Clefspear -LORE

Silas / Gadston Martin / Black Run

The Castigation of the Gadston Martin, as witnessed by Silas the Heretek Damn, this whole exhaust duct is going to need to come out. Silas muttered a string of xenos curses he'd picked up on some asteroid post or other. He didn't speak many xenos tongues, but he knew how to curse in every language ever invented by sentient beings. Except Kroot, He doubted anyone could ever figure out how to pronounce the Kroot language without extensive surgery. And of course, the only duct that's rotted to the Black and leaking engine fumes into ventilation is the one we got from that Imperial outpost. Marked with the Aquila and everything, like that's gunna keep these shit wields from falling apart. Well, here goes nothing. Silas sighed and pulled up his Shemagh. An ancient invention by the desert tribes of Terra, just a large woven cloth wrapped around the mouth and nose to keep dust and fumes out of the lungs. It had been given to him by the Lord Carlege, as a gift upon becoming the new ships engineer. Silas valued the over-sized bandanna more than all the technological treasures he had built or collected in his young life. Silas reached out and grabbed the jagged edges of metal, and wrenched the loose duct section free. He was just moving the replacement into position when his com-bead started beeping. As the ships only engineer (since the old techpriest Tenson died 3 years ago,) Silas had defacto access to several ship's systems, including the proximity sensors now ringing in his ear. Must be something big. Sensors picking it up at that range? Definitely something big. Silas finished his work hurriedly before heading to the nearest access terminal. As he made his way through the narrow, low ceiling-ed corridors at a light jog, he took a moment to admire his handiwork. Traces of Silas' craftsmanship could be seen on virtually every square meter of the Gadston Martin. Patch jobs, custom system wiring, integrated tech from thousands of different sources, and even a few inventions of his own. He preferred Xenos tech the best. Aliens actually knew what they were doing when they built something. None of the mysticism and grox-shit that the Imperium reveled in. Arriving at an interface terminal, Silas qued up the bridge log and sensor readings. Apparently it was a ship, maybe even a fleet of ships. This was incredible. This odds of two ships meeting each other this far outside any known system were beyond calculation. As it was the Martin was only out here because the the warp drive had been disabled when that duct started leaking. This is important. These kinds of coincidences don't happen. Not by accident. Something important is going to happen. No sooner had the thought formed than the Inter-comm buzzed. "Crew of the Gadston Martin" It was the voice of Lord Carlege. He sounded worried. "We have encountered an Explorator fleet of the Adeptus Mechanicus. As custom demands, we shall dock with them, and great them as brothers on the void. All nonessential crew are to remain in their quarters until further notice. In the Emperor's name." Now Silas knew something was wrong. Carlege NEVER closed a message with a prayer. His suppositions were confirmed when his com-bead buzzed. and Lord Carlege's voice came over the line. "Silas. This is a secure channel. Do not go to your quarters. How long would it take to get the warp engine active if you ran there right now?" Silas was stunned. "Well that ruptured vent bled enough exhaust into the main system to corrode half the Gelar emitters on the main housing, to pull and replace them all, I'd need something on the order of three weeks." "You have three hours. If we aren't ready to jump by the time that fleet reaches us, everyone on this ship will die." The line went dead, and Silas started running. He was young, only 16 years by goundpounder reckoning, But he'd been on enough circuits around the Black Run to know that if the Mechanicus docked, there would be blood. Forget that the Martin was currently transporting highly illegal and heretical technology, the Martin WAS heretical technology. The whole ship was run through with enough Xenos and Archeotech to condemn her a thousand times over. Silas should know. He was the one who put it there. Silas sprinted for the aft engine housing, desperately trying to convince himself that what Carlege had asked was even remotely possible. He turned a corner and ran head long into Jebiden. "Where are you going? We need to get off this frakishnija hulk!" The ancient navigator was more fluent in cursing than Silas would ever be. And right now he had good reason to curse. "Come on, The OPOS is in the starboard hanger. We need to go." Silas shook free of Jebiden's grip. "No, I need to get the warp engine back online. We can still save the Martin." He ran through the corridors like a man possessed. By the time he reached his destination and started pulling Gelar emitters, his face was covered in perspiration and his eyes had the wild look of a man who knows his life is forfeit. "Help me with this. Quarter twist left and pull hard. All the ones with green spots on the heads. GO!" he shouted as Jebiden came up behind him panting and doubling over. The old man probably hadn't ran since he was fifty, and that was sixty years ago. "Stop, Silas. We need to get the nga'chuq out of here." Silas ignored him. He kept pulling emitters for an interminable abount of time. He only stopped when he heard the unmistakable sound of groaning in the inner keel. The mechanicus had just docked. Both Silas and Jebiden went silent. Sounds carry far in a voidship, and the voidborn with a skilled ear can hear a pin drop three decks above him if the air pressure is right. So when the lasguns started going off, both of them heard it loud and clear. Silas looked at his work, then at Jebiden, then at the bulkhead above him towards the sounds of fighting. He took a deep breath and said "We take Omicron deck. Cut by my quarters, then up the starboard access chute to the hanger. We'll take the OPOS and book it for the nearest Black Rock. You'll need to navigate it." They did just that. stopping only so Silas could collect his gear and his weapons, A long, bolt action sniper's rifle, and a sawed down lever cycling shotgun. The shotgun went to Jebiden, as the old man would make better use of it than Silas could. Silas expected that if he had need to use his rifle while still on the ship, then there would be bigger problems to deal with. By the time they made it to the hanger, the sound of lasgun fire was everywhere. They passed several groups hurrying to escape pods, unaware that without warp travel, they were doomed all the same. When they came to the hanger, Silas saw, for the first time, a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus. It (he couldn't tell if it was a HE or a SHE) was tall. covered in flowing red robes, mechanical limbs snaking out behind it, shooting sparks and smoke and death. In it's hands it held a great, two handed ax bearing the symbol of the cog and the skull. When it say them it released a blurb of what Silas unconsciously recognized as auditory binary code. It was far too fast and distorted for him to understand, but He knew it wasn't good. Jebiden didn't seem to care that the thing in front of him was making noises. He Just put two slugs in its cranium and kept running for the OPOS. The OPOS was a small ship. Silas had pulled it from the spacecraft graveyard orbiting GraelonTertiary. It had originally just been a sub-orbital skiff. barely able to make it to a planet's moon and back. That was before Silas was set loose on it. Now it had fully self sustaining life support, maneuvering thrusters that wouldn't be out of place on a combat fighter, and-and Silas was most proud of this-a fully functional warp drive cannibalized from a needle ship that probably used to belong to the Officio Assassinorum. Silas had called it his greatest work. Jebiden had called it "an Old Piece Of Shit" And so the OPOS was named. "You know how to fly this thing?" Silas yelled as he climbed the on-ramp after Jebiden. "I can get us out of the Frakking hanger if that's what you mean." The old man shot back. As the OPOS whirred to life, Silas saw a familiar figure running into the hanger. It was Cromisson Carlege, and he was tailed by a half-dozen Ad-Mech priests. "Get up here. C'mon, RUN!" Silas shouted for his lord and captain as the ships engines ignited into idle. He saw Carlege turn his head, saw the red priest raise a lasgun tipped limb, saw the beam shoot across the open space of the hanger. And Silas watched as Carlege fell to the deck with a black hole burned in the back of his coat. Silas roared, and without thinking, raised his rifle. He fired one shot from the hip, and watched the red priest's head explode into a mas of shrapnel and fluid. He aimed for another shot, red mist clouding his vision. The on-ramp slammed shut before he could fire. The OPOS lurched hard, and Silas was knocked off his feet. Jebiden wasn't lying, he could get them out of the hanger, what he couldn't do was fly a voidship with any descernable skill. "You're over correcting" Silas said as he jumped into the co-pilot seat and wrenched control of the craft away from Jebiden. He pointed the nose towards the black and the ass towards the Explorator fleet and punched the throttle. When he had enough speed he cut power and spun the OPOS 180* to see if anybody was following them. He was just in time to watch the Gadston Martin, his home, his family, his world, flash silently into a white hot ball of plasma and turbo las fire before disapearing into nothingness. *** Silas walked slowly into the aft of the OPOS. They were in the warp now, and Jebiden had the con. There was nothing for Silas to do but wait and prey. No. He woudn't prey. Not to the Emperor, not to the Ship-ghost, and certainly he would NEVER prey to the Omnissiah. The Gadston Martin had burned in the Omnissiah's name. He would never honor a diety who's teachings sanctioned mass murder. No holy book should ever deal out death on a man who had harmed no one. Silas felt a jingling against his boot and stopped. He looked down to see a brass rifle casing, resting where it had fallen by the closed on-ramp. Silas picked it up and examined it. He remembered the red priest's cranium turning to a shower of circuts and hydrolics. My first kill. This is what I am now. I have no home. I have no purpose save stay alive. So I'll stay alive. I'll work the Black and live as long as I can, free from the Imperium and their gods of death and misery. I can run tech, that's what I know. I can run Xenos machines on the Black, because nobody else dares to. I can see the galaxy through free eyes, and answer only to my concience. Silas, survivor of the Gadston Martin, put the brass shell in his pocket, and walked away.

The Death and Revenge of Jebiden the Navigator, as witnessed by Silas the Heretek Silas fiddled with the brass casing on the necklace under his shemagh. Well that went well. We go through the trouble of acquiring good, solid Cretian plasma rifles -15 of them- the hassle of moving them, the pain in the ass of finding a place to test them for quality control, all to make sure that this gorram cartel lord is satisfied with the merchandise, and now the frakwad won't touch them. Just up and walks out on the deal. This tirade was taking place in Silas' head now because after 15 minutes of voicing it out loud, Jebiden had hit him with his walking stick to shut him up. Eventually Silas gave up his semi cathartic rant. It wasn't like cursing or crying was going to fix anything. Tears are easy, but duct tape works better. So Silas picked pulled the OPOS out of the grav-well of an asteroid post that he was fairly certain he would never do buisiness on again. Not after he had so fluently insulted the man who pretty much ran the place. I've got to stop pulling shit like that. One of these days it'll get me in trouble. "So what are we doing now?" asked Jebiden "We have a hold full of the hottest cargo we've ever hauled, and you just called the only man in 3 sub-sectors willing to buy it an 'Ugly Belgiumite' among other things." "Oh c'mon, he deserved it." Silas protested. "Oh he deserved it alright. I was actually rooting for you. Was glued to the show right up until he sicked his chem-hounds at you." "Yeah, rooting for me from that chair in the farthest corner of the room. Way to help a shipmate out." "The day you need help so bad that a 124 year old man would be useful is the day I call it quits." Said Jebiden "Besides, you didn't look like you needed help. Real calm and collected you were, running and jumping over shit like a regular squirrel." "What the frak is a squirrel?" "Nothing important. What is important is the still unanswered question: What to do with our cargo?" "Start going down the list. Next leg of the Black takes us by the Red Fjordes, the Barrens there are always looking for shiny new toys. I sure as shit ain't going to dump it, not after all the trouble we went through to get it in the first place." As he spoke, Silas brought the OPOS up into formation with the Caravan. The Black Run, or Black, was a smuggler's circuit run by the Rogue Traders. It consisted of Asteroid outposts, dark planets, and general out of the way places. Travelers on the Black would move in caravans, usually centered around a large Rogue Trader owned vessel, for protection against marauders, unfriendly aliens, and especially Imperial law. In more populated areas, an arbites cruiser made people feel safe. Out here, it meant torture, mutilation, and death. "What is this jaggoff doing?" said Jebiden pointing at the largest ship in the caravan. Silas watched as it pulled ahead before cutting it's pro-grade engines and banking left, so that it was drifting sideways in front of the caravan, but moving in the same direction. Silas was just as confused as Jeb, until he saw prow of the frigate brighten as hull illumination cast harsh, white light on the raised form of an Imperial Aquila. "Mother of--" Jeb started before Silas grabbed the short wave vox. "Break the caravan! Scatter and jump, it's the Imps! They're going to broadside the caravan!" No sooner had the words left his mouth than the Frigate's flanks began to sparkle and shimmer with flashes of clear, yellow light. Seconds later, the front row of the caravan disapeared into a dozen fireballs and clouds of dark flack. How did they get onto the run. That boat's been with us for at least 3 jumps. No Arbitrator would wait that long. Unless it's not an Arbitrator. But that would mean- "In the name of the holy Imperial Inquisition, " A voice came over the vox in nasely High Gothic "All vessels are ordered to power down and prepare to be boarded. Resistance would be ill advised." Silas and Jebiden both looked at the Frigate, then at each other. Then, simultaneously; "Frak that shit!" It was an attitude shared by many on the open vox channel. Everyone there knew that those in the front row of the caravan had been the lucky ones. Now it was just a matter of who would be the really lucky ones, and who would be the poor bastards who got caught and tortured. Silas might not be the luckiest person in the world, but any odds were better than surrender to the Inquisition. The next several minutes were a crazy, chaotic mess, as Silas drove the OPOS through a storm of fire and steal rain. Most people who watch space battles on the holos would have thought that this would have been a terribly loud and cinematic event. But they would have been wrong. Fire and death happened silently in the void. The experience so eerie that most men's minds start creating noises to reconcile with the visareal carnage. Noises that stay with the mind long after the actual images have faded from memory. It had been 10 years since the authorities of the imperium had killed everyone on board the Gadston Martin. Everyone save Jibiden and Silas. Now they were back to finish the job, back to collect the toll for surviving the first deathtrap, and this time they had come in force. After minutes of some of the scariest flying Silas had ever inflicted upon the old man Jebiden, there was a lurch, a groan, and a contact warning on the hull. They had just been snagged by a magnetic grapple, and were being dragged towards certain doom. Both men knew what was coming, knew they were dead anyway. So as they saw hanger doors close around them, they drew their weapons and stood in front of the on-ramp. If they were damned and dead, then by the Black, so were the first 10 men to come in after them. Silas watched the on-ramp lower, raised his weapon to fire- then the world went white. ***** Silas came to his senses kneeling on the deck with his hands bound behind him, and surrounded by guards in black Armour and gas masks. Jeb was at has side, similarly bound. Before them was a man in powered armor, running his hands over a sealed crate that Silas knew contained his cargo. "Xenos plasma rifles." the man said in the same nasely voice that had come over the vox after the opening broadside. "Tell me where you acquired them." Silas and Jeb both remained silent. Not out of some insane loyalty to their supplier, but on general principal. If you ran the Black, you never flipped for the Imperials. This appeared to fracture the man's calm. He rounded on Jebiden. "I am High inquisitor Calvon Scriptotus, and you will tell me where you acquired these weapons!" Jeb straightened. "And I am the Navigator Jebiden Fick-Dich Manns," He spat on the High Inquisitor's boot "And you will kiss the darkest part of my shriveled white arse." Oh you brave, beautiful,frakking suicidal old man. The inquisitor reeled, face aghast and beat red. "Ah, a rogue psyker are we?" He raised an enormous Laspistol. "I shall give you the Emperor's peace." The world froze as Jebiden's headless corpse hit the floor. Silas stared, struck stupid in the face of what he had just witnessed. The report of the Heavy Las detonation still ringing silently in his ears. The Inquisitor was speaking to him now, undoubtedly demanding he answer where Jebiden had not. Silas couldn't. His head was racing to fast. I should kill this man. Righ here. Right now. I should get on my feet and tear his throat out with my teath. I could grab a grenade from one of these guards and blow this whole hanger. No. Never mind It would never work, I'd never live through it. Jeb is dead because he didn't think. I can still live through this. I can walk away. And I can kill this man, this High Inquisitor. But not here, wait, play it smart. Honor Jeb, don't go to meet him just yet. Tears are easy, Duct tape works better. "Do you hear my boy?" Calvon Scriptotus was demanding, the world coming back into focus. "I asked if you want to end up like your employer, or would you rather tell me where you purchased these weapons?" "I was his employer," Silas said seizing control of the conversation "And no, I won't tell you where. They see this hulk coming and you'll get blown to cinders. I guarantee they know about this ship. Hard money says at least 50 transmissions made it out of that caravan when you opened up, and at least a dozen survivors are probably still talking about it. Your cover is blown. But I can get you in. I can take you there in my ship. you'll be halfway through the station before the first alarms go off." The Inquisitor turned and studied the OPOS. "Where did you acquire this craft? I do no recognize the pattern. And I know all the warp capable patterns that small." He asked in the most infuriating version of his nasely voice. "I built it." "Do not lie to me boy!" Shouted Scriptotus, raising his Heavy Laspistol against Silas' forehead. "He does not lie." This was a new voice. Silas turned and saw a young woman, his age, maybe younger. It was hard to tell with ground-pounders. Her face was covered in tattooed wards, and the scabbard an ornate dagger was sewn into the folds of her robes. She was looking at Jeb's corpse with something resembling pitty. Silas might have seen it if he wasn't staring daggers at the Inquisitor. Scriptotus turned to her, then to Silas. "You're a lucky one aren't you. One Psyker dies instead of you, and another one saves your life a moment later. If I wasn't the friendly sort I might accuse you of having an unholy pact of some sort." It was a very unfunny joke. ***** It had been days since Jeb's death, and Silas was now piloting his killer towards the dark asteroid of Pearalix. It was more of a rogue planet than an asteroid, but the irregular shape and cratered surface made calling it a planet with a straight face nearly impossible. This was where Silas and Jeb had purchased the bulk of the Tau rifles, now destroyed by the Inquisition. As the OPOS approached, Silas reached for the Vox handset, bumping his elbow on no less than 3 of the 15 storm troopers crammed into the cockpit with him and the Inquisitor. There were a further 50 in the hold waiting to kill every man woman and child on the station. As he did so he felt a gun muzzle against the back of his head. "Don't try anything stupid." said the storm trooper in a voice that Silas imagined one could only acquire by gargling shrapnel every mourning before breakfast. "You think I dragged myself all the way out here to try and screw you? There are easier ways to commit suicide buddy" Then, into the vox "This is Silas of the free ship OPOS, requesting docking clearance for bay 13." he sent. "Why bay 13?" asked the inquisitor. "I like bay 13. Closest to the junkyard. I always dock there." The vox crackled "Negative. Bay 13 is occupied. Routing you to bay 9." Came a voice Silas knew as Pearalix's head of security. "Wilco for Bay 9" Was what Silas said outloud Frakking A, they got it. Was closer to what he meant. As the OPOS set down in the docking bay, the Storm Troopers filed down the ramp and into the station with the Inquisitor right behind them. There was nobody else in sight. The storm troopers spread through the station. There was nobody on the entire deck. Only when the Troopers were spread to single squads did the shooting start. Bay 13 was a myth. A fiction created for exactly this purpose. No Black Run station actually had a Bay 13, the only reason you would ask to land there was if you were a loyal smuggler forced to carry unwelcome guests. As soon as the sound of lasgun fire reached them Silas grabbed the Inquisitor and dragged him into cover. "They must have read the extra heat off the ship. Frak, they could have just blown us up. They want the ship for parts. Come with me I know a way to the nerve center. I get you there you can force a surrender." Silas yelled over the din of battle at the Inquisitor, who was obviously only brave and threatening when he wasn't being shot at. "R-right, You get me there, and my retinue will lead the Storm Troopers against these rebels." The retinue, consisting of the psyker Silas had already met, an assassin, and a chem-charged brute with a heavy stubber were already doing just that, regardless of any lack of orders. So Silas took Scriptotus through an access shaft to the left. There was fighting all through the station, and it was easy to get the green Inquisitor to go where he wanted him. How the hell did this guy ever wind up leading storm troopers. I'd bet money he's never been in a real firefight before now. Probably some navy jaggoff who wanted to be able to say he'd stormed an asteroid station. Soon they came out of a narrow shaft and into a large, open space filled with greenery, water vapor, and harsh UV lighting. Nobody ever came onto a stations hydroponics farm, especially when a firefight was happening in the docking ring. There was plenty of time. "Where to next?" asked the Inquisitor "Nowhere." replied Silas. "What?" "End of the line. I am going to kill you now." Panic entered Scriptotus's Eyes. He raised his Heavy Las. Pulled the trigger, it did nothing. "Why do you think I led you here instead of any of the other empty places on this station? We passed 14 other places where I could have killed you. But I'm going to do it here. The water vapor is very thin in these hydroponic bays, and that Heavy Las has very large air cooling vents. It shorted out the moment your finger touched the trigger. So did your com-bead." Silas raised a large caliber auto-pistol he had taken from under the pilot seat of the OPOS when the fighting started. It was loaded with armor piercing rounds. He fired one shot that ripped through the man's adamantium covered leg. The Inquisitor fell to the deck, screaming. "But your internal suit sensors are just fine. In fact, I'm counting on it. You will bleed out. It will take you roughly 10 minutes to flat-line, by which point I'll already be back with your retinue. My alibi. The only reason I'm still talking to you is because I want you to know I did it. I want the last thing you carry into whatever afterlife awaits you to be my voice, and the name of the man you killed." Silas stood over the bleeding dead man, and spoke the last human words the Inquisitor would ever hear. "Jebiden Fick-Dich Manns" ***** Silas found the retinue with a squad of Storm Troopers hunkered behind an enviro-crate in a ring corridor around the central spire. "Where's the Inquisitor?" He asked them "We saw him last in your company." stated the assassin in a voice like death through a pillow case. "We got separated around deck 4, I've been back-tracking to find him for the last 15 minutes." An explosion at the other end of the corridor sent them all ducking for cover. Several minutes later, The assassin checked his beeping wrist mounted terminal. "The Lord Inquisitor is dead. Just now. Can't tell where." He said to the group. The Chem-brute Immediately leveled his heavy stubber at Silas. "You killed the master!" it shouted in an adrenaline and dopamine fueled rage. Silas through up his hands "No, I've been here with you the whole time. I told you I lost him somewhere on deck 4. I don't know what happened to him after that." The fact that he had a giant gun in his face added authenticity to his feined panic. "Coriola?" asked the assassin looking at the young psyker. Coriola looked deap into Silas' eyes, peered through the veil, and saw his soul. Silas knew that she saw everything, as she had the day Jebiden died. "He does not lie" She said. Silas, last survivor of the Gadston Martin, breathed A sigh of relief, and touched the Brass casing on his necklace.

(This is the last one, I swear. I won't make the GM throw out any more notes. To that end, I want to make it clear that these events are not earth-shattering, and have little to no effect on the party today. This is just a memory that Silas has from his childhood aboard the Gadston Martin, and only serves to give him just a little more life as a character. MC, please don't rage-kill me. Like I said, this is the last one.) an Event in the Travels of Ashetara the Seer, as Witnessed by Silas the Heretek This place is HUGE! The wide eyed child named Silas had run off on his own for the first time in his life. For years he had known only the Martin's corridors and holds, filled with faces he already knew and places he'd already been, broken only by the occasional, tiny asteroid post. Now he was on 624-VL, the second largest port of harbor in the entire Black Run, set loose by his teacher Tenson with only a departure time and a warning from Jebiden not to miss it. Silas liked Jebiden. Sure Tenson may have been the one he worked for in the Martin's engine hold, but he was only a never ending string of orders. The old navigator Jebiden was the closest thing he had to a father, telling him stories of far off worlds and describing the strange things that lived on them. Silas was sure he was looking at some of those strange things now. Part of the reason 624-VL was so large was that it was a hub not just for humans, but thousands of xenos races. It was the most alien-friendly location in the imperium, and if Jeb's stories about the Imps were true, than that was a feet indeed. Silas saw short, furry men with beady eyes and prehensile ears, Tall, slender bipeds that looked like they were made from quick-silver, and dozens of others he could not even begin to describe. Countless sounds and languages flew through the air. The station was alive. Silas found the closest human and asked directions to the scrap-bay. He wanted to see if he could scavenge anything interesting to bring back and tinker with. black knows there isn't anything on the Martin I haven't already torn apart. Tenson doesn't like it, but it just bugs me. A machine I havn't seen the inside of is like an itch in the back of my skull. I have to know how it works. When he got to the scrap-bay, Silas started digging through piles of metal and rubber and silicate. Anything that was at least semi intact, or just plane interesting went into his bag. He had a good eye, and the heap had a good supply. The bag was full within minutes, and Silas found himself playing triage to make room for each new find. Then something strange happened. There was a noise that wasn't a noise. It came from everywhere and nowhere. Silas found himself digging almost before he knew what he was doing. He dug after the sound. When he reached the source he dropped his pack. It was small. A device of obvious xenos make, fashioned from a substance like bone, inset with a smooth stone the color of blue flame. Symbols were carved in the bone-like fixture, elegant and flowing. The sound had stopped, but Silas didn't care. He grabbed his pack and started heading back towards the Martin. He doubted the scrap-bay held anything better than the gem he now held. As he walked back through the station, He took emptier routes, not wanting to be bothered with the bustling crowds. Then, suddenly there was a shout from behind him. Silas turned, and found himself staring into what looked like the barrel of a weapon. The gun's owner was tall, clad in bright yellow plate armor, and obviously VERY angry about something. The red eyed helmet did little to muffle his voice. It was a language that would have sounded like song if it were being used to convey anything but a death-threat. Before Silas could even form a thought as to what the man wanted, the most beautiful voice he had ever heard issued from behind the warrior. "Do not be so rude, Caeramar. The child knows not what meaning your words carry." From behind the armored figure appeared what Silas only dared describe as a goddess. Hair like silver water flowed at either side of her porcelen face. fine tattoos ran from her eyes down her cheeks, and pointed ears peeked out from her ornate headdress. Her face was both young and old, as though the knowledge of eons were given strange and mystical vitality. She knelt in front of Silas so that she was at his eye level. "You carry something you have no claim to. It must be returned to it's rightful place." Without hesitation, Silas produced the strange gem, for the first time noticing that the symbols on its face were matched by runes on the woman's robes and armor. She took the stone from him, holding it gently between them. "How did you find this?" she asked him. "I heard it. In the scrap-bay, Lady." Silas replied, using one of the only honorifics he knew, and wishing he knew a better one. At this the woman's escorts stiffened, and for the first time Silas realized that there were at least 5 of them, all armed and armored. "That is a strange occurrence." said the woman. "My name is Ashetara. I give it to you because I would like hear yours." "Silas, Lady Ashetara" He replied. "Where are your parents, young Silas?" Silas didn't know that himself. He never had. So he told her what Jebiden had told him when he had asked where he had come from. "My mother is the void, and my father is the stars. The crew of the Gadston Martin are my brothers and sisters." She smiled, and to the apparent shock of her companions, placed her hand upon Silas' forehead. When next she spoke, her voice echoed as though through a trumpet. "Silas, son of the void, brother to poets and pirates. You will outlast your very world, and others besides. You shall travel far, and see sights innumerable beyond the ken of your race. You shall travel in the company of predators and pitty their prey. Your steps will be as stones cast in a stagnant pond, and the fish will not thank you for it. Know now that peace shall forever illude your sight, for you are doomed to die with a lasgun in your hands. And though the histories will shy from your legacy, those you call friend will remember your name unto the breaking of the cosmos. May the blessings of the wanderers go with you." And with that, she stood and walked off, trailed by her retinue. All but one who lingered long enough to say something to Silas in the toungue of his race, then he too vanished into the crowd. Silas turned to one of the many humans he saw who had been gawking at the scene that had just unfolded. "Do you know what he said? That last one?" Silas asked. "Aye," said the man, a grissled spacer with wonder in his eyes. "He said 'remember well her words, for few of your race shall ever know the blessings of a Seer of the Eldar.' I agree with him, kid." [Things I need to say right now before MC starts foaming at the mouth: 1- Does this mean that Silas is secretly descended from the Eldar? -NO, the soulstone sensing him was a fluke. 2- Does this mean Silas' parents are somehow super-special -NO, he's an orphan, leave it at that. 3- Am I trying to get even MORE missions built around my character? -NO, this is just something I had to write down to stop it rattling around in my head. 4- Did I already have this thing thought out? -YES. I didn't just pull this out of my ass yesterday, It's been part of Silas' story ever since I started giving him story. I just now got around to putting it on paper. If MC wants me to nerf this or change it or just plain stop posting shit and make room for other people, I will do so. Like I said, it's been rattling around in my head too long and I just wanted it on paper somewhere so I could stop thinking about it. Good-day.]

Appearance & Personality (can't believe I haven't written this down by now.) Build- Tall and thin, 6'4'' barefoot, but scrawny. Muscle tone without muscle mass. Does not always appear so tall as he has a habit of hunching over or crouching as though he were in a confined space. Face- mostly nondescript. (I don't know how to describe faces. Bite me) Eyes- Eyes are slightly larger than normal. The whole orb is black, and the Iris stands out because it is flecked with silver. Hair- Hair is black, cut short, and unkempt. Clean shaven facial hair. Arms and Hands- Has long thin fingers. Hands and forearms are crisscrossed with hundreds of scars of varying size and shape. Right inner forearm has a tattoo in high gothic reading "Hopeless Wanderer" Signature Items- Wears a Shemagh around his neck, now with a line of large, ugly stitches down the front of it. Wears a rifle shell on a necklace under that. He carries his custom built sniper rifle in a scabard on his back, and his pistol in a drop holster on his right leg. He wears an dark armored bodyglove and often has his sleeves rolled up to just under or above the elbow. Wears dust colored fatigue pants with many pockets over the legs of the bodyglove bloused over heavy boots of a similar color. . Quirks- Refuses to use las weapons. Has trouble trusting tech that he has not either build himself or modified in some way. Curious to a fault Curses, often in languages the rest of the party does not understand. Does not like being on the ground. Much more comfortable in space. Motivation- Wants to see as many interesting things as he can before he dies, especially new technology and unfamiliar ideas. He is with the inquisition against his will, but goes along with it because he can't think of anything better to do. With the Inquisition he can see things no one else has ever seen, and maybe save lives, from both the enemies of humanity and the inquisition itself. Flaws- (where do I start?) Deep seated hatred of the Imperial hard-line. Hates puritans and the inquisition as a whole, and has a special resentment for the Adeptus Mechanicus. Rebellious to a point that it has gotten him in trouble on multiple occasions. Has a tendency to take things less seriously then they actually are. His curiosity has gotten him into several problems, and he sometimes makes casual remarks that he thinks are harmless, but those around him take strong offence to. His greatest flaw is also his greatest strength, and that is that he doesn't think like a member of the Imperium. He does not worship the emperor, and gauges morality as actual morality and not the teachings of the Echlesiarchy, which causes problems whenhe interacts with Imperial society.

The Induction of Silas the Heretek into the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition as witnessed by Yvonne Mengsk the Inquisitor Inquisitor Yvonne held his fists together as he stared through the one-sided glass into the interrogation room. Within the Halls of Torment in the Basilica Inquisitorii of the Hecuban Spire of Judgement, the young man held within was visibly consumed by hatred. His black eye, bloodied clothes, the indomitable will to remain silent even in the face of the cruelest tortures. The captive known as Silas, a free runner that plied the Black Run, was proving to be impossible to break. He had been brought back with the acolytes of the now late Inquisitor Scriptotus, an ambitious man who had taken to his role as an Inquisitor with a particular zeal Yvonne disdained. The man was like a grox, blundering through everything in his way in a rampant charge, ignoring the damage he caused in the wake of his inquests. In this particular case, the infamous warp dabbler known as Jebiden, posing as a illustrious member of the house of Mann, had brokered passage with the rogue trader patriarch of the House of Carlege. Having been reported to be in possession of the Eye of Damaskinos that allowed him to broker passage through the warp, rather than practice the abhor-able practice of child-sacrifices he had become famous for in the bordering Finial and Ixaniad sectors where he plied his trade, had been exposed by none other than the Black Run Operatives the Inquisition had seeded throughout the years. It was only with some trepidation and careful maneuvering that the House of Carlege had been encouraged to give up one of their own - and none other by the brother of the patriarch himself. And Scriptotus, in his rampage, had destroyed more than he had realized. The damage wrought by the strike would back track the Inquisition an entire generation of subtlety as their links were burned, exposed, and lost to the ravages of the Imperial Navy and the fleets of the Adeptus Arbites. The Explorator Fleets, even, had been called to perform in this joint task, to hide beneath the umbra of their mantle to entrap the Carlege's flag ship, the Gadston Martin. Mengsk watched as the interrogator, the chem-brute acolyte of the late inquisitor, worked the man with another punch and another line of inquiry. The words of his peers had fallen short of satisfying his need for the truth. And yet, this man was resilient to the end, shouting sly remarks and testing the chem-brute's patience with each word that escaped his bloodied lips. There was something about this man that Yvonne admired. Hard, immutable in the face of danger. Not quite unlike himself, only molded by the wrong hands. But were they truly wrong? He had seen the worst of the Imperium. The dredges, the slums, the overcrowded hab blocks. Entire generations spent on the construction of void ships. Entire families cast into eternal servitude in the worst of the chem-dregs that littered every hive world. This man had a taste of freedom. Mengsk put a finger to the locket that he kept hidden beneath the body glove he wore. In it, were the two people he had dared loved the most. His wife, now long gone by a stretch of decades. And the child he had been forced to give up. In his line of duty, love was a luxury often denied. But in these moments, he recalled, and their ages would have been around the same. The Chem-Brute screamed at some insult, launching into a fury as the man known as Silas began to laugh furiously at his attempts to break him. It would only be a matter of minutes before he would kill him. They would have been the same age, and if he had grown to be a man, Yvonne would have hoped that his son would have the same resilience against his fate. "Stop the interrogation," Yvonne said, pressing the button to the loud-hailer. "Your dismissed," He ordered, which resulted in the chem-brute shouting in rage and punching a hole in the ferrocrete wall. Yvonne Mengsk let his left hand slip from holding the body glove above the place his locket rested. This man was not his son. This man knew nothing of duty to the Imperium, but after hours of interrogation, and beyond the breaking point, he had endured, unwilling to sacrifice his humanity. Unwilling to sacrifice his own humanity, as Yvonne was once forced to do. "Stand, Silas, for your fate has been decided," The loud-hailer commanded. "Stand tall, for you have been proven innocent, and for that, you have been deemed worthy of service." When Mengsk entered the room, the man stood defiant, his right eye swollen shut by the most recent impacts. "Service? to you?" Mengsk simply gave a nod. Silas muttered beneath his breath, near unintelligibly, "You sure you don't just want to have'em hit me some more?" (special thanks to Massiahcide for writing this bit.)

The Black Run The Black Run, or Black is a recidivist smugglers rout and black market community (not to be confused with the black, uncapitalized, which is a catchall term for the void) smugglers who work this route are known as Free Runners, or simply Runners. They travel in small caravans between stations of harbor called Black Ports. (yes I’m milking the naming scheme for all it’s worth, sue me.) These ports are run in-house and independently of each other, but each abide by a code agreed upon mutually by the First 7, the largest of the Black Ports. The code is less a set of ethics and more a collection of jargon, contingencies, and a sparse smattering of rules that all Runners agree to follow in exchange for free trade privileges on the Run. These rules are: 1. Kill only to save yourself, your crew, or your haul. 2. Never take what you haven’t paid for either in coin or in lead. 3. Never deal in Chaos Merch on the Black. We don’t care what you sell or buy on any other world, but we don’t want the kind of attention Chaos related goods bring. 4. Coin is coin, goods are goods. Xenos, Imperials, Poets, Pirates, you will find them all on the Black. Leave the wars at the dock. 5. Protect the black. There are more than a few that want us dead, you may be called on to help fight them off. Violating these rules is may be grounds to get a Runner White Listed. The White List is a collection of individuals, whose Black Run status has been revoked, barring them from trading on Black Ports. The list is circulated regularly to keep port officials up to date. Black Run jargon considered to be part of the code includes Free Runner / Runner : a smuggler or member of a smuggler’s crew who operates on the Black Run Caravan : a group of Runner vessels that move together along the Black Run. Caravans move from port to port along the circuit, and can be permanent bands or fluid groups whose members join and leave of their own accord, sometimes staying together only for one Warp transit. Off Runner : a Runner that does not move in a caravan, and does not follow along the circuit. They make long hauls across space that the Black does not control, providing straight line transport from one port directly to another. Off Runners are usually a small ship with minimal crew. Imp : slang for “Imperial” usually reserved for Arbites, guardsmen or inquisitors. Hopeless Wanderer : a Runner, usually voidborn, who never stays in one place. They can never settle down, and are constantly looking for trouble. They usually fly alone or have an absolute minimum of crew. Canary : New blood, a rookie runner working under a more experienced crew. Does not apply to young people who were born into the Black, but rather to those who came in from the outside. Squawk : A transmission, radeo, vox, or otherwise. Also used to refer to a transmitter or communications device, as well as a call for Identification. A station might ask an unidentified ship to “squawk in” meaning provide identification and docking request. Black Speak : The language used on the Black Run,derived from a bastardized form of Low Gothic mixed with words and sentence structures taken from at least a dozen alien languages and archaic human dialects, so far removed from its imperial roots that it is barely recognizable. (think deep Spanglish vs London English, and then add Klingon.) Bay 13 : There have been multiple occasions when a Runner has been taken hostage and forced to carry hostile forces into Black Ports under a false flag. In such instances, when the Runner squawks in, he will request to land in Bay 13. This is a code that alerts the port of the situation and gives them time to prepare. There are several other code words linked to this one that can be used to elaborate the nature of the threat. Cold Bore : Code word request for a ceasefire or a stand-down, used to declare oneself a friendly. Running Gun :a Mercenary that works for a runner crew, either as a permanent crew member or a temporary job. Running Guns are well known for their love of shotguns and SP pistols, and are particularly fond of SP revolvers for their reliability, stopping power, and versatility. Standing Gun : unlike their Running Gun counterparts, Standing Guns prefer to stay in one place, serving as the police force and standing militia of whichever port they hire out to. Where Running Guns play fast and loose with loyalty, Standers honor their contracts almost religiously, preferring to die rather than go back on their word. First 7 : the name given to the seven largest Black Ports, which were the first to set down the code, and have a measure of unofficial control over the other ports. The First 7 are: Relay 12 – Human built space station the size of a moon. Relay 12 is often called the gate to the Black Run, because it is the primary importer for bringing goods from outside Dread Mandregora into the Black. Alamo Rock – Asteroid field home to a number of militant, highly independent stations that make up a large “Port System” like unto an island chain. Less densely populated and more spread out than the other ports, Alamo Rock’s defenses are based on guerilla fighting in the nigh unnavigable field. Pearalix –Rogue Planet that was once a thriving port, now recently ruined by an inquisitorial raid. Given a few years, the port will be bustling again, Black Ports never stay empty for long. Heideki - enormous space hulk that the Run cleared out and turned into a workable station. Maranda Fields -Nebula protected by strong electromagnetic radiation that plays havoc with Imperial tech, the only protection from which is a form of magreflective plating. The plating was invented by an alien race known as the Klish, who themselves bootlegged the technology from a now extinct sentient machine race called the Ellipsis. The hub station is a refitted Ellipsis mega-hauler The Dead Fjordes – Rogue planet surrounded by an Asteroid Field. Unlike most rogue planets, the Fjordes is still very much alive, with bioluminescent lifeforms of all shapes and sizes forming a thriving ecosystem. The name Dead Fjordes, is an inside joke and a reference to the appearance of the planet from orbit that results from the lack of solar light and the grey/blue color of the soil. 624-VL -station built by a long dead alien race, found and adopted by the Black Run. Because the station was built and occupied by aliens for ages before humans discovered it, the Black Run council that runs the station is made up primarily of various xenos. 624-VL is a melting pot, thousands of species and cultures working and trading together to form the largest market on the Black. There are thousands of ports on the Black Run, these are just the biggest. As in HUGE ports that cover planed sized asteroids. Black Run legends and folk stories Lost Ellipsis- Many on Maranda fields talk about the mysterious machine race that built the core-station in hushed whispers. It is clear that whoever they were, they had incredibly advanced technology, including matter/energy conversion, relativistic propulsion drives, and reactors the size of caffeine pots that could power entire heavy cruisers for decades. So where did they go? Their abandoned stations and ships show no signs of having been attacked, there were no wars or plagues, no signs of the last violent gasps that usually accompany the death of a species. To look at what they left behind one would assume that they simply got up, walked out and never came back. Machines were still preforming routine tasks, power systems still functioning, one would expect to turn a corner and see one of them all standing there like nothing had happened. And yet, they are nowhere to be found. The mysterious nature of the Ellipsis’ dissapearence has led to many entertaining stories surrounding them. Many runners make wild claims about seeing an Ellipsis in an empty hallway, staring for a moment before disappearing. Others claim that there were no such thing as the Ellipsis in the first place, and that all this talk of an ancient machine race is nothing but ghost stories for the foolish. Ghost Ships- (C’mon, do I really have to explain the concept of a ghost ship legend to you guys, the answer is no) Notable stories include the Ishimura whose crew went crazy and killed eachother like animals, The Bleeding Freighters which are said to trail blood through the void in search of prey, and one notable one that gets its own paragraph down there VVV The lost pod- It is said that a crew of Runners once picked up a repeating beep-beep-beep on their squawk, and when the investigated it, they found an alien escape pod. Upon bringing in the pod and opening it, they found that the only occupant was a long dead alien. Over the course of their journey, the ship’s engineer, the first man who entered the alien pod, began acting strangely; muttering to himself in a strange language nobody else recognized, standing in the corridor, staring at nothing. Three days after the pod was first recovered, the engineer lost it completely, sabotaging the ship’s maneuvering thrusters and locking himself in an escape pod. He jettisoned and was never seen again. To this day, it is said he is still out there, locked in an escape pod transmitting constant repeating squawk: Beep-beep-beep (Funnily enough, this story is given as a reason to send canaries, new and inexperienced crew that nobody will miss, into salvaged craft first, although the real reasons are more practical: booby traps, sabotaged hulls, and decay make salvaged craft dangerous, and nobody wants to be the first one to find out about them.) The Man They Call Joss- Classic story of a mysterious Running Gun who saved a station from pirates with a Lamark Thousander in each hand. The only name he gave the station-folk was Joss. While this one story is considered to be at least based in fact, Joss is a figure of legend and reports of his heroic deeds can be found in countless stories and folk myths. “Making like Joss” is the term for a suicidal last stand, originating from the story of Joss’s death holding off a hundred imperial Arbites to give other Runners time to escape. On any black run port, the name Joss is synonymous with Badass. (In 3 rd millennium speak, Joss=Chuck Norris) Notable Factions Mechareavers: Also just called reavers, these are a network of pirate and mercenary crews that most Runners avoid because of their bad reputation. They are tolerated because they hire out to ports and caravans as protection, but many of them are straight up pirates. There are good and decent runners among them, but not many. Vieled Consortium: A high end trade consortium that caters to the rich, high borns and nobles. They operate with a level of secrecy that makes most outside the Black Run community assume that they do not exist. The First 7: these stations laid down the code, and they are the primary enforcers of the code. Each port can be said to be its own faction, and there have been times when small wars have broken out between them, but the First 7 each have massive influence over large numbers of Runners.