Loyalty is its own Reward (A Traitor Legion Chapter Master Quest)

Located within the fortress monastery of the Mist Shrikes, Techmarine Noricum would be seen supervising several dozen chapter serfs in a sectioned off area of the monastery's many forges. The sounds of hydraulic hammers and discharging plasma cutters creating a pleasant symphony of holy industry that any devote servant of the machine god would appreciate. Hymns, blessed incense, and consecrated oils- all things necessary to placate the machine spirits within their practiced weapons.

His gait was languid, moving with an inhuman grace despite the weight of his armor and the erratic movements of the many mechadendrites attached to his servo-harness, their inbuilt optics moving about to record every and all around his purview, while several servo-skulls utilized their pict-recorders for additional educational redundancy. All around him combat fatigue clad serfs covered in varying levels of consecrated oils focused all their efforts upon the heaps of wargear found in various states of assembly upon the many shared benches.

"Stop" uttered the marine with a cold finality, all work ceasing as the unaugmented around him the took several steps away from their stations so the giant among men may better assess their works. With practiced ease the techmarine would go around to each work station, explaining all errors they've made whilst making corrections. Many looked upon their impromptu mentor with despair knowing they would require many more hours of practice before they were considered "good enough" to his very reasonable standards. Like overly dramatic children a few among them had the gal to fell kneel in faux despair, cursing the skies for whatever slight they may have cause. A chuff of quiet laughter escapes him as he watched for but a moment, before continuing grading their works.

Despite the misgivings of some, many more passed with flying colors, with even a few notables mildly impressing him. Those few notables he would allow to continue working until their labors were second nature to them after his assessment, before quietly moving them to marginally more difficult tasks such as working with heavy stubbers, mortars, and the holy heavy bolters. Possibly tomorrow if not the day after.

Stopping next to an occupied bench, the serf -some fifteen year old young man who was unfortunately too old to join his brotherhood- would continue his methodical assembly of several patterns of lasguns, oblivious to his towering presence, occasionally slowing his work to adjust the weapons' circuitry or realign its focus lenses. He recognized it for what it was- someone graced -if only briefly- by the Omnissiahs' benevolence, their mind deeply focused, their body an instrument of His will. Mentally marking down the young man as a potential tech priest candidate to be sent with the next batch of techmarine hopefuls, the marine would wordlessly signal for everyone to continue, leaving a few senior serf trainees to supervise this group as he moved on to the next.

Stepping through an automated threshold Noricum would be beholden to the sight of serfs pouring over various dataslates as he passed by -from a cursory glance it would seem to be designs for schematics to lasguns and data on small group tactics. Making his way to the front, the techmarine would afford the little people their time to notice his presence. A minute passed to the marines amusement, finding humor in the serfs' lack of awareness, or perhaps he and his brothers were just too sneaky.

"Greetings" he spoke, causing a number of them to fumble and nearly drop their slates, with one woman shrieking in fright- no wait, that's a grown man. Heh, how humorously unfortunate for him. He should consider scaring serfs more often. "I am brother Noricum, Techmarine of the Mist Shrikes as you all know." He spoke, the vox filter of his helmet amplifying his voice so he may be heard over the sounds of machinery surrounding them. "Proud men and women of Luctus, it bring me great honor to mentor you all in the art of war- specifically wargear. 'Why? Why focus on equipment instead of training of bodies' you might ask? The answer: To defeat the enemies of humanity, one must know themselves and the tools at their disposal. Several brothers including myself have shown concern over the results involving the simulated combat exercises between the legion and chapter serfs. While we have faith that you will surpass the local PDF in prowess -eventually- we believe that you would benefit further from understanding your equipment, be it using or maintaining."

From below the table a swarm of mechadendrites would gather the various pieces of technologies, neatly presenting them on the surface of the table. "For starters, the flak armour. Consisting of multiple layers of different ablative and impact absorbent materials, it's designed primarily to deflect or absorb the majority of the force from a shot or blow. It is meant to provide defense against low-velocity, dispersed damage, such as explosions, shrapnel and ricochet material, rather than to protect against a direct impact, in which case the armour's protection is almost negligible. The ablative characteristics of the armour provide further defence against heat and energy based damage. Some layers commonly used include Carbon-fibre, Plasfibre and Thermoplas strips. The vest consists of a skeleton of lightweight, flexible metal. This skeleton is then wrapped in multiple layers of a high-tensile fabric that is the main protective component of the armour. After multiple layers of fabric are affixed to the skeleton, the vest is given its toughened outer shell. The same principle is used in the production of the helmets, bracers and guards for knees and legs."

After your explanation and a round of quizzing, the marine felt satisfied enough to move on with his lecture, where he displayed a piece of rigid torso armor cut in half by it's length. "As useful as standardized flak armour might be, we've found that it's design could be improved upon, if only minutely. What you see within the cavity of the vest plate are armaplas honey combs filled with a specialized lighter than air carbon based substance called aerogel. Capable of tolerating high levels of heat and surviving several direct hits from a lasgun, this relatively inexpensive modification in tandem with a ceramite based paint compound could in theory improve a personals odds of survival by a good, ten, maybe even twelve percent in most engagements. A relatively small number, but rather impressive enmass. We've also found that some of the fauna native to this world could potentially be useful in the construction of higher quality flak and carapace grade armor, if only we were capable of doing so sustainably with fewer casualties." He grumbled.

"Moving on, *THUMP* this. This may look similar to your run of the mill Lasgun, but note the difference. The longer barrel, additional power pack, and extra heat sinks to prevent warping of the barrel. This my students is the Sniper Variant Lasgun, or simply the Nocnitsa pattern longlas. The weapon is a modification of the standard Lasgun with an XC 52/3 strengthened barrel, which is both longer and thinner than the usual model, affording it greater range and accuracy. Fitted on the end of the muzzle is a flash suppressor. This attachments as a positive consequence makes the weapon quieter, and ensures that the flash of a lasgun does not give away your position. On the top of the weapon is a teliscopic scope that MIGHT one day be replaced by an auspex based scope, if we could afford the time and materials to make that many. Lasty, this model is equipped with two charge packs instead of one. Normally you would need one, and use hotshot chargepacks, but we've not the time to make that many, so. Two packs to make up for the discrepancy, however to make up for the extra weight the longlas will have three firing settings: single action, burst fire, and overload. The previous two are self explanatory, but the latter will fire a higher intensity beam that's almost as powerful as a hellgun. I should warn you all; if you do utilize the overload setting, ensure you pace your shots else you may overload the gun itself and cause it to either misfire, melt the barrel, or turn the whole think into an improvised krak grenade. Beyond that the longlas at it's standard setting is capable of felling highly armored foes, more so that a typical Lasgun. Keep in mild, in an ideal scenario you will be utilizing these in mid to long range engagements, but if you must use them within short range of your target you're more liable to succeed if you were to hip fire it."

Handing out additional copies of the Longlas to his giddy students, Noricum would begin drilling the chapter serfs in the ancient ways of "how to not look down the barrel and shoot yourself on accident." A truly storied tradition dating back to the early days of mankind's rise to glory. With flashlights in hand the serfs would untilize the near by firing range to familiarize themselves with their tools of war.

'Hmm, they seem to be doing just fine, and no one has been shot on accident yet. A resounding success If I do say so myself. Hopefully we'll have the carapace assembly line soon, though I do wonder if Masters Zel and Fretensis will praise me for my ingenuity, or box my ears for my acts of tech heresey. Oh well! Problems for future Noricum.' The Techmarine thought to himsel- "AAAAAAHHH!" "Dammit- Жопа с ручкой! You've angered the machine spirit! You are lucky your foot was cauterized. Now go limp to the Apothecarium!"

"чертово дерьмо these serfs are too green for me."

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@ThunderOwl Skidaddle Skidoodle!
Yeah so I was gonna write more, but I'm tired and I don't feel like waiting. Good nuff! I might write a part two, but I dunno. Site ate my original post so I have to unfucky a wucky and I am miffed! Hecked even! It feels incomplete. Sleep soon.

I don't remember what was Noricum's personality like. If what i wrote sounds nothing like em gimme a name of one of the marines woth no personality.

Let me know if you find any errors.

I think Жопа с ручкой means "ass with a handle" and figuratively means something useless or pointless.
чертово дерьмо- fucking shit

note to self- Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, stubbers, autoguns, carapace, servitors