Fellowship of the Dice

Turning back, Jericus returns to grab Ratz's dog tags from around the man's neck. The bureaucrats would want this to record his death. "I'm sorry," he says to Jurtz. "But I'm afraid you'll have to send her word of the bad news. If she's not family, the Adminsitratum won't." He gives the man a sympathetic look. "You can tell her that he died a hero, defending the Empire of Man from terrible foes. That might help soften the blow." It wasn't true, he knew. But surely the woman deserved something.

As he stuffs the dog tags in his pocket, he shakes his head in regret and glances at the soldiers who killed him. "The commandant might not regret the loss of one more miner," he says. "But you do realize that you killed the only witness we had to what happened in there. That's a terrible loss to us all."

But the soldiers don't care, he knows, so he lets them have their parting shot and moves on. It would be up to the commandant to decide whether they should be rewarded for following orders, or punished for removing their last chance to find out what really happened in the mine.

Mir's footsteps gain determination with each step. As he nears the commadants office trailer. He opens the door a scowl on his face and looks around. The corpse of Iorgo, having saturated the cloth that covered him with crimson; dripping blood to the floor...

The Adept returns and recovers the ID tags off the miner to better give his report and realizes now that the only living witness to much of the events in the mines is now dead, shot down to prevent maddness or mutants or the truth from escapeing the mines. Jurtz is told his friend is dead and he turns away upset, falling back into his post and his duty. The Acolytes to bo return to the main camp of the Imperial Guards and a signal is sent for pickup from the ship in orbit, it will take a Lighter fourty minutes to arrive to gather you up. In the mean time the group, with Iorgo's corpse making a mess of Mir's clothing heads to the Commandant's hab block and they find themselves inside waiting on him, Iorgo's body outside covered up.

The door to the prefab building opens and the Commandant arrives, his heavy cloak and black hat are both removed as he enters. "Well! You all survived..." he recounts, "...minus the Cleric, a shame, but not unexpected. I don't supose you care to give me a report on the situation in the mines? Can I reopen it and get these locals back to work?"

Ishmael grunts, "Well, I wouldn't," he says, "It needs to be cleaned out first. Get all the dead out of there, which there is plenty. I think anything overly wrong, such as Warpstones," he says with a shrug, "Should be taken care of."

"I can give you my verbal report now, sir," Jericus replies. "Or I can take the time before our Lighter arrives to prepare a written report - whichever is more useful to you."

Mir's beefy hands white knuckle the chair where he is sitting. As the commandant comments on the clerics demise. It is taking all of the former guardsmans will power to not release the commander from his responsiblities. The scowl on his face made more obvious as his teeth grit together audibly...

The Commondant has the time now, "You lighter isn't here yet, give me your report." He nods to Ishmael, "If the heresy is gone, then my men will clean up any stragglers. We can handle any miners or left over, trust me, the Inquisition doesn't need to worry about us, but lets hear it." He looks at he Adept Jericus for the full report...

Jericus takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and begins to talk. As he does so, the tone of his voice becomes all business. There is no hesitancy, no deference to rank, just a careful and accurate reporting of the facts.

"You were present when we entered the Gorgonid Mines," he begins. "The inside was deserted, as you indicated it would be. We followed your map and with little trouble reached the Shatters." The adept offers a few minor details regarding their route and the slight dangers they faced. "Your soldiers, no doubt have reported on the status of these portions of the mines, so I won't add more detail. However, I will add that some side passages were blocked, creating the impression that we were being funneled towards the Shatters. And there was evidence of non-human activity along the way - claw marks, blood stains, and the like - though no sign of whatever made them. It's possible that these arose from the creatures encountered during the initial expedition to the mines, though without seeing the proper reports, that's merely conjecture on my part. "

"Just over three hours after we entered the mines, we arrived at the Shatters. Once inside, we immediately encountered the remains of several guardsmen. They had been killed and dismembered, possibly torn apart based on initial observations, though we had neither the time nor the expertise for a proper post mortem examination. The majority of the guardsmen's bodies were missing, however. All we found were occasional body parts and organs - none larger than a forearm - along with mostly empty guardsmen uniforms - though a handful with some small part of the guardsman remaining. Blood covered the walls and the air was noxious. I would recommend any further investigating team be provided with breathing assistance, if available."

"The Shatters includes on main passage with several smaller passages breaking off from it. We followed the main passage to it's conclusion, where we found what appeared to be an artifact of chaos - a great lavender crystal that rose from a crack in the floor and extended nearly all the way to the ceiling. It pulsed in a pink light and sapped both energy and strength. It matched the description of chaotic devices that provide a connection to the Warp, though I have neither the training nor the authority to officially make such an assertion."

"Assessments of the chaotic nature of the crystal are supported by two facts, however. First, the emanations from this crystal mutated the cleric, Iorgo, who was with us. Second, the crystal appeared to summon a disease-ridden daemon into the Shatters - my training identified it as a chaos-spawn called a Plaguebearer. Again, I can only report what we saw, and not what caused it, as I have neither the official training nor the authority to make official pronouncements pertaining to the Warp. But the fact that the crystal mutated Iorgo and summoned a chaos daemon is strong evidence of its chaotic nature."

"We were able to catch the Plaguebearer in the moments while it was manifesting and either killed it or disrupted the summoning. Regardless, it died and its body disappeared. Then, before anything else could manifest, we destroyed the crystal with a grenade. Iorgo performed this duty so as to eliminate the risk of mutation to the rest of us."

"Following the destruction of the crystal, we swept through the Shatters where we discovered a group of mutants who attacked us. The group included four mutant miners and one mutant guardsmen. We engaged the five in combat and were victorious." Jericus adds some details about the fight, trying to gauge exactly how much detail the commandant is interested in.

"When the fight was over, we recovered the dog tags of the fallen guardsman. His name was Hastus Dorlian." The adept hands the dog tags over to the commandant, uncertain as to whether the guardsman will be considered a hero or a dirty mutant, but sure that the commandant will want the tags regardless.

"We then left the Shatters briefly to clear our lungs. As I indicated, the air inside the Shatters is foul to the point where it becomes immediately difficult to breath. Extended time spent in the Shatters without sufficient protection will inevitably lead to impairment. We remained outside for approximately fifteen minutes before returning once more to the Shatters."

"We explored the various side tunnels and in one sealed area discovered a miner who appeared unmutated, and claimed to have been in hiding. He identified himself as Rat, and appeared to be mentally unstable. We agreed to take him out of the mine. As the only live witness to what went on inside the mine, we believed that you would wish to interrogate him."

"As we continued our sweep of the Shatters, we passed a large pool of blood with six severed heads floating in it. Their faces had what could best be described as looks of terror on them, though that is admittedly a matter of interpretation and not a quantifiable fact. Beyond the pool of blood was a dead end with a pile of torn clothing, bones, and bloodstains. The bones had what appeared to be tooth marks on them. We surmise that this was the feeding ground for some or all of the mutants. Since this was the corridor that the mutant guardsman came out of, evidence suggests that he was one of the creatures that fed there."

"Along the final corridor we found a broken elevator shaft and a sealed door. The elevator shaft was of no use - no elevator car and broken beyond our ability to repair. And beyond the sealed door was a scene of significant carnage." Jericus's face gets a distant look and he blandly recites the report he'd mentally composed earlier. "The room appeared to be about five meters by three meters. Numerous bodies were scattered across the room in various states of injury. Estimate between ten and thirty bodies. The bodies were mixed between miners and an unknown group, suspected to be chaos cultists based on the remains of their clothing. Death appears to have been caused by brute force, potentially from the mutant creature found earlier in the mines. Possible ritual elements of chaos cults involved." His report continues until all details about the room have been provided.

"The last remaining chamber was a storage chamber for prometheum. It contained nine tanks of prometheum and a man-shaped Abomination. It was unclear whether this was a mutated human or a summoned creature. However, it appeared to be wearing the tatters of human clothes making the former more likely, though not certain. The creature put up a terrible fight, but with the Emperor's blessing, we were victorious."

"Then, with our sweep of the Shatters complete, and no new dangers apparent, we retrieved Rat and returned to the surface. I have a rough map for my report." He passes his data-slate across the commandant's table to show a crude map he's drawn. "I've marked the location of the crystal, the pool of blood, the presumed feeding ground, the slaughterhouse, where we fought the mutants, where we found Rat, and the prometheum storage room."

"I recommend that anyone you send use care in the prometheum storage room. There were leaks of prometheum throughout the room. The slightest spark could cause a large conflagration that would likely destroy the Shatters." He gives the commandant a significant look, but says nothing more. It is, of course, for the commandant to decide whether such an 'accident' would be desirable. Certainly having the Shatters destroyed would eliminate a great deal of trouble in the future.

"The trip back was largely uneventful. My written report will contain the details of that. The only two other thing I have to report is that several of your guardsmen," he passes over a list of names, "killed Rat before he could be interrogated. And at his own request, we killed Iorgo before we left the mines. Though mutated, he still performed his duty to the Emperor, including ridding the universe of the mutant he had become." The adept offers no judgment on these actions, but merely report them as fact. "We then came here to make our report"

Jericus then sits back and takes a deep breath. His report is over and his stance becomes just a little more relaxed.

Xanthia listens impationately as Jericus gives a rather detailed report of the trip within the mines. She watches for the facial expressions of the listener while the story continues, not interjecting anything.