The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
Trizo dol Soulard and Intelligencer Leprade are the last of the remaining players to return, the latter taking his chair with an askance look at the small figurine still sitting on the table before Wardja. The acolytes both notice, and wonder what they see in his eyes at that moment, a brief glimmer of his own fears reflected, perhaps?
Once the audience has settled into their seats once again, and the senior concierge finishes his sycophantic massaging of their attentions, the tournament resumes, the outcome of the jarring bloodsport, simply an entertaining distraction for the majority of the patrons, abruptly and dismissively forgotten.
Thul and Wardja stare across the shorter span of the table at their mutual nemeses, Trizo and Leprade, while the Changeling and Jeremiah Blitz consider one another across the longer axis of the gaming surface. The players who have been eliminated, dol Geim (who seems to have stabilized somewhat), Lady Cinzia, and Keramiah Tor, sit a respectful distance away from the table proper, but still closer than the other patrons in the gallery. A hush falls over the room once again as the dealer strides to his place and waves his long-fingered hands in a sweeping gesture over the tabletop, symbolically signifying that play has recommenced, and the start of round six.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L
The door slams shut behind the beleaguered tech-priests and the wounded guardsman with a loud bang, its locking cylinders cycling into place with a loud hiss at the very moment that the arena's security personnel storm into the the fighting pit.
The narrow corridor extends for some distance ahead, lit in a wash of red-hued auxiliary lighting. At least a dozen separate doors open off of the tunnel, and as the three watch, one just before the ninety degree turn at the end opens with a hiss.
Staggering in this direction, past the other doors, Kaltos can hear muted banging coming from the other side of some, along with muffled, frustrated voices. Moving as quickly as possible, a trail of spilt blood following in their wake, the trio step around the corner of the open door and find themselves on the threshold of some manner of storage chamber. A musty smell pervades the interior on the unlit room.
Hoping good fortune will smile on me. Its time to stop playing like the pomp, but as the Wolf that I am. And bare my fangs proudly.
Just hope the witch doesn't interfere.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L
"Well I do not know why we are being lead to a storage chamber but they got the doors open so they must know something about the layout."
I quickly lead them into the room and I then hand the scythe and breast plate to the Private and the helm to Ivaanov. I take some of the scraps of my robes and rush back through the door and try to clean up the blood leading to the chamber as best as possible. Then head back in and see if there is any other exits.
When Leprade and Trizo spot the figurine, I try to discern something from their reactions. How weak is the leash?
Leaving the totem where it is for now and wondering if the Changeling is simply toying with us all.
I give a non-plussed look, drop my cards back on the table and light another lho. Finally a hand. Not a lot of chips left, will try to limp in.
"Ryuk let me take your shotgun, you and Launce use your flamers once they get close."
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
The plague zombies draw ever closer to Ryuk and Launce's side of the truck until the sound of their plodding, mushy footfalls gives way to the dry rasp of their scabrous, pawing hands against the side of the ruined vehicle.
Ryuk responds swiftly to Vincent's command, only pausing for a second as he tries to recall which of the several weapons he carries is the 'shot-gun'. Launce aids him with a not so subtle shout, and the weapon is tossed to the senior clerk. Launce, and then Ryuk, again with the tech-priest's patient direction, ready the flamers taken from the Solitarium.
The 7th Legion sergeant looks on the weapons with something akin to bemused jealously before lowering his gore-streaked chainsword and raising his laspistol in the direction of the encroaching creatures. Leaning carefully over the side of the barrel-shaped redoubt they stand upon, he shoots into the cluster of undead clamoring for their flesh below.
The shot is good one, burning a searing hole through the head of the nearest of their adversaries.
The sergeant looks at Vincent and states the obvious in a mordant monotone, "You have to kill the head or they keep coming."
Launce steps past Ryuk, his tattered red robes trailing behind him as the wind continues to pick up, the horrendous buzzing sound assailing their ears. He takes the flamer reverently in hand, demonstrating its use to Ryuk as he goes.
"Observe."
With a pull of the trigger, the pilot light at its tip flares blue, and a gout of molten promethium scours down the side of the truck and into the mass of flailing limbs.
The flame causes many of the moaning abominations to catch fire, their flesh and filthy hair burning away as they shriek and frustratedly rage, but none of them falls.
Consumed by flame, the ungainly undead cannot find purchase on the side of the truck, and the psyker seizes the advantage.
Ryuk, an apt pupil, strides forward and unleashes another gout of the Emperor's cleansing fury.
The combined curtain of immolating fire incinerates many of the undead vanguard, engulfing the ones behind them completely. Most fall with the wall of fire created, with stragglers wandering off in random directions, their heads like grotesquely larger-than-life match-sticks, the promethium aided fires consuming them before they can stagger out of the muck and mire.
The guardsman in the respirator mask goes slowly to one knee, seeing the nearest threat eliminated, and takes aim at the first cluster of walking corpses that has emerged from the canal.
The guardsman easily makes his shot, the lance of the las beam burning the wild-haired head off one of the corpse-penitents.
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
The heavy stubber continues to thunder over the din of the droning flies, ripping up the pasturage as it traces a path to the plague zombies shambling in from the east.
With a clank, the improvised brace the guardsman was using cracks from the weight and vibration of the weapon, making the burst of fire harmlessly over the heads of undead.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L
Kaltos hands over the trophies taken from Dohor the Harvester, and then quickly backtracks into the service corridor, using a tattered rag torn from his robe in an attempt to clean up some of the blood trail.
It is largely futile, and his efforts serve mostly to smear the sticky blood around, although he does manage to make the path they have taken more difficult to trace.
Returning to the storage chamber, he sees Ivaanov attending to Private Kott's vicious wound, tightening the makeshift bandage in an effort to staunch the flow of blood draining from the pale and haggard-looking guardsman's face. The tech-priest's own wound still sparks, dripping machine oil and blood, leaving a dark stain across the front of his robes. One of the luminen emitters in his goggled gaze has gone black.
He looks up as Kaltos reenters, still mute.
Kaltos begins to survey the room for exits or anything else that may have been the reason the arbitrator's tech-priest and the heretek led them here.
Nimbly catching the bulky shotgun, Vincent moves to put it into action, only to find its mechanical workings have been infiltrated by the Claustrum's mud.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
Wardja, his composure slowly returning, a testament more to his rigorous inquisitorial training than what he is feeling at that very moment, eyes both Leprade and Trizo, leaving the macabre little totem in full view.
The gang-lord has subsumed his simmering fury with a cold, detached stoicism that still somehow radiates menace, effortlessly returning his focus to the tournament and the greater game around it. He and Blitz are clearly the most accomplished gamblers at the table, nearly unreadable.
Leprade is another matter entirely, and Swinthosa can see that his facade of complete confidence is beginning to slip. His eyes flick to the figurine, and then to the Changeling (and his one-time rival, Rico), before turning to Trizo and lingering there for a time. The faintest glimmer of a reflection, cast by the light of the lonely candle somewhere above, shines on a single bead of sweat at his brow that tells another story from the stoic mask he now wears. Perhaps this glimmer of fear shows something else as well; perhaps his discomfort with the Changeling reveals he is the more intelligent of the corrupt alliance. Certainly his unease shows he is the one who remains most sane.
The insight is interrupted when Blitz reviews his cards, than elects to exercise his exclusive right to raise before the Draw.
"Well, well, here we all are again. It seems we're wearing our hearts on our sleeves this time around, eh, gentlemen? It would be a crying shame if we did not begin things with a bit of a wager---raise of ten."
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
As the combat shotgun fails to fire, uttering only a shuddering chock-click in Vincent's hands, the guardsman sergeant curses, holstering his pistol and unslinging his lasgun from his shoulder. Checking his charge pack again, he takes steady aim at the walking corpses that Vincent was just aiming at and fires.
Opting instead for the more powerful lasgun, the sergeant sears another hole in plague zombie's head. He yells to his comrade with the stubber, "Get that thing fecking level again, dammit!"
Launce, almost casually steps over toward Vincent, lowering the still smoldering flamer and securing it to his belt. In a motion that shows eerie economy of motion, almost as if he has rehearsed these very actions before or anticipated the jam, he reaches out with this manipulator mechadendrite and takes hold of Vincent's jammed shotgun. As the deft mechanical fingers play over the weapon, he hands his own combat shotgun to the senior clerk.
"Take it."
The undead advance inexorably as the tech-priest turns the weapon over and over in the coiled metallic tendril, and finally there is an audible click and the dud shell flies free. The mechadendrite spins about again and Launce hands the weapon back to its original owner, Ryuk.
The psyker looks at the weapon dubiously, before leveling it, his stance and aim informed by the tech-priest's calm instruction. He fires at the massing tide of undead in front of the toppled truck.
The weapon only clicks when he pulls the trigger, and Launce mutters a salty curse quite uncharacteristic of the typical tech-priest. Ryuk only stares at the weapon in confusion, wondering what he has done wrong.
Oblivious to this entire exchange, the guardsman lasgunner merely takes careful aim again, still kneeling, and fires into the mass of zombies before him.
The shot takes another of the creatures down, blasting the flak helmet from the stumbling guardsman at the lead of the rotting army.
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
Adjusting the heavy stubber to brace it on the lip of the tanker truck, the guardsman bats away bulbous flies swirling in his face and fires the weapon again.
Adjusting his aim, the heavy weapon tears apart the plague zombies in a shower of gore and dismembered limbs.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L
Unable to find an obvious exit from the large storage chamber, Kaltos circles back around from his search along rows of utility lockers to Ivaanov and the guardsman again.
Slumped awkwardly between sitting and reclining on one of several sealed flakboard crates, Ivaanov signals to him, even his binary cant emerging as an indecipherable string of unrecognizable characters at this time.
He sluggishly motions to Kaltos and brings his own hand in an obvious gesture to the damaged wiring and broken grillwork of his vox modulator.
The guardsman doesn't look much better, but is at least pressing one hand tightly to the makeshift compress that Ivaanov has managed to secure to his neck and face.
Hand is decent enough to invest the 10 chips. I toss them in when the dealer looks my way.
Even though Ivaanov and the others are alive and away. Deep down I feel I am still playing for time. I need a read of what's going to go down on round 9. While the table is important. The plays beyond the table is what interests me when I have the leisure to look about.
But it by no means that I will lessen my barbs on my nemesis. I will let Wardja squeeze the corrupt Arbite till he sweats.
"So Trizo... I heard you have had a recent shortage of soldiers lately. They defecting or are you just loosing them?"
Vincent looks over his shoulder at swarm of lies presaging the daemon's appearance. Staring into the buzzing and swirling blackness, he attempts to predict when it will appear, so he can prevent his fellows from being overcome by its effects.
"Prepare yourselves, when I tell you to you must all shut your eyes you must do so, and keep them shut until I instruct you otherwise."
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L
As I approach the duo I ask "Private can you have a look around and see if you can find anything useful or maybe an exit."
I turn toward Ivaanov and say " Well lets see if I can get this in some semblance of order here."
Accessing Data banks: Vox construction...pending...access denied...insufficient clearance.
Accessing Data banks: Vox Repair...pending...no data found.
With the searches coming up unusable or not there I try to go with my instincts and general knowledge...it seems to be somewhat working.
Maybe I can make up some replacement parts then I remember that I found nothing of use to even tighten up the linkage on the chain scythe if I had to.
"Well how does that work."
Leprade: interesting. Am I reading cracks in the unholy alliance? Regret on the part of the Intelligencer? More likely he's realizing just how irrevocably damned he is. Whatever bargain he made, win or lose, his soul is forfeit. Seems like he understands the daemon is simply stringing him along.
Speaking of which, I look down at the figurine. Is the object a daemonic threat or simply a charlatan's trick to unnerve me? No matter, my response is the same. Do the job.
"Call." I push one-third of my remaining chips towards the center of the table. It'll be now or never.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L
Private Kotts, pale and bloody, rises from the crate and begins to move around the storage chamber, still pressing the wadded bandage to his face while looking for some means of egress.
Kaltos kneels beside Ivaanov, who nods weakly at his words.
Examining the tangled mass of components and exposed wiring it is abundantly clear to the secutor that he has no viable schematic or practical experience with this manner of vox modulator. Still, he must do something for his Mechanicum comrade, and he begins to gingerly work through the leads and audio output circuits, unwinding the Gordian knot of conduit that Ivaanov had hastily rigged for the improvised transmitter/receiver that likely saved all of their lives.
Working quickly, he solders several leads, diligently adjusting the positions of the various components, genuinely regretful that this is not his area of expertise. This thought, unbidden, brings his mind back to the hive-born boy, Launce. A strange feeling of unease and regret fills him, a sense of concern for his well-being, and oddly, guilt. Perhaps if he had possessed the acumen, he could have effected the surgical procedure necessary to install his vox, giving him back his voice, instead of the heretek from whose fastness he was abducted.
Lost in his reverie, he is taken aback when a squawk of raw, abrasive static sounds from the tech-priest's vox-grill. Adjusting the gain, Kaltos finds that feedback generated is too powerful at normal volumes, and he must settle on lowering the setting to the minimus output.
When Ivaavnov speaks again, his voice is barely audible, filled with a tinny vibrato, quite unlike his normal voice. Kaltos momentarily adjusts his auditory receptors to compensate. The tech-priest sounds like a ghost of himself, and the metaphor is disturbingly apt considering the severity of the injuries and damage he has received.
"Serviceable work for a secutor. My thanks."
He coughs, lubricant and blood flecking his pale lips, one eye staring at Kaltos, while the other has gone as black as the void. The lumen strips along his cheeks flicker on and off as he talks.
It is almost as if Ivaanov reads his mind.
"Fear not for the boy, Kaltos Havelock. In his wisdom and foresight, my master has seen to his safety. We all have our roles to play and his is yet to come---or has come to pass." Ivaanov laughs, a metallic scratching sound that only a fellow servant of the Adeptus Mechanicus could know was amusement. "I apologize, it is sometimes confusing even for one such as I, who comprehends better than others some of the theories involved in just what he is capable of."
Kaltos somehow knows the person Ivaanov speaks of is not their shared master, Magos Triskaedestes, and a chill passes through his body, both in his organic and mechanicum components.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
Wardja pushes his ten markers across the table, eyes watching Leprade intently, followed in turn by Savalos, who does the same.
"So Trizo... I heard you have had a recent shortage of soldiers lately. They defecting or are you just losing them?"
The Yellobouros kingpin shrugs disinterestedly, not rising to the bait, his face an impassive blank once again.
"It is a violent world we live in, Thul, as I am sure you know from firsthand experience."
He looks up from his cards, eyes flicking from Savalos' furs to his face, his retort cold, and matter-of-fact,
"I had thought that particular breed was extinct. None has seen their kind for quite some time in these parts."
He smiles gamely.
"Regardless, it is only a matter of time, at least you will have your shabby little keepsake."
The Changeling, his expression clearly showing that he relishes the taste of the adversaries bitter words, pushes his own chips into the pot, saying nothing.
Trizo follows suit.
"Call"
When the dealer reaches Leprade, the Intelligencer looks around the table, as if taking stock of where things presently stand amongst his competitors. He adds his markers to the ante as well, and proceeds to methodically rearrange his cards in hand.
The dealer then signals to Blitz, and the rogue trader opts for an Aggressive Draw, exchanging all but one of his cards for some of the twenty-four that were not dealt.
The dealer then turns to Wardja, followed by Savalos.
Conservative Draw.
"True enough. Violent world indeed."
"Funny, they have been saying that since Oremor was first settled. Yet the Wolf always remains."
"They say it only shows itself only when it has to defend its pack, and is ready for the kill..."
I level my eyes on Trizo, and settle them onto Leprade. I expect no to little reaction from the Yelloback. But wouldn't mind making the Arbite sweat a little.
Feeling like I should stand pat but some great hands have lost this evening. I try to improve my cards.
Glancing at the figurine I wonder why it seems as if my luck has turned.
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
Vincent looks over his shoulder at swarm of lies presaging the daemon's appearance. Staring into the buzzing and swirling blackness, he attempts to predict when it will appear, so he can prevent his fellows from being overcome by its effects.
"Prepare yourselves, when I tell you to you must all shut your eyes you must do so, and keep them shut until I instruct you otherwise."
Vincent isn't quite sure what he expected with regard to the guardsmen's reaction to his words, but even he must admit to surprise at the sergeant's reply and the trio's tacit compliance.
"You heard the clerk, boys, I think we all feel it, so keep your gaze down when he gives the word, something bad's coming this way!"
Sensing Vincent's reaction, he spares him a glance as he sights down his las, an insouciant smirk creasing his tight lips.
"C'mon then, you think we survived this long without learning to look and run the other way?"
His shot is true, melting the skull of a corpse-guardsman with flash of las-light.
Launce nods at Vincent's words, flicking black flies away from his face. The young tech-priest reaches out and grabs Launce's shotgun from his hands, gesturing to the flamer at his belt again. His mechadendrite spins the weapon in its grasp as he tries to clear the breech while beseeching the Omnissiah for intercession in a voice that sounds like it is making a divine imprecation.
The undead from the canal continue to congregate near its lip, growing in numbers even as the edge of the horde staggers closer to the truck.
Ryuk slowly moves toward Vincent's side of the tanker, cradling the weapon in hand awkwardly, the psyker's gaze flicking back over his shoulder to the empty field behind them that separates the survivors from the fallow fungoid forest.
His normally stoic features look pained, as if ill to the stomach.
"They are nearly here, Vincent."
He holds the hand flamer aloft, and launces a sheet of searing flame at the oncoming undead with a long pull of the trigger.
The cascade of fire engulfs the zombies at the vanguard of the host emerging from the canal, incinerating them utterly and leaving a capering, ankle-high swath of fire licking at the severed fungoid roots
for several meters.
The guardsman fires another burst with a crack-hiss of his weapon.
His shots stitch across the chests of the nearest walking corpses, but this merely serves to punch some holes in them, they shamble on regardless.
As he moves to brace and steady the heavy stubber, Vincent feels a pinching at his temples, the droning buzz filling his head like white noise. The air in the field behind the truck begins to twitch and coalesce, the millions of flies seeming to squirm in mid-air, like writhing black and white static on a pic-viewer painted from behind by a horrid, bile-colored unlight. An awful noise, a ripping, squelching sound, as if a titanic stomach heaves somewhere, above, below, and all around the men cowering on the water truck sounds, the birth pangs of something corrupted beyond reason trying to tear its way into this world.
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
Swatting at the omnipresent cloud of black, biting flies, the guardsman and Vincent bull the heavy weapon along the make-shift brace of the water truck's rear filling hatch and fire another deafening burst at the last of the undead in the field to the east.
The stubber-fire sends plumes of black earth shooting into the air in front of the gang of zombies, dropping one of them when it rips its legs off, but the rest continue unabated, their wounds not enough to destroy them.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
"Funny, they have been saying that since Oremor was first settled. Yet the Wolf always remains."
Savalos' pointed words, as he expected, have little effect on Trizo dol Soulard, and the gang-lord's gaze never leaves his cards as they wage their little back-and-forth war of barbs. Trizo blinks slowly, like a torpid snake, the watchful tattoos on his eyelids seeming to broadcast his unspoken menace by proxy, the message very clear.
Leprade is another matter. The Intelligencer flinches slightly at the mention of wolves, and for some reason he cannot quite place, Savalos' mind hearkens back to the woodcut carvings of Krade as commissar from the depths of the Astropathic Choir.
After receiving his cards, it takes all of Wardja's skill at deception to not betray himself with a reaction. Thankful for both his inquisitorial and arbitrator training, he tries to keep a neutral expression even though the need to maintain his charade of Odo Wimarc is gone. The hand is nearly perfect, a Greater Array led by the Cherubim that perhaps only one or two hands could possibly beat.
Savalos' habitually moves the placards about in his hand as well; his Draw netting a strong hand from a decent one. He eyes his competitors as they take their own cards in turn.
The Changeling's Draw is an aggressive one, nearly turning over the entire hand he previously held. While watching the thing that was once Johnnie, Savalos cannot help but feel the numbing weight of his friend's fate hanging over him. Thinking back to his encounter with the daemon at Aebena's hab he realizes that it could just as likely be his own. While his mind picks over such intrusive thoughts, he raises his gaze and sees the thing looking at him, the complexity of the conniving machinations going on behind those bright blue orbs impenetrable as ever to his mortal mind.
Trizo elects for a Conservative Draw, taking two cards and surveying the rest of the table after a cursory glance at his hand.
When it comes time for Leprade, he requests but a pair of placards to exchange as well, before fanning them out in front of his face and nodding to himself.
The dealer then motions to Blitz, who takes one final look around the table and shrugs in defeat.
"It appears my luck has abated somewhat gentlemen, this hand is yours to decide."
He folds, still confident behind his considerable and game-leading stacks of chips despite the poor hand.
The dealer looks to Wardja, as the decision to raise or pass has come again to him.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L, Storage Cell AA44
As Kaltos stares at Ivaanov in the cluttered storage chamber, the air tinged with the tang of blood and spilt machine oil, trying to make sense of his disturbing and perplexing revelation, Private Kotts comes back around the corner from a row of stacked, listing lockers, pressing a large, fresh, bandage to his face that is already sopping up blood.
When he speaks, his voice is low and strained, almost guttural, his throat tight with coagulating blood.
"Over here, I think I found our belongings, they're sorted in bins, but it doesn't look like they had time to stow 'em. There's some medicae supplies as well."
Ivaanov finally averts his gaze from Kaltos, saying nothing more.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
Uriah winces, feeling the maddening, feather-soft stirrings of Trizo's witch as she probes the Immaterium around her again, searching and picking at the thoughts of those at the table, her head bowed almost to her chest.
Vincent watches as the the pestilential swarm begins to stretch the very fabric universe like a swollen pustule preparing to burst. Gritting his teeth against infernal buzzing, he bellows to the others:
"They're coming!!"
Probably giving lots of tells but it may not matter with my small stack. Will have to hope the bigger sharks go after each other. Of course I lost the last hand I went in big on...
I push in my remaining chips.
"All in."
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
Uriah frowns, feeling the tickling slippage of the Warp from the casino floor below in his mind, like the repulsive caress of a spider's leg. Despite his efforts to ascertain what is occurring on the periphery of the table, his perception is occluded by the witch's powerful psychic ability, as she ever so subtly bends it to some task.
Unduz II, Oremor 7th Legion Penal Claustrum, Designate Ylesium, Plantation 7, Husbandry Barn Cluster 177, Edge of the Tertiary Fallow Fields.
The combat shotgun proves to be a particularly effective armament when employed against the risen dead, and even though Vincent's bony arms ache with the powerful recoil, the recursive cone of death expelled by the weapon is worth it, as it tears two of the zombies apart.
"They're coming!!"
The guard sergeant, upon hearing this warning, sets down his lasgun and clenches his hands over his helmeted head, blocking his ears to the buzzing drone, and squinting his eyes tightly shut even in the face of the encroaching threat of the undead. He bellows through spittle-flecked lips, fighting back against the nausea they all feel under the shadow of the vomiting Warp-stuff congealing nearby.
"You fecking heard him, avert your eyes!"
The guardsman manning the stubber needs no further encouragement, and follows suit, as does Launce and the third of the Oremor 7th, his face hidden behind the blankly staring eyes of his respirator mask.
Only Ryuk and Vincent, both warily gazing into the field behind the truck, manage to catch a glimpse of what occurs, as the cloud of bloated flies, rasping locusts and other, even less identifiable winged vermin come together into a black cloud that robs the field of light. The darkness then undergoes a vibrating transformation, twitching in time to the awful cadence of the maddening, droning buzz, casting a fetid, sepia colored shadow across the harvested field. A cloying wash of putrid air escapes from the miasma with a sound like torn cloth, and the clipped, fungoid vegetation instantaneously blackens and rots for meters around the confluence of the rift.
Vincent hears the whining, plaintive, hungry voices of whatever has come, presaged by the blood trickling out of his ear once again.
He finally blocks his eyes as a wash of clammy air, redolent of stinking corruption roars past them, flapping his cloak and pushing him to the roof of the ruined tanker truck.
When he looks up again, three humanoid figures, clad head-to-toe in filthy, yellowing containment suits stand in the field midway between the truck and the apparent safety of the fallow field beyond. Terrifyingly opaque half domes, the hardened plastic encrusted with tacky, scabrous grime, and beaded with yellow moisture encapsulate their heads, mercifully hiding whatever lurks within. A wholly consuming aura of visceral horror surrounds them, the rotting miasma carrying with it the terrifying specter that is the impermanence of all things.
Vincent gags, spitting out a broken-winged fly that had begun to plumb the depths of his slackly open mouth. He somehow holds his gorge down.
As the trio of figures begin to bonelessly stride toward the truck, the limbs of their foetid suits ballooning and swelling obscenely with whatever putrescence sloshes within, Vincent hears the burly guardsman with the heavy stubber whimper like a child.
"Did you feel that? The witch is doing something with her power."
Wardja has been playing his hands very carefully and steady. Pushing all his chips in means he has a good hand.
Regardless of who has the better hand. I have to keep up appearances. My cover may be blown, but his isn't. Daemon not included...
"I call."
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
Wardja purposefully pushes his entire remaining stack of chips into the center of the table, and Savalos follows, matching the twenty-one markers. The room is silent save for the dull, hitching groans coming from Jashar dol Geim, still being treated by the medicae attendants nearby.
When Savalos looks over at the Changeling, he is surprised instead to see Juan Rico, his face trembling with effort, his dark brown eyes looking across at the dealer, pained beyond measure, but doggedly focused. He attempts a smile, but can only manage to convey a rictus-like smirk. He winks at Savalos, hands shaking with the effort of moving his hands forward with his own markers.
"Call..."
The chips are in, but the possessed arbitrator's voice is choked off by something, and the baleful cerulean gaze of the daemon returns just as quickly as it had disappeared. They flick about for a moment with an appearance of anxious calculation, surprised that the chips were proffered.
Trizo senses something is amiss, and his features take on the cast of a man listening intently to something far away for the briefest of moments. He glances at the daemon and then looks at Wardja specifically, chuckling under his breath in contempt.
"Fold."
He tosses his cards in petulantly.
Leprade sizes up his opponents, obsessively reordering his cards, and considers his risks. He carefully counts out twenty-one of his own markers and slides them forward.
"I will call."
After making certain Leprade does not intend to raise further, the dealer turns back to Wardja again for his intentions.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
"Did you feel that? The witch is doing something with her power."
Tikeen lets out a hiss of breath.
"Yes, she is very powerful. I---I---can sense her worming her way into their minds, the minds of my master your friends, Mulsipher Mol."
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L, Storage Cell AA44
With the Privates return and speech breaking my cognitors feed back loop paying back what Ivaanov has said I state, "01010111 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110010 ."
Turning to Kotts " Well done. Lets get our gear and see where we can go from here. Lead me to our equipment."
Once there Ill strip out of the filthy armor and re-don my previous armor and weapons. I do a quick check of the lasgun and las carbine and there power packs. I place the spare parts and the scared oil back into their pockets in my vestments. I pick up the auspex and whisper the initiation rites to have it turn on and then search for our location on the maps of the Pearl we had from planning our excursion. I also switch on the microbead and see if I can get a signal.
With all my chips in the center there's little to do but wait.
I light a lho.
For an instant I see Johnnie, and just as quick he is gone again. Don't worry Johnnie. I'll find her. I have no idea how, but I will.
I don't see any reason to raise. Lets see where the cards fall.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
The dealer bypasses Wardja, whose entire stack now rests in the center of the table, and then moves on to Savalos, who declines to raise further.
With the dealer turning to the daemonhost next, the remaining players watch with rapt attention as the Changeling methodically counts out nine chips and places them within the pot. His intense gaze sweeps across the table, first to Savalos, then Wardja, until finally coming to rest upon Leprade.
"Raise of nine."
Trizo's eyebrows arch slightly at this.
Leprade, looking more discomfited than ever, forces himself to meet the daemon's eyeline, deliberating whether or not to remain in the hand, or at least giving a good account of such hesitation. Finally, he averts his eyes, counts out nine markers, and stands his ground, jaw working from side to side as if chewing something he does not, at all, like.
"I will call."
The dealer again moves past Wardja, whose whole stake is committed and settles upon Savalos, to see if he will now remain in the hand.
Mostly because I don't like the Daemon's games playing with nine's. I do what I did last time.
"I raise one."
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, The Pinnacle of Pearl
If the Changeling is perturbed by Savalos' attempt at subverting his predilection for the number nine, the daemon does not show it.
Pinching a single, nine-sided marker between Rico's fingers, it deposits the token raise amidst the ante.
Leprade watches the peculiar, unspoken exchange between the two and does the only thing that he can given what he has already invested in the hand. He pushes his chip forward as well.
"Call."
The Intelligencer then places his palms flat atop the table, as the dealer gestures for Wardja to reveal his hand.
He cannot help but let out a hiss of air from between his tightly pinched lips when another Greater Array is revealed. Savalos' hand is impressive as well, but not nearly enough to defeat the other acolyte.
The Changeling chuckles to itself, laying the cards down atop the table. Another good hand, that might have won in another round, but again, not close to besting Wardja. Judging by the daemonhost's blasé reaction and mild amusement, it does not to seem to care a whit about losing. Savalos and Wardja notice that Trizo dol Soulard looks at the being he believes to be his thrall with something akin to confusion, as if he had expected something else entirely. He quickly masks the slip in his facade and turns to Leprade, but by then everyone knows from the Intelligencer's reaction that he and Wardja have exchanged places as the short-stack at the table.
Leprade curses under his breath at the reversal.
With Jeremiah Blitz's early fold this round, and his position as First Player assured in the coming round, Wardja controls his own destiny once again.
The dealer silently rakes the chips to the formerly empty space in front of the arbitrator-acolyte, a short time ago occupied only by the macabre little bone idol, as the sounds from the gallery move from murmurs of surprise to vigorous applause. For the assembled patrons, the Tournament of Cassilda appears to be headed toward a most thrilling conclusion.
The Gran Pallazzar Casino, Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L, Storage Cell AA44
After retrieving their belongings and re-equipping them from the plas-molded bins, Kaltos assists Ivaanov to his feet and the pair follow Kotts down a meandering aisle of towering metal lockers and storage shelving.
Activating his microbead, the secutor is rewarded with a hiss of static and then a whining ping.
The heretek, Dunkan Danicos' voice is carried to his auditory receptors. Surprisingly, he does not sound in the least bit disappointed by the outcome within the gladiatorial arena.
<'Well done, whether you believe it or not, I'm glad to see you've made it. You are currently in the Secondary Vermillion Ring Service Annex Corridor 9L, Storage Cell AA44. I sent you there because that is where your possessions were dumped according to the consignment logs we intercepted. You should also be able to find medicae supplies there if you haven't already. More importantly, there is a service panel midway up the south-western wall of the room that will connect to the primary damper conduit for the Pinnacle of Pearl. I am uploading the schematics to your auspex as we speak.>
<Uriah, if you are monitoring, Kaltos, Ivaanov, and the private are back on-line and awaiting instruction.>
<I am here. With the positioning of everyone, do you have a suggestion of their placement. I was thinking that they should be prepared to take out the guards at the stairway, but if you have another suggestion, I am willing to listen.>
I applaud.
"Well played! Anyone's game at this point."
Happy that my chips will keep Wardja in the game awhile longer as my luck at the table has been slowly going south with each hand. Even though my cards have been solid. There is no reward for coming in second. We both need to stay in as long as possible for the long game.
Lets see if I can work on Leprade a bit. Need to chip around the edges to get to Trizo...
"Fate is a fickle thing. Isn't it Intelligencer? Win one hand loose the rest."