I'll Believe in Anything

The session began aboard an Inquisitorial cruiser, The Ebon Claw, and quickly moved into preparations for arrival of the heretic fleet, including alcohol based weapons, and preparation for a boarding action with the goal of capturing Irdnak and bringing him to trial. 

After a couple weeks of preparation, the heretic fleet arrived in the Sol system, just outside of Uranus orbit. The two fleets squared off before closing for battle, and after many barrages of macrocannon and lance fire, Irdnak's cruiser the Evolution suffered a hit to it's primary point defense cannon controls, opening it up for boarding operations. 

The party climbed aboard their trusty stolen lighter and screamed out into the void, accompanied by their ally Fish, their brave Inquisitor Romelia, and a cadre of battle hardened space marine veterans, gleaming in golden power armor. After some dangerous piloting, and a couple of near misses with macro-cannon fire, the lighter reached the cruiser, and matched speed before Genevieve performed a space walk with 2 space marines in order to breach an airlock on the command deck. After a few nailbiting minutes of work, the airlock cycled, and the group entered.

Soon they were met with a large group of heretic naval ratings, who in spite of numerical superiority and solid cover, were no match for the well-equipped and courageous acolytes and their space marine allies.

The group sealed a hatch behind them and proceeded onto the bridge, which was mostly empty aside from hardened combat servitors facing the door, a dead officer, and a couple cowering officers.

The group made short work of the servitors, and then took an elevator shaft down to the flight deck/hangar, where Irndak's party was loading materials onto a small ship to escape after having slain another group of boarders.

There was a brief conversation in code between Irdnak and Romelia before the final battle began with Irdnak slicing open a woman who looked like the Prefectrix, unleashing a 4 meter tall demon.

Things got messy, brave, and touching here. Between the demon, and a psychic phenomenon caused by Churchill, fear became very real to most of the group.

A number of factors helped win the battle for the acolytes, including Churchill's judicious use of a warp vortex, Kastor's steely determination and excellent swordplay, Genevieve's flamer (and eventual near fatal burning), Flim and Scalia's gunplay, and Fish's noble sacrifice assisting Flim's flanking action.

Kastor ended up striking the final blow with his sword and pushing the demon into the warp vortex before Churchill lost control of the vortex, killing a space marine and careening into the hangar's void shields, causing their eventual failure. With the threat of decompression, and with his demon slain, Irdnak had no choice but to come with the acolytes.

On the way back to earth for Irdnak and his allies' trial, Romelia asked one more favor of the group.

She asked that they steal Irdnak's research data from one of his associates in the brig. She explained that her rationale for this was that Irdnak's methods were wrong, but his plan of using a warp storm to stop the tyranid hive fleet(and save trillions) could work in the right hands.

The group conferred, and quickly agreed to this plan.

Kastor distracted the guards with stories of the boarding action, liquor and cigars, while the rest of the group worked to try and convince Glabred, (Irdnak's lieutenant and head of research) to volunteer his data. He almost turned to their side, and revealed his long-running crush on Romelia, but eventually had to be restrained by the group, and the data extracted into either Churchill or Scalia's mechanicus implants.

The session ended with the research data in Romelia's hands, and the members of the team having earned a vacation. Churchill was considering a trip to Earth for sanctioning, while what comes for the rest of the group is yet to be written.

What will Romelia do with the data?
What will the aftershocks of the Prefectix's betrayal be on Juno and in the greater Askellon sector?

Stepping through the Webway

The session began with the acolytes and Romelia in the plasma gun control room, watching as a massive cruiser rose from the palace, raining macro cannon and lance fire(large light based weapon like a scaled up laser) down upon the palace and the Juno’s capital, Vesuna Regis.

Genevieve rushed into action, and spent a few feverish minutes trying to jury rig the plasma gun controls. She managed to reroute some of the controls, and got off a shot at the cruiser, which by that point was moving too quickly to hit.

After that, the group spent 24 hours searching the ruins of the palace. They managed to avoid crumbling architechture, fire and surviving recidivists to find a number of pieces of crucial evidence. (An explanation of motivations for attempting to kill and replace the emperor to save humanity and the galaxy from an extragalactic scourge, mind mold’s critical weakness to alcohol, Connection between warp storms and the precursors to mind mold) While discussing possible methods of leaving the planet and chasing the surviving heretics.

Then, the group got a ride out of the crumbling palace, and rested. Following that, plans discussed while finding clues in the palace were executed.

Romelia had Churchill make use of the Black Orb in order to contact her ally, Farseer Halatha of the Eldar. Using the orb corrupted Churchill in invisible ways, and caused some disturbing side effects, most notably paranoia and a broken foot. (Churchill later had the foot and leg replaced with a common cybernetic replacement. )

It took the Eldar roughly a week to respond, and in the meantime, some members of the group worked to repair a warp capable ship in orbit, with the goal of sending it to a nearby system to get the news out about the fall of Juno.

The Eldar did eventually arrive, leading to a conversation in orbit aboard their vessel, and the decision to take the webway out to the Kuiper belt on the edge of our solar system.

Traveling through the webway to Sol was incredibly fast, nearly instant.

The group then encountered a system patrol vessel, interfaced with the fleet, and warned them of the coming danger before traveling to Mars to seek out a spy amongst the Arch-Magi. They managed to track down a spy code-named Renley, going by the name Terlin, and interrogated him to learn that the heretics plan on bringing a fleet.

The next session will commence as the heretic fleet enters the sol system, and handle that confrontation between Batlefleet Solar and the forces of the rogue inquisitor Faustus Gelam Irdnak (Romelia's Former Inquisitor and mentor).

Storming Heaven

Session began with the group on the docks in front of a burning wreck on Juno. 

- Kastor took Scalia to a hospital to repair her seriously messed up mechanicus implants

- Churchill noticed a terrible scream in the warp 

- The rest of the acolytes took Vladinya, Davos and Sally to a PDF precinct for questioning, and proceeded to gather a decent amount of information, especially regarding Vladinya's suspicion that her company, Valerius Rising, was doing dirty deeds for the Sector Prefectrix (Charlotta Anastasia XX), and was especially worried due to threats from her company contact, Milford

-From there, the group traveled to a number of spire bars, eventually tracking down Milford at the Golden Hand (a bar named after it's primary feature, a giant golden hand that pours alcohol from it's fingertips) and proceeded to honeypot Milford using Kastor/Churchill

-This led to his office, which had the smoking gun (letters positively identifying Charlotta Anastasia as the "V," from the many correspondences the acolytes have previously seen (and some disturbing stuff in there about ordering super soldier hybrids from a group known as the Order of the Toothed Gear)

-This was enough for the group to take it's standard operating procedure of stripping foes nude to it's logical extreme, and Flim Janx did the honor of executing Milford 

-This led to a hasty bit of prep in the Inquisitorial Sector Fortress, where the party grabbed some arms and armor and headed out with a group of PDF troopers, Sisters of Battle and other inquisitorial troops. 

-This led to street to street fighting, before the Inquisitorial forces established a beach-head at the base of Charlotta Anastasia's Sector Palace

-The Acolytes, Romelia and Fish made their way through a series of access tunnels, until they found their way to the control and power generation for the primary defensive cannon

-This was a pitched battle, but eventually the Acolytes destroyed the controls to the defensive weapon, and survived without too much serious injury (aside from Fish being shot in the torso, and Churchill getting a high-speed bullet through the leg, snapping it). 

- PDF/Inquisitorial Forces then entered the palace, relieving the group, as Charlotta and a Tech-priest escaped from the battle, and a massive, Adeptus Mechanicus Battlecruiser detached from the palace

-This battlecruiser then fired down upon Vesuna Regis, including the palace, wreaking massive havoc and leading to our next (and possibly final session). 

-One thing to note: the battlecruiser took off almost immediately after Charlotta and the Tech-Priest left the room, and was definitely some distance above the control room, 

Next session, the acolytes will need to figure out how to leave a planet without any warp capable ships or astropaths. Additionally, it's going to be important to confirm what the cultists are actually attempting (which means searching a palace that is probably on fire, and full of hostile remnants of Charlotta's troops)

Juno: Deadly Cargo

Session started on Pelagia

• The acolytes delivered the surviving Heretek Skitarii to the local authorities for punishment
• Acolytes sent a report to Romelia via astropath, leaving out information about the picture found in Glabred's chamber
• From there, the acolytes booked passage aboard a cargo hauler before heading to Juno

The rest of the session took place on Juno, the sector capital, as the group attempted to seek out the mysterious writers of letters found on Pelagia. Most of the action on Juno took place in Vesuna Regis, the primary Hive City on the planet, and it's nearby spaceport.

• Inquisitor Romelia Girard met the group on Juno, and went over evidence with them in a rented house near the primary spaceport
• Romelia revealed the name of her former Inquisitor, Kendri. Additionally, the group was affirmed in some of their recent choices, such as fostering contacts and informants.
• The group then followed Romelia’s advice, and started following leads to probable faceless trade activities on Juno
• This brought them to investigate Lans Giuljan, a member of the nobility with a recent personality change
• The group asked around, eventually visiting Giuljan’s family estate and getting corroborating information about recent changes to his character, and a believable cover
• The acolytes then paid a visit to Giuljan in his manor, intimidating their way past a servant and discovering Giuljan under the influence of a black orb of alien construction and tainted by the warp
• Giuljan expired, and between his rantings, his journal and his former bodyguard, the group had a lead to an unsavory bar in the lower hive called the Screaming Wheel
• The group recruited Stirwell the bodyguard, took the black orb, and an Eldar necklace from the manor before heading to the lower hive (the necklace was owned by a farseer Halatha, an Eldar ally of Romelia)
• Tense negotiations in high Gothic with cherub masked thrill-killers lead to a faceless trader, Zax Holthane in the underhive
• The group set up a meeting with Holthane, and barely avoided a nasty back alley rumble before learning of a cargo vessel with dangerous (but unspecified) cargo coming to the spaceport
• The acolytes rushed to the Spaceport, beating the would be buyers to the landing pad
• When the lighter landed, it exploded, and a hybrid-human emerged, while a tech priest ran away into the spaceport, dodging sniper fire to escape unscathed
• A nearly perfect burst of fire from Flim’s autocannon, followed by sniper fire felled the creature
• A short battle ensued with the would be buyer and her bodyguards, leading to their surrender, and critical damage to Scalia’s Mechanicus implants from a bolter shell

Rewards: 400 xp, and a would-be buyer of human-hybrid super soldiers to interrogate, a possible lead to whoever V is.

Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor

"Return to the Violence of the Ocean Floor," - Moonface

Dark Heresy 12.12

• Party begins by receiving first aid from Scalia, then disabled their Skitarii foes sub and flew to Pelagia's primary orbital spaceport
• From there the party split, with Fishbutt and Genevieve dropping off their injured friends and flying back to the surface to watch the krill platform - for some members of the group, there was nearly a week spent in hospital
• Genevieve noticed another sub breaching a few hundred meters from the platform, which seemed to observe, then leave
• While the others finished recuperating, Kastor and Scalia attempted to recruit mercenaries, but scared them off with talk of tech priests.
• They drew unwanted attention from said mercenaries, but the party was able to appeal to their self preservation instincts and avert a fight
• Gained the aid of the Pelagia Planetary Defense Forces, including a small squad of troopers and some explosives
• Took the sub down to the base. Scouted around for a while.
• The group decided to use demolition charges to enter through the main sub bay- while a large sharklike critter circled above. The fish came dangerously close before Kastor and Flim set off the charges.
• The group then advanced into the facility, covering their rear by jamming the only other hatch in the submarine bay.
• Making their way up the stairs, the group found an observation deck, overlooking a training arena for test subjects, all of whom seemed to be hyper muscular psykers in the mold of the Emperor, suggesting that the hybridization process has improved significantly since the crude Xenos-Human Frankenstein’s monsters seen in the first session
• The group set up demolition charges in the observation deck, then made their way upstairs into the command center, where a pitched battle ensued with the remaining skeleton crew of Skitarii on the station.
• 3 PDF soldiers went down, but eventually the acolytes prevailed, taking two prisoners and interrogating them
• From there, they interrogated the prisoners and searched the facility

Evidence Discovered

1. From Interrogation
1. Mind-mold hybrids are like “an empty vase,”
2. The “Seekers of the Perfect Body,” must be selling them as super-soldiers
3. Head of facility is known as Glabred
2. Documents
1. Pict-File: Depicted a young Romelia and a small squad of acolytes on a Hive World, likely either Juno or Desoleum, including a Tech-Priest and several others
2. Letters, written to Glabred signed simply as I, mentioning the names of a number of psykers, and their locations, suggesting the possibility of kidnapping them, and describing them as “The Spark of the Emperor,”
3. Letters written to Glabred signed as V, requesting more product “My mistress found the previous product exceptional, and requests your presence on Juno for the delivery of more.
4. Receipts showing payments in the hundreds of thousands of Thrones from Valerius Holding Company to “The Order of The Toothed Gears,” with a description of delivery to “our trusted agent on Juno,”
5. A list of highly ranked Magos from the Adeptus Mechanicus on Mars, with those involved in “Golden Throne Maintenance,” underlined, and the name Dalia Cythera with a star next to it, with the note - “vacation planned to Europa ice fields,”
3. Other Physical Evidence
1. Abandoned Lab had specimens from a number of xenos breeds
2. Human/Xenos Hybridization was being further refined
3. Work was done on highly pressurized mind-mold, corroborating information found back on Temperance

XP Gained - 400
Influence Gained -



PS: I seriously over-reported the amount of time it takes to send an astropathic message.
The real length of time changes quite a bit based on distance
Orbit   -  instant
Within a Solar system - no more than 10 rounds
Nearby Solar System  - 1d10 minutes
Within a subsector (Pelagia to Port Aquila, Pelagia to Juno) - d5 hours
Across the Sector - d5 weeks (I would modify this based on distance, IE Pelagia to Desoleum is going to be d5-2 weeks with a minimum of 1)
Across a Segmentum - d5 months

The Falcon's Revenge or Don't Mess with Skitarii Rangers

Start Locale: Moonbase Falcon- orbiting Finn's Bounty

The group began with a severely wounded Alexander Churchill needing medical assistance from a bolter shell which passed through his lung before exploding on the exit. Scalia provided emergency first aid, evacuating the wound and getting Churchill stable enough to move, before the group dragged him into a stasis tube for transit to a hospital on a major planet. 

Meanwhile, Flim Janx searched the courtyard, Kastor spoke with Fish about the moonbase, and Genevieve began interrogating The Falcon. The Falcon didn't take kindly to enhanced interrogation, and pulled a Dune-poison gas tooth, killing himself and nearly hurting Genevieve, who was saved by her filtration plugs and tough constitution. 

The group then explored the rest of the moonbase. There, Flim found a lot of random ammo clips, Genevieve found some evidence, including drop coordinates, a code, a key, and a note incriminating Finn, governor of Finn's bounty. With the keycode the group found some juvenat, of which they too two liters. Most of the group took 2 doses 10 ml a piece of juvenat serum, and some actually used a dose, extending their natural lives by 10 years. 

The group then traveled to Port Aquila, and leveraged their black market contacts (and the extreme value of good juvenat serum) in order to get some goods, including ammo and tricked out gear. Additionally, Genevieve pulled inquisitorial rank to get Churchill and Scalia medical attention. He was quickly (relatively) fitted with a partial artificial heart, artificial lung, and some vat grown skin in order to get moving again, but not without some minor complications.

While on Port Aquila, Flim hunted down information on Pelagia, especially regarding the drop coordinates that they found, learning that the planet is a super earth, mostly used for Krill harvesting, and with incredibly deep oceans. Additionally, Genevieve tracked down corroborating information regarding shipping manifests (found 2 ships with regular manifest discrepancies). The group also came up with cover stories (working as agents for the Krill Consortium/Redblatt Rogue Trader family) and dug up fake credentials to that end. 

Before leaving Port Aquila, the group enlisted the services of an Astropath in order to send a message to their Inquisitor, Romelia Girard on Hive Desoleum. They included the following information:

1. We met The Falcon

2. His party was interrupted

3. We are traveling to Pelagia

4. The big fish on Finn's Bounty stinks

5. We met a friend, and we hope to introduce you

They received a message from Romelia, suggesting that they follow any leads from Finn's Bounty, but treat The Falcon with extreme caution. - This message probably came a bit too late to be useful.

The group then traveled aboard a freighter to Pelagia, entering orbit and making inquiries with the dockmaster and archivist. There they learned that red tide emptied the aquacultural zone around the coordinates in question roughly 15 years ago. After some bribing, the group got permission to travel down to the surface. (They also learned that there were rumors of Tech-Priests messing around with biological whatsits and whatnots, probably to blame)

Following that, Fish flew the group's shuttle down to the watery surface. The group did some recon first, and decided to set down. From there, they briefly tried to trick the Skitarii rangers and tech-priests (or Hereteks), before realizing they didn't have the Ork parts needed to pull off such a trick, and resorting to violence, because violence solves everything.

This led to a tense battle against hardened, well trained and extremely well-armed Skitarii rangers. The rangers had entrenched positions, and weapons that took advantage of their range. However, the group took extremely good advantage of surprise, eliminating major threats early on, turning what could have been a highly lethal encounter into a very painful and bloody one.

Everyone with the exception of Genevieve took some degree of critical damage, with at least 2 party members suffering broken bones, and Fish taking his first bullet for the group.

400 xp.

Various bits of loot, including 2 liters of juvenat, odd ammo, 12 vac suits, odd rifles from downed skitarii, electro-mace, brandy (1 bottle was used as a bribe).

Items acquired: new heart/lung for Churchill, 3rd arm for Scalia, custom grip for Kastor's Chainsword, red-dot sight for Kastor's long-las, Klartesh,

Coming Home - Hill Tigers - Moonbase Falcon

Session Start - Tartarus

Report Filed with Romelia, omitting the fact that the group used Kroot mercs.

Travel arranged to Finn's Bounty via Port Aquila.

Recruited Alaricious (the Tau connected, wild haired student) as a possible contact, provided a coded means for him to get in touch with the group through Romelia on Desoleum.

Traveled to Port Aquila (1 week)

Spent 48 hours there.
-Attempted to purchase things (and met some success, Genevieve acquired enforcer carapace armor)
-Investigatged some stuff, but drew attention of local law enforcement.
- Crazy incident in a bar w/ psyker phenomenon, in which Churchill caused some property damage and minor injuries by reversing gravity
- Learned about Orks, the Falcon, smuggling, and a bit about Finn's bounty
- Major lead found when Churchill checked out an Ork corpse, and detected traces of juvenat serum in the container itself (gaining corruption in the process)
- Scalia attempted to get a 3rd arm attached, and suffered nerve damage at the hands of a competent, but overly ambitious medicae on the station

Traveled to Finn's Bounty
-Noticed sensor dead zone caused by moon
- introduced self as company reps
- investigated tanks to be loaded with juvenat serum, found seams in tops which could be opened up with advanced welding equipment

On the planet
-Train to recent battlesite
-Learned about Red Hill Tigers - that they are ferocious
- Checked out battle site
- Missing Ork corpses,
- Orks attacked in trukk, Kastor and Churchill shot the driver, breaking the windshield, with Kastor melting through his arm and causing him to go unconscious - Trukk crashed,

Session 2

On Finn's Bounty
- Acolytes crushed the surviving crew of the Ork Trukk in a well fought battle, giving the Orks a pleasant (by their standards) end
- Drove out to the beach, got the Trukk stuck in some mucky sand, and traveled on foot to the site where the Hill Tigers were celebrating their recent victory against the Orks
-Snuck up to a seaside cliff, and watched a grizzly ritual in which dead Orks are dismembered, with their heads added to a throne for a debased, tigerish form of the Emperor of mankind (may his golden throne bless all of you) - reminding Churchill of Khorne
- Witnessed a tiger faced vessel come and pick up Ork parts, essentially in exchange for Stimm (space PCP/coke)
- The group took tons of pictures of the ritual to be used as later evidence
- Group then informed the Hill Tigers of incoming Ork attack, and rode back to the Juvenat facility with them
- Took a train back to the capital, did some investigating, got a sense that the Falcon would be intercepting a freighter carrying Juvenat away (and were rebuffed for dinner with the Autarch/planetary governor in the house absolute)
-Arranged passage out of the system aboard the freighter
- Caught smugglers red handed as they tried to load Ork parts into Juvenat tanks, slaying one and gaining one informant in the process, a pragmatic (loyalty challenged) smuggler with an unfortunate butt tatoo and impressive physique.
- Flew to Moonbase Falcon using the smuggler's own vessel
- Assaulted the Moonbase, slaying roughly half a dozen smugglers, and the Falcon's lover, but not before the Falcon could land 2 bolter shells in Churchill's chest, causing what ought to have been mortal injury
-The Falcon surrendered to the group, ending the session