+ inload: Intrigue at Warehouse CCLIX – Part I+

+ A Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition battle report – part I+

+ A very enjoyable game that pitted The Hangman's Rope – an Inquisitorial team led by Unfortunus Veck [+noospheric inloadlink embedded+] against the Church of the Astral Ascension [+noospheric inloadlink embedded+], who have been attempting to smuggle something sinister into the underhives of Grovsenor II... +

+ This game was a bit of an experiment, using a sort of bastard lovechild of Necromunda and Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition. It turned out very successfully – the best game I've had in ages! + 

+ We join our Dramatis Personae following the events of The Enforcer and the Neophyte [+noospheric inloadlink embedded+], a great little short written by occasional four-armed enemy of the Imperium, Bob Hunk. +

+++

In the distance, the sky lit up. Colourful starbursts of lilacs, magentas and greens rolled across like a barrage, painting the clouds a dirty grey-mustard. For a moment, The Underscribe felt his chest ache – an unplaceable sense of loss, of sorrow – as memories of a childhood on a distant planet came back to him. Saint Oltiman's day was celebrated throughout the sector; though nowhere more exuberantly than on Grovsenor II, the blessed martyr's birthplace. 

The moment passed. 

+++

+ Outlying scrumhabs of the House Zavr Warehouse District +

The fireworks display was certainly impressive. Ferlinghetti wondered idly how many casualties would result this year. With a slight start, he realised his companions were beginning to outpace him. Parade or not, the diversion wasn't going to last long. He broke into a scurrying amble to catch up with the three Blenheim Guardsmen Inquisitor Veck had 'diverted'.

+ Ferlinghetti and veterans of the Blenheim MMXIVth +

Slightly breathless, the Underscribe crept up the iron-and-steel staircare of the old loading overpass after the three soldiers. Looking to his right, he saw Veck and Cyprian Northgrass, the Inquisitor's right-hand man, both sheltering behind an old hab that had been pressed into use as warehouse overflow. Behind them lurked the unnerving Arcimboldo, last Scion of the Scarlet Blades. Ferlinghetti shuddered, and was glad to be a safe distance from the Astartes warrior.+

+ Interrogator Cyprian Northgrass, Inquisitor Unfortunus Veck and Arcimboldo +

It was a desolate place; an isolated and near-forgotten sub-district of House Zavr's warehousing that had once been relatively genteel housing – until an ancestor of the current Lord Zavr had been offered a large sum if he could find some extra grain storage. The large open area near the Triumphal Arch was the only one for acres around that provided access for road-wheelers; which made this anonymous place a favourite haunt of smugglers, criminals and recidivists aiming to avoid sky-tax.

Smugglers, criminals and recidivists, Ferlinghetti mused. Which, if any, described the odd new Church best? It did not occur to the Underscribe that the Church of the Astral Ascension might be a legitimate and sincere faith-group. He had worked alongside Veck for too long to grant upstart cults much in the way of charitable thought.

+ An overview of the field of play. +

The warm early evening was broken only occasionally by the bang and crack of distant fireworks, which split the dim light with flashes of fading colour and rumbling ersatz thunder. Ferlinghetti knew Magos Manderghast, an old ally of Veck, was prowling somewhere near the dark highway; his enhanced vision providing the best chance of detecting whatever the Church was up to.

+++

God-Emperor, he was nervous. Never possessed by the firmest of courage, Ferlinghetti found the tension virtually unbearable as Veck's teams crept forward in the half-light. The Underscribe's bowels nearly turned to water as the soldier on point – Cymgin? – suddenly took one knee and raised his rifle to his shoulder. Immediately, the others sunk down, their heads moving warily. 

'There,' whispered Cymgin, gesturing to the space in front of an old Arch, commemorating the long-dead victors of a battle in a war none now remembered. A mysterious object, steaming with stasis-fumes, sat just in front of the Triumphal Arch. Relieved, Ferlinghetti was just about to suggest they walked over, when Toria, the other veteran, murmured to her colleagues,
'Sentries – I make four of 'em'.

+ Church warders prowl the ancient rubble near the pick-up point. +

Ah. Not just a night-time walk, then, thought Ferlinghetti, ruefully.

+++

+ To be continued +

Part II +noospheric inloadlink embedded+]