Adeptus Ridiculous - When a Good Inquisitor Goes Bad: Eisenhorn's Descent feat. TheAmberKing

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe road to hell is paved with good intentions—and for Inquisitor Gregor Eisenhorn, every step brings him closer to the abyss.Bricky, DK, and special guest host TheAmberKing dive into Malleus, the second book in Dan Abnett's iconic Eisenhorn series. We are breaking down the slippery slope of radicalism, how righteous zeal twists into outright heresy, and why trying to save the Imperium at any cost usually means becoming the very monster you swore to destroy.Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptist Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis. And oh, look, it's Hal the Amber King. What could you be here for? Let's find out. Introduce yourself also Bricky. Yeah. You said Hal first, so you go first, Hal.

Mm-hmm. I sure did. It's me. I am D.K.'s younger brother. We grew up with different mothers, though. So, not just kidding. Oh, yeah. Where is going to get my good old voice from?

Boy, same place. I'm going to get the rope. I'm going to get the rope. Actually, you're going to need to save that rope for our good friend. Paul is bad at stuff. Yeah, I know, but he enjoys plague space marines a lot, so. Well, that's the problem. I know.

You know what won't hurt you, Bricky? Subscribing us over at patreon.com. Exactly. Let's go! Patreon. Yeah. Slash adeptist, ridiculous. You get access to the Discord bloopers if they happen.

$15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in crispy, amazing digital form. Oh, wait, posters, you say, I think we have a new one. Shide, show it to them. I'm not even going to ask if they're ready for it. Just roll, just roll it. Oh, boy, we have the smug and the insufferable, the brand new, definitely based on the Wicked and the Whipid and the Wharf. No. Jesus.

It's great. I saw all the work in progress for this and I was just... I'm sorry, one more time, Hal? Do you body model for these? Is this off of your proportions? Which one? You may choose. Two.

Are you asking... God I wish. Jesus. Obviously, these are my proportions, Hal. Can't you tell from the way I talk? This is obviously me. Also, for those of you who have watched in reading The Wicked and the Warp,

the brand new infant and divine sequel, this will be particularly useful for you, as that is what is based off of. Simultaneously, I am about third of the way through the book already, and it is fantastic. The first chapter of the book, without spoilers,

is literally Trazen playing football against Zin's demons with himself. What? I know. Read the Wicked and the Warp. It is fantastic. Yeah, I'm going to, have to after that, yeah, that's fair.

Yes. Also, by the way, if you love human, human-made art and you hate generative AI bullshit art, support us on Patreon so we can pay more money to our artist Halestay because this goddamn drawing took them three weeks and has unironically 124 layers in Photoshop. That's real human sweat and blood. God damn, that's a lot of layers. And also, please go ahead and check out Orcinate.com where you can get this poster in its physical form. Give it a look, see patreon.com and Orcadate.com down in the description. Give yourself some merch, get your cool stuff. Hell yeah.

Hal, it's your turn. Come on, do math. It's like that. What's that from again? That's family guy. Family guy, that's it. Family guy. today, guys, is the part two, the second, the follow-up of our previous episode on Gregor Eisenhorn. Inquisitor Eisenhorn, I'm sure you guys remember the fond memory. It was only last week, deeper, but fond memories of the investigation into Zenos, the first novel. We were on 56 Ezar. We had the Sir Ruthie. We had all these kind of horrible aliens and a little bit of chaos. It was a little, a little,

A little salt bay, a little sprinkle of chaos on there. But to fair, we don't in this episode need to explain who Eisenhorn is. We've already covered that luckily. So if you guys are ready, we can basically just go straight into the events of the second novel, which is Malius. You guys ready? Hell yeah, kick it. Yeah, do it. Okay.

Interestingly, there's a huge time skip. Over a century happens between the first novel and the second one. Holy shit. Jesus Christ. It's a big time skip. I know it's 40K, but this is a lot. Well, I will say a lot of the characters have some rejuvenate treatments, so they don't look that much older. But it's a long time since the events of the Necrotuke affair.

And we're going to open up with Mr. obviously, Mr. himself, Mr. Handsome, Mr. He Can't Smile, Inquisitor Eisenhorn. And he's currently on a planet called Lef, 11. And I will say this novel is, it kind of throws you into the deep end. So it's going to take some explaining. But I'll hopefully hold people's hands and we can make it through this. Again, really hard to get every detail in this novel. There's so many names. This is the worst one in terms of minor character names that it's just not going to happen, guys.

But I will promise you to give as best I can in a little old podcast the actual story of it. and it basically opens with him chasing a Xenos conspirator whose name is Beldame Sadiah. And here on this planet is called Leth Eleven. It's a bit of a strange one. It's kind of like a, again, like a populated Gothic, mega high structure. And the way this planet's alignment happens is that there's like a two-week event, like basically it's a two-week eclipse because they have like multiple moons. And this event is like celebrated on.

on this planet and it's called the dark night. Funny that, because obviously it's a dark night. It happens every year. And apparently during this is when Eisenhorn is chasing Bell dame Sadiah. Because Eisenhorn is a few hours away from dying. He's literally dying. He's about to die. Okay.

I'll explain that in a second. Oh, no, no. I'm leaving you there. I'm just leaving you there. Please do. Yeah. And he isn't that much time left. Uh, some slight backstory.

A lot has changed in the last century. Eisenhorn is now a renowned inquisitor. He's kind of known as a bit of a rogue. Everyone, you know, all the young inquisitors know his name. He has a staff of over a hundred people that work for him now. He has Elizabeth Beckwin, who runs her own mini war band called, it's basically called the distaff, and it's a small, like, elite kill teams that are filled with blanks, and they're often loaned out to other inquisitors.

so he's not a small fry like you know he's not a 10 man or like you know small man group anymore he's a renowned inquisitor and it's opening with beckwin who hasn't been on the front lines for quite a long time well they all had a reduvumat treatment so they even say in the novel the only way you can tell someone's old is in like their eyes you can kind of see the age there uh same with me i'm dying inside and it opens with them the groups in like this small carriage and they are trampling through these hive streets in search of Beldame because Beldame has poisoned Eisenhorn secretly. Amos caught it, you know, Mr. Most perturbatory, Mr. Amos, sorry, he is caught on

and they are basically running out of time before Eisenhorn dies. In this carriage is Eisenhorn, Amos, Bekwin, they have an ex-imperial Garzman. there's an important character called Ariad Eswer Swendier, and she is a swordsman from the planet called Carthay. It's kind of those things where it will keep coming up this character or what is to do with this character. And there's also some other, well, this character is also Eisenhorn's instructor, and she instruct him in this unique blade smith, this martial art from her home play. planet. There's also two members of Beckwin's distaff who were in this carriage. They meet outside this massive cathedral area. And again, like, think about this Gothic streets, this eclipse, like it's all black and it's all eerie. And they meet with another character called Interrogator Idion Ravonore, who you might have heard previously in Warhammer stories being mentioned. Ravonore is not a particularly old guy. He says he's 34 at the start of this novel. And he is by far, Eisenhorn's best student he has ever had. He's training him to be an inquisitor. He's quite tall as a character. He's quite, you know, maybe not as handsome as Eisenhorn, but he's decently

looking. He's like a funny look like robotic kind of actuator gun on his shoulder. And it's clear his intelligence is just like he'll surpass Eisenhorn one day at this rate. And at this point they are entering into this cathedral area. They're desperate to find Bell dame and basically hoping to find an antidote because they're pretty sure someone in Beldame's staff has poisoned him. They're infiltrating below and they see these like gathering group of cultists, these strange like murmurings and disgusting things going on. They see in the corner of the room a homunculus of the Drukari. Would any of you care to explain if you remember what a homunculus is? Oh, I certainly do, but would you care to.

You may do as you see. Okay. I mean, D.K., did you want to take this? You want me to do it? I mean, I remember homunculus are kind of the people that the higher up in the Dracari leave a little piece of their body with so that if anything happens to them, they can just sort of stitch them back together so their soul doesn't go streaming back to Zingch. Oh, what else do that? I know. Oh, Slash, right?

I said Zinj, didn't I? Oh, man. That's, that's, it depends what you've been on your search history. Oh, boy, that's, that's going to be in the comments. Anyway, yes, Slanish, sorry. Um, and then, don't they just torture people for funzies? Because they're Drukari. I guess that's every Dracari.

I feel like I'm missing a big part of them. I mean, well, okay, they definitely torture people for funzies. That is very true. Um, however, Zinche, um, so the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, homunculi covens are basically the fleshmiths and crafters of the Drucari. And they're also a very important people who gamble in lives because they normally are the ones who will rejuvenate and reclone dead Drucari so that their souls don't go to Slanesh. And for the most part, they are very big into all of those weird flesh crafting and rebuilding and horrifying creatures and of course torture. but mainly they serve as as smiths to also rejuvenate and revitalize dead Drucari as well.

Really the flesh myths of Drucari society. And of course, with Eisenhorn being Ordo Xenos, there seems to be at least some, I guess, cooperation between this human like cult group and obviously they have benefactors. in this meeting with all these different cultists and obviously their sponsor Beldame appears in the room and it turns out she's been around for a while because she starts waddling in on like

automatic spider legs and she looks terrifying eventually because of this they're running out of time the two groups start to clash and in this like horrendous struggle they start to get separated Eisenhorn starts to feel his body kind of slowing down

if you know what I mean He's like, he's in cold sweats. They're killing some of these people. He ends up fighting with Bel dame in this like the separated tower section. She's like creeply crawling over the walls and stuff. Eventually he gets stabbed in the back. He turns around and he sees this creepy little, I'll be honest, rat fuck named Pai or Paii, whatever his name is. And he's Beldane's poisoner.

He's like, dead dead dead dead dead. He's like creepy. Honestly, not invited to my birth. birthday party, disgusting person. And basically, Eisenhorn is like, it's over. I'm fucked. This little guy's laughing behind him, Belding grabs Eisenhorn by the throat. No one is there with him.

She lifts him up and her head explodes. Oh. D.K., someone else has entered into this. And I have a quote, D.K., if he would please be so kind to ring that. Could it be, could it perchance be one of your many boys? It is knoll. This guy, it is knoll. Okay. All right. Massive feet strode into my field of vision,

armored feet, plated with seramite. I rolled as best I could and looked up. Which finder tantal had stood over me, holstering the balkan he had used to kill Bel dame Sadia. He was encased in gold-encrusted battle arm, the penance of the minestrum suspended over his backplate. You're an accursed heretic, Eisenhorn, and I claim your life.

Not tantalid, I thought is my conscience spun away again. Not tantalid, not now. Eisenhorn is not being saved. He's about to be executed. And his world goes completely black, and Eisenhorn just passes out. Over a day later, Eisenhorn awakened in an infirmary.

He learns that Ariad, who is his teacher for the sword martial art, She died and she was killed by the homunculus as well as several other members of his crew. They have been killed. Ravanaugh, who he knew that Ravanaugh and Arianod, they were together secretly. And like that was the woman he loved. Ravanaugh killed the homunculus, but he had his like guts almost ripped out. So he's basically in the infirmary as well.

They managed to find, basically the group managed to find the, they kind of rescued Eisenhorn. they managed to find the antidote on that like pie creepy fuck guy and they halted the poison before it could sort of become to full completion. It's a very complex poison and it's an important detail to remember later. Eisenhorn learns that the only way he was able to get out of being executed by this tantalid figure was because Bettencourt had saved him in the gun cutter. This is Medea-based Bettencourt. This is good.

This is sad to know now. but you guys, I was trying to keep it from the last episode, which is Midas Bettencourt is no longer with us, unfortunately. Oh. Yeah, it's not seen, you don't see it directly in novels, but you learn that Midas Bettencour was killed about 26 years ago before the events of this novel. Oh, they were killed off camera?

He, well, yeah, but you're, it's important to remember, like, the detail. There's a certain heretic who took his life and this was before Medea, his daughter, could be born. So she never met her father. But Eisenhorn promised to look after Medea, and when she reached adulthood and she, like her father, got the glavian silver inlaid into her hands, and she became an exceptional pilot.

He offered her basically work inside his crew. So Medea Betancourt is now like the Bettencourt, who sort of goes with, Eisenhorn and she's got a bit of a thing about killing heretics as you can probably imagine. But she's not quite her father, but she is an interesting character. And to be fair, I'll be honest, she's actually in more novels than Midas ever is. So even like reading some of these ones, it's quite cool to see Midas again because I was like, I haven't seen this guy ages, but I didn't want to say that in the first episode.

Yeah. At this point, just to explain, the tantalid guy, he's a witch hunter for. the ecclesiarchy. And this guy, we learn, as probably you can imagine, he works for the ecclesiarchy. So he's got issues. He is something wrong with him. He has personal beef with Eisenhorn. And he only really thinks he's a heretic because he gets in his way sometimes. There's not actually like, there's no jurisdiction to kill Eisenhorn at this point. There's no reason for him to do this. He just hates Gregor Eisenhorn. And at many times they like clashed over the years. So basically the generational

hater. This guy is, this guy is such a twat. I'll be honest. This dude's walking around in big gold clad ceramite armor as a, as a Malius inquisitor, I assume, right? And he, like the other guy is like,

man, Eisenhorn, you, you radical piece of shit, I'm going to kill you. I'm assuming that's the concept. And tantalid is not an inquisitor. He is part of the ecclesiarchy. It's even weirder. Oh, it's not. He's a church ecclesiarchal person.

Yeah. They have their own witch hunters. In gold ceremite? Tanzlid is a witch hunter of the ecclesiarchy. He's not part of the Inquisition. And he has that personal kind of beef with Eisenhorn. They seem to have been butting heads over the years because it's like a jurisdiction issue. And the reason he's obviously here is because he just hates Eisenhower.

He wants to kill him. He isn't actually, I assume, think he's a heretic at this point or anything like that. He's just, you know, you bitch. So he's just such an asshole. He's a little rat, scrawny guy. He's obviously got like all the, you know, like all the beer and he has all the stuff. But he's, he has like this massive two-handed chainsawd as well. So he's got a problem this guy.

And he's not going to go away for a little while. Oh, man. Two-handed chains are so cool, though. It is cool. How am I supposed to hate him when he's got all the swag? I think in the audio he sounds like, as in the horn. like that. He just sounds, you can tell he's a... Ah, they gave him the

the Hells Reach Helbrecht voice. I am High Marshall Hellbrecht. He is a, he's a real dickhead in my opinion. In the wake of the events, we learned that in the start of the first novel, in the background, Lord, they mentioned how the Gudranites, like riflemen were being brought up for like a crusade in their subsector.

And essentially, after this whole thing that's happened, on at 11, we learn like, you know, basically Eisenhorn is healing up, everything is going to be okay. And there's a big event, which is going to be, they're going to have this massive kind of triumph. And it's going to be a triumph for Warmaster Honorius, who has successfully completed this crusade. You know, only took him 100 years. Oops. Basically, it's going to happen on the capital of the Helicon subsector.

And it's going to happen on a planet. it's called Thracian Primaris. Was something I mentioned previously in the last episode. I didn't go into too much detail about it because this is the episode that will talk about it. And for poor old Eisenhorn, many of the other inquisitors like him have been summoned to basically attend this massive triumph, this parade. So the next section will happen on Thracian Primaris. Thracian is described as this enormous, like enormous hive world. They mention how they even have to like extend it out over the over.

oceans because they just need more space. It is polluted beyond measure to the point that they are temporarily cleaning up the atmosphere. And an effort to do this, they'll probably kill most of the creatures on the planet. But it doesn't matter because, you know, for the Imperium, you know, uh-huh. Fuck them fish. Eisenhorn and his entourage, you know, the crew is kind of getting back together now. And they arrive at Thracian and they venture to one of the many estates that Eisenhorn owns. I said he's a big deal inquisitor now, and he has different holdings, different areas on many different planets in the Helicon subsector.

This estate, he's on is pretty nice. It's in like the nice area because obviously he's in inquisitor. He doesn't need to pay for anything. And it has like the higher security. It has servants. It's luxurious. And it also houses some of the distaff, which is the small group of like kill team blanks that work for Eisenhorn that are controlled by Bechwin. The group at this point, it's like quite, there's like, it slows down the.

pace a bit here where they sit down for a nice meal. They're all dressed nicely. They all have known each other for so long at this point. They're all really close. Although, to fair, it does state, like, Eisenhorn considers his only true friend ever to have been Midas, Midas Bettencourt, and that the others are more like allies. You know, like, they're really good, like, they get along. But, like, these are, like, people who are, we're working towards a goal, whereas he would

have been friends with Midas, even if he stopped doing inquisitorial work. there's Eisenhorn, Amos, who, despite being, you know, the little, I wouldn't say a rodent man, but like he's kind of a little hunched figure who, you know, he likes his books. He seems to get along with everyone, which is really amazing, like these scenes, because he's talking to people who are like, I pot people's heads for a living, like he's talking to a fractional killers, and he just seems happy dandy, you know, he's just loving it. Beckwin's there, and Ravenor, who, he's a bit sullen, because obviously, Arionad, who was the swordswoman, who was his lover.

She obviously has died recently, so he's not feeling his best, but Eisenhorn knows that he's going to be okay. There's an ex-bounty hunter, and he's also at the table, and he speaks to Amos quite a lot. Funny enough, it's like a really weird pair that they get along. Harlan Nail, he'll be in multiple novels going forward. This guy, I'm pretty sure, looks like a Neanderthal. Like, he just, like, that's the anywhere I can describe how he looks. He's just big and brawn and like kind of a little bit ugly. But he is like the most charismatic.

Like this guy is kind of like ugly Captain Jack Sparrow. I'll be honest. He's really charming. And like whenever he talks, he's like, yeah, boss, I see what you mean. He talks like that the entire time. So he's not like a like a silver tongue kind of like, like he, well, it seems like he sounds kind of suspicious the way you describe him. No, not totally. Jack Sparrow, man. Come on.

He is great. This guy is awesome, by the way. He's in the Ravennaud novels as well. This guy is one of my favorite characters. Eisenhorn at this point, they're having this great dinner, they're relaxing, they're preparing for this triumph. This is when Eisenhorn learns from his head of security

at the estate that someone has tries to break in at least three times over the months they've not been here. He gathers Amos and Ravenna and they begin to investigate. and they learned that whoever was doing this, it's clearly professional because the first attempt, their first few attempts were clearly to test the security of the system.

They've even found some listing devices. When presented onto the table before them, Amos points out, they're going through the different factions. They think, like, you know, is it the Mechanicum? Is it the Assassinarum? And Asana was like, if it's the assassinorum, we'd be dead. And Amos kind of says, these devices, like, they're obviously manufactured. so we cannot tell who it really belongs to,

but in that way, we can kind of tell who it belongs to. Maybe it's the Inquisition. That obviously sets off some alarms to Eisenhorn. He's like, that's a horrible theory. Eisenhorn does not sleep well. He keeps dreaming of the man with the blank eyes, you know, Chirubail, the demon host we've seen in the previous episode.

He doesn't sleep well. So he awakens in the night, and then he believes something is wrong. Something doesn't feel right. So he goes down to the kitchen area and he sees a figure. He raises his pistol only to realize he's jumped scared Medea Bettencour. She was like, oh, fuck. You know, like, calm down.

I calm down. And I believe it states the novel. Eisenhorn did not realize that at the time he was in fact, quote, very naked, which is the term he gets from Midas. Well, as opposed to only slightly naked, of course. Yeah, he is, it's called Very Naked. So Medea's like, did you forget? And he starts to be a bit embarrassed. He's like, oh, shit. My bad. My bad. Another pistol emerges

from the shadows. It's my boy, Harlan Nail. This is the actual time I can only say my boy, by the way, because this is the only boy in the whole episode. Harlan Nail, he puts like a silent finger up. He also looks at Eisenhorn and he looks a bit puzzled because he goes, why are you naked? Like, because he doesn't say anything. He's like, huh? There's definitely an intruder within the estate. So the two of them, they move through. They eventually find an individual in a black body glove, and they start to tumble and throw punches.

It's like a bit of a horrible mess, because it's like a pitch black. Eisenhorn is flopping around, if you know what I mean. They realize at one point, Medea has her pice lad, like they freeze. It's not an enemy. It's the Inquisitor Titus Endor. It is the friend who was with

Eisenhorn when they were both young little interrogators when they were under hapshant. It's like his oldest friend. And Eisenhorn's like, what the fuck was that? Like, what are you doing? They both like, they calm down. They're like, okay, okay. Really weird. They sit down to have a drink together. Endor goes on to explain that he's also on Fratian Primeras because he's been summoned for this parade. the there's a slight issue though because a while back he was interrogated by an inquisitor named Osma who's kind of he's kind of known as a very very strict Puritan if you remember the previous episode we mentioned that Isamorn is a Puritan but not quite as bad as like Puritan puritans like

you know like really like I think this guy may be a Thorian even like it's that bad that's why I keep making the joke of like Eisenhorn you're a radical inquisitor you radical because everyone treats him like he's a damn radical when he's a puritan but he keeps on doing he keeps on getting other puritans to be like man screw you eisenhorn you're playing with the devil too much yeah well i mean he has a puritan that's kind of doing radical stuff so i mean i guess you'll the shoe fits yeah you might see so they're having this string together and he obviously endor was interrogated by Osma, to the point where I was like, you can have a chat with me, but you can't leave.

Like, you know, there was a threat involved there subtly. So I, Endor has infiltrated the estate to basically give Eisenhorn a warning and which Eisenhorn is very grateful. But when he's, when Endor's leaving, he asked, how many times did you try and break in? He's like, oh, you're only this one time. So it clearly was an Endor who placed the listening devices into his estate. Later on, Eisenhorn goes to the Inquisitorial Palace on Thracian. I was like, this part of the book does slow down a little bit, but it's doing a lot of world building at this time, and it does, I can not be able to, like, do it justice to, like, the scale, like, the craziness of the different, like, scenes and different vistas they're currently placed within. In this Inquisitorial palace, we'd obviously, you know, the layers of security are ridiculous. He goes to meet with Lord Inquisitor Rorken, who was also in the previous episode.

He's the guy who has, like, the little extra hand flamer and the little silver swyehander. And he was like bellowing the little hymn of banishment. He's like, he's a reasonable guy. And Rokin does like Eisenhorn. Even Rokin states to him that there's been some stirrings. And that, like I mentioned at the very tail end of last episode, there was reports of an Inquisitor encountering a demon host called Cherubail. And that the demon host spared the Inquisitor's life because it thought he was Eisenhorn.

So that's obviously like Eisenhorn's got two alarms going off being like two people have warned me like something is going on here. In the next few days, they like dress in their fine regalia. Eisenhorn and Raveno, they're called up to attend this parade. So they get, they're dressed in their finest gear. They look incredible. And eventually over the main like parade ground of Thracian Primaris, the triumph is about to begin. Actually, I have a quote for you, Bricky, just to kind of explain. I just don't want to explain the emotion of what he felt when this parade begins.

And it sets up like the scale of what's happening. If you'd be so kind. I certainly can. I also do enjoy the fact that it's a pretty good alarm belt, not just for the Inquisar thing, but the fact that a demon host is like, oh, your Eisenhorn, I won't kill you. Like, what? Yeah. So at 10, the triumph began.

A deafening roar of hooters and sirens blasted across the hive, followed by a mass cheer that quite took my breath away. By then the streets were packed with close to one billion jubilant citizens. Two, oh, wait, one, oh, crap. You cannot say, oh, crap, two, okay. By then the streets were packed with close on two billion jubilant citizens. Two billion voices raised as one. You cannot imagine it.

In sunlit air vibrating with colossal cheering, the Great Triumph moved out from the Armored Depot. It was to follow an 18-kilometer route straight down the kilometer-wide avenue of the Victor Bellum, right into the heart of the hive and the monument of the Ecclesiarch. Millions lined the way, cheering, applauding, waving banners, and imperial flags. I like that they're doing the scale thing again. There were two billion citizens. Yeah.

This is one of the few nobles that. A, but a billion? That's to get across how, like, can you imagine the physical wave of noise it must like, it would almost hurt your body that, you know, I didn't, even like one room with people playing Warhammer, like, it's already felt loud. Imagine two billion people's worth of noise. As I'll ask you the question, guys, do you think Warhammer really, like, why if they really struggle with, I would say, scale in Warhammer?

In a novel like this, it's kind of achievable, but why is it, scale, is so bad in the other things? What do you think? Because a human mind can't comprehend it. Yeah. Because the human mind is really bad at comprehending a certain volume of people. Also, you know, also, like, these are writers, not mathematicians. They don't know that you'll go through ammo at this rate, at this speed, in this area.

This is, this is some... They're just looking for impact and drama and, yeah. This is some late 30s British bloke who wants to write about the cool Inquisitor spy novel. He doesn't know about how much ammo a gun goes through at what rate per minute, you know? He's just, eh? Yeah, heresy stuff is the worst for that, to be honest. But this one is pretty intense, I would say. The fact that, like, Eisenhorn and Ravennaud, like, in this point, they joined the other Inquisitors in the parade.

They've seen some faces they recognize, which I'll go into a bit. later. Ravenor at this point, he's wearing like a badge that represents Carthé for, you know, his, the woman he loved who is no longer here. Like, it's kind of like his last moment of, you know, I will like honor her in my own way. And Eisenhorn, at this point, he sees, Ravenor's pretty close to being his own inquisitor now. And he's really thinking he's the, again, like earlier I was stating, he's the best student I will ever make. He will surpass me one day probably and you know he's basically feeling quite proud of him at this point the parade it is just again it's hard to get across how ridiculous it isn't this novel the scale is incomprehensible

they have titans entire multiple regiments they have an entourage of the aurora chapter the space marines are here there are unending columns of tanks the ridiculous swath and, you know, like the tortured parade and the things of the ecclesiarchy is here as well, where they're like, you know, they're Popemobiles and all that crazy stuff. The Inquisition is like, the Inquisition has like a very small part of the parade, I would say, like the little small section, but it's still pretty impressive. They are led by the Grandmaster Orsini, who's a very elderly member of the Inquisition, and he's probably not long for this well necessarily, but he's there.

and finally they have Warmaster Anorius, who hauls behind him, helped with, by parts of like many different functionaries, like the Mechanicus and other different parts of the Imperium. They help haul out a prize that was the best, like, achievement of the crusade, which is a cluster of captured and secured alpha-level psychos. as one of you guys would anyone to explain how dangerous an alpha level psycher is to give it in scale Eisenhorn is nowhere near an alpha level psycher

do so whatever you to care to explain why an alpha level psychic is particularly dangerous you know I'm only this one to you DK so I don't entirely know what an alpha level psycher is I don't know if we've specifically discussed

alpha level but if these are like super potent psychers and you're just parading them around I don't know I know psychers can oops I ripped a hole in time and space and now there's a giant warpole here that's spewing

demons everywhere so you know that that could be an issue it is a break quarantine it is like the scale of Eisenhorn could mess with someone's mind and an alpha level psycher could like bring down a whole

like skyscraper onto someone. Like the power scale is just unbelievably different. And this is like considered the War Master Anorius as like grand prize. And it was helped captured by inquisters such as homerous vogue, if you remember from the previous episode. Heldane, who's his own inquisitor now, and one named Lyko. So there are other, like, it's like a massive achievement and paraded before the millions of people being like, yeah, look at these disgusting. human filth. Look at these horrible things.

It is a ridiculous display of Imperial might. As the parade ground, so as a parade moves through, Eisenhorn starts almost feel ill by the level of noise, like the bone vibration of it. Two billion people.

Yeah, and obviously they're walking for like hours. At some point he feels a very strange sensation. And he stops by this one of the many, like, different gates they pass through, like a large gate. And this one is made in honor of a man called Spacian, who was part of this crusade on a go. I think he maybe even featured, like, as an offhanded side character comment in the first episode as well, like in the events of Zenos. He actually runs into, like, it's weird that he's stopping to honor Spacian, because it's not really like Eisenhorn to do this. he runs into a character we've seen very briefly before,

and it's a man named Madathine. Like I was told you, the amount of small side characters in this novel is, like, it's killing me. He runs into this guy, and this was the previous naval officer who helped attack the Goodron Estate with Eisenhorn.

The previous book, he's been a naval liaison for Eisenhorn, kind of an ally. They share like a very small scene. It is here when Eisenhorn gets like a weird sensation, again, again, something doesn't feel right. He looks up into the sky and he sees like 12 of the multiple different flyerships and something is wrong.

Two of them smash into each other. Two of them start careening down and they smash into the parade itself. And there's a moment of silence and then pandemonium just hits. D.K., there is a quote for you here to explain what happens immediately after this, if you would say it's two billion people. Yeah. Also, just for reference, Shai said, psychers of great delta through alpha inclusive are extraordinary, extraordinarily powerful individuals, and such abilities manifest in only one out of every one billion human purse in the Imperium. Such psychers represent a primary threat to humanity if they go rogue or become possessed. but if they possess the willpower and receive the training needed to control their abilities,

they can become the greatest of space brain librarians. And you are parading several of these fuckers? I think it might be nearly 30 of them. It's like a crazy. 30 of them? I can't remember things out. I'm psychers that could potentially become a librarian, like an amazing one. That's crazy.

Okay. Now, this seems a lot. Anyway, sorry, your quote. Yeah. The crowd moved as one, a fluid thing like water. There was no decision-making process. no ringleader. Mass instincts simply compelled the people who swarmed the vast street in awful trampling tides. I saw people die in their hundreds, trampled underfoot or

crushed in the sheer presence or in the sheer press of bodies. In some cases, the dead were so squeezed by their neighbors, they were carried along for many meters before being free to slither to the ground. This is where that slow start starts to give you a, a, a head, you know, like a temple punch. This is, this gets horrific. The millions, the billions in the crowd start to get mowed down by the military in the center who are like, they're swarming nearly over them and their desperation. More of the planes drop from the sky. They start smash. And I'm not talking like, like down. I'm talking sideways smash into piles of people in the crowd. The plane smashes into a titan's face.

More of the planes start doing strafing runs into the people, and they just butcher them in their thousands like fish in a barrel. The concordinary of noise of violence is so overwhelmingly horrific that Eisenhorn almost loses his mind. And obviously, he's not a young guy. He's seen some shit. This is the worst thing he's ever seen. but even worst of all,

they realize the alpha level psychers, they're loose. In a, what is described as a graveyard of smoke and bodies that is unending and fire, Eisenhorn starts to encounter

like shapes in the mist. He starts to shoot what he believes as some of these alpha-level psychers and he managed to take one by surprise. Some space rooms from the aurorae to assist him until they, one of them turns around. I've seen this, this is child. It looks like he's been burnt and their space marine goes to help him.

I want to realize it's actually a mutant psycher. And it forces Eisenhorn to kill the space ream with his own gun. He then orders Eisenhorn to kill himself. And shakily, even though Eisenhorn is a psycher, and it's like bursting his brain to resist, his arm shakily rises to his head, aimed at his temple, and he pulls the trigger. From the smoke, but... From the smoke, Inquisitor Commodus Vogue

uses his psychic power to hold the gun and bullet in place, and it tells Eisenhorn to aim it elsewhere as a little terrifying psychot child creature runs off into the mist. Eisenhorn barely manages to move the gun out of the way before the bullet cocks off. So that was extremely lucky. He starts to see from the other mists around him the fire that Vogue, Lyko, Helldate, other members of the Inquisition and their little entourages,

they've arrived and they're starting to cut down the psychas, but many of them have gone missing. And essentially, the aftermath of this horrible massacre is just complete pandemonium. the entire world of Thracian Pyramaris, the communications die. So it's just, like, it's an utter, like, horrendous event that will be spoken about, you know, in the many years and decades to come, especially centuries. I mean, even the fact, like, most of the deaths were actually from the imperial soldiers having to kill the citizens.

So, and, like, literally, Titans was trying to shoot the planes in midair and tanks were firing. It was, I, like, I can't do it justice to have. like it just makes you go like it hurts your brain to read this section yeah and like you know i've we've talked about like a lot of like gruesome deaths but something about being jam packed like sardines in a can with two billion people in a parade and then planes are just coming out of nowhere trying to oh man i just like you know all those creep not creepy but like those those um claustrophobic videos where there's like a yeah crowd crush exactly shy that's the word and like the

The crowd is just like suffocating you. Oh man. I just, I hate it. Oh, it's awful. I still get like weirdly haunted by there's a certain part we explain about one of the planes like literally like when it's crashing it.

Like I've mentioned it like it crashes. Yeah. Like when they're doing like the strafing runs into the people. Oh, it's awful. I hate it. Yeah. This is,

um, it's a pretty dark like again like that very slow start starts to go like, uh, you know, it goes really downhill. It's to me that like it's almost worse than like a demon kilbasa thing because I part of me is like I can imagine being in like an awful crowd that's just suffocating you and yeah it's a really wait so I like to roll back for a quick second yeah course course

remind me again why we had alpha level psychers here it was designed to show off basically to show off yeah it was and they were kept under guard with like parts of the Mechanicus. They were in like these tanks and machines originally, but obviously something Right. But were they like slaves or were they like just? They were captured. They were like prisoners. Right. Okay. Okay. Because initially I was just like thinking about that. It's like man, this is a. I don't know. It's a crazy idea to like be around like, check out these new nukes we got baby and like just having them. with folks.

It is wild. It speaks to imperial hubris, doesn't that? But at this point, the, basically the all-out chaos on Thracian, it's just turned as almost like a mini-civil war. Eisenhorn joins with Commodus Vogue, Lyco, Heldane, and another inquister called Roban. And they basically hold up in these RBT's precinct with other bits of RBT. Basically, anyone they could gather who was within earshot. There's no Vox, there's nothing.

There's riots on every stage. People are starving. The people are attacking the precinct because they think there's food in there. Or like gangs think they can kill the Inquisitors and RBT's basically. It's horrendous. Eventually this group, like, again, like surmising a long story short, they work out that one of the alpha-level psychers is a being known as Asharadon, and he's taken hold in a nobles, like a,

state a house, not Eisenhorn's one, just another one. And he starts to, he's been sending waves of controlled civilians, mind-controlled civilians, to attack and slow them down. So Eisenhorn, like a few of Staris, and the other Inquisitor, they had to kill some more civilians, which again, Eisenhorn will not forgive, but he will not shirk from his duty, as all Inquisitors do. Oh yeah, how did Eisenhorn kill that space marine? Would they like helmet or something and they were held in place? He has that bolt gun. the bolt pistol story, if you remember from the previous episode, and he was holding it up and, like, the alpha-level psycher made him move his arm up and the star is like, what are you doing? And he basically shot him through the islands. Oh, okay. Well, it was more about like him, how did he shoot him with a gun powerful enough to get through the seramite? But, okay, it's that old bolt pistol thing, sure.

Yeah, he still has the bolt pistol, which he got in the end of the previous episode. Right. In this point, the group. they go to attack the estate. They realize the Charillon can hear everything they're saying and thinking, because there's no way they can stop him. They're just strong enough the Inquisitors together as a group to stop him controlling them. But he knows what they're thinking. So they're basically saying, it doesn't matter what we do. We just got to attack him anyway.

They managed to get to the outer edge of the estate. More civilians are sent to kill them. They go underneath it slightly and trigger an EMP from the estate's circuits. This almost kills Eisenhorn, a few of them, but one of the Aurora chapter, like, puts his own body in the way, and basically he gets crushed to death, but he manages to save them, to which Eisenhorn will stay in the novel. He'll make sure this particular Astarte's is, like, honored by his chapter when he survives this. The Inquisitorial squads managed to get into the estate, and with the EMP that gets set off, it also has like a backfire, like a back

loop effect. And like with your brain, you know how it's like electrical circuits almost. It kind of short circuits ashad on it. It's knocked him out temporarily. So they have to be quick. They're rushing in. They're in separate squads. Eisenhorn is joined up with inquisitor Roben. And we should say Roben is kind of a, he's not like a well-known inquisitor, but he's the only one who seems like more of like a fun guy. And Eisenhorn likes him the most out of this group and he seems more reasonable. Roben has an interrogator who, like, is junior. You know, like, how Ravindor is the junior to Eisenhorn.

He has a interrogator is a blonde man named Inchabelle. And they're in that this really small squad together. They eventually make their way further in. They have to fight these controlled, like, defense servitors, which are obviously pretty good because they belong to a noble family. Roben is, like, cut in half, I think. He's cut down. He's pretty, he's like gutted, which are poor Inchabell.

does not like. Eisenhorn here starts to show the sword art that he learned from Arionade, and this is something which will keep coming up in the next few novels. I think it's like the way of like the perfect cut or something. It's kind of basically, I'll be honest, he turns him into a samurai, I won't lie.

It kind of sounds like that, yeah. Yeah, like he, but he's learning the movesets. So he explains it as he's doing this scene. He's like, the different moves have different names and they all build up to like a, what's called like the final kill, the final cut. and the Moos, I even have a few

the names because people who are like Eisenhorn will appreciate this. There is the Gahan Fasal, the Tahualan, the Uwai Sa, and then the final Uwin Ussala, which is like the final kill cut. So it kind of builds up to that. Okay. Isle-

Is it's a, they do it. What a weeam coming up. It is a bit of a weeb, I won't I. But it is fun. It's not like, it's not overdone much, to be fair. But Eisenhorn and Inchabelle, they're the only ones left. And obviously, Roben is dead. There's nothing they can do for it.

him, they push further into the estate and they find Inquisitor Lyko and his men and they're torching this body. Eisenhorn walks up and he says, you know, we got him. Thank you for killing Asharodon, to which Lyko is like, no problem, man, no problem. In the wake of this conflict, communications have finally reestablished. The, uh, let's just say the order is being reinstated over Thracian Primaris, so you've seen more people will die, but It's, you know, things are getting back online. Oh, sorry, I forgot to say. Foreshadowing is a literary device that is, um, yeah, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, moving on.

Yeah. As he's meeting up with his group, he sees like Beckwith, Amos, people are okay. Except this is where he discovers that Gideon Ravner has 100% burns on his body. Because he was not protected by this Spatian Gate, which is where Eisenhorn was when the initial, like, attacks happened. And, like, Ravenor basically, they had, like, cut his mouth open to, like, basically let him breathe. He, he, Ravanaugh is, like, a mild psycho, I was mentioned, but, like, he's, like, he's out.

He's on life support at this point. And Eisenhorn, like, laments, like, the loss of someone as amazing as Ravana. And he vows, like, we probably shouldn't do is he vows to get revenge for his pupil, his friend. in lieu of this, Eisenhorn is pissed. He's so pissed. There's so many unanswered questions about how this disaster happened. Eisenhorn, at this point, he sends most of his staff. We're leaving Thracian.

We're not coming back here. Go to our proper estate on Gudron. I'm going to take a small team. So we're going to follow up on this. This is like, this is not going to get buried. Even though like this is not my assigned task, I'm doing this. as he's preparing to leave the interrogator Inchabelle

who was previously with Inquisitor Roben, he's obviously very devastated by his master's death. He's come to speak to Eisenhorn before he leaves. He tells Eisenhorn that he thought something was a bit off and when he looked at the body in the estate

parts of the body don't match up with the one that they basically present as being the dead Asharadon. Isharadon is probably a lie and Lyko faked the death, the kill. Yeah. Or shattern, he soliterates.

Yeah, we all saw this one come in. So he asked to go with Eisenhorn to like basically avenge his master and because obviously he has no one to basically be around. He wasn't an inquisitor yet himself. So he asked to go with Eisenhorn. This is, this ends the section on phrasian primarice. And this is what begins like basically the next full like investigation, we should say, in the Eisenhorn series.

we will then switch to a planet called Echan or Echan. This is like one of my favorite sections of the novel because it's so weird. Like the first part is they're trying to find out where could Esharodon be? Because it's probably easier to find than LICO who's definitely going to hiding. He's an inquisitor. So they're going to try and find some black market deals for alpha level psychers because someone might be selling him or at least there's nothing where you can get news of a potential weapon such as Asharodon, who, you did hear him, like, speak a few times

a novel. He's kind of just like a typical bad guy, like, I'm going to kill you, eh, you know, like, because he wasn't like that. He's not designed to make much remark, I'll be honest. In this backwater or called Eccan, I mean, like, real, like, in the sticks, like, sulphur-polluted, horrible atmosphere, like, grimy, like, horrible hive place. Eisenhorn and again, only characters I can say it for this episode, my boy Harlan Nail, they put on some disguises, and this is the bar that it blows my mind.

The disguise they put on is something they call twists, which is basically a nickname for being a mutant. And I don't understand how they can put on a disguise that is that good, that they basically blend in as mutants. They have like extra limbs and like tentacles and other like weird griblies on them, they make it sound like they put on like a little onesie suit. It's so bizarre, but I love it.

And they're like, they're trodding through this like terrible area. Harlan Nail the next bounty under for a long time. So he, he's like, I know there's like the back of my hand. I, you can, I know what I'm doing. They like flash some gold around. They do go to a mutant strip club. Hell yeah. Which is fun.

Okay, that's pretty fun. There's like, I'm not going to lie, it's, um, they basically go into Moss Isley's. Yeah, I was going to kind of say that a little bit. I was getting a little bit of that, but I didn't know how much to, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I was going to boss baby at all, but it did have that vibe. Also, Shai did say earlier that, um, this guy is like Zaid.

And you know what? Damn, this guy really is like Zaid. He, nail is so good at blending in because Eisenhorn's not as good as like, you know, he's obviously, I guess, privilege in some way. Like, he's obviously a well-educated man and he's, he finds it hard to like pretend to sort of not be himself, whereas nail is so good at it. And he, he knows all the lingo. And he, like, slats someone on the ass once as well.

He was like, you know, just pretending to be interested. There's a funny part. They pretend to be interested in the lap dancing. That's happening in the club just to blend in better. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Pretending. Me too, dog.

When I go to the strip cup, I'm only pretending to be into the lap dance. No, no, no, honey, you don't seem to understand, sweetheart. This is for the investigation. I had to do it. This was for the Imperium for the sake of the Greater Imperium. I only put $100 with the

ones in her thong because you know, blend in. 100. Slates. Yeah, Slates. I'm sorry. You're right.

The voice acting in this section is so funny because they meet some like ganger in the strip club is like, yeah, I could, yeah, I could take you to the meeting. Yeah, yeah. And Han's like,

you better be at the meeting. Yeah. You know, I like see some real shit. Yeah. You know, it's so, it's such a proper like Moss-Eyesley vibe to it. They swing their

proverbial dick around a bit. They flash some gold. And that's how they're basically able to like, they'll probably get into the meeting for whether this like background auction is for this alpha level cycle. The problem is they did flash some gold around. So in

like the mudslicking streets when they're moving away, they get jumped. Obviously, these people who are jumping them, I think they have like some real, real homemade, you know, like walking dead level, like gear. They don't realize they're attacking, yeah, they don't realize they're attacking like probably the hardest motherfucker alive and an inquisitor.

So they get absolutely decimated. I think Eisenhorn uses his will a few times. Obviously, unfortunately, their fight alerts to the local RBT's that something is going on. So they have to run away. They kill a few these guys. They rush into like secret quarters where they're pretend. to hide out. At one point, they realized the Arbitis is following them, and they don't want to blow their cover.

So, like, nail goes into the bathroom and starts pretending to be, like, throwing up from a heavy night of drinking. Beckwin is in there, and he's also got a disguise on, and she's like, Eisenhorn, jump in the bed with me. They pretend they're, like, disgusting, ugly mutants getting it on, and the Arbitee's, like, burst in the room, and they go, like, where have you been tonight? They're like, eh, what are you doing, mate? Two life of a Brexit giza, mate.

They're like, eh, you know, so. You got to do that voice more often. Wake up and meet me as Susan. My little princess. It's beautiful. Pitch looking love with the day, lads. You know, it was. The good old pie look at, sorry, I love that video.

I love that video. It's so amazing this part. And the object is like, uh, never mind. So that worked out. we learn from this that as well like basically when they're like i beckwin's like you know don't you know don't look at me eyes and on you know when they're getting changed after and we probably learn that is like he's definitely in love with beckin he loves her they can't be together because

she's a blank and he's a psycher they can't even touch each other like be near each other that long but he definitely like has a thing for her at this point the investigation they they've managed to get themselves into this meeting but obviously it's probably probably not going to be that safe. So Eisenhorn, Amos, Bekwin, Nail, and a new minor character who is like a sharpshooter, he's like an ex-bound tender as well. His name is Hussman. Also Inchabelle is there as well.

They agree that they're going to go to this meeting. Some of them like Inchabelle, Nail, Husman there, like in the outer edges hiding, while as the others enter into the meeting, like with their like disguises and other things. they enter into this kind of weird, like again, it's like a shanty town like hell pit area and they're surrounded by very, very strange individuals. There's some people who are like probably gangers. There's one person who's alone, which I as long as like he's probably the most dangerous there. Some of them look like kind of like necromania-noble-esque characters almost.

Some of them look like cult groups. Sorry, Bricky, there is a funny part which is there's one there's one group that looks really out of place. And I have a quote here to explain what Eisenhorn makes of these people, if you'd be so kind. The last, a bitch-faced crone who had inadvisably wedged her ancient body into a close-fitting, spiked black body glove, the mark of a death cultist, or would-be death cultist, I thought. She had five masked and harness slaves with her, all of them sweating in the misty heat. I saw once they were out of their depth. They played at Death Cult up in the I.

Iries, Ires. Iries. Ires. What is it? What is it? I'll ask later. Up in the Erie's of the main hive, maybe cutting their skin and drinking blood once in a while.

The closest they had come to a real death cult was watching some blurry fake snuff picked to impress their friends after a banquet. Wow. There's a group who turned up in BDSM gear. and they're larping death called larper they're larping death cult assassins that's really funny it's it makes me laugh every time i think of the scene because they turned up in the way you know their latex leather gear and they're like oh fuck you know what i mean they don't realize how far in they are like little like little bird nests and shit like little high high rises

spires in the lake right yeah they this this group is so out of plays. It makes me laugh every time I read this scene. I do not know why. I have no idea why, but for some unfathomable reason, my mind goes immediately to that scene in the movie Dodgeball when they get the wrong outfits and instead they get the BDSM gear. And they have to trade. I mean, yes. They still play the game in it, don't they? Yes, they do and they win. And it's a whole thing. I, that's the first thing my mind goes to and I don't know why. But yeah. BDSM gear, man.

That's what they're wearing. You dodge a wrench. You dodge a ball. Dude, she just like, why do I drink my own pee? I don't know. Come on. It's sterile and I like the taste. You know what's that?

Rest in peace. Oh, that's so funny. The bidding for this alpha level cycle almost immediately begins. The BDSM group tried to shuffle their way out because they realize they're probably going to be killed immediately. because everyone knows they're like for the shit and they're like arguing with the bouncer

the bidding is like something like let's get serious like they Eisenhorn particularly like they drop a huge amount of money and some of the others are like oh finally it's like a real you know real bid except finally Mr Inquisitor

Lyco he interrupts the meeting because we learn that this is probably a trap to see he was following him one of the participants the one who was by himself he rises up, his clothing unfails and burns away, and it says, Hello, Gregor, I missed you. It is Cherubail.

Terubail, the demon host, was basically right next to them. Eisenhower is just stunned. He is so, like, what, like, he couldn't predict this was going to happen at all. Liko orders Cherubail to kill them all. The whole thing just erupts. again, it just erupts in violence. It is, people start throwing, killing each other. Trubail tries to talk to Eisenhorn, and he almost sounds like delighted.

He's like, he says, like, I missed you. He's saying, like, weird things to Eisenhorners. Ishorns, like, reject him, like, why do you haunt my dreams? You know, why do you follow me? Inchabelle, nail, Hussman, they're starting to, you know, they're cutting down people. They're trying to kill these gangers. Trubail, though, doesn't seem interested in a fight at all. It's only when Eisenhorn like launches himself forward.

He actually like cuts him with a blade that like Trubail like kicks him back and he almost like, you know, basically almost kills him from doing that. He's like, you know, leave me alone. He's like growls at him. Like, you know, this is not the right time. Mm-hmm. We see Trubail, Ashrodon actually was there and he gathers him up and he follows Lyko as they're trying to escape. There's this crazy scene where like they're a chase, like Eisenhorn goes alone on a speeder and he chases. and he chases them through like the traffic of like the hive.

It's a pretty like weird bit. They infiltrate a, um, manufacturerum. They're going over like different conveyor belts. He's able to kill a few of the guards of LICO. He manages to catch up to LICO and actually manages to defeat him. He prepares to psychically draw out, you know,

secrets, you know, why have you been doing this? Who is your master? Until Churubail interrupts. He kills Lik. Like he sends him to his death, like he drops him off the edge, something, and he just leaves with the Sharadon. So it shows that Lyko wasn't the one who, like, controls Turubail. So the mystery is, like, we're left with, like, more questions than answers, essentially.

With this kind of thread, like, annoyingly, we kind of can surmise at least that Cherubail is involved in the plot that was linked to Thracian primarice in some way. and it obviously may be links to Eisenhorn in some way, but the Eckham is a dead end. With this, obviously, going nowhere, the group once again, they board the S-N with Tobias Maxilla, if you remember from the previous episode, and they are arriving at another location to explore another possible lead. Eisenhorn, at this point, there's like a vista change where he stands on this graveyard, in this massive graveyard that stretches beyond the horizon. Here, a figure, a very tall man with like blonde hair, but like a bit of salt pepper on the sides, Mr. Godwin Fischug, the Arbite's captain from earlier, he approaches

Eisenhorn and greets him warmly. He's like, good to see you, friend. Oh, from the first book. Yeah, he actually was part of, he still is part of Eisenhorn's entourage. And he's not been here because he's been sent somewhere to investigate a, thread for Eisenhorn. He's actually, he's not an inquisitor in his own right, which he goes on, he goes on to explain that he thinks he probably wouldn't have made it a great inquisitor. He's a bit too, like, I think he's an Eidhorn surmises, like, maybe if he tried and failed,

he wouldn't forgive himself. But Fisig is a, well, like, people like him quite a lot. Nail likes him. Fisig is really upset by the news of what happened to Ravanaugh, because he respected him. and he probably also, I think it says in the book, like he thought Ravenna was probably like better than him in some way. So like he's like such a shame what happened to him. And they're standing on this massive graveyard staring out to which, Eisenon can't explain like something's happening. They seem to be removing some of the gravestones.

But I believe is it, Dika. I have another quote here, if you would please. And he goes to explain what's happening in this particular field in this scene. Yeah. As you might imagine, a martial world like this produces many dead. Long ago, an edict was made by the planetary government that only certain fields of land could ever be used for burial. So cemetery space is at an optimum, hence the law of decipherability. Which is? The law states that once the eroding hands of time, the elements have made the last names on a field's gravestone illegible,

the anonymous dead may be exhumed, the bones buried in a pit. and the field reused. This will make sense because the world they're sanding on is Cadia. They are removing the gravestones of those who basically, if you can no longer read the names on it, you may exume the field and plant new graves. Yeah. So they're on Cadia. This is like 400s, you know, M-41.

This is long before the 13th Black Crusade. I'll say, for you guys, If you were to be on a guard regiment world, what do you think is the worst, like, world to be born into? Because I almost argue that Cadia is probably pretty up there. No, hell no, dude. Katachin, like, by far. My brain immediately went to Katachan, yeah. Krieg would suck, yeah.

We unfortunately have to remove Acadia from the statistic pool. It's no longer a fair choice. Yeah, it's not there anymore. Yeah, my brain also, but like Yeah. Yeah, like you, my brain immediately

Katachan with all the crazy bugs and all the death shit trying to kill you there. Oh, that's number one for sure. Yeah. I kind of don't, even as I know like Valhalla probably sucks.

I have a strong, you know, I've read all the Kyphus K novels. So I've kind of got a bit of a soft spot for Valhallans. I do like, well,

well, that is good. They certainly will not have a soft spot. spot for you. No, they do not. The planet wants. If Spear will? The first, you know, the first K novel where the two, the men and the women group

was like kill each other in the, um, the cafeteria. Like, it's that bad. Just, yeah. Oops. Yeah, so the group is on ADA because many months before, Eisenhorn has sent Fisig to investigate these cults that are called themselves the sons of bail. and these cults have been happening on, basically, we're done that, Cadia, there's a cult every, like, two weeks, basically.

Like, it's pretty, you're that close to the eye of terror. There's nothing you can do. And weirdly enough that, like, because obviously, Eisenhower never really gave up his search for clues about Cherubail since the events of Zenos. And they find out these, or Fishig, who, I think actually originally it says, like, Maxilla, transported Fishig to Kadia. And funny enough, they seem to have become very good friends, despite being, you know, ones like an almost like, you know, almost like bureaucratic old, you know, French noble-looking guy and the guy's like a, you know, basically policeman. But they seem to somehow become like good friends.

And these groups, these sons of Bail and other different cults, they've been measuring the pylons of Cadia, which is really weird. Fisig then introduces Eisenhorn to the local inquisitorial office, and this is run by an inquisitor named General Neve, who she's his old lady, she's got a cane, and I think Fishig describes eyes on like, she's basically the definition of a real hard ass, real hard ass, sorry, in the novel,

she's a bit of a, you know, it's Cadia, she hasn't got time to piss around. The, again, like, making a really long story short, because this one could, like, otherwise we'd be here for like multiple, multiple hours, The group spends many months scouring the archives and data around Kadia and these cults. Because they don't understand how either these cults were brought onto planet or information is basically leaving the planet about these pylons. Something doesn't seem to add all the how these cults keep happening, whereas other ones are more like internal.

Like they spent like, they spent like, God, I flop that. They explain it like many months. they just spend the entire day like traveling in the horrible winter of Kadia you get up you go to the archive you read for 10 hours you go home they do that for like months and months and months they're about to give up until

Maxilla you know my funny boy Maxilla who always has a quip for every single situation he calls them to like a little tavern on Kadia at this point Eisenhorn has got no patience he's like what are you doing until Maxilla explains to them, he just snuck onto Cadia. He infiltrated Cadia successfully, even though that should be impossible. To which, you know, Eisenhorn and Neve are like, what?

And even Fiswick is like, how the hell did you do that? Because Maxilla used Eisenhorn's ident codes. So he was able to infiltrate Cadia because he basically used the authority of the Inquisition. So whoever's behind this clearly has, is an inquisitor. And it's not, you know, it's not Mr. Dead guy who they just killed in the previous thing. Because it's been happening for many years and months. So, like, sorry, it's not Lyco. So it's obviously another inquisitor.

Again, long story shorting it, because we don't have time, they go through the logs again. They try to fire, like, whose idents have been used to enter K. without being questioned. There's when Eisenhorn, he doesn't want, he doesn't want to develop a respect with Neve who, he actually says, like surprisingly he quite likes her,

even though she's like, fuck you. You know, like, you know, fuck you, I love you, kind of attitude,

you know, very, I would describe her is, it's not officially voiced like that, but if you ever met anyone from Boston, this is Boston in the person. Ah, yes,

of course. Yes, if you know what I mean, if you know what I mean, I like that. And they, Chad to Boston, I do like Boston.

They basically work out that the idents use, the key, belongs to someone who should be very, very dead. An inquisitor named Quixoss. And you see, like, there's like small hint in the novels that Eisenhorn often refers to, like, basically, when you're an inquisitor and you're learning, you sometimes learn from, you know, the previous, uh, events or like the teachings or other inquisitors. And the one like, that was basically his idol when he was young. is an inquisitor quicksau who

should be many hundreds of years dead by now and he he's a very famous guy they don't understand how this is possible What did you say his name? Quicksauce. Is it like quick sauce?

Q UI XOS. Yeah, sure as quick. Okay, come on like Quixis or okay. Yeah, quicksost. Quicks.

So quick sauce, you know. How exactly. do his code still work? Like, if he's been dead for hundreds of years, shouldn't that have been like an immediate red flag? That's true. The administrator, like, planets get destroyed, and it's like 300 years later,

like, oh, shoot, we're just getting to the paperwork. That's true. You're right. That is true. It is an older code, but it checks out. It checks out. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right.

They see that the codes have been used recently to basically infiltrate another group. So all of them, they gear, up and they prepare to go fight them. This is where we see like Neve, because obviously she's Cadian. There's a fun fact, and they're like a very, very small fun fat in this novel.

It points out like the fashion, the people on Kadia, they're so obsessed of being militarized that even like the civilian fashion of Kadia is like military gear. Like they're just like the world building in Kedia is so good in this novel. So they go, like you just want to read if you have time. It's good.

Oh man, they're all wearing camo cargo pants you mean? Yeah. Is that bad? Yeah, big whoop idiot. I did that in Boy Scouts. Yeah, man. I did it in high school for free.

Everyone's wearing it. Yeah, yeah. I looked that way before. I had a roller backpack and everything. No one got any pussy. Oh, well, all right. Bro, did you have like a... Clearly it was due to my trip.

Obviously, yeah. Bro, definitely had a leather necklace with a like single ring on it. Shout to 2000s. What was it the good old Moist Critical would jump? joke about. He had like a copy of psychonauts on like a disc on like a chain around his neck. Oh. Well, no, that's

impressive. That's baller though. Yeah. So yeah, so the two different groups, Neves and Eisenhorns, they gear up. What's quite cool here's actually you get to see in the ship they have Kazakin with them. And obviously, like

in most novels, if you're like a starcies, like, oh, it's a human. In this one, it really like, it's absolutely deep-throating how good the Kazakin are. And on the lie, they kind of go too hard. But they basically arrive at this sort of near one of the pylon sort of sections. They confront these infiltrators who kind of seem like a more of a regular group of cultists. And they seize them at gunpoint.

Except they see a floating figure emerge within the group. It unveils itself. It is a demon host. and it says its name is profanity. It is not Turubail. There is another demon host. Oh, great. Yeah.

A fight breaks out between the two groups with nail, fishig, Inchabelle, and Husman. They're gunning down these cultists. It's quite a few, like, quite a few, like, cool points in here, like, the different characters. Like, Inchabelle's obviously Inquisition, so he has, like, sleek gear and, like, pistols. Husman has this, like, sniper. Nail's got like some huge F off machine gun and Fisich has his old Arbite's gear.

They're killing these cultists as Eisenhorn, Beckwin and Neve they're attacked by the demon host. It's a pretty horrible like fight. Obviously being a Beckwood being a blank it sort of massively helps. They almost like hold on to each other

otherwise profanity can use psychic powers like crush their mind. But it doesn't mean it doesn't stop a claw attack reaping you in half. So it starts to attack them physically. The Kazakin at this point, I believe it describes it's like, Eisenhorn says the amount of bravery they show, like, impresses him even to this day, because the Kazakin throw themselves in front of the demon host, like, with no fear whatsoever. At one point, Medea

arrives in the gun cutter to like, like, there's a pretty horrific, like, dual between them, Neve gets injured. She has her own, like, she has a weird, like, I think it's at a, um, a grenade launch attachment to her cane or something. It's so bizarre. Medea arrives in the gun cutter and is like, you know, fuck you, just like obliterates the demon host's body. It's not fully dead,

but, you know, like it's sent away. incapacitated, yeah. Yes. At this point, you know, they think they've managed to survive it. But Eisenhorn quickly learns in this fight.

Like, all of his gear off are like, is useless against these demon hosts. He can't, he's like, he's surviving through, luck. He's going to have to get much stronger to be able to combat these things. Except over the ridge, over the hill, a larger Imperial Force, Imperial Force crests it.

And Bricky, I have a very small quote to explain what happens when these new individuals arrive, if you'd be so kind to read out this excerpt. Inquisitor Eisenhorn, boomed a Vox Amped voice from the lead APC for crimes. For crimes against the Imperium, for the atrocity at Thracium, for consorting with demon hosts, you are hereby arrested and condemned to death. I recognized the voice. It was Osma. Yep. This is, I'm sorry. I don't know if this is supposed to be intentionally like this.

This is funny as shit to me. I find this hysterical. Because like every. single time things are going whatever way. He shows up and he's like, hey, dude, who's technically on my team, you're still a fuckhead. I'm going to kill you.

This is not the same guy from earlier, I just want to mention. This is not, uh, he's a mortal rival. Yeah. This is an inquisitor named Osma. Oh.

And this is, this is one of the, we'd only briefly met him a bit earlier on Thracian. But this was the guy who he mentioned like he's one of the Thorians and he's yes. extreme. Yes. Sorry.

Who's the witch seeker guy again? Tantalid? Tantalid. The way he pulled up and immediately said those things, it sounds like the thing Tantelit would say. It does.

I do not blame you for interchanging the two. Don't worry about it because he might show up again. Oh, I'm sure he will. It's kind of open you're going to be like, oh yeah, well, it's fine because, you know, Eisenhorn's about to kill this asshole. In Guzda Ozma, who is seen as kind of the heir parent to Lord General Orsini, like he is shown up.

This is the guy who mentioned, like, he's a Thorian, like he's a pretty strong Puritan. He don't even, we haven't any of brief interactions in the novel, but this is the part where you go like, oh, fuck. Eisenhorn is taken prisoner, much the process of General inquisitor Neve. And Osmer begins this interrogation. There's a lot of, I don't have to skip over a few. scenes because a lot of back and forth. And there's parts where Eisenhorn like tactically lies because he obviously maybe knows some things as well.

Like obviously his face is also paralyzed. At one point he says like, thank God I can't smile, otherwise I give him all away. It is pretty obvious that Osmer just thinks he's a heretic. Like there's just no like, oh, yep. See, the demon host spared your life that one time long ago. Yep, you were at Thracian. You didn't die. you stopped by the Spatian Gate, isn't that weird?

That's why he asked Eisenhorn that. And Eisenhorn doesn't know why he stopped by the station gate either, but he's like, you know, how does it you survive, huh? So it's very obvious that Osmer doesn't care. He thinks he's a heretic. At this point, Eisenhorn requests petitions to Lord Inquisitor Rorken, who is like kind of the, you know, he's the guy who's a soft spot for him. And Rokin does help by asking to create a formal trial.

that will happen on Thracian, so therefore he is like protected and he can speak his peace. Except, Osama is so convinced that he's literally willing to get like eighth or seventh level interrogation methods, which basically requires breaking into the mind of the person and essentially turning them into like a slobbering mess. He's willing to kill, he's willing to kill Eisenhorn before, like basically they've got like a day before he gets to leave and he's not going to make it. Fisig at this point he

the others are like they have their weapons taken away but they're not like arrested like Eisenhorn Fishig acts as the like a representative kind of like he's lawyer

but not quite for Eisenhorn he like visits him in prison at times he interestingly asks Eisenhorn like have you broken the coes like are you a heretic

like a friend to friend look me in the eye and tell me the truth to his Eisenhorn says no I have not done this is again to show like what I said in the last episode how fish jig is really like straight and narrow. He's not like a Puritan as much as Osmer, but he's got a very strong sense of right and wrong. It's obviously why he's in Arbitis.

He believes Eisenhorn and he tells him, make sure you eat all your food. Later, Eisenhorn becomes extremely ill. His body starts to like sweat. He's in cold sweat. He starts a flat line. He's dying. It is so bad that reluctantly the inquisitors who think he's like faking it, they agree to move him to a hospital. And in like the sheeting rain of like Cady in winter, as is happening, Medea and her shit arise.

They intercept. They killed the inquisitor's retinue holding Eisenhorn and they grab him. And now officially, Eisenhorn and his group aboard the SSN with Maxilla, they're on the run. They are extremist, diabolists, and they are considered heretics, execution on site. This is bad. Yeah, that's not good. It's not good at all. I'll say, like, uh, hey, you guys, go ahead, T.K., you can do you all something?

Oh, I was just going to say, Shai was saying what fucks me up is that Thorians are Puritan inquisitors, but their goal is to resurrect emperor by moving his soul into another body, which they plan to build Frankenstein style, which seems, yeah, Sean, that seems pretty. Pretty fucking radical. Yep, sure does. I was going to ask you to a question, which is, who do you think inversely does more damage to the Imperium, the Puritans or the radicals? I would probably, shit. Yeah, it's a hard one to think about. Because the Puritans do lots of damage by refusing helpful tools, items, and options. Mm-hmm.

but corrupted radicals, eh? Corrupted radicals are not good either. No. I mean, it feels like a little from column A, a little from column B. I don't think either, like, they both do kind of a lot of damage, don't they? Like, is there one that really is worse than the other? Aren't they kind of just both, like, problematic? The arguing could have made that the radicals, like, lose themselves in their pursuit,

but they perhaps save more and they do more because they're willing to make the hard choices. Whereas the Puritans, they almost, like, they eat them, they eat the Imperium from within, and they are rowing. Like, Puritans are willing to, like, blow up another planet, like a whole planet, if maybe one instance of heresy. It's weird because, like, the Puritans would absolutely, yes, would not let 30-alpha level cycles walk into parade. But the Puritans probably would just kill them. Yeah. Which would then, if, you know, then starve, let's say a space marine chapter of librarian recruits.

True. So you have a little bit of like. Problematic in their both, right, in their own right? Yeah. So it kind of depends. People are listening. Maybe comment below what you think because I say it's an interesting dilemma of you either, you're so puritan that you end up devouring

the imping from within or you're so radical you end up, you know, the end is justifying as the means kind of character. Well, you devour yourself. Yeah. Radicals are road to hell paid with good intentions. But the Puritans, they're already kind of on that road to hell,

but they're just doing it to each other. So I don't know. Yeah. It really depends on what kind of philosophical take you want to have with this kind of thing. It's interesting that. That's why I like inquisitorial stories. There's like a, they're able to like capture that nuance, which is like interesting in like this, you know, Warhammer universe. The next section is going to be called Kinshair. And I'll be honest, it's a very brutal time for the group. They are completely on the run, cut off from the resources they usually have. At many times, it states they actually had to kill loyalist forces who are basically trying to capture them whilst they're on their hunt for Quixos. eventually Eisenhorn realizes, like, as I was saying earlier, he doesn't have the tools to face this Quixos. This Quicksos in this novel is kind of like a mysterious background figure.

It's not like a evil that Eisenhorn has seen, and yet he knows he doesn't have the strength, the tools, and most importantly, the knowledge to actually fight against it. He's completely found lackluster. Quixos clearly has a plan for whatever is involving the Acadian pylons. It's a plan that's so dangerous that it may, you know, threaten the entire Imperium. So despite him, you know, he's not going to turn himself into the Inquisition or like begging a he had a fair trial because they're not going to be heard out at this point. They need to gather strength and they have Eisenhorn cooked up a way of doing this. He travels to this asteroid rock called Chies.

Kinscher, or Chinkear or something. And Kinscher is a mining colony, because he's looking for a particular individual he believes should be at this station, a individual named Magos Bure, who is an ally and a previous kind of known confidant of his master in Quistaird Hapshant. He hasn't seen Bure for quite a long time, but Biel's known to be quite a specialist in forging, and he may need his advice slash his expertise. They arrive in this facility, and only like a few of them go in, so Eisenhorn, Medea, and Amos, they infiltrate this facility and they pretend to be like different people. They're like, added in a few, like, little cogs and wheels to Amos, and they make it look like a sort of member of like kind of the proverbial tech priest slash scholars, you know, circle. They make it they, they, you know, they, uh, you know, they get my boy a little bit of a dress up. He deserves it. He's a, he's a good. He's a good. He's a good. He's a good. He's a good. He's a good. He's a good. He's a good. He's a good guy. And in this facility they've arrived in, there's something strange about it.

Like, even immediately as they arrive, there's only a skeleton crew that seems to be operating. And at points, like, one or two of them seem to notice, like, different members of the skeleton crew have birth marks that look a bit weird, and they seem to be, like, in the same place. They find, like, they basically have this weird, like, kind of uneasy alliance. because Amos pretends to be like a scholar who's like, just let me stay for a few days. It's most perturbatory. Let me investigate.

And like, okay. Something is obviously wrong with them. At night, Eisenhorn is investigating around this Mechanicus facility. And he can't fathom, because there's a mind shaft at the end, but before he goes there, he's like in this temple area. And he can't fathom why they've left so many, so much gear behind. It doesn't seem to make sense to him. even like a crazy part where

I just like it's a very small little excerpt here, D.K. Which goes to like to show like the scale, the power of the mechanicus if you'd be so kind. Yeah. Chili starlight shone down through an opion in the center of the roof directly above the massive

granderite plinth. The huge severed head of an ancient warlord titan hung above the plinth where the starlight shafted down. I realized that nothing supported the head No cables, no platform, no scaffolding. It's simply hung in the air. Yeah, it's just going to show the...

Wow. It's just to show off the power and the scale that the mechanicus possess. It's obviously held together through some kind of mechanism or power or magnetism. But again, like, why has that been abandoned here? It doesn't seem to make any sense. The skeleton crew of this station have agreed to let them stay. Eisenhorn returns to Medea and Amos. At night, you know, with Glossia, you know, Thorn requires Aegis,

they realize there are like figures at the door and they're going to try and kill them. Amos wakes up, so does Medea. Medea gets out her gear and her guns. Amos pretends to keep snoring and they all get ready. The door opens and they start shooting. Fun of fat, favorite scene in the novel, Amos, who is a very, very, very old guy, he's a bit of a scholar. He punches a guy in the chest and he dies instantly.

Just happens. That's just, just does, huh? Because Amos, tells him, I forget how augmented this guy is. He just Amos straight up punch as a guy, like one punch as a guy, and he dies on the spot. Amazing. You know, just, it's just so our character. they run as a group to basically they kill the people

who were trying to kill them and they realize the rest of the crew seem to have gone missing so they start to pursue slash basic get away they get into this small like mining raft and they actually enter into the mine

and it's like a again long story short there's lots of like weird scenes about there's like different creatures and other like small griblies hiding on the surface it kind of like that um in a Empire Strikes Back

where you know they're in like the belly of the massive worm gives off that kind of vibe Yeah and the the asteroid worm I forget it's next to

Yeah it's like it's not that exact situation but it gives off that kind of vibe they push further they're going through like like it starts to get

really really hot like they're just stripped down to like just shirts and everything because it's so warm they are through massive subterranean levels and eventually

they exit into this chamber, they find this colossal, massive walking construct, and it just turns on them and it's about to destroy them. It said, Eisenhorn blurts out an old code, an old code of what belonged to inquisda Hapshant, and it was probably the original, like, forms of what became Glossier. A ramp descends, and out pops a little old Magos, Magos Bure, who, he's a funny little little weirdo, this guy. He's a little, he's a little funny guy. He, I like this guy. I like this guy. because he, he's like a typical Magos, you know, he's like human, but he weirdly has like human intricacies and like little tells. He weirdly gives people a hug sometimes at one point.

He's very heavily augmented and he's very, very happy to see Eisenhorn and he's also happy to see Amos, who he respects greatly. They speak to Magos, Bure and they find out that, yeah, something's wrong with the people here because you know the people had all the similar birth mark, it's actually a chaos mark probably, and that there's something deep within kinshare that is basically corrupting things, and Meagosbure

built this massive construct device, like this cloring, like spider-type scorpion thing to try and find out wherever the source is. Except Amos and Eisenhorn and Medea, they bring the missing piece because they've realized the skeleton crew from earlier

was so stupid. They writ the coordinates on like a piece of tape, like in the control room from earlier. And Nagas Beer is like, huh, huh, okay. That all I've been digging for like eight fucking months.

Okay. So they agree like, Eisenol's going to help him do this. They'll help him deal with what of this threat is. And again, I'm going to long story short this, because this is the part where like the novel kind of leaves me a little bit. I don't understand why we hang around here so long.

Mm-hmm. They end up in this massive battle in this like chamber filled with magma and lava, and they start battling like these cultists who look corrupted. In the middle of it, there's this sort of strange, hyper-dense geode shape, and they called it the lip. And it seems to have been clearly corrupted by chaos and has been like speaking to them. They managed to like battle these cultists. Eisenhower kills one of them earlier that he'd seen the novel who was like talking to them. Ison was able to use the power of the emperor in some way.

Basically, he uses the imperial chant that kids do when they're young. You know, you know, banish the demons, banished. It's something like that. Something silly. But it's enough to like send chaotic, you know, a reverberation of power back into the lith and it kind of breaks it. Later the crewed, sorry, later the rest of the crew who were in the SN like hiding elsewhere, they basically successfully defeated this lith problem. they bore the station and they're now prepping for the upcoming attack which they will use to fight against Quixos.

Eisenhorn, he speaks to Buell, like they have some good conversations here. Again, like I'm ramping through it really quickly because if you want to go check out this novel. If you want to get the full story of it, it's so, so, like, interesting. He speaks to Bure, like he confesses like obviously he's a rogue technically. To which Buell doesn't judge him and he really appreciates that. And interesting, like, you can see Eisenhorn's changed throughout the novel where he's debating about how far he's willing to go to defeat someone like Quixote. He's like this unknown, like, you know, he's like a big bad in his head.

He's not someone he's ever seen in his mind. He doesn't even know what he really looks like. He descends into this chamber to, uh, and it's like ice cold. It is flecked with like psychic shielding. And it's, there's a device within this chamber, which the last time he, he, seen Magos Bure, he had gifted him this device in the chamber because only he could trust only Bure with it. He sits down and he begins to speak to Pontius Glaw, who should not be alive and certainly not here. That's the weird dude who dealt with the necro chook, right?

Yeah. The little, like, sole obelisk thing of Pontius Glaw, he was supposed to destroy him. and he's here and he asked him to help him fight and Quixos with certain knowledge Bricky, I have a very long conversation

but I have a small excerpt of, say small, I have an excerpt of their conversation which is where Pontius starts to play with Eisenhower and he's having fun. Would you please so kind? Sure.

The first step is the knowledge, said Pontius Glaw. An inquisitor must understand the basic traits of chaos in order to fight it. In a few years, he knows more about the warp than most untutored cultists. Then the second step, the moment he breaks the rules and allows some aspect of chaos to survive or remain so that he can study it and learn from it. I wouldn't even bother trying to deny that one, Eisenhower. I'm right here, aren't I? You are, said Eisenhower. But understanding is essential. Even a Puritan will tell you.

that. Without it, the Inquisition struggle is hopeless. Don't get me started on that, he chuckled, then paused. The third step, the third step is the line itself, when the Inquisitor becomes a radical, when he chooses to use chaos against chaos, when he employs the agencies of the warp, when he asks the heretical for help. I see, said Eisenhorn. I'm sure you do. So, are you going to ask me to help you, said Pontius Glaw. Yeah. Yeah. It is a, this is like, there's a funny part to like, because there's like, they have multiple

rounds of their interrogations, I should say. There's a part where, um, I isn't one's like teasing Pontius, where he just arrives with like with booze and cigarettes and he just starts drinking and smoking because obviously Eisen, Pontius Gleur can't experience sensations anymore. So he starts to go like, it had a low stick. And he's like, yeah, it's great. He's such an asshole about it. And then he, I, Kolo was like, describe how the liquor taste.

And then Iisong was like, it's not good. It's excellent. He's like, ah, you know, he's like, ah, you bitch. Eventually he barters with Pontius Kulaw, who obviously should have been destroyed. But for some reason Eisenhorn kept. Obviously, it comes on clutch now because Glaw tells him knowledge about demon hosts and how to destroy them. He agrees at some point with a bargain to give Glaw just like a servitor body, but just so he can experience sensations again, but nothing more than that.

That's all he'll give him. He'll still be imprisoned by Buret. Foreshadowing is a literary device. Oh, yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Be it to it. I was thinking of that.

Yes. But he leaves Glaw. in his prison and he emerges with knowledge that can help him fight Quixos. Well, obviously, we'll have to determine if he's crossed the line or not. There is some cool parts here where Bior, like he reforges, there's a part I didn't get to earlier in this novel, but I haven't going to, because I wanted to work now. Ariad, who was the swordmaster of Eisenhorn, at the very beginning of novel, she was using a weapon called Barbariseta, is her blade.

basically her katana, I'll be honest. He was supposed to give it back to her family on her home world, but he kept it. At this point, he actually uses Barbarossa to be re-forged by Bure into a weapon that could potentially kill a demon host. Bure also makes him a psychic staff, and all of the different, has like a skull on it, which you've seen, like, most of his artwork, is like a perfect representation of Eisenhorn's own skull. there's ingredients used within the now purified lith that is incorporated into these weapons. So you can tell like they're properly gearing up. Eisenhower at this point has a few conversations with Nail. And he asks Nail like, don't you play dirty sometimes to win?

And Nail's like, yeah, you know, yeah, sure time. You know, sure thing, boss. You know, but he says if you play dirty all the time, you know, like it sometimes that has consequences. So you can tell like something, Eisenhorn is changing. Something is his, I don't know if he's like he's, he's not like a heretic, but his opinion on Puritanism may not be the same that it once was, which is very fascinating. The group at this point, they have like this nice last dinner with maxilla. They had like actually enjoyed their time together. It's quite nice. They have to have a bond. Like, you know, they're all been through a lot and they're all basically

heretics together because this will be the last dinner they have will probably be about a year because they realize they need to scatter and gather as much allies and power and resource they can to help fight with Quixos. Eisenhorn departs with some of the, you know, from most the group here in Medea, again, like we're doing a lot of long story short since episode because this one is even longer than the previous episode, but we're getting very close to the final battle here. He does go to a ecclesiarchal world and tries to get a blessing from a

cathedral belonging to a saint Ezra because he needs to bless his weapons and that helps it basically make it anti-demon. Anti-demon to up basically hopefully. There's a fun little... Yay! Yeah, yay! You know, where's Caldor-Drako?

There's a fun little tidbit about they mention this cathedral they bring out like doves and loads of birds every day. and they basically die at the end of the day because this kills them but they keep doing this every day because it just shows like

the pointless inevitability of like what the Imperium seems to be doing they're just like killing these poor birds Eisenhorn infiltrates in because obviously he can't use his identity he infiltrates into this cathedral he gets a blessing on the blade he kind of has to like

the priest or the cardinal asks him you know have you consorted with you know, evil, are you doing intentions? And he has, like, have I tactically answer, because obviously the line is slightly blurred. She's about to leave. There was a small part, like, I don't have time to go into it, but there's a small part about there's a,

a little navigator who they had to, like, trick into being their navigator for a while. She, like, thought, I'm going to die because of you, Eisenhorn. And it basically comes to fruition on this world where they start getting shot at, the crowd scatter, because a man in golden seramites with a two-handed chain so he's appeared. Oh, no, there he is.

God damn it. You are a despicable heretic. Tan, you know, Tanslid finally got his wish, and he's trying to attack Eisenhorn throughout the streets. Eisenhorn is running. Medea shows up. She, like, throws Eisenhorn, like Barbaris Seta, the sword, which has been blessed. Which is a reave, this part I don't understand this book. like this character is so annoying

and then this happens next where he starts to battle with Tantlid is like poor people with the crowd again like mushed because they're just taking you know rogue shots he doesn't care Eisenhorn and Tandlid square up for a final like hit

Barbarossa and his blade like he's trying to change or clash and Barbaricata cut through it like butter just to show how good this blade is he kills Tantlid he kills like a witch hunter on an ecclesiarchy world and oh yeah

it is just like pandemonian they end up having to run he kind of doesn't be honest he doesn't feel that too bad about it but also like another line is crossed it's another line that's been crossed they end up running

all the other different members of the group like nail in Shabelle I've forgot detail to mention earlier they actually did kill, so when Medea killed the profanity demon on Kadia earlier, it resurrected in the body of Husman, the sniper, and so he's long gone. They so members of their crew have been scattered for what is all like nearly a year, could be months, and they eventually, again, like, we're about saying entering the final fight now. They meet on this kind of, well basically, they send out secret

missives and they send over 20, like, bespoke letters from Ireland. Eisenhorn trying to plead his case. They eventually meet after a long time on a world called Thessalon, which is like basically in nowhere. It's a nothing planet. They have a secret meeting where four inquisitors have shown up to basically hear Eisenhorn out. Incommodus Voke has shown up. Haldane refused, because obviously Heldane would probably killed him on site. Titus Endor has shown up, his friend, an inquisitor named Realm Groomen, who actually is another Cadian, and he is a big friend of General Neve, who she got in trouble with being friends with Eisenhorn, but she's sending, they can't get rid of her, because she's obviously on the Cadian gate, you know, she's too

important, but she's sending him as her representative, and a man named Massimo Risi, who apparently has the most bespoke gear and the craziest inquisitorial get up out all of them. Mr. Recy is Lord Warkin's like basically his spiritual successor. Like he's going to be his next guy. And the reason he's here, he even says it to Eisenhorn,

like, I'm here to kill you if you are a heretic. Like I'm here, I'm basically the guillotine if this isn't right. But Lord's inquest of Rorkin likes you. He believes you and he wants, and I'm here to like hear you out. Bechwin and the others,

like it's a very secretive meeting like they're like it's quite tense they start to present all of their evidence the things to do with Thracian primaris the things to do with

the cults of Bail the Acadian pylons they have they've managed to in that year alone they found like secret diversions of materials of what's not quite black stone

at the time it's quite an early No, this is like 2002, I think, as when all came out. So it's like an early concept of it. But there's a material that's similar, and it looks to be like it may be building towards like someone's making fake Acadian pylons. And obviously that is belonging to Quixos. They start to put other pieces together, which is quick, you know,

Lyko, the guy, the quizster from earlier, he was probably an acolyte of Quixos. The guy from the first novel, Conrad Molitor, if you remember, like he had the two Arco flagellants and he also did the um the say that he killed one of eisenhorn's um or that prisoners early and he tried to kill them in the very end at physics ezar he probably also was an acolyte of quicksauce so other sting other things are starting to make sense and this is where they present their like final evidence the last person who uh gave a message to beckwin to read is from gideon Ravana. He's alive. His mind works, though his body is broken. He did his own investigation while his mind was, where his body was healing to like essentially a scarred thumb of a thing.

And he manages to gift them with scrolls of protection. And it really, really moves Eisenhower because like, I can't believe Gideon survived. The four inquisitors are convinced and they agree like, we shall attack Quixos together. This is not going to be super sanctioned by the Inquisition. We'll have to use what we have. I was going to ask you guys, I think, interestingly, with the Inquisition and the way, like, they kind of operate, do you think that it's almost hard to ask?

Do you think the Inquisition is like a net good or a net bad for the Imperian? Hell no, dude. It is a huge net bad. Yeah, I was going to say it's probably not a net good. There's so many corrupt inquisitors. There's so much radical nonsense they do. There's so much of like, but inside if Puritans or radicals where which one was worse.

So, yeah, I'm kind of with breaking on this one. It's got to be a huge net bad, right? Do you think of one like Crittman? I know what you're trying to get at here, which is like the enemies within, and the horrible events stopped by Inquisitors. However, what level of those horrible events are caused based on the Imperium's situations to begin with?

You know, it's kind of like the old phrase, like, of course I'm xenophobic. Have you seen these aliens? And it's like, dude, the Great Crusade, you killed every ally. You killed all the peaceful ones. Yeah. Every single one that could have helped you is dead now. You killed them all. Like, how many, how many chaos cults have been created due to,

to the strictness of the Imperium. How many, how many, like, Gene Steeler Colts in their own right are literally stirred on by, like, a workers' class uprising against the authoritarian government. It does make me think of a, there's a Gilliman quote in a, you guys did a DeVeuxion of Baal episode, and people will know, like, from that episode, Gilliman arrives at the very end of it. And I think he even says to Dante that what people would, well, what reason would people not have to choose hell if they already live in it or something similar to that. Yeah.

That's kind of the point of it. I mean, like, okay, let me like a rephrase them. I think, I think maybe inquisitors are a net good for the Imperium in the state they're in. But I don't think that. But not the humanity. No, like, like, like in the sense that like, well, sure, they can do and help stop a lot of horrible things that are most. likely brought on due to the Imperium itself. Yeah.

You guys remember Horace Rising? I think, you know, like how they say you can't, people can't know about chaos because it will like make more chaos. Do you remember how the interacts, they actually know about chaos? Like their society is somewhat known amongst, oh, yeah. Chaos exists. And yet they don't seem to, the only reason they have trouble was because someone else arrived. Because Erebus came in, was a shithead and stole and stuff.

But it wasn't internal. No, it wasn't. And it's like the weird mirror of like is the Inquisition in a way like it, it's like a, like it creates like a death spiral of itself where the ignorance and the horrible like like Eisenhorn is a Amalathean. He thinks the Imperium is perfect as it is. Yeah, it seems to create so much opportunity for chaos to seep within. So. Yeah. Who feeds chaos the most in the galaxy right now?

Oh, humans, undoubtedly. Yeah, has to be humans. Humanity by a country mile. And I am not one to believe that the same would happen if the Imperium took a more, what is it, less like clouded stance. It's a weird, hard one because it's like that, we would want that. And yet in some way the universe would. would punish you for doing that.

That's what makes it so horrifying, isn't it? So, again, like, one of the reasons I love, I like Warhammer when you realize how, like, shit it is in terms of, like, ugh, this is bad. I mean, if you have to, if you have to really be semantical about it, I would imagine that the Imperium is currently, or sorry, the Inquisition is currently a good thing for the current Imperium. Like, the Inquisition does a lot of really important things for the current age. of the Imperium because the current age of the

Imperium is a horrid hellscape. But, like, I feel like the case for Inquisitors, in a normal time, may be a bit horrid across the war. And a lot of them are still awful anyway. Inquisitors, that is. They kill innocence all the time. They're very, uh, they're the very, you know,

problematic. They don't really have tolerance ever. Or you get inquisters like Osmer or, witch hunters like Tantilid who just they don't care if people, civilians are caught up because, you know, Innocence proves nothing. Yes, I just love Inquisition

raised episode because it makes me like, there's so much to like talk about. But speaking of like wrapping up this episode, it's time for the last final fight, which surprisingly is quite a very small section of the book. Like it's it happens really quickly. They with their evidence at this sort of conclave, they put together that all of these like trades and these different routes, they all lead to a small world near Kadia, near the Iotera called Farnas Beta. And that's probably where this Quixos is. The group assembles all of their staff and their assets together. The Cadians, the distaff, all the different residues. There are hundreds and thousands, like there are thousands of people together. and they arrive above the world of Farnes Beta. They start to attack this weird fortress,

this like defense system that is obviously run by the cultists, the cult of Quixoth essentially. There's a lot of small events that happen within this part, but again, like surmising it for the podcast, Eisenhorn at some point does fight with Chibail, and he brings out his new weapons. He's able to like almost go toe to toe with him, until it's kind of revealed that

he basically kills Troubiel, but Troubiel reveals to Eisenhorn that he wanted this, that he's been manipulating Eisenhorn on this path because Troubail has basically been forced into compliance by

Quixos, and he knew if he messed with Eisenhorn, you know, because the warp works in mysterious ways, time flows strangely. If he manipulated Eisenhorn, he'd one day developed the tools to free him from Quixos and his soul, like, you know, his demon soul evaporates back into the war. This happens, like, because at the same time this is happening,

there's other different conflicts going on. So, and it's pretty brutal. Loz of the kill teams are all separated, and actually, Eisenhorn realizes, we brought everything, and we might not have enough. Commodus Vogue ends up fighting the other demon host, profanity, which kills him, unfortunately. Paul Commodus Vogue dies to the demon host.

He did his best. hold it off. Inchabelle gets really wounded. Titus Endor is pretty badly wounded until Isman was able to use the barbaric satyr to, you know, the Uwil Kwan Sahar to like, you know, basically destroy the second demon host. As he's like helping up Titus Endor, he sees Titus weirdly, he looks at his inquisitorial rosette, who he'd been hiding it in the previous meeting. It's no longer Ordo's Zenos. He's switched Ordo. because Osmer had threatened him because apparently he had something on Endel

and Endor was supposed to spy on Eisenhorn. You don't really know if Endor technically did give up information on Eisenhorn, maybe he did or not, but it ends their friendship on the spot. Eisenhorn pushes in further. He meets up with the other two inquisitors, Rishi and Grumman. It's been pretty brutal.

There's no more, like, the distaffir, everyone's scattered. They seem to end to this blood, blood-slicked dark hold with like a few Kazakin and them and uh D-K, this is the final, uh, little excerpt of the, um, episode here. And this is what happens when they enter into this chamber, which I will say on the ceiling, there are alpha-level cycles on chains and one them is probably a charadeon and there are like loads of them. And this is what happens. Instantly, Ritchie was split open down the length of his spine.

As he was still in the process of falling on his face, choking on his own blood, one of the cassockin was severed at the waist and toppled in halves, his gun firing spasmodically. Grumman pushed me out of the way as the devastating blur turned again and fired his last pistol at three times. Snapping around faster than my eyes could follow, the long, dark blade the blur was wielding to... Wait, snapping around faster than my eyes could follow,

the long dark blade the blur was wielded. deflected each crackling shot. Grumman's head left his shoulders. Quixos, the archeretic, the renegade, the unforgivable radical whirled on me before Grumman's butchered body had even started to slump. I had one fleeting

glimpse of the long demon sword. Carnagher. It was gnarled and knotted and thick with abominable ruins and irregular claw-like serrations. That's all I saw as it came whistling towards my face. Eisenhorn meets not really a man or like a villain or like a rival. He meets the end of the inquisitorial radical path.

This is the dark mirror to what the radical can become. And this Quicksaw's character is like his face is like gnarled and almost animal-like. And he, like their two blades clash together and he snarls in Eisenhorn's face. You're a heretic. Like he cannot see how far he has fallen. They begin this brutal duel that basically uses everything Eisenhorn has. Yeah, but see, what, Shia is getting at the statement about like how, oh, well, you know, we talked about how we would be radical inquisitors instead and yada, yada, yada, but she's saying,

hey, you know, cue the difference here. And to that, I say, no, uh, wouldn't be me. Yeah. Nah, I'd win. But it's like no matter which, no matter which path you take that,

you kind of turn to an asshole. You either, I am a radical and now I've been corrupted by chaos or do you end up being an absolute douche nozzle like tantalid or Osma? I actually prefer the idea of just being meat. How about I said I could just be dead. I'll just prefer that.

Yeah, that's true, true Warhammer. The brutal fight between the two, it almost ends when this like a demon blay. Like, Quixote's explained like he would have basically sacrificed billions and millions of people to basically make fake pylons and like defeat the war, but he can't really see how he's going to achieve that. Like it's almost madness. It was interesting because obviously it's like a thread that's tapped on much later, you know, 20 years later basically in Warhammer. it ends when Eisenhorn's Barbaricata and the Demon Sword clash and Barbaricata snaps

this somehow works out because if the blade had held it would have cut Eisenhorn in two it snapping meant he could plunge the broken part in the hilt into Quixos and he's basically able to kill him and then when the like broken like gnawed and like knotted and animal like form of

quicks losses that, you know, dead on the floor. Eisenhorn notices a certain tome drop from him. It's one called the Malice Codicium, and it's something that he puts within his pocket. The novel ends with Eisenhorn is like reinstated as an inquisitor, and it's like, you know, it's called the Quicksosters affair. It's a thing of legend, and they seem to like, the Inquisition arise and cleans it all up.

And the novel, the very last scene, is in a vault that will be forgotten. Using the words of the malas codicium, Eisenhorn binds a screaming and raging cherubail, because Eisenhorn has not forgiven him for using him, and he will not let that thing run free. And he will stay within this layered vault until he deems, basically, for all eternity.

And that is the end of Malius. Oh, good job, Eisenhorn. and now you've used the cursed book. Yeah, like it's a... Get fucked though, Turibail. Yeah. Interestingly enough, though, this is of the trilogy, this is usually people's least favorite.

I think that's probably because there may be too many characters. I would have thought, like, the Osama character and the Tanta character could have been folded into one, in my opinion. And there's a lot of, like, uh, investigation, like, is obviously inquisitor.

There's a lot of investigations in this book. but they I don't know like some of them gone for quite a long time but a lot of the scenes are very interesting and particularly the

combat scenes and the like the buildup towards the end I would have said like quicksos is not designed to be a character

of like you know he's like I'm the hero he's the villain quicksos is just to show you what radicalism basically leads to and it leaves you

questioning after Eisenhorn has seen all that why is he chosen to do that thing at the end with Cherubail? So it's a, the mystery's deepening and there's obviously two more novels in this, like two more main novels in this series and lots of short stories, but that is the end of Malias. What did you guys think? Oh, is it longer than the other ones?

It, in terms of explaining it, maybe it feels like that. I think in the first one, we obviously had like a bit of set up for who Eisenhorn was, whereas this one is just, this is all. Like, I massively surmised some of the things that happen in this book. But, um, yeah, it, it seems like a chunky book, doesn't it? It seems like there's a lot of it's because, it's because I was in every scene. That's the thing. Like, in other books, you know, your character's not in every section.

Eisenhorn novels are all from his own perspective in mind. Right. Right. In every single scene. Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, we went a long way. Yeah, I feel like, I feel like I would have liked Osmo on those guys to be, yeah, turn into one. I thought he would be keep like, I was ready for every.

every scene to end with him being like, Eisenhard, I found you, I condemn you to death. Yeah, and like over and over again. I would have found it to be kind of funny, honestly. I think it would have been rather humorous. I thought it was going to be like the Gilles there to, uh, to Jean Valjean, where he's always there, he's always chasing you. It's the stars, man.

I was surprised if they did like a live action, there was something like that where maybe not exactly, but they folded that character into like, more the one character. Because I, like, surprisingly, he has, like such a big opening of being like Eisenhorn you bitch and then it like only, you're going to see him once more. But he made an impression because all his like

his aura and his gear. But still pretty weird. Like the novel is a very like again, I like all the as Eisenhower novels. They're all pretty good. But I was, what was you guys were thinking about it? Sorry, Bricky, I interrupted

Oh no, I was just saying like it is interesting. I feel like it's one of those types of things where it does kind of feel a little empire strikes backy not just because of some of the star wars esk type things there but based on the um how they're kind of like moving through the the system and like how things are going um on the run almost okay a little bit yeah um but also i do like that they were trying that they're setting up this like fall from grace for eisenhorn you know uh i also find i also love this because this is always just awesome to me. I like how the

Quicksauce, the portrait of him, that could, like, the only thing that makes that look chaos to me at all is the slight horn at his top right and his long nails. Get rid of those. This is just an imperial inquisitor. It's just a photo of an inquisitor. Yeah, kind of. There is an older art from the time, I believe.

And it's like really old school. That shows you more what they were thinking. I think I might even have it actually if I can I can give that to you guys here but that's what like this is the actual like end fight scene and we're describing it for the audio listeners in quick like quicksauces in like much more

like heavier almost like a version of like Terminatorish esk gear he has like his demon like glave blade looking thing like spikes and horns and the magic odysseum is on his book and his head is much more like demented and like weird like shaped uh Yeah, it kind of, it was, like, there's like old school representations of what it was more like at the time. But honestly, the old school one, he looks, he looks less demonic than the other one.

I was thinking that too. He looks less demonic in the old. I mean, like, his gear, probably, his gear, like his sword. Aside from his sword, he, like, he would pass as just a, oh, he's just a raggedy old inquisitor for sure. if he didn't have his like demons vihander thing yeah it's just an inquisitive for the um the proper law buffs out there i forgot to mention the uh the alpha level cycles alpha level psychas were being gathered in attempt to be used for that like a mass plan to like power up these like fake cadium pylons so that's why they were all being like kidnapped or like released from thracian primaris in the beginning so it does all like what i appreciate is like all of these net, like, these are very, there's no, like, missing, like, weird plot hole in any of the Dan Abinet Eisenhorn novels. They're all pretty good. Hell yeah. Yeah, but that is, that is Malleus.

And, you know, Inquisitor Eisenhorn returns for Avengers Doomsday with those two more novels to complete in the future. And I will say, I only have one sentence for it, which is, prepared to cry. Oh, great. Too late. I already did that. Because you told me that, um, Betancor has died. That's,

what the hell? Yeah, but yeah, I also skipped over a lot of the Medea scenes. Uh, just because like, just because like, it's more of like the in between, not because she's like,

she's a good character. I, uh, particularly even like in the, I don't, I assume, I assume the Bettsincor bloodline is very sick. Yeah,

they're all pretty cool. Uh, and there's more, like, It's not the end of Midas necessarily, but it's, like, what kind of is, but like, you'll, he's not going to not be ever not mentioned again. Yeah, well, we'll get to it, I'm sure. Hell, yeah. Yeah.

Oh. Oh, yes. Go ahead. Do you want me to do. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so shy was saying, since we're taking a little bit of a break from Eisenhorn for a bit, we're going to go back to covering the Horace heresy. Because it turns out we cover some extremely important events in passing, like when I went back, I couldn't believe we never did an episode on the Isfellon. on three drop site massacre

we'll be covering in the autumn of heresy, corny ass shit. I had John Massacre is such a good book. Which was so good. Is there a book called Dropside Massacre? Yeah, they made another one. They made another Horace heresy book. Me and Rembrandt.

Because when it came out, me and Remmerz said did a episode for it and we're doing a Horace Heresy podcast. And we were so happy that. episode came out because they actually fleshed out Isvon, uh, three five, sorry, five.

Well, because isn't like, isn't, um, the dropside massacre wasn't the original book for that, the first heretic? It's technically covered in fulgram and then it's covered it. Like you have multiple perspectives,

but the drop site massacre solely like deals with more of the, God forbidded the, the poor iron hands guy is getting some, some law. Ferris Manor, speaks in that book, you know. Holy shit. This is this is new territory. It also deals with a problem of, um, uh, to do with a certain character like little horrors.

You know, Horacea accent. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of ourselves. Yeah, yeah, X-Men. Yeah. But, um, I mean, I, I, I always remember it from the first heretic because the first heretic is like the original dropside massacre book, I believe. And that's, uh, it's a, it's a good one. It's a, I like that one. It's a, I like that one.

Great. Yeah. Well, yeah. first heritage good one first heretic i meant i meant drop like massacre oh okay okay i was like first sight i know first i know i know i'm good book oh i guess it's an all right yeah yeah yeah good book like the chaos bible yeah yeah all right now now convince me to read lords the silence while you're here how do it all right very well he did it wow amazing i'm sold