settlement."

 

He spoke calmly, dispassionately. What else could he say to convince the man. Reveal a little more? A risk, but perhaps a worthwhile one.

 

"Our business with Drexler is urgent, and the lives of far more of the good and innocent citizens of this Hive are at stake. We need you to take us to him as soon as possible."

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

The Imperial Knights:

 

Shaking his head sadly, Geist listens without interrupting, but his face doesn't change. It's as though his emotion is located somewhere else, a place without a map. He sniffs, but it is neither a snort of agreement, nor condemnation. He adjusts his spectacles as he slowly turns away and goes outside. You see his face search for and, look down, find Hef. Without any words the message is given.

 

Geist shoves his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against invisible rain.

 

"Best follow me, then."

 

He paces away without waiting for you, no rush, but no tarry either.

 

He walks back down Saint's Cut, away from the Grox, and turns left onto the Market Street.  He carries on and then turns right, his back to the Boarding House, Rivet City to his left. As he approaches the door, he draws a keycard from his pocket and the large bulkhead swings open at his urging. He steps through, and you get the impression he isn't terribly bothered if you're there or not...

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal

 

Walking effortlessly like a silent cat, Kerr Restal follows Geist.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Machine God
Typo

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard hurried after Geist and Restal, waving for Falk, Bardas and Nicios to follow. As they walked past the wreckage of the market once more, he didn't look towards Hef at all, or at the stallholders who were already starting to rummage through their charred wares for items that could be salvaged.

 

It wasn't his fault, he told himself again, even as he pictured the bodies of Tabby and her son. It wasn't any of their faults. Despite his previous words, he didn't really even blame the thugs. They were just tools, men paid to do a job.

 

Yet again Humanity's 'greatest' were playing their games, but yet again it was the people already in the gutter that paid the price.

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

Saint's Cut:

 

The closed bulkhead door at the end of the street, nearest the Wrack, opens. Beyond, there is only darkness. The passageway beyond vanishes into a black spot, the emergency lanterns not penetrating that far.

 

Red lights blink on and off, half-way along the corridor ceiling.

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

Nicios helped Bardas get settled into a room, making sure the door was secure behind him as he left. The tech-adept was more heavily wounded than anyone else, and while the possibility of healing him a second time was there, the risks were not worth it. So Bardas would sleep and recover somewhat while Nicios and the others met with Drexler.

This had better go more smoothly than what has happened so far...

[Mazer Rackham]

Route to Drexler's Holdfast:

 

The passageway winds, going down a few degrees and twisting in a long pull to the left. You can hear the distant roaring of the heat sink, behind metres of plascrete and  armaplas heat shielding. A cross between a parched windpipe and hurricane, could you be hearing the last few breaths of a condemned body?

 

Maybe it was already dead, and just forgot to fall over.

 

In any event, Geist finds a cover with the following marking:

 

He presses a concealed catch, and a large panel floats back on smooth rollers, revealing a tighter, narrower tunnel. As he steps in, heedless of your presence, it is obvious this passage is a disused servo-skull communication tunnel, for as you clamber through it, it resembles a spider-web haunted assault course. Geist makes hardly any noise, his small frame nimble in the constricting gullet. The Tunnelweb Arachasae clamber up into crevices, mandibles clicking against each other.  From further in the tunnel, you hear the reply. the spiders can grow to quite a significant size, but this genus tolerate each other, and hunt in groups. It would not do to tarry long.

 

You notice that there are no vox-boxes, nor any securipicters. Each has been removed, quite surgically, but also brutally. Perhaps Bardas wouldn't approve, but then, he isn't here, safely ensconced in the boarding house, guarded by the wary and the dead.

 

"Watch your step here," Geist warns, as he hops across a vertical communication tunnel, which has no cover. The soft, upward draught is to assist the maglev repulsors of the servo skulls, but it would never support a human body, and instead would plunge it away into shadowed nothingness. It isn't the first abysss you've passed. These comms tunnels are a warren.

 

The passageway continues for long minutes, until it reaches a large room. The walls are festooned with servo skull recharging stations, and power still flows to them, even though the corpses of previous servants lie broken along the wall.  Beyond, there is a single door, without any key access, or handles.

 

Geist moves over to a large chest cemented into the wall, tapping in a combination on a touchpad. He does this with his back to you, obscuring his actions. He takes out his little compact piece, and holds the door to the safe wide.  Within, sparks flicker up and down a conduit, and the immediate stink of ozone permeates the room, the sharp tang cutting over the oil and rusted metal. He holds the gun low, pointing at the ground, in deference to the fact threatening you is a bad idea.

 

In deference to the fact he's not an idiot, the hammer is back, and the safety is off.

 

"No messing around now," he says, perfectly matter-of-fact. "Put all your comms gear, dataslates, the lot, into this box."

 

Saint's Cut:

 

The red lights seem to detach from the ceiling, and move around on some kind of odd gimble. A head perhaps, bobbing like a cat.  Pulling from a receptacle in the ceiling, the figure scuttles across the roof, emerging into the ruddy light and vapour-laden air of the town.  Small antennae twitch, metallic feelers, as it extends telescoping feet to place it firmly on the ground, and then the body follows.  Upright now, the red-robed contraption chitters and buzzes in binary cant, and clods forward on steel-shod feet.  Crimson beams plash out from its eyes, scanning the now unconscious Hef.  It watches him for some time before moving on.

 

At distance, it scans the area, sending out sequential request pings for communion and guidance. It finds one.

 

Extending arms and legs, it reaches for the ceiling several metres above, and resumes its inverted exploration. It follows the ping, sniffing out the noospheric defences, probing with its own, to see if it is a clade-brother. It gravitates towards the windows in the top of the boarding house, and carefully, sinuously enters it, eyes sweeping, antennae twittering, until it reaches the locked room with the strange signal within.

 

Binary is fired in a gentle hum, equivalent to a whisper. It does not seem to bother the creature it is talking to a door whilst upside down.

Spoiler

01000111 01110010 01100101 01100101 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00101110 00100000 01001111 01110000 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 01000011 01101100 01100001 01100100 01100101 00101101 01100010 01110010 01101111 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00111111 

 

It waits.

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal

 

Watching Geist very cautiously, Kerr Restal takes his comm-bead off of his right ear and placed it carefully in the box.

 

"The portal from the rad-sink into the trapped exit. The arrow and skull." he said.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Machine God
typo

[Trokair]

Bardas rolls over and shifts his position slightly. He was vaguely aware that someone had helped him of the floor and into a bed, but it was all abstract and now he was deeply asleep again. One of his gifts registered the Binary ping, and slated an information package for when Bardas woke up. The alert’s rating was insufficient to bypass the priority of the rest and recuperation protocol.

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard nodded thoughtfully at Restal's observation. Drexler seemed to have more than a little in common with the spiders they had passed. Access to many different paths, nooks and crannies, even secure areas? If so, that would make him a useful ally. It would certainly explain why Dreyfuss thought Drexler could help provide whatever it was he had needed.

 

He smiled easily at Geist, taking out his microbead, dataslate, cartograph and chrono.

 

"I assume the electrical activity within this… storage… will not connect to, access or otherwise compromise our equipment? All will be untouched in our absence, by yourself or anyone else, and we will be free to return here and collect them after speaking with your employer?"

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Lysimachus