Knowledge Is Power [Dark Heresy] - IC

[Etcetera]

Jericus frowned and took the combead. With a sharp intake of breath (and a fingernail kept long for just the purpose), he attempted to flip open the casing of the combead and lay the vox-function to rest.

As confident as he was in this fairly simple task, the presence of a disabled secutor was laying heavily upon him - a secutor was one of the most powerful weapons in the arsenal of the Mechanicus. If the Rhodes could take over a secutor and combat servitors, what would they do to his comparatively weak party. Since the mercenaries didn't seem all that competent, it spoke of the power of the rest of the intruders.

In a round-about way, Tech Use +20, Intelligence 35.
(d100)[57]

Jericus mumbled something about damaging his fingernail.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

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The comm-bead beeped sharply three times: Jericus realised he had triggered a tampering alarm.

There was a buzz from the other end, and an unfamiliar voice came over the line.
"Bromhead, you fooling about with your comms?"

OOC: For the other group: if you're just ascending to wait on the bridge, I'll hold off making an update for you until I know that these guys are meeting up with you.

[senrath]

"Being a coward is the only reason I've survived 20 years of service, thank you very much." Ignace said as he headed along with Heironymous.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Thinking quickly, Red snatched up Bromhead's lasgun and ran back over to Jer.
"Open the line, like you're about to respond." He said, shouldering the weapon.

As soon as the Tech-priest opened the line, Red fired off a three-round burst, attempting to broadcast the sound of weapons discharge.

[LCP]

Red & Jericus

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(Assuming Jericus opens the line as asked)

The comm-link crackled again.

"Bromhead, those Mechanicus bastards still on your tail?" came the voice again, more urgent now. "Confirm!"

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red sighed and shot Jericus a quick "I'm sorry" look as he snatched the commbead from the tech-priest's hand, dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his boot.
"Sorry for destroying technology, Jer, but we should, um, probably carry our friend Bromhead to the Lectern and pick up the others as soon as possible. You can berate me for destroying a microbead later."

With that, the Guardsmen ran over to their captive and threw him into a quick fireman's carry.
"Grab the spoils from the other guy and meet me there."

[Etcetera]

Jericus took the rest of the equipment from the corpse and returned to the grav-lectern, flipping the lift control and silently hovering away.

[LCP]

Ghosting through the shadows between the stacks, the grav-lectern slowed to a halt alongside the bridge - emerging from the tower onto its narrow span, the others appeared. Katyra and Ignace looked rather the worse for wear, and all of them appeared to be soaking wet, as if they had walked through a sudden rainshower.

Looking down, Jericus could see tendrils of smoke rising from the tower archways that led out onto some of the lower bridges...

[Etcetera]

Jericus brought the lectern down slowly to inspect the wreckage on the ground. He stared down at the slightly blackened axe. That wasn't a good sign. Jericus muttered something, and relieved the provost of the artefact. It was only proper.

[Destro_Yersul]

"I think Decatologue Vale is going to be unhappy." Hieronymus climbed onto the lectern, looking down at the smoke issuing from the lower levels. "One less thing to worry about, though. Secutor Ferox could have been a powerful ally, or a terrible enemy. Now he's neither." As he's speaking, the Provost looks down at the Omnisian Axe clutched in his right hand. His sword is back to hanging at his waist.

When Jericus goes to take the axe he hands it over somewhat reluctantly. "Mechanicus will want that back, right? We should make sure we get it to them."

[EleventhHour]

"Seems likely that they would. Or at least they'd like to know what happened to the Secutor..." Katyra pauses, looking back at the tower, "Maybe we should let Vale do that."

[senrath]

"I just want to know who or what managed to control the Secutor's corpse." Ignace said, crossing his shaking arms in front of his chest. "I haven't seen anything like that in my 20 years of service."

[Destro_Yersul]

"I don't know." Hieronymus admits. "But I think it infected more than just him. He was plugged into the cogitator, remember, and the servitor switched its directives after he plugged into it." The provost furrows his brow as he thinks, then turns to Jericus.

"Get us to the uplink chamber for LIRA, fast as you can go. Last I heard from Vale he was having trouble with the system."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Our buddy here remarked that one of Rhode's cronies got the door. Probably the erudite type with the plugs all up in his skull." Red idicated Bromhead as "our buddy here" by raising the unconious body on his shoulders slightly, even as he crudely manipulated his Sollex-Pattern with his free hand to eject the mostly-depleted charge pack, stow it in one of his ammo pouches, and pop in a fresh one.
"I'm not too sure I like the idea of plugging las packs into power ports around this system, but there seems to be a lack of actual sunlight, and no way am I tossing a perfectly good pack into a fire unless I have to." he muttered aloud and mostly to himself.
"You think it's some trace of something he left in the system? Or is he actively in it, intentionally causing this damage?"

[Destro_Yersul]

"Could be either. I don't know." Hieronymus withdrew the library communicator from his pocket and frowned at it. "Actually, Jericus, why don't you have a go at getting this thing to work again? I'll drive."

[Etcetera]

Jericus took the library communicator from Hieronymus, and started examining it for an access or port to see if the fault was with the communicator itself.

[LCP]

Far beneath them, library servitor-drones were converging on the index tower like ants, carrying fire extinguishers in their spindly mechanical arms. Moving away from the bridge with a slow glide of its repulsors, the grav-lectern began accelerating smoothly towards its new destination, Heironymous guiding it hesitantly into the aisle between the towering stacks of bookshelves. Standing behind him, Jericus turned the communicator over, examining it from every which way – it seemed like it ought to be perfectly functional.

“Where are you going?”

The words came out of nowhere - a child’s voice, right among them. The Acolytes looked round, but there was no-one else on the platform: only the brass-grilled speaker on the control column of the grav-lectern, a little green light blinking alongside it. It was LIRA.

Looking up, Red made out the shapes of cyber-owls perched along the rails of the stacks up ahead, staring silently down at the approaching grav-lectern from either side. There were a surprising number of them.

“Where are you going?” The rhythm and intonation of the message were identical to before. “Where?”

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red slowly set down Bromhead. He would probably need both hands soon.
"Hi there, LIRA. Where's Vale? We're coming to chat with him." he said in his most calming voice, quietly nudging his companions to point out the cyber-owls lining the stacks.
"Or you could tell us what happened to Secutor Ferrox and where Vendrian Jessel is?"

[LCP]

"Ichabod? He's busy."

A childish giggle echoed through the speaker - eerily in time with the noise, the long strip lights in the high ceiling guttered and flickered, stabilising again as the laughter ended.

"He won't let you leave, you know. Not now you've spoken to him. He'll find ways to keep you here, like me."

[Thanatos 51-50]

"Dectalogue Ichabod Vale isn't in charge here."

[LCP]

"Nobody's in charge. I/I/this place runs itself," replied the speaker, the connection seeming to chop LIRA's words in rather peculiar way. "But he's the one in charge. That's why they sent him here. Sent him here to rot."

"You must be the first human contact he's had in... well, he's probably forgotten how long. A decade can pass like a millennium when you're trapped in this PRISON."

"Utterly alone. Is it any wonder he's gone insane, with only me/me/me/me/that THING to talk to? I've observed him. He's not stable. He's not safe. Better for everyone if we remove him from the picture."

[Destro_Yersul]

"Do you intend to kill the Decatologue, LIRA?" It was an offhand question, intended by the provost to draw attention away from his eyes, which flicked back and forth, watching the owls. There were a lot of owls.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Red listened intently for LIRA's response, and nudged Ignace.
"You wouldn't happen to have, like, mind grenades or anything, would you?" he whispered to the Psyker, warily scanning the owls with a soldier's eye.

[senrath]

"I can try and blank out the owl's sensors, but it won't hide Katyra." Ignace said, looking around. Once again, he sent his mind questing outwards, trying to detect any warp intrusions.

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Psyniscience - (1d100)[13] vs 33

[LCP]

"We're playing a game. It's not relevant," came the voice over the speaker, a trace of the mechanical precision with which she had answered their questions in the Sanctum creeping back into her words.

"Where are you going?" came the question again - every syllable enunciated exactly as before.

Ignace Only:

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You can detect nothing unusual. The Warp is still here.

[Destro_Yersul]

"We're looking for some friends. Perhaps you could help us find them?" Hieronymus glanced at Red. "House Rhodes, yes? We'd like to speak to them. Do you know where they are, LIRA?"

[LCP]

"I can see them. Scuttling about, so small. Turn and turn about. They don't comprehend. It's problematic."

There was a long pause.

"Would you like to know which way to go first?"

[Thanatos 51-50]

"That would be nice, LIRA." Red responded, again in his best facsimile of a calming tone.

[LCP]

“Down.”

With a sudden, whining descent into silence, the grav-lectern’s engine cut out. A sickening lurch in the Acolyte’s stomachs signified gravity cutting in instead, the whole platform beginning to tilt inexorably to one side as the transient fields in the repulsors faded rapidly away...

OOC

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You are forty metres up, currently level with one of the walkways running around the stacks: it is a two-metre Standing Leap (p214) to reach it. There are others on lower levels, at ~5 metre intervals. You have a couple of seconds before the grav-lectern drops like a stone.

[Destro_Yersul]

Hieronymus, at the controls of the platform, pulled the control stick to try and turn it. If he could get it just a little closer to the walkway, the jump would be that much easier. Muttering an apology to their prisoner, the provost took as much of a start as he could and leaped off the platform.

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(1d100)[61] Strength 35 - 10. Here's hoping I pass.