"They never asked the stones. They did not ask them when they cut. They did not ask them when they pulled. They did not ask them when they rent. They did not ask them when they scorched. They did not ask them when they hurled them into space. Not from the moment they arrived on the world once known as Xuanji Tu. Not when they built upon it a castle. Not when the castle became the world.

They asked their own people. They checked their possessions. They checked their schedules. They checked their thoughts. Medical tests, biopsies ripped from skin and spines. Psychological tests, endless litanies, micro-expressions under focused lenses. Psychic tests, deep and invasive, diving into the fragile islands of dream and self that float upon the surface of the Great Ocean like bubbles in foam. They took every precaution, as their fathers and Father did before them. Every voice upon the world sang with one voice: Loyal, loyal, loyal!

A cave painting. A plan. A prophecy, sealed with a maker's mark -

No, that's not right. This great work was unsigned. There is something that might have been a signature, but it's just a smudge of architectural flourish, the colours of a signature. For all its monumental scale the edifice of the Jade Bastion has no intentionality behind it at all. No living hand conjured its design. It is a copy - a copy written in Rogal Dorn's dead and severed hand, one of his many theoretical blueprints for the fortification of Terra and the Imperial Palace. Now it is a holy relic, worshiped around the clock by an endless flow of Adeptus Vaubianis siege engineers, who replicate it in part or in miniature across the dead Empire. It is not often they are given a whole, pristine world to do their work, but when they are nothing of that world matters in the least compared to rebuilding the holy cities and Palace of Terra.

So of course they never asked the stones. The gods that lived here were nothing before their God on Earth - and that was right, they were not. If the Emperor came and took up his seat in the Jade Dungeon they would have been blown away like dust in the wind. Or if not He, then even a proxy -

But there was no seat there. The room was repurposed as a munitions storage dump by blind and uncomprehending minds. All that potential coiling around nothing, growing and darkening and festering in the dark encased by the stones. And even though they were not asked, the stones began to tell their story.

And they cut themselves."

The Formless One paused for effect - and the effect kept coming. And coming. It liked the sound of its own voice, for it was just a voice - a voice that brought to mind fangs and teeth and slaughter in confined spaces and the most darling little smile of all. The only thing it liked more than the sound of its own voice - the sound where it existed entire, it seemed like - was the sound of someone begging it to speak. To create a world where its silence was worse than its presence; a simple ambition, wrought in soft crimson.

Vael Azaneal, you are left like the Sultan upon Scheherazade's mercy, and a cruel dawn looms ahead.

*

The rivers of the Bastion are visible from orbit. Immense aquifiers have cracked open like sores, spilling blue and green across the endless fields of concrete. Grid-patterns in the world's surface reveal themselves, for these imprisoned oceans were always meant to crack in the event of invasion, unleashing apocalyptic floods that would be followed by lightning counteroffensives. No doubt it would have been spectacular, jetbikes and land speaders screaming ahead of an approaching tsunami, Jade Lancers roaring the cries of Chogoris like the storm made manifest.

Ah, well.

The Everthirsting Maw dredges itself from the depths. It hardly feels like a translation to realspace at all, so thick is the air here. Instead of being rent apart by the cold, dead hands of science as is usual, the Neverborn false-crew that has attached itself to the great Crusier flops and struggles against their dissolution like fish cast ashore. Nightmare spiders curl up as the hydralic fluid that moves their legs instead leaks from the fanged mouths on their feet. Giants fall into heaps as the square cube law crushes their immense bones, but still their gelatinous flesh tries to crawl forwards. The wise amongst the terrors take refuge where they can; in mortals, in symbolically charged objects - and in the vast clouds of naval mines that hang everywhere in the squid-pink void.

"I hate it here," said r'Ankis Hateslaughter, Captain of the Everthirsting Maw, with an immediacy that implied that at least it wasn't personal. He had been an Astartes, once, before he had cut out every single one of his nineteen implanted transhuman organs and eaten them. It was said that they reminded him too much of the Emperor, whom he (shockingly) hated.
"I don't!" said Mme. Dizzy (nee Dizzaralariad), of the d'Ort Navigation Tribe. As Navigators went she was, frankly, awful. Where most of her kind understood that their duty was to avoid the hazards of the Warp, Mme. Dizzy took off after every weird disturbance, void terror, or warp singularity with the pure-hearted curiosity of a kid seeing a cool bug. It made traveling with her a living nightmare as she would constantly pause or detour the ship to go check out incomprehensible nightmares and deliberately route through storms, but the upshot was that there was nobody more experienced at steering through warp hazards than her. "It's so peaceful here. Like a big, cuddly turtle."
"It is not peaceful. I have had to make eight hundred course corrections during translation alone to avoid hitting naval mines. I hate naval mines."
"I think they are sweet," said Mme. Dizzy primly. She turned her neck like an owl to track one that was grappling with a half-formed terror formed of fox teeth and rat heads. "Like balloons. Just waiting for a child to reach out and take them -"
"My Lord Leruc," said r'Ankis. "This is as far as I can take you. Can't risk the ship. Can't risk the crew."

He's bullshitting you. The only thing Mr. Hateslaughter hates more than his ship is his crew. But already you can feel it, that lethargy - it's much less effort to fire the lot of you in a drop pod at extreme range and let gravity sort you out. Can't you feel it? The sheer willpower it must take to get up in the morning and hate the galaxy every day? He's never sounded as agreeable as he does right now.

*

It's game night in the Deep. Hagar, you are playing Sanguinus Rising.

You sit around the table from the eight Dwellers. You've never done names - you didn't even have numbers before. There's Scar, Blue, Hungry, Bottle, Other Blue, Fair Dinkum, Pretty - and you. Sanguinus Rising is a card game about a rebellion against the Imperium, each player forming colour-coded alliances of key figures of the Heresy. One player might draft a team of Dorn, Malcador and Lorgar - but seek to dispense with Perturbo because holding him in the same hand as Dorn results in a points penalty. Cards are played to and reclaimed from Luna, Mars, Venus and Jupiter as players seek to create synergistic hands and build up their armies and fleets at once.

Other Blue is making big plays, cornering the supply of Solar Auxilia units. Scar is bringing around snacks. Fair Dinkum is cutting your 'hair' - trimming back the leaves and branches where they have grown too far from your flesh. It is your turn. What does your hand look like? Do you think you have a shot at this?

Would it honestly matter if he won or lost here ? No, not quite. For despite the perceived importance one might accord to the game, it is, at the end of the day, just that : A game. Cards of little value thrown upon their excuse of a table. Who will remember that game, a week later ? A month, a solar year ? No one, most likely. But... There was something to it. The presence that each of them are occupying here, around their fair position. Some are laughing, some seem exasperated, others are simply too deeply focussed. The occasional word comes up, lamenting after one's play or congratulating themselves. Ephemerial as it is... It somehow brings joy.

Hagar himself ? He had little care for how he played the game, for what mattered was the moment. His plays were made with neither reason nor strategy, simply throwing card upon card, not affording any care to whether or not he would be victorious. Of course, that method gave him a lamentable track record. Never, not once, has he earned victory onto his hands. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I think I got a Lion here. That good ?"

Haphazardly, Hagar throws one of his cards onto the seat of their game, revealing upon it one of the primarchs, Lion 'El Jonson. Quite an impressive man he was, from what Hagar's heard. Instrumental he used to be to the Emperor's success, and one of the greatest duelists of his siblings, should we believe the legend. A legend it was, alas : For it is likely that Hagar will never get to lay eyes upon such a legendary figure. And if he ever did... Oh, well, father Nurgle's embrace would only come much sooner.

Vael silently ground his teeth. For the last ten minutes, his thoughts were preoccupied with the calculation of whether he could bind the yapping demon to get him to speak plainly or shut up. The results were tragically inconclusive, leaning towards 'no'.

In summary:
* The engineer corps Adeptus Vaubianis discovered the planet Xuanji Tu.
* Being imperial nutjobs, they turn the planet into a fortress, following Rogal Dorn's designs.
* Because they are so obsessed with Rogal Dorn's designs, they do not respect the planet, treating it as purely raw materials.
* There is a spiritual locus in the design that the engineers didn't understand the significance of, so they are using it as a storage room.
* The planet is now angry.

The sorcerer's shadow gratuitously yawns behind his back, feeling bold in the presence of its master.

"Then tell me, wise Forosh. What would you have us do? You, who hear the screams of the stone while the 'loyal' are deafened by their own hymns. You, whose vision extends into the abyssal depths of the Great Ocean where we merely paddle on the surface - what would you have us do? Ought we claim that empty seat and sing from it a sweet melody? There isn't a soul that can resist the temptations of Chaos. Even a stone can be turned."

Lord (One of a long and ever-expanding list of titles he possessed) Geron Leruc swirled a glass of amasec mixed with a few drops of human blood (the blood of the innocent did not currently exist on this ship, but there were so many delicious flavors of corruption to sample) in his hand as he listened to the prattling of his minions. He waits for the perfect moment to take a sip, then decides there's no point in savoring it and downs the entire thing in one long loud slurp. His tongue flicks out afterwards, licking the spilled droplets from his lips in a single swipe.

He adjusts his sitting posture and his ever-present bodyguard Squarehammer (who might once have been a Noise Marine or a particularly muscular mutant who found one's armor and squeezed into it) moves to the most aesthetically-pleasing and thus best position to protect his master.

"I shall bring about a time where there is no separation between the Materium and Immaterium, where all shall bask in the Slaanesh forevermore. I haven't decided when that will be yet though. No later than after I've experienced everything the physical realm has to offer, possibly sooner depending on my mood."

Hmm, was the Captain expecting an answer? Geron waves his hand to indicate his understanding.

"Excellent, I was getting bored. Now someone refill my glass."

Vael!

"Empty?" cackled the Formless One. "Who said anything about empty?" (It had, a moment ago. Didn't it? Memories were so very unreliable -) "Does this look like a world with an empty throne? No, the Bastion has found its Master. The Great Lord of the Thirteenth sits atop his throne, crowned and anointed, with a rotting perch and a flaming sword across his lap. That is why you have come, is it not? To rouse him from his slumber? To measure his soul, to test his sword arm, to bring his psychology into compliance, to take every precaution and make this wretched world sing the words loyal, loyal, loyal!? What could a humble storyteller ask from you that the lord Warmaster has not?"

Another silence, colder than the last. Your breathing feels so loud. So wet.

Leruc!

The Navigator placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, giving the smallest of shakes as though to rouse you. You can feel the damp chill of it as her skin melts slightly, like a frost in the dawn. The personal refrigeration harness she wears increases its volume a notch.

"My sweet lord, perhaps you were dreaming just now?" said Mme. Dizzy. "Please bestir yourself. You may be many things - stylish and sweet not least amongst them - but I do not think your bones would hold up any better under a drop pod impact than mine would."
"You want to fly a shuttle through that nightmare?" snorted the Captain darkly. "Be my guest."
"Surely we must have some dashing pilot capable of braving the danger," said Mme. Dizzy as one of her handmaidens filled Leruc's glass. "Or some dashing captain?"
"Out of the question. We'd have to perform high energy maneuvers, and that would light us up for anything else lurking in orbit. There's something out there. I can feel it."

Hagar!

"Why do you bother?" snapped Other Blue as Blue immediately collects the Lion from the pile. "It's like playing cards with an ogryn!"
"Hey, easy there -" Scar was saying, but Other Blue's fire was up. She had chewed her lip, the mutant blood blackening her teeth, her eyes having that look to them again.
"An ogryn would be better! They look disappointed when they lose. They understand the concept. It's like there's a fucking tree planted in our game and whoever sits to its right gets to walk away with the whole thing! What the fuck is in it for you?"
Everyone shifts uneasily. Scar very clearly wants to say 'calm down, take it easy' - but he also remembers what happened the last time someone said that to Other Blue when she got like this. So he's subtly reaching for a heavy bottle instead.

She doesn't care. It's all happening again. You can see the bloody stains where a sense of patience has been gnawed away. This trip has not been kind to her.

"Is this what you're going to do when we win?" she spits. "Sit on the ashes of the Throne and toss cards on the pile?"

"...Huh."

That was the first time during that game that Hagar showed an ounce of something that wasn't just a complacent flow in the game. Despite the obvious fury that Other blue had indicated to him, his eyes instead went towards the metaphorical sky, thinking of what he could be answering to her, to them.

"That's a good question ya got here. Honestly, I'm... Not really sure I can answer it, though."

What answer could he give, that didn't contradict one of his values ? To follow Nurgle would be to agree in this complacency, and yet, deep inside his own whims, it's something he quite struggles to accept. He seeks to think, to find an answer, anything that could be suitable, and yet...

"...I think we'll get there when we get there."

"The Lord of the Thirteenth?"

Vael's knowledge of the Imperium's deeper secrets wasn't great, but this wasn't... His next words show genuine surprise.

"What, Guilliman? Fucking hell, are you joking?"

Again, in summary. The Ultramarines head honcho Guilliman sits on the God-Emperor's throne and wields his sword. Warmaster Abaddon wants to provoke him. Xuanji Tu is part of that provocation. And Foroch is muddling the waters by mixing together the events on Xuanji Tu, and the events in the imperium at large. Guilliman and hordes of the Ultramarines probably weren't literally on this planet. Probably. Obviously not.

"Alright, so Xuanji Tu is a microcosm rendition of the campaign as a whole then. I see. It'll be an interesting challenge. But like every story, every war ought to have a good beginning. Where would you recommend we begin? Sending waves upon waves of men to gnaw at the anti-air batteries feels passé."

Vael turns around and speaks to his shadow, making it perk up at attention.

"Go to the archivists - convey the order to find blueprints of the imperial palace on Terra."

Good luck with that pantomime. Wish he was there to see it.

"No copy is perfect, and Xuanji Tu is no Terra. They can not match the ground, so they must have made adjustments. And they are no Rogal Dorn.　If the planet is 'cutting itself', we could amplify that. Amp up the seismic activity with some deep bombs, see how they like it when the ground itself is trying to shake off their walls."

Geron's eyes flick to the Captain as he savors the chill of the Navigator's touch. He shoves the wineglass into the hand of a handmaiden (they had better know not to spill even a single drop) and stalks towards the insubordinate officer. His earlier euphoric tone has switched to icy as he addresses the man.

"If I have to take a drop pod you will be strapped to the bottom to cushion our fall, Captain. But rest assured I will have it pried out of the ground so I can appreciate the condition of your body afterwards, your sacrifice would not go unappreciated. Or you can do your damned job and fly us where I want to go."

Squarehammer looms behind Geron, hefting his thunder hammer in his hands.

"Certain death or depend on your skills, the choice belongs to you."

Vael!

"You are right," the daemon agreed immediately. "To hell with the Warmaster. To hell with diplomacy. To hell with the Garden. Burn them from orbit. Burn them from the ground. Shatter the stones. Break the walls. Topple the Glass Knight, butcher the Ancient Raven, dam the Crystal Waterfall, break the Chrome Mirror, burn the Consuming Mask. Ten billion rotten souls line these walls, you do not need them, you do not want them. Bring the edifice crashing down and leave only ruin. Such a feat would draw the eye of the Gods, have no doubt."

Leuric!

The Captain has ripped many things out of himself. One of those things was fearlessness. It is eerie, seeing human fear in the sunken, wasted eyes of an Astartes. Without biochemical regulation, his muscle has sloughed from his giant bones, leaving him sickly and thin; without the ports of his black carapace his armour sits upon him like a dead thing, and without the layered psychological and hypno-conditioning augmentations pain is as real to him as it is to - well, not you. You have a more nuanced relationship with pain.

But the end result of his self-inflicted lobotomies and amputations is that he cowers like a dog in the face of your ire.

"... brace for maneuvers," the Captain. "Disable void shields, disable spinal lance. Launch all void wings, full power and double shifts on point defense batteries. Target all mines within intercept envelope, prioritize activated nodes. Shrine deck, all ritual resources are to be turned towards the Blood Altar. We approach loudly, 'midst fire and ash."

Alerts start to flash, the patterns beautiful and hypnotic, crimson and blue crystal lights bathing the deck in a strobe with a dancing pattern. The old Imperial alarm sirens have long since been replaced, a roaring thrash of guitar music drives hands shipwide to their positions. A shudder runs through the steel as the Maw rouses itself.

"Marvelously bold, my lord," said Mme. Dizzy. "But I must ask - what are your orders for after we have landed you and your retinue? The ship will be dreadfully exposed, and likely damaged, after carving such a hole, and I would hate to leave you without a way home."

Hagar!

It feels like it might have gone another way. It always does, with Other Blue. You can practically hear the scratching on the inside of her eyes, on the inside of her mind, of the hiss and spit as the fuse tries to light.

"Most people who walk without knowing where they're going are followers, Hag," she said. "And I don't think you're a follower. So you're either bullshitting me or bullshitting yourself."

The emergency lights came on. The thrum of guitars, the grumbled metallic voices of deck overseers advising immanent contact. The game is forgotten - everyone is racing for void suits and mag boots, clipping belt hooks into safety rails. The corridors fill with the howls of terrified beastmen and mutants and the crashing lock-step of companies of ship armsmen marching down corridors in lockstep. Blind Magi trundle through the dark, surrounded by entourages of lesser creatures that cavort and dance about them, marking walls and pulling levers. A voidship may have a mind and eyes and sense of purpose, but down here this is a mad city in the dark, battening down for the coming of a storm.

"Ah, so the Warmaster already has a plan. Never mind then, I like my head where it is. So what do you want from us?"

Vael leans back and waits for the answer.

On one hand, to simply stay idle and take the matter so casually would mean to simply let those taken by surprise perish. On the other... Why should he worry ? A single man won't make the difference, would it ? Why run towards the inevitable ?

At the crossroads of ideology and need, both are to be weighted. To rush to the source of danger, or to simply let things take the course they will. What to think, what to do here...

A moment is given to consideration and thought, then, a decision is made : he'll walk. Worrisome is the situaton of course, but in the end, perhaps just a trifle, one he will fix with those who will accompany him.

"Hmmmmmmmm... Coming."

Accompanied by the creeking sound of wood and the slight rustling of leaves, hagar finds way to his feet, and, with a stride simillar to morning walker, follows suit with the rest of the hurried, terrified crew. He is equipped well enough, he believes himself to be. The rest, they can have what they may want.

What is it that could threaten their vessel however, what would dare ? Pirates ? An Imperial vessel, perhaps ? The question will answer himself soon enough.

Geron basks in the light and noise noise and shudders along with the ship.

He considers the question as to what he wants to have the ship do after he leaves it, then makes a dismissive gesture.

"Pain is just an opportunity for growth. If the ship takes damage-"

The Slaanesh cultist imagines what damage the ship will take and regrets that it currently lacks the ability to feel those wounds.

"Repair it and build it back better. I leave the details of that to the crew, along with the responsibility of imagining the punishments I'll inflict for failure. Just be ready for when I want to leave."

He found claustrophobia combined with a lack of stimulation worked remarkably well as a method of torturing his fellows, once the sensation of fear wore off the boredom was the worse part of it. Failure was the inevitable result of him having to make use of imperfect beings, he just had to decide what speech to give as he sealed whoever ended up needing to be made an example of into a near-airtight alcove.

Vael!

The daemon snapped silent again, this time with a pouting air.

"Lord," said S. Reikler, stepping forwards and bowing. She was the latest brave soul to step into the position of your apprentice. Her kind never lasted very long - the greedy, grasping children that they were - but she had at least survived long enough for you to vaguely remember one of her names, which put her a little above the average. She had at least picked up on the basic point that fashion was secondary to safety - her bulky robes were designed in such a way as to maximize the unfolded space for protective runes. It made her look a bit like an ambulatory cardboard box, but she had not been eaten by your astrolobe yet and that itself was an achievement.

"The Warmaster's demands were, uh, 'Convince the Scribes to continue the war, or take their armies from them and do so yourself'. Sorry for interrupting, lord. Do you want me to ask the Mechanicum to begin manufacture on seismic bombs?"

Leuric!

Mme. Dizzy nodded serenely. You got the impression that something in her background had prepared her exactly for conversations with you. "Of course, lord. One other question: What shall we do if we are attacked? One cannot imagine that anyone hiding in orbit will not be drawn by your splendid approach."

Void War was slow. You could watch the point-defense projectiles fired by the Maw hang in the air for long minutes at a time, broken by the eerie flashes of lances like thunderstrikes in a meteor shower. Red lights glittered in the dark as mines armed themselves and activated their thrusters, ponderously launching themselves at their distant target. Some did so with alacrity, but many did not - they flickered lazily, and returned to their sleep, unable to summon the motivation to die.

Hagar!

There is no vertigo quite like the gunnery deck of the Maw. One vast chamber, five kilometers in length, with one entire side open to the black. Once there had been a specialized Void Shield that had held air in and shielded the deck from harm, but that was gone long ago. Now the crew operates in zero-gravity and voidsuits - and the great guns are beyond the harm of mortals.

Exposed to the warp on long trips, each of the building-sized macrocannons is now a living thing, twisted and rooted into the fabric of the ship, crazed eyes picking out targets and firing without the need for calculations. Crew keep a careful distance as they push shells through void towards the empty breaches of the cannon, knowing well that those who come too close will be snatched by pincers and claws. The great cannons move and jostle each other, sometimes seeming to merge into one enormous weapon, sometimes breaking apart into smaller arrays. Only the black robed priests of the Mechanicum dare to approach the beasts with electro-scourges and agony pikes, lashing the daemon weapons and forcing them to merge and separate as the Helm commands.

In the void beyond you can see the glittering fireworks of naval mines detonating.

"Lord Hagar," said Ordinator Sio-015, starboard gunnery master of the Mechanicum. "The Bridge instructs that we are to breach the minefield. Gunnery is at your disposal."

So these mines are what the crew fears ? Hm, it's conceivable. They fear destruction and death still, as it may. Deep down, perhaps he did too, it is such a conflicting array of emotions. He is, however, capable of understanding one thing of grander importance : They can't get through this field, then their route stops dead in its tracks. A tempting proposition, but one that cannot possibly suit the crew's needs and desires. So be it, he'll have to give his word on the matter.

"There's still minefields around these parts, even now ? Fine, we'll have to take care of these manually." Spoke he, with not much of a worry in his guttural voice.

With no shield to protect the hull of the ship, direct contact with these would be potentially devastating. As such, they have two options. Carefully navigate through, which would be arduous, or rely upon their ammunition to destroy these from afar before they can become a problem. And of these two solutions, the latter seemed the safer one.

"Ordinator, we've still got our lower calibers, right ? Prepare these, and give the order to aim for the mines, the less we'll have to expand, the better. For the navigators, I'll warn tell them to keep the hull at bay, as far as they can, limits the damage."

The vaccum of space provides a good advantage : Shockwaves don't propagate nearly as well. As such, their safe distance should be quick and easy to attain.

"Aim for the clusters in the way first, especially the further ones. Understood ?"

The apprentice has learned the first lesson - safety, which was good. But the important second lesson was that once you are good enough, image was everything. The masses ought to tremble and feel awe at the sight of their overlord. You didn't become a proper magister until you were iconic. There was a reason he wore a mask and a white robe that shimmered like a rainbow when the light hit it just right.
Well, she had decades of apprenticeship to learn. Unless she dies first.

"Hold off on the seismic bombs for the time being. I'll consult with Geron and Hagar, but it seems subterfuge and diplomacy will be our first approach. We'll keep the seismic bombs as a plan B. What has the Warmaster's intelligence reported on the Seven Scribes?"

Geron can still tell when he's being patronized. He hasn't survived this long by surrendering to solipsistic narcissism, he's far too intelligent for that to work. It seems another reminder of that is needed.

A fingersnap has Squarehammer hefting his Thunder Hammer, the Noise Marine ready to bring it down on whoever his master indicates.

"Those incapable of taking initiative don't belong in command positions. If you don't believe you're capable of making judgement calls on this then simply say so and I'll make the necessary adjustments in leadership."

Geron snatches back his wineglass and sips it.

"Any other questions?"

Vael!

"That they are bureaucrats, lord," said Reikler, brightening as she produced a heavy ledger bound with steel and crystal. "They operate as a registered chapter of loyalist Astartes - the Cerulean Scribes - and they follow all commands given to them, fighting xenos and reinforcing Imperial positions. Their service record is exemplary - and nobody connected the dots between their arrival in sectors and the outbreaks of major plagues. Other than that, very little - other than that the majority of their actions, both now and during the Heresy, were in and around Ultramar."

Leuric!

You can see a twist of a smile before it is hidden behind an elegant fan. A deliberate display - the Lady Navigator previously thought you a fool, now she thinks you weak. Her handmaidens gather around her like extensions of her dress, hands hidden beneath their flowing lace and ribbons, threat evident. The rest of the bridge is frozen in horror.

Navigators are proud creatures to begin with, considering themselves the equals of even Rogue Traders or the Lords of the Legion. They, too, are powerful - they need merely open their Warp Eye to strike powerful souls mad or dead. And more than anything else, they are necessary. Without Mme. Dizzy aboard, the Everthirsting Maw cannot travel. It will be rendered a hunk of scrap no more use than any of these mines, another shard of drifting wreckage around the Jade Bastion. From all this, Mme. Dizzy considers herself untouchable, and she regards your threat as comical.

"As you say, great lord~," she says, letting the needle of sarcasm cut into your ear. "I would haaaaate to be removed from my command position."

Hagar!

"As you say, lord," said Sio-015. "Thank you for your attendance on this matter."

You got the feeling that all the targeting decisions had been made hours ago - but you also got the feeling that the Ordinator appreciated your attention to detail. He was an old man with the aspect of a beasthunter, mechanical eyes looking out from a feral beard, beneath a pith helmet and above a necklace of daemonic teeth.

"Though your assistance would be appreciated on a more kinetic level as well," said the Ordinator. "The cannons need to be driven apart, you see - they are overfused and overlarge for these targets, and the Bridge has commanded immediate action. Perhaps you would be able to assist in driving the daemons apart?"

"Ah, something more physical, eh ? I get what you mean, those beasts can get capricious."

His figure was one most unusual amidst the rest of the crew he had garnered. Blessed by Nurgle as he was, resiliency was one of his very strong suits. The daemonic, especially, did have tendency to be a bit, to say the least, lashing.

"If you'll need me, so be it. Lead the way, I'll make sure to take care of these."

If the regular crew cannot take care of such hungry things, then he'll do it personally. Readying the mag-boots of his armor, Hagar makes certain of their good functioning one last time. Certain of it now, he is ready to depart.

"Yes. Of course. Astartes - famous for being just bureaucrats and nothing else."

The sarcasm isn't directed specifically at Reikler, and is more of a general thing. Nonetheless, Vael takes the offered tome and skims it, knowledge of countless bureaucratic protocols and structures rising up from the hidden vaults of his mind.

"Good organizational structure is it's own kind of magic, apprentice. Wars are won with logistics. I learned this lesson on Ythilon-2, when Kyria's machine spirits wrought havoc on the supply cogitators of my excavation teams."

Vael remembers that the daemon is probably still here.

"I suppose, Forosh, that this situation can end up benefitting everyone. If we play our cards right and get the scribes in line without obliterating them, then this can be made to look as if they valiantly fought Abaddon's host to the last, and solidify their appearance as loyalists. That'd be quite the prank, don't you think?"

It's a sign of great confidence or ignorance to assume a follower of Slaanesh would ignore wounded pride and not immediately smite whoever insulted them regardless of the consequences. The fact Geron considers whether it's worth the catharsis of breaking the Navigator's pride to have to deal with finding a new one is proof of why he's managed to survive as long and rise as high as he has.

He settles for removing her from her comfort zone.

"Excellent. Then you'll be accompanying us onto the planet. The Captain is more than sufficient for what the ship currently needs and your talents will be put to better use on the ground."

And the moment he finds a replacement who knows their place Slaanesh will be receiving an especially potent sacrifice.