I had a bad feeling about this journey from the beginning. Nevertheless we had to move and as quickly as possible. Our small group, strengthened by a dozen Scions fired up the Tauroxes and headed into the wastelands of Iocanthos, before the trail would be cold. Although I didn't have much confidence in that. In the dessert, the trail would disappear pretty fast...
Those bad dreams and hallucinations still haunt me and the others. Less than before, but they remain. During the transit to Iocanthos, I spent my time praying and on augmented guard duty. We must make sure no other strange things happen to the prisoners and if they happen, make sure we notice it and might find out more.
After checking the whole area and the boarding vessel to be sure that the one that escaped really was gone, we begun to investigate the rooms on this level. Locked inside an ancient looking cryo chamber that, after some meddling with it Calvin managed to open, we found yet another specimen of these Xenos beings that had clearly been examined, researched, scrutinized and experimented on. Stocked away in another room there was a crate with Inquisitorial and Adeptus Mechanicus symbols on it. The contents inside revealed to be some kind of strange dish. It appeared to be some sort of transmission device as the techpriest tried to explain to us. He deemed it to be heretic technology (here-tech) and thus it needed to be destroyed. Throwing a frag grenade in the crate as he closed it up again made sure that the device was annihilated.
In one quick sweep, the space marines entered this level, cleared it and rushed all the way to the elevator at the end of this deck. We could hear bolter rounds being fired as we did put on our rebreathers and boarded the Rubicon. The Space Marines, together with the inquisitors and Rafael's acolytes, made their way up to the bridge, leaving us behind to guard this area. Scattered around the corridors and rooms were charred remains of some kind of bipedal beings, no doubt Xenos, and there was the unmistakable smell of promethium lingering here.
The strange visions seemed to come less and less although still occuring. Perhaps it was all just the anxiety of going into the Warp again. The days were quiet and uneventful and nothing important, except for our care for the psykers, was taking up my time. I decided to divide my daily routine up into three major parts: checking on the prisoners, praying in the chapel and trying to improve my military tactics, strategy and art of war. I started to focus on the different skills and personalities within our little unit trying to figure out how they could all be deployed or used to the best of their abilities. Progress was slow and I really resented that access to the ships library hadn't been granted yet.
Our days on Scintilla are over. Being topside again makes me feel a lot better already. After spending several months in the depths of a hive city, I felt my soul dying bit by bit. Seeing the open sky and feeling wind and sun on my skin boosts my spirit. I need to be able to see the stars in the night sky. A servitor drove us to the Scintilla space port, where a Valkyrie was waiting to bring us to "The Vengeful Wrath". The landing bay where we boarded our transport, a squadron of Scions were also boarding transports. Good to know that the Imperial Guard Finest are also going to be aboard "The Vengeful Wrath".
The transfer order was clear. From now on, I would serve under the command of Inquisitor Irae Illustro Vindixus III. I did all that was requested. I went to Scintilla, the capital of the Calixis sector to receive extra training before I would become part of the cadre of acolytes serving under the command of Irae Illustro Vindixus III. There I met the rest of the acolytes that would make up the cadre: Calvin Octavius the techpriest, Ragaa the assassin, Fylan Distro the member of the Death Korps of Krieg and Victus Axtaxis the somewhat strange but reliable nobleman.
We brought all the items we scavenged to get them purified. There is no use of wielding tainted weapons to rid the world of the taint. I personally made sure there would be sent a priest to the Downpour district to fill in the vacancy left by the death of father Leganus. Our wounds are healing fine. I'm sure, the wounds we made on the city will heal as well over time. We can leave here knowing that we left the hive a better and safer place than when we arrived.
Asking around about that Kulrak character, Victus quickly found out, among some of the more senior population, that brother Kulrak is some kind of a genius that preaches among the gangers. He lives in one of the gang territories. So we went first to the only gang that we already had some "friendly" encounter with, the Freebooters. For sure they were not happy to see us. We had been making a little bit too much ruckus down here in this area. The goons we were talking to seemed to have never heard about this brother Kulrak. So we urged to talk to their boss. After some negotiating we were brought before Johnny "The Boss".
Although we were victorious in the combat with those gangers of the Brotherhood Of The Knife, they also had managed to land some good blows and hits and some of us were in a pretty bad shape. We scavenged whatever useful stuff we could find on the bodies of the killed gangers before we burned them and made our way back to our residence. I'm not feeling confident walking around with those tainted items we picked up. First chance we have, we should have them purified.
I promised to lecture after father Leganus was killed, so I went back to the church today for the sermon. Ragaa came along and by the looks on his face he really liked the sermon. After that, we decided to scout out the place of the meeting before the actual time so we would at least have a safe route for approach and retreat we already knew before we actually would go to this "meeting".
The days are boring. I arrived here on Scintilla with high expectations. A little study and then finally the chance to really prove my skills and rise in the ranks of the Sisterhood. Working for the inquisitor would surely be challenging task but the way it looks now, even the most uninteresting mission I've done with Halina were a thousand times better. Our training is complete and the inquisitor will come to Scintilla somewhere between tomorrow and three months. I'd rather it'd be yesterday! Anyway, we will be ready and prepared for our task.
It saddened me that I was sent away. After all, Sister Halina was the one who brought me into the Ordor Adepta Sororitas and had been my mentor from the beginning. It was hard for me to even think about my life before I joined the Sisterhood. Not that I forgot about my parents and siblings. No, I had even visited them on rare occasions, but for more than three quarters of my life, I'd been under the care of Sister Halina. The order I received was clear though and sure enough, after a few days I could board the "Punisher Claw", an Imperial class Cruiser set for the Calixis sector.
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