Albrek coughs to one side, away from the wound, before turning and looking irritably in your direction.
"Throne's Sake, Sav, just don't stand there gawking, hold this in place while I bind it with tape!"
In typical, blunt, callous fashion, Ishmael asks,
"Is she dead?"
The cherubim flutters in from the shadows.
"She lives. For now."
I get on my knee's and hold the wadding down with a firm grip. "I've never gawked in my life Brek. Seen enough bite wounds from these to last me a life time." Once Albrek is done taping Quincus. I get up and get the pass card. "We need to get her to a safe bed. Should be easy now. She's marked." I pull down the furs on my chest showing scars of a bite marks along my shoulder, and right side long since healed. "Brek, you think its safe for Druuther to carry her? Or do we need a Saw Bones to come here?"
Have I ever felt anything like that before?
I stop moving closer.
Iacton silently stands up and places his hand on Uriah's shoulder, a determined look in his eyes. "Don't. Touch it. Pick it up of you wish, but for the Emperor's sake, don't let it actually touch you."
"I cannot get closer. It is like it is affecting me at a psychic level through all my senses."
I pray to The Emperor for strength:
"May The Emperor protect us from whatever is tainting that thing and give us strength to withstand its influences."
Have I ever felt anything like that before?
I stop moving closer.
Spire #16 sub-basement maintenance accessway number 232
"We need to get her to a safe bed. Should be easy now. She's marked."
"Brek, you think its safe for Druuther to carry her? Or do we need a Saw Bones to come here?"
Albrek seems as pale as Quincus now that you look at him closer. He shakes his head, whether to clear his thoughts or shake away the beads of perspiration accumulating there, you cannot be certain.
"I've done all I can. She needs a real medicae; facilities and equipment. I've doped her up with as much opiate and blood coagulant as she can tolerate, as much as I'd dare. With the wound bound, travel shouldn't be an issue, as long as we're close. Lingering here probably wouldn't do much for the health of any of us, anyway."
"Alright. Druuther can you carry her? If not I will." I sling my shotgun, and put my useless pistol back in my pocket. "It will take me a bit to get my bearings once we get out onto the Grey Way, but I use to know a good Saw Bones. Can trust em. We will need somebody to carry these wolf carcass's with us as payment. What do you say Druuther?" All the while my mind is spinning. Getting Sunshine to a Doc I trust. Setting up our tail to see if the others are being tailed, or if they are still alive. Then it hits me. I look down at Quincus's pale skin stained with blood. Johnnie's going to kick my ...
"I cannot get closer. It is like it is affecting me at a psychic level through all my senses."
I pray to The Emperor for strength:
"May The Emperor protect us from whatever is tainting that thing and give us strength to withstand its influences."
Iacton gives Uriah a knowing look before taking off his cloak and once again takes out the handkerchief. He whispers a prayer in an unknown dialect before leaning down and carefully attempting to pick up the feather again.
Iacton gives Uriah a knowing look before taking off his cloak and wrapping it around his hand. He whispers a prayer in an unknown dialect before leaning down and attempting to pick up the feather again.
"Alright. Druuther can you carry her?
Slinging his autocannon back over his shoulder, Druuther leans forward without a word, gently lifting Quincus like a new father picking up his infant daughter for the first time, albeit with knobby, calloused hands the size of grox roasts.
When Albrek makes an attempt to examine the deep wound in his arm, the huge ogryn tugs it away, an angry crease furrowing his protruding brow.
"Take Mistress 'Q ta help then, hiver."
In Krade's Offices
Iacton gives Uriah a knowing look before taking off his cloak and once again takes out the handkerchief. He whispers a prayer in an unknown dialect before leaning down and carefully attempting to pick up the feather again.
Iacton very carefully lifts the feather from the floor, making certain to completely envelop it in the bloodstained 'kerchief. He folds the cloth over the feather doubly before wrapping it with a band of elastic found on Krade's desk.
As the effects of the feather wears off, I shake my head and regain my composure. Was the feather giving off anything of the Immaterium, or was its effects psychic in nature?
"Alright follow me." I lead the group down the rest of the corridor toward the exit. "Brek, Ishmael; we are going to be need someone to keep an eye out for the others. They will be counting on us to tail them."
Common Lore: Underworld test (1d100=67)
Ivaanov, conspicuously silent for the duration of this bizarre occurence, fiddles with the controls on the hidden pict-corder, then looks toward the others with an expression of irritated unease that seems to stem from his refusal to acknowledge the obvious supernatural import of what has just happened.
"Investigator Rico, all of you, I believe I have successfully communed with the machine spirit occupying this facsimile of a book. The pict-corder stands ready to reveal its secrets."
His vox buzzes with a whine of squealing feedback as he finishes his sentence, something Iacton recognizes as Ivaanov showing something akin to excitement.
As the effects of the feather wears off, I shake my head and regain my composure. Was the feather giving off anything of the Immaterium, or was its effects psychic in nature?
"Alright follow me." I lead the group down the rest of the corridor toward the exit. "Brek, Ishmael; we are going to be needing someone to keep an eye out for the others. They will be counting on us to tail them."
"We'll stay behind then, Sav. I think I can get us into one of these storage chambers until the others arrive. We'll make contact and let them know where you were headed, then hunker down for a bit and see if we've picked up a tail."
"This is my preference as well. An explosive collar would not be enough for me to drag one of those filthy, misshapen creatures, anyway."
Forbidden Lore(Daemonology)=
Made it exactly.
Common Lore: Underworld test (1d100=67)
Savalos realizes something very important. Unless Druuther wants to become a magnet for ganger bullets, he'll have to lose the Arbites Judicium armor before you reach the Grey Way.
"Let me get everyone out of here first. There is bound to be other Wolves nearby. Once I know Sunshine is safe I will meet up with you all at the Gearbox."
I pause for a minute. "Druuther..." I lean over to Quincus and gently tear away the Arbite symbol. "Need to remove yours as well. Or she won't get any healing down here. Your going to need to drop your armor as well. I'll hold her while you take it off."
Forbidden Lore(Daemonology)=1d100
Made it exactly.
"So, should we risk keeping it with us now that it can be safely handled? I would... rather not leave this handkerchief behind."
"Handle that feather very carefully, Iacton. That feather is from a daemon."
As I say this, I make the sign of the Aquila.
Spire #16 sub-basement maintenance accessway number 232
I pause for a minute."Druuther..." I lean over to Quincus and gently tear away the Arbites symbol. "Need to remove yours as well. Or she won't get any healing down here. Your going to need to drop your armor as well. I'll hold her while you take it off."
Not surprisingly, the ogryn does not even hesitate, so deep is his loyalty to his mistress. He gently sets Quincus down before stripping off the distinctive green and gold triangular plating covering his arms and shins. When he removes the elbow-guard from his bulging right arm, it pours bright red blood out from it like a full cup being tipped. The gash from the bite is hard to look at, but given the criss-crossing scars above and below it, you suspect that Druuther has seen far worse.
Ivaanov, conspicuously silent for the duration of this bizarre occurence, fiddles with the controls on the hidden pict-corder, then looks toward the others with an expression of irritated unease that seems to stem from his refusal to acknowledge the obvious supernatural import of what has just happened.
"Investigator Rico, all of you, I believe I have successfully communed with the machine spirit occupying this facsimile of a book. The pict-corder stands ready to reveal its secrets."
His vox buzzes with a whine of squealing feedback as he finishes his sentence, something Iacton recognizes as Ivaanov showing something akin to excitement.
"Can you show us what the machine can do?"
"So, should we risk keeping it with us now that it can be safely handled? I would... rather not leave this handkerchief behind."
"That is a piece of a Daemon, can we afford to let it be found by anyone? We must take it with us as long as whatever that cloth of yours is doing, is blocking the power of the Immaterium."
I wonder about what that cloth is, what type of artifact.
"Investigator Rico, all of you, I believe I have successfully communed with the machine spirit occupying this facsimile of a book. The pict-corder stands ready to reveal its secrets."
His vox buzzes with a whine of squealing feedback as he finishes his sentence.
"Thank you Ivaanov, please show us the events leading up to his taking."
Johnnie waits for the recorder to disclose its secrets.
Looking at the Ogryn. "Well get your arm looked at after she is taken care of Druuther." I lead everyone out of the corridor as quickly as I can. Keeping alert for the sound of more claws on metal or the distinct howl of more Dusk Wolves.
Ivaanov nods toward Johnnie and Uriah, and begins to adjust the dials and punch commands into the hidden pict-corder's tiny keypad.
The tech-priest appears disturbed and uncomfortable, and the sense that it is more than the corrupting evil of the feather that bothers him now is obvious. Something he has uncovered while reviewing the recording has stirred a great unease in him. The eerie echoing effect in his vox when he next speaks seems to reinforce this notion, as this is the closest approximation to true fear that Ivaanov can emote.
"I have examined the existing recordings, and parsed out the material that is relevant to our investigation...I must say, what I have discovered is...troubling."
The tech-priest punches a key.
Ivaanov steps back from the desk as a meter high hololithic screen flickers into existence, suspended above the antique desk. Your small group adjusts their positions in the room to better view the flatly projected holographic recording. The black and white image is starkly clear, providing a wide-angled view of the office in front of the desk and the panoramic window beyond. The fidelity is sufficient enough for you to observe the reflection of the other side of the room, containing the mirror, paintings, and the entry door in the panoramic diamantine window looking out over the spires of Orcut VII. There is no sound. A digital overlay on the bottom right of the screen tracks the date, hour, minute, and second in Imperial Standard timekeeping.
There is a blur of motion and distortion as Ivaanov advances the display to period roughly one day ago.
The buzzing of the tech-priests voice interrupts your focus for a moment.
"I have isolated what I believe to be the moment of the High Arbiter's abduction. I cannot conjecture what has occurred here precisely, but I warn you it is... difficult...to watch..."
"Go ahead Ivaanov."
The blur of the recording stops, and resolves abruptly into the office, much as it appears to your eyes now. In the reflection of the great window, a man can be observed sitting at the massive desk, his hands steepled before his face, as if in deep concentration. His exact features are difficult to make out in the reflected image, but by Iacton and Ivaanov's reactions it is apparent that this is High Arbiter of the Oremor Judicium, Desius Krade, your master's former interrogator.
No one else appears to be in the spacious office.
After a pause, the man separates his interlaced hands, and slowly rises, the folds of his green and gold robes of office hanging from his tall frame. In the window's reflection, you can see he takes a few slow steps to the wall behind his desk, examining the painting showing his master and yours, Inquisitor Ahmazzi. His back turned to you in the reflection, he places one hand above the ebon sun depicted in the portrait before taking his hand away, slowly, almost reticently. Turning toward the window again, so that his reflection is facing you again, he strides forward until his back comes into view of the pict-corder, which resolves his image greatly. He takes a few more steps into the frame, revealing his full form, and slowly turns to face the wall he was examining moments before, as if hearing a noise.
High Arbiter Krade is a tall, bald man, with a saturnine visage. His countenance is pale and sullen, with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, and harsh, flinty eyes. Thin, wispy-looking gray sideburns hang to either side of his pointed jaw. He appears to be a man who has a confidence, bordering on arrogance, that demands respect and expects it. The severity of his thin mouth seems almost perpetually curled into the beginning of a harsh rebuke or scathing, sarcastic observation.
The mirror can be seen in the reflection, on the window behind him, just over his right shoulder where it hangs on the opposite wall, the one he presently faces. It is he height of a man and oval-shaped. Oddly, it is perfectly clear, even reflected in the window. The dull, blackened metallic frame ringing it is surrounded by alternating depictions of curled, birdlike talons, and staring avian eyes.
At first, you can see Krade staring into the mirror, his reflection reflected in the window. However, the figure cannot possibly be his. His eyes widen at almost the same moment as yours when he/you notice this bizarre phenomenon.
The figure in the reflected reflection is a squat, bulbous, and hideously obese naked man whose face is even encased in repellent rolls of pasty fat. Tiny, piggish, emerald green eyes stare out at the High Arbiter, and man's fat, grub-like lips part in a hideous smile. The smile is one of triumph and mockery.
Krade slowly mouths in absolute silence a word that anyone, regardless of their lip-reading talents can understand.
No.
The reflection suddenly shows an eruption of fluid from the mirror, a spraying tide of liquid filth and fist-sized, squirming chunks of rot that washes over the hideous man in the mirror. It surges out from the oval looking glass, as if a window to hell was opened in the wall and the rotting fluid then comes into the actual frame of the pict-corder, surging around Desius Krade's knees, staining the hem of his robe. He does not back away, instead holding his hands aloft, not in supplication, or fear, but for some other purpose, his eyes closing in concentration. The man-in-the-mirror is now a dark shadow, walking backward, deeper into the mirror wall, as if a space exists within it. The meaty chunks in the tide now surround Krade, dozens of them, and horrifically, they begin to sprout arms, legs, eyes. And mouths. Dozens of tiny, hideous, needle filled maws dripping half-congealed viscera and trickling vomit. Blasphemous pustules and weeping tumors riddle the creature's tiny bodies, and they swarm the High Arbiter like a tide of starving vermin, grasping and pulling at his robes. The diminutive horrors collect at Krade's feet, tearing and pulling at the hem of his robes, actually lifting him in a standing position off of the ground and dragging him bodily toward the mirror, his concentration disrupted.
The last image of the interrogator in the frame, is a close-up of his face leaving the angle of view, his expression one of horror and surprise. But also, one of cold anger. As he disappears from the angle of the pict-corder, your eyes shift to the window reflection again, and you watch as he is bodily delivered into the gaping portal of the mirror by his tiny, repellent porters. As he passes the threshold, the pooling tide of rot and filth abruptly reverses course, like a tide with a powerful undertow, and follows the High Arbiter and the puny abominations back into the mirror, defying all the laws of nature and science.
A moment later, the surface of the mirror is as solid as it ever was, a matte black surface showing nothing of what just occurred.
"Emperor preserve us..."
Iacton breaks out in a cold sweat and continues to stare, wide-eyed, at the screen.
Fear test=
"God-Emporer protect us."
I make the sign of the Aquila.
Forbidden Lore(Daemonology)=
"This...is...wrong."
Failed Fear Check by several degrees 1d100=66
"Nooooooo!!!!!!!"
Johnnie screams in fear and raises his shotgun at the screen before, aiming. The barrel wavers a little, as Johnnie blinks away the tears from his eyes. He will shoot if no one stops him in time.
"Stop, Rico do not shoot! We need to keep the Pict-corder to show the others. If necessary, we will erase it later."
Spire #16 sub-basement maintenance accessway number 232
After leaving Albrek and Ishmael behind to reunite with the rest of the group while watching for any tails, Druuther and Savalos begin the long walk to the end of Accessway #232.
The sturdy ogryn carries Quincus fairly easily, gently balancing her upon his shoulder and taking care not to jostle her too much. His breathing at times seems labored from the exertion, but no complaint escapes his broad lips. In fact, he says very little at all, and that is just fine with Savalos, as the hiver focuses more of his attention on sweeping the corridor ahead from side to with his shotgun, ever vigilant for more duct wolves.
The cherubim flies along behind the trio, the fluttering of her wings one of the only sounds heard for many minutes as the companions navigate the increasingly decrepit and shadowy tunnel. The illumination of the caged glow-globes diminishes or is gone altogether in some stretches, leaving as the only light the weak amber glow of Druuther's Arbites issue handlight.
At times, great jagged holes in the rockcrete flooring open up, exposing dark voids below and older, lightless access passageways that have not felt a person tread them in hundreds of years. At other points, the great duct-works arrayed above the tunnel has fallen, rusted and shattered to the floor, forcing both of you to clamber up over curving, jagged, metal segments of pipe that leave blood red oxidized metal stains adhered to your hands. You walk for nearly two hours before the glow-globes are gone entirely. Although the downward grade in the floor is nearly undetectable to most, you sense the familiar feeling of descending deeper into the bowels of the Hive.
Finally, just when it seems as if the tunnel will go on forever, Druuther's light illuminates a long, reinforced wall of ferrocrete from which sprouts all manner of black and red fungal blooms from the mortarless cracks joining the blocks. A thick duralloy door, reinforced on the edges, with rusting one-way hinges opening inward stands before you in the center of tunnel, a small opaque window about the size of a cogitator screen embedded roughly in the center, protected by a thick metal grillwork. A small, plastic-shelled call box with an older Arbites logo stenciled on the side is mounted to the left of the door,
apparently where the card reader is located if you were to hazard a guess.
In Krade's Offices