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Gaston does not hesitate a second and cuts the throat of the man on the ground. There is no way he will not talk and give them away, and if they take him uphibe with them, no way he won't betray along the way. As to what to pay to get a mercenary from the guilders outside... Hard to tell. With Loisy nicely wrapped up in rags, Gaston puts him on his back, takes up the women's revolver and ammos as a sidearm, and gets ready to leave, somehow, back on track for the time being, probably from seeing an opportunity to redeem...

John shakes his head with disgust and a little bemusement at Gaston, then retracts the zip ties and puts them away.

Sounding gruff and annoyed he addresses Gaston:

"I guess you saved me a few restraints then. Whatever pal, just remember one thing. You keep pissing me off and the commissars just might find out a few more details about this rescue attempt than you're going to be comfortable living with. "

He looks to Cold Eye. "Come on then Guide, let's find us a caravan. Since Gaston killed off the prisoners I was going to use to pay up, he can offer his own gear as payment.

Cold Eye smirked, perhaps for the first time since she had started this little Gak festival.

She hoped the Sump Eagle had his eyes on her, cause she was going to need all the help she could get. The Badge was not wrong, we needed something to bargain with, because five more mouths to feed and shelter was not gonna be free.

The Guide made the sign of the Sump Eagle, settled herself, and re-slung her shotgun. However, she kept the latch to her knife undone. Her hand close by.

She pulled herself up to her full-height, and then blasted her way out of the doorway like she owned the entire Sump. She glowered around daring anyone to make eye contact with her. After going a few steps, she assessed the situation before signaling for her fellows to follow.

She felt like she knew which part of this Sumpville the Guilders would have ears. She started leading the Uphivers there.

As John was drafting his plan, Rho was about to nod approval when suddenly Gaston was slitting the throats of the two men they had overwhelmed. Some wirring and buzzing indicated that she was considering their options, before dryly exclaiming towards John "Drafted plan might still be feasible... Worked with worse rawmaterial before..." as her mechanical mechandrite plunged into the base of the skull of the bigger one John had brought down with a bonechilling crunch. A cautherizing laserbeam emerging from a contraption on her lower arm fixed up the immediate bleeding on his throat and as Cold Eye emerged through the door, the big guy was in the process of slowly getting up to his feed again, dead, blank eyes gazing into the void, but his fresh corpse obviously quite willing to walk and do the Tech-persons bidding.

Overall that might even work to your advantage - as uggly as this business was - as Loisy in his current stage looked much less awkward shambling side by side with another lobotomized would-be-servitor.

Cold Eyes bold, straightforward move seems to succeed in deceiving the onlookers for now, as the curious eyes watching you from the dark keep their distance. And as you get back to the more lively parts of the trading post you raise a couple of interested eyebrows, but acting to the playbook John intended seems enough to get by for now. Following your guide, you head to a shady looking drinking den that seems the place to be, if you want to get in contact with guilders and the like. A band of... more or less humans is playing some upbeat music on stage, while various downhivers are chatting at the bar, drinking, smoking and generally enjoying all kind of recreational drugs. On the side you find several booths, were shady negotiations take place. One of those booths is currently only occupied by a middle aged, charismatic looking man, whose overall appearance screams "soldier of fortune/smuggler" and his enormous, hairy and beardy sidekick, both seemingly looking for work/customers.

John nods to Cold Eye as they walk into the establishment, relieved that Rho had managed to salvage the soon to be corpses into something of value that could be traded.

"This is your scene Cold Eye. I'll let you do the talking this time around."

Gaston, not wanting to make another mess, just follows looking as confident as he could, hand resting calmy on appearance on the revolver, but looking more like a hardened ancient terra cow boy than about to start a brawl. From time to time he looks at the colonel as if to an old friend he was body languaging with, to make him seem a bit more... alert than what Rho's fixing of the mess he made earlier had permitted. Gaston couldn,'t help but start to hate himself for all his failures and relish an opportunity to end it, if possible in worthy sacrifice somehow.

Cold Eye nodded to John, and glanced at Gaston.

The scout walked over to the two Sump Dwellers. She had seen their kind before, heck, she had traded Long Leg skins with their ilk many times. Best to be direct and not waste anyone's ticks.

She brazenly walked up to the duo, smacked her hand on the table and said, "Oi, I needs to move some meatsacks uphive, but don't wanna go solo. I'm looking for a caravan outta this hole. You got the up-n-out for it?

Gaston was looking for stuff he gould give up as a bribe. Lasgun still has got some ammo, so he had to keep it. And armour was out of the question. Helmet? No good, because you bump your head quite a lot down here, but he still had got his cap. Ok, helmet he would go without. Rations? Barely enough to feed himself, especially if he actually had to carry Loisy on his shouldrs to reduce physical strain on the colonel's battered carcass. And hardly worth anything. Grooming kit and stuff he'd give, but he also doubted it'd be worth much anyway.

While his mind sinks into painful shame and remorse, he definitly woke back up and now has regained control over himself.

John noticed Gaston's demeanor and spoke quietly.

"You can relax about the bribe. Thanks to Rho's mechanicum magic we got ourselves a couple of servitors in the making that we might be able to use as a bribe instead."

"So in a way, your screw up ended up turning into a good things."

"Of course, no sense dwelling on the screw ups anyway. That can come later. But for right now, we got to stay focused on the here and now to make it through this gak storm."

The Smuggler looks Cold Eye up and down, before turning his gaze over to her little entourage, a gesture that summons up images of meat being inspected for its value on the market. "Might be, y'all came to the right spot for that kind of shenanigans... Name's Pearson and that..." he nods over to his companion "is me mate Buck. And who do we have the pleasure of dealin' with?" he asks back.

Mheanwhile buck has his hands below the table, likely on some weapons should you try anything stupid.
Regardless of Coldeye giving him a name or not, he comes to the point pretty quickly "If y'all want our company, ya have to make it worth orr time. Whatever da Redcowls promised ya, Buck and me get a 50% cut. And that's because I like ya nose. Don't try to haggle, ya won't find any better offer down here. And ya can count yaself a lucky lass that ya came to me first. Most of the Skunks in this rotten filth hole would have gutted y'all on the spot and took the payoad themselves."

Gaston didn't really know what to think of it, as he wasn't keen on surrounding himself with yet more underhive scum. What he does is look coldly unamazed, making sure those lowly suls are well aware that he is not afraid - in fact, after all, he's become quite adept at disposing of them thus far... But for now, clearly, he has no idea about the negotiation process and elected to let people more able to carry the task out, instead of making yet another mess.

Cold Eye actually chuckled at Pearson. Nothing was what it seemed in the sump. Everyone was trying to puff themselves up, like some sort of Gutterpaw seeing its shadow.

"50%.... for hitching a ride? Pretty gutsy tryin' to cut a Badge out of his slop." She held up her hands conspicuously in the open, "but if that's how ya' want ya' tribe to recall ya'? Things like that have a way of workin' back to a fella."

No point in antagonizing their way up too much. Afterall, once they got up top, who knew what was gonna happen. That was something for future Cold Eye to deal with. Now Cold Eye needed a ride.

Since we gonna be goin' uphive, you can all me Skinner, that one's Badge (John), then we got Trigger (Gaston), and the Red Robe (Rho). That's all you will wants to know."

Cold Eye slowly pulled out her knife, and put the blade to her palm, "You ready to make the Oath then.... Pearson?"

John gave the hive scum a typical cold eyed stare, his hand never trailing far from his auto pistol holster.

Cold Eye seemed to have the matter in hand and Emperor willing the return trip would be a lot smoother than the way down...

Trigger... Well, Gaston thought, considering how he's been on this journey, that's a pretty apt call sign anyway. Might as well keep it. Besides, this was kind of a good play from Cold Eye, as this made him sound instantly trigger itchy - and thus, not to be mess with. Somehow, Gaston felt a faint, small respect for Cold Eye's skills, and reckoned she didn't last long there for no reasons.

Pearson shruggs his shoulders as Cold Eye mentiones how he wants to be remembered by his tribe "I'll be remembered as the guy who doesn't sell himself short." before he nods and stands up in front of Cold Eye, reaching out his hand "fair enough. Lets settle this." Obviously considering if he could have gotten away with an even greater share, seeing that Cold Ey settled so quickly for his first offer. Nonetheless, a deal is a deal, at least to him.

"Come on then, pack up ya meat bags and get this gig going. I know a caravan going uphive this evening. Didn't thought we'd join them, but we might as well." Buck meanwhile downs his drink in a big swig and joins you too, towering at a good 7 feet. He seems to be more of the silent kind, the muscle to Pearsons brains.
As you start to leave, having found a possible way up, Gaston and John catch in the corner of their eyes, a sudden shift in Loisys facial expression. He still seems somewhat gone, but the drooling has stopped. While his eyes are still rolling around unfocussed from time to time, his lips and jaw look a lot more controlled now. You can even hear him mutter worts under his breath. Almost silently you have to lean closer to hear them. "... Loisy... Colonel... 7th Kallenese Grenadiers... service ID 7263-M018-631D.... Loisy... Colonel.... 7th..." on and on again.
This might become a probleme in the future...

After navigating the surroundings of the trading post for some minutes - something that seems to go a lot more smothly with Pearson and Buck in the lead who know their way around the vicinity - you approach another campfire around which a group of sump nomads are preparing for their way uphive. They have some scrawny looking scaly packbeasts in their tow, ladden with all kind of downhive wares. Pearson immediatly approaches their chief, a woman called Tremar, exchanging greetings with an old friend and mentioning that out of spontanous generosity, Buck and himself had decided to join her caravan and help out with security and that they even found some additional guns for hire as well as two workers to carry things.
The exchange seems pleasant on the surface, but you get the destinct feeling, that while both are indeed old friends, neither of them fully trusts the other.

The caravan people meanwhile look you up and down, specifically interested in Rho as it seems.

Gaston was growing a bit worried that he gave himself away, and started to communicate with him. Although there wasn't a lot of chances that Loisy would actually interact. But he was trying nonetheless, whispering in kallenese to the colonel "Sir... Could you please raise a hand?"

John scowls at Gaston. "Eh mate... you know the boss's rules, it don't talk to the merchandise. Not the sort of attention we want. The boss hired you to do a job, so do it."

After saying that quietly to Gaston he moves up next to Cold Eye to survey the caravan.

"no worries, was trying to make him stop that muttering cause that's giving me headaches, real noisy meat bag that is. Nevermind pal." The look of his eyes was saying "hope he won't keep talking nonsense at the very worst moment".

John nods. "Aye well...let's just hope the Red Robes will still buy him. I figure with all their magic powers over machine spirits, it shouldn't be an issue to fix him up so he acts like a proper servitor...as in ones that keep their mouths shut."

Gaston, having heard that, feinted a cash hungry grin, but side glimpsed towards Rho, hoping that she indeed would notice what was happening and ake a quick fix. He even slightly tilted his head towards loisy to say "tech adept, there's something not right with that one..."

Cold Eye tries to assess the situation, not sure how much to relax around these new unknowns. She kept her knife within easy reach.

Rho inspects Loisy for some moments, manipulating the new temple implates with her mechandrite. The muttering stops... for now and you have the feeling the body straightens up a little, but as Rho takes up eyecontact with you again, she wiggles her remaining fleshy hand in a gesture indicating that she can't guarantee this won't happen again.

Finally the caravan starts its ascent uphive, through long and winding tunnels - definitly a route far from the one you took coming down, that will lead you significantly of course, but uphive is uphive... hopefully. All in all, with your lot, Pearson and Buck, there are a good 20 able bodies holding guns, including two heavy stubbers - enough to discourage you average raiding party or burglar, especially as Cold-Eye can imagine that the guild trader pays his bribes to the larger gangs whose territory they will pass.
Therefore the journey goes a long pretty smoothly, without major incidences. Unfortunatly there are some minor ones, as the man you took as your second "servitor" wanders up a couple of times and Rho seems to have a hard time keeping Loisy from mumbling. So far no one has confronted you about him, but with every instance you feel the stakes rising if someone has overheard him. Especially Pearson - while being quite charming in a daredevilish way - seems to be quite attentive and curious, setting some doubts how much he suspects about your cargos true nature.

After some days - you suspect that you should be 2/3rds of the way up - the faint suspicion of something watching you from the shadows returns, the same way you noticed it when coming down. A faint scratching now and then, an undefined raising of your neck hairs. Your companions seem to be oblivious of that or likely just attributing it to the normal critters and hive scum crawling around down here, withour your suspicions of a more sinister predator.
Loisys situation seems to have been improved significantly and Rho is carefully optimistic regarding him. Regarding his survival alone, he seems to have beaten the odds, but how much of the Governor is left within his mind is still unclear. Since yesterday his eyes are focussed again at least and his gait seems almost normal, if just a little bit slow. He even drinks and takes up nutrition on his own if it is handed to him and he is instructed too, which is an improvement from the start where you had to basically force feed him. Now and again you even believe to see him thinking about things he sees, staring at junk formations, equipment, weapons or people, seemingly lost in thought.

John does his best to ignore the crippled governor, sinking into the cover story as best he can. He stays focused on keeping quiet and staying alert for threats, both within the caravan and from without.

Eventually he realizes that feeling again, the feeling of being watched returns and goes to talk to Cold Eye and Gaston.

"Whatever was watching us on the way down is back. I can feel it out there. It's a good thing we've got ourselves a caravan but...I don't know. Don't get too comfortable. That's all I'm saying."

Cold Eye keeps a look-out like a good little scout. However, when she can she floats back to her little tribe.

Gaston was helping the Big Man, when she leans over unobtrusively, "Pearson maybe gettin' ideas. Accident? Underhive full of danger."

She leaned away and busied herself with some triviality.

Gaston was growing anxious yet again. The thing. It was back at their tail yet... He was praying the Emperor that the caravan would deter it from striking, but he wasn't sure about that, in fact, that may even be some friends of theirs, who knows. That cursed place has already proven time and again how nonsensical it was... He managed to more or less dismiss these thoughts, and made his best to put on a calm and cold face. To distract him from his thoughts, he was self assigning the mission to make eye contact with what was left of the colonel and make sure he woudln't start taloking nonsense right now, or sooner, ready to make a show of him silencing him for all to see how he treated the meat and that it couldn't possibly be such a worthy meatbag...

 Easy E wrote:
Cold Eye keeps a look-out like a good little scout. However, when she can she floats back to her little tribe.

Gaston was helping the Big Man, when she leans over unobtrusively, "Pearson maybe gettin' ideas. Accident? Underhive full of danger."

She leaned away and busied herself with some triviality.

John shook his head at Cold Eye. "Unless you think something's imminent, better not to do anything to draw attention to ourselves."

"Gaston is right, whatever thing was watching us on the way down is back...which makes no sense. What sort of underhive spawned monster would try and take on a big caravan like this? Maybe it's just looking for stragglers."

He looks at the Governor. "Better make sure he doesn't go wandering off eh?"

Gaston, catching John and Cold Eye muttering, waves his hand at John and pulls the governor slightly by the collar to mean that he's not letting him wander anywhere.

However... He still wouldn't be surprised if Pearson, with that many guns, was getting ideas. They maybe should start pitting the caravan and Pearson in competition. He gestured to cold eye to come up to him pretexting to hand her a recaf-bar over, on which he had written "think you could persuade caravan that Pearson getting ready to snap their throats?"

While his stress level was through the roof at that very moment, Gaston, with a faint sense of wanting to run away or start blazing with his lasgun, surprised himself by managing to keep his nerves under control. He thought "Nah. I'm not making yet another mess." And, in Kallenese, uttered "I've had worse.". "I'll make it though". "It's alright". The possibility that he broke again was there, but he had definitely learned and hardened from what has transpired down in the hive...

Cold Eye shrugged at the Badge's words. He wasn't wrong, but he was from uphive.

She grabbed the Re-caf bar from Gaston and gave him a nod of thanks. The gscout lanced at the scrawl on it. She recognized it as writing, and assumed it was a note from Gaston. However, letters had never been Cold Eyes strong point. She would need time to figure out what it said, but she guessed it wasn't for public consumption. She pocketed the bar.

Cold Eye glanced around, trying to gauge if anyone else had noticed they were being stalked. Her eyes narrowed on Pearson, trying to see what he was doing.

The general vibe that Cold Eye and John get from the other members of the caravan is, that almost all of them either don't suspect anything relating to Loisy or are incredibly good in hiding it. Given their daily profession you would more count on the former.
With Buck and Pearson it's a bit harder to tell. Buck is not the most communicative guy anyway, mostly just talking to Pearson in some strange deep hive dialect not even Cold Eye really understands. Pearson on the other hand has stayed suspiciously close to your price the last days and while being overall the charming soldier of fortune he was all along, that is most likely a persona he wears like a mask anyway. But if you would have to guess, you would right now not really take him for a man that would shoot you in the back, but more one that will try to play his cards right to get a fair piece of the cake instead of risking his head to try and get all of it.

Regarding the thing in the dark, the rest of the caravan doesn't really seem to have noticed it, not being any more careful or suspicious than normal in the underhive (which still means they are very much on their toes overall). So you continue without explicitly warning them again about what you think you have noticed, keeping a tight leash on the Governor.


To speak of silence around you is a bit stressed, as there is a permanent background noise of debris sliding around, falling or spiraling from downwards from the upperhive, the humming of machinery in the distance and of course the omnipresent scratching and skiterring of little vermin scutteling around in the dark. Nonetheless just after you have round a corner, you are suddenly pretty startled by the sound of several bangs from up front, the unmistakable sound of autogun fire comming from somewhere to the left and hear a cry of alarm as your company dives for cover, paired with the final death scream of two of them going down and several others getting hit. An ambush obviously, from the sound of it by maybe a dozen gunmen. Fortunatly cover is not hard to come by and you manage to navigate Loisy with you under the cover of a heavy rockcrete slab more towards the end of the caravan, while one of the heavy stubbers of the caravan answers in kind, audibly suppressing your attackers. Your compatriots recover quite fast from the initial shock, shouting commands to one another and scrambling to get a better grasp on the situation, flank the attackers and make sure you not get flanked yourself.
"WATCH OUR BACKS!" the leader screams at you and you notice that you would be the closest to covering the bend in the way you justed passed around, to make sure no one comes that way.
So far you have not gotten a good look at the attackers and can't say anything about their identity. Pearson and Buck have holed up in a steep crater some 20 yards from your position, the later pulling out some modified heavy combat shotgun while Pearson is already taking potshots with a hotshot laspistol.

As you consider your options, Loisy turns to Gaston and reaches for his backup laspistol exclaiming in a slightly slurry voice "give me a weapon, soldier. Every gun counts."

John moves to the nearest position to take cover and pulls his auto pistol out.

He aims the weapon down the hall and if any target appears he stands ready to open fire.