Rannick/Journal/encrypted 401

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[Encryption active] The first casualty in our fight against heresy is always sense. We combat a foe whose actions seem unpredictable at best. We strive to discern meaning and strategy in our foe’s behaviour, yet we fail, for all is confusion and madness. Those we oppose, by their very nature, make no sense.

But eventually, if the God-Emperor looks favourably upon us, some distorted purpose emerges. Some deranged pattern or logic appears from the smoke and the confusion and the violence. It takes a sharp and experienced eye to see it, but when it becomes visible, we of the Ordos begin to appreciate our enemy’s true agenda. We see the traces of design and intent, however insane and preposterous that may be. 

I believe that we are starting to see that now. We have the first indications that our enemies are engaged upon some task with fierce determination, something more deliberate than the seething brutality of an undisciplined rebellion. They are planning something, and if they have a plan, then we have something solid to thwart.

We have been waiting for this. Consider the elements: First, the attention the enemy pays to this so-called “Prophecy”. Though they seem but the ravings of madmen, the texts we have recovered, and subjected to analysis, reveal a clear set of beliefs, the elements of a ritual that the enemy believes it must undertake. They are following a scheme, with some exactness, in order to achieve a specific goal. Second, the fact that they are systematically blinding and silencing our agents in the Hive, as though they are keen to keep us ignorant of their activities. This is more than just hiding from their adversary; they are cloaking their actions in calculated privacy. Third, they have seized control of certain transit links with obvious intention to employ them.

I will brief the Warband. After months of feral confusion, our enemy is now operating with an evidenced purpose. Whatever they are attempting, it must be stopped. But we can at last see their minds at work, and determine a plan that we can work against directly. They are, at last, beginning to make sense.

And that will be their downfall.

[Recording ended]

Zola/Journal/encrypted 96

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[Encryption active] I remain, it seems, out of favour. There is something afoot, and no one is reading me in on it. After the business with Wolfer, I am being kept at arm’s length by my associates, and they do not trust me.

But I serve the God-Emperor, and by the Throne, I will do my part.  I will fight the darkness for the soul of my Hive. 

We have presumed for too long that the plight of Tertium Hive is a story of mindless revolt and uprising, of poor souls, demented to treason by the influence of warp-cursed powers, fighting blindingly, in wholesale slaughter, in pursuit of some sense - as they see it - of “liberation”. But the Traitorous Sixth are just pawns, that’s my belief. They are just pawns being played, to sow violence and destruction, by the Cult. This Cult, swathed in the shadows, is the real enemy. They are calculating, deliberate, operating to achieve some deep and possibly very ancient purpose. 

The soldiers of the Sixth, they are just the opening act. The muscle-power. The violence and upheaval to disguise the true goal here. They are supposed to strike terror into the people of the Hive, and keep us occupied and pinned down while the real horror unfolds. 

I pray to the Throne that Rannick and the others have perceived this.  I trust they have, and are coordinating in response, but I wish he’d include me in his thinking. 

This has to be stopped. It’s why we’re here.       

 [Recording ended]

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Rannick/Journal/encrypted 420

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[Encryption active] In victory, though there is some satisfaction in duty in service, there is also always a modicum of sadness. Yes, we have thwarted the enemy. Yes, we have ruined their grotesque rite and set their plans back. Yes, we have denied them.  Thank the Throne for that.

Yet, as the smoke clears, so much is left unanswered. What was this foul cult of Chaos trying to achieve? The polluted stimms, the seized transit systems, the debasement of the cathedrum, the ghastly production of Rodin Karnak’s corpse? Considering the significance of these elements could lead us to madness ourselves. 

The range and ability of the ruinous powers cannot be underestimated. They would not have undertaken such a complex and extensive ritual action without some genuine belief in its efficacy. They knew it would work, and it would have worked, had not we been able to block them. What would they have perpetrated, if left unchecked? Would they have restored Karnak to some semblance of life? As what? Some vessel for their daemonic masters?  Were they trying to raise the dead… or raise something altogether other? A daemon? An old and abominable god of the Warp? 

We stopped them. That’s all that matters for now. We stopped them, though it cost us a great deal and terrible damage was done to that zone of the Hive. I fear the aftermath of that damage alone, the debris and structural faulting, the smoke, will cause us further issues.

But we stopped them. We set back their plans. It will take them time to recover, and a great deal of time and effort to make another attempt. If they even can - perhaps their ritual, as decreed by the damned Prophecy, was time- and situation-specific? Maybe the unholy moment has passed?

I doubt it. Prophecies can be re-worked, and re-interpreted. New significances and alignments can be divined. With dedication and proper preparations, rituals may be repeated. There will be other midnights.

Let us content ourselves that darkness has been held at bay for now in Tertium. Yet briefly, for Chaos never rests. Our duty, as sworn subjects of the God-Emperor, continues and the threat is still significant. Our enemy came close to success, and must not be underestimated.

But now, at last, our enemy has a name. The word “Admonition” appears many times in the texts of The Prophecy, and it is now certain that the cult we battle uses that name for itself.  A name gives us clarity, it gives us meaning. The cult, it is clear, seeks to “admonish” the Imperium for trespassing on its territory in the Fringe Worlds, on the territory of the daemon “Grandfather” of disease that they adore.  That is their calling and their savage intent - to punish mankind for transgression.

A name gives us identity, and identity gives us, at last, something to hunt and annihilate.  

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[Recording ended] 

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