In Anticipation of Doom

Transcript # 1

Testing testing. Found a device that converts my voice to text. Seems to be working too. Nice.

Transcript #2

We proceed from the latest bomb site further into the mine to the second to last one. The passage gets tighter as we go in, after about 20 meters we find a switch board in a small alcove. It is also the starting point of a set of rails, they set off and fuse strangely into the weird looking rock that was present on the last bomb site. Potter says he can see some sort of warp writing on the wall, I’m not exactly sure what it means. When I ask him whether he can tell what it says, he replies negative, and frankly I couldn’t care less about it at that point. He sees some hocus pocus stuff in the void that he can’t make out. Okay, then. Dunno if he’s just mental or it’s my limited understanding of the warp, but I’m leaning towards the primary. I, on the other hand, notice an unnatural reflection in a crevice in the wall. As I check it out I find that there’s a piece of metal lodged inside. I take it out. It’s been heavily deformed, might be from the blast itself, it sure doesn’t look like it belongs here. There’s some writing on it too, and Holder-Smith beams up and zones in on it. After analyzing it for about an hour, or at least it felt that long, he concludes that it is some sort of xeno metal but the writing is illegible due to the contortion. Potter has a crack at it as well, and claims that a cogitator probably could reverse engineer the metal to its original shape, that might give us the writing. Cool! There’s a cogitator at the OP-center, can’t wait to have a look at it with the geeks. Holder-Smith asks Ulbrexis whether they ever used xeno stuff, he insists that they didn’t. Doesn’t mean Morir didn’t. All the equipment Ulbrexis had gathered with the help of the Adeptus Mechanicus was destroyed by the wicked queen, there might be remnants of it on the scrap yards. As we’ve reached a dead end, we go back to rejoin Rotland.

Getting to the entrance to the even older bomb site doesn’t take long. It is a bit of a stretch once inside the tunnels, however. The constant clashing of pickaxe on stone is almost deafening, and the passages are riddled with serfs. They look like peeps in my neck of the woods, that is, horrible. I can tell by Ulbrexis’ reaction that their conditions have deteriorated since he was here last. The overseers ignore us, which is just as well. As we approach the site of the explosion there are no serfs in the vicinity. The blasts has sealed of the tunnel. The rock seems to be consistent on all the blast sites. Potter sees some invisible writing here too. He says that the frontier between our world and the warp is thinner here. Doesn’t sound too promising. Maybe it is helpful though, is it because of the explosions? The freaky stone? Holder-Smith gets a reading that there is metal here as well, and Potter spots in the ceiling. He walks towards the wall and continues to walk up the side of the wall and onto the ceiling of the passage. It is mind boggling to watch, but most handy. Once up there he quickly realizes that he has no tools to free the metal. I snatch Dar’s grapnel and get up there with a multitool Holder-Smith hands me. It seems to be of the same shape and size as the last one. We head back to the OP-center.

Holder-Smith, Ulbrexis and myself start up the cogitator. Potter, meanwhile, goes to do some quality assurance on the old investigation material from the arbitrators. Probably a good idea that. We get the machine going on some calculations before noon, when we’re supposed to meet with Captain Movern. Luckily he is running late, and we get to work on it for an hour more before he decides to show up. He is a mean-looking older guy, and his personality matches his appearance. He says that the Baron sends his regards, I think he’s really just here to mark his territory. He asks, hmm might be hard to get the irony across on this, by that I mean instructs us to share with him what findings we get, and insist that they help out with regards to fire power. The Royal Scourges have arrested 20-30 terrorists from the Broken Chain. It hasn’t yielded anything useful it seems, Captain Movern doesn’t even believe that the Hard Vaults exists. I get a strong feeling investigation isn’t his forte. He makes some not so subtle threats as to what will happen if we don’t do as we’re told and takes his leave.

After a few hours of sweet talking the cogitator we reverse engineer the piece of xeno metal – success! Turns out there’s isn’t really writing on it - it is a symbol. Let me put it into the file, just a sec.

Ok, I’m back. From what we can gather the metal and symbol have appeared within the last six months on all blast sites.

So we discuss our next actions. Ulbrexis knew the leadership in the Vaults back in the days. Might not be the same today, but it might give us something to work with still. They live deep down where the radiation his high. There is a very lucrative ore that can be found down here, and that is what they trade with. They can handle the radiation remarkably well compared to most, but must be very mutated indeed. We decide to check out the site we think is the next target, we might find something, and the risks are quite low.

As we, and yeah that means Ulbrexis as well, head into the mines again, Mallear informs us that someone signaled inwards a side shaft as we passed. After a small discussion we enter the passage mentioned. There are quite a few serfs there, about two dozen. They are all from the same family, or whatever it was they called it. Among them six stand out as a gang within the family, they look to this one guy, who looks older than the rest. Which obviously is their leader. We have a small chat with him that isn’t very helpful. Then we decide to bring him and the signal dude in with us. Indeed Ulbrexis knows who the leader is, he was a Deeper, someone who works in the lower part of the mine. As opposed to Skimmers, I think it was. He is a former member of the old Broken Chain, or proper I should say. His name is Sheol. Mallear does the interrogation, he follows a plan we laid earlier. Basically we don’t think there is any point in playing hard ball with these guys. We separate them, and interrogate them separately. Mallear uses some information that Ulbrexis has provided, and we can tell that Sheol reacts to the mention of a former colleague in the Broken Chain, and so on. He still just claims that the mutants did it, and refuses to go into any detail.

The younger one is easier to talk to. He spills his guts quite freely. He says they are mutants from the Hard Vaults. He refers to Ulbrexis as a Saint. It’s quite adorable. He is reluctant to say why they were so apprehensive of people in the first place, I mean with the signaling and all. Turns out that they have broken one of the Baron’s laws. Doesn’t really bring us much closer, but we tell them to keep us informed and send them away with some days rations.

We do a search of all the shafts to look for anything out of order. Metal signs, xeno stuff, invisible writing. Can’t find anything. Then we agree on going to the Spoils. We have a bit of a discussion about whether to bring Ulbrexis, and take him with us. He is to stay in the car with Dar to begin with, but I think we all suspect we might need him for leverage.

We gather what we think we can trade with the mutants at the Spoils. Five vials of medicine, food and lo sticks is what we have. We need Ulbrexis’ help to find where we are going, but he’s in a bit of a mood. Mallear gives him talking to and Ulbrexis explains the lay of the lands, literally. If you look closely you can see that the piles of discard on the ground at a point matches the stars of Saint Severine, saint of enlightened sufferers. It’s quite cool once you spot it, quite ingenious too.

As two of the moon sets, the only light is the faint light of the third and now solitaire moon. We spot the mutants. It’s dark and they’re hooded, so it’s hard to get a good look at them. From what I know, it’s probably just as well. We make an attempt at dealing with them, but to no avail. We get Ulbrexis out. It does mean word about his presence will be out, but we need to get some progress here and at least these aren’t the ones with the biggest social circle. Of course Ulbrexis knows the mutant leader. His name is Olion, and when Ulbrexis reveals himself, Olion does as well. Holy shit, he looks like a mutant crossed with a fly. Olion is ecstatic to see Ulbrexis, and the guards signal the Aquila at the sight of him as well. Olion has quite a bit to tell us, or Ulbrexis at least. Morir was thrown out of the Hard Vaults. Apparently he went underground when Ulbrexis was taken. Morir then proceeded to recruit followers from the Vaults. He stays in the old Broken Chain bases, but moves around. Olion and his people try to kill him, but have not succeeded. They even cut off his arm at one point, just to see that it had grown back a few days later. On a positive note they have an insider with Morir’s crew. They are about 100 strong, and operate in cells. Turns out the fancy bombs came courtesy of some off world mercenaries. Depressingly, he knows how to make them himself now. The symbol is the symbol of these mercenaries, the Serrated Query. An obscure cult, they are tech oriented. Why on earth is this symbol everywhere if Morir can make the bombs himself? Is there some reason to it? Morir’s sidekicks are: Trogel, the metal man bodyguard, and Raze, a formidable psyker, flames are her weapon of choice. She is from Eisenholm, and noble at that. There was a third guy, and older mutant. The last years he hasn’t been seen, maybe he died of age Olion says. He was the guy who taught Morir of the occult.

Olion is a clever little insectoid, and figures out what we are. He and his bodyguards kneel before us and beg us to spare their lives. We ask them to try to get the details of the next attack from their insider. We also instruct them not to mention Ulbrexis or us to anyone. We give them the stuff we had with us as a parting gift.

Olion is also a bug of his word, sorry I can’t help myself. He gets us the details of the attack the following day. It’s at Hazael’s cross the day after that, around 2 to 4 pm. Good times. We get cracking on a battle plan. This seems like too good an opportunity to get Morir to sit back and watch. Might not go well. Hell, might be the last thing we do. Or even worse, we screw up and live to face our Inquisitor. No guts no glory, eh? Hooyah!