Xerxes didn’t normally smoke but he was shaken from his experience on the monitoring station on Mono-10. Sure he had some close calls on his home world of Sepheris Secundus- anyone that had grown up amongst the down trodden mine workers of that wrenched world would have, especially if they had chosen to be an assassin as their profession, but he had never been that close to death before. Surely this Inquisition work was indeed dangerous.

Crash landing into the station’s shuttle hanger was only the start of what would become a disastrous mission. Sent to investigate why the monitoring station was no longer transmitting data and responding to communication attempts, the Acolytes of Cell: C2, accompanied by an Inquisition pilot named Lupo, had arrived on station crash landing their shuttle following a mysterious hanger door malfunction. No station personnel greeted them and indeed the station initially was thought to be deserted. The strangest observation, other than the lack of personnel, was the vast overgrowth of vegetation that had seemingly originated from the station’s out of control hydroponics section. The vines and leaves were everywhere, infesting almost every room and corridor of the station.

A break came for the investigators when they located the station’s overseer (and personal friend of Interrogator Sand), a Tech-Priest named Karanov. The man’s mind had snapped- he was crazy. Hiding in the ventilation shafts, it took a massive effort to restrain the Tech-Priest and drag him out. He babbled about things that didn’t make sense, but soon Xerxes and his companions started to realize that the Tech-Priest’s rantings had meaning.

Two of their team, Vern and Lupo, went down under mysterious circumstances. They were still alive but unresponsive and in some type of catatonic state. The psyker, Jonas, didn’t detect any warp taint and the team was puzzled about what was going on. Two of their team were in no condition to help in the investigation and Karanov was too dangerous to let out of the holding cell.

Continuing their investigation of the station, the Acolytes find the first of the station’s personnel but they were changed. They shambled like mindless moaning zombies and attacked anyone they encountered. The Acolytes had no choice but to put the station staff down and as they explored more of the station, the more transformed personnel they found.

Counting the bodies of the personnel they encountered, it became apparent that a large number of them were missing and there was only one part of the station that the Acolytes had not yet explored- the hydroponics section. Entering the hydroponics section was like walking into the thickest jungle and it was so dense that visibility was reduced to only one or two feet. Shortly upon arrival, the remaining Acolytes (Jonas, Xerxes, and Strang), were besieged from all sides by shambling hostile station personnel. They felt no pain and wee relentless. Jonas and Xerxes shot and stabbed at the incoming horde but they were resilient and it took a lot of effort to bring them down. Soon they were battered and bloodied and eventually both went unconscious due to their injuries. Strang held out alone and in desperation he used his stash of frag grenades, tossing them everywhere in the hydroponics section. Plant and human alike were shredded and though he was unable to slay all of his attackers, he had done enough damage to clear a path to his fallen teammates and was able to drag them to safety. The mindless station personnel pursued for a few meters but then turned back and returned to the hydroponics section.

The team was no longer functional to perform its investigation- Vern and Lupo were incapacitated, Jonas and Xerxes were critically wounded and though able-bodied, Strang was wounded as well. The team had no choice but to await rescue.

Rescue came a few days later in the form of an Inquisitor named Xill. Xill brought the Acolytes back to his orbiting Imperial Cruiser. The mission was a failure. Xerxes still did not know what had caused the station’s personnel to become mindless killers. He was sure that the Inquisition knew…