312.999.M41

The World of Principia IV

Segmentum Obscurus

The air was thick with incense and sorcery, unholy energies played across the walls of the cavern lighting the pitch darkness for an instant. Vegetation was nil as the corrupting influence of Chaos had killed it long ago. I kept my plasma pistol raised in readiness, as we slowly made our way through the cave, my mind probing the darkness beyond, searching for the enemies of mankind.

My name is Heinrich Wilhelm and I am an Inquisitor of His Imperial Majesty's Most Glorious Inquisition of the Ordo Malleus. I am four hundred and twelve years old, thanks to extensive juvenat treatments and other cybernetic augmentations granted to me by my position in the Inquisition of the Immortal Emperor. I am of average height and a medium build, but it is not my physical prowess that set me above my peers, I am a powerful psyker and when the black ships came for me in my youth I was judged capable of training to become an Inquisitor.

What else is there? My eyes are blue like ice and my hair silver. I am called cold by some people, cruel by others, but they do not understand what entails being an Inquisitor, they do not know the gravity of the decisions I make, it is not with a light heart that I order the destruction of worlds nor with a smile that I raze entire cities to the ground burning the innocent with the guilty. It is what needs to be done to combat the enemies of man, the mutant, the alien, the heretic, and the traitor.

I had been tracking this cultist cell to its root for a year and a half now, and I believe I have finally pinpointed the heart of the bastards. Time to rip it out.

Alise stood next to me, lasgun held close to her chest and her thermal goggles peering into the darkness, her hair was golden and her features sculpted and beautiful, an advantage of being associated with the Inquisition is the best medical treatment in the whole of the galaxy, she was short and muscular yet still feminine. The others were unseen, staying to the shadows.

We continued down the way, my mind was surveying the surroundings when I found something, a ripple, an irregularity in the material realm.

"I've found the heretics, stay quiet and move up, we're about to run into them" I whispered into the vox.

Light flickered from around the next corner, and soon I could make out chanting in a language I could not understand, and it hurt my ears listening to it.

Hooded figures each with nine stripes down the sides of there robes, nine torches arranged in a circle, symbols drawn in blood, and nine sacrifices in the center. Each one of these beings was a psyker, that much I could sense, but how powerful were they?

That didn't matter, they were strong enough, these were Tzeentchian cultists, high ranking ones at that.

One by one my retinue voxed their readiness to exorcise this cancer from the Emperor's realm.

I checked my plasma pistol and gave the order

"Now"

All was a blur of motion after that, three of the figures broke off of the circle and faced us down, surprise was lacking in their facial features, instead they seemed serene as if this was according to their plan.

Two turned to the rest of my warband, the last one turned to me and Alise.

"Filth." I spat, I unleashed my potent mind upon him, and I was released from the prison of my body, moving to attack the tzeentchian lunatic.

His mind collided with mine and we tumbled about, shattering and rending the stone around us, the temperature shifted from hot to cold and electricity played about the air.

By the Throne he is powerful, my equal in every way, he was a trained, most likely a rogue sanctioned psyker. His powers boosted by the obscene symbols and the attention of his patron deity.

I didn't have time to face this abomination down, the ritual needed to be ended before the ends of the cultists could be accomplished, were they trying to summon a Daemon? Or perhaps attempting to open a portal to the warp itself? It didn't matter, I wouldn't let them succeed.

Then suddenly, the psychic battle was over, his mind simply disappeared, all that remained was the echo of his death scream.

I frantically looked about in confusion and saw Alise grinning wildly at a crater that wasn't there before.

She ran back to me and I looked her up and down.

"You're missing your grenade belt" I told her

"I know sir" she replied still smiling

"One would have worked, a terrible waste of material"

"Couldn't risk it lord, time is short" she countered

With that I simply moved on, frowning through the din.

Alise was young and faithful, but her bloodlust needed to be tempered lest it consume her, last thing I needed was a disciple of the Blood God in my retinue.

As we came upon the other cultists they began to look at each other in confusion, apparently we had upset the plan. Shame for them.

I blasted one with a superheated shot from my plasma pistol, leaving a burning whole in his chest, he died without a sound.

And the other cultists were overcome by my team, and they moved in to assist in the slaughter of the damned.

As the last one fell, I gleaned from his last dying thoughts that the ritual had been completed but the results weren't what he was expecting, some of the blood of the cultists had entered the sacrificial circle and there was more than necessary, something new was happening.

The walls and ground began to shake with seismic activity and light consumed the cavern. I was blind, then suddenly, I lost consciousness.