Session 11: The Heretic and the Astropath

This cathedral gets creepier and creepier with ever room. Taking the piece of the key from the woman's corpse caused it to turn to dust. I suspect this means something, but I'm not sure yet and there's so much more to explore. Moving on we find what appears to be the sleeping chambers of the people who used to inhabit this cathedral. Upon opening the door we saw a room ravaged by time. There was a bed that was nothing more than a broken frame and feathers, a mirror and a chest. We asked Arathus to investigate the chest and he obliged.
 
He entered the room and something strange happened. When he passed the mirror he saw a vision of a horrible beast with a bird head and black wings missing an arm. Surely this is the owner of the arm we found on Scintilla, the Dei-Phage. Apparently there was a secret door opposite of the mirror. Braxton found the door and proceeded to open it, by falling through it. It was rather entertaining and did relieve the tension of what Arathus told us he saw. But that relief was only brief as what we found was a tragic sight.
 
On the other side of the door was a bed with a skeleton acting as a sheath for a dagger. The room also had a chest of drawers. I looked through it and found a journal. Within the journal was the story of an Astropath by the name of Hadria Hekate. This explains the writ we saw earlier. My guess was that she was not only the Astropath for the Rogue Trader, but they may have been romantically involved, hence the writs placement. But that is pure speculation and the journal had other secrets to reveal. Outlined within the journal were the last weeks of her life and identity of her murderer, Gustavus Hekate. Given the time of her death was dated by Veck to be over a 100 years, this is a disturbing finding. There is an entry about a priest disappearing, which explains why the Ecclesiarchy refused to post a priest at the Haematite Cathedral and wanted the Hekate family investigated . Luckily, the journal also mentioned a secret room beneath the skulleria.
 
Secret rooms and heresy seem to go hand and hand now a days. Now that we knew the secret room existed, finding the entrance under the oven was simple enough. Below we discovered a den of heretical horrors. It was filled with cages and the floor was littered with heretical symbols. We found a false stone in the wall that revealed a secret room. Odd that there was a secret room within a secret room, but I digress.
 
We opened the door to the room and found more horrors. There were several monstrosities that appeared to random bodies sewn together in several grotesque forms. At the sight of this, Braxton went back up to the skulleria. Not surprising given his tendency to be unsettled by heretical things, except apparently daggers that cause eye bleeds. He seems enthralled by those. But again, I digress.
 
So here we were in this den of heretical horror and Braxton left us. Yarn and I decided to investigate further before we cleansed the place with fire. We found a loose stone in the floor. It wasn't easy to lift and required us both to remove it. The stench was overwhelming and the hole below contained the remains of the original owners of the sewn together monstrosities in the room. As the stench overwhelmed us a voice boomed from the door.
 
An Apparition of a man with a hole in his chest that dripped a foul ichor appeared. He or it was yelling at Yarn and I. We immediately dropped the flagstone over the hole we had uncovered. Secretly I was hoping the Apparition would dissipate, but it's never that easy. I surmised the Apparition was none other than Gustavus Hekate, but that didn't fit with all the other data we had found. Veck reacted quickly upon seeing the apparition and took a shot at him. To my surprise, the shot connected. The Apparition took offense to this and struck Veck in his leg so hard it brought him down on one knee. Suddenly, I felt a wave of fear overcome me and I was frozen in place. The feeling was only a moment as I quickly shook it off, thank the Emperor. Upon coming to my senses, I said a prayer to the Emperor beseeching him to give us strength in our time of need by gracing us with his light. It appeared to work as everyone rallied to defeat the Apparition. Even Braxton rejoined us in an effort to best the evil visage. As I surmised, the apparition was indeed Gustavus Hekate. In his hand was another piece of the key. We took it and his corpse turned to dust just like the woman in the warrant room.
 
I've come to the conclusion that the woman was Nikea Hekate. It would appear that the keys are bonded to the souls of the three Hekates that were accused of heresy. And given that we've now proven the accusations to be true, I'm guessing that the last piece of the key will be found in the hands of the third Hekate, Koronath Hekate. I'm guessing he is in the library given what we've discovered thus far, but I feel that we must explore more of the cathedral before we encounter him. I don't think it needs to be said, but we purged that heresy in fire once we confirmed there was nothing remaining but heresy.
 
The mysteries of this place are starting to unravel and the answers are giving me chills. I can't help but feel as though we are being herded to around the cathedral and the one pulling the strings is none other than the Dei-Phage. What sinister plot does he have in mind for us and will we be able to subvert it.