Brother Mortis sat at the Workbench in his quarters making a few final adjustments to the twin-linked Bolter he'd acquired from a dead Chaos Terminator on the Slaaneshi vessel that he and his Kill Team had captured a mission ago. The Terminator in question had little to say in the matter having been torn apart by Bolter fire just before the re-allocation of his equipment had occurred...
Removing the heretical embellishments that had adorned the weapon had been a relatively simple task but much of the internal workings had needed completely replacing. The weapon itself was ancient in design having been at it's most basic level simply two Boltguns configured to fire from a single trigger and therefore lacked many of the advancements that could be seen in the Storm Bolters carried by their loyalist equivalents. Reconfiguring the weapon into a more acceptable form had taken substantially longer than Brother Mortis had accounted for but in his defence he and the team he was attached to had many demands on their time due to the corruption that had been discovered on the planet of Castiel.
After uncovering the corruption of the Imperial Governor they had returned to their own vessel and had almost immediately been forced to board a vessel of the traitor Legion known as the 'Emperors Children'. The cruiser had been far more lightly defended than expected, though the reason for that had become apparent when they had returned to the mines of Castiel after the vessels capture. Mortis had learned much from interfacing with the Traitorous vessels onboard systems and he had been careful to install his own directives into it's machine spirit which would lay dormant unless he himself activated them. Some of this information had been passed on to his masters at the Deathwatch.....others he had kept to himself in case control of the vessel ever became important to him or his own brothers in the Night Reapers Chapter. On a personal level that mission in particular had taught him much about the limitations of the flesh, his own senses being much weaker than would have been provided by an Auspex. He had rectified this limitation by having an Augur Array fitted into his own systems, It was manufactured based on techniques passed down from Ancient STC designs taught to him during his apprenticeship on Mars though it had required the assistance of the teams Apothecary Brother Zahariel to tie them into his more fragile organic systems. Mortis had also spent some time plugged into the archives researching into the workings of the more mechanical security systems that they were likely to encounter as not all security systems were blessed with Machine Spirits and he wished to be ready if such devices were deployed to bar their progress.
The Augur array had served him and his team admirably during their trip through the mines and though it had detected the first ambush to late for them to avoid it, it had given them information on the numerical strength and locations of those who had ambushed them. He had dealt the killing shots to two of the attackers himself but the bulk of the killing had been accomplished by the teams Devastator (Brother Marcus of the Steel Wings Chapter) and their Assault Marine (Brother Ansum of the Black Templars). The latter of the two had christened his new Power Weapon in more worthy blood than the few pitiful humans he'd tested it upon earlier with the slaughter of two of the enemy Chaos Marines in spectacular combat. That earlier event had caused some tension in the team as Brother Ansum had acted against the wishes of several of his Brother Marines who had attempted to restrain him rather than allow him to slaughter these perceived innocents. The fate of such insignificant mortals meant little to Brother Mortis as he had grown closer to the blessed perfection of form which came with his gradual abandonment of his weak flesh in favour of the gift of technology.
Several failed ambushes later the team had taken an impressive tally of defeated Chaos Marines, Terminators and even a member of the Dark Mechanicum before finding the Emperors Children's true purpose at the complex. Though they themselves had taken damage they were fortunately all still at a state of combat effectiveness sufficient to take on their final foe which turned out to be a Sorcerer who through the sacrifice of innocents was attempting to bring to a state of wakefulness a foul Chaotic type of Dreadnought known as a Defiler. Though the Sorcerers psychic abilities seemed adept at defending from more mundane projectiles it's inability to protect him from Brother Ansums Power Sword was to prove his final undoing. The Defiler itself was crippled by Melta bombs and then buried in a pit by Brother Mortis's carefully laid explosives.
With the complex clear of Chaotic Forces, more mundane ground forces could be called in to retrieve those pieces of machinery that were left untainted and those devices that his team had located that could be reconsecrated into the service of the Imperium.
Brother Mortis finished adding his own additions to the Kill teams Report and returned to the weapon on which he had been working. The work had speeded up considerably with the precise adjustments that his new augmentative arm had allowed him to perform. His requests for more sophisticated augmentations that had been up till recently been politely refused had for some reason been okayed on his return from the planet. Perhaps his contribution to the missions had been noticed by those in command.....Those representatives of the Deathwatch who maintained the armoury had certainly become much more responsive to his requests for equipment and apparently several other members of his team had found certain of their own requests being seen in a far more favourable light.
Permission for the new arm had been granted with no hesitation, however his request for augmentation of his legs had still required some negotiation with the masters of the armoury and he foresaw the usual equipment supply issues for their next mission that always followed his use of Deathwatch facilities for his own personal quest for perfection. Such musings were forgotten as the final component slotted into place in his now fully functional reconsecrated Storm Bolter.....A test of the weapon in the shooting ranges followed by some routine diagnostics of his new bionics would pass the time until Kill Team Epsilon was next called to duty.....
By the end of the 2nd mission I'd reached a sufficient level of renown to be entitled to a free 'Exceptional' level bionic and could actually request a Storm Bolter. I took the Storm Bolter as 'Signature wargear' which basically means that for 500 XP it's mine and I don't have to give it back after missions ;-)
I've spent some of the next missions requisition (I can do that with bionics as it's not like I can give them back now is it, lol) on bionic legs as I have an agreement with our GM whereby I'm gradually dehumanising my Techmarine whenever I get a vague justification for doing so. As I almost died to a Power Sword swipe to the leg from a Chaos Terminator I think that should count as justification don't you?
After that lot I still have 1200 XP to spend which is a bit of a problem as there's no Rank 1 upgrades that I'm really interested in but I can't buy Rank 2 upgrades till I've spent enough points to get to that rank. I suppose I'll spend them on a characteristic upgrade of some description instead though I've no idea which one.
For what it's worth it's difficult to write a strategy article about an RPG so the Deathwatch stuff will mainly be progress reports thinly disguised under an excuse for some 'Fluff'. Plus I forgot to take notes so even the fluffy bits are fairly vague.
I'll make it up to you all with a Primarch post on Sunday night ;-)
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