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Post by Darko on Dec 27, 2014 21:40:48 GMT
Player event: Dewin Lord Harrab Warork AegisFate coolyo294 NeptyAfter a short while, all of the acolytes had gathered on the bridge. Captain Hera and Commander Thaddeus were also in attendance. The Inquisitor ordered a full briefing, so that every detail may be scrutinised. "Our first indication of a problem was when the gellar field fluctuated. Had the anomaly been much stronger, we'd be up to our necks in warpspawn right now," Hera began. "Then one of my men reported a murder. Myself, Judge Nolus and sergeant Garris investigated, finding one of our security armsmen had also been killed. There was a spent bolt shell left behind," Thaddeus added. "Based on how the victims died, the killer appears to be very skilled." "It was around that time that Lexmechanic Juro approached me," Victora interjected. "He reported that Enginseer Malavik had been missing since we entered the warp. I ordered him to inform the captain, then went to the engine room. Not long after I arrived, Malavik entered. He said he had been running diagnostics on the gellar field systems at the behest of the captain." "That is true, I contacted Malavik and he confirmed there was no mechanical fault. That is when I requested your psyker's assistance," captain Hera elaborated. "I detected no warp threat," Nicholas added. "When the captain made a ship-wide announcement informing us of the murderer, who used a bolt weapon, Malavik informed me that he had given his bolt pistol to Lexmechanic Juro for maintenance while he conducted repairs on the weapon batteries. Logic dictates that the Lexmechanic is the most likely suspect," Victora surmised. "Our security teams are deployed on every deck," said Titus. "Yet we have found no trace of Juro." "This is a lot of speculation," Sarasti pointed out. "We must consider the facts: two crew members are dead, the Enginseer gave his bolt pistol to the Lexmechanic, but no one has seen Juro since he spoke with Victora." "He knows this ship better than all of us, except the Enginseers. He could be hiding in the very walls for all we know," grunted Thaddeus. Without warning, the discussion was interrupted as the ship shook violently around them. Everyone was knocked off their feet as the lights flickered and went offline, only to be replaced by the dull red glow of the emergency lights. Several servitors caught fire, silently burning at the stations they were hard-wired into. The Navigator screamed at his station, spasms arcing across his body as electrical surges blew out terminals all around the bridge. The cascade of unnatural colours native to the warp vanished in a terrifying explosion of light as real-space appeared all around them. The cruiser careened, spinning uncontrollably through space completely out of control. The few functioning servitors managed to regain limited control and the Redemptive Consul began to stabilise, steadily slowing. The captain shakily regained her footing. "Status report!" She shouted. "What the hell is going on?" +++Main power: offline+++ one servitor droned. +++Cause of failure: premature deactivation of warp core during transit+++ The klaxons resounding through the bridge were shut off by a member of the bridge crew, leaving only the burning flames of several sporadic electrical fires accompanied by the noxious smell of cooked flesh. The Navigator writhed on the floor, still screaming. He looked up and reached out with a crooked hand toward the acolytes. The other hand was placed across his forehead, desperately covering the warp eye. His human eyes were smouldering pits of warpflame. Convulsing, the navigator's body twisted. The temperature on the bridge dropped noticeably, and he began to rise above the floor. The navigator screamed, but it was an unnatural noise - accompanied by a shrieking which sounded like ceramite tearing apart. He hovered there for a second, and then exploded. His flesh expanded in a cloud of gore, gaining considerable mass from nowhere. Within moments a deformed creature with skin like bare flesh was all that remained. A large, distended jaw bore deep into what had been the navigator's chest, and a shrivelled head extended outwards on an elongated neck, with a single cyclopean eye in the middle. From the grossly deformed body, five limbs splayed outwards, with the two smallest hanging at unnatural angles below the gaping mouth. The largest held a shimmering stave that glowed with unnatural energy. "Daemon!" Inquisitor Severine shouted. "Attack, by the Emperor, attack!"
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Post by Lord Harrab on Dec 27, 2014 22:40:16 GMT
Distance to target, 10.2 meters. Well within effective range of a Mars pattern Bolt pistol. Current limitations of organic dexterity and muscle tension dictates two rounds can be effectively placed on target before muzzle elevation due to recoil renders accuracy an issue. Unlike to be sufficient to disable the target due to the inherent nature of manifested warp spawn and their failure to comply to logical form restraints shared by most organics. Therefore, must predict and counter possible counter attack. difficult due to unknown nature of target. inquisitor is HVT there priority must be given to her survival over Captain of vessel, self or other member of retinue. Other organics unlike to react fast enough, other members of combat unit better quality but still mostly organic and prone to the randomness such a form exhibits. Cannot be relied upon until their training activates and performs chemical level balance change within their brain to pressure the flight or fight response towards fight. After taht will have to monitor as needed due to the presence of warpspawn. Pistol has cleared holster. Execute operation.
Victora reacted almost before the inquisitor had finished speaking, her bolt pistol was clear of her holster and she snapped off two shots at the daemon's center mass as she simultaneously placed herself between the beast and her current superior even as she brought the weapon down again to reacquire the target.
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coolyo294
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Slayer of Demons
Posts: 1,169
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Post by coolyo294 on Dec 27, 2014 23:04:42 GMT
With a practiced motion Garis shouldered his shotgun and fired two shots. The heavy shells bladted chunks of corrupted flesh from the daemon's frame, eliciting an otherworldly shriek of pain. As he fired Garis moved to place himself between the daemon and Inquisitor Severine. In actuality the Inquisitor needed little protection but the veteran engineer still felt oblighted to act as her bodyguard.
"Stay behind me, madame Severine." He said, voice betraying no emotions.
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Post by Warork on Dec 28, 2014 5:03:08 GMT
This day just kept getting better...Titus had just arrived aboard the bridge after reluctantly disengaging from his search out at the crime scene. He did not appreciate being taken away from his work...even by someone as important as the Inquisitor. With a terse command he had bid his squad of armsmen to go back to their duties and to report anything out of the ordinary to their superiors. Fuming, he had stalked off to the bridge.
When he had arrived the rest of the acolytes as well as the Inquisitor and the ship's crew were already in fervent discussion about the recent events aboard the ship. They were all there; Victora the dutiful techpriest and her Skitarri counterpart Krill. Garis, ever devoted to his superiors was there, Titus was certain he must have been the first to heed the Inquisitor's message. The elusive Sarasti had also appeared; out of all the acolytes, Titus new the least about the strange looking assassin.
Unfortunately, before Titus could say much the ship exited the warp rather violently as it passed into real space. The force of it threw him off his feet, his world flipping end over end until abruptly slamming into one of the surviving servitors. The two went down in a heap as the the ship eventually lurched into stillness again. Titus' vision swam inside his helmet as his visor's systems adjusted to the new low light conditions on the bridge. With a grunt, the Judge heaved the dead weight of the servitor off of him just as the navigator's corpse began to stir. For a moment, Titus was transfixed by the lurching figure before him, growing out of the Navigator's skin like a cancerous lump. The cold of the deck's stale air caught in his throat...it had been a long time since he'd last seen one of the warp's most horrid denizens. The monster's scream was enough to make even Titus' blood curdle even as muscle memory and his honed instincts forced his body to move into action. His shotgun was too cumbersome to unlimber quickly and so he reached to his hip holster as he rose to his feet, pulling out his bolt pistol.
The beast writhed and Titus saw that as it did so a small figure close to it was in danger of being hit by its flailing limbs. In a milisecond, Titus recognized it as the ship's captain; much less armored and armed than himself.
"Stay back!" He shouted to her as he leapt in front of her and fired his bolt pistol at the twisting form of the daemon. He gritted his teeth behind his helmet and swore to himself that if he survived these next few minutes then not even the Emperor himself would be able to save whoever it was that was sabotaging the ship.
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Post by AegisFate on Dec 28, 2014 20:04:14 GMT
The shrieking daemonic form disgusted Nicholas, his mind's eye showing a bleeding form from which madness collected. The death scream of the Navigator, a psychic presence was still echoing. The split second he had demanded the one action he knew. Fire, unrelenting fire. Pulling the power from deep within the warp, pushing his self, his hands wreathed themselves in flame, the burning sensation lost amongst the dull sensation of the warp. With a silent roar, he launched flame towards the beast, watching his allies carefully as the arbitrator leapt in front of the captain, bolt pistol chattering. He shouted out one word, rage aflame in his voice, "BURN!"
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Post by Lord Harrab on Dec 28, 2014 23:33:00 GMT
"my fire is ineffective." Victora reported, seeing her first two shots dissolve before impact "Performing combat analysis, Standby."
the other members of the inquisitor's retinue had leaped into action around her, the Skitarrii obeying his usual response to a threat and advanced as he had been bred to, slowly and with shield raised, untill he was dead or it was, like a true solider should.
Options, she thought, accessing her memory in order to find a similar situation while also keeping her larger form between the inquisitor and the warpspawn, "close combat is the alternative, only a fool tries the same thing expecting a different outcome, but axe is too unweildly, poses risk to allies. Acceptable.
but she was cut off by a roar of flame and rage from the psyker and almost insatntly Victora was wracked with pain. She shut off her pain receptors, pumped her body with combat recover drugs at the speed of thought, but as she twitched and screamed at the burning fury in her mind all she could do was likewise scream and beat her thoughts against the problem
How? How? How? How? How? No phsyical stimulus dtected, the warp spawn has not targeted her or the inquisitor and the psyker's attack is focused away from this location to avoid friendly fire.
her body was failing even as she tried to find and correct the fault. She raged and hated her weak and useless flesh even as she tried to protect and heal it. this made no sense, pain does not come from nowhere and serves a purpose this pain was purely in her mind and she fought to keep her mind focused and not fall to the animal res ponces of those blessed by the machine, she was not winning, but she wasn't losing either.
++ERROR, Threshold exceeded.+++
"the flesh... is weak." she manged to cough out, before she put all her strength into repelling the pain, and allowed her body to collapse to the deck.
this was her mind, her thoughts, her memories, all neatly stacked and accessible, and she would die before she's let something so shamefully organic and pitiful as unknown pain disrupt her operations.
ok, review the data. trust in the omnissiah
No external force, projectile or warpspawn bolt had touched her, and such pain could be quite easily shut off for the duration of the emergency. But it occurred shortly after the psyker attacked, roughly 2.37 seconds afterwards and her tactile responses had detected a lowering of ambient temperature in line with a warp disruption. therefore this attack was not physical and is a delusion brought to being by the damnable psyker and his attempts to destroy the deamon. An unfortunate side effect and one she should have anticipated.
++INSUFFICIENT DATA++++
She drew out some unimportant memories and threw them to the pain to buy her time, she checked her internal cogitation, roughly fifteen seconds had passed since she collapsed, and the pain while overwhelming any attempt to return to normal functionality, it seemed to be having trouble getting further and disrupting her logical analysis of the situation. She felt relived at that, her body may have failed her, but the machine was strong, as it should be
Her faith the machine swelled up in her then, her body was weak, but she knew that already, only the machine is pure and strong and it was on her side, this pain couldn't touch it and was nothing, nothing but a memory to be deleted and forgotten.
Victora opened her eyes.
She was outside the bridge, on her back and the time display in her vision was malfunctioning. She sat up checking her bionics and physical form for damage. there was none.
Her axe was nearby and she used it to stand, taking in the surrounding area, it was the access corridor to the command deck, the inquisitor was unharmed and the tech preist noted the absence of her power stake from her back to be a good sign.
"I am once again functional." she reported to the group at large, "i take it we were victorious?'
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coolyo294
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Slayer of Demons
Posts: 1,169
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Post by coolyo294 on Dec 29, 2014 0:46:32 GMT
Garis found himself side by side with Techpriest Victoria as they poured fire into the demon, simultaneously shielding the Inquisitor with their bodies. But it was to no avail. Even though every shot landed, some sorcerous power of the foul creature disintegrated each shot like a drop of rain would break on a window. As he expended the last shot in the shotgun's cylinder he dropped to one knee
"Reloading." Garis said. Briefly he considered using his last demo charge against the daemon but quickly decided against it. The powerful explosive would likely do more damage to the bridge and his allies than the daemon. Once the thought of friendly fire would not have perturbed him so much, but his fellow acolytes and the Inquisitor all valued their lives much more highly than the Kriegsman he had fought alongside.
As he finished reloading, Garis stood up and continued firing. But before he could more than two shots off, a massive gout of warpfire sprang from the psyker Nicholas and scorched the daemon. It shrieked hideously, but that was not what drew Garis's attention. He was drawn to the gale-force winds that had sprung up as well as the blood that was now leaking from every surface.
Something was very, very wrong.
Before he could even call out a warning to the Inquisitor or other acolytes, an obscene choir of voices began chanting in his head. Each one bore sweet promises of freedom and power if only he would place that shotgun of his against the Inquisitor's neck and pulled the trigger. He reeled back with a grunt, but the honeyed words of the warp-spawned found no purchase in his mind. His faith was a shining beacon against the darkness and with the soft whisper of prayers he learned as a cadet the phantoms were banished.
Others were not as firm. Glancing around Garis could see the Techpriest, Serasti, and even the indomitable Krii had all collapsed. A thin sneer tugged at his lips beneath the all-covering gasmask. Such weakness was unforgivable but he pressed it form his mind, focusing only on pressing the offensive against the daemon whose realspace defenses had finally been broken. His shotgun boomed in unison with Titus's, blowing huge chunks of corrupted flesh from the daemon's frame. It began to twist and shrink as its grip on reality began to slip, slowly returning to the warp. Inquisitor Severine dealt the killing blow with her power stake. As soon as the daemon vanished the Inquisitor ordered a full evacuation of the severely damaged bridge. While the rest of the acolytes and crew filed out Garis stooped down to retrieve the captain who had been critically injured during the fight. He hauled her bleeding form over his shoulder in a bedside manner-less fireman's carry and hurried out to the access corridor.
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Post by Nepty on Dec 29, 2014 13:22:12 GMT
Fact: Homo Sapiens Rattus Sicarius are thin variants of the holy human form, with dense musculature and bones, but not durable
Fact: You are not carrying anything remotely capable of the firepower required for this situation
Fact: Skeyvin are generally self-centered,backstabbing manipulators. You are no exception to the rule
Fact: There is a daemon nearby. Such things are not your forte.
All these things and more went through the head of Morghast Sarasti in a moment as he lay on the floor, suffering a headache and resisting the urge to vomit out his recent protein-rich lunch. Feigning unconsciousness would work for a short time, but not eternally. His laspistol was to hand however. He opened one eye a fraction. The bridge was a swirling mass of warp energy, flailing, horrific limbs, muzzle flashes and explosions. The entire vision swam in and out of focus, wavering, bathed as it was in warp-wash. Sarasti saw a bullet bounce off the floor by his foot, many meters away from the daemon. The warp-wash was making it hard to target as it leapt from wall to wall and disemboweled servitors.
Sarasti pondered for a moment, a sea of calm in the hectic mess of a daemon-fight. His conclusion was reached in less than a second. Deny the witch.
He was no psyker, but he understood that the whispers of the warp could effect your senses. He closed his eyes, ignored the sounds in his ears, and held his breath, lest his uncannily accurate sense of smell betray him. He drew the relic pistol and getting up on one knee, aimed where he thought appropriate by instinct and fired a stream of high-powered lasbolts as he began to back away towards the inquisitor. He opened his eyes. The daemon's hideous head was scorched. The tactic had worked, after a fashion, but the weapon, which carried roughly a little more power than a godwyn-de'az pattern bolter was not enough to damage it. The power of faith would harm it, but Sarasti had never been the most zealous of individuals. Where was a priest when you needed them?
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Post by Warork on Dec 30, 2014 4:29:30 GMT
"I am once again functional." Techpriest Victora reported once the group had gathered outside the bridge and sealed the doors to prevent the psychic storm from spreading. "I take it we were victorious?"
"That is correct." Titus said between ragged breaths. The pain from his burns was excruciating even as the painkillers that Captain Thaddeus had given him from an aid kit were working their way through his system. "We seemed to have escaped certain peril with our lives intact..."
Titus took off his helmet which was covered in blood from the strange warp fueled phenomena that had wracked the bridge into chaos. The remainder of his carapace armor, boots, and gloves also had the strange warp blood smeared on them as well. Titus looked around seeing the same sort of gunk slathered across everyone else as well. At least it didn't seem to be bothering them.
"For now..."
Titus took a few deep breaths. The echoes of whatever psychic attack the daemon had unleashed upon all of them still rung in his head. They were some of the loudest whispers Titus had ever heard in his own head. He had only heard such insidious things once before...a long time ago...in a different life. With a silent litany, he chased away the last of the warp lies and took hold of his shotgun again, reloading it. His armor had all but sloughed off him from the blow of the daemon's warp magicks. That ancient suit of armor that had protected seven...no, Titus corrected himself, eight Judges was now nothing but tatters.
"I know the situation is dire but before we all go storming off to fix this mess, there's something I need to know." He turned his one eyed gaze to Inquisitor Severine as he adjusted one of his bandages. "Ever since Captain Thaddeus first reported the murder aboard the ship I have wondered what taint could have affected whatever bastard is doing this. The only variable I can think of that might have penetrated the sanctity and security of an Inquisitorial vessel is the one object that you brought aboard, Inquisitor. You know I hate to pry on Inquisitorial secrets but our circumstances may no longer leave the luxury for them. So tell me, Madam Inquisitor, just what is the nature of that thing you brought aboard this vessel and set the heaviest of guards around, should we be concerned about its security in the wake of these attacks, and most importantly do you think it may somehow be responsible for them?"
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Post by AegisFate on Dec 30, 2014 17:24:59 GMT
Woops, was all he could think as the fiery power raged out of control, the warp bleeding into the realspace of the bridge, blood streaming out from every spare panel in the room. I should not have done that, he regarded as his mind processed the daemonic essences bleeding throughout the room as the beast fell.
Nicholas' mind was the first thing to have the monsters come knocking, the daemonic entities trying to break through the defenses he spent years honing, and to his credit, they held back, even as the group promptly left the room in a hurry, his own hand grabbing at a man and dragging him out. As he stepped out of the bridge, he promptly swore in a few tongues at his own appearance before looking at the rest of the party for a moment.
"I appear to have overdone it a smidgeon. I blame the warp, it is a fickle whore. Now to clean myself up," he announced to no one in particular, although knowing everyone was especially wary of him now.
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