Sunday, 25 November 2018

“In withered flesh and powdered bone sleeps the bastard all alone” - Session #3 (#24)


Tyrest negotiates with the machine spirit controlling the door systems and gains the Warband entry to the Black ship. He learns that its name is “The Midnight Mourn”.

The Party draw weapons and cautiously start to navigate their way through the corridors and decks of the seemingly deserted vessel. There is still emergency power running and the dim lighting is in stark contrast to the eerie green hue of the wreckage yard.

It’s not long before the two Aeldari begin to hear voices, strange and ethereal, speaking words they can’t quite decipher.  They then receive a sudden vision of a passage ahead where a small, grotesque, figure sits in the darkness.

Suddenly Lycastus and Artemis rush ahead and down a side passage, apparently to hunt down some perceived threat. Illiyan gives chase but is buffeted by boxes and belongings which are telekinetically thrown from side rooms and passages as he runs. He is suddenly confronted with a bulkhead door that slams down in front of him, cutting off the Warlock from the marine and bounty hunter. Tyrest summons the appropriate ritual of opening and discovers that another door has closed a short way down. The system machine spirits inform him that all the doors have been closed, opening each door in turn will take hours so they are effectively cut off from their associates. Lilith manages to find an old Vox unit in one of the boxes that had been thrown into the corridor and gets it working, establishing a line to Lycastus. It appears that he and Artemis have come to their senses again and they agree to work their own way though the ship and rendezvous on the outside.

Our two psychically sensitive Aeldari then begin to hear a clearer voice; that of a young man who seems frightened and alone. None of the warband trust this however and set off on their way again.

Further down the passage the party come across the grotesque from the previous vision and discover it is an emaciated gretchin who appears to be quite mad and pays the heroes no attention at all. It is spending all its time scratching words in Low Gothic on every surface of the corridor that it can reach.  The words he etches repeat the same message over and over; “In withered flesh and powdered bone sleeps the bastard all alone”.

Lilith swiftly kills the greenskin.

As the group move on the young man’s voice starts up again but this time the whole party can hear him. The sound of the wailing, spectral voices also becomes obvious and the temperature within the ship suddenly drops, causing condensation on the walls and surfaces. Slowly writing starts to appear as if fingers were being drawn through the moisture; “Thirteen times the maker screams, thirteen more within his dreams”

Illiyan is suddenly ambushed by a maddened and savagely bestial Ork. They engage in melee and the Warlock is able to hold him off while Lilith draws a bead and shoots him with her laspistol

Ecthelion reaches out with his Psyniscience power, searching the Immaterium for the source of the phenomena that the party are witnessing. He is confornted with a barely restrained force like a burning star of raw willpower. He is shaken, not having realised a human mind was capable of power of that magnitude his sense of superiority over the "Mon-keigh" somewhat shaken.  Suitably warned the warband proceeds cautiously. 

Unbeknownst to the Warband though, and due to a series of failed Willpower rolls, they are being drawn further into the centre of the ship and are confronted with the focus of the psychic activity; Isolation chamber 26. They learn that the resident within is a notorious heretic known as Agrex the Desolate, who was caught by the Inquisition just over a standard decade ago.

Agrex has thrown off all pretence now and demands that they free him from his imprisonment.  Our heroes refuse and manage to evade his psychic lures. Using their Vox connection to their colleagues now on the outside and leaving Agrex swearing revenge, they make their way back out of the ship.

As they draw closer to the fortress they survey what awaits them. While the Ork stronghold is crudely constructed it is bristling with gun emplacements and swarming with Boyz and Squig hounds.  A frontal assault won’t be an option so the warband start to make alternate plans…

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