(Dark Heresy) The Curious Case of The Fenksworld Vanishings

[Raynn]

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Deleted due to omission.

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* post roll count doesn't match database

[Raynn]

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Using the Psy Focus, so incase I do need the psychic focus Hertirrus will be ready.

Assuming I can stop once I succeed and that I have at least 30 seconds.
Invocation test 1: (1d100)[62] vs. 35.
Invocation test 2: (1d100)[39] vs. 35.
Invocation test 3: (1d100)[91] vs. 35.
Invocation test 4: (1d100)[67] vs. 35.
Invocation test 5: (1d100)[12] vs. 35.

[Vikingkingq]

Nihilus and Herritus:

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After motioning to a passing waitress for a round, the gangers seem to ease up, clapping the pair of you on the back - generally willing to act friendly to anyone who's buying.

A minute later, the waitress deposits a row of shots in metal tumblers, the ice-cloudy liquid within slopping within the cans as they hit the bar. "Finest Gorsk White Gyn," the bored-looking waitress recites leadenly. She waits a second for a tip, then shrugs and walks off.

The gangers reach eagerly for their mugs, but your pierced friend waves for them to stop and raises his tumbler in a toast. "To our new friends here," he wobbles, realizing he doesn't know your names but past the point of caring, "who paid for these here drinks, down the 'atch!" The crew slam back the Gyn in one go, and slam their mugs back onto the table, hissing with appreciation, and then look at you expectantly.

OOC:

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Give me a Toughness check to see if you can down the shot of refined engine coolant without embarrassing yourselves in front of the gangers.

Also, Raynn - you successfully Invoke on the second turn, given that your Psy-Focus adds 10. In the future, please use the OOC thread for your rolls to avoid clutter.

After you drink, the pierced fellow points over to an older, dark-skinned man who sits at a desk in the corner near the cash register. "You looking for intell, go talk to Ol' Butchie there. He owns this here joint, and he sells more than Gyn if you know what I mean."

[Limos]

Nihilus downs the liquor and stares offf into the distance for a moment before hacking and choking with a sound akin to a car backfiring. "Oh my *COUGH HACK COUGH*... That is... Bracing." He weakly nods to his new drinking buddies. "Thank you gentlemen. Must speak to this Ol' Butchie now."

[Gorgondantess]

Arel nods. "Indeed, incidents. I'll need to see anything related to the industrial accidents at the factoriums your company owns."

[Vikingkingq]

Arel nods. "Indeed, incidents. I'll need to see anything related to the industrial accidents at the factoriums your company owns."

The lawyer looks puzzled and shoots you a condescending look. "My dear boy, DeVayne is a labor supplier. We sell labor to factoriums, we don't own any. Industrial accidents are a matter for management, it's not our concern...do you even have a warrant?"

[Gorgondantess]

Arel takes a deep breath, and speaks completely levelly, matter-of-fact. "I am Arel Indoles of the Adeptus Arbites Tithe Investigations Division, Unit 13. That is all the warrant I need. Meanwhile, it's come to my attention that in each of the DeVaunt Malloy factorium incidents, DeVayne corporation labor was present. I seek to investigate further."

[Vikingkingq]

Search-The-Scriptures gives the two of you a piercing look. "If you don't have a warrant, I suggest that the two of you leave now, before I have security throw you out."

[Gourtox]

Serghar

He is unimpressed by this boarish man. "Yes you can. We're here investigating the incident at the De-Vaunt Malloy Shipyards. What do you know about them?"

[Vikingkingq]

Serghar and Edzibsky:

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Toborsky shrugs. "Used to be our neighbors, they ain't no more. But my people didn't have anythin' to do with that gakking horrorshow."

Edzibsky glares at the man. "Don't yank me around, Toborsky. We know your crew used to have a beef with the De-Vaunt Malloy men. Assaults, grand larceny, machine-tampering. Stone-wall us, and I swear same time tomorrow, you're going to have so many Arbites swarming over this place that you'll think you're in a precinct."

Toborsky's face looks worried for a second, but he holds it in. "Go yank yourself, Law Dog. We didn't have any-gakking-thing to do with this. Sure, we had a beef with the De-Vaunt Malloy boys - Local 45 of the Shipbuilders - we didn't like them using bonded thralls to make up their numbers because the pay wasn't good enough to attract real workers. All of us here at 1514 are free-born caste workers, some of us have 15 generations of ancestors who were skilled workers here in Magnagorsk. Thrall labor threatens all of us, and I got enough trouble trying to keep Delta-9 going with all of these gakking kidnappings and suicides or the ganger violence that you fine fellows don't seem interested in investigatin'."

Toborsky spreads his hands. "Look, I ain't saying we're angels. Tempers get hot, and some of my guys throw down with some of theirs. A few shipments go missing, maybe a machine or two don't work no more - that's just how the game goes in this here hive. But killing 400 people and blowing up a whole factory - that's insane. Look around, detectives, these are working men, not soldiers. I'm trying as hard as I can to protect them, because we've had some of ours snatched off the street, and we gotta live in the same damn neighborhoods where the gangers have apparently decided to start a war. I ain't got the muscle for anything else."

"That good enough for ya?"

[Vikingkingq]

Nihilus and Herritus:

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While the gangers laugh at your retreating backs (or at least at Herritus), you make your way across the crowded bar towards the desk where Blind Butchie sits. It's not an easy passage - several times, you have to sidestep or backtrack when fist-fights break out in your path, but a quick-thinking Herritus scatters some small change on the ground in another direction, which causes enough of the crowd to surge that way and give you room to walk.

As you near the desk over by the bar, you notice a bank of cogitator-slaved weapons emplacements sunk into the wall above Butchie's head that track your motions. A hulking bartender/bodyguard lingers next to the older man, who counts Thrones into the cashbox unconcernedly.

"The name's Blind Butchie, but if'n you're looking to talk, you know that already," the old man rumbles, the lilting cadence of his voice suggesting an offworld origin. "Not too often I deal with one of the Iron Priests, or-" he sniffs the air, "or...abhumans neither. But I'm a man of business, so speak yours, and we can get to it."

[Raynn]

Hertirrus speaks coldly, but with respect, with an absence of emotion not a hatred "400. Four hundred people went missing, not dead, at least not when they were taken. A lot of dumb people have told us they knew nothing, that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I don't believe you are dumb, I believe you are a buisness man, and to be one of those in a place like this you need ample intelligience just to stay alive let alone be the go to man for information."

Hertirrus fiddled with the deck in his pocket, already psychicly charged "we need information, anything you have on the destruction in the factorium on the levels above, we have influence, we can help you if you help us, friend."

[Vikingkingq]

Hertirrus speaks coldly, but with respect, with an absence of emotion not a hatred "400. Four hundred people went missing, not dead, at least not when they were taken. A lot of dumb people have told us they knew nothing, that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. I don't believe you are dumb, I believe you are a buisness man, and to be one of those in a place like this you need ample intelligience just to stay alive let alone be the go to man for information."

Hertirrus fiddled with the deck in his pocket, already psychicly charged "we need information, anything you have on the destruction in the factorium on the levels above, we have influence, we can help you if you help us, friend."

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The old man's eyes continue to dart uncontrollably, but whether that's from nerves or just a side-effect of his blindness. "If it's information you're after, I might could help. Depends on the color of your coin, you feel me?"

[Raynn]

Hertirrus speaks up again "I have little coin, my friend will offer what she can so I shall offer only my skills, unless 4 thrones are of more worth to you than me allowing you to see the world again for a moment? That is my offer, a moments vision for a moment of truth."

[Limos]

"Have never payed informants before..." Nihilus mutters to Hertirrus, "How much is customary payment?"

"Hum, Blind one, will twenty five Thrones suffice to loosen your tongue?" Nihilus proffers cautiously. He pulls out several coins and jingles them

[Gourtox]

Serghar

Serghar takes a barely noticible grin knowing that this conversation would yield some information yet. "These men of yours that are snatched off the street, how do you know that they're not just being killed? You said there was an increase of ganger violence."

[Vikingkingq]

"Have never payed informants before..." Nihilus mutters to Hertirrus, "How much is customary payment?"

"Hum, Blind one, will twenty five Thrones suffice to loosen your tongue?" Nihilus proffers cautiously. He pulls out several coins and jingles them

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Butchie ***** his head at the sound of the coins, seeming to count them just from the jingles. "Fraid I can't remember much for 25 thrones. 'Specially 'bout something as hard-core as that factorium going up. I might know something for 150." He smiles faintly.

You can either try a Barter roll or further RP.

[Limos]

"Am not constructed from legal tender blind man." Nihilus says sadly, "Will offer 80 Thrones, your sum of 150 absurd. Out of question."

[Vikingkingq]

Serghar and Edzibsky:

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Toborsky shrugs. "I don't know. Gangers usually leave bodies where they fall, but kidnapping ain't exactly uncommon - lotsa folks would pay plenty for skilled workers. Other guilds, like them bastards in the Smelter's 770, or maybe some corporation that doesn't like paying wages people are eager to take, or organ harvester scum or somethin' like that. Naval press-gangs are fairly visible, so it ain't that - besides, they always sends a notice."

He leans forward. "I know this though: something is really stirring up the gangers. We're seeing lotsa guns, lotsa guns the kind we ain't normally see if you follow me, lots of brokeass underhivers flashing offworld creds, and lots of fighting. More than the usual beefing. Why don't you go investigate them?"

Edizbsky snorts. "If you're so all-fired anti-gang, how come you've got these-" he nods towards the crowd around the guild president, "skells around the place?"

"Hey! These aren't gangers, they're members of our special youth training program. For at-risk young men, who might otherwise go astray." He smiles disingenously, and the men around him snigger."They help out with our Neighborhood Safety Program, if you know what I mean."

[Vikingkingq]

Nihilus and Herritus:

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The old man nods at the price, but looks subtly disappointed that you didn't haggle more. "Pay the man here." Once you hand over the necessary credits and his man ensures that the count is right, Butchie pulls out a small device that Nihilus recognizes as an illegally-modified stummer and activates it. All of the sudden, an almost imperceptible bubble of shimmering air surrounds the three of you, and you notice that you can no longer hear the pounding thud music or the sounds of the crowd.

"That's better. That factorium going up was bad business, but there's bad business all around these days. Nobody knows much, 'cept wasn't no accident. Someone with serious muscle came down on them - and weren't no amateurs neither.

"Whole Underhive's jumping bad, lots of bodies on the corner. But as far as missing folk goes, I have heard that there's this out of town gang, whole bunch of Volg boys, who've holed up in a bunch of abandoned habstacks over on Ash Street and...Iron, I believe, who've been makin' some serious money with the old disappearing act.

"For your own sake though, I wouldn't go round messin' with them. Them Volg boys got all the local gangers runnin' - got them outgunned. But I couldn't say I seen anythin' tho.

"Anyway, that's all I know. You boys mention my name, you won't say another word in your life, if you know what I mean.

"Nice doing business with you."

And with that, he drops the field. "Sorry I couldn't help you," he says loudly.

[Limos]

"Should be going." Nihilus says as he turns to Herritus, "Tell companions of our... failure. Pursue other leads, so on and so forth."

The stooped Tech Priest rises stiffly to his feet and stumps out of the bar, glad to leave the oppressive atmosphere and return to the far superior mixture of exhaust and ash that passes for Air in the underhive. Just like the engine room on the old space hulk. Enough to make a cogboy nostalgic sometimes. A pity the Respirator keeps him from enjoying the fumes.

[Gorgondantess]

Arel nods, and leaves.
"Well. That was rather... unproductive. Though, I'm not exactly one to... give up, so easily. What do you know about breaking and entering?"

[Gourtox]

Serghar

"Yes I believe I do. thank you for your time." Serghar turns around and strides out the door. "Come on Edzibsky let's head back to HQ. The others should know what we've found."

[Vikingkingq]

After a long day's investigation, the group reconvenes in a nondescript hab-stack in Delta-9, formerly De-Vaunt Malloy workforce housing and now mostly vacant following the collapse of the corporation. A suite of apartments has been set aside for your use - it's mostly standard issue furnishings, but a hi-res pict-screen and a cogitator set up in the common room are new.

A printed notice on the cogitator from Inquisitor Atreus orders you to make a report of your findings from the worksite. After the techpriest and adept get the machinery to work, the Inquisitor appears in the pict-screen, lighting a lho-stick holder.

"Good evening, gentlemen. I see you've been productive. Much the same has emerged from some of the other teams-" he lifts a sheaf of parchment reports, "a sudden...dislocation, disappearance, an explosion after the fact. Clearly some nefarious conspiracy is at work here. And these traces of sorcery...these are most troubling. From the descriptions I have received from my various employees of a psychic disposition, I believe the conspirators have access to the thrice-damned Buch dei Unassprechlichen Worten, that most foul and blasphemous grimoire of the arch-heretic von Junzt.

"Within that book is described a means for traversing the endless void of space through the creation of open Warp portals. Only a madman would dare to walk unshielded through the Warp, but then again, the sane do not use such a tome as a reference guide.

"If this is the case, this is a far darker matter than any mundane campaign of body-snatching. You must find out more, and fast. What are your next steps?"

[Gorgondantess]

Arel turns to the others, almost embarrassed. He flushes pale.
"The Inquisitor wants to know our planned course of action."

[Limos]

"Sources point toward Volg gang as involved in disappearances. If not carrying them out, probable that they are employed by the one who is." Nihilus says, "Will be investigating this link."

[Vikingkingq]

"Sources point toward Volg gang as involved in disappearances. If not carrying them out, probable that they are employed by the one who is." Nihilus says, "Will be investigating this link."

"Volgite gangers not being known for their grasp of the finer points of sorcerous lore or their use of non-standard weaponry, I would imagine that they are indeed pawns of some third party. Endeavor to discover who that third party is.

And remember, your cover here is that of an Arbites team. Keep that in mind as you prosecute this investigation."

[Vikingkingq]

After discussing the case for a few more minutes, the Inquisitor signs off. Collectively, you begin to feel quite tired - it's been a very long day since the ship dropped out of the Warp, and you've put a lot of miles on your feet.

Filing away to the various sleeping chambers that surround the common room, you collapse into an exhausted sleep.

Nihulus and Grendel only:

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Later that night, you hear the sounds of someone moving quietly in the common room. The cogitator turns back on, and you hear the keys click softly.

[Daisuke1133]

Grendel opens his eyes and trying to be as quiet as possible, he moves from his bed to the side of the doorway and peeks around the corner to see who is using the cogitator.

[Limos]

Nihilus

Hearing the out of place noise the stooped tech priest rises from his chair (he doesn't actually sleep) and activates his Auspex, scanning the room with the cogitator and the surrounding area.

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Tech Use
(1d100)[3]
EDIT: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH