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

After finally finding Barabbas and leaving the Denita Corp building, we started our way toward District I. We could see a large fire of sorts coming from the near center of Sinophia Prime. It was at this point that Arion returned to the spot of the mysterious glyph in the wall. He told us to proceed but he would have to stay at least a day to perform a personal errand. He disappeared into a high rise hab across the street from the glyph. The rest of us decided that we would hole up for the night about a block away. About the same time we found a place to rest was when Barabbas went off on his own. Maybe curiosity got the best of him and he wanted to be near Arion. I wouldn’t know for sure because I didn’t bother asking when the two of them returned the next day.

With a simple inquisitive look towards Arion, his response was, “Let’s proceed and go back towards the city center.” As we got closer to District I, I tuned my microbead to the frequency given to me by the Aribites driver that dropped us off. There was chatter about another crime scene, this time in District XIII. I was able to use the microbead to call out for Arbites assistance. We radioed in that we needed an extraction point. Within an hour or so, we were picked up on the edge of District I. The driver said that he was given instructions by Arbitrator Constantine to take us directly to a new crime scene in District XIII.

Upon arrival, we spot an armored Arbites vehicle in front of a non-descript hab block. One of the investigators on scene tells us that there is a dead body upstairs. When we entered the room, there were a couple more Arbites officers guarding a body on the floor. We noticed forced entry on the door and a pool of blood had formed a halo around the body. We could clearly see blunt trauma blows to the head and chest and one of his limbs was torn off. There were dog tags with the name of Bal Grey on it. The contents of the room looked like there may have been a hasty search. We told the officer to prepare to take the body back to Haarlock’s Folly for further examination. We were then told that there was another body spotted in the alleyway next to this hab block.

The body in the alleyway had multiple shotgun wounds in him. There was a greenish tinge to his skin and the body seemed to have started bloating. At this moment, it was Barabbas who said he spotted someone on the roof wearing a large black brimmed rain hat and seemed to be watching us. Arion and Karpath immediately took off into the building across the street. I followed their lead and told Kaunitizer and Barabbas to stay with the bodies.

We all ran up the stairs towards the top of the building where Barabbas says he saw the black brimmed hat. Karpath was first to get to the top of the building. He spotted a large cable running across the rooftops. He decided that he would forgo equipment and traversed the cable hand over hand. When I got to the roof, I see Karpath on the opposite building already and Arion preparing his grapnel and hook. I follow his lead and pull out my harness. Arion and I make it across to the first building without incident. Karpath tells us that he spotted a closing door on another building across the one we are on.

Karpath has made it to the third building while both Arion and I had some issues traversing this second cable. Upon getting to the third building, Karpath says he is running towards the ground floor. I pull out my auspex and find life readings on the fourth floor but am unsuccessful finding readings for the third floor. I see Arion waiting for me on the second floor and tell him that there are life readings in one room and a non-human form in another. Upon discovering that the non-human life form is some sort of native four legged creature, we decide to join Karpath on the first floor.

Asking brief questions of the inhabitants in the lobby and just outside the door, it does not seem the locals are very friendly towards strangers. Not being able discover where the black brimmed hat person fled to, we decided to go back to the crime scene and take the bodies back to Haarlock’s Folly for further examination. On the way back to the Folly, we were told that an Administratum building was set on fire near Prime in a possible retaliation to Bal Grey’s death.

Bal Grey was local muscle to the undertow prior to his death and also former PDF. It took a bit more time for the bodies to arrive but we were eager to get started with an autopsy. Constantine told us to meet with Biologis Adept Lecto Talanis on the 3rd floor of the cellar. The third floor cellar was a cold and dark open space that had been transformed to their morgue and medical examination facility.

The examination of Bal Grey seemed consistent with what we saw at the crime scene. Blunt force trauma and limbs torn off just a day ago. Examining the second body was a bit more peculiar. We discovered that the body had been dead for three days and the shotgun wounds were created post-mortem. There were splinter and bloodless scars all over his arms and something that we did not notice at the crime scene. An entry wound in his chest that was stitched back up. We removed the stitches to find that the cause of death was probably a sharp blade of some sort to his chest. But why would someone stitch him back up and put shotgun blasts into his body?

We returned to Constantine to ask if he knew of any current associates of Bal Grey. He told us just by chance, the Arbites at the request of the Enforcers had recently picked up a Carrus Nazal. Constantine told us that Nazal is known to have been connected to Grey in the past. The Enforcers wanted Nazal picked up for possible Lho stick bootlegging. We expressed our desire to question Nazal and to also have the Arbites send a skilled interrogator to aid us.

We went to the first floor of the cellar and were directed to the cell of Carrus Nazal. An Arbite by the name of Myrn Mordi introduced himself and said that he would help conduct the interrogation. Nazal was resistant at first but Mordi’s less than deft touch had him singing in no time. The use of stimm on the detainee seemed to help as well.

Under questioning, Nazal gave us the name of Juvinal Priator. In the end, he also blamed Xiabius Khan, Enforcer General for most of the troubles between the Undertow and Quarum. At this point, Karpath reminded us of the Empty Men that Inquisitor Karkalla debriefed us about. These Empty Men were transformed by the tech heretics, the Logicians, by adding xenos DNA into humans. This made me go back to Tech Adept Talanis to run a DNA test on the second subject.

We had dropped off some of our equipment to the Arbites tech priest for repair or examination. Those of us that had equipment suffer water damage may need repairs and those of us that suffered the high explosive wanted routine maintenance. Barabbas, after tinkering with his data slate for hours, told us that he just saw the dark wide-brimmed hat figure enter the main Enforcer precinct. So either the Enforcers had something to do with the crime scene or maybe we are simply being followed. I believe it is inevitable that we will have to meet with Enforcer General Khan in the near future. Now if we can only get the DNA results and our equipment back.