Asking around about that Kulrak character, Victus quickly found out, among some of the more senior population, that brother Kulrak is some kind of a genius that preaches among the gangers. He lives in one of the gang territories. So we went first to the only gang that we already had some "friendly" encounter with, the Freebooters. For sure they were not happy to see us. We had been making a little bit too much ruckus down here in this area. The goons we were talking to seemed to have never heard about this brother Kulrak. So we urged to talk to their boss. After some negotiating we were brought before Johnny "The Boss".
He looked annoyed that we disturbed him. Also he was angry that we disturbed the other gang, "The Brotherhood Of The Knife". He didn't know Kulrak personally but he knew for sure that he was with the Brotherhood. The fact that they were at war with the brotherhood of the knife, and we acted against them seemed to ease the negotiations a little bit. Apparently the other gang changed their name to the Brotherhood Of The Knife after they became chaos worshipers and are openly trying to claim Freebooter territory for their own.
We started to explain that if this threat was not met now, the empire would send in the heavy troops to clean everything out. Now he saw our point. Even more, we explained that the Brotherhood would be vulnerable after we cut off the head of the snake. Johnny "The Boss" would send out some scouts to find the whereabouts of brother Kulrak and told us to be back in a few hours. Personally, I detested the fact that we were forging an alliance between the Freebooters and ourselves, but I could see that we didn't have much of a choice.
We took the time to grab something to eat and prepare, knowing that venturing through the hostile territory of the Brotherhood would be dangerous. When we returned to the Freebooters, we found out that they held up their end of the bargain and provided us with the location of brother Kulrak and a "safe" route to reach it. Following the pointers that they gave us, we made it deep into Brotherhood territory until we reached a point where we had to fight our way across.
Our little group of acolytes was getting better and better, I'm proud to say. As soon as we did encounter the fortification on our path, we acted as a real team with true military discipline, even the ones that do not have such a background. Scouting out the best possible route through the area and picking a defendable way point where we would run for. We kenw that we would be spotted as soon as we decided to move, but we had a solid plan. Ragaa, sneaked up to the first way point. As soon as we had him there, we could provide cover fire from two different points. With this advantage we made it across in two separate runs. Taking almost no hits and managing to damage some of the sentries that were posted along the ledges.
We ventured forth towards the hangout of brother Kulrak we found ourselves in the deepest and most disgusting area of the hive we had yet seen. The further we got, the more we had the feeling that something was terribly wrong here. Graffiti with violent slogans were painted over with arcane symbols everywhere. The whole area had a sinister atmosphere and the tubes and pipes even felt like making strange noises and the sewage here in the alleyways and the sewer system had an eerie purple glow.
Everything here was creepy. Ignorance is bliss, that goes especially to those who live at the top of a hive, but deep down here in the lowest regions of the under hive it is a completely different story. As we rounded one of the so many corners here in this gigantic maze we were startled by discorded music coming from a archway up ahead. As we came closer, a deep daemonic evil sounding voice spoke to us:
"Yours is a false god, he is a non existent who turned his back to humanity eons ago. He never wanted to be worshipped and thus he does not listen, for how can he?
He is a corpse who is kept alive by psyker powers.
Something that your precious church views as an anathema to the empire.
Your church, who based its books on My Lords work, the Book of Lorghar.
"From the fires of Betrayal unto the blood of revenge we bring the name of Lorgar, the Bearer of the Word, the favored Son of Chaos, all praise be given to him. From those that would not heed we offer praise to those who do, that they might turn their gaze our way and gift us with the Boon of Pain, to turn the Galaxy red with the blood, and feed the hunger of the Gods.
My gods are the true gods, all powerful, undying and masters of the universe!"
He is a corpse who is kept alive by psyker powers.
Something that your precious church views as an anathema to the empire.
Your church, who based its books on My Lords work, the Book of Lorghar.
"From the fires of Betrayal unto the blood of revenge we bring the name of Lorgar, the Bearer of the Word, the favored Son of Chaos, all praise be given to him. From those that would not heed we offer praise to those who do, that they might turn their gaze our way and gift us with the Boon of Pain, to turn the Galaxy red with the blood, and feed the hunger of the Gods.
My gods are the true gods, all powerful, undying and masters of the universe!"
It is hard to admit but the sound and message of that voice had me shiver with fear for a moment. By the looks of it, most of us were rattled at least. But we came here with a mission, to stop the Downpour Ripper for good. Once we composed ourselves, we made our way into the hideout. As we entered the narrow corridor, all of us were startled by the looks of the device that played that awful sounding "music". Hanging from the wall was a wooden board with a violin. That was not the what made it frightening though; attached to it was a severed arm that was playing it! |
We cautiously made our way through the hallway. Ready to react at whatever was waiting for us here in this hideout of those chaos worshiping bastards. Everyone felt it, the evil in the air. In military style we advanced through the entranceway but distracted as I was with that creepy fiddle and the bewildering noise clouding my senses, I didn't notice a Gloomhaunt charging straight for me.
The rest was paying attention, but the sheer speed and agility of the creature made them miss. I learned my lesson from the previous encounter with one of those things and immediately tried to grapple it in order to stop it from hugging my face. Sure enough once it was immobilized, it was easy to kill. But no sooner as I got hold of the beast, a woman came from behind the corner at the end of the hall blasting with a shotgun in our direction. Our training really is paying off now. It shows by the fact that Fylan was already standing in cover guarding the corner and blasted her at the moment she rounded it. Shots were fired back and forth and after a few salvos she ducked back from where she came from.
We wanted to get after her but by the moment we came to the end of the hallway and rounded the corner, that's when all hell broke loose. We were met by a hail of bullets flying through the next aisle. A mutant wielding an autogun standing at the opposite end had opened fire on us. A shock went through us as we recognized, though it was barely, the face of the mutant. It resembled picts we saw of Kaspar the imperial guard. Now we knew for sure he never actually was killed by the Downpour Ripper as we suspected. A whole lot of bullets hosed down the corridor. Hitting us and the violin behind us on the wall. Freaky to see that it kept on playing while bleeding from its arm.
It went from bad to worse after that. Ragaa froze by the sight of this heavily mutated human. Sally, the woman with the shotgun popped out from behind a corner and opened fire also. A huge firefight erupted. Suddenly in the midst of the chaos, a psyker joined the fight as well. Things got very complicated and confusing from then on with the psyker. Our luck turned as the gun from the mutant jammed. We made the most out of the opportunity and rushed forwards. Dividing our attention between the gunners and the psyker. He must be the Downpour Ripper I thought.
The chaotic fight went on, bullets flying, people hacking at each other in close combat melee and in between all of this a psyker teleporting, shooting bolts of phychic energy and casting fear in our hearts and then again phasing out of reach. It was tough, and close. It went on for like what seemed forever and some of us got hit good and were badly hurt. In the end we managed to turn the tide of the battle in our favor and killed the opposition.
Licking our wounds and trying to get a grip on what just happened we stared in disbelieve at the corpse of a man, barely alive with dozens of white gloomy eggs bursting out of his flesh. We killed the man and burned his body in order to cease the hatching of the eggs and stop the spawning of whatever creatures were growing inside. After a thorough search of the hideout in which we found the lost captains log of the Octavius and a picture of a man that was clearly being worshiped by these heretics. |
There was no name on the picture of worship, but we knew who this had to be: Lorgar Aurelian, the Urizen. We looted all the weapons from the bodies. We need to have them purified as quickly as possible before we use them. We'd better tuck them away safely for now. Among the other items we found in the lair were documents that identificated the man we came here to face and had just slain. As we already had guessed, the identity of the Downpour Ripper was none else than Brother Kulrak himself. |
Without a doubt on anyone's mind, we knew what had to be done here. We rounded up all the bodies, the painting, the violin and everything else here in this evil lair and threw it all on a large pile. Burn everything and let nothing survive so no one or nothing else can get tainted by it.
As the fire started to blaze and began to consume it all, I stared into the flames. I touched my Aquila necklace with my left hand, grabbed my ecclesiastic chaplet and held it in front of me with my right hand and started to recite:
While vile mutants still draw breath
There can be no peace.
While obscene heretics hearts still beat,
there can be no respite.
While faithless traitors still live
There can be no forgiveness.
There can be no peace.
While obscene heretics hearts still beat,
there can be no respite.
While faithless traitors still live
There can be no forgiveness.