The Pipesource
Iacton wavers on the edge of the melee, unsure of what to do. He was just one man with a sword, and he must fight this beast? He couldn't hope to win... Then the psychic waves wash over him, and he is reminded of his purpose. He is the Emperor's blade in this world. If he met the Chaos gods themselves, they would be cut down.
And this? This is just an overgrown wolf.
1d100;1d10+3
His cloak whipping behind him as he darts past Ariella, Iacton pulls his blade back the full length of his arm behind his head and swings two-handed from the back of his heel to the front of his ankle, the sword singing as it descends.
With a meaty thwack the Fulcusian blade rends through the chitinous carapace of Auldmaw's oddly stacked, lower-left foreclaw, sinking deep into the softer flesh beneath. It takes all of Iacton's might to wrestle the sword free again, but the gout of blackish-yellow ichor which spurts out of the wound along with the changing pitch of the creature's howls tell him everything he needs to know. The Auldmaw can be hurt.
The Pipesource
The Pipesource
Trembling from the effort, Silus manages to keep the shining scepter aloft. The blue light now expands to the blinding brightness of a small supernova in the relative darkness of the Pipesource, and you can all hear the distinct sound of something cracking from within the crystal sphere, like the elements within a glowglobe popping from a power surge. The curling wisps of smoke pluming off of the Alpha's robes grow darker, and those rising from the knotted tips of his garish, magenta-hued dreadlocks suddenly burst into flame. The Packleader groans, but still does not falter, the rising screeches of the infuriated Auldmaw now fixated upon him, the source of its misery.
As the flickering halo of the duct wolf recedes again from the She-Wolf, Ariella risks a quick glance at her fellow Alpha. Upon seeing Silus withering under the overcharged power of the archeotech scepter, she begins to move in his direction, but is abruptly cut off when the massive, clawed forelimb of the Auldmaw rises reflexively from Iacton's cutting blow to slam down between her and Silus.
Bowing her head again in concentration, a whipcrack surge of manifested telekinetic energy wrenches the Auldmaw's neck back just enough as it lunges for Silus.
You can hear the edge of plaintive desperation in her voice when she tries to shout over the deafening din so that all may hear.
"Silus cannot bind her much longer! Be ready, my Pack!"
Sigmunt, moving amidst the loyal throng of faithful Duct Wolf gangers, blasts away again with his liberated scattergun. The solid slug penetrates into the Auldmaw's hardened hide, but the wound only seems to infuriate the behemoth more. It begins to slam its huge limbs down upon the firmament in a rage, jarring fragments of rockcrete loose from the walls so heavy are its footfalls. Its pillar-thick hind leg begins to compress, like a huge organic piston in preparation to pounce. The hold upon it appears to be slackening.
I sink my fathers blade into the Auldmaw trying to find anyplace there might be a weakness. In hindsight I wonder what inspired me to jump on the back of the gigantic beast as it bucks and turns. If I manage to live, and Aebe hears about this... I am never going to hear the end of it. I just pray she gets the opportunity.
Geltdown Docks, High Above Platform #7
+++Magos Triskaedestes must be apprised that the infection is spreading. Before long, quarantine measures will become impossible.+++
Replying back in the same manner. "Right now was have no further information then what has already been transmitted. We must find out how wide spread the infestation is at the other hive and if the problem here is just with the arbits and some gangs or more wide spread then that. We need to find out were the Sergeant went to and if there are more guardsman that came with him."
Somewhere along the Trans-Vaxus Interchange, Southeast Quadrant
You catch what he speaks into his microbead as he approaches.
<<<I don't care! Get all the wheels rolling and get them on the Interchange now! We need to disappear, and the more Shaultus hauler's on the road playing decoy the better our chances are. The Arbites vox-system is already chattering with our vehicle's description and they're sending up ornithoptersto hunt us. Get it done! Now!>>>
With Oktammor's powered armor straining its servos, the huge man crab-walks down the low clearance of the hauler until he reaches you.
"From what the boss says our little contingent isn't exactly seeing eye to eye with yours at present, but since the Inquisitorial acolyte back there is out of commission, we need to talk."
" Say on we need more information and to disseminate it to more then just us. We need to know how many guardsmen were sent over from the other hive. We know the Sergeant got away. Unless he moved very slowly away from what was happening. That is doubtful to say the least. If there was more guardsmen that he will fall back to them. Also we need to know how long they have been on the ground so we can tell how quickly they can manifest these things or gather them from where they are here in this hive. We also need more firepower. As we will loose if we go in like this again. One man down for days if not weeks if your doctor is not cut out for this type of injury. We have them out numbered if you do not count the swarms they brought with them, and we still lost more then a few and might still loose more." I look around meaningfully. "What information can we get or do we just call in a exterminalus now and have the whole sector suffer for decades to come."
The Pipesource
I sink my fathers blade into the Auldmaw trying to find anyplace there might be a weakness. In hindsight I wonder what inspired me to jump on the back of the gigantic beast as it bucks and turns. If I manage to live, and Aebe hears about this... I am never going to hear the end of it. I just pray she gets the opportunity.
Not knowing where to start, and suddenly questioning the rationale behind his reckless mounting of the Auldmaw as it begins to thrash in place, Savalos decides rather quickly that he needs a handhold at the very least, and plunges his father's scerrido hilt-deep into the wide patch of meaty flesh between the monster's shoulder blades.
The Pipesource
Uriah fires again, and watches as the tiny flare of light from his pistol is harmlessly swallowed by the immense duct-wolf's looming bulk.
The powerful surge of Ariella's psychic manifestations continue to buffet his mind, but the voidborn is surprised to sense another echo of steadier, more focused psychic energy, entirely alien to his prior experiences, underpinning the wildness of the She-Wolf's unbridled power.
The Pipesource
Perhaps dangerously late in sensing that the Auldmaw is somehow being constrained by the Alphas, the majority of Lucero's elite bodyguard now close in on the creature, their weapons spitting round after round into its shuddering body, the shells and ejected rounds plinking loudly on the ground all around them. The enraged howls from the beast only grow louder, and it is doubtful that Luceros' hoarsely shouted warnings would have ever reached their nearly deafened ears anyway.
Stroinigli fires again, but his weapon has as little effect as Uriah's. He begins glancing around desperately for another means to harm it, or perhaps some measure of cover, as the twist's finely honed survival instincts take hold, sensing the storm is about to break.
With a serpent-quick snap of its writhing tendrils, the Auldmaw completely engulfs one of the brave gangers firing up at it, the motion so smooth and effortless that the man is gone and swallowed up into the monsters toothy, tripartite maw almost faster than the eye can follow. The huge, solitary hind leg continues to truncate, the muscles flexing inward, straining against the uncanny scepter's hold.
Luceros reaches Sigmunt and begins shouting loudly, desperate for his men to hear him, commanding them to move back into formation to fire, berating them for getting too close. Since nearly nothing can be heard above the unholy din in the Pipesource, and none of them even noticed their compatriot being devoured so intent are they on firing or reloading their weapons, his efforts are largely futile.
Cursing mutely, his lips moving but with nothing profane to be heard, he fires his handcannon again at the Auldmaw.
I am surprised how easily my fathers blade sinks into the sink, but thankful it gives me a solid hand hold. Worry sets in wondering how hard will the Auldmaw buck once free from its constraints. The ground is unforgiving, and hard. It would be short work for the beast to send me flying into it or a wall. A crack of gunfire makes me quickly lower my profile realising my death could come just as quickly from a brother or sister with unsure aim as the Auldmaws teeth.
Hoping for one last strike, Iacton steps back to assess the creature's jerking movements before lunging forward again.
The Pipesource
The Auldmaw's shoulder-blades go rigid as stone when Savalos drives the blade home to the hilt. The acolyte feels the welling rage within the beast swell like an enormous bellows beneath his prostrate form, lifting him bodily when the keening roar of eardrum-bursting volume is unleashed from its maw, reverberating throughout the cavernous Pipesource like the pronouncement of a long-foretold doom.
He holds on to his father's scerrido, his birthright, like his life depends upon it.
Unable to help himself, the psyker brings both of his pale hands to his ears to block out some of the Auldmaw's aural assault. Although it helps little, it serves to better focus his unconscious mind for a brief time on the source of the underlying echo of psychic energy pervading the chamber.
The scepter!
His head whips around as if yanked on a wire, eyes riveted upon the archeotech device that Silus waves before the monster. A chorus of lilting, alien voices, clarion-clear now that his unconscious mind has been fully opened to them, chant sonorously, both commanding and soothing, their every musical word quelling the bottomless primal rage of the beast. Even as he listens to the voices that none of the others, save perhaps Ariella, can hear, he detects the strain pervading them, the discordance that now interrupts their song. It is clear the device is somehow psy-active, and was not shaped or crafted by the hand of man.
The assassin bounds backward to avoid the humongous creature's paw as it scrapes loudly across the shattered rockcrete, spinning his blade overhead and bringing it down with all his might as he side-steps. The sword bites deeply into one of the midnight-black claws, each long as Iacton's arm, cracking its ebon luster, but not harming the Auldmaw in the least. Sensing the creature's impending pounce by the way its huge forelimbs flex, the claws scrabbling for purchase on the stony scree, Iacton backpedals, fearful of what is to come.
The Pipesource
The Pipesource
With a whoosh of combusting oxygen, the electric-blue flames dancing upon the head of the scepter arc toward their bearer, engulfing Silus bodliy, his hair erupting into a corona of azure fire.
He screams in agony, yet still stands his ground. His seared hands begin to adhere to the device as they blister and blacken.
Ariella has nearly reached his side when her head snaps back again, almost involuntarily, shards of ice and hoarfrost tinkling to the uneven, stony flooring from her hair. Pale white eyes, without pupil or iris glare at the monstrous creature before her, rimmed with crackling witchfire. The staggering power of her telekinetic grasp somehow seizes upon and holds the Auldmaw's lunging jaws back again, wrenching it and breaking away dagger-sharp teeth.
Finally realizing the danger, Sigmunt shouts to the other duct wolves as well, firing again and again as he backs away.
His warning comes far, far, too late.
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
+++CORRECTION: 'THE PRISONER'. THIS IS THE SOLE KNOWN DESIGNATION WITHIN THE ENTIRETY OF THE CLAUSTRUM'S COMPILED PENITENT RECORDS. HIS VERY PRESENCE IS CODED SECRECY LEVEL VERMILLION BY INQUISITORIAL EDICT. 'THE PRISONER' IS THE SOLE DETAINEE INCARCERATED IN THE ULTRAMAXIMUS SECURE HOLDING AREA COLLECTIVELY IDENTIFIED AS 'V-BLOCK' (IN ACCORDINANCE WITH CONTEMPORARY DESIGNATION NOMENCLATURE WITHIN THE CLAUSTRUM).+++
"How nice of them to use such a specific appellation. Your information confirms suspicions I have held for some time. I am sure we have both noticed the...irregularities."
I stab my fathers blade into the Auldmaw again hoping to carve my way deeper into its flesh trying to cripple it. Hanging on for dear life as gunfire barks all around me.
Somewhere along the Trans-Vaxus Interchange, Southeast Quadrant
Oktammor regards the two tech-priests guardedly, nodding his affirmation at Kaltos' suggestions and acknowledging his concerns. As the cargo-8 rumbles on, he leans his tall frame awkwardly forward to peer through one of the left-side gunports. Following his gaze, Kaltos sees a number of identical Shaultus Transhipping haulers merging into traffic alongside of them. Danico's burly bodyguard barely has time to exhale a tired sigh of relief at the arrival of the decoys when an ear-piercingly shrill tone sounds loudly through the echoing metal confines of the truck's body.
One of Dunkan's mercenaries riding shotgun in the cab of the vehicle shouts loudly back over his shoulder to be heard over the din.
"Oktammor! The auspex shows something has tone! There was just chatter from the Arbites ornithopter crew over the Interchange...they've armed missiles!"
The Datacore, Oremor 7th Penal Legion Claustrum, Unduz II
"How nice of them to use such a specific appellation. Your information confirms suspicions I have held for some time. I am sure we have both noticed the...irregularities."
Vincent finds it impossible to avert his eyes from the floating fragment of vestigial flesh and tissue that asserts that Logis Blakswann was once a man, like him.
+++THE NOMEN ATTACHED TO THIS PENITENT IS DECEPTIVELY VAGUE, INTENTIONALLY SO, BUT SERVES ITS PURPOSE IN PRESERVING THE ANONYMITY OF THE INQUISITION'S FOLLY. HE WAS ONCE A MAN BORN, ALBEIT ONE POSSESSED OF SUCH OVERWHELMING PSYCHIC ABILITY AND INHERENT EVIL THAT IT WOULD MAKE THE MOST JADED OF THE ORDO HERETICUS SHEPHERDS ABOARD THEIR BLACK SHIPS QUAIL IN MORTAL FEAR. NOW, IN THRALL TO A DAEMONIC ENTITY WHOM HE HOSTED WILLINGLY, THE PRISONER IS PERHAPS THE SINGLE MOST DANGEROUS BEING RESIDING UPON THIS DOOMED WORLD.+++
The Pipesource
I stab my fathers blade into the Auldmaw again hoping to carve my way deeper into its flesh trying to cripple it. Hanging on for dear life as gunfire barks all around me.
As the Auldmaw exhales her roar, Savalos drops forward precipitously, clenching the scerrido in sweaty hands to maintain his tenuous position, his legs flailing to either side. Just when he fears he will tumble bodily toward the monster's head, his mother lashes out with her telekinetic power, arresting the descent of the beast's parted jaws just above Silus. Seizing the reprieve, he clenches part of the stinking carapace beneath him tightly between his knees and jams the blade down again while hard rounds whistle dangerously past his head. His powerful, two-handed stab rewards him with a satisfying, wet, thunk of parted flesh and a yellowish gout of stinking ichor.
His compact las largely useless against the behemoth, Uriah instead channels his own psychic energy from amongst the surging flow of the Immaterium that cascades throughout the Pipesource. Concentrating his efforts, the psyker drives barbs of psychic force into the already agonized neural pathways of the Auldmaw. Frost begins to rime the ground around his feet, a bizarre odor, somewhere between fyceline and mint, wafting up around him.
Spattered by the hot, moist exhalations thrown by the Auldmaw's last roar, the remaining duct wolf gangers finally seem to sense their peril. As one, they quickly begin backing away, still firing their weapons. When Luceros finally reaches them, the Alpha, already hoarse, begins shouting commands, desperately directing his men to either side, to form an encircling ring, in an attempt to rally them and keep them from bunching up.
Surprisingly it is Stroinigli who is the first to notice Savalos high up on the Auldmaw's back. For all his distance from the fray, he picks out the acolyte easily, and, after overcoming his aghast disbelief that someone could be so recklessly insane, he is suddenly seized with inspiration, finally alighting upon a course of action that might aid his allies in the battle. The twist rushes forward toward one of the fallen duct wolves and begins to work frantically at the man's studded belt. Pulling away a bundle of rubberized plas netting, he begins to swing it like a bola above his head in the shadow of the Auldmaw's bulk, shouting loudly up toward Savalos, his voice nearly lost in the loud tumult.
As I try to keep my grip, as my hands become wet with the Auldmaws blood. I see Stroinigli run up toward the beast. I wonder what the frag he is thinking. He should have better sense to run up toward the damn thing.
The Pipesource
With a sound like thick cloth tearing, Ariella's psychic grasp upon the Auldmaw's head weakens, and finally fails. Not coincidentally, it is at the exact moment that the globe atop the scepter flares with a supernova-bright turquoise light, followed by a piercing crack. The light abruptly dies. For the span of a heartbeat, all in the Pipesource can hear the wavering ethereal chorus before it is snuffed out entirely. Dropping the scalding staff, his hair and robes alight, Silus finally screams, not from the fiery agony wracking his body, but from the awful knowledge that his failure likely has made forfeit the lives of everyone in the Pipesource.
Free from her psychic shackles, the Auldmaw's head darts down, almost faster than the eye can follow, the great, tripartite jaws slamming shut over Silus left arm at the shoulder with a hideous crunch of mangled flesh and bone. Enraged, the beast lifts the flame-wreathed Alpha a full four meters into the air before shaking its huge head rapidly from side to side, as if worrying a rag doll. When the flames reach her awful muzzle, the duct wolf matriarch shakes still harder, and with a sickening crack Silus' arm comes away in her mouth and he is flung bodily over the heads of the firing gangers to land, broken and lifeless, some distance away.
Following the fiery trajectory of his long-time friend and fellow Alpha overhead, Luceros screams a vengeful oath, charging forward without regard to his own safety, squeezing off round after round from his handcannon.
As I try to keep my grip, as my hands become wet with the Auldmaws blood. I see Stroinigli run up toward the beast. I wonder what the frag he is thinking. He should have better sense to run up toward the damn thing.
Savalos' stomach drops in his body as the Auldmaw plummets forward, only realizing Silus' fate when he sees the burning man flung through the air like a fiery human dart. Mouth hanging agape at what he just witnessed, the acolyte is jarred from his shock upon hearing a shrill voice calling to him, shouting his name from somewhere far below.
"Thul-fren! Savalos! Here! Here! Think fast! INCOMING!"
The twist's arm whirls in a blindingly quick circle before hurling a blackened net of combat webbing through the air. For the briefest instant Savalos can clearly see the trio of ovular metallic eggs nested within, glinting from the fiery light of Silus' flight.
I maintain the Inflict Pain as long as I can.
One has fallen, but they all must continue. To falter, even for a moment, is to accept defeat.
The Pipesource
The throw is a good one, and despite Savalos' entire world presently seeming to conspire against concentration of any kind, he somehow detects that the arc is a tad high. Wrestling the scerrido out from the thick, grisly flesh of the Auldmaw's back, he grasps the razor-sharp, blood-stained blade and raises the hilt as high overhead as his arm will stretch, clinging desperately to the ragged wound with his other hand to keep his balance.
By some miracle, the mesh of the rubberized netting catches on the outstretched tip of the claw-shaped pommel, the inertia of the throw causing the web-belt to spin around the handle of the blade in a series of quick revolutions before settling on the angled hilt. Its metallic, egg-shaped contents clatter against each other, hanging pendulously in Savalos' field of view:
A trio of frag grenades.
The Pipesource
I maintain the Inflict Pain as long as I can.
The Pipesource
Switching his grip, Iacton yanks the monosword free from the chitinous claw and instead drives the tip point down into what he believes is the joint between the Auldmaw's enormous double-clawed foot and ankle. The flesh here yields easier, and the blade sinks in deeply, passing between what seem to be parallel bones or thickly corded tendons.
He is nearly lifted bodily when the Auldmaw lurches into motion.
The Pipesource
The Pipesource
Ariella screams like a banshee, purple-black warpfire spreading from her mouth in a gout of rage and loss as Silus is ripped away. Her head snaps back again, flinging a rain of jagged icicles behind her, the She-Wolf's arms tensing at her sides as she redoubles the vise-like telekinetic grip she has channeled upon the Auldmaw. The fury of the witch is made manifest in her as she screeches at her foe, her lips trembling with the unnatural cold of the Warp.
"H-HERE THEN YOU F-FOUL B-I-T-C-H!"
"HERE!"
"YOU HAVE C-COME FOR M-ME... HERE I AM!"
Sigmunt pales as the Auldmaw shakes free of her invisible shackles and lunges forward, his expression of genuine terror mirrored by the gangers around him. Hard men, fearless men, all, but no sane man is born with the temerity to face down such a monstrosity.
"Grenades, a stubber, now! We need them now!"
Recognizing what Stroinigli has done, he begins to scream at the rear ranks, commanding the awestruck duct wolves to bring up heavier weapons and explosives, and to stand firm. He then turns and fires again.
I will hold action while maintaining Inflict Pain. When I see Savalos clear, I will attempt Spasm on Auldmaw.
Iacton desperately yanks his sword out of the great wolf and stabs once again.
Grabbing the netting with the frag grenades I take a quick glance at the wrecked body of the man tossed by the Auldmaw. The significence of it hits me like a brick when I realize its Silus. Does he have any kin? Two Alpha's...
I am snapped out of my train of thought hearing my mothers screams. If I don't act quickly, the Old She Wolf will be joining him.
I look for a way to secure the netting to the Auldmaw, and pull the pins on the frag grenades. I hope to jump off the Auldmaw to a place of safety away from its jaws. Hopefully I can find myself a soft landing. Granted landing on other person qualifies as a soft landing.
The Pipesource
Feeling the Auldmaw's massive muscles rippling beneath where he clutches for purchase on its hardened carapace, Savalos slips and slides on the creature's back, hands smeared with stinking, pulverized fungoid and acrid-smelling ichor. He knows now, with Silus gone and the strange scepter dark and silent, that he has little time before the beast begins its rampage in earnest.
With little recourse, he pulls the webbing belt from the hilt of his father's scerrido, passing the cluster of grenades to his other hand while placing the blade between his teeth. He then unsheathes his combat knife, driving the finely-honed blade that has served him well for so many years into the seeping wound in the Auldmaw's back. Wrapping the webbing belt around the old knife's hilt, he hastily sheathes his father's blade before sliding his gore-stained fingers through the trio of silver rings. Tightening his aching knuckles around them, Savalos Thul closes his eyes, and takes a deep, indrawn breath.
For a moment, Savalos sees the face of his father as only the reckless, headstrong, street-urchin child he once was remembers him. The hard, knife-sharp cheekbones and angular chin. The severe, smirking mouth that could praise and cut by turn. An unflinching gaze of cerulean blue that made an otherwise slim and unimposing man inspire all who loved him and terrify all who dared oppose him. Tyvenius' eyes were his own, and they seemed proud.
Yanking the rings off all at once, Savalos kicks away from Auldmaw, rolling to his right, sliding along the humongous beast's flank through the rank, sprouting caps of the fungoids until he feels nothing but the gut-churning sensation of empty space below his feet.
The Pipesource
Uriah winces, expecting the worst as he watches Savalos' uncontrolled tumble from the back of the hulking Auldmaw. Just as the monstrous duct wolf begins its leap, through some small miracle, Thul kicks away from the beast's flank, spinning in midair to land feet-first and then roll safely out of the path of the massive, jack-hammering hind leg. He scrabbles for purchase amid the shattered litter of rockcrete and then throws himself flat, as far away from the monster as possible. Sensing from their mutual training what is to come, Uriah defensively lowers his profile as well, centering his thoughts and driving his psychic energies into the visualized ganglia and neuro-muscular nerve clusters of the Auldmaw.
The Pipesource
Everything seems to happen simultaneously:
The rocky, uneven floor of the Pipesource shudders with a jarring tremor as the Auldmaw propels itself high into the air, a veritable wall of flesh vaulting upward above the blazing guns of the duct wolf gangers. At the very apex of its leap, all existing sound is erased by a thunderous explosion which rocks the xenos beast. Burnt chunks of flesh and bone are blasted outward from just above its shoulder blades, driving the huge creature down with a concussive force---as if the great hand of the God Emperor himself had suddenly smote it from above.
The pounce that should have carried the Auldmaw into the backpedaling ranks of Luceros' bodyguards instead is foreshortened, sending it crashing down upon its belly just a scant meter short of its terrified prey. Seizing the opportunity presented, Uriah piggybacks upon the surging psychic energy manifesting within the cavern from Ariella, and drives his mind like a mental stiletto into the ravaged musculature of the monster, causing its twin-clawed forelimbs, now struggling to keep it upright, to spasm and collapse. With a titanic crash that rivals the explosion of the grenades, the Auldmaw's screeching maw is brought down hard atop her writhing tendrils, slamming it down level with the craggy ground.
The stunned gangers react like a primitive people, long cowed by an angry and vengeful god, who have just seen their invincible deity bleed. They rally almost instantly, sensing their chance, and open up with their guns from point blank, blasting apart tendrils, teeth, and tissue from the Auldmaw's huge skull.
Stroinigli renews his attack, joining the firing squad.
As Luceros advances, thumbing the hammer back again and again on his handcannon, the Auldmaw struggles to rise, her whipping tendrils grabbing three of the closest gangers, constricting the bodies of these unlucky souls until the awful sounds of bones popping and breaking can be heard, before viciously flinging them aside.
Cutting his way into the writhing tentacles like a dervish, Iacton severs one that reaches out to grasp him, but does not get close enough to inflict a mortal blow on the gigantic duct wolf.
The Pipesource
The Pipesource
Thrown to her knees by the combined force of the Auldmaw's impact and a slip on the sheen of crystallized Warp-ice she herself has created, Ariella manages to pull herself upright, continuing her psychic assault unabated on the Auldmaw. The force of her telekinetic blows blast teeth from one side of the monster's triple-hinged mandible, shattering the stalagtite-sized fangs like kindling.
Sigmunt racks and reloads the empty scattergun, fumbling to insert a shell before the tentacles reach him.
After I land, and take cover behind the rockcrete I quickly pat myself down subsciously. Not believing that I didn't hurt myself during my fall, or the resounding explosion.
I get up, swinging my Duct Sweeper off of my shoulder and level the barrel at the Auldmaw. I am not stunned that the monster is still standing after the explosion. After what I witnessed with the Eviserator, The Mercy, and the Gearbox I think little would shock me anymore. All I know is the beast must go down or we will all die.
Somewhere along the Trans-Vaxus Interchange, South Quadrant
Peering through one of the side gunports in the cargo-8 from around Oktammor's shoulder, Kaltos' photovisor is overwhelmed by a blinding flash of light. The subsequent explosion lifts the left-side wheels of the heavy hauler a meter off of the ground, sending everyone within the crowded rear compartment either crashing to the floor or into painful collisions with their fellows. The driver's expertise cannot be understated, as he somehow rights the slewing truck after it sideswipes the Interchange's heavy guardrail, pulverizing a pair of intervening groundcars.
Rising to his feet again, Kaltos' retinas are burnt with the afterimage of the missile's arrow straight flight into the decoy cargo-8 two lanes over. Looking through the rear gunport he can see the smoldering ruin of its chassis still sliding along the rockcrete roadway, plowing smaller vehicles before it. An Arbites ornithopter buzzes along behind, low, over the roadway, the plume of smoke from the weapon's exhaust contrail still trailing from the wing.
One of Dunkan's men, his composure completely gone now, shouts over and over again at Oktammor, the burly bodyguard's eyes wide with shock at what just occurred.
"The fecking Arbites just fired ordinance at a commercial transport on a civilian roadway! In the hive for Throne's sake! In the hive!"
For the first time since you have met him, the normally composed Oktammor looks overwhelmed and out of his element.
I will sustain Spasm. I do not believe I have any actions, or I will have a hard time maintaining the powers.
The Pipesource
Staggering to his feet, shaking off the cobwebs from his landing, Savalos slings his duct sweeper from his shoulder, racks the weapon, and runs toward the crippled Auldmaw. Ducking beneath and dodging away from the flailing tentacles, he rapidly closes form the side as the monster struggles to rise.
A flicker of doubt enters his mind as he draws close to the Auldmaw's skull, a ghostly hint of movement catching his eye from the periphery of his vision back near where he landed.