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BLACK LIBRARY SHORT STORY (AGE OF SIGMAR IDEAS (SETTING (CHAMON - Flying…

- - - - 1 While a war wages in the upper levels of the Hive, below the ground....
        2 In the far deeps of a forgotten Hive City...
        
        A young interrogator...
        
        walks a dark path to uncover a secret coven.
        
        HIVE, the
        What happens when you put a metropolis on top of another metropolis, starting from a giant hole in the ground, until you can touch the stratosphere. +++
        
        UNDERHIVE, the
        What happens when you forget that the foundations of the hive were actual levels with actual people living there.+++
        
        SETTINGS
        INQUISITORIAL BLACK SHIP “Path of Nadir”
        WHITE CONSULS STRIKE CRUISER “Lux Aeterna”
        HIVE PORDEBRIAD I
        ELECTROMAGNETIC FUNICULAR RAILWAY
        SLUMS
        GENESTEALER TEMPLE
        
        DRAMATIS PERSONAE
        ORDO XENOS
        Sikel Gaitus – Radical Ordo Xenos Inquisitor
        Erzsebeth Aurelia Vastagh – Ordo Xenos Interrogator
        Aaron Lange – Tempestus Scion veteran
        Leia Komnenos – Sister Dialogus
        
        WHITE CONSULS
        Quintus Dorian – Intercessor sergeant
        
        Synopsis
        
        Inquisitor Sikel Gaitus, along with his retinue, reaches the Hive World of Pordebriad to investigate on a strange rebellion that is spreading among the planet hive cities. Upon his arrival on the planet orbit he's quickly joined by a White Consul ambassador – the intercessor sergeant Quintus Doria, coming from the strike cruiser lux aeterna - and the group landed on the planet main hive city.
        While Discending with the electromagnetic funicular railway, a sudden explosion scatters the investigation party through the sub levels. Interrogator Erzsebeth awakes among the ruins of an abandoned (FACTORY / CHURCH / SLUM), miraculously saved by falling in a drainage canal. Cut off from her Master and the other members of the cadre, the Interrogator must now find her way among the forgotten districts of the underhive, where the unknown lures from the dark. Will the inquisitor's apprentice be able to finish her mission? Or will she perish, alone and forgotten, in the obscure sub levels of the hive city?
        
        TAKE #2
        When the Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Sikel Gaitus disappears in a violent accident while descending in the lower levels of a hive, it's up to the Interrogator Erzsebeth and the few survivors of their team to complete their investigation and find the source of a harsh rebellion that is scourging the very foundations of the city.
        
        TAKE#3
        In the midst of an ongoing investigation among the lower levels of a Hive City, Inquisitor Sikel Gaitus disappears in a violent accident. It's now up to the Interrogator Erzsebeth Aurelia Vastagh to gather the few survivors of their team and fight with bare teeth in the nightmarish ruins of the Underhive. Will the Inquisitor's apprentice be able to go through her mission, no matter the cost?
        
        Treatment and notes
        
        1.
        Erzsebeth awakes on the soggy shores of an abandoned facility, deep in the underhive of Pordebriad I. Badly hurt from the fall and soaked in ditchwater, the Interrogator drags herself on the forshore, freezing and bewildered by the uncanny surroundings.
        The structures looming above her are somber and long neglected. Silence and darkness overshadow this immense complex of factories, bridges and towers that stretch far into the blackness of the upper levels.
        As she climbs up a crumbling staircase, an acrid breeze damps her hair and skin with a sticky, cold moisture.
        Even up here the air smells of burned fuel and city rot.
        She doesn't recall what happened and why exactly she's here. Last thing she remembers is walking inside one of the cable cars attached to the electromagnetic funicular railway, an old and wobbling machinery used to move through the levels of the Hive City. She wasn't alone, her team mates were with her: she tries hard to recall them, racking her aching brain.
        Lange, the ex-scion. She was sure about that, as his grim expression tattooed on his weary face was hard to ignore. There was also a new affiliate, a young woman from the Order Dialogus working as a communication expert. The planet of Pordebriad is located somewhere in the forgotten rims of the galaxy, where the Lower Gothic is twisted in bizarre, exotic dialects; speaking to the locals may be just as hard as speaking to some freakish xeno race.
        Erzsebeth seems unable to remember the name of the Dialogus, but she's sure about the dreary feeling of uneasiness that surrounded the girl.
        There was an Astartes. That was unusual, even for an Inquisitor's retinue. He wasn't really part of the team, but more of a diplomat sent by his chapter to make their own conclusions about the situation of the Hive. A giant among mortals, he wore a polished white armour with blue rims, a blue left facing eagle impressed on his shoulder. Due to his role of ambassador, the space marine was covered with a thick drape dyed in cobalt blue. Erzsebeth surprises herself in recalling so many details, but it's not every day that you meet such a formidable being. He seemed gentle under his austere manners,
        but Lange despised him nonetheless - Throne knows what crossed his mind. (aggiungi un rafforzativo per l'identità di lange)
        And then, of course, there was her master.
        The memory hits her as a bucket of cold water, as if she has suddenly awakened.
        Sikel Gaitus was an old Inquisitor, and being an old Inquisitor meant that you've seen things. Tall and slender, the man was of undefined age, with somber, cerulean eyes buried in deep wrinkles and fair, slicked back hair. The Interrogator spent with him the past fifteen years and together they undertook countless of life threatening missions - and survived, all of them. And yet, their bond was nothing more than of colleagues working together. Erzsebeth convinced herself, at some point of their collaboration, that this was exactly the motive that drove Gaitus to take her as an apprentice.
        They were quite alike. Cold, detached, and fearful of human emotions.
        
        2.
        Flashback. The group lands on one of the upper spires of hive Pordebriad, an anonymous semi-orbital deck still in control of the local authorities. The lower levels were shut one after the other, to contain as drastically as possible the local insurrection - but that wouldn't last, and the Administrorum knew that too well.
        And still, the Ordos knew better. This wasn't a simple insurrection.
        On the landing pad, The group meets with the governor's quartermaster and his escort - a cadre of guardsmen of the planetary defense covered in dull grey coats.
        The quartermaster himself is wrapping tightly in his furred coat, desperately screening his flaccid body from the ongoing ash storm.
        "you're late" sputtered the man from his greased, double chinned face, showing little interest in pleasantries.
        Gaitus said nothing, but for the briefest moment his lips twitched in an expression of disgust.
        (the group has a meeting with the local authorities, which brief them about the ongoing rebellion. At this point they meet with Quintus Dorian, who joins them for the investigation.)
        
        3.
        The investigation party makes haste to descend in the underhive. The situation is worst than they originally thought: While the local governor is ordered to call a full scale evacuation of the last safe levels, the inquisitor and his staff are to collect proof of their worst fear - that behind this rebellion there's a hive mind.
        If that's the case, the only possible solution may be the intervention of the White Consuls space marines - or, worse, the nuclearization of the entire hive.
        The group boards a cabin of the electromagnetic funicular railway, an ancient machinery similar to a cable train used to move through the numerous levels of the hive.
        The funicular is a huge room of hexagonal shape, with arched windows on every side of the cabin. The floor is made of white ouslite and trimmed with golden motifs,
        although it's far from being as shiny as it was in the glorious days of the past. The local guardsman accompanying them mechanically works on the control levers and, with a low humming, an electromagnetic field detaches the cabin from the monorail. A pitched sound, like a plasma cannon firing, anticipates the slam that sends the funicular down in the lower, darker levels of Hive Pordebriad I.
        
        4.
        As the party descends, Erzsebeth looks from one of the arched windows the sudden change of panorama - from the grey spires of the upper hive,
        towering in small groups from the clouds and the ash storms, to buildings of unintelligible function crammed one to another in a thick cluster of pipes, black concrete and toxic waste. Lange, on the contrary, is talking to the fellow guardsman, probably speaking about his glorious past in the Astra Militarum. The conversation is boring and meaningless to the other passengers, although Gaitus squints at the two from a leather bench.
        At some point, the guardsman starts to talk in a weird manner about the situation in the Hive. Lange doesn't seem to understand, although he looks nervous. All of a sudden, Sikel Gaitus springs from his seat, unsheathing his gun. "Kill Him! Fucking kill him!" Gaitus shouts, a mix of panic and fury in his voice. Erzsebeth wakes up from her daydreaming and instinctively takes her plasma revolver with an interrogative face, while Quintus Dorian immediately rise his bolt pistol, firing without even the blink of an eye. Lange drops to his side avoiding the bullet, which explodes in a violent burst on the guardsman's left arm. Blood starts to spray from the stump of the man, who fells on the floor as a result of the impact. In a few seconds, the dying guardsman opens his coat with his remaining limb and laughing psychotically he pushes the button of a homemade device.
        The funicular explodes in mid air, lighting up the levels beneath with an eruption of blazing flames.
        
        5.
        Present. Pordebriad I, somewehere below Level -73.
        Erzsebeth finds herself on a vast bridge, towered by baroque buildings stretching without end toward the darkness. Looking up, she sees bridges and stairs connecting the structures almost randomly, in a chaotic web of steel and granite. Far above, the railway is still ablaze, bright as a small sun emerging from the blackness. Instinctively, she turns on the vox transmitter attached to the gorget of her charred body suit.
        "Lange? Master Gaitus? Is there anyone alive?"
        The answer is a muffled static. The interrogator sighs with a pinch of discomfort, with little hope to actually see anyone of her squad ever again.
        An automated servitor moves on rusted tracks along a pre-computed route, set millennia ago by long dead tech-priests. His head comes out from a huge can-like structure, with tarnished markings once meant to explain his now unfathomable purpose. The servitor surpass the woman without even a glimpse, as if she doesn't exist at all; and yet, the quite buzz of his mechanisms breaks the dreary silence of the sub-level, triggering a strange sense of familiarity.
        
        7.
        Erzsebeth, exhausted after a clash with a mutant, receives a feeble signal from her auspex, marking the position of a fellow team member. Following the trail, she stumbles upon a procession of mumbling crowd walking upwards a steep road. She follows them from a distance, avoiding contact. A weird bum scares her, talking from a black alley. He's covered in rags and carries a weird staff of unknown purpose, with random tech attached to the tip.
        
        What's going on in the underhive?
        A religious cult is exposed by the local authorities and they now wage an open rebellion against the Hive's establishment. The truth behind their beliefs is far more darker than that of a simple "liberation army" as they call themselves: buried deep in the forgotten levels of Pordebriad I, a genestealer cult is spreading like a cancer and its abherrations are stampeding everything's that they find in their way with abhuman rage.
        A powerful and yet aberrant Magos prime is leading the ravaging,
        walking as a celestial Messiah among cultists and madmen.
        "She was so tall and thin, that she always seemed on the brink of shattering into million of tiny fragments. A neck too long for a normal human being was exposed with pride, which carried an ovoid head with undefined features: two giant eyeballs where enclosed in a pale, thick skin, while the nose and the mouth were barely visible on her sinuous face. And yet, on a closer look, she was a fierce being of resolute charisma, which hide under the appearance of a well mannered shepherd the unrelenting strength of a savage predator."
        
        Fights a deadly duel with a false prophet.
        
        Fights his/her way through the underhive to destroy a secret facility of the enemy.
    - - 1 In the midst of a never ending war between imperial and chaotic forces...
        2 In a bloody civil war...
        
        A mechanicum commando seeks to retrieve a lost technology.
        
        An astartes sergeant fights to push back the invaders at all cost.
        
        An Interrogator seeks to capture an enemy.
        
        Astra Militarum forces fights for every inch of terrain to push back the enemy.
    - - A wandering mechanicum Ship is boarded by an ordo Xenos party, who's looking for forbidden technology aboard the vessel.
      - A wandering ship attempts an emergency rescue of an astartes cruiser.
    - - An Explorator party boards a space hulk that seems to be 6000 years old, only to discorver a grim truth.
      - An astartes wakes from a cryo stasis chamber only to discover that he's the only survivor of a ship now thousands of years old... and yet, he's not alone aboard the space hulk.