I promised to lecture after father Leganus was killed, so I went back to the church today for the sermon. Ragaa came along and by the looks on his face he really liked the sermon. After that, we decided to scout out the place of the meeting before the actual time so we would at least have a safe route for approach and retreat we already knew before we actually would go to this "meeting".
Even now that I knew what to expect, I still can't stand the look and smell of those lower layers of the hive. The people at the church were very friendly and helpful and gave an excellent description of how to reach water tower number 4. It looks like this is part of yet another ancient city that was built over. The site where we found the water tower is a very maze of passageways, alleys, hidden drops, ... and in the middle of gang territories.
Good thing we came to scout up front. After we made sure that we had safe entries and exits to the area, we looked for a nice vantage point from where we could overlook the tower. We decided that it would be opportune to have Ragaa stay here until the actual time of the meeting so he could overlook everyone who would come from and go to the tower.
At the same time when Ragaa and I went to the church and scouted out the water tower, Victus Axtaxis and Fylan Distro went to investigate at the administratum to see if they could get some more information about Kaspaar, the dead imperial guard on leave. After some social maneuvering they found out that Kaspaar was on leave after he claimed to have seen the ghost ship "Octavious".
In the meantime Calvin Octavius, the techpriest, went to the mechanicum to investigate that strange slime or goo we found on the necks of the decapitated victims of the Down pour ripper. We still haven't heard back from him yet.
Sure enough, the one who signed the note was NOT a friend. As soon as we walked into the spot for the meeting, a vile character spoke to us. "So you have come." he said, "You have no business in our turf. You have no rights being here intervening with our church. This entire area belongs to the Brotherhood of the knife."
Then things happened really fast. The one who did address us rolled some kind of a grenade towards us. Bracing ourselves for the explosion, we were caught by surprise. The grenade was no ordinary grenade. Instead of exploding it released a vapor of some sort. It was too late to get away from the smoke filling the area. Instantly I felt that something was wrong. My head started to spin as I struggled to resist whatever poison or chemical I had breathed in.
We managed to hurt some of them before the effect of the gas took effect. After that, things became more and more strange. I heard screams from one of my companions, but I couldn't figure out what he was afraid of although he started to run away frenetically. Only a few seconds later, the effect of the smoke overwhelmed me as well. Where first there were pillars and walls, all of a sudden strange horrific creatures appeared. It took all our strength of will to overcome and deny those strange visions.
Good thing that we were strong willed. One by one, we managed to overcome the effect of the hallucinogenic grenade and gain the upper hand in the battle. We managed to finish off the remaining foes and chased the one that escaped. Suffer not the unclean, suffer not the impure, suffer not the weak and suffer not the Heretic! Thus none was allowed to survive! After we finished interrogating the one we captured, we executed him and burned their remains.