[BC] The Blackest Heart (Part II) (IC)

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Obadiah:

 

Scrabbling claws scratched ineffectually at his war-plate, but a heavy blow cracked the side of his helmet.  Obadiah staggered back a half-step even as he ground his teeth against the muted pain blossoming in his temple.  His left hand whipped Silence from its scabbard, and he tensed himself for a lunge into the swarm.

 

This. . . brawl . . . was not at all to his liking.  Obadiah was a hunter, not a butcher.  There was little skill to the hack-and-slash of depleting a mob of this sort.  Unfortunately, this was the hand he'd been dealt, so he --

 

Fwoooosh-BOOM!  Whickering shrapnel scratched his plate as it was likewise bathed in blood and viscera courtesy of a danger-close fragmentation missile.  The blast cost him another half-step and he had to shake his head to clear it, but he now faced a much thinner crowd of hybrids.  Still, they were too close for an aimed engagement, so his course hadn't changed.  He took two steps, lowered his shoulder, and began stabbing with Silence.

 

Spoiler

Free-Action: Quick Draw Silence

 

Full-Action: All-Out Attack

WS 33 + 30 (All Out) + 20 (Horde) = 83

Roll: 29.  6x DoS is 3 hits.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Hagga/Obadiah/Varne:

 

The mass in front of the Mantis Warrior has a momentary space cleaved into it, but there are more...there are always more...

 

GM: I will pause here to allow Xerxes or one of the Marines to call him and interact to close the North Corridor Blast Door.

 

Ukalegon:

 

You catch up to Baraduk, and he's moving. The Red Corsair is pounding the deck and dirt at hunter-pace, a long, loping speed designed to be for endurance as much as for covering the miles to find the quarry.

 

After a handful of minutes, Baraduk waves his hand, and the sign is as simple to you as switching on a light.

 

/Danger/Close/Halt.

 

You both pull up to a corner.

 

+Prepare yourself. The Empyrean Disturbance is near.+

 

Crux'As:

 

GM: Just going to move you on a bit.

 

You twist and turn following directions you feel come from outside your own instinct. You suddenly round a corner, and there, in the gloom is the armoured form of the Renegade Sorcerer, and the hovering familiar servo-skull at his shoulder.

 

+Follow, we do not have much time. Fate is closing the doors of opportunity.+

 

Edited March 7 by Mazer Rackham
Name corrected.

[Necronaut]

Ukalegon

 

Ukalegon nodded and unslung his boltgun, checking the magazine before racking the first bolt, and stood at the ready in a half-crouch. His hearts were pounding, as much from the exertion of catching up with Baraduk as in anticipation, nay trepidation, at the thought of another warp incursion.

 

What could have possibly gone wrong?!

 

+What information do we have?+

[Lysimachus]

Hagga:

 

Hagga snarled in victory as the last hybrid fell, flesh cooking and stinking. He looked eagerly towards the approaching giant, ready for a good fight, when suddenly the other mob hurled themselves all the way across the breadth of the chamber, spreading out to try and engage them all.

 

Damnation! He wanted a go at the big brute, but not while his movements were hampered by its lesser kin. He saw the monster moving towards the door portal. They just needed a few moments more…

 

++Xerxes! Can you close portal…++ he paused, looking at the locator idents painted beside the frame, then read them out across the vox. ++Even if only for a few seconds?++

 

Edited February 17 by Lysimachus

[Mazer Rackham]

Ukalegon:

 

Baraduk is business. +Nothing. That is what worries me.+

 

He quietly readies his shotgun, and nods. He goes around the corner first.

 

GM: Ukalegon may make a Difficult (-10) Perception Test.

[Necronaut]

Ukalegon

 

Ukalegon rounded the corner just behind Baraduk with his boltgun held in firing position, just like he had drilled an uncountable number of times as a neophyte well over a century past now, scanning the chamber for hostiles.

 

Perception Test (difficult):

Per39 + 10 (auto-senses) + 10 (HS) - 10 (difficult) = 49

D100: 11; 4 DoS

[Machine God]

Kraggan:

 

The alert cut through the fog on his end of the noosphere at his depth. He believed that he had disabled the secondary trigger, he was still in one piece after all

 

 

+++Esteemed Magos Xerxes, this is Magos Kraggan. I would like to request that you open some doors for me and send me trail markers so that I may withdraw. I have been somewhat busy+++

 

 

Carefully he un-jacked from the Device.

 

"I am sorry my friend but I must depart. Parting is such sweet sorrow."

 

 

 

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Ukalegon:

 

As you come around the corner you detect by sense, hearing, and sight the pressure in front of you, as though the air has been turned upside down in a very specific location. The odd dislocation of sense, the greasy sheen to reality all lead to the understanding of a warp incursion of some manner. A weight bears down on everything, and yet, is insanely completely absent.

 

It is a never-thing, a never-was, anethema to continuity and reality.

 

In this odd gloaming, you can see the pale, ravaged figure of a human being. The subtle shift in Baraduk's shoulders lets you know he's seen it too.

 

+It is the mortal dabbler, Sapik.+

 

He steps surely forward, leading on until you are near the human. His vitals show as very weak, and rightly, he has a large gash in his forehead, what appears to be heavy bruising around his throat and shoulders, and worse, his chest is torn open in several places.

 

Oddly, above all of this, he is completely, and totally naked.

 

The space around him is cleaved, clawed and rent, the corridor ceiling appears as though something with monstrous shoulders was suddenly cramped in here. Even inside your helmet, the metallic tang of the Otherwhere is present, making your teeth itch.

 

+Grab that loose string-bag of sausages and take him with us,+ Baraduk says, voice low and chill. +Barzani did not risk his neck to have this parlour conjurer cheat his effort.+

[Necronaut]

Ukalegon

 

With a grunted acknowledgement, Ukalegon stowed his boltgun and picked up the limp form of the psyker hoisting him over one shoulder and drew his inferno pistol with his free hand. He would have ordinarily preferred to have been prepared for cut-and-thrust, but there was a non-zero chance they might need to create a door where there was none, and in a hurry at that.

 

+Ready. This one will need a void-suit should we have to make an unscheduled excursion to reach the Dredge.+

 

It seemed a miracle that Atesh had survived his encounter with… whatever had done this to him. Gingerly, Ukalegon adjusted his hold on the human and nodded at Baraduk.

 

+Lead on.+

[A.T.]

Xerxes:

 

Many voices calling for salvation, but what worth could be assigned them? He left Ephialtes to decide in its own dispassionate way while he focussed on more pressing matters - far enough from the core that time was yet his ally

 

Visual signal to the power recycler had been lost but the servitors within still responded, albeit with little more than note of their existence. Built for the sole purpose of function within such conditions their optics might relay sufficient information as to determine this outposts fate.

 

On a private channel, "Xerxes to armoury, secure and withdraw primary elements. Work group 2 to my location". Caution was a worthy cause.

 

The slow thoughts of the servitors seeped into the noosphere network as they inched from their posts. Beyond the binaric mist he watched as hatches shifted closing one path while opening others.

 

Once more on primary comms, "Acknowledged Kragen. No secure route available, advise outer power substation for repair and emergency voiding".

 

(North door sealed)

 

Full Action: Activate servitors in substation: target 65, roll 12 - pass

 

Doors and fire control - target 75

Free Action: Close door - Abominant - roll 40 - pass

Free Action: Open door - Kraggan - roll 64 - pass

Free Action: signal others

[Mazer Rackham]

Ukalegon:

 

The Huntsmaster nods, switches channels with a rune blink. +Seneca, if you live get to the hangar bay with a casualty vacc-sack.+

 

A snarky acknowledgement rasps in your ears.

 

A low, drumming rumble rattles around your boots and helms, passing through the floor, walls and ceiling. It is not the bones of Brimstone aching, but a migration of something. Several somethings.

 

Abruptly, the sound and motion cease.

 

Then it happens.

 

A Genestealer bursts up through the floor and goes right for the Corsair, smashing his shotgun to the deck with it's ghastly human-like hands in a spoiling attack, lunging for him with razor-talons. The Huntsmaster grips the wrists of the brute, and seizes them even as they close. For a heartbeat they are trapped in amber, and then without even a grunt of effort, Baraduk closes his fists in a tight snatch, and the wrists of the feindly beast shatter into broken, limp spars.

 

He yanks the foe forward, hard, and his right knee thunders up in a crack of splintering alien sternum and ribs, the Stealer's chin snaps forward, only to collide with it's own chest and spring backwards. Desann lets go, left hand gripping the skull, thumb penetrating the eye socket with a lurid squish of ichor and yellow gruel, eliciting the harsh bark of a creature in pain and the throes of doom.

 

The savage squealing is silenced when Baraduk makes his fist a hammer, and brings it down on the Stealer's exposed throat, caving in it's oesophagus and breaking the spinal cord. He lets the sack of meat tumble to the deck. Stooping to pick up his shotgun, he gently taps his elbow into the Lamenter's shoulder guard, nods down the corridor, and sets off in that loping run, just as Ukalegon spies the slivers of, scarlet light and cinder-sparks which begin to shed around the corner behind them....accompanied by the low growl of a throat which breathes nothing real...

 

Edited February 17 by Mazer Rackham

[Necronaut]

Ukalegon

 

Canting his pointed helm down, Ukalegon charged after Baraduk, catching up with him easily.

 

+Faster! Something is close behind! Something big...+

 

He did not finish his thought, and he dared not spare a moment to look back as they barreled down winding corridors, flew through junctions at break-neck pace and ploughed through anything in their path like twin battering rams. Brimstone might have been compromised, but there was no sense in giving any daemons the satisfaction of their unnecessary deaths as well.

Edited February 17 by Necronaut

[Mazer Rackham]

Hagga/Obadiah/Varne (AKA The Brawl in the Hall):

 

The blast door to the North corridor slams shut, just as Xerxes finishes advising you of his actions the avatar of the xeno-forms worship thumps into the plasteel barricade.

 

Abominant:

Slams into the door like a boulder of bone and muscle. It gives a couple of inches.

 

GM: With the Abominant stymied, we will move to Narrative Action. This is because most of the other Hordes bar Horde 3 have been whittled. You should roll your damage as normal, but consider every hit to be mortal. Emphasise the desperation of the Horde in your narrative, and your realisation these are essentially the last of their brood. Structured Time is Suspended.

 

[ ] Hagga

[ ] Varne

[ ] Obadiah

 

 

 

 

Edited March 7 by Mazer Rackham
Name corrected.

[FabiusV4lcoran]

Atesh Sapik

 

He woke with a start.  He was bound.  NOTHING COULD HOLD----

 

Wait.  Breat----

 

Breathing hurt.  The binds chaffed.  They chaffed a lot.  They chaffed the...skin...of his...Atesh looked down his body (whichever direction that was in relation to his metal conveyance).  The hall was very cold.

 

Sapik was furious.  He had no clue where he was, why he was naked, or what had happened.  There was a monster, he tried to defend himself, then nothing.

 

He couldn't shake his emotions enough to think through his situation.  He knew how to channel ambitious malice, and the dissatisfaction that comes with stagnation.

 

This acrimony was base and vulgar.  A fury that brooked no other consideration.  

[Necronaut]

Ukalegon

 

+The wretch is awake,+ Ukalegon smirked over the vox as they thundered towards the hangar bay, +and a bit cross.+

 

“Do not strain yourself, fool," the ex-Lamenter barked at the mangled human he cradled over his shoulder plate. "We are departing Brimstone early, thanks to you."

 

The tirade from the near-dead human continued, incredibly, unabated.

 

Bloody ingrate...

 

“You are lucky to be alive, witch, or maybe very unlucky, but in either event, kindly shut up!" 

 

On they ran, relentlessly, for the hounds of Hell nipped at their heels, and one might only mock the Devil once and live to tell the tale. Twice was pushing it.

[FabiusV4lcoran]

Atesh Sapik

 

The conveyance yelled at him.  The conveyance radiated danger.  The tone of the other...ASTARTES.  These were...

 

Atesh felt, rather than saw evidence of, the cold.  

 

He also felt bitter.  And resentful.  But he could shut up now.  He nodded in deference, flexing his hands and arms to exercise muscles in less damaging pursuits, and straining to remember past the fog.

 

Edited February 18 by FabiusV4lcoran

[Lysimachus]

Hagga:

 

A grim smile crossed Rykaz’ face as the door slammed down. Good! The xenos mobs might still have the numbers, but now the Astartes plainly had the upper hand. Now, to finish the vile creatures!

 

Heart-Eater's blade was beginning to burn now, bright trails left in the air as she cut effortlessly through armour and chitin, the sheer heat setting fire to the aliens’ blood even as it sprayed outwards.

 

Hagga: All Out Attack at Horde 3
WS52 +30(AOA) +20(Horde) = 102, Roll: 47, 6DoS
1+3 Hits +1 (Power) = 5 Hits, all cause Mag Dam

The enemy were trying to pull back, but they couldn't. One tried to run towards the door, maybe to help the big one gain entrance, but Eska was there. Joyfully snapping and crunching, her powerful jaws were almost as effective as the sword, though much more messy.

 

Eska: Aim and Swift Attack at Horde 3
WS20 +20(Horde) +10(Aim) = 50, Roll: 06, 5DoS
1 +2(vs Horde) +2(Swift Attack) = 5 Hits, all cause Mag Dam.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

Xerxes:

 

All attendants move into compliance, but as you begin withdrawal from your systems, the databases, control ciphers and command coda all become distorted, rapidly deteriorating. Normal function of that which you are used to, the mnemonic architecture, binharic syntax, engrammatic containers, all begin to fall as though being erased 8-bit by 8-bit, by an mysterious, myriad force of small memory slugs.

 

They do not have the imperfect calculus of the Mechanicum, nor the heightened understanding of the Dark Forges, but something immutably cold, unwaveringly perfect, and utterly ancient.

 

The ghosts of mechanisms barely understood, the voice of a long dead engine, these things you are familiar with. It is the only way you can parse it, the only bootstrap you have to cognisance. A brief interface of operating BIOS gives you a terrible grief for things you were not part of, and cannot know, a wonderful glimpse as perfect transcendence into decimal perfection.

 

And yet...

 

Such a thing is a terrible prison.

 

Perfection at the cost of innovation, of any understanding, of any self - in a hierarchy that maybe you wish to control, but certainly might shy away from communion with. It does not speak in the circuitry of Man, Omnissiah or Primordial Truth.

 

The code is old. It is the silence before life. It is the silence after death. It is the word of metal over flesh, and the liberation and slavery of both. In the code, there are words, a phrase as ancient as the stars you know in the heavens.

 

I am Phaeron Aten-Khum'Ra. Prince of the Imperial lineage of Thokt. I...

 

The annihilation of data, and all subconsciousness within continues unabated, servo skulls and servitors dropping dead as they are consumed.

[Machine God]

Kraggan:

 

+++Acknowledged+++

 

He saw the door close. He then moved towards the power generators at a run to get to the Void.

 

The green crystal that he'd recently added to his potentia coil surged. He used the surplus of power to enhance locomotive alacrity as he focused on his Machine self and other sub-systems initiated void protection for his flesh remnant. 

 

He ran through doors afire, he was not afraid. He thought of Eight, all was 8! Even 1000.

 

He jumped through an explosion and into the void, his IFF sent out to Dredge shuttles. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 18 by Machine God
Power

[Mazer Rackham]

Kraggan:

 

After a few minutes, your signal is reciprocated by a closing Krokodil pilot, who swings in, opening the front boarding ramps to admit you.

 

GM: Kraggan is now recovered and will be taken back to the Dredge 'safely'.

[Mojake]

Varne

 

Eyeing up the monstrous form assailing the northern door, Varne slipped a krak missile into the firing tube. The wave of hybrids surged forth, crashing against the reinforced ceramite of the marine's form. He leaned into the attack, weathering the claws and improvised mining weapons scraping across his armour. As his right hand grasped the carrying handle of the missile launcher, his left tucked behind his back and unhooked the bolter from its seat. Bringing the weapon to bear, the auxiliary plates lining his palm locked into grooves and stabilised the firearm.

 

Spoiler

Half Action: Rapid Reload (Missile Launcher)

Free Action: Quick Draw (Legion Bolter)

 

Half Action: Semi-Auto Burst (Legion Bolter)

• Recoil Suppression (Armour System) to fire one-handed.
• Short Range: +10
• Horde Size: Unknown (will assume no bonus as horde is thinned out)
• Roll: 45
• Target: 62 (2 DoS)
• Horde 3: 1 hit  +1 for X damage type!  = 2 magnitude damage
• Damage: 18 (2d10k1+9 (Tearing)) X / Pen 4

 

The first bolt slammed through the face of a snarling hybrid with a laspistol, ejecting from the back of its malformed skull and detonating centre-mass of another screaming maggot. Simultaneously, one of the myriad monstrous forms threw itself against Varne's forearm in desperation, knocking the bolter two inches wide and causing the rest of his salvo to slam into a nearby buttress.

 

His thoughts crawled back to watching the Inquisitor's ship leaving him and his brothers on the outpost that had fallen to the Hrud.

 

With a hopeful tone, like that of a mummer setting up for a snappy punchline, he called into the narrow-band vox frequency.

 

+ Huntsmaster, how much time do we have?+

 

The rumble of Varne's wry chuckle at the irony of facing the same death again echoed across the shared vox-channel in anticipation.

[Mazer Rackham]

Varne:

 

The Corsair replies in his usual cool demeanour. You can tell he's running because of the cadence-thump of vox distortion matching footfall, the reply terse because he has little to say, as opposed to a lack of breath.

 

+I estimate eight minutes, Doom Eagle.+

 

GM: I'm slotting this into Baraduk and Ukie's run towards Sapik so the timing all falls appropriately across the split party.

[Lord_Ikka]

Crux'as

 

The Smiler looked upon the form of the Astartes pysker. With footsteps and fire chasing his hells, the ever-present smile crooked.

 

"Gladly will I follow your lead my friend. The Path is winding and full of twists. Show me the way."

 

Let the Weaver of Paths guide us.

Edited February 18 by Lord_Ikka

[Mazer Rackham]

Crux'As:

 

A Sorcerer obviously arrives exactly when he is supposed to.

 

+Stand close.+

 

He raises and bangs his staff three times by three. The butt of his psy-focus makes hammer on anvil, and at the entrance to the passageway, the shade-shrouded menace with three arms and three guns levels all bores at you and this huge mystic, loosing off a crackling burst of irradiated, armour-piercing shells.

 

Reality becomes thick, heavy. Blood tastes in your mouth, and light absolves reason as everything slides into molten existence, replaced by yellow upside rich level best intrigue. A banana-wrist fellowship reacts greenly with suitcases where the eye welches on frigid tempest. Durable purple waif props a damp tirade on peppercorn reach.

 

Voice want opened by spoon fabrication underbelly. Runic stars pass judgement kaleidoscope. 

 

Solid deck under legs tremble with leather skull.

 

And you materialise in the shuttle bay antechamber. And fall three feet to the ground.

 

Cyrandras Raskash is a little less graceful as he drops to the deck in a sack of armoured bricks.

 

+Apologies. Forgot to carry the two.+

 

Edited February 18 by Mazer Rackham

[Lord_Ikka]

Crux'as

 

The smile widened, breathe coming faster as the touch of the Gods faded away.

 

"Not at all. That was...exquisite."