Another rescue mission for the Nitro Oni and the potential of a new alliance to end Bald Bryen?

MInbo's story:

Hegon awoke to the sound of the cheering crowd.

He had a distinct feeling of de ja vu, except last time Optan was here and he was planning the rescue. Fingers crossed his Prime would return the favour.

Romulus hefted his dual butcher's cleaver and pulled on the leash of his Sumpkroc. Last time he had been taken out by a blaze of autopistol fire. He would redeem himself in the Mayor's eyes.

"You won't find me so easy to take down!" spat Balthazar. He gestured under Hegon and a blazing fire erupted from. "Fire is my bitch." The sight last time of his hunt lieutenant Beragor turning into slag in the furnace had awakened a power in him. The leader of the Mayor's personal gang swore that this time against the Nitro Oni, it would be different.

"I'm gonna fry your juve alive!" The crowd only cheered. Balthazar discharged his hand flamer to the roars of his captive audience.

Remus and his hacked cyber-mastiff circled the hanging Hegon. "I want to do the honours. He only got me last time because of that blasted spider."

Balthazar smiled. "You'll get your chance. But 1st we put on a show!"

Alex's story:

“Oi, turn up the noise” Biggus shouted at the bar keep to turn up the volume on the pict screen. “haha Slime Eaters are up, they're always good for a laughius. Let's hope there's lots of killing todaius. I love Byren’s games”

He and his offsider Naughtius peered at the pict screen, images of the two opposing gangs slinking through the darkness, but the infra sights on the pict captures let the vouyers see everything like daylight. Cheers broke out as they watched the Escher leader Tomoko and Amasaia charge and tear through a couple of spiders, the violence firing up their blood lust as they kept knocking back cups of second best.

Before long they couldn't keep up as both gangs came to grips with each other, the pict screen flickering struggling to keep up with the fast moving fighters. The pict quickly flicked back to another capture angle, close in on Amasaia just as she took a krak grenade to the chest.

She staggered back, gouts of chemically tainted blood pouring out of her. “Awww, shame, loved watching her fghtingus. And her ass hahah!”

Before his laugh had even finished a glass smashed against his head “you frakking frakking frakhead” screamed Mazi as she repeatedly slammed her fist into his head, only stopping as he slumped to the ground, blood pouring from the multitude of wounds on his head.

She looked around the pub to see everyone staring. Realising she had no choice, she sprinted out of her to her destiny.

Dani's stories:

Extract from The Fourth Psalm of Rust Town — Spoken by Precentor Malachi, Hand of the Eschatarch

The Orlocks call themselves men of the road, but what roads they walk are paved with vice and coin. Smugglers, scrappers, and hired blades — a brotherhood of the unordained. They sell their strength where others act with conviction, and think that makes them free. Men weak of purpose, I used to believe.

Their foreman bled with a miner’s resolve — dull, honest, and stubborn as rust. I struck him low, and he me, and as the dust drank of our blood in equal measure I saw in him a grim echo of our devotion: not faith, but endurance. The kind that survives the furnace out of spite for it. A lesser man, perhaps, but not an unworthy one. And crawling through the blood and dirt I saw the face of our God-Emperor.

As the choir applied the salves and balms to my wounds I learned that Succentor Luciven, the man appointed to the choir by the Eschatarch himself, our song made flesh, was struck down, and vanished amidst the din of battle. For days afterward, we searched the rusted underbelly of the district, their hymns growing hoarse.

Then word came from the scavenger-markets: Bald Bryen, the carrion showman of the Rust Town Games, had taken Luciven alive.

Bryen is a man of appetite. His arenas drown in blood, his laughter echoes over the cries of the dying. These are worldly sins. To seize a servant of the Hymn is sacrilege. To do so for the amusement of the profane is proof of damnation. He took the sacred voice of the the Eschaton's Choir and sought to silence it before the multitude. What the Choir has long suspected— that Bryen’s revels draw upon darker powers — is now undeniable.

The Eschatarch’s orders arrived on a strip of scorched vellum, stamped with the sigil of dissolution. His words were clear and terrible:

“Bald Bryen has mocked the servants of the Eschaton in the sight of the masses of Rust Town. He shall be unmade before the eyes of the same multitude. His soul is already ash — see to it that the flesh follows. His bones will mark the end of the Games. He shall confess his emptiness and die screaming with no name but dust."

The letter did not come alone. In preparation for this retribution, the Eschatorium dispatched a new instrument of penance to our choir: Misericordium Korah. The blade of mercy.

He was once a street preacher who sold false pardons, leading underhivers to spiritual ruin. As they now understand, atonement has the precondition of penance. When we caught him, of course he begged for execution — but we are understanding of lapses in judgement and showed pity for his soul. He was sealed within the sarcophagus of a Penitent Engine, a cage of steel and sacrament wired into his trembling flesh. Every nerve in his body sings the litany of contrition, and he is granted reprieve with slaughter of the faithless. When he kills, the pain lessens; when he hesitates, the machine scours him raw. In our great mercy we allow him a chance at redemption in the eyes of the Emperor by proving the... sincerity of his remorse.

We found the execution ground. Luciven hung half-alive, his voice cracking through the smoke, still chanting the canticles of the Eschaton. With Korah in our midst we tore through Bryen’s thugs with ease, scattering their shattered bodies and limbs across the arena. Praedicator Asahael retrieved Succentor Luciven and helped him to the exit, but amidst the clamour the wretches killed Consoni Zebedee.

There could hardly be a holier purpose to an end than his. His bones were gathered and ground into ash that now marks our banners. Even for his mortal sins, Korah walks the path of atonement. For men like Bryen there is no path. There can be no absolution. No mercy. As the Eschatarch wills, he will not be put down with blade or even holy promethium — he will be broken and unmade in punishment, kept to scream until his voice is nothing but ash. His agony will mark the measure of his sin, and when it is spent, the void itself will recoil from the memory of him.

MInbo's story:

Vox message from Optan, Prime of the Nitro Oni, to Precentor Malachi, Hand of the Eschatarch:

Precentor Malachi I am not a believer.

I say this not to offend but that you may hear the tone of candour and know my words herein are true.

We have a common enemy and he must die.

While we do not possess the Choir's devotion or faith, yet we are committed to share blood in equal measure to the common end of Bald Bryen's demise.

Has not the Eschatarch ordained the hierarchy of the Choir that even Supplicari who yet fall short may endeavor to advance its aims. Is not your Brethren Oneisimus of the Supplicari not named for that very end?

We await in respectful silence so that the Choir may be heard.