Saturday 28 January 2017

Rogue Trading for Fun and Profit, Episode 9: Oh Captain, My Lord-Captain

Rogue Trader: A quest for profit in the grim darkness of the 41st millenium. But dying in mediocrity and misery is for poor people and losers, and a Rogue Trader's retinue is anything but.

Rogue Trading for Fun and Profit is bought to you by:

Lord-Captain van Hohenheim - Rogue Trader. Hero. The last of his line. That's like a unicorn!
Magos Abigail von Thannhausen - A magos who possibly takes too much pleasure in the craft of Servitors. Accompanied by her servo-skull.
Archaius Wash - A gunnery sergeant with an irritatingly low-quality accent and a poor-grade artificial voicebox.
Sebastian LaMarck - A seneschal with a silver tongue.
Winter York - Astropath Transcendant. Monstrous willpower. Your glorious narrator and remembrancer.

We get signal; it's Vex. He asks how we're doing.
A gun-cutter has been conveniently parked about 90 seconds away from our location.
There's rumors of Heretek in use; he wants it captured and turned into him if possible.
Skekris should only have accidents.
We arrive at the 233rd floor; I reload  my grenade launcher dramatically.
We step onto a mazelike floor that smells like oil, disinfectant and blood. Surgery smells.
We check out some of the rooms; definitely surgery rooms. Tannhausen correctly identifies the room as being used in Skitarri manufacturing.
We need to find our Captain.
I ping for minds. Aside from me, there's 3 on this floor -- so, nobody alive. There's one one floor up.
The Magos figures out how we get there, and we kick the door down on room 101.
We find the Captain, unconcious -- with cables in the back of his head!
The Magos checks out the machine he's hooked up to, and finds PRODUCTION QUALITY.
Someone was downloading... or uploading... the entirety of the Lord Captain's brain contents.
-Insert picture here-
The Magos would Like To Know More, and presses Y to learn more about Project Volta...
-Picture.-
Ooops.
Time to wake up the Lord Captain; two and a half minutes of 
He immediately takes a swing at the Magos on reflex; he lands it, and hurts his hand.
He realizes this is his magos, and that he's being rescued.
"I need Stimpacks. My clothes. Where am I?"
We don't have any stimpacks. We have a sword for him. His clothes are in the corner, crumpled, covered in oil and blood. His fabulous hat is squashed.
Sebastian: "Everyone take out your mourning hats."
*everyone takes out hats, puts them on if they aren't already wearing one, and then takes it off out of respect.*
Wash decides to start fucking with the terminal to find out more about Project Volta.
Somehow, Wash is better at using an AdMech computer than the Magos, despite no formal training.
He gets the history of the terminal, and some basic auth info.
The Lord Captain is alive, re-equipped, and ready to go. Let's get back to the Elevator.
The... elevator is gone. Someone's taken it down.
The magos stops it on the 30-oddth floor.
I, Sebastian and Wash drop grenades down the shaft. The elevator cable snaps, and away it goes. I hope the plan to take the Guncutter off the roof is viable, or it's going to be a lot of stairs down to the bottom.
We head up the stairs to the next floor. Wash elects to use his jump pack to go up the shaft anyway.
We start sneaking up the stairs. Captain Terra (Sebastian) trips and makes a horrible sound, ruining it. We abandon stealth.
We emerge into what looks like a workshop, not far from the elevator shaft.
We have an impressive view of the vanity of the Machine Cult. and a plethora of computer monitors.
It looks like someone packed up shop in a real hurry.
I go let Wash onto the floor by opening the elevator door.
Magos Tannhausen fiddles with the terminals, and gets a bit of spare data.
The screens flicker and flare to life; the image of a tech priest is displayed. Skeksis.
Skeksis: "You're late."
Captain: "I thought we were early for your funeral! Boooom!"
We banter with Skeksis.
"I know you, Wash. And you, Lord Captain van Hohenheim. And you, Magos Tannhausen. And you, miss York. That's what you're calling yourself these days? And I assume you're Sebastian...  the Lord Captain called out for help. And a drink."
"What do you want? You didn't call just to taunt us, right?"
"Of course not. I'm delaying you."
"Not delaying us for reinforcements coming up the elevator, right?"
"No, of course not. There's some coming up the stairs as well."
The Magos puts rounds in the screen. Boring conversation anyway.
We hear metal on metal as something thumps into the stair doors that van Hohenheim conveniently closed.
Skittari crash the party.
Wash jets forward.
I advance to near cover, and take a shot; it goes wide.
Van Hohenheim, unarmed, tells me to Do Better.
The skitarii respond with balls of plasma, putting me neatly on 14/14 wounds.
I collapse behind cover and throw my pistol to Van Hohenheim; it goes wide, but the Magos snatches it out of the air and hands it to him.
Sebastian takes a hit, but his shield stops it just barely.
Seb: "Everyone shits on shields, but I... it stops bullets."
Magos: "It protected you from the stairs before."
The Magos pops up, and  massacres one of the Skittari with full-auto bolter fire.
Wash engages a Skitarri in CQC -- the skitarri can parry him back, which is rare and distressing
The Magos is slapped to 0hp
I try and pop a grenade; it jams, and is a dud.
The Lord Captain charges forth to join Wash in his fight.
I pop another grenade; it bounces and hits... the Lord Captain.
I do no damage to everyone else, but put the unarmored Lord Captain on -1 hp!!!
The Captain charges forth once more to finish off the Skitarri I was targeting.
I try to toss him a clip for the pistol. It goes wide as well.
The magos administers some first aid.
I focus my psychic powers.
I feel the Skitarri fade.
Skeksis is still on-screen. He expresses regret that he won't be able to recover our bodies intact.
The building buckles. It's time to go.
Vex pulls up in the gun cutter; there's one last round of looting.
We fly away as the tower collapses down into the Manufactorum.

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