Archives of the Friendquisition

by Inquisipony Stallius

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

“Come in,” called Fyzzix. He had been expecting the knock on the door, ever since he heard the hoofsteps in the hallway 18.7 seconds ago. From the direction they had come from, he knew it was Caballus.

The door to the luxury suite swung open, and the Inquisipony strolled inside. “How is the transfer coming?” he asked.

“I should be done soon,” Fyzzix replied cheerfully. “It would have been done a while ago, but this hotel has some of the most bewildering protocols on its data-link that I’ve ever encountered outside of the Black Spire itself, or perhaps on a Forge Cloud. I had to evade thirteen separate crypto-sieves, each one with a completely different primary key. A few of them might have even made a dent in the Friendquisitional cipher, if they had gotten a chance to see it transmit.”

“I had a feeling the guilds would have every terminal in Pferdian wiretapped,” said Caballus, taking a place beside the Meq-priest’s equipment.

It seemed terribly out of place: a large stack of cogitators, all gunmetal gray, with their wire-bundles draped over the elegant, ivory-inlaid courtesy terminal that came with the room. Countless tiny lights flashed and blinked as it received and reconstituted the files Caballus required.

“It wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle, I’m sure,” Caballus said after watching them quietly churn for a few moments.

The speaker in Fyzzix’ neck made an uncanny approximation of a chuckle. “You wound me, old friend. At best, these spying programs might have been written by a retired Adept of the Logis Strategos, or maybe a moonlighting lexmechanic. I was tiptoeing around sharper eyes and ears than this long before I even made the rank of Magosus.”

“Good. Hardware this sophisticated would be sure to raise some suspicions if it was traced back to a hotel room, but it’s the only way to get the level of detail I need. If anypony in Pferdian catches wind that I’m not who I say I am, the Children could go to ground. Then we’d be up a proverbial creek.”

Caballus glanced at the cogitators one more time. His understanding of the symbols streaming across the terminal’s display was better than most ponies, but only those ordained into the Priesthood of Cloudsdale had any hope of truly appreciating it. He likened himself to a foal trying its hoof at advanced calculus.

Looking up before his head started to hurt, the Inquisipony’s gaze landed on Roughshod, who was sharing the room with Fyzzix. The brown stallion was sleeping on top of the soft, white comforter on his own king-sized bed. A faint smile hinted that it was truly as comfortable as it looked.

Caballus found a discarded pillow on the floor and bucked it at his friend.

“Whah? Huh?” said Roughshod, bolting upright and shaking the pillow from his face.

“What’s my name?” Caballus demanded.

For a moment, Roughshod stared at him, disoriented. “Oh right,” he said suddenly, “you’re… uh… Captain Swift Corsair! Rogue Trader, um, explorer and businesspony… uh… ex…”

“Businesspony extraordinaire,” Caballus finished for him.

Roughshod blinked, and then yawned. “Yeah, I knew that,” he said, laying back down to resume his nap.

“How will I get anypony in Pferdian to believe my identity if my own staff doesn’t seem to believe it?” the Inquisipony protested. The only answer he got from his friend was a snore.

“Fine, we can work on it later,” Caballus mumbled.

Fyzzix’ cogitator stack made several loud buzzing, beeping and grinding noises for a few seconds, followed by a final ding. “It’s ready,” the Meq-priest announced.

“Here.” Caballus handed Fyzzix a data-scroll. It was blank, but it appeared old and tattered, almost deliberately so. Gently, Fyzzix fed it into a slot on one side of the stack, beginning a whole new slew of churning and whirring sounds.

“It should be ready in another 4.53 hours,” he said, “give or take.”

Caballus turned to the door. “Until then, I suggest you brush up on your trade regulations. I’m going to go check up on the others.”

Those others were currently in the suite across the hall. Caballus knocked on the door.

“Come in,” said a muffled voice on the other side.

Upon entering, Caballus found Hairtrigger lying face down on a massage table in the middle of the spacious room. A professionally-dressed masseuse was standing over him, firmly kneading the muscles between his wings. Every few moments, something beneath her hooves would snap or pop, making the Arbitrotter grunt at first, before he sighed in relaxation.

Caballus approached the table with a smirk. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“I hope you aren’t neither,” said Hairtrigger, not even looking up.

“I take it you’re enjoying the amenities, then?”

“I reckon ‘enjoying’ ain’t strong enough a word,” the pegasus groaned contently.

Caballus looked around the room. “And where’s Mystic?”

“Did somepony call for me?” The suite’s bathroom door opened, releasing a billowing wave of steam. Mystic, wearing a fluffy white bathrobe and with a towel wrapped around her wet mane, stepped outside. Seeing Caballus, she grinned sheepishly, until she realized the masseuse was still standing there. “Oh, ah… hello Captain. There haven’t been any letters for you. Did you need to send one?”

“No, Mystic,” he said, pleased that she remembered her cover in front of a stranger. “But if our guest is done, I wouldn’t mind having a chat with you two. In private.”

The masseuse wordlessly bowed, helped Hairtrigger off her table, packed it up, and carted it out of the suite.

After a moment, Caballus’s eyes scanned around the room. It was laid out exactly the same as the one Roughshod and Fyzzix were staying in: two large beds, a courtesy terminal, tasteful paintings, ornate couches, tables and chairs, and a door to the balcony overlooking downtown Pferdian. The greatest difference was that, instead of Fyzzix’ piles of technical equipment and Roughshod’s bags of weapons, these two had packed light: just a few choice books for Mystic, and whatever Arboates gear Hairtrigger could comfortably fly with.

“Where did she put it?” he finally asked.

“One in the lamp on the nightstand, where she set her oil,” said the Arbitrotter, “and another she kicked under the bed, there on the left.”

Green sparkles appeared in those two locations as Mystic plucked the tiny listening devices from their hiding places and held them in the air. Caballus spoke directly into the microphones. “No hard feelings,” he said, before Mystic vaporized them.

“Now that we’re actually in private,” Caballus said to Hairtrigger, “you look like you have something to say.”

“Aw, c’mon Caballus,” the pegasus whined, “did’ja have to stop her right in the middle? I haven’t never had a massage like that since… well… I ain’t never had a massage ever, but that one was probably the best I’ll ever get!”

“Sorry, but I’d hate for you to get so relaxed that something… compromising… might slip out,” said Caballus fighting back a smile.

Mystic blushed as she levitated a mirror over and unwound her towel. “Don’t worry. I could hear them from in there, and he didn’t say anything you didn’t tell him to.” In a matter of seconds, her dark blue mane was once again secured in its bun. A second after that, the lone lime lock escaped and flopped down in front of her face.

“So,” Caballus said, “besides running up the room service bill, how else have you been spending your evening?”

Hairtrigger scooped some data-scrolls off his bed. “I’ve been pokin’ around these files about the Stone-Cold Killer all day. These ones,” he said, holding up a thin folder, “are everything collected by the Arboates Precinct of this sector. Every victim, every crime scene, every piece of hard evidence they have.”

Caballus took the folder, flipping through the scrolls, and occasionally stopping to activate one’s contents. “There’s not much here,” he said, frowning.

“Not really. The Arboates tend to focus on the crimes that threaten the stability of their Precinct. Rioting, sabotage, terrorism, that sort of thing. Well in Pferdian here, that sort of lawbreaking is stability. The cartels are dug in so deep, giving them the boot would cause more damage than just leaving them be. As long as they’re mostly feuding with one another, the Arbitrotters in these parts just turn a blind eye to the whole mess.”

“And here I thought they were supposed to be the good guys,” said Mystic sarcastically.

Hairtrigger nodded. “I hear ya, but that ain’t a problem little ol’ us can just up and solve ourselves. The real trouble is that they seem to consider Mister Stony to be a two-bit hitpony. Sure, he’s got himself quite a high body… er, statue count, but he only seems to go after the small fry. Lesser nobles, distributors, gang lieutenants. Nopony that rocks the boat too much if they turn up stiff. These guys knocking each other off is business as usual to the Arboates, so they don’t even give them a second glance. Just pass the cases right down to the Constabulary.”

He produced a far thicker stack of data-scrolls, all bearing the stamps and stationary of the Pferdian Constabulary. “Chief Corpus was kind enough to send me this. Not sure if he’s taken a shine to me after all, or if he just wants to make darn sure he don’t have to see me again.”

“You do have knack for recovering from first impressions,” Caballus said as he leafed through the scrolls. Some of them were direct copies of the Arboates reports, but for each case, there were many more additional files appended to them.

“The Arboates documented all the hard evidence they could find,” said Hairtrigger, “but they can’t figure out nothing from it. Then, the Constabulary investigators put together these case files on the victims. Background, activities, associates, the works.”

Caballus noted that many of the dossiers were quite extensive. At a glance, it seemed that most of these ponies had been functionaries of their gangs or guilds for long periods of time. Nopony rising through the ranks, nopony causing a stir. None of them seemed like high-priority targets. “Did the Constabulary identify any patterns among the victims?” he asked.

“The only pattern is that there ain’t no pattern, and no real reason these folk needed killing,” Hairtrigger replied, echoing the Inquisipony’s intuition. “The Chief set out a lot of pieces to the puzzle here, but ain’t none of them been fit together yet.”

“Maybe that’s why he sent you the files,” said Mystic. She had hung up her robe, and was now curled up on her own bed, listening to the stallions talk while she absently leafed through one of her books. “Maybe Chief Corpus thinks a fresh pair of eyes might see something they’ve all missed.”

“Maybe,” Hairtrigger admitted, “but it’s a real doozie of a pickle. Ol’ Stony is like a doggone ghost. He don’t leave no fibers, no hoofprints, no nothing. I almost don’t blame the Arboates for passing the buck on down. There ain’t no solid ground here. Not to mention some of the cases in here are downright spooky.”

Caballus raised an eyebrow. “Spooky how?”

“Like some of these hits were impossible.” The pegasus took the stack from Caballus, flipped through the files, and pulled a few out. “Or damn near. This here mare was a steel magnate, and a small-time noble ‘round these parts. She left her office in a carriage one evening, headed to her estate. The carriage arrived nine minutes later, and when the driver went to let her out, she was stone. Neither he, nor any of the pulling team, saw or heard nothing.”

“And here’s another,” the Arbitrotter said, flipping to the next case file, “an Admanestratum tithe-collector on the take with one of the guilds. He was last seen with his two bodyguards, leaving City Hall. They woke up in an alley across town that evening, with no memory of what happened. He was found in City Hall’s private courtyard three days later. Well, he’d been there the whole time, but it took the employees that long to notice how much the ‘new sculpture’ looked like him. There was no sign of how he got there on any security footage.”

Caballus took the scroll and skimmed it himself. “Impressive… Disturbingly impressive. This level of skill is something I’d expect from the Officio Assaddlenorum.”

“This one’s my favorite. Three of Meister’s own mid-level smugglers were put up in a safe house downtown. The Arboates estimated there were ten armed thugs outside looking after them.”

Caballus’s eyes narrowed. “They estimated?”

The Arbitrotter shrugged. “They’d all been petrified, and smashed to rubble in a big pile in the middle of the room. Couldn’t tell heads from tails. And afterward, the Killer still managed to get into the panic room.”

“After all that,” Mystic said without looking up from her book, “wasn’t the panic room the easy part?”

Hairtrigger shook his head. “Not likely. It was void warded.”

Mystic stopped right in the middle of turning her page, and turned her head. “V-void warded?”

“Yep. One of the smugglers was a former ward technician for the Equestrian Navy. It says here that he was a little paranoid, so he usually warded whatever room he was staying in.”

“But no… that’s impossible,” Mystic said, flabbergasted. “Void wards are the strongest protective spells known to ponykind. It’s what they use on battleships and… and titans. I mean, it usually takes entire teams of unicorns to maintain them but… but… for anything short of a… a party cannon, even one ward would be impenetrable!”

Hairtrigger shrugged. “Not for Ol’ Stony here, apparently.”

“Do you mind if I borrow these?” Caballus asked, as he gathered up the stack of scrolls. “It should make for some good bed-time reading, and I’d like to get an idea of what we might be up against.”

“Sure, I could use a break. Been readin’ through them all day, and it’s starting to make my eye sore,” the pegasus replied, smirking. “Frankly, I don’t know how the little lady can do it so much.”

The comment nudged Mystic out of her shock, and she blushed. “Lots of practice,” was all she said.

With the files in his bag, Caballus bid the two goodnight. “Tomorrow, we’ll begin looking for ways to get close to Meister,” he added. “Be ready early.”

Both of them made the obligatory promises that they would to go to bed soon, and he returned to his own room. Caballus knew that he should get some sleep himself, but it was probably inevitable that he would read through at least a few of the cases before he did. He had never been able to resist a good mystery.

When the door of his personal suite shut behind him, the only illumination in the room was from the moon, partially shrouded by the wispy Pferdian clouds outside. The Inquisipony could see just well enough in the darkness to reach his bed without colliding into any furniture, and he set the bag of scrolls on the floor beside it.

It was strangely… quiet in the room. Not even the din of downtown outside his window dared to intrude on the stillness. It was a stark contrast to the constant noise of the Majesty’s engines keeping him awake the past several nights. The silence that now surrounded him felt… foreign. It made the hair of his neck stand on end.

Caballus reached for the lamp on the nightstand. As he did, the clouds outside let slip a single moonbeam, revealing a metallic gleam right in front of him.

Instinctively, Caballus dove away from it. Images of knifes or pie tins flew through his mind. It wouldn’t have been the first time somepony had ambushed him in his own room. By muscle memory alone, he rolled across the floor and drew a pie to face the threat.

But the attack never came. There was nopony there, and there never had been. All this talk of assassins has made you jumpy, he told himself. At least now he had his own panting and the thumping of his heart to listen to.

With a slightly shaky hoof, Caballus flipped on the bedside lamp. Beside it, he found the source of the startling shine. It was a small scroll, one made of gold leaf, and wrapped in a lace ribbon.

Carefully, the Inquisipony pulled the ribbon off with his teeth, and unrolled the note. His eyes panned over every intricately engraved letter. It took only a moment to finish, but he stared at it for several minutes afterward. Finally, he picked up his room phone, and dialed.

“Fyz, it’s me,” he said calmly. “Get everyone and bring them to my room. Right now, please.”

A couple minutes later, Caballus was looking at four concerned ponies.

“What is it, boss?” a bleary-eyed Roughshod asked him. “What’s wrong?”

“Meister Ver Kaufer hereby cordially invites you to the Plutarch’s Palace to celebrate the traditional Pferdian festival of Macsnacht,” Caballus read aloud. “Transportation and refreshment will be provided for yourself and an entourage.”

“So…” Hairtrigger said after a moment, “the fella we’re here investigating, a stallion we think has ties to cults, heresy and all manner of unpleasantness, just invited you to a party in his very own home?”

“That seems to be the case,” Caballus replied.

“But why?” asked Roughshod.

Caballus held up the lace ribbon that had bound the invitation. Mystic levitated it over to the rest of them.

“To: Captain Swift Corsair,” she read. “It’s addressed to your cover name.”

“My guess is that when Meister’s cronies here at the hotel ran the name, they matched it to its original owner,” Caballus said. He scrutinized the invitation once more. “They bought it, so now I’m getting Corsair’s junk mail.”

Fyzzix snatched the golden sheet away with his mechadendrite. A tiny sensor array in the arm swept across the invitation over and over. “According to the archive’s entries about Pferdian, Macsnacht is an important holiday in this city,” he said as he waited for the array to reach the end of its analysis. “The reigning Plutarch is expected to host some kind of event, and invite the city’s elite.” Once complete, the sensors retracted, and he handed the note back to Caballus. “It was etched by an industrial mass-engraver. They could have easily printed hundreds of them, and probably did.”

Roughshod tapped a hoof, anxiously. “It’s gotta be a trap, you know. I mean, the one lead we have in this investigation is the Ver Kaufer family, and suddenly, the day we show up, you literally get an engraved invitation? It doesn’t sit right with me.”

“I know,” said Caballus, “but that’s why you’re all coming along. Everypony get some sleep. We’ve got a party to prepare for.”

Comments

[Inquisipony Stallius]

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Thanks, it's nice to know others are "getting" it. I think a straight-faced sprinkling of MLP's lighter tone into the story is my favorite part of the crossover.
829563
I have in fact played DoW2:R, and I did use it as a sort of baseline for how I would do it myself. If I managed to capture any of the awe of the moment, or make it funny, I guess I did it right.

It's funny you bring up Eisenhorn. It and Ravenor are very much the inspiration for this story, at least the broadest strokes (an Inquisitor and his team investigate Chaos conspiracies). I think Hairtrigger was influenced a little by Fischig, though also by material from the Dark Heresy rulebooks. At one point, I was toying with ideas for things that could happen toward the ending, and I realized one idea mirrored almost exactly the actions of Fischig in Hereticus. I thought "nah, that's too close," and I scrapped it. You could draw rough lines of comparison from most of my characters to ones from those books, though I hope I wasn't too obvious.
829830
Yeah, I figure since this is still Equestria, I wouldn't be able to follow 40k history exactly. So even though Luna fills in for Horus in the ancient past, she was turned good again afterward. Then she takes a secondary spiritual role to Celestia, where only the Meq-priests still pay her homage. The Celestia-centric Heliarchy (Ecclesiarchy equivalent) considers this borderline heresy to orthodox teachings, but tolerates it out of necessity. Hence Sera's patronizing dismissiveness of Fyzzix.

As for the Fillies of Battle, well, they have a role to play, and part of it is to be unlikeable.

Thought for the Day: From the Princess all life springs. And to her, all lives must be devoted.

Ave Imperatrix Celestialis

[The_Master]

So one thing that caught my interest, the confectionauts bit. Genius might I add, but it was executed by a fluttermanders(Salamanders) strike cruiser. Are the elements of harmony the equivelants of the primarchs?

[Inquisipony Stallius]

1756684
In 40k, an exterminatus can be only be ordered by an Inquisitor, a Space Marine Chapter Master, a Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Nacy, or a Lord Commander of the Imperial Guard. I believe most battlefleets of reasonable size have the ordinance to carry one out, but the task is most often given to Space Marines.

But yes, they are what I call "Harmonarchs." I've left my ideas regarding them in previous comments, namely:
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I still haven't come up with an official fanon explanation that I would feel comfortable including in the story, and I still haven't felt a real need to.

[BenRG]

Well, Caballus and crew, get your stuff together because something tells me that you're going to spend an evening shoulder-deep in the deepest mire of treason and heresy that you'll ever encounter!