A follow up to his novel Blackstone Fortress, Darius Hinks’ audio drama The Beast Inside sees dashing, debonair Janus Draik return to the Blackstone to seek out the dreaded Ambull. Fearing that rival Rogue Trader Ava Victrix means to try and capture the beast and return it to Precipice – where it might run riot and cause untold chaos – Draik is determined to find it first and kill it. Accompanied by the kroot Dahyak Grekh and a group of retainers he sets off in search of the Ambull, but finds the fortress crawling with Chaos cultists and strange, lethal insect-like creatures.
It’s a simple premise, but the Blackstone Fortress is a dangerous place which provides plenty of opportunities for Draik to get into trouble, and he soon finds progress to be more complicated than he’d hoped. To begin with the story is told via Draik’s narration as he dictates his data logs, full of confidence at first before he finds himself injured and separated from the rest of the group with only Grekh for company. As they progress deeper into the fortress and encounter both allies and enemies, the narration gradually drops off leaving the voice actors, music and sound design to ably keep the momentum going and ensure the listener is engaged and aware of what’s happening.
Sean Connolly’s performance as Draik – all gentlemanly arrogance and stiff upper lip – is spot on, with just the right balance of camp and grit to portray his obsession with decency and the honour of House Draik. It’s a lot of fun to listen to him bickering with Grekh – voiced with disgustingly alien relish by Tom Alexander – and Fiona Skinner’s sharp, antagonistic Victrix, who he views with considerable distaste, as much for her perceived low status as the fact that she abandoned him and left him for dead during a previous mission. While the focus is on their attempts to find the Ambull, there’s more going on which lends the story a satisfying weight and a few nice twists and turns as they stumble across more of the fortress’ secrets.
For anyone familiar with Darius’ Blackstone Fortress novel this offers an enjoyable continuation of Draik’s and Grekh’s arcs, but there’s more than enough in the script and performances to give a clear sense of their characters to someone who hasn’t read the novel. While there’s not much context regarding Precipice and how people reach the fortress, this should otherwise work very well as an introduction to the setting, with the audio format imbuing locations and creatures with a vivid sense of life and danger. It’s a tremendously entertaining story in its own right, and a great way of spending 70 minutes for anyone interested in the Blackstone Fortress or the dangers of life for a Rogue Trader out on the far fringes of 40k.
Click here to check out my RAPID FIRE interview with Darius about this audio drama.