[Inquisitor Rosenadel]

Hello everyone. I haven't posted a story in a while. I have been writing however, and have lots of ideas. I meant to get this up for Halloween, but Guy Fawkes Day will have to do. Enjoy!

Illumination

I spun around quickly, drawing my autopistol in a blur of motion. It felt like I turned slower than molasses in my enviro-suit. The beams from the bubble-helmet I wore illuminated a large figure similarly garbed. He stopped cold and held up his hands. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Inquisitor. However, there is something I think you should see for yourself. Perhaps you will know better what it is and how to proceed.” Damien Alexander was an ex-Imperial Guard sniper and had a penchant for stealth. I keep him around because stealth and accuracy are values I hold in the highest regard.

Unlike certain other Inquisitors, I am not one for open confrontation and dramatic, unnecessary combat. That’s how lesser men throw away their lives when they could accomplish so much more. Granted, there are times that combat is entirely called for, and being an Inquisitor, I am required to know various combat techniques and styles, and have a decent understanding of large- and small-scale tactics, as well. But I use them as a last resort, whereas less prudent members of this organisation use them like they drink vintage amasec. They are the one who, more often than not, make things worse. They do not take the time to understand the situation that is presented to them.

At any rate, I followed Damien back to the mouth of the underground complex. I had followed a dangerous heretic here, one who had killed several in my employ. He led a cult that worshipped a daemon known as “Grimflute Goreweasel”, and they were attempting to bring him to the material plane. I interrupted their ritual, secretly inserting myself among their number and then exchanging their unholy flasks of mucus for water blessed on Terra itself. The daemon was unable to be summoned, and most of the cult died as a result of their failed spell. Though I was optimally placed, I knew the heretic would run to his safest hiding place, one where he could rebuild, regain his strength.

I tracked him to this Emperor-forsaken rock, which indeed proved to be his intended place of refuge. I tried looking through my logicator for a match to a planet or moon, but nothing came up. As far as my information showed, this stellar body was not supposed to exist. But the fact was that it did. The heretic fled to what looked like a bunker in the side of a small mountain range, so I lead my team to the surface, and we made our way to the bunker with extreme caution. No alarms were tripped, no shots were fired. When we got to the entrance, we found it unlocked and jammed partially open. Inside we found signs of a struggle. Bolt casings were scattered about the place. The bodies of Astartes were littered about the rockrete bunker. It made for a scene that was the eeriest I had seen in a while. But I stopped truly thinking things eerie and apprehensive long ago. Cold logic now drives my brain. We pressed on.

In addition to the dead that slumped in the corridors, strange markings flashed on the walls as we walked past. They looked to be a strange hybrid of human and daemonic writing, and I whispered prayers as I walked along the walls to keep any malign influence from infecting me. As we turned to investigate one of the hallways, I spotted an Astartes with armour of a different colour and scheme than the other Astartes corpses. My adjunct, Peter Hamael, further inspected the body, and showed me where smaller versions of the markings from the walls were present. After wracking my brain for over thirty minutes while my crew rested and consolidated our progress, I remembered where I saw markings of the sort. They were called “cryptoglyphs”, able to be read no matter one’s rotational position, in a clipping of an ancient text that I had read, the overall subject of which was unknown. It was about daemon-binding and how to cast out daemons from someone possessed. I feared what we might find further on.

Not twenty meters later, we came to a junction. Damien went with my data-servitor, Tomeas, down one corridor, and Ruth, my striking pilot, accompanied Peter down another. I told all of them that if they found any sort of power source that they were to activate the main lighting and logicator systems. I investigated the third in the set, and found more of the same glyphs. Tomeas had correctly deduced that other substances had been mixed with the rockrete and would disrupt our communications. I was doubly on my guard. As I moved down the passageway, the symbols and markings on the wall became more dense, and eventually I came to a cylindrical chamber with every surface covered in them. In the centre of the chamber was a cylindrical stone, also covered in cryptoglyphs.

It was while studying this object that I was interrupted by Damien. I followed him to the junction of passageways, and we proceeded down the middle corridor. At first there were no markings on the walls at all. After passing through some sort of airlock, the walls even became panelled in some sort of metal I had never seen before. It was pure white, with no blemishes except where bullet holes and scorch-marks were present. Bodies of Astartes were present here, as well, the great armoured shells still and silent. I must confess that I began to fear what I might find here that had left these armoured warriors broken here without a scratch; naught but the strange cryptoglyphs that had been burned into their ceramite plates.

Eventually, we came to another airlock-like door. This one, however, was broken and Damien informed me that it had been that way when he and Tomeas had first entered. After this door, the walls looked nearly identical to the walls in the chamber I had been earlier. After turning a corner, I beheld a sight that made me shiver with a sudden cold.

In the centre of a chamber not unlike the one I had previously observed was an enormous pedestal, on which sat an almost equally massive device. It was a giant metal cube that appeared to be able to split open in giant piston-driven hinges. It looked to be some sort of cellular xenoactivator used in gene experiments with alien mutation. But this machine had fewer liquid storage tanks and photochemical adhesion pads, and more psycho-kinetic dampers and thermal accretion radiators. I inspected it with an eye trained with some knowledge of the workings of arcane devices, knowledge gained through agreements made and debts owed between the Adepts of Mars and me.

I called Tomeas to inspect it as well and comment on and record any irregularities or peculiarities he saw in the device. Damien guarded the door, hiding in the shadows and training his long-las on the corner around which I had entered the room. After nearly one half hour of inspection, neither I nor Tomeas could infer what the great contraption was used for. I followed what I perceived to be a slight crack in the outer shell of the cube, though which there was an opening. I shined my beam on the opening, and I saw inside a corpse, rotting and deformed. But I could tell that it was none other than Bandis Aaek, the heretic I had been tracking. We had been not more than eight hours behind him. I could not smell him, and I was glad for it. The heretic did not wear any outer protection, which indicated to me that the station had an operating atmospheric system at least until Bandis died.

I decided at that point that we should search for Peter and Ruth. We found them in the third corridor in a massive control room. They had found the power fuses, but most were heavily damaged, apparently from a massive overload. By my estimations, the overload had occurred less than six hours ago, meaning that it would have been whatever Bandis did to get himself killed that caused it. Tomeas immediately plugged into the logicator bank after I routed just enough power to get them running. Some of them were also quite damaged, and I anticipated a very low amount of useful data would come from them. I began to investigate the equipment and scattered sheets of parchment that were strewn across tabletops and the floor. On them were lists and lists of data, operating procedures, and subject analysis. Ruth and I gathered up all the sheets and arranged them according to the labels and numbering on the parchments. I began to read through them, jotting notes to myself. What I read horrified me, both in content and in scale.

The reports indicated that part of a dangerous and highly complicated experimental procedure had taken place in this facility. It involved creating Adeptus Astartes using a highly-modified gene-seed, taken from several sources, some less than reputable, some less than stable, and some outright flawed. Several additional implants were also used in the creation of these Space Marines, most to enhance their endurance for telekinetic attacks and brain function, but also to raise their pain tolerance far beyond normal limits by introducing synthesised painkillers such as morphodyne. What manner of Space Marines might need measures such as these, in addition to their already fearsome capabilities, I could not fathom. Legions of these super-warriors were meant to be made. The purpose of their creation was not recorded in the papers I gathered, but I knew it could be for no righteous purpose.