Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-33521582-20180324203957/@comment-33521582-20180406160639

"Excellent," says Sergeant Invexus, "by His Divine Will we are well, and the fight continues. It seems that the Xenos were ready to dispense with conventional equipment; those creatures could have made their way into the manufactorums easily. Be on the alert, Brothers." The Black Templar squares his shoulders, and takes up his position at the front once more, signalling you and the rest of the kill-team to follow.

You descend into the blasted cavern once more, but it bears little semblance to the rough cave of before. The rock has been torn apart, and scorch marks cover most of the surface. A mass of craters covers the floor, a particularly large one where the two spherical abominations exploded together. Many of the deformed and aberrant bodies have been blasted apart, or flash dried by the intense heat, crumbling like dust under your heavy greaves. There is nothing living in the cave, save the eight of you. And yet, Zhevordus and Klepacki hear something that wasn't there before.

The sound is incredibly faint, so much so that the two Iron Scorpions believe it to be the aftereffects of the massive explosion, until a quick glance between them confirms that it is not a phantasm.

"Sergeant," Brother Klepacki's voice sounds over the vox, "I think I hear something *beneath* us."

Sergeant Invexus turns to the Astartes, and cocks his head. He then signals for all of you to halt, and takes an auspex from his belt. His gauntleted hands fiddle briefly with the controls, and he holds the device out, scanning the cave. The tool beeps as the Astartes passes over the largest crater. You all bring your weapons to bear, the machine spirit in Brother Alexus' Multi-melta whirring to life contentedly, as you approach the crater.

A crack spans the diameter of the pit, and you can now all hear something, like a low rumbling. Sergeant Invexus maglocks his Thunder hammer, and kneels to peer into the fissure. The seconds drag by, and you feel the bone-tiredness of fading adrenaline, even as apprehension leaves your mouths dry as you feel alone in a way you never did since joining your Chapters. This, you know understand, is the nature of the Deathwatch; venturing alone into the dark places of the Galaxy, no backup, no intel, no knowing what happens next.

"Blood of the Emperor," Sergeant Invexus whispers softly, perhaps unaware that he is broadcasting, "what is this?" He rises and gestures for all of you to look. You take turns, as the opening on the other side can only be viewed from a few angles.

The crack runs for what must be half a kilometer, but your Occulobe, combined with the optical enhancements of your helmet, has no trouble focusing the image for you. Way down below, under the city, under the surface, under these caves, is a gigantic hollow space, with curved walls like a toroid. It takes you a while to understand the perspective, it's impossibly big, large enough to housea Battle-ship. Flea-sized beings creep across the surface, pushing small spheres. After you adjust you realise that the "fleas" are, in fact, the insect-like humanoids you've already encountered. The nature of the spheres is easy to deduce, there are hundreds of thousands of them, maybe even millions.

"Eggs," Sergeant Invexus voices the thoughts coursing through your minds, "and where there's eggs, there's a queen." His expression is hidden under his helmet, but his stance is defiant. "Brother István, come in."

"Rep...ng, ...rgeant. ..vexus", comes the voice of the techmarine over the vox, badly intercut by static.

"I need you to comandeer the resources of the planet and scan the area, deep subterranean scan, at least four kilometers. You have my permission to use my authorization code."

"Ro... send ...ta soon as ...sible."

You wait for several minutes, standing like trees awaiting the woodsman's axe. The silence streatches on, save for the faint sound of the deeps, and as your eyes grow even more accustomed to the darkness, you begin to almost percieve a dull, reddish glow coming from the crack.

A soft chime sounds, and Sergeant Invexus pulls out a Data-slate from its protective casing on his belt. The display shows a three-dimensional map of the caves you've already passed through. A number of other tunnels and caverns also exist on your level, but are inaccessible. Below you is an enormous toroidal cavern, surrounding an almost spherical cave placed slightly above it. The winding tunnels on the map show that you can access that central chamber, but you need to traverse several more kilometers of tunnel.

"Warn..., ..geant," comes the static-laced voice of Brother István over the vox, "ther... ...derable tecto... ...tability."

The silence hangs heavily about the group of you, until it is broken by Sergeant Invexus.

"Suffer not the Alien to Live", he says, in a tranquil voice, before turning on his heel and walking towards the downward leading tunnel mouth.