#115-dred

This definitely made him a heretic now. Frak... he... fraaaaaaak. One option, to hide the transmogrifying crate... now in the form of an almost nude Ciaphas Cain doll for... reasons. Hide it somewhere no one would find it. He clutched it to his chest, wrapped in a blanket, and traipsed quickly, with his head down, to the storage yards. “Hello there, Dred!”“FRAK OFF!”“Having a good day, Operator?”“No, don’t speak to me.”“Are you feeling alright?”“Never, I’m a figment of your overactive imagination.” He made it, breathlessly, to the storage area, and plopped, heavily, down on his rump beside a crate labeled “Earth Shaker Round x1″. That would work... perfectly. He unwrapped the doll, and took a moment to eye it, pausing for just a moment to hit the button on the back of it.“My faith is a shield against such blandishments, FRAK OFF!”The action figure barked it’s line and he smiled childishly and clutched the toy to his chest... before cramming it into the fibrous stuffing that was supporting the enormous artillery shell.

(This one confused me, but they explained it.)“Wot the frak is a roomba?”He furrowed his snowy brows, mulling the response over a mouthful of nutrient paste, which he had spiced up with a sprinkling of cayn pepper. “OH. Frak, yeah. We got those on Krieg. Servitors tasked with collecting up corpses.”The tube of nutrient paste, he presented it. “Nothing goes to waste, nothing, and when someone kicks it on Krieg, whether it be from an industrial accident or an O2 shortage, the servitors collect them up and take them to get processed into Corpse Starch, or Soylens Viridians. That’s what they base nooty-paste off. S’not technically cannibalism...”He trailed off.“When we were kids we used to lay down on the ground till the Corpsers came along, and then make a game of who could stay down longer while they approached. Most kids took off running and laughing when they got too close... but me, RAED, and RAEE. We liked to let’em get us. Good practice for CQC.”The Operator squirted more Nutrient Paste into his mouth and looked at the aghast Remembrancer. “Wot?”

“Mercy kills are always... nasty.”He examined the coil of his plasma pistol closely, having field stripped it, turning it over and over again beneath the zoomed in vision of the electronic monocular attached to his mask. Even the most minute crack could cause the coil to fail... explosively... taking his hand with it. “You know how they say your whole life flashes before your eyes before you die?”Looking up at the camera, he pushed the monocular up on it’s armature. “It’s just like that, but it’s somebody else’s life. Every joke you shared. Every time you traded bits of your ration pack, covered each others asses, lied to the Commissar, talked about girls, shared a Lho Stick. All of it. It swells up in your throat, when yer lookin’ down at your friend, his chest full of Fleshboarers, scuttling around beneath his skin, like his insides are boiling. Begging you. Begging you.” The coil was fragged... too fragged repair. He grunted and tossed it away, lifting up the field stripped plasma pistol by the barrel, pressing the focusing dish to his forehead. “Hand on the barrel of your gun, sobbing, pleading. S’pretty hard. I’m not as good at is as some people.”He lifted up the ornate laspistol that laid on the table, the next thing that needed work. “But you know what they say about practice.”

On the topic of lore, in regards to the Vitae Womb... I don’t ascribe to the notion of cloning, but of a vat-grown population through the systematic harvesting of eggs, and using a base template for fertilization. I also don’t ascribe to “forced breeding camps” or whatever, I’m not opposed to Grimdarkness, but there’s a point where I choose to get off the bus. The mass harvest of eggs and use of synthetic “sauce” is why most every Kriegan looks similar, but not necessarily the same behind the mask. You don’t have to agree with my headcanon, and I don’t have to agree with yours, and if you wanna call Kriegans a legion of Clone Troopers or Vatboys or whatever go ahead, but I’m not playing a clone. If I was, I’d be in a different fandom, fighting for a Republic instead of an Empire.