Crusade Lore 4: Into the Outer Dark

INCOMING ASTROPATHIC TRANSMISSION

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+ + + + + + +TRANSMITTED: Vaud, Valais System, Calixis Sector
+ + + + + + + + +RECEIVED: Inquisitor Lord Valec, Ordo Hereticus
+ + + + + + +DESTINATION:  Scintilla, Calixis Sector
+ + + + +  + + + + + + DATE: 9.340.059.M42
+ + + + TELEPATHIC DUCT: Karina Aeshma, Personal Astropath to Inquisitor Elam Grest.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + REF: INQ//530551.25//OH
+ + + + + + + + + +AUTHOR: Inquisitor Elam Grest, Ordo Hereticus
+ + +  + + + + + + SUBJECT:  New leads regarding cult activity in the Calixis Sector.
+ + + + + + + + + THOUGHT:  “No sacrifice is too great. No treachery too small.”

Crusade Lore Part 1: Mourning and Retribution
Crusade Lore Part 2: Marshals and Martyrs
Crusade Lore Part 3: Iconoclasts and Deceivers
Crusade Lore Part 4: Into the Outer Dark
 

Greetings Lord Valac,

It has been years since my last writing. Communication on this side of the great rift is difficult, as you are well aware. The fleet has been on constant crusade. The Black Templars have been scouring the stars in search of the Word Bearers battle barge known as “Voidgazer.’ Contact with our quarry has been rare and fleeting since the fall of Valais IV. They are always just beyond our grasp. I feel it was a lifetime ago that I joined the crusade. So much has transpired in that time. We have made contact with many desperate worlds who had no idea that the Imperium survives. We found many dead worlds as well. Some were abandoned; the debris of every day life lay in the streets as if the populace dropped what they were doing and fled, or vanished. Some worlds showed the signs conflict on an apocalyptic scale which stole my breath away. 

And some worlds- well, when we saw what had become of them after the sundering of the Imperium, we consigned them to the flame ourselves.

There were times when I suspected that our quarry had left this region of space. But each time that suspicion began to take root, a new lead would present itself. It’s as if the heretics are toying with us; always staying just beyond reach, just beyond sight.  We found evidence of their cults everywhere we went. On many worlds, it is referred to as “The Cult of Ixxaas.” The Black Templars have not allowed captives aboard any of the ships in our crusade fleet. Not even when I invoke my authority as an inquisitor will they relent and allow me to conduct an interrogation aboard the Volsung, therefore I have not been able to discover much more about this “Cult of Ixxaas.”

After years of constant hunting, our losses have begun to eat away at the effectiveness of the crusade. And so, we have returned to the Valais System to re-stock and re-arm.  Valais IV, the world where the Calixis Crusade was born, is still a shell of it’s former self. However, the Black Templars left a small garrison on the world to secure it, and if possible, to recruit new neophytes from among the survivors. I await in orbit while the Astartes make planetfall to check in on their garrison. Tomorrow, they will return with fresh recruits and we will set course for Vaud, the 5th planet in the Valais system. There we will spend 3 days re-arming and re-supplying and making ready for our next voyage. 

Two weeks ago we received credible evidence that the Voidgazer has been active in The Periphery subsector and may be operating out of some region in the Halo Stars to the galactic north. And so the Crusade prepares to delve deeper into the darkness than we have yet dared to go. This may be the last time I am able to write to you for many years. We will be alone, beyond any hope of contact or communication of any kind. We will leave behind the human militia units and a small garrison of Black Templars to defend the Valais system, and then we bring the Emperor’s holy retribution to the heretics we have hunted for so long.

In His Holy Name
Inquisitor Elam Grest, Ordo Hereticus.

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