A Knocking Afar (IC Thread)

[Trokair]

The Kabalite flinches at the words, then turns fully back towards the disguised Archon.

 

A touch of hysteria on his voice he answered.

 

“Send me? You think I am some prize to have captured, someone favoured.” He spasmed again but no retching followed, his stomach perhaps emptied.

 

“Your better of sending an envoy, Lord, with a polite request with gifts, then asking me and mine.”

 

“Why are you here, and in league with Witches? It can’t be to acquire cattle?”

 

A looks of understanding followed by contempt.  

 

“Your Kabal is week, isn’t it? You need to attend in person and with hired strength, I see it now, Corsairs with a ship brought you here, you don’t have the means to even transverse the webway. Raiding another Kabals claim, you just wait until the Dracon hears, you are finished.”

 

Eyeing the sword again the Dark Eldar continues. “You thretten to slay me, go on then, it be a last mercy before She Who Thirsts compared to the cattle’s doing.”

 

He gets up on his knew, chest and neck presented and exposed.

 

“Common then!”  As shouts go it was a weak one, but you can all see that the Kabalite threw all his will into it.

[Mazer Rackham]

Saoirse:

 

Sensing approval from the Dire Avenger, she gathered her strength to pulse a message to her companions.

 

/Destroy the degenerate with fusion or flame, my kin - these wretches have a mysterious revivification procedure. I know not the rite, only that they do./

[A.T.]

Ialandranth Veilseeker

 

The psychic questioning played out in shadows just at the edge of Ialandranths senses, but none matched with the words of the Dark Kin nor the curious radiation about it.

 

"Another has already killed this one", he observed.

[Trokair]

Random number of days passed, d10: 4 days

As such everybody heals 4 wounds (as if lightly wounded, even if heavily wounded or critical). I think this leaves only Kelman [13/18] and Saoirse [14/14 – no crit] injured. I think you both have 1 fate left, so you may spend this for a d10 heal any time during the four days covered by the Interlude.

 

All fate points are reset at the end of the four days/ start of part three.

 

The below narration covers the first three of those days (up to nightfall on day three) to allow players time to react to events and give Aknoby’s character the opening to meet up with the group and interact. I will take us into day 4 shortly.

 

While there was talk of killing the Dark Eldar prisoner nobody actually went ahead, so I have accounted for that in the below narration, if however any of you did want to have a scene of ending the Kabalite then do so and I’ll just edit out the applicable bit from the below.

 

 

---

 

Perhaps it was exhaustion, or an unwillingness to don the war mask a second time that day, and despite threats and talk the Kabilite was left on the far side of the hollow after what passed for an interrogation. The party remained on their side, resting from the exhaustion and tending to the wounds as best they could. Once or twice you hear coughing and moaning from the Kabalite but mostly he stayed quite. Come morning you could see why, for at some point in the night his soul had fled. None of you particularly wanted to approach to close to check, but he had been cold for some hours already as far as you could discern.   

 

Somewhat strengthened by a nights rest Saoirse conveyed to the others more of the Guardians last words. While there were question as yet unanswered and much uncertain in your quest on behalf of the elder Farseer, the Ghost Warriro’s warning clearly had major bearing and needed to be conveyed to the Farseer. It was during the discussion on how best to proceed from here that you were interrupted by the call of some native beasts. Akin to what you had heard in the preceding days as you had trekked into the hill. Weary of further threats by the Dark Kin you all froze.

 

Another call sounded, was that a pattern?

 

Some of you reached for weapons, and readied to don the War Mask again.

 

Further calls, and while the lesser beings would have thought no more of it then wilderness sounds you could tell it was not so.

 

Was that a tune? It was, and then those of you that called Dandrame home had am oment of mutal recognition. Someone was, badly perhaps, calling out as a series of bestial calls the melody from a popular play that had been in vogue a little over a decade ago. Only a native would know or recognise the little song, there was a friendly out there, or a deeply vicious trick by the denizens of  Commorragh.

 

This is Sial Yhain entry point, take it away Aknoby, however you see fit.

 

---

 

That day and the next  you travelled with caution, back towards the lake and the gate, but by a more cautions and circuitous route then your trek into the hills in pursuit of the guardians. The Dark Kin where no doubt still hunting for you, and you came across evidence that there were human search parties as well. Though they were unlikely to be looking for you specifically running into one would cause more trouble than it was worth, especially as two of your party where still weekend by their battle wounds.

 

It was in the night to the third day that you first spotted the flashed of light in the sky. Some as singular events, others a series of burst spread over minutes or hours. It wasn’t until the first fiery streaks of meteorites followed that you could ascribe some meaning. Orbital weapons fire and debris burning up on atmospheric re-entry. The Humans where engaged in a void war in and around the planet.   

 

It was perhaps a third of the way through the next morning when the by now familiar occasional macro weapon flash and ship meteorites was interrupted with a second dawn. The southern sky lit up as something major began a groundwards fall.

 

You all knew that xenos void ship, whether human or ork, or any of the other upstart races, were less elegant than Eldar vessel. That one should fall, instead of just minor debris, was therefore not unexpected.

 

However as you watch it become clear from the fragmentation, and the length and violence of the fall that this was not some mere ship, but an entire orbital installation. Part of a ring, that must have been many kilometres wide to be disenable at this distance veered of the the left while the main body continued towards the southern horizon.

 

AS the mix of fireball and matter disappeared below the horizon you all instinctively braced, something that large would not only fail to burn up, it would have quite the impact.

 

Nothing.

 

Minutes past, then more. Had that been the slightest of tremors or your imagination? Wherever the impact had been it was too far away for you to be certain that it had even occurred, other than the lightshow of its decent.

 

With this spectacle still on your mind it was easy to dismiss a second casualty of the humans war beyond the gravity well when the party spotted a shadow and re-entry flames to the north east. As it had been away from your travel direction, almost the complete opposite in fact, you all could have easily missed it if one of you had no perchance looked back. Perhaps to check your trail was still sufficiently hidden from any pursuing Dark Kin, or to see how the others were holding up.

 

This however was no falling wreckage; it was not falling at all. A controlled and slow re-entry by a void vessel that initially seemed worryingly close until you recalibrate its scale against the distant mountains that it sunk into. Your expertise of human void ship was amateurish at best, but mountains where mountains and that had been something to rival a small craftworld in size, or exceed it.

 

 “The Sleeper under the Mountain is waking, will wake, has woken.” An echo of the Guardians word rose in Saoirse mind unbidden.

[Mike Zulu]

Ialathial Duskstrider

 

He could not reason why he hesitated to slay the dark kin. Perhaps he was weary from the many days of trekking, or the distaste of killing a helpless target. It mattered not, for whatever possessed the prisoner had seemingly relinquished its thrall during the night.

 

+++ ... Right after the team discussion ... +++

The tune was familiar, yet to his frustration could not put a title to it. A melody he most likely heard during the many intoxicated escapades of his previous life. No doubt he and his friends mocked it and sought to improve and expand it in his Dreaming. What he could recall was it was tale of Dandrame and its people

The figure eventually revealed themself. Sensing distrust among the team, Ialathial approached the newcomer first. He offer his left hand in greeting, whilst holding his catapult at rest in the other. Diplomatic, yet cautious.

“Ialathial Duskstrider; Dire Avenger of the Twilight Tempest.”

 

+++ ... The next day ... +++

Ialathial could do nothing but stare vacantly at the crudely forged leviathan suspended above the mountain range. Whatever it was, he was confident it possessed ordnance to level the continent and anger this Sleeper within. There was no outrunning it on foot, and the odds of a miraculous webway exit nearby seemed unlikely.

But maybe it was their only path forward.