"I believe it is a part of the intended message, Brother Auraxis. Are we certain the heads are dead? Nothing can be assumed when xenos or the warp is involved."
Auraxis shrugs, "They are not reacting to my presence. Do you believe this is the message of the fate of the sector if we fail? There must be more to this place than that".
Your group continues to make it's way cautiously through the streets of this desolated hive. Suddenly your dataslates pick up an encrypted signal on an Inquisitorial frequency, very faint but definite.
This signal leads your group inexorably to what they recognize with shock as the blasted ruins of the Tricorn Palace, the headquarters of the Calixian Inquisition on Scintilla. The signal leads you to the overturned wreckage of a Rhino APC in the rubble of the palace and a decayed and partly burned body which appears to have died by its own hand. There is something very familiar about the body.
Auraxis will (with his bolt pistol at the ready) inspect the wreckage.
As you approach and take a closer look at the body you see a Inquisitor Rosette attached to the body armor and then your heart nearly stops for a moment when you realize the body is you! The hair is greyer and more wrinkles on the face but there is no denying the fact that the face of the burned man in front of you is Auraxis Aurilious!
Willpower +10
Auraxis looks grey when he stands up from his investigation.
"We are in an alternate universe of some sort. This victim is or was me".
I grab the Inquisitor Rosette from my dead other self.
As the realization falls on you, you notice grasped in the corpse’s hand is a black containment cylinder fitted with purity seals and intricate locks and wards of the most powerful kind and a golden spider clasp. There is also a dataslate that was transmitting the feed you received on his body. It appears to be encrypted.
Ok I will grab the container and the data slate as well. Any way to unencrypt it?
Auraxis tries his own codes and they unlock the dataslate and you hear your familiar voice speak.
"I leave this recording, my last testament to whomever may find it amongst my peers in the Holy Ordos… the guilt was ours, the sins were ours… hubris… came to dust… We grew arrogant, grew complacent, after we stopped Haarlock on Mara, after the... Hayte were purged at last… Gallowglass we believed ourselves invulnerable… civil war… Tyrantine Caba… within… Haarlock, it all came back to the legacy, we were so blind… never realised just what he… dead now, all dead… city burning… I… from the deep vault.. but its too late… my legs are shattered I cannot get out… all that remains is to pass judgement on myself… cannot let the worms have my mind…"
Just after the recording finishes a loud drone fills the air as one of the huge black-disk vessels begins to draw down from the skies and a mirror door opens in a ruined arch of the Tricorn Palace wreckage.
"Come, Brothers! Through the door! Quickly!"
"Sister Revanche runs for the door before the disk-thing attacks.
Graki watches auraxis as he faces his own demise with interest
Graki inspects his blades turning them from side to side.Graki snaps back to reality from his thoughts... seeing sister haul @$$ towards an open door.... without question he follows
Making sure he has secured the data slate, Rosette, and black containment cylinder - Auraxis rushes towards the door along with his Acolyte companions.
The shimmering mirror-door opens and you find yourselves in a broad street, lined with cracking plaster-faced walls and gambrel roofs tiled in deep reds. Twilight is falling swiftly, the air is heavy with the scent of a salt sea, and up and down the street you can hear the echoing sounds of doors being bolted and shutters banged closed. The streets are empty and for all the seeming normality of the scene a heavy weight of palpable dread seems to fill the air.
Auraxis you immediate recognize this place as Sinophia Magna on the planet of Sinophia where you faced off against the daemon in the mirror.
The streets are devoid of any activity as far as you can see from where you entered.
"Terrific. This place I know. The question is are we here as participants or observers? It seems that we were successful but yet made mistakes. Are we walking through Haarlock's misdeeds or our own?"
Auraxis looks at the data slate left by himself.
The cylinder contains a fine red crystalline dust. There is nothing else you can get from the dataslate and the Reosette is just that nothing fancy about it. Doesn't appear to have any access code jacks or anything crazy some other Inquisitors may have.
"Gentlemen, any idea what this dust is?" Auraxis asks.
He keeps his eyes alert for dangers after what just happened on Scintila.
"That may be a question for another time, Brother Auraxis. Something wicked this way comes."
Sister Revanche looked around. Something was scaring the populace, and she suspected that it had something to do with the coming darkness.
"Perhaps we should take to the rooftops, or get inside ourselves until we know what the threat is."
Your group encounter no-one as they walk, every house either stands vacant and abandoned, is boarded up and sealed, or is locked down as tight as a fortress and opens its doors to no authority or plea.
Awareness
(I think I made it.)
It appears that most of the activity to board up the buildings is recent. Here and there anti-imperial graffiti has been plastered and statues of saints and the sign of the Aquila has been recently defaced in many places, often with a strange scratched symbol like a downward pointing, three-pronged claw.
You also notice that there are not many stars in the sky when there should be.
"It seems we have little choice but to keep moving to see what it is we are meant to see here".
Sister Revanche nods before moving up the street, keeping her eyes peeled for those who might take umbrage at their presence.
After some time wandering the streets and alleyways of Sinophia Magna looking for answers, you hear the sounds of a man’s voice shouting drunkenly in the night.
Following this voice to its source is an easy matter, and by the foot of an old statue to Saint Drusus, a ragged looking middle-aged man is shouting out doom upon the city, calling its inhabitants “foul heretics” and singing jumbled snatches of Imperial Psalms.
The figure wears the torn cassock of an Imperial preacher and has been badly beaten. He has a ragged, wild appearance and one of his cheeks has been badly burned very recently. He reeks of cheap spirits and a half-empty bottle of Gorsk Gyn is clutched in his trembling hands.
As this is the only person the Acoltes have seen Auraxis approaches, "What vexes you Ecclesiarch?"
Please make a charm (+0) or intimidation (-30) check to get anything from this raving lunatic.
Charm
He just mumbles about nothing that you can understand.
"Ecclesiarch! LOOK AT ME!"
graki keeps his eyes swaying from alley to alley street to street looking for signs of an ambush
(Do I get any kind of bonus for wearing my Sororitas gear?)
Nevermind....
"Came in on a refugee ship from Baraspine. Fallen into heresy, damned all of them, damned apostates, turned their backs on the God Emperor and whispering to shadows, whole world gone over now. Started slow, war, rumour of wars, stars dying, lights going out."
Go to the bridge, the saint’s bridge, there you will see what becomes of those who remain loyal! Go if your faith is strong enough, you are needed there!"
He finishes by flinging his arm in the direction of a large bridge over a broad canal in the distance, before collapsing insensible to the ground in a mixture of exhaustion and mental collapse.
"Well, at least we know this is not another vision. Let us go see what we came to see".
Sister Revanche takes a moment to offer the preacher a small blessing before nodding to Brother Auraxis.
"We should move quickly. Double-time."
She moves towards the bridge at a run.
You make it to the bridge. The bridge is large and ornately decorated across the sea inlet is now covered with a tangled profusion of crude metal ‘X’ beams, on to which men and women have been bound with coils of barbed wire. Most of them are now dead, but a few still moan and cry out into the unforgiving night. At the foot of the bridge beneath a (literally) defaced statue of the Beati Saint Sabbat, between two great stone bowls that burn with white flame, a hooded and cowled figure awaits.
As you approach the figure loses the cowl covering his face, clearly showing his identity; a former ally now older by some decade, his features grown gaunt and deathly pale. Fihad Constantine. (He was the arbite from this planet that helped you fight off the demon in the mirror).
"The shades showed me who had come, but I had to see you with my own eyes to believe it. You died, all those years ago on Mara; at least so we all believed. But no matter if you are still Mara’s puppets, or if it is Haarlock you now serve!
Do you imagine that old spider had defeated us? That he had won? We shall have our revenge yet, we are not defeated! Look above you and see the dead stars circling at our will! But you will not live to see our victory!"
At this point, Constantine’s jaw opens impossibly wide and he lets out an inhuman bass roar. Twilight Stalkers scuttle up from the sides of the bridge and leap from the rooftops behind you. Their bodies resemble a frightening hybrid of a withered elderly human and an insect plated in black iron with multiple optic units glowing in the sockets of their eyes.
"By the Emperor's Holy Light! Attack!"
(How far ar we from Fihad?)
"I am sorry my friend. The servants of Chaos have clouded your mind. I will grant you a peaceful death and send your soul to the God Emperor with prayers".
Initiative
Fihad is about 30m from you guys. The other enemies 15m.
Int
Init.
Round 1
Stalker2 - 20
Stalker4 - 19
Stalker3 - 17
Graki - 14 [Life 6/Faith 2]
Stalker1 - 14
Auraxis - 11 [Life 8/Faith 2]
Revanche - 10 [Life 6/Faith 3]
Fihad - 6
Stalker2 charges forward attacking Graki with a blade!
Stalker4 charges forward and attacks Auraxis with a blade!
The blade swings and misses breaking on the ground near Auraxis.
Stalker3 charges forward and attacks Revanche with a blade!
Graki you may dodge and act now.
dodge
graki watches the stalker charge not moving a muscle until the very last moment with cool calculated precision. Graki tilts his head back just enough for his thread to miss being severed. Grinning graki go on the offense...
vs 55
blade master reroll
pen 6
pen 6
vs 63
The blade digs deep but the freak still stands.
Stalker1 shoots a strange weapon that has a sticky substance at Graki
Miss
Grimacing and flipping the selector on his bolt pistol Auraxis lets loose one blessed holy fire bolt at the creature before him.
Bolt Pistol
Damage
Tearing
Sister Revanche attacks the Stalker with her power sword.
vs 49
vs 49
damage Pen. 6
The creature is able to move aside as the burning round flies past it.
The creature side steps the swing of the power sword.
Fihad takes aim with his bolt pistol and shoots at Revanche.
Round 2
Stalker2 - 20 (Injured)
Stalker4 - 19 (no blade)
Stalker3 - 17
Graki - 14 [Life 6/Faith 2]
Stalker1 - 14
Auraxis - 11 [Life 8/Faith 2]
Revanche - 10 [Life 6/Faith 3]
Fihad - 6
Stalker2 attacks Graki again!
Stalker4 points it's strange web gun at Auraxis and shoots.
The web substance shoots past Auraxis
Stalker3 attacks Revanche again!
Miss!
parry
vs 55
penn 6