You watch her fret over everything. She glides to and fro on a customized Canoptek-platform, fingers fluttering like startled butterflies while she directs swarms of scarabs and squads of Warriors. They bring in glowing geodes, drag heavy machinery and carry bundles of shimmering cloth. Lines more wait outside, shepherded in by the handmaidens by the door.
You chuckle as Raethis flutters around a Spyder, only property keeping her from pulling at the priceless necrodermis the hulking construct is manhandling.
"You're so taken," you say, casual. "You'd think that this was the Phaerakh's private quarters, not the retreat of an old hag."
She doesn't need the facial motions to look stunned. Her channel goes up with the feeling enough.
"I'd like you to refrain from saying such things, Mother," she says, calm and prim and showing just a touch of the shock hammering against your connection. "You are and remain a previous holder of the Scarred Throne, a renowned and respected matriarch who ought to be shown the highest courtesy. And a far better choice than the actual one." She murmurs the last part, but you still catch it.
Scoffing, you beckon. "Come sit with me." You pat the empty, blocky stool at your table.
"But…!" Raethis looks in distress at the servants.
"Oh, don't fret. It's just a crypt. And I need your help with this anyway."
That gets her gliding closer, and when she notices what you're looking at, she acquiesces.
You lounge back on your chair with a sigh, nursing your tea. You may have said a little lie: it's not only a crypt. Why, a Lord's crypt is arguably his second most important asset, right after his weapon. In your case, it's the third, your laboratory included, but the point stands. As such, you're not so uninterested in it as you play it off: many of your processors are working on it, as calmly and with as much focus as you'd give to an important experiment. Can't make a poor figure after all, can you?
As your more social dwelling, you chose a series of chambers in the Pale Quarter. Physical closeness to the Phaerakh denotes social standing, but you didn't overdo it: your quarters are as close as any honored advisor. The role suits you, you found, giving you a freedom of movement and choice that having the throne wouldn't give you. Or maybe you're just rationalizing, who knows?
The crypt is the standard for nobles: a heavily guarded antechamber, dotted with automated defense turrets, Gauss walls and guarded by servants, in your case, your handmaidens, who have their stasis-chambers there. The lone entrance is a large gate engraved with your personal glyph in silver thread and that can be opened only with your signature. It leads to a gallery, usually engraved with a family history. For you, since only the Phaerakh's quarters can be graced by that particular sight, it's simple An'Lekh themed on hope and the future.
The gallery opens on an exhibition room doubling as a waiting room for guests. It's here that supplicants are supposed to wait, to be accepted beyond or sent back. For the former, it's a series of chambers dedicated to social gatherings, hobbies, sparring, simulations, digital libraries, entertainment avenues and art galleries. By anyone without the eyes to see it, it's a gloomy, spartan place lit by the glow of Gauss and filled with alien apparatus. To you, it's alive, a forest of An'Lekh reaching to you with fey voices with invitations to relax, entertain yourself and feel beyond the cold of your machine flesh and the galaxy outside. Or as intimidating echoes, depending on who comes.
Space is a non-factor. The Tombworld is, well, a world, and the people qualifying for the terms number in the thousands, with the rest needing only a capsule for maintenance. So, it's not strange that a noble like you can get the equivalent of thirty halls as your personal turf. No, what matters is how these halls are kept, which it's… not so good. The decor is substandard, put on by Canoptek instead than the well-tuned touch of a Cryptek. Normally, no Lord would put up with it, but these aren't normal times, are they?
With the Imothu kicked out from the heavy quantity Gauss club, there's no way for them to fill all the crypts with their arts in a brief time, not in the quality any self-respecting Lord would want. And since the rulers' crypt HAS to be far better than all the rabble, the art of the Lineage is reserved for it, which means that everybody else has to do with the lower rung of the ladder. Why, it's almost enough to wound your delicate sensibilities. Not even An'Lekh of the Un rank? Why, you'd never think you suffer the indignity.
Entertainment factor aside, your quarters divide further in a third layer, this one reserved to you and those who have your confidence and, relative, trust. This is where the useful stuff is, like the outer servers of your Thought Loom and Chronal Engine, as well as your Thread Matrix and the more comfortable, more reserved places of leisure.
Deeper still, it's your personal quarters, where you and only you are allowed access, and whose door is guarded at any moment of eternity by an impressive crowd of Handmaidens, or Khepra when she's not busy chasing you around. This is where the really useful stuff lays: the core of your Thought Loom and Chronal Engine, your personal data archive, where you store the information you want more than a copy of, your personal laboratory, a smaller replica of your real, more hidden one. And speaking of hidden, this is where you keep your precious stuff, to be exposed in your personal museum, protected in your treasury, shielded in your vault, or contrabanded in your bolthole.
And lastly, beyond the best you can muster in defense and surveillance, your maintenance equipment, and, of course, your sarcophagus.
It's quite the comprehensive formula, all of it enclosed in an autonomous shell shielded from outside teleporting and kept under constant surveillance by a small army of Canoptek, both motionless and skulking about.
Organics would call this a tomb, a place of pulsing light, eerie silence and deep gloom. To you, it's a nest of silence and stability amidst eternity. And you intend to keep it neat and tidy.
You think that as you raise a hand and pat your daughter. She perks up for a moment, a spring-loaded doll short-circuiting, before relaxing in her seat. Her end of the channel twinkle with a mix of embarassment and happiness.
"So?" You ask after some time. Raethis follows your gaze.
You are in the Hem, the central hall of the house. It's here that the family head sits on a throne all but similar to the one of the Phaeron, and here where he looks over guests, family and subjects alike.
The hall goes through the crypt, half into the outer layer and half into the inner one, like the center of it all that it is. And it's here that in the old times families gathered to have meal, chat, share stories, sing and play together, and apply to each other the medicines and ointments that were the Necrontyr's first weapons in their endless war against malady.
The hearth is gone, and so is the table and the food, made obsolete by metal that needs neither. But the space remains, as it always did down you kin's old history, and so does the Wadj, the Heart-Wall, where the family engraves their story. For once, not of glory, or wealth, or power, but of the little moments, those closer to the heart, those tidbits that made a family, and that someone bold could say made life worthy of being lived.
For you, your Wall has no images of a child's first steps or his awkward scrabblings, of a walk together under the sun of a distant desert or the burned matchsticks from times when power gave out, of that time your eyes first met, or that broken Canoptek he once gifted you, of stormy nights passed fretting over sickbeds, or spoons, dented and smoothed by their stubborn use handling remedies. There will be times for those, you hope, those little things that deserve more than a stasis field and a fleeting glance. For now, it's only you, your daughter and his husband, stick figures amongst a crowd of faces of subjects, allies and children. Your children.
Raethis reaches out, and the wave of Scarabs busy scrabbling the image move aside, revealing the image. Your figure – a thin, long stick with a big grin – has her arms around a scowling Tefetra-shaped ball and a shyly smiling, petal-soft Raethis.
Feeling the soft glow in her channel end, it's not hard to imagine the same gracing her features.
"It's… it's nice."
You chuckle, patting her gently.
NEW DWELLING
Noble Quarters: An elaborate series of halls and chambers with one heavily fortified entrance. Built in the sharp-edged, geometrical style typical of the Necron, with black lithonecris edged and veined with silver and glowing Gauss conduits. Divided in four, trust-based layers, these quarters would appear as an alien tomb to any other race. To yours, they are an elegant dwelling worthy of any Necron noble, alive with An'Lekh picturing vistas and feelings of relaxation, waiting only for the right eyes to see them.
It goes Horrible- Bad - Mediocre - Average - Good - Excellent - Supreme (For a Necron)
Entertainment: Mediocre (How much your guests enjoy their stay)
Gathering and training halls, digital cinemas, Canoptek puppet theaters, Gauss, hologram and molecular art galleries, halls for traditional hobbies like strategy games, statuette production, digital diving and hologram sculpting; sensory-deprivation pods for high-speed processing and more. The bare minimum for a Necron noble. The problem is that apart from what the Dynasty's members kept in their personal databanks, there's little to fill the spots. And nobody wants to look at empty pedestals. The rest reeks of went there, done that.
Impression: Mediocre (How much those who wish to impress are impressed)
A noble-grade jamming field, sturdy walls, automated defenses, Canoptek, the Xoratlek and shimmering . It would make for an good enough sight if not for the subpar An'Lekh. Statues of your likeness and impressions of your personal glyph litter the place, but the rough touch of a Canoptek is painfully obvious. Good thing that all the nobles have to content themselves with this level of indignity.
Defense: Average (How much you can keep intruders out)
Gates of heavily plated Necrodermis. Automated Gauss and Tesla turrets. Traps ready to unleash a slew of radiations, lightning or erect stasis fields. A web of surveillance Scarabs and Canoptek. Flayed Ones prowling the gloom and Handmaidens standing guard. A jamming field keeps most teleportation attempts out, but not those warp-based. It's as good as any Noble can ask for. You can do better.
Secrecy: Average (How much you can keep hidden things hidden)
A treasure trove of unspeakable secrets is a given in a noble's personal quarters. You have your amount of hidden boltholes to hide things in. A heavily shielded vault acts as both a treasury for your most prized possessions and a cage for your most dangerous ones.
Special Objects & Location:
- Thought Loom: An irreplaceable tool in any noble's arsenal, this delicate lattice of flowing data and necro-granulate atop a basalt-like basament contains a massive amount of digitalized memories and protocols. It allows any Necron who connects to it to enhance his processing power, weave new modus operandi via protocols, as well as to review previous situations and interactions.
+1 Learning
- Chronal Engine: A incredibly powerful computer, this data engine is optimized to simulate versions of future encounters, predicting outcomes and allowing a savvy lord to be ready for any situation. It is said that the most powerful examples of the Chronal can put Eldar future sight to shame.
+1 Intrigue
- Heart-Wall: Where memories are set to glow. For now, it's you, your daughter and his son. Your children are there as well, but they are faint.
- Noble Sarcophagus & Maintenance Apparatus: A somber sarcophagus carved by a single block of necrodermis, filled with the liquid black and delicate equipment needed to maintain your frame and engrams. A specialized, multi-legged Canoptek keeps vigil over it, ready to repair you in case you are destroyed. You are quantum-locked to this position, and will be returned to it in case of mortal damage. The sarcophagus sports a silver glyph containing a copy of your memories and it's carved in your likeness.
- Minor Laboratory: An average laboratory, with all the tools needed form your average Cryptek.
-------------------------------
Making up with Tefetra: 78+8=86. Success!
"I never see you and that boy together lately. How come?"
"I… Tefetra is always so busy…"
"…"
"…and I am too, there's so much to do and…"
"…look at me, girl."
"…I am scared, Mother."
"Scared?"
"I-I fear what the Transference did to his mind. He… suffers, Mother. He mourns for what he lost… I-I was the one who convinced him… I…"
"You feel guilty, and can't bring yourself to talk to him."
"…yes."
"You younglings and your foolishness. Oh, don't look at me like that, I know what I said."
"…o-oh! I-I am sorry."
"Mh? Sorry? And for what? I am not faulting you for anything, daughter. If someone is to blame, I am. Apapap. No need for words. Leave everything to Mother. Well, a tiny part of it. No, no buts."
Tefetra's thoughts have been moving in dark places lately. The loss of his fate, of his very flesh, the confusion of it all have been grinding at him like whetstones against a rock. His mind revolves around two figures.
The old crone. About her, he's certain enough: she returned all of a sudden from the Silent Court, brought her green fire and told them all they needed to throw themselves into it before it was too late. He doesn't fault her attempt to spare them all from the C'tan's hunger, but he does her clinging to life. Much better for all of them to have died with honor rather than be condemned to this fate of cold and undead.
Nobody seems able to see it. They act and speak and talk like nothing happened, like their change was for the better, instead of the damnation it is. Sometimes, it makes him wonder if they have all gone crazy, and if he's the only one sane.
And then, her. She, who's so intelligent and graceful and cultured and beautiful and radiant. However could it have happened for an oaf like him to end at her side? Even the Change couldn't mar her. Her soul shines as bright as she did. It makes him shake, makes him desire with equal force to embrace her and rip apart that horrible shell holding her prisoner.
Dark thoughts, and dark places. They made him feel like a blind man, lost in the dark of the night. Now, in in his quarters, looking down at the weapon lovingly laid on delicate, starlit-spun necrodermis, it feels like a small star is shining through.
The Gauss cannon is massive, at home as a heavy Barge's main weapon. It's new yet familiar, and Tefetra feels more than knows that if he turns it, he'll find the old dent from a Krork Warlord axe, and that if he slids it into the compartment in his left palm, it will slide and clack and connect with his systems, ready to emerge with the flicker of a mental impulse.
He recognizes her touch on it, where she has repaired the cracks and mended the broken firing chamber. How could he not? That's how he quickly see that the small message – claws dragged on a piece of necrodermis – isn't her doing.
Bold letters, played out rather than inscribed, tease him from the other person taunting his thoughts.
We're not dead yet, fool. And anyway, who said I want you around her for all eternity? ;D
Tefetra crushed it with a massive fist. Grunting, he grabbed the cannon. It felt good, heavy as only a truly good weapon could be.
Dark places and dark thoughts. They didn't feel as clogging as before now.
Well, at least until he heard her minute steps. That's when all his savage machine strength drained away and all he could was waddle around and face her.
Radiant. As always. It would have been a crime to touch her, let alone hurt her, no matter the shell.
In the end, he was the mad one, not the other way around.
---------------------
You watch them talk, Tefetra leaning forward like a bear that suddenly found his big body to be awkward and unwieldy, Raethis standing up like a flower turning to the light.
You shake your head, smiling. The younglings' foolishness… which is the old ones' foolishness, which is very serious business. Certain things need no Bio-Transference to come out, really. And it's quite surprising how easily they can be resolved.
Tefetra Standing +2!
By assisting in breaking their inability to communicate, you helped Tefetra break out of his dark mood. He starts to recover.
TEFETRA GAINS TRAIT= Deathseeker -> Riskseeker. Tefetra longs for the blood that once pumped hot in his veins. Still, now he remembers that there's something worth living for, even as a cold machine.
TEFETRA GAINS EQUIPMENT= The Roar of Sekmat: This massive Gauss cannon was broken during the fight between Tefetra and Azkabah, with the Phaeron too taken by his dark thoughts to have it repaired. Fixed by Raethis, it fits in the Phaeron's palm once more, ready to unleash torrents of Gauss energy on any opponent who dares to stand in the way of the King of Might.
AC - Doneeeeee. This took far too long to get out. Still, good new all around. Not only you guys get a home (Necrons are all about treasure and showing it off, better start hoarding), but my health look about to (finally) starting to improve, so maybe in a few weeks I'll be able to roll out the rework I've been munching on since the beginning of the quest. I hope you guys keep along with my crazy brain. Toodles!
