Losing Our Marbles
Some intelligence gathered potentially gives us the location of the next Broken Chain strike. We head there with a team of local arbiters to reconnoitre the scene, looking for any suspicious activity or packages. Our few hours of investigation don't turn anything up, but the intelligence proves to be correct when, from out of nowhere, mutants burst out of the tunnels and spread panic. And one of the larger mutants runs towards the middle of the site with what looks like a bomb strapped to his back.
We leap in to action, drawing weapons and engaging the mutants. A solid hit from Dariel against the mutant with the bomb doesn't seem to do much, his metallic body negating much of the impact. 'But surely he's limping', says Dariel, hoping to have slowed his progression, 'now that I've shot him in the... arm'. Apparently not.
Meanwhile, our old enemy fear rears its head again. Not only does the sight of the heretical mutations instil some ingrained panic in to us, but a psyker creates a fearful aura, one that Dariel cannot help but stare at. He is shaken to his core.
'I have to make a willpower check at -30? That puts me on 5! I have zero chance of making that', he says. Technically, that's a 5% chance, but he fails. Matthias isn't doing any better, his mind struggling to cope when getting close to the metal mutant. He rolls a mighty 80 on his fear check, easily failing, and the several degrees of failure making the consequences potentially worse.
Matthias uses a fate point to try to convert his 80 in to a more favourable result, sadly instead getting a 94 on his second roll, which he must keep. That extra degree of failure then adds to the almost-maximum 99 he rolls on the fear table. Unsurprisingly, he goes a little bonkers for a bit.
I am not coping too well with a man apparently made of metal and, when sighting him with my hunting rifle, am transfixed by the abomination. The only acolyte unaffected by the horrors around us is Mordecai, and if that weren't bad enough he is nearest to Dariel's random nutjob shooting, making him prime target. And the bomb has been planted and set. The fight could be going better.