Gallus Silon

This is a Warhammer 40k story posted up in 2011 by Peg Leg Dave. This is all a direct copy and paste from some old backed up web pages so the formatting definitely sucks.

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Good afternoon gentlemen,

Now, I have returned and I do not mean to be the center of attention here or to take away from any ongoing threads; though I do remember quite a few people saying that they would look forward once again to my colorful ramblings on games I have been fortunate enough to play in. First things first though, I need to introduce how I found myself playing in my first dark heresy campaign. At the local gaming store, there is always much suspicion when a new game comes out, even if it comes through an established gaming company. While the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game was a very good product by all reckoning, people were still somewhat curious as to how a similar company could do justice for Warhammer 40k. There is a subtle difference, one might point out, between a crossbow and a Meltagun. However, I being of the mindset that Clarke was right, sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, that psykers and wizards are more or less the same thing. At least, in theory.

Now, I admit I had grown very tired of the gamers all standing around looking at the neatly stacked new arrivals, so I said that if a DM would run it, I would fund it. A DM came forward, one of the more gifted DMs of the store, and said that he would run the game. I purchased the book for myself and immediately handed it to him, telling him to promptly absorb the contents so that I might have a chance to play in this game sooner rather than later. It wasn't much time at all as he soon put up a flyer to advertise the game, looking for 3 additional players to accompany myself and he as we dove into a story of heresy, dark and otherwise.

Now, at the first session, I am greeted by a group of people that isn't all bad. You see, the DM had done his job by screening what chaff he could from the wheat. There was no sense in letting anyone into this game as we were trying our best to see what the new system had to offer. Our players, or as the very cultured of us like to say, our 'dramatis personae' were as follows:

Guy (That was his first name, strangely enough) - younger than I, Former United States marine, very laid back, enjoys American Spirit Cigarettes and doesn't like to talk about the war. Plays Flames of war (United States Army) and Warhammer 40k tabletop (Imperial Guard), not a man of modest intellect, and more than not holds his tongue rather than be impolite.

Lady Sudoku (Not her real name, she was a fanatic for puzzles) - Housemother, former police officer (Just didn't agree with the job), always brought in snacks to whatever she was invited to, played Warhammer Fantasy (Dwarves) and Warhammer 40k tabletop (Orks), holds painting workshops for the less-than-capable, always played Sudoku puzzles while waiting her turn in long tabletop games. Very kind, sweet, and the perfect example of a fine lady of the game store.

The Bonzai Kid (Our name applied to him, he was always wound up and rode one of those far-too-fast Japanese Motorcycles) - Youngest of us, incredibly intelligent, more of a console gamer than tabletop, however, plays Warhammer 40k tabletop (Tau) and quotes lots of Japanese comic books. Thinks everything is 'epic' though I feel he's never really seen anything truly 'epic' in his lifetime. He was the most polite of the remaining 40k knowledgable people willing to play in our game.

Well, from here on out I'm going to refer to the people by their character names, which I will show you in a moment. Now, I must say that there were other people who were interested in playing in our game, however, due to scheduling constraints, timing issues, interest, and sensibility, these were the best people we could gather at that point in time. Please understand that had things been more perfect, we would have had a different group. However, if things had been perfect, I don't think we would have had half the fun we did.

During our first session, the DM has us all pitch a character to play, so here is how that goes.

Guy said he is interested in playing: Mordeci Cain (A name chosen by the generator from Fantasy Flight's website), Imperial Arbitrator. Mordeci is intelligent, a natural knack for solving crimes, always hears his party out before administering Imperial Justice and is on the fast track (at least in his own mind) to being promoted to more important work. Mordeci's stats favored intellect and gunplay, though everything else was at an average or slightly below. Mordeci was from a hive world.

Mordeci was approved for play.

Lady Sudoku decided to play: Devi Cimbria, Scum. Devi is intelligent, sly, sneaky, suspicious and above all uncouth. Devi is a con-artist, a thief, and far worse things. She is from a hive world and has done anything she could to survive in the lower hive. Devi's stats favor Intellect and agility.

Devi was approved for play.

The Bonzai Kid decided to try to play: Seth Moonblade, an Eldar.

We all looked up and realized that the kid had about 40 pages of information, in a three-ring binder, and was fully prepared to read them to us concerning the Eldar's background. The Dm shook his head slowly. The kid, undaunted in the slightest, lifted a tab in the binder and announced his next character to us, "Shas'O Kain, a firewarrior from . . " The DM shook his head slowly, and the kid lifted another tab in the binder. This went on for a while until the DM tired of it and said: "Just leave, son". Which, the kid did. He was not welcome from that point into our game mainly because he wanted to play anything other than dark heresy and anything other than human. When we heard the exhaust of his suicide machine (That quite-fast Japanese racing bike) fading into the distance the group looked at me and asked what I was going to play. I pointed out that the DM had my book and that I had not a chance to make a character ahead of time. The DM opened the book and said "Standby to roll some D10s" and slightly less than an hour later we have my fellow:

From a hive world, as this seems to be our luck of late, the lowest order of adept to the Adeptus Mechanicus was best served by none other than Gallus Silon (It was a rolled name thanks to a name generator, however, the pun is not lost on me.) I recall him having started with extraordinary intelligence and rather decent toughness, though he was completely useless in all other regards. I began with the natural implants common to those in the service of the machine god, though without any of the extra appendages at the moment. I spent my beginning thrones to ensure I had the appropriate things a lowly man of the Red cloth might, a las-cutter and some random electronic trinkets before saying that I was ready. The DM opened his screen, set it up, got himself a large glass of tea and then began.

The story was more or less what I would discover to be the standard fare in Dark heresy games: You are all not very important people in a very, very crowded hive with all sorts of suffering in your past, as to directly contrast to your daily sufferings. We found ourselves introduced to each other NOT at a tavern, but at a safe house, we were all summoned to by a cryptic note. Now, having my fellow respond to a cryptic note a little difficult as I, being a faithful servant of the Adeptus Mechanicus would not dare read or respond to personal correspondence while engaged in activities dictated by a senior magos. When I did show up, late, The inquisitor was waiting for us. See, as part of our backstory, we were all found to have been 'exemplary' people and 'foreseen in the Imperial Tarot' to be of use to the God-Emperor and his servants. I didn't particularly find the Inquisitor to be a compelling leader, but I was put into place by having orders put before me, signed by the Arch-Magos in charge of my Fabricator-Manufactorium commanding me to be of 'efficient assistance at all times'. Who was I to argue, then?

The Inquisitor made us part of his warband and there was a speech he made about 'grave and imminent doom that possibly could be bringing the entire sector down around our ears, but maybe not, depending on what you find out and goodbye'. We were given a series of orders that I shall provide for you all to read and discuss as you will:

1 - Discover what we can of a "Thule Syndicate" operating in the lower hive.

2 - Do not be found to be Imperial Agents.

3 - Procure anything you need in the field.

Those were our orders, and certainly, I must say that they were straightforward enough. Spy, and don't be spied upon. I understood that we had more or less the perfect cover for the assignment, we had a scum-person that could blend in with the crowds if not infiltrate the group, we had a low-level officer of what was likely to be the Magistratum and we had me, the equivalent of a menial repair-person to go about where he pleased under the supposed orders of the Machine God. It was at this time we began to plan.

You see, we weren't given a budget for this operation, which I found to be rather troubling considering that everything costs something in the Imperium and the barter-system only works in your favor if you have things worth bartering, which I certainly did not. Well, I suppose I did but they could have my collection of tools when the pried them from my quasi-alive, metallic appendages. We were told to 'deposit our findings' to a dead-drop which was at some address I wrote down, my character naturally committing that to memory for later use should we not die horrifically in our adventures.

Our plan came out to the following:

1 - Find out what this Thule Syndicate actually 'did' on the surface before diving in and finding out what they were supposedly doing when everyone wasn't watching.

2 - Procure supplies for infiltration or assault to the premises in order to gain intelligence

3 - Find a safe place to hide while waiting for new tasks as likely we would not want to travel back and forth between mid-hive and lower hive, it would attract suspicion.

As we packed up the operation to move to the lower hive, we came to the conclusion that we had rather stick close together in case something terrible should happen. There was plenty of roleplaying at this point, Mordeci telling us of his academy days and night-sticking vagrants day-in-and-day-out, and how this was a great adventure compared to his rather boring daily routine. Devi was a free spirit and admitted to having run from Mordeci once or twice, but now that we were on the same time she was assuming she was more or less free from any sort of danger of imprisonment or prosecution. Mordeci and Devi hit it off, in character, by telling interesting tales of crackdowns and shootouts from both sides of the fence. Mr. Silon kept to himself, the DM asking what I was doing, and the answer was invariably "Calculating estimated time of arrival to the lower hive" or "Considering efficiency upgrades to my existing cybernetic implants" or something similar.

Now a side tangent if I may..

You see, many folks try to do justice to the Adeptus Mechanicus by trying to do the voice. They normally try to do the voice from Warhammer 40k: Dawn of war by quoting "This Able beast should get us there" or "It is nothing for someone of my skills" or something similar. Me? I go a different approach. I lower my tone of voice and try to sound very calm and it comes out as being a near-perfect impression of that larger, green fellow from Aqua Teen Hunger force, the Mooninite. The internet, when queried, says his name is Ignignokt but I can't say I knew that at the time. Just "one of the mooninites" was the label people applied.

The Roleplaying continued as we took what was described as this large train that ran along the outside of the hive, going around its massive circumference and descending levels as it went, as though in a very gradual descending helix bent around the structure. As we neared the lower-hive we found our party interaction somewhat hampered by a bandit who announced that we should empty our pockets lest he 'brain us good'. I have no idea why all bandits in the 41st millennium are cockney, but I took affront to the situation of being interrupted on such holy a mission. I would have risen to shoot him but he had a rusted autogun leveled at us as he stood in the doorway between two train cars. The Arbite and the scum played it cool as the man was not addressing us directly, but rather everyone in the car. I asked the DM "Is the man directly in the doorway?" The Dm said that he was, as though he anticipated someone to shoot at him and he could close the door to deter someone chasing him.

At this point, I wrote something on a piece of paper and slipped it to the DM who said "Jesus Christ, okay, roll for Tech use test"

You see, I had accessed a data port covertly using my natural ability to do so through the palms of my hands, due to them being full of circuitry and what have you. I made a tech use test to tell the door's hydraulics to just, well, close at full force. Now. The machine spirit was on my side and the doors closed with more force than they had in centuries, not cutting the man into pieces but crushing most of his bones along with his softer, interior biological parts. The man gurgled and died at that point, after which everyone in the train car (party included) looked at my character, who said in a state of perfect calm, "Surely, It was a malfunction."

We ransacked the body along with half of the people in the car, who were from the lower-hive and returning home. Life was cheap down there so they saw no trouble in a stick-up artist being cruelly murdered by malfunctioning machinery, everyone helped themselves to his riches that the party had not claimed (Mainly his thrones, of which there were seventy or so, and a hold-out snub-las tucked into the small of his belt).

Upon arriving in the lower hive we were entering a realm described by the DM as more or less industrial hell meets mid 18th century London. I was aware from my Dickens that once upon a time London was called Coketown due to the coke-furnace smoke ever present in the air, so I had some idea of what we were walking into. It was then I had my first encounter with a homeless person in a Dark Heresy Game.

Now, I don't look down upon those without homes, and in fact, I have wondered what it would be like to take to the rails for a year or two just out of adventuring spirit but this man was getting on my nerves even out of character. He was described as having wild hair and asking every five seconds for money, saying that this was his sidewalk and that we were bastards, but then seconds later he would say that he was sorry and coming off of narcotics and needed 'just a boost'. Before I could do anything, Mordeci, the Arbitrator, decided to act officially. Mordeci took out his baton and began to beat the man mercilessly about the face for having the gall to beg before an officer of the Magistratum, and for not having a job, and for being a freeloader on society, and a dozen other things the man was certainly guilty of. After the beating, the man was laying in a pool of his own blood, not dead but certainly not likely to wake up any time soon. It was at this point that the scum searched him and found a hundred thrones in very small denominations. Apparently, this beggar was doing very well for himself. In addition, upon a further search, it was discovered the man had a tooth made of platinum, and keys to an apartment.

We were somewhat dumbfounded as to what we had happened upon and halted the game to ask if the DM was using a random loot generator or what was going on. He explained that some middle class or lower class people often do feign being homeless in order to beg and make decent money doing so. We had just happened upon such an individual, and that we needed to get back to the game.

So, upon this revelation to my character (Told to us by DM fiat through the Arbitrator as a mouthpiece), I decided to practice a fair piece of street dentistry by extracting such said platinum tooth. Unfortunately, he woke up mid-extraction and had to be sedated again through the application of a lateral cranial impact.

We decided to follow the keys back to the apartment by checking the imprint on the keys with local residential areas within walking distance (assisted by our scum asking around some of the local drinking establishments). When we found the house, however, we were in a fair bit of trouble. It was a basement apartment and from what we gathered it was a local equivalent of a crack-parlor. Now, I understand that someone might want to go through as little trouble as possible to find a safehouse, but we were rather stubborn people and that house was more or less decidedly ours, as soon as we cleaned the tenants out. We set up observation for a time, and the scum got close enough to the windows and doors to find out the place was more or less a fortress.

The windows, the doors, everything was reinforced and air-tight, there was no way we could sneak in there.

"Air tight?" I asked the DM. "Yeah," he says. I ask how they get their air and he says that it is recycled through an atmospheric conditioning unit on the side of the building. I asked why this was, and he said: "Because the air quality is terrible here and they're rich enough to want perfectly clean air."

So, I had the quandary of pests in the basement apartment we wanted, which was a perfect place amongst other things as it was a fortress, reinforced everything and blended in quite well to the surrounding area. I decided I had a solution to our problem. It was at this time I asked the DM if there was any equivalent to a hardware or general goods store in the locality.

Now, my plan centered around being able to find copious amounts of Chlorine so that I might make Phosgene, Lewisite, or any of those nasty Chlorine gasses and then introduce it into that air scrubber in order to more or less clean out the riff-raff in short order.

I passed a mild intelligence test to figure out how to make the stuff (As I gather, simple chemical weapon information is probably small potatoes compared to working around Fusion powered anything) and then successfully navigated a series of transactions which gained me several gallons of the appropriate materials.

Now, our officer created a diversion by scaring the tenants of the house away by doing a foot-patrol and asking to see people's Identifications and various other harassment techniques that are often used against hooligans, while our Scum kept a lookout and I began to play with the atmospheric processor of this building.

I do pardon for making so simple a mistake, you see, my spell-check auto-corrects as I go along and it tends to choose the wrong word sometimes. Then again, I am equally at fault for choosing the wrong word sometimes.

So, there we were. Now, there was a slight mistake in mixing the atmospheric gasses and my own concoction as I flubbed, critically, one tech-use test out of three. I thought it was a majority-rules sort of situation but apparently, each governed a separate part of what I was trying to do. Here's what happened behind the scenes.

Test 1 - To correctly measure the right amounts of chemical for the desired effect. (Passed)

Test 2 - To introduce the chemical to the building without setting off an atmospheric contamination alarm (Pass)

Test 3 - To introduce this chemical to ONLY the basement - Fail

Where I had initially wanted only to kill a few drug dealers and other miscreants I had accidentally introduced the residents of the apartment complex to some very effective and very permanent sleeping medicine.

Having Euthanized a few hundred people didn't exactly get me corruption points as it was a mistake, but I tested anyways and succeeded in 'not feeling terribly bad about having killed people but somewhat upset at having failed to interface correctly with a machine'.

Now the party at this point has no idea what's going on, so we decide to sit around and wait a while. . .

We decided to sit around at a local diner (The worst greasy spoon in the Galaxy, as the DM put it) and have a cup of coffee while things 'settled' back at our soon-to-be-safe-house when there were some shouts in the streets and a few sirens of the equivalent of a rescue-brigade. The Arbite asked if anything could have gone wrong in my execution of the plan, to which I replied

"I believe I have accidentally euthanized the entire building"

There were stares between the players and then stares at me, which I took to be stares at my character.

"Mistakes were made" My fellow admitted, as sullenly as he could. The other two players were horrified but two hours later we went to our now-empty building with 'Do not cross - contaminated' tape over the windows and doors. I fixed the atmospheric processing unit and we entered our new-empty basement safe-house.

Thus ended Session One. Thank you for listening and that's all I have for now.

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The Continued Adventures of Silon, Mordeci, and Co. (I was contemplating using the title "Broke and Fixed again: A Mechanicus Tale")

For those who read yesterday, I posted the first installment of what I do dearly hope to be an ongoing storytelling, the Adventures of Tech-Priest Silon, Mordeci the Arbitrator and Devi the commoner. Scum just doesn't seem nice, now does it?

Yesterday when I left off, we had just inherited what some may decide to call the "Crime scene house". Even though the whole place was not ours for the keeping, the landlord eventually moving other people in after discounting the rooms people had asphyxiated in thanks to my mechanical blunder (or as it was pointed out repeatedly "That time you murdered the whole building"), we inherited the basement as it seemed the Landlord was under the impression that the gang that had claimed such space was still in attendance. This of course was assisted by Devi looking appropriately "Thug Life" as it were, sitting on the stairs from time to time and drinking from a 40 oz (Or 1,182 point something milliliters for our metric friends). Having established a foothold we started on our surveillance in earnest upon the group known as the "Thule Syndicate".

Now, attempting to gather information as best we can, and firmly believing we were smart enough to be on our own, we split up into three teams of one.

At this point, I realized I should have tagged along with the other team or stayed at home and spent time jacking into a data-stream or something more or less what I chose to do, which was to attempt to 'converse' with 'the public' concerning what I needed. Some read a low fellowship score as being bad with words, and I disagree. I think a low intelligence means being bad with words. A low fellowship means you do not know how to use them around other people, you have no social graces, no empathy and no 'gift of gab' as it were. I had a low fellowship. It was going to hamstring me, but before I get to what happened to Mr. Silon, Tech-adept of low station, I will tell you what happened sequentially as the DM went one-on-one with each person, I being the last.

Devi, being a woman did get the chance to go first in this encounter. She went into a terribly run down saloon, the sort of place with grease on the windows and spit in the glasses and water in the beer. There were loose, bent nails in the floorboards and none of the stools sat just right, the sort that rock under your weight from age. The bar paid her no mind as she fit right in, and between rounds of, well, I can't say I'm acquainted with the game of 'hold your hand flat and stab between the fingers as swiftly as you can' but I know that I'd be laughed out of such an establishment for calling it that. Well, she played that, and with her agility she passed every time, wetting the old tables with blood and talking trash with the local toughs. Between games of "Don't stab your fingers," there was a bit of information acquired concerning the "Thule Syndicate". This will be shared later.

Mordeci, well, he managed to check in with the local Magistratum outpost which just happened to be run by one of his cousins, and jack-jaw his way into interrogating some of the local scum dumb enough to have been caught. One or two interrogations via beating people up creatively, he learned what he could and then used the same knowledge in conversation with the local law enforcement. Local law shared in turn what they knew about the subject and over many pastries, a brighter picture was painted of our potential investigation.

Myself, well, I must admit that my own shenanigans were slightly more involved because I was completely inept at the human interaction "thing", as my fellow would see it. You'd think that because my fellowship was so terribly low that I might just bump into a few people and gain no information whatsoever before deciding to go home empty-handed. Yes, and no. Silon, fresh from his peaceful slumber after gassing the inhabitants of a residential block, walked toward the largest throng of people he could find and then began eavesdropping. Or rather he was attempting to do so covertly. Which means he was standing in plain sight listening to everyone, standing perfectly still at that. Without Bionic ears and other parts, I was doing my best to hear anything about "Thule" or "Syndicates" when I was approached by a pair of relatively unsavory individuals who were very intimidating. One had a mohawk, one did not. I stood very still on the street corner, right next to the lamp post and these gentlemen attempted to shake me down, apparently completely unafraid of invoking the wrath of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Now, they were in my face, screaming, doing all sorts of terrible things and calling me names. They even attempted to take a few practice swings at me, threatening to "Cave my smart head in" and other such, but I was quiet. I was quiet because I had just successfully interfaced with the traffic system and was seeing through the surveillance cameras. After successfully blocking any images of myself from the system, I re-routed a city bus full of people straight through the intersection and caused a strobe-effect from the traffic lights to blind the driver, causing the driver, in turn, to run the two individuals in front of me over. Now, you might be saying that can't be the end of it. Unfortunately, you cannot so neatly tug a chain of events into play and then stop it at your whim. The bus went on down the sidewalk, running people over as the driver slammed on the brakes, rolled it and then tumbled into a marketplace. There were further traffic fatalities as a result of me tinkering with the lights and I said my appeasements to the machine spirits, encouraging them to 'play free while they could' before quickly exiting the scene as fast as I was able.

Now, I began to feel a bit cheated by the DM for these things to have happened, but I realized that I was trying to do things the way an adept of the machine god would, seeing as that I was gifted in nothing but technological ways and intellect, these would naturally be my foremost weapons against any assailant I encountered. Upon arriving back at the basement of the-house-that-I-killed (DM wording), I found the other two had been waiting for me and were excitedly chatting about what they had found about the Thule Syndicate. They looked at me and I looked back at them. They asked "So, how was your day" and I responded with a very, very calm "Accidents occurred."

Mordeci said "What, nothing like yesterday I hope?"

I responded, "Nothing like yesterday, today the cause of death was blunt force trauma."

They were quiet and then asked "how", and I explained about the bus, and the accident, in as calm, collected and objective a manner as I could. They were horrified but managed to compose themselves, beginning to lay out the intelligence they had gathered. They had more or less accepted me as not quite a party member and more so a force of nature that occasionally gets things done. Now, onto the subject of the 'big bad men' we were sent after. The Thule Syndicate or, "The Syndicate" as it was known locally, was involved in two things. On the surface of things they were running an urban reconstruction campaign, cleaning the streets with private security teams, getting rid of criminals, pushing out existing narco-barons and dope fiends, helping people get off their addictions and even running a few homeless shelters. The Syndicate was run by a man by the name of Erasmus Thule. Thule was gaining popular support in the lower classes, though for what was unknown. The second thing known about the Thule Syndicate was that they were apparently involved in a rash of disappearances of prominent people, Imperial Clergy, Outspoken political adversaries, gang members, and so on. Their army and popular support had allowed them control of a very large portion of the lower hive and defended their turf so well that most criminals stayed far, far away in fear.

I mentioned that all I discovered is that a metropolitan bus transfers a tremendous amount of force when it collides with a human being. The group was quiet again, but we moved on.

Infiltrating the group seemed impossible, as Mordeci informed us that all informants within the organization had gone silent at near the same time, and any attempt for an under-cover operative of the Magistratum to penetrate the syndicate had failed, usually the officer's head showing up in a paper bag on the precinct's doorstep within a few days of the beginning of said investigation. We were beginning to wonder how in the hell we would crack this place open when there was a knock at the door. Perfect timing, DM. Mordeci grabbed his shotgun, Devi had her compact laspistol and I, well, I kept myself seated as I felt that the group did not trust my instincts concerning human interaction choices.

At the door, there was not a gang, or a team of trained killers, or a mutant or anything else of any real imminent danger. There was, however, an envelope.

The coast was checked thoroughly to make certain there was no one dangerous around the corner, or lurking nearby, or ready to do us harm in any great way. We locked the door, and we sat around while Mordeci (Somewhat the de-facto party leader) read the contents. The letter said to "Come alone" and gives an address. Now, as far as traps go, this one was not very subtle at all. So, knowing this DM as I did, I had to assume it was not a trap but rather some form of plot-hook in order to get us to walk in the direction he wanted. As well, I think he could tell he was stumped to a degree on how to get us as a group to his objective.

The address was apparently a closed theater in a crumbling ruin of a district not far from the boundary of where the Thule Syndicate operated. We arrived, alone, well, the three of us were alone and well armed but more or less alone as we could be given the circumstances. Out of the ceiling comes these bright lights, which don't focus on us but instead focus on a man standing on the stage. "I am Erasmus Thule," the man says, then adds, "And I hear you have been asking about me."

I do recall clarifying on a point. "I asked no questions concerning you." And to his credit, our opponent knew when to ignore those who were 'different' and instead focus on the likely leader of our group: the officious looking one. Mordeci stated that that the man had a certain flare for the dramatic, to which Erasmus seemed amused. Erasmus asked, "Why have you been asking about me?" I asked, flatly "Why did you covertly arrange to meet us in an abandoned Theater?" He answered, "Because theaters are good at keeping loud noises inside them." I began an analysis of that statement with an audio-sweep of the building by shouting at varying volumes in different directions. A half minute later, after being quieted by Mordeci and my calculations only half done, I stated that "Mr. Thule's statement seems correct."

I am told by Mordeci to "Go misbehave somewhere else" and I describe my character slinking away, more sulking than anything as he and his accurate observations concerning the acoustic qualities of the building were unwanted. I milled around in the lobby, finding various things to fix (A few lights, a door hinge, an intercom, a popcorn machine) but soon was out of projects and so I did put my tools away to wander back into the room to find Mordeci shaking hands with Mr. Thule and Mr. Thule saying "let's go, boys". The overhead lights shut off and ten armed thugs emerged from various hiding places to escort Thule from the building. I asked at this point what Mordeci had found out, only to discover that he had talked our way into the 'Syndicate' pending we dealt with a few "road bumps" to prove ourselves.

Being that this is the sort of thing an undercover acolyte agent is expected to do, I by and large expected morally ambiguous shenanigans to ensue.

I was not disappointed.

The First mission we did to prove ourselves was to assassinate the community leader of a small talent show popular on the poorer side of town. This community leader had dealings with gangs in the past, was at one point a really ruthless clan-leader himself. After being 'born again' into the "light of the Emperor", he took up a much smaller position in the world by being a community leader, helping control the crime problem, running a soup kitchen and now this small talent show. By small I mean less than a thousand people attending, and as venues in the hive go, it's not all that great. Our initial plan is just to sneak in and sneak we do, as best we can at any rate. We get in with the crowd, none of us managing to take any weapons of size, between us is a compact revolver and a compact laspistol, and of course, my own innate ability to destroy things with the power of science.

So, Sneaking in as we do, we mill around with the crowd and prior to the show kicking off there is an imperial preacher, the same one by party reckoning that turned the former ganger around. He takes the stage and begins this speech about how even the most wicked and debased of us can be turned around by believing in the divinity of the God-Emperor. He then asks that those of us with the will and way to give, generously, to the local shelters so that the hungry can eat tonight. The crowd is moved and ushers pass the collection plate around, which quickly fills thanks to the pattering of thrones going into the pot. When the collection plate comes to me, I decide to pour the entire contents into my robe and pass a stealth check, to my amazement, to succeed. Mordeci is mortified at this and says "Put that back," To which I reply "our direction comes from a higher power, this money supposedly serves the same purpose, I am merely doing what is logical, taking my cut." Even Devi finds my behavior to be in poor form, but I counter. "I do not recognize this saint, I believe it is spurious." We get looks from some of the surrounding people but I pass the plate on. Mordeci whispers into my ear, "You wouldn't know an Imperial saint if it bit you." To which I replied, "If they go around biting people, it is safe to say they are not an Imperial saint." Our verbal jousting complete, the lights dimmed and the preacher left the stage. What followed was more or less vaudeville of the 41st millennium. A man came on the stage in poor clothes and told jokes, he then left the stage, another person came out and played the Harmonium, then a pair of ladies had a series of songs together. I let Mordeci know that I was going to use the noise and lack of light to maneuver backstage in an attempt to cause a distraction. He mentioned that he would then leave a few minutes after me, with Devi, posing to be husband-and-wife, in order to capitalize in on the distraction to kill the target back-stage.

Now, I did try to move stealthily, but the DM imposed a very very healthy minus to my attempts to move silently, mainly because every step was 'ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching" from the many coins in my pockets. The people seemed not to notice overly though, as Tech Priests and their ilk are more or less always making odd noises or behaving in ways they do not understand. Oh, how thankful I was for ignorance that day. Now, I attempted to maneuver Silon to the stage entrance, where I was admitted, easily, as they assumed I was there as a technician for the faulty generator.

Faulty generator.

Faulty.

Must Fix.

I immediately found my way to the generator where an old man sat in dirty clothes attempting to explain his problem. There was an explanation of some sort that he needed the 'electro-mo-tricity' to shock his animal. Why? Well, as it would happen the DM was ripping pages from history. See, long ago when people were amused by animals on stage (prior to them being amused by them on the internet), folks would come from all around and parade about their unique critters. Some had hens that could play bingo, others had parrots that could sing, and some even had mules that could count, communicate, and do basic arithmetic. Certainly not, you might say, a trick is at work here. Certainly, there is a trick, and that trick is called electricity. See, to give the illusion that a mule can do math or count, or so on, the con-man will tell the audience that he taught the mule to 'communicate' by stomping its hooves. Guess what a mule does when you jolt it with electricity. Yes. Well, this man had some sort of creature that was more or less mule-ish but not a Grox (I have never seen a picture, but have heard plenty about them). He said that without the generator working he couldn't do his act and he'd be thrown out on the street. He said his mule-creature would starve and he'd be all alone. It was meant to be stirring to a human being with a sense of warmth in their heart when animals are mentioned.

Mr. Silon, to his credit, was unmoved.

Silon told the man to take the stage and that he would tend to the abused machine as best he was able. And so, as the old man began his introduction with his animal, explaining how he had taught it using good Imperial book-learning, Silon worked upon the generator. There were two tests. One was to fix the problem. This, I passed easily. Now, there wouldn't have been another test had I not been . . tempted by my character's calling to Improve the machine to a degree. You see, it was running at sub-optimal efficiency. It had sat there, and rusted and been all alone backstage at this den of shenanigans and none had cared for it, spoke to it, soothed its machine spirit. I knew it wanted to be more than it was, I knew it wanted to be all that it could. So, I completed a very-hard tech-use test to effect repairs so that the generator would be operating at factory-fresh efficiency.

Problem was, the man was in the middle of applying voltage to his Mule.

So, one second the Mule twitches and finishes the count to four, and the crowd applauds. Next second, lights flare, and the mule seizes, sparks shooting out of its mouth, electricity climbing between its ears like Jacob's ladder, fur standing on end. I watch the generator to ensure it is operating correctly, as one must during these changes in output to ensure that, well, it maintains its new vigor. I am told by the DM that I can see the Mule illuminated through the curtains. I say "that is fascinating" and turn my attention, briefly, to the incandescent mule before returning my attention to the generator. The mule explodes, showering the audience and there are shouts of "HERESY!" "WITCHCRAFT!" "WARP DABBLER!" The crowd throws things at the stage, a few shots ring out. The reformed gang leader jumps right past me and goes through the stage exit door. I, realizing the machine is all well, say farewell and then chase after him at my lumbering gait, losing coins along the way.

He runs right into Mordeci and Devi who manages to apply the Macho-Elbow to knock the poor former-ganglord over onto the pavement. Our target Unconscious, Mordeci bars the door to anyone attempting to follow while looking down the alley in both directions. There's a car at one end blocking the way (likely belonging to our former ganglord target) and at the other end some trash bins. Mordeci and Devi listen to the inside of the theater come apart as the crowd has turned on each other, violence broken out in full. People bang on the side-door furiously, trying to get out. Mordeci and Devi begin to furiously formulate this plan of action to kill this man, make it look like he was wounded in whatever-nonsense-the-tech-priest-cooked-up-in-there, and then leg it back to our hideout. It was at this time that the car's rear tire flattened our ganglord's face (I had slightly failed a driving test to stop before hitting my cohorts after having passed a tech-use test to soothe the vehicle into working for me willingly). I said to my companions "HE WAS A VICTIM OF RECKLESS DRIVING, GET INTO THE VEHICLE."

Now, we go screaming down this alleyway, tires screeching and us flying through traffic, into another alleyway, and at breakneck speeds the whole way. Reason? Silon has determined to let the vehicle determine where it is the happiest driving, which it being a big-block engine, is at high speed. Silon is a poor driver in this case but he manages to barely not murder the entire party on a handful of tests. Eventually, the party shouts him for him to slow down and begins to give him directions so that he doesn't kill everyone, despite him having been rather successful at not only acquiring funds, distracting the 'enemy', killing the target, and even now happening upon a vehicle for them. They were ungrateful but Silon realized they did not see the world as he did, and as such he would suggest cauterizing those emotional parts of the brain sooner or later.

It was about then we had a problem with some other gentlemen wielding firearms. You see, just because someone is a former ganger, and a ganglord at that, other people, former opponents of the said person during their tenure of crime-lord are likely to not 'forgive and forget' just because they stopped being who they were. Now, an iconic vehicle for this said person then drives recklessly through their territory, and then, gentlemen, you have trouble. We were having ourselves shot at by two vehicles approaching from the rear, While these lads were having a shooting contest courtesy of our trunk and rear window, we returned fire with what pathetic firepower we had while Silon did his best to swerve around traffic and keep us from all dying of sudden-ejection-from-a-now-stationary-object.

Mordeci was empty and soon was Devi, the vehicles behind us were holed but not terribly and they kept pouring rounds into us with autoguns, auto pistols, and even a shotgun blast or two. Mordeci reached under the seat and said "come on, come on", the DM making him perform a spot check to try to find hidden guns, assuming that just because someone was a reformed ganglord they were not without an insurance policy. By this time, the party realizes that I have not shot at anything this entire time and Devi yells above the wind whipping through the open windows "Silon, are you armed?"

Silon informed them that yes, he was.

Mordeci said, "THEN SHOOT AT THEM YOU IDIOT."

Silon began to object, that driving and shooting were not simultaneously possible without risking errors as he was driving through a now residential block at high speed and the vehicles were at a distance sufficient enough to . .

Mordeci ordered Silon, in the name of the Emperor, The Omnissah, and everything else "to just point his weapon out the door and pull the 'frakking' trigger!"

So Silon pulls out his Laspistol and blazes out the window while driving, just wildly firing. After a half-dozen shots, the DM rolls a few dice and chuckles. What happens next saves our asses. I had missed so terribly bad by myself having been terribly distracted at the time of our combat that I shot a few bystanders on the sidewalk, causing a panic of people running everywhere, which in a hive is more akin to a stampede. This rush of bodies blocked our pursuers, which did grind over a few dozen people before coming to a halt. We saw the crowd descend on the vehicles, what remained of the crowd at that rate, pulling the occupants out, intent on making them pay for brutalizing their fellow citizens.

We were all quiet in the vehicle for a time, coming back to our safe-basement and parking the vehicle a few blocks away to ease any suspicions that we were involved in any way. Silon said his farewells to the car and we went to the basement to do a thorough check of our supplies before the next 'mission'. My total haul from the collection plate, minus the coinage that was lost in the scuffle on the way out, was 273 thrones. A nice operating budget for some very low-level operators. It was at this time we heard a familiar rapping upon our door. Who could it be? We opened it to find another lonely letter on our doorstep. Mordeci checked to see the coast was clear before closing and locking our door, taking the letter to the table where he read it aloud.

"Good job on the Ganger. Next, I must ask you to Kill the leader of the PDF company for this level of the hive." We thought we might have something worthy, at least Mordeci did in the letter itself as it implicated a man in a conspiracy to murder. However, the DM pointed out the paper was printed, and that Silon confirms that the paper is generic, belonging to any number of printing stations for any number of cogitators. I don't remember saying this in character, but the DM did so I kept my mouth shut. We pooled our resources and the DM let us know he was going to call our second session to a close. He forgot to mention our total gain of XP from the first session so told us we "earned an even eight hundred" for our efforts. This was more than enough to level up and play with. He told us to begin thinking of next weeks session, the demise of the PDF commander and bid us all a good evening.

And gentlemen, that's the story for next time. How we killed a man with an elevator.

All the best,

-Dave-