Timestamp: 7.437.996.M41

Location: The Shatters, Gorgonid Mine, Sepheris Secundus, Glogenna Reach

Situation: Inquisition-led Arbites team exploring lower levels of closed-off mine complex

Body: Returning to the nexus wheer you had seen the ghoulish guardsmen assembling you quickly pick up the trail again. Following it isn't difficult at all. You are alert and tense - the Commissar-Cadet Castus explained they had tried to make forays into this area before, but always been rebuffed by ghouls, mutties, even witchfire. But now it's just quiet - like the tomb that it is.

You eventually reach an area that looks more natural than the tunnels that you've followed so far. No, natural isn't the right word. The right word is different - the tunnels are definitely still made, but in a fashion quite unlike the very utilitarian Secundan mine-works. This is smoother, more flowing, lacking any utility at all...the tunnels just meander. You start marking your progress by spraying the walls with paint that registers well in the IR-band - it's better than bread-crumbs, but serves the same purpose.

Shortly thereafter you find the first body. Lying broken on the floor of the meandering tunnel. It's been lying here for a while. Rotting. And it wasn't in the best of shapes to begin with. Next to it, partially overlapping is the next body, and the next, and the next. Like corpse-beads on a string.

You keep moving. There are many more corpses, all of them badly broken and decomposed, all of them part of the same string. You don't need to be psykers (though some of your are) to feel that this is - unnatural, anathema, abomination. Still you press on...until you find the first intersection; the string of bodies split in twain, two strings now, disappearing down two dark tunnels. You don't need to be savants to see where this is going.

----

That's when you first notice the singing. You can't really make out the words, but the tune is quite catching. It's a tune that Haxtes know a bit too well - it's the Maiden of Golgenna, a popular tune with insane cultists around these parts. Cutting external pickups helps a bit - but the tune is still there, like a low drone that gets into your head no matter what. Enforcer Priestly is already having problems keeping his act together. Others might also be affected if you press on. That's not good.

In the end it's decided that Maxi will remain here with the Arbites for two hours before falling back to the others. There is a bit of name-calling of course, but really, thre is no real alternative. So while Maxi leads the other Arbites in paryer and contemplation of the Lex Imperialis, Haxtes and Jarra set out down the corridor. Surely whatever caused all this will be found at the center of it all...though you have no clue what it might be, nor how you will deal with it.

----

The corridors meander forever, twisting and turning, splitting and recombining. You try marking your progress, but it makes no sense. Several times you find marks you've already left, but when you move on nothing is as you remember them to be. The inertial locators are completely screwed too. Even your chronos are starting to display times that are meaningless; Jarra's piece even starts to run backwards at one point.

That's when you both decide - without a word being spoken between you - that this is where sanity ends and other begins. Haxtes can feel the bile rising in his throat as long-suppressed memories rise to the surface...of the Maiden of Golgenna, the fight on the bridge, and the thing that was not the captain. It has that taste to it.

With that out of the way Haxtes starts walking towards whatever is in there, rather than away from it. You press on, a sense of sudden urgency upon you, a sense of disaster looming - though you have yet to encounter a single animate enemy; no ghouls, no twisted mutants, no deadly wyrds.

----

Your dark world is suddenly turned on its ugly head. The earth heaves like mad. The sound of rocks crushing upon rock. A terrible wind sucking and pulling at everything - were you academically inclined you might have wondered why this was so, why the air was sucked in rather than blown out and away...but alas you feeble minds had no time for such niceties.

You get up, battered and bruised, but still whole. You pick up the pace, and suddenly you are standing in a massive chamber, still lit by multiple industrial light-beams. Or what's left of the chamber anyway - most of it seems to have been filled with masses of rock. Indeed, stones of all sizes, from boulders to pebbles, keep falling down out of the dark, seeking to fill the offending void at the heart of the mountain.

You see a few enemies too, but they seem confused and of no immediate threat. The falling rocks seem rather more dangerous. If the survivors don't get their focus back the earth will surely do the work of the Holy Inquisition on this day - the only good heretic is a crushed heretic! So you do what Maxi would have called 'About Face' and then you do what Jarra calls 'Haul Ass'. Meaning you get the hell out of there as fast as you can!

----

Back at the Arbites watchpoint the men have also gotten back on their feet. A few have been hit by smaller rocks, but there are no serious injuries (blessed by thy carapace). The infernal singing has stopped. But the rad-meters have spiked - the readings are weird, matching no know radioactive source, but the end result is the same...stay here for much longer and you'll die, protective gear or not.

Then suddenly something comes out of the corridor - not the one Jarra and Haxtes took, but the other one - nine guns at the ready in an instant. Nine guns pointed at a large man carrying the Rosette of an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor on a gold chain around his neck. He's a big man, not as big as Maxi perhaps, but bigger than most. Covered head-to-toe in once-magnificent battle-plate. Now it's just an incredibly dirty, bloody and dusty piece of carapace armor. He's got a bolt pistol in one hand, nothing strange there, but in there other is something altogether more odd - a young girl, perhaps ten to twelve years of age, pale of skin and with fine features framed by long dark hair clinging to her form.

"Inquisitor Rykehuss, Ordo Xenos. Stand down Arbitrator, or face the wrath of the God-Emperor of Mankind". Rykehuss. Of course. Only an Inquisitor could have have survived this holocaust. Well, the time is up - five minutes ago - and no sign of Maxi or Jarra. No reason to linger. Not when you have an Inquisitor and his quarry to ward. So off you go, heading back to the surface.

----

Jarra and Maxi run like the Powers were right behind them (which in a sense they are). Behind them the roof finally caves in completely and forever buries whatever was in that chamber. Undoubtedly for the best. But you still have some unburied dead to take into account...and now they decide they've had enough lying around. So they get up. Only a few at first. Unsteadily. Broken hands trying to grab at your running feet. Nothing that bolt shells and power blades cannot handle.

But even as you reach the end of the corpse-beaded necklace you can hear them coming for you. More and more. Like a wave of broken men given a semblance of life once more. It's bad enough certainly, but its 'just' animated flesh...not the otherness that was in the Maiden's captain. Thank the Emperor for even small mercies...

You keep moving. Stopping only to pick of a few of them that get too eager. Haxtes manages to reach Maxi on the vox. Convincing him to hold the charges until they are past the promethium tanks. Maxi is already at the lifts. He looks at the Inquisitor, but he decided to interpret his silence as consent. They hold the elevator and delay the charges. Jarra and Haxtes make it to the lift and the slow ascent begins.

Below the first of the flesh-things have reached the bottom of the pit. The law-men start putting them down. You have to get higher before blowing the charges or you'll all burn. At 50 meters you no longer have a choice, it's crawling down there, and some have even begun climbing after you with surprising speed.

BOOM! The charges are blown and thousands of liters of promethium are set on fire. It burns with great intensity, consuming everything in its path. Who knows how many of the things the flames take to final rest. Very many. Perhaps most. But not all. No, not all. But you're safe for now - shotguns deal with the few that try to go after you, and the smoke is bad, but survivable - even the girl, who is without armor or rebreather lives through it.