This Is No Time to Manage Your Inventory

 

If you recall, we wrapped up last week’s adventures with a return to our Rogue Trader’s ship, intending to enjoy a bit of well-earned rest, shopping, and endless conversations with every self-important NPC within vox range. Every single one of them had a crisis requiring immediate attention—because, apparently, our impending doom wasn’t sufficiently motivating.

Naturally, we decided it was time to take our shiny new ship for a spin. “Take us out, Ms. Navigator!” ordered Sir Lemming with all the authority of a man who only recently learned what half these buttons do. “That way, warp factor 9, make it so.”

First stop: a nice, safe green route. Predictably boring. We discovered a planet, found some fancy rocks, and set up mining operations. Riveting stuff.

Then, in a moment of inspiration (or possibly boredom), Sir Lemming declared, “Let’s do something daring! Take the yellow route!”

Aye aye, Captain. Straight into the arms of a pirate hideout.

“Man the guns! Run out the barnacles! Ramming speed! Shoot something!” Sir Lemming barked.

We managed to obliterate two pirate ships while the third made a hasty exit, leaving us feeling victorious—if a little underwhelmed.

The Void Ship: Where Dreams (and Sanity) Go to Die

Then our resident heretic, never one to pass up an opportunity for “adventure” (read: looting), pointed at a derelict void ship floating nearby.

“It’s bound to have lots of loot,” he said.

It did not.

Instead, it had an abundance of raving lunatics, inexplicable traps, and hostile servitors. As we bravely pushed forward (read: flailed about like toddlers in a haunted house), we reached the core of the ship and, against all wisdom, decided to power it up.

“What could go wrong?” someone actually said out loud.

Reality promptly blinked in and out of existence.

Lunatics flooded in, tech-priests began chanting ominously, servitors revved up, and eerie psychic speakers started pushing the warp to the breaking point.

Amidst this delightful chaos, we realized something crucial:

Sir Vegetable—Craig—was missing.

“Craig, get up here now!” bellowed Sir Lemming over the vox comm. “How can we fight these guys without our designated test dummy out front tanking?”

“I’ll be right there,” Craig replied. “As soon as I finish sorting my inventory.”

Yes. Inventory. In the middle of a pitched battle against warp-corrupted horrors.

Meanwhile, Sister Agenta was down, Pascal was pinned behind cover, and Lanto and Jae were valiantly trying to hold the servitors back. Sir Lemming, having no one to order about, was contemplating the meaning of leadership in a universe where his subordinates have the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel.

“ENOUGH!” he roared. “Get your arse in here and do something heroic, or you’re walking home without a spacesuit!”

Craig, realizing his life expectancy was at risk, suddenly sprang into action. He moved 30 squares in one turn (normal movement being a mere 6 or 8), then charged another 6. He burst into the doorway, triumphant.

“TA-DA! I am here!” he declared.

“Great,” we said. “Now go in there and be heroic.”

“Oh. That was the heroic part,” Craig admitted. “I’m exhausted now. Nap time.”

After much gnashing of teeth (both ours and the servitors’), we managed to claw our way to victory. The next encounter, now that we understood how the psychic speakers worked, should have been easier.

Except instead of two speakers, there were four. Instead of carefully controlling the battlefield, Jae and Lemming were bounced around like dice in a Yahtzee cup by grenade blasts. Craig, sensing an opportunity for redemption, charged into the room to save the day, while Lanto sniped and Pascal and Sister Agenta fought back-to-back against the servitors.

Somehow, despite—or perhaps because of—our own incompetence, we pulled through. We neutralized the leader, took out the speakers, mopped up the rest, and did what we do best: looted everything that wasn’t nailed down.

The Moral of the Story

Check your inventory before we start the mission.

Or, failing that, maybe—just maybe—don’t reorganize your gear while we’re actively being murdered by warp-speakers and homicidal cyborgs. Just a thought.

Extracting Victory: The One Where We Nearly Choked

 

Prologue: The Thunder Hammer Debacle

Before the gas incident, there was the small matter of a demon, a warehouse fight, and a very one-sided negotiation over a rather large hammer.
It all started when we encountered a group of cultists mid-ritual, presumably summoning something unpleasant. Naturally, we opted for the traditional approach: interrupting with extreme prejudice. Things escalated quickly, as things do when warp-spawned horrors are involved, and Craig, in a masterstroke of tactical deception, decided to pretend he was completely incompetent. Why? Because he wanted the Thunder Hammer.
"I simply can’t wield it!" Dave wailed, in what Craig would later describe as a pitiful display of groveling. "You must take it!"
Craig, being the noble and selfless teammate that he is (his words, not ours), finally relented and claimed the hammer, much to Dave’s "relief." With the demon dispatched, our new buddy Jae recruited, and the warehouse fight behind us, we moved on to important business: shopping, upgrading the ship, and preparing for Argenta’s pilgrimage. Because nothing says piety like heavy artillery.

The Descent Into Chaos

In our ongoing quest to prove that tactical brilliance and abject panic can, in fact, coexist, we ventured into the lower levels of Footfall’s shadow quarters. Because where else would one willingly go if not into the grimy underbelly of a rogue trader’s least reputable neighborhood? If this place had a tourism brochure, it would just be a single page that read: "Welcome! Good luck not getting stabbed."

We found ourselves staring at a large facility populated by some extremely unsavory individuals who, in true video game fashion, were loitering around in an ominous yet aimless manner. There were two gantry staircases leading downward, so we did the only sensible thing—split the party.

The Gas Cloud of Death

We stepped forward, and a fight broke out. That, in itself, wasn’t an issue. The real problem arose when the boss turned off the extractor fans. Within moments, the entire room filled with a thick, green toxic gas that rapidly eroded our collective hit points and, more importantly, our morale.

"Right, strategic retreat!" Myles commanded, proving that even in crisis, he could find an excuse to issue orders we would immediately ignore.

Our brilliant plan? Run back up the stairs, escape the poison, and let the enemy come to us. Genius, right? Except for one minor detail: The hostiles were immune to the gas.

So there we were, heroically gasping for air in a corridor - which was not indeed free of gas as we thought, watching as our foes stood perfectly content in the swirling mists of doom, waiting for us to make the next move. According to our best calculations, we had about six rounds before we all keeled over dead.

Craig’s Suicide Sprint

Faced with the certainty of death via asphyxiation, we developed a new plan: Craig would sprint straight to the control panel and turn the extractor fans back on.

"Just run past the boss, don’t engage!" Myles instructed.

"What if I—" Craig began.

"No engaging!" we all yelled in unison.

Our job was simple: distract the enemy while Craig made his grand sprint. This mostly involved a combination of haphazard gunfire, dramatic flailing, and Dave loudly reciting a litany of grievances against our tactical choices.

Miraculously, Craig made it to the control panel and, in a shocking display of competence, actually pressed the right buttons. The extractor fans roared back to life, sucking away the poisonous cloud, and we all let out a collective sigh of relief (and oxygen).

The Inevitable Beatdown

With our lungs functioning again, we set about the usual business of bashing, stabbing, and shooting our way through the remaining enemies. Craig, buoyed by his successful sprint, immediately reverted to form by charging into melee and getting promptly bodyslammed by the boss.

"At least let me enjoy my victory lap first!" he protested as we pried him off the floor. (This didn't actually happen - it is a fiction made up by the AI. We believe at this point Craig was still eyeing off Dave's thunder hammer, and so had to make do with mere mortal weapons).

A few well-placed shots, some reckless heroics, and a surprisingly effective tactical flank later, we emerged victorious. No one died (which is always a bonus), and we proved once again that we excel at making plans that mostly hinge on Craig doing something dangerous while the rest of us look busy.

So, in conclusion:

• Splitting the party is always a great idea until it isn't.
• Breathing is, in fact, important.
• Never trust a room with a big-arse fan.

Next time, we’ll probably make another brilliant tactical decision that ends in chaos, but for now, we bask in the glory of our not-quite-disastrous victory.