++++Thought for the Day: True happiness stems only from duty ++++
The acolytes, having completed their mission at Stern Hope, were retrieved and transported home to Scintilla. During the six month trip, they were probed, questioned, and examined closely for any hint or corruption from their encounter with the Dancer at the Threshold. Upon arrival, they were escorted to meet with their Inquisitor, Globus Vaarak, and briefed upon their next mission.
The xenos circuitry found within the Magus Emperor's Tarot card didn't match anything found within the Inquisitor's databanks, and he was near to giving up until he was contacted by an old friend, retired Imperial Navy Admiral Laurent Strophes, contacted him about a favor. Apparently the Strophes had lost a niece, Saia Strophes, after she had joined an upstart cult known as the "Joyous Choir" which had sprang up recently on the Callixis sector homeworld. This Choir was apparently dedicated to the idea that the Emperor wanted his followers to be happy and, in doing so, apparently had developed a broad following within the rich and upper-crust of the Hive Scintilla society. Strophes would normally have not bothered Vaarak with this, but after sending a bounty hunter to investigate what had happened, had discovered that a device known as "harmony meters" which the cult used to read how "true" a follower was to the Emperor, contained strange circuitry which Vaarak later discovered was very similar to the circuitry in the tarot card. Upon more closely examining the meter, Jemhadar discovered that the meter was capable of detecting psychic activity and, since this was correlated with a slight dip in the number of psykers tithed to the Imperium, this warranted further investigation.
The group were met by Laurents daughter, Julia, and entered into their cover as distant relatives of the Strophes from Fenksworld. A meeting with the bounty hunter, Orday, revealed that he possessed a datapad containing some information he believed to be valuable and wished to be paid for. Agreeing to provide the cash at a meeting time to be determined later, the group was trained in etiquette by Julia Strophes and prepared for a social soiree meant to help them infiltrate the Joyous Choir.
The party, held by a Lady Borella, was meant to be a coup for her by inviting a member of the sector commander's personal staff to attend. The group mingled, with Drake winning over the crowd with a stirring performance, Zane making friends with a middle hiver who had been invited, and Cane attempting to ingratiate himself with the group to win an invitation to the Choir's Alabaster Court. Cane managed to win the attention of Borella and fend off Siprit Daneen, a society hanger-on who was angling for the same invitation, partially through an assist by Jemhadar to damage his outfit. During the course of the proceedings, a drug known as Farcosia was distributed amongst the party goers which Cane sensed possessed a living essence, which cast a particularly grim pall on the drug's use.
The next day, the group was called to meet with Orday at a middle-hive marketplace known as the Hustle. Orday, however, was assassinated before the he could make the delivery, allowing a heavily augmetically altered gunman to make off with the case containing the information. Discouraged, the party attended the event at the Alabaster Court. There, they watched a performance wherein an unknowing lowerhiver was cast in the main role and ultimately was slain for the crowd's amusement. The reaction of Drake led him to engage in a duel with the orchestrator of the performance, again a moment of high entertainment for the party. During this, Jemhadar and Zane investigated the building, ultimately finding a psychically null room with some of the xenos circuitry engraved into the floor. Meanwhile, Cane and the victorious Drake were introduced to Caros Shoal, leader of the Joyous Choir, and were having a spirited discussion about inviting Cane to the cult and helping to spread the Choir to Fenksworld, before they were interrupted by the arrival of the cybernetic gunman from earlier in the day, which many of the party goers knew as another cult official named Theodosia. The two drew off to the side for an animated discussion, culminating in Shoal loudly proclaiming that he had made the people on Ambulon a fortune a dozen times over, leading to Theodosia angrily dragging Shoal out of the room.
Thankful that they were not recognized, the group left the party and returned home. As they planned their next move, perhaps relocating the investigation to the walking city of Ambulon, the power was cut in the Strophes home.
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