Slain by Elf

Finding a sizeable portion of a ship's crew still alive and sane inside the Mortis Thule space hulk is extraordinary. They have a working Gellar field, which has got to be a life-saver, but that no xenos or warp fiends have wiped them out entirely is still an achievement. We must work to get them to safety, off the space hulk.

In our discussions with those in charge of the remaining crew, a medic is called to take a look at our wounds. His skill is clear, even to the point of eclipsing our own Brother Lucius. This upsets Lucius enough to warrant a bit of light interrogating, an act that turns out to actually be warranted.

The medic is no ordinary crew member, but ex-Imperial Guard. In the face of a Deathwatch squad bearing down on him, the deserter tells the story of how his unit was brutally attacked and decimated, leaving so few alive that they were disbanded.

Lucius isn't buying the story. 'Surely if they were decimated, then 90% of the unit survived and they would never have disbanded.'

'Brother, language changes and evolves. It's been 40,000 years, let it go.'

'No, I won't. Next he's going to tell us that they were literally disbanded!'

Entering a different part of the space hulk has us passing through what looks to be a huge cargo hold, with large silos everywhere. On seeing the silos, Lucien tries to get serious. 'Hand over all your ammunition. No guns in here, Brothers. Flamethrowers only.' Quite why he's quoting a film 38,000 years old is beyond us.

More concerning than the silos, a humming sound is coming from somewhere, and it's not quite mechanical in origin. 'Giant bees!' says Lucius. We would listen more, were he not suggesting some kind of giant bee menace in every other encounter. Then again, even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.

Giant psychic space wasps appear above us, flying down from the ceiling in a manner that is made more threatening for them being 8 feet long. Thankfully, giant psychic space wasps don't fly too fast, and we have bolt guns. Bullets spray here and there, some even hitting the wasps, the one wasp managing to survive to get in to close range sadly only setting itself up for a worse fate.

I call upon my own psychic powers and unleash fiery doom from my hands, sending a blast of flames towards the giant psychic space wasp. It burns, and although it doesn't die it looks to be on its last legs. It had six to start with, so that's got to be a good result.

Unfortunately, the wasp is not the only thing to burn. So does the air around the wasp. It's now that we learn what the massive silos contain, and what effect a whole bunch of missed automatic fire can do. Holes punched in to the silos caused some liquid to start spraying out, fairly lightly to start with, a liquid that is quite flammable.

My psychic flames extend farther than the 30 feet than is normal, burning the air all the way down the cargo hold, where the flames start rising. We have seconds to realise what's happening and run in the opposite direction, looking for cover. 'I told you to hand in all the ammo!' shouts Lucien.

'Yeah, but you also said to use flames, and look how that's working out.' The flames reach the silos and a massive explosion sends us all flying! We're hurt but alive. Even better, not only is the second wave of giant psychic space wasps gone, but so are the nests that were on the ceiling. Think of the XP!

'What does paranoia do?'

'It makes you paranoid.'

Recapping previous sessions is more difficult than it should be. Someone should be writing this stuff down. But anyway, our Deathwatch marines got in to some bother on the space hulk, and it was down to one of the characters to work out what was going on to save the others. It's somewhat ironic, because the player of that character doesn't remember a whit of what happened.

'That may be because we wiped your memory with a pen.'

'Oh, one of those little flashy things?'

'No, an actual pen. We just stabbed through your eyeball until we hit the specific memories of last week. There, uh, may be ancillary damage.'

We trek back up the mountains and find the dragon graveyard, hidden in some caverns. Working our way through what is a museum-like set of caves, with dragon skeletons seemingly on display, we look for the skeleton missing its head.

Naturally, we are not alone. Guardians appear in some of the rooms, guardians who are apparently not happy to see adventurers trying to do some good.

'In the gloom you see a large lion, except for its golden mane.'

'I thought all lions had golden manes.'

'If you'll let me finish. ...except for its golden mane, the lion is covered in silver scales.'

'So it's a dragon! A lion-dragon.'

'Maybe a... drag-on? No, that doesn't work. A li-on? Naming creatures is difficult.'

The two weird, definitely-not-dragon villagers tell us to take the rescued dragon skull back to the dragon graveyard, its rightful resting place.

'Um, didn't the monsters we just killed say that that's exactly what they were going to do with the skull? We should have just let them take it.'

'That would have derailed the adventure.'

'I think you'll find it would have completed the adventure. We really should ask all our opponents what their plans are from now on, just in case we're all working towards the same goal.'

'A quartet of genestealers appears. Cadmus gets to act.'

I think the warp is starting to affect me. I'm pretty sure we're not actually in a space opera.

Thermagaunts, hormagaunts, and genestealers, oh my! Even more xenos monsters appear to test our mettle. The source appears to be a Cthulhu-like monstrosity at the edge of the arena, shrouded in darkness, and if we can't take him down then we'll need to retreat. So I start looking for a retreat, preferably in to the Imperial Strike Cruiser just behind us.

Until we can get safe, we need to keep suppressing the monsters heading our way. Brother Cadmus tries to fire a missile at Cthulhu, but his launcher gets scared and jams. Brother Lucius fires his heavy bolter at the new genestealer threat, ripping one to shreds. Interrupting my search to unleash psychic flames at another couple of genestealers burns one to a crisp.

'I'll shoot one of the unwounded genestealers', says Brother Lucien, his keen decision to not shoot one of the dead xenos reminding us why we picked him as squad leader.

At least the suppressing fire allows time for Brother Cadmus to unjam his launcher. With it ready to fire, his looses a krak grenade directly at the remaining genestealer.

It's a solid hit. '32 damage, penetration 8.' That should do it. 'And blast 1'. Yeah, a unit-radius blast of genestealer parts, that is.

Tyranid termagaunts! A scuttling noise behind us, as we examine the wreck of another Imperial ship fated to be a permanent fixture of the space hulk Mortis Thule, turns out to be a new Tyranid menace.

Lucius recognises them. 'This doesn't look good. They generally swarm the field by the thousands.'

'It's a good thing that we're not in a field, then.' But field or not, we start to suppress the numbers of termagaunts making their way towards us.

Brother Cadmus lets fire with his missile launcher, sending a frag missile in to the midst of the horde. 'Termagaunts go flying!' with the explosion, but a flying horde sounds even worse than a normal one.

Worse still is the appearance of more Tyranid foes. Hormagaunts! 'What do these do?' asks Lucien.

'Well, if rippers rip, hormagaunts probably horm.' To protect at least myself against the threat of being hormed, I consider using the Iron Arm defensive psychic power. But Brother Lucien knows a little about the hormagaunts and advises against it. 'These creatures are so powerful in a horde that they cannot be dodged or parried in melee combat.'

That's good to know, if a little unsettling. Indeed, recalling the information seems to even take even Lucien by surprise. 'What? They can't be dodged or parried?!' Dude, that's what you just told us.

Abandoning our ship, now itself a part of the space hulk, we enter the Mortis Thule to map as much as we can whilst attempting to find a means to escape before it transitions back in to the warp.

We are heading down a darkened corridor when movement is detected ahead. Skittering towards us come xenos creatures!

Both myself and Lucius recognise the tyranid beasts, even if Lucien and Cadmus don't.

'Rippers!'

'Rippers!'

'Ah. What do they do?'