Emerik nodded and helped with the doors, pausing only to see if he could hear anything beyond it.
There's an oven like heat, radiating through the doors, and a sound like distantly heard ocean surf.
Binerith steps in, and assists the wounded guardsman.
Emerik shrugged and opened the doors, and hoped nothing would jump out.
A wave of heat heats blasts out from the room. A glowering, industrial furnace dominates the room's far wall. You can hear a dull roar through the flue, and the floor seems to shake slightly.
Male Guardsmen : "So apparently there was a cremation scheduled today?"
Female Guardsmen : "It shouldn't be running at full blast like that, not for so long."
Emerik took a peek at any controls, trying to see if there was an issue with the crematorium's systems. "Perhaps the operator was called away. Still, nice and hot for what we need."
Konstantine readies his weapon. With all that has been happening. This could not be a likely coincidence. No. Cutest or the sort.
"Be on your toes people" he warns
-Posted with Wayfinder
Albaras: the temperature levels are not critical, not yet at least.
While Binerith and the female trooper hold Marvlus, the wounded trooper wrests open the door to the crematory chamber, cursing softly as the heated metal of the chamber door burns his hands.
Emerik saluted as the soldier was laid to rest.
Gingerly, Marvlus is laid out on the rack, and then the rack is slid back into the furnace, and the flames, and the chamber door slammed shut.
The two troopers stand still for a moment. The male absent-mindedly fingers the aquilla upon his tunic.
Female trooper : "Let's get moving then, as I have no wish to immediately join our fallen comrade."
Nodding, Emerik headed out for the corridor.
Glumly the pair shoulder their weapons and follow Albaras out into the corridor.
Female Trooper : "Well, shall we make for the main entrance hall, or one of the secondary exits? The main entrance hall is not too far away."
"We'll take a look at it," Emerik said with a shrug, "But expect it to be guarded. If it looks like we can't break through without casualties," or at all he added mentally, "We'll try something else."
Mayweather : "Yes! Let's hurry! Let's get out of this pit of nightmare!"
After several turns, you find yourself in one of the broader corridors.
Graffiti, painted in a mixture of blood and ash, gleams wetly on the walls: "Haarlock returns and hell follows!"
Emerik glanced at the walls with a small shrug. "I can paint that my arse is returning on the wall, but it's not automatically true." He continued heading for the entryway, hiding his own concerns from the already disturbed PDF troops.
There's a long stretch of corridor, where the illumen globes have failed, leaving the hallway in stygian shadow.
Binerith turns on some lights on the ends of his utility mechandrites, casting a weak light into the tunnel of blackness.
Emerik clicked on his own lights, and continued down the corridor. Were the dead lights simply a malfunction, or something that prefered the dark?
A Perception test (Difficult, -10), please Brother Albaras.
Emerik grunted, and advanced. There didn't seem to be anything wrong.
Albaras plunges on, and then suddenly he pulls up short; seeing motion on the walls of the corridor he turns his illum-stick upon the surface.
Vermin scuttles over the walls, and yes, the ceiling; things that are both rodent-like and reptile, with gangling limbs and warty, gray skin, the light of his illum-stick being reflected back from feral eyes.
Glancing at the PDF troops, Emerik murmurs, "These things dangerous?" He kept both guns up, on the theory they were.
Female Trooper : "Cinder lizards! I've never seen them outside of the ossuary levels! If they get alarmed they exude an oil that catches fire on contact with the air!"
Emerik sighed. "Again? OK. Do we need to go around them? If they're up here they'll likely be startled already."
"Then we best kill them before they get alarmed"
Ok. So there's a 4 meter stretch of corridor that is overrun with these things: there's roughly some twenty or thirty of the creatures, on the floors, walls, and ceiling.
Albaras has blundered about two meters into the 'infested' section of corridor.
Emerik grunted again, and began to move slowly back towards his comrades, both guns raised. He was relatively sure if the creatures tried to burn him his armour would stop the worst - as it had before - but he had no wish to test the idea.
Alberas is amazed, as he gingerly backs out of the swarming creatures, that he did not step on one earlier.
Emerik continued to try and edge his way out, for once wishing he wasn't wearing Guard issue combat boots.
Albaras is almost out of the swarm when he 'boots' one of the squat creatures. Its hisses, and is then engulfed in flame.
Albaras hops out of the swarm; having received a very intense 'hot-foot'.
Getting out of the section of corridor, Emerik swore heavily and stamped out the fire that engulfed his boot.
Having seen how they move, and the fact his team mate has already stepped on one, it was a simple task for Konstantine to avoid the little fiery beasts
With practiced grace, Konstantine nimbly dances through the swarm.
Alekseevna attempts to follow Konstantine:
She makes a great show of her gliding progress through the swarm, performing the steps of a popular courtly dance as shes sways and pirouettes down the corridor.
Binerith : "Well friend Albaras, should we trust to the Emperor,and the stout leather of our boots?"
Mayweather : "I'm not going through those things!"
"If you have a better option, I'm all ears. Otherwise...the Emperor helps those who help themselves, and isn't likely to help those that stand and whimper."
Binerith to the pair of troopers : "Am I correct in assuming that once these creatures flare up, for a short period thereafter they're incapable of further pyrotechnics?"
Male Trooper : "That's true, its takes them between 1 to 2 hours to regenerate the oil, after they've sparked off."
Mayweather : "Kill the beasts! Kill them all!"
"Stand back, then." Emerik fired a brief burst into the creatures, trying to get as many as possible to flame and focusing on the floor. Once it was done, he gestured for them to come across.
With practiced skill Albaras walks a burst through the center of the corridor, and the creatures 'pop-off' like fire-works, and soon there's a rippling wave of eruptions through the swarm, as they apparently succumb to a group panic.
Acrid smoke fills the hall, but you have created a passable lane through the corridor.
Emerik gestured for the others to come through the gap. It wasn't like they had time to waste.
Through air thick with a sulfur stench, you pass through the creatures, which scurry out of your way.
You reach the great central hall. There are a few bodies crumpled on the floor, around which a cleaning servitor, circles aimlessly, dragging a useless limb.
Make a Difficult (-10) Perception test.
Across the vast, echoing space of the entry hall, you see the great doors by which you entered this nightmarish place, flanked on either side by statues of Imperial saints and martyrs, standing as mute witnesses upon their marble plinths.
Mayweather: "What are we waiting for! It is madness to stay here a moment longer."
He strides purposefully forward.
Emerik stopped him. "Wait. I find it hard to believe that, with all this, the exit is simply unguarded." Even if he couldn't see the defences, he imagined they would be there. He looked around for the classic - a rock to throw.
There doesn't appear to be any loose rubble in your general vicinity: perhaps a bullet, or maybe a can of machine spirit unguent from Binerith?
Emerik took the shell that had jammed his guns earlier and tossed it into the room.
The shell falls on the floor raising a small puff of dust (even though you just passed this way hours earlier, a fine film of dust and gritty ash has already formed on the floor).
There are some faded murals on the wall by which you crouch; for a fleeting moment, it is as if a dark shadow passes over the mural. The serene and beatific faces of the saints depicted there become avid with bestial lust, before returning to their former contemplative serenity.
Shivering slightly at the...corrupted statues? Some kind of twisted defence system? Emerik wasn't sure what they were, but heading for the doors seemed like an option. A bad option, but he didn't see another. Keeping low he started moving for the doors.