[Dark Heresy] The Unthrinn Legacy

[Daeva]

Hack-The White Cat

And here she thought she was going to enjoy the evening. Instead, she say the murder of some Hive high up first hand, along with a litany of blood, violence, and chaos. The spectacle of the act didn't escape her. If whoever it was, the Enlightenment being her default, wanted to let the populous know they were there, and they could do terrible things, they did it.

She did everything she could to keep from being detached from the psyker, who thankfully latched onto her before things really god difficult, and stop the two of them from wandering into a brawl, bullets, or who knows what else. Her boat had been lost along the way, likely trampled underfoot and forgotten, the words written on it erased.

She waits with Skive once, by some grace of the Emperor, they made it back to the Inn in one piece, and together. She indulges in a lho stick, but is otherwise quiet and still, in stark contrast to the pacing, muttering Skive. Once he's slumped into his bed, she stands and offers him some lho.

"We'll likely hear more once the um..."She motions to the silent screen. "Gets organized to report about it. We can get various intel from the different ranks because of our groups spread...like it not, this might be one of the greatest oppertunities for information if this was an Enlightenment attack. People will be talking about it all over the Hive."

[Hilda]

Atella - Spirit

She couldn't recall specific details of what had happened that evening. That which she could remember were feelings. A vague, almost elusive sort of serenity, and then surprise which begat shock which begat horror, and the waves of revulsion and nausea. It was no small wonder she didn't empty the contents of her stomach sooner than she did, which was not until she had returned to the privacy of her own room at the Spirit. Her eyes never alighted again on her gore-soiled dress, discarded with instruction to incinerate with some poor staff-girl.

Many hours were spent simply sitting at the window in plain underrobes, watching the bedlam by the sea. When she finally slept she did not recall; she knew only that in the early dawn, when she awoke to refreshen her body and mind with labyrinthine text translations and light stretches, the feelings of detachment had lessened slightly. Her world could not stop for an exploding skull and a shower of brain.

She awaited a later hour, when she would again make contact with Caius. Perhaps the night had allowed yesterday's madness to sink in, and perhaps tongues would be wagging, loosened by the excitement and misgivings. After all, we so love our second-hand horrors, and even moreso our first.

[Inquisitor]

Venton and Skive both receive heavy interference – when Skive attempts to communicate, and when Venton approaches the Sea. Any messages sent through are intelligible, for the most part, but are heavily staticed and frantic, preaches words sometimes cut in, as so:

“ -- turn your backs on your oppressors! Strike out against your Minisortium preachers, fight against the armed forces, turn back the tide of tech-horrors, take up arms --”

“ -- strike back! Strike back with all your might! Drive the heretic, the infidel from his hole --”

“ -- stay indoors at all times! We repeat, this is not a drill, stay in doors at all times! For your safety, shutter all windows and doors, take shelter in basements or cellars, arm yourselves in case of home invas --”

“ -- the Emperor has turned his back to you, forgot --”

“ -- the Emperor looks down and asks for our help --”

“ -- the Emperor Protects -- “

Venton Octus
Sea of Saints

You leave the Long Nights Inn, immediately meeting two very tired looking soldiers, who wave you on by without issue. Your receptors are quick to pick up the scents of fysceline, promethium, ozone, wet earth, carbon being exhausted and burned at a molecular level in fires that rage across the Hive. The streets are littered with trash, forgotten and trampled toys, papers sticking to the rockcrete roads and smears of wax and blood. You trudge on.

The way to the Sea is lined with soldiers, marching forward, and soldiers marching back, covered in dust and blood, some carried on stretchers, some covered in sheets or packed into numbered black bags.

You finally meet Imperial resistance at the roads that lead onto the wrap-around port by the Sea of Saints. A shaking cadet, armor turned a white with streaks of green and gold thanks to the rain trots up to you. Blood is caked to his face in places where dust isn't, a pale pink. He stops you before you can reach the hasty line of sandbags drawn into the street, where soldiers hide behind, not daring to stick their heads up. A group of officers, some not much older then the cadets, stand around arguing over cups of recaff and maps, pointing and drawing, moving small miniature pieces here and there.

“I'm sorry, Tech-Priest sir, but no one is permitted past this point without permission. My apologies, once more.” The look on his face tells you that he's not sure why the hell anyone would want to be here. The street rattles with another explosion and everyone visibly flinches.

You are, however, given a view of what exactly is laying out there, thanks to the wide mouth of the road and the general fact that the buildings are not as tall this close to the water. What you can see over the soldiers is burned into your cogitator forever, an image kept like a pict that cannot be erased even after a total erasure. You are sure, even if you were recycled into a servitor, you would still remember this sight.

Strewn out before you, the street is still alight. Bodies lay where they had fallen hours ago, covered lightly in dust blown from buildings that now stand bare, skeletons of steel with flaking rockcrete skin. You estimate into the hundreds – and you can see the crumpled form of muscled men and women, workers, born  and bred tough and tall, and the diminutive bodies of children beside them, crumbled into sad, indescribable little heaps. Toys and prayer candles and pamphlets are scattered about – you recognize some of them, toy Guardsmen and Astartes, even a plastique mold of a Titan laying half smashed into the ground.

You feel the etchings of humanity behind the cold steel imprinted into warm flesh, and an ache in your chest that you have not experienced for many of the years, which you now attribute to a feeling of great loss, being unsettled, and unhappiness. You confirm so with the read outs that your serotonin levels seem to have taken a dip, with an increase in dopamine systems activity within the brain, accelerated heart beat, and loss of feeling in your extremities.

At the center of the horror, a grisly sort of structure has been erected. The Lord Governor, as you can tell from his regal attire, stained red as it is, and the destroyed remnants of a head, has been hung up high, his rib cage bent and broken outwards showing signs of extreme trauma, probably caused by the two eagle heads erupting from his broken body, arms tucked behind the wings that support him. Bodies dangle from the fierce talons of the aquila, bumping and turning in the wind that blows steadily, rain dripping off their frighteningly still forms. Many of them have had their heads separated from the shoulders, and relocated elsewhere. Primarily, the heads seem to have been sewn into the palms that hang down, the eyes gouged from their respective homes.

Hack, Skive
The White Cat

You were not the only ones to return to the White Cat tonight. Voices can be heard loudly from downstairs, the holo on, voices murmuring, people shouting, while gun fire and bombs go off throughout the city, flashing through the air and the upper and lower levels. Fatigue begins to set in.

Atella Lucilius
Spirit

It had not been an easy night. It all blurred together into a horrible maelstrom of movement, noise, violent expulsion of bodily fluids. Sleep had not come easy, and when it did come, it had not been very fulfilling.

Sitting by the window, you look down at the over cast city, lit by thick plumes of black smoke and yellow-orange infernos that rip through the city in various places. Your stomach rumbles, but you find it hard to do much more than simply sit and stare, lost in your own mind, in your own thought, in the event.

You finally reach the phone and make a call, and perhaps, your voice gives away more emotion then you would care for. A familiar voice greets you, slightly fuzzy and not completely without interference. It is clear enough, however, to hear the generally disturbed town of a long lost friend.

“Atella? By the Throne, you made it back home! Praise the Emperor. Atella? Atella? Are you well?”

[Ball-o-Cheese]

Skive - The White Car

The Psyker waves aside hte offer of the Lho stick, though it is appreciated. He returns the gesture by offering Hack the Microbead, so that she can hear the chatter and buzz of conflicting transmissions coming through. He grimaces.

"I'm not sure they're going to get organized enough to report anything useful soon. It sounds like there is still fighting going on out there, and at least some of what's coming in are rogue 'casts. Looks like we have more than an assassination at hand."

He shakes his head and leans forward, rubbing his eyes tiredly "We should head downstairs, try to talk to some people and see what is going on. Some of the broadcasts say to stay indoors, but I can't even tell who might be saying that. There's sure to be something being said downstairs - and the locals will have a better idea of the political lie of the land than us, eh?"

He would certainly like to rest, but this doesn't really seem to be the time to get some sleep. Maybe there will be some recaf down there he can use to tide himself over until they've learned something.

[Inquisitor]

Hack, Skive
The White Cat

You go downstairs, and the place is definitely the fullest it's been in a few long, long years. People stand around, shoulder to shoulder, murmuring and shaking their heads. Many are covered with blood here and there, from nicks and scrapes from running people or flying shrapnel. You realize, you yourselves, couldn't have possibly escaped unscathed either. A shorter amount are covered in dust, having been too close to buildings when the bombs started going off. The room is loud, but the people are distraught, confused, and lost. Many came in, simply, to be somewhere out of the roaming tide of bodies.

The fat owner and his few workers that stayed on instead of going to the festival are moving around, generously giving out free cups of terrible recaff and bowls of watered down house-specialty soup. Outside, the sounds of bombs going off can still be heard, distantly, as well as the sound of crackling fires and chuckling weapons-fire. The rattle and hum of tanks and vehicles can be heard approaching, as well. A display in the corner flickers, between images of battle and destruction, an office, and the aquila. It seems someone is trying to broadcast, and someone is trying to jam.

No one bats a eye towards you, or seems to think any different. Many people simply stand, dumb-struck, while a few cram as many people too a table as possible. A man in the corner holds a small girl to his chest, both of them caked in pink blood and white dust, as she cries and he tries not too. A man in a robe sits solemnly at the bar, clothes now tattered and dirty, nursing a bottle of cheap rotgut.

The namesake of the building is nowhere to be found.

[Inquisitor]

So what's going on here we done?

[Ball-o-Cheese]

Skive - The White Cat

The Psyker descends the stairs, shaking his head to try and clear his thoughts. He accepts a cup of the free recaf, taking a long pull and then nursing the remainder. It tastes pretty poor, but it should help him stay awake for a while more. He isn't sure that he wants to try and sleep at the moment, with a hotbed of fear and emotion like this in the main room. Who knows what  his dreams would be.

He takes a moment to listen to the groups and appraise the crowd, trying to pick out anyone that might be willing to speak. Certainly there are plenty that seem to be simply shocked and afraid, more interested in hiding from the chaos outside than anything else. Skive listens for a moment or two, noting the pop of gunfire and hoping that the Cat comes through relatively unscathed.

No one seems particularly ready to talk, so Skive waits until the overwight owner comes by again, reaching out a dusty and scratched hand to touch his shoulder "What is going on out there? Who are those people?" It seems like the best route would be the direct one.

[Ketch]

Venton Octus - Sea of Saints, Forge Primaris

Venton stood staring blankly at the horrors laid out before him. An unfamiliar feeling of loss and sadness crept forth from the few remaining emotional centers of his brain not blasted by the harsh chem geld procedures he'd endured so long ago. The strange and almost forgotten sensations struck him hard, and he found himself enable to move or think clearly for a long time. Although he was a man of logic, cold and impassive, he'd spent his life sheltered in the bowels of the forge world. Such horrendous scenes of carnage and mutilation were more than he'd bargained for.

After a while, he turned and wandered through the dust-caked city, heading toward the forge in a stupor. He glanced around at the abandoned and ruined signs of panic and confusion, trampled by the fleeing masses: a child's toy, a woman's hat, a prayer candle, a paper boat. More than a few times, he came across the battered body of some poor unfortunate who had been unable to keep their head above the flowing tide of the escaping citizenry, broken by the panicked footfalls of a thousand feet.

When he finally arrived at the forge, Venton had regain at least a shred of his senses and tried to steady himself. He could only hope that Ignatus would be here and that he would have answers, although Venton hardly knew to what questions.

[Daeva]

Hack-The White Cat

Skive started right in witht he questions. Hack...wasn't so keen. The crowd of horrified, unable to fathom what had happened. He didn't feel like talking. The scratches and knicks on her own skin started to ache head pounding with the noise. She took a different approach, letting the psyker do his own thing. She stayed on the stairs a moment and waves a pale hand to the crowd, speaking as loud as she could manage.

"I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert, but if you need some....medical help...I can try."

Some of the Emperor's Children needed help. She'd do her best in his absence.

[Inquisitor]

Hack, Skive
The White Cat

Hack's call goes largely unnoticed. People look back and then return to their drinks, their silent conversations, and their lamenting. It has not been a good night for many – and many more are worrying, about family and friends left outside, about their sins laying forgotten and tampled, and what they had done to gain the God-Emperor's misfortune.

The fat owner turns when Skive grabs him, and, for once – seems to have lost his somewhat jolly demeanor. He's red in the face, sweating, tired, annoyed, and moving with the general fear of the area. He shakes his head at Skive.

“No one knows a damn thing. Some sort of rebellion or something. Talkin' about a higher callin', or how they've seen the way or some shit. All I know is they're gunning down innocent, Throne-loving fools. And it's not just here, either. Apparently an orchestrated event. Throne-blasted shame.”

If there's nothing else to ask, he goes back to work.

Venton Octus
Forge Primaris

Distraught as you are, you eventually regain control of your limbs and and the emotions you'd thought had eroded away long ago with cold logic. Logic tells you that what you're witnessing is small-scale, minuscule, forgettable. Not even a blip on the screen, hardly even a drop of water across all the galaxy's worlds. Maybe a few thousand people – a high estimation, you remind yourself in a moment – lay dead in the streets, at most. But still, you are reminded of your childhood, before being accepted into the folds of the great Mechanicum. Of your humanity, of horrors you had never witnessed and knew you would witness once more.

You walk back through the long series of winding and closed off roads, check points, and the likes. A clear pathway is not possible, thanks to the fires and the threat of insurrectionists. You pass by items and people, forgotten in the chaos and the bedlam. You spot one body, surrounded by a flock of guls, that has been summarily crushed and smeared by the tread of some vehicle that had passed through.

The causeway leading into the forge is deserted, though it's fires still burn, of the streaming files of workers you remember from days past. Instead, Skitarii guards line the walkways, training lascannons and multi-lasers back and forth and on you as you approach, from behind quickly erected plasteel barricades. Your information is checked by the Martian forces, and you are allowed entry, a servo-skull guiding you back to the maglift you remember.

Ignatus's inner sanctum is not as you remember it. The door opens, and the soft music you remember from last is gone, replaced with the constant stutter of machine sounds, crackling human voices, some worried, some demanding, some simply screaming in terror or battle cries before being cut away, and harsh belches of binaric speech back and forth. The glow-globes have been amplified, casting the room in harsh light, rather then the soft, red glow of magma as before. The ground and the air is strewn with cabling and reels of paper.

At least four Tech-Priests are scattered about the room, moving about, between machines, speaking in harsh blurts to each other. Two other adepts hang limply, weak, in harnesses against the walls, strapped in to great machines and sifting through incoming and outgoing data that streams by in an impossible blur of screens, both visible and invisible to the naked eye.

Ignatus himself is at his desk, unaware of your arrival. He alternates between standing and turning and sitting, speaking in his flesh voice and his machine voice, into various vox-relays, men staring at him on screens displaying anything from harsh wildlife to hellfire in the streets. He manages scrolling sheets that display the forge's status, what needs shutting off, what needs turning on, what is being under and overstressed, what isn't being worked at all. Both hands are at work, mechandrites on his shoulders and back twitching and tirelessly working. A massive plasma rifle sits atop his desk, now scattered with tomes and papers and dataslates, as well as a few other pieces of gear.

[SixStringSamurai]

Thrall - Underhive

Teeth grit as a firm wall is found, the foul stench of the city's fallen and forgotten districts hardly doing much to help the ringing in his head. Cheek stings, though thankfully the trickle of blood has slowed and started to dry in dark red flakes. A careful hand to test the bruising, a wave of nausea clamped down on early. A punch to the head with brass knuckles. A new scar to mark his service to the Emperor, even as unproductive as it had proven so far. Shoulders shrug the weight of his body from the wall, and the agent stalks his way back through the myriad pathways back to the alleyway that had spat him out into these damned lower levels. It would be easiest to return home the way he'd come, and it was unlikely that his new friend was all that eager to hunt him down.

Ladder up, weapons secured away in their usual easy to locate places. Keep moving, get back home and reassess. A good chance that something new had been uncovered after all. If nothing else, something for local authorities to deal with. Sweat is wiped from his brow, lips licked to wet them, and the copper taste is a hard reminder of the extent of damage suffered.

Return to base. Process what was learned. Reevaluate and continue.

It's never that easy, though. Not one thing had gone exactly to plan since being sent to this forsaken and cult infested world. The streets are not an easy to navigate system. The people are not so easy to push by, not at all attentive to the glowers of an armed and angry bald man with a monosword. They have larger concerns, such as riot and panic. That won't do.

Much as on some of the more barbaric worlds, the swordsman is left with little choice more than to run with the herd, to steer himself as best he can among the terrified stampede of looters and civilians until safe haven can be reached at long last.

[Inquisitor]

Thrall
The Long Nights Inn

You manage to pull yourself out of the undercity with minimal incident – you bump into a man at some point who screams at you, but the voice comes from somewhere buried away beneath swaddled rags. Confused enough as is, you had no choice but to stumble away, without apology. Born again on a high spire on Scintilla, you never ran into mutants. Or the low-life scum of the Imperium, really.

But you make it back into the streets, only to be greeted with the rumbling advancing tank line, and the people rushing to find their way home, or back, to where their families and friends had disappeared too. Despite the chaos, you make your way back to the inn, moving downstairs, and collapsing into bed. You don't even bother to check to see if your partner has made it back, falling into a deep sleep. It's been a long day.

You rise at noon, belly rumbling, head still ringing.

[Ketch]

Venton Octus - Ignatus' Sanctum

As hungry for information as Venton was, this was obviously not the time to be pressing for answers. Ignatus and his staff were moving and working frantically, and if Venton wished to remain in the forge master's good graces he decided it would be wise to put his skills to use helping Ignatus' efforts, rather than hampering them by interrupting his work. Of course, in order to find out how he might best help he would have to make brief interruption. He walked swiftly over to Ignatus' desk and bowed his head.

<Lord Fabricator, your humble servant arrives seeking thy instructions: how may my hands and my mind be put to best use at this most troubled and disordered of times, in the Omnissiah's name?> he hissed, quickly, wishing to be put to work immediately, without hesitation or delay. The feelings of desperation and uncertainty from moments ago were replaced by fervor and eagerness, unflinching desire to be put to use now that the opportunity had arisen to counter or at least alleviate the chaos and destruction he'd seen wrought by the insurgents at the sea.

[Hilda]

Atella - Spirit

Atella nodded, although she knew Caius could not see her. "Yes, dear friend, I am fine. We're quite lucky to have made it out alive, I think." And it was true. Yesterday had been such a close encounter with death. The thought shook her, and she did not care to admit just how badly. "If you want to postpone our little get together, I can understand." She hoped, however, that he wouldn't. The need to investigate this "Enlightened" cult had began to eat at her overnight. These people were clearly a serious threat.

He agreed to see her as scheduled, and she wasn't entirely surprised. Caius had always been rather difficult to ruffle. At least, she thought she remembered. He hadn't really been all that memorable in school. Oh well. His time of usefulness, she hoped, had come. He would come for her shortly, and then she would try to probe him for information as delicately as she knew how. This was a dangerous game; she did not want her hand to be forced by a man like Caius sussing her out. When she met him in the hotel lobby, she had made sure she looked every bit her position; hair elaborately coiffed and face made up, she smiled radiantly (Atella did not actually like to smile, but she knew when to 'get over it', as they say) and planted a kiss on either of his freshly shaven cheek. "Caius, my darling, you do look handsome as ever." She couldn't actually remember what he'd looked like in school. She had a vague memory of a rather acne-ridden boy, actually. Oh well. "Please, help me take my mind off all this dreadful violence. This is quite enough to make me head right back home, and I haven't been on Joqur-Ni more than a day!" She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, ever the damsel in distress.

Allowing him to guide her with his hand on the small of his back, they exited the hotel, looking thick as thieves.

[Ball-o-Cheese]

Skive - The White Cat

He nods dumbly to the owner and lets the man go back to trying to tend the crowd. It doesn't seem like he knows anything and Skive doesn't see much point in trying to press him for answers he doesn't have. Instead he shakes his head, watching the others gathered as Hack offers up her services as a healer, though there doesn't seem to be much interest. Shock, or maybe those that really needed help didn't make it off the streets. He laments those that might have fallen to this rebellious hand. Emperor keep them.

The events are weighing on him heavily, and his head wound has started to ache again, a dull throb that distorts his thinking and makes it hard to focus. Nonetheless, he feels compelled to try and press on. He wanders the common room, passing brief comments with anyone that is talking, trying to catch a whisper of conversation that might be informative in all this mess. It doesn't seem likely, but who knows what knowledge has washed up in here off the street. Any mention of a name of the faction, the symbol of the eye, or the jungle will cause him to pause and listen. 

If nothing seems worth the attention, he will return wherever Hack has situated herself and let her know that he's getting some rest. It's all been a bit much, and the shocked minds of the gathered are like a raw edge in his mind. The posssibility of dreams troubles him, but the body needs rest all the same.

Inquiry v. Fellowship (17) [45]

[Inquisitor]

Hack, Skive
The White Cat

Despite Skive's absolutely deplorable people skills, you find out what you can, and that's simple – the people know as little as the bartender. And really, how surprising is that? There's rumbles of dissent, anger, a few people cry and wail.

The only thing different is the robed man who flinches, and tries to make himself seem much smaller then he is.

Venton Octus
Ignatus's Outer Sanctum

The master tech-priest looks up at you, his human eye lidded and heavy his augmentative eye dimmed and faded. He, quite clearly, has not rested yet. His power reserves are running low and he has not switched his systems over to emergency power stores.

<Ah, ah, brother Octus. Thank you, any help would be...much appreciated. Please, sit down there. We're getting hit with so many requests and status reports, I cannot hardly sift through them all. Please, sort them, if you will.>

He turns back to his work – you notice, oddly, that his red-robes are stained in some places. The color is hard to pick out, but it is surely blood. The machine he pointed too lies open and waiting, scrolling sheets of green text on a black backdrop. You seat yourself and blood in.

Take a Logic test at a -10 difficulty to sift through the data. Ignatus wasn't kidding – there's tons of data coming in from across the planet, as well as status reports from the forge itself. Take an Awareness test if you'd like to try and spot anything of interest to you. If you fail the Logic roll, test Toughness.

Atella Lucillius
Fen Sha

Caius smiles at your kind words, and blushes just a little bit. You learn, as he talks on and on about himself, that he had never taken a suitor, having become so ingrained with his work. He leads you out of the waiting Spirit hotel, and leads you into a black autocar, a stretch luxury edition. Two guards follow you after a moment, entering another vehicle sitting just behind yours, and just before.

“I apologize for the armed escort, Madame Lucillius. With the recent activities, can't be too certain, and all that.” The rest of the trip is spent, for the most part, simply conversing about time spent in school and what not. Caius's family is a young house, but quickly on the move and rising, prospecting untapped worlds to exploit and rapidly leaping at any oppurtunity. The car is stopped, every now and again, at a checkpoint armed by Skitarii or PDF forces.

After some time, you're led out of the vehicle and to a maglift, taking you all the way too a top of a spire. The doors slide open, and you're escorted into a quite exquisite restaurant. The walls and, indeed, the entire restaurant, are modeled in the same manner as the ancient Cathayan and Orient cultures of pre-Imperium, pre-Old Night Terra. Red paper adorns the walls, inlaid with gold designs. Women with silk robes and painted faces bow to you and lead you to a waiting area, eyes accentuated with colorful strokes to exaggerate the subtle slanting of the eyes. Wooden masks of long-forgotten daemons of old culture are abound, a slanting roof over a bar, geisha-style dolls and the likes.
The waiting area is wonderful furnished, with overstuffed chairs surrounding low tables. The painted women return and asks for drinks, before leaving you. Amplifiers throughout the restaurant play the light music that you hear loudly – a girl in the corner behind a large black instrument, fingers striking keys of ivory and obsidian, panging out long and beautiful scores, and sometimes harsh, erratic, and driving sounds.

The windows behind you are large and plated glass – frosted, lightly, from the altitude, and displaying the streets and jungle below. The spires of another city rise far away, in the distance.

“So, my dear Atella. I'm sorry for what had transpired last night...Why is it that you have come here?”

[Ball-o-Cheese]

Skive - The White Cat

Numbed by fatigue and the drawn out events of the day, perhaps the people of the Inn are nore tolerant of Skive's fumbling than they would normally be. After all, surely this is the day of all days when people might be lacking in people skills. Not that it avails him at all, it seems that everyone else is as much in the dark as he is. Oh well. The Psyker considers that this will probably not be a good enough reason to appease the Inquisitor, although their failure to prevent... whatever is going on at the moment... may be cause enough for him to extinguish their service. He idly wonders whether or not word of the insurgency has made it off the planet. Surely the Enlightened - if this is them - would not have been able to bring down all the Astropaths before some message was released. And even if they did, there is sublight communication to ships in orbit, their takeover could not have been flawless.

Nonetheless, he tallies that as something to check - tomorrow. For now he makes one last, weary circle of the inn's main room. He pauses to consider the robed man - he had taken him to be confessor or similar individual - who seems reticent. Surely this is the time for such pillars of the faith to support the rest of the mass?

Skive is taking a moment to appraise the man and try to work out who he is. I think this is the right test

Scrutiny v. Perception (20) [82]

Apparently Skive is truly worn out at the moment.

[SixStringSamurai]

Thrall - Long Night

Head ringing, cheek throbbing, rolling away from his pillow in the morning. Seek comfort in the bathroom, cold water on his face to bring back the focus that washed out of his system along with the adrenaline high of combat. An assassination, a city in flames, and a cult that still eluded his detection. Something that ties all of this together has to be found.

A quick knock on Venton's door, and then out into the city to look for food. Low grade recaff and whatever stewed grox worth the least amount of cash. Throne knows they're on own for money during this operation. A standing place at a bench, glaring out into the Hive through a window that's escaped most of the damage. Perhaps contact with Skive and Hack would be useful. Unless he's being followed by one of the Forge Master's men. It would be easier to navigate a jungle of razorvine than these games of shadows.

A walk down a mostly abandoned street, no one around to hear just another crazy bastard talking to himself.

-Contacting Skive-
"Emperor protects. Talk soon when safe. Emperor protects."

[Ketch]

Venton Octus - Ignatus' Outer Sanctum

Venton bows deeply as the forge master finishes speaking and immediately sets himself up at the console. With the prospect of work, his mind becomes sharpened and focused. Figures and reports screams past his eyes, artificial synapses relaying the information to simple, diminutive processing devices implanted just within his skull where the data are stored for brief seconds, just long enough to allow Venton's sluggish, plodding flesh to send it along through the proper channels before it's erased and replaced with new data, to be processed and sent along again. It is a task to which Venton is well suited, it seems; perhaps too well suited. Though the reports are being 'processed' by Venton, they make it no further than momentarily stored data before it is erased; he does not manage to absorb any of the information as it comes it. Such is the price of efficiency, a quality that Venton is not willing to let suffer in the name of Inquisitorial investigation.

Logic vs Int 41 (-10) -> 1d100 = 12
Awareness vs Per 30 (Basic) -> 1d100 = 89

Venton is brilliant but clueless; he could solve any mathematical equation you threw at him but he wouldn't notice you lighting his shoes on fire while he worked it out.

[Inquisitor]

Hack, Skive
The White Cat

Skive is possibly a bit more tired then he thought. However, it doesn't take a hard look to see that the confessor is a bit off. Robes torn and bloodied, covered in soot and dust – though, that's not anything special here, either.

Venton Octus
Outer Sanctum

After nearly two hours of merciless scouring of data, you managed to sort the backlogged data, as well as the recent incoming data, into manageable chunks that have been sent elsewhere for processing, where it will returned, refined, down to the bare minimum to Ignatus. When you unplug yourself from the machine, Ignatus himself is at his desk, simply seeming to stare straight down at the wood grain.

“What is it that you needed, brother?” He rasps.

Thrall
Abandoned street

You think an assassin would know better then to go wandering far, with all the trouble afoot...maybe the new-found delights of greasy food has warped your brain.

Roll Awareness, and then Initiative.

[Hilda]

Atella - Fen Sha


"Well, I've arranged a meeting with the owner of a very rare, very valuable set of books that I have been absolutely dying," Atella gushed, pressing her fingertips against her sternum to convey her delirious excitement, "to add to my collection at home. Very interesting indeed. He's from Malfi, and our arrangement was to meet on Joqur, you see, but after yesterday's events I very much doubt he'd like to come." She sighed, running her finger around the rim of her glass. "What a mess. Whoever these... these... hooligans and psychopaths are, they've positively wrecked my plan." Shaking her head, she murmured, "And what a shame, too... Who knows if I'll manage to get my hands on those books now."

She giggled and, and tossed back a shot of the heady rice wine in fine bone china cups, delivered by the geishes who made no remark to Caius and Atella, and made no sound save for the faint rustling of their colorful silk costumes. Atella smiled at Caius. "So that's why I'm here! Business, really. Although it's certainly wonderful to be away from House Lucilius for a spell."

She gasped and clapped a hand over Caius' forearm, as though she had just remembered something important or interesting. "At the docks I saw people wearing the Inquisition's column. Any idea what they're nosing about for out here?" She hoped the question would prove to be innocuous. She wanted to probe him for information, of course, but not at the risk of giving herself away. Before he could answer her, though, she declared, " You know, you must be so careful with these Inquisitorial types. They never like questions being asked of them, hmm? Or questions in general, I suppose." She touched a fingertip to her lip in thought. "It's no secret they think we scholars are dangerous." She looked at him pointedly. This was a thickly veiled warning. If he meddled, she'd deal with him easily enough.
After all, scholars were risky, weren't they? A danger to the Imperium, with their free-thinking. A heretic noble wasn't unheard of. One had only to look to the Lucilius family tree for proof, she thought drily.

Decieve vs Fel 33 -> 1d100 = 28

[Inquisitor]

Atella Lucillius
Fen Sha

“The Inquisition?” Caius looks positively mortified by even the mention of the mythical force. His face drains of color. “Atella, now isn't a time for jokes.” He speaks lightly, but he studies her face, and then clears his throat uncomfortably as he begins to look through the bag he'd brought with him. He shakes his head, hands trembling slightly as he begins to fiddle with a pipe he's produced.

“God-Emperor, the Inquisition? I hope your eyes have truly mistaken you...I have no idea why the Inquisition would come to Joqur, and I fear what will happen in their stead. What could attract the Inquisition's presence to this planet? The only thing of any interest at all on this rock are some of the creatures out in the jungle, but there is already a Magos Biologis, or those ruins dug up by those new Syndicate fellows, or maybe some of those caves found at those...blast, what were they called? Green Mountains.”

He begins – with no amount of shame – to place a small bit of high-quality obscura in the pipe, before inhaling deeply off the pipe and offering it to Atella.

“What troubled times we live in...”</i>

[Ball-o-Cheese]

Skive - The White Cat

Tired and strained by the events of the past day, Skive finds nothing compelling enough to outweigh the ache of his head and the erratic tingle of scared and anxious minds against his psyche. He grimaces, and turns to find Hack. He offers her just a few parting words to let her know that he is seeking his rest, and then stumbles upstairs to the room. He can't bar the door without blocking Hack, so he settles for shutting it in the conventional fashion.

With that done the tired Psyker flops onto a bed and into a fitful sleep.

[Ketch]

Venton Octus - Ignatus' Outer Sanctum

Venton stood and bowed his head slightly before the forge master.

<Lord Fabricator, I feel at this time that you should take time to rest and recharge you energy stores. The purpose of my visit can certainly wait until you have had a chance to regain your strength. You should switch to emergency reserve power immediately and connect to an electro-graft station as soon as possible, your potentia coil must be nearly depleted. Allow me to assist you.> Venton moved toward Ignatus' back, ready to pull out his chair for him as he stood (assuming he chose to follow the electro-priest's advice). <While you are indisposed, please, permit me to offer my services, such as they are, in any capacity that you might require. The insurrection, if that is indeed what this is, seems to have reached a lull. Therefore, until such time as you are fully recuperated I shall do all I can to facilitate to smooth operation of the forge.>

[Daeva]

Hack-The White Cat

Hack had abandoned the persuit of information long before Skive. She watches him mull around in the crowd, tired and in a state of low moral. She can't help but think that if she had pressed for information more at the gate, she might have learned of this even before it happened. As Skive moves to rest, she moves after him. She'll bar the door as the psyker slips into his bed. Rest. Rest and they'd try again tomorrow.

Hopefully they'd succeed too.