Grim Dark Tech Support: A Dark Mechanicum Quest

You look around the twisting, warping relay station, and make a decision.

You will be damned, if you leave this place empty-handed. You have been tortured, stabbed, had your dreams invaded and are sporting a brand-new mutation: you are owed some recompense.

Judging by their status as a puddle of fluid on the floor, the current leadership of the Coterie of the Blessed Lantern is not likely to object.

You can get out, surely. You're good enough to do so.

Talef objects, at least as first, but the prospect of being left alone makes him hurry along behind you fairly quickly.

You move at speed: though you have made the decision to linger and extract what value you can, there is still not much use in wasting time. The fact that the walls are beginning to bleed even as you walk past them only hurries your step.

More of the eyes are opening up, around you, metal eyelids peeling back from them with a horrifying screech. They follow you as you go, and though they sit in the wall entirely devoid of the context a human face would provide, you sense something like bemused surprise in them.

You move quickly, purposefully, using all that you know about how a station like this ought to be laid out.

Within six turns, you realize that you are utterly, hopelessly lost. The once unadorned steel of the intersection has been changed, twisted: gold has broken through its surface like a cancerous growth, forming patterns that could not have been devised by a human mind.

Your new hostess is redecorating, it seems. An amber liquid begins running slowly down the wall, and a quick auspex analysis reveals it to be honey.

For a moment, you hesitate, considering where best to go next, then you decide to pick whichever corridor seems the least mutated. You're not going to find loot, or escape, by walking into a warp rift and getting turned inside out.

Instead, you walk into Theama-Nul.

You almost shoot them, in the split second before they cant their identifier at you: an unrecognized, unknown person showing up out of nowhere tends to have that effect on you.

You do send them an angry burst of binaric informing them of such and demanding where in the name of the Empyrean they've been, and what they think they're doing here.

"I am here to get you", Theama-Nul tells you. "This entire station is in the process of turning into a Space Hulk and toppling into the Warp."

Well. It seems like you have a lot less time than you thought you did.

"We just have to find the Vault, and then we can get out of here", you tell your subordinate, and even despite the warp-enforced ambiguity, you can tell that he is throwing you an utterly incredulous look. "We are already possibly too late to make our way out of here. We have to go now, before the way back out closes up."

He turns around, gesturing through the door he just emerged from. Then he curses.

It is too late. The way back out has closed up.

Your way is barred by what appears to be a hexagramatically warded vault door, closed up by a fairly run of the mill gene lock. You turn, trying to find the way you yourself came, and find it closed by a similar door.

So is the way to your left, and to your right. As Theama-Nul reaches up and rips out the grate of an air vent, you are greeted by another vault door.

The Daemonette, it seems, has a sense of humor. You are going to get what you want after all.

Defeating the Gene Lock turns out to be no great feat: Magos Talef turn out to have all the genetic material you could ever need stuck in the profile of his boot

Compensation is something of a sticky topic, within the highly informal power structures of the forces of Chaos. Trading favors is frequent, but also frequently fraught with issues: everyone has good reason to distrust each other. Material Goods, as such, are frequently preferred. This comes, of course, with its own issues. What is seen as extremely valuable to one side is frequently worthless to the other. This can lead to extremely beneficial trades, but it can also lead to situations where establishing a worthwhile trade is extremely difficult.

What you see in the vault speaks to this: the Coterie, it seems, valued the trappings of luxury and comfort. You do not. For a moment, as you wade through a literal sea of gold that is worthless to you as anything but highly conductive material, hyperweave silk of no practical use whatsoever, and gemstones.

At first glance, coming here was a mistake.

"Is that what I think it is", Theama-Nul cants at you, and for once there is no concealing the awe in their voice.

You follow their gaze, and see something that immediately makes you forget all your misgivings. Propped up on a pedestal, given pride of place within the vault, is a single, oversized gauntlet, cast from a metal that has the shine and luster of gold but certainly isn't, at least going by auspex readings.

It's Auramite. Unless you are gravely mistaken, you have found the glove of a Custodian. Even the possibility of such is breathtaking. Recovering a single speck of genetical material might provide the single biggest acquisition of knowledge you have ever made.

The Glove disappears into your pack without second thought or comment. If Theama wishes to object, he does not show it. He wouldn't, though. All the sudden you become aware that you are now in possession of something you yourself definitely wouldn't hesitate killing for.

After all, who would ask questions about somebody dying in the depths of a warp phenomenon.

This makes rummaging through the rest of the vault a somewhat daunting experience, though neither Theama-Nul nor Talef seem to pay you much mind anymore as they begin to rummage through the leavings in the chamber.

There are a few more things of value or potential value you find, amongst all the displays of shallow wealth. Six doses of a hallucinogen that is exotic and powerful even by your standards. The Warp Eye of a Navigator, encased in amber. A small coil of platinum wire, engraved at a microscopic level with symbols useful for warding off daemons. You do, on a whim, pick up a small bolt of Nightweave Silk, just enough to make a robe from it. Though it is not for you, you think Regicia might enjoy it.

The station rumbles around you. It may be time to leave.

You look around for a way out, and instead spot a vaulted door, labeled, in gilded script and high gothic, as the 'Chamber of Cognition'.

You pause. You peer through the door. Despite the fact you have long replaced your lungs with far more efficient systems, you feel your breath catch in your throat.

Within the chamber, illuminated by gentle spotlights, you see four artifacts, each of incredible value.

The Daemonette laughs in your ear. "You are a strange one, Eta. So careful, except when it comes to acquiring. I like it, though. I am very much in favor of striving for more then what you have. Still, we wouldn't want to be too generous, would we? One! You get to pick one."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Artifacts]

[] The Brain
It looks to be a standard-pattern Cerebral Preservation Tank, in good working order and with its stasis field intact: in other words, the preserved mind and knowledge of whoever is caught within, at your taking with just a bit of tinkering.
It is inscribed as containing 'Magos Varduvel Vettel'.

That name does ring a bell: one of the old monsters, a Magos Malefactor specializing in the construction of Daemon Engine Hulls, last seen when his ship was boarded by the Savage Pact in lieu of payment for the Daemon Engines he'd delivered to them. So that's where he's gotten off to.

[] The Stone
An egg-shaped, faceted crystal, about the size and weight of a human heart, psychic energy pulsing inside it. You know what this is, of course: no primer on Xenobiology held by a Daemonette would've held out on this particular detail. You are holding a Spirit Stone, containing the soul of a dead Eldar: useful as a source of energy or a bargaining chip, and perhaps even for the knowledge contained within, if it could be extracted.

Also, or so the back of your mind keeps insisting, delicious.

[] The Heart
The Heart is larger than a human heart would be, and fixed into a frame made of bone by what appears to be razor wire. This, too, your newly acquired knowledge helps you quickly identify: the heart of an Eldar, and probably of a Drukhari, given that it still appears to be beating. The modifications that have been made to it suggest that whoever it belonged was either one of their famed Haemonculi or at least in their care for an unusually long period of time: there is potential there, for trade or the acquisition of knowledge, if you are willing to grasp it.

[] The Machine
The Device is made up, as far as you can see, of iridium and platinum, and kept in a cage made of copper wire, but the more you look at it, the more you become certain that it can only be one thing: an artificial brain, created before the prohibition on such devices existed, presumably dormant but probably still possessing whatever intelligence it once held. Who knows what secrets lie hidden in its depth? Who knows what malice does?

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Daemonette titters, at your choice. "Very interesting", she tells you.

"Oh", she says, suddenly thoughtful. "Really, I never introduced myself. I am Salaala, Salaala Gorgefeast."

She says the second name with relish, with satisfaction, as though it were a trophy freshly won.

"Well, Eta Nu 9 35, I believe that it is now time for you to go."

You can hear Salaala grin, even without seeing her, and then your Auspex is going wild, and around you, the vault begins disintegrating, walls made of solid adamantium dissolving as though they were ice in contact with fire.

You do not look at what is revealed behind them. It is nothing you haven't seen before, of course, but still, looking directly into the Empyrean is never good for your health.

You run. Theama-Nul and Myges Talef, devoid of any other options, run behind you.
Salaala did promise to let you leave. She is, it seems, good to her word: you see the hatch of an escape pod appear before you.

Devoid of any other option, you leap through it, your subordinates closely behind you, just getting in before the hatch closes with a resounding, mechanical clang.

Charges fire. The escape pod launches.

Very rapidly, you become aware that you are not in the backwater that housed the Astropathic Relay Station anymore. You have been transported rapidly through space.

Salaala was precise with her words. She let you leave.

She just omitted where you would be let out.

There is a planet in your path, but it is several hours off.

Theama-Nul uses the delay to fill you in, extremely briefly: 8-Doxa, you learn, is alive, extracted to the Wilful Eternity by the Yulrasians that fought alongside him, though heavily wounded. The Skinpiercer is destroyed: crippled by the boarding assault and then hit by the Eternity's plasma cannon to prevent a last-ditch effort to destroy the newly forming Hulk.

They cannot tell you more than that: after, they returned to the Hulk to aid in your extraction and subsequently lost contact with the ship.

"There is…something else", Theama-Nul tells you, and sends an image of a corridor that…appears to be entirely empty.

"We may have a problem."

You frown. There is nothing in the image. You check it again. Nothing. You disassemble it into a grid and go piece by piece.

Wall Plates, the rivets holding them together formed in a way that speaks to having been forged according to Mars-Pattern STCs. Rust, spreading across the walls, speaking of inferior alloying. There is a leak in what appears to be a sewage pipe. Nothing. Tread marks along the floor speak to heavy duty servitors being used to carry cargo.

You frown. You force your attention back. Nothing. You isolate the offending sector, disassembling it into smaller pieces. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Theama-Nul looks at you attentively, and then directs your attention to a puddle of sewage-water on the floor: something is reflected within, if barely. You catch a glimpse of light green and silver.

"How did you even find this", you ask, and your subordinate shrugs. "You get used to looking for things your mind is telling you aren't there", they tell you.

You are halfway through telling them that that sounds pathological when your mind suddenly insists, impossibly, that you have never met the person in the pod with you in your life.

Well. Fair play, you are forced to admit. "So, any idea why?", you ask, and are met with a languid shrug. "None, yet. Seems unlikely for it to be the end of it, though."

You nod, then look through the tiny viewport of the Escape Pod.

it is not, you reflect somewhat dourly, as though you are going to be in any position to look into that, for the time being.

The planet has grown closer, by now, and for a moment you think it is a gas giant, and that you are to be the victim of a particularly mean joke on the part of Salaala. That, at least, is quickly dispelled: the world before you appears solid, but a cloud of dust surrounds it.

There is something strange, about that cloud: it is too evenly spread around the planet, it's particles of an odd size, of a strange color.

"Salt?", Talef asks, seeming to temporarily forget that he is currently not talking to you.

He is correct: it is a cloud of salt, interspersed with what seems like other materials, forming a strangely hypnotic pattern around whatever lies below.

"Ritualistic", Theama-Nul opines, and obviously it is at this point you get close enough to spot the skeletons: hundreds of them, interspersed with the swirling material in the clouds.

"Containing something?", you cant to your subordinate, and Theama-Nul shrugs eloquently.

"Your guess is as good as mind", they opine.

Whatever it is, it seems entirely unlikely that you aren't going to breach right through it.

"Sensor Lock", Talef tells you, and for a moment you are convinced you are about to die, that this is actually it, that the Daemonette has sent you to your doom after all. Then you breach the clouds, and one of the Skeletons shatters against the viewport of the pod.

For a moment, you cannot see at all: a shroud of particulates trails after you and then begins burning up in the atmosphere. It is only when the brilliant colors subside that you can see where you are going. Your own entry, along with the debris that trailed after you, seem to have punched holes into the cloud cover. Beams of sunlight are stabbing towards the ground, illuminating the ground below in what may be the first time in forever.

You are in an Escape Pod, with limited steering: just one quick burst in one direction or the other at best. That will, however, be just enough to make it to one of the three spots below.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Landing Site]
[] The Ruined City
Somebody has gone to great length to destroy the city scape you see sprawling out below you: at a glance, you see the marks of at the very least atomic weaponry, added to by the warping of metal associated with Lance Fire and the general ash cover that tends to endure after viral bombardment. Somebody really wanted to destroy the city, though the limited glance you have tells you that a lot of the ruins seem surprisingly intact.

Whatever caused the containment of this world in the first place, you are likely to discover hints to it here. Of course, that also means there is likely to be dangers, both from remnants of the weapons used and from whatever they attempted to destroy in the first place.

[] The Glowing Forest
Not a forest in the first place, you note, at least not in the traditional sense: fluorescent fungi stretch out far beyond the edge of the limited sunlight, some of them reaching more then ten meters in height. It is, you grasp, an ecosystem not requiring sunlight. If there is intelligent life on the world below, it is likely to be there, and food and water will be more readily available than elsewhere.

But of course, such ecosystems are likely to be dangerous, and you will need to be careful not to become the prey instead

[] The Wreck
Upon a Glacier below lies a shipwreck, a hole burned through its flanks by what must have been an anti-orbital defense cannon, though surprisingly intact other than that. It is likely to be the best way off the planet. It also seems to have come to rest in an environment utterly inimical to life, and repairing it will be a task bordering on the impossible.