Lazerus shouts, “Curtis, into that vehicle bay!”

Curtis steers the Dakar into the bay. It plows through the dune and slides to a stop inside. The hazard lights continue to flash as the outer door reverses it’s traverse and begin to close.

“Helmet’s on!” Lazerus commands pausing only a moment before he opens the rear hatch a bit to vent the cabin of the fumes from Lucius’ melting synapses.

Lucius’ mind is shattered bits and pieces of memories drift past like a million puzzle pieces. He grasps at them, gathering them, and trying to fit them together into a whole.

Smoke continues to drift up from his hood.

The interior of the vehicle bay is lit with sweeping flashes of orange from the hazard lights. It is a massive rockcrete room, cluttered with machinery and unrecognizable vehicles, all in an apparent state of disassembly.

The door slides shut and the lights go dark.

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“Curtis! Get us in close!” Lazerus bellows.

Firing on full auto Stig plays the turret mounted heavy stubbers of the exterior of the looming mine rig. The heavy rounds punch holes in the plating and splash sparks from the superstructure.

Curtis stomps on the accelerator pedal and the Dakar speeds past the lumbering crawlers and closes with the outpost. The cascading purple lightning chains reveal the massive blast doors of the vehicle bay are closed and a drift of toxic soot three meters deep almost covers them.

“Spread out and keep moving, may the emperor guide your way, ” She shouts into the vox.

The other crawler veer off coming at the rig from every direction at once.

Everyone holds their breath waiting for the killing las bolt that never comes.

Lucious trapped in his mind will scream back in defiance all the time in bianary, “I AM HERE DAEMON! MY UTILIZATION IS AS PLANNED FOR THE OMNISSIAH! MY EMPIRE STANDS STRONG DAEMON, THE FORGES BURN BRIGHT AND HOPE IS INFLAMED WITHIN THE HEARTS OF MARS! YOUR EMPIRE IS THE ONE THAT HAS BEEN DECIMATED DAEMON, FOR YOU SURVIVE WHERE THE GUTTERS DARE NOT RUN!.”

The mechanical bird head twists sharply from side to side. The fires of it’s many eyes forming unholy symbols, forbidden tech diagrams and mechanical schematics.

“YOU ARE BUT SPARE PARTS TO USED IN THE CREATION OF TRULY INSPIRED WORKS OF THE DARK MECHANISM!!! YOUR BODIES ARE BUT RAW MATERIALS TO BE HARVESTED!! I WILL DEVOUR YOUR SOULS AND YOUR CORPSES SHALL BE THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF THE GRAND ARCHITECT!! COME TO ME!!! COME LITTLE COG!!! I DEMAND IT!!!” A terrible sound like a burning motor fills the priests mind and he realizes it is laughter.

There is a flash of white sparks and Lucius screams, a shrill string of binary which soars to a high pitch whistle. The priest jerks spasmodically as a loud series of pops comes from inside him and blue sparks fly from his hood. Lucius slumps forward the stench of burning meat and plastic and a thick black smoke begin to fill the cabin.

Lucius is stunned. His mind blasted. He stares at his dusty metal feet trying hard to recall who and where he is. He can faintly hear shouting all around him.

Outside orange hazard lights begin to flash and the blast doors to the vehicle bay begin to slide open on rusted rails. The dune of ash shifts slowly down into the outposts interior.

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The storm continues to rage, the wind driven dust screeching over the hulls of the vehicles and the violet lightning crackling across the sky. The convoy rumbles over the dunes, closing in on the forsaken outpost.

Curtis’s muttered prayers to the Emperor mix with Sila’s as the vehicles pass over the mine installation perimeter.

“Stig, weapons hot. Everybody else, lock and load.” Lazerus barks as he loads fresh magazines into his weapons.

The big guardsman wakes from his short nap and awkwardly reloads his weapons in the confines of the turret bubble. Following that he checks the ammo feeds on the stubbers and gets them ready for action, keeping eyes to the front.

Lucius’s body remains motionless. Inside his own mind Lucius feels the hot claws of the scrap code biting into the back of his mind and tries to extract himself from the scrap code he was studying. A sudden flash of fear fills his heart as he realizes he is stuck fast, the black tendrils of the sorcerers code tightening around his soul. Suddenly a grim face fills his mind’s eye. A great avian skull fashioned from slithering black cables and corroded steel, asymmetrically spotted with burning red eyes, it moves with a bird like rapid precision. The mechanical horror face caws and hisses with the sound of grinding gears and escaping steam jets.

It screams in binary, raking Lucius’s mind, “COME FORTH, LITTLE COG! YOU SHALL BE UTILIZED AS WELL! YOUR GREAT EMPIRE MACHINE LIES BROKEN. A HEAP OF RANDOM PARTS TO BE SALVAGED BY THE GRAND ARCHITECT. COME FORTH LITTLE COG, YOUR DESTINY AWAITS.”

Lucius is trapped in his vision. His mind reeling with terror, unable to withdraw, his electronic synapses burning out one by one.

Suddenly the fat scarlet beam of a mars pattern las cannon slices through the storm and pierces the crew cab of one of the leading crawlers. A burst of flame immolates everyone inside. The crawler continues on slowly turning to the left trail a thick black smoke from it’s shattered control cab. The great machine trundles another hundred yards and then gently collapses onto the scorched earth as if to tired to carry on.

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“Take us in close. Put the two crawlers next to each other and in the front. Curtis, keep us close to their backs so we can get in front if we get attacked. Once we hit the wall of the outpost we’ll dismount and find a way in.” Lazerus orders through the vox.

“Roger that, Brother Zuriel. There’s no wall. It is just a breaker rig. A great feat of Imperial engineering, six stories of incremental ore sifters, conveyors, grain sorters and jag bashers. There is also machine hangars and crew quarters, a small town within a factory machine. Bless the Emperors soul.” Horatio speaks reverently from the vox grill.

Outside the Dakar the great crawlers plod into a new formation, two in front, the other two bringing up the rear.

Zaphon speaks directly to Lazerus. “We haven’t been out here for so long. I have no idea what to expect.”

The crawlers crest over a high ochre dune. For a long moment, as the Dakar reaches the top of the dune, a jagged web of purple lightning rips over the horizon and illuminates the wastes beyond. Across the open wastes, clouds of oxide ash and caustic dust swirling around it’s pylons sits a massive black construction, Mine outpost Thirteen. Supported over the desert on great rockrete pillars, shielded conveyors stretching out from it like giant spiders legs, is an entire towns worth of buildings and factorum domes, all growing out of each other like a cancerous tumor. The entire shell of acid scorched hexaplate is dotted with hundreds of armored work lights and the whole monstrous thing looks like an evil mechanical hive for a brood of robotic wasps. The purple lightning slashes the sky, grounding on the tips of the rig spires and arcing across it’s super structure.

Curtis whistles through her teeth.

Kron curses under his breath.

“Brother! Now is not the time for blashpemy!” Hercutio scolds him.

Lucius is quiet and still. Working out the notions the scrap code lays before him. His constant attention seems to agitate the malignant code and it has begun to form complex patterns and lines of data. Lucius drifts deeper into the code work, his mental shielding slipping away as he delves into the unknowable. The jagged claws of the corrupt code work digging into his own mind as he digs into them.

Sila begins to pray.

Another flash of the crazed violet lightning and the clouds roll in, once again obscuring the sinister outpost from the eyes of the faithful.

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Purple lightning rips through the heaving orange clouds of the storm. Tiny arcs of static play along the trundling legs of the crawlers, slowly advancing before the Dakar.

Stig, his visibility at nil, settles into his seat for a well needed nap.

Lucius remains in a trance, analyzing his files.

Curtis gets on the vox, “Are any of these crawlers armed with self defense weaponry?” She asks.

The reply comes through in a hiss of static. “No ma’am. They are designed soley for ore hauling in difficult terrain. Their armor is thick and they are damn near unstoppable though.” Horatio’s voice comes back to her.

Time passes slowly, filled with the ever present howl of the winds, the rumbling drone of the engines, and the metronome like thumps of the crawlers legs.

Curtis guides the Dakar over the toxic dunes and ever onward.

Everyone has settled into quiet contemplation, when the vox crackles and chirps, snapping them out of their introspection.

Horatio’s voice comes from the speaker grill. “We are approaching the Outpost. Another 5 kilometers and it will be in sensor range. We are still 7 kilometers out. I do not believe we will have visual contact until we are at less than 200 meters with this storm. How would you like to proceed?”

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“That is acceptable. We appreciate your assistance.” Lazerus says as he dons his own suit.

“Curtis, button up and get us moving. ” Lazerus orders.

The team climbs into the Dakar, accompanied by Zaphon and Hercutio. Hercutio stows his overly bulky customized metlagun in the weapons rack near the hatch.

Lucius continues his communion with his own spiraling streams of thought.

Curtis slips into the driver’s seat and engages the engines. She turns to Lucius and speaks softly, “Thanks you, Priest of the machine.”

Zaphon moves in close to Curtis and begins giving her instructions on the location of the vehicle shed and the best way to reach it.

The Dakar growls and rolls out of the hangar. The storm outside is raging acidic wind and abrading grit scour the paint from the Dakar’s hull plates.

Curtis deftly pilots the big transport through the total visual black out using only the radar and the words of Zaphon.

The doors of the vehicle shed appear out of the hissing gloom only a meter or two in front of the windscreen. Curtis halts the machine.

Zaphon requests the vox mic and Curtis obliges.

“Motor store one. This is Zaphod, please respond. We are at the gate. Please respond.”

The vox crackles with storm born static and then the voice of Horatio replies, “Zaphon, all is well, we are loading now. Please stand by.”

“Roger that, Horatio.”

Moments pass as the storm continues. Rocking the Dakar gently like a babe in arms.

A figure walks out of the storm and into the beams of the Dakar stab light. Man shaped it is a brunt skeleton cluttered with rusted bionics, flesh stripped away by the caustic winds. It’s arms are gone and it stumbles against the wind and bumps into the Dakar. Biting at the hull plates with broken teeth, it’s eyes glowing with a sickly green light.

Suddenly the great gate of the Imperial Motor Store splits down the middle in a ten meter tall line, and begins to rumble open. Bright white light, like the Emperor’s glory shine out of the ever widening seam.

AS the door opens four massive ore crawlers, five meters tall and mounted on a dozen, meter thick aracnoid legs. The heavy industrial vehicle tower over the Dakar. Each has a crew cabin large enough for eight miners in full gear. The cabins are forward mounted and lit up from inside, the crew visible making preparations inside. The body of each crawler is made up of three segments, each a covered ore hopper. Hazard light begin to flash along the sides of the vehicles and with great lethargic steps the massive machines move forward out of the motor store like mammoth insects waking from ages long slumber.

Curtis reverses the Dakar out of the way of the advancing crawlers. The skeletal wretch tips forward as the Dakar hull pulls away. It lays writhing in the orange sand until the giant blunt tip of a crawler legs comes down, punching it into the dust.

The four great crawlers move off to the northeast, yellow hazards flashing, pistoning legs throwing up clouds of toxic ash. Curtis does her thing and the Dakar falls in behind them.

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Lucious suits up and returns to the transport. He interfaces with the machine spirit and plots the course over land to the outpost. He the relaxes his mind and ponders the complexities of the scrap codes messages and the forbidden knowledge and power it taunts him with. He keeps his hand tightly on the black key in his pocket, it’s surface registers an increased temperature as he muses.

Curtis asks the man whom she just spoke to, “Shall you accompany us?”

The man looks at her with devotion. “Sister I shall go where the Emperor wills me.”
Curtis then looks to the rest of the assembled men and says “I know the Emperor works through you all, and it brightens my heart that so many faithful wish to take this path with us but I must ask, whom among you having faith in the Emperor… beloved by all… believes they can add the most to the group’s combat effectiveness?”

“We can only take two Horatio, send your two best with the best equipment you can give them.” Lazerus says.

“We have our own vehicles. Ore Crawlers. They are in a hangar on the north side of the space port.” Horatio replies.

“They have not been used for a long time but they are serviceable, this our diligence in the Emperor’s service guarantees.” He makes the sign of the Aquila, his eyes shining with zeal.”

He gestures to two of the men. “Zaphon, Hercutio, you ride with the saviours and guide them to the vehicle shed. The others and I will move through the space port and meet you there. Is this acceptable?” The old man looks to Lazerus hopefully.

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Curtis removes her hand from the man’s chin and wipes the tear away. She whispers to him, “There, there… the emperor truly protects, and when things come to fruition you will see you have served a purpose on this world for him, and that his will was done as he saw fit.”

“Lucious, can you shut the reactor back down?” Lazerus asks.

“If you can do that, it should make our fight inside the outpost much easier. The Mag-Train is almost certainly a trap and the overland route would give us more options for entry once we get there.” Lazerus continues.

“What is your opinion on the matter Lucious?” Lazerus asks.

Lucious looks over to Lazerus.

“The entire system has been corrupted and I am unable to dissengage the reactor, it looks like a destruction of the main reactor is all we can hope for to shut down this monstrosity. I have seen this handy work before in our mission, this abomination’s grasp is quite impressive.” Lucious looks back at his notes to see if he missed anything he could compare with his past experiences with the scrap code. Half paying attention he mentions “I would also recommend the vehicle’s route seeing how infected the systems around the area are with scrap code.”

“Alright, I guess that was a little much to hope for. Curtis, get the vehicle warmed up. Lucious, make sure she has the navigation data she needs. Everybody else, in the back.” Lazerus barks.

Stig climbs into the transport and mans his usual turret position. The witches pull on their suits and climb back into the Dakar with out a word. The rest of the tea suits up and follows.

“Thank you for your cooperation Horatio. If you or any of your men would like to accompany us they would be greatly appreciated.” Lazerus says to Horatio before boarding the transport himself.

“Of course, certainly. We will all accompany you. This is the Emperor’s will.” Horatio says excitedly. He and his group suit up and stand expectantly at attention.

There is only room in the Dakar for two additional personnel.

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Curtis puts her scarred hand to the chin of the blond crewman and raises it up. “Do not look down, for the Emperor will not let his faithful suffer for longer than they can stand. We all do our part in order to enact his will.”

The crew man stares at her wide eyed, a single tear slips down his cheek.

Lucius stomps past them.

A long thin cable snakes from Lucius’ crimson hood and slips into a port on the cogitator with a barely audible click. The tech priest’s body freezes in place and the lights flicker around the room and then grow very dim. The banks of logic engines begin to hum with a high pitched whine and lights and dials come to life.

Everyone else stands silently waiting.

Inside the virtual data stores of the mine complex super system, Lucius begins his search. He skims through thousands of report nodes and status points.

The information comes to him in hundreds of fragments. The half machine priest assembles the bits efficiently into a basic report.

As he follows the trail of data into the electronic storage banks of Outpost #12 he is suddenly struck with an overwhelming sense of deja vu. He stops to recheck the digital enviroment and realizes in a microsecond he is surrounded by scrap code. The same twisted scripts he has encountered all along this mission. It spirals around his mind calling to him and seeking a way into his mind. Dark tendrils of corrupt data needling into his enhanced nervous system. Lucius snaps his mind closed and withdraws quickly, leaving the scrap code howling his name in a matrix of hot white light.

The lights return to normal levels as Lucius withdraws his cable from the machine.

His report is a sharp monotone from his vox speaker.

“The reactor was activated by an unknown from the control node in the #12 outpost. This was an illegal intrusion perpetrated by a blunt force security data ram. In this case corrupted scrap codes, obviously the work of the same villains we have been pursuing. The outpost was mothballed and then mine closed as Horatio has indicated. The enemies have broken in and hijacked the systems there. The outpost has been brought up to full operations status and is drawing considerable power from the reactivated grid. There is a magnetic train which connects this space port with the outpost, for the expedient shipment of  Serriex Ore. There is also a beacon trail which can be followed overland by an all terrain personnel vehicle. The Mag-train being the faster of the two choices.”

As Lucius recounts the information, the others loiter about impatiently. Horatio nods along with Lucius’s words. The psykers huddle together whispering from inside their hoods.

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The project is a megadungeon for Mutant Future. Set in the jungle over grown ruins of a futuristic mega-city. The city streets and jungle are a sandbox location with random encounters and even a random building ruin creation table. While the places of import the super domes, space port, hospital and others are pre written and mapped in detail. The focus is on the ecology of the cities denizens, the puzzles provided by highly sophisticated ancient technologies, and the treasures of a lost age.

Right now, the project is a big pile of notes, creature drawings and scribbled maps. I’ll be posting bits of it here as it comes together.

“I’m afraid we are not that team. But we are here to put a stop to what’s been going on.” Lazerus says to Horatio.

“Lucious, figure out what we need to do to deactivate the reactor. After we get that done we can go and purge mine #12″ Lazerus continues.

Lucious addresses Horatio. “May I review the information stored on these cogitators to determine the cause of the reactors timely start and make a determination based on the evidence there? I will require power be diverted to the main cogitator for this purpose.”

Kron and Sila move closer to the group.

Horatio gestures to the cogitator banks. “Do what thou wilt, Brother Brokenheart. But be warned. We have limited power and the power we do have is spent on illumination and security. If you do divert the power. Do it quickly, lest the beast find their way inside.”

Curtis moves towards the huddle of survivors. They shuffle about nervously as she approaches.

“How have you survived this long?” The guardswoman asks.

One of the men, a gaunt squire with a scruff of blond beard looks at her wide eyed. “Well ma’am, we have been diligent in our faith. It is the Emperor who has preserved us from the darkness.” He makes the sign of the Aquila and then look down at his shoes.

Stig loiters around looking at all of the strange instrument displays. He has little comprehension of the discussion at hand.

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Lazerus and Stig deftly remove their suits.

Curtis leans against a cogitator and says, “Seems as though the Emperor works in mysterious ways.”

Kron and Sila hang back at the edge of the room and slip out of their suits.

Lazerus addresses Horatio.

“I’m from the Arbites, the large fellow with the stubber is from the Guard and so is the female. You can probably guess for yourself where the cogboy’s from. As for the rest, I can assure you that you don’t want to know that information.” He says.

Lucius steps up.  “I am Lucious Brokenheart of the Adeptus Mechanicus, liason from the Martian Priesthood to this group…”

Lazerus continues, “What can you tell us about those. . . things out there? Where do they come from?”

Lucius looks at him and shouts, “Those things are abominations, servitors created with dark means and a darker purpose.”

“That they are.” Says Horatio making the sign of the Aquila over his heart. “We have worked here for thirty years keeping the up the Emperors investments here. All the mines have been shut down. The equipment packed and stored. We watch over it. Two years ago Outpost Mine #12 came on line, draining power from the grid. The reactor was shut down to auxiliary status after the exodus. There was barely power for our crew. We sent out a team to investigate and they never returned. Then the reactor returned to full power and when we approached it, this time armed and with greater caution, we were set upon by all manner of horrors. We retreated to the Port town but soon found ourselves under siege by a growing group of mutant servitors and other nameless abominations. We lost more people to the beasts and soon they began to burn the buildings, first the Chapel and then the barracks units, we fled here and fortified the space port, in hope that a rescue team would land here and deliver us from this nightmare. We are hoping you are that team…”

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The group of suited men move through the doors at the rear of the hangar and the team follows. The unseen skulkers sheepishly step out from their hiding places and follow you through, closing the door behind them.

The group leads you down a long hallway tiled in small squares of bone white. You pass by numerous closed steel doors along the way and finally ascend a short flight of steps, pass through a heavy door, much like an air lock and enter a large chamber.

The chamber, once a control room of sorts is filled with powered down cogitators, logic engines and massive index calibrators. All sorts of detritus is stacked around the machines, and you can see palettes set up for sleeping.

The old man turns to you and removes his helmet. His face is bright, through creased with wrinkles and trailing a shaggy bit of white beard. He smiles at you.

Lucius removes his helmet and the man looks at his face startled.

“Face to face. Ha! Not what I expected at all! I should have known! Ha! Welcome to our fastness. Our last redoubt against the unholy in the land of sifting corrosion and wind blown hell. I am Horatio Delgadus, Master Custodian.” He makes a seeping gesture at the crowded room.

The other men begin removing their suits.

Lucius steps out of his gear and addresses the man.

“Now that we may speak face to face… I do wish to inquire what has happened in this area?”

The old man looks the priest over and begins to speak.

“We are the remaining few. The last survivors of the custodial crew left to care for the decommissioned mining works. Thirty years have we kept at our duties. Now evil has descended on this world and it preys on us. Our cries for help go unanswered. Two years…” The old man stops abruptly. All the men are looking most appreciatively at Curtis as she removes her environment suit. Suddenly the old man notices his awkward pause an coughs loudly. The custodians all lower their eyes and return to folding their suits.

“We thank you for coming to our aid. I rejoice in my heart the Emperor has brought our distress signal to your ears. What is your name, sir, that I may thank you? Did the blessed Munitorium send you? Who commands you?”

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