Timestamp: 5.301.997.M41

Location: Aquila Superior Spire, Upper Levels, Southern Quadrant, Metropolitan Area, Hive Sibellus, Scintilla, Golgenna Reach

Situation: In the House of Strophes

Body: The call came down from the Big I we responded. In this case 'we' didn't just include Haxtes and Maxi, but also Vern and Venus (which came as a pleasant surprise). At any rate each acolyte received the assignment separately through channels - of course. So it was not before we all met out outside a small templum in a distant hab-zone that we learned of the involvement of the others.

After some heartfelt greetings (even haxtes seemed pleased to see the others - relatively speaking of course) we headed inside. There we found a lone figure; a massively overweight man of middling age, suspended by an intricate anti-grav harness, so that he appeared to be standing when he was really hovering. The scarred face that protruded from a fleshy neck confirmed our suspicions; the man was not just obese, but a cripple.

Well, a cripple in body at least. His mind worked just fine and his tongue was both sharp and smooth at the same time. Besides his name turned out to be Inquisitor Globus Vaarak, Ordo Hereticus.  So that made us pay attention. He was in something of a pinch, having very few field operatives to his name, and now he found himself in need of some. Which is why he had called in a favor with his old acquaintance, Inquisitor Tancred.

The case he wanted investigating was as follows; an old friends of his, a staunch supporter of the Inquisition throughout a lifetime, had made a call to him. His niece had gone missing under mysterious circumstances. Nothing odd there perhaps, until you learned that his friend was Laurent Strophes - a respected former Navy Captain (now retired) and a nobleman (House Strophes is part of the Maechenko clan, which is counted among the finest of lineages on Scintilla).

But in addition to being well connected there is one more thing that has aroused the interest of Mr. Vaarak. Sia Strophes, the missing girl, was not a body likely to disappear. High nobility simply doesn't do that - it happens to dregs, but not to the upper classes. Even the Magistratum, incompetent and corrupt as they are, should have been able to find out what had happened. But the Magistratum had found nothing, nothing at all. It was like she'd vanished into thin air - right in the middle of a posh hive spire.

The only thing out of the ordinary was Sia's semi-recent conversion to a relatively new cult; the Joyous Choir. The cult had been cleared by the Ministorum and had done nothing thus far to attract the attention of the Inquisition (almost suspicious in it's own right ;-). An apparently harmless fad that preached that the God-Emperor wanted his subjects to be 'joyous' - a feat accomplished by taking courses aimed at making the student accept his place in the Imperium of Man. Idealistic and naive, but not very original.

Regardless Vaarak directed you to proceed to meet with Laurent and find out what had happened to Sia Strophes...