One must not be too proud of this technological terror. The power to level the citadel of the Emperor's Children is insignificant next to the true power of the warp. Still, the vessel brings Akkad to a halt and fills him with awe. He looks over it, seeking an egress point.
You all descended a near-vertical patch of the canyon’s wall, punching handholds and kicking footholds in the snow-blasted rock. You finally dropped the last distance down onto a sloping rock ledge.
The daemon wolf took off as if given a command by Khayon that you could not hear and it vanished into the darkness.
Deeper you went, into darkness. Another hour down and the rain no longer fell upon you. You were almost in the mist.
"Be careful," Khayon said. "I believe something is wrong."
That made Lheor laugh. "It’s tragic how that surprises you, sorcerer."
"I agree with Khayon, as well. Something is amiss. Khayon, can you raise the Tlaloc using your sorcery, or is something blocking that, as well?"
Deathraven moved approximately three meters away from the group before entering the mist. Close enough to maintain sight, but not close enough to be felled by an attack not aimed at him specifically.
"My connection with Ashur-Kai is severed as well here and I have lost contact with my wolf. Be at the ready brothers."
The group steps forward into the mist and you step on top of the downed ship. There was no obvious damage to the superstructure, no toppled battlement spires. It's as if the ship didn't crash here but was landed.
Awareness
As soon as your boot touches down on the vessel you know this is The Vengeful Spirit!
Draex tries to appreciate the beauty and magnitude of this downed fortress but the nails are getting jealous that his emotions are being psuaded but something other then their touch or merciful release. Stabbing deep into his nerves Draex face tightens as he lets out a wet cackling sound
"Eec-c-k-kkk"
Taking a second to recover himself, huffing from the extremities gnawing at skull Draex readies Crimson Mist only but holds a grip of the chains to blood extractor
Ulasht begins to laugh and in a voice which may be mistaken for a weep, "This is it. The Vengeful Spirit!"
He starts forward looking for the nearest entrance based on his memory of the ship.
"Interesting and good craftsmanship" as Aldegund admires the craft and time spent to build such vessel, hoping he might find some blue prints in an interface and enough materials or even possible servitors that he could bring back to use to help with his ever growing list of weapons to be made and experiments to do.
"I’ve had an unwelcome thought," Telemachon voxed "What if this ship didn’t crash? Is it even on the canyon’s bottom? What if it’s simply drifting here?"
The vessel was powered down. There was no way it could maintain position in an atmosphere without propulsion to counter the pull of gravity. If the ship was floating here as though in a void, that would mean it was somehow immune to the broken planet’s gravitic pull.
A moment later you all hear and see a small hovering skull make it's way toward your group. A servo-skull drifted down the hull, bobbing in the mist.
Deathraven observed the servo-skull as it approached. His only thought was thatthis was too easy, but he kept any such thoughts to himself.
"So this is it, this is what we have been looking for. A rather easy find that no one else could manager to do." Draex spits on the ground "Sounds like this planets witchery has been hiding it here. Well since we came all this way lets have a look"
Draex sees the servo coming towards the group and looks around as the little skull approaches making sure nothing else is trying to flank the group
"..."
Aldegund looks at the servo skull with interest "Let us see what we can find out from it, if anything at all" as Aldegund will approach the Servo Skull to further analyze it.
Ulasht nods at Aldegund and approaches with him. "I hope my Brothers will welcome us with open arms. I wonder who is in command..."
The Servo-Skull spots your group and begins to skitter away and then Khayon uses his Telekentic powers to pull it toward him until it is in his hand. A chromium spinal cord quivered in an obscene parody of life, thrashing helplessly at in his hand as he clutched the skull probe. Its mechanical eyes clicked and whirred as they refocused on Khayons faceplate.
"Greeting" Khayon said to it.
Its reply was an alarmed blurt of distressed code from the miniscule vox-speakers lodged in place of its upper incisors. The thing’s articulated spinal column thrashed harder, a serpent coiling and uncoiling in a way no natural spine ever should.
"I am Iskandar Khayon. I come with Ulasht, Aldegund, Draex, Deathraven, Akkad, Lheorvine and Telemachon. We seek Ezekyle Abaddon."
The thing still thrashed in Khayons grip.
"It doesn't seem very inviting. We could let it run and follow it. See where it leads us."
"Yes, this is strange to say the least. Following it may lead us into a trap of one sort or another. I believe once I have my bearings, I can lead us to an entrance having served on the ship prior to the fall of the Warmaster".
"Let me see that," said Lheor.
Khayon tossed the augmented skull to him, expecting him to catch it. Instead, as it labored in the air, trying to right itself on its weak anti-grav motor, Lheor smashed it aside with a swing of his chainaxe. Skull shards and metal shrapnel clattered across the shadowed hull.
"Another glorious victory," asked Telemachon?
Lheor grunted what may have been a laugh "Enough of this foreplay lets enter the blasted ship." with that he activated his chain axe and slams it into the hull starting to make his own way in.
"I could have gathered more information out of his databank and what he was doing out here you fools, now we are going in just by centuries old memories of Ulasht and no current data." as he proceeds to go behind Ulasht meaning no offense to him, but current information is valuable.
"I am not sure how your Legion entered ships in the vacuum of space Lheor but if it was by breaching the hull I am amazed you are still breathing to stupefy us with your blatant ignorance of how doors function. If you don't stop destroying the Warmasters ship I will crack open your skull and recover your gene seed for a more worthy donor". Ulasht draws his force sword to give the threat weight.
"Can we end this child play and let us continue, before we draw blood of the wrong side? We might need everyone we got" as he taps his multi-melta "If I need to make an entrance it wouldn't be hard, I just refuse to create damage to such an incredible craftsmanship."
Draex bares serrated teeth at the tension among lheor and the witch. We could easily dispact him but a it we need to be a 1 v 1 match but if lheor lost then the he would have me to deal with in short order. Gripping on his axe tighter Draex amps the fight on
"Go on son of horus show us your fangs" Pointing his axe in lheors direction
No point negotiating with a World Eater. Mad idiot pups of a mad idiot dog. Akkad quietly readies his weapon, and waits.
Khayon steps between Lheor and Ulasht.
"Brothers we are not here to fight amongst ourselves. We have a mission to complete and if we kill each other that will never happen. Remember our real goal here."
Lheor pulls the axe up off the hull and spits on it. You can tell the nails are biting hard as his hand shakes a bit.
"The Warmaster is dead who care if we cut a single hole into the hull to enter. That Iron Warrior could easily patch it up once we are done. It could take us days to find an entrance with this blasted mist blocking our vision and auspex!"
Deathraven merely shook his head. Killing the servo-skull accomplished absolutely nothing. Indeed, it might even have been a key. The trap was the goal, after all. With an ally like Lheor, enemies were superfluous.
Menstras lingers at the canyon's edge as the others descend. Even with the immensity of the craft concealed by fog and rain the majesty screams. A weapon with no purpose but conquest. A primarch manifested in machine.
Slowly his eyes drift close, his mind carrying him back to the day Nostromo shattered. The day his war began. Acidic bile bites the bottom of his tongue as an old smile breaks the surface once more. The smile of a crook stalking the shadowed streets. A smile locked behind the bars of service to the Legion and their spiteful father.
Thin veils of aether play about his helm as his eyes open once more. With the studied eyes of a burglar, Menstras studies the craft from his vantage point. A hatch lends entry to the foolish. A window the common. A broken plank the clever.
Slowly his eyes trace the hull in their search. An airlock, exhaust port or even a dislodged turret were all he needed.
v 71/61((Aware+10 or Scrut) +Auto +Heightened)
His destination decided, he takes flight on wings of fire. His jump jets hissing as the superheated tongues lap at the acidic air. Stealth would serve no purpose here. Their presence would be known soon if not already.
v 48
Intelligence
Ulasht heads to the hatch demonstrating its function for Lheor by opening and closing it a few times.
Deathraven chuckles at Ulasht's pointed lesson for Lheor before stepping through the hatch and looking around.
"Too bad Falkus can't be here."
Parts of the servo-skull can be seen on the hull but it's broken into a lot of small pieces.
Lheor grunts and thumbed off his chain axe following the rest into the ship.
Despite time’s light touch on this world, the Eye’s influence showed throughout the Vengeful Spirit. The mist hid its external monotonousness, but the cold, cold threat of the flagship was perfectly evident inside.
Many of the ship’s corridors were calcified into a labyrinth of bleached bone architecture. Grey formations of lusterless crystal knuckled up from the joints and cracks in the bone walls. The entire vessel rang with the sense of journeying through the corpse of some great beast, dead for centuries.
Sparse power still flowed through the downed warship, manifest in overhead lights and wall consoles. The former occasionally flickered. The screens of the latter were drowned by quiet static. The ship’s main generators were still and lifeless, that much was obvious from the silence. What power existed was localized and faint, limited to a handful of systems.
Metal remembers everything. Exposure to the Eye’s tides had drawn forth memories from the ship’s hull, manifesting echoes of the crew who had died serving aboard the flagship through the decades of the Great Crusade. Ghosts they were, formed from glass. Crystal faces leered from the bone walls, each one showing expressions of ugly harmony. The faces, so detailed as to be beyond even the work of a master sculptor, were masks of closed eyes and open mouths. If you moved close enough, you could see the crease lines on their lips. Even closer than that, and you could make out their pores.
Ulasht nods to Deathraven in assent to his statement.
"At this point we should probably head to the bridge and see who is there".
Ulasht shakes his head in frustration as they encounter not a soul as they walk through the belly of the beast. If this ship should house only the corpses of the greatest of my Legion then we are well and truly doomed.
"We are not going to the bridge." said Khayon
"We should go to the command deck," Lheor said agreeing with the Sons of Horus who not long ago held a sword threatening him.
"We will. But I am going this way first." Khayon replied.
Khayon aimed his axe down the opposite hallway. A veritable forest of grey crystal limbs was motionlessly reaching from the corridor’s walls, ceiling and deck.
Everyone feels the weak psychic resonance of the crystal faces but down this hallway they were amplified.
"Admittedly," Lheor replied, "that does look promising."
"Promising in what terms? asks Aldegund knowing full well that Lheor's train of thought if any, was probably very different than what Khayon had in mind.
Ulasht shrugs, "If such is your desire, then that way we shall go first. I don't think splitting our forces would be wise at this time".
Psyiscience Test
You reach out with your senses and you hear the voices coming from the crystallized figures.
"I am alive," it sang silently, in a melody made of whispered shrieks. "I screamed as the ship burned. I screamed as the fire sloughed the flesh from my bones. And now I sing."
The song pierces your bring and you feel a bit of pain as you pull away with your powers.
Lheor shrugs at Aldegunds comment. "It just does Triach."
Ulasht chuckles, "The residue of death is thick here. So many souls snuffed out at once, the song must seem a sweet melody to the Daemons of the warp. I cannot discern what is down that way but the walls themselves pulse with the unfulfilled dreams of the once living..."
"Whatever we do, we need to move. Ashur-Kai might consider us lost if we don't re-establish contact soon."
Deathraven moves down the corridor at a trot. Walking the length of the ship would take days.
Menstras shall shadow the group as a rear guard.
"I believe lost is fairly accurate from my stand point, but let us make haste then, time is of the essence" as Aldegund begins to walk down the corridor with his weapon ready for any surprises.
Time moved strangely in the Vengeful Spirit’s cold halls. Your retinal display tracked the seconds passing in a brutally slow crawl. More than once you saw the crystalline echoes of the dead crew move at the edge of my sight. They were not all human – many were warriors of the Legiones Astartes, reborn as echoes aboard the flagship where they had died. Custodians in exquisitely detailed armour and battle-scarred Imperial Fists reached from the walls, the ceilings, the floor decking... All singing silent funeral songs of flame and fury. Some carried war spears, others hefted boarding shields – most clutched bolters in fists that would never fire a weapon again.
You do not know how long you walked in that pregnant darkness. An hour. Three. Ten. Time had no meaning here. You passed through a power crucible, a chamber of inactive secondary generators leering at you from the shadows with the malice of slumbering gargoyles. It was on the other side of the chamber, as you entered the labyrinth of corridors once more, that a sine wave rose and fell at the edge of you retinal display, tracking a new sound. Footsteps, heavy and slow. Ceramite on the bone deck. A new servo-skull floated toward your group.
A target lock immediately played over the newcomer as he rounded the junction ahead of you. He wore weathered and colour-faded armour scavenged and cannibalised from warriors of all Nine Legions, with a long fall of ratty, snarled black hair stringing across his features, half hiding his face. Even from this distance, you saw gold in his gaze. Unnatural, inhuman gold, turning his irises a metallic shade. In his fists he carried a bolter – just as plain and just as battered as his war-plate. Rather than take aim, he kept the weapon lowered, loose in his hands. The vox crackled as his suit’s systems auto-cycled into our shared channel.
"I’ll thank you to stop breaking my servo-skulls." A resonant voice, gravelly but without rawness feigned for effect. A smiling voice.
Menstras does his best to remain undetected by the figure while maintaining him in his bolter sights. His status light winks out as the comms connect.
v 48 +/- environment
"I am Iskandar Khayon, and this–"
"I know who you are. I knew even before you repeated your name to every servo-skull that found you." the legionary replied.
"We have given you our names, cousin. What is yours?" Khayon said.
The legionary inclined his head before replying. "What exactly was the purpose of destroying the servo-skull?"
"It seemed likely to get someone’s attention," said Lheor.
"Blunt logic is the hardest to argue. Try not to break anything else while you’re aboard. Really, brothers, civility mustn’t break down, else we’ll have nothing left." the legionary replied.
He seemed to be paying you little attention now, looking down at an auspex built into his vambrace. You heard it giving the heartbeat thud... thud... thud of echolocation tracking.
"You can step out of the shadows Menstras. It's just the nine of you? Where is Ashur-kai, Corvis, and Falkus?"
"I believe Falkus was no longer suitable for the journey in his current state, in regards of the other I have no idea who they even are"
"I do not recognize you Brother. I fear I missed you name".