Bussamove

The Namespace of the Rose

"... Heap of groxshite." Ramona reiterated her earlier assessment, chewing on her bottom lip in thought as she sifted through the details. It was all too damned convenient. Who would go through the trouble of painstakingly disabling the guards and preventing alarm just to leave a damned bootprint on the door, clear as day? "None of this feels right. Someone somewhere was sloppy."

A dead archmagos. Cogs in the trash. Shots apparently blessed by the Emperor himself with their accuracy. Bootprints and broken windows pointing at one thing while every instinct screamed about another. And no blasted motive for any of it, beyond the normal mountain of enemies powerful people accumulated over time.

"Need more to go on." With a sweep of her hand, Ramona gathered up the shards of bolter, tucking them away into one of the pouches on her belt. "Someone wants us to think one of your brethren did this, and there's one other on-planet that I know of. Could be he did it, but..."

Another grunt of disdain as she scoffed at her own theory. Weak and flimsy. It wouldn't do.

"Best to find him and pin down his whereabouts before someone does something stupid."

The Namespace of the Rose

"Easy enough way to get them someplace to filch later." Ramona nodded as Vigrid made his statement, options running through her mind. Could be the cogitators were important, could be they were kruft meant to throw anyone snooping off the trail. Unfortunately, it was impossible to know without seeing what secrets Toros had ferreted away into them. "If they haven't already made their way to the incinerators, anyway."

As she assessed the room, and the ivory tower it had been carved out of like a rotted spot in a tooth, she quickly discarded the idea of some secret exit the killer had somehow know about. There was little enough room for the chamber itself, any other space would be taken up with ventilation, power cables, and air scrubbers for the most part. So that left the window, or the hall, and one seemed much more of a death sentence than the other. She was sure-- mostly, anyway-- that a fall that far would kill even an Astartes. Mostly.

"... What do you make of this?" Ramona tilted her head at the neat pile of bolter fragments the servo-skull had gathered, assembled as closely as it could manage into what it had looked like before its potential for violence had been realized. "Why blue?"

The Namespace of the Rose

"That window--" Ramona gestured to the shattered glass around her with her blade, before it slipped away into her sleeve again. "Is either the sloppiest excuse for an escape I've seen in some time, or bait. Entry was blunt but methodical, who takes time to webber guards and rig a timed grenade, then leaps out the window? Doesn't sit right."

She gingerly reached down to pick up the unexploded bolt-round amidst the debris with her left hand, carefully handling it so as to not lose yet more parts. Standing, she moved to the fallen body of the Archmagos, where her servo-skull was still hard at work piecing together the recovered fragments of the bolt round that had ended her life.

"I know one took the Archmagos from there to here." Ramona vaguely gestured at where the body had began, and where it had ended up, with a slight shrug. "Beyond that, nothing. Might be able to reach out to folks who would."

She surveyed the scene again, taking what she had determined, distilling it, and trying to see if it gave her any other insight into what she might have missed the first time around. The marine's musing sparked something in her mind; if not out the window, then how did their killer and thief escape without notice? The Cult of Mars-- Or Draupnir, depending on your preference-- loved their secrets. Maybe there was another, more hidden exit.

The Namespace of the Rose

"Huh." Ramona watched her massive ally-by-circumstance consume the grey matter of the Archmagos, eye narrowing as he seemed to actually glean something from it. There were always tall tales about all the bizarre things Space Marines could do with their Emperor-blessed bodies... seemed there was at least some truth to all of that. Useful knowledge for later. "Once knew a man who insisted he could see the future in fresh rat guts. Brains're a new one."

From her position crouched in front of the door, Ramona surveyed the situation with this fresh knowledge. Well, that solved the mystery of the third shot, at least, not that it gave them many answers just yet. Still, one mystery among a score knocked down. With a grunt, she pushed herself back to her feet, striding to check on the servo-skull's progress before she moved to examine the bolter-round that lay among the shards of the shattered window. She didn't have the knowledge to make much out of an unexploded bolt round-- but an Astartes might.

"Could be there was someone, or something, else in here with her. Gunner comes in, aims to take out both, and the Archmagos just happens to end up between the bolts and their target." Ramona grimaced at her own theory. It was a flimsy one, and didn't have much backing. Pure conjecture, and that wouldn't do. Better to find the real truths among the chaff. "But don't put much weight in coincidences, myself."

The Namespace of the Rose

Ramona's flesh eye roamed the room as she put the scene together in her head, matching it against what the Skitarii claimed happened. Cause of death was obvious, though there was still more that could be found there. Ramona reached into the pack concealed beneath her topcoat, retrieving a battered but still very much functional servo-skull, half the teeth still in its upper jaw plated with gaudy silver and gold, from within. With a soft grunt, she twisted it's activation switch, and with a droning hum it lifted from her hand, dangling manipulator tendrils twitching to life. With a terse command, Ramona set it to work gathering the fragments of the rounds that had ended the Archmagos' life.

That left the rest of the shots. One round deflected-- there it was, half-embedded in the Machine Cult shrine on the north wall. The other had lodged in Toros' armor, however briefly, before skating off and losing its momentum to tumble to the floor, whatever was left of its propellant singeing part of the blue carpet a charred black before sputtering out. The third... there shouldn't have been a third. It had left her corpse, but never entered. An interesting trick. A fascinating mystery.

Damned maddening, is what it was.

As Ramona's attention turned to the door, her interest piqued. Here was something that might lead them to answers, and as she pushed herself to her feet to investigate closer she was already running through possibilities. With a flick of her wrist, a thin, narrow blade was suddenly glinting in her hand, which she used to lift one of the flecks of paint from the door.

"Someone's boots're in a sorry state." If one didn't know better, they'd think Ramona was admonishing their unknown killer on a job ill-done.

The Namespace of the Rose

Ramona's eye flicked to the hulking form of the marine as he stood vigil in the doorway, nodding her head in acknowledgement as she focused on her task. She had noted his presence in the fabrication halls, as she met with the artisans concerning the procurement of certain components that the factory-cathedral produced that would be of use to her Lord. Even amidst the endless bustle of the tech-priests, it was difficult to miss an Astartes standing head and shoulders above them all.

That scratched off at least one person that would need such a monstrous hole to escape through. That just left every heavy servitor and ogryn on Sarringrad.

"Tell me, sir Astartes." Ramona's voice had a harsh rasp to it, speaking to a lifetime breathing scorched and poisoned air. As she turned, a flash of color was visible on the breast of her topcoat-- a coat of arms, gunmetal grey on deep teal. "An Archmagos is ambushed, her guards killed, and she herself is put down before Throne knows whatever she's stuffed in herself so much as have a chance to fire off. How does that sound to you?"

She squatted near the fallen body of Toros, taking care to avoid the spreading pool of blood, hands resting on her knees as she looked up at the marine. Her tone was blunt, frank, and far from the awed genuflecting the teeming masses would show one of the Emperor's angels. She had too much work to do.

"Because to me it sounds like a heap of grox shite." A humorless huff of air came from her as she looked back to the corpse, eye flicking from where it was to where it had been when the first shot was allegedly fired. Trying to piece together a clear picture of what had happened.

The Namespace of the Rose

First thing's first, Ramona is going to use Notice to try and find anything that sticks out immediately. Afterwards she'll use Forensic Pathology to see if she can determine how close the Skitarii Marshal's assessment lines up with what her eyes and intuition tell her.

The Namespace of the Rose

The clicking footfalls of well-worn boots echoed through the somber halls of the Archmagos' inner sanctum, moving with a measured pace in contrast to the frantic scramble that was overtaking Isohedron-CBX. Ramona of Sarringrad was many things, but hasty wasn't one of them. In her line of work, acting with too much haste often lead to a brief moment of stinging regret and a quick shepherding to the Emperor's loving embrace.

As she entered the Archmagos' office proper, Ramona lifted one gloved hand to gently nudge the surveillance servo-skull that had rushed to take note of her presence out of her path, her single flesh-and-blood eye squinting against the harsh glare of its flashing optics as it briefly intruded into her personal space-- the other was the dull green of a bionic implant, the flesh around it puckered by decades-old scars. As her hand returned to loosely rest in the pocket of her weathered topcoat, she slowly circled the scene before her, taking in everything she could.

Ramona was no stranger to corpses; she had made plenty herself, disposed of even more, and had puzzled through her fair share of scenes similar to this one. And every one had stories to tell...

The Namespace of the Rose