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.
I jinxed it! I should have never called it boring. Last night when we came back from a little walk, we heard strange and unsettling muffled sounds coming from an alleyway. We rushed in and came upon a large hole of some sort. I'm not completely sure what it is exactly. It kind of looks like a maintenance shaft. Looking down we saw a figure lying near the scaffolding deeper down the shaft. As we descended to investigate, a feeling of edginess came over me. The closer we neared the figure, the worse it got. By then the metallic scent of freshly spilled blood crept up through my nose. Utterly shocked to recognize the figure by its robes and insignia's he was wearing: This is father Leganus!
"A spiritu dominatus, Domine, Libra nos." After I got a grip on myself I joined the rest to investigate the scene. It was a gruesome sight. Father Leganus' body pinned to the wall, a large gaping wound where his head used to be. Foul words were written in undoubtedly his blood, on his body. "Ushmetar Kaul" I couldn't make sense of it, and neither did the rest. We found out that there was a strange goo in the wound. Calvin Octavious, the techpriest, took a sample of the fluid and assured us that he would go back to the mechanicum to investigate this later. I grabbed a ring from the body of father Leganus, making sure we had a means of proving that he was dead, even when his body should disappear.
The fact that we heard the sounds of the struggle and saw no one exiting the alley when we rushed in, could only mean one thing. The perpetrator(s) escaped the only other way leading out of here: further down the shaft. I cursed myself! This would never have happened before; being unprepared. The uneventful last weeks had made me sloppy! We rushed back to grab our gear.
When we were geared up and ready to leave we were startled by panic screams outside. We followed the sound and to our astonishment, there was another decapitated body in an alleyway not far from our building. Again the figure was wearing robes with obvious signs of the ecclesiarchy. Once more, there were traces of that strange fluid on the wound and text was written in blood around the body. "The Urizen shall arise". To my horror I recognized this from my studies and ventures in the many libraries of the Adepta Sororitas. Urizen, a name from long ago, once called Lorgar Aurelian. The first heretic.
Going through the belongings of the murder victim, we quickly scoped through his papers and found out that he was a investigator, Gelmann, from the ecclesiarchy of Scintilla sent to investigate the murders by the "Down pour ripper" All of a sudden our enemy had a name.
Going through the belongings of the murder victim, we quickly scoped through his papers and found out that he was a investigator, Gelmann, from the ecclesiarchy of Scintilla sent to investigate the murders by the "Down pour ripper" All of a sudden our enemy had a name.
We left the second crime scene and within an hour after we found the body of father Leganus, we were descending into the ominous darkness of the shaft. Downward it went, taking us into the "underhive", the home of the outlaws, mutants and violent gangs. For sure, it didn't take long before we ran into a "checkpoint" of one of those gangs. Luckily for them, they still had the common sense, or just lacked the guts to do something else, to listen to a member of the Sisterhood and "granted" us passage.
The smell was horrible here. I have never seen the lower levels of a hive city. The poor and the ragged scurrying and scampering through the maze of tunnels. You can see the fear in their eyes even in the dim light here. If I had a choice, this is a place I would never return to, but my gut feeling told me otherwise.
After a while, we lost the tracks of our killer, masked by the many footsteps of the people passing through here. I was pretty sure though they led into a second gang's territory. Unfortunately for us, their checkpoint was heavily defended and looking at the number of guards, bluffing our way through was not an option and it would be suicide to try to force our way through there.
Whilst looking for another way into their turf, we ventured into a community of people living here. We did our best to get some more information from the locals and got some more rumors of victims made by the "Down pour ripper": a very devout imperial guard on leave by the name of Kaspaar and Horg Faber, a missionary. It seems that all the victims either belong to the ecclesiarchy or are very devout.
Failing to gather more information or find a way into the gang territory, we decided to go back to the middlehive and return to our building. It was already late and we really needed to take a nap.
In search for more clues about why father Leganus was killed and maybe find a link to the "Downpour ripper", we went to father Leganus' church in the down pour district. I committed to help father Leganus in his church and I was not going to forfeit this oath so for the time being I was going to take it on me to hold sermon in the church. Meanwhile Fylan Distro would act devout (What?!?!? acting, make mental note, people should be devout, not act like it. I will need to keep an eye on him) so we might become a target for the "Down pour ripper" thus drawing him out. Whilst I was holding sermon in the church, Calvin Octavious checked out the quarters of the priest and talked to the maid. He found out that Kaspar was a regular visitor of the church. He also retrieved the files that father Leganus kept. By the end of the sermon, a messenger came up to me and gave me a note: "Come to water tower number 4 at midnight. A friend."