After grasping a Data-slate within a now revealed third arm, Aldian had spent much time learning everything he could from the library of information. Places, people, anything that he could learn from what they had given him would be committed to memory at astonishing speeds. Almost as if being hypno-indoctrinated for this very purpose, the twisted sage began forming layers and layers of images or memories in his mind, getting a relatively accurate layout of the vessel before he even arrived at the destinations in question. It was not enough...

The ship had a Librarium, that much he was sure of, especially now with confirmation from his most recent venture. An arcane eye, pulsing with intrigue flickered its gaze through the narrow hallways and rooms as the crouched figure buried his head within the device, potentially unnerving more than a few of the less experienced in Immaterial phenomena.

He was to make his way to the bridge, yes, a fine plan. There would be no greater place than to gain respect, even if such was only useful as a key to the darker holds of knowledge that are bound within the ship.

[Sorry about the sudden drop in quality guys, I am very tired and have had a busy day. Will pick up, hopefully gaining that... Charming sense of cold obsession back, in the morning.]

Ogreten was overjoyed at the gifts he had recived from his master now very pleases that he could serve the dark god with ease. Ogreten then went to the bridge hoping he could be part of the opcoming battles for the glory of the dark gods. Upon reaching the bridge he opened the tome he carried and flipped through finding several rituals marking them for later but knowing the marks would change and be pointless. "Oooh time slow.......shroud......amazing a goft of tzeeentch" ogreten mumbles to himself waiting to be called on

~~ Way to Bridge ~~

The Sorceress was busy elsewhere with her mind and paid little attention to her, just after almost a whole fifteen seconds passed she addressed Echidna again. "And here I was thinking you might had an interest in the looks of Sanguinius." Yriel chuckled, stepping now onto the bridge, giving a significant nod to the Commander and took his position next to him. Zadkiel had gazed at the newcomer and her minion, with great interest as the glow in his eyes could tell. It was the glare of desire as Echidna had not just seen herself, but also certainly had before.

~~ Bridge ~~

"It is not a mere mission I want success in. We are at war with the Imperium." Zadkiel clarified, without going further into detail.


*** Briefing Commence ***
Note: I assume every player is on the bridge, even if your char has not arrived yet here - they are now. Anything you want to resolve from earlier please do so with a '~~Before Meeting~~' indicator. Thank you.

As all the newcomers stood in a neat row, the captain returned to the bridge and took her seat on the control throne to bring the Lost Mercy into the void and the Commissar with Security Officer 'Vortex', the 'friendly' Secutor and his helpful Servo-Skull guarded the doors, the meeting could finally commence...

Yet he waited until they were in the void over the planet. The Observation screen changed on the planet and just with a hand sign from him, the entire world was set aflame as out of nowhere. A chain explosion from the capital, along with many capital ships and such that seemed to accumulate to a wave of destruction that devoured the entire world.

"That is the sort of power we wield. And such is the risk you belong now to. I tell you. You became members of an organization so dark. So hidden. So mighty, that everyone we meet and who does not follow us is to be eliminated. They will be eradicated, hunted across the galaxy, realspace and warp, flayed and decapitated. We save no breath to eliminate traitors and kill all those who stand in our way. You know how the Dark Angels hunt their Fallen Brothers? Multiply that desire of hunt by a hundred." Zadkiel smirked as he clapped his hands twice and a shaft from an upper deck opened, letting down an Astartes who had a chain around his neck, he already was dead. And skinned.

"That was the Squad Leader of the last team we had assembled. Couldn't live with the 'disgrace' of having slayed a hundred Imperial children from his former homeworld, Baal. Was an operation to stop some Blood Angel recruits, which we then swapped out with already mutated children. Once the Blood Angels found them, they burned the whole village down, having thought they were somehow mutated through a recent Tyranid or perhaps even an Ork attack." He laughed in delight from that thought and poked a bit around in the meat of the flayed Astartes.

"Anyhow. I just want to make sure we understand here that the force you joined is very resourceful and doesn't like freethinkers... Well.... We like freethinkers as long as they think in creative ways to bring us the right results without hindering our operations. Aaaand that is why you are going under a Trial by Fire. A neat little system, invented by the Tau Empire which I found useful to apply to my recruits. This is how it works."

The big observation screen displayed three groups. "Fireteam Oni" "Fireteam Draco" "Fireteam Inferno"

"Each of you gets an own task. Fulfill it. Your whole team passes. No matter who survives, no matter how many survive. As long as the task gets done, it counts as successful. The team to achieve their goal first, will win a reward. A team that doesn't achieve their goal.... Believe me, you don't want to know." He shrugged as if he didn't care.

"And here comes the fun part. This mission is to be done on this ship. And your timelimit is until we arrive at our destination in roughly twenty-four hours. Should you find this means of qualification too childish, I am sure that Vortex would like to 'converse' with you. He turned to his trusty bodyguard, the Alpha Legionnaire. "You will join the party, since I think it is time for you to be promoted."

Suddenly the screen scrambled and auto-generate the teams and their mission.

Fireteam Oni:
Primary Objective: Find and Kill all Eldar (Deck 45)
Secondary Objective: Collect Eldar meat and prepare it for the exotic animals
Aldian Tacet - Tzeentchian Telepathica Scholar (@SorcererAlhendors )
Alexandra Nox - Chaos Sorceress (@Vulpas )
Argyle Voncarr - Khornate Astartes (@DeranVendar )
Orgeten - Tzeentchian Cultist Ritualist (@bossaroo )
Othim - Salamanders Traitor & Khornate (@Valonox )
Redeger uq Hashet - Corrupted Astropath (@Loldoom )

Fireteam Draco:
Primary Objective: Secure the Med-Bay (Deck 2)
Secondary Objective: Get a letter of recommendation from the Head Nurse
Cryzarion the Phoenix - Thousand Son Sorcerer (@lord-watchman )
Dyson Oni - Aspiring Iron Warriors Warpsmith (@DaKaptin )
Grythan Konenos - Undivided Emperor's Children Raptor (@Nurianis )
Hydratus - Undivided Alpha Legionnaire (@DeathKorpsOfKrieg )
Seth - Chaos Apothecary (@Vulpas )

Fireteam Inferno:
Primary Objective: Kill an Astartes
Secondary Objective: Record the murder
Satharn Tem - Night Lords Astartes (@Jorimel )
Atax Echidna - Dark Mechanicus Slaaneshi (@Casavay )Krax Brutalus - Black Legion Undivided Astartes (@Colapse )

"You can cooperate with other teams, ask them for help or whatever you want. You are not allowed to access the armory, except you can convince our local Armorymaster somehow to give you equipment, which I doubt unless you seem to have a valuable piece for him. I heard he likes Gold." Zadkiel shrugged. "Also as said, I don't care how you manage to get your goal achieved. Just.... Do it."

"One more thing." He said loud. "Each team is allowed to pick one supporter from us." He gestured to Yriel, Vortex and himself. "The Commissar and the Captain are out of question due to their required services. First come. First serve. Choose wisely."

OOC - Mission Note:
This is going to be fun. I rather see this as 'Tutorial' / 'Intro' mission, the outcome won't have REAL any effect, yet you can get actual some start bonuses before shit gets real. As for Fireteam Inferno. You could kill a players Astartes to accomplish the mission. Though you should perhaps not do that

And of course the link to this post is on the first page!

+++ For newcomers & ppl I may have forgotten +++
You belong by default to Fireteam Inferno.

Dyson had arrived on the bridge latest, keeping to the far end of the row. None seemed to have noticed his arrival, which was normal for the Iron Warrior. He was only a mark V encased titan of death with a metal arm sticking out of his back, but whatever. Even among the Bloodborn or during the invasion of Ultramar he received little to no attention. (That one in the back, with the horns and bolter gun.) Things were going to be different now!
Dyson was well on his way to becoming a new Warpsmith, which he knew would bring great honor to his Legion and the Master of Iron. Commissar Klaus Eisenhaut was his current Lord and Warpsmith Har'az'ahl was his brother and teacher. Years his senior, but gene-seed brothers all the same.
After being informed of their 'test', Dyson moved to gather with the rest of Fireteam Draco. Choosing to wait before introducing himself. 'Not as if any has asked. No sense adding to the miscommunication... Am I depressed again? Who cares?' He thinks to himself in serious denial.

Hydratus carefully listened to and accurately acessed all the information revealed during the briefing.
The fireteam lists, including the objectives and the information about who he'd fight with interested him quite a lot, after all he would have to rely on those people, at least to a certain degree.
He noticed the quiet astartes, who, according to what he knew, was part of fireteam Draco.
The warrior seemed to be a very quiet person and Hydratus hoped that this warrior was one who would rather prove his strenght through his deeds, than by speaking meaningless words.
He pointed his clawed gauntlet at the aspiring warpsmith and spoke with a plain voice:
"You seem to be a very quiet one; I like that. It seems that we're both part of the same fireteam,
so I'd appreciate it if you told me your name."

-Seth-

As Seth saw the There Alpha legionnaire and Iron warrior gathering, he decided he would need to get to know his squad mates and his patients as he approached the two he looked at the alpha legionaries arm. "Quite a interesting team that has been formed by our command isn't it." The apothecary said as he stood near the two. "I shall be our apothecary for this mission. It should be quite interesting Securing the deck with you fellows." he said his voice in a neutral tone. His diagnoser helm scanned them and looked at there biometeric data and his stance was composed to set of a neutral tone about him.



-Alexandra Nox-
Alexandra slightly sweated under her helmet as she saw who was in her team. 2 khorantes in the group she was slightly relaxed with her having several psykers but if the khornates get in range it would be all over for her and the thought of failing the mission worried her even more. She would have to get in combat with eldar not knowing what kind of things they currently had the secondary objective made her quite curious also how would they be expected to prepare the meat and in what fashion. she had to succeed she would have to be perfect similar to Seth while he was on his operations. She turned to the first person on her team the astropath she met from earlier. "Seems we will be on the same team I must ask how much can you do in combat agiasnt eldar can you sense them all if we get to deck 45. She asked the astropath Patch's trailing behind her still carrying her tools.

This was all too easy, tracking down Eldar amidst a Chaos-infested Immaterial hybrid once the necessary preparations were made would be as trying to find a lit torch amidst a lightless void. It was for this reason that Aldian's suspicion rose, they were being told too little and withheld from far too much. Still, Eldar were an inherently psychic race possessing millenia of knowledge from generations past, this much was universally known. Unless the Dark Kin were to be their prey, such an experience presented opportunity.

"We will request the Sorceress," without even asking for the consent of his potentially incompetent allies, the arcane eye glared towards the woman in an almost menacing fashion. "Psyniscience indicates that she is Tzeencthian, and if not a true Psyker at the very least an accomplished Sorcerer. Her skills will prove fundamentally perfect for such a task." She was interesting, very interesting. A figure possessing of almost Slaaneshi qualities, did she appraise more than the Grand Architect, or was this another deception that he had seen so many times amongst the fellow players of the Great Scheme?

Now all that remained was the problem of their Astartes companions. Theoretically the combined sorcerous might of the 'Human,' members would be enough to bring even they down if need be, yet their persistence of denying the Immaterium's psychic gifts gnawed at his will like an uninvited guest. They would only be useful if these Eldar proved difficult to master, yet it would potentially be unwise to anger them further than their inferior devotion already had.

With the briefing finished Grythan walked over to join the rapidly gathering Fireteam Draco, taking great care to keep a disinterested demeanour, he eyed up each of his team trying to work out their strengths, weaknesses and combat styles. With each member firmly established in his mind he entered into the conversation.

“Securing the Med-Bay then, shall we walk and talk?” He held the gaze of them in turn, judging their conviction and seeing who would flinch or whether they would look into his eyes long enough to earn his respect.

“We each have the schematics of the Med-Bay on our data-slates” he said, looking down at his own despite having memorised it earlier on. “A standard Take and Hold operation then?”

Looking around at the faces (adamantium or otherwise) of her new team members, Echinda nodded, stepping away from ther rest of the group and raising her hand in a rotating gesture. Her intended meaning was that they should come to her. Minotaur took it as an order to turn in place, something Echidna only noticed some time later.

Killing an Astartes wouldn't be too hard, but certainly not exactly easy. In many ways, they died just like simple humans, she though, remembering the times she'd seen them die. Though at the same time, most of these fatalitites had been caused by her children, not herself, and most of them were colossal beasts of machinery. Not that she didn't remember that time Maneater grabbed that blue-clad fellow with its tentacles and proceeded to see how far they could be twisted with a fondness; neither would she ever deny that Torrasc's way of dealing with a Terminator ranked among the funniest and most gruesome things she'd ever seen.
Of course, her rank also meant that Echidna had had to deal with some uppity Astartes personally, once or twice; usually, however, these were either minor Chosen who simply lost to her due to the discrepancy in divine favour between the two, or other, minor threats. Especially since, due to her league of followers and children, she had the luxury of picking her fights ("Oh, the Lord of the Feeding Kraken wishes to renegotiate my payment? Maneater, feast."), and the fact that ten, twenty fanatic mortal slaves with grenades hurling themselves at an Astartes were often enough to inflict severe trauma.
But now, she lacked favour, children and slaves. And Climactic Thrust, the blade who alone had won her several duels in the past - a technological marvel it had been indeed, far preferable to any of those disobeying daemonic weapons. And what she did have were these two Astartes, probably just as washed-up as her, and Minotaur, who was, while nice to look at, certainly no replacement for the titanic beast of an offspring she had crafted ages ago.

Impatience was already on her face even as she had only spent a second or so looking at the armoured demigods. "I assume none of you have a camera - do you?"

Argyle lofted a brow at their objective...they had several witches amongst them who would be able to make fitting hounds for their hunt, indeed the idea of having them bound in brass chains and barbed collars to agonize them forward like he would of a pack of wolves back home was a jolly thought yet...they had such an easier solution. So it was he wandered over to their Astropath and reached a hand out for his dancing Eldar mind-slave, intent on closing his hand about its neck and drawing it off from the floor. There wouldn't be any death yet, not till the word was given that their hunt had began, lest some 'funny' fellow decide it preemptive and himself incapable of a job, once they reached Deck 45 he was more than certain this xeno would count on the list as well after all. So it was for the time being the warrior merely stood by with a xenos trapped in armored fingers, a fairly neutral expression on his face lest smugness see them all undone that much sooner.