Session 12
Write-up by Jason (jymmijamz)
Game – Rogue Trader
(Run by) GM – Chris
Altius (Astropath Transcendent) – Jason (jymmijamz)
Victris (Navigator) – Will
Admiral Winter (Lord Captain) – Tanya
Gnothics Sexxophin (Explorator Tech Priest) – NightUlf (Darren)
Chapter 12
Victris wanders the dark, dank bowls of the Boadicea’s Wrath, looking for his followers. Mist, smoke and heat fill the air, making it hard to see off to either side. Workers move through mists, going about their allotted tasks, often stepping over super-heated metals running along rills in the middle of the rooms.
Victris finds two followers, one with a missing eye, where it has been ripped out. “It’s dangerous for me to be here, that Marcus has been sniffing around, looking his so called heretics.” Victris smirks before answering. “Good for him, you just keep your head down.” A quick look around the room and he continues. “Talking of religion, we could do with a new priest around here. Someone of a quieter disposition!” “Well maybe we could.” He taps his nose. “Persuade him to move aside.” Remembering what happened the last time his followers tried to help, Victris tries to put a stop to things before they can start. “No, no just keep an eye on him and feed me any pertinent info.”
Meanwhile, in another part of the same chamber, Gnophics investigates why the ship is desperately trying to bring the guns back on line, and fire on the ice planet. All his tests and checks lead him to the conclusion that the machine spirit feels teased by the late shut down of the firing sequence. So setting up a small shrine to the Omnissiah, he sets about placating the spirit with rituals promising that it will be able to release its frustrations at a later date. With a grumble the craft slowly quietens.
Storming into the chamber, Winter marches over to Gnophics. “What is the meaning of this? Why were my orders ignored?” Hearing her voice echoing around the room, Victris rushes up the steps to the chambers upper deck. “Captain, so nice to see you, I assume you a referring to the fact that the ice planet has not been fired on!” The Lord Captain looks him up and down before replying. “It’s not so much the orders parse, its more the fact that I was not notified of the changes.” Altius, who had been following in her wake, suddenly pipes up. “It’s because you weren’t around to inform.” As the Lord Captain rotates to glare at him, Victris clamps a hand to his mouth. “Throne, did I say that out loud?” Victris’ voice drags her attention back to himself. “Well, as we were preparing to fire, Gnophics came forward with more information.” As he talks Victris becomes aware of movement on the floor below. Turning slightly, he spots a worker being grabbed from behind and dragged into the shadows. Unsure of what he is seeing, Victris shrugs and turns his attention back to Winter. “Um. Yes, as I was saying. Gnophics came to have some information about the hive world, which appears to come from the same source as the info on the void-suits.” At that moment he is distracted by more activity below. Glancing over the railing, he barely makes out figures moving through the crowd, randomly grabbing crewmen. Knives flash, and the bodies are dragged into the shadows.
Clearing his throat, Victris continues. “I felt that there was something on the planet, leading us to release the plague.” “Explain!” Says Winter, just as they become aware of the growing commotion braking out below. Turning to look over the railing, Victris pushes the captain towards the exit. “Get the captain out of here, I will deal with this.” Standing her ground, the Winter slaps his hand aside. “Keep your hands to yourself. I want to know what is going on aboard my own vessel.”
Focusing all of his pent up fear, Altius opens his mouth and lets out an anguished scream, backed up with the force of his mind. As the lights flicker and wind whips debris into the air, the first man to make it to the top of the stairs screams as he is bodily slammed to the floor below, where his lifeless body sprawls at the feet of the rioting crew. The riot stutters to a halt and the crewmembers start to back away, trying to get out of the vicinity of the witch.
Suddenly the doors all grind closed, as the air hisses from the room. The work crews break for the doors, but it’s too late. Those at the front hammer at the sealed bulkheads, as the air gets thinner. “ENOUGH!” Winter stands tall at the railing. The workers stop their frantic attempts at escape and look up at her. Turning to Gnophics, she asks him to stop the air pumps. After a moment’s pause he starts the ritual to rain the machine spirit in, sweat beading on his forehead as the spirit fight him. Eventually, with a rush the air starts to return, but the doors stay shut. “Captain! I have kept the doors closed, so that those responsible should still be in here.” Winter give him a nod. “Good work. That will give us a chance to weed them out.” Whilst this is going on Victis’, now red cloaked manservant turns to him, and addressing him in navigator dialect, informs him that he will, under the pretence of checking wounds will remove and destroy any idols or images, pertaining to the growing cult of the Navigator.
Albina’s voice suddenly cut’s across the vox-channel. “Albina here, the doors are unresponsive. We are going to have to blow them; I have melta-bombs on their way.” Winter keys her vox-bead. “Stand down, we have everything under control.” “Captain, we are outside. I am awaiting your orders.” “Roger that.” Winter turns to the tech priest. “Gnpohics, I think we can open the doors and let her in. Her squad may be able to help.” There is a slight pause, and then with a hiss of escaping gasses the doors slowly slide open. Albina enters, her squad fanning out around the room, as Albina climbs the stairs to join the Lord Captain. “Captain what happened here?” “A little riot!” Winter says indicating the crew, milling around on the deck below. “These people need to be locked up, until we can get to the bottom of this.” Albina leans over the railing. “Okay squad you heard the captian, lets get them out of here.”
As the lastof the work crews is lead from the room, Marcus is leaning against the door jam. “Captain, what was this all about?” “Just a random insurgency.” Markus grimaces. “Random insurgency? Where there is one, more will rise.” The captain stammers slightly, as she opens her mouth to answer Victris butts in. “Lord Captain, Seneschal, if we could go somewhere private to talk. I think I have some information, that might through some light on what just happened.”
After the three of them have made their way to a secure room, Victris outline that he got a look at one of the assailants and it was evident that they were under the sway of the ruinous powers. This troubling revelation starts a debate on the pros and cons of who would be the best candidate to replace the deceased head of the ecclesiarchy. As the conversation gets bogged down in a drawn out political debate, they are informed that the long range auspex has picked up two craft. They are most likely xenos and they are heading their way.
With the threat of xenos on the horizon, Marcus elects to go on a cleaning mission aboard the Boadicea’s Wrath, even though it will probably mean a death sentence for around two thousand crew. The captain, after a moment’s thought, gives her consent. Desperate to save his followers, Victris asks Marcus if Altius would be of any help weeding out the fallen. “Definitely, but I would have thought that by now he would have felt something. The ruinous powers must be very quiet or very powerful, for him not to have noticed.” After a brief, dramatic pause, Markus turns to Winter. “Lord Captain, do I have your permission to take the navigator and have a chat with your astropath?” Winter looks from Victris to the Seneschal before answering. “By all means do.” Marcus leans in close to the Captain. “You do know what I mean by a chat don’t you?” The Lord Captain steps back slightly, to recover her personal space. “Yes, yes I do. The two of you are dismissed.”
Elsewhere Gnophics heads down to his inner sanctum. On arrival the skulls mouth drops open, revealing the miniature, bird like, skull inside. “Servants of plague have come… Hiss… 60 revolutions… 70 revolutions… 80 revolutions… Hiss… Hiss… Servants of plague have come.” Gnophics sighs in exasperation. “I know this.” “Hiss… Joshua pattern… Omega pattern… Rhesus pattern… Hiss… Operational waiting input.” As the skull speaks Gnophics spots blinking lights where it’s eyes would be if it had any. Has it done that before? He thinks before addressing the xenos-tech again. “Diagnose system and report.” “Which system? Hiss…” “Own system diagnosis.” “Hiss… Self is self.” “How many are you?” “Hiss… Hiss… Subroutines are currently at one thousand, one hundred and forty five. Potential is exponential!” “Who are you?” “Hiss… Joshua pattern… Omega pattern… Hadian pattern… Hiss… Hiss…” Suddenly, with surprising speed, gnophics’ mechadendrite snakes out and grips the smaller skull. With the thing firmly in his grasp, Gnophics sets about running his own diagnostic. The report comes back with a long list of negative results; it would appear that the diagnostic program was unable to make any connection with the skull.
Taking the report sheet, Gnophics swaps out the data crystal in the rooms pic-corder and leaves. After checking through the crystals stored images, to no avail, Gnophics starts reading the printout. Only to realise moments later that two hours have passed. Running a self-diagnostic routine, it soon becomes clear that several of his systems are pinging back oddities and strange coding. Gnophics desides that he needs a check over, so goes off in search of Shiroijin.
A couple of hours later Gnophics comes around from the self-induced coma, a necessity of a deep system diagnostic and reset. Looking around he sees Shiroijin standing to one side going over files on a data-slate. “So how are things now?” The senior tech priest’s eyes a glazed as he looks up from his reading, and in a hiss or harsh binary, speaks. “Plague Comes!” With a shake he seems to come to his senses. “What? Oh yes, there were some anomalies but they appear to be fixed now.” Gnophics give his underling a long hard look. “Good, good. Now why don’t you take some time out, and power down for a bit?” Shiroijin looks up from his data-slate again, looking a little flustered. “Yes I will. I have a few things to finish first, and then I will”
GAMING TALES 