>>4926394
>Befriend hotel staff and local garrison troops and try to lead a normal-ish life
>Swimming in the ocean
>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early

It's very much the vanilla options, but I think Rhea would have tried to stick to the lifestyle she knew as to not have to think too much about how she got here On the other hand, she knows the Inquisition could send for her at any point, so it would make sense for her to keep herself in shape. As for sleep, she has discovered that one can never have enough, and has no doubt picked up on the Guard habit of taking every bit of rest you can, as you never know when it'll be safe to do so again.

>>4926394
>Tentatively experiment with the hedonistic lifestyle of the idle rich, something which you never could imagined for yourself growing up, as you try to distract yourself from old memories

We're supposed to be curious, remember?

Though, I think we'd also desire normalcy and a return to our normal boring life, so maybe combine it with...
>Befriend hotel staff and local garrison troops and try to lead a normal-ish life

>Swimming in the ocean

May as well take advantage of the beach. That, and regain some muscle tone after days gone without food and poor rest.

>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early

Something to relax, while also ensuring we get plenty of sleep.

>>4926394
>Tentatively experiment with the hedonistic lifestyle of the idle rich, something which you never could imagined for yourself growing up, as you try to distract yourself from old memories
>Sunbathing at the beach
>Hitting the clubs, hard

>>4926394
>Embrace hard partying with nihilistic frenzy, as you try to forgot everything about your past life, in particular your short service in the Guard and the Inquisition
>Asleep in your hotel suite
>Hitting the clubs, hard

>>4926394
>>Befriend hotel staff and local garrison troops and try to lead a normal-ish life
>>Swimming in the ocean
>>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early
>>4926459
I agree with this. Rhea isn't really the type for drugs and orgies, otherwise she would have been a happiness angel.
Has Namara recovered yet?

>>4926394
>Tentatively experiment with the hedonistic lifestyle of the idle rich, something which you never could imagined for yourself growing up, as you try to distract yourself from old memories
>Swimming in the ocean
>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early

>>4926394
>Tentatively experiment with the hedonistic lifestyle of the idle rich, something which you never could imagined for yourself growing up, as you try to distract yourself from old memories
>Watching infomercials on your hotel suite’s pict-screen
>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early

>>4926394
>Befriend hotel staff and local garrison troops and try to lead a normal-ish life
>Sunbathing at the beach
>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early

>>4926394
>>Tentatively experiment with the hedonistic lifestyle of the idle rich, something which you never could imagined for yourself growing up, as you try to distract yourself from old memories
>>Sunbathing at the beach
>>Hitting the clubs, hard

>>4926394
>Embrace hard partying with nihilistic frenzy, as you try to forgot everything about your past life, in particular your short service in the Guard and the Inquisition
>Sunbathing at the beach
>Hitting the clubs, hard

Fuck it, we just escaped certain death. We won't always get so lucky.

>>4926394
>Befriend hotel staff and local garrison troops and try to lead a normal-ish life
>Swimming in the ocean
>Having a gentle stroll along the beach (while drinking) before going to bed early

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>Tentatively experiment with the hedonistic lifestyle of the idle rich, something which you never could imagined for yourself growing up, as you try to distract yourself from old memories
>Sunbathing at the beach
>Swimming in the ocean
>Having a gentle stroll along the beach before going to bed early

You find a spot to sit by yourself at the restaurant and order a small balloon fish steak, seared, and a glass of amasec, followed by some vanilla pastry.

You note with displeasure that Wonka’s Double Chocolate Ice Cream Bar (TM) is still on the desert menu, despite the "Incident" of two months ago. Apparently the whole...thing... at Wonka Land was covered up by the planetary government, who claimed it was a localized heretic uprising. As a result, several of Wonka’s factories elsewhere on the planet continue to operate. You briefly wonder what happened to Willy Wonka. You have a strange feeling you once knew, but like many of your memories of your time in Wonka Land, you remember nothing except a vague sense of unease. You do remember the “Nature Angels” though, and what they were doing in that one chocolate production room... You never had chocolate before the "Incident", and don’t intend to start eating it ever.

Your supper arrives, and is of high quality, and more importantly, free. The Inquisition awarded you with some currency for your role in the Incident, but their main gift was unlimited access to the Suite 119 in the Tower of the Hedonist, and all the free perks that come with it.

Unfortunately, the Tower of the Hedonist is in the middle of one of the Imperial Diamond Resorts’ most uncouth and raunchy red light districts, and the guests here are not your kind of people.

Aside from eating, sleeping, and hanging out in your suite, you spend a lot of your time at the public beach two mag-lev stops away, where the off-duty senior hotel staff and servants from the inland mansions can generally be counted upon to mind their own business. Here you tend split your time between swimming and sunbathing.
You have also experimented around with other activities to keep yourself occupied, including going to festivals, clubs, and other social events at some of the more placid sections of the resort. You even occasionally join Namara on her visits to Camp Indomitable Spirit, though in general you don’t like being reminded of your (very brief) service in the Imperial Guard.

Following your meal, you do a short stroll along the beach (most of the trouble makers are visiting the red light districts this time of the day) before heading back up to your suite.

You don’t find your suite as jaw dropping impressive as you once did, but are still very grateful for it as it is several orders of magnitude better than the cramped, rancid bunkhouses you used to live in during your previous careers as a factory menial and later a Munitorum clerk.

>>4927790

The large main room includes a dining area, kitchen, and three distinct clusters of couches for entertaining guests. Four large bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, two servants quarters, a pantry, and a storage room branch off the main room, while a partial second level has some more couches, a library, and some work out equipment.

The décor was once rather erotic, in keeping with the hotel’s main theme, but you got the hotel staff to stash most of the paintings and statuettes, as they remind you of Wonka Land, especially the lobby where Namara was shot. You did keep a few statuettes though, and gave them names and clothing made of tissue paper, floss, and hand towels, one of several therapeutic activities you came up with to try to help come to terms with the "Incident".

Not quite able to go to sleep yet, fearing the inevitable nightmares that haunt you still, you lie in bed watching infomercials for a while, as the tedium of watching something for the hundredth time helps put you to sleep. Inevitably, the primary infomercial for the Imperial Diamond Resorts comes on, it is the most frequent in the rotation:

“Welcome to Imperial Diamond Resorts, the Crown Jewel of Archipelagia’s tourist industry.”
”We have got hundreds of miles of pristine beach, and dozens of resorts ranging from “exclusive and isolated” to “party central””
”We got plenty of fun activities like fishing from a catamaran*, exploring ancient ruins**, gambling at one of several casinos, bird watching in our pristine jungles***, experiencing our hedonist nightlife and 24 hour red light districts****, and of course, golf”
”Your security is our top priority, and our private island chain has better security than the Governor’s Palace*****”
>”So relax, enjoy your stay, and make new friends******, and don’t forget, our friendly staff are here to see to your every need*******”
“* We are not liable for injury or death that results from encounters with adverse weather and/or hostile megafauna while travelling in a catamaran, other watercraft, or while swimming”
“**There are several different types of ruin on the island, none of which have been deemed heretical and/or xenos by the appropriate authorities, however, this is subject to change at any time”
“***Rumors of disappearances in the jungle are greatly exaggerated, also reminder we are not liable in case of injury, disappearance, or death”
“****Worship of heretic gods is strictly forbidden at public events”
“*****Rumors that resort chain are a cover for one or more illegal organizations are strictly false, our armed guards and combat servitors are here for your safety”
“******The resort chain is not liable for injury or death resulting from interactions with other guests”
“*******See page 8 of the hotel brochure for the list of fines associated with the assault or murder of different types of hotel staff, also check out our escort catalogue on page 12”

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>>4927792

Not for the first time, you wonder how this place hasn’t been shut down yet.

You are almost asleep when Namara bursts into your room.

Namara is your only real friend, sometimes housemate, and fellow survivor of the Incident, where you saved each others lives on several occasions.

However, she is a private, introverted sort, and you don’t actually talk all that much. In part this is due to you reminding each other of the "Incident", and partially because she dislikes the hotel so much, and idleness in general, she got a job mopping floors at the local PDF base known as Camp Indomitable Spirit. She sleeps there too most nights, but sometimes stays at the hotel instead.

“We have a problem” – Namara says. She has a tendency for understatement, but you can always tell when she is stressed because her accent becomes stronger.

Your heart sinks when you see what is in her hand.

One of the tainted religious multiple choice pamphlets, identical to the ones that caused your first and only Imperial Guard posting to collapse into insanity and damnation. Likely a number of other camps and villages too, judging by the thousands of heretics and warp tainted spawn that showed up to fight Inquisitor Chalmers’ army in Wonka Land.

“I found it under a seat on the mag-lev train” – Namara explains.

>Flee the resort, no way you are living through another outbreak of warp madness

>Try to alert the proper authorities, good luck explaining something that was covered up though

>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behaviour without strong leadership.

>>4927793
>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behaviour without strong leadership.

>>4927793
>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behaviour without strong leadership.

We chose to be curious in our character creation, may as well investigate. Besides, there is no way we'll be able to get out of this, forces beyond our meagre clerk!imagination are at work, and this isn't called Hapless Guardswoman Quest for nothing.

Thankfully we had our requisite cry and vacation, hopefully our feeble mind can handle the coming strain.

>>4927793
>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behaviour without strong leadership.

>>4927793
>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behaviour without strong leadership.
As much as saying "fuck this" and leaving seems like a good idea, I think the Inquisition will interpret that as "We are definitely corrupted and are responsible for this new wave of chaos bullshit"

>>4927793
>>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behaviour without strong leadership.
Aw shit. Here we go again.

>Try to investigate the source of the pamphlets, maybe it is just a one-off, you have a hard time seeing them as being effective if not deployed in large numbers, the tainted ones it creates are individually weak and prone to self-destructive behavior without strong leadership.

You suppress a flood of unwelcome memories from the last time you encountered the pamphlets, and try to focus on useful facts.

Alerting the authorities would probably be the proper thing to do, but your contact in the Inquisition left you with no way to contact him, and who knows if any of the local authorities are already corrupted. Last time you encountered the pamphlets, it later turned out the senior officers in your company were heretic agents or subverted ahead of time.

Running is also pretty tempting, but you were never entirely clear on whether the Inquisition expected you to stay at the hotel or not, and besides, you have gotten pretty used to upper class living, fleeing and becoming a farmer laborer or domestic servant isn’t really that appealing, especially on this world.

“Alright, maybe this isn’t as bad as it looks. I don’t think the pamphlets are super dangerous except in large numbers. This is probably just a left over from some half finished ritual that got aborted when Wonka Land got shut down.” – You say.

You think for a bit, last time they were spread by disguised heretics, but ultimately they supposedly came from somewhere in the Ecclesiarchy.

Also, in the weeks following the incident, you have spoken to Namara about the Four Saints found in the pamphlet. All were from her backwater feudal home world of Gomorrah, which as far as you can tell, was overrun by xenos and traitors not that long ago, though news of the loss seems to have been covered up.

Saint Victor Krump, The Angel of Victory, The Holy Fury, The Red Saint. A recent figure, unlike the other three, he is a Saint from the same Crusade that brought you to this world. A Commissar at the time of his transformation, he was famous for his martial prowess, bloodthirstiness, and disdain for the weak. His followers that you encountered the last time around became gradually more mentally unstable, and were prone to violence and painting themselves red, sometimes with blood. It shouldn’t be too hard to spot them.

Saint Ninian Vitalis, The Nature Angel, The Healer, The Woodsman. Centuries ago, he helped cleanse the Vapour Jungles of Namara’s home world of feral orks by teaching soldiers to use herbs, fungi, poisons, and animal parts to withstand the poisons, diseases, and chemical mists of the Vapour Jungles. When he ascended to Sainthood, his blood was so Holy it could cure any injury or illness, and even revive the dead. You rarely encountered his followers during the “Incident”, but those you did encounter seemed to be trying to use tainted filth to acquire unnatural resiliency. Shouldn’t be too hard to spot either, but you have a feeling they will be hiding somewhere gross.

>>4929016

Saint Sasha, The Happiness Angel, The Pure, Founder of the City of Sodom. So old that no one remembers his or her original gender, so is often represented ambiguously. It is said Sasha was key in the original conquests of Gomorrah, and founded the Holy City of Sodom based on the notions of the glorification of the holy human form, the beatification of the functional, and the importance in beauty, joy, and pride in all walks of life. You encountered no shortage of his or her followers the last time around. Wild and degenerate, they will fit right in here as long as they stick to the red light districts, but you might be able to track some down.

Saint Augustus Trinidad, The Architect of War. An Imperial Guard tactician of peerless ability. Centuries ago, his brilliant strategies, statecraft, and gift for espionage saved Gomorrah from a sinister rebellion. Decades later, he was declared a Saint on Gomorrah after he and 80 other key figures died off world on the eve of launching a new Crusade. During the “Incident” his followers seemed to be the ringleaders of the heretic cabal, particularly those who belonged to the mysterious HYDRA IX. You doubt you will be able to find them, even if you tried. But they may find you if you are not careful.

You briefly wonder if the Four Saints were tainted themselves, or merely a means to help draw the minds of the hapless individuals who completed the multiple choice questionnaire in the pamphlet towards one of the many shades of evil present in the Warp.

>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.

>Go investigate some clubs, maybe you will get lucky and somehow be able to tell the difference between genuine heretics and run of the mill rich degenerates.

>Go investigate the waste water treatment plants, “Nature Angels” seem to be drawn to filth, literally

>>4929021
>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.
Probably the safer option for now, though waste water treatment plant is probably more likely to hit "pay dirt"

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>>4927793
>Flee the resort, no way you are living through another outbreak of warp madness
Hahahahaaaa fuck that noise let's get a boat some supplies and get the fuck out of here

>>4929021
>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.

>>4929021
>Go investigate the waste water treatment plants, “Nature Angels” seem to be drawn to filth, literally

>>4929021
>>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.
Seems like the fastest option initially, then we can worry about the others

>>4929021
>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.

>>4929021
>>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.

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>Go check the local temples and religious sects, maybe one of them is handing out the pamphlets.

You decide to go straight to the theoretical source of the pamphlets instead of trying to track down potential tainted.

If you can’t find any obvious signs that religious groups are handing out the pamphlets, then perhaps it is just a fluke and you can go back to your life of idle luxury.

Not surprisingly, there aren’t too many temples and religious clubs on an island chain dedicated to hedonism and decadence, but it still takes many hours to scout out the various buildings where such groups meet. You don’t see any obvious signs that pamphlets are being distributed, but perhaps they are being given out only on certain days, or to select groups.

As you stand outside the isolated Temple of Saint Avum (open only one day a week it turns out) you resign yourself to the fact that this might take a while, and you are just going to have to learn to live with fear and anxiety until you either find something, or go several weeks without finding anything. You have been up all night searching, and it is now approaching dawn. To your surprise, you find yourself actually hoping the Inquisition will contact you, just so you could pass the information on to them and have them resolve the issue.

++Ask, and you shall receive.++

You give out a short squeak of surprise and discomfort as a husky woman’s voice echoes smugly through your mind.

You and Namara turn, and see that two other woman have approached you without you noticing.

It takes a moment, but you recognize them both.

Trish is a medical orderly you befriended back at Camp Xenos Purge, your fateful first and only posting during your brief service in the Imperial Guard. You last saw her drifting into the orbit of the “Happiness Angels” just prior to when the pamphlet inspired insanity first broke out.

Kayla is a heretic who “rescued” you from a cage that some ork freebootaz left you in, though her motives were less than pure, quite the opposite really. Judging by that brief encounter, she is either a “Happiness Angel”, “Architect”, or maybe both.

Panicked, you fumble for the small stub pistol in your handbag that Namara “borrowed” for you from the PDF camp.

“Well that is no way to greet an old friend, and I saved your life, remember?” - Says Kayla.

Technically true, her companions would have likely killed you had she not intervened, but at the time she made it rather clear she wasn’t doing it for your sake.

“Do you really think we have only one person on the inside?” - Kayla continues, and this time she is holding an Inquisitorial Rosette.

You realize she is likely referring to the mysterious masked man who helped you on several occasions during the “Incident”.

>>4930503

You also remember hearing back at Camp Xenos Purge, just prior to the "Incident", just how connected Kayla was to several people who ended up being the likely orchestrators of the pamphlet distribution there. If she was undercover, clearly she would have been well placed to stop the pamphlet distribution at Camp Xenos Purge, but did nothing, resulting in the loss of a number of people you considered friends.

You feel anger bubbling to the surface of your emotions.

“Let’s not get too excited here, don’t forget who you are dealing with, and how we saved your butt when almost anyone else would have been happy to let you burn... Slowly” – Kayla states rather icily. “Sometimes things have to happen the way they happen. For the Greater Good, some would say.” She smirks at her own joke, a clear reference to the propaganda favored by the foul Tau and their misguided followers.

“Why do you always come to me? I am nobody” – You say softly, thoroughly intimidated.

“You have a bit of brains to you, and a bit of guts. And more importantly a lot of luck, and a certain touch of Fate, at least according to my Master” – Kayla replies.

“More importantly, you viewed a tainted pamphlet, but were not corrupted. This has caused you to acquire what I like to think of as the “Disdain of Dark Gods”. It grants you a certain immunity the Powers of the Warp, simply because they determined you were not worthy of their attention” – Kayla continues.

“But I never read the pamphlet!” - You protest, but even as you do, you remember Namara shoving in your face while she explained the “Four Saints”. Apparently that was enough for such a tainted item. You resolve never to even touch one of the pamphlets again.

“Even minor contact with the pamphlet can affect you. Although a preacher might say only Faith and Contempt for the Dark Gods can protect you, our research so far indicates that those who earn the “Disdain of the Dark Gods” usually simply aren’t of interest to the entities of the Warp” – Kayla muses.

++Let’s see what is in your mind.++

++Emotionally dry. Useful. Probably explains why you are still sane. You may consider yourself prone to hysteria, but fate has played you many bad hands, and you kept it together when many others would not. But "They" don’t like that, "They" prefer their servants to have a certain...emotional vigor++

++A yearning for luxury, but stymied by lack of ambition and both fear of, and blind faith in, those with authority. They don’t like that either++

++Abundant curiosity, and unusually suppressed libido, both of which are barely held in check by a strong inclination to follow the rules. The Dark Prince or the Changer of Ways would have likely gotten you if it weren’t for the fact you arrived late during the Ritual, and the chaos in the camp made you suspicious of everything. The pamphlets work best on the unsuspecting.++

>>4930512

Having Kayla paw through your mind is even worst than when Handson did it.

The inherent violation of telepathic intrusion combined with the unholiness of the two titles spoken in your mind cause your guts to clench, your skin to crawl, and your head to spin with nausea, vertigo, and a splitting headache. When Kayla is finally done satisfying her curiosity, you fall to your knees coughing up vomit.

“As for you, there is no great mystery. Thypptyklpt has claimed the souls of all from your world, even those who left before the Fall, and none of the minor warp entities involved in the creation of the pamphlets will contest that claim.” - Kayla says, and you realize she has been talking to Namara, who has been silent since the Kayla and Trish first arrived.

“Well, this was a fun little psychological assessment, but the second part to the answer to your question is that what you did back in Wonka Land wasn’t really that important. You retrieved just two of the dozens of objectives secured that day, with hundreds of other items destroyed by that idiot Chalmers.

Which brings me to the real reason I am here in the first place. The Inquisition has another task for you. Over the next few days, this region will be subjected to fighting and terrors that will make your experiences in Wonka Land look like a walk in the park. While the Inquisition focuses our efforts on the real work that needs to be done, it never hurts to have a few contingencies in place, and you are now one of them.

A certain xenos breed we have been investigating lately has the ability to counter the effects of the warp. You place these six items at these points on the island, and it should prevent certain enemies from creating another warp storm like they did back in Wonka Land.”

During Kayla’s long winded explanation of your new mission, you rise shakily to your feet, just in time for Kayla to shove a map in your face with six Xs drawn on it.

Trish has also moved in close, and opens a duffel bag to show you six silvery metallic cylinders with glowing green circuitry.

Trish is much more subdued than you remember, and has neither said anything or made eye contact since arriving.

“Well, knock yourselves out, and in the unlikely event you survive, met us at the red circle on the map, because, hey, why not, even someone like you might be able to tip the balance in our favor.”

With that final, demoralizing remark, Kayla and Trish depart, leaving behind the map and the duffel bag full of the strange xenos artifacts.

>Check map for nearest objective

>Curl up in a ball and start crying

>Make plans to escape the island as soon as possible

>>4930518
I'm...hesitant...to participate in this plan, it is still ambiguous whether Handson and his minions were even actually inquisition or just heretics disguising themselves as such and manipulating us. Wasn't it?

I suppose if we complete this task and all it ends up doing is completing a chaos ritual we'll know for sure whether they are loyal servants of the Emperor or not, right before we die.

>Check map for nearest objective

>Make plans for our eventual escape from the island, after all, they didn't give us an extraction location this time.

>>4930553
I support that. Let's at least try and come up with an escape plan on the way to the objectives.

>>4930553
>I'm...hesitant...to participate in this plan, it is still ambiguous whether Handson and his minions were even actually inquisition or just heretics disguising themselves as such and manipulating us. Wasn't it?
That's pretty much just how it goes with the Inquisition, isn't it?
>>Check map for nearest objective
Might as well get to work...

>>4930518
>Check map for nearest objective
>Make plans for our eventual escape from the island, after all, they didn't give us an extraction location this time.

Well here's hoping we're actually working for the inquisition (wow what a sentence) rather than someone posing as them.

>>4930518
>Curl up in a ball and start crying

>>4930518
Bitch didn't even give us any information on what we're up against or access to any equipment. Hopefully those spots are in public areas and not at say, the rooftops of private or restricted buildings.
>Check map for nearest objective

Given her noting our “fear of, and blind faith in, those with authority” it would surprise me if she was just a heretic trying to take advantage of us.

>>4931468
wouldn't*

>>4931138
I reckon it might be something to do with the Necrons, based on her general description. If it is, Kayla wouldn't bother explaining the details (Rhea probably has never heard of Necrons) and might not really know them herself.
>>4931468
Radical Inquisitor, Heretic; what's the difference, really?

>>4931817
She said the artifacts are to curtail further warp storms, so we're up against warp shenanigans again. I meant it'd be nice if she would tell us what's arrayed against us. Last encounter we saw orks, Alpha legionaries, minor daemons, abominable intelligence, and corporate suits. Will we be up against all of these again? She didn't even offer us a basic laspistol or something. Bitch

>>4931848
I don't know the details because I haven't read the fluff in question, but to me that sounds like the Necron pylons on Cadia. I don't think any other race has something that can just turn off the warp like that.

>>4930518
>Make plans to escape the island as soon as possible

>>4931885
True, they appear to be Necrontyr in origin, but that's not the issue; they are just tech devices. The issue is we're being sent bare-fisted into the unknown with nothing but a map when we've already seen cultists, mutants, CSM, and daemons. We received no training whatsoever in the "guard".

>>4932305
that's true. I guess I am just a fatalist. basically, the way I see it, Rhea should probably already consider herself dead. There's no escape from whatever she is wrapped up in, because whether Kayla is working for Alpha Legion or the Inquisition (or both) there is no question that running away now will only make it so Rhea dies tired.

>Check map for nearest objective
>Make plans for our eventual escape from the island, after all, they didn't give us an extraction location this time.

Your mind reels under the possibility that somehow things can get significantly worse than your experiences in Wonka Land.

After much hesitation, you decide the best possible course of action would be to accomplish your mission as quickly as possible. After all, the it shouldn’t take too long to place the shiny cylinders in the six specified locations.

“Did Kayla tell you anything else useful? With mind powers I mean, did she upload some mental packet of images and memories like Handson did?” - Asks Namara.

“No, nothing...” - You reply.

“I wonder what could be possibly worse than heretics and warp magic?” - Says Namara.

As if on cue, you hear the raid sirens sound.

Usually they make only three short beeps, followed by a long pause, then repeat, a sign that a possible hazard has been spotted (usually ork freebootaz or a possible tsunami) but this time it is the long mournful sounds indicating a full on invasion or major disaster, and to seek shelter immediately. The infomercials assured you this has never happened before, even at the height of the ork invasion that ruined large parts of the planet only a few years ago.

You hear the rapid thump of heavy artillery firing in the distance, no doubt the local PDF, Guard, and private security groups engaging whatever threat has emerged.

The Temple of Saint Avum is relatively high up in the interior hills of the largest of the resort islands, one of the reasons that you visited it last. However, it also is located near several spectacular viewpoints of the largest sections of resort. Already dreading the worse, you and Namara scramble over to the nearest elevated platform offering panoramic views.
In the early dawn sun, you can see an armada of beige and ochre colored landing craft coming from the east, with the distinct rounded wings of Tau vehicles.

Yet you can also see some commotion to the south, where misshapen looking vehicles made of scrap metal are emerging from beneath the waves, and discharging swarms of smaller vehicles. Although you can not see individuals from this far away, you have no doubt they are orks and their gretchin allies, and perhaps even their human proxies you have encountered in the past.

As if that wasn’t enough, the mountains behind you rumble, and massive avalanches occur as whole cliff faces fall away to reveal shiny monolithic structures, reminiscent of the six cylinders you were just handed. A few structures look different though; blackish purple and spiky. Already you can see small flying objects emerge from both sets of structures.

>>4934727

And of course, the icing on the cake, just down the hill from you, home to one of the island’s many ruins, a beam of pinkish energy bursts from the roof of the tallest stepped pyramid in the complex of ancient structures. Throughout the island chain, dozens more beams fly high into the heavens, most a vibrant shade of rose, but a few are other colors.

You don’t swear very often, but it seems appropriate at this moment.

“Well fuck....” - You mutter.

A low humming noise is your only warning, and even then, you have no time to react before a lithe figure on a floating blade drifts into view.

>Shoot it

>Flee into the Temple of Saint Avum

>Flee down the road back to the resorts

>>4934729
>Shoot it
>THEN FUCKIN' BOOK IT (to the resorts)

>>4934729
>Don't shoot it, you do not need the attention.
>Book it to the nearest objective.
Man, this is cold shoulder all over again.

>>4934729
Supporting this...>>4934751
Only sane option, imho.

>>4934729
>>Flee into the Temple of Saint Avum
shooting it sounds great, but shooting at it and missing sounds like a terrible idea and Rhea hasn't even undergone basic weapons familiarization. Even if she has the basics down, I doubt she's been to the trap range recently enough to hit it. Most of the people she's shot were probably much closer.
It's a Hellion, isn't it?
>>4934751
Trying to make it to the first objective seems like a sound idea as well. We already have four types of xenos coming out to play, we don't need a warp storm as well.

>Flee down the road back to the resorts

“Run...” - You hiss to Namara.

Together, you flee down the steep road back down to the resorts, hoping that the flying xenos have better things to do than hunt you down.

Unfortunately, they do not.

One of them zips by you and something entangles your legs, causing you to fall flat on your face. You roll on your back to try to get a better view of what has entangled you, only to get wrapped in the strap of the duffel bag.

However, from this angle, you can see that a long gash has been cut in the side of your baggy, lightweight pants, from the waist band down through the pocket, causing your pants to fall down and tangle around your shins. Not a drop of blood though, your blood chills as you consider the skill and reflexes it would take to make such a precision cut while moving at high speeds.

Somehow your scramble upright, and pull your pants up, but now need one hand to hold your pants in place.

Up ahead, Namara has stopped and pulled out the snub nosed revolver she brought with her (also “borrowed” from the PDF base), but another of the xenos effortlessly disarms her with its strange polearm, then lifts her up in the air and suspends her from a tree by hooking her shirt over a gnarled tree branch. The whole thing takes so little time, your mind struggles to comprehend what just happened.

The xenos that slashed your pants appears out of nowhere in front of you, stopping you in your tracks.

For the first time, you get a good look at it. It is shaped approximately like a human female, though taller and thinner than most humans, with pallid skin, and wearing nothing but a bikini, spiked bracers, and glowing goggles. Half its scalp is covered in shoulder length frizzy black hair, but the other half is bald, revealing an unnaturally long, pointed ear.

You recognize it from the addendum to the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer: Cold Shoulder Edition. Dark Eldar, described in the Primer as a particularly lawless and primitive local faction of the frail and decadent Eldar race. You suspect that as per usual, the Primer downplays the abilities of the enemy somewhat. They are evidently quite strong given how one effortlessly lifted poor Namara into a tree, and you have heard the stories from the veterans of Damnatum Lutum, including how the Dark Eldar seem to feed of the fear and pain of other beings.

The female Dark Eldar does a slow, languid loop around you, leaning forward so her body is almost vertical. She hums in a high pitched, child-like voice, and you notice for the first time some sort of safety harness looped around her waist ties her to her anti-grav board thing. You try turning on the spot to keep her in front of you, but she speeds up a bit and does a full rotation before stopping in front of you.

>>4936060

By this point, the second Dark Eldar has also arrived, this one male, identically dressed except with tight fitting briefs instead of a bikini. He loops his legs around his board so he can observe you while hanging upside down. They chatter to each other briefly in their xenos language.

Your body is frozen with fear, but enough of your mind still works to realize they seem to find something interesting about your duffel bag. Perhaps their goggles allow them to see what is inside.

The female drifts a bit closer and your body tenses with fear. Even back in Wonka Land you rarely felt so helpless.

“Surfs up, dude!” - Her child-like voice somehow matching the accent of a veteran surfer from the southern coasts perfectly.

“I...what?” - You stammer.

Her polearm swings down towards your shoulder, even as her ant-grav board suddenly jets forward a few feet, allowing her to kick you hard in the gut with a bare foot.

As you roll on the ground in agony, you are vaguely aware that the two Dark Eldar have resumed speaking again in their own language. You straighten yourself out a bit and see that the female Dark Eldar has taken one of the silver cylinders out of the duffel bag and is examining it closely. She starts talking again, but this time you sense it is to someone far away.

She then sticks the silver cylinder back in the duffel bag, throws it at you, then gives you a military salute.

“Wiiipe Out!” - She says, again with the surfer accent.

Both Dark Eldar fly away, accelerating so fast that it is almost like they disappeared.

There is a crack, and the branch holding Namara up in the tree snaps, causing her to fall painfully to the ground, though you figure the height from which she fell isn’t enough to cause serious injury.

“I forgot how much pain hurts” – Says Namara as she slowly stands up and dusts herself off.

“I forgot how much I hate mysteries” – You reply. You have lost track of how many times your supposed enemies have spared or even rescued you for reasons you don’t understand.

Painfully, you get up on your hands and knees, but as pain continues to throb in your bruised abdomen, you decide standing up is a bit too ambitious for the moment.

You stare at the little insects crawling about the hard packed dirt of the road. For a second, you almost find a bit of peace amid the pain, fear, and confusion, but then you notice the ground shifting a bit, almost as though something is digging upwards from below.

Startled, you quickly crawl backwards, just in time to avoid the shiny mechanical beetle that pops out of the ground.

It is roughly a foot long, and clearly artificial, reminding you of both the mysterious cylinders, and the massive ruins that just emerged from the mountains, so likely xenos as well.

>>4936061

Panic overcomes pain and you stand up as two more of the xenos beetles emerge from the road. You can see at least a dozen more coming out of the ground in the vicinity of you and Namara.

You make a grab for the duffel bag, but belatedly realize the strap was severed at the same time you were kicked in the stomach.

“Namara, grab the bag!” - You yell out, unable to pick up the open duffel bag with just one hand without risking the contents falling out (as your other hand is still keeping your pants from falling down again).

Namara scoops up the bag with both hands, and the two of you continue to run down the road.

It is only when you turn a corner that you remember the road takes you right through the middle of the ruins you saw earlier from the outlook at the top of the hill, the one that had a bright beam of energy burst through the roof of its tallest temple.

The ruins seem vacant now, but you can see some figures on the far end, where the road exits the ruins and continues on to the resorts.

>Continue travelling down the road, hopefully the figures are friendly, or at least inexplicably unwilling to harm you.

>Take shelter in the ruins, wait for the coast to be clear, and also ditch your ruined pants, extract your handgun (currently in your handbag, which you stuck in the duffel bag after Kayla left, rather dumbly in hindsight).

>Travel though the jungle to avoid the ruins completely.

>>4936066
>Travel though the jungle to avoid the ruins completely.
We can tie the severed straps of the duffel back together into something functional. Ditch the severed part of the pants; if anyone unfriendly is close enough for the lack of proper attire to matter then we got bigger problems to worry about anyway.

>>4936066
>>Take shelter in the ruins, wait for the coast to be clear, and also ditch your ruined pants, extract your handgun (currently in your handbag, which you stuck in the duffel bag after Kayla left, rather dumbly in hindsight).
The jungle is full of orks, I assume.

>>4934751
Yeah, it is inspired by Cold Shoulder type threads, mainly the ones linked in the first post (spoilers) but also Damnatum Lutum and The Beach Episode

>>4934798
It is a surfer themed hellion

>>4936066
>Take shelter in the ruins, wait for the coast to be clear, and also ditch your ruined pants, extract your handgun (currently in your handbag, which you stuck in the duffel bag after Kayla left, rather dumbly in hindsight).

>>4936066
>>Continue travelling down the road, hopefully the figures are friendly, or at least inexplicably unwilling to harm you.

>>4936066
>Take shelter in the ruins, wait for the coast to be clear, and also ditch your ruined pants, extract your handgun (currently in your handbag, which you stuck in the duffel bag after Kayla left, rather dumbly in hindsight).

Gotta say, I really wasn't expecting surfer dark eldar. At least we aren't going to be a bdsm slave...yet.

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>Take shelter in the ruins, wait for the coast to be clear, and also ditch your ruined pants, extract your handgun (currently in your handbag, which you stuck in the duffel bag after Kayla left, rather dumbly in hindsight).

“Quickly, before they see us” – You whisper, and you and Namara scurry for the nearest ancient building.

According to the infomercials you have been watching, these ruins, and most others near the surface belonged to the ancient Nethian Culture, one of several primitive cultures that once existed on this planet prior to Imperial colonization over twenty centuries ago. It is believed that the Nethian population centers had already fallen into ruin prior to Imperial settlement, and the few remaining tribes that descended from the Nethians were absorbed into the main stream Imperial culture and relocated in order to feed the demand for farm laborers on the larger, more fertile islands to the north, which are more suitable for industrial scale agriculture.

As a result, little is known about their culture, but the figures in the mosaics and wall carvings have a hedonist air to them, so the short loincloths, beaded necklaces, and wooden masks inspired by Nethian art are popular with entertainers, nightclub staff, and escorts in some of the more wild sections of the resort.

You have been on several tours of such ruins and always found them pretty boring, but this one seems a bit different somehow. Although not as fully reclaimed from the jungle as certain other ruins on the island, the carvings on walls seem cleaner and livelier somehow, as do the large giant headed statues glowering at you from various pedestals.

You and Namara slowly make your way to the nearest building, taking cover behind trees and piles of rubble whenever you can. However, the ruin complex seems empty, aside from the glowing pink insects flying around aimlessly.

You enter a small-ish one room building which may have been either a house or a tomb. Two statues stand in opposite corners, and three featureless stone sarcophagi line the middle, though perhaps they were once merely beds or tables. The walls seem to have elaborate carvings, but you can’t make them out in the dark room, which is lit only by the doorway to the outside and the glowing pink insects.

“Try fixing the strap on that bag, and grab my gun, I am ditching these pants” – You tell Namara.

You head over to one of the corners with a statue in it so that you can change while watching the doorway from the shadows. Wincing a bit from the pain still present in your abdomen, you bend over to untie and remove your shoes, slide off the ruined pants, then put your shoes back on.

Technically your underwear is no more revealing than the swimwear you have worn countless times over the past few months, but it certainly feels indecent, and you resolve to put on pants or a dress if the opportunity presents itself.

“I think we found their orgy room” – Whispers Namara.

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>>4937548

You look over and see that Namara managed to tie the severed straps of the duffel bag back together, and is now examining the carvings along the walls of the dimly lit room.

You turn to the wall nearest you. Sure enough, the surprisingly lifelike figures in the carvings are engaged in various grossly indecent acts. Some of them have horns, talons, and tentacles that remind you of some of the more grossly mutated of the “Happiness Angel” cultists. You can’t help but wonder why no one from the Inquisition or the Ecclesiarchy hasn’t ordered this building demolished.

You suddenly feel a bit uncomfortable in the building, after all, it is not far from where you saw the tainted rose colored light burst into the sky.

“Come on, let’s go” – You say to Namara.

You turn towards the door, but feel a presence behind you, and turn again to see the statue in the corner is closer to you than you remembered. You also don’t remember the lecherous grin or the comically oversized erect member protruding from its groin. Although clearly just a statue, it has a rape-y vibe to it, and you wish you had taken a closer look at it before bending over with your back turned to it. Even worse, a glowing insect has landed in each of its eye sockets, giving it an even more diabolical appearance.

“Rhea, the walls!” - Hisses Namara.

You do a slow turn and notice many of the glowing insects have landed in pairs on the walls, almost as if they were deliberately landing on the eyes of each wall carving. Other insects are landing and crawling in large numbers into the cracks of the sarcophagi. Come to think of it, you have no idea if they are insects or not, even up close you can’t see any wings, or limbs, just little glowing balls of light. There is an inherit wrongness to them that feels all too familiar.

“We are getting out of here! Now!” - You shout, now far more concerned about the glowing balls of light than any potential hostiles outside.

++Leaving so soon?++ A rich, lustful voice whispers in your mind.

The lid of one of the sarcophagi falls to the ground with a resounding crash. What was once a woman (albeit with horns, long talons, and a tail) stands up, skeletal and withered, but becoming more fleshy and vital even as you gape at it.

You and Namara book it out the door, and as far away from the ruins as you can.

Outside, everything is still empty, except for the glowing lights, which have increased in number and now seem to be moving with dread purpose.

You sprint down the main road, ignoring the possibility that you may encounter the figures you saw there earlier.

As you pass through the empty gate of the ancient ruined perimeter walls, you spot a small visitor center with figures lounging about outside a shuttle bus. The road continues for at least a kilometer through the fields of a hobby farm before it reaches the mag-lev station.

“Come on, let’s go, its not safe here!” - You yell out.

>>4937551

The group seems to be a typical tourist group from the resorts, idle wealthy looking for a temporary diversion under the guise of learning something.

But as you take a closer look, something seems off.

Most of the group is lounging about without a care in the world, even as raid sirens and artillery can still be clearly heard in the distance. A servant is robbing a cart selling cheap replica artifacts unopposed, and screams of ecstasy can be heard coming from the portable washroom.

Even before you notice the glossy, pink tinted eyes of the nearest tourist, you are already suspecting some sort of warp taint, having seen similar behavior at Camp Xenos Purge in the hours leading up to the summoning ritual that occurred there. You begin to strongly suspect that someone somehow initiated another ritual, perhaps tapping into some sort of taint already present in the ancient ruins.

The doors of the visitor center are thrown open, and a woman steps out, wearing a mask, beaded necklace, sandals, and bearing a gnarled staff. For a second you are worried she is some sort of creature from the ruins, but then you spot the price tag hanging from the necklace and realize most, if not all of her ritual vestments were taken from the gift cart. She has the olive skin and tattoos of a local, and you figure she was probably either the tour guide or the person manning the gift cart.

“Prepare yourselves! Prepare for the coming of the Emissary of Slaa-Neth!” - The woman shouts.

The tourists dumbly nod their heads, but don’t seem to fully understand what she is saying. Despite this, they all slowly gather around her, even the pair that were having a private moment in the washroom.

Taken off guard by the sheer bizarreness of everything happening, you only now notice Namara trying to get your attention with just facial expressions and subtle hand gestures with one hand. Her other hand is buried in the partially opened duffel bag, no doubt holding the pistol you forgot to take from her.

Clearly she hasn’t forgotten about how dangerous such individuals become once fully tainted, no matter how harmless they may seem now, nor has she forgotten the strange creatures awakening in the ruins, nor the shiny metal beetles that chased is into the ruins in the first place.

>Indicate to Namara that she should open fire on the tainted tourist group with the pistol. If she can kill enough, especially the self appointed priestess, escape will be easier.

>Indicate to Namara that we should steal the shuttle bus, neither of you drive well, but even if you make it a few hundred meters without crashing or being shot by the xenos craft flying overhead, it is faster than fleeing the vicinity of the ruins on foot.

>Indicate to Namara we should blend in for now, maybe the newly formed cult will decide to head towards the resorts, providing a better opportunity to leave the group later without having to do something risky in an isolated area.

>>4937555
>Indicate to Namara that we should steal the shuttle bus, neither of you drive well, but even if you make it a few hundred meters without crashing or being shot by the xenos craft flying overhead, it is faster than fleeing the vicinity of the ruins on foot.
>Grab the gun and try to cap the priest before we leave.

>>4936389
I read some cold shoulder, but damnatum lutum and the beach episode don't ring a bell. Were they both quests?

>>4937559
I support that. We get mobile, and if we get the leader, the civvies won't be much of a problem, at least until whatever is in the ruins starts spreading.

I really hope those necron thingies repulse the Immaterium instead of drawing it in. I wish we had explosives. Life insurance is always good policy.

>>4937605
Damnatum Lutum was a very Cold Shoulder-like (alternative title, One Year on Damnatum Lutum - loads of factions fighting over a planet, heavier on the warfare than general wacky nonsense) greentext series from 2019-20 and has a 1d4chan page, https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Battle_of_Damnatum_Lutum. The Beach Episode was its own bizarro greentext thing about a Chaos invasion on a paradise world resort that ran concurrently for a thread in 2019 and became part of the DL canon.

>>4937605
>>4937650
The Cold Shoulder threads inspired a number of similar threads on /tg/ based around various gimmicks. I personally consider all of them to be interlinked due to the tendency for reoccurring characters to appear in more than one series. The background for this story assumes the Cold Shoulder Crusade is a "real" event in canon, taking place near the Tau Empire and the Rift.

This quest is based on the most recent of the Cold Shoulder inspired threads (linked in the first post, warning spoilers) but the events of several other threads are referenced in this quest.

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>>4937767
Fair enough assumption and although I don't think SL was directly referenced in DL outside of metachat, I've always assumed it existed as background schrodinger's canon to be alluded to when required in the /tg/verse. I've read through all of SL and written for every significant greentext thread since including these ones, so no need for spoilers heh.
Real shame we might not be able to do another given the antifun crusade the /tg/ jannies are on.

>>4937783
I think Stercus Ludicrum and Dominus Pillowus were the only two major thread arcs without a clear linkage to the rest, but I referenced them both in part 1 of this quest, as well as briefly made reference to them in the SoB chat room threads.

>Real shame we might not be able to do another given the antifun crusade the /tg/ jannies are on.
Hard to say, it was only one thread that got nuked, and it was the third in the series. Maybe it was just a one off by an overzealous janitor.

>>4937892
They also exiled poor Cryptek Anon, and both of these things happening in quick succession doesn't set a good precedent.

>>4937783
Man, this runs deep. Thanks for the breakdown
>>4937929
If they hadn't done that, I still would have never found my way to /qst/ . Still, I think that the resulting loss in engagement led to Cryptanon taking a break, especially with how poorly the preceding shitstorm was handled by the tg mods.

>>4937929
Forgot about that, 1-2 other stories got booted here at the same time.

Too bad since these days /tg/ is 40% generals, 50% barely concealed /pol/, /r9k/, and troll threads, with only the occasional good art thread or lore thread making it worthwhile to go there anymore. Nothing of value would be lost if a few garbage threads got bumped for more creative content.

>>4938014
The greentext threads were great fun, and diving into DL in its first thread was the best possible introduction to /tg/ and 4chan as well. I greatly enjoyed writing Stannim and Co., and making all the supplementary materials for the universe. Every new greentext thread seems to add a new layer to the universe that started with SL.
>>4938082
You are right, but it seems at least one janny on /tg/ belongs to the moronic crowd that thinks any kind of creative writing or roleplaying belongs on /qst/ as a kind of dustbin for creativity. I hope the idiocy will stop someday, but that's a maybe at best.

>>4938100
You'd think jannies would know the fucking boards they come to contact with. Why'd they uphold delusional beliefs about what /qst/ is, instead of literally just reading one pinned post and doing their job properly?

>>4938100
Damnatum Lutum was some of the best content /tg/ ever came up with, I am still surprised that was your first outing.

Also happy you are here since I am thinking of bringing Wyen'dala and Trys'ta back to lead the Dark Eldar in this thread and you are probably one of the few that will get the reference.

>>4937555
I'll support >>4937559

>Indicate to Namara that we should steal the shuttle bus, neither of you drive well, but even if you make it a few hundred meters without crashing or being shot by the xenos craft flying overhead, it is faster than fleeing the vicinity of the ruins on foot.
>Grab the gun and try to cap the priest before we leave.

“Cast off the trappings of your conquerors, remember your past lives as proud citizens of Nethia, remember what you once were!” - The priestess continues to rant to the tourist group. Some of the tourists start removing items of clothing, others start looting replica beaded necklaces and wooden masks from the gift card to wear, or smearing odd patterns on their faces with mud and blood.

You pause for a second, unsure if the souls of long dead inhabitants of a long dead nation were literally possessing the bodies of Imperial citizens. Is that even possible?

Namara hisses in frustration at your hesitation and pulls the pistol out of the duffel bag.

You frantically gesture to pass the pistol to you, worried she will start a fight with the crowd when all you wanted to do was kill of the priestess as you flee the area.

“And as my first order to you as High Priestess, RESTRAIN THE IMPOSTERS!!!” - Yells the priestess.

You belatedly realize a number of the possessed and/or tainted tourists are now staring at you and Namara.

Their eyes now visibly glow pink, and they no longer seem confused and befuddled, but resolved and confident.

Luckily, you and Namara are closer to the shuttle bus then they are, and you slowly start backing away towards the bus, with Namara aiming the pistol at anyone that looks like they may take a step in your direction.

“The Emissary is here! Bow before the Emissary!” - Shouts the priestess.

Sure enough, a group of figures has emerged from the gate of the ruins.

Leading them is a four armed, multi-breasted mutant woman with opulent but revealing robes, and a highly elaborate mitre like crown. The rest of the group consists of other strange mutants, as well as animated statues, not unlike the one that creeped you out back in the ruins.

There is something unnatural about the Emissary and some of the other mutants, like they are not quite present in reality. They remind you a bit of some of the stranger mutants you encountered during the “Incident”, which you now suspect were creatures made of pure warp energy, rather than merely tainted humans.

“Abase yourselves my slaves! For a new era of pleasure and pain is about to begin!” - Shouts the “Emissary”. Her voice has a strange burr to it, like a slightly distorted vox message.

The tainted ones fall to their knees and grovel, and such is the commanding nature of the Emissary’s voice that you do as well.

“What is wrong with you? Now is the perfect time to escape!” - Hisses Namara, pulling you back upright by the collar of your shirt...

>>4938883

You scramble into the shuttle bus, and Namara gets it started, luckily the keys were left in the ignition.

Although possessing even less driving ability than you do, Namara somehow figures out the stick shift, likely through pure luck, and drives down the road to the mag-lev station.

The next couple minutes is a bit of a blur, but despite your near crippling anxiety that you could be caught at any time, you reach the mag-lev station with no visible sign of pursuit.

Both the mag-lev station, and the train you board a minute later are strangely empty.

You assume most people would have sought shelter when the raid sirens went off, but you were surprised not to see at least a few people on the mag-lev fleeing the area directly under attack by xenos.

Despite your unease, you boarded the train, still fearing pursuit much more.

Once on board, you relax a little, but find yourself unable to focus as you struggle with fear, anxiety, and confusion.

You barely notice when the train arrives at the next stop.

Outside on the station platform, a small group of Dark Eldar are systematically binding and branding a group of humans.

Several “unprocessed” individuals are still lying around the platform, convulsing and twitching in pain. Likely due to injuries from some sort of poisoned flechette weapon if the stories you heard were true.

As you watch horrified, each individual is disrobed with several swipes of a razor sharp knife, bound at the ankles and wrists, has a hood made of skintight glossy black material placed over their head, branded on the shoulder blade and backside, before being carried over to a spiky anti-grav boat-like vehicle, seated on a narrow bench running along either side of the vehicle, and secured to the vehicle with a loop of spiked wire.

The process is morbidly fascinating in a dark sort of way, and it doesn’t occur to you that the Dark Eldar can likely see you through the train’s abundant glass windows.

Your blood runs cold as you notice one staring right at you with those strange glowing goggles, but the creature does nothing, then resumes its cruel work with the glowing brand.

One train stop later (thankfully empty), your heartbeat is still hasn’t settled yet.

Why are the Dark Eldar leaving you alone? What do they know that you don’t?

“So what train stop do we get off at” – Asks Namara.

You notice she looks frightened. You rarely see her like this, since during the rare times she is truly scared, your usually both running for your lives.

“Well...uhm...” - You realize you have never looked closely at the map before.

Namara wordlessly fishes it out of the duffel bag and hands it to you.

>>4938888

Together you orient your current location, and identify the locations on the map.

Dooby’s Beach – a popular public beach containing a small ruin. Popular with sunbathers.

Squidy Carl’s All You Can Eat – presumably a restaurant, also near a small ruin.

Dominion Bank – you have heard that place is a fortress, hopefully you can place the silver cylinder outside.

Bottoms Up – literally the sleaziest nightclub/strip club in the worse of several red light districts, the stuff you have heard about that place beggars belief.

Tomb of the Failed Usurper – a crumbling Nethian ruin, not particularly popular with tour groups as it is in the middle of a swamp.

Temple of the Exalted Emissary – “no fucking way” – You mumble, the final X is the ruined temple you just fled from.

>Go to Dooby’s Beach and the All You Can Eat, they are fairly close together and three stops away.

>Go to the Bank and the strip club. Four stops in the opposite direction, and also strangely close together.

>Go to the Tomb of the Failed Usurper, opposite direction, and final stop on the rail, but at least it is isolated.

>Go to the Temple of the Exalted Emissary, incredibly dangerous, but at least you have some insight on what you will face there.

>>4938890
>Go to the Bank and the strip club. Four stops in the opposite direction, and also strangely close together.

>>4938890
>Go to the Bank and the strip club. Four stops in the opposite direction, and also strangely close together.

Ah well, the thing that woke up probably would've removed the cylinder if we placed it there first when it was still nearby the temple.

>>4938890
>Dominion Bank – you have heard that place is a fortress, hopefully you can place the silver cylinder outside.
the train ride segment, now with less shootouts in the carriage

>>4938890
>>Go to the Temple of the Exalted Emissary, incredibly dangerous, but at least you have some insight on what you will face there.

>>4938890
>>Go to Dooby’s Beach and the All You Can Eat, they are fairly close together and three stops away.
Seems like a decent enough plan and we don't need to change trains. Also speaking of engagement, I'm on vacation right now and I'm still following the thread but can't always reply. I love this arc, though.

>>4938890
>>Go to Dooby’s Beach and the All You Can Eat, they are fairly close together and three stops away.

Ugh dread for every one of these

>Go to the Bank and the strip club. Four stops in the opposite direction, and also strangely close together

“Let’s hit the strip club and the bank first” – You say, a completely arbitrary decision since you are too stressed to try to logic up an intelligent plan.

You get off at the next stop, and cross under the mag-lev tracks to get to the platform on the other side.

You had assumed both sides were empty, but on the far side, you encounter a disoriented looking young man sitting on the steps leading up to the platform. He is wearing just torn briefs and a single sock, and his hair is a mess though you suspect under normal circumstances he would be well groomed.

Namara points the pistol at him, but you motion her to stay calm.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you seeking shelter?” - You ask. The raid sirens are still sounding in the distance, but they seem quieter and quieter each time you focus on them, likely as more and more are being destroyed.

“I dunno, I don’t understand it, it was....I was taking a walk in the Ornamental Garden, then those small ruins in there exploded into pink light, and it.....it was like all my inhibitions were gone....and everything was pink and blurred, and I had to try everything and do everything, I dunno why I even came here, but the pink slowly faded, and my mind cleared, and now I don’t know what I am doing....What I am going to do...” - Mumbles the man.

You suspect he is well educated enough to understand he fell under the influence of some sort of warp magic, and his future prospects are rather dim.

“The Emperor protects, find a way to fight back” – You say, before continuing up the stairs to the mag-lev train platform.

You are briefly tempted to try to bring him along, but you have no idea whether he has truly overcome his corruption, or even if he did, whether he would relapse if brought in contact with another Nethian ruin. Besides, there is a slight pink tinge to his eyes.

Still, talking to him has strengthened your theory that the ruins are somehow tied to the pink lights and the corruption they cause.

As if on queue, a small pink glowing light drops from the sky and hovers before you and Namara for a bit before heading for the stairwell.

“Shit” – You whisper to yourself, already suspecting what comes next.

“Run! Run! They are coming” – Yells Namara in the direction of the stairwell, having apparently pieced things together as well.

Too late though, not long after the glowing light disappears down the stairwell, the man comes up it, his eyes glowing the bright pink you now associate with the Nethians, and his face twisted in an evil leer.

He sprints at you and Namara, perhaps hoping to push you on the mag-lev tracks, you can hear the hum of the train approaching.

Then you catch a glimpse of his groin. Perhaps he has other plans in mind...

>>4940388

Namara fires several shots from the stub pistol as he approaches.

At least two hit, spinning him to the ground, but as you watch, his wounds glow pink and begin to mend themselves.

Namara empties the pistol into him, either finish the job, or at least keep him on the ground until the train leaves.

You both back onto the train, and mash the “close door” button.

Even as the doors close, and the train pulls away, you see the man standing up again, his multiple wounds glowing pink.

“Well that was close” – You say, followed by a sigh of relief.

You glance over at Namara, but she just looks terrified, staring at something behind you.

You turn around slowly, and see a Dark Eldar female leaning back on the nearest seat, using a hog tied and hooded woman as a foot stool. The Dark Eldar has a wide brim straw hat, a high end dataslate, and is chewing bubble gum, all of which were clearly stolen, perhaps from the woman at her feet. A badly damaged anti-grav board is unceremoniously propped up against the opposite row of seats, the several large holes in it glow faintly green around the edges.

Although she seems preoccupied by the dataslate, you have no doubt she is perfectly well aware you are there, and knows you have no chance against her in a fight.

The rest of the train ride passes in excruciating silence.

It is a bit of an understatement to say you are completely unnerved by the time you finally reach your stop. Having the Dark Eldar ignore you is almost as bad as attracting their attention.

As a “downtown” stop, you find yourselves in a “sky mall” instead of a mere elevated platform.

From what you can recall the few times you visited this part of the resort, this “sky mall” consists retail spread across three floors of five large buildings, connected by several glass bridges.

Inside is relatively empty, but small clumps of people can be seen engaging in bizarre and senseless behavior.

At first you are terrified of letting them see you, and duck behind corners or tables anytime one glances in your direction, but within a few minutes, you come to accept that most of them are harmless for now, and there is no way to get anywhere without avoiding them completely.

“Okay, I think the way it works is that the first burst of energy from the ruins caused people nearby to become tainted somehow, but without direction they are fairly harmless, but those little pink glowing things, they are some sort of warp creature, and they possess people and make them much more dangerous.” - You theorize out loud to Namara, drawing on everything you have seen and been told today, as well as your experiences from Camp Xenos Purge and Wonka Land, particularly Handson’s brief explanation on the nature of the weaker tainted thralls.

“How sure are you?” - Asks Namara.

“Not at all, but we can’t hide from a whole city” – You reply.

>>4940395

Namara says nothing, but pointedly loads the spare clip into the pistol. You grudgingly admit to yourself that she is better at using it, but resolve to loot a weapon of your own when the opportunity presents itself.

As you make your way through the sky mall, you encounter all sorts of odd, uninhibited behavior, including people scavenging garbage cans for food scraps, sunbathing indoors, blatant looting, excessive alcohol consumption, public urination, various lewd acts, random fights over items of little value, indiscriminate vomiting, an impromptu volleyball game, and excessive cheering over mundane events, like a pict-caster depicting the week’s forecasted weather.

“Just like Camp Xenos Purge” – Namara mutters.

For the most part the tainted ones ignore you and Namara, but a few yell out catcalls and lewd suggestions as you pass. You dearly wish you could find the opportunity to loot some pants, but you have little desire to linger in this place, and besides, you doubt it would have made a difference. After all, you are still more dressed than most of them anyways.

To your confusion (and a hint of jealously), all three “overly amorous suitors” you encounter approach Namara first. Perhaps it is because she is more exotic looking, or perhaps it is merely because they want to deal with the armed one first. The first one is rather large and Namara shots out his kneecap before he can get too close. Unfortunately this draws attention from the others, and you end up hiding in a locked bathroom for 20 minutes until a jeering mob loses interest. The second is smaller and badly intoxicated, and Namara lets him get close before kneeing him hard in the groin. A few nearby tainted ones find this amusing, but not enough so to leave their drinking contest. The third is smaller still (and a woman!) and is easily dealt with by pushing her out of a window (this particular encounter occurred on a small, empty sky bridge).

The last sky bridge you have to cross is the longest, and is filled with sunbathers and tainted ones admiring their reflections in the glass windows.

As you cross the sky bridge, you can’t help but notice the large gathering in the park about a block away.

Four groups have gathered there, but are standing far apart, giving you a strong sense there is some mutual mistrust.

File: Trys'ta.jpg (176 KB, 1315x1877)

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>>4940398

You recognize the Tau easily enough from stories, and their section in the Primer. The Dark Eldar are also present, but you aren’t too surprised to see them working together, after all, they had an uneasy alliance back on Damnatum Lutum. The third group appears to be made up of Nethians. Although you are too far away to see their glowing pink eyes, you recognize their dress code of body paint and tribal clothing (likely replicas taken from gift shops) easily enough. It is the fourth group that really dismays you though. Even from a distance, you recognize the distinctive garb worn by Eleni Tywick, a senior member of the treasonous HYDRA IX organization. With her is the bird shaped warp thing, two fallen Space Marines, and a reasonable sized mob of followers of the “Four Saints”, mostly the Architect and the Happiness Angels, but there are perhaps a few Red Saints and Nature Angels in the crowd as well.

“Damn, some of them escaped Wonka Land after all” – Says Namara.

You don’t reply right away. Somehow you already knew Tywick escaped, but memory is disjointed and inconclusive, almost like it was tampered with somehow.

“Come on, we are almost there” – You say.

You like to think you developed a bit of tolerance to stress over the past few months, but the strain of walking openly among an enemy that might turn on you at any minute is really fraying your nerves, and you want nothing more than to resolve this suicidal errant one way or another.

You cross the rest of the sky bridge, and take the stairs down to the ground floor of the building.

“Alright, if I remember things properly, “Bottom’s Up” should be two blocks east, three blocks north of here” – You say to Namara.

“Well good, because I have instructions to take you there, and I am too lazy to drag you along” – Says a voice in the corner.

A (relatively speaking) short and stocky Dark Eldar female sashays out from a dark corner, wearing revealing and highly impractical armor, and carrying two spiked leashes attached to collars.

“Lady Trys’ta, at your service” – Drawls the Dark Eldar female.

She has switched to some sort of rural accent, but her grasp of Low Gothic is excellent, you have never heard of one of her kind speaking a human tongue before.

“You can talk?” - You blurt out, the stress of the situation causing you to revert to your bad habit of asking unfortunate questions.

>>4940403

“If by talk, you mean speak your moronic language, then yes, yes I can. Many of us can, but are too dignified to bother, but I am not really that much of a lady, in fact, I just spent the last three years shoveling shit out of the slave pens, naked, with nothing but you pinheads for company, and I have discovered talking to you lot is actually rather amusing. By the way, always remember to read the labels on your boss’s gyrinx’s food before feeding it, it might just save you several demotions and a world of humiliation. - Trys’ta rambles, this time with a pitch perfect naval aristocrat’s accent.

“Uhm, okay...” - You respond, not entirely sure what she is talking about.

“Anyways, this conversation is getting boring, you, the mute dumb one, toss me the pistol and the duffel bag, you, chatty dumber one, take off your shirt. Both of you do what I say, if not, Trav’vis here will stick his zap stick so far up your ass, you will be coughing up your own deep fried fecal material.” - Commands Trys’ta, this time with the growl of a Cadian drill sergeant.

You glance backwards, and see three more Dark Eldar behind you, including one with a spiky rod that crackles with energy.
Terrified now, you fumble with your blouse buttons to comply with the instructions as quickly as possible. Namara also complies with her instructions with only slightly more dignity.

Trys’ta picks up the duffel bag and paws through it before tossing it back to Namara.

The pistol is left forgotten on the ground.

Trys’ta glaces at your chest.

“That is what I thought” – She says.

You don’t have the courage to ask her what she means or whether you can put your shirt back on.

“Continue following my instructions, and you can walk to our destination under your own power, otherwise Trav’vis hamstrings you, I put these collars on you, and you get to crawl over like the animals you are” – Continues Trys’ta.

You nod your head several times, hoping this signifies agreement, since you are now too afraid to talk.

“Very good” – Replies Trys’ta.

The four Dark Eldar escort you to “Bottom’s Up”.

The streets leading to your destination are empty, you have the feeling that fear of the Dark Eldar keep their “allies” away.
However, several Dark Eldar and a mix of small anti-grav vehicles loiter outside the strip club, evidently this is a command post of sorts for them.

>>4940405

The inside of the strip club is like some surfer club right out of the six hells. The black furniture, black flooring, black walls and ceiling, body length mirrors, neon lighting, glitter, and stripper poles that probably seem impressive enough during the nights seem dingy and worn during the day. Piled up haphazardly everywhere are piles of items that the Dark Eldar evidently consider “loot”, with particular interests in surf boards, beach balls, towels with nude images, and flotation devices. Also present of course are large numbers of hooded slaves, chained together at the neck, but most are curled up or writhing in pain, and seem unlikely to try to escape.

Oblivious to the horror, Trys’ta leads you to a door disguised as a mirror, and down a spiral staircase where things are even worse.

You end up in a narrow corridor with crumbling walls that are clearly of Nethian origin.

Hooded slaves dangle from the ceiling, held in barbed chains pulling their wrists and ankles to the ceiling and floor respectively. Each one has been punctured, pierced, flayed, burnt, or violated in the most painful manners possible. The skin tight glossy black hoods they all wear evidently pin their jaws shut, but you can still tell they are all conscious by the writhing and heavy breathing.

Trys’ta evidently has an interest in botany, and excitedly points out several of the more exotic plant based torture methods used:

“That is Fire Bramble, it grows quickly in warm moist cavities, twisting them all out of shape”

“And that is Fibrous Tribulation, its roots embed themselves directly into a subjects nervous system, anything the moss experiences, the host experiences a thousand fold, check this out...”

Trys’ta leans over to blow on the armpit of a slave, who like several others you have walked by, has what you mistakenly assumed to be dense, purplish hair on his armpits and groin. He thrashes so hard you hear his shoulder pop out of his socket.

Deeply sickened, you vomit in your mouth, but managed to hold in most of it in and swallow it back down.

“Don’t worry, most of them were pretty evil and had it coming, and a few of them are twisted enough to actually enjoy it” – Says Trys’ta. Strangely she sounds a bit defensive and guilty, but perhaps it is just your imagination.

“Dracon Wyen’dala is in the room ahead. What ever you do, don’t insult her, or you will find out the hard way she can do things a million times worst than what you see here” – Says Trys’ta, before pushing open a door leading to a large chamber.

File: Wyen'dala.jpg (102 KB, 833x1170)

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>>4940409

Clearly of Nethian origin, the room is much larger than the strip club above it, and consists of tiered seats leading down to a wide oval shaped surface with a large Nethian statue in the middle depicting a woman with her face to the ground, but her posterior in the air, no doubt the namesake of the strip club. On either side of it are shimmering upright ovals framed with spiky technology. Somehow you guess they are portals of some sort even before a Dark Eldar male purposefully strides into one and disappears. There is a pile of cushions, mats, and strange objects piled in one corner that suggests that the previous owners of the place used this as some sort of hidden orgy room or ritual chamber, but the current occupants seem all business.

A commanding figure in elaborate armor perches on the shoulders of the large statue, as several subordinates on the floor beneath her manipulate a hyper realistic hololith depicting the island.

“So, we caught ourselves another errant girl” – Speaks the armored woman, presumably Wyen’dala, and presumably speaking Low Gothic for your benefit.

“Yes my Dracon” – Replies Trys’ta.

Trys’ta and the other three Dark Eldar who escorted you from the sky mall bow on one knee.

You and Namara quickly do the same.

“No you idiots, face and chest on the ground, like the big statue there” – Whispers Trys’ta sharply.

You and Namara scramble to comply.

“Maybe you should have informed them of proper etiquette instead of prattling on like a dim-witted child. Now come get the gyrinx, it is walkie time, I will call you back if I need something particularly demeaning done” – Wyen’dala says rather scathingly.

Trys’ta wordlessly stomps down the stairs, gently picks up a massive long haired feline the size of a large dog and stomps out of the room.

“You three, also leave, go circle jerk each other or whatever it is that imbecilic halfborn do all day” – Commands Wyen’dala, and the other three Dark Eldar who escorted you leave as well.

“Now that all the chaff is gone, get down here, you are going to answer some questions” – Says Wyen’dala, pointing vaguely at the floor space beneath her perch on the statue.

Absolutely petrified by this point, you somehow muster the willpower to walk shakily to the designated spot.

You belatedly realize, Namara isn’t with you, you glance back and see her curled in a ball, apparently too overcome with terror to move.

>>4940413

“Tsk, leave her, you are the one I want to talk to anyways” – Says Wyen’dala dismissively.

She then seemingly reconsiders and says something in her own language. One of the Dark Eldar remaining in the room runs over to Namara, grabs the duffel bag, then runs to the base of the statue to hand Wyen’dala the duffel bag. Wyen’dala takes the map and a single one of the silver cylinders out of the duffel bag. She then looks over the map, and drops the cylinder down onto the back of the statue's head, where it clinks against something else metal you can’t see from this angle.

“There you go my dear, one down, five to go. Mind you, we removed the repository of souls from this location years ago when we started a business venture with the former owners of this establishment, but hey, you can never play it too safe when dealing with artifacts of She Who Thirsts. You can’t see it from down there, but I have already dumped a dozen of those Necron null cylinders into the cavity where the repository used to be.” - Says Wyen’dala.

You have no idea what she is talking about, and somehow she senses this despite the fact that from her angle she can likely only see the top of your head.

“Figures your Masters would tell you even less than the others. You seem like the runt of the litter, they must have had null cylinders to spare. Strange though, always six in each bag, and always one for each sin. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you are trying to initiate a ritual, not stop one.” - Continues Wyen’dala.

You still aren’t following, and are increasingly terrified that Wyen’dala’s patience is wearing thin. Tears run down your cheeks, and you stifle a sob.

“Ugh, I hate that noise, that is why my slaves all wear hoods. Look, it is not that complicated, the null cylinder nullifies the warp in the very near vicinity. Your masters clearly wanted you to place them on the repositories of souls before someone had a chance to activate them, but clearly they fumbled the job and didn’t get things in place in time, and now She Who Thirsts taint is all over the place, and my brilliantly moronic Tau business partner is looking for new allies in all the worst places. You think he would have learned his lesson on Damnatum Lutum! Anyways, I digress, even after they have been opened, those soul repositories are pumping out a lot of warp filth, and for all your other failings, you seem to be able to tolerate the warp better than most. Plug some of those repositories with the other cylinders and we both win.” - Says Wyen’dala.

You feel a faint flicker of hope, it sounds like Wyen’dala will let you go.

>>4940415

“The real reason I called you here is the Emissary’s Crown. My sources say it is the key to this whole mess. Whoever wears the Crown has absolute power on this island, perhaps this entire world, once the flood gates are fully opened. I would never use such a thing myself, given the nature of its power, but others would, including perhaps even your Masters in the Inquisition.

You have seen it yes? Our beacon on you indicates you passed right through the Emissary’s Temple. Sooner or later someone is going to be dumb enough to try to use it, and then all our souls get tossed into She Who Thirsts Realm, to be tortured for all eternity. So if you see it again, and I suspect one of your errant girls and boys might, just say something along the lines of “the Crown is here” and I will send a strike team to destroy it once and for all, the beacon on your person has been recording everything you say by the way.” - Says Wyen’dala, adding that last part almost as an afterthought.

“Do this for me, and I will provide you slaves and wealth beyond anything you can imagine, not to mention a way off this rock, you don’t think your Masters in the Inquisition are actually going to let you live after so much warp exposure, do you? Fail me and I will track you down and inflict such pain on you even She Who Thirsts will blanch. Do we have a deal?”

>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown

>(lie) Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown

>Refuse Wyen’dala’s offer

>>4940418
>Try and agree but end up spilling our spaghetti

Better a radical inquisitor than a fucking deldar. We'll agree to tell her because of our fear and reverence of authority, which in this case manifests in the form of "we'll fucking die if we say anything other than yes", but we'll just as soon get back to working for the "inquisition" as soon as they have a closer proximity to us than the deldar, that is just how it goes with us. Better to praise the emperor and work for the betterment of mankind than live as a pet of a space elf, even if in luxury.

>>4940418
>>4940452
Those really were Necron Warp-suppressants. Thanks the Emperor, we aren't heretics.
We have to agree to her terms. She and the Inquisition have the same goal. Suppress the local warp anomalies. Prevent the Crown from falling into hostile hands.
We're probably going to spill some spaghetti, but it won't be too bad.
She will get that we follow her orders because they align with our goals.
From Rhea's point of view, the crown must be destroyed, as it is an active Chaos artifact and we have no orders to bring it back, and no means of doing so.
If we succeed and the Inquisition wants us back, we part on amicable terms after a job well done. If they want to purge us or take control of the crown, we side with her, help her destroy the crown, and become a mercenary specialized in anti-warp ops.

>>4940418
>>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown
Better to be tortured later than tortured now

>>4940464
Sounds like a plan.

Though, Rhea trying to be a "mercenary" just isn't something I can picture seriously.

>>4940418
>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown
By the way, if we're bringing in DL characters, you have permission to use any of mine on the off chance you feel like it. Annika was one of them too.

>>4940507
Cool, thanks.

The Annika vs Tywick showdown would have been fun if the thread hadn't been nuked, I will keep that in mind if the plot ends up moving in that direction. Tolria and Kerala are also possible in this thread or another if Eldar/Dark Eldar end up getting lots of focus. Also, revisiting Damnatum Lutum is one of the potential ideas I have been playing with if I ever make a third thread.

Did you also make Betty? She is the one I would be most likely to use since she is part of a faction that is already a major player in the existing plot.

>>4940831
Alas, I did not make Betty. In the Wonka Island threads I wrote for Captain Johnston and Guards Dmitri/Oleg

>>4940418
>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown

>Strangely she sounds a bit defensive and guilty, but perhaps it is just your imagination.
Well, isn't that interesting. Shoveled shit with humans so much that she ended up humanizing(eldarizing?) humans in her mind? Or perhaps it's just our protagonist's imagination.

>>4940418
>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown
Here's to hoping she will actually destroy the tainted artifact. No good can come from such a thing... Right?

>>4940976
To be fair, not that Rhea knows one way or another, the Dark Eldar are pretty anti-Slaanesh even if they're pretty much just as bad.

>>4940418
>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown

>>4940418
>>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the Crown

No shits given

>Agree to tell Wyen’dala if you see the crown

You swallow hard, twice, before answering.

“You have a deal” – You say, with as much conviction as you can muster.

Your response is mostly driven by fear, but after all, if what she says is true, the Crown is a tainted artifact that should be destroyed, and given the last time you saw it was on the head of a warp creature that had apparently just returned from the dead, you have little reason to doubt it is in fact, tainted.

On the other hand, your contacts in the Inquisition seem to have an unhealthy interest in items of power, regardless of their purity. They might not be so thrilled when you help a group of vile xenos destroy something they may be interested in. For that matter, they won’t be happy to hear that you have been negotiating with xenos either. You sense some difficult decisions in your future.

“Very good then, well, in the interest of keeping you alive long enough to honor your end of the bargain, I will have Trys’ta show you through the old tunnels to the bank, which I am guessing is your next destination judging by this map. Ork Freebootaz are on the verge of overrunning that part of the city, and I suspect you will find trying to reach it by the surface most unpleasant. I won’t expected any of my kabal to get too close to it, or any other soul repository though, they are heavily tainted by the energies of She Who Thirsts, and although we are too strong willed to become addled by it like many of the inhabitants of this island, the increased drain on our souls is most unpleasant.” - Says Wyen’dala.

She drops the duffel bag with the remaining cylinders and the map back down to you, and you sag with relief that this particular encounter seems to be coming to an end.

Trys’ta comes back into the room with the gyrinx on a leash, followed by Trav’vis, who scoops up Namara on his way down the stairs. You are very worried about Namara, she seems borderline catatonic, not that you are feeling much better yourself.

Trys’ta leads you through a maze of tunnels, mostly old Nethian tunnels, but also a few modern sewers and forgotten basements. It is pitch black, and you are only able to see due to the stablights provided to you. Puddles of sewage or stagnant water are everywhere, not unsurprisingly, the gyrinx was left with Wyen’dala. Trys’ta doesn’t speak and you suspect she is a little sour with you for getting her into trouble with her boss.

>>4942463

You end up shin deep in foul smelling water in what you think might have once a sewage or drainage tunnel back in the time of ancient Nethia.

“This is as far as we go” – Announces Trys’ta, speaking for the first time.

“Keep going down this tunnel, go straight, don’t do any lefts or rights. It gets gradually deeper, you will probably need to swim near the end. At the very end is a gate leading to a half submerged cavern with an island on it. It is where the bank keeps its greatest treasures. Be careful though, even before someone activated all the soul repositories at once, there was something guarding that island not of this world. The soul repository should be a glowing cube about a foot wide, at least the ones we destroyed in the past were, this one was too powerful. If you ever need help, just ask for it, the beacon is recording your voice, but we won’t approach a tainted area.” - Says Trys’ta in a dull monotone voice, almost like she is saying word for word what Wyen’dala told her to tell you.

She gets a bit more lively when she notices Namara is still passed out.

“Hmm, I got just the thing for that..” - Trys’ta says, pulling a small needle from somewhere and stabbing Namara in her backside.

“Liquidized Fire Root. It is mostly an aphrodisiac, but also boosts adrenaline and endorphin levels. Can be a bit messy when the body decides to purge it though...” - Says Trys’ta cheerfully.

You don’t recognize any of the terms she used, but they sound vaguely like those a chymist would use. You are still way to intimidated by the Dark Eldar to ask a follow up question though.

Trav’vis unceremoniously drops Namara in the water, and both he and Trys’ta leave.

For about 10 seconds, you are worried that whatever Trys’ta did either didn’t work, or didn’t work as intended, but then Namara scrambles upright, holding her lower abdomen and breathing heavily.

“What.....Did........They..........Do....To........Me?” - Namara gasps out.

“Uh, you fainted earlier, and they gave you something to wake you up” – You reply, rather concerned.

“Didn’t..........pass........out............they..........jabbed..........me........with.........something” – Says Namara breathlessly.

You aren’t sure if she is confusing two different events, too ashamed to admit she fainted, or the Dark Eldar actually did drug her to prevent her from disrupting the conversation with Wyen’dala. The last possibility is a bit disquieting.

“Are you okay, is there anything you need?” - You ask.

“It is okay, I think I got this.” - Squeaks Namara. She looks flushed and embarrassed, but that is much better than having her catatonic.

“Alright then, well a few things have changed while you were out of it...” – You say.

>>4942466

You spend a few minutes explaining everything Wyen’dala and Trys’ta told you, along with some speculation on your part.

Namara says little during your explanation, she seems twitchy and overstimulated, but she does frown at the mention of a deal with Wyen’dala, and objects to having to swim. Prior to arriving at the resort, her swimming ability was non-existent, and despite some practice since then, she is still very much a beginner.

“This underground lake can’t be that big, you will make it, you should ditch your outer layer of clothes and boots though” – You say.

Namara seems unusually perturbed by this, she is usually modest, but not fanatically so.

Still, she assents to the plan, and you and Namara remove your outer layer of clothes and boots and shove the excessive items of clothes in the duffel bag (in your case just the boots since you have almost no items of clothing remaining!).

Being the stronger swimmer, you will carry the duffel bag. Luckily the Necron cylinders are much lighter than they appear.

Sure enough, the last section of the tunnel is nearly completely flooded, and you and Namara have to swim through it. Surprisingly, Namara is the faster swimmer, having to stop several times to wait for you. Her technique is poor, but her energy seems unlimited.

As Trys'ta said, beyond the gate is a large water filled cavern with an island in the middle. Light shines down from the top of the cavern where it appears a hole was blown by a force with great energy, likely the initial burst of energy associated with the activation of the soul repository. Pink glowing specks of light circle about everywhere, and the island itself seems almost buried under the sheer weight of gold piled on it.

You start swimming for the island, but you briefly panic when you feel something scaly rub against your leg.

Namara also yelps out in surprise, no doubt also making unexpected contact with something alive.

“I think there is something in the water with us!” - Namara yells out, uncharacteristically expressive.

>Double back the way you came, perhaps there is another way into the bank

>Continue swimming for the island

>Try climbing up the sides of the cavern

>>4942467
>Continue swimming for the island
If it's not of this world, then perhaps the cylinders will protect us. Unless she meant to say life form from another planet, and not a warp entity?

>>4942467
>Continue swimming for the island

I mean...this is what we practiced swimming for.

>Tell Namara to climb the sides of the cavern if she doesn't think she can make it, she is the worse swimmer of the two of us.

>>4942467
>Continue swimming for the island
Too late to double back I feel, and good luck trying to climb a slippery rock face

>>4942467
>>Continue swimming for the island

>>4942467
>Continue swimming for the island
not the rape tentacles

>Continue swimming for the island

“Just keep swimming, maybe it is just an eel or something!” - You yell back.

Hopefully no one is lurking in the cave listening to you speak, though Trys’ta did clearly mention a “guardian not of this world”. However, maybe it either wandered off when the soul repositories were opened, or is a warp entity the cylinders will protect you from. Or may not. With your luck, probably not...

“Did you just call me an eel?” - Says a woman’s voice off to your left.

You twist your body sideways to get a better look, but you only get a glimpse of something ducking back into the water before it disappears.

“You are lucky The God of Gold wants to see you” – Says another female voice from behind you.

“Trying to out swim mermaids, not smart.” - Says another.

You twist around again to see behind you, but again, no one is visible.

You of course have seen plenty of mermaids...in paintings, figureheads, street signs, tattoos, murals, etc., but have never heard even the slightest indication they were real.

However, exotic abhumans are unusually common on this world, so maybe some cult or gang made up of a variation of Pelager strain of abhuman. Or warp tainted mutants. Or xenos. Or a pure warp entity. Either way, if they are down here near the tainted ruins of a Nethian temple, they can only be trouble.

“Well, leave us alone then, we are already on our way to see your God” – You say with confidence you don’t remotely feel.

Not only have they confirmed some powerful entity lurks on the island, but it is not like you can do anything to stop the “mermaids” from drowning you with their no doubt superior swimming skills.

“She is pretty, I want to see more of her...” - Says another voice.

“Don’t worry Sister, we will, we most certainly will...” - Says yet another.

Giggles echo from various parts of the cave, but then a series of splashes, and all goes silent.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea” – Says Namara, though her voice is upbeat and amused. Clearly the Dark Eldar drugs are still messing with her.

“I don’t think we have a choice anymore” – You reply darkly.

You reach the island not long afterwards. About 30 yards long and no more than 10 wide at any given point, it is made of dark, uneven rock that makes you wish you had time to put your shoes back on, but you are too nervous to do so. A narrow causeway bridge connects it to a doorway protruding from the cavern wall.

Gold coins, jewelry, and other gold objects of great value are piled everywhere, but more ominous are the lifelike gold statues, of which there are at least 40. Some have faces and bodies twisted in pain or pleasure, or perhaps both, others appear to be begging for mercy, cowering, or trying to flee, and other seem forever frozen in the process of stealing an item of value.

>>4943626

None of the statues wear any items of clothes, and you have a sinking feeling they were once humans whose flesh was transformed into gold via some sort of warp magic, but whose clothes were removed after the fact, or perhaps simply degraded with time, though the mermaid’s comment about “seeing more of you” suddenly has an even darker meaning.

Not wanting to encounter whatever created the statues, you start searching frantically for an item matching the description that the Dark Eldar gave you for the soul repositories. To your annoyance, Namara seems more concerned with the skin tight nature of her soaked Guard-issue undershirt, and the realism of some of the female statues.

“Yes it is cold down here, and yes those statues were probably once people. Now hurry up before we encounter whatever made them!” - You yell at Namara.

“Too late for that...” - A silky, androgynous voice sounds from behind you.

You spin around, slip on a smooth rock, and fall backwards into a pile of gold coins, and sharp pieces of jewelry.

A nearby gold statue flickers, and transforms into a version of the creature that has been haunting your nightmares for months, though this one has olive skin and plentiful golden body jewelry.

The upper body is roughly the same as a human woman, albeit with several pairs of breasts, large almond eyes of pure darkness, sharp pointed teeth, and hair composed of short tentacles, with longer tentacles growing from her back. But its lower half is a writhing mass of tentacles that seem to drift a foot above the ground.

“I am TeeKee, Guardian of the Tomb of Jotarki the Avaricious, what is your purpose here?” - Say the creature.

“Stay back, I got these thingies” – You yell, scrambling upright, and thrusting the duffel bag full of Necron cylinders out in front of you.

“Your null zone is perhaps smaller and less useful than you believe it to be, allow me to demonstrate” – Replies the creature.

It picks up a single gold coin with one of its tentacles and whips it at you with considerable force, striking a soft sensitive part of your body.

With a yelp of pain, you flinch hard, lose your balance, slip, and fall on your backside in the pile of coins again.

The creature patiently waits for you to painfully stand upright.

Perhaps thinking the creature distracted, Namara tries sneaking up on it from the side, using the plentiful gold statues as cover, but just as she gets close, the creature picks up an ancient golden spear with one tentacle, and thrusts it straight at Namara’s heart, only stopping an inch short, and backing Namara into a golden statue, which promptly wraps its arms around her, trapping her in place.

“Well, now that we have established who truly has the upper hand here, perhaps we can start over. What is your purpose here?” - Says the creature.

>>4943630

>Throw the bag of null cylinders at her

>Try to bargain for your safety (and Namara’s)

>Come up with some sort of lie that will trick it into allowing you to place a cylinder by the soul repository

>Flee, no way you are letting the object of your nightmares get its hands on you

>>4943632
>Throw the bag of null cylinders at her
Though we should probably keep one on our person. Even if it can't stop thrown objects, at least it should prevent us from getting turned into a golden sex doll through warp sorcery.

>>4943632
>>Come up with some sort of lie that will trick it into allowing you to place a cylinder by the soul repository
It seems willing to talk, maybe we can bullshit our way out of this.
If not, throwing the bag it is I guess

>>4943632
Supporting this...>>4943656

We picked the nervous trait at char gen, I don't think we could lie easily.

>>4943632
>>Come up with some sort of lie that will trick it into allowing you to place a cylinder by the soul repository

>>4943632
>>4943656
>>4943723
Lie, with bag throwing as a last resort. Keep one on us, maybe try and hand one over to Namara if we can distract the thing.

>>4943632
>Throw the bag of null cylinders at her
I don't think the zone is supposed to block thrown items, so what did the eldritch Midas prove exactly?

>Come up with some sort of lie that will trick it into allowing you to place a cylinder by the soul repository
>Throw the bag of null cylinders at her

“Well, you see, uh, I work for HYDRA IX, we have a strong interest in warp tain-I mean magic...so the cylinders, uh, well it may not seem like it....but they, uh, actually will..uh.....boost the strength....of what ever it is......that the soul repositories do..........” - You stammer out, improvising on the spot.

“That seems unlikely, and also rather generous, why would your organization want to help us?” - Replies the creature, seeming rather skeptical.

“Uhmm, well, HYDRA IX aren’t on good terms with the Imperium...so uh, the more havoc the better I guess?” - You reply.

“Hmmm, you story isn’t completely impossible, but there is only one way to be sure. Toss the bag over there, and we can communicate without deception, mind to mind.” - Commands the creature. “If not, I throw things at you until you are unconscious, pull the bag away from you with this spear, then bring your soul over to my realm, where your dull, boring reality doesn’t stifle my creativity so much.” - Says the creature.

Realizing you are in incredibly deep trouble the moment it can read your thoughts, you try the only course of action you can think of.

You throw the duffel bag directly at it.

The creature promptly vanishes.

Unsure whether or not the creature is actually gone, you scramble after the bag, but then freeze in terror when a silky voice echoes in your mind.

++Well, well, well, not so pure after all. Nothing is ever truly as it seems.++ Simpers the voice.

A sudden spike of panic allows you to take a few more steps to the duffel bag, but not before it imparts one final piece of advice.

++If you see the Crown, put it on, then all your dreams will come true++

You leap for the duffel bag, pull it into a tight bear hug, and curl around it, terrified to let go.

After a while, Namara comes over and prods you with her foot.

“Wakey, wakey sleepy head, what did I tell you about sleeping on missions!” - Says Namara cheerfully, evidently still under the influence of the Dark Eldar drugs.

“How did you escape the statue?” - You ask.

“Oh, after a while it just let me go” – She replies. “Strange how that keeps on happening.”

At this point you are rather tired of Mankind’s mortal enemies mysteriously sparing you, it makes it feel like you are doing something you shouldn’t.

After standing up and taking a bit of time to recover, you spot a pinkish glow coming from under a large but shallow pile of coins almost directly below the hole in the cavern ceiling. Perhaps the glowing object was once completely covered in a tall mound of coins, but most were blown away by some force, then some coins fell back down on top. Brushing the coins aside, you find what must undoubtedly be the soul repository, a glowing cube whose top side seems less solid than the others.

>>4944879

Not knowing what else to do, you place one of the Necron cylinders on top of the soul repository. It sinks slowly into the top of the cube, then an unnatural crackling noise echoes throughout the cavern and the top of the cube solidifies, fusing it with the cylinder.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about someone removing the cylinder from the cube” – You mutter to yourself.

The cube slowly glows less and less, and the pink glowing specks that have been drifting about the cavern seem to be dispersing.

The Necron cylinder seems to have worked as intended, but you can’t help but feel that the warp creature could have easily stopped this if it wanted to. If the Inquisition, Dark Eldar, and even what seems to have been a Nethian guardian creature want the soul repositories shut down, then who wanted them open to begin with?

“We should get out of here” – Says Namara, breaking your chain of thought. She looks twitchy and anxious again, though likely just as much from the drugs as her desire to leave this unnatural place.

“Let’s take the bridge out, I don’t trust those mermaids” – You reply, after thinking a bit more.

“No you can trust us” – Says a voice from the water.

“We just want to be your friends” – Says another.

Namara nods in agreement, and together you cross the narrow causeway bridge to the modern looking doorway.

Inside the doorway is an elevator and a door leading to a stairwell.

The elevator is currently on its way down.

“We are taking the stairs” – You decide.

“Where do you think they go?” – Asks Namara.

“Probably to the bank” – You reply.

You never liked bankers, and if anyone were to set up a cult to some long dead guy named “Jotarki the Avaricious” it would probably be them. Besides, the Dark Eldar had said something about the bank storing treasures in the cavern.

The cavern was quite tall, so not unsurprisingly, the number of stairs to get to the surface is considerable. At first Namara has far more energy than you, but as time goes on, she slows down and starts hunching over, as though something is causing her discomfort.

By the time you reach a door, presumably leading to a subbasement since you can see many stairs still above you, Namara is bent over at the waist and breathing heavily.

“I need to find a bathroom” – She says. She briefly clutches at her groin, then stops, embarrassed.

You presume this relates to the side effects of the drug that Trys’ta used. Although you desperately want to keep moving, you try to keep your face impassive as you nod your consent.

The subbasement is utilitarian and drab, a far cry from the no doubt opulent upper levels.

It appears empty, but within seconds of entering, you think you hear someone cry out in pain.

You are about to ask Namara to use the first room you find, when you realize the first two doors on either side of the corridor are washrooms.

>>4944885

Namara hustles into one, and to your annoyance locks the door behind her.

You stand in the corridor, feeling increasingly exposed, before slipping into the other washroom. Hopefully Namara can put two and two together and figure out where you went.

To your dismay, there is a dead woman in the room with you. A corporate type in heels, skirt, and a business suit, though there is also a military grade laspistol at her feet. The cause of death seems to be a thin black cord around her neck, but it is not attached to anything.

You grab the laspistol, but then hear a snuffle and a snort outside the room, down the corridor.

>Push open door, open fire

>Stay in room, only fire if something tries to enter

>Wait for a sound outside the door, then try to fire through the door on max setting

>>4944887
>Stay in room, only fire if something tries to enter
For a second I thought it was Namara doing more of that good Dark Eldar shit.

>>4944887
>>Stay in room, only fire if something tries to enter

>>4944887
>Stay in room, only fire if something tries to enter
Let's tuck ourselves in a corner so we can get a look at whatever is coming. Max setting, but finger off the trigger. Let's see their reaction to the dead body and what they look like. I would rather not fry a civvie.

>>4944887
Supporting this...>>4944933

Positively identify our target before firing, wouldn't want to accidentally blast Namara or an ally.

>>4944952
I don't believe Namara left her washroom, we'd hear the door if it was really her.

>>4944933
Yes this

>Stay in room, only fire if something tries to enter

You cross the small room in order to crouch in the corner with the best view of the door.

As you do so, a black noose falls from the ceiling and almost catches your neck.

You block it with one hand, turn around and fire at the ceiling with your laspistol with the other hand. You catch a glimpse of the face of a black clad grot in the now open ceiling vent as it crawls backwards out of view. You fire a few more shots upwards, and then, assuming the shots punctured the ceiling and killed the grot, turn quickly back to the door.

However, it is too late.

The door had silently been pushed open, and an ork, almost completely clad in black rags except its eyes and the white skull and crossbones icon on its tricorn hat.

It has a two foot long “knife” in one hand, but instead snatches you with its other massive hand and holds you off the floor by the jaw and neck. Instinctively you drop the laspistol and try to pry its hand away.

It backs out into the hallway and waits outside the door of the bathroom Namara went into. You try to call out, but your jaw is effectively being held shut.

A few seconds later, Namara comes out with a strangely satisfied look on her face, only to be snatched by the neck by the ork with its other hand (it must have sheathed its knife without you noticing).

The ork lets out a deep, evil chuckle before slamming you and Namara together.


-------------------------------------------------


You wake up in a cage with a throbbing headache and likely a concussion.

You appear to be on a sailing ship made of scrap metal bolted together (even the sails), filled with orks and gretchin.

Judging by the gentle swaying motion of the ship, you are out at sea.

Or are you?

Despite the crowded nature of the cage and the deck, you can clearly see large resort buildings on all sides of the ship.

You lose your track of thought as another splitting headache flashes through your skull.

As it fades, you focus on the occupants of the cage instead. About a dozen people are packed into the tight space, most of whom still seem dazed and confused by either injuries and/or the effects of the warp taint.

You spot Namara two people away, and push your way over to her.

“What is going on?” - You ask her.

“I think we are about to become food” – She says cynically. You wonder if this strange response stems from a concussion, a stress based mental break, or the lingering effect of the Dark Eldar drugs, but then spot several gretchin fastening a long wooden plank to the side of the ship and suspect she may be on to something...

>>4947489

In broad daylight, the orks are even more horrifying than your previous encounters with them in a poorly lit jungle during “The Incident”, or “The Previous Incident” as you now think of it.

Taller than a man on the few occasions they are fully upright, far heavier, and armed with massive, high caliber stub weapons and crude cleaver like blades that would likely crush someone far more than they would cut someone, you find yourself having a hard time believing that some of the soldiers you have known in the past have survived several skirmishes with such creatures. Though apparently a few well placed shots with a lasgun on full setting will bring one down, while the orks themselves often forget to fire back in their excitement to get into melee range.

Well, they aren’t the only ones lately to forget to fire their weapon when they had the chance. You can’t help but wonder if things would have gone differently if you had gotten a few shots at the ork who grabs you. It probably would have stabbed you with its knife before you hit anything vital, but it is not like you are doing much better now.

The orks are getting excited about something now, and they start crowding around your end of the ship while shouting “WALK DA PLANK!!! WALK DA PLANK!!!”

A gretchin pops open your cage, and a series of orks manhandle you and the cage’s other occupants in the direction of the “Da Plank”

You briefly slip free and try to climb over the rail of the ship. This fails badly, but before you are pulled back in line, you notice three things:
Firstly, you are not at sea. The “ship” is swaying since it is fastened to the back of a massive, multi-legged creature, no doubt some sort of squig.
Secondly, “da plank” has been positioned over an outdoor swimming pool filled with small swimming creatures, probably more squigs, the vicious bitey kind.
Thirdly, dozens of orks and gretchin surround the ship and the pool, all of whom are also shouting “Walk Da Plank!”

Realizing a painful death is imminent, you struggle harder, much do the amusement of your captors.

You belatedly remember the Dark Eldar can hear you through the beacon, and start shouting “I need help!” repeatedly.

Unfortunately for you, you are relatively close to the front of the line, with Namara directly behind you.

The first man is made to walk the plank. An ork with a long prod forces him out over the end of the plank, and you can hear a splash, followed by frantic screams as the squigs eat him alive to the deep laughter of the orks.

>>4947490

The second person in line, a woman, tries leaping sideways immediately after taking her first two steps out onto the plank. You hear a wet crunch as she hits the pavement, but it was apparently not enough to kill her, as you hear high pitch screams immediately afterwards, which become ragged and gurgly as she too is thrown in the swimming pool. More laughter from the orks, and you can still make out the screams of the man and the woman separately, evidently the squigs are slow eaters.

As uncontrollable panic wells up inside you, your pleas for help from the Dark Eldar become more frantic. “Please, please, please, I know you can hear me, please I will do anything...”

Victims three and four are simply thrown over the edge of the ship since they are too frenzied to be made to walk the plank.

And then it is you...

Trying to buy as much time as possible, you walk the plank as slowly as you can, keeping low so it is harder for the ork to prod you forward. Just as you are on the very edge, Namara slips free, runs onto the plank and shouts out “Rhea, I...”

And then you are falling.

You scream for at least 10 seconds before you realize you are flying rather than falling. Something is holding you by the back of your bra and underwear, and even though you are too terrified to turn around, you instinctively know it is one of the Dark Eldar on the anti-grav boards.

Flying is something you rarely do, and when you do it is in an enclosed shuttle. Being carried through the air with nothing supporting you but an insane xeno’s grip on your fragile underclothes is beyond terrifying.

Travelling at great speed, you are in the air for less than a few minutes before you realize you are dropping in altitude, and are approaching Dooby’s Beach.

As you get lower and lower, you realize to you terror the Dark Eldar has no intention of completely stopping before leading you down.

In the end, it drops you sideways from several feet in the air, and you roll in the beach sand for many yards before coming to a complete stop. You hear a familiar female voice yell out “Wiipe Ouut!” as the anti-grav board flies away. At least she is now using that phrase correctly, you think to yourself.

You spot a second anti-grav board flying in low, whose rider is carrying another figure. Your heart leaps when you realize it is Namara, and you can’t help but be pleasantly surprised at the Dark Eldar would deign to rescue both of you from certain death.

The Dark Eldar comes to an almost complete stop and drops Namara on top of you. Wrong footed by this, you don’t have time to get your arms in place before Namara lands on you and your skulls crack together.

Again.


---------------------------------------------------------------

>>4947491

You wake up a few hour later, with an even bigger headache. If you didn’t have a concussion before, you do now.

The sky seems darker than before. You wonder how long you were out for, but it is hard to tell as much of the darkness seems to be coming from the cloud cover of an incoming storm, mixed with the black smoke from burning wrecks.

The skin on your face, chest, abdomen, and thighs is tight and itchy, and you realize you were passed out long enough in the sun to get a bad sunburn. Even worse, you realize you are completely naked.

You stumble upright, but your pounding skull gives you vertigo, and you fall on your face coughing up vomit.

“Are you okay?” - You here a voice, but it takes a second for you to recognize it as Namara.

You roll over weakly onto your side, and see Namara approaching wearing the ragged remains of a beach towel around her waste, and holding a large leaf over her chest. She adverts her eyes as she drops a straw hat with a big hole in the top, and a sand encrusted bikini bottom on the ground in front of you.

“Sorry, best I could do, apparently we are on “Nakedness Island”” – Says Namara dryly.

“Where are our...pfft....clothes?” - You ask, spitting out some sand in the process.

“Probably in that fire” – Namara replies, pointing further down the beach. Although your vision is a bit blurred, you think you can see a few nude women celebrating as they throw various objects into the burning wreck of a small orkish rotary aircraft. You guess you should feel fortunate their warp madness manifested itself in a relatively harmless manner, but you don’t feel particularly fortunate. In the absence of any immediate threat to your life, you mostly feel worn out and resigned to your continued misfortune.

You recognize your immediate surroundings well enough. Sunbath Island, just off shore from Dooby’s Beach. During high tide, it is a tiny rock outcropping with a few palm trees and a small Nethian ruin consisting of a stylized woman relaxing on a stone platform. But during low tide, like now, a large beach surrounds the island, so large, it almost connects back to the mainland.

No doubt the Dark Eldar dropped you as close to one of your objectives as they could, but it is a moot point as you left the duffel bag back in the bank when you were captured by the ork.

Almost as if reading your thoughts, Namara makes a “turnaround” gesture with one finger. You roll over and see a duffel bag behind you.

“It is not the same bag, it has only three cylinders, and a different map, some duplicate objectives, some different” – Says Namara. Strangely, she still seems reluctant to look at you.

No doubt the Dark Eldar retrieved it from another agent. You wonder how many agents are left.

>>4947493

Well, might as well continue on your mission you think to yourself. You stand up again, much slower this time, and once the vertigo dies down, you gingerly put the bikini bottom on, then put the hat on your head. Namara no doubt meant for you to carry the hat in front of your chest, but you would rather have your hands free. There are limits to your desire for modesty, besides, it is not like there is anyone around to see anything anyways.

You sling the duffel bag over your shoulder, and start trudging towards the Nethian ruin. Hopefully this one is unguarded given its highly public location.

After some wandering back and forth, you locate the stairs leading up to the ruins. At the top you are not surprised to see a large crater in the center of the platform, no doubt blasted from below when the soul repository released its energy.

What does surprise you though is that a Necron cylinder is already jammed into the soul repository at the base of the crater. Apparently at least one other agent was having some level of success.

With only three cylinders, and three objectives remaining, you decide to consider this objective complete, and trudge off the island and back onto the beach.

“Alright, what objective should we do next” – You ask Namara wearily.

“I think first we should scavenge some clothes when we get to the mainland” – Replies Namara, still unwilling to look at you.

“By the way, you have something on your cheek drawn in marker, I think it is supposed to be a penis...” - Continues Namara.

You sigh. You are barefoot, wearing a filthy bikini bottom that hangs so loosely it barely covers anything, topless, sunburnt, scrapes and bruises everywhere, wearing a hat that is more hole than hat, and now it turns out you have a dick drawn on your face.

Good thing no one other than Namara can see you, since you no doubt look like the type of cheap whore from your home world who will let anyone do absolutely anything to her for a half-used lho-stick or the chance to lick the last few specks of food from the bottom of an expired can of corpse starch.

Lost in thought, you don’t hear the sound of the flying Tau battle suit until it lands directly in front of you. You turn to run, but several smaller battle suits appear from thin air behind you.

“Agent of the Imperial Inquisition, I am Shas'O Fi'rios Lad'Ai. I commend your willingness to disguise yourself in the name of duty, but your objectives are counter to mine. I regret to inform you that you must come with us in order to furbish our intelligence agents with further information on Inquisitorial activities on this world” – Booms a cultured, reasonable sounding voice from the battle suit.

It takes you a moment to realize it thinks your present attire is a disguise, and moment longer to realize “furbish information” likely means interrogation and torture.

>Pretend you have no idea what it is talking about

>Call the Dark Eldar for help

>Run

>>4947497
>>Run
I would pretend we know nothing, but doing that while carrying a bag full of Necron cylinders in not very convincing.

Also, would calling the Dark Eldar be a good idea? They seem to be allied to the Tau as hinted to here >>4940403 >>4940415 but then the Tau just said our objectives are counter to theirs. I'm not sure what to make of it.

>>4947497
>Call the Dark Eldar for help

>Run

They may be allied, but that could mean a lot of things. They may have some mutual interests that they've agreed to cooperate on but the end-state they've envisioned may be different.

>>4947497
>Run
Shame we don't have a baseball bat, since that would be enough to take them all on at once in melee

>>4947497
>>Call the Dark Eldar for help

>>4947497
>Pretend you have no idea what it is talking about

Don't think we can run seeing as they appeared right behind us. Just let them draw in close so you can tear their heads off as Tau are terrible in melee range.

>>4947878
Terrible enough in melee for them to lose to us when we are dehydrated, have sand in our vagina, are half naked with no melee weapons and possess no hand to hand combat training and our enemies are in power armour?

>>4947907
Yes. Vagina sand is the ultimate weapon. But all jokes aside, we just used the Dark Eldar card and at this point I feel like they're not going to come to help. So I'd rather go the route of getting taken wherever, having exposition thrown at us, and then figuring out some way to escape.

>>4948119
Fair enough.

>>4947497
>Run
I'm sure this is what they'd expect us to do anyways, working for the Inquisition or not.

>>4948119
It's also worth pointing out that if the Deldar and the Tauc are allied, the Deldar might have intentionally dropped dear Rhea in Tau territory.
>>4947497
>Run
Either we get away or they capture us alive.

>>4947497
>Call the Dark Eldar for help
>Run
Damn, shit just gets worse and worse. At least we didn't get raped.

>>4949723
So far as we know. She might have been knocked out for a while.

>>4949852
Well, considering that the locals are seemingly just aggressive nudists, Namara looks okay despite walking around the place before we woke up and the fact that we are covered in drawn dick instead of piss and cum, I think it's likely that we didn't get fucked. Hopefully.

>>4949891
If anything, Namara is the culprit. She rubbed one out to Rhea and then tried to confess her love on the freeboota's squiggoth-ship

>>4949931
Namara can barely look at her tits, doubt she'd outright agree to rape her. Would feel off considering everything that Rhea woke up to.

>>4950031
that's fair enough.

>Run

Worried that the Dark Eldar will not want to cross their nominal allies for your sake, and be very annoyed at you just for revealing they are working at cross purposes from the Tau, you decide that fleeing, followed by your likely capture and torture by the Tau is better than pissing of the Dark Eldar and being tortured by them.

Your escape attempt doesn’t get you far however.

You sprint full speed down the beach, hoping that the Tau would rather take you alive than shoot you in the back.

It works... to a certain extent.

However, a distorted blur is your only warning before you run full tilt into one of the smaller battle suits, apparently not all of them decloaked.

You try to dodge last second only for it to body check you and send you spinning to the ground.

Before you have time to recover your senses, it pins you to the ground with the multi-barrelled cannon attached to its forearm.

A short time latter, a bulky Tau shuttle arrives, and you and Namara are loaded in. You never saw Namara’s failed escape attempt, or whether she even tried to flee, but she does have a few new cuts and bruises.

The shuttle ride is uncomfortable to say the least.

Aside from the sense of dread you are feeling as you dwell on your imminent interrogation by the Tau, you are also embarrassed by your lack of clothes and ramshackle appearance compared to the clean and polished Tau.

Before being shoved in, you and Namara had your hands cuffed behind your backs, and in addition, Namara lost her towel at some point.
Very much naked, Namara sits across from you with her eyes closed, legs crossed, face deeply flushed (with shame no doubt), and muttering some sort of repeating mantra in her rarely used native language.

Meanwhile, you stare at the ground, unwilling to make eye contact (lens contact really) with the Tau soldiers in the shuttle who seem both vigilant, but also politely curious. Likely this is something of a biology lesson for them.

After a few minutes, you realize you have yet another discomfort. The bikini bottom Namara found for you seems to be infested with biting sand ticks and before long you are squirming in your harness straps from the itching bites.

You find yourself almost looking forward to the end of the shuttle ride, despite the prospect of torture.

Fortunately/unfortunately, the shuttle ride does not last long. Only a few minutes after take off, the shuttle begins to wobble alarmingly, followed by some aggressive shaking, a sudden long drop, and a lot more shaking, a sharp decrease in speed, and even more shaking before finally coming to a stop. You probably would have thrown up if there was anything left in your stomach.

A hole somehow forms in the bottom of the shuttle, letting in foul smelling, stagnant water.

The Tau soldiers get up, open the rear hatch, and fan out into what seems to be a swamp filled with waist deep water.

Then one Tau gets pulled under, then another.

File: Hiroka.jpg (179 KB, 1024x1479)

179 KB JPG

>>4950906

You don’t realize what is happening until you see the skeletal head and shoulders of what is no doubt a Necron of some sort emerge where one of the Tau soldiers disappeared. Strangely it seems too busy to ripping the Tau it just killed to shreds to do anything about the remaining Tau, who eventually manage to kill it, though it takes several shots even though their guns are clearly significantly more powerful than the standard lasgun.

However, even more of the blade handed Necrons emerge from the swamp water, and it is clear the remaining Tau are outmatched. Even worse, one of them is trying to climb its way through the hole in the bottom of the shuttle.

You belatedly realize your harness has retracted back into the seat, likely just after the shuttle came to a complete stop.

You and Namara come to a quick non-verbal agreement that escape is the only option and despite still having your arms cuffed behind your backs, manage to slip away during the fighting and slog through the swamp water seemingly unnoticed.

Eventually terror gives way to weariness as you stumble through the swamp for at least an hour without seeing another sign of sentient life.

After giving Namara some privacy to deal with more side effects of the Dark Eldar drugs, you continue for another hour before finding a painstakingly constructed series of islets and pontoon bridges. Thankful to finally have some dry land, you and Namara climb up on one of the islets, then collapse, exhausted from wading through water and soft mud for so long. To your disgust, you have acquired a number of leeches, but are too tired to do anything about them, and besides, your hands are still cuffed behind your backs.

However, you aren’t able to rest for long.

++Sleeping on the job huh, I told them not to trust you...++

A disdainful female voice echoes through your head, vaguely familiar but you can’t place it. Your first thought is it might be Kayla, but it dry and raspy rather than husky and suggestive.

Your heart sinks when the possessor of the telepathic voice slinks into view.

Hiroka, though she wears a black body glove instead of the HYDRA IX robes you last saw her wearing.

With her is the mysterious masked guardsman who rescued you twice back in Wonka Land. Although it theoretically could be anyone behind that mask, the slight build and leering blue eyes, are recognizable from your previous encounters with him, and the mask, a standard beige cold weather balaclava with glittering blue swirling lines painted on it, is rather distinct.

>>4950907

You feel a flare of anger when you notice Hiroka is holding an Imperial Rosette. Although not completely surprising as both she and the masked man have helped you in the past, Hiroka was actively involved in the distribution of the tainted pamphlets back at Camp Xenos Purge, which lead to the corruption and deaths of several people you considered friends. Callie, Niome, Kristoff, among others. However, much like that bitch Kayla, she probably has some smug rationalization.

“Damn right I do, but if it makes you feel any better, Kayla doesn’t work for us, not anymore anyways” – Says Hiroka, no doubt reading your thoughts.

Your mind goes into overdrive as you consider the implications of this.

If Kayla is a traitor, has this whole day of risking your life and soul to plant the Necron artifacts been for nothing?

The Dark Eldar clearly stated that the cylinders suppress the warp (and you have seen them do so with your own eyes), yet a creature of the warp made little effort to prevent you from planting a cylinder in the soul repository beneath the bank.

Perhaps Hiroka is the real traitor, or maybe they both were.

“I will explain it when we get back to the truck. Until then, we are running out of time to stop the Necron reanimation sequence before it wipes out all life on this planet. I am going to uncuff you, if you do anything stupid I will be very disappointed” – Says Hiroka.

>Try to run the moment you are uncuffed

>Try to fight Hiroka the moment you are uncuffed

>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being

>Call the Dark Eldar for help

>>4950909
I could do with a little girl-on-girl right about now...

>>4950909
>Try to run the moment you are uncuffed
I hope the mites drowned.

>>4950909
>>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being
Let's try to figure out what she's after. There's a pretty good chance she'll make us run some errand. Also, do we still have cylinders to plant or did they get lost again>>4950909

>>4950909
>Try to fight Hiroka the moment you are uncuffed

She can read our thoughts, trying to call the Dark Eldar will give us away, though to be fair we can probably call for help and then immediately start fighting.

I'm pretty certain Hiroka isn't by any means any form of inquisitor or inquisitorial agent. She killed that one inquisitor and impersonated them remember? I don't know if the guy that helped us is still pretending to be a chaos mook and is somehow avoiding having his mind read or if that radical inquisitor and his agents were allied with the chaos dudes all along and that is why the AI was expecting us or what, but I am certain that Hiroka is not on our side and is just trying to use our psychological hang-ups of obeying whoever has authority and coercive power over us to get us to be her pawn.

You know what, lets call the deldar as well.

>Call the Dark Eldar for help

>>4950909
>>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being.

>>4950909
>>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being
We have no more reason to trust Hiroka then we did Kayla a while back, but we don't really have a way to be sure who is truly Inquisition and who isn't. They could both be Chaos for all we know, in which case we are fucked anyway.

Hearing her out for now will at least give us more information to work with, and we could decide to ignore whatever errand she sends us on if we think she isn't legit.

Not to mention that we are in no state to run or fight.

>>4950984
>Not to mention that we are in no state to run or fight.
I think people forget that Rhea hasn't eaten or slept (aside from repeated head injuries) for about 3 days(?) And is sunburned, scuffed up, and naked. Namara is only a little better off because she's rolling on Deldar Ecstasy. Rhea is pretty much at her physical limits and can't run or fight effectively, so we should limit that if we can. Also maybe Hiroka can give her a damn pair of pants.

>>4950989
also underwear

>>4950909
>>Try to run the moment you are uncuffed

>>4950937
The new bag of cylinders that Rhea received from the dark eldar after losing her original bag to the orks is missing. I didn't get around to mentioning it for last night's update, but Rhea gave the bag to Namara just prior to being captured by the Tau, and hasn't seen it since then. Rhea has been too wrapped up in her own problems to spend much time considering the implications of this.

>>4950939
It was actually Tywick who kills Inquisitor Chalmers and has a daemon impersonate him, not Hiroka. However it is unclear whether Rhea remembers this since it is hinted a couple of times that Interrogator Handson meddled with her memories of that particular event.

However, Rhea does clearly remember encountering Hiroka in HYDRA IX robes back in Wonka Land, and also remembers Tywick's distinct version of the HYDRA IX garb, even though she can't fully remember why.

>>4950989
Technically not fully naked since she still has the wrecked hat and bikini bottom that Namara found for her while scavenging washed up debris on the island near Dooby's Beach. Though given she now knows the bikini bottom is filled with sand ticks, she probably would have ditched by now if it weren't for the fact that her hands were cuffed behind her back.

Regarding the passage of time, the events of this thread are actually occur over a pretty short time period. Rhea and Namara likely spent 8ish hours searching for the source of the pamphlet they found early in the thread (late evening to early the following morning). Since then, everything occurs more or less back to back with only three main breaks (being knocked out by the ork in the bank, being knocked out by the having Namara dropped on you on the beach, and trudging through the swamp, each of which lasts 2-3 hours). At this point it is mid-late afternoon, so Rhea hasn't slept properly (aside from being unconscious) for 30 plus hours, and hasn't eaten for over 20.

>>4950909
>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being

>>4950909
>>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being

Agree, running on fumes, got to look for getting back on our feet

>>4950909
>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being

>Assume for now Hiroka is telling the truth, or at least has enough of an upper hand to keep that complying with her is crucial to your short term well being

You are too tired to fight, and although you have reason to distrust Hiroka, the same can be said for Kayla, who you have taken significant risks for today. You allow Hiroka to uncuff you with expert application of a small lascutter. The masked man does the same for Namara.

The four of you walk along the pontoon bridges, presumably heading towards the truck.

Hiroka strikes up a chat which seems like more of an interrogation to you.

“I started hearing your thoughts and decided to come get you. I left the truck outside the ruin though since I was worried the noise will scare you away. I can get you some clothes and spare cylinders there, it is strangely impressive that you lost your clothes and two sets of previous cylinders, but not your lives” – Hiroka says conversationally.

You can’t think of a response to that. Clearly she has been listening to your thoughts for quite some time. The fact you lost the second set of cylinders to the Tau not after losing the first set to the Orks has been on your mind for some time as you trudged through the swamp. You can’t help but notice that she doesn’t seem concerned or surprised the Dark Eldar helped you, which she must have also picked up on with her telepathy. You wonder what she is doing out here in the swamp.

“We are investigating the Tomb of the Failed Usurper. One of the objectives assigned to you as I recall.” – Says Hiroka, picking up on your thoughts again.

“I thought you said Kayla was a traitor” – You reply, thoroughly confused at this point.

“I didn’t say she was a traitor, just that she doesn’t work for us anymore. We once worked for the same Master, but Kayla began shifting into the orbit of another. At first my Master encouraged it, since this new ally had access to much knowledge, and many allies like the ones who procured those Necron Null Cylinders, but lately she has been less than reliable. Our Masters disagree on how to best counter the Necron threat. Mine wants to procure a new “ally” to deal with the matter, but Kayla’s Master insists we keep to the same old strategy that has been rather less than successful so far.” - Explains Hiroka. Much like the discussion with the Dark Eldar, you don’t really follow everything being said.

“Look, the important thing to know it is too late for whatever Kayla’s new plan with the null cylinders is. Shutting down the soul repositories before they were unleashed, useful. Shutting down the soul repositories after they were unleashed, not so much. Not sure what her Master’s new game is, perhaps it is merely to tie up useful resources that could be put to better use elsewhere.” - Says Hiroka, now sounding a bit exasperated.

>>4952110

Tired of feeling like a dunce during these types of conversations, you search your memories for anything that may point to Kayla’s true plan.

“After I was done planting all six cylinders, I was supposed to meet Kayla somewhere, I think it was in the middle of the mountains, but I no longer have the map” – You tell Hiroka.

“The Valley of Twilight, we know if it, there is a place there where the Crown of the Emissary can be granted god-like powers, if the right conditions are met.” - Replies Hiroka.

“And uh, we encountered a warp creature below the Dominion Bank. Big tentacled floating thing. It probably could have stopped us from planting a cylinder in the soul repository there, but it didn’t.” - You continue.

Namara, who had been walking in silent misery until now, looks over, surprised.

“The creature in the bank, it didn’t have tentacles, it....it looked like you..... but different........” - Stammers out Namara.

“It was a Beguiler Daemon most likely. It takes the form of your heart’s true desire” – Says Hiroka dismissively.

Terror spreads on Namara’s face as she realizes the implications of what was just said, and no doubt your face is the same.

How in the Six Hells is a creature who has haunted your nightmares for months your “true desire”? And why are you Namara’s?

Hiroka doesn’t seem too concerned.

“Don’t worry, my Master is used to working with those who are a bit... open minded. Anyways, the sooner we can track down this warp spirit, bind it to a host, and stick the Crown on its head, the better. If we don’t do it soon, my Master plans on flattening the whole island from orbit. Anyways, here we are...” - Says Hiroka.

You arrive at the ruins and stop dead in your tracks. Several men and women in the colors of HYDRA IX loiter outside. They seem to be expecting you.

Your head spins from all the back to back revelations. What does the Beguiler Daemon's appearance mean? Are you tainted? Is Namara actually in love with you? Binding a warp spirit to a host? Who? Why are they trying to help a warp creature get godlike powers? How long until the island is bombarded? Is HYDRA IX Inquisition in disguise? Questionable allies? Are these Inquisitorial Agents undercover? Or is Hiroka’s true allegiance to a heretic cult?

>Demand an explanation from Hiroka. A LOT of explanations.

>Call the Dark Eldar for help. HYDRA IX seem to be their allies, but perhaps they will intervene if it will prevent the Crown from being used.

>Go along with things for now. You have long suspected your handlers within the Inquisition are far too comfortable with heretic abominations, if not heretics themselves. Yet you suspect this is why you are still alive. If the stories are anything to go by, no normal Inquisitor would let a half tainted individual like yourself live.

>>4952117
>Demand an explanation from Hiroka. A LOT of explanations.
She just heard all the concerns and chaos in our head, so we might as well go with it.

>>4952117
>>Demand an explanation from Hiroka. A LOT of explanations.
>>Go along with things for now. You have long suspected your handlers within the Inquisition are far too comfortable with heretic abominations, if not heretics themselves. Yet you suspect this is why you are still alive. If the stories are anything to go by, no normal Inquisitor would let a half tainted individual like yourself live.
Is the inquisition trying to help chaos ascend so it can deal with the Necrons? I don't see why else they would want to get a warp spirit and "stick the Crown on its head". Based on what we know about the crown, that sounds like a horrendous idea. It would explain the following:
>Our Masters disagree on how to best counter the Necron threat. Mine wants to procure a new “ally” to deal with the matter, but Kayla’s Master insists we keep to the same old strategy that has been rather less than successful so far.

Its either that or Hiroka is on the side of Chaos and we need to get the Dark Eldar to destroy the damn thing.
We will most likely have to choose which strategy we want to back I guess. Unless I'm completely off mark.

>>4952117
>Demand an explanation from Hiroka. A LOT of explanations.

Time to freak the fuck out about our nightmares being our desires. Maybe even replace our nightmares with Namara[/ spoiler]

>>4952117
>>Demand an explanation from Hiroka. A LOT of explanations.
Why Hiroka wants to crown a Daemon is pretty concerning, and seemingly outside the remit of all but the most radical Inquisitorial factions. Though iirc the daemon itself wants Rhea to wear the crown so either way we need to know what we're getting into.
>>Call the Dark Eldar for help. HYDRA IX seem to be their allies, but perhaps they will intervene if it will prevent the Crown from being used.
They can hear everything you say, so you just need to ask some pointed questions while talking to Hiroka and they should be clever enough to pick out the relevant information themselves.

>>4952209
Aren't they reading our minds?

>>4952583
Yeah, and something tells me that Rhea isn't much of a dissembler.

>Demand an explanation from Hiroka. A LOT of explanations.

++Don’t even think of making a scene, we don’t have time for your stupid questions. You see the tentacle beast as your true desire since you have an ocean of repressed degenerate traits swirling below your prudish consciousness. Yes you might have a taint, it is not as black and white as some say. Yes Namara is attracted to you, but she refuses to accept it, and it might just be a side effect of the drugs she is on. We have a specially prepared vessel to bind the daemon-spirit. Only a powerful being could wrestle the Crown from its current possessor, but the advantage to bound daemons are they are much easier to influence than unbound ones. Clothes are just clothes, I recall you look pretty good in black leather when you needed to. And no, your xenos allies will not help you here, in ruins strongly contaminated by the energies of their arch enemy. They might show up for the Crown, but nothing else. Now shut up so I can address Namara’s equally petty and childish concerns.++ - Says Hiroka via telepathy.

There is a long, awkward pause, where Hiroka presumably berates Namara mentally as well.

Nothing Hiroka told you is particularly reassuring. She is not the first telepathic being to hint you have a dark side. Binding a daemon still seems very heretical and dangerous. She skipped your question on how long until the island is bombarded. And you are rather embarrassed that she remembers your questionable attempt to go undercover, even if you were wearing more then than now.

However, you don’t see any other options but to follow her orders for now, and together you head to the small group of individuals standing outside the ruins.

There is only four in total:

A large bald man in a full 37th regiment uniform of partial carapace, with added crude green and blue markings, and a snake biting its own tail tattooed on his cheek. He wields a combat shotgun.

A scrawny man with greasy receding hair, wearing the 37th regiment’s unofficial off-duty uniform of boots, trousers, and undershirt (or perhaps much like yourself during the “Previous Incident” just hadn’t been assigned a full uniform). He has the crude eye augments of a data cruncher, lizard and snake tattoos on his arms, and a standard issue lasgun.

A smallish nervous looking red headed woman, also in 37th regiment off-duty uniform, with a three headed snake tattooed on her shoulder, a blue bandana around her neck, and a short lascarbine, the type normally assigned to tank crews as a backup.

And a tall thin woman in a green blouse, brown corset, and blue trousers. Her hair is dyed platinum blond except with green and blue highlights, and she also carries a lascarbine. For some reason the closer you get to the woman, the more you instinctively don’t like her.

>>4956315

You suspect at least three of them are former members of the 37th regiment like yourself, but you don’t recognize any of them. However, perhaps other companies were hit by similar corrupting rituals to your own, and these are more individuals who resisted, or were seen as unworthy by the tainted pamphlets like yourself.

“Alright, everyone share some of your spare gear with our two new recruits. The blond is Rhea, the other is Namara.” - Says Hiroka, introducing you to the rest of the group.

You score a too-small white t-shirt with a picture of the planet on the front, cargo shorts that are also a bit tight, sneakers, short socks, a snub nosed revolver, lamp pack, and a satchel containing a null cylinder. These items mostly come from the small woman. Unfortunately for Namara, neither Hiroka or the platinum blond seem to be expected to share their spare clothing, so Namara ends up with a blue and green floral patterned tourist shirt from the large man that fits her like a short dress.

The mysterious masked man makes a lewd remark as you worm your way into your new t-shirt, and you recognize the voice even as Hiroka calls out names to split the party.

“Kristoff, you take Namara and Weevil to investigate the upper levels. Chudder, you take Rhea and Linara to investigate the lower levels. I will stay here with Betty and guard the clone body. Remember, keep the null cylinders with you at all times, we don’t want the Usurper getting wind of our plans for him.” - Commands Hiroka.

Yet again, you find yourself blindsided. You had long assumed Kristoff died either during the infighting at Camp Xenos Purge, or the subsequent fighting in Wonka Land.

Kristoff was a member of your social clique back in the 37th regiment. Last you heard, he joined the “Architects”, who in turn seem to have the closest ties to HYDRA IX of the followers of the Four Saints, but you recall he was hesitant to join, and also likely had tendencies towards the “Happiness Angels”. It is possible like yourself he was protected from the taint of the pamphlets by his unsuitability towards any of the Four Saints, or perhaps he joined the Architects after all, and from there joined HYDRA IX.

Hopefully Namara gets a chance to assess his loyalties further, assuming you both survive this mission into the ruins. You can't help but wonder if his past assistance to you and Namara on the yacht, and later in the corporate offices was under orders, or due to lingering comradeship. You were never super close with Kristoff, or any other members of the 37th for that matter, given the shortness of your military career, but he helped you out on several occasions despite being a bit of a pervert, and you, him, and Callie had formed the core of your little clique.

>>4956321

The ruins are of Nethian origin, but less decorated and more dungeon like than you saw at previous sites. Although a few of the glowing pink orbs float about, the tunnels seem dull, lifeless, and oppressive. It doesn’t help they are pitch black except for the occasional orb, plus what you can see with your lamp packs.

Strange cages line the walls in some tunnels, they remind you unpleasantly of the gibbet you once found yourself trapped in.

You jump in surprise and screech when you briefly see a withered figure trapped in a cage that flickers briefly as you shine your lamp pack on it before disappearing.

“The spirits of the Usurper’s followers, trapped for all eternity in a dull, empty, limbo. They wouldn’t normally be visible, but the release of the soul repository in this ruin is affecting the magic that holds them here.” - Explains Chudder, the large man with the shotgun.

You spend several more long, agonizing minutes in the haunted ruins before finding yourself in a large room filled with treasure.

“How is this still here? Why hasn’t someone looted it?” - Asks Linara, the red headed woman.

“We entered a pocket dimension a few corridors back, also I suspect this is an illusion” – Replies Chudder. Linara accepts this at face value. If they are former members of the 37th, clearly someone has spent much more time teaching them the nature of the heretical and the occult than they did for you. You have never even heard of a pocket dimension before, but it sounds bad.

A slow clapping noise echoes seemingly from nowhere, and a tall muscular figure appears on an elevated throne in the middle of the room. A few seconds later, the rest of the room shimmers, and instead of a treasure room, you find yourself in the middle of a torture room. Strange, nude mutants in cruel fetters and chains of rusted metal limp around the room, tending to multitudes of victims bound in every torture device imaginable.

The muscular figure stands up, and descends the steps around his cruel throne to approach you. He is several feet taller than you, massively over-muscled, and has the olive skin and crude tattoos of a Nethian, but the glowing eyes and many curved horns of a mutant or warp creature. But his most obvious feature is the iron wrought cage that once bound him in place, but now bends with his every move like the hydraulic body frames sometimes worn by cripples on your home world.

“Bow before Gyrab the Usurper, Rightful Ruler of the Nethian Empire” – Demands the figure.

Chudder gives a minimal bow, and you and Linara hastily follow suit. However, Gyrab seems more outraged by this limited recognition them pleased by it.

“You are arrogant for flimsy mortals. In this realm my powers are limitless, but my patience is not!” – Shouts Gyrab.

>>4956329

You sure hope Chudder knows what he is doing. Although you don’t know anything about these things, it sounds like the figures around you are the trapped spirits of the dead. You have little desire to become either one of the mutated torturers, or the writhing victims for all eternity.

“Hmmm, an intriguing offer, life has become quite dull these past few millennia. Pity I can’t read your thoughts inside your strange dead zones. What do you get from this?” - Replies Gyrab.

“The dead souled machines that have long slumbered beneath these islands have awoken, and now they seek to destroy all life in the galaxy. Although we care not for this planet, their harvest of souls cannot be allowed to spread further. Take the Crown from the Emissary, unleash its power, destroy the machines, for otherwise they will destroy you. After that, we care not for what you do.” - Replies Chudder.

You can’t help but think that seems like a pretty good deal for both parties. You hope that is not Hiroka’s actual plan, and if it is, that they take you with them when they leave the planet.

“A worthy deal, I accept. With one condition. Your two lovely female companions stay with me on the planet when you depart. They will join the ranks of my beautiful brides, and seal the alliance between our two peoples” – Replies Gyrab.

He produces two spiked iron rings from nowhere and holds one in each hand.

Your heart sinks when you realize each of the mutant torturers in the room has a similar rink on one of their fingers.

Chudder simply nods at this, and Gyrab telekinetically floats the rings towards you and Linara so they hover just in front of either of you. Linara looks very apprehensive, but reaches out and grabs the ring in front of her and puts it on her finger. Presumably the null cylinder negates whatever magic the ring contains, for now...

>Grab the other ring and put it on, hopefully Hiroka can control Gyrab once he is bound to a mortal form, and hopefully they have a way to remove the ring.

>Blurt out Hiroka’s plan to Gyrab, maybe you can convince him to spare you, but also to claim the Crown and destroy the Necrons anyways.

>Flee the chamber, killing Chudder and Linara with the revolver if that is what it takes to escape.

>>4956333
>>Grab the other ring and put it on, hopefully Hiroka can control Gyrab once he is bound to a mortal form, and hopefully they have a way to remove the ring.
Well... shit
Fleeing seems like an obvious bad move, I doubt we would make it far considering we are in a pocket dimension.
Snitching on Hiroka could work, but it would involve fucking over our immediate allies, and helping out a chaos tainted spirit. There are too many ways in which this could bite us in the ass.
That being said, trusting Hiroka to care about our plight at all might be an even bigger mistake. Hoping its not.

>>4956333
No good choices here. Hopefully the cylinders can stave off the effects, but let's put it on our pinky, as high up as possible. Maybe acquire booze at one point. Makes cutting off the finger easier. Gnarly, but it beats eternal servitude. Do the D-Eldar have limb regrowing tech ? I know the Imperium favors augmetics.

>>4956333
>Flee the chamber, killing Chudder and Linara with the revolver if that is what it takes to escape.
Fuuck this shit.

>>4956333
>>Flee the chamber, killing Chudder and Linara with the revolver if that is what it takes to escape.
The ring seems like a bad idea.

>>4956333
>Grab the other ring and put it on, hopefully Hiroka can control Gyrab once he is bound to a mortal form, and hopefully they have a way to remove the ring.
We're in null zone so hopefully we're safe

>And a tall thin woman in a green blouse, brown corset, and blue trousers. Her hair is dyed platinum blond except with green and blue highlights, and she also carries a lascarbine. For some reason the closer you get to the woman, the more you instinctively don’t like her.
Null?

>>4956333
>brazenly aver that you wouldn’t be a good addition, you only kill never torture, and are promised to a more powerful demon (?)

The rest of the options are bad, bad, bad, but don’t want to kill our new friends without reason

>>4957515
I might want to walk back my vote as well, but becoming a bride to a daemon is as good a reason to panic as any

>Grab the other ring and put it on, hopefully Hiroka can control Gyrab once he is bound to a mortal form, and hopefully they have a way to remove the ring.

Unable to think of any better plan, you extremely reluctantly reach out, grab the ring, and put it on your middle finger.

It slides on easily enough, but you belatedly realize some of the spikes on the ring are positioned to flay the skin from your finger if you try to remove the ring.

“I look forward to the wedding night...” - Gyrab chuckles.

You almost gag at the repulsiveness of the thought.

“Well now that that is settled, how is it you propose to reincarnate me” – Gyrab asks Chudder.

Chudder and Gyrab launch into a long discussion that seems equal parts technical and metaphysical, though you are too busy wallowing about in your dark predictions of everything that could go wrong to even try to pay attention. It is not hard to imagine horrible things that could occur on the "wedding night" when you are surrounded by endless examples.

Eventually Chudder seems to gain Gyrab’s trust enough to lead him out of the ruins, where Hiroka and Betty are waiting with the “clone body”, likely a vat grown vessel originally meant for conversion into a servitor, but repurposed for this ritual. The clone body lies in a circle of foul symbols, and Hiroka, seemingly without a null cylinder, stands in the middle of another circle.

Kristoff, Weevil, and Namara arrive not long afterwards, and the seven of you stand in a loose semi-circle around the ritual circle while Hiroka and Gyrab converse in a language that makes your guts clench.

It suddenly occurs to you that you and the others around the circle might somehow be part of the ritual, and you start becoming extremely nervous and paranoid. However, it seems too late now to back out on Hiroka’s clique, so you stand there uneasily, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, and hoping no one notices how unsettled you are.

When it finally happens, you are completely caught off guard.

Gyrab, who had become increasingly incorporeal ever since he left his pocket dimension, simply lies down IN the clone body, and merges with it in a blinding flash.

A cyclone of whirling pink energy materializes around the ritual circle and spins faster and faster before destabilizing and sending a shockwave in all directions.

You have only a split second to realize what is happening before being thrown off your feet.


--------------------------------------------------------------


You wake up groggily.

Your head pounds painfully and you are partially propped up by the tree trunk you were no doubt thrown against by the shockwave.

Third concussion of the day.

It will be a miracle if you don’t have some sort of brain damage after all this.

>>4957786

At least this time you don’t seem to have been unconscious for long, the sun is roughly in the same place, and the others are only now starting to get up off the ground from where they were knocked down.

Alarmingly, the clone body is nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t worry, the ritual was a success, I just sent away the daemon for now.” - Says Hiroka from out of your range of vision but very close by.

You turn your head, and see her squatting next to you, her curious expression at odds with the wicked monoblade dagger in her hand.

“So I heard you just got engaged, unfortunately, now Gyrab serves me, and I don’t like to share” – Says Hiroka, smiling at her own joke.

She lunges at you, and you twist away, holding your hands out defensively, worried she intends to kill you.

Instead she grabs your wrist, and expertly removes your ring finger at the joint with an expert poke of her incredibly sharp blade.

You stare at your missing finger in shock, then start feeling very faint.


------------------------------------------------------


For the fourth time today, you wake up groggily to less than ideal circumstances.

This time you are in the back of an open topped truck heading up hill at a decent clip on a rutted road.

Namara, Kristoff, and Livara sit across from you.

Namara seems concerned for your well being. Perhaps Kristoff too, but it is hard to tell with his ever present mask. Livara seems morbidly fascinated with her hand, which is wrapped up in bloody gauze and medical tape.

Oh right......

It takes a significant time for you to muster the courage to look at your own hand.

You find yourself wishing you hadn’t.

The pain is minimal, some sort of localized painkiller no doubt, but the appearance is gruesome, and thought of losing a piece of your body seems a foul violation.

In order to keep your mind off things, you look around.

A large convoy of trucks and other heavy duty civilian vehicles is rushing up the hill at a fast pace.

Some are filled with black armored figures marked with the “I” symbol of the Inquisition. Others appear to be members of HYDRA IX and/or followers of the “Architect”, though you even see a few “Happiness Angels” in the mix as well.

Off in the distance, pink beams of light pierce the heavens. Much like when the soul repositories were released, but those light faded not long after they burst into existence.

“What is going on?” - You ask.

Your voice is a bit slurred. So is your vision. And your thoughts. Perhaps that painkiller wasn’t so localized after all.

“The Ultimate Battle of Ultimate Destiny” – Replies Kristoff cryptically.

>>4957787

“Someone activated some sort of second ritual with the soul repositories, they say it lets whoever has the Crown do some sort of ritual in the Valley of Twilight to get godlike powers. Some Inquisitor named Durham has pooled resources with HYDRA IX to stop the ritual and replace it with their own. The Tau and the Nethians have gathered to prevent us from stopping it.” - Says Namara, though she seems uncertain. However, you are surprised that Hiroka told her even that much. You wonder if that is a sign that Hiroka intends to draw you and Namara deeper into her group’s activities. From what you have seen, that is perhaps less than ideal.

“What are the other xenos up to, the Necron, Orks, and Dark Eldar?” - You ask.

“The Necron are killing everything that moves, the Orks are fighting the Tau and Nethians in the core resort, the Dark Eldar seem to have disappeared” – Says Chudder, sitting to your left.

You are tempted to ask what you and Namara are expected to accomplish here, but no doubt you are here simply to pad out the numbers a bit. Likely the Inquisition and HYDRA IX are outnumbered by the Tau and the Nethians rather badly even with their strength focused here, while their opponents are scattered across multiple battlefields.

You pass through a smashed gate with a sign above it indicating you are now entering Twilight Valley EcoPark.

You of course have heard of it on multiple occasions on resort infomercials.

A deep valley between two mountains, the sun rarely reaches here, and almost never reaches the valley floor due to the dense canopy of hardy shade tolerant jungle trees.

On the valley floor, it is twilight during midday, and night-time any other time (like now, since it is early evening as far as you can tell).

Bioluminescent fungi, insects, and amphibians, some of which are massive, glow everywhere.

It is truly quite beautiful, especially on painkillers.

You wish you had come here under better circumstances, but avoided it due to the fact that the largest of the amphibians occasionally swallow tourists whole, and at the time it seemed like too much of a risk, even if rescues are almost always successful.

Your thoughts are cruelly interrupted when the truck suddenly flips on its side.

You are thrown clear, but somehow land safely by landing on some soft, spongy fungi.

All around you weapons fire creates a blur of confusing light.

Red lines of lasgun fire.

Blue bursts of Tau pulse rifle volleys.

Burning pink flames of Nethian magic.

Acid green of the Necron’s archaic weapons.

And blasts of white from Tau photon grenades.

You can’t make heads or tails of where anyone is positioned from the light show, it all seems to have dissolved into one confusing melee.

Up in the sky you can see two glowing figures fighting one another. Likely the rematch between the Failed Usurper and the Exalted Emissary.

Not knowing what else to do, you take cover behind the patch of fungi you landed on.

>>4957792

To your surprise, someone is already there.

It is Kayla.

Startled, you fumble for your revolver, but can’t wrap your over bandaged hand around the handle and trigger of the small gun.

“Be at peace, you have probably heard some bad things about me, but I have reconciled with our mutual Master for now” - Says Kayla.

“The Emissary must be stopped. However, afterwards... let’s just say Tywick and Durham’s plans for the Crown are almost as bad as letting the Emissary keep it...but such things do not concern you” – Continues Kayla, more to herself than to you.

She pats you once absentmindedly on the shoulder before heading back out into the firefight.

Not sure what else to do, and haven just proven yet again how useless you are in a fight, you decide to try to find a better hiding spot instead.

You spot a darker patch deeper in the woods where no covering fire seems to be heading or coming from and head in that direction, hoping it is vacant.

Up above you, you see a massive flash of light, and turn just in time to see both Emissary and the Usurper crash together in a flaming ball of light, which then fades to emptiness.

Both daemons are seemingly destroyed in the impact.

Good riddance you think to yourself, then realize without the Crown, no one can complete the ritual to achieve godlike powers to annihilate the Necrons and other xenos.

Then in the faint glow of the bioluminescent fungi ahead of you, you see a familiar mitre like crown, beyond doubt the Crown of the Emissary, which you last saw upon the head of the Emissary herself.

Even in the slightly befuddled state caused by the painkillers, you realize you now hold the destiny of the island, and perhaps the whole world in your hands. You shiver at the thought of such responsibility.

>>4957793

>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.

>Go find Hiroka, Inquisitor Durham, or their associates. Although radical if not heretical, they are still the closest thing to senior Imperial representatives you have encountered today, and they seem keen to eliminate the Necron presence on this island, which seems worthwhile regardless of how it is done.

>Go find Kayla. She is still likely nearby, and both she and Hiroka have hinted she has an alternate strategy for the Crown, though you know nothing about it other than it is perhaps less radical than what Hiroka and Durham are planning.

>Call in support from the Dark Eldar. They seem pretty keen on destroying the Crown, and perhaps will reward you for your assistance, or at least move you somewhere away from the firefight. However, without the Crown, likely the whole island will be purged from orbit, including Namara if the Dark Eldar can’t be persuaded to track her down before leaving.

>>4957795
>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.

A pawn can be sacrificed, but can become so much more if left alone.

Rhea is tired of everyone's bullshit and wants her finger back a brain with no concussion and a body that isn't shutting down from exhaustion. No more playing by oyher people's rules as another sacrificial pawn. Now we act. Now they listen. Now we slap some sense into everyone, get a handle on our fate, and get some FUCKING sleep (possibly with Namara in the same bed).
Fuck everyone who stands in our way.
Except possibly the Dark Eldar, who were unbelievably the straightest with us, pun very intended.

>>4957795
>>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.
This is clearly the most prudent and reasonable option. We can always hand it off to the dark eldar later if it needs destroying or we want to hold up the agreement. As it is, it's time for everyone to pay. Also let's be honest, the Deldar terms for rescue rather specifically don't exclude being taken back to Commorragh as a pleasure slave.

>>4957795
>>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.
Using the powerful chaos MacGuffin probably isn't very good for our well being, and giving the crown over to someone would probably earn us a lot of brownie points and maybe even our safety, but yeah...
We know next to nothing about Kayla and her plans, we lost a finger like 10 minutes into associating with Hiroka, and the Deldar are Deldar. I could see any one of them fucking us over regardless of our help.

And hey, Rhea is curious right?

>>4957795
>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.

I think we are screwed no matter what, so if we are going to die we may as well die a god

>>4957795
>Call in support from the Dark Eldar. They seem pretty keen on destroying the Crown, and perhaps will reward you for your assistance, or at least move you somewhere away from the firefight. However, without the Crown, likely the whole island will be purged from orbit, including Namara if the Dark Eldar can’t be persuaded to track her down before leaving.

>>4957795
>>Go find Hiroka, Inquisitor Durham, or their associates. Although radical if not heretical, they are still the closest thing to senior Imperial representatives you have encountered today, and they seem keen to eliminate the Necron presence on this island, which seems worthwhile regardless of how it is done.

>>4958175
Admittedly, it would be funny if Try'sta took Rhea and Namara back to Commorragh with her and kept not being able to let them go because they kept accidentally solving all her problems and crises.

>>4957795
>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.

This is a TERRIBLE idea. So let's see what happens. Hopefully it's not a quest end with Rhea turning into some horrifically mutated being.

>>4957795
>>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.
>>4958196

If she is transformed, at least she’ll likely keep her epic rack

>>4958196
>>4958415
>Rhea puts the crown on
>the xenos all leave
>everyone else cleans everything up, gets in a shave and a shower, and goes back to normal
>Rhea goes back to her hotel room with Namara, and spends the rest of her life sitting on a beach and wearing a funny hat
>Nobody ever talks about The Incident again.

>>4958511
Oh and while I'm Spitballing
>Trysta is somehow still around after everyone else left, but her ears have been docked. When asked for details she mumbles something about getting locked in a bathroom and quickly changes the subject.

>>Put the Crown on your own head. The warp creature beneath the Bank once advised you to, which isn’t exactly a trustworthy source, but everything you have heard about the Crown suggests it may give you great power, which given you are in the middle of a firefight, may be your only option for surviving even short term, while medium term will perhaps give you the power to defeat the xenos and tainted ones, and finally uncover the true agendas of the likes of Hiroka, Durham, Kayla, and their associates.

You hesitate for a while, unsure of who to bring the Crown to, even if did muster the courage to pick it up. After having done countless life threatening errands for the likes of Handson, Kayla, and Hiroka only to find out things are not what they seem, you are tired of being someone else’s pawn.

But what if, you use the Crown for yourself?

After more hesitating, you pick up the Crown.

Despite your fears that you would be instantly transformed into a quivering pile of flesh, the Crown seems completely inert.

You try placing it on your head, only to find it is too big.

Do you need to be a certain size to wear the Crown? No previous conversation on the topic has indicated this.

You glance down at the satchel wrapped around your body, still carrying one of the null cylinders, and suspect it is the cause of the Crown’s impotence.

After even more hesitating, you take of the satchel, hold it in one hand, count to five, groan audibly in indecision, then toss the satchel a reasonable distance away.

++Hello little one...++ A dry, exotic voice rasps inside your head.

You drop the Crown in shock.

++Well that was rude++ The voice continues.

“Screw this”, you think to yourself, I am not putting something on my head that can think for itself.

You start walking towards where you threw the satchel with the null cylinder in it. If the Crown can talk to you, it can potentially possess you (at least that is how you think these things work).

++I won’t be so quick to leave just yet, I doubt you will last long against that Flayed One heading this way.++ Says the voice. A brief mental image of a long taloned Necron removing the skin from your still living body and wearing it like clothes flashes into your mind.

“I am dead anyways if I take you with me, everyone in the valley is looking for you” – You respond.

++Don’t worry, I can be as discreet as needed, and besides, with the power I can offer you, half the island will want to be your friend, and the rest can be dealt with easily enough++ Says the voice. As it says this, the Crown transforms into a ring, barely visible in the light of the bioluminescent fungi and distance firefight.

“Why me? Why not just wait for someone else?” - You ask, fearing it prefers a malleable host to the likes of Durnham and Tywick.

++You found me, therefore I serve you, until you remove me, or you die. These are the rules of my eternal bondage++ Replies the voice.

>>4958813

“What are you?” - You wonder out loud.

++I was once what you would call a daemon, a powerful one. But I lost in one of the games our kind plays, and well, becoming this was part of the terms of my defeat. Ticktock, you have about 10 seconds before your face gets removed and becomes a robot’s codpiece.++ Says the voice merrily.

“What, why didn’t you tell me?!?” - You screech.

You dive for the ring, and jam it on your ring finger (the one that isn’t missing).

Despite your fears of growing four new sets of breasts the minute you put on the ring, nothing happens.

You stand up, turn around, and are instantly impaled through the gut by the talons of the “Flayed One” the ring warned you about.

The pain is immeasurable.

Time seems to stand still as you contemplate your killer.

A rusted, metallic skeleton covered in bloody flayed skin, shards of bone, and even a large chunk of someone’s torso.

It gazes down at you with glowing green eyes.

“Help....me” – You implore the ring through teeth gritted in pain.

++How?++ It replies.

Get rid of it, you think, too weak to even talk.

New energy pours into your limbs, and without realizing it, you place your hands on either side of the Flayed One’s heat.

A brief flicker of pink energy emits from both your hands, and the Flayed One and its grisly trophies fades into pink dust, which in turn fades to nothing.
You fall to your knees, wanting nothing more than the overwhelming pain to go away, and to your surprise it does. With your mind more clear, this time you will your abdomen wound to disappear, and in disbelief, you watch your wounds knit themselves up and disappear.

“So the power is real” – You whisper to yourself.

++Yes, yes it is++ Replies the voice.

You spend a long long time on your knees in the mud thinking through the implications of this. Perhaps sensing you need time to process, the ring does not interrupt your thoughts.

Everything you have ever been taught growing up in sermons and penthrift dreadfuls suggests that you have forfeited your immortal soul and opened yourself up to possession of the most horrid sort of possession by putting on the ring, yet so far nothing bad has happened, in fact, the ring had saved you from a wretched fate.

Besides, what else could you have done with the ring anyways? Bring it to Hiroka or Kayla, who knows what they would have done with it?

++Those two, I know them quite well++ Says the ring, speaking at last.

“How?” - You ask.

++My previous wearer worked with their Masters on several initiatives++ Says the ring.

“What Masters? The Inquisition? What initiatives?” - You ask, already suspecting you won’t like the answer.

>>4958814

++HYDRA IX serves Thypptyklpt, one of my kind. Even I can’t discern his motives, but I have worked with him several times. He has a reputation for being entities like myself into mutually beneficial plans that sometimes even work as promised, a rarity. HYDRA IX is an idealistic organization that believes the power of the warp can be unlocked for the benefit of mankind. Several Inquisitors are allied with them including Durham and her servant Handson, while many others you have encountered in the past will present themselves as agents of the Inquisition when needed, including Tywick, Hiroka, and Kayla.

However, Kayla has come to serve another daemon by the name of En’Dee’Nette, a fellow servant of the Dark Prince. An old school pacifist who believes in giving mortals every opportunity to convert willingly, En’Dee’Nette formed an agreement of sorts with HYDRA IX following the original debacle with the pamphlets in order to accelerate HYDRA IX’s plan to conquer the planet from within by installing a series of puppet rulers to deflect or silence any opposition. Despite much progress moving their puppets and allies into positions of power, many pockets of incorruptibility remain. Therefore, several plans were enacted, including the awakening of the Nethians and laying the groundwork for the Tau invasion, in order to provide the chaos needed finish the silent coup.

However, those two particular plans unraveled just recently. Your predecessor proved unwilling to allow herself and her people to become an expendable distraction, formed a new alliance with the Tau, and secretly with En’Dee’Nette to began preparations on several rituals that would greatly enhance her power. This, combined with the awakening of the Necron has likely caused HYDRA IX to reexamine their slow moving plans, and instead they seem to have decided to hijack your predecessor’s rituals in order to secure power quickly. ++ Explains the ring.

The ring’s story is enthralling, though you suspect it barely scratches the surface of what it knows.

You feel a flare of anger against Hiroka and Kayla as you start realizing the full extend to which they manipulated you, but also fear as you realize just how many supposedly Imperial servants are secretly affiliated with HYDRA IX.

++Don’t be too quick to dismiss HYDRA IX and En’Dee’Nette. Even before your put on the ring, you have experienced far too much for a true loyal servant of your Imperium to allow you to live. You are one of us now, and even with my power, you will find life difficult without allies, particularly if you hope to defeat the xenos that infest this world. Few followers of the “Emperor” still live on this island, and even now they prepare to flee.++ Says the ring.

It is a sobering thought, and you realize the time is fast approaching when you will need to take a side.

>>4958817

>Remove the ring, find Namara, then flee the battlefield to join up with this band of Imperials that the ring mentioned. You will likely die in the process, but you would rather be loyal and dead, then corrupt and alive.

>Remove the ring, then call in the Dark Eldar to destroy it. Who knows what, if anything, the Dark Eldar will do to you, but the ring represents an even greater risk than you previously thought, and must be destroyed as soon as possible no matter what the personal cost to you is.

>Keep the ring on. No way you are working with HYDRA IX or other tainted individuals, but with the ring, you can maybe find Namara, destroy the xenos, and otherwise alter reality to suit your needs.

>Keep the ring on, and seek out HYDRA IX. With their knowledge, your odds of defeating the xenos increases greatly, and after that, perhaps an alliance of sorts can be forged. It is not like the Imperium will ever let you have this kind of power, and who are they to judge you?

>Keep the ring on, continue your predecessor’s plan to work with En’Dee’Nette and the Tau. They seem to have the superior force here in the Valley, particularly if the ring can somehow sway the Nethians to follow you. Besides, it seems the right thing to do, though you suspect the ring is subtly nudging you in that direction.

>>4958820
>>Keep the ring on. No way you are working with HYDRA IX or other tainted individuals, but with the ring, you can maybe find Namara, destroy the xenos, and otherwise alter reality to suit your needs.
Sounds like a plan. Not a particularly good one, but a plan nonetheless. Namara might not be happy about the entire thing but hopefully she still has enough deldar ecstasy floating around in her system that she'll go along with it for a while.

>>4958820
>>Keep the ring on. No way you are working with HYDRA IX or other tainted individuals, but with the ring, you can maybe find Namara, destroy the xenos, and otherwise alter reality to suit your needs.

Luck be a wildcard. We are marked for death by the Imperium and the puritan part of the Inquisition.
HYDRA IX could be a good bet, but they are untrustworthy. Let's focus on personal goals and let them come to us if they become desperate. That would be the best time to make deals.
The longer the fight goes on, the weaker everyone is, except maybe for the Necrons. We fetch Namara and bid for time.

If we haven't done so, regenerate our finger and remove any potential brain damage from us and Namara once we locate and rescue her. Then grill the ring some more on what long term crown wearing entails.

This has truly become a shitshow. Did you come up with the story yourself, QM ?

>>4958820
>>Keep the ring on. No way you are working with HYDRA IX or other tainted individuals, but with the ring, you can maybe find Namara, destroy the xenos, and otherwise alter reality to suit your needs.
Well this was some much needed context.
Part of me wants to excape with the imperials, but at this point we are just gonna get killed if we do that.
If we had to choose a side, I would lean towards En'Dee'Nette, since converting only the willing and being a pacifist are respectable traits. That and "unlocking the power of the warp for mankind" sounds pretty shady. I suspect they are most likely just Thypptyklpt's servants.
But its probably best to avoid picking sides this early... or siding with daemons at all

Also supporting growing the finger back

>>4958845
>>4958857
>growing the finger back
It's a Slaanesh demon. Dollars to donuts Rhea gets a penis growing out of her hand and not a finger
"No its fine! the bones are just a little slow growing in"

>>4958845
>This has truly become a shitshow. Did you come up with the story yourself, QM ?

This particular story arc was developed by me, but draws heavily from a lot of other sources.

As mentioned in the first post, the story arcs of the first "Hapless Guardswoman" thread follows the events of the first two "Chocolate and Corruption in 40k" /tg/ greentext threads. If anyone is interested you can safely read them now, I don't think there are any remaining spoilers. This thread builds off the third /tg/ greentext thread in that series, which was unfortunately nuked before it could gain any momentum.

I came up with a barebone plot for this thread that would give anons some freedom in how they would perform tasks while interacting with a range of shady characters from several different sources. I didn't want there to be any obviously good factions since during the first thread the "morally good" and/or "safe" option was almost always chosen, so this time around I tried to ensure that no matter which option was selected, Rhea would be further pushed out of her comfort zone. Also despite all the weird stuff that happens in these threads, I try to stick more or less to canon, so realistically no Imperial authority figure would tolerate Rhea to live after the first thread, and definitely not now (though it is still plausible for her to try going incognito to rejoin Imperial society at some point),

Several of the main factions are based on old threads:
- Trys'ta and Wyen'dala are my characters from the Damnatum Lutum threads
- HYDRA IX, although never called this before, are based on the various characters associated with Eleni/Elena Tywick in the "Chocolate and Corruption in 40k" threads. Thypptyklpt shows up in the "The Cold and Sandy Feudal Guardsmen" threads, and later the Damnatum Lutum threads, while Eleni/Elena also appears as a minor character in Damnatum Lutum.
- En'Dee'Nette is a clear reference to the En'Dee character from the "Chocolate and Corruption in 40k" threads and potentially also the "Tiddius Majoris" threads as well. I added the "Nette" to the end just in case her creator objects to how she is depicted, I know En'Dee anon was posting on the first thread occasionally, but not sure if he is still around.

>>4958820
>>Remove the ring, then call in the Dark Eldar to destroy it. Who knows what, if anything, the Dark Eldar will do to you, but the ring represents an even greater risk than you previously thought, and must be destroyed as soon as possible no matter what the personal cost to you is.

Anyways, I am going on vacation soon, returning Thursday night. The thread will probably be pretty close to being archived by the time I get back, so I may or may not have time to advance the thread to the point that I can insert a clear conclusion and timeskip before the next thread.

It looks like there is strong interest in having Rhea "go rogue" and become her own master. Probably the combination of being misled so many times, a growing fear she will be rejected by the Imperium, and a desire to lash out at the fundamental unfairness of her life has deeply eroded her past inclination to follow those with authority.

The next story arch will likely focus on Rhea trying to find a balance between her morals and values, and her own more selfish desires (amplified by the power of the ring) now that her ability to influence the world around her has greatly increased due to the power of the ring, though I will still occasionally give people the option of having Rhea ditch the ring and jumping to another faction.

Since I consider anons posts to represent the various aspects of Rhea's psyche, the next story arc will be less railroad-y and more freeform, though I will try to think of some short story arcs based around various tasks that Rhea will likely try to perform.

Let me know what people think Rhea's goals will end up being, beyond the obvious like somehow getting Namara to accept you can now use warp magic, replacing your finger, and dealing with the Necrons.

>>4958820
>Keep the ring on. No way you are working with HYDRA IX or other tainted individuals, but with the ring, you can maybe find Namara, destroy the xenos, and otherwise alter reality to suit your needs.

On the terrible idea train we go. I don't suppose that this ring awakened any psyker ability?

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>>4959050
I hope you enjoy your vacation. Personally, I think beyond the immediate xenos and heretic threats, Rhea's main goal is still to go along and get along, and live in her hotel room indefinitely, since it's still the nicest thing she's ever had in life and she's prime bullying material in every other context.
It will definitely be interesting to see how the ring affects her. Contempt of Chaos is a powerful trait, but even Fabius Bile had to bend the knee after 10,000 years or so, and he's made of sterner stuff than our dear Rhea. I like the idea of her slowly developing mutations the longer she has the ring on, with the implication that she'll eventually become Twiceborn or Neverborn as time goes on. Namara might also become subject to this as her body (and maybe her mind) are slowly changed to reflect Rhea's platonic ideal of Namara, rather than her real person. The dilemma, of course, is that trying to remove or lessen the ring's influence may be absolutely disastrous in the short-term.
And of course, given all that's happened, there's always the possibility that a Puritan faction of the Inquisition forces her to team up with the Radicals in HydraIX anyway.

>“Even minor contact with the pamphlet can affect you. Although a preacher might say only Faith and Contempt for the Dark Gods can protect you, our research so far indicates that those who earn the “Disdain of the Dark Gods” usually simply aren’t of interest to the entities of the Warp”

Well, here's hoping Rhea has a chance to throw away the ring and not turn into Gollum after she does what she needs to do.

>>4959050
>Let me know what people think Rhea's goals will end up being, beyond the obvious like somehow getting Namara to accept you can now use warp magic, replacing your finger, and dealing with the Necrons.

In the end, I personally think Rhea's goal would be peace, for lack of a precise word.
With the amount of horrid mutants she has seen, the number of crazy errands she was sent on, and all the near death experiences she lived though, I imagine the foremost thing on her mind is to return to a more comfortable everyday, without the hunger, pain, exhaustion and fear.
To do this she would most likely have to make the Xeno fuck off, and either do the same for all the chaos affiliates, or make a truce/deal with them. Then would come ensuring the actual Inquisition doesn't shank her either.

I would also imagine she would try to remain as untainted as possible, seeing as how she saw first hand what Chaos does to people, and wants roughly 0% of that shit.
Only with all her potential allies being shady as hell her only remaining path to survival and perhaps peace is a powerful Chaos artefact. I for one look forward to seeing this particular inner conflict play out.

I wish you a pleasant vacation, I will wait for your return.

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well, the thread hasn't moved off page six for a few days so i recon it will be good to go when our QM comes back from vacation.

>Keep the ring on. No way you are working with HYDRA IX or other tainted individuals, but with the ring, you can find Namara, destroy the xenos, and otherwise alter reality to suit your needs.

Screw it.

Although still certain you are making a mistake, you decide to keep the ring on for now.

After all, it had saved your life and provided extremely valuable information.

Still, you have serious worries about prolonged use of the ring.

Nothing is free in life.

“Uhmm, what kind of powers do you have, and what is the price I have to pay? Am I going to go all....lewd...using you?” - You ask the ring, thinking back to the multi-breasted, multi-armed previous possessor of the ring/crown.

++A certain amount of warp mutation is inevitable when harnessing the powers I can provide, but don’t worry, I can easily reverse any results that displease you. You may also notice an increase in self-confidence and the intensity of your emotions and desires. This will be both a sign of the Dark Prince’s favor, as well as the self knowledge you are far more powerful than ever before.

Over time, you will likely find your priorities shifting. My previous bearer was once like yourself. She saw herself as modest and selfless, and at first she only used my power to help others while keeping out of the spotlight, but as time progressed, she began to desire the credit she deserved for her actions and subtly changed her appearance to be more charismatic and attractive. She became a hero to her people and embraced her more selfish and sensual desires, willingly changing her own body to experience more and more. Eventually she began forcing her will upon others, but was too guilty to admit it to herself, and instead presented herself as “The Emissary”, always issuing her orders on the behalf of a non-existent other.

As for powers, I have many. I can skim the surface thoughts of others and relay them to you, insert thoughts into other’s minds, alter your hormones to make your will irresistible, alter the flesh of yourselves and others nearby in any manner you please, and lash out with the raw power of the warp. I can do many other things as well, but my powers are not unlimited, however, I am sure over time you will get a good feel for my capabilities++ Says the ring.
.
So in short, I will probably go made with power and warp taint, but at least I will have the power to complete some sane objectives first, you think to yourself. The ring neither confirms nor denies this.

“Fine, grow my finger back, fix my concussion, then find Namara for me.” - You tell the ring.

>>4964919

You tear of the gauze and medical tape just in time to see bones, tendons, muscles, arteries, veins, and finally skin and nail grow rapidly from the ruined joint before finally forming a new finger just like your old one. The process is morbidly fascinating to watch, and strangely yet intensely pleasurable. Sparks of pleasure also explode directly into your brain, perhaps indicating that your concussions have been healed.

After waiting a bit for your head to clear and your heart rate to go back to normal, you mentally prod the ring to indicate you are ready to find Namara.

++I will scan the area for her thoughts and improve your vision, but you will have to move around a bit, I am not omnipotent.++ Says the voice.

Sure enough, your vision shifts and suddenly you are able to see in the poorly lit bioluminiscent forest like it is dusk rather than almost pitch black.

It doesn’t take you long to realize the fighting has moved elsewhere for now, you find a few wrecked vehicles, and piles of bodies of various sorts, but no Namara.

As you wander the vicinity of the ambush site, you become increasingly anxious you will find Namara dead, and are surprised at just how much you fear this possibility.

Sure you have saved each others lives on several occasions, and are friends despite your different personalities, but what you find yourself fearing the most is not having anyone you can trust. Since arriving on this planet, you have been betrayed or abused so many times that you can barely imagine ever trusting anyone else ever again.

Perhaps Namara feels the same way about you. Her strange attraction to you appears to have come from nowhere despite having lived together for months, and is likely the result of the Dark Eldar drugs messing with her hormones and causing her to become fixated on the only person she trusts.

Or perhaps she is genuinely attracted to you, but was able to deny it to herself prior to the injection of drugs.

To your shock, you realize you are not entirely against the idea.

Although you have always considered yourself attracted to men, your love life has always been in shambles due to trust issues accumulated from a dozen relationships that ended up being abusive, dysfunctional, transactional, or the result of abuse of authority.

A relationship with Namara would cement her loyalty to you and ensure you don’t lose the last person in the universe you can trust. It wouldn’t be the first time you had alternative motivates for entering a physical relationship, and perhaps you will even enj.....

The thought is interrupted as you nearly trip on Namara’s prone figure, lost in your fantasies.

She lays sprawled atop some loose rocks, and her loaned shirt does nothing to cover her toned legs. She is unconscious, and seems injured, but not critically so.

>>4964921

You realize the biggest flaw in your plan is getting Namara to accept that you have (temporarily) embraced the power of a deeply tainted artifact.

Although not deeply religious or fanatical, Namara is fairly dogmatic in her Faith, and at minimal, she will become deeply distrustful of you if you expose to her that you are wielding a tainted device.

>Ditch the ring, you can’t stand the thought of Namara becoming corrupted and/or becoming highly distrustful of you.

>Get the ring to heal Namara, then ditch it before she wakes up.

>Use the power of the ring to make yourself irresistible to Namara, hopefully that way she will overlook any heresy on your part.

>Use the power of the ring to mentally dominate / “hijack” Namara for now, perhaps later you can erase any troublesome memories.

>>4964923
>>Get the ring to heal Namara, then ditch it before she wakes up.