Dark Heresy 2 Beta: Seeds of Heresy

[bluntpencil]

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You are a member of a relatively new cell of Inquisitorial Acolytes. Your master, Inquisitor Vasquez, has an allegedly important task for you:

Several months ago, Archbishop Zedikiah, one of the most important figures in the Ecclesiarchy in the Askellon Sector, passed away. This, admittedly tragic, event would have ended up with yet another old priest's name added onto an endless list of righteous, if uninspiring, dead.

However, several weeks later, after the mandated prayer for the deceased had passed, those of rank within the Adeptus Ministorum allowed his successor to take office. Those saddled with the onerous task of clearing his offices found an alarming note. One of those servants happened to be an Inquisitorial agent in the service of Inquisitor Vasquez, and passed on word...

Apparently there had been a request for a formal Inquisitorial investigation of a planet named Novabella, made by one Harvester-Prelate Felissimo, some twenty-five years ago.

According to a check with the Adeptus Administratum, there has been no contact with Novabella for twenty years. It isn't clear why there have been no vessels visiting Novabella to collect the tithe in this time, or why the planet has been ignored.

Your cell now stands aboard the His Enduring Light, an Imperial Navy Destroyer that was due to patrol nearby areas, and has been redirected to allow you access to the planet...

---

You have spent almost two weeks aboard His Enduring Light, doing whatever you deemed necessary in preparation for the mission. The Captain, much to his dismay, has been informed that he will have to be able to remain in contact with you, for your eventual extraction after the mission, as he patrols the system.

You have, of course, been given a copy of the letter which sparked off the whole investigation...

The Letter:

To My Most August Archbishop Zedikiah:

I can only beseech your lordship for aid, as I am surrounded with souls bereft of the Harvest-Emperor’s spirit. None can be trusted, for I cannot be certain who remains loyal and who has fallen.

Foul things are stirring underneath the placid spirits of my people. Their smiles are false, and I know their hearts have become corrupted. Our world lives to provide its bounty to others, and should its offerings become tainted so would countless souls fall from the Emperor’s Grace.

I have served you and my world for many years, and know my people. My lord, you must trust me when I say action is needed immediately. Only sanctified forces from your own orders can prevent the spread of that which I dare not name, even under encryption to our Astropath, for even he I grow suspicious of. Darkness is growing ever greater around
me. These are not the ramblings of the paranoid, these are the warnings of the vigilant against the Dark Forces we strive against each day.

Heed them and save my planet, I beg you. Novabella is a good world and deserving of the Emperor’s protection, and I eagerly await His forces to come to our side.

Yours in Devotion to the Harvest-Emperor,

Ezzarth Fellissimo

Harvest-Prelate

[SlyJohnny]

Saska Ne Can Wiyo is mooching around, trying to bum a lho stick off of one of you. She seems bored, nervous.

She is lithe, muscular woman with reddish-brown skin, garbed in rough travelling leathers and a thick woven cloak. The sanctioning brand that has been surgically grafted to her right scapula is concealed under the cloak, but you can tell it's there by the way she tugs at it occasionally or massages that shoulder, struggling in vain to relieve the pressure it apparently puts on the muscle there.

She snuggles into her cloak, feeling cold, or maybe just nervous aboard the confines of the destroyer's narrow corridors. She's confided in her teammates about her sense of confusion and fear at being trapped inside a metal contrivance, surrounded by what she can only understand as an airless, lifeless sucking void that constantly seeks to claim those within.

She gestures to the letter she was rereading. "Strange. The old shaman, Zedikiah, he reads this request for help from one of his own holy men. Five years later, he make the world disappear. No tithe collected, his shamans that know never to speak of it again while he still live. But he leaves no note? Nothing to say, 'this world bad, very bad, do not land here?'"

[ellna]

Doctor Craine is sat at a table cleaning his medical kit. A cloth soaked in antiseptic is being carefully ran over the scalpels, bone saw and clamps. The sealed packaging on the bandages were checked for tears, rips and holes before being returned. It was clear from Draco's face he was bored. No sense of great duty or diligence led him to this task merely the fact he had field striped his lasgun times beyond counting now.

When Saska came mooching round he was glad of a distraction. He fished out a pair of lho sticks passing one to her. He lit her's with a rough match before lighting his own. The glowing stick flared as he took a deep draw.

Draco Craine was an average example of humanity. Rough stubble adorned his chin and his blonde hair was cropped short in standard guard regulations, though he no longer was bound to them. He was standard height, standard build with dull grey eyes and lacking any visible defining marks. He sat at the table, in his combat fatigues. His bare arms capped in blue medical gloves.

"Whatever heresy is down there has had twenty years to fester. The rot will have set strongly amid the populace. No communication either, we could be landing into a throng of rebels, rejecting the emperor and the Imperium. If that is the case I think this vessel shall be the sword we use. Otherwise it's the scalpel, us. We must determine how deep this threat is, whether the planet can be saved."

[Henry the 57th]

Johonas Dresde is simply pacing, somewhat hunched under the weight of his twin mechadendrites, his servo-skull minion floating by his side. His cane clicks on the floor, matching the irregular sounds of his steel-tipped bots clanking as he stops and starts at seemingly random intervals. As usual, he is lost in thought, his brain concocting a thousand and one wild and varied theories as to what might be the source of the issue. Perhaps it is simply another one of the Adminstratum's inane bureaucratic mixups. Petty fools. Or perhaps the taint of the daemon has come to Novabella. Perhaps, he thinks, almost excitedly, xenos are there. His manipulator mechandrite clicks and clanks its claw involuntarily above his head, responding to the surge of excitement Johonas feels at the idea of getting to examine genuine xenos tech in the field.

Johonas is not atypical for a low-ranked techpriest of his age. His skin has an unhealthy-looking pallor to it: a result of decades with almost no sunlight. His face is still human, lacking the emotionless cybernetics of his more advanced colleagues. His eyes are grey, his hair a pale shade of blond, his features plain and clean-shaven. Still, no one could possibly mistake him for anything but what he is - the enormous claw apparatus and smoother mechanical tentacle terminating in a small point jutting from his back see to that.

Johonas is shaken from his mental drooling at the prospects of xenos tech by his companions' voices. Truth be told, he had nearly forgotten they were there, or that he had a mission he was supposed to accomplish in the first place. He recovers quickly. "I suspect that whatever we find at Novebella will lead us to some sort of conspiracy among the ranking members of the Ecclesiarchy, and possibly elsewhere. The evidence is just too bizarre to suggest otherwise."

[ellna]

Draco attempts to feign some indignation at the suggestion of a conspiracy, but he can't deny to himself that similar thoughts had crossed his mind mere moments ago.

"A conspiracy amongst the Emperor's servants. Surely not, perhaps you forget Fellissimo who sent the letter was a true servant of the Emperor. I don't know what has occurred or is occurring on that planet in the hearts of lesser men, but to suggest a conspiracy within the Ecclesiarchy. Preposterous."

He shakes his head, causing ash to shake free from his lho stick.