I level my duct sweeper at the Daemon as I continue to keep mobile heading down the far side. The Relic still firmly grasped in my hand.
I level my duct sweeper at the Daemon as I continue to keep mobile heading down the far side. The Relic still firmly grasped in my hand.
I level my duct sweeper at the Daemon as I continue to keep mobile heading down the far side. The Relic still firmly grasped in my hand.
Savalos yells, trying to be heard over the din of the daemon and the shattering glass from high above. His shotgun belches a muzzle flash, the weapon barely audible in the cacophony, but the shot is absorbed harmlessly into the monster's resilient hide.
Johnnie moves to confront the daemon, shouting the Emperor's Prayer at the top of his voice.
He then unloads his shotgun on it.
Juan Rico storms into the bizarre tableau of the chapel carnage, blazing away with a combat shotgun at the hideous daemon even before he fully comprehends what it is. Blood spatters vertically over his green and gold Arbites combat armor as it rises unnaturally from the floor. A cascade of scintillating glass showers over him as the ceiling collapses from above, but he continues to fire anyway, striding forward purposefully.
"I MUST GET OUT OF HERE!!!!"
1d100
"I MUST GET OUT OF HERE!!!!"
Burnt and bloody, Albrek staggers to his knees, leaning heavily on the pew, the same nearly indecipherable, muttered words endlessly repeating from his blistered lips. He stares upward at the horror that is the flame shrouded daemon, continuing his chanting intonation as he grasps the autocannon, leveling the barrel upward so that it rests against the pew, pointing almost vertically up at the warp-spawn...
Let me save them, let me save her...
With a conscussive, crump, crump, crump, Rico fires three quick blasts from his combat shotgun, the green plastic shells ejecting from the drum feed behind him. The first slug merely blackens the rough, fibrous flesh of the daemon, but the second rips a wide hole in its cylindrical center mass, and the third actually tears right through this new wound, blowing out the horror's wretched flesh from the other side. A kaleidoscopic spray of noxious gas, sparking warp-energy, and protoplasmic fluid geysers forth from the gaping exit wound.
The keening wail of the shrieking daemon devolves into a discordant ringing of ear-splitting, ethereal chimes, the many maws simultaneously belching forth guttering, colored flames and more of the viscous fluid. The daemon begins spinning, faster and faster, the tendril-like 'arms' flailing outward, trailing a halo of shooting fire that blackens the stone walls, quickly turning into a circular, blurring corona of pastel light as the creature's form contorts and twists. The gray walls of the stone chapel begin to vibrate, the light playing against them rendering them alternately ruined and new to your disbelieving eyes, showing them as they were, are, and will be.
Johnnie stares into the gaping hole in the daemon's body, and looks straight through it into the Warp itself. He sees a painful white light that is on the one hand the nullity of the void itself and on the other the sum total of all reality, encompassing everything. Everything and nothing. His mind opens, blossoming like the delicate flowers he once brought to his Dove, and with it comes understanding. All the hunches, all the glimpses, the inborn talent he never truly understood, how his mind always knew how to connect all the disparate threads to see the truth. It came from this. All along it came from this.
As Rico's eyes go wide with revelation, the shotgun clatters to the ground from his hands, the wooden pews now shaking and sliding across the floor from the tumult of the psychic storm. The tears begin to stream down his face as he remembers, understands, and sees what is to come. It is all so clear now. The stone masonry begins to crack, droplets of blood now swirling in a viscid orbit around the discorporating daemon. A moment longer...just a moment...
"Ah Frag!" I put the Relic carefully away in my furs, and sling my duct sweeper. I quickly run over to Brek, as the Chapel shakes and shutters. I grab him trying to shake him back to his senses. "Come on Brek, Pull it together!"
Over the microbead. "Ivanoov, we need the ride here now, and Ishmael is in dire need of medical attention. It cooked him like a Churapptus. With all the shooting, and the light show going on it won't be long before the Arbites will be on top of us."
I go over to Rico, and pick up his weapon. Then I will guide him out of here.
"Iacton, help Ishmael out of here."
Finally upright, Albrek screams, his body shaking in convulsive, wracking fear. The boneless bodies begin to be plucked into the air, one by one, joining the growing accumulation of grisly satellites spinning in the air around the daemon. Ishmael's unconscious body begins to skid across the floor, entire pews breaking apart and launching into the air. An unreal cloud of gleaming broken glass from the ceiling, perfect crimson spheres of blood, and macabre fragments of bone spin in irregular orbits around the flaming monstrosity, slowly being sucked into the gaping wound in it's side. Portions of the creature itself seem to be pulled into the vortex of this hole in reality, but it tenaciously clings on, the awful keening growing louder and louder. You see blood dribbling from the ears of the ex-guardsman as he struggles to grip the autocannon.
Although you all initially cling to the pews further away, the irresistible pull of the warp entity's death throes are dragging you ever closer to the inferno of purple fire it has become. For Uriah, it is the black end to his vision. For Savalos, it is the antithesis of his newfound faith. For Iacton, it is the doubt of his master made manifest.
Uriah moves toward Rico, but grasps the nearest pew instead as the storm begins to shift him from his feet, tugging at his robes.
Even as Savalos rushes over to cling to him Albrek screeches,
"DAMN YOU!, FECKING FECK YOU, I WON'T LET YOU HAVE ME!!!"
He pulls the trigger on the autocannon, and the world itself seems to explode.
The daemon is utterly annihilated, blown into wet fragments, followed by a pulsing cloud of crackling warp lightning that rips back into the hole in reality. The remnants of the abomination's flaming body flies away fast and erratically, like a child's balloon suddenly voided of its suspending gases, slamming through two pews and into the heavy altar which has slid in the chaos toward the eastern wall of the chapel. You all dive to the ground as a tremendous explosion occurs, blowing fragments of heavy stone masonry in all directions.
Rico, denied the truth, screams, dropping to the ground in a faint, seemingly in sympathy to the gallons of blood, bodies, and fragments of pews that all fall to the ground in concert.
As the dust begins to settle, Uriah looks out into the false dawn shining through the gaping hole in chapel's wall. The edges of the blown-out cavity already are sickeningly familiar to him.
From somewhere, far off, their doppler sound growing louder by the second, come the sounds of Arbites sirens.
I will attempt to pick up Rico, but if I cannot, I will drag him away.
"Let us go, time is running out."
I watch with amazement as Brek punchs a hole through the thing with Druuthers autocannon. All I can think of is that I need a bigger gun as bodies, blood, and broken glass rain down around me. I shake my head out of it and grab Brek, dragging him toward the door til he comes clear of his senses. Over the microbead, "Ivaanov we need those wheels here. Now!"
As we are leaving, "We will pray after we find shelter, but now let us move it."
The overriding static on the microbead abruptly ceases, and a tinny voice is heard by all.
<"I am outside in the vehicle. I apologize, but my microbead link has been disrupted for some time. The Arbites vox was nonfunctional as well, but now that it is operating again, they are reporting the explosion that just took place in a panic over their vox communications. I hear sirens as well. They are drawing closer.">
Iacton finishes inserting two more shells into his shotgun before picking up Ishmael's prostate form and heading for the cruiser.
Iacton cannot help but feel pity for the horribly burnt cleric. Beneath the ghastly mask of blood and ash on Ishmael's face, he can see the dark red weals that are already bulging with large blisters. The burns on his eyelids seem to have sealed them from opening.
As Krade's aide slips one arm under the wounded man's shoulder, trying to lift him without increasing his pain, Ishmael's eyes suddenly snap open with an audible tearing sound of ripping flesh. His wild, white eyes, rimmed with wet blood, focus on Iacton with a crazed look, moving down abruptly to stare at a spot on the assassin's chest.
"...do not let it claim you!...
Just as quickly as it happens, the cleric drifts back into unconsciousness. Iacton lifts him over his shoulder, the weight of Ishmael's words far heavier than his insensible body.
Savalos slings the heavy autocannon over his shoulder, straining with the weight, and lurches toward the stairs with the shellshocked Albrek leaning heavily upon him for support. The ex-guardsman begins coughing spasmodically, the blood still dribbling from his ears. His voice is a hoarse croak as he finishes the hacking fit, tinged with a paranoid stammer that is somehow all the more distressing coming from the normally tough-as-nails Albrek.
"Sav...just promise me. You don't let them get me. Please, don't let them get me. They came on Mara, they came for the others, but I was spared...I don't understand why, but the buzzing, that awful buzzing, it...it's been following me ever since...I heard it again today...in the Gear Box...and again, here...just promise you won't let em get me."
His hand brushes against the dust-covered aquila.
"Ahh... s'better..."
Seeing Uriah dragging the unconscious form of Rico through the dust and blood of the hallway, Savalos shifts Albrek over to the psyker with some comforting words, and then heaves the heavy Rico over his back. With Iacton following, struggling with Ishmael in much the same way, the four relatively able-bodied acolytes descend the shell casing strewn stairs as quickly as they can, a pall of black smoke and much fouler things blowing in the air behind them.
Reaching the crumbling portico porch and the ancient gothic colonnade fronting the accursed hospice, you stagger toward where Ivaanov awaits, sitting patiently in the idling Arbites groundcar.
The sirens sound very close now.
"Brek, I'll do what I can. You know that." My mind trys hard to think of something witty to cheer Brek up. Something clever but I can't think of anything. I realize we all have been up for over a day since we left the Void Needle. Not to mention its the forth time I got into a fight this day, the second time drenched in blood. Granted the first time seems like a sweet memory now. Then a feel something stab me in my side. I realize its the Golden Aquila.
I pull it out briefly. "Brek, the Golden Aquila saved me back there. Trobriunds Bones, and the Emperor himself spared me. Saved all of us. Have faith in that."
I put the Golden Aquila away. The words sound funny coming out of my mouth. Talking about faith, and hope. Not that I experienced either in my life. I even said a prayer over Sunshine. I cast a glance back over toward Ishmael. I may dislike the zealot, but at least his faith is real. Reminding me of how false all the preachers are here in the underhive. Finding a new respect for the chared firebrand, and a new understanding of hatred of those who preach empty words.
"We were too close to the immaterium there. That is what was hindering us. Savalos guard that holy relic. The cleric who put it there was a true holy man and as you say it protected you. Give thanks to the Emperor, for the strength that we fought off that warpspawn with. I know there are two factions of ruinous powers involved and in opposition. We will talk later about and about the master's orders."
I make the sign of the Aquila as I talk about the ruinous powers. I say this after we are in the vehicle.
Upon reaching the unmarked Arbites groundcar, its engine rumbling loudly where it idles on Torn Angel Lane, Johnnie begins to stir and groan from his awkward position heaved upon Savalos's shoulder. He slides off with a startled grunt, his face a mask of confusion, slamming into the hardened armaplas body panel covering the vehicle's rear door. His fatigued body alleviated of the extra burden, Savalos tries to steady the confused arbitrator while the face of the nervous indigen stares out at both of them from the prisoner compartment window, his face limned in ghastly green light from luminen strips inside the cruiser.
While Savalos tries to keep Rico from falling over, Iacton glances quickly to either side, up and down the rockcrete roadway. No vehicles have come into view yet, but judging by the plaintive sirens and flaming hospice behind him, it wouldn't be long. The crackling fire and pitch black smoke issuing out from the hole in the second floor wall looks like it was created by the main gun of a Leman Russ tank, and as he and the other watch, the facilities ancient fire klaxons finally begin singing their jarring song. On the quiet street, during early day cycle, such a spectacle can hardly be missed. Adjusting the weight of the cleric on his back, Iacton gags slightly when the stench of Ishmael's burnt flesh reaches his nostrils. A low sigh escapes the man, his hands still dangling limply against the assassin's back.
Uriah shakes his head. Although large, the groundcar is built to carry six passengers; three arbitrators, and up to three prisoners in the back. Pushing it, a seventh could possibly squeeze in, but it would be a close thing. There is no way possible they could carry eight, especially with one of their number unconscious and so seriously injured. A decision must be made.
"What purpose is served by taking him?"
Pointing to the one from the hospice.
"We do not have time, so answer quickly."
I look at the assembled group. Half of which are unable to get back to the warehouse alone. We need to take the homeless guy for questioning, and Uriah is the only one I know with any healing ability left that can keep Ishmael alive while Brek is lost in his own nightmares...A decision must be made.
"Uriah if you can keep Ishmael alive take him and the others to the meeting spot. Then ditch this damn ride. Iacton you willing to fade into the underbelly with me?"
"Easy Uriah he can tell us what he saw, and if we let him go...He can tell Leprade about us."
"Rico, you know where the meeting place is?"
Is the Blood Rain is over?
"Brek knows where we are meeting up."
"Let us get away from here. We will meet you there. I will do what I can for Ishmael."
"Rico, you know where the meeting place is?"
Is the Blood Rain is over?
While waiting for Iactons answer... "How much room you got in the trunk?"
"Rico, you know where the meeting place is?"
Is the Blood Rain is over?
"Unless I miss my guess Leprade and the rest of the arbites are on the way here."
"I detailed Ivaanov to move the car. Oh and there is a tracker on the car and we removed it."
Johnnie giggles a little. A sign that sanity may be slipping away, who knows?
"Uriah if you can keep Ishmael alive take him and the others to the meeting spot. Then ditch this damn ride. Iacton you willing to fade into the underbelly with me?"
"I will accompany you."
While waiting for Iactons answer... "How much room you got in the trunk?"
Unnerved somewhat by the state of his companions now that they have emerged from corrupted hospice, Ivaanov keeps silent, both hands gripping the steering wheel. Biding his time, he seizes upon Savalos' question as one he can easily answer with an affirmative or a negative, thus mitigating the disconcerting effect the anxiety, and emotionally-charged dialogue of the others is having on him.
"The schematics in the operator's manual indicated that there is a sizable storage boot situated under the aft armaplas access panel on this vehicle. I have not been at liberty to ascertain its contents, if any, to this point."
"Brek knows where we are meeting up."
Albrek nods, somewhat listlessly, his eyes have a distant look to them, but he is standing on his own now. Circles of soot stain the heavy bags under his eyes and bloody, weeping gashes on his cheeks show where the glass from the chapel-ceiling have cut his flesh. He barks a hacking cough loudly into his hand before speaking, violently clearing his throat of phlegm and the ghosts of the horrid smells from inside the chapel before finding his voice again.
"I know where. If we make it there alive I'll do what I can for our red-headed stepchild, too, provided Dunkan Danicos has the facilities. Ishmael is likely a dead man if there isn't a clean and sterile medicae surgery in that hideout of his. Burns like that mean infection."
He turns to Savalos as if he has remembered some salient detail despite his shellshocked haze.
"Without his ring, though, we'll be waiting on you, Sav."
"Pop the trunk, lets see what kind of room we got."
If there is room enough I will climb inside, and expect Iacton to do the same. If not I will tap his shoulder and start leading him through the maze of back alleys, underways, and sewer tunnel toward the warehouse district.
Rico's ride will most likely be chased compared to a couple of shadows darting inbetween buildings.
"Let us go now."
I get into the vehicle.
"Everyone aboard?"
Johnnie waits for everyone to buckle on their seatbelts.
With a flick of Ivaanov's finger upon a toggle switch under the dashboard, the trunk releases, opening on rusting hydraulics. Hastily looking inside as the sirens grow ever louder, Savalos notes that it is largely empty, containing only some forensic field equipment in durable looking plas case, a basic first aid kit with resuscitation device, and a spare combat shotgun slung low on zip-tie straps beneath the level of the rear window. There is easily enough room for two, provided that they lay down, side by side.
After Ivaanov releases the rear doors, Albrek, wincing, clambers painfully into the back with the terrified indigen, who promptly slides to the far side of the hard plastic bench seat. The man finds the middle again just as quickly when blood-drenched Uriah makes his way around to squeeze in beside him from the other side.
I will be hoofing it. If the vehicle is made to hold six sitting. It won't have room for a burn victim sitting. He will need to lay down. Not to mention the autocannon will take up some space. So three in the front. Ishmael, and who ever is administering first aid in the back, and two more in the truck. I am still one person to many.
"Iacton go with Savalos, and put the man in the trunk. Then get out of here."
"Alright" I will unceremoniously grab the homeless guy and throw him in the trunk shutting it tight before heading into the shadows. "Nothing personal Fragger, just Ishmael needs the extra space." I remove the shotgun, and put it in the backseat.