From: Intios; Adeptus Administratum & Acolyte of the Holy Inquisition, Ordo Hereticus

The last thing I remember about Three Stakes’ Rest is running down the catwalk toward the stairs down. As I ran down the stairs, I passed the shotgun wielder I was trading fire with. I pass him by a couple meters and took a point blank shot at him. To my surprise, my shot did not kill him outright. He was able to wheel around and shoot me with a shotgun blast. I don’t remember if it was my own screams ringing in my head but I did feel the sensation of falling down the stairs and hitting the floor below. All went black after that.

Odessa and Karpath were able to make it out of Three Stakes’ Rest and bring Arion and I back to the mid-hive. Apparently we able to obtain help from a couple of prisoners who were held in the manufactorum. I woke up in some sort of infirmary. It must be related to the Arbites stronghold as I see a fair amount of Arbitrators around. Karpath walks in and says, “Glad you’re awake. Here’s a dataslate containing a debriefing transcript of one of the prisoners we picked up in Three Stakes’ Rest. His name is Iacopo Salucci. It’ll make for interesting reading while you’re recovering.” I asked, “Did Odessa kill this person while getting this info?” Karpath just gives a wry grin and says, “That psyker will be the death of us. Get your rest but we need everyone on their feet soon.”

[In the words of Iacopo Salucci]

…I have known Tilusch Kaunitzer for a little while now. We were hired by the Trade Sable to be night guards at the Port Gyre facility. We were captured and put together in a cage within what we discovered was the manufactorum in Three Stakes’ Rest. I don’t know why we were thrown into the cage here. Maybe we got too close to the Trade Sable’s private hangar we were guarding?

After the first night in the cage, Kaunitzer would not stop talking about his wife. I told him that if we got out of here alive, I would strangle her myself. We were given meager rations and water during our detention. The armed guards in the manufactorum never spoke to us but kept on referring to someone as the boss. It must have been two weeks or so after arriving that Kaunitzer and I were awakened by gunfire nearby. These armed guards would often fire their guns in a further part of the manufactorum, but this new gunfire was very close by. Now we can clearly hear the guards running around and a fire fight of some sort around us.

After the gunfire settled down, I see a woman with an abnormally large head looking into our cage. She later introduces herself as Odessa. She quickly disappears and at that point, I see something I have never seen in my life. A portion of the manufactorum begins to rain blood. When the blood rain ceases, a blue twisting cloud appears before us. Kaunitzer and I have nowhere to run so we just put our heads down and hope everything goes away. All of a sudden, the door to our cage is thrown open and we are being pulled out by a tall man dressed in Imperial guard armor. He identifies himself as Karpath but insists that we call him Lieutenant. Odessa steps up and tells us that we are free but we must first serve the Emperor by assisting them with carrying two of their companions out. While I’m still stunned by what we saw earlier, Kaunitzer seemed to be in total agreement to help but still kept talking about wanting to see his wife.

Kaunitzer and I are quickly given some clothes, similar to the ones that the guards are wearing. We are also each given an autogun and stub automatic pistol. While I am helping with the two bodies we notice that the blue cloud starts to move slowly about. An instant later, to my unbelieving eyes, the blue cloud floats over a dead guard but the guard is dead no longer. What I can only describe as an undead being of grotesque appearance starts to run towards Kaunitzer. I hear a volley of automatic fire and Kaunitzer’s scream. The next second, he’s running away. I also take a shot at this undead creature but it is Odessa and the Lt. that put it down. We are then given instructions to get out of this area quickly.

With the bodies in tow, we follow the others through a series of hallways and even had to swing across chasms. In one of the narrow hallways, Kaunitzer whispers that he may have heard something down the passage ahead of us. Then he muttered something about being afraid of the dark. I told him maybe he shouldn’t have left the autogun behind. As we got further down the passage, there were definitely sounds of some sort of struggle. As I’m pulling the bodies along, I see the Lt. take the forward position. It’s obvious to me that we need to get through this crowd of people in front of us. I hear a grenade go off but just as I am getting the ringing out of my ears, Odessa steps forward and seems to concentrate on something down the hall. An odd and almost grotesque bulging of the veins on her neck was the last thing I saw before a ball of lightning formed around her and blasted me off my feet.

I’m not sure how we got out of the manufactorum but next thing I recall is being in the back of the vehicle that the Lt. was driving back towards the mid-hive. Upon arrival to a local precinct, I thought we were going to be let go but the others insisted on more questioning. Maybe they want to know what we saw and why we were thrown into the cage in the first place. I just want to get out of here and see my family.

[End dataslate transcript.]

It looks like I am going to have to get the rest of the transcript from Karpath. I did read some of Odessa’s notes stating that she found some dataslates in Zax Holthane’s office. There was even a note regarding the Rogue Trader auction but still no clue regarding time and place. As soon as I get on my feet again, I want to take a closer look at the data collected.