Carrion Crown, as told by Inquisitor Victoria van Helm.
Esteemed Witch Hunter Coim,
13th of Desnus, 4713. The day we were chased by a giant fish-lady. We attempted to escape into the woods. Hecathia dazzles it to buy us time, and reveals that it is a rather feminine aquatic giant. We learn it speaks Aquan, but the creature knew the lay of the land better than us, and we can't escape.
Before it could do anything horrible to us, Hecathia engages it in talk, and manages to convince it we're allies. I hear the name Dagon, and disguise myself and one of his cultists. This confuses the giant, but she accepts it and leads us back to the run-down mansion.
There, she leads us through a stable, where Ronan cares for the poor condition horse stabled there before being ushered on. We enter the central portion of the mansion, a room lined with tall, crude stones around a central altar-like stone. It looks like the perfect place to hide a magic circle -- inside of a mansion!
The giant urges us upstairs. It would escort us directly, but the stairs will literally not support her weight. As we begin to ascend, we hear the distant cry of a baby. Ronan wants to destroy this place, and so do I.
At the top of the stairs, we enter a shuttered room and find a robed man wearing a gold crown and carrying a trident. Hecathia tries to engage him with Aquan to no effect, and apologizes in Common. I ask if he's here to see Father as well. He *is* Father, and I apologize, grovelling properly.
While grovelling, I prepare a grenade under myself. Hecathia makes me drop it as I'm about to lob it, and Lucia kicks it to the feet of Father. I decide to immediately exit out the window. Hecathia tries to send the grenade after me, but it goes off.
I land outside, and check out the nearest building. Inside are two cultists, one like Father but with a silver crown, and one dressed like the cultist I'm disguised as. They're holding a baby, presumably the one the parents gave up. As I think about how to infiltrate and take the baby, I'm headbutted by the decapitated head of Father.
I put the head down next to the wall as I hear the giant approach, and enter the room. I tell the cultists it's time, and Father has sent me for the sacrifice. They buy it, and give me the baby, leaving me to exit on my own. I hide ASAP and evade the giant as it almost spots me.
I return to the entrance where we met the horse, and retrace my steps back to the central room. I meet Lucia coming down the stairs, and presume they were victorious. I head upstairs to Ronan and inform him there are two
We find a bundle in the Attic, containing the Book of Abstruse Geometries.
We turn the baby over to Murrikar; he will deliver the baby to Hecathia's mother in Kalithas who will care for it -- until we arrive, or on a more permanent basis.
Glory to Pharasma,
Vic
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Saturday, 27 May 2017
Rogue Trading for Fun and Profit, Episode 15: Escape from Pyramid Necronstein
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.
The Temple is quiet, lots of corridors and storage chambers. The Lord Captain leads the way without fear of traps, Raynor keeping rear-guard.
We circle downwards,and reach a large chamber with an antechamber further along. We hear voices and see shadows -- people here. As I'm wearing the mercenary uniform, I approach and casually lean against the wall at the entrance of the chamber, relaying images back to the team with telepathy. Everyone appears to be ordinary researchers. The room is filled with research equipment, and the next antechamber over is dark and unexplored yet.
Hohenheim marches into the room and acts like he owns the show. It works, and we learn that this is a second team; there was a predecessor team, but contact has since been lost. Hohenheim tells them to keep working and we move on through the antechamber.. The researchers look at Raynor as he passes by, but ultimately pay us no heed and keep working.
We continue on for a couple of minutes, and find another antechamber similar to the one we just left. In the corner is a frightened researcher. Wash, amazingly, snaps him out of it. He's lost his friends, and while he's tried to leave the chamber... has returned 3 times.
Leaving on my own, I'm able to return back to the first group of researchers, and return to the stranded researcher. We try escorting the researcher back. We end up in a different chamber altogether.
The Lord-Captain makes the researcher strip. He's not marked, but he is carrying canisters of stone and metal shards. We try going back the way we came. Naturally, we wind up somewhere new.
I separate a thread from my robes, and get Raynor to hold it while I go off on my own. I return to the room on the other side... I'm able to tug the thread, and it's not a little surreal.
I collect the thread and tie it to a grenade. Smoke. We move on. We don't loop, and move on.
We go to another chamber, and seem to be now heading up. There are a pair of extremely large doors.
Wedged inside the door is a researcher's corpse. He's mangled to hell; clean cuts, and not slow. As if he was whole one moment, and sliced up the next. Abigail forces the door more open with Raimer's help, and we enter.
Inside is a vast chamber; there is a central ring, with a raised platform with a scepter embedded in it. It has a lambent green cross in it. There is a throne at the rear of the room, a solid thing of steel. There are four chests and screens in each corner of the room.
Abigail messes with one of the chests with Wash's help; they expose a control panel, and Abigail interfaces with it while Wash cuts into the lid. Burden messes with a chest on the other side of the room; I go for the staff.
Something happens with Wash's chest, and he jams a grenade into the hole he cut. It goes off with a crump. We berate him for breaking something.
I seize the staff, and the next events are a blur. Things start moving, the room begins to rumble, and the central platform raises up. Inside is a mysterious cube held in suspension.
Burden takes it, and a large, metal spider descends upon us. I have the idea that the staff is some sort of control rod, and try commanding it. I instead slam it with an earthquake of considerable power.
The chests begin to open, and metal scarabs swarm forth; except for the one Wash blew up, which takes longer to produce them.
Raimer demands everyone go so he can cover us. Wash tries to out-macho him and push him with the power of his jump pack, neither of which is effective.
He eventually does as he's told, and we escape through the door with our lives.
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.
The Temple is quiet, lots of corridors and storage chambers. The Lord Captain leads the way without fear of traps, Raynor keeping rear-guard.
We circle downwards,and reach a large chamber with an antechamber further along. We hear voices and see shadows -- people here. As I'm wearing the mercenary uniform, I approach and casually lean against the wall at the entrance of the chamber, relaying images back to the team with telepathy. Everyone appears to be ordinary researchers. The room is filled with research equipment, and the next antechamber over is dark and unexplored yet.
Hohenheim marches into the room and acts like he owns the show. It works, and we learn that this is a second team; there was a predecessor team, but contact has since been lost. Hohenheim tells them to keep working and we move on through the antechamber.. The researchers look at Raynor as he passes by, but ultimately pay us no heed and keep working.
We continue on for a couple of minutes, and find another antechamber similar to the one we just left. In the corner is a frightened researcher. Wash, amazingly, snaps him out of it. He's lost his friends, and while he's tried to leave the chamber... has returned 3 times.
Leaving on my own, I'm able to return back to the first group of researchers, and return to the stranded researcher. We try escorting the researcher back. We end up in a different chamber altogether.
The Lord-Captain makes the researcher strip. He's not marked, but he is carrying canisters of stone and metal shards. We try going back the way we came. Naturally, we wind up somewhere new.
I separate a thread from my robes, and get Raynor to hold it while I go off on my own. I return to the room on the other side... I'm able to tug the thread, and it's not a little surreal.
I collect the thread and tie it to a grenade. Smoke. We move on. We don't loop, and move on.
We go to another chamber, and seem to be now heading up. There are a pair of extremely large doors.
Wedged inside the door is a researcher's corpse. He's mangled to hell; clean cuts, and not slow. As if he was whole one moment, and sliced up the next. Abigail forces the door more open with Raimer's help, and we enter.
Inside is a vast chamber; there is a central ring, with a raised platform with a scepter embedded in it. It has a lambent green cross in it. There is a throne at the rear of the room, a solid thing of steel. There are four chests and screens in each corner of the room.
Abigail messes with one of the chests with Wash's help; they expose a control panel, and Abigail interfaces with it while Wash cuts into the lid. Burden messes with a chest on the other side of the room; I go for the staff.
Something happens with Wash's chest, and he jams a grenade into the hole he cut. It goes off with a crump. We berate him for breaking something.
I seize the staff, and the next events are a blur. Things start moving, the room begins to rumble, and the central platform raises up. Inside is a mysterious cube held in suspension.
Burden takes it, and a large, metal spider descends upon us. I have the idea that the staff is some sort of control rod, and try commanding it. I instead slam it with an earthquake of considerable power.
The chests begin to open, and metal scarabs swarm forth; except for the one Wash blew up, which takes longer to produce them.
Raimer demands everyone go so he can cover us. Wash tries to out-macho him and push him with the power of his jump pack, neither of which is effective.
He eventually does as he's told, and we escape through the door with our lives.
Saturday, 6 May 2017
Rogue Trading for Fun and Profit, Episode 14
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 leave Port Wander, just in time to avoid a concerted push against the dock we'd been using. I guess we haven't really made friends here. Oops.
The trip to footfall takes longer than expected, exceeding the expected time of a few weeks. Rest isn't easy, and we feel like we're being followed. A month into the trip, the Gellar Fields flicker for a hair-raising moment, but we seem to be okay, and after 48 days, we emerge.
Some passing astropathic messages tell me the actual time elapsed on the outside is around 250 days, give or take. It doesn't bother Burden, though, and she calls a strategy meeting, which we attend.
After Footfall, we're bound for KTL-220-D, 4th planet from the sun. Not particularly well-mapped / explored, so we decide to tool up.
Wash looks for and finds a shiny new plasma pistol. I set my sights a little higher, for power armor. I found a set, but the price simply wasn't right, so no dice.
Magos Abigail uses her time to retool a Skitarri plasma cannon we got from Skekris' tower -- the Lord-Captain looks for Slaught and other combat drugs. He doesn't find any, or a chemist.
This seems to disagree with him. He gets some guards and his dogs, and goes to ask a homeless man with his chainaxe. Everyone screams and runs away, and he can't understand why nobody wants to lead him to a chemist. There are stampedes and mass panic, and small children get in the way of the chainaxe when it is thrown.
We regroup at the ship. The Lord Captain is impressive as ever, his coat all red. The Magos is the pillar of humanitarianism, caring for people injured in the stampede and mugged.
We depart on a fairly stable warp route; it is quite smooth, and we arrive in KTL-220 without further incident, and decide to actually think before acting today.
KTL-220-D has mercenary ships in orbit; we outrange them, so we still have the element of surprise. We go silent to orbit opposite the mercs, and then fly down in the gun cutter, loaded for space-bear.
It's a pretty barren planet, covered in structures half-buried in the dust. We approach our target, nothing short of a monolith; it's lit up like a Emprahmas tree, so we stop about 2 klicks out.
We scout the camp around it; there's a couple of sentries at the entrance to the monolith, some prefab buildings, and a comms array on one of them. Wash and Abigail go for the comms array, Hohenheim and I go clear buildings. Raynor and Burden hang back.
Wash and Abigail are heard, but fall back and take out the one they drew the attention of. Wash helps Abigail up onto the roof of the comms prefab. Hohhenheim and I barge into the first building, which is a barracks, and kill everyone in their sleep.
Things get hairy on Wash and Abigail's side of the camp, but they prevail and we murder the last of the sentries.
With everyone on the outside dead, the party heads into the Temple Complex.
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 leave Port Wander, just in time to avoid a concerted push against the dock we'd been using. I guess we haven't really made friends here. Oops.
The trip to footfall takes longer than expected, exceeding the expected time of a few weeks. Rest isn't easy, and we feel like we're being followed. A month into the trip, the Gellar Fields flicker for a hair-raising moment, but we seem to be okay, and after 48 days, we emerge.
Some passing astropathic messages tell me the actual time elapsed on the outside is around 250 days, give or take. It doesn't bother Burden, though, and she calls a strategy meeting, which we attend.
After Footfall, we're bound for KTL-220-D, 4th planet from the sun. Not particularly well-mapped / explored, so we decide to tool up.
Wash looks for and finds a shiny new plasma pistol. I set my sights a little higher, for power armor. I found a set, but the price simply wasn't right, so no dice.
Magos Abigail uses her time to retool a Skitarri plasma cannon we got from Skekris' tower -- the Lord-Captain looks for Slaught and other combat drugs. He doesn't find any, or a chemist.
This seems to disagree with him. He gets some guards and his dogs, and goes to ask a homeless man with his chainaxe. Everyone screams and runs away, and he can't understand why nobody wants to lead him to a chemist. There are stampedes and mass panic, and small children get in the way of the chainaxe when it is thrown.
We regroup at the ship. The Lord Captain is impressive as ever, his coat all red. The Magos is the pillar of humanitarianism, caring for people injured in the stampede and mugged.
We depart on a fairly stable warp route; it is quite smooth, and we arrive in KTL-220 without further incident, and decide to actually think before acting today.
KTL-220-D has mercenary ships in orbit; we outrange them, so we still have the element of surprise. We go silent to orbit opposite the mercs, and then fly down in the gun cutter, loaded for space-bear.
It's a pretty barren planet, covered in structures half-buried in the dust. We approach our target, nothing short of a monolith; it's lit up like a Emprahmas tree, so we stop about 2 klicks out.
We scout the camp around it; there's a couple of sentries at the entrance to the monolith, some prefab buildings, and a comms array on one of them. Wash and Abigail go for the comms array, Hohenheim and I go clear buildings. Raynor and Burden hang back.
Wash and Abigail are heard, but fall back and take out the one they drew the attention of. Wash helps Abigail up onto the roof of the comms prefab. Hohhenheim and I barge into the first building, which is a barracks, and kill everyone in their sleep.
Things get hairy on Wash and Abigail's side of the camp, but they prevail and we murder the last of the sentries.
With everyone on the outside dead, the party heads into the Temple Complex.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)