[QUOTE="greendoor, post: 13311215, member: 394"]

Caelia glanced down at the body of the one who'd stabbed himself. The gore hardly bothered her, but dread flowed through her veins, cold and dark, nonetheless.



"That's a traditional method of suicide on Velorum." She commented, quietly. "And the rest of the Dragon's Teeth, to a lesser degree."



She focused on the corpse, whose gory demise ironically was less disquieting than the rest of the post. "Looks like they got the heart in the first strike. Precise." She commented.

[/QUOTE]

"'Falling upon your sword', I think the expression is?" Palais notes.

[QUOTE="Zeitgeist Blue, post: 13296234, member: 10163"]

"The end of these enforcers may be due to more than just ill-fated events, Sisters," Eriko notes as she finishes her post-mortem diagnosis.



She rises from the body, searching for the blade responsible for the slit belly of the one enforcer and presumably the severed limb of her companion. (Scrutiny roll?)



"There is a certain ceremony to how this one died." With her free hand, still slick with days' old fluids, she gestures at the prone corpse. "The innards are the focus of this one's death. These two had died to a blade, just like the first, but this one's organs have been pulled out, oddly similar to how the heretical dead at the bridge had their livers removed."

[/QUOTE]

[Scrutiny roll success]

Buzzing insects and wiggling larva crawl across your gauntlets as you dig in the two fallen enforcers' injuries, probing at the rotting wounds.



Not far from the corpses you find a monomolecular edged knife dropped into the corner of one of the steps. It was new, barely used, but has a patina of rusted blood and bone chips along its edge. After you compare it to the dead woman's injury, it is clear that this is the blade used to cut off her hand, undoubtedly dropped on the steps after her death. However, it is also evidently not the one used to cut open the other enforcer's belly. A careful examination of the wound leaves you to suspect it was performed post-mortem, likely well after the female enforcer's fate, and the cut is jagged and ugly. Not like the clean edge of the monomolecular blade at all. You suspect whatever weapon was used to cut open the dead enforcer's belly may likely have been serrated, or at least crudely made. Certainly, not the same blade.



"Unsettling news, Sister. I'm reminded of how some sorcerers use the entrails of the dead for foretelling," Palais says, her tone dark. "I think the enemy is closer at hand than might appear."



She levels her flame-pistol over the pair of bodies. "May the fallen be cleansed holy promethium,"



A moment later, the hall is lit by the light of the flames, dancing over the decaying bodies.



[QUOTE="Zeitgeist Blue, post: 13296234, member: 10163"]

"We need to find the possible source of this outbreak, Sister-Superior." To an outside observer, the armoured Sisters are silent as they move through the darkened rooms but Eriko's voice is harsh and clear in their internal vox system. "Perhaps the medical bay or the compound's water supply as the Schechin disease spreads by fluids. Like much of the plague's time in this city, the outbreak seems to have spread far faster and more thoroughly than a wary compound of Enforcer personnel should have let it."



She is silent for a few seconds as they move. Then she speaks.



"I very much doubt it is incompetence which led to their downfall."

[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE="greendoor, post: 13311215, member: 394"]

Caelia practically chewed her lip. It did make sense. And that was better than remaining completely in the dark about what was going on, even if it turned out to be wrong.



"You should check the Medical Bay, Sister. I'll try to find the water supply and anything else suspicious." She said over Vox, turning to the Sister Superior for confirmation.



(OOC: Check out the water supply and do a circuit of the interior of the facility. Call out for Eriko if anything's suspicious. Check my corners)

[/QUOTE]

"At the very least, we need to ascertain that there are no survivors," Palais agrees. "I'm not sure that we'll find a medical bay here, but it'd be worthwhile to look."



Her helmet, haloed by the dancing flames, turns toward Caelia. "No splitting up, Sister. I don't trust this place, and I won't risk one of us getting isolated in an ambush. Advance Sisters, and watch each other's backs."



[Awareness check success...?]



You make your way through the facility, ignoring the fluttering insects bouncing off your plate or the nests squishing beneath your boots. The facility is, by and large, well lit, which only makes the silence of the facility all the more noticeable. You find discarded ration packs, spent bottles of gut-rot, files in the midst of being processed. Yet, there is nothing but the hum of the lumens, the buzz of insect wings, and the clatter of your own heavy armour. Palais leads the way with chainsword and flame-pistol, Eriko immediately behind. Caelia, meanwhile, provides rear security, weapon sights scanning across the empty halls and rooms looking for contacts. Twice she swears she hears something-A thumping of something heavy, like a corpse being dragged along. The sound of a wet chuckle from a side room that proves to be empty, a choking air recycler unit the apparent cause.



It's almost a relief when you find the next body. An enforcer, some days dead, the top of their skull missing from an obvious culprit: The stub-pistol in their grip. A bottle of gut-rot lies spilled on the tile floor, alongside a half-emptied tin of stimm pills. Palais shakes her head, her contempt clear. It is not the last body you find. The next two did not die so cleanly. They seem to have killed each other, spent cartridges and shotgun shells half soaked in the dried blood at their feet. One, clearly infected by the Black Rot, dragged himself halfway down the corridor before she died. The other bears no signs of infection, and died quicker but uglier, most of both hands torn to ribbons and his head caved in. Rolling the former over, the infected seems to have clad herself in a number of cheap icons of the Creed, even having carved a malformed Aquila into their forehead. Post humorously, it looks like someone pried open her jaw and took out her eyes



More bodies are hidden away, it seems. First, you find a festering carcass secluded away in a back office. Then, an officer rotting away in their secluded work-cubicle, skeletal hands still wrapped around a blood-stained copy of the Lex Baptismus: Law in the Holy Port. A third you find curled up naked in a ball, next to a conspicuously emptied evidence locker and several mysterious emptied bags. That one shows no signs of physical trauma: Likely a drug overdose.



It is Caelia that spots the torn wrapper of a civilian first aid kits in a corridor, then the discarded bottle of pills. Soon after, you come to a sealed door of a barracks that has crudely painted with the sigil of the Officio Medicae and many other healers besides. Palais pauses by the door, then glances at the two of you. She reaches out, grabs the handle and pulls.



The dead await you. Seven victims of the black rot, their bones visible through the liquifying mass of flesh and organs, their bunks stained black from the blood and run-off. Cartons of low-grade medical equipment are scattered across the room, any attempt at organizing it all lost amidst the dead. Eriko goes through the scattered notes, trying to decipher the pidgin of low-gothic and some local tongue being used, as Caelia maintains security. The poor hand-writing and strange dialect is difficult for the Hospitaller to understand. If only there was a dialogus on hand! There is a constant presence of injuries from shot, likely from the gangers and cultists besieging the facility, but you note a growing number of cases of disease that a quick glance around the room shows they would be incapable of handling. By the time the documents grow more chaotic, it is clear that Schechin had ripped through the precinct station, and suicides and accidental deaths had begun to escalate. Unfortunately, any origin to the disease eludes you, as does any hope of deciphering the medicae's personal notes.

[Linguistics check fail]



 It is then that the Caelia hears it again: A series of loud thumps, chased by the hideous sound of something metallic being dragged across tile. It is gone near as soon as she had heard it, but she swears that she did.