Rejoice for You are True, part 4 - Aftermath
Timestamp: 5.380.997.M41
Location: Hive Sibellus, Scintilla
Situation: Back undercover, tying off a few loose ends
Body: Globus doesn't share all of this with you directly of course, but he passes some of it on to the Haegum - and Xerza makes sure you are properly debriefed before returning you to your cover identities.
Although you didn't manage to rescue the lost Strophes - no one really believed she was alive anyway - you have done quite well. Not only have you discovered what happened to poor Sia Strophes, but you've uncovered an insidious plot by a group of heretical criminals who call themselves the Serrated Query (and given how secretive this group normally is the discovery of their direct involvement may be as important as the actual plot itself). In the process you saved an Imperial cult from infiltration and corruption by the same malevolent forces that you encountered on the Maiden and in the tunnels beneath Sepheris Secundus (with Haxtes bravely confronting and banishing the thing possessing Siprit Daneen).
The plot was a truly unique one - the Serrated Query had managed to recreate a drug - farcosia - of Adranti origins. A drug that could awaken even the weakest latent psykers. This would not only allow the creation of rogue psykers, but more importantly it could be done without ever arousing the suspicion of the Holy Ordos. For why would the Inquisition look for witches when it had already been proven there were none left? To administer the drug through a religious cult was truly a masterful move - it allowed the Serrated Query to potentially reach many millions of subjects and to set up Harmony Meters (disguised psi-scanners, also utilizing the Adranti heretech) to actually located the awakening ones. Moreover it allowed the removal of these people under the guise of sending them to the Alabaster Court to become 'true'. A brilliant setup - who knows how far they could have taken it - had it not been for the fact that Sia Strophes was one of the 'true' and that her uncle had connections all the way into the Inquisition...
The Ambulon factory/lab was set up because Ambulon is a place where a lot of the other ingredients of farcosia are available; the craftsmen of the Walking City regularly take on work that involves all manner of xenos substances (and farcosia requires a most particular mix of such substances). And so it was that a lab was set up (again using Adranti tech, there is a pattern here) to create the drug. You see, the drug requires the souls of psykers to work...so those psykers groomed, the lucky 'True' were taken to Ambulon and...processed...their brains scooped out using a heretical technique...to make the drug infused with their spiritual energy. Death without any chance of standing before the Golden Throne! What foul fate ..their bodily remains were processed and sold to meat-vendors, in case you wondered, but that's trivial. Then the newly created farcosia would be sent back to Sibellus to make even more psykers...and so on...with each new cycle producing more than the last one.
Globus doesn't believe that any rogue psykers were actually sent off-world. He thinks the entire enterprise was a sort of large-scale field test (and a rather successful one at that - baring your interference of course). Perhaps the files and documents found will fill in some more holes in the story once they are processed by the Tricorn's experts.
Oh and there was the defusing of a rather explosive situation in the hive spire - the removal of an atomic charge that would have killed countless citizens, most of them high-born. Something to be more proud of than the 'saving' of Coscarla division...
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There are a few additional matters that warrant mentions:
Venus is not well. Not at all. She's in a sort of coma and the prognosis isn't good. Not good at all. The others, however, are making full recoveries.
The Churgeon was mentioned by the Oracle Ocular. The mad tech-priest hinted that the key to finding the villan would be through another - the former overseer of the Coscarla Alms house. Perhaps this clue will lead to her arrest or elimination.
Speaking of the Churgeon - there are indications that the xenobiological construct implanted into the Churgeon's Coscarla victims may have been Adranti in origin. And the Oracle claimed she had come bearing this heretech from Ixanid sector, fleeing the Inquisition purges there.
And the Maiden of Golgenna has an Adranti null-room installed...could some or all of it be connected? Perhaps. It is best not to draw conclusions from incomplete data...but that there is something more worthy of looking into...definitely. The future will undoubtedly reveal more...
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Several weeks later...Caros Shoal has wormed his way out of the Tricorn. He's probaby working for Globus right now. He could be a very useful man in terms of income generation and contacts. The future looks brighter than ever. He feels that he has a lot to thank young Haxtes for. Without him none of this would have come to pass...the Emperor provides!
Not long after his headless corpse is found in his new office. No trace of the murderer is ever found. Nor is the head located.
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