The horrors of Mara

Testing theories
Before proceeding into the compound proper, I propose that we test exactly how dangerous using psychic powers on Mara is. I have a theory that the number of psychneuein summoned and chance thereof is linked to the level of power used as well as a certain randomness factor. It's a risky proposition, given that we do not know the upper limit on beasts we risk facing - but I feel that without mr Potter's considerable resources, we are likely to be dead anyway. We also need to heal the Jannisaries that were injured in the fall. And of course, I have my own reasons as well... *cue ominous foreshadowing*

Mr Potter fires of three psychic powers of various strength. Nothing happens! Huzzah, my theory is proven! Or rather not disproved at least. And we know that we won't automatically be swarmed by the fearsome xenos.

A revelation
I ask the cadre to step away from the soldiers for a rather private conversation. Delving ever deeper into esoteric knowledge over the years, I've gradually felt something unlock in my mind. When Haarlock's ship appeared, that seemed to open that gate fully - I suddenly felt power and the warp rushing into me. It's hard to tell whether or situation or my new link to the warp caused it, but I had a hard enough time staying on my feet. I managed to conceal it at the time, given our chaotic surroundings, but I felt that I had to reveal this to the cadre now, for several reasons.

First, I might need to use my new powers for us to survive, meager as they are. Second, it would possibly be revealed in some way on Mara either way. Third, no one in the cadre seem to be particularly zealous/orthodox...which I figured would reduce the odds of one of them cutting my head off/putting a bolter magazine through me/fling a giant statue at me/insert other gruesome deaths here. And of course, finally, having an unsanctioned psyker in the cadre is a risk in and of itself - they deserve to know. I am both afraid and excited by discovering this untapped well of power. For now, I will focus on the task at hand and deal with the fallout later.

I'm not sure if I would call the cadre my friends. They are both less and more than that. We are comrades. We are fellow soldiers in an unending war against Chaos. We are the last defense against that ancient evil Haarlock tearing our galaxy to pieces. And yet, we would probably go our separate ways if we ever were disbanded as a cadre...but I have come to hold everyone dearly. Even Dar and Alpha, with whom I share about nothing in common. Reading about the comradery developed between soldiers in wartime is one thing, experiencing it first-hand is quite another. The God-Emperor, in his infinite wisdom, surely saw this bond as humanity's greatest strength and hope in standing against the tides of Chaos ever tearing at our throats.

But I digress. A lot. As usual. The cadre, to my great relief, accepts my proposal that I will use my powers if needed and deal with the sanctioning process when (or rather if) we get back alive. We press on.

Exploration
We decide to explore the buildings in order. The first is a storehouse, housing a lot of crates and the now decrepit anti-air missile shield. One of the Jannisaries discover a body frozen in the ice. Closer examination reveal it (and probably the 15 or so others) to be a prisoner from 50 years ago. We move on to what appears to be a control room building of sorts. There are tracks leading into its interior, so we proceed with caution with Dar taking the lead. A circular corridor leads to the control room proper, with nothing interesting but four dead servitors and a lot of useless machinery.

A corridor leads onwards to another building. In the middle we see four bodies...and as Dar approaches, he hears an incessant buzzing in his head, as a swarm of insects are near. We see nothing though...so we press onwards. As Dar approaches the corpses, the buzzing rises to unbearable levels and he cries out. The rest of us are wary - is he being attacked somehow? Controlled? But after a while he gets a hold of himself.

The bodies are a mixed group. One of them is a mercenary similar to the ones we just bested. The other three are representatives of our good old friends the Pilgrims of Hayte. The Pilgrims have been killed in ordinary ways, while the mercenary's head has been bitten off. A psychneuein? Seems likely.

The next building is unoccupied, with a lot of doors which we mostly ignore given that we're under time constraints and no one else has entered them. At the end is an elevator going down to "Utility". It has been jury-rigged to move. We decide to go check out out the fortress before going down to what we assume is the mine area, so we take the battery so that elevator can't be summoned from below.

One of the Janissari sergeants vox us that they've spotted movement in the fortress in one of the windows on the second floor. We spend some time sneaking the long way around to the fortress (as sneaky as the power armors allow us to be that is...). Dar once again (actually) sneaks ahead. The entrance is clear. The first level is huge, we ignore it for the time being. Dar sneaks upstairs. In one of the corridors a barricade has been erected, though a long time ago. A group of arbitrator corpses is locates nearby.

The horrors begin
I send out the pict fly into the room where the movement was spotted. The images reveal a horrible-looking beast of some kind - before it then winks out of existence. What in the abyss? Shamefully, I was unable to recognize the thing. We forge ahead...when one of the Jannisaries informs us that one of their comrades is gone. Just gone. No one noticed anything. There are no tracks. Surprisingly, weird incidents abound on Mara...

We enter the room where the pict fly recorded the beast. Nothing jumps us, but there's a sniper rifle leaned against the window and a lit lho stick in the window sill. Signs that someone has camped out here are evident. We see no one and there are no tracks. There is, however, a sign scrawled in soot into the floor. I recognize it as a sign used in the Inquisition to warn of "danger:static". Meaning there's a danger that's specific to this area. Okay...we can't quite make heads and tails out of anything and decide to move along.

Despite the danger, I suggest we explore the fortress for useful knowledge, such as journals, maps and so forth. God-Emperor, why am I a human and not a cat? That is surely the only reason my curiosity hasn't killed me..though some of my comrades have certainly suffered. As we all would now.

The third floor doesn't contain anything particularly interesting. We find the officers' HQ, but nothing of interest is there. On the second floor, however, we find the comm station area - and it's functioning. Obviously, someone's been there before us. A confusing array of images are shown on the screens. The cutter is visible on one. On another, prisoners are working in the mines with arbitrators overseeing them. And on a third, we see a big man in a power armor with the Inquisitiorial badge clearly shown along with five others. Lovely, it seems the Tyrantine Cabal has indeed dispatch a cadre as well.

A near-tragedy
I try to recall who the Inquisitor might be...and decide to reach into the Warp to help me remember. As soon as I start drawing power, I can feel everything going horribly wrong - and three psychneuein appear from out of nowhere. All of the Jannisaries are knocked out simply from being in their horrible presence immediately except the two sergeants. A viscous fight erupts, with Dar going down from two gruesome hits from one of the beasts fairly quickly. And to make matters worse, one of Potter's powers go awry and FOUR more are summoned!

For a while it looks like we are done for, but luckily the Jannisaries recover in the nick of the time. We brought them along for firepower, but we all knew they served a second function - cannon fodder. Lazarus commanded the troops into precarious positions, but it helped turned the tide of the fight. One by one, we dispatched the beasts - Alpha getting a direct hit on one with a full round of her roaring bolter, shells flying around her, Lazarus blasting open the side of another with his shotgun, Potter smashing yet another to a pulp flinging a giant statue at it with the power of his mind.

And in the end we stood victorious, drenched in blood and entrails from both friend and foe. The Jannisaries and their sergeants survived. And miraculously, Dar was not dead. He might appear a simple man from a feral background, but surely the God-Emperor loves him dearly.

Shaken, we heal our wounded, clean ourselves off as we best can and move on. I can barely hold it together, jarred to the core of my being for being the cause of all of this. I resolve to not use my powers again unless strictly necessary.

The cutter
On the way back to the elevator, we stop by the cutter. Dar starts disabling the lock on the door when Alpha spots the bomb attached to it just in time. One second later and Dar's luck would have run out for sure. We disable the bomb and open the lock to the ship. Inside, we see a stripped down cutter designed for speed. Curiously, there's a very peculiar lock on the door to the cockpit - Eldar technology! It proves utterly impossible to open without the key, as one would expect from the Eldar. We exit the ship and set the trap again, but slightly differently (pointing away from the cutter), hoping to kill anyone trying to escape the planet. It is very possible this will be our only hope of escape should we somehow escape the horrors below alive.

Going down
We go back to the elevator, enable it and ride down. A corridor going in each direction greets us. I will skip the uninteresting parts and navigation and skip to the juicy/scary parts. At the end of one corridor, we're faced with yet another barricade, this one with a corpse sitting by it, shotgun in hands, the dried remains of his brains still showing on the wall. Not shying away from cliches, he's written "Make it go away - crawling, crawling in my head" on the wall in his own blood. Lovely, quite lovely. Cliche or not, I am still quite "creeped out" as Alpha would say.

Naturally, we enter the room anyway. There are a bunch of crates and 8 corpses. They've all committed suicide. As we contemplate this, one of the Jannisaries points his Hellgun at one of his comrades and fires a full round into him. Chaos ensues as the more martially inclined charge him, Dar once again getting a solid hit right in his face. Nothing Potter's healing can't handle after we handily take him down and manacle him. He seems completely insane, grinning and laughing hysterically, trying to bite us and so forth. I sedate him enough for him to fall asleep, but I'm not optimistic.

We move on, filled with a growing sense of dread of what might be around the next corner. We move through hospital and insane wards, maintenance rooms, workshops, storage rooms and more. Seemingly random horrors greet us regularly. A corridor with a prisoner who seemingly died 5 minutes ago, scratching at the wall with bloody fingernails. Suddenly, the body starts moving - from the inside. We take no chances and reduce the body to charcoals with the flamers.

We reach a cargo room. A nicely-clad corpse of what seems to be an adept from one of the more radical universites on Scintilla is on the floor, clutching data slates and some notes. A man in power armor is fused with some metal junk of sorts. I conclude it is likely the result of a teleportation gone wrong. They must have been quite desperate to try to teleport to Mara...I would never assume the necessary calculations to not be thrown off by the Warp here. It's almost like a living thing, breathing down your neck, only waiting for you to take one step away from your friends so it can devour you in secret.

As we're standing there, a demon of Hayte charges us - or rather, it charges me. Fairly tall, with a gigantic claw on one arm, I dodge, run and desperately try to stay alive. The rest of our party fire with full force, and God-Emperor be praised! I survive without a scratch. At least to my physical body.

The mines
Finally, we find a corridor that starts going down. After a while, natural caves replace the corridors, and we reach a mine cart at the top of rails going down. I examine the poor Jannisar and inject a dose to wake him up again. Unfortunately, he's still a raving lunatic. The sergeant decides he's a liability and I give him a lethal injection. We say our prayers and move on.

After walking for two kilometers, a vox radio crackles to life with pleads of help. Lazarus resolutely puts a bolter shell through it. A while later, we hear screams of help from a side corridor. What better way to lure in the righteous? Despite Dar's pleas, we head in. For once, we're not greeted by hordes of daemons, but rather a mercenary trapped under some beams, two prisoner corpses with bullet holes next to him.

We free him, weapons trained. He introduces himself as Kort Luther, a mercenary hired by a chartist captain named Aedric. Some "traders" headed up their party, consisting of roughly 50 mercenaries in addition to the four traders. Their leader called herself miss Book - and she carries the key to the cutter cockpit. She also carried a grey tome around...The mercenaries were told they were going to a planet called Mara, which of course meant nothing to them. They started dying rapidly, by the hands of Pilgrims, psychneueins and demons. At one point, one of the mercenaries went crazy and fired a round right into the face of one of the traders. He reacted by punching into his belly, extracting his spine whole and his face instantly healing up. That was enough for Kort and one of his buddies and they ran away. Shortly thereafter his buddy disappeared and Kort was trapped here, attacked by the corpses of the prisoners.

He informs us the Pilgrims' lair is further into the mines. There are about 10 pilgrims, 2 giant constructs of some sort and of course - the Beloved, carrying the grisly face of the Widower around. He's fairly sure he can lead us to the heretics, though "there's something weird with the corridors"...

Miss Book told the mercenaries to keep their eyes open for "the heart of a clock" and "strange machinery that seemed out of place". So, she certainly doesn't have the key. How convenient that we brought it, and that the Beloved brought the Guide.

They also briefly encountered the Inquisitorial party, though they weren't spotted. They had a what clearly was a prisoner in tow, a bald man with an extra eye in his forehead. I assume it's a Navigator. Their leader carried the amulet of a black sun around his neck. Personally, I doubt a Navigator is a good enough guide, unless he somehow is of Haarlock descent. Which is, of course, a distinct possibility.

After a brief discussion, we decide to bring Kort along. Lazarus swears him to the service of the Inquisition and instills the fear of God-Emperor into him with tales of what happens to those who betray us. He is not kidding, the Inquisition takes revenge very, very seriously...