Silvana sat carefully at the top of the circle. The purplish chalk marked well on the smooth stone floor of the bedroom, a blessing that had spared her from the need to seek more exotic means of demarcation. The lower half of the circle was inscribed with a stylized aquila. At each point where the eagle design intersected the circle sat a thin tarot card, face down and unseen. The cards were thing pieces of psychoactive plastic. The tarot was in fairly wide use across the Imperium but most of the decks were simple printings of the designs, pale imitations of the carefully constructed versions astropaths used to peer into the future. A small stick of incense blessed at the shrine of the Saint Euchana smouldered off to her side, filling the air with a sweet spicy scent, slightly cloying, like Lho that had been treated with perfume.

With slow ritual care Silvana removed her veil and unwound the scarf of black embroidered silk to reveal her face. Reconstruction work had healed the terrible burns that had once disfigured her and her face seemed almost normal save for the fact that her eyes were dark empty sockets. Periodically, at Alrik’s request, she had worn glass prosthetics, though these were usually of a solid black rather than anything more elaborate. Eyes that didn’t track and focus were distracting and distinctive. She did not make a habit of it unless it was absolutely necessary. The smoke coiled into her nostrils as she took a deep meditative breath, allowing the world of the purely physical to fade into the background.

Her mind hung amidst the blazing majesty of the universe. Before her mind's eye the galaxy wheeled in its endless spiral. A billion billion stars winked and glittered. Streaks of, light wasn’t the right word, but something like it leaped between them like fireworks on Throne day. Astropathic messages crossing the vast Immaterial gulfs to the bright receptive minds of her fellow Adepts. Many flashed towards her, she could have listened to them if she wished, though it would have been unwise without the proper meditations and the aid of a sending chamber. There was a distant coral thrum that extended from a bright star in an otherwise unremarkable stellar arm. The voices, indeed the souls, of uncounted thousands joined in psychic song. The Astronomicon, blazing like a beacon from Terra itself. Silvana wanted to stay here, free of the prison of her flesh, to exist beyond the bonds of space and time. That way lay damnation, for the things that lived on the other side of the Immaterial spaces would find her eventually, she could feel them, hungry abominations just beyond sight, scrabbling at the gossamer thin walls of reality. She spoke a word.

Silvana stood in the bedroom but not the bedroom. It was far sharper than it had been to her senses when first she saw it for now she beheld it with her True Eyes. Every detail was perfectly distinct, the slightly differing grains of stone, micron thin distinctions were as obvious as if they had been painted a different color. She could see where a drink had been spilled a week before, smell the glues that held the joints of the bed together, pick out every joint of dust. The circle was gone, it existed only in the bedroom, not in the not bedroom.

“Leopold Cornellis Abrobae Sarkonad,” she whispered. A young man was suddenly sitting on the bed looking up at her in shock. He was athletic and muscular, the result of genetic conditioning and medicae treatment rather than exercise. He had a strong jaw and high cheekbones as well as a shock of sandy blonde hair. The sockets of his eyes were sunken from lack of sleep though his grey eyes were fever bright.

“Leopold Cornelius Abrobae Sarkonad,” Silvana repeated and the phantom youth looked up at her in shock and confusion. Silvana found herself standing in a sheer dress of translucent fabric. Lingerie designed to entice rather than conceal was clearly visible beneath the shimmering garment. Leopold’s conception of women evidently ran along certain lines. The smell of incense burned in her nostrils.

“Leopold Cornellius Abrobae Sarkonad,” she said for the third time, completing the invocation. The youth blinked in confusion. It wasn’t really Leopold, rather a psychic echo that his presence had imparted on the Immaterium in this place but even an echo could provide you with information if you knew how to tease it out. Leopold was dressed in a garment of fine grey shimmersilk with buttons of opalescent bone polished to a mirror sheen, tiny flecks of paint stained the cuffs and collar as well as his fingertips and the right side of his face.

“Who are you? Did Mother send you?” the boy asked as he stood up of the bed. His face twisted in confusion and he sniffed at the air as though trying to identify a strange scent. In the bedroom one of the tarot cards rose into the air and turned to reveal itself to Silvana. The Harlequin Reversed. Trickery and Concealment. The Silvana in the not bedroom could not see the card but she knew of its revelation as surely as she knew that water was wet and Terra was distant.

“What were you painting Leopold Cornellius Abrobae Sarkonad?” Silvana asked, a slight strain entering her voice as her mind held the time and the place, unique and unimportant amongst the great flow to time and place, together. The youth took a step towards her reaching out to brush her breast with outstretched hand. Silvana shivered at the touch not touch sensation. Leopold drew back his hand looking perplexed. His mouth worked over the word paint several times. He looked down at his fingers and suddenly a brush was held between them and a canvas stood on an easel. It was the canvas she had sensed, six feet tall and broad. On it was an impossible landscape, like something out of a children's holo if every drop of a holo could be burnished to painful detail. Curling trees of unfamiliar design wove their way out of sand that shimmered with ancient black volcanism. A second card floated into the air and turned. The seven of sceptres. A sealed and sacred authority. A judge with righteous intent? It was a sign she would ordinarily have associated with Alrik.

“I cannot get the angles right,” Leopold explained. He was painting now, short fussy strokes, precise as a medicae surgeon. The paint on the tip of the brush changed color without being dipped in the pallet. Clouds the color of fire spilled out behind the scene, writhing with disturbing life. It was clear that the painting was unfinished, details sprang to life before her eyes, bearing no relation to the strokes of the brush. Distant whorls of smoke. It was so beautiful, Leopold’s creation could be a masterwork that would spread his name across the sector and beyond. It was as if all the hints of talent displayed in the works she had seen in the room were being distilled down to perfection in this one burst of creative genius. The Shattered World. Disaster, or potential disaster. Sweat began to bead on her forehead, something was straining against her, it was as though elastic resistance bands had been stretched around her mind.

“What are you painting,” she repeated, her voice tight from the effort of speaking. Her face felt damp but she couldn’t tell whether that was in the bedroom or the not bedroom. Leopold was slashing at the canvas in desperation now. A figure was beginning to take form. It was a female figure of indescribable loveliness. A saintly halo atop a face of heart stopping beauty, the eyes were the piercing deep blue of the unfathomable ocean, filled with a compassion and mercy beyond mortal understanding. Silvana was trembling from the divine visage, if she had still possessed tear ducts she didn’t doubt that she would be weeping. A fourth card lifted into the air, turning with slow deliberation to reveal the three of Discordia, a guardsman holding a trio of grey silver birds by the feet. A long journey, the beginning of an ordeal.

“Leopold … Cornellus Abrobae.. Sarkon… Sarkonad,” Silvana could taste blood in her mouth and her skin crawled and prickled with energy. In the bedroom her eye sockets would be lit with witchfire and snapping with electricity she could smell the microburns though she couldn’t feel the pain. She knew she should abort the seanse but something told her that if she stepped back now she would never be able to learn this secret. They needed it. That much was clear, something monstrous was shifting beneath the surface, like a great predator rising from the deep.

“I CANNOT GET THE ANGLES RIGHT!” Leopold was screaming, there as an audible snap and blood ran from his palm, his grip had shattered the paintbrush and his knuckles were as white as sepulchral bone. Muscles in the phantom's jaw and neck stood out like cables and his pulse fluttered like an occularium exposure overloaded. The Emperor flew into the air before her, the glowing visage of the master of Terra radiant. Silvana’s mind flashed with images of a screaming skull overlying the smiling face depicted on the card. Hope against great darkness but corallary rather than ascendent. Dread began to claw at her guts she wanted to take a step away from the frantically painting youth but she couldn’t force her body to move. She couldn’t abort the seance now, even if she wanted to. The pshycic overpressure shoved at her mind like daggers of razored glass.

“What. Are. You. Painting!” she screamed, every once of will poured into the words. Leopold screamed, blood vessels in his face and eyes were bursting into ugly bruises. The beautiful figure of the saint ran like blood, the pigments resetting into a blasphemous hatching. The kind of crude depiction one might find scrawled in spraypaint on the side of a hab. It was vaguely humanoid and winged. Blaspheous and stinking of the warp. It seered at Silvana’s mind like a hot brand. She was screaming in the bedroom but in the not bedroom all she could do was hold her gaze on the heretical drawing. Leopold dropped his paintbrush and stepped back with a horrified gasp.

“RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT!” he wailed. The Eye of Terror, the final card of the seance, rose and spun maliciously to face Silvana. The Great Enemy. Chaos. Death. The crude heretical rune tore open like a blister and a thing stepped through. It was vaguely womanlike though with vast ragged wings and cruel hooked nails that seemed oddly sensual. The symmetry of it was overwhelming, the wrongness apparent when something was too perfect but magnified a million times over. Leopold had fallen to his knees, tearing at his eyes. The Daemon thing looked at Silvana with fathomless malice.

“Mine,” it thought-said. Its voice like a razor cutting silk. It stepped forward and seized the screaming Leopold in its embrace. Silvana forced her screaming face to pivot to the wound in the blasphemous painting, unable to fathom how it had ever seemed a thing of beauty. Painfully she forced her eyes to focus on the tear where the thing had stepped from. She had a momentary impression of a subterranean space, tunnels of some kind. Instinctively she knew it to be Meridian though she couldn’t explain how. The same symbol smaller with the tricker of perspective was graffitied to the side of a wall.

“Die little mind thing,” the creature spoke and took a step towards her. Streamers of darkness poured off it, back into the rift like smoke being sucked by extractor fans. Silvana reached her fingers out for the floating symbol of the Emperor, the action weirdly bifurcated by occouring in the bedroom and in the not bedroom.

“The Corpse King cannot save you,” the thing crooned. Leopold was thrashing beneath the cloak of the things wings, but it did not seem the motion disturbed the things. Her fingers touched the card, the image burning hot against her finger tips.

“Non enim Imperator te in nomine abdjure,” she whispered. The daemon let out a wail as Silvana dragged the edge of the tarot card through the chalk circle. In a billow of blackness the thing was sucked back through the painting taking the phantom of Leopold with it. The cavas healed like a wound under a time lapse until the symbol stood once again. The blasphemous rune began to glow and pulse. Silvana was laying on the floor in the bedroom but in the not bedroom she could only watch in horror as the symbol grew till it strained against the edges of the canvas. With a sonic scream the painting exploded outwards in all directions a tide of warp energy surging into the material world as the pieces of canvas shrivled into smoke and were gone.

Silvana slammed back against the bedroom wall, her head striking the stonework with a crack. The Emperor was clenched tightly in her white knuckled hand. A layer of frost covered the entire room, crystals of it heavy in her eyelashes and hair, her lips were blue and she was cold beyond belief. Her perspective swirled drunkenly although wether from the physical blow or the psycic backlash she couldnt tell. The place stank of the warp. The energy had washed outwards from this place but it was not gone. With a last supreme effort she reached out with her mind.

“Hiernomys Blademar,” she thought/spoke, reaching for the Interrogator’s mind.

“The Arch Enemy…” she slid into unconsciousness before she could conclude the warning.

"They have been up there for quite awhile," The Lord remarked, having just finished explaining the year and painter that was responsible for the skillful artistry of the Sebastian Thor painting. As he had spoken, explaining the high price of the piece, and that he had received it from Friederek Kalo, a renowned painter of the ecclesiarchy, Heironymus had been pondering if there was any sign of corruption within the household.

From what he could tell, the Volantus family seemed pious enough. He could find no taint in the house, and if there was any, he had the suspicion that it would have been brought here by whatever had taken their Leopold. "Yes indeed," the Adept Baldemar said absently.

"May I offer you and your companion a drink?" the Lord asked, though at that moment Heironymus was noticing another sound. The telltale clack of shoed feet stepping down the stairways of the house. Around the corner, the Lady Sarkonad revealed herself. "Ah, Adept Baldemar was it? Do you truly think you can find him?"

"I swear by the Emperor's grace, we shall do our best." Heironymus said, giving an uneasy nod. "A-And I do believe I will take that drink n-"

He stopped, feeling a pressure at the edge of his skull. A brief echo that he dropped his defenses for, for but a moment. He heard his name within his own thoughts, and then he felt it. Something very off about this place, and he clenched his jaw. "If you'll excuse me, I shall go and check on my companion." He said.

"Shall I take the drink up to you, then? I have servan-"

"No!" he ordered, startling them. "I will be back down shortly."

It took all of his will power not to reach for his bolt pistol immediately. He did not turn back toward the couple as he turned the corner and stalked up the stairs, retrieving his weapon and unhooking his cloak. He did not know what to expect. He truly believed it was most likely he would walk in on Silvana at work, and she would ask why he disturbed her in her fashion.

The halls were well embroidered upstairs as they were downstairs, though there was a distinct difference. There was the faint smell of sulphur in the air, and a presence he found unholy yet tantalizing, causing his facade as the amused adept to fall away, and the grim faced Inquisitor revealed himself. He readied his pistol, out in front and kept it steady. Two doors down, the door was ajar. He stepped in front of it to see Silvana splayed out on the floor, and an iridescent rift within reality upon the wall before her.

"Emperor's mercy..." he breathed, as the leg of a daemon stepped out of the rift. A clawed hand reached outwards, and out stepped something he had only heard tell of in the darkest books of study. A Daemonette of Slaanesh, both hauntingly beautiful, yet with a hermaphroditic wrongness to its form, its
eyes firmly set on Silvana's still form. Heironymus knew it was by the grace of the Emperor that she had not been possessed outright. The young Baldemar had never seen a true Daemon. He only froze for half a moment as it stepped forward to grab her.

He shot it in the side, the blessed bolt of his gun
piercing its skin and body, ripping its arm off. It moaned with what seemed a mix of pain and pleasure, its head whipping to regard Heironymus, a movement that was terrifyingly instant. It's tongue slithered out of the Daemonnettes full lips, and it called Heironymus' name.

The Interrogator shot it in the head, and then into its chest once more. The warp rift suddenly began to lose clarity, but he wouldn't leave that to chance. On instinct, he reached for the holy emblem underneath his shirt and held it aloft, chanting a prayer to the divine emperor as the portal began to tear itself apart, and fade into nothingness as if it had never been. He breathed for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. "Goddammit," he breathed, sure that the commotion upstairs would surely have reached below, and he tried to wake Silvana up. "Silvana!"
@Penny

Silvana’s empty eye sockets gaped up at Hireonomoys. The sweet smell of cordite and the corrupt effluvia of the Warp made her nostrils flare and her lips part. Ice crusted her body but the hoarfrost was already beginning to melt under her body heat. Shouts of alarm were beginning to sound in the main house, servants panicking at the sound of gunfire.

“The paintings…” she whispered, her voice cracking as though she hadn’t drank since the Emperor Ascended. Behind Blademar she could see a very handsome painting of an Imperial Lord Militant. The figure bore a strong resemblance to Leopold and his father, some distant ancestor she presumed. As she watched the painted figure seized the edges of its frame and stepped out, as real and three dimensional as she was. Green witch light flickered and sparked on his skin as he pulled a sword that was probably meant to be ceremonial from a gold chased scabbard. Behind him more paintings were pulling themselves free, their eyes dead and glowing with witch light. A stern looking Soritatus pulled a confessional chain tight. An Imperial Saint hefted a war mallet that crackled with power.

Silvana pulled a Transvassuer autopistol from a concealed pocket. The matte black weapon with its worn rubberized grip was even more out of place with the conservative dress she wore than her empty eyes. She leveled the pistol and fired. Paint splashed on the wall as the shot struck the Lord Militant in the chest at an upward angle, exiting just below his shoulder. The phantasm or daemon or whatever it was looked down at the wound with contempt. The edges of it flapped like punctured canvas, leaking a greenish substance that seemed to evaporate moments after it appeared. She put the remaining eleven rounds into the advancing thing spraying the back wall with paint but not slowing the thing a step.

An alarm claxon was sounding now and the heavy clatter of booted feet rang on the stone floors as the house went into security lockdown. Doors began to slam shut, sealing various portions of the house behind their armored bulkheads. With Hieronymus help she scrambled to her feet, stroking the release stud to drop the empty magazine to the ground with a clatter. Anther clip appeared out of her robes and she slotted it home with a metallic click. The Lord Militant snarled with hate and swung his sabre in a vicious arc. Sparks exploded as the weapon rebounded of empty air that marked the outer edge of her circle, the only reason she was still alive. With a contemptuous sneer the painting made life snatched the blanket from the bed and whipped it along the floor, brushing aside the chalk in a cloud of purplish dust. She fired as it stepped across the ruin of the protective circle, a close range shot that struck the thing between the eyes. The blessed round had no more effect than a snowball in a blast furnace. A half dozen of the paint things were free now, advancing on the pair of Throne Agents, eyes glowing with baleful hunger.

It took Heironymus a second to believe his eyes, and the man rolled out of the way of a swiping sabre, catching himself and firing into one of the paintings come to life. Unfortunately, his shots brought the same results, save for splattering a tiny bit more paint onto the wall for his larger rounds. He was equal parts fearful and frustrated. He should have known it wouldn't be as easy as three shots to finish off the demonic taint in this place.

"Damn!" He cursed, and did his best to shoot the daemon that was attempting to rub away the chalk as well, to no avail with his two shots. He thought quickly, and his sharp mind didn't disappoint him. He shot at the closest abomination's feet. It did little damage to the painting, but the bolt rounds exploded and ripped into its feet, causing its entire form to fall and hit the ground, undoing the entire warp creation in but two well aimed shots.

He would have kept using that tactic if he had the time and distance, but they were all simply too closer to administer it. Instead he pulled Silvana along toward the exit of the room as she continued to fire at the anomalies, taking one down before Heironymus pulled her past the archway of the door. To his satisfaction, Silvana had the frame of mind to kick the door closed. It all happened within moments, half a dozen arbites sprinting up the stairs, lasguns at the ready at whatever they may find.

Seeing the two adepts covered in pain was the last thing they expected.

"What in the blazes?" The Sergeant asked. Heironymus took no time in explaining. "Sergeant, I need you and your men to increase the power in your lasrifles and fired through the walls into that room. Now!"

The arbites looked at one another uneasily, unsure of what to do. An Adept of the administratum did have seniority over them, technically, but there would be little in the way of reprecussions if they saw fit to disobey him, at least at the moment. However, there was something in Heironymus' voice that compelled belief. The Sergeant gulped, hoping the Lord did not blame him for ruining his house. "At attention men, get into lines and do as he says!"

The Arbites shuffled forward, organizing themselves in a rough line and aiming their lasrifles. "Fire staggered," Heironymus ordered. "Shoot as fast as you can!"

The Sergeant lowered his hand "Fire!"
@Penny

The las bolts streaked into the room like glowing triphammers scything into the apparitions. The las weapons blew craters from the creatures and skin and clothing blackened and burned like heated canvas. It staggered them but did not drive them back. The air stank of ozone and burning organics as the fusilade slackened. Silvana didn’t bother to add to the gunfire with her transvassuer, it had already proven itself unreliable instead she reached out with her mind.

The process was painful, the psychic shock of the auto-seance had been considerable and the edges of the Immaterium were jagged and bleeding here. Tendrils of raw power snaked and searched for something to to latch on to, to prolong their limited time in the material realm. Each of the paint daemons trailed a tendril they snaked backwards into the room and through a small door off the main bedchamber. In her mind she could see the impressions of the place she had gleaned from the echo of poor Leopold Sarkonad. It was a store room filled with jars of paint and vials of dry pigment. There was a confused impression of him searching desperately for the right shade. Flashes of him walking markets and artistic districts, even grinding some of his own from rare and expensive ingredients. With deliberate brutality she sheared the link. It was dangerous to touch another's obsession it was too easy to get drawn in, even when the Warp was not involved. The paints were the source. They had to be tainted somehow, making Leopold’s creations into vessels for the things that gibbered and scratched at the walls of her mind.

“Adept Blademar!” she yelled over the screams and curses of the Arbites as they pulled spent power packs and slapped fresh ones into their weapons. The nearest of the creature, unrecognisable under the las burns as anything other than a female figure, was nearly in the door frame. They leaned into the storm of fire like men walking into a strong wind.

“The source of the infection! It is in the cupboard at the rear of the main room. She shoved a mental picture of it at him. It wasn’t polite but she wasn’t going to die because she observed every formal Astra Telepathicus courtesy.

“We need to destroy it!” Though just how they would do that, with a wall of hell infused golems between them and their objective, she hadn't the faintest notion.
@POOHEAD189

The sergeant turned his lasgun on rapid fire, and fired continuously at the closest female painting. Splatters of the paint splashed across the floor and the wall, but she kept advancing steadily. One of the arbites, a younger recruit, stepped forward and attempted to elbow the female figure in the stomach. His blow succeeded, paint spilling onto the floor.

Unfortunately the woman thing grabbed ahold of him with very real arms and held on tightly. He attempted to struggle, and it did seem as if he was stronger than the abomination, before the female form kissed him on the lips, and she grew liquid once more. The paint that made up her body becoming a torrent that invaded his body, her face and then her chest slipping into his mouth.

The unfortunate arbites leaked paint and blood from nearly every orifice, and collapsed after a very brutal and gurgling death. "Lokken!" The sergeant cried out in horror, leaning down to attempt to aid his young officer, but the lad was already dead. To his credit, despite the wild superstitious fear in his eyes, the sergeant reared himself up and listened to Baldemar's next orders.

"Fire at the feet! It collapses them!" Heironymus yelled, sending a mental signal to Silvana showcasing he understood her message. "Cover me!" The interrogator called, and on instinct the other arbites fired further into the room, attempting to aim at the feet and legs. At that, Baldemar did what the seemingly dashing young man didn't seem capable of, and he ran at the las-riddled wall, crashing through it and landing in a controlled roll, wall splinterings on the ground. He was just glad the upper level of the estate was dry wall.

The paintings that were closest to him turned to him without surprise, reaching for the interrogator with outstretched hands. He got to his feet and leaped once more, rolling across the central bed and making it to the side of the room with no abominations. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed ahold of a krak grenade, undoing the pin and tossing it behind the cupboard. At that, he tossed a frag grenade back from whence he came, knowing he couldn't get back past the abominations a second time.

"Sergeant, get Silvana and your men out of there!" he ordered, and a moment later the arbites sergeant overcame his gaping visage and pulled Silvana into where the closed door was, and the other men dived to the right. Both the krak grenade and the fragmentation grenade exploded, engulfing the room in shrapnel and smoke, utterly engulfing the monsters and Baldemar.

"What in blazes!?" The sergeant cried out, and Silvana would get the distinct feeling from the man that he thought Baldemar both brave and out of his mind. The other men seemed to share to same opinion. As the dust and smoke cleared out into the hallway, it gave better visibility in the room. There was naught splatters of paint all across the room, with shredded walls and a bed torn to piece. It seemed as if Heironymus had disappeared.

Until a hand appeared from beneath the bed, and a disheveled adept pulled himself out, the cupboard now wrecked within the background behind him.
@Penny

“Keep out ma’am for your own protection!” the arbite officer was shouting. His words were unecessarily loud as he had been half deafened by the las fire and rolling concussions of the blasts. Tendrils of black smoke were coiling from the room, sweet with the smell of cordite from the grenade bursts. Silvana’s ears were preternaturally sharp, honed in favor of her eyes over many decades and they buzzed with the overload of sonic input. Fortunately noise and chaos were not new sensations for her. She reached down and lifted the officer restraining hand from her shoulder. He was a fit looking man with sandy blonde hair which had been cropped close to his scalp his jaw was very square and shaved completely smooth. She estimated him to be in his mid thirties and he had the feeling of a veteran.

“What is your name?” she asked. The officer was still trying to pull her away.

“Ma’am we need to…”

“What. Is. Your. Name,” she repeated, this time with the slightest jolt of power. It stopped the man more effectively than a screamed order could have.

“Holden Taq,” the officer responded without hesitation, his face slightly shocked. Silvana nodded in satisfaction. As he spoke the words, a badge, previously a fuzzy detail in her mental image, sharpened into focus listing him as Lieutenant Taq. Feet were thundering across the floor now as house arms men in guilded armor and ceremonial livery of red and silver rushed towards the scene. For all their glittering uniforms they carried very practical las guns, whose gray plastic casings gave them the look of stinging insects amidst the pomp and color.

“What we need to do Officer Taq is keep these good people from getting involved with this. Take your men and cordon this room off.” Taq looked dubious but to his credit he didn’t hesitate.

“Form a line, no one in or out including the armsmen!” he bellowed in a voice that could have been heard over a riot. Shaken and unsteady by what they had seen the men shook out into a loose line, rifles held across their chest.

“What authority am I supposed to use to keep house arms men out of their own rooms Ma’am?” he asked looking a little nervous as the armsmen began to square off against the arbites both groups looked nervous and twitchy. Not a good combination for men armed with deadly weapons.

“Tell them you are acting under the orders of the Adeptus Arbites - NAME.”

“But Ma’am…”

TELL THEM. She thought/spoke into his mind. Taq stiffened and then turned and strode to the front of his men.

“Adeptus Business! Stand down boys, it's sorted out!” he bellowed. An angry looking young man with the smooth face of one undergoing anti-acne medicae and a red sash of office stomped forward. There might be a shouting match but not a gunfight. The immediate threat contained Silvana stepped into the paint splattered room. Blademar was pulling himself from under the bed. Splintered wood and torn bedding were everywhere, pieces of down eddied in the after currents of the grenade detonation like miniature tornados. She sighed with relief to see he was still alive. It would have been extremely awkward to explain to Lord Alrik how she had let his Interrogator get killed on their first day on planet.

At least the animating force was gone, torn to shreds and burned by the explosive blasts. The slight stink of the Warp still lingered beneath the smell of explosives and burned paint but it was a passive threat now.

“I am glad to see you are alright Adept Blademar,” she said, keeping to the name he had specified in spite of everything.

“I think it's safe to say that there is more than simple kidnapping at play here,” she added in a droll understatement.

The smell of smoke and paint filled the room, and Baldemar coughed hoarsely as he pulled himself up. The Interrogator placed his forearm over his mouth to keep the largest dust particles floating around out of his lungs, and for a moment he wondered if Inquisitor Alrik would approve of his method. Oh well, it was all experience he supposed. He regarded Silvana as she approached, and for a moment he nearly ostracized her right in front of the men.

But he held himself in check. He needed to push past his prejudice. His earlier fears of having a psyker had come true when he had entered the room into a chaos filled nightmare, but she seemed to have gained fruit from it regardless, she just needed to inform him. And also, he did need to consider that she had also put herself in danger in order to gain more information on their current assignment. It was admirable, in a way.

"I am glad to be alright, and to you as well sister," he said. "I think we'll need a quiet moment to talk, but at the moment let me solve this current predicament..."

He placed a hand on Silvana's shoulder, and stepped past her to enter the hall where the Arbites and the House Officer were arguing with one another. The Officer stopped mid sentence when he saw the disheveled Adept striding out of what appeared to be a war zone, and he pointed at Heironymus. "You!" he called sternly. "What's the meaning of this. By what authority do you damage the property of my lordship and his estate you-"

"Adept Baldemar of the Administratum," Heironymus declared, taking the man's outstretched finger and shaking it. "These men were under my orders and I used them as I saw fit. As Holy Terra sees fit. Where is the Lord Voluntis?" He asked, and instead of waiting for an answer he pressed passed the man. "Down here? My Lord!" He called, to be answered by the blathering and befuddled noble at the bottom of the stairs.

"By the Emperor what happened up there!?" He cried, not knowing whether to be angered or utterly dismayed. The man grabbed at his face with his hands as if he were on his last legs. Unlikely. He was simply not used to anything not going his way for the past century of his life. Heironymus made it to the bottom of the stairs with Silvana in tow behind him. The Interrogator spoke. "We are needing to quarantine your estate until further notice my Lord."

"What!?"

"It will be under the care of the Governor and I'll make it my personal duty to see you get it back. But there is a taint of Chaos here that needs to be cleansed." The very mention of Chaos caused the Lord to blanch. "-and unless you are at ease among the dark powers, I suggest you go and stay with your cousins across the sector."

The Lord seemed taken aback Heironymus knew of his relatives, but the upjumped inquisitor did his research thoroughly. "I'll give you an hour to pack your things, and then you must go, along with your house guard. I'll send an arbites to keep you updated routinely. Don't worry, my Lord. We'll solve this conundrum, and find your lad."
@Penny

Silvana was too experienced an operator to wince when Blademar told Lord Sarkonad that they would find his boy. It was probably the right thing to say but her mind went back to the Inquisitorial Court, she certainly would have voted for death if this situation had come up in that context. The Arch-enemy was insidious, brushing too close to its taint was to invite destruction. It was the burden of an Ordos operative that over the course of their career they gained much heretical knowledge that would have led to their execution had they been ordinary citizens of the Imperium. To face Chaos one had to know Chaos but that study was only undertaken after rigorous training and indoctrination. In her case years of testing before she was finally sanctioned. Leopold, if he was still alive, enjoyed no such protection.

Fortunately Volantus Sarkonad was no fool. The word Chaos was not thrown around lightly and the fact that a member of his family had been involved with something of the warp impressed upon him the need to do everything he could to be compliant. He had doubtlessly guessed at the true affiliation of his visitors, even if he was diplomatic enough not to say it, and if he hadn’t guessed himself, Silvana was sure that his sources in the Governor's household would have furnished him with suspicions. Lady Sarkonad protested loudly but within fifteen minutes the family had left the estate and the servants and armsmen not long after that.

Taq by virtue of having already witnessed the incident was given the task of sweeping and securing the compound. While arbites were being called to secure the perimeter of the building no one who had not already witnessed the events of the bedchamber was allowed to remain. Those who had witnessed it were compelled to. While Blademar made the arrangements Silvana took careful picts of the bedroom and began work on charcoal sketches of the psychic impressions she had received during the seance. Once the recording was complete she sent for Taq and his men. The arbites were arriving with hand held flamers when she exited the paint splattered bedroom. She nodded her approval even as her nose wrinkled at the prometheum scent of the burning pilot lights.

Blademar was emerging from the main hallway and gestured her to him. She couldn’t see the gesture but the intention behind it was clear enough, she crossed the room and they stepped into one of the small parlors that lined the main hallway. The parlor was clearly intended for impromptu gatherings or senior servants, but they were still furnished more opulently than anything most of the teeming trillions of Imperial subjects would ever witness.

“Tell me what you discovered,” he commanded bluntly. It was obvious to her that he was upset with her, that was reasonable. The auto-seance normally posed risks only to the practitioner and the querent if she choose to bring one. Perhaps she should have invited Hieronymus, though she doubted he would have gone along with the notion. His dislike of psykers was obvious although he tried to hide it. She opened the book of charcoal sketches, they were rough but expressive drawings, first passes that she would refine later with time and meditation.

“What am I looking at,” Hieronymus asked. The centerpiece of the drawings was the strange glyph that she had seen at the center of the painting when it’s true form was revealed. Silvana’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth as she considered it.

“Its some kind of word or phrase in the lexicon of the arch enemy, it might be a name but it would have to be very short. The paint Leopold had, Im not sure if he knew it or not but it had been tainted by the warp, it drew things in when he gave them form with his mind. Whatever the thing is behind this sigil, it took him when he completed the painting,” she explained. She remembered how the painting had folded him into it, a large version of the sigil had been painted on the wall beyond it.

“I think the portal, or whatever you want to call it was to somewhere on Meridian probably in this very hi…

“Excuse me sir, the boy…” Silvana slapped the sketch book shut as Taq stepped into the parlor. The arbite judged the reaction and froze in embrassent. Silvana felt a burst of startled thoughts as he stepped back.

“He recognises it, the symbol,” Silvana snapped her voice cold. Taq put both his hands up placatingly as she stood, her posture errect and terrible.

“Uhhh I didn’t mean to…”

“Where have you seen this symbol before Lieutenant. NOW!”

“It’s a ganger tag ma’am, one of the newer once I think, I’ve seen it down in the lower habs a few times on beat. That is all I know I swear!”

"Interesting..." Heironymus muttered, stroking his fine chin.

He had theorized, nay expected to need to go and have a look at the lower hives at some point in this venture. After all, young Leopold was not the only one taken. Simply the only one that was important enough to warrant the Inquisition's notice. But if the records were true, a few hundred in the lower and middle hives had simply disappeared, and the source of the disappearances was likely where they would find their answer.

"That'll be all, Taq." the Interrogator said.

"Y-yes sir." He replied, clearly a bit taken aback but not pursing his questioning curiosity any further. Heironymus ordered him to send a message to the Govenor to relay to her all of the current events at to vox him her reply, or anything important for that matter. At that, Heironymus escorted Silvana out of the compound and requisitioned one of the aircars, citing he would return it in good health if he could.

Heironymus awaited Silvana to enter, and once she did he sped off into the interhive roadways. Vast areas of streamlined steel and structured lights that remained perpetually active, flying by the windshield every other moment. "First we're to go to the runway that leads into the middle hive," Heironymus informed Silvana, speeding past the other aircars leisurely gliding by, as they were doubtless driven by upper classmen with all the time in the world.

It disgusted Heironymus. Despite no one being around to enforce such things, the nobles also had sacred duties to the Imperium, just as the lower classes did. But these days they made their servants serve as the administration of the entire hive and the various companies within. He would have a serious discussion with Constantina once he saw her again about how her hive was run. But now was not the time to focus on such things.

Less than an hour later, Heironymus had parked the aircar before the central headquarters of the arbites for Angel Forge. It was a vast steel and stone structure built into the very wall of the Hive City, with an immense garage and a central station upon a high ground, surrounded by curving walls to be a near impregnable defensive location in case of a hive world rebellion or a planetary attack and an invasion of the hive.

However, it seemed even more militarized than Heironymus had expected, and from where he had stopped the aircar, he could see arbites being trained and patrolling the compound as if they were already at war. It took him a moment to recall the news of the Adeptus Arbites commander than had recently come planetside.

The guard arbites at the front asked for their names and business, but Heironymus simply gave the man a look at the seal of the Inquisition. He blanched at the symbol, utterly awestruck. "Yes, this way sir." he said, and called for the inner gates to be opened. The iron blast doors slowly embarking separately with an audible heaviness to their movements. The Interrogator and Astropath could see the military grade inner workings of the compound from here, with various barracks laid out within a grid and the complex across the central garage where the Rhinos and Chimeras were parked. Heironymus was surprised to see two Leman Russ tanks in good working order.

Once they were led into the complex, Heironymus and Silvana found themselves within a massive baroque hall, and a sliding door slipping open to reveal a muscled, grim man wearing the telltale carapace armor of the adeptus arbites, his eyes and upperface masked by a dark visor. The Adeptus Arbites were a step above the local planetary arbites or the PDF forces, or even guardsmen. They were much like Inquisitors, spreading the will of the Emperor across the Galaxy and upholding the law on those who had broken it, regardless of rank. This must be the one that he had heard of earlier. Herold Ortega.

"Commander Ortega, this is-"

"Interrogator Heironymus Baldemar, and my colleague," Heironymus declared, allowing Silvana to introduce herself if she so wished. "Your reputation proceeds you, sir. I hope we have not come at a bad time."

Silence followed, and the young inquisitor could tell that through that grim and brutal visage, he was being calculated and appraised with a hard intellect. The voice that came out of his scowling visage was rough. "Never a bad time to meet an Inquisitor," he said. Heironymus couldn't tell if he was joking. "What can we do for you?"

"Have you seen this symbol before?" Heironymus asked him, showing him the datapad. "I tell you now, it is of upmost importance."
@Penny

Ortega seemed far less concerned to meet agents of the Inquisition than most. The two organisations had similar goals, in theory, but in practice the Inquisition’s presence usually spelt trouble for Adeptus Arbities. Silvana hoped that they would be able to cooperate here, it was always better to operate with the locals assent, if not their active participation.

Ortega drew up his visor to reveal hard dark eyes and features which might have been handsome if he weren’t so grim. At some point in the past he had caught a piece of shrapnel which drew a pale white line over his otherwise tanned skin. He regarded the symbol intently for several long moments.

“Come with me,” he directed.

Ortga led them down into the bowels of the building. At every turn they met arbites cluthing las rifles and riot guns and bedecked in body armor. These men had to be locals and many of them seemed a little uneasy with the level of hardware they were now handling.

“Your men are well armed Adept Ortega,” Silvana asked as they passed through a door flanked by two grim looking patrolmen. The stiffened as though about to go to attention but then thought the better of it. Ortega grunted what might have been a laugh.

“Why are my men so well armed you mean. What did you say your name was again Mistress...?” he responded bluntly.

“Silvana Euphrati,” she supplied. Ortega pressed an button and summoned a lift cage made of woven wire. It looked flimsy to Silvana but the arbite stepped in without hesitation and so the Inquisitorial party followed. Without direction the elevator began to decend.

“It is a war mistress Euphrati,” Ortega went on, responding to the original question. They rattled down several stories until the lift stopped at the opening to a short hallway. Medical doors, designed to prevent the spread of biohazards faced them. Ortega led the way, pushing through the doors without any kind of decontamination, proof that the facility wasn’t being used for its original intention. The temperature inside dropped by twenty degrees and Silvana’s breath steamed. A large room infront of them was separated into dozens of cubicles by hanging plastic sheeting. Each cubicle held a dead human body. Medicae technicians in white robes and wearing rubberized gloves moved around drawing phials of blood or dissecting the corpses in the familiar autopsy procedure. Picters on steel posts captured the grizzly work as organs were removed and weighed and wounds examined. The whole place reeked of formalin and the mostly obliterated traces of human waste and blood. Most of the bodies bore gun shots or las burns, though some had been killed by grenade blasts judging by the blow and bloodshot eyes.

“The lower levels are completely out of control, regardless of what the Governor and her pack of fools chooses to believe,” Ortega said, the thin sneer evident in his voice. He led them through the room to a side chamber in which a dozen corpses stood on examination benches. The Y shaped stitches that closed their chest cavities a clear sign that the autopsies had already been completed. All of the bodies were tattooed with a bewildering array of what Silvana assumed were ganger marks but each one of these bodies bore the unmistakable sigil. In some cases it was inked but in other cases it had clearly been burned, flesh puckered and distended at the edge of the marks distorting older tattoos.

“We took it for some sort of gang mark,” Ortega explained, as he picked up a pritned file from the end of one of the stretchers and leafed through it.

“Each one of these was bagged at a site of serious resistance, fight like frakkers I’m told, can't find any real connection between them, but it's been five generations since records down in the lower habs were worth a heretics damn.” He set the file down and looked up at the new comers.

“I’m sure you don’t hear this alot, but I’m damn happy the Ordos is taking an interest in this rat frak.”
@POOHEAD189

For once, Heironymus gave a smile, something he had only done when acting the part of a bumbling adept. It turned him from astute and commanding to rather handsome. "That is welcome to here, Commander." he said, and held his hand out to Herold, who took it after a few moments and they shook. Emperor's mercy, the Adeptus Arbites was as strong an Ox.

"Do you mind if we requisition some munitions and weapons, Commander Ortega?" he asked, looking around for a moment. The Adeptus Arbites replied within a moment. "It's within your rights to simply take anything you wish, from my understanding." he said. Heironymus shrugged in acknowledgement. "It is, but I'd rather us work together than either of us to be seen as a subordinate." The Arbites nodded after a moment.

He showed them to the munitions area, one of the barracks Herold Ortega had cleared out to stockpile the supplies. On the way, Heironymus and Silvana noticed a sentinal that step past them. A bipedal single manned walker, fitted with an autocannon. It was used for the Astra Militarum, though some wealthier planets often had many in service for protection and guard duty. Heironymus was glad to see Angel Forge had some in stock.

Herold opened the door to reveal a well organized barracks of carefully collected weaponry set upon shelves, set upon wall hangers, and others still within the very crates they had been shipped in off world. "Take whatever you'd like, but I'm sure you understand the value of traveling light." he said. "Contact me on the vox once you've made it to the lower hives and found something interesting."

With that, he closed the door and stalked off once more. Heironymus was glad to have the help of that one. He moved like an apex predator and spoke with a voice that would scare even an inquisitor. But he'd think more on what was ahead, later. For now, he needed to find a good weapon. His bolt pistol served him well, but it never hurt to have a bit more stopping power. While he thought, he gathered more ammunition for said weapon.

"The las rifle is common but solid," he said aloud. "You could use 3 packs and they could last you your entire lifetime. I believe each are good for five thousand shots, give or take." He reloaded his bolt pistol, slipping the clip into the gun with an audible 'clap.' "That or an autogun would suit you, I think. Though a plasma gun might also serve."

"And what will you use?" She asked, her tone neutral.

He pondered for a moment as he traversed the rows upon rows of guns, until he halted. "What indeed?" he breathed, and reached down into a grimly ornamental crate, and produced what looked to be an ornate sword of immense quality. Even Heironymus was taken aback by the quality of what he knew to be a power sword. With a flick of a switch, and the consent of the machine spirit, the weapon thrummed to life.
@Penny

Gun oils and graphium lubricant were familiar smells. Silvana was not herself a combatant but she had been around enough gunmen in her inquisitional career for the minutiae of arms. She ignored Heironymus' lecture about weapons, all of which was old information to her. The young interrogator probably didn't mean to be insulting. The powersword he wore swept though the air with a soft his. Unusual weapons for Arbites, Ortega clearly believed in equiping his people well. That or the Governor was supplementing his budget. That wasn't in and of itself a problem, nor technically improper, unless of course she were trying to buy the Arbite's silence with generous contributions in order to cover up her own incompetence. Silvana pictured Ortega's thorny aura. She could not imagine the Arbite reacting well to even an oblique attempt to bribe him.

" I don't need to point out to you the dangers of giving a blind woman an automatic weapon," she commented dryly. Reaching into one of the packing crates the lifted a plasmagun from its packing crate and hefted it experimentally. She could not imagine needing such firepower, even in the hive. There were a trio of plasma cells nestled among the packing straw. Smiling she slipped the cells into her pouch, they made the leather bag bulge awkwardly. She took the third cell back out of the bag and slotted it home in magazine well built into the stock. For a moment nothing happened, she couldn't see the lights but she didn't hear the distinctive hum of charge flowing into the weapon. She murmered a mechanics mantra and slapped the mechanism with the flat of her hand, it hummed gratifyingly.

"I suppose the worst thing that can happen is it misfires and kills us all," she said dryly.

"Are you always this upbeat?" Heironymus asked as he completed his own preparations.

"You pear too much into the future, tends to dampen ones disposition," she replied. It was partially intended as a joke, though there was a kernel of truth in the statement.

"So what do you intend to do? Drive around the slums and hope to spot something before we are gunned down?" the words contained no emotional loading whatsoever.

Heirnymus smirked to himself as she gave her deadpan question. "Well truth be told I was expecting a bit more information out of the Adeptus Arbites on the whereabouts of the gangers, but as we have no better leads that is essentially what I plan to do." he said, strapping the hilt of his weapon along his leather belt, and pulling his ragged 'adept' cloaked over it. It concealed the weapon surprisingly well. "I'll also give you leave to use your powers a bit more...liberally to aid in our search. I'm sure you would agree that would be wise."

They seemed well fitted for their journey below, and made their way back to the aircar, receiving Herold Ortega's vox channel along the way so they could contact him at any point. "I took the liberty of checking where the largest...conflicts have occurred in recent years in the lower hive and decided to investigate further to see if there was a pattern, and from what I can gather there is a rough one. Usually they will happen in the central courtyards along the exits that lead to the upper levels."

"So we need to go where it is likely to be the most dangerous?" Silvana asked, her tone neutral.

"You say that like you didn't expect that to be the case," he replied, and they drove off out of the Arbites Headquarters and into the packed lanes that fed into the lower hive. Oddly enough, once they reached the edge of the rode, Heirnoymus could see that the aircars that wished to descend had to park, as great lifts would ferry people to and from the lower levels, with heavy guard at each lift to keep the gangers from ascending into the middle hive. Fully decked in carapace armor, the angel forge insignia of the emblazoned hammer upon their breasts.

"Business in the lower hive?"

Heironymus fed them his adept of the administratum credentials, and after some bewildered looks by many of the other civilians on why they wished to descend, they were allowed to and soon found themselves in a near perpetual state of light and darkness, the lift unlit save for the reactors they would pass occasionally as they went lower and lower for miles. There was the faint scent of gas in the air, though what kind Heironymus could not quite make out. Soon their lift began to rumble and shake as they began to slow, and within moments it struck the floor none-too gently, with the blast doors opening to reveal a countrysized shanty town of decaying buildings and small, pieced together homes and dens surrounding a central statue of what looked to be an adeptus astartes of the Blood Raven chapter, though by now it was hidiously disfigured and full of graffiti and rust.

A conglameration of humans, both rough and weak looking lurked at the edges of their version or perched along the stone floor of the courtyard, huddled or bickering, fighting for bits of technology. Heironymus could see a few mutants as well. Men with an extra arm or a 4th ear along their neck.

"Welcome to the lower hive," an elder said, slumped against the wall next to the opening. Further inspection revealed he had rat-like teeth and was missing a leg.
@Penny

Silvana felt a growing unease as the moved about the lower hive. The impressions she gleaned were stained by the viewpoints of the inhabitants. The alley and habs were dark and forbidding, places of predation and danger. Whirls of emotion, anger, fear and dispair blighted her vision. Without even the pretense of disguise, a lot of those emotions were focused on the pair of them.

“We should see if we can find where Leopold purchased his pigments,” she said quietly. There were two many eyes upon them for her to encourage disinterest, not without lighting a psychic beacon which would blaze like a flame to any psykers in the enemy employ. Given the events in the Sarkonad house, she wasn’t willing to bet that there weren’t such individuals.

They moved quickly down the dark alleys, passing piles of refuse and shivering obscura addicts This close to the lifts there were few gangers, but they were there. Heavily tattooed men, and a few women, draped in colored leather and improbable piercings. They carried concealed weapons and their psychic impressions were stained with violence and death. Silvana carried the plasma gun in a duffle bag, its olive drab canvas a clash with her fine clothing. Her hand slipped beneath her jacket to the grip of her transvassuer pistol, the black rubber a comfort to her.
Infront of them a large square opened, crowded with stalls and shouting vendors. Hawkers cried the benefits of everything from stolen tanks of prometheum to cartons of black market Lho sticks. People scuttled between hundreds of vendors buying food and selling whatever they could. Silvana saw copper wire, ancient machine parts, even various hallucinogenic fungi. To a psychic eye it was a shifting colored mass but she detected no spoor of chaos.

“We need to go deeper,” she reluctantly advised.
@POOHEAD189

Hours later, Heironymus had felt as if they would need to go back. Damned, they had found nothing so far. The place was too convoluted and an odd mixture of chaotic acts for Silvana to hone in any true information on. At the moment they strode down a small walkway, less of an alley and more of a way for what passed down here for 'workers' to move back and forth between smelting operations. No guards were posted, but if the items were not produced to the middle hive then the Arbites would have a field day traveling below and killing any who they deemed might be responsible for the lack of production.

That did not stop the graffiti and the occasional finding of stained blood along the walls or the rimmed, crisscrossing meal planked walkway. The weight of their feet caused small tremors on the ramp, but they were not overly loud. The main illumination source other than the distant lights along the very rim of the lower hive were the smelting fires that glowed under them and within the open ports of the buildings they would pass every once in awhile.

"I tell ya, this will set you right up. Just make sure you got the money," Heironymus and Silvana heard around the corner, and though he likely knew he didn't need to, he held his hand out to make sure Silvana stopped. For the first time since he had met her, Silvana gave a slight gasp. It turned out to be for an Emperor's sent reason.

"The man speaking," she whispered. "He is connected to what we seek."

The Interrogator raised an eyebrow, but he trusted her instinct. "Very well," he replied, steadying his breathing and giving a silent prayer to the Emperor before turning the corner, pulling his cloak further over himself to hide his dashing features, leaving only his unshaven chin visible. From under his cowl, an older chap with his lower torso fused into a rolling chair haggled with a young woman and a large mutant, who seemed almost more reptilian than man.

They all turned to acknowledge Heironymus and Silvana's approach. "Well, it seems business is booming this day!" the elder said, smiling wickedly as he fished into his ragged jacket to produce a syringe of an unknown quality, handing it to the mutant. The young woman held her hands together, gazing greedily at the syringe, then back at the elder. "Thank you sir, I haven't had a fix in a long time!" she professed.

"Come back to see me girl." he offered, and as the mutant stalked past Heironymus and Silvana (the girl in tow) he growled their way threateningly, but made no moves to attack them.

"You come seeking Filiroth's items eh? Looking to enhance your day?"
@Penny

Silvana reached out to the warp, allowing the merest hint of power to trickle through the walls between dimensions. It wasn’t shaped or directed merely present. The acrid reek of the Immaterium stained the air for a moment and Filiroth, as the cowled man was apparently known, turned his head towards the pair of them, nostrils flaring slightly. There was nothing she could have done, short of creating some sort of illusory mutation, that would have better demonstrated that they were not Imperial Agents. At this level of Imperial society, sanctioned psykers were rare enough to be semi-mythical.

“Looking for some yellodes maybe pretty lady,” he asked, referring to the psychoactive drugs that many minor psykers employed to boost their abilities. They where dangerously addictive and insanely dangerous.

“Maybe we can talk about something a bit more… advanced?” she said, following the hooded man back into a half ruined shop filled with rusted mechanical parts and other assorted junk. Filiroth made a crooning sound.

“Ohhh we don't get much cause for the exotics around here missy, but you have come to the right place, Old Filiroth has the connections you need.” Silvana found it somewhat ironic how often people, and particularly, men were condemned by the need to boast. Making such an admission to two inquisitorial agents was as good as lighting ones own pyre. It might take months or years for the Inquisition to act on the information, but the organisation was as implacable as it was dangerous. Besides, given the involvement of the nobility, it was likely that the Throne’s agents would be calling soon rather than later.

Filiroth let them behind a counter and produced a large metal key from his robes with a gnarled hand. The heavy door he inserted it into quivered as he heaved upon it and pushed it open, swinging inwards with a shower of rust to reveal a darkened room that smelled of herbs and other strange items. Filiroth reached around and touched something that beeped before turning to give them a grin.

“A surprise for unwanted visitors,” he explained before beckoning them forward. The inner shop was far cleaner than the outer one. Items hung from the wall without rhyme or reason. Some were familiar, black market cybernetics, cheap and questionable juvie drugs, yellodes in cloudy plastic bottles. Others were more exotic, cards from the Emperor’s tarot, some of which had been profaned, texts and dataslates that Silvana suspected their master would order destroyed after they had been catalogued.

“Impressive,” she murmured, running her fingers over the spines of nearby tomes.

“Ever have any dealings with the Nobs?” she asked, nodding towards a family crest embossed on an elegant signet ring.