Part Three: Illicit Earnings

[ManWithDoor]

Ardus tramps around the ship, he being of an ambivalent mood. On one hand, he was triumphant against the mutant and the unclean. One the other, such creatures even dare to exist in the God-Emperor's universe in the first place. He glares at the crew as the go about their duties, occasionally venting tirades against heresy to anyone within earshot.

OOC

I'm still on board.

[Hayabusa]

OOC

Me too. I didn't get much done the past days everywhere, I think. Sorry about that, Grim.

"Yes, she seemed quite eager to talk to me and maybe she has more knowledge about the auction," Trask adds but is not too sure about it all. But it is always good to make connections and maybe he can throw in a word or two about the flowers they fond on Avalon. Not everything about it, of course, but something about its properties and her thoughts about what he intends to bid on the auction.

[Grimbold]

Display

Moving you on.

Floriana arrives in the afternoon, and spends two hours in the captain's private quarters.

Display

Haya, pm me how close you want to get and what info you want from her or what deals you have in mind with her. She is a merchant-transport captain from the influential Winterscale dynasty.

Then the time has come and you depart for the auction, again taking the limo with the same driver.

Again the limo takes you to other parts of Footfall, sometimes by shuttle and sometimes on streets and highways.

After an hour or so you arrive in a run down neighborhood. This is a large, gothic style stone building with large iron doors at the entrance, they are wide open at the moment.

Coming to the entrance, people pass through the frame of a massive arched portal that seems to be carved from black stone. The doors, which appear to be made of adamantium hull-plating, are open. At either side of the portal stands a large brute of a man. The two brutes are halting people as they approach the portal, using their great weapons to block the path. They look the prospective entrant over, before nodding, raising their great weapons and letting them past.

Aleksander, Trask and Ardus exit the limo (whose driver agreed to wait around the corner) and look at the huge building.

[Hayabusa]

Trask is clad in his finest uniform for the auction, exiting the limo first and waits for a moment for his companions to leave their ride as well, before walking towards the portal in long strides. While he does so he lets his eyes look over the place but is more interested in the other people who arrive and enter the same building.

[Trogdor]

Aleksander is wearing a set of robes that would not do him shame if he were heading to an audience with the Lords of Terra. They are black, as suits a Navigator, but of impeccable cloth and design. He also scans the crowd, interested in who else made the cut and will be competing with them for a new world.

[ManWithDoor]

Ardus wears his 'best' clerical robes, which still shows signs of much use in the militant faith of the God-Emperor. He cleaned the various blood splatter out, as well as sewing over any large rips or burns, but it is still not the clothing of nobility. The Imperial Aquila is emblazoned on his chest and shoulders, with the crest of the Adeptus Ministorum on the back. His position as a religious zealot of the Imperial Truth is obvious to all.

[Grimbold]

There are many people about, spacefarers, captains, adepts, traders, all kinds. You spot Lady Sun Lee with half a dozen bodyguards and you also spot the Rogue Traders Abel Gerrit and the scion of House Fel, Braddock Fel (Hadarak Fel's uncle).

Display

Note the ooc "allies and rivals" sheet.

Now the guards cast their gazes on you and nod, waving you through.

Once within, the Explorers see that the Obsidian Emporial itself is a large space, its vaulted ceiling veiled in darkness. The main source of illumination is provided by a score or so of servo-skulls hovering overhead, each of which is topped by a guttering, wax-dripping candle. The hall is strewn with all manner of technological junk, none of it of any worth. It is clear that the myriad items of wrecked machinery are of no more use than to provide convenient seating, which is what the two hundred or so people crowded into the Obsidian Emporial are using them for.

The place is already crowded with a wide range of people, from ragged beggars to resplendent Free Captains and their retinues. There are a couple of hundred people in the Obsidian Emporial at the time the Explorers arrive, and another hundred or so enter over the next few minutes, until finally, the guards at the door judge the place full, and everyone goes quiet and waits what is going to happen.

[Hayabusa]

Trask looks over the crowd, making note of the people he knows and those he doesn't considering who has the resources to enter a valid bid and what it might be. When everyone goes quit he turns his attention towards their host as well. When he appears, of course.

[ManWithDoor]

Ardus looks around suspiciously, hamming up the zealot aspect of his personality that he does so well. He grasps his robes tight around his muscular, scarred frame, glaring at anyone that looks at him oddly. He sticks like glue to Trask's side, letting him handle the crowds.

OOC

Does Ardus have a character sheet? I've never seen one so far.

[Grimbold]

XP

Some time ago, you got 400 XP. Did you spend them? Just pm me what you spend them on. MWD - I sent you a pm about the charsheet.

As the Obsidian Emporial fills, a silence settles upon the crowd, and expectant faces are turned towards a decaying wooden lectern that rears five metres into the air. The lectern is as yet unoccupied, but soon the Explorers spy a large, hunched figure shuffling across the floor towards it. Reaching the base of the lectern, the figure lifts back the hood of its ragged robes, to reveal a hideous face set with all manner of sockets, its flesh shrivelled and distended as if the underlying skull were somehow bovine in form rather than human. This is the Intercessor, and his is the task to act as auctioneer and determine who will earn themselves a place at the Foretelling of the Seven Witches.

Even as the Explorers look on, a dense, writhing cluster of cables and pipes descends from the dark ceiling above the Intercessor. Each cable moves as if under its own volition, its end seeking out a corresponding socket in the Intercessor's skull, with which it couples quite obscenely. His head now haloed by a mass of pulsating tubes, the Intercessor is lifted into the air, to be carried by the cables to the pinnacle of the lectern, where he settles in with an animal grunt. Drawing back the ragged fabric covering his arms, the Intercessor reveals that his limbs are mechanical, constructed of rusted iron. His left arm terminates in an oversized gavel, which he brings sharply down upon the lectern. With the resounding report of hammer on worm-eaten wood, the auction begins.

The Intercessor

GM comments

I have the impression that our posting has become rather slow. TBH I think the enthusiasm for this game was higher in the past. Is there anything I need to change or do differently to get you guys motivated to post more frequently again? pm me or post in the ooc section if you have any suggestions or comments. I will be happy for anything you have to say.

Me personally, I would hope for more frequent posting and a (slightly) quicker pace.

However, I do not want to threeday you - as a teacher I need to "crack the whip" in my real life several times each day (and do it definitely less often than I should), so I do not want to do that in my leisure time, too.