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While still very much shaken from the chaotic fight, Gastons calls manage to rattle his comrades up a bit, at least enough to not outright panic and somewhat fight back against the brute. The melee get really thick, with half of them slashing and stabbing their bajonets trying to lodge them in between the armor plates, while the others pepper him with lasbolts, focussing to get through his eyeslits - to no effect yet, but hopefully the decisive lucky shot will get through soon. "HE'S NOT GOING DOWN!" a chalky white PDF soldier cries, his voice almost breaking, but for now your squad at least keeps the brute occupied.

[I'm assuming Cold Eye is staying out of the fight so I'll narrate John's next attack]


"Time to end this! John shouts and then uses two hands to bash the giant creature with the shock maul as hard as he can.




John willed a silent prayer to the Emperor that his attack would finally be able to bring the creature down.

Johns shockmaul slamms into the brutes back another time and as the electric energy sparks across the metal plates at his chest, enough of it enters the body to do some effect. With a painfull groan, one knee of the berserk suddenly gets shaky and he half stumbles, half falls to the ground. Even if it is just a moment of weakness, the battered search squad immediatly swarm him, stabbing, punching and slamming him with their rifle buts while shooting from point blank, until their assailant finally draws his last breath.
Standing over the three dead bodies most of you look rather shaken, likely the few exceptions being John and Cold Eye who had their fair share of underhive experiences already as well as Rho-453-Sigma, whose emotions are hard to read underneath her augmetics.

As you gather around, you close in on the body in the militarum uniform and it is easy to see that the woman is very much dead and far beyond any point of saving. Your finding is an important sign of hope still, as a rough inspection tells you, that she died by a gunshot wound which means she must have survived the immediate fall. And as her livery identifies her as member of the command staff it was likely that she had been somewhere on the same levels of the spire as governor Loisy. And as if that wasn't already enough, Rho has some even better news, as she takes the battered remains of an auspex from the corpses hip, soothing the poor dying machine spirit with a binary chant and connecting some wires comming out of her wrist with it. Columns of numbers and letters run across her left eye in a ghostly green light - you only now realize it must be an augmetic too - and with a mechanical voice she announces "This sacred machine spirit detected weak vital signs of Governor Loisy. Time stamp: -37 hours. Distance: 500 yards. At that space-time coordinates, governor was still alive." In other words: wherever that woman you found was 37 hours ago, the governor was not far away and alive...

After the Ogyrn finally falls John takes a moment to collect himself and take stock of the situation. He holsters his weapons and looks around.

He double checks the auspex readings and furrows his brow in thought.

After a long pause he finally speaks: "If he's alive, we've got to keep going."

But then he looks back to the injured and slain soldiers, then back to the body of the fallen commander.

"Some of you will have to head back. The bodies will need to be buried, and the wounded tended to. You'll also have to update command. Vox is next to worthless this far down."

He looks at the PDF Seargent. "I'll need at least one volunteer to go with me and our guide to continue the search."

Gaston was not really completly in control of himself yet, his brain failing to process all what had happened. Disorientated, he walked back and forth to his dead comrades and the woman, then circling around the brute his shot brought low. He couldn't just accept that it was true, that he nearly died, but came out on top somehow. He didn't seem to be able to catch what it meant that he had killed twice already, and how real it had become, unlike training. How unprepared he was, also.

He threw his helmet on the ground loudly, and sat down a little, eyes hollow. Nobody seemed to care, apart from another soldier, Jean, who had already seen battle before and came to encourage him with a fatherly pat on the shoulder and well picked word. Gaston just kept staring into the darkness. Suddenly, from afar, he heard John's voice asking for a volunteer. At that mention, he rose up, painstakingly, knees still shaking and half chalk white still, and his broken, accent tinted voice answered: "I'll go. We need to find the governor. I'll go.".

For all his helplessness and his hard time coping with what he just lived through, Gaston's resolve was unyielding. In fact, now, searching for the governor eclisped everything else, and kept him focused enough for him to take a hold of himself... Hopefully.

John regards Gaston and nods his head.

"Alright then. No heroics though. Just keep following my lead and you might make it out of here alive."

The enforcer smirked beneath his helmet as he observed Cold Eye, and then pointed to the auspex now held by the tech adept.

His voice turned rather nasty with the underhiver: "That's a nice shiny auspex we found. If you had decided to help out in the fight it would have been yours, but you missed out. So next time, if you want to earn some loot, DO MORE."

He then angled himself toward the direction the auspex was pinging from. "Ok, 500 yards. Let's move."

Loot was no good if you were dead. Cold Eye had skulked around enough to know that her scattergun was no match against those brutes. Sometimes, it was best to avoid a fight; or better yet let others do it for you. However, she decided it was best to just shrug passively at the Star. No need to get them worked up.

She didn't know much about coordinates, and 500 yards in the underhive could be a short walk or a long treacherous journey. Hard to tell really.

She glanced down at the dead woman, apparently another Uphiver from the look of her. She Nosed around where the body way, and scampered hither and yon looking at where the gangers had brought her from.

Cold Eye might not know nevermind about fancy coordinates, but she could lookie-look and see where those scummers had pulled this meat from. It was all written across the sump, a track here, some fabric there, a smear further on, a smell on the wind. Anyone with half a Throne's sense could do have followed this trail. Probably what brought those Roid-gangers to those skumbos in the first place?

As Rho clarifies the governor was not really 500 yards away, but he had been 500 yards away from the womans corps 37 hours ago. And as Coldeye correctly "reads" from the traces of different dirt, dust and smut on her uniform, she had been dragged upwards from quite some way deeper in the underhive, not too far from the sump. Realistically you are likely looking at at least 2 or three miles if you could go directly which in Coldeyes Experience might mean 2 to 4 days depending on how careful you want to move. At least your tracker had quite a good idea where to start and is confident to get you close enough that the Auspex might pick up something again.

As John asks for volunteers to head deeper into the sump and others to bring the wounded and the corps back to the surface, about half of your group take the opportunity to turn arround. They seem still quite shocked by the events, realizing only now what they got themselves into. This was quite something different then basic training in the PDF.
In the end the group heading deeper consists of John, Gaston, Cold Eye, Rho and a young volunteer whose robe identifies him as a flagelant of the church of him on earth. The later had the very determined but somewhat distant, feverish look on his face, that you have seen before in devout followers of the faith. Rho on the other hand had raised her hand mechanically, seemingly without her head noticing, once again letting you muse about how far the freedom of individual thought really reached within the Mechanicum.

As the others bide their farewell and head back to the upper hive, you take a last look at the bodies of the brutes you just vanquished and find the grenade one of them had been trying to prime, the pin still inside. It is a large and bulky frag grenade, to big to really throw a safe distance, but maybe a situation will come up where it will serve you well. Cold Eye finds at least some knifes made from solid steel - nothing special in the eyes of the uphivers, but a valuable trading good in the sump.


Finally you continue your journey into the darkness, spiralling away into the depths of the hive. As the thumbing of heavy machinery slowly vanishes in the background, other noises appear and disappear perriodically. Echo and sound play strange tricks between the chaotic sprawl of rockcrete and debris and it might be just that, but now and then these sounds remind you a lot of something large and animalistic, as if a whole ecosystem was crawling around down here, hunting for pray and fighting for territories amongst the darkness. Of course there should not be much living around here except of humans - at least that is what the uphivers thought, while Cold Eye knew better - but even then, there is little scarrier and more animalistic than some of the canibalistic tribes thriving in the dephts...

Cold Eye doesn't have too much trouble guiding you, but after a while you find yourself in front of a set of passageways, marked with lots of grafiti and gang signs. Cold Eye suspects that three of those could bring you towards your destination, but each of them has their own risks...

the lefternmost is marked with signs of the Bloody Brotherhood - an established gang and as the name suggested one of the more bloodthirsty ones. John new from earlier encounters that they had a lot of beef with the PDF and the Churches Enforcers, on the other hand in contrast to their name they were one of the more rational gangs and not opposed to a good deal. The biggest problem being that you were quite short of bargaining chips to broker one.

The middle path lead into what was once the centre of the Zarabastas, the most powerful gang that had called the shots for decades but was all but obliterated by the falling spire forming the chasm. Gaston had heard rumors about it amongst the PDF soldiers, that even the Zarabastas that had survived the catastrophy had been hunted down to a man, when their neighbours used the opportunity to settle some scores. Which meant this way might be surprisingly free of organized opposition, but also that you might get caught in between the inevitable turf wars of other gangs trying to devide the no mans land between them.

The right path lead into a section of the underhive of which Cold Eye had heard that non of the Gangs had occupied for years. Only rumors were whispered about the reasons. Strange things happened there, people disappearing without a trace - more people than normal that is. Strange lights in the dark, rats the size of large dogs, and madness sprawling around those that dared to overstay their welcome in this strange place.


You will have to choose which way to go...

John left the grenade for one of the PDF soldiers to take before starting out on the long trek.

He was largely silent during the long journey deeper into the under hive. He did his best to conserve his energy and stay focused, occasionally stopping to slurp some water from a portable bottle.

Upon seeing the fork in the road, he immediately stops to take it all in.

He looks out on the three tunnels. "Looks like three bad choices to me, and a hell of a way to get lost."

He looks back to the Tech Priest again. "We're not down here to chase ghosts. We need a solid lead. Some kind of clue before we commit. What's that auspex's machine spirit saying about it? Does it know where the Gov might be and which tunnel gets us to him?"

He then looks to Cold Eye next. "We're paying you to get us through this safely. So now's the time to speak up."

While John converses with the techpriest, Gaston walks up to Cold Eye. He had heard of that Zarabastas and as far as he knew, bit only where they no longer the biggest thread, but, in addition, their territory was more or less directly under the HQ and thus, it was highly plausible, in his mind, that Loisy could have been dropped there, or that members of the Zarabastas could have been the ones to lay their hand on him.

He presents his suggestions to the guide, trying his best to suppress his accent and being forced to say again several times for the underhiver to understand every necessary piece of it. Then he asks:

"Do you know anything about that? Whether it's true or not? Otherwise, I reckon.we should propose John to go that path."

Cold Eye shrugged, not willing to commit to much. Afterall, she didn't know too much about it herself. She had travelled up from much deeper, but had not gotten that involved with the people and places on the way. She just stuck around long enough to trade some hides and moved on.

As the young soldier approached her, she leaned closer to him and smelled him. He smelled of gun oil and fresh fabric. His face was clean shaven, and she marveled at how clear his complexion was.

She pointed to the middle corridor, "That one has changed the most. New turf, new faces, and new paths. Most likely for an outsider to show-up."

She then gestured down the left-most pass and made the sign of the Great Sumphawk, the ever-vigilant protector of her people. He sometimes intervened for his own reasons, and was a ward against bad vibes. "That way is no-go, bad mojo and nothing good.
We should avoid."

Satisfied with her own guidance, she waited for the uphivers to make up their minds.

Gaston, in turn, spoke to John:

"John, of the farthest right passage is under control of a powerful gang, I doubt we will actually survive heading this way. We've heard in the defense forces that the Zarabastas supposedly more or less ceased to exist as a group, and that they were active almost right under the HQ... I bet we have got our best chances if you go this way.".

In fact, this promised both the better location to search and the least fights, he hoped, as while he was recovering from the first skirmish a little, he clearly wasn't excited at the sought of diving in again just yet.
In addition, being quite religious himself, he trusted that yes, strange things could happen that couldn't be dealt with, so maybe, the guide was right on this, judging by the expression of pure terror that struck itself on her face...

John nodded his head slightly to Cold Eye and Gaston.

"Let's hope the rumors are true then."

He looked back to Cold Eye. "We'll take the middle tunnel then, nice and slow. Cold Eye will take the lead and scout out ahead of the rest of us. She sees any danger, let us know."

Cold Eye nodded, relieved to be taking the new route. Sure, new meant unexpected dangers; but she liked their chances at unexpected dangers better than the known dangers of the other two routes.

She harnessed her scatter gun, secured it tight, and drew one of her steel knives. After a quick check to make sure she was locked down, she slid into the darkness ahead.

Gaston was content that they choose this path, as, really, he hoped they'd actually be able to find something about the governor, yet, something was very unnerving for him. At first, he thought it was due to the skirmish prior to teir arrival at the crossroads, but actually, it was simply good old fashion fear puncturing his stomach and making him worried of of any shadow that remotly seemed to move or whisper, or look at them. His lasgun was already constantly sweeping, in a manner that surely, looked professional to outside viewers, but truly, it was just him be afraid and ready to fight for his life at any turn. Already, before they even entered the tunnel proper, just as John was still talking, he had been a millisecond to unleashing a volley into a lamp that dimly flashed every few minutes when he heard things like steps from that direction.

He lowered the lasgun, and gestured that the PDF squad was ready to follow Cold eye's lead...

When John had asked Rho if the Auspex revealed anything new, the Admechette shook her head "Negative, data compromised, receivers damaged... calculating... Current position definitly closer than before. Need to go deeper..."
The soldiers returning back up had been grateful for the grenade left to them and salute one more time before heading back to safety, promising to get the message back to base, that some trace of Governour Loisy surviving the initital catastrophy had been found in Sector 12-76, the one you had been assigned to.


Choosing between your three options, you rely on Cold Eyes recommendation and choose the former hideout of the Zarabastras. While you considered which way to go, Kevin, the Ecclesiarchy lay-servant that was still with you had been fervently praying, repeating a high gothic sermon over and over again while handling a small rosarious with wodden pearls - a prayer for each pearl. His look often seemed a bit unfocussed or rather, focussed on some other world, that non of you were really able to see, or comfortable with. In a strange way he wasn't really that different from Rho, their obsessions and obligations just leashed to a different master.


As you enter the passage you have chosen, you are soon greated be the distinctive smell of burned stuff - fabric, wood, oil, hair, flesh... Here and there some fires were still burning or at least ambers glimmering and you notice several corpses just lying in the streats. Mostly gangers with some odd bystanders that had been caught in the middle of the turf wars. But overall as you carefully sneak along, you do not encounter any opposition and hardly anything living at all. Some distance off - and with the tricks sounds play down here it is hard to say if that meant below, above or in front of you - you make out the sound of sporading firefights, but not more than would be expected in the current situation. The ground here is mostly rockcrete, at some places cracked by the forces of the collaps, but still going strong and you would expect that the hives integrity is not really damaged. But also that borrowing through the floors of the Underhive would be futile and that vox communication to the upper levels will likely be a no go, if you go any deeper.

Cold Eye manages to lead you closer to your destination, judging by the traces she had found at the corps and she would expect that she should find the way up until the place the Auspex had picked up the signal. But as the current waking cycle draws closer to its end and you start feeling the need for a rest, a bad feeling starts to form. You can't really grasp it, but John and Cold Eye get the distinct feeling that ... something ... is following you. And your intutition tells you that it might not be something sapient, but nonetheless pretty dangerous and lethal.
Rho, Kevin and Gaston are oblivous of that suspicion right now, unless you share it with them and just happy, that your travel so far has been rather uneventfull.

Soon a good place for a camp appears in form rend in some giant pillar holding up the Hives Macro structure, opening a rift that looks tiny in the giant column but would easily accomodate you, while shielding a potential fire from spying eyes. Having only one exit it would be easy to defend, but also a deathtrap if anything went wrong. You could search some more of course or try to march on, but while she doesn't say anything it is obvious that Rho needs some rest. Whatever you choose to do, John and Cold Eye keep feeling the gaze of some predator in their neck, lurking somewhere in the darkness...

Cold Eye has felt this uncomfortable feeling before. It was a too common one when stalking Sump Lizards. That feeling that you weren't the only one who was out hunting, and that other thing was hunting you. The trick was to not let it stop you from doing what you needed to do.

It was clear the Red Robed one needed some rest. All the tell-tale signs were there.

The Sump Hawk must have had an eye on this group, because she found a decent location to rest. It was sheltered, but also a dead-end. A good guard at the entrance would be needed.

Cold Eyes leaned into the Shield who seemed to be the boss She glanced over her shoulder at the little group, "They need a rest. But, we need be eyes up."

Cold Eye pointed out the crack in the column, "Good cover, but also a dead-end. Watch will need to stay eyes open and ears up. I will go first."

John nods to Cold Eye. His voice is almost a whisper as he speaks.

"Agreed, your first watch."

He motions for the group to go into the little opening and then proceeds to enter it, sweeping it over with his flashlight, auto gun drawn.

Once the coast is clear he slumps down and cracks open a canteen and a power bar.

John had hoped that a quick engagement with the criminal element would have ended the search early. "Engage some scum, find nothing, head back." He mutters very quietly to himself. Except the finding nothing part didn't happen."

Now he was in the thick of it...no easy way out now.

Gaston and his brothers in arms were exhausted. Even the veteran ones had sore arms from constantly sweeping up and down with their rifles and maglights, walking steadily to protect the group, and in unisson with Kevin, reciting.their own Kallenese prayers over and over again. They were unquiet, worried and actively searching for something that, they swore, they felt breathing down their necks, spying on them. They were appalled to understand that this was a feeling shared by all, even by John and Cold Eye who notably knew better and were far more experienced.in this environment.

Gaston himself, while the walk itself had been a tiresome endeavour, felt way worse from the fear and anxiety then from the physical exercice.

He noticed that the group stopped, and walked up to Cold Eye and John who apparently where discussing and setting up already. They were in a dead end, and Gaston didn't like making halts in dead ends. The basics of military training told him that whenever you make a pause, you need to make sure you've got an escape route.

"What's up here?" He asked. "We should not stay here too long, if we get attacked, we're trapped and as good as dead. We need to find another place with an escape route. As it is, gangers can literally siege us to starvation."

The veterans behind Gaston nodded in agreement, rifle.still.at.the ready.

Gaston understood that rest was needed for everyone. But this was too dangerous, he deemed.

But besides, he wanted to make one thing clear:

"Are you also feeling like something at our tail right now?"

John gestured for the soldiers to remain silent. Then once silence had fallen, he whispered, very slightly.

"No good choices here. We move forward, there is no guarantee we'll find a better place."

He gestures to a few observation points around the perimeter.

"Two PDF on watch then."

He then gestures to Cold Eye. "Scout a bit further, find a better place let us know eh?"

The scout just nodded. She was unsure if it was safer to be away from the group, alone or with them where all the prey was.

Gaston groaned. As did the rest of the troopers, and they formed a kallenese speaking circle to decide who would go at what time. They were extremely vexed at the disdainful dismissal from John, and Gaston was not least amongst them. Gaston, who was then reminded during the conversation that Cold Eye had just so happened to avoid the whole confrontation earlier with the brutes, was accused of intentionnaly dragging them into the dead end to spell their doom. And Gaston, still shakien from that skirmish, was not hard to convince that way. Besides, all of those weaklings from the ecclesiarchy and mars adepts were slowing them down at the worst time, and for a time, it was actively discussed whether they should moe or less round them up and go on anyways until they find a better place.

Gaston was getting somewhat heated up, but fear of his the consequences of frontally confroning the group right now was enough to convince him of not trying anything and playing along. The other soldiers, not to happy at this idea either, seemed to settle on the same thing, albeit groaning and swearing all they could, but it was obvious no actions would actually follow, further encouraging Gaston in biting his tongue and putting up. He racked his lasgun to restart the battery properly and, lasgun at the ready, started patrolling with another soldier, with all the skill and training they could muster, and especially trying to hear, rather than see, in the darkness that shrouded all.

Cold Eye scouted ahead a little bit, but no great alternative presented itself yet. There was a large crack in one of the gargantuan Rockcrete tiles that build the floor of this hive section, forming some kind of 2-3 meters deep trench like structure that would meet the PDF soldiers requirement of multiple, in this case three exits. But on the downside it was pretty narrow, only broad enough for two people going side by side or passing each other with some stretches just wide enough for one. And three exits also meant three entrances, as well as at least the possibility of a very adventurous predator getting close enough to try and snatch someone from above.

All other possible campsides were just more or less open ground with only one side protected by rubble.
It's up to her if she reports this back or gives the impression the first campside were the only one. While scouting ahead her instincts tell her that whatever was hunting was more interested in the larger group of humans or maybe it was just that she didn't smell that tasty - or that different from the sumprats crawling around here. But returning to the others the strange feeling of being watched remained.

While they waited for Cold Eyes return, Rho sat down, leaning against a wall and shut down - quite literally - all her joints and every muscle not involved in keeping her alive seemingly completely relaxing. Her head just dropping forward and to the side, some spittle drooling from her half open mouth, her breath slow to the point of barely existant. Kevin on the other hand eyed her with a mixture of nervousness and revulsion, always continouing his prayers over and over and over again and nibbling on some jerky like substance.

Gaston and the other two PDF-soldiers still with you watched the perimeter, their Lasguns at the ready. It was really dark down here, but with time, your eyes had at least started to adapt a little. An advantage that got immediatly lost, as soon as you switched on one of your flashlights. Something to keep in mind, as it might get in handy if you wanted to blind an inhabitant of this strange underworld.

John for himself listened carefully into the void and even if he never was totally sure of it, he believes to make out faint scratches here and there and the sound of pebbles rolling, as if triggered by a not so careful step. Might be it's just sumprats, might be it was something bigger moving very very carefully. Be it as it may, whatever caused this kept its distance for now, but it never really went away until Cold Eyes return.

The scout shouted out a quick warning before popping her head up. The last thing she needed was a jumpy uphiver blasting her head off when she came back to camp.

"Oi, scout in!"

With that, she clambered over some rockrete and scurried to the "safety" of the perimeter. She nodded to Gaston as she passed, but went up to the Shield John to report.

"Lot's of downhive ahead. I found a trench we could pile into.... but it had three entrances and no roof. Easy pickin's for a Dropfang there," she glanced around nervously. The sound of her own whispered voice seemed far too loud.

Her eyes settled on the Red Robe. She looked mostly dead. The scout jerked a thumb at the body, "I miss a dust-up? Robe O.K?"

John nodded his head. He was unhappy with the amount of noise they were making down here, particularly the Kallanese troopers, but at least it seemed that whatever predator was stalking them was keeping its distance for now.

He kept his voice low in response, barely a whisper just like before.

"Can't do three entrances. Better to stay put but keep up a heavy presence on the perimeter."

He gestured to the inside of the pillar. "You can rest. I'll take up the next watch."

John gestured to Gaston that one or two of them could take a break while he took up a post crouching low and keeping his auto pistol and shock maul both drawn and kept to his side.

Gaston had been peeking through the darkness for what seemed ages to him. He had been shouted at by his fellow, telling him to, for the love of the emperor, stop racking that on off lever and stop switching that safety notch.

Gaston felt unsure and unsafe. Really, in the deep darkness, he was wondering why in the world he had volunteered to go down that hellhole of a place. Yes, of course, out of admiration for the governor, but was he even alive still?. He shook his head and made a few steps sideways.

No, I'm better than that, I'm not leaving like a coward, I'm not. But. Still, why the heck. He felt like everyone else in this party made a goal of crawling under his skin the most, John with his self granted authority, that deceitful guide acting all useful but so far doing nothing else than not helping, or those weaklings there Rho and Kevin. Kevin was unnerving. He knew just as any other soldier from the lectures they were given than these guys from the ecclesiarchy were corrupt to the core and they caused all these creepy migrants showing up down here. Let him have a taste of what they did and throw this imbecile in the pit.

No really, this was horrible. Gaston at that very moment wanted nothing more than lie down, close his eyes shut, and pretend he hadn't made that mistake, and that was all a bad dream.

He stumbled over a price of debris that he failed to see, absorbed in his thoughts. He stayed lying where he was for a moment. Then, scratching noises made him fright. It sounded just as if it was approaching from several directions at once. And although this is most surely not what he was supposed to do per his training, he picked up his rifle, got on his feet, and rand like he'll back to the safety of the camp, from which, unwittingly, he had drifted away, as if swollen by the darkness.

But apparently, no one noticed. Or no one cared. Because neither John nor the other PDF soldier still on duty moved to check who he was.

Still trembling from the supposed encounter, Gaston felt compelled to report to John that advancing scratching noise...

John nodded his head glumly before whispering in the lowest possible voice as he gestured with a thumb toward the makeshift camp.

"Rest if you can. I'm not planning on staying here long. I'll take up watch."

John peered out in the direction of the scratching noise. His body was tense, but not paralyzed. He had spent enough time in the under hive to control the fear that could eat a man alive.

All the better so that he could watch out for actual things that could eat a man alive...

Gaston nodded and everso slowly went to somewhere to lie done. Having down this, he tried to close his eyes and rest, but he saw the brutes charge him back from the ceiling and woke up, lasgun pointed up to the upper debris.

He realised there was nothing. Nobody. And heart still beating crazy, he tried to sleep again, but this time, he couldn't seem to unhear the scratching noises, clawing their way towards his neck. That reminded him of the lectures they had had about ambull and Genestealers and such, and he viewed the images of the presentations take life and come for him.

Unable to actually rest, Gaston stood up, and went back on watch. He was growing extremely tired and unnerved, but it seemed to him that his comrades were just as tensed as he was, and reckoned he'd better keep it to himself yet.

Cold Eye awoke with a start as the young soldier jerk himself awake. Her knife was in her hand on instinct.

She could smell the fear sweats on him. That was no good, that was what got you dead down these ways.

"Aye, keep it together chum. We don't need more rumble." she hissed at the soldier.

She was relieved when he stood up and left. Maybe she could get some sleep!

Even though you take care to always have sentinels on alert, sleep is pretty hard to find, as the obscure thing lurking nearby and watching you keeps scittering in the dark. It's not like a constant sneaking around, just the odd little noise every now and then, when you almost settled down keeping you awake and raising hairs on your necks. In the constant darkness of the underhive, only lit by what you yourself ignite and devoid of the uphives standard 18 hours light-8 hours darkness day cycle, you can't really call it "a nights sleep", but after a fair amout of hours to get at least some rest, you decide to get up and carry on.

While your muscles and bones are at least somewhat rested from laying down, most of you still look very tired around the eyes and quite jumpy as you navigate the rubble field that was once the domain of the Zarabastas gang. Kevin for example has a nervous twitch around his left hand holding a small rosarius - the ornamental chain of wooden pearls, not the archeotech device - that is rattling a little bit whenever his hand twitches. The only one really rested seems to be Rho who had shut down completely during your rest.

At least you loose the destinct sense of being watched or crept in on after a while, but can't totally shake the feeling of beeing watched from a distance. After 5 hours or so, you approach another a fork in the rough path you had been taking. While Cold-Eye has somewhat of a rough impression where to go from here, something else catches her eye. There is someone hiding in the rubble near the crossroads - and not being very good at it. If she would have to guess she would assume it's a single human...oid that is perched behind a big slap of rockcrete. He seems to be alone though and if that is supposed to be an ambush he/she/it and potential friends could have chosen a much better place a couple of yards back or forth. Hard to tell the meaning of that right now.