Penny

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

I had found myself with little to do in the days after our escape from the manor. Hadrian was absorbed in the the more administrative aspects of his role which frankly was a little intimidating. It was one thing to know in the abstract that an Inquisitior had unlimited authority, it was another to watch one snap his fingers and have a trio of warships and a small army put at his disposal. Unfortunately the fact that I was officially a Throne Agent (Emperor Preserve Me) did not have the effect of causing the locals to leave me alone. Quite the oppisite in fact. Every lord, lady and officer seemed to feel I was a viable back channel to the Ordos, and that I would be in someway interested in exerting such imagined influence on their behalf. I resisted the temptation to tell them to frak off, figuring that the information might be useful to Hadrian. Mostly I figured it was the kind of minor malfeasance that was present in many Imperial houses, simple cases of guilty concionces looking for assurances before the proverbial wrath of Maccharius decended on them. They were probably right to be worried. Hadrian was focused on the Danubis angle but when I brought him my reports at dinner each night he took them gladly. I got the impression that several junior members of the Ordos, Interogators he called them, were being dispatched to supervise a planet wide audit.

The remainder of the time I spent in study. Lazarus reluctantly agreed to go over what information he had on these so called Necrons. It wasn't much to go on, mostly rumors and conjecture. It was a little disconcerting that information was so sparse. It was even more disconcerting that Lazarus believed this was because most people who encountered them didn't survive to file a report with the Administratum.

________________________________________________________________

First day of the trip

It wasn't until the first day aboard ship that I finally had a moment to myself. It seemed that the fever pitch of prepation was, if not over, at least suspended until we made Danubis orbit. I woke from pleasant dreams and lay in bed for long minutes thinking over everything that had happened to me. I rose and bathed, taking my brush and brushing my hair out until it gleamed. I wondered if I should cut it. It hardly fitted the mental image I had of an Inquisitorial agent, but maybe that was a good thing. There was still so much I didn't know about what I was supposed to do, what was expected of me. I let out a sigh having given myself a rationale for what I wanted to do anyway. Talk to Hadrian. I dressed carefully, relieved to find that the back dress I had worn to the ball. I put on the boots too but drew the line at actually wearing jewelerly. Well I almost drew the line, I did add a saphire choker that had been given to me as.... well a bribe wouldn't be too strong a word, but it looked nice and it wasn't as though I had actually done any favors.

It felt extremely strange to be traversing the utilitarian corridors of the ship in a ball grown. A few of the crew saw me but other than wide eyed lookd no one commented on it. They seemed to be somewhat in awe of me. The dance on the table had helped of course, but it seemed that some version of what had happened at the Ignatius estate had filtered through the crew. I imagine that it had probably formed the basis of a fantastic boast over the drinking horns. I wonder if I was a heroine or a damsel in distress in the story, but it hardly mattered. I reached Hadrian's door and knocked hearing his voice bidding me to enter I pressed the touchplate and the panel swung open I stepped inside to find him climbing out of bed. He froze when he saw me, eyes suddenly very wide.

"What?" I asked in confusion.

The Sunday Group

WHy dont you go ahead and include a major clue then :)

The Sunday Group

@Fetzen Have you given a major clue yet?

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

It took a surprisingly short time for the hub hub to die down. I hid in the back of one of the speeders, hoping that they might think that I was dead. It would, I hoped, be hard to verify who the driver of the flier had been, so badly had the wreck burned. For a long while I didn’t know what to do. It had just been graphically demonstrated to me that attempting to fly out was not a viable option. I knew that I couldn’t just abandon Hadrian, but that knowledge didn’t furnish me with any actionable plan. I lay back against the upholstery and tried to think but nothing concrete came to me. I was still thinking when four of the guards left the hangar. By their excited chatter I could tell it wasn’t just a change of shift. I followed them, staying in ear shot of their excited chatter. I heard something about sport but nothing I could make out. We moved back to the main house and into another wing, me skulking along behind hoping they lead me somewhere useful.

I heard it before we got there. Take it from me that the sound of a blood thristy mob cheering for death has a unique timbre to it. The guards went into the auditorium and closed the door behind them. I wasn’t sure I could safely follow. Simply walking through the door seemed like a recipe for disaster. I edged up to it anyway and peered through the narrow gap between the door and the jam. I swore at the narrow slit of vision I was granted. Fortunately all eyes were on the spectacle below so I took a deep breath and pushed the door open, slipping inside and taking a seat beside a couple of servants. They didn’t even glance at her. Hadrian was in the pit below, circling with a… well it looked like a man, but it was too thin and too tall. It seemed like its features should be handsome, beyond beautiful, but somehow it managed to be repellant. Like a sculpture made of pieces by a half dozen master artists whose pieces didn’t quite add up. It was unnaturally fast, a fluid blurr that lunged across at Hadrian. He managed to dodge aside and took a swipe at the thing but it was already out of reach. It was clearly playing with the Inquisitor, much to the crowds delight. Emmaline noticed that it wore manacles at its wrists and ankles. Was this creature a prisoner here too? That hardly made it an ally, but it was clear that if she didn’t do something soon Hadrian would be dead. She did the only thing she could. She reached out with her psy and snared the minds of four of the servants. It was easy. There was so much hate and bloodlust in the air. They all screamed in rage and leaped into the pit, landing awkwardly on the arena floor. The creature turned and casually shattered the throat of the nearest servant, dropping the man to the floor as blood sprayed from his face. I saw heads turn to regard me from the seats of honor. Someone up there had noticed what I had done.

“Frak,” I said and grabbed the pistol from the holster of a guard who was cheering hoarsely. I pointed it at him and pulled the trigger. The gun roared and he staggered backwards, clutching his chest. I turned and fired more or less randomly in the direction of the booth. I reached out again and whipped the nearby crowd into a frenzy. One woman leaped on another and sank her teeth into her neck. A guard casually stove in the head of another man with the but of his rifle. Chaos erupted.

The Sunday Group

Quick post to move us along. Eleanor calls Primrose and fills everyone in on the unkillable magic zombies. We can RP it out if there is info you want or if you have questions, but my intent is just to get everyone the info.

The Sunday Group

Eleanor slowed and pulled over onto the side of the road, leaning forward to lean her forehead on the steering wheel. She smelled of gasoline, cordite and the sharp burnt spice scent of thaumaturgic overload. The suit she was wearing was stained and burned through in several places, though she had managed to snuff out the flames before it had burned her skin. The kept her head down for several minutes, running through a series of meditations to recenter herself. The phone began to play Hips Don’t Lie and she snatched it up.

“Well if it isn’t Atillia von Bismark,” Eleanor answered waspishly. Emmaline let out a sigh of relief that stole some of Eleanor’s pique.

“You're alive, thank the Dark Moon,” Emmaline breathed, “I heard the spring jangling.”



“It worked out, Mal blew up a gas station,” Eleanor replied.

“That doesn't sound like something you should put after ‘it worked out’ Eleanor,” Emmaline pointed out.



“Are we disentangled yet?” Eleanor asked, pulling open Nacho on her phone. The mathematical construct looked to be wound down to something like a normal level.

“O.2 millisterns and dropping,” Emmaline confirmed. The app blinked a notification ‘EvM has ended the spell’ followed by the digits 22 minutes 5 seconds. There was a subtle relaxation in the fabric of reality as Eleanor’s luck returned to the hands of random chance.



“You need to get going,” Emmaline said at the exact moment Eleanor said “I need to get moving.” They shared a laugh which bled some of the tension away.

“Call me if you need me Liben,” Emmaline said and hung up the phone. Eleanor stared at the steering wheel for a few moments and then pulled off her torn and burned jacket, tossing it into the back.



“Hecate, call primrose,” Eleanor said as she pulled back onto the road and turned back towards the gas station. It was getting time to figure out exactly what in the nine hells was going on.

A Thousand Legends ~ Sundered Veil

It was entirely possible that there were more people in the square than Zolzaya had seen in her entire life. Her mind rebelled against the notion that even this green soft land could possibly support so many. How could straw hatted peasants grubbing in muddy fields feed this multitude? Where were their herds? So many beasts would surely blacken the sun with the dust of their passage. She sniffed at the air, tasting the bite of blackpowder, the sweet smell of frying rice, and the overwhelming sour stink of unwashed bodies and sweat. Zaya hated it. She wanted to smell the clean crisp of the coming winter on the steppe, wanted to feel the bite of the winds and the pound of hooves on the tundra. A trio of soldiers shoved their way through the crowd, weapons sheathed and faces bright with drunken merriment. They looked soft. One day, when the tribes were united, they would sweep down from the north and crush these weaklings beneath their hooves. Then her people would get fat on rice and drunk on cheap wine, their children would live to grow into pump merchants and their noses grow sharp for want of the steppe wind.


Zaya’s hand snapped down and caught the wrist of a child of perhaps ten years old in a grip like a wire snare. He let out a gasp of pain, his fingers a few inches from the leather purse that held her few coins. She stared down at him for a moment and saw tears start in his eyes. She shoved him back into the crowd and continued on, gripping the bridle of her mare in her free hand. The warhorse snuffled at the unfamiliar scents, flaring its nostrils as its hooves clattered across the flagstone. This place was as alien to Khiimori as it was to her, though admittedly the horse seemed to be handling it somewhat better than she was. The bulk of the horse made passage for her through the crowd, the clatter of hooves effective where hard looks from a small tough looking woman was not. She pressed her hand against the breast of her leather armor, feeling the wax sealed parchment concealed beneath it. She had assumed that she would simply march in and hand the summons, addressed to the ‘Chief of Chiefs’ to someone and they would take her to their Emperor. ‘Chief of Chiefs’ wasn’t the proper word, but these southerners did so love the formulas they dreamed up. Zaya supposed they were lucky that the wisewoman had the magic of reading. There was no way she was going to get near the palace tonight.


More fire blossomed in the sky above her and Khiimori flicked her ears in irritation. They pushed through the crowd and onto a long street lined on both sides with stalls covered with awnings of colorfully painted canvas. Smoke and the smell of hot oil and frying noodles filled the air as the cooks cried their wares, handing out food in little bowls of woven green leaves that did something to arrest the dripping grease. Meat seemed scarce save for a few vendors who were grilling what might or might not have been beef on long skewers, pausing occasionally to baste it in a thick sauce that smelled like peanuts and burnt sugar. Her stomach rumbled and she paused to exchange a few coppers for a bowl of rice and fried vegetables. Zaya ate with her fingers, disdaining the bamboo sticks that the southerns seemed to favor as useless frippery. Maybe she should find a…. What was the word? An inn? And wait till morning. Perhaps that would be best.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

Jocasta felt the explosive go off in the elevator through her stomach, the vibration seeming to purge the last of the liquor from her system. Dirk burst out of the stairwell blaster bolts cutting across the gymnasium with surgical precision. Two of her drones were sharing their feed with Dirk’s helmet, a gesture of trust somewhat minimized by the must unbelievably baroque encryption he was using. The drones were able to throw up holographic overlays of hostiles among the crowd, a feature Jocasta was also using. She waited until all of the thugs scattered for cover, firing at Dirk. Then she pulled open the roof hatch of the elevator and dropped down into the open smokey doors. A thug who had just ducked into cover stared in amazement as a voluptuous woman in a bikini dropped from the ceiling and landed beside him.

“Hello,” Jocasta said brightly, then jammed the slender barrel of her pistol into the joint between his breastplate and his greaves and pulled the trigger. The mercenary arched backwards, throwing his weapon skyward as every nerve in his body fired simultaneously, the contraction pitching him into the back wall with a crack. Jocasta was a little embarrassed. She was on vacation sure, but this was the second time she was going into combat dressed as lazer stripper, she needed to pack a little more practically. She stepped out of the elevator and fired twice more. The bluish sizzling rays from her pistol struck another two of the hijackers who found themselves suddenly out flanked. Two gunmen who had been herding the hostaged turned towards Jocasta, one of them lifting a heavy riot gun that looked like it could fell a Takovian waterbeast. A blade of arcing energy erupted through his chest and then vanished leaving a cloud of smoking blood. His partner tried to spin around only to find his head was suddenly separated from his body and bouncing across the floor. An old man stood behind them with a glowing force sword that had apparently been concealed in a walking stick. He reached up and adjusted an old timey pair of spectacles.

“That was pretty bad ass,” Jocasta admitted to no one in particular.

“Like wise my dear,” the old man said, raising the sword in salute and then depressing a stud. The blade winked out and it was a simple walking stick again. The gymnasium was in chaos, but all the enemy were marked as down. The icons for those killed by Dirk had a little D above them but upside down so it looked like a frowning face. Jocasta’s kills were marked with little anthropomorphised dragonflies with their fists raised triumphantly in the air. Irritatingly he had more, although the computer was querying her as to how to allocate the two that the old man had killed. Jocasta assigned them to herself, it was her system and she should get the credit!

“Clear,” Dirk remarked as he strode through the carnage, calmly replacing the powerpack in his weapon.

“Clear,” Jocasta said somewhat belatedly, too used to trusting her drones to have thought of announcing the fact.

“Clear,” said the old man, apparently just happy to be included. Fine, Jocasta thought, and changed the icons above his kills to a pair of spectacles winking.

“If everyone will remain calm the situation is under control, if you are injured remain where you are, otherwise please return to your rooms,” Amber’s voice sounded over a concealed PA system. No one moved for a minute. Jocasta turned and picked up a half burned ‘out of order' sign and hung it helpfully on the smoking blasted doors of the elevator.

There's Always a Price: Sci Fi Bounty Hunters

Jocasta was about to make an off color joke about sizes of boats and motions of oceans when an alert pipped in her implants. Her attention seemed to focus off in space for a moment as she rapidly assimilated information from a number of her drones. Her eyes blinked very rapidly as she cycled between views at a speed fast enough to make her regret how much Nebula Tears she had consumed.

“Problem,” Dirk said, not in question but in statement.

“Eighteen minutes ago a luxury liner, Tenebs Tribune, docked. From the looks of it, she was hijacked out of system and came in under her codes,” Jocasta reported, watching silent footage of a gang of rag tag men bursting out of the hold as the liner unbuttoned. They swarmed over the security personnel before they knew what was happening.

“Six minutes ago they took control of the transit stations and the control center it looks…”

The monitor on the wall sprung to life and was filled with the image of a heavy browed man with a shaven scalp and a mechanical eye. He grinned through a mouth of metal teeth in a manner that looked both smug and threatening at the same time.

“Ello folks, I’m sorry to interrupt your hard earned vacation, but this station, why its under new management. Im afraid we will be closing it for renovations,” he leered, scratching an ear as he did so.

“Some nice gentlemen will be around to each island in turn to collect our cancellation fees from ya, but don’t worry, no one will be hurt provided they give my men everything they ask for,” he explained, his grin growing wider.



“Turn over your valuables and we will let you leave alive, for those who dont appreciate my nice industry speech. And just so you know, the smart ladies who built this place put failsafes into the boats. I wouldn’t try leaving your islands without my boys express permission if was you!”



The screen cut out to be replaced by a slowly rotating skull and cross bones.

The Enemy Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor RP

They missed me by the merest fleeting chance. I hadn’t gone to sleep after Hadrian left of course, how could I, rather I paced the apartments growing increasingly irritated. Despite Hadrian’s attempts to explain I felt I still didn’t completely understand what was going on. Jezebel’s apparent confidence with me made no sense other than those found in the trashiest of romance literature. Did I have a doppelganger out there? A twin sister who was known to this cult and whom it made sense to show up at this place and at this time? Vanishingly unlikely, and what of the words Jezebel had said? ‘A matter of the most pleasant fraternal confidence’? It seemed nonsense, so bland as to be absolutely meaningless, yet it worried at the back of my mind like the memory of a lost tooth. I was out on the balcony pondering it when I heard the doors burst open, followed by the shouts of Urien and Bolskar and the distinctive sound of shock battens arcing up. I had only a minute to act so I jumped up onto the balustrade and then heaved myself up behind the gargoyle that glowered over the portal, scratching and soiling my hands as I did so. I had just had time to conceal myself when two guards, these ones dressed in matte black carapace armor rather than the gaudy house dress up, burst out onto the balcony. Long cold stab light beams pierced out into the darkness, sweeping down over the balustrade.

“Not here,” one of them said into what I presumed was a comm.

“Yes sir, we will secure the room,” the soldier said and they both turned and went back inside, closing and locking the door as they went. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. What to do now. Urien and Bolskar were captured or dead. Hadrian was captured or dead. I was the only one left free and I had no idea what I should do or what I was supposed to do. It wasn’t as if Hadrian had given me the Inquisition’s vox code so I could call for help. Well if I couldn’t call for help id just have to go get it. I climbed down to the balcony and found the door locked. By the play of a stab light at least one guard was still inside. I knocked on the glass with my knuckle and then climbed up onto the railing and lowered myself down so I hung as though clinging on for dear life. The door flew open and the guard came out with his stun batton lowered. He saw me and hesitated. For a moment I was afraid Id misjudged and he was going to stun me and drop my body, but instead he cursed, sheathed the weapon and grabbed me by the forearms, hauling me up. I grabbed his head and pulled it to mine locking my lips with his. His eyes widened in shock as my psy bored into him. I was at my strongest when I was in physical contact and he was totally unprepared for it.

Serve. I projected. Obey. Protect. He jerked me up over the rail and caught me lowering me gently with his eyes puppy wide.



“Mistress…” he managed the desire to be given an order so strong it enabled him to speak.

“Take me to the hanger by the most secretive route you know,” I ordered. It took us nearly twenty minutes to reach the hangar by back corridors and servant passages. Periodically my new servant, Calec was his name, reported in that he was guarding the suite and nothing was a miss. It wasn’t till we reached the hangar, a large ferrocrete bunker that held a number of air cars and some other luxury fliers that my plan hit its first snag. A half dozen guards stood around the opening cradling las carbines and ornate but functional looking auto guns.

“Mistress?” Calec asked. I knitted my brows in thought.



The guards whirled at the sound of one of the light aircraft powering up. As one they spun and lifted weapons, screaming orders to stop at the top of their lungs. The flier began to roll across the floor, its big turbo fans winding up to a scream. As one the guards opened fire, coherent light and slugs smashing across the nose cone and windshield of the sleek machine, crazing the plex. It continued to accelerate despite their best efforts, driving forward and scattering them like pins. The powerful turbo jets caught one man in the backwash lifting him up and smashing him against a wall so hard his carapace cracked. The others kept firing, several rounds peppered the engines and intakes and with a percussive whoosh the right engine flamed and caught. The machine staggered forward regardless, the roar so loud it hurt the ears. Thick smoke billowed back from the flier as it lifted drunkenly into the sky, wobbling free of the earth like a stunned bull. From the far edge of the property there was a great jet of flame and a ball of fire rose on a smoke trail to intersect the vehicle. The missile took off the functioning engine and most of the tail section in a cataclysmic blast and dropped the burning jet to the ground. It exploded in a spray of burning promethium and aviation lubricants, its speed turning the fireball over a half dozen times before the wreck smashed into the tree line with a final thunderous explosion.