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Description

“Throne,” muttered Dase under his toxically recaff scented breath as the checkpoint guards scanning his vehicle with the routine auspex sweep signaled for him to pull his scrap hauler over. He did not like the way they were staring or how they sent one of their number back to the guardhouse. Security was always tight getting into Twist Town from the ruins but in three decades of salvaging he had never been stopped outside of the compound. He was ugly and he knew it but he was hardly the foulest mutant with a work permit in town either. He was permanently desensitized to the regular shakes ups, robbery and extortion from the guards but this was different. Briefly, he entertained the idea of making a break for it scrap bounty be damned but the sight of the lascannon mounted on the rockcrete gatehouse swiveling around to point at him put paid to the urge. “Throne,” he breathed again glancing into the grimy rearview mirror at the tarp covered cogitators he had strapped down in the bed of his hauler. “What have I found?”
A desperate desire for a smoke made him fidget but one look at the lascannon and the flak armored troopers staring at him convinced him that he would be blasted to pieces if he made any sort of move that might be perceived as hostile.

He waited, staring down the barrel of the lascannon for half an hour listening to his tarnished pocket chron dangling from his rearview mirror tick before the gate opened. He went white with terror; his mismatched bloodshot eyes bulged and filled with murky tears. Havok troopers, Eskatoi’s fighting elite, easily the hardest, meanest bastards on a world full of hard, mean, bastards in full kit their eyes glowing baleful red arched out escorting a crimson robed figure. Servo skulls floated above and around her and sprouting from her back were three sleek mechandrites that writhed and swayed with a slow reptilian grace. Her gaze, a cold blue augmetic stare was fixed on him as she strode towards him with a humorless ivory smile tugging at her lips. She was a tech priestess, a servant of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the machine god, the Omnissiah. They almost never stirred from the depths of their mysterious enclave but it was said that on Eskaton whatever the Machine God’s faithful wished for the Havok Troopers fetched, and whomever they hated the Havok Troopers cut them down.

Nearing the door of his hauler she reached into her robe to lay a slender hand on the grip of a holstered laspistol, the gesture, despite his bladder clenching terror made him snort a desperate giggle; it struck him as an entirely redundant thing to do. It was clarity or more likely barely contained hysteria that made him note that despite her mechandrites, and despite the fact that one of her arms was entirely bionic and he could not tell if she wore goggles or if her eyes were augmetics he could not help but note that she was clean and attractive, in a mischievous punk sort of way, traits that were vanishingly rare in his line of work. The best he could ever hope for in a woman was half clean and perhaps tolerably ugly at one of the many dives in Twist Town and then only if he had enough currency. He nearly laughed again as these suicidal thoughts raced through his mind but mastered himself with a cough and forced smile.

“How may I serve the Machine cult?” he asked hating how his voice wobbled and shook.
Her smile slowly broadened, her glowing blue eyes whirred and clicked softly as they focused on him bringing the glow down to two pinpricks of azure light.
“Let’s talk about where you found that,” she said pointing a mechanical finger at the bed of his hauler where her servo skulls were slowly orbiting around one of the tarp-covered cogitators bathing it in red light as they scanned it.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said, trying and failing to hold his smile in place.
“Yes,” she said motioning the Havok Troopers forward to seize him, “you will.”

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A character for a friend of mine Who also wrote the above story.

Tentacles are such a pain in the ass to pose, its not even funny.

The sevoskulls used in this scene were made by the beyond talented sketchfab.com/erasmus , who is swell enough to let people use it. If you like it go check out the small preview movie he originally made the servoskull for. Its way cooler than my work lol.

Description

“Throne,” muttered Dase under his toxically recaff scented breath as the checkpoint guards scanning his vehicle with the routine auspex sweep signaled for him to pull his scrap hauler over. He did not like the way they were staring or how they sent one of their number back to the guardhouse. Security was always tight getting into Twist Town from the ruins but in three decades of salvaging he had never been stopped outside of the compound. He was ugly and he knew it but he was hardly the foulest mutant with a work permit in town either. He was permanently desensitized to the regular shakes ups, robbery and extortion from the guards but this was different. Briefly, he entertained the idea of making a break for it scrap bounty be damned but the sight of the lascannon mounted on the rockcrete gatehouse swiveling around to point at him put paid to the urge. “Throne,” he breathed again glancing into the grimy rearview mirror at the tarp covered cogitators he had strapped down in the bed of his hauler. “What have I found?”
A desperate desire for a smoke made him fidget but one look at the lascannon and the flak armored troopers staring at him convinced him that he would be blasted to pieces if he made any sort of move that might be perceived as hostile.

He waited, staring down the barrel of the lascannon for half an hour listening to his tarnished pocket chron dangling from his rearview mirror tick before the gate opened. He went white with terror; his mismatched bloodshot eyes bulged and filled with murky tears. Havok troopers, Eskatoi’s fighting elite, easily the hardest, meanest bastards on a world full of hard, mean, bastards in full kit their eyes glowing baleful red arched out escorting a crimson robed figure. Servo skulls floated above and around her and sprouting from her back were three sleek mechandrites that writhed and swayed with a slow reptilian grace. Her gaze, a cold blue augmetic stare was fixed on him as she strode towards him with a humorless ivory smile tugging at her lips. She was a tech priestess, a servant of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the machine god, the Omnissiah. They almost never stirred from the depths of their mysterious enclave but it was said that on Eskaton whatever the Machine God’s faithful wished for the Havok Troopers fetched, and whomever they hated the Havok Troopers cut them down.

Nearing the door of his hauler she reached into her robe to lay a slender hand on the grip of a holstered laspistol, the gesture, despite his bladder clenching terror made him snort a desperate giggle; it struck him as an entirely redundant thing to do. It was clarity or more likely barely contained hysteria that made him note that despite her mechandrites, and despite the fact that one of her arms was entirely bionic and he could not tell if she wore goggles or if her eyes were augmetics he could not help but note that she was clean and attractive, in a mischievous punk sort of way, traits that were vanishingly rare in his line of work. The best he could ever hope for in a woman was half clean and perhaps tolerably ugly at one of the many dives in Twist Town and then only if he had enough currency. He nearly laughed again as these suicidal thoughts raced through his mind but mastered himself with a cough and forced smile.

“How may I serve the Machine cult?” he asked hating how his voice wobbled and shook.
Her smile slowly broadened, her glowing blue eyes whirred and clicked softly as they focused on him bringing the glow down to two pinpricks of azure light.
“Let’s talk about where you found that,” she said pointing a mechanical finger at the bed of his hauler where her servo skulls were slowly orbiting around one of the tarp-covered cogitators bathing it in red light as they scanned it.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said, trying and failing to hold his smile in place.
“Yes,” she said motioning the Havok Troopers forward to seize him, “you will.”

------------------------------------------

A character for a friend of mine Who also wrote the above story.

Tentacles are such a pain in the ass to pose, its not even funny.

The sevoskulls used in this scene were made by the beyond talented sketchfab.com/erasmus , who is swell enough to let people use it. If you like it go check out the small preview movie he originally made the servoskull for. Its way cooler than my work lol.