Echoes of Eternity: A Warhammer 40k Necron Lord Quest
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[X] Plan: Peaceful Unsealing
Making use of peace time is wise. Try not to shout just yet..
We do have a planet engine gunning for us... right?
Making use of peace time is wise. Try not to shout just yet..
We do have a planet engine gunning for us... right?
[X] Plan: Peaceful Unsealing
[X] Plan: Peaceful Unsealing
Voting closed. Plan Whoops, the World-Engine is right on top of us is a go!
Ha, I knew waking up the sensor array was a good idea.
Maybe we should have done that turn 1 instead
And Rahotamen better have a good excuse for missing it when he came in. That thing should have been about as obvious as a moon.
He was hyper-focused! Also dw, no Planet-Engine impending collision yet.
Wondering what we could use the skitarii and the magi we have for, maybe infiltration and human political studies?
Turn 2 Results-1
New
[X] Plan: Peaceful Unsealing
-[X] Xoranthis
--[X] Empyrean
--[X] White Ghosts
--[X] Awaken the Tomb (Data Vaults)
-[X]Rahotamen
--[X] Trodding dead sands
--[X] Open the Armories
---[X] A stealth-based armor for Rahotamen
-[X]Ptolomes
--[X] Awaken the Tomb (Sensor Array)
-[X] Beta-Mu-047
--[X] Words of Wisdom
--[X] Free the Mind, Free the Body
-[X] Xoranthis
--[X] Empyrean
--[X] White Ghosts
--[X] Awaken the Tomb (Data Vaults)
-[X]Rahotamen
--[X] Trodding dead sands
--[X] Open the Armories
---[X] A stealth-based armor for Rahotamen
-[X]Ptolomes
--[X] Awaken the Tomb (Sensor Array)
-[X] Beta-Mu-047
--[X] Words of Wisdom
--[X] Free the Mind, Free the Body
Shards of glass crunched underfoot as Rahotamen stepped forward. Particulates sped through the air, pattering harmlessly against necrodermis while they would have scoured flesh from bone in an istant.
The landscape was desolating, a desert of obsidian glass, stretching as far as the eye could reach. Dry river beds cut through it like the signs left by a God's finger, filled with ash and the dusty remnants of a long-extinguished biosphere. Craters bubbled and steamed with pools of sulfuric liquid.
Rahotamen was used to scan all kinds of environments for the smallest possible hints. Even now, many of his secondary protocols signaled the presence of fossil metals, likely the remnants of the planet's geological processes. Among them, vanadium and elements that would be rare in worlds still thriving and alive.
Above, Mournhold secondary star was a hint among the dull, oppressive haze of coppery orange and sickly green, the result of the thin, carbon-loaded atmosphere. As he watched, jagged lightning ripped through the cover in a display of furious purple. An Ion Storm, he judged, common to the planet's ancient history.
Carbon Dioxide 90%. Argon in trace amounts, likely the remnant of natural radioactive decay. Low pressure. High radiation levels, lethal to unshielded units…
Rahotamen dismissed the processes from his active cognition. He'd liked to interrupt them entirely, but one element making up his fragmented personality, his wonder for new places to explore, wouldn't let him.
He didn't argue with it. He had long learned that those hard nodes were the only things keeping his self from dissipating entirely.
Especially one.
"We like to picture ourselves as masters of the physical world, and that is true in part."
In her high-end necrodermis frame, Xorathis towered over him. As she spoke, her smooth face-plate divided into segments. Its lower half fractioned and slid away, revealing lips of syntho-skin as natural as the real thing. Rahotamen's data-banks were suddenly filled to capacity by their image, all his processes working overdrive to analyze and store away any detail to the subatomic level.
"Cheap as necrodermis is a good way to describe it. Inferiors consider a wonder material that is dirt to us." She smiled. Her fingers grazed his death-mask.
His Lychguards were vague shapes in the haze, the light refracting over their plates and myriad glass surfaces in a ghostly glow that turned them into dream-like figures. To his optics, they appeared as green-ringed, sure-footed figures and steady flows of informational data.
Good soldiers, the same with which he had trained, shared bread with, conquered and lived. Only echoes of their former personalities remained in those cold shells, but the same could be said of him. The faint sadness he felt at contemplating their fate was proof enough.
"Clear," Naba informed, his data-voice having a bit of a lisp to it. "Sssea," he added, in a way that could have been an attempt at levity, or just memory banks conflicting with processes.
Rahotamen grunted an acknowledgment. It would have been easier to scan from Night-Shrouds or swarms of Canoptek, and while those were employed to full effect, suspicious points deserved closer sweeps. That planet had to become the Ascendacy's Crownworld. It deserved nothing less than complete security, and he would have it scoured and mapped inch by inch if necessary.
"But scarcity is not unknown to us, no. Why, it's the main reason for our current predicament. And there's tragicomedy to be found when economy dictates the fates of souls."
Her eyes were bars of solid Gauss light behind her visor as they caught his optics. Rahotamen didn't need the data influx to recognize the hefty dose of irony, self-directed and not, in them. It brought him back, to another place, another time, when he could feel the breeze playing his skin and the touch that now registered as bursts of raw inputs as warmth upon warmth.
Arcane glyphs played across his shoulders as her Nano-Scarabs created personal interfaces and authorization-leaden entry points.
"But let us be optimists, yes?" Her lips curved in a fond smile. "If scarcity dictates our destiny, it also has its uses: it affords us to distinguish what is precious from what is not." At a flick of her fingers, a swarm of Nano-Scarabs affixed a tattered cloak at his shoulders, necrodermis spun in micro-nodules and connected by gravitic alloys that even Necrons struggled to produce. It appeared as a billowing shroud of darkness.
"And by the right apportioning, who is underserving, and who is not." Beneath the softness, something that maybe existed only in his optics, her gaze had a pointed meaning to it. "Who is to be cherished, no matter how, no matter when."
It had been a long, long journey. So much that the details of it blurred together, places and knowledge melted away by directed memory wipes to keep his neural banks from clogging.
At the start, he was pushed by an indomitable will and a burning desire. They were still there, echoes of echoes of what they were, woven into the fibers of what remained of his mind and soul, as obvious as necrodermis.
To his shame, he was taken by thoughts of surrendering many, many times during the journey, decades and even centuries with his objective forgotten in favor of wanderlust or malfunctioning consciousness.
As her hand crushed his cheek, as she looked in his optics and smiled; when wisps of memories he thought long forgotten reared their heads again like flowers touched by the light after an endless night and he relived times of an eternity ago, when he had known love; when he felt the insubstantial weight of his new cloak and the mark of her like a newly forged glyph on his shoulders. That's when the echoes of ancient emotions flared to a shadow of what they were and he was shamed by his moments of unfaithfulness. When he felt with iron-clad conviction and endless relief that even his eternity of wandering was more than worth it.
"There." The indication from Sekath, his faithful second, brought him back from his musing.
They were looking down in a ragged fissure, clouds of noxious gas clinging to every surface. Setting aside any wondering process, Rahotamen focused on what could be glimpsed beneath. Fossil crystals, patches of refractive light and shadows in the gloom, interfered with his perceptions.
Nothing unusual. Yet, not even a centimeter had to go unmapped.
The Veil of Darkness affixed to his shoulder billowed to life as he reached for it. Dominant connections keyed to his hard-wired codes replied obediently, activating the artifact's personal beacon.
Following the specifics supplied by his sensors, interstitial paths beneath dimensions were traced by a flurry of exploratory pulses before a safe way was located and locked. Rahotamen felt it as a torch launched into the dark to lay as a beacon at a point located by his eyes. In this case, the distant floor barely visible beyond the gas banks.
The jump registered as a series of errors in his receptors, the self-repair protocols working fast to erase the damage done by the conflicting reports on his databanks. It was custom to keep personal sensors shut down to avoid that kind of result but that personality fragment of his that was always keyed to curiosity couldn't resist. Interstitial teleport was Necron standard fare, leading them to skim between dimensions to reach farther and farther. A Veil of Darkness led to deeper strata that only Arch-Crypteks had studied in any measure, making their passages both almost impossible to jam and dangerous without the proper precautions. A chance to see the unseen too good to pass on, in his book.
His Veil had also been keyed on his Mistress' personal signature, to allow him to be at her side in a matter of seconds as long as he remained in the same solar system. His emotion cores warmed slightly as he nursed that personal protocol.
Then the passage was over, and he was in a fight.
The creature was cut down faster than it attacked, followed by a second and a third.
Rahotamen swung his Warscythe in a precise arc, cutting in half a tall, spindly figure, its head forming an almost tear-like shape. They flew to pieces as he clove them, shedding fragments of bone-like material.
Wraithguards…
He was on the bottom of the fissure, the gas so thick around him that organics eyes wouldn't have been able to see themselves. But he saw well. The pavement showed signs of rough working, most of it lost to the planet's now distant shudderings.
Ancient earthquakes had cracked the wall, revealing graceful, white and green architecture. Heavy steps came from it, more Wraithguards already stepping toward him.
Mmh… I see.
Irritation and understanding crackled through him, old memories of similar things stirring from the depths of his corroded mind.
The Mistress had to be informed.
Flashes of actinic light lashed out, shattering the rock he had been standing on barely a micro-second before.
Trodding dead sands
Rahotames, Martial Roll: 100+8: 108 CRIT!
Overflow Roll, 25: Traces of rare minerals for Necron artifacts.
Results: With common Ion Storms, a thin, poisonous atmosphere and little geotermal activity, Mournhold deserves its name for being a rock of little attraction to any civilization. Ancient ruins and vast glass plains inform of ancient wars that brought whatever civilization lived here to extinction eons ago. What remains are some minerals rare even for the Necrons and not useful for anybody else. The violent electromagnetic storms makes the place difficult to scan and attack from orbit. Unshielded troops will be scoured to bits in instant by the particulates in the constant winds, heavy radiations and galeforce storms that wreck the surface from time to time.
WARNING! An Eldar Webway gateway has been found! It seems defended by a contingent of Wraithguards and looks very ancient.
Open the Armories: auto-Success
Results:
Veil of Darkness: This artifact appearing as tattered cloak allows a Necron Lord to translate himself across large distances through deeper interstial strata difficult to jam. If keyed to a specific signature it allows the Lord to teleport to that signature's position even to light years of distance. It passively uses Null-technology to eliminate the Wearer's heat and radiation signature, auditory and electromagnetic emissions and make him invisible across all spectrums. It afford little protection from Warp recognition and can still be pierced by advanced sensors.
Rahotames, Martial Roll: 100+8: 108 CRIT!
Overflow Roll, 25: Traces of rare minerals for Necron artifacts.
Results: With common Ion Storms, a thin, poisonous atmosphere and little geotermal activity, Mournhold deserves its name for being a rock of little attraction to any civilization. Ancient ruins and vast glass plains inform of ancient wars that brought whatever civilization lived here to extinction eons ago. What remains are some minerals rare even for the Necrons and not useful for anybody else. The violent electromagnetic storms makes the place difficult to scan and attack from orbit. Unshielded troops will be scoured to bits in instant by the particulates in the constant winds, heavy radiations and galeforce storms that wreck the surface from time to time.
WARNING! An Eldar Webway gateway has been found! It seems defended by a contingent of Wraithguards and looks very ancient.
Open the Armories: auto-Success
Results:
Veil of Darkness: This artifact appearing as tattered cloak allows a Necron Lord to translate himself across large distances through deeper interstial strata difficult to jam. If keyed to a specific signature it allows the Lord to teleport to that signature's position even to light years of distance. It passively uses Null-technology to eliminate the Wearer's heat and radiation signature, auditory and electromagnetic emissions and make him invisible across all spectrums. It afford little protection from Warp recognition and can still be pierced by advanced sensors.
Ptolomes hummed happily to himself. Planted deep into the Monolith's machinery with barely enough space to move would have been a nightmarish experience for any organic-based creature. Good thing that he had left behind that primitive type of living a long, long time ago.
"Immurah!" He barked, his voice punctuated by a whip-like burst of raw input data. "Leave that Ptra convalidator as it is, fool, and you'll learn what being a Crypthrall means!"
The signature of Immurah, worthless excuse of a Cryptek that he was, pulsed with aknowledgement and new influx of energy.
"By your will, Architect," he mumbled. Ptolomes ignored him, but his irritation was soothed by feeling the array's performance improving of 0.02% as the fool redoubled his effort. He wouldn't aknowledge it, of course. It was good for the inferiors to know that any slacking in the pursuit of Her Highness' sublime design was worthy of anything but contempt.
He scheduled Immurah for two demi-cycles of Canoptek micro-brushing.
Mindful of the first fool, he scanned the efforts of the other thirteen Crypteks who, like him, were currently crawling in the delicate innards of the Tomb's Sensorial Pylons, busy with coaxing the complex array of sensors awake with a mix of data and physical input. The myriad of micro-errors he saw, compounding which would create an intolerable lag in signal transmission, did nothing but arouse his cheerfulness with zeal.
Nothing but the best, no, the best of the absolute best, was allowed in Her Tomb, let alone in Her defense. If his idiotic subordinates were too… idiotic to understand it, he would spend eternity teaching them that. Him and a generous dose of electric and engram prodding; or maybe some good old fashioned time working boring jobs would do it.
Mh-mh-mh, this goes there and this goes here, aaaaand… a-ah!
The operational amplifier he was working on ran as a net of delicate conduits of vitro-glass, with coils of spun Necrodermis spun around them. With his gyro-tendrils connected to the network, Ptolomes could follow its tentacles as they tunneled through the planet's crust, emerging under the stars as cloaked antennas and pressure panels, ready to catch any electro-magnetism not included in normal patterns for the system.
As he flicked the last component into place, the whole system reacted, giving out a series of checks of acknowledgments. He received them with a flicker of satisfaction. But success was no reason for slacking off. Even as he ran the last tests, he looked over at the list of sensors already activated and those still to awaken. Then, he went to it.
Optical, thermal, acoustic, sensors based on quantum entanglement, particle wave analyzers, electromagnetic scanners, motion, chemical and gravitational detectors; they all formed redundant multi-modal systems meant to track all known levels of bands. Detached arrays provided cross-referencing in case one or even more were compromised.
He activated them all, coaxing systems to life by careful handling of Gauss living-energy, physical manipulation and the inputting of authorizations as old as the galaxy. The ancients, well, them, had built their Tombs well, securing them against all kinds of manipulations by layers of passwords and activation processes whose long time to remove was well compensated by the security level they afforded.
Once again, Ptolomes felt awe and enthusiasm for the marvels created by his people, and great pride in serving under the greatest genius that same people had ever given birth to.
With those examples in front and behind him, he couldn't afford anything but his best performance.
Armies of microscopic Canoptek, their frames shielded by any inferior technology were set in the lower atmospheric strata to act as the Tomb's ears and eyes, while sensors of all kinds did the same in the same level and far above, sensors out and ready to catch any energy signature, electromagnetic disturbance, or gravitational alterations for space-years around the planet. Even particle movement and dimensional movements were kept under control, the best Necrons had to keep tabs on those pesky things of the Warp and races who used the pathetic pseudo-science known as witchcraft.
As they lit with energy, the Cryptek watched with glee lines of statistics, information and general data start to filter in, obediently supplying an expansive vision of sorrounding space.
It wasn't perfect, nothing done by anyone by the Mistress could be. Still, Ptolomes felt a deep satisfaction as the hidden monolith, plates, antennas and geo-crystals went online with faint pulses of emerald energy and positive replies. As they did, Mournhold shed its blindness and opened itself to space, throwing a multitude of eyes and ears to the stars above.
"Nothing on sight!" Ptolomes cheered. The electromagnetic disturbances common to the planet were nothing to the shieldings of the sensors, and seeing everything in sight was something to rejoice.
He mentally patted himself on the back, already imagining the Mistress' satisfaction.
"Immurah!" he called cheerfully. "Repeat that calibration, fool, and pray those results don't repeat themselves!"
"By your will, Architect."
Awaken the Tomb (Sensor Array)
Ptolomes: Technomancy Roll, 75+7: 82: Success!
Results: Mixing all types of Necron sensor technology, the Array will not allow for anything but the very finest Imperium technology to allow partial concealment. As for more advanced races like the Eldar, high-level Warp concealments will be needed for any measure of effective stealth and that only at medium range.
Ptolomes: Technomancy Roll, 75+7: 82: Success!
Results: Mixing all types of Necron sensor technology, the Array will not allow for anything but the very finest Imperium technology to allow partial concealment. As for more advanced races like the Eldar, high-level Warp concealments will be needed for any measure of effective stealth and that only at medium range.
Xorathis sat on the Throne of Refulgent Reforging, ready for the First Awakening. As the backrest lowered and the suspension fields locked her body in place, she thought that her people really had a thing for dramatics. One of the many reasons why she loved them.
She nodded, and the dozen of Crypteks attending her redoubled their already frenzied efforts. They moved with quick but precise zeal, ignoring the carpet of Nano-Scarabs covering the floor and perching on every surface.
The data flows of Calchun, her personal Dermimancer, wavered with hesitation as he manipulated the main interface. At his prodding, thin conduits emerged from the flowing, liquid metal that made up the throne. Another nod from her and they connected to her body. She felt the prick like a switch pushed inside her mind, followed by the feeling of opening. Unpleasant, but she bore it with stoicism.
"Everything is alright, Mistress?" Calchun asked, sounding like a soul who just signed his death by data-virus.
Like being cut in half and opened wide. "It's all good, Calchun. Proceed." Thank not the C'tan, she was always good at keeping her feelings hidden.
The Dermimancer didn't look too convinced, but nodded. At his prompting, two Crypteks activated the reactor. With enough output to power a Monolith, the machine appeared as dodecahedron resting atop a stele. As it was activated, both were lit with lines of glowing glyphs, the shape floating and starting to turn and spin with a soft hum.
Coils had been set between it and her throne. As they flooded with green lightning, the energy pumped into her body, Xorathis felt unused parts of herself starting to whir their way back to life. Subroutines left unused for millions of years received their first inputs since a period longer than many galactic civilizations had lived and died.
And they resisted.
Xorathis felt it like muscles seizing and contracting, refusing to perform movements they were meant for. Hatred surged like a tidal wave inside her, burning the inside of her shell like it was suddenly filled with acid. She mastered it with a stubborn flick of will.
"Speak."
Calchun shuddered as if hit. It wasn't his fault, but she wasn't in a forgiving mood.
The Cryptek had been flooding the rising data-flows and statistics with analysis and queries, the organic equivalent to boggling and working one's mouth in befuddlement. C'tan-touched implants did that to onlookers.
"High Mistress, I… I have never seen anything so complex. I wouldn't know where…"
The Nano-Scarabs' swarm surged like a colossal hand had raked through it. Insects the size of a Uhn'Saekh hand smashed against the ceiling and each other in droves, sending a rain of lattice and metal shards to patter on laboratory equipment and Cryptek that didn't dare to stop.
Calchun shut up, lapping up the activation codes Xorathi threw his way, inputting them almost as quickly as they were trasmitted. He hurriedly turned her his data-door, and she threw her signature in it with the same ferocity as she was crushing an Ork skull. She had worked for millennia to obtain a master-rank keycode, what little computational power the Great Sleep allowed her all spent on finding what was needed to break the locks blocking her upgrades. That she had to do so for her own systems was an outrage that burned nearly as much as the furious satisfaction on putting an end to it.
She watched with vicious joy as the lock recognized her authority. Like a dam that held a lake from flooding, its falling away unleashed an energy surge from her systems. Her body erupted in a blaze of green flame that consumed the locks and sent her slamming against throne's backrest. Viridian lightning lashed out from the fissures between her plates, scoring marks on the walls of the laboratories, smashing equipment and reducing a Canoptek Spyder to smouldering wreckage.
She ignored it. A maw had opened in her systems, a hunger that demanded slaking.
"Activate secondary reactor!" She ordered.
Taken by surprise, the Crypteks ran to obey. Too slow for her tastes, but the furious flow of energy rushing into her as the second dodecahedron spun into action gave her something else to focus on.
They imprisoned her, she thought with bitter anger. Now, they tried to deny her. All for nothing. All for nothing. The Gods were dead. The King was gone. Nobody was left to stop her. Nobody and nothing.
For hours, all her subroutines were rerouted to integrate the swarm of applications and control programs flooding her neural cores, while her circuits drank enough energy to overload a Nexus Core. Fail-safes and sub-locks reared their head, only to be squashed under a flurry of hacking thrusts, data-dumps and force shutdowns.
When the last layer of defense fell away, the throne was a melted pile of slag beneath and around her, and the laboratory was filled with greasy smoke raked by green flashes.
A statue of blazing energy and half-melted metal, Xorathis felt sheer triumph as her Dimensional Maw opened once more. Situated in her chest, the minuscule dimensional portal allowed her to harness interstitional energy for absolute destruction and if someone would have been foolish enough to rupture the magneto-locks holding it in place, it would have turned into a dimensional distortion more than able to rip apart anything the wretched galaxy had to offer in a ravenous implosion.
She laughed, the sound echoing above splintering machines, rupturing crystals and panicked Crypteks escaping outside as oily darkness, the destructive power between dimensions, filled the laboratory.
Empyrean
Xorathis: Technomancy Roll, 47+9: 56: Success!
Results: The Dimensional Maw is a small fracture in space held contained by a mix of quantum and magnetic lock. By controlling the lock and using a C'tan Energy Extractor, Xorathis can extract destructive energy from the dimensional interstice beyond and infuse her Nano-Scarabs with it. The result appear as a wave of darkness inside of which can be seen insectile shapes and eyes. The darkness clings to the Nano-Scarabs, forming a radius around them and reducing any material caught in it to molecules. Void, energy and psychic shields are the only things offering some measure of protection. Xorathis can control the darkness by controlling her Nano-Scarabs, but they must remain into a swarm for the effect to take place. Destroying the Scarabs with energy weapons can offer results in keeping the darkness at bay, even managing in dispersing it entirely. The darkness has limited effect on psychic beings and its power can be limited by psychic effects.
Xorathis: Technomancy Roll, 47+9: 56: Success!
Results: The Dimensional Maw is a small fracture in space held contained by a mix of quantum and magnetic lock. By controlling the lock and using a C'tan Energy Extractor, Xorathis can extract destructive energy from the dimensional interstice beyond and infuse her Nano-Scarabs with it. The result appear as a wave of darkness inside of which can be seen insectile shapes and eyes. The darkness clings to the Nano-Scarabs, forming a radius around them and reducing any material caught in it to molecules. Void, energy and psychic shields are the only things offering some measure of protection. Xorathis can control the darkness by controlling her Nano-Scarabs, but they must remain into a swarm for the effect to take place. Destroying the Scarabs with energy weapons can offer results in keeping the darkness at bay, even managing in dispersing it entirely. The darkness has limited effect on psychic beings and its power can be limited by psychic effects.
- Location
- Someplace Somewhere
Nice roll for artifact for our general.
Also it is very good we caught that webway gate as it's effectively a backdoor onto the planet.
Also it is very good we caught that webway gate as it's effectively a backdoor onto the planet.
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I propose the long term goal of subverting the Machanicus and killing the Void Dragon on Mars.
Seems suitably ambitious.
Now, it is also a backdoor into the webway. Nothing immediate, but I think we'll like the opportunities in the med-long term.
And yeah, scitari are prolly going to be a trial run for human auxilia. In a very lucky scenario, we buff the scitari leader, she returns home on a super-ship, and takes power in a seemingly mundane takeover.
And yeah, scitari are prolly going to be a trial run for human auxilia. In a very lucky scenario, we buff the scitari leader, she returns home on a super-ship, and takes power in a seemingly mundane takeover.
Angle
Release Candidate Enby
- Location
- Colorado, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Theirs/Comrade
Very nice! Looks like we're making good progress.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Nope for that. C'tan literally are embodiment of what they represent. Void Dragon is technology, which means completely destroying him would be making all tech go kapoot.
I don't think that's an actual thing. Warp creatures make dubious claims of that, but C'tan are just plain swole materium creatures, instead.
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So with the world being as it is, any low tier units have no chance of invading it
Also i want to at somepoint turn The Vrynn Concordate into a vassal or something like, or get Alberic Ikarus under our control, and use the whole of Ikarus Protectorate to keep our faction hidden while having them send resources to us
Also i want to at somepoint turn The Vrynn Concordate into a vassal or something like, or get Alberic Ikarus under our control, and use the whole of Ikarus Protectorate to keep our faction hidden while having them send resources to us
And just because of that I propose a aeldaricide or however you write this xD