41K RPG : Into the Eye

[Cynical Cat]

"My death there would have alerted Jolan, depriving you of any element of surprise."

[Josh]

"Better than acceding to my authority, surviving the initial encounter, and being able to lend your assistance in the battle to come? You would throw your life away quite casually, Interrogator."

He pivoted from the replay, which terminated, and stared at her. "I do not believe that was your entire motivation."

[Cynical Cat]

"In my arrogance, I felt rather certain of defeating you combat should you seriously attempt to kill me. The Deathwatch would have finished me off, of course."

[Josh]

He nodded. "You had ample opportunity to kill me. I took the calculated gamble that if Jolan Gix wanted me dead, he would use other means, and that one of his retinue would not be so foolish as to be provoked to kill in a simple confrontation of this sort."

He looked to the painting again. "Had I the intention to kill him, you would not have survived first sight of the Astartes. You misjudged the situation. You took too much upon yourself. You failed your Inquisitor, and had we not the relationship we do, could well have sparked the very sort of conflict you were concerned was taking place."

The last part replayed again on the pict, as she stood up. It was at the edge of his surprisingly wide field of view, but the smile was quite evident.

"Thank you inquisitor. Your actions are most informative."

He let that hang in the air a moment. "You were not simply content to know more than your potential foe, you felt a need to inform him of this fact. Why?"

[Cynical Cat]

"My own weakness, inquisitor. I have yet to overcome it." She hung her head.

[Josh]

"This weakness guided your every move during our encounter," he said. "You have failed your Inquisitor. You have failed your ordo. You have failed your Emperor. Had you been a soldier on the battlefield, I would have disposed of you and moved on. You are not a mere soldier, you are an Interrogator of the Ordo Hereticus. You will devote yourself to the correction of this weakness from this moment onward, lest it cost us all and see your soul condemned to the warp beyond His sight or concern."

He looked down at her. "Tell Jolan the message has been received, and there will be no animus arising from this on my part. Is there anything else?"

[Cynical Cat]

"Nothing besides my regret, inquisitor."

[Josh]

He waved a dismissive hand. "Regret is wasted emotion. Atonement is performed," to the death, if necessary "And lessons are learned. Your lessons are Jolan's business, not mine."

[Cynical Cat]

"Thank you. With your leave, I will depart."

[Josh]

"Inform Inquisitor Gix that requests have been dispatched to thirteen Chapters of Astartes thus far, and that upon consultation with members of my Kill Squad, four more will be outgoing before the end of the day. I project that between three and six will respond affirmatively and be able to lend significant strength to the task, company strength or greater. You may leave."

[Cynical Cat]

"I will," she replied. "Thank you inquisitor." She departed silently. When she entered Jolan Gix's suite, all trace of humility vanished. She strode to his room. "It worked," she said smirking. "He's also expecting a lot of marines to lend their assistance."

"That means between them Prius Ristani and Pater Novum will have connections to the largest blocks of force," Jolan replied. "I suggest you keep Ristani's puritanical nature firmly in mind when you deal with them. Should things go awry we'll be greatly outclassed."

She bit her lip. "Do you think they will?"

"I don't know how they will react to the fact that I have employed daemonhosts or warp powers that I have learned from studying chaos. It is not difficult to imagine Prius Ristani taking it poorly. Therefore, walk softly. This mission is more important than any of us and that Maladar might avenge our deaths will not restore us to life."

[Josh]

He assumed that Gix would reinforce the lesson he had delivered, filed the interaction away for further consideration and analysis, and resumed his work, dispatching the final messages.

"Neriss," he said. "Inform Chirurgeon Tasker that we will begin the procedure immediately upon lifting high anchor and departing. Our first point of transit will be Sandoval."

"The Venom Drakes," she said. "Two companies lost within the last century in campaigns against the Tyranids."

"Yes."

[SirNitram]

The roar of Thunderhawks did not go missed by the Astartes already within, and Malkamar considered this as he examined the skematics he had been provided with. So. The Chapters start to arrive. His ears strained. No, not an engine signature he knew. Heh. I wonder if I will be executed on sight for being such a poor example. He thought ruefully.

Slowly, he donned the Artificer armour. Rudimentary repairs had returned it to operational status. A brief chanting of the Litany Of Repair... On his world, a brief scream of 'IF YOU DON'T WORK, BY THE EMPEROR, I'LL SLAP A MELTABOMB ON YOU!'.. And he was ready to suit up for the first time in decades.

The rush was exhiliterating. A Space Marine could hear and see and smell and feel better than any human, but the armour pushed it further, harder. The world changed, as the senses of the armour melded with his seamlessly. The servo-harness hissed as it linked, and with a moment's thought he had recovered use of the other four limbs. As if they never went missing.

Three bolts. Enough Promethium to, if he stretched it, brand his name on a wall. And armour that had been shot by everything from Orkz to Firewarriors to Necrontyr to a very panicy Comissionar. It wasn't how he wanted to restart his service to the Emperor. But the machine spirits were happy; they sung to his senses, they were going back to war.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

The leader of the Iron Men sat on one of the more stout chairs of the meeting room, busily soldering a replacement component into the memory-metal muscle fibres of his leg, careful to only do so with the cylindrical tungsten housing, rather than the energy-responsive metal itself.

His blue eyes caught the movement of a human, and his pattern recognition software identified it as the female Inquisitor’s warp-active-person slave. An Identify-Friend-Foe system pegged her with an object-identifier code, indicating a level three recognition – with one being the highest on the one to ten scale. He was a little surprised she wasn’t locked up somewhere, or chained to something.

His sensors revealed her placing herself in the chair opposite him, and he returned to work. “Do you,â€Â

[Caz]

From the bridge of the Thunderhawk, Cantor had watched the exchange between Inquisitor Ristani and the woman with an interested eye, although one never would have guesed by her posture.

On the voyage, she had determined that Ronathal's men were trustworthy, regardless of the fact that they weren't any more under her command than those Astartes. Regardless of how trustworthy she deemed the crew, however, she said to the pilot:

"We're to wait until Inquisitor Novum's party approaches to unload, understood?"

The man nodded, his eyes fixed upon hers.

With a casual flick of one hand, she replaced the visor that covered her eyes.

[Cynical Cat]

Jolan Gix wandered the halls of the fortress, his eyes closed. His psychic senses allowed him to avoid collisions as he sought a route that would take him to a path that would lead to success.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

'Marvin' as he'd been named, for some reason, watched Gix walk past the door of the meeting room, eyes closed. He waited a few moments and glanced back at Asabaè, "Lunatics, the lot of them" he said, "how humanity hasn't been exterminated yet, I'll never know."

"Inertia, I suppose," she replied, and the robot nodded.

[Cynical Cat]

"You would think," Gix said loudly, "that an artificial intelligence of such an advanced nature would have files somewhere in its memory banks regarding psychic procedures."

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

"Yes, but somehow I doubt you'd consent to gene-therapy to lessen its effect, or am I wrong?"

[SirNitram]

Several hundred pounds of post-gene-therapy Marine and his armour wandered to the meeting room, taking a moment to silently watch the Man Of Iron. It was, in it's own way, a look of wonder; that something that you always knew, intellectually, once existed, and are now seeing the legendary thing in full spectrum.

Of course, given the thing was fully self-aware and likely capable of snapping him like a pissed off Squiggoth, the Tech-Captain refrained from any stupidly obvious comments. Really, if the thing did know secrets of ancient technology, better to somehow get on it's good side. If it had one of those.

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

The Iron Man, apparently oblivious, set about reattaching its leg, and then, when finished, hefted a meltagun onto the table and used a different set of tools to scrub its barrel, having detached the larger muzzle.

[Cynical Cat]

"Why would I want the effects reduced?" Jolan Gix asked. "Would you like your armour replaced with inferior materials?"

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

The Iron Man looked at Gix for a moment. "You might say that now... You've yet to go mad, after all..."

[SirNitram]

"Just as a warrior shouldn't seek armour so heavy and impenetrable he can't keep up with his brothers, those who seek the immaterial should be wary they don't submerge too deep. Such is the way of the Xeno and the Heretic, after all." Malkamar rumbled, speaking up. "If the ancient one knows how to weaken the links, is this not also the Emperor's blessing? Are there not many who suffer under the burden of this awareness?"

[The Necrontyr Messenger]

"Well, the instance of such... conditions... has increased greatly since my programming was last updated. Such treatment is likely hoplessly outdated now."