(D4 FMR) Stick a Boot Harkonn-in Their...

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar was there, standing before the palace of supreme-compensation. Over didn't feel like a strong enough word.

He growls a bit.

[Reyyan Ebrahammi]

"Now now Mister Thorvald. You never even told me why we were coming out here, and you're already in a mood it seems."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He nods to Reyyan. "Saying hello," he says. "Test limits. Thorvald and Harkonnen," he shakes his hand in the air to suggest that the relationship was middling.

[Lorra Giap]

Now who else was there but the good doctor herself.

It's usually not a good sign to pre-emptively seek the expertise of a physician, but well, she was requested and a contract is a contract.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Doctor," Bomilcar greeted. With all gathered he approached, not exactly certain what came next.

[Kannon]

They wouldn't wait long for the answer to that concern. They were approached by a Harkonnen guard in the rank of Levenbrech just after stopping the car. The man didn't seem too cowed by the presence of a Sardaukar officer; perhaps he feared his superior more.

The mutilated and masticated cadaver heads of Fremen looked at them with their empty sockets from above.

"Your identity, and what business do you have at the citadel." The man said in a low voice. His eyes were cold, dead even, so used to cruelty meted out and observed that it had long made the man less than a human.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Bomilcar Thorvald," he offers his own name first.

"Reyyan Ebrahammi, Lorra Giap," he introduces the others.

"With CHOAM."

He wondered if they would just push back to avoid an inconvenient presence or if they would be invited in and given a false view.

[Kannon]

"Purpose of the visit." The Levenbrech restated.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Inquiry for CHOAM," he states. "Fact finding."

[Kannon]

"Wait here." The man stepped away to talk on the comms.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar waits as instructed.

[Kannon]

The man returned shortly.

"Lord Rabban is away. The Mentat shall see you. Wait for your escort. When in citadel, do not deviate from the given path. The keep is under exclusive Landsraad privilege of a House Major. If you violate it, the House shall petition to consider the conclusions of your audit inadmissible. The forms must be obeyed."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He wonders for a moment how such rules might apply to a Sardaukar. Looking to his companions the escort is awaited. The Mentat would easily out think all 3 of them.

[Reyyan Ebrahammi]

If there's anything going on in Reyyan's head, it at least didn't show on her face. Truthfully, she was used to this sort of thing; Back on the capital world, there were all sorts of dances of protocol like this.

[Kannon]

Their escort presently arrived. 10 men headed by a Sub-Bashar. A significant upgrade. This time almost all of them had the desensitised murderer's gaze of the Levenbrech. The commander, however, had an expression of thoughtful glee and looked at them boldly, especially at the women. Lorra could identify the marks of a psychopath, a Harkonnen nautral rather than a cultivated and conditioned brute. This one was probably imagining all the things he could do to these delegates if he could get away with it, and revelling in his fantasy. He was also suicidally unafraid of Reyyan, as if his own life or suffering didn't matter to him as long as he could bask in his aesthetics of blood and pain. He seemed to be even daring her with his gaze into precipitating a macabre to remember.

"Come, honoured delegates!" He almost giggled. "We shall be moving now. Piter de Vries is so glad you have come, and is awaiting your promptly!"

They were cordonned and led into the citadel.

The main hall was narrow, but several stories high, blue-black obsidian attributed to high-end Hagal decor crowned over this ravine-like passage, shimmering with red glowglobes drifting way above their heads. Reflections on the floor were more blurred undulation, but with a bit of imagination they could make someone get the impression that they are walking over a sea of blood. There were some narrow bay windows from five metres up, presently dark, interspersed with endings of pipes, as if gases or liquids could be released onto those cluttered on the walkway. This interior was supremely manipulative; even though fear could be partially dispelled with logic, senses cried of primal dangers imprinted in the human genome from the times when the species was young.

[Discipline 3 to not freak out.]

"Majestic, isn't it? All according to the Baron's specifications!" Sub-Bashar took on the voice of a tour guide.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar looked on at this display, knowing exactly what it was. Because he made a lifestyle of displaying exactly the opposite. When the psychotic Harkonnen's eyes met his it would be hard to imagine getting any joy from attempting to torture him. While the Sub-Bashar sees suffering for them in his mind Bomilcar knows pain and suffering already and has no doubt or fear to display back. His own look doesn't even so much as challenge, it just promises that his companions would not suffer at the psycho's hands and Bomilcar would ruin any fun by not making a peep.

----

D4 FMR, Resolve + Duty, Focus: Self Control, Quietly Intense, TN 15, Crit 7, Difficulty 2, +2 Threat for Dice: 4#1d20 13 2 11 20

D4 FMR, Determination Reroll 20: 1d20 15

5 success, +3 Momentum, +2 threat

[Reyyan Ebrahammi]

For her part, Reyyan was unafraid of the pageantry. This too was just a trial from God; Fear was blasphemy, a failure of faith. She was the Emperor's hound, and neither psychopaths nor illusions would change that.

Still, hopefully the doctor was hardened like Bom and herself. She was sure a Suk saw some things, but...

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

Day 4, Discipline 3, Discipline/Faith (composure), TN16 crit 8, "Our trials are how God tests our worth.": 2#1d20 1 5 4 successes

[Lorra Giap]

Hope was a fragile thing.

Unlike her companions, Lorra spent most of her time locked away in labs and clinics, miles away from overt threats - going into the lair of psychopaths was definitely out of her comfort zone.

She was keeping it together, for now, but only just barely. And it showed.

-----

Day 4, Discipline 3, Discipline/Duty, TN14 crit 7: 2#1d20 12 20

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He'd seen that look in the eyes of his siblings and other charges before. He knew that her grip was tenuous on the situation. And he had pulled plenty of people out of that simply with a word and his own lack of fear.

He leaned to her and whispered. "Stay close. I've got you." His eyes tell her he's been through worse, as does his scar... he was a survivor, a bodyguard and he was at her side to do his job.

[OOC: 2 momentum to Bolster Lorra, allowing her to reroll, she may use his Discipline of 7 if it is higher than her Discipline]

[Lorra Giap]

(Description TBD pending ruling)

(After reroll description)

Lol no still scared.

---

Roll is made with the following assumption. Bolster allows a reroll, but I will spend Determination (channeled through Duty - statement fits) prior to rolling the reroll to set one dice to 1 for auto crit and am rolling the remaining dice.

(after reroll commentary)

Fucking shit.

Day 4, Bolster Reroll w Determination Spend - TN14: 1d20 20

[Kannon]

Even as Lorra's composure held, plastered on her mien by years of Imperial Conditioning, internally she was losing it. She knew what others didn't know: the Harkonnen were killing doctors. Dr. Yueh had had a run-in with the Baron years before, and he only survived diagnosing him by being in Richesian employ at that time. And then there were the mutilated heads, the psychopaths and this hellish hall... Lorra could quickly self-diagnose that those were her thresholds and if she proceeded, she'd develop some traumatic disorder.

[Complication: Nascent Mental Trauma; 1 Advancement Point]

[Lorra has a choice: either go back to the car and leave this place behind, crossing off her Duty statement, or proceed Terrified]

[Lorra Giap]

What was a little mental trauma? There were wrong-headed whispers and muttering from failed malcontents that Imperial Conditioning was nothing but mental trauma writ large: Mohandas Suk's - himself traumatized by the things he had seen and done during the Jihad - final gift, a surety of peace for the rich and powerful by a person too broken to recognize otherwise.

Despite it all, Lorra held true to her convictions. Her sense of duty demanded that what had to be done, had to be done. If it means this den of horrors, so be it.

[Proceeding as Terrified. Complication noted!]

[Kannon]

As they walked to the large elevators that could accommodate many people of great height or one fat man on suspensors, the Sub-Bashar made an elated sigh as if he'd experienced the delight of relieving himself.

And then, they went up. It took time, crowded as they were amid their Harkonnen detail. The elevator had the same kind of grated pipe openings, making it feel like a gas chamber. The transit was otherwise silent, however.

They exited into a corridor with much more careful furnishings, though still obscene, bas-reliefs presenting sexual entanglements of all imaginable kinds. It had many side-corridors, darkened. Finally, an oversized door creaked, opening to a large office made in blue obsidian, with a single piece of furniture in the middle (not counting the drifting suspensor chairs) - an exquisitely large desk from Ecazi bloodwood.

And a single man - effeminate by his looks, through features, makeup and garment, or just with a sense of drama and chic taken from a different epoch, with his jabot, stylised wig and lacings. His powdered white face contrasted with the purple-stained lips, an unmistakable sign of sapho, the drug of mentats. But the contrast was also with his eyes, glassy and blue-within-blue, that of a Spice addict. Those eyes were very hard to read because of their lack of definition. The stained lips communicated more with a devious smile.



"Ah, the auditors! Your visit can certainly be a highlight of this day. Please, come closer. I am Piter the Vries, as your certainly know." The man was allegedly a mentat, but had no aura of deference. Quite the opposite. At least without either of the Harkonnen lords around, he behaved as the ruler. "I am not asking what's your business here because I have my own approximations and I bet you are going to tell me anyway. Or will you surprise me?" His voice was a dirty soprano, with some falsetto overtones when accentuating. A very disturbing one.

The detail fawned out behind them.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar went along with the theater. He knew that the threat was real but he also knew the type of headache that the Harkonnen would have to deal with if they actually did anything to CHOAM auditors, especially with a Sardaukar among them. So he treated it exactly like that, theater. But giving the wrong offense could potentially allow them to justify extreme reactions so...

"Fremen terrorists info," Bomilcar says, curious if that would be a surprise. "Cost impact related areas of investigation."

Any other reason for visiting could likely be able to be pawned off to some other office on planet. But security? That was always controlled from the central power.

[Kannon]

"I am not sure if I am getting your meaning, auditor. Could you elaborate?" De Vries said without change of tone.