The sense of wrongness was jarring. We had come here hunting a heretic only to find one of our own. Hadrian had told me of the divisions within the Ordos, but this was the first practical experience of it. I expected an inquisitor who had crossed the line to look... I don't know, tainted? daemonic? but he looked everybit as upright as Hadrian.

"We need to get closer," Hadrian whispered. I watched the tableau before us for a moment.

"I have an idea," I said, and reached out with my powers. It felt like I was skating in a thunderstorm, the sense of impending doom almost overwhelming. Nearby fungus and vines began to strain towards me, flowers opening like hungry mouths. All three of my companions tensed. I reached out and touched one of the transcription servitors. I didn't do anything specific, merely charged it with my mind. There was a flash of billious yellow in my mind and I slammed my shields in place in the nick of time. Fungus exploded from the servitor closest to the blashpemous column. Not the slowly creeping growth we had observed before, but foot long protuberances emerging in a flash. The servitor juddered and sparked then tore free of its data jacks in a spray of lubricant. The nearest guard tried to swing his weapon to bear but the fungus infested servitor drove a fist into his breastplate. Tendrils stabbed into his chest, and he screamed, his face blackening as greenish bile errupted from his lips. The remaining guards turned their weapons on the thing, las bolts blasting into it. The fungus was almost animate now, seeming to wear the remains of the servitor that still feebly reached out with its data jacks. The air filled with stink of burning fungus as the thing staggered towards the power armored inquisitor.

"Did you do that?" Clara asked me in an awed voice.

"We had better move," I whispered though Hadrian was already moving off towards the barracks structure.