Keep in mind, Kaarl's point of view is highly colored by his personal prejudices and attitudes!
Disrespect, that's why I was there. The locals had no respect for a uniform. A soldier gets a liberty and he wants to have a good time! He doesn’t want any trouble, but then there was that disrespect, and somebody had to teach them didn’t they! So I taught them some respect, and next time they see the uniform of 93rd ‘Cutas they’ll be right and proper respectful.
Course I got hands like spatchcocks* and I must have taught some of them a little too hard. I don’t recall exactly. It had been a long night lifting the glass and my memory is a bit soft around the edges. All I know is at some point everything went dark, and when I woke, I found myself in a cold cell underneath the Governors palace with nothin’ but a bucket and the too tight explosive collar of the penal legion locked around my neck. You might think that was the worst; but no, the worst was, having little Ish’* standing outside my cell in his dress blues, looking in at me with his unnatural eyes* and moaning about having to spend the rest of his liberty guardin’ me when he could have been off makin’ the rounds with the local poxie brontie. Not a good recipe for a hangover cure I can tell you.
That and the screamin’, the screamin’ was no help either. A woman-girl she’d been screamin’ when I first woke up and she hadn’t stopped since. Emperor knows how long she’d been screamin’ before I woke but she coulda screamed on forever in that dungeon and nobody would have ever heard her. Except on that night me and Ish’ heard of course. That pitiful caterwaulin’ echoin’ down those dungeon corridors would have been enough to make any man edgy, and little Ish’ was no exception, so he just had to go investigate didn’t he? And when Ish’ got back from his investigations he was pale white and shakin’ with sick all down the front of his blues. He was so shook up he actually let me outta my cell! Said he needed the back up, and we should go up and get my gear and weapons. All strictly against regulations of course, I could have quoted Ish’ chapter and verse but who was I to argue? Besides, that was his never mind and I wanted to get away from that soul chillin’ caterwaulin’, that and the already cold cell had dropped from cold to freezin’ in the time it took Ish’ to find the keys and set me free.
Up top in the palace courtyard a bunch of unlikely sorts had assembled, strange lookin’ bunch. Only one that looked like he was worth anything was an Arbite, he had the badge and the uniform anyway, that’s worth somethin’. By the time me and Ish’ had my gear sorted out that buncha misfits had decided that they needed to go down into the dungeon to investigate the “waves of psychic emanations”. All I wanted to do was to hot foot it back to the 93rd, but something about what Ish’ had seen or felt had got him fired and he was all for going back down with the rest of them. Well, the 93rd sticks with its own so I got myself ready and we all headed back down into the Governors dungeon. It didn’t take long for us to figure out where to go. The screamin' and the bone chilling cold led us to the right door, a big old iron door covered with frost, the kind of door that says “Don’t open me if you know what’s good for you!” We’ll we didn’t, so after some fussing with the keys the Arbite got the door unlocked and he pushed it open a crack.
That’s when everybody hit the floor pukin’ their guts out onto the pavers. An invisible wave of sick rolled out through that little crack like a Lehman Russ and knocked everybody flat, everybody but the 93rd that is. We hit that door like the Emperors Elite ready for the anything!
Except for what we found. The Planetary Governor, book in hand, screaming in some evil soundin’ language I never hope to hear again, lashin’ some chained woman-girl with an electro-whip, and blood, lots of it, old, dried, clotted, fresh runnin’, blood, blood, blood.
There I was, Kaarl, mixed up in the business of my betters. A Planetary Governor in the sights of my Las Gun and me itchin’ to pull the trigger. Wantin’ to stop that electro-whip from comin’ down one more time and raisin’ still one more scream! But that’s not for a plain soldier like me to do, that’s for the and great and mighty, officers work. Not for Guardsman Kaarl. So instead I gave him a warnin’ shout over the din of his evil chantin’ in my best parade ground roar, but that whip hand kept comin’ down machine-like regular and the chantin’ growl never even slowed. So it’s “For the Emperor” and charge! And with little Ish’ one step behind, I made a grab for the electro-whip. But you know, between the slippin’ and slidin’ on the blood and the whip crackin’ dangerous close to the explosive collar clamped around my neck I never actually laid a hand on the Governor! The other lot had finished with their sick spell though so they piled in on him too and quick as you please he was trussed up snug like a pig at a banquet. Me, Ish’ and the Arbite marched the Governor down to the very cell where I started the night and locked him up tight to wait for those that might have an interest in him.
Then things got bad. When we got back to the bloody room, the rest had already released the woman-girl from her chains, and time got strange and slow, and the woman-girl was a demon queen, and there was that kiss.
And a flash of light.
Lilitha
But I won’t talk about that. Won’t even think about that! And by the time I did start thinkin’ proper again I found we weren’t in the dungeon any longer, oh no. We were in the open, under the stars, and the Dungeon, and the Governor, and the Palace, and all the Governors men were burned up and gone. Only thing that was left was me, Ish’ and the misfits, standin’ in a crater on a spire of rock with no way down.
That’s where the Inquisition found us. They took us, questioned us, trained us, and now I’ll be taking my orders from Inquisitor Dhakken. I’m an Inquisitors man now.
You got to respect that.
*Kaarl rolled the quirk “Hands like Spatchcocks” I thought it might mean that he has large hands, hence its use here; however, the only definition I can find for Spatchcock is “Young Chicken” so I’m not sure what having hands like spatchcocks would be like. I’ve left it in because I think its hilarious.
*Ish’ or Little Ish’ is Kaarls nickname for K.C.’s character Ishmael Havelock.
*Ismael Havelock rolled the quirk “Eyes like a Cats”.