In which we meet the treasured inner circle of the Inquisitor. Read episode I here. Follow the links beneath the pictures for the painting articles that accompany the models.
In common with almost all of my colleagues, I maintain an organisation
of hired followers, informants and various professionals; it is referred to as
The Firm amongst my followers. Within this organisation exists an operations
team which follows me from case to case. Furthermore, within this operational
team there are people who are beyond followers, beyond employees. They are
comrades in arms. Some are even friends. This may seem cold to be surprised
that some have become my friends, but Inquisitors are lonely by calling and
nature. Our work and necessary suspicion keeps people at arm’s reach. I tend to
refer to this small group as my Inner Circle. They are confidants, sounding
boards and trusted right arms in combat. They are essential. In order to
prevent arguments I will introduce them in the order that they joined my
service.
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Dolus Andraste |
Dolus Andraste has been with me since before I earned my rosette. She
had been in the service of my master for three years when he took me on. No-one
but my master knows what she did before she joined his service but her skill
with a blade is terrifying to behold and she possesses a fierce, single-minded
devotion. Over the course of my training we formed an excellent team. I
discovered and encouraged a talent for acting and impersonation and encouraged
her to develop it. Before long her ability to mimic others became uncanny.
Realising that her talents would never be fully utilised under Inquisitor
Valens, Andraste requested permission to be released to my service. Valens
agreed and she has been under my supervision ever since.
Today she serves as an infiltration and assassination specialist.
Frequently she spends months in the field in deep cover to gather the initial
evidence required to begin my investigation. She can be anything from the
lowest gang fighter to a noble lady with nothing more than a costume and a few
minutes listening to the local accent. To protect her identity she wears a mask
or full helm wherever possible. Prevents problems of recognition spoiling a
covert investigation. In combat she is a demon with the blade and a shield
given to her by Valens as a leaving present. She also rides outrider for us
when we travel, her keen eyes detecting potential problems long before they
happen. If she has a problem, then it is her devotion. This may seem strange to
complain about but in all the decades she has served me, she has never once
questioned an order or request. She has never hesitated to carry out any
command I might issue. I genuinely believe she would take her own life if I
asked it. This means that I cannot rely on her to check my actions, to spot a
problem in my own methods. She seems genuinely to be an amoral creature, her
morality defined by whom she serves. Mercifully, as long as I remain a moral
servant of the Emperor. So shall she.
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Wenchang Mimir |
Next to join my Inner Circle was a man cruelly used by the Imperium
that I adore and serve. I found Wenchang Mimir working as a lowly scribe within
the administratum of Darsalom. It was during one of my master’s investigations.
By this point I was a senior Interrogator and was on the verge of receiving my
rosette. I had been tasked with the job of following one heretical family tree
wherever its branches lay. Immediately upon starting my quest I was struck by
the astonishing precision, ease of use and efficiency of the record keeping. Intrigued,
and frankly in need of diversion while the data sniffers did their work, I
enquired and was told that some three hundred years previously a young, devoted
scribe had presented to his masters a proposed brand new system architecture to
reform and improve the archaic systems in place. He had worked on it for years
on his own time. His masters were delighted, awarded him a medal for exemplary
service and charged him with implementing the system planet-wide. Thus did he
spend the next seventy years of his life. Single handily implementing the
fruits of his organisational genius.
Finally, old and tired beyond all endurance he was once more approached
by his masters. They wished to reward him and extend his lifespan. As a loyal
servant he agreed, unaware of the horror that was to befall him. Hundreds of
bionic modifications replaced all organic components but his mind and his face.
Cogitator arrays supplemented his memory and allowed him to make computations
far beyond his previous capacity. Then they implanted him in a socket. Gave him
a terminal and ignored him once more. For two hundred years he has maintained
the system architecture having never received or asked for any reward. I
decided that it was time that this dedicated servant saw more of the world than
a scrivener’s cell and drafted him into my service. I had my master’s techpriest
fit him with legs and brought him into my confidence and service. Since then he
has been invaluable. His ability to sort and sift data, craft magnificent
database architecture and follow trails of information whosesoever it leads has
been central to breaking dozens of my cases and I dare say he is even happy.
Wenchang does not join us “in the field” very often. His frame is not
built for the rigours of combat and his disposition is not suited to the rage
and fury of open warfare. When he does it is usually to get past a particularly
tricky encryption system or to help us cripple an enemy’s system architecture.
He has a malevolent glee for exploiting flaws left by lesser programmers.
However such instances are rare and necessitate a tactical plan where some of
my forces have to be left to defend him. Wenchang’s value is far and away the
knowledge he can gift me. The irrefutable evidence trails. I consider him indispensable.
Just as his former masters did. I only hope I can always act more honourably
toward him.
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Bard Nobel |
Shortly after I was elevated to
full Inquisitorial rank, I was despatched to oversee the purification
operations in place on Hellmawe Tertius. There I met one Corporal Bard Nobel.
Cpl Nobel just loves it when things explode. He trained as a bombardier in the
Divine Emperor’s Imperial Guard and served well with a specialisation in
setting and disarming set-piece explosives. Sadly for him he got caught up in a
wave of puritanical fervour when a new commissar general took power over his
regiment. Anyone associated with those under accusation of heresy were suspect
and Cpl Nobel’s sergeant was tried and convicted of unsanctioned medalling with
sacrosanct technologies and his entire unit were tarred with the same brush.
Bard was fortunate that I was
charged with reviewing and advising the new security and purity arrangements.
Though it was one of the most frustrating assignments of my career I did manage
to save some of the truly innocent. Some of my colleagues reading this will be
sighing heavily at my weakness and naivety but I believe that true Imperial
souls are far too valuable to sacrifice on the altar of conspicuous zeal.
Wenchang Mimir’s data mining turned up several exemplary soldiers convicted and
held for execution on no charge other than association. The only way I could
save them without causing a major incident was to trump up charges of my own
and have them transferred temporarily to an inquisitional holding facility.
Bard and his kin endured weeks of incarceration amongst the true scum of the
galaxy in the harshest possible regime while I worked to clear them of my own
false charges.
Once cleared I arranged for them
to find appropriate employ within the warbands of fellow inquisitors, other
imperial agencies and the like. Bard was one of the few who seemed to bear me
no ill will for my part in his suffering and indeed had weathered the
conditions better than most. I took him into my employ and granted him a place
in my operational warband primarily to keep an eye on him. I was concerned that
his time amongst the heretics might have damaged or corrupted him. I need not
have been concerned. He served ably as a breaching and booby-trap removal
specialist. His grim, graveyard humour has fitted in well with my core band and
indeed his remembrances of conversations in Inquisitorial holding have proved
very useful in identifying cult members or likely targets.
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Herodotus Lothston |
Finally, from the Inner Circle, we have Herodotus Lothston. Mr Lothston
serves as my Interrogator and I am grooming him for eventual acceptance within
the Ordos. I encountered Lothston during the Kvarium Alpha campaign against the
Tau. I had noted a tendency for “progressive” movements to arise ahead of Tau
campaigns and was determined to root out the corruption within the military so
as to avoid tactical problems. While the Space Wolves battled in the cold
depths of the sea, I was moving through the various regiments deployed there. Lothston
was serving as a young lieutenant in the PDF and was assigned as my ADC through
the campaign. He had been horribly wounded early on in the conflict, a rail
rifle round had torn his arm off and he was awaiting the stump healing to be
fitted with a bionic. His regiment – the Serpentis 35th– were an
insufferably stuffy bunch and relied heavily on aristocratic officers. I had
inwardly winced when General Maygyr assigned one of them too me. I was
mercifully surprised. Here was a young man of dedication and drive, rapidly
adjusting to a heinous injury with every wish to return to the fight as fast as
possible.
I made some discrete enquiries and discovered that he was the second
son of one of the most powerful mercantile families. He could have bought a
senior commission but elected to earn it through merit and effort under a
pseudonym (His real surname is Trakaris). Over the course of our time together
on Kvarium, he demonstrated a knack for the kind of patient questioning and
unravelling of lies that I believe to be the mark of a true interrogator.
Anyone can sear flesh and break bones to extract information. It requires an
artist to dissect a mind and sift loose the truth using speech alone. I saw
extraordinary potential in the young officer, so at the conflicts end and with
his surgeries complete. I offered him a chance to serve the Emperor beyond the
narrow confines of his world. He has served as my interrogator for six years
now and is gradually making progress. He still has too much of the stiff,
courteous nobleman about him but those smooth edges are gradually being worn rough.
I only wish he would lose the ridiculous wig. When he joined my team he took to
wearing the formal magistrate’s robes that denote an agent of the Throne on his
Serpentis. Mercifully he gradually realised that the robes were impractical and
shed them until only the ceremonial headdress is left. He is only 31 for
goodness sake. That thing makes him look ancient.
Truthfully, I think he has many years of effort ahead of him before he
can become an Inquisitor but his work ethic is commendable. He is eager to
learn everything. He spends time with
all of my team, learning their crafts and fighting techniques. He carries Talon,
a relic weapon of Naucratis, which once belonged to a close ally of mine. The
sadly deceased Amenemhat had taken it upon himself to teach Lothston a faster,
more brawling style of close combat than the fencing he had studied in his
youth. The two became fast friends until the Affair of the Corvid Maze cost
Amenemhat his life. The ambush that took his friend hardened Lothston and I
honestly believe that I may have been aided more by the loss of Amenemhat than
I would have been by his continued service. I do miss his ready smile and feral
glee for the fray though.
So there you have it. The small group who make up my trusted advisors,
confidents and student. All that remains is to mention the rest of the
operational warband to prevent confusion later on and we can start to record
the actual events of the Cetus Scrutiny.
The introduction to the warband will conclude in Episode III.
TTFN
Nicely writted.
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