Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor

"Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor," - Moonface

Dark Heresy 12.12

• Party begins by receiving first aid from Scalia, then disabled their Skitarii foes sub and flew to Pelagia's primary orbital spaceport
• From there the party split, with Fishbutt and Genevieve dropping off their injured friends and flying back to the surface to watch the krill platform - for some members of the group, there was nearly a week spent in hospital
• Genevieve noticed another sub breaching a few hundred meters from the platform, which seemed to observe, then leave
• While the others finished recuperating, Kastor and Scalia attempted to recruit mercenaries, but scared them off with talk of tech priests.
• They drew unwanted attention from said mercenaries, but the party was able to appeal to their self preservation instincts and avert a fight
• Gained the aid of the Pelagia Planetary Defense Forces, including a small squad of troopers and some explosives
• Took the sub down to the base. Scouted around for a while.
• The group decided to use demolition charges to enter through the main sub bay- while a large sharklike critter circled above. The fish came dangerously close before Kastor and Flim set off the charges.
• The group then advanced into the facility, covering their rear by jamming the only other hatch in the submarine bay.
• Making their way up the stairs, the group found an observation deck, overlooking a training arena for test subjects, all of whom seemed to be hyper muscular psykers in the mold of the Emperor, suggesting that the hybridization process has improved significantly since the crude Xenos-Human Frankenstein’s monsters seen in the first session
• The group set up demolition charges in the observation deck, then made their way upstairs into the command center, where a pitched battle ensued with the remaining skeleton crew of Skitarii on the station.
• 3 PDF soldiers went down, but eventually the acolytes prevailed, taking two prisoners and interrogating them
• From there, they interrogated the prisoners and searched the facility

Evidence Discovered

1. From Interrogation
1. Mind-mold hybrids are like “an empty vase,”
2. The “Seekers of the Perfect Body,” must be selling them as super-soldiers
3. Head of facility is known as Glabred
2. Documents
1. Pict-File: Depicted a young Romelia and a small squad of acolytes on a Hive World, likely either Juno or Desoleum, including a Tech-Priest and several others
2. Letters, written to Glabred signed simply as I, mentioning the names of a number of psykers, and their locations, suggesting the possibility of kidnapping them, and describing them as “The Spark of the Emperor,”
3. Letters written to Glabred signed as V, requesting more product “My mistress found the previous product exceptional, and requests your presence on Juno for the delivery of more.
4. Receipts showing payments in the hundreds of thousands of Thrones from Valerius Holding Company to “The Order of The Toothed Gears,” with a description of delivery to “our trusted agent on Juno,”
5. A list of highly ranked Magos from the Adeptus Mechanicus on Mars, with those involved in “Golden Throne Maintenance,” underlined, and the name Dalia Cythera with a star next to it, with the note - “vacation planned to Europa ice fields,”
3. Other Physical Evidence
1. Abandoned Lab had specimens from a number of xenos breeds
2. Human/Xenos Hybridization was being further refined
3. Work was done on highly pressurized mind-mold, corroborating information found back on Temperance

XP Gained - 400
Influence Gained -



PS: I seriously over-reported the amount of time it takes to send an astropathic message.
The real length of time changes quite a bit based on distance
Orbit   -  instant
Within a Solar system - no more than 10 rounds
Nearby Solar System  - 1d10 minutes
Within a subsector (Pelagia to Port Aquila, Pelagia to Juno) - d5 hours
Across the Sector - d5 weeks (I would modify this based on distance, IE Pelagia to Desoleum is going to be d5-2 weeks with a minimum of 1)
Across a Segmentum - d5 months

The Falcon's Revenge or Don't Mess with Skitarii Rangers

Start Locale: Moonbase Falcon- orbiting Finn's Bounty

The group began with a severely wounded Alexander Churchill needing medical assistance from a bolter shell which passed through his lung before exploding on the exit. Scalia provided emergency first aid, evacuating the wound and getting Churchill stable enough to move, before the group dragged him into a stasis tube for transit to a hospital on a major planet. 

Meanwhile, Flim Janx searched the courtyard, Kastor spoke with Fish about the moonbase, and Genevieve began interrogating The Falcon. The Falcon didn't take kindly to enhanced interrogation, and pulled a Dune-poison gas tooth, killing himself and nearly hurting Genevieve, who was saved by her filtration plugs and tough constitution. 

The group then explored the rest of the moonbase. There, Flim found a lot of random ammo clips, Genevieve found some evidence, including drop coordinates, a code, a key, and a note incriminating Finn, governor of Finn's bounty. With the keycode the group found some juvenat, of which they too two liters. Most of the group took 2 doses 10 ml a piece of juvenat serum, and some actually used a dose, extending their natural lives by 10 years. 

The group then traveled to Port Aquila, and leveraged their black market contacts (and the extreme value of good juvenat serum) in order to get some goods, including ammo and tricked out gear. Additionally, Genevieve pulled inquisitorial rank to get Churchill and Scalia medical attention. He was quickly (relatively) fitted with a partial artificial heart, artificial lung, and some vat grown skin in order to get moving again, but not without some minor complications.

While on Port Aquila, Flim hunted down information on Pelagia, especially regarding the drop coordinates that they found, learning that the planet is a super earth, mostly used for Krill harvesting, and with incredibly deep oceans. Additionally, Genevieve tracked down corroborating information regarding shipping manifests (found 2 ships with regular manifest discrepancies). The group also came up with cover stories (working as agents for the Krill Consortium/Redblatt Rogue Trader family) and dug up fake credentials to that end. 

Before leaving Port Aquila, the group enlisted the services of an Astropath in order to send a message to their Inquisitor, Romelia Girard on Hive Desoleum. They included the following information:

1. We met The Falcon

2. His party was interrupted

3. We are traveling to Pelagia

4. The big fish on Finn's Bounty stinks

5. We met a friend, and we hope to introduce you

They received a message from Romelia, suggesting that they follow any leads from Finn's Bounty, but treat The Falcon with extreme caution. - This message probably came a bit too late to be useful.

The group then traveled aboard a freighter to Pelagia, entering orbit and making inquiries with the dockmaster and archivist. There they learned that red tide emptied the aquacultural zone around the coordinates in question roughly 15 years ago. After some bribing, the group got permission to travel down to the surface. (They also learned that there were rumors of Tech-Priests messing around with biological whatsits and whatnots, probably to blame)

Following that, Fish flew the group's shuttle down to the watery surface. The group did some recon first, and decided to set down. From there, they briefly tried to trick the Skitarii rangers and tech-priests (or Hereteks), before realizing they didn't have the Ork parts needed to pull off such a trick, and resorting to violence, because violence solves everything.

This led to a tense battle against hardened, well trained and extremely well-armed Skitarii rangers. The rangers had entrenched positions, and weapons that took advantage of their range. However, the group took extremely good advantage of surprise, eliminating major threats early on, turning what could have been a highly lethal encounter into a very painful and bloody one.

Everyone with the exception of Genevieve took some degree of critical damage, with at least 2 party members suffering broken bones, and Fish taking his first bullet for the group.

400 xp.

Various bits of loot, including 2 liters of juvenat, odd ammo, 12 vac suits, odd rifles from downed skitarii, electro-mace, brandy (1 bottle was used as a bribe).

Items acquired: new heart/lung for Churchill, 3rd arm for Scalia, custom grip for Kastor's Chainsword, red-dot sight for Kastor's long-las, Klartesh,

Coming Home - Hill Tigers - Moonbase Falcon

Session Start - Tartarus

Report Filed with Romelia, omitting the fact that the group used Kroot mercs.

Travel arranged to Finn's Bounty via Port Aquila.

Recruited Alaricious (the Tau connected, wild haired student) as a possible contact, provided a coded means for him to get in touch with the group through Romelia on Desoleum.

Traveled to Port Aquila (1 week)

Spent 48 hours there.
-Attempted to purchase things (and met some success, Genevieve acquired enforcer carapace armor)
-Investigatged some stuff, but drew attention of local law enforcement.
- Crazy incident in a bar w/ psyker phenomenon, in which Churchill caused some property damage and minor injuries by reversing gravity
- Learned about Orks, the Falcon, smuggling, and a bit about Finn's bounty
- Major lead found when Churchill checked out an Ork corpse, and detected traces of juvenat serum in the container itself (gaining corruption in the process)
- Scalia attempted to get a 3rd arm attached, and suffered nerve damage at the hands of a competent, but overly ambitious medicae on the station

Traveled to Finn's Bounty
-Noticed sensor dead zone caused by moon
- introduced self as company reps
- investigated tanks to be loaded with juvenat serum, found seams in tops which could be opened up with advanced welding equipment

On the planet
-Train to recent battlesite
-Learned about Red Hill Tigers - that they are ferocious
- Checked out battle site
- Missing Ork corpses,
- Orks attacked in trukk, Kastor and Churchill shot the driver, breaking the windshield, with Kastor melting through his arm and causing him to go unconscious - Trukk crashed,

Session 2

On Finn's Bounty
- Acolytes crushed the surviving crew of the Ork Trukk in a well fought battle, giving the Orks a pleasant (by their standards) end
- Drove out to the beach, got the Trukk stuck in some mucky sand, and traveled on foot to the site where the Hill Tigers were celebrating their recent victory against the Orks
-Snuck up to a seaside cliff, and watched a grizzly ritual in which dead Orks are dismembered, with their heads added to a throne for a debased, tigerish form of the Emperor of mankind (may his golden throne bless all of you) - reminding Churchill of Khorne
- Witnessed a tiger faced vessel come and pick up Ork parts, essentially in exchange for Stimm (space PCP/coke)
- The group took tons of pictures of the ritual to be used as later evidence
- Group then informed the Hill Tigers of incoming Ork attack, and rode back to the Juvenat facility with them
- Took a train back to the capital, did some investigating, got a sense that the Falcon would be intercepting a freighter carrying Juvenat away (and were rebuffed for dinner with the Autarch/planetary governor in the house absolute)
-Arranged passage out of the system aboard the freighter
- Caught smugglers red handed as they tried to load Ork parts into Juvenat tanks, slaying one and gaining one informant in the process, a pragmatic (loyalty challenged) smuggler with an unfortunate butt tatoo and impressive physique.
- Flew to Moonbase Falcon using the smuggler's own vessel
- Assaulted the Moonbase, slaying roughly half a dozen smugglers, and the Falcon's lover, but not before the Falcon could land 2 bolter shells in Churchill's chest, causing what ought to have been mortal injury
-The Falcon surrendered to the group, ending the session

Unknown Xenos Site 001 on Tartarus, Schola Progenium

Time Signature: 859.999.m41 to 875.999.m41 (4 days of resting up, 2 days of action  )

Session Begins on Tartarus, back in the Schola Progenium (Imperial Orphan School)

• After 2 days resting (mostly for Kastor's head wound), the party headed out to the island, rowing across a still lake, seeing woods on one side of the lake, flatlands on the other
• The group found a number of black and green objects in a triangle pattern, these appeared to be alien devices of some sort, with a base of shiny black metal, and a top made of a crystal like green globe structure
• Group advanced to a tarpted over area in the center of the island and lifted the tarp up revealing a new dig site with a central triangular portal flanked by consoles, then the broaches activated, burning some PCs, and allowing 3 creatures through in a flash of blinding light. These creatures were heavily cybernetic specimens of a previously unencountered Xenos breed with apparent psychic ability, and an overall dinosaur or birdlike/meets insect bent.
• The group was able use cover fairly well, and leveraged some heavy firepower to eventually slay the Xenos filth, and wisely ignored the pleas of the alien to negotiate
• Genevieve then, in investigating the alien devices, activated one, sending 2 more Xenos creatures through the portal. One of these creatures dealt a nearly fatal blow to Genevieve, but both were stopped before they could open the gate.
• Group destroyed the rest of the gate computers and torched the aliens
• Returned to the school with a barely living Genevieve (4th degree burns, necessitating a medically induced coma, (armor/clothes will need to be replaced due to burns)
• Supervised a Kroot kill team which killed and ate the smugglers on Tartarus
• Found a clue and a bolt pistol, leading to Kastor's home world, and The Falcon, a smuggler operating there.
• 
  
• 
  
• 400 XP reward

10/3/16 - Tartarus Schola Progenium

Time Signature: 700.999.m41 to 859.999.m41 (1 week of resting up, 7 weeks passage, 2 days at the school )

Session Begins on Temperance, in the Mind-Mould stasis tomb chamber.

Group drags Kastor out of the stasis tomb, he receives a replacement spleen in emergency surgery.

Romelia has taken the disk drive from the stasis tomb, and plans to bring it back to her safehouse on the Hive world Desoleum in order to study it further with the aid of decryption specialists there.

In the meantime, she asked the group to look into a grisly death connected to Xenos artifacts on Tartarus, a world that is home to the Tartarus Schola Progenium, an Imperial controlled Orphan-Indoctination/School. She received a tip about it from her old friend, Arterian Goldfang (related to the the Desoleum Goldfang noble line).

There, the acolytes met with Arterian, and went about investigating, starting with checking the student's room and finding warp taint, fatal blood stains (duh doi), and evidence of a missing diary.

Further investigations led the group to examining Barbana Sal(the dead student's) body, further learning the nature of her terrible injury (high energy bird talons that seemed warp tainted), along with a missing bit of mass from her body. Shortly thereafter, the group checked out the broach, finding an extreme power source that pulsed regularly. Checking it out with an auspex was difficult due to overwhelming power/radiation causing interference.

The group interviewed students, and quickly broke the spirits of these amateur smugglers, eventually getting enough information to grab additional xenos broaches from the student's rooms. On the way to the rooms, Kastor and Churchill ran into a professor who spent a lot of time looking them over, suspicious of the players. Rickard Bultan seemed to be the leader of the student smugglers, and broke quickly when exposed to interrogation tactics, which broke the whole story wide open.

Met Alaricious, a Tau agent who was infiltrating the school's smuggling ring in order to gain access to maybe-webway like technology, but was opposed to Somnio Bellus' darkness. - might want to turn him into a contact

-Slew Somnio Bellus as he tried escaping in a rowboat

-Arterian Goldfang died from a bolter round

-Random servant in the school died from a bolter round -

-Vesuyvia Waysira assumed the headmaster position at the Tartarus School

-Kastor got shot in the head with a bolter round (and came out pretty well, all things considered)

- Still need to assault the dig site and take on the smugglers