Slain by Elf

We're at the Chamber of Echoes, waiting for Brother Corpse to return with the governer so we can gain access to the astropath. In retrospect, giving him that nickname was a bad omen.

'What's happened to the genestealers?' asks Brother Sepheran. 'Did they run away?'

'Judging by the screams I'm hearing over Brother Corpse's vox, pretty much the only part of him that's still active, it sounds like they are still slaughtering the nobs of this planet.'

'We should do something about this!'

And that is why Brother Sepheran is the leader of this rapidly diminishing squad.

We need to get to the city's astropath so she can send a message through the void before the tyranid fleet casts its shadow. Reaching the city walls is easy enough, with only a small pocket of rebel activity to defeat along the way, and convincing the city guards to let us in is straightforward. Persuading the Hollow Guard is a different matter.

It doesn't make much difference that we are Deathwatch space marines, here doing the work of the Emperor, on a vital mission to help save the planet, the Hollow Guard won't let us in to the astropath chamber without permission from the governor. That seems rather petty, but if that's what's needed then so be it.

Brother Elyas is despatched to the mansion to bring the governor to us, which I trust he will do. Brother Elyas is not known for his diplomatic skills and so is unlikely to be long in his task. But when the screams start when he finds the governor, and Elyas voxes 'Genestealers!', I feel that perhaps this was not the best time to split the party.

'By the way, if you take a critical hit to your body from behind, your power armour can fail. That would be bad.'

'I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean 'bad'?'

'Try to imagine having a tonne of metal strapped around your body that you have to move without any powered assistance, so that even your augmented muscles would find it difficult to lift a leg or arm, almost making you trapped in your own armoured tomb.'

'And that's bad. Okay. Important safety tip, thanks Egon.'

Our small squad of Deathwatch space marines is dropped on to a troubled planet. We land in the middle of a brawl.

'Let's go in to initiative. Make your rolls.'

'10.'

'10.'

'8. I like to roll low, hold back, assess the situation before committing myself.'

'Or maybe you're a coward.' The Horde comes bearing down on us, and Brother Elyas takes to air with his scout jump-pack, dropping a frag grenade in to the mass of bodies. Boom! The grenade explodes, sending limbs everywhere.

I pull my bolter up and rake across the horde with automatic fire, easily hitting with each shot and the explosive rounds taking down another small chunk of the rebel force.

Finally, Brother Sepheran gets his heavy bolter spinning up to speed, and it spews explosive rounds at an incredible rate. A decent to-hit roll on fully automatic fire with explosive rounds, coupled with the devastator marine's ability to cut through hordes means that there is no horde left.

Of course, if Brother Sepheran had acted first, we could have saved some ammunition.

Walking through the hand-carved tunnel behind the farmhouse gets us to a cavern, where we find steps leading up. As we get closer, we hear a noise coming from up the stairs.

'Okay, they know some spells. These are the most appropriate.' It is the noise of the GM talking to himself, it seems. 'Oh, this is crazy.' Great, that's just what we want to hear.

We press on regardless, clearly not knowing what we are about to face. 'As you go up the stairs you see cloaked lizardmen. They raise...'

'...some kind of white flag?' That's Harry Herpderp, showing true optimism. Sadly, the lizardmen raise some bizarre-looking guns, firing at us and hitting Madame Za Za, but not with a bullet.

The death-beam, for want of a better term, not only kills Za Za in one hit but also forces a sanity check, which Herpderp fails, making this a pretty successful session overall. But success is relative, and despite fighting back and prevailing against these lizardmen, firing our traditional projectile-based guns draws the attention of more lizardmen.

I try to drag Za Za out of the cavern the way we came, ignoring the newly heard cry of a baby as being obviously some kind of illusion, trap, or psychosis I'm suffering. That's what I'm telling myself. Herpderp and Castle go for the baby.

I run in to another lizardman, blocking my path, and I'm armed with a fairly dead fortune teller and a crowbar. It has sharp teeth, and wins when trading blows. I drop to the floor, unconscious and bleeding. Herpderp and Castle locate the sound of the crying and do indeed find the kidnapped baby, as well as more lizardmen. And as the pair have a couple of guns, they manage to mostly survive.

Three lizardmen are dropped at the cost of Herpderp. Castle tries to drag him out of the cavern whilst also carrying the rescued baby, only to run in to the lizardman I was unable to subdue. One-on-one, the lizardman's poison bite wins, leaving us all unconscious and at the mercy of the lizardmen, or already dead.

What happens next we can only dream dread dreams about.

Belphegor is arrested by the police, as is old man MacBain. We watch them leave with the two criminals and, once gone, enter the farmhouse to investigate what's been going on. Hopefully we'll find the missing girl.

'In the wardrobe you find several candles...'

'How many candles?'

'Several. And some matches. Behind the wardrobe is a heavy curtain.'

'Hmm. So will that be an anteroom or a mural we really don't want to look at?' What the hell, I brace myself and pull the curtain to one side.

'Behind the curtain is a hand-carved tunnel, leading off in to the dark.'

'I'll go back to get some torches', says Harry Herpderp.

'Or we could use the candles and matches.'

No, Herpderp isn't his real name, but it fits.

The police are told of wanted man Belphegor's presence in a property we are watching. They turn up and force their way in to the house.

The police also come out again, obviously terrified at whatever just made that abominable sound within. We rally them and get most to go back in, with us behind them for support this time.

MacBain and Belphegor are ready and waiting. Belphegor is unnaturally changed, whilst MacBain has a shotgun pointed towards the front door. He fires it at the first sign of repeated intrusion.

A roll of 99 on the D100 is not a malfunction for the shotgun, but it is certainly a miss.

'He must have aimed too high', says Harry Herpderp. 'Maybe he shot the chandelier and that dropped down on to Belphegor to help us out.'

'Chandelier? This is a farmhouse in the wilderness of Scotland.' Either way, it's a miss that does no one any damage. This lets a couple of us get close enough to MacBain so that his shotgun becomes mostly useless, whilst the police wrestle with the metamorphosed Belphegor.

Belphegor surprisingly is suppressed by the police, whilst Herpderp is hit over the head with the shotgun and taken down by MacBain, the farmer still fighting quite insanely. But with Herpderp down, Castle has a clear shot with his elephant gun.

'Fire a warning shot! In the chest!'

'Are you seriously contemplating burning the house down and burning the young girl alive?'

'She's probably already dead.'

'Or worse.'

'If she's worse than dead, I think I'm okay with burning her al—uh...'

'Burning her not-dead?'

'Well, we could send for the police, whilst two of us wait at the farm to see if anybody comes in or out. If Belphegor doesn't come out, the police can go in to arrest him legitimately. He's a wanted man, after all. And if Belphegor runs, we will see that he does, and that just leaves old man MacBain in the house. We can probably force our way past him to search for the girl. The worst that can happen is MacBain shoots Harry Herpderp, which is a risk I think we're all willing to take.'

And that's our plan. One flaw, though, is in sending Herpderp to talk to the police officer. Despite Herpderp not being his real name, he starts mumbling and bumbling, and going wildly off-topic, and we're back at the farm, watching for movement, and so can't get him back on track. Or can we?

I have a spell or two to communicate at a distance. Perhaps I could try one to help out Herpderp. 'What the bloody hell? Focus on Belphegor being at the farm! You can be such a cock sometimes.'

But wait a minute. A spell or two? Candle communication was the one I was thinking of, the other is, let's see... Contact Deity (Nyarlathotep). 'Um, who am I speaking to, please?'

Coupled with the mysterious disappearance of a local child we hear a rumour that a baby's cries could be heard from a local cliff path, which passes above McBain's farm. This seems worth investigating, so we head out for a scenic afternoon walk.

The path itself doesn't give us any clues as to what may be happening, but we notice a figure leave McBain's farm, pluck leaves from a plant, and head back inside. It wasn't McBain, and although he may have visitors the figure's actions bear closer scrutiny.

We hang around until the evening draws in, at which point it becomes safer to sneak up to the house, grab a couple of the leaves from the bush ourselves, and get clear before being noticed. Subsequent analysis of the leaves shows them to be used in sedatives. It's still not much proof, but circumstances are getting more suspicious at each step.

'We could just set fire to the building', suggests Madame Milton.

'And recover the dead body of the missing daughter?' says Castle, pointing out the flaw in her plan.

'It's no less than we promised. And at least we'll have found her.'

'Shall I call Neil Arthur Tepp?'

'No, let's do a bit more of our own investigating. We can at least try to turn up a couple more leads before becoming desperate and instigating the destruction of the entire universe.'

'Oh, it probably won't be that bad, and it will likely just be me sucked off to oblivion. And it's been so long since I've been sucked off that, well, I don't suppose I should finish this thought.'