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The Order of Krubal

Started by Heroka Vendile, August 12, 2009, 05:17:30 PM

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Heroka Vendile

The Order of Krubal

Act 1 - Return
It's all fun and games until someone shoots their own guy with a Graviton gun instead of the MASSIVE SPIDER.
The Order of Krubal
Rewards Of The Enemy

Heroka Vendile

A Gathering In The Smoke


Thick brown clumps of poisonous smoke drifted lazily across the floor on the slow air currents caused by unseen extractor fans. A scattering of dust-mote filled rays of midday sunlight illuminated the scene inside the building; all the surfaces were coated by a thin layer of grime. The hulking shapes of brutal looking machinery sat around the place, unused for decades now and long since jammed by rust and corrosion.

In the vacant space where once belong a piece of machinery catalogued as Delta 4, a group met to discuss matters of mutual interest. Seven of them stood in a circle between the huge lumps of metal once known by those that worked and maintained them as Delta 3 and Delta 5. All wore mucky brown overcoats of varying fashions, as well as each having their face partially obscured by a different design of breathing apparatus. A single servo skull hovered above the assembly.

"I hereby call this meeting of the Order of Krubal to order." spoke a deep baritone voice, muffled behind a full-face gas mask with reflective visor, "This meeting was requested by Five and, as per usual the meeting is being aurally recorded by data servo-skull, to be added to our records."

The others all looked to the one they knew to be member number five of the Order of Krubal.

"Five, the floor is yours." Finished the speaker, nodding his head to Five as he finished.

With all eyes on him, Five took a step forward and spoke, "My thanks to you, One, for calling this meeting. And my thanks to you all for coming, especially as it has been nearly a decade since our last meeting."

He looked around at the faces observing him, recognising each by their physical build, breathing apparatus and the mixed feelings that emanated from their souls that he picked up naturally with his psychic abilities. Although he only knew the true identities of three of the other members - One, Three and Seven – he knew he was among trusted allies.

There was the founder of the order, One, who had contacted him personally after the events on Dromoskana that had led to the death of the governor. One's real name was Inquisitor Kridos Bellcry, a man who had once been a great friend of the Orders enemy. Each of them had been following a separate lead; but all were hunting the same person, but without knowing this they had embroiled themselves in fighting each other while the real culprit got what they wanted and levelled an entire Hive city, killing its hundreds of millions of inhabitants in the process. Bellcry had founded the Order after their joint failure to stop the destruction of Krubal Hive.

Two he knew next to nothing about, only what her various actions had been in the hunt over the years. She was a short and plump woman of at least four centuries service from what Five had gathered. A black gas mask of a pattern Five had never come across covered most of her face, just leaving those sharp piercing green eyes of hers open to the world.

Three, a man he knew to be called Magos Lau, the easiest to recognise due to the bug-like bionic eyes and the pipes which fed from his mouth to a boxy device attached to his chest. The Magos spoke through a vox grill mounted on the same piece of chest equipment.

Although he wasn't sure, Five suspected that Four was probably Inquisitor Gord Vethnal, a quiet man who always got the job done brutally and efficiently.

Six was the real enigma of the group, tall, slender and almost certainly not human. Five believed the creature to be one of the Eldar race, but the thing said so little and had only rarely attended the Orders meetings, making its presence here today all the more surprising.

Seven was the enigmatic and inspirational Inquisitor Markus Lupinbane, a muscular brute of a man who wielded a power hammer and claimed to have once been a humble farmer. He and Lupinbane had worked together several times over the years, both doing the work of the Order and on other cases unlinked to the Order.

And finally there was himself, member Five. Real name Inquisitor Mattilvich Krackensmith, staunch Recongregator and member of the Ordos Hereticus

Taking as deep a breath as his gas mask would allow him, began his speech,

"One failed to capture Interrogator Krosenshield on Malfi. Shadow Fox narrowly avoided death at Two's hands on Abalow. Three lost track of the heretek Goril on Bosphant. The rogue trader Tanist and his ship slipped a blockade commanded by Four and Seven at Port Maw itself. Six battled the enemy briefly on Zuraat. And I, Five, was in the process of tracking the bounty hunter Hud before Inquisitor Goddard blundered in." Krackensmith paused briefly after the recounting of each of their most recent actions against the Orders enemy prior to his disappearance.

"Granted, Goddard got initial results and infiltrated a team of his people into the base on Vossideon II, but they failed and the next thing we know Goddard has completely lost them all in one fell swoop."

Quiet grumbles of anger at Goddard's intervention came from a couple of those stood in the group.

"Since then there have been almost 13 full years of nothing. Goddard may have ruined our plans, but I believe he also scared the enemy into carrying out whatever it was that had required the so-called Sawtik Device.
I also believe that I now have stumbled across evidence of his return to action on some new quest no doubt."

Krackensmith paused, looking around him, they were hanging on his every word now.

"On Tormedies IV, barely two months ago, a man with the description of; six foot tall, dirty blonde hair tidied in a top-knot, smart attire, noble features and an unusual mixed group of attendants held conference with the planets governor. Three days later the palace was razed to the ground in a single explosion, killing all within.
The Proctor investigating followed this lead, but within five days of the explosion, everyone known to have been in even brief contact with this man and his followers was found dead.
To me, it is obvious who this man was. We know this one of is his ways to cover his tracks."

"Surely this cannot be the case?" demanded Four, as murmurings of emotion at the news passed between the others, even from Six there was a single unintelligible word uttered.

One stepped forward and placed a hand on Fives shoulder before saying, "It would seem that we must face up to the very real threat that the mutual enemy that the Order of Krubal was formed to hunt down has indeed returned then."

"Yes." confirmed Five, "Inquisitor Heroka Vendile is back."
It's all fun and games until someone shoots their own guy with a Graviton gun instead of the MASSIVE SPIDER.
The Order of Krubal
Rewards Of The Enemy

Heroka Vendile

While Old Friends Upon A Gantry Meet


The Manufactorum was filled with the constant sounds of machinery and industry. Somewhere in the distance wailing sirens alerted workers of a jam in the production line.

Evaporated sweat, steam and foul-smelling smoke filled the air. To even be able to survive any length of time in these working conditions you needed at least a set of nasal filtration plugs and a pair of goggles.

In this most hellish of workplaces two old friends were meeting upon a walkway, suspended some fifty meters above the constant noisome activity below.

At 10:00 local they stepped onto the walkway at either end and walked at an even pace towards each other. The sound of their boots on the steel grill of the narrow walkway floor was lost to the cacophony of the machines beneath. The gantry was perhaps three meters wide and a hundred meters long, spanning across the entire factory floor.  A number of boxes and machinery parts had been randomly deposited placed along its length.

Approaching from one side was a man in a full-length black overcoat of high quality with a narrow band of brown and cream around the hems. A pair of bulky but not awkward bare metal shoulder pads were attached over the overcoat, a currently inactive vid-recorder unit mounted on the right shoulder. Two bulges were visible from underneath the overcoat, betraying the presence of the sword and naval pistol where they hung from his waist.

His face was stern, weathered, but handsome, giving the appearance of a man not much beyond his forties. Hard, piercing hazel eyes betrayed that this man had seen many things that should never be witnessed by mortal eyes. Long, dark blonde hair tied up in a top-knot finished off his preferred appearance.

The other man wore a full set of storm trooper carapace armour, black plates over an unmarked black uniform. The only visible insignia was the silver I of the Inquisition on the left breast plate over his heart. His helmet currently hung from his belt, loosely attached by its chin strap. Next to it were a sword with a highly ornate hilt and a holstered sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun.

In contrast to the other this mans appearance was positively youthful, with crew-cut brown hair and a short tidy beard.

Having travelled a roughly equal distance along the hundred meter long walkway, the two men stopped face to face, a foots gap between them. They looked into each others eyes for a while seconds, both remaining stern and showing no emotion.

Eventually the man in carapace armour raised his right hand between them and waited patiently for the other to reciprocate. After a moments pause, he did. They both smiled at each other as they shook hands.

"It has been too long, friend." Said the one who had instigated the hand-shake.

"Perhaps it has Gabrent, perhaps." Replied the other, as they let their hands drop from each others.

An awkward pause dragged out for a few seconds before Inquisitor Aethip Gabrent decided to break it. Asking pleasantly,
"How is Julia? Did she recover well from her injuries on Malfi?"

"Yes, she's had plenty of rest time to return to full health since then."

"Hmm, that is good to hear. Do give her my regards."

"Of course I will Aethip." Responded the other, in what Gabrent instantly realised was an uncharacteristically cordial tone of voice.

Wearily Gabrent probed, "What is it you wanted this meeting to discuss Vendile? You've been off the charts for thirteen years now."

"You were wrong." Inquisitor Heroka Vendile stated bluntly, all pretence gone.

"Wrong? With what?"

"With everything!" snarled Vendile as he sent his right knee crashing into Gabrents crotch.

The inquisitor fell down onto one knee, grunting at the sudden pain, reduced only marginally by the carapace plate that had intervened. Vendile wrapped his left hand round Gabrents neck and forced him to look up at him.

"You knew the Sawtik Device wouldn't do what I thought it would didn't you?" demanded Vendile, his face formed in a sneer.

"You deserve an explanation at least I suppose. Our personal friendship requires it." answered Gabrent, he smiled darkly at his old friend and continued, "I handed Magos Sawtik's grey device over to you on Zurrat because it was believed that the fact that only you knew the location of the portal, coupled with your own personal drive, would make you attempt to use it immediately. But you lagged. So instead of waiting for you to act, the Silent Hand decided to give you a nudge."

"Goddard." breathed Vendile as his suspicions were confirmed.

"You've changed Heroka, I can see it in your eyes, in your soul even."

Vendile frowned now as he looked down upon a man he had once called a true friend.

A sudden, monstrously loud, other-worldly snarl, that easily cut through the sounds of the vast machinery below, emanated from Gabrent's lips. Simultaneously he lunged up and with a single punch to the chest sent Vendile flying backwards through the air. Crashing down onto the gantry again some ten meters from where he had been standing.

As Vendile struggled back up onto his feet he was kicked in the chest and sent sprawling onto his backside. He looked up venomously at Gabrent.

Except, this wasn't the Gabrent he knew any more. The white of his eyes had turned bright orange and his pupils had expanded enough to completely hide his iris', his skin had taken on an indescribable dark sheen and his sword was drawn, pointed at Vendiles chest. A sword that he had never seen Gabrent draw in his presence till now – and he instantly realised why. The daemonsword shone with internal luminescence and seemed to be whispering foul things constantly now that it was let loose.

Shouts and cries of alarm went up from below, work ceased in the immediate area as the civilians noticed the two men up on the gantry. Some called out for the Arbiters to be sent for, but most simply ran, desperate to get away from any source of conflict. So hasty were they to depart, that the production line was left running without anyone monitoring it.

"You see Vendile," spat Gabrent, to his horror Vendile realised his friends tongue had become green and dripped slime, "Goddard was just a tool, prompted to investigate you at the behest of another member of the Silent Hand."

"Damn it Aethip. Your Istvannism I was willing to accept, but to fall into the thrall of chaos? Your soul is damned now."

"Ha! No my foolish friend, my soul is saved, as it has been for twenty years now. You were right when you warned me decades ago that my beliefs would lead me to dark things, and yet, this power I have found is more wonderful than anything I could have every imagined."

"Are the Silent Hand chaos worshippers too then?" asked Vendile in a shouted voice to be heard over the now wailing security claxons.

"That pathetic shambles? Of course not, most of them are barely Istvannian. But then I came along and took charge, fed them what they wanted to hear and gave them the right results, yet all the while undermining the Imperium at the whim of my new master, the mighty Tzeentch, lord of change and master of the fates."

"Why did you send me to a daemonworld Gabrent?" bellowed Vendile angrily at his lost friend, he remained sat on the gantry, determined to get the answers he needed.

Gabrent snapped himself out of his revere of Tzeentch. "So I was right? The portal did lead to the heart of the Eye of Terror? Is a daemonic invasion afoot without my knowledge?" demanded the inquisitor with increasing joy in his voice.

"No, no daemons can use the portal, nobody can. It has been destroyed on both the daemonworld and on Krunathar." answered Vendile simply, he continued, "Your plans have failed Gabrent."

"No matter, I can make new plans." Gabrent looked dejected at Vendiles news, "But you, you must be killed now, your purpose has been served."

The inquisitor took a step forwards and swung the daemonsword down at Vendile. Desperately he scrambled backwards, but not quickly enough to avoid the first blow. The possessed blade sliced clean through cloth, flak and flesh to score a deep cut horizontally across Vendile's chest. As the blade pierced his skin he felt a rushing sensation and screamed as two litres of blood were sucked straight from his body by the vampyric daemon held within the sword.

His face turned deathly pale and spots danced across his vision as Vendile collapsed flat on his back in shock from the blood loss as his heart desperately tried to compensate for the sudden lack of blood cells to pump round his body. Above him he could just about make out the outline of Gabrent as he prepared for a return blow to finish him off.

With all of his will Vendile shouted inside his own head, 'NOW!'

There was a bright flash of light from behind Vendile which dazzled Gabrent and stopped him mid-swing, a split-second later a blast of green and blue warp flame smashed into Gabrent's chest and flung him backwards into two stacked wooded crates at the side of the gantry.

'I am here.' said a loathsome voice inside Vendile's head.

Recovering himself, Vendile managed to prop himself up onto his elbows in time to see Gabrent stood upright again, his chest plates battered and scorched, an incredulous look on his face as he held his daemonsword out to one side and pointed with his left hand at the thing behind Vendile, shouting,

"You decry me for turning to chaos when you yourself have seen fit to harness it! Hypocrite!"

This comment was immediately responded to with another blast of warp flame shooting over Vendiles head at Gabrent, but this time the traitor brought his sword up, letting its magical energies block the shot.

With a roar of anger Gabrent strode forwards along the walkway towards Vendile again, but his ally moved forwards to meet him. Vendile watched as the pallid flesh and ripped black robes of the thing known to him as Areshibael Warpwalker glided through the air a foot above him to meet its opponent.

Areshibael was a horror to behold, a tall emaciated frame with ghostly white flesh. It had a set of torn and ripped black robes with brown and cream edging hanging loosely off of its frame. But worst of all was that this thing had no head, instead, atop its thin neck, it had a single, skull-sized, black eyeball.

Gabrent uttered some foul curse as the pair drew near and Areshibael wordlessly replied in kind and the two blasts of warp plasma collided with a bang.

This was followed an instant later by a big booming explosion some three hundred meters away down the production line. Left unmanned, the whole system was clogging up with multiple jams and failures, the first of which had just gone critical and caused a two-story piece of machinery explode in a fireball. As the sound rolled up and down the chamber an minor secondary explosions occurred, Vendile realised the large number of different alarms and sirens still wailing away to warn of all these failings in the system. The loudest of these was an alert to say that all access hatches would close in five seconds to stop the fire spreading beyond this workhall.

However he seemed to be the only one who noticed, as seconds later Gabrent and the unarmed Areshibael clashed in combat.

Gabrent swung a powerful uppercutwith his blade, which the daemonhost narrowly swerved to avoid and then responded to with a focused blast of red lightning from an outstretched hand that burned across Gabrents right side.

The sound of various clangs could be heard along the length of the production line as every blast door closed and sealed itself.

The inquisitor attacked again, but Areshibael again avoided the blade, but then lunged in and grasped Gabrents neck in his right hand and hoisted him aloft. In a desperate defence he swung the sword up and cleaved straight through the daemonhosts right arm at the elbow.

The psychic scream of pain that followed floored Vendile yet again and nearly killed the far closer Gabrent, who was also flung backwards along the gantry as the decapitated limb clasped around his throat seemed to explode and vaporise all at once. The inquisitor crashed to the floor of the walkway some twenty meters away from the daemonhost, his neck and chin burnt black and blood trickling from his ears, nose, mouth and the corners of his eyes.

Areshibael meanwhile had transformed his psychic shriek of pain into an audible one somehow as he stared at the stump of his elbow, from which many shades of light seemed to emanate. All of a sudden though, the cry changed into awed surprise and pleasure.

Vendile stumbled on onto his feet again, coughing at the smoke that was starting to fill the ceiling space from the spreading fires beneath, just in time to watch as new bone seemed to grow out of the shinning stump of the daemonhosts arm. The bone twisted and mutated, thickening and taking form of its own accord. After a few seconds the glowing faded and revealed that Areshibaels lower right arm had regrown into the form of a large crab claw. The inquisitor felt bemused as he watched the daemon twist the arm this way and that to admire it, as he was not aware that Areshibael had the power to reform his body any more than basic regeneration of his host.

'It is a gift from Tzeentch!' explained the daemon to Vendile's from inside his head.

Meanwhile, calling on the warp to give him strength, Gabrent pulled himself onto his feet again, daemonsword at the ready. Areshibael saw this and would no doubt have smiled menacingly if he had had a mouth to do so. Instead the daemonhost simply swooped along the gantry towards him at speed, claw ready to attack.

Gabrent stepped forwards to meet him at the last moment, swinging the blade in a deadly back-handed arc, it shone bright red, echoing its wielders anger. And stopped dead.

The daemonblade was held stock still mid-swing within Areshibaels new claw. Slowly but surely the daemonhost cut through the blade by closing his claw around it. The blade shrieked and moaned in complaint, as did Gabrent as the blade sucked power and life-force from him to try and stop the claws progress, but to not avail.

After about ten seconds of the deadlock there was a final high pitched shriek as the blade was cleaved in two and the daemon within was released back unto the warp. The two halves of the now ordinary sword fell to the ground, the handle half dropped from Gabrents hands as he fell onto his knees, drained and damaged.

During this time Vendile had managed to walk along the gantry to within a couple meters of the pair.

'Kill him.' ordered Vendile through his mind-link with the daemon.

'No, Tzeentch does not wish this servant to die by my hand.' replied Areshibael telepathically, this message was accompanied by the briefest flash of an image in his mind, showing Inquisitor Bellcry stood over the burnt remains of what was obviously Inquisitor Gabrent. Vendile smiled and stepped past the daemonhost and dropped down onto his haunches so that he was at eye-level with the defeated Gabrent.

"Bellcry's precious Order should have picked up my trail again by now, this is how I will make sure of it." he said contemptuously.

Gabrent was so drained and battered that all he could do as Vendile reached over and unholstered his double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun and aimed it at his face was to murmur, "Please... Heroka... no... no."

"It doesn't matter what I do now, because I know you'll be dead shortly anyway, but I won't let you to take the easy way out." stated Vendile simply, a vicious grin on his face.

He stood up and casually threw the gun off the gantry to the floor below, making it impossible for Gabrent to put himself out of his misery or to escape.

Vendile turned back to face Gabrent, who looked up at his old friend with real fear in his eyes, "Goodbye Gab-"

An explosion from below shook the gantry so hard that Vendile had to grasp onto the railing. Turning to look behind himself, he saw the fireball raging up from underneath the walkway near the centre, some thirty meters back, he could just make out the sound of shearing metal over the roar of the flames.

He turned and shouted at Areshibael, "We leave now!"

At that second the gantry lurched downwards several feet and listed sideways where it stayed for half a second. Vendile let go of the railing and jumped as more metal sheared, right arm outstretched to the floating daemonhost, who reached out and grasped it in his left hand. The central section of the gantry collapsed onto the burning machinery below. The section Gabrent was on dropped lower and twisted with the free end upside-down. The doomed Inquisitor screamed with a voice distorted by burns and filled with desperation as he slid off and hung desperately with one hand from the top railing,

"NO!"

Suspended in mid-air, Vendile and Areshibael disappeared in a flash of blinding light.

"NO! NO!"

Machinery units up and down the length of the production line were exploding or already on fire, shrapnel from another nearby explosion sliced into the back of Gabrent's legs. In his anguish he shouted at the Gods,

"You betrayed me!"

The gantry gave a final shriek of tortured metal and dropped down into the roaring inferno beneath.
It's all fun and games until someone shoots their own guy with a Graviton gun instead of the MASSIVE SPIDER.
The Order of Krubal
Rewards Of The Enemy