Location - Pilgrimage of the Adepts
"Why are you so quiet now?" the younger boy asked to Sameya. They had stopped behind the main procession of the adepts, a few others behind them but by far they were near the end of the column of moving adepts. He had tugged at her robes, a simple hand holding on to the crimson hues of her robe, the gold lining catching the odd glint of light from a lighting globe the boy had grabbed along the refuse. "No matter how bad the enemy, no matter how many of them, the Overseer will be ok right?" he asked in almost a whispering voice. "Right?" he echoed once more in the growing darkness, the column of light progressing ahead much faster than the two who had stopped. "He is invincible right? Not even a baneblade could stop him?" the voice continued to grow more and more weary as time went on, the tears on cups of lips welling further and further before he one final tear broke the damn, the tears running silently down his cheeks. "Are we going to be OK?" he asked, his hands white and shaking as he continued to hold the fabric between fingers.
The last person in the column that was behind them managed to catch up, his rusted and creaking legs announcing his arrival as he drew behind the two people, resting a hand on either shoulder. "Now is not the time, the water system should be up and running any minute now, we need to keep pushing ahead, no matter how heavy our steps are" the older man said, easing them once more into walking down the corridor.
The trip continued in silence, for a few moments more, the servo skull whizzing around ahead showing the depths and position of the group as all the members continued to make their way. All around them the creaking and groaning of an age-old water system continued to make sounds, a low hum that built up intensity every couple of paces that proceeded. The servo skull made it's passes, checking their positions every few cycles, the glow of amber eyes from it's socket tracing symbols and lines around the curvature of the enclosed space. "At this rate we aren't going to make it." the man all the way in the back said, his slow pace constantly leaving him in the rear of the pack. He waved to the servo-skull, it's form drawing closer on micro engines, before speaking in a burst of code, a long static sound coming from his voice modulator. The servo skull chimed once, before a large map was projected onto the side of the pipes. "We are close to the middle tiers of the hive in the chasm. We won't make it all the way to the end in time. It is time we assume the manufactorum is lost, or will not be working any time soon, and get our way out of here." he continued to look at the map, the blue-white projection spinning against the curved section of piping it used as a make-shift tablet.
The older man had a mechendrite that pulled out from under his coat, the muzzle-break in the front, the heavy heat absorbing tubing leading to it, and the cylindrical contained clamped to it in a heavy metal all pointed to it being a melta gun. "Omnissiah forgive me, but I think it is best we jeopardize the operation now, for the future" he said. The rest of the adepts stood in place, all in various states of exhaustion, confusion, mourning, or denial. None decided to take a stance.
Location; Let's just have a nice illusion of a family.
Her mother leaned down instinctively, her fear running through her body as her extremities grew many shades paler, her breath clouding in the cold air of the under-hive rapidly as breaths continued to be taken in with sharper and more frequent inihaltions of cold air. Between two crimson robed arms she picked up Ishiko, pulling her close to her body as she stroked at the hair of the young girl, trying to re-assure herself as much as her child. "We are going to do whatever your father thinks is right dear" she said as calmly and soothingly as she could, before planting a kiss against her exposed forehead, her lips dry and chaffed as they withdrew. "Just be relaxed and don't show any fear." She closed the distance to her husband, standing slightly behind him so that more than half her body was covered by his form, her child's form completely covered as she took position.
The father stood in place, his feet planted firm against the frost covered grateing. Mere meters away the elevator stood open, it's lights and sounds a symbol of what he had planned to do with his family. He turned his head looking at his wife before taking a deep breath. "I am not that heartless, which is why time and time again your associate has approached me to help you. What I am heartless against, is that people who seek for help, would be armed in such a way as to inflict the need of seeking help on others." he said.
The leader of the group walked a little closer, the sound of ice crunching under steel reinforced boots, another anachronism on his clothes for the keen eyed Ishiko to pick at. He wore the robes of an adept, the armor of a defense force soldier, and the weapons of an illegal gun running operation, military grade weapons that have not yet been retired strapped to his sides. He pulled at the weapon to his side, a long needle rifle, a very exotic and rare weapon by any accounts, and brough it to rest in both hands. "You see good Doctor..." he continued to fiddle with the long barreled weapon in his hand, pulling open a breach and slipping open the feed. "It wasn't so much a proposition as it was a demand. You will be amply rewarded, don't get me wrong, but this is something you cannot just refuse without repercussion. We know what your daughter is after all... that should be leverage enough." He pulled a magazine from under his robes, slowly feeding it into the gun, before pulling a round into the chamber and once more sealing it off.
Her mother looked down to Ishiko, then back to her husband. "Is there something I should know here?" the father nipped it at the bud, not wanting to raise the tension of the already precarious position upon which the family stood. 'No, nothing." She wouldn't let it drop, "I have the right to know, I am her mother... I may not always be around but I need to know" she shouted, grabbing at him with an arm. He looked at her in the eye, a loud hissing noise resonating through the room, a small spray of blood dripping to the ground. Ishiko was dropped, her mother screaming in pain as she clutched at her arm, a small patch of crimson forming against the fabric of the material.
"What the frakk" her father shouted once more. "What the frakk..." he ran to his wife who slumped to the ground, before another loud hiss resonated through the room. "Don't be too surprised" the man said over the wails of her father. "It's but a scratch, nothing more than a lethal venom. You see good Doctor, you will slowly and excruciatingly feel pain, until we give you an antidote, so consider your time wisely, after all, it's a proposition you have been dying to accept, no?" the man said gesturing to more and more of his wounded colleagues that were pouring in from all corridors. Her father was barely upright on both knees, a small stain running along his back.
Location; Awkward Aside, the Elevator Ride with a Bang
Catherine shook her hand free of the sure-grip of the noble girl, not used to people grabbing for a hand that she never extended, but thought better of it before giving a nod once more to the girl. "An unfortunate turn of events indeed for your step-father. I wonder what could have happened to him?" she mused to herself happily pretending to run along with the ruse. Behind her eyes the light continued to scroll, her interfacing with the machine spirit of the network around her an extension of her very will, bringing a smile to her face. She unhooked the tendril from the machine, the sharp tip of the mechanical limb rubbing itself clean on the back of the noble girl, before once more pulling itself inside the admantium confines. It slowly unravalled out from around the arm, loosening in intensity and strength as it finally freed the girl from it's grab. The tendril continued to squirm on it's own, coming to rest at the face of the young master-artisan, her hands roaming across the surface of the material and knocking at it from time to time with the back of one knuckle. "I guess to the uninitiated anything that isn't mere flesh and bones is not an extension of your body, but I feel through this, I become one with the omnissiah through this thing. Just like how the blood that flows through your veins entitles you to that of a noble status, the logical extension of my will is my mark as an adept. Not that someone who got pampered most of her life would care of course." she said with a hint of scorn.
"The downside of course, is that people that are but flesh and bones don't get to live nearly as long as I do, and they tend to lie. Look at you, you can almost feel the residual weight on your shoulders of having murdered the man that raped you." she said rather bluntly. "Unless...". A second tendril came out from under the robe, once more with a long adamantium tip exposed, before ramming it's way home to another of the data ports on the elevator. "Unless... he touched someone else. Did he have a rape baby with your mother? Did he touch a sibling?" she said. "Ah well, a mystery not for me to figure out, all I need is a bit of your assistance."
She stepped away from the girl, giving Veronica her back before once more speaking. "You see noble, the way things are now, it's not exactly working. The rich get richer, and the poor get sicker. I am not much of a pragmatic person, hell I am not even that much of an adult, but you see, the problem is the sustainability of this planet. I believe it's time for a new era." she once more flipped around, placing her animal-faced mask, the stylized fangs on the re-breather looking all the more sinister under the natural light, the elevator car finally breaking up above the polluted sky of cloud cover. "When we are getting off this elevator, a new world is going to happen, with or without you. I figure it is up to you if you want to facilitate that change, or be swept up and away with it." Her eyes narrows in what could have only been an assumed smile.
