Kota turns to Secunda, "At this point even being acquainted seems like a bonus for us. I don't know how to handle this murder case any more than you do. But I feel like in order to maximize our chances we could use any help we can get."

She'd look around the lab for anything she could pick up that would be useful, although some of this tech might be unfamiliar to her. While she's looking around she's gonna be careful not to touch anything since she doesn't want to damage anything in the lab any more than it's already been damaged.

In her head she's thinking. "This was supposed to be a simple hunting mission. Go out, catch the target, capture or kill it. But of course not! How the hell did I get myself mixed up in a Magos murder case?!"

Magos Pinel caused a lot of... irrational emotions... in the higher echelons of Isohedron. Anger, contempt, curiosity, - a Magos that young was an anomaly and, as such, bound for some non-average reception.

Nepotism hires were a sure sign of the political system slowly slipping into decay, the Mars-Draupnir fracture growing deeper and the powers that be growing ever more desperate to claw a fraction of representation for themselves. With Draupnir's lineup being represented by Tiefebronn and his mangled duplicate, it called for someone with more... original... approach to counterbalance the replicaes talking over each other in garbled echoes. Rosella, the old beast, could counteract both of them on a sunny day, playing their differences all along the way - Biologist had this unique knack for understanding all living things under the Omnissiah's sight. Perhaps this is why she decided she could understand everything else. A pity. That just ensured that nobody was keen on seeing another Magos of her caliber calling the shots.

Instead, they thrusted Pinel into position after years of negotiations and plotting that were likely to have started before her birth. Cheery lobotomizer, Magos Pinel was logis-prophesied to become a brilliant specialist in something like a couple of ages. A gifted talent, coupled with young energy and unbound curiosity, Toros never denied that Pinel had all signs of a rising star. Deep inside, she was never dismissive of Pinel.

For deep inside, Archmagos Toros was scared.

Power corrupts the soul and burdens the mind. The second one ensured that Pinel was never to tap into her full potential, her Magos rank pulling her back. The first one, coupled with Magos data privileges, provided an everlasting temptation for the overly curious youth. Pinel would have been a jewel in the council, if she was given time to mature. Toros tried to fight this appointment, going as far as daring to write a carefully worded missive to Collegiate Extremis - it has been met with the same cold silence that she got used to ever since daring to call in Astartes during the Rosella incident. The silence told "You decided that you can afford independent judgement, it is your problem now, Archmagos. And if it spills over, you will not have the time for calling outsiders in, and we will have the justification against you and Draupnir as a whole."

Pinel was an albatross hung on her neck instead of being taught to fly. Toros tried guiding her. Secunda was not sure how well she managed, all things considered. Fortunately, Pinel had yet to enter the autumn of her soul, and the sun of the optimism in her mind - as irritating as it was - preserved the purity of her judgment. Partially, by distracting her with petty, almost harmless, little endeavours.

Like this new voice with its freshly demonstrated range. Secunda knew that spinto soprano. Half the cogdamn sector knew that spinto soprano and all of the troops sang along. It's just the loyal ones got shot for singing along too loudly. Secunda was moderately sure that she herself had an original vox-recording of "Star-Barghest Aria" in this very lab somewhere.

"Magos Pinel, last time I checked, Lady Leontyne Tebaldi was tucked safe in the melodium of Hollzenstein's flagship behind some layers of plasteel and respectable security protocols. How?", Secunda did not need to feign bemused respect as she raised her eyes from the megascope. Reimplanting the vocal cords? Securing the biosample for off-the-books partial replicae in-vitro? Just crafting a vox-synth, approximating a pitch by the ear? It was a stroke of brilliance either way. She could afford to admire Pinel, even as she was still afraid.

Still, she could not afford to lose a lot of time, so she returned her tiring biological eyes to the megascope while switching off the vox-catcher line. Sororitas was absolutely right. After all, the last time Adeptus Mechanicus and Adeptus Sororitas joined forces, Terra itself got con... liberated.

"Lady Kota, 'acquainted' is a nice way to put the fact that I owe you my life and my initial access levels. Assisting you with your hunt is the least I can do to repay you. Especially since you just so happen to hunt a void-travelling non-human beast warp-jumping around the halls of my cog-damned Cathedral and killing me.", Secunda zoomed in on the blood splatter. Something dark coiled where it shouldn't have. "Right now, we have a full third of the Isohedron council on the line. Notably, the most mellow, least dangerous third, the ones most likely to commiserate and trade knowledge instead of brushing us off or using us up. We'll get everything they know and move on. I hope that I'll get to finish with this analysis in the meanwhile. Pinel liked you, Stoll is puzzled by you. Feel free to join on in."

Kota!

[Pharmacy] This is a fully stocked drug lab. This is the good shit, the kind that the Magos cut eight times, and the Skitarii cut four more before it reaches the poor bloody infantry. You've got here painkillers enough to turn a house of Spire nobles into Sisters Repentia, or turn a stint in a Penitence Engine into a beach vacation. You've got the kind of combat drugs that would let you punch through a stone wall with your bare hands.

Let's be real. On the shelf here? This is superpowers. Faster than a speeding Impulsor, leap tall buildings in a single bound superpowers. It is also cash money if you sell it to the right connect. You could build an entire orphanage for the Order with the street value of this stuff. Forget the hunt, this is your big break.

Secunda!

"Oh, you know," said Pinel modestly, and you could hear Stoll's eyes boring into the back of her skull. "I prayed to the Omnissiah and studied the Machine God's sacred texts and the mysteries revealed themselves to me. Praise the Omnissiah, and may we all walk the Path of Knowledge in His light."

[Flattery] That's interesting. You took the right track and played to her ego but that was a disciplined non-answer. She didn't almost slip, didn't humble brag, didn't jab anyone, didn't even imply that it was simple. You have genuinely never heard her that locked down and controlled.

That implies a few very interesting things. One is that she didn't figure it out on her own or from a book; she wouldn't shut up about it if she did. Two is that she has a teacher who she genuinely respects. Three is that teacher has a desire for secrecy.

[Diagnosis] It is not the ira'Azura. A relief; the vast serpentine xenos empire of the Endless Azure Skies is a peer to the Imperium of Man's greatest sectors both in terms of scale and in terms of institutional rot. The Forgeworld Draupnir was the final port of the Great Crusade and the terminus of the Imperium; the Skies beyond never knew the fury of the Legions. That campaign was cancelled when the Astartes all turned around and headed back towards Terra.

Luckily, something similar seemed to have happened within the Skies. A vast amount of Hollzenstein's wealth was carved from that collapsing edifice, and their presence here would either mean the hand of the Secessionist or that that they had shaken free from their slumber. Neither would have been welcome.

It is not the Men of Stone. It is not the Slythid. It is not the Aeldari. It is not the T'au. It is not the Khysirid. It is not any of a dozen other major or minor xenos species that you have encountered in your travels. It is nothing from the Houndclaw sector.

And so you reach beyond, to a database covering a region that would take ten years to reach if the Warp was calm - and it is the very first thing you check.

There is no mistaking. Humanity has oceans of their blood. The machine hisses as it gives its verdict. The chattering servo-skull on the wall clatters, spilling sickly white cables in its fury, as it announces for all to hear:
+THE BOOK BURNERS+
+THE BARBARIANS+
+THE FACE OF IGNORANCE+
+KILL KILL KILL+
+THE ORKS HAVE COME+

Secunda blessed Omnissiah for the switched-off vox-catcher as she waited for the blasted servoskull to shut its stupid mouth before coming into channel.

Everyone is guilty of something.

"Magos Stoll, we have just witnessed Magos Pinel not only buying into the whole 'knowledge is power' aspect of the Creed, but fully indulging in an oft-forlorn 'guard it well' follow-up. This is a respectable level of dedication to her own position, don't you think?", Secunda was proud of a practiced smile her lips slithered into; apparently, her replicae protocol was sufficient to catch and copy even the most minuscule trained reflexes. The smile never quite reached her eyes as she scrolled the comm-terminal for the next call. "Speaking of guarding something well - could any of you, fine Magi, catch me up to speed on more... temporal aspects of Isohedron lately aside from my untimely reincarnation?.. Marshal reported of, and I quote, "scary, creepy things scurrying around" and "horrible wet rot in the walls". Not speaking of a most peculiar Motive Force configuration, depowering quite a few systems around here."

Everyone is guilty of something.

Pinel's murder servitor. ZRK-333's displacer field. Surely, she's bound to find connections to the rest of the Council - assets begged, borrowed, stolen, or sold for unique favours, like cloning the voice of one-in-a-trillion opera diva. Someone was muddying the waters. In prior, more cynical times, Toros would have tried making it less personal, pinning the blame on whoever was the easiest target. After all...

Everyone is guilty of something.

She was no exception herself. You don't survive in the upper ranks without stacking the deck in your favour, tirelessly manufacturing aces for your sleeve, bending most rules where you can afford, breaking some rules where you can dare. Everyone had skeletons in their closet - in fact, she, technically, had three literal skeletons just in this one - and everyone knew everyone dabbles in black projects, unauthorized resource allocations, forbidden lines of research, and trying to push their vision on top of Omnissiah creed. This was tolerated, to a degree. In fact, to a degree, it was encouraged. You never know your limits until you try pushing them. You never train up your purity if you never had to recoil from what you see beyond the light. There was a fine line between what was approved and what has seen you eternally condemned, and Toros was proud to excel in toeing that line.

She was moderately confident that this was the main reason Brackmann made her Archmagos over older, smarter, stronger Rosella much to the chagrin of the rest of the Council. Martian Magi were furious that Arch-Fabricator made the appointment without ever consulting Isohedron. The Draupnir faction was almost ballistic about being forced to report to the stranger from the strange land, fresh off the Explorator Ark. Rosella herself took it as an offense, being an insufferable thorn in Toros back with her attempts to claw back the approval of the powers-that-be with ever more drastic measures over Archmagos head. In a true self-fulfilling prophecy way, she proved Brackmann right when Angels of Death descended onto the world - running the purge on Toros personal orders, scorching the earth and silencing the witnesses before Collegiate Extremis or the Ordo Mechanum were able to build the case against the whole world. Toros was somehow sure that this was exactly the outcome Brackmann had in mind from the very start - quite literally, if her intel on several brilliant young Logis-Oracles disappearing was to be believed. The old beast at the heart of subsegmentum Cog-Church terrified her and, Toros was sure, revelled in it.

Everyone is guilty of something, but they were working together as long as this guilt was kept within the negotiated parameters, stability ensuring consistent results, predictable career paths, and safety from getting riddled with mass-reactive self-propelled shells. In fact, the squeaky-clean consciences and flawless dossiers were always seen as a dangerous anomaly, both by Toros and by the overseers from both sides, for, as one of them loved to quote.

Innocence Proves Nothing.

Secunda sighed as she finally found the contact. Inquisitrix Polla Iconium, the mad cog-dog from Houndclaw Conclave, whose gravitas was solely reliant on how much of a migraine for Toros her peers imagined her to be. Polla knew exactly how far she could press Toros before Archmagos would have the justification to push back. Sometimes she pushed further with good reasons. Sometimes she pushed further just because she was an Inquisitrix and loved reminding everyone of her theoretically unlimited authority. Toros had been compiling a long complaint to the Conclave Lord on Iconium's activities for the last three decades and had arranged at least two sleeper cells primed to take the Inquisitrix out. Well, technically, three, but she didn't like to remember how puzzled she was while investigating how the third one got unconsensually disappeared.

...all in all, Archmagos Toros had a lively, beneficial, almost criminally friendly relationship with her Ordo Mechanum watchdog based on mutual respect. Secunda hoped that Polla would take that into account. Or, at the very least, be sufficiently surprised by "the military attache of Adepta Sororitas" by her side to immediately start pushing in.

Her eyes scan over the various forms of drugs on the shelves. While she likely wouldn't need them herself she can sell them for a good amount. She never really saw herself in such a business but if it could help people in need then she'll be more than happy to do the work. While humming she picks up the bottles, quickly reading over the instructions of each and storing them away.

"This is gonna be a great pay day, if I can find the right buyers." She whispers to herself, voice slightly more cheerful than one would expect of a Sister of Battle.

She has heard of some Sisters making a whole business of selling these, even in active war zones and making a fortune. Kota herself doesn't ever see herself living a life of luxury but that doesn't mean she can't make some poor soul's life a little better from the money she makes here. And... she might keep a small part for herself. Who knows, maybe she can talk Lucine into going with her for a little getaway.

With a grin and newfound resolve she turns back to Secunda, "I think I've got everything I need from here. See you're already looking over the... scene that I left. Sorry about that but fights like these, especially with unknown Beasts, tend to turn messy very fast. Better them than me. Found anything useful?"

"Ork biosignature.", Secunda fixed her hair as she rose from the megascope, her finger still pressing down the mute rune. "And it shouldn't be a coincidence that we have Magos Pinel on the other side of the vox-call. The one Councillor capable of taking an ork frame and reconfiguring it into a combat-capable puppet. It's a good, durable body after all, relentlessly robust, ingeniously simple - just take one from Pinel, install decent controls, give a corrupted teleporter from ZRK-333, bolster with some servo-motored armour, give a good bolter... Maybe even run a bit of a live-fire drill against some armoured dangerous women other Magi would never care about... And you have yourself a weapon to kill most Magi. And a weapon to inconvenience me."

"If it would make you feel any better I only use my weapon when I need to, and doubt 'll turn it on you without a really good reason." Kota was being as honest as could be. She'd fought side by side with many, mostly her Sisters, but she'd never let a member of her team die if she could help it.

"I haven't accidentally killed a comrade since... well it's been some years and he definately earned it given how he was behaving and making things a whole lot more dangerous for all of us." Honestly just remembering that made her happier. Not the asshole soldier, killing him. "And now that we know a bit more about the murder I feel like things are gonna go over a lot smoother. Maybe I won't even have to shoot anyone... which is very unlikely and a lot more boring if you ask me."

She wasn't looking forward to a boring mission. But given that the orks seemed to be involved she doubted it'd stay boring for long.

"Fighting orks and living to tell the tale, that gonna look pretty nice for me. If nothing else I know that the Emperor will be pleased if I clean up as many of them as I can on my way out. As for dealing with the Mechanicus, I'll leave most of that tech-heavy stuff to you. It seems to be your area of expertise more than mine." Kota was well aware that this wouldn't do anything but she still flexed her muscles under her suit, "You can leave the heavy lifting and the killing to me."

"We have not detected anything such," said Stoll. "But I will observe that hallucinations are a stage two side effect for the particular stimulant compounds that the Skitarii Marshal is utilizing. As to the Motive Force, the entire Cathedral is offline with the death of the Archmagos. The sacred reactor is dark and cannot be restarted until a new Archmagos is proclaimed. The Magi are operating off various portable generators and batteries, most of which is being dedicated towards personal protection."

[Military Science=0] Shit, don't our defense lasers run off the reactor? That sounds bad.

*

You do not get a vox link to the Inquisition. All you get is an, admittedly, very cool animated cogitator image of a flaming skull emblazoned with the =I= and the message YOU ARE SUMMONED BEFORE THE LEFT HAND OF JUDGEMENT. It does not provide any information as to where the Left Hand of Judgement currently resides; but in Inquisitor Iconium's case, one presumably need only seek out the choral music and smell of burning flesh.

[High Society] And you really should leave it at that. An Inquisitrix acting in her official capacity is not to be tampered with or disrespected, and an essential part of their official personality is the ability to have you shot on the spot if they do not like what they hear. Speaking over the comms to an unknown is going to make her, in the vernacular of the day, big mad.

[Electronic Surveillance] But that's all social custom. The only true law is the law of the Machine, and while they might have certain elevated access codes, while they are operating within our Noosphere we can remind them that their machines work for us. Spend a point and we can begin extracting data as to their location and communications.

It took Secunda a couple of seconds to process everything at once.

First of all, Inquisitrix seemed to leave no return route for the missives sent to the data terminal. Classic paranoia, using burner one-way-send-only disposable tech-djinnis, made Polla irritatingly hard to find. Which, Secunda assumed, was the whole point of being a paranoid trigger-happy spymaster - always maintaining an element of surprise even at a cost of convenience, courtesy, or simple common sense. Even the old comm-link got fried. Stupid insignia-wearing promethium-chugger, as somebody less rarified than a Magina might have called them, since Toros, of course, would not deign herself to acknowledge such trivial aspects of their existence.

Secondly, the lights are out for everyone. Everyone is fuming, running on fumes, feeling powerless, and imagining themselves some strange dangerous things scurrying in the dark. Technically, they were not even wrong for at least one thing has been doing exactly that. Secunda was planning to become another one on the shortest possible notice.

Thirdly, there was Kota who successfully resisted Secunda's attempts at parsing her affiliations or political angle. The trivial solution of "there is none" proved to be one assumption too dangerous to make so far. Secunda tilted her head to the side, glancing at Sororitas operative again.

"Soror, fighting orks and living to tell the tale is... pretty much expected level of excellence for your esteemed Order.", Magina fired up the data terminal again, poking at the runes, trying to second-guess her prior self. "Unfortunately for your lost colleagues, this one is not an ork. It's likely to be just an ork body, armed and puppeted by someone exceedingly smart and well-connected. An artisan-crafted combat servitor, if you will. I hypothesize the massacre of your sorority to have been its combat testing exercise, the dry run of its capabilities before deploying the accursed thing against me."

Secunda slowly considered finding the Inquisitrix regardless, but, in a flash of brilliance, decided that checking the Inquisitorial missive in the data-terminal would have been a wiser step. Might as well figure out who else wrote her during her temporary incapacitation.

[No spend so far, I have enough datapoints to poke at]

"Ugh, I hate the idea of being a guinea pig, but one thing I hate more is going down without a good fight. If they're looking for more test subjects to kill I don't think they'll find them in me. I'd very much like to find the puppeteer, see how they'd stack up against me in person." She grins as she punches her fist into her open palm. "But I wouldn't mind having more people in my corner, that's for sure."

So far this hunt has taken turns she never expected. But if anything it just got got her more excited to see this through to the end.

"And if we get into big trouble, while I'd prefer not to as this is my own mission, I have a... friend I can contact for help. Although getting more of us involved here might cause more panic, which is something I'd like to avoid. We should solve this as quickly as possible so it doesn't get too out of hand." Not that it already hasn't in Kota's opinion.

She took a deep, calming breath, silently praying to the Emperor to guide her on this new direction her mission has taken. "Do you have anything you want to take from here? Something you think would be useful to us in the future? Or maybe something that was important to you personally?"

The Inquisitor's official message was exactly the same as her automated reply: YOU ARE SUMMONED BEFORE THE LEFT HAND OF JUDGEMENT, complete with extremely cool rotating skull image.
[Law] That actually makes things a little more comforting, and a little more tense. It's the kind of thing you see when a Tech-Priest sets something up for the laity and tells them not to touch it. The Inquisitrix is generally fairly interested in staying in her lane so she is not going to push the boundaries of her technology even a little, but keep in mind she has easy access to a specialist if she needs something specific done.

[High Society] And I should lay fine odds that her mystery assistant is Passivity-SEA. Those two are as close as Terminators in a Rhino. If the Inquisitrix's dreadful rigidity were not enough to rule out a scheme involving orks, one of the leading theories for your death was that she and Passivity aligned to assassinate you and install Passivity in power. Honestly, it might still come to that - you have no doubt that half the reason the Inquisitrix is getting involved right now is to throw her weight behind her favourite for the election.

Kota - this is relevant to you too, darling. You know your way around the Ecclesiarchical elite, you know the names and personalities discussed here. You also know that the Inquisitrix fancies herself the future shadow ruler of the Houndclaw sector and intends to bring the entire Church under her personal authority in preparation for the coming war against Hollzenstein. This is something that is deeply politically contentious within the Church more widely and your order in particular. Where do you fall on the topic?

Secunda let out an irritated grunt. She's been summoned before the left hand of judgment, yet, it would appear, that judgment was missing its left brain capability to give her cog-damned directions.

Way to go, Polla. Never change.

Toros sighed and started parsing through the rest of the messages. Who the hell is Vergil Hawr?.. It took her a couple of seconds to process Sororitas questions. Painfully slow, but then again, she was operating in the meat-time again, no neuro-boosted cogitator co-processing links.

"A friend, Kota? Been a long time since I've operated in the circles where we can afford ones. Do tell me more.", she glanced above the data-terminal screen. "As for the equipment, I'll pack myself up once we figure out where we are going. Should be some decent carapace around. Speaking of "where we are going", "being a test subject" and "heavy lifting"... Ever wondered how would you fare against an Astartes in hand-to-hand? We just might visit one of my... colleagues."

Toros would have never dared to call ZRK-333 a "friend", even in her prime. It was not a question of being personally squeamish, like in Stoll's case - quite the opposite, in fact. As far as Secunda could remember, ZRK-333 and Toros enjoyed a connection rather close - Archmagos trying to figure out the koans of Motive Force and the whole "go with the flow, Omnissiah will see you on the other side" thing, Electromancer trying to compherend the deeper layers of God-Machine dogmates and the half-light world of searching for new ideas in places irrational. Toros kept her memory of ZRK active as she strode through the minefield, clutching the gifted displacer field.

Calling Electromancer a "friend" would be an offending trivialization of their alliance and, arguably, an insulting hint at unprofessionalism. Toros has never seen ZRK-333 offended, and the prospect of offending the super-charged killing machine whose modus operandi was tied to self-reinforcing feedback loops supercharging her into action has always been estimated as "inadvisable for self-preservation reasons". Other reasons, if they existed, were not as important.

What was important is that someone was trying to set Electromancer up. Masquerading the combat servitor into something resembling Astartes, the whole displacer field thing... The obvious showmanship trying to pin the blame, enough to fool the grunts like November. Daring, of course, since even hinting that Astartes could perform an unauthorized assassination would sour the relationship with Eunicornus Kim of the First. Brackmann himself couldn't save you if the First decided to take offense. If the Angel of Death himself decided that her killer offended the honour of his Legion, they would have one extremely scary card in her thrumbo-fur linen sleeve.

What was also important was the fact that ZRK-333 spent two weeks integrating Archmagos' untimely death in her system of constants. Secunda was not sure how Electromancer would react or how she would process Electromancer's reaction herself. ZRK-333 would not have killed Toros through proxies. Secunda was about to see her in person.

Proto-maga shook her head. Meat-thoughts in the meat-time, as the Motive Force sparks struggle to fly through neurons, triggering fear of the unknown in place of healthy curiosity. Go with the flow and Omnissiah will see you on the other side

[Sorry, Thanqol, I want to read all the mentioned inbox before locking in where to go next]

Kota grimaced at the insinuation of her Sisters being used in political games. It wouldn't be the first time it's happened but it never sat well with her, even when she was settled with some Sisters that didn't like her much.

She tried really hard not to get too attached to the people she met.

But that was never her personality, even after all the training and battles she's been through. Some of the other Sisters see it as her weakness, the attachment, the constant happiness and smiles, she wouldn't change it though. After all could she be a Sister if she changed everything about herself, could she serve the Emperor as best as she can if she denied every aspect of herself? Yes, some did just that, some encouraged it in fact, but not Kota.

It was something she could never do.

If this was an opportunity to get deeper into her Order's political games but spare others the pain then she'll take it gladly.

Going to war always seemed inevitable it was what they were made for after all, she'll never run from that. But she also won't turn her back on others when they're in need of help. That being said she didn't like the idea of someone taking control of the Church for a gain of their own, she hated it. The Church, the Sororitas serve the Emperor, none other.

While she herself has engaged in what even she would deem blasphemy she would never give her faith to anyone but the Emperor himself.

"A good friend of mine recently became a Preceptor. Lucine, and I were always close so if we were in real trouble I could call in a favor. As for where we go from here the scene of the crime might be a good place to start, that is, if they let us inspect it. They could also be too paranoid at this point, judging from what we know. But I'd rather see things for myself than have second-hand information."

Vergil Hawr.

[Forbidden Lore] Good evening.

There are certain things that you have survived the experience of learning. You should not know them. You do not like knowing them. They echo in the back in your heads, little pieces of broken cogwork, dust in the cosmic machinery. You stand upon the precipice of obtaining another.

Here is my bargain. Either of you may spend a point of Forbidden Lore to avoid having to learn who Vergil Hawr is. Your instincts will act before you realize, with bolt or fist or a yanked cable, you will break this machine and end this chain of reasoning before it begins. You will receive no answers. You will receive no compensation. You will receive no guarantees that this does not happen again. You will receive nothing because the corpse who sits on the throne in the center of the galaxy offers nothing. He only takes, and takes, and takes - and He would take this from you too.

Make your choice. And as you do, tell me a story. Tell me the most intense emotion you have ever felt in all of your life. Love? Anger? Fear? Sorrow? What was moment you were so alive it felt like you could burst?

As soon as Kota hears the sounds, the unfamiliar voice inside her head she steels herself against it, muttering near silent prayer to the Emperor. "A story? You want to know something about my life? Huh, it's not often I hear that."

She contemplates for a few moments. She could tell a lie, but she doesn't want to run that risk, especially if it means learning of things she shouldn't. When it comes to near Heretical behavior she doesn't exactly have the cleanest record, at least not as far as she's aware. As far as others know, she's odd but always faithful.

"Alright, alright, lets see. How about something that won't get me in too much trouble. I'll tell you about the first friend I've ever had in the Order. One wouldn't think it'd be difficult, I'm a bit of a people person you see, I love making friends, I love making people happy. But when you're part of the Sororitas that's not what's expected of you, you're not supposed to be... like me. I found it hard to fit in even though I knew I was meant to serve the Emperor until my life comes to an end. For the most part I was alone, I went through my training alone, ate alone, studied alone and it sucked. I hated it. Then I met her, Lucine." Kota sighs as she smiles and reaches into her armor, taking out a necklace with a locket. She doesn't open it, merely looks at it.

After a moment of calm she keeps talking. "I didn't know what to make of her at first, she was so different from me, much more deserving of being in the Sororitas, but she was the first one to not be annoyed by me, by the talking, the stories and the jokes. She was something of a favorite, famous, dependable, strong, devoted. She was easy to admire, easy to like. To this day I still don't know what she saw in me or why she stuck by me for so long, but we were almost inseparable. Even on the battlefield we could always find our way to each other. I could always sleep a little easier knowing she's got my back, and I'll always have hers. When she's there I feel... more alive, if that's even possible, I didn't know... it shouldn't be possible to feel like this, but I do."

Kota places the locket back into her armor, where it's safe.

(Spending 1 point of Forbidden Lore to avoid Vergil Hawr knowledge)

There is no counter-memetic coven.

Secunda spent a good second, trying to process this random thought that somehow flashed in her cortex as she listened to Sororitas sudden soliloquy. The emotional ties of that story assaulted her perception with empathic counter-links, rerouting her neuron-paths around the sudden void in her conscience, the numbing void in the rapidly expanded blindspot of her memory.

Archmagos Toros was afraid of nobody. Nobody once told her that it's a technique of triage, something to flush out the meat-space data-predators baked into some of the old encoding, those lethal cyphers of the Long Night. Nobody's eyes were definitely not pale grey and that's all she could - dared to - remember of them.

"You speak of her in the past tense. You are here alone. What happened to her?", Secunda's voice was suddenly hoarse, her brain milking the glands for every nanogram of the emotional chems, trying to block out the earworm of Vergil Hawr's name from ringing through her skull. "Speak more of her."

Protomaga tried pacing her breath. Sororitas story was the emotional grounding, the lifeline tethering her to sanity. Secunda knew how to filter the signal from the uncoiling data-worm, almost as she had done it before, almost as she was recollecting the steps instead of learning them. Vergil Hawr was something she allowed on this terminal.

What the hell she was getting into before getting shot in the head?

[History] Once upon a time, the vulpix and the felid went to war.

They were alike in many ways, being both predator and prey. Each of them hunted using guile, wit and patience; each of them died by force and brute strength. Their war took place in the shadows and burrows, and all the grox and equis knew of it was the bloodstains and the torn fur. In the end, neither triumphed. The vulpix withdrew to its arctic burrows; the felid to its arid deserts, swearing eternal vengeance against each other, but with too many scars to dare the others wrath once again.

And at this time the octopus peeked up from the rock pool, saw the blood, and shivered in fear.

When it felt winter's breeze come its skin flushed verdant red. When summer burned bright, it went as black as stone. And through it all, it hoped that the beasts of the earth did not learn to swim.

It has been a long winter.

[Art History] There is always song. From the chapels of the Sisterhood to the cathedrals of the Ecclesiarchs, hymns to His glory are always filling the air somewhere. The music seeps into bone and stone and steel, resonant and sanctified. The history of faith is a history of song.

There will come a time when the music escapes the churches and rushes out onto the streets. There will come a time when all the worlds are united in that song. It is history, it is present in your ears - and it has not happened yet. In the moment of clarity you have created you hear a fragment of it as a vision. It will be a solace amidst the coming darkness.

[Traffic Analysis] But you wanted to check your mail, right? You've got a message from the Lord General who is big mad that a major shipment of lasgun ammunition packs has been delayed. Checking the schedule, the train was loaded and ready to go - and in fact, it had *left* the station before your assassination and the Isohedron shutdown, but then it turned around and came back. Due to the frictionless nature of the operation, the decisiveness with which it occurred, and the marginal utility of the supplies to the Magi, you're pretty sure it's the Skitarii who are responsible. But the question is what they need all of those power packs for?

[Military Science] Theoretically, you can make an improvised solar panel out of lasgun power packs.

[Traffic Analysis] Hm, that's probably why November suggested you don't ask too many questions about where her power supply is coming from. This'll keep for a while - it'll become a problem eventually, but right now there's not a shooting war on so the Lord General won't rise above angry ambassadors.

[High Society] There's no content amongst the messages from the other Magi; those are simple meeting invites. It means you will have access to their Forges, which is non trivial especially for someone in your position. It has been known for confirmed Archmagi to be shot dead when attempting to access their subordinates' Forges uninvited. While Stoll probably wouldn't, especially after your conversation, interrupting PWD-40's work...? Even at the height of your power, what was the exact projection on that again, dear?

[Military Science] 70% of the Skitarii legion slain or wounded, production delays measured in years, major collateral damage to the surrounding Hive. You have never been quite clear which of 'refinery' or 'flamethrower' was the primary objective of the Magi's construction efforts.

[Reassurance] The war hit her harder than most.

Vergil Hawr enigma still eluded her. Secunda made a mental mark to return to that question at some later point. Even her own cog-damned terminal was not harmless, it was time for protomaga to join the club. Fortunately, the bioaugmentation capsule was nearby.

Unfortunately, Secunda had serious doubts that she had enough Motive Force blessed giga-jolts to make the complex autosurgeon work and bless her with her usual level of firepower. Besides, given the complex situation at hand, she was somehow unsure that spending another six weeks incapacitated would be something she could afford. Toros twitched the corner of her mouth as she paced the laboratorium, precisely controlling her pacing to step over the bodies without breaking her stride. She was denied a way forward, and rational approaches were unlikely to help out.

Fortunately for her, she was not a completely rational beast and build herself a career through using the things of the past when being denied the future. She held onto a trace of sentimentality, an old memento still preserved in a stasis chamber to remind her of older, brighter, stupider days. She approached it with a pained smile of a deadbeat father returning home after two decades of running a trivial logistic operation to see how much has changed. Secunda pressed the desactivation rune, and, after three seconds of whirring, performed several field rites of percussive maintenance until the lock finally gave in.

Explorator fleets were not a place of abundance - far away from home, you had to do with what you had at hand, everyone had to pull their weight, and nobody had the luxury of having any luxury. "Themis-pattern" explorator armour has been a grim embodiment of that doctrine. Every single explorator adept is handed out a damaged standard-issue Militarum flak armour, usually with some splatters of the previous owner here and there. Your survival was your own responsibility from that point - there would be no replacements, no quartermaster check-ups, no maintenance, and no oversight. There has been an expectation that either the owner changes the armour into something better or the armour finds itself a better owner. No two sets looked quite alike after two decades. This one has seen her through a much longer service.

Secunda exhaled as she allowed the robe to slip off her. She had not donned her suit for a better part of a century - Archmagos had to maintain her status with something more... imposing... than a flak jacket reforged a dozen times. Couldn't quite get rid of the old beast, they had a long story together - story of patching the holes, begging artisans for their help, scrounging for supplies, stealing secrets, replacing parts and praying that it would fit together. Instead, Toros stuffed it here, unsure what to do. Protomaga ran her fingers between the scarred crimson argent-alloy plates and felt the xeno-mesh cells hardening below, tickling her with the static counter-charge. She missed this feeling.

Armour spirit, a dumb little beast, flashed green on all checks - verification, chems, ammunition, explosives, servomotors. Injector needles bit right where she remembered them to. Even the little trinket from Pathos Gamma was still purring its infra-song from the corner of the gorget. Secunda half-closed her eyes. She felt good. And she planned to feel even better after she blasts someone's ork puppet limb from limb.

It is a wretched thing to stand upon the grave of a magician.

When a priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus is alive, she might be anything. The imagination alights at the possibilities concealed within those crimson robes and the lights dancing within. Might she be a beautiful young maiden, soft and curved, body patterned with the hexagonal grafts of silica and nanofiber? Might she be a demon, body twisted and malformed, blinking lights the eerie gaze of wicked flies rather than electronics? Perhaps that limp concealed four legs, or three, perhaps there were two hands or eight, perhaps she had always been smiling like the Saints, or maybe the skin and fat of her face had been peeled back to a skull made of steel.

So many of these questions will never be answered. Even for her clone, the specifics of Archmagos Toros' physical structure were kept classified. All that secrecy did not save her: The mass-reactive bolt entered her face just below the left eye, penetrated, and then detonated. The skull ruptured, the interlaced mesh of brain matter and neural interface shattered, and that masterpiece of cybernetic design splashed across the altar of the Omnissiah before dripping down to pool on the wiry blue carpet. It was an incredible shot.

In death, all the tricks she had up her sleeves spilled out. Hidden pistols and digital weapons fired blindly, still performing their functions even as their body staggered and slumped. Scorch marks, bullet holes and tiny silver bladed discs scatter wildly around the shattered doorway the assailant had entered through. A displacement field belatedly fired, teleporting the headless and still-shooting body of the Archmagos five meters west, whereupon two additional bolt rounds to the armoured center mass and sent what was now just the incomplete body of a sedentary middle-age lady sprawled across the floor.

Then the assassin had begun their work. They had approached the inwards-facing circle of archaic white cogitators the Magos had been working on. Some had been pushed aside, some had been smashed, and some had been taken, their absence marked only by lonely cables that drifted like an octopus carved by a blind itamae.

The room - archaic, with framed circuit boards and eerie gadgets upon white-painted walls. A singularly bland blue carpet. A small personal shrine to the Omnissiah upon the north wall, flanked to either side by huge arched windows with a spectacular view of the Hive rising like a mountain's nightmare. The west window's glass is shattered entirely, large enough for a giant to fit through, and the stink from the endlessly churning petrochemical smokestacks creeps into this ivory tower like a burglar.

You have initial assessment from the Skitarii Marshal November. The chain of events as far as she can determine goes like this:
- Assailant arrived at tower door, guarded by two Skitarii
- Assailant incapacitates both Skitarii with a Webber. This non-lethal takedown prevents their flatline monitors from triggering an alarm.
- Assailant places a grenade on a timer by the two Skitarii. It soon detonates, killing both of them, but only after the danger of their flatline monitors alerting the Archmagos has passed.
- Assailant bypasses the security door somehow
- Assailant proceeds to the Archmagos' office.
- Assailant kicks open the reinforced metal door to the Archmagos' office
- Assailant kills the Archmagos with a single Bolt round to the head.
- Archmagos' Displacer Field activates, teleporting her five meters to the west.
- Archmagos' automated defense systems begin to fire blindly even as the corpse collapses
- Assailant responds with a burst of automatic gunfire. Some of these shots miss and shatter the glass window behind the Archmagos' new position.
- Archmagos ceases fire.
- Assailant proceeds to the cogitator station. Rips out multiple electronic devices and stores them in a heavy backpack.
- Assailant departs through the open window.

From this logical chain, Marshal November drew the conclusion that the motivation was at least partially robbery - the data on those cogitators must have been extremely valuable. In response she dispatched her Legion to form a perimeter around the Isohedron, block anyone from entering or leaving, and then start a slowly consolidating grid-search, tightening the noose bit by bit until she had reduced it to blockades of the six Forges. At that point - who knew what she'd do?

But all of this data is now out of date. The data point that the assailant has a modified Displacer Field of their own, potentially allowing for directed teleportation, throws the whole timeline into chaos. Everything needs to be re-evaluated from scratch to account for this new capability. But even that does not solve the murder. The evidence from the boot indent on the outside of the door, and the arcs of fire and return fire seem to point conclusively towards that most bizarre of conclusions:

Here, in this cathedral to the human intellect, atop this spire made of bioengineered ivory, an ork kicked in the front door and shot the Archmagos of the Isohedron in the head.

It is too stupid to be true. There has to be something you are missing.

There has been a cathedral on Baraspine, straight at the terminator line of the tidally locked world, eternally in the twilight. For thousands of years, faithful had prayed there, pilgrims boarded the Chartist vessel to have a chance of glimpsing the famed golden lightning dancing in the spires during the sermon. One day, though, the doors of the cathedral were found closed and gunshots rang through its halls, the clergy throwing themselves at the assailants to prevent them from reaching the holy relic at the sanctum, the head of Saint Laurentius himself. They all died, of course, with the name of the Emperor on their lips.

As young Explorator Toros stepped over the bodies, barrels cooling down, she took pride in seeing something heathens never cared to notice all their lives. All their little cult built upon the singular mistake in its core, they never dared to question the core premises, rejected her diplomatic attempts to make things right and brought doom to both themselves and their flock. She threw away the gilded skull from the sanctum in pure disgust and reached the runes underneath it. For the first time in ten millennia, the cathedral rose up from its knees, faithful fleeing from the apocalyptic tremors of the God-Machine coming back to its senses, its roar ringing with all the pent-up rage of the long slumber.

Young Toros never cared to stop and consider what wretched thing exactly has brought the Titan to its knees. Young Toros knew better than to look for nuggets of truth, the legend of the old saint dying to ensure the containment of the old evil buried under the cathedral. Young Toros knew that she had a chance to revive a fallen Titan and would never allow herself to be distracted by such trivial superstitions. She was the only survivor deemed sufficiently clean. They had to glass a whole peninsula as a precaution. Techzorcism took a little over a century.

She learned her lesson well, never allowing herself to feel smart enough to be invincible, always mindful of dangerous assumptions informing her further actions. As she paced the room, running her fingers along the blasted walls and feeling the breeze from the shattered mosaic windows, she prayed to avoid the misguided faith into the wrong assumptions. She had to start from the very beginning. There has been an assumption that everyone would have made, something obvious and yet not axiomatic, something unchallenged.

"This is not a murder scene.", Secunda stopped in the center of the room, looking at the Omnissiah altar.

"I knew full well that I was not dying here, merely sent to this body. Which the killer, as of today, knew where to find.", she approached the altar, trying and failing to intone an infra-sound prayer with the organic vocal cords. "So, either they had prior knowledge of the location that they decided to act upon today... or they had managed to find it in the matter of weeks, during the general chaos of decapitation."

Her steps locked into a Fibonacci rhythm, straighening her thoughts and allowing her to look at the underlying facts. She turned right, and, step by step, started walking back to the center of the room tracing a Golden Spiral on the floor.

"They used a bolter, not a det-pack - selective killing, relatively minimized collateral to the laboratory. They killed the third and the fourth body of mine, the ones that were never truly intended to be active anyway, contaminated by the sin of gaining consciousness outside of proper protocol. They approached me and then they were notified, by the way of the bolter-fire, that someone else was there." she leaned to the side while making a bend. "They did not sacrifice their puppet to kill me, even though they could have. Fear, as they have been suddenly attacked? It's a puppet, likely piloted by someone organically incapable of feeling fear. Concern, as they did not want to lose an asset or leave evidence? Only someone painfully stupid would not install a dead-man switch detonator somewhere into the body, and I don't like the thought of having been murdered by someone painfully stupid..."

She reached the center again, just as the assumption came. Small rituals like this one have helped her. Stoll loved this one as well. Perhaps, with enough following, this little dance would be mandatory in three centuries. And in five more they would add censers and psychoactive smoke.

"Or they never wanted to kill me in the first place. They figured out someone else in the laboratory, which ensured that I would be released and not fade away in a clone vat. With mission accomplished, they had no reason to hang around and, hence, extracted.", having returned to the center of the room, Secunda massaged her temples. "If they did not want to take my life... they just wanted to take some of my time, some of my memories and some of the cogitator cores."

This question surfaced in her mind again. What the hell was she getting into before getting shot in the head?

She cleared her throat before sending a polite comm to November, double-signing it with Sororitas armour spirit and her own old Explorator cognomen.

"This bio-trash happens to know that the grand late Archmagos Toros has never been a very predictable boss. This bio-trash has reasons to suspect that, being very statistically-minded for logistics purposes, you have managed to figure out some method to the madness, approximating the baseline of the grand late Archmagos Toros behaviour. This bio-trash politely inquires whether the grand late Archmagos Toros had significantly deviated from the expected behaviour in the days preceing the termination of her bodily functions?

P.S This bio-trash politely informs you that Astra Militarum command happens to be looking for a missing package of lasgun chargepacks. As a keeper of order on Isohedron, you shall, doubtlessly, return those. It should be noted, however, that the current Olympia-pattern quotas mention Isohedron obligation to supply the charge-packs themselves - packs being charged at that point is something we do solely out of our commitment to the Imperial cause. As such, no crime would be committed if the shipment arrives in time."

Finally, Secunda has done the thing she was dreading to do all this time. She looked at the chrono-stamp. Memories were something forming her personality - even mindscars of the purged ones dwelled deep inside you, making you who you are. She was herself, even in spite of jumping bodies. She was herself, regardless of how many days, months, years, or decades of memories she irrevocably lost with this transfer. At least she hoped so.