Latest / WarHams - Narrative Declaration / A Chaos Odyssey – Ep. 11 – Secret Dealings

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A Chaos Odyssey – Ep. 11 – Secret Dealings · WarHams - Narrative Declaration

• We're all just whipped gimps in God's hot cage. Sorry, it was a eardrops of burger cake. Where can I aura farm? That's been the question. The art of the deal is alive and well in the 42nd millennium. I'm still gonna say a technical loss is a loss. I'm about to go fucking General McClellan on your ass. I didn't lose, I merely failed to win. Now you said that was a real piece of shit though, so. Listen, you can get the top amount of frags tf2 but if the enemy pushes that funny little bomb in the cart to where it's supposed to blow up you fucking lose i think that's a good intro to start out on easy do that one payload race we'll use that one hi everybody welcome to another side episode of warhams a chaos odyssey i didn't fuck up this time good job i'm gonna slam my door to improve the acoustics of the wood variety damn it me slamming that door actually made me want to peel very quick okay well you go to me and i'll get us with the recap and everything it's not that he needs to it's that he wants to he feels like it today welcome back everybody hope everyone had an amazing time good to see everybody again today uh of course we had ourselves an exciting episode last time i believe betha i got his ass whooped uh as i go through my notes here yeah yeah get your tears out yeah yeah just like like oh delicious tears really just sucked you know like going into combat and just not even getting to combat because fire took you out and that'd suck yeah you could have an epic moment and we could have had a thunder hawk but we're here now um anyway i'm coming for you but the barbarians have got the rage in combat it's like you had always be raging always raging i guess i was just thinking how we could make uh make odo feel worse about the last session oh please please just just lay it on us oh i thought you had more to add on to it no no i was studying in my lab i never considered the uh advance everybody is always so big to me yeah my tech tree i'm facing the wall my ass is huge yeah my bully tree is large all right all right but i but i do have one thing to say to you odo okay one thing about everything all right i know what is it speaker really down on you what is the speaker these are about to be your last words all right but i just wanted to say i know where you live or you said it little buddy i know what your address is you do it used to be where your address was i still love the uh the time where the fire alarm went out in your guys apartment complex oh my god that was awesome that was really funny i hope it happens again but of course we do have an episode together so good to see everybody hope everyone's having a fantastic time and hey if you're listening to this thanks for being here we appreciate you're here hope you're doing okay we all love you being here and hope life gets better regardless of where it is uh but of course what happened last episode beth a.l uh did not get us a thunderhawk instead burned a whole bunch and and fail from said thunderhawk sorry i might be mad about something um as we continue on yeah man i would have liked to have a thunderhawk too zory tried to do the intro 80 times and every time we just stopped on didn't get the fucking thunderhawk and then we talked about it pretend if i may i'm just glad that i'm not the one initiating the pvp this time in fact you're kind of you're like you have a slight shadowy reasons why because i think last episode whenever you went uh it's like like so happen to notice we're not in the thunderhawk right now that's turned into my stem recently oh my god oh my god and so with some other friends with something would happen like i'll be like happens to like appears we don't have the situation right now right now so it's i've been torturing people that way it's it's not my new partner so you did a great job um let's go let me say what the hell happened last episode so people don't want to please happen last episode all right so basically after plummeting like a meteor um they basically we all basically rushed over to bethael's uh you know aid and a lumbering kind of i guess will help manner uh we also looted a whole bunch of the bodies over there so we still have a we have several flamers to give to some troops if we ever get any uh a heavy flamers for whoever wants that and of course we stole some gene seed from the space marine corpses because we needed a stock i think that was by zante's idea uh life host mindscaped with beth isle trying to go like y'all you know you don't have to be as angry anymore you know but of course corn battered down the door and interrupted the session um then they got over to their old transport and radioed in through a amazing thing of who's in charge game uh to see who's going to call the troop transport and it was on its way and as they were waiting uh conversations just to clarify just to clarify it wasn't evgeny who was in charge carry on no we need to make sure i told that motherfucker that Evgeny was in charge. All right? I'm backing up my boy. My teammates respect me. They see me as a fellow chaos lord-in-waiting. I wouldn't really say that. Yeah, let's not get that far. Three of them, two of them see me that way. You're like, no, no. You're not going to pass. No, he's fine. I'm a varsity chaos champion. You do have three people who believe you'll make it that far, Hulky. You have three people. You're forgetting Lucitrix. Yeah, you're like the water boy in one of those. Not the water boy. No, that's Lucitrix. I will not accept that slander. Terrible faith in Evgeny is incredibly fickle though because you could say, yes, I believe Evgeny is going to become a chaos lord. But if Evgeny head exploded tomorrow, you'd just be like, well, it is what it is. And what's the alternative, Mr. Slemishy? I'm going to sit here and piss and shit myself when it doesn't happen. I'm telling you, we're all on the same side. You also don't believe what you're getting. It's a shame that his head exploded. I guess we'll have to find another old meow meow to adopt. Anyway, Byzantium also got acid launched from his chaos corruption, so we gotta remember that. Also, remember, Byzantium, you are destined to die. I lost it in my other notes on another device, but I think it was like three days or something. four years no it was like four years four years I'm not destined to die I don't think it was something bad was going to happen oh I was destined to die I was destined to die oh yeah I was destined to die that's what what's her name said destined to die actually today I was recording this episode 6 came out in public so that would be the one that I was determined someone tell me in discord if you listen to that tell me exactly what it was uh there's four years and then some specific things i don't feel like it uh and then of course we decided to defile the body and then we got picked up and i do believe uh from the last we left off at the final bit we were on our way back to the carcass uh getting nice and healed up but of course thurston you know what story we're gonna be having today what are yep or what is currently happening all right all right um suck here okay i'm gonna turn this little guy on um odo can you can you read this little little quote for me yeah i can this one this one applies to me you are already dead your body has just not accepted it yet by apothecary variel of the super cool and awesome red corsairs we begin in orbit over the chaotic infused world of Dahab in the apothecarian of the carcass where Bethael you lie you lie on a slab being tended to by the vessel's apothecarian the true son Valthor Drask the sort of teal little sea-green armor gleams in the, uh, in the light of the room, as, as he stands over and utilizes several medical diagnostic tools, um, pressing buttons, and there's clicking of servitors as he looks down. All right, it, uh, appears that your leg is incredibly mangled here, you said you fell some height? Yes. A Thunderhawk. Alright, and he looks over. Evgeny, have you been smoking? Yes, sir, I've been smoking two packs a day at least. Good, good, good. Do you need any drugs, anything to dull the pain of life and existence? Not yet, but if the next mission goes terrible again, I may. Alright, very good, very good. I'd like you to get on that, uh, that slab. I'm going to tend to you right away. Of course. Well, Yevgeny? Did you go sit down for your inspection, Yevgeny? Why do I need an inspection, sir? I'm right as rain, fit as a fiddle. No, no, no, you need to be looked at. Go sit down. I have to make sure you're in tip-top shape. You've been in combat, many things could happen, psychological as well, the servitors start the process uh Thael you need to wait I will not be going anywhere good good because I've decided that you will need someone to make sure you don't don't leave try to get up until I've looked at that leg so until I'm done with you Genny um Byzantium will look after me and he turns and walks off and like as he turns like just the shadow behind Byzantium standing there obviously I would rather crawl out of here. Well, is that any way to treat me when I am here to see to your own well-being? Selflessly, I might add. Selflessly. Right, of course, you are simply here to do... Are you trained in performing medical operations? Oh, well, how hard could it be? I'm going to make a Medicaid check. No, do not touch me. Okay, are you going to try to operate on the leg? Do not touch me. All right, all right, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make a deception check to make him think that I'm operating on his leg. But, Speaker, will you let them know you can do it? No. Oh. I'm not even going to fucking. He's keeping the secret. I'm just doing stuff you just like buzz saws start going and like yeah give me give me a give me a deception test opposed by awareness let's do that awareness okay that's a 79 all right well we'll see if I am any better at that where is my awareness there you are It's 79! Let's go! How romantic! What the fuck? How does this work? What happens when they're the exact same? Well, you typically compare the degrees of success or failure in this case, of which it's equal. They're the same? but I will say the tiebreaker in this is that Byzantium has approximately two higher deception I need a clamp here oh no clamp here I suppose I'm ready to kick at this unicycle wheel get the fuck off I'm shoving him off I am shoved off and I reveal your leg is normal your legs are okay Bethael is like rapidly swearing and Nagra Kali and just like Byzante what was the point well I was here to make sure your heart rate was sufficiently elevated oh it's elevated it always is whenever you're within the same room. And just think of how... I said heart rate. Yeah, it is two hearts, but do they pluralize it? Heart is, rate is. Heart rates. I'm sorry, I interrupted you, my bad. I interrupted your flow. No, no, no, now we've all entered this state, and what is the correct... Lore check. No, that does. Lore check. I guess you'd say your pulse? I don't know. Whatever. Your heart rate-ies? Heart rate-ies. The Astartes heart rate-ies. All right, this is stupid. Yeah, thank you. Where are we again? What's happening? I think we're about to have fucking Valthor put a heroin pump in Evgeny. All right. So it's a, it's a, it's a light mix of drugs that I've put together just for you. Are you ready? What kind of drugs are in that, sir? I've taken my fair share of combat steams. The syringe goes into you. First and one right to see where the syringe goes. No, yeah, absolutely. You're right. You're 100%. You're 100% right. Okay. Very fair point. Oh, 88 seems like it's going to be good on the chart. Let me reacquire the chart here. The most coronate limb possible with that 88. True. It's true. That is true. It's my favorite number. Don't fail me now. Black Crusade tables. 88 is the left leg. The left leg. The faded leg. Yeah, alright, you're good. He removes it. Uh, just try not to get stressed. Oh, that shouldn't be too hard, the, like, psychic twinge of pain and infinite horror that he's witnessed. Yeah. Oh, good. Why, uh, why shouldn't I get stressed, sir? There's nothing to worry about, it's just a combat stint. Oh, some of those drugs are also laced with immaterial residue. It might, uh, exacerbate it. Immaterial what? Don't worry about it. He slaps you on the shoulder with a ceramite gauntlet. What shoulder does he slap me on, Thurston? I... Ah, fuck. Yeah, which one breaks? No, it's an important question because of some, uh, you know, scarification. Mortification, actually. It's going to be your right. It's going to be your right shoulder, because I literally rolled right arm right there, so that's perfect. Excellent. Awesome. Evgeny will feel a twinge of pain as the immaterial mirror shard gets plunged further into his collar. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. You did have that. Yeah. All right. Good, good, good. All right. Beth, I am. So, how far exactly did you fall? Oh, Evgeny's great. He's going to be fine. Just a simple checkup, really. Good to know. Now, this little leg of yours. A hundred meters or so. Well, I was on fire. I fell from a thunderhawk, and that was what I landed on. Fell from a thunderhawk. Evgeny, you didn't fall from a thunderhawk, did you? No, sir. I'm still standing, and I'm not a bag of meat. All right. Very good. Very good. Turns back to you. Okay. Here's what we're going to do. I have two options one please I can give you some stims and you can walk it off because your healing should handle it second we can remove it and replace it with a bionic just give me the stims I will walk it off all right I need you to know we're low on stims yeah It'll be a light dose. Used it all at the beginning. There's like a closet. There's a closet in this room that's like mortal medical supplies, and it's massive. It's fully stocked. It probably has its own fucking receptionist. And then there's like a Stardy's medical supplies. Yeah, it's like a couple of baby aspirin and a stick to bite down on. And it's, like, Lucitrix looking through it, and that's it. Whatever stem you have, I will accept. Have this. It's, uh, we took it from an imperial raid. And it's, like, I don't know, like, emperor's little champ, like, like aspirin. Ah. That's not a stem. Okay. It's a party favor. Sure. Yes, give it to me, Drask, I do not care. Stop complaining about the lake, though, it'll get better. I have not complained a single time. And you do realize, like, thanks to your astartesian biology, it's actually done a fair, fair job of mending itself on, even on just the trip back to the ship. Well, anything to avoid Byzanty playing nurse for any longer. Bethyle's gonna sit up and kind of test it out yeah you seem to have some pain in there but nothing unbearable you feel like the sinew and bones and everything re-knitting after that psychic incursion the worst pain he probably has right now is a very very bad butcher's nails headache yeah which you now have a little tablet it to combat against great i'm gonna just however many he gives me i'm going to take all of them at once yeah it's like it's like four of them and they've all got like that almost cartoonish face of the emperor which you're forced to like consume it's it's it's yeah it's chew on them just this comical like face yeah at this point at this point Cephas you would come in into this and see sort of what's been going on you you once you came aboard you you quickly made a report to relevant stations and then made your way back here yeah Cephas obviously didn't take any real fire from the last engagement because I would have been too slow to make any movement out that way. So he's just, he's just going to come in and he's going to see Bethael presumably limping up out of bed. Yep, he's sitting up, kind of testing his weight on the limb, wincing a little, but kind of managing to get up. Ah, good. Our brother gets to keep his original leg. So I do. Well, we are back in order now. I am tending to a handful of minor reporting duties before we head back out again, as our work is not yet finished on this planet. Are you well enough to fight, Bethael, or do you need more time? If you could hack off both my legs, then I would be well enough to fight. Indeed. But you might find yourself meeting your timely end sooner. Better to die on the battlefield than to die here under drasks. watchful eye. All death is the same, but I take your meaning. Evgeny, how are you faring? Well, aside from the mystery cocktail that Drust just injected into me, I'd say I'm doing honestly fine, all things considered. Could be a lot worse. Sorry to say I didn't fall out of any thunderhawk, but I'm glad that you're still with us, Bethael. I'd hate to lose you for that. Thank you. Yes. That will be remedied. You said you received a chemical cocktail from Drask? That's correct, sir. He didn't specify what particular was inside it, but he said there was some kind of immaterial substance that made up whatever was in the cocktail. It didn't kill me initially, but he told me that I should quote, avoid stress whenever all possible. I'm assuming that I will explode or some horrible thing will burst forth from my chest if I'm to undergo some sort of undue stressor uh Cephas will turn to Drask Apothecary was this the same cocktail of chemicals that you gave to attendant Lucitrix uh well yes ah in that case I can tell you exactly what does. I would encourage you to avoid stress lest you take up a very, very heavy fervor for mortification. She has been doing so in one of the lesser chapels. Oh. So she's been scarifying herself too and tearing off bits and pieces because you stuck that stim in her. Oh no, she's always done that. She's just doing it more. If you'd like, you can go visit her. I should not like to do that at the moment I think I've got a pretty good handle on mortification I bear my scars and I don't need Nurgle's blessing to well, bear any more of them not on you anyway but appreciate the insight Cephas, I really truly do very well and Byzantine he looks at Byzantine knowing full well he did not take any damage from the last engagement as far as i recall how is the ingrown toe brother i don't have one of those you disgusting troglodyte but thank you for your concern ah you never know it may start up at some point you are here after all i assumed you were here for medicine oh no not to antagonize utilizing the healing power of laughter I'm glad you had fun me too there is a crackle on the vox this is Atalpa, Scourge are the Astartes honored, returned to us yes yeah Cephas will just press the return call button we are among you yes, what is it Scourge As I, as I believe that your approval is required, I wish to communicate that there are enemy vessels, I believe to be hostile, at least, maneuvering around the planet. Have you identified them, or are they merely hostile, broadly? There are several cruisers that I am having a difficult time identifying, though one of them matches the trajectory of the Thunderhawk that departed the planet. Ah, the conflagration has irritated at us, no doubt. They appear to be maneuvering into a bombardment possession over the planet. The planet? Why? correct. Were I to posit a conjecture, it would seem that your interference with their affairs has caused them to become incandescent. My calculations, however, are quite direct. I believe that the conflagration will require at least one day to achieve optimal bombardment position based on their current trajectories, and penchant for utilizing flame-based ordnance. If we were to interfere, would we be in an advantageous position, or would we be on the back foot again? There's, like, a very pregnant pause on the other end, before Edelfarth responds, uh-oh, yeah, okay, okay, thank you. 79 again, by the way. Oh my god, that's true. There's like this pause before Edelfar responds. Have you acquired us any fighter Obamacraft? No, we have not, and you would know that if you checked the reposition list. Disadvantage. Truly a delightful vessel I have decided to be a part of. Edelfar, what are the Astartes Complement of these firebrands exactly? How many true warriors stand ready to combat us upon each cruiser, would you estimate? It is difficult to ascertain, depending on their utilization of mortal troops, I would gather. perhaps 30 per vessel, in a standard disposition of a renegade warband. However, that could alter. The difficulty would of course be reaching the vessel, and attempting to board it. Their voids are up, preventing any form of teleportation. That is rather bad. I don't suppose we have any- anything we could use as an ad hoc boarding craft? Doubtless anything that would survive their response to such a ship showing up on their sensors. We don't need to survive. I beg to differ, sir. No, no, you are indeed correct. I would quite like to survive, in fact. Hey, Yevgeny? Hey, Yevgeny? Yevgeny, is this conversation that's going on this potentially stress-inducing- I'M NOT A CONGRESSMAN! That you have now very clearly put yourself into the moment of... Wait, you can't do this to me, you can't do this to me! Can you give me a willpower of plus 20, please? Fuck! Oh, he's gonna blow up! Oh, I killed him, get him! He's gonna start whipping himself, fuck! He's okay, he's okay. Okay, I succeed. It was a 40. I'm sorry, it was a 29 for 5 degrees of success. I'm cool as a cucumber. The urge to crawl in your skin has diminished. The wounds are healing. Yeah, so... Yeah, that's enough for you to really come to realize that this is all fine. This is all fine right now. And Byzante clearly has a good assessment of the situation. up until the point where he suggested you all die, at which point now, you maybe have some concerns. We cannot… We are just… It's Sunday night again. No, it's Sunday 6! Oh my! God, okay, wow, I get it. Close, though. So, if we cannot get onto their crafts, you said they had a day before they get into optimal position. Correct. Then we find… Based on… We find Zol Anandke. He had to get there somehow himself. We've been meaning to wring answers from him anyway. Perhaps he has a vessel to wring as well. What? You want us to go and find the man that we're hunting down and then ask him for help? No. We wring his neck until we take his vessel. Ah, for a second there, I thought you had suffered some sort of stroke. No, no, I did not hit my head. I hit my leg. I see, I see. Well, this is all well and good, but there may be a way for us to prevail, even without a full military offensive. Do you doubt me? Yes, but go ahead. All right. Well, if you want to find out my strategy, and then I make- I go running for the bridge. And Bethael's gonna grit his teeth, and he's gonna try going after him. oh my god a five sorry for audio listeners I just rolled a percentile I had to make my willpower test because there's nothing quite like speaker not like loudly declaring the plan but instead just running to enact the plan that will give a GM heart fucking palpitations you know it's as much a burden to me as it is to you in some ways is it really I don't know I mean, Seppas isn't really concerned because what's he going to do? Is he going to go like sit in the captain's chair and be like, all right, we're going to ram them. All right. So that we immediately cut to Byzantine. So you're going to ram them. No, I'm kidding. No, he doesn't say that. All right. I assume it's like Byzantine gets there and is like kind of like, like strode in. i assume bethael on on the the pain but not like not hampering you now leg is rushing behind um lifos are you also rushing i assume cephas is just taking a gingerly face i would like him to walk with evgeny if evgeny is not stressfully sprinting towards it yeah the the only other option i had was if lifos like put him in the the baby carrier and ran with him was gonna be an opportunity for me to do something, evil bastard putting him in a liquor when I'm talking to him. Lifo's was never there. He's somewhere else right now. And yeah, Bethael just bites it! He's on the roof. Give me the fucking chance to put my armor back on, you piece of- ow! Yeah, alright, so Evgeny and Cephas, you're walking. You're walking your way there. So Evgeny's going, uh, wait, that's me. Oh, I'm having an identity crisis already. That's awesome. That was also part of the cocktail. She was having an issue with that, too. She believed herself to be St. Benedictine of some pointless corpse emperor world, but she quickly realized she wasn't. Oh, well, that's good. That's better. That's hot and nose. Um, so Byzantium is going to ram this ship into their ship? Possibly. I have no idea what he intends. He is a very secretive unit. That is entirely true. Oh, he is incredibly secretive. Regardless. Couldn't a ship of this size, I'm no shipwright, even withstand a direct impact to another ship of its size? I believe that his plan, regardless of the efficacy of it or the success rate, will result in a highly favorable outcome. That is a lot of faith that you have in someone with so many secrets, Cephis. Although I suspect, per your usual candor, you don't care what the outcome is regardless. Oh, I always care, child. Do not mistake my acceptance for how things will transpire with a apathy or nihilism. I care very much for how things transpire. I merely accept that they will happen the way they will happen. It is like they used to say in my unit, a very fond one, that that, it is what it is. whether death comes at the hands of the enemy or if you simply choke to death and forget how to breathe in a moment it is all the same that being said i am not so foolhardy as to assume that death in every format is exactly the same certainly dying one way is much better and in the favorable outcome in our regard all of the others those aboard those ships they all die i hear you sir daniel smile at that response all right we we cut we cut to well first of all lifeos where where are you at this juncture is he on the roof i've been debating honestly i thought at that too like i was i didn't know where we were going so i've been thinking of so many intros it's like where can i aura farm that's been the question oh okay okay okay okay so clearly i think what we have to do then is like by zanti rushes onto the bridge uh and gives whatever proclamation and then you will step out of the shadows but what does by zanti do when he goes on the bridge because now we all need to know the answer sorry i was uh airdrop some burger king by zanty puts down his burger king this episode of chaos honestly brought to you part by no mcdonald's i like i get ultra sensitive trying to eat during the show which i barely do but like only this time And I was like, oh, I'll get myself my little health bar I've been doing. You know, like, I'll do that. Just in case I get inserted. I took a nibble, waited a little bit. They're like, okay, okay. Okay, I think I'm going to get in the car. And now, I didn't know people were having five-horse fucking meals during recording session. We got to speak. We're like, oh, this whopper's good. Jeeves, bring in the next course, if you don't mind. chicken fries the chicken fries are ready you see what you what you don't under what you don't know is that i do sometimes eat but i wait tactically for me to finish whatever long-winded nonsense i'm gonna do so that way the camera is not looking at me so i can silently eat my food Did any of you notice that I was eating? You literally said it, you fool! Yeah, I said it after I had eaten a french fry, because I had eaten a french fry. Now listen. You should have didn't. Please don't be being to me all crying. I'm literally just a new Wubin. He's just a little guy, and it's his birthday. Byzante enters into the bridge. Greetings, all! I need updates on two things! Number one! God, excuse me. Number one! Bless you. That was a burp, that was not power eating. I'm aware! It was a burp brought on by eating! Number one! Om nom! Om nom! Om nom! Om nom! Om nom! Om nom! Om nom! Om nom! Fucking hell! Anyway, in real world, I need to know the status of the progenoids, the gene seed. Uh, we do still have that, yes? It has been stored in the apothecarian. Well, I was just there, so we're going to have to work through faith and hope that it's working. Alright. Number two, I need someone to tell me if they can hail the lead vessel of the cruiser formation. Ideally, if they can't figure out the lead one, the one that Thunderhawk just went to. Okay, okay. There is a pause, and as the servitors begin to sort of chitter about, um there is the captain's voice who steps down from the commandeus and the the concealed throne cocoon of the captain it is your order then if you are to have us communicate why would you do this it would potentially alert them to our presence do it as you wish lord though doing so will alert the enemy to our presence and could have consequences if that is your will belay the order then let's see i might as well take counsel with the rest of those reprobates who should be here any minute now Bethael like bursts in ah what the hell are you doing you should be thanking me i decided to wait to wait oh well difficulty minus 10 oh oh you should be thanking me I could not think of a single thing that I should be thanking you for, Byzanty. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Such a limited imagination. Well, I bet you're wondering about my big plan. I suppose we all are. Oh my god. Oh my god. You're never going to be able to talk again. I fucking hate this shit so much. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. It's so good. At this point, Evgeny and Cephas stroll in. It's called Cryptosporidium. I've heard it's quite an interesting disease. I think I've met a Xenos species by that name. I would hope not. I don't believe they exist. Oh, but they do. They do, sir. On far-flung reaches out in the ghoul stars. I've met a few of them on a few errant stations. Horrible to interact with. Terribly foul-mouthed, despite being Xenos. ah brother what are you doing well i would love to tell you where is lithos i don't know why you think i know that brother i keep going i don't know we usually all travel together do i look like the zincian's keeper yes sort of how exactly your rivals i keep track of bethiel all the time. I know all of the secret entrances to Beth Isles have, and I know how to antagonize and annoy him. I don't happen to enjoy Barbarian Lyphos. All of this is punctuated by Zoran smugly finishing that energy bar. That's what's happening this entire time. That's fine. Lyphos is somewhere eating the biggest granola bar of his life I've actually finished it like forever ago I'm just like yeah I'll let them roleplay today he's watching us squirm that's fine I am the keeper of the Zeechian because I do not antagonize, annoy, belittle, or demean him unlike you and our dear brother Bethael we don't keep tabs on him I wasn't suggesting you did I'm suggesting he's annoying you not the other way around please do keep up Bethael I'm trying not to make you look bad continue well i was hoping that lithos would be here ah well hail the cruiser why wait that is not an answer wait wait wait wait i maybe can answer this nope oh my god many secrets I have many secrets voice he does not have any more authority than any of us belay that as you wish you're outnumbered by Zanti what are you doing alright I was asked another time. Let's see if I can... Oh my god. Nope! Byzantium is turning into Mustafa from Austin Powers at this rate. Gotta keep asking him until he says it. Let's see. Thurston, is there anything I can do to rattle the secret out of him? Perhaps through a show of physical violence? Yes. Yes, you can. Let's see what kind of good physical violence. This will be funny because i know exactly what's gonna happen if i ask he has a scorpion tail yeah he does um you know what you can give me um i think in this case it's intimidate just like to use your physical raw so give me an opposed intimidate versus willpower okay this is where byzante is gonna just like nail this willpower i unfortunately haven't i haven't trained intimidate but it's still good because i've got high strength it is it is yeah oh that's a 95 not so good that uh okay everyone succeeds with one degree of successful four degrees of failure versus you were five yeah uh you're able to like hold you like your teeth are grinding um the like acid is like leaking out as you're even probably like fighting um to hold back the secrets within that you just can't divulge as lifos enters in with the data slate he's been going over like i'm imagine he's like got glasses on for some reason going through it I love the little skull with glasses But he enters the room Hello children At a leisurely pace Because he's beginning to hear all the commotion I'll see a cloak flowing As he begins to Slowly walk by everyone The captain's voice Kind of bows to you He's like He doesn't bow back He's like good someone acknowledges And and as he continues to walk forward he'll uh continue to punctuate going i believe us the nesci friend wishes to find some delightful information isn't that right let's find out can can lifos pull it out of you we'll find out Mm-hmm. That's right, I got the ball quick. Of course! Of course, of course, the schemers! True conversation. Through the play of words, this theater shall unfold. And you, Byzantium, through your will and your ways, you'll be able to extract the knowledge we need. Isn't that right? No. but but now at least you can tell them your plan if you want yes far more direct than you've been wow after all this time yeah no i think i'll seize the moment i'll seize the initiative no i'm not after information you see we happen to have secured the gene seed of off their fallen dead something that even us blasted hellish legionnaires greatly cherish if they wished to oppose an emperor class battleship with their cruisers they would be set for a hard fight they don't know how under provisioned we truly are but an invitation for a duel amongst their greatest champions and our greatest champions for resources for land for anything we can so desire glorious combat that's what I would allege the progenoids in exchange for say a compliment of thunderhawks or I suppose the end of the bombardment of this fair planet it would be wise to understand why they wish to expend so many shells on barely what many would consider nothing you're angry freaks that was my summation if you think there's anything more behind their actions by all means see if you can skeed it but my understanding was that they are angry pyromaniacs who feel justly slighted we weren't the only ones seeking the hub yes but there's always fun little stories to extract fun little tidbits to find go with your plan see who we can get listen to their tones the songs they play and see if you can hear fear pleased to say that now the room is at the very least split do i hear one more vote for my genius master plan everybody's heads turning Hey, how's that stress doing, man? Yeah, give me a willpower plus ten, you get it. Oh, yeah, sure. Oh, no. He's going to go into fucking cardiac arrest. Come on. Damn. That's a ten. Oh, ten. For a second, I thought that was about to be another hundred. You are cool as a cucumber. You are still cool as a cucumber. The thing that keeps repeating in Evgeny's head is, I am in control. Nothing will take that away from me anymore. Sir, glory is found on the battlefield, but not through foolhardiness. Whatever makes the most sense tactically. Well, tactically we cannot- If we must ram them, if we must plunge ourselves face first into the yawning maw of death that is what is the optimal route not what is smartest or safest like that i think that we revealed that by zanti's plan was actually far more cutting and then you come in and like we should ram hey it's by zanti's fault he's not telling us like this is on him oh my god he he just did didn't he You're getting him to hear it. It's fine. You're getting spaced out to not hear it. Okay. He didn't hear the secret. He didn't hear the secret. Thurston. Yeah. I came in with a data slate. Right? Yes. I would like to know, if I can infer this, tell me, go screw myself for this information. how much information are you willing to give me because i because i would like to have them imagine that life is like i need to figure out everything about these like as much as we can like well the probability of this probably like that like obviously there's like a cruiser and things like that and thunderhawks um if we were to try to be as aggressive as possible to literally just like aim the guns and target lock them and do all this fun stuff like from all that they have like all their ships details and everything as much as we could like scanning i guess uh how much information are you willing to give me so we can use that information to kind of help decide what we want to do here from like a tactics perspective yeah tactics perspective for now okay um so in this case um tactically like you you you all have enough to know three decently stocked cruisers versus your ill-equipped uh carrier that lacks any birds to throw in the air um would not go well for you um you could do damage you could possibly even destroy one of the ships but the conclusion itself is pretty um however i think what you could do in this case and i would allow is i'd let you do i think you have um the commoner actually i think you have forbidden lord adeptus astartes uh i'd let you give me that with a plus 20 check yeah if you've been sort of researching because i i see life as less as being like the the full-on tactical situation but also like learning about you know what you know about this renegade war band and what that what you there might be there i got a 50 with two degrees of success okay so the endless conflagration is certainly obsessed with with fire um they are however notable in that because of their sort of belief in in purgation through flame they are undivided worshipers who you know see all aspects of the gods through the the realm and the the lens of fire um they they despite that sort of moniker of like pyromaniacs um they can actually be negotiated with um they're they're actually themselves fairly open to discussions as long as it allows them to fulfill whatever agendas or goals they to have and basically they're after the same thing we're after pretty much you don't know you know they were down there but that's really all you lifehose will look at everyone and go i believe a conversation is in order but it still meets i will admit i do not hate the idea of dueling them in exchange for their gene seed returned i would love the chance for a rematch i need some information first and then and she the challenge would that sound wonderful by his auntie oh but of course i find myself quite at home with these lovely little court games so rare am i able to play them just so um i would like to cast thought sending to byzantine okay basically um doesn't make sure that it did it's a rickroll yeah never gonna give you a double check that's the mask I'm trying to see if you have to resist it or whatever he's excessive power tests wish to be contacted may resist with a willpower test getting a plus 20 bonus if they do not share a language with the psych so you don't get a plus 20 because we share the same language he's going to do thought sending to him and I will not go full on i'm just gonna do it normal and that is a 49 with a lot of degrees of success i have to figure out why that's target 130 i have to figure that out um i do have like items that help i have to figure out what went wrong regardless let's bring that down to like eight or whatever degrees of success yeah i mean all that extra degrees of success um give you also you do get like a plus 40 innately to the check because it's a simple check um so yeah that's that's that's why um okay um yeah you can you can you can send thoughts no problem Yep, I'm not going to resist it. Resist. In your mind, he'll go, And I'll help direct you and point you to things you might miss along the way. I won't say anything, though, because I keep secrets. Myphilus will turn to the speaker and go, Oh, their craft. The captain's voice nods, and there's, like, a a bit a bit of time before a um lithocastic uh well hololithic i should say um display appears um and you see sort of the the ruddy red light of the hololith come on in the in the center of the chamber uh first it looks more like static like a haze uh and then audio comes in and all you hear And just like, just screaming, just, just this, this background screaming that brailed through the entire area. Uh, Evgeny? Yeah? Can you give me a willpower test at plus 20? Sure. This is so stressful. Oh, that's an 87, three degrees of failure. He is no longer cool, cool as a cucumber. uh evgeny um what you realize like in the rest the rest of the the astartes are are inured against this um as as this sort of like haze of hololithic light comes together you realize that what is being displayed um is is some some area perhaps the strategium or comms relay on board one of of the ships um and and it it is it is coming into focus um over top of a pit and that pit is filled with mortals who are being burned alive oh that's so cool and and so they're like they're screams and as you can tell that they're actually being like pushed in and you get a little like side views of some mortals being effectively like shoved some jumping on their own volition into it and as more of them are in there and more of them are screaming um the hololith becomes more like distinct and refined until you see uh one astartes uh in the sort of orange uh pumpkin color of the endless conflagration a great horn helm and a a wicked looking two-handed axe that seems to end on some kind of flamer apparatus um held in one hand uh staring through the view screen at you um the rest of you you know generally speaking this is kind of like commonest arty stuff but For our dear friend the mortal, um, this is, this is kind of a lot to take in, my friend. So, I'd like you to roll me a d100 plus 30. Fuck. Oh, no. Let the mortification begin. Fuck. Determines how many rats pour out of your face. No! Oh! Oh! 98! No! oh no that's a lot of rats here we go super mario roll me a 1d5 i love this game is he about to pass the podcast listeners the total there was 128 oh maximum so i want to set the scene right like this hololithic image is coming into into like refined light the horrific realization as you're seeing mortals being shoved into this pyre in some kind of ritual that seems to augment their communication system you've getting you like you have this crack moment when you realize what's happened the rest of you are unfazed by this you've getting you start vomiting and you won't stop for the next 30 seconds um but i'm going to assume that the Astartes in the room continue the conversation as you are retching in the background. It's kind of like that awkward time during COVID when the newscasters would have their pets in the background. It's just our pets just throwing up in the webcam view. I think literally you've done anything. I'm so fucked up. Just like, Ugh, someone clean that off. Now you're getting into the spirit, Evgeny. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Beth is just like, She's not here, she's in a chapel somewhere laying her own skin. Bethael's going to step between the hollow display and Evgeny so they can't see him. And just like shuffles over to the side, like, covering the awkward thing in the frame. We're so good at this, dude. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. Oh god, there's no arm, there's more, there's more! Come on, you guinea, go until it's only bile, then continue going. It's all, it's all bile, sir. Keep it up. Keep going. You're doing me proud. You're doing great, sweetie. I hope I all cut monsters and mice. Keep it up. You're doing well. Oh, god. Yeah. Give me a challenging willpower test now. Not again. You can't keep doing this to him. Failure at 58 for 2 degrees. I'm following the rules of the game, okay. I didn't- I didn't- This feels like BDSM with dice, man. That's what I love about it. Welcome to my fucking world, Zoran. You have to be a masochist to play this game. You kind of do, yeah. It's really good, though. I really enjoy it. It's really fun. It does. Unfortunately, I keep coming back for more every week. cool neat so what is the uh what's the failure mean thurston you know yeah 50 in the die it's two degrees uh i'm just gonna you know what um for no apparent reason hulky if you could just open your discord um oh yeah no sure be cool be cool just don't say anything about that we'll come back to this uh all right so um so so so yeah so so Bethael you've stepped in front of me like weeping vomiting Evgeny um as as you do so and you sort of take your take your state there um you can feel that like something like like even your leg sort of hurts a bit more um but generally generally speaking um generally speaking you're able to to cover you getting this this this astarte is with the axe with the the flame tip on it and the horned helm kind of stares directly through the hololith like unimpressed again the screaming continuing in the background seems to be waiting for one of you to make a statement i by zante misfit commander of the emperor class battleship the carcass bid you greetings who do i have the honor of addressing see i got through my secrets role there by lying i champion pogartus most exquisite to make your acquaintance champion pogartus as you may already be aware as you almost certainly are aware my warband and yours had engaged a little scuffle on the surface of that dirt ball you have my sincere apologies for that a case of mistaken identity but i understand that such things don't wave away the past I want the fucking I want like a fucking deception test immediately you got it boss just fucking go for it right now and he is trained in this I suppose give myself plus 10 here we go hey that's a degree of success hey literally because you gave yourself that plus 10 you needed it Because your target was 62, and you rolled 62. Yes, that's exactly correct. Mistaken identity, I see. Indeed. And as restitution, I was hoping that we might be able to aid one another rather than destroy one another. Though, if honor dictates that combat be that which decly, that settles this little spat, I am more than willing to suggest equitable terms for both parties. What terms, D? What do you have to offer us? During our little spat, we have managed to get the better of four of your Astartes' complement. We have done our due diligence in preserving their gene seed, at first for our use, But then I thought, why not strike an accord? What sort of accord? Well, before I continue any further and elucidate you as to those details, I would like to ask, if you do not take offense, what is it that you are hoping to accomplish by glassing the poor world of Dahab? It took the lives of our warband. Thus, it must be cleansed in fire. All the screaming is intensifying as these words come out. Yes, I understand. You care for justice, do you, Marine? What the very least, retribution as restitution. Byzantine, identify what it is. that is a good point uh he said it must pay yeah by it i assume you mean the world correct it must burn well then why don't i offer you recompense i issue to you and your cohort an honorable challenge a proposition for a duel I can easily gather those that engaged in combat against your own number and you may nominate an equitable and equal supply of warriors equal in number I should add to face against them that is stupid well use this by Zendi so that our Corny could easily best him, he fears. It is. You know, I can't think of a single martial god of ours that doesn't enjoy a good bloodletting. From Khorne to Tzeentch to Nergal and even glorious Slaanesh, A contest of arms between champions is the lifeblood of our people, our religion, and our way. What, pray tell, is so stupid about that? Why would we waste more numbers? This is why we lose the war. He's unfaithful, not wearing the Seek Ascension and Power of the Dark Gans. tell him that if he won't grab it we will when he fails to cleanse and although offering Bethael as our champion can be an interesting road Byzantine considers Lithos' words mulls them over yeah you do not have to follow or anything and then turns back to the screen you must forgive me i believe i have underestimated your cunning for you are quite correct you speak to a truth at the heart of many war bands one that i have ever labored implied to correct is it you want what is your objective on this blighted world we chase after a great champion actually before I tell you anymore I do have many secrets does someone just like does someone just see Byzantine like teeth clenching and stepping this is how we this is actually the best way to just break up speaker monologuing and then throw like literally a force pass the ball here Quick, someone else, come in and save us. Okay, who's got good fellowship? This is important. I actually have an idea. Okay. I will propose, like, Lifos will send a thought in, basically, like, noticing that Byzantium is now, you know, having his thing. He's struggling. Lifos will go, Lie. Tell them that you know the source of their pain, and we too wish to help eliminate it or further we can take it out in single combat and if we fail the planet is still free to bombard we know the source of their pain I failed to tell you what I'm thinking psychically I made another roll and another failure god i gotta get that willpower up i know i was gonna say before uh because before zoran was gonna immediately give the ball back to byzanti to continue talking i was gonna suggest that we have someone else who has fellowship step in and co-commentate this you know spread it out a bit more nope i got a halfway decent intimidate but my fellowship 26 i got i got charm known and i've got fellowship i could step in and assist with this but i'm not gonna i'm not gonna tread on speaker stones if he's not gonna have me do it though he did just give it back i mean you can always rewind it's not like it's set in stone yeah if you if you want to speak up and say this shit that i literally can't that is absolutely welcome in this situation the problem is i don't know exactly what you're trying to say i'm trying well i again i was just uh they just asked what the hell we wanted and i was about to tell him oh we're chasing after this fucking dark apostle um that uh has wronged us right okay i wanted to make sure your plan past that point was not i want all of your stuff i want all of your fighters i want all of your marines i want them in my house bring them to me now out of character i will tell you what my objective is right now okay talking to these guys right yeah they are shockingly more reasonable than i thought and they have hit secretly on one of byzantine's own personal values which is that uh you know constantly blowing up everything and being like insane marauding morons that completely disintegrate into madness is not very good for winning the long war so by zanti is thinking in light of this which lithos very clearly noted as weakness by zanti sees opportunity he thinks that it might be possible if not to get what he wants bloodlessly he might even be able to get these guys on our side and form a war band with them okay i think again knowing that now is helpful to know and i will say cephas's line is to be more diplomatic than like outright hostile here so he might step in once by zante is is having his issues with uh secrecy once again uh yeah well he was just asked so like he was basically asked you know who like or about what their what their objective was and so that was kind of where we left off there yep because he had an answer and cephas will tromp forward and he will place a hand on Byzantium's shoulder. I believe I can respond in regard to that. Elucidate them, brother. We are not here for any greater purpose than searching for one specific individual. And we would get information from this individual, provided, of course, they yet live, and this is not all just a huge waste of our time. The individual in question is a dark apostle. whom we are hunting. We have no other qualms with this planet, and once we have achieved what we need to, we are more than willing to cede it to your crushing grip. But perhaps it would be a wiser choice for us to combine efforts, as you may no doubt have seen through our incidental accosting of your own forces. We are ourselves not to be trifled with lightly. Perhaps a meeting of the minds is more due here. And if you need me to, I will do a charm. Yeah, give me a charm and plus 20. Okay, I'm going to spend another infamy as well to put that to a plus 30 total. Okay, ready to fight. Not that, not that, not that, please. Charm. I will do that as an easy. oh boy that's a 37 compared to a 74 for five degrees of success so you you make your case um with the rest of your companions standing by as you do so there's like a momentary like flicker in the hall and suddenly like more mortals are like shoved into the flames which causes again the image to enhance enough to be visible once again uh the the marine momentarily looks down per goddess he stares at the flames and the like increase of individuals then stares back up maybe a quizzical look behind the helmet you're not sure we have tried we have wasted time here we shall make this offer you shall put our progenoid on a torpedo you shall dispatch it from your vessel and we shall collect it once we have collected it we shall depart this accursed world and leave it to you we have no desire to stay here if we can have this gene seed of our fallen back then we can depart in peace cephas steeples his fingers for a moment or two to where are you heading brother the next place to burn care to tell us it in the event that our paths should cross again we shall leave the eye for a time leave the world to the false emperor destroy the temples that we once created i use just three cruises it's a low chuckle from pergottis you should know we would never say but if that is agreeable to you then we can forego any future engagements I quite like you and I have no problems with such an arrangement I will have to confirm okay sorry I was like I just love that you're like I have no problem excellent proceed camera pans to the rest of your party allow us a moment allow us a moment to confer I may be interested in further dealings beyond simply this writing of wrongs and i may have certain traits to negotiate a moment we will be in contact and i'll gesture to someone to cut the line there's like a a screaming of like burned people that ends the comms like um evgeny can get up to his feet at this point i have a question thurston on the bridge right where we're all at and stuff is it just when we're not there is it just the captain and the speaker so there's the captain the captain's voice and then there's rows of like servitors that and like i was really hoping no one was there so he's like he does the hand motion the cut but then he realized there's no one else on this bridge and he's like ah and he he doesn't go over no no he's established in past that there's like a bunch of servers that sort of operate things no you're good you're good i had a funny in the head i was like okay i gotta get it out there was also a me waiting going like he was like i would never we would never say brother he's like he keeps many secrets you know all right sorry i got him out thank you thank you for your time well I think this is going very well but I would like something for all of our hard work and efforts Cephas Cephas will look at Bethael and then back to Byzante Byzante I do believe that in light of our association with them surely we can ask very politely for a new weapon for our brother Oh, we already took some, didn't we? Yes, but a better one. Oh. You think too small. No, we can't reveal our weakness and demand individual munitions. We are part, or rather aboard, a battlecruiser, a battleship, something that outclasses their tonnage by several factors. It takes two cruisers to be able to reliably and comfortably engage a battleship in ideal situations. For the moment, they have us outgunned. Yes. But if we truly make it known the depths at which this carcass is forced to operate, it may be such that if Pagottis doesn't act on our weakness, a more cunning Major Domo will. But if we have something to trade, for say a compliment of fighters from their devastator could be money could be souls it could be promethium fuel i like that you i like that you assume there's a devastator out there i assume there's either a devastator or there's a heavy cruiser um which is oh what's the class oh what's the carrier class oh it's so good it's not the acaron whatever his body opens up his light carrier box of battlefleet gothic oh which one is it yeah life helps me you'll want to sorry go ahead no i was just gonna say you'll want to check uh the ships of the gothic sector page 124 unless unless they're flying imperial ships they've either got a devastator or a Stygies. There's one thing to consider in trade. What? It was obvious that they showed us what they need. They simply need kindling on this ship. How much? How many Prometheum? How many Prometheums? How many people? No, no, no, no, no, no. I know exactly what Sauron fucking means. Yeah, yeah. Prometheum's too valuable no no he's talking about the people at this at that mention at you saying that if Geddy staggers to his feet you you don't seriously mean you're just going to hand over more souls so they can toss it into that pit do you Lifos if he could smile he would look at you dead in the eyes and go yeah we can get what we want without needlessly wasting lives not those who are already devoted to the cause not spending the very lives who you in all of your years loyal traitor enlightened or damned had built a galaxy for one of the conservators explodes it doesn't matter how many have to die but to remind each and every one of you that no matter how many glands you have or meters of ceramite you're behind you a second one explodes and are human the only our inheritors of this galaxy to see what's going on there it doesn't matter if you keep dialogue or any one any one of those astartes dies at the end of the day it doesn't matter how many fires burn on how many worlds we will take this galaxy okay i'll just do this i know what it is oh my tart was 45 and i got a 34 um there's some like profound affliction that has affected for for evgeny um his his irritation right now um is causing things around him to break down um thus he's affecting your comms relay his his anger has manifested enough that it is damaging the comms relay i wish to cast compel on yevgeny if you do that byzantia is going to lift his gun oh like to him okay to you as he raises his hand and turns to you he goes like i don't think you would understand why you think that's a good idea but let me say from someone who pursue pursues knowledge it would be a bad idea as you would probably need to see what's happening around you and don't worry he won't die I'm just calming him down a bit Lifos I agree that firing this weapon at you would be a very bad idea but what would be a worse idea is if you were to go through and alter Evgeny's mind Evgeny is completely and utterly correct I concur whoa really we all look at everyone drops their shit Really, dude? Like, yeah? What? I can't believe that. Really? Yeah, like, we drop our shit. Really? We're fucked up, dude. Like, what the fuck? Bethael is grinding his teeth. Bethael is surprised at this, actually. Yeah, Bethael is grinding his teeth about it. His brows are knit together. There's obviously, like, a conflict playing out behind his face. his arms are crossed tightly there are so many others out there who have yet to see the light it is those who have not yet awoken to the fact that they are slaves in a game where they are already fated to lose and be spent those lives you could take but not those who have already had their eyes opened you of all people, Lyphos who've professed your own betrayal and everything that happened on Prospero how many were wasted by the dogs of the Imperium you could build worlds yet again and enlighten so many others like myself, whose eyes you have opened we could burn the remainder of this galaxy to ashes not those who are already toiling to see a new dawn a new truth spend the lives of those who have not already devoted to building a new world but not my fellow man Lifos will look to Byzante and look back to Yevgeny how many more things exploded during that there were three there were three total okay now an extra i'm in such an annoying position right now because i would love cephas to try and weigh in but i look at my disgrace of waste and i'm like no cephas would be okay with us wasting our resources actually yeah i i hate that i hate that that waste is the thing that he has but i gotta i gotta abide by it so instead he is going to simply keep his mouth shut He would like to buy Xanthi and go. I'm surprised that you take that for you know. You get a lot of things that you desire to reach your goals. It's always paid in blunder. But you see, I'm a relatively fastidious spender. I like only to pay these checks. when it is necessary to expend what i lose evgeny is completely correct yes we could offer him water a boatload of menials assuming we even had them to lose and in doing so we would be no better than the corpse emperor and how he treated our lives you know earlier in the session when I was joking that Byzantium did not think Evgeny had it in him to be a chaos lord? Change his mind. I would like to retract that statement. That is no longer the case after this session. It's good. He's going to need support like that going forward. My foes will look at his data slate. If I have the stat or access to it, how many individuals do we have on board? um okay so first i'm looking at skeleton crew requirements for an emperor class battle um gosh it doesn't have all this all the specifics of this of this battleship um i don't know like probably like tens of thousands yeah i'm trying to get a ratio of of that because like there could be several thousand in our size of a battleship in our world so tens of thousands seems small like very small like for an emperor class battleship um okay uh looking at it probably 120 000 yeah it's basically a flying new york city in multiple ways we are also broke and that's part of it too it's like you're not like you're not like like you probably have 120 000 souls on board not all of them are necessarily crew yeah we did get that contingent of troops that uh urn bill thinks would be a bad idea to go squandering but cephas is uh presumably ambivalent or potentially amenable to throwing them away you also can just clear the lower decks yeah that's that's what lifo says he's not thinking about getting rid of you know the premium stock he's thinking of like what are the ones like down into the depths that like they all have their families who aren't working enough you know that's how evil he's thinking right it's like how many down there can he can he weed out the chaff the offer up is basically a sacrifice so by example he can get the armaments that he wants and to make this emperor class battleship a lot more effective he's thinking of the long game and because of his chaosness he's like i'm okay with sacrificing random humans to get power so then i can get more other humans like whatever will help accelerate our cause here no it makes total sense psychologically oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely it's just morally abhorrent but come on yeah and no i mean but it does we are all black crusade but we also have our own individual pet moral hang-ups yep uh which is great uh i love being a csm oh i love chaos so much my zante is going to if i may zoran no yeah go ahead go ahead um my zante is going to ask Bethael what what is it that every good sacrifice to corn needs and don't say a skull the other thing blood ding ding and that is at the very core of all of this Lighthouse is right in what he manages to scratch upon that in order to obtain what we need we will need sacrifice and loss no sacrifice is worth it if it does not draw blood and bleed ichor on the floor but that does not mean that we heedlessly send lives away especially when we are already in such a dismal state I propose the following and keep in mind we do need to see if those miscreants are even interested but as you may all recall we've recently received a shipment of imperial guardsmen i'm willing to replace a blood sacrifice with a gamble i think wait hold on oh no yeah i've talked i've talked too long uninterrupted i need to make a willpower chance No So rather than tell you about his plan He's just gonna do it I need Byzantium You can do it loudly And as you're narrating to yourself It will be Byzantium will look over and Oh my fucking god For podcast listeners it was a 98 with 7 degrees of failure Sorry guys I always forget to let you all in But trust me You're just missing bad rolls. I'd like to call up my friends, the Guardsmen Regiment. I have their names written down in a notepad, Doc, but it seems to evade me for right now. I foreplayed my notes on them, got deleted. They transitioned to platform, so. That's why they got deleted. Hansi Ekelbart of the Praetorian Guard. Major General, is that you on the line? Well, sir, we've been monitoring the situation. Are we expecting boarders? I'll have my men ready. Not at all. It seems as if we've been able to find something of a peaceful arrangement. And I need to call upon your men to make a sacrifice. A sacrifice? Yes, immaterial. we're boarding them excellent not quite though i do love the spirit next time almost certainly no instead i need to know the exact stocks of flamers and heavy flamers amongst your compliment one sec one sec making thirst to do math no no no no i'm doing something far far far he's rolling a d4 force no no no no no no no no no no no i am actively checking to see if the old praetorian guard ever had flamer models as part of their special weapons uh ebay has uh as as proven proven this correct um there is indeed a praetorian guard with flamers so uh the cannon will not be broken i will allow this i am also going to very quickly send easy a picture remember this uh for later yes so he can use that ballista of uh warhammer praetorian guards with flamers um all right uh he responds back out of all of our infantry units we sometimes apply flamers uh i would say one out of every six infantry units we possess oh that gives Probably about all said and done 60 flamers. Very good. I would like to request that you begin sequestering those flamers and the subsequent... Those flamers... Greed, disgrace. Those flamers... It's all right, sir. We rarely use them, to be clear. Our regiment prefers the elephant gun now that is a weapon very good prepare an arrangement get them sequestered away we may be trading them for some vital supplies i assure you your men will not go unrestocked and our first priority will be seeing that your men are armed with replacements excellent where should we bring where should we bring the arms to prepare them in one of the holding bays as you wish excellent the link is dead now here's my plan you're gonna say like all right let's see what the dice say well i'm sure you can all intuit it by now can you intuit my plan i assume you wish to not a word no i don't know do i If I were to guess, we're going to trade flares for, I guess, um, I assume, some very expensive fighters. Yes, precisely. Seems like a very lopsided trade. Yes, that would be the case, if this were not an incredibly themed attachment of Astartes. Because people love flamethrowers. I also have Chaos Marine lore. Oh, perfect, yeah. Kind of roll that to see if they would accept this deal. Yeah, give me a, give me that and a plus. I like that this, this deal can go one of two ways. Either, oh, we love flame weapons. please, we'll give you a very favorable trade or we are the Inuit people and you're attempting to sell us an ice machine. Literally. You see, here's what gives me the strength and the passion to believe it's going to be the first one. It's because the war gamer nature is to continue buying models even with a great big, great plastic. You know, that is fair. That is fair. Meanwhile, you assume Purgatus to be a gamer. I do. Yes. I can't believe we're trying to sell him Warhammer bits. I was about to say, the camera pans five feet from Purgatus. He's got a print farm of Elegoo printers just blasting up bits. One of those cruisers doesn't have a foundry full of menials cranking out flame weapons for their use. hey i've got i let me reach into my bag and i grab a tiny pinch of flamers and i give them to the guy who is like 70 flavors by volume okay i i okay okay i i have to step in with it with a brief story because it is super relevant and funny and yeah oh please do so so paizo printables the thing i've been working on at work we were doing 3d sculpt we've partnered with this awesome company called titanforge they're great um polish company i've met their their their owner a few times um so we're we're out for drinks at pax unplugged and we're chatting and he he's regaling me with you know some of his history like as a gamer like i was like you know the the world champions for warhammer for team poland and all this stuff and he's like in fact titanforge got started because i really really needed to make melta guns for my death because i couldn't get melted guns for my death and so it just sticks with me that here's this company i partnered with because i can't get my fucking plague marines melted guns i'll make my own goddamn melted guns that is exactly what has happened here you're like okay have more farmers guy have have the bits have the bits you need them for your army to imagine all the people he's throwing into the fire isn't just for the power and stuff of the ship it's actually just to melt them down to make more bits oh my god they're the rest this fucking infernal print farm i love it yeah we walk in there's just spools of humans like going into a fucking printer then we find out it's actually a war mill he's like oh there's 500 thunderhawks but for some reason you can't get these fucking flamers off screen while we're having this conversation for goddess is being a pretzel and his major domo is like sir we we have this new rhino that we off the presses we need to begin decorating it he goes oh very well reaches into his drawer puts up a packet of citadel skulls just put these on it Sorry, I don't know what you were going to say, Zim. No, I'm just, I'm just, I'm waiting with bated breath to see which side of the coin Thurston is going to have it fall on. Well, are you signaling him back and being like, hey, look. Well, I still need the roll first. I need to know what the plus was. Oh, yeah, because you were, yeah, yeah, yeah. Plus 10, plus 10. Plus 10, okay. You were going to see if they would have done it. 78 for target was 55 is three degrees of failure hard to know i ain't got a fucking clue so life post is like i mean they really like fire i mean yeah flamers make fire i'm like it's like really like this is what we're gonna bet on my phone i always put this hand down as after yevgeny's tantrum in his mind and he's like he's like give it a shot he falls his arms waiting for the like waiting to say my plan would have been better if it fails and if it succeeds he'll just hate life that is your right literally anytime any of you fuckers do anything that is the right of everyone else in the party to be doing the entire time because that's how this fucking game works Cephas is very happy that we have taken war gear from one of our own retinues of units and are now throwing it away. He's very happy about this. You gotta spend money to make money. He's just happy. No, you want to know the great thing about waste, Zoran? Yeah. If there is an opportunity for me to waste a resource, I'm supposed to do it happily. That's so funny. I can't do it too much because it's not my own personal thing and I'm struggling to play with it but he is very lackadaisical about loss of life so in this case it's kind of the same we may as well just like flush them down the toilet in his mind pretty much we're gonna find out a couple families for some thunder hawks seems like a good deal yeah we're gonna get on the line he's gonna say oh no you if you had suggested that maybe you would sacrifice some menials for us then we would take you seriously okay let me rein us in here let's continue the story agreed okay what are you doing what are you doing well it seems like we're all out of the court yes my first fault is arms I care not as long as we return to our objective soon find the dark apostle and wring his neck I'll take that as a glowing endorsement if we are not going to fight these endless conflagration then they are useless to us ah well that's the sort of stupid shit I thought you'd say alright let's get the monitor back on I'm sorry Odo I love you I'm so sorry No, that is how Korn and Slaanesh talk to each other. It's totally okay. I'm crying. Oh, God. When you say, and also when you say, like, turn it back on, I'm just about to say, all right, let's throw our guys in the pit and just. we're all gonna teleport out of your ship and jump into the pit okay story okay so yeah okay so you you the the hololith begins to crackle back on uh there is static what's evgeny doing as this is turning on vianney is standing pensively at attention just witnessing that unfolds and he is not permitted to speak to the other superhumans not yet he has yet he's calmed down he's a little bit calmer than he was before because they've relented if he probably won't get set off again he's probably fine maybe okay uh as as you're standing there like waiting to be set up the scope falls off your uh weapon that's holstered on your back it just like tinks onto the floor oh okay uh there is also moaning from another servitor as it takes a bit longer for the link to be established uh but then the screaming returns and the image comes into focus with per goddess um walking walking into frame again holding his large uh imposing axe-like weapon you've had time to discuss then indeed we have and we are already preparing to meet your demands excellent how many of your slave stock are you willing to offer about that I actually was thinking about something else I would like to propose a trade one not in the spirit of never conflict brought us down there on the or below let us leave that in the past let us focus on the future how we might bring war to our enemies rather than one another one of our several of our thunderhawk compliments were recently damaged they were damaged beyond repair and i couldn't help but notice that on your ascent you happen to have a few or at least one venerable vessel still in operation i was wondering we happen to have ample supplies of flamers among our guardsmen regiments would you be interested in a trade of war material hmm are they startes weaponry no they are for human use you have no astartes weaponry Of course I have a start as weaponry, but I figured we'd be talking on the scale of massive manufacturing, not small things like an individual bolter. I assume that you looted the bodies of my fallen kin. I will take their equipment back. Oh, well, that could be arranged. That was not too daring. You shall also add in these flamers now that you have told me of their existence. Yes, and in return, you shall give us two Thunderhawk transports. No, you shall provide an additional- I cut off comms. We'll say- Okay. Awww. Alright. Leifos has a hand up to his temple and go, Why did you tell him we were in a weaker position with damaged Thunderhawks? Because- You could have said we needed additional. I've noticed we're still not in a Thunderhawk. Yes, I've noticed that too, just give it a bit. There we go! Yes! Yes! To be fair, out of the party, Bethael is the one who stepped in a Thunderhawk. I am so fucking proud of you. That's beautiful. God damn. Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's how you do it. I hand you the fucking UN award. God damn. That fucking clip from The Office of shaking the hand. Yes. Dude, I clap so hard my hands hurt. Oh, God. Thirstin. I could have gone better. it's not over yet this is the chase don't you know Thurston Byzantium is going to turn to the captain's voice please prepare a warp jump to the neighboring sector what shush shush shush we will have to extricate to the mandible point of this system you know what no we won't but prepare a warp jump one that can be cancelled at our leisure do you understand the difficulties of transferring into the immaterium in system hmm if it is not done at a correct position the results could be catastrophic yes perhaps you are right that but it would be such a grand gesture if we were to make a warp jump right here right now would we look terribly foolish or would we look daring i believe we would look very she just blinks at you like she is just she doesn't know how to respond like like all right so if i put my my foot down all on the gas while i'm on the brake but then i let go of the brake is that gonna be cool or am i gonna die okay so long suckers as i rub up my motorcycle and it disappears leaving me dead in the dirt nearby correct okay all right all right but i do want to mention i do want to mention okay yes yeah uh-huh speaker d may not have thought about the mandible point but i do know that when your shit's getting rocked in battlefleet gothic you can make an emergency you can make an emergency warp jump at any point in of battlefield unless they're only fighting at the middle point that was my thing you can't you can't you can't you can't um that's not gonna make us look better if we make an emergency jump out nearby them you are losing the trade you are correct i don't like your point i assume what you're trying to do is go oh you don't want your fucking g all right fuck you then starts leaving i said that's what you're trying to do i want them to message us back because they still haven't gotten what they wanted and i want them to come to the negotiating table and i know it's going to work because captain picard did it once yeah you're trying to shift the negotiation of power you want to be in power instead of you yes i will point out we received Thurston, correct me if I'm wrong 3 gene seed 4 Was it 4? I thought 1 ran away and we fought 4 marines No, we fought 5 Didn't we? We fought 5, 1 got away in the thunder hawk We killed 4 in the field We have 4 gene seed That's a lot It is, but Huh? He was willing to just obliterate us anyway. Because he thought it was lost. He may as well obliterate us then and just take ours. He was really willing to negotiate when you were going to hand it over. It was when Speaker started adding more things to the deal and was like I add this but also some flamers. Flamers. Are they Stardust flamers? Mortal flamers. Yes. Now listen. If Genny steps up again, what's happening, dog? If you're going to warp training within the system, why not take the risky move? Why not big back this? Translate on top of their conning tower. Crush them. What? What? That's not how it works. Yes, it is. I believe Evgeny is currently undergoing a great deal of stress. I don't I don't know enough about warp translation to be able to offer anything the fucking mass of darkness that is on the throne comprised of eyes nothingness and pain groans the art of the deal is alive and well in the 42nd millennium okay alright alright this is how business actually works in high cities then why do we not Raphael the corn berserker save me save Thurston Hill with the game pass this is why I'm okay with it he just motions to Evgeny I tire of these negotiations we send the gene seed back and let them leave or we simply go down and weather whatever storm they bring on us we still have Anonke to find I have an idea Cephas is going to go up to Byzante Byzante I have an idea for us to make this situation a bit more right I will require your trust in this I do not require any secrets to be told or anything beyond that I merely require you to trust my word I don't know that I do That's fine I just need you to do it What are you going to do? I'm going to call them back I would like you to scream and sprint out of this room as I do so No! Trust me No! I cast compel Why not? oh shit there it is big dog all right so that's going to be a difficult opposed willpower test from you zoran and then it will be a um a just flat willpower test which is the opposing willpower test from uh first off by zanti i want to ask a player permission speaker are you okay with it if not i'm not gonna do it i'm not it's not it's a player controlling thing i don't want to force that on you so i just want to if that is what like those would do in this moment you are welcome to it okay then then i'll continue to go um okay so willpower are you gonna like push it to the limit Oh, I'm gro- yeah, full bore. Fuck it. He's gonna blow his ass up as well. I- I can't speak! Or I can't! And I can't fuckin' do shit! And I'm the charisma fuckin' character! I can't believe this shit. Oh my god. I love this game. This game's so much fun. Yeah. So here's the question. The dark gods giveth, and the dark gods taketh away, Speaker. They taketh What did they give? I'm waiting for them to give me something. They gave you plenty of times to pick on Bethael. Now it's time to pay the price. You know, if Bethael were picking on me, I'd agree. He did. He did just a little bit. He did just a little bit. He did just a little bit. Sorry. Just to make sure I know what I'm actually rolling. Am I rolling the spell, which is the willpower stuff, and then that is it? so yeah so how it works is it's you make a willpower test at minus 10 that's the focus power so you do a willpower at minus 10 as opposed and this will be opposed by by zante making a willpower test so that's why it's called the post test okay so i'm rolling my straight up willpower not the psychic power mine no no it is it is a it is psych it is your okay it is a those are different because i need to make sure i'm getting the bonuses yeah okay hold on now it is a psychic power it's just but but you're up minus 10 for this yes uh i got a oh 15 okay okay so that's gonna be a lot now you do have to roll me the psychic Phenomenon. Phenomenon. Phenomenon. Evgeny throws up some more. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, for fuck's sake. I love that grenade, guys. We can roll into it with the screaming. I love it a lot. We can do it. Our entire ship blows up. That's right. The scar bring shows up. It goes like, look who got the trade. I am. Are you kidding? I am. Like, look, I have never in my life wanted to see the 100 be rolled on this. But, like, literally, if Zoran's like, I'm going to tell your character what to do, and then fucking winks out of existence, I will not let him play Lifo's ever again. Because he will be fucking dead. Roll that goddamn roll now, Zoran. Stay on target. Give me a second. Stay on target. Come on now. Come on now. We have to hold the stuff, because I... Suspense, yes. Yeah, thank you. Oh, no. I was bringing up the roll, even though this should do all the stuff correct. so it rolls perils I've got the table I've got it I've got the table there's a little warp so I roll the d100 here uh so yep uh huh warp burn a violent burst of energy uh from the warp smashes into the slinker's mind sending him reeling he suffers 2d5 wounds ignoring toughness bonus and armor and is stunned for 1d5 rounds he fucking explodes so here's the 2d5. I suffer 4, 5, 6. And I am stunned for 4. I would like, I guess narratively it's Flaanesh going, uh-uh. Yeah. And as we determined earlier, order of operations is this takes place before. So you're stunned so you can't even issue the command. You're set fucking flying. You hit the wall, sort of like peel down a bit. by zante's mind is compelled but there's no action well hold on i could i could succeed i i rolled a nine you did oh my god yeah but i did roll a nine that's something yeah it's it's it's it's enough that i will say that by zante is is able to um not like run out in terror but just kind of stand there dumbfounded from the psychic assault um this is probably like with with lifo's fucking flung to the wall and stunned and by zante's sort of uh by us stunned by the psychic car this is cephas's chance i what i wanted to do and i can't do it now and that's okay because this is marginally funnier i was gonna say we had a mutiny and killed by zante i know you were going to that's why i didn't trust you i said we i said we were trying to do that and we weren't going to do that is that a good idea the hollow the hollow speaker speaker speaker i want you to hear me out on this for one second you are a chaos lord you have a big hammer you have bitches in your throne room you have a flamethrower hammer that you swing around and you are burning people to death a guy just pitched you a really bad deal and then hung up you get a call back it's the second in command and says sorry about that we killed him uh move to attack are you amused move to attack formations we're taking your fucking battleship that's way nicer than ours okay that's you don't know you don't know that we don't have disgrace greed so that's just what i by zante but also i speaker d would do because i am i i have infinite self-confidence in my ability to traverse the impossible so maybe this guy would have a different reaction you also would you are also aware we have no fighters and he is not that is true that's well but i'm i'm crazy enough to have to potentially try this even if you did have fighters that's what i'm saying okay my my issue is asking a guy crazy enough to throw his entire small fleet of guys at a giant vessel that could obliterate them if it had proper support i really like gambling i know you do i okay now i just imagine what is gonna happen is when cephas calls up he tilts the hololithic camera slightly so the picture is just cephas with life of like a terrible burn coming off of his jet like like there has been conflict on the bridge. You know what? Yeah, do that. Fuck it. I gotta, I gotta doctor this footage somehow, man. Exactly. Here you go. The screaming comes up for the third time. They're sacrificing a lot of people to make these collect calls, I tell you what. Hey, look, that's the strategy. They get more desperate for what we got. More of a call. Oh my god. Weisos cannot be allowed to win at the end of this. Katya and Polly got this. Where is the loud one? There has been a change in leadership. Byzantine Misfit is no longer the captain of this vessel, and we are assuming control. We will be making the prior deal of the gene seed in exchange for our ability to approach the planet so you may continue on your burning crusade across the Corpse Emperor's feeble lackeys. we will hold your time no longer do you give me a charm test plus 20 okay I'm gonna spend another infamy for that yeah yeah yeah so I'll make it a plus 30 I gotta please work don't blow it hell yeah 22 that's 6 degrees of success okay okay so there's like a pause that sounds acceptable The HoloLith kind of zooms in on his face a bit. Okay, but do you have any extra mortals? He will briefly look over his shoulder, not to anyone in specific, but he is looking at Yevgeny. The camera will not show who he is looking at. In this instance, we would rather cease dealing as soon as possible. We ourselves are on a rather tight time scale. Even 10,000, I could trade for them. What would you trade? There was mention of a Thunderhawk. I could trade a Thunderhawk. Would a Thunderhawk and an appropriate... Cephas would know this. I don't presently because it's a little late. What fucking two-handed weapon do you want? Please just tell me now. The chain hammer. If you would happen to have an additional chain hammer as a show of goodwill, along with the Thunderhawk, we would consider that commensurate. Human goop resin starts going into the thing. Then we write an accord, and that is an acceptable trade. All right. Sure. Make the arrangements. if you could send a transporter with the mortals and the gene seed I shall send the thunderhawk over piloted by servitor I shall allow it to be under your control part way through very well good tidings in the war and then there's like the hollow cuts off with a final scream from the mortals and then it cuts to like the bridge of the ship and Pregatus like takes off its helm like pulls back some sort of if the others knew how close we were not to have mortals to sacrifice to make phone calls. Oh, that'd be really bad. We're down to our last 200,000, damn. The fucking long-distance call cost, damn! This is the price of doing business, and it must be done. No more, no less, for now. At this point, both Byzantium and Lyphos are kind of back to uh back to to consciousness in the traditional sense there is a chemo champagne inspired by that same accident lifo snaps bigger what happened we go lifos is on fire smoking i was kind of shakes his head was live was able to hear what occurred or was he just out out yeah he could he could hear being stunned like didn't prevent you from here yeah it sounds that cephas got your thunderhawk the way we should have done it in the first place what did he do we traded a portion of our menial staff to them in exchange for a thunderhawk and a replacement weapon we they were not willing to take a weapon they could already produce themselves in addition we are sending them 10,000 it is a number it is a statistic we must abide by this if we are to make it I know we gotta listen he knows Cephas's stance on this it's just the way it goes I honestly I really like it because this is such a fun thing because we're a lot of people probably got the framing of oh we all love you you know kind of feeling but here's now here's the hard reality of the galaxy they live in towards like no you're just a thing like you're not actually a person to us you're just a guy in an experiment I think in this situation Cephas has an opinion about this but he's not going to wax poetic unprompted yeah it is what it is for now what is he's been bartered i'm actually curious what is he doing he's been fuming fuming raffle mulling over in his head the idea that no matter what there is just wanton spilling of blood he's coping no one really gives a damn and then he's seething one day there will be no astartes there will be no xenos there will be nobody but man and only then for the Imperium is but a memory will he be free and he can rest Cephas will approach Evgeny Evgeny yes sir I can sense your displeasure from here I would ask if you are amenable to it to join me in one of the Lesser Nurgle chapels I am not going to preach at you but I believe there is some perspective that needs to be shed yes if it will spare me from witnessing the hololith again I will join you then we are done for now once their vessels depart and have kept their word along with all the other trade deals we have bartered this day I believe we are all allowed a brief moment of respite give Ginny yes Byzantium chaos is freedom freedom is bondage Jesus I know he knows he didn't I didn't mean it like that it's it's fine it's all bondage all the way down we're all just whipped gimps in god's hot cage and I think you know what you've got the deal you've got your equipment I think that's where we'll actually call it for today 100% 100% I was going to have talk with you again if we can if you're okay with that we'll do that we'll do that at the start of next episode yeah yeah okay I do want to take that opportunity but yes I will please I want that conversation what a time Jesus I like to imagine at the end there as they're leaving and everyone's going their ways squabbling still but there's this one servitor that comes up and kneels down starts wiping up the puke and starts going clean clean clean clean clean clean thank you all so much for listening to this amazing episode of chaos odyssey if you really like to help out the show please visit narrative declaration dot com or you can find all the ways to support us and of course if you want to be a youtube member you can get uh some of the previews but of course if you're a patron you get all the episodes that are currently recorded uploaded as soon as we can get them and then it's delayed a little bit on youtube and then it goes public on youtube and podcast so thank you guys so much please also on the website you can see everyone's amazing credits and stuff on the show and stuff you can go follow their socials and see all the amazing projects that they do please please please please let people know of the show and stuff because without you we don't exist thank you all so very much and see you next time bye bye