Evervigilant 65

<Vigilant_GM> IT IS THE 41ST MILLENNIUM...
<Vigilant_GM> A missive from Colonel Gelt arrives, explaining that the barrage of dust particles has begun to interfere with comms. In truth, the Janissary tents are no longer visible through the heavy dust storm. In it, he asks for further orders as his troops are now on stand-by while triage is carried out.
<Baird> +Provide a team of your best for escort Colonel, I and my team will move inside the canyon to locate a target. The rest of you cordon the area. No one in or out aside from us. Capture any trespassers if possible, if not extreme measures are authorized to maintain the cordon.+
<Vigilant_GM> Ahead of your arrival on scene, Janissary sappers identify ideal descent points and fix rappel lines where overwatch positions can cover the descent.
<Vigilant_GM> As you pass trough a checkpoint towards these descent points, a squad of Janissaries attaches to you, under the command of one Lt. Tertius.
* Velam lets the Janissary help him put the harness on, having not done this in a long while. He waits for some of his comrades to descend first before he starts making his way down, his servoskulls keeping up with him. "Laugh it up, it must be so easy to float around all the time." He huffs.
* Almarax clips himself to the sturdiest of the repel points before beginning his decent.
* Davos clips himself in order to repel.
* Sister_Thesse puts on her clip harness before trying to appeal down.
* Baird repels down stiffly, memories of falling before slowing his descent.
* Karpath puts on his clip harness and begins his decent.
* Claire has quit (Connection reset by peer)
* Claire (Darkm@F70223F8.1916861F.8D029FA7.IP) has joined
<Vigilant_GM> Velam's servoskulls make a steady descent, passing by Claire who comes to a sudden, abrupt stop. Her inexperience has caused her to pull too tightly against the harness hoops, forming a tangled knot that has caught her awkwardly in place.
<Claire> "Ahh Frak"
<Claire> ++Uhh guys I am stuck.++
<Velam> The savant looks up just as he's getting the harness off. "Oh dear."
* Sister_Thesse with a somber demeanor, she makes her way down.
* Almarax unclips and readies his weapons.
<Claire> "Come on, Come on."
* Claire using her reflexes and the long drop below her, she shimmies the knot and using her momentum descends down
<Baird> "Glad to see you made it to the bottom Claire."
* Claire takes a breath in relief
<Claire> "Not what I was expecting, for sure."
<Claire> "Did you and Tony do this often?"
<Vigilant_GM> Once the bottom of the canyon is reached, you can see the static shooting across the ridged walls as the dust storm rushes particles through the metallic stone formations.
<Almarax> "The Auxpex's machine spirit is clouded"
<Baird> "More times than I'd like, that's for sure."
* Sister_Thesse draws her thunder hammer and storm shield when she reaches the bottom of the canyon.
<Davos> "The canyon seems to echo with warp energy."
<Baird> "Given the mass of untrained wretches running about down here I'd be surprised if it didn't."
<Velam> "Yes, indeed. Such a well of corrupting power." He notes the static discharge above them and starts taking notes after he whips his dataslate out and thumbs it on.
<Baird> "See if you can pinpoint a powerful source. We have vague directions towards the Seer but I'd like to know in advance what's waiting for us."
<Baird> "Sister. You acquired the directions. You take point with a few of the Jannisaries."
* Claire takes out her Carnodon, then flips on Psyocculum briefly to get a read of any high warp signatures.
<Vigilant_GM> The way the canyon ridges pressurize the flowing winds, strange echoing noises not unlike eerie, breathy humanoid howls.
* Almarax is unable to figure out the cause of the static but is able to filter the majority out of his onboard sensors.
<Vigilant_GM> The Janissary officer fans out his men with a series of short  hand signals, following the Throne-Cell's lead.
* Karpath packs up his clip harness and draws his Condemnor boltgun.
* Sister_Thesse looks at Baird and nods.
* Sister_Thesse takes the lead.
* Almarax takes point along side Thesse.
* Davos follows along near the rear.
* Velam keeps up with the rest of the group, though in the back.
* Claire looks around keeping in the middle
* Velam smacks his lips and looks up from his dataslate. "Anyone else taste that in the air? Like someone is grinding plasteel?" He makes some noises of perturbation before stashing his dataslate and looking around. "Odd."
<Baird> "In a place permeated with the warp it can't bode well.
<Baird> "
<Vigilant_GM> Your heart-rate begins to race, your veins warm up, as though resonating with the pulsing energies channeled through the canyon system. For Karpath, Velam, and Almarax, this goes further, as blood vessels begin to give out, rapid bruising forming just under the skin.
<Vigilant_GM> Then, the shockwave-like blasts begin to pulsate again, disturbing dust and cloth alike as they pass through you.
* Almarax steadies himself with his thunder hammer. "Systems unstable."
* Velam drops to a knee and coughs roughly several times before spitting. "Cordius' balls." He swears.
<Vigilant_GM> Microsecond visions pass by your conscious thoughts, never truly taking, and yet distracting to the senses like the buzzing-by of a beetle.
* Claire is twitching and unsteady, weakened.
* Karpath feels pain though his body, he drops to one knee and starts coughing. "Damn it what was that."
<Vigilant_GM> The Janissaries come to a halt, crouching in position.
<Vigilant_GM> Then, you hear it too. The sobbing of a child.
<Baird> "Sitrep, what just happened." Baird looks around at the majority of the group who are down on their knees.
<Baird> "Is...is that a child?"
* Claire takes a knee clearly in pain
<Baird> "Fething warp madness."
<Claire> "What... was that.. that did not feel like getting shot, yet it hurts.."
<Vigilant_GM> Up ahead, some 40 meters, the cracking of static energy allows for the casting of a shadow against the canyon wall - the silhouette of a child on its knees, sobbing into its hands.
<Vigilant_GM> "Orders, sir?"
<Velam> "What is that?" Velam narrows his eyes.
<Almarax> "Augur array detects nothing. That is to say, not nothing strange but an absence of anything except for the background radiation."
* Claire looks at the child with the Psyocculum with a look of concern
<Claire> "Whatever it is, most likely is behind whatever that was."
* Baird turns to Claire. "Move up silently and get an eye on what it is. If necessary, eliminate it."
<Claire> "Al, I will need to borrow the Crossbow."
* Almarax hands it over clearly thinking about something else while doing it. "Centre of the bend 10-20 metres around the corner."
<Almarax> "However the machine spirit cannot see what our eyes can perceive."
<Vigilant_GM> Another series of flashing static charges, and the silhouette cast on the wall is now standing. The sobs now coming to a stop.
* Karpath stands by now with his weapon at the ready.
* Claire gets ready to quietly move up
<Vigilant_GM> Claire moves forward with the skill of a predatory beast. As she reaches the turn, another flash of light shifts the figure to a taller, slender one.
<Velam> "Stay safe Claire." He says as she moves off.
* Almarax readies a psych-out grenade.
<Vigilant_GM> As Claire clears the turn, the canyon before her becomes a hellish vision, a single towering monster standing before her, roaring blasphemous words of corruption as the walls melt into blood whilst daemons of all sorts of unnatural forms flow about behind the main, most pressing of the threats standing before her.
<Claire> "Oh Frak! Oh Frak!"
* Claire begins to panic and fire at the one that pop out
<Vigilant_GM> A low baritone growl of terrible magnitude shakes the rest of the cell and its escort to the core as Claire shows the signs of panic when she makes her turn.
* Claire fires back at them in a panic and falls back to the group clearly panicked
* Baird readies his crossbow and takes overwatch at the curving canyon, ready for an enemy to round the corner.
<Vigilant_GM> An overwhelming scent of charred flesh fills your nostrils in a rush. As you reel from the hit to your senses, the child turns the corner, corrupting the ground beneath it in a broad radius.
<Velam> The loremaster is visibly shaken, beads of sweat forming on his brow. "God-Emperor." What a fearsome creature.
* Baird steels his nerves and clenches his fist, releasing the sanctified silver stake at the abomination.
* Claire Claire pace is slowed as she tries to fall back to the group with the daemon on her hot on trail
<Vigilant_GM> In a flash, and for a fraction of a second as it is stricken by Baird's bolt, the child's form snaps into that of a monstrous beast, intermittently shrieking, and growling, and shrieking once more as it returns to its childish form.
<Baird> "It's hiding it's form!"
* Sister_Thesse moves up to confront 'The Child'. She feels like her skin is on fire.
* Velam moves forward a little after steeling his nerve and fires a bolt of plasma at the wretched daemon. Alas....it misses.
<Almarax> Almarax activates his maglev coils a charges into melee range with the child pulling a pin on a pych-out grenade as he goes. The child jumps away as the grenade goes off giving Almarax a chance to swipe with his chainsword inflicting a hefty blow. The strike caused the deamons true form to show for a moment causing Almarax to reel despite the encouragement of his interrogator.
* Karpath opens fire with his Boltgun part of the combi-bolter and hits the creature once.
<Vigilant_GM> "On me! Ready; fire!" the janissaries snap into action, rallying into a firing line by the Lieutenant barking the order to fire a single volley of las and plasma.
<Vigilant_GM> The energy bolts strike the daemonic child, causing it to lurch and hiss as the walls of the canyon begin to darken.
* Davos casts telekine dome.
* Claire fires a shot into the daemon, then from the backlash Claire is infused with zeal, the fear suddenly gone.
* Davos then smites the creature.
<Vigilant_GM> The thousand-voice growl attempts to corrupt the cell, an unclean fury washing over Almarax and Claire.