Editing The Guy Who Cried Grendel (section)

=== Part IV ===



Alright, so, after the last mission, there was pretty much no way to deny that Grendel was ever so slightly different from the usual Acolyte, what with being a librarian that kills big-ass daemons and xenos like little bitches. So, after we came back and got debriefed from our last mission, we got summoned to the Inquisitorial Holdings on Scintilla, for 'Further Debriefing'. We did not like the sound of this, and were getting paranoid. But we went, since the request was delivered by a full platoon of Inquisitorial Stormtroopers and no less than THREE Inquisitors (we did not know any of them by reputation or name). But once we got there, we were split apart and put in individual rooms, all of which had, among other things, a chirurgeon, a tech-priest, an Interrogator and various mechanical implements, some of which were recognized as Pict Recorders and Excruciator Kits. Oh damn, this did not sound fun.

So, the GM plays the role of the Interrogator and crew for each player one by one, and the questions are both relieving, partially expected and at least partly disturbing in focus: Grendel. They just keep asking questions about Grendel, whether there were any details of his exploits we failed to mention, whether he evidenced signs of corruption and such. We answer truthfully, most of us erring on the side of giving more support to Grendel than is strictly necessary (he did save our lives multiple times, after all) with the exception of Cromwell, Nihilius and Inez. Cromwell just answered the questions as accurately as possible (other than a general dislike of the ecclesiarchy, he does not go in for having strong emotional investment in others), Nihilius was snide and tried to be dismissive of Grendel's accomplishments (the way he is about everyone other than himself), and Inez was getting pissed off at the potential accusations of corruption and by proxy heresy being levied at her old friend.

So, we make our way through all these dialogue sections, with only the occasional roll being used (Dakka trying to intimidate his Interrogator into letting him leave on the basis of him 'looking scrawny and therefore weak' and getting bitchslapped, etc) until finally we get to the last interviewee: Grendel himself. Now while all the rest of the party got pretty much a batch set in terms of rooms and 'interviewers', Grendel got slightly different treatment. He was in a much larger room, all three of the new Inquisitors present, our ACTUAL Inquisitor, and two Psykers. They initially start off with the same line of questioning that was applied to the others, asking if what was in the reports was true, etc. After a bit of time, someone knocks on the door, and shortly informs the Inquisitors of what was said in the other rooms (almost exactly the same as what Grendel had been saying).

Upon hearing this, our Inquisitor (Gerrod Russio, of the Ordo Malleus), gets into a quiet argument with the other three Inquisitors. After a few minutes, it becomes clear that the combined authority of these three far outweighs Gerrod, who pauses to tell Grendel 'I did what I could for you, and still find you to be the finest Acolyte I have had serve me. I was going to transfer you to my personal retinue for a few missions, and Emperor willing put you forward as a potential Inquisitor, but our Thorian friends have 'loftier goals' for you, and as such I am ordered to relinquish all claims on you.' He leans in closer while gripping his shoulder, and whispers 'try to not die' before departing. How exceptionally reassuring.

So now the Thorians advance, and sit at the table across from Grendel, who at this point is pretty out of his league. Daemons are one thing, but being the target of singular interest by MULTIPLE Inquisitors, that is something slightly different. Anyway, they begin a little cooperative speech/lecture amalgamation that does nothing to put Grendel at ease.

'Acolyte, based off the reports and documents on your service in the last several months, you have performed... exceptionally well. Too well. In all honesty, what you are recorded as having accomplished is simply impossible, and yet every investigation that has been launched has turned up nothing but further evidence to support that you have, in fact, accomplished what has been claimed in the reports.'

'Quite simply, what you have done is possible only to those who have become so infused with chaos as to be monstrous abominations, or those blessed by the God Emperor. You have been screened repetitiously and exhaustively, and it has been decided that you are not tainted by Chaos. Hence, why we are here. You could say it is our purpose to seek out those... like you. Servants of the Imperium who have performed.... too well to be feasible.'

'Hence why you are no longer under Gerrod's jurisdiction. You now will answer to us, and we already have a mission, of sorts, for you to attempt. We will bring you to meet the existing group of individuals that have been selected, and you shall then leave for your mission the next day. Timing is critical, and the mission data is highly sensitive. For now, all you may be told is that if you complete your mission, we will have more to say to you. That will be all. Dismissed.'

Now this sounded crappy to the rest of us, as we were all wondering what the hell we would be doing during Grendel's little caper, but wait! Our GM had already prepared new temporary characters for us all around Grendel's level. All of them had accomplished some decent stuff, (a couple guardsmen who held off part of a Warboss' assault alone for three days using terrain and trickery [Hak and Dakka's new chars], a commissar that strangled an astropath when he became a daemonhost [Inez's new char, complete with cybernetic everything, as the daemon did not go quietly], the tech-priest that somehow got the ship mostly safe and sound back out of the warp after the death of its astropath by temporarily taking control of the whole thing via interfacing [had good quality cortical implants and a shit-ton of talents related to machine interface, Able's new char], A cleric that burned a tau scout party to death alone [Garm's character] and two Scum who survived rescuing lo-hivers from a burning building for an hour unburnt [Nihilius and my new char's respectively]).

So, we all read over our new characters, get used to them, and find a lot to like (they all have some nice quirky history, both shining moments and personal failures, etc). Only two of them were already acolytes before this mission (Inez's commissar and Nihilius' Tech-Priest), but Grendel still outdoes them in terms of number of missions completed (with an incredible THREE WHOLE MISSIONS, WOOO). So anyway, we fast-forward to the next day, when all the new characters and Grendel are meeting each other, and introductions are made, we share confusion as to what this mission could possibly be, the brand new acolytes desperately try and get some form of advice on what to expect, only to be met with silence by their elders (a mission from three Inquisitors where all the acolytes were picked for being 'special'? Does not sound very run-of-the-mill).

So we are nervously socializing in the hangar (we were told to report there) when the three Thorian Inquisitors show up again, and gather us up. We are handed a dataslate, and told to get on a transport ship, and read the dataslate after taking off. Okay, a bit secretive, but it's the Inquisition, that's their thing. We get on the transport (a fairly large one, at that) and are told we are heading to Cantus (for Grendel, this place is familiar to a degree, not so to the others) so we strap in and wait for departure. The engines start firing up, and then falter for a minute, during which time we exchange troubled looks, and Able's Tech-priest starts fidgeting with his implants, muttering about potential problems that could be assailing the ship, when the door to our cabin opens, and who rushes in claiming to be a 'last minute addition?' BENEDICTA IS BACK. Quick introductions are made as the engines wind back up to full speed, and Benedicta quickly squeezes in next to Grendel, who looks somewhat nervous at this development, and glances up to see her staring at him smiling for a moment before looking away.

And then the ship is in the air, and we have time to bust out our data slates, and review our mission, simply titled: Crucible. Apparently the IG sent to Cantus and the PDF both have fallen to chaos with incredible speed, and there are accounts of a space marine being seen in each force, which have now abruptly begun fighting each other (the dataslate confirms that the Astartes have sent no one to Cantus). Benedicta proffers that she was sent with them as one of the few people who had been serving with the combined army in the previous skirmish, and as such has some knowledge of their armaments, troop strength etc. that should prove useful. The Mission? Destroy the two traitor legions. We will not be the only forces sent to accomplish this goal, but we will be receiving no officially ordered backup, just any that we can scrounge for ourselves. It is preferable that this get accomplished before the imperial navy gets there (approximately three weeks after our arrival), since they have orders to perform an Exterminatus if the situation is not either resolved or severely changed by the time they arrive.

Great. This sounds like it will be a cakewalk. Oh, and in case this isn't enough of a challenge, we get attacked in the warp mere hours before we were scheduled to exit by a bunch of Hullghasts that, coincidentally, also chased out a few vagrants and a few Cultists of Khorne. Okay. So the cultists of Khorne start going mad (why did three of them have flamethrowers? WHY? And two had Chain Axes, the last had a Best Mono Great Axe), the Hullghasts are tearing into the passengers, and some of the vagrants were wanted men, as they decided to start firing wildly and capturing passengers to hold hostage. And just to clarify, when I say a bunch of Hullghasts showed up, I mean 46 Hullghasts plus 6 Cultists and 11 Vagrants (I guess a dreg or something similar). So anyway, we are getting SWARMED and a bunch of these enemies are actually pretty damn strong. So we blockade the central corridor, start using suppressive fire and liberal firebomb use to thin out their ranks. It is working pretty well, until the Cultists of Khorne breach the barricade after they all pass their willpower test to avoid pinning (I suspect the GM fudged the roll, but it certainly was thematically appropriate and kept the combat brisk).

Anyway, the three Cultists of Khorne (hereafter referred to as Cok) with flamethrowers go before the melee CoK, and open up with all three flamethrowers. Cover protects some of us (Grendel being one, along with Hak, Dakka does not like cover, as he fears it lowers his chance of being shooty), Garm's Cleric and Able's Tech-priest. Inez's commissar (bravely firing away as a commissar should, all while cursing both out enemies and our allies for not having killed the heretics already), Dakka and both Cromwell and Nihilius' Scum (they did get nominated for actions involving fire, and we had great agility) are the ones that had to deal with fire to the face. Dakka somehow survives three separate agility checks and does not get burned at all (he is apparently a fire ninja), Inez's Commissar got burned, but only gets set on fire once (uses a fate point to re-roll, which negates it). The two scum under Cromwell and Nihilius' control, however... both get burned all three times and set on fire (that is with spent fate points for re-rolls). And of course, it is now time for the three melee CoK to charge. Fun.

So the first melee CoK charges Dakka, Chain axe just grinding towards his head. Dakka parries it with his gun with a chain blade bayonet, and then stabs the cultist in the face. Where he had no armor. With a Best Chain Blade Bayonet. He rolled a two and a ten, confirmed, and rolled a 4 and a 7. He skewered the CoK's head and plucked it off his body, and this was not even during his turn. Next melee CoK's turn. This time Inez's is under attack. The CoK misses, and Inez is fine. The final CoK charges in, and also charges Inez (apparently CoK hate Commissars, who knew), and successfully hits thanks to ganging up. It is now Grendel's turn, and he decides to grapple one the the two CoK on Inez. He succeeds, but causes no damage in the grapple. Dakka's turn comes up, and he proceeds to shoot off the CoK's face with his autogun, full auto. He rolls a 2. There is now just one melee CoK left. Inez goes next, and does a called shot at one of the flamethrowers the other three CoK are carrying, and hits. With a bolt gun. KABOOM. The PCs not behind cover have to roll agility to avoid getting knocked prone and roll agility again to avoid getting hit with shrapnel. The lone surviving CoK has to roll as well, and makes both.

Hak and Able both lob firebombs into the inferno, hoping to hit some of the charging Hullghasts, hopefully either killing or halting them long enough to turn some attention towards the Vagrants taking other passengers hostage and shouting demands (keep in mind about six seconds have passed since the fight started). The firebombs do wonders, setting several Hullghasts on fire that then set their compatriots on fire. The choke point is clogged with fire and corpses, and we deem it defensible enough that we can worry about the vagrants with hostages. Nihilius charges a vagrant with a hostage that has his back to him and grapples him, freeing the hostage and setting the vagrant on fire in the process. The vagrant burns to death as Nihilius strangles him, grinning maniacally. Cromwell (Got put out by the blast from the explosion) pulls out his Nomad Rifle (apparently richer than the average scum), and aims a called shot at another vagrant's face. Oh, he also had learned crack shot (the one that removes called shot penalties) in his past at some point, and rolled a 7. With 51 ballistic. With an accurate gun at less than half range, and we play with the errata 2.0 rules on accurate weapons for single shot.

So, the one vagrant's head explodes, showering blood everywhere (I imagine the hostage is not feeling too good right now), but then the GM frowns, and pulls out a ruler, fiddles with the map a bit then smiles. Apparently another vagrant/hostage combo was directly in the line of fire, and I have to roll a d10 to see which of the two I hit. Even for vagrant, odd for hostage. I roll a four. Cromwell just de-skulled two vagrants with hostages with one bullet. Well, the battle continues for a bit, us picking off vagrants for about a round as they grow increasingly frantic as they watch their comrades die (we only lost one hostage to an itchy trigger finger) when about a dozen BURNING HULLGHASTS jump through the inferno, set the one last CoK on fire, and all of them (Including the CoK) charge straight into us. At this point Grendel and Able both are hiding behind opposed pieces of cover, and are right next to the rushing hordes of Hullghasts. Grendel uses a reaction to toss an end of rope from his clip harness (which he compulsively wore ever since buying it after the warboss and burning building incident) and grab hold of some table legs and such to brace himself. Able's Tech-priest was a Mechanicus Secutor, with the Machinator Array which tripled his weight, and he pulled the rope taught.

The entire pile of Hullghasts and one CoK all end up in a big tangled burning heap, which Dakka and Benedicta burn to cinders with their flamers. For once, Benedicta is not smiling while killing (potentially knowing the fallen CoKs). Anyway, with that dealt with we go back to dealing with the remaining trapped hullghasts behind the barricades and finish up the fight, and start organizing the passengers and few crewmen present to help start cleaning up, hauling bodies to airlocks, and pilfering the dead. (Two new chain axes and a best mono great axe, aw yeah!) Dakka starts trying to convince Able to try and find some way to mount the chain axe on his Vanaheim (a full auto capable shotgun, fyi), to which the GM and Able agree, based on the inherent orkyness of the act. Able somehow manages to bolt it on, and Dakka is now armed with a fully automatic shotgun with a chain axe.

So as everyone is congratulating Grendel on his exploits and jokingly celebrating their new esteemed leader, Benedicta sidles off, wandering into the halls alone. After spending a bit more time with the new crew (Until a few got out some bottle’s of Rotgut, and after a few drinks the guardsmen had spiked the Commissar's drink with Stimm and Slaught and he wandered off to yell at a pipe and try to throttle it while violently twitching) Grendel also wandered off, looking for Benedicta. He found her in the chapel (appropriate for a sister of battle), leaning against a back pew smirking at images of the God Emperor, occasionally looking at the statue of Saint Drusus with respect. As Grendel entered, she started talking, maybe to him, maybe to herself.

'A consummate conqueror, a warrior who led to glorious war on planet after planet, and he fell against something stronger on a small planet called Iocanthus. It was no surprise; his foe was stronger, more determined. And yet, he rose back up, pulled back from death, and resumed his fight, eventually killing his foe in brutal combat. And this man, this conqueror, murderer, and warrior, is sanctified and exalted, for something that others might reward more. After all, he was only awarded a scant amount more time before he was returned to death, not enough time to fight at all.’

At this she turns to Grendel, and says, 'I fear you may be faced with a future not unlike Drusus, and I fear the Emperor is not as… watchful as he was during the years of Drusus. What will you do, Castus Grendel, if you were to fall before a stronger foe, and be doomed to die, your last sight being watching your slayer continue on. How would you feel, knowing you could not struggle further against your foe, an enemy of you and the Imperium? And better yet, how would you feel, abandoned by the power and miracles that have brought you so far?’ 

Grendel ponders these words for a moment, before replying, ‘If I knew the creature would die regardless of my failure, then I think I may be able to accept it. But if I were to know that my foe would continue on, to destroy more, to kill-‘ Grendel pauses now, to stare into Benedicta’s eyes, before glancing towards the floor again. Benedicta smiles an entirely different smile than before, far more gentle than the smile she showed to Drusus, and her cheeks rose slightly.

‘-If I were to be faced with that, I don’t know that I could feel so content at death.’

‘Still,’ He continues, ‘While hullghasts and vagrants are no uncommon sight on a ship this size, seeing some cultists, of Khorne no less, is another matter. I find it strange how frequently I have seen Khorne during my short career as an acolyte. I wonder, do the Adepta Sororitas run into so many? I have only seen one other example of chaos, that Inquisitor turned Daemonhost, and I find myself thinking there has to be some reason Khorne has been so… Present.’ 

(He has Forbidden lore Daemons, warp, and cults, all +10 or higher. He knows his shit)

Benedicta looks conflicted for a moment before speaking, her words much more hesitant than before.

‘As to the cultists on this ship, I would imagine that such a world as Cantus holds many enticing events, with the recent war against the Orks and now the legions turning traitor. Blood and skulls are cheap on Cantus now, and I imagine that appeals very much to Khorne and his followers. As to why you have seen Khorne so much… wherever there is slaughter, Khorne is there. Every bloodbath, every gory death, Khorne is there and watching. I imagine you feel you have seen him so much because you seem to end up in such situations again and again, death and killing all around you. As to the Daemonhost we saw,’ 

At this she pauses, grimacing, before going on, ‘I know not why Tzeentch would be there, but I doubt it is unrelated to why the IG and PDF after turning have fought each other. Gods do not take well to others treading on their machinations, yet Tzeentch seems compelled to do so. I find it likely we shall run into Tzeentch upon returning to Cantus.’

She looks as if she wishes to say more, but our ship shudders and jerks, as we return to real space. She get ready to resume speaking, but the ship begins to shudder again, for an entirely different reason: We are under fire.

Apparently we dropped right out of the warp next to space pirates, as soon the familiar sound of connectors breaching our ship could be heard echoing about. Inez starts bellowing orders as the drugged commissar exits our rooms, and when some now roaming pirates round the corner, he grabs one in each cybernetic arm, and starts slowly crushing their faces as they scream and plead, all the while looking at them with a face of hate and drug-induced mania. The rest of the party groups up with Grendel and Benedicta, and after sparing a glance to see they really didn’t want to bother the commissar right now, headed down the corridors, hoping to find the main group of pirates. Sure enough, a few corners turned and there they are, shouting and shooting as they pour in from a massive breach caused by their ship. We quickly hide behind cover, and are trying to lay down enough fire they pay attention to us without hitting them so hard they scatter throughout the ship in search of weaker prey. One of the times Grendel pops up his head to take a pot shot, He says he wants to do an awareness test to see if he can observe anything useful about the marauding pirates. He rolls and 11, four degrees of success, and the GM rolls on a table of his own (I asked him later, he actually made a D100 table of different ships of pirates, and had been using it since our first campaign months ago)

The GM rolls, consults the table, does a double take and starts laughing from the gut. Interested, we demand to know what he finds so funny, to which he responds, ‘They are the same group of pirates Grendel scared off on the trip to Solomon!’

We all start laughing, when Grendel announces he is going to grab some Flamer canisters, firebombs and a bottle of rotgut, and do a repeat performance. We start to mock him, then realize that it actually makes sense, as those pirates should sure as hell recognize this guy. We quickly rig him up, and then once again he heads out, smoking a Iho-stick and holding a firebomb and a Molotov with a dozen flamer canisters clearly strapped to his chest. Once again the GM rolls awareness for the pirates, once again the ones that pass stop their compatriots from shooting this man, and once again the pirates are faced with what appears to be a suicidal and scary as hell fat guy. At the same time, while they are staring in Grendel’s face, several pirates run screaming back into the main area, followed by Inez’s commissar, his face twisted into a snarl with bloodshot eyes and a foaming mouth, covered in blood and carrying two severely mutilated pirates (they were an entirely new set of pirates, not the ones he had grabbed before).

At this, the pirates decide fuck it, the Emperor hates them, and decide to flee. As they do so, the guardsmen both start lobbing hallucinogen- and fire grenades after them, and right as they start to disengage the tech-priest fires off an electrical burst at them for good measure. So their ship detaches, its crew burning and hallucinating and scared out of their minds, all while their ship malfunctions. Our ship takes potshots until they go boom. So we are once again greeted and thanked by the Captain, crew and passengers, when a shipman runs up to the captain, blurting that their sensors detected an Eldar ship heading towards Cantos before them.

And it was here we ran out of time. So next session, we will have to deal with a planet with two sets of traitor legions, potential orkish remnants and now apparently Eldar, and we will have to do it all before three weeks have passed, and do it without official backup. AWESOME.

THE END

Oh yeah, and I know this session wasn't that action packed, but it sure as hell set the mood for the clusterfuck we are heading to, and introduced us to some crazy new characters (I love the Commissar).