wanderingwolf

The Namespace of the Rose

The woman espoused her gut feeling. It seemed that she relied on such things heavily. Her eyes were calculating trajectories, spotting flecks of paint, and ordering events keenly. Both eyes, not just the metal one. Vigrid watched her glistening gears turn with ease as he might watch a foe to predict their next move.

She was right, it didn't sit well. 'It' being the Skitarii's grasp of what happened here. It was a snake of a thread writhing its head at them, begging them to pull it a little farther. He unfocused his eyes for a moment, considering a wider picture. Maybe, just maybe, even the report he'd been handed as he ascended the tower was itself a play to obfuscate what really happened here. Everything must go. Even the events as they had been relayed to him. Fresh eyes.

When she said she could reach out to others who knew more, he nodded.

The trash chute. It was plain to the Astartes that the cogitators had been abandoned (or preserved?) by casting them into the trash chute. These glorious machines had been uprooted and cast into the refuse. Two thoughts ran through Vigrid's mind:

1. The assassin could have jettisoned the cogitators as a gambit to walk freely through the same door they entered. This sat well with the Space Marine. This whole mess never felt like a burglary.
2. The cogitators have been placed in a safe place to be collected later: the trash chute. Wherever this chute led, it's possible that the assassin had the intention of recovering them from a safer, and less guarded, location--rather than walk out the door or repel down the tower's exterior.

The latter possibility caused Vigrid to grind his teeth. It was a loose end that would need to be accounted for. As he turned back to the room, his organs cried out. This whole scene was replete with myriad loose ends and writhing false leads.

He relayed his discovery. "The holy cogitators have been ripped from the Archmagos' console and discarded into this trash chute." The Marine held up a remnant piece as proof of his pronouncement.

"I fear," his voice resembled gravel, "the cogitators may have been 'placed' in the garbage to be retrieved from the bowels of the tower. But I am not convinced this isn't a vapor cloud to muddy the trail."

The Namespace of the Rose

"Hrmph," the Space Marine expelled air incredulously at the claim to be able to deign the future in the entrails of a recently deceased rodent. Eyes were faulty. Eyes could not see anything like the Omophagea could suss out of the thoughts and feelings of the deceased. Though, admittedly, Vigrid had not attempted to consume any rodent to his knowledge. Ramona had implanted a curious, but obviously erroneous idea. No way eating rat-guts could tell the future. Even the consideration of a thought like that was heresy. Probably.

Vigrid considered what the woman posited. "Such a coincidence irks me. It is possible that there were more than one assailant, though I see no evidence of it yet." The broken glass was probably an egress, right? That 'probably' again. A second shooter could explain the inhuman speed of catching the Archmagos while teleporting... "Perhaps the broken window may not have been the escape route after all..." Vigrid mused, though he didn't put much thought into the sentiment.

When he considered the displacer field, Vigrid came up empty. In the lurch, he ventured a question to his cohort-by-proximity. "Do you know anything about Displacer Fields?" He didn't wait for her response, before moving to the cogitators for a closer look. Something felt off about them.

The brute moved to the cogitators, investigating the broken window in passing when he considered how heavy these machines were. A heavy burden, indeed. And all the way down the Ivory Tower. But what if... What if the machines never left this chamber? [Spend 1 point in Data Recovery]

Blackguards!

16 days is a long time to go without logging in for @Red Wizard :(

The Namespace of the Rose

As the brain matter was forced down with a swallow, Vigrid began to pick up scattered thoughts and images. Memories filled with violence and war. In stark contrast to the preconceived notion of a mage, this cavalcade of emotion swarmed around combat, and honing the art of war.

Then the mental calculus began to churn.

Vigrid's gaze traced the location of the Archmagos' initial impact with the teleport position triggered by the displacer field. Making a gun of his hand, the Astartes pointed first at the final resting location of the mage, then at the site of the first impact. With a grim expression, he shook his head. It had to be the second option offered by his military experience. This attacker must have known exactly where the Archmagos' displacer field would teleport Toros before they fired the first three shots.

That would mean the killer had someway to either intercept the data, or, and this was more likely seeing as the displacer field triggered after the first shot, they were able to scramble the field to get their first shot in. Time and space were a funny thing, as the 'first shot' was also the 'fourth shot.' The Space Wolf huffed stale air from his maw. The acrid atmosphere penetrating the ivory tower through the broken window tasted like sulfuric pennies.

The Astartes' eyes met his companion's. (OOC: Well, Kim, I ate the brains.) "The nature of the Archmagos' death is troubling," he began distilling his vision, "The first shot was not the one which opened her skull," he turned first to the splatter of the mage's brain matter on the equipment behind her; the first impact. "The first shot was in the grouping which the victim teleported into when the displacer field activated." He raised a gloved fist to wipe the remnants of the Archmagos' brain from his bristling, brown beard and mustache. "Somehow the assailant knew exactly where the field would teleport Archmagos' Toros, or controlled where and when it would activate."

His mind raced to conceive of any such technology that would be capable of scrambling the Archmagos' displacer field, forcing it to teleport into another location.

Next on the Space Wolf's list was to take a closer look at the cogitators that remained. If this was no simple burglary, perhaps the nature of what was stolen would point to the feint it could be.

The Namespace of the Rose

The hulk turned his attentions on the woman when she addressed him. He'd seen her in the factory-cathedral before; the bionic eye and the bearing she wore were familiar to him as he gone about his business as a newly minted techmarine. Her eye implied perhaps some kind of battle, but her bearing was not one of a warrior. She had a methodical approach as she moved across the crime scene, making audible deductions most likely to Vigrid's benefit. It seemed she saw him as an ally in the pursuit of discovering the truth of this matter. Maybe she even felt the same disquiet at the Skitarii's pronouncement of burglary as the cause for the Archmagos' death.

In fact, she voiced the same concern now, aloud. She stood up the facts in flimsy fashion, to knock them down as 'grox shite.' At that the Space Wolf's brows rose, betraying his mirth at the base deduction. Vigrid noted the coat of arms on the woman's coat. The seal was familiar to him as belonging to one of the Rogue Traders in this sector. 'One of' being that of the two, her master was not yet embroiled in the political theater taking place around them. He met her eyes as he replied, "The facts do not add up, yes. Every counter measure the Archmagos possessed misfired too late." The Astartes left the doorway and approached the pooling corpse of Toros.

After a moment studying the wounds of the victim, Vigrid noticed the woman deploying a servo-skull to further investigate the space. Toros' skull splayed out a gaping rupture wherein the Archamgos' brain matter and circuits lay exposed to the air. The Space Marine experienced a glint of inspiration, turning to his would-be companion, "Steel yourself for what I am about to do may give you pause."

And with that, the Astartes touched the corpse of the Archmagos Toros with the intention to eat her brain and unlock the mysteries within.

The Namespace of the Rose

The Namespace of the Rose

The gravity of the situation was not lost on Vigrid Brand, as he passed the threshold into the ivory tower. The Space Marine scoured the data slate handed to him by the Skitarii marshall on the perimeter. The preliminary findings detailed in the report were sparse, bordering on slap-shod to his eye, given what had just happened. His green eyes traced the report line by line, even as he carefully moved through what was left of the bodies of the Skitarii guard at the base of the tower. A burglary. In the highest order in Isohedron-CBX, among the casualties the Archamagos Toros. His brow creased at the unnerving feeling that something was off.

By the time he reached the Archmagos' office, he had to re-read the line reporting the assailant kicking open the reinforced metal door. The door itself looked a massive, heavy set, and the amount of force to break through caused the Astartes to pause. Then he noticed movement from within the Archmagos' office. His ears pricked as he proceeded within.

As the eight-foot Astartes entered the magos' rooms, he was met with the back of a slender woman in a long weathered topcoat. The way she walked belayed practiced purpose as she came to the end of a circling arc around the still-warm body of the Archmagos herself. As her head turned he noted the implant which occupied the space of her left eye.

For now he would remain silent, quietly blocking the door. His eyes, taking in the scene of the Archmagos on the ground and the devastation her final moments wrought upon the interior, traced also the presence of this woman. It appeared she had just arrived and was taking her own account. The Astartes lowered the data slate in his hand to track the absence of the cogitators. Curious indeed.

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Vertigo@clanjos@rush99999@patientbean I'm waiting on each of you to post IC to progress us along :D

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Vertigo Good thoughts. We can carry on with 3 until Clanjos and Digizel make it back.

@clanjos Sorry to hear about your grandmother's health. Should we count in on the rest of this adventure, or do you need some time?

P2e - Threshold of Knowledge

@Vertigo I just got back from a week long trip to Poland, but I see 3/5 players interested in continuing. If you want to continue, I'm all for that but would have likes to reach consensus. In that case perhaps we move ahead with just 3 players. Thoughts?