Alien Beast and How to Find Them (Warhammer 40k)

[Wirbelwind]

Eight spine covered legs penetrated the soft black undersoil, propelling a sleek, silver-plated tri-segmented body at extreme speed. A pair of delicate pseudo-antenna, modifications of the vestigial second mouth common to primitive lifeforms of this planet, picked out minute chemical signals in the air itself. Each barbed appendage was placed directly above a pair of protruding mandibles, themselves brutally jagged things which already oozed a horrific chemical soup in anticipation of their next grim feast. Powerful hydraulic pistons waited in their chitin sheaths for the command to launch the entire twisted face of shell and bone forward at blistering speed.

This was the visage of the craniafugid, a brutal, streamlined predator and accomplished hunter. Hunting success rates in excess of 90% are typical among mature specimens, as this one was. The silver hide of the pseudo arthropod provided excellent protection from blunt and bladed weapons in the same size class of its wearer, and a lightning-fast bite and necrotic venom provided offensive capability to match.

A specimen of this size was truly ancient among its species, likely the progenitor of thousands of offspring, and victor over hundreds of rivals. By best available records, this was the product of 50 million years of evolution. Khaine himself would be impressed by its lethality and propensity for violence. Truly a master at its niche, survivor of a mass extinction, and an organism likely to continue on for a few million years more.

It hadn't, however, evolved any defenses against the translucebone specimen collection cup placed over it, and so I found no issue in capturing the 4-inch monster and placing it delicately into a wraithbone holding rack containing a dozen other similar species of differing coloration.

My guide and escort exhaled in amusement at my momentary total focus upon an organism which he probably wouldn't have given a second glance, especially after half a day of traveling through the crags and spirals that made up this section of the Bone Barrens and snatching every pseudo arthropod of the genus craniafugae in sight.

"Must you really stop to root among the leaf litter like an animal every time you come across some crawling abomination? At this pace, it will be already dark by the time we return to the shuttle, and I don't particularly wish to be out for the evening razorstorms."

I responded with appropriate levels of respect, trying to avoid showing a frown on my face.

"My dear companion, the selfless wanderer Eachainnmorcreidambar, how would I ever survive the wilds of the Moon of Marrow without your brave devotion to the fight against wasted time!"

Eachainn always disliked the use of his formal name, and while his facial expression did not shift, I still detected a small change in posture that revealed that my words struck home.

As I raised from my previous crouching position, an idle hand motion causing the grav-drives of the specimen rack to raise to face height with me. The wraithbone construct was reaching its limits holding itself slightly above two meters above the ground, but I valued the presentation of my next actions more than slight strain of the rack.

I gingerly plucked the container of the 3-inch long blue craniafugid, then slipped off the cap in a swift motion that prevented the skittery thing within from turning to face the entrance in time. The pseudo arthropod was once again unprepared for the power of opposable thumbs, and it was a trivial manner to grab it by the nap between the head and thorax.

The flesh between the overarching plates was velvet soft and fairly warm, and the creature let its displeasure known via the rapid flailing of its sensory appendages and the defensive odor which was emitted from the abdomen mounted spiracles. It was held in a way that prevented any form of retaliation that was relevant to my personal health, and so its angered chittering and various attempts to orient itself to deliver a powerful bite were in vain.

Eachainn leaned back to avoid my approach, the craniafugid brought from eye level with me to a mere foot in front of his masked face. His eyes communicated slight concern and amusement while his face as a whole, lower half obscured as it was by his cloth mask, did not change in the slightest.

My own body language surely displayed by intentions, but his lack of understanding regarding craniafugid anatomy meant that when I pressed down on the secondary neural cluster which was located behind the rearward head plate and the entire forehead of the creature shot forward with blistering speed, he was startled enough to step back in a fluid motion that brought him far outside my reach.

He wasn't ever in any actual danger, as the distance between us was still far greater than the striking range of an immobilized craniafugid. Of course, he would have known this had he listened with any real interest to my previous explanations of the genus, having instead been concerned with doing Ranger things like "scoping out potential Mon-Keigh activities" and "evidence of the unnatural".

While important, I didn't really understand how one could be concerned with anything but the majesty of nature in our present environment, which was far beyond the reach of the few human settlements within this region of the Bone Barrens.

A rather powerful aura of annoyance emanated from Eachainn once he (very quickly) determined that there was no real threat. As opposed to saying anything, he simply packed up what equipment he had placed down while watching me nab the specimen and looked expectantly at me.

I myself returned the blue specimen to its proper place and began to walk.

"You will probably be happy to learn that I have collected the last variety of craniafugae needed. Now all we need to do is make an extensive hike through the Bone Reefs towards watering hole #3 and set out our bait."

He responded even as he broke into a slight jog, making a beeline for the specified area without much care for the razor-sharp protrusions extending from the scattered Bone Reefs, each jutting out of the black earth to turn what would otherwise be an arid scrubland into a confined maze of twisting calcium-shell that gave the region, and indeed planet, its name.

As an experienced traveler across worlds far more dangerous than this, I did not have any reason to be worried about his own eventual arrival at the watering hole. The one section he did pay attention to during my extensive lecture regarding the known flora and fauna of the aptly named "Moon of Marrow" was that regarding potential dangers, of which there were many.

All such things could however be avoided rather easily by us, even if a less agile or aware creature like a lost human without proper experience would find the region incredibly hazardous should they not be careful.

I took up my own comfortable pace, weaving in between pillars of bone and avoiding the red tangles of the crimson strangleweed which lay in wait within small depressions in the earth. I noted the presence of various smaller pseudo-arthropods, and even traces of various small xenosynapsids in the form of droppings and burrows in the soft soil. While I would have loved the chance to examine each of these in detail, my escort was right, we did not have time to stick around lest we risk missing our window of opportunity.

It wouldn't be long until we reached our destination, and with it, the true task at hand: the live capture, documentation, and release of the elusive Striped Spineback.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpts from "A brief collection regarding the flora and fauna of the Human world know as the Moon of Marrow" by Sianeoforwine of Craftworld Bath-yal


Craniafugid/Skulled Exile: A widespread genus of pseudo-arthropods in the order Triarthorcor notable for both their stunning range (there is not a single environment of the Moon of Marrow which does not have its own variety) and the brutal efficiency of their battery of impressive yet streamlined traits. An accomplished predator of other pseudo-arthropods, small xenosynapsids, and generally anything able to be overpowered and devoured. Sizes range from 2 to 8 inches in length, weight ranging from 25 to 250 grams.

All members of the genus are distinguished via their unique skull anatomy, consisting of a primary head which contains the brain that is connected by powerful hydraulic tendons to a protruding chitinous plate upon which the mandibles are mounted and through which a pair of sensory organs are extended. Due to this ingenious product of natural selection, the entire front of the skull can be projected towards prey at speeds in excess of 30 mph, delivering a venomous bite that liquifies the internal organs of its victim. Chemical slurry is then siphoned through tube hidden between the overlapping mandibles. Bite is extremely painful but otherwise of no consequence to Eldar and most native large life of the Moon, able to cause necrosis and eventually death to humans and their imported fauna.

Bone Reef: Essentially a terrestrial version of the coral reefs present within oceans across the galaxy, this family of polyps reacted to the retreat of Marrow's oceans several hundred million years ago via adapting to grow a shell of bone across their surface to retain moisture that is now pulled from the air and concentrated into a bluish fluid that forms a liquid film across the entire internal structure of the colony organism. Nutrients are drawn from batteries of subterranean outstretched tendrils that attach to and sweep material from nearby flora and other Bone Reefs, creating a dead zone around these structures as the Reefs gradually wage underground wars with each other and devour all plants with their extended reach.

Once a certain critical size is reached, or all resources in an area are exhausted, several hundred thousand larvae are explosively released from a specially grown spiral structure, scattering themselves across a wide radius whereupon they land and begin their own conquests. The parent Reef dies, and while much of the internal flesh rots away quickly, the boney shell is able to survive relatively intact for decades or centuries.

In this way, entire regions can be overtaken by Bone Reefs within a few generations, and only the prevailing winds from the Moon's oceans keep certain regions relatively untouched. Vast numbers Bone Reefs have turned the aptly named Bone Barrens into a brutal wasteland that has proven so far impossible for the human colonists to tame, and entire mountains have been made out of the mix of living Bone Reefs and their ancestors that they have taken root upon.

 

[Wirbelwind]

The Striped Spineback was an elusive creature that was at once both "conventional" (as far as xenofauna could be called that) and abnormal at the same time. Despite being one of the largest and most dangerous terrestrial predators on the Moon, Aeldari xenoscholars had little information on the species other than several basic facts and a general description of its anatomy. Even Bath-yal's uniquely expansive and complete records of stellar zoological life mentioned little on the subject.

If we succeeded, we would be the first of our kind to lay eyes upon a living specimen in generations. This is type of exploration and discovery is what I had walked the Path for, and every part of my soul urged me to toss caution to the wind and rush towards my goal, to fling myself into the endless wilds without care until I accomplished my task.

I took those emotions and tempered them, shaped them into a spear of determination which I could use to drive myself forward in a controlled manner.

This was not the time for reckless abandon, it was the time for decisive action guided by a calm, rational mind. We had spent 2 months chasing shadows and whispers from unaware Human hunters and bonesmen, who viewed the Spineback as something that was equally a real creature and a symbol of myth and legend. Such respect was well earned, as the species had per local mythology long ago ravaged the first colonist's grox herds before being driven off into the deep Barrens by lascannon and rocket launcher.

This was easily the most dangerous quarry I had yet set out for, and Eachainn had been questioning the wisdom of our cause since the first day he was aware of it.

You would think that 5 previous expeditions, each resulting in success of our objectives and no one even losing a limb, would be proof enough that I could make sound and rational decisions, but apparently all you need to do was "needlessly" antagonize a single Mechanicus Explorator Team for all your future ideas to be questioned.

We did manage to acquire the Scorch Tree seed and no one ended up dying, so I view that personally as a victory.

Reminiscing about the past aside, I had caught up with Eachainn, both of us finding ourselves on the top of a stony ridge peppered with crimson ferns and grasping strangleweed. He had positioned himself on top of the last remnants of a small Bone Reef, the jagged outcropping giving an excellent view of the shallow valley below us.

I barely managed to distinguish his shape, as his Cameleoline cloak had almost perfectly mimicked the color and texture of the Bone Reef itself, but I knew that a damaged Reef would not have such a vaguely humanoid, smooth lined shape on its' peak. As they decayed, they split apart into razor sharp shards of bone which seem to "blossom" from the more durable anchor.

"Finally, our brave adventurer arrives. While you were collecting insects, I was scouting out the valley. There are no obstacles to our mission."

Most importantly, Bone Reefs did not have a biting tongue. I suppose that their feeder tendrils might be considered tongues, as they possessed many of the same chemical sensors, and they probably did indeed "bite" whatever they attached themselves to, bu-

I had gotten distracted with my own thoughts, and Eachainn had already begun to leave his perch.

His vicious words would prove to be me no match for my positive outlook.

"Thank you, my valued companion, I always like it when you go out of your way to ensure my safety. If we continue at our current pace, we will be on our way back to the ship with our data before night falls."

He tried to ignore me, but I could tell my words comforted him.

Indeed, he was so comforted that he leapt down onto a rocky outcropping below without even giving me another glance, surely having been inspired into action by my words.

Either that or he wanted to leave easy talking distance as quickly as possible.

I myself decided to slide down a relatively shallow sandy slope, trusting in my all covering light crystal-mesh clothing to turn aside the various jagged rocks and shards of bone which riddled the slide.

Once I reached sufficient velocity, I pushed off the side of the valley slope and landed 30 feet away, a mere footstep's distance from the winding crimson stream that weaved through the canyon. A few thousand years ago this tide of iron rich soup that passed for water would have been a roaring torrent that could carve through stone, as shown by the presence of the canyon at all, but now it was merely a trickle that came down from the dying lakes of the nearby mountain range.

Even during the wet seasons, still years away, the stream would only barely come up to my chest.

Still, as the only source of water for miles around, this was our best bet for attracting a Spineback. While the predator received its name from its offensive bristles of meter long envenomating spines covering its monstrously overbuilt shoulders, an equally unique facet of its biology was its sensory organs.

Based upon the scant information available regarding the species, it appeared to view the world around it via an acute battery of chemical sensors which most notably took the form of large barbels that extended from its lower jaw.

Human legend holds that the Spineback would wait with its barbels partially submerged at the basin of a moving body of water, so that when a Grox or other viable food source came to drink upstream the Spineback could immediately pick out the various chemical indicators released by said creature.

As all large animals are bound by their need for water, a single Spineback would theoretically be able to keep track of the entire population of the region, and easily follow the flow of water upstream until it found its unaware prey.

Personally, I doubted the efficiency of such a method of hunting, as the various winding rivers of the Bone Barrens could stretch for hundreds of miles in both directions, travel through tight underground corridors, or otherwise be impossible to traverse.

Even if a Spineback could reliably get to the location of the chemical signal entering the water, whatever had left it would likely be long gone by the time the chemical signals reached the waiting predator.

Instead, it was far more likely that the colonists happened upon drinking Spinebacks, and that their clumsy livestock was easily tracked by airborne chemical signals and the noise made by Grox foraging.

Either that, or the unnatural scent of the primitive combustion engines used by the local population.

I couldn't blame the humans for this, however, they lived a short and brutal life filled with superstition, with most of them never having even seen the surface of another planet.

Many a xenosociologist back home on Bath-Yal would love to study the exact beliefs held by the local population regarding the native fauna of this Moon, which is why I had tasked an exasperated Eachainn with infiltrating local cultural centers and recording what he could.

He had, as far as I am aware, accomplished this easily, with the only concern being not one of safety and stealth but rather "having to spend so much time in close quarters with the primitives" or something to that effect.

While my companion was surely talented, his attitude on many other sapient races was unfortunately still colored by his birthworld of Ulthwé.

His tolerance for idleness was also notable, and so I caught him pacing along the bank of the stream, long rifle in hand, scanning the valley slopes for potential threats.

Having spent some time on studying the military history of various less advanced races and knowing several of Bath-Yals' new Aspect Warriors personally, I was well aware of the disadvantage our position would put us in should anything decide to launch an attack.

The Spineback wouldn't be able to traverse most of the walls of the valley however, and it was my primary concern. Of course, in general native wildlife would be unable to detect us through our battery of stealth systems screening our chemical signatures, being almost entirely reliant on non-visual means of detection.

Only non-native life could be a potential threat without us making a mistake, and this was too deep in the Barrens for humans to venture in force.

Eachainn was however shaped by a lifetime of danger and constant threat, and so I wouldn't expect him to be particularly relaxed in such a position.

Either that or I was entirely reading too far into this, and he was merely bored.

No matter the cause, it would be best for me to hurry and set out the bait.

"Set up the holofields?"

Without turning to look at me he gave me affirmation with a slight motion of his head and a psychic nudge.

Sure enough, a battery of spherical white objects had been placed alongside each bank of the stream, thrumming with invisible power. While our holofields would be able to easily mimic the visuals of our intended bait, a species of native large herbivore, they were incapable of producing the chemical indicators which were far more important to the Spineback.

This is where the craniafugids came into play.

While possessing a powerful bite and exoskeleton, the pseudo-arthropods were still vulnerable to many larger fauna and so had evolved complex chemical defenses.

Spiracles on the lower abdomen of a craniafugid were able to produce a wide range of potent odors, all of which were almost perfect replica of the chemical signatures of far larger and more dangerous animals, the only difference being the sheer quantity of the screen produced.

13 individual craniafugae specimens would however be able to equal the passive emissions of a single Osteochelys, a large herbivorous xenosynapsid which was potentially the most successful megafauna still present on the moon. Comparable in size to a Grox and generally filling the same niche as the imported animal, this species would surely be part of the diet of the Striped Spineback, with human murals made by primitive survivors of the first failed colonization attempts depicting Spinebacks and Osteochelys in combat with one another.

I began placing the series of craniafugid containers on the ground, making sure to dig them into the black soil until only the very tops were visible. After I plucked the last cup from the specimen rack, the wraithbone construct floated off with a mental command and began to string along the riverbed a long wire, pocket marked with pores.

I attached my own end of the wire to the main filament, careful to avoid touching the blood red water as the two ends of wire melded together on a molecular level, forming a long tube which eventually split to connect to each pseudo-arthropods' container.

Once the wire had been fully extended down the stream, the specimen rack returned to my side.

I gestured for Eachainn, and without even needing to exchange words we both moved to very edges of the valley slope. He had already found an ideal observation spot, and as we reached the small rock "bowl" (likely formed by long ago extinct rainstorms pouring down into the valley).

The gently sloping sandstone formation was large enough to comfortably fit us and all our equipment, and indeed Eachainn had already placed our own personal holoshield generator which provided both protection and concealment to all within a small radius around the half meter tall cylindrical object.

To any observer, the rock formation was empty, and our own images must have disappeared with a ripple upon entering the "bowl".

The chemo-sensory organs of native wildlife wouldn't be fooled, but whatever miniscule chemical signature our previously sterilized equipment would produce seems to be too alien for them to make sense of.

We had routinely passed within leaping distance of various animals without being detected, and even the domesticated guard animals of the human settlements hadn't been able to make sense of Eachainn's passing. He had relayed with some amusement that they simply stat on their haunches and quizzically extended their batteries of sensory barbels towards him without moving, much to the confusion of their masters.

With our security relatively assured, I activated the dispersal system.

The row of holofield projectors came online, causing a shimmering visage to pop into existence with a translucent flash before coalescing in an almost fluid like motion into a near perfect visual replica of an aging Osteochelys, the massive reptilian beast letting loose a simulated infrasonic rumble that rattled the auditory systems of all who "heard" it.

Many of the galaxies more derived, large intelligent lifeforms communicated at least partially in tunes that most couldn't hear, and this world was one of the many which held this example of convergent evolution.

This wasn't a sound which was heard, but rather felt, shaking the insides of anything with range and inspiring subconscious memories from a primal past.

The craniafugids must have understood what it meant immediately, and, with the desire of mimicking the scent of the larger creature present to ward off larger predators, had already begun tailoring their own chemical defenses.

A series of microscopic electric shocks activated the spiracles of each one, and the signature was transferred from each container down directly into the river.

While we wouldn't have been able to smell the odor released even if it was projected directly at us, to the wildlife of Moon it would surely be a veritable beacon to all downstream to see it.

Now we wait.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Excerpts from "A brief collection regarding the flora and fauna of the Human world know as the Moon of Marrow" by Sianeoforwine of Craftworld Bath-yal

Osteochelys/Bone Turtle: While current generations of humans on the Marrow Moon are likely completely unaware of the meaning of the last part of its name, the Osteo (Bone) Chelys (Turtle) must have been originally named for a now long extinct class of fauna native to their homeworld of Terra. The comparison is very apt, as the Osteochelys is like its namesake a, squat, quadrupedal beaked reptilian covered in thick scales and defended by a boney shell that covers all but the head, legs, and tail of the creature. Filling the ecological role of a large terrestrial herbivore, the Osteochelys grazes on tough strangleweed and other forms of undergrowth using a monstrously powerful beak and battery of highly developed teeth.

Able to reach sizes in excess of 7 meters long, 5 meters wide, and over 14,000 kg, the Osteochelys herds of old scoured entire swaths of the Barrens in their perpetual search for food and drink, shattering and cracking even fully grown Bone Reefs as they went, filling the same role other megafauna or fires do on various worlds across the galaxy as a sort of bulldozer which ensures that no one region becomes entirely dominated by the carcasses of the Reefs. The species was unfortunately hunted to near extinction by humanity due to competition with their imported Grox herds, with special chemical weapons being developed and deployed after it was found that Bull Osteochelys were capable of resisting even heavy weapons long enough to cause tremendous damage to their hunters.

Currently still exists as a rarity deep in the Bone Barrens and is prized above all but the Spineback by local hunters and wildlife collectors for both sport, meat, and shell (which can be crafted into effective armor).

 

[Wirbelwind]

Minutes passed, then hours, and no sign of the Spineback.

Eventually, Eachainn glanced warily to the darkening skies above us. I knew that the days hunt was over. If we stayed for any longer, we would surely be caught out of cover and be torn to shreds by the coming Razorstorms.

While rain had long ago stopped falling in any regularity upon the Barrens, most water being delivered via underground reservoirs both nature and artificial, the region still had forms of weather.

The most infamous and hazardous was the near nightly Razorstorms, described in local mythology as "the shrieking death". Vast sections of land to the south of the modern Barrens were flattened by primitive but immense ordnance to clear away space for industrial concerns, the Imperium having decided that the previous failures to expand the colony on this continent were more than enough to justify such extreme measures.

The objective of creating an environment in which their ponderous mining machines could be easily used was achieved, the damage to the local geography and climate was immense, only outmatched in raw impact upon the Moon by the creation of the modern Bone Barrens due to human activities.

While many of the wounds created by this had long healed over, one which still caused significant problems for those not inside the fortified proto-hive capital city was the removal of important windbreaks in the form of a series of small mountains which had a disproportionately large effect on the prevailing winds of the continent.

Ultimately, the result was an immensely powerful air current traveling from the southern oceans into the Barrens, carrying with it anything which happened to be swept up over the several thousand miles the current spanned.

Normally this would be devastating on its own to the weather and climate of the region, but the main physical threat directly created by the mistakes of the humans was the result of the vast amount of pulverized rock and mineral material ejected haphazardly from quarries as being waste, literally tossed out of the way of the ever-hungry metal jaws of the massive mining machines which the colony existed to support.

Most such ejecta fell to the ground in preplanned "disposal sectors", but the sheer amount of material thrown ensured that every 12-hour purging cycle, a massive storm of dust and debris would be carried far away from the cities and quarries to come crashing down in the sparsely populated Barrens with often devastating results to any who couldn't find sturdy shelter.

The exact time the storm arrived depended upon the wind itself, and so any estimate would inherently be off by anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, but we still had more than enough time to return to our ship should we move swiftly and without delay.

Not wishing to cut it any closer with the incoming volley of jagged rock splinters, I swiftly bounded from concealment and began collecting specimen jars, placing them within the rack before it began reeling in the length of wire deployed.

A mental command caused the visage of the Osteochelys to vanish with a ripple of the air, and while Eachainn was busy preparing our other equipment for transit I snatched the battery of holofield projectors and placed them within a silversilk bag.

Locking everything to either my clothing or the specimen rack, I joined Eachainn in scaling the valley walls.

While the hunt was a failure, the acquired craniafugids would be a valuable resource for our future attempts, as I could likely now synthesize the chemical signatures needed to lure in the Spineback now that I possessed actual samples.

We reached the top within moments, and I once again faced down a gentle slope sprinkled with the hulks of Bone Reefs, each only barely too short to avoid entirely blocking line of sight down the decline despite the angle. Many of them were still alive, but occasionally I could pick out the telltale discoloration indicative of dead or dying Reefs.

Eachainn came to a sudden stop, and then I did. His senses were honed by years of travel and peril, and augmented further via his cowl, and I trusted his judgement on such matters.

He wouldn't have stopped without reason, having been advocating for our return to the ship for a few hours now.

Then I heard it as well.

A strange series of brutish gasps and grunts, the sound of some giant beast coming to rest after a long hunt. The snapping of small branches and vines and the thudding of a mass of colossal feet crashing down in our direction.

The source of the noise must have still been still a fair distance away from us, but it was growing louder at an alarming rate. More concerning, I could not determine what manner of creature was producing this cacophony.

I was still wracking my mind for a potential native or non-native culprit when Eachainn spoke.

His voice cut through the air like a knife.

"Orks. We must move swiftly."

Despite the fact that it was impossible for me to have misheard him, I clung to the small hope that maybe somehow, he was wrong.

"Are you sure? I thought we would have been told about any popu-"

He cut me off.

"They weren't here when the mission was approved, they must have arrived after we did. The primitives, I overheard them talking of some odd things in the sky two days ago. I suspected that something made planetfall, but I didn't know it was Orks."

The grunting and crashing was close now, and I thought I could see various pieces of scrap metal raising above the smaller Bone Reefs.

"Hurry, while the Greenskins are no threat to my own safety, I cannot fight an entire horde while keeping you safe."

I ignored the veiled snipe at my combat prowess and began to move across the ridgeline adjacent to the Orks before Eachainn gestured for me to stop and follow him.

"If we do not get downwind from them quickly, they will surely catch our scent."

The wind was indeed starting to pick up, a prelude to the approaching razorstorms. While I did know that Orks were more aware of their surroundings then many would expect, I wouldn't expect their senses to be quite that sharp.

Of course, if we didn't find cover quickly, their sense of smell would be the last thing we had to be concerned about.

We shot from shadow to shadow as the Orks got closer.

I could now smell them, a disgusting acrid stench of fungal spores, grease, and drying gore. Eachainn seemed completely unaffected by the smell, or by the primal thumping in my chest as I became acutely aware of my mortality.

While I was certain that Eachainn had slayed dozens of Ork groups of this size before, he was correct in saying that the issue was less his ability to dispatch them and more his ability to dispatch them before they ripped my arms out of my sockets and beat me to death with them, or some other horrible fate I knew the Orks were all to glad to deliver.

I glanced around a shard of dead Bone Reef and got my first personal view of a live Ork. Or rather, Orks.

There was half a dozen of them, massive hulking green brutes covered with scars and metal plates. While all the Orks were of imposing height, reaching eye level with me despite they horribly hunched backs, the one in the front was truly horrifying in size.

It (for Orks possessed no traditional reproductive organs) stood twice as tall as man and was less a hominid and more of a slab on legs. It must have weighed in excess of 500 kg and was covered in crude mechanical augments, bits of metal and piston literally bolted to its flesh in seemingly random locations.

While the rest of the group could scarcely be considered to be clad in "armor", this individual was clad in a crude imitation of battle dress, a massive pig iron breastplate plastered with Orkoid symbols covering a chest as wide as I was tall.

A large pole of wood and metal jutted from its back, various skulls impaled upon it while a crimson banner flew at the spiked peak. The Ork was so covered in scrap that it took a moment to discern the massive double barreled slug pistol on its hip, and further searching found that one of its fists was entirely covered in jagged metal stained with blood.

My eyes began to fill with tears as I noticed that the monster had apparently taken some poor animal and stapled the still squirming thing to its upper left chest piece, the other side covered with what must have been previous grim trophies, now decayed to little more than skeleton and sinew.

I knew the name of the species which it had caught, a small burrowing xenosynapsid, one of the many we had passed on our way to this area.

The beast grunted and gestured in our vague direction, and then spoke.

Its voice was deep and rough enough to cut your hand on.

I couldn't make out anything intelligible, but the other Orks let loose howls of what might have been laughter as one grabbed at the big Orks chest and tore half of the anguished xenosynapsid off of its grisly prison, silencing its pained gasps.

The bloody chunk of flesh was tossed casually towards us, crossing the still significant distance with sufficient velocity to splatter across a Bone Reef several meters to my right.

From between the legs of the Greenskins rushed a trio of what must be Squigs, little more than stubby red balls of flesh and gnashing teeth upon a pair of muscular legs.

The Orks watched them with intent as they followed the bloody trail and began fighting each other over the scraps, before the larger one secured its meal, and the smaller pair began to root around for scraps. It took little more than a moment for the Squigs to start meandering in our direction, slowly at first but gaining momentum as their tiny brains likely determined that they were on the trail of a far larger meal.

I realized what was happening and began to move to catch up with Eachainn, only to find him crouched in front of me with a finger to his lips.

He reached for my bag and took out a pair of holofield projectors as he whispered with deathly seriousness.

"Silence. Wait here, I will lure off the brutes. If any come towards you, hold your ground until the last second and then run. Do not look back for anything."

With a shimmer of his cloak, he vanished before my eyes, melding into the background.

One of the Squigs stopped moving and glanced around the area, letting loose a horrific, grating sound that might have been a growl.

The Orks took notice and jeered, then began to move as one in a motion that was entirely too smooth for such brutes before a crack rang out from behind them.

The Squigs turned immediately and bolted towards the sound as the Orks began to raise their weapons with delight in their eyes.

Another crack came, and I saw the telltale shape of a holofield projector come sailing out from behind a Reef before landing between the Orks and the Squigs.

An Eldar rune appeared in air for a split second, the Orks dumbly looking at it, seemingly trying to determine what sort of trickery this was.

The rune was a simple one, conveying only one message: close your eyes and look away.

I did as instructed, and so avoided being entirely blinded by the tremendous flash of multicolored light that erupted and still managed to partially sneak past my hands and eyelids.

The Orks must have been less lucky, as they began screaming and howling and roaring.

I turned to face the scene again, and to my shock found that two Squigs had already been dispatched by Eachainn's long rifle, the fleshy creatures lying dead with blacked holes between their many eyes.

The third and smallest specimen was running around in panic, gnashing its jaws at the air blindly.

Another spherical object flew from yet a different direction, and I only realized it was a grenade half a second before it detonated in the center of the Ork band.

Two of the brutes vanished in the blue flash that turned the surrounding soil to glass and sent the others scrambling to the ground with their flesh searing and armor melting to their own bodies.

Two more Orks fell, red streaming from their eyes as I caught a glimpse of Eachainn jumping from Reef to Reef with his rifle raised.

It seemed as if the fight would be over almost as quickly as it began.

Then the big Ork recovered.

With a roar that shook the earth, the monster drew a massive slug pistol from its holster and opened fire. The primitive chemical propellant in the weapon let loose a sound that was almost as loud as the cry of its master, and metal shell after metal shell flew forth in a clattering stampede of bullets.

The creature then charged with immense speed, smashing through clusters of strangleweed as it went. Eachainn had already began to move to counter, keeping his head down to avoid the inaccurate hail of slugs slamming into his current perch.

He fired twice, but the big Ork had already reached to cover his head with his gun, the blasts instead carving off chunks of metal and hand flesh.

Eachainn moved to jump out of the onrushing giants' path but swerved at the last second to avoid a gout of oily flame tossed towards him by the final "small" Ork left, causing him to be grazed by a colossal fist that sent him flying a dozen feet.

Despite his own blood streaming from a gash across his leg, he spun in air to land on his feet, drawing his power blade as he did.

The small Ork raised its flame projector again before being slapped across the clearing by the big one, which grunted and growled at it before gesturing towards the last squig.

Said squig was barreling towards me at concerning speed, malice in its six eyes and maw opened wide.

I drew my weapon, Unrelenting Torrent, and almost succeeded in bring the bulky pistol to bear.

Half a second faster and I would have torn the Squig to ribbons with a burst of shuriken fire, but instead the creature slammed into my raised arm and sent both of us tumbling down the hill.

We both came slamming into the jagged mess that was a long dead Bone Reef, my clothing being torn in places. The sting of a series of shallow cuts across my lower body was immense, but I didn't have time to consider it as the Squig had already recovered from the impact.

Unrelenting Torrent flew from my grasp during the tumble, and it took me a moment to remember to draw my auxiliary powerblade from its holster. Eachainn had insisted on me taking the backup weapon, and while I initially resisted, I was now very glad I followed his advice.

The blade flashed upward just in time to meet the open mouth of the Squig, a clumsy strike that still cut through the hide of monster without resistance, neatly bisecting the ball of hatred before it even touched the ground once more.

Blood splashed across the ground and coated my front in a vile spray of crimson. Unfortunately, while the specimen rack had followed me down the hill, staying at its preprogrammed distance from my person, the various tools on it were entirely unsuited for cleaning up a Squigs worth of innards and blood.

I had already begun trying to brush what ichor I could from myself when I noticed the smaller Ork coming down the hill, flame projector in hand.

Despite the fact that I was probably far faster than the brute, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to dodge a wall of oily flame. The greenskin grinned with delight as it raised the crude weapon.

Panicking, I stumbled back and desperately searched for a solution. Nothing I had on my person could strike from afar, Eachainn was surely still occupied, and so I had to improvise.

A mental command saw the specimen rack hurl itself at the greatest speed its anti-gravity drive could manage into the path of the Ork, which shifted in confusion to face it.

When it realized it was about to be smashed into, the Ork roared and let loose a blast of liquid fire that coated the wraithbone machine. The exterior of the rack immediately burned away, as did various equipment, specimen jars and their craniafugid cargo.

I mouthed a quick prayer for their tiny souls as I took advantage of the momentary distraction and charged.

The Ork turned with horrifying speed, but I was faster still and succeeded in slicing one of the many tubes that connected its flame projector to a large tank of what must be primitive chemical fuel.

A stream of black liquid shot forth from the ruined fuel line, and I jumped back to avoid a fist as large as my head, the Ork only succeeding in coating its upper body with the thick fluid rapidly spewing from both the tube and tank.

The beast roared in its bestial tongue and attempted to headbutt me.

I had already started to step back, but the dome of its skull collided with shoulder and sent me flying in blind pain.

Something had cracked in my shoulder, and splinters of agony shot throughout my body.

The monster loomed over me, advancing with a grim parody of a chuckle escaping its lips.

Despite this, I grinned and goaded it.

"Go on, cook me you abomination!"

The monster raised its weapon and ignited its pilot light.

It immediately regretted this decision, as instead of setting ablaze a directed blast of fuel, it instead ignited that which had splattered all across the beasts upper body.

The fire spread across the entirety of the Ork in a pop and flash, and the greenskin toppled over, writhing in rage and pain as the flame shot upward towards the fuel tank on its back.

The resulting blast reduced the Ork to little more than a pile of flesh and fire and oil that still somehow made an attempt at crawling towards me.

A snap rang out from the top of the hill and the Ork finally went still as its ruined head burst open.

I turned, woozy from the fight, and found a ragged Eachainn looking down at me, rifle lowered.

I raised my hand towards him. He nodded and dropped down towards me.

"So you still live, good. You should have listened to me and ran."

I shook my head.

"It was too late to run. I would have been caught by the Squig and devoured."

He seemed to consider the scorched Ork, bisected Squig, and ruined specimen rack. I was reminded of the lose of the only thing we had gained so far.

"You did well. Maybe you are a fighter yet."

I looked towards him. He wasn't finished.

"Here, have your... weapon."

Taking Unrelenting Torrent from his grasp, I holstered the weapon and sheathed my blade. All Eldar learned Bonesinging to some extent before being sent out into the wider universe, the ability to conjure new and mend broken wraithbone being a vital skill.

I was told that I had a gift for the subject, but my true calling was elsewhere. While the other students had crafted beautiful works of art, elaborate blades, musical instruments, and even a few sleek shuriken weapons, I had crafted my ideal defensive tool for the future.

Eachainn, as most others I had met, thought my weapon was strangely crude and simplistic in its nature and philosophy, but I would trust no other to protect my life.

Maybe a sleeker or lighter design would have been useful in retrospect.

I wiped the blood and tears from my face as I stood up.

Eachainn was already moving despite his injuries. Much of his figure was still concealed by his cloak, but I could see through the various ripped portions traces of blood and bruise covering much of his body.

My own shoulder ached with pain.

"Come now, I didn't fight a Ork Nob for you to die after the fact. We need to find cover quickly. I recall something about large burrows?"

He clearly knew that we wouldn't reach the ship in time. Surprisingly, he also remembered me mentioning the burrowing proclivities of the Nanmure, a large species of xenosynapsid.

One of the few megafauna that, if anything, was benefitting from human activities (particularly the introduction of new species of invertebrates), the massive claws of the Nanmure had carved away massive underground networks.

"Yes, we passed a Nanmure warren during our hunt for pseudo-arthropods. It should be... a 25-minute hike that way."

That way was luckily in the opposite direction from the Orks, but was unfortunately also the opposite direction from our waiting ship.

Still, it was the only option available to us.

The sky was already darkening as the Moon began to pass into the shadow of its parent Gas Giant, and I could see in the distance a vast black cloud of debris coming from the south.

I took a moment to glance at the ruins of the specimen rack, and a simple mental ping let me know the unfortunate total loss of its outer layers and propulsion systems. There would be little to salvage, but Eachainn had already began to use the inner raw material provided by the wreck to form a
splint for my hanging arm, which I applied with gratitude.

Most of the damage was internal, so while the numbing and clotting agents emitted by my clothing were welcome, there was little on us that could accelerate the natural Aeldari healing process.

Eachainn mentioned that he had dabbled in biomancy when we first met, but further inquiry had revealed that most of what he knew could only be done with a stationary patient.

We didn't have time for that.

As soon as our wounds were fully disinfected and dressed, the walk began.

 

[Wirbelwind]

The howl of wind and shriek of metal shard on hard rock may have been equal parts deafening and lethal to those on the surface, but Eachainn found that his companions' unending knowledge of the lesser species of this detestable rock was, though he was loath to admit it, the only thing that saved them from certain death.

They had indeed found the burrow of what he was told was some great beast featuring both mammalian and reptilian traits, and the power of the creature was evident from the fact that the tunnel extended into solid bedrock. Luckily the creature responsible appeared to be vacant or dead, and so they had effectively found a natural, unoccupied, and mostly secure natural bunker complex.

Some Aeldari would find the concept of squatting in the literal den of an animal to be offensive, but Eachainn had done far more embarrassing things even before meeting his new companion.

You didn't wander for several hundred years without taking refuge in quite a few undesirable places.

He considered his companion. Saine, for that is what she requested to be called, finding the formality of her proper name unsuitable for conversion with her "friends", was an odd character.

It was expected, of course, with her being both from the Craftworld of the Abyss, the recently returned Bath-Yal, and a civilian. Her folk were known among the rest of the Aeldari as being fresh and naive to the threats faced on a daily basis by the rest of the Eldar race.

While much of the upper leadership of Bath-Yal, from his limited exposure to them, did not deserve to be considered entirely naive fools chasing such myths as hope, Saine was in his opinion to be emblematic of this reputation.

Even her exterior appearance reflected this youthful hope for the future.

All Aeldari moved with an energy and vibrance that lesser species would find exceptional, but Saine was positively glowing with excitement over even the most mundane of tasks. Every alien sound, flash of movement, or, worst of all, sighting of some xeno beast was used by her as an excuse to launch into a flurry of chatter about some nonsense about mating rituals or biochemical processes.

Only once she had exhausted her vast array of vaguely relevant knowledge would there be more expected Aeldari silence and introspection, and he was certain this was only because she was under the illusion that he latched onto most of her words instead of immediately discarding them as worthless.

In this moment she was blessedly silent, currently sleeping beneath a hypermylaric blanket, recovering from her wounds.

As she was laying on her side towards the entrance to the burrow and completely engulfed in blanket that automatically conformed comfortably to her body, she made a vaguely Aeldari with a flash of red hair sticking out of one end.

He was reminded of distant memories of his childhood, during which his siblings preferred similar sleeping arrangements to more "proper" bedding, much to the chagrin of his caretakers.

Frankly, at only 102 years of age, she was barely above a child and so should be expected to act in such a manner.

This didn't mean he had to like being beholden to her whims.

Case in point, the various now mostly healed wounds inflicted upon him by the Ork Nob they were forced into conflict with by her inability to accept that the beast she was tracking wasn't in the area.

They should have left an hour or so earlier, then they wouldn't be trapped in this cave, bloodied and bruised by the ravages of the greenskin.

Had he been on his own he would have easily evaded the brutes, but duty required he stood and fought. The unfortunate matter of fighting Orks is that you couldn't even take something like a fang from them as a trophy, as their crude bodies rapidly broke down after death.

Preservation was of course possible, but that required equipment that was still on the ship.

So ultimately, the result of their excursion was a few brutal but ultimately irrelevant wounds and wasted time.

Not exactly a profitable exercise.

The killing of the Ork band was unfortunate was well, as they would have probably had wrecked some manner of havoc upon the apes present on the planet. It was always good to see Mon-keigh striking down Mon-keigh.

Something stirred near the mouth of the cave.

Hearing honed by a mix of experience and technology allowed Eachainn to immediately pick out the sound of several sets of footsteps making their way up the smooth rock incline that formed the throat of the cave.

He could barely pick out what might have been a rumbling combustion engine, but it was impossible to properly say as it was drowned out by the still raging razor storm.

Then came smattering of crazed human speech. It would be mere moments before they arrived.

His companion wouldn't be much more than another variable to account for, so he immediately began to prepare to dispatch these intruders without so much as waking her.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Shaking off small slivers of metal which were embedded in his hide cloak, Elum Tarke of the Cult of The Twisted Truth glanced around the entrance of the shelter they had been blessed with finding. While his group of loyal followers should have kept on the road to Forward Hab 24, he was certain that his own masters would be able to accomplish the "Big Night" without him.

It would hardly be a challenge for 2 full squads of True Believer PDF to strike down the unfortunate slaves of Overseer Caldriel and secure the outer defenses for the rest of the Cult, and besides, what was the point of serving the Lady of Excess and waking up from worship of the "Emperor" if one was still beholden to strict deadlines.

No, it would be much more enjoyable for him to leave the cramped confines of the bands Taurox armored transport and rest a little before making the last leg of the journey.

A wretch, barely a man, and in his opinion entirely unworthy of the gifts bestowed upon him, gestured as the second head growing from his left cheek began to screech and spit.

While Elum's own senses were far improved by his blessings above the previous near blindness he previously suffered due to chemical smoke exposure in the Southern Morsian Iron Mines, the band had long learned that the gift of the wretch was more than just a physical sign of being touched by the Lady of Excess.

He had an uncanny ability to sniff out people of interest like a hungry Grox sniffed out vita-feed. The wretch had showed them many who had willingly cast off the chains of the False Emperor and even revealed a Arbites agent intending on infiltrating the Cult.

Elum raised his twisted lasgun towards the depths of the cave and flicked on his light, and with a cry of glee the motley group pressed deeper.

The cave throat expanded; smooth sandstone carved away to create a cavern large enough to hold a small land train. While from the outside the burrow looked to be merely large enough for a small group of men, it appeared that this was merely an illusion.

He grinned as he thought of the rewards that would be bestowed upon him for finding such a useful and hidden space, so close to the nearby border town. Few areas of the Barrens were traversable, and so where mechanized vehicles could move there were vast numbers of roads crisscrossing the Deep Barrens and various settlements set up to support and expand them.

Foward Hab 24 was simply one of many, the reason for the Cult's upper leadership choosing the location as the beginning of their glorious reformation was unknown to him.

Still, the cave they had found would provide an excellent hidden launch point for raids on the convoys of Imperial transports that crossed the Barrens, and a potential save haven from the Arbites should the Cults plan to seize the border towns fail.

As they reached the top of the smooth stone embarkment, one of his men cried out and gestured.

The man once had a name that Elum cared about, but ever since his awakening to the truth a pleasurable miasma had replaced such knowledge of his inferiors with words that would allow him to bend them to his will with a mere whisper. Half-truths and hidden desires that ensnared them as tightly as any chain.

The wretches beneath him had been gifted physically, but Elum alone had proven worthy of gifts to the mind.

While others had been inducted into the cult via simple acts of profane art, ritual violence, or from their mutated blood, he alone had done something that the upper echelons of the Cult had taken notice of.

He still remembered the day when the sacrifice finally broke in mind, and the remembered sight of her nubile body giving everything he wanted after 2 weeks of torment was a sweet one.

They had rewarded him for his actions and ambition, for a shattered noble daughter was a rare offering indeed.

The pleasant memories vanished as soon as they appeared, and despite his desperate clawing to once again experience the smell and taste of that day, if only in memory, it was replaced by a desire for more.

More power, more glory.

And the strange array of objects in front of them, lying in the center of the cavern, would surely grant him that.

Objects of a make unknown to the group were scattered across the floor, various intricately detailed devices of some alien purpose and stunning beauty.

While all the machines and material of artificial make previously known to them were blocky, industrial, plasteel, bonewood and duracrete things adorned with skulls or aquillas if they were decorated at all, these objects seemed to be made of some sort of silver-blue material that curved organically. Various lights in the shape of unearthly runes softly glowed, and something deep in the back of his mind told him these were not crafted by human hands.

There were no rivets or handles or weld lines, everything was seemingly composed of one, fluid piece of material.

One of the wretches began to approach, but Elum slashed his arm with his lasguns barbed bayonet and gestured for him to halt.

At the far side of the cluster, he had spotted something more beautiful than any of the machines.

A deep, unnatural hunger grew within his tainted soul as he beheld a maiden more beautiful than any women he had previously seen.

She, for her shape was unmistakably that of a woman, was wrapped in a strange foil blanket that covered her back and sides but left her front exposed.

Elum took in the sight of her hefty breasts and wide hips, her lean muscled frame that seemed to hold a vigor that was simply alien. Further inspection took note of pointed ears and a defined, smooth facial features that were slightly too symmetrical and flawless. Flaming red hair sprung from her head and pooled on the stone ground.

Indeed, much of her body was subtly different in ways that couldn't easily be placed from that of a human, and he realized this must have not been human at all.

A wicked idea entered his head as if it wasn't his own at all, and he resolved to cut the creature before him until its shape was properly in line with what should be expected, and then to sacrifice it to the Lady of Excess herself.

One of his band made another step, and he cut him off.

"No. Take the rest of the loot as you wish, but the maiden is mine."

A small chorus of arguments began to rise before, to the shock of cultists, a shadow near the edge of the light projected by their lumenscopes shifted and from seemingly thin air flew a silvery orb.

The object landed among them, and then, seemingly of its own accord began to hover at chest height.

It flashed a pale unwhite and a faint pulse rippled out from it, engulfing the group and then the entire cavern.

Elum pointed and whispered for someone to investigate but found that none would respond.

Angered, he raised his voice to just below that he would expect to wake the alien and demanded that someone figure out what the krak this was.

Then he screamed out of disbelief only to find that, to his horror, no sound came out. Glancing around showed the entire group beginning to open their mouths as if they were trying to make noise, only for the silence to remain absolute.

Even the dull roar of the razorstorm outside had vanished, and as one of the group began to smash his fists into the ground without a sound Elum began to realize what the orb had done.

He had barely begun to raise his lasgun to shoot it down when the trio of men next to him were cut down in a flash of light. His eyes attempted to find the source but found nothing.

Another flash and he fell back screaming as pain lanced up through his veins from the stumps that were now his arms, his decorated armor providing no resistance to the mysterious assailant.

As he lay there, watching his band be butchered, he considered that maybe he should have just followed orders and continued to the frontier town.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Eachainn raised his rifle with stalwart intent. The rune of silence was still steaming from the previous slaughter, Aeldari technology using arcane means to convert the sound of his Long Rifle's firing into heat which radiated silently off the glowing muzzle.

Too much additional fire would risk deforming the weapon, and while the veteran Ranger could repair such distortions with a casual application of bonesinging, actually firing the weapon was not required for the current task.

Indeed, all that was needed was the physical weapon itself. While wraithbone and psychoplastic composites were far lighter than their equivalent volume in steel, the sheer size of the weapon gave it considerable heft.

He brought it down on the face of his target and Saine opened her eyes in a panic at the feeling of the gentle tap on her forehead.

When asked to explain her sleeping arrangements, she had proudly declared that the open fronted hypermylon sheet was the optimal mix of comfort and safety, allowing for her to easily spring forth at the slightest sign of danger.

This was apparently an overstatement, as he easily backstepped out of the way of her clumsy strike with a still unpowered power blade.

She blinked, taking in the scene around her and the bemused Eachainn. Then she spoke.

"I see you have been busy."

He had already packed up the remaining equipment they possessed, and unknown to her had disposed of the dead Mon-keigh properly. He gave her a moment to stand up properly.

"Come, I need you to read something."

She seemed to consider this for a moment.

"Eachainn, what are you talking about."

He had already began moving towards the entrance of the tunnel, tossing her expedition bag and clunky shuriken thrower to the confused xenologist.

"We were attacked by cultis-"

"We were what?!"

She attempted to continue, but he cut her off.

"Don't worry, I handled it, and so now I need you to translate the scribblings in their transport."

Saine was now struggling to both stow her equipment and match his pace down the rocky slope. She grimaced and glanced away from the pools of red which slowly flowered downhill.

"You can't just say we got attacked and leave it at that!"

He did his best to radiate an aura of annoyance and dismissal, but she continued.

"Are you hurt? Where did they come from? Who were they, why did they come here?"

The passage narrowed, but to Saine's confusion (her emotions were trivial for him to read) the mouth of cave up ahead did not spill forth light.

Eachainn cut her next sentence off.

"Yes, it is still night. I am fine, I don't know from where they came, they are servants of She Who Thirsts, and we are about to find out why they are here."

He could hear her steps stop momentarily, and then resume at a heightened pace.

"She Who Thirsts? We were attacked by warp damned S-"

Eachainn turned with force.

"DO NOT SAY HER NAME. NOT HERE."

While Saine normally brushed off all but the most directed or dire advice, it seems that the mix of desperation and utter determination in Eachainns' voice hit her like a truck, as she quivered slightly and shrunk in on herself.

Good, she would need to understand that some things she should be afraid of.

This was, if not at the top of the list, one of the very highest ones. Eachainn had seen firsthand on too many occasions the work of the Great Enemy, and the terrible toll paid by those who arrogantly assumed they could escape the crime of their ancestors.

Hence his need for Saine's unique talents. While he was loath to admit it, there were occasions where being able to read the lesser tongues was useful. He knew Low Gothic sure, but more exotic regional dialects escaped him, appearing as nothing more than avian-scratch.

He resumed his walk and Saine gradually caught up.

Before them opened the mouth of the cave, now encrusted with a thin sheet of metal debris and shavings from the now passed storm.

Parked a few meters from the entrance was a massive, hulking human vehicle. Less a motorized transport and more of a rolling bunker, the quad tracked Taurox loomed above the pair. It was encrusted with cult markings, which were thankfully mostly covered by the razor lining deposited earlier in the night.

Saine still gasped audibly when she must have taken note that some of the fetishes and totems peaking from below their metallic crust were of a decidedly organic nature, but Eachainn ignored them.

As a veteran Ranger, he had seen far worse, and instead he opened the door to the vehicles cabin. A wave of the horrific stench of sex, blood, and filth came out of the cabin, and he was once again glad that his fiber-weave mask automatically detected and filtered such things within moments of detecting them.

The xenologist behind him had no such luxuries, but surprisingly must have been able to steel herself and made no indication of the foul odor.

"Fine. What do you want me to translate?."

Eachainn stepped into the cabin and carefully sorted through the piles of debris which clung to the innards. He had already destroyed all psychically active symbols and trinkets, but there was still a large mass of random human detritus remaining.

He plucked a series of papers from the dashboard and held them out for Saine's examination.

She squinted.

"Even for warp crazed cultists, this handwriting is atrocious."


"I just thought their machines were as shoddily maintained as everything else the Mon-keigh possess."

Saine stopped and looked at him.

"They don't normally use machines to write."

He turned to face her.

"No, seriously, they use quills and ink. Even mechanical pens are reserved for the elite."

Eachainn was silent for a while after that.

 

[Wirbelwind]

The burning human transport was my only company for the next 15 minutes. I had at first attempted to read the remaining scribblings of the cultists, but quickly determined that I wasn't actually in the correct state of mind to handle the horrors contained within.

If Eachainn wasn't across the horizon, gathering intelligence about and running interference against the Cult, I might have even told him that his xenophobia was actually somewhat warranted in this case. All modern Aeldari knew of the tale of The Fall, of the Great Enemy which laid our ancestors low and visited horrors unimaginable upon the universe and those who survived.

This event, and the conflict spawned from it indeed defined the existence of every Craftworld, and even Bath-Yal now found itself trapped into an eternal war against the worst of our races' excesses.

It was still an entirely different matter to see what I was told to be rather mild examples of this evil firsthand. This Cult was a stain, an abomination, and if I was in anyway qualified to do so, I would immediately go out and destroy it entirely.

Of course, Eachainn was at least somewhat correct in telling me that I should best wait for him to return, and that we should both immediately return to our ship and abandon the expedition.

A small bit of hate and frustration began to well up in my soul.

Several weeks of transit, hard work, and the lives of several craniafugids had been expended and I was rewarded with failure.

The Spineback would remain unchronicled, and traces of tears began to appear as I realized that by the time the situation was resolved (if it was resolved) another team was sent the Spineback may well have disappeared forever.

Millions of years of evolution and struggle and triumph all to be forgotten and lost because some stupid apes couldn't figure out that evil soul eating daemons were bad actually.

And I was to sit here and wait while the person who had saved my life within the last day was risking his own.

I calmed myself, the rage slowly dissipating as rationality reasserted itself. While I had failed the main goal of this expedition, I had still gathered valuable data on the other inhabitants of the Moon. I had survived an encounter with an ancient self-replicating war machine and exposed the efforts of our greatest foe.

I had even convinced a Biel-Tanian that potentially knowing things about the culture of humanity could be useful.

While the night always comes, so does the dawn, and I smiled as I thought about how just as this night would end, so would the sun eventually rise on a new day.

Then I noticed that Eachainn hadn't moved for the last 25 minutes.

As companions, we had been equipped with tracking glyphs to ensure that we could not be separated. As someone being sent into, and specialized in mapping out, rough and foreign terrain, I was equipped with a sort of real time map of the area, updated in real time by batteries of microsensors embedded within our clothing.

Or rather, it was supposed to be updated in real time, but Eachainn's side of the system was stationary and had been since I last checked. Normally I would assume he was just lying-in wait for something, but he had specifically said that he wasn't going to stick around longer than he had to, and that speed was of the essence.

His own words were something like "I shall be as swift as Faolchú himself and return within a heartbeat".

While this was certainly hyperbole, it probably wasn't this level of hyperbole.

Indeed, I felt somewhere that there was some level of distress plaguing him. Far as I was from a Seer, I had long learned to listen to my soul, and so I attempted to contact him.

When this failed, it confirmed my fears. He surely wouldn't have willingly parted with his communications system.

I stood up and began to consider my available resources.

A pair of holofield projectors, field medical kit, field cooking kit and associated consumables, powerblade, Unrelenting Torrent, a group of silversilk expanding bags, chemo-adhesive, various wraithbone blocks for shaping, a pack of single use photon emitters, silversilk body glove, crystal-mesh outer plating and positive spirit.

Not exactly a formidable arsenal when it came to facing down hordes of raving cultists. It would have to be sufficient.

I stood up, considered the potential of salvaging materials from the human transport, decided it wasn't worth sifting through the filth (anything good was probably in the immolated transport compartment), and began to follow him towards what was supposed to by a small human village.

The Nanmure burrow was placed, as expected, at the base of a large mesa. While easily capable of burrowing straight down through whatever happened to be in the way, all but the youngest Nanmure preferred to immediately begin carving out solid sandstone with their meter long shovel claws.

While I wasn't aware of the exact distance between myself and the human village, I could guess that Eachainn at the very least reached its perimeter before losing his tracking glyph or being held up.

That placed the human structures as still being on the massive stone plate that this mesa was part of. They likely chose built their settlement here for that reason, anchoring their structures into the solid ground and taking advantage of the natural drainage and cavities in such sandstone formations.

The entirety of the Bone Barrens were after all the result of a long ago vanished inland sea, hence the presence of reefs at all. On our descent into the area, we had seen the capital of the Bone Barrens territory with its towering pylons that drained vast amounts of hydrocarbons created from the compressed remains of millions of years of algae and other sealife.

I had even taken samples of the various fossils we had come across sticking out of eroded rocks, with the intent of giving them to Bath-Yal's Paleoseers so they may glean insight upon the leviathan sea monsters of the past.

Unfortunately, said samples had been on the specimen rack when it was immolated, and once again I felt a pang of anger that the thoughtless brutes had destroyed something they couldn't even comprehend.

Once again, I would simply have to hope that the situation on the Marrow Moon would be resolved quickly, and a follow up expedition could be sent to make up for my failings.

As I walked, I took note of the unusual silence that fell upon this night.

Normally the Barrens would be alive with sound and motion as all variety of xenosynapsids, pseudo-arthropods, and stranger still made their nightly rounds.

Instead, there was an eerie lack of the signs of life, as if everything in the forest was holding its breath, waiting for some unknown event to pass. The flora itself had an aura of stillness.

It was disturbing, and as I began to finally hear something in the distance, I steeled myself for what lay ahead.

Apparently, what lay ahead was the looming shadow of a large rockcrete perimeter wall and the metal gate which provided access to the settlement. Large shards of bone and stone lay scattered in front of the human fortification, set as such to provide a pointy argument against any trying to climb the sheer walls. Pillars of smoke rose from behind it, and I could hear the muffled crackle of both fire and laser weapons.

The bodies of Orks lay strewn in front of the gatehouse, itself a towering black shape covered in buttresses and bristling with barbettes. It very much so reminded me of the many images of ancient castles used by primitive civilizations across a hundred dozen worlds which I had seen in my history studies.

This of course was a grade above the crude stone and wood fortifications of non-space fairing species, being instead a plasteel prefabricated unit designed to mix durability with practicality.

Even the many religious and nationalist symbols scattered across its frame were seemingly a carefully calculated minimum required to establish something as being "holy" in the eyes of the humans.

Just enough to do the job, and nothing more.

And matching the mass-produced facade of the building in its undeniable sophistication was the pair of dual barreled gun turrets poking from horizontal firing slits at the perfect height to fire down upon anyone trying to storm the gate.

I wasn't sure if these were slug throwers or las weapons, but either way they would surely be capable of reducing me to ribbons as was shown by the half a dozen dead Orks.

The gate was still locked, and I noticed out of the corner of my eye that while seemingly lifeless the watchtower still showed signs of activity. The waiting gun turrets occasionally twitched in a mechanical, jerking fashion that betrayed the illusion of dormancy.

Automated sentry turrets then. While I had once overheard some visiting Aspect Warriors disparage the pitiful state of human automachinery, I personally knew that said simplicity was more than sufficient for filling unfortunates with fire should they trip even a rudimentary sentry system.

It did not take complex computing or friend or foe recognition systems to set up an auto turret to mow down anything that crossed its field of view.

The greenskins had learned that well enough.

So, I began inspecting the rest of the wall. Eachainn surely had to have gotten past it somehow, and while he very well could have leapt from the ground to top of the wall and from there down into the village, said wall top was festooned with rows of barbed wire and metal hooks designed to dissuade any wildlife trying to crawl over it.

Instead, I found a large hole blown through a section of wall some ways from the guard tower. It appeared that some Ork explosive device had simply blasted a chunk of the rockcrete structure away, forming a gap in the barrier that was just barely large enough for a Aeldari or human to slip through.

Several other craters were pocket marking the wall, and I doubted that the Orks had even given this particular hit a second glance. If they had, they would have immediately capitalized on the breach in the human defenses and redoubled their efforts on this section.

A series of grunts echoed from behind me, and I spun around just in time to see a small horde of greenskins rounding a bone reef the size of the wall itself. Despite my earlier encounter and the dead Orks lying across the open ground between the human perimeter fence and the wilds of the Barrens proper, I was once again taken aback by the size and power of these monsters.

They were clad once again in scrap metal and animal hide, and once again the smaller (though still enormous) Orks were following their larger counterparts. As opposed to a single giant Ork, this time a pair of them were at the head of the pack, baying and slavering as they took note of the scene.

Both giants were only slightly below being twice my height and wielded massive chain axes of matching general appearances. They must have been some form of companions, as each one had the opposite half of their face painted fully blue and red respectively.

The Orks howled and charged straight for the gatehouse and were greeted with streams of ruby red lasbeams that cut the smaller beasts down and sliced deeply into the flesh of the larger ones.

More Orks began to stream from the Barrens, followed by Squigs.

Realizing that staying outside the walls would mean certain death by Ork blade or stray fire, I dove through the hole in the wall and rolled to my feet, ignoring the screams of pain and rage from behind me.

The inside of the human settlement was little better. Bodies, both cultist and untainted still lay where they fell. The sounds of violence on the inside had stopped, and so it seemed that either both sides were recovering and regrouping or that one had won the day.

I hoped that I wasn't too late but knowing that sitting here was only slightly less suicidal than hurling myself at the Orks, I suppressed such doubts and began to sprint towards Eachainn's homing glyph.

While I wished I could have taken my time to take captures of the various cultural artifacts and dwellings I passed for my sociologist colleagues back on the Craftworld, this wasn't the time or place for such things.

Instead, the rubble strewn streets and blown out windows of blocky Imperial buildings became a blur as I rushed past bodies and craters, trying to ignore that each stain of red represented a living being.

I found the homing glyph halfway down a battle-scarred alleyway. The small white bead of crystal-circuitry lay in a small crater, clearly knocked free from whatever it had been attached to.

While the lack of a body was reassuring, what wasn't was the splatter of blood across one of the alley walls.

I looked closer at the ground surrounding the bead, and winced in discomfort as I noticed what might have been a small chunk of Aeldari ear still attached to the bead.

Luckily, there did not appear to be any other bits of flesh, and the blood on the wall was consistent with the potential results of such a sensitive, nerve, and as such blood-filled piece of anatomy as the Aeldari ear suffering damage.

This would be extremely painful, but not inherently fatal, and Eachainn obviously hadn't fallen here. At least not permanently.

I ignored the fact that his body could have been moved, and instead decided that the best option was to try to track him.

Then I heard a distinctive sound.

While I readily admit that I lacked more than cursory knowledge on military equipment and what it sounded like, my own hundreds of hours of designing, researching, and then experimenting with Unrelenting Torrent allowed me to easily determine the sound of shuriken fire.

As far as I was aware, there was only one other Eldar on the Moon, and only Eldar had access to such weapons. As than' weapons were gene locked to ensure that no one other than him could actually fire them, this could mean only one thing: he was still alive.

Hope soared in my chest as I spearlined towards the sound.

A metal fence obscured my path, so I cut it down with my powersword and jumped through the opening, Unrelenting Torrent already drawn and at the ready.

Eachainn was kneeling behind the wreck of some sort of personal vehicle which had crashed into a large chunk of rubble. Next to him lay a dead former human.

While its shape was still vaguely that of a person, it was heavily deformed and twisted, with malformed and bulging muscles covering it like blisters. Various occultic symbols appeared to be burned into the wretched things skin. It appeared that Eachainn had dispatched it with his conspicuously absent Long Rifle.

The ranger glanced up at me, blood streaming down from his wounded face, and gestured as smoothly as ever for me to come closer. As I approached and then came to his side, I scanned the area.

A series of blocky Imperial buildings, likely housing, were arranged in a neat row around a large open courtyard. A pair of roads swept around the open space and linked up further up from our position right before a massive structure of noticeably higher quality then the rest of settlement.

While the other structures were clearly prefabricated plasteel and rockcrete designs that were later adapted by their owners with small decorations and utilities, this was a full three stories heigh and composed of a mix of shinning alloy and marbled stone. A massive, spiked iron fence separated it from the rest of the aisle.

The gate was knocked off its hinges and deformed, likely by the abandoned tracked vehicle that was a few body lengths past it, only barely having avoided ramming into the front of the structure itself.

On either side of the gate were larger than life statues of what were likely Imperial political or religious figures, each master crafted and engraved with holy text.

The splendor and opulence of their golden forms was however much diminished by the mixture of blood and other indeterminate semi organic matter smearing their faces, and the various eight-pointed stars of Chaos which were literally nailed onto them.

It was rather obvious that the Cult had been here.

Eachainn spoke and was evidentially not in a good mood.

"Why are you here!? I told you to wait for me at the cave!"

I handed him his tracking glyph.

"I am here because I knew you were in danger or worse, and I am not going to sit and watch my guard be killed."

He looked at me, then at himself, then at the structure.

"I would suggest you leave, but the Orks have started up their attack again. Follow me, keep your head down. The Cult managed to seize what passes for a luxury home here and are currently at work trying to complete a ritual."

I nodded.

Eachainn began to sigh and then stopped. Within an instant I found myself tossed unceremoniously over the ruined vehicle. Eachainn came hurtling over it as well, just in time to avoid a hail of ruby red beams of light that rapidly began to eat away at our cover.

I attempted to glance around the side of the now smoldering vehicle only for Eachainn to pull me back.

"Imperials. It seems that the loyalists managed to fight off the initial ambush and so this entire shanty town is now a warzone. This group has been hunting me for the last 20 minutes, after I got ambushed by that brute."

He gestured towards the dead wretch.

I ignored the urge to point at the fact that such a creature apparently managed to catch the veteran Ranger off guard.

Eachainn continued.

"I attempted to storm the ritual site and lost my rifle for it. We simply don't have enough firepower."

He seemed to consider something.

The Imperial soldiers ceased their fire.

"They will be flanking us. If we attempt to run, we will be gunned down. I will throw a plasma grenade, once it detonates, start shooting them."

My eyes must have betrayed my dislike for the concept, but a quick nod confirmed my agreement.

Unless we could somehow slip the Imperials long enough to deal with the ritual, our only option was to kill them. Even if we did so, Eachainn was probably correct in saying we lacked the firepower.

The lasgun fire erupted again, this time from two sides. The Imperials were slowly walking around the vehicle, intending to catch us in a crossfire.

I could smell molten metal as the weapons continued to boil away the frame of the car. Even if we managed to kill some of them, the firepower of what must have been a full dozen human soldiers was enough to shatter my resolve.

Remembering our intended plan for catching the Spineback, I handed Eachainn a pair of holofield projectors.

As he looked at me in confusion, I changed the holofield they would project with a mental command and slight touch.

"You have a better throwing arm then I do. Toss these through the door of the ritual structure."

Eachainn seemed to realize my plan, and as the two silver spheres flew through the air, they activated, projecting a pair of humanoid figures which soared across the clearing and landed not through the door but an upper window. The holofield projectors rolled across the floor of the room they landed in, and so automatically attempted to preserve the illusion they were conjuring.

To the humans, it must have seemed as if we had made a clean leap into the structure and ran deeper inside.

The firing stopped for a moment, then the sound of pursuit echoed through the mostly silent streets.

I began to circle the vehicle, intending to keep it between me and the humans, but Eachainn grabbed my wrist and held me in place.

"Once the Mon-keigh have killed themselves off, we will follow them in and clean up the ritual."

Indeed, I could hear the crackle-hiss of lasfire breaking out from within the building.

Eachainn shot out from behind the vehicle, moving from shadow to shadow until he reached the gate. As opposed to following the humans in through the now open front door, he leapt to and swung off a large light fixture stylized as a hanging halo, landing deftly on his feet on a 2nd story windowsill. He motioned for me to follow.

I quickly crossed over the open area, doing my best to use as much cover as possible as I went. Upon reaching the gate, I scrambled up it and jumped from it to the now vacant window, Eachainn having already begun to move deeper into the house.

The room I found myself in was some sort of study area, decorated with fine silk cushions and real wooden (or high-quality imitation) furniture. One wall was covered in bookshelves, the other appeared to be dedicated to a mix of primitive scientific instruments, maps, and most importantly several marked jars containing biological material.

I desperately wanted to stay and investigate further, but instead settled for grabbing a book titled "Segmentum Oddities and Curiosities Volume VII" and a jar containing a "fully intact Osteochelys alarm gland" and then following my Ranger.

The halls were just as finely decorated as the room, with large ornate chandeliers and portraits of elaborately dressed humans scattered down its length.

Unfortunately, much of its rustic beauty was spoiled by eldritch fetishes and symbols plastered haphazardly across the walls.

As we approached the heart of the building, a cold chill came rushing down the halls.

A small, primitive portion of my brain screamed at me that something was deathly wrong, that we should turn and run while we still could. With the feeling came a wall of sound and scent, that of blood and gore and rhythmic chanting.

Lasfire could still be heard rapidly approaching us.

It seemed that the Imperials decided to try and stop the ritual as well.

Eachainn came to a stop, having swung around a corner. I stopped as well, and we both looked in horror or grim determination at one of the ghastliest sights I have ever beheld.

In front of us, seemingly shocked into inaction, was the ground of Imperials. Apart from their black and brown armor and masks and raised weapons, I didn't particularly notice anything.

All attention was focused upon the grand dining hall in front of us, where, kneeling in the center of the desecrated building, was two dozen twisted cultists reverently chanting.

They were arranged in a six sided star within another six sided star, six cultists to each point of the star. At the center, sitting atop the rune inscribed long table, there was a nude man who was made up of scarred flesh and metal plates seared onto his skin. Before him, a bound and gagged sacrifice.

The untainted humans seemed to break from their stupor just as the monster of a man began to bring his ritual knife down on the sacrifices' exposed neck.

A trio of lasbeams leapt forward and scythed his arm off, and the priest howled in frustration and agony as he reeled backwards.

Doors further down the hall flew open, and more mad cultists, these ones armed with a mix of melee and ranged weapons, came screaming battle cries as they rushed to defend the ritual.

The Imperial soldiers had already shifted their fire, cutting down several of the cultists.

One of the soldiers, raising a blocky monster of a pistol, roared and fired.

"PURGE THE HERETICS!"

The cultist priest evaporated as the slug sailed straight through him and detonated a millisecond later.

Eachainn gasped in horror as, seemingly in slow motion, both of us watched the mix of overpressure and shrapnel slash and break the neck of the sacrifice, who fell forward onto the glyphs like a sack of rocks.

I ignored the hail of gun and lasfire from both the cult and imperials, instead trying to desperately figure out a way to stop what was started.

It was too late, as despite Eachainn seeming to prepare to leap directly into the midst of the firefight, the spilled blood of the sacrifice was thirstily drunk by the runic engravings.

The air turned to ice as the runes started to glow with unnatural power.

In an instant, all sound and motion stopped, the entire congregation pausing to look upon what was happening.

Then all Hell broke loose.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eachainn fought the urge to scream in frustration as the ritual was completed, and instead made sure to keep his eyes away from the gnawing hole in reality and focused upon the panic-stricken face of his comrade.

With both his own and her immediate safety from the warp rifts soul wrenching effects secured, he began to consider their options.

It was unlikely that the Cult had been able to open a stable warp portal, and even less likely that they possessed the knowledge to truly harness the tremendous amount of energy released.

No, it was instead most likely a short-lived tear in the fabric of the material.

This was still extremely dangerous, as proven by the fates of the few PDF and Arbites who had been too stupid to figure out why the more experienced among them had closed their eyes and looked away from the imminent violation of physics.

The humans were instead sent to the knees, howled in agony and clawing at their own eyes as their struggled to keep themselves from falling apart at the seams. It didn't work.

With a pop that somehow both echoed and didn't, the warp rift lost coherence and vanished.

Eachainn turned to face what remained.

He immediately stumbled back in shock.

They had summoned a daemon.

A hole had been cleanly taken out of both the table and floor, and within that crater lay a pool of viscous black-red fluid that rapidly congealed into something that, at first glance, looked like a human woman.

Any inspection beyond that, would however send shivers of both desire and revulsion down the spine of any that viewed it. Eachainn had long learned to ignore the first, but the second was honed into a burning hatred.

The warpspawn began to stand, moving with a smoothness that was unnatural. It didn't twitch or adjust itself, nor could Eachainn see the subtle hints of an active circulatory system.

There was no blood flowing through its false veins, no slight movements of the eyes or face as it began to unfurl.

The daemon's human portions were unspeakably beautiful in a sleek, youthful manner, but its long arms did not end with hands, but instead with obsidian claws that almost reminded him of Saine's disgusting little insects. Half of the face was that of an ordinary if stunning young woman, while the other had a large section of flesh and skin covering the jaw simply not present, as if it had never bothered to grow in at all.

Twisted teeth as sharp as knives were clearly visible through this hole.

It opened its eyes, and black voids that seemed to devour all light stared across the room and immediately latched onto his own. The entirety of his face twisted with hunger until it lost all beauty, instead coming to resemble that of a starving animal.

As if a spell had been broken, motion returned to the world. The cultists screeched in ecstasy at the servant of their foul God made manifest, while one of the PDF soldiers stumbled over, vomiting.

The leader of the group, distinguished by his peaked cap, raised his bolt pistol and roared a challenge.

With a flash, the daemon crossed the distance between itself and the Mon-keigh that had inadvertently summoned it.

It howled in delight as it struck with both in claws in a downward slash that must have appeared as a blur to the humans in the room, neatly taking both of the officer's arms in a single continuous motion.

Eachainn yelled for Saine.

"RUN, RUN YOU IDIOT!"

He turned to make for the door and noticed that she had already been out of the room and halfway to a set of stairs when he started moving.

The sounds of violence behind them were already dying down, lasfire cut off by screams of both loyalist and cultist.

Eachainn glanced behind him, and then sped up.

It was hot on his heels, a swarm of cultists beside it rushing onward like a tidal wave.

The Imperial forces had cut down a number of the cultists but had already vanished beneath the wall of meat and faith that was rushing towards the Eldar.

He noticed that the daemon hadn't taken a single hit, at least not one that made any lasting mark.

Saine had already thrown herself out through the second story window and landed roughly. Apparently, the fear of the warp made for a good motivator, as instead of doing her normal childish flailing to recover or try and avoid what was coming, she simply took the collision head on and immediately scrambled to her feet.

Eachainn leapt smoothly into a sprint and was surprised to find that he was struggling to keep up.

Saine spearlined towards the alley she had entered from, then stopped in her tracks and began to frantically search for another method of egress.

The Orks had broken through the gate, and on the other side of the row of houses were apparently locked into a brutal slugging match with Imperial reinforcements.

To make matters worse, a group of flailing cultists just spilled out into the alley, likely planning on ambushing both sides. Instead, they found a pair of Eldar in the opposite direction of the giant monsters and armored vehicles.

He heard the shrill sound of laughter coming from behind as a window on the second story shattered.

"Saine! Gun! Strike them down!"

It took half a second for her to realize what he had said and what it meant, during which time he could hear the daemon landing and streaking halfway across the courtyard.

Then Saine raised her brutish pistol and let loose.

The quad barrels of Unrelenting Torrent spat blue sparks and flashes as a veritable hailstorm of shuriken slammed into wall of cultists like a hurricane, the humans barely having time to react in fear before being torn to ribbons.

Eachainn refused to acknowledge the success of Saine's abominable creation and instead grabbed her and tossed himself through the cloud of red vapor that now engulfed the alleyway.

Behind him, he heard the daemon speak, its voice like slick black tar.

"What a weapon! I shall delight in using it on your soulstone after I am finished skinning you alive!"

He landed and dashed low to the ground across the war-torn street, using the bulk of an Imperial Chimera to shield himself from the hail of crude projectiles coming from the Orkish side of the village.

Saine flailed to her feet and yelled something that sounded like a hail of curses in low gothic at the daemon.

This was followed by a flurry of shuriken fire, and he turned to watch as his companion scrambled across the road, one hand still holding her weapon and unleashing a storm of metal in the vague direction of the alleyway.

The daemon only laughed in response, and then shot through the gore caked alleyway.

"Don't shoot it, just run!"

Saine wasn't going to be hitting anything smaller than a carnifex in this state.

Then the Chimera suddenly reversed and came slamming into the daemon as it leapt from the alleyway.

Line of sight broken, Saine immediately resumed running across the street, narrowly being missed by several streaks of lasfire and a corkscrewing Ork rocket.

The Chimera shuddered and shook as the commander, halfway out of the cupola, screamed in agony before being ripped down into the vehicle.

Its metal side ripped outward, and the daemon peeled its way free from the metal prison as if it was a toy.

There were no preexisting breaches in the section of perimeter wall before them, and so Eachainn readied a plasma grenade, setting it to burst on impact.

"Saine, down!"

The xenologist hurled herself into the ground with more force then was necessary. He may have laughed at this in other circumstances, but right now he was far too concerned with the oncoming daemon to do anything but grunt approvingly and let fly his grenade.

It hit home, and with a molten blue flash reduced a man-sized hole in the rockcrete to vapor.

Eachainn didn't bother to wait for the air to finish cooling, hissing as he leapt through the breach and was rewarded with a blast of near scalding air and pulverized dust.

Saine followed, and the pair dashed into the Barrens blindly.

Unfortunately, he could hear the laughter of the daemon rapidly gaining on them.

They ran, Saine stumbling through the rough terrain.

There was no time to stop, no time to think, no time to plan, the only choice was to continue running in the hopes that the daemon lost interest. This wasn't very likely and Eachainn knew it, but that was the only thing he could focus on other than fear of imminent death.

If he had his rifle, he could have turned and shot the warpspawn dead or debilitated, but trying to take it on with only a shuriken pistol and powerblade was suicide.

That was assuming it went for him, instead of simply rushing past to kill or take Saine.

And so they continued, and so distracted, Eachainn only noticed they had run out of ground when he was halfway over the steep cliff face of the shallow river valley.

He spun in air and landed on his feet, but Saine wasn't so agile and so she instead landed in a heap, weapons strewn out of reach across the ground.

Eachainn turned in time to see the daemon come over the slope and deftly slide down the bank, strangleweed being slashed aside with an almost insulted swipe.

He rushed to put himself between his charge and the daemon and was rewarded with a downward strike that was barely deflected into the ground with his powerblade.

The daemon grinned far too widely and attempted to stab his face with a bladed tongue.

Eachainn raised his pistol and filled said appendage with shuriken fire, blasting it clean off at its midsection.

"YOU KNIFE EARED STAIN!"

It appeared that he had made the daemon angry.

He could hear Saine crying and scrambling backwards as he raised his blade in a defensive posture.

"I think your ichor makes a better stain on the ground."

The daemon howled and shot forward with blinding speed.

Eachainn responded with a hail of shuriken fire that forced it to weave into an upward slash.

To his horror, it caught the blade in one of its claws, yanking him forward into a kick that sent him flying, blade still in the clutches of the warpspawn.

As he was hurled, the second claw of the daemon deftly reached up and attempted to slice one of his hands off. It was too slow by a millisecond, but Eachainn realized that it was never aimed for his actual flesh.

Instead, half of the shuriken pistol went sailing into the distance.

The daemon then turned to Saine and slashed the object she tossed at it out of the air, causing what he realized to be a silversilk bag to come apart alongside its contents: a book which narrowly avoided bisection and a glass jar that was instead shattered, caking the claw of the daemon in a strange viscous, fleshy material and associated fluids.

"What exactly was that supposed to do, little sprite?"

The daemon laughed and inspected its claw, then turned its curious and wicked eyes to the Eldar, both of which were lying disarmed in front of it.

Saine only responded with a flurry of half-formed insults and curses in a dozen different languages as she crawled backwards in terror.

Eachainn looked around himself, searching for any possible salvation.

Instead, to his grim realization, he found traces in the bank which told him that this was the very stream hey were at earlier.

How darkly humorous, that they would die in the same place this entire horrible chain of events started at.

A true book end. Cegorach must have been laughing ferociously.

The daemon strode forward towards Saine with lethal intent.

Then the wall of the valley exploded.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I closed my eyes, waiting for the death blow to come.

All I had done, all that I hadn't, and this was th-

My eyes flew open as I heard the sound of thunder erupt followed by a daemonic howl of surprise and rage.

At first, I couldn't make out what had happened, the air being so chocked with black dust, white shards, and metal shavings, but then the curtain of debris fell, revealing something I couldn't believe.

The Daemon was above me, looking down with a twisted visage of horror, rage and pain. My eyes moved up from her head as I realized she was upside down, and then that I couldn't find her lower body.

Massive cables of steel hard sinew had slammed shut around her waist, ichor spewing and evaporating as the daemon screamed in agony and frustration.

The battery of colossal tendrils shifted, raising the daemon higher and then slamming her into the ground with enough force to cause one of the false eyes of the warpspawn to pop.

Not tendrils, barbels, I realized.

A titanic scale coated paw slammed down on the front of the daemon, and with a jerk the Striped Spine back separated it into two, tossing the bottom half away as if it was trash.

I stood up slowly, unable to properly register what I was seeing.

The beast took a step back and seemed to probe the air with its barbels.

My legs gave out from the stress, and I collapsed.

As I hit the ground, I noticed a shard of glass lying next to me. On this fragment of the shattered jar there was a simple line of text.

"Fully intact Osteochelys alarm gland."

I started laughing uncontrollably, rolling to lay on my back and look at the stars above.

Eachainn stumbled over to me.

"What just happened."

I grinned and spoke.

"We found the Spineback."

He seemed to consider this.

"No, I mean wha- why. The daemon? It killed? What?"

I raised the glass shard so he could read it, then realized that he probably couldn't read the text.

Instead, I explained, doing my best to contain my excitement.

"The Spineback, it must have been lying in wait."

Before he could ask what I meant, I continued.

"We set out a chemical signal earlier today, one that tricked it into thinking there was prey here. It, the Spineback, must have only reached here after we already left. Knowing that this was a water source that prey was actively using, it must have decided to lay in ambush."

I scrambled to my feet.

"When I tossed the bag at the thing, it shattered a jar containing the organ a Osteochelys uses to release distress signals. The Spineback immediately picked this up and must have thought it was a wounded prey item, and so it attacked."

Now that I was somewhat recovered, I could see that the name of the Striped Spineback was apt indeed.

It was a massive, synapsid semi-mammal, which I already knew. The animal was enormous, easily every bit as large as the large quad tracked vehicle the cultists had used earlier. Four monstrous legs held up a robust body, which, as would probably be expected, was both decorated with pale stripes and a series of large boney spines that increased in width and length the further they got from its short, pointed tail.

Almost certainly large enough to not need fur for thermoregulation, the Spineback instead possessed a sort of frill of quills around its stocky neck.

The head of the creature was proportionately giant. A heavily built skull and elongated snout provided a platform for massive teeth, a mix of rounded cone shaped bone crushing teeth at the front and flat and sharp shearing teeth barely visible further back along the jaw.

One of the most eye-catching features was one that had been proven to also be daemon catching.

A battery of long tendrils, resembling segmented and grossly oversized whiskers sprouted from the tip of the lower chin.

There were the sensory barbels used to pick out even the smallest traces of chemical signals at great distances.

As with most larger lifeforms on the Moon, the Spineback didn't have eyes, instead possessing empty boney sockets. While much of the body was a mix of drab dark browns and bone white stripes, these prominent eye ridges were instead a deep crimson.

I wondered if that was a form of marker of sexual maturity or fitness, serving to warn away members of the same sex and attract potential mates.

Many animals have such display characteristics, whether it be the breasts on an Aeldari or the extravagant featherily plumage of certain avians.

Either way, I needed to take advantage of this unexpected success.

"Eachainn, be very silent. It can't see us, but it can hear and smell us. I don't want you to scare it off."

For some reason Eachainn gave me a look of utter confusion and worry as I began to collect my scattered equipment.

I ignored him, and instead began to take recordings of the Spineback.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Striped Spineback/Spinobruser: Filling the role of apex predator in the Bone Barrens, and the largest terrestrial carnivore yet chronicled on the Marrow Moon, the "Thorny Bruiser" is a massive quadrupedal xenosynapsid feared and respected in equal parts by the local human population, which view it as equal parts fact and fiction, more of a semi mythical ideal then a living creature. Despite the fears of Aeldari xenologists and prayers of local Grox herders, the Spineback is still extant.

This reputation is well deserved, as it is estimated that a mature female Spineback can grow to lengths of 8.5 meters long and 4 meters tall at the pronounced shoulder hump. Said shoulders are used to throw the entire organism forward at frightening speed, allowing it to deliver a monstrous bite that produces forces in excess of 6,000 PSI. It appears that the battery of sensory barbels is prehensile and are used to entangle and hold prey into place for further assault. Each barbel are roughly as thick around as an adult's arm but far stronger, being composed of powerful muscle coated with segmented keratin plating.

Another notable feature is the series of large boney spikes which grow from the shoulders and continue partially down the spine, decreasing in size as they approach the tail until they entirely disappear. The function of these can only be speculated upon, but the ease in which said spines fall off and their surprisingly brittle structure suggests they are of an exceptionally disposable nature. Chemical analysis suggests that when broken, the fluid they leak acts as both a potent toxin and chemical signal.

Currently, it is theorized that they are routinely scrapped off upon solid objects to mark territory or used in interspecies combat over resources or mates. By comparing the size and chemical potency of the metabolically difficult to produce spines, a conflict between Spinebacks can be resolved without the use of their crushing jaws, or indeed either specimen coming into direct contact with the other.

 

[Wirbelwind]

At the end of each "arc" there will be, as suggested, an informational post which will collect the various snippets of information regarding the alien creatures and plants which were at the end of certain chapters and contain additional entries to flesh out the ecosystem to some extent.

New additional information not present in previous chapters will be marked with italics.

Fauna and pseudofauna.

Craniafugid/Skulled Exile: A widespread genus of pseudo-arthropods in the order Triarthorcor notable for both their stunning range (there is not a single environment of the Moon of Marrow which does not have its own variety) and the brutal efficiency of their battery of impressive yet streamlined traits. An accomplished predator of other pseudo-arthropods, small xenosynapsids, and generally anything able to be overpowered and devoured. Sizes range from 2 to 8 inches in length, weight ranging from 25 to 250 grams. All members of the genus are distinguished via their unique skull anatomy, consisting of a primary head which contains the brain that is connected by powerful hydraulic tendons to a protruding chitinous plate upon which the mandibles are mounted and through which a pair of sensory organs are extended.

Due to this ingenious product of natural selection, the entire front of the skull can be projected towards prey at speeds in excess of 30 mph, delivering a venomous bite that liquifies the internal organs of its victim. Chemical slurry is then siphoned through tube hidden between the overlapping mandibles. Bite is extremely painful but otherwise of no consequence to Eldar and most large native life of the Moon, able to cause necrosis and eventually death to humans and their imported fauna.

Osteochelys/Bone Turtle: While current generations of humans on the Marrow Moon are likely completely unaware of the meaning of the last part of its name, the Osteo (Bone) Chelys (Turtle) must have been originally named for a now long extinct class of fauna native to their homeworld of Terra. The comparison is very apt, as the Osteochelys is like its namesake a, squat, quadrupedal beaked reptilian covered in thick scales and defended by a boney shell that covers all but the head, legs, and tail of the creature. Filling the ecological role of a large terrestrial herbivore, the Osteochelys grazes on tough strangleweed and other forms of undergrowth using a monstrously powerful beak and battery of highly developed teeth.

Able to reach sizes in excess of 7 meters long, 5 meters wide, and over 14,000 kg, the Osteochelys herds of old scoured entire swaths of the Barrens in their perpetual search for food and drink, shattering and cracking even fully grown Bone Reefs as they went, filling the same role other megafauna or fires do on various worlds across the galaxy as a sort of bulldozer which ensures that no one region becomes entirely dominated by the carcasses of the Reefs. The species was unfortunately hunted to near extinction by humanity due to competition with their imported Grox herds, with special chemical weapons being developed and deployed after it was found that Bull Osteochelys were capable of resisting even heavy weapons long enough to cause tremendous damage to their hunters.

Currently still exists as a rarity deep in the Bone Barrens and is prized above all but the Spineback by local hunters and wildlife collectors for both sport, meat, and shell (which can be crafted into effective armor).

Striped Spineback/Spinobruser: Filling the role of apex predator in the Bone Barrens, and the largest terrestrial carnivore yet chronicled on the Marrow Moon, the "Thorny Bruiser" is a massive quadrupedal xenosynapsid feared and respected in equal parts by the local human population, which view it as equal parts fact and fiction, more of a semi mythical ideal then a living creature. Despite the fears of Aeldari xenologists and prayers of local Grox herders, the Spineback is still extant.

This reputation is well deserved, as it is estimated that a mature female Spineback can grow to lengths of 8.5 meters long and 4 meters tall at the pronounced shoulder hump. Said shoulders are used to throw the entire organism forward at frightening speed, allowing it to deliver a monstrous bite that produces forces in excess of 6,000 PSI. It appears that the battery of sensory barbels is prehensile and are used to entangle and hold prey into place for further assault. Each barbel are roughly as thick around as an adult's arm but far stronger, being composed of powerful muscle coated with segmented keratin plating.

Another notable feature is the series of large boney spikes which grow from the shoulders and continue partially down the spine, decreasing in size as they approach the tail until they entirely disappear. The function of these can only be speculated upon, but the ease in which said spines fall off and their surprisingly brittle structure suggests they are of an exceptionally disposable nature. Chemical analysis suggests that when broken, the fluid they leak acts as both a potent toxin and chemical signal.

Currently, it is theorized that they are routinely scrapped off upon solid objects to mark territory or used in interspecies combat over resources or mates. By comparing the size and chemical potency of the metabolically difficult to produce spines, a conflict between Spinebacks can be resolved without the use of their crushing jaws, or indeed either specimen coming into direct contact with the other.

Xenocanis/Strange Dog: One of the few species which has universally benefitted from the arrival of humanity, the Xenocanis is a small quadrupedal xenosynapsid that shares a common ancestor with the legendary Spineback. Originally filling the role of small ambush predator, the Xenocanis possesses both an advanced social structure and a stunning ability to adapt and learn, qualities which allowed for the first human colonists to rapidly domesticate the species. The species is equipped with an extremely unusual battery of sensory barbels which dominate the entire top rear half of its large skull. Capable of detecting both chemical, visual, auditory, electrical, and potentially even psychic signals, the Xenocanis was found to be a perfect guardian for human settlements.

To facilitate the placement of the sensory barbels, which are more typically seen on the lower jaw of the family, the skull of the Xenocanis is entirely fused together, entirely lacking separate upper or lower jaws. A large blade of bone and keratin protruding from the lower portion of the skull forms a spiked beak used to dispatch prey. While externally this appears to be a highly derived lower jawbone, it is in reality the vestigial, fused remnants of the upper jaw which internally pass between the dramatically upturned mandibles of the lower jaw, functionally reversing the positions of structures on each jaw. This arrangement of overlapping bone and muscle combines with the fine but durable scales covering the entire body to make the Xenocanis immensely resistant to damage. The weight of the head is supported by powerful forelimbs anchored to a large hump that eventually terminates in a fluffy tail.

The name of the species references the Domestic Dog (Canis lupus familiaris) owned by scattered humans and Aeldari galaxy wide and the comparison is apt. Numerous domesticated breeds which enhance or reduce certain anatomical features are used by humans across the entire Sub Sector (Human Administrative Region) in limited but growing numbers, with common uses being internal police work, combat, or companionship.

Flora and pseudoflora.

Bone Reef: Essentially a highly derived terrestrial version of the coral reefs present within oceans across the galaxy, this family of polyps reacted to the retreat of Marrow's oceans several hundred million years ago via adapting to grow a shell of bone across their surface to retain moisture that is now pulled from the air and concentrated into a bluish fluid that forms a liquid film across the entire internal structure of the colony organism. Nutrients are drawn from batteries of subterranean outstretched tendrils that attach to and sweep material from nearby flora and other Bone Reefs, creating a dead zone around these structures as the Reefs gradually wage underground wars with each other and devour all plants with their extended reach.

Once a certain critical size is reached, or all resources in an area are exhausted, several hundred thousand larvae are explosively released from a specially grown spiral structure, scattering themselves across a wide radius whereupon they land and begin their own conquests. The parent Reef dies, and while much of the internal flesh rots away quickly, the boney shell is able to survive relatively intact for decades or centuries.

In this way, entire regions can be overtaken by Bone Reefs within a few generations, and only the prevailing winds from the Moon's oceans keep certain regions relatively untouched. Vast numbers Bone Reefs have turned the aptly named Bone Barrens into a brutal wasteland that has proven so far impossible for the human colonists to tame, and entire mountains have been made out of the mix of living Bone Reefs and their ancestors that they have taken root upon.

Strangleweed: Aptly named, this crimson plant consists of a fleshy bulbous core from which hundreds of long tendrils extend, forming tight knots when they come into contact with their fellows. The tendrils are modified roots which serve to strangle and kill off competing plants and provide a formidable defense via batteries of razors coated with potent anticoagulants. Conventional roots are also grown, which skim just below the surface to leech nutrients from the fertile black soil of the Moon. Moisture is absorbed via massive yellow "flowers" that sprout from the center of the bulb at night.

Human activity has drastic effects upon the population of Strangleweed in two very different ways. On the Moon, the population has dropped dramatically, the vast plains of Strangleweed which existed prior to successful Imperial colonization being wiped out by both the population boom of Bone Reefs following the destruction of the large fauna which previously kept them in check, and by the Razorstorms which shred their flowers at night. It is only due to the rapid rate of reproduction that the Strangleweed clings to life in the Barrens, where Bone Reefs ironically provide cover from the storm of steel. Off world, however, the Strangleweed is thriving, having been at some point accidentally or intentionally introduced by interstellar transit to over a dozen worlds, where it rapidly has overtaken native flora. Strangleweed reproduces via both release of airborne seeds and by particularly large tendrils splitting off from the main body, rapidly becoming new bulbs.

Silverweed: Owing to its rapid reproduction, Strangleweed has already begun to diverge evolutionarily in response to Imperial activities. Silverweed is a currently rare but rapidly spreading subspecies which harbors a species of bacteria which specializes in consuming metals and alloys, thereby allowing the plant to feed upon the waste products of Imperial industry by feeding upon the bacteria. Visually extremely similar to the Strangleweed from which it arose, Silverweed is, as the name suggests, coated in thin silvery coating of what little metals the bacteria cannot process, forming natural armor that allows it to overcome its ancestors in direct, physical competitions.

Imperial efforts to destroy concentrations of Silverweed appear to be ongoing but are facing little success.

 

[Wirbelwind]

I watched and felt with senses not my own as our ship slid smoothly through the final layer of clouds at several times the speed of sound and took a moment to steady out our flight a few kilometers above the verdant green surface of Enigma 2531.

Linked as I was with the crystal-circuitry, psychic cogitators, and loops of psychoplastic that formed the core and control system of the Enterprising Spirit, I "saw" the emerald expanse of boreal forests, marshes, and rolling mountains with not my flesh eyes, but instead the battery of sensors which made up the hundred-meter-long ships equivalent.

Specially fitted out for planetary exploration and survey, the Lanlarrath class ship was fully capable of scanning entire swaths of land in seconds and sampling atmospheric conditions while still cruising at high altitude.

Even if we were still above the dense series of cloud layers, the sensors of my chosen vessel would cut through such things without concern. Indeed, it was solely a personal choice to bring us down within proper visual distance of the ground.

Some of my colleagues would have called this a waste of time, but I wanted to see the virgin world with my own eyes, to take in its splendor as an individual and not the master of some arcane machine.

And so, upon setting a course which the guiding systems of the Spirit would follow on her own, I disconnected from the vessel. It would be impossible to describe the sensation of slipping out of the ship as most would slip out of their clothing, the feeling of cold wraithbone being replaced with warm Aeldari skin, the vast streams of information which stimulated every part of my brain dropping to merely that which could be supplied by my natural senses.

I stepped out of the silverweave and hypermylaric "cocoon" which served as my direct connection to the vessels core processes, psychoactive fluids rapidly evaporating off my skinsuit.

The command room of the starship was located in her heart, safely nestled below the thickest part of the wraithbone spine of the vessel. A series of transit corridors weaved between the ribs of the rigid structure which formed anchors for the rest of the ship, allowing easy access to almost all other sections, While the internal layout of warships often involved false entrances, convoluted webs of hallways to nowhere, and batteries of armored bulkheads like the endoskeleton of some giant beast, the Enterprising Spirit was crafted for purely peaceful endeavors.

As such, all that blocked my path to the star and seadecks of the vessel were a pair of doors, the second of which opened with a thought to reveal a winding, spiral staircase that led to the seadeck.

Named for the special rooms present within ancient Aeldari seaships of luxury to allow their crews to gaze down into the depths of the ocean, 60 million years on from its origin, the seadeck filled the same general purpose.

The glossy white walls of the staircase were decorated with intricate linework that seamlessly blended into the wraithbone structure of the ship itself, a mix of nautical symbology, quotes from notable Aeldari mariners both terrestrial and voidborne, and celestial imagery.

I entered the small, dedicated room of the seadeck, the floor transforming from soft psychoplastic to cold crystalline metamaterials which bent and arched light according to the individual perceptions of the occupants, creating the illusion of entirely transparent bottom to this section of the vessel. The stardeck was similar, with the only difference being its placement on the dorsal surface of the Enterprising Spirit.

A mental twitch caused the visuals of the floor to ripple like water struck by a stone before entirely clearing, giving me a line of sight to the world beneath that was even more transparent than the finest glass.

Normally, the floor would tailor its visuals, zooming in or out, calling to attention various details, or even entirely removing certain aspects from the image, but I dismissed all such advanced functions.

Instead, I beheld the verdant green and blue expanse below me with my natural eyes. Enigma 2531 was a true garden world, spared from most of the ravages of the galaxy by its position behind a wall of impassable stellar and warp geography. Only the truly brave or foolhardy would be willing or capable of coming here, and indeed the only reason it was accessible to us at all was an ancient Webway gate that stood on the planets lone moon.

Unfortunately, the records detailing the reason for its construction were long lost, but surviving stellar maps suggested that this gate was built several million years ago during the reign of "Idransen the Wayseer", a petty noble who put significant amounts of effort into the exploration of this local region.

So unused was this particular gate and obscure was this world that we only managed to actually catch wind of both via conversation with a passing trade flotilla of the Trans-Hyperian Alliance, the Heliosi Ancients being all too happy to provide vast amounts of information about what they considered to be irrelevant worlds and systems at the right price.

Indeed, the name Enigma 2531 was their own internal designation for this planet, which they found to be almost entirely barren of valuable natural resources.

Bands of their Hernkyn had only found a stunning variety of wildlife and flora, much of which proved to be little threat to their short series of expeditions into the belts of green and white and blue.

Currently I looked down upon the northern most continent, which I had decided was an excellent place to start our own excursion. Eachainn had, of course, insisted that we started our journey in the region's most well catalogued by the Heliosi for reasons of safety.

We would make planetfall on the shores of a massive azure lake and spend the next few days exploring the hundreds of kilometers of sand dunes which surrounded the body of water. Then, over the next week we would shoot north across a small open grassland and series of marshes to make our way into the foothills of a vast range of snowcapped mountains.

The hike across the mountain ranges would likely take a few days, and while the following descent onto the coastal desert would be equally difficult, by taking this route we would effectively experience, if only for a short period of time, every unique type of geographical region visible from orbit.

Charting an entire planet to a satisfactory level would require a significant expedition, and unfortunately Bath-Yal's leading field researchers were busy on other worlds. There simply weren't enough scientists to cover all the planets in even a single stellar region, and so we were forced to launch expeditions that were far from as thorough as those performed by Aeldari Pre-Fall.

I ignored the sorrow the washed over me as I considered that most tragic of historical events, and instead focused on the beautiful scenery below me.

Eachainn's voice shattered the silence just as I finished taking note of the characteristic signs of a divergent plate boundary along the edges of the great interior lake.

"You should get ready. We are but a short distance from the landing zone."

I was startled, not having even noticed him entering the room. How exactly he managed to move in total silence I could only guess.

"Are you ready?"

He looked at me. I stared back. I raised a solitary eyebrow. He ignored me and left the room.

I considered this and decided I should properly dress and make my way to the portal bay.

Dress, of course, consisted of a variety of different pieces tailored to specific performance requirements which was smoothly affixed to an auto-conforming hypermylaric bodysuit. Each individual piece of the composite rapidly integrated itself into the rest of the outfit seamlessly, forming what would appear to the naked eye to be a single piece of material that had almost grown around my body.

Psychic interfaces integrated throughout the inner layer of the suit thrummed almost silently with energy, and all systems reported to back to me as fully operational via a small line of runes which appeared in the corner of my eyes.

While present in most field wear for Eldar academics and even certain soldiers, these series of crystalline beads would be needed to operate the most vital piece of equipment we had been given in the wake of our previous mission on the Moon of Marrow, and so had a dramatically increased level of importance.

As I stepped into the portal bay, I immediately took note of two things. The first was that Eachainn was already fully equipped, wearing a similar sort of suit to myself instead of his preferred Cameleoline cloak and light armoring. He had grumbled silently upon my delivery of the news regarding the single greatest addition to our arsenal since our expeditions had begun half a year ago, but Lady Vanne Lawickia, Bath-Yal's chief naturalist and our patron, insisted on their use.

Said additions to our arsenal was the second notable thing within the vast bay. It was a pair of bulky environmental exploration suits of the Pathmaker class. Derived from ancient deep ocean exploration vehicles, these were heavy duty mechanized exploration tools designed to provide protection from both hostile environments, wildlife, or even potential natives on a world that required in person chronicling.

Each was composed of a sleek, smooth outer shell of wraithbone composite which was 20mm thick in places, placed over a synthetic psychoplastic muscle harness which would carry the entire machine and its battery of internal and external equipment without placing stress upon the operator.

The user would very literally step inside the harness and wear it like a sort of overcoat, batteries of psychic sensors reading their thoughts and allowing them to control the second skin as if it was a natural part of their body.

In their current configurations, the pair of suits carried several internal sample storage tanks, fluid extraction and injection systems, high powered sensors operating on several principles and spectrums, inbuilt medical gear and life support capable of functioning in vacuum for half a week, a series of holofield projectors and dispensers, and a high-powered cogitator and communications suite.

Both hands of my suit ended with an adaptable manipulator hand capable of matching the dexterity of my own flesh hand and exceeding it in maneuverability. They were able to exert enough pressure to crack stone or so little as to clasp an egg without breaking it.

Eachainn's suit possessed a shoulder mount for his new long rifle, which had been converted to automatically load and fire from internal ammunition storage on the back of the exoskeleton. His left arm ended in a sort of heavy-duty servo-claw capable of rending metal or lifting several tons with ease, while the right ended with a standard manipulator hand.

Mobility was provided by a series of small Star Engines and gravity dampers that augmented the already more than sufficient mechanical means of locomotion, allowing for limited if somewhat clumsy flight and a top speed in excess of 30 kph.

This was still far too slow and unwieldy for combat use, but it was more than sufficient for our purpose. We weren't going to be dodging hypervelocity projectiles or roaring monomolecular chainblades after all.

Indeed, we were still giving up a substantial amount of our natural flexibility and grace by stepping into these machines.

I still considered them to be marvels of engineering and technological development and something I was extremely grateful to be given a chance to use.

I thought that they would be vital to allow our safe traversal of poorly chronicled alien worlds, a perfect blend of smooth curves and heavy psychoplastic might, the ultimate in personal exploration of hostile environments.

Eachainn thought them unwieldy and that they would do little more than slow him down, and that they looked like "a mistaken attempt at hybridization of a crustacean and wraithguard".

He had complained, subsequently, about their insufficient physical flexibility, poor situational awareness, low top speed, cramped nature, aesthetics, and general inferiority in his eyes to traveling on foot or in a "proper vehicle".

Half of these critiques I found to be in bad faith or based upon logical fallacies.

Still, he relented, and so we would both wear the light Pathmakers throughout the entirety of the expedition on Enigma 2531, taking only occasional breaks from them when faced with something impossible to do within a wraithbone cocoon.

A faint shudder came through the entire starship as the Enterprising Spirit made landfall.

While some might expect the Portal Bay to be a room where actual space-time anomalies were created and harnessed to form portals or tunnels through space, or the location of a small webway gate, it was actually merely a sort of open staging area for holding and then disgorging material and people.

In other words, it was a loading bay.

The soft ambient light turned a slight shade of red as the simple intelligence of the ship waited for us to board our Pathmakers. The entire bulbous canopy covering the torso of the wraithbone construction raised and I slipped into the second skin of the suit, feeling the internal padding automatically conforming to support my body as if this marvel of bonesinging was a natural extension of my flesh.

Eachainn watched and grimaced, before following my example by donning his own Pathmaker.

Now properly equipped to face a foreign world, the ambient light shifted smoothly to a pale blue, and then the entire floor of the room disconnected from the walls and slide downward on rails of bent gravity, lowering itself to the white crystal sand below in almost total silence.

As the light of midday spilled onto the us, I raised my arm experimentally and the suits own colossal equivalent mirrored the motion without delay. I shifted on my feet, feeling the half ton of circuitry and metal following suit, and then felt a grin breaking out on my face.

"Everything looks fine on my end, does the same apply to you?"

Eachainn shifted his own Pathmaker, rifle raising and lowering, claw and hand clenching and unclenching as he got used to the experience.

I had used this class of vehicle before, during field work at the Academy, but as far as I knew, this was the first time my companion had the chance to.

"It is... more comfortable than I expected, but I still would rather hear and feel the world unobstructed."

He stepped forward, reluctantly at first, before rapidly finding his metaphorical legs and making his way at half speed across the rest of the bay and onto the dunes.

"You need to press the... little blue glyph that reads 'sensory integration'".

"Oh. That is... much better, but still inferior to my natural senses."

I shrugged; the motion being comically mimicked by the hulking frame I was wearing.

He didn't respond.

I didn't mind, and instead made my way off the ship proper and onto the crystal white sand of the dunes.

My suits legs rapidly began to sink into the fine substrate, but within a few seconds of touching the sand, the suit had already automatically adjusted, feet splaying out, plastic webbing extending between the three clawed toes to form a net with which the sand was caught, halting the sinking.

Eachainn seemed to have had no trouble of the same sort, his impressive grace somehow transferring over without issue to the Pathmaker itself.

There was probably a convoluted explanation for it, but I didn't bother to consider it, having immediately found a strange set of distinctly unnatural formations crossing the sand in front of us.

Above us, the Enterprising Spirit began to move, its colossal shadow turning the day to night for half a second as the vessel began to turn and ascend. Swept variable geometry wings slid and then swung forward on electromagnetic hinges, the previously outstretched lifting surfaces of the vessel now lying flush against the main hull, seeming to merge with it as if they were never separate in the first place.

Star engines gently rumbled as the vessel tore away into the sky, transonic bow wave forming on her prow and then climaxing into a thunderous boom as the Spirit pierced the lowest layer of fluffy white clouds, punching a hole large enough to see the glint of the starship now behind them rising into the heavens.

The ship would wait in low orbit for either a distress beacon, upon which it would descend, burn a landing site away with starcannon fire, and recover us, or for us to reach the preplanned recovery zone in a week.

To my delight, the formations in the sand were clearly a sort of trackway left by some form of animal.

Based upon the depth of the indentations left in the sand, it couldn't have been more than a dozen kilos, and the shape was clearly that of a three toed avian foot. Of course, determining anything else from trace evidence was always tricky for xenofauna not yet catalogued.

Finding even such inconclusive traces of life within a mere minute of setting down was still a very good sign, and I could already feel that this would be a lovely expedition.