2.2
+++
I wasn't alone in my preparation. Mine was the larger, covering the entire island.
But the people of Sanctuary had their own. Most will choose to stay down there, continuing on as if the event isn't happening at all. Some will deploy machines to the surface, the latest round of designs tested in the crucible of Daemonic invasion.
Four decades, and that still hadn't changed. The lessons they learned from the experimentation had been hard-earned, but invaluable. More than just I protected Sanctuary. The Humans here made deep headway into counteracting the Warp, helped by presence. My Silence made for an environment of stable development, where the most a wrong circuit design will do just causes a minor fluctuation in Warp Energies. It lets them figure out what does and what doesn't resonate in the Warp, what is and is not resistant, allows them the chance to process data without inviting a Daemon into their systems. There were more than a few Warp-repelling materials built into the structure of Sanctuary, Phase-Iron and Quiet-glass the two primary ones...
It wasn't hard to guess which one had been inspired by me, was it?
Most of the machines they've brought this time aren't that different from what they've brought last time. Silver and black, smooth with a lack of hard edges. The aesthetic was important when it came to Daemons. Something that looked rough and jagged had an entirely different effect to something that looks smooth and elegant. Silver, as well, is oft-seen as 'pure', and has been historically associated with holiness and purity. That, in turn, gave it real power, upon creatures of the Warp, assisting in the banishment of the unnatural.
Of course, that was just one option. The other was to attack the Warp directly. But...
That was my role in this upcoming conflict. The Daemons were safe so long as they were within the Warp, out of my reach, but once they crossed over to this side... Then they were mine.
I'd been doing this for long enough that it was quite routine. The event itself was, despite the chaos of, well, Chaos, generally consistent. Daemons would appear all over the island. They would come in the tens of thousands, drawn by the faint promise that was the echo of the souls in Sanctuary. That made it tantalising, see, and drew in so many of these unnamed, similar hordes. Over the years, so many Daemons had vanished down my gullet that the amount who came was notably lesser.
I should note; most Daemons that appeared around here were of the weakest varieties. More primal things, and more minor, too. Warp Beasts, Furies, Dispayres, Warp Predators, Astral Spectres... Lesser Daemons were more uncommon, forming small percentages of the invaders. Every now and then, I'd also see a Herald..
Only three times had a Greater Daemon dared to come here. The first two of them had fallen, but that third one had managed to escape... And after that, I'd never seen another Greater Daemon. It was irritating. They were enough of a feast to make me almost wish for the days before the Daemontide, when the numbers of Humans hadn't dropped so far as to fall below their attention. I'd been able to eat so many of them...
Almost. Food aside, those times had been awful... I hadn't refined myself into my current shapes, little more than a single, seething mass of confusion and hunger back then.
It... had taken a while to stop being that. Before I got my thoughts in nice, clean, organised order. Before I got my mind structured into easy sanity. Hadn't been fully aware of myself, beforehand...
Who had, really? The Humans had been reeling from the Iron Schism, and then everything went from regular shittiness to extra shitty when the Warp Storm swallowed the planet and Daemons fell like rain. I came in shortly afterwards, and again, it was all a big mess.
Things were better, these days. I had my life together, the Humans were slowly rebuilding, and the Daemons were dying. Everybody wins.
Except the Daemons, but who cares about them?
Nobody who mattered, that's for sure.
Where was I?
Yes, preparations. The Daemontide was a good time to test things. Humans did it with machines, careful preparations designed to create ever more powerful anti-Daemon weaponry.
I did it with life. I usually just let my bodies run wild, my shapes twisting into newer and ever different forms. Precious few of them were the right combination of efficient, useful, and effective to receive refinement, transformation into a shape that I'd use again.
Usually was a keyword, there. Most of my refined shapes came about with purpose, rather than evolution. Where I had an idea and worked towards it, instead of letting evolution come up with solutions for me.
Of course, it wasn't as if evolution was the sole source of solutions. Humanity was responsible for more than two thirds of my newer refined shapes, as clever as they were. Their designs revealed to me new ideas, new ways to make newer and more powerful shapes that nevertheless kept the efficiency I required.
Hmph. 'Require'. 'Demand', more like. I was not some mythical ascetic monk; all my bodies required energy, all of them would slowly deplete without intake. Life needed food, all of it. The difficult part was finding that careful balance, for the requirements to not surpass the intake. Symbionts were the thing I was proudest of, there; an endless font with which to sustain me so long as I was willing to limit myself to what they could supply.
Now if only I could get into the Warp itself without being ejected. Then, it'd truly be eternity. As it was, without Symbionts, the best that could be done was Vortex Devices- and those weren't what could be called 'stable'. Souls self-corrected, a mass of effectively self-sustaining power, but Vortex Devices had a habit of either turning off or exploding on a whim. Managing it wasn't impossible, but it required precision, and far more attention than I cared to give. Valiants were about the only thing that could make them usable, the only thing that had the intelligence, reaction speed, and intuition to keep them going.
Side-tracked again.
Well... I suppose there wasn't much else to the Daemontide. Just the fighting itself. A chaotic battle, with so many minor Warp Entities and Daemons. We fought, we died, their losses replaced mine, more creatures replaced theirs...
What more needed to be said?
Nothing, really.
