40K Dark Heresy: The Danse Macabre

[Block]

Feeling slightly better, Verum sat up and peered around the small area he was sleeping in. Seeking out Camilia he leaned in close to her and whispered, "Mind doing some of that magic to close my wounds? Kinda in bad shape here Lady."

[Hawkwings]

Camillia woke up from her second sleep of the night, slightly more rested than when she went to sleep. At least her muscles weren't sore any more, from the journey and the combat of the day before. Camillia sat up, dressed, and recited her morning prayers in the small room, as around her, the rest of the acolytes were also waking up.

Just as she was about to step outside, the assassin, Verum, came over and asked for her healing talents. He was still in bad shape, with the bandages from last night covered in dried blood. Camillia led him to a vacant bed and motioned for him to sit down, then sat nearby and opened her mind.

The entire process was fairly quick. The energies of the Warp, harnessed and guided by her will, caused some of Verum wounds to spontaneously disappear, replaced by healthy tissue. Unfortunately, she was unable to safely control it for as long as she would have preferred, but safety was the most important factor here. There was no frost in the corners, no foul smell in the air, and nothing to give sign to any blunt that something miraculous had just occurred.

Camillia suddenly stood and said, "That is all I can do for now. When your body has released the remaining energy, then it will be safe to repeat this. I believe it would be wise to have Cyrine look at your wounds again, also."

There was a moment of silence. Camillia commented, "You are surprisingly unafraid of psychic feats. Do not let that be your downfall."

Without waiting for a reply, Camillia walked outside to talk to the sentries and see what was going on.

[Block]

With a grin Verum whispered to himself, "A blade through the neck kills a psyker just as dead as anyone else." Feeling slightly better, he stretched and checked his bandages. "Man I lost a lot of blood, the witch is right, Cyrine needs to have a look at these," and with that he went to find her.

[Raj Ahten]

To Diver Lazarus said simply,
"He didn't make it. The hive disagreed with him."

The guardsman didn't eel like giving up details to the likes of Diver when he didn't have to.

Seeing Camilla come out he said,
"The food and water inside?"

Getting closer to Camilla he wispered,
"Everyone still alive here?"

Lazarus finnally realized just how tired he was. He had gone two days marching and fighting with less than 6 hours of sleep and sparse rations.

If these gangers try anything, I am screwed.

[Hawkwings]

Camillia waved at the returning acolytes when she saw them. When Lazarus came over, asking about the food, Camillia could only reply with "That was one of the things I was going to check on. I expect an invitation to breakfast very soon."

As he got closer and whispered, She replied in low tones, "Yes, we're all fine, but I gather that you are not. No, don't tell me about it now. You all should probably get some rest. We bunked in that shack over there, and it looks like just about everyone is coming out now. Oh, except for Quintos and Nixios. They stayed up to clean the looted weapons. Which is another thing we're going to have to deal with."

Camillia walked with Lazarus back to the shack, then found Brother Havelock and said "Preacher, do you suppose it is time to accompany our hosts at breakfast?"

[Hotfoot]

Diver shrugged and shook his head. "You lot knew what you was getting into going in. Shame, though. You three should get some sleep, we'll talk later. The rest of your mates are getting up now, food's that way. It shouldn't kill ya." He motioned off towards a larger building with smoke coming from it. The closer one got to it, the more the pungent odors coming from it overpowered the nose. It was not the smell of good food, but it was recognizable as some manner of edible material.

[Raj Ahten]

As Lazarus got some chow, which was at least better than corpse rations, he tried to mantain a high level of alertness.

Luckily Camilla had come in with him. He didn't say much during the meal. He didn't want the gangers to hear a damn thing he had to say.

His mental plan was to eat, debreif and then get some sleep.

[Academia Nut]

All the commotion of the arrival of the others and the rest of the camp waking up for the day ensured that Quintos' sleep was not as long as he would have liked. Still, he'd done more on less sleep before, and he had enough to clear out most of the cobwebs from the night before.

Glancing about at what was going on, he rubbed the sand out of his eyes and donned his armour. Walking over to the pile of weapons, he said to Diver, "Where would your boss like me to take up watch with the heavy stubber?"

[Imperial Overlord]

"He didn't make it," Varnius told the ganger. "If it isn't much trouble, we would like to see our friends."

[Feil]

Cyrine approached Diver before the bulk of the party had left for food.

"Where could I get a pot of boiled water, to cleanse bandages? Or," she said without much hope, "clean cloth, if you have it?"

[Hotfoot]

Diver eyed Quintos with a raised eyebrow. "Mate, yer best off gettin' some grub and just waiting. Trust me, I've known Grim for a long time," He turned to Cyrine and nodded. "Yeah, just get down t'Doc Gremmer down that way," he pointed the way to a building with a small Medicae symbol on it.

"By the way, Grim wanted a word with your crew, in private. His place is over there, when you lot are all settled." He pointed to a larger building with two guards sitting outside of it.

[Feil]

Cyrine nodded. She ate her meal as quickly as she could, barely noticing the taste, then went to the building with the Medicae symbol on it and knocked on the door, intending to ask Doc Gremmer (or whoever was there) for bandages or a place to boil water once someone opened the door.

[Vehrec]

Serghar slumped his shoulders, and smiled a bit at Diver as he went past. He wasn't a strong man, and the death of his comrade and the long trip had left him physically drained. He was going to have to take the egde off that tierdness. He had some of the food, and ate it slowly. It tasted like the old favorites from his home and he was the last one out of the building. Satisfied for now, he walked down to where the rest of the group was housed, opened the door and let himself in.

"We're back."

[Hawkwings]

Camillia sat with Lazarus, and as the rest of the acolytes wandered into the dining area, they naturally clustered around. It was probably for the best, as these gangers didn't look like they would appreciate foreign company eating with them. As long as the two groups stayed separated, there was a tacit agreement to cooperate as much as necessary.

So when Camillia joined the line for second helpings, the server even smiled when he dished out the gruel, and Camillia responded with a simple "Thank you". It was nice to know that even in the strangest places, the ritual of sharing a meal together was still respected.

As the meal finished and people started filing out, Camillia returned to the shack, waiting for everyone else to come back.

[Imperial Overlord]

Varnius headed in the direction that he had been pointed. The food was better than a lot of what he had eaten as a serf on Sepheris Secundus, but not by much. The shadow of the mining pits never seemed to leave him, no matter how far he traveled. He ate mechanically.

[Academia Nut]

Shaking his head and muttering, "First he wants to put a weapon in need of maintenance out on watch, and now that it's ready and we have the potential for attack now that our scouts have returned he doesn't want to do anything with it..."

Still, Quintos let the issue drop and went to go get something to eat. It wasn't pleasant, but he'd had worse, and it did fill his belly up a bit.

[Raj Ahten]

Once the meal was finished the whole team was pretty much gathered together. It was time to let the team in on the details of what happened.

As everyone was heading back to their shack Lazarus said,

"Let's talk out in the open. That way we can see if anyone wants to eavesdrop on us."

Lazarus then went over to a wall that wasn't too dirty and leaned against it while he recounted the scouting operation. The main points were that one of their men was KIA and that they now had some possibly good Intel in the form of a map they got off of the enemy commander.

"I also hear that Diver's boss wants to talk with us. Alone in his place. Fuck that. Let’s meet him outside if he wants to talk. The question is how we proceed from here."

[Imperial Overlord]

"We need a local to identify the locations on the map and help guide us," said Varnius. "It needn't be a Grimloch, but it has to be someone who knows the underhive. And we need to rest and recuperate before heading off."

[Vehrec]

"Rodger that. We need to be back at the top of our game, or at least see to it that we get some downtime in for healing. And its wise to indulge Grimloch's fancy so long as we make it clear that we are doing it out of respect for him, and because of our continued desire not to splatter his brains all over his walls. Might keep him obligated to us." Gelt looked around the group. "And I can't help thinking that having our own crime lord owe us might be something we'd like."

[Raj Ahten]

"Only problem is the Grimlochs migh just decide to shoot us while we are trapped inside. I don't trust these bastards with anything. They never even took an oath to the Emperor."

Which don't exactly equal much, but this ganger scum never even had the apearance of being loyal.

"We already cleared out his rivals for their boss, and what we didn't kill the worms ate. What else could he want? To pay us? Not likely. We are now his rivals. We did what he couldn't."

Lazarus paused for a few seconds.

"All things considered these Grimlochs are still the best bet we got at reading that map, unless we can get a local arbite to do it."

[Hawkwings]

Camillia butted in at this moment, saying "Whether we like it or not, we have a working relationship with these gangers. We should take advantage of it while we can. First priority should be getting that map interpreted. The Grimlochs would be best for that purpose, since they do live here. As for the meeting, it seems to me that Grim is trusting us a lot, offering to have the meeting with all of us and only one of him. We shouldn't be so quick to refuse, especially when it looks like he's making a gesture of cooperation. Besides, it's not like we all have to stand in a convenient kill-zone. We can have sentries outside, not obvious of course, but we could pass it off as some people being uninterested in the meeting, or having more important things to do."

Suddenly remembering, Camillia quickly added "And we also need to send a message to our our illustrious commander, somehow. Tell him about what we saw and what happened."

[Block]

With a yawn and a stretch, Verum nodded to Diver and headed for the shack that the gang sniper had indicated. "Well, may as well go see what our host wants. If he feels the need to gather all of us I'll just have to go collect them I suppose."

[Imperial Overlord]

Varnius passed the map to Camilla. "You have a working relationship with these Grimlochs so I'll leave it to you to see if we can get a guide from them. I'm going to go get a few hours of sleep." He got up and headed toward the previously indicated shack.

[Losonti Tokash]

Nixios did not miss food like that. Nor did he particularly miss the dead arbite. He was, of course, the one largely responsible for their current predicament.

The techpriest's attention returned to more pressing matters as the others' conversation drifted toward things that actually interested him. As usual, once focused they actually could make intelligent thoughts, and he mostly agreed with them. Any objections Nixios might have had went unsaid and he simply stood, his voicebox crackling.

[Raj Ahten]

Pointing towards Varnius Lazarus spoke,

"What he said. I can barely think sraight. If you'all could keep a watch up while we sleep it would be much apreciated."

Beofre entering the shack to sleep Lazarus walked around it to ceck how valnerable it was to getting shot full of holes and what likely escape routes from the area would be from there. He then went in and went to sleep in his armor. It was uncomfortable, but he was too tired to care.