- Introduction and Summation
- Early Entries
- Quest for the Dread Pearl
- The War Against the Harbingers
- Our Pyrophiliac Friends
- Haarlock Marvels and Misadventures
Being the journal-entries of Cymbry Jayden Petraeus din Alt van Toeval, First Officer and acting Factotum of the Vessel-of-Warrant The Cleansing Light, commencing with its formal recognition as a recommissioned ship of the Imperium.
Summary: A personal account of the rise to prominence of the present holder of the Vain Warrant of the ship Cleansing Light, and of those who support him in his endeavours.
Significant Actions and Achievements:
- Acquiring, crewing, and outfitting the Cleansing Light and its Warrant.
- Shooting the Maw, and thereby becoming 'true' Rogue Traders of the Koronus Expanse.
- Gaining entry to the Quest for the Dread Pearl, and succeeding in locating and visiting the prize.
- The War Against the Harbingers, known in common parlance as the Rak'Gol.
- Services for the Holy Inquisition, and attendant side-ventures of profit both mercantile and intellectual.
- Entry to the dance of the Haarlocks, with the acquisition of gifts, clues, warnings, and then the Light of Destiny.
- Attempting to save the galaxy from disasters both clockwork and chaotic.
Our Failures and Longer-Lasting Concerns:
- The resentment of those who lost out to Sebastian in the winning of the Warrant, including its former holder.
- The accidental betrayal of Captain Abel Gerret and Madam Charlabelle Armelan at the Dread Pearl.
- Our Lord Captain's knack for parrying with his face.
- The descent into (or at least towards) madness of our Lord Captain… and others within the senior crew.
- The demise of - now - what must be a hundred thousand crew in our service since the Light was first raised.
- The growing interest of the Inquisition in our operations and personnel.
- The decreasing levels of harmony and mutual confidence among the senior officers.
- The impending return of the two xenos races / invasions for which the Rak'Gol were merely to be the Harbingers
- The threat of a Crusade of the Arch-Enemy
- The identification by many observers of us as the latest addition to the Haarlock dance and contests.
Note: It seems that damage sustained in some of our battles has unfortunately wiped all but the longest-preserved entries in this log. As a result, most of what follows has been reconstructed from memory, in many cases long after the events occurred.
Port Wander**
0046819M41
We've done it! We've actually done it! I have just the cravat to choose, then I head off to the Arboretum to join Sebastian in hosting our grand recommissioning party. With formal recognition from the Imperium in the form of Lord Larius Sans, we have now reunited the Cleansing Light with its ancient Warrant.
We are set to play host to perhaps a dozen Rogue Traders and their senior officer cadres, as well as representatives of 'Battlefleet Koronus', Port Wander, and other Imperial vessels presently at dock. I only hope that all goes well. Quite apart from anything else, it'll be the grandest event Sebastian has hosted, and the first big social occasion for Dishtick and Gorbaz….
0047819M41
"We've done it!" again seems to be an appropriate comment, though there are a few unexpected repercussions arising from the festivities last night. I think that I might have managed to make a somewhat favourable impression upon a visiting Eldar, who gave his name as 'Azure', though I desperately need to learn more of their customs and mannerisms - and preferably their language….
We have acquired a rather fine jade-encrusted mono-sword from Lady Sun Li; a vase of Slaith origin from Captain Lynn; and a dozen surgically-enhanced and traumatised dancing girls from Captain Feckward. Those last are presently occupying our guest quarters, while they recuperate.
Personally, I added a few other items to our store of knowledge: some of our guests regarded us as not yet genuine holders of a Warrant, since we "haven't even shot the Maw yet". That is no great surprise, but of rather more use was the discovery that an auction is to take place, and discussion was had as to whether we might be participating in it - though it was pointed out that we "lacked the money", as did Lady Sun Li.
Addendum: This morning's investigations among the underworld associates of the Chains of Dusk's crew confirmed that lips had been loose in their vicinity as well my own, and that the auction in question is said to be held under the auspices of the Witches of Footfall, and to regard the legendary Dread Pearl.
With the Chains of Dusk and the Nihontu already having cast off, Lord Captain York ordered Crimson to be first out of the system and into Warp. Unfortunately, the Chains of Dusk has proved to be every bit as fast as the Cleansing Light - though we should easily overtake the slower-moving vessels (with appropriate pleasantries exchanged in passing, I am glad to say), the Chains of Dusk seem set to be the first to Warp by a matter of hours.
In good news, preliminary investigations of all of our gifts seem to indicate that they are free from bugs and booby traps.
En Route to the Expanse
0049819M41
We're in the Warp. Entering it was… blissfully easy, compared to those jumps done under Sebastian's hand-calculations without the aid of a Navigator. It seems that our Primaris really does live up to her reputation. Plunging into the void beyond the void was merely horrific and terrifying, rather than agonising.
That said, the exchange between Crimson and Astra ("Wooooooooooooooo!" from the former, drawing, "I live for this!" from the latter) was… somewhat disconcerting. It even overshadowed Gorbaz's ship-wide warning: "All hands prepare for translocation to gribbly wotsits!"
Even so, I have to admit that I had a look at the Warp from the Observation Dome. There's a beauty to it, for all the terror.
0051819M41
I can hear it. Most of the crew can't. But I can hear the screaming. Fortunately, I'm not alone - a number of our people are psyniscient, not least those with close ties to the Expanse. But every single waking moment now, I can hear the shrieking and howling of the Warp outside. The Void Dancers, however - they seem to be quiet. Eerily so.
I'm attempting to distract myself and our newest recruits with conversation and dancing lessons, hoping that windows-free luxury combined with some frivolous distractions will help to calm me and keep my mind off… what lies outside.
I still intend to have Master Havelock sedate me each night, however.
0055819M41
Does the Cleansing Light attract trouble to itself? Shortly after being warned to 'brace for turbulence' and suffering some structural weakening, we fell out of the Warp in the gravity-well of a planet - the Witch-Cursed World; one of the Stations of Passage in the Maw.
There, we were promptly attacked by raider-class vessels. Two of them, but that proved sufficient to pose us some difficulties. I am delighted to record that our stealth capabilities appear to be at least 50% effective, utterly fooling one of the two vessels. Similarly, our gunnery-masters appear to be unusually accurate.
Unfortunately, our hitting power is less than I had hoped. In colloquial terms, we 'thoroughly messed up' the ship upon which we focused our efforts - but we did more serious damage to its long-term viability as a space habitat than to its immediate use as a warship. Two lance strikes, a solid connection from our macro-cannon battery, and a hit-and-run sabotage raid led by Sebastian and myself - all that amounted to appreciable structural damage, the wrecking of their life support systems, the depressurisation of a large portion of their crew quarters, and damage to their thrusters: an impressive litany of destruction, but all of limited (or no) immediate use in a battle.
We ourselves evaded harm, our Castellan Shields proving equal to the task of the three hits landed upon us, while our turrets fought back a counter-assault from our target… but I find myself wondering how best to enhance our capabilities in combat. Perhaps a combat specialist Master of Aetherics would make sense: someone proficient in identifying particular targets for our accurate gunnery to target.
We broke off the action successfully, by persuading the enemy that we were just the vanguard for a larger fleet - which itself is somewhat worrying: that they found it credible might be taken to imply that the Light is not seen as independently viable.
Master Havelock believes that the vessels we encountered were part of the Bloody Hand pirate organisation, though the response to our hails was reported to be nonsensical machine binary, inter-mingled with static. They appeared to understand our warnings-cum-threats, however, and gave us the time and space required to plunge back into the Warp.
'Plunge' sadly being the right term: it frankly felt rather like one of Sebastian's jumps. Still, it got us out of a rather risky battle.
Footfall
0059819M41
For the time being, it seems that my dance lessons are at an end. While I doubt that the Chains of Dusk will sincerely regard us as a 'real' Warrant crew as yet, we have now Shot the Maw.
I have seen recordings and images of Footfall, and have spoken to many people from it… but none of that really prepares you for the sheer, insane wonder of Furibundus and the human settlements here.
Fortunately, we happened to approach on a vector that took us close to a factor associated with my family, and we have secured good initial deals for berthing and resupply.
There are a number of other Rogue Trader vessels broadcasting ident signals from various portions of the maze of berths: among them are to be found the Chains of Dusk, though it seems that Lady Sun Li has not yet arrived. At least we are not last for the auction….
Summary: Our first foray into the grand adventures of the Expanse, following information provided by the Witches of Footfall. One of a good number of Rogue Trader expeditions to pursue the legendary prize, we forged an alliance of sorts with Madam Armelan and Captain Gerret, while also having tolerably good relations with Lord Captains Blitz and Lynn, and pursued (and at times traded for) the seven pieces of data that would grant us knowledge of its location. That alliance was unfortunately accidentally betrayed, but we did gain access to the Dread Pearl itself - a wondrous, beautiful planet inhabited by a primitive culture of humans who believed that they were in paradise. They then got bombarded by Admiral Bastille and we got into a battle with one of our less scrupulous rivals, before the Eldar counter-attacked to reclaim it. We can only hope that the Eldar heeded my plea to leave the innocents unharmed.
Footfall.
Administratum Oeconomica Imperialis
Family bar (if not the one I was aiming for)
Acquiring stuff - was it here we go the calculatrix? Think we had got that before the Maw…
The feast - including warp eels for Astra and Sebastian (and, later, teeth for Gorbaz)
The auction
The Witches
Alliances
Mugging - my first real combat! Got shot in the chest with a shotgun! And Sebastian getting shot in the head. Repeatedly. Next time, he'll learn to wear a helm.
Leaving port, with me in command
Respond to call for aid: destroy Eldar vessel - giving me a 100% kill-rate in command of a ship of war!
Trip to first world - find archaeotech space probe in deep space en route
Battle with Fel (or was it the Scourge?) - capture his master of arms(?)
Battle with Warlocks
Lyn's Eldar aide (Azure) unhappy
Partly-decipher data; realise we're definitely in a race to get coordinates from sufficient sites to be able to find the Dread Pearl itself
Interlude
Downtimes?
Summary: Finding ourselves 'assisting' the Imperial Navy with the defence of a portion of the Foundling Worlds, we wind up organising a sub-sector-wide campaign against the six-limbed, cybernetically augmented, psychotically violent Rak'Gol. We win, but uncover the fact that they not merely seem to have an interest in Yu'Vath ruins, but - according to information provided by Harlequins - are merely the 'harbingers' for a succession of even greater threats. For much of this period, I am detached from the fleet, and miss out on both portions of the military campaigns and such joyous events as acquiring Ruinious artefacts from a space hulk. In compensation, I get to pursue more intellectual and social studies with the Lady Anastasia on Ven's World. Unfortunately, Sebastian falls head-over-other parts in love with 'Kiss', a Dark Eldar he met on Ven's World… and whom he opts to bring along with us.
Interlude
Downtimes?
The Foundling Worlds, especially Ven's World
Session on the 19th of March
Most notably my second experience of fleet command - the trinary state of Rak'Gol firing (utterly hopeless, minorly damaging, hideously lethal), the destruction of the Marauder-class vessel, the loss of the unfortunate but gallant Honour of the Queen.
Study sensor-use in aftermath.
Session on the 2nd of April: the great space-battle!
Liaison to Lady Aoife Armengarde, aboard the Bansidhe. Successful, but messy. And Sebastian wound up getting mangled again. We came through all right, however. Well, one lance-battery out of commission, but… by the standards of both our side and the enemy, that's fantastic.
Session on the 16th of April: the start of the land battle!
Negotiating with Lady Armengarde for possible fire support in the event of an evacuation. Scary, scary Blood Furies. Rout of the Imperial Guard. Leading the Squat levies in heroic (if ineffective) counter-attack against the Rak'Gol. Anima Mortis going off on its own. Dashkit and Gorbaz sabotaging one of the great guns. Whatever bits I missed.
Session on the 7th of May: the end of the land battle!
Gorbaz and the Kroot detonate the Immaterium Engine powering the subsidiary fortification while we storm it and secure the airbase, though the enemy artillery (dubbed "the Banshee's Kiss" by the troops) fires Psyniscience-pinging bolts of cold plasma. Gorbaz had to go toe to toe with an 11' tall Rak'Gol, killing it in solo combat, after the mere presence of the Immaterium Engine drove insane or mutated a number of his Kroot allies.
Cymbry and Astra remain there to try to investigate - and spend days lost in the dark high up in the cored Spire, searching for a control room… which when found (on the fourth day) proves to have been stripped bare.
The rest of the army advance, but the Mars Invictus gets hit by a Psynisicience-pinging EMP weapon o' doom apparently mounted on the top of the main (60km high) spire, and is put out of action.
Torque drops in Gorbaz and some of the Elysian Drop Commandos to try to take out the enemy weapon. They wind up being forced to land on a docking platform half way up the space elevator: they then slide down the outside of the cable(!) to smash into the top of the spire.
With great heroism, they sneak and fight their way down to what seemed to be a control centre: four commandos (and Gorbaz's 'powder monkey' Gretchen) crept through air ducts past some seriously scary Rak'Gol guards. A huge fight started off inside and outside the room, before the doors got opened and it all merged into one.
The commandos (aided by a suicidal assault on a Rak'Gol by the Gretchen, which detonated melta-bombs while leaping onto its target) managed to blow up a great cystaline structure in the centre of the room, before the few survivors withdraw on Gorbaz's orders - leaving him battling a strange new Xenos (later identified as a Sluagh), that appeared to be made up of a mass of roiling worms… and that could regenerate damage about as fast as Gorbaz could dish it out, while being powerful enough to actually hurt him in return. Fortunately, he fought it to a standstill until it decided to withdraw, escaping the system in a very fast, powerful 1km-wide ship (cylindrical, with ribbed side-spurs, that we'd initially taken for a substantial building) that fired weapons capable of killing crew aboard the frigates that tried to intercept it without harming their hulls or technological systems.
On the planet, we were left with hordes of Rak'Gol to mop up over the course of two and a half weeks - but they lacked command and control, so in most cases could be ganged up on and pulverised. They had, however, brought down a load of civilians - lacking proper arms or weapons, but still huge, tough, and fitted with suicide explosives. Casualties were horrendous by the time the operation finished.
Fortunately, the Rak'Gol attack fleets that had been doubling back to return to their base world diverted, disappearing off through the Warp to unknown destinations.
Unfortunately, the Magos in command of the Mechanicus of Temple informed us after the fighting that the crystalline structure so heroically blown up by Gorbaz's commando had nothing at all to do with the weapon system - it was in fact the data store for the planet, and a priceless xenos artefact of a kind not captured since the Drusian Crusade. Pooh. :( Of course, the stupid bastard could have told us to look out for crystal artefacts before we began assaulting the hives.
Sebastian invited Aoife Armengarde to join him on the pleasure world with which we're now closely allied in order to celebrate and discuss some business proposals, while Cymbry and Astra remained on the Rak'Gol base-world to conduct archaeological investigations (and load up on loot if we can find a way to profit from all the war-tech and other items created or looted by the Rak'Gol).
Summary: Upon our victorious return from the Foundling Worlds, we become not merely 'of interest' to the Inquisition (as myself and Crimson have long been), but under their active supervision. After Kiss's bloody death and amid the growing certainty of Lyn being actively involved with the Ordo Xenos, we find ourselves assigned the company of Captain Rack and Lieutenant Rush. We also have some favours to do for the Inquisition… though those are at least in part in return for borrowing a warp tug to perform necessary salvage operations in the Foundling Worlds, rescuing war-damaged ships and the Grace of Macragg (a transport found on a planet by my colleagues). Those favours put us in some interesting positions (most notably on Illisk), but it seems that we are indeed set to retain our Inquisitorially-affiliated companions for the foreseeable future.
Session of the 28th of May: The Aftermath of the War
End of rather unfruitful investigations on the Rak'Gol world; Astra and Cymbry return to the pleasure planet to catch (very) tail end of great party. About 100 guests remain out of the 1000 who had been there. Fortunately, Anastasia stuck around for talks.
Discussion of wtf to do next, with it being discovered by Cymbry that, actually, there are no guarantees in place to protect any of our allies at all. The pleasure planet's servitors now wear York's colours, and we've arranged a hostile take-over of Yamagatta, while the Mechanicus can be considered invulnerable… but even Karaash's Landing and Deepholme have no guarantees.
Cymbry argues strongly against assassinating our allies in the war for our own convenience: killing
Talks with Anastasia result in a provisional arrangement to start a major cold trade route out of the deeper Foundling Stars, with its nexus at Ven's World. We're to arrange exploration and mapping ourselves, and will ship on to Footfall if required - where it's suggested that we guarantee first refusal for our goods to the Kasbalakiya Cartel. Anastasia disappears off to put that proposal to Ven.
Our range of things to try to sort out include: collecting the wrecked Monitor Cruiser from the Rak'Gol base system (in about 3 years, it'll hit the sun) in order to win favour with the Mechanicus; collecting the wreck of the Honour of the Queen; lifting the intact trading vessel whose name I can't recall; checking up on background endeavours (trade route to Zayth, exploration of possible sites for free port); reporting to Inquisitor Van Voyden(?) about our Eldar investigations in order to free up our five points of frozen Profit Margin.
The pirates opt to travel with us back to Footfall, having rather publicly revealed their presence in the area during the war. There, we agree a deal in principle with the Cartel, and trade with them for some of our xenos artefacts - receiving in return a web scatter launcher and a full set of Tau Fire Warrior gear (plus the Tau's corpse). York demands that the corpse be stuffed: Hack rather botches the job, and York winds up with a partly gold-plated body with LEDs in the eyes, that roars when approached. It winds up in his bathroom.
At Footfall, we are told that Winterscale and Chorda are now fighting a full-scale war, with full-size battlefleets engaging each other. They even had a battle at Footfall that damaged parts of the network. Military and ship supplies are in rather short supply, and our Inquisitor contact has gone to Port Wander. We also receive an invitation to a meal with the commander in chief of the Koronus fleet.
Shooting the Maw, we hit serious turbulence, our Geller field fails (but the emergency kicks in), and we find ourselves flying sideways through real space. Astra, in Astra's Bounty, doesn't get dumped at the same time, and beats us to Port Wander by 3 weeks. In the interim, we manage to collect the pirate ships, though the voyage is pretty Hellish and a daemon incursion on one of the pirate vessels kills 100 crewmen before the astropath personally banishes it. We even hit shoals, and emerge off-course in the Rubicon system, rather amusing the array of pilots already there.
More personally worrying, en route we have a couple of incidents. There was a mystery poisoning on that trip or en route to Footfall, in which about 20 crew aboard the Light died. They weren't poisoned by cooks, but no culprits could be found…. While shooting the Maw, all but two of the dancing girls given to York way back at the first party on Port Wander disappear. My investigations confirm that they last went into York's quarters, and that thereafter various airlocks were activated, while the ship's biomass declined by an amount roughly equal to the weight of their bodies. The two survivors insist they are fine, but evidently aren't. ((OOC, York had asked Kiss to 'train' the girls)).
I privately raise my concerns with Hack, and reveal to him not only my suspicions about York's mysterious girlfriend (i.e. that she's the female dark elf from Ven's World) but also what I have been told of what happened there with the homunculus (a term he proves to recognise, as denoting a Dark Eldar equivalent of a genetor).
I engage in rather a lot of frequently-ineffective shopping, failing to find various items for people. Though we do at least manage to replenish crews and resupply all the ships in our fleet. York receives an invitation to lunch with the Inquisitor, to which he brings his senior officers - and to which his girlfriend invites herself, though in her customarily masterful disguise.
That proves to be rather a mistake on her part, as she is attacked on sight by two of the Inquisitor's bodyguards (whom we later find out to be Rush and Rack). Several of our own party join in against her, and Lyn unexpectedly makes an entrance by blasting in the back wall of the restaurant and accusing Sebastian of being "a double-timing bastard", before attacking him. Kiss's blood proves to be an astonishingly potent poison, which is somewhat problematic for several people when Rush eviscerates her.
Lyn winds up sword-fighting York, who does nothing to counter-attack - though his efforts to verbally defend himself (e.g. "I can't believe you're jealous of a xenos whore!") don't exactly go well. He winds up letting her run him through in a non-fatal (just) manner, so that he can pull her in for a kiss. That's followed by a squeaked "Please don't kill me", to which Lyn replies "If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have blown up the building" - which didn't exactly meet with the Inquistor's approval. With no one other than Kiss having died (though York, Xanatov (poison) and one of Lyn's men (shot by the Inquisitor) all came close, we manage to get down to business… albeit with Hack shooting up Xanatov and York every ten minutes with drugs to keep them awake.
Inquisitor Van Vorden expresses interest in the something-or-other cabal (nasty Cold Traders with an interest in crystal artefacts), among a variety of other things, and gladly accepts our reports and data slates. We get our assets unfrozen, and are given Rack and his bodyguard Rush as insurance for York against further falling from the Emperor's light.
Session of the 4th of June: Illisk
Geller fluctuation: possible daemonic incursion; cultists; emergency Geller field room; captain, Dashkit, Hack and myself confront Warp Spectre (including Dashkit's heroism); Rush, Dashkit & Astra hunt it down.
Arrival at Illisk; no visible interest (four worlds, one a gas giant, none show anything of note); pass through concealed archaeotech but current Imperial manufacture mine field; Rogue Trader frigate of unrecognised ownership in orbit.
On the way in to the planet, Rush apparently decided that he liked me - sought me out for a private chat in the Arboretum, and indicated that he wanted to get to know me, wanted to show me ways of exercising while off duty, et cetera. Oh dear. I hid behind my work, but think that I might need to make use of a few alter-egos in future.
Disciples of Thule in active possession of two out of ten giant (hive-sized) citadels: eight around the equator, one at each pole: Disciples hold one at equator and the Arctic citadel. Looks as if everything above the bedrock was stripped, reassembled, and used to build the near-identical citadels. Great rifts expose geothermal energy, with structures around them. Great storms ravage planet.
We opt to go down to Antarctic pole: storm crashes lander bearing the three Space Marines (though they and one crewman survive; York is KOed by the Space Wolf for leaving them to trudge four hours overland).
Citadel proves to be unlike anything seen previously: looks to be unique xenos race. Near-human in size and form, with advanced weather control tech protecting the citadel. The citadel itself is made up of many separate buildings, all decorated with hieroglyphs reminiscent of circuitry (with some gemoetric shapes). It seems to have been near-totally stripped, though banks and banks of cogitators are to be found in every building, all still active. The whole place has a feeling of something unsettling and wrong to those of us with psyniscience.
The Disciples are doing daily overflights, but take some little time to notice us. The Astartes set off for the centre of the place, and confirm after a time that they have found a shaft going down deep into the core.
That takes us through / past three levels that seem to consist of nothing but bays holding mummified corpses of the natives, all plugged into still-active medical gear - and also the first automated defences we've encountered.
The bottom tier opens out into a cavern so vast it might even suggest that the whole core of the planet is networked, where a 'city' of buildings, all holding cogitators of another design, is to be found. It's been isolated down there for so long that a new ecosystem has evolved, complete with predators (none dangerous when confronted with our weaponry, fortunately).
While investigating that, an exploration party led by Lord Captain York finds an armoury, containing everything from short blades up to vehicles. York (as whispered to Cymbry by Astra) triggers the self-destruct mechanism by grabbing a gun from a rack. Everyone grabs an item and flees, before a force field snaps up to contain a blast that utterly destroys all inside - Astra loses a foot to the field, while Torque is saved from amputation of a leg only by the burning out of his Conversion Field.
They return to 'camp', where myself, Hack and Xanatov had been working on comprehending the cogitators' work. It was clear that they were processing data, and it did not appear to have repeated noticeably in the time we'd been surveying. Torque had time to warn us that the native systems appeared to communicate in spectra not conventionally scanned (let alone used) by Imperial gear, before things went haywire.
First, the data on our own cogitators started changing… then wiped. Then my inferno pistol charged and put me straight onto a +5 critical to the leg, part-fusing the Stormtrooper Carapace gear and myself. Owie.
The most impressive thing was Hack being attacked by his own medical mechadendrite, which attempted to slit his throat. Lord Captain York severed it with his power sword.
It appeared that we might might be under attack from what Hack called a 'schismatic' - a machine spirit capable of riding along in cogitator systems (active and powered only), and of abusing technological devices. Certainly, it was attempting to fire off our guns, even when power packs and / or ammunition had been removed.
Fortunately, Brother-Sergeant Claudius was well away from us all, and appeared untroubled - even reporting in that he had found what he believed to be a "primary data-processing node", which he was keen to investigate.
In other minor good news, some of the items from the armoury looked interesting, while the breastplate that Astra snatched was clearly of immense value - ceremonial rather than combative, it was worth 100 Achievement Points in its own right!
Unfortunately, the lighter we sent up to fetch a new biomechanical foot and some more archaeological gear had been shot down by the Disciples, who then launched an assault with a full brigade of Scutarii on our forward base above-ground. Captain Rack reckoned that he could hold them for five days, greatly aided by the two Astartes still up there with him.
Session of 25th of June: Illisk (negotiations, information exchange, and departure) & Darkspire station (arrival, repairs, trading, duel, and compulsory departure)
Downtime for session in late August: Counter-espionage and the avoidance of Lt Rush
Summary: The gilded spider and the marvels of clockwork become the motifs for our existence. One known-to-be-dead Haarlock asks us to stop another, hands out gifts, and reveals that I might in fact be of the lineage myself (albeit not legitimately). We acquire a grand cruiser, encounter a bizarre alien race, meet the Hollow Oracle (and in my case, gain its personal loyalty), and make quite an impact on Quaddis - where Sebastian is taken for a claimant to the dynasty and we manage to avoid Reinhardt triggering some form of apocalyptic disaster. Directing our efforts is a device given to Astra, which shows countdowns and multiple points of critical interest, each apparently somewhere that we must fix something - some or all relating to the forestalling of the next great 'Crusade' of Chaos. Not much in the way of responsibility, then.
Session of 3rd of September: the Haarlock space station / shipyard, and the recovery (just) of the Light of Destiny, battling with "the Guests" in the course of our efforts
Session of 10th of September: Syndron II, Vaxanides, Quaddis. Start of the Carnival of the 13 Masks
Session of 17th of September: Quaddis: preparations for the grand party, contacts with Beast Houses, research into Haarlocks, discovery of occult war involving Servants of the Traveller and the Scions of the Star-Eaters (among others), the party itself, and Gorbaz defeating a genestealer in solo gladiatorial combat
Session of 24th of September: Quaddis: further preparations for the grand party. A trip (which myself and Torque happily missed out on) to the underworld of the Red Cages, on which most participants got badly hurt. During that expedition, an attempted assassination of myself and Torque took place - but we were out at the race track with the dancing girls and wives, for Torque to race. As a result, we 'merely' had our rented home burned down. Hiring the Jackal, to perform possibly-unsuccessful hit on the Factor of the Syndicate, as a favour to the Spider Bride. Securing invitation from the Bride to the party in Gabriel Chase for the Festival of Thirteen Masks, with Sebastian to receive one of the Masks.
Session of 14th of October: Quaddis. The Festival of Thirteen Masks. Attack on self & Astra & Lynn by chaos-warped axe-wielding horrors (Astra KOed in first round; I put down 2 and wound 1; Lynn puts down 4). Discovery of Lady Solace's ritual, and bloody disruption of it (with Sebastian self-Agonising, among many other things, though she escapes: we get a mysterious grey book). Lynn kills Lord Tobias Cinderfell. Talk Lord Verrens into broaching a deal with Sebastian (to go and 'collect' some of Verrens's relatives from the Expanse) which counts as payment for Verrens to talk Reinhardt Haarlock out of finishing reassembling the Steel Clock (which he was doing regardless of warnings). In the course of that, I unfortunately had to reveal my own Haarlock connection to Reinhardt, Verrens, and a shadowy individual apparently called "Valerius". But we avert a disaster, at least temporarily. :)
Session of 22nd of October: Quaddis wrap-up, Port Wrath negotiations with navy, rescuing stranded IG regiment from Tranche, delivering them to Port Metis(?), then finally going on to investigate the Witch-Cursed World (identified as one of the critical points on Astra's 'compass'). There, we encounter a carrier and two frigates from the Wolf-Pack (of Iniquity).
Session of 29th of October: The Witch-Cursed World. Huling of the Excruciator and one unnamed raider; other escapes. We lose a mere 49% of our crew as casualties. Then lose more men on the surface of the planet, where we find that the astropathic beacon was originally wired into an ancient(?) xenos power source of 'unimaginable' power to fuel it, then later adapted to fuel a Haarlock device charging up a huge crystal (about 10kg), and at some point had an astropath wired into the whole thing to emit a Chaos version of an astropathic beacon - he was the one providing the once-every-17 minutes beacon pulse. For centuries. :/ Removing him didn't remove Astra's 'problem' point on her Haarlock device: it seems to be the crystal / Haarlock charging unit. By initially masquerading as reavers ourselves, we cut a truce with reavers abandoned on planet when their ships engaged us (those not driven to suicide / fratricidal violence by the planet, or killed by 'warp zombies). Sebastian plots to betray them. Their leader tells us that the crystal is apparently a 'back-up plan' for the leaders of the impending Chaos Crusade. Oh, joy. Having been abandoned, he's willing to go against their interests, however.
