POOHEAD189

Wh40k: One Step Beyond - A Rogue Trader Adventure (Closed)

Grimri "Ironclad" Haldengard

Grimri watched as a servitor went about various tasks, keeping the ship's circuitry maintained and the mahcine spirits content. Sparks flew as it welded a piece of strip metal back into place and moved closer to the squat, who took that as his cue to shove off his perch high above the ground from one of the open pockets inside the wall, where the electrical systems were being fixed. The heavy abhuman hit the ground with a 'thud', hefting his shotgun and making his way toward the center of the ship's superstructure. The smell of oil and burning steel reminded him of home, but duty called and so he stepped into the main chamber.

"Sorcery?" He muttered, and spat on the ground. His people had always been suspicious of witchery.

He didn't mean to draw attention to himself, but the very first words he heard were of warp-spawn, even if the sister herself was a good omen in that regard. If any eyes leveled toward him, he would glare back and then turned to the left and walked over to Edmund Andamar. He did not speak again unless spoken to. Instead he hopped up on one of the crates and retrieved a cigar from one of his many pockets, and placed the barrel of his shotgun right at his mouth, as if he were about to kill himself from a point blank shot. Instead, he flipped a smaller switch besides the trigger, a small flame erupting from a diminutive tube below the barrel. It lit his cigar, the squat inhaling deeply and puffing out a billowing cloud of smoke.

Switching the flame off, he puffed his cigar in what little peace there was. The group arrayed before him was passable. He had definitely served with worse, and if the pay was good he would only complain a tolerable amount. Then again, he was lost on what kind of job he was expecting to get. Anything human or xenos would be standard for him. Daemons would be unfortunate, but he wouldn't be daunted regardless.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Kaiden hit the plating of the wall hard, somehow keeping his sub-machine gun somewhat level. He clicked off the safety and grit his teeth, giving a burst of fire that would have hit the man had he remained stationary. The warrant officer had seemed more pissed than afraid, but that didn't mean the fear wasn't there. He ducked behind a doorway on the opposite end of the hallway, Kaiden hot in pursuit. Instead of turning the corner and firing, however, Kaiden leaped past the door as accompanying gunshots rang out from the doorway, before the tell-take 'click' of an empty magazine. The newly promoted captain took no time to himself, pivoting back and springing into the doorway as the warrant officer hastily tried to reload.

"Drop it!" Kaiden ordered, gun trained on the man. He looked disheveled and angry, and unfortunately beyond reason. He froze for a fraction of a second before continuing his reload. Kaiden let out a breath as he pulled the trigger, punching three bullets into the warrant officer's chest. The blood slapped the floor moments before the body hit it, and Kaiden shook his head wondering what the point was. He admired the man for doing his duty, but it was going to be in vain regardless. The captain approached the gun the fellow had carried, recognizing it as an old L106A1. Good gun, but little ammo capacity.

"Sir!" Sabatine said when she rounded the corner, her eyes and gun scanning the room for any potential threats. Kaiden didn't acknowledge her presence for a few seconds, realizing the man he just killed was the first direct ground casualty of what was to be a system's spanning war, barring the naval deaths.

"When it's just us, you can call me Kaiden, Sabbie." He said, suddenly tired. The man took a deep breath for a moment. He knew his fatigue could be heard in his voice, but when he turned around he was as charming as always, his striking eyes still full of luster behind the bland helmet, an amused, almost wry smile on his face. "After all, you've called me far worse. Now, help me with this crowbar..."

He shoulders his weapon and bent down, his subordinate kneeling to help him with her weight as the two of them gripped the handle of the crowbar and pushed with all their strength. The metal screeched, the two of them making short work opening it up. Once it was three feet off the ground, the door opened automatically, sliding up on its own accord. They checked their twelve and their six, and then walked in to gather the intelligence.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Amal shrugged, an easy smile on his lips accompanying his raised brow. "Sure, you can join us." He said, and it seemed no problem to him. She had carried herself well in the fight against the goblins. Dwarfs were short, but they carried around a lot of muscle, even the women it seemed. Zwili seemed relieved at his acceptance, giving a curt nod and a salute with her newly found axe. Amal placed a finger on Emmaline's lips when she opened them, and he gave her a wink.

"Now that we are traveling together, can you tell us where we might find some treasures here?" Amal asked, crossing his arms as if it was the most pragmatic thing to ask. Zwili's eyes widened, but the luster in them died down after a moment from sheer willpower.

"If I had no taken my oaths, I would have already taken half and ran off. But gold has no place in my life now, or...vast riches, at least. I'll still take some so I can survive long enough for a good death. I hear Grimnir looks down upon-" She continued for another minute, lost in her monologue, convincing herself she wouldn't lose herself to gold lust. Meanwhile, the mere acknowledgement there was some vast treasure in the caverns made Amal and Emmaline's faces light up.

A goblin ran past them into another corridorm the soft padding of its feet rapidly approaching and just as suddenly disappearing making Emmaline jump a bit. The last few hours the little creatures had fallen to infighting. Amal had seen half a dozen diminutive green corpses on the rocky ground, and little figures darting out of the way wherever they walked. Whatever they were doing, they wanted to stay away from the sorcerer's killers. It seems the slaying had given quite the impression. Amal had to admit, he enjoyed being feared, if only for the hilarity of it.

"Follow me," Zwili said, raising her axe as if it were a standard. Amal helped Emmaline to her feet, and the three of them walked into the hallway, their bellies full for now. About two hundred meters away, through five different tunnels and up a strange, carved stairway of marble, Zwili pulled back a curtain to reveal an elaborate bedroom, its back wall strangely ornate with parallel markings while the other walls were lines with foreign trophies and hugged by desks with beakers and eldritch texts. Amal's eye caught a few of the more noteworthy items, but Zwili walked over to the back wall and uttered something unintelligable, knocking on the wall three times with her knuckles before spouting off "Coredok!" in a command.

The ground reverberated ever so slightly as the wall began to pick itself up, sliding into the ceiling with a harsh rumble. The gleam of the room was hard to look upon for a moment, but once their eyes adjusted, even Amal gasped.

Thousands of gold coins were made into a rough pile, a veritable mountain of treasure. The gold wasn't all polished, and there were numerous coins of brass and copper and silver, but the gold far outweighed every other metal. Zwili turned around without even giving it a look, knowing she wouldn't be able to look away if she had laid her eyes upon it. "Last time I was in here, the sight broke my spell and I was punished severely for disobeying Zar. I'll go and find somewhere to sleep before the morning." Was her parting words, and she marched out with a stern countenance.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

"I would say it was smart, but that implies you have a choice." Kaiden said, lowering his gun and pulling the man forward to get detained by the strike team behind him. He and Sabatine cleared the hallway, his right and her left. Kaiden had always felt strange in pressurized suits, but he had spent enough time in basic to keep himself going without much complaint. Howarth presented the intel they could gleam from the alliance spacer that the rest of his crew was down the hall to the right.

"Armed?" Kaiden asked.

"He says no, but..."

"Right," the prince said, leveling his firearm with Sabatine right on his heels. He didn't know why, but somehow he felt comfortable with him having his back more than any of his men, despite his trust in them. He supposed he knew her well enough to make that judgement. Ex-Lovers did not tend to get along because they found they knew the other too well. "Cover our asses, Higgs."

To his surprise, Kaiden had suspected they would have to take a few extra turns and possibly get turned around thanks to the size of the ship, but the crewman was right. A quarter of a click straight right sent them to the blast doors of a pressurized chamber that opened up to reveal a crew of seven disheveled alliance crew, along with two wounded who had shrapnel in their abdomens. One female alliance medic pulled a knife, but only so far as a honed reaction. No guns were raised, and there were none Kaiden could see.

"We surrender," the lieutenant said. He was an older man, not elderly but getting up in years. He had a black mane and beard that would suit a civilian far more, but Kaiden didn't pretend to know alliance protocol. He held his head high, unflinching from the trained guns. "Please, just help my men."

"Are there any more aboard?" Kaiden asked, stepping closer, eyes glancing at the crew. The room looked to be made for storage, hard ground and no place to sit save for locked steel crates.

"I don't know. This was all that I could find." The lieutenant remarked. His breathing was audible. Kaiden guessed he was hiding hope behind his calm facade. "Will you look through the ship?"

"We'll take your wounded." Kaiden commanded, two of his men already hustling over to gather them up. The two alliance medics helped them with the stretchers. "You send two of yours to search the ship for anyone else. If they aren't back in twenty, or if they come back with anything besides another, unarmed crewmember, this all goes south very quickly. If you attempt anything, even if you're able to take me or any of my crew hostage, my crew on deck will leave us to cold oblivion regardless of the consequences. Cooperate and you'll be unhurt."

The lieutenant calmly blinked, and then lowered his hands. "Well, you didn't need to lay it on so thick." He remarked, and sent two of the survivors to go search the remainder of the ship.

I am the storm that is approaching

Welcome!

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Amal moved faster than most men likely thought possible, pivoting and twirling, sometimes even parallel to the ground in a vertical butterfly kick. At one point Amal leaped, rolling behind a gaggle of running goblins, the magical blast meant for him enveloping the gangly creatures. The pure force of chaos mutated some of them into masses of flesh whilst others were simply incinerated as if by one of the industrial furnaces of nuln. The light hid Amal in a brief instance, and he was already a dozen feet away, hanging by one of the spiked arches above the wall. With a subtle movement of his legs, he flipped up onto the arch, perched by the balls of his feet.

"Given up yet?" The handsome thief asked.

The sorcerer was truly getting annoyed. He had but barely given attention to the very clear divine favor given to Emmaline by one of the heathen gods of the desert. Once she was under his thralldom, he would interrogate her personally. As Amal dodged the next blast, Zar Tan Zhou realigned his next move, turning the wall Amal was about to springboard off of into some substance with the texture of melted wax. Amal landed on the floor, nearly colliding with the transmuted surface, face inches from it.

The dwarf woman gave a guttural warcry and ran at the remaining goblins, holding a broken chair leg as she screamed to her ancestor gods. Her long braided hair swayed and bounced off her stout body as she charged, braining the first goblin and breaking the legs of another, wading into a group of them who were so surprised she had suddenly turned on them. Meanwhile, Amal continued to do his best to dodge, but he was slowing, exhausted and sweat from the exertion, getting closer and closer to the sorcerer, but it was to no avail. With a laugh, Zar Tan Zhou sent one last stream of chaos energy, arcing the blast to hit a desperately leaping Amal square in the chest to engulf his body in flashing, multicolored energy. Zar Tan Zhou laughed maniacally, praising tzeentch for his victory as the smoke rushed out from the blast zone.

Amal, apparently unhurt, came with it.

The last thing the sorcerer could comprehend was Amal's smile as the dagger slid up, through the bottom of his mouth into his tainted brain. Blood suddenly began seeping from his stricken lips, and Amal waved the ring he had on his finger before the dead magician's eyes as the once proud sorcerer fell onto the ground as a lifeless corpse. Emmaline looked at Amal with wide eyes, her left hand on her mouth even as her asp staff turned another running goblin to stone.

Amal blinked and looked at her, showing her the ring. "You didn't forget I had magic immunity, right?"

"But you kept dodging..." She said, lost.

"Well it's not fun if he doesn't think he can win." The thief shrugged.

Maverick Malediction

Neil had used as many layman's terms as he could to explain, mostly because he wasn't 100% certain how to explain it himself. He knew the gist, of course. The poison and the bleeding, along with a special transfusion during a limited amount of time to jump-start his system. He liked to think he had been a genius planner, but at the end of the day, he had friends in the right places, with the correct know-how and the correct blood that could help him come back from an extremely specific form of suicide.

Neil explained all of this as they waited for the sandwiches he had ordered. The trenchers at this place were supposed to be well made. They had found themselves at one of the lesser, albeit charming places a few blocks away. The establishment was a smaller, local business called Griffon's Perch, which didn't comfort Neil because he saw a few statues of the majestic beasts framing various entryways, so he insisted they eat outside where he could see all would-be automatons.

"Look, I know it's annoying, and I know it wasn't a big worry for you, but I kind of want to like...not be dead permanently for awhile?" He said with a helpless shrug. "So it was either do that or be gone for good, and I know you really had fun, so I had to make sure we could go on a second date, you know?" Neil winked, placing his chin on his palm.

"Besides, I did have an offer for you last time I spoke to you, though it looks to me like you have a plan of your own." Gods her eyes twinkling malevolently were pretty. He kept reminding himself how he was insane for even speaking to her, but he supposed she was just crazy enough to have lunch with a risen corpse so he wasn't going to start being too critical on himself.

"You know," he said smugly, being a perfect fool as always. "If I like your idea enough, I might even let you kiss me. I know it's only the second date and you came on a bit strong threatening to murder me, but what can I say? I like your style."

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Kaiden had never tasted something so bittersweet. A grand gesture given by god on a day where he felt anything but victory. The whole of the republic would know his name as soon as they got back. Even if he said naught at all, word would get out. But the mutiny with Macha weighed heavily on everyone, and damn Kaiden was more tired in both body and soul now than ever. He did well to stand as a commander, hands behind his back and eyes primed on the men and women under him, half the eyes of the crew on him.

They needed to get back as soon as possible, but the knowledge there were sailors down there, even military men of the alliance, made him take pause. A civilian would tell him to go and aid them, but he knew he would be sternly advised to resist the temptation by any man above him in rank. And yet...

"Sir?" Sabatine asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Kaiden turned to her, eyes passing over Tilda who watched him like a hawk. It seemed like an hour, but he took only five seconds to truly decide.

"We're doing the quickest CSAR in the history of the republic," Kaiden announced, causing a few of the men to blink in surprise and half the crew to feel a modicum of guilt lift from them. 99% of commanders in his position would make the correct move and leave immediately. Kaiden intended to be the 1% that didn't and still succeeded. Probably one part hubris, one part merciful, but he knew in his bones that they would make it back. He didn't know how, but he did. "Enrique, Riggs, make sure we're good to approach. Harwen, prepare the cells. I want all guns on deck in five minutes, search and rescue prepped and ready."

"Is this wise, sir?" Tilda asked, a smile on her lips as the men began to run and shout. Kaiden rolled his eyes, and luckily no one heard her.

"It's not wise to ask if this is wise." He said in no uncertain terms.

Maverick Malediction

Neil was two blocks ahead, very certain Calliope was hot on his tail. A brief part of him wondered why he was running. He knew this would happen eventually. Maybe a part of him liked the chase, though he guessed a large part of him wanted to find her in a far more talkative mood. She looked ready to slice his head off without even sparing a word. No, no she was too curious for that. Besides, when did he ever try and run from a hot woman before? Even a murderous one.

He skidded on his heels as he turned a corner, a few bums stumbling out of his way and throwing insults at him for interrupting their rat barbecue, three small, skinned rodents on a spit over a fire they had managed to make with trash and loose clothing. Neil didn't even stop to say sorry, practically leaping over a peasant that was crawling along the ground, chasing a rolling schilling he had dropped. Neil found the third block ended in a dead end, his heart skipping a beat. He couldn't come back to life again, he had come to terms with that. Had he only bought himself one week!?

"Fuck," he groaned, his eyes sliding right and left as he gained a new idea. He sprang, pushing off the left wall to hit the right wall, pushing off that to the opposite wall, up and up until he grabbed a clothes line fully half a dozen meters off the ground. He thought to traverse it like a primate to make it to the roof, but the sudden weight caused it to snap. Quickly he spun the thread around his hands, between his four fingers and thumb to keep it locked onto his grip as it sent him hurtling back the way he came, over the alleyway intersection. He had the briefest glimpse of the hobos he had just ran through now cussing at the dark woman and blocking her path. Just as they passed out of his sight, he heard screams of indescribable terror and pain from them.

The clothesline swung him up to the window of a large building, Neil leaping for his life and grabbing the arches and kicking the window in with his foot. It shattered the glass, Neil climbing in as quickly as he could allow without cutting himself. Inside was an office of some administrator for whatever business he found himself in, luckily closed due to the festivities. He sprinted out into the hallway, running down the hall and taking a left when he saw an opening. It was a balcony overlooking the main street, trumpets and cries of jubilation just beneath him. He made it to the balcony to look over, seeing at least a thirty foot drop to the cobblestones.

"Nope, not here." He stated flatly and turned back, only to come fact to face with Calliope, standing before the tapestries that billowed in the wind. Her fashionable bun of dark hair only slightly disheveled.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on!" Neil yelled, holding his hands out as he put one foot on the balustrade of the balcony. He didn't know exactly where to jump, but it was probably better than whatever torture would be enacted if she wasn't to be reasoned with. "Hey, come on, just, wait. I can totally explain, and when I'm done you'll actually..." He was going to say 'laugh' but her look didn't seem very mirthful. Neil took a breath, just looking at her for a moment, trying not to smile at the predicament.

"Are you not a little curious on how I'm alive? Come on, I know you are." He said confidently, hopefully. "I did die, you know. I swear it. The mark was done. The syndicate got what they wanted and I got what I wanted and you got your debt filled, right?... Calli?"