C01M01S02 Death From Within

Firstly, congratulations on the conclusion of a pretty arduous mission.

Secondly, as always, let me know if I've missed anything out.

The session started with Duke on the 'Blade of Fury's' bridge investigating the pirate raids. The ship appeared to have survivors much to the surprise of the team. The victims ship had been literally carved in two by the enemy attack, scorch marks and melted hull plating attest to the extreme heat of the blast. By the clean nature of the weapon it was rapidly surmised to be a heat beam or laser of an incredible scale or technology. Thus indicating that it was military grade or xenos, not necessarily heretical. Suppositions included Rogue Traders, Rebellious factions in the Imperial Navy or Adeptus Mechanicus vessels, pirates were effectively ruled out.

The survivors were rounded up by the 'Blade of Fury's' Piranhas along with whatever grain could be salvaged and placed in the ships hold. The Captain was found to be alive and in a stable condition, when interviewed he revealed that the attackers were never seen, according to the freighters scanner logs they never existed. The first sign was when a blast tore open the ship. Duke then proceeded to wrangle a deal to get a new ship for the Captains family in exchange for favours in the future with partial success, the Captain has been given rights to a ship that is a mere 7 years away from production.

Duke then began the long journey home.

Mavis who was keeping guard of Thackleberry whilst he slept, saw twenty Enforcers creep towards them with shock mauls. Instead of waking poor Thackleberry, she slinked off into the darkness and watched whilst they beat him senseless and dragged him off for interrogation by Judge Fredd. She then proceeded towards Arch Bishop Desmonds old house to search it.

Armandius and Shanks rose swiftly and proceeded to the upper spires to question Councillor McGinnis about the food riots, the death of his father Old Man McGinnis and the Joyous Choir. The Councillor is polite, but refrains from giving any but the most basic of answers, before ending the interview and advising them to leave it to Judge Fredd to investigate.

Mavis searched the house of Arch Bishop Desmund finding the place to be ransacked and deserted. Dust and debris coats the house and a colony of rats have taken refuge. The killer assasin however did manage to find a secret removable floorboard which revealed an artifact that glows green when held, getting brighter the longer it is held. The disadvantage being that the person who holds it gets weaker. This item was then placed back in its hiding place for Duke to check out on his arrival back at the planet. Other items included a Kakow feather quill pen and a book of 100 illustrations, namely members of the Sisters Repentia in erotic poses. No wonder the pious chap wanted that kept concealed!

Armandius and Shanks met up with Mavis at the house and both tried the artifact but couldn't identify it. It was covered with strange runes, but they were definately not written in Gothic and Shanks didn't think they appeared to be Chaotic runes with his knowledge of forbidden cults.

The team communicated with Duke who requested they waited for his arrival before attempting to infiltrate the church. Shanks who had taken leadership of the group refused his request with the justification that three members were easier to conceal and more than a match for anything they might encounter. The team went down to the underhive where the Arbites were hurling Stumm grenades down the access shaft to control the starving underhivers who were trying to get into the upper hive. The team were given two grenades and then dived into the Stumm gas with the genius idea of holding their noses and closing their eyes. Unsurprisingly, this didn't work and they emerged well and truely Stummed to face a crowd of over a hundred starving underhivers. Armandius managed to shrug off the effects, whilst a debilitated Shanks lead an inspirational speech. Shanks preached that he had managed to get past the Arbites and found more food than you could believe. He exhorted the crowd to rise up and said that he and his friends were living proof that you could fight past the oppressors and be liberated!

A few lucky rolls and the crowd rolled forward, the sound of Stumms, shotguns and even heavy stubbers rocked the hive as a full blown revolt started. Armandius took advantage of the distraction to rob a half dead famine victim while Mavis followed his lead and robbed a second, unfortunately Mavis's victim was more spritely than anticipated and stabbed her full on in the face bringing her down to a mere 2 wounds after her previous skirmish with the sniper from the last session. Shanks tried to placate the victim by giving her a day's worth of corpse starch rations which was exactly the wrong thing to do. Next thing you know, she is screaming "They have food!" and the team is forced to flee from a horde of starving underhivers. Armandius hurled his Stumms into the crowd, one malfunctioned, the other however stemmed the tide for a while. Shanks used his crowbar to lever open an access grate into the church and they swiftly clambered through. Mavis leading as cannon fodder, seeing as she was almost dead anyway (you heartless b@stards).

The grate ended in some kind of toilets, following the corridor from there the team narrowly avoided a pitfall trap before wrenching open the door and emerging into a furnace room. The room stank of smoke from burnt garbage and in general was rather horrible. Nice statues of babies adoring the ceiling skirting though. It was fairly bright in there courtesy of a whole host of glow bulbs and the furnace of course. Of more concern though were the three cultists who had their combat shotguns pointed directly at the Acolytes chests. Shanks attempted to talk his way out of the situation by pretending to be a furnace repairman which went fairly well until Mavis tried to back him up and described how her horrific injuries were caused by falling down the pit trap. At this point, cover pretty much blown, the cultists smiled and one of them (a doctor in her 'real life') tended to Mavis whilst Shanks and Armandius were led through a maze of tunnels and rooms to meet the cult leader.

Arriving at their destination they were beckoned into a pitch black room. When Shanks asked why the lights were off, he was told that the leader was meditating. Accepting that they strode into the room where the door promptly slammed behind them. Flicking on their torches they look around the room. Shanks found a Confessor crucified on a giant Imperial Eage and was suitably perturbed. Armandius was more concerned by the Genestealer that was hurtling towards them. Making full use of his quick draw ability, Armandius pulled out his... flintlock pistol which unsurprisingly missed, then dropped it and went to engage the stealer in hand to hand combat with his ancestral sabre. The Stealer in a fit of bad luck only scored one hit, which was a nasty one slicing through armour and pretty much crippling Armandius's right arm. Being ambidextrous he however just switched the sabre to his left. Shanks levelled his shotgun at the beast and with a fit of accuracy planted two shots on it. The first hitting it on the right leg and merely grazing its chitin, the second smiting it full on in the chest with righteous fury. After that, it was a 'simple' matter for Armandius to behead the beast and collect a claw as a trophy. When silence fell, the cultists outside decided to venture inside to remove the bodies assuming the acolytes death. Alas for them, all they got was a quartet of shotgun blasts. Shanks missed with both shots have used up all his bad dice rolls, so flicked out his bayonet and led the charge. Armandius having blown the head off his victim closed with his sabre on Shanks target. A long an embarrassing combat ensued where the mighty warriors having slain a Genestealer, failed to kill a single cultist. The cultist fought them to a standstill, smashing the sword out of Armandius's hand. Eventually Armandius switched to his knife and stabbed the cultist in the heart. Microbeading Mavis to slay her cultist, they stole the cultists shotguns, discarding their own, donned the cultists robes and ran to find Mavis, carrying the stealers head as a trophy. Mavis engaged the cultist, epically failing to hit her, and having to use two fate points just to survive. Eventually she managed to kill the heretic nurse via the medium of a death of a thousand cuts.

The others arrived to find Mavis staggering from blood loss and Shanks led the two cripples out of the building via the grill. Shanks yelled out, "There is food in there!" scattering around his corpse starch rations and the underhivers began to storm the complex.

Duke arrived to find the team almost dead but was able to identify the artefact from Desmund’s house as Necron in origin.

The teams objectives were the following:
Determine if the cult is Heretical - Done
Eliminate Arch Bishop Gibson - Half eaten corpse found later in the ruins of the church, so achieved.
Recover holy relics - Fail, the thigh bone of St. Lucius and the tears of the Mother Francis were eventually recovered by a raid on the underhive, but the Eye of Drussus fragment has gone missing.

Armandius (245xp)
- 25xp Beheading a Genestealer
- 10xp Blasting off Dylan Fords head with a shotgun.
- 10xp Shooting a hole in Edward McQuires chest.
- Lost one bullet
- Lost four shotgun shells
- Gained Combat Shotgun (w/8 shells)
- Gained Genestealer Head (Xenos)
- Gained Genestealer Claw (Xenos)
- Gained Cultist Tooth
- Gained silver ring, with amber centre and an eight pointed star of chaos (Heretic)
- Gained Cultist Robes

Duke Lithonius (220xp)
- 10xp Investigating the pirate wreckage
- 10xp Identifying the Necron artefact
- Gained Necron Artefact (Xenos)

Shanks (235xp)
- 25xp Assisting in the death of a pure strain Genestealer.
- 10xp Inciting the food riot, genius idea
- Lost 4 shotgun shells
- Gained Combat Shotgun (w/8 loaded shells)
- Gained Small Wooden Imperial Aquila
- Gained Cultist Robes

Mavis the Black (210xp)
- 10xp Slaying Kimberly Hale, the naughty nurse.
- Gained Book of Sisters Repentia in erotic poses (Heretic)
- Gained Kakow Quill Pen
- Gained Scales (as if from a lizard or fish), warm to the touch
- Gained Chainmail Vest
- Gained Cultist Robes