Debriefing

Played on April 13th,
As told in the voice of Scarlet

23.M41 Day 54

Our team spends the rest of the evening in relative ease. A few arrangements are made for the sake of keeping up our respective covers. It is agreed that I will scout out the area as madame Zulthra and wait for the others to arrive before proceeding. I decide to get an early night's sleep as the travel to sector FG32 will take approximately 3 hours and I dare not be late.

23.M41 Day 55

The trip to sector FG32 takes me to a very large plaza of some sorts. After some careful reconnaisance of the area, I spot an outdoor elevator near a very large stone building. The structure is dominated by a immense statue grafted into the stone facade. It depicts some sort of saint who by the looks of him does not feel very happy. I wreck my brain to see if I recall any knowledge of the figure, but come up blank. Dammit, I need to consult Arquis on this.

The elevator is located in a narrow alley adjacent to the building. I quickly look around to see if anyone is taking a particular notice to me and enter the alley. Inside the elevator cage, a small servo skull utters the word "Pass" in the metallic voice I've grown accustomed to of these devices. I do not know if a codeword is needed and decide to answer "The Emperor protects" in a low pitched voice. Nothing happens. I then return to the plaza and set up stall as madame Zulthra, awaiting the remainder of my team.

A short while later, the rest of the team arrives. They spot me and I nod in the direction of the alley. Arquis takes a look at the statue on the building and clarifies to the team that this is 'Uthur the Cataplast'. A man who has taken the sins and sorrows of the world upon him. I quickly update my knowledge base with this data. The team passes me and I follow them with a last glance over my shoulder to make sure we're not getting any uncomfortable attention. Once we are all on the platform, the skull utters "Pass" a second time, probably indicating that we are cleared to move on. We are surprised however to find the cage moves down into the floor instead of up along the building side. The elevator shaft is illuminated by small bulbs of light that are lit when the elevator draws near and extinguished once again when we have moved past them. About one minute later, the elevator has reached the bottom and a corridor opens up, illuminated in the same fashion.

The team proceeds but I linger behind a bit, fascinated by the intelligence of the lighting system. When the team has progressed along the corridor sufficiently, the lights between me and them are extinguished, but the lights surrounding both me and them are still lit. Extraordinary. The corridor ends at a massive armored door that opens to the inside when we arrive. A small room, about 2 meters deep and 4 across in which the far wall is completely occupied by a massive mirror. The team proceeds into the room, but I decide to take post in the doorframe. This quickly becomes impossible however, as the massive door starts to close on its on, forcing me into the room as well. As soon as the door is completely closed, the mirror surface slowly dissolves into a glass-like substance, and a fascinating scene unfolds before our eyes.

A very tall and gaunt man with some sort of menacing aura about him stands in the center of a room, about the same size as the one we're in. He is clad in a white chirurgeon-like coat, which is covered for the most part by a red leathery overcoat. Both garments do a lousy job of hiding the bulges near his shoulders of some sort of armament worn beneath. Next him, a strange metal frame is holding up the corpse of a second man. Most of his body has been subjected to extensive surgery and his brain and almost all of his innards are clearly visible. He is surrounded by three servo-skulls, equipped with various medical instruments, which hover motionless in the air.

"My name is Medicae Interrogator Sand. I am an Inquisitor. You are summonned here to the Templum Mori for a special task." The leather-clad man states. "This is Saul Arbest." he continues, pointing at the corpse, "A 23 year old labourer working at the corps of Tantalus Indenture and member of stack 7-17 of the Coscarla division, occupying room 6/23. He was found three days ago in the Mid-Hive transit rail of the hive Sibilius. On first glance it looked like he had been killed by a drug overdose, but after extensive autopsy, the cause of death was determined to be total body failure due to rejection of graft organ tissue." Sand holds up a glass jar containing a piece of white, rope like tissue with a lot of fibery white extensions. "A number of other surgical anomalies were found in his body, including a hidden stash which has replaced one of his lungs and a missing optical nerve to the brain." The servo skulls illustrate Sand's account by showing us the different bodyparts affected by the surgery. "Eight to ten days ago, a start was also made to replace one of his legs, which investigations show he lost sixty days ago in an accident." "This graft however, interested us most. It was investigated and found to be some sort of mind and body controlling organ." Sand continues, holding up the jar. "Needless to say, these kind of organs are highly illegal and constiture heresy!" he proclaims. "Your team is to investigate the origins of this piece of material and report your findings back to me. Saul was reported missing by his sister Lili thirty days ago in the office of warden Locan. I will be with you shortly to have you outfitted for this task." he ends his briefing. Immediately, the glass pane once again turns into a reflection of us and the door opens.

Inquisitor Sand approaches us through the lit hallway. I am completely puzzled as to how he got to this side of the glass, but do not have time to ponder this riddle long. We are ordered to follow him and enter a side-hallway that somehow none of us had spotted coming here. We are lead to a room containing six piles of equipment. Each of us receives a small metal punchcard that Sand explains as being a Coblast Assay Cognomen. Some sort of identity-card for the hive factory where Saul used to work. We also receive a pass token for the Coscarla part of the hive and a rather shabby looking overcoat to blend in with the regular inhabitants of Sibilius. A hand-vox for short range communication and a chem-lamp completes the list of equipment.

I receive a small data-slate, similar to my own, but Sand explains this one has limited capabilities of recording images and sound. I am disappointed to find it also has fairly limited storage. Novus is handed some sort of weird scanning device which seems to be able to detect anomalous life forms. Way too technical for me. After explaining the functions of our equipment, we are lead back to the entrance, and Sand leaves.

Since the hive Sibilius is a further four hours of travel away, we immediately depart for Coscarla station in that hive. During the trip, Arquis decides that the best point to start our investigation is room 6/23 in stack 7-17, the former residence of Saul Arbest. We arrive at Coscarla station. The surroundings are dominated by immense factories producing a constant overwhelming noise. We consult the map which was found on the given data-slate and walk south. We take a right turn past stack 5 and walk through a small street that ends up on a small square, bordered by stacks 5 and 10 on our end and 7 on the other. The center of the square is occupied by a small dirty looking bar that we decide to ignore for the moment. We head for stack 7 which is a old, badly maintained concrete building. We enter foyer 17 which must have seen better times as well. The elevator is missing, revealing only and empty shaft, so our only option is to take the stairs to floor 6. Vhadeen decides to take up guard near the staircase on the 6th floor, while the rest of us proceed to room 23.

The door of room 23 was unlocked and had been left slightly open. Very careful, we push the door open a bit further to reveal a large squared room, nearly void of furniture. Only a rickety bed, a cupboard and a table adorn the room. A door to the left leads to a makeshift bathroom and the room is poverly lit by a dirty arced window in the right wall. Behind the bed, the shivering figure of a woman is doing a poor job of hiding herself. This is a job for Arquis, in his new role as an high ranked investigating employee of Tantalus Indenture. While he carefully approaches the woman and starts to make her feel more comfortable to get some sort of information out of her, I start to scour the room for any clues. I only vaguely hear what Arquis is finding out, but I do pick up that the woman is Lili, Saul's sister. The room contains little if any clues about Saul's life and nothing about his recent whereabouts, so I turn my attention to the woman as well. She looks strange in some sort of way. I silently ask Novus if he could manage to scan her without her noticing, while I try to distract her by reciting the complete (made up of course) "Rehabilitation Procedure for Disabled Former Employees of Tantalus Indenture". I do not know if it was the lawyer-like language, my scary looking face, or Novus' scanning device, but this ordeal was too much for the nerves of the young woman and she bolted out the door. Feeling sorry for her, Arquis decided against ordering Vhadeen to stop her at the staircase. Well, that's one clue gone. What now?

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