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The War of Shadows

Started by Necris, March 01, 2010, 10:16:24 AM

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MarcoSkoll

Kai had disregarded the weapons crate the Inquisitor had hauled up and was instead stood over the body of one of the fortress's storm-troopers. The man appeared to have a broken neck, and therefore little need for his equipment.
While the sergeant could have armed himself with assorted odds and ends from the Inquisitor's crate, his instinct was to find equipment that as closely matched his normal Kasrkin armaments as possible. Starting to strip the gear from the man's corpse, that was pretty much what he had found.

~~~~~

Similarly, Lyra had relatively little interest in the contents of the crate. She had already come armed as heavily as she was happy with. She knew her weapons well, and trying to carry anything more would just be a hindrance.
And Maya preferred to rely on her powers, carrying no more than a short pattern laspistol and a collapsing knife in case of emergencies.

The Inquisitor had instead been trying to contact with her orbiting ship. After about the third attempt, she turned off the vox and returned to the throng of others, trying to ignore the general cloud of smoke that surrounded them.

   "There's far too much vox distortion to get in contact with anything in orbit. I can't get through to my Aquila either - although, it's a very real possibility that the landing pads just aren't standing anymore."
It was the child-thing that answered her.
   "Statement: The tectonic after-effects have almost certainly assured the structural failure of that portion of the fortress."
   "I guessed as much. Times like these, I rather feel I should've stayed a doctor."
   "You're a doctor? Then you can attend to...",started the power armoured Inquisitor. Lyra interrupted him.
   "Of archaeology, not medicine. If you had broken his neck, I could excavate his gravesite in a couple hundred years - but as he is, actual medical experience will better serve him."

Pausing briefly, she continued:
   "To get back to the subject, that totals my assets here. Me, my two aides and what we're carrying. Not much, but it's been enough before."
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Zephon

"The rest of my entourage will be headed in this direction, but the situation on the streets may delay them. And I fear that we are in danger from more mundane threats than that." As he spoke, Bernard pointed upwards, towards the roiling colours in the sky, then gestured towards the blazing city.

"The fires we see now will spread over the next few hours, and attempts to stop them will falter thanks to panic. We could find ourselves engulfed by a firestorm. If we are to escape, we need transport. If not, we need shelter. The rest of the Palace must have a command bunker or something similar, designed to withstand events such as this. From there, we can try to restore some kind of order. We might even find a more powerful vox."

Kallidor

Arisha poked through the weapons chest and dug out a lasgun and some extra ammunition. It was at times like this that she felt almost as childlike as her master's pet looked. Whilst she was an Inquisitor in training she derived an immense sense of safety in the presence of other Inquisitors, like a child might experience in the presence of its parents, even Inquisitor Czernarvok with his dehumanising bionics was a reassuring presence in her life. She felt physically secure surrounded by such powerful individuals but also mentally bolstered, conteneted to believe that she could do no wrong whilst in the presence of such mighty men and women.

"My Praetorian guard will already be heading in this direction if he is still alive, the rest of my retainers will be under his command until they reach me." The girl was addresing the other Inquisitors but Molovich himself was staring off into the depths of the city, the featureless helmet seeming to convey a sense of intent study. It was difficult to imagine that Molovich had any human sentiments and harder still that if he should possess any that he could hold them for the unresponsive bunch of meat-machines who acted as his personal staff.

"We should get moving, try and find a vox like Wyebold says, we can't afford to sit around here all day. Will your people be able to find you?" Grant was asking Molovich.

"Most Assuredly."
Be Pure!
Be Vigilant!
BEHAVE!

Necris

He came round in a wash of pain, his leg was broken that much he was sure about, he looked at the two guards carrying him and then at the young inquisitor who'd saved him and the others.

This was not right, the world should have been wiped clean something had gone wrong, gone very wrong his breathing increased as panic struck him, had the choir failed in their task was the right carried out...

He looked to the sky seeing the turmoil above and laughed his laugh was high pitched and frantic drawing the attention of those around him, one of the other Inquisitors came over to him, the brute Ottakar Grant his fist was slowly clenching to strike him as he came closer looming over him he spat.

"It succeeded, You're all dead."

This caused Grant to pause in his stride.

"What?"

"You're all dead, you'll wish the light had taken you instead of leaving you to the ravages of this world."

Others joined grant now drawn by his ravings, Czernarvok towering over the Rest, the woman Maya and the bastard Belhast had promoted they all stood over him, Grant growled at him.

"You were the cause of this?"

He laughed again spitting at Grant's armoured boot.

"Only the tool with which to guide it, my masters are the one that orchestrated this, this world was sacrificed to bring you all here." 

Another of them spoke.

"Why."

Jeremiah spoke his eyes on the Data-slate

"To remove the Inquisition, there was close to a hundred of of here that's a huge portion of the conclave in this sector, this has just been a grand assassination attempt."

"More than that pup, my masters not only want the conclave they want the Nexus Belt Worlds."

"Why tell us this?"

It was the woman that spoke her voice inquisitive.

"You're all going to die and there is no way to get word from this world the war storm over head will see to that, it will have burned your astropaths in orbit and created a disturbance wide enough that those not present will be blinded to the fate of the Nexus Worlds."

He laughed again even as Grant Stamped down on his chest the force broke ribs and caused him to caugh blood.

"The End of this world has come, and there is nothing you can do about it."

He laughter turned to a choking gag as his back arched froth spilling from his mouth as a poison claimed him.

"Dammit he had a concealed poison."

"What now?"

This here is my very favourite gun...I call her rita.

The Order of the Iron Rose - Necris' Inq28 Plog

Swarbie

Fabio awoke slowly and painfully. The power-armoured inquisitor might have been small, but he certainly packed a punch. He sat up, feeling slightly nauseous. Investigation of his head revealed a rough bandage, but no fractures in his skull, Emperor-be-praised.

There was a commotion of sorts going on nearby. Another injured man was raving about the destruction of the world and his part in it. Fabio groaned inwardly. Typical, he thought.

He got to his feet, taking his time. He stumbled over to the others and took note of the weapons-crate. He stooped down to pick up an auto-gun and immediately wished he hadn't. Blinking, Fabio grabbed the weapon, some extra ammunition and a short sword. He missed his saber. 

He turned to the others and saw he was standing next to his saviour. "Thank you," he said.

"No problem," replied the other inquisitor. "I'm Ottakar Grant."

"Fabio Glosche. You saved me from a potential coma. Something messed with my head just over ten years ago. I'm still finding out what. Until then, it seems my memories are not good for me. Too many at once, you know."

"Right."

"So, I'm sorry to keep asking questions, but what did I miss?"
And I saw her body burning,
With it, my world
To dust returning

MarcoSkoll

While Fabio and Ottakar talked, Lyra looked at the dead body of the conspirator.

   "No. I'm not letting him off that easily. We've maybe two minutes."
   "Query: Until what?"
   "I may not be a medical doctor, but I know the difference between clinical death and brain death. His body is dead - his brain isn't. Yet."

She gestured to Maya.
   "We've got a suicide case.", she pointed to the body, "Give us what you can."

The psyker nodded and crouched next to the body. Placing her hands on the man's temples, she blinked for a second. When her eyes opened again, they were blank, but blazed with fiery energy. At the same time, her hair appeared almost like it had been caught in a breeze.

Two of the gathered Inquisitors jumped at the unexpected vocal magnitude when she spoke - with her powers in use, the energy in her voice had increased exponentially.

   "What do you want to know?"
   "How much of what he said was true?"
   "He believes every word of it."
   "Could still have been lied to, but one possibility down. Anything else?"
   "There are a few wisps of memory hanging around, but scarce little of it relevant to us. This man was no more than a pawn in whatever scheme. He's been told he's important, but he knows almost nothing. There are a few faces in here - other pawns mostly, a few higher-ups perhaps - but I can't get names... his mind is beyond that stage."
   "And what of his part?"
   "I believe his job was to distract and disrupt the security - buying time for their plans. I can feel real rage... anger motivated him in this..."
She paused for a second.
   "... I'm sorry. His mind is gone beyond my reach. Perhaps a more skilled telepath could continue, but I cannot."

She let go of the man's head, separating herself from his consciousness before it passed completely beyond.

   "Not your fault. You can get up - I wasn't expecting much. It's more than we had."

Maya came to her feet, her eyes resolving themselves to normal. The responses of the Inquisitors present varied quite widely. A grey haired and large eared Inquisitor's expression spoke of distaste and distrust, but others seemed more content with it.
It was hardly surprising. Maya's powers could largely be described as shock-and-awe powers, and that leaked into her other psychic talents, with the result that almost all of them were accompanied by varying degrees of "flair".

   "Make of that what you will."
   "You have a telepath? When did that happen?", asked Gideon.
   "No. Not really. She has... other specialities, but talent enough to take thoughts from a dying and weak-willed mind. I'll explain specifics later - don't let it distract you now."
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Necris

The stranger's suicide or Lyra display of power hardly phased him, he watched the two events with a passive interest before turning on the guards that had carried him.

"You know this man?"

"He was Lord Hess' aide, Inquisitor Brant."

Jeremiah dipped to one knee by the corpse his hands moving over the body performing a rapid search of him, slipping his hands inside the body's robes he pulled a key card from it and a small silver coin.

"He had a suite in the city, and this has anyone seen one of these before."

He held up the coin on one side it was embossed with a star a skull at it's centre with a halo of thorns around it, the other side bore the seal of the Inquisition and the number XXIIV.

He stood looking into the city snapping round as one of the guards spoke.

"It's a club token."

"What?"

"It's a club token, a lot of us belong to hunting clubs or shooting clubs and the like, here look."

He dipped his fingers into his belt and pulled out a silver coin passing it to Jeremiah turning the coin in his hands he looked at the embossing a target with a lasgun in it's centre and an Imperial Star.

"So he belonged to a club?"

"I've never seen this coin before, there is little secret around them most of us here now are carrying at least one."

"So this could be something else then masked as a club."

"Wait, there was something about a meeting in his memories, it was here, ah I can't remember most of it."

Maya rubbed her temple trying to recall the memory, Jeremiah turned to the guard.

"Try to establish communications with central command we need martial law established as soon as possible, get us some transport here and a full detachment of soldiers, the Palace must be secured despite it's condition Imperial Power must be maintained."

He nodded and headed off leaving him to turn his attention to Maya as she pulled the memory back.

"Over there, he hid something"

He followed her gesture towards a walled garden the pressed the vox stud on his collar, even as the rest of the group moved towards the garden.

"Silv I need you."

She appeared moments later a bandage wrapped round her head and face some of the colour had returned to his face but she still looked shocked.

"I need you to find something over there, use your skills."

They walked over into the walled gardens Silv stood in the gateway as the others moved around looking, she closed her eyes lifting a hand she waved it across the garden.

"What am I looking for?"

"Something that ought not to be here."

She frowned the vagueness of his answer did not help as she moved here hand back and forth slowly her gestures narrowed down to one corner where an inert fountain stood stagnant water in the pool at it's feet.

"Something is blocking the fountain."

She said with confidence, Fabio turned looking at her the moved  over to the fountain followed by Jeremiah the pair of them strode into the water looking around the base of the statue at it's centre. Fabio bent down looking at the service panel and pulled it free stepping back letting a whistle escape his lips.

"It's a locator beacon."

Jeremiah stepped round behind him.

"And a powerful one at that, obviously our dead friend had an escape route should his plans fail." 


This here is my very favourite gun...I call her rita.

The Order of the Iron Rose - Necris' Inq28 Plog

Necris

He looked over the transponder then stepped back looking at Molovich

"Would you care?"

The man machine gestured in what could have been a nod and the child spoke.

"Most interesting."

He stepped back letting the giant figure passed and looked at the rest.

"We need to prioritise our work, the PDF command centre will have a master vox network and possibly a powerful enough uplink to punch through that, but we need to make our choices now."

He sighed stepped from the pool.

"What do we do, the conclave, what's left of it at least needs to be told of these events, and there's the matter of the Nexus Belt worlds and the plans our doom bringer's master have for them, then there is this world what do we do about this world?"

He rubbed hid forehead something was not right, the were fluctuation in the warp around them like something pushing against glass, he looked around at the other psykers and the colour drained from his face, Maya gave voice to his warning her powers enhancing her voice to rival the best public speakers in the imperium.

"Oh hell, arms yourselves! They are coming!"

He looked up strange shadows were forming in the sky long creatures like the rays of old terra were blurring in and out of reality pushing against the barrier trying to find a hole.

His las pistols has slid into his hands instinctively without him noticing.
This here is my very favourite gun...I call her rita.

The Order of the Iron Rose - Necris' Inq28 Plog

Kallidor

Ordained into the Priesthood of Mars, Molovish was privy to much secret knowledge and was able to commune with machines. He disconnected from the bio-unit to better focus on the device, connected himself to it instead via delicate sanking 'drites that jacked into a terminal on its side. With a hiss of static he withdrew and held the beacon at arms length.

The thing was protected by a trans-sequence algorithm that murmured with scrapcode. He reconnected to the device, brutally suprressing the machine spirit as soon as he connected. A spark fizzed from the beacon as he attempted to break through the commands that kept its purpose hidden. There, had something. The protection of the code was like jagged glass abrading his mind, nothing he couldn't handle in the short term but he could not risk being corrupted by the scrapcode and it also meant the information was difficult to interpret.

He jacked back into the bio-unit to relay his findings when the one called Maya yelled. He called to Jerimiah as everyone prepared themselves. "There was a narrow vox-band transmission embedded in the device to call for something but I am unsure what. The range is several hundred kilometres, whoever or whawtever was going to come for him could be almost anywhere. However they could still be waiting and this deivce will call them to us."

Be Pure!
Be Vigilant!
BEHAVE!

Swarbie

"Daemons!" shouted Fabio. "Steel your faith, brothers and sisters, for hell may soon be unleashed!"

He raised his autogun, tracking the flickering shapes as they made their way through the sky. They were coming closer.
And I saw her body burning,
With it, my world
To dust returning

MarcoSkoll

#40
Lyra reached for her revolver. Although she had never seen them in person before, she recognised the outline of the Tzeenchian daemons from more than one tome she had read on daemon hunting.
Creatures possessed of two traits, each as undesirable as the other - almost blinding speed, and a feral desire to kill.

   "I hope one of you has blessed rounds. We're going to need them."

No-one had time to answer her before the first of them had forced itself through into the real world with the resounding crack of displaced air and the scream of reality being rent apart. Sweeping down towards them with a grace it didn't deserve, it spiralled to avoid the lasbolts and bullets that cut through the air.

Lyra carefully took aim, firing her revolver at a calm and controlled rate - the situation was dire, but it wouldn't get any better if she wasted her ammunition. Counting away her sixth shot, she swung out the revolver's cylinder and dumped the empty smoking casings on to the ground. She thought she'd hit a couple of times, but couldn't be sure.

~~~~~

A flickering glow began to form around Maya's right hand, as she prepared her more outright pyrokinetic talents for the fight, but her concentration was briefly disrupted by an overeager and youthful Interrogator shoving her aside - keen to maintain his fire on the creature, he had disregarded her potential talents as a psyker.

   "Move aside. This is not your place.", he grunted roughly.

It was an instant later that an orb of writhing flames soared past his ear. It collided solidly with the daemon, turning its flight into a streak of orange-yellow fire. Injured, it shrieked in a sound that human ears were not meant to hear, and its sweeping arc turned towards the group, accelerating to as it prepared to attack.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Swarbie

Fabio fired off an entire clip, using short bursts. He aimed for the back of the daemon he had targeted. He knew enough of the Tzeentchian screamers to avoid aiming for the mouth- they had no eyes and the pure Warp energy carried in their jaws would disintegrate his rounds.

The daemon he had fired at shifted its motion into a descending spiral. At first he thought he had winged it, but then saw it attach itself to the head of an Imperial noble, approximately fifty meters away. He cursed as he saw reality begin to bend once more, this time on the ground level. There would doubtless be close-in fighting soon.

Dropping to the ground, he allowed the others to continue taking potshots at the screamers. He drew his short sword and sliced his palm open. Using the well of blood, he painted a hexagrammic ward on the blade, in an attempt to make it more efficacious against the Chaos-beasts that were beginning to materialize in the streets below.

"Give me your close-quarters weapons," he yelled. "I'll do my best to mark them against the daemons."
And I saw her body burning,
With it, my world
To dust returning

Koval

Well, I wasn't going to start arguing with this development; our enemies were there before us, although I really do rather wish the daemons hadn't struck while I was relatively unarmed. The best I could do was snap off a few shots with the laspistol I always carried; I'm not normally called on to fight daemons with anything less than a flamer, though, so you may understand my relative disappointment when my lasbolts impacted without doing any real damage.

"Take these," Gideon hissed from behind me. I turned, watching Glosche, the Malleus man with the autogun, empty a magazine into one of the daemons, and saw Gideon crouching on the floor, holding a pair of bolt pistols.

"Where the hell did you get them?" I snapped. "And why didn't you tell me sooner that there were bolters going?"

"Just take them, Ottakar!" Gideon urged me, practically forcing the guns into my hands before grabbing a small stash of sickle mags from his pockets. "I can't shoot worth a damn and I'm not fighting daemons again. Not after Adín."

"You're the boss," I shrugged, holding the two pistols in one hand and using the other to cram as many of Gideon's sickle mags into the ammo pouch on my belt as I could manage. Somewhere behind Gideon, I noticed a rather battered box on the ground, with various firearms poking out, including another bolt pistol. Evidently Gideon had been rummaging around in there, looking for the biggest guns he could find for me.

"Are you going to find some cover, Gideon, or are you going to hide behind me again?" I sniped. Gideon raised his left hand to make a rude gesture, but if I'm honest I wasn't looking properly.

No more than about sixty metres from me, one of the daemons dive-bombed a nobleman I didn't recognise, and clamped its jaws around his head. The daemon vaguely resembled a manta ray in shape, but there the similarity ended. A row of electric spikes grew along its back, and lightning jumped between the spikes and the daemon's body at random. Its tail grew thicker towards the end, and bore similar spikes, giving it the appearance of a mace. Its maw, framed by a set of four tusks, vented a fell brume that radiated a violet glow and wreathed its body in the stuff of the Immaterium.

No sooner had it latched into the nobleman's head than it rose again, clutching its prize between its jaws even as the man's body began to disintegrate. Like a raptor, the daemon threw its head back and swallowed its prey whole. Smog blossomed in his wake as the daemon turned and then lunged at us; looking down, I noticed that Glosche was daubing a sigil onto his sword in his own blood, a ward if I didn't miss my mark (and hastily applied at that). Evidently the daemon didn't fancy its chances around a Malleus man that knew wards, and wanted to do away with him as swiftly as possible.

I found myself presented with the perfect shot, and I took it, knowing that if I messed it up, Glosche would likely go the same way as the nobleman. Taking aim with both bolt pistols, I trusted the recoil suppressors in my power armour to keep my shots steady, and pulled each trigger twice, launching four bolts into the back of the swooping daemon and sending a short string of explosions up its body. For a split-second I feared that it wasn't enough, but in the wake of the detonations I saw huge chunks of matter missing from the daemon's body, its insides venting into the air as a stream of fog as it crashed into the ground some ten metres shy of Glosche.

"You might want something a bit bigger than an autogun, Fabio," I grinned at the Malleus man. "What exactly are they?"

"They're called Screamers," Glosche answered, staring first at the downed and disintegrating daemon opposite him, then at my pistols. "Sharks of the aethyr. In essence, they're little more than predators, but their jaws can open up a starship if it's unprotected. Not intelligent, but tough, and I've seen them go faster than a Valkyrie."

I interrupted him to take a shot at another Screamer that was too close for comfort, before noticing more shapes slowly resolving themselves around us, at first looking like blurry after-images, but soon transforming into something vaguely man-shaped, flitting around on ground level rather a lot faster than I'd have liked.

"And what do you call those?" I asked, taking aim at the closest shape as it took form and let out a bestial howl.

Swarbie

"Bad news," said Fabio. "Looks like a Fury. Odd, though, they normally fly. No matter."

He walked forwards and prepared to meet the half-manifest daemon. He focused his thoughts on images of faith, and the aquila on his sword's pommel began to glow slightly.

"On the other hand, faith can be our shield," he called back to Ottakar, who was trying to get a good shot off at the daemon. Fabio raised his voice as the daemon howled again.

"The walls of reality have become thin. Focus your faith and use it. An aquila will burn them, if your belief is strong enough."

Fabio moved all his attention to the daemon, which was now no more than five meters away. He strode to meet it, muttering under his breath.

"Libera me Domine, de Morte aeterna. . . Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of Death, I shall fear no evil, for He guides me. My faith in Him shields me." He reached the daemon, blocking its sweeping claws with his sword. The hexagrammic ward hissed.

"My belief and righteous fury empower me. My weapons are purified, and burn with eternal light against the Dark." He slashed at the daemon, opening up a gaping hole in its still-forming hide. The sword's blade began to glow white with incandescent heat. Fabio's voice rose to a shout.

"You are the daemonic! The impure! I shall destroy you and your foul brethren, scatter you to the Four Winds and burn you!!! For His is power, and glory, and light!!! Die!!!" The daemon manifested completely.

Fabio's sword was now aflame, the eyes of the aquila set into its handle throwing out pure, white light. He struck the daemon's head off. Its corpse caught fire, then seemed to melt away.

Breathing heavily, Fabio looked for more impure beasts, more daemons. His only wish was to slay, armed with the shining sword of faith.     
And I saw her body burning,
With it, my world
To dust returning

Zephon

Bernard kneeled next to one of the guards, joining him in firing another volley of lasbolts towards the ghostly figures emerging around them. Once again, it seemed to have little effect. Ottakar seemed to be having greater success, blasting great rents in daemon-skin with his bolters. His gaze was drawn to his left by a sudden pyrotechnic display. Fabio was demonstrating the extent of both his expertise and faith. Impressive, but would it enough? What was the scale of this manifestation? The city? Or the whole planet, as the dead assassin had claimed? He turned his head back to the guard and shouted,

"The command bunker! Where is it?"