Wrath & Glory | Narrative Declaration

Do you think I could be a tractor one day?
I don't claim my cousins.
I'm not saying it was aliens.
But it was aliens.
All right, everyone.
Is everyone ready to play some Wrath in Glory?
Yeah!
Welcome everyone, back to some Wrath in Glory.
We have to yell at speaker today.
Why do we have to yell at me?
Because you have your microphone turned wrong.
That's true.
I did.
So before, like, I think the last two times that we tried to set up for audio tests and stuff,
we're like, why in the fuck is speaker echoey?
And I think you have one in the position now.
Go ahead and talk for a little bit.
Hi there.
This is me in the bad position.
This is me talking.
Yeah, he sounded like that the entire time.
He's like, is it the fucking room?
Is it, like, something that stands up his mic?
Because then he started mentioning, like, yeah, I want to go and record somewhere else or whatever.
They say I sound fine, but when I come here, I have to adjust it.
I'm like, that doesn't make any goddamn sense.
Like, what ears do they have?
Right?
Like, I was losing my mind and we had him tap the mic.
He was on the right microphone in the room.
Like, he's in an enclosed space, so there's not a lot of echo for it, but the environment he has.
And I kept listening for a little bit.
I'm like, wait a minute.
I heard this before.
Because he doesn't know what microphone he has.
It's like, wait a minute.
He probably doesn't know how it's used.
I think he's speaking on the wrong side of it.
And so now, now you will sound like this.
I'm normal now.
Hello.
And I lost my mind.
I got so angry.
Like, come on.
Dear viewers, it almost ended him.
It did.
True.
It ended him.
He almost ended you.
So, he sounds normal now.
So, if anybody complained of the first episode, we fixed Speaker.
We fixed him.
Yeah, we fixed him now.
I've been cured.
Yeah, we took you out back and, you know, we beat you with a two by four until you learned right.
You know.
That's true.
It only done hurt my head a little bit.
Yeah, that's a southern way of discipline.
But, of course, we have all of our awesome, awesome cast here today.
We have Hokey.
That's me.
I'm here again.
And, of course, I'm playing the wonderful Aloysius Havsi, your Lex Mechanic.
And I smoked a lot of cigarettes today.
And we have Odo.
Hello.
It's me, Odo.
I'm playing Kerana.
I almost said Sylph Swashbuckler.
That's not who I am.
I'm the Elok Lose.
Yeah, Speaker D.
Hi, I'm Speaker D.
And today I will be playing Alden Roche, the rogue trader.
And, of course, I am your host today, Zoran the Bear.
I'll be playing Roos, the Ogre Warrior.
The one who will be leading us is our illustrious game master, Thurston Hillman.
Oh, hi, it's me.
It's Thirsty.
Find me on all the things that I'll call GM.
I'm here to just run a fun game for these people.
Of course, what adventure do you have for us, Thurston?
Well, I believe we are continuing an investigation.
Now, for those of you who don't remember, we were on the Valley of Ankra.
There we had encountered the local peoples of this planet, being Ostia.
In the Valley of Ankra, you uncovered that there is a dispute going on
between the local branch of the Ecclesiarchy and the Adeptus Mechanics,
specifically about missing workers.
Now, does anyone here remember where we last left off?
If I recall correctly, we had made our way to the Administratum quarters?
We're at the DMV!
Yes, and we were waiting in line.
Yes, exactly.
So, where we had last left off, you had gone to the Administratum office,
the Sortium, as it's called, to attempt to meet with the individual in there
who you met on your descent to the planet.
That would be Adam Xanthorfuta.
As you have landed, you met with him, and then met with the other two leaders.
Confessor Euphrates being one, and then also the representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus,
Genitor Heptics.
And so you've kind of met the different factions of the planet.
Prior to the...
Well, just prior to your arrival at the Administratum,
you've also been witness to some ongoing tensions,
specifically about local laborers who didn't want to work alongside servitors,
and that there's a growing sort of disdain from the local populace against servitors
and the servants of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
So, with all that being said, you had made your way to the Sortium,
where you had essentially got in line,
and after a couple skill checks,
you found that rather than spending a full day in line
in order to gain access to the building,
you have now been admitted within after only an hour.
The interior of this massive pyramid-like structure of bland rock rete
is filled with sanctum studies, data vaults.
The sound that is overwhelming to your ears as you enter here
is scratching.
Just quills and other such things.
Just scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.
Oh, my sensitive ears.
Yeah, so with all of that, you've entered here.
You have some options on how you can proceed.
There's certainly going and investigating the sort of head that you know,
the Adept Xanther,
but there's also you could perform an investigation here
now that you've managed to use some of your credentials to get inside.
You could actually search through some of the data here
to see if you could find anything of value.
That'd be an investigation check if any of you wanted to spend some time on that.
All right, let's actually see.
What is my investigation?
To who?
To who?
To who?
Is to a law?
Uh, my investigation is pretty okay.
Yeah, uh, while, uh, while our good friends are dealing with some bureaucracy here,
Kelrana's gonna meander around and do a little bit of investigating.
Just start looking through things, peeking over people's shoulders,
just getting a beat on it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
Give me, you can give me an investigation check there, too.
Dn3?
Uh, no, let's go for a Dn4 for this one.
Ew, that's hard.
Yeah, it is.
Uh, ooh, almost.
Actually, no, not really.
Those are-
Well, well, well, okay, so remember, at this point, you still have a glory in the tank.
You could spend a wrath point to reroll some here.
Is this one worth it?
Yeah, might as well.
Unless anybody's got a higher investigation.
No, I certainly don't have you beat there.
I can only investigate with my muscles.
I could assist you.
I'm very smart.
He's a smart boy.
I'm also very observant, despite my lack of eyes.
Is, is, um, is, is, you know, uh, Aloysius, is your investigate skill going to be higher?
Because you could just do it separately as well.
I do have an investigation score of six.
Oh, okay.
So, um, you could certainly attempt to assist, but you don't just add all your dice on.
So, what I might suggest is if you want for the best kind of-
If you want the best, the best bang for your buck, you're probably better off having, um, having Aloysius do it separately.
And I'm, I'm okay with, since you're kind of doing this at the same time, Aloysius, if you want to make a check now, and then you can sort of see if Aloysius, like, bumbles it, you might decide to maybe, maybe send the, the re-rolls another way.
But I'm okay with letting you make a check as well, Aloysius.
Okay, well, I appreciate you letting me make that check.
Let me see if I do a little bit better.
Okay, let's see what happens.
It's, uh, slightly better.
It's slightly better.
So, you could wrath this.
I could wrath that.
I think I will wrath this.
Okay.
Yeah, here we go.
Here we go.
Oh, hold on.
I didn't re-up my wrath.
Hold on.
Yes.
Update all of your character sheets so you have two wrath on them, everyone.
Two whole wrathies.
Did it.
And a point of glory.
Nice.
There we go.
Oh, we got glory?
I'll add that.
Aloysius looks around the room, his servo skulls at his pauldrons, whirring around, buzzing,
clicking as they scan.
Unseen to all of you, unless you have some kind of infrared sight.
Just looking all over, reading all this information, tabulating it.
Thirsten, what does Aloysius know or see?
So, um, a couple of things here.
And there's no more shifts on that.
You just have the one, correct?
Correct.
Yeah.
Um, but you do have a, you do have enough to shift.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
So you can shift one.
Um, now, okay.
Um, I will give you the option.
You can shift one to add an extra glory, or you can shift one to obtain a bit more veracity
on the data you're getting.
Your choice.
I get the sense we'll be doing a lot of social intrigue, so I feel like we'll probably get
more glory as time goes on.
So you want the, uh, you want the more accurate data?
I'm going to grieve for the more accurate data.
Do we feel, would we rather not get additional glory off the rip party?
Uh, I'm good saving it.
I'm good saving it.
Get that good info.
Yeah.
Get that info, get that info, get that info.
Okay.
Um, all right.
Well, then what you find is a couple of pieces of information as you go through.
And like Aloysius with you, this is more traditional.
You're going through scrolls, data slates, cogitators.
This is taking a while.
Um, probably like two or three hours of investigation here.
Um, how is everyone else, you know, acting during this?
It's like Aloysius has the investigation montage.
What's everyone else doing?
Uh, yeah, with a failed roll, Kelrana is probably like leaning, looming over some poor scribe's
shoulder, just staring down at the paper before she gets shooed off.
What do you want?
What do you want?
Sorry.
Just curious.
What you're writing?
I'm writing about the meat quotient.
Oh, boring.
Goodbye.
That's my life.
I've...
Oh, I'm sorry.
You're the meat guy.
I've...
I've...
I've been...
I've been doing this for a while.
This is...
I'm a third generation meat processor.
I had my...
My memories of my childhood mind wiped so I could not be distracted to better process the meat.
You don't even remember your meat dad?
You don't even remember your meat dad?
Your meat mom?
No.
What's...
I...
I had it all purged so...
So I could count the numbers better.
Shit.
Put a hand on his shoulder.
Alright, you keep going, meat boy.
You keep...
Keep...
Keep...
Keep at it.
Uh...
I'm gonna stand over here.
Oh.
Okay.
Um...
After the first hour, Kelrona, um...
A group of armed soldiers comes into the area and quickly acquires the individual you had just spoken to.
Um...
You hear mutters and shouts of, uh...
No!
No, no!
No!
I'm sorry!
I'll hit the quota!
I'll hit the quota!
And then...
No distractions.
You need another mind purge.
Oh!
No!
No!
As they're dragged away.
Oh.
I'm gonna turn to Alden.
Is that normal?
To have one menial in charge of meat and to constantly turn his brain into slurry?
Is what normal?
That?
Uh...
I can't say it's standard operating procedure, but these administratum folks, they're hardly the most efficient in the Imperium.
I'll be honest, everything I'm seeing in here makes me incredibly depressed.
I must admit to you, this is the one part of our sterling and glorious Imperium you and I may have some accord with.
I do not much care for the administratum.
We agree on something!
Wow!
You and me, we're pees and a pot, and I'll give him a noogie.
Don't get too used to it, and I'll make sure to maintain a substantial amount of distance between myself and the elf, preventing further noogies!
I have a really important question, which I think everyone here wants to know.
Uh-huh.
What's Roos doing in the administratum archives building?
He's eating the paper, bro.
Basically, I can't think of anything else he would do with anything that's learned.
I think he's just unnecessarily asking scribes questions, going like, hey, what does that say?
I like that we just had, like, an offhanded thing from Kelrata of, like, this person's been taken away for their mind-wine, and you're just going around to, like, everybody, like, how do you spell this?
Like, what do you do here?
What does that paper do?
And do you listen to, like, the whole explanation?
Like, it's like, ah, well, you see, what I've been doing here for the past 17 generations of my family is expressing the quotient related to the grain upheavals of the Northwestern Quadrant.
You see, there are some interesting patterns over the last two decades.
Bruce leaves and goes to another guy.
What do you do?
Well, you see, when I plan and document all the tractors, see, what I do is I make sure...
Wait, you work on tractors?
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Well, you know, I make sure that the tractors get the requisite maintenance from the Adeptus Mechanicus, but a lot of that stuff can be done by hard-working folks.
So, sometimes what I like to do is I like to set up a maintenance schedule that's both with the Adeptus and...
Do you think I could be a tractor one day?
You mean drive a tractor?
I want to be a tractor.
I want to be big and tough and go fast.
Well, uh...
There might be some kind of servitor procedure for that.
Those servitors are the worst, though.
Nobody deserves that kind of fate.
I won't be no servitor.
I'm going to be a big, strong tractor one day.
Just you wait, sir.
All right there.
I like the cut of your tire wheel jib, whatever.
You, uh...
Elise, and goes to the Alden, I'm going to be a tractor one day.
That guy said so.
No, you aren't.
Why?
Like, in dismay.
Like, all his help has disappeared.
Just crush this man's dreams.
What?
What?
Because you have a duty to the Imperium.
You don't want to make the Empress sad, do you?
No.
I don't want to make the...
Does being a tractor make the Empress sad?
No, it's that you've already committed yourself to serve upon my crew.
And I would sooner have you than a thousand tractors.
You're saying I'm better than a thousand tractors?
At most things, yes.
I'm already better than a tractor.
Thank you, sir.
I'll remember this.
You're welcome.
Bruce is content with his scene.
All right.
All right.
So we cut back to Aloysius, who, like, I assume we do this montage of, like, cogitator stacks and data slates, and Aloysius is, like, picking up something, reading it.
I don't know how Aloysius reads.
His little, like, servo skulls have detached.
They're flying around, just, like, scanning things.
He's picking them over.
He, like, has this weird hololiving beam.
He scans the book, throws it to the side, just peels through information left and right.
A little, like, matrix-like display going mile a minute on his face.
Every now and then, he'll just be like, ooh, very attached saucy, and throws it away just like the rest.
All right.
All right.
So, you find a few key pieces of information.
First of all, though there have been slightly more disappearances than average in the last few months, very few personnel have gone missing in the past decade.
Even the emergence of the Great Rift didn't cause a particularly notable spike in the number of disappearances.
The next thing you discover is the recent disappearances have been from random fields around Ankara.
No obvious pattern.
Then you find that productivity has been decreased dramatically in the past few months, more than the rate of the disappearances suggest.
Now you've shifted, so there's another piece that you learn about all this information you've collected.
All of this information has been tampered with.
Oh.
Oh.
Uh-oh.
Yippee.
But you're glad you didn't get that glory point now.
Oh.
I'm very glad.
You're not sure, like, you can't, like, you can't trust the veracity of any of this now.
Wonderful.
Oh, we have some things to discuss, my friends.
What seems to be amiss?
Well, other than the piles upon piles of redacted records that probably shouldn't meet the wider rise of the Admitter Stratum,
it would appear that the disappearances and drops in productivity do not correlate quite as we may have thought.
In fact, they don't line up at all.
Though more people have been disappearing, productivity has been in steady decline before all of these disappearances had began.
The recent lack of personnel is merely circumstance.
Now, here's the onion.
In looking through all this data, one solution remains brilliantly clear.
In that none of this is actually clear at all.
Every piece of data here is fudged, tampered with.
Either the Admitter Stratum here is so categorically incompetent that it's a miracle they can count their fingers,
whatever they have left, anyway.
Or, there is some form of malfeasance going on.
Somebody has all of their fingers in everybody's pie,
and they're making sure to be thorough about it.
This data is useless, but somebody has changed it to be that way.
Well, who would have access to this sort of data?
Who, indeed?
Who would have all unfettered archive access?
I would need some deeper records.
We would need somebody higher up.
I need whatever the average menial cannot touch.
It's enough for you to gauge.
It's probably Adafuda is the individual in question.
Although, if I had to take a guess,
our dear friend, I use that loosely,
Fudar would be the likely culprit.
Shall we pay him a visit?
I would be more than happy to oblige you.
Let us get to the center of this quickly.
Delightful.
I think we should find the center of him quite easily.
He doesn't seem that tough.
Um, how far on the line are we?
Well, you're inside.
Like, this is, this is like, you've got inside and have been.
Oh, we're way past the queue.
Okay, I was under the impression all this was happening in the queue.
My bad.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
This is all, like, inside once you're in and, like, processing data, right?
Like, you're, you're getting access to data stacks, all that sort of thing.
There's just people working here.
Um, so you could investigate, like, you could go ask around, maybe cruise a bit to find out, like, hey, where, where is, where is Adam Fudar?
Um, sort of up to you how you want to proceed there.
Very well.
I will, um, move to, uh, are there any, like, clerical servitors?
Not really servitors here.
There aren't too many.
It's mostly just, like, menial staff.
Like, lots of gray, gray-robed, white, like, white-gray-robed staff who just meander and putter about.
I'll, uh, find one of them.
Excuse me.
Oh.
Hello.
I'm in need of the way to adapt Fudar's offices.
Xanthar Fudar?
Oh, yes.
Uh, the, the, the, the adept is in the documentarium.
Um, it's, it's sanctum and where all the high security, um, where all the high security is stored.
Julie noted.
How far is it from here?
Oh, well, you'll have to go past security and some of the, the, the guard posts.
I can mark it out for you as you're an off-world delegation.
I can see that you have important business with him.
Indeed, I do.
This guy is talking slow enough to make me a little suspicious.
Okay.
Can I, uh, roll a quick insight check to see if there's anything up with this guy?
Yeah, sure.
Uh, difficulty number three?
Uh, two.
Two.
Okay.
That's gonna be seven successes and one point.
Damn.
Okay, speaker.
Nice roll.
All right.
There you go.
Thank you.
Um, yeah, that's enough for you to, to discover.
It's, he's talking slow because he doesn't deal with people a lot.
Like, the cleric, like the administration folks here generally don't have to help people
or don't have people who aren't already just inculcated into this bureaucracy.
So they think heavily, and there's also, like, a tinge of kind of internally processing what
they can and can't talk about.
Like, they're, they're going through the manual in their mind.
Hmm.
So they're figuring this out.
Okay, great.
That's, that's excellent.
While I have them like this, I'm going to kind of lean in.
Now, between you and me, I do have one question I'd prefer you keep to yourself.
You understand?
Yes, I don't really talk to anyone else.
That's very good.
An excellent quality and a confidant.
Do you happen to have noticed any abnormalities with the archives?
Abnormalities?
So by the, by the light of the throne, no.
We pride ourselves on our diligence with data.
We go to the extremes to make sure everything is properly processed and in its place.
I see.
And off-world delegations, they're uncommon here, yes?
Oh, I mean, yes, we rarely have individuals who come beyond just simply the silos.
I see.
When was the last time someone not of the administratum had gotten so close to these archives?
Oh, I don't know.
That's not my department.
I see.
So none that you've witnessed?
No, it was 15 years ago when I was a younger lad.
And I saw a woman come in here.
She found out she went to the wrong administratum complex.
A riveting tale.
Well, thank you.
And of course, tell no one that we spoke of this.
I don't speak to anyone.
Excellent.
And I'll ignore him and move on.
Yeah, you come back to the group.
Have we any business remaining here?
I should think not, dear captain.
We're trying to suss out exactly where the problem lies, and our problem looks to be dear Xanthar himself.
It could be Xanthar, or it could be forces beyond his control.
We'll suss out the truth of it sooner or later.
Come, let us find the adept.
All right, so you know that Xanthar Fuda's domain, this documentarium, is deeper.
As you get closer, you can tell that there is a high, high amount of security here.
Um, you could wait for the adept and try to corner him and speak with him, but it is very clear that that will be a, that will be a, you go to him on his terms.
As you look through this, there is also the opportunity of breaking into his documentary.
I don't think that'll be necessary.
I mean, he did ask to see us.
For sure, for sure, for sure.
I'm just, I'm laying it out.
Like, there, if you wanted to break into the, the, like, high secure data vaults, that is an option.
That would just be something that would be encompassed under, like, stealth.
Fair enough.
Um, but otherwise it sounds like you were, you were just going to kind of go and want to speak with him directly.
Yeah, I mean, he's not going to expect that we're going to want to talk about anything more than, uh, what he thinks we want to talk about.
Absolutely.
All right.
Um, so with that, you, you all make your way into the documentatorium, um, and, and go through the, the, the, like, rigorous processes.
Um, you can see that the, the specific area where he is, is kind of like a data crypt that has, um, it's, it's like organized chaos in here.
There's, um, there's, um, scrolls and, like, sprawling from nooks and cubby holes.
There's a Spartan bunk that's wedged awkwardly into the room.
Um, um, but there's just, like, um, but there's just, like, information data slates everywhere.
Um, it's, it's all been kind of, like, clustered away as you've been brought in to meet Fuda in sort of a front area.
He actually kind of comes out of the, the main data crypt area and sort of closes it off and meets you in, in a joining chamber.
That's more akin to, like, a meeting space with a table.
Uh, you can see the adept is incredibly, um, overwhelmed as you approach.
Um, like, very clearly has been working a lot.
There's even a bit of sweat on him as, as you approach, which he wipes off with the back of his hand and just kind of takes a moment to, to breathe as, as he approaches you.
Uh, uh, hello.
Uh, uh, oh.
Hey.
It seems as if you are in quite a conundrum.
As you can tell, it's, it's very busy here with the, the ecclesiarchy and the mechanicus.
I'm, I'm sure you now understand the situation here and how dire it is.
Indeed.
Nothing short of madness out there, twixt these two parties.
Corn's good, though.
He bites into one.
No.
How many of those did you take?
He, he starts counting on his finger, but he gets lost.
And he keeps recounting.
And he can't, Bruce can't quite get up there.
So he's in a perpetual math state.
And, and like, Fuda looks up to you, Roos, and starts scribbling and then looks up to see your fingers changing.
And he's clearly like crossing out.
And he goes, oh, the corn count must be accurate.
I'm just imagining Roos finishing his count, but very like sheepishly only like five.
He's just holding like a bushel behind him.
He turns, he turns to Kelrana going, Kelrana, do you know how many corns I ate?
Huh.
I'm gonna say...
37.
Complete lie.
He, he turns around 37.
37.
Oh, 37 corns.
All right.
I suppose.
It's definitely more than that.
Yes, I'll have to.
Yes, okay, of course.
Of course, he like jots it down and then sort of, what were we talking about again?
You can tell just like how overburdened this man is.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it was you that had desperately sought an audience.
You had something important to discuss?
Yes, I did.
It's, it's these factions, the ecclesiarchy, the, the, the adeptus mechanic.
Something has to be done.
They're, they're not working.
The quotas, the quotas, you see, they keep getting out of place.
Um, what would you suggest be done?
Well, I, we have to solve what's, what's going on.
I, I, again, I, I don't think the data's quite as damning as one would think.
I think it's just if we could get these two factions to stop their, their damnable fighting,
what with the mechanic who's constantly trying to get into the old runes and, uh...
Now, it's funny that you mention these quotas as they were.
And, of all the quotas not being met, missed, rearranged.
How long has this been going on, Xanthar?
Uh, well, a few months that the, the, the supposed disappearances and whatnot and the, the effect on the quotas.
But I've looked at the numbers.
They, they appear to be relatively within order.
It's, it's mostly, though, this...
Now, that's quite interesting.
But...
I'd like to make an insight roll.
Yeah, sure.
I want to see if this guy is knowingly deceiving us.
Okay.
In any way.
What is my difficulty number?
Uh, your difficulty number is...
Because you don't know if this is an opposed check or not, you just roll the dice.
You don't get to know the difficulty number.
Because if it was, if, if he isn't lying to you, then meh.
But if he is lying to you, it would be opposed by, say, a deception from him.
Fair enough.
So, I'm going to, to, like, private roll some dice here.
Um, and that, this could be real.
This could not be real.
Okay.
Very good.
Do I have permission from the party to sink three glory into this?
Uh, we, we have two.
Sorry, I don't know where the other glory came from.
Unless we get into the crit somewhere that I didn't log in.
Yeah, there were two crits.
There were two crits.
And then one shift.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Next time if we get glory, just be like, we're not right!
Because...
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm okay with it.
Okay.
Cool.
I'm good.
So, I'll add two to my dice pool.
Okay.
And let's see.
Oh, I need to add at least difficulty number one.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, I got five successes.
I'm not satisfied with that.
But I want to, uh, roll a wrath to re-roll.
Okay.
Ooh.
Not bad.
Now, with the wrath, just very quickly, am I re-rolling the entire roll?
So, so yeah.
In, in this case, this is order of operations.
If you spend glory, you have to do that after wrath.
Okay.
Oh.
So that, yeah.
You have to roll your base dice, then choose to re-roll, and then you can add wrath dice
to it.
I understand.
Or glory, add glory dice to it.
It's still a good number of successes.
Five is nothing to shake a stick at.
In which case, I'm just going to re-roll the seven, and then I will re-roll two additional
after that.
Is that okay?
Say what?
Yeah, you don't re-roll the glory.
You only re-roll your base dice.
Yeah, I won't re-roll the glory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So on the card there, just re-roll your base.
Oh, I, I, I, I, I, no, no, no, no, but I, I get, I get what you're saying, but because
of the order of operations, it does mess it up because it's like, you can't just re-roll
all seven dice because, yeah, um, but yeah, in the future, keep that in mind.
You can do it now, but.
Okay.
Absolutely.
Thank you very much.
My mistake.
That's pretty good.
Um, so that's five successes with one shift, and now I'm going to add the two glory.
Is that okay?
Excellent.
For an additional, I believe, two.
With that six.
So, yeah, two with that six.
Now, the shifts, again, are kind of, you don't get shifts on this just because you don't know
the difficulty number.
Of course.
Yeah.
So that would be seven total.
Okay.
Uh.
And I will reduce my wrath by one.
Yeah.
Wouldn't Speaker just re-roll his first insight testing?
Not completely re-roll?
He just re-rolls the ones that failed, right?
With wrath?
No, no, no.
Because, because he, when he rolled the first insight test, he included the glory.
Oh, okay.
We were just fixing it.
My bad.
He was just redoing it, so it wasn't, like, otherwise, it's way more powerful, and, like,
you almost never fail checks.
So, because you're getting extra dice with re-rolls.
Yeah.
In a case, Chad, I think still Spider might be confused for stuff.
Successes are fours and hires.
Yeah.
Fours and hires.
Sixes count for two.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, and the one red die you see on the screen there, uh, that is our, uh, that's
our wrath die for that.
Like, we have our wrath die, so we can re-roll.
But if you see that roll of one, that's bad.
We complicate.
But if that gets a six, we crit, and we get, like, another Puniclory.
Which is really, really good for us.
He kind of looks at you, and, like, as you're, I assume there's, like, this steely, like,
like, eyes as you're trying to, like, size up what he's saying.
Yes.
Okay.
Eventually, he sort of just shakes his head slightly, and takes on, like, a far lower tone
as he's looking out the open door to this sort of tone.
So, keep your voices low.
Clearly, the Emperor sent wise warriors on this investigation.
Look, I've been suspicious.
The Adeptus Mechanicus have been tampering with our data.
Given the political situation, I was hesitant to accuse them.
I-I've kept some of the evidence for myself, you see.
The numbers are far worse than one would think.
But why would they do such a thing?
Uh, and I have a sense that he is telling me the truth with this.
Um, you-you do not gather any deception.
Excellent.
I see.
Well, I think the motivations would be quite obvious.
To take control from the zealots that seek to unseat them.
Let me see your evidence.
And, like, he starts putting some-some data, like, he kind of shuffles back, returns, sort of produces a few things.
And as he does, um, it's-it reveals information that you've-that you-that Aloysius found, I should say.
Um, in-in that sort of investigation montage previously.
But it shows some-some hard copies of other data that contradict it.
Specifically, more than a hundred people have disappeared in recent months.
Which is far more than the, like, two dozen that have been reported.
The disappearances have also all been, uh, from people assigned to the fields near the ruins.
Hmm.
As you can see here, things are far worse.
I'm trying not to create a scene.
I-I-I fear for my life.
If the Adeptus Mechanicus are altering our data and they find out...
I-I-I couldn't fight a combat servitor, look at me!
I'm too delicate!
Most intriguing.
Most intriguing indeed.
We were followed here by a servo skull.
There's blasted spies everywhere.
Most interesting.
Hmm.
So they're disappearing by the ruins, eh?
What's so significant about these ruins?
It goes back to all the old-the old local-local legends and history from-from-from the before times.
Uh, you've-you've already heard of the Grim Harvest.
Uh, few-few records on that foolish belief.
But those that-that-that do exist talk that the ruins are important.
Uh, it's-it's-it's-it's-it's-it's-it's something to do with their-the history.
The twilight shades come from those ruins, and that people who are taken there, uh, deserve-
The Adeptus Mechanicus believes there might be technology in there, but-but-
Those children of the dawn don't let them in.
I see.
Is there any possibility that the children of the dawn are behind the disappearances?
No.
It's quite possible.
Uh, de-de-deplorables, the-the lot of them.
Uh, twisted faith, the local backwater's belief, uh, it's-it's a travesty.
You see, if only the Adeptus Mechanicus could stop meddling in things and keep to their efficiency,
and the children of the dawn and the-the workers could stop being so-
Uh, backwatered zealous on this matter.
I'm having a hard time.
I keep thinking of the Oblivion guy.
Yes!
Have you heard any news from the other provinces?
What was the-what was the dawn, like, cult thing in Oblivion?
Oh, the mythic dawn?
Yeah, I keep thinking of that.
Oh, my goodness.
He's like, you will come to our paradise, hero.
And it's like-
Sorry.
That's what-that's what-that's what Bruce is thinking about, going,
Oh, I don't-hopefully it's not like that guy.
And hopefully the planets are actually people.
I've-I've-for 65 years, I've-I've been the Adept here.
But for all those years, I've never been ruler of my own dreams.
The stars were right.
But, this is the day.
Sorry, Chad.
This has now become an Elder Scrolls campaign.
Oh, God, help.
Surprise!
Sponsor content.
Yay.
But, yeah, you can see that, like, Xanther's, like, incredibly just, like, manic about this whole situation.
Feels he's being-like, the data's being converted.
There's servo skulls.
There's crazy zealots everywhere.
Like, this is-this is definitely why he's been reaching out to you.
And it's like, please, please fix this.
I see.
Might I get a second opinion from my crew?
Thoughts?
Oh, yes, yes, I'll go back to my room.
Shuffles closes the door.
Ka-chonk!
Oh.
Well, I suppose you can lock yourself in the closet if you feel more secure.
It won't help him.
I can break down that door.
No, you can't.
Ha-ha.
I can.
He can.
He does.
You definitely can.
But he wouldn't hurt me.
I'll let him have more corn.
Hey, I can't bring down that door, guys.
I mean, he's got corn.
You're right, you're right.
You got your priorities in line.
You damn dirty turncord.
What do you say, sir?
Good luck, too, Alden.
Well, I'd like to have the opinion of my fellow...
Yeah, excuse me.
I'd like to have the opinion of my secondary officers.
I'm a secondary officer now?
Well, I take this promotion with great gusto and gratitude.
Acting.
Executive officer.
Oh.
I am a mayor officer.
You are all giving me responses that make me regret asking for your opinions.
No, no.
Consider your words very carefully, Captain.
Except for you.
It's okay, sir.
Thank you.
We have my comments, sir.
I'll rot with us.
He takes his orb out.
He's like, sir.
Do you think they're turning the people and the plants?
Stop.
No one.
All right.
That's...
Definitely yes.
You see?
They're definitely turning people into plants.
Solved already, sir.
Bruce, you've been eating people.
Cannibalism in that form is heretical.
You eat people, too, sir.
They're in our bars.
I have nutrient paste.
Those are made of people, sir.
It's different.
How is it different, sir?
Our methods are refined.
Sanctioned by the Omnisire.
And the Emperor itself.
You all eat the same rations.
You all ever just say we're all actually just cannibals, sir?
Maybe we should all just starve to death.
You know, Bruce, maybe we are just a bunch of weird skull crab mechs in a bucket after all.
So are we going to give our opinions?
I've been asked for my opinion, and I cannot let this opportunity slide.
Are you ready for his personal opinion question?
I think the ruins are quite indeed our next destination, Captain.
Whatever these forces at play may be, although I'm suspecting either foul Xenos,
ones whose technology with stealth may be learned from,
or more sinister forces are at work.
Though the children of Dawn may be at fault.
One way or the other, those ruins are the next stop.
Agreed.
I think going to the ruins is our most logical next step.
Chances are it's something that's a little beyond normal monkey comprehension.
Sorry, sorry.
Human comprehension.
And they're making some sort of big deal out of something they don't understand.
Where's the Eldar lexicon?
I need to be racist towards you.
Wow.
All right, all right.
Give him a second.
He's got to look up his racism.
Absolutely.
I won't forbid a brave soldier of the Imperium from a little of anti-Xeno sentiment.
Good.
No.
Right.
But, I don't know.
I mean, they're pointing fingers at the tech priests.
The tech priests are pointing fingers at everyone else.
The data was tampered with.
Do the tech priests actually have access to all this data?
And if so, how'd they get their grubby hands on it?
That is an interesting question.
Because, the way I see it, there is somebody with more ready access to this data, and he's hiding behind that door.
Well, you can come out from behind the door now.
Are you done?
Is it okay to come out?
I've not been listening at all.
It was always okay for you to come out.
It was always allowed, sir.
All right.
He kind of, like, waddles through, like, pushing the door open.
So, you've decided to help me.
Oh, bless the Emperor for saying that.
Well, before we go about doing that, how on earth would the Adeptus Mechanicus have access to your confidential, administratum-logged information?
The skulls, I tell you.
They're everywhere.
They buzz and they chirp you.
Use them here, but you can't trust them.
And the skulls could tamper with the data.
They're that sophisticated.
Yes.
That's why I don't trust him.
Looks at Aloysius and the skulls.
He doesn't see, but the skulls see for him.
Oh, no, I see.
It's far-fetched.
Let me be perfectly clear.
I can see you right now with what passes for your meager, fleshy orbs.
Something far more superior.
You have nice to me, I'm old.
Oh, yes, you are old, imperishable, but we could make you more than you are if you would merely let us in.
Aloysius, if you could do me a favor and confirm or deny this man's accusations of servo-scale capabilities,
rather than threatening to turn him into some ghastly abomination.
Well, I'm not going to turn him into a ghastly abomination.
I'm offering augments.
Augments looks so wonderful, Captain.
We can improve upon the weaknesses of flesh.
Humanity is a terrible thing to waste.
We would see it wed to seal, not removed by it.
As you know, I have no qualms with your ideology.
What I want, though, are results.
Now, servoscopes.
Could they be utilized to hack into the administratum records?
Of course they could.
They're the most common, menial drone that the Imperium possesses and the Mechanicum can manufacture.
They do just about anything you want them to do,
and certainly, if they have the right protocols, they could easily access these archives.
Although, if it weren't for hacking, they would simply need an access key to these archives.
It is entirely possible, if it was not malicious in nature, someone could have simply passed on the right credentials.
Hugin and Munin here, pointing to my, his servoskulls, do not possess this,
but they can certainly perform a number of rudimentary tasks, mostly writing for me and tabulating.
But the servoskulls that we encountered earlier, its true master, their auspices unknown, is a different story.
That servoskulls may have some accesses and protocols that even I am not familiar with here.
I see.
So it's plausible.
That's good enough for me.
You see, exactly, exactly, it's plausible.
Oh, thank the god-emperor who sits upon the throne that he sent me such wise individuals as you.
Oh, I fear the genitor might come for me in the night and make me add it to the grim harvest.
Slow your roll, my dear friend.
But most genitors and Mechanicus staff worth their mettle would not so wantonly waste
a skilled member of the Admitter Stratum like yourself.
We can certainly create better wetware from menials that are below your standard.
Oh.
You would much better spend what remaining cognitive power you have
questioning why they would do such a thing.
Not of, oh, they're going to rip off his arms and stick on big laser guns.
No, that would be too base.
We have plenty of stock for servitors of that nature.
Why would we waste someone with so much potential?
Why would we have need for kidnapping people in the middle of the night in cornfields to
whisk away, chop up, and then toss back out?
More importantly, why wouldn't anybody else have realized that their loved ones are becoming
servitors that are working alongside them?
No, the Mechanicum does not operate on such basic grounds, not unless they are straddling
the lines of tech heresy, of which we do have a vested interest in rooting out, is where
let me be perfectly clear.
Right.
No tech heresy happening on our ship ever, ever, never.
Yes, yes, yes.
Never.
Tech heresy.
That's got to be it.
Yes, yes, of course, of course, of course.
But I, without knowing exactly what is in those ruins, I could not say.
Do you, I've, you're a learned scholar yourself.
Are you familiar with the world of Stygies 8?
Was it six?
I forget sometimes.
I, the person behind the screen does not know how to count.
It was full, sir.
It was full.
Thank you, Roos.
I'm glad I stuck that memory in a cookie for you.
You're welcome.
Roos has no fucking idea.
You may be familiar with the people of Stygies.
Their Mechanicum and their Forge are quite known for their cavalier mindsets.
Some, even straddling the lines of the heretical.
Oh, sounds dire.
Quite dire, but...
My, my, my heart, it, it, it palpitates quite, quite heavily now.
You are, you are, you are bringing many, many things into my mind, and, oh.
Yes, palpitate at your leisure.
Point being, don't interrupt my story, little man.
Point being...
Sometimes a cavalier mindset is needed to advance the interests of the Imperium.
By knowing our enemy, we might better slay them and remove their fetid kind from our stars.
Cities might be a bit too cavalier in that regard, but there's not to say that the local chapter may not be up to some nonsense of their own.
What data do you possess on the ruins?
Oh, very, very little myself.
I, they're just local things related to the, to the grim harvest.
Inconsequential as far as the records go.
The laborers cared less about some old stones and more about farming.
There would be easier times around here.
Xanthar, please, I'm talking to you so nicely.
Would you perhaps prefer a low stogie and Aloysus will fish out a low stogie from his robes?
Here will calm your nerves.
Would you like this?
Maybe this will ply your lips a little bit more.
I, I, I, I, I, I'm very good.
I, I, I, I, I'm not certain that Xanthar has the information you seek.
Why would no one keep information on ruins, ancient ruins, with which people disappear?
And surely even on a backwater planet such as this, they would possess some kind of knowledge.
It doesn't add up, Captain.
It doesn't make sense.
Hey, uh, question.
As this exchange is going on, Kelrana, you've been, you've been fairly quiet.
Aye.
What are, what have you been doing during this?
Because he's kind of, like, come out from his room and is, like, very actively engaged with, you know, Aloysus and the good captain, so.
Oh, God.
And he's, he's flustered, like, he's, he's floundering.
There's.
Oh, yeah, his, his attention is so focused on, like, all of these options they're putting in front of him, and every time there's a new one, he's like, oh, that's gotta be it, yes, kill the, the heretical tech priests, or, oh, the runes are stupid, no, they should be working harder, that kind of stuff.
Okay, okay.
Has he gone back into his room?
No, he's, like, come out into this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he, he pushed the door open, so.
I'm gonna walk into his room.
Are you gonna do this stealthy-like?
Yes, I am.
Would you, uh, would you like to give me one of those there stealth checks?
Yes, indeed.
What's the DN?
Okay, so the DN's gonna be a bit higher, but not in the, like, as high as it would be with everything else going.
Right.
Um, so, I think what you're gonna look for here will probably be a difficulty five check.
Ooh, difficulty five.
Yeah.
Uh, do I...
But that would, like, that would give you, well, actually, no, no, no, you know what, in this case, it's gonna be difficulty four.
Oh, okay, because he's very distracted.
He's very distracted, and then again, he's distracted, and you're past the security stuff, right?
So.
You have two glory if you mess up the roll.
And you got two wrath.
I got two wrath, and I got two glory.
Y'all mind if I spend at least one other, uh, glory on, uh, this roll?
Do you remember, you roll first, and then consider.
Oh, yeah, roll first, and then consider.
So, DN four.
Yep.
All right.
Beep.
Ew.
Complication!
Yay!
Let's go!
With four failures, one success, would you like to, um, would you like to wrath that?
I would like to wrath that.
That's fair, that's fair.
You may wrath that.
I'd like to wrath that.
Wrath queen.
Oh, okay.
Wrath that.
All right, all right.
Damn!
Okay.
Sure, okay.
What did you roll, for people listening?
I rolled, uh, uh, I first rolled one success, and then I re-rolled three dice, uh, and now
I have six successes.
Yeah, you got, you got, you got, got two sixes and a four, is basically what you got.
So, it doesn't do a roll for Foundry, just for people's context, because it's not going
to do the, and then throw stuff for us.
It just updates the dice when we do it in Foundry, so.
Oh.
You might want to vocalize it for people, so it's like, oh, there's so much change.
Because people listening in their car, it's going to go, what happened?
What happened?
What happened?
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah, uh, I'll go ahead, um, I didn't need to actually spend any glory for that, so I'm
going to keep that shift for myself, and I'm going to shift it into a, a, a better, a better
outcome.
Okay, okay, so you're going to, okay, so, so real quickly here, um, on a, okay, on a success,
okay, yeah, so you're going to succeed here, all right, so, this gets you, you into the
room, unabated, now, like, you're in there, Fuda has not noticed you, the next step would
be investigating the room.
Indeed.
Um.
So I've got the complication to figure out.
That is correct, so I am going to get you to click that complication button for me.
I get sucked into the warp, uh, well, uh, an old wound flares up in pain, or you're distracted
by a memory.
Ooh.
Yeah, you, you come back into this, you, you come into this room, and, and you need, like,
you, you need to know what's going on.
There is something, there is something in here that you just, you have some, like, type that,
that you think is tied to you in some, some important way, and you need to know it.
You're actually, like, now that you're in here, and, like, confident that no one's seen
you, you're, you're almost willing to throw caution to the wind, and you will do whatever
it takes to find what's in here.
All right.
Yeah.
Kelrana's Path of the Mourner, so that's a mean one.
Uh, yeah, so, just distracted by the memory, just old emotional wounds flaring up again,
catching a quick glimpse over her shoulder of that stone that Ruse won't fucking let go
of, just.
He's petting it.
I love you, Commissar.
I miss you.
Commissar, fucking Commissar, right, right.
Just sniffling just one little tear down the cheek that she stoically just wipes off, and
then, uh, I'm going to, um, I'm going to roll, I assume it would be Investigation.
Yep.
Um, because, yeah, I, I can't, I can't beef this up with any psychic anything, can I?
And remember, you did put a Glory into the pool with, or, or, sorry, you, you, you can put
the Glory into the pool with the shift, too, because getting extra, there's no shift benefit
for this stuff.
Oh, no shift benefit?
Then, yeah, I'll add an extra Glory.
So, so you can bump up the Glory by one, um, that'll bring us two, three now, I think,
and then, yeah, you can, um, yeah, you can, you can give me an Investigation check.
All right, I'm going to look around.
Investigation is pretty okay.
Uh, D in, what, three, two, seven?
Uh, the, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Uh, the difficulty here is going to be six.
Oh, I was kidding, I was kidding!
Uh, okay.
Yeah, good luck, Elf.
Yeah.
My, my Investigation's okay, but not that okay.
Well, you know, look at what you did last time.
Just believe in the heart of the cards.
I got three Glories, so.
Roll it, roll it, wrath it, glory it.
Bip it, bop it, you know, boom.
We're all gonna die.
Well, I didn't complicate, but that's one success so far.
Uh, yeah, I feel comfortable.
Okay, so it's wrath first, and then add glory afterward.
Okay.
Correct.
So I will re-roll with the wrath.
Not bad.
Whoops.
Uh, and then do you guys mind if I dump the glory?
Yeah, go for it.
I am okay.
Go for it, why not?
Okie dokie.
Okie dokie.
Okie, that's another six.
Six, that is a six.
That is dead on.
You rolled a four, six, and a one.
A four, a six, and a one, so that brings me right to the threshold.
I right, I just made it.
Okie.
So as, as this goes on, you begin to search.
Um, you find a data slate.
A heavy use data slate.
Um, that you're pretty sure has been, like, used a lot.
So there's probably some pertinent data on it.
I don't like it the way that you say it's used a lot.
Yeah.
Along with that, you also find a hidden compartment underneath the bunk as you're going through everything.
The conversation now in the other room is reaching kind of that heated point where it's like, oh, yeah, the tech heresy, of course, of course.
Um, that's when you find that there is some kind of hidden compartment on it.
Uh-oh.
Can I get it popped open?
Yeah, you could open it.
Yeah, I'm just going to pop that shit open.
There's a severed human head inside.
The head is inscribed with a rune on it.
Um, it is also inscribed, well, it's inscribed with several runes on it, I should say.
And then it is inscribed with the Logothic tongue of the humans.
But what's, what's interesting to you is that you, you recognize the meaning of both the Logothic and the rune, because these runes are known to you.
Um, and it simply says, remember your oath carved into the head, the forehead of the severed head.
These are Eldari runes.
They are specifically Drukhari runes.
Drukhari runes.
Drukhari runes.
What the fuck?
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
All right, a little change.
I was just making that one were weak.
All right.
Dad was saying Necron the entire time, and now it's like.
That recontextualizes some things.
You know, I was thinking it might have been the spooky robots, but no, it's just the sex perverts.
Yay!
the sex perverts
how do you react to this because i like
this is where your complication now like
obviously takes hold like
you aren't really i'm gonna say that
the complications take hold is like the panic
like when you see this and when it all reaches
it's kind of like a climax
like there's some kind of reaction
that does startle and bring everyone
else into this
yeah
did you find
something in there kirana
don't throw her cover she's sneaking
and like you see food and like like his head
like whip cracks
oh now he's seen her
he runs kind of goes oh come on
yeah just like
a slew of
eldari expletives just
the motherfucking
story
like
like like those of you in the in the sort of waiting room area
with futa you you hear him like
again like looking around his head like whipping back and forth and you see you hear him kind of whisper a little bit like
somebody's got a dirty little secret that he needs to explain to me right now
yeah she's like she's like she's got the head like she's holding it by the hair uh walks up to him and just shoves it in his face looming down over him her massive frame
somebody's got somebody's got some explaining to do so why don't we start talking now or i'm going to twist you into a pretzel and i'm gonna make the things that my dark cousins do look like child's play you explain
now
i level
sorry go ahead go ahead speaker i level my volley gun at this guy
it's like immediately drawn point
yeah i encourage you to cooperate
oh go on go on
sorry i was supposed to filter
everyone to the room like i assume with his massive
ball he starts stamping for it doesn't encourage
this guy to back up into the room
okay okay like like basically like get everyone into the more sealed room and close the door
type of a thing yeah yeah i basically i'm trying to keep a thing so basically just kind of cues
everyone's getting their stuff ready rooster kind of comes over and he looks over at alden goes
don't worry boss i know how this works and he presses the button to the side beep closes the
door and he's like my comments all told me this i'll get his legs first you say nice things to him
roose that's not your whatever oh i'm sorry he looks down sad no roose has the right idea just
the wrong methods my friends it's so wonderful it's bring my crew to work day and eloise says
smiling wider than you ever have seen him his teeth are disturbingly disturbingly gray
oh xanthar i'm so happy to make your acquaintance in an official capacity are we in are we in uh
xanthar's room right now or we get yeah yeah yeah like roose has basically shuffled you all
out of the little foyer into the room it's closed now xanthar my friend allow me to
reintroduce myself i am eloise's half sig and i am a member of the adeptus mechanicus but
you may help me better and forgive me if i'm being a bit forward here he'll put out his
mechanical hand the icon of the inquisition will flare to life i am a member of the order of xenos
and you're going to tell us everything or i'm going to alongside my good friend kilrana
show you exactly what your captors are not capable of or i'll eat your legs
he'll eat your legs too he can do whatever he wants after we're done
he is he is shaking like like if you were not like as well versed you would assume he's like
about to instant transmission he's shaking so much because as he just like looks up at you looks over
at roose looks looks back at kelrana kind of like hopes to look to alden for support but sees alden is
the one with the gun trained on him um he just like then like looks again back at you and he just
mouths in the most pitiful whimper help me
we could help you we could certainly help you if you answer the right way
now it is clear to see that you know a little bit more about the midnight harvest and all of the
sordid details of these disappearances certainly more than you let on so let's take things from the
top and does aloysius given that he also has been he knows eldari does he understand the runes as well
oh yeah yeah okay like they're they're they're close enough like this is like very basic meaning
so like can you speak full on drukhari no but you you get enough of the meaning here right
remember your oath
why would you a outstanding member of the amyntistratum
one have xenos scripture implicating you in some kind of drukhari plot
let alone the severed head of a fellow imperial
were you a spirer i would think nothing of this but given the circumstances this does not look good
it's not i i was one of the grim harvest i went on a quota mission to see the fields and they took me
i watched everyone else they got them and the thing ate them it's horrible it's horrible i say
the thing what thing
beast a monster
describe it
claws
was it with the individuals that left you this message
oh
oh
oh
it was it was in the beginning
it was i i don't remember much i i i
he falls unconscious
bruce turns to olden do we do good shot
we're doing good you've done much better than i expected
xenos
other name
kerana thank you it seems as if we owe you a debt
without your investigation we would have all been deceived and we could all be enslaved to the
jokari by now god i could have milked like two more sessions out of that too
like
fucking odo comes in clutch
he's like i don't trust this guy
i could have had you dancing around eight more factions
the gms curse everybody
i'm sorry i investigated good i got one good role thurston
don't get used to it true i'll remember this in combat so will the dice
no no no no wait wait wait wait
can somebody
saw these ruins tied to the druci somehow
fuck that's bad that's deeply fucked
they're feeding it to some sort of thing it could be one of the chimera it could be
one of the homunculus's creations it could be
god any number of things
i don't know what form this freakish menace we are about to face will take
what i do know is that drukhari bleed and die like anyone else
they do but they're very very good at making sure you do it first so let's take a step back
we will need to be quite
tactical
less cavalier
i do know at least one thing that we have over them
i know that they don't have any means of stopping me from looking in on them
because drukhari don't have anyone attuned to the immaterium don't like to keep them around
so i can get a quick look at these ruins from afar but we should probably be gearing up for a fight
or at least some kind of
break in
i couldn't agree more but there is one advantage we do have now
i'm going to uh indicate towards our fallen administratum clerk
this man presumably under the orders of his drukhari captors
was going to have us continue to pit the mechanicus
and the local minestorum against one another
now we can circumvent that entirely and unify them against a common threat
aloysus
yes captain
kelrana
i want you both to see if you can resuscitate this man imminently
oh i thought you would never ask
aloysus takes off his glove underneath you see his mechanical arm brimming and shifting as from
out the palm extends the familiar
i don't they're not piezoelectric but electrical coils of an arc pistol
with some modifications thurston i would like to set this art pistol from kill to give him a little shot
just a little just a little case just just give me a give me a little medicaid check here
absolutely i don't know exactly how i would do it but could i possibly assist
you could you could like i'll let you assist sure sure sure how do you wanna what skill are you
think like like like psychically also wake it like like wake him up both physically it's okay i got
what was the dn on it do you i don't i don't think it was eight successes oh wow oh gosh yeah uh
the difficulty there is definitely not uh eight so you're good um i'll even give you a shift off
that because it wasn't gonna be sick so if you want some glory i'll take the glory there's like this
like as he gets back up suckling in air just as kelrana even prepares to touch the immaterium
and there's just like welcome back to consciousness to your friend
did you enjoy your nap
i'm so sorry i threw myself on your to your mercy
oh but for the same mercy my friend the caves you must go to the ruins
why are you his legs now no
all of you hold a moment
bruce freezes he doesn't move this man
is not beyond redemption
aloysius have you ever endured a drukari attack
that's a great question
um i have tinkered in my explorations
with some drukari weaponry
rarely suffering a direct encounter with them
but they are quite painful
i have
i earned my bones as a transport captain with the chartists
i and many others had to endure drukari raids on our supply lines
i've seen many good captains dragged into that darkness
darkness and on more than one occasion even when they could be rescued they were marred and broken
beyond repair hey hey speaker yes speaker do you want to do you want to get two points of glory for the party
yes i would love to
i want you to go into an in-depth analysis of how the dark eldar work in battlefleet gothic and how it pertains to this scene
i guess he would do that
no
the drukari are relentless utilizing some advanced mimicry they can disguise their vessels as imperial
vessels up until they're just close enough within knife-fighting range
they tend to eschew their larger craft there are no heavy cruisers no battleships among their fleet
merely thousands and thousands of deadly frigates and light cruisers
jagged like knives
they hit fast and the moment things turn against them they flee
but even their frigates
in concentration i've seen them rip apart imperial battle groups with impunity
they are opportunistic dreadful
sharpened impaler drop pods
sheer through vessels
and i've seen kill teams of cabalites ravage even a mighty astartes kill team
they are not to be underestimated they are vile and this man though he has betrayed his fellow humans
he has done so
out of fear and terror
this is not i'm so terrified
i have little sympathy for weakness
but i do believe
despite your sins
xantha
you may yet be redeemed
your station here
will not continue
never again will you set foot on this planet
but if you agree to cooperate
i will give you a chance to join my staff
and find some solace in the god emperor
rather than face the execution you are so justly owned
oh oh anything anything i'll do anything i'll i'll i could show you where where their their dark
lair is within the rooms i i can i can even even get you get you past my stooges and
the children of dawn
excellent
i look at aloysus we are going to now meet with the adeptus mechanicus
arrange a meeting aloysus
xantha you are going to share with them everything you have shared with me
and we are taking control of this situation
i can't i can't
i slap him you can you will do your duty damn you
i understand that it is hard to keep to one's honor and discipline in the face of eternal torment
but i am giving you an option an option greater than that which scum like you deserve you have
sentenced countless of your fellow humans to torture unending at the hands of these madmen
if you wish yeah difficulty three intimidation please absolutely
uh i'm gonna go ahead and give you five successes
and a glory and a glory glory
all right all right all right i'll do it all do it i
i didn't have a choice the the cutting the claw thing
you and i will have much to discuss
but had i no sympathy for your plight i would have shot you rather than given you this chance
do not forget that i don't want to be shot who does now then
aloysus make contact with the con we'll make contact with the mechanicus i shall make contact with the confessor
right away captain and with that we'll saunter off our group of adventurers now
well they begin to set up a meeting with the various powers let's take a break break time
break time break time break time be right back as we play our lovely sponsor ad a wrath
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so as we return our group has called together various individuals um there's the janitor who is is
brought forward this meeting i'm going to assume will take place on some neutral grounds likely um the
silos that you previously were at it could be on you know the landing platform with the ship's guns aimed
at it like you know we have you have cannons on your ship right oh yeah i mean we're a conquest class
star galleon we're a cruiser mother guns are empty everybody guns are empty no no no
what can i say they were all full when we left what did you use them on sir
i forget that i was blackout drunk firing quaint blank at the service of a derelict moon
did you get drunk and fired your guns at the cicatrix maledictum i can take it i can take it
it doesn't matter some of those hit heretics it doesn't matter who the captain is drinking is
always the constant it's true it's true every good captain has to be an alcoholic it's important
yeah it's a it's a trend here but yeah no where where are you going to uh assemble the masses
um probably a neutral location let's see where could we assemble them um we could ask them to meet
at uh why not the adaptus militarum outpost
okay okay okay you haven't been there yet is the only thing yeah we arrive and they're all dead
yeah you know what you make they're all dark eldar yeah we could get there and it's like we have a sick
meeting for you and we're just loading them into raiders
i'm canadian what uh katian that's the one yeah
remember canadia remember canadia canadia stands canadia
i'm gonna make that into a shirt
toronto broke before the raptors did i'm gonna stop with so many 40k canada fans
it's true uh all 11 of us very good
no um what what
we just meet in some farm field why don't we go to ell's restaurant everyone knows their name there
you know what we're going to meet at um the fucking spaceport we're gonna meet at the space
elevator that's where we're meeting
the elevator
i fucking love that i opened this thing with like ah so so the silo seems like a legit location
and then we just spent like five minutes being like no it's a stupid idea we're gonna be that
an idea thurston we're gonna go we're gonna meet at the space elevator which is the silo
that's a fucking terrible idea wait a second what if we did thirst an idea but my idea oh genius
genius another cunning cunning stratagem from speaker d
i took your reality that's why you're captain speaker thank you thank you oh captain me captain
me me captain me add a glory to the pool
but i want it known i want it i want it crystal
fucking clear that there's one glory in the pool now that cannot be used by speaker d
the rest of you could use it but speaker cannot use this one point the taint it that's stalling glory
right there
oh my god all right all right so um arriving at the the base of the silo uh elevator uh which is the
area where you have kind of set up your your meeting um there are
two individuals first of all the uh janitor uh heptrix
and confessor euphrates zoran position these pictures as you desire
um but they they both approach each with a a small congregation um there's some tech adepts and a
handful of combat servitors uh with the janitor and then a a small group of laborers uh with the confessor
it's the janitor who is sort of looking over everything pensively but the confessor who speaks first
what is going on we have discovered the true source of the disappearances
your two factions have both been deceived and your ongoing efforts against one another
a third party has been seeking to manipulate the faithful of both the mechanicus and the confessors
elaborate
uh aliens aliens zenos
did you seriously just pull the all right guys alien alien
aliens i'm not saying it was aliens but it was aliens thank you thank you um
you mean zenos organisms are on the planet have they somehow infected the locals is that the source
of these people's madness
yes no no i'm a quietus oh i'm sorry captain did did you want to speak instead aloysius you may have
the floor oh why thank you so much he gives you a nice little grin i smile
a little noogie smiling so neatly i'm styling at you so neatly captain thank you stop raps no
okay
it is not a xenovirus or any sort of alien malign technology no it is the simple art of coercion
a tour de force by drukhari it appears that they have been harvesting menials in the people of this world for some time
forcing others into silence and compliance under pain of death themselves
it would seem that those lacking in faith in the providence of him on terror in the omnisire pervading all
has damned the people of this world to being the real harvest told
all this time you two have been played against each other your factions squabbling grasping at straws the
illusions of a problem that never really existed on either of your behalves
convenient obfuscation that it was your records have been falsified your tabulations dear janitor
skewed by such data but at the heart of this it is not the weakness of human spirit
the absence of sure calculations but the foul taint of the xeno at the heart of it all
this is now a investigation an official investigation by the order xenos
and you two are ordered to comply that we might root out this bowel heresy at its source
make a persuasion i was actually just gonna say give me give me give me give me persuasion there
please what's my diff this is gonna be a difficulty six difficulty six oh that's a toughy
it's a very toughy let me check here can help right juice this people can help i would love to help
given that i am the rogue traitor and good at talking to dudes how many people can help thurston
um okay so like the actual thing for for skills and assistance in this are a bit different um so let me
pull up the specific rules for making scooted checks and assisting because i
sorry guys i didn't mean to stop them no no no no no no no they're kind of uh they're kind of a
different um rule set in fact they don't even know if there is wanted to find a way that like
all of our powers combine yeah we all get to do a thing but yeah i'm just gonna say you can all
make checks and we'll do it that way but like i think the aid is like fairly yeah i think it's one
person because if i think about it then you could super pull a bunch of dice correct like and that's the
thing i'm okay with acquiescing just let speaker do it my bad well i mean it was um there's a loisus
who did the who did the the yeah no yeah the big speech speakers speakers helping that's what i'm
saying yeah yeah cool all right i will let you both give me a check no no no um yeah so in in your
case the loisus will be six but speaker your difficulty will be four for your check to assist
very good let's see what happens hold on everyone i think i should assist i think that the foul xenos
should speak yeah yeah you see actually i got a six on every die but my my uh wrath die and
the complication i got um i got seven successes and a complication okay okay okay so so to be what the heck
and a complication what isn't assisting the critical speaker adds their dice gives them them
dice instead for assisting or that's how that works that you just give them dice with the base value of
the skill yeah well well yes um that that's one way of doing it i'm checking something else here but i
what i'm what i'm looking at sorry i'm making sure sorry um hulky you didn't get sixes on everything
you're you're right i missed yeah okay i got an icon on everything and speaker you didn't complicate
you got a critical oh okay so i'm not having a stroke here like that's what's in chat right like
i'm not you're losing your mind he he he complicated oh yeah you're looking at my intimidation critical
yeah scroll down hey okay sorry oh i see why it's not because because chat wasn't updating for me that's
why that would be why yeah basically he rolled he got seven successes he can shift one but uh
speaker complicated there we go sorry no no literally boundary just just bunked up on me and
it i'm just saying out loud uh and hulk he rolled three fours and one five so then got four successes
for his d and six roll me uh roll me roll me that complication let's let's start with that absolutely
lost item
all right here's what's gonna happen i think i think the the argument starts to blare up like
the words have a bit of a of a meaning um aloysus has reached people but then but then like some of the
old rivalries start to come and it's like it can't be alien that is illogical and then the confessor is like
oh faith is what defines us our faith is what will see us through this and and through faith we shall
persevere and then they start yelling and shouting and you realize um alden that the only way you
could you can like reassert um some kind of control which will give you like the success you need is to
just fire your gun wildly yeah i'll take out and i'll fucking empty a clip into the into the ceiling
as you unload it yeah like up you're you're in the open area of the silo so just kind of like laser
bolts up into the sky are you servants of the imperium or are you children
if you do not believe my cohort we have more witnesses to attest to this
technically mars is a separate institution but i understand what you're saying
great captain shoot that guy i shoot that guy okay can i eat his legs
give me an attack on the janitor uh maybe i won't shoot that guy
maybe that would not serve my purposes of uh calming the room generally no but you need to get more skills
and intimidation for that that's true that's true do you see this thing that i have this piece of
paper in my pocket it means i can kill anybody i want to because i'm cool and you're not
so true that's it that's it they are they're all like it says kill permit colon yes and sharpie
there's it's like signed emperor but it's spelt wrong
no you're good uh we're having fun um all right so as as you've kind of like gain gained a bit of
control in the situation uh like aloysius do you want to sort of hand things over to the captain to
sort of mediate more of this now or you're going to keep going you feel like you've got your in here
aloysius does have some skills but the captain has much better persuasion skills
captain
you know we're going to have to do maintenance all that way now
certainly certainly why don't you uh for what is to come let me take a that you
i was making inroads and it's it's a whole thing now but it's fine awkward silence
the moment is like silence everyone and now we're maintaining the gun yeah
right right then if i may
xanther
of the adeptus admidistratum was captured by the wretched drukhari raiders he and an unknown
quantity of individuals have systematically manipulated data
to give the adeptus mechanicus genitals wise though they may be improper information as to the
efficacy
of the true and noble confessors and imperial faithful with this information it seemed only rational
indeed necessary to uproot tradition in favor of servitors
likewise
drukhari agents within many of the faithful here have continued this illusion and have been responsible for
the so-called harvest yes indeed your people have been harvested but not the faithless as the confessor
has been deceived into believing but rather good earnest imperial men and women that have been fed to the
appetites of the most depraved xenos species imaginable
kelrana's standing like right here just like the worst type of people ever
seriously it's okay to be racist to all of them
it's really true you can just be racist to all of them they deserve it they're horrible
we hate them we hate them all there's going to be some comment here thinking we're all like
i i don't claim my cousins
shut the fuck up shut the fuck up kelly hey hey calrana how about you don't blow your cover
i hold on i need my novelty earmuffs yes go get those
they have like i heart the emperor on them
and if you do not believe my story perhaps xantha could explain it himself or better yet
allow this head to do the talking volume and i'll throw the severed head with the runes on it
into the floor for everyone to see
like the janitor picks it up with a mecha dendrite fascinating
and i assume you kind of give like xanthar like a little push forward
yes well well yes i i i was claimed by one of these so-called green harvests it was it was awful
it they they took me into the ruins those
those crystals monstrous it's uh
their their their their depravity knows no bounds no bounds i say i say i say uh
but but but i i believe they would would have come here in larger numbers and in force
if we hadn't sacrificed some for the the good of the many yes it's the good of many that's what i've
been involved in trying to stymie the flow of of of these depredations on us
they look at xanthar disappointed
as you can see as you can see i'm the good guy here
um i think i've never done nothing at this point okay i think i don't shoot him okay i won't shoot him
then you get a voice let's see the good captain leveling his gun
and xanthar's whoa reloading reload casually reloading slow your roll my friend please
our our dear administrator clerk death would be a kindness to someone of keys standing what what no no no
but the inquisition they said they said they said that i would be able to go on their ship and
and and be part of their crew that they were okay with that you'll be part of their crew as a piece of living furniture
please let me let us do you a kindness the inquisition will treat you so much better
perhaps your skull serving as a repository for more data would be a more fitting reward for your heresy
we shall see your status xanthar but that you still justify your actions now i killed men for less
i speak not to this worm but to the rest of you aliens are on your planet stealing your people turning
you against one another you have two options fall to the predation of the xanos fall to one another
grasping at each other's throats like rats in a drowning sea or to hold hands mend the breach
rally your forces and together drive these alien dogs off this world and restore order
give me a leadership test for that let's go difficulty five okie dokie uh alien dogs that
aren't me for clarity stop telling everyone you're an alien dude stop blowing your cover bro
let the earmuffs do their job stop saying you're an alien she's she's going alien like
this is all a test for you just you know and aloysius will like put his arm around calorada similarly
tall it's like come here look i'm not gonna lie to you chief if you keep saying this kind of
shit i literally will have to vivis set you i don't want to ruin this partnership that we have
all right just i just i appreciate roost who's like she's not that clever
what a beautiful duang would anyone like to assist me
it's all on you doug okay yeah it's on you i'm gonna steal two of the glory but not the one glory
i'm not allowed to steal okay i'll roll that after this because i remember it
so you don't have to oh for context uh chat give you a wrath back oh lovely well i go ahead and
honestly i actually make the check and kelron yeah you do i do complicate with a complication
but complications are fun yeah i want it to be like another lost item and you have to just fire
another mag yeah physical mishap please let me have accidentally pushed xanther off the side all
the way down to the ground yes done done everyone's celebrating and it's like yeah
yeah like the people start cheering like the tech the tech congregation is this like really stoic
and there's like cheering and like get them off the planet yeah yeah yeah and like like i assume like
there's just like this exhalation from you and like a gent what is intended to be a gentle shove
like i don't know anybody else hear a thud and then he's gonna come back later as part of the final
boss thing go they threw me off they did and he's like he's got all like jokari mechanics on him he's
all monstrosity now like i'll kill you i i look down
so there's a small problem he knew where the lair was that is true
i'll go get him he's dead is he dead dead oh like like a space elevator
he was like he was like an old man who clearly needed a hip replacement already
who fell off bruce bruce kind of puts his fists on his head and looks at calrana going
come on calrana don't get me come on lucky man well
uh i don't know if i can pull information out of his brain with psychic powers i'm just gonna go to
oh my god i'm just gonna butter after him genitor see if you can reclaim anything from that
stain on the ground wait right what you have you have convinced these locals
but you have not quite convinced me
oh good god there is an important question i must ask yes
should the elevator be manned by people or machines come on now man is now the time
roose looks it up goes why not both
yeah
cheers
and everyone clapped and then they gave bruce a whole thrones
wait wait wait one sec one sec i need to check something give me a moment
roose
yeah
checking something i got no negotiation skills brother
my cunning zero deception zero awareness still zero persuasion zero let me get like a one
oh that's what makes it that's what makes it i'm gonna i'm gonna say give me a difficulty
okay i believe in him come on baby roll me a six bam
i got a two i'm gonna wrath it yeah wrath it wrath it rather baby
point oh yeah i gotta go do our interface
why don't you use the glory instead uh you have to wrath first see if i get the six and then i
can do the little glory yeah fair enough order operation so i got nothing all right now i gotta
use the the one glory we don't have three because you used the two at the you know i didn't i didn't
i didn't use it i was going to but i succeeded without it oh okay okay i'll keep that minus then
i'll take the one extra then uh take all three to give me a chance so i'll roll these one by one
to see how we do come on baby one d six goes that's a one okay i got two chances left yeah two chances
i believe roll another one boost it's a three i gotta get a six man i gotta get a six come on i just need one
one baby i just need one more it's a five please
can i run it is simple i can't wrath twice can i no darn it oh well we tried
the ogren is a simple creature who has simple solutions to complex problems someone could have
assisted me no no i said no no fuck you fuck you i tried
you know it's all well it's just unfortunate that your hardware is just not compatible
but i mean that's my question i mean you know incompatibility is the worst thing for all machines
you don't fit into the slot you don't fit into the slot
what did you say hey no what did you say you don't fit into the snow
you're incompatible
that that is wisdom right there
so true you you have touched the organics beneath my hard cold metal exterior
and reminded me that there are simple things in this galaxy that must be protected
like you like you you are the simple thing
he smiles he pats you on the head with the mechanism right he smiles
so sneely it's no sneely yeah
who the people can help maintain the machines and then you're all working together
uh that means no compatible
yes i could i could see something like this yes
what do you say and he looks over to the i forget her name um
oh the confessor yeah and i come on confessor they can help oil the machines so the machines can be
super efficient with the elevators and if there's any missing parts the machines can keep working
and other humans can replace the parts with the help of the mechanicus and bruce looks at both
among us come on what do you say
i suppose it could work but but but if anyone dies we we we think they should be servitors
who's like the confessor going okay not supposed to put the hands where it's not supposed to be
it's the risk but our families they we have burial rights and and and
i mean when they expire the servitor put them in the ground
that is an interesting compromise they'll still get there just a little delayed
i love ruse wisdom moments can i just say like the pinnacle you are what yeah
liberals aspire to be ruse correct exactly like it just takes them a little longer to get there after
the reserve a single tear is shed by the emperor all the way back on terra
yes bruce looks back at the crew gives a toothy thumbs up
yes i believe this arrangement is acceptable
more cheers from the people lots of cheers but this does not
not alleviate the greater concern
what are we to do about the xenos you want to gather your warriors both of you march under my
command you will head to the caves but have warriors i i swear to god some people
i have some combat servitors
gather your combat servitors confessor raise levies send volunteers that are willing to die for the
emperor with me that would be the colonel who would do that
most excellent then we will come into contact with the colonel we will bring whatever pdf forces
we can and we will march into the heart of hell and we will stop its cold black blood right there
captain well wasn't there a place for a head of the people with guns yes there is
one of the laborers kind of like raises a hand like in fifth grade yes laborer 225
yeah what about the uh children of the don they're compromised okay well the guy says i'm one of the
children of the doctor the confessor the confessors you're they are yours are they ma'am no no i had
nothing to do with their creation i have no idea who puts together such an organization clearly the own
fanatics like that would only listen to their leader
i look at the confessor
but it's not me
then who is it
when i cut back to like an hour ago when fuda referred to the children of the dawn as his stooges
then i want you to remember that i look back down take a look off the edge look back
if anyone needs me i'll be in my quarters killing myself memories the gate is down i'm gonna
ah yes the dude you killed
oh yeah funny how those things work out like that thanks complications
so we're
i look at kelrana i appreciated your reactions you were my favorite there i'm like
fuck you thurston you're not gonna give us our army so we can just go in
you literally took bullets out of our orbital guns
i'm of course i'm a little mad
oh yeah okay how how's the how's the wrath and glory show everyone well they had two social
encounters and then fired the cannons of the cruiser that's the most meme response ever is the
exterminatus button it's only thing they want
and so i need to buy the feet bombardment to be able to you know a really good rogue trader once
had that talent yeah and we never exactly you know we use it once no you used it in the best
way in that in that like third episode yes but did did you you can get that bombardment like like
now right when you created your character yeah i could have but i needed to spend a lot of xp to be
able to use my cool gun wait wait wait you have a flying cannon the size of a cathedral
in orbit yeah and instead of putting talent points in that to have a rolling bombardment from a spaceship
cannon row you traded that for a plasma pistol okay first up not a plasma pistol i traded it
for a hot shot volley gun it's much worse that's right the pistol was the other one okay
let's continue on all right second up i would like to fire a gun more than once a session if that's okay
with you again they'll all be dead we'll level the map this guy doesn't read that again if he
doesn't read that again he failed
zoran zoran yeah shut up
holy shit i'm gonna die ells and chat everyone else
anyway
oh god guys there's a bunch of oh no there's three
fucking uh triesmen attacking us local barrel worlders what should we do oh we'll just fire
the bombardment cannon!
That's right!
We did it before!
And we lived!
We killed all the people who we didn't
want to not be killed!
I'm gonna get you.
I'm gonna get you.
You know, instead of getting me, you can get
yourself another copy of Zetiquette, mister, and you can
read up on the rules of engagement.
Speaker. You can read up on
Procedure Nolo Contenere.
I can beat all of you guys in Battle of the Gotham.
I don't even care. Spook. Speaker.
You know what'll make this better?
What? Okay, I have a thought.
It'll probably make everything better.
Could you, um, turn your
microphone around for us?
Shut the fuck up.
Absolutely! Such things can be
achieved, all thanks to
Zoran's wonderful insights
on my character creation.
I mean, really,
I don't know what I'd do without that kind of commentary.
Why the fuck do I pay you?
Why do you? Why do you?
I don't know why I'd pay you at all.
It's all, it's all gonna be like this
forever!
Forever!
Forever!
I love you.
It's been three years of torture.
Three years of torture so far.
Erndel's not here, so I gotta
make someone mad.
So, all right.
Slow us back down.
Oh, my stomach hurts.
The guy, the leader guy that we were 100% confirmed on
is dead.
We pushed him off the side of the thing.
Oh, yeah, yeah, he got, he got, he got tossed up.
We have completed the quest
of reuniting these two guys.
We are now uniting the peasantry
to get guns, and, uh,
we are now trying to
basically organize that and figure
that out, uh, with no
ammo in our, in our ship.
Wait, okay.
Why, why do we have the running thing
of there's no ammo in our ship?
The nurse said so, God said no!
Yeah, yeah, God said no.
There's no ammo.
Oh, God said no?
Oh, yeah, I guess I did, yeah.
We did make that bit about
junk, drunk driving.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was the whole thing
about you firing at the
signatures, well, it did.
I like to, I like to imagine
you trying to shoot at a moon
and make a smiley face.
That's, that's my headcanon.
On the moon.
On the moon?
On the moon.
Um, yeah,
Roost looks at Holden
and Kel'Rana and Lysus
and goes,
I'll be ready to fight, sir.
I'll be ready to hit you
for a good stab,
and he shows his ripper gun
with a huge bayonet.
Indeed.
We'll attempt diplomacy.
Kel'Rana,
I'm going to ask you
for an annoying favor,
but only because
I can only trust you
to do it.
Aye.
I'm going to ask you
to go down
to that body,
see if there's anything
remaining of his head,
and then cut the bastard's
bloody head off.
Oh, boy, goody.
Perfect.
All right.
It's going to get me
something really sharp.
Yes, I'll hand you
my power sword.
Thank you.
And then,
if you can,
write Drukhari runes on it.
Write Drukhari runes on it?
What do you want it to say?
These bastards
can barely read Logothic.
They won't be able
to read Drukhari.
Make it say something
about a fluffy bunny.
I don't care.
All right.
You got it.
I'll do my best.
Don't actually make it say that
on the off chance we meet.
No.
Okay, wait, no.
I'm tempting fate.
Make it something
threatening and evil.
All right.
Threatening and evil,
my two specialities.
Get out of here.
Going.
She's going to
take the power sword
and put her off.
Just, like,
cut this man's head off.
Okay.
We're heroes, by the way.
We're the good guys.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Welcome to the 41st millennium.
We're the good guys.
You do not want to meet
the bad guys, everybody.
Oh, my God.
All right.
All right.
Sorry.
We are the good guys.
So you go head hunting
and manage to find the,
like, there's not even really
enough to salvage here.
Let's be perfectly honest.
This is...
This is kind of
demeaning to you.
Like, there's, like,
a splat here.
Any thought there would be
a head or
more than a few
tatters of skin
from the beef
Stroganov
explosion
that is
Xanther
Futa.
May we never have to say
his last name again.
True.
Is...
Is right here.
I wasn't going to ask
if it was spelled that way.
There's an H
at the end of it.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh, that makes more sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Uh...
Cap'n.
What?
It's a red smear.
It's over the box.
Like...
Captain.
All right.
I'll just use my weird
warp voice in his brain.
Captain.
What?
Oh, my goodness.
Not again.
I swear I'll be a better person.
Huh?
Yeah.
Kelrada's just going to, like,
uh, uh, uh,
take the power sword
and prod
at this
pile of meat.
And she's just going to
very
carefully
spell out
the Drukhari
rune
for
what's a funny
word?
Uh,
yeah, she's going to
spell out the Drukhari
rune for
uh, uh,
tits.
There you go.
Wow.
Just something
really vulgar.
It's
very classy.
I like it.
Just, just like,
like,
like you've got
the kind of, like,
friggin' high school,
like,
look at me,
I'm so,
I'm so witty.
Xbox Live with it,
like,
yeah, oh my gosh,
your mom.
Exactly, yeah.
I played a lot of games
on Webway Live.
It was, uh,
experience.
Oh my gosh.
It was so true.
Yeah, she's just going to
write something really crass,
uh, uh,
and then put her back up
and hand the sword back
to, uh, uh,
the good captain.
It's in all their posts
on MyWay.
You know,
Webway,
MyWay.
All right,
what on earth
does this say?
Uh,
it says
death
and destruction.
Very good,
very good.
I'll have to remember
that for later.
Now then.
I just give Aloysus
a knowing glance,
like,
don't you dare tell him.
He's smirking.
He's smirking so big.
Yes,
we'll have to have
this carved into
several bodies
to intimidate them.
But I'll put it
on the front of my ship
on the mast.
Drukari are very often
intimidated by more
and more bodies,
captain.
Correct.
I bet you that
if we started throwing
in, like,
dead Trueborn
that just had
tits engraved
all over them,
the Drukari
Kabalites would look
at each other and go,
you know what we need
to do?
We need to get
the fuck out of here.
That's what we need
to do.
Yeah.
Who knows
what the fuck's
happening on that ship?
I don't know
what the fuck's going on.
We need to go
somewhere else, bro.
This is not worth it.
This is like
the universal
Drukari sign
of you're in
a bad neighborhood.
Yeah.
It's when people
just dead bodies
with the rune
for tits
carved into them.
Exactly.
Would they take it
as a request?
Kitties?
Kitties.
Well, peace
in our time.
So, as
this is going on
and you're
defacing
the
whatever remains
of bodies,
there is
a moment
where a tech
adept
who's not
Zether
approaches you.
Sorry, not Zether.
Heptrox
approaches you.
And he
kind of
like
shuffles along
red robes
skirting, you
know, in the
wind here
because you're
still so high
up at the
top of the
silo, right?
And he
approaches and
he sort of
looks over
at you.
Greetings.
I have been
told to
report incidents
to you now.
There is an
incident.
we had a
unit that
was dispatched
to
the
west.
However, they
have encountered
resistance from
the children
of the
Don.
Oh, I see.
they are
becoming
quite
territorial
and not
letting
anyone
into the
region.
Well,
damn.
Okay, so it
seems like we're
going to have to
kill a bunch
of people.
Can we get
the local
PDF on the
line?
Anyone?
You could
attempt to
contact the
Bastion,
though you may
have to travel
there in person.
Their voxes have
been spotty for
some time.
Very good.
Confessor, if you
have any militants
at all at your
disposal, have
them meet us
here at, say,
an hour from
now.
Genitor, if you
have any combat
servitors, now
would be the
time.
I have
dispatched them
all to the
area around
the ruins.
They are
supplementing my
tech adepts
there, though
they are a
handful in
number.
Excellent.
This is a
farming and
agricultural
vocation.
Very good.
Not high
threat grade.
In that case,
Confessor, belay
that order,
coordinate with
the janitor,
send any men
that you have
that can carry
a pitchfork and
knife, and
have them
compliment the
murder servitors.
I shall go and
petition the PDF,
and then we shall
rid ourselves of
this noxious
zenos.
Okay.
So, with that,
they all scurry
off to do their
respective tasks.
You do know
that on the map
there is
Outpost
Polaris.
Here, I'm
going to actually
even update
them.
Oh, look, I
opened the
western edge.
There was a
reason I had
to hide that.
Uh-oh.
I don't think
that, you know,
people who play
Warhammer and
then make maps
are like, okay,
there's mysterious
runes.
We'll put these
mysterious runes
on the map, and
then any player
who looked at
them on the map
would immediately
tell what they
were, as I'm
sure you're all
looking at the
runes being like,
yes, definitely
Necrons.
Yeah, those
are Necrons.
Absolutely
Necron runes
on the
southwestern part
of the map
there now,
now that I've
opened it up.
There's nothing
else that could
be.
Yeah, right?
Like, those look
pretty Necron-y.
However, you're
not going there
yet.
You're heading to
the northeast,
to the outpost
at the far edge
up there,
Outpost
Polaris.
It is a
tactically positioned
on the rise of
the western
mountains,
guarding the
only one that
is not accessible
by starship.
As you approach,
there's an
immaculately kept
bastion that
stands up and,
you know, is a
impressive structure.
Now, anyone who
is anyone knows
that the Imperial
Bastion is simply
a rectangular
structure with two
levels and some
heavy bolters built
into it.
It's a very, very
common terrain kit
you could purchase
back in the day.
However, this has
some underground
installations with it
to allow for a
couple of extra
crew members to
be part of it.
But you see all of
this as you are
approaching.
And yeah, you
kind of approach,
you see this.
There is what
appears to be some
Astro Militarum
troopers kind of
on duty outside.
Two LAS guns sort
of held at the
ready as they see
people approaching.
Very good.
We'll zoom on in.
Oh, stop that.
Indeed.
What's your purpose
and duty here?
My name is Alden
Roche.
I'm here to speak
with your commanding
officer.
We have discovered
the presence of
foul Xenos on this
planet, and we are
hoping to bring a
speedy conclusion to
their presence.
Soldier gets close
to you, like right
up in your face,
in fact.
Okay.
Then proceeds to
sniff.
Smelly?
Roche kind of like
intercedes a little
bit.
Go, hey, step away
from the saw.
What's he smell like?
Just checking.
Want to make sure
you're not drunk.
You said Xenos.
No Xenos around
these parts.
Oh, there aren't.
Well, what a relief.
Then I suppose that
these scars on this
severed head
immaculately conceived
themselves.
Do you just bring
this fucking head
everywhere with you?
In lieu of the
administrator?
Yes.
So, like, okay.
I don't blame him.
I'm on his side.
No, no.
No, no, no.
I'm on his side, too.
I'm doing it for the
bit here because I
just, what I'm trying
to figure out, what I'm
trying to figure out is
like, like, when you
first did this, I was
like, okay, that's
pretty fucking epic and
cool.
Now the second time
you've invoked this, I
have to ask, like,
where do you keep it?
Like, like, do people
just see the head on
your side as you're
walking?
No, I have Roos, like,
carry it and then I,
I, like, gesture for it
and I assume that he
gives it to me.
Yeah, it's like in a
sack and he goes,
you know, presents it
and then puts it back
in the sack.
Like the Animal
Crossing.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, okay, okay.
Sorry, sorry.
It's very, like, as
someone who's played
enough, like, D&D
Pathfinder campaigns
where, like, a big
part is carrying
severed heads in
sacks, the logistics
are always very
important to me.
Anyone who has
ever dealt with
speak with dead
knows my trauma.
So, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
And then, then
Pathfinder had to go
one step further and
introduce a type of
bag of holding that
was specifically for
gentle reposing
corpses.
Oh.
Now there's a good
idea.
Yeah, yeah.
How many corpses do
just heads occupy?
This is questions I've
been asked.
Um, they, they
sort of, like, look
over you again and
see the head and
look, whoa, whoa.
I'd see no script
like that.
You should talk to
the colonel.
I couldn't agree
more.
If you don't mind
bringing me to him.
Of course.
And you come inside
and the, the
interior of this
locale is, again,
immaculate.
It's, um, like,
it's, it's, everything
is well polished.
Everything is up to
date.
There are very
clearly, like,
high standards
here.
Um, and then
you are, you are
brought into an
office with a, like,
a fine wooden
desk behind which
is a, um,
meticulously groomed
man with one of
the finest
moustaches you
have ever seen.
It has not one
but two twirls
in it.
Whoa.
He looks up at
you as you enter.
There's no art for
this guy.
I apologize.
Um, he, he looks
up as, as, as you
enter, sees you
immediately, stands
and gives, gives
the sign of the
Aquila.
I am Colonel
Cast Billnus.
It is a pleasure to
meet you and
welcome.
Colonel Billnus, I'll
return the Aquila,
saluting both the
man and his
moustache.
I am Alden
Rosch, rogue
trader.
All right, very
good, very good, very
good.
He's still holding
the salute.
I'll, uh, end the
salute.
You have aliens on
your planet, Colonel.
What?
What was that?
You have aliens on
your planet, Colonel.
I would have
smelled them.
I think...
Oh, sorry.
What?
Unfortunately, these
aliens have been
circumventing the
usual means of
detection.
They are crafty,
wily,
Eldari.
The Eldari?
Oh, they're the
third worst
Xenos I encountered
on the field.
You know, I've had
several campaigns
and I think that of
them, the Eldari are
the ones that I
preferred killing
the most.
That's excellent to
hear, Kilrana.
Don't do anything.
I didn't say
anything!
Hey, don't
blow it covered,
man.
What?
I got my
earmuffs on.
Look at...
I heart the
emperor.
You heard it
here first,
folks.
Now, that is
most excellent
and heartening to
hear.
It seems as if
the Drukhari
have set up
hosts within
the local
ruins.
They have been
utilizing proxies
within the
Administratum,
within the
local Children
of the Dawn,
and goodness
knows who
else in order
to cede their
insidious agenda.
As of right now,
I have the
genitor and
the confessor's
full cooperation
on this matter
to give an
indication of
its seriousness.
I understand,
Rogue Trader.
Rush, I believe
that what we can
do is mobilize
a full sector-wide
crackdown on
these Xenos
scum.
I'll begin
contacting people
on the Vox
immediately.
Within a few
months' time,
we will have a
force that will
strike fear into
the heart of the
Xenos.
That's excellent
to hear, but we
don't have a month
immediately.
Do you have any
men you can spare
for a surgical
assault?
I have four
men here in
total.
I can spare
two.
Oh my god.
Ah, the
Imperium.
Teaming with
trillions of lives
toiling for the
Imperium every
single day.
Planets full of
life and people.
Except this one.
Except this one.
Do you have a
Lehman Ross I
could borrow?
What's my
feeling?
What's that?
Do you have
anything?
He said,
you specifically
asked the Lehman
Ross he could borrow?
Do you have a
Lehman Ross I could
borrow?
Well, you see,
and he turns
like 45 degree,
begins marching
towards a
cabinet.
You see,
you're lucky,
for I am
someone who
truly lives
in the state
of warfare.
So,
I do not
have a
full tank.
I do have
this
fine
replica
miniature
in the cave.
I know you
rat
fuck
immediately.
I was like,
if he doesn't
mention a
window,
I know
what the
fuck
it is.
You see,
you can tell
this is a
high quality
Lehman Ross
because much
like it
and my
Rogan
don't
tank here,
I have
converted
them so
they have
the bottom
plate.
Excellent
craftsmanship.
Do you
happen to
have any
large
tanks?
tanks a
man could
ride in
to battle
for battle
purposes
to the
death?
No.
Thank you
for your
time,
Colonel.
Do you
not have
any vehicles
in any
way,
shape,
or form
or any
weapons
we could
borrow?
Well,
we have
Ethel.
Ethel?
Ethel.
Is that
named after
my first
wife?
Oh.
I can
take you
to see
it if
you want.
Why not?
What do
we have
to lose?
The fucking
resignation
in your
face.
Speaker,
now you
get to be
the broken
one.
You get to
be the broken
straight man.
I'm having
so much
fun.
So,
like,
you have to
understand,
Colonel
Crassed
Billniss,
like,
marches
everywhere.
He stands
at attention
at every
point.
He takes
this shit
seriously,
okay?
He leads
you out,
out from
the bastion
towards a
shed.
The shed
is, like,
clearly some
kind of,
like,
small vehicle
in a bit
of, like,
of a spacious
open-to-air
section,
but that's
covered by
some tarps.
He has
two of his
troopers.
Private
school,
prepare the
ethel.
Wait,
wait,
he's got
four guys.
He's got
two of
them at
his fucking
garage,
and one
of them at
the entrance.
Where's the
other guy?
On top of
the bathroom.
He's in the
bathroom.
Yeah, go
on, go
on.
All right.
Bringing
us full
circle.
Oh, boy.
You find,
as the
tarp is
removed,
what can
only be
described
as a
tactically
enhanced
tractor.
I'm gonna
kill you.
Let's
go.
It has
extra
plates.
It has
a prominent
aquila.
It looks
like one
plate,
maybe,
not even
from a
leman rust,
but from
like a
sentinel
walker that
has the
aquila has
been bolted
on to the
front here.
Oh,
Aloysus,
tell me
there is a
noble human
word for
this gorgeous
vehicle.
I believe
the phrase
in low
gothic
ease,
country boys
make do.
Country
road riding
green.
Bruce
looks at
Alden
with
childlike
eyes that
he can
kind of
see through
his shaggy
here it
goes.
Oh,
come on,
sir,
come on,
we can
definitely
take it
in for
a spin.
Imagine
the faces
on those
do
call
when we
pull up
and dance
and he
presents
it.
Alden,
I'm sorry,
hold on,
hold on.
I'm sorry
to cut you
off,
speaker.
Chat brought
up a very
good point.
This is a
lesser known
configuration
of imperial
armor.
This is a
Lionel
John Deere.
Thank you,
Duke and
Mania.
Give that
member a
hero point.
Give Duke
and Mania
a hero point.
That's gold.
That's
fucking good.
That's
perfect.
good job.
You won
today,
chat member.
That's
beautiful.
That's
really
beautiful.
That was
so good.
Oh,
fuck,
I don't
laugh so
hard.
Oh,
Christ.
Oh,
my God.
I'm going to
wake up,
my partner.
Between this
and yesterday's
Kingmaker,
I'm dead.
I'm fucking
dead,
y'all.
Holy
shit.
Okay,
okay.
I love the
comments last
time.
Oh,
yeah,
this is
Nerdex
mellow
game.
This is
more of a
mellow
tone.
It's,
you know,
cannon
Warhammer.
Yeah,
no.
Yeah,
yeah.
It's
supposed to
be a
comedy show.
All right,
but okay,
serious face,
serious face.
All right,
so the
Ethel.
All right,
so there
it is ready
for you,
the Ethel.
And like
Colonel
Crass
Bilnish
stands at
attention
beside it,
staring forward,
not meeting
any of your
gaze,
waiting to be
dressed as
you inspect
the vehicle
he has on
parade for
you.
This is the
most beautiful
thing I've
ever seen.
Oh,
my God,
the Xenos are
all going to
laugh at us.
Not to worry,
we can,
we can carve
that rune,
inscribe it
onto the front.
Will that
intimidate them?
Oh,
yeah.
It absolutely
will.
I like your,
oh,
yeah,
it's all
coming together.
Well,
you have my
blessing.
Colonel,
we'll take
this vehicle.
We might
make some
temporary
modifications.
I'm sure
you won't.
Of course,
of course.
Would you like
me to join
you in battle,
sir?
No.
No,
I want you
to not do
that.
Yeah,
who else
is going to
defend the
Bastion?
Ted?
Someone else
has got to
stay on
party over
watch.
The levies,
the levies
will require
your intrepid
leadership.
Yes,
of course,
I should
prepare in
case the
Sinos
try an
encircling
move.
I shall
break my
men in,
have them
train days
upon days
long to
prepare for
the inevitable
attack from
those treacherous
treacherous
Sinos.
I'm
certain you
will.
Where did
you say you
served again?
Well,
you see,
I've served
in a few
different
locations.
Such as?
Well,
you see,
I was there
at the
Nakmud
Gauntlet,
you may have
heard of it,
little place.
I was there
in Vigilus.
You were at
Vigilus?
Yes.
What did you
do at
Vigilus?
Well,
you see,
I was,
believe it
or not,
I was
in charge
of a tank
company.
What
happened to
your company?
Publicity.
The
vile-ish
thing.
I had
come up
with a
great tactic
to
skircle
the
despoiler's
armies on
that world.
Now,
what I did
was,
I knew
time was
of the
essence.
I couldn't
speak to
command,
so I
had my
detachment
of tanks
take an
unexpected
route to
reach the
enemy,
but
the
sorcerers
of the
enemy are
powerful.
I did
not expect
them to be
able to
transmute
the ground
into mud
like they
did.
Now,
of course,
I didn't
see them.
but my
tank company
never saw
the front
lines as
a result
of that.
That's dark
sorcery.
Question,
did the rain
come from
the sky
and make
the ground
muddy?
Yes,
that was part
of the ritual
casting they
performed,
yes.
Ah,
of course.
I love
the low
people.
Well,
Colonel,
I'll leave
you to
continue
your studies
on matters
animal,
vegetable,
and mineral.
Good day.
Of course.
Oh,
there are
salutes.
And,
uh,
I suppose
we'll be
taking Ethel
and,
uh,
we'll allow
Kelrana and
Aloysus to
put some,
uh,
terrifying
war paint
on it.
Don't worry,
I got this.
We'll soup
this baby up.
All right.
I'm excited
to roll up
with a tractor
with the Eldar
equivalent of
opi on it.
Bruce honks
the horn.
I'm done.
Uh,
I,
I do think
that this is
where we
should go.
However,
however,
however,
however,
before we
end,
I do,
I do need
to,
I do need
to read
some stuff
from this
adventure
because I
think it
will only
make it
better.
Okay.
I need
to read
some of
the section
from the
Polaris
outpost.
The
soldiers
of
outpost
Polaris
are
irredeemably
lazy and
cowardly
and view
their appointment
to this
quiet
backwater
away from
the front
lines
as a
gift
from the
emperor
himself.
There are
four guardsmen
stationed here.
They,
they make
the show
of tough
looking people
if the
agents
talk to
them.
However,
if they're
ever challenged
or engaged
in combat,
they must
make an
immediate
difficulty
to fear
test.
Colonel
Crass
to
build
this.
He is
an
uncompromising
military
individual.
He uses
the statistics
of an
astromilitarum
sergeant,
but has a
poultry
ballistic skill
of two.
That's
excellent.
That's
beautiful.
Truly the
Imperium's
finest.
I am
obsessed
with them.
I just
fucking
love the
whole like,
all right,
like we'll
go to the
Imperial
Guard
outpost
and every
revelation
was worse.
I wish
there was
Xenos
here.
Don't
worry,
Captain.
I have
some in
my cabinet.
Yeah,
don't worry,
Captain.
There are
Xenos
here.
Oh,
and I
treasure
your
presence
like a
particularly
devastating
bout of
gout.
Of course.
Well,
then everyone,
thank you all
so much for
watching Wrath
and Glory
with us all.
Please visit
the Patreon
at patreon.com
forward slash
narrative
declaration.
Thanks,
Febblecraft,
again,
for sponsoring
this episode.
We'll see you
all next time.
So long.
Bye-bye.
And we'll see
you next time.
Bye-bye.
The Dox
Fablecraft,
please don't.