The Auldmaw's Lair
Iacton adjusts his stance and swings both his blades upwards into the Auldmaw's flank.
Lunging over and around the slavering xenos beast's snapping maw, Iacton twists his body and spins his entire body in a tight wheel of blurring arms, driving the monoblade nearly to the hilt just above the creature's shoulder blades, his Fulcusian dagger is deflected by the duct wolf's thrashing head as it reacts to the pain.
The beast wails, a crooning howl that makes the assassin's eardrums vibrate so painfully that Iacton nearly lets go of the blade impaled in the monster's back. Fortunately, the agony quickly becomes a benumbed ache, reducing his hearing to a ringing deafness, which allows him to retain consciousness somehow. He yanks the blade free with another splash of sickly yellow ichor, and backpedals away to regather himself.
The Auldmaw's Lair
The huge brute shakes its massive head wildly, snapping and gnashing at the deep wound in its back in a fit of rage. It then gathers its solitary hind leg beneath it and springs at the assassin, jagged-toothed jaws spread wide. The septic stink of the predator's musky hide is almost overwhelming at this proximity, and so close is Iacton that he can clearly see the ethereal, quicksilver reflection of his blades in the blind red orbs of the thing's vestigial eyes.
Iacton brings up his blades in a desperate attempt to guide the beast's maws away from him.
The Auldmaw's Lair
Iacton brings up his blades in a desperate attempt to guide the beast's maws away from him.
1d100
With no chance to bring the much longer monosword around to block the frenzied beast's overpowering bite, Iacton brings up his shoulder instead, the monoknife tucked under his arm. When the weighty creature's bulk collides with his much smaller frame, the air is knocked out of his lungs in an abrupt, painful exhalation. Just as the jaws of the thing are about to close upon Iacton's neck, he jams his monoknife vertically up into the thick flesh under its chin, somehow keeping it at bay.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
Vincent examines the intricate-looking dataport on the inner controls, even prodding and poking at the locking rings with his fingers, but he is unable to ascertain a means by which he might seal the door. In a rarity, his intensity and focus begins to simmer over into unbridled anger and the thought of jamming something forcibly into the mechanical orifice actually crosses his mind.
It is then that a voice, preceded with a whining binary chatter of the Machine God's techno-cant, sounding something like a rusty bandsaw tearing through deck plating, reaches the senior clerk's ears from behind.
"01001000-01100101-01101100-01101100-01101111, 01110000...'erhaps I may be of assistance."
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Albrek, already lying prone, and realizing there is nowhere to run, rolls frantically out of the way from as the deadly spray of fire erupts from the corrupted guardsman's lasgun.
Somehow, he manages to move to the other side of the narrow catwalk just as the burst rips through the deck-plating where he once lay. Not even hesitating for a second, he unloads a burst of his own as the bug-like black eyes on the traitor's respirator look on in mute disbelief that his shots struck nothing but the flooring.
The guardsman is staggered as two las-rounds slam into his chest, but his armor holds and he grabs the railing with one hand to steady himself. As he does so, the head of the other guardsman climbing the ladder on Albrek's side of the crane pops over the edge of the catwalk.
Above, Kaltos turns to defend himself against the guardsman charging toward him, trench knife raised high overhead, the stench of his filthy flak armor and mold-caked fatigues becoming overpowering as they close on each other.
Kaltos deflects the blow with stock of his lasgun, but his adversary is now far too near to shoot effectively with the long-barreled rifle.
He has little time left before being outnumbered, as he can already hear the steady, clang-clang of the fourth guardsman on the ladder one level below the control booth.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The fire coming from the gunports on the roof of the cargo-8 ceases, and hatch nearest the cab of the armored truck pops open fully with a hiss of pressurized air. The bulky upper body of a man clad in slate-gray power armor squeezes through the opening, his helmeted head swiveling up to the edge of Platform #7, three meters above the roof of the cargo-8.
In a burst of microbead chatter, with many shouting voices walking over the others, Oktammor's gruff voice can be heard clearly.
<<<Jump now, dammit! Jump now or we're all dead!>>>
As a second and third hatch open on the top of the cargo-8, Dunkan's bodyguard begins ripping through the handful of daemons still clinging to the vehicle's roof, his bolter spewing explosive death, rupturing the bulbous, gray-green monsters like overripe pustules.
Behind the vulnerably idling cargo-8, the corrupted guardsman who had been fishing around in the back of the huge sanitation hauler finally finds his prize. Pulling a one-shot missile launcher out, up, and on to his shoulder, he drops to one knee to take aim at the rear of the truck.
Just as he prepares to fire, his lone surviving companion squatting beside him, the three fuel canisters collide with the ground in a thunderous impact of metal on rockcrete, cracking the tarmac and rupturing the tanks in places, so that their contents begin to spill and spray caustic fuel outward in every direction. The two traitor guardsmen remaining on the ground below fling themselves to the ground, their missile launcher forgotten, one nearly crushed by one of the towering aviation bowsers as it lands nearly upright next to him. The huge canister topples over slowly to lean precariously along the compactor-hopper of the sanitation hauler, a shower of chemical propellant raining down from its ruptured valves.
The Pipesource
Savalos hears the screeching cries of the wounded duct wolf echoing out from the massive pipe quite clearly, the shape and size of the conduit carrying and amplifying the sounds like a huge trumpet.
He prays to the God Emperor that Iacton is having success, but something just doesn't feel right.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Over microbead "Use the Flamer on that fuel!" I then click the safety on and have the lasgun slide down my leg. Before the gun reaches my knee I draw my monosword and slash at the corrupt guardsman.
Common Lore:Underworld (1d100=70)
I wait patiently for my the Old She Wolf to continue as I hear another screech echo out of the pipesource.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
Vincent examines the intricate-looking dataport on the inner controls, even prodding and poking at the locking rings with his fingers, but he is unable to ascertain a means by which he might seal the door. In a rarity, his intensity and focus begins to simmer over into unbridled anger and the thought of jamming something forcibly into the mechanical orifice actually crosses his mind.
It is then that a voice, preceded with a whining binary chatter of the Machine God's techno-cant, sounding something like a rusty bandsaw tearing through deck plating, reaches the senior clerk's ears from behind.
"01001000-01100101-01101100-01101100-01101111, 01110000...'erhaps I may be of assistance."
Vincent turns around to face the newcomer.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Over microbead:
"Use the flamer on that fuel!"
I then click the safety on and have the lasgun slide down my leg. Before the gun reaches my knee I draw my monosword and slash at the corrupt guardsman.
The stock of Kaltos' lasgun clatters to the mesh flooring of the control booth at the very same moment that his monosword flashes out in a deadly arc, almost leaping form the scabbard to slash across the arm of the corrupted guardsman. Kaltos' adversary foolishly tries to ward off the blow with his flak-armored elbow guard with predictable results.
A high-pitched shriek of agony escapes the corrupted guardsman, only slightly muted by his bug-like respirator helmet he wears. The monomolecular honed edge of the blade slices through the elbow guard, the flesh of the pallid arm beneath, and nearly all the way through the bone at its core. A jet of blood spurts up, spraying the cracked glass of the control booth windows. Amazingly, through some horrid fortitude, the guardsman remains upright, his wounded arm coming down again, the blade tightly clenched within it still.
Kaltos watches as the second traitor guardsman, head and shoulders now visible at the top of the ladder, draws his laspistol. He stays on the ladder, one hand holding on, the other trying to aim around his wounded companion who even now blocks the narrow doorway to the control booth with his body.
With the chaos unfolding atop the crane, Kaltos has no idea if his words were even heard over the microbead.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
Vincent turns around to face the newcomer.
A lone figure stands in the reflected lumen-strip lighting of the tubular, stainless steel corridor that leads deeper into the Datacore. Tall and gaunt, he is clad in the traditional maroon-hued robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus, his facial features, although relatively youthful, weathered-looking and pale in the extreme. A great, golden circle, an internally-lit ocular augmetic, covers the place where his right eye once was. It irises slowly closed, diminishing the light released by it and lending the tech-priest the appearance of an inquisitive and discerning human searchlight. You note with some surprise that the voice that comes from his implanted vox is surprisingly conversational, pleasantly inflected, with a slight Oremite accent. A native, apparently.
"My apologies, the lingua-technis flows so naturally here one tends to forget his manners when guests are about. I have been expecting you."
The Pipesource
Silus, without turning his head, speaks under his breath so that Uriah may hear, his words the conversational banter of the stage-magician sharing his secrets with one he trusts.
"By the sounds of things your friend will soon be Blooded. He is lucky, his prey was close to the mouth of the pipe. If the pup's piteous cries do not summon its mother he may yet emerge with his life."
Uriah experiences a disconcerting echo of deja-vu, as if he has heard Silus' words spoken to him before. He wants to ask a question of his own, following this unexpected revelation by the Alpha but is instead suddenly overwhelmed by the flash of a crystal-clear vision.
...the titanic pipe shudders violently with the impossibly loud vibration of the slowly building howl within, the thick metal resonating like a huge tuning fork as fragments of cracked rockcrete and the rough stone of the cavern wall tumble down all around with a clatter of sliding stone. The voice of the Auldmaw hurts the eardrums, humming supersonically through the fetid air as it explodes from the Pipesource like a macrobattery firing. It hardly seems possible that something organic can make a sound so loud. The collected Pack, the two-legged children who have totemized her, beings she cares nothing for in her bestial dreams, shrink back as one, a hush falling over them...
Uriah's eyes snap to where Ariella and Savalos stand with their backs to him, closest to the great pipe's mouth, and he knows with the absolute conviction of his shared memories that she has seen this all before; the She-Wolf foresaw what is about to happen.
Iacton tries to force the beast back, hoping to get enough room to bring his blades to bear. More pressure behind his knife, force it to back off, then send his blade crashing down.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Kaltos watches as the second traitor guardsman, head and shoulders now visible at the top of the ladder, draws his laspistol. He stays on the ladder, one hand holding on, the other trying to aim around his wounded companion who even now blocks the narrow doorway to the control booth with his body.With the chaos unfolding atop the crane, Kaltos has no idea if his words were even heard over the microbead.
The Pipesource
Savalos listens to fluting barks of the injured duct wolf that echo from the pipe-mouth and dares to hold out hope that Iacton may yet survive and be successful in his Blooding. There can be no doubt; by the sound of the wails Krade's aide has come upon one of the Auldmaw's progeny, and not the Auldmaw herself.
The She-Wolf never finishes her thought, and instead lowers her head resignedly, sharp chin resting on her chest beneath the cowl, brooding and lost in deep reveries or visions that her son cannot perceive. Even so, he senses her restiveness. Ariella turns her head slightly to one side, speaking so that only Savalos can hear.
"Your father never had a chance to give this to you. I have carried it all these years, close to my bosom, selfishly in a way, to keep alive his memory and all that he did for me, a wayward little waif-girl from the Spires without enough sense to avoid the darker alleyways of Vaxus. He would want you to have it."
Ariella produces a slender, curving scerrido with an adamantium blade of deepest jade green, the metal tempered and honed to an edge that almost cuts the eyes it is so sharp. The hilt is a single tooth, yellowed with age, the canine of a huge bull duct wolf. An elaborate filigree of inlaid mother of pearl and Unduz shellwood trace intricate whorls and curves where it has been scrimshawed into the hilt.
The She-Wolf places it within your palm, wrapping her bony hands around your own, a gesture that is touchingly maternal. Her expression is a conflicted one, deep pride mingled with a devastating loss from which she has never recovered. Through it all, there is something else, something far more worrisome.
Fear.
Never in all of your years have you known the unflinching visage of your mother, Ariella, to show fear, but she wears it plainly enough now. The terrible resignation in her eyes makes you pull her close in an embrace, knowing that you cannot comfort her, but also knowing that there is nothing else you can do.
Her voice is a whisper in your neck, but clear enough.
"I love you my son".
The ground suddenly pitches and rumbles underfoot, the titanic pipe before you beginning to vibrate and resonate strangely, as if quivering in anticipation from some great, indrawn breath.
"The Auldmaw and I are not altogether that different. We both long to rest in the embrace of sweet-oblivion with our fallen mates. Remember my son, that no matter how bleak and inevitable the future may seem, the will of one strong enough, one willing to sacrifice everything, can always effect a change."
At the sound, Ariella looks into the pitch black void that is the maw of the pipe, one hand patting the tooth-hilt of the scerrido you now hold.
"Be ready my son. She comes now for the bones of her beloved."
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
[ooc]I also forgot to check for righteous fury test WS 32 1d100 for 1d10.
The corrupted guardsman lunges forward, and when the point of his wickedly sharp trench knife sticks into the hardened composite material comprising the tech-priest's armor, his arm simply breaks off from the impact. There is a gunshot loud crack of bone, and unthinkable pain wracks the man's body with a seizure, the sleeve of his fatigues containing the severed arm dangling awkwardly at his side as blood pumps out all over the small control chamber. Even as he goes limp in death, Kaltos seizes his trunk in a bear hug, holding up the dead guardsman's body to interpose it like a shield betwixt he and the other traitor, who even now aims his laspistol from where he hangs on the ladder outside the booth.
The Lair of the Auldmaw
Iacton tries to force the beast back, hoping to get enough room to bring his blades to bear. More pressure behind his knife, force it to back off, then send his blade crashing down.
1d100
1d100;1d10+3
The wounded beast continues its awful caterwauling, the sheer agony of the din driving Iacton on to finish the creature, lest he become permanently deafened. It presses its attack ferociously, snapping and lunging, maddened by its mortal wound to the point that it ignores its own well-being in its savage charge.
Iacton attempts to both turn the lunge away from himself and slice into it. Whether he succeeds is a different matter.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The hemmed-in guardsmen make a valiant final push to the edge of the platform, shooting, burning, and even kicking the foul little daemons as they struggle through the burgeoning swarm. Supported by Oktammor's steady bolter fire, the first of their number leaps down to the cargo-8, crumpling to the hard metal roof from the impact, but quickly regaining his feet and scurrying on hands and knees toward one of the open hatches.
Two more take the plunge soon after, one slipping on the gore-streaked filth that drenches the truck's roof from the daemon's remains and sliding over the side. He lands awkwardly with his arm beneath him, seriously injured. The unlucky guardsman regains his senses quickly, but barely has time to get to his feet before a score of the monsters are upon him, rending him limb from limb. His screams seem to urge his companions on.
The final three guardsmen make the leap together, one quickly scurrying into a hatch, the other pair getting to their feet and moving to the end of the vehicle. The burlier guardsman with the flamer makes a final scorching pass over the base of the truck before being urged toward a hatch by what must be his superior. Once the last of his men is safely within the vehicle, he clambers into the hatch himself, shouting down into the cargo hold for something. Oktammor by this time has sealed his own hatch as well.
Even in the desperate straits he finds himself in, Kaltos can hear the guard sergeant's voice clearly through his microbead:
<<<Overwatch, the 7th is grateful for the assist. Returning the favor now!>>>
Although it is lost to Kaltos' view, Sergeant Einhardt turns in the hatch just as the creatures begin scaling the side of the cargo-8 again, popping the brick-red flare he now holds in his hand, he slings the sparking cylinder in a high arc into the air toward the ruptured canisters. Given their proximity, it is likely suicide, but there is little option left. Einhardt slams the hatch overhead, his parting gift delivered.
When the flare hits the ankle deep aviation fuel pooling in the center of the tarmac, the result is almost instantaneous. All the air seems to roil for a moment, sucked backward like a great indrawn breath, and then the volatile fluid is engulfed in flame, exploding in a white-hot, mushrooming fireball that instantly incinerates the two corrupted guardsmen repositioning their missile launcher. A fuel line on the parked sanitation hauler ignites, and the heavy vehicle is catapulted into the air like a toy, slamming into the side of Platform #7's eastern support pillars with such force that the entire structure tilts downward and lists precariously at a sharp angle toward the ground. Hundreds of the tiny daemons on the ground squeal in chorus as their bodies blister, burn, and explode in wet little hisses, or are flung afire into the air from the impact of the shockwave traveling outward from the fuel tanks. Those on the platform begin to slide off the tilted edge into the engulfing flames below, like penitents ushered rudely along to hell. When the force of the blast reaches the cargo-8, the back of the truck is lifted two meters into the air before crashing back down again, and the entire vehicle catches alight, angry flames dancing along its roof and sides. It then lurches into motion, slewing wildly as the melting wheels struggle for purchase, and by some dint of will and desire to survive, the driver somehow manages to turn it around, slamming into a weakened support post of Platform #7. The post collapses, and as Oktammor and the others speed away toward the crane, the churraptus class shuttle breaks away from its mooring cables and begins its own inevitable slide toward the inferno, pushing the mass of shrieking daemons before it like a great plow.
Nearly thrown off his feet from the detonation, and feeling the towering crane sway and list vertiginously from the blast, Kaltos hears another voice, choking through a lung-wrenching fit of coughs to shout into his ear.
<<<Kaltos! Albrek! We're on our way, make ready for extraction!>>>
Heaving the dead guardsman gripped before him forward, Kaltos smiles grimly and attempts to do just that.
The Lair of the Auldmaw
Iacton attempts to both turn the lunge away from himself and slice into it. Whether he succeeds is a different matter.
1d100
1d100;1d10+3
Iacton jabs his off-hand dagger into the muzzle of the beast, feeling its hot, labored breath upon his hand. The force of the impact is almost powerful enough to break the assassin's wrist, but he somehow manages to sidestep the charge.
As he presses his back hard against the wall of the giant pipe again, Iacton swings the Fulcusian monosword down with all his might. The keen edge of the blade feels like it meets no resistance whatsoever, cleaving through the corded neck muscles, sinew, and bone of the duct-wolf's neck like a razor rending a veil, separating the huge beast's head from its shoulders. The enraged creature's body continues to travel on, unmindful that it has lost its head, before finally coming to a rigid-legged halt and quite abruptly tipping over to fall in the murky sluiceway at the bottom of the pipe with splash.
Looking at the almost neon-yellow ichor dripping from his blade, Iacton knows what it is to be Blooded. The overpowering ringing in his ears also makes him unpleasantly aware of what it feels like to be nearly deaf.
His half-hearted feeling of accomplishment is short-lived, however. Looking down the eastern spur of the pipe, he notices a half-dozen searing red eyes staring back at him. Although he cannot hear the growls, he can feel them reverberating in his chest. It appears his mortal struggle has attracted some of his quarry's kin.
In a low whisper: "I love you to Ma."
I take the Old She Wolves message to heart. Hoping this isn't her way of saying goodbye. She and Aebe are all I have left. The family I have, and the family I hope that will be.
I grip my fathers scerrido feeling the weight, and importance of it in my hand.
"I'm to be blooded a second time?"
Iacton backs away, hopefully to a more defensible position.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Steadily advancing and firing his lasgun in controlled bursts from the hip, the corrupted guardsman advances on Albrek along the catwalk. Matters are made worse for the acolyte when the traitor's backup arrives on the catwalk skirting the exterior of the crane.
Taking his life into his hands, Albrek grabs the safety rail of the catwalk and swings his entire body out over the thirty meter drop, the traitor's las-burst scorching the floor where the acolyte was but a moment ago. Even before he pulls himself back around, Albrek opens up with his own burst.
As Albrek fires, the second guardsman squeezes off a shot that hits his right leg, scorching his armor and nearly knocking him off the catwalk.
His aim jarred from being hit, Albrek puts a round into the center of the advancing guardsman's chest, while the others go wide. Undeterred the traitor continues moving forward.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The traitor guardsman hanging on to the top of the control booth ladder fires his laspistol at the tech-priest just as Kaltos bulls the body of the man's dead comrade forward.
.
The shot goes wild, striking the roof of the crane's control booth and showering Kaltos in sparks.
The Lair of the Auldmaw
Iacton backs away, hopefully to a more defensible position.
With a deft stroke of his knife, Iacton carves out one of the dead beast's vestigial eyes for proof of his kill. His ears still ringing painfully, he doesn't notice the newly arrived trio of duct wolves until he rises from his squat, trophy in hand. Recognizing that fleeing from the rest of this small pack would be futile, he brandishes his blades with the intention of making them pay dearly for his life.
For a confusing moment, he believes his threatening posture has unnerved the creatures somehow. Although he cannot hear their whines but faintly from his lost hearing, he can read the fear and skittishness in their suddenly submissive postures and wiry, raised hackles. Iacton shares their visceral fear soon after when he feels the unsettling vibration deep in his own chest from somewhere behind, the booming howl loudly audible to even his damaged ears. The wide, murky rivulet of water at his feet begins to ripple, sending tremor-waves in the direction of the three wolves who threatened him just moments ago. They flee frantically back into the gloom on their bounding tripedal legs, clearly cowed and terrified by whatever approaches the assassin from behind. Iacton feels the thudding triple rhythm of the huge things footfalls underfoot, shaking the entire massive pipe.
Without even hesitating to glance behind him to see how close the Auldmaw is, and perhaps terrified of what abomination he might lay eyes upon if he did, Iacton runs for his life, pumping his legs and arms furiously, back in the direction of the Pipesource.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The traitor guardsman hanging on to the top of the control booth ladder fires his laspistol at the tech-priest just as Kaltos bulls the body of the man's dead comrade forward.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
A lone figure stands in the reflected lumen-strip lighting of the tubular, stainless steel corridor that leads deeper into the Datacore. Tall and gaunt, he is clad in the traditional maroon-hued robes of the Adeptus Mechanicus, his facial features, although relatively youthful, weathered-looking and pale in the extreme. A great, golden circle, an internally-lit ocular augmetic, covers the place where his right eye once was. It irises slowly closed, diminishing the light released by it and lending the tech-priest the appearance of an inquisitive and discerning human searchlight. You note with some surprise that the voice that comes from his implanted vox is surprisingly conversational, pleasantly inflected, with a slight Oremite accent. A native, apparently.
"My apologies, the lingua-technis flows so naturally here one tends to forget his manners when guests are about. I have been expecting you."
"Excellent, I trust arrangements can be made to forestall any...unfortunate interruptions."
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The tech-priest realizes if he stays in the confines of the small control booth, the traitor guardsman will be quite content to keep shooting until his former comrade is a bloody, perforated mess and Kaltos is dead. He must act soon.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
"Excellent, I trust arrangements can be made to forestall any...unfortunate interruptions."
The young tech-priest nods in assent, and you believe you notice the ghost of an amused smirk pass over his lips at your gross understatement. It also clarifies for you that this peculiarly emotive agent of the Cult Mechanicus is fully aware of the dire predicament you find yourself in.
"Contingencies have already been implemented, as I said before, you were expected."
Flipping a whip-thin braid of auburn colored hair over his shoulder, an odd cosmetic affectation for a tech-priest by your estimation, the newcomer proceeds to the dataport and connects with his electro-graft. Closing his eyes and concentrating intently, you watch as flickering silver light pulses from the device as it cycles locked. Disconnecting, the tech-priest turn back in your direction.
"This barrier will serve for a time in the event that our mutual adversaries decide to forgo the requisite diplomacy with regard to our sovereign enclave. My fear is that such niceties will no longer be relevant if the situation in the claustrum continues to deteriorate."
He regards the nervous Bothle with his organic eye and the curiously expressive (for a tech-priest, at least) amused grin returns again for moment before fading back into impassivity.
"You made an error in judgment in trusting Lexmechanic Gulvar to withhold his precious analytical efforts; he intended no betrayal, his evolution to a higher form simply no longer allows him to comprehend some finer shades of meaning with regard to prevarication. It is inherently coded within his being by the blessed Omnissiah to share the output of his analytical cogitations. As you are no doubt aware by now, the Colonel's adjutant was notified of your clandestine investigations here in the Datacore."
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
The young tech-priest nods in assent, and you believe you notice the ghost of an amused smirk pass over his lips at your gross understatement. It also clarifies for you that this peculiarly emotive agent of the Cult Mechanicus is fully aware of the dire predicament you find yourself in.
"Contingencies have already been implemented, as I said before, you were expected."
Flipping a whip-thin braid of auburn colored hair over his shoulder, an odd cosmetic affectation for a tech-priest by your estimation, the newcomer proceeds to the dataport and connects with his electro-graft. Closing his eyes and concentrating intently, you watch as flickering silver light pulses from the device as it cycles locked. Disconnecting, the tech-priest turn back in your direction.
"This barrier will serve for a time in the event that our mutual adversaries decide to forgo the requisite diplomacy with regard to our sovereign enclave. My fear is that such niceties will no longer be relevant if the situation in the claustrum continues to deteriorate."
He regards the nervous Bothle with his organic eye and the curiously expressive (for a tech-priest, at least) amused grin returns again for moment before fading back into impassivity.
"You made an error in judgment in trusting Lexmechanic Gulvar to withhold his precious analytical efforts; he intended no betrayal, his evolution to a higher form simply no longer allows him to comprehend some finer shades of meaning with regard to prevarication. It is inherently coded within his being by the blessed Omnissiah to share the output of his analytical cogitations. As you are no doubt aware by now, the Colonel's adjutant was notified of your clandestine investigations here in the Datacore."
"Yes, that was most unfortunate. However, the present situation demands my immediate attention."
Vincent gestures to the corridor leading into the heart of the datacore.
"If you would."
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
Kaltos grunts with the exertion, but manages to pull the dead weight of the armless guardsman upright, holding his breath against the fetid stink of the man's fatigues and grime-encrusted armor. Gradually building momentum as he trudges forward, and ignoring the most recent las-round as it scorches the air overhead, he closes the distance slowly. When he is a few paces away from the open accessway and the top of the service ladder where the other traitor waits, he grips his monosword tightly, preparing to push the corpse forward just as his adversary fires again, before making his swing.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
The barrel of the traitor's las-pistol gets pressed upward under the neck of the body unceremoniously shoved forward into him, and when the pistol goes off, it is a muffled blast that blows apart the chin and cheek of the corpse, the lasfire exiting the top of the rounded flak helmet with a flash of heat near Kaltos' face.
The two corrupted guardsman rain a withering hail of fire down upon Albrek, who, with nowhere to go, simply stands up and returns fire himself. The first burst rakes across the fearless guardsman, one round ripping plates of flak away from his arm in a shower of sparks and scorched flesh, the next punching his chest with the force of a grox, and the last piercing his calf in the meat of the leg. Somehow he remains standing, shouting incoherently and blazing away with his own weapon. Taking careful aim, the other traitor guardsman fires for Albrek's chest, but at the last second the desperate acolyte presses tight against the wall of the crane, grimacing with pain as it scores a burn across his leg instead.
Screaming an unintelligible battle cry of the Oremor 7th, Albrek rips off his own concentrated burst from less than a meter away as he slumps into the wall, spinning the traitor around and blasting two fist-sized holes in the center of his chest. The guardsman pitches over and tumbles head over heels over the catwalk's safety rail.
High above, over the roar of the spreading flames and the concussive booms of the secondary explosions, Kaltos hears the familiar rumble of the cargo-8's engines. Looking down, he spies it out of the corner of his eye as he raises the sword, looking like nothing more than a scorched toy so far below at the base of the crane.
The Lair of the Auldmaw
Moving so fast that he scarcely feels as though he is running along the gentle curve of the gargantuan pipe, Iacton leaps and slashes through the pallid fungal growths that impede his passage, panting with exertion. Despite the sting in his injured leg, he never falters, knowing from the pounding triple-vibration that jars his every footfall that something truly monstrous closely pursues him.
Until just a few seconds ago, his hearing consisted of a shrill, monotonous ringing, but as his blood pumps harder with every step, ghosts of other sounds return, intermittent, through a harsh static like that emitted from a disabled picter. Those noises he hears are terrible ones; deep, booming howls that unnerve the spirit like the tortured ship-noises made when a starcraft is becalmed in the constricting doldrums of the deep Void with a failed Geller Field. So ferocious and anguished are they that the assassin almost wishes his hearing was not returning.
Looking up, he winces, the gray-green light from his photovisor compensating quickly for the coin-sized circle of light ahead. A deep feeling of relief fills him as he makes out the red pin-prick sparks of the guttering torches in the less-dark disk that heralds the pipe's opening into the Pipesource. The tremors from the huge beast's thunderous strides get nearer and nearer, gaining on him, and he redoubles his efforts as chunks of dislodged fungoid fall around him with percussive splashes into the murky water.
The light at the end of the tunnel is porthole now, and then the size of a docking port, larger and larger with every step, but still almost mockingly far away. He can see the shadowy quill-strokes of two silhouettes in the faint light now, standing almost blithely in the path of the voracious apocalypse set to erupt.
A faint, pinging click from Iacton's microbead announces it is now in range of other such devices.
He feels the warm, humid wetness through the insulated fibers of the bodyglove as it passes around him, the force of thing's exhalation actually pushing him forward like a strong breeze, nearly causing a fatal stumble. The rank and foul smelling breath poisons his nostrils even through the integrated respirator.
He runs on, not knowing what doom he brings him.
The Pipesource
I grip my fathers scerrido feeling the weight, and importance of it in my hand."I'm to be blooded a second time?"
Ariella's whisper is a dry rasp, but you hear it all the same.
"We all are, son, we all are."
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
"Yes, that was most unfortunate. However, the present situation demands my immediate attention."
Vincent gestures to the corridor leading into the heart of the datacore.
"If you would."
The young tech-priest leads on, asking no further questions and speaking not at all as you navigate the bizarre, labyrinthine stainless-steel tunnels of the claustrum's ancient Datacore. You pass countless, perfectly recessed portals, curved and set exactingly flush with the arterial body of the passageway's gleaming sterility like the branching capillaries of some great organism. With each echoing step you wonder idly if the 'heart' you mentioned in metaphor can truly be dismissed as such.
The mute servitors that trudge past offer no hint as to what is to come, toiling away or marching slowly along like dutiful insects tending to the need of their hive. Stopping before a three-meter-tall oval door gilt in gleaming brass, embossed with with depictions of the Omnissiah's commandments, and festooned with tattered, chain-hung parchments scribbled all over with the Machine-God's scripture, the young tech-priest turns to you again, flipping the thin braid over his shoulder again with the unsettling mechanical efficiency of a pendulum following its inevitable course.
The young, inscrutable tech-priest gestures toward the gleaming door, and you can almost smell the wet sheen of machine oil that anoints it.
"Beyond this door is housed the Datacore itself, and at its heart sits in state Logis Blakswann, chosen caretaker and administrator of Claustrum Septis by edict of the Cult Mechanicus. May his holy word never rust."
The young man-machine pauses as the extremely narrow oval door irises open, spinning outward and into the wall by separating into thousands of interlocking rings.
Seeing your hesitation, the man smirks again.
"No lowly Genetor like myself is he, I am merely a transitory visitor in this holy place, not so different from yourselves."
"Within, in his demesne, is where you may petition for the sanctuary you seek."
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
As I drop the body I flick the tip of the sword out making it look like I am attacking one part of the body then swing back and attack the opposite.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
Vincent strides through the doorway into the Logis' sanctum.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
As I drop the body I flick the tip of the sword out making it look like I am attacking one part of the body then swing back and attack the opposite.
Shoving the corpse of the guardsman forcefully to one side, the tech-priest raises his blade overhead. Relieved of the dead man's onerous burden, Kaltos first lunges in the direction of the traitor's left hand clutching the top rung of the ladder before reversing his stroke and slashing the upraised right arm which holds the laspistol.
The blade bites down and through the traitor's armor, cutting deep into the flesh of his arm and eliciting a buzzing growl of pain from within the helmet respirator he wears. Involuntarily, the corrupted guardsman pivots out and away from the blow, still clinging to the ladder precariously. Somehow he still manages to hold on to the laspistol, raising it to fire again.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
Vincent strides through the doorway into the Logis' sanctum.
With Bothle trailing somewhat reluctantly behind, Vincent steps past the young tech-priest and through the gilt door. Entering the vast spherical chamber beyond, he immediately revises his analogy comparing the Logis' sanctum to the 'heart' of the Datacore. He need not step far away from the anatomical metaphor, but if this place is indeed any part of the body, it is not the heart, but the brain.
The sanctum is enormous, like the hollowed core of a burnished brass ball-bearing of staggering proportions, chased in chrome panels and spiraling web-works of integrated circuitry. Imposingly tall datalooms with baroque embellishments erupt from all over the inside of the sphere, defying gravity and crackling with discharged electric-blue static. In the very center of it all, suspended ten meters in the air, is something that is barely discernible as having ever been a man. A great, golden, bell-shaped housing pierced all over with dataports, coiling trails of industrial hosing, and shielded MIU cables holds a pale, wasted form that twitches with every pulse of data surging through the countless umbilici connected to it. Suspended in a crystal-encased soup of cloudy bio-sustainers, it is impossible to say what the boneless organic remnants floating inside once were. The lingering static in the Datacore stands the hairs of your body on end while the latent electromagnetism generates a dull feeling of unease in the pit of your gut. The smell of heated machine oil is overpowering.
As you try to make sense of what you are seeing, a clockwork collection of various-sized golden gears irises open in the 'bell' to reveal an austere oval of red light the size of the door you just passed through. As if swimming up from some great depth, the vague outline of an elderly man's face, all angular cheekbones and jutting chin hoves into view; curiously indistinct as if it were being viewed through a thin layer of silken fabric or congealed blood. It reminds you of a large, high-resolution image on a pict-screen, but the very real sense of depth and level of detail makes you wonder if it is something more. The face's wizened eyes open to reveal staring white orbs that sweep the interior of the sphere as if unfamiliar with its contents.
A loud voice, disturbing for its lack of inflection or emotion booms from powerful vox-speakers that must honeycomb the various cogitational components conjoined with the inner curves of the great sphere.
+++SEVENTEEN.+++
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
+++SEVENTEEN.+++
"You are better informed than I expected. May I assume you already know why I am here?"
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
"You are better informed than I expected. May I assume you already know why I am here?"
There is a gentle rush of air in the Datacore as gases are vented from various places, the hoses connecting to Logis Blakswann's embalmed mortal remains in the crystal vessel going taut for a moment as oxygen is forcibly exchanged with the bubbling fluid suspending them.
It sounds eerily like a sigh.
+++YES, 17. PLEASE PERMIT US OUR PREDILECTION FOR INTEGERS; WE FIND OTHER DESCRIPTORS FOR VARIABLES, SUCH AS THE PREVAILING NOMENCLATURE TO BE CONFOUNDING AND UNSATISFACTORY FOR OUR ALGORITHMS. TO US, YOU ARE 17, A GOOD INTEGER, A PRIME, CORRESPONDINGLY RELEVANT AND SHARPLY VISIBLE IN OUR EQUATIONS TO MEASURE CORRELATION AND CAUSALITY. LONG HAVE WE VALUED YOUR INPUT INTO THE EQUATION, 17. BE IT AS A MOTE IN A GOD'S EYE WHEN COMPARED TO THE VOLUME OF THE STREAM, YOUR CALCULATIONS AND DATA-SETS HAVE ALWAYS CONTRIBUTED WORTH EXPONENTIALLY GREATER THAN THEIR QUANTIFIED SUM WHEN COMBINED WITH OUR GREATER HEURISTIC.+++
+++YOU ARE A VARIABLE OF IMPORTANCE.+++
The Pipesource
Savalos, Uriah, and the others watch with rapt attention as the titanic pipe-lip that yawns before them, the rust-wreathed threshold into the Auldmaw's lair, shakes violently, causing chunks of craggy rockcrete and pallid swatches of festooning fungus to fall from its edges to the floor of the cavern. Tremors reverberate underfoot, the unsettling harbinger of what is to come.
When the deafening, preternatural howl erupts from the pitch black circle of the pipe-mouth, like a cacophonic trumpet of doom, Uriah is reminded of the powerful, painfully low register of the horns used in orbital docking installations to warn of the imminent coupling of a ship. Sounds so loud and intrusive that they impose themselves on the senses.
For Savalos, the mournful, bestial utterance is far more organic in its terrible message; the wail of an enraged duct wolf, only several orders of magnitude louder than anything he has ever heard before from one his gang's totemic animals. It commands the senses unlike anything else he has ever registered with his them, roaring a savage paean of brutish power and hoary age. It demands veneration even as it terrifies.
This terror is even now spreading among the ranks of the spectators, as many of the spellbound gangers on the crumbling rock stairwell that spirals up to the opening in the forlorn hostel's floor above begin to shrink backward. Even Lucero's blooded, bonded retinue behind you at the base of the craggy steps mutter and mill about with trepidation, hardened killers who profess to fear nothing suddenly unsure of themselves.
Uriah watches as only Silus dares move forward, somehow prepossessed of the self-control to go against every animal instinct screaming warning in the rest of you, to advance with his humming scepter held overhead. He stops when he falls in line with Savalos and Ariella, mere meters from the maw of the great pipe, brandishing the baton overhead like a lit brand waved protectively to ward off the impending arrival of some nightmare beast.
The wide, rocky outcropping upon which you stand, the largest of those visible on this level overlooking the abyss of jagged pipe-ends and shattered rockcrete drainage conduits at your back, suddenly seems far too small. You are disconcertingly cognizant of the kilometers-long shaft plunging into the very bedrock of the hive behind you and the narrow, vulnerable looking stair of toppled rocks that represent your only means of egress.
When the tiny, bodysuit-clad form of Iacton leaps out of the gargantuan pipe-mouth, his momentum easily carrying him well over the sloping pile of shattered scree leading up to the cyclopean eye of the opening, you can almost feel his unbridled terror. Pumping his arms and legs furiously, as if trying to escape the cresting wall of one of this world's seasonal tsunamis, he sprints in your direction.
Something follows him; not a wave, but a subterranean leviathan of behemoth proportions.