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CLASSIFICATION: DARK RHO
Mistress Zayel, please bear in mind that this is my first report since being inducted into your service and that the all of the details I include herein might not be what you seek to read. Nevertheless im still alive in spite of recent dangerous encounters with the enemies of the Imperium and I genuinely hope that it proves as a testament to my abilities and that you find the choice of taking me under your wing, so to say, to be a good one, even if my reportwriting skills might be lacking somewhat at the moment. The mission as I recall it began on Scintilla where myself and the party of other acolytes you picked up on Dusk were briefed by Interrogator Summerset. Our objective was to find the exact star coordinates of a world called Galtus which was previously purged (both in the Administratum records and in reality) by Inquisitor Venris Frost. Naturally being unable to find them in a more conventional sense due to the purging we were instructed to negotiate with a scion from the Navis Nobilitae House Modar who were said to possess the relevant information we sought. Since I've had dealings with the Navis Nobilitae in the past I gave the other acolytes a quick instruction in proper manners and managed to find a skilled tailor to dress them all appropriately for the first meeting. Although the scion from House Modar knew perfectly well that we were there on Inquisitorial business with all that entails, I figured that it couldn't hurt to convey a presentable first impression. Nevertheless, we met up with the scion. An old Navigator by the name of Sirius Modar and presented our request. Of course, being a shrewd negotiator as he was he wanted us to do something for him in return before helping us. The task he had for us involved breaking up a romantic relationship between the Lord Sector Governor's niece and a scion from a rival Navigator House to House Modar, without attracting any attention neither to ourselves or House Modar in the process. Sirius feared that the rival scion, a certain Beta Rey'a'nor had the intention of using the romantic relationship with Kyrene Hax to further extend House Rey'a'nors influence with the Lord Sector Governor. Which of course proved to be very true although Kyrene was still very much aware of the fact, her romantic feelings towards him somewhat overpowering her judgement. Now I'd like to think of myself as a man of action (at least in comparison with other people of a similar background to my own), but I was slightly appalled by the very first suggetions that some of the other Acolytes presented in dealing with the situation. They were somewhat rash in jumping to violent solutions involving assassination attempts and "staged accidents" on the rival Navigator. Certainly agents of the holy Inquisition should be able to come up with more subtle and creative plans than that? After all, we weren't dealing with heretics here but normal people and I didn't see any justification in killing any of them merely to do House Modar a service. So myself along with the more creative acolytes devised a plan where we were to infiltrate the floating court and hopefully manage to lure Kyrene Hax' romantic interests away from the House Rey'a'nor scion and onto either myself or the agent Nihilius Zee. I thought he would make an excellent candidate for the job at first, but were to be proven wrong in that regard. We conducted some investigations, gathering intelligence about the previous love interests of Kyrene Hax in order to appeal to her tastes a little better than only relying on our "innate abilities". Also I felt it was necessary for us to learn how to dance according to the latest trends at the floating court, least we might have looked like buffoons if we didn't. I made use of a personal contact in that matter (my sister Euphrati DeBarren). Although she is an intelligent woman who obviously figured out that I was up to something or working for someone I made sure not to divulge who my real masters were and denied any guessing she might have done. So in my estimation she shouldn't pose any threat towards any other eventual covert operations you wish for me to take part in in the future. We successfully infiltrated the floating court, although the Lord Sector Governor being overly paranoid as usual, had instructed the gatekeepers at the floating court to confiscate any weapons guests might bring so we had to conduct our task unarmed. Of course being the most elegant and well known court in the entire Calixis sector, the halls were populated by a substantial number of important socialites. I managed to get introduced to Kyrene Hax through my sister Euphrati (who I was unpleasantly surprised to find being a visitor at the court as well), and about that time agent Nihilius Zee deviated from our plan. Instead of introducing himself to Kyrene Hax and hopefully provide me with a little help he went off somewhere with a woman called Selestria. Finding myself in a rather delicate situation I couldn't do anything to reprimand him right then and there so I had to try impress Marius Hax' niece myself. I will not deny the fact that Kyrene Hax is quite a lovely and intelligent woman who was very easy to like. And in all honesty I really disliked having to try fooling her in such a rotten way, but orders are orders and I realize that I must do whatever needs to be done in the line of duty. Lets just say that my performance didn't lack in any way due to any bad feelings I had, and I do believe I managed to awaken her interests a bit even though more work had to be done. I excused myself for the evening and tried to rendevouz with the other agents, except for agent Zee who was nowhere to be found and impossible to reach via comm-bead. During the night at our quarters when we had gathered a meeting to plan what to do next our suite's vox chimed and my sister's paniced voice called to me for help. We ran as fast as we could to her chambers and found the woman called Selestria who agent Zee had left with earlier that evening were trying to kill my sister. The assassin had managed to smuggle a sword into the floating court somehow so we had to try to subdue here with our bare fists. Luckily we managed to save Euphrati but the assassin fled the scene as soon as the guards showed up along with Kyrene Hax. I demanded to file a formal complaint over the lack of proper security and we were led to Lady Kyrene's chambers to discuss the matter further. She was of course terribly sorry for the slip-up in security and asked of us what she could do in order to restore honour. I siezed the opportunity and demanded that she publicly broke up her relationship with Beta Rey'a'nor and kept her distance from him for at least a few months. Naturally she found the demand to be a bit odd and I probably raised her suspicions quite a bit, but I felt that time was of the essence and we needed to get those coordinates from House Modar. Since she was more or less honorbound she agreed to our demands peacefully, and the next day gossip started to spread about Kyrene's and Beta's public break-up which seemed to satisfy Sirius Modar. We also found agent Zee the next day, hospitalized for reasons unkown and he didn't wish to divulge what he had been doing. Of course I realize that it is not my place to pass judgement on my peers, I feel strongly that someone ought to do something to reprimand agent Zee for his unprofessional behaviour. How is our cell supposed to be expected to form any coherent plan of action when some of the vital agents decides to run off womanizing? In any case, we were promptly shuttled aboard the Frozen Diva and we were accompanied by a Navigator of House Modar who would guide the vessel to the otherwise purged destination of Galtus. Of course the shrewd House Modar couldn't just give us the proper coordinates but had to make sure that we were still dependant on them in our travels. My personal opinion is that someone should look into the matter. It doesn't strike me as proper conduct when individual Navis Nobilitae Houses are allowed to monopolize on forbidden information that the holy Inquisition have previously surpressed. Nevertheless we successfully arrived in orbit around Galtus and we set down with our shuttle on a clearing a few kilometers above the purged settlement. Armed and prepared we went into the settlement to find what we were seeking (although im still not completely sure of exactly what we were seeking, though the other acolytes mentioned something the venerated Oracle Occular on Ambulon had told them of this place). The place was severely tainted with the after effects of warp activity, and we could hear the whispers and see the memories of the dead from time to time. We found out that the settlement used to ba a safe haven for psykers and it struck me as a very righteous cause in purging the place from the beginning. Suffice to say that the place gave me a bad impression, but we pressed on in finding the "memories of the machine" that the Oracle Occular had mentioned. A very obscure description if you ask me, but the others believed in it. We basically searched every inch of the ruined settlement after any form of tech that our Techpriest Samial Kane deemed to be capable of storing memories of machine spirits. This search and him interfacing with various pieces of tech would prove to be very dangerous in the end, but we didn't have any idea what we were facing at that moment. After having rifled through burnt out ruins we eventually came across a small shuttledock. We had attempted several times to hail the Frozen Diva with our voxes but we couldn't get a signal so our plan was to use the more stronger vox unit within the shuttledock. Techpriest Kane coaxed the vox unit's machinespirits to life with my assistance, with agent Zee guarding our efforts whilst agents Gunn, Anchova and Whitelock were keeping guard over a building filled with basic machinery that had behaved oddly during our investigations (I didn't witness it myself but the others said that pieces of debris and machinery had been moved on its own earlier). Once the vox unit activated a horrible screeching noise emmanated from several, seemingly dead, loudhailers and vox speakers. This noise could be heard clearly all over the settlement and we recieved vox reports from our comerades outside that pieces of machinery had sprung to unnatural life and started to assault them. Techpriest Kane kept on trying to hail the Frozen Diva fervently, and at that time it dawned on me: what if this noise from the vox unit is "infecting" the other machines somehow? I asked Samial to cease his attempts for a while but he would not listen, being ever more persistent in trying to contact our ship in orbit. It was then that I noticed he had a somewhat more "distant" look in his eyes (being a Techpriest they usually have one, but he looked like he was in a state of trance of some kind). I forecully tried to remove him from the vox unit and then his mechadendrites started to flail wildly, trying to hurt me. By that time it was apparent that he had been possessed by something and were no longer on control of his actions. I called for agent Zee to help, and we tried to knock the Techpriest out rather than killing him. In hindsight im glad we chose not to kill him, partly because we managed to excorsize whatever malignant machine spirit that had infested him and partly because he was our only pilot able to get us off the the planet. The noise kept on screeching during our struggle, and the Techpriest proved to be hard to subdue. Myself and agent Zee also tried to destroy the vox unit (I suspected that this would stop the machine possession), but it proved to be ineffective. The malignant machine spirit having already infested every piece of technology in the settlement. As our battle continued and our comrades outside were breaking off the fighting with the machinery and trying to come to our aid, something horrible attacked us. An animated heap of agri-cultural equipment was bearing down on our position from the fields to the north and it was gigantic in porportions. Me and agent Zee were still trying to subdue the mad Techpriest and we noticed the thing from the fields as its huge tendrils smashed through the roof of the shuttledock. I must embarassingly admit that the sight of this gigantic tech-abomination caused me to faint for a few moments. I won't deny that I was fearing for my life during this encounter, but as soon as I woke up moments later I steeled myself to fight back. The abomination held one of my comerades in it's lethal grasp and agent Anchova were trying to arm a melta charge to take out the monstrous being, all at the same time we were attacked by other pieces of various evil machinery. I was armed with my Cathechist Stake Crossbow during this whole time (a memento from my grandfather), I took aim and fired a stake at the abomination. At first it proved ineffective, and I calmly recited the litany of smiting and suddenly I could feel a surge of righteous fury burning through my soul that seemed to follow the second stake as I fired it towards the tendril holding one of the other agents (I dont really remember if it was agent Zee or agent Anchova at the moment, the situation being quite hectic). The blessed projectile striked true, and it severed the thing's tendril and passed through several other of its animated tentacles, severing them as well and then ended its trajectory through the wall of the shuttledock exploding in holy white light. This in turn seemed to trigger the melta charge outside that agent Anchova had set and we barely escaped the building with our lives. As we came to, the tech-abomination had been righteously destroyed and I prayed thanks to the Emperor for guiding my actions, and also made sure to include a thanks to my venerated grandfather as well. The other animated pieces of machinery were lying dead on the ground and the Techpriest Kane was uncouncious. Feeling that we had cleansed the place of the evil machine spirits we went back to our shuttle and made sure to tie up the Techpriest before waking him. Techpriest Kane seemed to be himself again and he explained further exactly what had happened to him. Apparently stored heretical knowledge can sometime form its own form counciousness of sorts, and this counsciousness can infect other pieces of tech to do its evil bidding. According to Techpriest Kane this phenomena is something that the Adeptus Mechanicus refers to as a Schismatical, and he was ever grateful for my own and agent Zee's attempts to stop him from contacting the Frozen Diva. Had he managed to make contact the Schismatical would've surely infected the ship and it could have meant letting loose a serious danger to the Calixis sector. We also agreed to put every piece of tech that we brought to Galtus that could have been infected by this Schismatical to quarantine, making sure not to interface in any way with the Frozen Diva. Eventually we took off from Galtus and went through a tedious but absolutely necessary quarantine procedure, making sure that any shred of the Schismatical's influence was purged from from our equipment. To conclude this report and share my own thoughts on previous events I feel that the mission was a success. We managed to acquire the passage to Galtus without inflicting much in the way of collateral damage at the floating court, and we managed to cleanse Galtus from the evil prescence left behind from the previous purge. I don't know the details of how Inquisitor Frost went about in purging Galtus, but perhaps it would be a good idea for similar purgings to include agents from the Adeptus Mechanicus who are familiar with Schismatical activity to accompany such endavours. Evidently, even if one manages to put every psyker and heretic to the torch and burning every blasphemous work they might keep in their hideouts, fragments of the heretical knowledge gathered might infect the very machine spirits forced holding the heretical knowledge. Like with some of the weaker subjects of the Emperor, heresy and corruption can evidently fester within some of the bounties of the Omnissiah as well and we should righteously cleanse such filth and impurity wherever or in whatever it may be found! Further notes I wish to include in this report regarding armament within our cell. Although agent Anchova had been foresighted enough to bring a melta charge and the Emperor blessed my efforts in combating the tech-abomination on Galtus, next time we might have to prove our worth to the Emperor by taking out his enemies on our own. Although the more martially educated agents within our cell could give a better assessment I feel that we have the need of some sort of portable heavy weapon for use in similar fieldwork in the future. One can hardly be expected to predict what sort of blasphemous monstrosities we might face, and we might come across even larger and more dangerous beings the galaxy might conjure up to face us and never knowing when or where such enemies might require our attention it would be very reassuring if we could have access to a portable heavy weapon at all times. Of course that is only my humble recommendation and I leave the matter completely to your judgement, but if you could provide our cell with a man portable las cannon, or a meltagun, or perhaps a versatile missile launcher that I understand that Imperial Guard infantry uses to great effect against tanks on the battlefield against the enemies of the Imperium we would be able to make sure in taking down even the largest and most foul opponents we might come across. Last but not least, I still feel that something should be done with agent Zee and his blatant deviancy from protocol during the episode at the floating court. Although he proved to be a versatile ally and have, in my opinion, redeemed his "past mistakes" I have taken to heart to put trust in my suspicion, and I would be able to more effectively cooperate with him if I knew something about any eventual ulterior motives he might harbour or at least know that one of his superiors have complete control over the matter. "Trust in your suspicion" the Creed tells us, but we need to be able to trust our comrades as well, and if nothing is done about Zee's actions then I feel that I have to look over my own shoulder everytime I have to cooperate with him in the future. Im sure you agree that you would want me to place all my efforts and concentration to the task assigned to us rather than having to place parts of our concentration against members of our own cell. In any case, I know my place and will leave all these matters to your superior judgement. I just felt it was important to bring these matters to your attention. That concludes my first report and I hope you found it to be comperhensive enough. If there is anything else you wish to know then summon me and I will answer any questions you have with all due honesty and ability. The Emperor Protects!
Your loyal servant //Vincentius Callidon DeBarren
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GM contact: aethel