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With our character's skills in mind, I really think that we ought to take a more active role in this little skirmish. Who do we support, however? I think that The Brazilian Slaughter is correct in that these renegades aren't just your standard deserters, and that there is likely more to it, but saving these IG's could give us a great way to worm ourselves inside and see what the guards are up to. Thoughts?
The reason I'm voting to ignore them and move on is because I think there's more to the city than meets the eye, besides it being a renegade base, and I don't want to get entangled. No logical reason for it, though, just a gut feeling.
On the other hand, this IG unit might be a big deal, because they were lured out into a 3-on-1 ambush. You don't do that for a random, no-value target. So, yeah, color me intrigued.
We can submit a freeform choice to support a specific side. Speaking of which, amending my vote to: C E(leap boldly into the fray to support the IG, taking care to not out yourself as an enemy of the Emperor) B
Known Characters:
Detox, apothecary - Beloved *Sicarian Forests
Hooker, sergeant - Grateful *Sicarian Forests
Entek, tech-priest - Indifferent *North Point
Sorcerer - Intrigued *North Point
The Boy - Unknown *Nowhere
Tempestus, chaplain - Dead?
The Captain - Dead
Items:
Nothing
Location:
Nowhere
Hooker and Detox:
Hooker commissions a Tzeentchian sculpture, struggling to recall as many details of the previous sculpture as possible. Details her mind had so eagerly forgotten. A brilliant artist from among the beastmen is chosen by the elder, saying that the youth suffered from vivid nightmares for weeks prior to Hooker and Detox's coming. The young pariah begins at once, enslaved to his work with frantic effort.
Already halfway complete by dusk, the sculpture is an amalgamation of stone, steel and bone. The stone is fashioned in the likeness of a man, in his center a gaping hole. Horrid, hooked wires lace the hole, and bone extrudes disgustingly like a smashed ribcage. On the man's head is a halo of nails and thorns, buried deep into the stone. His face is a blank slate, quite literally, with two uneven gouges where the eyes should be. They constantly weep blood.
Whenever an onlooker turns away, they swear that the sculpture has changed its pose, but turn back to see that nothing had changed. Whenever the sculpture is in the corner of their eyes, they swear that the sculpture is staring at them, beckoning them to pity it.
Detox had to forcibly stop the youth, fearing that he would die from exhaustion or dehydration. The young artist had to be physically restrained, begging, pleading to be allowed to return to his work. ]
Hooker, in the meanwhile, began teaching the mutants the ways of Chaos and of combat. She indoctrinates them in:
A. Close-quarters combat. Either in fine dueling or brutal, berserk bloodshed, their unnatural physiology makes them perfect close-fighters. B. Ranged combat. With their unholy eyes and superb senses, Hooker thinks they would make great sharpshooters or devastating suppressors. C. Infiltration. The mutants are preternaturally sneaky, only found when they want to be found. They would make great scouts, and great assassins. D. A broad spectrum of combat. Sacrificing quality for diversity, the mutants would be jacks of all trades, masters of none.
Entek and Sorcerer:
"Think you can handle a bit of sneaky sharpshooting?" the Sorcerer asks.
"CONFIRMATION: I am more than my bulk would suggest: a light, plastek frame allows for agility while sacrificing no protection. As for sharpshooting, my targeting cogitators allow for approximately a 98.4035% accuracy, allowing for a diminutive margi-"
"Okay, okay. Had to stop you there before you bored me straight into the forty-second millenium."
"QUERY: My scans did not indicate you could biologically live that long, nor do my predictive equations suggest you will survi-"
The Sorcerer is already leaping from rooftop to rooftop, his weedy frame belying psychically boosted agility. Entek begins scaling the walls, mechadendrites clawing at the concrete while his optics turn 180 degrees to scan the battlefield. The pair create an effective killzone in the square, their positions on the rooftops allowing vision to almost all combatants. Communicating through a secured vox-channel, the two list out targets with efficiency despite their bickering.
The Sorcerer draws a laspistol. Opposite of him, on the other end of the square, Entek displays a large lasgun mounted on his arm. The Sorcerer draws a second laspistol, flaunting them at the tech-priest. Entek draws another of his arm-mounted lasgun. On all four arms.
"Fuck you, my powers lie in the Warp!" he shouts, unable to bear his anger. "Beat this, you tin-can!"
All combatants stop, startled, as they search for the voice. A fog seeps from the ground, blanketing the combatants in an impenetrable veil. Entek's targeting optics is not hampered by this, and the Sorcerer's prescient knowledge afford him clarity clearer than mortal eyes ever could grant. Entek's grafted lasguns deal swift death to the guardsmen, each shot hitting their mark with only a few missing by inches. The Sorcerer maintains the fog with a sickening chant (which prompted Entek to block him on the vox-channel), while sneaking into the guardsmen's fortified positions. He offs the remaining men, whose resolve had broken, with ease.
The fog clears, and the renegades group up, wary of their saviors. Wilkins looks furious. "You dare deny us our prey?" he yells into the air.
Entek and the Sorcerer: A. Kill the ingrates. B. Reveal themselves and negotiate. C. Leave. D. Do something else: ____
Lena and the Boy:
"Come, let's take the sewers," you say, taking hold of the child's hand. It's at once deathly cold and infernally hot.
The two begin their descent deep down into the subterranean labyrinth of shit and darkness. The stench is enough to knock a grown man out with only a whiff. Only fear and purpose keep Lena awake. The obscuring dark makes traveling in the sewers treacherous, the ground slippery and uneven. Many times Lena had tripped on loose stones or fallen into a puddle of sewage, but her vanity and hubris were, at the moment, licking their wounds.
The pair travel for hours, and soon exhaustion begins kicking in for Lena. Your body was still recovering from the near-death you had suffered at the Boy's hands. Your mind was still reeling from staring into his eyes. Yet still you traveled, knowing that disappointing him would be fatal. You were on alert the entire time, on the lookout for the mutants that were definitely skulking around. Yet, this whole time, you hadn't heard a peep.
"I wonder where the mutants are?" you ponder aloud.
The Boy, at your side, clicks his tongue and wags his head. "Pitiful," comes his infernal voice. "You really must be tired, to have missed all the insects stalking us."
"Where?"
He clicks his fingers, and a blinding light illuminates the tunnel. Hundreds of corpses clog the river of sewage, their faces death-masks of stricken terror as every bone in their body was crushed. Looking back, you see more corpses of misshapen mutants, all silently killed. And all this time, you noticed nothing.
"Ever since you started this travail into the gutter of this dead world, they've been stalking us. I thought you weren't one to be surprised, yet you never noticed them until it would be too late," he says, sighing. "You really should be thankful, worm, that I had not let them slit your throat. But you are yet a child, and your skills must be developed."
You bite back your tongue as your ego struggles to retort. "I know," is all you can manage.
He nods, arms laced at his back, looking like a wizened scholar. "Good. The path to power is paved with humility."
You continue walking and clamber out of the sewers. You relish the fresh air, letting every breath vainly attempt fill you with life. You slump to the ground, barely keeping conscious, and your vision swims turbulently. Your mind begins to wander, and you let darkness overtake you as you black out, your body yearning for rest. The Boy seems acceptive of your choice of taking the sewers.
"You've begun your path to power, Lena Cythriel," he says, his words barely registering in your mind. "I finished mine long ago, and I know how the eight-fold path will crush the unworthy at their first step. You were not crushed." Your vision fades as your body fails. "Take my hand, Lena Cythriel. I will walk you through the eight-fold path."
You weakly reach out and take his hand as you die.
----
You awaken. In a sense. You have no eyes. You wish to scream because of this. You cannot, because you have no mouth. You have nothing. You are nothing.
You look around. Invisible currents buffet you, tempestuous winds assail you from nowhere and everywhere. You feel both frozen and set aflame, yet the pain gives you not pleasure, but peace. You look around. Swirling torrents of souls follow unseen currents, and impossible structures painted in impossible colors lord over the nothingness. Screams echo, bouncing off of nonexistent walls, and you sorely wish to scream with them.
You do. It surprises you. You try speaking. "Hello?"
"Hello." You look up. A towering colossus of flame and brass stares at you with volcanic eyes. Wings the size of continents spread across this no-land. His words are like thunder, and his every movement is tectonic.
"Where am I?" you ask.
"Nowhere."
"Who are you?"
"No one. Who are you?"
"Lena Cythriel." Your no-mouth disappears as the colossus shakes his head.
"Who are you, not-Lena Cythriel?"
You think for a moment. "No one."
"What do you want, No One?"
"Power, freedom, immortality!"
He shakes his head. "What do you want, No One?"
".... Nothing."
He nods his approval. You see hosts of daemonic entities gather around the two of you, chanting words you cannot understand. The colossus speaks, his voice an exploding volcano. "What will you give, No One?"
You are almost tempted to say 'nothing', but your common sense still exists even if your brain doesn't. "Everything."
You feel four lording presences preside over this congregation of daemons. One whose fury burns with the heat of a thousand suns. One whose rot numbs pain and spreads love. One whose Change can be felt and seen in everything. And one whose beauty blinds all.
"Everything?" they ask in unison.
"How can you give everything, when you have nothing, No One?" the colossus asks.
You honestly do not know what to say, and remain silent. The colossus nods.
"Then we will give you Everything, that you might return to us Everything. And more."
Your souls screams in exultation and ecstasy as your fate is rewritten and your destiny redrawn. Two of the presences leave, leaving the Rotting Father and She Who Thirsts. A titanic clash can be heard, clamorous and cacophonous.
"I am No One. I am nowhere. I have nothing."
The colossus shakes his head. "You are Lena Cythriel. You will be known everywhere. And you will be have," he says as your metamorphosis completes, "everything."
You become: A. An exulted, mortal Champion of Nurgle. B. A Daemon Prince of Nurgle. C. An exulted, mortal Champion of Slaanesh. D. A Daemon Prince of Slaanesh.
That went better than expected. Or worse. I'm not sure. Still, the promise of immortality, absolute power and becoming a Daemon Prince is too much to be ignored. Plus they can pass as human if they want. So:
CBD.
Known Characters:
Detox, apothecary - Betrayed *Sicarian Forests
Hooker, sergeant - Devoted *Sicarian Forests
Entek, tech-priest - Indifferent *North Point
Sorcerer - Devoted *North Point
The Boy - Unknown *Nowhere
Tempestus, chaplain - Dead?
The Captain - Dead
Items:
Artificer Bodyglove
Laspistol
Location:
The Sicarian Forests
Aboard the transport vessel
Life-casket
Entek and the Sorcerer:
No sooner than the drivel spewed from the ingrate's mouth, Entek trains four of his arm-grafted lasguns at the soldier, Wilkins. The Sorcerer too has his laspistol aimed dead-center on the traitor's forehead.
"Seems we agree on something, finally."
"CONFIRMATION: Agreed."
Las flies, crackling the air as it ionizes, and a tune of crackling las and thundering autogun shells plays in the square. Wilkins is exactly where he stood, though instead of the guardsman there stands a smoldering pile of sloughed flesh. Entek's firing would seem wild, even berserk, to those without augmentation. However, each shot is precisely calculated, and renegades are taken down with peak efficiency. The Sorcerer is just as handy with his laspistol. Shirking the machine, he instead divines the future from the skeins of the Warp, and his shots hit with preternatural accuracy.
Renegades pour from every ruined building, every hiding hole, every outcrop of rubble. Everywhere. For the pair to have missed this many is surely impossible, but the fact lies before their eyes. They are horribly outnumbered. Las from both tech-priest and psyker continue to decimate the oncoming horde. They fall by the numbers, wounds cauterized immediately as the las melts skin, flesh and bone.
Still, despite horrific losses on the renegades' side, they continue as if they were assaulted by a light breeze. The Sorcerer's mind grows weary, the skeins of the Warp suffocating his psyche. Entek, too, is suffering. Blaring warning-lights issue from beneath his hood as his cogitators reach dangerously hot temperatures, his mind overloaded with combat-data. The pair begin a tactical retreat towards their shuttle.
They had barely made it, leaping into the blast-doors and closing them before the hail of autogun fire could damage the interior. The shuttle takes off, the sheer force of its flight crushing those immediately around it, and horrifically incinerating the rest with sun-hot plasma. Safely out of range, Entek makes the sign of the cog.
"STATEMENT: Praise be to the Machine-God!"
The Sorcerer looks worried, beads of sweat trickling down his pallid features. "Quick. Pick up Detox and Hooker. Something has happened to our Lady Lena."
Detox and Hooker:
"What's the matter with you?" Hooker asks, still drenched in sweat from her brutal training with the mutants. She was covered in bruises and scars, the mutants fitting the role of melee fighters like clockwork. They had been training for three days. She hadn't heard from the other two nor Lena, but the training gave her little time to worry.
Detox, on the other hand, had been worried for days. He shakes his head. He'd been sulking all day long today. His eyes are hollow, and his perpetual mirth had been replaced by a rotting despondence. "Nothing."
Hooker gives him a reassuring smile. "C'mon, let's train with these guys. You could do with a bit of exercise," she says amusedly.
"No time for games," he says, looking up at the sky as a the transport vessel burst through the trees. The mutants are enthralled at such a sight, but they wisely make way before they are crushed. The blast-doors open, and Entek and the Sorcerer frantically run outside. They beckon Hooker and Detox to follow, and a crowed of mutants cautiously enter after the four. In the rudimentary medicae of the transport vessel is a life-casket, filled with an amber amniotic fluid. Inside is a terrible sight.
A shriveled shell writhes within, gently floating in the fluid, tethered with wiring and cables. The once luscious hair is all but gone, with only tufts of dead hair as a grim testament. He face, easily the envy of all, is now mummified and terrible. Much of her body is gone, horrifically burned by unknown forces, with only the remnants of her right arm remaining. According to the glyphs on the analysis-screens, all her organs are nonoperational and her life hangs by a thread.
"How did this happen?"
"STATEMENT: Unknown, although the psychic freak suggests that her injuries were caused by daemonic forces."
"How long has she been like this?" Detox asks, resting his palm on the warm glass of the life-casket.
"STATEMENT: Three days."
"Before you get pissy," the Sorcerer says, cutting off Hooker's remarks, "it took us a while to get the parts needed for this medicae facility to work. She's actually fine. She survived for hours like this on the open ground. In there, she's regenerating."
They read the glyphs on the screens again. His words were true. Her body was regenerating at inhuman levels. Her eyes darted around. It was as if she was locked in a terrible nightmare, some eternal punishment for her failures. Her face was reforming, even more perfect than it had been. And also more terrifying. The pain-levels on the screens were high enough to have killed a man twice over. Her body was still a ruin, but soon she would be fully reborn, like the phoenix from the tales of Ancient Terra.
----
The life-casket was placed in the Elder's hut, and devout mutants offered bone talismans and dried blood to rouse their demigoddess from her sleep. She had been asleep for thirteen days, her body regenerating to superhuman levels. Her form is so perfect and so terrible that more than one mutant had taken their lives out of fear or heart-ache. The mutants had held endless ritual and ceremonies between training, and by then had surpassed even Ogryn levels of destruction.
The four stand grimly at the foot of the life casket. Her body is fully formed - voluptuous beauty, intermingled with an unexplainable feel of terror, belies superhuman capability. Her eyes, for thirteen days, had constantly darted as she suffered in her terrible dreams. Now, they are still.
And now, they are open. Hideous creatures offended her sight. Imperfect beings, all. She cried, hateful that such ugly things existed alongside her. Once she had payed back Everything and More, she would be truly rid of imperfection: within, without and beyond.
Her life-casket opens, drained of its fluids, and she steps out to the exultation of the roaches around her.
"Weep, wretches, for I am come. Weep!"
And all weep at your feet.
You decide to: A. Begin an open invasion, raiding whatever survivor camps exist and assaulting the Imperial Guard's fortress. B. Continue working from the shadows, creeping in the dark, crippling from the shadows. C. Assault the Imperial Navy's cruiser and take it for your own. D. Commune once more with the Boy and become Nothing again, leaving these ants to wage war in your name. E. Something else.
E. Spend a few minutes to reasure Detox. He's our bro and he deserves that much. THEN we continue working from the shadows, using our superhuman charisma to gather more allies. C.
