Kota's face brightened up as soon as she saw Marshal November, even the circumstances once again weren't the best. "Marshal November, it's a pleasure seeing you again. It's been a while. I've been well...ish. After the Porphyrios Invasion it was a little touch and go for a good part of my team but we made it out alright. I've been meaning to thank you for your help."

She takes a step, her hand almost outstretched for a handshake before remembering that November is a comrade in battle, not a friend who she can be so touchy with.

"And this Archmagos... whatever she is..." She gestures at Secunda, "She has not given me trouble as of yet. From the information that she has told me this appears to be her laboratory. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that well kept." That last part she mutters under her breath, more to herself than anyone else.

She looks at Secunda, noting the fragile looking state of her.

"Quite frankly I don't think she posses any threat. But she does seem to have knowledge that could be useful in my own hunt. If what she suggests is true and the Beast I'm hunting is connected to the murder that took place recently then... she could be of use. I've never been a fan of careless bloodshed." Hopefully she hasn't stepped too out of line with this request. She does recognize the differences in rank and experience of course.

The last thing she needs is more eyes on her when the Order already looks at some of her... thoughts and tendencies as unfavorable.

"Sister," said November, "do you mind if I vent to you for a minute? Because I'm kind of at the end of my extension cord here."

She took a deep breath. "So, first up, someone murdered my boss. And, honestly, props to them, wish I'd done it, the old lady was a pain in my fucking neck. Never took the time to listen to my reports, gather information or engage her senses, just did a cosmic fuckin' leap of assumptions in her head, and got it right just often enough that she never learned better. But for all of that, she was still rated as a combat asset capable of taking down a Rogal Dorn heavy battle tank in a duel, and some motherfucker walked in and took her out with a single bolt round to the brain. I still can't believe it. I've seen the old lady teleport through a spore mine field, warping out after detonation but before the acid singed her robe. Twenty times in sequence! If I wanted her dead I'd have put a dozen vehicle-mounted neutron lasers through her tower and considered it fifty-fifty, so the idea of someone doing it with a single fucking bolt round still doesn't sit fucking right with me."

"And naturally the followup is that instead of having to deal with one powerful wizard, now I have to deal with six powerful wizards. All of them immediately started blaming each other, calling each others hereteks and murderers and calling up their robot legions and armies of kung fu lightning wizards and whatever-the-fuck. I have to split my assets six ways to bodyguard them, but more importantly to stop them outright shooting at each other. I think I could, with the entire Cohort and the element of surprise, take down maybe three of them. So they're all trying to bribe, sweet talk, browbeat ecetera me into siding with them and I cannot play wizard kingmaker. What if I choose wrong and put some sort of evil wizard in charge? They're all fucking convinced that one of them is evil!"

"And on top of all of this there's what I am fucking praying is not an Astartes assassin at large inside my facility, one who has just added two more bodies to its fucking tally. And I've gotten reports of scary creepy things scurrying around. And there's this horrible wet rot in the walls that shouldn't be there, and it's freaking me the fuck out, and I want to burn it all to be safe but the flamethrower wizard isn't playing ball. And the lights are fucking out."

She was wearing mirrorshades. They weren't reflective enough to keep you from seeing the stress in her eyes.

"Which is all to say," she said, gesturing expansively - as one of her copies stuck Secunda in the neck with a needle. "The presence of an unsupervised Sister of Battle in the Isohedron cannot possibly make the situation worse. I'm microchipping this biotrash and promoting it to operational asset, registered to your armour's ident-code. It's yours for as long as you want it, but don't let it wander around unsupervised or I'll assume it is part of the problem."

[Reassurance] You do not think that she is the killer. You do think that she needs some combination of a hug, a recaf, and a long beach vacation.

Hm. Maybe hold it on the recaf, actually. She's wearing a chemregulator, and the line is riding orange. She must have been awake for days and for all her sleek cool professional entrance she's on the edge. She's starting to make mistakes and they're going to get bigger and bigger the harder she pushes. If you want to ask her any questions, or get her to do anything, you'll need to spend Reassurance points to help her get her shit together enough to focus.

"Marhsal November, while I get that you're obviously under a lot of stress, I would be too if I had your current job, I'd urge you to try and get some rest. If you need more eyes and ears that you can trust I volunteer myself, and apparently this one right here." Kota lightly smacks on Secunda on the shoulder with a reassuring smile.

If the Archmagos started killing each other that'd probably cause more problems for her own mission.

"If you would like I could ask for my current mission to be extended, in either case I'd need to make some sort of a report of what happened here and state of my hunt." She cringed as she said that. This was a bit of a mess and she was not looking forward to making that report. The best she could hope for is not to get scolded since this has been taking a bit longer than she anticipated.

Or perhaps she could get in contact with Lucine.... Preceptor Lucine, she would probably have a better chance of talking to her about her current mission. If she's not too busy.

"But when I saw the acid splash boisterous, I was afraid; and beginning to lose my step through the valley, I cried, saying, Omnissiah, save me. And immediately the Machine spirit stretched forth his might, and displaced me forthwith, and said unto me, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?", Secunda recited her own old debriefing sermon with a sad chuckle, rubbing her shoulder. "Most were sure that I somehow calculated the displacer trajectory on the fly. After this report, there has been a split between those thinking me a liar, those thinking me lucky madcog, and those who entertained the thought of my report being the truth."

She slowly examined the implanted ident-chip through her skin, wincing her way through a disgustingly distracting bruise. She wouldn't hold this semi-consensual privilege allocation against November. After all, it's been a marker of trust - and, as Toros loved repeating, a little trust goes a long way. It just was Secunda's time to make a long way out of the little trust she had to operate with.

"Never cared to validate who assumed what. Always knew that you, of all people, would land among the believers at the end of the cycle, given the minefield to pass.", Magina shrugged, moving closer to the data terminal. "It matters little who you believe - or do not believe - me to be. It just matters that one annoying old lady gave you access to the classified report on how she made it through her own gauntlet and knew that you would figure it out when you'll have to push through yours."

[-1 Reassurance, if that doesn't lift her spirits, I don't know what will]

November chuffed a little laugh; a motion that rippled through all of her duplicates, not quite in sync. "It is not ours to see beyond the Veil," she said. And such was her purity that you knew it to be true. She would not dare to look upon the Mysteries of the Omnissiah, even invited so. But she appreciated the trust, even if she was worthy of the trust.

"Alright, alright. Here's the specifics of the murder, as best as I understand them," she said, focusing in a bit as she transcribed a sequence onto the dataslate.

Location: Archmagos' Tower. Single point of entry/egress. Two tech guards on duty.
Attacker approaches directly through the corridor.
Attacker uses a plasma grenade to disable both tech guards.
Detonation is noticed, skitarii response team scrambled.
Attacker breaks the door and enters the Archmagos' sanctum.
Attacker fires at the Archmagos, triggering her displacer field.
Somehow the bolt penetrates the displacer field and strikes the Archmagos' brain, killing her instantly.
Attacker breaks a stained glass window and exits via grav-chute or other rappelling device into the refinery complex.
Skitarii response team arrives.
Full search of the area conducted. No sign of attacker identified.

[Forensic Pathology] This account does not add up. You have no doubt November has transcribed her theory accurately, but on a basic level something about this feels wrong. The machines have their own logic and the basic rhythm of plasma-alert-bolter-displacer-gravchute has not played out the way it should. There are machines here that have not been identified; machines breaking in ways that have not been considered.

"I know I've missed something here, but I can't figure out what," said November. "I haven't let the Magi in; they're all suspects and they could tamper with the site in ways I couldn't comprehend. You two are actually the only people in the complex with alibis or allegiances, which makes you the only people I can trust with this. I'll open the site for investigation, if that's all at use to you."

"This is a lot of trust for the semi-decanted unrecognized replicae, November. One could say, a personal risk of yours in a precarious position. I recognize, appreciate, and fully intend to compensate for that.", Secunda tilted her head to the side, examining Marshal. She was used to Magi pretending to be complex; she rarely cared to remember how Skitarii loved pretending to be simple. November might have positioned herself to be insufferable, inflexible, and deliberately obscure, and yet she was the only force guarding her world in absentia.

"Starting now, of course.", Secunda returned her head to the terminal and frowned. "A missing piece in your puzzle. Displacer field, ZRK-333 craftsmanship, uniquely perverted, allowing for long-range jumps, visual ID on the suspect about fifteen minutes ago. They have their own points of ingress and egress, so your initial assumptions are already flawed. Flash in, score a surprise hit through two-field interference, take their time to prepare a crime scene, break a window to push you for a wild grox chase, detonate a plasma grenade to trigger a response, flash out before you even hit the scene. Still needs validating, but hits most of the same notes, just in the other order."

Granted, she had zero idea about what "two-field interference" was supposed to be. It wasn't an often scenario when two displacer fields were forced to operate in the same room - the relative abundance of those on Isohedron (pushing them from "stuff of legends" to "obscenely rare") was solely the consequence of ZRK-333 closely guarded expertise. The research on multi-field interaction in enclosed spaces was, for the most part, nonexistent. For the lesser part, at least one tech-adept fresh from the Explorator Ark swore on his life that some disgusting Xeno creatures managed to propel their inbred progeny through warp straight into the target as a crude weapon - the results being unpredictable and devastating. Although this may not be entirely accurate, it definitely dissuaded most magi from authorizing research in this direction. Electromancer was not "most magi", though. She might have needed to pay him a visit.

Still, she had unfinished business here. Gene-samples to secure for re-validation, bodies to burn, and at least one of her old weapon stashes to hit. The novelty and appeal of being the least dangerous thing in the room for the third time in the row was decaying faster than transuranic arquebuse slug mid-flight.

"And before we go validating, I feel like I would give this bloodbath a little more attention. Could we, pretty please, repower the laboratorium - or what's left of it?"

Kota shifted from foot to foot a little uncomfortably, "Yeah, part of the damages to the lab are my fault, I will admit that. Hopefully most of it still works." This was very far from an ideal situation for her but if she didn't know how to make the best of it despite the circumstances she wouldn't still be a Sister of Battle.

Would this end well for her? She really hoped so, but she knew that this team up wasn't gonna looked at very favorably.

"For now I recommend that you get some rest, at least until we get to you and are able to talk more at length. Leave this mess to us, we got it covered... mostly!" Kota gave a thumbs up, although bloody she hoped it would get the message across.

Things will be fine, she had this, the Emperor was watching over her on this mission. She had faith in that at least.

"I hate it here, you know that?" said November. "Of course they can fucking teleport. And they'll be able to see the future, command the beasts of the ocean and have laser fingernails too no doubt. Wasn't even on my radar. I've actually used a Displacer Field in ZRK-333's dojo and the thing was as dumb as rocks. No moving parts, no buttons, you don't choose where you go, and the Magi was adamant that aiming it was impossible. Guess she was lying to me, huh?"

"As for power - fuck off, I've barely got enough to keep my own operation running," November grumbled, turning her backs and starting to walk for the doors. "Thanks for the assist, Sister."

[Negotiation] That walk is a little bit slow; that cuss a little bit light - and Marshal November has always been a facilitator of certain logistical assets falling off the back of a Dunerider. One soldier to another, she'll let you put it on your tab if you spend a point of Negotiation - otherwise it'll be a payment up front situation.

"I understand that you don't have many resources to spare and you're in some very deep shit, but if you want our help to be as effective as can be I urge you to let my new partner here power up her laboratory. There can be things here we can use to help the investigation." Kota gave November what she hoped was a reassuring grin.

She walked up to one of the cabinets and dragged her hand across it, lifting up a layer of dust. She pretended to inspect it closely.

"What I'm asking might seem like a lot, but can you really put a price on solving this case with as few casualties, and headaches, as possible? You can try but it'll be tough." She says as she makes her way over to a different cabinet, doing the same thing as the first one. "She," Kota points to Secunda, "was able to keep this place somewhat in shape even when it was powered down. Seems like a shame to let everything here go to waste no?"

Kota walked back to Secunda and stood next to her and clapped her hands together, her grin wider.

"I will personally see to it that no power and resources go to waste. And anything you do give us, I'll pay you back the best I can. You have my word, Marshal November, from one soldier to another." From the front she moved her hands behind her back and straightened up, putting on a serious face to go with her promise.

(-1 Negotiation, with the combined Reassurance from Secunda and this I can't think of anything more that will sway her)

November laughed. "Oh, sister. You wouldn't make it five minutes in my line of work."

She paused for a minute. "But I guess I wouldn't make it five in yours. Alright, fine. Just don't ask any questions about where I'm getting the juice from, right? What the wizards don't know they won't have to lie about under oath about to the Lord General."

She waved her hand and she and her duplicates cleared out. A few minutes later a servo-skull floated down - blue lens, bone covered with elaborate illuminated text and measurement patterns - trailing a heavy black industrial cable in its jaws. It's not a lot of power - whatever improvised generator the Skitarii have set up isn't giving more than a trickle - but it will run a few systems for a while.

"You Have Mail. Congratulations," clattered the wall-mounted skull. "Multiple members of the Magi have requested urgent meetings. Congratulations. List: Magos Tiefenbronn. Magos Passivity-SEA. Magos ZRK-333. Congratulations! You have mail from non-MECHANICUM personnel," It chatters wildly, spewing out even more white cabling.

[Data Recovery]
Sequence 02
10> Goto Sequence 01 20
20> Something is seriously wrong with this system if it is using 10,000 year old terminology.

"Inquisitor Polla Iconium. Lord-General Krystalis Bonaparte IV. Triarii-Captain Vergil Hawr."

[High Society] The first two of those are real. Inquisitor Iconium is a fire-and-brimstone puritan, close friends with Passivity-SEA. Bad sign if she's involved. The Lord General is probably just looking to scream at someone about delayed shipments, there's nothing valuable to be gained from that conversation. But I haven't the faintest what the Triarii are, or who this Hawr person is.
[Art History] You wouldn't.
[High Society] Not you again.
[Art History] This is not the sort of thing anyone but a connoisseur would know. It is deep history, far more meaningful than your ridiculous passing fashions and whose-who mayflies. If you spend a point, perhaps I will educate you.

"No offense but I wouldn't want to take over your line of work. Just thinking about what you do gives me a headache and then some." She joked, obviously happy that her offer was accepted with grace. It might not be much power but it'll be enough for now.

She frowned as the various messages popped up, frantically looking for anything that could be useful for any of her, now two, missions.

"Some of this information seems to be a bit old. Wonder how long it's been since this system has been updated." Kota glanced at Secunda, with a bit of a side-eye. "We'll have to make due with what we have for now. I'm sure we'll find something here that we can use, and get our hands on more up to date information once we leave."

"Inquisitor Iconium, I'm not looking forward to talking with her if she's involved. We might luck out and not have to interact with her much, because you specifically," she looks at Secunda again, "would be in an even worse position than me. Other than that I don't think anything from those messages would be very useful to me. Thank you for your help, Marshall November."

"Incoming requests from non-Mechanicum personnel are to be expected." Secunda clicked through the terminal with a serene smile of a haze-junkie finally getting a fix. "In fact, you, of all people, might understand why a message flagged as coming from Mechanicum personnel should be considered as a priority one incident for any Adeptus servants."

Old commsec protocols coil down, slithering beneath the walls of fire, whisper-lines reaching to the tech that can listen. Old ghost signals stalk the dark wire-paths speaking of dangers long dead, speaking of lies long believed and, just sometimes, behind the veil of white noise, speaking her name. Toros never considered chasing shadows to be part of her accountabilities, yet it's been a hobby of hers some five decades ago. She specifically made sure to excise the results from her memory leaving herself a memo that some locked doors should not be opened.

Well, she never told herself not to listen to what happens on the other side. The venerable comm-terminal still served as a reminder of those grim times. Sometimes, it misbehaved. Sometimes, it heard a bit too much. It never malfunctioned and never betrayed her. In fact, she loved the old beast more than a lot of people around.

"Sister, would you be so kind as to give me that sampling tube? Yes, the one with bio-auspex. Green flashing grey gizmo.", Secunda stretched her hands as she engaged the rune re-enabling the lights in the laboratorium. "Courtesy of your marksmanship, we should have at least some genetic material of the suspect splashed around here and there. Courtesy of their marksmanship, we should have at least several bolt-shells stuck into something that is not me."

The list was curious, yet there was some clear prioritizing to get done. Holy Ordos were not to be ignored, but they were to be deprioritized for now. Lord-General could and should wait. Whoever Hawr is, she'll deal with them later.

The list of (inherently more important) servants of the Omnissiah was equally peculiar. Tiefenbronn, quickly reacting to political change, was to be expected. Passivity-SEA was expected as well - datasmith was best positioned to detect the triggered data-bomb making its waves through the noosphere, their friendship with the Inqusition being another thorn in the all-too sensitive back of Secunda.

ZRK-333?.. Electromancer should have been in her dojo, wooing her pet murder-angel, not at the comms. An aberration, of sorts.

Secunda sighed as she knelt to collect some blood from the ground. There was going to be a lot of talking. Still, just being reactive would put her nowhere. Power, as usual, was found somewhere you were not invited to come.

"Fire up the direct line to Stoll. Necromechanic has some debriefing to do."

The Machine has not, in Its wisdom, seen fit to grant a visual display. The audio provides plenty of context clues for the nature of Stoll's workshop. Screaming metal saws and the tumble and crash of huge machines blot out the conversation at regular intervals. It's almost as bad as the profanity-filled arguments between tech priests about what goes where.

"You ever heard of the Ship of Themis?" Magos Stoll's rasping voice came over the intercom. "Don't know if you heard this story before. Primarch Vulkan, blessed be his name, saint and guide to artificers and artisans, trained personally by the Emperor in his craft, sought to repair a ruined starship within the city of Themis. First he changed the engines, and then he upgraded the void shields, and then he ripped out the circuitry, and then he reinforced the hull, and t- [unintelligible, metal screaming] -ime he was done there was nothing left of the original."
"Who are you talking to, uncle?"
"I am trying to [unintelligible, adepts yelling] - my darling."
"And why did you just launch into a story instead of greeting them like a normal person?"
"It's a story that lives in my head every day, and it is not often it becomes relevant to [unintelligible, what sounds like an earthquake in a scrapyard]."
"- n't be here?"
"It's all right my darling. We're all le - [unintelligible, metal screaming] - finish my story."
"Yes, uncle."
"Well, when the Primarch had finished his work, and looked upon the completed ship, it was superior in every way to the original. Perfect. Content, he sat at its controls and prepared for launch. But when he signaled to open the hangar doors, the Machine refused to comply. It did not recognize this new ship inside of it, and so Vulkan's masterwork was stuck."
"Oh! I see!"
"Go on, darling."
"So the point is that it's important to add guns so you can blast your way out!"
"... so anyway, how can I help you, stranger?" sighed Magos Stoll.

"...and then, stories tell, an iron-hearted demon sought to restore the Themis ship on his own out of his bitter pride. He collected every broken part - down to the last circuit - and mechromancers slaved for decades to repair the old cursed glory of the ship without replacing a single angstrom of the original broken steel. They have succeeded, yet the Machine in its wisdom denied even this resurrected monstrosity access for it knew that the true Ship of Themis has long been lost to the inexorable flow of time. And we should all move on, doing our best with the altered carbon of imperfect copies, reminiscing the old glory as if through the mirror darkly.", Secunda let out a soft chuckle into the vox before leaning back in the chair. "You've exceeded my expectations, Stoll, as per usual. I had no hope that you'll have it in you to remember it, given that you were fresh out of the decanter clawing at residual bioauths, Tiefenbronn screaming about "unforeseen activation" and "emergency deletion". Oh, those were the times... Care to fill me in on what I have missed during my short vacation?"

"Green flashing grey gizmo... hmph, don't talk to me like I'm stupid." Kota just barely stopped herself from grumbling out more words as she reached for the sampling tube. "And I'll have you know that if my aim wasn't as good as it was this whole place would have been trashed. Now thanks to me we have plenty of sample material."

She grinned as she handed Secunda the tube.

"My point is, the situation could have been a lot worse, for both of us. And now your lab has power again, that's good, no?"

Stoll rasped a chuckle, throat-vox creaking against the half-organic sound. "Be careful what you start, stranger," said Stoll. "If we get into a discussion of the finer points of religious literature then I cannot guarantee your timely departure."

Despite being a fraction of Tiefebronn's age, Stoll had the soul of a far older man. Perhaps he had been assembled from all the material the cyberphrenologist had cast off during his juvinat treatments.

"Things haven't been too bad down here," he said. "Ever since - [unintelligible, cannon test firing] - standby. The biggest problem I've had to deal with is my external contacts trying to renegotiate various agreements in the hope that political turmoil is reflecting poorly on my bargaining position. But I've had some muscle in my back pocket for a while so that side of things is under control. Now I'm just sitting tight and waiting for things to calm down enough for an election to be held so we can restart production. And in case you're wondering, my position on that is exactly the one that you just vocalized: I'm for the correct choice."

[Bullshit Detector] So just so you know, being in the same building as Magos Tiefenbronn puts me on at least a six out of ten bullshit alert, and his clone isn't much better. So let me just underscore how weird it is that I'm not getting anything from Stoll's statement of his politics. He hasn't been bought off, his vote isn't in the bag - his genetor has not come down the stairs and made him promises, or gone over his head to get Archmagos Brackmann to give him marching orders. This means that, whatever else is happening, Tiefenbronn is not running this like a coup, and he is not trying to form an alliance to seize power. He'd be the one to do that if anyone was, but he's not, and that's weird in and of itself.

[Reassurance] That said, he's not being totally straight with you either. He's suspicious and cagey. But... he wasn't when he was telling that story earlier. He's not giving his opinions, suspicions or perspective, but he might let something slip if you spend a point and draw him into a theological discussion.

"Who's the girl with the pretty voice?" said the voice of Stoll's niece. "She doesn't sound like she's stupid! And you should treat her nice, Mrs. Stranger! I bet her aim is fantastic, also hiiiii~ what are you doing later~~~"

Secunda sighed with relief. Yes, her thoughts were slower, but there is little value won through bemoaning muzzle velocity as long as you hit the target. This one hit at least a couple of decades ago, ever since a particularly gruesome combat simulation revealed Tiefebronn's flaw.

His miniature militants fought to the bitter end on the simulated battlefield as they got crushed, stuck between Passivity maniples and November skitarii. He took pride in the heavy toll he managed to inflict before going down. At that moment, Tiefebronn - brilliant, bedazzling, ruthless, ambitious - Magos Tiefebronn exposed his flaw, fully formed through his illustrious career. He was a winner, first and foremost. That pushed Toros to question "What would that mind be like if less accustomed to blasting through every problem?".

The flawed clone presented her with a rare opportunity to have this answer at hand. Trying to beat everyone else in the race to the Throne would've been too risky - not enough resources, not enough adepta ties, not enough years of existence... Too weak to be a king, too smart to be a puppet. She guessed that Stoll would make the right choice here, growing more confident there when she did not see an incoming request.

Necromechanic could not be a king, so he strived for the next best thing, sitting as a kingmaker and toying with the unearthed aces up his dirty sleeve until he figures out who's the highest bidder. He sits there and ponders the old stories - stories she told him - about the nature of things, for he is in no rush. Of all people, he knows that immortality is a proper tech-prayer away, and of all people he knows that unlimited time comes with its costs. Such as being called names.

"Not sure about this whole 'stranger' thing, Magos Stoll. Not from you, of all people. I am no stranger than you, and definitely not among the strangest dead things coming alive in your experience, o esteemed archaemancer.", Secunda carefully accepted the bio-auspex, starting sampling blood over the lab and eyeing the bolt-casings around. "After all, even as you might debate that the ship is not the Themis original, you cannot really say that it is different enough to be completely new to you, practically speaking. Even if its light is yet to rekindle to the pyre of old, the shade is still the same."

On the side-note, Secunda was pretty sure that Stoll did not have a niece for Tiefenbronn never cared to sire a daughter for reasons political and biological. She was also pretty confident that if he did secure himself some progeny, he would prefer personally extracting skulls from them in case they decided to hang out with Stoll. It would appear that either times have changed or... She preferred not to delve on "or" here.

"Speaking of pyres, resurrections, and theology, it is my humble pleasure to formally introduce Sister Kota of the Sacred Rose, who, and I insist, just so happens to be the best thing that Omnissiah decided to introduce into my life so far. Sisterhood customs related to martyrdom and subsequent rebirth are among the ones tragically underestimated by the tech-clergy at large.", Toros rose to her feet, putting the sampler aside. "I skimmed the top layers of the concept a century ago, directly inspiring our strange lives, Magos Stoll. Still, I am sure, Sororitas could bring some more... unexpected... angles to the Ship of Themis conundrum."

Secunda wondered if the rusty terminal would try to bring up that old M36 memo, the spark at the start of the whole thing. She prayed to the Godhead that it would not. It would not be becoming to get murdered right after getting saved. Having caught herself biting her lip, she turned away from the terminal and into the nanoscope array.

She was able to clone herself in vitro from a spare rib and a gallon of blood. She should be able to figure out what the Trespasser has been, even if she had just a couple of spatters to work with.

"Not a stranger?" said Stoll archly. "You think you are my friend, the Archmagos Toros? You are wrong. Her body lay flat and cold on my slab. I peeled back her robe and unpicked where her neural network interwove with her augmentics. I unbound her connection with the Machine myself, and then I hosed what little remained of her flesh out from the metal. My friend is dead. I performed the autopsy. You are no more her than I am Tiefenbronn, and that is a good thing too - it is he who is currently occupied with the painstaking task of stitching together what is left of her skull and brain matter into one of his servo-skulls. I fear that the broken and fallible flesh of my hands would not be steady enough to do what needed to be done."

"So much for my friend; and what are you? A voice on the vox, unknown and unasked for, activated by hands I do not know in conditions I cannot investigate. You may be a ghost, a phantasm, a memory of the machine, a daemon - and you might be any of those things while still being what you say you are. To call you a stranger is itself an act of weakness, and be warned that in this, I am the weakest of the Magi."

*

[Diagnosis] Do you remember the War? Sitting in this lab like this, looking over endless slides of blood for Tyranid bio-markers. It was not your calling but you did not have anyone else you could trust with it - not after Magos Biologis Rosella's disastrous attempt to communicate with the Hive Mind. You have never had reason to call upon the Angels of Death before, and you pray you never will again.

Their yellow and black was not the heraldry of glory. Theirs was not the inheritance of Rogal Dorn. Their vivid colours were the colour of camouflage in the chem-blasted wasteland they were accustomed to fighting in. The Ringbearers came and left without a single word, but that afternoon of violence left a ten year cleanup job. Magos Rosella's seat sat empty for years until it was sufficiently safe for Magos Pinel to move in.

It is a relief to see the Great Devourer's hand is not present here. That monster could not have died harder.

"Never have I dared to assume us to be friends, Magos Stoll.", Secunda twitched the corner of her mouth as she replaced the testing glass under the megascope. "I just underlined that I should not be strange to you, and, as such, 'stranger' is not an appropriate tag. After all, you yourself took some time to become something significantly different from Tiefebronn. In fact, I guess we can both agree that it would have been stranger if you weren't alike at your starting point. It is less important than your current one. You even have yourself a family now, from what I can hear."

That was a redirection, yet something that could buy her a second of time. She needed to calculate her next step in some rational manner that did not include trying to override atomic dead-triggers in the vicinity of Tiefenbronn's spirelab.

"Oh, this? You don't recognize Magos Pinel?" Stoll muttered.
"I changed my vocalizer preset!" said the other voice on the vox, now much more like what you remember from Pinel. "Did you know you can just do that? Check this out: AaaaAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAaaaAAA~"
"Pinel!" snapped Stoll. "You disrespect the Machine!"
"Sorry Magos Stoll," said Pinel, this time in a deep low, masculine voice.
"Do not apologize to me! Apologize to it!"
"Sorry, sorry -"
"Properly!!"
"Forgive me, voxsponder who art in my throat, strength hidden is strength multiplied -"
"Spin the dial frivolously and it will break off! Then the Machine shall go dark, and who shall know how to fix it -"
"Uh, I will?"
"WRONG! Have you not listened to the tale of the Ship of Themis!? Does the Lore Mechanicum mean nothing to you!?"
"Whatever you say, Uncle Stoll," said Magos Pinel.

[Flattery] It isn't much to say that she is telling him what he wants to hear, but it is interesting that she is sincerely disrespecting the knowledge of a storied Necromechanic while standing in his workshop. She is not ignorant as to what he is capable of, she just genuinely thinks he's a hack. She thinks she can do better.

*

[Diagnosis] Once the check for the Devourer's influence is complete, you start going through the complex strains of human genetic and cellular markers. There is a great variety in Humanity; the Spiral Ladder has long been scarred by the touch of the warp, the aftershocks of genetic and viral warfare, of mutation and disaster, of deliberate craftsmanship and Dark Age enhancements. By the time of the Emperor, it is said, there was not a single pure human remaining on Holy Terra amidst the techno-barbarian tribes; it was only the tripartid genius of the Omnissiah, Mars and Luna that resurrected humanity as the Throneworld remembered it.

But in all of those infinite skeins of blood, human and abhuman, you find no match and no echo. Not the Devourer, and not human. It is genuinely novel to be confronted with a genetic sample descended from neither lineage. Magos Toros would not have seen anything beyond those two since her Explorator days.