You sense something like a psyic fog spread over the ship.
When you see the lightning lance you also see the fog knotting inside of them. It's the same colour as Samus
"Just some cosmetic battle damage. I've decided to keep it, to remind me of how close to death we all are"
They're lying. They seem to be found of the damage somehow
"Please enter. Our Lord has been eagerly waiting your return"
"Fair enough."
Notch turns to the others:
"Shall we?", he says with a jovial tone, as if making a joke.
"I suppose we shall..." Krevlor said somewhat glumly. He'd never relish speaking with the lord but now he had a sinking feeling as he realised the guard was lying to him.
"Did you ever find out what happened to Stubs?" Krevlor asked half absently to the guard... hoping the guard would be confused about the nonexistent person because if they were nonchallant he knew they were in trouble.
Duncan is not with the rest as he is off being minded by Val. He would not go down the scary way to the bad place.
"Stubs... can't say I've heard of a Stubs but, our world is hard, not everyone has the conviction to survive"
A little nervously Krevlor says "I suppose we should go in so..."
Notch nods and moves for the door.
The doors opens and you are usurer into Dominastrums office.
He hunched over a leather bound book reading intently.
He looks just as gaunt as when you saw him last
"Who is it?" he rasps
Krevlor snaps off a salute and stands at attention. "The Steel Seekers Lord, we are ready to give our report at your discretion."
The tome closes with a thud.
"Permission granted. Start with the Tech Tribe. Are they on board and what assets do the have"
"They are on their way, Lord. They have working armour and a solid knowleddge of techlore."
"Excellent. I have to say I've been very impressed with your squad and I think it's time your inducted into our higher echelons.
But before you accept I need you too know that we are in a war for our very survival and we've had to make ... alliances that may seem strange. If you accept this promotion bring the whole squad up to the comn tower at sunset. I'll explain more there."
"Best for us to resupply and maintain some gear then in the meantime." Krevlor bowed.
"An honour, Lord. We had best get ready."
Away from the guards, Notch whispers:
"We need to talk. In private."
"I'll say, that guard was lying, somehow seemed pretty happy about the damage to his armour. Lets not forget that Inquisitor guy died coming here... and the Lord is talking about strange alliances. I almost had a heart attack. Scrapping and shooting... I don't need to be caught up in all this." Krevlor takes a shaky slow breath. [smaller]"I don't know for sure what any of this means but my guy tells me we're not going to know til well after it's too late."
Once in a safe area to discuss, Davien goes back over things, though still in a quiet whisper.
The alliance Dominsastrum was talking about is likely one to a warp entity, most likely a deamon by name of... well, best not to speak it at present. Its influence permeates the ship, and I honestly don't know if speaking its name would bring its attention to us. I told you of it a bit on our way back, I only hope everyone remembers. He pauses a bit. I honestly don't know if what we say here is even safe from its awareness. He pauses once more to let that sink in before continuing.
From my encounter with it, and on my research, I wager our Lord made a deal with it, without the proper rituals, and sacrificed the inquisitor for a bargain with it. Without the proper rites, any deal with the entity would sap the other bargainer of life force as well, which would explain his pallor complexion. Though how much truth there was in that book is... unknown. I am almost certain that our appointment with Dominastrum later today is to meet this entity. And, as krevlor put, I worry that after that, it may well be too late to make any choices.
"What if the book was planted by the enemy to sow discord and dissent between us and our masters? Even if not exposing any such deal would be our word against a powerful nobles, we wouldn't last long. I mean if it's just him maybe we can keep our wits about us and wait for his life force to be drained..." A little nervously Krevlor moves closer. "We don't know for sure after all do we? I mean that would be more proof than we have and at that point the matter has resolved itself to some degree."
"If we don't go to that meeting what could we do? Flee to the tech tribes and be branded as traitors to our own people? To the off worlders? To the mutants. My stomach is close to turning. Even if we tried to leave... he knows we were near that cogitator where you first noticed signs of it, he might have assigned guards loyal to him at the exits. I'm not sure we'd ever leave this place if we didn't go to that meeting. By the Emperor's gilded extra arms are we surrounded by heretics where ever we go?"
Krevlor looks quite pale and sweaty as he puts his hands on his knees. "I'd rather face a mob of those six armed mutants. If we go to the offworlders... they were already displeased and concerned over their emissary going missing, they might take it out on us."
"I don't think anything good will come out of us going up into that tower. I wouldn't be surprised if *we* get sacrificed - or have our minds turned like that door guard."
"I'll say this for the off-worlders - they at least seemed on the ball. We could do worse than link up with them and fill them in what's happened here. Because I'm not seeing anything I want to be a part of with weird cult behaviour and deals with *things*."
Jak steps forward to draw the attention of their small group, but like the others, he keeps his voice low, "I experienced the influence of this entity when we tried to contact the outsiders. It is deceitful, manipulative, and for a time, took control of my body and its actions. I do not relish the thought of joining in allegiance to such a being. But if we side with the outsiders, we turn our back on everything we have ever known.
It is an unsettling prospect. Still, their motives thus far at least seem straightforward."
After a pause, Jak speaks again, modulating his voice to one of utmost sincerity, "There is something else I need to share with you all. One of the books we discovered was named The Lectitio Divinitatus. That, in and of itself is not unusual as we have all seen copies, yes? But this copy was different." Jak pauses, almost for dramatic effect, if only he had a dramatic bone or power coupling in his entire body. "It has references to an Emperor that has only two arms."
He pauses again to allow time for any comments or shock the others might choose to express. "I, too, thought this new version to be heresy and a falsification. I examined the text closely, and compared it with the version of the Lectitio that we all are familiar with."
Jak looks around the group, meeting each pair of eyes before continuing, "My friends, please believe me when I tell you that I was most meticulous in my examination. I did not allow my own pre-conceived notions to cloud my objective evaluation of these two conflicting copies of The Lectitio Divinitatus. I affirm to you now, the version of The Lectitio Divinitatus that we have been raised to believe, that we have been taught, is the false one."
Jak pats the small pouch where he has kept the book they discovered ever since he took posession of it, "This text is older than the oldest copy that existed in the city's library. Further, I discovered evidence in the oldest copy the city had that it had been edited. The parts that had been edited were the addition of references to an Emperor with four arms."
Notch's jaw drops and he whispers urgently:
"The...the four-armed Emperor...has only two arms!?"
He takes a moment and composes himself.
"Jak, that is quite the revelation. It makes me think that these outlanders are looking like the better bet. If all we were raised on was lies, is it really that bad to turn away from them?"
"You're saying we're heretics! Not just us but out family and friends. I don't believe it, I'm no heretic." Krevlor's chest puffs up, swelling with righteous ignorance a shield against tricks of the enemy.
Davien stops and considers the new information. He mutters under his breath deep in thought. He had never been a very pious man before.
Considering the many armed creatures we have fought.. and the others that still fight beside them.. If the original text was true, it could be we are already heretics. After all, the enemies we have been fighting all have multiple arms. I recall glances over tomes similar to the Lectitio in my earlier studies, I didn't pursue them in detail after realizing they didn't pertain to my questions at the time, but I don't recall any mention of a four armed emperor now that its brought up. Krevlor, if it is true, we are not true heretics. After all, we are ignorant of the truth. We are only heretics if we are presented with the truth, and turn away from it. after another pause, he adds.
The offworlders saved us, and proved amiable enough even with on of their high ranking officers missing. They are a wildcard, but one that may actually know much more than us. If we leave now, and with urgency we may reach them... however... If we chose to deal with the deamon, something I am hesitant to do. I would rather us be the ones to deal with it directly. Dominastrum already has proven unable to do so properly.
"We've been tricked more than once from the sounds of it. Davien, are you talking about snuffing the daemon? How do you do it?"
I doubt it. As far as I can tell, there is no way to actually do so, so to speak. Only trap. Perhaps bind. And even then, I've no real inkling to the authenticity of what I read, or if my abilities would be adequate to perform it.
"Davien is right. Up to now, we have not been heretics; we followed the only truth we had. But if we now continue to hold to beliefs that have been shown to be false in the face of truth, then we do, in fact, commit heresy. I can share the data I have collected about the two copies of The Lectitio Divinitatus but if anyone is unwilling to accept that we may have been lied to this whole time, well, humans have an astounding ability to ignore facts when they contradict a comfortable falshood."
Jak looks around at the others, "We have come to be a team. I would rather take the information we have and go to the offworlders than stay here and join some foul cult or go back to the city and continue to follow a lie. I would rather we all excersize one of these options as a team."
Krevlor looks sullen. "We better gear up regardless... you know I just wanted to help people and do a bit of salvaging. I'm going to have ulcers by nightfall."
"I say we grab what we can out of this corrupted place then boot it out. We have vox freqs for the tribes and the outlanders. Best to warn them what's going on here."
Right, if the consensus is to throw our lot in with the outlanders, I'll go. Just hope they don't kill us along with everything else by association. I also hope whatever that thing is isn't even half as strong as it claims, otherwise we are toast since it claimed it was almost a god. If we are to leave, we do so now. We don't have time to grab anything more than what we had. As I said, I don't know if our conversation here has gone unnoticed... That said, Jak, if you can grab a blue print layout of this ship, that would likely be extremely helpful in the future.
"Fair point. Jak, can you snag it?"
Jak nods, "I will attempt to secure such map as I can. It will almosst certainly be vastly out of date based on time and damage. I do not think we should try to get a map until we are ready to depart. It may cause a red flag and I would rather give less time to react."
"So just the other basic gear we would have been getting anyway." Krevlor ruins his hands through his hair.
"Rations might tip the hand too but stun grenades would line up with what I was getting last time. If people are finding they could use something with some more kick maybe some Lucious Pattern 98 lasguns. They drain the charge pack quicker being a more aggressive machine spirit though."
He looks towards Notch "On the way out once we get to an out of the way spot we could weld a hatch closed behind us with that lascutter of yours." Krevlor starts pacing, under the stress of the situation he just seems to be focusing on problem solving segments of the groups escape rather than face the reality of the revelations that have been revealed during the conversation.
Biting a fingernail he looks over at Jak and then the others half mumbling. "The ship. We're in a hostile stronghold... should we sabotage it. Normally we'd never be able to sneak into a base like this held by the enemy but we could prove that we're loyal to the God Emperor. We're inside the armour, a well place krak grenade could do more damage here than days of artillery strikes."
"If timed correctly that would be a good distraction... maybe a few cleansing fires set too. The machine spirit wouldn't want to be used by them, they'd probably be thankful." His brow furrows as he paces.
"You're right, Krev. I didn't think of it... What can we get to? Maybe a krak grenade in a munitions dump? Or the enginarium?"
"I currently have twelve krak grenades and thirty six frag. Krak would be the main thing for any serious sabotage. This ships main munition dump is likely guarded but there might be other ways in... getting in and out would be best. If cornered we commend our souls to the God Emperor and strike a blow that will be heard by all within a hundred leagues!"
If you want the bomb to be delayed make a -30 tech use test with just grenades unless you use a demo charge then it#s +0 tech use
Your trusted enough that you can easily get access to a storeroom full of grenades or something
I would rather get out alive. I didn't survive whatever the feth has happened to our world this long to throw it away wantonly. I'm not sure about this. If we can do it with little to no risk, fine, but we need to be several leagues away before people are sent after us. Preferably, in contact to our new group. Davien is clearly on edge as he speaks.
"I can think of a way to minimise the negative outcome and make it so one will have to set up the traps. One of us can wait, strike while the others are making their exit... the discord it would sow would help cover the attack. It wouldn't look as suspicious if they are keeping tabs on us. If they know where one of us is they don't have to worry about the squad getting out..."
"But we'd need to get an idea of the security around the munitions. Getting in an out would be next to impossible. A one way trip has a definite cost but a firmer result."
Notch is able to find a critical power junction. A well placed krak grenade would disable the comn tower.
At least for a while
"That's a good start but I was think something more permanent and more explosive."
"It could cause confusion at a critical moment. But yeah, we need a nice big sack of krak grenades on something even more explosive. Munitions, shells, whatever we can get to. I say we go in and hope to find an opportunity to get out again. But I'm not banking on that."
There are 2 possible targets for sabotage.
Notch has found a vulnerable junction.
A -10 tech use test will allow you to rig a timed explosion from your grenades.
Or you can just blow it up.
This will disable the comn tower for a while
It's guarded by 2 men
Make a command test to order the guards away or a stealth test to get past them.
A -10 tech use test will allow you to rig a timed explosion from your grenades.
Then you'll have to run fast out of there
"Krev, I say we get ambitious. Rig comm tower power conduit on a timer, then make our way to the store room, blag or sneak our way in and rig that. Sound good?"
He gives Dunc and the others a friendly thumbs up.
"Right, this would be a volunteer mission. If others want to get a head start I understand that."
Notch casually plants a krak grenade, concealed right up against said vulnerable junction.
Approaching the store room, Notch salutes the guards.
"Need in.", he states in a matter-of-fact manner.
Getting past, Notch seeks out a good spot to place a deadly sack of explosives.
Notch is able to plant the two grenades without any problem.
Just as he makes it back to the group at an exit you all hear two explosions and smoke begins drifting up the corridors towards you.
Once Notch hears the explosions, he checks to make sure there aren't any cultists about.
He says to Krev (and Dunc):
"Let's get back to the others. Then we let the Riders of the Crumbled and the newcomers know what's the scoop."
Once he's sure, he contacts the "forward group", the rest of the squad, to meet up.
The riders of the Crumbled are only a few minutes hard ride away and you still have the generals vox frequency.