Fellowship of the Dice

The Acolytes, Arbite and Tech Priest have been gathered. Little information has been given to the Acolytes once again, as the Inquisition calls on them to do their duty with unquestioning loyalty. It is enough to know they must serve, not to know why...

"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt." -- Grand Inquisitor Zerbe

Traveling down an elevator lift in the Adminitratum Quarter....

A blast of pneumatic air gushes out of the bottom of the lift and the whole elevator starts moving downwards. The lights flicker and flash, and the entire contracption starts to rattle and shake. It sounds like the old machine spirit in the elevator is about to give up as the wight of everyone strains its gears and mechanisms. For many long minutes the elevator goes down, clanking and shaking the whole way. The light flicker and dim, return to normal and fizzle at times until the thing beins to slow. Breaks scream and squeel as they strain and the entire thing creaks to a halt. The doors open with a blast of compressed air, the mag lock on it unsealed...

The lift has stopped one foot above the ground, something jammed under it keeps it from going all the way to the floor. Beyound the door is a long metal hall way, pitch black and filled with the stink of industrial strength bleach cleaning agent. The floor is scrubbed clean, as clean as it can be, but a wide brown blood stain mars the floor right outside the elevator doors. The moment someone steps off the lift the lights in the hall turn on, a faded green glow from inset lights in the ceiling. Only the first ten meters of lights turn on....

Xanthia steps off the lift almost as soon as it stops. She might have been the last to the lift, but she will not always be the last.

Her boots collide with the floor and she barely slows to allow the others to catch up with her before she is progressing down the hallways. She pays little mind to the bloodstain. Obviously someone was somewhere they shouldn't have been.

The Arbite steps clear of the lift, gray eyes scrutinizing the stain and then the hallway. She grew up among buildings and steel, a maze of technology is all she has ever known. But this is new to her. Service to the Inquisition and a trip to the Adminitratum Quarter all in one week. She wished excitement and has found it with open arms. Smiling to herself and letting her eyes rest on the leather clad body of Xanthia for a moment, she says to herself, "I can't imagine this being too bad, after all." A smile crosses her lip and she starts to walk with the rest...

The Tech-Priest does not show excitement like the Arbite. In fact, he says nothing about the blood stain at all. Instead, he does speak to Jericus. "The probability of a random meeting between us is astronomically low," he says, "I must have been selected to escort the Inquisition because I was your born of the same mother." Haxtes is decidedly different, it appears, after all these years and his Tech-Priest indoctrination.

"That does seem ... likely," Jericus replies cautiously. "It can't be a coincidence.," he adds after a pause. "I'll agree with that."

He walks a few paces more. "I'd ask why you didn't send word about where you were or ask after us." His voice isn't as emotionless as Haxtes' is, though it is somewhat neutral. "But it wasn't long after you left that our whole block was razed by a squadron of rebel behemoths. If I hadn't been out scrounging for food, I'd have been dead with the rest of them. I'm sure...," He pauses and glances over at whatever his brother has become." He takes a quick breath - the first sign of emotion he's allowed himself.

"I'm sure you determined that the probability of my survival was extremely small." He gets a half smile on his face. "I'm glad I can sometimes beat the odds."

Haxtes replies straight forward, "I was advised not to seek you out." He pauses, "Sentiment and emotion are the seed of weakness." The Tech-Priest finds himself struggling with his conditioning now. His human emotions are difficult to fight, and after years of not seeing his brother, they are fighting with his logic and programming. "I had /wanted/ to," he says, "An error of the human condition that is emotion."

"Well," the bureaucrat replies, "error or not, I appreciate the thought."

He walks a few more paces. "Though it does explain one thing." He smiles a wry smile. "Years after you left, when I was finally in a position to look for you, I found nothing. No record of you having even existed. And by then I'd gotten pretty good at looking. No doubt the Adeptus Mechanicus covered your tracks to keep your family away during your training."

He cocks his head and looks at his brother. "Perhaps meeting me now is a test they've given you." His eyes narrow. "I'd hate to be the cause of you losing status within your order."

"That is logical," Haxtes admits, "If I fail Adeptus Mechanicus than I am not worthy of my implants. I shall cease to function." The Tech-Priest does not seem that concerned, though it is nearly impossible to gauge emotion from his heavily modulated voice.

"Well then," Jericus replies, "we shall have to give them no reason to suspect your motives."

Frastus follows the others out of the elevator, listening to the pair of brothers speaking.

"Father, mother, brother, sister, all are the Emperor," he says aloud when the two stop talking.

"All is the Emperor, life and death he wills for all," he says again.

"Pawns," he says softly. "Pawns in his divine game,..." his voice trails off into incoherent muttering, he shakes his head and eventually falls silent as he walks on down the corridor.