Dark Heresy - Night 5

The chase is on, everyone jumps aboard the ship in Port Suffering heading back to Scintilla. Kaltos is there to greet them in Scintilla and informs them that someone matching Skae's description, minus the mutations, was seen in Hive Tarsus, the second largest city on Scintilla, apparently recruiting soldiers. He was gone before anyone could confront him. They know his destination is Sentinel, from the reports submitted by Aristarchus. Everyone is loaded onto a ship and head off for Sentinel. The trip to Sentinel is longer than to Iocanthos, even though they are skipping the major warp pathways and going directly. Kaltos also sends his Biomancy advisor, Raltos (random rolled name), with them. This is partially because Shawn shows interest in becoming a Biomancer.

Once aboard the ship, Raltos takes off his helmet, and comments that he is glad to take that off finally.

When they arrive on Sentinel, it is quiet. After getting out of the spaceport they notice the bodies. Some are riddled with bullet holes, while others are just torn apart. No one is alive. James succeeds at a tracking roll and notices tracks going off into the desert. It is evening and thus the best time to be making this trek. They walk through the night and with Dawn coming the tracks still go on. Everyone decides to push on. An hour later a toughness test is made to see how everyone is still doing. Everyone passes.

After another hour of walking, a cave is found. The tracks go into the cave. Inside the cave, everyone can hear a whispering sound. Raltos is reminded of the legends of a xeno race known as the whisperers. A listen check is made a few more minutes into the cave, those that make it can hear gunfire. Next they come across a body of a human with weird bite marks all over it. It does have good armor and a photo-visor that allows for night vision. Alicia picks them up and puts both on.

Further into the cave, more gunfire can be heard, and they come across two more bodies. This time giant cockroach like animals are tearing and eating at the corpses. A whispering sound is coming from them. They stop eating and charge the PCs. After dispatching the whisperers, Shawn and AJ (who had to leave early and was now being played by me) equipped the new armor and helmets. Only Cheryl and James did not equip new armor. Cheryl because her chest piece already protected better and she couldn't replace the arms without replacing the chest piece. James really gives no reason for not equipping armor. With the way he is playing, I honestly don't expect his character to survive this entire story line.

The gunfire is getting louder as they venture further in the cave. Finally they reach an opening where they find 5 men garbed in the same armor as the corpses, one human corpse, several whisperer corpses, and 4 whisperers. The living men and whisperers are fighting each other. One of them men notices the PCs and aims his gun to fire on them. The players wipe out all but one of the men and all the whisperers. The last man runs towards a turn up ahead in the cave, only to have his head split open by a giant tentacle coming from around the corner.

Raltos leads the charge around the corner. Standing there in the cave is Abbot Skae in his horrible daemonic visage. Without warning, Raltos lobs a flash grenade at Skae, everyone wearing visors have to make an agility test. All the PCs succeed. Skae is blinded and stunned for 3 rounds. The fight lasts 3 rounds. First Raltos hit Skae hard in the head, followed by Alicia with a critical blow to the head with her chain axe. It only takes a few free shots after that to finish him off.

Behind Skae is an altar. On top of the altar sits a small needle like device attached to a half circle. It fits perfectly on the sphere James has and begins to spin. Raltos is amazed at the device. They start to leave. Skae is barely together but somehow manages to say, "This isn't over yet, the Dancer is coming and I will be there to see you all die at his hands." Skae stands up and tries to open a portal, similar to the one he escaped Iocanthos with, but it closes and fear crosses Skae's face. A daemonic voice is heard in everyone's head saying, "Skae you have failed me for the final time." At that hundreds and thousands of whisperers come out of every hole in the cave. They swarm over Skae devouring him leaving nothing but bones behind. The PCs aptly begin to run out of the cave. A couple of agility tests are needed but everyone makes it out fine. The whisperers do not chase out of the cave or even into the sun light.

Everyone heads back to Scintilla, this time taking the long and much safer way back. Shawn decides to do some research on St. Drusus and Drusus' dealings on Iocanthos. He finds out a lot of stuff he already knew. There are some dates missing and the actual source of the Dancer is not listed but he does discover the daemon's true name is Tsyiak. He also learns of how Drusus used Xeno technology to capture Tsyiak's soul in what the Eldar call a soulstone. Shawn learned about what soulstones were used for but little else. - "When the Eldar die, their souls are in danger of being devoured by the Chaos god Slaanesh. To prevent this, the Eldar created special Spirit Stones, which capture and contain their souls at the moment of death."

Kaltos was again waiting for them at Scintilla. He asked for the sphere and needle (the map) so that it could be studied. James, for some reason which he never explained, refused to hand it over. Kaltos nearly killed James right there. A compromise was reached where James would stay present for the studies being done on the map. The studies take about a month. They also discover a way to harness warp energy to activate the map instead of Aristarchus' or Cheryl's blood.

On one of the first days back, after defeating Skae, Cheryl goes out by herself shopping. She barely notices a flash of light in a tower, but has time to duck as a bullet barely misses her and strikes a person next to her. There is no doubt someone was aiming for her. When Kaltos finds out, he has some local law enforcement investigate the assassination attempt. He also lets none of the PCs go out without bodyguards.

That ended night 5.