"Help us Emrit. Whats in the room with you?" I move toward the stairs and the autocannon.
"Stronger than the feather? Emperor have mercy on our souls..." Iacton draws his dagger and heads to release the man in the closet.
"If he has been exposed to the taint of the immaterium, he may be in no condition to help us. I agree we need to bring him peace from the taint he is being exposed to."
Over the microbead: "Is the vehicle being traced?"
Is the feeling I am getting from the room the same as or as strong as the feather?
Johnnie looks up at the heavens, as if to say: "Emperor why me?"
"Sav, I think Lesprade may have tracked us."
"Uriah, we need to go. An Arbites team may be here any moment."
"Fragging swell. Next time let the criminal steal the ride Johnnie. Swear all that arbites training made you street dumb."
"Ivaanov I need that key now. We need to get into the chapel quick. Ishamel for the love of the throne please say some prayers over my friend. Johnnie, Iacton bust down the door with the homeless guy. We need to take him with us for questioning."
"Can we do anything to ward against the taint behind the door?"
Kicking down the door, combat shotgun at the ready....
"Lesprade eh? You know where the fragger lives?"
"Savalos, He sounds like the last rogue on the Void Needle in the way he is talking, and you remember that he died afterwards."
As Iacton turns to extract the whimpering man from the room at beginning of the corridor, there is a sharp bang as of a door being kicked open, and you are surprised to find it is not the chapel door given Rico's voiced intent. It came from the other direction, from near the stair.
When Iacton turns, he sees the tech priest, Ivaanov, moving quickly down the corridor, his tattered crimson robes sweeping along behind him over the slicks of blood, his goggles surrounded by a corona of blue lumen glow to enhance his vision in the gloom. He is digging through the pockets in his vestments with one hand, as if looking for something, clutching his metal-shod staff-carbine in the other.
The loud noise was Albrek entering one of the corridor's side doors. He now emerges, pushing out of hiding the same scrawny, pox-covered, pig-eyed indigen before him that Savalos had encountered on his first visit to the Mercy. The man seems terrified, literally trying to dig his heels into the slippery, gore-spattered floor, albeit with little success, as Albrek bulls him along before him. He is tearful, begging to be let free as the frustrated guardsman shoves him on in your direction.
"Ishmael, do you have any idea how to open the door without releasing the taint inside? We do not have much time. We either get the door open or we purify this place."
Albrek cuffs the man sharply, and continues to herd him toward you.
"A fine sweep you did on this floor, looks like you missed one."
He stops short when he sees the fallen ogryn and gags slightly from the horrific charnel-house reek. The scrawny man begins to blubber inconsolably, trying without success to sneak around his captor in order to flee. The former guardsman looks at the man with distaste, but doesn't hit him again.
Instead, Albrek nonchalantly grapples him into an improvised chokehold to subdue his efforts.
"We haven't much time, I suggest we finish our work here and follow this scav's instincts and put as much distance as possible between us and this place. Leprade is on the vox suggesting that Rico here is in fact the Eviscerator's copycat and he and his 'co-conspirator cult' are responsible for kidnapping a High Arbiter and a senior clerk of the Judicium. I don't think they know about the car yet, but they found one of their own splattered all over the precinct house Evidence Vault."
"I have thought concerning this Leprade. We all can chew over the idea once we are safe."
I pull the autocannon free of Druuthers hands checking to see if it still has ammo. With my hand I close Druuther's eyes. "Rest Druuther rest."
For Mercys sake I hope someone has a better idea than I do for this.
"Damn it Ishmael can't you say a fragging prayer!?!"
"Frak! Wrong door!"
"Leprade accused Rico of the Evicerator's crimes despite all evidence to the contrary?" Iacton pauses. "He has abandoned his holy duties, and for this he will die."
"Frak! Wrong door!"
"Leprade accused Rico of the Evicerator's crimes despite all evidence to the contrary?" Iacton pauses. "He has abandoned his holy duties, and for this he will die."
"I agree, but first we question him. Now are we going to go in the chapel or not, and if we are how are we going to do it in the limited time we have."
"Well I'm goin' into the Chapel regardless of time. So you all might want to head down stairs or into a side room. No sense in all of us getting vented."
"Ivaanov, could I have that key?"
My gut twists with the knowledge of some warp tainted thing is just beyond the Chapel doors. That it might twist and cripple my body. Or be eaten alive like what happened to that Yelloback. But that is secondary to ending Emrit's pain. He deserves a better end than he getting. My friend deserves solace.
"Johnnie you might want to ditch your ride down a couple a blocks. We don't want to lead anyone back to where we are going."
"Do not stand in front of the door when it is opened, if my vision is true, then anyone standing in front will be burned to ashes."
Finally finding the small key amidst the folds and pockets of his voluminous robe, he passes it to Savalos gingerly, taking deliberate care not to drop it upon the floor where it would no doubt be especially difficult to find amongst all of the spent shell casings.
Sniffing the air deeply, he frowns slightly, a curious grimace crossing the tech biologis' face.
"Incendius Osseum.".
"Someone has been using a bone cutting saw hereabouts recently. Burnt bone is a most distinct scent."
Still crying incoherently through Albrek's perfectly executed choke-hold, the indigen ceases his inarticulate protestations long enough to babble a few coherent words.
"Aiighghgh...aughh...we have to leave, leave...run away...far away...it was the 'Viscerator...it was he 'hisself what carved them all up! The other scavs, his own what didn't survive, it dinn'nt matter! Unnnhhh....piled 'em all up and just started pluckin' the bones right out of them, he did...he did...Merciful Throne...we must leaveeee!
The man punctuates this last bit by violently dry heaving, then vomiting threads of grayish bile down the front of his tattered pullover. Despite the disgust and obvious distaste that crosses his face, Albrek barely bats an eyelash, maintaining his hold with the remarkable equanimity of a professional soldier.
"Thanks Ivaanov." I look carefully at the key. Do I recognize it? "Someone take the Autocannon, and the homeless guy downstairs. I have a promise to keep." I head down toward the chapel doorway. Looking for an angle where I could bust the door in and protect myself from the flames in Uriah's vision.
I keep my temper walking past the useless Zealot. He is all talk about the Emperor; but when it comes to saying a prayer to ease the suffering of one who is faithful... Course I shouldn't be surprised. Every Clergy I ever met has been a waste of flesh.
Savalos examines the key more closely.
The ornate golden key is about six inches in length, with an elaborately serrated edge comprised of a multitude of teeth of varying lengths and widths. The head of the key is an oval-shaped rim of golden metal surrounding a transparent, egg-like stone. It is hard to be certain, but it appears that the egg contains a smattering of ivory colored chips of some unknown material. Perhaps bone? Markings and sigils are minutely acid-etched into the shaft of the key.
It does not look familiar to him.
Seeing Savalos moving in the direction of the chapel doors, Albrek moves forward as well, handing off the half-conscious indigen to Ivaanov.
"Ivaanov, take him back to the Arbites cruiser and put him in the back. It should keep him secure enough. Try to find and disable the transponder if there is one, if you can't move the vehicle a block over from the Mercy and make your way back here on foot. If we're lucky it may buy us some time."
Seeing the autocannon still cradled in the ogryn's arms, the former guardsman lifts it up, slinging the bracing strut around his thickly built torso, checking the load in the drum feed as he does so.
He coughs a harsh barking cough into one hand, clearing his throat of the foul smell permeating the corridor.
"If you're going in there, I'm coming with you. You may need the firepower."
"Aye will test the handle first. Stand to the side. Don't want anyone getting burned. Rather side on caution. Seen enough things today to last me a life time."
I make for the door, and stand to the side and test the handle. Will put the key away so I don't loose it. Also see if the key fits the lock on the chapel door.
"Get ready you fraggers. I'm coming Emrit."
Watching Savalos approach, the cleric nods to him from where he stands by the door, his expression impassive despite the glare that the ganger gives him.
"A true crusader of the Ecclesiarchy does not balk when confronted by the Warp's foul taint. I will not utter prayers of comfort through a closed door like some lackwit coward. I am going in with you so that I may offer your friend the absolution he requires and the mercy he deserves as a faithful servant of the Emperor."
Looking at the key you carry in hand, Ishmael's eyebrow arches slightly, his brow wrinkling with the scrutiny.
"Strange. That is almost certainly a key to a temple reliquary."
Nodding obediently to Albrek and Uriah, Ivaanov makes for the stairwell, half-carrying the nearly unconscious indigen with him, retrieving his compact laspistol should he need to provide a greater level of intimidation for the man.
"I will interface with the machine spirit of the groundcar and deceive the transponder if one exists."
Looking back at the chapel door nervously, the tech priest shows a rare display of empathetic emotion.
"Be cautious, friends."
Johnnie moves to ditch the car away from their present location.
My plan is to try the handle first standing well to the side of the door. Hearing Ishmaels words I figure the key will be needed on the inside. So my final option considering time being of the essence is to use the business end of my duct sweeper to unlock the door. Using the concussion of the blast to swing the door open. If possible I will take the shot or shots from someplace I can duck or dive into for cover.
"On my Mark."
I stand to the and cover them. ready to enter. If Ishmael will not say a prayer, I say one silently, and make the rhe sign of the Aquila.
Johnnie moves to ditch the car away from their present location.
Iacton draws his shotgun and waits for the orders to enter the room.
Johnnie moves to ditch the car away from their present location.** spoiler omitted **
Opting to accompany Ivaanov to the unmarked Arbites groundcar, Rico makes his way back down the corridor to the stairwell, warily watching the staggering scav that the tech-priest supports. Gone from view to the others, the pair are soon only a sound of receding footfalls on the steeply pitched steps to the others.
Johnnie assists Ivaanov with placing the mumbling man in the securely caged rear of the cruiser and then the pair get in themselves, Rico starting the engine again with a turn of his keys.
The arbitrator places the tiny bone fingertip atop the console in front of him, staring at it intently as the tech priest begins to loosen bolts and remove panels in the car's console with an expensive looking multi-tool. Hidden somewhere far above, near the unseen ceiling of Vaxus District, behind the false atmosphere of lingering pollutant clouds, the impossibly broad lumen strips that govern the sidereal time in the hive begin to brighten. The not-quite sunlight, a washed-out amber-red, begins to cast a glare from the vehicle's windshield, silhouetting the tiny fingerbone and casting its shadow in stark relief against Rico's world-weary visage.
Glancing at his chrono, he finds the blue-green display registering 05:04.
How long had he been awake, now? Twenty hours? Twenty-five? It was almost impossible to say with the mind-numbing pall of fatigue enfolding him in its gray embrace.
Placing his head in his hands, he collects himself as best he can, then retrieves the morbid memento of his love from the dashboard, placing it in a small pocket in the cloth lining of his flak armor. He puts the car into gear without a word, jolting Ivaanov up from some intricate task with a startled squawk of his vox. Unperturbed, the tech priest gets right back to work, soldering circuit panels and muttering quiet prayers to the Machine God that sound like nothing more than mechanical clicking to Rico's ears. Driving the car slowly, at just over an idle, he proceeds around the block, looking for a quiet alley to shelter the vehicle in.
Johnnie knows now that the Eviscerator has been orchestrating their eventual reunion from the beginning, that he has been an architect of the arbitrator's fate all along. He wants to be found. A dark part of Rico almost welcomes the coming confrontation and the closure that will come of it, one way or another.
All that matters to him now is Dove. Somehow in saving her, he will save himself.
"A man could use a recaff right about now."
Johnnie tries to make small talk with the techpriest to relieve the tension he is feeling.
Savalos, mindful of the fiery vision described by Uriah, approaches the scarred and worn-looking double doors with the same hesitancy of movement that one uses when testing a pot recently removed from a hot oven to see if it will still scald. Gingerly touching the curling metallic handle on the rightmost door with his bare hand, he yanks it away sharply, his mind convincing him that he has just seared himself, when, in actuality, after a moments reflection, he realizes that just the opposite is true. The handle is altogether normal. Merely cold to the touch, as one would rightly expect in the darkened corridor of an old, largely stone, building.
Looking back once more at the others, making certain all are prepared, he pulls on the door, his better instincts crying out against the act, his rational mind begging for him to reconsider. Fully expecting the door to be locked he is surprised when it swings open easily. Ishmael pulls open the other side, intoning a quiet benediction to the God Emperor in anticipation of what may be beyond.
A flood of palpable relief fills Uriah when the threshold to the chapel isn't washed out in an all-consuming wall of hungry flame. In fact, the gentle wash of a cold draft chills the sweat still prickling his brow, sending a shiver through his body. The reddish-gold glow coming from within the chapel seems to be lambent instead of infernal, shining down from above in gentle beams of comforting color.
Iacton strides forward with Albrek, just behind the cleric and Savalos, and takes in the chapel beyond with all of his senses, trying to make sense of just what awaits within. His hands clutch the knurled stock of the shotgun, his fingers tracing the etched letters comprising the second word of "Stern Hope". He recalls one of the ship's many masters had renamed it once upon a time for the tiny settlement he originated from on the inhospitable planet of Iocanthos. Memories, as they often do, turning to his sister, he comes abruptly out of his reverie when he feels the warm, malignant pulse of the feather against his skin.
The chapel itself is surprisingly large, square in shape, roughly ten meters to each side. The walls to the left and right taper gently inward to a flat ceiling, somewhat smaller than the spacious floor in dimensions, crafted from carefully fitted grayish-brown stonework. A truly majestic stained-glass window, almost three meters in diameter, serves as a skylight in the ceiling, illuminating much of the chapel in vaguely pre-dawn light as sidereal morning has initiated in Vaxus District. The window depicts Saint Trobriund himself in the gothic style, administering succor to a gathering of sump-lepers of Volg Hive on Fenksworld. Centered in the window, the saint's outstretched hands cup the heads of two of the closest afflicted hivers, and his wide eyes stare ever upward in supplication to the Emperor of Mankind. Concentric circles moving ever inward from the edge of the circular window tell the story of his passion-tale, writ in high gothic letters, relating his noble works, unfair persecution, and eventual martyrdom. Even with all eyes unerringly drawn to the majesty of the ceiling window, it takes some time before you recognize the odd stains, like dark, tacky, liquid spatters that mar the glass. Grimly wondering how gore reached nearly ten meters overhead, you cast your gaze around the floor of the chapel. You immediately wish you had not.
The refurbishment of the chapel by Dr. Kirsch likely was in its final stages before whatever happened here ruined his methodical restorative work in a very short while, turning the holy place into a sacrilegious mockery of what it once was. Heavily lacquered Unduz shellwood pews line either side of the room, no longer in two orderly rows, but turned in disarray. They still leave a wide central aisle, with smaller aisles against the left and right walls. The pews are occupied by a grotesque congregation of sorts, dozens of butchered bodies of indigens and flak armored soldiers, drenched in their own blood. Those of the dead resting in the pews and not on the blood covered floor appear to be oddly flaccid; limbs and bodies lolling in bizarre positions as if no longer supported by anything from within. The great streaks of crimson gore are spattered everywhere on the brownish-gray stonework of the floor, defacing the grid of circular mosaics. Even the broad, somewhat faded, golden aquila relief whose perfectly fitted stones dominate the central portion of the chapel floor hasn't been spared from the wanton desecration.
In far end of the nave, obscured in shadow, stands an imposing shape that can only be a wide altar of darkly stained wood. However, the altar is starkly secondary in your mind to the impossible thing erected before it just beyond the bloody aquila in the middle of the floor.
Your mind initially rationalizes the bizarre framework as some manner of scaffold used in the restoration, but you quickly dismiss this notion when you realize this cannot be the case when looking more closely at the irregularity of the misshapen construct. For one, it appears almost cage-like, but vaguely spherical in shape, segmented 'struts' of some dull whitish material forming an interlocking lattice of vertical and horizontal 'bars'. Even from here you can see the composite parts of the cage glistening, somehow wetly.
The overpoweringly awful, burnt stench seems to originate from the cage, making you gag involuntarily. An unseen incense burner adds a sickly sweet underlying scent to it all, that makes the pungent odor of gore and charred smell all the more awful from the merging miasma.
A strident, hacking, phlegmy cough, punctuated by an agonized, breathless moan of pure, disconsolate sorrow is then heard, its origin from somewhere within the cage-like shape. Looking more closely, you can just make out the silhouetted outline of a shadowy figure, standing naked, or rather suspended somehow in a spread-eagled posture within the framework. A great shuddering cry then echoes thunderously over the stonework of the chapel, a man screaming at the utmost pinnacle of his suffering.
Amazingly, Emrit Kirsch's voice is still recognizable to Savalos.
"By the Throne..." Comes out across the microbead unconsciously. I stare for a good minute at the carnage lost before I snap out of it from Emrits cry.
"Brek, see if you can find a chit sickle on any of them." I'm not even sure if its even possible.
"Iacton, Ishmael help me bring peace to my friend. Please."
I move closer toward the cage. Not wanting to look, but knowing I have to bear witness. All the while the back of my mind I am scanning for the Requilary.
An anger fills me as I slowly cross the chapel. Knowing what this place meant so much to so many. Even before Emrit started the reconstruction of the chapel; countless homeless of the Underhive came here to pray. Pray to St Trobriund for health, Pray to the Emperor for salvation. Seeking inspiration amongest the refuse while those of the Upper Hive turned a blind eye.
I am thinking about the vision. Could it be that I felt a more recent version of the power I felt on the Void Needle? Why am I seeing things now? On the Void Needle, I did not see a vision, but felt the taint. If any thing, I should be getting more visions while traveling the warp. Why am I getting these visions on Oremor? What do they mean? When I get a chance to rest, I will meditate and pray for guidance on the visions.
Is there any pattern to the chaos we are seeing? It is a mockery and desecration of that which is holy. Have ever seen anything like it before? As I do this, I make the sign of the Aquila and prayer for the dead's souls.
Moving to the nearest pew, Albrek raises the handless arm of one of the flak armored men sitting closest to the aisle and examines the inner forearm of the corpse more carefully. Although smeared with blood, the faded chit-sickle is still obvious. His gloves slick from all of the blood on the man's exposed flesh, Albrek's fingers slip, and the dead man's arm drops down at an impossible angle, as if his arm was a rubbery, muscular tentacle rather than a thing of flesh and bone.
The normally jaded Albrek makes an uncharacteristic gagging sound, spinning away from the arm as it flops down with a wet smack against the armrest of the pew.
Looking around at all of the bodies, the limbs look the same; hands and feet severed, limp, rubbery...
"Boneless."
Albrek gasps out in a hiss once he recovers his breath.
"Does it seem these guardsmen are on both sides of the conflict between the two heretics? Let us finish up here, then leave, for as Albrek said we are running out of time."
Although his voice falters slightly when the full nature of the corrupted abattoir the chapel has become is revealed, Ishmael does not stop speaking his benediction. In fact, he raises his voice and begins to speak more authoritatively as the horror of it all sinks in.
He proceeds forward, flanking Savalos with Iacton, holding his ornate revolver in the one hand and the aquila adorned forge hammer aloft in the other. Stepping over the lifeless limbs of the dead, he casts his steely, gray-eyed gaze at the looming, irregularly-shaped cage in the distance.
During a break in the verses of his prayer, he speaks in a soft, solemn voice. The voice of a priest offering his support and strength.
"When the time comes, Thul, do not hesitate in granting him the Emperor's mercy. Do not waver, if he is your friend he deserves a quick end in the face of this suffering."
"Does it seem these guardsmen are on both sides of the conflict between the two heretics?"
Choking back the cough that comes to his lips, Albrek nods to Uriah.
"These are men of the Sixth Legion, like the ones from the shuttle, like the men disguised as Arbites techs in Krade's office accompanying the man Johnnie identified as the Eviscerator."
He considers for a moment.
"Do you know of another side?"
Is there any pattern to the chaos we are seeing? It is a mockery and desecration of that which is holy. Have I ever seen anything like it before? As I do this, I make the sign of the Aquila and prayer for the dead's souls.
Iacton keeps pace with the others, his eyes locked onto the figure trapped in the cage. He raises his shotgun and takes aim, sparing only a moment to glance at Savalos. "Give the command, and this man will finally receive his just reward."
"With whatever tool you think is the most humane Iacton... Emrit, I am so sorry this happened. I wish..."
"Make it quick Iacton. He has suffered enough." I watch my friend die, and remember.
Johnnie looks around to see if there's anything remotely resembling a tail.
"Ivaanov, can you check if there's a tracker on this thing?"
Forbidden Lore(Daemonology)(46)=
Made it by 2 degrees.
As Savalos, Iacton, and Ishmael draw nearer to cage-like structure and the altar, the black stench in the chapel becomes almost a solid thing in their nostrils.
Ishmael's prayer falters again, but he continues, closing his eyes and concentrating. It becomes difficult to breathe, your vision swimming with unbidden tears from a stinging smoke that simply is not truly there, for their is no fire apparent in the chapel. Your watery vision makes you call into question just what it is you are seeing when you reach the last row of pews before the altar.
Recognizing the cage for what it truly is, your mind shudders. A darkness passes before your burning eyes makes it hard to think for a moment. A sense of necessary displacement takes you out of the here and now, perhaps so that you can cope with just what you are looking at. Acknowledging that the present moment is not a nightmare requires substantial effort as you find your very sanity slipping away, slowly, like sand bottle-necked in the midpoint of an hourglass.
The cage is roughly spherical, but asymmetrical, an interlocking lattice of white bones flecked with stark crimson blood, burnt in places pitch black by some powerful heat that fuses armbone and legbone, ribs and severed spines, all together at joint-like junctions. Contained within is the spread-eagled form of a naked man caked in blood, this dried blood in turn pebbled with thousands of ivory colored fragments that you recognize with revulsion as fragments of bone and sprinkles of bone dust. The man's hands and feet have been sawn away from their limbs, and the protruding white bone from his arms and legs fused with blackened scorch-marks into the structure of the bone-cage itself, ostensibly forcing the man to remain upright and akimbo. His head lolls on his chest, which heaves and shudders, a low, plaintive moan escaping his lips. He seems to be trying to look up at you, but the strength to do so is rapidly ebbing from his tortured body. Like some horribly misshapen necromantic gyroscope, the cage rocks slightly as the man stirs.
Looking on the ground, you see a pair of severed hands, one resting on each head of the aquila carved into the floor of the chapel. As you watch, they begin to shake and spasm uncontrollably of their own accord. Savalos thinks back to the moment Emrit began his surgery on Quincus, and feels vomit begin to rise in his throat. The man's head snaps up suddenly, eerily coinciding with the movement of the hands, the single spot of Sunshine's blood the medicae failed to wipe away still present on his brow; a gory memento that pales in comparison to the blood covering the rest of his body now.
Perhaps most terrible of all, when Dr. Emrit Kirsch speaks, the weary whisper that emerges is undeniably his own. Some part of you dies inside knowing that he is cognizant of the terrible suffering and horrific desecration of body he has undergone.
"S-S-Sav, you came...oh, bless you S-Sav...I...ungh...I have to tell you...so little time left...have to...tell you...