>>5393764To your utter surprise, Haukwode appears to relent. He is consulting with the assault team, as if trying to convey something to them - pointing in your direction, then gesturing at Knife Mother. You do not hear what he says, or the commands he gives. But afterwards, you see on your combat rig
+Connection restored (team open channel/unencrypted)+
Perhaps the mercenary leader appears to sense profit here, something retrievable from this failed mission. He is staring with intense interest at Knife Mother Praxagora:
- Well, well - Paribus has really outdone themselves! All those rumours about Lady Praxagora visiting the impoverished shantytown in disguise, I see... You are not Lady Praxagora. Although I concede the resemblance; the blepharoplasty is rather convincing.
But for a start, if Lady Praxagora had fled from the Palace to avoid her marriage, as I have also heard rumoured, she would have altered her face to look less like her recognisable self - not the other way round. Or is it natural? No matter. I think a lookalike of Lady Praxagora could prove rather valuable too, there are those who would eagerly pay for... (He gestures at Knife Mother - you see the open, unencrypted team channel on your combat rig display indicate:)
+I want the lookalike alive. Kill the rest+
As if on cue, there is a reverberating detonation like a peal of thunder followed by an explosive downdraft of gravitics. The air tastes metallic, of ozone and ionised vapour, and you can feel the unnatural winds rising, pulled in a vortex towards something descending from the heavens above. It sounds like the opening of a blast furnace.
The drone seraph of the Warguild, of the invincible astral might of Ordnungssinn.
Gnadenfrei is here.
>>5393248>Now is your chance to make your escape; you will follow your own Path in this world. Let the Warguild mercenaries and Knife Sister Gang kill each other. This section of the vertical slum is already damaged from your earlier partial demolition... the Shock Ram has recharged. One more strike will do it - run up to the damaged wall support, knock it down. And leap to the next slum roof whilst you watch the entire section subside, completing your atrocity.>(Obey Haukwode, regain the mercenaries trust) Well now is your chance to recover some dignity. Eliminate Princess Hercules - you have a brief moment now before she engages the stolen armoured Tactical Combat Exoskeleton, OMPHALE, she is harnessed in. The Swarm Pistol cannot miss; aim for her, er... exposed flesh. Once the second-in-command of the Knife Sisters is down, it will be easy to take care of the leaderless remnants...>(Infuriate Haukwode, commence psychotic slaughter) No-one can tell you what to do. Why not demonstrate this by firing the Swarm Pistol at the very target Haukwode just wanted unharmed, the delectable Knife Mother and fake Lady Praxagora?>Write-in some other attack: specify a target and a weapon>Something else? 