The dog thing stops twitching. Stig looks around slowly as if in shock, then recognizing the swirling gas for what it is begins to yell, “Gas! Gas! Gas!”

He and Lazerus fumble their respirators from side pouches and fit then to their heads. Curtis and Sila follow suit.

Lucius having no need of a respirator, walks crookedly over to the now inert gas canister and retrieves it with metal fingers.  He hold sit up to his optics and turns it slowly around.

Stig is surprised to find his hand is only slightly bruised after his gun exploded, which seems a small concession considering his melted chest.

Stig notices a huge pile of bloody skulls in the corner of the room, which didn’t seem to be there earlier.

The big guardsman makes his way to Lazerus and they drag the unfortunate Tauron towards the Generatorium doors.

Lazerus can hear shouting off in the darkness followed by the cries of children. He sees that the floor is covered in blood and it seems to be growing deeper.

Lucius speaks as they pass him. “Be warned meatbags. This canister contained a micronised neuro-toxin. A highly volatile hallucinogenic aerosol compound. You may begin to experience brain dysfunctions.”

The tech priest slips the canister into a belt pouch and marches towards the Generatorium doors.

Hearing his words Sila hurries to Kron and fits the man’s own respirator over his head.

Curtis seems to be slapping at unseen insects.

Tauron hangs slack in the grip of his large captors. He stares up at them, their faces hidden behind black masks, as they drag him towards the large double doors.

“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot…” He gasps still trying to catch his breath. Tauron, his heels scraping along the rockcrete, notices that the lens of his captors masks have begun weeping thick rotten blood.

Stig kicks the door open and it swings silently into another dark chamber. Lucius limps past him. The Priests lamp pack shows another identical set of doors which Lucius pushes throws wide.

“I will perform a diagnostic ritual to determine the status of the power grid.” The Tech Priest barks at Lazerus and limps off to the right.

The others file inside, Curtis carrying Prose, Sila helping Kron, who seems vaguely conscious as if in a trance.

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The strange purple tinted gas from the grenade has thinned to a swirling mist. The wisps of vapor seem to form into faces and people and things, dark things.

The servitors continue to look confused even as Curtis steps around Lazerus and the flailing Tauron, and opens fire on them. The las bolts miss, flashing away into the darkness and the servitor barely seem to notice.

Tauron squirms and thrashes, shouting, “Get me away from this, my father will not let this stand! Whomever harms me will be dealt an awful death!” He struggles fiercely against Lazerus spoiling the man’s aim as he tries to fire his autogun at the servitors. But the Arbiter has the leverage and he drives his knee down hard into Tauron solar plexus stunning him.

Sila stalks across the room firing as she advances. Her shots flare over the heads of the idle servitors.

Stig rolls up onto his knees and fires his remaining pistol at the crouching dog beast. The first round hits it square in the chest and the beast squeals, the second round teas off its lower jaw showering the floor with black blood and gristle. The third and fourth shots punch through its thick skull and the beast collapses with a gurgling growl. It lies twitching in an ever widening pool of it foul blood.

Lucius still shouting derisive curses at the servitors marches directly up to them and begins ripping at their power feeds and coolant tubes.

“This Omnissiah forsaken tech heresy must be abolished immediately. He appears to know what he is doing and in a moment both of the machines are hunched over powerless and non-functioning. The sputtering flares fall to the rockcrete floor from lifeless fingers. He turns to Lazerus with a fist full of wiring, which he brandishes in the air. “This will not stand! This… this… the Omnissiah’s justice will be done here.”

The wounded frog slinks off into the dark and shifting gases. Dark figures and twisted shadows move through the chemical fog as it closes over it. You hear a chorus of barking laughter followed by a hissing sighs which seem to come from everywhere at once.

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Tauron, eyes wide, runs past Stig screaming, “Kill it! Kill it! Kill! Now now now!” The frantic noble races straight into a powerful fore arm close line move by Lazerus. Tauron’s feet go out from under him and he hits the floor hard with a choking cough, the wind knocked from his lungs. As he struggles to suck in a breath, the arbiter’s knee comes down hard on his chest pinning him to the ground. Zip click! A second later Lazerus has the young man rolled over hands fastened behind his back with a pair of blackened steel arbiter manacles.

Sila lays the unconscious Kron gentle on to the floor, she then slowly rises, stepping over him and drawing her las pistol. She places herself between Kron and the enemies and takes aim with the hand gun.

The dog beast yanks a cylinder from its harness, then rears up on its hind legs and throws the object into the center of the warehouse chamber. The cylinder hits the ground with a clank and begins to spin across the floor expelling pressurized gas in a thick growing cloud.

Stig drops low to the ground his auto stubbers roaring. The Surgeon, his frog brain screaming alien incantations, fires his grotesque plasma gun simultaneously.

In a simultaneous hurricane of violence, Stig snarls as he drops, the pistol in his right hand firing a semi auto burst. The Surgeon fires his evil gun and a screeching sphere of white hot plamsa streaks towards Stig. Stig’s bullets find their mark, two rounds punch into the surgeons chest and two more blast through the glass dome of his head. The frog bowls shatters explosively and it’s squealing slippery contents onto the floor as the mechanical body falls backwards to land in a twitching heap. The gun in Stigs left hand jams, the round in the chamber detonates and the gun comes apart violently in his hand just as the plasma burst hits him full in the chest. Stig rolls across the floor with the impact, his chest plate molten and sputtering with white hot fire, the melted flesh beneath sizzling and popping.

Curtis fires a rapid burst of las over Lazerus’ head. The foremost servitor is blown apart under the impacts. It’s left arm flies from its shoulder in a shower of sparks, its chest panel shatters and bursts into flames and finally as it spidery mechanical legs give out its head explodes and the terrible thing slumps to the ground.

The two remaining servitors swivel their heads back and forth in jerky motions. Their gruesome close combat weapons hang limp at their sides. They seem confused and unable to act.

Lucius shouts from across the chamber, ”Purge the hereteks! For the Omnissiah tolerates not the heathen forms of tech heresy! DESTROY THIS ABOMINATION!” He limps forward waving his las pistol in the air.

The frog creature crawls slowly away, trailing foul fluids from two ragged bullet wounds and hundreds of tiny cuts from the shattering bowl.

The big room slowly fills with smoke from the spinning grenade.

Lucius limps, towards the fallen priest, his damaged leg clanking loudly with each step.

Sila cradles Kron in her arms, rocking him and whispering prayers into his ear. She looks up with a start as Stig yells.

“Freeze! Get down! Down on the floor now!” The big guardsman shouts, raising his guns at the naked man pinned in his lamp beam.

Tauron peers in the the light.

“Are you friend or foe? I’ll have your answer now. I haven’t any more patience for this place.” He says with aloof annoyance. Stig’s fingers tighten on the triggers. Lazerus stops his sweep and hurries towards the commotion.

Suddenly, the sound of movement in the darkness behind Tauron distracts Stig, and Tauron turns sharply, peering over his shoulder into the black.

A burning bright red flare bursts into life, quickly followed by two more. The too bright sputtering crimson glow reveals the tall rags swaddled form of the daemonic frog bowl surgeon, flanked by three misshapen servitors, their baleful eyes glowing green, each holding a sputtering flare rod with one of its many mechanical limbs. Crouching near the surgeons legs is what appears in the lurid flare light to be a large hairless dog. Its head and snout are shaped like a mallet, the features are blunted. It is wearing a complicated leather harness around its trunk . The horror sits back on its hunches and raises its forelegs revealing human shaped hands complete with thumbs. The dog beast grins showing thick black gums set with double rows of arrow head teeth. The daemonic frog flops and twitches in its bowl. Garbled gibberish blasts from its chest speaker and the noise feels like a slap in the face as it washes over Stig and Tauron. The batrachian headed surgeon raises its clockwork arms and points a brazen object, like a screaming gargoyle caged in brass pipes, directly at Stig.