Sleep was a churning and frothy river, and dreams flitted through it like fish. Yudaiel was a vast net that drifted uncontrollably downstream; she caught a great bounty.
In such an exhausted state after her exertions with the Codex and her desperate battle against the ilk of Ashevelen, Iqelis, and Epsilon all, she truly dreamt now. Where her prescience normally let her steer the flow of the river and spear whatever fish she sought, now she was merely swept along by the current.
Many strange sights presented themselves before her. There was a tree that walked, almost a wooden man -- but it seemed only half a man, for the other half was woman; further, it appeared one part mortal and two parts divine. Upon one side the walking-tree’s branches were withered and leafless, but on the other they sprung green. It emanated strength but also great weariness, for it had borne many great burdens, had died and been reborn, died and been reborn, died and been reborn, endlessly and forever. She sensed that, like herself, this one Saw, and it pushed its roots deep through time. She returned the stranger’s great black gaze - its singular black-hole Eye - and knew that they would meet again. But then she was swept along by the stream, through rapids and down cataracts, away from the watchful god of bark that stood upon the banks.
Above the river there was a night sky aglow with fireflies and stars. In the darkness of the black void between stars, she sensed another Eye, and knew that It too could See, and moreover that It did See her -- It Saw right into her heart and soul. It was not just an Eye like she; the constellations about Its eye seemed to realign, and she saw that It was a cyclops with a great and imposing anatomy, a hulking and puissant form that seemed chiseled from stone.
Yudaiel flinched from Its glare, but there was nowhere to hide, and she had no words with which to plead. Through her peripheral vision she tried to watch It and descry something, anything, about the nature of this watcher, this tormenter, this potential predator: she could ascertain that the oculus belonged to some terrible being that was ancient beyond ancient, and that behind It, lurking in Its shadow, there was another constellation. From the clusters of distant and dimmer stars behind It, she connected the lines and perceived some monstrous, four-eyed demon with a hog’s head, and she sensed that it was a terrible herald of carnage and destruction… an apprentice, perhaps? Or a mere disciple, a minion? A child, even?
Whatever its nature was, that brute of a demonic boar changed little… it was the gaze of its master that Yudaiel feared. She suspected that if It desired, It could render her moon and the Galbar into dust with but a thought and then forge something horrible -- something utterly alien -- from the ashes; fortunately and manifestly, It seemed to have other inclinations. She saw in Its pupil a reflection not just of herself, but of the other deities,her siblings, and even the Monarch himself -- she wondered, did He even know that He was being observed through Space and Time and Reality by such beings as this one? Uncertainty filled Yudaiel, and for a fleeting moment, fear coursed through her too, and she was grateful for the Monarch’s strength if nothing else… she could not stand against such a terrible being as this Eye… yet. One day her glare would become so torrid, vehement, and menacing that even Its like would blister and burn and twist to her whims, but her time had not yet come, and to engage with the cyclops would be a hopeless and foolish struggle. For now it seemed only He could hold such beasts at bay… The All-Seeing Eye was rarely one for humor, but she found it risible that the Monarch of All protected her ambitions even as those same ambitions seemed to growingly include His own downfall.
Her musings on that monstrous eye and Its place in her world and thread of plots were suddenly cast aside; something was changing. Suddenly, It seemed disinterested in her and her siblings. It looked elsewhere by Its own volition, but not somewhere very far or distant -- nay, It gazed only a short ways down the river from where Yudaiel floated, right over her proverbial shoulder, but also upstream from her. Its one, cyclopean pupil managed to peer in two separate directions at once, forward and backwards, left and right, beholding past and future; she did not understand how such a thing was possible. More than even discovering just what things this creature had found more interesting or noteworthy than her, she now yearned to learn how It could See as It did! Alas, the Great Eye and Its minion, the boar-demon, vanished from the chimerical sky, the stars of their constellations fading away as surely and swiftly as hot embers doused by water.
Ah, water. Yes, she looked away from the star-strewn sky and remembered that she was still drifting down a river. A lone firefly suddenly grew dark, and its dim and dying form fell from the sky and into the turbulent rapids before her. She looked at the insect as it bobbed and floated in the dark water, and her hardly-lucid mind conjured the image of another fly -- Iqelis, wretched Iqelis!
She dreamt of him, a second cyclopean being, though this one was a mere pest; he was a mere firefly, his power like its trifling flicker before the heliacal glare of that last horror that she’d just seen between the stars. The obsidian fiend hovered effortlessly so as to maintain a short distance before her, just above the river’s frothing water. She glowered at him, daring the wretch to provoke her any more than he already was -- Luck was not the only aspect that she could crush, though she would much rather enthrall the Shard of Doom than see it obliterated. Iqelis just crossed his hundred arms and cackled. All of the countless lights of the fireflies in the air were extinguished as the insects died. From their falling corpses erupted tiny maggots, and those maggots feasted and grew into swarms of gnats and other lightless flies that grew and multiplied with a swiftness that defied reason, that an eye could not follow. None of the fireflies fell fast enough to even hit the ground before they had been consumed.
But the laughter of Iqelis stopped when her enraged mind reached out to grasp each and every fly. With a single pulse she struck them all dead, and Iqelis too was smote down and shattered like glass before her psychic scream. The river itself recoiled and charged its banks to flee from her, chasing after the trees along the banks that seemed to have grown legs and similarly decided to rout. Nothing could challenge her might! Her will was Fate! With nary a thought, she willed the broken pieces of Iqelis to twist and reform. A rain of prismatic diamonds plopped down into the writhing waters and sank into the receding river’s muddy bed, and all was well.
Far across hours and spaces both real and oniric, the true One-Eye did not suspect the fate that would befall his dreamed simulacrum, or, even if he did surmise at Yudaiel’s vengeful thoughts, he did not let it burden him. Fresh from the slaying of Aletheseus, that verminous anomaly that had dared defy the truth and order of things with his very existence and hypostasis, his spirits were high as he wove and leapt through shadowy currents unseen. It had been a fortuitous thing that the wakener of Fortitude should so soon have tempted his fate in mortal battle, thus stirring strongly enough on Time’s murky riverbed to catch Iqelis’ eye; for so dim and unassuming had he been, despite the enormity of what he represented, that it might otherwise have been a long while yet before his disturbances grew numerous enough to notice. How many due ends he might have prevented then, to be rectified one by one at the One God’s own hand.
But now that hand dripped with the trespasser’s vaporous blood, and all was well. Aletheseus had not found in himself the strength to levy the greatest affront of all – to halt his own doom. It was pleasing to think that truth and order were now no longer threatened by such brazen subversion, yet more gratifying still was the lingering sensation of his thread being cut short in Iqelis’ grip. It was not something the god had expected to enjoy, for a divine’s demise was in essence no different from that of a gnat. And all the same, to feel the weave of life fraying under his claws, to taste the bitter fear and ashen despair, to know that it was he, and no other, that cast it into the unformed darkness… There had been a curious sweetness in that, a cold joy the likes of which he had never imagined since his inception.
It was a glimpse into the depths of the Last Sea stolen over the shoulder of the one he drowned in its shallows, and it was a thing of chilling beauty.
No use to dwell on it too much. Every death had its own time, and he was not one to hungrily sit on the banks and wait for the castoffs the current brought him. He would take them as they came, savouring each all the more for the drought that had come before it. One fate, however, he could stand to stoke his anticipation for. The pest Yudaiel. How he would relish plotting every inch of the blemishes he would gouge into her eye, every drop of black defilement he would pour into her sight, every tug to unravel her very world around her…
He caught himself as his bounding steps crossed the boundary of the grassy lands he had been moving through, breaking the trail of crumbling and withered plants he had left behind himself, and landed upon harsh, blasted ground. A rocky landscape of uneven hills and shattered peaks spread out ahead of him like a forgotten battleground of titans, the earth itself rent and ground down by a clash of forces of terrible magnitude. Massive boulders that were no more than fragments of yet more immense bulks lay strewn around, their fall having gouged tracks and craters in the already craggy soil. The sky overhead was darkened by thick clouds of pulverized debris, still stifling the daylight despite that the echoes of the blasts that had raised them had since faded. Not all of them - he could perceive the last stirrings of what must have been something sinking beneath the inky waves of the end, but what that could be it was too late for him to see.
And all over this scene of destruction, her mark. Always her. It brought him a spark of amusement to think that, in burying whatever foe she had found herself under this chaos of stone and sand, Yudaiel had already strayed from her oaths to preserve what she could of the world in the face of Doom. Something to cast into her face, such as it was, to sear into her thoughts next time. Right then, however, he could do better still. She ought to have been spent after making such an upheaval, and this formless barrenness was a laughable mark to have left upon the Galbar’s face. Her finest work was already marred; now, she would have to watch impotently as he surpassed her in that pursuit common to all divinity. He would raise such a monument that not merely her, but all that lived would look upon it and quake as the shadow of the inescapable fell upon their measly spirits.
He strode and swam further west, until his talons dug into the edge of a steep sandy cliff over a murmuring expanse of grimy water. The sea was still agitated by the aftershocks of the colossal impacts, the rippling echoes of the first great waves meeting their forerunners as they bounced from the gnarled shores. A crust of dirt still weighed them down, the pocket of ocean reduced to a muddy oversized mire. It would do.
Iqelis spread the full score of his arms and raised them to the heavens, letting the dark currents swirl and mount behind him like a dam. Although it was his place to spell endings rather than beginnings, to create and mould was the prerogative of all divinity, and he would claim from the world all that he was thus owed. He rustled and played with the terrible wave building upon his shoulders, reminding the earth, the water and the sky that they, too, were subject to the course of ages, and it was by his mercy if they were not engulfed then and there and shattered into a chaos of inchoate elements.
The earth, which was the firmest and had the most to lose to annihilation, was the first to yield. There was a tremendous chthonian groan and a shudder which, though none as mighty as the quakes sent by Yudaiel’s onslaught, rolled far through the land, unsettling hills and felling trees. The soiled surface of the sea broke, and hundreds of black spires rose among its scattered islands, peaks of dark stone pushed to the surface by telluric forces enthralled to the terror of doom. They stood like a grim host summoned forth from the depths, immobile and solemn, awaiting their fate.
The air bowed next, lest its impalpable purity be fouled by the choking shadows. A despairing moan rang out over the waves, and in defiance of all laws of nature and reason the obsidian mountains rose further still. They tore away from their stony roots deep below, then away from the surface itself, and agonizingly crawled up into the sky as the winds shrieked in horror at this unheard blasphemy. Now with ten score hands holding up his burden, Iqelis leapt onto one of them and let it carry him high, until they hung as as high above the shore as a true peak would reach. Then the dark rocks swayed and drew close, clinging to each other’s flanks and binding themselves together in a vast, unnatural landmass.
Then it was time for the water to surrender to the commanding will, to complete the dreadful work in a final gesture that would trample upon all that was sane and orderly, yet the sea hesitated. There was a bitter defiance in its stirring, a deep grief from which the waves drew an obstinate strength to refuse the dire imposition. Iqelis grit his fingers angrily, and stirred the shadow in his hands, letting it tower high and menacing. And then --
Something answered him, but not from the sea. It roiled and splashed soundlessly from the shattered lands to the north, crawling closer, faster and faster. Another of Yudaiel’s machinations? No, this did not bear her mark - but his own. Startled, he almost released the mortiferous currents he had collected. How did traces of his intent find his way there? He struggled to remember, and it seemed to him that indeed, when the great wave had crashed against the moon some drops of it had been pushed away, towards the Galbar below. He had minded them little at the time, thinking that they would rejoin the Flow, but here they were now, drawn again to him.
No, not to him. They were at last returning to the source. To the current he was already struggling to hold in his grasp. He had to --
The droplets fell into his hands, and the tide he had been holding back burst.
All around him, the Flow surged. Rock was weathered to dust in a blink. The air grew thin, then choking, then rarified again. Water faded to steam and fell again in chunks of ice. Too long contained, the currents of time roared forth, regaining the moments it had missed in haste. His obsidian isle crumbling around him, Iqelis had become a veritable spider, hundreds of hands lashing and reaching to stem the cataclysm before it unmade all that he had wrought. The threads of the flood slipped between his fingers, but at length he found one which had spent its fury and returned to its usual force. He grabbed onto it, and around it he wove a pall of stillness to contain the ravages of doom unchecked. His movements were sharp and hasty, snapping and darting like a mob of startled frogs, and yet it was only after an agonizing span of instants that he succeeded in quieting the risen course.
It had been time enough for decay to do its work. When he looked around, he was no longer upon a great body of dark rock, but on a lone fractured mountain, drifting forsakenly over the waves. The landmass he had compelled to rise out of the sea and into the sky was no more, for even as he had threatened the earth to do, it had been worn and fractured into a thousand shards of all sizes, from boulders to islets, trapped in the air apart from each other. Some had remained high above the water-line, but most had drooped and sunken to mere dozens of tree-heights over the surface. It was some consolation, however meagre, that the Flow had carved them into fanciful shapes, into curious formations that resembled the dead and polished skulls of all kinds of living things. In this they could still strike fear into those who watched, though never again would their unbroken shadow loom over dread-stricken eyes.
Yet it was the once-defiant waters below that had borne the worse lot. For a few moments, the sea had been fed by a river that ought not have a mouth, and it was forever marked. The dust and debris had been washed away, but what remained underneath was a still, inky waste, like a mirror of black glass, rippling ever so lightly as clumps of dead seaweed floated to the surface and crumbled into dissolving rot. No wholesome life could endure those blind depths now, for their cold touch was suffused with a distant reflection of the Last Sea itself. Warmth and vigour would ever flee from it, leaving behind sickly and enervated husks, and its saline essence, which had drawn into itself the worst of the taint, had become the cage of death’s own breath.
He heard a distant rushing groan, and knew that even as the outer ocean raged to contain the black poison in its gulch, the pure water streaming down from upriver recoiled in loathing from it. But rivers were not their own masters, and so they flowed on, writhing and clawing at their fate, refusing to mingle with that fluid abomination. Soon a pale fog began to rise from below, as the river-water sought to escape into the sky, anywhere but into the cold and dead abysses. Spectral clouds crept upon the light from the heavens, and with them grey dusk swallowed the last glimmers of cheer that livened the sea’s bleakness. Silence reigned, broken only by the rare forlorn wail of a trapped wind.
All this Iqelis saw, and though he could not truly scorn the desolation of the view, he was not pleased. How much more he could have done if he had been able to complete his work without interference! How much strength and toil he had squandered on this sorry waste! If only the echoes of his wrath had not awoken at the worst of times…
Yudaiel, it had to be her. This could only be her doing, a trap set for him to humiliate himself even as he sought to surpass her. Such trickery was her way. Oh, how he would make her squirm under his hands, how he would savour seeing her pupil glaze over…
Lost in a haze of vengeful thoughts, he did not see the clouds of dust and pebble-shards still hovering in the air begin to shake and stir, and it was only a thunderous buzzing that stirred him. The misty air had all of a sudden grown thick with thronging black swarms, myriads of small vermin with translucent wings and bloated bodies chasing each other among the suspended archipelago. Out of some strange resonance of power, flies, that most reviled insect, had crawled into the world, and they caroused around their god, drawn by a curious innate sympathy that no doubt only the All-Seeing Eye could have explained. Iqelis waved them away in irritation, and the swarms scattered to the four winds, flying to scour all corners of creation for death and decay, that they might pay obeisance to the manifestation of their Lord by wallowing in its refuse.
Only a few remained droning around the One God, now and then landing on the jagged rocks and rubbing their forelegs in supplication. He made about to wash them away in the Flow, but his hand stopped as it prepared to part the current, then fell again. The veneration of insects was a laughable thing, true; but to see them grovel before him pleased him none the less. Let all know that even the least of creatures gave him their devotion!
He leapt onto the nearest floating islet, and his court of flies followed. There were better things to do than to brood over this failure. The world was ripening, and his hand would be needed to show it the path to rot.
Spent after the battle over the Codex and the orbital bombing of Ashevelen, Yudaiel succumbs to a deep slumber on the moon. She dreams of things past, present and future, with some strange (but possibly familiar!) faces briefly showing up. Iqelis also makes an appearance, but she swats him out and turns over on the pillow.
Meanwhile, the real Iqelis is traipsing around Galbar and thinking about how good it feels to kill things. He stumbles on the blasted remains of the Nalusa zone, and, sensing that Yudaiel’s responsible for it, decides to show her up by building something imposing next to her mess. He heads over to the inland sea to the southeast and starts to raise a huge floating obsidian landmass out of it and into the air. However, in response to the huge expenditure of power, the aftershocks of the moon-wrecking wave that had been deflected to the Galbar flares up around him, making him lose his hold on things.
Everything breaks apart in a few moments, and by the time Iqelis manages to restore a bit of normality the floating landmass has shattered into a lot of suspended mountains and islands scattered all over the sea. Worse still, the sea itself - now the Tlacan Sea for convenience’s sake - has been contaminated, turning it into a stygian pit of still black water that ages and enfeebles anything that gets into it (the reverse Achilles treatment). Real water doesn’t want to touch this stuff, so any coming in from rivers turns into mist to escape it, casting the sea into perpetual gloom. It’s implied the ocean is pushing it back at the strait, but if Sala wants to do anything about it it’s left open-ended what exactly is happening there.
Iqelis is none too pleased with how things turned out, and doesn’t notice as a bunch of the debris turns into flies due to a latent residue of Yudaiel’s power and possibly some subconscious manipulations on her part that occurred as she dreamt. Because of this, the flies like him, thinking he’s a divine archetype of their kind, which in a way he sort of is. He doesn’t much care for them in turn, but keeps a few around for the sake of style as most of them buzz off to pester the whole world for the rest of its existence.
Yudaiel begins and ends with 0 vigor. Broke girl.
Iqelis begins with 16 vigor.
1 vigor (discounted to 0 by Doom aspect) spent on creating vast swarms of flies imprinted with Iqelis’ temperament and nature, as a result of Yudaiel’s subconscious dreaming and manipulations of the deflected doom wave.
8 vigor spent on a large archipelago of flying islands of various sizes and macabre shapes.
8 vigor (discounted to 4 by Doom aspect) spent on turning the Tlacan sea into a silent, deadly mire.
Government Form: Representative democracy de jure, xeno-caste autocracy de facto.
Demographics:
Humans - 92 %
The human population of Jednost is descended from colonists of prevalently Slavic origin, and despite centuries of change and adaptation to a new planet, in many of them traces of distinctive ethnic features are still visible to the attentive socio-historian. The relatively low gravity of their planet has left them noticeably taller and lither than their Earth-born ancestors.
Believed to be the only sapient non-human inhabitants of Jednost, the Nuval are in truth biomechanical artificial beings created by their secretive masters, the Qolth, to serve as figureheads and mouthpieces in communicating with humanity. Nuval do not reproduce by natural means, but are formed of synthetic flesh vat-grown over a cybernetic framework inlaid with intricate systems to give them spectacular abilities. Their bodies, usually draped in ample sumptuous robes, have broadly humanoid four-armed torsos over flat, sluglike abdomens. Their heads are narrow and featureless, and their hands have each four extremely flexible fingers, capable of rotating at virtually any angle. To compensate for their lack of legs, they move with the help of magnetic levitation systems and retractable spider-like mechanical limbs built into their frames. The Nuval’s construction gives them many redoubtable tools built into their very bodies, ranging from weapons to holographic projectors, but most terrible of all are the neurowave transmitters that allow them to subtly manipulate the emotions of those around them, usually striking them with awe or fear.
Qolth - ???
The hidden masters of Jednost, guiding the fates of the planet from the shadows. The numbers of the Qolth are impossible to properly quantify, since members of their species do not have distinct bodies. Instead, their natural state is that of a thick light blue fluid binding together a network of primitive organs, invisible to the naked eye. A sufficiently complex network becomes capable of controlling its liquid form to move around, and potentially split it into smaller entities, which may in turn recombine again. Because of this state of constant flux, individual Qolth-shards do not have minds or personalities of their own, and act as a collective intelligence that shares all its skills and memories. Thanks to their fluid shape, the Qolth can enter the bodies of organic beings, including humans, and control them like puppets by interfacing with their synaptic systems - an ability that may have been instrumental to the growth of their distant civilization.
Population: circa 830 million total.
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Planet Name and Description: Jednost is the second planet from its star, a yellow dwarf somewhat cooler and fainter than the Sun, and the only one in its system to have a dense native atmosphere. A relatively small, light ball of rock with rich subterranean aquifers, but little unfrozen surface water, it is a bleak world of muted colours and endless tundra. While a biosphere existed even before the arrival of human colonists, it had always been pale and anemic, with even the tropical regions rarely supporting anything more than scraggly shrubland haunted by elusive crawling animals, the rare towering spindly-legged behemoths and immense swarms of harmless, but very irritating gnats. The vast frozen poles and boundless expanses of dry wasteland leave little space inhabitable without ample terraforming efforts, and so most of the human population is clustered in metropolitan centers about the equatorial band, where Jednost’s chilly climate is at the very least endurable the year round. The planet has one diminutive moon dubbed Strelka, an ungainly meteoroid which somehow found itself trapped in the planet’s feeble gravity well.
History: The alien structures hidden in the bowels of Jednost's moon suggest that the planet's true history began long before the Gateway first opened onto its system. What that history might have been, however, is hopelessly lost to human knowledge. Perhaps the planet did not always bear life, and its current state is the end result of a terraforming process started millennia ago; perhaps its skies have been the site of battles between tremendous empires now forgotten by the universe; none of that is known. What is know is that the colony ship Vitus Bering emerged into its pale star's light three hundred years ago, and within weeks its crew had laid the foundations of Ermagrad, which would go on to become the greatest city built on its soil by human hands.
Although life on the newly christened Jednost could hardly be called idyllic, between its merciless winters and melancholy summers, the planet was not actively hostile to its settlers, and so, little by little, scrubland belts were cleared, frozen bogs were drained, tundra strider migrations were contained, trillions of gnats were exterminated. Ermagrad expanded, then it was joined by Sztrelckie, then by Czeragrad, and many others to follow. Despite rapid demographic growth, the fledgling colony's population had a long way to go yet before it began to outstrip the habitable land and natural resources at its disposal, and thus territorial disputes rarely were grounds for conflict. The flipside of this was that the wide stretches of wildland between the rising cities caused them to grow increasingly isolated from each other politically as well as geographically, with every effort to establish a formal global government ending in failure, but in spite of this, for a good Earth century and a half life was good.
And it would have stayed that way, had it not been for the moon.
The early people of Jednost were an adventurous lot, and it was only natural that in time they should have turned to the rest of their sparse system, most of which had only been afforded a few cursory scans before the Vitus Bering made planetfall. The planet's only apparent natural satellite was an obvious starting point, and an expedition was outfitted to scout its modest surface and probe its geological composition for any useful deposits. There was nothing particularly complex about the venture, and everything went smoothly, until a sampling drill found an unexpectedly yielding point in a crater bed and struck a smooth, dense surface below.
Unbeknownst to Jednost's human population, the orbit-locked meteoroid they had come to know as Strelka was in truth only a skin-deep camouflage for a Qolth Worldship. The aliens were not native to the system, but the massive vessel, gargantuan by the Qolth's more compact standards, had been stranded there for possibly millennia after suffering irreparable damage to its FTL drive and gone into stasis to preserve its core-mind. Awoken by its security systems due to the humans' intrusion, the Qolth did not reveal itself, but dispatched its Nuval constructs to pose as the only occupants of a lost observation station, obfuscating the true size of the installation. The Nuval presented themselves as eager to cooperate with Jednost's people and share "their" technology, which by far exceeded its human counterpart in sophistication, for mutual benefit, and after a brief hesitation their offer was accepted.
What followed was the slow but inexorable subjugation of Jednost to the shadowy will of the core-mind. Using its Nuval proxies, as well as infested agents and cunningly trapped technological gifts, the Qolth spread hypnotic media, subtle doses of mind-altering drugs and seeds of cultural engineering throughout every level of the planetside cities, quietly conditioning their people to unknowingly follow its hidden commands. Within one Earth century, the previously isolationist metropoles had been unified into the Global Union, and the Nuval were much acclaimed for their crucial mediation work. To all evidence, the colony has entered its golden age; but the ugly truth is that it has become little more than contented livestock for the Qolth. Over the course of their silent invasion, the aliens have developed a taste for parasitizing human hosts, impersonating them throughout their lives in what their impersonal minds perceive as an amusing sort of play-acting all while slowly consuming them from within to multiply. Now that the Gateway has reopened, they cast their ravenous eyeless gaze at it, hungering for new materials to restore their derelict ship - and new bodies to devour.
Culture and Society: Even though there has been no real focused attempt to preserve a traditional spirit, Jednost appears to be stuck in the zeitgeist of late pre-collapse Earth, to the point that cultural variations on the joke “you can take the muscovite out of Moscow, but not Moscow out of the muscovite” have become an immortal cliché that has found its way even into scholarly discourse. An atmosphere of comfortable apathy reigns over the planet’s drab metal cities, a sort of placid pessimism that is at the same time jaded and satisfied by things staying exactly as they have been for the last few decades. People waking up to the same gray sky as every other day of their lives will wistfully ponder the lack of any change for better or worse, and in a brief moment of clarity may even wonder whether perhaps something different should happen one day while they reach for the mostly empty bottle of liquor on the kitchen sill - before the narcotics kick in, and the germs of hope are imperceptibly smothered under a chemical shroud.
Such a state of detachement, breeding a weary conformism, plays to the advantage of the Qolth, who maintain it by every possible means at their disposal. Virtually every aspect of Jednostan life bears the mark of their invisible hand, from imperceptible doses of mind-affecting substances in running water and food products, to Nuval patrolling the streets on nondescript official business while irradiating bystanders with their cowing neuro-wave emissions. Most entertainment media has long been supplanted by kaleidograms, projections of abstract, yet mesmerizing permutations of coloured shapes and shades, accompanied by soothing music and heavy amounts of subliminal induction. Even something as innocuous as news broadcasts is styled in ways that would appear garish and uncanny to those not used to them.
To facilitate the distribution of those subtle poisons, the Qolth-controlled state has fostered overall conditions of egalitarian, technologically-ensured comfort. Work is never lacking, pays neither too little nor too much, and is always just demanding enough that you don’t want to think about much at the end of the day. The market is neither so free to be anarchic, nor so restrictive as to be too daunting to aspiring entrepreneurs. Habitation blocks are never too luxurious, but rarely are they leaper mole-infested hellholes either. In a word, everything is so painfully average that people cannot but be reluctantly satisfied with it.
Of course, nothing is perfect, and even the most painstakingly designed prison has its leaks. Under the surface, there are a few sparse groups of people - the observant, the paranoid, the idealistic, the stray souls damaged by illegal drugs harder than those peddled by the Qolth - who suspect that something is off about their world. Derided by the public, leerily watched by security forces, and occasionally busted by Qolth infiltrators, they are few and by and large unable to organize, but their mere existence is a persistent thorn in the side of the alien-imposed order.
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Governance and Politics: The Jednost Global Union is ostensibly the next in the ranks of the multitude of electoral democracies from humanity’s past. Every so often, advertising screens on the streets are flooded with smiling, curated faces and pithy slogans over many-coloured backgrounds, and people will vote for a few of them to represent their city to the assembly of the MirDuma. More rarely, but still regularly, the faces will get bigger and the slogans even more emphatic, a sign that the Global Presidential election is at hand. Any differences between the half-dozen parties are mired in bureaucratic language, and in practice come down to colours in the statistics graphs, so that choosing among them is for most a matter of habit and it takes a not inconsiderable effort to start a genuine argument about politics.
In truth, things are simultaneously more complex than this and chillingly simple. While elected officials are invariably human, there are a great many Nuval embedded in high positions within the government apparatus, and it is through their hands that power really flows. However assembly debates may end, whatever resolutions the presidential cabinet may set down, the transcripts and documents always disappear into the folds of a faceless figure’s robes, with the assurance that everything will be implemented as necessary. The rare few times that someone bothers to check, they will be presented with exhaustive but impenetrable accounts of something being put into practice. Behind these appearances, the Nuval covertly perform the bidding of the Qolth core-mind, which governs as the Union’s indisputed secret ruler.
Technology Overview: Over the last century, the Qolth have successfully stifled independent scientific advancement on Jednost, replacing it with a controlled feed of scraps of their own technology through the Nuval. While carefully kept in check to prevent the human population from becoming too well-equipped to control, this infusion has allowed the colony to master numerous designs and principles previously thought too laborious to implement in practice, including fusion energy, magnetic levitation, plasma-based tools and weapons and stimulants powerful enough to temporarily rejuvenate the body. While this has propelled Jednost far beyond the levels of development and production achieved on Earth, giving its cities the appearance of a futuristic (if largely monochrome) dream, technology that radically modifies the human body has been persistently kept out of reach, as the Qolth fear it would prevent them from successfully infesting their hosts.
Military Overview: With no obvious enemies, either internal or external, the Global Union’s military mostly exists as an outlet for people looking for a sense of purpose, adventure or heroism in their lives. Thus, appearances are favoured over functionality: soldiers wear brightly coloured armour, ships and tanks are fitted with dazzling decorative lights and stereo systems, and camaraderie takes precedence over discipline. That said, dismissing Jednost’s forces as goofy and ineffectual would be a lethal mistake. However lax and boisterous, their troops carry redoubtable powered armour and destructive plasma weaponry, and are filled to their ears with performance-enhancing serums and combat stimulants giving them invincible, if almost suicidal, bravery, while their ships, though gaudy and few in number, are mounted with mighty defenses and artillery of alien design.
The most fearsome assets the Union can bring to bear, however, are the Qolth’s hidden aces in the hole. Those include the enigmatic Blackstar Initiative clone unit, monstrous war-bred Nuval strains and their own Worldship, which, though partly decayed over its long stasis, may be able to single-handedly match a small warfleet in battle.
Government Form: Representative democracy de jure, xeno-caste autocracy de facto.
Demographics:
Humans - 92 %
The human population of Jednost is descended from colonists of prevalently Slavic origin, and despite centuries of change and adaptation to a new planet, in many of them traces of distinctive ethnic features are still visible to the attentive socio-historian. The relatively low gravity of their planet has left them noticeably taller and lither than their Earth-born ancestors.
Believed to be the only sapient non-human inhabitants of Jednost, the Nuval are in truth biomechanical artificial beings created by their secretive masters, the Qolth, to serve as figureheads and mouthpieces in communicating with humanity. Nuval do not reproduce by natural means, but are formed of synthetic flesh vat-grown over a cybernetic framework inlaid with intricate systems to give them spectacular abilities. Their bodies, usually draped in ample sumptuous robes, have broadly humanoid four-armed torsos over flat, sluglike abdomens. Their heads are narrow and featureless, and their hands have each four extremely flexible fingers, capable of rotating at virtually any angle. To compensate for their lack of legs, they move with the help of magnetic levitation systems and retractable spider-like mechanical limbs built into their frames. The Nuval’s construction gives them many redoubtable tools built into their very bodies, ranging from weapons to holographic projectors, but most terrible of all are the neurowave transmitters that allow them to subtly manipulate the emotions of those around them, usually striking them with awe or fear.
Qolth - ???
The hidden masters of Jednost, guiding the fates of the planet from the shadows. The numbers of the Qolth are impossible to properly quantify, since members of their species do not have distinct bodies. Instead, their natural state is that of a thick light blue fluid binding together a network of primitive organs, invisible to the naked eye. A sufficiently complex network becomes capable of controlling its liquid form to move around, and potentially split it into smaller entities, which may in turn recombine again. Because of this state of constant flux, individual Qolth-shards do not have minds or personalities of their own, and act as a collective intelligence that shares all its skills and memories. Thanks to their fluid shape, the Qolth can enter the bodies of organic beings, including humans, and control them like puppets by interfacing with their synaptic systems - an ability that may have been instrumental to the growth of their distant civilization.
Population: circa 830 million total.
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Planet Name and Description: Jednost is the second planet from its star, a yellow dwarf somewhat cooler and fainter than the Sun, and the only one in its system to have a dense native atmosphere. A relatively small, light ball of rock with rich subterranean aquifers, but little unfrozen surface water, it is a bleak world of muted colours and endless tundra. While a biosphere existed even before the arrival of human colonists, it had always been pale and anemic, with even the tropical regions rarely supporting anything more than scraggly shrubland haunted by elusive crawling animals, the rare towering spindly-legged behemoths and immense swarms of harmless, but very irritating gnats. The vast frozen poles and boundless expanses of dry wasteland leave little space inhabitable without ample terraforming efforts, and so most of the human population is clustered in metropolitan centers about the equatorial band, where Jednost’s chilly climate is at the very least endurable the year round. The planet has one diminutive moon dubbed Strelka, an ungainly meteoroid which somehow found itself trapped in the planet’s feeble gravity well.
History: The alien structures hidden in the bowels of Jednost's moon suggest that the planet's true history began long before the Gateway first opened onto its system. What that history might have been, however, is hopelessly lost to human knowledge. Perhaps the planet did not always bear life, and its current state is the end result of a terraforming process started millennia ago; perhaps its skies have been the site of battles between tremendous empires now forgotten by the universe; none of that is known. What is know is that the colony ship Vitus Bering emerged into its pale star's light three hundred years ago, and within weeks its crew had laid the foundations of Ermagrad, which would go on to become the greatest city built on its soil by human hands.
Although life on the newly christened Jednost could hardly be called idyllic, between its merciless winters and melancholy summers, the planet was not actively hostile to its settlers, and so, little by little, scrubland belts were cleared, frozen bogs were drained, tundra strider migrations were contained, trillions of gnats were exterminated. Ermagrad expanded, then it was joined by Sztrelckie, then by Czeragrad, and many others to follow. Despite rapid demographic growth, the fledgling colony's population had a long way to go yet before it began to outstrip the habitable land and natural resources at its disposal, and thus territorial disputes rarely were grounds for conflict. The flipside of this was that the wide stretches of wildland between the rising cities caused them to grow increasingly isolated from each other politically as well as geographically, with every effort to establish a formal global government ending in failure, but in spite of this, for a good Earth century and a half life was good.
And it would have stayed that way, had it not been for the moon.
The early people of Jednost were an adventurous lot, and it was only natural that in time they should have turned to the rest of their sparse system, most of which had only been afforded a few cursory scans before the Vitus Bering made planetfall. The planet's only apparent natural satellite was an obvious starting point, and an expedition was outfitted to scout its modest surface and probe its geological composition for any useful deposits. There was nothing particularly complex about the venture, and everything went smoothly, until a sampling drill found an unexpectedly yielding point in a crater bed and struck a smooth, dense surface below.
Unbeknownst to Jednost's human population, the orbit-locked meteoroid they had come to know as Strelka was in truth only a skin-deep camouflage for a Qolth Worldship. The aliens were not native to the system, but the massive vessel, gargantuan by the Qolth's more compact standards, had been stranded there for possibly millennia after suffering irreparable damage to its FTL drive and gone into stasis to preserve its core-mind. Awoken by its security systems due to the humans' intrusion, the Qolth did not reveal itself, but dispatched its Nuval constructs to pose as the only occupants of a lost observation station, obfuscating the true size of the installation. The Nuval presented themselves as eager to cooperate with Jednost's people and share "their" technology, which by far exceeded its human counterpart in sophistication, for mutual benefit, and after a brief hesitation their offer was accepted.
What followed was the slow but inexorable subjugation of Jednost to the shadowy will of the core-mind. Using its Nuval proxies, as well as infested agents and cunningly trapped technological gifts, the Qolth spread hypnotic media, subtle doses of mind-altering drugs and seeds of cultural engineering throughout every level of the planetside cities, quietly conditioning their people to unknowingly follow its hidden commands. Within one Earth century, the previously isolationist metropoles had been unified into the Global Union, and the Nuval were much acclaimed for their crucial mediation work. To all evidence, the colony has entered its golden age; but the ugly truth is that it has become little more than contented livestock for the Qolth. Over the course of their silent invasion, the aliens have developed a taste for parasitizing human hosts, impersonating them throughout their lives in what their impersonal minds perceive as an amusing sort of play-acting all while slowly consuming them from within to multiply. Now that the Gateway has reopened, they cast their ravenous eyeless gaze at it, hungering for new materials to restore their derelict ship - and new bodies to devour.
Culture and Society: Even though there has been no real focused attempt to preserve a traditional spirit, Jednost appears to be stuck in the zeitgeist of late pre-collapse Earth, to the point that cultural variations on the joke “you can take the muscovite out of Moscow, but not Moscow out of the muscovite” have become an immortal cliché that has found its way even into scholarly discourse. An atmosphere of comfortable apathy reigns over the planet’s drab metal cities, a sort of placid pessimism that is at the same time jaded and satisfied by things staying exactly as they have been for the last few decades. People waking up to the same gray sky as every other day of their lives will wistfully ponder the lack of any change for better or worse, and in a brief moment of clarity may even wonder whether perhaps something different should happen one day while they reach for the mostly empty bottle of liquor on the kitchen sill - before the narcotics kick in, and the germs of hope are imperceptibly smothered under a chemical shroud.
Such a state of detachement, breeding a weary conformism, plays to the advantage of the Qolth, who maintain it by every possible means at their disposal. Virtually every aspect of Jednostan life bears the mark of their invisible hand, from imperceptible doses of mind-affecting substances in running water and food products, to Nuval patrolling the streets on nondescript official business while irradiating bystanders with their cowing neuro-wave emissions. Most entertainment media has long been supplanted by kaleidograms, projections of abstract, yet mesmerizing permutations of coloured shapes and shades, accompanied by soothing music and heavy amounts of subliminal induction. Even something as innocuous as news broadcasts is styled in ways that would appear garish and uncanny to those not used to them.
To facilitate the distribution of those subtle poisons, the Qolth-controlled state has fostered overall conditions of egalitarian, technologically-ensured comfort. Work is never lacking, pays neither too little nor too much, and is always just demanding enough that you don’t want to think about much at the end of the day. The market is neither so free to be anarchic, nor so restrictive as to be too daunting to aspiring entrepreneurs. Habitation blocks are never too luxurious, but rarely are they leaper mole-infested hellholes either. In a word, everything is so painfully average that people cannot but be reluctantly satisfied with it.
Of course, nothing is perfect, and even the most painstakingly designed prison has its leaks. Under the surface, there are a few sparse groups of people - the observant, the paranoid, the idealistic, the stray souls damaged by illegal drugs harder than those peddled by the Qolth - who suspect that something is off about their world. Derided by the public, leerily watched by security forces, and occasionally busted by Qolth infiltrators, they are few and by and large unable to organize, but their mere existence is a persistent thorn in the side of the alien-imposed order.
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Governance and Politics: The Jednost Global Union is ostensibly the next in the ranks of the multitude of electoral democracies from humanity’s past. Every so often, advertising screens on the streets are flooded with smiling, curated faces and pithy slogans over many-coloured backgrounds, and people will vote for a few of them to represent their city to the assembly of the MirDuma. More rarely, but still regularly, the faces will get bigger and the slogans even more emphatic, a sign that the Global Presidential election is at hand. Any differences between the half-dozen parties are mired in bureaucratic language, and in practice come down to colours in the statistics graphs, so that choosing among them is for most a matter of habit and it takes a not inconsiderable effort to start a genuine argument about politics.
In truth, things are simultaneously more complex than this and chillingly simple. While elected officials are invariably human, there are a great many Nuval embedded in high positions within the government apparatus, and it is through their hands that power really flows. However assembly debates may end, whatever resolutions the presidential cabinet may set down, the transcripts and documents always disappear into the folds of a faceless figure’s robes, with the assurance that everything will be implemented as necessary. The rare few times that someone bothers to check, they will be presented with exhaustive but impenetrable accounts of something being put into practice. Behind these appearances, the Nuval covertly perform the bidding of the Qolth core-mind, which governs as the Union’s indisputed secret ruler.
Technology Overview: Over the last century, the Qolth have successfully stifled independent scientific advancement on Jednost, replacing it with a controlled feed of scraps of their own technology through the Nuval. While carefully kept in check to prevent the human population from becoming too well-equipped to control, this infusion has allowed the colony to master numerous designs and principles previously thought too laborious to implement in practice, including fusion energy, magnetic levitation, plasma-based tools and weapons and stimulants powerful enough to temporarily rejuvenate the body. While this has propelled Jednost far beyond the levels of development and production achieved on Earth, giving its cities the appearance of a futuristic (if largely monochrome) dream, technology that radically modifies the human body has been persistently kept out of reach, as the Qolth fear it would prevent them from successfully infesting their hosts.
Military Overview: With no obvious enemies, either internal or external, the Global Union’s military mostly exists as an outlet for people looking for a sense of purpose, adventure or heroism in their lives. Thus, appearances are favoured over functionality: soldiers wear brightly coloured armour, ships and tanks are fitted with dazzling decorative lights and stereo systems, and camaraderie takes precedence over discipline. That said, dismissing Jednost’s forces as goofy and ineffectual would be a lethal mistake. However lax and boisterous, their troops carry redoubtable powered armour and destructive plasma weaponry, and are filled to their ears with performance-enhancing serums and combat stimulants giving them invincible, if almost suicidal, bravery, while their ships, though gaudy and few in number, are mounted with mighty defenses and artillery of alien design.
The most fearsome assets the Union can bring to bear, however, are the Qolth’s hidden aces in the hole. Those include the enigmatic Blackstar Initiative clone unit, monstrous war-bred Nuval strains and their own Worldship, which, though partly decayed over its long stasis, may be able to single-handedly match a small warfleet in battle.
The One God, the End of Things, One-Eye, He Who Turns the Flow
Aspect
Doom is the preordained end of all things in the cosmos. It is ineluctable and inescapable, for it is borne by Time itself, that force which underpins all of creation and governs the endless permutations of existence. Nothing, no matter how proud or humble, can escape that which is fated. The strongest and meekest of men and beasts alike will wither and perish under the weight of years, the blade of grass and the centennial oak will wilt and rot, the tall mountain and the minuscule pebble will be worn away to dust, the impregnable fortress and the tottering hut both will crumble to ruin.
Doom is no mere fluke of misfortune or stroke of violence, for such things, though sometimes fatal, are neither necessarily predestined nor truly impossible to elude. Nor is it an omen foretelling a certain demise, for the only such prophecy that needs be spoken was wordlessly uttered by Time itself at the beginning of things, and it is known by all throughout the universe. Nay, Doom is the one truth that may never be contested, the only certainty in a kaleidoscope of ever-shifting worlds: that all things are transient, and will in time come to their end.
Iqelis is the arbiter of this inappellable sentence, and while Doom does not require his intervention run its course - its cosmic necessity is greater even than a god - it falls to him to judge whether it may sometimes be hastened or delayed. The passage of Time is reflected in his one eye as the flowing of a vast river that engulfs the universe, and while he may not look up or downstream to see things past or future, he can stem or funnel its course around an entity so that its Doom may reach it slower or faster. To this corresponds a halting or quickening of time around that focus, and thus either its unnatural preservation or hastened aging, for Doom approaches by even steps and begins to consume its mark as soon as its shadow falls upon it. For a time, Iqelis may even avert a being's demise altogether if he so wished; but that respite is not eternal, and in the end Doom always comes into its own.
Persona
It is said that hubris is a fault particular to mortal beings, for in the hierarchy of things that be they are clearly subordinate to the divine, and the fault in their prideful desire to surmount their betters is readily apparent. All the same, it would be difficult to find a better word for Iqelis' bearing. As the one who presides over such a fundamental and inviolable truth of existence, he believes himself without equals among the pantheon, the One God truly worthy of reverence and exaltation. Even the Monarch of All he does not hold highly above his own station, for are not all things finite, and does the Lord of Creation not also have an end, remote though it might be? Are not all honours a hollow farce but for those tributed to him, who holds the flow of time in his hands?
Iqelis wears his arrogance brazenly, and is never remiss to remind anyone he deals with of how all things wrought by godly hands are under his sway and continue to exist at his mercy alone. When displeased, he is quick to dole out death and ruination in entirely arbitrary ways, as he holds himself above being called to account by any but Time itself. What vexes him most of all are those who attempt to reach for immortality, whether in their life or for their works, for in this he sees an attempt to escape from under his dominion, and against such trespassers he plies the full extent of his wrath. Conversely, adulation and praise greatly pleases him, and he may be induced to stay the hand of fate for that much longer if duly flattered or impressed with shows of devotion. In this, he does not favour gods over mortals, for both are as one beneath his potency.
True Form
In his godly raiment, Iqelis appears as a tall figure of opaque black glass, smooth and faceted as though cut from polished gemstone. His shape is broadly that of a human, with a body over two legs; albeit those legs end in trios of sharp hooks that dig into the ground as he walks. His prismic head is featureless save for a single great eye in its center, which is a massive adamant glowing with a stark white inner light. To look straight into it is to glimpse the impiteous flow of Time reflected in its depths, a vision which shatters lesser minds with its sheer immensity and cosmic immutability. From Iqelis' shoulders there extend many arms; while they are always evenly matched in pairs, their numbers always change from one moment to another. Though there may at any one time be four, eight or many thousands of them, they paradoxically always appear to be on the same plane of depth, and yet never touch or tangle with each other as they part and deviate the invisible currents around him. Iqelis moves with a fluid, deliberate grace, never rushing or hurrying his movements - for he has all the time he may wish for.
While the other Primarchs and their retinues retreated to the back area to dance, Augor Astren and his own companions had instead been sweeping amongst the ranks of the Legio Princeps attending the gathering - very few of whom had any interest in the indulgent levity the party of dancers were now pursuing. The Baron Sigveyr had been discussing at length, if in a somewhat somber fashion, with Princeps Maximus Horgoth of the Legio Suturvora, the Fire Masters.
“...I am open to being persuaded. I am not convinced the endeavor will be one worthy of the Fire Masters’ efforts, Knight Baron.” Horgoth rumbled. “You will doubtlessly be capable of swaying over many other Princeps and God Engine Legions to your cause. What would be left for our own glory?”
“From what I have been told, honorable Princeps, this Eldar Craftworld is the size of a small planet.” The Baron answered after having turned a faint, seemingly knowing glance to his servo-skull. “Although it is difficult to tell from pure remote augur readings, the Ordo Astranoma’s Logis are convinced there must be massive expanses contained within its interior - perhaps amounting to many times the surface area of any celestial body of equal size due to its volumetric architecture. Even if not, the exterior of the craft is considerable in size and there are many large Aeldari webway gates mounted upon the hull. It is almost a certainty that Eldar Titans will be present - in force.”
“Doubtlessly.” Horgoth agreed. “Though I still fail to see how battling them rather than embarking on another campaign is preferable for our purposes. The Fire Masters are a venerated and renowned Legion of God Engines, Knight Baron. There are many pressing, perilous, and glorious campaigns that call to us.”
“Well,” The Baron began with a faint smile, “Although I do not doubt that, consider these two points. Firstly, the Eldar are by far the most advanced and the greatest of those adversaries who remain to contest the control of Humanity in the galaxy. This craftworld of theirs - they hold it to be sacred, venerated much in the same way we venerate Terra and Mars. They will assemble their mightiest forces to defend it. Your opponents shall be amongst the most peerless to have ever been faced, and the glory to be gained through the conquest of their work shall be equally exalted.”
Horgoth stroked his chin thoughtfully at that, clearly won over despite his grudging attempts to appear unphased. “I see. The second reason?”
The Baron answered simply by taking a single step to the left and gesturing grandly towards the far end of the room. Several meters away, the Archmagos Mephitor was holding court with a flock of more than a dozen Princeps at once, clustered and clamoring about him. Counted amongst them were many of the College Titanica’s Legions that had retained their strong bonds to the Mechanicum - some even remained openly and unapologetically loyal to Mars and its principles. Though the entirety of the College Titanica was nominally an extension of the Mechanicum proper, its Legions were granted such tremendous autonomy and were often desperately curried with for favor that their actual priorities and loyalties tended to be diverse. Many of the Princeps of those Titan Legions that still held closer allegiance with the Cult Mechanicum than the Imperium Writ Large had already freely approached the Archmagos to pledge their efforts to his devises - amongst them were Princeps from the Legio Vulturum, the Legio Magna, and the Legio Kydianos. Even a few Princeps from Legions nominally more distanced from Mars, such as Princeps Indias Cavalerio of the Legio Tempestus, one of the Legions of the Triad Ferrum Morgulus, had approached and was listening in on the conversation intently. Also counted amongst the gaggle of Princeps was Tesarius Orcan, another member of the Legio Suturvora - who was already speaking animatedly with the Tech-Priest.
“Mars has just as great an interest in this campaign as does the Omnissiah.” The Baron voiced after giving Horgoth a moment to take in the scene. “And many of the most famed and celebrated of Titan Legions are expected to take part. To be absent might evoke the wrong sort of sentiment.” Horgoth merely nodded in response.
Augor Astren himself had approached an unlikely pair - the Princeps Tesarius Solomere and Raynal Hess of the Legio Lysanda. Their Titan Legion was one mostly known for its safeguarding of the outermost fringes of Imperial Space amongst the Eastern boundaries, and thus had few campaigns of glorious repute to its name despite its substantial size and exemplary service.
“The Stars themselves shine for your glory, honored Princeps.” Augor intoned, making a two-handed cogwheel gesture as he approached. The two Princeps exchanged a glance before Tesarius replied.
“Blessed be your countenance, Holy Primarch. Though we are honored by your notice, I am afraid the duties of our Legion-” Augor interrupted him by proffering a hand.
“You are correct.” He began. “Though the Legio Lysanda is more deserving than most of the glory and honor of the great campaign the Ordo Astranoma has planned, your steadfast devotion to your duty is more glorious and honorable still. Few know better than I the treachery and abominations that lurk in the furthest reaches of the dark, beyond the light of the Omnissiah. Fewer still know the horrors that your Legio have faced and thwarted, time and time again, rarely to receive recognition for your efforts. The Stargazers Legion has borne witness to your stalwart defense of the Imperium and to your peerless vigilance. Many times, you have been one of the only forces to come to the aid of my Children’s Macroclade Fleets, and many times have the Stargazers assembled and heeded your calls for aid in turn. I did not come to ask the Legio Lysanda to partake in the Campaign against the Eldar.”
Augor then bent low on one knee and inclined his head before the two Princeps, who stood, struck with shock before him - much as were many others surrounding them as they turned and noticed the unusual motion from the Twelfth Primarch.
“Know that you and yours shall always have an ally in me and mine, Princeps of the Legio Lysanda. Into the furthest and darkest reaches of space, we shall stand fast with you against all challengers.”
The Princeps simply stood, still too evidently sticken to reply even as the Primarch rose from his knelt posture, returning to his full stature. “I knew it would be improper of me to see to any other matters here before I had the opportunity to speak with you.” He stated in an exultant and serene tone. “If there is anything I or the Ordo Astranoma can do to service your own purposes, works, and holdings - do not hesitate to tell me, or any of my Legion’s Lord Commanders.”
“...That is…” Raynal Hess started hesitatingly before falling silent once more.
“...The Legio Lysanda does indeed have a rapport with the Stargazers Astartes Legion, holy Primarch.” Tesarius finally managed. “Moreso, I must admit, than with any others of the Children of the Omnissiah. Though we were unaware until now of the true extent of that rapport. It would be imprudent of us to make requests of you and yours given the scope of the campaign you are about to undertake.”
“Perhaps so.” The Twelfth Primarch nodded. “Though I can think of an opportunity that your Legio may find worth in. The so-called Librarian Crusade - it shall be venturing into the fringes of space in the Segmentum Obscurus. Many of the worlds there have recently fallen prey to externally incited insurrections. Their Compliance shall shortly be assured of course, but an adamant force capable of holding and keeping those worlds would be invaluable in the course of the Campaign, and many of my siblings would not fail to take notice of such efforts…”
Not far from where the Ordo Astranoma was engaged with the representatives of the Collegia, a smaller gathering had formed around the envoys of the Abyssal Lurkers. The spawn of the Ninth, utterly indifferent to the heart and splendour of the celebration, had set to assembling those who, like them, ruminated designs of bloodshed and destruction even on the brightest of days. Though the deep-dwellers lacked the sway that true adherents of the Machine Cult wielded among certain Titan Legions, there were those who, in memory of past campaigns fought at their side and for the amicable ties of the Dronemaw with the clergy of their native Forge Worlds, were disposed to lend them their ear for a spell. There stood with them Principes in the red and teal liveries of the brutal Legio Laniaskara, their features daubed with ritual paints whose designs obscurely encoded rank and accomplishment. Others donned the black and beiges of the impiteous twin Legios of Xana, Vulturum and Kydianos, not all of whose scions had gone to join Mephitor of the Stargazers. Their bodies were marked by a profusion of strange augmentics unusual for those of their station, and the quiet, oddly unassuming figures of their brethren of the House Malinax hovered ever nearby.
“...An enemy with glorious promise and hidden potential,” Iuvris was mechanically rattling to a semicircle of Xanites as Thenal sipped from his glass behind him, having already refilled it with increasingly mismatched bits and bites a few times, “We know they hold strange and potent technologies, but none such that they cannot be overcome. A golden medium. Once we strike at their parasitic domain, they will have no recourse but to meet us in the field, where their flesh may be worthy witness to the artifices of the Vodian savants.”
“That is all well and good,” the Princeps Ultima of the Gore Crows, Scrindus Tepfra, answered in harsh and haughty tones. Steely cords of bionic muscle rose from under his ashen skin where it was bared, and one of his eyes was a cybernetic speculum. “But pray tell, what sets these Nephilim of yours apart from the Eldar that some of our Seniores are already frothing to quash? They, too, will be driven to us by desperation, and so too they are fresh targets for the Legio’s arms.”
“Two things, regent of the God-Machine,” Iuvris raised his twofold arm, claws held up on each hand, “The Eldar are not armoured in pride alone. They are elusive like mercury, covered in simulacra and shields of unholy invention. It might be fascinating to record how the wrath of your engines would collide with their defenses, but true impacts upon the reviled xeno form would be all the rarer. Elimination is our final goal, not merely to sweep aside illusory wards. Let those less dedicated to the true depths of battle do away with them.”
Tepfra narrowed his one eye as he crossed his arms. “And the other?”
“Unlike the Eldar, these beings rule over the lost and the condemned. Supplicants perverted by communion with the xeno, eagerly bearing the yoke that binds them. A blight on the face of mankind that must be cleansed. Only a truly devoted spirit could summon the humility to scourge the chaff once the blade of the enemy is blunted, but I know for a fact that our company is not lacking in such paragons.”
The Princeps Ultima inclined his head, his eye still squinting with suspicion, though a shadow of a grin seemed to briefly dance at the corners of his mouth. “That might be, Expergefactor, that might be. But I know just as well that the Archmagos-Procurator would be greatly displeased if we did not lunge for the chance to temper the Crows’ talons in the blood of prey as formidable as Eldar,” his voice briefly lowered, taking on a confidential tone, “To say nothing of Magister Scoria.”
Iuvris seemed about to reply when Thenal spoke up from behind him. “The Third Tempest would hold it an honour to march alongside the hallowed regents in the sack of Iris. Yet, surely it would be to the Vodian Consistory’s satisfaction if his wardens could assay both the Eldar and those world-harvesters at once.”
Tepfra stood pensive for a moment, before beckoning one of the Kydianos Principes to the side and quietly conferring with them, their voices lost in the pervasive murmur of the crowd. In their absence, the Expergefactors turned their allurements to the younger Xanites.
Over behind the Techmarines’ backs, Issnos Traal was trading signs for the Laniaskaran Principes’ words. A few of them kept appraising gazes glued to his bone talons, apparently more intrigued by the nature of the trophy than by what the Equerry was spelling out with it.
“Why call on us for this then, blood of Carcinus?” a wiry Valian by the name of Aleyte, half her face covered in a jagged pattern of ceremonial crimson paint, was then asking, “If these parasites you hunt are not great enough to cut down with our blades, if their machines are too puny to face us foot to foot? What use do you have for our packs?”
The xenos’ war machines could prove great foes still for all we know, Traal gestured in reply, There is more. Have you ever struck down - his motions became slower, but sharper and more deliberate, as if he were making sure he would clearly convey an unusual meaning, - an edifice that lives?
“A living building?” Aleyte exchanged puzzled glances with her fellows and shook her head, “We Impalers have bled dry beasts that might as well be fortresses, and we have shattered engines that moved whole citadels to battle. Do you mean something that’s neither of those?”
Indeed, the Equerry signed, once more at his usual pace, We have seen their cities only from afar, but our scans have found vast presences inside them. High towers of metal matched to strong flows and surges, psychic force. We do not know if they truly live, but they were built by predators of the mind.
“That would be something for the priests to figure out,” the Valian shrugged, “What is and isn’t life is a question of doctrine, not for us to solve.”
Nor for us, Traal convened, Our duty is to conquer. Only sometimes the galaxy surprises us with some freakish new obstacle.
“And what wouldn’t many give to be the first to spill new blood,” Aleyte nodded pensively.
Time passed, the Princeps and the retinues of the Primarchs all commingling amongst each other as vows and promises were exchanged amidst speculation and intrigue. Nearly all of the Princeps at the function knew of each other by reputation if nothing else, and drew to each other almost instinctively - and around their would-be patrons and allies or otherwise. All save for one.
Princeps Calvar Ibranum of the Legio Xestobiax felt almost as if he did not belong in the stateroom. The God-Engines of his order were few, their accomplishments unsung in anticipation of their occurence, and the Princeps’ robes unadorned and practically spartan in decorations and honors. As the Legio Xestobiax had only just recently been declared Officio Fidelitas, Calvar had barely even managed to secure admittance to the event. Three quarters of the Administratum drones and clerks he had been forced to confront had never heard of him or the Legio Xestobiax - even those who made it their business to know of the Titan Legions.
It thus came as something of a shock when he heard his own name volleying towards him from both sides as two strangers seemed to erupt outwards from the surrounding crowd with scarcely any warning.
“Princeps Ibranu-” Baron Sigveyr paused, coming up short with his servo-skull pulling an equally abrupt braking-maneuver in the air as he came face to face with the comparatively towering form and unsettling voice of Thenal of the Ninth Legion.
“My apologies, Lord Astartes.” The Baron eventually managed with a clipped tone as he recovered. “In my haste I must have overlooked your approach through the crowd.”
“Trouble yourself not, illuminate,” the Expergefactor raised a hand, along with a cluster of mechadendrites on the same side, in a conciliatory gesture, “Chance has a way of levelling us when allowed to run unbridled. Regent,” he nodded in greeting to Calvar, before returning his gaze midway between the two Throne-pilots. “The paths of causality appear to have crossed at your feet.”
“I would do well to aprise my master of the notice of the Ninth Legion, Lord Astartes. We did not expect much-” The Baron’s gaze turned to Calvar and his voice halted. After a momentary pause and a motion to clasp his hands behind his back, the Baron resumed. “I take it the Ninth Legion sees potential in the Legio Xestobiax, then?”
“It is the custom of my brethren to plumb the most occult deeps, and never to dismiss the promise hidden in the youngest of growths,” Thenal replied, four of his flexible metallic limbs bending into the shape of a helix, “But alas, rarely do they turn such patient looks upon the works of the machine. It was the initiative of my own order to probe the talents of the Legio, that we may determine if they could flourish in the shadow of a rapport. Do our kin of the Astranoma have a design of their own for their and the Xestobiax’ mutual enhancement?”
“Less a design and more of an opportunity, Lord Astartes, one which I imagine we are all well-informed of. It would likely be best if you made your proposal first so that we might spoil the good Princeps for choice.” The Baron turned a wry smile up to Thenal. “And I confess I have an interest in what you might wish to discuss with him in turn.”
“So be it,” the Expergefactor nodded and turned his helmet to the Princeps. “Regent, by the will of the Ninth Legion, be it known that we offer unto you and yours a chance to unveil your might to the Imperium on fields of little risk and great reward. Once this conclave is sealed by the Omnissiah, our brothers will strike against the xeno-dominion of Melchior. It is not a threat we estimate to be formidable, for great forces will march alongside us, but it offers ample bloodshed and glory in the eyes of our allies and mankind at large. If the duty of battle calls to you, you will find it a worthy anvil to forge the first syllables of your name.”
Calvar nodded in response. “A sound and prudent offer. Though it begs the question of what opposition you are expecting that your campaign would benefit from the intercession of the Legio Xestobiax’ god engines, Lord Astartes.”
“The full extent of the hostile forces is unknown,” Thenal thrummed, “We have reason to suspect that Melchior may be but the latest conquest of an expansive xeno empire, and that it is defended by potent weapons its rulers do not deign to unveil for lesser skirmishes. The presence of your consecrated eidola may prove a great benefit if harsher resistance should arise unaccounted-for, and there is fame to be gained in thus braving the mysteries of the galaxy.”
Calvar then turned to look at the Baron. “I trust it is no slight to presume you intended to invite my engines to join the order of battle in the siege to be waged against Iris.”
“Indeed. That is very much what I came to offer to you.” The Baron admitted. “I will not lie to you - the adversaries we shall face will be some of the greatest the Imperium has ever known, but you would not be fighting alone. A number of other Legios shall be present as well, amongst many other allies.”
Calvar appeared to mull this over for a moment before speaking once more. “Lord Astartes - as your counterpart indicates, the forces of the Eldar are quite formidable - but they are, in this circumstance, the devil we know, and were I to commit my engines to that campaign I would have the support of other Legios as well as the opportunity to establish rapport with them. Your campaign, while intriguing, promises a great many unknowns - some mysterious far-flung xenos influence beyond the pall of what is known. Why would you prefer the Legio Xestobiax in this scenario, as opposed to a more blooded house?”
“The god-engines of your host would not march alone,” one of Thenal’s mechadendrites pointed up, “My brothers are working to sway the wardens of Xana and Valia-Maximal to those undertakings. The attendant clergies of their cradles are accomplished, and to forge bonds with them on the battlefield would be a rare privilege.”
Calvar’s frame seemed to go rigid at the mention of the two names. “I see.” He said, his tone suddenly frigid. “I will have to give this matter some thought - I will let the both of your legions know of my decision before the night is out, of course.” He nodded to both the Baron and Thenal in turn, if somewhat stiffly. “If you will excuse me.”
The Princeps then broke away from the both of them and headed directly into the crowd of guests - and if it appeared to the Baron and Thenal that he was heading rather deliberately towards the congregation of Princeps crowded around Mephitor, neither of them made mention of it.
“I suppose we are left to await his word then, Lord Astartes.” The Baron directed to Thenal in a tellingly consolatory tone. “Though you have piqued my curiosity in the meantime. I have heard rumblings of the xenos in the Melchior region - these so-called ‘Nephilim‘’ myself. The Ordo Astranoma has had a number of notices concerning the possible turning of Genetors to the formulation of a new pogrom plague - but I did not known that campaign had risen to the level of multiple Titan Legions deigning to involve themselves.”
“Nor has it, illuminate, or not insofar as I am permitted to know,” the Expergefactor seemed unconcerned by the display of Calvar’s departure, the serpentine hive of his appendages shifting and stirring at ease, “I have heard of them fielding strange and unholy mechanisms, devices and biomorphs that reduce entire worlds to servitude, but for all their impure artifice they have thus far not shown themselves able to overtly match the true gifts of the Machine God. Yet the forces of our Legion will be divided in their sacred task. Where isolated Tempests may prove insufficient against the multitudes of the inhuman, the god-engines will find ample chance to cover themselves in blood and glory. Man and machine complete each other, a truth that our leaders have been regrettably slow to acknowledge.”
He made a curious sign with his hands - almost a Cog Mechanicum, but strangely sharp and convoluted - before glancing down at the Baron. “Were it that all could be as enlightened as the revered Lord Astren.”
The Baron seemed lost in thought, almost perturbed, to the point where the flattery flew completely by him. “Word of such profuse and particularly blasphemous Heretech is worrisome - and with such rotten timing as well. Ordinarily I would offer to arrange for a number of the Twelfth Legion’s Macroclades to join the campaign, but with this Craftworld Siege we are stretched precariously thin. Those fleets of the Ordo Astranoma not being committed to the Iris Campaign are being consigned to indefinite regional patrol or custodial watch over particular sectors. Even my homeworld of Caelrulmoste, which is in the Dominion of Storms - a figurative stone’s throw from Last Light itself - is going to have to fend for itself for the duration of the campaign.”
“No doubt the Lord Primarch will have accounted for the particulars of such a distribution, though even the sharpest minds can be hampered by the limitations of the tools at their disposal,” Thenal nodded, “The Dominion of Storms marks one of the outermost boundaries of the Imperium in a region I know of as turbulent. Are there truly so few concerns about incursions from those fringes that have yet to be annexed?”
“There are plentiful concerns, Lord Astartes, but Caelrulmoste is a Questor Mechanicum world. What little infrastructure is present there has bite enough to swallow any reavers that would venture there.” The Baron appeared to hesitate as his servo skull drifted in close and almost seemed to murmur in his ear conspiratorially. “...Though there has been trouble in that region that we were not able to investigate or deal with in a timely fashion prior to the arraigning of the Iris Campaign. There was even an entire Aspirant Mechanicum Colony on the world of Altus Ferro that had to be abandoned recently due to reaver intrusions threatening the security of the region.”
“An Aspirant Colony.” Thenal’s upper mechadendrites rose in a quizzical curl like so many stirring cobras, “What sort of marauders could be dangerous enough for a settler force of the Cult to withdraw entirely, illuminate? Voidfaring xenos or nomad fleets?”
“The latter - their fleets have had encounters of some varying success with the Imperial Navy of course, but peculiarly every report of their confrontations with the Imperial Army upon any planetary theater claims they are nearly unstoppable. They have some nebulous and allegedly indestructible form of warmachines they are reputed to use, but intelligence is contradictory and unilluminating.” The Baron waved a hand in a gesture of vaguery. “But the region has always been a low priority - filled with nothing but barren planets and uninhabitable sectors. Even Altus Ferro is an ice world - or it perhaps has frozen oceans, I am not certain which. There were always more pressing fronts of the Great Crusade. So when word came that the same reavers were threatening the area and that there were no nearby fleets to safeguard the nascent Forges…” The Baron shrugged. “The Tech-Priests there did not have the resources or forces to withstand even a token invasion force, let alone one with an unbroken record of ground victories against the Imperial Army.”
“Hostiles with middling naval strength and planetside superiority fall within the category of threats the Legiones Astartes are most efficient in eliminating,” Thenal mused, “And such potent war-machines bear investigation by the Cult Mechanicum. It is unfortunate that this presence should have remained below notice until a time when the focus of mankind’s strength is directed elsewhere.”
“As you say, Lord Astartes.” The Baron agreed. “It will likely be prioritized once the Iris Campaign has concluded, or perhaps some other Legion will chance nearby and elect to deal with them, though personally I doubt it. There is nothing in that drift of space of much interest to the Legions other than Altus Ferro itself.”
“That may be so, but much is concealed from our imperfect sight,” the Expergefactor folded his fingers together in contemplative posture, “This reaver activity might be a portent of a greater menace. They could have planetary holdings in the uncharted zones of the Drifts, perhaps a supply line or even production facilities. Numerous organised territories subjugated during the Crusade were initially misidentified as populated by nothing but irregulars. Even if that were the case here, a demonstration of force is warranted after their encroaching on an Imperial colony.”
Several of Thenal’s mechadendrites pointed forward, and downwards, in the Baron’s direction, even as his hands remained joined.
“You scarcely need to tell me, Lord Astartes.” The Baron stated confidingly. “According to the Ordo Astranoma’s Logi, 98% of all Imperial space and territories remain unsurveyed, and more than 95% remains entirely unexplored. I cannot count the number of marvelous and malign surprises in those dark sectors of what is supposedly our own realms the Ordo Astranoma has uncovered - not that we receive any recognition or respect for it, as even some amongst the sacred Children of the Omnissiah have made more than evident.” The Baron seemed to cast his gaze in the direction of the open-floor when the Primarch Sekhemetara held council of her own, but just as quickly he shook his head and turned his notice back to Thenal. “I speak out of turn, of course, and you very much have the right of it Lord Astartes. The days of the marauding reavers in that stretch of space are numbered, though this period would evidently be the figurative Summer of their endeavors.”
“The way of our Orders is often a thankless one, illuminate, even among those we would call our brothers,” Thenal assented with unexpected wistfulness, a tendril subtly nodding towards where Traal, the Equerry, still gathered together several Principes, “But from the weakness of the mind the anima delivers us.” He made another sign, this one even more arcane and not quite comparable with anything in Martian liturgy.
“As steel we must be resolute in our calling. My voice is merely that of one adept among them, but my brethren of the Ninth may judge the invasion of Altus Ferro worthy of their intervention should they learn of it. I shall inform the Imbrifices. Let it not be said that we have not done what we could to ensure that order reigns in the Omnissiah’s domain.”
“If anything comes of your word in this matter, do let the Twelfth Legion know. I am certain the Mechanicum would be pleased to go where the light of the Omnissiah’s Legions are carried and I suspect they would be generously disposed towards whomsoever manages to retake Altus Ferro, and we would be pleased to convey your word to those orders that were displaced.” The Baron bowed his head to Thenal. “If you will excuse me, Lord Astartes - I imagine we both have business we should continue to pursue.”
“Duty is eternal, illuminate,” the Expergefactor replied, “May the spirits ever be propitious to you.”
With yet another esoteric sign, he turned and heavily stalked away into the crowd amid a scraping and clattering of metal.
The One God, the End of Things, One-Eye, He Who Turns the Flow
Aspect
Doom is the preordained end of all things in the cosmos. It is ineluctable and inescapable, for it is borne by Time itself, that force which underpins all of creation and governs the endless permutations of existence. Nothing, no matter how proud or humble, can escape that which is fated. The strongest and meekest of men and beasts alike will wither and perish under the weight of years, the blade of grass and the centennial oak will wilt and rot, the tall mountain and the minuscule pebble will be worn away to dust, the impregnable fortress and the tottering hut both will crumble to ruin.
Doom is no mere fluke of misfortune or stroke of violence, for such things, though sometimes fatal, are neither necessarily predestined nor truly impossible to elude. Nor is it an omen foretelling a certain demise, for the only such prophecy that needs be spoken was wordlessly uttered by Time itself at the beginning of things, and it is known by all throughout the universe. Nay, Doom is the one truth that may never be contested, the only certainty in a kaleidoscope of ever-shifting worlds: that all things are transient, and will in time come to their end.
Iqelis is the arbiter of this inappellable sentence, and while Doom does not require his intervention run its course - its cosmic necessity is greater even than a god - it falls to him to judge whether it may sometimes be hastened or delayed. The passage of Time is reflected in his one eye as the flowing of a vast river that engulfs the universe, and while he may not look up or downstream to see things past or future, he can stem or funnel its course around an entity so that its Doom may reach it slower or faster. To this corresponds a halting or quickening of time around that focus, and thus either its unnatural preservation or hastened aging, for Doom approaches by even steps and begins to consume its mark as soon as its shadow falls upon it. For a time, Iqelis may even avert a being's demise altogether if he so wished; but that respite is not eternal, and in the end Doom always comes into its own.
Persona
It is said that hubris is a fault particular to mortal beings, for in the hierarchy of things that be they are clearly subordinate to the divine, and the fault in their prideful desire to surmount their betters is readily apparent. All the same, it would be difficult to find a better word for Iqelis' bearing. As the one who presides over such a fundamental and inviolable truth of existence, he believes himself without equals among the pantheon, the One God truly worthy of reverence and exaltation. Even the Monarch of All he does not hold highly above his own station, for are not all things finite, and does the Lord of Creation not also have an end, remote though it might be? Are not all honours a hollow farce but for those tributed to him, who holds the flow of time in his hands?
Iqelis wears his arrogance brazenly, and is never remiss to remind anyone he deals with of how all things wrought by godly hands are under his sway and continue to exist at his mercy alone. When displeased, he is quick to dole out death and ruination in entirely arbitrary ways, as he holds himself above being called to account by any but Time itself. What vexes him most of all are those who attempt to reach for immortality, whether in their life or for their works, for in this he sees an attempt to escape from under his dominion, and against such trespassers he plies the full extent of his wrath. Conversely, adulation and praise greatly pleases him, and he may be induced to stay the hand of fate for that much longer if duly flattered or impressed with shows of devotion. In this, he does not favour gods over mortals, for both are as one beneath his potency.
True Form
In his godly raiment, Iqelis appears as a tall figure of opaque black glass, smooth and faceted as though cut from polished gemstone. His shape is broadly that of a human, with a body over two legs; albeit those legs end in trios of sharp hooks that dig into the ground as he walks. His prismic head is featureless save for a single great eye in its center, which is a massive adamant glowing with a stark white inner light. To look straight into it is to glimpse the impiteous flow of Time reflected in its depths, a vision which shatters lesser minds with its sheer immensity and cosmic immutability. From Iqelis' shoulders there extend many arms; while they are always evenly matched in pairs, their numbers always change from one moment to another. Though there may at any one time be four, eight or many thousands of them, they paradoxically always appear to be on the same plane of depth, and yet never touch or tangle with each other as they part and deviate the invisible currents around him. Iqelis moves with a fluid, deliberate grace, never rushing or hurrying his movements - for he has all the time he may wish for.
One leg still raised in an unfinished step, Zsresrinn stopped in her tracks. She had let the comms chatter about Gourlan fly by without answer - even if the voidhanger's suspicions were correct, there was not much they could have done about it at that moment. Not until they had dealt with the enemy they knew. Her senses followed the movements of the rebels by the mortar emplacement through the remaining parasitic drone as it wove and ducked about the undergrowth, her body moving ahead almost by reflex. Rho-Hux's warning, however, made her hesitate. She had not thought the stalking beast was still so close. Abandoning her mobile eye for a moment, she focused her senses ahead of her. Still nothing clearly in sight, besides a fleshy shape slithering here and there, but she could smell it now, feel its body heat. The stench of several animals, and a very large thermal patch, though a pale one. Maybe cold-blooded.
"Understood." She readied her side-limbs' grip around her hellhammer as she passed on communications to the rest of the group as quietly as she could. "Insurgent patrol approaches, prepare to engage. Will attempt misdirection."
Zsresrinn had to acknowledge that she was in no way equipped for subtly hampering the enemy. All the same, the raw calculations of combat were clear: they were facing an adversary that matched their numbers and an unpredictable wild creature. One of these elements attacking another would lead to the third one taking advantage of the fight, and unless the group did something about it, most chances were that they would be on the losing side. Anything she could so much as try mattered.
She shifted her attention to the drone again, pushing it to rise into the air with an unnecessarily loud buzzing of its membranous wings. The symbiote was small and the sound it made was easily lost in the rustling and breathing around them, but she hoped that the large predator's honed senses or the insurgents' detection systems would be sharp enough to pick up on it. Even if they did, though, that might not be enough to have them focus on that. Driven by a direct mental command, the drone flew in a wide, exposed loop, bringing it onto the trajectory the tarrhaidim were approaching from, and dove at the plough-head, which she now could see more clearly from above. It was unlikely to survive if either foe did spot it, but that would be a small price to pay if it could get them to notice each other in time.
Parties Involved: Chapter Detachment of the Steel Sentinels; Kynazar remnants.
“This is Soilis Prime, Transmission Post Y -Y-205. I repeat, Post Y - Y-205, coordinates -” the next words were lost in a burst of Warp disturbance of the sort that occasionally plagued long-range vox transmissions from field casters. “-rime to Soilis Secundus. Hostile activity detected at Outpost YZ-202 today at -” another static burst, “-trol from Outpost YZ-200 sent to investigate, all contact lost. Auspex scans ineffective, hostiles believed to be using jamming devices. Requesting reinfo-” The message cut off again, this time for good.
The communications rang through the ship, alerting the Chapter Master, that was staring into the void, that some pitiful welps required aid. The Chapter Master looked to a helmsman and ordered, “Clean up that transmission and prepare a response.”
The helmsman silently did his job, merely nodding to the Astartes to notify him that he was transmitting to Soilis Prime, “This is Chapter Master Arikiba of the Steel Sentinels to Soilis Prime, if you can hear me, we are en route to reinforce. Respond, if you can acknowledge this transmission.”
The Sentinel ended the transmission before looking over to one of his brothers, ordering “Prepare first company to prepare for battle, all other companies shall await until we know what threat we face.”
Arikiba looked over the void once more as the crew silently changed the ship’s course to bring them to Soilis Prime at full speed. He expected nothing more than some treacherous mortals wanting to break free from the Imperial hold, knowing that the mortals would want nothing more than to betray their master. The thought sickened him, filled him with anger even, yet he was under Father Usriel’s orders to protect them so long as they remained loyal. The chapter master adjusted himself as he walked out of the bridge, moving to the armory to pray to the machine spirits of his weapons.
[APPROXIMATELY ONE AND A HALF HOURS LATER]
With the radio silence of Soilis Prime, Chapter Master Arikiba took another attempt at communication to the planet that was now below them after the ship had exited warp travel. He decided to relay his message to the planetary capital in an attempt to get some form of confirmation that some mortal may be paying attention. His voice this time sounded in frustration, “Chapter Master Arikiba to Soilis Prime, does anyone acknowledge?”
Some moments passed in silence before a reply broke through the vox.
“This is Overseer Medejal of the Planetary Directorate. Welcome to Soilis, my lord. It is an honor to speak with one of our Imperial Excellency’s great legionaries.” Despite the rote formality of his words, the man at the other end of the transmitter had a sharpness in his voice that seemed unusual for a high official. Then again, the roughness of the galactic frontier often bred equally rough temperaments. “I understand you caught our vox to Secundus. We would be immensely grateful if an officer of your stature considered the situation worthy of his precious time.” He paused for a moment. “It might be a matter of Imperial security.”
“Report on the nature of the transmission, mortal,” the Chapter Master ordered, speaking in a tone of near blatant disgust that had become all too common for the Steel Sentinels when they talk to one the unaugmented humans.
“Reinforcements, my lord,” Medejal cut to the heart of the matter. With the preambles out of the way, his speech became even more crisp and businesslike. “We keep a limited defense force, to manage lapses of discipline in our workers and suppress resurgences of the - alien menace, from a few decades ago.”
“Orks?” Arikiba questioned.
“Kenazir, your excellency.” Though mangled by the Overseer’s accent, the name of the Kynazar, the alien horrors that had swept through the Segmentum until broken four decades prior, was recognisable enough. “Stray packs somehow emerge from the wilds to raid our quarries to this day. Filthy beasts, but nothing our militias can’t handle. The outpost in our transmission, however, it sounds like it’s been overwhelmed. We don’t know how it could be possible, but a threat like that is beyond our forces, and your fellow esteemed legionaries have not responded to our calls for assistance.”
“Fellow legionaries?” The Sentinel master asked, his tone shifting into genuine curiosity over the vox. He mulled over the possibilities of who could be patrolling these fringe spaces. Arikiba continued, “Surely, it couldn’t be the Daughters of Iron, their kind would have swarmed your planet like a plague at the first sign of a child’s complaint.”
“Not daughters, excellency. They were men - I think.” For the first time, Medejal’s voice gained a tinge of uncertainty. “I never saw their faces, or heard their voices. They barely acknowledged us when they arrived some two local months ago, just showed us a chart of where they’d be setting up, off the coast in that quadrant. Their heraldry, it was an animal, like a… A kanker. They would be in an ideal place to intervene now, but we don’t know if they’re receiving our communications at all.”
Arikiba took a moment, thinking through the words of the overseer’s voice as the connections came into his mind. “The Abyssal Lurkers?” he questioned absentmindedly, a slight uncomfortable feeling coming over him at that thought. The chapter master knew next to nothing of the legion, nothing that would even point to why they would be at the fringe planet outside of the Obscuris Segmentum. For whatever reason they were here, it was beyond the Chapter Master.
“Regardless of what the Abyssal Lurkers are doing, you’d be happy to know that we had come and not them. Relay us the coordinates and set all of your militia to battle readiness,” Arikiba ordered, looking over and nodding to a brother who spoke into his own vox.
“We are greatly thankful that our mighty Imperium’s finest are ready to come to our aid,” came the obsequious reply. Moments later, a mechanically precise recitation of a set of surface coordinated followed through the aether.
“Chapter Master Arikiba, out,” The Astartes said, ending the transmission and marching off to join some of the First Company. Thunderhawks were ready for them at the hanger, loaded with fortification supplies and their forces. Two full squads would deploy with them, along with the veterans who guarded the Chapter Master, adding to their firepower was a heavy weapons group, an Achilles Land Raider, and one of the venerable ancients. It would be more than enough to secure the outpost, so long as they could get their own landing site secured then they could drive away this xenos menace. Of course, should Arikiba believe that the situation may be untenable, then what is another dead planet to the Imperium’s records?
The thunderhawks silently flew through the vacuum of space, making its way to the coordinates of the outpost. The neophytes looked to each other, the blue hum of the plasma guns illuminating the inside of the ship as the silence overtook them. Their leaders inspected them, putting the proper precautions into place and making sure they were ready for the trials ahead of them. Within those minutes the doors to the thunderhawks opened and the squads rushed into the snow filled outpost, erecting a line of aegis and quickly welding together a bunker with the help of a Tech-marine. Some dug a trench into the earth, hastily, but enough.
Arikiba, stepped out and inspected the work neophytes, marching along the inside of their hastily erected post just next to the outpost. A fine example of what the Sentinels were known for, yet, he noticed that there was no stirring from inside of the outpost throughout the minutes of them erecting their post. It was silent, no soul to match their own presence.
“Where are the mortals of this station?” Arikiba asked himself.
“Perhaps eaten by the xenos, chapter master?” the tech-marine speculated as he walked up behind his leader.
“But then where are the xenos? Surely they would have torn down the outpost in its entirety? There isn’t any sign of blood nor even a true conflict for the area isn’t touched by weaponry or supply,” Arikiba answered, crossing his arms as he walked into the outpost proper.
As if on cue, the bitter wind blowing from the direction of the not too distant sea stirred with a new sound among the light churn of the waves. It was a howl, a roar, a screech of an impossibly large locust, fused together in a chilling echo. As it wound through the curious arcuate stone formations that stood at the edge of the outpost, it splintered and resonated among the rocks, turning into a terrible chorus. And, seconds later, a true chorus followed. Scores of snarls, hisses and chitterings washed over the Sentinels’ position, together with a pungent, sickening smell, a stench that did not resemble anything a human tongue could name.
Arikiba froze in place and looked in the direction of that abominable noise, seeming that the xenos had not quite abandoned the area quite yet. Yet, they could see a small form walking to them from behind an arched rock, bearing a black suit and a skull with a massive lens on its side. The tech marine raised his rifle, though the Chapter Master motioned for him to lower it, knowing that this being was no foe, even though a feeling of unease washed over the Astartes.
“You have disturbed them, Astartes,” the form called out, stopping a few paces from the Steel Sentinel positions. The human looked them up and down, before continuing to walk towards them, “Luckily, I need something to draw the beasts out.”
“Who are you, mortal?” Arikiba asked.
“A hunter,” the human said simply before continuing, “I am here for the same reason you are, but know that the Kynazar are trying to call out to something.”
“Call out to what?” The Astartes questioned in a condescending tone.
“I know not, all I know is that I must kill their psychic bio-forms before they can,” the assassin stated, looking over his shoulder as another chorus of animalistic screeches filled the air. Walking past the Astartes, he continued, “I will help you, Astartes.”
The chapter master watched as the human walked past the trench and stood behind an outcropping of rocks between the bunker and trench, silently watching the center of the outpost before Arikiba barked orders for the Sentinels to ready themselves. Veterans took up the center, the heavy weapons mounted themselves in the bunker, a squad of marines took up their positions in the trenches whilst another braced against the left wing of the aegis defense line. The tech-marine shuffled over to the Land Raider, praying to the machine spirit within it whilst the venerable dreadnought stood just outside the formation, in front of the marines at the aegis line.
“Steel yourselves, for we shall hold until the eagle’s death,” the Chapter Master called out his mind surveying the possibilities of what could come rushing at them. However, his mind focused on the now silence, no animalistic roars or distant snarls were heard in the air.
The xenos would be upon them.
In a moment, the ground around the stone arch was astir with movement. It was not clear where the creatures had come from - such was the suddenness of their appearance that it seemed as though they could have burst out from the earth itself. A veritable tide of chitin-bound horrors surged forth towards the Astartes’ position, hideous beings leaping like locusts upon their six legs, but each as large as a man and bristling with organic blades that were little more than extensions of their limbs. There was something reptilian in their snarling, wide-mouthed snouts, but their eyes were not those of mere beasts. Eerily incongruous with the gnashing maws over which they sat, they shone with a cunning and awareness too great for such base beings, as if they were driven by an inner will utterly disproportionate to their frames.
Trudging in their wake, other, more menacing aberrations towered over the alien throng. Three massive xeno-beasts, each half as large as the Land Raider itself, pawed hungrily at the ground and drooled corrosive ooze from mouths like forests of teeth. Many-limbed, encased in bastions of living carapace and snapping great scything claws, there was a vague air of familiarity about them, as if they were a grotesque perversion of an innocuous shape the Sentinels had seen more than once, but whose details were buried under a mass of overgrown flesh. Similar intimations of recognition hovered about those monstrosities that stood upright on two or four legs, smaller yet imposing enough to rival a space marine. Only glimpses of them could be seen as they slunk into cover behind the deserted buildings, but their dark organic armour and their bearing as they wielded their outlandish weapons of bone and muscle gave them the look of nightmarish reflections of the enhanced warriors of mankind.
It was thus all the more jarring when the last wave of xenos came into sight. There was nothing in these beings, evidently the leaders of the horde as the lesser brutes smoothly parted before their advance, that ever so remotely resembled the human form. More than anything, they were like brains, cancerously bloated clumps of neural matter suspended over larval, atrophied bodies and held aloft by sheer psychic might. Some were about the size of an Astartes, their heads triangular masks of bone ending in sneering jaws, while others, far larger, had no features but a mass of writhing tentacles, and breathed out pale-green clouds of noxious spores that rolled across the ground, obscuring vision. A sense of unnatural weight and dizziness washed over the Sentinels as the creatures hovered closer, the emanations of their psionic force instilling a palpable wrongness into the energies that underlay the material universe that could be felt even by unawakened minds.
Yet the worst was still to come, for the oppressive mental presence only grew stronger as a massive shape emerged among the xenos’ rear ranks. Little could be seen of it through the noxious fog, but it was clearly enormous, perhaps twice as large as a Terminator. Like the more humanoid alien warriors, it walked upright, though the similarities with the Terran form ended there: it had four arms, bearing an arsenal of blades and living cannons, and its head was crested like that of the psyker-beasts.
The giant abomination motioned forward with one of its swords and bellowed, and the horde sprang ahead like a single body. Swarms of the loping vermin rushed against the center of the barricades, lashing out with a hail of talons. Skulking monsters raised their grisly weapons and fired long, lethally sharp bone shards that unfolded steering membranes in mid-air and converged towards vulnerable openings as if possessed of minds of their own. The clawed juggernauts levelled barrels of their own and spewed hails of writhing worms oozing with acidic slime. Behind the first wave of the assault, the lesser floating horrors inched forth, firing barrages of azure bio-lightning, as they sought to gain a slight elevation at the center of the encampment.
The small beasts had been upon the center in an instant, the veterans unable to even get a volley off and only being able to throw a grenade out as the others braced against the Aegis to prevent the xenos from breaking their line. Their forms crashed into the walls, their talons attempting to reach the Astartes, but unable to breach their armor. Meanwhile the veterans, still bracing against the Aegis, pulled out their combat knives and stabbed through the creatures only managing to kill a few while the xenos that did not die regenerated their wounds. Luckily, the lightning met only the outside of the aegis.
Yet, not all conflict was bloodless for the Sentinels, as those in the hastily dug trench found two of their own paled into the ground they dug by spines as tall as them. Two neophytes were instantly dead, not knowing their deaths would have come so quick into the conflict.
But then, the Sentinel force unleashed their hell onto the monstrous forms behind the first tide of vermin, plasma cannons hitting the side of the great lumbering ones and laying one low. One of those that spewed the dark, obscuring cloud found itself reduced into nothing more than a pile of viscera by the amount of fire it sustained. Only then, did the hunter strike, peeking from behind the rocks to open his baleful eye and unleash a wave of anti-psyker energies at those that leisurely floated closer to them.
Despite the dents carved into their numbers, the xenos showed no signs of relenting. The lurking warriors spat their living projectiles again and again, and though some glanced off the heavy armour of the Astartes’ emplacements, more continued to strike down among the trenches. The second great horror, uncaring of the fate that had befallen its twin, charged the earthworks on the right flank, sweeping its monstrous claws through the assembled neophytes with astonishing swiftness for something so heavy.
Though enfeebled by the assassin’s exotic device, the lower psy-beasts managed to gain ground, shrouded from the Astartes’ fire by a field of invisible force. Their leader, marked by jagged bone ridges on its back, suddenly diverted its attention from the foe. The waves of energy emanating from it grew fainter, as though they were no longer turned ahead but outward, towards the heavens. Its subordinate organisms gathered around it to form a living barrier, all while keeping their gazes on the foremost swarm, whose wounds continued in places to close as quickly as they were struck.
Those in the trench fell quickly, being ripped apart by the combined fire of the spines and the living weaponry of the massive beast, yet, they held. Firing back against the beast, along with the devastators within the bunker, quickly rendering the beast nothing more than a pile of slag. The dreadnought fired a volley into the swarm rounding the buildings on their left flank, cutting them down as they ran before firing a heavy plasma cannon into the floating abominations. The cannon’s mechanism hissed and clicked before letting loose a gout of steam sprayed back against the dreadnought, damaging some of its optical sensors in the process.
“Asmodel! You dishonor the legion by overheating you weapon,” the chapter master screamed over the torrent of the battlefield before ordering the veterans to shoot the abominations on the aegis.
The veterans followed their orders, pulling up their plasma rifles and firing point blank into the tide of vermin, cutting many down, though some regenerating their wounds and even more still pouring to the aegis. Meanwhile the squad behind them fired into the floating beasts, along with some from the Achilles and the assassin, many of their volleys impacting on invisible shield but all the same the volume of fire focused solely upon them.
Under the barrage, the creatures’ immaterial defenses began at last to yield. The shroud of warped space shuddered for a second, and one of the lesser neuro-larvae was immediately incinerated by a plasma bolt, chitin and swollen flesh crumpling to ash under the cleansing flame. Another was struck by a glancing bolt, leaving a scorched mark in its side. Yet it was a lapse of but a moment, and the surviving horrors raised their barrier once anew. Behind them, the greater psy-beast’s focus could almost be physically felt, the all-pervading sense of unease rising to a harrowing pitch as its mental emissions reached their peak.
More and more of the monstrosities fell, but it was by now evident the will driving them was beyond that of any foe encountered by mankind. Heedless of their own survival, they leapt and trampled over their own corpses, like instruments directed at the singular task of inflicting as much damage as possible before their inevitable demise. Though Asmodel’s fire had thinned the pack that attempted to circumvent the Sentinels’ main defenses, the rest of it came charging from behind the deserted buildings all the same, swiftly closing the space between themselves and the ancient. Behind them came trudging a maniple of the armoured warrior organisms, who unleashed a salvo of living projectiles and crystallized venom. Fortunately, the barricades held, and the brunt of it was broken by well-positioned armour.
Near the center of the outpost, a third wave of the locust-like swarmers began to pour out into the open, seeking to gain the already ravaged trench. Behind them, the gigantic leader of the horde was finally coming into view. It truly was a chilling vision, ghoulish, insectile, reptilian, yet in a way sinisterly human in spite of its many limbs and snarling visage.
And all the while, the bombardment of arcing bone shards continued unabated, denting armour and spilling blood.
Seeing the beasts close upon the flanks, the Chapter Master spoke into his vox, “Ordering Orbital Strike on coordinates 4QFJ 12345 67890.” The plasma fire and screeches of dying aliens and neophytes alike filled his vox to a degree near unheard. The neophytes at the barricaded wall of the left flank fired upon the trudging masses behind the wall of snarling teeth, while the dreadnought attempted to fire upon that moving wall.
The Achilles, having its machine spirits awoken, pointed all its secondary weapons at the psychic beasts that formed a wall, pouring shot after shot of endless fire into their forms while the automated weaponry of the defenses finally engaged them as well. All the while the pouring fire of the devastators and the gaze of the assassin continued to pour into that psychic wall.
Then, a roaring noise shook the ground as the bombardment of the ship in orbit finally came down, killing some of those who hid behind the buildings, nearly destroying them in the process with how close the bombardment came. Caught by surprise at first, the xenos however were quick to rally. As bombs whistled through the air, the carapace-armoured warriors stopped in their tracks, sending out a psychic surge that seemed to galvanize the rushing pack ahead of them. The creatures’ movements became a blur, blindingly fast yet perfectly coordinated. Ineffably aware of where exactly the blasts would erupt, they scattered and regrouped like quicksilver, so that of the great swarm only a handful perished before closing in on their foes. The warriors were less fortunate - having remained still to issue their mental imperative, one was obliterated by the orbital strike, and several others bled foul ichor from shrapnel wounds.
At the heart of the outpost, the tide of the battle had begun to turn in the Sentinels’ favour. The chief psy-beast, gunfire blooming around it, had reached the culmination of its focus, and a shadow of alien thoughts briefly tore through the minds of the nearest marines as it unleashed a soundless scream into the ether. Yet after that a portion of the psychic weight clouding the entire battlefield was lifted, and the creature’s purpose seemed to be spent. Its force barriers faltered, and it fell smouldering to the concentrated fire, its scions following soon after.
Seeing this, the behemoth that guided the xenos force began to advance in person, snarling and shaking the ground with every step. The mass of leapers that swarmed ahead of it crouched down, preparing for a bounding charge across the battlefield, though leaving itself exposed for a moment.
Then, the wave that had crashed with the veterans fell with a final volley from the plasma rifles leaving no allies close enough to reinforce the vermin that engaged the ancient one, who was stomping upon them as they tried to get through its armor. More shots rang, focusing upon the vermin at the feet of the behemoth. From behind the great beast, a light shimmered as the forms of Terminators came through, stepping out into the battlefield already firing upon the floating beast that spewed cloud who lingered behind a building.
As more of the larger beasts were felled and scattered, the psychic presence that covered the xeno ranks faded further, and the thronging locusts began to waver. Those surrounding the dreadnought seemed to have lost their unnatural courage, and with nothing to direct them fell into the savagery of wild animals. Some continued to fruitlessly snap and lash at the sarcophagus in blind rage, but others wavered and turned away, disappearing into the snowdrifts or being cut down by the gunlines as they fled. The last of those ramming themselves against the barricades were swept away by a concerted volley, the final wave scrambling to take their place all while more bodies dropped among it.
A surge of mental command radiated from the colossal abomination, who was now gaining upon the center, and the cannon-wielding horrors ceased to harrow the entrenched Astartes to instead turn their weapons against the Terminators. In spite of their armour, some were struck. The last remaining great clawed monster, who was trying to round a building, abruptly turned about and trampled back, gathering momentum for a charge against the newly arrived reinforcements.
The Chapter Master raised his sword aloft at the sight of the Terminators, “The time is now Sentintels! Charge, in the name of the Omnissiah!”
The Astartes let out a cry of battle as they surged forwards with newfound confidence, their weaponry sweeping away the rest of the rodents with ease as the rest of their heavier weaponry focused between the great beast on the remaining psychic one. A great cacophony of explosions rang out as the plasma cannons met their marks and the lascannons fired. Missiles from one of the Terminators fired out to the great beast as they marched to ensure the beast had no escape.
By then few of the xeno horrors were standing besides the giant itself, and under the barrage of fires from all directions it too began to bleed. Projectiles were turned aside by its living armour, and plasma blasts dispersed against its psionic barrier, but it could not fully stem the flow. Burns and gashes on its body faded as its flesh reknit itself through unnatural force of vitality, but not fast enough. As the last of the psychic brood was disintegrated near it, the colossus likely sensed that its own end was near. With a frightful roar it charged at the Chapter Master himself, and power sword locked with blades of bone as it sought to slay the greatest of its enemies in a final act of fury.
The Chapter Master steeled himself, readying himself to face the great beast until he saw a dark form running up upon the rock face. A bright, iridescent light shown from behind the tyrannical beast and its own psychic power went against it, until it let out a terrible shriek as it attempted to meet the Chapter Master in battle only to fall at the feet of the Astartes. As the light dimmed, the form of the assassin became clear as the eye of his mask closed, looking upon his query. Before the Astartes could do anything, the assassin hopped off the rock face and began walking off. Then, the beasts that had remained back let out a multitude of roars and screeches, running off now that the head had been cut down.
Arikiba looked at the dreadnought, “Hunt them down in recompense for treating your weaponry in improper fashion, venerable one.”
“As you wish, Chapter Master. They shall die a thousand deaths,” the voice of the dreadnought boomed, stomping off to follow the beasts.
“Begin searching the outpost for information,” Arikiba ordered, looking to the Techmarine, who silently nodded and walked towards the main outpost building, his servo-arm whirling behind him as the Chapter Master looked upon the survivors, an entire squad nearly wiped out and the Terminators, now walking towards him, had suffered dearly.
“They ran off, Chapter Master. We are sorry for allowing them to run. We underestimated their capabilities,” the Sargeant stated, bowing his head in disappointment.
“Worry not, the beast would have fled had you not cut it off,” Arikiba said, stepping past them and allowing the others to take a moment of respite before he followed the Tech-Marine.
Though the outpost’s buildings had suffered from the engagement, most of the damage was at a superficial level, and the auspex and data systems within were still mostly operational. The rudimentary security safeguards, based on systems widely in use by the Imperial Army, were not difficult to bypass. Most of the information within was of little interest: garrison records, meteorological observations and the like. However, some entries made within the period that coincided with the last two local months mentioned by the Overseer leapt to the Techmarine’s senses. They were logs of a nearby supply line that seemed to have been established by a not better identified Legio Astartes complement, purpose undisclosed. The dutifully compiled records showed that the unnamed detachment had, with servitor assistance, been transporting cargo from a nearby orbit-ground landing zone to the coast. First construction materials, then unmarked sealed crates. No clear destination had been marked, but an estimated set of coordinates placed the convoys’ endpoint in the sea itself.
Besides that, no further clues shone any light over what had happened at YZ-202, or what connection the Ninth Legion may have had to any of that. Nothing, that was, until one of the Sentinel roving parties examined one of the smaller outlying buildings, likely an equipment depot. There, sprawled on the floor, was a suit of powered armour painted in the colours of the Abyssal Lurkers, with the markings of a tactical marine. It was undamaged, yet missing its helmet, and empty save for some fresh stains of blood and viscous ichor, disturbingly similar to what had spilled from the xenos’ wounds during the battle.
“Have that brought back to the ship,” The Chapter Master ordered to the techmarine before speaking into his vox, “I want a full thunderhawk search over the eastern seas and contact made with the Abyssal Lurkers, immediately.”
The Astartes Master walked out of the building, where he stood with his sword pointed into the ground, hands resigning upon the hilt where he waited for his transport. There were many questions that were going in his mind, though his mission had been completed and after the investigation had been finished they would leave this planet. That of course barred any abnormalities that they would have found. But it seemed that the world had yielded its full share of strangeness for that day. Nothing emerged above the waves, neither at the marked point nor anywhere nearby, nor was there any response to the repeated vox-hails. Whatever the warriors of the Ninth had been doing there, it was evident they had carried that secret to their untimely graves.
[TIME UNKNOWN - NO LINK WITH VERIFIED SOURCES FOUND]
The atmospheric cargo transporter touched down upon the snowy ground with a crunch. Had it arrived earlier - by days? weeks? - its rugged, weathered brown hull would not have seemed out of place on the rocky terrain, exposed by the venting and radiating thermal force of copious plasma fire. The winter was stiff, however, and such traces of the battle had been once again buried beneath a cold white shroud, against whose surface the vehicle stood out like the intruder it was. It was not uncommon for craft such as these to be employed by prospectors as they searched for more veins of the ores in which Soilis Prime was rich, and none had questioned its presence as it crossed the skies; yet it was undoubtedly strange that a crew which had just recently arrived planetside would travel here of all places.
The rear door opened with a clang, and a throng of figures spilled out. They had clearly not come unprepared for the planet’s inclement weather, draped as they were in heavy coats, scarves that concealed most of their faces and padded hats and helmets. Less readily explainable were the welding and engineering goggles that many of them wore, and the fact that each of them carried a stubber or simple lasrifle, wielded with a hunched and circumspect air that made them look more like heavily armed underhivers than soldiers. They spread in a semicircle around the transport, warily scanning the area, then one of them nodded and made a gesture at the interior of the aircraft as if to give the all-clear.
More shapes emerged from the cargo doors, but if the ones that had come before were to all appearances human, these seemed to have come from a different world altogether. They crawled across the ground on four or all six limbs, sharp tongues probing the air. They bore no weapons, but it was evident enough that they needed none. Their claws looked as though they could shred through the most robust of armour, and indeed as they moved the tracks they left in the snow dug deeper to leave small gouges in the rocky soil.
Behind them came a single tall, lean shadow, which as it stepped into the grey daylight resolved itself into an imposing man clad in sumptuous robes of purple. Despite his monstrous entourage, there was nothing in him that suggested he was anything less than human, besides perhaps a hint of a bony ridge at the fore of his perfectly bald head - but such a minuscule detail could easily be overlooked, for there was a subtle air in him and his bearing which instinctively induced trust and reverence. In his hand he bore a staff intricately adorned with spiraling patterns of silver, a great amethyst stone resting at its tip.
His hypnotically deep, dark eyes ran over the abandoned outpost. No forces had yet moved to reclaim it, not had any attempt been made to paint over the scorch marks left by stray blasts, nor restructure the building whose walls had been partly blasted open by the orbital strike. Mounds of snow had begun to form in its exposed interior.
“It’s here,” the man spoke in a commanding, yet almost reverent voice, like a priest raising a solemn invocation before the altar of his temple, “The Saviors have touched this place, I can feel it. The vision was true.” He turned his gaze up to the horizon, where the sea rustled and breathed just beyond view. “There’s still something echoing that way. Follow me.”
He set off at a brisk pace, holding his staff aloft to lead the way rather than leaning upon it. The armed troop walked in a circle around him, glancing around them and holding their weapons at the ready, while the xeno creatures crept and loped by his side. They crossed the trenches where, unbeknownst to them, Astartes had held back the rage of the outer void, paused at the spot where the psy-beast had issued its call, then walked away from the outpost at its opposite end, cresting the mild hills that lay beyond it.
The sea was there, at the foot of a low gravelly slope, grey and opaque like a rippling, flowing mirror. It splashed lazily against the shoreline, as if, like life on the planet, it was weighed down by the cold. The leader of the group imperiously pointed forward, and one of the creeping monsters sauntered down to the water before smoothly diving into it with barely any sound, uncaring or impervious to the chill altogether. All was quiet for one, two, five minutes, the armed escort looking nervously over their shoulders all the while, even as their leader remained untroubled and placidly stared ahead at the leaden waves. Then a surging wave, and the xeno resurfaced, clambering back onto the shore. It shared a glance with the leader, wordless meaning passing between the two, then crouched and turned back towards the sea.
Something else was emerging from the waters. A crest of sharp ridges, tubular pillars of chitin surmounting a domed spiny shell. Underneath it, a head like an oblong skull, bony and membranous, tapering into hungrily grasping tendrils. Pulsing sacs and bladed limbs, marked by scorched wounds of battle. Below it all, a long, wormlike tail. The creature utterly dwarfed the group as it stood suspended above the gently stirring sea, held aloft by no visible force.
Without so much as an exclamation of awe or surprise, the armed guards fell to their knees, eyes fixed upon the thing as it slowly writhed in place before them. The xenos slightly lowered themselves upon their limbs, but they made no such overt gesture of obeisance. The leader bowed his head reverently, murmuring something in an indecipherable language, then gingerly extended his left hand forward, fingers reaching towards the being. It continued to twist and oscillate for a moment, then raised the lower end of its tail, bringing its tip to touch against the proffered digits. Thoughts passed from a mind that was alien to one that was not quite human, and both slowly withdrew.
“The Star Saviors have been here,” he whispered, confident that his acolytes would hear him - and so they did, “The ignorant cattle of the Imperium struck them down, except for this shard. But they didn’t come of their own will, they were brought forth from the dead - no, not by our brothers. The Imperium’s primes, the legionaries. Why, I don’t know. The Gods absolved them of their sins, let them become one. Now they too are dead, but the call we heard has gone to their brethren. Like us, they will follow it. We must warn the Grandsire, our brothers. Let’s go.”
He turned about sharply and began to stride back towards where he had left the aircraft. The Kynazar creature was already ahead of him, drifting smoothly through the air as if it knew perfectly where it had to go. The guards rose to their feet in haste and hurried behind, and the xenos bounded after them, quickly outpacing them on their many limbs.
The sea was left behind, breathing and murmuring as though naught had happened out of the ordinary. It had seen many things over the aeons.
Elsewhere…
Veryan’s eyes opened as the fragmentary images subsided in his mind. It was not the custom of his forays into the deeper reaches of the consensus to bring him dreamlike visions, indeed quite the opposite, for the Lord Progenitor, long may his aeon be!, had seen to devising the Path so that it would rid its aspirants of such frivolities. Yet he was not in the least surprised when his immersion into the unmoving stygian pits of spiritual truth had been invaded by flashes of sight and muted sound. It was not difficult for him to recognise the intrusion for what it was, not a heretofore unknown burst of enlightenment, but a message, a summons through the immaterial from a mind far away.
The nature of that mind was more than a riddle. The animus of a Herald of Silence was warded against the clumsy, unclean touch of such spirits that were not attuned to the intrinsic purpose that was revealed through introspective discipline. It could thus have been no one else than one of his brothers, one of his very disciples. And yet, at the same time, the thoughts that had brushed his own were tinged with a peculiar shade, a depth, coldness and multiplicity he had never felt in the human-born. He let his gaze sink into the abyssal blackness visible beyond the mouth of his cave, his inner senses converging onto the question as the outer ones were untroubled by any stimulus.
There was something of the xeno in the psychic call, that much was unmistakable. Still, the thought did not incite the revulsion that would have been natural at such a realization. Not only of the xeno, but something that had been absorbed into it, something familiar. He reflected on what beings he knew that were capable of such subjugation. The Slaught were different, their touch viscid and verminous. The Khrave were awning pits of querulous, insatiable hunger. Not so this focused, ominous chorus-within-one. The more he pondered, the more he grew convinced that there was nothing like it he had ever met that he had not consigned to oblivion once its source was vanquished. Except perhaps… Yes. It could only be that.
The Grand Herald rose from his meditative posture and heavily strode out of the small cavernous chamber. With the hand of the ocean ever pressing upon one’s limbs, there was no room for haste in the depths. Every step, every motion had to be methodical, reasoned and deliberate. He rested his foot on the narrow ledge outside the entrance, the only thing separating the cave from the immeasurable chasm that opened beyond the sea-mount at whose edge he now stood and reached down to one of the deepest points of Carcinus’ waters. It was always sobering to know that he was but a misstep of an inch away from being forever claimed by the sightless trench. With a practiced movement, he rotated his body, bringing both his feet onto the outcropping, and began to descend the gently sloping path it formed around the tip of the rock wall. Time had no meaning in the deep, and thus it was maybe soon, maybe long before he at last rounded the ledge fully and came into view of that most familiar span of seafloor.
Dotted with thickets of kelp and small reefs, the Plains of Erebus stretched to the distant foot of the looming sea-shelf slope far in the distance, like an ensorcelled land under an eternal starless night. Jagged forms on long, spindly legs roamed about in the darkness, sifting through the lower murk or nibbling on the algal growths. Among them roamed armoured figures with staves of office, herding them with mere exertions of will or sitting on the ground, practicing the art of subsuming the lesser consciousnesses into their own. Off at the further end rose the basalt spires of Dis, the mighty fortress-monastery, yet he would not have to walk so far. The one he sought should have been out upon the Plains at that time.
With the same steady gait, Veryan made his way among the pillars of coral and forests of seaweed, among stalking charybdes and faceless acolytes. None gave a sign of having so much as seen him, absorbed as they were in their duties. Guided by memory more than by his withered psychic intuition, he parted a cluster of thick-stemmed growths and approached an Astartes hunched over a swarm of scavenger shrimp that darted around the carcass of a large seawurm. This was a place where currents carried many a dying beast, and, when outside his Apothecarion, Terech Ormis could often be found there, puzzling over the carrion-feeders of the abyss.
Sensing his movement through the water, the Fleshweaver half-turned over, his insectoid mask glancing over his shoulder.
Another of your seeds has given fruit, Veryan signed, Maybe not how you wanted.
Ormis spun about fully. Which? he asked with his needled fingers.
The Herald made a curious gesture that was not part of any code, a semicircle slightly angled to the side and ending in a loop. Awoken. Outcome unknown.
Come, you must tell me. The Fleshweaver, having wholly lost interest in the shrimp, began to walk in the direction of the distant citadel. Veryan fell into step behind him.
Sounds and images flashed as Zsresrinn refocused her senses through the cycle of disruptions that came with the destruction of a number of her drones. Normally this would not have been very taxing, but the sharp bursts of sensation from the void-howitzer’s shots gave her perception a slight pause as it was inundated by the blinding surges from several angles at once. In a moment, however, her briefly scrambled strands of mental input were cleared up again. She began to make her way towards the mouth of the path.
“Caution,” she hissed at Rho-Hux as he leapt into the thick of the jungle ahead of the group. It would have been false to say that she cared much about what happened to the gealtirocht, but, like it or not, for now they shared a common enemy. She would have to make the best of it. Perhaps more importantly, if he went in swinging he would stir up both the militias and the local fauna, which from what she had glimpsed was already dangerously agitated. Those creatures looked dangerously agile, and it was hard to tell how many of them there could be lurking around nearby. “Insurgents on alert, beasts prowling. Camouflage if you can. Direction is known.”
She gave a mental tug at one of the remaining symbiotes, and the eye-like drone rose into the air to indicate the way where the howitzer seemed to lie before ducking back into the undergrowth. It was best not to expose them too much as long as they were her only link to the deeper paths.
As she began to make her way through the brush, trying to step carefully on the tips of her legs but still making an unavoidable amount of noise, she glanced up with a row of eyes at Rho-Hux’s last words.
“Interrogation not my specialty. Will disarm as I can.” She brought her upper limbs forward, and wide recurve blades quietly extended from the shell along their length like unfolding palm leaves. Shooting where the trees grew so thick would be difficult, and if some feral creature decided to ambush them, she had best be ready to fight it off on its own terms.
