[DH1e] The Damocles Contingency (RPG IC)

[Mazer Rackham]

The Depths:

 

Drone 1:

The Drone is pummelled by a hail of bullets, the cover only serving to protect it so far.

It's body and left arm are smashed into a collapse of lifeless scrap, and acrid unguents.

 

Drone 1 Dies.

 

It is clear to Falk and Nicios as they witness these mechanical menaces, that their profile and behaviour matches that described by Reynard, Restal and Scourge.

 

Drone 2:

Charge Nicios

WS: MISS

 

Drone 3:

Full Move to the 4 x way junction.

 

+ ROUND ONE ENDS +

[Mazer Rackham]

+ ROUND TWO BEGINS +

 

+Initiative Order +

Spoiler

Falk: 13

Guard 1: 10 (10/12) (Arm 4)

Guard 2: 6 (10/12) (Arm 4)

Nicios: 5

Drone 2: 5 (12/12) (Arm 3)

Drone 3: 5 (12/12) (Arm 3)

 

MAP:

Spoiler

 

NOTE: I have moved Falk forward as per the suggestion in your post, @A.T. if you want to reposition, let me know.

 

To remain undetected, I have moved you at Full move Rate. Please make a Routine (+10) Concealment Test (due to this slower speed). This will be Opposed.

 

Mind Swap Test: At the end of this Round, Nicios and Falk's minds will swap back to their own bodies.

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Stealth roll

Concealment test: 80 vs 26 - fail with 5 DoS. Hopefully the gunfire has deafened the drones...

[Mazer Rackham]

+ ROUND 2 CONTINUES +

 

Guard 1:

At great risk to his 'principal', but unsure how else to help, since he's been dealing with hive scum and peons for a decade, the bodygaurd opens fire. At point blank.

Spoiler

Full Action: FAB (Drone 2)

BS: 4 Hits (B/B/LA/RA)

Damage: 4, 9, 4, 11

 

Drone 2: Reaction

Dodge: FAIL

Damage: 6 Wounds (06/12)

 

Guard 2:

Spoiler

Similarly inspired, the bodyguard opens up with his autopistol

Full Action: FAB (Drone 2)

BS: 4 Hits (B/B/LA/RA)

Damage: 10, 9, 12, 12 (if this guy had FP, there would have been 2 x RF chances! )

 

Drone 2: Can't Dodge

Damage: -09/12

The target jerks back from the force of the attack, throwing back his head and spewing out a jet of oil thickened with blood, before crumpling to the ground dead.

Drone 2 Dies.

 

As Falk comes round the corner, Drone 3 spots him, and emits a blurt of satisfied biharic. (Drone rolled a 04, gaining 1 DoS (even with Pens)

 

Nicios [ ]

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

 

Nicios sights down the gun again. If nothing else, this will get its attention.

 

 

Spoiler

Full Action, FAB (Drone 3)

BS -  36 - 10 (1/2 skill with weapon) -10 (semi-darkness) +20 (Full Auto) = 46

Roll - 29

Result = Hit, 1 DoS (2 Hits, Leg-Leg)

Damage = 6, 4

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Lord_Ikka

[Mazer Rackham]

The Depths:

 

Drone 3: Reaction

Dodge: FAIL

Damage: 0 Wounds (12/12)

 

The snap shots spank and spark off the hardened steel skeleton lurking under the robes, but the creature merely pivots at the waist, which would break the spine of any man alive, and unleashes long, telescoping claws.

 

Drone 3: (Actions)

Full Action: Ranged Grapple (Falk)

WS: FAIL.

 

The limbs snap and clunk around you, but the shos from Nicios have altered its position enough to render the attack ineffective.

 

+ ROUND TWO ENDS +

 

Nicios and Falk's minds now swap back. Please feel free to narrate this. There will be a slight sense of dislocation, but familiarity will be a significant anchor.

[Mazer Rackham]

The Depths:

 

+ ROUND THREE BEGINS +

 

Initiative Order unchanged.

 

MAP:

Spoiler

 

Falk [ ]

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Some kind of servitor... surely tech heresy unlike anything he had seen amongst the ranks of the mechanicus, but however and wherever they were being created down here were questions quickly pushed to the back of his mind as the constructs arms seemed to somehow spiral out along the corridor towards him. Flinching back he fumbled for a baton that wasn't there and instinctivly ducked away as a mechanical claw sparked off the bulkhead inches from his face.

 

As he looked up again the world had changed, a more familiar sense of things, perhaps the surprise had broken the connection with Nicios but the machine was still there in the shadows before him and the gun in his hands was already raised towards it. A handful of shots were all that he managed before a distinctive metalic click signalled that the weapon was empty.

 

Full auto, BS 34 +10(range), +20(FA), -10(Darkness) = roll of 41 vs target 54 - hit with one extra DoS

Two hits - damage 4 and 7, Pen 0  - don't think that has done anything

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

Back at the Halls of Judgement he had looked at the other bounties, but he didn't really feel up to a solo trek at that moment. So he headed to the verispex labs to see if he could get some healing and pick up some gear from a table or two.

 

It was here that he caught up again with the Weasel, who was looking at an operation.

 

"Reynard, do you mind if we swap notes? Oh is that Bardas down there?"

 

His mind wandered as he watched the bloodletting and the stitching of the poor unfortunate wretch on the slab....

 

 

He took out some scribbled notes.

 

"Every time we get some new intel we are not all together and things get missed. When you went to the gunfight, we went to the Magisters. There we met the Lady Gwynne, She told us to beware the Sapphire Widow in her web, pulling strings to hang the foolish. The Sapphire Widow is the Lady Drexler and she controls Tracer. Remember she sent off a servo-skull to him when we were there?"

 

He looked again at the knives...

 

"Oh yes, stupid scrawl. Many already lie dead. More will join their cohort, 'ere comes the finish. The stone sandcastles crumble in a silent scream, and the Golem seeks the key with stolen hands...Find the Third Daughter. Only she can open the door."

 

"The Golem is those things we met in the tunnels with Scourge. The stone sandcastles are the other Hives."

 

"Can you recall what De Grassi was saying in the casino? Not just about the antidote, but something about his Lover? I think he's involved too!"

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Machine God
typo

[Mazer Rackham]

The Depths:

 

Falk's shots strike, but pierce nothing vital.

 

Guard 1:

Copying Falk, he opens fire, only to hear the clack of the bolt seating in the rearward position: empty.

Spoiler

Full Action: FAB

BS: 5 HITS (B/B/LA/RA/H)

Damage: 3, 5, 12, 10, 4

 

Drone 3: Reaction

Dodge: 99 LOL

Wounds: 8 (04/12)

 

Guard 2:

Sensing the end, but half-deafening Falk, he pulls the trigger again.

Spoiler

Full Action: FAB

BS: 2 HITS (B/B)

Damage: 4, 5

(0 Wounds inflicted)

 

Nicios [ ]

Edited March 15, 2023 by Mazer Rackham

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

Back in his own mind, his own body. 

 

Nicios grinned, his hand instantly spinning the ring on his left hand. Now my mimd is back, it's time to use it.

 

Spoiler

Half Action

Manifest Pyschic Power (Spasm)

Threshold - 7

Roll - 10 + 2 + 5 (WPB) = 17

Overbleed x 2 (5 each over threshold)-  target's Willpower test at -20

Result- Target need to take a Willpower test, failure means that they twitch uncontrollably and fall down (if they are holding a weapon it fires randomly). No Psychic Phenomenon occur (no 9s rolled).

 

Half Action

Aim

Nicios aimed at the drone, waiting to see what a psychic stun would do to it.

[Mazer Rackham]

The Depths:

 

Drone 3:

WP: FAIL

The Mechanical Machinator drops to the ground in an odd clatter. It emits a string of binharic invective, before starting some kind of low-pitch wailing, before going completely still.

 

The wailing, or warbling continues. A deep bass, thrumming pulse.

 

+ STRUCTURED TIME ENDS +

+ NARRATIVE TIME BEGINS +

[A.T.]

Falk

 

Holding up a hand, "hold fire and reload", calling up the corridor, "Nicios, deactivate your comm bead and hold position, we are coming to you."

 

Signalling the guards to collect Kreavus Falk deactivated his own comms and quickly reloaded the autogun, switching to the more powerful manstopper rounds before advancing with his gun trained on the inactive drone.

 

No heedless rush this time as he recalled the route back to the elevator and hoped that it would be a less eventful ride back up. Still these drones clearly did not come far to get here and as he approached the junction he noted the direction of the mechanical claw marks adding, "Can you sense anything nearby, any sign of the driving force behind these things?"

 

Tracking roll 59 vs 38 = fail

[Mazer Rackham]

Falk:

 

Your mimed actions are conveyed, and the bodyguards reload their weapons, then look at each other. One offers a slurred, and very overloud explanation.

 

"Last magazine," he bawls, voice echoing off into the dark.

 

The claw marks go hither and thither to your eyes, no direction discernible, but what is apparent from the marks, are the substantial numbers thereof.

 

It would not do to dally here.

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

Back in his own mind, his own body. 

 

"I will see if I can sense more, but I believe we need to move away from here quickly."

 

Spoiler

Manifest Pyschic Power (Sense Presence)

Threshold - 7

Roll - 10 + 5 + 5 (WPB) = 20

Overbleed x 2 (5 over Threshold) - add 10 meters for each

Result = 70m detection radius for living creatures (1m thick walls block senses)

 

[A.T.]

Falk:

 

Signalling the junction beyond Nicios, "turn right and then hold to the left hand wall until the junction splits left and right, turn right again and hold to the left wall"

 

The journey was at least short provided the lift was waiting for them, but the passageways had not junctioned off past sub-14 and their escape route could quickly become a dead end.

[Mazer Rackham]

The Depths:

 

Nicios:

Spoiler

The thrumming becomes a background noise, a pulse that carries sense as much as your soul plies the waves of the aether like a lighthouse, a beacon sweeping the dark.

 

Like a magnet, the heartbeat begins to pull sharp metal things, drawing them from walls and crevices long abandoned by anything requiring light. The metal things clatter, tiny life-signs and reedy souls that echo only with electronic ghosts.

 

The rusty nails and bolts begin to hurtle towards you, rushing to cloth the wound, rushing to the magnetising heartbeat of a distress pulser.

 

The lift doors are closed, but the signal lamp indicating the car is just beyond, remains lit.

[A.T.]

Falk:

 

"Open up"... but of course it was Nicios he was expecting, and Falk took a step back as he waved the psyker over.

[Mazer Rackham]

The Mortuary:

 

Scourge:

 

The light resolves into an inspection lamp, which pulls back slowly from your face.

 

"He wakens," a voice says. You don't know who.

 

The room swims.

 

The clock shows maybe two hours have passed since last you looked through agony reddened eyes. Everything feels different - numb. The sensation stopping an inch behind the skin. Coldness and the feeling you're resting on cool jelly. It doesn't take long to realise it's just your flesh. Across from you sits Locke. He is upright, legs hanging over the side of the side of another examination table. The drains have been cleansed, everything is burnished steel.

 

A clean slate.

 

You can hear him through the murky noise clogging your ears, your mind.

 

"I first found Constanza when she was nineteen. A girl, nothing more. She worked as a waitress in a recaf lounge by day, and at night danced in barely concealing silks. She lived in a hovel in the hours between, protected by her wit and looks, until she found an older brother of sorts, who stopped men beating her."

 

"A civilised world should not harbour such brutality, but it does. I drove off the scoundrels who hurt her one evening, and seeing my chaplet, she gave herself to the local priory. She became as true a daughter to the Emperor as any, even though her heart took to love too often. Infractions here and then, penances. She rose to Prioress with so many scars across her back from scourging," Locke continues.

 

"She came to me, asked me again to save her, this time not from the attentions of the galaxy, but to help others survive it. As an Ecclesiarch here, I took her confession, and scattered, coded messages from the vault. Saw her grow up, grow bolder. Her mind was always outside the rigid bodice the Priory put her into. I needed her, valued her spirit."

 

"I was unworthy of her adoration in faith, but I did my best by her as a father-in-lieu. And what Father does not feel anger at the death of his child?" Locke sighs, so deeply and heavily it comes from a great void someplace deep in his soul. Perhaps his ministry has softened the steel in his Inquisitor's spine. Perhaps it is just an old man confessing his own shames to one who might understand.

 

"The Adept, Bardas, has performed a strange sort of miracle, that which comes so easily to his kind. He will be rewarded," Locke says, returning to business, yet the chaplet in his hand never stops moving, as he prays even whilst he determines the fates of so many souls. "Mortician? Please admit Cephas."

 

"As you wish, lord."

 

A few moments, and the heavy, pantherish tread of the giant arrests near your slab. There is a gentle bow, and clap, muted, respectful of the dead.

 

"Great one," Locke says. "We venture into dark places. I release you from your vow should you wish it. I know there will be much risk, but the lives of many rest upon your broad shoulders."

 

You are perfectly placed, even through your watery and misfocused eyes to witness Cephas in good light. Long bandage wraps up his arms and legs, with loops running between each finger, swathing them to the first knuckle of his scarred, powerful hands. He dresses as the Frateris, in a long, worn and weathered robe, hem dropping to his ankles, which reveal bare, but partially wrapped feet.

 

Such a man should trample around like a rampaging Brachiodont, but the poise belies agility. As an axe and shield man, you can appreciate that.

 

There is a tensing of muscles as Cephas stands upright. His hands curl into fists the size of your head. A restlessness rustles his robes, stirring a decision in a chest half the width of your slab is long. He shifts, uneasy. After long heartbeats, another soft, clap.

 

"You honour me," Locke says into the brute's terse silence. "Goest to Adept Xerxia, but when this one," he points to you, "wakes fully, teach him the ways of bolt and blade."

 

The giant bows deeply, having uttered no word, and takes his leave.

Edited March 16, 2023 by Mazer Rackham
Dialogue cleanup - Cephas doesn't speak.

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

After the giant left, Scourge closed his eyes and slept for a half hour or so, overwhelmed by the Lord Inquisitor's tale of Costanza and the presence of the goliath. Locke's words were strange to him. Learn bolt and blade? From Brother Cephas? 

 

When he awakened again, Locke was still there, studying him. Not a comfortable position to be in with an Inquisitor. 

 

He scratched his beard and returned the old man's gaze. 

 

"My liege," Scourge croaked, attempting to sit upright, "Thou hast seen me broken and remade twice o'er the past few days, and I thank thee again for thy hospitality and largesse. Thy story of the Lady Costanza truly rends my heart. I weep for thy loss. For all of our loss." 

 

He sucked in air and went on, still reeling from the two traumatic surgeries in such a short time span. "But, please, answer me this: I hath warred upon many worlds, and seen many queer sights, and slain many a heretic and xenos; I hath shared a trench with an Ogryn, and broken bread with a Ratling sharpshooter, and bled alongside many men both good and bad, but never, never hath I seen the like of Brother Cephas."

 

Shaking his head at the memory of the words of the giant frater, and the man's uncanny movements, he asked, "Prithee, Pater, what manner of man ist he?" 

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

Scourge:

 

Locke's eyes tighten. "A man filled with terrible secrets, and crushing pain. Dost thou know whence his name comes?"

[Necronaut]

Scourge:

 

The grizzled warrior's eyes narrowed, and he slowly shook his head, disappointed in himself. "I fear not, Pater. If his name cometh from the holy texts, then thy reference eludes me. Further proof of my moral failings, mayhap. The tales of noble Sanguinius were my favorites as a lad." 

 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

Scourge:

 

Locke bursts into laughter and pulls his bones up from the slab he sat on.

 

"Tis from an old Ygrekian Ecclesiarch, my son. A man who denied the Great Liege not twice, but thrice afore a cockerel crew. I am sure that your moral failings will be quite soundly, and painfully excised 'ere come the morn."

 

"Don't lie there too long. Not only will the Mortician cover you over and give you up for a cadaver, but you will engender piles."

 

The Old Cantankerous Confessor Act wears well on the Inquisitor. He too leaves the room to your contemplations.

 

And evasion of complaints.

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Reynard nodded thoughtfully as Restal went through his notes.

 

"Valid points, my friend. Things we must consider when we are able to meet the Inquisitor."

 

The operation lasted several hours and Reynard had made himself quietly comfortable in the observation area while he waited for Locke and Bardas to finish the surgery.

 

Quite some time later, he watched as Locke sat on the bed opposite the recovering warrior.

 

If only he could hear what they were saying... hmm...

 

Spoiler

With GM agreement… 

  

Sleight of Hand Test: Ag45, Roll: 16

 

 

A few minutes later, slowly, carefully, Reynard lifted his finger off the intercom button.

 

Well, that was fairly interesting.

 

He didn't care much about Locke's history with Valkyrie - it didn't change anything now.

 

But why was the old man showing such deference to the silent brute? Great One? And why would the giant know how to train Scourge to use a bol…

 

Reynard's eyes widened.

 

Impossible.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Lysimachus

[Machine God]

Kerr Restal:

 

He had excused himself from the verispex observation theatre, his thoughts had begun to wander and he didn't like to appear un-professional in the company of others.

 

The operation had made him hungry so he headed off to the mess hall to eat and drink. He would have to catch up with the Tech-Adept later.

 

"Bar-Dass!"

 

 

He found a far away spot within the precinct that was defensible. Here he had checked over his war-gear and applied salves and plasters to his wounded body, he then got some sleep.

 

 

INT 33 Halved = 16 +20 First Aid (Medikit) = 36. Result: 24, Pass 1DoS. Lightly Wounded, 3 Wounds recovered. Fully Healed