Dark Heresy Campaign Journal Episode 0.5

As soon as she recovers her wits, Ihstari shoots the poor, ruined piece of humanity on the slab. before her through the head.  Lementz proclaims the vile surgeon to be bound by Imperial Writ and skips a beat when Zane adds "and by the Imperial Inquisition."

If the surgeon hears, it does not react. It slowly, and without any apparent race of concern, flicks the corpse from it's slab and begins sharpening it's tools against a whirring grind stone. It does no turn to face them. It does no acknowledge them in any way. Even when Zane recites the list of it's crimes and explains their authority. It simply cleans it's tools and waits.

[Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, Cadence (via Threnady) risks scrap-code infection to establish a secure link between himself and the Surgeon. Using tight-beamed codes of binary burst codes. Cadence starts to offer the Surgeon a deal. The Surgeon does not reply. But then, it does not sever the connection either]

After a few seconds, the acolytes hear a familiar hum behind them. The swing around and duck just in time to see the Mechanical claw deliver another human torso. A woman's his time. The claw deposits the woman on the slab and the Surgeon slowly, with great patience and dignity, returns to work.

[Cadence continues to praise the Surgeon's work in the meantime and offers to broker a deal with the Inquisition]

This time, it's Gunner who puts the half-dead woman out of her misery. This time, there is a subtle reaction from the surgeon. I leans forward against the slab, it's back seems to heave under a small sigh -and the mechanical spider drops from it's back, scuttling forward to attack the acolytes. At that same moment, two Servitors burst from their cryo-tubes and engage them in combat. The Surgeon itself, meanwhile, simply summons another torso to work on.

Ishtari, still wounded from before, screams out her permission for Grimoire to heal her even as she steps forward, flail in hand, to engage the Spider. Despite her combat training, she's down in seconds, cut to shreds by the flailing surgical limbs.

[Second fate point of the evening]

Zane and Gunner turn upon the Servitors while Ishtari attacks the Spider-Servior with her nightstick and shotgun. Grimoire empties his autopistol into the thing even as he pulls Ishtari clear, but seems to do little damage. His attempts at Psykic healing fail dismally in the noise and terror of combat, frost spreads out in a wide circle around him, coating all the metal objects nearby. Fortunately for him, in all the confusion of the fray, none of his companions  notice this grievous lapse in control. Meanwhile, Threnedy seems to be frozen in place, unable to move.

[Still communicating with the Surgeon]

In a few frantic moments of combat, Gunner goes down again but Grimoire heals him enough that he can continue. From the ground he places his hand guns against one of the Spider-things many green, mechanical eyes and rattles off a burst. The hard rounds finally manage to pierce it's shell and rattle around inside, doing untold damage to it's various circuits. The thing collapses in a tangled heap.

The Surgeon responds by activating a control on it's arm. Still with it's back to the acolytes, the surgeons slab and the platform on which it stands begins to rise. The ceiling above it parts, a hatchway opening up to reveal a machine-room above containing eight, small, technological pillars arranged in a circle.

Threnedy leaps onto the platform. The surgeon ignores it. 

Down below, the acolytes concentrate of fighting off the servitors. Grimoire and Gunner take pot shots at the Surgeon but the rounds simply ping off it's mechanical back. It still has not turned to face them.

As the last of the Servitors fall, the platform disappears into the chamber above.

Cadence perceives a bright flash of blue light and then static. Threnedy -and her connection to it- is gone.

By the time the acolytes reach the chamber above, the Surgeon is long gone. The small chamber has no visible exits, and apart from a great deal of cabling and machinery, is featureless save for the eight small pillars arranged in a circle around them.