+++Date: 0105_017M42
+++Security Clearance: Extremis Ultra
+++Ref: CBE004/1-B
+++Recieved: [REDACTED]
+++Subject: Corticant Excavation Report
+++Author: [REDACTED]
My lord,
Progress in the caverns beneath Veers Mound has been swift of late, thanks to the timely arrival of Adeptus mechanicus scanning equipment and the use of explosives blast into the vast subteranean caverns which auspex returns had indicated must exist. As predicted there were some fatalities among the excavation crew, but the importance of this mission overrides such selfish concerns such as personal safety. They died in their own way to serve the Emperor.
Upon entering the chasm we were confronted with total darkness, but within stood the fruit of our labour. Even the Adeptus Mechanicus lord with us appeared to show signs of wonderment and awe at the vast structure which now stood in front of us. Fully 100 stories high, the almost perfectly smooth and impossibly black obelisk stood as a buried skyscraper, not reaching for the skies but diving into the darkness of the core of the planet. We were unable to see the bottom with our lighting equipment, but scanner estimations suggest the obelisk may drive even further into the rock.
Atop this alien structure, within the chasm into which we had blasted, sat a cylindrical structure, lying on its side with one circular end pointing towards us. Nothing appeared to hold the structure fast onto the towering obelisk and yet it did not roll off. We had made our egress into the cavern holding the wonder at the same height as this cylindrical object, which must be one hundred feet long and twenty feet in diameter. A ledge of rock jutted out twards the top of the black structure, and upon examination it was clear there had once been a polished marble floor atop it. Ancient beings would have once walked this path, but for what?
The Adeptus Mechanicus scanned the structure, and found nothing but their own scans reflected. the object appeared more than inert, but as if it had a negative existence. Fearing the machinations of the warp I instructed our Psyker to user her Psinescience on the object, but she recoiled in horror, declaring the black cylinder as an anathaema. Never-the-less, I resloved to investigate further, and we crossed onto the top of the giant structure. The surface was impossibly smooth, glass like, with not a scratch after millenia. Not even a grain of dust marked its black and wholly unreflective surface. Neither did it feel slippery, and many attested to feeling as if they were walking on the void itself.
At last we approached the cylinder which now loomed above us. A final auspex scan revealed nothing, and a circuit of the object revealed no markings indicating a way in. Whatever it once was, whatever its purpose, it was now dead, or so we thought. One of our indentured guardsman was unable to resist temptation and layed his hand on the object. There was a scream and a whipcrack noise which appeared to come from within my own head, and the guardsman instantaneously vanished from existence. The crack had been the rush of air to fill the space he no longer occupied. Looking at our group I noticed we all had nosebleeds, but our psyker faired the worst. She had been the one screaming, and now she lay lifeless on the perfectly black surface.
We picked up our her body and made our way away from the object, noting now that the auspex returns registered internal energy, and green lines became barely discernable on the black face of the cylindrical object that had somehow claimed two of the lives of our party.
Since this first encounter we have studied the object, or the device as it is now known, in more detail, but answers elude us. It still registers a small energy signature, but we fear to actively investigate more. I await your guidance my Lord Inquisitor.
++End Message
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