#campaign tag: the spacehulk of the happy and free

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #26

We played this final session of our Elysium adventures before Christmas but I was without computer for most of Christmas, so I’m only writing this up now. Good thing I have 6 pages of detailed notes to work with. Let’s see how the revolution went.

We start with checking how our heroes have prepared for the assassination of the tech-priest few days before the moment of truth. 

Gimlet’s, Saef’s and Zamiel’s booze run goes well. 

Vivek and Saef join Zamiel in some drinking and while on it, find out that Zamiel’s father was also not Enlightened. 

In the sector a search for three bearded men is conducted, with lots of servo skulls around, so our heroes hole in in Malika’s basement. 

Some of the resistance fighters try to smuggle gun parts out of the factories. 

Our total is 8 guns, that Zamiel and Gimlet put together (well Gimlet mostly, but he attempts to teach Zamiel), but two people never make it back. 

Gimlet brings up the fact that he’s hoping to get information out of the tech priest, as well as possibly the servitors and the lenses. 

Vivek is of the opinion that the tech priest isn’t going to be a very talkative fellow, so best wait until after he’s dead to do that. 

Gimlet apparently has a 12-part questionnaire about Inquisitor Fane and his dealings he wants answers to. 

Saef sneaks back to our perma-invisible ship to get more weapons. 

On his way back, he has to divert into the sewers to avoid being caught and loses his bludgeon in the sewers. 

He returns for it, but a servo skull is guarding the place. Saef smites the servo skull, grabs his bludgeon and bolts. 

Back at base, Vivek and Malika teach some of the resistance fighters shooting. 

Someone tells Vivek that he should be a teacher for real, which flusters the man somewhat. 

Saef teaches melee combat, mostly defensive stances to the revolutionaries. 

Zamiel explains to us how the proceedings usually go on the day of Enlightening; The tech-priest arrives in the elevator, makes a speech and makes his way to the factory where some Space Marines are standing guard. 

We decide it’s probably best to attack him when he steps out of the elevator. 

It is decided that Saef will take the lenses that will turn him into an Ultramarine to get him close enough to the Smith to do some psyker stuff, and that will be our cue to go. 

Saef goes out and hides his weapons in a house close to the elevator. 

At some point, Vivek pulls Saef and Gimlet aside and tells them that there’s a chance that the tech-priest may be able to take over Vivek in some way, and if that happens, well, take him out or something. 

Usually skitarii are only connected to their own tech-priests, but this is a rogue tech-priest so who even knows. 

Thus arrives the big day of the Enlightening ceremony. Saef is hiding near the elevator while Gimlet and Zamiel, and Vivek and Malika have positioned themselves in the houses nearby. 

First thing our heroes notice is that the Space Marines are missing, which is a bit of a concern. 

People have gathered to wait for the Smith to arrive, and they are happy, it’s a whole celebration. The people to be Enlightened have lined up and they appear to be rather proud of themselves. 

In the house, Malika has a hard time containing her tears, and Vivek puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

Then the elevator starts coming down. In it is the Smith, a huge tech-priest that looks quite unlike usual tech-priests (his head is completely blank aside from the few points of lights, his eyes, and the wire starting from the back of his head and going all the way up the elevator shaft), a hoard of servo skulls and five faux-Ultramarines. 

The Smith starts making a speech, stepping out of the elevator, talking about the safety of Elysium against outsiders and stuff like that. 

While he speaks, a strange hum starts emitting from him, and a blinding blue light takes over the area for a moment. 

Every native of Elysium goes blank eyed. 

The servitors (or the Enlightened ones) stand to attention, their eyes glowing, and they start muttering some sort of a pledge. 

From his vantage point, Gimlet can see that Vivek’s eye starts to glow as well, and Vivek starts to repeat the same lines the servitors are. 

Meanwhile, Vivek feels a connection to all of Elysium, he is the Smith, and the presence of the Savior is all around him. 

And then Malika knocks him the fuck out. 

A servo skull has however noticed something going on and is closing in to investigate. 

Gimlet orders Malika to shoot the skull down and she does so. 

Meanwhile, Saef, oblivious to all this, feels warp energy all around him, and he feels it powering up the Smith. 

Vivek attempts to get up, and Malika knocks him out again and voxes Gimlet, saying something is up with Vivek, and should she shoot him. 

Gimlet says don’t shoot, just tie him up. 

Malika says she’ll improvise and drags Vivek out of sight. 

Saef, in the guise of an Ultramarine approaches the Smith and the other Space Marines, and jams the mechanism of the blue wire with his psyker powers. 

Suddenly the Smith collapses. 

The lights all around start dimming, revealing the Ultramarines as Red Corsairs, and people in the crowd look more malnourished than they previously have. 

Gimlet notices that Zamiel next to him appears quite a bit more alien than he had previously. 

Vivek wakes up, back in his senses, though clearly not feeling well. 

Malika approaches him to knock him out again, but he stops her. 

Malika orders him back to shooting and they do so, Malika fires at the Smith’s body, Vivek takes a shot at the Red Corsairs, as do Zamiel and Gimlet. 

Saef, who can sense that the warp energy is somehow blocked in the pipe, throws a smite at the pipe, and that causes a huge explosion, which fries the Smith and blows the Red Corsairs away. 

The explosion opens up a portal of some sort, through which demons step out. 

One of them closes in on towards the civilians, Vivek shoots at that one (and his gun blows up, so just imagine him slightly fried for the rest of this session :P). 

Gimlet shoots at the one which is closing in on Saef, who is attempting to retrieve his weapons.  

One of the demons takes a potshot at Zamiel, doesn’t hit and falls prone (poor baby?). Combat over!

Saef makes his way to the elevator. People have noticed him and are shouting that he’s the one that killed the Smith. 

Saef closes the doors of the elevator, making some kind of alarm go off. 

People swarm the outside of the elevator shouting about killing him. 

Saef attempts to get the elevator to work, but can’t. 

The aftermath of the explosion has caused all of the servitors to bug out in some way, and Vivek’s not doing very hot either. 

He stumbles backwards, dropping his gun and falling to his knees. 

Malika attempts to approach him, but he tells her to get away, and then he starts making a static noise.

 Malika calls Gimlet and Zamiel over, and while they look over Vivek, Malika is going to attempt to get the people away from Saef. 

Gimlet notices that Vivek appears to be having some kind of a panic attack, and also that somehow the pipe is affecting him, so he and Zamiel drag Vivek away from the city’s center. 

At some point Vivek comes to, and asks what he has done. 

After a moment, he says he can go back, and if he starts acting weird… Gimlet says he can ask Malika to knock him out again. 

Saef manages to get the elevator to work with psychic energy and starts going up. 

While going up, he notices the others in the distance and gives them a thumbs up (Gimlet thinks he’s flipping him the bird). 

Saef rides all the way up to the top of the elevator shaft, through many more sectors. 

There he comes across some metal doors, with a psychic barrier around. 

He knocks on them and gets told (psychically) to go away. 

Saef attempts to respond, but he gets dizzy as it feels like the air is running out of the elevator. 

Meanwhile down at the others, Vivek pretends to be an extra-Enlightened™ person to get the people to go home, which they mostly do. 

The pipe having gone up with the elevator, the lenses have stopped working and Vivek also seems to be feeling better. 

They recall the elevator with a remote Gimlet loots from a Red Corsair. 

Malika and Zamiel join our trio and up they go to the metal doors. 

Saef weakens the barrier, though it weakens him in turn, so that Vivek can lockpick the doors. 

They step through the doors into a metallic room in the middle of which is a blue tank filled with liquid and a dude floating in the middle in golden armor. 

It’s Fane. 

Gimlet steps out to talk to the man, asking if he indeed is the Inquisitor Fane. 

Supreme Inquisitor Fane, Fane corrects, in Gimlet’s mind. 

Gimlet wants to know why Fane is doing this. 

Fane seems to be of the opinion, he’s doing a good thing, saying that the people of Elysium have everything they need. 

He asks then why Gimlet is no longer with the Inquisition, to which Gimlet says it’s none of Fane’s fucking business. 

Fane says that he could be Gimlet’s new boss.

 He asks Gimlet to think through this logically, Gimlet knows deep down that Fane is doing good. 

He then turns to Saef, noting that Saef is quite insecure about not being as smart as others, but Fane could teach Saef. 

Saef declines, saying he already has a teacher, to which Fane says he teaches because he doesn’t know any better. 

Then he turns to Vivek, telling that he’s in the market for a replacement Smith, and maybe Vivek could be the one; with Fane’s help Vivek could become as good as, even better than his brother. 

Vivek also declines, saying he has no interest in being anything like his brother, to which Fane says that yeah, perhaps someone like Eden would work better, anyway. 

Vivek asks him to keep his hands off Eden. 

Gimlet asks what Fane is exactly getting out of all this (Intense sexual gratification, pipes Vivek). 

Happiness, answers Fane. He took over the business when he got here, and runs it quite successfully. 

Gimlet says he has had enough. Saef goes and breaks the tank with his bludgeon. 

There’s some spooky laughter (that spooks everyone but Saef). 

The tank is full of psychic energy that explodes into a demon. 

Gimlet shoots Fane with one of his special anti-psyker arrows. 

Fane falls down and turns into a rotten corpse. 

Saef smites the demon, and approaches Fane’s corpse. 

The demon charges Saef with an axe. 

Vivek shoots at it. 

Saef grabs something from Fane’s hand, and smites the demon which vanishes, although there are some apparitions around. 

It appears that Fane’s golden armor look was as much an illusion as everything else around. But hey, he’s dead now yay? 

Epilogue time. 

We find out that Fane has been selling weapons not only to gangers, but to the Inquisition as well. 

So Zamiel’s an alien and he’s not the only one. 

Gimlet knows what he is, part of a species called athal’anites who were mostly wiped out by Imperium, the rest being enslaved by Red Corsairs. Zamiel is thankful for the information. 

Clearly they cannot stay in Elysium (some have already been killed by humans), but rogue traders can deal with xenos, so for the moment athal’anites will come aboard Santa Maria and from there will be spread around other Pepper ships. 

The humans are confused and many are not happy to be free of the savior, but most come to the conclusion that this would be for the best. 

They are staying in Elysium for the moment, they’ll manage a bit with food aid given by the Peppers, and at some point they better clear out and see what the great Imperium has to offer to them. 

Malika’s been busy organizing things for the humans, attempting to reach the hiding athal’anites to get them off Elysium. Vivek comes to visit her, wanting to talk about Malika’s sons who have been sold as servitors somewhere. 

Vivek doesn’t discourage her from finding out what happened to her sons, but tells her that she shouldn’t be too hopeful about fixing them, because the only person who can fix them as far Vivek knows, Eden, is basically awaiting execution, and Vivek’s probably next in line after that. 

Malika asks if there’s anything she can do. 

Vivek admits he has some fancies in hiding in Malika’s cellar, but he has people to look after, who may yet escape their fate. 

And besides, it’s the nominally ”good guys” who are planning on executing them. 

Vivek admits that he did some bad things, and he’s not exactly making his mother proud with his life choices, but hey, that’s the sinking ship he has tied himself up to. 

Malika tells Vivek that she may not be his mother, but she is proud of him. 

To which he says that now she is just making him feel weird about being attracted to her. 

Malika laughs and says he’s not half bad either. 

Vivek says he suspects he knows which half, but apparently Malika doesn’t mind the cybernetics. 

Malika asks if Vivek has a place to stay the night, if he would like to stay at her place? 

He says sure, if she’s sure he isn’t going to make it awkward, what with being attracted to her and all that. 

Malika laughs, and says, somewhat exasperated, ”come on!”. (and then they make out, idk)

And that’s all for that little adventure! That was a blast and a half. Next week we will be jumping back to our regular roles of me running the campaign and Gorm returning to the table. Looking forward to that.

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #23

Next session of our adventure with weapon-smuggling is upon us. Let’s go!

We pick up with our little stolen (confiscated?) ship approaching Civitas A. There’s still quite a lot of army activity going about, so a stealthy approach would be better. Vivek locates a cloaking device on the ship’s panel, but it appears broken, so he asks Saef to go get Gimlet. 

Saef finds Gimlet playing with a skull. 

He says that’s a bit weird, and then relays Vivek’s request. 

Gimlet hands him the skull, and goes to the cockpit. 

Gimlet says to Vivek that he gotta let Gimlet heal him. 

Vivek says no thanks, just fix the cloaking thing.

 Gimlet asks why Vivek doesn’t trust him. 

Vivek counters with that he doesn’t have much reason to trust Gimlet. 

Gimlet explains that he was the reason why Vivek got arrested and why he did it, but this doesn’t seem to weigh much for Vivek. 

Vivek says that he’s gotten the impression Gimlet hates him, saying that the first time they met Gimlet was eavesdropping on Vivek and Eden, next time he threatened Vivek about him being a criminal and the third he had to forced by Gorm to even play nice, so what’s up with that anyway? As far as Vivek knows, he hasn’t done anything to Gimlet. 

Gimlet says it’s the fire, he can’t… with the fire, just can’t. 

Oh, so it’s more of a you problem? Asks Vivek, in the most dickish move of the century. 

Yes, admits Gimlet.

Vivek says ok, that’s that then, there’s nothing Gimlet can do to earn Vivek’s trust, because there’s nothing Vivek can do to make Gimlet like him, not that that’s high on his priority list. 

Gimlet fixes the stealth thing, and Vivek cloaks the vehicle. 

They land near Sheila’s shack. 

Before they go in, Vivek asks if Saef or Gimlet knows anything about how much illegal weapons sell for. 

Saef seems to know, so selling is put on his shoulders. 

The shack is filled with various goodies, weapons, but also like, everyday groceries, and mini-basketball hoops. 

(and a no smoking sign which Vivek ignores) 

Sheila recognizes Saef from somewhere, and when Saef says he used to be a ganger, Sheila laughs awkwardly.

But on to the business at hand, Saef has this abandoned shipment of guns, would Sheila like them. 

Sheila says not many people around buying guns, but sure she can take a look. 

Vivek goes to get samples. 

While there Sheila attempts to sell Saef and Gimlet a basketball hoop. 

Gimlet shows her his gun and asks if she’s got any special ammunition for it. 

Sheila says she does not, but would like to buy the gun off Gimlet. 

It’s not for sale.

Vivek brings back the guns, and also a servitor arm, and says he wants to buy some information off of Sheila, while they’re at it. 

Sheila makes sure we’re not Inquisitor folk, and then says yes she has bought arms (guns, not arms) like that before. 

She then offers Vivek an arm. 

Vivek says sure, let’s take a look. 

Sheila takes them to the back, and shows a box full of AdMech parts, particularly bits of an Sicarian Infiltrator. 

Vivek takes the arm offered, and Saef helps with attaching it. 

It’s not attached very well, and it’s a bit too big for Vivek, but better than no arm, eh? 

The end agreement is 2,5k and information for the guns. 

So our heroes (mostly Saef and Gimlet) get the guns from the ship to Sheila. 

She says she usually bought them from a hangar not far from here from a nice blue-suited space marine. 

Gimlet asks about a Red Corsair, which Sheila doesn’t recognize, only blue fellows, and a guy named Xerxes. 

Vivek thanks Sheila for the information and shakes her hand, telling her to take care. 

Saef stays behind a bit to buy some chocolate from Sheila. 

Outside the shack Vivek warns Gimlet not to throw the name Red Corsair around all willy-nilly, as it might panic some folk. 

Besides, the person at the hangar sounded like an Ultramarine, which doesn’t make any sense, since Ultramarines are the poster boys of the Astartes, definitely not down with illegal weapon selling, Guilliman would be disappoint son. But it’s worth checking out. 

Before our heroes go to the hangar, a nap is in order, so they get back to the ship for that. 

Gimlet goes off on his own to text some friends. 

Vivek and Saef go to the cockpit to sleep. 

Before falling asleep, Vivek tells Saef he’s sorry about what has happened with his home planet. 

Saef says it’s alright, it’s not like he’s living there anyway. 

Vivek notes that it’s still not great, but it’ll be re-build. 

Saef suspects that his family might want to return to Civitas A when it’s rebuild, so he might visit it later, but that might still be awkward, what with Saef running away as a child. 

Vivek admits he has a bit of a difficulty relating, as he lived with his parents until they passed away, but says it’s going to be fine, Saef’ll visit on Emperor’s day and dress up as Emperor, and give gifts to the kids, and that’s going to be enough, if that’s what Saef wants of course. 

Saef thanks dad Vivek for the pep talk. 

After the nap our heroes talk plan and decide is best to act as stupid as possible. They totes just found the thing like this. 

And so they start to head for the hangar. 

The plan involves checking the hangar out first and then unstealthing the ship, but unfortunately, Vivek breaks the cloaking device of the ship.  

The hangar is a big building with a landing pad, and not much else, so Vivek steers the ship down. 

At the last moment Gimlet also turns the autopilot on, as they supposedly followed it down there. 

When they land, a voice comes through the ship’s radio, asking the person steering to turn off the cloaking. 

The door of the hangar opens and a space marine, clad in the armor of the Ultramarines, steps out. 

Noticeably, his armor has similar lenses the bunny and the Red Corsair had. 

Vivek goes outside to greet him, doing his best to act as the AdMechiest AdMech who ever AdMeched. 

He explains the situation: the ship was heading towards Cayenne Pepper’s ship, so some of Cptn Pepper’s people hopped on board and took hold of the ship and now are returning it to its proper place. 

The Ultramarine asks Vivek for his name and who he works under. 

Vivek says he’s G4ry (the owner of his new arm) under Z47r, currently stationed on board Cptn Pepper’s ship. 

The Ultramarine says he’ll be right back, if Vivek could step out of the vehicle. 

Vivek does so. Gimlet joins him. 

Saef grabs the bolter of the Red Corsair corpse, and sneaks out, and hides behind a crate. 

The Ultramarine returns and Vivek introduces Gimlet to him (Gimlet’s secret name is Gimli). 

The Ultramarine tells that Vivek and Gimlet are free to leave. He’ll be going to look into the ship. 

Vivek and Gimlet take the ladder down from the landing pad and are just about the be joined by Saef and start sneaking around the thing, when the Ultramarine calls them back. 

Vivek and Gimlet return on top of the landing pad, and the Ultramarine asks whether Vivek has (dont remember the name of the thing, but like springs that make landing softer?). 

Vivek says yeah, and the Ultramarine says time to test those, and pushes Vivek down from the landing pad. 

Vivek lands with a loud thud, followed by a soft “fuck”. His other leg broke from the impact. 

Gimlet jumps off from the landing pad before the Ultramarine can push him.

Vivek gets up and shoots at the Ultramarine, so does Gimlet. 

The Ultramarine returns fire, hitting Vivek in the chest. 

Saef, upon hearing some battle noises, rounds the corner and shoots the Ultramarine with the Red Corsair’s bolter. 

Vivek, knowing full well he can’t take a second shot, supercharges his plasma caliver (risky move, boi) and shoots the Ultramarine’s chest, shattering one of the mirror-like things. 

There’s a faint crackle, and then the Ultramarine’s body falls away of their sight. 

Our heroes hear someone calling for Brother Tacticus, asking if everything’s okay. 

Gimlet shouts back that’s everything’s fine, how are you? 

To which the voice replies that he never asks how the voice’s owner is doing. 

But Gimlet manages to persuade the person to go away. 

Our heroes climb back to the landing pad and lo and behold there’s no Ultramarine, but a Red Corsair laying dead on the platform. 

Gimlet asks if Vivek needs healing, as he looks like he’s barely standing. 

Vivek refuses. 

Saef asks Vivek to behave for him, but Vivek doesn’t budge. 

Gimlet throws his hands up and goes to loot the Red Corsair.

Gimlet loots the body, picking up a vox phone, key card and a list keeping track of ”broken assets”. 

Saef and Gimlet drag the Red Corsair’s body inside the ship, to buy them some time.

 It appears the mirrors may help in turning the Red Corsair into an Ultramarine, so our heroes decide to test this out. 

First attempt involved stuffing Gimlet into a power armor, but he can’t move in it, so second attempt is sticking mirrors to Gimlet, and hey, there’s an Ultramarine in front of them. Neat. 

Our heroes decide to head inside the warehouse, Gimlet as Ultramarine, Vivek as his prisoner and Saef sneaking as backup. 

They get in, and there appears to be no one who would bother them inside so, the three can move pretty freely. 

There are crates full of weapons, similar to ones on the ship. 

And there’s two pens on either side of the warehouse, one is full of broken down / dead servitors and the other is full of live (7) servitors. 

There’s definitely something weird about them, they appear to be all men, same age and looking quite similar to each other, cousins, or brothers or something. 

Utility servitors, with parts that Vivek recognizes to be Triplex Phall in origin, but mismatched, as if some are way old-school. 

Looking over the warehouse, they find shipping charts, telling who has been buying and what, and it mentions the place Elysium again. 

Gimlet knows to say that’s a spacehulk, a combination of broken down and crashed-together space ships that floats around the galaxy. 

Well, if our heroes are to get to the bottom of this, they probably need to head there next. 

But first, Vivek says he’s going to kill the servitors. 

Saef and Gimlet don’t look very pleased about that, but say nothing. 

Vivek tells Saef he doesn’t need to be in here while he does it, but Saef stays. 

Gimlet goes out. 

Vivek uses his knife to put the servitors down. 

There’s still the matter of the guard outside, who our heroes should probably arrest and bring to the attention to Sable Swords (this whole affair really), but more on that next time!

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #24

We finally make it to Elysium in this session, eventually, after much waffling about, as we always do. Let’s see what happened.

We pick up from the warehouse, where Gimlet as ”brother Julius” goes to invite the man Xerxes inside as ”something has gone wrong”. When Xerxes follows Gimlet, Saef knocks him out with a big hammer. 

By all appearances Xerxes seems to be a regular citizen of Civitas A. We figure it best to give him over to the officials anyway. 

Saef ties Xerxes up in a knot he can’t quite undo, woops? 

While Saef goes to find the Sable Swords, Vivek is teleported back to Santa Maria, as he wants nothing to do with any branch of the imperial army. 

Gimlet stays behind to watch over Xerxes. 

He goes and gets data of Elysium’s location from the ship, as well looking over the lenses that the Red Corsairs used. They appear to be powered by similar methods as the Civitas A metros are. 

Gimlet pockets the lenses he has been using. 

Saef finds a group of Sable Swords and approaches their sergeant, who turns out to be Carl, the same man Gorm fought alongside of (he is wearing some kind of a Wolf trinket Gorm must have gifted to him). 

Saef reports our findings to Carl and takes him to the hangar to check out the scene. 

Carl questions why the servitors are dead, and doesn’t quite seem to buy when Saef says they were like that when we found them. 

So Saef very nicely brings up Gorm, and hey are you Gorm’s pal too? Gorm’s friends are Carl’s friends too apparently, so the servitor question is dropped. 

Carl will be taking over from here, and Saef asks if there’s a chance they might have the ship after it has been looked over, it’s something Captain Pepper would really like to have for herself. 

Carl says obviously a Rogue Trader will get whatever she needs, so it is arranged that Carl will call once he is done with the stuff there. 

Gimlet and Saef retreat back to the ship. Vivek is in Saef’s room playing card games with Rat, when the dynamic duo returns. 

The subject of Vivek’s health comes up, and it is decided it might be best to get Vivek to Eden as he is the only one Vivek will let doctor him. 

But how? 

Obviously Eden is guarded, so Vivek just can’t waltz in. 

There are the lenses of course, and perhaps more specifically the lenses on the bunny Vivek looted. 

It’s worth a try? So Saef sticks the lenses onto Vivek, and voila in his place is a bunny plushie. 

Saef and Gimlet take the Vivek as bunny and go to Eden’s room. In front of there is a guard who stops them.

Even when Saef says he needs Eden’s medical attention, an entrance is not permitted. 

Saef attempts to contact Inpax, but she isn’t picking up her phone. 

New plan? Gimlet goes to Tabasco and asks for keys to the surgery next to Eden’s prison. 

Tabasco says sure, but whatever for, is Gimlet planning on playing doctor? To which Gimlet says no, to which Tabasco says he plays doctor everyday (winky face?).

 Anyway keys are gotten, and through the surgery’s air vent Saef manages to get to talking distance with Eden and lets him know that there would be a bunny coming in that is actually Vivek in need of a medical attention, so just play along, okay? 

Eden says alright. 

New plan is in action as Saef writes a love letter to Eden (and stuffs the envelope with as many small medical supplies he can think of) and with it and the bunny approaches Eden’s guard again. 

This time it’s a different person, so Saef lays out his story, the tech-priest inside has saved his life, and Saef would like to give the letter and the bunny as a thanks and also because he is ”very much in love with him”. 

”Okay, that’s weird,” says the guard, but agrees to take the items. 

The letter he doesn’t touch but he does have to check the plushie in case it has something inside that’s not supposed to be there. 

So he squeezes its middle, trying to see if there’s anything other than stuffing inside. All’s well so the guard takes the gifts to Eden, warning Saef not to get his hopes up. 

Vivek stays inside Eden’s room for a few days. 

During those days Gimlet invites Saef over to have a little chat, since it’s been a while since they’ve caught up, and Gimlet feels bad that he hasn’t been very open with Saef regarding many things. 

Gimlet pulls it back, saying that stuff started “going to Hell” in Limestow. 

Gimlet explains to Saef why going to Limestow was hard for him, and he also talks about his missing memories. 

Then Gimlet asks how Saef is getting along with Inquisitor Inpax. Saef says they’re in talking terms. 

Gimlet admits that he was the one who told Inpax about Saef being a psyker, and is sorry about that. 

He warns Saef to be careful around Inpax. 

Then he asks if Saef is angry about Gimlet telling her. Saef says ”I guess nothing bad happened”, so he’s cool. 

Gimlet still thinks he should have told Saef, and Saef says they’re not talking about every single thing in their lives. 

He then adds that he’s not talking about Rat with Gimlet, because Rat’s secrets because they’re not Saef’s to share. 

Gimlet asks if she was in the bomb shelter, and Saef says yes. 

Gimlet also brings up Lu Yan, as Saef met her in Inpax’s room. Lu Yan’s Gimlet’s friend, and not in the Inquisition, so she’s cool. That’s the first conversation. 

Next day, Gimlet pops by and asks about Theo and Saef’s family. 

Saef says his family is on the ship and want to do work, and that’s about it. 

And as for Theo, Inpax gave permission to fix him, as Kane Bullard had made him servitor illegally. 

Saef also mentions that Kane Bullard was arrested with a man who looks like Saef’s gang leader, which is frankly quite confusing. 

Gimlet tells Saef to eat healthier. Saef says he’ss buy chocolate flavored protein bars. 

Finally after those few days, there’s a delivery to Saef’s room. The guard is there and he has a package that the prisoner has sent back. 

Saef thanks the guard and asks if the guard is doing alright. 

Apparently the dude is a bit overworked. 

The note that Eden has attached to bunny, says that the bunny is currently sleepy, which is to say when Saef takes off the lenses, Vivek is asleep. 

He is fixed, but really really bruised. He also is sporting one of Eden’s eyes. 

It takes a bit for Vivek to wake, and when he does he seems a bit quiet for a moment. 

Gimlet asks what the Hell Eden did to Vivek to make him look like that. 

Vivek said, that he was like that when he got to Eden, apparently the squeezing didn’t feel nice, woops. 

Vivek says he asked if Eden knew anything about the whole Elysium thing, and Eden knew that Fane employed a Triplex Phall Tech-Priest by the name of H4-4nk. 

He also mentioned that Fane’s acolyte made it out alive and Gimlet says yup, that was Tanner. So right, that’s a bit of a personal connection. Not that Vivek would know that. 

Carl gets in contact and Gimlet and Saef come to get their ride back. Carl doesn’t have much to report that our heroes didn’t already know. He throws Saef the keys and Gimlet says that Carl’s pretty cool. Saef stumbling and nearly dropping the keys is not. 

Saef goes to give Molly the 1/4th of the money. She’s a bit disappointed there isn’t more of it, but she accepts them, and says she’ll be spending this in the tax-free on some jewels. 

Our heroes decide that before heading for Elysium they should probably let Cayenne know what’s up, and it’s agreed that Santa Maria should stay a bit farther away but close enough that emergency teleports can be done relatively quickly. 

Our heroes use Santa Maria to get closer to Elysium before hopping onto their perma-invisible ride. 

Vivek takes the pilot’s seat and getting fixed clearly has helped, as his Mech brain kicks in, and he can calculate where Elysium should be. 

In two-ish days they reach the spacehulk, a bunch of ships and space debris smashed together. 

Every hole in it is dark, it appears barricaded. 

The ship is suggesting an entrance, but Vivek takes the ship to a tunnel on the other bit of the hulk. 

Saef’s psyker senses are flaring up the closer they get to the hulk, he can feel the lenses’ energy getting stronger and the lenses begin to glow. 

At the end of the tunnel, our heroes find an old entrance that has been barricaded with a steel plate. 

Luckily Vivek has a steel cutting tool in his new arm, so he does a small hole and peeks inside. 

Inside there is a full-blown city with people and servitors wandering around. 

All the people (notably mostly women and children), have the lenses on. 

Vivek tells the others what he saw and suggests that the others put the lenses on themselves (Vivek attempts to get Saef to put the bunny lense on Gimlet, but Saef sees through it), while he just can pretend to be a servitor if need be. 

Vivek pulls up his hood and loans some kitten-gloves from Saef, disguise complete. 

After that the trio gets inside the city. Some people greet them as they pass, saying savior’s blessing, which sounds off. 

There’s a factory at the other end of the city that most adults seem to be heading for. The city ends in a metal barricade barricading the rest of the hulk from the city. 

Suddenly a woman starts walking towards our heroes, and greets them, with hugs. 

Our heroes claim to be messengers from another place. Sectors, it turns out, they are called, and this is sector 14. 

The woman is surprised by the beards two of the three wear, as they are not allowed in sector 14. 

The woman, named Onelda invites our heroes to her house for a bit of tea. Our heroes agree and off they go. 

Onelda’s house is nice though a bit sparsely furnished. 

There’s a picture of Onelda’s family, her three kids and her husband. 

When Vivek asks about the man, Onelda says he has been Enlightened and send outside as an offering for the Emperor. Cool. 

The tea and cookies Onelda offers are bit bland to eat, though only Saef appears to be eating. 

Anyway, Onelda has similar kinds of lenses that the Red Corsairs have, so it might be prudent to, uh, get close with her. 

So Vivek turns up the charm, which ends up with Onelda suggesting some baby-making (after Saef and Gimlet have left), which Vivek agrees to. (Vivek claims to have two daughters himself) 

Onelda invites our heroes to stay over for lunch, as a friend of hers is coming over. 

Our heroes think it might be time to leave, but Onelda physically barrs the door and says they should really stay for lunch. 

Vivek questions Onelda why she is so insistent, and she reveals that she knows that our heroes are from the outside. 

Onelda is part of a rebellious group inside Elysium. 

Our heroes decide to stay and get some information out of Onelda. 

It appears that ”the savior” Inquisitor Fane, claims that the outside world is overrun by Xenos and the people here are the only ones surviving. 

They appear to not realize they are making weapons. 

The Savior himself is rarely seen but his right-hand man, someone they call Smith (no doubt the tech-priest) keeps up the factories. 

The sectors are guarded by Ultramarines led by someone named Mor’drax (doesn’t sound much of an Ultramarine to be frank). 

The Servitors are known as the Enlightened, and most males get made ones by age 21. 

Onelda also talks about how her middle child Wes snuck on board one of the out going ships to find his father. Vivek shows Onelda the bunny he looted, and Onelda recognizes it, so Vivek has to deliver the bad news that her son is dead. 

Finally Onelda’s friend arrives, she is a woman in her forties by the name of Malika Nitzkowski, the leader of the rebellion. 

Apparently the Smith is coming over to sector 14 in few days to inspect the factory and Malika plans on assassinating him. 

She and her rebels have smuggled weapon parts from the factory and made swords. So yeah, definitely some fire power would be useful. 

Our heroes agree to partake in the rebellion.

Next up, assassinating a tech-priest. Fun!

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #22

Hey, it’s the start of a new adventure, and with the leaving of Gorm and addition of Vivek the party’s average height has gone down like 30%. I wonder if that’s going to be at all relevant?

There’s about a day or so in between Gorm and Uffe leaving and anything interesting happening. Vivek and Saef spend it together. 

Vivek has decided to stay at Saef’s room, since he rather not take a stranger’s room and Gimlet lives between Gorm and Saef, so taking Gorm’s room won’t do either. 

Saef’s cool with this. 

They hang out and talk, Saef explains what has gone down at Dew Mountain (Vivek doesn’t explain at all about what has happened with him :P). 

Saef also mentions to Vivek that the Inquisitor has arranged him a teacher in all that psyker stuff. 

Vivek questions what might be the end goal of such an education. 

Saef shrugs and says he only wants to keep the Inquisitor happy for now. 

Vivek warns him that it’s plenty easy to get conscripted in a world such as this, so it might be relevant for Saef to ask about that before he gets drafted for something he doesn’t want to. 

Saef says ”thanks dad”, which flusters Vivek a bit. 

He tells him to get a better father figure. 

Saef shrugs and says that he somehow has managed to get quite a few dads, Gimlet, Vivek, his actual dad, who’s also on ship. 

Saef opens up to Vivek about how awkward the whole thing has been, having his family on board. 

He mostly tries to avoid them, because he’s pretty sure his family doesn’t want to see him. 

Vivek shrugs and says it might not be the case, but if this is what Saef is most comfortable with. 

Meanwhile, Gimlet stays inside his room and avoids Vivek the best he can.

But let’s cut to the actual happening-ons, Saef gets a text from Molly, where Molly asks him to get his friends and meet her at the teleporter. She has a favor to ask. Saef gathers Vivek and Gimlet and off they go. 

Molly explains that there’s an Imperial cargo ship adrift in space and it’s been calculated to hit Santa Maria within an hour. 

Santa Maria is planning on blowing it up, but Molly would like to take a peek at what the cargo is and whether it could be sold for cash-money. 

Namely she wants Saef and co to do it, and they have only about half an hour to do so before Santa Maria blows the ship up. 

So any ideas? 

Vivek suggests them hopping onto the ship and fixing the engine if it’s broken. 

Good idea, but there’s one problem. His name is Jimbo, he’s the new teleporter guy (RIP Paul, you are missed). He needs to be gotten out of the room so Molly can teleport our folks. 

Molly says all he knows about Jimbo is that he really, really likes space golf. 

Vivek asks if anyone knows anything about space golf a little too loud, and Jimbo (from the other side of the room) asks if someone mentioned space golf. 

Vivek grits his teeth for a bit, then turns on his smile and goes to talk with Jimbo. 

You see, Vivek is a space golf enthusiast but doesn’t actually know much about it, maybe Jimbo could teach him. 

Jimbo suggests they meet up for a coffee after his shift. Vivek agrees, and then tries to get Jimbo to show him his club right now, so he could talk golf better? 

Yeah it doesn’t work. So Vivek agrees that it’s a date. 

Jimbo gets quite flustered at that, he didn’t mean it as a date.

 Vivek pulls rank on Jimbo, saying that he’s a corporal of the Mechanicum army (technically still true?) and he doesn’t do or tolerate that kind of behavior (it wasn’t a date-date, it was we’ll meet there at this time and date-date), so maybe Jimbo could go and report to his supervisor about what he just did. Jimbo, defeated, does so. 

Vivek turns to the others and asks if he was flirting with the dude. 

The general consensus seems to be yes. 

Well, nevermind that, Molly starts working the teleporter and sends the trio in one by one (in order Vivek, Saef, Gimlet).

Our heroes teleport into a tight corridor of the ship. There’s a siren blaring and smell of blood in the air. 

Also, Saef recognizes the smell of tyranids. 

When he informs the others of this, Vivek says that his grandparents were killed by tyranids, to which Saef points out that his whole home planet was just decimated by tyranids. 

They pull out their weapons and start sneaking forward. 

There’s a window showing to the cargo room and Saef sees shadows moving inside. 

Upon letting everyone know, they duck so as to not let the people (or most likely xenos) inside know what’s up. 

There’s blood and servitor parts littering the room, and a broken down servo skull that Vivek checks out. 

It’s clear that our heroes can’t avoid the battle forever. 

Vivek asks what’s their usual battle plan. 

Saef says they usually just let Gorm go first, and then follow after him. 

Unfortunately there’s no Gorm around, so one of them has to go first. 

Vivek gets up, catches glimpse of the first genestealer (of two) and blasts off its lower left arm with a devastating blow. 

This is for my grandma, he says as he does it. It’s pretty cool, eyy. 

Saef gets up next and shoots the same genestealer, killing it. 

There’s a second genestealer still left. 

Gimlet shoots at it, and also manages to blast off its lower left arm, very cool-like. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t quite die and it charges through the new broken windows at the closest victim, which is Vivek.

It gets stuck in the window, but manages to attack Vivek quite severely (altho Skitarii don’t bleed, so who’s to say). 

Saef comes in to beat it up with his bludgeon. It’s quite shocking. 

Gimlet shoots at it over Vivek’s shoulder but the genestealer has not yet gone down.

 It attacks both Vivek and Saef with its next attack. Ouch. 

Vivek has noticed that there’s a pipe of some sort going above them, and he pulls off the vent of it with his magnetic abilities (dude’s one big magnet if need be). 

The pipe turns out to be a pipe for gasoline and it douses the genestealer. 

Saef manages to step out of the way in time to not get doused. 

Vivek then lights up a cigarette and drops his lighter into the gas, lighting the poor genestealer aflame (but it looks damn cinematic).

The genestealer rushes back out of the window and dies on the cargo bay floor. 

Combat’s over, yay! 

Gimlet goes to give Saef some first aid. 

Vivek wanders off to check the other stuff in the hallway, which turns out to be a skeleton of a small child with a small bunny plushie next to it. 

Vivek loots it and then goes to examine the cargo bay. 

Gimlet offers Vivek first aid as well, but Vivek says he’s fine. 

Both Gimlet and Saef can see this is not the case. 

Saef asks Vivek to accept some medical attention, ”for me buddy?” 

Vivek pulls Saef aside a bit, and notes that Gimlet’s the reason he currently wanders around without an arm and an eye, so he doesn’t exactly trust him to get anywhere near his wires. 

But fine, he’ll do what Saef asks, as long as Saef keeps an eye on Gimlet. 

Vivek asks Gimlet to take a look at the spot where the Genestealer’s hit has driven a piece of his armor into his side and Gimlet does so, without any fuss. 

Vivek thanks Gimlet. 

Then they turn their attention to the cargo. Vivek and Saef open some of the boxes of cargo in the room. 

All seem to contain guns that Saef recognizes being used by gangers on Dew Mtn. 

Well, there’s plenty of them, but is this what Molly was hoping, who knows. 

But first a more pressing matter, turning the ship back on. 

Our heroes make their way to the engine room where Vivek and Saef immediately show their ignorance on all things technical (Vivek offers to say some prayers). 

Gimlet points out that the engine isn’t broken, it’s just turned off and it’s easiest to turn that back on from the control panel, in the cockpit. 

So that’s where our heroes head. 

The doors to the cockpit are jammed shut but there’s holes from guns littering the door and one hole big enough for our heroes to get through. 

Inside they find several dead genestealers as well as a dead space marine, who’s body has been eaten from inside his power armor. 

Gimlet immediately recognizes the space marine’s armor and says it’s a Red Corsair, a type of Chaos Space Marine known for pirating. 

Vivek puts out his cigarette on the dude’s armor. 

Gimlet turns the engine on and everything's smooth sailing, except the gas light is on, for some reason hmm… 

Saef and Vivek go attempt to put the panel Vivek tore off back on, but it’s too high up so Gimlet comes to help, lifting Saef up to get the panel back on. 

That figured out they return back to the cockpit and notice that the ship was on autopilot, heading somewhere in Dew Mtn and it’s now asking if that should be continued. 

Saef calls Molly and let’s her know that the cargo is shitty cheap ganger guns, and also a chaos space marine. 

Molly is a bit surprised at that, it is an Imperial cargo ship after all. 

She leaves getting rid of them to Saef. 

So, can our heroes sell these totes illegal guns to someone? 

Saef says he knows a weapon sales’ person by the name of Sheila on Civitas A. 

She dealt guns to a lot of gangers, from similar crates. 

Unfortunately she is super-annoying, but it’s worth a shot to check if she’s still alive and in the business. 

Vivek takes the pilot’s seat (well co-pilot’s seat as the Red Corsair is on the pilot’s seat proper). 

Gimlet investigates the body of the Red Corsair more carefully. 

He finds the Corsair’s bolter and on it ascribed the name ”Nemeroth”, who Gimlet knows to be a Red Corsair warlord that supposedly died 120 years ago. 

Saef carries some of the bodies out of the cockpit to give them room to manage the ship. 

As he does so, he hears some kind of mechanical sound coming from underwater, or under gasoline in this case. 

He follows it and finds the servo skull that is attempting to make some kind of sound, but its speaker is broken. 

Saef brings the skull to Gimlet to look over. 

There is a radio on the ship that Vivek has turned on. 

Apparently Red Corsairs are really into metal. 

But the skull could be hooked up to the speakers as well. 

As Gimlet fiddles with the skull, he asks Vivek whether Uffe has a crush on him or not. 

Vivek seems quite taken aback by the question, asking on what observation Gimlet is basing this on, he has only ever seen Vivek and Uffe together twice, and it’s not like Gimlet has any particular great insight into what kind of person Uffe is like. 

Gimlet is quite persistent at the point. 

Vivek points out that Space Marine’s don’t do romance / sex anyway, so he must be mistaken. 

Saef chimes in about these books he’s read that say something quite different.

Vivek makes the point that those have been written by people who find Space Marines attractive, plenty of those around, Vivek may or may not belong in that category (just because he likes a man who could snap him in half with one hand…), don’t mean they are accurate to what happens in real life. 

As they are arguing the point, Gimlet hooks up the skull into the speakers and it starts blasting off a message about Elysium and Grand Inquisitor Fane. 

Vivek asks if this Fane person is a friend of Gimlet’s. 

Gimlet says an Inquisitor by the name of Fane did live, 120 years ago. 

So is this some kind of time travel thing?

 Saef goes to check out the weapons and comes to the conclusion they have been made maybe two months ago, max. 

So at least those aren’t from the past. 

There’s also the question of servitors, as far as Vivek can see, they’re not official Triplex Phall -variety, so someone’s making unofficial servitors, great. 

Gimlet is also worried since Grand Inquisitor isn’t a title in the Inquisition. 

Vivek suggests perhaps this Fane fellow liked to be called a Grand Inquisitor in bed (eyebrow waggle). 

Gimlet doesn’t really get what Vivek is saying so Vivek calls him a bit of a virgin. 

Gimlet leaves the cockpit. 

Saef stays with Vivek and teases him about Uffe a bit more, though Vivek can see that Saef is just ribbing him. 

He does admit that Uffe is kinda cute, Saef says he doesn’t really see it, but ”you do you”.

And that’s all for the first session of this adventure. Plenty of mysteries abound. Next time, some weapons selling and possibly something more.

[nemossubmarine]

Warhammer 40k: Wrath & Glory RP #25

Well, we don’t quite get to the killing of the tech-priest today, but we do get to plan a bit and bond a bit and isn’t that what RP’ing is all about?

We pick up at Onelda’s place, where Onelda has made lunch. Saef and Vivek munch down on the admittedly bland food, but Gimlet refuses to eat. 

Onelda says she isn’t planning on poisoning anyone, but Gimlet still doesn’t eat, citing Saef’s poisoning and saying that he has his own food. 

During food, we discuss our plans of attack. Gimlet especially brings up the question of what are they planning on doing after the Smith is dead. 

Vivek seems to be of the opinion that a plan like that is a bit premature. 

Gimlet asks Malika and Onelda about communication between sectors, and Malika tells that occasionally people get taken to other sectors and are never seen again, but other than that, communication doesn’t really happen. 

Malika brings up a person that may know more about the stuff that Gimlet is interested in, his name is Zamiel Ajoku and he’s the revolution’s tech and medical expert, one of the rare men not made Enlightened. 

Vivek asks Malika about weaponry and then offers to teach her (and whoever else wants) how to shoot. 

Our lovely little meal is interrupted by Malika being paged. Apparently someone (by the name of Becky) has gone and talked about bearded folk being around the sector. 

It’s high time for our folks to get a move on. 

There’s the question of people having beards. 

Gimlet absolutely refuses to shave, so he gets a scarf to wrap around his face. 

Gimlet, being the most likely to bring attention to himself (being the tall, bearded fella that he is) goes first. 

He and Malika stealth through the city to Malika’s house, where there’s a hidden cellar under a rug. Malika puts Gimlet there, and tells that Zamiel will be coming round and that Gimlet should stay quiet. 

As soon as he is left alone, Gimlet whips out his phone and starts making notes. 

Meanwhile in Onelda’s place, Vivek and Saef (mostly Vivek) do the dishes while Onelda packs up her stuff, as she needs to clear off too. 

As Malika gets back, it’s Vivek’s time to go. He turns off his eye and off they go.

Vivek makes sure to keep track of their route, even though Malika takes him down alleyways and over rooftops. 

While this is happening, Gimlet, alone in the cellar, hears someone coming in and calling ”is anyone here?” 

Gimlet doesn’t answer, and soon the cellar is entered by a handsome moustache’d man in his thirties, Zamiel. 

Gimlet introduces himself as Gimli, and Zamiel makes sure that Malika had remembered to tell Gimlet that he would be coming by. 

Zamiel compliments Gimlet’s beard, and says that maybe he’ll have to grow a full-blown one as well if they manage to escape. 

Zamiel says he is the tech-guy of the revolutionaries, and Gimlet asks what he knows about the Smith. 

Zamiel talks about some kind of wiring that seems to connect the Smith to the factory and many other mechanical things around. 

This is what the revolutionaries are planning on cutting. 

Zamiel also mentions that he is not well-liked by the people around here, since he wasn’t Enlightened, so he has had time to study up on things. 

Gimlet wonders why he wasn’t, and Zamiel says he doesn’t know. He was quite disappointed at the time, but thinks now it’s probably for the better. 

There’s few non-Enlightened men around, but Zamiel hasn’t managed to pick up anything odd in common about them. 

Just something about Zamiel and the others didn’t please the Smith. 

Gimlet asks about the other sectors, but again Zamiel hasn’t much to offer. 

Gimlet also asks about the people growing their own food, and Zamiel says that they don’t, it’s provided for them from the outside. 

Zamiel tells Gimlet that he is surely a signs of things going well.  

He says he isn’t disappointed to see what kind of people still exist outside Elysium. 

Gimlet says that ”not all are as handsome as I am”, which Zamiel maybe takes as flirtier than Gimlet intended. 

At this point Vivek and Malika arrive, and Vivek introduces himself to Zamiel (as Vivek, because he admits having forgotten what name he gave Onelda). 

Malika goes to get Saef, who has been instructed by Onelda to leave a pebble at Onelda’s door so Onelda’s kids know not to come home. 

Saef and Malika stealth around and notice that the giant elevator near the factory coming down, inside it Ultramarines and Mordrak, their leader. 

Malika pulls Saef into a sewer. 

At the hideout, Vivek chats with Zamiel but at some point seems to get nervous about Saef and Malika taking long. Finally the two arrive, smelling like poop. 

Vivek comments on them clearly having taken ”the scenic route”. 

Vivek brings up the lenses on the people around here, asking when they are given. The answer seems to be that they are always there. 

Vivek attempts to break Wes’ bunny’s lenses but doesn’t manage it (Zamiel recognizes the bunny, so Vivek has to tell him the bad news as well). 

Vivek asks what happens to psykers around here, and both Malika and Zamiel seem confused about what the word means. 

Vivek attempts to explain, and then Gimlet blurts out that psykers are like Saef. 

To which Vivek then drops Gimlet being an Inquisition member, which causes more raised eyebrows from Malika and Zamiel than Saef’s psychic abilities. 

Vivek course-corrects, saying that just like he’s the same as the Smith, but not with him, Gimlet is from the same organization as Fane, but not with him. 

Zamiel demands to know our heroes’ real names, to which Gimlet finally tells his name is Gimlet. 

Vivek tosses the bunny to Saef and asks him to attempt to shut the lenses down. 

Saef does so, and suddenly all goes dark and a voice whispers in the darkness ”Who are you?”. 

Saef can sense a presence suddenly in the room, but it soon disappears and the lights come back on. 

Malika is quite angry, and asks this not the done again. 

Zamiel however, after seeing that the bunny changed shape, is willing to have this attempted on him. 

Saef does so, and then there’s suddenly mist. The mist obscures Zamiel from sight. 

Both Saef and Vivek move closer to him, Vivek going as far as grabbing Zamiel by the arm. 

The mist disappears and Zamiel returns to normal. 

He’s quite angry at Vivek for grabbing him. And more angry when Vivek starts babbling about xenos and/or abhumans, even though Vivek points out that’s more of a problem for the future us, as Imperium isn’t going to receive these kinds of people with open arms. 

Poor Gimlet has no idea what’s going on (and still doesn’t). 

Malika goes off to take a shower (and Saef takes a shower at some point too), Zamiel goes to meet up with Malika’s sons Milan and Ibram. 

Gimlet goes to talk with Vivek about what just happened, Vivek says nothing’s different, except Elysium’s future prospects. 

Gimlet asks what Vivek knows of the people around, and Vivek says nothing more than what he shared last time. 

Gimlet mentions that there was a psyker with Fane, and Vivek asks why it took him so long to tell that. 

Gimlet says it was because he thought the psyker was dead. 

Vivek tells Gimlet he should probably attempt to share information more in the future rather than keep his conclusions to himself, since at least the Smith isn’t dead. 

Gimlet tells that there were five other people with the four already mentioned, but they were probably regular folk. 

Zamiel comes downstairs, and Vivek picks up that he is rather shaken and apologizes for not handling the situation very well. 

Zamiel says that it’s quite a lot, which Vivek can agree to, but Vivek says, he doesn’t think Zamiel is any worse despite probably not being a human. 

Zamiel says he might just resort to drinking, to which Vivek says he was about to ask if they had any booze around. 

He was mostly planning on making improv-bombs, rather than drink, but drinking is acceptable too. 

Zamiel, Gimlet and Saef decide to go on a booze run to Zamiel’s house. 

Gimlet expresses surprise that Saef even drinks, as he "thought Saef only ate chocolate" , to which Saef comments that ”dude, I’m 23”.

Off they go! 

They get some walking distance before they hear Space Marine footsteps approaching. 

Zamiel pulls Gimlet and Saef to the sewers and they see an Ultramarine with especially fancy armor, who orders one of his men (Vargoth) to go check up on (Dathor) who has been at the woman’s house for quite some time. 

Saef notices and asks Zamiel if the Ultramarines here only carry swords, and Zamiel says he at least has never seen anyone with ”armaments” (guns). 

In the cellar, Malika joins Vivek. 

Vivek notes that Malika seems distraught also over Zamiel, and maybe in some denial about herself. Vivek apologizes to her too about how he handled the situation. 

Malika says it’s hard to believe that Zamiel is not human. 

Vivek points out that Zamiel is still Zamiel, the person Malika knows, and, not that that probably is of any help, Vivek himself barely feels human most days, so there’s different degrees of humanity. 

Anyway, pistol practice? Malika seems agreeable. 

Vivek asks for a target, and Malika goes to get a painting of Inquisitor Fane. 

Vivek hands Malika his arc pistol and teaches Malika how to use it. 

Malika gets two(!) shots on Fane right between the eyes, and Vivek is super-impressed. 

He also shows how he shoots, and shoots a bit off-center. Seems like Malika is a natural. 

Malika asks where she should shoot the Smith, and Vivek says eyes are good, as is the breather if he wears one. 

He notes that the Smith probably doesn’t have much human in him anymore, so well-placed shots are important. 

Vivek says that Malika can keep his pistol for all he cares, she probably needs it. 

Malika thanks Vivek and asks why Vivek (and the others, but fuck if Vivek knows) is helping them? 

Vivek mentions that this is not going to be his first riot in a factory, and that also had in its center a woman and her son, so the parallels are quite obvious.

Malika says Vivek is a good guy, which makes Vivek laugh. 

Vivek also mentions having been a servitor for a bit and how not great it was, so obviously he wants to do something about the Smith. 

Malika asks about how Vivek was fixed. 

Vivek says that yeah, he was fixed, but there’s like one dude that can and is willing to do that, and also Vivek has no idea if he is the same person he was before that. 

Malika says she knows her sons.

Vivek says he doesn’t want to give Malika false hope, another problem for the future. 

He puts his hand on Malika’s arm, and says that they’ll have to keep her sons that are still here safe first. 

Malika mimics the gesture and agrees. 

And also she needs to start putting up bed-rolls for the people staying in the cellar.

Next time, the last session of this campaign, and the last session of the year. Exciting times ahead!