Well following on from events prior the party roamed the markets looking for guns, equipment, firebomb materials and other sundries.

Julo got word from Mrs. Doyle that the planetary governor wished to see us so some of us went to do that. Lord Alron Plubus, the planetary governor, is a high ranking noble in the Guild of Plubus, which is situated on the planet of Merov. They can be considered a conglomerate of some sort, rather than a typical Merchant House.

Whilst the above was going on Lisbeth and Astrijd stayed behind to attempt to turn the technical into a sort of SAS pinky and went to RECCE and prepare the rendezvous site to give the party an advantage in the inevitable battle.

Upon the return of the trade delegation (in one piece) the party set off into the desert (in a fierce sandstorm which had been raging for a while) with a cobbled together vox jammer and bunch of fire bombs. Upon arriving Lisbeth set herself up in a trench with what can only be described as a hand operated Gatling gun whilst the remainder of the party stood in open desert at night in a sandstorm waiting for the would be assassins / owners / bad people to arrive. Arrive they did in due course and after some sort of communication/identification attempt from one of guys events took a turn for the worse. Dismounts appeared weapons raised and the CSW on the technical began slewing onto the party. At this point Lisbeth opened up with a long burst on the crank cannon with the others either freezing in the open or diving into a secondary trench.

In the ensuing firefight Julo, Astrijd and Thoros were all hit to some degree of severity though this did not stop Astrijd from firing an arrow into a miscreant who was then re-impaled on sticks of death and deadified.

Horatius remained very inspiring throughout the encounter being gloriously pinned and shot at. Thoros joined Astrijd in cover and was then followed by Julo creating a holy GP-25 formation.

After some exchanging of fire the CSW on the enemy technical jammed with Lisbeth ceasing the opportunity to let off a long burst against it and it’s operator killing him outright.
At some point during the encounter the miscreants decided it would be best to leave and began to escape in the technical, despite the efforts of Julo and Thoros the vehicle remained moving. Lisbeth once again let rip with the crank cannon peppering the technical with heavy calibre gunfire resulting in its departure from the path into a curiously ramp shaped rock and after doing a somersault it exploded in a tremendous fireball flinging the flaming occupants out of the vehicle.

Around this time it was that Thoros and Horatius tried (and succeeded) to take a prisoner ALIVE and with a snare shell to the face of all places this was achieved. After some token gunfire and similar combat orientated manoeuvres the party realised the encounter was at an end and began to take stock of what had just happened.

Having examined the Spydah, the party decided it would be worth looking into other local fauna to try and find further examples of the MIU that was integrated into them. While doing so, we discovered this lovely hunter chap that was going to help us, but he was a crab so we decided to go elsewhere!

While on our way to the mines in search of a Sand Tiger resonator thingy-ma-jigger, we instead found our old friend Ardus! Being the friendly friend that he is, he offered to lead us to the Lord-Governor, who was supposedly meeting with someone at an estate nearby.

Instead he led us to crabs.

There was much fighting and shooting and murdering, and all in all things went pretty well. People exploded and it was kinda weird, but what’cha gonna do. We managed to recover two bodies and some orders. In the mean time, we went back to the arbites and hung out for a bit, then took a nap and got all ready to go meet our new friend the Lord-Governor.

With the spider fings slain, the group set about investigating the chamber. One small passage led West, not big enough for a man and tapering to an end and with no sign of the recently taken miner. The only other two cheps were in cocoons and had been there for some time. The gibbed spider fing was burned whilst the more intact one was loaded onto a cart and taken to the Arbites Precinct on the planet where it was investigated by the party and the adept stationed there.

Findings:

-The creatures have STRANGELY JOINTED LEGS which look like they can be compressed quite significantly.
-The creatures can inflate and possibly reduce their size to an unknown degree due to their strange musculature and air sacs.
-They have poison sockets, the poison seeming very potent and in only 30 seconds paralysing Julo’s arm from a tiny scratch.
-When you touch them in their special place they violently explode, luckily we were all behind glass!
-The spider dude had some sort of vox receiver imbedded in its filthy xenos excuse for a brain.

We managed to find the frequency the vox was transmitting on in what, according to a friendly tech adept, looked like some kind of machine code he could not identify. We were unable to identify the source due to lack of equipment. The adept stated that more of the same devices operating on the same frequency or receiving the same signal would enable him to perhaps get more information from the signal itself.

Our first grorious plan was to go back to the mine after seconding more miners to dig for us, but it turned out the Governator had forbidden use of the mine and it was decided it was not politically expedient to return to the mines. It was eventually decided to murderize some of the local fauna, the sand tiger seen at the gatehouse attack, in order to determine if they had fings in their heads also. Then with this information, grab a shuttle to speak with the Governator. Probably.

With the captured raider and the wounded were spirited away to the Arbitie medical facilities back in the town; Lisbeth, York, Thoros and Julo proceeded to sift through the remains of the checkpoint and investigated the surrounding area.
The search produced a bundle of body armour, small arms, and ammunition as well as some odd bits of technical equipment from a local’s cart that had been evidently hit by the raiders prior to engaging the checkpoint (Vox unit and mining tool).

On returning to the precinct house, Thoros joined Astrijd in the medical facilities to have his injuries seen to.
While Astrijd and Thoros recuperated, York and Julo conducted an impromptu interrogation of the captured raider. Julo was able to extract from the man that the leader of this particular band was named Malek who had promised his followers wealth and power. He also indicated that this band were coming from the deserts rather than the mountains. Apparently, not much more than would have been learned by quizzing the chief arbite.

York and Lisbeth investigated the Arbite reports on the prior disappearances, noting that in the town the disappearances primarily occurred in the outer-habs in very short time frames. These conclusions led the group to use that evening to visit one of the houses where a recent disappearance had occurred. However, this provided little new information other than to confirm the reports that there was no sign of forced entry or exit and the interior was undisturbed.

The following morning the group joined the local commute to the mines to visit the mine’s foreman. During an inspection tour of the mine to asset it’s worth as an investment Astrijd discovered the burrow of a local xenos shortly after it managed to snatch one of the miners.
The group proceeded to force their way into the burrow with the assistance of the miners, attained through the persuasions of the local Arbite and her enforcers. Not long after entering the burrow they were ambushed leading to a skirmish with multiple arachnid xenos in the dark.

After uniting the acolytes and formally introducing ourselves we were shipped off to meet our employer, the Lord Inquisitor Unreasonablylongname and his fabulous mustache. During this pleasant meeting we were briefed on our mission: to uncover the reasons behind the recent disappearances and civil unrest on the desert mining world Acedia II. The Lord Inquisitor assured in his belief that we would be able to swiftly resolve the issues at hand.

A short shuttle trip later we found ourselves on the barren rock, greeted by a friendly public spokes person. He directed us to an inn and gave as a brief insight into the situation on the ground, but details were scarce. Masquerading as merchants and bounty hunters we went on to visit the local Arbite compound, having been told that for more detailed information on current events we should seek them out. After Horatious York revealed our identity, at least in part, to the senior officer: Callista a radio transmission from some sort of checkpoint interrupted our investigation.

As requested by the Arbites we hurried to the relief of the post, the men there fending off a crowd of unsavory individuals armed with surprisingly heavy weaponry. A bloody skirmish ensued. By the Emperor’s grace we emerged victorious, yet not unscathed. Left standing over the corpses of our foes (or in some cases lying alongside them) we must be ready to face the challenges ahead, for our work here is far from done.