The planet Dust was once a productive Hive world, but now it's a despoiled and
largely forgotten Imperial outpost, strewn with industrial ruins.
The spheres are in alignment. The Traveller arrives.
Four adventurers entered a desert town heading toward the marketplace and the
gates to the oldest of the Bonesinger temples.
The Daughter was shocked by the hostile reaction to her attempt at
friendliness. Atrak used his powers to distract the villagers and allowed
her to escape and blend in with the crowd.
The Leader moved cautiously into the town.
Zukaba (an alien Mystic) bribed some local thugs to help them.
The Tallyman and his enforcers arrived. Many of the market traders flee and
hide, but they left their goods behind.
Out in the open desert a group of “spectres” approached from the deep dunes.
They opened fire at Zukaba and their henchmen. The Aeldari enforced their will
on the thugs, making the feral warriors feel invincible.
Atrak felt the tide of his arcane power was diminished to low-ebb, so he chose
to use the distraction of the Tallyman’s arrival to move toward the gate.
The Leader followed Atrak at a distance.
Zukaba raised a hand in focus and atomized two of the spectres. The third
escaped the tempest of energy. The sound echoed across the sands, and the
guards at the gate hurried toward the sound, along gantry atop the wall.
The feral thugs stalked forward and executed the last, stunned spectre.
The Tallyman and his huge enforcer rushed through the market. The remaining
guards were summoned by the Tallyman, leaving the gate unguarded and open.
The Daughter spoke with Faust, who seemed to be the only friendly resident in
the Dust market. At his suggestion she placed her artefact into a socket in
one of the large alien artefacts - this activated its suspensors and the
sarcophagus started to float.
The gate to the Bonesinger Temple was open and unguarded.
In the dunes Zukaba tried to bless their henchmen’s accuracy but their powers
went awry, the thugs were able to shake off the alien's glamour in
confusion.
Atrak reached out into the future with his mind, he chose an unlikely path
where he and his three new allies (rhe Leader, the Daughter, and Faust) were
able to move normally while all others seemed to be slowed - as if the air had
become liquid around them.
In a blur of movement Atrak sped toward the temple, through the gate.
The Leader scaled the wall and jumped down to the ground on the temple side.
The Leader and Atrak started to make preparations for the Daughter and Faust, with the temple guardians.
The guardians cut down a villager in cold blood, but then seemed to welcome
Atrak and the others - calling them “the Ancient” and “the Elder”, “the Young”
and “the Lost”.
Some pilgrims, shocked by the brutal killing of one of their fellows, started
looting the temple. They cracked an ancient seal on a crypt, hoping to find
treasures among the grave-goods. But within was only death, opening it
released three daemonic Screamers.
The daemons attacked the Leader (after eating the pilgrims). The Leader
counter-attacked the first Screamer and drove it back.
The Daughter readied her long rifle, she fired but it had no effect. She fell back and reloaded.
Three mounted knights - the Magi - appeared.
Atrak didn’t see the Screamers as hostile, he was confused by the reactions of
his companions - he "shooed" them away (the others perceived this as
destroying them with a psychic blast).
Zukaba tried to shift their curse into an artefact, but it only angered the
desert winds. From the dust, a troupe of capering daemonic Horrors materialised. Zukaba fired a relic pistol and hit one of them, it recoiled screeching.
The Magi charged into the Temple as the Bonesingers surrounded the Daughter, laughing. The Daughter tried to
escape but dropped her seed-artefacts as she scrambled away in panic.
Faust used the confusion to move a sarcophagus into the now-open crypt. The walls vibrated and fine dust fell from above as ancient machinery activated
and a door opened - stairs led down to a hidden shrine. The strange noise of the machinery panicked the Magi’s horses and they carried their riders off.
The fates shivered through the planet. The Bonesingers were revealed as Tzeentch cultists (or illusions?).
More Magi (on foot) appeared at the gate, and with their appearance the riders recovered their composure.
The Leader read the symbols on the second sarcophagus, and the words of power cowed the Horrors. He asked Faust to move the sarcophagus.
Faust gave a choice to accompany him, but was only willing to take two pilgrims: The leaders and the Daughter are chosen.
The Daughter recovered some of her seed-artefacts and followed Faust into the secret shrine.
The Bonesingers dissolved into dust, still laughing.
The Daughter implored Faust to take the others, but he refused. So (to everyone else's surprise) she shot him!
One of Faust's many trinkets fell to the floor, which seemed to trigger a vortex that pulled the air, the clouds of dust and everyone nearby toward the crypt. The temple immediately started to collapse around them.
The Leader the vortex to be dragged him forward and, at the last second, managed to trigger a rune on the sarcophagus that transformed the vortex into a web-gate.
Atrak, The Daughter and Zukaba barely considered their options for a moment before they threw themselves through the gate!
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[A dark voice echoed through everyone’s minds – The Traveller spoke.]
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The conclusion - Part 3: The Blasphemous Voyager (coming soon)
