Editing The Guy Who Cried Grendel (section)

=== Part V ===
Okay, so we resume play, and are once again in transit to the planet Cantus, after getting attacked in the Warp, and attacked again immediately thereafter, and surviving both incidents. The only issue left before we reach the planet is calming down the still hallucinating and psychotically murderous drugged up Commissar, Inez. This situation is solved by Able the tech-priest temporarily convincing the machine spirits in his cybernetic arms to stop working and locking him in a closet for the remaining few hours of the trip, which we blithely assume Inez will weather without much incident (After being taken out of the closet, we found the commissar had eaten part of his tongue, cracked a few teeth grinding them, and now constantly drools. Good thing they were not the charismatic party member, but the intimidation based one) Anyway, on to Cantus, the clusterfuck that will probably wipe our whole party.

So, as we get into low orbit over Cantus, looking for some sort of safe landing place relatively near the fighting (keeping our time limit in mind), our Astropath abruptly starts clawing his face open, screaming 'CHANGE COMES FOR YOU, SERVANTS OF THE CORPSE KING!' before his body becomes liquid. I don't mean that he transformed into a new material, but that his bones, organs, skin and all gained the consistency of water, and... flowed. Messy. So our astropath is dead, and it has been spelled out that Tzeentch is here, and most likely a damn powerful sorcerer. Great. But wait, it gets better. Apparently, either Tzeentch weakened our ships defenses, or the Chaos gods love topping each other, as several crewmen go berserk, clawing out throats and popping skulls barehanded with berserker frenzy, screaming about blood and skulls. One of them rounds the corner to where the Acolytes are, checking on the astropath's remains, and charges straight at Grendel... then abruptly turns and leaps on another crewman.

Huh, so both Tzeentch AND Khorne are here, as we suspected, but Khorne passed on a chance to throw foes at Grendel? What's up with that? Anyway, what with the chaos spawned mutiny, the ship is not flying too well, and it starts plummeting through the atmosphere. Able tries to take over the ship and guide it in safely, but he gets rather violently thrown out of the system, an image of a blue and gold mask staring impassively at him burned into his mind, and the ship shook violently as the course changes, aiming us right at an inhabited hive city. We madly scramble through the ship, trying to get to the escape pods, and find out that apparently, the passengers and crew who were not killed or rendered psychotic killers are much more adept at scooby doo flight than we are, and all the escape pods are gone. Great. So we rig up some explosives and let the tech-priest go crazy in the hangar as we keep eyeing the viewports, seeing the city getting distressingly close.

Oh wait, the city is opening fire on us. Apparently they don't want a ship to hit them. So explosions are going off everywhere on the ship, rocking about as debris and fire start gouting throughout, and all the while we are speeding towards a giant spire on the upper level. The ship explodes, mere dozens of yards away from the spire, showering hunks of metal and other detritus on the hive. One particular piece of debris is the cargo bay door, with a stabilizing rudder and a small engine quickly welded on. We are surfing through the sky away from an exploding ship a mile up on a rocket propelled metal surfboard. Well, most of us are. Grendel missed his agility roll to stay on the makeshift surfboard, and is plummeting rapidly. Or was, before he took off his voluminous robes and made them into an impromptu parachute, letting all his possessions drop to reduce weight (except Grendel's Claw, which is clutched in his teeth). So a naked fat guy with a monocle using his robes as a parachute with a knife in his mouth is descending on the city, pissed off that he lost his wallet.

So, the party minus Grendel plow into the ground, chucking them all rather violently about, but without causing any genuinely severe harm (a couple wounds is getting off light as hell for getting out of an exploding ship a mile up in the sky), but concerned about the fate of grendel. Now that they aren't speeding towards impending doom, they get a chance to really look at the city, and can tell it is... off. It is inhabited, no doubt on that, but the lower hive seems strangely quiet. And Grendel's Micro-bead (still in his ear) is detected as being in that general area (the GM has been rolling and having Grendel roll for a while on their own as we ponder this, but have done so quietly, so we don't know for what purpose). So, we set out to recover our lost daemon-murdering guy. Anyway, as we enter the lower hive of the city (name still unknown), we start to figure out why the lower hives seem quiet. There are bodies of dregs and workers to be found all around, with the occasional Ork dead among them. As we get closer to Grendel's proposed location, we hear a heavy grunting sound, and muffled curses. We draw our weapons, round the corner and find... Grendel naked atop a pile of freshly dead Orks, knife in one hand and hauling another orkish body in his other. Upon seeing us, he points at an exposed piece of rebar just out of his reach, upon which his robe is draped. Apparently in his descent, it got caught and torn out of his hands, and so when he got to his feet he had to fight a dozen or so Orks alone and naked. After murdering them, he set about piling them up so he could reach his garments. Benedicta is grinning at this, but whether it is at his plight or his rather bloodthirsty way of solving a problem is unknown.

So anyway, they help him get his clothes (not wanting to have to deal with a naked fat guy for any longer than is absolutely necessary), and are now headed up the spire, since as far as they could tell it was still operating and had people in it, and assuming that these people did not try to murder them (I know, a ludicrous assumption) a potential source of information/aid in accomplishing their impossible mission. So, with the exception of the occasional small batch of a few Orks, progress up is easy, until we get to the middle hive area. We are met with hastily thrown together barricades and a FUCKTON of guns pointing at us, and apparently whoever is on guard duty right then is either mentally deficient, scared out of their mind or a heretic, as they all open fire on us, screaming that the traitors have come. Apparently, the people manning the barricade are some retired guardsman who live in the hive as well as some arbitrators, just trying to guard their home. Still, bullets flying at us are somewhat disconcerting, and we are bunkered down behind some cover, thinking.

We want them to stop shooting at us, but we don't want to kill them either, as they seem to be just doing their duty and protecting their home from what they perceive as heretics. We can't talk to them, as the noise from the gunfire and walls makes it impossible to shout to them from our location, and there is no cover close to the barricades for us to dash to and then re-attempt to reason with them. We are mulling over ideas for a bit, but none really seem feasible, until Able's tech-priest starts to swear violently, and starts fiddling with some diodes and whatnot on his body. Shortly the firing ceases, accompanied by confused and frightened curses as our would be assailants try to clear their weapons, and Able is moaning about having hurt machine spirits, good cause or no. So we try and establish dialogue with them, and are met with limited success, until Grendel is recognized, and we are let in an account of being his groupies.

Alright, so there is that, and what kind of other ships have been arriving on the planet recently? Well, a ship that identified itself as the Imperator Zealous landed yesterday, carrying dozens of space marines and thousands of SOBs, and have engaged the enemy in skirmish action. They are not taking the time to share intel or plans with anyone, so what they are planning to do is unknown. There are no nearby IG forces, as they already came for the Ork problem, but have since decided to stay and KILL MAIM BURN. Other than that, no ship traffic at all since the arrival of the CSM. And when we inquire as to whether the residents want to help destroy the traitors, they ask why Grendel can't handle it himself. To which the Commissar responds by blamming the Guardsman who said it. Cowardly and flippant remarks are not tolerated, not now. While the execution is mostly accepted, the point still remains that the Nobles won't commit troops that they feel are vitally required to keep themselves safe. So, the two thousand odd active soldiers, the thousand plus arbitrators and the thousands of retired guardsman are sitting pretty useless.

We look at our options and time limit, and come to a conclusion: Unless we can get these troops, there is no way we can really try anything against the traitor legions, they are simply too big to feasibly assault, ambush or otherwise damage appreciably enough in a few weeks. So we talk for a bit, and then hit on an idea: the inquisitorial holdings in the city is most likely stranded, since no ships are coming or going from Cantus anymore. As such, Grendel's position as senior acolyte and previous protector of Cantus, coupled with our impressive backing of three inquisitors might net us some more clout, with which to bully the nobles into committing their forces (we can't tell them about the exterminatus, we would just get a panic in the general populace and nothing would get done). So we head to the office after getting some directions. It is not a particularly large holding like on Scintilla, but it is still staffed with close to a hundred inquisitorial stormtroopers and dozens of clerks and trainee acolytes (The senior acolytes and interrogators already fucked off, as resourceful people should in times of trouble).

So, we talk with them, establish credentials, and inform them of the exterminatus (by them I mean the senior officials and the stormtroopers, people who have been in the inquisition for a while). Several of them had already figured out that all the shit going down on this planet right now is worthy of it, so it isn't TOO much of a surprise. We then suggest that if they help us get the Nobles off their asses and get all the forces in the hive city mobilized, we should have an appreciable chance of successfully damaging the chaos forces, hopefully enough so that we can get the fleet called off and deal with the problem more realistically, rather than using common grimdark tropes. We talk it out, and due to circumstances and staying in roleplay the whole way through the conversation, we manage to convince them to throw their clout behind us (Behind Grendel specifically, an Inquisitorial Stormtrooper here worked with him on Solomon before getting a rotation to Cantus, and two of the low level acolytes (level 3 we guessed) also did so, and are on leave and debriefing after their first mission. So, Grendel is now the de facto leader of pretty much all the remaining Inquisitorial forces in the hive city.

Well, that is great and all, but we still need to actually convince the nobles, people who think it is their god-emperor given right to tell others what to do and always get their way. So we immediately walk up to the HQ (set in the house of the most opulent noble) and jam our guns in their faces (while the stormtroopers put their guns in everyone else's face) and present them with a simple ultimatum: Either help us, and only die if we fail, or don't help us, in which case not only are you guaranteed death, but we will get your houses stripped of nobility and funds (a complete lie, we do not have anything close to the authority to do this). We are tasked to roll opposed intimidate vs. willpower tests against each respective noble we threaten. We pass all but one with ease, thanks to having some intimidate oriented characters and the nobles not being particularly hard-willed. The one remaining, however, smirks at us, presses a button on his belt, and disappears. We whip out an Auspex, but there is no trace of the individual. Even stranger, when questioning the other nobles, they say that on reflection, they have not seen that noble before a day ago, and just assumed he had been hiding in his manse until then.

Huh. So someone has micro-sized teleportation technology, a strong will, and bugs out when he can no longer take part in controlling the armed forces in the city. And no one knows this individual. Awesome. We are about to start forming a chain of command that insures the nobles can't pussy out when we get an urgent call to the vox in the house saying the Astropaths are under attack, before abruptly cutting out. Wonderful. So, we dash over, leaving about two thirds of the Stormtroopers behind to make sure none of the nobles have second thoughts. As we get close to the area in question, we see out of a viewport a strangely shaped red ship of clearly xeno origin. We skid to a halt right outside the door to the Astropaths, and as we start using signs to communicate a plan of attack, we hear strange noises coming from inside the room, like some eldritch language so old it can't be known. Oh wait, Grendel recently became a Xeno Archivist, and can speak Eldar. Nevermind.

So he listens in, and the gist of what is said is that eldars are conversing with each other, one of them clearly in a position of command lamenting that they can no longer have as much fun in the city as before, and saying the only way to salvage this is to ensure the residents stay disorganized (presumably accomplished by cutting off extra-planetary communications). So, having heard enough and not wanting to risk letting the eldar escape to their ship (and thus undermine our tenuous authority) we have some stormtroopers blow the door with breacher charges and about a dozen of them charge in. Sadly, the eldar are slightly faster than them, and their shuriken catapults dice the fuck out of half of them before they can even act. Not a great start. Good thing we had the bulk of the stormtroopers place charges and blow the whole fucking wall open as an entry point, through which the other stormtroopers and us acolytes charge through, preceding ourselves with grenades and fire, which usually makes for effective entry.

While some eldar are dropping fast from the two-tiered ambush from a larger force, most are still standing, and taking cover. Except for one, who is dodging grenades, bullets and fire with ease, laughing while cutting up stormtroopers with his sword. He shouts out something in eldar while gutting a stormtrooper, which Grendel translates as the individual mocking our inability to effectively perform an ambush, and proclaiming that Ulthyr Ellarion can certainly survive our feeble attempt. To which Grendel shouts back (in Eldar) 'Your name and prior accomplishments are irrelevant. Grendel has come for you!' Ulthyr looks shocked, apparently not used to running into mon'keigh that can speak eldar fluently. While we are all enjoying the awesome turnabout, Grendel BREAKS COVER AND CHARGES ULTHYR, AN ELDAR MASTER SWORDSMAN WITH HIS DAGGER. We are all surprised by this, especially when Ulthyr fails to dodge the blow and gets a dagger in the face. So, while we and the stormtroopers are fighting the other eldar, Grendel and Ulthyr are duking it out, running around the room as they do.

While we were impressed with his good fortune at the beginning of the fight, we were still expecting a bad end for Grendel, who usually fought bested foes this strong by being a lucky asshole, not by actually duking it out with them. And yet, as the rounds pass, he keeps dodging the attacks of Ulthyr, and putting his dagger in his face, again and again. Ulthyr keeps looking like he wants to try and taunt us, but getting stabbed over and over in his head seems to be making that difficult. Eventually, Ulthyr gets in a good hit, and smashes Grendel back, who slams into an overturned table. With blood coming out of his mouth, he rattles off a quick command in Eldar, then leers at us, and says in High Gothic 'A nice attempt, but I doubt the 'mighty' Grendel can fight our ship. Goodbye, mon'keighs!' And he retreats to his ship and the breach in the wall they made to kill the astropaths. Ulthyr was going to get away right after taunting us. What a dick.

Or he would, if his ship didn't start getting bombarded with rockets and shells. We had had six stormtroopers hang back with most of the demolitions and explosives that all the stormtroopers carried, and get set up to attack the eldar ship with rockets, as well as radio back to the stormtroopers staying with the nobles the need for artillery fire on the ship. So right as Ulthyr is about to escape, the third prong of our ambush cuts off his escape and isolates him as he watches his prized ship and whatever treasures were contained within burn and break as it plummeted to the ground. And as he turns around, preparing to do something, find some new crafty way to survive, Grendel smashed into him, shoving a firebomb in his mouth and pulling the pin, and then shoving him off the edge of the building. We got to see his body plummet several hundred feet, its head bursting into flame midway down.

Well, killing the last few Eldar was easy from here, but we were still bereft of astropaths, and needed to destroy two forces larger and stronger than ours in less than three weeks, so fun killing eldar aside, we were still in a bad spot. And so we regroup with the other stormtroopers after looting the fallen eldar and retrieving the fallen stormtroopers, and start discussing options. I say start, because about ten minutes into discussing, the meeting is interrupted by soldiers screaming that the traitor legions, BOTH OF THEM, are advancing on the city from opposing directions, apparently intending to make the hive city the home of their next conflict. Great. So we get to choose between trying to somehow wage guerilla warfare in a city absolutely packed with non-combatants with nobles who are very likely to try and bail to either save themselves or their wealth (or both), or trying to escape the city, which would mean damning the civilians, as there is no way to complete an evacuation in a timely fashion. And to make matters worse, any action has to deal with the lower hives being stuffed with Orks, which cannot be avoided by a group as large as ours.

So while we are thinking, Inez's Commissar slams his fists on the table (a loud act, what with breaking the table with his cybernetic limbs) and declares there is no choice but to stay and fight, and try and drag the heretics down with us. Dakka and Hak's guardsman mostly agree, but figure their talents at holding against superior numbers should behoove them. Able's tech-priest has hopes of being able to use the pict recorders around the middle and upper hives to keep an eye on any infiltrators, and suggests that if we keep the legions pinned in the lower hive with the Orks, we can potentially catastrophically thin their numbers. And even if they do damage the supports in the lower hive, they will just collapse the hive on top of themselves, which while likely to inflict severe losses on us would almost guarantee their complete annihilation. Not ideal, but workable enough that it sounds worthwhile.

Seeing our time rapidly running out, and having several emphatic supporters of staying and fighting, Grendel (who still has to act the leader to get the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, clerks and acolytes and by proxy all the other forces following the PC's orders) commands that the barricades be strengthened, and all elevators rendered completely inoperable and stairs blockaded as much as possible. Our goal will be to keep the top of the hive too prickly for the traitor legions to be able to attack us without exposing themselves too much to the opposing traitor legion, as well as to do what we can to keep the attention of the Ork remnants on the traitor legions, and away from thinking about assaulting the upper levels in earnest. We are like a monkey in a tree with three tigers beneath us, trying to provoke them into killing each other rather than simply climbing the tree and eating us. Or at least that is the analogy we want to believe, but we get rather thoroughly disabused of it by the second day of traitors and Orks fighting in the lower hive.

Apparently, that many traitors and cultists in the lower hive is not very good for the mental health of non-chaos inhabitants, and we have a cleric spontaneously go insane, and start murdering praying citizens, tearing out their throats with his teeth and other fun stuff. He gets put down pretty fast by some off duty stormtroopers that were nearby to get some food, but he still killed about a dozen people. Later that same day, some luckless bastards found a flamer of Tzeentch just wandering about, and proceeded to get burned to cinders. It was only fifteen minutes before it was found by some guardsman, but it still killed plenty. And while all this is going on, all of us acolytes are busy checking on the barricaded front lines, ensuring that there is no unknown access from the lower hive to the upper hive, managing the placement of the troops and basically being crazy busy. We have to rely on the troopers to deal with the bits of chaos getting through, but it worries us a great deal, and makes us partly wish we had a Psyker right now (although seeing how fucked over we are, he would probably explode into enslavers).

So, about a week passes, with the daily chaos incursions getting worse and worse, to such a point we have the civilians traveling in giant groups with armed guardsmen at all times. No one is allowed to wander around alone, and most homes are temporarily abandoned in favor of larger communal areas. Not pleasant for the already frightened civilians, but hey, it beats having to run for your life from a nurgling for thirty minutes before you find someone who can kill it. And while the situation in the upper hive has been having issues, so has our plan for the lower hive. While the Khornate traitor legion is all for fighting, and if they had their way would have either killed themselves or the other legion by now, the underhive has so many rooms and corridors, and is just covered in things to use as cover, the underhive has essentially devolved into a giant pile of guerilla warfare and lightning raids. As such, from everything we can tell the two traitor legions are relatively untouched by the fighting, losing only a few thousand each.

This is bad, as they still have around eight times our fighting force between them, and have sorcerers and space marines. Our hope that they would thin themselves enough we could actually make a dent in them is starting to fall apart, as at this rate there will be no time we could do anything other than a pointless suicide rush prior to the exterminatus deadline. We are completely out of options, until we finally see exactly one good thing happen: Space Marines drop-pods descending outside the city (we cannot tell which chapter, as no one present knows enough heraldry to be able to figure out who has grey blue suits and fur cloaks). After a tense few minutes, we establish vox contact with some of their number, and communicate that we are still alive and resisting in the upper hive, and fill them in on the extra intel we have (namely, that there are CSM in the traitor legions, which apparently our thorian inquisitors kept to themselves, the dicks). When the space marines respond, identifying themselves as being Space Wolves, and ask who is in charge of the survivors. A bit of two way communication, and we have a plan: All the inquisitorial stormtroopers and combat-capable acolytes and whatnot will be coming with us as we charge into the fray below with about four thousand assorted guardsman.

You may be wondering: How the hell will the Space Wolves tell friend from foe? We are all tying red scarves to our arms (generously 'donated' by several nobles), and using that as a distinguishing characteristic. Not the greatest plan, but in a time sensitive and scarce resource situation, what the hell else can we do? So, we charge down in two groups, taking two of the biggest stairwells, laying waste to the few scouts and stragglers nearby. Along the way, we run into a healthy number of Orks, but still, enemy forces are too spread out to be all that effective against our concentrated firepower. So we make great progress, inflicting sizable casualties with minimal losses on the way to the lowest level. It is at this point that things get slightly harder. Apparently all the scouts and observers and whatnot suck at counting, because there are a full dozen World Eaters, one of them in Terminator Armor with two giant chain axes with pulsing eyes and teeth covering them, and with chaos having warped his armor to be more sinister, with razored blades flexing and whipping out from it, and baleful screaming maws jutting out to try and feast on those opposing him. The guy looks like a daemon prince and is a goddamn nightmare, and is the first thing to ever make Grendel fail a fear check.

Now when I say Grendel failed his fear test for the first time, I do not mean to say he was alone in his fear. OUR ENTIRE ARMY AND EVERY PC failed. The guy is a goddamn daemon prince standing on top of a pile of dead soldiers with no less than SEVEN DEAD SPACE WOLVES in it, having fun fighting about a dozen more space marines alone WHILE HIS ARMOR IS BUSY DICING AND EATING BOTH FALLEN COMBATANTS AND CURRENT CHALLENGERS. The guy is a living engine of destruction, and sure as hell has a special place in Khorne's heart. And apparently the fight with the Space Wolves is pretty easy, as he turns and looks right at Grendel. Oh, and in case a goddamn daemon prince of Khorne isn't bad enough, also visible nearby are two Thousand Sons Sorcerers summoning up eldritch fire and foul daemons while smiting their foes with their force weaponry. Who also look at the new combatants with decided interest. What an awesome development.

Well, while both the Khornate Daemon Prince and the Two Thousand Sons are exceptionally dangerous, the point remains that they are by far the most dangerous things in both traitor legions. If we remove them, all that is left is a few generic world eaters and some regular sorcerers. Not pushovers, but relatively easily beatable by a combined Space Wolf/Inquisitorial Stormtrooper/IG/Acolyte force. Well, that is great that we know we have to beat these three individuals to make it possible to turn the tide, but every player controlled or influenced force is spazzing out at the insanely dangerous Khornate Daemon Prince, and with good reason. But it thankfully has only melee weapons and is far enough away that we have a few rounds at least to get our shit together and go on the offensive again. So now the question is, what do we attack first, the Khornate traitor legion's commander, or the Tzeentchian traitor legion's commanders? FUCK YOU CHOICES, WE PICK BOTH. After a round passes, at least half of our forces and all but Nihilius are again able to act, and we split up, Grendel, Inez and Benedicta taking most of the Inquisitorial stormtroopers and a thousand IG at the Khornate Prince, and everyone else mobbing the Sorcerers.

So, as the presumed captain of the Space Wolf force that came is fighting (and losing) against the Khornate Prince, about three tons of bullets come flying at the terrifying asshole from our forces, accomplishing a very slight bit of wounding and getting him rather pissed at us. As he is reorienting on his new assailants, Grendel, Benedicta, Inez, a couple low level melee oriented acolytes and eight Inquisitorial Stormtroopers all charge into melee with him, adding their bulk to the Space Wolf commander and his three nearby Space Wolves that are fighting the monstrosity. FUCK YOU SUPER MONSTER, OUTNUMBER RULES ARE HERE. While they charge in, all the rest of their forces are busy trying to free up every Space Wolf from combat they can, so they can go help their captain/chapter leader/whatever, as well as trying to keep the rest of the world eaters from regrouping with their commander. As such, all Grendel and co have to do is last several rounds in melee against someone who has been tearing space marines apart. No biggie.

So while this is going on, the rest of the PCs are trying to shoot the ever-loving fuck out of the two thousand sons and their followers. Now, while our attacks are making short work of everything unlucky enough to be near the two thousand sons, the damned sorcerers themselves are either predicting the placement of the shots or using the warp to deflect them. Either way, they are still standing pretty. And the moment they get to act, they summon up around a hundred flamers of Tzeentch. Now this may not sound that bad, but they summoned them in the middle of our IG forces, so SURPRISE, OUR ARMY IS ON FIRE. Well, this is bad, especially since the pansies kept running into their non-burning compatriots and setting them on fire too. But fuck it, they can either figure out to stop drop and roll on their own or are too stupid to be of use anyway. So we continue our assault, and while we don't actually cause pinning or serious wounds to the two thousands sons, our dm rules that enough bullets are hitting them that at the very least it is hard as hell for them to do any more summoning style sorcery. They do throw balls of warp fire and mind bullets at us and our troops, but thankfully no PCs die yet.

Back to the Khornate Prince, Grendel is badly wounded, Inez's commissar has lost an arm, five inquisitorial stormtroopers are dead, only three NPC acolytes are still standing, and two more space wolves fell. In three rounds. However, we held long enough, as eight more Space Wolves have joined the fray, we gave their leader a chance to breathe, and prevented all but one world eater from joining with the prince, and the one that joined him fell to one of the other Space Wolves. So the Khornate Prince is still alone and outnumbered in his little spot, much good that it is doing us. He is a goddamn blender of living knives, teeth and possessed chain axes. Thankfully, he can only target a max of four people a round, averaging twenty damage to each, no biggie. Well, he seems to be having the time of his life, in his own little eye of a maelstrom of blood and gore. Grendel and co are in a tenuous situation, there is no doubt on that, but the Khornate prince seems more interested in trying to kill everyone than the acolytes in specific.

Finally the Space Wolf leader gets in a solid hit with his thunder hammer, causing some solid damage to the Khornate Prince, and attracting his singular attention. The Khornate Prince slams him back THROUGH a wall, stabbing the crap out of him with his living razor blades in the process, and charging off after him. The next person to have their turn come up? Grendel. His response to this? HE CHARGES THE KHORNATE WORLD EATER PRINCE, JUMPS ON HIS BACK AND TRIES TO STAB HIM IN THE NECK. AND ROLLS A SIX ON SAID CALLED SHOT, STABBING HIM IN HIS FACE. AND THEN ROLLS A TEN. He confirms it, just barely, and rolls damage again. Rolls a 2, spends a fate point, and rolls ANOTHER TEN. Rolls again, gets a 1, spends another fate point (one left unspent now) and gets ANOTHER FUCKING TEN. Rolls one more time, and gets a nine. Just to put this in perspective, Grendel just hit the Khornate Prince with a knife just a bit harder than the Space Wolf leader did with a giant ass Thunder Hammer.

Back to the other group for a bit, Hak is dead, but managed to pull the pins on a few of the grenades strapped to him as he went, and since he had charged one of the sorcerers, it did not end well for him. Concentrated fire and liberal application of explosives dropped him, leaving us only one Thousand Sons left. Seeing the battle turning on him and being mostly isolated from the rest of his forces, He decides this shit isn't worth it, and bugs out, vanishing into the warp, taking with him the battered armor that houses the fallen thousand son. So while a great deal of the IG forces following these acolytes are busy, a few hundred around the acolytes are still unmolested, and follow as the acolytes head to help Grendel with the Khornate Prince. If he can be put down, that would mean all that is left are some severely outnumbered world eaters, and regular enemies, busy killing each other and orks, and too spread out to mob us. So, onward to try and bury the Khornate Prince under so goddamn many bullets that he can't move. Or so the plan goes.

Funny thing, between the solid hit from the Space Wolf leader, and Grendel introducing the Khornate World Eater Prince to Grendel's Claw, he just dropped from being a terrifying monster of incredible proportions to a very killable if still exceptionally lethal monster. Only thing is, it is said monster's turn now, and Grendel is on his back. He can't hit him with his super axes, but he can direct EVERY SINGLE BLADE AND GAPING FANGED MAW GROWING FROM HIS WARP MUTATED ARMOR AT HIM IN ONE GIANT MASS. But wait, no, fuck you daemon prince, Grendel dodges all of them while still clinging to your back, and you stab yourself with your own living knives. How does that feel, asshole? And now Grendel, immediately after dodging all that, tries to stab him in the face again. And rolls a 92. But wait, Grendel's knife gets a re-roll, and he rolls... 12, success! Damage.... Ten! Confirmation roll... 59, no dice. And with the crazy toughness the guy is sporting, the hit did nothing but distract him.

Which is enough, since another Space Wolf stabs him with a power sword, before getting hacked apart by the Khornate, leaving his sword embedded in his chest. When Grendel's turn comes up, he swings around to the front, hanging with one hand clutching the sword jammed in his shoulder, and tries to slam Grendel's Claw into the rent in the armor (treated as a called attack) before he gets hacked into bits by the giant fucking chain axes. Roll to hit... 99, whoops. Re-roll… 87, oh god. Spends a fate point, re-rolls…. 13, made it!. The GM has Grendel roll a strength check, which he rolls a goddamn one on. He is prompted to then roll an agility check thereafter, but not told why yet. He rolls an eight. Grendel slams his knife into the Khornate World Eater Daemon Prince's chest, straight through the rent in his armor, doing so with such force he yanks the power sword out, widening the rent in the process, and proceeds to narrowly dodge the two giant chain axes coming straight at him before falling back and landing on his feet, holding Grendel's Claw and a power sword while blood fountains out of the prince as he staggers back, dropping his weapons. The Space Wolf leader and the other Space Wolves get ready to charge him, but he does not pick up his weapons, instead falling to the ground in a massive puddle of his own blood.

So, the tide of battle is now turned, Awesome fighting has been performed by all, and we get ready to start mopping up the much larger but self-destroying and thinly spread enemy forces. Or we would, if a [[Shadowsword|SHADOWSWORD]] COVERED IN BLOOD AND SYMBOLS OF KHORNE, RIDDEN BY KHORNATE CULTISTS DOING A SUMMONING RITUAL BURSTS THROUGH THE WALL. OH FUCK, there has been so much killing these last few days, a great deal in the name of Khorne, and the last hour or so has seen thousands die in an area infested by Khorne. Apparently, Khorne likes all the shit that has been going on here so goddamn much that A FUCKING BLOODTHIRSTER POPS IN THROUGH THE PORTAL. OH GOD. Even the fucking Space Wolves are scared of this shit, and several of them just stand there when it appears. Not so for Grendel, who tries to rally the stormtroopers and IG, and fails miserably, as everyone is either frothing at the mouth or going insane. Seeing a regular human doing fine, the Space Wolf leader charges the Bloodthirster, along with every other Space Wolf not currently fighting the few remaining World Eaters.

Okay, so while they are having fun trying to hurt the super daemon, Grendel reunites with the other surviving acolytes while trying to get people functional. Or at least, that is what is being attempted, until they realize oh hey, the tank is still here, and is turning towards us. And firing. Yay. So a giant shell smashes into our ranks, fucking up a bunch of guardsman and a few dozen stormtroopers, and somewhat snapping our troops out of it, as conventional ballistics is something they can deal with. So Grendel leads a charge on the Shadowsword, followed by the other PCs, and the gutsier stormtroopers and guardsman, with a simple plan: Big enemies require big guns, and the Shadowsword has a fucking big gun (a goddamn volcano cannon). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Icarus:_Uprising ITS LOOTIN' TIME!] We did kinda forget that Shadowswords have other guns than the main cannon on them, though, and are getting shot at quite a bit. But thanks to our obscene number and initial close proximity to the tank, we reach it with only Garm and some NPCs dying (Garm took a rocket to the chest, not the most survivable thing), and proceed to swarm it, crawling up to the entry hatches as quick as we can. A few bullets and krak grenades later, and we have commandeered a Shadowsword.

Back to the Bloodthirster and the Space Wolves for a bit. About a dozen of them have dropped already, and they have only made a small dent in the daemon's hide (not many of them have power fists or other melee oriented load-outs), but they are not giving ground, and are prepared to die fighting it (which is looking pretty fucking likely right now). Until the re-appropriated Shadowsword rams the Bloodthirster and fires its volcano cannon into its chest point blank. The shell doesn't even explode, it just goes straight fucking through the Bloodthirster. And while it is reeling from the blast, Grendel, who had been commanding the Shadowsword from its open hatch, dashes across the barrel of the cannon (making his agility rolls to not fall) and stabs into the gaping hole in the Bloodthirster with the space marine sized power sword, draws his grappling hook attached to his clip harness, and declares he is going to try and hook it on one of the bloodthirster's horns and climb up to its face. the GM rules he has to make a hard ballistic skill test to latch the grappling hook on, and then will have to make three difficult agility tests in a row to winch himself up before the Bloodthirster can recover from the blast.

Grendel just barely makes the ballistic check, and rolls the first of the three agility checks. He rolls 67, failing abhorrently, and now is being flung about by the rope as the Bloodthirster reels about, spilling ichor and gore all over the place. It grabs at Grendel with its free hand, and he tries to dodge the meaty hand in midair while being flung about. HE ROLLS A 2 TO DODGE, AND DODGES A GIANT DAEMON HAND MIDAIR. The space wolves redouble their assault, but since the commander of our army is essentially a rag-doll attached to the monster, our forces can't really shoot at it. Able's turn comes up, and as the pilot of the Shadowsword, he thinks the best use of the tank is to charge forward again, ramming the gun barrel THROUGH the hole in the Bloodthirster's torso and pinning it to the wall. Grendel's turn comes, and he hauls his ass up the rope, and has to try and avoid getting chomped on for coming up to say hi. He narrowly gets his fat ass out of the way, and proceed to try and stab the Bloodthirster in the eye. The GM says fine, you can try, and if you succeed you bypass armor and toughness, but you have to make a called shot while being flung around, so you take a -30 to the test.

Grendel rolls. We all stare. He rolled a 2. He just sank his knife and whole fucking arm into a bloodthirster's eye while hanging from a clip harness anchored to one of its horns. It topples back, dying, as Grendel wrenches his arm free, and releases the clip, falling back onto the Shadowsword. While most of us fought the Bloodthirster, the last couple world eaters got murdered by the space wolves, so there is literally nothing but generic enemies left. They do not do well against their own biggest tank, space marines and stormtroopers, and shortly start attempting to surrender in droves. Anyway, Grendel and the surviving PCs have a little field meeting with the Space Wolf force leader, who is currently being whined at by the nobles. After seeing that the person the nobles are whining about is Grendel ('He messed with our right to do whatever we want, boo hoo'), the captain backhands the nearest noble away, and ignores the rest as they stare at the now dead noble as he walks up to Grendel.

'You Castus Grendel?'<br>
'...Yes, honored Astartes.'<br>
'Feh. You fought hard, and carried the day, you don't need to bow your head to me.' The Space Wolf looks Grendel over a bit, and frowns, continuing with, 'You don't look like you fight for a living,' He pokes him in the stomach with a finger 'and you don't look too fit'<br>
'I was a chronicler in a data archival unit until a few months ago, when I was rather abruptly made an Acolyte in service to the inquisition.'<br>
'A Librarian? HAH! How did you end up in the inquisition with a boring duty like that?'<br>
'One of the texts I was to read was a forbidden tome chronicling a xenos or daemon attacking Valhalla, which was defeated by members of your chapter. I was offered the choice to serve or have my mind wiped.'<br>
The Space Wolf leader looked stunned.<br>
'You read the Liber Beowulf? HAH! This is rich. I was the brother that killed that beast, and I and my men get saved by someone who was only there because of that piece of the past.'
He pauses for a bit, laughing to himself, before continuing.<br>
'You took charge here, ousting those fops, and held steady for a week with these bastards in the underhive? Huh, nice work.'

The two continue talking for a short while, all whilst all the other space wolves, IG and stormtroopers are rounding up the rapidly surrendering forces. They talk for a while, and the Space Wolf leader shortly offers to bring them back to Scintilla, as a small thanks for minimizing his losses and aiding his brothers. Damn, space wolves are awesome guys. So after finishing up dealing with the chaos forces (mass execution for everyone, YAY), we load up in one of the space marine drop pods, and head off back to Scintilla. Our trip on the Space Wolf ship is much less prone to attack by raiders, pirates and the warp, with good reason. We make our first warp trip in a long time without incidence. Anyway, as we are getting dropped off, the three Thorian Inquisitors show up, apparently not content to wait for us to arrive at the Inquisitorial holdings. They look ready to start some long speech or something, but our new Space Wolf friend (his name is Beowulf) just steps forward, and decides to make his own little speech.

'I heard about your little mission for these members of the Imperium, and I have a simple statement to make. Thanks to Acolyte Castus Grendel and the rest of these men, less of my brothers died than if they hadn't been there, so let me make this simple. I and my brothers would be happy to work with Grendel again, and as such I expect to see him become an Inquisitor. Hell, after what he killed, as far as I am concerned the man is a living saint, and I already forwarded his deeds to the Ecclesiarchy. Well, what are you standing there slack jawed for, if you have something to say to me say it, otherwise I have work to do. I only came here since I owe these men a debt.' Apparently these inquisitors are not used to getting chewed out, as they are standing there fairly slack-jawed. One of them snaps out of it, and responds, oddly enough, in a very respectful tone.

'..That is why we are here. Shortly after we received the mission report, we were contacted by the Ecclesiarchy, who wished to verify documents sent to them. As it stands, the Acolyte Castus Grendel is now awarded full status as an Inquisitor, if he chooses to accept it, we can have your prior comrades become part of your retinue, and you can choose whichever new acolytes as you will from those in training. Additionally, he is officially canonized as a.... Living Saint. .'

So thus ends the career of Acolyte Castus Grendel, and thus begins the story of Living Saint Inquisitor Adept Castus Grendel of the Ordo Malleus, traveling the stars with Grey Knights and frequently Space Wolves lead by Brother Beowulf, killing Daemons and adding more and more creatures to his robe based kill counter.

THE END.

Also, if anyone wants the finalized stats to Grendel's Claw, after all the crap he did, here it is.

Grendel's Claw<br>
1D5+3 R PEN4<br>
Balanced, Holy<br>
Re-roll one missed attack per round<br>
(stacks with blademaster and fate point)<br>
Re-roll one missed attack per round against a daemon<br>
(stacks with blademaster and other re-rolls)<br>
Cannot be parried by daemonic entities<br>
Ignores warp infused armor (CSM, daemons, etc.)<br>
Ignores TB of any daemon or chaos infused opponent<br>
Grants bearer a Fear 3 against followers of Khorne<br>

Also, While Grendel is retired from play now, we have all voiced two thoughts:

* We want to play as new acolytes serving under Grendel some time in the future.
* What happened to Benedicta?

To the last thought (Keep in mind the other players never found out who she really was), I hope to run into Grendel's son some time later. It may even be a point in time where Grendel is made a PC one last time.

So while Grendel's story as an acolyte is over, some time in the future he may return to play to wrap up a final loose end.