Truffaz l'Acide (disciple), O.R.K.O (familiar), The Faceless (witch), Herne (front), Dzuma Powietrze (disciple), Limber.
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| Moonchild and a handful of muties |
Wastelanders:
Akak, Bartax, Ghoulio (disciple), Moonchild (witch), The Pest. Not pictured: Moonchild's familiar.
(ed: our reporter failed to pict-capture the Nightshade Crew who were present in a group shot)
Nightshade Crew:
Valeria Sly (leader), Freya (champion), Danika (champion), Carli, Phoebe.
The board was a chaotic mixture of towers and crumpled ruins from ages-past, surrounding an ancient, rusted occulum. A magos-biologis of the holy machine god may be able to determine that such an ancient machine, saturated in the weird, may be the cause of so much Ghast growing in this part of Primus... or it could be a total coincidence.
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| Escher leaders take up positions on an ancient tower... |
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| ..while some of the girls prepare for incoming scavvies below. |
Each gang took up position on the outskirts of the grove, each near a concentrated grove of Ghast sporicles. The Nightshade Crew easily had the best position, and Danika was able to take up a commanding view of the field with her heavy stubber.
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| The Pest hunkers behind some old scrap with his long rifle |
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| Other Wastelanders skulk along the bridges |
The Wastelanders slunk in from the skinward side, their dust-coated robes thick with the poisons from Outside. Across the grove from them, the Cult took up their own positions.
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| The vile witch, appellate 'The Faceless', and her mechano-umbric familiar |
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| Dzuma Powietrze (R) and Herne (L) |
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| Corrupt musician Truffaz l'Acide and 'Limber' take up a firing position |
Limber opened the action. He levelled his stolen PDF lasgun at at Carli; a single lasbolt streaked through the spore-riddled air and cut into her side. The veteran ganger stifled a cry, but sank to the oil-stained floor. The delicious scent of burnt flesh rose into the air...
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| Limber whispers three prayers; one to each eye of his gleaming god |
Furious at her sister's fall to these scum, Danika lobs a frag grenade at Limber, but the canister glances aside from the old factory wall and explodes in mid-air; the shrapnel catches Herne along his vulnerable left flank, and he collapses with an animal wail.
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| Wastelanders in the dim hive light |
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| In the distance, Danika scans the scrap-fields and ghast-grove |
The gangs exchange heavy fire over the next few minutes, but little happens. In the centre of the grove, on an old bridge, Moonchild manages to harvest the last good ghast sporicles from an infest crate. Rather than place them in her ingredient-pouch, the mutant snorts them, enjoying the resultant light show in her brain.
On the right, Escher Dzuma Powietrze takes heavy fire from her former house-sisters, but the champion of the god shrugs off the laser blasts, striding forward without fear or pain. The true-Escher grit their teeth and redouble their fire...
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| BLAM |
..only succeeding in pissing off the heretic, who rounds a corner and unloads her shotgun into the wounded Carli at point-blank range. Carli manages to claw her way around a bulkhead before passing out.
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| pew pew pew |
Limber gets into a better position and lays down fire into a wastelander going for the occulum. He forces the creep to hunker down, but the PDF lasgun is beginning to give up the ghost. While Limber manages to cool the barrel enough to keep firing, he will not succeed in another shot for the remainder of the skirmish.
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| Cultists move up against the Escher |
In towards the powerside of the grove, the
Cult begins to press the Escher heavily. In conjunction with the
Wastelanders coming in from the skinward side, the
Nightshade Crew are beginning to get anxious. Their shots go increasingly wide as the seemingly-unstoppable Dzuma leads her assault.
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| Above the Escher positions |
Akak makes it onto the Escher tower. Unsupported by any of his kin, he makes a reckless but heroic attempt to storm the bastion of the in-Hivers...
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| Wounded and bleeding, Bartax sniffs out a motherlode of Ghast sporicles |
In the centre of the field, Danika's fire has succeeded in wounding Bartax, but Limber's lasfire fails to hit the mark. Despite his shoulder injury, the wastelander scrabbles up the ruined occulum, heading for a thick cluster of Ghast-grade nightmare food.
In the centre of the Escher tower, Valeria Sly starts to harvest the sporicles clustered nearby. She manages to grab a handful and stuff them into her pockets, but a cloud flies up...
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| fuck yeah drugs |
..and her eyes glow white-hot, her brain afire. The light of the God-Emperor is upon her! All will kneel! She is become a queen, beloved and fair and high! The stars themselves dwell in her and the weeping hives shall fall!
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| Look out! |
Fired up with the power of
the living emperor raw drugs, Valeria Sly sprints across the platform and somersaults on top of poor Akak.
Following Akak's miserable fate, flayed alive by the electro-whip of Valeria Sly, Ghoulio rushes in to avenge his kin. Chainsaw revving, the champion wastelander, veteran of a dozen hive-raids, the sandseeker, the blood-drinker, he hurls himself against the in-hive woman!
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| Ghoulio!!!!!! |
It does not go well.
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| rip |
It wasn't all good news for the Nightshade sisters, though. On their left, a trio of Cult psychopaths were pressing them hard. Psychic energy scourged through Phoebe, while Freya's frag grenade fire seemed to have no effect on any of the three mutants.
In the centre of the field, Danika's heavy stubber continued to shred into the cover, but it kept the Wastelanders in place. The Pest's long rifle kept shifting between the Cult and the Nightshade Crew, but didn't do much more than keep everyone from crossing into the open field.
Truffaz l'Acide was able to score a couple hits of raw Ghast, but the excessive fire kept him from doing much more, even with his blasphemous steed.
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| View from the occulum to the Escher tower |
Eventually, Moonchild made the crossing over to the building where Limber and Truffaz l'Acide were harvesting Ghast sporicles. A terrified Limber lay pinned from Danika's heavy stubber fire as the bone-dust robes of Moonchild hauled themselves into view. He clambered to his feet, fired a single shot somewhere a metre above her head, and hauled ass out of there.
While this was happening, Valeria Sly reached out with her newly beautiful, expanding, effervescent mind and plunged a finger of static into the queer space between the Faceless's ears. There was silence, then, for a moment.
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| "Hey there." (rough translation) |
Unfortunately, the Faceless's alien mind-paths were able to adapt to Valeria's amateur intrusion, and she shook off the psychic energy like a rat shakes off dust.
Dzuma peeled off to climb the Escher's tower's rear, while the Faceless and her familiar pressed in for Freya. Valeria Sly, still speaking in tongues and hailing the god emperor was on the other side of the tower, too far to possibly reach them...
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| ..oh fuck |
..actually, turns out Ghast really does supercharge your nervous system. With an impossible burst of speed, the Escher leader sprinted across the steel-and-ceramite tower and slammed into the Faceless.
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| Hey, sis. |
Dzuma managed to climb the tower, only to come face-to-face with Freya. Ghast sporicles swirled around them - more than enough for both, if they chose to share instead of fight...
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| run |
Back at the collapsed factory, Truffaz l'Acide managed to grab some good raw-ghast, but the mutant musician managed to huff a whole handful. Sparks of light dancing in his eyes, he trumpeted a note of pure terror, before plunging straight for the edge of the ruined floor, plummeting some 70 yards to the broken rockcrete below.
His blasphemous machine took the worst of the impact, ceramite splintering and gears cracking, and the discipline of the Three-Eyed King managed to limp away. Nonetheless, Moonchild now had untrammelled access to the fungal blooms of raw-ghast...
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| Moonchild and the Factory Skull, the latest book in a series of YA novels |
Moonchild was unable to effectively harvest any more raw-ghast from the lode. There was still more there, she was sure of it, but as her gang was taking such losses and fire from the in-hivers, she wasn't able to harvest anything decent. Even as she tried, The Pest was brutally cut down with yet another burst of fire from Danika...
And on the far side, Valeria Sly was able to beat the Faceless into living, bleeding, psychic pulp. It was not pretty.
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| The Escher stand victorious! |
For a few more minutes, the
Wastelanders tried their best to harvest more raw-ghast, but it was a failing effort. The still-conscious mutants of the
Cult limped away, while the mechano-umbric servitor/familiar seemed to dissipate into the hive walls....
Despite how it had seemed only minutes ago, the
Nightshade Crew stood triumphant. They had prevented the filthy
Wastelanders from accessing any precious Ghast and had driven off the
Cult of the Three-Eyed King.
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| Danika, Lady of High Places, Ruler of All She Surveys (today, anyway) |
Of course, Valeria Sly was going to have a fucking
killer hangover...
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