[DH1e] The Damocles Contingency (RPG IC)

[Mazer Rackham]

All:

As you begin to coalesce into your cells, Verdict nods to the armoury officer, and the tall man hefts a case onto a table full of clothes. He cracks it open to reveal several black leather purses tied with thongs.

Verdict picks one up, hefts it, and you can hear the clink of thick coins inside. He tosses the purse to Raymond first, then to each of you. The gleam of aurumite fills your eyes as you peer into the bags.

"One hundred Thrones each," Verdict's smile resonates from behind the mask. "Courtesy of a tax rebate to Reynard."

Vigilance is right there. "Don't spend it all at once."

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

"You all heard that, right?" Reynard quipped. "You can't receive a rebate if you have money owing to the Exaectoris… therefore I can't possibly owe them a Throne!"

With a friendly grin at Vigilance, he immediately began splitting his coins and placing them in various pockets about his body. Even as his hands divided and secreted this new wealth, his mind was working on another matter.

 

"...Bertram Von Graen of House Graen of Cal Ferrina, at your service."

Reynard wouldn't normally have picked a noble House quite so… adjacent… to the realities of his own past. However, this was an important mission, so he wanted his cover to be based on something real, something where he didn't have to create and then remember too many imaginary details. He knew the history and legacy of House Graen well enough from his childhood in the slums beneath their great holdings, and was reasonably familiar with the various living members of the noble family.

Bertram would be a distant cousin, of course, nothing too closely related to the current Patriarch or his heir. A young man of middling wealth, eager to make his mark on the Imperium, looking for adventure here on the edge of the Damocles Gulf. Slumming it with the lowborns. An explorer... and amateur archaeologist perhaps? That would give him an excuse to travel wherever he wished, from Spire to Sump.

Plus Cal Ferrina was a long way from Damocles, far to the northwest of the Segmentum Ultima, far enough that it was unlikely that anyone here had any connection with it whatsoever.

 

He looked around at his 'cell' thoughtfully and his eye caught on the steel-helmed warrior. Slightly shorter than Reynard, but solid and strong. Well equipped, even if it was somewhat archaic in design. But the traditional look of this equipment, along with his quiet, solemn demeanour, gave him the look of an honour champion… or maybe a life ward?

"You there, Ser Knight. Perhaps you would join me in the lander? I think my cover would have brought a bodyguard with him?"

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

The lander was a nondescript little craft; stubby, unthreatening, and painted in a chipped and very faded mustard that was made even more indistinct by an omnipresent layer of grime and grease. Proving the old adage that it took a con to spot a con, Reynard was immediately certain that Voyager's ship was undoubtedly faster, better armed and better shielded than it first appeared.

As he took a seat in the passenger hold, strapping himself into the crash webbing, he looked through into the cockpit. Though there was a copilot's chair beside him, Voyager sat alone, quietly checking countless dials and displays. Reynard coughed politely to get the voidsman's attention.

"Mister Voyager, can you take us far enough out and back in so that it will appear we are coming from one of the Orbital Transit Hubs? Also, have any ships passed through the system in the past few days or weeks? Merchant Navy, Rogue Traders or the like? If so, it would be appreciated if your master could arrange for Customs records to show two extra passengers disembarking from their ship's manifest here at Damocles?"

He looked over at where the fighter in the tattered coat and voidsuit was boarding behind the mailed Knight, who had followed Reynard but as yet was still silent. Though very different, both men were plainly well armed and seemed very familiar with their weapons. Capable killers. Reynard wondered what cover story the void warrior intended to use?

"Or perhaps three?"

He turned to speak to the two fighters.

"My apologies gentlemen. I do not believe we have been properly introduced. For the purposes of this infiltration, I am Bertram Von Graen of Noble House Graen of Cal Ferrina in the Havilar Sector. How should I address each of you?"

Edited August 16, 2022 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

Lander:

Once the embarkation ramp is retrieved, and the ground crew vanish, the hangar you have marched into is sealed and devoid of any other soul. The walls, the hangar floor, the doors, all are sterile. You could be in a ship, an asteroid fortress, or orbital dock. Metres of bare steel entomb you. Another cell.

Voyager brings the lander to demi-power, as all lamps cut out. The cabin of the vessel illuminates with soothing green hue, enough to see by. He pulls gently on the controls, these different to civilian landers, and it strikes you that this is a military craft masquerading as a civilian one. The thickness of the cabin is deceptive, armour plating between you and the dark cavern without.

Thrumming engines and repulsors make the craft tremble, and the lights splaying out onto the deck swivel as Voyager urges the craft to face the doors of the hangar. The large segmented bulkhead ahead begins to part, the maw of a beast opening. As it does so, the toxic swirl of the poisonous clouds indigenous to Damocles invade, a sulphuric bile wafting inside, dancing in the powerful lights.

The pitch and yaw of the lander is slight, the tilt of the tail boom lifting pushing you back into your transit thrones, and Voyager still refuses to answer, his full concentration on launch, his armoured bodyglove augmented by Imperial Navy pilot equipment, including high-altitude pressure and breathing gear.

He unclips his respirator and turns to answer Reynard.

"Today is our lucky day - the Armageddon Class Battleship Hector's Revenge and her escort are pulling into orbit to resupply. Plenty of landers in and out as cover. Primus landing port will be busy."

He grins, fingers snapping switches, depressing studs and runes.

"And our transponder is set to Navy recog ident. You might want to fasten your seatbelts, gentlemen - and your Lordship."

He tugs on his respirator and then the straps of his harness. Power floods the vessel, and it lurches out into the blasted terrain at breakneck speed, an unrivalled force slamming between your shoulderblades and lumbar muscle. After a moment to catch your breath, the three of you can hear the pitter-patter of something below you, striking the hull. Stones.

Voyager is roaring into the desert of Damocles at 500 miles per hour.

And your seat is less than two metres from the ground.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[A.T.]

Falk:

This was a bad idea. When Voyager had mentioned a train he neglected to mention that it wasn't going to stop, nor was the passageway large enough to try anything as mundane as falling on it from above.

Four of them and only five seconds to act, he glanced down the tunnel attempting to judge how many more they might have to drag another inside before they were smashed to paste against the tunnel wall should they remain outside of the cabin.

This was a very bad idea.

Falk shook his head, "I will leap first, may the Emperor protect us all".

The train approached like some terrible charging beast shaking the earth and roaring with power as it swung into view sending much of the platform into darkness as the lights flickered out and then back on again. The instructions had at least been precise to this point and as he saw what must be the hatchway, a ray of light in the shadow, he stepped forward and jumped.

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

Nicios leapt right on Falk's heels, nearly running into the big Arbitrator on landing.

Ugh, hope this isn't a sign.

[Necronaut]

He followed the rest of his new cellmates, as he was beginning to think of them, into the armory at a distance, watching them through his slitted visor. He waited in the threshold for a while, studying the others as they laid their hands upon various gadgets, ammunition and other sundry trinkets. He had never wanted for anything save for more las-rounds, and so ended up stuffing an additional charge pack into his rucksack. He slipped a comm bead under his helm into his ear, and took the offered doses of anti-tox and anti-rad without comment. Such largesse.

He was then tossed a sack of coins. He poured some out into his hands and could scarcely believe his eyes. He could live comfortably back home for months on what had just been casually thrown at him. The Inquisition agent made a snide remark regarding taxes and the well-dressed one made a quip in return. All courtesy of this Reynard, it seemed. The man had every bearing of a thief and a swindler. 

As he finished re-packing his kit, the one called Reynard loomed over him. He tensed briefly, his hand moving imperceptibly for his dirk when the taller man started speaking about a cover story and the bed for a bodyguard, a winning smile splitting his features. He grunted with a nod and rose, his equipment stowed and ready.

+++

As they stowed their gear and settled into their seats in the lander, the Throne agent, Voyager, completed his preflight checks and rituals. He noticed the other heavily-armed member of the cell had followed him and Reynard to the lander. That one had a queer tint to his complexion, as if he hadn't been bathed in the light of a sun, or if he had its light had been quite sickly. Another hardened killer like himself, judging by how the newcomer carried himself. And his dead eyes, eyes which had never known genuine mirth save when a terrible bloodlust had been sated. He shook his head and realized Reynard was addressing them, introducing himself by another name. How tiresome, but necessary. 

 He strapped himself into his seat and cinched the crash webbing down tight. It had been some time since he had taken a light transport craft like this and this one left him with an uneasy feeling.

"Address me… ?" He had never been asked this before. He had been inmate number MVZXK3394125 for so long he had nearly forgotten his name. Nearly. Buried under sedimentary layers of guilt, violence and pain was his name, his true name, which he had forsaken, attempting to obliterate his past. Yet that was impossible given the ritual scarification etched upon his flesh and the sandy hair and grey eyes of his family, his house, who he had shamed. He had endeavoured to become no one, to become the penal system serial number, but he always carried the customs of both of his peoples with him. 

The prisoners of the 801st had dubbed him "Hessian;" those of the 2932nd had called him "Iron Fist;" and the criminals of the 433rd had named him "Hatchet." But these were prisoner names, and not ones he had chosen for himself.

"I, uh–"

He was cut short as the lander lifted off and lurched forward with a brutal jolt. He grasped the arm-rests of his seat with a white knuckle grip and sucked air in through his teeth as the g-forces compressed his internal organs and smashed him into the heavily worn leather of the chair.

Introductions could wait. He still hated flying. 

 

[Trokair]

Bardas

He felt the vibration of the approaching train long before he could see or hear it. Standing on the empty platform it seemed in retrospect the Lander might have been the safer option. He had assumed that it would be much like their earlier journey, with the train stopping, albeit briefly, to let them disembark. This would not be the case this time!

He could see the sense of it in a way, less likely to be followed, and anybody watching the train terminals might mistakenly dismiss a train that had not stopped on its journey.

As the train drew closer and the four of them prepared to board the arbiter lined up to go first, with the not-clerk close behind. Then it would his and the soldier’s turn.

 

Spoiler

Agility Test - Ag 36
D100: 84, Fail, 4 DoF

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Lander:

After half an hour, your pilot tries to say something, but the screaming of the engines and the fact your comms are closed to his channel, and he does not break into yours means the words are stolen. The lander seems to increase speed massively, leaping forward even faster until there is a terrible wrench in your three bodies, and you have the warning of half a heartbeat as Voyager is clutched into his pilot throne. The nose of the lander pitches up at a severe angle, punching through thick yellow smog, into clearer air, a pale grey and yellow mix, the Lander rolling over steadily, until the world beneath you can be seen to starboard.

Out on the horizon, distant, but present through the haze, is a fiery golden glow in the deep Damoclean dusk. The poisonous air around it swirls in the invisible breath of an angry deity, and ripples of light paint dazzling bright shafts through the murk.

You all may make a Difficult (-10) Intelligence Test to discern what this phenomenon is.

Otherwise, you must all make a Challenging (+0) Toughness Test to keep your lunch down due to Voyager's sudden manoeuvres.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Lysimachus]

Reynard:

 

Spoiler

Int37-10=27, Roll: 78, Fail, 5DoF
T24, Roll: 19, Success, 0DoS

 

Reynard felt his stomach left behind as the lander suddenly rocketed upwards. He gritted his teeth and clamped his hands tight against the webbing that held him in place. Surely there was no need for such wild flying? Their pilot was damn well showing off… or having fun trying to rattle 'the grounders'!

He kept himself from throwing up, just barely, keeping his eyes locked squarely on the deck between his feet, refusing to even look up towards the porthole or the spinning horizon beyond it.

[Necronaut]

His stomach lurched as he was pressed further into his seat. Grox-headed flyboy… !

 

 

 

Intelligence Test

Int33 - 10 = 23

Intelligence test: 1d100 5

05: pass with 1 DoS

 

Toughness Test

T44 - 0 = 44

Toughness Test: 1d100 55

55: failure with 1 DoF

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

Bardas:

+ Critical Error +

Whether engrammic cognisance, or just plain bad luck, you leap for the open carriage, but your feet do not move. Self-preservation protocols perhaps, at a personal mission that requires completion, not some hare-brained endeavour on behalf of secret maniacs?

It matters not.

Only gravity, the true force, or the magnetism of the levitation rail are the real masters. The Omnissiah preaches such. The gap is large enough to fall through, despite your hurried flailing to save yourself. Your immediate new-formed clade are just a blur, as the train is a blur. Terminal impacts are looming, the hard data in your cogitator spool, wind shear, mass, height. Calculus, Logic, Inevitibility.

It is thanks to the Omnissiah you are saved.

An intercession of metal, of unyielding plasteel, for underneath this train is the counterwieght, allowing the land vehicle to travel around corners at great speed and efficiency, and usually, in the wisdom of the Mechwrights, filled with cargo. Yet the Omnissiah saves those who help themselves, and you have been spared termination only to force recompense from the Cog in your endurance, and the purge the weakness of your flesh.

Your Lasgun vanishes into the whistling dark, with a clang and crunch rapidly fading as your conveyance hurtles forward.

Your comm-bead crackles at the disruption of the magnetic rail, but your handholds down here in the darkness, with a thundering machine above you, are few enough to dare use it at this moment.

Usually, 4 or More DoF means "Bad Things Happen" but I thought this might be more narratively enjoyable. However, you must now make a Challenging (+0) Strength Test, or may use one of your Tech abilities to make a Ferric Seal, (a Challenging (+0) Tech Use Test) to keep you on the train.

[Trokair]

Spoiler

Clinging onto train test

S: 35 / Int: 34

D100: 89, Fail either way, 5 DoF

As his body struggles and fails to hold on there is but a single thought.

'Forgive me Omnissiah, for I have failed in my duty to protect thy shrine and strayed from the path of your will.' 

 

 

EDIT:

+++Only in Death dose Duty End+++

 

Spoiler

FATE POINT REROLL

D100: 58, Fail, 2 DoF, better but not better enough

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by Trokair

[Beren]

'Stitches'

 

"Oh for feth's sake!"

That's all 'Stitches' lets himself get away with before sprinting to leap for the train.

It was sort-of-smart in a way. No tickets, no traces. Unless you counted the ones left by being smeared between it and the rails. Those were the races he was rather more worried about.

Ag 35

d100: 58

[Mazer Rackham]

Bardas:

Proximity of the magnetic rail repels you, sending you skidding down the cargo counterweight in a shower of golden sparks, grim runnels chewed by your exposed augmetics and gear. Your grip is insufficient to clutch onto the small purchase as the train cuts round a corner at high velocity, tilting as per the laws of motion and gyro-stabilised mechanics.

Your plea to the Omnissiah is loud, but drowned in the roar of the thundering tonnage of maglev train.

Your belted equipment arrests your long slide, but it only does so for a heartbeat, as the train enters a narrowing of the mighty channel cut by Mechanicum excavators. You are thrown from the cargo pod, up against the convex wall, the sweep of the circular plascrete robbing a lot of the force, yet the breath is driven from you, the punch of meeting the wall driving bright stars across your augmetic vision.

You take 1D5 Fatigue, and then slide down the tunnel wall, into darkness.

Stitches:

You see Bardas fall, and it almost messes your own leap, but you manage to get half of your body into the carriage as it continues to move and begins to close.

A quick look for the Tech-Sentinel reveals nothing. Bardas is gone.

You may make a Challenging (+0) Strength Test, and may benefit from assistance from both Falk (+10) and Nicios (+10) if they should wish, as they are already aboard.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Trokair]

Spoiler

Damage: 1d10 + 10 (distance thrown) – 3 (T)

Roll: 10 + 10 – 3 =17   One wound remaining

Fatigue D5: 5

'Only in Death dose Duty End' Bardas repeated in his head as the pain closed in, offering and threatening oblivion, death or just unconsciousness.

+Only in Dea...+

[Mazer Rackham]

Bardas:

Please Roll the following:

• 1D10: This is the number of hours you will lie unconscious.
• 1D5: For Kilometres you travelled on the train before you fell (Giving you a result between 2 - 10 Kilometres)

The Penitent:

You turn your head to release what your stomach holds, the sourness in your mouth matching perhaps the bitter realisation of what you witness from the porthole - a thought back to Verdict, and his briefing, you recall the hololithic map with the hives Primus, Secundus and Tertius. You remember he was pressed again, and again of how he knew the threat was credible.

From this altitude, and the direction you recon you are travelling in, you know with dire certainty why Verdict was convinced.

The glow and ionised particle shafts spearing the tumult of cloud and winds is roughly in the right spot for Hive Tertius.

Except you know it isn't there any more.

Nor the 5 million souls sheltering from Damocles, within it.

[Trokair]

Spoiler

Hours Roll: 3

Distance Roll: 4 - Assume that's 8km  

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Bardas/Tro:

3 hours, 4 Kilometres.

You were "on" the train for approximately 8 seconds, with 5 of those being "slowed", so four kloms - in 40k parlance, is a goodly amount. When you wake up, your Fatigue level will be nil, as you've had an impromptu nap.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

Nicios hears a bleat of machine-cant, then turns to see the medic halfway onboard the train. He quickly moves to help drag the luckless man up.

[A.T.]

Falk

Falk stumbled as he entered the carriage, Nicios bumping into him as he tried to clear the entryway. There was a pause and then a pair of hands clutching at the edge of the door. Where was the techpriest?, no time as the final seconds of their opening ticked away he joined Nicios is salvaging what could be salvaged of this situation.

[Lord_Ikka]

Nicios

With Falk helping him, Nicios grips Stitches' arm and hauls.

 

Str test: 53 (33+20 bonus)

Roll: 21

Degrees of Success: 3

Edited August 18, 2022 by Lord_Ikka

[Mazer Rackham]

Excellent Lord Ikka, cheers! With that we shall move onwards.

Train Compartment:

A heartbeat after the lawmen pull the reprobate into the warmth and light of the carriage, the door slams shut, and the whole conveyance speeds up. The train ride is smooth, the secret machinations of the Cult Mechanicus making the well-appointed carriage a steady experience.

Despite the maglev train stopping twice, the doors to your compartment do not open again, keeping what transpired firmly in the past.

The train will take at least another hour (two hours in total) to reach the terminus. You are free to do as you please whilst inside. There are several benches, couches and even refreshments. It is a carriage befitting a Magistrate of some rank.

[Mazer Rackham]

Since Bardas is divorced from the rest of you, we can continue with him.

Bardas:

Your internal chronometer is displaying incorrectly as some semblance of consciousness returns. All you all getting is the faint sounds of white noise being cut off by something softer, from a distance of what feels like a long way away down a tight pipe.

"I fink it's dead," a voice proclaims.  Rough, dense. Big.

"Don't look alive to begin with." A second voice, softer, smaller.

"Broke, den. One o' dem Servy-tors, innit?" Big replies. You can hear the sound of his voice change, get nasal. You suspect fingers and cavities may be involved.

"Don't look like no wire-brain," Small's voice carries a frown.

"What's e' doin' down 'ere then? Nuffink but us comes 'ere. Well, except for dem bloody Sleekers." Big snorts and spits, voice going back to normal. If this is normal.

"Don't matter. Nick all 'is stuff and let's go."

You twitch, whether through protest or a mis-fired cog in your cybernetics.

"Cor, e's still alive!" You can hear Big take a few steps back, water sloshing around his legs. Of course. Even the train tunnels have a sump - of sorts.

"Quick, Grog - put 'im on the cart - be gentle! We'll take him to camp, see what the Chief thinks."

You feel the sensation of flying, a powerful grip under your arms and legs, picking you up effortlessly, dredging you out of sucking murk and mire, before feeling a solid, uncomfortable ruck of brick-a-brac under your spine and shoulder blades. A strange rumbling passes through your body. Maybe this is synapse delay? Perhaps you are still on the train, and you merely hear the machine spirits of the menials who you inherited hardware from...

Over three hours have passed and the jolt and jostle of the cart is enough to slowly revive you. You have no levels of Fatigue, so you may narratively awaken, but any movement will require a Difficult (-10) Strength Test, and you cannot see. A normal man of flesh would have been pulped by your experience, but you have survived due to your implants - however, even so, your cybernetics have suffered greatly. Narrate accordingly.

[Beren]

Hauled inside the carriage, Stitches body heaves as his hearing is drowned out as the sound of wracked breathing fills the carriage. It takes a moment for him to realease the noise is coming from him. Hyperventilation. Just need to bring it under control.

Once he's settled, having slumped down to the floor with his back against a carriage door, he looks up at Nicios.

"Thanks."

It's a short word, but for once, it's genuine. Not that it means that Stitches owes him or anything, but somebody like that might be good to keep around, even if they are a witch.

He stares at the doorway through which he was dragged through.

"One down already. Not a damned good start, is it?"

He shakes his head.

"I'm getting a drink."