The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Timestamp: 7.333.999.M41
Location: Dirty back alley, lower mid-levels, Riscol Division, MX block, Drotis Intercity, Malfi, Malfian sub, Calixis sector
Situation: Standing over the dead body of Goplan Srinivasan, syndicate courier
Body: It's been a while. Here is what has gone before:
Being imprisoned on a spaceship for weeks and weeks wasn't a lot of fun. And your (well Jeb's anyway) attempts at talking some sense into people failed miserably. Most would not even speak to you. Not even Azhmut. And that one girl who did seem willing to help you out...nothing good happened to her. Eventually things took a turn for the better. Haxtes forgot about you and the rest ignored you. But Venus helped you out a bit. Let you have something extra to pass the time. Even took you for weapon practice in one of the unused spaces. Sure you were watched, but it wasn't as bad as you'd expect. And once at Scintilla you were actually pretty free to do as you pleased - as long as you stayed under Azhmut's radar and behaved yourself. Maybe you were tempted to do something...or maybe you weren't...the important thing is you didn't. You kept your word and didn't do anything funny.
Then came the trip to Baraspine and the long wait there. More of the same really. Until one day Xerza came to see you. Told you a little about what was going on. She was even polite enough to let you connect the dots. The more you talked the more sense it made - Globus had not only moved in to take over Tancred's operation, but he'd actively tried to get rid of you two by sending you to the House. None were supposed to return. But as far as anyone knows you ARE dead. And hence the offer, to 'switch sides' and join Tancred's cadre. Either that or end up dead for real. Jeb warmed to her after that - but she continued to give Parsifal the creeps.
GRAY MATTER
After Baraspine and your little talk with Xerza things changed for the better. You followed the Maiden as she went to Solomon for repairs. You first chance to prove yourself came early as the Maiden swung by the Imperial asteroid prison facility at Sheol XVII. A place where the Imperium tested various methods for reforming criminals and heretics. Your mission: To carry Xerza's instructions to the resident Haegum agent, one Interrogator Seria. Her task: To monitor the 2.000.000 prisoner population in general and the maximum-security section in particular.
But Seria's undercover agents were disappearing. She needed someone to go in and see what was going on. So you did, as inmates. It was most unpleasant. Turned out the medical staff, with the insane Dr. Lexus Kell in the lead, had conducted extensive experiments into the forbidden reaches of the human mind. More specifically research into the areas where the brain 'the grey matter' touches upon the soul. Bad enough in itself, but made worse by the vile thing that Dr. Kell's work had awakened. The resultant abomination had been freed to feed upon any that Kell felt was a threat to his continued work - inmates and staff alike - until finally his pet subject broke free of his grasp altogether. Putting the thing down was...hard...impossibly hard...it was just a man, yet somehow it was more. Something dark and hungry hid inside its skin. But between Parsifal's pure faith and Jeb's dirty fighting you obliterated it. Literally. Nothing remains of it, not even a footnote in official records.
SCRIVNER'S STAR
Once the Maiden reached Solomon she entered dock and was ripped open by hordes of suited workers and servitors. You headed for Scrivner's Star - or the Prol system as it is formally known. Ten small (in planetary terms) worlds orbiting a nondescript star. Nine of the housing the primary Administratum records of the Calixis sector. Two millennia of data and reports and whatnot. And now space is running out. Which is leading to something of a schism - do they clear out Prol I and start anew there or do they open up Prol X (which is 'forbidden') and postpone the problem for another few centuries? Ah, the choices these paper-pushers have to make!
You were only to pass along a message from Xerza to an agent on Prol IX, but once on Sheol XVII you quickly found yourself dragged into something else entirely. That something being investigating what was going on on Prol I. Too many things it turned out. Heresy. Disease. Warp-spawned zombies. And a plot to fire the entire planetoid, caretaker population be damned. In the end it was the pyratic's plot to fire Prol I that saved the rest of the system - you burned the lot of them with the Emperor's cleansing flame, heretics, the sick, the walking dead, the few remaining survivors. Like Haxtes would have said - let the Emperor sort out his own.
The return leg to Baraspine was more quiet. Once the Maiden had been repaired you followed her back down along the borderland between Hazeroth and Adrantis - hardly the most civilized of places. Got to see a lot of alien vistas, fornicate with some locals and drink some foul-tasting swag. Being part of a Rogue Trader outfit means great hours, plenty of recreation and no malefic terrors trying to rip out and eat your soul...
You returned to Baraspine laden with goods, spent a while trading there, before picking up Xerza and heading back out. This time into the Drusus marches by way of Tranch, an important transit nexus around these parts. Brief trading stops followed, dictated by Xerza's need to visit that or this port. Clearly she was having some success gaining control of non-Scintillan Haegum assets.
IDYLL HERESIES
Then came Malfi and your ways parted. Xerza and the Maiden headed to Quaddis, leaving your two behind. The local Haegum assets remained loyal to Globus. Xerza had gotten there to late. But Malfi is too important for Xerza's plans to be left without loyal agents. So your were dropped off and set up in a make-shift safehouse, along with one of the Maiden's two remaining astropaths, a boy named Giligaed that is way too young for his job - his slight boyish frame drooped as if by old age due to the stresses of astrotelepathy.
It was a quiet spell for you. Keeping a low profile and keeping the astropath working. Three people hiding among 500 billion human souls (Malfi is THE most heavily populated hive in Calixis, with a pop double that of Scintilla - it actually makes up quite a chunk of the total sector population). Were it not for the fact that Gilgaed went ahead and got himself addicted to Idyll, a drug to take his mind of the drudgery and lighten up his life a little. A drug eerily similar to farcosia in several ways...including being utterly addictive for psykers.
So you go look up his dealer. Only he hasn't any Idyll left. His supplier, Prim Venkateswaran, has gone off the grid you see. Plenty of other drugs to be had though. Going to see Prim Venkateswaran you find him to be more than a drug dealer. He's also something of a fence, his apartment-shop filled with stolen goods of all kinds. That and a very dead Prim Venkateswaran, his throat savagely slashed open. He's been dead for about two days so the corpse is starting to get a little ripe. His stash is also ripe. Ripe for picking by loyal Inquisition agents. God-Emperor knows you could use some of this. So you quietly get rid of the body and lock the place behind you.
No Idyll to be found though. So you're forced to seek further down the supply chain. The name Goplan Srinivasan surfaces. A courier-man and a member of one of the local criminal cartels. Not a many to trifle with then. You track him down, try to get in touch with him, but before you get that far someone gets to him. Leaving you standing over his dead body in a dirty and ark alley. On the balcony-stairs above you are members of some gang, covered with clan tattoos and sporting the latest street fashion.
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