Wrath and Duty 6

<StaffenGM> Empty segments of ceramite armor roll down the steps of the Grand Dome. Before you looms the sarcophagus of the lost and damned from a battle ten-thousand years past; behind you, the self-same battle wages, patch by patch, time slowly breathing life again into the inanimated bodies.
<StaffenGM> Medjed's battle-brothers are fighting valiantly -- and valiantly losing.
<StaffenGM> You have made your choice.
<StaffenGM> Medjed rushes forwards, pushing open the mighty doors of the Grand Dome. His touch illuminates script on the surface of the door, so finely-enscribed that it hurts the eyes to focus on.
<StaffenGM> "We must continue," the wayward Librarian cries, motioning inwards with his focus sword.
<Draco> "Brothers, I hear chanting from within the structure."
<Herbert> "What heresies await us beyond?"
<Eveline> "I hear it as well. Syllabular intonations of a vile sorcerer." She'd frown.
<Invictus> "Be on your guard brothers." He readies his sword.
<Priad> "Then this vile user of magicks shall be swiftly met with death." Priad readies his boltgun
<StaffenGM> Medjed frowns, and presses onwards. "Follow me carefully. The shelves are a labyrinth until you reach the center study."
* Invictus follows.
* Priad takes up the rear-guard.
<Herbert> Herbert's jump pack idles with a steady stream of air being pushed through its engines as he moves next to the ancient warrior.
* Draco follows behind the group
* Eveline sticks close, following with the group
<StaffenGM> Into the circular maze Medjed leads you. The chanting grows louder and louder the further in you go...
<StaffenGM> And then, eventually, a peculiar sound accompanies it.
<StaffenGM> A soft hum,
<StaffenGM> And below that, the gentle thump of a beating heart.
<StaffenGM> As you turn a corner, you come across a pair of hunched-over mortals swathed in dirty, dark fabrics, searching the shelves.
<StaffenGM> They do not initially react to your approach, as though they had been expecting someone else -- that is, until they actually look to you.
<StaffenGM> Immediately the two shrivelled beings scramble from the shelves, attempting to run.
* Eveline frowned, only to point at the two beings scrambling away, barking out the order for them to stop. If there was ever anything to try- a sharp command could've at the very least struck enough fear into them to stay in place.
<StaffenGM> The two cretins, however, do not seem to comprehend Eveline's words.
* Herbert follows the Inquisitor's ignored words by launching himself at the two mortals, mowing them down in seconds.
<StaffenGM> As Herbert grinds the two pigmy beings apart, a faint, bright-blue mist exits their bodies through their mouths and nostrils.
<StaffenGM> It coalesces, and gently glides along the path of the bookshelves, retreating from the Kill-team.
<Axel> "What is this hereey?"
* Invictus tries to reach out to find what he can sense, but the warp blurs his visions.
<StaffenGM> "Something has stolen their lifeforce," declares Medjed. "The nature of this theft is as though it were to siphon them as fuel for something greater. This is vile sorcery indeed."
<StaffenGM> "Moreover, these are not the serf-scribes employed by my staff. These are intruders."
<Priad> "Lifeforce? What vile magicks could achieve such a thing?"
<Axel> "And what is it powering?"
<Invictus> "What ever it may be, we will need to find it before it grows to powerful."
<StaffenGM> "I know not. This is beyond the pale of my life's studies."
<StaffenGM> Medjed reaches down to pick up a fallen book.
<StaffenGM> "All that is certain is that we must stop whatever is happening here. I suspect it may not be a coincidence that the Library began to rematerialize at the time it did."
<Invictus> "And why would that be?"
<StaffenGM> Medjed does not answer.
<StaffenGM> He merely continues forwards.
<Herbert> "To probe the derranged and tainted minds that could be responsible for this, would be to invite corruption."
<Priad> "Well said brother," he nods to the Teuton before continuing to follow the ancient one.
<Invictus> "That is a high possibility Brother Herbert."
* Axel follows the Ancient Psyker, always aware of where his master is
<StaffenGM> As you progress forwards, a pale blue glow begins to illuminate the bookshelves -- it is as if it passing through the solid stone material of the shelves themselves, casting shadows and illuminating edges without a care for the conventional behavior of light.
<StaffenGM> The pulsing of the heart grows louder.
<StaffenGM> The humming is deep enough to be felt in your lungs.
<StaffenGM> The chanting is almost clear,
<StaffenGM> But the words are impossible.
<StaffenGM> Medjed stops, and draws his sword.
<Herbert> "Ave Imperator Dominae Sanctus..." Herbert mouths a prayer as the party progresses.
<StaffenGM> He points to the glow from beyond the bend of the shelves -- this is the final turn.
* Invictus readies his sword as well.
* Priad brings his boltgun up to bear, starting up a slow war-chant known to him from his old squad.
<Axel> " sed Divinae Institutione formatti..." he follows along with the other Tueton out of reflex
* Herbert readies his weapons, and turns the corner.
<StaffenGM> As you pass into the center of the Grand Dome, you are confronted thusly:
<StaffenGM> A near-blinding blue hemisphere of solid light veils the center of the Dome's ground floor. Within the dome, a circle of men in dirty black robes kneel, chanting dark words.
<Herbert> "Vile heresy..."
<StaffenGM> And within that circle stands an Astartes, his blue-and-gold armor draped with shimmering stripes of cloth
<Axel> "Shall we master?"
<StaffenGM> From his helmet sprouts long, twisting branches of bone.
* Priad continues his slow chant, readying himself for the coming violence.
<StaffenGM> The Astartes stands before a lectern of matte-grey iron, one hand clasped around a pulsing orb while another carresses the cover of a tome half as large as a mortal man.
* Invictus grip on his sword tightens.
* Draco prepares his bolter.
<StaffenGM> The Astartes acknowledges your presence with a look past his pauldron -- but nothing more.
* Axel revs the engine of his jumppack
<Herbert> "PURGE THE IMPURE! CLEANSE THE HERESY!"
* Axel leaps forwards towards the circle
<StaffenGM> As Axel launches himself towards the heathen cloister, a bright arc of light erupts from the hemisphere, launching Axel backwards into a shelf.
* Axel pulls himself out of the rubble
<Axel> "There seems to be a protective barrier stopping pysical assualts."
<StaffenGM> "Ahn, Feramohn, Ahtunis Perrath," calls the bone-antlered Astartes. "Equiesc en Alum..."
<StaffenGM> Medjed cries out.
* Invictus walks up next to Mejed.
<StaffenGM> "This voice!" he shouts, "This presence! Anathur, my brother -- what have you done?!"
* Invictus looks to Medjed "Who is Anathur?"
<StaffenGM> Medjed falls to his knees, clutching his head, and points to the Astartes within the light.
<StaffenGM> The glow from the orb in the sorcerer's hand fades, and then the orb itself shatters.
* Invictus looks at the Astartes that Medjed points towards.
<StaffenGM> The sorcerer -- Anathur -- drops the shards and takes the tome from the lectern.
<StaffenGM> "Seneth, Ansurr, Chelaim thao," calls the Sorcerer. The words radiate from him in a wave of nausea, washing entropy over the party.
<StaffenGM> As he speaks, a thicket of gnarly, thorned vines sprouts at his feet, gently creeping up his body.
<StaffenGM> Two of the robed men in the circle fall dead,
<StaffenGM> And as this happens, the hemisphere guarding the cloister fades --
<StaffenGM> And, in a flash, the Astartes is gone.
<StaffenGM> And in his place is another of the peculiar, fire-eyed Astartes you fought on the steps of the Grand Dome,
<StaffenGM> And remaining are now five of the robed men.
* Axel Immediately locates what he presumes is the most dangerous adversary and charges in, but ia unable to land a solid it
<Axel> hit*
<StaffenGM> One of the robed figures begins a renewed chant, but nothing happens.
* Priad levels his boltgun at the nearest cultist, before squeezing the trigger of his weawpon, a flurry of shells fly towards the filth. And though only one finds it's mark it splatters the man into bloody chunks. "Such is the fate of all chaos filth." He intones before continuing the Ithakan war-chant.
<StaffenGM> As another sorcerer begins to chant, an eerie luminescence flickers around each of the men present, with the noteworthy exception of the Astartes.
<StaffenGM> The next of the sorcerers, however, throws a hand up in the direction of Priad.
<StaffenGM> A bolt of lightning fires from his hand, but Priad leaps away in time to avoid harm.
<Priad> The Apothecary grunts, his chant interrupted as he takes a knee from his roll.
* Draco flies into a rage from the sight of the heretics. He rips the fool into pieces.
<Herbert> Herbert's jump pack burns hot as the Knight charges in against the traitor marine, striking at the filth already distracted by his apprentice.
* Invictus charges in to ones of the sorcerer as his blade slices at his target causing some damage.
* Axel lets loose a flurry of strikes against the Marine, but only a few manage to damange the Heretic Astartes
<Priad> The next victim to enter Priad's crosshairs meets a similar messy fate. He becomes a pile of gory giblets.
<StaffenGM> One of the remaining sorcerers conjures up a roiling ball of hellfire between his hands, and hurls it at Draco.
* Draco turns to Sorcerer who showered him in Hellfire. Draco charges and rips him apart using his servo-arm. He screams "DIE, YOU MISERABLE COLLECTION OF SKIN."
<Herbert> With two further swings from his blade, Herbert kills the traitor, cutting through his neck.
* Invictus tries to swing his sword at the sorcerer but fails to hit and misses his target.
<Herbert> "SQUIRE! FINISH THIS!"
* Axel Jumps to his duties, charging the final Heretic before sawing them down
<StaffenGM> As the last of the sorcerers falls, the world begins to melt away. Stone and book alike blend together like paints mixing in the vortex.
<StaffenGM> And then you find yourselves alone,
<StaffenGM> In the empty streets of a hive city,
<StaffenGM> Surrounded by countless dead bodies.
<StaffenGM> You are back,
<StaffenGM> But the cost was great.
<StaffenGM> The hive lies dead-silent,
<StaffenGM> Save for the sound of a piteous sob:
<StaffenGM> "Brother," weeps Medjed,
<StaffenGM> "O, Brother, what have you done?"