"Analysing a substance like that is something that a chymist should do.
Which I happen to be.
Though it might take a little while..."
"Let's have a look then..."
Liam kneels down to get a better look, digging into his pack for a vial to scoop up some of the fluid with.
"Headache, delay my last order. Brainboys, this might sound crazy but check if that stuff could possibly be gastric acid."
He takes his eyes from the exit for a second to check the ground for signs of heat.
Liam raises an eyebrow at being refereed to as a "brain boy" and mouths the word to Anatoly in a silent query.
Hang on a moment, did I just do a "for comedic effect" thing with a Tech priest?
Wow, I must have hit my head or something...
Liam raises an eyebrow at being refereed to as a "brain boy" and mouths the word to Anatoly in a silent query.
Unfortunately, Anatoly does not have a measurable sense of humor and simply looks back at Liam waiting for Liam's results.
MacVger, however, has a very measurable sense of humor and just barely manages to disguise his snickering as a coughing fit.
The coordinated effort of the brain boys result in the estimation, that this particular acid (and the fumes) are not flammable.
But extremely potent, to the point that even stone and most metals will quickly dissolved under its influence.
Long exposure (more than half an hour or so) to the fumes are most likely harmful for human lungs ... skin, eyes and generally anything biological for that matter.
Ingestion or skin contact is highly inadvisable.
"...or in other words, don't step on it ok? And absolutely don't FALL into it."
Where is this foul substance coming from? I would dearly love to drown an Orc in it! A fitting end for a filthy Xenos!
”Sir! I have possible movement up above something small.”
On a more scholastic level, you are quite amazed by this fluid.
It is as (or maybe even more) powerful as most comparable substances in the Imperial arsenal.
Various Ad-Mech Magos may be quite interested in researching this substance and it's origin.
A rattle runs through the ranks of the squad as aim is being adjusted, searching for the contact.
There certainly is something up there, moving incredibly slowly up and over the ledge.
Then, it drops over the ledge, plummeting to the ground with a sickening splonk as if something wet, heavy and sludgy has fallen on the ground.
Your goggles show only the slightest outline of the thing, as it's temperature is just barely above the surrounding rock.
It looks like ... a worm.
Or a slug.
It is about one hands-width long and about two-thumbs thick.
No extremities are visible, no eyes, nothing. You aren't even sure where the front and back of the creature are.
The thing, whatever it is, just has fallen about 5m onto the ragged, sharp stone ground.
And it is still moving, although painfully slow.
It must have a remarkable tough hide to not just being sliced apart by the stone after such a fall!
"That thing has to be tough. It dropped from at least a few meters down onto the rough grounds shredding our combat boots.
Keep your eyes low, I want to check the ceiling for more with proper light."
With a wince he lets go of his googles, his eyes watering again instantly, turns them off and pulls out the portable luminator. He points it straight upwards not to blind himself or the others, then looks up and does a slow sweep of the ceiling, looking for more of the worms.
The light sear in your eyes and you need several seconds until you can open your (watering) eyes full to the sudden light.
You let it wander over the cavern ceiling, finding no more worms.
But in the half-glow you can see several more of the creatures, dangling half-way over the ledge, their bodies convulsing from powerful muscles as the crawl forwards in the way of worms.
The shine of the glow globe, also reveals the full disgusting details of the worm already on the ground. It's body is covered by a bone-white, featureless and obviously moist skin of sorts.
"Uargh!" is the rather fitting comment of Ensign Brazer, finally able to see the creature.
With strange fascination you watch the grounded creature convulse, under what appears to be a spasm of sorts, then watch in horror as one end of the creature suddenly splits apart into four more or less triangular lappets that together form a incredible disgusting maw filled with several rows of tiny teeth.
A last ripple of the body and the creature spits a bolt of the sickly-colored liquid at the collection of brain-boys - the very same substance they just analyzed and wondered about it's origin!
To your relief though, the ball of bubbling liquid sails wide off target, two meters short, causing the stone to frizzle and melt under its powerful acid!
Already expecting trouble the Commissar only takes a few moments to snap into full combat mode
"No eyes, and shot the biggest group. Probably heat based vision. Be ready for counter fire. Father, a pool of flames as far from us as you can."
First things first thought, the Commissar takes a moment to aim at the worm that just shot at them and fires
The powerful, blinding bright, sun-hot beam of the Commissars laspistol pierces the flesh of the worm-creature, causing it to exploartsch in a blast of overheated meat!
MacVyger swings his lasgun up, sights in one one of the slugs and squeezes a single shot off. Shockingly, it hits!
Bolus nods at the Comissar's words, marching up to the foul worms hugging the eastern edge of the cavern. When they are both within 10 meters of him he sprays them with fire. The cone of flame washing over both of them
Seeing the small moving forms to actually be acid spewing worms, Aurius will take quick aim and fire a single shot at one.
"Sir, Permission to use Frag Grenades to quickly dispatch these?" he asks the commissar after he sees his first shot miss its mark due to their size and worm-y nature.
Liam swings his gun up and aims it carefully, before letting lose a stream of lasfire against the worms on the western wall.
Unfortunately, the small size of the creatures makes the volley one that only produces grazing hits.
"Granted. But do not waste it. That ledge is not the most suitable target for a grenade."
"Erm, couldn't a grenade explosion send the acid spraying into the air Commissar sir?"
"Fraks shred more than they explode. And even on the remote chance - they are already spitting it at us."
Bulus takes a couple of steps, before roasting two of the worms as they fall towards ground level, their foul bodies never hitting the ground.
The medic practically materializes his lasgun and firing a tight burst at one of the wester-worms, as MacVyger and Anatoly still reaches for their guns. All shots hit, the first one already killing a worm, but the second one seems to be more resilient, shrugging of the two follow-up shots.
A hayst shot from the Enginseer's powerful mechandrite weapon misses, while his master raises his lasgun, taking careful aim.
Ensing Brazer's let loose with his shotgun at the remaining western worms, but the pellets pepper the cave wall harmlessly.
Horrified you watch the worms convulsing, already fearing the acid spittle, as they suddenly fling themselves forward in a long, powerful jump, crossing over half the cave in one go, crashing down on the sharp solid stone.
The worms from the western side, much closer to begin with, comes crashing down within centimeters of the squad. Or would have in the case of one of them, getting picked apart by a hasty but well-aimed shot from the solid autogun slug fired by the demolition expert.
The second western worm tries to bite Headache, acid boiling out of its disgusting maw - but the knife-wielder manages to get out of it's way by hairs breath, immediately slashing back....
... opening a sickening wound in the flesh of the creature, but the thing seems to be still alive.
There is a faint rumble in the rock below.
You can feel a strange vibration coming through the rock, your boots and your bones.
Its like a micro-earthquake.
The Commissar turns to Headache and the worm and levels his pistol on the slithering thing. He spits "I don't remember allowing filth to pester my Troopers." while actually just passing the time until he has a clear shot onto the worm.
vs 42
Bolus steps forward and sprays flame on the three worms closest.
MacVyger squeeses off a shot at the worm near at hand and miraculously hits!
Anatoly flicks his lasgun to its maximum power setting and fires at the closest worm, a single shot to increase the chance of hitting his target.
Aurius doesn't notice anything happening, much more focussed on lobbing a Frag Grenade into the cluster of 3 Worms that the Father justs set alight whilst the rest of the party, hopefully, deals with the one within striking distance of them all.
Oh, what now!?
"Commissar! I can feel the earth trembling, It's like a small earthquake. Something is definitely happening close by."
Liam, unsure of what is going on, and hoping the worms will fall without his help pauses and looks around.
"Damn it. Either those fools outside finally lost their patience or this room does look a bit too much like a giant maw with teeth. Be ready to bail into the corridor if the earth starts moving"
The small explosive sails through the air, rebounding straight back towards the group as it hits the rough ground in an unlucky angle, landing three meters off the worms, around 10m off Aurius and the Commissar - so probably out of the lethal radius for most of the group, although Headache and Ensign Brazer might be barely inside it's radius.
*Tic-Tac-Tic*
The Commissar manages to squeeze through a shot into the melee and fry the cut-open worm.
Anatoly and MacVyger focusing their fire at one of the worms that emerges from the fathers fire (slightly crispy but still moving disgustingly), bringing it down together.
The other two worms scatter up, one jumps at Bolus the other at Headache .
The Emperor is still with the squad though, as both worm misses their bites. Even more, the one who was trying to bite the Priest, gets bisected by a whirring shrapnel from the Storm Troopers grenade, the other is quickly dispatched by Headache and a helpful shotgun blast from your CO.
Training you weapons around, looking for new targets you start to feel the faint, slow but steadily increasing tremors that Liam mentioned.
It seems to come from the north-western side of the cavern and from below.
Small rocks start to fall down from the ceiling and more acid runs up over the ledge and down the walls, causing the rock below to sizzle and small vapor clouds to raise up.
Not the standard, mass-produced one.
Only ancient and/or highly sophisticated weapons will have an MIU link.
Say: a plasma gun, a masterwork-grade lasgun might have one or a really old Bolter. In addition, most vehicle mounted weapons can be MIU operated.
You certainly could try and build a variant template which has one though.
Comissar! I am running low on my supply of holy promethium and it is early in the day yet. Bolus reports. I shall switch to the lasgun until such time as flames become more necessary
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anatoly looks about and activates the auspex once more to try and identify the source of the tremor.
Getting no useful information for the obstinate device, Anatoly says nothing. Instead, he powers the Auspex down, letting it rest for a few seconds before powering it back on. Perhaps this will soothe the reluctant spirit within. If only I could do with the Commissar to soothe his spirit; people are so complicated.
"Sir, I don't like this rumbling one bit. We should retreat back to the Chimera, we're exposed here if anything happens."
"I'm with you but we're not giving up this venture just like that. Everyone out into the corridor. We're giving this a minute to unfold before we either retreat or go to the other side."
You don't have to wait long, not more than half a minute.
The shaking gets more pronounced until a circular, 1m circular area in the north-western quadrant of the cave floor melts away and another worm appears out of the newly-burrowed tunnel!
It is clearly the same species as those you just finished off, but obviously a scaled-up version.
It has a diameter of about 1m and is at least 5m long + whatever is still in the tunnel he has still not entirely emerged!
From what you have seen so far, you probably stand in the middle of it's lair, having disturbed (then killed) it's breed.
What worries you, is the fact that the tunnels you're walking through are 3m in diameter, while this newly appeared worm has 'only' a diameter of 1m.
This may indicate that this one is still not entirely grown up and there are (or at least were at some time) worms around about thrice the size of this one! Given the fact that this one may be able to swallow the best part of a man in one go, it's a quite terrifying prospect...
The thing moves its mawed-front around, until it 'looks' directly at you - without any eyes of course.
With ground crushing force the body of the giant worm starts to convulse, then spits a giant ball of the acid-fluid you know already, directly at the edge of the tunnel, threatening to dissolve the whole group!
The Commissar, being the one closest to the cavern to watch what happens gets the hell out of dodge even if it means getting back into the cavern. He tries to reach the center of the room where he has proper ground to dodge.
"Damnit we didn't come here to hunt ugly worms."
Bolus sees something and heads towards it rather than doing the smart thing.
and he gets splashed!
Premission to fall back, sir! MabVyger calls. He's digging in his pack for his explosives with a worried expression. If we get it in the tunnel I can more easily blast it to bits!
Anatoly tries to duck behind a slight protrusion in the tunnel wall.
And the acid passes him harmlessly by.
Bolus, defiant as only a priest can be, raises his flamer in a defiant gesture, praying for the Emperors protection instead of getting out of harms way.
Oh that stubborn zealous fool!
A medics role is to save lives, even when the medic might not fully WANT to risk his own life to do so.
Liam growled and dove forward, catching himself by his arms he then managed to roll forward landing on his back near father Bolus, then he quickly lashed out with his feet, tripping the father under the blast of acid.
Pete dives, but it's a bit slow because of his digging in his pack for the metaphorical dynamite.
The acid that boils over Liam and Bolus, splashes against MacVyger, having stand behind them.
In a horrific speed, the acid burns through armor and flesh, opening horrible wounds that burn hellish.
To make things worse, you immediately starts to feel dizzy and the worlds starts spinning slowly in front of your eyes.