Warhammer 40K: The Interex Valhalla

[Protagonist]

"Yes, Naomi."


Apollo trusts Carth's wisdom, and we pass through a few smaller, dilapidated hallways less made for creature comfort and less likely to have any threats on them.


At the base of the captain's chair is a dead man-presumably the captain. But sitting in the chair is another dead body, wearing navigator robes. The hood falls off, revealing a metallic worm-like structure where his third eye should be.


We eventually arrive at the bridge. It's a disquieting sight. Unlike the rest of the ship, there was conflict here. Burn marks, blood, spent ammunition, and weapons liter the floor next to the corpses. The room is rectangular, with a glass window looking the void. Apollo says "Alright, let's see if we can't atmosphere in the sealed off areas..."


The head of the navigator in the captain's chair quickly snaps up, and stares at us with dead eyes, silently.

 

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Carth was suddenly on edge at the signs of conflict. Some sort of battle. And the strange placement of the Navigator in the captain's chair... it was a little disquieting. He kept his eyes peeled for any movement. But he wasn't expecting it to come from the bridge.


The Navigator's head snapped up, and Carth's hellgun snapped to the Navigator's head. All he needed to pull the trigger was Apollo's word, and Apollo knew it. The thought of a distraction, of someone rigging this and then setting it as a diversion while forces moved in behind them, did occur to him. He glanced quickly over his shoulder, then back to the Navigator.

 

[Nexus Placater]

Apharius stood staring at the Navigator, right up until he sat up. He wondered if he had seen the navigator's house before.

Spoiler

[dice]22129[/dice]





[dice]22130[/dice]Well, at least I have the more important one.


As he reached the depths of his mind to see if he knew anything, another interesting thought entered his mind. Signalling to the others to hold their fire, Apharius began talking in the secret tongue of the Navigators.

 

[Protagonist]

Suddenly, the bridge doors seal themselves.


The dead navigator does not respond to Apharius's words. It simply continues to stare at him awkwardly. Then, the device on his forehead starts to glow, and terrible coils of warp energy arc out of it, into the dead bodies. The dead bodies start having a seizure, before starting to climb up and waddle on towards us with outstretched arms.


Apollo, suspecting this to be nothing good, fires upon the Navigator. His Lasbolt is blocked by some kind of flickering red energy shield. Uh-oh. Someone with knowledge of the Occult, Legends, or Combat might be able to identify this shield. Apollo says "Shit!" as the undead march towards us, carrying improvised clubs.


Perhaps it's worth testing the strength of the shield, though. Maybe someone should try to cause an explosion somehow? There's power-controlling equipment, here. Perhaps one could overload something?


[begin Combat!]

Spoiler

[dice]22137[/dice]


[Warp Puppets have Agility Bonus of 1]


[11, 5, 10, 7]


[dice]22138[/dice]


[4 Initiative]


[dice]22139[/dice]


[14 Initiative]


[dice]22140[/dice]


[7 Initiative]


[dice]22141[/dice]


[9 Initiative]


[dice]22142[/dice]


[10 Initiative]


Turn Order:


Carth


Warp Puppet #1


Nieli


Warp Puppet #2


Naomi


Snuffles


Apharius


Warp Puppet #3


Warp Puppet #4


Apollo


Kara

 

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Carth, on the ball, flicks his hellgun's aim over to the corpse closest to him, having seen Apollo's weapon be blocked by some kind of shield. Once on target, he quickly fires a volley of three shots at it.


[dice]22165[/dice]


[dice]22175[/dice]


Two of his shots sizzled over the corpse's shoulders, but his third shot struck the zombie straight in the head.

 

[Protagonist]

A Warp Puppet shambles towards Carth. It's very slow, however, and only moves 2 meters. It is now 4 meters away from him.

 

[Eplov]

Nieli, braced in the doorway to provide as much cover as possible, lets out a long breath and, just like on the range, fire's between heartbeats at one of the shambling corpses that have not yet moved. In the back of her mind she wonders what other mysteries the Warp contains, but puts it out of her head as she draws a bead on the zombies head.

Spoiler

[dice]22166[/dice]


Wow. 4 DOS, with an accurate weapon that was aimed means 2 extra d10 of damage.


[dice]22167[/dice]


One natural 10, Rolling for Righteous Fury.


[dice]22168[/dice]


Hit, only 1 DOS, no extra damage dice.


[dice]22169[/dice]


38 wounds to the head.


1 Penetration.

 

[Protagonist]

The Warp Puppet's head is smitten, exploding, causing it to rain little chunks of skull and brain across the floor behind it. It is entirely, hilariously, pitifully deceased.


[Achievement unlock: You got to shoot 'em in the head: Killed a Warp Puppet with a Headshot].


[Naomi's Turn]

 

[Eplov]

"Attack plan delta!" Naomi barks out at Snuffles, then dashes toward the closest console. "Please let this work!" She prays to nobody in particular, and attempts to overload the power circuits in the Navigator's chair.

Spoiler

[dice]22170[/dice]


1 DOS including difficulty penalty


As soon as her hand makes contact she knows it's going to work. The only question is, how long will it take?

 

[Eplov]

Snuffles charges toward the next zombie in the line, leaping into the air, trying to tear out whatever this strange creature counted as a vital part of its anatomy.

Spoiler

[dice]22171[/dice]


Woah, not even close. He needed 58 or less.


Not quite able to land the bite, the shambling corpse is none the less engaged in melee combat, and cannot hurt his master.

 

[Nexus Placater]

Apharius saw the room unfold into a battle, forcing him to draw his inferno pistol and fire at the closest warp zombie. Taking his time to aim his shot, he soon pulled the trigger.

Spoiler

[dice]22172[/dice]2 DOS, so I won't be blowing holes in ships.




[dice]22173[/dice]Well, this is shitty.

 

[Protagonist]

But, it's nonetheless effective. Zombie #3 is hit with a heat ray, causing it's head to well, melt part-way and to burst into flames. It's very gruesome looking, to be honest.


One last Warp Puppet continues to march towards Apollo. Apollo quickly aims and fires his own pistol at the Warp Puppet.


[dice]22179[/dice]


[success!]


[dice]22180[/dice]


[dice]22182[/dice]


The Warp Puppet continues to walk just a short distance after being hit, but just barely falls over.


Kara sighs. "Oh, what great ventriloquism, Navigator!" she declares with sarcasm to our enemy. "I think it deserves a laser light show!"


She then aims at the Warp Puppet heading towards Carth and opens fire.


[dice]22181[/dice]


[dice]22183[/dice]


[dice]22184[/dice]


The Warp Puppet, already killed by Carth, is shot again by Kara. She declares "Rule #2! Double Tap!"


The Navigator pauses a moment. Its eyes glow, and then it shrieks.


Suddenly, five Warp Puppets carrying laspistols rise! Eek!


[dice]22185[/dice]


[i'll have it so you guys keep the same initiative as before]


[Carth's Turn]

 

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Carth covered the room quickly as the last puppet went down. He trusted the others to watch the rest while he looked away. Just as he was about to look back and start double-tapping the shit out of the Navigator's 'shield', more corpses started to rise. These ones looked like they were actually armed.


Carth immediately rolled forwards and to the side, slamming up against a console. His many years of combat told him that in a gunfight you couldn't end in a single shot, your first move is always getting to cover. His primary goal achieved, he quickly peeked out and popped off a shot at one of the puppets.


[dice]22189[/dice]

 

[Eplov]

Nieli, still crouched behind the door frame, takes a moment to aim at the one who looks like it's moving the fastest and fires.

Spoiler

[dice]22190[/dice]


Missed.


"Damn!" she hisses, as the laser shot misses the warp creature by a good margin.

 

[Protagonist]

Naomi attempts to speed up the process of causing an electrical explosion using some of her expertise in exploding things.


[dice]22191[/dice]


She manages to combine her fields into a way that speeds up the process of making things explode.


She succeeds! The chair will explode in just a short while.


Now, she can safely walk away from the console and keep fighting.


Snuffles sees them rise next to him, just a couple meters away, attacks the nearest Warp puppet.


[dice]22200[/dice]


[dice]22201[/dice]


Did you know that Zombies are a Cyber-Mastiff's favorite food? It's true, I swear.


He grabs the Warp Puppet by the neck and wrestles it to the ground in submission, ripping most of the flesh off of its neck in a truly gory display.


[Warp Puppet B1 killed!]

 

[Nexus Placater]

Apharius didn't like where this was going. The navigator was summoning more warp puppets, probably something that navigators aren't supposed to be able to do. With this, he noticed Carth taking cover and with a bit of common sense from being on a dark voyage, Apharius took cover as well, firing his inferno pistol at the closest one to him.

Spoiler

[dice]22204[/dice]Please say I didn't destroy anything.

 

[Protagonist]

Apharius destroys something. Namely, instead of hitting the actual zombie, it hits a computer console not far from him. The computer console overheats, and then explodes with the force of a grenade.


[dice]22205[/dice]


Two Warp Puppets are caught in the blast, killing both of them.


The two remaining zeds fire at Apollo:


[dice]22207[/dice]


[dice]22208[/dice]


They both miss, lasbolts flying over opposite shoulders of Apollo, hitting a wall behind him. Poor wall.


Apollo jumps over to the console Naomi was at, and tries to see if he can speed up the explosion process using his own technical know-how.


[dice]22206[/dice]


Yup, he figures out a way. The Navigator looks down and notices his chair starting to spark. He looks up a moment, and then looks back up, with face that says "Uh-oh" all over it. The chair explodes. It pierces his shield, and bits and pieces of the Navigator start to rain all across the bridge. Ew.


We see what's left of the Navigator's body: a legless torso. Suddenly, it reaches its hands and crawls away through a heavily sealed off door on the side, zombies cover his escape. The door locks behind him.


Kara then tries firing at one of the Zombies.


[dice]22209[/dice]


She misses.


Apollo says "We need to get out of here!"


One of these consoles might be able to open the door the Navigator is using. Or maybe we can find some other type of exit?

 

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Carth gritted his teeth in annoyance at his continued inaccuracy. Then he propped himself up against his cover, leaning just a bit over it while aiming right for the warp puppet nearest to Apollo. He took a moment to adjust his aim, then fired.


[dice]22211[/dice]


[dice]22212[/dice]

 

[Eplov]

"Only one left," murmurs Nieli as she draws a bead on the sole remaining Void creature, lets out her breath, and fires.

Spoiler

[dice]22214[/dice]


Missed by 11. Arg.


Again, the shot goes wide.


"Close, but not close enough." Nieli says in disgust.

 

[Eplov]

"Nice!" Whoops Naomi as the explosion takes off the creepy navigator's legs. Her sister, normally quite competent with fire arms, seems to be having a bad day. In an effort to equal parts redeem the Rook family's marksmanship name and show up her sister, Naomi lines up the shot with her bolter and fires.

Spoiler

[dice]22215[/dice]


Damn, not a good day for the Rook sisters and guns.


The explosive round misses, probably hitting something important.


Growling under her breath, Naomi says to her hound, "Go kill that thing, Snuffles."


Again, eager to defend his mistress, Snuffles charges toward the wrong thing, ready to tear it to pieces.






[dice]22216[/dice]


Hit, 1 DOS.


[dice]22217[/dice]


Deadity dead dead.


Snuffles knocks the Warp Puppet to the ground and tears at it until it stops moving.


"Good dog!" Shouts Naomi.

 

[Eplov]

"Okay," Begins Naomi as she addresses everyone, "Now that we have a bit of breathing room, do you want me to try opening that door or do you want me to see what systems I can restore on this ship?"

 

[Protagonist]

"Okay," Begins Naomi as she addresses everyone, "Now that we have a bit of breathing room, do you want me to try opening that door or do you want me to see what systems I can restore on this ship?"

Apollo says "The door. I have a burning suspicion we aren't done with that guy yet."


He proceeds to head over to the console to see what he can he do about the door.


He heads over to the console and tries himself to get it open.


[dice]22219[/dice]


"Damn it!" he declares, as he can't figure out how to make it work.

 

[Eplov]

"Let me help you with that," says Naomi as she steps next to Apollo.

Spoiler

[dice]22220[/dice]


3DOS


She touches the console and...

 

[Protagonist]

It takes some time, but nonetheless, she's figuring it out.


The room starts to shake. Apollo asks "Kara? Do you know what's happening?"


Kara says "Negative".


Apollo turns to Apharius and asks "Can you figure out what's causing that shaking?"

 

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Carth stood up, the combat done. He swept the room one more time, taking care to make sure that there weren't going to be any more surprises. As he moved, he put a hotshot round in each of the corpse's heads, just to be sure. Others might have had qualms about 'desecrating the dead' or some nonsense, but he had no such issues.


The room started shaking just a few moments after he had shot the last body. Carth whirled to see the cause, noting Naomi and Apollo working on the door, mostly Naomi. Carth himself put a hand on one of the consoles to steady himself and kept watch for any surprises. His body was a mess of tension and wariness. It had been almost from the start of his career as a gunman on his home planet, but it had its moments of different amounts of tension. Here, it was getting ready for trouble, because that's what looked like was coming.