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Message: <blockquote data-quote="reason" data-source="post: 4186194" data-attributes="member: 6022">and 1000 years later...My Lord-Inquisitor Zerbe,I will be blunt. I am but a humble servant of the Throne, but I cannot pretend to like the way in which this latest duty has been thrust upon me by your office. I see the hand of that slippery whelp Belsepan in this imposed exile to the Periphery, and rumor piled upon rumor. When I return to Scintilla upon the conclusion of this affair, I will consider our dataslate clean of obligations.  As your office directs, preparations are underway to move my staff, Brother-Captain Andros' squad and a company of Captain Merth's elite to our Ordo Xenos mission upon Vaxanide. Upon arrival, I will of course be taking the position of seniority from that meandering fool Inquisitor Equeth. He has, should this tottering stack of rumors prove true, lost an affair of importance. I would expect no less from one assigned to watch over hives piled high with the multiplied, inbred descendants of backwater yokels. His century of service in Vaxanhive has not distinquished him.I would not presume to suggest you are unaware of the nature of the duty ordered under your own seal, but I shall set forth the matter as I understand it, following a review of the materials. There are certain irregularities of account that I will see brought to the Emperor's light - you may be sure of that.---I. By all the data archives my savants have investigated, no warp route has ever been forged from Vaxanide to the halo stars beyond. This is due to the Void Dancer's Roil, whose storms would tear apart any vessel searching for passage through the Empyrean.II. Yet I am now possessed of an account by the captain - I will not dignify a peddler by using his purchased title - Umbolt Garin, telling of a fantastical voyage through the Roil some three hundred years ago in the frigate "Ten Lance Embers," once of Battlefleet Scarus. The manuscript is indeed of age, but I scarce credit its authenticity at this stage. This is hearsay; every archive, even the Umbis Librarum beneath our feet, is filled with the tranc-dreams of voidfarers.III. My savants and Ordo seers can find no other record of Garin or the Ten Lance Embers. I am compelled to admit that this is unconclusive, given the habits of rogue traders, and I have placed Astropathic messages to the Ordos Scarus in search of confirmation - with no great expectation of success.IV. Garin's account, enclosed as part of a missive to the Administratum of Vaxanide, was discovered 97 years ago by orbital scavengers, in a cutter frozen into an eccentric passage about Vaxanide. The missive was placed within Administratum records, and it seems, the librarum of the Ordos Vaxanide. Here, I see falsehood. How is it that our Ordo Xenos became aware of this document, yet did not act upon it, nor seek to establish its authenticity? My instinct tells me that it was indeed shown to be a voidfarer's fantasy and nothing more - but then why no record of evaluation under the seal of Inquisitor Equeth? I conclude that either some of the dataslate has been wiped clean, or that this is all a fabrication. The truth will out under my hands.V. I am given to understand, and it was not included within the materials provided to my staff, that the peddler's account was newly brought to the attention of the Ordo by Inquisitor Ru-Tariy, lately come under the influence of Belsepan. You will see why I regard this entire matter with suspicion.VI. So to the meat of the account: that Garin discovered a feral xenos world he called Greenspike, orbited by the remnants of an ancient naval engagement. Whilst void servitors grappled frozen Imperial and unknown xenos machinery from the wreckage, Garin and his peddlars took to the surface at the base of strangely-forested mountains that pierced the atmosphere, for their auspex saw signs of further salvage. There, they began to search amidst "the hulking fragments of a burned vessel, crushed with the violence of its passage," assaulted by feral xenos whom they rightfully slew or drove away. This next I cannot credit was, if true, buried in the Librarum as if of no consequence: that the xenos returned in force, led by a number of Astartes, bearing feral arms, clad in armor of wood and raising banners inked in High Gothic as the Raging Hands. Garin and but a few of his peddlers escaped the bloody assault alive, and did not return to the surface. Shortly thereafter, the Roil became ever more unsettled, the single warp route discovered Garin's navigator threatened to collapse, and the Ten Lance Embers returned to the Imperium.VII. Just as for Garin and the Ten Lance Embers, there is no record upon Scintilla or in nearby Administratum archives of an Astartes Chapter of the Raging Hands. The heraldry reproduced by Garin is clearly that of a successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists - or, as for all of this material, an imaginative forgery.VIII. So to the matter of the Astartes: Brother-Captain Andros of the Deathwatch, and the lately arrived squads of Imperial Fists under Brother Callas, whose light strike vessel is our transport to Vaxanide. I will not speak ill of the Brother-Captain. I have conversed with him at length on this matter, and his loyalty to the Ordo Xenos and the Emperor's service is beyond question. He was, as you well know, the last of the Ordo Calixis Deathwatch for many years after the attempted xenos defilement of Granithor 150 years past, and I served beside him in that grim time. As the sole continuation of the line, he carries the honor of a hundred Deathwatch Astartes from a 900 years of service in this Ordo Calixis, a fragment of the bone of each sealed within his armor, and he carries it well. He is a hero of his Chapter, the Imperial Fists, and yet humble enough to regret the awe in which the line marines of Brother Callas hold him.For my part, I regret that the honor of the Brother-Captain and the steadfast service of the Deathwatch has been abused in this matter. Brother Callas has crossed the Empyrean for near half a year on the rumor of a lost Chapter that consorts with a xenos breed. I can only speculate as to how the missive of the peddlar captain Garin came to the attention of Brother-Captain Andros and the Imperial Fists in such time as for an Astartes force to lead the initiative of the Ordos. Beslepan again.---I will, despite my doubts, prosecute this matter to the fullest. I will bridle the Imperial Fists and discover the truth of Garvin's manuscript. Should there prove to be a warp route through the Roil as described by the peddler, I and my most trusted retinue will follow to bring the Emperor's light to all who have fallen from the path of righteousness - regardless of the desires of the Fists. They are servants of the Throne, no less than we, and must recognize the need to enforce the Emperor's will, even when it requires the death of those who were once brothers.I hardly need add that should I find this all to be fantasy, built upon fabrication, my every effort will be be devoted to uncovering those responsible within the Ordo Calixis, and there will be a reckoning.Your servant in the Imperial Light,Inquistor-General Xamadres Woll</blockquote>

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