Hi all,

As a few of you may have seen on the Rogue Trader boards I have decided that my groups Ascension campaign should be a suitably epic affair - organising and aiding a mini-crusade to secure the resources of the Koronus Expanse to support the Crusade in the Reach. I am going to try and keep a running log of this campaign, with NPC stats and other details being dropped in as we go. To prevent spoiler problems for my players this will be a simple log of what happens in our sessions, please feel free to comment - but I won't be revealing too much to avoid spoilers.

Regards

Surak

Important things you need to know about the cell from the last campaign;

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/93182-using-the-calixian-radicals/#entry904078

This particular thread will help with a little bit of background on how the cell came to work for a declared heretic.

The cell’s previous mission had them trying to kidnap a Tau Ethereal for study by Osrinn and his Xeno Hybris allies. They were given two known locations of Ethereals; one still in Tau held space and one under the protection of a Deathwatch Watch Station deep in the Reach. The one being held by the Deathwatch had been captured by puritanical elements of the Ordo Xenos and as such was not available to Osrinn and his allies. Initially the cell planned on trying to capture the Ethereal that was still at large with the Tau by trying to weaken Tau moral on the world of Veran to such a point that Tau senior commanders (and hopefully the Ethereal) would have to show up to prevent the imperium taking the world. This plan worked up to a point, with the cell conducting numerous terror raids on the Tau, and taking a fair few “specimens” for the cells slightly heretical techpriest to play with. Over the course of several months the cells actions slowly increased the Tau response levels, but with no real sign of decreased moral, whilst the Techpriest and one of the groups psykers managed to learn Tau from a very unwilling teacher. Using his knowledge of the Tau language and all of the technology he had observed the Techpriest decided that the best way of causing the maximum disruption to the Tau forces was to attack there communication infrastructure.

The Techpriest then proceeded to craft a computer virus tailored to shutdown Tau systems that it came into contact with, but only after it had used whatever communication links it could find to spread itself. To add the icing to this cake the Techpriest then decided to add some chaos-tainted scrap-code to the virus for good measure. The resulting chaos that this virus caused basically shut down Tau operations on planet, and allowed the team to hijack a Manta. The teams xeno-friendly psyker also chose this point to pretend to defect to the Tau as a backup plan for securing an Ethereal. As soon as the Tau forces became disrupted the team detected an Imperial beacon broadcasting from the surface, one with an Inquisitorial encryption. Realising that they had over-done the disruption of the Tau forces and that there was a good chance that other Imperial forces might have discovered the Tainted virus the team decided to flee the system.

Whilst they were making the weeklong trip to the transition point for their warp jump they detected an incoming imperial battle group, led by a Deathwatch battlebarge. With a couple of days until the Deathwatch intercepted them the cell came up with a simple subterfuge to claim that they has found, captured, and killed the rogue Tech-Priest that had unleashed the scrapcode virus. Fortunately for the cell they pulled off the deception and were allowed to leave system, having arranged to travel to the Deathwatch Watch Fortress that was holding the Ethereal.

Around the time that the rest of the team reached the Watch Fortress the cell’s psyker reached a Tau enclave and presented himself to the local commander, claiming to have important information on where an Ethereal was being held by the Imperium. He gave up the location of the Deathwatch fortress holding the Ethereal, with the plan being that the confusion of a Tau assault would allow the cell time to steal the Ethereal out from under the Inquisitions nose. On arrival at the Watch Fortress the cell was greeted by the Watch Captain, who told them they needed to talk with the senior Inquisitor aboard, one Inquisitor Deschain. On meeting the good Inquisitor the cell realised that whatever he had once been he was now absolutely barking mad. Using the Tau prisoners and technology they had captured on Veran the team successfully bargained Deschain for custody of the Ethereal and left the station as fast as politeness allowed. Meanwhile the Tau took the bait laid by the psyker, which he took as a good point to part company with them, using Osrinn’s contacts within the Eldar Corsairs to have himself removed from the Tau Enclave and unceremoniously deposited in the company of his cell-mates. The mission ended with the Cell successfully returning the Ethereal to their masters contacts in the Reach and being given a 5 year leave of absence.

Nice. Did you take multiple sessions to get through all this story? And if so, did you run two parallel sessions for the players that visited the watch station and the player that confronted the Tau?

Astelan,

This is a summery of about 8 sessions worth of gameplay leading up to the group hitting ascension.

As for the similtainous Tau and Watchstation events, we handled it in the same session as the situation came up half way through a session and I just sort of had to roll with it.

Summery of the first Ascension session to follow very soon.

Regards

Surak

The Cell

Here is the cast of our little adventure, with some very basic details of where they have come from. I may get the players to do a mini biography if I do a campaign book for this adventure.

Artemis - Vindicare Assassin – shrine born assassin

Ruby Rod - Primus Psyker – Shrine Born imperial psyker

Solar - Magos – Rybothian Tech=priest

Stern - Judge – Hive-born Arbite

Horatio Arturo Manfred von Hetherington Smythe - Rogue Trader – Famulous Protégé Scum

Sarvus Archmilitant – Mind-cleansed Arbite

As you can see we’ve got a fairly mixed group (with 2 more players joining once they have actually managed to turn up for a session). I am running a few house rules with regards to the game so I should probably mention those.

Players could ascend into certain Rogue Trader careers just as if they were taking a normal Ascension Career (if anyone want the chart I used let me know)

Any damage roll can generate righteous fury

We are using Only-War rules for combat and most talents – especially unnatural talents

To spice up the wounds system I have dug out my deck of wound cards from Warhammer 3 ^rd to use as temporary critical effects, with the standard DH crit tables being worked down once someone hits 0 wounds.

Minion level NPCs are generally killed if a critical hit does enough damage to beat their defence.

Criticals now happen on the following dice rolls 01,11,22,33,44,55,66,77,88,100

01-05 is always a success

96-100 is always a failure

More details as I type them up.

Regards

Surak

Ascension Session 1 Part 1

The cell returned to Inquisitor Marr’s residence on Solomon as per their instructions five years previously, and after an initial catching up they were straight down to business with the Inquisitor. Marr passed on the good wishes of the cell’s actual mentor, Inquisitor Osrinn, and informed them that the Inquisition had an important task for them;

“An Imperial reconnaissance mission operating in the outer areas of the Jericho Reach has located an old Inquisitorial Sector-Fortress on the world of Sovereign. Considering the importance of such a structure an Inquisitorial task-force was dispatched, supported by a small Imperial Guard force. Very little is known of what happened on Sovereign as only a handful of the combine force survived, the important thing is they managed to bring out some of the fortresses records with them. There was little of value in them to a casual observer; however there was something that caught Osrinn’s eye – mention of an ancient piece of technology of unknown providence called the Pharos. This device, should it survive intact, will be of great benefit to the imperium and as such you are being sent into the Reach once more to recover it, and anything else you can from the Fortress. Be aware, as close as Sovereign is to worlds infested with Tyranids and the forces of the Great Enemy I cannot rule out the presence of either at the recovery site, proceed with caution.”

The cell was given a few days to prepare any supplies that they might need before they were expected to depart to Sovereign. Passage through the Calixis sector, Maw, and Jericho Reach went smoothly and within four months the Rogue Traders ship was on the edge of the Sovereign System. Using the ship’s Astropathic choir chambers to help focus his mind Ruby conducted a psychic scan of the planet, whilst the rest of the cell prepared for the teleport to the surface. On scanning the planet Ruby found a grid of 129,600, four meter cubed null areas spread perfectly across the planet’s surface. As these objects were not mentioned in the original recon report, or the planet’s pre-warpstorm records, the cell decided to investigate one close to the Inquisitorial Fortress. Once the ship had closed with the planet Ruby conducted one last psi scan of the planet. This time he managed to detect a faint trace of previous warp activity at a localised site deep below the Fortress.

As the cell arrived on the surface they realised that they had arrived in the middle of a thunderstorm so rushed to the meagre shelter afforded by the unknown structure that Ruby was unable to sense psychically. On closer examination by Magos Solar the structure appeared to be made of an unknown material four meters by four meters that extended half a kilometre into the planet’s surface. The entire structure was honeycombed with tubes of differing sizes that proved resistant to the magos’ auspex and probes. The structure proved unresponsive until Ruby touched its surface and promptly passed out. After waking Ruby the cell advanced on the Inquisitorial Fortress, and after a slight false steer from the ship in orbit they entered a small shanty settlement that had grown up in the shelter of the Fortress walls. Whilst trying to sneak through the settlement the Judge and the Arch-militant managed to accidentally demolish a tin shed by falling into it, rousing a native that was on sentry at the entrance to the Fortress, where it appeared the rest of the settlement’s population had taken shelter during the storm. To try and distract the sentry magos Solar used his innate abilities to send the lantern flying out of the natives hand, unfortunately he missed his aim slightly and rather than sending the lantern off into the storm he smashed it into the wall next to the gateway – spreading burning oil up the wall. Artemis, Ruby, and Solar managed to get the rest of the cell over the wall whilst the natives were busy investigating the fire at the gate.

Once inside the Fortress walls they noticed signs of serious weapons damage, most of it from incredibly powerful energy weapons. Despite the best efforts of the cell they couldn’t identify the cause of the damage. Within the walls of the fortress there were six small towers as well as the three main keeps. Each of the Keeps was dedicated to one of the Ordos Major – Xenos, Hereticus, Malleus. The six towers were dedicated to lesser branches of the Inquisition and adeptus – Administratum, Astra Telepathica, Munitorium, Deathwatch, Sororitus, and one that could not be identified due to battle damage. Stern and Servus decided to search the ruined tower whilst the rest of the cell followed the pre-warpstorm map of the facility to find the primary vaults deep below the surface.

Ascension Session 1 Part 2

Whilst searching the ruined tower Stern managed to locate an intact data-core and Sarvus managed to locate an Inquisitorial watch-list. As they descended from the tower to catch up with the rest of the cell Stern encountered some sort of metallic creature that resembled a palm-sized spider. Assuming it was some sort of maintenance servitor he brushed it away and continued on into the sub-levels.

Magos Solar descended directly to the lowest level of the sublevels to try and restart the fortress’s power core. As he began exploring the level he found that the power systems weren’t just shut down, but has been completely removed. As he investigated further he began noticing the same metallic spiders that Stern was encountering on his decent, and knowing that they were not servants of the machine-god he extracted to the vaults.

Meanwhile the rest of the cell had located the central vaults. The vaults were arranged around three sides of a central atrium, with two on each side and one at the end of the vault. The forth side of the atrium opens onto the main access corridor from the surface lifts to the vaults. The five vaults (from left to right looking from the entrance of the atrium) are; Ordo Xenos, Ordo Hereticus, Ordo Malleus, Ordo Chronos, and Reliquary 26. The cell began with the Reliquary 26 vault and unsealed it with their inquisitorial clearance. They were confronted with a Cataphractii Skitarii who was in the process of awakening from stasis. After a few moments of tension, until the timely arrival of Magos Solar, the Skitarri recognised there Inquisitorial ID and allowed them access to the Reliquary. Each of the Vaults was similarly defended by a guardian, kept in stasis inside the vault of their Ordo. The Ordo Chronos vault contained a Deathcult assassin, the Malleus Vault and Grey-Knight Justicar, the Sororitas Vault a Sister Palantine, and the Xenos Vault a Deathwatch Captain from the Spacewolf Chapter. The Grey knight explained to the cell that each of the guardians had volunteered to be sealed in the stasis vaults when the Inquisition abandoned the facility as there wasn’t the ability to extract all of the artefacts safely. Horatio volunteered his ship to transport the contents of the facility to safety, and after initial resistance, the guardians agreed once they realised that the fortress was hopelessly cut-off behind enemy lines. At this point Ruby finished his search of the Reliquary 26 vault and found the Pharos – sealed in its own three meter by one meter stasis box. The Grey Knight agreed to stand guard at the entrance to the atrium along with Stern and Sarvus whilst Brother Fenris of the deathwatch agreed to escort Solar and Horatio to the surface to arrange extraction.

Ruby and Artemis finished a sweep of the vaults to make sure that nothing had breached them during the centuries that had passed, and to begin prioritising the extraction of their contents. Whilst this preparation was going on Stern noticed some movement in one of the access corridors opposite the atrium. He and Sarvus spotted a humanoid shape, and after shouting a challenge that went unanswered, decided that it was a hostile. Immediately the Grey Knight opened fire with his storm bolter and whatever it was was blown to pieces. Stren advanced to confirm the kill and identify the intruder, but on reaching its location there was no sign of it. Back in the Ordo Xenos vault Ruby had found a set of blast doors at the very rear of the chamber. Again his inquisitorial ID was enough to un-seal the door, which was then levered open from the inside by a very large metal claw. Before Ruby had a chance to react the deathwatch dreadnought opened the doors enough to exit its stasis chamber and demanded to know;

“Where is the young pup that was meant to be guarding my doors?”

Before stepping over the surprised psyker and heading out into the atrium to see what all the bolter noise was about. The in the Ordo Hereticus Vault Artemis revealed to the sister of battle that she was from a shrine world and asked what she could do to help. The sister formally introduced herself as Palatine Flavia Brulla of the Order Pronatus and asked Artemis to summon Magos Solar to help awaken the four penitent engines held within the Hereticus Vault.

On the surface Magos Solar arrived before Horatio and Fenris and was confronted with the local tribe that the group had avoided earlier. Realising that the tribe spoke a primitive form of gothic Solar was able to communicate with them, and upon discovering that they didn’t worship any god decided to demonstrate the power of the Omnissiah by magnetically pulling all of their weapons out of their hands. With this powerful display of his god power the tribe proclaimed Solar as the Prophet of the Machine-God and rushed to pray at his feet. Whilst this was happening Solar was busy using his internal Vox to arrange for the two drop ships under his command to land his detachment of Skitarii to secure a landing site and bring down a generator from the ship to provide power for the lifts. Once Horatio and Fenris reached the surface Solar returned to the vaults to assist Flavia and Artimus, whilst Horatio began coordinating a full deployment of all of his dropships and landers, along with as much heavy lift equipment as possible.

Below ground the dreadnought (which no-one had been brave enough to ask the name of yet) joined the defensive line at the atrium entrance. Not long after a single shot rang out from the right hand side of the main access-way neatly threading past the dreadnought and decapitating the grey knight. The dreadnought, Stern, and Sarvus immediately opened fire down the corridor, but there was no sign of the attacker.

Session 2 Part 1

As the smoke cleared from the barrage that had been sent down the corridor it became apparent that there was, again, no sign of the attacker.

Realising that his talents could be put to better use connected to Astropathic chamber aboard ship, Ruby activated his teleport beacon and disappeared from the atrium, unfortunately he didn’t appear where he expected to. Artemis left the Sister and Solar to tend to the awakening of the Penitent Engines and headed into the atrium to see what all the shooting was about. After seeing that there was no immediate danger Artemis decided to check on the status of the evacuation being organised by Horatio. It was at this point she realised that not only had no-one seen the death-cultist from the Ordo Chronos vault for about 20 minutes, there was no sign of her in the vault any more. It was at this point that the ship reported to Horatio that Ruby hadn’t arrived and that they couldn’t locate his teleport homer any more, information he chose not to share with the rest of the team so as not to distract them. The missing death cultist prompted a more thorough search of the Ordo Chronos vault by Artemis, which lead to the discovery that the vault was actually completely empty. Fearing betrayal Artemis checked in with the Skitarii Cataphractii that they had left guarding the Pharos, and much to her relief she found the Skitarii alert and the Pharos secure. She took the opportunity to remove the Death-Cultist from the Skitarii’s list of friendlies just in case. Artemis then tried to raise Ruby of her personal vox, not realising that her husband wasn’t safely aboard ship where he should have been. This prompted Horation to admit that Ruby had gone missing during the teleport, and Artemis decided that there could be a connection between the missing death-cultist and her missing husband so she began a more thorough search of the Ordo Chronos Vault.

On the surface the mechanicum team that Magos Solar had assigned to restoring power to the lifts managed to get the first lift-shaft operational, allowing Horatio to begin coordinating the evacuation effort. Brother Fenris decided to travel with the first lift to secure the base of the lift-shaft on the vault level. On hearing that the evacuation could begin in earnest Stern and Sarvus began patrolling the four hundred meter long corridor between the atrium and the lift-shaft, leaving the dreadnought to secure the atrium itself. Once they had established that there was no immediate threat between the vault and the surface Horatio lead a team of cargo handlers down to the vault to extract the Pharos. On arriving in the vault there was a tense moment when the Skitarii reacted badly to the cargo handlers as they were not on its friendly list. This was cleared up quickly by Horatio and the Skitarri, who announced his designation as Flux88, lifted the Pharos and began carrying it towards the lift.

Whilst this was going on Artemis was searching the Ordo Chronos vault, and came to the sudden realisation that whilst she had searched the room several times over she couldn’t actually remember what was on the back wall. Attempting to look at the wall caused her gaze to simply drift from one side of the vault to the other without actually taking in what was on the wall. Summoning all of her willpower Artemis forces herself to look at the wall, and after a brief moment of pain she managed to see what was truly in the back of the Ordo Chronos vault. Revealed to her was a wall covered in faintly glowing imperial runes, with a single rune-covered door in its centre. Passing through the door Artemis came out into a small chamber that still had power, and contained what appeared to be a heavily modified teleportarium. Using rites that Magos Solar had taught her, Artemis managed to awaken the machine spirits in the diagnostic panel, revealing that the teleportarium was charging, and had been used just after Ruby disappeared.

Roughly half way between the vaults and the lift Flux88 stopped in his tracks, announced that he had located an unknown contact on his auspex, and promptly turned to the left and fired his Conversion Beamer through the wall. After a single shot Flux88 continued on, satisfied that he couldn’t see the target on auspex anymore. Brother Fenris decided that a visual identification of the target would be handy and stuck his head in the hole in the wall, only to have something shoot him in the face.

Luckly the Space Wolf’s skull proved more solid than the Grey Knights, but the blow was enough to knock him from his feet for a few seconds, leaving a bloody groove across the top of his head. Deciding that whatever the target was it was clearly hostile Fenris emptied a clip from his bolt pistol into the hole, followed moments later by Stern lobbing a frag grenade in for good measure. With the immediate danger over Flux88, Horatio, and the rest of escort returned to the surface, whilst Fenris resumed his post at the base of the stairwell and Stern and Sarvus returned to the vault to resume their patrol. On his way past the hole the Flux88 had made to engage the enemy Stern stopped to use a Web grenade to form a temporary seal over the hole. Sarvus continued on to the vault, and as he approached he realised that something was attacking the dreadnought they had left to guard the atrium. Whatever it was, the creature resembling a skeletal torso floating in mid-air above a long whip-like spine, it was clearly trying to damage the dreadnought but the dreadnought couldn’t respond as the xenos was out of his weapons arc’s. Sarvus shouldered his Sunrifle and bathed the xenos in las-fire. Some of the shots passed through the xenos with no apparent effect, but enough hit home to cause the xeno to explode into hundreds of pieces. Having heard the firing Stern came running to support Sarvus, and as he arrived another of the skeletal constructs appeared in mid-air behind the Arch-militant. Stern loosed an executioner round from his shotgun, scoring a solid hit on the xenoform. The noise of the hit was enough to alert Sarvus to the danger, as well as the dreadnought. At the dreadnought’s instruction Sarvus hit the deck and the hail of heavy bolter rounds from the warmachine rendered the xenos to dust. At this point the dreadnought thanked Sarvus for his assistance and formally introduced himself as Brother Kurro of the Storm Wardens chapter, and explained that he was currently serving with the deathwatch.

Artemis continued her examination of the modified teleportarium, attempting to determine if it had anything to do with Ruby’s disappearance. Meanwhile the evacuation of the vaults continued under the supervision of the rest of the cell.

Whilst all of this had been going on Ruby was wondering where he was, as it clearly wasn’t on the ship where he had been expecting to be. He had arrived in a small, dark, chamber in front of a large circular arch. In front of him was an opening into a vast space, a vast space lit with a strange source-less green glow that provided just enough light for his augmetic eyes to function. As he stepped forward to examine the arch he was suddenly aware of movement behind him, but not in time to avoid a collar being clamped round his neck. As soon as the collar hit home he realised that it was a psychic limiter, and turned to face his assailant. His assailant turned out to be the death-cultist from the Ordo Chronos vault, although this time she was openly wearing an inquisitorial rosette and holding up a data-slate with a message on it for him to read. It read;

“This isn’t a safe place to be a psyker, keep quiet and we may live through this.”

Ruby nodded to show he understood and she beckoned him to follow her through the opening into the massive green-lit chamber. As they walked Ruby pulled out his data-slate and asked the woman who she was. She replied that she was Lady Wrathbone of the Ordo Chronos and that she was trying to return them to the rest of his cell. The two of them walked for what felt like hours until suddenly the Inquisitor stopped. She removed her own limiter, and gestured for Ruby to remove his, and then she began to draw strange symbols in the air in front of them. Ruby managed to identify symbols the runes of imperial origin, but incredibly old and obscure ones. What was more impressive was the fact that the runes where actually being drawn onto the surface of the warp, and the Ruby could see them staying where they had been drawn. Once the Inquisitor finished the pattern of rune she drew her greatsword from its sheath and plunged its glowing blade into the middle of the runes. Much to Ruby’s surprise the tip of the sword actually disappeared once it hit the middle of the runes, much as if it was piercing a wall. At this point the Inquisitor turned to Ruby and told him to grab the hilt of the sword with her and pour as much of his psychic power as he dared into the blade.

At this point Artemis was interrupted in her studies by the tip of a glowing sword appearing out of thin air in the middle of the teleportarium.

Ruby grabbed the hilt of the blade and focused his will through it, sensing the inquisitor doing the same. As the power poured in the massive draw on the immiterium attracted the presence of a daemon, and only through the combined power of both psykers did they manage to prevent it possessing one of them.

In the hidden teleportarium Artemis had to turn away from the glowing blade as it flared so brightly that it overloaded her spy-mask’s filters for a split second, when she turned back instead of a glowing sword-tip Ruby and the Inquisitor where standing in the centre of the teleportarium. Immediately the Inquisitor showed Artemis her Rosette to prevent any misunderstandings, and explained that they only had a limited time to complete the evacuation.

^{On the surface the mechanicum teams had managed to get another three lift-shafts up and running, meaning that they only needed another twenty minutes to finish the evacuation. At this point the ships security reported a stranger approaching the perimeter bearing an Inquisitorial seal and leading a tribe of locals. Horatio headed over to meet the newcomer personally and discovered that he was the sole survivor of the pervious Inquisitorial expedition, who he had been serving in the role of translator. He presented his credentials as Tylo Stammler and it turned out his Inquisitor is known to the cell, Lady Arabella Van Reede. Inquisitor Van Reede had been the cell’s local contact during their previous mission in the expanse and was known to be an ally of Inquisitor Marr.}

^{Down in the vaults Inquisitor Wrathbone informed the gathered cell members and guardians and informed them that she could buy them the time they needed to successfully evacuate, but only with Ruby’s help. Artemis asked Horatio to send reinforcements from the surface to further secure the vault whilst the Inquisitor and Ruby headed for the surface. The reinforcements were led by Fenris and Flux88, which almost caused a serious incident Artemis hadn’t had time to restore the Inquisitor to the Skitarii’s friendly list. Fortunately, as the Inquisitor hadn’t been classified as an enemy, the Skitarii held fire long enough for Artemis to make the correction.}

^{As Wrathbone led Ruby to the surface, Stern, Sarvus, and Artemis took positions alongside Brother Kurro to defend the teams moving the relics to the surface. Kurro was attacked by a much larger version of the metal spiders that had been harassing the team upto this point. Again Sarvus’s sunrifle flared into life and soon the xeno’s was rendered to scrap. Meanwhile Stern was attacked by one of the smaller metal spiders, which he simply kicked down a side corridor. Seconds later a boiling mass of metal came pouring out of the side corridor, separating the vault from the lifts. At this point Sister Brulla exited the Ordo Hereticus vault, using her power-armours built in hymn-caster to drown out all Imperial frequencies with Hymns of praise to the God-Emperor as she led her four Penitent Engines in a full charge into the metal tide threatening to overwhelm Stern and Sarvus.}

^{On the surface Horatio made certain that his ships weapons had targeting coordinates in case they needed serious fire support during the final exacuation, whilst Wrathbone lead Ruby into the centre of the facility – a courtyard between the three central towers. Wrathbone went to the centre of the courtyard and slotted her sword into the centre of a mosaic of the Inquisitorial I symbol on the floor. A swift twist of the blade later and a secret staircase opened next to the Inquisitor and she led Ruby to the Vault below. As Ruby entered the secret chamber he saw the massive chamber in its centre, protected by runes of warding and a void shield. At this point Wrathbone revealed she knew what the xenos were after, a damaged leader of the metal xenos’ race that was held in the chamber before them. Wrathbone’s plan was simple, enter the chamber and kill the xeno in the hope that its death would confuse the attacking xenos enough for them to complete the mission. With the plan decided the Inquisitor unsealed the chamber and moved in with Ruby. As they entered the chamber they were confronted by the form of the xenos leader, a nine foot tall skeletal man made of the same silver metal as the creatures that had been attacking the team. Ruby opened with a barrage of force-bolts which did little to the xenos, whilst Inquisitor Wrathbone charged. Before the Inquisitor could reach the xenos it raised a staff which seemed to have grown out of its arm and pointed it at her. Green lightening arced between the tip of the staff and the Inquisitor and she disappeared in a flash of green light. Seeing that he was now on his own Ruby decided that desperate times called for desperate measures, and uttering sorcerous words he summoned a gateway in the floor under the xenos that opened directly into the heart of the local star. Moments later a rather singed Ruby immerged from the chamber only to be met in the courtyard by Atremis and Inquisitor Wrathbone, who had survived thanks to her displacer field. Wrathbone issued a dire warning that things were about to get worse, when Horatio’s ship voxed down from orbit that an unidentified xenos ship was exiting the local star.}

As a recap this leaves our cast of Player characters as:

Artemis - Vindicare Assassin – shrine born assassin

Ruby Rod - Primus Psyker – Shrine Born imperial psyker

Solar - Magos – Rybothian Tech=priest

Stern - Judge – Hive-born Arbite

Horatio Arturo Manfred von Hetherington Smythe - Rogue Trader – Famulous Protégé Scum

Sarvus Archmilitant – Mind-cleansed Arbite

and new addition

Tylo Stammler - Desperado - Famulous Protégé Scum

Realising that their ship couldn’t out run the xenos ship, and being told by the Inquisitor that the xenos were after the Pharos, they returned the artifact to the vault and sealed the blast shutter over the atrium. They also lifted all the personnel left on the surface other than the Solar and his servitors, Artemis, Stern, Brother Fenris, Sister Brulla and her penitent engines, and Flux88 who had again taken possession of the Pharos. Solar then re-activated the stasis systems on the reliquary 26 vault to see if the xenos lost the ability to track the Pharos, which they did seem to. The plan was simple, wait with the Pharos in stasis for Solar to work out how to recreate one of the vaults aboard ship, and hope that in the meantime the xenos had returned to the dormant state that they had been in when the team first arrived.

Ruby, Tylo, Sarvus, and Horatio returned to the ship and shut most of the systems down whilst hiding behind one of the planets moons. The xenos raider ignored them and landed on the far side of the planet. Boosting his powers through the astropathic choir chamber, Ruby Dominated one of the local tribe-members to scout, his borrowed body didn’t last long as it was brutally killed by a Necron. Deciding that the xenos ship was unlikely to bother them whilst it was on the other side of the planet Horatio moved the ship slowly back into orbit over the inquisitorial fortress.

Meanwhile, deep in the vaults, Solar and his small army of technical servitors began dismantling the vaults, other than reliquary 26, to begin stripping out there stasis systems so that he could build an identical facility aboard ship that should prevent the xenos from tracking the Pharos. With Artemis and Stern safe in the Reliquary vault with Flux88 and the Pharos, and the rest of the team aboard the ship in orbit Solar proceeded to not only strip out the stasis generators from the empty vaults, but also locate and remove the modified teleportarium that he found in the back of the Ordo Chronos vault. A month later Solar had managed to relocate the modified teleportarium to his personal domain aboard the ship and build a duplicate of one of the vaults in the ships shadow-blind cargo bay. During this time there had been a marked decrease in xenos activity within the inquisitorial fortress, with the roving patrols of servitors and the three remaining penitent engines encountering only small groups of the metallic spiders. Deciding that this was as good a time as any Solar alerted Horatio to have a ship ready to pick them up from the central courtyard and deactivated the stasis field and re-opened the reliquary 26 vault. The group began moving to the surface immediately, with Flux88 again taking responsibility for carrying the Pharos. As they reached the bottom of the lift shaft Ruby and Horatio’s sensor officer both detected something strange at the Inquisitorial Fortress. Ruby detected a momentary disturbance in the warp, whilst the sensors detected some sort of energy spike. Checking in with the Halo Barge that he had sent down to the planet to recover the rest of the team, Horatio was informed that all was well and that they could clearly see all 6 of the outer towers and the three main keep’s as they orbited the facility. Stern quickly picked up that there should only have been 5 towers, as he and Sarvus had originally entered the tunnels below the fortress through the ruins of one tower, and alerted the rest of the party to a potential problem. Whilst the underground team held position at the bottom of the stair well Horatio pressed the crew for a better description of the tower that should have been a ruin. The description he got back was of a featureless, black, square pyramidal structure resting on the base of the ruined round tower. Deciding that this must be connected to the xenos Horatio ordered the Halo barge clear and told the team below ground to find the most solid chamber they could. He promptly used his pre-calculated barrage positions to drop a bombardment cannon round directly on to the xenos structure. As the dust cleared the Halo barge was ordered back in to confirm the results of the strike, whilst below ground the shock of the impact had disabled the few working emergency lights. The Halo Barge reported that the xenos structure now sat, apparently un-hurt, at the bottom of the blast crater, and that there were now 6 more of the structures at the locations of the other towers. Below ground, the team realised that the lifts were now without power, and that there was a strange green glow emanating from the corridor that they had just travelled down from the vaults.

At the base of the lift shaft Artemis moved to check on the green glow. Looking down the sights of her Exitis rifle Artemis noticed movement coming from the other side of the vault atrium. The movement soon resolved itself into a large xenos walker, piloted by a single skeletal xenos warrior. Artemis calmly lined up her shot on the exposed pilot and pulled the trigger. Her shot was true, but through some piece of foul xenos technology the round was stopped a few meters before the seemingly exposed pilot. About this point Inquisitor Wrathbone called the group together to try a desperate gambit. Having learnt that Solar had re-located the modified teleportarium she decided to take advantage of the xeno’s re-routing the ships teleportarium and follow the route she had taken a month earlier with Ruby. The group clustered together as closely as possible and the inquisitor instructed Horatio to attempt to transport them aboard.

With a flash of light and the wrenching feeling of a momentary warp transit the team was suddenly elsewhere. Rather than the teleportarium of there ship the team where in the same dark chambers that Ruby and Inquisitor Wrathbone had managed to escape near the start of the incident. When asked where they were Wrathbone replied;

“We are in the treasure house of this particular Xenos species, there are hundreds, if not thousands of artefacts stored in this place from every species known to Imperial science, and a few we have yet to catalogue. This structure seems to exist outside the boundaries of our own dimension in what one of my colleagues took to calling a pocket dimension. Time flows strangely here, and certain other laws of nature don’t quiet work as they should. If you want to stay alive I suggest you keep the noise to a minimum.”

With that the Inquisitor lead the way out into the larger chamber, with a few of the cell taking the time to note the Ordo Chronos symbol engraved above the entrance arch. The progressed for what seemed like hours, but with the teams chronos malfunctioning it was difficult to keep track. Eventually they came to section of floor that showed signs of previous activity, two pairs of shoe-prints scorched into the floor and some strange symbols seemingly burnt into the air. The Inquisitor moved a little further past this strange sight and stopped. Turning to address Sister Brulla she said

“My good lady what was about to happen may be something you don’t want to witness personally as it involves use of psychic abilities. I have been sanctioned in the presence of the god-emperor himself but I know that your order personally dislikes the open use of these abilities”

and then addressing the rest of the group

“This may take a few moments, and you might need to watch my back as I don’t think they are going to let us leave without a fight”

To which Lady Brulla replied by simply turning her back on the Inquisitor and drew her weapons. Taking their cue from the Sister the rest of the party formed a defensive ring around the Inquisitor, who had begun to psychically burn symbols into the air in front of her.

A few moments later and the team spotted several shapes walking slowly towards them in the gloom of the chamber. The shapes appeared to be humanoid, but wearing strange cloaks. As the shapes closed to about 60m Artemis got the first clear look at them, it was the same skeletal metallic xenos that they had seen in the tunnels below the Inquisitorial fortress, only now their hands ended in multiple blades and they appeared to be wearing cloaks made of different skins and hides. Deciding that these xenos were clearly hostile Artemis promptly shot the one she was looking at, the force of her Exitus round destroying the xeno’s torso. Taking this as a sign that stealth was no longer working the xenos began sprinting towards to group, only to be met by the counter charge of Brother Fenris and his Frost Axe. The ancient Fenrisian blade split the first xenos it met clean in half. Elsewhere in the fight Magos Solar and Flux88 managed to destroy two more of the xenos before they were able to close into combat, whilst the one that charged Stern survived a blast from his shotgun but not a bullet from Artemis’s rifle. Lady Brulla failed to drop the xenos charging her before it was able to close, and the xenos managed to find several weaknesses in her power armour forcing her to her knees. Fortunately for the brave sister the xenos didn’t have long to live as brother Fenris swiftly quartered it with his Frost Axe before it could deal a lethal blow. The final xenos managed to reach Solar, only for the magos to latch onto it with his servo arm and begin draining power out of the xenos. A few moments later and the surviving xeno and the remains of those killed faded away in a green light.

The team had barely enough time to catch their breath and tend to the sisters wounds before four more of the skeletal xenos marched into sight. These were clearly a more disciplined martial class of the xenos race as they fought in a close formation with large shields and short swords held ready. Brother Fenris placed himself between the xenos and the rest of the group as the xenos slowly and methodically advanced. Solar handed the Space Wolf a grenade as he passed, which the marine dually through into the midst of the xenos, where it detonated with a flash and caused lightening to arc across the xeno’s shields. Fenris followed this up with a burst from his bolt pistol, whilst Artemis took a xenos off its feet with a well-aimed head-shot. Solar readied his ancient plasma pistol and proceeded to reduce another of the metal warriors to molten slag. Through all this the rest of the party had been peppering the xeno’s that Fenris had shot with weapons fire for little visible effect, whilst a second well-aimed shot from Artemis reduced the surviving number of xenos to one. In the end that last xenos continued its steady methodical advance until eventually the combine firepower of the entire team brought it down.

As the smoke cleared Inquisitor Wrathbone told them it was time to leave and plunged her sword into the middle of the glowing rune patterned in front of her. With a flash of light from the force blade the team vanished from the gloomy chamber, unfortunately they did not find themselves in the familiar surroundings of Horatio’s ship.

Towering over them were huge machines of obvious xenos origin, with green lightening arcing high above. Inquisitor Wrathbone turned to the group, looking visibly drained.

“We were diverted, I would assume to the xenos ship that we detected earlier. I did not know that the xenos were capable of such a feat. It will be a while before I have the strength to try again so I suggest we work on another plan.”

Following the Inquisitor Wrathbone’s warning that they could be here for a while, Solar, Stern, Artemis, Sister Brulla, Flux88, and Brother Fenris began to search the chamber they had unexpectedly arrived in. Exploring the chamber they quickly realised that it was far too large to be on the xenos ship that had been reported leaving the star. Solar soon identified an exit, which led to a long corridor. To Solar’s left the corridor carried on for a few hundred meters before terminating in what appeared to be a door covered in some form of xenos script. Directly opposite was another doorway into a room identical to the one the team had arrived in, to the right the corridor carried on for several hundred meters before a Y junction split it into two corridors that continued out of sight. Solar decided to head right, and then right again at the Y junction, and the rest of the party followed. After travelling nearly two kilometres the party reached another of the script-covered doors. Solar decided to examine this one to see if he could find a way of opening it, whilst the rest of the team took cover as best they could in the featureless corridor. After a few moments Solar figured out that the door was operated by a simple control panel on the frame and opened the door. The group found themselves looking out into a vast chamber nearly eight stories high. The floor and walls of the chamber were lined with skeletal metallic constructs similar to those that they had encountered previously, and hanging in the air in front of the team were several huge constructs that appeared to be vehicles of some kind, vehicles whose design reminded the group of exposed rib-cages. Seeing that the constructs appeared to be dormant, and that there were far too many for the group to deal with, they retreated back down the corridor and took the other branch of the Y junction. Again this eventually led to a door that opened into a vast chamber filled with metal constructs. The group headed back to the doorway they had originally entered the corridors through and then carried on to the first door that Solar had spotted.

Opening the door Solar led the group up a ramp into another large chamber. This one was very different from the previous chambers they had found, being Octagonal in shape and rising to a large domed ceiling. The centre of the room is dominated by a massive table-like structure surrounded by eight large pillars each standing nearly ten meters tall. There were three exits from the room in addition to the one the team had entered through, one at each compass point. Solar again took the lead and headed straight across the chamber to the exit on the far side. This exit was on the same level as the chamber floor and led to a corridor nearly four hundred meters long that ended in another door. On opening the door the cell found themselves in another corridor with a door directly opposite as well as several meters to the left and right. Solar triggered the door straight ahead and immediately realised they were in trouble.

Whilst this was going on Horatio, and Ruby were trying to figure out what was taking the rest of the cell so long to arrive, and debating on what action they could, or even should, take against the xenos ship currently landed on planet. From his place in the Astropathic choir chamber Ruby observed some form of null field slowly spreading across the planet, seemingly centred on the landed ship. Meanwhile Sarvus was chatting with Tylo, trying to get to know the newest member of the team.

The door that Solar had opened led into some form of control centre, with fifteen skeletal constructs manning control consoles around the room and far more ornate construct standing in the centre with its back to the door. Realising that the rest of the cell would need a few moments to react to the unexpected hostiles Solar rushed forward and tackled the ornate construct that he assumed was some form of control hub for the other constructs in the room. His initial impact did little to the towering construct, and his servo arm proved insufficient to wrench the construct’s head off. Deciding that addition defence might be required Solar activated his Lumin Shield, only to be pushed away from the construct as his Shield met another energy barrier. This collision of energy fields made both of them visible for a few moments, but it was enough for Artemis to remember what had happened with the xenos walker in the tunnels and load her single Shield-breaker round. Her shot hit true and nearly took the constructs head clean off. Stern fired an executioner round from his shotgun, trying to finish the construct off, however it barely seemed to notice the impact as it turned on Solar. Fearing for the lives of his compatriots Fenris rushed forward and swiftly reduced the construct towering over Solar to shreds with his Frost Axe. As the fragments of the construct began to fade Solar grabbed the staff it had been holding and through sheer force of will managed to keep hold of it.

At this point the other constructs in the room began to react to the cell members, readying weapons and advancing on Solar and Fenris. Seeing an opportunity from his position in the corridor Flux88 opened up with his conversion beamer through the wall, and then through four of the constructs, vaporising them instantly. Inquisitor Wrathbone began channelling the warp through her mind, a task made all the more difficult as something was interfering with her connection to the immaterium. Sister Brulla, still recovering from her earlier injuries, managed to drop one of the constructs with two well-aimed bolt pistol rounds. Artemis opened fire again, the round from her Exitis proving more than a match for one of the constructs. Solar drew his plasma pistol and calmly blasted the nearest construct apart with a pair of well-aimed plasma-bolts. The constructs seemed to recognise the threat posed by Flux88’s conversion beamer, and four of them opened fire on the wall the skitarii was hiding behind. Most of the green energy dissipated across the wall or the hulking warriors armour, however a lucky glancing shot severed the main power feed to the conversion beamer rendering it temporarily out of action. Stern blew one of the constructs that had attacked Flux88 apart with two executioner shells from his shotgun as he advanced into the room, but then had to duck swiftly for cover as one of the surviving constructs came within centimetres of taking his head off with an energy beam.

With green energy blasts dispersing off of his armour Fenris charged the group that had injured Flux88. The impact of the battle-brothers frost axe, backed up by a fully-bodied charge, split the first construct in half. Artemis noticed that Fenris was out-numbered, and deftly dispatched another construct with a well-aimed shot past the space marine’s head. Rounding on the last surviving construct that had attacked Flux88, Fenris parried a clumsy swing from the constructs weapon, cutting the end of it clean off. He then proceeded to grab the construct by the neck and head but it until its skull was a shattered ruin.

The rest of the team rounded on the remaining constructs, only to realise that of the four surviving warriors only three of them were still moving, one seemingly having stopped mid-step. Wasting no time the entire cell opened up on the surviving constructs. The three active constructs were taken down in short order, and the immobilised was left till last. The massed fire of Sister Brulla, Solar, Stern, and Artemis was all directed at the lone construct, but strangely all of their rounds seemed to stop in mid-air a meter or so away from the construct. Realising something strange was going on the group turned to Inquisitor Wrathbone for input, which is when they noticed the strain showing on the Inquisitor’s face. Seeing that there was more than enough firepower to finish the job the Inquisitor released the stasis effect that she had cast on the construct, resulting in all of the rounds hitting simultaneously and destroying it outright.

With the threat over Solar approached one of the consoles, and after much deliberation decided he had figured out which control would grant him access to the system. However he had miss-calculated somewhere and instead of being granted access to the system he shut down power to the room and sounded an alarm.

With the siren blaring in there ear the cell sprinted back towards the machine-room where they had first arrived, hoping to hide in the rows of machines and case a little sabotage along the way. As they passed through the octagonal room they saw that the table like structure in the centre was now open, with a faint green glow issuing from within. Whilst most of the group decided to leave well enough along Solar couldn’t resist investigating, and Fenris decided not to leave the Magos undefended. Approaching the table they realised that there was an even larger more ornate construct than they had currently seen was contained within, lying in a pool of green energy. Unable to resist Solar attempted to examine the construct, finding that he couldn’t reach it due to some sort of energy field. He next tried prodding the energy field with the xenos staff he had recovered to see if it was capable of piercing the energy boundary. Unfortunately this seemed to awaken the construct within, and Solar told Fenris that now was a good time to leave. After assuring the space marine that he would be right behind him Solar intentionally lagged behind to see what the construct would do. As soon as the construct raised itself from the pool Magos Solar’s noosphere receptors light up, flooded by streams of data that he could not comprehend. Slowly the xenos code was rendered down into machine-code, and Solar realised that he was being spoken to by the construct from the pool.

“Foolish machine priest of the corpse god, your presence here has sealed the fate of this area of space. You have shown that your parasitic species has spread too far into areas that it should have left alone. I will awaken this world and begin the purge of your kind for the stars that are truly ours.”

At which point the pillars around the central table began to lower into the ground, revealing eight skeletal warriors armed with shields and short swords which moved into a defensive formation in front of the central construct. In desperation Solar flooded the xenos noosphere with the same scrap code he had put to such good use against the Tau, shut down his receptors, and ran. As he ran down the ramp he almost collided with Fenris who was coming back to look for him, and the two raced to find the rest of the group. By the time they had caught up Artemis and Stern had managed to find a weakness in the xenos machinery and pack it with a suitably large amount of explosives. Inquisitor Wrathbone had also begun the preparations for attempting to bring them back to Horatio’s ship. Sending across the warp she managed to contact Ruby and instructed him to place his force weapon in the middle of the teleportarium as he had seen her do previously to give her an anchor point in the warp and prevent the xenos diverting them again. This time a gateway was created between the teleportarium and the xenos chamber, and as Artemis and the Inquisitor stepped through last Artemis triggered the charges that had been set.

Finally back aboard Horatio’s ship the cell quickly headed for the bridge whilst Fenris, Sister Brulla, and Inquisitor Wrathbone all headed for private chambers. Fluxx88 and Solar transported the Pharos to the secure storage area that had been prepared for it and then the magos tended to the skitarii’s injuries properly. On the bridge there rest of the cell were witnessing dramatic changes to the planet below.

Sovereign was slowly being sucked into its own core.

As the horrified and confused inquisitorial cell looked on the entire planet folded in on itself until it simply ceased to exist. Then just as strangely another planet began to unfold itself from the centre of what was once Sovereign. As the planet began to appear in front of them they realised it was a very different world from the storm-wrecked barely habitable world that they had landed on, mainly due to the presence of hundreds of xenos cities spread across the world. Hanging in orbit over this new world is a massive crescent shaped starship, one that appeared to have a rather recent hole in one of its ‘wings’. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour Horatio ordered the ship out of system on maximum silent running and they snuck away. After making a safe transition into the warp all seemed to be going well, until two weeks into their journey the navigator had to make an emergency transition back into real-space.

They had transitioned dangerously close to the planet Vanir, an Imperial hive world. Before he passed out the ship’s Inquisition-supplied astropath was able to mutter one word

“Tyranids”

Moments later they received an Imperial distress signal from a few hundred thousand kilometres off their stern. Turning about they spotted a dauntless class light cruiser that was slowly being eaten by a massive Tyranid bio-ship. Horatio unleashed everything he had at the foul creature, eventually forcing it to release the stricken ship. They ten stayed in position whilst the damaged vessel was towed back to a safe dock.

Below decks Ruby was summoned to Inquisitor Wrathbones private chambers, there she explained to him the risk of being a psyker within the shadow of the hive mind. She offered him an exchange, her knowledge of how to protect himself from the effects of the hive mind in exchange for him revealing to her which Inquisitor they were working for and why they wanted the Pharos. Ruby respectfully declined her offer saying that he had to stay true to his Inquisitor. Out of respect to his dedication she allowed him to leave unharmed.

On the bridge the ship had been challenged by orbital control, and a very generic inquisitorial ID had been given in return in the hope of avoiding questions and a long delay. Unfortunately they were informed that the shadow of the approaching Tyranids was blocking all attempts to leave the system, and that they had been summoned to the Inquisitorial Fortress below. Having been given clearance to dock the cell descended to the planet’s surface, minus Solar and Ruby who chose to remain aboard but in the company of Inquisitor Wrathbone. On arrival at the Inquisitorial Fortress they were greeted by the senior Inquisitor on planet Lord High Inquisitor Astrid Skane, and informed that they had been missing for almost four hundred years.

Behold the Tombship! And know ye true terror! If it's following the Explorers, I wonder how it would react to the Tyranids?

{Best cheesy TV announcer voice}

"Tune in next week folks to find out what happen next!"

Ok sorry this one took a little longer to post than normal, you'll see why.

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As the news sunk in that they had been displaced in time by four hundred years Skane informed them that there were no records confirming that they had been given orders to operate within the Reach, and that they were being detained along with their ship until that matter could be investigated thoroughly. Realising that they had little choice but to go willingly Horatio, Stern, and Sarvus agreed to cooperate with Skane’s investigation, with Horatio reminding Skane that the cell had operated alongside her operative Nihilus Quint before and that if he was still alive he might be able to assist. At a gesture from Skane one of the hooded figures behind her stepped forward and lowered his hood, revealing himself to be none other than Nihilus Quint wearing the Rosette of a full Inquisitor. Skane then informed the cell that they were not being treated as prisoners, but they were to be kept in a secure wing of the inquisitorial fortress whilst the investigation was conducted. And with that they were led away to secure holding.

Meanwhile in orbit Magos Solar was made aware of two imperial cruisers pulling alongside, both broadcasting Inquisitorial clearance codes. Taking no chances Ruby hid in the Mago’s lab, whilst Solar assumed one of his alternate identities as he was meant to be dead. He chose to use his indentiy of Magos Imhol, registered as one of the senior Magos as part of the ships Mechanicum contingent. Under his assumed name of Magos Imhol, Solar contacted the incoming ships and politely asked them what they were doing. They informed him that the ship was being impounded and searched under inquisitorial seal as part of an investigation into the actions of the cell on board. Solar chose not to contest this with the location and status of most of the cell unknown, and went to meet the boarding parties in the landing bay.

Horatio, Stern, and Sarvus were shown into the secure wing of the fortress, having been asked to surrender their weapons at the security gate at the entrance. Fortunately for the team Horatio’s digi-weapons, garrotte, and Mariette went unnoticed amongst the rest of his outfits’ finery so they felt a little more comfortable knowing that they had weapons available should they need them. They were told that the interviews would not begin until the morning and that they had the run of the entire wing. As they were still considered guests not prisoners they were not locked in individual rooms. After a brief discussion on how they had managed to end up four hundred years in the future after a seemingly untroubled warp transit and where Inquisitor Marr’s authorisation papers had gone, they decided to get some sleep and see what the morning brought. In orbit Solar/Imhol met with the stormtrooper captain in charge of the search teams and after a brief exchange (where the magos was informed of the time displacement) Solar/Imhol agreed to help the search in any way he could and retired to engineering to monitor the ship’s surveillance feeds. Whilst monitoring the feeds he noticed that one of the soldier’s looked familiar, more specifically one of the soldiers was a former member of the cell, the skitarii eight of twelve. Knowing that eight of twelve had remained in the service of the cell’s original Inquisitor, Vettius Sarcula, a man that was known to hold a grudge, and observing no obvious signs of aging on the Skitarii, Solar suspected foul play and asked the Astropath and Navigator on board to confirm the ship’s position and the date as best they could.

As morning broke Sarvus was summoned for his interview, and led from the holding wing to a very well appointed private study. Awaiting him was not Astrid Skane, or even Nihilus Quint, but Inquisitor Vettius Sarcula, not looking much older than when they had last met. This came as something of a shock for the Arbitrator-turned-bounty hunter as he held Sarcula to be responsible for his mind-cleansing. Sarcula welcomed Sarvus and explained that the cell wasn’t in the future at all, and that the entire ruse was to enable the capture of the cell without giving them a reason to run or fight. He informed Sarvus that the cell were being charged with consorting with a known heretic, Natius Osrinn, and failing to attempt to capture said heretic or report his location to the Inquisition. He also informed Sarvus that the ship they had arrived on was being searched for any evidence that the cell had been corrupted by Osrinn. After asking for Sarvus to confess several times Sarcula dismissed him saying;

“You have a history of corruption Arbitrator Sarvus, and I fear you may have infected you fellow operatives this time. I never should have let you live, even with your mind purged of heretical thought. You have turned from the path of righteous service in the god-emperors name in favour of personal gain, a clear sign of moral weakness, and I intend to deal with you and your associates more thoroughly this time. Guards, return this man to the detention wing!”

Stern and Horatio were also subjected to similar interviews with Sarcula.

Stern’s interview was the least troubling of the three. As a full Judge of the Arbites, having recently completed his pilgrimage to holy Terra and spent a year serving on the hive world of Priaeus V, there was absolutely nothing in Stern’s file that Sarcula could hold against him. The meeting concluded with Stern confirming that he hadn’t witnessed any of his fellow operatives performing heretical acts and agreeing to assist with Sarcula’s investigation.

Horatio’s interview wasn’t quite as uneventful as Stern’s, but was certainly more friendly than Sarvus’s. Horatio opened by telling Sarcula that he would help with the search of the ship, unlocking secured compartments and providing proof of the cell’s orders from Marr, if he was able to return to orbit. Sarcula called Horatio’s character into question saying that his status as a Rogue Trader made him more susceptible to moral taint, but agreeing to discuss the offer of assistance with the other Inquisitors running the investigation.

In orbit Solar/Imhol was informed that they hadn’t been thrown forward in time, and had it confirmed by the stormtrooper Captain in charge that the cell was suspected of heresy. Solar/Imhol managed to keep up his cover, stating that he had never witnessed any heretical behaviour but would check his pict-records from the last mission as it had involved a lot of servitors. He promised to provide the pict-evidence to the Captain as quickly as possible and returned to engineering. On reaching engineering Solar/Imhol called up all of the video and picture evidence he had collected from Sovereign and proceeded to edit out any information that could be incriminating to the cell. Once the evidence had been suitably process Solar/Imhol set off in search of the Captain again.

Back on the surface Stern, horatio, and Sarvus were back in the holding wing discussing their interviews. Horatio decided that their best option was to talk directly to Skane as he felt Sarcula had too much of a personal axe to grind with the cell, and so requested a personal meeting via the guards. An hour or so later they were called to the guard house and informed that Lord Inquisitor Skane had agreed to meet with them. They were led through to a different wing of the fortress to their meeting with Sarcula, and eventually to Skane’s private office. There was little of the ostentation that you would normally expect for an office of someone of Skane’s rank in evidence, with one wall being adorned with the symbol of the Calixian Ordo Hereticus and another bearing the heraldry of the Adeptus Arbites. Behind Skane’s plain but cluttered desk was a cabinet holding her personal wargear, both on display and within easy reach. Skane rose to great them and gestured for them to sit opposite her at the desk. She began by apologising for the methods used to detain them, as she personally would have preferred to openly inform them of the charges against them and let their reaction show whether they were guilty of innocent, but she was overruled by the other two Inquisitors leading the investigation. Skane then laid out the charges against the cell.

“You have been charged by Inquisitor Sarcula of consorting with a known heretic, a heretic who himself is wanted for consorting with daemons and wielding a weapon of the fell powers. Sarcula has provided a video, recorded by a former member of your cell, showing you meeting with the heretic Natius Osrinn and accepting his offer of employment. These charges have been supported by Lord Inquisitor Davidic Plume of the Ordo Xenos, as one of his interrogators reported certain irregularities with the way your cell operated on the planet of Iocanthos. You understand that this makes your presence in the Reach without any official authorisation look incredibly suspicious, especially as there is no record of an Inquisitorial Fortress ever being on the world of Sovereign. The only reason I have decided to hear your case personally is the testimony of my interrogator, who reported that you were instrumental in the successful conclusion of his own mission on Iocanthos. So what is your formal response to these charges?”

Horatio was the first to reply

“Lady Inquisitor, we have offered to help this investigation in our earlier meeting with Inquisitor Sarcula, who we feel may not be entirely objective in this investigation. We have proof aboard our ship that Inquisitor Marr has authorised our presence in the Reach, and our mission to Sovereign. We admit to having met Natius Osrinn, but at the time we were unable to take action against him due to the fact he had a fleet in orbit and we had control of half a freighter. We accepted his offer simply as a survival mechanism and as soon as possible left his service. Fortunately we were found by operatives of Inquisitor Marr who was also hunting for Osrinn, and once we had presented ourselves to the good Inquisitor he allowed us to join his hunt. Unfortunately Osrinn managed to evade our pursuit, so Inquisitor Marr sent us on this mission until he manages to pick up Osrinn’s trail again. With regards to our mission on Sovereign we recovered a large number of artifacts from the Inquisitorial fortress’s vaults, whatever your verdict on our cell please can you insure that the items we have recovered are returned to the Tricorn rather than disappearing into Inquisitor Sarcula’s personal reliquary.”

To which Skane replied;

“Arbitrators Stern and Sarvus what do you have to say to this?”

The reply was short and to the point, with both arbitrators supporting Horatio’s story.

Skane sent the three of them back to the holding wing whilst she considered their statements.

As they left Horatio asked if there personal effects could be moved from the guard house to somewhere under Skane’s control as they simply didn’t trust Sarcula, to which Skane agreed. Horatio then mentioned that he was carrying three of the guardians from the vaults on Sovereign, Brother Fenris of the Space Wolves, Librarian Dreadnought Kurro of the Storm Wardens, and Sister Brulla of the Order Pronatus.

Skane told them she had much to think about and summoned the guards to take them back to the holding wing.

A few hours later they heard a disturbance at the guardhouse. As they began heading towards it to investigate they overheard one of the guards having an argument with someone whose voice they didn’t recognise. After a few moments an absolute giant of a man ducked through the entrance door and headed across the social area to greet them. He was a truly imposing sight, a little over seven feet tall and powerfully built, with not an inch of fat in evidence anywhere on him. He was wearing simple black combat trousers, a plain grey t-shirt, and a rather strange looking weapon harness that was currently empty.

The three of them met him in the middle of the social area where he introduced himself;

“Well met, I’m Enabran Tain, Mistress Skane’s head of security and life-warden. Judging by the finery you must be Horatio, making you two Stern and Sarvus. If you’d like to follow me we’ve got a little trip to take.”

At which point he turned around and walked back through the security checkpoint, collecting the weapons missing from his harness. These turned out to be just as impressive as the man, being a pair of incredible well-made single edged evisceratetors. More impressively Tain seemed to wield the massive chain-blades as a normal man might wield a sword. Returning the blades to their back-scabbards on the harness Tain led them through the Fortress to the landing bays in the fortress roof, and aboard a very sleek gun-cutter.

After a rapid ascent to orbit the cutter landed in Horatio’s landing bay and Tain instructed them to follow him as he disembarked. They were greeted at the exit of the landing bay by a detachment of Inquisitorial Storm Troopers, and a servitor that was being remote-controlled by Solar/Imhol from engineering. Solar/Imhol rolled the servitor straight up to Horatio and reported that;

“All systems are functioning nominally”

This being a pre-arranged signal that Solar was still very much in control of the ships systems

Horatio’s reply of;

“Thank you; proceed with your normal duties”

Meaning that everything was under control and that no action needed taking yet.

Whilst this was going on Tain was squaring off with the stormtrooper detail. They had been ordered by Sarcula to accompany Tain and the cell as they travelled around the ship, whereas Skane had ordered Tain to make sure that Sarcula’s people didn’t interfere with the investigation. The confrontation briefly came to blows, or more specifically a blow as Tain knocked the security officer out with a single blow. Before things could escalate further Quint disembarked from the cutter, much to the surprise of the cell as they didn’t know he was aboard, and used the authority of Skane’s rosette to end the matter there. Quint Informed the security detail they weren’t needed as he had brought his own security detail, and dismissed them back to the search. When Horatio asked Quint where his security team was he simply pointed at Tain and walked off.

Tain led the party through the ship to Horatio’s office, where Horatio removed his copy of Marr’s orders from his personal safe and presented it to Quint as proof that the cell had been ordered to Sovereign by Marr. Quint then asked to see the items that had been recovered, and if possible meet with the guardians that the team had rescued. Horatio led them down to the Shadowblind hold, and arranged for Solar/Imhol to meet them there with the video evidence from Sovereign. When they reached the cargo decks they found the search parties still going over the holds, but none of them had managed to find the Shadowblind bay. This was probably fortunate for the search parties as Brothers Fenris and Kurro had taken up residence in the hold to continue their duty to guard the items recovered. Horatio opened the hidden cargo hold and once the team had entered closed it again to prevent Sarcula’s people from following them. Tain and Quint were then introduced to brother Kurro, who informed them that brother Fenris would be returning shortly as he had gone to find a drink. Whilst Tain looked around, Quint started going through the video records Solar/Imhol had provided. They were interrupted by the hold door opening and the sound of a commotion in the corridor. It seemed that Sarcula’s people had tried to deny Fenris access to the hold unless he let them in to search it first, needless to say the Space Wolf hadn’t taken this well. With Kurro’s help Fenris forced the search teams to admit they weren’t getting in, and then turned to address Quint. He explained, in very direct terms, that he hadn’t seen the cell doing anything but the Emperors work, admittedly sometimes in a creative way, but certainly nothing heretical. Brother Kurro backed this assessment up, and supplied some of his own gun-sight footage as evidence, and suggested that the situation be resolved as quickly as possible.

Taking the evidence he had collected with him, Quint led the group back to the lander and returned to the Inquisitorial fortress on planet. As he returned Stern, Sarvus, and Horatio to the holding wing he told them not to get too comfortable.

A few hours later there was another disturbance at the guard house, and sure enough it was Tain. He brought the cell to the main chamber of the fortress where they faced the three investigating Inquisitors, Plume, Skane, and Sarcula. As they entered the chamber the cell were immediately aware that something had changed, as all three Inquisitors looked decidedly unhappy. Skane gestured for the cell to step forward and informed them that she had ended the investigation following the evidence that her people had gathered. She condemned Sarcula for trying to use her and Plume as part of a personal grudge against the cell, and suggested that he should find better use for his time. She also suggested that Plume should do a little more research before escalating matters to an official trial. Skane then issued the cell with new orders;

“Once warp travel is possible again you will leave here and travel directly to the Tricorn, where you will turn over ALL of the items you recovered from the planet of Sovereign to the custody of Reliquary 26 for proper cataloguing. This mission is to be carried out under my seal, and supersedes all other orders you are currently following. Any deviation from this order will be considered grounds to re-open this investigation in a much less pleasant manor.”

With this Skane dismissed all present, and informed the cell that there ship had been returned to their control. Tain and Quint would return them to orbit and make sure that Sarcula’s men left.

As soon as they were clear of the chamber Horatio informed Solar that the cell had been cleared, and asked what Sarcula’s men were doing. A quick check by the Magos revealed that Sarcula’s men were trying to take control of the ship rather than leaving. Solar/Imhol located the Captain in charge of the Stormtrooper detachment, and informed him that the investigation had been concluded. The Captain got confirmation of this from the surface, and then began organising the extraction of his men from the ship. Horatio, Stern, and Sarvus returned with Tain and Quint, who once again had to show Skane’s rosette to finally convince the last of Sarcula’s men to leave. Once they were certain that Sarcula’s men had left, Tain and Quint returned to the surface.

After a few hours, when it became clear that warp travel wasn’t going to happen any time soon, the cell began to prepare the ship for combat, including re-supplying the ordinance that had been expended bombarding Sovereign. The cell then received a communication from Skane, as they were stuck in system she had an investigation that she would like to undertake on her behalf.

“The Munitorium has been stockpiling supplies within the Hive cities below, mostly moved from vulnerable ships in orbit. We have noticed that a large number of the convoys that pass through one of the outer districts of Capital Spire, on the shortest route from the landing fields to the storage bunkers, are being hijacked by an unknown force. Now this could be local gangs getting opportunistic, but it could also be something far more problematic. Either way I would ask that your cell deploys to the area and restores the Emperors peace so that the supplies can get through.”

Needless to say the cell agreed, and Solar, Horatio, Stern and Sarvus deployed to the surface via Aquila.

On reaching the surface the cell found themselves in a typical out-hive district, run-down buildings, questionable businesses, and loud bars. After their initial attempts to communicate with the locals showed there to be a higher than normal level of fear in the general population the cell decided to split their lines of investigation. Sarvus and Horatio decided to try and find out what the local gang situation was, whilst Stern and Solar decided to visit the nearest enforcer precinct house.

Horatio and Sarvus’s investigation was immediately put on a back foot as Sarvus was still wearing his old Arbitrator carapace, complete with devotional Aquila and symbols of the Adeptus. This caused something of a stir when they walked into the local ganger-bar. Fortunately Horatio managed to call on his knowledge of the less reputable areas of Scintilla and fast-talked them out of a potentially violent problem. He managed this mainly because he had noticed that the population of the bar included members of several different gangs, which should normally lead to rapid violence. As they were all sitting in the same room and not trying to kill each other he came to the conclusion that there was a bigger, common, problem. Asking the barkeep for information turned out to be a painful process, but eventually he managed to convince him that they just wanted to deal with whatever had the district so on edge and then leave again, so the barkeep sent a runner to find out which of the gangs were willing to help.

Solar and Stern found the local enforcer precinct about half a mile from the bar, and they made an entrance with impact thanks to Stern being in full Judges carapace. Once they had calmed the desk officer down and he had got the officer in charge of the precinct they started making real progress. According to the enforcers records the munitorium had sent twelve convoys through the district in the last few weeks, and of those twelve only the most recent one – which had a full enforcer escort – got through without incident. All of the convoys were ambush in the same one and a half kilometre section of the district, an area that they had to cross to get from one section of transit way to another after the bridge that used to bypass the district collapsed about sixty years earlier. The enforcers also told Stern that the only reason they hadn’t run escort on all of the convoys is that the munitorium hadn’t informed the precinct that they were passing through the area. Stern and Solar then decided to take their investigation to the nearest munitorium depot. Whilst on route Solar contacted the ship and got his Genator xeno-specialist to research Tyranid behaviour, and to see if the inquisition had any knowledge of possible infiltration methods. The information came back that there were sometimes reports of xenos-human hybrids being found ahead of an assault, and that they might be psychicly linked to each other. With this news Solar prepped his null rod for activation and proceeded into the munitorium office. Having been made aware of the characteristics of the hybrids Solar assessed the queue of drivers waiting for assignment to see if there were any likely candidates. After a detailed visual examination he spotted a potential hybrid in the queue and decided to take him in for questioning and examination. He sent Stern outside to arrange for a lander with a ****** team to come down from orbit and then walked up to the scheduling officer, barging straight to the front of the queue.

“I demand that you assign me a driver and vehicle for a priority mechanicus cargo. This driver here will do.” Selecting the potential hybrid from the line “thank you and good day.”

At which point Solar promptly walked out with the driver. On the walk to the motor pool at the back of the munitorium building Solar turned on his null rod to see if there was any reaction from the suspect. The driver immediately complained of a sudden headache and a whistling noise, both of which stopped when Solar switched the null rod off. Deciding that he was definitely on to something Solar instructed the driver to head for the landing field outside of the hive, whilst Stern covertly called in the ****** team to meet them on the road out of sight of both the hive and the land field. The ambush was a very effective one, using a Halo barge from Horatio’s ship and an irate Space Wolf. The Halo barge simply dropped onto the road in front of the lorry that Solar and Stern were in with its rear cargo ramp open, giving the driver no choice but to drive straight into the hold. As soon as the barge was visible Solar switched his null rod back on, and once the lorry was on board Fenris removed the driver from the cab. As soon as the Space Wolf had the driver clear of the cab he immediately smashed him head first into the bulkhead of the lander, killing him instantly. Fenris dumped the body on the floor at Solar’s feet and said;

“There is some sort of taint on that one Techpriest, he didn’t smell right at all. Be careful when you examine it.”

Stern ordered the pilot to head into the wastes around the hive and set down somewhere private so the magos could examine the corpse properly. After a thorough dissection (with the aid of Fenris’s Frost Axe) Solar found several changes to the corpse, and evidence of xenos infection. Asking the drop ship to return them to the road Stern took the wheel of the lorry and Solar and Fernis jumped in the back as they headed back to the out-hive to join up with Horatio and Sarvus.

By this point the messenger had made it back to Horatio, and all but one of the local gangs had agreed to work together to help sort out the hijacking before the munitorium requested more drastic action, which was in no-ones interest. The bar keep remarked that it was funny that the particular gang had refused to help, as it was their territory that the attacks were happening in. This immediately sounds alarm bells with the team, and as soon as the lorry arrived Horatio brought the rest of them upto speed.

Needless to say that the sight of a Space Marine certainly calmed the local gangs down a bit.

due to other things happening at the weekend we will not be running a session this week, so expect the next update around the 15th of April

Regards

Surak

Sorry for the update taking longer than planned, the real word got in the way again.

But here comes session 6

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Having amassed the local gangs Horatio and Solar called in the rest of the cell that had remained in orbit, and more servitors. Solar also decided to bring down the cell’s three chimera IFV’s to help supress the gang who they suspected of being infiltrated by the xenos. A quick check with the leaders of the gangs that had agreed to help them identified the territory that the gang under suspicion controlled, an entire neighbourhood of fifteen hab blocks and associated building around an imperial church. The church was quickly identified as the most likely location for the gang’s headquarters and Horatio and Ruby began debating the best way to attack. The allied gangs spread out to form a perimeter around the neighbourhood that they were about to attack, and Horatio and Ruby began debating whether they should hold the gangs on the perimeter to prevent the enemy escaping, or whether they should get the gangs to sweep the neighbourhood as they closed in on the church in the centre. In the end Solar decided that the Mechanicum should lead the way regardless as he had the only three tanks and began advancing.

As his tank reached the edge of the neighbourhood he found the road blocked with a ramshackle barricade. Solar ordered the dozer-blade lowered and for the advance to continue, and as the chimera cleared the debris there was a massive explosion as a mine hided in the barricade was setoff. Fortunately the charge wasn’t designed with IFV’s in mind and the damage was superficial. The brief delay whilst Solar checked the tank for damage allowed the rest of the cell to catch up, as they had noticed that the Tech priest had gone off. Solar sent out the servo-skulls that he had brought with him to start searching the surrounding buildings, and Ruby noticed that there was a lot of warp energy emanating from the Church in the centre of the search area. Calling on the original schematics for this area of the out-hive the cell realised that there were at least three subterranean levels to the district they were operating in, a utility level, a mass-transit level, and a service level. Solar conducted an auspex sweep of the area and discovered that there were no life signs on the surface at all. This was soon confirmed by the servo-skulls and gangers that were sent in to clear the buildings.

Ruby decided to check the utility level, and promptly used telekinesis to rip a manhole cover and its mounting ring clear out of the floor. After the application of a little firepower to widen the access shaft Ruby climbed on the back of one of Solar’s Praetorians and lowered both of them into the tunnels below. Reaching the bottom of the shaft Ruby discovered that he was in the sewers below the district, and that the five foot diameter pipe ran in line with the surface streets. Ruby decided that he and the Praetorian would sweep the sewer as the rest of the party advanced along the street in case the enemy gang had planted any more traps.

As the team and their allies advanced towards the centre of the neighbourhood they realised that the entire area was deserted. The search of the buildings suggesting it had been a rapid evacuation as meals had been left on tables, and other signs of normal life being suddenly interrupted. Fearing an ambush Solar sent his servo-skulls to sweep the centre of the neighbourhood, which is when he discovered that there was something blocking all non-line of sight electronic signals out of the central plaza around the imperial church. Ruby confirmed that the same field also blocked his telepathy into and out of the same area.

The team and their allies advanced along the streets to the central plaza, whilst Ruby and the Pretorian shadowed their movements below ground. On reaching the Plaza there was no obvious sign of activity above ground, and below ground Ruby reported that the drains from the church didn’t seem to connect into the main drain at this level. Whilst Ruby and the Praetorian made their way back to the surface the rest of the cell gathered in the back of the Chimera and began debating the best way to proceed. After Ruby joined them they continued to debate until they eventually decided to send some of the gangers forward to see what was in the church itself.

The gangers made it to the doors of the church with no problems, however none of them managed to notice that the door was booby-trapped resulting in a large explosion. As the gangers died Ruby felt the strength of the psychic energy saturating the area increase. Deciding that they had waited long enough Solar decided to order the Chimera to advance into the Church itself, expecting to find the renegade gang dug in inside. Crashing through what remained of the door the cell’s Chimera led the charge into the church.