'How did the servants of the Despoiler know of the existence of the artefacts ahead of you, if it took you centuries of searching to uncover the truth?' Captain Strake asked, interrupting the magos's long-awaited explanation.

‘Who knows what blasphemous secrets the daemons of the warp reveal to the chosen of the Fell Powers?'

'So what purpose did these artefacts serve?' Melchor asked, intrigued. 'Who was it that built them?'

'I do not know who built them; the sources are unclear on that matter. Some suggest they were of xenos origin, others even propose that they were creations of the Adeptus Mechanicus. If so, then the techno-art of such lith-engineering is lost to us now, like so much else. Which is why we must see this quest through to its conclusion!'

As Thule spoke a rotating wire-frame image of an eight-sided obelisk appeared on the pict-screen, overlaid with various pieces of data and cogitator references.

'As to their purpose, the readings I was able to take from the Bei'bul Stone before it was destroyed suggest that the artefacts, linked to their associated cave networks that somehow helped amplify the planets' own energy-fields, kept Warpstorm Araken in place.'

'I can think of no better way of hiding something,' Strake commented.

'Having specially consecrated each of the artefacts within the three vital systems surrounding the Araken Anomaly, the forces of Chaos were able to destroy them and so, at last, release Crucible from the inaccessible warpstorm and allow the prize lying there to be claimed. I see it now so clearly,' Thule said almost wistfully. 'I had thought that the artefacts had to be preserved and that the enemy sought their destruction, but they actually had to be destroyed for them to be able to reveal their secrets to us.'

'My intention now, as it has always been, is to find the army that my ancestors in the Cult Mechanicus created on Crucible and use it to help the Imperium crush the Despoiler's thirteenth Black Crusade, just as the Arch-Fiend has brought other ancient weapons to bear against the Imperium.’

'How can we be certain that exposure to the warpstorm has not tainted this prize you so desperately seek?' Melchor asked. 'The warp is a fickle and dangerous mistress.'

'I too feel uneasy about this still.’ Strake declared, pointing at the pict-screen. 'These artefacts have been fashioned with eight sides; a number strongly associated with the Chaos powers. Surely it cannot be a coincidence that the Chaos cults were performing rituals that involved these artefacts? Have you thought that the artefacts might have been created for the sole purpose of purging the warpstorm, in order to unlock its dark secrets? I believe that nothing but ill awaits us on Crucible.’

'If you believe that so strongly.’ Thule railed, 'then surely it is your Emperor-given duty to purge the world of its evil and stop it falling into the filthy claws of Chaos!' The tech-priest's mechadendrites writhed menacingly over his shoulders.