This story of the Inquisition of Umberspire takes place during the ‘Revenge of Rondhol’ campaign.
Check the campaign page for backstory.
Act 1
“Hello, sorry to intrude, but this letter doesn’t have a distinct address? So I’m giving it to the Council, as it seems you’re in charge around here.” —–
To anyone that will listen, Help. They come. The stars that fell have brought forth the dead. They came from the deep mines. They’ve taken our children. They’ve taken our food. Their eyes can be seen in the dark. Please, time runs low, they won’t leave, they don’t sleep, they don’t die. Find us by listening for the screams on the winds of the Mountains of Maraz.
— Khardhir mail-grot employee
Inquisitor Voidwalker had barely signed the contract with the House of Vermillio in Khardihr, to provide security and inteligence during the Furyoth Dell operation, and already requests are coming in. The Vermillio family is keen on capitalizing on this surge of undead in the Mountains of Maraz, as they have been attempting to secure the trade routes in the Svlind from the hands of Chaos pirates who long have held the region. Maraz is the gateway into the Furyoth Dell.
The House is also adamant that another recent call for aid, that of the survivors of Civilia’s ruin, be ignored in favour of swiftly moving on schedule to the Dell.
Yurek Malenkon, castellan of the Inquisition, meets with Vermillio agents to plot their next move. They are to work together in identifying those keen on delaying the city’s journey, and persuade them first subtly, then as required, forcefully. Once targets are identified and their response gauged, the intelligence arm of the Inquisition would see to that.
Securing the Mountains of Maraz
In the meantime, Inquisitor Voidwalker leads the bulk of the Inquisition forces and fleet towards the Mountains of Maraz, to investigate this call for aid. Records say there is an ancient Temple of the Storm somewhere in its peaks, as this region was once a religious site close to where Sigmar and Gorkamorka had their legendary battle.
The diplomats of the Inquisition kept tabs on other movements of the Council, and one Gondrysdassnir (a dragon wizard with an armed retinue, no less!) had shown interest in marching there to help rescue these unfortunates (or so he claims). Lawgiver Amondenora wasted no time in attempting to secure collaboration with the enterprising wyrm, and the Inquisition sailed to the Mountains of Maraz to meet up with the sorcerous dragon.
The ruins of the Temple loomed large, and while no signs of the locals were apparent, a large force of Chaos marauders, flying the flag of Khrovar Blackmaw, galloped in their direction intending to cut them off.
The Chaos pirates had made further inland than the Inquisitor had expected: all the more relevant that they had departed from Khardihr so quickly to come here. The Chaos Reaver’s advance needs to be stopped here. Their large mounted force and dozens of gibbering beasts were a bigger adversary than the forces of Khardihr were expecting. Poisonous sorcerous fumes permeated the battlefield, and thechaotic energies of disease and decay were unleashed on the Inquisition. Even the dead fear the devouring power of decomposition.
Gondrysdassnir surveyed the battlefield, holding his own but considering seriously their chances of success. He however, made sure to gain assurances of his… claim to the Mountains, in writing, once the battle was over.
The Inquisition’s battleline still held, however, with corpses rising again and again. And again trampled beneath the hooves of daemonic steeds and cut down by ensorcelled blades.
But then the shadow magic started flying. From one corner of the battlefield, their trump card was revealed. Lady Magdalene von Sinckler, cutting a wide circle around her and felling one chaos warrior after another, the living started to dwindle, and the undead just kept rising. Slowly, but surely, the battleline started to shift.
One more hour it took, for the fanatical forces of Chaos to finally break their stand and retreat back to the Svlind.
The Mountains of Maraz were secured, and the Temple of the Storm now in the hands of Khardihr forces. Blackmaw’s Reaver’s did not expand further inland, and these tropps wouldn’t be coming back to reinforce their position back in the Svlind. But whether House Vermillio’s own fleet would be able to secure the rest of the port cities by themselves, only time would tell.
Now, the Inquisition set out to investigate the gheist haunting and find these locals who so desperately sent for aid.
The gheists of the Storm Temple
With the Temple secured, the Inquisition set out to reassess the Vermillios’ position in the region. Lord Carminnios fleet had won at Wavemeat, and obtained a powerful artillery piece during the conflict: a Seraphon celestite void-cannon, likely a piece of the crashed Temple ship. Truly a victory secured for House Vermillio, and discussions behind closed doors are happening on how best to put it to use.
Meanwhile, Castellan Malenkon of the Inquisition assembled an expedition party to explore the ruins of the Temple, led by himself and accompanied by none other than veteran monster hunter Belimir, recently returned from a quick visit back to the Hungering Steppe. No survivors had been found inside the Temple yet, and questions arose as to who sent the distress message. What wasn’t in question, however, was the amount of specters haunting the Temple’s vast catacombs: they emerged out from every wall and crypt, grabbing and maiming every unsuspecting victim.
Regardless of any living survivors, these ghosts would be worthy recruits to a new regiment. A binding ritual it would be, then. Preparations start, and ritual circles across the catacombs are drawn to bind these ghosts to the Inquisitions’ will.
However, Malenkon’s team was not the only one down there. It became very obvious that assassins had been hired to sabotage their plans, though to whom they owed their allegiance was not clear.
Not only did they’d had to content with the irritable specters, but now Malenkon’s team had to fend off these aelven assassins, who seemed to be very well informed of what the Inquisition was intending to do here.
They went straight for the binding circles, intent on disrupting them. And one by one, they take out the Inquisition’s expedition. A protracted guerilla war lasts for hours in those dark corridors.
At the very last moment, the Inquisition’s immortal guard was able to fend off the assassins for long enough to complete the ritual. Though suffering huge casualties, the Inquisition was able to weave a web of necromantic servitude, and now the gheists were under their control.
Yurek Malenkon and Belimir crawled away to safety, and once regrouping with the Inquisition’ s army, proceeded to interrogate these new captive gheists as to the history of the Temple.
Along with increasing House of Vermillio’s influence within the City of Khardihr (and encouraging them to travel to the Mountains of Maraz), the Inquisition of Umberspire itself has now come into possession of a great artefact of power during their investigation in the Temple catacombs. The captive gheists informed Castellan Malenkon that this key, thought lost until now, is but half of a mechanism that connects the Temple of the Storm with it’s twin, found somewhere else within Rondhol. When the key is activated a gateway forms – connecting the two Temples together and allowing for quick travel between the two locations. But, the gheists tell the Inquisition, both keys need to be set up in order for it to happen, and you have no way of knowing if the other one is set up, or where it leads.
A Unlikely Team is Formed
With the staggering development the realmgate in the Temple of the Storm in Maraz bursting open into another one in the Furyoth Dell, with the further complication that a Seraphon shipwreck is now apparently stuck in the space between, the Inquisition had its hands full. Castellan Malenkon’s agents have been sent to secure their side of the wreck, and prevent the forces of Irox Bloodhand and other agents of Chaos affiliated with Blackmaw from pushing further through it and into their stronghold at Maraz.
As the Marazian gheists are pressed into service with Lady Olka’s necromantic bindings, to carry and escort the giant voidcannon secured at Wavemeat by Lord Carminnion, the Hounds of the Inquisition are split between this trip and securing the Seraphon wreck. Inquisitor Voidwalker petitions the House of Vermillio to re-route Khardihr to approach the Dell from the position of the Mountains of Maraz, where their forces are strongest and the city can be better protected.
It is at this point that a missive from Judge Voranul himself, of the Council of the Inquisition, reaches Inquisitor Voidwalker in Khardihr. A strike team of Templars is coming from Lendu with him, where they will personally oversee the exploration of the Furyoth Dell. Voidwalker frowns at this hasty development, wondering what the old Judge could be eyeing that is so important that he will come personally from their expedition to Lendu. This Furyoth Dell projects a lot of foreboding, and the Inquisitor is wondering if he’s being kept out of the loop… He will send Belimir with them. He knows the ghurian knight has no love for the Templars, and this will likely cause strain on the mission, but he needs eyes and ears in this expedition.
His mind made up, Vollastor Voidwalker meets with the Lords of Vermillio to update them on the situation. The city and and House Vermillio had already dispatched advance scouting warbands to the Dell, in the form of the Scarlet Crusade, the court of The Wild Hunt and Recto’s Soul Snatchers, and their scant reports have outlined some potential ways in and likely landmarks of interest. They also witnessed the explosion that wracked the Temple of the Storm there and opened the gate. This is their goal: to secure the other side of the realmgate that leads to Maraz and secure the Seraphon shipwreck fragment in a pincer movement. It is at this point, where the strategy for the expedition is being drafted, that the nobles of Vermillio inform Voidwalker they would have company on their expedition.
The Stormscale Covenant’s representative, Thelan Razorbolt, steps forward, and the sight of a Stormcast-forged draconith stuns most of the onlookers. This most unusual of Stormhosts would be the Council’s eyes and ears on this expedition, teaming up with the Inquisition’s strike force to the Dell. Voidwalker warily engages the stormcast, laying out who and where they will be meeting, and measuring up their intentions. Was the House of Vermillio losing influence in the Council, for them to be saddled with this team-up? This could, however, help mend the rift that has been growing in the Council between the House and the rest.. or at least allay their suspicions so that the House gains the upper hand.
Voidwalker chuckled. So the Inquisition is the one saddled with the work and a bunch of minders, in return for whatever concession the House managed to squeeze out of the Council. So be it.
A week after, in the outskirts of the ridge of mountains lining the edge of the Furyoth Dell, the meeting finally takes place. Belimir, knight of the Hounds of the Inquisition, has met up with the Keeper Zindimir and Judge Voranul, with their retinue of Men in Black, ready to march on the Dell. Standing across them, the strike force of the Stormscale Covenant stormhost, Knight-Vexillor Thelan Razorbolt warily listening as the Inquisition’s Lawgiver Amondenora reads the terms of their contract and alliance, and following the text on his own copy in search of any mistakes. Judge Voranul’s cadaverous face grins as the legalese rolls off, his well-honed skills finding sufficient exploitable holes that the House purposefully built into it, to suit their purposes later.
The Joint Khardhirian Expedition to the Dell
The joint khardhirian team of the Inquisition and the Stormscale Covenant marched to the Furyoth Dell, crossing the mountains surrounding it to get there. They clashed there with none other than Azoth’s Realmgorger’s Steamwrought Chuglords, a clan of aqhsyan edgewalker ogors who had been blessed by the Realm of Fire. Belimir and the Hounds of the Inquisition last met them during the War in the Bleeding Wilds, where they stood with Ghalbakk’s Company in opposition to the Inquisition’s allies, the Underbough Sepulchre.
The clash involved the use of both armies’ Incarnates of Beasts, and was a titanic battle.
The Expedition team travelled across several regions of the Dell, being significantly pushed back by wandering warbands and strange machinations that derailed their path.
They located the shattered Temple of the Storm within the Dell, with the Seraphon shiwreck lodged in its gate. They pushed an invading warband out to secure it.
The seraphon ship was found looted however, and no enemy army left behind as culprit. Following tracks, the joint expedition is misled to a confrontation with another army who had apparently also being misled by trickery.
Calling a truce, the two armies exchange information and intel and get back on track, finally heading towards the agents of Chaos who looted the seraphon ship. Belimir gets progressively suspicious about the nature of the expedition and how they are being misled.
Their path is fraught and the forces allied with Captain Blackmaw push the joint expedition to the brink, barely able to hold on to the seraphon loot they had managed to acquire.
After a retreat and a significant detour and recovery, they finally make it to the ruins indicated by their unlikely ally. Here Belimir has a significant fallout with Keeper Zindimir, restraining him before heading to fight. But disaster struck in the form of Judge Voranul being kidnapped together with the Stormscales’ Lord-Arcanum, by the Rancho Terror warband, an aggressive group of beastmen and monster herders, led by powerful chaos champions.
The Inquisition and the Stormscales fought well, but suffered an infuriating defeat here. While Judge Voranul and the Stormscales’ Lord-Arcanum manage to escape, they did not secure the seraphon artefacts and lost their own loot.
The joint expedition now prepares to besiege the ruin, with more time and preparation.
You can read the full story of the expedition here.
Act 2
While Keeper Zindimir’s strike force regroups with the rest of the Inquisition forces back at the Shattered Temple, Belimir keeps an eye on the marauding menagerie that Blackmaw sent, now a disparate group of Chaos worshippers, daemons and monsters all gleefully grabbing as many Seraphon relics as they can.
And Belimir was informed by Zindimir that the Inquisition already has assets in place in the Dell, for occasions such as these. He reveals that Inquisitor Sinestor, former commander of the Inquisition Templars, has led a splinter group into the valley many months ago. They have been scouting the land and will be able to report on assessed threats. They have already been contacted and appraised of the current situation… wherever they are.
Belimir is to keep tabs on the moving convoy of Blackmaw’s looters, while they take on the task of picking the convoy slowly apart.
Sinestor’s Hunters infiltrate Blackmaw’s convoy
Inquisitor Sinestor’s force has taken quite a toll while they have been in the Dell. While seasoned, their numbers have dwindled and the skirmishes against the local monsters and enemy warbands have proven a challenge to the renegade Inquisitor.
Their first strikes gain them some ground into Blackmaw’s turf, but they are quickly pushed back again by Ku’sass’s nurgle daemons, and marauding forces of barbarians.
But Sinestor had not been idle. Their time in the Dell, guided by Navigator Varlac, allowed them to unearth enough amberbone to practice the same techniques that once built the Inquisition’s mighty Artificial Incarnate of Beasts. The teachings of Drekazra: bestial undeath, dubbed “Drekamancy”. Using stolen knowledge from deep within Shyish’s vaults, Sinestor and Varlac molded and animated the first of a new breed of warriors: the Brood of Drekaz. Made of hardened dense beastbone and animated from the monstrous spirits dwelling within amberbone crystal, this iteration on Nagash’s ossiarch design would be Sinestor’s bid to improve his station.
The strike force of Inquisitor Sinestor joins forces with marauding bands of grots and orruks, who have been laying a ‘kunnin’ plan to corner Blackmaw’s convoy of loot.
They lay out ambush routes, around the ancient ruins of the Dell, and fall onto the marching armies of chaos-worshippers, stealing some choice loot but not breaking their spirit. Along the way, Navigator Varlac manages to discover one of the smaller wrecks of the Xarlanth, although they have little time to grab the Seraphon technology before they are spotted. They will have to return later…
The skirmishes comes to a head with a direct assault at one of Blackmaw’s camps, guarded by a voracious ghorgon. The Inquisition strike team pushes far into the camp, aided by their greenskin co-conspirators, but the barbarian cultists, allied with a twisted bloodthirsty band of sylvaneth, prove to be blessed with superior strength and an unnatural good luck.
Once more, not much could be taken from them before the ambushers call for a retreat, as the Chaos-whorshipper camp calls for reinforcements and Sinestor and his allies decide it is time for more drastic moves. Stealth skirmishes to steal a piece at a time would not work. They needed to harness more from Ghur to defeat their enemies.
They needed a beast.
The gate to the Temple of Maraz is breached
As Rhondol buckles and heaves with fury, the disturbance is felt at the Temple of the Storm in Maraz, where the Inquisition guards it’s gate to the Furyoth Dell. Soon they realize their army on the other side, led by Keeper Zindimir, has been displaced, as the Nagashites they had faced before return with a vengeance.
They besiege the gate itself from the Furyoth Dell side, and slowly cut down the unprepared forces of Castellan Malenkon, who are forced to retreat to the Temple of Maraz.
The gate from the Temple of Maraz to the Further Dell has now been taken, wrested from the hands of the Inquisition and the Vermillio. The empty wreck of the Xarlanth is now on the other side of this enemy blockade.
The Inquisition fights out of the Black Pits
The rents open in the earth by Rhondol’s spasms caught the army of the Inquisition Templars. The force led by Keeper Zindimir is now surrounded by a labyrinth of rock and ancient ruins. And trapped together with them are the forces of Blackmaw, the Choppas and other marauding treasure seekers in the Dell.
Thankfully, the Templars had managed to infuse their Incarnate of Beasts with energy again, and the monstrosity surged forward, a battering ram shielding the rest of the Templars from whatever horrors and ambushes lay in wait.
The first encounter is indeed with an old rival: trogboss Mooneye, blind navigator from the now defunct Ghalbakk’s Company. Their trogherd might’ve been just lost and passing by, but in their belligerence managed to deviate the Templars further into the canyons.
There, they were caught by Tzenchian Daemons hiding deep in the Black Pit, and had to endure warpfire and unending waves of horrors.
Others blocked their way out, believing them to carry loot from the ruins or the Seraphon wreck. A Nagashite strike force fell on them, having followed them from the Shattered Temple. The Templars Incarnate bought them enough time to escape.
No soon were they clear of the threat that they had to face ogor mercenaries coming from the cavern depths.
When at last the skies were in sight, they were ambushed by none other than a Khardihrian duardin aetherfleet. Undoubtedly, things must have gone sour in the council, Zindimir thought, for an elimination of the Vermillio agents to be called in the middle of this upheaval, of all times.
At last, battered and with their Incarnate spent once more, the Templars emerge back into the jungle, and regroup with the rest of their forces at the Shattered Temple.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Act 3
As Rondhol convulses and the Slvind crashes itself across the sea, the jungles of the Dell are ever more unstable, and the Inquisition reassesses their contract with the Vermillio, and their continued investment in the city of Khardihr.
The secretive Fae are now putting their plans in motion, and several rival interests to Khardihr are also scrambling to make sense of what they are doing.
Inquisitor Vollaster puts forward the proposal that the House uses this chaos and commotion to advance its interests in secrecy, as much of the Xarlanth’s remains are still within the Dell and in the hands of their rivals. They can change that. The Dell has turned out more dangerous than reckoned when first contracted, attracting the brunt of not only Ka-Rokk’s Stomp but also all these local rival powers.
Vollastor suggests it is time to use them to the advantage of the House, and salvage what they can, while letting others expend their resources. Let this procession of Chaos worshippers cut open a path to the Fae and spend themselves upon them: the Inquisition will follow and steal the prizes from their hands in their wake. Let others loyal to the other councillors waste their resources: the Inquisiton shall pry them of these trinkets so the House can control them solely.
The Inquisition retakes the Shattered Temple and fully marches onto the Dell
Preparing this offensive for weeks, the Inquisiton’s combined forces gather to finally expunge the invading Nagashites from the Furyoth end of the Shattered Temple.
Stepping through the realmgate fissure en masse, the Inquisition Hounds advance their armed deadwalker regiments to block the movements of the vampiric knights who have been squatting in the Temple, while the specters of the Inquisition Templars (having escaped from the crevasses of the Dell) converged on the other side, trapping them.
A decisive battle is finally fought, now with the full might of the Inquisiton under coordination, and these upstarts are finally and truly vanquished. The Shattered Temple now belongs to the Inquisition and the House of Vermillio.
An open path is now controlled by the House Vermillio, from the fortified outpost and catacombs of the Storm Temple in the Mountains of Maraz, straight into the Heart of the Dell.
The Inquisition is now fully marching forward with both its main forces deep into the Dell, after the thorough cartographing by the knight-hunter Belimir and the Inquisition Templars, to stalk the other forces that have been carving a path though the valley… and swoop in when they least expect.
And take advantage of their skirmishes to weaken these so called knights of the Chalice.
Time will tell what use this Amber Blood may have, and to what purpose it may best be put to.
The House of Vermillio asserts dominance over their council rivals
As planned, the Inquisition tracked down those warbands on the trail ahead, following in their footsteps and letting them face the traps and dangers of the Dell first.
Belimir has been following the trail of some promising allies of another Khardirian councillor, a lumineth war-party, who have stumbled across a cache of seraphon artefacts, and have defeated many many enemy warbands along the way.
“Their string of triumphs is about to be cut short, and their resources taken”, Castellan Malenkon thinks, as he lays out the plan of attack for the Inquisition forces. “When the dust settles after all of this, the House of Vermillio will have undisputed control of Khardihr with the rest of the council having been humbled by their own ineficiency”. The vampire wizard rubs his hands gleefully.
As the lumineth are about to finish their dig, and the land starts convulsing once more, the Inquisition Hounds pounce on their rivals, catching them unawares. Belimir and his companions put their monster-hunting skills to good use to take down the lumineth’s dragonriding knight.
The Inquisition forces attempt to finish the fight as fast as possible, before the artefacts are lost forever in the earthquakes. Unfortunately, some are swallowed up by Ghur, hungrily, and only a portion could be salvaged. A large cache of arcane engines was unearthed, and could now be transported back to Khardihr via the safe route through the Shattered Temple.
The lumineth war-party was left broken and captured, and their intel was soon to be property of the Inquisition of Umberspire.
Inquisitor Voidwalker of Umberspire enacts his purge, and the Inquisition starts evacuation maneuvers
As the Voidfang gains momentum and the Inquisition disables the agents of Khardihr in the field, the leader of the Inquisition Hounds, Inq. Vollastor Voidwalker, finally arrives at the Mountains of Maraz.
The Vampire Lord had been travelling the shadows for months, following the movements of the city’s agents, and the infiltration of it by these Fae agents. While Voidwalker had not been able to stop the mayhem triggered by Hawcaller and the assassinations in the very heart of the council room, he was able to identify the culprit and purge a good few enemy spies from the Vermillio estate. This allowed him to learn how deep this operation had sunk its claws in the city, and that the head of the Navigator’s Guild was the ringleader. And the Inquisitor had now been putting in countermeasures for weeks.
Now that the butterfly was out of the coccoon, his targets were in the open. The boldness of the Fae agents’ murders finaly gave them away, which the Inquisitor suspected was due to them feeling they were close to their endgame. He was able to take out several of the Fae agents himself the past weeks, now that they thought they had the upper hand. The Vermillio agents he coordinated were able to move quickly and swiftly, and Voidwalker himself stepped between shadows to reach the most impenentrable bastions, seeking his prey.
The covert infiltration and eventual incursion into the city by the bloodwarriors of the Steel Fang did complicate matters, as this third party was an opportunist predator waiting to bite on the weakened animal that Khardihr had become. But thanks to his planted intelligence, he was able to weaken Hawkcaller’s hold on several institutions by pitting his minions against the Steel Fang. The blood warriors were able to claim a hold over part of the city, but their interest aligned with expunging the Fae. The Vermillio weren’t happy to have such a big bite taken out of their real estate, but it was a concession they were willing to make given the circumstances.
The attacks on the Vermillio members precipitously stop, with hushed whispers mentioning the “Avenging Shadow” who had steadily thinned the numbers of most of the assassins and spies in the city, and had scrambled their missives. As Voidwalker’s purge operation progressed, he was able to retrieve some of the plans these traitors had been brewing, by document retrieval, and psychological or necromantic interrogation. Hawkcaller was traced to be at the center of their web, and the House of Vermillio’s remaining members were fuming for revenge.
His work done, and amused to have been able to prowl the city while his minions were out conducting warfare, Voidwalker decided it was finally time to shift the Inquisition’s priorities.
Communicating with Judge Voranul, who was still with Inquisitor Hastagar in the depths of the Dell with the rest of the Inquisition, pursuing Seraphon wrecks, Voidwalker explains he would be ordering a full scale retreat of his Inquisition Hounds from the Temple at Maraz, which is right in the warpath of this Voidfang fortress creature the Fae are controlling. He had done enough for the Vermillios, and this should now put them on the upper hand in Khardhir, enough to clean up their mess. As per their contract to secure further Seraphon technology, Hastagar’s group would continue pursuit in the Dell, as they were finally reaching this procession which had gathered to fight the Fae. The rivals that eluded them before, having stolen the guts of the seraphon wreck that became the Shattered Temple, were now close. They would be too distracted fighting the Knights of the Chalice.
Voranul agreed, and assured that Hastagar’s intentions aligned, having already mobilized all of the Inquisition Templars out of Maraz. “Good. Get me Belimir here as well. I need him for several jobs, in fact.” asked the vampire. “Me and My Hounds will be leaving to the south, to Lendu. We just heard of a possibility to collect a debt from Everquake City that we might never have a chance to again.” Voidwalker grinned, a wicked amusement spread over his face. “We are going to join the greenskin –shaman’s Waaaagh. Hahahaha!”
The Templars of Umberspire Inquisition break into the Procession convoy
The large procession could be seen across the valley, the tall monolith of Chaos destruction stretching high above the trees, radiating waves of transmutative corruption. And the mass of armies gathering around it, to confront the advancing Voidfang, shook the jungle tree wherever they passed, the press of troops and monstrous beasts across the undergrowth giving them away.
It was easy for the Inquisition to track them. As the gathered forces of the procession start to maneuver to engage the titanic creature, this was the perfect time to break through their back lines. The Inquisition’s original mission, to retrieve the fragments of the Seraphon wreck, would still succeed if they just pried them from the hands of those who have collected the most of it.
They had found an opening. For the past months, the strike team of Inquisitor Sinestor had been harrying their supply lines, locating the traces of the large cache of seraphon artefacts they had amassed. The ones they had stolen from the Inquisition.
The army they were after was close. They were deeper into the procession, with some of their allies in between. They were close to launching the attack on the Fae’s fortress, so they would be distracted. An army of grots stood between the Inquisition and their prey.
Inquisitor Hastagar ordered to advance, to punch through to their real targets… 
…but the belligerent warriors this procession had gathered, survivors of the months of whatever the Dell had to throw at them, were not easy to beat. Their fungoid monsters jumped all over the Inquisition’s forces, evading Hastagar’s pincer movements, and throwing the advance into disarray.
Judge Voranul managed to cut down one of the grot’s beasts, punching through the grot’s line.
To draw away the avalanche of squig beasts which had emerged onto the battlefield, Hastagar, who had already crossed beyond the grots’ line, ordered his skeletal regiments to engage the fungal beasties, and distract them long enough for the Templars to reach their true target.
Dissarray sowed amongst the procession, the Templars of the Inquisiton advanced to get their hands on their true target…
The Umberspire Inquisition steals back Seraphon cache of artefacts
The Inquisition now was fully on the run, speeding with their massed forces to encircle their enemy. The assault on the Voidfang had started, and the enemy they were seeking, one of the armies in the procession attempting to besiege the beast, was now in their sights. They were almost ready to move from their camp, to help reinforce the attack on the Fae’s fortress, but were now forced to go on full alert facing this new enemy. The Inquisition, back with a vengeance.
This was a score the Templars of the Inquisition wished to settle to settle: with those who stole the valuable guts from seraphon wreck stuck inside the Shattered Temple. From the temple of the deep. Those who kidnapped their Judge Voranul himself for two whole days. Who defeated their hunter-knight, Belimir, in close combat, and humiliated the Inquisition, stealing the majority of their salvaged searphon artefacts. Chaos Lord Mordred and his allies.
His sorcerer swooped high on his chaos manticore, surveying this sudden enemy that had appeared from the netherworlds to encircle them. He had not expecting to see the Inquisition again. Mordred had ordered the set up of the seraphon engines up, for study and to keep them safely away from the frontline… but that had made them exposed now to this recurrent enemy.
The forces of chaos barbarians and eldritch-clad armored Chosen closed ranks, preparing to withstand the charge of The Men in Black of the Inquisition.
The mounted chaos knights plowed into the Inquisition, dissipating the ghostly reapers and pushing the relentless line of gheists backward.
But Hastagar had prepared to face Mordred. Throwing several regiments of skeletal warriors at him, he avoided having any of the Inquisition’s officers dueling him, choosing instead to keep him busy and unable to interfere with his more valuable troops.
The rest of the procession was not idle, as despite the sudden advance of the Inquisition into their lines, and the siege on the Voidfang was fully underway, Mordred’s tzeentchian allies noticed the problem and swooped in to reinforce them.
Leading one of the flanks of the Inquisition’s charge was Inquisitor Sinestor himself, back from his imposed exile, his long investigations in the Furyoth Dell borne fruit in the form of making this attack possible.
The forces of the Inquisition manage to encircle completely Mordred’s large army, and slowly and inexorably cut them down with the scythes of their hexwraiths and reapers.
As a trump card, Hastagar had managed to convince Magdalene von Sinckler, who usually would follow Inquisitor Voidwalker anywhere, to stay and help with this retrieval. She pounced on Mordred’s allies, pulling them out of the sky with her magicks and slicing them down with her own blade.
Ultimately, Mordred’s own officers abandon him, fleeing from the field. Their warriors break and rout, not wanting to fight on two fronts against the Inquisition and then the jaws of the Voidfang.
The Inquisition, at long last, recovers the seraphon artefacts and other relics that had eluded them for months, stolen by these upstarts. Even Keeper Zindimir’s usually stoic demeanor allowed enough of his satisfaction for this vengeance to show through.
The cache of relics was very sizeable, with some engines the size of wyvern. Priority now was to pack it all up and secure it to travel back to Khardihr, to their Vermillio partners.
The Inquisition Templars secure a seraphon cache for the House of Vermillio
The Templars had left the Dell, and in the confusion of the battle against the Voidfang, managed to escape with them to Khardihr mostly unscathed, hauled in their ghost ships.
Their last remaining forces alight on a remote plateau of the city, using warehouses owned by the Vermillio to house their salvaged relics. They only needed to wait for their contacts to arrive and collect.
But it seems someone had been tipped off to their transfer: two Kharadron vessels descend on their position, and have their marines ransack the containers. One vessel escapes with one large glowing orb, one of the most powerful relics indetified in the salvage. Accidentally, it revealed the engine’s power: to project a field that disrupts the magic of spellcasters in the vicinity. Dramatically so.
The last remains of the Templars of the Inquisiton barely managed to keep these duardin from robbing them of these items that took so much to acquire. Were they hired by someone else in the Council? Or by the Fae’s agents?
Inquisitor Hastagar was furious, and cut them down mercilessly, his Mindrazor Blade slicing a frigate in half.
It seems the Inquisition had succeeded in fending off their rivals. They had recovered a large cache of the Xarlanth’s engines, though not the engine that had allowed it to fly, which both the Council and the Vermillio so coveted. Nonetheless, these would bring significant leverage to the House of Vermillio, especially the anti-magic generator.
