The Expedition - Necromunda forum RPG [New players welcome!]

[CaptainDangerous]

A bag hit tex in the head, no doubt thrown from above, he felt annoyed until he saw that it was giselde who threw it.
The beating the hag gaven had cleared the thick of the ash from him, and the dropping of his sleeping bag had knocked abit more off, (she mustn’t have wanted him to get cold during the night cycle he thought), but tex dusted himself down the best he could and looked at the bits of vase he managed to scoop up before he couldn’t handle the broom strokes any longer!
He laid them out on a nearby crate and peiced a couple of sections together.......that is the symbol for warning.....and this one was.....he couldn’t quite tell.....deamon....devil......warp.......?.......no, that’s one that he’ll have to look up when he gets home, he made a mental note.
As he sat there with his sleeping bag wrapped around his shoulders and his newly claimed bits of pottery arranged in front of him, tex looked around him and it somehow felt alittle darker and colder.

 

[KopMcGinty]

Tex was out in the dark, Sev asleep almost instantly though it took the others longer to settle.

Bella had fought the urge to sleep as long as she could till fnally on the verge of giving in herself, the room was silent save for the groups collective snoring.

Gliding silently across to where the Guilder slept between her muscle, Bella carefully drew Cairistiana's pack aside. Her heart almost jumping out of her chest when Brucke suddenly rolled over.. seconds passed and it was clear he was still sleeping before Bella again moved.

Rummaging careful through the pack Bella was about to give up on discovering anything of note when tucked at the bottom of the bag she found an opened letter.

"For Cairistiana Wector" she mouthed silently as she read on.

Well, well. Maybe not the smoking gun Bella had hoped for but the letter certainly raised more questions in Bella's mind than it answered.

"Definately should have asked more questions before signing up" was her last thought minutes later, when with the letter and bag carefully returned to their original location, Bella drifted off into an unsettled slumber.

 

[HorribleHedgehog]

Staring intently at the pottery shards and their ominous transcriptions, Tex suddenly caught himself nodding off. Although his discovery of the vase and the subsequent beating had kept him relatively animated, truth was he had been running on fumes for most of the day. Years spent counterfeiting vases and downing pints at the Mutie had hardly prepared him for forced marches through the badzones.

Figuring he'd have time to study the shards later, he hauled himself to a nearby man-sized depression on the hive floor and slithered into his sleeping bag. Sleep came almost immediately.

***

Tex found himself navigating a maze of tunnels. Sometimes the walls were of steel, sometimes of rock, and sometimes he couldn't tell. Truth be told, he wasn't paying much attention to the minute details of his surroundings; all he knew was that he had to get out of here, fast.

But the tunnels kept on going and going. Every door Tex opened revealed more corridors; every corner he turned revealed another door.

Behind him, he could hear the faint chime of bells and weak echoes of singing. Tex couldn't tell when the singing had begun, just as he couldn't tell how long he had been stumbling around in the maze, all he could tell was that he knew the song.

It was all wrong, of course, but he knew it. It was an old drinking song, one he'd oft sing with Slim Jim and Rooster at the Mutie, but this time there wasn't a slightest hint of drunken cheer or celebration. Instead, the droning, monotonous chant sounded like it originated from a choir of dead children.

"What will we do with the drunken scummer
what will we do with the drunken scummer
what will we do with the drunken scummer
early in the morning?

Way-hay and up she rises
way-hay and up she rises
way-hay and up she rises
early in the morning..."

Tex was out of breath, his legs made of lead and running in a lake of tar. But the singing was coming closer and he couldn't stop, he couldn't turn around, so in a panicked haze he kept on stumbling through doorway after doorway.

"Shoot him through the heart with a loaded pistol
shoot him through the heart with a loaded pistol
shoot him through the heart with a loaded pistol
early in the morning...

Slice his throat with a rusty cleaver
slice his throat with a rusty cleaver
slice his throat with a rusty cleaver
early in the morning..."

Throwing himself through yet another doorway, Tex tripped on the threshold and stumbled on all fours. Just then, the singing stopped. Still panicked, he scrambled to get back on his feet and looked around himself.

He was standing in a large chamber, the walls of which were made from some kind of yellow stone, looking much too archaic to be found anywhere in the hive. The brickwork was covered in markings, some of which Tex thought he recognized - but before he could examine the murals more closely, his attention was drawn to a humanoid figure standing exactly in the middle of the chamber, facing away from him.

Tex tried to squint to get a better look, but dismayingly realized he couldn't focus on the character - their body seemed to twist away from his eyes, the shapes warping and deforming wherever he tried to concentrate his gaze on.

The figure turned around. Tex's heart did its best to batter a hole into his ribcage and escape from the resulting hole.

It was Gesilde. Or her face, at least, and she was smiling the most beautiful and frightening smile Tex could imagine.

"Hello there... love."

***

Tex nearly screamed upon waking up. His pulse was racing and he was covered in cold sweat. Shaking, he slumped back into his ditch, trying to make sense of the bizarre dream, when he was again startled by sounds.

Barking, followed by a cuff and a whine, then words in a hushed tone: "Shut it, dumb mutt. You'll give us away."

Still trying to clear his head, the potter did his best to listen in to the quiet words coming from somewhere nearby.

"Hizzer, go get the rest. Tell the boss they've shacked up with the hermit. Me an' Fangsy are gonna keep an eye on them 'till you get back."

 

[CaptainDangerous]

Tex was no stranger to bad dreams, the cold sweats, the feeling of dread, the tiring restlessness, but this was something completely different, both awesome and terrifying, he had never had a dream like this before ...giselde was there and she had called him love!!
Tex pulled out his pottery guide and opened the back page where he had started to write a poem about a gorgeous girl without a nose, he found his pen and was about to write a new line when he heard them...
Emperor protect, SCAVS! Tex worriedly thought.
With slow deliberation tex gently closed the book and placed any creative thoughts of behind closed doors ....behind closed doors ....many many doors!
He shuffled slightly as to become one with his sleeping hole and tactically pulled the drawstring of his sleeping bag so that only his eyes could be seen.

 

[HorribleHedgehog]

Soon Tex could hear footsteps approaching the general vicinity of his hole. Careful to remain unnoticed, he lifted his neck slightly to catch a glimpse of the approaching figures.

There were two of them, a human and a dog. The human was obviously a scav: her gaunt face was riddled with pock-marks, warts and scars, and the left side of her torso and her left arm were grossly overgrown and muscled due to some vile mutation. The shoulder and forearm of the mutated limb were dotted with jagged bone growths. She was of a lean but sinewy build, with sparse white hair covering her scalp. She was armed with a homemade shotgun slung on her shoulder.

Spoiler: Scavvy tracker

The mangy hound next to her was a sad sight: bony and malnourished, with few patches of matted fur dotting its scar-covered body.

Suddenly Tex froze, as he saw the mutt sniffing the air, looking directly towards his hideaway. As the dog started loping towards him, Tex begun a silent prayer to the Emperor, hoping the heavy air of the underhive would be enough to mask his scent.

Soon the hound, still sniffing intently, was close enough to touch Tex's sleeping bag. He held his breath, his heartbeat steadily rising with every passing second. Please don't make a sound, please don't make a sound....

Then the dog barked.

Tex felt every muscle in his body tense and a warm feeling spreading from his groin as his bladder emptied itself. This further aggravated the dog, whose barking intensified in volume.

Suddenly, the barking was cut short by a growl from the scavvy tracker. "Fangsy, QUIET! One more bark and I'll make a meal of you, you goddamn mutt..."

Looking back towards his master and then to Tex again, the dog let out a small whimper, but eventually returned to the tracker's side. The pair continued on, leaving the potter's field of view.

Tex, now shaking like a particularly delicate leaf in a particularly violent storm, let out a small sigh of relief and decided to find a better hiding place at the earliest opportunity.

***

The faint sounds of barking echoing below roused Cairistiana from her restless sleep. Unthinkingly, she started looking for her data-monocle to check the time - surely there were still a few more hours of time for sleep... then her brain started processing what she had heard.

Barking? If there were wild dogs living here, she certainly hadn't seen any. The worrying implications acting as a potent stimulus, she started wiggling her way out of her sleeping bag, causing several others to stir with her flailing, before she was stopped by the hermit's low voice.

"You'd best stay put, Guilder." Babayj was sitting on the edge of her bed, long rifle leveled at Cairistiana. "You heard those barks too, didn't you? Wild dogs wouldn't come this close. I've taught them the hard way."

The guilder gulped, staring down the barrel of the gun. Her mind was still trying to put the situation together. Seeing her guest wasn't going to speak, the hermit continued.

"So that means there's somebody down there. And there ain't nodoby around these parts except me and the scavvies."

Cairistiana nodded. Hard to deny that line of reasoning. The silence kept stretching for what felt like minutes as Babayj examined the guilder.

"Hmph. You don't seem the type to work with scavvies, so that means they're after you."

Cairistiana nodded again.

"And that means there's going to be a whole bunch of them, if there isn't already. All headed to my home." The hermit's eyes narrowed menacingly.

Feeling she had to try and take control of the situation before the hermit did anything too rash, Cairistiana finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry... I didn't think they'd catch up to us this quickly. We weren't even sure if there was any pursuit at all... but whatever happens now, we're standing in the same shit-drain. We can deal with this together."

Babayj snorted disapprovingly. "Or I could just put a pretty bow on you and throw you to the scavs."

Cairistiana bit her lip and was about to answer, until suddenly sensing movement from behind her...

 

[KopMcGinty]

Carefully keeping Cairistiana between herself and the lethal looking long rifle, Bella lined up a shot with her Laspistol. While she'd prefer to be dealing with this blades in hand, it was close enough range Bella was confident the laspistol would do the job. Besides, their hostess wasn't to know she was a mediocre shot at best.

"That's a bow you won't get to tie" she countered the old woman. "I'd really prefer you didn't kill the lady with the money but rest assured you'll join her on the floor!"

Seeing the hag tense ready for action and very aware of how fast the woman had been able to move earlier, Bella relaxed her pose just slightly and paused an eternal second before continuing.

"Me putting a lasbolt between your eyes would be a poor way to return your hospitality though".

Praying to the God Emperor she barely beljeved in it was the right move, she raised the pistol so it was no longer directly pointed at the Babayj, "Now, what do you think about us all teaching these scav dregs a lesson they won't soon forget?"

 

[HorribleHedgehog]

Babayj scowled, but finally lowered her rifle.

"Hmph. I'm not left with much of a choice, am I?" She stated sullenly.

Behind Cairistiana and Bella, the other expeditioneers were quickly waking up, warily eyeing the situation. For a moment nobody spoke, until the hermit broke the silence.

"Well, what are you all gawking at? Get up, up and about!" She angrily snapped at the confused adventurers.

Fixing her gaze on Cairistiana, she continued in a more restrained tone. "If we're doing this, you'd best listen to my advice, guilder. I know my neighbours and the terrain better than any other living soul. Don't you forget that."

Cairistiana acknowledged her with a nod. "If you have a plan, I'm all ears."

Babayj, though still grouchy, seemed pleased at the question. "If we try to hole up in here, they'll smoke us out - I've seen them use makeshift gas bombs in hunting. They chuck one of those in a rat nest and kill the vermin when they scurry out. Staying up here isn't an option."

Cairistiana lifted an eyebrow worriedly. "What do you propose, then?"

"Well, we have to meet them on the ground. Assuming the dog out there belongs to a tracker, we should have a few hours before the rest arrive. You sneak out, kill the scout AND the dog, and set up an ambush. There's plenty of hiding places if you know where to look, and lucky for you I do."

"And if the rest of them are here already?" Asked Cairistiana.

"Then were as good as dead" the hermit stated flatly. "But the fact they haven't attacked yet makes me optimistic."

"Unless anyone has a better plan..." Cairistiana turned to her group and surveyed them. They had done an admirable job of collecting themselves during the discussion. If any of them had a suggestion, they weren't ready to share it. The guilder glanced at Gesilde and then Bella, addressing them directly.

"Gesilde, Bella, you two are the quickest of us. I need you to pop outside and take care of the scout and his little canine companion before they can scurry back to the main scavvy band." Without waiting for a reply, she spun to address their host. "Babayj, can you cover them from the balcony?"

"Sure. But my rifle is a bolt action and, frankly, has seen better days - don't count on getting more than one shot from me." Babayj paused for a bit before continuing. "You can signal me when you need it. A lasbolt directly upwards. Got it?"