Hello everyone,

I've been inspired to post my campaign's session reports to the forum; they are posted for your edification and enjoyment. I'll post a few session reports at first. If I get enough positive feedback, then I will continue posting them.

Warning, there be SPOILERS ahead. The first 16 sessions, we played Lure of the Expanse in its entirety. We started with some level 1 newbies at Footfall, and took it from there. So, sessions 1-16 are spoilerrific for LotE. That said, session 16 also introduced several new plot lines, so that might be as good a place to start as any...

Cheers,

- V.

Session #16.

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (946.816 M41)
Rogue Trader Victor Liatris and his command staff, plus Madam Charlabelle, are presently walking along a beach of unsurpassed beauty while waves lap gently upon the shore. It would be quite pleasant, idyllic even... if one could ignore the fact that the sands behind are stained red and littered with corpses, the air reeks of burning flesh, the neighboring island is a radioactive wasteland, many trees in the jungle are down and burning,the ocean's soothing sounds are inaudible over the howl of turbines and the anguished screams of the many innocent bystanders mutilated by alien weaponry. Oh, and let's not forget that Liatris is carrying the senseless, bleeding form of Abel Gerrit over his shoulder. Yeah. It has been quite the day, hasn't it?

The, ah, "concerned discussion" between eight rogue traders, all of them potential rivals, and the vile Xenos Eldar over the fate of an Eldar maiden world (aka "The Dread Pearl") appears to be over, at least for the moment. The warp storm summoned by the Eldar is rolling back in with remarkable speed. Any who wish to leave the Dread Pearl had best do it soon, or be stranded here for the next few eons. Unfortunately, since the thousands of Wraithguard activated by Farseer Serrenon are still roaming about killing everyone they see, albeit considerably less efficiently than before, staying is a death sentence. That has dire implications for the Sanctarchs, the primitive humans who have lived here for the past few thousand years. Astropath Winter questions the wisdom of evacuating the villagers. "How many of them can we save, really? Percentage-wise, does it matter?"

"It'll matter to the ones we rescue." Liatris replies.

Nathin adds, "Besides, they can pay! Those baubles they wear are Eldar gems. Do you know how much we can sell those for back in Calixis?"

Madam Charlabelle cracks a smile at this. She has been wearing a worried scowl for some time; something about this venture is troubling her, but the mention of money seems to ease her mood.

Nathin and Liatris have a short conference. They think there are just enough shuttles to evacuate the nearest two and a half villages - the third being half flattened by Bastille's indiscriminate orbital bombardment. Liatris and Charlabelle have both called for everything that can fly, minus the ponderous halo barges as they have no hope of making the round trip in time.

It is only a short distance back along the beach to the Sanctarchs' village, but before they can get there, a flotilla of four gun cutters appear over the trees and fly along the beach. They aren't Liatris', nor do they belong to any of his allies. Memories of what their single gun-cutter did to the late Lord-Admiral Bastille just a couple hours before flash through their heads, as the bogeys' turrets start tracking their group. Nathin identifies the livery as Jeremiah Blitz, just as Liatris spots Blitz himself. Blitz is in the lead cutter, sitting in the side observation blister and aiming the twin linked heavy bolter at Liatris' group. The next few seconds seem to last a year. Blitz makes his decision, and raises a hand instead of shooting. He has had no dealings with Liatris before, and evidently sees no profit in starting a fight now. Phew...

Liatris waves back, and promptly voxes Blitz. He asks if Blitz will lend his shuttles to the evacuation effort, in exchange for a percentage of the take. Blitz looks at how close the warp storm is getting, but politely refuses. "No thanks. I've got to get going."

Ah well. It is, indeed, time to go. Five more minutes sees the group arrive back at the village. Liatris' one remaining gun-cutter is still there, with its engines idling. Most of Liatris' and Charlabelle's shuttles have lifted by now. The last few shuttles are still loading the villagers - nearly all are elderly. That's a good sign. The Sanctarch's leaders ordered the youngest to board the shuttles first, in case there weren't enough seats; a particularly commendible act since the leaders are the oldest villagers! The acrid smoke from Feckward's burning slave crawler casts a funeral pall across the scene. The slaver really did get close to the village, didn't he? Abel Gerrit is stirring. It appears he will live... Liatris offers seats in the gun-cutter to Gerrit and Charlabelle. Gerrit accepts, for a reasonable fee. He has no choice, as his own shuttles are now lost. Meanwhile, Charlabelle sprints across to her last shuttle, which is now lifting off, with a promise of repayment for her earlier rescue.

Liatris' gun cutter is the last ship to lift off from the Dread Pearl. The warp storm is having an unnatural effect on the planet's weather, and Liatris struggles for altitude in the freakish gusts. He makes it to three kilometers up, when amber and red runes start dancing across the control panel. There is trouble with the engines. Sabotage? A stray round? Sand in the vents? Whatever the cause, the engines are overheating, cycling down to zero power. In a blink, Nathin is tearing off access panels, tinkering and muttering prayers to the Machine God. Whatever he does, it works for a moment. Unfortunately, Liatris' piloting takes them into a downdraft, and the gun cutter starts to lose altitude. Two kilometers up,they are in a clumsy glide. The islands are small dots on the horizon,the uncaring deep sea stretches beneath. Both Victor's and Nathin's efforts are unsuccessful, and the gun-cutter drops to one kilometer above the waves. No islands are visible. Gerrit comments "I think I see a sea serpent down there. It's longer than the gun cutter." A pause, and then he adds "Would it help if I got outpushed?"

No sooner does he say this, than Nathin relights the engines and they roar to life with a venegance. [GM note: rolled 01 on Tech-Use.] Liatris points the nose skyward, and the gun cutter rockets up to ten kilometers altitude. The storm's tendrils grasp at them, choking the engines for one last time. The gun cutter dips to nine kilometers above the ocean, then rises again, soaring into the clear air of the stratosphere.

However, there is another problem. The spiraling black trails tell them that two or three shuttles have gone down in flames. The cause quickly becomes apparent: An Eldar Nightwing Interceptor. It makes an impossible turn, and lines up on the gun-cutter. Nathin attempts diplomacy. He hails the fighter, in Eldar. As politely as he can, he says "We're leaving. We are doing what your Farseer asked." He wisely neglects to mention that said Farseer was slain by Kell an hour ago. Incredibly, the Nightwing breaks off the attack. [GM note: another damned 01 rolled for charm!]

Gerrit uses the gun-cutter's vox to call his own ship. The Maxim's Gambit promptly launches an Aquila toward the Angevin's Phoenix. It is carrying Liatris' fee for rescuing Gerrit, and will carry Gerrit back to his own ship.

The ship's docking bay never looked so good. Gerrit bids a hasty adieu and departs. A minute later, the watch officer sounds battle stations. With the warp storm closing in, silent running is not an option; they'll need the drives at maximum power if they want to escape. That holds for everyone else, too. Bastille and Scourge teamed up to win the opening battle, so their cruisers were openly orbiting in low orbit. (Though they did decide to keep the planet between them to block line of fire; you'd think they didn't trust each other.) Everyone else had to go on silent running and drift into high orbit. There is no longer any profit in fighting, no prize to fight over, but there is always revenge.

Baron Djanko Scourge is certainly feeling vengeful, and his ship is powering up its weapons. Bastille's and Feckward's vessels are likewise charging macrobatteries, even though both those Rogue Traders are believed to have perished on the Dread Pearl. Liatris doesn't like the odds,and starts voxing people. Gerrit and Charlabelle readily agree to an alliance of convenience - then again, they have little choice given past history. Hadarak Fel is a harder sell. The wily Fel is a businessman first, and sees risk and no profit in fighting. However, he reluctantly agrees when Feckward starts locking on. Feckward has hammered Fel's profits repeatedly, and is a pain in the budget if nothing else. Finally, Liatris voxes Blitz again. This time, Blitz agrees to help, - five to three are his kind of odds - but only for a huge share and first choice of the salvage! Liatris really needs the strength of Blitz's cruiser, and reluctantly agrees...

Thus, the battle is joined. Blitz's and Fel's ships (The Ordained Destiny, and Fel Hand, respectively) are to the galactic east of the Dread Pearl (the warp storm is rolling in from Galactic west), with Bastille's ship to the galactic north of the planet, and everyone else to galactic south. Liatris', Charlabelle's, and Gerrit's vessels are in a tight clump, all within five VU's of each other, with Scourge in their port arc. Feckward's ship, The Chains of Dusk, somehow managed to maneuver, on silent running, directly behind the Fel Hand. When he starts powering up he is in perfect position to ream Fel several new tailpipes.

"Worthless cur! Feel the wrath of Ma Kao!" Lady Sun Lee's flagship, Nihontu, has also crept close under silent running. Her vessel was believed lost during the opening battle, hammered by Bastille, but it appears now. Sun Lee was the only rogue trader to not reach the surface of the Dread Pearl, which is a great loss of face for her, but she has evidently used the time to make emergency repairs. The Nihontu is behind Bastille's Colossus, and opens fire with lances and plasma. The Colossus is blasted, taking three lance strikes after the plasma batteries burn through both void shields. It turns to engage, and both ships fly out of sight behind the Dread Pearl. They continue their private little war unseen, and do not interact further with the other ships.

The Angevin's Phoenix engages its systems the fastest, and Liatris orders hard to port. The prow swings around, and lines up on the hull of Scourge's Dauntless class, The Hammer of Truth. Liatris himself is at the helm. Nathin is on sensors, locking on. The gunnery chair is occupied by the blind astropath, Winter. Despite her empty eye sockets, the girl can shoot. "All batteries, fire!"

Sunsears blaze, and laser light slashes across the void. Winter's accuracy is acceptable, given the range, but the Hammer of Truth has an exceptionally tough hull and the fire just impacts on the surface. A thundering return broadside from Scourge's guns misses the Angevin's Phoenix by a narrow margin. Meanwhile, The Chains of Dusk blasts the Fel Hand, inflicting critical damage and knocking a score of maneuvering jets out of commission. Maxim's Gambit (Gerrit) and the Grace of Sopha (Charlabelle) turn in, following the Angevin's Phoenix, and fire on The Hammer of Truth while Blitz swings his Lunar to bear on the Chains of Dusk. However, everyone's shots either go wide or glance off armour.

Liatris continues to close on the wallowing Hammer of Truth. Aren't Dauntless class ships supposed to be swift? Scourge's is maneuvering like a lame grox. The lasers finish recharging, and Winter's aim is true. This time, both batteries hit hard. Scourge's gunners have found the range, too, but their volley is too scattered and glances off the Phoenix's raked prow. The Chains of Dusk accelerates to flank speed, closing to within 1 VU of the Fel Hand, and again blasts Fel without mercy. Fel still cannot turn, but burns retros hard. Blitz turns the Ordained Destiny to put a full broadside into The Chains of Dusk, but his gunnery is pathetic and hits nothing but void. [GM note: Blitz's lowest roll was an 88.] Maxim's Gambit fires on the Hammer of Truth, to little effect. Charlabelle, meanwhile, decides to show the boys how its done and puts all eight bursts from her macrobatteries square into Scourge's ship, knocking out its sensors.

The Angevin's Phoenix overshoots its target, and despite Victor's best efforts at the helm, the ship can only bring its dorsal batteries to bear. A few shots hit, to no effect. Fortunately, Scourge's return fire, at very short range, bounces off the Phoenix's modest armour... seems that sensor damage has put a crimp in Scourge's style. However, Liatris isn't the only one to overshoot. The Chains of Dusk rockets past the Fel Hand, and is unable to bring its weapons to bear. The tables are turned, and now the Fel Hand takes its revenge. The ship unleashes a superb display of gunnery, hitting with every weapon, and the Chains of Dusk disappears in the searing flash of a plasma drive explosion. The Fel Hand rides out the blast, but the ship has already been badly mauled. Hadarak Fel sees no reason to stick around further, and his ship limps for home. A disappointed Jeremiah Blitz realises there will be no salvage from Feckward, and begins the laborious process of turning his ship around. His guns are out of range, so he takes the opportunity to flog his gun crews. Meanwhile, Maxim's Gambit and The Grace of Sopha pour fire into the Hammer of Truth, but neither is able to punch through the armour. Belatedly, they realise that the ship's wretched maneuverability is because Scourge has heaped his ship with tons of extra armour. Many, many, tons.

Realizing that he is quite close to a hostile cruiser and unable to get out of its broadside, Liatris orders evasive maneuvers. No go. Winter fires from short range with the dorsal battery and hits hard, knocking out the void shield generator. The Hammer of Truth surges ahead, firing one broadside at the Angevin's Phoenix and the other at Maxim's Gambit. Both broadsides connect, but not with many rounds, and macrocannon shells glance off armour. The Ordained Destiny is now closing, turning in more, but it is still out of range. Gerrit keeps his ship's prow lined up,his dorsal batteries blast through adamantium, exploding inside the hull. Lady Charlabelle is still closing (thanks to her transport's slow speed more than anything else) but despite the short range she misses.

Liatris swings the prow around, completing his turn,Winter calmly tells him "prow lasers are now in arc."

"Let him have it."

Winter fires, and connects with the lot. Scourge's ship has already taken a beating, and the last volley is too much. The containment fields on the plasma reactor fail catastrophically, and the ship disintegrates into a cloud of incandescent debris. The Angevin's Phoenix is struck by debris, but Gerrit and Charlabelle are more fortunateescape damage.

"You know, the biggest portion of nothin' is still nothin'." Blitz's sarcastic comment echoes over the vox.

"Need I remind you that you neither took damage nor scored any?" Liatris is unimpressed.

Blitz smiles, shrugs, and cuts the vox.

With that, the Rogue Traders go their separate ways. Liatris, however, sticks around for a little. It seems Nathin, sitting at the ship's auger arrays, noticed an odd energy spike just before the Hammer of Truth blew up. A close scan reveals a lone saviour pod, which teleported away from the ship. It is hauled aboard. Lo and behold, it contains one very angry Baron Djanko Scourge. Liatris meets the pod in person, along with his command staff and a bunch of armsmen. Liatris oh-so politely thanks Scourge for his "assistance" in killing the Farseer, and for the gift of the grenade afterward. He neglects to mention that said grenade had the pin pulled. "Oh, and I haven't forgotten that you framed my astropath for that little incident on Quppa-Psi 12."

Winter glowers even more than usual at the reminder, and Liatris continues with a perfectly straight face "So, I hope you will 'enjoy' my 'hospitality' now." Yeah, right.

With that, Liatris turnsand walks away... and Scourge completely loses it. [GM note: rolled a 97 for the Willpower check to keep his temper.] Unfortunately, he had a plasma pistol concealed on his person, and shoots Liatris in the back. Liatris is still seriously wounded from the massive battle on the ground, so this shot is almost certain to be fatal. His conversion field fails to activate, but the God-Emperor is with Liatris and he dodges the blast at the last second.

Scourge is promptly pummeled into submission by a score of armsmen. Nathin asks "Can I please have him, pleeeze?"

Victor thinks plausible deniability is a good thing,says "Do what you will with him. I don't want to know."

Liatris picks up Scourge's plasma pistol, notes that it is best quality, and tucks the weapon into his belt. "Mine now."

With that, he calmly walks off.

The gloating seneschal, Nathin, quickly proves to have a cruel streak. Scourge's right hand, which he used to shoot at Liatris, is chopped off. Then his right eye, with which he aimed the shot, is blinded by a hot iron, and the same hot iron burns out Scourge's tongue. Astropath Winter is turned loose on him, and her telepathic intrusion is anything but gentle. She plunders Djanko's mind of information, learning many secrets. [GM note: I am getting really tired of the players' single digit rolls.] Thereafter, Scourge is confined to a particularly nasty area of the underdecks, with guards, of course.

While Nathin is busy disposing of Scourge, Shaundra Winter has a private talk with the Lord-Captain. "I have learned much from Scourge's mind."

"Oh? do tell."

"First, the man is an depraved beast. You owe me for making me look inside that skull. He's a complete psychopath; he views other people as objects, is arrogant and sadistic in the extreme, and his entire dynasty is based on profiting from conquest and plunder."

"You haven't told me anything new, Winter. What of his secrets?"

"Well, Scourge's teenage daughter and heir, Lucrezia, was aboard the Hammer of Truth. It was her first voyage, as he wanted her to start getting some 'hands on' experience. Since Scourge was the only survivor we picked up, the girl is toast. He has no other children, so his dynasty collapses if he dies. At present, Scourge's dynasty has two other warp capable ships, a frigate and a refitted transport. These are currently in use subduing and exploiting worlds he has conquered. He has razed a dozen worlds, but has decided only three are worth maintaing a garrison. I'll prepare dossiers on them for you. That said, Scourge's biggest endeavour, by far, is on a fourth world. This one is unusual for him. Not only did Scourge not conquer the planet, he willingly partnered with someone. He, along with the Kasballica, have invested very heavily in an archaeological dig in the Egarian Dominion, but the dig hasn't produced any profits... yet."

Liatris is intrigued. "The Dominion? What do they hope to find in that Emperor-forsaken hole? And why'd he partner with the Calixis sector's most notorious criminal organization?"

"The Kasballica made him an offer he couldn't afford to refuse, and they're hunting for Xenotech. The Kasballica has been making a serious effort to monopolize the Calixis sector's Cold Trade for some time now. However, they are running into competition from a group called the Amaranthine Syndicate. The Syndicate can get its hands on xenos artifacts much more consistently than the Kasballica, and has powerful backers. Whoever they are, they have to be dangerous if they can hold off the Kasballica. The Kasballica has been hamstrung by supply problems, and this has kept them from expanding their market share. So, the Kasballica is desperately looking for a steady source of their own. Since they can't operate openly, they need a Rogue Trader to dig up xenos items in the expanse."

"Not to mention, all this is highly illegal." Liatris muses. "They'd need the protection of a Rogue Trader's warrant, since Rogue Traders are one of the very few people who can possess xenos artefacts without getting summarily executed for it. Anything else from Scourge?"

"Bank accounts and whatnot. He has a manse at Port Wander, a small network of agents on Footfall, and various investments in Calixis, nearly all of them in the Malfian subsector."

"Write it all down."

Winter sighs; she'll be up late, writing. She sulks her way back to her quarters.

Meanwhile, Liatris has other visitors. He speaks to the leaders of the rescued Sanctarchs, and offers the villagers places on his crew. They refuse. "We are grateful, Captain Liatris, but this thing you call a voidship is not for us. Our world, our paradise, is lost to us, but we have heard your crew speak of other worlds. Is there one where we could make our home?"

"I don't think we'll find any as nice as yours, but sure, I can set you lot up as colonists somewhere. I'm allowed to found a new colony, but I'll have to find a decent planet first, though. Oh, and as for payment, some of those baubles you wear ought to do in exchange."

"You are most generous. That will do."

Liatris smiles and shows them out. He plans to fence their baubles, actually Eldar gems, in the Calixis sector, for a modest commission. Though he has no plans to tell the Sanctarchs how much the gems are really worth, or how huge a percentage his 'modest commission' truly is. Such is life.

The Angevin's Phoenix heads out, and in due time enters the warp. It's a long way back to civilisation. It took The Fearsome Darter fifty days to make the outbound leg, though hopefully the overcharged warp engine on the Angevin's Phoenix will shorten that a bit. The first five days are mercifully uneventful. After that, the crew is plagued with hallucinations and bizarre dreams. On the eleventh day in the warp, Nathin notices something is wrong. There have been way too many 'accidents' and corpses of crew have been found, ripped to shreds. His inquiries narrow the affected area down to a small region of the lower decks. The command staff investigates, checking the stowage bays personally.

Winter senses something horrid. "There's a daemon down here!"

They don't have long to wait. A dreadful shape of razored death springs from the shadows, slashing with far too many blades. Winter and Liatris are both wounded. Nathin blasts it with his storm bolter, but it dodges. It also dodges Liatris' powerfist. But, it does not dodge the two cuts from Liatris' sword... the Hexagrammatic wards on the blade are intended to disrupt warp entities and they do. The thing is sent shrieking back into the warp. Problem solved.

Day nineteen sees violent maneuvers to avoid shoals and reefs. Liatris at the helm barely manages to avoid fragments of false reality that threaten to rend the hull. The voyage continues, and is mercifully uneventful for a while.

On day 35, the Angevin's Phoenix flies right into a warp storm with no warning whatever. Artificial gravity fluctuates wildly, it feels like the ship is being flipped end over end. The hull groans from the strain. Spectral winds howl through the corridors before the Navigator is able to bring the ship out in an emergency warp exit. The navigator emerges from his sanctum. He does not apologize, and informs the Lord Captain that they have arrived at Footfall.

...except they haven't. The Angevin's Phoenix is at the edges of a blasted and lifeless system marked on Imperial charts only as "Corpse Fortune". The navigator has steered them to the wrong star. Again. Liatris is livid, and swears to get a new Navigator at first opportunity.

It takes the Navigator ten more days to get to Footfall, though these are, for once, without incident.

On arrival, Liatris promptly sets about repairing his ship, and hiring more crew. However, most of the other Rogue Traders have already arrived, so spare parts and crew are in particularly short supply at the moment. Rumors are flying thick and fast about the Dread Pearl. That venture is the hot topic of the day, and many are looking at Liatris with newfound respect. That's the good news.

The bad news is The Fearsome Darter has not arrived, and no one has heard a word of it. The Fearsome Darter, the Liatris dynasty's original ship, was so heavily damaged by the time it reached the Processional of the Damned that Liatris sent it home. He thought that the ship he'd just salvaged from the Processional, the Angevin's Phoenix, was a better choice. The Darter was limping, nearly unarmed, with a skeleton crew, and guided by the inept navigator's understudy, so it isn't too surprising that it failed to return. Unfortunately, it was carrying much of the loot gathered up to that point, so it's loss is a major blow. [GM note: -8 Profit Factor.]

The Angevin's Phoenix is still in need of significant repairs, and crew, so Liatris orders the course set for Port Wander. The Maw is sufficiently well charted that the navigator manages this simple task without botching it, and ten days later the crimson light of the Rubycon system shines through the bridge viewports.

As the Angevin's Phoenix docks at Port Wander, Liatris and his command staff are looking forward to their visit, hoping for a brief respite from the interesting times they live in. However, they are fated not to get it... No sooner does the ship dock, than things get interesting indeed...

EDIT: **** it. When I cut/pasted this entry into the forums, for some reason it deleted every "and" and "or" in the entire document? What the flip? Anyway, it's fixed now.

Nice writeup Vandegraffe, I enjoyed reading about the spacebattle.

If you keep posting I will keep reading.

No comments as of yet

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (025.817 M41)
As the Angevin's Phoenix settles into her assigned berth at Port Wander, the paranoid command staff note that they have drawn more attention than normal. Both the Adeptas Arbites and naval security are present in the docking bay, in easily three times typical numbers. The crew proceed to unload as though nothing is out of the ordinary. The visible presence soon decreases, though there are more tough looking, suspicious characters loitering about than normal.

Liatris' first order of business is getting a new navigator. The current one, Harlyss Babbitte, has steered them wrong one time too many, and Liatris has cancelled his contract. In fact, Navigator Babbitte is fortunate to escape the ship in one piece! Neither the crew nor the command staff has any reason to be fond of him. There are three navigators available in Port Wander. The first two interviews do not go well. The navigators seem rather timid, and are disinclined to venture beyond the relative safety of a charted warp route. This is particularly true given the rumours flying about hot shot Rogue Trader Liatris. The first refuses outright, and the second wants ridiculous guarantees in the contract. However, the third candidate is cut from a different cloth. She is a thin woman with blasphemously fluid movements and eyes black as the void. The only name she gives is Katain, and her social skills are... lacking. She does not even introduce the stocky, bald woman who trails her as a second shadow. Terse and arrogant, she is obviously ill-accustomed to noble company.

"Who did you previously work for?" Liatris asks.

"Rogue Trader Fenring."

"I see. Can you tell me about him?"

"Well, he was a Rogue Trader, from House Fenring."

"Obviously. Did he venture far into the Expanse?"

"Yes, he was very aggressive. We went deep into the Expanse nearly every voyage."

At this, both Liatris and his seneschal Nathin perk up. Nathin inquires, "And you didn't have a problem with this?"

"No. Why should I? I'm good. I made it back, didn't I?"

"I see. And why did you leave House Fenring's service?"

"Politics. It ended badly." These words are spoken with such a weight of venom that Nathin is disinclined to pursue the matter further.

Some rather one sided pleasantries later, they show Katain to the door. Liatris discusses the matter in private with his command staff, and they somewhat reluctantly conclude that Katain is the only one of the three who might be competent at voyaging into the unknown. Her manners leave a great deal to be desired, but Liatris waves that off. "Well, we aren't hiring her for her *social* skills."

A contract is offered, accepted, and Katain boards the ship with her possessions the next day. When she boards, Katain scowls intently at the ship's hull. "Does this ship not have a Warpsbane Hull?" She asks.

"No, ma'am." The petty officer carrying her bags replies.

"Unacceptable." Katain starts making calls, and promptly spends a good chunk of Liatris' money.

In a blink, the Angevin's Phoenix is transferred to one of the private yards, and swarms of workmen begin hand-inlaying pentagrammatic wards of thrice-blessed silver at strategic spots on the hull. A boosted Gellar Field generator is also included, housed in a fifty-meter statue of an Imperial Saint. Considering the price tag, it is quite odd that neither Liatris nor Nathin voice a single complaint...

The new navigator is the only person of the command staff who succeeds at shopping. Everyone else comes up empty handed as merchants are strangely reluctant to deal with them or are fresh out of the items in question. Worse, their efforts to repair the damaged hull are unsuccessful.

Then again, Liatris and Nathin are focusing their efforts on selling, not buying. They have a considerable store of Eldar gemstones to sell, but Xenos artefacts can be difficult to handle, as they attract attention from the authorities. However, Scourge's plundered memories tell Winter that a man named Justinian, on Hab 21, is heavily involved in the Cold Trade. He's working for the Kasballica, and was one of Scourge's contacts. The memories also tell Winter that Astropaths and other psykers are NOT welcome, so Victor and Nathin take an unmarked shuttle over to Hab 21.

They dock, and ask for Justinian. "I'm a friend of Kazo's." Liatris adds.

"Ah, I see. By the way, we don't use last names or titles here."

"I quite understand." Liatris smiles. "I am Victor, and this is Nathin."

Shortly thereafter, a tall, handsome rogue enters, and introduces himself as Justinian. Pleasantries ensue. After a short while, Liatris mentions there is some merchandise he wants to unload. But, Justinian raises a hand. "There is another matter which we must discuss first, have a little sit-down. I believe you know one of our other clients. A man named Djanko."

Victor and Nathin look at each other. This is potentially incriminating, though only Nathin knows how bad it really is. "Ah, we may have heard the name." says Victor.

"I heard you've done more than that. Look. This Djanko fella, he is not a member of our organization. If he was, we'd be having a very different conversation right now. He's just someone that we've made a couple of deals with in the past... if you've got a problem with him, the two of you can work it out on your own. As long as it doesn't interfere with our own business ventures, then we don't care."

Victor is relieved. "That's fine. I wasn't planning on dragging a third party into this. And in any case, I don't think Mister Djanko will be much trouble to anyone."

"His daughter Lucrezya might have a different idea. I saw her going into the Arbites courthouse on Port Wander this past week."

That statement raises eyebrows. Lucrezya was last seen on Djanko's cruiser, and was believed dead when the Hammer of Truth's plasma drive exploded. Baron Scourge was the sole survivor, and he thought his daughter dead... or at least that's what Astropath Winter told Victor.

At this point, Liatris adroitly steers the conversation back to the sale of the Eldar gems. The merchandise is unloaded, vast sums change hands, and Victor takes a small portion of the payment in information. Justinian allows Victor to use one of his contacts on Port Wander to find out why Liatris is under investigation. The contact proves competent. Before they leave port, they learn that the Navy has taken an interest due to their rivalry with Lord-Admiral Bastille, a former Navy man. However, Bastille is not spoken of well with his former peers, so the Navy is basically just looking to avoid trouble. The Arbites, however, have opened a criminal investigation. That has to do with Liatris' shameless plundering of Scourge's bank accounts and assets inside the Calixis sector. There are limits to what the authorities will tolerate.

By this point, the Angevin's Phoenix is ready to leave port. The hull is still in bad shape, so there is a strong incentive to stay in civilised territory. There's another strong incentive as well - profit. They still have to sell the archaeotech Mechanicus probe ship they recovered. That is far too big and too conspicuous to sell at Port Wander. Besides that, their adventure on Zayth netted them some information about a renegade (or at least unorthodox) Mechanicus faction. They had planned to sell the Zayth archaeotech to the renegades, but all the samples and plans are on the lost Fearsome Darter. They do have records and survivors of the Zayth land ship aboard, though, and perhaps that will be worth something. Of course, to cash that in, they have to find the renegade tech-priests. They have a recovered data-ark, with a set of coordinates, but that is their only lead.

So, new Navigator Katain is summoned to the ship's bridge. Lord-Captain Liatris shows Katain the coordinates and says, with some trepidation, "I need to get here, but I'm not sure where 'here' is."

Katain checks the set of charts she brought aboard and says "That's in the Calixis sector. Prandium. It's in the Hazeroth Abyss, on the other side of the sector."

No one is thrilled by the news that the journey will be a long one. While Katain plots the course, the rest of the command staff search the ship's librarium vaults. Evidently, Prandium was once a garden planet, with a real pleasure world environment. However, the terraforming engines failed millennia ago, and it is now a frozen wasteland, at least outside the greenhouses. Back when Prandium was still pleasant, it was a collection site for plants from many, many worlds. Today, greenhouses the size of hive spires cover much of the surface. In many of these, the plants have grown wild. Since quite a few specimens were originally from death worlds, and all of them have been subject to thousands of years of short-sighted herbicide use, the overgrown greenhouses can be very dangerous. However, said plants also produce great quantities of very interesting biological compounds.

Politically, the planet has been ceded to the Cult Mechanicus. It is, in effect, a Forge World. However, it is a very strange one, in that it exports biological products and food instead of the usual high tech manufactured goods. Naturally, it has a disproportionately large percentage of Magos-genetors. This, naturally, leads to whispers that the mechanicus here are deviants, for they are insufficiently contemptuous of the flesh.

Astoundingly, Katain gets them across the entire Calixis Sector in ten days. Even more amazing, the journey is uneventful. Prandium's orbital facilities are quite large, with a substantial number of defence platforms. One of these hails the Angevin's Phoenix as it approaches the planet.

"Attention void-ship. Identify yourself and state your purpose." The speaker is either a gun-servitor or a low ranking tech-priest... it can be hard to tell, sometimes. In any case, its social skills appear to have been surgically removed. Victor Liatris, however, doesn't let that faze him.

"Ah. I am Lord-Captain Victor Liatris, aboard the Angevin's Phoenix. I am here in the interest of trade, to discuss a mutually beneficial exchange."

As he speaks, he transmits one of the recovered access codes on an encrypted sub-channel.

"Noted. Your vessel is not in our files. Proceed to high orbital track 23W-156A, and my superiors will notify you if they decide to grant you landing clearance."

The indicated orbital track is high orbit indeed, well outside the orbit of the defence platforms. There isn't much there, so the Angevin's Phoenix settles into a distant orbit under the watchful auger arrays and macrobatteries of the planetary defences. They don't have long to wait. Less than an hour later [47 minutes and 23 seconds later, per the tech-priests' logs] they receive landing clearance to one of the shuttlepads. A brief discussion ensues. Liatris decides to take an Aquila lander down rather than the more intimidating gun-cutter. The command staff goes with him, along with a few armsmen.

The shuttlepad is attached to one of the big greenhouses. A short walk through the freezing air, and they're into an airlock. There are administrative buildings along with manufactorums built inside. The place is obviously the domain of the Mechanicus. There are cog symbols everywhere, and most of the architecture is strictly functional. A servo-skull greets them with a terse "Follow me."

The Skitarii guards watch silently as they pass, but do not otherwise acknowledge their presence. As they go deeper into the compound, the buildings get more and more decorated. The sacred cog is joined by holy equations, and symbols which represent chemical compounds. Nathin chuckles... the mess hall for the junior tech-priests is marked with the chemical symbol for "caffeine". The others don't get the joke.

The servo-skull leads them into a conference room, and silently hovers in a corner. The conference table, and much of the room's paneling, is exquisitely varnished hardwood. This would be wildly out of place on a typical FOrge world, and the group notices. Liatris runs his hand over the table. "Nice."

A door opens, and two tech-priests walk in. The first is a slim man in a plain black robe, with a half-dozen slender mechadendrites, elaborate optical implants, and a collection of minute tools, many surgical, implanted in every finger. All of these are silver plated, of the finest workmanship. Portions of his face, arms, and hands are still organic, though the exposed flesh is grey and leathery.

The second man is massive, easily the size of an Astartes in Terminator Armour. He is wearing the largest red robe off the mechanicus rack, with the sleeves ripped off, and it still only comes to his knees. There is no flesh visible on this one. A gunmetal hued "Mhazynger" pattern face mask hides the lower part of his face, with the rest shadowed inside his cowl. His arms, legs, and bare feet are thick, gunmetal armoured augmetics, and he has four immense mechadendrites - two servo arms, a plasma cutter arm, and a weapon arm. That last bears a weapon with six barrels, and they look like they rotate. Yes, that *is* an assault cannon in his pocket and he's not happy to see you...

The tech-priest in the black robe speaks. "I am Magos-genetor G. Lewys, and this is Magos-Secutor Durendal. I would be interested to hear what brought you here, and in particular how you acquired a certain access code."

"Ah, that. We picked that up on Zayth. I'm afraid that one of your companions came to a bad end. We recovered this..."

Liatris slides the crystal data arc across the table. Lewys picks it up with the needle-nose tip of a mechadendrite, looks at the serial number, and winces.

"...It was most useful." Liatris continues. "We were able to make a deal with the locals for certain items, which we now possess. Also, I hope you realise we could have simply handed that data arc over to the High Archmagi of the Lathes."

"Mmmm. Your discretion is appreciated. I am confident that some sort of finder's fee could be arranged, as we are interested in the Zaythi archaeotech."

"No doubt. We have some of it, though regrettably we managed to lose a good chunk of it in transit. Oh, and we have one more item you may be interested in. We recovered a probe."

Lewys sighs. "Organics. Be more specific."

"It's a small void-ship, an old mechanicus probe."

Durendal speaks for the first time, with a voicebox heavy on the bass and reverb. "We'd have to see that."

"Not a problem. It's strapped to my ship's dorsal rail. You can send up a shuttle, if you like."

"Done. I am not pleased about the incomplete retrieval from Zayth, but this may well be worth our time."

The rest is merely business as usual. The mechanicus send a survey team up to Angevin's Phoenix, look over the probe as well as the haul from Zayth, and make an offer. Nathin haggles a bit, as usual, and an acceptable deal is struck. The command staff wastes no time in spending some of their newly acquired Thrones. Katain buys good quality voidskin for herself, and Victor gets a good MIU installed. Nathin and Winter, however, end up empty-handed.

About a week after their arrival at Prandium, the Angevin's Phoenix is about to leave. But, there is a mechanicus shuttle approaching the ship. A tight beam vox-cast reveals Magos-Secutor Durendal's imposing visage. "We need to talk. In private."

"Docking permission is granted."

A short while later, they meet in Liatris' study. Durendal gets straight to the point.

"Our resources in the Koronus Expanse are not what we would like, and our explorator cadres are stretched too thin. This is now highly relevant, given that probe you retrieved. It accumulated a great deal of data, and there are several areas of interest that we want investigated. Obviously, we would be willing to compensate you for your trouble."

"I'm always up for a mutually beneficial arrangement. What do you want investigated?"

"There are three locations of interest. The first is Somnium VIII. The probe's analysis indicates a very large deposit of adamantium ore on that planetary body. Adamantium is always in short supply, so this supply of raw material could be most useful. The probe also noted ruined cities on that planet, possibly of Xenos origin. If they are archaeotech, then we're interested."

Nathin and Victor share a look. If they are Xenos ruins, then that could be of considerable profit in the Cold Trade.

Durendal continues. "The second location is Nadeush. This world has been reasonably surveyed already, but the probe found an anomaly. Are you familiar with Nadeush? No? The world was once highly developed, with ruins of multiple hive complexes, but the civilisation collapsed long ago. The local humans are feral, and have slid back to a stone-age existence. The biosphere is very benign, and shows extensive signs of genetic engineering, which makes it of interest to the genetors. The only reason that world has been a relatively low priority despite its obvious Archaeotech heritage is because the Nadeush ruins were believed completely inert. However, the picked up an encrypted vox broadcast from deep underground. This could be an active, surviving installation. That is worth a finder's fee. I'll provide you the coordinates."

"The third, and final item of interest is a space hulk. The probe detected a space hulk near Falcon's Fall Gamma. The hulk drifted unusually deep into a star system, and is now in an unstable orbit around a gas giant. It is sufficiently far into the system that it is very unlikely to phase back into the warp. That said, the orbit is unstable. The space hulk will escape the gas giant in approximately two years, and then it will probably return to the Warp. Oh, and one more thing. We had one of our astropaths, a girl named Katea, perform an augury about this particular venture. Katea's predictions are accurate a statistically significant percentage of the time. Unfortunately, she is particularly prone to bouts of illogic; I wish I knew who we offended in the Adeptus Astra Telepathica to get her assigned to us. Anyway, she has said only that it must be investigated, and she insists on referring to this space hulk as 'Mass Carnage'."

Nathin scowls. "I don't like the sound of that at all."

The Angevin's Phoenix heads out the next day, pausing only to take aboard a small contingent of Tech-Priests. These are bound for Somnium VIII, to set up a small mining facility.

Unfortunately, the Koronus Expanse is a long ways away. Prandium is on the opposite side of the Calixis Sector, after all. With considerable trepidation, the command staff prepares for Warp entry. However, twelve uneventful days later they are back in the Rubycon system, as Katain shows her skill. A fruit basket mysteriously appears outside the new navigator's door. It is anonymous, and no one suspects the notoriously grumpy astropath Winter of providing the gift. (As it turns out, Winter really doesn't like the warp.)

The ship docks in Port Wander, and Liatris is able to repair some of the hull damage. However, the remaining shopping attempts all fail, in what proves to be a frustrating, boring, and paranoid stop. The Arbites and Navy are still watching... much to the crew's displeasure. As soon as repairs are complete, the ship heads out again, bound for Footfall.

This time, the warp transit takes ten days, despite the relatively short distance. Katain is unwilling to push the overcharged Markov pattern warp drive while in the narrow confines of the Maw. Since the trip is uneventful, and her exit point is dead on target, no one complains. Another fruit basket mysteriously appears at Katain's door, and Winter is noticeably less crotchety for a day or two.

Footfall proves more amenable this time. They are able to fully repair the ship, and buy a Gun-Cutter to replace the one crashed on Dross. Katain gets a stylish new cameleoline cloak, and Liatris gets the local flesh-smiths to install subdermal armour on all five of the command staff. Nathin is once again unable to hire more armsmen, but he has news. One of Sun-Lee's men has loose lips... This man was aboard one of Sun-Lee's escorts, which was shadowing The Fearsome Darter. They followed it as far back as Falcon's Fall Gamma, and then lost it. This is, to date, the only sighting of House Liatris' missing ship.

Angevin's Phoenix takes its leave of Footfall, and once more ventures unto the warp. This time, the navigator puts the boot in, and the Warp drive screams like a tortured daemon. It is only nine days to the Somnium system. Liatris has nightmares about halfway through, dreams of the lost souls on The Fearsome Darter. They yell and curse at him. "You abandoned us!" "You left us to die in the Warp!" "**** you." Liatris is, predictably, unsettled... but tries not to let it show.

Katain brings the ship out of Warp on the distant fringes of the Somnium system. It isn't too long before the auger arrays pick up another vessel, on a closing course. Ever the diplomat, Liatris hails the unknown vessel and attempts to parley. The only reply he gets is a single word, shouted across all vox channels: "WAAAAGH!"

The command staff share a look. "Orks. Wonderful. Fething wonderful."

<end of session>

Session 18.

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (063.817 M41)
There is an Ork raider dead ahead. Kell decides to make it very dead, and opens up with the Sunsears. Coherent light flashes across the void, and the Ork ship gets blasted. Kell notes, with some satisfaction, that the volley set the boyz barracks on fire. Nothin' like burning the xenos scum. The Orks close, and promptly return fire, with a ragged volley from their crude macrobatteries. They fire off a great number of shells, but not many connect and all they do is knock down the void shields.

The Angevin's Phoenix keeps its prow pointed toward the Ork vessel, they are getting quite close now. Winter does a good job at the sensors while Liatris motivates the gun crews. "Put your backs into it, you mangy lot!" It seems to work; Kell fires the second volley... Every single sunsear battery on the ship strikes to devastating effect, and the las-blasts tear so deeply into the Ork vessel that the vital Warp drive is struck. The Ork raider disintegrates, and the pieces are sucked into a blasphemous rent in reality. Thanks to some quick work at the helm, the Angevin's Phoenix avoids the warp rift and proceeds onward.

Another week sees Angevin's Phoenix in orbit around Somnium VIII. The blind Astropath Winter, ironically, appears to have the best ability to spot things of anyone on the ship. She sits at the console controlling the ship's auger arrays, and picks up many sites of interest. The slight gravitational and magnetic anomaly indicating a huge deposit of adamantite ore is flagged. She also notices numerous ruined cities of xenos origin, and is even able to tell that they are built in two distinctly different styles. (These are labeled 'xenos A' and 'xenos B'. How original!) The final flag goes on a modular hab base that looks Imperial, and powered down. [GM note: 10 DoS on scrutiny + detection] However, Winter also perceives something that is utterly invisible to the ship's augers... there is a faint feeling of wrongness about the whole planet. Kell feels it too. "Something just ain't right about this place."

"Captain, there is slight warp taint on the entire planet." Winter says.

"Well, prep a gun-cutter and we'll see what's down there." Liatris replies.

Winter objects to this. "You do realize what even a 'slight' warp taint means? It's the whole planet!"

Winter isn't the only one looking dubious at this point. However, Liatris makes it very clear that the ship is NOT a democracy. "we're goin' down. That's an order."

Winter capitulates, though she does insist on performing an augury first. She asks the God-Emperor "What is the safest place to land?" and is granted a brief vision of the ruined Imperial camp. Liatris agrees and takes the gun-cutter down. The atmospheric entry is uneventful, and he is able to land on the camp's shuttle pad without mishap. As the gun-cutter touches down, the crew gets tense. The hab base looks much the worse for wear, and there has obviously been a fight. Bullet holes and las burns scar the walls, and there are human corpses scattered about, all rather decomposed at this point. There is someone's family crest painted on one pockmarked wall; Liatris recognizes it. "That's Jonquin Saul's livery."

"We haven't met him, have we? What do you know?" asks Nathin.

"No, no we haven't. He styles himself a 'trade admiral'. He doesn't get much respect because he focuses more on trading than on conquest, but he's very skilled at commerce."

"Huh. Well, let's see what we can find."

Exploring the base proves an unnerving experience. The whispering wind sounds like crying voices, occasionally punctuated with the distant echo of an explosion. There are flickers of movement in the shadows, and every now and again the clouds will show the silhouette of an ancient battle zeppelin. But, the auspex picks up nothing. The group performs the distasteful task of checking a few of the corpses to determine cause of death. It looks like they were killed by Imperial weaponry, lasguns and chainswords mostly. Since most of the corpses are still carrying lasguns and chainswords, that has disturbing implications. A gust of wind sighs by, carrying the scent of gunsmoke and tears. Navigator Katain has accompanied the group, just to get off the ship for a little while, but she's not happy with her choice. "This whole planet is haunted."

Winter is displeased at this. (So what else is new?) The others brush off her comments, though some of the armsmen look nervous. It takes another ten minutes before they find the camp's headquarters. There are dataslates and archives, encrypted, of course. But, they are not encrypted well enough, and Nathin manages to crack them. They take their find back to the gun-cutter, and settle in for a couple hours of data-crunching. The log entries paint a grim picture. The adamantite ore is rich indeed, but the planet's haunt is an insidious threat. The logs show men and women driven to madness; some lasted for weeks with no trouble only to snap with no warning, while others went mad their first day down. Those in close proximity to Saul's astropath seemed to be shielded somewhat, until the astropath went mad. The next day is the last entry in the log... an incomplete entry, the command staff noted "a disturbance in camp". Shortly thereafter, there was an evacuation order logged by one of the servitors. Presumably, the remaining sane people were able to get off the planet.

Liatris isn't thrilled by this. For that matter, neither is anyone else. But, no one is willing to leave the planet empty handed. So, the gun-cutter lifts off, and heads for one of the xenos cities. Liatris asks Winter if she has any suggestions. Shaundra Winter duly consults her Imperial tarot. She thinks one city, of Xenos B manufacture, feels somewhat guilty. "Mmm, that one maybe?"

'That one' looks as good as any, so the gun-cutter shifts to hover mode and looks for a place to land. The buildings resemble eggshells in colour and shape, though many are worn down or collapsed now. There is a rooftop plaza on a sturdy building which looks quite intact. Liatris manages to set the ship down safely. They spot a doorway leading into the interior, but everything is sealed and locked. Nathin tries to pick the lock, but his efforts are in vain. Liatris promptly 'persuades' the door with his powerfist. The result is loud and unsubtle, but effective. The interior of the building is dark. This facility, whatever it was, had thick walls and very few windows. The corridor is straight, with no side doors, and a vaulted ceiling. Kell is the only one who notices that one floor tile looks slightly different... just as Winter steps on it. Click! "Do not lift your foot!" Everyone backs up, while Nathin moves in. Winter is trying not to freak out, and not succeeding. Nathin tries to disarm the device while ignoring the panicked astropath. Fate is not with him... Knee-high flechette dischargers turn the corridor into a hailstorm of shrapnel. That triggers shouts and curses. The flechette storm reached far enough to get everyone, even the folks who backed up, so the entire group is now wounded. Katain sighs and reaches for the med-kit. She begins to treat people, and makes an unpleasant discovery. "Lord-Captain, there are spores on these darts. They have gotten into the bloodstream and are beyond my ability to treat."

"Wonderful. Fething wonderful. How long do we have?"

"I don't know for sure, they are just starting to germinate. We have hours, maybe a few days."

"Well, let's take a quick look around, see if we can find anything, and then head back."

About ten meters past the pressure plate, the corridor branches, T-intersection with a slightly curved corridor on either side. A coin flip, and they go left. A little more walking and it becomes evident the building is radially symmetric, and this corridor is circular. The rooms on this level prove to have little of interest, and when a corridor appears to the right, Liatris heads for the center. 50 more meters, and they get to the center of the building. It is an open shaft, ringed by balconies at each level. They are on the top floor, and it goes down a good ways. In fact, it goes down a good twenty stories. Since the building looked maybe eight stories high from the outside, that implies one heck of a basement. Climbing harnesses are standard kit for this crew, and they rappel down without difficulty. Kell, ever mister sunshine, comments that the climb back up may be a pain, though. The bottom floor is one big room, and it is full of xenos-tech. Strange machines, each more peculiar than the last, examination tables, with restraints, numerous sharp and pointy implements, and cabinets full of bizarre elixirs curdled by time. Those who know of such things, and shouldn't, are of the opinion that this place is a bio-lab. It is also intensely haunted, and the shadows move on their own. Winter and Katain both get flickering visions of the distant past. Reflective surfaces show light that first shown millennia ago. They see a fall from grace, two races sharing a world peacefully... and then something went terribly wrong. Visions of war, waged with high technology and low morals, and then, finally, one dreadful bio-weapon. It was supposed to only kill one race, but turned on its makers and the entire world died in a day. Somnium VIII has been haunted ever since, the death-scream of billions tainting its reflection in the warp.

When Liatris hears of this, he voxes up to the gun cutter. The crew there duly relay his instructions, and soon the Prandium Explorator cadre is on their way down to the surface. These tech-priests were supposed to be setting up an adamantium mine, but, they are from Prandium and therefore likely knowledgeable about biologis as well. Two hours later, Liatris is face to face with the tech-priests in the xenos bio-lab. He explains the situation. The tech-priests are not happy. The psychic taint is judged to be too great a risk, and the mining venture is put on hold. They will need psychic shielding if the world's resources are to be exploited. Null rods, perhaps? In the meantime, the tech-priests busy themselves. Some of them begin treating Liatris and his crew, and are successful in removing the xenos spores before they have fully germinated. The others study the facility, and take numerous samples. Perhaps this will placate their masters on Prandium. Perhaps. That adamantite ore would be a powerful bargaining chip with the High Archmagi of the Lathes. With that, all that is left is to climb back up to the top of the building(fortunately, one of the Tech-Priests brought a sturdy winch) and leave the planet. In all, the group spends less than 24 hours on Somnium VIII, which is a short enough visit to not damage anyone's psyche that badly.

As Angevin's Phoenix shows the planet its blazing drive tubes, Liatris has something else on his mind. He summons Winter to his quarters. "We need to find our missing ship, and there's no telling where it will be. I want you to perform an Augury. Here's the question: 'Where will The Fearsome Darter be in two weeks?'"

"Two weeks, lord-captain?"

"Yes. Our new navigator's really fast. She can probably get us there in two weeks."

"Okay!"

Winter thinks that's a fine and logical use of her talents, and goes off to conduct her augury. She gets a vision: a broken ship among a sea of broken ships, in the flaring light of a black sun. She is considerably less enthused when she returns to make her report.

"It's in the Processional."

"**** it." Liatris is not happy, and neither is anyone else.

Katain is given her instructions. She catches a swift warp current from the Somnium system to the Processional, and makes it in a mere four days. There is trouble en-route, jagged shoals of false reality that threaten to rend the hull, but Navigator Katain and helmsman Kell are up to the challenge and Angevin's Phoenix runs the rapids without harm. They emerge on the edge of the system, and the temperature all over the ship drops twenty degrees the instant they emerge from the Warp. Winter, sitting at the auger arrays again, picks up a faint distress beacon with The Fearsome Darter's codes. It is on Blight, the outermost world. [GM note: 11 DoS on Scrutiny + Detection]

Kell's superb piloting gets the crew to the Darter without trouble. In very low orbit over Blight, they finally see their missing ship. It is planet-bound and spanning a chasm. The ship's spine is broken, with the prow pointing a good thirty degrees out of line from the drive tubes. And, even from this distance, it looks like the Hollow Men have already found it. The hull looks like a Fenksworld Pit-Thing with the mange. The ship's adamantite ribs are visible, and whole systems are missing, leaving gaping holes where they had been. Liatris manages not to cry, barely. This was his Dynasty's original ship, and it has been lost on his watch.

Winter isn't happy either. "There's a daemon on board the Darter. I can sense it even from here."

For her to sense it from this distance, that has to be a big daemon. Rogue Trader Victor Liatris decides to deal with the matter personally, and he orders the entire command staff to accompany him. The gun-cutter journey to the wrecked ship is short and sour. The daemon is in what is left of the crew's quarters, near the back bulkhead that seals off the warp drive. The armsmen are told to wait outside - Liatris is of the opinion that they are too weak willed to be of any use in this fight. Liatris kicks down the door, charges in, and stops short. There are five daemons in the room. Four are the vicious, bladed horrors known as Ebon Geists. The fifth is of a similar sort, but swollen to enormous proportions. This is the walking nightmare that feasted upon the souls of crew. Liatris cannot bring himself to advance in the face of such unholy horror, but he stands his ground and begins blazing away with his (formerly Scourge's) plasma pistol. The rest of the command staff, inspired by his example, stand their ground as well. Everyone except Katain begins firing, while Katain opens her warp eye and tries to lock the big one in her gaze. The Geists charge in like sharks at a feeding frenzy, a fury of rending claws as they get within reach. The big one belches hellfire at Nathin, who fortunately dodges. Liatris shreds one Geist with his sword, and Nathin shoots a second one off him. Kell backs up, with his conversion field overloading as he gets slashed. This is doubly unfortunate, as he is the next target of hellfire and is badly burned. Return fire slams into daemon flesh as the Nightmare tires of fighting at range and charges in. Victor gets slashed by one of the remaining Ebon Geists. But, the Geist's victory is short lived indeed. Kell obliterates it with an accurate shot, and Winter disposes of the last Geist when it fills the sights of her inferno pistol. Katain, meanwhile, finally succeeds in locking the Walking Nightmare in her gaze. This constricts the daemon's connection to the warp, and vastly decreases its power. Liatris and Nathin take advantage, and dispose of the daemon; a flurry of cuts from Liatris' warpsbane sword and a most righteous hail of mass-reactive bolts from Nathin's storm bolter are enough to end this particular manifestation of evil. As the daemon's remains dissipate, Katain grumbles that greater daemons are too strong-willed.

<end of session>

<Session 19>

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (140.817 M41)
The Angevin's Phoenix is hovering low over Blight. It is too low to be in orbit, instead hovering in the weak gravity. This puts it very close to the wreck of The Fearsome Darter. What follows is a lot of unglamourous, backbreaking toil, namely salvaging everything of value off The Fearsome Darter. Winter attempts an augury, to speed up the process, but is unsuccessful. Sullen, she returns to the bridge of Angevin's Phoenix. Meanwhile, Nathin and Victor are aboard The Fearsome Darter, trying to search out the most valuable items. But, there is no luck for them either. Perhaps the crew rearranged the cargo? Perhaps it was thrown about during the wreck? Or perhaps the warp is simply playing games? In any case, the salvage operation is a long, slow slog.

After four hours or so, Winter notices a problem. There are many small objects on the auspex, closing fast. "Lord-Captain, I think we have Hollow Men inbound."

Liatris swears at this, and then yells for his armsmen. From experience, they know that only the meltagunners have any real chance of taking down one of the Hollow Men. They break the Meltagunners into 5 teams, each of 14 or 15 men, and label the command staff as a sixth team. Meanwhile, Winter has moved to the gunnery pulpit and fires a volley from the the Sunsears. She manages to vapourise a few of the Hollow Men, but they are very difficult targets for a starship's weapons. Eight groups of Hollow Men get through, and this time they appear to be working in groups of three or four. Five groups head for The Fearsome Darter, and the other three jet toward Angevin's Phoenix. Liatris orders three teams of meltagunners to defend Angevin's Phoenix, and leads the other two plus the command staff to The Fearsome Darter.

The first battle starts on the Darter's dorsal ridge, under the eye of the black star at the heart of the system, and with the ruined landscape of Blight for a backdrop. Three Hollow Men land on the ship, and before they can make their first cuts, Liatris and the command staff fire the first shot of the battle. However, their first volley does little more than scratch one of the hulking Exo-wreckers. Two Hollow Men return fire while the third moves into melee with Victor. They do no damage, as one shot misses, Nathin dodges and Victor parries. Winter shoots the one attacking Victor, and her fury is most righteous; the Inferno pistol burns a hole clean through her foe and it collapses in a smoking heap. Unfortunately, she is the only one of the command staff to score significant damage as Nathin and Victor both miss. One of the remaining Hollow Men shoots at Winter, who ducks, and the other one charges Victor but fails to connect. Victor's powerfist, however, lands a pair of blows and destroys his foe. Winter and Nathin shoot at the last Hollow Man. Winter misses, but Nathin's storm bolter hits many, many times and shreds it. Everyone pauses to catch their breath, and Liatris checks in with the other groups.

The good news is the armsmen on Angevin's Phoenix appear to be having a rare case of competence, and are doing reasonably well. They have engaged all three groups of attackers, and are winning through weight of numbers and great effusion of melta gel. The bad news is the other two groups on The Fearsome Darter are not doing so well. The armsmen sent to defend the Darter's shuttlebay have lost half their number already, and are pinned down. "Well, looks like we're goin' to the shuttlebay." Liatris comments.

Rogue Trader Victor Liatris enters the shuttlebay heralded by the roar of bolter fire. Seneschal Nathin's storm bolter purges the unclean like the fist of the God-Emperor Himself. One down. Winter misses, and the surviving armsmen rub salt in the wound by actually hitting and killing one. (Or perhaps they just were inspired to look good in front of the boss.) The Hollow Men return fire, to no effect. The only shot that isn't dodged stops in a blinding flash off Victor's conversion field. Nathin hits and kills a second one while Winter misses again. The Hollow men all miss their targets, but unfortunately more of the brutes fly in through the hole cut in the shuttlebay doors. Victor's powerfist evens the odds a little, as he kills one that got too close. Winter ducks behind the armsmen and reloads. Nathin and one of the armsmen each kill a Hollow Man with accurate shooting. The return fire is murderously accurate, killing two armsmen and critically wounding a third. Nathin, unfazed, racks up his fourth kill of the firefight with his fourth burst of mass-reactive bolts. Shaundra Winter, on the other hand, cannot seem to hit even at point blank range. The return fire is well aimed, killing one armsmen and overloading Liatris' conversion field. But, those are the last shots the Hollow Men fire, as the remaining exo-wreckers go down in a hail of fire before their weapons cycle.

Thus ends the battle. Their losses too great, the few surviving Hollow men fly off in search of easier salvage. Only one group leaves with their hands full, as a group that wasn't engaged at first leaves with a few critical chunks of the Darter's auspex arrays.

<End of session - short session due to GM catching ill & being unable to continue>

<Session 20>

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (214.817 M41)
It takes three more days of toil to fully clear The Fearsome Darter of its cargo and valuables. Liatris manages not to break down and cry during this time, though he is noticeably depressed. The Fearsome Darter was his dynasty's original ship, and it is now obviously dead. Its back broken, vast scabrous patches of its adamantite skin gone, and its interior a hollow shell, the ancient raider is resting in pieces on Blight. The Tech-Priests are not pleased either. The Fearsome Darter was a holy reliquary to them, and its sacred archaeotech components are now all in the hands of the Hollow Men. However, no one suggests a salvage mission to Decay, where the Hollow Men make their home.

Unfortunately, the Processional has another card to play. Just as Angevin's Phoenix starts to lift, the auger arrays pick up three ships inbound. It's Wrath's Carrion, the insane crew abandoned here when Umboldt fled the system. They shot up The Fearsome Darter badly the first time Liatris visited the system. In fact, that was why he sent it back under a skeleton crew... only to be lost and ultimately wrecked on Blight. So, there is bad blood here and Liatris has no qualms about venting some spite on the incoming ships.

Angevin's Phoenix has just lifted from Blight, and has the moon in their starboard arc, blocking it, as the three hostile ships emerge from the vast ring of debris that is the Outer Sea of space hulks. All three hostiles are in their forward firing arc, with one dead ahead and a pair off to the left. The pair are Iconoclasts, typical pirate raiders. However, the one directly ahead reveals itself as an Infidel class by firing a spread of four torpedoes straight toward the Phoenix's raked prow. This causes some very concerned discussion among the command staff. The torpedoes are already dangerously close, and if Angevin's Phoenix goes forward, they will fly into the torpedoes for sure. Winter decides to use her witchery to help, and Divines the Path the ship needs to take. With Blight to starboard, and torps ahead, Angevin's Phoenix goes the only way it can and makes an impossibly tight turn to port. The torpedoes pass a mere 20,000 kilometers astern, just far enough away for their terminal guidance cogitators to not activate. They impact on Blight, raising a quartet of mushroom clouds into the void.

With the ship still heeled hard over in her turn to port, Nathin unsuccessfully attempts to Lock On to an Iconoclast. Veriakh Kell, at the gunnery pulpit, aims the Sunsears without a clear target... and guesses correctly. The Sunsears blaze away, and all eighty guns on the ship strike the nearer Iconoclast. The light raider simply cannot take that kind of abuse, and is hulked in a blink. It is gutted by secondary explosions, men tumbling into the void, ruptured pipes spewing water, fuel, and coolant like the severed arteries of some wounded beast. The dying ship drifts helplessly forward, curving down to eventually plow a furrow into Blight's scarred surface - ending as just another wreck on the forsaken moon.

The Infidel and the surviving Iconoclast are undeterred by the fate of the raider, and close at speed. The Iconoclast opens fire with macrobatteries, and this time Angevin's Phoenix is on the receiving end of an accurately aimed salvo. The Iconoclast's macrobatteries are not the best in existence, but they put all sixty shells on target, and Angevin's Phoenix staggers under the impacts of multiple shells. [GM note: rolled a 20 and 21 for the Iconoclast's macrobatteries, just enough to hit with the lot. 22 Hull Integrity lost after void shield & armour. The players did NOT look happy.] The Infidel also connects with its dorsal battery, but does not manage to breach the armour.

"Burn retros, hard!" Liatris orders. This proves a smart move. The remaining Iconoclast is a mere 10,000 kilometers ahead, looming large on the array screens, when the Sunsear batteries finish recharging. With help from the other command staff, Kell hits with all eighty guns again. He inflicts massive damage, and sets the Iconoclast's dorsal macrocannon on fire. Crippled, it slips past them, rocked by the occasional explosion as a macrocannon shell cooks off inside the hull. With no dorsal guns, the Iconoclast is unable to bring weapons to bear. The Infidel is another matter. It has also burned retros and has turned in. It is now between Blight and Angevin's Phoenix, and fires on Liatris' ship from astern. However, the macrocannon shells go harmlessly wide.

Realising an undamaged Infidel is far more dangerous than a crippled Iconoclast, Liatris issues a new order: "Come to new heading!" His will is successfully carried out, and Angevin's Phoenix manages a 180 degree turn at relatively low speed. Shaundra Winter has replaced Nathin at the auger arrays and succeeds in locking on to the Infidel. Nathin attempts to rally the crew, but their efforts are not pleasing to him, and neither is Kell's gunnery... The Infidel is barely scratched.

Unfortunately, the Infidel has reloaded its torpedoes, and launches four plasma torpedoes from a scant 40,000 kilometers range. Not even Lord-Admiral Ravensburg could dodge torpedoes fired so close. Alarms wail, and Angevin's Phoenix echoes with the rapid fire thunder of mega-bolters as defensive turrets open fire. The turret crews do incredibly well, with the meager turret arrays shooting down three torpedoes. [GM note: good time to roll an 03 for the crew.] The fourth torpedo slams into the hull, blasting a hole the size of a hab block, and it is followed by a volley of macrocannon shells from the Infidel's dorsal weapons. Most of these hit, knocking down void shields and punching through armour.

Liatris realises that a lot of good voidsmen have died under his command today, and he also knows that his ship simply cannot take much more. He has to kill that Infidel before it reloads torpedoes again. Angevin's Phoenix slows and turns in, lining its prow up on the Infidel from twenty thousand. Liatris tries to rally the shellshocked crew and fails, but Veriakh Kell doesn't need the help. Again, all eighty lasers strobe in an accurate salvo. The Iconoclast explodes in a searing blast of light, its remaining torpedoes adding fuel to the fire of a plasma drive explosion. Angevin's Phoenix is caught in the blast. Kell runs for the helm. His infamous precognition fails him, but reflexes are up to the task and the ship successfully dodges. The remaining Iconoclast is not so fortunate. It takes the full fury of the plasma drive explosion and is crippled, reduced to a blazing hulk. The dying ship is shrouded in the smoke of its own burning interior, and drifts off.

Angevin's Phoenix pauses to loot the one Iconoclast that crash landed on Blight. A few pitiful, barking mad survivors are encountered, and quickly gunned down. Whether this is an act of spite or mercy is debatable. The wreck yields little of value. A few scraps of void-dessicated booty from the crew's quarters and one intact Arvus shuttle are the extent of the plunder.

Navigator Katain is feeling decidedly under the weather, so Liatris orders her inexperienced understudy to set course for Footfall. Given the condition of his ship, Liatris has no choice but to head for repairs. It takes ten days to get to Footfall, but it feels like ten months. The warp toys with everyone's perception of time, so it seems to take forever for even the simplest tasks, fraying sanity. Winter stops by Katain's quarters, and drops off a 'get well' card along with a pot of chicken soup. [GM note: the navigator's player wasn't at session, and this made the other players sad.]

Nathin gets a visitor, one of the armsmen, and it is bad news. "Uh, sir, remember that feller ya wanted us to watch? Well, he's dead, and the chirurgeon thinks he ain't himself." Nathin promptly investigates. 'That feller' was Baron Djanko Scourge, Rogue Trader. As punishment for past unkindnesses, Nathin had maimed Scourge and had him confined to a particularly nasty area of the underdecks. Well, that area was a little too close to a macrocannon hit, and Scourge ended up a charred lump thanks to a ruptured plasma conduit. The chirurgeon's autopsy reveals that the corpse is, in fact, NOT Scourge. The dead man was surgically and genetically altered to look like Scourge, right down to the maiming Nathin inflicted, but it isn't him... The ship's chirurgeon suggests "Red Schola, maybe? They're one of the few groups I know who could pull off a stunt like this."

"I think we need to slag the Red Schola." Kell growls.

"How did they know?" Nathin wonders.

"Why couldn't you just kill him once you got your hands on him?" Kell accuses.

"Well... that would have been too simple."

Both Kell and Nathin are in an exceedingly foul mood for the next few days. Scourge's escape has them fuming over the implications.

The navigator brings them out of the warp, and at least they are in the right system. The searing glare of Furibundus is a welcome sight, and a week later Angevin's Phoenix is pulling into dock at Footfall. The Footfall longshore is suffering from a shortage of spare parts, and it takes little time for the command staff to realise that they will have to look elsewhere for repairs. So, time for a little retail therapy! Victor Liatris goes out, makes a few trades, and returns lighter in the purse but with the keys to five gun-cutters in his pocket. They are not all exactly the same make and model, but they will serve. Nathin tries to hire a company of elite armsmen, with no luck. Surprisingly, Winter steals the stage from him. She lowers her standards a bit, and manages to hire a company of veteran mercenaries. They are only light infantry, but are reasonably well equipped and will be a good asset in a fight. A grinning Kell returns with his acquisition slung over one shoulder. He has managed to swap a few bits of archaeotech with the local mechanicus, and has gotten a good quality heavy bolter fitted with suspensors and a motion predictor. This joins the Eldar ranger long rifle, grenade launcher with xenofilament, Long-las, and storm bolter already in his personal arms locker. Guess who believes there is no such thing as an obscene amount of firepower?

Leaving Footfall, Liatris orders course set for Port Wander. Katain, still ill, staggers from her cabin and issues corrections to her understudy. It takes a single, uneventful day to transit the Maw and reach the Rubycon system. [GM note: still no player, but an obscenely low roll.] Another eight days, and they are docked at Port Wander.

Liatris looks up the Navy while he is here. The Fearsome Darter was carrying, among other things, the logbooks of the Light of Terra, and these are now in Liatris' possession. Liatris is able to get a dinner invitation to the commander's table without mentioning this fact... he gets the invite merely by being polite to a few junior officers and mentioning that he has business of mutual interest. As they head to dinner, Kell takes Liatris aside. He has heard that the Commander, Larius Sans, has a skeleton in his closet: His uncle, a full Admiral in Battlefleet Calixis, ran afoul of the Inquisition and was sentenced to arco-flagellation. That sort of stain on a family's reputation tends to be contagious and could explain why Sans has been assigned a base rather than a ship. Liatris, wisely, does not ask Kell how he came by this information.

So, Larius Sans is both surprised and impressed when Liatris tells him what he has. Since Liatris is his usual charming self at dinner, he makes a very good impression. [GM note: 8 DoS on charm!] Sans takes Liatris into his confidence, and tells him about Fleet Base Metis. Evidently, the Imperial Navy maintains a presence on Port Wander, but has its headquarters somewhere more... private. Metis is located inside the Koronus passage, and is off limits to anyone except the Navy and a few trusted captains. Sans offers a letter of introduction to Admiral Horne, which can get Liatris into Fleet Base Metis without getting shot out of the sky. However, Sans cautions Liatris not to use the letter unless he finds something important. "If you find something of great interest to the Navy while you are in the expanse, then by all means let us know away from all the prying eyes here. But, if it isn't important, well, the Admiral is a busy man and does not have much patience with those who waste his time."

With dinner under his belt, its time to see about repairs. Mistress Mahlvorn proves capable, and has an empty berth in her yard. Unfortunately, they don't have all the parts required... four weeks pass and Angevin's Phoenix still is not to 100%. They do, however, manage to find enough crew to fill all the empty berths. Meanwhile, Kell is hunting. He prowls all over Port Wander, looking for Scourge. He doesn't find him. He does find a backpack ammo supply loaded with Inferno bolts for his heavy bolter, but no Scourge. Wherever he is, it's not here. Meanwhile, Liatris learns who is after them legally... that would be Scourge's daughter Lucrezia. Liatris tries, and fails, to hire a crack legal team to defuse the situation.

Shortly before Angevin's Phoenix is due to leave port, Liatris gets a second invitation to dinner with Larius Sans. This time, it is Sans who has the surprising news. Evidently, Admiral Nathaniel Horne wants to meet with Liatris. So, Sans offers Liatris a one time short cargo run to Fleet Base Metis as a pretext for the meeting. Liatris agrees, and when his ship leaves port, he is carrying a full load of ammunition in the cargo holds plus a half regiment of the Brontian Long-Knives. The trip to the fleet base is without incident, and the guardsmen and ammo depart on arrival. They transfer to another vessel, an unmarked transport, and leave for points unknown. Questions are strongly discouraged.

Liatris, meanwhile, is busy meeting with Admiral Horne. The Admiral is not easily impressed, but Liatris manages to get through the dinner without a faux pas. Horne is blunt. "There are a few, and I do mean few, Rogue Traders who prove themselves worthy of working with the Navy. Honestly, there are more than a few Warrant holders who are no better than glorified pirates."

"Mmm, I've met a few who resemble that remark." Liatris replies.

"Indeed. Anyway, we have a bit of a situation. Call it an opportunity to prove yourself a little bit more. I've heard you've been to Vaporius?"

"Indeed. How did you know?"

"Confessor Bernardus spoke well of you. The Ecclesiarchy has forwarded the recent messages from their mission on Vaporius to me, along with a plea for aid. Vaporius has been hit hard by raiders lately. They are losing cities. Personally, I don't care about a planet full of Imperator-damned heathens, particularly primitive ones. But, the Missionaria is another matter, and it's not wise to ignore a request from the Ecclesiarchy, particularly not when it comes directly from a Cardinal."

Horne looks pensive for a moment, and then continues.

"Unfortunately, the Imperial Navy is stretched very thin, and the Expanse is a big place. The only way I can get help to Vaporius in a timely manner is to pull ships off anti-piracy patrols in Winterscale's realm, and there are only two such ships. I think you might be a better choice, if you can get there in time.

"I'd be delighted to help, and I've got a good navigator. Finally." Liatris replies.

"Good, good. Do this for me, and I'll let you use our yard here to finish fixing your ship, at standard rates."

"Done!"

The two men shake on it, and the Navy's yard dogs prove quite efficient. Three days later, Angevin's Phoenix is heading out once more, with her prow aimed at the Heathen Stars and Vaporius.

<end of session>

The information below is an extra - the background information for House Liatris, which is our PC Rogue Trader's dynasty. Observant readers will note that many of the details below have been taken directly from FFG's published work, as we tried to keep the backstory consistent with the official documents.

Cheers,

- V.

Information Dossier: House Liatris
SECURITY CLEARANCE: RHO-ORANGE Unauthorised access is punishable by mindwipe and/or death.
Keywords: Duchy, Spectoris, Mercantile, Warrant of Trade

Ancestral home: [sector, Calixis; Subsector, Drusus Marches; Planet, Spectoris.] The earliest surviving records list the Liatris family as natives of Spectoris. They were known to be residents on that planet at the end of the Meritech Wars in 226.M41. This is noteworthy as the Lord Sector ordered Spectoris classified & developed as an agri-world in 312.M41, and its oceans were not harvested on a large scale until decades thereafter. Clan Liatris appears in the Imperial record with increasing frequency during the taming of the planet. They were one of the first clans to realise the value of the recently developed coral paste <SEE FILE: SPECTORIS WORLD OCEAN PSYCHIC/GENETIC ANOMALIES> and emerged as one of the most influential families on the planet, controlling a significant portion of the fish harvest. This established them as planetary nobles, and to this day, the head of the Liatris family holds the title "Duke (or Duchess) of the Western Ocean".

Mercantile endeavours: In 388.M41, the Duchess Liatris bid for, and won, her house's first Navis Mercantilis charter. This cost a great portion of the family's on-planet assets, but the gamble paid off. The shift from aquaculture to interstellar trade saw House Liatris' influence extend beyond their home world. House Liatris' first charter authorises them to trade on the triangle route of Spectoris - Piety - Askelphion Secundus. A century later, they leased a second ship, a real tramp with a Free Charter restricting it to the Drusus Marches subsector rather than a fixed route. They leased a third ship two centuries after that, along with a charter authorising trade on the Fervious - Piety route.

Intervention on Vaxanide: When Orks blockaded and besieged the Imperial world of Vaxanide in 410 - 412.M41, it caused considerable disruption. The Imperial navy attempted to break the blockade on several occasions. When their first two attempts failed, they ordered several merchant vessels to accompany them on the third attempt. These had orders to run the Ork blockade and deliver supplies to the defenders while the Imperial Navy made their third attempt. Most merchant captains used every trick in the book to avoid this very dangerous assignment. House Liatris, either through bravery or inept politicking, were granted this "honour" and temporarily left their assigned route to join the Vaxanide convoy. Duke Liatris was the only merchant captain to not turn and flee in pants-wetting terror, and he delivered critical supplies to the beleaguered defenders. Liatris' landers flew through heavy fire to deliver their cargoes, and the Duke heavily committed his own armsmen to secure the landing zone. This did not go unnoticed.

The Reign of Terror on Malfi: In 428.M41, the ascension of the House of Koba on Malfi results in the most tyrannical and brutal regime in the history of the Calixis Sector, and raises the spectre of succession and sector civil war, threatening the wresting, by covert and bloody means, of the seat of sector government from the then weak Lucid Court on Scintilla. In 479.M41, The House of Koba falls at last by its own hand from betrayal within, leaving a power vacuum that leads to a twenty year period of strife, misrule and petty house wars on Malfi. House Liatris again deviates from their allotted route to assist the Imperium. House Liatris repeatedly sent both the ships they had at the time to Askelphion Secundus... and secretly onward to Malfi, there to launch flotillas of unmarked shuttles to the surface and back. Given the strife on the surface, these visits are neither intercepted nor logged. The Liatris mercantile logbooks from that period are sealed to this day, by Inquisitorial Order. This state of affairs lasts until 499.M41, when an appallingly powerful cult, The Pilgrims of Hayte, forces an end to internal dissension... and nearly causes the fall of Malfi in an apocalyptic orgy of bloodletting. With Malfi finally united against them, The Pilgrims of Hayte are defeated but not destroyed, and scatter throughout the Calixis sector. They remain a thorn in the side of the authorities to this day. During the final battles for control of Malfi, both House Liatris ships appear openly in the skies over Malfi, supplying the Imperial Guard and again sending house armsmen to do battle.

The granting of the Warrant: In 501.M41, Duke Demetriov Liatris was granted a Warrant of Trade, elevating him to Rogue Trader. This was granted by the Lucid Court "for repeated valiant and timely assistance to the Imperium, above and beyond the call of duty." The fledgeling Rogue Trader purchases a salvaged Hazeroth class raider, which he renames The Fearsome Darter, and departs into the expanse to seek his fortune.

Current events: The Liatris Warrant of Trade is currently held by Victor Liatris. Victor is new to his warrant, having inherited it in the current year 816.M41. The studious Victor was not expected to rise to the warrant. However, his father and eldest brother were killed on Piety. A splinter faction of the Pilgrims of Hayte caused a great deal of strife on that world, and launched repeated attacks against the nobility and merchants. House Liatris was hit particularly hard, and suffered grievous losses. Today, Victor Liatris has the warrant and has just left on his first voyage into the Koronus Expanse. His two younger sisters ply the House's assigned routes as merchant captains. The third merchant ship, with the Free Charter, is commanded by his youngest brother, nineteen year old Kaelen Liatris. Young Kaelen has already shown a reckless streak, and takes his assigned ship to some of the most war-torn backwaters in the Drusus Marches. Victor's mother is still alive, and retains the title Duchess of the Western Ocean. However, the matriarch of the Liatris clan does not involve herself with the day to day affairs of her house. She has retired to the family's manse on Askelphion Secundus, ostensibly to recover from the loss of her husband and eldest son, and keeps in correspondence with all of her surviving children.

---------- Player Knowledge ----------

The mercantilis charter is typical. Private ownership of void ships is very rare, as most ships are owned by the Adepta. The mercantile fleets are no exception - but the Administratum is too big, too ponderous, and too ignorant of local conditions to operate the ships efficiently. So, the Administratum leases many of their merchant ships and issues a mercantilis charter specifying the trade route for that particular vessel. Naturally, these leases cost a princely sum, and the Administratum gets a percentage of the profits as well.

A Free Charter grants a ship, but no route... Free Charter ships are forbidden from trading on established routes. They survive by trading with backwater worlds that don't have a fixed trade route, or by bidding on any one-time contracts issued by the naval authorities.

Spectoris: Classed as an agri-world, the surface of this planet is entirely Water, with a tremendous abundance of fish. Many of these are quite valuable, either delicacies, sources of useful chemicals, or simply good eating. However, the fish have a distressing tendency to destroy any foreign object in Spectoris' oceans. They display an uncanny degree of coordination in these attacks. Rumors abound that the world ocean is somehow sentient, and/or that it was subject to the blasphemous genetic manipulation of the Adranti. The aforementioned coral paste is used to coat ships and underwater habs. This causes the local wildlife to regard the coated object as "native", and leave it alone.

Piety: This minor hive world is, simply put, a wretched hive of scum and villany. Calling it "Piety" is like calling a two meter tall bruiser "Tiny". That said, it imports tremendous quantities of food and exports refined ore and manufactured goods.

Askelphion Secundus: This is a pleasure world, pure and simple. One of the few unspoiled garden spots in the sector, nobility from a score of worlds use this planet as a vacation spot or retirement home. Naturally, the jaded and spoiled nobles require all manner of delicacies to keep themselves properly pampered.

Fervious: Fervious is a frontier world, and exceptionally violent. It exports food, along with styger milk. (The styger, a local beast, produces milk that is an effective antitoxin.) Fervian swords and armour are of good quality, for a primitive world, and are valuable to collectors elsewhere in the sector. Fervious is also on one of the few stable warp routes to the forge world of Opus Macharius, so it sees considerably more warp traffic than expected for a world of its type. (House Liatris does NOT have permission to trade the Fervious - Opus Macharius route.)

The four worlds mentioned above are all very close to each other, all within ten light years or so. They are in a lopsided diamond shape with Spectoris at the bottom (trailing) point. Going clockwise from Spectoris, its Fervious, Askelphion Secundus, and then Piety.

Hey these look great. Any chance of writing up a summary of the how the Lure of the Expanse went for your group?

Also, for those of us GMs who have not run it yet: Highs and Lows?

These session reports were originally written up for my players and my benefit; this way there is a clear record both for fun and for reference. I started posting them with #16 because that was the current one at the time. Also, the earlier sessions were, in my opinion, somewhat weak. We had a rusty GM with little familiarity with the system, some players who were total newbies to both the 40K universe and rogue trader... and two veteran players, both powergamers, who knew the system and background inside and out and took advantage of the situation.

I forget who said "no one is completely useless, they can always serve as a bad example", but I'll take their advice anyway. The earlier reports are below... Feel free to learn from my mistakes, but kindly don't repeat them.

Cheers,

- V.

Session 1. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (296.810 M41)
We begin this entry with the ship undergoing refit at Port Wander. The unexpectedly high power draw of the Ryza plasma cannon batteries resulted in an unworkable configuration, so the House of Liatris' one and only ship ended up substantially different than originally intended. The ship's machine spirit has a remarkably Stoic demeanour, perhaps due to the great age of several systems. You see, the Fearsome Darter is a veritable Requilary and contains several Archaeotech components that are holy to the tech priests of Mars, and it is these that gives it its name - installing an archaeotech drive on a Hazeroth raider hull results in a very fast ship indeed, and the archaeotech auspex grants the twin laser batteries deadly accuracy. [Translation: The RT errata threw a spanner into the works, so the first hour was spent redesigning the ship...]

At this point, the ship's astropath receives a message from one of the Liatris' many agents on Footfall, speaking of an incredible discovery far out in the expanse, and begging Lord-Captain Victor's personal presence. So, after a quick spot of shopping, the ship heads through the Maw to Footfall. The journey takes 8 days, and is mercifully uneventful, although the navigator does manage to exit the warp on the wrong side of Furibundus... As it turns out, the Fearsome Darter arrives just in time.

Lord-Captain Victor Liatris and his seneschal Nathin disembark, accompanied by five guards. They are met at the docks by the agent, who informs them that the infamous Seven Witches of Footfall have divined the location of a fabulous treasure planet in the expanse, and will be auctioning off the coordinates. However, the agent has been unable to learn any details, such as the exact time, location, and buy in. While walking along the docks, the party is accosted by a group of very flashily dressed officials claiming to be the "Administratium Oeconomica Imperialis". The AOI wish to discuss the Lord-Captain's overdue tithes... However, while flashy, the AOI's uniforms appear to have mismatched and inconsistent insignia, and the paperwork they wave under the Lord Captain's nose he immediately identifies as the proverbial pile of grox dung. [GM note: 5 degrees of success] Offended, Victor throws the first punch. With his powerfist. Fight ensues, with the overmatched AOI fleeing almost immediately, leaving 2 of their number dead on the ground. The AOI shout curses and threats as they flee.

Very shortly thereafter, our heroes get the distinct feeling they are being watched... and they are. A hooded figure of dubious humanity is obviously watching them, but it vanishes with unnatural speed as soon as they look at it.

Entering Footfall proper, the group is approached by a servo skull. The skull broadcasts a holo from Tanthus Moross, liege of Footfall, who invites them to dinner that evening. They accept, and continue onward to the agent's office. There is some discussion of the "treasure" though the agent doesn't know much. There is also discussion of Footfall in general, and Victor and Nathin get a basic overview of what is present. They decide to visit the Spire of Intoxicants, where the narco-gangers trade their wares, and see what they can find. Inquiry there proves fruitless, though they do meet a particularly brutish lout named Calcus Calinnicus, a thug of some renown. Nathin hires Calcus to look into the AOI - one of their threats involved Footfall's defense turrets, and Nathin takes that seriously.

After that, its time for dinner. They meet and greet Moross, and also spot personages of note among the many guests. Vladayam Tocara, the senior negotiator for the Kasballica, says hello. (The Kasballica is the largest and most ruthless organized crime syndicate in the neighboring Calixis sector.) Preacher Yvane spouts platitudes, and the group avoids the Provisor, slave seller for the Red Vaults. There are also three other Rogue traders present: Gerrit, Fel, and Armelan. Most of the guests try to imitate Imperial high society, with some degrees of success and many degrees of failure. Since the local denizens have no real idea of class, they tend to equate "refined" with "bizarre" and the dinner menu reflects this. The available entrees are:

1. Voidburned Winterscale Creeper with Rakken brain sauce.
2. Live Dolorium Throat Crab.
3. Shardspider eggs in Promethium Soup
4. Jerazol Brain-Fluke braised in Ork spinal fluid
5. Deep Warp Eel (of unknown origins) with Egerian Mummy Extract.

Nathin has the shardspider eggs. However, he isn't paying close attention to his food, and swallows some sharp bits. The resulting internal bleeding leaves him somewhat the worse for wear. Victor has the brain-fluke, and reacts badly to it, resulting in gain of insanity points.

However, the adventures in dining pay off, as the other guests boast loudly to impress such "refined" guests. They overhear the time and location of the auction (the Obsidian Emporial, tomorrow at midnight), and an amused Lady-Captain Armelan tells Victor that the first ten "acceptable" bids at auction get the ten seats to the foretelling. Dessert is mercifully, more palatable fare: Good amasec and candied ploin.

Walking back to the ship, the lights go out while traversing a corridor that has mysteriously emptied of locals. Not good! Three narco-gangers plus two mutant scum block the path, and four more narco-gangers drop from a concealed hatch in the ceiling behind the party. The gangers let their shotguns do the talking. A lengthy fight ensues. Liatris' armsmen acquit themselves surprisingly well, but all of them fall during the fight. Victor proves a monster in hand to hand, despatching several foes while his parries wreck blades, and Nathin empties his bolter into ganger scum. Nathin and Victor are standing against their remaining 3 assailants when the latter's nerve finally breaks and they try to flee. Victor rips the last mutant in half as it turns to run, but two gangers get away. Victor is lightly wounded, but Nathin is seriously hurt. The agent and one armsman are still alive, and the good medkit Victor bought at Port Wander saves their lives. One of the gangers is still alive - coughing blood and cursing the God-Emperor. Victor persuades him to talk, and the ganger says "Feckward hired us. Didn't want the competition." Victor, being honorable, then attempts to staunch the ganger's blood loss, but fails. They return to the ship without further incident, arriving around 2 am. The auction is tomorrow at midnight, less than 24 hours away.

Session 2. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (334.810 M41)
The ship is currently docked at the wretched hive of scum and villany, to put it charitably, known as Footfall, in the Furibundus system. The honourable Lord-Captain Liatris and seneschal Nathin are sleeping off the effects of a rather interesting dinner plus a spot of after-dinner violence. But, no rest for the wicked...

At this point, the ship's astropath, Shaundra Winter, takes an interest in proceedings. Also, his faithful agent on Footfall informs the Lord-Captain that one Veriakh Kell wants to talk to him. Kell proves to be a hard, predatory man who is dangerously competent and competently dangerous. A known bounty hunter and tracker, he is hired after a short interview. Kell informs the Lord-Captain that one of Liatris' rivals attempted to hire him to work against Liatris - an offer that Kell claims to have refused. This puts the name "Jeremiah Blitz" on Victor's list of potential enemies.

After that, its time for some shopping. The astropath's chilly demeanour does not win her any friends at the market, and she is the only one to return empty handed. Nathin finds a Storm Bolter with motion tracker for himself, and he also finds enough Meltaguns to equip a company of the ship's guards. Meanwhile, Victor has bought enough Carapace armour to equip said company, and barely manages to acquire a ride for himself. He finds an Imperial Guard surplus Chimera APC, complete with turret mounted autocannon. [GM note: allowed 2 acquisition checks in anticipation of few future opportunities for same.] During this time, one of the thugs from the Black Brotherhood (Calinnicus' group of ruffians) informs Victor that the "Administratium Oeconomica Imperialis" have bribed the guards in the defence turrets to fire on them when they leave. This is obviously unacceptable. Thrones change hands, and the Black Brotherhood promises to deal with the problem.

Someone suggests a visit to the Xenosium to see what's there, and the rest of the group tags along. It's a short shuttle ride to the forbidding Xenosium, which resembles an Imperial prison, and it looks even more unpleasant up close. The group has the intense sensation of being watched. Entering the first courtyard, they see someone (something?) has graffitied a statue of St. Drusus. "Mon-keigh, go home!" The paint is red, and still wet. Calls asking for parley are met only with silence. They leave a note and depart.

Next up is the auction. The group finds the Obsidian Emporial without incident and is ushered in by a pair of mutants who appear to have fallen out of an ugly tree, and hit every branch on the way down. The place is certainly run down, and the seating arrangements are improvised at best. The Intercessor conducting the auction manages to be even uglier than the goons at the door, and doesn't stand on ceremony in getting things started. After an hour or so, the chaff has weeded themselves out, and the serious bidders get down to business. Ultimately, nine people make successful bids and get a seat at the foretelling. Unsurprisingly, all except one are Rogue Traders, and that one is a relative of a Rogue Trader, empowered to act on behalf of his line. Victor and Nathin offer up a Warpstone encrusted xenoskull chalice of spleens, which proves sufficiently bizarre to earn a seat at the foretelling. Even better, their assessment of the Witches' tastes is accurate enough to buy a seat without having to cough up anything really valuable. [GM note: Commerce test is successful, the party only loses half the PF of the ante.]

The party also pays close attention to their potential rivals. There is an opportunity for further discussion, or alliances, but the group lets it slide. [GM note: You morons!]

The Foretelling itself is in "The Cell", which is a particularly disreputable and run down section of Footfall. The locals avoid it, and when the party gets there, they see why. It looks like an insane asylum, one run by the inmates. Crossing the threshhold, the group gets plunged brain first into the warp twisted sanctum of the Seven Witches. No one takes it well, with the Lord-Captain being particularly traumatized by the blasphemous rite. A vision is shared, and data seared into your brain. You see the Dread Pearl, and you know it to be a world of prodigious value - one isolated by a warp storm for aeons, but the storm shall soon lift. You also know that you must have it, and that everyone else at the Foretelling has exactly the same information, and the same desire. The guards show the addled witnesses out, by different paths. By the time everyone truly comes to their senses, they are outside The Cell, and their rivals nowhere to be seen. They run for the ship.

Leaving, they make the unpleasant discovery that Calinnicus' goons silenced most of the defense turrets, but not all. Fortunately, the two they missed are unable to punch through the ships' armour. Despite serious ranting from the seneschal about Calinnicus' incompetence, the Fearsome Darter departs Footfall.

At this point, a brief summary of the competition and their vessels is in order.

Abel Gerrit, "Maxim's Gambit", Havoc class raider
Gerrit is a scion of a well established Rogue Trader line expanding into this sector. Though not the bearer of the Warrant himself, he is empowered to act on his behalf, and appears to be well supported.

Hadarak Fel, "Fel Hand", Firestorm class frigate
Fel is an older man. He dresses like a fop, but this is a deliberate ruse to lure opponents into a false sense of security. He is a veteran of the expanse, and quite crafty. He has little patience for fools, and even less tolerance for weakness.

Madam Charlabelle Armelan, "Grace of Sopha", Vagabond class merchant
Charlabelle is the last surviving Armelan. Though she appears every inch the sophisticated, intelligent noblewoman, and acts wealthy and powerful, there are whispers that her house is in dire straits. The fact that Charlabelle's flagship is a lowly merchant vessel adds fuel to the rumours.

Jeremiah Blitz, "Ordained Destiny", Lunar class cruiser
Blitz won his Warrant of Trade in a very high stakes card game. An inveterate scoundrel, Blitz apparently has little use for rules, honor, or other such follies of the nobility. He is a known dealer in Xenos artefacts, a fact which does not help his reputation.

Lord-Admiral Bastille the Seventh, "Colossus", Lunar class cruiser [flagship], and "Aberrant", Firestorm class frigate [escort]
Bastille is of a venerable Rogue Trader line, though he was far down the line of succession. His house bought him a commission in the Imperial Navy, which he held until a freak "accident" got him the Bastille Warrant. He runs his operations like a good naval commander, and lets his macrocannons address any diplomatic issues.

Lady Sun Lee. "Nihontu", Dauntless Class light cruiser [flagship], "Mulan", "Tomoe", and "Shi" 3x Hazeroth class raiders [escorts]
Lee is one of the most powerful Rogue Traders in the expanse. Her dynasty's prodigious wealth means she can do anything she pleases, really. She leaves running her empire to a horde of minions, as she loves to explore. She's also quite the swordswoman, and has killed many rivals, so many that she has acquired a terrifying reputation.

Baron Djanko Scourge, "Hammer of Truth", Dauntless class light cruiser [note: this ship is exceptionally slow for its size]
Scourge has been unfavourably compared to a Fenksworld Pit Thing. His aggression is exceeded only by his lack of tact, and he continues his family history of profiting from warfare and brutal exploitation.

Krawkin Feckward. "Chains of Dusk", Hazeroth class raider [note: this ship is exceptionally fast]
Feckward's claim of being a Rogue Trader is very dubious indeed. An infamous slaver, most consider him a criminal overlord (which he is). His only other real source of income is the blasphemous Cold Trade. He treats any nobles he meets with utter contempt, and has no qualms about how he collects slaves.

The "Fearsome Darter" is the third ship out of the asteroid belt. Feckward's "Chains of Dusk" proves to be shockingly fast, and did better at navigating the asteroids. Gerrit is second; though his ship cannot match the Darter's speed, his peerless maneuvering puts him ahead. Hadarak Fel is fourth, with the Nihontu right behind him. The "Fearsome Darter" is just overtaking "Maxim's Gambit" when the latter comes under attack from a seemingly invisible foe. Grudgingly, Gerrit asks for help. He's been attacked by an Eldar Aconite frigate, very quick and very dangerous. The Aconite gets in one slashing pass, raking both Imperial ships with starcannon fire. Needles of star-hot plasma tear through void shields and armour, inflicting major damage. But, both Imperial ships do manage to score hits despite the Eldar's damnable xenos holofields; the "Fearsome Darter" scoring a critical as its laser batteries strike home. The Eldar ship is lightly built, and is almost crippled. The Eldar flee. Unfortunately for him, Gerrit's ship has lost more than half its hull integrity before even entering the warp! Liatris is in no position to gloat as his ship isn't much better off; he's got over 2400 dead crewmen and significant structural damage just from that one volley. At least Gerrit now owes him a favor...

The navigator calls the witnesses to the Foretelling to his orrery. A rite ensues, willpower is tested, and the information is transferred to the navigator's mutant brain. He estimates a fifty day journey; for the Dread Pearl is far out in the expanse. The seasoned void hands are anything but thrilled with that estimate. Fifty days is a lengthy voyage, and the warp is seldom cooperative for long. The navigator locks himself in his blister, the Gellar field is raised, and the Warp drive engaged.

The first ten days out are largely uneventful. Fifteen days brings trouble. Some of the lower deck crew are press ganged scum, prisoners whose sentence was commuted to hard labor. There has been a sharp rise in incidents of insubordination and violence. It seems a bilge rat named Krooker is speaking mutiny. Unfortunately, by the time the seneschal hears of this, Krooker and his buddies have murdered a crew-chief, kidnapped a Tech-Priest and are threatening to kill him, and have broken into a secondary weapons locker. Obviously, this will need to be dealt with at once...

Session 3. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (373.810 M41)
The ship is currently navigating the warp, some fifteen days out of Footfall. Prior to this, the journey was uneventful. However, the calm aboard ship has been brutally shattered...

Some of the lower deck crew are press ganged scum, prisoners whose sentence was commuted to hard labor. There has been a sharp rise in incidents of insubordination and violence. It seems a bilge rat named Krooker is speaking mutiny. Unfortunately, by the time the seneschal hears of this, Krooker and his buddies have murdered a crew-chief, kidnapped a Tech-Priest and are threatening to kill him, and have broken into a secondary weapons locker. Obviously, this will need to be dealt with at once...

The astropath is laid up with a headache, and the seneschal had some bad shellfish at dinner so he's out too. (The latter incident is later traced to a Krooker sympathizer on the cook staff.) So, that leaves Lord-Captain Victor Liatris and Veriakh Kell to solve the problem, and neither one is feeling particularly diplomatic. The Lord-Captain places a call to Krooker. The latter is rude, and insists that the ship return to Footfall. Liatris' response of "No way in hell" leads to an immediate repeat of the threat to kill the tech-priest. Liatris then offers a compromise... he'll ready a shuttle, and put the crew off at the next human colony. Krooker asks to talk it over with the crew, and then cuts the connection before Liatris can reply. A shuttle is indeed readied - and mercilessly booby-trapped - but that's only to lure Krooker's goons into a false sense of security. In the meantime, the ship's schematics are carefully checked, and men creep into position. Krooker has several hundred followers but they're not all in the same spot. Krooker, the Tech-Priest hostage, and ten of his goons are holed up in lower barracks number 23-D. Worryingly, three of them, including Krooker, have gotten their hands on suits of the good armour, and on the meltaguns. The life support in a certain section of the lower decks is subtly adjusted to provide less oxygen - just enough to slow down reactions. Then, the Lord-Captain's real plan takes effect. Kell is hiding in an air vent with view into the barracks. Liatris himself uses a maintenance corridor to get into the barracks' cramped bathroom with no one the wiser, while small groups of armsmen, only three teams of three, block off the three corridors leading to 23-D.

A signal is given, and Kell fires the first shot with his grenade launcher. Somehow, the Emperor blesses the vile xeno-filament grenade with His Righteous Fury, and Krooker along with two mutineers are horrifically shredded, coating the barracks in a slick sea of blood and entrails. Liatris bursts through the door through the bathroom, plasma pistol in one hand and powerfist on the other; though sadly the mutineer dodges. Outside, the armsmen charge. There are only three each, but every last one has meltaguns and the enforcer armour, and they make short work of the mutineers guarding the doors. Inside, the mutineers fight back. Fire at the loyal guards misses. In fact, Liatris is the only one struck as he gets cut with a mono sword and then shot with a meltagun. The sword bounces, but the melta is another matter entirely. Amazingly, he is still standing, though badly hurt, after the hit. Kell quickdraws his long las, and fires from the vent. His shot takes a leg off a mutineer, and the man dies screaming. Liatris swings with the powerfist, but the mutineer dodges. The armsmen break in and fry more mutineers with their meltas... and the two surviving mutineers beg for mercy. The fight lasts just 12 seconds. Tech priest serial number 17-Red is unharmed, and the remaining mutineers surrender without further incident. The Lord-Captain is feeling merciful despite the melta blast to the gut, and lets them live... though they are assigned punitive duties. Victor Liatris then checks himself into sickbay for the next week while he heals up.

Twenty-one days into the voyage, the ship runs into trouble. The ship cries out as if in pain, and titanic forces from beyond try to collapse the ship's Gellar field as the Warp unexpectedly rages in fury. The navigator immediately transitions back into realspace to save the ship. Unfortunately, the sudden warp storm was a reflection of an event in realspace. A star has gone supernova and incinerated its solar system. The Fearsome Darter emerges into realspace right into the expanding blast wave from the supernova. The view outside the ship is an incandescent hell of relativistic plasma, hard radiation, and gravity waves. At this point, Kell proves he's useful for more than just pulling a trigger. His piloting skills, ably assisted by Liatris and his own unnatural precognition, allow the ship to surf the blast wave and take no damage. [success on all three piloting checks, despite penalties!] Unfortunately, the rapid translation has knocked the Gellar field out and it needs to be recalibrated. This takes an hour, and the tech priests think they fixed it...

...but they are wrong. Four days later, the Gellar field starts fluctuating alarmingly, and another hasty translation to realspace is made. Unfortunately, this time something comes back with them. The temperature on the bridge plummets, shadows lengthen and coalesce, and a horror from beyond the void manifests right on the ship's bridge. "Daemonic incursion on the bridge!" (This is generally considered one of those bad things...) The Ebon Geist is a thing of frozen, razored death, slashing claws moving with inhuman speed as it phases straight through the wall and into the midst of the crew. One of the bridge officers is eviscerated in an eyeblink, his flesh simultaneously freezing and rotting where it touches the daemon's talons. Liatris shoots it, an overcharged blast from his plasma pistol, and Kell hits it with another xenofilament grenade. Both shots actually hit the preternaturally fast predator, and the Emperor unleashes Righteous Fury upon the unclean. The daemon's form is sufficiently disrupted, and it is hurled back to the Warp. Only one casualty. The survivors share a look. "That... could have been MUCH worse."
"Yup. Phew."
And, the voyage continues...

"Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there yet?" "Are we there YET?" "Aaaaaugh!" Time perception expands and contracts. The next few days feel like they are months long, fraying everyone's sanity. Liatris and Kell are both somewhat the worse for wear, mentally. The Fearsome Darter drops out of the warp to recalibrate her Gellar field again...

This time, they are at the edge of an unnamed brown dwarf system, lightless and cold. Then, the ship's augur arrays pick up a faint signal. A Tech-priest is summoned to the bridge. 17-Red, whose life Liatris saved during the mutiny, is willing to assist. He informs the Lord-Captain that the signal is from a vessel of Mechanicus origin, but is an ancient code. It was last used thousands of years before the Koronus expanse was discovered and the Calixis sector settled, so it is archaic indeed. This piques curiosity... the signal is traced and followed. Several hours later, a strange ship appears ahead. It is a spheroid, perhaps 300 to 400 meters in diameter, and looks quite unusual compared to current Imperial designs. It is much smaller than the Fearsome Darter (which is 1.5 km long), but much larger than a shuttle. "That's a probe, but it is not on the list of acceptable patterns." 17-Red states. "No life signs."
The crew is shocked when the ancient probe suddenly starts to maneuver. It is still operational without a soul on board! Evidently this pattern of probe has a very advanced central cogitator. 17-Red informs Liatris that the central cogitator is a little too advanced; the orthodox Mechanicus of the Lathes (who are the most senior Tech-Priests in the region) would most assuredly order its destruction. However, the probe is a sample of lost archaeotech, and could be worth an enormous sum to the right parties... Liatris does NOT open fire, choosing to hail the probe instead, and gets a stream of binary chatter in reply. The tech-priest talks to it, and Kell evidently has some knowledge of machine spirits as well. The two of them somehow convince the probe's machine spirit to hibernate, and the Fearsome Darter docks the probe. [insert GM rant about absurdly lucky players, 5 degrees of success, and non-Explorators with "tech use" skill here.] It is much too big to fit in the shuttle bay, but fits neatly between the aft radiator panels and can easily be carried externally. A closer inspection reveals that the probe is horrifyingly powerful for such a tiny ship. It was never designed for live crew at all, and the compact automated systems allow it to have much more hardware than its size would suggest; its twin turbo-laser batteries and archaeotech auspex easily give it as much firepower as the Fearsome Darter. The command staff is pleased by their new acquisition. The Tech-priests aboard are intensely curious, and the Lord-Captain tells them "have fun".

Once more into the warp, and out again. This time the voyage is uneventful. The navigator informs the Lord-Captain that the ship has finally arrived at the desired coordinates. However, the sight outside the bridge is a shock: a single, completely unspectacular system sits in the void, and there is no trace of a warp storm. Wherever the ship has arrived, this is certainly NOT the Dread Pearl! Liatris and Kell both look displeased. The ship's sensors are used to conduct a scan. They find a yellow star, one planet in the biozone, asteroid belts, a couple mundane gas giants... and a ragged convoy of ships only 500,000 kilometers away. Cautiously, Liatris hails them. They reply, and one look at the grainy pict tells everyone the convoy isn't human. In fact, the creatures look something like a two meter tall, skinless, dog embryo. Yuck. Whatever these xenos are, they speak passable low gothic. "Greetings honored bipeds. Come and parley, come and trade!" Victor wants information, so he and Kell get aboard a shuttle, and fly over to the convoy. The xenos ship proves even more disagreeable in appearance than the creatures aboard, a mishmash of parts festooned with all manner of clutter. And it smells. Horribly. Their host is polite enough despite the nauseating surroundings. It is a Stryxis, and wants to barter. Liatris agrees to trade, and hands over some tchotkes, a set of filtration plugs, and a pair of small gems. In return, he gets an old pistol of human manufacture which proves to be a rare and valuable Inferno pistol! Kell is not so fortunate, and gets nothing of real worth. The Stryxis also tells Liatris of the system. It is very old, and the one inhabitable world is anything but a paradise - full of things with fangs and stings, and oh so many legs. There is an ancient temple complex on the equator, but the Stryxis never go there - "It was built by them, the hated ones, whom we kill when we can, and flee when we must." Speak of the devil... No sooner has the Stryxis said this than an alarm sounds. The Stryxis shoos the humans off, and his(?) vessels immediately flee. The watch officer on the Fearsome Darter voxes and tells the Lord-Captain that auspex has detected a ship at extreme range. The astropath, Winter, sticks her head in for a moment and mentions that the ship has the *exact* same psychic signature as the Aconite Frigate they fought at Footfall. Worse, the brief glimpse on the auspex doesn't show any signs of damage... the Aconite is moving on a diverging course, and quickly heads deeper into the system.

The Fearsome Darter heads towards the system's sole inhabitable planet. A detailed search of the archives reveals only a single designation: Quppa Psi 12. The journey will take about a week. Three days in, there is a serious firefight elsewhere in the system. The flashes of energy weapons hitting void shields and the detonation of kiloton range macrocannon shells are visible for great distances against the black backdrop of the void. The next day brings multiple warp signatures astern, one of them easily big enough for a cruiser. This is no time to dawdle. The close of the week sees the Fearsome Darter orbiting Quppa Psi 12. The planet is terrestrial but wet, with many lakes and inland seas. There are no large seas, so the weather patterns are quite stable. There is a lot of plant life... Large, psychically active ruins are spotted at the equator, in amidst the jungle. The plan is to land as near to the temple as possible and hike in on foot, so the command staff plus some well equipped guards pile into a gun-cutter and fly down. The routine atmospheric entry turns suddenly ugly as a massive storm appears out of thin air over the temple, unnatural lightning flaring off the temple's pillars. The pilot is caught by surprise, and the gun-cutter crash lands about 100 kilometers from the temple. Between the crash damage and getting mired in a bog, it won't fly again for several days. Liatris, Kell, and two armsmen step outside. They hear a droning noise, and see a huge hornet-like creature making a beeline for them. It is iridescent green, with many body segments, many legs, three sets of legs, chompy mandibles, and a lashing barbed tail dripping with venom. And, it is huge. Did I mention it is huge? In fact, this bug is easily the size of a small shuttlecraft! "Ohhh crap!"
Liatris shoots it with the plasma pistol. Another overloaded shot strikes home. The bug is annoyed. Kell shoots it with a xenofilament grenade. "Congratulations, Kell, you made it mad."
The bug attacks the shuttle, and discovers it isn't tasty. The armsmen prove they cannot hit the broad side of a bug from ten meters, both melta blasts going wide. Liatris drops the recharging plasma pistol and uses the inferno pistol. Kell puts another xenofilament grenade into the bug and once again the Emperor blesses the unholy xenos weapon and it does ruinous, Righteous damage. The bug is still coming! It lashes its tail at Liatris, and bites at Kell. Dodges are made. The armsmen are now in melee, and withdraw. Liatris swings with the powerfist, but the bug dodges. Kell steps back to shoot, but that gives the bug an opening and Kell is brutally bitten. Worse, Kell misses... The bug bites and lashes again. Fortunately, its mandibles miss Kell, and Liatris parries the lashing tail. The armsmen shoot, one of them finally putting a melta blast into the bug. It ain't dead yet! Liatris fixes that by planting his powerfist square in the thing's face, and it finally goes down. "Trophy room!" shouts Victor, clearly thinking this thing needs a place of honor on his wall.
Kell, however, is more practical. "I *never* want to fight one of those again."

Session 4: SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (411.810 M41)
The ship is currently in high orbit arount the world known as Quppa-Psi 12. The Lord-Captain, command staff, and several crewmen are currently dirtside following a crash landing in their gun-cutter. The group has little desire to walk a hundred kilometers through trackless jungle, so Kell attempts to fix the shuttle, and spends a day or so in the attempt. His labors are interrupted by a group of eight crawlies that look somewhat like a centipede; too many eyes and too many legs. A short, sharp fight ensues. The bugs charge, bite to little effect, and disintegrate as they get shot, a lot. The guards end up getting chewed a bit, but its nothing the medkit can't fix. The gun cutter lifts off the next day... and promptly gets smashed back to earth as the warding runes on the temple activate again. This time it goes down in a bog and gets mired. To their dismay, everyone realizes they have no choice but to walk. Worse, no one has the skills for exploring the jungle. Psyniscience, plus some assistance from the ship in orbit voxing down directions, helps them to find their bearings. Finally, they see the temple at the other end of a looooooong valley, and its just a matter of walking through the jungle. Three guards accompany the Lord-Captain and command staff. The remainder are left with the lovely chore of getting the gun-cutter out of the muck.

The local wildlife proves somewhat energetic. That night, in camp, the group is visited by a swarm of thousands upon thousands of fist-sized crimson bugs. The bugs have a vicious proboscis, and swarm toward the group. The humble frag grenade proves its worth, as its area effect is of great use against swarms. Melta blasts and the crackling powerfist send the rest packing before they can do much damage. There are two sudden storms during the night, the temple flaring with eldritch energies... just as it did when the group attempted to fly in by gun-cutter. These unnatural tempests are a not so subtle hint that Liatris and his crew are no longer the only humans on the planet. One of the storms lasts awhile, but the other is quite short. The next day, Kell blunders into a nest of the centipede-like creatures. They are more surprised than he is. More ammunition is expended, and the bugs are sent packing. Unfortunately, the troubles aren't over. A third unnatural storm triggers several hours of rain. The fern jungle was bad before. One hundred percent humidity, mud, and the gloom beneath overcast skies and the jungle canopy are not an improvement. Finally, the rain eases and the group reaches the clearing around the temple. Unfortunately, they are spotted crossing the open area, and are attacked by another of the colossal green flying bugs. Weapons blaze, and a xenofilament grenade tears into the bug. However, it keeps coming, and tears into both Kell and Liatris, opening terrible bloody wounds. Fortunately, Kell is unaffected by the creature's venom, and slips free from the grappling tail. Shaundra reaches out with her mind, and floods its diminutive brain with visions of hell. The bug panics, and flees.

That leaves the group amidst the awe inspiring ruins of the Eldar temple. Unfortunately, the extended trek through the jungle means that they are not the first on the scene. Two groups are facing off around the central spire of the Eldar temple. A look at their livery correctly identifies both groups: Lady Sun Lee, and Lord Admiral Bastille the 7th. The two groups are evenly matched, Lee's forces kitted out with full stormtrooper armour, and Bastille's armsmen with flak greatcoats and bolters. Neither is giving a millimeter... though the heated discussion has not yet degenerated to violence. Others are present as well. The group realizes they are being watched, by Lady Charlabelle. She has a bodyguard and four xenos mercenaries, which is not enough to challenge either group around the spire. Liatris proposes a temporary alliance, and Charlabelle accepts. Charlabelle mentions that both Scourge and Feckward are skulking around, but neither has shown themselves yet. The combined forces of Liatris and Charlabelle approach the central spire. Liatris tosses off a witty greeting. Sun Lee is amused. Bastille, however, appears to have had his sense of humour surgically removed. He is blunt and condescending. "Go home little boy. Leave while you are still alive." The conversation goes downhill from there. And, right then, someone mind-***** one of Bastille's armsmen. The man jerks like a puppet on strings, and fires a wild burst at Sun Lee's troops. Bastille blames the only visible psyker - Astropath Shaundra Winter, of Liatris' crew. "**** you, warp witch!" And then, all hell breaks loose.

A huge firefight erupts around the spire. Bastille is one of the first to fall. He is unable to dodge both Kell's xenofilament grenade and a deadly accurate burst from Nathin's storm bolter. His concealed refractor field does not save him. Baron Djanko Scourge appears, with psyker and goons in tow, and attempts to kill Sun Lee. She dodges all his plasma blasts with ease. Liatris and Charlabelle's people run for the spire... but find it already occupied. Six Eldar warlocks teleport onto the spire platform, and begin some eldritch rite. The psychic shockwave knocks most of the battling humans senseless. The psykers realize the Eldar are trying to tear the spire out of reality and send it elsewhere. If they succeed, it is game over... The battle takes on a new, and uglier, tone. Liatris and crew focus on the Eldar while most of the others try to kill each other. Scourge's scum prove spectacularly inept with grenades and manage to frag themselves several times. One massive, prolonged battle later... At the end, Sun Lee, Charlabelle, Liatris, and a few command staff are standing on top of the spire as the defeated Eldar warp out. Most of the humans (except for Sun Lee) are seriously wounded. And, Bastille's body is missing...

Once the Eldar are gone, the top of the spire is revealed as a complex star map. Unfortunately, the map is damaged and location of the Dread Pearl has been burned away. But, there are six worlds in the heathen stars that are linked to it by strands of fate, each with an Eldar shrine hidden somewhere upon it. Take psychic readings from all (or most?) of these shrines, and the location of the Dread Pearl should be revealed.

Session 5. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (411.810 M41)
The ship is currently in high orbit arount the world known as Quppa-Psi 12. Lord-Captain Liatris and crew have successfully "read" the star map they found in the ruined Eldar temple (psyniscience was involved), and discovered that the exact location of the Dread Pearl is obscured due to damage. However, there are five (or six) worlds in the Heathen Stars that have their fates intertwined with the Dread Pearl. Each of these has an Eldar temple somewhere on it, and if these are read, it should be possible to determine the location of the Dread Pearl.

Now that the Eldar Warlocks have been defeated, the unnatural storms surrounding the temple have dissipated, and the group is picked up by the gun-cutter. They leave the star system without incident - the Fearsome Darter's speed keeping it free from difficulty. The ship reaches the edge of the system and prepares to enter the warp. "Where to, Lord Captain?" There is no obvious path connecting the scattered systems, so the Lord-Captain results to more arcane means of divination. (Namely, rolling dice.) 2! "Second star to the right and straight on till morning."

The navigator estimates 20 days for the journey. However, the navigator manages a rare display of competence and makes it there in 15 days. The journey is uneventful, with the notable exception of the ninth day. A flotilla of ghost ships accompanies the Darter for a little while. One gets remarkably close, and they are able to haul it back into realspace on the second attempt. It's an ancient Murder class cruiser. The aft section appears to be overgrown with something that's almost(?) alive(?), so the boarding party docks near the bow, just behind one of the massive lance turrets. They notice the livery on the ship's bridge: Word Bearers Astartes Legion. "Ohhhhhhhh crap." Once they are aboard, it is rapidly apparent that the ship is haunted. Breezes spring up form nowhere and vanish. Ghost lights flicker. Hatches creak. Some portions of the interior are horribly mangled and battle scarred, while others are pristine, like the crew left just minutes ago. The journey toward the bridge is interrupted when they encounter a still functioning servitor. It is sleek, swift, and spiky - a far cry from current imperial tech - and attacks without warning. The group slags it, though they collect a few painful slashes in the process. Liatris and Winter have powerful pistols and use them to great effect. They reach the bridge. Nathin successfully picks the lock. The bridge is open to space, viewports gaping like the eyesockets on a skull. Veriakh attempts to reactivate the bridge, but is engulfed in an explosion of warp fire. This attracts attention, of the worst sort. Both Veriakh and Shaundra sense warp entities near the aft of the ship, moving closer. "How many?" "MANY!!!" The group flees, grabbing a few artifacts as they go. They get a spiffy jacket with a pre-Heresy Word Bearers logo, a good power sword inlaid with Hexagrammatic wards, and some books of theology that would give an ecclesiarch apoplexy. The Lord-Captain promptly declares the sword his personal property.

After that, its a routine two weeks to high orbit around Vaporius. This world was settled by man long ago. It has a few shallow seas, cyan bright, and both corrosive and poisonous. Most of the land is desert, parched and sunblasted. There are vast seas of dust where oceans used to be, sandy wastes that somehow support cities, and mountain ranges that thrust up like chainsword teeth. There are several hundred cities scattered over the planet's surface, despite the apparent absence of water sources. The Eldar nexus point is located high in one mountain range, near a peak. The gun cutter makes a rough landing on a plateau a few kilometers from the nexus, one wingtip scraping off on a rock wall. A close encounter of the worst kind follows. Some indigenous horror, an amorphous rocky thing, ambushes them. It assumes a vaguely humanoid shape for battle, lashing out with glass encrusted pseudopods. Despite the creature's truly unnatural toughness, it doesn't last long. Astropath Shaundra Winter successfully reads the psychic patterns of the Eldar nexus, and the group returns to the gun cutter. Veriakh leaves a filament grenade booby trap at the nexus.

But, they are being watched... They see a few locals, humans who have slid back to a barbaric level. (One of the locals rolled a 96 on his hide check - a very lucky break for the characters.) Neither side particularly wants a fight, and they get within speaking distance. They are able establish communication as the locals speak a peculiar dialect of High Gothic. They learn little. The locals call themselves the sandmen, and warn the group not to venture into the cities, as the cities are ruled by "very bad men". One such city is visible in the distance, glittering in the sun. Liatris says his goodbyes, and the group heads off to the nearest city.

The locals are surprisingly incurious. After a few minutes, some muscular gents with bronze scale armour and various sharp implements appear at the closed gate. Parley ensues. The gates are opened, and the group is escorted in to see the Priest-King. They see many artisans working glass and copper, and the farmers have various small birds and reptiles for sale along with grains and vegetables from rooftop gardens. The locals have dark skin, very bright blue eyes, and minimal hair. Most of the men, and some of the women, are completely bald. Veriakh senses a diffuse psychic presence throughout the entire city - very faint and impossible to pin down. They are led to the palace in the center of town. It is an imposing edifice, massive and ostentatious. The ornamentation has a "water" theme. The Priest-King makes them wait.

The Priest-King proves to be tall, handsome, decadent, and arrogant. His name is Ansai, and the city is Lah'ndan. He offers them a drink of water, which is accepted. The water is wondrous! After drinking, there is an incredible sensation of purity and clarity. It takes very little thought to realize there are people in the Imperium who would pay dearly for this. However, Veriakh realizes the water carries a faint psychic charge. [GM note: Damned players. Damned five degrees of success on psyniscience spoiling the GM's fun.] Veriakh also realizes that Ansai is a psyker, and is trying to psychically manipulate the Lord-Captain. He whispers this truth into the Lord-Captain's ear; Liatris manages to keep a straight face, though inwardly he swears vengeance. After that, it's time to negotiate. Ansai is uninterested in anything the offworlders have to offer. No trinkets or technology sway him, and he views their efforts with a mix of amusement and contempt. However, there is one thing he wants, and for it he will be willing to pay dearly in water. The crowd of courtiers parts, and the guards drag a man forward in chains. He is obviously a missionary of the God-Emperor, and has been badly beaten. Priest-King Ansai shows real emotion for the first time, and that emotion is wrath. The notion that there is someone, or something, greater than a Priest-King is, to him, the foulest of heresy. He is willing to trade in water, but only if the offworlders will "rid me of these turbulent priests!" The party leaves, promising to return with news of their success. (Ansai refuses to turn over the captive.)

The gun-cutter makes a short suborbital hop, barely fifty kilometers, and arrives at the Missionarius Galaxia's mission. They are met by Confessor Bernardus, the senior missionary. Bernardus greets them warmly. They exchange information - Bernardus is meeting exceptional resistance in converting the locals. They have managed to turn only a few hundred to the God Emperor's light. The rest, well, their sermons seem to be falling on deaf ears. he also mentions they have another difficulty. The mission's water condensers aren't working. Veriakh has a look. The condensers appear to be in good working order, but for some unfathomable reason they simply are not producing water.

Night falls, with the gun-cutter parked next to the mission. Liatris is heard to mutter. "Now I really want to talk to the sandmen."

Session 6. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (488.810 M41)
The Fearsome Darter is currently in high orbit around Vaporious, with the Lord-Captain and the command staff dirtside. Liatris decides that he really wants to visit the Sandmen, so he takes the gun-cutter back to where he met them the first time. This time he lands in the valley, as there is no need to visit the Eldar nexus. Despite the easier landing site, he narrowly averts disaster on touchdown. [GM note: A fate point was used to reroll a 00.] Some auspex work allows them to find the Sandmen again. However, they do encounter a pair of the strange, amorphic, rocky creatures on their walk to the sandmen's village. The creatures attack, and are dispatched without mercy. Liatris speaks at length with the village elders. He gets the elders to talking... they speak of their legends, of the first men on Vaporious, and the wondrous temple that they built. At the end, Liatris cuts a deal with the sandmen. He agrees to support them politically, and gains preferred trading rights for himself.

The next morning, they return to the ship, and begin scanning the planet in detail using the ship's archaeotech auspex arrays. They are looking for the Temple of the First Men. They find three areas of interest. The first is a ruined condenser, for extracting moisture from the air. It is sand and rust, but they do find an old cogitator. The second is a water derrick, positioned in what used to be a river valley - now dry as a bone. The search here goes exceedingly well. Veriakh finds the control room and decrypts an old map. The map shows a central nexus - when they visit this, it turns out to be a massive edifice, built into the side of a mountain. A little searching, and they realize they have found the Temple of the First Men. [GM Note: During the search, the players made four rolls in a row, the highest of which was an 04, for a total of TWENTY DoS on four rolls. It's better to be lucky than good.)

The party spends considerable time searching the complex. This huge set of buildings was not only a temple, but the planetary governor's seat of power. So, there's a lot here, including a bunch of high tech equipment, gear for the planetary enforcers, and the like. A couple hundred lasguns isn't much to a rogue trader, but to the locals this could represent a significant shift in the balance of power. They bring in tech priests to get the systems running, and then fly back to the Ecclesiarchy's mission. Liatris tells the Ecclesiarchy everything. The mission is abandoned, with the missionaries relocating themselves to the temple. The Ecclesiarchy is introduced to the sandmen, and begins to convert them; the Temple of the First Men proving a great boon in this regard. Confessor Bernardus is very pleased, and promises drastic measures against the warp-tainted Priest-Kings.

Once that's done, they return to the city of Lah'ndan, and meet with priest-king Ansai. They tell him there are, in fact, no more missionaries at the mission. "They're dead, I trust?" smirks Ansai.
"Actually, we moved them to the Temple of the First Men" replies Liatris.
Ansai realizes Liatris isn't lying; his face is a picture! At that point, Liatris signals his men, and Ansai is eviscerated with a xenofilament grenade. The crew opens up with automatic weapons, and wreaks horrible, bloody venegance upon everyone in the throne room. Liatris did not forget the earlier mind-probe, and doesn't tolerate such insults. After the throne room has been reduced to a charnel house, they inspect the well. There is water there, sealed in copper urns. The water is warp tainted, and the party refuses to take even a small sample. They leave. [GM note: spoilsports!]

Session 7. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (526.810 M41)
The Fearsome Darter breaks orbit, leaving Vaporius. Their way out of the system is uneventful, but once in the warp, things get interesting. The navigator estimates a fifteen day journey. On day twelve, they encounter shoals and reefs - jagged shards of false reality and pseudomatter that could rend the hull. The navigator perceives them, and relays the data to the ship's helm. Veriakh takes the helm and attempts to use precognition, but the Warp is displeased. Verkiah simply vanishes into thin air, with a bad case of chronological incontinence. Liatris takes the helm, and begins maneuvering the ship. Verkiah rematerializes in Liatris' lap a few minutes later. Awkward! Verkiah has been scarred by the ordeal, and is weaker in body and spirit. The only good news is that they are able to maneuver the ship past the shoals without damaging the ship.

On day fifteen, it becomes obvious the navigator's time estimate was off. On day eighteen, the Gellar field starts fluctuating. Hasty prayers to the machine spirit by Veriakh and the resident tech-priests placate the device, and it resumes normal functioning. They emerge from the warp on day 26. To Liatris' great disgust, they are in the wrong star system entirely! This lifeless, wasted system eight light years from Raakata is not one of the systems they need to visit. Worse, they have emerged in the midst of a dense asteroid belt. They are able to fly clear, and return to the warp. Ten mercifully uneventful days later, they finally reach Zayth.

They encounter Abel Gerrit's ship, the in the outer reaches of the system. Gerrit hails them, and is full of news. It appears Lord-Admiral Bastille the seventh has survived, and has crossed swords with Sun Lee. She sent one of her escorts to shadow his command ship, but it was detected and Bastille mauled it before it could get clear. Sun-Lee protested, and was repaid with language that was eloquent, insulting, and arrogant. The two are now sworn foes. Gerrit also takes the opportunity to clear his debt to Liatris. He informs Liatris that he found one of Feckward's hired scum on his ship. Under questioning, the man revealed names of other people in Feckward's employ, several of whom are on Liatris' ship! Liatris thanks him, and concludes the conversation.

Inquiries are conducted. Arrests are made. Meltabombs and a virus grenade are confiscated. Astropath Winter mind-probes the captives. They are, in fact, utter complete scum. One is an actual Chaos cultist possessed by an unclean spirit, and she breaks off the mind-probe just in time. "Daemon!!!" Nathin shreds the offending cultist with an extended burst.

After that, they arrive at the war torn and desolate world of Zayth. The Eldar nexus is located despite being deep in a ravine, and the gun cutter lands within a kilometer. A few of the locals protest the party's presence, violently. These are scavengers, many of them mutated by the toxic wastelands they inhabit. The scavengers open fire. Liatris and crew return fire, and get the best of the engagement. The scavengers flee, after losing half their number. However, they do manage to inflict several painful bullet wounds. They get to the Nexus, though Kell and Liatris have trouble even with the climbing harness. At this point, it becomes apparent that two of the local land ships are heading this way, and there is a distinct rumbling as they approach the ravine. Winter successfully reads the psychic impressions in the wraithbone, and the group gets out via climbing harness before the nearer land ship rumbles over the ravine.

The other land ship appears over the horizon, and macrocannon fire ensues. Liatris realizes that the two land ships are fighting over a nearby wreck, which is an Imperial shuttle, now much the worse for wear. They run for the wreck, as they are closer to it than the land ships. The land ships have deployed a significant ground force, and stray fire comes uncomfortably close. In fact, Victor is hit once, Nathin twice. They feel like bolt shells. Ow. Victor uses his powerfist to open the shuttle's warped hatch, and they drag the badly injured Nathin inside. A quick search of the wreck yields only one thing of interest - the charred corpse of a tech priest, with a crystal data arc half inserted in his skull. Whatever was in that data arc must've been important if he was fiddling with it at the time of the wreck... The group voxes to their gun cutter, which makes a daring extraction.

The data arc is decoded. It reveals a contact aboard one of the land ships. A deviant faction within the Cult Mechanicus contacted a gun master named Hovic aboard the land ship. The renegade Mechanicus offer technology, in exchange for the chance to study the technology aboard the land ship. They had originally negotiated with Elder Tactician Graves, but earned his emnity. A significant discussion follows. Liatris wants to cut a deal with Hovic. Kell, however, wants to deal with Graves, on the grounds that Graves is the one in charge. The command staff is evenly split, though Liatris eventually prevails.

Hovic is contacted. One of his scouting parties goes out, meets the gun cutter a significant distance away from the land ship, and picks up Liatris and his command staff. Liatris and crew are brought aboard in secret, and meet with Hovic. A deal is struck. Hovic will pay Liatris with schematics of Zaythian tech in exchange for offworld tech, and assistance in staging a coup. Winter discreetly mind-probes Hovic, and realizes he is basically being straight with them, though he has understated the difficulty of certain tasks. They leave the way they came in. Now, all that remains is to contact Graves. They vox the land ship, and offer to parley. This is accepted, and they send down a cargo shuttle. It's full of armsmen. As soon as the shuttle lands, Hovic's crew starts the rebellion, and the armsmen assist. Graves is gunned down on his own command bridge. Schematics are acquired, and Liatris decides to sell them to the renegade Mechanicus.

Session 8. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (564.810 M41)
The Fearsome Darter breaks orbit, leaving Zayth. Almost immediately, the ship's auger arrays pick up an object on a closing trajectory. The bridge officers identify it as a ship, running silently in an attempt to sneak up on them. "Can you identify it?" asks Liatris.
"Yes sir, it's the Colossus. Bastille's Lunar class cruiser."
"Get us out of here."
With that, The Fearsome Darter's drive blazes white and hot... and every single maneuvering jet on the ship simultaneously powers down for no apparent reason. This leaves the Darter able to accelerate, but not turn. This causes considerable consternation. Fortunately, Bastille's ship was detected some distance away, and the Darter is very fast. Even travelling in a straight line across the Colossus' bow, they are able to outdistance the Lunar. Bastille, however, is evidently quite miffed... and his ship retains prow torpedo tubes from its navy days. He launches a torpedo at the Darter. While the Tech-Priests are trying - and failing miserably - to discover the problem with the maneuvering jets, Astropath Winter sits down at the turret control station. The Astropath proves an excellent shot, or at least a lucky one, and the incoming torpedo is hit hard enough to knock it off course. It misses, and there is much joy in the Darter's bridge. Twenty minutes later, the maneuvering jets come online as suddenly as they deactivated. The Tech-priests appear as surprised as everyone else. They are not able to explain this series of events to Liatris' satisfaction.

The edge of the system is reached without further incident. The Gellar field is activated, and the warp drive engaged. The navigator estimates 15 days to the next Nexus point, though the voyage takes longer than that. The trip is mercifully uneventful until day 19. At that point, ghost ships are sighted. Four of the flickering echoes appear real... two transports, a cruiser, and something humongous. Liatris attempts to snag one again, and is successful on the second attempt. This time, he pulls a Jericho class transport out of the Warp. Unfortunately, this ship appears to have been completely gutted by fire. Charring and fire damage is obvious around every single porthole, every hatch and launch bay. The hull itself is still worth something, if it could be salvaged or towed. Liatris is unimpressed, and does not send a boarding party. At this point, the navigator refuses to reenter the warp, informing the Lord-Captain "We're here." The navigator also mentions that he thinks a third ship might have emerged from the warp with them, but the auspex returns nothing..

The system in question has no habitable worlds, merely some scattered asteroids and a trio of gas giants. The second of these, a ringed giant, hides the nexus point in amongst its rings. This particular nexus is a small space platform, a wraithbone structure barely fifty meters across, and it is open to the void. It's position in the rings means there's a lot of debris about, so the ship stands off and sends in a gun-cutter. The astropath will need to suit up for this. The gun cutter matches orbits easily enough. Liatris, Winter, and a few armsmen occupy the structure. Unfortunately, someone has left them a present. Winter trips a laser tripwire, and a concealed grenade goes off - an abominable piece of xenotech, it sprays glassy shards with monomolecular edges. Winter dodges the blast. The grace of the Emperor is with Liatris, and he avoids damage as well. (Spend those fate points!) One armsman is not so lucky, and dies horribly, void suit and flesh alike shredded by the blast. Winter then attempts to read the psychic impressions in the wraithbone, and she makes it look easy, succeeding on the first attempt.

As they turn to leave, the stars are eclipsed by a colossal shape. A humongous ship drifts by, dark and silent. Scores of impact craters obscure imperial livery, as the once proud ship is intact, but much the worse for wear. The ship is huge beyond belief, nearly ten kilometers in length. (For comparison, Bastille's Colossus is barely half that!) As soon as they get back to the Darter, the vox crackles to life. A whispering voice form the derelict beseeches their aid in the name of the God Emperor and all his saints, and asks that they attend the Light of Terra. This name evokes considerable interest. The Light of Terra was the flagship of the Angevin Crusade, which founded the Calixis sector. The ship was, in its day, one of the most renowned Imperial battleships in existence. It was lost in the warp millenia ago, and was supposedly carrying a fortune in plunder when it disappeared. It takes the command staff a remarkably short time to decide to investigate.

The gun-cutter flies over to the derelict. The blast doors closing the shuttle bays are sealed and locked, so there's no way in. The group takes the brute force solution. One void walk with lascutters later, and there is an opening big enough for the gun-cutter. They fly in and land. The vox signal was, they think, coming from the bridge area. However, finding the bridge proves to be a problem as the interior of the ship is trashed. There is detritus everywhere. The air is stale, with fungus patches growing on the walls. The dark is only broken by the occasional lumen globe that still functions. Somewhere there must be some power as the ship isn't completely frozen, merely cold, and the grav plates and void seals still have power... most of them anyway. A malfunctioning grav plate sends Winter for a loop. "Whee!"

The interior of the ship proves a maze of passages. A wrong turn sends the party through a door with void on the other side. Fortunately, they're still wearing their void suits, so this is merely an annoyance. The rushing wind carries several people out through the door, and bounces them off assorted twisted pieces of metal. Ouch. They retrace their steps, getting back into the pressurized section. People and void suits are patched. The quest for the bridge resumes. Liatris thinks he sees movement... But, there is no contact. There are markings on the walls. Graffiti? Tribal symbols? A short while later, they find the corpse. Dressed in rags, the human body shows no sign of advanced technology. However, there is a crude spear sticking out of the corpse's back: A length of pipe with broken glass for the head. When they do get to the bridge, there is a lit candle sitting in front of the open doors.

Inside, the bridge is all dust and decay. Lord-Captain Draken Roth is still sitting in his command throne. This is not surprising, as Roth is far more machine than man. Gifted heavily by the Cult Mechanicus, he was, and is, a permanent fixture on the bridge, literally bolted to his station. Roth is surrounded by the decaying banks of his life support machinery. He looks dead, mummified by a thousand years or more since the Light of Terra was lost. However, the Mechanicus wrought well. When the group attempts to activate a bridge console, Roth's eyes open. "You came. You came to set me free." he whispers.

Roth's body has survived, but not his sanity. From what the group can get out of him, his ship was lost in the warp, in the cruelest of ways. He raves of purging the psykers en masse, of a clever daemon possessing a crewman and causing months of serial murders, of the navigators suiciding one by one. The crew's descendants have regressed to barbarism, so far gone that they no longer even realize they are on a ship. Roth implores Liatris to restore his command over the ship. Roth cannot return home given his mental condition; he knows this and wishes to continue his crusade out among the halo stars. In return, he will allow Liatris and crew to loot the hidden holds. Liatris agrees, and asks Roth what he needs done. The first thing that must be done is to bring the ship's reactor up to full power, and the second is to reawaken the core cogitator. These things will allow Roth to regain control of his vessel once more.

The deal struck, Liatris and crew head back to the shuttle bay. This time, they see one of the primitives watching them from an air duct. They say hello, but the grubby teenager flees. Shortly thereafter, they encounter a more numerous group, a dozen or so. These are belligerent, and mistake Liatris' attempt at diplomacy for weakness. A fight ensues. Unfortunately, their spears and swords are made of scavenged hull metal, and are capable of punching through even modern armour. [The GM was most amused by Sander's expression at this point "what do you mean it's not primitive damage?"] The barbaric descendants of the Light's crew prove remarkably adept at violence. Despite their primitive weapons, they manage to inflict significant wounds and prove very adept at dodging melta blasts. Liatris is stabbed twice, and is barely on his feet. About half of the attackers are down when Winter panics one - he flees gibbering in terror and that starts the rout. Liatris lets the remainder escape. Shortly thereafter, they see the teenager again. This time, the teenage boy allows them to approach, curiosity overcoming caution. The boy is named "Nik", and he is scrawny and covered with vacuum burns. Liatris is diplomatic, and soon has a new friend. He learns that Nik is part of the Void Walker tribe, and that their leader is a man named Palik. The group Liatris fought are a different tribe, the Wargars. The Wargars are bullies, and the Void Walkers are on bad terms with them. Liatris asks Nik to arrange a meeting with Palik. After that, they return to the shuttle bay without further incident. They meet additional crew from the Fearsome Darter there, Liatris having voxed for a repair crew plus tech-priests, and then relocate to a different shuttle bay. The Light of Terra is nearly 10 km long, so they decide to move to the shuttle bay nearest the reactor rather than hike through a maze of interior passages filled with thousands of barbarians.

When they get to the reactor, they find it guarded by members of a third tribe. These paint their faces with iron dust, and wear plates of metal over their bodies. They boggle at the sight of the tech-priests. Liatris talks to them, and convinces them to let the group into the reactor chamber. The tech-priests use a servo skull to survey the inside of the reactor. It's damaged, but nothing they can't fix. The ritual of restarting is begun... Two hours later, the reactor spools up to full power. However, wailing alarms and flashing amber runes indicate all is not well. The Iron Kin immediately begin to wail along with the alarms in an attempt to placate their "Blazing God", much to everyone else's annoyance. The power conduits leading to the bridge and other vital areas of the ship are broken in more than a dozen places. They'll need to patch these, too. About this time, the Void Walkers show up, led by Palik. Palik is blind, but old and wise. They talk. The Void Walkers have long been forced to live in the parts of the ship nearest the outer hull, where it is coldest and there is the greatest risk of sudden exposure to the void. They think of themselves as the bravest tribe, unafraid to look out at the lights in the darkness beyond. Palik agrees to help them, using his considerable knowledge of the ship's layout. In return, he asks that Liatris take the Void Walkers with them when he goes. Liatris hesitates, then realizes the Void Walkers can serve as crew. Yes, they're utterly clueless about many, many things. However, Imperial starships don't have much in the way of automation and require a considerable amount of unskilled labour. And, the Void Walkers at least have a profound respect for vacuum and other ship hazards. They'll probably do better than some of the other press ganged scum Liatris has had to use as crew, and he has quite a few vacancies at the moment.

The group then proceeds to patch conduits. They get through the first five without trouble. However, number six is a real problem when the fourth and final tribe aboard the Light of Terra shows up. The Pale Sons are mutants and outcasts. Nine of them arrive while the Tech-Priests are busy patching a conduit in a small room. The Void Walkers and Iron Kin present immediately begin to hurl insults as well as whatever blunt instruments come to hand. A fight ensues. Unfortunately, the heavily mutated Pale Sons prove to be vicious combatants and do some real damage. One of Liatris' guards is killed, although the group does manage to kill or drive off the Pale Sons.

Session 9. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (641.810 M41)
The crew is deep in the bowels of the Light of Terra, patching the conduits that carry power from the ship's newly awakened reactor to various vital systems. The group has patched six, of eighteen, conduits with only one mishap so far. However, their luck soon runs out, and a number of the additional conduits pose challenges of varying sorts.

Conduit #8 is merely located in an awkward location: the roof of a ruined warehouse. Worse, the mezzanine level is a mass of twisted metal. Astropath Winter tries to climb up, as everyone else present is even poorer at athleticism than she. Winter promptly falls on her arse, much to the amusement of the others present. No damage save for the lady's dignity. They eventually solve the problem by judicious application of meltagun fire to the mezzanine level. Once that's been blasted out of the way, the debris present is used to make an improvised ladder. The tech-priests offer an ode to the versatility of duct-tape, then climb up, and the repair is made.

The trip to conduit #9 proves a hazard. They open a hatch, much like any other hatch, only to discover there is nothing on the other side. Nothing meaning "no air". The compartment has been opened to the void by a meteor strike! Two guards, one void walker tribesman, and one iron kin tribesman, are sucked through the howling breach. Of these, all but one guard manage to catch themselves and are dragged back through the door. The other guard dies due to decompression, but the body is retrieved. (The group had thought this area safe, and wasn't wearing void suits.) With the conduit located, a pair of tech-priests from the shuttle go EVA and fix it.

Conduit #10 results in a close encounter of the worst kind with some of the violent wargar tribe. Ten of them charge the party. In the melee, three of Liatris' newfound allies go down, and there are several injuries among Liatris' crew as well. They kill four wargars, Winter panics three more (causing permanent mental trauma in the process) and the remainder flee. One of the allies is saved by the medikit. Two of the panicked wargars are taken captive. Winter mind-probes one of them, finding a psyche that is a mass of testosterone-fuelled barbarism, territorial egotism, superstition, and intolerance. She learns the wargars are led by a brute named Urgun, who seeks to conquer all the world just because he can. Liatris is not impressed.

Conduit #13 is located in the cold edge. Unfortunately, the tech-priests miscalculate and open the wrong conduit. This one isn't carrying power, it's full of waste plasma bound for the heat exchanger. The Omnissaiah is unforgiving of their blunder, and the entire group is engulfed in flames. Three of Liatris' guards and one of the iron kin are badly burned and set on fire. The flaming crew are extinguished by their peers as the tech-priests hastily close the conduit and move to the correct one. Liatris voxes back to the ship for more guards.

Conduit #14 is located in an evacuated area of the ship. This time, the group notices the problem in advance. However, there is a lot of jagged metal in this narrow corridor, and both Tech-priests manage to puncture their void suits while working on the repair. One of them manages to patch his suit in time. The other does not, and becomes the day's next fatality.

Conduit #17 is located in the Shadow Holds, an unlit and unpowered area deep in the bowels of the ship, where the tribesmen seldom venture. They walk into a large room, and the shadowy bulk of vehicles loom out of the gloom. This room was a garage for storing some kind of ground vehicle. Liatris identifies the vehicles as Leman Russ main battle tanks, a mainstay of the Imperial Guard. There are about twenty tanks in the garage, a potentially quite valuable find, and he directs salvage teams to clear a path from this room to the nearest large shuttle bay. Unfortunately, there is a problem... "Movement, sir!" The movement is an old battle servitor, still functional. It objects to their presence, and their continued existence. The servitor is inside one of the tanks, and it is swivelling one of the Russ' secondary weapon sponsons to bear, with only the servitor's head and shoulders sticking out of the tank. Liatris' face goes white, and he orders everyone to take cover. Fortunately, in a garage full of tanks, there is plenty of hard cover. The sponson is equipped with a still functional heavy bolter, and the servitor pours a roaring blast of fully automatic fire into the party. Most of the group ducks behind the ceramite armour of the tanks. But, one of the guards didn't reach cover in time and is eviscerated by a heavy caliber mass reactive bolt. Winter manages to hit the exposed portion of the servitor with her inferno pistol. A few seconds later, there is the angry whine of an overcharged plasma pistol. The Emperor's righteous fury is with Liatris, and the star hot plasma smacks the servitor square in the faceplate. End of problem. The tech priests present promptly chide Liatris for damaging the antique and venerable mechanism of the battle servitor. Needless to say, Liatris is NOT amused.

The eighteenth and final conduit is located in the deep wells. A ship the size of the Light of Terra requires a considerable volume of fresh water. Some of the tanks have leaked, and this area is flooded. Fortunately, void suits will function quite well underwater. This is also remarkably close to the cogitator core, so the group expects to complete two tasks with one trip. The conduit is patched, though a half-dozen of the mutant pale sons show up. These either have gills, or very good breath control, as the water proves no hindrance to them. A close quarters fight ensues. One guard is gutted, and another badly injured, before the surviving Pale Sons flee. This leaves Liatris with just three guards, one of them critically wounded. This proves a problem when they enter the cogitator chamber. They hadn't really believed the tribesmen's tales of a "Mother of Mutants" who leads the pale sons. However, the gigantic, horribly mutated abomination in this room looks like just that. Worse, she's surrounded by 14 of the meanest, nastiest, hulking-est members of the pale sons. "Geeetttttt ooouuuuuut!" she hisses.
"Hey, we're just here to fix things." Liatris replies. At this point, Winter uses one of her subtler psyker talents and deludes the mother of mutants into a more favourable mindset. With Winter's competent assistance, Liatris manages to sweet talk the pale sons into not attacking. Barely. [Made the roll by 2 points.] The cogitator is awakened, and Liatris and crew make a hasty exit, though the Mother does make them promise not to attack any more of her progeny. Liatris would soon enough avoid trouble, and readily agrees.

With the cogitator awakened, and the reactor online and connected, the group returns to the bridge. Lord-Captain Roth is beside himself, cackling with glee. Out of his rantings, the group figures out the location of the Hidden Holds, and how to access them. Roth keeps his promise - up to a point. While he does indeed reveal the location of the Hidden Holds, and the access codes, he doesn't give Liatris much time at all. Roth immediately starts powering up for an unplotted warp jump to the edge of the galaxy, there to find glorious doom bringing the light of the Emperor to whatever heathens he may find. This cuts the clock critically short - the ship will warp in an hour. That leaves only an hour to get to the hidden holds, loot them, and then get to the nearest shuttlebay. Winter and Liatris get separated during the rush. Winter's shortcut proves a good move on her part, and she gets to the hidden holds twenty minutes before Liatris. She finds something of value amidst all the tumbled stasis crates, and leaves in good order. Liatris makes it there, spends twenty minutes in fruitless searching, and barely has enough time to grab an intact stasis crate. On his way out, Liatris spots a small crate on a pedestal, gold inlaid, illuminated from above, and in an obvious place of honor. He has a free hand, and grabs it. Victor Liatris is the last one out of the Light of Terra, clearing the shuttlebay in his lighter just in time.

When they get back to the Fearsome Darter, the command staff reviews their take from the excursion. (Everything from the hidden holds was best quality and unique. Players not present missed some uber loot.) Winter's stasis crate contains a Ghost Voice Auspex. This wondrous archaeotech auspex has a sensory range of 100 meters and cannot be blocked by normal materials. More, it constantly whispers to the user, alerting them of danger. Liatris crate yields only a cloak. It has no ornamentation or decoration at all, though the colour might best be described as "darker than black". It is woven from the hair (?) of some unknown xenos (?) beast (?) and proves to have some unusual properties... it is amazingly tough and resistant to all forms of energy. After some thought, Liatris concludes that his new cloak is very stylish indeed. Oh, and that crate Liatris grabbed on the way out? That was the Light of Terra's logbooks. The Imperial Navy, specifically Battlefleet Calixis, will pay dearly to have those returned. The looting of the Leman Russ garage was cut short by the Light of Terra's departure, and the crew only managed to salvage 3 tanks, in various states of disrepair. The Darter's motor pool now contains 1 Leman Russ main battle tank, Mars pattern; 1 Leman Russ, Conqueror variant, Graia pattern; and 1 Leman Russ Annihilator variant, Triplex pattern. All three have searchlights, smoke launchers, and hull mounted heavy bolters. The Conqueror has a rough terrain modification and extra armour. The other two have heavy bolter sponsons. All need significant repairs before they are usable, though the group knows from experience that one of the Annihilator's sponsons is still working! If sold, these might barely net enough cash to replace all the spare parts pulled from the Darter's stores to fix the Light of Terra's systems. (Power conduit coils are way expensive.) Such is life.

Session 10. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

The crew of the Fearsome Darter watch the Light of Terra disappear into the warp, and then turn their own ship's prow toward the stars. With the nexus
point successfully read, there is nothing holding them in this nameless system, and it is off to the next nexus point.

The navigator informs them that the journey should take about twelve days. However, the navigator fails to perceive a warp storm, and so the third day
of their journey sees an abrupt return to realspace. They wait a day or two before returning to the warp. All's well, for a little while. Day twelve sees the Darter encounter shoals and reefs. Again the navigator fails to see trouble coming. Communication between the navigator and the helm is garbled, evasive maneuvers fail, and a jagged fragment of false reality rends the hull. The prow sunsear batteries are knocked offline, but the ship's stoic machine spirit reroutes power and restores their function. By this point, Liatris is getting rather peeved with his navigator's apparent lack of skill.

They emerge into an isolated system. There are no evident planets, and no sign of an Eldar temple. However, both Kell and Winter sense a massive
psychic distortion. The nexus point is simply gone, pulled away to elsewhere. The strand of fate leading to that nexus instead passes through a shimmering ring of wraithbone, glowing with a violet light. The Darter flies into the ring, and emerges in a completely different section of the Expanse. Liatris is not able to determine the system's exact location.

The new system proves to be the worst God-Emperor forsaken hole anyone has ever seen. The temperature on the bridge drops inexplicably, ghostly voices whisper from the vox, and the augurs are shrouded with false returns. The star at the center of the system is somehow glowing BLACK, and in its cold false-light orbit three planets. Between and around the planets, orbit what first appear to be dense swathes of asteroids. However, nearly all auger
returns are metal and ceramite, not rock. The "asteroids" are, in fact, hulked ships of every age, origin, and description. There are literally millions of them here, a ship graveyard far larger than anyone imagined was possible. It is also fearfully haunted, with a psychic presence a black stain on reality. The Eldar nexus shows up with unnatural clarity, despite being very deep into the system. Odd...

Before they get too far insystem, the auger arrays pick up some very small objects, closing at speed. There are approximately fifty objects, but they are so small that they are only faint dots on the scopes. An attempt to communicate fails. So, a more energetic "stay thither" message is sent with the ship's laser batteries. Two of the objects, whatever they are, are vapourised. The remainder land on the outside of the Darter's hull, and the bridge is promptly filled with damage alarms. The objects have scattered over the outside of the ship, and are cutting pieces off the hull. This is unacceptable. Liatris orders his security team to split into twenty teams of five men each, all with meltaguns, plus one elite team - Liatris and his command staff. They go outside, and engage the boarders. The attackers prove to be archaic void suits, hulking and dessicated. Their faceplates are dead black, and there is no way to tell who, or what, is wearing the suits. They are tough, but one of them is no match for the entire team. Kell gets shot in the face; the attacker's weapon is some form of fusion cutter and the overcharged blast acts like a meltagun. Kell survives, barely, but is severely wounded. When wounded, the attackers regenerate. When killed, the void suit falls apart; there is nothing but dust and gas inside! The command staff kills five of the brutes in rapid succession,
while the security teams manage to kill about twenty others. The meltaguns prove their worth as they are powerful enough to kill the hulking attackers with just two or three hits. The security teams do lose about as many men as they kill - one shot from the boarders' fusion weapons or swing from
their power axe is almost certain doom. The remainder of the boarders flee. They have managed to damage only the main auspex array, although again the stoic ship has a backup system that restores full capability. The only "treasure" they leave are the empty suits of exo-armour. These are salvaged, and put to use as the crew has no armoured void suits. [GM note: greedy idiots!]

Shortly thereafter, the Fearsome Darter is hailed. The voice sounds tense, desperate. "Unknown vessel, please let us come aboard!" Liatris asks who
they are, and is told they are outcasts. A battered shuttle, leaking air, launches from a nearby wreck, and barely manages to limp its way to the Darter. Liatris meets his new guests at the shuttle bay. They prove to be a ragged band of humans, with obviously scavenged gear. They have a haunted look in their eyes, but they also look tough and capable. A man named Hanrik is the group's leader. Liatris talks to him, and gets some idea of what is going on...

This star system was first discovered by the Rogue Trader Wrath Umboldt, who named it "The Processional of the Damned". He at once launched nearly all his flyers with orders to scavenge from the wrecks. When Wrath fled the system in haste, with a greatly reduced shuttlecraft complement, he was obliged to leave many of his crew behind. He never returned. The outcasts are descendants of Wrath's crew, and call themselves "Wrath's Carrion". Most of them have gone irrecoverably insane from exposure to this place. Hanrik and his fellows are some of the few remaining with their wits about
them. They want out of the system at all costs, and agree to serve on Liatris' crew for a time to pay for their ride. There are four other family groups that need succoring as well, but they are scattered about the Processional.

The first group of outcasts is located on the outermost world, Blight. This small world is honeycombed with tunnels big enough for a ship, mostly. However, there are ways this could go horribly wrong, so shuttles are sent in. Piloting efforts are successful, and the outcasts are rescued without incident. The second group is in the Outer Sea of Space Hulks and is also picked up without incident. The nimble Darter makes its way through the
hulks without serious incident. The only large piece of debris that the ship doesn't dodge bounces off the armoured hull, doing no real damage.

Naturally, the group has been busy looting the plethora of space hulks. Any time they pass a likely looking vessel, shuttlecraft are sent out to see
what they can find. One such journey turns bad - Liatris and company are investigating an ancient hulk when one of the haunts materializes in their
midst. It's a daemon, a thing of warp spawned corruption, and its mere presence defiles sanity. Liatris and Winter are badly affected, and worse,
it engulfs Victor Liatris in warp fire. Kell and Nathin kill it with an inordinate amount of firepower. The warp flames on Liatris' body go out the instant the creature is sent back to the warp, but even that brief exposure is enough to taint his flesh. The only good news is Kell manages to pick up a Multicompass in the hulk.

After that, its off to rescue the next group of outcasts. These are in a wreck near the second world, Decay. Hanrik tells Liatris that Decay is home
to the "Hollow Men" and they shouldn't tarry. His description of these "Hollow Men" sounds suspiciously like the hulking, void suited things that
attacked earlier. It takes a few hours to find the next group of outcasts. A group of 11 hollow men show up to wreck the ship. Four of them don't get
past the ship's turrets, and the remainder don't last long. Liatris kills the final one in hand to hand just as the last outcasts come on board.

The fourth and final group of Henrik's sane kin are in an ancient wreck in the inner sea of hulks. The further in they go, the more ancient and
decrepit the wrecks appear, even though some of them have markings indicating they are of more recent manufacture than ships further out. The
haunting gets worse as well. Hollow Men are a constant presence, flitting from wreck to wreck like flies on a corpse. Even worse are the things that
gibber and slide just the other side of reality. The outcasts cannot wait to leave. Their former home is a ship that dates to the very dawn of the
Imperium, and naturally Liatris and company tarry long enough to liberate some archaeotech knick-knacks.

After that its off to the Eldar Nexus. Winter suits up, and manages to successfully read the psychic impressions in the wraithbone. Just as she
returns to the ship, the auger arrays light up with contacts. Shortly thereafter, the augers go completely dark. Kell manages to fix the problem, and this time finds why systems have been inexplicably shutting down. Some of the mechanicus probe's systems have activated, and the Abominatus
Intelligence in its core cogitator has infected the Darter's machine spirits. The Darter is now a rebellious little ship, and no longer obeys its master willingly. Kell has placated the ship for a short while, and turns back to the augers. By this time, the unknown contacts are quite close.

It seems the insane Carrion have caught up to the Fearsome Darter at last. There are three warp capable raiders, plus a dozen small system gunboats all closing in on the Darter's port flank. The Darter has considerably longer ranged guns, and fires the first shot. Kell's first volley, taken with just
the dorsal Sunsears, is enough to cripple a gunboat and knock out its maneuvering systems. Emboldened, the Darter turns to engage, in what proves
to be Lord-Captain Liatris' first major bad decision. Individually, the Carrion's ships are inferior, but there are a lot of them. The Darter is hammered with macrobattery fire. The Darter's second volley takes out another gunboat, leaving it crippled, ablaze from stem to stern, and blinded. However, the Darter takes a blazing hurricane of return fire as it flies past the Carrion. The light armour of the raider hull simply cannot withstand the volume of fire being heaped upon it, and crumples under a multitude of hits. Very badly damaged, the Fearsome Darter flees. [GM note: 1 hull
point remaining.] With its superior auspex and drive, it outdistances the carrion with contemptuous ease. [7 Degrees of success on piloting roll.]

The Darter lays up for repairs on the innermost fringes of the sea of hulks. Unfortunately, the extended repairs do minimal good, and the ship is still
nearly wrecked. [1d5 roll was a 1.] Before leaving the system, Liatris decides to make one more stop: The planet Oblivion, the innermost world,
with its dark shroud of an atmosphere. The Processional gets worse the further in you go, so this world has a dreadful reputation. No one has
visited Oblivion and returned. No one. Ignoring dire warnings from the horrified outcasts, Liatris and his command team take a gun cutter to the
surface, landing amidst strange cyclopean ruins that resonate strangely with the warp...

Session 11. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (718.816 M41)
The Fearsome Darter is in orbit around the innermost world of the
Processional, a shrouded, wasted planet the carrion call Oblivion. The
command staff have just landed their gun-cutter on Oblivion's surface. The
command staff, four techies, and twenty red-shirted guards disembark. The
only thing moving is the wind. Sand grains hiss against the gun-cutter's
ramp. There is no sign of life on the planet as there is nothing visible
but bare rock and sand. There is a massive, spire shaped edifice to the
north, and a pool to the south. There is maybe a half kilometer distance
between the two, and that is easily enough room for the gun-cutter to land.
The techs and a goodly number of guards are instructed to set up a base camp
by the gun cutter.

The group first decides to check out the pool. Despite the strong, gusty
wind, the surface of the pool is a black mirror, still as the grave.
Astropath Shaundra Winter senses a dreadful aura of death emanating from the
pool, and realizes that the pool is shaped exactly like a symbol of Nurgle
when viewed from above. Winter promptly reverses course, and begins walking
away from the pool. Veriakh Kell doesn't like it either, and suggests that
the entire group leave at once. However, Kell is overruled, and the group
heads toward the cyclopean spire.

Auspex scans return nothing, perhaps the rock is simply too thick.
Psyniscience, however, reveals that there is a swirl of warp energy at the
center. Winter looks at the shape, and thinks it is probably of Yu-Vath
construction. Winter knows too much for her own good, and shares what she
knows of these Xenos. The Yu-Vath were a Xenos race who inhabited the Calyx
expanse when the Angevin crusade arrived, and they caused the Imperials much
grief. The Yu-Vath were warp worshipping horrors, Xenos given over to
Chaos, and their hell worlds were a sanity blasting blight upon reality.
The Calyx expanse was eventually conquered, though at great cost, and became
the Calixis Sector. The Inquisition has done a good job of suppressing all
records of the Yu-Vath, as it is standard policy to keep all knowledge of
the Warp secret. At this point, Winter decides she wants nothing to do with
the spire, and attempts to return to the gun-cutter. Victor Liatris orders
her to continue. She gives him an eyeless glare and obeys. "You really owe
me for this."

They go in. It is dark, with a wide corridor and sandy floors. The group
bears right, soon coming to an irregularly shaped stone chamber. There is
a silvery window set in one wall. It shows a view of the outside, though
how is unclear. It is not removable, and psyniscience yields nothing.
There are two exits, and they go left. There is a corpse against one wall,
a xenos explorer long since come to grief. There is no flesh left, and the
bones are crumbling. From the shape of an intact tooth, this may have been
a Morgauth in life. The Morgauth's gear is mostly gone, but its armour and
weapon are still serviceable. There is mesh armour, and a strange, rifle
sized weapon. (This is later identified as a Larn Cutter.) Also, there is
an inscription near the corpse, cut deeply into the stone wall. Winter is
able to translate. It reads "all paths lead to the chamber of bone, but
none lead away."

The next room is a rock garden. Raked gravel is into swirly patterns, with
several odd stones scattered about. Disturbingly, the sand mirrors patterns
in the warp. One of the stones is a psycrystal, which glows in the presence
of psychic energy. That gets pocketed. Another is a Moliochin Fireheard, a
valuable gem, and that gets pocketed too. At this point, however, trouble
manifests. Two warp spawned horrors appear, predatory daemons drawn to the
souls of the living. Their appearance is mercifully indistinct, but their
presence is still an affront to sanity. They are horrifying, and Nathin
freezes in terror, along with all of the guards. In fact, several of the
guards are very badly traumatized. One of the daemons is blasted back to
the Warp by a volley of monofilament and melta fire. The other one mauls
Liatris before it too gets blasted back to the Warp.

The group proceeds onward through the labyrinth, though they have the
distinct feeling that the walls are shifting. They come to a very large
chamber. There is a carnelian sievestone resting there, which they take.
There is also a circlet on the wall, but psyniscience reveals it to be
tainted. Liatris cleaves it in twain with his daemonslaying sword. Problem
solved. They notice the walls are stained here, like they had been oozing
blood at one time. Proceeding further onward, the group reaches the central
chamber.

The floor here is covered in thousands upon thousands of bones. They are
from a multitude of species, and look somewhat charred. At the very center,
there is a strange construction of lines and angles. The joints of the
device appear mobile. Kell's psyniscience tells him that it's not quite
right, and he adjusts the position of a few pieces. Unfortunately, this
activates the device, and the burning light of the warp pours out. It
animates, and lashes out at the group with tendrils of immaterium. One of
the guards is slain, but he doesn't collapse motionless. Instead, his
reanimated corpse rises and strikes at his former fellows. Worse, the
burning warp light from the device spawns flames and madness both... sanity
breaks, and bodies combust. Kell rises to the challenge, and with the
God-Emperor guiding his aim, inflicts absolutely horrendous damage on the
blasphemous construct. However, the thing has a truly obscene amount of
toughness, and the battle proceeds for quite some time. [Kell scored 96
points of damage. It, however, had 180 wounds.] With the Logis finally
destroyed, the labyrinth stops shifting, and the group's auspex can find the
way out. Wounded and with their sanity frayed, the group wisely decides to
leave. They do swing by an armoury on the way out, and get their hands on
five flechette blasters.

Returning to base camp, they find things in disarray. Evidently, some
daemons have manifested here as well, and have wreaked havoc among the crew.
Barely a third of the camp has both their life and sanity intact. The
gun-cutter takes off without delay, leaving Oblivion behind. Returning to
the ship, they find that the Hollow men have been by, and have caused
considerable damage. The casualties among the crew are bad enough that the
crew has mutinied. Liatris wastes no time in restoring order. [7 degrees
of success on the charm test.] Of course, the fact that Liatris also
promises to leave the system helps...

The Fearsome Darter heads for the warp gate. They get there, and see that
another ship has just come through. It's the Fel Hand, captained by rival
Rogue Trader Hadarak Fel. Fel sees a very badly damaged competitor, and
begins warming up his macrocannons. Liatris, however, offers to trade...
pointing out that the Fearsome Darter will be returning to Footfall for
repairs anyway, so Fel needn't fire a shot to remove a rival. Liatris'
charm works again, and Fel doesn't shoot. They do a little trading; both
of them know the trading is merely a cover. In reality, Liatris is bribing
Fel to avoid a fight.

Fel proceeds inward, looking for the Nexus. Meanwhile, the Darter's crew
takes stock of their ship. The Darter needs to return to Footfall for
repairs. Their systems are still functional, barely, but the hull integrity
is a hair's breadth from catastrophe. The one good piece of news is that
Kell somehow manages to purge the Probe's influence from the Darter's
systems. However, just because the Fearsome Darter will be returning to
Footfall doesn't mean that Liatris will be aboard... Instead, Liatris and
his command staff order the crew to salvage a vessel from the Processional.
They hope to salvage a mostly-intact hulk, one with a solid hull, and get it
working. This is a long shot, but perhaps the best bet the group has to
still reach the Dread Pearl in time.

Session 12. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, The Fearsome Darter (756.816 M41)

The crew is hard at work salvaging a new ship from the Processional, one with a more intact hull than the Darter. Cruisers prove beyond the group's
resources, and merchant vessels have no appeal at all. However, the group does see a mostly intact Cobra and a mostly intact Firestorm. The frigate
is selected in very short order. Kell comments "It has a hull, and armour. End of discussion." The new ship is named "Angevin's Phoenix" and it is indeed a veteran of the Angevin crusade. Steeped in battle, this ship can really fight. While scavenging through the Processional for parts, Nathin finds a set of conversion fields. A group of four in a ship's armoury, and a fifth around the neck of a long dessicated corpse. Nathin is delighted with his find, and with some reluctance hands them out to the command staff.

The Angevin's Phoenix is towed to the edges of the shattered cloud, hopefully far enough away from the system's black heart to avoid the worst of the sanity blasting horrors. Several weeks of back-breaking labour pass, with systems being swapped between ships. Kell does not like lance armament, and persuades the captain that they should install both of the Darter's Sunsear macrobatteries on the Phoenix. The Darter's archaeotech auspex is likewise swapped, though the drive proves beyond their ability to transfer. With that, the Fearsome Darter and the Angevin's Phoenix both head through the warp gate at the edge of the system. Once they reach the other side, the ships part company. The Darter, with a skeleton crew of some of Liatris' most trusted men, heads back to Footfall for repairs. It is also carrying most of the loot acquired so far on this venture, a risky move given that it is a long ways back and the Darter is both heavily damaged and underequipped.

With the Fearsome Darter on her way back, the Angevin's Phoenix turns her dagger prow in another direction, and the navigator takes control of the ship and engages the warp drive. There is considerable misgivings among the command staff at this; they are not confident of the navigator's abilities,
and the Phoenix lacks the Darter's warpsbane hull. The navigator's estimate to the contrary, the journey is mercifully short. The Angevin's Phoenix has
an ancient Markov pattern warp engine that is overcharged and speeds them on their way. It takes only fifteen days for them to reach the world of Dross.
The only anomaly during the trip is that the Lord-Captain has horrible dreams of his dead father, and really does not sleep well.

Dross is shrouded in a perpetual storm. The command staff checks their librarium and tries to remember the void farer's tales to see what they can
learn of the place. They recall that only one Rogue Trader has ever returned from Dross, Nejo Skylax. Skylax's crew spoke of a primitive place, a feral world inhabited by barbaric human tribesmen. However, they appearto have understated the storms... Dross is completely shrouded in a perpetual storm that extends hundreds of kilometers out into space, with a violence that defies the Omnissaiah's logic. The storm completely covers the planet, though patches of the storm are far more violent than others. Psyniscience reveals nothing other than that the storm does not appear to be tied to the warp. The ship's sensitive auger arrays pick up the Eldar temple, as well as concentrated metal deposits. They're too dense to be ore... buildings or wrecks perhaps?

Liatris and crew get into a gun-cutter and head to the surface. Once they get into the clouds, the gun-cutter's systems become increasingly erratic. Auger arrays fail, machine spirits blurt static before failing entirely, and the engines run increasingly ragged. They finally break through the clouds, but with insufficient thrust to maintain altitude. The terrain beneath is rocky, arid, and desolate. Massive stone stacks, a kilometer or more in height and several times that in width, rear up from the landscape. Many of these have wreckage at their bases; numerous explorers have braved Dross' storms only to meet their doom on the rocks. Liatris does not quite miss a rock stack in the turbulent air, and shears off a wingtip. That's enough to upset Liatris' marginal control of the vessel, and the resulting crash landing is painful, resulting in a number of serious injuries. Once the dazed crew unstraps themselves and gets outside, Liatris realizes he has totalled the gun-cutter. The shuttle's back is broken in two places, and only half of one wing remains attached to the fuselage.

"The Eldar temple is that way." The group starts walking. The ground is dry, with few plants. The most prominent plant appears to be a ground
hugging, thorny vine. There are plenty of wrecks visible, ranging from debris fields to nearly intact specimens. Is that an Ork ship? Is it wrecked? How can you tell? The shattered sails of an Eldar vessel are visible on the horizon. One ship appears to have been carved out of black glass. Another, mostly buried, hulk is part of a truly immense sphere. They head for one of the more promising wrecks. Along the way, they notice that some of the wrecks have been daubed in blood. Others have human bones laid out in front of them in some kind of pattern. Liatris realises the wrecks must have some religious significance to the natives.

And, speaking of the natives, the auspex is picking up heat signatures. They are being followed. Liatris circles back, and confronts the natives. The natives are every bit as barbaric as Skylax's tales indicated. They wear crude leathers, plus the occasional bit of scavenged hull plating, and carry bows and spears. They speak a broken and crude form of Low Gothic. Liatris' parley attempt is successful, and the tribesmen decide to talk rather than fight. They take Liatris to their leader. Surprisingly, the leader is a woman of indeterminate age, who calls herself Asira Storm-speaker. She is very impressed with Liatris, and thinks him an emissary of the Sky-Father. [GM note: He proves quite charming, where "quite" means 7 degrees of success on the charm check.] Liatris talks to Asira...

Asira sees herself as a prophetess, the one destined to unite the warring tribes. Per the local religion, the storms of Dross are penance sent by the
Sky-Father, and those things which fall from the heavens are sacred. Only when all the sacred sites are united under a single tribe shall the storms of Dross be lifted. Thus do the tribesmen make unending religious war upon each other. Asira thinks it is her destiny to bring this to pass, her destiny to lead the Sky Stalkers tribe to victory ovear all others and she asks Liatris aid in this... believing him to be an emissary of the Sky-Father. Liatris asks what kind of aid she wants. Asira informs him that a tribe to the north has come under the sway of some form of devil, whom they call Scourge. Breaking a powerful enemy tribe and casting down their false idol would be a good start... The command staff shares a look with each other. Asira's description sounds suspiciously like Baron Djanko Scourge, a rival Rogue Trader in the quest for the Dread Pearl...

Given that, Liatris and company readily agree to go thrash the "devil Scourge", and journey north with Asira and her warriors to defeat their traditional foes of the Doombat tribe. However, their journey is rudely interrupted. While crossing a wadi, someone shoots Liatris in the face. It's a good shot - nearly five hundred meters - and with some kind of tightly focused energy beam. The Lord-Captain survives, but is critically injured. Kell spots the sniper, and goes charging off after him, accompanied by their armsmen and a mess of tribesmen. Kell is shot, then Nathin. However, they escape harm through a combination of their new conversion fields and old-fashioned dodging. After a few shots, the sniper runs. He takes off with inhuman speed and grace, and Kell realizes the attacker is an Eldar. They have no hope of catching him, though they try. Liatris' wounds are bandaged, but he is still in bad shape.

That evening, they get to the lair of the Doombats. It is a cleft in a rock stack, with a crude fortification, door and parapet. There are guards on the parapet, a half dozen tribesmen and two obvious offworlders in Baron Scourge's livery. The offworlders don't last. Kell brings out his long-las and snipes one, then the other. The second one lives long enough to yell for help. Sure enough, Scourge and a half dozen goons appear on the parapetand the fight begins in earnest. One has a grenade launcher, and lights up the scene with a lumen flare. The beginning is inauspicious. Kell, now using his grenade launcher, suffers two duds in a row. Nathin's weapon isworking, but his aim is off. He misses completely with the first four bursts. The return fire is mostly dodged, though Kell's conversion field overloads and goes down. Asira proves to be a psyker, and unleashes telekinetic bolts upon her foes while the tribesmen shower arrows upon each other. Liatris stays in the midst of a pack of charging tribesmen, and gets to the door. Liatris' few armsmen prove capable enough shots, and Scourge is hit with two melta blasts. He flees. Liatris rips the door apart with his power fist, and Nathin finally finds the range. The already wounded Scourge eats all eight bolt shells, and goes down in a truly epic spray of blood and gore. The Doombats' nerve breaks at this, and Asira's tribesmen subdue their foes. Asira is in a good mood, and doesn't let her thugs **** and pillage, much.

Liatris, however, is not so pleased. They found Scourge's shuttle. It is a crumpled mess at the base of the rock stack, even worse than Liatris' gun-cutter. Worse, Scourge's corpse seems to have disappeared... They have accounted for most of his goons, but not all of them. And, of course, there is still an Eldar running around somewhere...

Session 13. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (795.816 M41)

The command staff has crash landed on the primitive world of Dross. It is night, and Asira and her followers have just conquered the Doom Bat tribe, with help from Liatris. So, there is a victory celebration. Liatris and his crew get acquainted with the local "food" and "drink". The former is mostly bread and cooked strips of plant matter from one of the common vines. The locals call it "gnudha". It is edible, nutritious, and has a flavour. However, no one uses complimentary words to describe said flavour, or at least not with a straight face. (It is somewhere between rancid cheese and salted cardboard.) The same vine is also fermented into a truly vile brew with a staggering alcohol content, and the locals prove to be boisterous drunks.

The seneschal, Nathin, excuses himself early. The events on Oblivion have scarred his psyche deeply, and he cannot help but meditate on them. His sanity is badly damaged, but it will not be wounded in this way ever again. In the morning, he arises, and his slightly distant demeanour hides a brain that has passed beyond human frailty. The lord captain is resting, and Kell is hunting a certain eldar. The good news is Astropath Winter makes her presence known; she had come down on the gun-cutter, but the crash and persistent nightmares had her sidelined until now. So, it is Nathin and Shaundra who accompany Asira and her barbarians to the next shrine.

This shrine is the Eldar nexus. It is occupied by another rival tribe, and a lengthy fight ensues. Asira's group is outnumbered, but the resident barbarians are really no match for the weapons carried by the offworlders. Winter distinguishes herself with an excellent toss of a frag grenade [GM note: no scatter plus Righteous Fury], though Nathin gets hurt by a well placed spear. After a lengthy battle, the local's nerve breaks, and Asira adds another tribe to her list of conquests. With that, Winter climbs up onto the nexus to read the psychic impressions. She makes it look easy, and learns something of interest. This particular nexus point is damaged, and is leaking energy from elsewhere into Dross' atmosphere. That extra energy is the source of the constant, extreme storms that shroud the planet. It also means that a powerful psyker could, using the nexus, temporarily quell the storms...

With that news, Nathin suddenly decides he needs to talk to Asira. He proposes a deal. Liatris and crew will tell Asira how to quell the storms, and she can conquer the planet in the name of the God-Emperor... excuse me, the "Sky Father". In exchange, Asira will allow the offworlders to retrieve certain "items of significance" from the wrecks. The ambitious Asira immediately agrees. Winter pulls Asira aside and the two psykers talk shop for a few minutes. "Items of significance" are acquired; Nathin does not tell the locals what the word "loot" means. They even find an intact shuttle. It's an Arvus pattern lighter. The Arvus is unarmed, smaller, and slower than the lost gun-cutter, but it will get them to orbit. Kell finally shows up as they are finishing loading the shuttle. He heard their vox that "we're leaving!" and was forced to break off his hunt. The eldar has eluded him. Asira gets busy at the nexus, a calm eye appears in the storm, and the shuttle shows Dross its thrusters. One of the armsmen is paying attention, and notices that a second shuttle files out through the eye just before it closes. Someone asks Nathin if he negotiated long term salvage rights with Asira. He shakes his head. "We are *so* not coming back."

Once safely back aboard Angevin's Phoenix, Winter informs the remaining command staff that she knows exactly where the Dread Pearl is located. However, Nathin tells the navigator to set course for Zayth instead. With some trepidation, control of the ship is given to the Navigator. The Gellar field is raised, the overcharged Markov warp drive starts wailing like damned souls, and one uneventful day later the Angevin's Phoenix drops out of warp. The insufferably smug navigator informs them that he caught a fast warp current. The astonished rating at the astromancy station confirms that they have, in fact, reached Zayth.

Once at Zayth, they find that their allied land-ship, the Indestructible, has failed to live up to its name. Gun-master Hovic, who was installed as leader following a Liatris-backed coup, proved far less competent at running a land ship than the late Elder-Tactician Graves. Evidently, four or five rival land ships got the idea that the Indestructible had offworld weapons, and ganged up on it. Simultaneously, Lord-Admiral Bastille learned that the Indestructible was allied with Liatris and joined the battle, firing broadsides from orbit. The Indestructible had no real chance, and was left a shattered wreck. The victorious land ships looted it of everything they could carry, and kidnapped key personnel for vigorous questioning. (These are almost certain to be executed in creatively evil ways once they have told all they know.) However, the surviving common citizens and lower ranking armsmen of the Indestructible were abandoned to their fate. This was no mercy. Zayth's surface, is a blasted, radioactive, toxic wasteland that offers little in the way of food and less shelter. A bullet to the head is kinder than marooning a group that size. They have almost exhausted the Indestructible's surviving food stocks when the Angevin's Phoenix enters orbit. Fortunately, the survivors have a working vox, and respond to Nathin's hail. They beg for succor, and Nathin orders the survivors rescued. They have little choice but to accept.

The Angevin's Phoenix has badly depleted crew reserves, and can fit all the survivors, though it will be cramped. A substantial portion of the new arrivals will have to "hot bunk", but at least they have food and shelter. Nathin is pleased, too. The land-ship's survivors have enough technical skills to be useful aboard ship, and they understand the concept of a hostile environment outside. The ship spends two weeks at Zayth, picking up people. This time is also spent giving the existing crew some badly needed R&R dirtside. [GM note: Them's the rules, even though Zayth is hardly a vacation spot!]

It takes another week to fly out to the edge of the system, and then it is once more into the warp. This time, the journey frays everyone's sanity. The immaterium plays cruel tricks with perception of time, and it feels like months or more have passed. The children rescued from the Indestructible don't help... "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there YET?" A fluctuation appears in the ship's Gellar field generator, but Nathin is able to placate the device's machine spirit and it resumes operation. Ten days later, though it feels a year, the Angevin's Phoenix emerges into realspace near the edge of a ferocious warp storm that just now is beginning to abate. As the storm begins to part, there is a star system beyond. This, finally, is the Dread Pearl...

Session 14. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (871.816 M41)
The Angevin's Phoenix has finally arrived at the star system known as the Dread Pearl. Even as the bridge crew look on, the warp storm that has shrouded the system for millennia has begun to dissipate. However, it appears that several of the group's rivals have also arrived at the system. They are squaring off like rival male felids in mating season, and there is going to be one heck of a battle.

The command staff decide to not participate in the battle. Instead, they make a run for the Dread Pearl before the unnatural energies of the warp storm have fully dissipated. This is a risky move indeed; Liatris fails to convince the bridge staff of its wisdom, and morale aboard ship plummets. Even the ship's machine spirit seems put out, it being against the ship's nature to run from a fight. Liatris, however, is adamant, and the Angevin's Phoenix surges forward.

A fading filament of the warp storm begins to coalesce, manifesting as an immense tentacle. It reaches for the ship, but Kell's precognitive piloting dodges the ship out of the way. But, that's not the only peril. No sooner has the tendril dissipated than the ship's auger arrays light up with literally hundreds of contacts. An armada of ghost ships surges out of the fading storm, fleeing from whatever horrors the warp holds. Nathin, at the aetherics console, realizes that one of the ghost ships is on a collision course with the Angevin's Phoenix, and alerts Kell. Nathin's timely warning is a great help, and once again, Kell's evasive maneuvers are up to the task. The Angevin's Phoenix glides through the last wisps of the storm without further incident, and Liatris is the first Rogue Trader to enter the system. Looking back, they see that one of their competitors has been emboldened by their example, and is also running the straits of damnation. Or at least, he's making the attempt... The Ordained Destiny, Jeremiah Blitz's cruiser, is following. Kell is vocal in his disapproval. "He's trying this in a cruiser? He's crazy! No way I'd take a Lunar into this."
"Oh come on, their handling isn't that bad."
"Yes it is!"
Kell's words prove prophetic - you'd think the guy was precognitive or something - as Blitz's ship fails to dodge a ghost ship. There is no hull rending impact. Instead, the ghost ship passes completely through the Ordained Destiny from stem to stern. "Ohhh, that's bad. That's REALLY bad."
With the warp storm fading behind, Winter's unnatural abilities pick up a faint presence at the edge of the system. Sorrow, bitterness, and spite. She promises to "keep an eye on it, and by eye, I mean mind." The attempt at humour, from the notoriously cranky Winter, sparks some good natured banter among the crew.

The Angevin's Phoenix reaches high orbit around the Dread Pearl two days later, the first ship to visit in millennia. The world is an ocean planet, but even from high orbit many islands are visible. One big archipelago near the equator has what appear to be ruins on it, so that is selected as the landing site. Liatris parks the ship in high orbit and powers everything down to avoid detection. The ship is infamously poor at silent running, but with everything cold, he hopes the ship will stay undisturbed in their absence. They take the one surviving gun-cutter down to the surface. The full command staff is aboard, and the remaining seats are packed with armsmen. As they get closer, the planet appears more and more beautiful. Azure seas, jade skies, thousands of islands dotting a world ocean, each bordered by beaches of golden sand. The islands are heavily forested, so the beach looks like the best place to put down. Liatris manages to botch the landing nonetheless, bending a wingtip against the bole of an immense tree. The crew stifle snickers.

They step out. The planet is gorgeous. The air is sweet, the seas gentle, the foliage lush. Truly, a tropical paradise. There are small furry animals and a multitude of brightly plumed birds. A skeleton washed up further on down the beach is worryingly large, nearly the length of the gun-cutter. But, hopefully, that particular species doesn't come in too close to shore. Kell senses something nearby, and realises that a pebble near his foot is more than a mere stone. It is a gemstone, in a perfect teardrop shape. It has a faint psychic signature, but that doesn't stop Kell from picking it up. A search of the surrounding area turns up three more gems. The crew heads inland, toward the ruins. After a short distance, they realize that some of the hard objects underneath the rich loam are not stone. The smooth, white rocks are, in fact, wraithbone. The eldar ruins extend much further than the aerial survey indicated.

Like the ruins encountered much earlier, on Quppa-Psi 12, the wraithbone here is ripped and scorched, damaged by some ancient cataclysm. The deeper the group goes into the ruins, the more prevalent the eldar traces become. Soon, they spot something, possibly a column, standing in a glade, heavily covered in vines. Closer inspection reveals it to be a statue of the Eldar goddess Isha. There are collectors in Calixis who will pay a small fortune for this. The statue is heavy, but Liatris does not care about that and orders it taken to the gun-cutter. While clearing the vines off the statue, the psykers start getting edgy. There's something very nearby that's psychically active. Twenty minutes of searching later, they find a sword in the underbrush. Winter manages to pick it up without the sword frying her brain; the weapon is one of the infamous Eldar witchblades. It is a deadly weapon in the hand of an attuned psyker. Swordswomanship isn't Winter's forte, but she takes the blade anyway.

Shortly thereafter, the group reaches the center of the ruins, and finds the structure that they saw from orbit. Vast, sail like vanes rise through the canopy, each covered in runes and an incredibly intricate filigree of curved lines. Liatris and company study the runes for a bit, but are unable to discern any meaning in the xenos writings. Dead center in the middle of the clearing stands a huge arch, easily ten meters tall, inlaid with many gems. These are pulsing with an angry red light. Winter says "Don't touch!" and her advice is heeded.

While the rest of the group is busy with the ruins, Kell decides to do a perimeter sweep. He makes it about halfway around before realising that someone or something is following the group. Whatever it is, it is staying out of sight in the underbrush, but it is definitely shadowing them. Kell at once starts hunting the hunter, grenade launcher at the ready, and it doesn't take him long to track down the mystery stalker.
"Meow?"
"...the hell?!?"
Whatever Kell was expecting the stalker to be, the curious cat-like thing is obviously not it. Aside from the fact that it's a good meter long, and has a strange alien cast to its features, it could pass for a Terran housecat. (Specifically, a grey tabby.) Kell puts his weapon away and slowly approaches it. Fingers are sniffed. A furry back gets petted. Soon, it is stropping itself against his shins, purring all the while. It shows no fear, and no inclination to leave. Kell walks back to the group, with his new companion in tow. Over the next few hours, however, he realises the cat-thing is far more than a mere beast. Kell forms a psychic bond with the creature, and it is actually able to communicate by broadcasting emotions or even visual images. The relationship is evidently symbiotic, as Kell finds his own mental abilities are even sharper in the creature's presence. He is quite pleased by the find; not all treasure is in the form of gems, and his new familiar promises to be quite an asset.

As Kell returns to the group, the tranquility is shattered by distant thunder. A black contrail smears its way across the clouds, and a trio of shuttles pass by in the far distance. A reminder, not if any were needed, that Liatris is not alone in his quest for the Dread Pearl. The distance is too great to make out any kind of livery or markings, so the crew is left to wonder who has made it through the storm.

With the ruins explored, and there being no portable loot, Liatris decides to continue searching the island. It doesn't take them long to find something of interest... it's a shirt. The material is simple, rough homespun, far too crude to be Eldar weave. (The coarsest Eldar fabric makes silk look like burlap in comparison.) More to the point, the embroidery on it is in the shape of the Imperial Aquila. The group stares at it for a minute or two. Kell picks it up. He uses his unnatural abilities to track the owner. "Owner's still alive. That way." [GM note: 7 Degrees of success. Nicely done.] The path leads past a small Eldar structure. An ampitheater? A museum? The entrance is flanked by a pair of statues, some manner of Xenos warrior with a full helm. The statues are considerably larger than life sized. Nathin does not like the look of them, and thinks they are actually Wraithguard. [GM note: rolled an 01 for FL: Xenos. ****! ****! ****!] Wraithguard are bad news. They can be animated by some necromantic Xenos psychic rite and that turns them into nigh-unstoppable killing machines. Victor Liatris wants to take one back, but the remainder of the command staff are dead-set against it. Liatris decides it isn't worth alienating the command staff, and leaves the Wraithguard be. Inside the small building, they realise it is a Wraithguard storage facility. There are several dozen Wraithguard silently standing in the alcoves inside the building. Nathin, ever paranoid, rigs the two at the entrance with explosives, and rigs the top of the archway as well. Turning their back on the silent Wraithguard, they continue searching for the locals.

Kell's intuition soon leads them to the end of the island. There is a series of sand bars that lead to the next island. The group hesitates at the water's edge. However, the cat-thing, which Kell has started calling a "grynix" for some reason he cannot consciously explain, has no fear of the water, and begins wading across the sand bars. Winter realises this implies the local area doesn't have any counterpart to Holy Terra's pirahna, and follows. The group goes wading across, but soon notices something glittering in the sand. In fact, there are many somethings glittering in the sand. Liatris picks one up. It's a small gemstone. He delegates ten of his more trusted crew to gather the gems, while the remainder of the group proceed onward.

Moving right along, it's another twenty minutes hike on the next island before they find the natives. The latter hastily assemble to meet the offworlders. The locals are definitely human, and all of them look tanned and healthy. Their garb is simple, little more than loincloths, but each is wearing a dozen or more trinkets. These baubles are actually Eldar gems, and would be worth a fortune in more civilised locales. They are armed with coral spears and tridents, though these look intended more for fishing than war. Two of them are obviously leaders, and Liatris greets them in High Gothic. They speak the language with a slight accent, so Liatris is able to make himself understood. The locals were clearly not expecting visitors, and their response is somewhere between curiosity and fear. "Who are you, who have so recently come to paradise?" Liatris tells them that they have come to protect them from those who would despoil paradise. This statement is not given much credibility, but they do invite Liatris and his crew back to their village and offer them food. The village is a simple thing. The Eldar ruins provide most real shelter from the elements, and most of the local structures are simple lean-tos or tepees. The tribe's leaders speak High Gothic, but the remainder use a very, very debased version of Low Gothic. These people call themselves the Sanctarchs, and it is very obvious they have been cut off for millennia. Their language has drifted so much that it is very difficult to speak to the average tribesman. Fortunately, the leaders speak a relatively pure version of High Gothic, and Liatris' discussions with them go smoothly. The natives sincerely believe that they have arrived in paradise, and are profoundly skeptical of any claims to the contrary. However, Liatris' credibility is soon given a great boost from an unexpected quarter...

Lord-Admiral Bastille the 7th is following fairly standard (and therefore unimaginative and brutal) Imperial navy "gunship diplomacy" protocols for dealing with such situations. When faced with primitives in possession of a highly desirable world, the textbook calls for an overwhelming demonstration of the destructive power of even a single Naval vessel. Usual practice is to spare the largest population centres (typically home to the leaders, whose surrender will be accepted later on) but level a large number of secondary settlements. Then, troops can be dispatched at the commander's leisure. So, Bastille starts bombarding the planet from orbit. All hell breaks loose. The black contrails of macrocannon shells split the sky, with a mushroom cloud and huge spray of incandescent debris where each one hits. His escort opens up with its lance, sending blazing columns of crimson death down into the ruins. The Sanctarchs wail and cower in terror, while Liatris quickly realises that something must be done. "That has to be Bastille." The auspex reveals a strong, continual stream of vox traffic from a nearby island. Liatris and crew take a hasty leave of the natives, and run back to their gun-cutter. They are able to raise the Angevin's Phoenix with a brief message; their watch officer informs them that ships belonging to Bastille and Scourge are in orbit, and the former is firing on the planet. Evidently, the battle of the Dread Pearl did not end well, with Liatris' enemies getting the upper hand. [GM comment to players: See what happens when you let others do the work unsupervised and don't pitch in? Serves you right!]

Shortly thereafter, their gun-cutter skims the waves, and reaches the source of the vox traffic. There is a wide expanse of beach, with a rival gun-cutter, a Halo barge, and two Arvus lighters all landed on the beach. There is a horde of people on the beach. Liatris doesn't bother with diplomacy, and lets the autocannon do the talking, jackhammering rounds into the vulnerable stern of the rival gun-cutter. Nathin and Kell each crew one of the heavy bolters, and begin sweeping the beach. They achieve total surprise. The hail of return fire is ineffective, as the gun-cutter's heavy front armour shrugs off many, many bolt shells from the men on the beach. More troublesome, there is one guy firing krak missiles. He dents their armour but is unable to penetrate it. As he brings the gun-cutter into a hover, the second volley from Liatris' guns blows Bastille's gun-cutter to bits. The explosion is impressive. Between that, and accurate fire from Nathin and Kell, the beach is rapidly turning into a bloody and torn expanse of sand, littered with bodies and body parts. Return fire is once again ineffective, and some men are already fleeing into the trees. The crowd on the beach has thinned out, and Nathin spots Bastille's white uniform. With malicious glee, Nathin trains the heavy bolter on Bastille and guns the Lord-Admiral down with a long, brutal burst. Kell orders the remaining flyers to surrender. They do not obey him, and lift off, fleeing in three different directions. One of the Arvus lighters doesn't make it. Liatris shoots it with a long burst, and it explodes in midair... the flaming pieces fall sizzling into the sea. The other two get away, leaving the bloody beach still and silent behind them. The orbital bombardment cuts off abruptly as soon as the vox stops transmitting. Yes, it was Bastille. How unsubtle of him.

With that, Liatris flies back to the Sanctarchs' village. This time, they beg for his aid. It seems some horrible thing is crawling over the islands, taking slaves. They plead for deliverance, promising whatever aid and reward they have. Liatris' blood is up, and it doesn't take much urging for him to return to the gun-cutter and start the hunt anew. The offending vehicle is a large, clanking crawler, and easily spotted. It is heading straight for the ruin complex that houses the Sanctarch's village, so it takes very little time for them to spot it. Unfortunately, the crawler's adamantium hull is so thick that the autocannon cannot pierce it. Worse, it has a dorsal turret with lascannon, and the lascannon are quite capable of damaging the gun-cutter. Despite the Gun-Cutter's size and inertia, Liatris dodges the first double blast, and brings the gun-cutter into a hover over the crawler. Kell and Nathin leap out. Kell lands like a cat, but Nathin hits hard, doing himself a significant injury. There are quite a few slavers on foot, on the ground, rounding up slaves. They shoot at the gun-cutter, to no effect. Winter takes one of the bolter turrets and fires back with considerable effect. One of the armsmen takes the other bolter turret and manages to mow down a few slavers as well. The crawler's laser turret shoots. Liatris dodges one blast, but the other rips off the port-side heavy bolter. It explodes, heavy bolts popping off like Ascenscion-day firecrackers. Winter was in that turret, and she simply shrugs off the blast. The lascannon won't get another chance. Nathin rigs it with demo charges, as Kell's xenofilaments shred a few slavers foolish enough to interfere. Nathin gets clear, just as the charges blow the turret clean off the crawler and reduce the slaver inside to chunky red paste.

At this point, the Eldar finally make their appearance. A thunderbolt out of the clear sky grounds on the nearby ruins. A Farseer, bedecked in all the robes and jewelry you'd expect from that arrogant, decadent race, steps forth as witchfire rises from the ruins. His voice echoes in the minds of every living sapient within several hundred kilometers. "This place, this world, is ours. You, who would despoil all you touch and bring ruin upon us all, have no place here. Your actions prove you will not change your ways, you will not make amends. Yet, even now, we will offer you one chance. Look to the heavens, and see what power we hold. This world was lost to us for an age, locked within the raging storm. For an age, we waited for it to lift. Now, as we reclaim our birthright - we recall the storm. Better you are expelled, even though this world be lost to us for another aeon, than you be allowed to enact your wickedness here! You shall quit this place, all of you. Or, you shall be slaughtered, and your bones be entombed at the centre of the storm for all eternity!" The Sanctarchs fall to their knees at this, their whole world crumbling around them. Everyone else is looking heavenward, at the ugly bruise in reality that is the warp storm. It is definitely coming back. It appears that the Dread Pearl will not be a permanent prize for anyone save the Eldar... The Farseer's threats were not idle. As soon as he finishes speaking, the xenos psyker busies himself with an incantion. Spectral lightning streaks from his fingers, branching into a thousand filaments over the islands. This is followed, very shortly, by the tread of a thousand pairs of wraithbone feet. The wraithguard have been roused. There is a distant, double explosion. Nathin grins. "Make that 998 wraithguard." There will be two less wraithguard in the first wave. Meanwhile, Veriakh Kell is staring at the farseer. Recognition dawns, and he identifies the xenos - the Farseer is named Serrenon, and there is history there. "You bastard! You killed my mentor!"

Session 15. SPOILER WARNING: Lure of the Expanse.

Ship's Log, Angevin's Phoenix (910.816 M41)
"You bastard! You killed my mentor!" Kell shouts. Evidently, this Farseer is known to him, and unfavourably so. This attracts raised eyebrows from the rest of the command staff, but there are more pressing matters to deal with. After all, the group is in the middle of a firefight, which was momentarily interrupted by the arrival of the Eldar. Very momentarily.

There are still a half dozen or so slavers on the ground near the crawler. Kell disposes of two with his grenade launcher. Unfortunately, at this time the crawler's owner decides to make his appearance. The group had assumed that this particular blight on humanity belonged to Djanko Scourge, but they were wrong. A voice hisses "You people are cutting into my profit margin."

It's Krawkin Feckward, the same slave-trading snake that tried to kill Liatris back on Footfall. Feckward and two particularly disreputable and brutish thugs have sneaked out the crawler's cavernous back hatch and have crept up to where they can shoot the people on top of the crawler. Feckward promptly shoots Nathin in the back with a plasma pistol. The conversion field's circuits don't kick in, and Nathin fails to dodge. The Seneschal of House Liatris goes down haloed by the smoke of his own burning flesh, alive but badly wounded. The first thug levels a storm bolter at Kell, and all eight shells are accurately aimed. But, fate is with Kell, and he dodges completely out of the line of fire. The thug is not pleased. The second thug has a jetpack, and flies up to the hovering gun-cutter. He attempts to slap a big, disc-like object onto the gun-cutter, but fails to affix it properly. Liatris is not amused at all, and attempts to ram the guy. The attempt fails, with the gun-cutter flying past the jetpacker. However, several of Liatris' armsmen drop the aft hatch and open up with meltaguns. Two of them connect, and the thug is no more; literally shot down in flames as the second shot hits the jetpack's fuel supply. The slavers on the ground aren't out of the fight and open up with combat shotguns. One of the armsmen is hit, but Kell fares worse. He eats several shells worth of buckshot, and it hurts. However, Kell is more worried about the thug with the storm bolter, particularly since he's close enough to Feckward for one grenade to get both. One xenofilament grenade later, and the thug is minced; Feckward survives by using his henchman as a meat shield. Meanwhile, Winter has spotted two Wraithguard advancing on their position. She slips into the gunner's seat, and a burst from the twin linked heavy bolters drops one of the Wraithguard. Liatris lines the gun-cutter up on the other Wraithguard, but the burst is dodged by the alien construct.

Back at the slave crawler, things are heating up. The armsmen in the back of the gun-cutter reduce the slavers' numbers somewhat with melta fire. Kell and Feckward exchange fire at point blank range to no effect. The former dodges, and the latter's refractor field activates. Unfortunately for Kell, the slaver on the ground is a good shot, and Kell gets slammed with shotgun shells. At this point, Winter makes her presence felt. She walks a burst of heavy bolter fire across Feckward's position, and the slaver captain is blown clean off the crawler in a spray of blood and shrapnel. Meanwhile, Liatris uses the gun-cutter's autocannon to dispatch the remaining wraithguard. With Feckward out of the picture, the few remaining slavers flee the disabled crawler... though the fact that all the slaves have broken loose and are boiling out of the crawler like a swarm of hornets might also have something to do with that. Liatris brings the gun cutter into a hover over the crawler. The armsmen scoop Nathin off the top of the crawler. "He's alive, sir." Kell is the last one into the gun-cutter, as he has paused for a little battlefield salvage, namely the thug's storm bolter. A little inspection reveals it to be a common quality model, with simple iron sights... not as good as Nathin's. Still, Kell quickly proclaims "Dibs!" on the weapon.

The gun cutter is gaining altitude, returning to the Sanctarch's village, when the vox crackles with an all frequency distress broadcast. It's Madam Charlabelle. She's on an island maybe 50 km to the south, is beset by foes, and has lost her shuttle. Liatris shares a look with his crew. "I guess we'd better go pick her up." Fifty klicks isn't far for a gun cutter, and maybe ten minutes later Liatris is bringing the big flyer into a hover over yet another idyllic stretch of beach. Madam Charlabelle, bloodied but unbowed, breaks from the trees at a run. She is alone, which is not a good sign. Charlabelle is pulled aboard, and Liatris decides not to stick around. "What happened, Charlabelle?"
"Oh, we found a large number of Eldar statues, several hundred at least. We thought they'd fetch a good price back in Calixis, so we started loading them. Then, they animated..."
"You had those things in your shuttles?"
"I think maybe one of the shuttles I sent back did not have them aboard."
Charlabelle lapses into a pensive silence. If the wraithguard didn't activate until after the shuttles got back... Kell stifles laughter. The thought of Wraithguard running amok on board a ship is not a good one. Madam Charlabelle Armelan has a serious problem. It appears this venture may incur more expenses than the House of Armelan had anticipated.

On the way back, they discuss strategy. Kell is out for blood, and insists on killing the Eldar farseer. "Serrenon's controlling this. We kill him, and all this will stop."
"You have a history with him." Liatris' comment is a statement, not a question.
"Yeah, bastard killed my mentor."
At this point, Kell confesses that he used to work for the Inquisition. There are raised eyebrows all around; unnoticed by Liatris and his command staff, Charlabelle turns sheet white and keeps her mouth shut thereafter. With a little gentle prodding from Liatris, Kell says a few words about his past. He mentions he was taken under the wing of one Inquisitor Tobias, and accompanied the Inquisitor for more than ten years, eventually becoming the Inquisitor's right hand man. Tobias was hunting a dangerous heretic and followed him to an isolated planet near Footfall. Unfortunately, the tip proved false. It was an Eldar trap, led by Serrenon, and Tobias was killed. Kell is keen on venegance. Liatris suggests rescuing the villagers as well. Winter is hesitant - how many villagers can they save anyway? There are a lot of the Sanctarchs, so they'd only be able to save a small fraction of them. And besides, there is only so much room on the ship. Liatris overrules her, and decides to save who he can. Looking at the warp storm rolling back in, he realises that time is running very short. Liatris voxes to Angevin's Phoenix and calls for one shuttle run. That's all that time permits, and the ponderous Halo Barges are so slow that they won't be able to make the trip at all. The ship spits out its entire complement of small shuttles, and they head for the surface. Even the poor quality ships belonging to Wrath's Carrion participate, though Liatris makes a point of ordering his elite guards to not ride on those ships. Charlabelle requests use of the gun-cutter's vox, which is granted, and her transport starts launching as well. Despite its larger shuttlebay, the extensive damage from the Wraithguard means The Grace of Sopha only contributes a few to the airlift. Yeah, Charlabelle's going to have a whopping repair bill after this voyage.

When they land at the Sanctarch's village, the group finds that the villagers aren't the only ones in need of rescue. Abel Gerrit is present with a handful of armsmen, and needs a lift as his shuttle is now lost to him. Kell is blunt. "Ass, gas, or grass, no one rides for free." When the situation is explained to him, Gerrit agrees to assist with taking out the Farseer. Serrenon isn't far, but the roiling psychic storm over his location rules out an aerial assault. So, the fastest route is along the hard packed sand of the beach. A considerable number of wraithguard are in the area, so all remaining armsmen are delegated to hold them off. Gerrit's hellgun armed men open fire first, with the meltaguns of Liatris' armsmen joining them as the Wraithguard close in.

Charlabelle, Gerrit, Liatris, Winter, and Kell finally catch sight of Serrenon. There is an open area littered with large chunks of wraithbone. This patch of ruins borders the water on one side, and is forest on the other three. Serrenon is standing on a small platform maybe two meters tall, at the edge of the clearing. He is haloed in witchfire, but apparently alone. Of course, appearances are deceiving... There are two pathfinders hidden in the trees, and three wraithguard, draped with seaweed, emerge from the waves. Liatris charges the nearest Wraithguard. Serrenon blasts the group of humans with shards of telekinetic force, but hits only sand as everyone dodges. The first volley of fire is ineffective, with force fields saving Kell and Charlabelle from the pathfinders' accurate sniping. At this point, another rogue trader shows up. A gaudily (and tastelessly) decorated Rhino roars out of the far treeline. The fat, belligerent bulk of Djanko Scourge is sticking out of the top hatch. He yells at Liatris "You! This is your fault! You brought them here! This is my world! Mine!" Liatris does not deign to reply.

Kell is using the salvaged storm bolter to good effect, and mows down the Wraithguard meleeing Liatris. The pathfinders have taken a dislike to Kell, and shoot him. One actually misses, with the hardworking machine spirit in the conversion field blocking the other. Serrenon considers missing unacceptable. He uses some Eldar witchery, and his troops suddenly get deadly accurate, fate itself guiding their strikes. Winter misses a pathfinder - the searing blast of her Inferno pistol slaying an innocent tree. One of the Wraithguard shoots Liatris. The rending pulse of the warp vortex inflicts serious injury, and his position suddenly seems very uncertain. Liatris is displaced nine meters, but that's not far enough to keep him from charging the offending wraithguard. Charlabelle, meanwhile, charges the Farseer, but is unable to push her way through the curtain of witchfire. Scourge and his goons are shooting at everyone, to little effect. Serrenon dodges Scourge's plasma blast easily, though Kell connects with a few bolter shells. Kell gets sniped by a pathfinder, and Serrenon turns his dread gaze on him as well. Fate is with Kell, and he shakes off the effects of Serrenon's Mind War power. Winter decides her Inferno pistol is no good at this distance, and she runs up screened by the trees.

The implacable Wraithguard fire on the largest target, and Scourge's Rhino explodes spectacularly. There is a huge cloud of shrapnel and flaming debris that litters the beach with smoke and wreckage. His position in the open hatch means Scourge is the only one who makes it out of the fireball; his goons die screaming as they burn. There is one Wraithguard in melee with Liatris as well, and Liatris barely dodges its fist. Both Charlabelle and Gerrit attempt to charge Serrenon, but both fail. Kell decides he likes the storm bolter and blazes away at Serrenon. However, the witchfire, an Eldar forcefield, his armour and own precognitive ability mean the seer is a hard target and Kell's efforts are in vain. The farseer isn't the only one who can dodge. Kell, again, ducks another shot from the pathfinders. Winter is also struck; the good news is her conversion shield stops the blast, but the bad news is it overloads and goes down. Serrenon turns his attention to Charlabelle and Gerrit and uses the force shards again. However, he has no better luck than the first time, as both of them sidestep the attack. Winter, on the other hand, connects with her shot. One pathfinder's famous agility fails him, and the Astropath's inferno pistol ends his life. Kell shouts "Thank you!" as that particular pathfinder had been sniping him without mercy.

Charlabelle, Gerrit, and Scourge all fire at Serrenon to no effect. Kell hits with all eight bolts from the storm bolter only to see every single bolt glance harmlessly off the Farseer's power field. The remaining pathfinder takes venegance on Winter and shoots her. But, the Astropath is a tough girl and stays standing. Serrenon, meanwhile, has tired of Kell's presence and attempts mind war again. Kell, using the last of his willpower, manages to not have his head explode. And the battle rages on. Winter shoots the remaining pathfinder with the last shot of her Inferno pistol, but the eldar easily evades. One wraithguard shoots Gerrit, doing horrible damage, while the other two prove ineffective. Liatris avenges his injury, with his power fist terminating one of the constructs. Unfortunately, he is the only one to connect in this volley, though Gerrit does find the will to step through the witchfire and into melee. Kell drops the now empty storm bolter and runs up. Charlabelle ducks the shot from the remaining pathfinder. She returns fire to no effect as Serrenon crosses blades with Gerrit. Winter switches to her backup gun, a humble stub automatic, and the slug whines harmlessly off a chunk of wraithbone a few meters from the pathfinder. Liatris, however, aims his strikes more accurately. He charges another wraithguard and rips its head clean off with his powerfist. Kell has switched to his grenade launcher. "Remember these Serrenon? You left 'em on Gideon Prime!" The xenofilament grenade is stopped by Serrenon's force field, but the overstressed field generator collapses.

Gerrit is supposed to be a good swordsman, but Serrenon gets the best of him. The farseer's witchblade cleaves Gerrit from shoulder to stomach, knocking him off the platform and into a senseless, bloody heap. [GM note: Someone just burned a fate point. Ouch.] Charlabelle is more fortunate, diving under a warpcannon blast. She rolls to her feet and liquefies the remaining pathfinder with her Harlequin's Kiss; a messy and ignoble end for the xenos. Scourge contributes hot air and belligerence. Kell actually hits Serrenon with a grenade and finally does significant damage. Serrenon returns fire with a shuriken pistol, but fancy footwork and a very dutiful conversion field keep Kell uninjured. Winter decides to move into hand to hand with Serrenon, reasoning that her willpower will allow her to stand in the witchfire. As it turns out, she will not be crossing blades with the farseer. Scourge's plasma shot is accurately aimed - Serrenon dodges it, but is off balance for a precious split second. The last monofilament grenade in Kell's clip connects. Serrenon cannot dodge, and his field is down. Wraithbone armour can only do so much, and it isn't enough. The Eldar is flayed with a thousand small cuts, and falls off the platform in a huge spray of blue blood. The witchfire vanishes into thin air, and the wraithguard become noticeably less coordinated. They had been operating as a single, cohesive group, but now they become hesitant and distracted... wandering about and reacting to nearby threats but not noticing more distant targets. With the Farseer down, Liatris and Charlabelle double team the last wraithguard and kill it without ceremony.

The sudden stillness is profound. The soft sound of waves and wind are a remarkable contrast to the clamor of battle just a moment before. In the quiet, everyone can clearly hear the crackle of Scourge's vox. "Teleport lock achieved sir. The interference just stopped."
Liatris suddenly realises why Scourge was focusing his attacks on the farseer. Scourge bellows "'Port me out! Now!" Then, turning to Liatris, he yells "Hah, thanks sucker! Catch!" Scourge lobs a grenade the instant before he dematerializes. It's an inferno grenade and explodes with a searing fireball of molten shrapnel. Scourge's last cheap shot fries only the wrecked wraithguard as Liatris and Charlabelle both dive out of the blast radius. With that, the battle finally ends.

Kell demands that the group pick up the pathfinders' weapons. He has some knowledge of the Eldar Long rifle, and knows it to be a sniping weapon without peer. Both xenos weapons are retrieved, and Kell picks the storm bolter out of the sand as well. Liatris sighs, and picks up Gerrit's comatose form. He slings the fellow rogue trader over his shoulder and walks off without a backward glance. Saying the venture at the Dread Pearl did not turn out as expected is an understatement. Overhead, the first fully laden Arvus lumbers into the air, thrusters thundering at redline as the shuttle's pilot heads for orbit. It is maybe a kilometer back to the Sanctarch's village. It took only a few minutes to jog that distance heading into battle, but somehow the walk back seems to be a much longer trek...

Keep up the good work, im still reading