We decided we’d better try to get into bureaucrat's mansion as that’s where we would get the funds for the Captain’s Table. Boomeron snuck up to the door all sneaky like but then for some reason rang the doorbell. A loud chime sounded and an AI said the residence was currently unavailable and to please leave a message. Loads of blood cultists turned up, screaming some kind of blood chant. Gav fired a grenade at them and landed it right in front of the boss, but he must have been another cyborgised bigwig because he just seemed to keep going.
Eventually, Quold got us into the house by putting on his fancy uniform and coming up with some bureaucratic excuse as to why we were there. STD-01 persuaded the bureaucrat he'd deprogrammed to come inside what turned out to be his own mansion, rather than lie in the road waiting for the Sanctus Sanguine cyborgs. He lay down on the couch in the corner, leaving dealing with us to his robot bartender. The robot bartender gave us some awesome drinks, probably the best I've ever tasted! I figured I'd better take it easy on the fancy booze given our situation, but that didn't stop Boomeron getting utterly shitfaced, which he does generally tend to do at any given opportunity. Quold also got a bit tipsy, but I think that's more because he's not used to drinking alcohol, unlike the rest of us. The robot barman was rather evasive when asked about the state of the main house AI, or alternate routes into the building, though we did find out that there was still a functional, non-infected AI node in the house somewhere. After a few too many of the fancy drinks Boomeron hurled on a kobold in the corner.
Without any help from the barman, the only certain route into the house to get to the vault was through the arboretum. Quold saw a documentary about the house once and was pretty sure of the way. Unfortunately the arboretum also housed the bureaucrat's monkey servitor guards, large primates from some jungle planet that had been genetically modified for savagery and then given cybernetic implants to make them stronger, faster and more deadly than they already were. I'd quite have liked to see a real monkey, even if it was all messed up by cybernetics and genetic manipulation, but everyone else said it was too dangerous and we'd have to find another way.
There were two exits from the bar; the left lead to the bureaucrat's lounges and the right to the ballroom. We chose to go through the lounges. The door was locked so we decided to cut through with Gav's cutting torch. Quold seemed to know best what he was doing and quoted some regulations about cutting so he used the torch. He made us wait 1 minute for the edges to cool, and put a safety test sticker on the torch saying it had passed its 12-monthly safety inspection. We went through and it led to a corridor with two doors off it and a corner leading to further a further corridor.
I checked the other corridor section with one of our trusty mirror sticks while the other covered, and it was empty with a few more doors. The door at the end was a really ornately decorated heavy bulkhead with some really nobby artwork. Quold had a look and managed to spot some High Praetorian script engraved into it and was fortunately able to read it (even though his level of bureaucracy only uses high-plebbish or standard-plebbish, still a step above the low-plebbish dialect we speak in most of brown sector) and that it was related to security. He then had a closer look at that and the other doors and saw that they led to lounges, a clerk's office and another one to the maintenance area which was next to the security door.
Quold had a go at cutting through the maintenance door as I figured we could find a map in there. He cut about 1.5 feet and then a klaxon sounded and the security door started to open. I knew we should have gone to the arboretum to see the cyborg monkeys. Monkeys are cool.
We prepared to fire through the door, assuming there'd be a big hovering shielded security bot coming through. I got out my high-penetration laser as it's better for armour than the plasma rifle, as did Gav. Gav shot before me and his laser round seemed to be reflected. Boomeron popped a round from his grenade launcher in there which seemed to stagger the bot, at least from what I could see through the slowly opening door. Quold fired a 6 round burst from his Gauss pistol, aiming a bit low at first but then hitting the control panel. Unfortunately the door started opening a lot faster, but then ground to a halt and started opening slowly again. I decided not to fire my laser at it so I threw a high-ex grenade right under the robot. The blast kind of hurt a bit, but it definitely hit the bot more than us. It wobbled a bit and some sparks came out, but it was still upright and functioning. It was roughly humanoid in shape with weapon podules and a bunch of sensors on metal tentacle arms. It was hovering on a high-power grav-sled. There were a hella lot of weapon podules on that sucker!
It shot at us and managed to hit Gav and Boomeron but fortunately didn't do too much damage. We shot back, Quold first with his Gauss pistol. Most of the rounds bounced off, but the last one seemed to go through. Boomeron fired a full burst from his assault rifle at it which just ricocheted off the shield. I got another grenade right underneath it which seemed to fuck it up a bit. Gav had stepped back to brace the Anti Material Rifle as this thing was starting to seem like a serious threat. We only have 4 rounds left for it, but using one now was better than being vaporised by some bureaucrat banker's pet security robot! The round made a massive hole in its chest and a massive shower of sparks and the robot's eyes dimmed and it wobbled for a bit, but it recovered again pretty quick.
Gav took another shot, this time at the grav-sled. Guess he figured dropping out of the air would probably hurt it. Unfortunately it dodged, so he only took another chunk out of its casing. Boomeron had another go with his advanced assault rifle and some of the rounds got through, but didn't do much damage. I figured I'd been doing a bit well with these grenades up till now and I guess it screwed my confidence. I managed to hit the bot, but I got it a bit too close to us. Think I took most of the blast, but it did seem to stagger everyone else a bit too. Quold shot the bot again with his gauss pistol and it started listing to one side pretty heavily. A few weapons pods fell off and discharged in random directions, though fortunately none of them were pointing at us.
It shot at us again with its remaining podules. Gav dodged, but it winged Boomeron and Quold and then hit me full on with a gauss gun. That fucking hurt! Unsurprising as my internal organs got peppered with gauss pellets. Gav hit it again with the anti material rifle, which I just about noticed before I had to have a bit of a lie down, so at least I didn't throw that last grenade.
When I eventually managed to get up again I had a look in the security office where everyone else was. There were 3 guys in there, each with some fancy security uniforms and a Gauss pistol, and each riddled with Gauss gun shot just like me. Boomeron searched them and found some weird implants in their wrists that we figured must be security chips, so I cut off their hands and STD-01 said he could probably make the implants work. Quold and Boomeron each took a gauss pistol and some charge packs. Quold put a holster on each hip. He said something about General Blarg'n Flarg'n having worn two gauss pistols during the Asia Systems Campaign but then suddenly shut up. I just about remember hearing about the Asia Systems Campaign being where Blarg'n Flarg'n was defeated and shortly after committed ritual suicide.
Quold finished cutting our way into the maintenance section and we sat down to have a rest and eat some food. Gav found some clips and put the cut-out section of door back in place. He seemed to think it was as good as before we cut it, but I'm not so sure about that. He also found a floor plan for two levels of the mansion, one being the one we were on and the other seemed to be the floor below.
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