Session 7: Here We Go Again on Our Own

As if barely surviving an exterminatus wasn't enough stress for us to go through, we have to endure whatever torchers Lady Rathbone cooked up due to our "infidelity" with Inquisitor Christoff. Frack that Braxton and his big mouth! Oh well, I do not fear death and will not be scared by that woman. I have faced death before and come out the other side a true devotee of the Emperor. If he feels that my time has come to an end, then so be it.
 
As the door was locked behind me I used this time to perform prayers and reflect on all that has happened and what place I have in this world. But before I could get too far with my thoughts, I began to hear screams of pain and agony or is it perverted pleasure? I concentrated on the voice to see if I could place it as Rat's or Yarn's voice as Veck's voice was distinctly unique, but to my surprise, these screams of agony appeared to be coming from Braxton. I'm not sure how he managed to maintain the snobby tone of his normal voice even through screaming but his voice was definitely the source. Should I feel pity for his suffering or should I pray to the Emperor his suffering isn't passed on to the rest of my comrades? To my surprise, shortly after Braxton's voice faded, my door was unlocked. I emerged to find a beleaguered but still living Braxton. If I didn't know better, I would have thought he had a smile on his face as though he had done something amazing. I was pleased to see none of the others had received this torture, only Braxton.
 
Now some may be thinking why would Lady Rathbone choose to "punish" the person that gave her all the information versus those that did not. Well the answer is quite simple, out of all of us, Braxton is clearly the weakest willed just based on his behavior. Torturing me would get her nowhere, which I'm guessing she already knew; torturing Yarn would have been nothing more than a day in the park for him; and torturing Rat would also be a dead end as he tortures himself on a daily basis and I'm not sure Rathbone could do worse. And that leaves Veck, well Veck would be easy to attain information from, but not without killing him outright and I'm not sure the Adeptus Mechanicus would look kindly on killing one of their own without consulting them first. Therefore, the logical choice was Braxton. I wish I could say that I felt an ounce of sympathy for him, but due to his lack of candor and utter stupidity he walked right into this situation. Hopefully he will learn something from this, but sadly I'm afraid that won't happen. Inspecting Braxton, he seems no worse for the wear given what he had been through. Lady Rathbone instructed us all to get a good nights sleep as we were going on or next mission in the morning.
 
The next morning Lady Rathbone provided us with our mission. Our new mission was to infiltrate a heretical noble on Scintilla and take him down and confiscate any heretical items. Why do I keep getting sent to deal with heretical nobles? His name was Bulagor Thrungg. Apparently he was caught red handed purchasing heretical items and is known to have something called the Museum of Apostasy. We were to complete this mission in conjuncture with the Scintillian Protectorate. We had a battle plan and each of us were to play our part, ours was to infiltrate the chapel and find Thrungg and his heretical museum. We left for Scintilla and our new mission.
 
Upon arriving on Scintilla, we were greeted by Captain Skippio of the Scintillian Protectorate. He outfitted us with gravt-chutes so that we could make our breach of the chapel from the skylight. I wasn't sure about this, but it appeared to be the best option. Soon we left and were off to the noble household. The grounds were a battleground. This reinforced Captian Skippio's plan and put me a bit more at ease. Yarn and Veck took point and the rest of us followed. I'm not sure why, but Braxton was bringing a suitcase and a briefcase with him, but it was distinctly him. As we were descending through the newly open air roof of the chapel, Yarn noticed a pair of guards and a gun-servitor at the entrance. Given that we were told the chapel would be empty, Yarn went into battle mode and threw a frag grenade in their general direction. I say that as he missed them completely, but managed to take out any cover they may have easily found. We all landed safely, thanks to the gravt-chutes, and all took cover. There was an imminent gunfight. The first guard ran to cover. The second appeared shocked at our arrival and the gun-servitor prepared for battle. Rat deftly shot the guard in cover and managed to blow off a huge chunk of the guards face. Yarn felt the gun-servitor was a larger threat and shot at him. And Veck's new servo-skull also took a shot at the guard behind cover as well. What happened next was both surprising and horrifying.
 
The other guard dropped his weapon and surrendered. With that you'd think that the gun-servitor would have stood down; however, he set his sights on Yarn. It opened fire and three shots punctured Yarns body and he fell over to the ground. Veck quickly reacted and had his servo-skull power down the gun-servitor and luckily was successful. With the gun-servitor deactivated, the other guard surrendered. Rat and I secured the two guards while Veck tended to Yarn. Braxton insured that his suitcase wasn't damaged. Luckily, Veck was able to bring Yarn back to his feet, though he still looked rough. Upon rising to his feet, Yarn approached the guards with a knife in his hand. I didn't think it possible, but he stabbed one of the guards to death and headed towards the other. I stayed his hand and tried to calm him. But before I could calm him completely, Braxton shot the guard. Given what Yarn had been through, I understood his response, but Braxton's was uncalled for.
 
While we were dealing with the guards, Veck had discovered the body of a priest and called me over to help him investigate. The priest arm was ripped off and black feathers were stuffed in the place where his arm had been. Upon closer look, the priest was the family priest to the noble house and he possessed some documents on him. I tried to read the documents but realized the wording was that of Imperial Creed and I was too stressed at the time to translate it. Braxton, being the overly confident person that he is, tried to read the document. Oh he read it, no fracking clue what it said, but he "successfully" read the document. At that moment we heard a buzzing in our com-bead, Captain Skippio was updating us on the location of Bulagor Thrungg and instructed us to get moving.
 
We took the documents with us, I figured I could try to translate them later. We went to the back door and Veck stopped us. He told us that he sensed there was a fire behind the door. With caution, Veck slowly opened the door and we found that the hall was on fire. We had to traverse down this inferno of a hallway to find our quarry. It was unpleasant with the smoke, but we trudged on until we came across a door blocked by a large piece of furniture. We decided to take the time to see what was behind the door. We opened it to find a young servant girl hiding behind a bunch of mannequins. I was able to calm her and discover a little information. Apparently her master had done something to his arm and he had shut her in the closet to die. I asked her where we could find her master. She told us the Menagerie and we sent her to find a safe way out. While I was calming this poor young girl, Braxton was apparently extending his wardrobe and packed his bags full of new outfits. After Braxton was done supplementing his wardrobe, we moved further down the hall to the Menagerie.
 
Upon arriving at the Menagerie, we found a steel door locked. Rat moved forward and happened to have the keys on him. Smart and sly, that one. As we opened the door we found a horrific scene. All the bird cages were opened and the birds were flying about fighting to try and escape the Menagerie. Their wings blotted out the sun and enveloped us in darkness. Before us stood the heretic Bulagor Thrungg, though his left arm seemed to be altered, not altered but replaced. It was a grotesque site with claw like hands with a vambrace adorned with protruding bone shards. On either sides of him stood what can only be described as reptilian dog-like creatures that appeared starving.
 
Bulagor Thrungg began to do what all nobles do, talk to much. He appeared to have a relationship of some sort with Braxton and his family. Why does every heretical noble we meet seems to recognize Braxton? Braxton being Braxton, insulted Thrungg's parties. But I digress. We again found ourselves in a fight. I drew my new modified pistol and aimed at Thrungg. I was more concerned about him than the hellish reptilian-dogs. Veck was more concerned with the dog-like creatures that were racing toward us. One of the creatures headed toward me, but I was still laser focused on Thrungg. Veck was jumped by one of the dogs-like creatures and was pinned to the ground. It appeared to take a hard bite out of Veck's metal exterior but the damage was manageable, or at least I thought it was given my limited understanding of medicine and the mechanicus in general. Again, I was focused on Thrungg, who was in turn focused on Braxton. On Luggnum, the nobles wanted to recruit him, here they wanted to kill him, why was I not surprised by either of these revelations? Again, I digress.
 
Thrungg brought his monstrous arm to bare and fired two boney shards in Braxton's direction. Braxton deftly dodged the clumsy heretical attack and focused his attention on the dogs as they were the closest threat to us and he seemed to have a desire to engage in hand to hand combat. He noticed the other dog had also taken interest in Veck and began to attack the prone target. Very smart reaction from this reptilian beast, it appeared that they had a pack mentality and were utilizing hunting skills, but also something more. I finally was able to take my shot at Thrungg and it hit mightily. Granted using Man-Stopper bullets surely assisted in the damage he received and I was willing to use these as I wanted him dead as soon as possible as he was a larger threat in my mind. The servo-skull followed suit and the heretic fell to the ground. Now here comes the interesting observation, when I hit Thrungg the lizard-dogs reacted as though they had been hit as well and their focuses momentarily changed. It was almost as if they were linked to Thrungg or the heretical item he now brandished as his left arm.
 
With Thrungg dealt with, we could now focus all of our attention on the dogs. Oh I did forget to mention that Braxton did try to harm one of the creatures with his silken gloves, and I could have sworn that I saw a spark of energy come forth from them. But as the gloves seemed to have no effect on the creatures, I'm guessing it was some sort of static electric shock. Given Braxton's shoe type, his ability to build a static charge would be easy. But again, I digress. Back to the dogs, we, for lack of a better term, dogpiled on them to help Veck break free from their double teamed attack. I tried to shoot the dog that was freely attacking Veck, but I missed, but by the Emperor's grace the shot went into the creature pinning him instead. Braxton, seeing his static shock had no effect, switched to using his feet, but more importantly his shoes. It seems that he received a new toy in the form of hidden daggers in the toes of his shoes. He put them to good work and landed some amazing blows to the creature. I believe he may have actually castrated it given it's reaction to being kicked. I haven't mentioned Yarn at all in this battle, and that isn't fair. He was safely staying back due to his injuries, but he still joined the fight, as did Rat. They both assisted in taking down the dogs as well, but I felt the need to detail Braxton's contribution as it was both funny and impressive at the same time.
 
With both lizard-dog creatures bested, we headed to Thrungg's body. The monstrous arm had detached from his body leaving behind a foul ichor ozzing from the place on Thrungg's body it was resting. Looking over the rest of his body, he had nothing else noteworthy other than some money and plain weapons. This "arm" was the only thing of interest, but what should we do with it? And where is the Museum of Apostasy? What other horrors await us in this heretical compound? The answers can only be found by venturing forth into the unknown of this heretical noble house.