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The Story So Far...

Table of Contents [Hide/Show] Session 58 Session 57b: What Magnus Saw Session 57a: wrapup Session 57 Session 56 Session 55 Session 54 Session 53 Session 52 Session 51 Session 50 Session 49 Session 48 Session 47 Session 46 Session 45 Session 44 Session 43 Session 42 Session 41 Session 40 Session 39 Session 38 Session 37 Session 36 Session 35 Session 34 Session 33 Session 32 Session 31 Session 30 Session 29 Session 28 Session 27 Session 26 Session 25 Session 24 Session 23 Session 22 Session 21 Session 20 Session 19 Session 18 Session 17 Session 16 Session 15 Session 14 Session 13 Session 12 Session 11 Session 10 Session 9 Session 8 Session 7 Session 6 Session 5 Session 4 Session 3 Session 2 Session 1

Session 58¶

by Tom

Meditating on the traces of Eldar beacons she could detect, Astrid discovered that she could sense two potential destinations: one that corresponded with the world of Dross, and one which corresponded with an unnamed world which the star charts indicated was uninhabited and showed no evidence of mineral weath or other interest. Deciding to maximise reward for minimal risk (since only Nejo Skylax has ever escaped from the storms of Dross), the Explorers headed for the uninteresting world.

Despite preparing for a month-long journey, Lady Crimson managed to thread the Tide of Iron through the Warp with superlative skill and the ship arrived a mere week after setting out (3 months realtime).

On arrival in-system the ship's augers showed a gas giant with a dense, icy, rocky ring. Astrid confirmed that the beacon was somewhere within the ring, and so the Tide of Iron moved closer to investigate and found what the Explorers were looking for: a tall Eldar structure of wraithbone, sprouting from a chunk of planetary detritus, and open to the void.

Taking the ship into the ring, Octavius and Magnus guided her safely next to the beacon structure and performed some less-attenuated scans before using shuttles to bring the entire tower, asteroid and all, into a landing bay. Mounting an investigation, the Explorers soon had the necessary warp-route clues safely ensconced in Astrid's brain.

At that moment a ship appeared on the sensors: massive, largely unpowered, it was a wreck of no less than an Imperial Battleship, drifting through the void. Identifying the wreck as the Light of Terra electrified the Explorers - the ship had been lost since the Angevin Crusade, and the histories say the battleship was a favourite of Saint Drusus himself!

Quickly teleporting aboard, the Explorers found themselves in an Imperial shrine with several primitve-looking types who sadly took exception to the heroes' sudden appearance and went for their weapons - prompting Astrid to step forward and detonate their brains messily over the walls and floor of the holy room.

Reaching through the Warp to sense the minds about them, Magnus waited until a lone mind passed in front of the bulkhead door, dominated it, and bade the individual come inside. Once they were done with him, Magnus cast his mental senses out again, found one of the Kin of Iron and plundered his thoughts for information. Between these two, the Explorers learned:

• The inhabitants of the wreck had devolved from elements of the original crew, and fell into four factions: the Wargar, descended from the gunnery crews; the Kin of Iron, a tradition descended from the Mechanicus that recruited from and allied with all the other tribes; the Pale Sons, mutants from the darkholds in the bowels of the ship; and the Void-walkers, inhabiting what pockets of the outer regions of the ship still retained power.
• The Wargar venerated what they called "The Blazing God", obviously a deification of some kind of power source that fed the active systems of the ship. The Kin of Iron recognise the power generator for its true nature but do not interfere with its worship.
• The captain (NAME) still lived, sealed in the wreckage of the bridge in his Command Throne, half-mad and largely powerless. The Wargar call him 'the Oracle' and undertake weeks-long pilgramages to hear his words.
  

Session 57b: What Magnus Saw¶

Part 1: Discipline Mastery

The psychic shockwave caused by the Skyfather when He cloaked the planet in obscuring cloud send the psykers aboard the Tide of Iron catatonic. With a tremendous effort of will, Magnus claws his way back to consciousness only to find the ship in turmoil: the Rak'Gol are attacking, and the bridge officers are trapped on the planet! Drawing on his experience as a Naval tactical officer and his divinatory powers - and constantly struggling against the Warp-spawned waves of power emanating from the planet that threaten to draw back into unconsciousness - Magnus directs the ship in space combat alongside the implacable Mechanicus vessels and leads the tiny alliance fleet to a resounding victory only to discover that Rak'Gol boarders have managed to land an assault ship and are rampaging through the lower decks! Bravely Magnus leads the counter-assaults until the ship is safe again. In the final moments however, a wily Rak’Gol hunter surprises Magnus and dashes him against a bulkhead before heavy weapons teams can take it down, and Magnus finally succumbs to the siren-call of unnatural sleep.

Part 2: Warp Ghosts

While in this state, Magnus' mind wanders the Warp where he encounters phantasmagoria and threatening daemonic spirits, and he must navigate himself safely through the shoals of irreality and the traps and mazes set before him by inhuman minds. But the things he sees might hold glimpses of the future, if he can solve their riddles and return to realspace in time!

Part 3: Part of the Ship, Part of the Crew

Magnus finds his way back to the Tide of Iron, but mind is in a state between the physical world and the Immaterium of the Warp - tethered to his body, but able to see the shadow the ship casts in the Warp and the things that dwell there: the ghosts of the crewmen who died while in service, endlessly roaming spectral halls and performing their ethereal duties. The appearance of Magnus, as a psyker and a living mind, stirs the ghost-crew and after adventure and tribulation Magnus finds himself recognised as their leader. Having earned this recognition, Magnus is finally able to return to his body and consciousness just as the other Explorers return to the ship.

Session 57a: wrapup¶

by Tom

-The Explorers decided to stay in-system for six months to begin converting the population and effecting repairs. The Tide of Iron had taken some damage from the battle with the Rak'Gol, one of the Mechanicus escort ships had been destroyed when it intercepted a Rak'Gol frigate before it could make an attack run on the Tide, and one of their transport vessels had been hit by a boarding torpedo - a situation which the Mechanicus were containing.

-The Rak'Gol in Fulcronis were hunted down and destroyed by the defending Knights. The remaining Rak'Gol elsewhere on the planet went to ground - the Explorers hunted them where they could, and captured any landing vessels they could find. Their spaceships rapidly retreated away from the system into deep space.

-The Explorers organised the remainder of their armsmen in a perfectly-executed military sweep of the Glorious Dagger of He Who Rules on High, rooting out the remains of the void-ghasts which had infested the ship and making it safe for work-crews.

-The Mechanicus left, with every scrap of information that existed in the system of Lacertus about the Heaven Engines and the Foundrists safely in custody. In return, the Explorers gained:

• a complete repair of the damage the Tide of Iron had sustained
• two thousand hellguns
• two thousand suits of storm trooper carapace armour
• some Mechanicus ratings to bolster the Tide's crew numbers
• sundry items of personal equipment and weaponry, including a Retobi-pattern missile launcher for the Navigator
• repair of the shuttles and the Interceptor which had been damaged or destroyed
• aid in re-firing the plasma engines of the Glorious Dagger of He Who Rules on High and an agreement that the Mechanicus would escort the ship back to Footfall where it would be held in dock until the Explorers could return and have it re-crewed. The Explorers gave the Mechanicus fleet a writ of authority and a purse with which to have the Dagger drydocked.
  

-As thousands of Lacertian citizens converged on Fulcronis in the wake of the battle, the Fivefold Tower was decked in Imperial heraldry and repurposed as a cathedral to the God-Emperor. With missionaries - not to mention the Pontifex himself - plying their trade, the seeds of worship of the Emperor soon began to sprout, and the Lacertians began to accept Imperial rule.

-Astrid helped with and then quickly started to lead a witch-hunt against the Touch of Illumination, tirelessly hunting down the cultists and interrogating them to find more perpetrators. She started with the fat Sage who had argued so strenuously against the Pontifex and Octavius during their visit to the Crystal Library.

-Knight-Commander Letholdus, having witnessed the majority of the battle between the Skyfather and the Explorers but finding his faith unbreakable, and seeing the work they were doing to convert the people of the planet, approached the Pontifex and made him an offer: Letholdus would retire from his post, give up his sword and armour, and live his life as a hermit away from civilisation. In return, all that he asked was that the Explorers let him do so. Knowing that if this happened Letholdus would become a focal point and perhaps even a saintly or martyr figure for the old religion regardless of his own wishes, and seeing no alternative, Severus accepted Letholdus' sword and offer and then had him gunned down by hellgun-wielding armsmen as he turned to leave.

-The sense of duty which the individual Knights held turned out to be to the Explorer's advantage, as the Knights preferred to remain as protectors of the people of Lacertus regardless of which religion held sway. As Lacertus began to accept the Creed, a number of Knights volunteered to accompany Severus on his mission. Severus accepted an honour guard of fifteen Knights and their three Knight-Errant leaders and promptly had them decorated in Ecclesiastical colours as Frateris Militia.

-Monitoring the Lacertian sun and the planet's weather systems showed that the weather would no longer be as mild as it had been, nor as regular, but that it would not pose a significant danger to the inhabitants. Similarly, after a brief period of very high coronal activity, the sun seemed to have begun aging at a normal rate with no other ill effects.

-With the populace at the beginning of becoming Imperial stalwarts, plans were put into motion to step up their production drastically. All that remains is to provide the necessary infrastructures.

-With no other opposition, Octavius ordered the entirety of the Crystal Library copied by the Tide of Iron's scribes, especially the tomes on the advanced crystal technology. The Explorers found that the crystal technology relies on a kind of material found in abundance under the surface of Lacertus, and in vanishingly rare quantities elsewhere in the Koronus Expanse. The methods of working it are ingenious and result in crystal devices of interlaced skeins and lattices of different crystal matrixes that can perform very advanced functions - though nothing on the level of a cogitator.

-Astrid reported that what she thought had been an Eldar beacon revealing the location of the Dread Pearl had only been Warp-interference from the Skyfather. Octavius retired, vexed, after ordering her to plot a course to the next location that they needed to reach to claim the Pearl.

-Octavius secluded himself and began translating the Abomination's markings.

Session 57¶

Final defeat of the Skyfather by hammer and Eye.

Session 56¶

Skyfather reincarnates as an armoured figure; further battling

Session 55¶

Begin the fight against the skyfather; spaceships are knocked out of the air; crazy grapplehook technique

Session 54¶

Assault the Abomination; examine the runic circle

Session 53¶

Ambush the remnant of the infiltration xenos; defeat the Knight assassins; chase the Abomination up the Fivefold Tower

Session 52¶

Fight off the infiltration unit; chase the remnant to the Fivefold tower

Session 51¶

The alien army attacks; battle on the walls; discover the infiltrators

Session 50¶

Arrive back at Lacertus, preparing the for battle; the nighttime vigil - why don't they attack?

Session 49¶

Edmar's story; ships through the clouds; investigate an alien lander

Session 48¶

Fight against the alien in the trees

Session 47¶

...?
Arguing; Torpedo invasion; I RP Adam as a robot Dalek

Session 46¶

Octavius and Adam see the alien threat; Nuclear message; Fighting shadows in the fortress?

Session 45¶

Return to Lacertus; Severus and Astrid investigate the fortress?

Session 44¶

by Tom

Having excused themselves from the feast and returned to the Tide of Iron for the evening, the Explorers rested before deciding to head back to the Glorious Dagger. Octavius directed a work crew to the Enginarium, to begin the long task of restarting the plasma drives; and the Explorers accompanied a crew of tech-adepts to the ship's bridge. En route they found more of the charred and twisted bodies of crew that they'd seen elsewhere in the ship - caught in vignettes of combat, duty, or flight, the crew of the Glorious Dagger had died where they stood.

The grand doors to the bridge stood open. Inside was another scene of carnage: a formation of charred soldiers facing the doorway, crewmen melted to their stations, and the remains of Lord-Captain Exodus Vrain burned where he stood in front of the command throne. The tech-adepts brought a portable generator in and powered up some systems, restoring light and gravity to the chamber and allowing a proper search. The Explorers were able to retrieve the last few Captain's Log entries - they mentioned "an unexpected contact approaching from the planet" before being unexpectedly cut off - and Octavius claimed Vrain's Lord-Captain's Baton from near his charred corpse. Without power being restored to the ship as a whole, however, little more could be done and so the Explorers decided to try and take information from the core cogitator system directly - knowing that powering up the ship's plasma engines would take some time. Adam exhausted his bioluminent systems getting the cogitator powered, but managed to begin downloading the entire encrypted contents of the Glorious Dagger's main cogitator - which the Explorers returned to their own ship for decoding.

Session 43¶

by Jasmine

The intrepid adventurers had reached the generator room and waited anxiously for the creature to come to them. Adam coaxed the door open as the sounds of clanging and scraping range through the bulkheads from whatever lay beyond. The armsmen lined up ready to fire. Adam and Severus stood by the opened door, and Octavius and Lady Crimson ranged themselves with the armsmen. The adventurers readied themselves.

The door opened and their pursuer was finally revealed, more hideous than any of the adventurers had thought possible. A Void-ghast king, it drooled from a huge gaping maw and pustules and blisters marred its thick and scaly skin.

Around it, a horde of vilely mutated Void-ghouls swarmed, some of them with crudely made weapons, often inserted into scarred flesh; others with venomous fangs or razorclaws.

Octavius gave the order to fire at will and the armsmen unleashed a torrent of shells into the horde. Lady Crimson then fired her missile launcher and destroyed half the ghoulish king’s face, tearing open the quadripartite mandible in a spray of spittle and ichor.

Adam and Severus threw themselves into battle as the Void-ghast King stampeded through the ravaging horde towards Astrid and tried to rip her in two. As it came near Astrid felt the waves of hatred streaming from its mind - the same hatred she'd seen reflected in the Warp and tracked throughout the ship.

Octavius, Severus and Adam continued to fight tirelessly while Astrid unleashed the unholy power of her warp eye upon the beast and his horde. Dozens of lesser mutants perished under the baleful gaze, their nervous systems burned out, and the massive ghast-king staggered, witchfire spilling from his open wounds. Lady Crimson followed up with a lashing blast of her gaze directed at the king himself. Unfortunately, so thick was his hide that her warp eye only knocked him prone, but did not do too much damage to his body. Some of horde did surrender their lives to the navigator’s death stare, so not all was lost.

Gunfire from the adventures eventually put paid to the king and his horde fled and were destroyed, leaving the generator room filled with the stench of corpses. The armsmen recovered from their sudden bout of incompetence and secured the area.

With the threat taken care of, the Explorers decided that reactivating the ship's plasma engines was a task for another time, and instead headed to the cogitator core systems. After an hour of navigating unfamiliar corridors, they found the great silver-plated doors and forced their entry. A combined effort from Adam and the group of tech-adepts managed to break the safeguards and download a number of logs, for later analysis. Adam's Potentia Coil was drained by the effort of sparking life in the massive machine, however.

Octavius suggested that the planet below be explored. After a change of attire and rest aboard the Tide of Iron, the group descended to the largest city on the planet and were greeted by medieval-style knights, and taken to a grand castle for a feast befitting noblemen and women.

Their leader introduced himself as Knight-Commander Letholdus, of the capital city Fulcronis, and invited the Explorers to a hastily-arranged feast by way of introduction to the world of Lacertus. There they learned more of the Lacertan people and their society, feasting on good but simple fare, and finding Letholdus to be friendly and welcoming.

Session 42¶

Lacertus #2

Session 41¶

Lacertus #1

Session 40¶

Last session of Vaporius

Session 39¶

by Jim

Our explorers discussed their options on the shuttle ride back to the Tide of Iron. Negotiations would be difficult with such an opponent as the Priest-King Ansai, who appeared to desire nothing in the world except the continuation of the status quo. Octavius stated that his trump card in the negotiations would be the lancing of the nexus point that the Tide of Iron had targeted last session, and the issuance of an ultimatum that if Ansai stuck to his guns, then there would be no reason for Octavius to allow his city to continue to exist.

Preparations were made for the party aboard ship. Severus had reservations about attending the function, concerned that the debauchery would be too offensive for him to be able to act diplomatically, but he decided to attend. Lady Crimson was, by contrast, excited. Or at least, she should have been; her manner had been somewhat subdued since imbibing the waters. Magnus was preparing himself for a possible psychic duel with Ansai.

The party began, and Octavius inspected and investigated the crafts on display. It was evident that the luxury goods created by the people of this planet were of remarkable quality, and could well be exported for considerable profit. Octavius found that the merchants who traded between cities were much more open to trade negotiations than the Priest-King.

Octavius eventually began to talk business with Ansai. Negotiations, as expected, were tough, with Ansai seemingly refusing to even think about the proposals that Octavius laid out. Octavius tried more and more angles, but eventually had no choice but to threaten Ansai with total destruction, and punctuated his threat with a lance strike from the Tide of Iron.

Even by this, Ansai was not moved an iota. Octavius' patience ran out. Ansai was teleported up to the Tide of Iron, under psychic domination by Magnus, and interrogated by Lady Crimson.

Our explorers learned that the water is a conscious being that subsumes all water on the planet into itself. Octavius decided that profit from this may come at to high a cost later on, and negotiates trade contracts with several of the greatest merchants on the planet for mundane items.

Session 38¶

by Jim

After the refreshing tiff with a few rock monsters, Magnus, Severus and Octavius were joined by Lady Crimson, and our explorers carried on to the buried treasure. They found that the spot was marked with a large crater, and scorch marks. The only artefact of value seemed to be a piece of equipment transmitting a low intensity signal, buried somewhere in the rock. Octavius ordered a team down to retrieve it.

Astrid said that she had found a Nexus site not far from their position. When our explorers arrived they found a strangely-shaped half-arch, covered in decoration and with psychic information buried within, like the others.

In the distance, underneath a red, setting sun, a glass city was visible. It was resolved that our explorers would return to one of the cities to visit one of the enigmatic Priest-Kings, after returning to the ship.

Our explorers approached and entered the city flanked by a squad of guards and were shown straight to the Priest-King. They exchanged pleasantries, some information about possible trade deals, and the Priest-King made a point of offering the explorers a taste of the famous water - a taste that proved to be of the purest, most refreshing drink ever imbibed, sinking a feeling of wholeness of spirit even into the soul. Reactions were mixed; though the sensation was undeniably pleasurable, Magnus became extremely wary, his Adeptus training warning him of the dangers of pleasure. Navigator Crimson, however, was delighted with the drink. The Priest-King arranged for a tank of the water to be waiting for them at the explorer's shuttle as a show of good faith.

But negotiations took a turn for the worse when a prisoner - a missionary of the adepta ministorum - was presented and thrown to the floor. It was clear that he had been treated harshly. The Priest-King presented his terms thus; remove the fledgling imperial cult, and the world's precious water will be available for trade. He would consider no other terms.

Negotiations ended in dissatisfaction for both parties, and the Priest-King invited Octavius to join him at an event later that evening. Octavius accepted, and our explorers began to plan what to do with this troublesome little world.

On the way back to the Tide of Iron Lady Crimson again tasted the famous waters from the sample tank, and become even more enamoured of it.

Session 37¶

by Jim

Our explorers began the process to bring Zayth under the control of the Imperium and the D'Ralier family. Through charm, intelligence, tactics and careful planning, the seeds of the world's rebirth were sown. These seeds will require careful tending in the years to come if they are to be fruitful, but for the moment, having done all that could be done, our explorers' attentions shifted back to the quest for the Dread Pearl.

The passage through the warp was uneventful, a sweet mercy to any wise warp-traveller, guided by Lady Crimson's superlative skill.

Our explorers arrived at a barren desert planet. Called Vaporis and ruled by enigmatic priest-kings, the world seemed a place of limited worth to our explorers, but for the presence of one of the xenos-forged nexus points that they so pursued.

The Lady Crimson, fatigued from the journey, was not able to reveal the precise location of the nexus point immediately upon arrival and so Severus, Magnus and Octavius decided to explore some of the surface in person, investigating a site marked as containing a metallic structure of foreign origin by orbital scans.

After a shaky landing on difficult ground, they were attacked by strange creatures. seemingly made of rock and towering up to five metres high. Our explorers hastily despatched the beasts, apart from one, which Magnus had succeeded in psychically dominating.

Session 36¶

by Jim

After Lady Crimson retrieved the secrets psychically buried in the nexus point, our explorers teleported back to the Tide of Iron. The ship had identified a crashed imperial vehicle of shuttle size not too distant from the location of the nexus, and two of the mobile cities were squaring up around it. One ran right over the chasm in which the nexus point was built, destroying it utterly.

Octavius decided to test the amount of credibility that he currently possessed on Zayth. After previously being ignored by the majority of the planet, it needed to be demonstrated that the Tide of Iron meant business. A transmission was sent to the two closing cities, who by this time had deployed ground units, stating that the crashed shuttle was property of the Imperium, and that encroaching on it would mean that the Tide of Iron would be forced to destroy it. Neither of the two cities seemed to take the threat seriously, and their forces encroached within the exclusion zone that Octavius had specified. Naturally, but with regret, the order was given to destroy the shuttle.

The two cities continued in their combat. Magnus had been monitoring the battle closely and as it was drawing to a close, advised that one of the cities was about to be destroyed. The Tide of Iron fired a broadside at the winning city. The salvo destroyed several of its systems, knocked off most of its armour and overloaded its void shields. The other city then destroyed it.

Communications were then established with the remaining city. Over the course of the dialogue, the "leader" of the city (Grand Tactician or some such) behaved extremely oddly, and at one point even insulted Octavius. He is useful for the moment, but Octavius has made a note.

Our explorers teleported down to continue negotiations.

Session 35¶

by Jim

Our explorers undertook the journey to Zayth. During the journey Lady Crimson confronted Octavius on the bridge, in front of the new arrivals Magnus and Severus, making quite clear her views on Octavius' recent usurpation of the Captain's throne. Octavius subsequently had a quiet word with Astrid, but the relationship remained strained.

Upon arrival they scanned the surface to find a bizarre planet, sparsely populated with bizarre moving cities. Evidence of powerful weaponry was detectable on the surface, and analysis of the cities revealed that their technology was probably only related to very early imperial technology, and was the mostly the product of local development over the millennia of separation. Our explorers immediately identified the value of such technology, and a friendly, open offer of trade was broadcast over the whole planet. The message was almost uniformly ignored, and those that did respond were not open to trade links, citing the dangers to transport ships posed by the other cities.

Meanwhile, Astrid identified the location of the Nexus point and our explorers teleported down. The nexus point was inside a tower of the strange white xenos-material as the towers on Kappa-Psi-12. The tower was swept with the help of the tech-guard, and soon an intense firefight broke out with the guardians of the tower, some Eldar Dire Avengers and a Warlock. They were slain in short order, and the tower's secrets plundered.

Session 34¶

by Jim

While Octavius and Lady Crimson ascended to the Tide of Iron, the rescue operation continued on the surface of Kappa-Psi 12. Cornelius and Jak searched ceaselessly, but the days of searching yielded nothing further. Meanwhile, aboard the Tide of Iron, Lady Crimson had sealed herself into the Navigatrix, and would see no-one. With every passing moment Octavius felt the growing weight of responsibility sinking onto his shoulders. The D'Ralier dynasty was leaderless, the Tide of Iron Captain-less, and Octavius grew ever more restless. Time around the Tide of Iron seemed to have stopped for a while, as if the universe itself were drawing a breath after the sudden tragedy of Simon's loss, but Octavius knew that time would soon catch up to them.

Octavius flew down to Kappa-Psi 12 to discuss the situation with Jak and Cornelius. He found them weary but utterly galvanised in their conviction to find Simon, and discussion over contingency plans was brief and unfruitful.

Not long afterwards, time once again found the Tide of Iron. Warping into the system in rapid succession were two other craft, one of which was in time resolved to be Lady Sun Lee's small fleet, and the other an unidentified craft progressing into the system on a strange vector. The time had come to act.

Octavius contacted Jak and Cornelius from the bridge, and the three discussed what to do. It was decided that the search parties, including Jak and Cornelius themselves, would remain on Kappa-Psi 12 to continue the search for Simon, while Octavius proclaimed himself Rogue Trader in Simon's absence, and Captained the Tide of Iron on to find the Dread Pearl.

Upon closure of the channel, Octavius gave a speech to the ship stating that he was now Rogue Trader. The ship pulled out of orbit, and made for the transition point. Octavius ordered that a claim for the planet be transmitted to the Imperium, naming Jak Xanatov the planetary governor. He named the planet "Revenge", for the death of Markus Kassandora.

Upon reaching the edge of the system, the Tide of Iron narrowly avoided collision with an erratically-transitioning Kassandora ship. The ship had fire on all decks and subsequently exploded. A drop pod escaped just before the blast, containing three life forms, asking to come aboard. Octavius met the three in one of his reception rooms. They were Astropath Transcendent Magnus Ormengard, Pontifex Severus Maximus and a small, stunted fellow who was not introduced. After some discussion of their qualifications and recent employment histories, Octavius decided to keep them on, under guard for the moment.

Session 33¶

by Jim

As the choking smoke of battle was clearing from the field, Jak raced over to where the cantankerous Djanko Scourge had fallen to the ground, only to find a scattering of bolt-shrapnel. Our explorers then began to climb creeping vines and branches up the tower, towards the shell of crackling warp-lightning. Octavius and Lady Crimson, unused and unsuited to such vulgarities, went slowly, leaving Cornelius and Jak, variously climbing with great strength and winching up with great speed, to take the lead.

Jak was first to crest the lip of the prominence. He saw six Eldar warlocks, each deeply engaged in most potent warp-sorcery, and each encased in a dome of coruscating lightning. Jak fired his wrist-grapnel back down for Octavius to grasp, and began to winch him up.

Meanwhile, Cornelius, who had climbed up on a different side, hauled himself over the top and readied his storm bolter, sighting up the warlock closest to him.

Octavius kicked off from the wall and stepped up over the top with a hand from Jak, who immediately fired his grapnel back at Lady Crimson, who caught it expertly around her arm.

Cornelius opened combat by unceremoniously gunning down one of the warlocks in a hail of bolts, who vanished from sight as he expired.

Two of the remaining five warlocks immediately abandoned their dark works to face our explorers, one charging Cornelius, and one Jak.

Jak, still winching up Lady Crimson, ducked the warlock's ferociously-swung witch blade, and Cornelius, by some unknowable mechanism of fate, barely avoided a mortal wound.

Jak hauled Lady Crimson to the top of the prominence and turned to face his attacker.

Cornelius started ducking back from the warlock's deadly blade in order to land shots from his storm bolter, while Jak engaged his attacker with Simon's old plasma pistol, aided by Octavius opening up with his bolter at point blank range.

Another warlock attacked and conjured gouts of psychic force against Octavius and Jak, and Jak and Lady Crimson, but Octavius and Lady Crimson dodged while Jak's refractor field absorbed the crackling psychic shockwave. Lady Crimson retaliated with a withering stare, which took the warlock off his feet.

Octavius kept up a constant assault with his boltgun on full auto, pausing only to take a pot-shot with his inferno pistol at Cornelius' foe.

Cornelius blasted apart his attacker and moved on to target the remaining two warlocks, who were still concentrating on their magics.

Jak charged into the dome of crackling warp-lightning straight towards one warlock, but was halted by an impenetrable field of psychic energy.

Just as one warlock was gunned down by Octavius and Cornelius, the one that still stood whispered something in its barbaric xenos tongue, and disappeared.

The magics faded, the clouds lifted, and the planet stabilised. Our explorers examined the platform to discover that its engravings pertained to the location of the Dread Pearl, but its location had been vandalised. It would be necessary to examine other places in the Koronus Expanse, detailed on the platform, to find the location of the Pearl. Octavius recorded the surface, and determined that it should be removed from this world, so that others would not benefit from it. Teleportation proved unsuccessful, so it was to be destroyed.

Our explorers then began, with the help of the Tide of Iron, to search for Simon. The search eventually turned up Simon's equipment, charred from the heat of re-entry, but there was no sign of his body, or his grav-chute.

The search also found the remains of the late Lord Markus Kassandora, which has been extracted and shipped to the Tide of Iron.

Session 32¶

by Tom

As the hasty union of the two ships flew on, strange weather signs began to manifest, and the sky darkened. Unnatural lightning began to strike at what was soon revealed to be wraithbone spires which infested the forest, and strange readings ghosted on the sensors. One reading captured Jak's attention: the electromagnetic disturbance of a high-atmosphere explosion, on the other side of the planet.

Quickly creating a rudimentary landing space through judicious use of frag rockets, Jak and Cornelius settled the two ships down and the Explorers convened underneath the Lightning Fury. Though they were not deterred by the strange weather, analysis of the explosion-echo lead them to conclude it could mean only one thing: the air yacht that Simon had been aboard had exploded.

Deciding to leave the Interceptor's Enginseer to tend to the wounded machine, the last remaining crewman was locked securely in the guncutter's hold and heavily sedated, and the Explorers took to the sky again and shrieked out of the atmosphere and through space to get to Simon's last known location. En route, the Kassandoran fleet began to leave and the Explorers messaged the Tide of Iron - a distant speck on the sensors - to command it to close on the planet and aid in the search. The weird storms had intensified, strange Warpcraft was afoot, and even as the Explorers scanned the planet for any sign of Simon's survival Lady Crimson cried out: the planet was being drawn wholly into the Warp! The process was not yet complete, but some terrible arcane force was pulling the world out of the material universe. In Astrid's Navigator gaze the planet flickered.

Realising that Simon's only chance laid with the superior sensor arrays of the Tide of Iron, the Explorers resolved to find the source of the witchery and put an end to it. Again Astrid was invaluable, her Third Eye guiding the Explorers along the skeins of warpcraft that infused the air, and toward the very temple which they had set out to explore in the first place. The weird storm intensified as they grew closer, and to Jak's horror the very power in the Lightning Fury's engines began to be drained away, forcing him to land twenty kilometres away from the alien temple.

Progressing on foot, the Explorers did not allow themselves to be slowed by the strange and foul xenos fauna around them, none of which had ever been catalogued by Imperial adepts. Even the fearsome Space Wasp, fully sixty(?) feet long, could slow them down: a shot from the repurposed lascannon Cornelius carried burned out its spine.

Finally the alien temple came into view. Incredibly tall and crafted of the same wraithbone as the structures riddling the forest, it sat in a cleared circular field eighty metres across. Some thirty metres up one side, a balcony could be seen, coruscating with sorcerous light. Astrid's warp-vision could see the tell-tale traces of five(?) alien minds directing these powers - the source of the storms, and of the planet's disappearance. Opening fire immediately, Jak and Cornelius were disappointed to see their grenades and lascannon blasts harmlessly absorbed by the boiling energies. There was nothing else for it but to take the fight directly to the xeno.

The Explorers had crossed barely half of the field when another party of men appeared. It was Rogue Trader Baron Djanko Scourge and a detatchment of his most loyal armsmen, come for the tower themselves. Djanko didn't even pause before setting half his armsmen at the party, taking the rest and marching for the prize. Boltfire and launched grenades wore his troops down to nothing after an opening lascannon blast forced Djanko to step aside or perish. Once his screen of troops was defeated, the Baron put everything he had into a desperate plasma-pistol blast at Octavius - the closest to the tower - which was handily avoided. Scourge threw himself to the ground, still several dozen metres away, and began to crawl on his belly like the worm that he is, hidden from the party's view.

Session 31¶

by Tom

Meanwhile, on the Lightning Fury...

We rejoin the rest of the Explorers aboard Jak's guncutter, tumbling through space on silent running, doing a passable impression of a discarded macrocannon shell, on a trajectory for the planet.

All seems quiet at first, but then the Lightning Fury's passive sensors pick up a scanning sweep - the ship has been detected! Now safely in the shadow of the planet, hidden from the fleet, Jak lights up the engines and powers toward the two contacts showing on the scopes. Lady Crimson's warp-fuelled sight reports that they are Fury Interceptors, Imperial craft. Gearing up for a dogfight, the Explorers strap themselves in.

Jak squeezes an extra burst of speed out of the guncutter's engines to close the distance. Weaving in between the Interceptor's missiles and screaming lasbolts, Cornelius unleashes volleys of devastating krak rockets in retaliation. Soon enough the first Interceptor is falling toward the planet, its drives ruined. A brief, intense dogfight with the last Interceptor sees the Lightning Fury emerge untouched thanks to Jak's superlative piloting and Cornelius' sharp aim; a volley of lasbolts from the guncutter stuns the Interceptor's pilots, and the ship careers out of control and into the atmosphere.

Exchanging the briefest of glances, the Explorers nod to each other and Cornelius and Octavius sprint for the rear hatch - that Interceptor would be ours! Jak handily matches speed, trajectory and tumble with the enemy craft, and the others grapple across, secured by clip harness and grav-chute.

As the crew of the Interceptor slowly regain their senses, Octavius bypasses security and opens the cockpit. Cornelius leaps in and promptly shoves the full length of his chainsword down into the torso of the seated pilot in a grisly display. The copilot panics, scrambles out of his seat and waves a bolt pistol in Cornelius' face as Octavius cooly enters, closes the canopy, and opens a vox-link to the crew: surrender, or leave.

With the craft secured, only one thing remains: landing it. Jak expertly locks the Lightning Fury's mag-clamp landing gear onto the Interceptor's upper surface, fighting the other craft's out-of-control dive to bring it onto a level flight path. Even flying two craft at once he has no problems, and Octavius and Cornelius strap themselves in and prepare to take control.

The high-speed maneouvre has taken them over many kilometres, and the mysterious alien temple looms in the distance...

Session 30¶

by Gareth

The Tide of Iron plowed through the Empyrean, guided by the Seven Witches' cipher and the unblinking gaze of Lady Scarlet, drawing ever closer to riches. Alarms sounded as the ship approached its destined transition point, and again as Astrid manhandled the ship through the veil between Real and Warp. The usual storm of activity broke out as the crew rushed to evaluate their new situation, wary of ambush. Astrid's Eye remained open a while, finding that this system was well-travelled of late. Reflecting on local warp conditions, she was peeved to realise that this was not the world of the Pearl, though the cipher seemingly ended.

The Explorers found a caravan of Xenos traders heading out of the system, and trade for loot and information began. Shiny tokens were exchanged for nifty gear: a targeting monocle here, some manner of explosive device there... and perhaps most importantly, the knowledge that many-legged monsters were guarding an ancient Eldar temple on the system's only planet. Knowing the enigmatic Xenos to be involved with the Pearl, the Explorers concluded that this temple must hold clues to continue the chase, and set forth.

As the Tide made it's way towards the lonely world, long-range Augers picked up a blockade: some 30 ships, including no less than three battleships! Marcus Kassandora, forwarned by his Xenos allies, had brough a small battlegroup to finish the D'Ralier line for good! DUN DUN DUHN!

Words were exchanged. Honours were impugned. A duel was offered: Lord Captain verses Lord Captain, to determine which man had the biggest balls. Simon immediately began looking for a good way to cheat, then gave up and decided to just beat his family's murderer to death.

Always aware of the bigger picture, Octavius and Simon hatched a plan: while the Fleet was distracted by Simon, the rest of the command crew would take the guncutter to the Alien Temple, ensuring that no matter the extent of Kassandoran treachery, the Pearl would be found. Once found, its riches would more than pay for any outstanding bills of vengeance!

With a last rousing speech to the crew (concentrating on the values of endurance, courage, powerfists and being Simon D'Railier), Simon set forth accompanied by a full 1200 gun salute, the very ship itself exalting his name. Under cover of this barrage, the Lightning Fury began its orbital insertion trajectory, hoping to pass most of the journey unpowered, just one more spent macrocannon shell spiralling into the atmosphere.

Fighters from the Kassandoran navy escorted Simon's ship to the appointed place, sailing past the vast interstellar cathedrals, now tainted by association with Xenophiles. At last he came to the edge of the atmosphere, and Marcus's chosen grounds: a frigate-sized aircraft, its upper decks kept pressurised by Archaeotech shielding.

The two men faced one-another across the marbled floor, above them space and the Kassandoran fleet, and further above, barely visible as a star in the sky, the ever-resolute Tide of Iron. On the surface, the conversation was almost polite, greetings, compliments: but there were barbs hidden in Simon's words, and as they talked his hatred became palpable.

"Betrayer! You have thrown your lot in with Xenos, and forsaken the path of the Emperor's light. To bring ruin to my house, you would damn yours: and I swear that in failing to destroy D'Ralier, you've brought Ruin to Kassandora!"
"My dear boy, you forget: I kill you, and your house is done. Warrant annuled. Over. Gone."
"And if I kill you?"
"Worth the risk to see you done in! And besides, I won't be here to care, will I?"
Kasandora charged, hoping to catch Simon off guard, only to find him far more prepared: only Simon's blade catching on a marble tile saved him from immediate decapitation, following a sharp cut to the arm.

Simon, for once, fought with his blade first, not leading with the Powerfist he usually favoured. After all, who duels with a powerfist? D'Railier's honour would be defended with blades, as Kavanagh always had done.

The air filled with the distinctive snaps and cracks of powerfields colliding as blades clashed again and again, neither man able to get past the other's potent defences.

And them Simon remembered who duelled with a powerfist.

Simon D'Ralier.

For one moment, the first time since that fateful night on Scintilla, Simon put Kavanagh out of his mind. He put down his burden as a captain, and threw aside his family sword. Marcus was halfway to looking smug when Simon caught him by the throat, snapping Marcus's blade in half with his left hand.
"I'm going to kill you now, and destroy everything you've ever worked for. Not for your crimes, Xenophile, but for me."

Millennia old actuators whirred. Capacitors screamed as though charged with centuries of war. A single thundercrack rang out, and a tiny shape shattered the airship's shields like a neon egg. Marcus Kassandora fell to his final reward.

Simon was plucked from the deck by the sudden pressure drop, suddenly glad he'd brough a grav chute. "Thank the Emperor Jak told me about these things" he thought as he watched Kassandor's ship blossom into flames above him.
"Astrid would have loved to see that burning."
"And thank the Emperor Cornelius insisted I practice void drill" as the faint sounds of devastation reached him in the trace atmosphere.
With a glance, and a thought to Octavius's briefings on the planet's atmosphere and gravity, Simon set the grav chute's auto altimeter.
A shadow fell across Simon as half of a golden Aquilla spun out of the explosion towards him.
"Oh, fuck you, confessor." as it all went black.

On the other side of the planet, the Lightning Fury approached its destination, watching the fight reach its conclusion on the Kassandoran's broadcasts...

Session 29¶

by Steve

Nearing the end of their journey through the warp towards the location of the Dread Pearl the Explorers find that all is not well aboard ship. Despite apparently high morale, elements of the crew seem restless and quick to anger. This is causing headaches for everyone, in the form of extra security administration work for Cornelius, more meetings with Octavius for Simon to feign interest during, and an unwelcome increase in barfights and angry hussies for Jak. A meeting was held and the decision was made to tackle the situation quickly and effectively with a campaign of ship wide dodgeball tournaments, combat drills and prayer sessions. Octavius was additionally delegated the task of composing a play for the information and edification of the troubled crew.

Satisfied with their plan the explorers make to leave the meeting room, when the lights dim and the air vents fall deathly quiet. Forcing the doors open they are confronted by the bare bones of ship, uncloaked in the usual illusions of the Tenebro maze. The three are rushing to the Enginarium as best they can when the power returns and the ship vox broadcast system begins sputtering to life. Acting quickly Jak has the signal routed solely to his vox caster, and listens in to a speech from one Croker, intended for the whole crew, wherein he claims responsibility for the sabotage the ship, casts aspersions on the quality of command aboard ship and demands a return to Footfall.

Having none of this the explorers continue to the Enginarium to track down the source of the damage to the ship....

End of Part One

Session 28¶

by Tom

With the Eldar frigate staring down the Tide of Iron's broadside, the crew were surprised to see two more contacts appearing on their instruments - two more identical xenos ships.

Undeterred, the Explorers dived into fierce space battle, matching the cowardly Eldar's tendency to hide in their rear arc by embarking on a series of devastating hit-and-run boarding actions and strafing attacks from Simon, Astrid and Jak. One ship was caught in a full broadside and hulked by Cornelius' deadly accuracy; another was crippled by macrocannon shells and a series of fires set by brave boarding actions and was offered surrender before being destroyed; the third ship, damaged, fled - and thanks to superior spacemanship from the Explorers could not match the Tide of Iron's implacable pursuit, and was caught and destroyed.

With some hull damage sustained and crew lost but with no components seriously damaged, the Tide of Iron returned to the translation point in time to see Lord-Admiral Bastille VII's ship, the Colossus, and its frigate escort disappearing into the Warp. Wasting no more time, the Explorers followed suit and began the first part of their journey to the Dread Pearl - taking the time to interrogate some of the Eldar survivors they had picked up from the wrecks after their battle. The xenos were unforthcoming - except to say, "The Dread Pearl is ours..."

We'll see about that.

Session 27¶

by Tom

With less than an hour to go before midnight - the appointed hour of the Foretelling - the Explorers convened in one of the conference rooms near the bridge of the Tide of Iron. Astrid returned from making her midgets in dresses, and Jak barrelled into the room looking dishevelled - he'd been hunting the Eldar that Octavius had spotted with the help of some Kroot mercenaries, though sadly with no success. After quickly comparing notes, the whole group boarded the Lightning Fury and flew to the sanitarium-rock that the Seven Witches called their lair.

Assembling in the Witches' sanctum, the Explorers and each of the other Rogue Traders they had seen were subjected to a psychic vision; only Simon was able or willing to fight free, and as a result did not receive the message.

The vision showed a planet alight with the possibility of incredible wealth. All who saw it were seized by the compulsion to own it at any cost.

As the vision lifted, Jak streaked from the room. The other Explorers and Rogue Traders left in more orderly fashion, but their egress was interrupted by a series of explosive retorts resounding from the hangar - Jak had powered up the Lightning Fury and blown out the cockpits of each other Rogue Trader's lander.

Everyone sprinted to the hangar, and the other Rogue Traders looked on in shock as the Explorers raced into the waiting door of the guncutter, then powered away. Jak voxed an apology to any Rogue Traders who had been polite, and a profanity to any Rogue Traders who had not.

After powering up the engines - causing concern for the tech-priests by giving the new and radical Explorator free reign - the Tide of Iron left dock ahead of the competition. Simon sowed dissent by asking the Footfall Field-adepts to fluctuate the void-shields between Baron Scourge's ship and that of Madam Charlabelle Armelan, then voxing Madam Charlabelle and warning her of suspected foul play on Djanko's part.

En route Astrid conducted the Ritual of Astrogation, drawing the other three participants of the Witches' vision into her perception of the Warp and the route they would need to take through it. Leaving Jak, Cornelius, and Octavius shaken, she nevertheless plotted a perfect path.

Speeding to the translation point, even Jak couldn't stay ahead of the faster ships, and the Tide of Iron arrived to see Krawkin Feckward's smaller ship under attack by an Eldar frigate. Krawkin was forced to enter the Warp prematurely after taking damage, and the Tide of Iron slewed around, preparing to catch the quicksilver-fast Eldar ship with a deadly broadside...

Session 26¶

by Jim

Negotiations with the Adeptus Mechanicus continued in meetings with representatives of the Lathes, the mightiest forge-world (indeed, a system) of the Calixis sector, and the Footfall Field-Adepts, the group of Tech-Priests that tend the defensive shields of Footfall. Simon met with the Lathes' representative on the hull of the Tide of Iron, in the shadow of a defensive cannon, while Octavius ventured into the Field-Adepts' meeting chamber inside one of their three cubic generatoria-structures.

All of the offers from the factions of Mechanicus were considered, for they all agreed to our terms, and it was left up to each faction to sweeten the deal in their own way. It was decided that the offer from the Field-Adepts was the most attractive, being information on the Koronus Expanse and the various parties that exploit it, based on their activities on Footfall.

The Field-Adepts also made us aware of an Explorator-Magos who wished to voyage on the Tide of Iron. Adam Coleco was met on the dock in the shadow of the ship, and an interview was conducted. It was determined that the Explorator-Magos was suitable, and he was soon given an opportunity to demonstrate his skills.

Our explorers determined that the Earle Esquire was to be the target of some petty sabotage, and tasked the Explorator-Magos with infiltrating the ship, via teleportation, and subtly enticing the ship's machine spirits to spray sewage out of every water-using device.

While on board the ship and inside the systems, the Explorator-Magos discovered and subsequently decided to extend his infiltration to the ship's Eldar Ghost Field generatorium. After fooling a roving guard team and their security servitor (with the remote help of Octavius via a servo-skull), the Explorator-Magos was able to enter the generatorium and examine the device for a few moments, before being noticed and discovered by the technicians. He planted a homer and was teleported out, along with a chunk of cogitator console, while Octavius' servo-skull evaded detection in the locked-down generatorium. Octavius deactivated the servo-skull, which remains dormant, until such time as Octavius re-activates it...

Session 25¶

by Jim

Despite the best efforts of a gang of mutants and scum hired by Krawkin Feckward (the best effort turning out to be decidedly below par), our explorers attended the auction for invitations to the Foretelling at the Obsidian Emporial, along with many other Rogue Traders and nobles of Footfall. They made their bid (of the hand of St Augustus, sealed in a stasis field, which will point the way to the greatest of treasures when the stars are right) towards the end of proceedings, noting the various bids made by others. All of the Rogue Traders present at the Liege's party were there and their bids were accepted, as well as some unfamiliar Rogue Traders which Simon and Octavius recognised as Madam Charlabelle, Lady Sun Lee, Abel Gerritt, and Hadarak Fel. One of the rejected bids was also noted by our explorers for future investigation - the location of a wrecked battle-cruiser - bid by one of the Free Captains. On the way out, Simon was sure to make a point of thanking Feckward for the 'entertainment' earlier that evening, in reply to which the shifty captain only promised a more impressive showing next time.

After the bidding, negotiations were begun with various factions of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Factol Castus of the Scintilla Mechanicus was met on board the Tide Of Iron, and was considerably awed by the two offers our explorers made - a deal on mining and exporting Ilyrium from the Grace system, plus salvage rights to the crashed explorator vessel, and rights to investigate the archeotech city on Captain's Choice. Negotiations concluded with the representative offering a favourable deal, with indications that political pressure could be brought to bear on the Skorgulian Mechanicus regarding their claims to equipment on our ship.

Session 24¶

by Jim

Our explorers continue to mingle and match wits with other great powers of the Koronus Expanse being entertained by the Liege of Footfall, Tanthus Moross. They made acquaintances with a not-unfriendly rival in Jeremiah Blitz; a bullish and brusque military-sort in Baron Djanko Scourge; and a quite unsettling character in Lord-Captain Krawkin Feckward, who revealed to them his desire for something he referred to as the "Dread Pearl", an artifact of which no-one else present was aware. Also they spoke briefly with Liege Tanthus Moross. Also at the gathering was Juliana Kassandora, whom the explorers treated as they might a man who made straight for the pâté de foie grox canapés, polished them off and then proceeded to belch their unique bouquet back to the room for the remainder of the evening: completely snubbing him, though in truth he did not appear to recognise them.

It was Jeremiah Blitz who explained to the Explorers the reason that so many Rogue Traders were here on Footfall: they were here for the Foretelling of the Seven Witches, an event that happened every few years and which invariably lead to great treasures. The ten rights to be present at the Foretelling, he explained with good-natured amusement, were to be auctioned off at the Obsidian Emporial in 48 hours.

The next day, Astrid invited Jubilus Xan'Tai, the other of the navigators present at the party (with whom she did not speak), to lunch. She quite overwhelmed him with her present of honey-braised mech-sparrow, and her magisterial manners. They parted having agreed to remain in correspondence, as much as possible for individuals aboard Rogue Trader vessels.

Also that day, the explorers engaged in some trading, acquiring several items, and sent word to the Bonded Emissaries of the Adeptus Mechanicus to open negotiations regarding the incalculable value of the Warp-beacon at Captain's Choice, and the Illyrium in the asteroid field at Grace.

Session 23¶

by Jim

Following our Explorers' lavish and exceptionally stylish party, the best party 'on' Footfall, in fact, the group received an invitation to a party hosted by the Liege of Footfall, Tanthus Moross.

The group accepted and they began a leisurely trip through the Footfall longshore. On the way, they were set upon by a bunch of drunken lowlifes, and the loading servitors they controlled. They and their metal minions were of course dispatched without a moment's thought by our Explorers, some of whom found it quite an amusing distraction. Our Explorers also perused the mean and ramshackle markets, although any hope of finding goods of quality was, of course, vain. Still, Lady Crimson purchased some tea and cake, and Octavius purchased a quantity of Amasec of varying and considerable questionableness regarding their vintage. During the journey they also noticed the passage of a hooded figure who impressed Octavius as decidedly sinister, having the grace of an eldar, and were accosted by some rogues who were attempting to disguise themselves as Administratum Oeconomica port officials, looking for "docking fees". They were dispatched as adroitly with words as were the drunks with weapons, leaving with threats about just who it was who controlled the port's defence turrets.

At the party, our explorers talked to Lord-Admiral Bastille the Seventh, a rather stiff, standoffish gentleman, but never-the-less friendly, in his way. A trade deal was proposed, where the Admiral was to arrange chartist captains to fly the routes between Adventure World and Footfall. Though apparently not impressed with the suggestion, the Lord-Admiral delegated the discussion to his seneschal, Mister Saul, of whom Octavius proved the better wordsmith in the initial talk and secured a future meeting.

Session 22¶

by Jim and Tom

In which our explorers travelled back to Footfall, and upon arrival, partied. The party took place in one of the Tide of Iron's lifter bays, under the gaze of the trepanned (and now cleaned and impressively-underlit) Gargant, light and heat provided by a line of lifters burning off their plasma drives. Food of deadly repute was consumed by the Explorers, and only a few after-effects were felt, greatly impressing all the guests. Our Explorers socialised with representatives of a small number of Footfall's factions, including the Kasballica Mission and some especially useless agents of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Since most of the Footfall elite were here, Octavius and Simon took the opportunity to agree some trade contacts.

Meanwhile, Jak got very drunk and struck up conversation with some Kroot, who for some reason he found agreeable. It's possible that between his ramblings and their xeno-twisted Low Gothic, some arrangement was made for them to come to Adventure World to play the Great Game - hunted, and hunters. It's also possible that he's hired a small group of them as mercenaries.

Astrid, sadly, had a bad case of Warp Eel cramps as her internal geometry temporarily ceased keeping all of her blood inside of her veins, and was forced to retire to the Medicae deck for much of the party.

Session 21¶

by Jim

Inside the hostile palace-fortress, our explorers were met with deadly automated defences, but none proved a match for any of them and they were unimpeded in their search for their mysterious foe. They located cogitator terminals but even Octavius' wits were matched by some malign intellect that controlled the palace systems. Immediately afterwards they were set upon by a horde, nay, a tide of spider-servitors. After they were defeated, our explorers found the lift and ascended to the top floor of the complex.

There they found a level invaded by vegetation. The rigours of the planet's tempestuous weather had wrought irreparable damage to the lavish decoration, and nothing salvageable was found. There followed an altercation with some native mutant savages, who climbed up the lift shaft and came lolloping toward our explorers, giving our Lady Crimson ample opportunity and reason to exercise her ocular talents.

It was then decided by Lord-Captain D'Ralier that enough leniency had been afforded this place and its ceaseless antagonistic behaviour, and that diplomacy would continue from the bridge of the Tide of Iron.

Our explorers left on the Lighting Fury, and after another unanswered communication attempt, Lord-Captain D'Ralier gave the order for continuous lance fire upon the complex. When the bombardment ceased, thirty-seven minutes later, the terrain feature created was named by the Lord-Captain "Lake Victory".

Session 20¶

by Jim

With a planet of abandoned palace-cities to loot, the crew set to work. During the exploration and survey of Chorda's world by Lord-Captain D'Ralier's ground forces, a strange signal was detected attempting to penetrate the Tide of Iron's cogitator systems. Its conspicuous and insidious nature prompted an immediate invesigation by our explorers, and they descended toward the planet in search of its source in the Lightning Fury. They found an ancient palace-fortress, much like many on the planet, which was the source of the signal, but its controller responded to communications attempts with weapons batteries. An orbital lance strike was called down close to the city, allowing the imperturbable Jak Xanatov to penetrate the missile screen and void shields and touch down on one of the higher landing pads on the palace.

Cornelius Yorke and Octavius D'Ralier descended from the Lightning Fury to open the hanger doors, and our explorers entered the palace - avoiding the emplaced servitor gun-turrets.

Session 19¶

by Tom

The Explorer's grand entrance was only slightly dampened by what they found inside the throne room: faded tapestries and carpets once magnificent, and no sign of life except the large cyber-throne dominating one end of the room, in which sat ensconced the mortal remains of Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda.

Chorda had long ago given up mobility in favour of survival, his sessile throne cyber-sutured into all the palace systems. Simon opened negotiations, and it soon became apparent that Aspyce was close to death. The warp storms had ruined the world, the city-palace populations degenerating into feral cannibalistic mutants over time, despite the adaptation of Chorda's vessel's Geller field extended to the whole planet (and the same field which had disrupted the Explorer's sensors).

Chorda warned that hostiles were approaching. Heretek factions warred for control of the planet and had long targeted him, and now with his life failing he could not keep them out of his city. Forewarned, the Explorers planted a limpet-mine on the throne room doors and concealed another beneath the carpet.

The precaution was to prove extremely wise, as through the door burst a monstrous cyber-tech abomination, as massive as a dreadnought, armed with lascannon and power fist, the heretek-priest's head still visible atop it. The first limpet-mine's detonation damaged the thing, and rather than risk a second explosion the heretek scanned for, found, and obliterated by las the second mine.

Bolt shells from Cornelius, Octavius, and Astrid pattered off the mechanical armour, and a squad of robed tech-cultists pushed into the room - only to be handily despatched by Octavius' bolt shells and Jak's casual frag grenade.

Meanwhile Simon's plasma was having a little effect, and Cornelius was baiting the tech-monster before darting behind the throne-room's pillars - which were destroyed moments later by lascannon blast. Having had quite enough, Simon D'Ralier charged the mech-beast, struck three ringing blows with his power fist, and tore the heretek-priest's mechanical spine from its armoured shell.

With that little matter dealt with, negotiations with Chorda resumed. With his life failing, Chorda agreed to sign over everything to Simon on one condition: that the name Aspyce Chorda never be forgotten. Simon agreed, and with his last energy Aspyce transmitted to the Tide of Iron a dense info-packet which later turned out to contain a contract which indeed handed over the system to the D'Raliers - and Chorda's own Warrant of Trade, besides.

Session 18¶

by Tom

The Illyrium asteroid field represented an extremely dangerous barrier - a barrier that Jak, nerve-filaments thrumming to the power of the ship, scoffed at and threaded the five-kilometre mass of the Tide of Iron through with nary a whisper of destructive grav-shear.

Scans showed the planet rumoured to be inhabited by Aspyce Chorda to be devoid of humanoid life, though it was a wet, temperate jungle in the main, dotted with heavy structures. A transmission from the largest structure, vox-only, purported to be from Aspyce Chorda her himself, and he invited the Explorers down to talk, one Rogue Trader to another.

Suspicious - of the pict-less transmission, the strange field interfering with scans, and Aspyce's manner in general - Jak set the Lightning Fury on an autopilot approach to the planet (a flight that would take several hours from the high-orbit Tide) while the Explorers used the teleportarium to appear instantly in one of the other structures on the planet.

The structure was a palace-city, built for expatriate nobility settling Chorda's world to escape the Imperium. With no power and no inhabitants, the Explorers found little to engage them, and after rifling through a few rooms returned to the Lightning Fury via the teleport homer kept aboard.

Following the landing beacons, the Lightning Fury came to rest at a platform near ground level to find no welcoming party and semi-functional blast doors juddering open. Spurning this approach as a possible trap, and unacceptably rude besides, it was decided to reenter the Lightning Fury, use the missiles to blow out the roof of the palace and descend into the throne room by grav-chute.

Session 17¶

by Tom

A combination of calculation, sensor-interpretation, and brilliant flying brought the Tide of Iron within reach of the fleeing Eldar vessel. Scans showed it to be small, and unlikely to be warp-capable itself. In order to close the final distance without giving the wily warpcraft-using xeno a chance to react, a daring plan was concocted: an immediate and very short-range jump through the Warp, exiting on top of the Eldar position.

Lady Astrid performed the fast and necessary astronavigation, and the Tide exited the Warp as its macrobatteries opened up with everything they had, saturating the area the Eldar ship was in with titanic las-beams and mega-shell explosions. Cornelius, at the gunnery command, reduced the enemy ship to a cloud of expanding gas.

Congratulating themselves on a job well-done, and officially naming the canny short-range jump 'The Crimson Manoeuvre', the Explorers settled the Tide of Iron after the sudden leap and plotted a course for the system of Grace, where the Mechanicus investigative mission wanted to investigate their mining operation that had fallen out of contact. Repairs and replenishments would have to wait.

The journey was a long one, and fraught with danger. What should have been weeks felt like many months of warp travel, stranded aboard ship with the quiet scratching of etheric entities at the Geller field a constant accompaniment. Eventually, tired and haggard but no less determined, the Explorers charged the ship through a warp-tempest to pierce the veil and exit, finally, in the system of Grace.

Resetting the astrochrons revealed that only a few weeks had passed in realspace - a small blessing after the arduous journey. Initial scans of the system showed a massive spherical asteroid field surrounding a number of inner planets, and strange gravitational readings. Consultation with the Mechanicus mission aboard ship told the Explorers that there should have been a mining operation in evidence, though the fate of that was soon discovered: an Explorator vessel, the size of a battleship, crashed and flattened against an enormous asteroid in the field.

The asteroids themselves - made of the rare and incredibly rare mineral Illyrium - were generating wildly fluctuating and powerful gravity fields, and it was surmised that the warpstorms that had held Grace cut off from contact with the rest of the Sector for so long had caused some error which made the mighty ship fall prey to these fields, smashing it. Scans, and investigation with teleported servitors, showed a strange void within the vessel where there should have been interior bulkheads, but the dangerous gravity fields made a sustained salvage attempt, or even a quick looting run, inadvisable.

Without the stabilising effect of the arcane technology of the Mechanicus, their gravity-bridge had collapsed, leaving no safe route through the asteroids to the planets within - supposed to be home to the planet settled by the retired Rogue Trader Aspyce Chorda...

Session 16¶

by Tom

While Jak made contact with the ship and arranged for teleportarium rescue from the featureless tunnel he and Simon found themselves in, Cornelius secured Jax who was proving quite reticent.

They reconvened aboard the Tide of Iron. Octavius and Astrid shared their findings about Jax' work: he had been directing and modulating the beam of warp energy within the spire, trying to use it to transmit a message. The message bore the same tell-tale signs of Eldar encoding which had alerted the Explorers to Jax' wrongdoing in the first place.

It occurred to the team that the Eldar guards must have come from somewhere, and so Jak began frantically scanning the planetary system while the others headed to the Interrogatorium to have a pointed word with Jax.

Jax was, under the tender ministrations of Cornelius, most forthcoming. He views his association with the Eldar as a clever business choice, and he owned up to harbouring an Eldar ship - home to an Eldar Warlock, his contact with the xenos, and the four warrior bodyguards. After the questions Simon offered Jax a deal to think about while he remained detained: work for D'Ralier, and keep his life.

After a conference with Maliss by holocaster, a deal was struck: Maliss, who had grown tired of the extra complications of the Orks and strangely-empty city, would forfeit all claim to the world and any archaeotech so found there. In exchange, he would wait to make some essential repairs and then leave - taking Jax' now-captainless ship with him.

Having tracked the escape trajectory of the Eldar ship from Jax' frigate, the Tide of Iron lumbered after it under Jak's expert hand, determined to catch and stop it.

Session 15¶

by Tom

The Explorers faced off against Jax, both standing on a mesh walkway over a void pierced through the centre with a massive column of glowing energy. The rogue trader ignored them, however, frantically working at the console he stood behind; his indifference was soon explained by a sudden hail of shuriken from four Eldar Dire Avengers hidden under xenotech cloaks.

A bloody battle followed - Simon looked sure to be torn to gobbets by shuriken, but somehow Cornelius was able to charge the offending Eldar warrior flat, ruining his shot, before hurling him over the edge and into the ravening energy beam. Simultaneously a battle of wits resolved itself, as Jax worked feverishly on the archaeotech systems with Octavius and Astrid fighting against him from the control room. When the two of them managed to block his every move and with three of his xenos guards dead, Jax made a break for it.

Pressing a small control device against the wall, the solid surface rippled and became an escape portal. Simon unkindly grabbed Jax's legs and lopped off the arm with the device, while the final Eldar warrior fled through the opaque but permeable wall, pursued by Jak.

With a burst of speed borne of hatred, Jak managed to run down the last Eldar and slice off its leg in a shower of blood. Simon quickly followed, and after a quick examination of the Device which Jax had used, the wall-portal was shut... leaving Cornelius, Octavius, and Astrid in charge of the battle scene and of Jax' prone form.

Session 14¶

by Steve

Suspecting treachery, the crew take the Lightning Fury down to the city, landing in the plaza outside the tower. They speak to the Skitarii sergent on duty and discover that Jax went into the tunnels below the edifice some time previously, accompanied by a squad of troops. With the assitance of a tech priest, Octavius joins with the machine spirit of the traitor's shuttle and determines that Jax is somewhere in the central levels of the tower. Never ones to take the long way, our brave heroes fly up to the tower's roof and rappel down through the hole they blasted previously, followed by Skitarii squads teleporting down from the Tide of Iron.

The tower's strange composition renders scanning beyond the confines of their current level impossible, and so the crew search floor by floor, finding ancient lab complexes sure to be of great interest to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Arriving at a level that is powered, the first that they have encountered, the team tread cautiously. Heavy bulkheads cover rooms warded with ancient sigils that Octavius translates as warnings against hazardous equipment within, and the presence of backup generatoria. Fearful that attempts to breach the doors by force might alert their quarry, they head on down finding great machines and a warehouse, apparently dedicated to processing the strange ores that create the wondrous material of the tower, and then producing sheets of it for manufacture.

Reaching the lowest level at which Octavius' scan determined Jax might be found with no sign of their prey, the Explorers decide that he must be on the generator level and so return, eager for answers. The ancient codes and input system of the door controls momentarily stump Octavius, and Simon applies mighty Imperial technology to the problem, blasting the doors asunder with a rain of blows from his power fist.

Always concerned for safety of his colleagues and betters, Cornelius takes point, stepping through the breach in the bulkhead into a corridor beyond. Peering through a window he sees their quarry and quickly ducks down, signalling to the others. Creeping forward past the window to the corner ahead Cornelius looks round and spies three battle servitors, equipped with heavy bolters and the xenotech power sources that the stowaway units on the Tide of Iron carried. As before a number of servo-skulls accompany the hulking brutes.

A furious battle ensues, hails of high caliber bolt shells temporarily pinning several of the crew, whilst answering fire shreds the lead servitor. Unphased by the enemy fire Jak uses Cornelius' grenade launcher to provide a smokescreen, and deftly despatches the two servo-skulls with a double shot from the House D'Ralier plasma pistol. He and Simon then advance through the smoke to engage the machine-men in melee.

The guards despatched the brave quintet chase after the elusive Jak, cornering him inside the tower's core where the pale beam of pure warp energy lances upward. They catch him just as the presumed traitor manipulates a control console across the other side of the open shaft.

Session 13¶

by Jasmine

The Explorers turn into a long, dry sewer system and find themselves staring down an Ork War Boss, several Nob Boys and a handful of Orks under their command. The Explorers opened fire upon the War Boss, only to find their bolt shells did little damage to his superior Ork armour.

Simon and Cornelius charged the War Boss, Cornelius undertaking the brave and questionably wise task of attaching a limpet mine to the War Boss' armour. The task was completed successfully and finally the armour was penetrable.

With help from Maliss, Octavius, Jak and Astrid, the War Boss and its accompanying party were vanquished, leaving the Explorers with the spoils: an excellently crafted set of the War Boss' armour, which Simon and Jak have discussed displaying on the Tide of Iron`s bridge.

Following their return to the ship, contact was established with Maliss and an officer from Jax's ship, and the Explorers shared their latest information. Soon after, the combined brilliance of Octavius' scanner manipulation and Astrid's warp sense detected strange modulations in the warp beacon on the planet. Octavius determined possible Eldar elements to the transmission as well as Imperial codes and traced the origin of the signals to Jax's ship. After making discreet inquiries it transpired that Jax was somewhere in the city...

Session 12¶

by Tom

With troops sweeping through the Gargant, and organised ground forces coupled with orbital bombardment and air support routing the Orkish foot troops in the city, lifters quickly descended to attach mag-clamps and lift the Gargant bodily through space to stow in the Tide of Iron's hold.

The Explorers oversaw the fighting until the core of the city was safe enough for some looting to take place. They turned their attention to the massive central spire, and flew via Lightning Fury to the roof, hoping for an easier egress than the scorched and formidable front doors.

Sadly they were thwarted, with no entranceways visible on the roof. Testing via auspex and guncutter showed that whatever the tower was built out of, it was stronger than Imperial admantine; eventually a plan was devised whereby a section of the roof was teleported away, allowing access to the interior of the tower... although, finding it to be a maintenance room, the Explorers immediately became bored and pursued a new venture: scans having revealed tunnels criss-crossing the city, they made a risky teleport directly into them with their accompanying Skitarii.

They quickly found long, empty tunnels that seemed to follow crystalline structures within the planet's core, though the crystal itself was hidden. Following the tunnels, they reached the centre of the city and looked up directly into the central spire, which at its base held a massive, pulsing crystal which shot a coruscant beam of energy directly upward; gantries circled it on the interior of the tower, all the way to the top.

It was pure Warp energy, the Astrid realised as its presence began to beat on her mind; and so it was decided to sell it to the Mechanicus and the Explorers went to find the Ork Warboss instead. They managed to triangulate his position by vox-waves, and moved in through the long-dry city sewer system.

Session 11¶

by Tom

With the whole messy buisness of the Maw of the Void dealt with forever, the Explorers turned their attention back to the Orkoid planet of Captain's Choice. Further scans revealed that the polar jungles were heavily infested; it was decided that Jax and Mallis would turn their guns on the vegetation and set it alight, destroying the jungles and burning the Orks.

Meanwhile, Simon enacted his plan to capture the whole Ork Gargant that was stamping around the city: first using the ship's lances to score enormous ditches that the Gargant - or any other Ork vehicles - would be unable to cross, effectively hemming it in and cutting it off from support of the milling Ork hordes. Then, under cover of the storms whipped up by the climate imbalances caused by the burning poles, the command crew took the Lightning Fury accompanied by several lifters of armsmen and dropped out of the sky; a volley of krak rockets dropped the power fields surrounding the machine long enough for the Wierdboy Pylon to be exploded off and the crew - less Jak, who stayed to pilot the guncutter and provide support as needed - to grav-chute in through the hole.

A brief combat with the Mekboy and support grots in the gargant's brain-room left the Explorers in command of the shambling war machine; outside, the orbital bombardment and lifters of troops fell on such Orks as were nearby to be a threat, and routed them.

Session 10¶

by Jasmine

After battling with the warp-entity possessed servitors with the help of Confessor Rubricht, Cornelius and Octavius were left injured. The disconcerting panting seemed to have dissipated from the destroyed machines, but Astrid and Octavius continued to detect, by various means, a presence in the cargo bay at large. The heavy panting sound also continued to emanate from one of the cargo control offices above the cargo hold.

The party made their way towards the offices. The first one, despite careful checking, was found empty aside from a mug of ice-cold recaf. The second office the party came to gave off a high warp signature. In the corner, the party discovered an old man, curled up, eyes red-rimmed, unnatural and strangely dark, the source of the heavy, uncontrolled panting sound. Before any of the party could act, the man breathed, "I'm not the one you're looking for!" before his insides literally exploded from his eye sockets. The resulting fountain of gore outlined a daemonic presence of horrific appearance. Despite terrible fear of it, Simon, Octavius and Cornelius managed to dispatch the entity with much haste.

This still left the issue of whatever haunted the cargo hold. Checking the cargo manifest revealed that the crates contained a kind of grain well-liked for long void journeys because it remained alive, after a fashion, for months after being harvested - a fact which seemed ever more relevant as it was possessed, spilling from the bursting crates in a swirling, black cloud. The party decided that the hold should be spaced. Octavius contacted the bridge to relay the orders.

However, by this time the hold had filled with possessed crewmen. The Confessor, along with Simon, had gone to investigate the grain while leaving the others to watch and provide cover from the office, and were being hemmed in slowly by the zombie-type men.

Navigator Crimson used her terrible warp eye to dispatch thirty men in a blink, before Simon and Confessor Rubricht used their power fist and chain sword respectively to hack down any that came near, as the hundreds of crew swarmed into the hold and began to drag them down. The two managed to don their void suits before the hold was voided. However, the priest's hold was not as good as Simon's and he was voided - but thanks to some quick piloting by Jak, he was saved by the gun cutter.

As the cargo bay finished voiding, Simon was left with a terrible message from the entity: "It did not have to be this way, my Prince." As was Astrid, who heard: "I am the Maw of the Void. I see you, my eye that pierces, and I have come to claim my bride."

Session 9¶

by Tom

Regrouping after the terrible battle, the three Rogue Trader vessels - Jax sheepishly returning, his 'emergency repairs' complete - took stock of the damage and began some close scans of Captain's Choice's surface. They quickly outlined a planet wracked by the remains of partially-successful terraforming: red deserts covered the mass of the land, with thick jungles at the poles and a ring of equatorial mountains flanked by rolling foothills and mesas. They quickly found the location that Mallis' information had hinted at - a great city built on and into a sixty-kilometre-wide plateau created from a sheared-off mountain; two artificial ramps, themselves kilometres wide and long, approached the plateau's surface; scans also indicated a number of smaller, natural, valley accessways.

The region was in the throes of an enormous sandstorm which blocked some sensor readings and made visual confirmation impossible, but nevertheless the acuity was enough to reveal the ancient city, its teeming Ork population, and the unmistakeable energy signature of a Gargant plasma combustion engine, as well as the attendant shanty town which, Simon remembered, Orks nearly always built at the feet of their mighty war machines during construction.

Navigator Crimson, gazing down at the planet from an observation chamber, felt the pulsing, threatening pressure of the massed Orks and the fearful energies of Orky psykers - but startlingly something else, something unwholesome, on the ship itself. Confined to a minor area at the back of the ship, it was nevertheless the taint of a Warp entity, somehow aboard ship.

Astrid make Simon aware quickly, and in turn the command crew were pulled into secret conference. It was decided that the area would immediately be sealed and all access blocked by security teams while the Explorers - and only the Explorers, with the exception of known warrior-priest Confessor Rubricht von Helsing - investigated the source of the tainted warp-signature, and excised it by whatever means necessary.

As soon as that decision was reached, however, the whole ship lurched violently - the attitude thrusters had gone haywire and completely beyond the ability of the tech-adepts to adjust for. Jak was forced to remain in the pilot's chair to compensate for the bucking torsion, lest the ship be torn apart or flung from orbit onto the planet below.

The remainder of the group commanded security details secure the perimeter of the infected area, and went in to investigate. At once they were struck by how silent the area was - even accounting for the dreadful losses sustained at the hand of the xeno, there should have been visible crewmen, and there were none. Before long, over the vox system came a ragged, gasping, panting sound, as though of someone terrified and unable to get enough breath into their lungs; the sound was persistent and without apparent cause until some clever thinking allowed the Bridge crew to trace the origin back through the internal comms network to the second of the two overseer's offices which attended to the nearby Cargo Hold 456-B. Octavius' augur array could detect nothing apart from a strange reading of which he could make no sense - until he correlated his data and found it matched, perfectly, the horrid gasping sounds.

Deciding to ignore the crew compartments in favour of heading directly to the problem, the command crew moved along the corridor and into Cargo Hold 456-B. They stepped through the roll-door into a gloomy chamber, forty metres high but stacked to 35 metres by metal crates holding foodstuffs. As the last of them did so, the door suddenly slammed shut behind them with a rattling clang; the Explorers whipped round, only to have their attention immediately taken by the nearby Servitor Bay, and its complement of eight monotask loading servitors - which, eyes glaring red balefire, turned their heads in unity, opened their mouths, and began panting, gasping, as though choking.

Reacting quickly the group blew many away with bolter fire, but the remaining machines flew at them with unholy strength and speed, even leaping from walls of crates with magnetic boots to come crashing down. Despite the fury of the attack the machines were only servitors and could stand up to the Explorer's skill and expertise. Octavius and Cornelius suffered some cracked ribs but were largely unharmed.

Session 8 ¶

by Josh

Mallis angered the Orks greatly with his taunting, and they made haste to engage the small imperial taskforce. As they approached, Jax made a foolish move and gave away the position of the ambush. Moving to engage, their plan foiled by Jax's incompetence, the firefight began.

Cutting in close to Captain's Choice 4, Jak managed to evade the Ork frigates long enough for them to commit to attacking Jax and Mallis. The Tide of Iron planned to use the time to position themselves in the Orks' rear arc and destroy them, but one of the Ork captains spotted them at the last minute and executed a dangerous manoeuver in an attempt to ram the Tide. Deftly avoiding the Orks' attack, the Tide was forced to fire its main weapons - most ably manned by Cornelius York - on their primary agressor to devastating effect.

Beyond the gravity well of the planet, an exchange of fire was taking place - the Imperial taskforce was losing. With the huge Ork cruiser entering the sector, things were looking grim. Taking a heavy pounding, and failing to return the favour, Jax fled the field to ostensibly repair some critical damage. Fighting on, and taking catastrophic engine damage, Mallis damaged one of the Ork frigates. As he was doing so, he plunged out of sight into the gaseous interior of CC4 - presumed lost.

Jax's flight and Mallis' sacrifice were not for nothing, however. During the fight between the frigates, the Tide was able to manoeuver freely and land devastating blow after blow. The first frigate suffered a disabling hit to its engineering sections, destabilising it's warp drive causing a small warp-storm to spawn - the next was hit so hard it shattered into a million pieces, hulked.

Realising their mistake, the Orks turned and engaged the cruiser, making good account of themselves. The Tide suffered moderate damage before seeing off another of the frigates.

As the third frigate was destroyed, the Ork cruiser engaged, firing a massive barrage of macro shells, pounding the Tide in an attempt to soften it for a blast from its massive central cannon. Taking a number of macro hits, the Tide was hit by a blast of coruscating energy, which arced off surfaces and exploded consoles throughout the ship - when the energy finally dissipated, the ship emerged miraculously unscathed. From that point, the Ork weapon seemed unable to hit the vessel.

The fight continued, with the remaining frigate and the cruiser taking a pounding from the Tide, and reciprocating, before Mallis' ship erupted from the atmosphere of CC4 and distracted the frigate. Taking the opportunity, the Tide rounded and destroyed the RCS system of the cruiser causing it to careen out off the field.

The remaining frigate was quickly dealt with, and the cruiser hunted and destroyed - its build meaning that it could only return fire in its forward arc, but had no way to turn without its RCS.

The Rogue Traders emerged victorious, with five frigate and one cruiser kill to their credits - but with massive damage to their hull and crew.

Session 7¶

by Tom

Having taken bloody vengeance on the small-minded idiot who had slighted Octavius and provoked Simon, the insertion party lead by Jak and Cornelius took the lift to the top floor where, in a bunker under the observation dome, they found the hideous mutant leaders of House Gaul and exploded them with bolter and power weapons.

Unfortunately Jak started to feel a little strange, and - as it turned out - fell prey to vast quantities of weaponised aerosolised Frenzon that was circulating the air system. This lead him to take a squad of Skitarii and go on a red-mist rampage through several areas until he fell unconscious.

After a period of recovery in the medbay, both Astrid and Jak were ready to act again, and after a quick bidding war to sell off the newly liberated House Gaul assets the Tide of Iron was on its way, accompanied by the Jax and Meriss ships. Thanks to a perfect course set and flawless execution by Navigator Crimson, the flotilla arrived at the co-ordinates within a week, and there was much rejoicing.

Initial sensor sweeps indicated the presence of crude xenoform ships, which Jak and Simon identified as Ork vessels. On silent running, the Tide of Iron coasted out from behind the moon they were using for shelter and got a better look: five Ork vessels of various size, though none as large as the Tide of Iron herself.

After a brief discussion, the D'Ralier and Jax missions stood waiting in ambush behind the moon, while Meriss took his frigate and blared out a challenge to the Orkish vessels - which took the bait and began powering toward the well-set trap...

Session 6¶

by Gareth

After waiting a while to see if Jak re-appeared on his own, the Explorers concluded he might be in trouble, so used the sensors to locate Jaks comm-bead. Finding him trapped in a small cell deep in the Gaul asteroid, a plan was formulated!

The Arch Militant was dispatched to recover Jak by clandestine means. As soon as his safety was assured, the Tide of Iron swung into action, targeting the Gaul family's two frigates Justified Paranoia and Carmichael's Wrath. The smaller vessels were caught off guard by Jak's stunning piloting - Carmichael's Wrath nearly snapped in half on the Tide's prow, while Simon lead a teleportarium fire-blazing party to the Paranoia's void shield generators.

The Frigates tried to fight back valiantly, but were badly outgunned, out massed, and unable to capitalise their manuever advatage in the face of Zanatov's expertise. A text-book broadside lead by Yorke hulked the damaged Wrath, assuring the Paranoia's surrender (at least, once her Commander had been permanently relieved by a much smarter officer).

With that, the lord Merchant opened a hail to the Gauls, to negotiate for the return of the already-rescued Jak. Unfortunately, they didn't want to negotiate, so the only remaining fun to be had was to storm their base.

Jak, Cornelius and Astrid took a small squad of Skitari and proceeded to blow things up, until Astrid was injured. Astrid has returned for medical attention via Teleportarium, and Simon is considering joining the away party with a few thousand troops.

Session 5¶

By Gareth

With the party over at port Wander, the Tide of Iron moved on into the Koronus Expanse, looking for riches and adventure!

Navigating the maw was dangerous, harrowing, but ultimately successful thanks to Lady Crimson's skill, though the Tide's idiosyncratic engines delayed our arrival a full two months.

Upon re-establishing a time-signal, we decided to wait for our Rogue Trader friends to arrive, intending to go bomb some orks before messing about with the mining operation in Grace.

Our first stop-off was the interstellar junk heap known as Footfall, where some punks tried to scan us so we pointed macro-cannon at them and laid plans to steal and/or sell their ships. While considering the details, we laid on supplies, got the men some R&R to make up for the voyage through the Maw, and attempted to buy some expensive things to go on the mantlepiece. Then Jak got drunk and woke up in a cell somewhere.

Session 4¶

by Tom

With the threat assessed and the largest concentration of illegal combat servitors destroyed, it was a simple matter for the Explorers to lead security details in cleaning up the rest. The journey to the forge world of Skorgulian was uneventful, and once the Tide of Iron arrived Adeptus Mechanicus crews set about repairing and refitting the once-crippled ship. During the weeks this took, the Explorers took the opportunity to recruit some Skitarii-brand crew from the forgeworld orbitals and to leverage some personal equipment out of the technophile Adeptus - significantly, the Lightning Fury was fitted with force shield technology, making it EVEN COOLER.

Examining the newly outfitted Tide of Iron, the Explorers found everything was shipshape (arf arf), and - to their surprise - the Tech-priests had even seen fit to install a hallowed archeotech device, the revered Teleportarium. The Sunsear laser batteries installed at Scintilla were augmented by Mars-pattern Macrocannon Broadsides, and the prow was made fearsome with the addition of a battery of lance weaponry.

Eager to be off, the Explorers set course for the only place they knew they had to go: the Koronus Expanse. The warp journey was uneventful and short, and the Emperor was roundly praised in the lower decks, and soon the Tide of Iron pulled into Port Wander, the last Imperial outpost before the chaos of the Maw and the Expanse beyond.

The first thing that was decided was that there should be a party, and since nobody else was throwing one, it was down to House D'Ralier. A thousand invitations were sent out to all the nobles, officers, and merchants of the Port, and the function deck illuminated in dazzling 3D display by modified tenebro-maze holoprojectors.

In brief: Jak got drunk and made a date to go grav-surfing with a member of House Meriss; Simon more usefully managed to wrangle out some details of xenotech trading in the markets, and arrange a profitable detour or two as well; Octavius assessed the worth of those merchants in the Port who might be willing to trade in things not strictly permitted under Imperial law; and one such merchant was invisibly detained by well-commanded security crew aboard the Tide of Iron for further questioning.

Session 3¶

by Tom

The new ship parts were fitted over a few days, in which members of the command crew took care of some minor business: overseeing repairs, recruiting capable voidborn crew from a number of different Scintillan orbitals, getting the paperwork in order, or finding out that they'd been shunned by their House Nobilite.

The warp translation was relatively straightforward, the journey taking less time than was anticipated. The Emperor was roundly praised, at least amongst most of the crew.

Shortly after tranlating back into realspace after the journey, Jak noticed a number of anomalous energy signatures moving in one of the depressurised, sealed sections of unrepaired internal hull. Simon took this as an excellent opportunity to prove to the crew that he was a worthy captain, and so after contact with the first security detail sent to investigate was lost, decided to go himself; Jak went without question, Octavius went along to protect the D'Ralian interest that Simon represented, and even Astrid, feeling the need to exercise after being cooped up for the voyage, loaded in her inferno shells and tagged along.

Suited up and on the alert, the Explorers investigated the airless part of the ship where the signatures had been located. Energy interference from venting plasma conduits prevented vox-communications over anything more than a couple of metres.

In the silence, the Explorers found unknown servo-skulls and combat servitors infesting the section, some of which were armed with forbidden Eldar xenotech weaponry and, it seemed, power sources. In the mute battle which followed, four combat servitors were destoyed - with a great deal of aid from Cornelius Yorke, arch-militant and bodyguard to Kavanagh who had been trapped by sealed bulkheads while on his way to the bridge. Minor wounds were sustained by some of the Explorers.

Retreating to a less exposed location with less electromagnetic interference, the command crew debriefed Cornelius, and prepared to vox through to the crew to see how many anomalous power signals remained...

Session 2¶

by Gareth

Aboard the ship, the group was met by the crew, or most of what remained. The ship had suffered immense damage to all sections from weapons of both Imperial and Eldar design. The gundecks were lost entirely, 2/3rds of the crew were dead, the bridge had had to be rebuilt entirely en-route, one of the sheild arrays was offline, acres of hull plating was lost... the whole thing was fragged.

An asshole Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus came aboard, concerned about the House's 'carelessness' with the holy relics of the Omnissia. After some discussion, lies and negotiation, he was talked into helping with the ship's repairs in return for the following conditions: Those parts provided and fitted by the Admech would be done for free, but would remain Admech property until the house proved 'worthy' of them. The Adeptus Mechanicus would have the right to bid on all Xenotech found as well as Archeotech, should the D'Raliers choose to sell said items. The Adeptus Mechanicus had full salvage rights on what remained of the D'Ralier fleet at the Sekrit Meeting Place.

Details of the 'contract' are to be rendered in Legalese at the shipyards at the nearby shipyard of Skorgulian, where the work will be completed.

While emergency repairs were finished and the ship took on supplies, the group put it's money, connections and luck to work, acquiring better sensors for the ship, and fitting the gundecks with some Sunsear batteries, hopefully discouraging would-be pirates in case the ships' journey to the forge world wasn't uneventful.

Session 1¶

By Gareth

Attempting to broaden his cousin's social horizons, Simon took Octavius to meet Jak at the Gilded Dragon. Before the D'Raliers could leave the office Astrid Crimson arrived, seeking Simon to arrange transit to the Tide of Iron on it's return. Simon invited her to the meal as well, ostensibly to 'interview' a pilot (Jak).

Following the meal, the four agreed to meet again at a party organised by Lady Maragor, where there was schmoozing, drunkenness, and eventually a lawyer.

The lawyer Guildstein brought a big ol' datapad which needed Simon's signet and genecode to activate, and a message to Octavius that the firm, (Guildstein, Guildstein & Guildstein) could no longer represent house D'Ralier. Shortly thereafter, a message was received from the office, saying that men had come and taken lots of documents with warrants.

While the datapad worked away ominously, the party was gathered and we all returned to the office to see what's going on (Simon damn-near kidnapping the Navigator, bringing Astrid along on the sole basis that she was still contracted to the House).

As we flew to the office, the datapad pinged, informing the party that Simon D'Ralier was now Lord Merchant Simon D'Ralier. The house charter had passed to simon, meaning that not only was the old Lord dead, but so was everyone between him and Simon, including Simon's Brother.

Unfortunately, there was little time to mourn, as the office was in uproar: the Administratum had ceased huge amounts of information, claiming that House D'Ralier no-longer controlled it's off-world assets. then, against all expectation, the Tide Of Iron arrived in-system. As it pulled into orbit assisted by Naval tugs, the group made their way to high orbit to meet it.