IX Foundation: Leaving Vinh

Vinh City, Biana’s Coil (Tier 1, 3rd Landing)
Midian and Maya decide they’ve become a little too recognisable on Vinh, so make preparations to leave. Midian wants to head for Blemish, so Maya Zin finds a ship headed there. Only one – the Basis of Faith – has logged it as a destination within the next few days, so she arranges a meet with the ship’s owner, a merchant called Arturo Blanc, at Biana’s Coil (a bar frequented by transient Voidsmen).
Maya, being the cautious sort, insists they arrive early. Unfortunately, Biana’s Coil is the very same bar where her lover, the Shadow House’d Kith Conran, was hacked to pieces by members of the Ecclesiarchy. With one of the gifts bestowed by the ritual, she “remembers” the fight, witnessing his death. Her ability to blend with the crowd of boisterous voidsmen fails her as she is overcome with loss.
Thus distracted, she doesn’t notice what Midian sees – they are being watched.

Jacen Cutter

Cutter is an honest voidsman. He’s served aboard many a ship and seen many a port within the Koronus Expanse, so he isn’t surprised when he looks around the room and sees some people he’s sure he recognises. He sees a table where an attractive girl sits with her mistress (an elderly Navigator with little-to-no signs of genetic degradation) and their beat-up Flight Servitor (something he could out-pilot on his worst day). The only thing that niggles at him is that once he notices them, he can’t ignore them. His attention is constantly drawn back to them. Eventually he is forced to approach.

Maya is initially distant, consumed as she is by grief, so her mistress, “Maria Masifeckt”, is left to do most of the talking. Cutter enquires after where they’ve been, what ships they’ve served on, trying to work out where he’s seen them before, but finds no common link (unsurprising, given “Maria Masifeckt” doesn’t exist). Midian is also curious, though suspects some kind of connection to the ritual, given the “Déjà Vu” blessing it bestowed. Following the same thread, Maya asks when Cutter arrived – his ship suffered Geller failure at the exact moment the ritual climaxed, forcing it out of the Warp dangerously close to Vinh.

While Cutter gets drinks, Maya and Midian consider what this means. Maya is cautious – if something draws Cutter’s attention to them, who else will be similarly affected? If an investigator of some kind became similarly “facinated”, it could affect her – and Midian’s – chances of survival. Midian is less worried – he wants Cutter around because of simple curiosity.

Arturo Blanc arrives and given how quickly “Maria” wants to leave Vinh, concludes that she’s either in danger or could bring danger down upon him. He is willing to accept paying passengers, however; especially one that could aid the training of his own contracted Navigator. He’s even willing to overlook the fact that she lacks Navigational Charter documentation (as does Midian).

--x--

The trip out of Vinh is uneventful. The translation to the warp is flawless and – with Maria’s guidance – the trip to Blemish takes only a fifth of the time Arturo expected. The merchant invites the passengers to dine with the command crew by way of a thankyou.
Maria spends the meal speaking to Navigator Novitiate Alessaunder de Gama. Playing the role of mentor, she encourages him to experience everything the universe holds. To not be afraid of the unknown – especially with regards to the warp – as trailblazing is one of the most important responsibilites the Navigator Houses have to the Imperium of Man.

Dinner is interrupted when first the Voidmaster, then Arturo himself leave. Maya and Cutter follow. They are not stopped when they walk onto the bridge (something Cutter isn’t surprised by because they’re “a buncha cunts”). Their ship has been “pinged” (scanned with active Augury, Cutter explains to Maya) by another vessel. While they fly above the system’s asteroid belt, the vessel hails them, identifying itself as the Schwartzkrieg and demanding tribute. Arturo declines, stating that he flies under the protection of Ridgefort’s Reavers. Upon hearing this, the Schwartzkrieg opens fire. The first strike down’s shields and damages the bridge – falling wreckage knocking the Voidmaster out. The crew panic and freeze, until Maya and Cutter start barking orders at them.
Maya: “Don’t just stand there – RETURN FIRE!”

Initially, they try to flee, but the heavy transport has neither the thrust nor the maneuverability to evade the destroyer, with it’s raider hull, for very long. There seems little choice but to fight.
Initially, fate conspires against them and macrocannon fire takes it’s toll on the hull and crew. But strike after strike of their own lands home. Eventually, a particularly accurate Lance strike by Cutter threaten’s to burn the Schwartzkrieg from stem to stern – and the pirates turn tail and flee!

In the aftermath, Midian and Cutter consider leading a mutiny… but this isn’t the kind of vessel Cutter wants, and the crew aren’t worth his time. The voidsmen have lost enough that a mutiny is threatened though – forcing Arturo to promise them much to retain control.

Click here for the Rogue Trader posts on Blemish.

X Kingdom: “Thy Kingdom Come”

Towards the end of the conversation with Maya, Mordecai rubs his ear, as casually as he can. If Maya notices what he’s up to – selecting the Seneschal’s comm code – she says nothing. Midian is not in line of sight at the time.
Midian has turned off surveillance to the room with Xanatov’s control.

May: “We hold a knife to each other’s throat, you and I. But I believe I have a better chance of talking my way out of my situation. What do you say, Mordecai? Do we have a deal?”
Mordecai ponders.
Mor: “I think not.” [He breaks transmission]

---

Mordecai taps his ear-piece, instantly connecting him to the Seneschal:
Sen: “Wh… How did you get this comm frequency?!”
Mor: “That is of no importance right now,” Mordecai answers sternly, “All that matters is that you listen and understand. The women I escorted to you a few hours ago are assassins employed by Midian Astis-Kyn of House of Harrow. They are tasked with executing your master before the day is out.”
Shock and anger spread across the Seneschal’s features.
Sen: “You- you realise this is an act of treason! Your execution shall be long and slow! I shall make sure of it!”
Mor: “You waste time with idle threats. It would serve no purpose for me to be lying to you. Go, search the room, the evidence is there. And as for your retribution...”
Mordecai wheels the unconscious Amael into camera shot.
Mor: “You know where to find me...”
With that, Mordecai ends the transmission.

---

Maya contacts the Administratum offices directly, not the Seneschal. She talks of procedures and codes so quickly that, to Midian’s untrained ears, it comes across as babble, but he catches a few details…
May: “Alarum, adepts! An unsanctioned psyker – a mind-thief - has infiltrated the inner sanctum of the order! He assaults the chamber of the Amael herself-” [transmission breaks at source]

She then contacts Grigor Orlak:
May: “The off-worlder, ‘Mordecai’ is a traitor to the revolution. He intends to kill you and replace you with Hala Chen, his pet. He is a telepath and should be killed on sight.”

---

While Maya makes her calls, ‘Midian-atov’ drags Xanatov off the bed. He smashes one of the wine flutes and carefully drags the broken stem across part of Xanatov’s fleshy chest. Blood wells through the torn skin.
Xanatov himself stirs not at all - as well sedated as one on the surgeon’s slab.
Midian then uses the pillows in the bed to make a rough human outline, at least through the silk hangings of the bed’s canopy.

---

Close to his prediction, the reassuring gold indicator by the heavy door goes red. Immediately after, Mordecai hears the device’s spirit re-check the integrity of the door’s seven security bolts.
Moments later (a full 2 seconds longer than he actually needed) the door hisses open and eight sets of heavy boots hustle into the room. One of the bodyguards goes over to the Amael, slinging his las-rifle to check her condition. The second grasps Mordecai’s wrist and applies binder-cuffs. A third picks up and examines the fine mono-sword he has placed on the Amael’s desk. The same guard who cuffed him searches Mordecai for further weapons (finding none), while two others search the room for explosive devices (though as he didn’t set off any alarms when you passed through the entrance hall, it is only a cursory search (all according to protocol)).
Sgt: “Take him away. Maximum security block. I’ll alert Interrogator Sithis.”
And he is marched away. Though they’re rough, the beating he’d expected never occurs.
Outside the Administratum building the Amael’s guards hand Mordecai over to regular enforcers, the Sergeant signing over custody with a DNA fingerprint. Throughout his time with the Amael’s bodyguard, brief as it was, Mordecai sensed not brutish anger, but cool professionalism. Now in the custody of the enforcers, that changes. He is thrown bodily into the back of a wheeled enforcer wagon. His wrists bound behind him, Mordecai is unable to catch himself, and his face slams against the metal grate of the vehicle’s floor.
With his keen hearing, Mordecai overhears the Sergeant confer with his enforcer counterpart by the vehicle parked behind:
Sgt: “Adept Andreev will accompany you. The anarchist’s possessions are… of interest to the Administratum.”
Enf: “I don’t understand-”
Sgt: “And I don’t want any, ‘evidence’ to go missing.”
If the exchange continues he do not hear it, as the armoured doors slam shut. He is accompanied by three enforcers in the back (Lasguns and pistols, batons, non-military Flak vests and helmets). The other two get in the front. From the sound of it, the other vehicle is following (presumably with the rest of the squad, the Adept and her personal effects).
Mordecai reaches into the mind of the enforcer sergeant. The man resents the implication that he or his men would steal evidence, even if a few gems missing out of an uncounted batch would probably not be missed. The Amael’s bodyguard was right, but the enforcer resents it all the same.

---

At this point, there is a banging on the door and someone shouts;
Grd: “Governor! Are you okay? We’ve word of an assassination attempt!”
His tone tells Midian that he will not be dissuaded from gaining access.
Mid: “Enter!”
Ten of Xanatov’s personal guard stand beyond the door, weapons ready. With them is a combat squad (5) of troops trained by the fearsome Col. Harakeen Bokor (r.i.p.), cameoline cloaks shifting.
Xanatov pulls his robes over his swollen naked form, oblivious to the regard of the bodyguards. They do not flinch.
Maya is naked by the bed, edging away from the ‘corpse’ under the bed covers (she looks like she is afraid (specifically of ‘Xanatov’) but is trying (poorly) to conceal it).
Grd: “Lord, I have word from the Seneschal’s office that an attempt is going to be made on your life!”
Outside as a corridor of gilt-panels, decorative to the point of opulence. Pedestals with busts of Xanatov’s illustrious family line the walls. The guards look ready for action, but their bodylanguage shows that ‘Xanatov’ isn't their target.
The bodyguard pushes past Xanatov, placing himself between the Governor and Maya, weapon trained on the alleged assassin.
Sobbing, Maya stumbles towards them, arms high, fingers spread – naked, it seems obvious that she can conceal no weaponry.
May: “I- I'm not and assassin, I swear! I'm just- I'll do whatever you want – just please don't kill me like you did her!”
Grd: “The Seneschal has issued an arrest warrant for the coward ‘Midian Astis-Kyn’ and the assassins that were delivered into your hands earlier. Protocol demands that we secure your safety immediately.”
Mid: “Very well, search her for weapons, return her to me afterward.”
Maya cradles her head as she is slammed against the wall. The impact causes her knees buckle slightly and provokes more intense sobbing.
The bodyguard gives her a dangerous look and she closes her mouth, visibly trying to suppress her fear. He takes a bulky tech-scanner from his pack and runs it over her, punching grimy, rune-engraved keys and turning a chunky analogue dial on the side.
Grd: “My lord, she carries no weapons and I can’t find any trace of bionic implants… But I’m no cog-boy - the Adeptus Mechanicus should look her over.”
Whimpering, Maya tries to cover herself. She looks up at Xanatov, shaking - to the men, it seems that the ‘concubine’ is bringing her womanish emotions under control.
May: “I- If this is what my master wants.”
While this is occurring, three more of the bodyguards enter. Their guns sweep the room, not just the silk-curtained area where Xanatov’s bloody, but still-very-much-living body lies.
Grd: “Lord, what happened to the other one. Did she try something?”
Mid: “Don’t be ridiculous. She merely… disappointed me.”
Xanatov’s voice betrays his growing impatience, as well as the level of credulity he grants to this ‘assassination’ plot.
His men shift uneasily, trapped between duty and their master’s dis-pleasure. After a moment’s hesitation, the three searchers continue their careful sweep.
Mid: “My Seneschal really believes these toys could kill me?”
Grd: “There was an assault against the Amael. Her attacker surrendered, but only after informing the Seneschal of his part in the plot to kill you.”
Mid: “Her attacker informed us? No, this is making less and less sense.”
As the searchers stray ever closer to Xanatov’s unconscious body, ‘Xanatov’ points a stubby finger at the cameoline cloaked soldiers.
Mid: “You, take your men and personally secure the safety of my seneschal. Bodyguard, wait outside – I must talk to him myself.”
Grd: “My lord, protocol demands-”
Mid: “To hell with protocol. We are being manipulated. Outside, now. Leave the girl to me.”

---

The wagon speeds through a series of streets and ramp-ways, spiralling clockwise, ever downwards. Left on the floor, he’s thrown about, his head cracking against the interior with every over-enthusiastic turn. At first the mood of the enforcers is blasé – though Mordecai’s a criminal who has assaulted the second most prestigious person on the planet, he’s well and truly caught, and they’ll get none of the credit for it. They should be on their guard. They should be professional. Instead their moods range from bored to distracted.

The wagon skids to a halt and one of the enforcers puts his hand to his ear. Whatever he hears causes him to curse, bitterly – the other two shake their heads. Whatever it is, is an inconvenience.
Once again, Mordecai reaches into his mind. The man is annoyed because there was some kind of civil disturbance ahead, forcing them to detour. The implications of the disturbance being significant enough to force a detour haven’t occurred to him.
Everyone feels trapped and are a little fatalistic about it. If they desert, they’ll be shot - if not by their superiors then probably by an angry mob. If they stay then they’ll still have to fight... and given the lengths the protagonists went to fracture their confidence, they’re not at all sure they’ll win. Instead they try to convince themselves that the whole situation is going to blow over - that the ringleaders will be scooped up by Xanatov’s agents and the rebellion quelled with a neat little ‘decapitation strike’. Mordecai, it seems, isn’t their most pressing concern.
The wagon backs up a dozen yards and turns, for the first time, to the left. Down another landing, an unknown distance from the stop-point, it returns to its clockwise spiral downwards.

---

Maya dresses in ‘Midi-anna’s dress and gets out of the way of the Hololithic camera while ‘Xanatov’ contacts his seneschal.
The seneschal confirms much of what his bodyguards have told him (adding that there is an unconfirmed report that he’s telepathic). He adds that rioting has broken out and that it looks like they’ve lost the whole of Tier 1. Xanatov thinks it over and tells seneschal to have the telepathic assailant executed.
The seneschal begins to complain, siting the need to question him, but Xanatov tells the man that the rioting is a bigger threat – one that they can’t be distracted from by the actions of a rogue psyker.
The seneschal checks with the governor’s agents and finds that they’ve lost contact with the vehicles transporting the alleged psyker to the secure facility. Xanatov orders Landspeeders to intercept them inside the city (they fail, crash and burn). The facility staff are informed that the prisoner is to be executed upon arrival. PDF troopers are sent to support.
Xanatov does slip up. He calls Mordecai by name, though the Seneschal never mentions his name.
Finally, he asks for plans and troop deployment data. When the Seneschal tells him he really should be at command to review this data, Xanatov’s patience ends, demanding to know why his minion keeps second-guessing a planetary Governor.

Maya, dressed as Anna, cut-up pillowcase disguising her face, executes the real Xanatov while Midian records on the Hololith.
‘Xanatov’ leaves with his men, but Maya has the security codes for the door from the control on Midian’s arm.

---

Again the roller skids to a halt, but this time the enforcers start readying their gear. A few seconds later, there is a chime and the indicator on the door lock turns gold. The door slides open and he see the other half-squad of enforcers behind. Further away stands a nervous looking Adept, clutching the case that Mordecai took from the Navigator as if it were a lifejacket.
The area is otherwise deserted. Two autocannon turrets point down each of the two roadways into the area. Two enforcers grasp his arms and march Mordecai towards the maximum security prison.
The wall opposite the keep-like “Hall of Repentance” is dominated by a large public viewer.

---

At command, Xanatov tries to execute a poor defence but is hampered by lack of Tactical experience – he can’t do anything too obvious or he’ll be exposed.

Maya leaves to pick up some gear (including the witch’s eyes). She successfully disguises herself as a palace servant, but is caught sneaking where she shouldn’t and is almost blown in half by a PDF squad.
She gives Grigor as much Intel on the government forces as she is able.

---

A member of the Ministorum reads a public proclamation:
“Attention loyal citizens of Vinh. Curfew is in immediate effect. Those not secured within the domicile indicated in their M41.815 census data face official reprimand. Those in public areas will be immediately incremented to ‘hooligan’ status and thus be subject to summary justice.
“Our thought for the day is, ‘The reward for treachery is retribution.’”

---

Mordecai reaches out with his mind and tears the broken strongbox from Adept Andreev’s grasp. Andreev looks horrified, understanding exactly what has just happened.
The contents – Midian’s jewels – spills across the floor, and four of the near-mutinous Enforcers start scrabbling around to pick them up.
And: “You fools! Why hasn’t the psyker been sedated!?”
Mordecai wastes no time, reaching into the Sergeant’s mind, trying to Compel him into firing upon these greedy sons of whores… but the Sergeant’s will is far too strong.
Shrugging off the psychic attack, the Sergeant gives Mordecai three-rounds-rapid.
As the turrets come online, Mordecai retreats back into the enforcer wagon and begins to systematically crush the internal organs of the men before him – starting with the Sergeant. Utilizing the first discipline he’d learned proves a benefit and one by one the enforcers drop or flee.
It cannot last, however, and soon the return fire begins to penetrate his telekinetic shields. When a large portion of his leg is burned out from under him, it seems his number is up. The next volley takes him in the chest, burning out a lung.
The body is taken into the Halls.

---

Midian faces… a lesser challenge. His commanding presence has washed away all doubt in Xanatov’s men as to who is in charge. Tier after tier falls, but the ‘Governor’ is the epitome of stoic resolve. This is his world, he will not be removed from it.

---

Mordecai senses the same presence he felt in Anya Qi’s shack. Around him is the black, swirling darkness. It tells him it is pleased by his progress, happy at the despair and suffering he has led people to – all those people who believed his lies and are now dying in the violence of the revolution, each knowing exactly how little their lives were worth. It claims it will take Hala Chen next unless… ‘M.D.C.I.’? Chooses to serve him.
Hala Chen means less to him than the daemon suspects. But he is in terrible pain, dead or dying.
Around him the flow of the warp is changing… building, growing stronger. It must be the ritual – it was building to its conclusion… In his current condition there was nothing he could do about it either way.
Mor: “Yes.”
The pain doubles but Mordecai regains consciousness. The leather straps on his wrists age and turn to powder. The lock on the door rusts and breaks, the door itself swinging free. Mordecai looks at himself in the mirror. He has suffered horrific burns and holes have been seared all the way through his torso.
It would be enough to drive a man insane, seeing what has become of him. But instead there is a strange calm to him. He is a monster. But a powerful monster.

He walks out into the prison finding the staff in the middle of an evacuation. Only two of the guards who see him have presence of mind enough to start shooting. But although their shots strike him, further burning his flesh, they do not slow him overly. Reaching out with enhanced telekinetic might, he crushes the life away. Unfortunately, the power flowing through him is enough to force a warp-breach and dark tendrils of smoke pour through. Where they touch flesh, the skin blisters and ruptures, leaving weeping wounds in the dying. Mordecai himself is soon consumed.

---

Midian waits patiently for the revolution to reach his ‘last stand’ in the governor’s palace. One by one his supporters abandon him (either stealthily, as in the case of his Seneschal, or openly). All but his most loyal. These brave men stand by their lord, ready and willing to die for even the possibility that he may live. As a noble, he is used to people fighting for him. But as a mutant, he has never had people willing to die for him.
As the last of the loyalists die around him, he sends the recording of Xanatov’s execution to the Adeptus Mechanicus who rebroadcast it to every public viewer in Vinh City.
As Midian drops his ‘Glamour’, the tone of the place changes. Something is different, feels different. He shifts his senses and sees that the local warp space currents have changed. They’re converging, becoming a whirl-pool around the city and the surrounding environs.
Soon Maya find him. She is heavily bandaged, but is distracted by something other than pain. She looks around her, nervously, while the mob brutally punishes their former masters and oppressors.
Mid: “You feel it, don’t you. The power of it… the beauty.”
Maya nods, struck dumb.
Taking her by the hand, he leads her to along the path painted by the currents.

He finds his way into Xanatov’s chapel. Here the currents pool and spiral downwards. On the floor in an Aquila and he perceives its single jewelled eye to be shining. At first he places one of Anya Qi’s eyes upon it. When that doesn’t do anything at all, he touches it with his fingers. The ground shakes, the body of the eagle rises, it’s wings folding back. Behind it are stairs.
Maya locks the door and the two go down.

A tiny elevator quickly takes them amongst the roots of Vinh City. Lum’s ‘Holy Temple’ is a dirty, circular room infiltrated by a network of pipes. Maya is not too impressed.
Midian understands that time is against them and begins to set up the occult trappings the ritual requires.
Candles are set at cardinal and inter-cardinal stations. Incense burns in braziers of burnished brass. Strange sigils, faithfully copied from the recovered pages, are chalked on the ground or else painted in spilt animal blood.

Midian, anchors the place in your mind using the navigational formulae acquired from the pages.
The Warp energy swirls in very specific patterns just beyond the skin of reality. It’s impressive and not a little worrying, but the ritual requires strong will to focus it. Before Midian is able to make the necessary adjustments, Maya surprises him by taking control. He is so surprised that he reads her. She is no psyker, but seems quite adept at shielding herself, and that self-control is aiding her.

Midian’s mouth goes dry and he can feel his heart pounding in his chest, almost as if it’s trying to break through. Adrenaline courses through his veins.
He can feel the will of a million souls. They are the people. They are the mob. They want the same things. They’re acting as one, thinking much the same thoughts.
Midian, has never experienced anything like this. The energy isn’t being filtered by his eye, instead coursing through every cell in his body. Only, it isn’t just a beautiful tide of pure, empyric energy – there are thoughts, intrinsically caught within the current, washing through his mind – thoughts not his own hijacking his brain! It threatens his sanity, but fortune smiles and he retains control.

You black out momentarily and something is wrong. As strange as it sounds it takes you a second or two to work out what it is. You’re no longer viewing the room from your own perspective, but from some point above your body.
You can see the room’s occupants on their knees, eyes rolled back, jaws slack, slowly – far too slowly – slumping to the ground.
All of your senses become sharper. You feel the dirt and stone of the floor and the burning heat within the flames of all the candles. You hear the worms in the dirt, the celebrations (or despairing commiserations) of the rioting locals even through dozens of feet of earth. You can taste sweat and blood and dirt and lho-stick smoke.
You continue to rise through the air. You try to blink as your brain tells you something’s wrong, desperately wrong, but find you cannot. Distracted by new sensory input – the inside of Vinh City, with all the looting, burning and destruction – you lose sight of temple and yourself. You try to search for it but it’s too late – you can now see the entire city, then the entire region, the continent, the world.
The uncontrollable acceleration continues, hurling you into orbit. There is no air in your lungs - panic sets in and, irrational and futile though it is, you try to claw your way back with arms you cannot see.
But you do not die. Convulsions wrack your body as your brain screams, “DANGER! NO OXYGEN! DANGER! NO OXYGEN!”. Even this dulls down to nothing as the absolute cold around you – the cold of the void – numbs even thought.
Thought, but not perception.

“I’m… I am… not dead.” This idea seems to take a decade to form. By the time the last syllable forms in your mind, Vinh in gone. Soon after, the system disappears too.
Seconds pass and the Cauldron and God-Emperor’s Scourge race by on either side. Seconds after that, the Koronus shrinks down to a dot, disappearing at the edge of “Segmentum Obscurus”. Briefly, you see the whole of the milky-way, spinning away into oblivion, joined by bright dots that must be its sibling galaxies. Finally, all is black.

At first Midian does not know what to do. He shouts, but hears nothing. Sees nothing. Feels nothing. He shifts his perception to the Warp and nothing seems wrong. In fact, nothing has changed – his perspective relative to the warp is the same as it was before the ritual began. He can even locate Maya Zin’s aura – unchanged in position.
Slowly it becomes clear that he hasn’t left his body or physically moved at all, that only his senses have been expanded. Expanded, and been overwhelmed – no human mind can process the sheer volume of information he was receiving and so… it had shut down.
With that in mind, Midian began, tentatively, to experiment. At first, forcing open up his senses again was impossible – the flood of information threatening to destroy his mind – but slowly, and surely, he made his way home.

---

Midian looked at himself in the mirror. ‘Not bad at all’ he thought to himself, admiring the female navigator who stared back. Maya returned. Seeing Midian’s form, she raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment, checking the door was secure behind her.
May: “What do you make of this?”
She drew a four-inch shard of black crystal from her bag, passing it to Midian. He shifted to warp-sight, but was already fairly sure what she’d found.
Mid: “I don’t know what it does, but it’s a Yu’Vath construct. Or part of one. Where did you get it?”
She took it back and put it away.
May: “You were doing your thing so I went investigating. Everything is… different now. Everywhere I go, everything is so-”
Mid: “Familiar.”
May: “Yes.
“I heard some rumours and went to check them out. Mordecai’s dead – summoned a daemon… things got out of hand – lots of death. That thing was inside him.”
Maya Zin had taken longer to recover from the blackout, and was changed by the experience. Colder, if that were possible. Cold enough that she did not shiver when saying the word 'daemon', as most people did.
Mid: “Are you ready?”
May: “Nothing to keep me here.”
Mid: “And my former employer will certainly investigate the disturbance on Vinh.”
May: “Then I’d best not be here – I’d hate to be a loose end, something that could lead him to you. I imagine I’d find that most unfortunate.”
Midian smiled, deftly brushing aside the implied accusation.
Mid: “Vinh was a nice enough place to visit. But I suspect you’ll love Blemish.”

X Kingdom: Intrigue

The seneschal is a vain, but unambitious man. Though Administratum trained, he is no order-above–all worshiping Adept. Instead he’s a house cat, content to feed the indulgences of his master as long as his own comfort is secure. That said, he carries none of the taint that Mordecai has detected in others whose minds he has invaded.

He calls himself Radulf Omes now, when he calls himself anything at all. But he wasn’t born with that name.

He’s from a world called ‘Clove’, in the Calyxis sector. He was a high-ranking member of the Administratum… but was found guilty of embezzlement. Not a sufficient amount to warrant his execution (given how much his education had cost the Imperium), but enough to strip him of rank and place him in a labour camp for a decade. Even afterwards he’d spend the rest of his days repaying 150% of his debt (plus compound interest, and administration fees).

He fled. He changed his face. Left Imperium-controlled space. Came to the frontier. It would be difficult and certainly impractical to do a thorough background check on him, and he’d give his new employer no reason to suspect him. He should never have stolen from the Imperium – he should have come here all along. The frontier is nowhere near as dangerous as the fools in the Calyxis sector believed it was… As long as Xanatov’s indulgences are fed, he was safe – would be protected even!

Amon Core; the Seneschal’s name had been Amon Core.

As he finishes recounting the Governor’s public schedule the Seneschal waves to some servants and the concubines are led from the room. Maya doesn’t spare a second glance. She slinks away with her chin high, her eyes half-closed and a cat-like smile on her face – it is clear she’s played this role before. The eyes of the guards follow her, which is lucky because ‘Midi-Anna’ is less convincing, being a little too aware of ‘her’ surroundings. Oh well, perhaps they’ll just think she’s less experienced.

Mor: “Thank you for your hospitality. Regretfully, I must return to my master (may his star be ever in ascendancy). I hope your Governor enjoys the humble gifts of House Harrowe.”

Sen: “Of course. Thank your master for the gift. I am certain that in a day or two the Governor will wish to thank him personally.”

Returning the seneschal’s insincere smile, Midian nods and turns to leave.

--x--

He runs to different public teleferica, plunging down into the lower landings and levels of Vinh City. He is slowed by an increasingly worried body of enforcers who, in response to the growing civil unrest, slow street-traffic down with roadblocks, over-zealous crowd dispersal and security check points.
The mood is grim. It becomes increasingly clear to Mordecai that the enforcers no longer fear reprimand – order is decaying but those who are a part of it must continue to serve or else suffer.
The citizenry are no better, there is a sense that there’s almost nothing left to lose. The arrest of Hala Chen – who is already being compared to Saint Akiah - isn’t public yet… The news of Vinh’s saviour being tortured, possibly killed will insense many.

---

May: “...How capable is your man?”

She speaks in hushed tones, smiling all the while, enjoying Xanatov’s wine. After a cursory (their attire leaves little room to conceal anything) weapons check, they have been led to one of the Governor’s private lounge areas.

Mid: “How do you mean?”

May: “I mean, I specifically asked you before why he was around – ‘what he brought to the table’ – and you said he had ‘warp-based powers’ but were unsure as to their extent. In your rooms you talked about him reading Xanatov’s mind. That you kept this from me is a conversation for another time, but for now just assume I’m angry at you hiding this information - the exact kind of information I’d asked for - and move on.”

Her voice is level. If her anger is more than ‘mildly peeved’ she has quite a talent for emotional compartmentalisation.

Mid: “As you said, I told you I didn’t know their extent-”

May: “You knew he was a psyker. Specifically, you knew he was a damn telepath. I would have done things very differently if I knew he could be reading my mind. But as I said, we must move on.”

Mid: “Ah.
“If he knows what you’re up to with Grigor, he hasn’t shown it.
“Okay, maybe I should have told you the extent of Mordecai’s powers. But I’m not an espionage specialist, I don’t adapt the same way. I see… ‘differently’ than you.”

May: “After the revolution Grigor becomes irrelevant. I could have ‘chosen’ him, installed him, then - after the ritual - killed him and left Mordecai’s milk-maid to fuck up the Governorship. Would this not have appeased your man’s sensibilities?”

Mid: “Possibly. If he thought you were capable of pulling it off. But you didn’t think you could kill the Amael and live, so why would he think you’d succeed against Grigor?”

May: “I’d hope Grigor would let me get close. After all, I’d be the one who gave him the throne. Still risky though. And Mordecai doesn’t trust easily, does he?”

Mid: “No.”
Midian pauses to consider.
Mid: “We don’t know Hala’s dead. There’s every chance we can still bring her in. Afterwards.”

Maya tries to read Midian. The navigator knows Mordecai better than her, so if he isn’t contacting the psyker with this proposal she supposes he must judge it too much of a risk. Either that or the navigator is holding the plan in reserve, unwilling to commit to a dangerous venture unless he has to. Maya adds this to her assessment of the man.

May: “I suppose there isn’t anything we can do about it right now. ‘The die has been cast’ - we must now work with what we have…”

--x--

Eventually Xanatov arrives. He is every bit as repugnant as Midian remembers. He bobs into the room, buoyed by implanted suspensors. The skin over his bloated flesh is flushed and slick with a sheen of sweat. He views both of the girls before him with unconcealed lecherous glee.
While Midian distracts the Governor with the body he’d crafted with such artistry, luring him into a blind-spot, Maya pours drinks, drugging Xanatov’s. He quickly succumbs to the soporific agent.

---

Almost an hour after leaving the Governor’s Palace, Mordecai arrives at the cramped apartment that he shares with Midian. From the message he received on-route from Maya, he has about an hour to accomplish his own secret agenda.

With few places Midian could have hidden anything, the psyker quickly finds what he is looking for – two locked strong boxes. Adding his telekinetic might to the strength of his flesh, he bursts each lock open in turn.
The first contains the precious stones Midian has been using to obtain currency – Mordecai fills his pockets.
The second contains a suit of finely wrought armour. Mordecai ignores it, vaguely annoyed.

He stands and turns to leave, pausing as he reaches Loki. Curious, he reaches into whatever is left of the servitor’s mind.
The contact is confusing, the images as fuzzy as a poorly-honoured viewer. The whole experience is deeply uncomfortable, but his own defences are strong so suffers no more than a mild headache.
Not finding what he’d hoped, he breaks contact and leaves.

--x--

With his new-found wealth, Mordecai hires a driver to transport him swiftly about the city.
Stopping for only a few mundane supplies, he heads for the headquarters of the Administratum.
He chooses a gem the size of his palm and places it in a fine gift box with a simple note: ‘The opportunity of a lifetime awaits you at the front desk. You should probably cancel the rest of your meetings for today.’

The box contains no dangerous chemicals, biological matter or technological traps so quickly finds its way to its illustrious addressee – the Amael Lucretia Casmirre.
He is quickly ushered through the inner corridors to the Amael’s office. On three sides, the Amael’s chambers overlook an Adept-filled central courtyard leading to dozens of glass-fronted offices.
Though he is still armed – albeit only with an ornate, gentlemanly mono-sword – the Amael indicates for her personal eight-strong bodyguard to leave. What will occur next need not concern them, nor anyone else. Without any observable action from her, the chamber windows dim slightly.
She raises an inquisitive eyebrow and is about to speak when a heavy, telekinetically-propelled paperweight collides with the back of her skull. Her face collides with her desktop and she slides to the floor.

Mordecai reaches into the concussed administrator’s mind, finding it free of spiritual taint. That only those involved in the revolution seem contaminated begins to worry him. Her recent memories confirm old suspicions – the records in the archive have now been replaced by extremely well-put-together forgeries that exclude any mention of Lum.
On a happier note, none of the security reports the Amael has received indicate that Hala Chen has revealed anything of value yet, and the agents infiltrating the disparate gangs of troublemakers seem to believe that a unified revolutionary event is still a ways off.
He searches for her personal codes but rather than memorable phrases they are alpha-numeric strings and odd symbols.

Mor: “Maya, open a communication channel to the Amael’s office.”

---

The lounge’s large hololith hums to life and a life-sized hologram flickers to life above it. Mordecai’s grim visage slowly comes into focus, scanning-lines updating the image periodically.
Mordecai explains where he is and tells Maya that if she’ll kill Xanatov now, he’ll do the same with the Amael. Maya is so surprised she almost does so without thinking, but something is wrong – this was never part of the plan. She tells Mordecai she’ll do it, if she sees the Amael die first. She seems to be telling the truth… but Mordecai has no intention of murdering anyone.

He tells her that Midian has manipulated her, is using her but she already understands. She doesn’t trust Midian, but they currently share common goals. He needs a Kingmaker and she needs a Wayfarer, else neither gain the prize that Kith (who she trusted completely) had wagered his fortune and future to acquire.

She presents a counter-proposal. When the ritual is concluded she will murder Grigor, leaving Hala his logical successor.
But here Mordecai reveals his true intentions. It isn’t simply that he’s unwilling to participate in “Lum’s” ritual – dark forces are moving to see it accomplished, so he strongly suspects that it won’t end well for Vinh. Having “Governor Hala Chen” indebted to him would mean nothing if everyone were dead and Vinh were a smoking ruin. No, he actively opposes the ritual.

Eventually, negotiation fails. The two groups would not be reconciled – the risk to their respective agendas is too great – so they review their stalemate. As Maya sees it, even if Mordecai sells them out, she believes she can talk her way out of it (even if it were to mean abandoning Midian). Mordecai, as she sees it, has a bigger problem. He is in a room with a bloodied Amael, her bodyguards outside.
After thinking it over, Mordecai disagrees and cuts the transmission.

Elsewhere, the fighting has already begun.

X Kingdom: Final Plans

Mid: “Maya… I may need your help. If I needed you to, how would you feel about becoming the ‘Kingmaker’ again?”

May: “The only thing I’ve ever loved is dead. All I care about now is revenge and… I don’t know. I’m curious about what the ‘ritual’ will do, but not enough to invest any more of my time in it.”

This last is said with casual disregard rather than passion or fear. Despite the phrasing, it seems that if Midian were trying to recruit her, her apathy was his only enemy.

Mid: “Maya, look at yourself. This business with the Amael, the revolution, everything you’ve done to help me – you could have given me far less. Don’t you see? You’re still invested. And I know why.”

Midian mixes himself a drink. He sips, knowing that although young Ms Zin is waiting for an explanation; she’ll not ask – doing so would prove his point for him.

Mid: “You don’t understand Kith. He’s gone, and you don’t know why he was willing to risk so much – to risk everything. Maya, unless I succeed, you’ll never know.”

He tries to inject as much regret as he can into his words, and indeed has plenty to spare – should the endeavour fail, he would regret it dearly.
Maya does not respond. Instead her eyes bore into Midian’s like mining lasers. ‘This must be how I make other people feel’, he muses.

May: “I didn’t need to know. I had faith in him. You’re not him.
“I’d need to know what I would be getting out of it; The pages told me nothing.”

Mid: “I…”

Midian briefly considers whether he could get away with lying to a House spy.

Mid: “can’t tell you specifics. I don’t fully understand the ritual myself. But these things require specific circumstances – planetary alignments, personal trials… planetary regicide – and if they aren’t met, they cause failure. It is entirely possible that knowing the nature of the reward would place it immediately out of our grasp.”

May: “That… makes sense. Kith was holding things back, I know. I always had this nagging doubt that… but if he couldn’t confide in me, if there was no way around it…”

Mid: “I can only say that Lum put a lot of effort into it; that both he and Kith were willing to throw their careers and reputations away to see it through. You know the Navis Nobilite, you know these aren’t things we’d risk frivolously. They wouldn’t do it – I wouldn’t do it unless I was confident that I could gain something greater.”

May: “Pfff. Vague. But honest. I’m good at surviving – remember that if betrayal ever occurs to you.
“First off, I want to know what the situation is with your current partner? Why are you betraying him for instance? What did he bring to the table before?
“Second, what plans have you put into action? What worked, what didn’t?
“Finally, I can’t help if there are surprises waiting for me. What have you planned that hasn’t come into effect yet? And what exactly are you asking me to do?”

Mid: “Despite what the Imperials say about those with my… ‘genetics’, betrayal isn’t something that comes any more naturally to me than to you.
“As for Mordecai, he’s a capable warrior and has some… warp-based powers.”

May: “‘Warp-based’?”

Mid: “I don’t know their extent. The witch called him ‘Kingmaker’, but she was confused. Still, he has been involved in the revolution. Vital, in fact. He has campaigned for Hala Chen extensively.
“Secondly, I am not betraying him… but I think he’ll refuse to participate in the ritual, and the witch’s prophesy indicated that I’d need a Kingmaker.
“The only thing we’ve planned that hasn’t happened yet is Grigor’s removal. We know where he resides – we just need to convince the enforcers that he’s the ringleader of the malcontents. Which shouldn’t be too hard, because he is. Hala can then whip up the crowd with news of his martyrdom and step in to ‘avenge’ him.”

May: “I don’t think Hala can do it.”

Mid: “You haven’t seen what Mordecai’s done with her.”

May: “I would have to take your word for it. From what I’ve seen, I don’t think she’d be good as a leader even afterwards. She’ll listen to every sob-story the people bring her and try and solve every one – and if you try to do everything, you end up doing nothing.
“Besides, Kith made it seem like I had to ‘do’ something. I mean, ‘choosing’ isn’t exactly passive – Kith made it clear that I had to make a conscious, considered choice to back somebody – but after I’d done that it didn’t stop. Kith had me spending my days changing the minds of Grigor’s rivals. I haven’t done anything like that for Hala, but Mordecai has. I don’t know about this occult stuff, but in the real world, if Hala succeeds and you forced her to choose, I’m pretty sure she’d say that it was Mordecai who'd made her ‘King’.”

Mid: “Okay. Well, obviously I wouldn’t try to make your choice for you – if anything would invalidate the ‘Kingmaker’ role I’m sure it’d be that – so who would you choose? If Mordecai refuses, I mean.”

May: “If Grigor were dead and Hala, for whatever reason, wasn’t an issue? Pfff. Oskar Vivec Maybe? He isn’t as crafty as Grigor, but he’s firm. Not very imaginative. Does a lot of the lesser maintenance that the Ad-Mech aren’t needed for. Rani Sovus may be a better fit – an Administratum Adept, runs the central farms.”

---

--x--

---

Midian arrives at the rooms he’d rented somewhat burdened. Mordecai had returned an hour earlier. The navigator asks the question he feels Mordecai has sidestepped previously – “Will you complete your role in the ritual?”. Mordecai seems surprised that Midian doesn’t know what his answer will be already – he doesn’t care about the ritual at all. At this point, the navigator informs Mordecai that he’s negotiated with Maya Zin and she’s willing to take his place. Maya is called and a meet is set up for the next day.

Mordecai asks her who she’d support as leader of Vinh and she tells him the next best candidate is Rani Sovus, an Administratum Adept who runs the central farms. She tells him that Rani was a backup choice after Grigor Orlac. Mordecai asks for a meeting with her.
Convincing Rani to meet him on the eve of the revolution wasn’t going to be easy. Primarily because Rani will be incredibly busy preparing. Additionally, meeting with a stranger to her so late in the course of events is a significant risk. Maya unenthusiastically agrees to set it up, but as she’s meant to be manoeuvring Rani into position to take over after the new government forms she leaves after making the introduction.

After manoeuvring her into a conversation that she can carry without needing response from him, Mordecai peels her mind (finding her to be another strong-willed individual). She was raised by the Administratum Adepts within the Schola Progenium (Imperial Orphanage). She believes in order above all and sees the revolution as a means to reorganise Vinh into a more efficient animal all together. To that end she has been teaching revolutionaries how to stay hidden, interfering in Enforcer schedules and is the brains behind much of the logistics of the revolution.
She is not untouched by the darkness that has marked many of the souls on Vinh, but it is far less than some others. Her sanity is slightly less sound – she sees people more in terms of statistics than as individuals. She seems a better candidate for Amael than Governor, but she was never Maya’s first choice.

Mordecai returns to discuss an important loose end with Midian – how to stop Governor Xanatov from escaping. Midian’s casual overconfidence does not sit well with Mordecai. Summoning Maya, they discover that Kith had been selling his navigational routes far below their value (as evidenced when they searched his quarters). He’d primarily done this because he wanted the local space-faring merchant interests to owe him favours.
Midian reveals to Maya that he could cast an illusionary “Glamour” that would disguise him as Kith. He could then cash in Kith’s favours to have them shut down the spaceport (to protect their vessels from those damn revolutionaries, of course).

“Why Kith? Why not Xanatov?”
Mordecai’s idea is appealing to Midian. Maya points out that even if Midian can, he wouldn’t fool people for long if Xanatov were around (Xanatov can prove his identity with his access codes). Midian concludes that they need Mordecai’s telepathic prowess if they are to succeed. Angles are assessed, roles assigned and a letter of introduction is drafted.

Mordecai leaves once more to check on Hala Chen. He arrives to find four Enforcers in the corridor and her door kicked in. Secreting himself in the shadows he probes one of their minds. Hala has been arrested on charges of treason.

---

The plan:

1. Midian sends a letter of intent - he is sending a servant to present a gift to Xanatov. [Completed]


2. Mordecai arrives at the Governor’s palace with said gift (Midian and Maya, both in the guise of concubines).


3. Maya seduces then drugs Xanatov, at which point Midian impersonates him.


4. Mordecai is called back by “Xanatov”. He reads the mind of the real Xanatov.


5. Xanatov’s codes found, Amael Lucretia Casmirie is arrested and brought to “Xanatov” - who orders Maya to execute her.


6. When the rebel alliance strikes, “Xanatov” directs the defence personally (poorly).

X Kingdom: Rabble-Rousing

Midian explains that he has heard of “Malkuth” before. It’s a word that refers to real-space in certain occult philosophies. Doubt (to put it mildly) is expressed at the ritual’s ability to “conquer” all of real-space, but Midian at least is determined to see it through.

Mordecai, on the other hand, is far more interested in the revolution. He seems genuinely interested in the welfare of the people – though only, he claims, because it seems possible that he could make Vinh a safe haven for himself. So while he doesn’t accept the “Kingmaker” role that the confused, daemon-haunted witch had labelled him with, he is willing to perform the role’s duties.
He will not choose Grigor Orlac, which seems to leave Hala Chen as the only viable candidate. He prudently decides to investigate further, first.

Grigor’s place is a bust. He lives poorly, in a workman’s dormitory in the lower reaches. Those who live there know him to be a tough, resolute figure and respect him for it. Even the most runtish of the residents – the butt of all jokes – holds grudging respect for the man. Grigor’s locker holds nothing too incriminating. Midian sees nothing psychically active among the clothes, tools, revolutionary pamphlets and battered, recovered xenomesh.

Hala is more uplifting. She works more hours than she is paid for, seeming to genuinely to care about the people. But if Mordecai was to choose her to lead these people, she’d need a little more steel.
When she leaves the clinic, exhausted, it is the dead of night. She wanders through the dirty streets oblivious to her surroundings and the denizens that lurk within them. She is too tired for caution and too at familiar with her environment to consider the danger…
The dreg approaches stealthily. He holds the voices at bay because his is stronger. But the darkness is there, rotting his resolve, and all it takes is a more coherent voice in his head to push him to act. But as he raises the knife and moves to grab the pretty lady, a different monster steps out of the shadows! Midian’s bleached white skin reflects the meagre street lighting, making the liquid opal orbs of his eyes all the more threatening. The lunatic flees into the night.
The protagonists escort Hala home. She lives in something not dissimilar to a prison cell, but at least she has privacy. Without asking, she shakily pours them all a drink and, her defences well and truly down, the protagonists begin their inquiry. Scanning her mind (the strongest he’d encountered so far) Mordecai learns much about who she is. And she’s genuine. She genuinely cares about people, genuinely wants the best for them. She knows the revolution will be bloody, knows people will suffer and deeply regrets the necessity. She won’t shy away from it, however. She dislikes Grigor and his methods, but believes the people won’t continue to follow him once the oppression of the current regime is removed. The way she sees it, she’s using him – nature will take its course afterwards.
After using his now quite extensive knowledge of her psyche, Mordecai plants the seed that Grigor may have sent that psycho to “martyr” her – a not ineffective tactic, if it could be used for good…

It was time to push the revolution forward.
Midian began by organising some arms shipments; then intimidates Enforcers (when they back down, it not only demoralizes them, it shows those who see it that they aren’t to be feared); and convinces Hala that Xanatov’s eventual execution must be public, or justice won’t have been seen to be done (though it means some of her best people will die, she agrees). He draws the attention of Enforcers, but flees into the crowds.
Mordecai coaches Hala into becoming a better figurehead; steals secrets from the minds of corrupt officials and exposes them; and spreads occult-laden rumours about the noble classes (the superstitious masses start labelling them as touched my Menqual). He draws the attention of an Ecclesiarchy “purge” squad but, like Midian, loses them in the sprawl.

Fifteen days later, Maya Zin calls them to a meeting with Grigor, Hala and the other leaders of the revolution. Midian reads them and sees that no less than one-in-seven are dangerously corrupt. The revolution begins in two days.

X Kingdom: Kith's Army

Midian and Mordecai study the pages. If they are to be believed, it seems the unnamed author had been testing a variety of occult theories. Discovering how and why is frustrating, the difficulty multiplied by the fact that many pages are missing.
Never-the-less, as they become familiar with the author’s idiosyncrasies, the content proves to be quite fascinating and the ideas start to make them question what they’ve been taught about Navigation and Psychic Lore. At the very least it provokes introspective thought and inspires them to come up with new conclusions to old concepts.

The protagonists communicate with Maya only by notes left in Kith’s quarters, instructing her to build up a profile of Amael Lucretia’s movements.
(Limited: Spends all day and most of night in archive, never out of earshot of her eight bodyguards.)
On the third day her pattern changes, writing off much of Maya’s work. The Amael reopens the archive.
Given the time since Kith’s investigations first tipped her off, Mordecai hypothesizes that she’s likely purged anything dangerous or embarrassing.
Midian advises her to begin mapping the Amael’s patterns, but Maya has something more pressing for the protagonists, someone she wants them to meet…

She takes them down to the bottom of the ziggurat, to one of the many warehouses. A man with an augmetic eye stands watch but, after she vouches for them, they’re allowed to proceed. His distrust is still evident.
Inside, three dozen malnourished, bitter-looking plebs sit or stand, listening to a man standing atop a crate. The orator is a tall and wiry man with black hair, and looks like a worker himself. He is more heavily scarred than anyone else present and bares fresh bruises on his cheek and arms.
“…and it shall never change.
“The poor worker will always suffer. It is our lot – and we accept it… endure it.
“But must we suffer alone? Why do the rich deserve their comfort? What have they sacrificed? Why should they be spared?”
A lone voice calls out; “We must have faith!” but it’s a weak voice, and there is no conviction behind it.
“Faith? In what? Brothers… sisters… our ancestors departed the bounds of the Imperium. They came beyond its borders. Spurned the protection it ‘claimed’ to offer. They struggled – as we all struggle – but they were not free. Has Governor Xanatov not just given the resources of our world away? Has he not taken the food from your mouths and given it to distant, uncaring bureaucrats who offer – who can offer – nothing in return?”
[more bitter cheering, interrupted by another single voice] “But the PDF!”
“Bokor* is dead. Does anyone doubt this? And we are far from toothless.” Grigor prizes open a crate to reveal a rack of autoguns. “But more importantly, brothers and sisters, I ask you… With what little you have to lose, are you really willing to let the injustice of the fat man’s decadent rule?”
The crowd begins to nod, grim resolve building within them. As the orator steps down, they begin speaking in smaller groups, discussing useful targets (or else plotting petty vengeance).

A woman – who Maya identifies as Hala Chen - who stood watching behind the orator, takes him to one side. Maya leads the protagonists towards these two, explaining that this Grigor Orlac had been shaping up to be her most likely candidate to replace Xanatov.
As they approach, they overhear him Grigor arguing with Hala. She wants to use the remainder of their money to provide medicae for the masses, but Grigor eventually convinces her that unless the people are at their lowest, they’ll never fight back. He regrets the truth of it, but if their misery abates they’ll still put up with the status quo. Unless their fear of losing what they have outweighs their fear of the Governor, they’ll never rebel.

Mordecai peers into Grigor’s mind and does not like what he finds.

• Grigor is in significant pain, which does not show at all in his body language or demeanour.


• He genuinely wants a revolution, but knows people will suffer during it. He doesn’t mind this – he likes it.
  
• He got the bruises from fighting with Enforcers who were shaking down a farmer.


• He feels genuine relish from suffering (his own and that of others). This isn’t sexual, but instead a source of both pride and satisfaction.


• There are familiar traces of something that scares Mordecai in this man’s mind. Something that is encouraging the dark impulses within Grigor.

(He also pulls Grigor’s home address – a dormitory in the lower levels.)
At Mordecai’s telepathic prompting, Midian reads Grigor’s soul. The man is certainly corrupt, and he confirms that he has been ‘touched’ by some kind of darkness.
Maya introduces the protagonists as people who were working with Kith. When Grigor happily enquires as to how they intend to further the cause – how they can weaken their oppressors, strengthen the rebels or recruit converts – Midian is vague, obfuscating with rhetoric worthy of a practiced politician. Given the resources that their associate (Kith) has poured into the cause, Grigor doesn’t seem to mind.

Given what he’s learned, Mordecai is horrified that Maya would think to replace even a decadent, self-interested ass-wipe like Xanatov** with someone inherently worse (Grigor). Maya shrugs – she wasn’t thinking of choosing him because he was a good person, but because he was most likely to succeed. She adds, quite callously, that it wasn’t like she and Kith intended to stay afterwards.
When she leaves he questions Midian about the whole endeavour. It seems more and more likely to him that their actions will further the agenda of a ‘daemon’. Midian responds that he doesn’t care if it does. If there is a chance that their current path can increase Midan’s knowledge, understanding or power, it’s worth risking the wellbeing of people he doesn’t know.

Back at their lodgings, the protagonists continue to study the pages. Though much of the text is gibberish, much of it also seems familiar, and Mordecai finds psychic focusing rituals and meditation techniques which, with very little practice, he could add to his mental training regime.
Many of the experiments documented parallel theories you’ve encountered through their own research (SL: Occult). Huge sections of it, however, turn out to be incredibly detailed Navigational formulae. With these algorithms you could plot Vinh’s position not just within the system, but within the Expanse, the Sector… even the Segmentum, if you really wanted to go that far. It takes into account everything Midian can think of – from stellar drift and galactic expansion to the gravitational effects of irregular cometary matter. It is frightening the level of detail someone’s gone into – a Navigator would never need to do this.
At some point, the author must have made what they believed was a breakthrough, as the later pages detail some kind of sorcerous ritual. Devised by the author, the purpose of the ritual is, evidently, to “conquer” or “master” somewhere or something called “Malkuth”.

---

* Colonel Harakeen Bokor was killed on Blemish (a meeting place for several pirate-kings) by Sabine Alcina (facilitated by Sarvus Roe and his command crew – Midian included). Despite having been officially retired from command of the PDF, his name still made them feared

** Governor Oren Xanatov has been exaggerating his defence requirements to the Administratum; using the defence budget to line his own pockets, at the expense of the people of Vinh. “At great cost”, he also acquired the “Black Imperator” – a staff that was reputedly cursed, but was in fact harmless – and handed it over to the Ecclesiarchy for disposal.

X Kingdom: Prophesy

Anya’s place it sits in the back of a semi-circular depression, making the building look like it has backed its way into a corner. Roots from trees on the ridge above have emerged from earth behind it, their blind progress following the building’s surfaces. Were it not for the flickering light of the many candles inside the protagonists would guess this was deliberate, natural camouflage.
The shack itself is old and rickety. The boards are uneven and have a rough finish to them, porch roof appears to be held up by stripped tree branches, and the windows are unglazed – only tacked-on gauze keeping the insects out. From damp, rotting beams hang wind-chimes made from clattering animal bones. Before the threshold is a thick arc of red-brown powder which Mordecai shifts with the tip of his sword.
After Midian’s inquiries are rebuffed by the occupant, Mordecai kicks the door in and brusquely enters the abode.

Anya herself looks in worse shape than her home. She is old, perhaps in her eighth or ninth decade and wears a cloth patch across her left eye (which, Midian later notes, removed two or three weeks ago). From her squint, it seems her other one isn’t working too well either.
She was afraid of and cowers when Mordecai telekinetically wrenches the knife from her hand.
At this point she gives up, and does whatever she can to get rid of the strangers (beginning with patching Midian up sufficiently that he can walk unaided). Her subsequent interrogation is hampered by her addled mind and she frequently mistakes Midian for Kith (referring to both by one of Lum’s epithets, “Wayfarer”), so Mordecai attempts to take what he needs from her mind. At this point his own mind is almost sucked down into a spiralling darkness the likes of which he has never experienced. Whatever is in there with him certainly enjoys the rising panic before he extricates himself, fleeing into the night. Midian tries to stop him, attempting to freeze him in place with one of his warp-spawned talents, but (having to restrain himself so as not to injure his felow renegade) is unable to overpower the psyker’s formidable mental defences.

Not wishing to leave empty-handed, her returned and perservered with the interrogation piecing together what he could. Anya hadn’t been able to tell Kith what he’d wanted to know – there were no “magical” ruins about the place and certainly no temple. At one point she muttered, “I told you what you wanted to know – you should already have your army by now!” but when pressed said she didn’t know why Kith/Midian/Wayfarer needed an army (and was confused as to why he wouldn’t know), only that she wanted nothing to do with it.
Eventually, after Midian promises to return the eye he took from her, she is pressed into redoing Kith/Midian/Wayfarer’s “reading”.
She takes a fat yellow serpent from a basket and prays at a cluttered shrine consisting of herbs, animal bones, a Vinh-minted coin (Xanatov’s side is on display), a ceramic figurine of a woman holding a basket of fruit, and another figure – this one of carved stone - of some robed figure. Midian notes that it is not uncommon for primitive religions to disguise themselves within the trappings of a dominant religion, so doesn’t question these things. All this time she mumbles nonsense words to herself. She finishes abruptly, cutting open the serpent and emptying it’s entrails into a burnished copper bowl.

“See! Same as always, Wayfarer. Same as Anya always tells you. You and the Kingmaker are already on the path.”
She then goes into a fit. It abrupty ends and her bodylanguage shifts to that of someone with much greater confidence.

“A hollow soul, marked by sin,
“A traveller lost, hell beckons him.
“The monarch chained to stolen throne,
“A temple found… [laughter] by eye of crone.
“An ancient prize, sought, seized and won.
“First found, last forged, soon done.”

Whoever Anya is at this point isn’t too helpful. It doesn’t know nor cares about Maya Zin and sees the Wayfarer and Kingmaker’s progress as inevitable.

The reading leaves Anya weak. So weak that she can’t resist when Midian deocularises her with her own knife.
He realises that he has essentially doomed her to a painful death – likely sooner than later – so she is, effectively, of no further use to him. With this in mind he further realises he can engage in the spite he had intended to visit upon her for wounds inflicted by the undead in the jungle around her home (given what she was harbouring inside her, it doesn’t seem that unreasonable that she was their cause). He starts up his chainsword and carves her into chunks. As an afterthought, he searches the place thoroughly, finding a spidery grimoire beneath the floorboards. From the multiple corrections in various hands, he deduces that Anya wasn’t the first witch to own this book.
With the source of his terror very much dead, Mordecai is able to return and the pair snatch some fitful sleep.

The next day they head back, avoiding the village of Perdition alltogether. Hal (who is late) notes on the way back their dischevelled, bloody clothes, and listens with mild interrest to their story of how they killed some peasant witch.

Back in Vinh City, they head for a public park, the location of which Midian had planted in the transportation network. They wait for some time but eventually find their quarry. Maya Zin pulls a gun on Midian, preparing to publically execute him. She is forestalled not by threats or subtle mind-control, but by logic.
She initially tells them that she knows Midian set Kith up, and that Midian was trying to userp Kith’s place in the great work they had done on Vinh. Midian can see that this isn’t something she really “knows” (it can’t be, it isn’t true (though if he’d known it would have been – ha!)) but something she’s trying to convince herself of. Why? Because Midian’s someone she can kill and get away with it. The person she really suspects (and who our protagonists push her gently towards) is the Amael, Lucretia Casmirre. But that, she knows (so must already have conciderred) is a suicide mission.
The protagonists get a little more out of her, but she slams on the breaks before revealing everything she knows. Eventually, she wants an oath from Midian – he will not leave Vinh until Lucretia Casmirre is dead. Midian conciders. What she has is too important, it could get him something he very much wants. So, quite honestly, he agrees (for one, he suspects a second assassination attempt would be less nihilistically planned). She stares him in the eye and understands.

Maya Zin was bought when she was, she guesses, aged 11 or 12. This would make her about 23. Kith had her raised and trained to be a spy. Spies are a necessity for noble families, so Kith’s purchase isn’t unusual, but it hints at long-term vision, an independent streak and a more than healthy sense of paranoia. As she grew the two fell in love (Midian notes that this is unusual, if true – Navigators shouldn’t risk weakening their bloodlines by poluting it with offspring not wholy “of the gene”), culminating when he granted her her freedom.
A year or so ago, when the House’s fortunes started to slide, Kith decided to devote himself to what had previously been a dalliance – the study of Lum. He became convinced (for whatever reason) that Lum’s eventual disappearance wasn’t a mundane event, but the result of some empowering event. And it was power that Kith too could gain access to.
There’s more, but Maya tells Midian she’ll need to make contact with others first. In the meantime she sends him to Hostel Sierra, where she has stashed the mysterious “pages” with which she hooked Midian’s attention.

Midian finds them exactly where he is told they’d be – in a small, glass-fronted wooden box taped to the back fo the dresser. The first of the velum pages is an Astromantic map of the Vinh system, with an odd error upon it: it lists Vinh as “SRef: X”, but Vinh isn’t the tenth Stellar Reference point in the system, it’s the first (there being no other planets between it and the system’s sun).
The rest of the pages are unclear – they’re someone’s personal notes, written solely to benefit themselves and use phrases whose meanings are never explained. It would take some time to make more sense of it…

X Kingdom: Expedition

The protagonists get Hal to take them to the last place he took Kith – a tiny village called Perdition. The trip is pleasant, whipping along on a landspeeder, skimming the treeline, warm air racing passed. It’s only after he drops them off and they’re standing in the still air that they notice just how unpleasant Vinh actually is.
33 degrees by day, 26 degrees by night; 88% humidity. Unending clouds of buzzing, biting insects. Within five minutes Midian is miserable.

The able-bodied of the village are out in the paddies, leaving children and a few old folk in the village hub. The protagonists are dressed as nobles in comparison to the locals, who wear short, formless, threadbare robes. They are left alone by adults (who clearly expect nothing but trouble from these “rich” outsiders) and spied upon by the children.
At a watering hole, they are given free drinks by an elderly barkeep and asked to leave. When Midian’s questions provide little information – he pleads ignorance to everything – Mordecai savagely tears through his mind.
A navigator did come here, with a woman in tow. He asked about old buildings from the first surveys or the founding but, like with Midian, no one was forthcoming. So he executed someone in the street. Nobody was able to help but, desperate to appease the callous noble, they steered him in the direction of someone who may know more – a local woman who had been shunned and exiled and branded witch, called Anya Qi. The navigator returned the next day, but there was no more trouble.
The man knew only the rough direction to where Anya had gone to make her new home but, bribing some children, Midian was given a fairly decent map.

The trip is gruelling, but Midian proves himself a master of all forms of navigation as they trek through the steaming, rotting, serpent-plagued jungle.
They neared their destination around dusk. Rather than be relieved at nearing the end of the exhausting journey, Mordecai becomes suspicious. Something isn’t right. At his urging, Midian continues more cautiously. Even so, Mordecai notices them first.
Initially, it’s the smell of rotting, bloated flesh. Then the rustle of leaves. Then, through the dense foliage, they start shuffling into view – the walking dead.
Midian is quickly* surrounded. He fights a desperate fight, searching potential future-tides that will best keep him alive, but eventually falls – only moments after realising the creatures’ downfall was in his grasp all along. He lies on the ground, bleeding to death.
Mordecai fares better. Encased in a telekinetic field, he lashes out, striking the undead down, or else hacking them down with his sword. At no point does it seem he considers running. But is this loyalty to his meal-ticket, or simply him revelling in his superiority to the monsters the universe throws at him?
Battered, bleeding only a little, covered in putrescent gore, he soon stands alone. Through the trees he sees a rickety old shack. Shouldering Midian he makes towards it…

---

* A little too quickly. Oops.

Renegades

Midian Astis-Kyn: Rogue Navigator

Midian took his charter with the Rogue Trader Sarvus Roe to get away from the stifling restrictions of the Imperium, but found that he still felt suffocated. Abandoning his obligations, Midian seeks knowledge and freedom from a galaxy which will never be allowed to accept him.

Mordecai: Rogue Psyker

Born to be hunted, Mordecai seeks a place where he no longer has to run, and can explore his abilities in peace. As soon as that bloody navigator gets him on board a ship, he may get a chance at finding it.

Maya Zin: Spy

A former slave, trained from youth by the far-seeing Kith Conran as a spy for a House that was sliding into Shadow. Maya fell in love with her master and she believes he felt the same. He took her to his bed, granted her freedom, and promised her a place by his side.
But Kith, as has been pointed out more than one, kept secrets…

X Kingdom: Investigating Kith

Satisfied with the progress Bao is making uncovering Kith Conran’s research, Midian makes an additional request – find anything interesting about the Architect, Alba Kos.


Transportation Department

The protagonists then arrange a meeting with Niki Camen under the false identities (Navigator Malachi and his servant, Manfred Phillips). They find her amid heavy cargo-lifting Sentinels and civilian pattern Landspeeders. Niki is a short blonde girl with almond shaped eyes and blue irises. She is pious (to the Machine Cult at least) and proper. Kith apparently came to her, obviously having heard that she was the best pilot in the city, asking to hire her for trips into the wilderness. This outraged her – she would never waste the city’s resources (fuel, wear-and-tear on her assigned Landspeeder, etc.) for personal gain. The look on her face told Midian that others were not as “by-the-book” as Niki, but she was not one to complain about a fellow pilot. Luckily, she didn’t need to – she was thinking about one, and that put her firmly in Mordecai’s territory.


“Yaroshenko’s Landing” (a Pilot’s Lounge)

The lounge is lit only by narrow-beamed spot lamps, providing areas harsh illumination and shadowy darkness. The protagonists find it unusual, but the regular patrons seem to be comfortable with it, sitting amid clouds of Lho-smoke drinking shots of Rhya wine.
A small gratuity gets them pointed towards Hal Veche, the pilot Niki had thought of. Hal stands out amongst the other pilots, who are mainly short, dark and olive-skinned. Hal is a tall, fair-haired man, apparently in his late twenties. His hair is roughly cropped and his face covered in stubble. He wears a sweat-stained vest and his flight suit is tied about his waist. On one bare forearm is an Aquilla tattoo; on the other, a series of female names, all crossed out (Niki’s is fourth up from the bottom). He sits alone.
While Midian questions him, Mordecai once more exercises his Telepathic discipline:

• Most of the vehicles being demilitarised (only Planetary Defence weapons unchanged) and there were many redundancies (not a good time to be seen as a liability to the city).


• Kith had a girl with him (Mana or Mara?). She was quiet, but pretty and obedient (Hal was quite jealous of the latter).


• Hal took Kith many places – mostly the initial survey sites, frontier outposts and the outlying geologis operations. He came back from these places in roughly the same mood he left, until the last time (to a place called “Perdition”) when he seemed thoughtful, barely speaking on the trip back.

If they need him to take them anywhere he says he can do it for the same rates (Mordecai knows this is a lie – Hal is asking for more, but given the risk has increased this isn’t unusual).


The protagonists' temporary dwelling

Bao voxes Midian, distraught, afraid and angry (so much so that he isn’t thinking clearly – broadcasting on an unscrambled vox-channel). Kith’s research uncovered something shocking, something the Amael would of course want to keep secret, something that could provoke her into her current panicked investigation into the Archive.
Saint Akiah, the Lady of Prudence herself, was engineered to boost morale. The “Saint” supposedly arrived on a ship called “The Penitent Sinner” (which Midian knows is the same ship Lum arrived on), but that name doesn’t appear in The Penitent Sinner’s crew or passenger manifest).
Her three “miracles” were predicting the erosion of a series of dams and organising the safe and efficient evacuation of the people working near it (prudent foresight); toiling in the fields for seven days and seven nights without break (dedication to duty); and defeating the daemon Menqual (destroying evil).
All of these reflect traits one would like to encourage in one’s workforce, if one were willing to commit Heresy (inventing miracles detracts from true miracles). Mordecai muses that in the local slang, the worst criminals – murders, traitors and rabble-rousers – are referred to as having “a touch of the Menqual”, even now.

Maya Zin's part in all this remains a mystery. But, Midian muses, if Kith had access to the Transportation Comm-net, then so does she. Perhaps a signal can be planted to draw her out...

X Kingdom: Research

Midian checks at an Enforcer station, looking through the mug shots of missing slaves, hoping to find the identity of the girl who was with Kith. Sadly, if she’s an escaped slave she hasn’t been reported.

The protagonist’s next destination is the City Archive. It is strangely crowded – more Adepts present than desks, all agitated. They meet the frustrated and eminently corruptible Adept, Bao Alenichev. Bao agrees to meet them after his shift changes.

While they wait, Midian engages the services of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica to contact the ship Kith arrived at Vinh on, “Odette’s Lance”.

---

The next day he will receive answers to his questions:

• They picked him up from a small world in the same region.


• The girl Kith was travelling with was called Maya Zin (if the Captain didn’t know better, he’d have sworn the girl had a crush on the mutant).


• He was a good enough navigator, but there were times when the Captain thought he may be a little too fond of his Chems.


• While drunk he told some of the crew he was going to collect (or inherit?) the “Legacy” of Lum.

---

Later, at the Recaf Emporium:

What’s happening with the Archive?
“The Archive has been closed off. The Amael spends most of her time running the entire Transition through some augmetic link to the Administratum Communications Net, rather than from her office like a civilized person. It’s driving all the staff crazy as they have to wander all the way down if they need something signing. It may not sound like much, but the Amael is the centre of all city decisions – er, after the Governor, of course – so small delays with her ripple out. She delays ten Indictors, who each delay ten Scriveners, who each delay ten Adepts…
“It’s starting to become costly. And what for? She gives no explanation. The Administratum took copies of everything when they collected our Tithe, so checking the Archive is in order can’t be this important, surely? Especially not during the Transition.”

What do you mean by ‘Transition’?
[Laughter] “Switching the converted Sentinels and Landspeeders back to civic use, laying off the dead-wood in the PDF, that kind of thing. More than half the assistants for the Medicaes have already been shipped back to their parent’s farms.”

Why?
[Nervous] “Because we aren’t really in that much danger. But if we can justify the expenditure – given how dangerous the region is – the money can go into the Governor’s pockets.”

Do you know Kith Conran?
“I don’t think so. Who is he?”
A navigator.
“Niki Kamen said something about a navigator... I’ll check with her.”
(Niki will tell Bao that Kith wasn’t just bothering them, he was bothering the pilots too.)

Midian also convinced Bao to risk his career by following the logs to find out what Kith had discovered.

---

He will be only partially successful, managing to glean the following:

• The city was designed by Architect Alba Kos; a competent man, but not a great one. He was “assisted”, in some capacity or other, by Lum. (Embarassing)


• The term “Amael” was a late addition to the Lexicography and Charter – where the term originates from has been lost. (Obscure)

---

X Kingdom: The Protagonists Meet

Vinh Gazetteer:

• A frontier agri-world located in a place that is difficult to get to, given its position between The Cauldron (a warp-/real-space overlap) and The God-Emperor’s Scourge.


• In Koronus terms, Vinh is an old colony, but as it’s difficult to get to and relatively far enough away from Footfall, sufficient bodies haven’t been thrown at it to make tame it too much.


• The world’s main export is Rhya – a rice-like plant native to the world. That which isn’t already a rice-paddy is slowly being transformed into one. The local drink – Rhya wine – is a sharp spirit tasting something like a blend of vodka and sake.


• The world’s patron saint is Akiah; the Lady of Prudence.


• The only major city on the globe is the imaginatively titled Vinh City – a 7 tier ziggurat sat in a wide valley near the centre of the planet’s main continent, in the balmy equatorial band. The city’s tiers are subdivided into levels (or “landings” as the locals say) a further 7 times, making it a mere 49 stories high (50, with the garden atop the highest tier).

Biana’s Coil: Tier 1, 3rd Landing

The protagonists find themselves in the same bar; Biana’s Coil. It’s an alarmingly cheap establishment frequented primarily by voidsmen on shore leave.
Mordecai (played by Shane) is there, looking for a way of getting off-world. Midian (played by Dougan) is meeting a fellow Navigator (and Apostle of Lum), Kith Conran. Kith, who is researching Lum’s possible involvement with the founding of the colony, gets drunker and drunker, complaining about how his investigation is being blocked by somebody in the city government.

Lum was a (in)famous navigator who worked for one of the Expanse’s most famous Rogue Traders, Sebastian Winterscale. He had a reputation as an exceptionally gifted navigator, but one that took insane, unnecessary risks, often flying while chemically incapacitated (earning him the twin epithets “Lum the Mad” and “Lum the Wayfarer”).

While Kith vents his frustration to his colleague, both Mordecai and Midian notice some patrons who don’t quite fit in – two Eccliesiarchy priests. The two men look nervous and scan the room as they pass through to the other end. While both protagonists make efforts not to draw attention to themselves, four more priests enter. Two position themselves by the bar, two by the front entrance. Their leader, Sibellus, climbs atop the bar, declaring that they are looking for a fugitive and intend to check the travel papers of every man present (his men, who are up until this point just checking faces, start asking to see documents).
Mordecai glances around the room. The most nervous man in the room is the navigator. After that is a voidsman sitting nearby. The psyker subtly probes the hapless sailor’s mind… “Don’t find the xeno’s-porn slates. Don’t find the xeno’s-porn slates…” and a plan begins to form in his mind.
It is scuppered when Kith’s paranoia gets the better of him. Screaming, “Death to all oppressors!” Kith stands, whips off his headscarf and fries the mind of the priest behind him (along with half a dozen hapless voidsmen).
A chaotic fight breaks out while the voidsmen try to flee. Mordecai begins to crush the life out of the priests on his side of the room while Midian (and his faithful flight-servitor, Loki) take the other flank. Mordecai emerges without a scratch, but Kith is killed by Sibellus, who goes on to wound Midian before his death at the hands of his own men and Loki. Midian then repeats Kith’s trick to kill the remaining priest (and, again, a half dozen voidsmen). Briefly searching a couple of the bodies (little cash, bolt pistol and pass-icon from Kith, dataslate with target pict from Sibellus), the pair flee the scene.

Mordecai wants off world; something now difficult given a room of (admittedly panicked) voidsmen witnessing him killing Eccliesiarchy priests with psykic powers… but a navigator and his entourage would have no problem finding a shady Captain who would ignore this “unfortunate inconvenience”. Midian agrees… but is also curious. What just happened, and why?

Vinh City is unusual for an Imperial metropolis. Even at the lowest tier the air is quite fresh, thanks to an ingenious network of open internal balconies that branch and spiral throughout the superstructure. Though surfaces are plastered with inspirational propaganda posters, promoting duty, productivity, the virtues of servitude, etc., the architecture is a more minimalist than the protagonists were used to.
Other aspects of urban Imperial life are faithfully replicated – distilled even, almost to the levels of parody. Enforcers are seen openly beating suspects in the open, nervous joygirls argue and fight over territory, and queuing, sullen-faced workers pray to the God-Emperor that the local Medicae will have sufficient chems to treat the wounds they’ve received in the fields.

Kith’s Place: Tier 2, 2nd Landing

Kith’s place is alarmingly sparse. Even if his House had been declared renegade and his charter lost, he’d still be able to live in relative luxury if he were willing to sign on with a pirate band. Instead he lives… here.
His apartment is large – perhaps once the property of an overseer – but is in a sad state of repair and the humidity is turning the wallpaper into interesting sludge. The furniture is old, but simple and battered. Two of the three electrosconces that would have provided illumination have been stripped, the wiring twisting a short way into the room.

Midian finds few personal possessions. The wardrobes are mostly bare, a few sets of Nobilite robes left hanging (but they’re last year’s fashion). But there are a few articles of women’s clothing, also – one expensive dress, several work uniforms, and some really poor quality stuff that is almost rags.
The protagonists muse – was this some kind of romantic relationship (navigators rarely rut with ‘base’ humans; but one navigator living here is odd, two would be strange indeed), or professional (the varied outfits from different social strata points to the owner being some kind of house spy). A brief, informal word with a neighbour reveals that the girl was apparently Kith’s slave.

His personal navigational log is also a little depressing – there are multiple tally marks along each route he’s logged, probably indicating how many times he’s sold the charts. They indicated he’d been around most of the colony worlds in the region, never staying for more than a few days (unlike Vinh, where he’s been for three weeks). (This was highly unusual; there wouldn’t have been time to negotiate his fee, he’d have just had to accept each ship-master’s first offer.)

Mordecai looks through Kith’s books and in “Voyages (Koronus Edition) Volume IX” finds a passage that Kith has circled - Sebastian Winterscale complains about the incompetence of new navigator (for his flagship, “The Emperor’s Vow”). Midian notes that in “Fulgrim’s Almanac” it states that Lum renewed his contract with Winterscale just three years before, so he should have been in Winterscale’s employ for another seven years (Vinh is also nowhere near the “Winterscale’s Realm” region).

Finally, they find letters from three different city money lenders demanding payment – just a few weeks after taking the loans out. After talking to one of the lenders (4th Tier, 1st Landing) they discover that the “Amael” (Comptroller), Lucretia Casmirre, personally blacklisted Kith, reporting that he wouldn’t repay them. This is an overt attack on Kith’s reputation by Lucretia. His reputation among voidsmen would have to be appalling (losing a ship, killing the entire crew, being cursed, etc.) in order that not even blackguards wouldn’t pay for the services that he could provide.

While the protagonists rest, someone visits Kith’s quarters. They take most of the female clothing and leave a note: “They’re getting restless – meet me at the usual place.”
Something else is found – a vox code scratched into the bedside table. This proves to be for the city’s transportation bureau – an internal comm net intended solely for government employees.


Timeline

• 154.M41 (662 years ago) : Lum breaks contract with Winterscale and fades into legend.


• Seven months ago : His house sliding into obscurity, Kith breaks contract with his own employer and bounces from system to system, never staying on a planet for more than a couple of days.


• Three weeks ago : Odette’s Lance (the ship Kith arrived at Vinh on) departs, leaving Kith behind. Kith starts taking out loans. He is accompanied by an unnamed female in Adept’s robes.


• Unknown timeframe : Kith begins making overtures to the city government – ingratiating himself with well-placed bribes.


• Unknown timeframe : Kith acquires access to the transport bureau’s comm net.


• Four days ago : Kith is barred access to the city archive. The Amael has him blacklisted and the creditors start to circle.


• Yesterday : Kith tells Midian he believes Lum was involved in the founding of Vinh. When the Eccliesiarchy arrive he (incorrectly) believes they’re here for him, and starts a fight.