T minus 13 hours…

We’ve regrouped in a safe spot. Gunfire is heard from several locations in the estate. We try to go through the attendees and think of potential allies. A lot of maybes. And the Emperor knows where people are at the moment. Might be better to go for the painting and take on who or whatever we meet on the way, friend or foe. I’ve always felt there was something significant about that painting; the description can’t be a coincidence… mirror of my blood. We have no better ideas for sure. Dar scouts at the front, we move cohesively as a unit at a reasonable distance. Potter uses his – uhm- eighth sense. The stone garden has been heavily hit, no living entities recognized. We move towards the Auditorium, its glass exterior is still intact. Potter informs us there is a normal living being in there. Dar goes to check it out. He is visibly paler as he returns to report. Tessa is in there, petrified by shock. Not surprising considering there is a slought overlord eating her posse's brains in the room with her. He couldn’t get a visual on the painting. Hmm, new plan. Let’s check out the reading room. As we make our way towards it Potter says there are two life forms ahead. Dar finds them to be Vymer and Quill. They’re extracting blood from a deceased guard. Potter decides to take a friendly approach, allies remember, and approaches them peacefully. They draw weapons. They do however think before they shoot, and lower their guns. They are there to assassinate a guy, and they don’t know precisely who he is. They have a vague description and DNA. We agree we don’t need to attempt to kill each other and move on towards the reading room. Dar on point.

Dar spots the wall mounted sensor at his foot a second too late. A rhythmic metallic clang ensues. We’ve got company. We pull back and into cover. Likely this is a not too intelligent servitor. As the sound amplifies, a combat servitor can finally be seen coming around the arch of the hallway. By the look of it it’s got twin linked guns, looks bad as hell and in no way conforming to regulations. Nice! We wait out its patrol route. We know from the plans that there are two hallways that approach the reading room, one a mirror of the other. So we head back and try the other route. Slightly wiser, we are on the look-out for sensors. Of course it always helps when you know where to look. The door of the reading room is shattered. Dar does his thing and says that Septimus is there, along with a couple of tech priests, two combat droids and two observatory droids. Dead mourners adorn the floor. Plan C, anyone?

It is highly unlikely, but worth a shot, maybe there are some PDF troopers to be found at their HQ. Pushing towards it we find most of them dead by the main entrance. Opposite it we find the deranged monster of a priest in front of the doors to Haarlock’s crypt. He’s spouted enormous raven’s wings and is flanked by two followers. They are undoubtedly performing some kind of ritual. This place is just riddled with challenges, shame we’re not the suicidal types. As we ponder what to do, someone spots the Ashen Tear assassin peeking out from the hallway to the living quarters. Soon after Ms. Nile appears. She has news about what happened here. Grel, the head mourner, apparently lead this onslaught. He is immune to gunfire. When he appeared the PDF’s las guns had a simultaneous loss of power and they were butchered. Grel wore a medallion of a black sun. One of the doors to the crypt instantly springs to mind as she mentions it. Potter asks her to join us in taking down Septimus to enter the reading room. What, like she can be arsed to read books, she replies. Holder-Smith suggests the option of the painting, and her face lights up.

We all go to the Auditorium together. It seems empty and we find the painting. Yay! We peer into it intently. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise. The blur shifts and moves and face appears. It is…. Jaeger. As we stand there exposed as hell one of Ms. Niles is reduced to red mist. A shiver goes down my spine even before the grotesque composition of larvae shows itself. It’s not alone. It has four comrades, or ghouls, one of them is especially familiar. Her features somewhat more relaxed from before, though a lot more distressing in their current state. The grand ol’ lady herself, Tessa. We fight ferociously for what seems like forever. At one point I can see Dar going down, he’s a tough bastard, but not invulnerable. We manage to slay them. We rush to check on Dar… he might have a shot. As Holder-Smith stabilizes him and Potter uses his powers to heal him, we discuss our next step. Time is still ticking away. There’s the matter of Septimus and we can also check out the machinery on the lower levels. Ms. Nile says she can talk to Septimus and doesn’t need our help. With Dar successfully patched up we head down. We’ll regroup with the Nile crew later.

From the moment we get down there we can see that something is amiss. Everything is moving too fast, at a rampant pace. The streams of lava run wilder and the causeways into the core of the machinery are destroyed. Potter senses several life forms from the core. It all feels wrong, unholy. Like it’s all going haywire, and that will be the end of all. Frustratingly we find that there is not much we can do down here. We head back up toward the crazy man of the cloth.

The bodies of the hench men are outside the crypt. We can’t see the priest at first. Then a birdlike figure descends on us. Rupert shoots like he is touched by the Emperor himself, but the birdie seems impervious to bullets, when Dar gets at him though, it’s a different matter. Good thing he picked up that mean sword. Bye bye birdie.