Explicator Zola

## Zola

Zola in the Strategium, during a cutscene.

**Explicator Zola** is a character in Darktide, she grew up in Hive Tertium in the district referred to as the Torrent in on Atoma.

The player rescues **Explicator Zola**, an agent of the Inquisition, and the two successfully evacuate the prison transport ship, the Tancred Bastion. **Zola** agrees to spare the player from the death penalty by conscripting them into the Inquisition as a new **Acolyte**, in part as a form of repayment for saving her life.

She leads many mission from the Mourningstar, as well as on the ground. She is a frequent mission-director for most missions. In the Mourningstar hub area, **Zola** can sometimes be seen on the catwalk above Sire Melk's Requesitorium, looking down at rejects.

### Inquisitorial Career

Grendyl chose her personally as Explicator due to her history and expertise in Hive Tertium. She appears to have had a shady past from when she lived in the lower hive of Tertium. She wrestles with this somewhat recent past life before being given a "second chance" in life by joining Inquisitor Grendyl's warband. Whether she was a former Hive Ganger or something else, she proved her worth worth and rose to the high rank in Grendyl's service.

It seems reasonable speculation to assume she was a lower ranking agent in Grendyl's service for an amount of time prior to her appointment as Explicator, but nothing is confirmed. However, Zola's concept art does have show her wearing the same rebreather as Inquisition Agent NPC's around the Mourningstar's Mission-Terminal. A Throne Agent rank of acolyte is trusted rank and seems similar to kind of officer role.

The rank of Explicator is typically the first stage of an inquisitor-in-training and normally mentored by an **Inquisitor** directly. As an Explicator, Zola is the leader of operations within Tertium and was selected as such in part due to her specialized knowledge and familiarity of the Hive City.

Interrogator Rannick is **Zola's** only other known superior, besides her master, Inquisitor Grendyl. Rannick has much more experience and training as an Inquisitor's apprentice than Zola, who is still fresh and proving herself as a new apprentice to the Inquisitor.

## Orthus Offensive

**Zola** reveals a personal grudge against Wolfer, the Karnak Twins, and the rest of the traitors due to them betraying their shared home of Tertium. This is in part due to **Zola**, being born into one of the lowest rungs of Tertium society, naturally harboring a grudge against the high-borne scum who forsook the city long before bold-faced traitors arose.

The goal of the Orthus Offensive was to capture one of the Karnak Twins and interrogate them. Rinda Karnak may have been the prefered target to capture alive, but it is debatable if either of the twins were a preferred target. Both would have been a feasible targets for capture and interrogation. The ultimate goal was to discover Wolfer's location through interrogation, but it is hinted that there is more questions she has for these traitors than that. It seems like she wanted to understand why they turned traitors on Tertium and its people.

Now, **Zola** may face consequences for her brash and unauthorized actions in the planning and initiation of the Orthus Offensive mission. The mission's original goals were aborted and resulted in the inadvertant death of both Rinda and Rodin Karnak. Her duties currently being put on hold as she has been placed under review by her superiors. It seems her career in the Inquisition, and greater fate, is now in the hands of Grendyl's final judgement, the results of which are not yet known.

### Zola's Journal Entries

Zola's thought's on the events of and leading to the Orthus Offensive, and the consequences of the mission events afterward.

Entries I-VII
The Karnak twins. Brother and sister. Tertium born. They need a better name, I think. In briefings, we talk of ‘The Twins this…” and “The Twins that…” almost as though they are acquaintances. The term seems too fond, too affectionate. We should call them what they are. Butchers. Monsters. Traitors. Traitors of the worst kind.
From the intel, it is clear they are close to Wolfer, the elusive Wolfer. In fact, they *are* Wolfer. He trusts them, clearly, so deeply, that they have become his direct proxies, acting in his stead, working in his place, performing his crimes for him. They are his primary weapons. They are extensions of him.
They are also frighteningly capable. The Twins are cunning, and brutally efficient. If I didn’t loathe them so, I could almost be impressed. They match Wolfer in capability, and exceed him in accomplishment, for he hides in the shadows while they do his work for him. I don’t have the precise figures to hand tonight, but they have, between them, killed more of our poor rejects in the last two weeks than any other positively identified traitors.
 *[Encryption active]* Today, Rannick suggested I was becoming obsessed with the Karnak Twins. I remarked that it was a requirement for any servant of the Holy Ordos to become obsessed with those they hunt, for that is the only way this work may be accomplished. Some call it obsession, I call it deep engagement. This is our life, this is our purpose. Anything less than total commitment would be dereliction. But the Interrogator intimated that I was too *personally* engaged.
When I objected to this, he would not be drawn further, and dismissed me. He has no intention of discussing it. I will record my response to his reprimand here, partly to vent my frustration at his glib verdict, but also to answer back. I know, after all, that he reads these journals. If I cannot answer for myself officially, I will answer here.
We know the Archenemy of Man is pernicious and insidious,  and must be fought with every ounce of our will, but the Karnak Twins prove that the most dangerous weapon of Chaos is the turning against us of those who were once our own.
The Karnaks know the hive. They were born there. They know the Astra Militarum, and its functions and strengths, for they were both part of it.  Their grim success is born from those twin pools of knowledge. That is why they require the most serious attention.
Am I obsessed with them, Interrogator? Perhaps I am, and if so… *good*. I am Tertium too, and an experienced agent of an Imperial institution. But for a quirk of fate, they could be me. I understand how dangerous that is.
And is it personal? Yes. They seem to me like the greatest crime of all, for I can imagine - *more* than imagine - their mindset. They once had a bond with the hive, as I do, so I personally understand the immense step they must have taken to break that bond and become what they are. I see… I *feel*… the scale and measure of their treachery and their rebellion.
 ***[Encryption active]*** Morrow counsels me that I am, perhaps, wrong. He tells me he thinks I have misunderstood Interrogator Rannick’s caution the other day. The fear is that my obsession with the Karnak Twins will make me weak, or sloppy, or rash.
I refute this, but I value Morrow’s opinion. Morrow says that my personal knowledge of Tertium is, and always has been, a great asset to the warband. It was why I was recruited. Further, he states that my emotional response, my heartfelt need to save and free my home hive, is an asset too: a vital passion that secures and drives my loyalty to this cause and, by extension, drives the determination of the warband members. Seeing my passion, the rejects come to learn and share it.
But, he asks me, what *really* fuels my rage? Love of Tertium? Loyalty to the cause? Devotion? Hatred of the turncoats in whom I see so much of myself?
All of these things. But what else, he asks me.
I have dwelt on this since we spoke. Morrow is a wise man, a fine student of human psychology. One does not lead men into war as well as he does without that knack. He worries, I think, that I have become obsessed with the Karnak Twins not for those obvious reasons. Those *acceptable* reasons. He wonders if it is not the points of similarity and connection between myself and those monsters that fires me, but instead the difference.
They are of Tertium, like me, yes, but they were high-born where I was but a poor child of the lower zones. They were wealthy, privileged and entitled.  They were, once, exactly the sort of people that my kind despised. The people that lived lives of excess and luxury and treated us all like chattel. Indeed, their wealth and status was built on the toil and suffering of people like me.
I hate them as they are now, yes. I hate them for their treachery. But perhaps my personal engagement is born from the fact that I have *always* hated them. I hated them long before they turned to darkness. Growing up, the Twins, and people like them, were the very kind I learned to loathe. In the Torrent, we all did. They were the scum. The scum that floated at the very top, blocking the light and stealing it for themselves.
 ***[Encryption active]*** I am lost.
We chased them down today. We tracked the Karnak Twins, and chased them down. We finished them. I think.
I led the way in this effort, as I have since the start. My determination, my ‘obsession’, as Rannick calls it, made this victory possible.
But I overstepped. I drove too hard. I was so intent on the Twins’ capture, I pushed too far. Lives were lost. The Twins cost us dearly. Rannick declares that a more reasoned approach might have achieved the same result without such a loss of life. I’m not convinced. I did what I had to do. Capturing the Karnak Twins was never going to be easy. It was always going to cost us. We needed them alive, not dead.
But Rannick says I acted overzealously and that my obsession got the better of me. He forced me to withdraw from the engagement in an effort to preserve lives, and now I am stood down from duties pending review.
 **[Encryption active]** I wonder how it will end? I wonder what will be decided for me? What fate?
I wait here in my quarters. I pace and fret. I believe that I did naught that my duties did not require. I regret the deaths, yes, but war demands a price, and the war against the Archenemy of Man demands the highest price of all.  Am I to be punished for my loyalty? Punished for my devoted service? Where is the justice? You do not train a weapon like me then complain when it is used.
What will my punishment be? A demotion? A retirement to low-level administrative duties? Perhaps I will be sent away for retraining and reconditioning, or to some remote outpost to  do penance in some menial position? Perhaps I will be removed from the Mourningstar warband? Perhaps I will be expelled from the Holy Ordos altogether?
Does anyone walk away, ever? Does anyone leave the service of the Inquisition, either voluntarily, or under a cloud, and go on to live another life afterwards? I doubt it. We see too much. We learn too much. We know too much.
 **[Encryption active]** I have been returned to my duties and reinstated.  I am thankful. Relieved. Inquisitor Grendyl has authorised it. I was obliged to listen to some fierce words of chastisement from Rannick, and then to read - and sign - a long report detailing my zeal and my operational failures.
That’s fair.  I will take the words, and the content of the report, to heart, and do my best to learn from them and improve.  There is always something new for us to learn, so better to perform our solemn duties, and perhaps I have learned something about myself. If I have, then I will use it to make myself a better servant of the God-Emperor’s will.
I fear that the only reasons I was spared and returned to duty was  that Grendyl wished to retain my inside knowledge of Tertium, and considered me an asset too valuable to lose. In this, he would have overruled Rannick’s intent to run a tight and disciplined warband with no room for zealotry.
I am pleased to return to my work. But I regret that I take little satisfaction from the whole affair. The Karnak Twins are done and gone, but I wanted them taken alive. I wanted the right to interrogate them and learn their secrets. I wanted, through them, to reach Wolfer.  I am robbed of a sense of closure. They won’t permit me to read the final report on the incident. It has been sealed and filed. Rannick says there’s no need for me to see it. The business is over.
The Karnak Twins are dead, and in death, silent. I didn’t even get to see the bodies. **[Recording ended]**

# Quotes

* "There are worse Hive cities in the Imperium. At least so I'm told." (Chasm Logistratum, special ammo raid)
* "The ammo is not for you. Rannick has other teams in the field doing the really nasty jobs." (Chasm Logistratum, special ammo raid)
* "The Chasm Station's subrails are a smugglers dream. Some things never change." (Chasm Logistratum, special ammo raid)
* "Mercy is for the weak, Honor is for the fool. We can afford neither." (Chasm Station, Assasination)

The Torrent

* "I grew up in the Torrent - fought like Hel to escape. But there's no escaping your past, is there?" (Vigil Station Oblivium, mission start)

* Bodyguard: "To survive here? Must have been hard" (Vigil Station Oblivium, Ragtown Bazaar elevator)
* Zola: "When I had nothing, Grendyl raised me up. Gave me purpose. Your fate too, if you are fortunate. Nothing else matters."
* Professional: "Have it your way. But it can't hurt to know more about the folks you're fighting for."

### Rejects will Rise Trailer

"The city of Tertium is under attack... my city. A dark tide of Chaos is rising. Our best fighters are falling. It's time to try new tactics. Something different. Something Desperate. We take you, the outcast and the criminal, the lost and the damned. Because you have nothing left to lose. So you're the scum we're counting on now... and if it's come to this... then God Emperor helps us all."

### Mourningstar Hub - Vox Chatter

* **Zola**: Commodore ... Lady Alice ... I need you to stop aggravating Morrow. He's bad enough at the best of times.
* **Hallowette**: Aggravating? Me? He's the one who started it.

* **Zola**: (thanks her for helping train troops)
* **Hallowette**: Ah think nothing of it. happy to help... as long as the Aquilas keep flowing. (approximate from memory)

* **Zola**: Commodore, we're a little short-handed down in the HL-17-36. You couldn't spare a few bodies?
* **Hallowette**: Sorry my darling, no can do. They're all on high priority, need-to-know assignments.

* **Hallowette**: You still around out there, Zola? Haven't seen you for awhile.
* **Zola**: Been busy, that's all. This war won't win itself.

* **Hallowette**: Hey Zola, Shipmistress is getting a bit touchy about your rejects crawling all about the place. (approximate from memory)
* **Zola**: She agreed to placing the Mourningstar at Grendyl's disposal, didn't she?
* **Hallowette**: Agreement and being happy aren't the same thing, you know that.

* **Zola**: Morrow? Shipmistress Brahms claims several of your charges are straying into unauthorised areas.
* **Morrow**: I'll look into it. Leave it with me.

* **Zola**: Masozi? How goes training the Mourningstar's fighter pilots?
* **Masozi**: Slow. Too much thinking getting in the way of their instincts.
* **Zola**: hm.. keep me posted on their progress. We'll need them ready.

* **Masozi**: Picked up an unwelcome tail on that last drop, explicator. You know who.
* **Zola**: Our old friends the Sky Reavers? I'll let Rannick know.

* **Zola**: Masozi? Kindly remind the deck crews that possession of Atoman contraband is punishable by the severest mean.
* **Masozi**: I will surely do that. Have no fear.

* **Hadron**: Sergeant-Major! Your operatives' reports lack sufficient data! I must know everything that occurs!
* **Zola**: Ya? Like your not listening in on every vox channel on the Mourningstar already.

* **Zola**: Hadron, things would go a lot smoother if you quarreled less with Masozi. (approximate from memory)
* **Hadron**: It is not I who quarrels. It is her who needs more discipline. (approximate from memory)

### Reject Quotes

* Bully: Zola strong. Survivor.
* Male Seer: Yes... An adamantium mind, locked down tight.
* Female Savant: She's fighting for Atoma. That's all I need to know.

* Male Loose-Cannon: That explicator's a laugh a minute, ain't she?
* Bodyguard: Knew a Commissar like that, once.
* Male Professional: She's done all right by me. I'll gladly follow her into battle.

* Male Seer: My Beloved says that Zola isn't as confident as she seems.
* Male Fanatic: Aye, she's afeared of something, but it be not for you to discover, Freak.
* Male Professional: I've followed worse, and I reckon I will again.

* Cutthroat: I reckon there's more heart to Zola than she lets on.
* Loose-Cannon: Aye. Could be worse.
* Savant: This war is personal for the explicator. I trust her more because of that.

* Female Judge: I have passed judgement on the Explicator. [beat]. A righteous soul.
* Bodyguard: Lotta people working for Grendyl.
* Bully: Not enough Ogryns.
* Female Judge: They have been granted a great opportunity: to die in service to the Beneficent Emperor.

* Cutthroat 1: Can't make my mind up about Zola. Whaddya reckon?
* Professional: She's an odd one. Military, but not military. Could be trouble.
* Cutthroat 2: Every bit as tough as she looks, I bet.

## Gallery

Grendyl's warband leaders.Zola Concept Art by Miguel Iglesias