"Begging your pardon, Inquisitor, but I have never failed to see a mission through, and I will not allow such a thing to happen here. We will complete the mission, as ordered. You may accompany us, if you wish it, but we will complete this mission."
Auraxis shakes his head, "Dammit we lost Rha!" Auraxis cannot bring himself to shed a tear for the Tech Priest he barely knew but his heart is saddled with a small grief as the list of his fellow Acolytes who have died confronting the mad schemes of the Rogue Trader continues to grow.
"With all due respect Inquisitor, I have seen far too many of my fellow Acolytes die to not see the defeat of Haarlock through to the end".
Herrod shows no emotion.
"Very well then. But from here out I'm in charge and you will follow all my orders as given. Any disobedience will be dealt with swiftly. We have no time for insubordination here."
"Then I would suggest we move on. Your orders?"
Since I have it, I will peer inside...
There is a rather large tattered book much like what Kort described she kept looking into. It kind of reminds you of some of the artifacts you saw on your last mission in the House of Dust and Ash.
Terrific, the one time Nihil would be of use he does not come on the mission. I will motion over to the Sister, "Sister, what do you make of this?"
Graki wanders over to the sister and auraxis to see if this artifact has any malificarus effects needing to be nullified
The Tomb definitely looks vile. Does anyone want to attempt to read it?
Herrod and his disciple watch you all carefully as you examine the book.
"Silinius, is this the artifact that we needed to recover from the xenos?"
She says this loudly, expecting the man to reappear now that the immediate danger has passed.
Graki peers over the shoulder of Auraxis ... since the content of the warp has never had any influence over him he reads.
Nostromos walks back into existences as if coming from behind some rubble.
He Smiles "Why yes it is. We can now continue on our journey."
Auraxis places the book back in the bag unless someone stops him.
"Now that we have gathered the items where are we supposed to travel to next Old One?"
As you guys are talking and examine the book you realize that the Inquisitor now with you is ALL machine. His entire body is a giant machine. You have never seen anything like it before even for Tech Priests.
Nostromos Nods "Follow me!" he says gleefully.
He leads you through the labyrinth that is this ice station until you finally come to a doorway.
"Yes here, here the way is here! Thirteen by Thirteen as the clock marks,” Nostromo shouts excitedly."
He looks to the group. "Hand me the objects."
Auraxis wishes Rha were available to give an assessment on the Inquisitor but says nothing.
"How can we trust you will not simply make off with them?"
Nostromos stares at Auraxis with a serious face.
"What other choice do you have? Now quickly the stone and book."
"The choice is simple. You will tell me what to do, and I will do it. I made the choice to trust you. Therefore, the risk is mine. But if you betray me, they will slay you."
She turns to the others, and extends her hand.
"Brother Auraxis, Graki, the artifacts, if you please?"
Nostromos laughs.
"Silly servant you can't open the door only I can. Now please hand me the artifacts."
Herrod looks to the group and speaks with a mechanical voice. "The Crazy Navigator is right only he can open the door. Hand him the items now."
Auraxis hands over the book with a sigh bracing himself for whatever horrors are to come next.
Graki follows suit and hands over the stone from his pack
Nostromos smiles.
Taking up the grey book, he removes the sash covering his forehead to expose the dark orb of his warp eye, and gazes at the lines of apparent gibberish scrawled across the book’s pages, his finger running across passages and his lips muttering rapidly.
Then, not taking his gaze from the book, he begins to walk swiftly. Following him, you pass through doors and down corridors, sometimes entering a room only to back out into a room or corridor entirely different from the one you came from. Sometimes, you pause in a place while Nostromo counts and mutters strange phrases before continuing to lead you through the steps of your strange dance through the broken reality of the Ice Station.
Finally, you pass through a circular arch and find yourself on a metal gantry that spans to a dead end over a wide shaft that ascends out of sight above and plunges into darkness below. Nostromo jerks as if waking suddenly from sleep and motions at the abyss beneath your feet, his gaze fixed determinedly at anything other than the darkness in its depths.
"There is your final door. I cannot and will not go to that place, my master made sure of that, lest I escape my doom." Without a further word, he shambles back to the circular archway leading into the rest of the labyrinth. He turns and tosses the grey-skinned book onto the gantry at your feet.
"The key turns. Be seeing you," he says and raises his circled
fingers to his now covered Warp-Eye and fades from sight as if swallowed by the dark.
The only way to pass through the Doorway into Darkness and reach your destination is to jump from the gantry into the waiting abyss; a leap of faith...
At that moment Astropath Silas falls to the ground blood seeping from her non existent eye sockets. She screams in pain.
Graki looks to the screaming astropath blade in his hand in a heart beat ready to gut her twine if need be.
"Graki, turn off your limiter!"
Sister Revanche bends over the fallen Astropath, checking her.
After a few moments she beings to calm down wiping the blood from her face.
"I'm ok..." she stands up slowly regaining her composure.
"That was some sort of psychic attack but I was able to push it off."
She stands straight like she always does.
"I jump last, no tell how abilities will warp the ether"
"Graki, turn your limiter off anyway, just in case, at least for a few minutes".
Herrod speaks in his mechanical voice "Kill the Astropath."
On that note Silinas screams again clawing at her eyes and literally rips her face off and a dark form spills from her body.
The Inquisitors Acolytes says "Psycheneuein!"
Auraxis shakes his head as the creatures face reveals his suspicions. With a sigh he raises his weapon to strike down another foe, this one a former Acolyte.
Initiative
Init.
init
Round 1!
Graki - 14 [Life 6/Faith 2]
Pschneuein - 13
Quin - 9
Revanche - 8 [Life 6/Faith 0]
Auraxis - 8 [Life 7/Faith 2]
Herrod - 5
Charge attack Pschneuein
blade master reroll
damage
penn 6
Graki hits the creature but doesn't seem to do any damage to it.
The Psychneuein takes to the air and flies right at Quin.
vs 48
The attack appears to bypass all the protection Quin has on like it wasn't even there and Quin drops to the ground.
Sister Revanche fires the Inferno Pistol as she moves to engage the creature.
vs 43
Pen 12
She follows up with a sword strike upon arriving at her target
vs 69
Pen 6
Righteous Fury vs 69
The creature dissipates as Sister unloads the wrath of the Emperor upon the daemon! (nice hits!)
Herrod makes an understandable sound as he look at his last Acolyte on the ground and Sister standing over his corpse and the daemon gone.
He speaks in his pure mechanical voice "This situation is getting more and more dangerous I insist that I hold onto the artifacts until this mission is completed from this point on."
"With all due respect Inquisitor, I have never met you before nor have I heard of you before. I feel we must complete the mission set upon us by OUR Inquisitor. Your assistance is appreciated but this is not your mission to command. Censure me afterwards, if I live".
The Inquisitor shifts a bit.
"Then take the leap of faith young Acolytes." He points to the opening which appears to be your next destination according to Nostromos.
Sister Revanche takes a moment to reload her inferno pistol with a fresh canister before leaping into the abyss.
Graki watches Sister jump into the void peering at Auraxis motioning for him to go next.
"I will follow in short order"
Auraxis leaps through.
You all leap through and thus begins the next chapter. All Fate is restored now.
"You are swallowed by darkness and silence, you have no sensation of falling and time seems to elude perception so that it could have been seconds or years since you last saw light, heard sound or touched solid matter.
Then, an image rises before your eyes, as if slowly coming into focus through clouded and darkened glass: A wide chamber of greenish stone, its walls soaring upward to a dark sky in which you can see bright stars, the livid bruises of nebulae and drifts of glittering stellar dust. In the centre of the room sits a great globe-like machine of tangled metal, dials, an insane profusion of looping tracks with cogged teeth, countless gears, and wheels and a glittering array of crystal lenses.
Suddenly the image of the chamber is no longer drawing nearer; it surrounds you. You can hear the crackling and spitting of energy and the air is sharp with the smell of ozone."
The chamber is a thirteen-sided space, some twenty meters in diameter. Its walls are made of a greenish stone; each contains a high arched blank curved space of solid stone, surrounded by myriad of graven images, human and inhuman, with an endless variation of expressions: screaming, smiling, eyeless, mouthless, sneering, crying, laughing and snarling.
At the centre of this area is a huge globe-like machine of insane intricacy, a lunatic conglomeration fashioned of clockwork steel and silver, stone counterweights and crystal lenses. Mounted on a plinth at the foot of the machine is an iron-grey statue of a young woman’s torso, arms and head, streaked with rust like bloody wounds. The statue’s hands are held out at its sides, one is open as if waiting to receive something, the other holds an empty gilded chalice engraved with the symbol of a spider. The face is veiled; the sculpture is so exquisite that the folds of the veil hiding her face seem as if they have just settled.
The high sides of the chamber arc upwards and open on toa cold night sky.
Auraxis reloads his incendiary clip with new rounds.
Auraxis feels empowered by the God Emperor having reached what seems to be the final destination.
He turns to the Sister and Graki, "Bring your weapon to me and I will Bless it with the Faith of the Emperor. Take care none of these items stray upon one another in the coming conflict, the Emperor's Wrath will not spare allies in its wake".
"These things are familiar to me yet different. The cog which Graki brought with him comes from Xicarph. It is a part of the Steel Clock which counted down to disaster. A disaster I and my fellow Acolytes barely managed to avert. The second dread machine before us is a replica or perhaps the original Gilded Widow. A machine we encountered in the House of Dust and Ash on Solomon. I am at a loss now though as to what to do now that we have arrived".
Sister Revanche nods at Auraxis's explanation. She turns to see if Herrod has any input.
Herrod does not appear to be there with you guys.
Sister Revanche approaches the Gilded Widow and waits to be acknowledged.
The machine does not respond.