Several waves of soldiers went into the<em>Valence Pyre</em>, but the majority of them returned with nothing to report, while one in six patrols simply vanished without a trace.  Lacking any sort of knowledge of the daemons that infested the ship, fighting them was useless.  Fortunately, the devils themselves had their own response...<br/><br/>A few hours after operations on the ship concluded, a message appeared written in blood all over the port bow of the ship.<br/><br/><strong>"KING VALENCE THANKS YOU FOR YOUR SACRIFICES.  YOUR GIFTS OF BLOOD STRENGTHEN THE SERVANTS OF RAGNAROK.  BRING YOUR FIVE GREATEST CHAMPIONS TO THE BRIDGE AND POWER DOWN ALL SYSTEMS.  KING VALENCE GRANTS YOU AUDIENCE.  N`GYUK RIIII TDALyATH"</strong>The message said, while the prow of the ship got a set of fangs painted on in blood, right over the torpedo tube.<br/><br/>On reflection, painting such a method clearly took far more blood than had been in the bodies of every vanished patrol combined.<br/>