We sneak up to the side entrance. No one notices us, not even Scorp. Imk opens the door to a guard room, and we're greeted by one of our old friends, the elite berserkers as well as a grunt with an autogun. We make quick work of them.

Imk gently opens the next door, revealing the big hangar, roughly 100 by 200 meters. As usual, the agents of Chaos have made a mockery of what was once proud(ish) Imperial. In the middle of the hangar, there's sort of a...sludge fountain. At least 100 of what Zharkon calls Nurglings, tiny cherub-y Nurgle daemons, frolick around and in the fountain. Around 20 cultists with autoguns are spread throughout the room, showing various degrees of festering wounds and mutations, all on proud display. In addition, there are at least 10 of the elite berserkers here. At one end, we spot a dome or the like that clearly stands out. It leads down a set of stairs made out of what seems like hewn material.

We don't really feel like fighting everyone/thing in the big hangar, so we dirty up our beggars' outfit even more, make our best Nurgle cultist impression (without being too heretical, may it please the Emperor) and walk towards the stairs. A close shave later (Zharkon made some weird noises which seemed to soothe a gang of berserkers), we're down the stairs.

Imk sneaks forwards and sees 4 more berserkers guarding an entrance to what seems like a big area behind them. We hear what seems to be chanting and some type of other-wordly roar. Sounds like the Herald is on its way already.

Imk pretends to be a cultist with a message, while me and Titus quietly sneak up behind him. We put bullets into two of them, the rest go in and the remaining two make a retreat to the big room. Guess there's no way but forwards.

Inside, there's a big, natural cave of sorts. Ferue is chanting at the top of his lungs, it seems to be working - a truly monstrously big (and monstrous) daemon is making its way out of a portal. There's 8 of the elites, 6 of the autogun cultists and 2 of those damned chanters as well.

The smell is worse

At the sight of the daemon, both Zharkon and Scorp turn tail and run right back where we came from. The rest of us manages to limit the damage to shitting our pants, say a prayer to the Emperor, grit our teeth and start fighting.

The fight is long and hard, but in the end we prevail [neste gang må jeg ta litt notater fra selve fighten :P] and send the daemon scurrying back to the Warp. Ferue's staff is clearly part of the puzzle of xeno items we were looking for - there's a hole with a very orb-y looking hole in it. We also find some xeno trinkets which I know will ease transactions with certain shady characters a bit...though we better not be caught with them in our possession.

Making our way back to the Gantry, Crimson remains true to his word and hands Titus his bolt pistol. Huh. We make our way back topside with a few new contacts (trader Lockstock, gang leader Crimson and oath captain Nils), some fresh wounds both physical and mental and pride in doing our part for reducing Chaos' influence in a tiny corner of the galaxy. Hail the Emperor!

Walking dead, red walkers and green swamps

The green walkers
So how are we going to get down into the swamp? Convincing Crimson to let us down there just got a lot easier now that we have a Blessed Flesh cultist doing cult-y things in his own domain. As good as Zharkon is at interrogation, I imagine Crimson might be even more persuasive! Though come to think of it, he might have some issues with this one. Hmm, I can't quite put my finger on why though...hmmm, what was it again...

Ohhhh yeah, the gaping hole where his head is supposed to be! For some reason, Titus thought it was a GREAT idea to put a bunch of bullets in his head after we got the info we needed. Not that he didn't deserve it, but he also deserved a few extra hours worth of torture before he was sent to his putrid, stinking god.

Oh well, back to the drawing board. We go to Omar to suss out some more info on Crimson. Apparently, he's a psychopathic nihilist with extreme violent tendencies. Huh, never would have guessed. One way to gain his trust is by winning one of several challenges. The red run (400 m dash up the wires keeping the Gantry suspended, knives allowed), knife lock (...) and tangled in death (something involving a meshed wire cage and knives again) all sound like appealing options to Imk.

We decide to just roam the Gantry a bit more, trying to find some cultists, more info, whatever. Great plan. We're executing it beautifully when some weird, green fog comes roiling upwards. What the...the swamp is preeeetty far down - and Zharkon informs us this ain't no natural (or whatchamacallit) fog! Filtration plugs go in, our skins tingle a bit but we seem ok for now. The mist is thick enough that we can't see more than a few yards. Something comes shuffling out of the fog...a Gantrist who looks pretty dead (as evidenced by the slit throat), but is still moving and intent on a little nibble of Eizen flesh. Imk cuts him down easily before he gets that far. The corpse looks fairly recently deceased.

We figure we'd better get back to Omar's castle before we're potentially overrun by Nurgling walking dead and start running. The front door is locked, no one answers. Scorp gets to work and opens the door in a minute or so. Whoops - there are about 30 more of those shufflers right inside. Imk has the presence of mind to slam the door shut. I have an inkling this might be the "ritual" the brainless cultist was talking about!

Me and Titus are still missing our weapons, and we have a feeling Omar might be behind this as well so...we decide to find a way in. We climb up with our newly acquired clip and harness, meet 3 more walking dead, finish them off without trouble. We find a window to Omar's office. Inside, he's cowering behind a desk, a combat servitor at his side. The door to his office is about to give, and we barely make out a horde of more walking dead. Scorp tries smashing the window, but it's reallly solid - but it gets Endish's attention. He looks absolutely terrified, so guess he's innocent. Through gestures we get him to point out the nearest window. It's too late for him though...the dead come poring into his office. The servitor takes out a bunch before it's buried beneath the onslaught. We don't need a lot of imagination to hear Omar's screams as he's taken apart limb by limb.


The Red Walkers 
We still go into his castle though, finding a few weapons for me and Titus - a rifle and an autopistol. Not kitted out of course. On the way out, we suddenly hear the unmistakable sound of bolter rounds. Hard to hear where they're coming from, but someone rich and dangerous is about, that's for sure. We decide to head to the gate and secure our weapons in any case, we're also missing all our grenades and backup guns for the rest.

On the way we run into some red walkers, who tell us the dead are climbing up from the swamp. At the gate, there's about a 100 of them trying to get to the red walk gangers defending the gate. One of them's broken off the heavy stubber from its turret and pointed it at the dead. It's extremely effective, but even so we can see they're about to be overrun. Thinking quickly, I suggest we help them, both for getting our weapons back and for getting some cred with the gang when facing Crimson. It's a bloody battle, but through some clever manouevering we manage to avoid serious injuries.

The gangers are of course glad to still be alive. We join them on the way back to their gunship. As we get there, the last walking dead is put down but a bolter round to its head. The owner of the bolt pistol, is, of course, Crimson himself. He makes for a fairly imposing figure as he strides down the walkway.

Det var alt jeg rakk i dag, argh. Skriver resten ordentlig til neste gang. Kort på resten:
- Ferue er en gigant, 2m, 200 kg, weird staff, masse mutasjoner.
- Blir guidet ned i sumpen av en liten mutant-looking duderino fra red walk
- 3 timer på sludge river, kommer frem til en liten tørr flekk med ei råtten hytta hvor Blessed Flesh-kontakten holder til. Stchtøgg jævel + 2 elite berserkers.
- Interrogation hvor Zharkon bruker flesh puppet for å flexe litt, finner ut:
- The GRAND TEMPLE er 1 time unna, bare en vei å gå (planker/gantries/etc gjennom sumpen)
- Det er ingen feller/vakter på veien
- Templet har 2 hovedinnganger bak/foran, 2 på siden, alle er bevoktet, det er ingen alarmsystemer
- Ritualet går ut på å bringe "the Herald" inn i verdenen
- Det er Nurglings i nursery

- Når vi kommer frem til THE GRAND TEMPLE viser det seg at det er bunkers i plasteel fra the imperial guard som er run down som f (Valkyrie fighter jet base). Rundt er det relativt åpen sumpområde. Vi sniker oss rundt til en av sideinngangene som IKKE har vakter. Vaktene ellers er sløve. En heavy stubber guard tower på toppen. Let's roll!

The Gantry

We lick our wounds at the Oathkeepers' HQ while we wait for a response for further action from Aldius. Once a day passes, we reckon we need to make the decision on our own. We inform the Oath Captain that their fortress might be attacked by hordes of heretics at some unspecified time in the future. She chuckles grimly, joking that she'll surely get reinforcements with this very specific piece of information. Doubt she'd get any in any case - who in the upper echelons care if a tiny outpost at the lower levels gets swarmed? No one, that's who.

So, look like we need to kill a few thousands heretics on our own. Or maybe just the leadership, we'll see. We decide to go to Lockstock first to see if we can get some additional info. We also need some gear - Imk is running around in some godawful armor that looks like he made himself for example (and he ain't no armorer).

Lockstock says there's a guy called Omar Endish who lives on the Gantry, who's somewhat of an info broker as well as purveyor of "exotic" [read: heretical] goods. The Gantry is run by the Red Walk, which is run by Vornas Crimson. Gantries, walks, red, crimson - get your shit straight guys!

Mr Stock also offers us a guide to the Gantry if we take care of one of his rivals, who tend to a place called the Boneyard which is....a yard with literal human bones. We accept, thinking there's little harm in killing some scum. As it turns out, the Boneyard is run by a minister from the Ecclesiarchy. Whoops. Now, I'm not their biggest fan, even though I love the Emperor as much as the next acolyte, but just straight up killing 8-9 of them....weeeelll....seems a little on the heretical side. Instead, we warn the ministar that Lockstock wants him dead, which comes as no surprise to him. We part amicably.

We set out towards the Gantry, which is supposed to take roughly a day. About halfway there, we're actually surprised by a Chimera APT which comes charging at us! Or wait, it's actually some sort of warp/xeno/mutant beast, intent on having us for a light starter. Luckily, it's about as intelligent as a Chimera, so through cleverly hitting it on the head with swords and axes and shooting it with rifles we manage to take it down fairly handily.

The Gantry 

We soon discover why it's called the Gantry - it's a lump of stuff suspended in mid-air by innumerable wires with gantries leading to it. In the distance, we make out the hollowed out remains of a (space?) ship, ostensibly the HQ of the Crimson Gantries, eh Red Walk. As we arrive, there's a retinue of guards waiting for us, demanding we surrender any ranged weapons. Great, forgot that these guys have a gigantic hard-on for up-close-and-personal (aka the Idiot's Way) combat...looks like we don't have much of a choice though, so we turn 'em in. Me and Titus resolve to be optimally helpful in any combat situations that might arise, meaning we'll bravely run away.

We're really not sure where to start, so we end up at the local water hole, this one called the Sanctionary Gallows. Again, since these guys are big on literal names, there are a couple of Sanctionaries strung up outside the bar. They've been there a while too. Lovely.

After a while of not much happening, we decide to take matters into our own hands and walk about. We end up finding Omar Endish's house and just knock on the door. An unusually foul-looking, stunted mutant opens the door and shows us in. After some sparring, it becomes obvious that he suspects who we are, so we just show our cards and ask him to be our agent (or else...). He tells us the following:

• The Blessed Flesh is run by one Ferue Faine. A true believer, unlike Vornas Crimson. 
• The two cults have sort of a plan to take over the Gallows, though their agenda differs significantly. 
• Faine needs weapons from the Crimson Gantries, while they need bodies. Different strengths and all that. 
• TBF's headquarters is down in the swamp below, with one controlled access point only. Omar can help us down. With our ranged weapons? Eh...maybe? 

We leave, but keep a look out. Not surprisingly, Omar heads out to have a chat with the mr Crimson. We know they're in kahoots, sort of...the trick here is probably going to be to play on their paranoia and greed. 

Going back to the inn, we spot someone with the tattoos of TBF. We wait until he retires, then storm his room. Inside, there's a weird sort of altar and an elite berserker as well. We kill the berserker, then Scorp manages to ever so gently convince him into talking to us. Apparently, he's here to prepare "the ritual" (big surprise). Their HQ is about 3 hours north on the river Stygian as you come down into the swamp from the Gantry. Well alright, that narrows it down significantly! 5 against 3.000, here we go!