Johnnie straps on the armor and weapons. He then covers it all with the stormcoat, figuring that a change in outfit may help him.
He then considers the fastest way out of the precinct.
Precinct #77, Rico's Office
After outfitting himself, Rico reaches into the stormcoat pocket and grins. The keys for his former unmarked, a Vesper pattern groundcar are nestled within. Considering there doesn't appear to be any sign of an alarm in the corridors outside, it seems that his bloody shootout with Toombs in the remote section of the Evidence Vault has gone undetected to this point. Just the same, he moves with cautious haste out into the corridor again.
Johnnie heads for the garage.
The Gear Box
The rusting metal rungs of the ladder descend through a wide, hollowed shaft of poured rockcrete, terminating in a similarly constructed cylindrical tunnel running east to west, dimly illuminated by the amber light of sporadically spaced glowglobes. Danicos waits patiently for Albrek to reach the bottom of the shaft under the burden of the burly ganger before proceeding to the east where the passageway begins a gradual descent.
Despite the lengthy delay of the ladder climb, Danicos answers Savalos' question in stride, as if it were just asked. Even from behind, his tone of voice carries to you an incredulous awe, as if he is skeptical of his own statement.
"Krade? A little over two years ago, when he told me to expect you."
"So Iacton...When did your Master inform you he sent a request for our assistance?" As we progress down the tunnel I keep my duct sweeper at the ready. I have had enough surprises for one day.
I see a timeline of events unfolding that makes my stomach churn. The rise of the Yellobacks, the Serial Killer, even the deaths of Maia and her Father. The events are connected, but not related. Nagging at me. What happened in the Gearbox, and Krades office is totally different from the victims of the Eviserator.
Asking myself a question outloud. "Did those who the Eviserator killed have a history of disease or illness?"
Saint Trobriund's House of Worldly Mercy
As Uriah ascends well-worn risers toward the entrance of the hospice he stares up at the statue and a creeping unease slowly fills him. The bone-white, age-worn marble face of what he presumes is St. Trobriund is streaked with dirt, with its blank features abraded away by the ravages of time, leaving it with only heavily eroded, beveled edges to signify a brow, the bridge of a nose, and the line of its slightly downward turning mouth. For some reason the carving itself inspires dread, as if somehow familiar in composition. Either a hazy memory, or prescient flash follows this feeling: seven tiny statuettes with similarly vague faces strewn about haphazardly on some artisans table streaked with blood.
Multicolored fragments of the shattered stained glass windows glitter and crunch underfoot like forlorn jewels as you reach the portico.
The door to the former hospital stands ajar.
I pull out my Laspistol and signal to Ishmael to go in first. I will cover him.
"Did Krade tell you that acolytes would be sent, or about us specifically?"
"So Iacton...When did your Master inform you he sent a request for our assistance?" As we progress down the tunnel I keep my duct sweeper at the ready. I have had enough surprises for one day.
"It is not the servant's place to know his master's plans. I was not told about your arrival until two days ago. I was not directly involved until I was ordered to find the original envoy sent to meet you. Anything else you wish to know?"
"Someone has been keeping one step ahead of us from the beginning. Starting with the ambush on the Void Needle. To what happened in the Gearbox. I even have a bad feeling about heading back to the Mercy. Only Throne knows why, but I do. My gut is telling me we don't have one problem, but two problems competing with each other. I want to see that video."
As we continue down the passage way. My mind spins working the pieces together. Like when I use to count the cards in a deck when I played a friendly game. Trying to figure out which cards were in play, and which cards haven't been played yet.
"This is just the beginning. Alot more blood is going to spill before all of this is over."
Johnnie dons a helm and pulls the stormcoat tighter about himself to mask his features. Any moment and the alarm will sound. Quick, quick.
Precinct #77, Motor Pool
Johnnie stalks through the pillared vastness of the Adeptus Arbites motor pool, essentially a low-roofed sub-basement poorly lit by failing luminen strips below the precinct house. It stinks of oil and piss, the typical 'welcoming' fragrances of enclosed parking structures.
He moves with haste, hand clutching the stock of the combat shotgun hidden beneath his stormcoat, watching for activity in the shadows by every lift door and every deserted stairwell. The lane he moves down is mostly filled with unmarked, dented and disabled Vesper groundcars that have been tagged for service or repair by the department's tech-adepts. At the end of one such row, he finds his own vehicle, covered in a thin patina of dust, seemingly forgotten amid the clunkers awaiting work or decommissioning.
It is odd. As more than a few things on this ill-fated mission have been. Why not put it back into service? Why store it amid the forgotten 'beaters' for him to find. The deja vu settles upon him again, making him pause despite the urgency of his escape.
Someone has written in the dust on the Vesper's hood. Not some half-ironic plea to 'Wash Me' or even a misanthropic profanity done on a whim. But a message, written in a bizarre spiraling structure so that the final word is at the center of a misshapen circle:
'Everything changes, yet it all stays the same, everything changes...'
<Sigh>
"These guys have so much time on their hands to put them into mischief."
Johnnie then remembers an old song and starts to hum.
He then wipes with the sleeve of his coat the message written in dust.
"Time for a drive."
Wait, a cryptic message, the keys, Toombs, Lesprade, the tokens... coincidence. No, nothing happens by chance.
Johnnie starts to look around expecting to see someone.
Precinct #77, Motor Pool
As he unlocks the door to the Vesper, Rico pauses in the act and looks out across the vacant expanse of the garage, the unsettling feeling of being watched overpowering. Try as he might he cannot recall the lyrics to the tune.
He stops humming when he hears the rustling of feathered wings.
Perched upon one of the many chipped support pillars straining to hold up the monolithic block that is Precinct #77 is the enigmatic cherubim again, watching him intently.
When Kalaziel speaks, it startles Johnnie. Although the child-like voice is inflected with the same flat affect as before, he senses something different this time. As if a intelligence, yet unknown, seems to govern 'her' choice of words. A feeling that she is merely a mouthpiece; the heraldic proxy for the message of another.
"You all have a part to play."
"Do not lose hope. She may yet be saved."
"Remember, though, He is waiting for you."
Beneath the Gear Box
As Dunkan Danicos leads you and the others along the tunnel, you pass countless side passages and doorways. Some open to storage rooms stacked high with all manner of mechanical components, spools of wiring, and salvaged cogitation engines, while others appear to be improvised workshops of sorts, filled with machinists tools, industrial equipment, and mouldering parchment schematics tacked haphazardly to the walls. You are surprised as well to pass by obvious outcroppings of natural bedrock that interrupt the otherwise smooth ceiling of the passageway, leading you to believe that some part of this level of the hive actually abuts the true terra firma of Oremor. Even more bizarre are the occasional rusting metallic components, protruding from this strata, looking like the reddish, fully oxidized iron bones of some fossilized beast. The lighting flickers in and out at times, plunging you into more frequent, yet momentary, bouts of pitch blackness.
"I apologize, the gennies act odd at this depth. I think it has to do with lingering radiation. There are guide-wires, here, on the wall if you need them."
Danicos never looks back, and when the opportunity to grasp an electric torch from the wall near another of the cell-like store rooms presents itself, he takes it, powering it on, never breaking stride.
Directing his words to Iacton, he calls back over his shoulder.
"I get the sense sometimes, Iacton, that no one is meant to fully understand your Master's plans. I know I don't. One thing you can certainly say for him, though, is that he knows how to plan ahead."
Saint Trobriund's House of Worldly Mercy
Ishmael strides ahead at your signal, pulling his revolver from its holster with practiced ease, keeping the barrel raised as he toggles the safety. Ivaanov stays closer to you, tilting the head of his duralloy-shod staff forward so the las-carbine hidden within is pointed at the black gap in the large double doors. A powerful aroma wafts from the opening like an exhaled breath from a sickly indigen's mouth. The scent of spicy local food, tinged with an antiseptic, alcohol-like smell. There are other odors as well, fainter, but somehow familiar.
As Ishmael silently approaches, pressing his back to one of the splintered wooden doors, he moves into a covering position.
Ivaanov's vox crackles to life, the volume muted to a tech-priest's approximation of a whisper.
"This edifice then, it is the hospital that Acolyte Thul spoke of?"
Awareness =
Made it by 5 degrees
I say softly: "Yes it is."
Ivaanov and I take covering positions for Ishmael.
"I get the sense sometimes, Iacton, that no one is meant to fully understand your Master's plans. I know I don't. One thing you can certainly say for him, though, is that he knows how to plan ahead."
"He does the Will of The Emperor. We are simply not holy enough to comprehend it."
Precinct #77, Motor Pool
As he unlocks the door to the Vesper, Rico pauses in the act and looks out across the vacant expanse of the garage, the unsettling feeling of being watched overpowering. Try as he might he cannot recall the lyrics to the tune.
He stops humming when he hears the rustling of feathered wings.
Perched upon one of the many chipped support pillars straining to hold up the monolithic block that is Precinct #77 is the enigmatic cherubim again, watching him intently.
When Kalaziel speaks, it startles Johnnie. Although the child-like voice is inflected with the same flat affect as before, he senses something different this time. As if a intelligence, yet unknown, seems to govern 'her' choice of words. A feeling that she is merely a mouthpiece; the heraldic proxy for the message of another.
"You all have a part to play."
"Do not lose hope. She may yet be saved."
"Remember, though, He is waiting for you."
Johnnie already has an idea what the cherubim is talking about but he wants to make sure.
"Blast it! Speak plainly! I don't have time for riddles!"
"He does the Will of The Emperor. We are simply not holy enough to comprehend it.""I get the sense sometimes, Iacton, that no one is meant to fully understand your Master's plans. I know I don't. One thing you can certainly say for him, though, is that he knows how to plan ahead."
The tunnel terminates in a three meter wide by three meter tall pressurized blast door, caked in spotted rust from the condensation that trickles down from the stony roof of the passage. The blue-green, naturally occurring verdigris around its edge seems to keep the spores at bay, acting as a natural fungicide to keep the yellow-black tattermold from gaining a foothold on the metal from where it clings in places to the walls.
You estimate that you have traveled nearly a kilometer since you descended behind the bar. Sigmunt's limp is more pronounced than ever, and he leans heavily on Savalos, and Albrek breathes raggedly with the exertion of toting the Yellobouros ganger slung over his shoulder.
"Yes. Will of the Emperor. Of course." Danicos answers Iacton sardonically.
Flipping a hinged panel beside the door, he raises his fist, slowly inserting the faces of the third and fourth rings on his left hand into the sockets revealed. The hermetically sealed door hisses as the air pressure on either side comes to equilibrium, and it slowly parts, one half sliding into the rocky wall to either side.
"I believe it was Confessor Faust who said, 'true faith is blind and justified', words to live by. For some."
Dunkan Danicos steps through the door, and you get the sense that he has entered a truly vast, dark space beyond, so large that it intimidates you all somewhat into moving more cautiously. Chuckling to himself, the Gear Box's proprietor waves you on from the canted catwalk he easily negotiates above the gulf.
"Come on then, this isn't the Void for Throne's sake. The Emperor Protects, and all that..."
I listen to Dunkan's chatter with Iacton. "Sigmunts getting worse." I enter into the dark space slowly. "The Emperor Protects, but I have also heard...The Throne Protects those who protect themselves."
Saint Trobriund's House of Worldly Mercy
Awareness = 1d100
Made it by 5 degreesI say softly: "Yes it is."
Ivaanov and I take covering positions for Ishmael.
Uriah inhales more deeply where he stands before the opening. You breathe in what can only be the coppery tang of spilt blood, lingering over the acrid, powdery smell of cordite from weapons fire. Both are coupled with something else...something more indistinct...and abhorrent. A vaguely burnt smell. You are reminded of the stench of bones that survived the fire of a crematoria.
Peering into the gap of the doorway you can make out the silhouette of a flight of wooden stairs just beyond an overturned antique roll-top desk. Papers are strewn about everywhere, as are the colorful fragments of stained glass from the broken semicircular window over the entry doors. A fragment of verse from the Imperial Creed can be read on one of the larger shattered panes. A pair of beat-up polycarbon chairs are blocking the path through the gap in the doors.
Precinct #77, Motor Pool
As he curses the damnable cherubim, it takes flight, winging over and flying up the rampway toward the exit into the Administratum Hub. Rico unlocks the door of the Vesper, slides into the driver's seat, and keys the ignition. The throaty roar of the engine immediately fills his ears, starting with ease despite remaining neglected for so long. Stamping the accelerator, he turns, laying rubber as the powerful vehicle speeds up the ramp. As he crests the ramp and passes through the exit gate, standing open and raised like a subordinates salute, he tries to keep the childlike servitor in sight.
Spying Kalaziel, he accelerates away, following her toward the interchange leading to the Grey Way and points beyond.
Saint Trobriund's House of Worldly Mercy
Ishmael, standing beside the door, whispers back to Uriah.
"It smells of death in there!"
Beneath the Gear Box
Watching Savalos move haltingly ahead, Albrek follows suit.
"Thul, this sodder is getting a might heavy, how much farther do we have to go? Just where in the hell is he taking us, anyway?"
Staring about into the black space around the listing catwalk, the Guardsman coughs, the echo of it carrying far away into the gloom.
"What is this place?"
If Iacton pays any heed to Dunkan's remarks, he doesn't show it.
"No, it isn't. It is much too small, for one." Iacton lightly steps through the portal.
"Albrek is right. How much farther must we travel?"
"It smells of death in there!"
I say softly: "I smell it, that and something worse."
"Haven't been this way before. So can't tell ya. Would you rather be back up top talking to the Arbites?" I keep following Dunkan.
Precinct #77, Motor Pool
"Damnable frakker!"
Administratum Hub/The Grey Way
The unmarked Vesper roars down one of the arrow-straight feeder roads that radiate spoke-like from the Administratum Hub, with Rico cursing behind the wheel, trying to keep Kalaziel in sight. The former arbitrator activates the low-profile amber and green strobes watching with some satisfaction as much of the slower moving traffic begins to yield right of way.
By the time he arrives at the border checkpoint with the Grey Way, emergency lights still flashing, the transponder in the vehicle has already transmitted its signal and lifted the exit gate automatically. Just the same, the armed arbitrators standing by the barrier wall whip their heads around trying to follow the groundcar as it flashes by them. Rico makes a cursory wave, gritting his teeth as he blows by three other merging vehicles to access the subterranean interchange.
Traffic worsens on the outskirts of the Grey Way, but Johnnie weaves and brakes, cutting into and out of traffic filled with bulk haulers and luxury vehicles. The cherubim wings away, and he is forced to exit off of an overpass above the crowded bazaar promenades ringing the perimeter of a decaying casino complex. The Vesper sure beats a velocipede-powered rickshaw. Rico smiles in reluctant admiration when he realizes that the frustrating little servitor has deliberately led him off the interchange roadways to avoid a significant traffic jam. Recognizing the old industrial sector access road he is on as one that runs along the circumference of Geltdown, he accelerates ever more, passing a pair of eight-wheelers ferrying garbage in the direction of the Ductside dumping zones. His hand cramps from managing the perpetual curve, the tires squealing in protest, but the road is surprisingly, blessedly clear. The ground car whips detritus and drifts of rubbish into the air like the passage of an Unduz monsoon.
When the cherubim turns again, Rico is forced to slam on the brakes, pinioning the wheel, hand over hand to the take the abrupt right hand turn. He curses again when he realizes Kalaziel has alighted on a bizarre bit of ruined architecture that looks like a cluster of six titanic pipes erupting at an angle with the ground to pass over the roadway near an abandoned, abutting processed mycovictuals warehouse. The car rolls to a stop. Torn Angel Way is nearly three blocks south.
Why Here?!
Why indeed?
Johnnie reloads his handcannon and cradles his combat shotgun as he alights from the Vesper. He grits his teeth from the pain caused by his wounds.
He follows Kalaziel.
Under the Grey Way
Emerging from the colossal emptiness of the darkened, echoing expanse into another wide tunnel, Savalos shares a meaningful glance with Iacton and Albrek behind Dunkan Danicos' back.
As the group was crossing the canted catwalk, they couldn't help but notice similar gantries and scaffolds visible far below, many with tiny figures milling about on them, using tools or welding equipment to repair massive mechanical components. The faces of the closest were occasionally illuminated by the pale blue glow of their fusion torches, revealing vacant stares and pronounced mechanical augmentation that marked them as servitors of some kind. There were scores of these figures in all. In places, the thunderous thrum sounding from active machinery was nearly deafening, in others, barely ambient noise. Perhaps the most astounding thing was the gigantic cluster of actuators and rust-caked gears plainly visible above the blast door on the opposite side of the catwalk, the largest of the cogs the size of a hab-block.
Danicos never says a word, merely humming to himself as he walks. You occasionally pass one of the lobotomized-looking mono-task repair servitors walking back in the direction of the vault, but their only acknowledgment of your presence is to provide enough room to allow you to pass them. After several more turns at intersections in the labyrinthine tunnel system, the present passage becomes drier, with no signs of the rocky outcroppings, ascending at a shallow angle. Danicos uses five more of his rings in alternating patterns on the sockets of three more blast doors. When the final one opens, you are greeted by wan artificial sunlight slanting in through the shattered roof of an abandoned processing plant of some kind. The light radiates from the great luminen globes that adorn the 'ceiling' of Vaxus District. Air that is not quite fresh, but much more tolerable than the metallic-tasting recirculated air from the tunnels enters your nostrils. A massive overhead loading dock door, partially wrenched from its track is open enough to the outside to give you a view of the wide rockcrete street littered with rubbish beyond.
Danicos turns to you, and something about his gaze seems to be assessing your trustworthiness. Seemingly satisfied, he snorts a wry little laugh, pointing to the broken door.
"This building exits out on to an industrial feeder road outside of a derelict processing complex. It should be far enough away from the Gear Box for you to avoid any Arbites cordon."
Danicos licks his lips, one hand fidgeting with the rings on the other, turning them about on his fingers. He pulls one off, somewhat reluctantly, as if divorcing some integral part of himself from his body. He appears to be a man doing something out of sheer necessity.
"You may need something of a sanctuary in the coming days, and I can assure you, there is much we need to discuss, but now is not the time. Plus, I don't particularly enjoy repeating myself, and the story I have to tell is more convoluted than even I dare to comprehend. Find the others and return here when you can. I will be waiting. This will get you in the door. For the Love of the Golden Throne, don't lose it."
He hands the ring to Savalos.
I take the ring. My mind still going over everything that has happened. Everything fits together. I just don't see all the cards. Cards... Maybe thats the answer.
"I will keep the ring safe to return to you." Thinking about it, I have another key of sorts to return to Sunshine. The passcard to get into the Arbites Spire.
"I am sure both sides have questions, as well as stories to tell. Both answered in good time. You have done alot for us already. But I have two favors to ask of you. I need a Heretics Wake Deck. And more importantly keep Aebena safe." I know its my gut talking to me more than anything. The disease that killed Maia, and the old man. I just can't shake the feeling Aebena is in danger. That she has been in danger the whole time.
"Sig, That infection is getting real bad real fast. You want to try and hoof to toward the Mercy, or wait here and hope we can grab help? Either way I think it needs to get washed out real fast before it kills you." I look over at the Yelloback. "Brek, best better to leave the dead weight here. He will bring too much attention to us."
I mentally try to get my bearing so I know which way to take everyone to the Mercy.
Dunkan Danicos looks perplexed when Savalos mentions that Heretic's Wake Deck, one bushy eyebrow rising on his face like a climbing caterpillar. There is something else also, some kind of recognition of this seemingly strange, but insignificant request as being somehow salient to the matters at hand. He doesn't dismiss it as unimportant, but his expression hints at his own superstitions. When Savalos mentions Aebena, he seizes upon it immediately, almost eager to change the subject, his reaction much more emotional and genuine.
"She will be safe here, you have my promise. Remember, whatever happens out there, you will have a refuge with me. I don't recommend going through the front door of the 'Box anymore, eyes will be everywhere, but as long as you are discrete, the ring will grant you entry here. Just don't bring our enemies with you. I have been waiting a long time for them to cross the line so I could take some action of my own, and I must admit that I'm looking forward to it."
Sigmunt grimaces in pain and leans against a stained flakboard dividing wall to take pressure off of his leg. Looking at the unconscious Yelloback, unceremoniously dumped by Albrek on the floor, he nods to Savalos.
"I'll watch tiny here. This may be more than a flesh wound, but the day that I can't keep the drop on a half-electrocuted prisoner is the day I turn in my furs."
He glances at the red-rimmed gash even as Albrek uses his field kit to dress and clean it. His eyes widening as the topical pain killer takes effect.
"I'll be fine, just don't take too long. There's a lot the Pack needs to know."
Sensing some movement above, Iacton and Savalos both look upward through the largest of the gaping holes in the ceiling to see the tiny form of the cherubim Kalaziel perched atop a cluster of rust-caked cylindrical tubes that erupt from the ground somewhere outside of the decrepit processing plant. They angle away from the structure, almost fifteen meters high, like a canted lightpost of epic proportions.
She stares intently at you through the gap.
While returning her gaze, Savalos hears a sound from outside the ruined building. The throaty rumble of a groundcar's engine idling.
"Looks like Kalaziel brought us company." I motion to where I hear the engine noise. "Doesn't sound like Stroinigli's lift."
Seeing Kalaziel perched I don't expect whoever is outside to be hostile. But it doesn't mean I will keep my duct sweeper ready just in case.
"I'll check it out." Iacton draws his blade and silently moves towards the engine.
Iacton moves over a drift of fallen masonry to flank the largest of the crumbling gaps in the abandoned processing plants streetside wall, while Albrek and Savalos advance and take cover behind a pair of still-standing pillars a few meters from the opening. There is the faint sound of dislodged rubble being kicked about from beyond the wall.
As Albrek aims his lasgun, a figure dressed in a dark stormcoat over black, gold and green flak armor strides up to the shattered wall. He points the barrel of a wide-gauge combat shotgun through the gap, his head moving back and forth to scan the gloomy interior.
Iacton raises his blade for a sweeping strike, back pressed against the wall.
Seeing Johnnie lumber forward I quickly speak before Iacton vents the ex Arbite.
"You know Johnnie you should really learn to knock first."
Savalos notices the figure favoring one leg, trying to keep pressure off of his heel as he climbs the rubble pile. Just as he shouts his warning Albrek calls out his own.
"Stay your hands! It's Rico."
Iacton sheathes his blade and steps out from behind the wall. "Did you learn anything at the precinct?"
"What the frak?! Where did that cherub go? Speaking all in riddles, I tell you. Pretty frakking weird."
Turns to Iacton, "The Evisecerator knows our likeness."
Johnnie shows everyone the tokens.
Looking over to Johnnie. "Well he's not the only one who knows we are here." Looking back around the warehouse, and finally resting my eyes on Kalaziel.
Speaking to no one, and yet everyone in the room. "The Commissar who walked out of the head had the number 7 chit sickle on him...He was waiting for us."
I look back over to Sigmunt, and then to Johnnie. "How many can your ride hold? If they were waiting at the Void Needle, and the Gear Box. It won't take long for them to get to us at the Mercy."
"Who is at the Mercy? Quincus?!"
Sudden realization strikes Johnnie.
"We have to hurry! Everyone into the Vesper!"
"I call shotgun." I move toward Johnnie, and the exit. Looking back to Dunkan. "We'll be back."
Looking at the vehicle. "So Johnnie did you steal it?"
Iacton silently nods his head in approval and hops into the patrol car.