Johnnie looks around to see if there's anything remotely resembling a tail.
1d100
Having found a suitable alley about a block away from the Mercy, Rico backs the car in, keeping the engine idling as he scans the empty intersection of Torn Angel Lane and Scerrido Way.
Nothing.
Good.
The Arbites vox traffic is still crackling over the speakers as well, but nowhere in the transmissions did Rico detect any details about the car being noted missing from the precinct garage.
Yet.
However, the grid search Leprade's units are presently performing will bring them close to the edge of the Grey Way, near to the Mercy, before much longer.
"Ivaanov, can you check if there's a tracker on this thing?"
Ivaanov frowns, his hands working deftly over the exposed panels rooted out from within the heart of the Vesper's console. He fingers leads and wires, the induction strips in his hands humming with energy, the small soldering tool flicking over the components of the geo-locater module.
"I am. Give me a moment more, my communion with the vehicle's Machine Spirit is nearly complete."
Johnnie draws the combat shotgun, just in case....
Forbidden Lore(Daemonology)(46)=1d100
Made it by 2 degrees.
Uriah looks around at the dozens of corpses, indigens and rogue guardsmen alike, all brutally mutilated after death, but for what purpose? Sacrifices?
The bone cage, Savalos' old friend the victim imprisoned within. The overpowering shadow of the Warp suspended over everything. The blatant desecration of this holy place. The visions. An all-consuming flame that seems to burn away time itself.
A Ritual?
Sacrifice... a Ritual...
A Bound Vessel... a Summoning...
Fear test(40)=
Failed by 5 degrees
Toughness test(44)=
Made by 4 degrees
Once I get my composure (after you tell me the effects), I will say:
"A ritual sacrifice with a bound vessel, a summoning of some sort. Malleus was committed here, a daemon brought into this world."
Seeing what has befallen my friend steels my nerves. More so than I would have ever expected of myself. How could such a fate befall a man who's only goal in life was to help others... I watch as he wipes away Sunshines blood from his face. It tears at my gut. That the monster who did all this took Sunshine. Looking at what he did to the others in this room I can't help but imagine what he would do to Sunshine. For Thrones sake she's defenseless! Then again that might be her only defense. As long as she is unaware, or pretends to be. She might get out of this alive. She's a smart one. She's a survivor. She didn't survive getting Wolf kissed just so that this scum will have his way with her.
"I'm calling a Blood Hunt on this guy Emrit. For you and for Sunshine. Damn it all Druuther was the luckiest of the lot of you."
"What do you have to tell me Emrit?"
A Blood Hunt, Where the law is blind, and impotent. The Emperor bears witness to what must be done. Street Justice.
Iacton's brow is coated in sweat. A fire is burning on his chest and the smoke is stinging his eyes. The scent of burnt bone fills the air but does nothing to distract from the nightmarish scene in front of him. He has seen too much today. This needs to end. This must end.
Toughness(46)=
made it by one degree
Johnnie voxes to the others, "Clear so far outside."
Ishmael shudders, but icily maintains his composure, continuing to mutter a prayer for the Emperor's mercy as he looks with pity upon what has been done to Kirsch.
...the warm light of the Throne brings comfort, the swiftness of his sword brings blessed release to those innocents corrupted against their will...
Albrek's hacking cough is only exacerbated by the horrid stench wafting up from the charred cage of bones. Upon seeing what has become of the man within, the former guardsman pales and begins shaking uncontrollably. He tries to speak, but only nonsense spills off of a tongue numb with inarticulate horror.
Uriah somehow manages to internalize the worst of the visceral disgust at what has been done to Kirsch. Nevertheless, when telling the others about what he perceives to be occurring in the chapel, the words emerge in a stuttering jumble from his lips.
"What do you have to tell me Emrit?"
Kirsch lets out a hoarse sigh, and your eyes widen in superstitious disbelief as a trickle of fine, black ash cascades out of his nostrils and mouth. He chuckles as if he is surprised by this himself, naked chest flexing painfully, his flesh reddened as if from exposure to some great heat.
"...my hands...they really hurt, Sav...sore, you know?"
Kirsch gazes up at you with watery, lost eyes that seem to look through you to some unknown point beyond, the slanting golden light from the stained glass window in the ceiling making him more alien and gaunt-looking than he already is.
"the one who...the one who did this to me, He...He told me to tell you, Sav, you and the others, that He is as much a pawn in this game as all of you...only that He has been playing it for far, far, longer. He said you had found something of his...he..he..., no, It wants it back..."
Emrit finally focuses his eyes on you, a clarity returning to them that brings all of the agony with it. The rictus twist of his jaw and face leads you to believe he means to scream again, but instead, he bites down sharply on his lower lip, leaving deep gouges that wetly dribble blood. Thin threads of violet-gray smoke waft from his nostrils, rising inside the cage toward the chapel ceiling.
"I...I...was wrong...wrong about the man who came for Maia...h-he told me a day would come...you would bring the key...you Sav...I thought it w-was when you came with Sunshine, but I was wrong. Wrong and relieved....I....I...know now that I just didn't wait long enough. You...you have it now...d-don't you? Now...n-now what he said is true. T-there...there is a stasis sealed reliquary...hidden...within the altar...the key was lost...l-lost long ago by Saint Trobriund's followers on Fenksworld...relics...relics of his most holy body within...ten...ten fingerbones...he said...to ward you from the pestilence that was to come...I...I...the other, It showed me...It revealed to me...laughed, laughed so cruelly as It did so...what I saw, Sav...what I SAW!"
Kirsch shakes his head in denial. The import of his next words fill you with a fear quite unlike any you have ever known.
"I'm glad I won't live to see it. I f-feel sorry for you, Sav...I... feel sorry... for you"
"I feel sorry for all of us Emrit."
I wait til Ishmael finishs his prayer, and Iacton gives Emrit solace before moving to the requilary with the key in one hand and my duct sweeper in the other. Looking for the lock.
I put the images of horror behind me. No matter how much they tear me up inside. I cannot falter. If we fail the horrors of what happened here and the Gearbox could happen world wide. I can't let that happen.
Iacton silently points his shotgun at the man's head and pulls the trigger.
Insanity Points=
Is the Immaterium I felt still strong, and does it still feel like a warp presence was or is here?
Over the microbead. "Johnnie...Ivaanov, you guys might want to just stay outside... We won't be here much longer."
I take a deep breath, and try to calm myself. Then say a prayer:
"By the Emperor's throne give me strength to resist and withstand the evil that was done here."
I make the sign of the Aquila and repeat out loud my thoughts about what happened here slowly and as clearly as I can.
"...for just as the Holy Flame of His Light immolates the heretic, so too does it purify the faithful of all corruption."
Iacton silently points his shotgun at the man's head and pulls the trigger.
Upon conclusion of Ishmael's prayer, Savalos lowers his head and Iacton strides forward purposefully. Placing the barrel of his shotgun against Emrit Kirsch's ash-smeared forehead, he pulls the trigger without hesitation.
The weapon barks harshly, the loud report echoing through the stone-walled chapel with a resounding, rolling, boom reverberating painfully against the eardrums of everyone within. The blast takes much of the top of the medicae's skull off, ripping through the back of the gruesome bone cage, sending splattered chunks of flesh, mingled bone shards from more than just Iacton's target, and a fine spray of blood in a grisly cascade over the weathered hardwood block of the altar.
The severed stumps of his hands and feet, bone protruding from each limb and fused to the spherical structure of the macabre cage keeps Kirsch's body suspended upright inside, swaying from the blast like some pugilist's punching bag after being delivered a fearsome blow. It sickens all who witness it.
Iacton grants the man deliverance from his agony, but only manages to rekindle tortured memories of his sister and of the other "mercy" that brought him to this world in the first place. The cutting pain of that day aboard the Stern Hope returns in a heartbeat, a profound sorrow that has never truly left him surfacing from the nightmare sea of his subconsciousness like some Leviathan of self-hate.
Iacton exhales slowly, bowing his head.
Savalos moves around the blocky wooden altar from one side, Ishmael from the other, and the pair converge behind the imposing block of carved Fenksworld rulwood. Trying not to see the spatters of gore caking the surface, the acolyte moves aside a flickering golden censer burning sweet-smelling incense, various phials of anointing oils, and a number of craggy fragments of blood-flecked bone.
Sweeping away the lace-trimmed and moth-eaten cloth-of-gold altar cover with Ishmael's aid, the pair reveal a ten centimeter diameter beveled circle inset into the top of the altar, crafted from a separate piece of wood. Removing it carefully with a gentle counter-clockwise twist, Savalos discovers a small hollow within. Inside, flush against the cylindrical wooden hollow, is the convex circular face of an adamantine hatch, a single, intricately-machined keyhole staring back at you like a judgmental eye made of polished chrome.
Choking back tears of loss, and relief for my friend I examine the lock mechanism before opening it. There has been enough surprises for one day.
"Found it. Lets get ready to move."
On the microbead:
"Rico, Ivaanov, be on guard. We are coming down shortly."
Does the immaterium still feel strong here?
On the microbead:
"Rico, Ivaanov, be on guard. We are coming down shortly."
"Copy that."
The stark contrast of the gleaming metallic cannister embedded in the centuries old wooden altar from another world gives you pause, and scrutinizing the stasis-sealed container with a wary eye, you can't help but feel the niggling sense that you are missing something. Despite the sense of urgency everyone feels, you hesitate instinctively before inserting the odd key.
Now that you feel as though your voice won't be articulated through your vox like a juddering squeal of staccato white noise, you reply to Rico and Ivaanov, relating to them that you are nearly finished and will be with them soon.
Standing before the abominable cage and the nearly headless body of Emrit Kirsch suspended within, you can't help but consider that he was an innocent human being once, not so long ago. Watching through the chaotic lattice of blackened, fused bone as Ishmael and Savalos clear the altar, finding some secreted hollow within, you allow yourself a moment of quiet reflection, marshaling your weary mind for what your next step in the investigation should be. Undoubtedly, rest. You are all exhausted to the point of it potentially being a deadly hindrance, taxed to the limits of your endurance.
As the Oremor native hesitates, key in hand, you feel a sense of displacement wash over you like a warm breeze in the cold chapel. The not altogether unfamiliar, discordant threnody of the Warp imposing itself upon your reality begins to grow stronger, and when you look again at your companions by the altar, you see instead a tall man clad in ecclesiarchal robes of the Ministorium raising a gold-gilt aquila overhead, his mouth moving in time to some unheard prayer to the Emperor. He stands where Savalos once was, a moment ago, to your eyes. Beside him, an attendant cleric (where Ishmael once was) clad in similar vestments offers up a gleaming cannister, which is accepted by the first priest reverentially. He removes a golden key from the lid of the cannister and then slides it gently into a hollow place in the altar, whose surface is unmarred, without gouges or scratches, the lacquered finish freshly painted. Even the wall of the chapel behind the two men seems newer, the stonework unmarked by the clinging fungal mildew that pervades older buildings on Oremor.
Most disturbingly, what you observe looks like a diagonal slice taken out of the very reality surrounding you. To your right Albrek stands, futilely trying to ignite a lho-stick in the desecrated chapel of now, the massive autocannon slouching on his torso. Iacton glances toward you from your left as if sensing something amiss in your body language, but remains silent. Turning your head slightly, you see another malformed seam in the here and now, a swatch of the right-hand wall in the same vaguely diagonal slash shows a massive cratered rent in the chapel's structure that was not there seconds ago, the jagged edges glazed over as if melted by a staggeringly powerful heat. The wall seems older there somehow. Beyond the hole, in the half-lit gloom you can see the ruined cityscape of Vaxus District, the towering hotel-casinos of the Grey Way toppled and gutted, fires burning everywhere and the lights of emergency beacons flickering mutely to a hive bereft of all life.
When you shake your head to clear your mind, it is all gone as suddenly as it appeared, only the incremental warming of your body and the beads of perspiration rapidly building on your brow suggesting that it was real in the first place.
Your eyes drawn back to the burnt, battered, and blood-slicked body of Emrit Kirsch, you feel the tug of the Immaterium growing stronger again, like a backdrafted flame recoiling and surging to fill the oxygen rich rooms it has been kept from. An aberrant though that does not feel fully your own passes through your mind, unbidden:
How like a charred cocoon his ravaged body is, trussed in the spindly, fire-blackened cage of bones, suspended like a chrysalis of captured flame.
A stylus-thick, cylindrical beam of heliotrope colored light then erupts in a perfect line from the ruined ear still half-attached to Kirsch's head, piercing the gloom above like a las beam, illuminating in its sickly glow the floating spores that always seem to drift in the air of Oremor's hives. Violet, indigo, and fey-green washes of color begin to flicker over his ash-caked body, more stab-beams of light erupting from him in chaotic directions. You feel your brow beginning to blister as if from some great heat, and the bone cage begins to judder and rock in place, dancing the corpse trapped within it around like a horrid marionette. A discordant chiming, like music played in a madhouse begins to ring in your ears, centered on the medicae's juddering remains.
Staring at the complexity of the chrome-plated keyhole, you realize that it is designed in such a way that the key must be turned counterclockwise in a staggered succession. You have a sense that something very bad would happen if it wasn't done, just so.
Inserting the key, you turn it; once click, twice click, thrice click. The lid pops open slowly, the vacuum trapped within hissing out to equalize with the air pressure outside as the stasis field hums. The heady, exotic, swampy scents of Fenksworld waft into your nostrils simultaenously, replacing for a blessed second the charnel house stench around you.
You pull back the lid and gaze within.
When I hear the first click with the turning of the key. It reminds me of an old detonator. The same kind we use to find as kids. You learned quick how to carry them, or learned the hard way. I remember a number of kids them blown off fingers, hands, or there was nothing left at all...
I carefully adjust the pressure of the key just try, as a bead of sweat drop down from my forehead. This immediate urgency being a blessing. Taking my mind off the horrorific scene around me, and the death of my old friend.
I look carefully inside before removing the contents.
I shake my head and take another deep breath. Do I still see what is happening with Emrit's corpse and cage?
"Please hurry Savalos, the immaterium is strong here."
"Go outside and smoke a lho stick Uriah. I move at whatever pace is necessary. Since I think this requilary is wired the pace is going to be slower."
"You are right Savalos, I cannot stay here. Ishmael, guard them from what can be seen and what cannot be. The immaterium is pressing on me, so be on alert."
I go and join Rico and Ivaanov.
Savalos peers into the shining metal cylinder carefully, finding the interior like the inside of a pill capsule, a circular, concave hollow at the bottom. Coiled loops of brass wiring trail from the locking mechanism in the hinged lid, eventually disappearing into a six centimeter wide metallic ring firmly bolted into the circumference of the container about midway down. There is no question in your mind that this innocent looking ring harbors some kind of deadly trap. Fortunately it seems to have been dependent upon the locking mechanism, which you believe you have successfully bypassed.
Still, you can't be certain it has been completely circumvented.
Resting in the concave hollow at the bottom of the cylinder, seated in a circle of dark blue velvet is a golden aquila, chased on the wingtips and eyes with gleaming, pink-accented mother-of-pearl. Each of the ten 'feather' shapes comprising the eagle's wings has a small hollow of its own inset with a slender crystalline tube, each tube containing the yellowing fragments of a human fingerbone. Small pearl studs at the end of each wingtip appear to serve as buttons to individually release the small vials.
You vaguely hear Uriah's question, and answer him brusquely, even though you try pointedly to keep the irritation and tension from your voice. You frown when the flickering, purplish-blue light reflects from the top of the capsule's open lid into your eyes.
With a reverant prayer to St Trobriund I will carefully remove the Golden Aquila wrapped in the dark blue velvet. I put it gingerly into my furs to keep it safe. Standing up away from the requilary I turn to those still in the room.
"We need to burn the bodies. I don't want disease taking root here. Maybe with fire the desecration will be burned away from this holy place. What do you say Ishmael?"
Hearing Savalos' terse response, Uriah shakes his head to clear his thoughts. When he finishes giving his order to Ishmael, he looks up to find the cleric staring with wide eyes at the twitching corpse bound withing the bone-cage.
The others see it too...Blessed Throne...
Out of the corner of the psyker's eye he can see the lit lho-stick dropping from Albrek's lower lip, spinning in the air with its lit end trailing a slow-motion cascade of burning ash. The ex-guardsman's mouth hangs open, slack-jawed in disbelief, as dozens upon dozens of searing, razor-straight shafts of indigo, incandescent blue, and hot pink beams of light puncture the seared skin of Kirsch's corpse, like a shattered space hulk whose integrity has been pierced from within from a hundred ruptures simultaneously and is shooting forth otherworldly fire from within.
Iacton can hear the sounds before he actually successfully reasons that the strange beams of pastel-colored light are not visual phantoms brought on by exhaustion and a mind injured by the many horrors witnessed this day. A terrible, hissing, chime-like chorus; unordered and profane, fills the ruined chapel, rising in pitch and timbre until it feels like it is inside of your head. Looking toward Uriah you can see perspiration pouring from his brow, lips, and chin, and worst of all you can feel the gathering heat in the once chilly room beginning to warm your exposed skin as well. Kirsch's body, now rapidly vibrating like a sped-up pict-cording, radiates the heat like a blast furnace.
None of you have any doubt that something terrible is about to happen.
Savalos' ironic last words about burning the bodies ring in your ears as the first roaring arcs of purple-black flame erupt like pyroclastic fumaroles from the medicae's corpse.
"By the Purging Flame of the Redemption!"
Taking a stumbling step backward, Albrek bumps into a worn pew occupied by macabre, rubbery corpses, jolting the bodies such that they slouch down into one another, falling from their seats to the floor with wet slaps of boneless flesh. Even so, his eyes never leave the monstrous, incendiary thing birthing itself from Kirsch's remains.
"Aww....Feck..."
I scan the room for the inscense burner that we smell. As I do this, I pull my laspistol(free action). If I do not see it, I will aim (full action for +20) at Emrit's body. Do I know if destroying the body will stop the summoning?
When I get up I see the purple-black flames start dancing around from Emrit's body. Anger fills me. I've seen enough fond places of my memory desecrated. I've had enough running from these warp spanwed nightmares. I've had enough fear for one day. This time I fight!
In my right hand I hold out the Golden Aquila to be seen by all. In my left I level my shotgun at Emrits body and pull the trigger.
"In the name of the most Holy Emperor. Begone! "
Seeing Savalos shoot the body, we have nothing to lose so I shoot my laspistol.
BS(38 + whatever time I have to aim) =
If I get bonuses for aiming +20 Prone +10 stunned(dead) +20, I made it by 2, otherwise I miss.
edit: "In the name of the Emperor go back to the warp."
"No..." Iacton recoils from the heat before reaiming his shotgun and joining the firing squad.
"Situation here still clear. What's your status?" Johnnie sends over the the microbead.
Over the microbead:
"Malleus happening now. Something was summoned and is coming."
"Damn! Am on my way!" Johnnie replies.
"Ivaanov, clear this vehicle of any tracking device and get ready to go back for me and the others! I'm headed there now!"
"Damn! Am on my way!" Johnnie replies.
"Ivaanov, clear this vehicle of any tracking device and get ready to go back for me and the others! I'm headed there now!"
Ivaanov passes the small mechanical probe protruding from his fingertip over a portion of the third cogitator board he has removed from the dashboard of the groundcar. A faint electric-blue spark sizzles forth from the tool, blackening a small piece of circuitry upon it, leaving a small puff of black smoke and the smell of burning metal in the car.
The tech-priest responds, a monotone satisfaction detectable through his vox unit.
"There! It is done."
As Rico slips out of the driver's seat, he pulls his combat shotgun over the wheel, and the tech-priest awkwardly slides into his place, acknowledging the former arbitrator's order.
"I will await your signal, Juan Rico."
Just then, over the crackling static of the cruiser's vox-horn, the pair hear an excitable voice call out.
"Overwatch seventy-seven to Viscount, Overwatch seventy-seven to Viscount, we have lost the signal, repeat, we have lost the signal! Last known contact on Raptor's vehicle was on Grey Way verge, coordinate grid marker minus 774 dash 441, somewhere between the Grey Way and Torn Angel Lane. Sorry to use the general channel, Intelligencer, but there is some kind of interference in this sector neutralizing the secure microbeads."
Following a short pause, a voice familiar to Rico, obviously indignant with the sender of the previous transmission for breaking vox-silence, responds. His tone is cold and pointed, as if he somehow knows his quarry will be listening in.
"That is a three block grid, Overwatch. Dispatch all units from Grey Way sector three and the neighboring units searching sector eleven in Geltdown, begin a street by street cordon, I am on my way. The traitor and his coterie have killed one of our brethren and kidnapped a Judicium clerk, they are to be apprehended alive if possible, but if met with resistance do not hesitate. Shoot to kill. Viscount, out."
Leprade. Rico stares off into the distance for a moment before turning and running back toward the Mercy as fast his still painful limp will allow. After watching him go, Ivaanov lowers his head, shaking it ruefully, realizing that he may not have been quick enough in neutralizing the transponder. After allowing himself this grim reflection he redirects his efforts to familiarizing himself with the controls of the Vesper.
Uriah pulls the compact las from his robes while at the same time barking a clipped message to Rico over his microbead. He never hears the response over the gunfire that will follow, but by then it scarcely matters. He centers his aim in the middle of Kirsch's unraveling corpse, pulling the trigger without hesitation. His blast pierces another hole in the medicae's chest, from which erupts a powerful curl of pinkish flame.
Savalos brandishes the gleaming aquila with the blessed relics of Saint Trobriund ensconced within in one hand, the shotgun braced across the top of the altar in the other. The boom from the weapon is deafening, drowning out the challenge he shouts to the warp-thing while firing.
As the scorching heat builds, Iacton takes one deliberate step backward before racking his shotgun and firing. The explosive report echoes in sympathy with the sound from Savalos' weapon, the twin blasts tearing off the remnants of Kirsch's head and most of his right arm. Plumes of ash and tendrils of violet, emerald, and black fire escape with this sundered flesh, arcing out in towering sheets toward the ceiling and walls.
Ishmael bellows an oath of protection to the God Emperor and moves behind the altar with Savalos, the powerful thunder of his revolver firing a counterpoint to the louder shotguns. Great craters appear in the dead man's center mass, bone shrapnel ricocheting away from the horrid cage.
Following suit, Albrek squeezes off a round from the heavy autocannon, having braced the potent weapon upon the top of the closet pew. The results are overwhelmingly destructive. The explosive shell shatters the bone cage, turning it into a storm of slivered bone, simultaneously pulping Emrit Kirsch's tortured remains within. In consequence, the unwieldy weapon nearly throws the guardsman off his feet, the recoil from the dead ogryn's gun so great that it is wrenched from Albrek's hands, sliding precariously off the edge of the pew. The concussive waves from the autocannon's firing drowns out the squealing, chiming cacophony for an instant, punctuated by a great crack from the glass above, where a long fracture splits down the center of the circular, multicolored stained-glass window depicting the saint.
As the last fragments of Emrit Kirsch's mortal remains are ripped away by the weapons of the desperate firing squad, the inevitable birth of whatever Immaterium-spawned monstrosity that was trying to free itself from within is only accelerated. A twisted, truncated, cone-like form far larger than its cocoon-corpse erupts, annihilating the remainder of the bone-creche and body that once contained it. Over two meters in height, seemingly wound together from glistening, purple knots of fibrous looking flesh, it radiates a searing heat. Great, scorching jets of noxious-smelling purple, pink, and white-hot flame gout from both the distended, toothy maws slavering throughout its asymetrical bulk and from the ends of two, long spindly appendages that could vaguely be described as 'arms' sprouting from its central mass at perversely uneven angles with the rest of its 'body'. The roar of the all-consuming, weirdly coruscating flames blacken and burn all they touch, the sound not quite drowning out the hideous keening the thing is making; like a knot of wet wood shrieking in a hot fire. You cannot help but ogle the mind-shattering spectacle of the terrible flame-beast as it slowly floats higher into the air, plumes of foul-smelling, pastel-colored gases lifting it above your heads.