Knowledge Is Power [Dark Heresy] - IC

[Etcetera]

Jericus voxed back, a tone of outrage in his voice.
"No. Definitely not in these circumstances. A most holy Secutor of the Omnissiah would never just stop like that. To that point, there shouldn't be anything making the lights flicker either. I'd be very careful if I were you. Can you tell me anything more about him? Are his mechadendrites active?"

[LCP]

Ignace Only

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The Warp was quiet here - on this nigh-dead world, it had been too long since living, breathing people had come this way to excite its attention. The traces of the firefight had left an eddying wake of disturbances in the still waters of the Aethyr, but the patterns were too weak and complex for the psyker to grasp.

[Destro_Yersul]

"No, everything's stopped. Even that mind impulse wired plasma gun he has. His servitor isn't moving either, for that matter, and it's pointed right at the door we saw those other two run out of. Why would it stop shooting? It certainly didn't seem to care about damaging anything on all those other levels we walked past." Hieronymus looks over at the silent techpriest and frowns. "And the cyber-owls have stopped, and all the security systems were burnt out in the main vault doors. I don't like this."

The provost has quite clearly drawn a conclusion that displeases him.

[EleventhHour]

"Simple enough. Either there was something wrong with the Secutor, which would have more likely revealed itself earlier... Or something is wrong with the terminal. Someone call Vale. Ask him what's on this one." Katyra stays well back from the immobile machine, leaving it to someone else's curiousity to check the screen itself, or not. "Why would he plug into a terminal during a gunfight is another question..."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Okay, whatever it is messing with the Cyber-owls is likely able to affect all tech in the area. Stay frosty, Acolytes, get ready to use primitive weapons if it comes to that." Red sends out over the com, right before he relied that even their communications could be compromised, if that were the case.
He thumbed the altitude switch to lower the grav-lecturn to safe jumping down-distance, and then jumped down to the floor, letting out a heavy whoosh of air as he felt the weight of his weapons and armour weigh down upon him.
"Jericus, that Grav-lecturn is a good escape vehicle. Keep it in the air, not so high so that a fall will hurt, but we don't want our quarry circling around and escaping. Keep in constant comm contact, I don't want one of us to be ambushed without the other knowing. If you fall quiet on the comm, I'm going to assume you got jumped." he transmitted, again over the channel for all Acolytes to hear, hoping they would pick up on the tactic.

With all that said and done, he swept his lamp pack over the gloom and began creeping forward, the business end of his lasgun leading him down the aisle, and making doubly sure to check his corners.

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I guess this essentially a Search check?

[Destro_Yersul]

"Not all tech. Your grav lectern is obviously still working. And the lights are on, even if they're flickering." Hieronymus reaches over carefully to tap the immobile Secutor on the shoulder. If whatever's on the screen is interesting enough, it might catch his attention at this time.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

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Cautiously ascending the last few steps of the staircase, Heironymous reached over to tap the Secutor on the shoulder. It was like rapping on the side of a tank – the Machinator Array that had been built into the man’s torso had stripped away the flesh wherever it could, replacing it with cold, hard steel.

There was no response from the Secutor – his hooded head still slumped forwards, his whole bulky frame as still as the grave. Wrinkling his nose at the burnt smell – seemingly stronger here - Heironymous stepped around him, trying to get a better look at what was on the screen.

The terminal display was a flickering storm of code – rows and columns of binary characters flashed across it in a bewildering maelstrom of information. There was some regularity to their constant permutation, some kind of pattern in the chaos – but far too complex and rapidly-changing for the human brain to unpick.

The mechadendrite that had interfaced with the terminal twitched – the first movement he had seen from the Secutor. Turning to his right, Heironymous looked into the man’s face, wondering if the tech-priest might be waking from his strange slumber.

It was a skull. A blackened skull, charred scraps of flesh still clinging to its surface as the green light of the display flickered over the ridges of charcoal-coloured bone. The Secutor wasn’t unresponsive – he was a burnt corpse, his heavy augmetics still holding him upright...

[hr]

Red

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Dismounting from the grav-lectern, Red headed warily towards the shelves, his lasgun’s light playing back and forth. There was no sign of their quarry anywhere on this side of the stack: heading towards the other side, he noticed a passage leading in between the shelves, its interior surface just as stacked with books as the outside.

Turning sharply round the corner, he swept the corridor of tomes with the beam of the lamp-pack: there was no sign of movement, but white marble busts of various Adepts and other luminaries stood at regular intervals, their plinths offering reasonable hiding-places.

Advancing slowly, the Armsman panned his lasgun from left to right, fixing its beam on each shadow – as he pushed further into the corridor, there was a skitter of movement from somewhere up ahead – like someone scuttling on their hands and knees, or perhaps dropping something.

With a sudden flash of shadow, a figure leapt up from behind one of the plinths up ahead and began to run – a second followed, both of them sprinting away from Red...

[Destro_Yersul]

"Emperor on Earth!" The provost cursed in surprise. Something in Hieronymus' mind told him he should be afraid, but the thought was gone as quickly as it had arrived, and then he was reaching for the comm and backing hastily away. "Bad news. The Secutor's not asleep or offline, he's been fried. I don't know what they hit him with, but whatever flesh he still had is gone now. I also don't know why he's plugged in, or how only two men managed this. Red, watch yourself."

Another thing Hieronymus didn't know was why the mechadendrite had twitched. First thing, though, was checking the servitor to see if it was 'offline' as well. And to do this, Hieronymus was staying well away from the side with the gun on it.

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

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Advancing slowly behind the Servitor, Heironymous could easily see that it had not suffered the same fate as its master - its organic components, although of course the next worst thing to dead, seemed undamaged. In the dusty air, the flickering red beam of the laser sight on its weapon was visible, tracking back and forth across the bridge - it seemed to be on some kind of overwatch setting, watching for anyone who might come their way...

[Thanatos 51-50]

"CONTACT!" Red beeped over the comm, and, ignoring the Provost's warning for the moment, left the channel open as he recited the Litany of Accuracy and drew a bead on the fleeing figure's leg, spitting a solitary lasbolt at the fleeing form.

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Called shot to the leg, aiming and Red Dot negating penalties.
Ballistics46 - (1d100)[73]
=EnergyDamagePEN2 - (1d10+5)[6]

After cursing under his breath, Red clears his throat and shouts at the fleeing forms.
"That was a warning shot! " he threatened.
"You will halt immediately or be killed. There's more than me looking for you, there's at least one Tech-priest and we've got a dead Secutor. He's probably angry and won't grant the same mercy I will."

[EleventhHour]

"Dead. Well... That almost simplifies things. How's that servitor?" Katyra heads over to inspect it. Well, the thing is dead, and seems to be watching the bridge, which means... "If they died up here... And the servitor is watching the bridge... The enemy was either already up here, or came up the stairs. Corpse downstairs would say they did, but the Secutor killed, and drove those back... Do you think the terminal killed him?" She pokes the zombie-like servitor. "...More importantly, do you think we count as targets?"

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

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As the guardsman’s lasbolt scorched the face of one of the marble busts, the two fleeing men ducked for cover, taking shelter behind opposite plinths. Red was experienced to recognise the way they moved as characteristic of combat training – and he could see they were armed.

Squeezing into the narrow cover afforded by the stern stone face and shoulders of Adept Asclepius von Tassel the Seventy-Third, the first of them turned and thrust the muzzle of his lasgun out past the edge of the plinth, snapping off a searing crimson bolt in Red’s direction.

At the guardsman’s shout over the comms, Jericus brought the grav-lectern to an abrupt halt, locking its navigation and jumping down onto the walkway with his autogun in hand. The news coming over the comm-link was getting direr by the second, but this was a pressing problem – with a simple solution.

As he readied himself to head towards the sounds of gunfire, he heard the comm-link buzz and flicker as it came on again - Vale was hailing them.

[hr]

Ignace, Heironymous & Katyra

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The servitor twitched as Katyra poked it – with a grinding of gears, its torso rotated on its hips, the muzzle of the machine gun that stood in place of its right arm swinging round to yawn in the novice’s face. A light flickered in one bionic eye, the iris lens rotating and contracting to focus on its target.
"
COMMAND #6: IDENTIFY", grated a mechanical command from a speaker in the thing’s chest. "IDENTIFY. IDENTIFY."

Behind her, Heironymous thought he heard a sound from the Secutor – looking round, hesaw the mechadendrite twitch again, a fat spark fizzing from the interface with the panel. With a croaking click, the head of the mechanical limb disengaged from the socket, slithering back behind the Secutor’s back.

In the stillness, there came the faintest hydraulic hiss – the skeletal steel fingers that held the haft of the axe tightened their grip. There was a squeal of blurted binary from the speaker in the Secutor’s chest, or whatever was left of it now – on the man’s right shoulder, the plasma gun was raising its muzzle level like an animal waking from hibernation, amber activation lights illuminating themselves one by one along its side...

"IDENTIFY", blared the Servitor. "IDENTIFY!"

There was a sudden hiss in their comms, the sound of the link coming online again - it was Vale.

[hr]

All

“Um – I say, are you fellows still there?” came Vale’s voice over the comms. He sounded more than a little worried.

“Having a spot of trouble here – something’s wrong with LIRA. I can’t understand it – all the terminals are shorting or just showing streams of gibberish. I can’t get through to her.” A burst of static crackled over the line. “This can’t still be a reaction to the doors. Something’s seriously wrong with the system. I” – another buzz of interference drowned out his words – “on your own...”

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Now engaged in a firefight." Red reported over the comm, as calmly as he could manage, even as he fought his instinct to dive for cover. The lasfire shot at him went high and wide, even as the Armsman drew himself up to his full height and squared his shoulders like the sharpshooters in the cheesey morale vids.
Those framilar with such things and listening in on his comms would be able to note that Red had suddenly switched from the Litany of Accuracy to the Litany of Invulnerability as he snapped his weapon over to the enemy not in cover and took careful aim with a smooth, steady squeeze of the trigger.

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I count seventeen meters, assuming one square = one meter, and that makes this a short range shot.
Aim + RDS + Short Range = +30 BS
I'm assuming the lamp pack extends far enough so the the enemy doesn't get any bonuses for concealment via darkness.
(But do I The lamp pack clearly signals my position, but it doesn't light me up?)
EffectiveBallistics76 - (1d100)[53]
PEN2Energy - (1d10+5)[12]

[Destro_Yersul]

"Imperial Inquisition." Heironymus told the servitor, hoping that would be enough to get the thing to hold its fire. Right now, he was more worried about the Secutor. Or rather, what the Secutor's implants were doing. "Vale! Shut it down. Shut everything down."

The biggest threat right now was the plasmagun. Hieronymus looked for its ammo flasks, or any sort of feed line that could be pulled out to render the weapon inoperative. "Secutor, are you in there?"

[EleventhHour]

"Who's the target, and where at?" Katyra asks back through the vox, then looks nervously at the servitor and Secutor, rather eriee, "What do you think, alive?" She has no idea, they could be perfectly fine. Not likely, looking like that, but they could be.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

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Hearing the snap of lasfire up ahead, the tech-priest sprinted forwards, turning right into a passage between the bookcases towards the sound of the reports. His back against the solid oak, he checked his weapon, ready to spring.

Throwing himself out of the path of Red's shot, the slower of his enemies dropped into the cover of the opposite plinth, firing off another wild shot in the guardsman's direction. Unfortunately for Red, the second man had found his aim - sending a semi-automatic spray of lasbolts at him from near ground-level, two of the searing bars of light hit home, striking Red square in the chest and making him stagger with the impact. His trusty flak armour had absorbed the worst of the impact, but one of the shots had cut through, leaving a long, semi-cauterised graze down the side of his ribs.

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Trooper #1 attempts to Dodge (untrained, vs. half Ag) – (1d100)[8] - dodges.

Trooper #1 drops into cover and snaps off a shot, same as his mate.

(1d100)[74] (+10 for Short Range) - misses.
Dodge: (1d100)[42]
Damage: (1d10+3)[7]

Trooper #2 fires a semi-auto burst in Red’s direction.
(1d100)[24] (+20 for Short Range + Semi Auto) - three degrees of success => 2 hits.
Dodge: (1d100)[61] - failed
Damage: (1d10+3)[9] - 2 wounds, (1d10+3)[5] - soaked, (1d10+3)[5]

Jericus Runs in order to position himself to attack next turn.

The lamp pack clearly signals my position, but it doesn't light me up?

I’m going to rule that it signals your position, meaning they don’t take the penalty, but renders you in silhouette, meaning that the penalty applies for called shots.

I'll update the map later today if I can - I have to travel between towns, so I don't quite have the time to do it now.

[hr]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

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The servitor refrained for now from riddling them with holes – Heironymous was not sure whether due to his ‘identification’, or the fact that the Secutor was in its field of fire.

From the direction of the dead man, there was a slow groan of hydraulics – the bionic arm reached back, using the tall axe as a crutch as it began to lever the dead weight of its host around. Questing mechadendrites reached down to the floor, taking up the weight of the organic leg that dragged behind the Secutor as the heavy augmetic of the other limb thudded forwards – charred skull lolling slackly within the collar of its armour with a hideous grin, the corpse turned to face them.

With a movement far more sudden than before, one of the Secutor’s mechadendrites shot out between the Acolytes, plugging into a socket in the servitor’s armoured chest. There was a squeal of white noise from the battle-unit’s speakers, and the light in its mechanical eyes shorted and went dead.

The amber lights on the plasma weapon were reaching the end of their sequence, the weapon venting a puff of old coolant as its feeds gurgled into life...

[hr]

Comm-link: All

"...can't... ...-itator..." came Vale's voice, his message now cut to pieces by roaring bursts of static. "...-ot working... Emperor-damned mach-..."

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus spent a second wishing Vale just had an off switch he could flick. Unfortunately, nothing was ever that simple. The Secutor's gun didn't have one either. It did have those feeds, though. Wishing that he knew how they worked, the Provost slipped his sword through a set of them and flicked the activator. Hopefully the extremely sharp vibrating blade would be enough to cut the lines. Even if it failed, his next move would be to run for the stairs back down.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Oh, so they could shoot. Red snapped his rifle to his chest and broke into a flat run, rapidly approaching his targets, heedless of his wound.
The moment he passed the second set of plinths, however, he juked left and slid across the deck to take cover behind one.

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Run Action. 8n2w

[EleventhHour]

"Corpse priest and deadly servitor. Is this time to run, or try and take them apart before... whatever goes wrong." Figuring that the Provost already has the techpriest, Katyra considers the mechanical tendrils, were they transferring the Secutor's mind? Spreading madness? Ordering the thing not to fire?

"I don't like this. I don't like it at all."

[senrath]

Ignace frowned and started to edge away from the dead, but still moving, bodies. While he was hidden from sight, his power didn't extend to masking detection via other methods. Sound or scent could still give him away, and he didn't know what method the machines were using. He also needed to back away from Katyra, or risk losing his camouflage.

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If I can get at least 2m away from Katyra I auto-succeed on keeping my power active. Otherwise I have to roll higher than 17. Thankfully, I can't trigger psychic phenomena on keeping a power active.

(2d10+5)[13]

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

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The Provost’s sword flashed out, shearing through the feeds – one whipped and flexed wildly as it spewed frosty vapour into the dusty air, its wild thrashing dying away as the reserves of coolant lost their pressure.

Unfortunately, whatever else the feeds had supplied, they did not seem to include the gun’s power supply. As the last amber rune on the weapon’s side winked into readiness, the lights flickered and dimmed – then cut out completely, plunging them into near-total darkness.

There was a ratcheting click and a retracting slither of metal: with a slow whine, the lights of the servitor’s mechanical eyes welled up once more. By the glimmer of the servitor’s augmetics and the lights along the plasma gun’s side, Heironymous could see the silhouette of the Secutor’s corpse turning to confront them – mechadendrites coiled over its shoulders like serpents waiting to strike, the pilot-light of a compact flame unit adding another tiny light to the darkness.

“ORDERS UPDATED,” grated the voice of the servitor. “LIFESIGNS DETECTED.” The ammo-feeds of its cannon rattled into readiness, its torso rotating to face them. “COMMENCING LIFESIGN PURGE.”

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INITIATIVE

Secutor: (1d10+1)[11]
Servitor: (1d10+1)[10]
Heironymous: (1d10+3)[13]
Ignace: (1d10+3)[8]
Katyra: (1d10+3)[5]

Map & more to come in the OOC thread. Just so you’re aware of what you’re facing down: the Secutor has his plasma gun, a mechadendrite-mounted flamer of hand flamer size, a compact mechadendrite-mounted laspistol, and an Omnissian axe which he’s currently using as a crutch. The servitor has a heavy stubber instead of an arm. With the exception of the axe, they’re all pointing at you.

[hr]

Red & Jericus

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Taking careful aim, the first of the mysterious men squeezed off a single shot at Red, the cover of the plinth limiting his angles. More exposed, but with a better view, the second maintained his hail of fire, a volley of lasbolts shrieking Red’s way. Minimising his profile by huddling in behind the plinth, Red managed to avoid taking a second hit - these men knew their business, however, their fire no hail of wild shots. They were clearly professionals.

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Trooper #1 takes a half-action aim, fires single-shot.

(1d100)[82] (+20 for close range, aiming) - miss
Dodge: (1d100)[75]
Damage: (1d10+3)[11]

Trooper #2 fires semi-auto again
(1d100)[65] (+20 for close range, semi-auto) - miss
Dodge: (1d100)[51]
Damage: (1d10+3)[9], (1d10+3)[6], (1d10+3)[4]

Jericus, meanwhile, had reached the edge of the corridor – his back up against the bookshelves, he flicked on his comm-bead, trying to speak to Red without raising his voice too loud.

“Behind them now. Awaiting your signal, armsman.”

[Destro_Yersul]

Heavy Stubber. Plasmagun. Flamer. Laspistol. Having that many guns pointed his way made Hieronymus more than a little nervous, and there was nowhere to hide in here. There were, however, three ways to go. Up, down, and out the door. "Everyone, down the stairs. Now."

Heironymus himself darted for them, vaulting the first few in his hurry to get away from the superior firepower.

[EleventhHour]

Not much of a choice in the matter, is there?! Katyra flees as well, as quick as she can manage, and once out of sight (hopefully next round) she hefts the flamer off her back, flickers with the dials to bring it to a light hiss and ignition. "I hate cogheads. Them and thier little tinkertoys, hate, hate, hate..."

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red hit the comms on his ear.
"I'm going to take aim at the trooper on my right. Let's focus fire to bring him down. These guys are trained well, so stick your funny red robes behind some cover first." The Guardsmen instructed calmly as he controlled his breathing, chanting the Litany of Accuracy under his breath, and paid close attention to hos heartbeat at the minute sway of the assault rifle's business end.

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full action to aim at Trooper 1. If I need to list expose bosy parts, left hand and forearm, right shin, and right side of the face make the moat sense. Red has also dropped into a crouch to stead his shot, but there's no actual combat modifiers for that.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

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The beam of his lamp-pack lighting up the direction of his aim for all to see, Red hugged the cover of the plinth as a storm of lasbolts shrieked his way, biting charred holes in the plinth. The smell of burnt wood and vapourised marble hot in his nostrils, he avoided taking another hit: steadying his aim, he saw the edge of Jericus’ arm become visible around the corner of the right-hand stack, the tech-priest raising his autogun to fire.

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Jericus (under auto-pilot) takes cover against the corner of the corridor, and fires semi-auto (full auto seemed like overkill, and I don’t want to be accused of trying to waste your bullets) into Trooper 1’s back. +10 for semi-auto, +30 for surprise, +30 for point blank, shadow penalties do not apply since Red’s lamp-pack is lighting this guy up: total of +70.

(1d100)[31] - all three shots hit (right arm, right arm, body)
Surprised, may not dodge.
Damage: (1d10+3)[12] - 5 wounds to the right arm, (1d10+3)[4] - soaked, (1d10+3)[5] - soaked.

A rapid burst of semi-automatic fire raked across the back of the man's shoulders, smashing him to the ground. Amazingly, he rolled and rose, head snapping round to search for his assailant - the men must have been wearing serious armour under their red uniforms, guard-issue or better...

OOC: Back to you, Thanatos. Map hasn't really changed (the squares are unfortunately not lined up properly to allow me to show Jericus edging up to the very corner of the corridor, but his current position works well enough for that) - although of course, next time it does, it'll have Red in the correct position.

[hr]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

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Darting back with impressive speed as a prehensile mechandendrite lashed vainly in his wake, Heironymous vaulted over the banister of the staircase. His boots hit the wrought iron of the steps with a loud clang, the Provost hitting the ground running as he began to flee down away from the smouldering corpse of the Secutor.

Robbed of its immediate target, the thing turned on Katyra: her eyes widened as the plasma gun rotated to face her, an actinic blue glow welling up in its power coil. The weapon fired in a flash of incandescent light – the Sororitas dropped low as the blinding fireball flashed over her head, turning a cogitator terminal on the other side of the chamber into molten slag.

With a lurch of its improvised crutch, the machine-corpse dragged itself one augmetic stride forwards, the muzzle of the plasma-gun glowing with red heat. A segmented mechadendrite snaked out from behind its left shoulder: Katyra found herself staring down the compact hand flamer on its tip, its little pilot-light burning a fierce, bright blue.

There was a dry roar as the weapon ignited: a wave of flame engulfed the Sister and the Psyker, Katyra feeling her skin blister and burn beneath the fire’s touch – the inferno was mercifully short-lived, the compact weapon’s fuel reserves limited by its size. As Ignace beat at the fires in his clothes, he heard a whir of servos – the gun-servitor had turned to him, the yawning barrel of its heavy stubber brought menacingly to bear.

With a chattering howl of machinery, the weapon opened fire – Ignace hurled himself out of its path, heavy-calibre bullets chewing up the furnishings of the chamber behind him in an erratic trail of destruction. The psyker’s shadow-field seemed to fox its targeting systems, the hail of death swinging back and forth across the unfortunate room without touching its target.

Ignoring the pain of her burns, Katyra turned and fled, leaping for the stairs – the Secutor was too slow to stop her, the Servitor not yet finished turning its surroundings into matchwood. As the deafening rattle of its weapon cut off, Ignace realised the others were gone...

OOC: You didn’t specify your actions, so senrath, your place in the initiative order is now. The map is unchanged, except for your mates, who’ve run away down the stairs.

[senrath]

Biting his lip to hold back the pain, Ignace turned and bolted towards the door. Additionally, he called on the power of the warp, willing it to aid him in evading his enemy's bullets. If all went well, the powers would give him insight into the future, allowing him to move out of the way before attacks even came.

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Half-action to manifest Precognition, which'll give a +10 to dodge tests. Then a half-action to move in the same direction as the others, trying to stay out of Katyra's field (2m away), as well as avoiding standing directly between the others and the attackers.

(2d10+1)[7][6](14) vs 6

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus darted down to the second floor, running over his options in his head. He could outrun the things, of that he was sure. They weren't fast enough to catch him, and the Secutor thing would probably have trouble with stairs. He could try shooting them, though that didn't sound like a very good plan. Their weapons were more plentiful and more powerful than his own.

Or, he could try engaging them in melee combat. The Secutor needed his axe as a crutch, and the servitor had nothing that would make it an opponent at that range. As a bonus, if he could get one of them alone, they wouldn't be able to shoot at him. He remembered something else, as well. The Secutor had no bionic eyes. He had to be tracking them with some sort of sensors. Heironymus stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and swept the chamber for any sort of visual device. Cyber-owls, cameras, anything. Because he remembered something else, as well. Back in the underhive tunnels, their auspex had trouble seeing the genestealer on the ceiling. The one behind a tangle of metal piping.

"Everyone, regroup, bottom of the stairs! Do we want to take them on, or do we want to keep running?"

LCP Only:

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Daemon. If you're in there... I may need your help. I'm not sure yet, and I don't like that I might. But just in case, will you be listening?

[LCP]

Heironymous, Ignace & Katyra

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Arms up over his head, Ignace ran for the stairs, mumbling the words of a mantra to focus his thoughts as he did so – the Secutor’s ballistic mechadendrites tracked his movement, a red lasbolt spitting through the fyceline smoke of the flamer’s discharge. Precognition saving his skin, the psyker jinked out of its path, the laser discharge striking bright sparks off the stairwell at his feet.

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DeadFerox takes a Half Action Aim, followed by a single shot from his laspistol mechadendrite. +10 for aiming, +30 for point blank, -20 for shadows, -20 for Chameleon.
(1d100)[23] - hit
Dodge: (1d100)[38] - dodged
Damage: (1d10+1)[7]

The plasma gun was recharging: it would be a matter of seconds before it could fire again, but with its coolant feeds cut, its blunt snout was still glowing red-hot. The servitor’s solid-slug weapon had no such limitations: with a throaty rattle, it opened up, a maelstrom of bullets hurtling Ignace’s way. One clipped his side: it was only a glancing blow, the servitor's lobotomised brain still struggling with Ignace's psyker trickery, but it hurt like hell.

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Full Auto, Point Blank, Shadow, Chameleon = +10
(1d100)[33] - 1 hit
Dodge: (1d100)[45] - already spent
Damage: (1d10+4)[5], (1d10+4)[13], (1d10+4)[7], (1d10+4)[9] (Pen 3)

2 wounds to the body

Ahead of the psyker, Heironymous and Katyra fled as fast as they could, their heavy footfalls making the metal staircase ring: the lights around them were dipping and flickering erratically. Cogitator screens flickered and buzzed with static noise, ventilator fans choking and spluttering: each of the tower’s systems seemed to be on the brink of failure in one way or another, anything mechanical that could malfunction doing its best to do so. He could catch no sign of any cyber-owls or pict-recorders.

Reaching the ‘ground’ of another level down, he paused to call his question up to the others: overhead, he heard the servitor’s gun thundering, the psyker clearly not out of harm’s way yet.

Heironymous Only

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I’m always listening, Heironymous. It’s the only entertainment in this sad little skull of yours. The daemon stirred behind his brain. Defiling the works of the Machine Cult, are we? I never liked them.

[Thanatos 51-50]

After taking his foe was struck from behind by Jericus, Red centered his red dot on the trooper's skull and squeezed out a three-round burst.

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Semi-automatic fire, Called shot to the head.
+20 for Full Aim, +10 for Semi-Auto, +10 for short Range, -20 for called shot to the head
EffectiveBallistics66 - (1d100)[10]
Pen2Energy - (1d10+5)[11]
Pen2Energy - (1d10+5)[12]
Pen2Energy - (1d10+5)[9]

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

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The Sollex's searing lasbolts found their mark with unerring aim - the man's skull blew apart in an explosion of burning brain-matter, flames licking over his uniform as his headless body stumbled into the plinth and collapsed.

Witnessing his comrade's grisly death, the second of the pair seemed to change his mind about a static firefight - there was a momentary pause, and a small, metallic object arched up from over his cover, sailing towards Red.

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Trooper #2 readies and throws a Blind Grenade.

(1d100)[8]

The grenade landed a few feet in front of him - with a sudden hiss, it vented thick white smoke in every direction, a billowing cloud of artificial fog cutting off the guardsman's view of the corridor ahead.

From up ahead, there was a rattle of gunfire - Jericus' autogun, opening fire again on full auto this time. If it found its mark, Red heard nothing through the rolling wall of white to suggest it.

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Jericus fires a fully-automatic burst at the grenadier.
(1d100)[62] (+20 for Full Auto, +10 for short range, -20 for shadow) - miss.
Dodge: (1d100)[51]
Damage: (1d10+3)[10], (1d10+3)[5], (1d10+3)[9], (1d10+3)[9], (1d10+3)[11]