Into the Grim Darkness of the Far future
SYRINE - Into the Grim Darkness of the Far future (Warhammer 40,000/Isekai)
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SYRINE - Into the Grim Darkness of the Far future (Warhammer 40,000/Isekai/SI)
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CHAPTER 1 INTO THE GRIMDARK
Author Note: Trying my hands on writing an isekai after going through dozens of them. Feedback would be appreciated.
===============================
CHAPTER 1 INTO THE GRIMDARK
I was walking down a long and winding road in a dense fog, the echoes of my footsteps my only companion. Strangely, I can't recall how I got here. The last thing I remembered doing was reading another newly released FAQ document for one of my many armies of miniatures on my computer.
Now that I think about it, I don't remember much of the details on that document either, only the vague residual feeling of annoyance from another wave of adjustments. These changes used to be exciting, but eventually, like most things in life, they ceased to be so. The world seemed to get grimmer as one aged. The thrill of gaming and the fickle glories it entailed faded to dust over the years. These thoughts were running through my mind as I continued to walk forward in a semi-consciousness state, and slowly a realization came to me.
Wait... am I lucid dreaming?
Being an indoors-type person all my life, the current scenario of walking down a long winding road in a dense fog with no destination in mind just doesn't make any sense.
What is going on here?
I looked back, only to be greeted by the same road that disappeared into a fog that shrouded everything. I shrugged and continued forward. Something was compelling me to walk forward, and I got a feeling that answers would be found at the end of the road. This was beginning to look like a setup for a horror movie, but I felt at peace.
The lone walk continued for a while until something was visible in the distance. There at the edge of the fog was the silhouette of a person. As I got closer that person came into view. Ok, I thought to myself, I must be lucid dreaming.
Appearing out from the dense fog was the prettiest girl I had seen in my life. As someone who had spent a large chunk of my time surfing the internet and as a result, got bombarded with an endless stream of advertisements and media featuring pretty ladies, it was a really tall order to top that list.
She was a girl about 165cm in height, and underneath ahead of straight flowing platinum hair was a face of idealised perfection, and a simple yet elegant looking white robe completed her angelic look. She had this paradoxical quality about her that made guessing her age an impossible task, looking youthful yet ancient at the same time.
'Hello.' I said, not sure what to expect from this encounter. She stood perfectly still, observing me with her large, soulful silver eyes in a dead neutral expression. After a period of awkward silence, she performed a hand gesture I recognized but least expected to see in these most unusual of circumstances.
It was the hand sign of Aquila, a universal greeting gesture of humans in the grimdark universe of which as a hobby I had invested too much time and resources into. I really have to cut back my spending on that front, I thought to myself, evidently, even my rare occasion of a lucid dream had elements of that universe seeping in.
Flustered, I responded in the only way that made sense to me by making an Aquila sign myself. There I was, responding to a very pretty girl by making a geeky hand gesture on a road surrounded by dense fog. It was very surreal.
We stayed like that for a while, maintaining the Aquila hand gesture while looking at each other. Finally, she seemed to have made a decision and reached out to me with her right hand. So we are playing handshake now? I obliged and took her hand, it felt soft and cold. Her expression softened and she closed her eyes.
I had no idea what she was up to but since this seemed like a dream, I was not about to refuse any chance of skin contact with an attractive potential target. Suddenly a distinctive feeling came to me as if I was being asked specifically for permission to know more about me.
While this lucid dream was getting weirder by the minute, it was not unpleasant. So I said, 'Yes, let's get to know each other better.' Immediately after that, the mysterious girl seemed to glow with a soft radiant light.
Alright this is getting too weird, I concluded and tried to let go of her hand but she held on tight.
She opened her eyes, and to my surprise, they now glowed with a faint golden light. Then she spoke for the first time and made the most ridiculous statement I ever heard in my life.
'Help me,' She said, her voice a whisper, 'help me and the others. In exchange, my abilities, my body and my soul are yours.' I was like, woah young lady, we just met, we don't know each other and have yet to even exchange names. Talk about instant escalation.
I tried to let go of her hand again but stopped after having another proper look at her face. She was dead serious and seemed so full of sincerity it made me pause. I knew the old saying 'never stick it into crazies', even a 12/10 won't be worth the endless troubles ahead but I felt torn between refusing or accepting to help a pretty stranger.
I hesitated again but by then her golden glowing eyes started to well up. Hey, this is unfair, I am weak against this type of attack. It was then my logical mind proposed listening to her first. Maybe, just maybe, for once in my unfulfilling life I could be a hero for a fair maiden. After all, this is a dream, right?
Sighing, I said. 'All right, I will do what I can to help.'
'You promise?' She asked.
'I promise.'
Two streaks of tears went down her lovely cheeks. Darn, she cried anyway.
'I am sorry,' She said, 'This is the second time I cried in my life.'
Well, that was oddly specific but hardly possible.
'What's your name?' I asked, trying to switch the topic.
'Syrine.' She answered, now beaming with a bewitching smile so bright it seemed to break the fog apart. I must admit, this surreal scene of a radiant pretty young lady smiling and crying at the same time during a heavy fog was mesmerising.
'Thank you,' Syrine finally said, her next words hit me with a wave of foreboding, 'and farewell.'
My world exploded, a flash of white light swallowing everything. Syrine, the fog and the road were no more. Up and down, space and time became irrelevant as I battled the worst case of vertigo I experienced in my life.
In the blinding white light, I felt myself moving forward, slowly at first, gaining speed gradually. Without any distinguishable means of locomotion, I was being pulled forward towards something, or someplace. After that my world became nothing but pure blinding white.
* * *
The world of pure white receded. When my vision finally came back, it was all blurry and took me some time to realise a person was standing in front of me. I could not see properly yet but it was definitely a female.
Was it Syrine? Darn it girl, you should have warned me of that. I reached out with my hand, feeling disorientated from the experience.
A gloved hand caught my arm to stabilise me, and someone I guessed was the owner of it was saying something, but I couldn't catch any of it. After I gained my footing my vision and hearing slowly returned.
Then I saw it, in front of me was a person wearing a rather faithful replica suit of power armour belonging to the famous Adepta Sororitas, a.k.a Sisters of Battle. My jaw almost dropped as I got a clearer look, the number of details and material quality was leagues beyond any attempt I have seen in photos or real life, a low humming can even be heard coming from the supposed power backpack generator. Really nice details.
The wearer of this fine suit was not Syrine. This new lady here was quite young, probably just over twenty. There was this perfect mix of youthfulness and soldiery about her, a perfect candidate for a perfectly faithful replica of what a battle sister should look like in real life. She was a pretty brunette, but a far cry from the previous girl I met.
No offence to any ladies who had cosplayed as a sister of battle, but compared to this fine work of art in front of me all previous renditions would just be crude imitations in comparison. My only critique would be that the colour scheme of her suit was too lazy, just dull silver overall with elements of white cloth finished by golden embroidery decoration.
I laughed a little inside at all this, first an Aquila lady, then a Sister of Battle cosplayer? Well, at least this lucid dream was consistent in its theme. Expecting to be in a geeky convention setup of sorts, I looked around, we were in a dimly lit large chamber with unconventional futuristic decoration. We were standing on an elevated end of the chamber, I could see a slight slope going down. Nice place, but the lighting was not optimal for a photo session.
More battle sisters were seen scattered around the chamber. I counted ten, they were all wearing the same colour scheme but had less decorated power armour. The thing that struck me was none of them was laughing, having fun or doing any sort of goofy selfie-taking activities one would typically expect to see in a convention.
The brunette sister in front of me, who must be the leader of this bunch, was looking at me with a concerned face. An uneasy feeling welled up inside me, they all looked far too serious for this to be in a squad cosplay session and the way they were handling their supposedly prop bolters exuded a type of practised ease that can only be the result of countless hours of drills and training.
Something buzzed, the leader looking sister said a single word.
'Contact!'
It was not English nor any other language I knew but somehow I could understand it, the eerie implication of it almost made my skin crawl.
The air tensed up, everybody either donned their helmets or closed the visor of their helmets. The pretty brunette was the last to put hers on, it was a more decorated variant that had a huge chrome-finished Fleur-de-lis symbol on the forehead. I observed up close the reflective sheen on the helmet in the dim light, the complicated light refraction on the helmet's lens pieces and the weight of it as it slid down to completely cover her head.
This... this is no prop, I realised and my skin crawled.
There was a commotion happening at the far entrance of the chamber. Two people ran in, but the sisters did not react and let the two cross half the chamber hide behind a cover piece. Sounds of footsteps came thundering down from the entrance.
From the shadow, a mob erupted into the chamber. I watched in disbelief as a horde of gunmen rushed towards us with their guns blazing, their silhouettes lit up by muzzle flashes. In an instant, the serenity of the chamber was shattered by deafening gunfire. Tracers and las bolts filled the air,
My faintest hope that this was all some elaborate prank shattered after I witnessed the shower of plaster and shattering of stonework in the wake of weapons impact.
Amongst the cacophony of weapons discharging were some louder, heavier sound followed by actual explosions that landed far off their mark, but close enough to make me wince and feel their impact.
Heavy weapons, the mob had heavy weapons and soon they will have the time to aim. This lucid dream had officially turned into a nightmare.
===============================
CHAPTER 1 INTO THE GRIMDARK
I was walking down a long and winding road in a dense fog, the echoes of my footsteps my only companion. Strangely, I can't recall how I got here. The last thing I remembered doing was reading another newly released FAQ document for one of my many armies of miniatures on my computer.
Now that I think about it, I don't remember much of the details on that document either, only the vague residual feeling of annoyance from another wave of adjustments. These changes used to be exciting, but eventually, like most things in life, they ceased to be so. The world seemed to get grimmer as one aged. The thrill of gaming and the fickle glories it entailed faded to dust over the years. These thoughts were running through my mind as I continued to walk forward in a semi-consciousness state, and slowly a realization came to me.
Wait... am I lucid dreaming?
Being an indoors-type person all my life, the current scenario of walking down a long winding road in a dense fog with no destination in mind just doesn't make any sense.
What is going on here?
I looked back, only to be greeted by the same road that disappeared into a fog that shrouded everything. I shrugged and continued forward. Something was compelling me to walk forward, and I got a feeling that answers would be found at the end of the road. This was beginning to look like a setup for a horror movie, but I felt at peace.
The lone walk continued for a while until something was visible in the distance. There at the edge of the fog was the silhouette of a person. As I got closer that person came into view. Ok, I thought to myself, I must be lucid dreaming.
Appearing out from the dense fog was the prettiest girl I had seen in my life. As someone who had spent a large chunk of my time surfing the internet and as a result, got bombarded with an endless stream of advertisements and media featuring pretty ladies, it was a really tall order to top that list.
She was a girl about 165cm in height, and underneath ahead of straight flowing platinum hair was a face of idealised perfection, and a simple yet elegant looking white robe completed her angelic look. She had this paradoxical quality about her that made guessing her age an impossible task, looking youthful yet ancient at the same time.
'Hello.' I said, not sure what to expect from this encounter. She stood perfectly still, observing me with her large, soulful silver eyes in a dead neutral expression. After a period of awkward silence, she performed a hand gesture I recognized but least expected to see in these most unusual of circumstances.
It was the hand sign of Aquila, a universal greeting gesture of humans in the grimdark universe of which as a hobby I had invested too much time and resources into. I really have to cut back my spending on that front, I thought to myself, evidently, even my rare occasion of a lucid dream had elements of that universe seeping in.
Flustered, I responded in the only way that made sense to me by making an Aquila sign myself. There I was, responding to a very pretty girl by making a geeky hand gesture on a road surrounded by dense fog. It was very surreal.
We stayed like that for a while, maintaining the Aquila hand gesture while looking at each other. Finally, she seemed to have made a decision and reached out to me with her right hand. So we are playing handshake now? I obliged and took her hand, it felt soft and cold. Her expression softened and she closed her eyes.
I had no idea what she was up to but since this seemed like a dream, I was not about to refuse any chance of skin contact with an attractive potential target. Suddenly a distinctive feeling came to me as if I was being asked specifically for permission to know more about me.
While this lucid dream was getting weirder by the minute, it was not unpleasant. So I said, 'Yes, let's get to know each other better.' Immediately after that, the mysterious girl seemed to glow with a soft radiant light.
Alright this is getting too weird, I concluded and tried to let go of her hand but she held on tight.
She opened her eyes, and to my surprise, they now glowed with a faint golden light. Then she spoke for the first time and made the most ridiculous statement I ever heard in my life.
'Help me,' She said, her voice a whisper, 'help me and the others. In exchange, my abilities, my body and my soul are yours.' I was like, woah young lady, we just met, we don't know each other and have yet to even exchange names. Talk about instant escalation.
I tried to let go of her hand again but stopped after having another proper look at her face. She was dead serious and seemed so full of sincerity it made me pause. I knew the old saying 'never stick it into crazies', even a 12/10 won't be worth the endless troubles ahead but I felt torn between refusing or accepting to help a pretty stranger.
I hesitated again but by then her golden glowing eyes started to well up. Hey, this is unfair, I am weak against this type of attack. It was then my logical mind proposed listening to her first. Maybe, just maybe, for once in my unfulfilling life I could be a hero for a fair maiden. After all, this is a dream, right?
Sighing, I said. 'All right, I will do what I can to help.'
'You promise?' She asked.
'I promise.'
Two streaks of tears went down her lovely cheeks. Darn, she cried anyway.
'I am sorry,' She said, 'This is the second time I cried in my life.'
Well, that was oddly specific but hardly possible.
'What's your name?' I asked, trying to switch the topic.
'Syrine.' She answered, now beaming with a bewitching smile so bright it seemed to break the fog apart. I must admit, this surreal scene of a radiant pretty young lady smiling and crying at the same time during a heavy fog was mesmerising.
'Thank you,' Syrine finally said, her next words hit me with a wave of foreboding, 'and farewell.'
My world exploded, a flash of white light swallowing everything. Syrine, the fog and the road were no more. Up and down, space and time became irrelevant as I battled the worst case of vertigo I experienced in my life.
In the blinding white light, I felt myself moving forward, slowly at first, gaining speed gradually. Without any distinguishable means of locomotion, I was being pulled forward towards something, or someplace. After that my world became nothing but pure blinding white.
* * *
The world of pure white receded. When my vision finally came back, it was all blurry and took me some time to realise a person was standing in front of me. I could not see properly yet but it was definitely a female.
Was it Syrine? Darn it girl, you should have warned me of that. I reached out with my hand, feeling disorientated from the experience.
A gloved hand caught my arm to stabilise me, and someone I guessed was the owner of it was saying something, but I couldn't catch any of it. After I gained my footing my vision and hearing slowly returned.
Then I saw it, in front of me was a person wearing a rather faithful replica suit of power armour belonging to the famous Adepta Sororitas, a.k.a Sisters of Battle. My jaw almost dropped as I got a clearer look, the number of details and material quality was leagues beyond any attempt I have seen in photos or real life, a low humming can even be heard coming from the supposed power backpack generator. Really nice details.
The wearer of this fine suit was not Syrine. This new lady here was quite young, probably just over twenty. There was this perfect mix of youthfulness and soldiery about her, a perfect candidate for a perfectly faithful replica of what a battle sister should look like in real life. She was a pretty brunette, but a far cry from the previous girl I met.
No offence to any ladies who had cosplayed as a sister of battle, but compared to this fine work of art in front of me all previous renditions would just be crude imitations in comparison. My only critique would be that the colour scheme of her suit was too lazy, just dull silver overall with elements of white cloth finished by golden embroidery decoration.
I laughed a little inside at all this, first an Aquila lady, then a Sister of Battle cosplayer? Well, at least this lucid dream was consistent in its theme. Expecting to be in a geeky convention setup of sorts, I looked around, we were in a dimly lit large chamber with unconventional futuristic decoration. We were standing on an elevated end of the chamber, I could see a slight slope going down. Nice place, but the lighting was not optimal for a photo session.
More battle sisters were seen scattered around the chamber. I counted ten, they were all wearing the same colour scheme but had less decorated power armour. The thing that struck me was none of them was laughing, having fun or doing any sort of goofy selfie-taking activities one would typically expect to see in a convention.
The brunette sister in front of me, who must be the leader of this bunch, was looking at me with a concerned face. An uneasy feeling welled up inside me, they all looked far too serious for this to be in a squad cosplay session and the way they were handling their supposedly prop bolters exuded a type of practised ease that can only be the result of countless hours of drills and training.
Something buzzed, the leader looking sister said a single word.
'Contact!'
It was not English nor any other language I knew but somehow I could understand it, the eerie implication of it almost made my skin crawl.
The air tensed up, everybody either donned their helmets or closed the visor of their helmets. The pretty brunette was the last to put hers on, it was a more decorated variant that had a huge chrome-finished Fleur-de-lis symbol on the forehead. I observed up close the reflective sheen on the helmet in the dim light, the complicated light refraction on the helmet's lens pieces and the weight of it as it slid down to completely cover her head.
This... this is no prop, I realised and my skin crawled.
There was a commotion happening at the far entrance of the chamber. Two people ran in, but the sisters did not react and let the two cross half the chamber hide behind a cover piece. Sounds of footsteps came thundering down from the entrance.
From the shadow, a mob erupted into the chamber. I watched in disbelief as a horde of gunmen rushed towards us with their guns blazing, their silhouettes lit up by muzzle flashes. In an instant, the serenity of the chamber was shattered by deafening gunfire. Tracers and las bolts filled the air,
My faintest hope that this was all some elaborate prank shattered after I witnessed the shower of plaster and shattering of stonework in the wake of weapons impact.
Amongst the cacophony of weapons discharging were some louder, heavier sound followed by actual explosions that landed far off their mark, but close enough to make me wince and feel their impact.
Heavy weapons, the mob had heavy weapons and soon they will have the time to aim. This lucid dream had officially turned into a nightmare.
Drucchi
Wasp Guy
- Location
- Beneath the Bug Exhibit at the Zoological Museum
Uh oh, SoB's you say? Now I wonder if you are one of the non martial ones like the Dialogus, Famolus, or hospitalier or a full on power armor, stomp on the heads of heathens and heretics and burn everything else Bolter Bitch.
CHAPTER 2 GUNFIGHT
Author Note: Special boost, after this should be going weekly.
===============================
CHAPTER 2 GUNFIGHT
I wanted to scream. There was a gunfight happening right in front of me. This supposed lucid dream session was turning into a real nightmare. Being a lazy pacifist who resided in a relatively peaceful country all my life I had never been anywhere near a gunfight, let alone a gunfight involving futuristic heavy weapons. But no voice came out from my throat, weird messages kept appearing in my vision.
[Regalis] Action override-
[Regalis] Action override-
[Regalis] Action override-
'Protect the holy daughter!' The leader-looking sister ordered and tackled me. The holy daughter who? No time for any question, we went down on the floor just as another round of enemy fire was let loose.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion, I could see the tracer fire flying past above me and actual bolter rounds flying and spinning in the air.
Wait a second. The world around me really did slow down to a crawl. In a mind-numbing state, I began to look around. Everything around me appeared in exquisite detail. It was only then I noticed the new messages that had appeared in my vision.
[Combat detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
[Auspex auto activated]
Then the most peculiar thing happened, I felt an expansion of energy burst forth from my body to the surroundings. As the energy expanded forward scanning everything on its path, I gained a clear understanding of the chaos around me. An indescribable feeling of clarity reached my mind and I could read the whole battle as easily as the back of my hand. We were cornered but benefited from cover and elevation. 11 battle sisters with 3 fighters of unknown origin against 35 enemies, 2 of which were enormous. I froze at the distinctive silhouettes of the two giants amongst the hostiles.
No mistake about it, mixed within the mass of incoming gunmen and towering amongst them were the familiar shapes of hulking armoured individuals with huge pauldrons. This setting, this universe, these can only be … the transhuman space marines.
As a long time player myself on the grimdark tabletop miniature game, I personally had over a hundred space marines under my collection and instantly recognised these as the main threats. As if the situation wasn't dire enough, one of the hostile marines was holding a weapon that looked too large to be carried by a human - a heavy bolter.
The other marine was barking orders, as he did so in slow motion one of his minions with a flamethrower stepped forward towards two of our fighters that were hiding behind a cover. 'Flamer!' I screamed internally at the hapless duo who were about to be doused by fire. Then the time dilation effect stopped, the cacophony of a close-quarter gunfight hit me like a truck.
Real-life gunfire was much louder than I had ever imagined. My ears were hurting as I felt the resonance of the discharge of every weapon near me. The sound of firearms being fired indoors had a distinct quality to it, they hit you like a solid hammer.
Again I wanted to scream, again that message appeared.
[Regalis] Action override-
I tried to slow down my breathing, only to discover I was breathing at a normal pace. What is this? My mind was a mess but my body was calm. The incongruity made me dizzy.
Suddenly, another weird sensation came to me, mixed within the chaos of the gunfight was a distinct pattern calling.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
I had absolutely no idea where that came from and why it caught my attention during the gunfight. A shower of shattered stonework pulled me back to the immediate threats near me. A deafening amount of gunfire was pouring from the enemy side, to be answered by distinctively fewer but heavier guns from around me. Bolters, the sisters were shooting bolters. One can clearly hear the gun caliber difference by the sound they made.
Regardless, lucid dream or not I need to get away from here. Then an inconvenient truth came to me, I realised that except for a large blast door behind us in a short distance, the hostiles had blocked the only way in and out of this chamber. I knew this from the scanning action earlier. Every inch of the chamber was pictured clearly in my head, I could see and rotate it in my mind's eye with absolute clarity. But was this information true? Can I try to do the scanning action again to confirm? I need to see it again, to confirm if there was really no other place to run. What was it called again? Auspex was it? Come on, come on... my consciousness expanded in the next second.
[Auspex] activated-
Another blast of scanning energy expanded forward. With my readings, I saw the battle from a god's eye view. The duo that was approached by the enemy flamer had relocated further back, the piece of cover they were hiding behind just a moment ago was in flames. I wondered if they had heard my warning?
The enemy flamer had garnered himself a lot of attention, soon he was fed with a dozen bolter rounds and exploded into a huge fireball. The blinding flash and explosion robbed me of my hearing. Nothing but constant ringing in my ears.
But I could still 'see' the enemies from the residual readings from my last scan, banking on the new experience I tried to do the same action as before.
Hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile with a grenade launcher!
I marked out the closest batch of enemies and tried to project their positions to the people on my side. To my amazement, the battle sisters switched from random suppression to disciplined burst zeroing in on the targets I marked in the smoke-filled chamber.
The first enemy to go down was the grenade launcher user, he was standing around apparently still dazed by the fireball. A bolter round lodged into his head and blew it off like a watermelon hit by a speeding truck. The rest of his marked companions soon followed his fate. The unfortunate gunmen briefly danced like ragdolls as they were hit by a hail of bolter rounds, then they literally exploded, showering blood and body parts freely before fading from my readings. I wanted to vomit.
The air had a hint of metallic taste added to it now. Deprived of sight and sound, I became conscious of the stank of blood and sweat.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
That calling came again, but I was too occupied with making myself small behind cover. Despite the good opening for the fight, we were still outnumbered and pinned down by the sheer volume of incoming hostile fire. Fortunately, high ground and solid cover proved to be our salvation as the enemies struggled to utilise their advantage to end us.
With teary eyes, I risked a quick peek and saw them advancing through their fallen ranks, the space marines pushing the rest forward through the smoke and dust. This was bad, very bad. I need to do the scanning trick again.
[Auspex] activated-
For the third time, I sent forth an expanding detection net to mark the enemies. Hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, another hostile with a grenade launcher that was sending grenades over at my current location. Grenades were flying over here. At the same time, a corner of my mind registered the hostile space marine aiming his heavy bolter at me. My mind went blank.
'Get down!' The leading sister appeared from nowhere and pushed me down, covering me with herself from impending death. Totally helpless, I closed my eyes and waited for impact. After being subjected to the loudest sound I have heard in my life, I expected the worst and opened my eyes only to see dust all around, miraculously all my limbs seemed to be still in their respective places in contrast to the piece of life-saving cover that had been blown clear by heavy fire. The sister who saved my life was still on top of me but appeared hurt and was groaning from unseen injuries.
How I escaped from that unscathed but the power armoured sister didn't was beyond me. The gunfight raged on all around, it appeared the heavy bolter marine was directing his wrath elsewhere at the moment after being shot by other sisters.
We have to move, now! I thought and pushed the sister, she fell over with surprising ease, considering she was wearing power armour and the full weight it entailed.
Then I saw it. My hands, these weren't my hands. I panicked and looked down at myself for the first time in a while due to all the happenings. Instead of my usual T-shirt, I saw a white robe.
WHAT IN THE WORLD?!
A loud clang was heard behind me, I turned and saw that the sealed blast door was opened. Grotesque figures were pouring out, tracked monstrosities with human-looking torsos rolled out one after another with huge guns blazing from where their arms were supposed to be.
At the forefront of the newcomers was a ginormous figure, far larger even than the space marines below, and it was rushing towards me, non-human legs carrying it across the floor with astonishing speed, it opened and stretched its many arms, I saw a multitude of weapons and guns hanging on some of it.
So this is GG. I expected death or the end of a dream and closed my eyes. But neither came, so I looked up.
A huge hooded figure was in front of me, it had positioned itself to block any incoming fire from the hostile gunmen below, its many hands extended to form a shield around me. The palms of all the hands were metallic but shaped into distinct human-like appendages.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
Finally, its meaning reached me. The binary canticle faded and a name appeared in my mind.
<Syrine.> The hooded figure was directly addressing me.
Where its eyes would be were several huge lenses. On all their reflections I could see but a single person -- the Aquila young lady I met at the long winding foggy road.
===============================
CHAPTER 2 GUNFIGHT
I wanted to scream. There was a gunfight happening right in front of me. This supposed lucid dream session was turning into a real nightmare. Being a lazy pacifist who resided in a relatively peaceful country all my life I had never been anywhere near a gunfight, let alone a gunfight involving futuristic heavy weapons. But no voice came out from my throat, weird messages kept appearing in my vision.
[Regalis] Action override-
[Regalis] Action override-
[Regalis] Action override-
'Protect the holy daughter!' The leader-looking sister ordered and tackled me. The holy daughter who? No time for any question, we went down on the floor just as another round of enemy fire was let loose.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion, I could see the tracer fire flying past above me and actual bolter rounds flying and spinning in the air.
Wait a second. The world around me really did slow down to a crawl. In a mind-numbing state, I began to look around. Everything around me appeared in exquisite detail. It was only then I noticed the new messages that had appeared in my vision.
[Combat detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
[Auspex auto activated]
Then the most peculiar thing happened, I felt an expansion of energy burst forth from my body to the surroundings. As the energy expanded forward scanning everything on its path, I gained a clear understanding of the chaos around me. An indescribable feeling of clarity reached my mind and I could read the whole battle as easily as the back of my hand. We were cornered but benefited from cover and elevation. 11 battle sisters with 3 fighters of unknown origin against 35 enemies, 2 of which were enormous. I froze at the distinctive silhouettes of the two giants amongst the hostiles.
No mistake about it, mixed within the mass of incoming gunmen and towering amongst them were the familiar shapes of hulking armoured individuals with huge pauldrons. This setting, this universe, these can only be … the transhuman space marines.
As a long time player myself on the grimdark tabletop miniature game, I personally had over a hundred space marines under my collection and instantly recognised these as the main threats. As if the situation wasn't dire enough, one of the hostile marines was holding a weapon that looked too large to be carried by a human - a heavy bolter.
The other marine was barking orders, as he did so in slow motion one of his minions with a flamethrower stepped forward towards two of our fighters that were hiding behind a cover. 'Flamer!' I screamed internally at the hapless duo who were about to be doused by fire. Then the time dilation effect stopped, the cacophony of a close-quarter gunfight hit me like a truck.
Real-life gunfire was much louder than I had ever imagined. My ears were hurting as I felt the resonance of the discharge of every weapon near me. The sound of firearms being fired indoors had a distinct quality to it, they hit you like a solid hammer.
Again I wanted to scream, again that message appeared.
[Regalis] Action override-
I tried to slow down my breathing, only to discover I was breathing at a normal pace. What is this? My mind was a mess but my body was calm. The incongruity made me dizzy.
Suddenly, another weird sensation came to me, mixed within the chaos of the gunfight was a distinct pattern calling.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
I had absolutely no idea where that came from and why it caught my attention during the gunfight. A shower of shattered stonework pulled me back to the immediate threats near me. A deafening amount of gunfire was pouring from the enemy side, to be answered by distinctively fewer but heavier guns from around me. Bolters, the sisters were shooting bolters. One can clearly hear the gun caliber difference by the sound they made.
Regardless, lucid dream or not I need to get away from here. Then an inconvenient truth came to me, I realised that except for a large blast door behind us in a short distance, the hostiles had blocked the only way in and out of this chamber. I knew this from the scanning action earlier. Every inch of the chamber was pictured clearly in my head, I could see and rotate it in my mind's eye with absolute clarity. But was this information true? Can I try to do the scanning action again to confirm? I need to see it again, to confirm if there was really no other place to run. What was it called again? Auspex was it? Come on, come on... my consciousness expanded in the next second.
[Auspex] activated-
Another blast of scanning energy expanded forward. With my readings, I saw the battle from a god's eye view. The duo that was approached by the enemy flamer had relocated further back, the piece of cover they were hiding behind just a moment ago was in flames. I wondered if they had heard my warning?
The enemy flamer had garnered himself a lot of attention, soon he was fed with a dozen bolter rounds and exploded into a huge fireball. The blinding flash and explosion robbed me of my hearing. Nothing but constant ringing in my ears.
But I could still 'see' the enemies from the residual readings from my last scan, banking on the new experience I tried to do the same action as before.
Hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile with a grenade launcher!
I marked out the closest batch of enemies and tried to project their positions to the people on my side. To my amazement, the battle sisters switched from random suppression to disciplined burst zeroing in on the targets I marked in the smoke-filled chamber.
The first enemy to go down was the grenade launcher user, he was standing around apparently still dazed by the fireball. A bolter round lodged into his head and blew it off like a watermelon hit by a speeding truck. The rest of his marked companions soon followed his fate. The unfortunate gunmen briefly danced like ragdolls as they were hit by a hail of bolter rounds, then they literally exploded, showering blood and body parts freely before fading from my readings. I wanted to vomit.
The air had a hint of metallic taste added to it now. Deprived of sight and sound, I became conscious of the stank of blood and sweat.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
That calling came again, but I was too occupied with making myself small behind cover. Despite the good opening for the fight, we were still outnumbered and pinned down by the sheer volume of incoming hostile fire. Fortunately, high ground and solid cover proved to be our salvation as the enemies struggled to utilise their advantage to end us.
With teary eyes, I risked a quick peek and saw them advancing through their fallen ranks, the space marines pushing the rest forward through the smoke and dust. This was bad, very bad. I need to do the scanning trick again.
[Auspex] activated-
For the third time, I sent forth an expanding detection net to mark the enemies. Hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, hostile, another hostile with a grenade launcher that was sending grenades over at my current location. Grenades were flying over here. At the same time, a corner of my mind registered the hostile space marine aiming his heavy bolter at me. My mind went blank.
'Get down!' The leading sister appeared from nowhere and pushed me down, covering me with herself from impending death. Totally helpless, I closed my eyes and waited for impact. After being subjected to the loudest sound I have heard in my life, I expected the worst and opened my eyes only to see dust all around, miraculously all my limbs seemed to be still in their respective places in contrast to the piece of life-saving cover that had been blown clear by heavy fire. The sister who saved my life was still on top of me but appeared hurt and was groaning from unseen injuries.
How I escaped from that unscathed but the power armoured sister didn't was beyond me. The gunfight raged on all around, it appeared the heavy bolter marine was directing his wrath elsewhere at the moment after being shot by other sisters.
We have to move, now! I thought and pushed the sister, she fell over with surprising ease, considering she was wearing power armour and the full weight it entailed.
Then I saw it. My hands, these weren't my hands. I panicked and looked down at myself for the first time in a while due to all the happenings. Instead of my usual T-shirt, I saw a white robe.
WHAT IN THE WORLD?!
A loud clang was heard behind me, I turned and saw that the sealed blast door was opened. Grotesque figures were pouring out, tracked monstrosities with human-looking torsos rolled out one after another with huge guns blazing from where their arms were supposed to be.
At the forefront of the newcomers was a ginormous figure, far larger even than the space marines below, and it was rushing towards me, non-human legs carrying it across the floor with astonishing speed, it opened and stretched its many arms, I saw a multitude of weapons and guns hanging on some of it.
So this is GG. I expected death or the end of a dream and closed my eyes. But neither came, so I looked up.
A huge hooded figure was in front of me, it had positioned itself to block any incoming fire from the hostile gunmen below, its many hands extended to form a shield around me. The palms of all the hands were metallic but shaped into distinct human-like appendages.
<01010011 01111001 01110010 01101001 01101110 01100101>
Finally, its meaning reached me. The binary canticle faded and a name appeared in my mind.
<Syrine.> The hooded figure was directly addressing me.
Where its eyes would be were several huge lenses. On all their reflections I could see but a single person -- the Aquila young lady I met at the long winding foggy road.
CHAPTER 3 ARCH TECH-PRIEST DOMINUS
CHAPTER 3 ARCH TECH-PRIEST DOMINUS
A hand was reaching out, trying to touch the many reflections of a pretty lady on the many lenses belonging to a metallic monstrosity.
It was a very delicate looking hand with fair, flawless skin ending with really feminine fingers and the final touches of perfect, methodically kept nails. It was not my hand but yet it seemed to obey my every command. Every little twitch of fingers, any slight turning of the palm was reflected in those lenses.
That hand never reached said lenses, a metallic appendage that was shaped into a perfect imitation of a human hand intercepted it. I felt the coldness of the metallic palm. Despite its outward human form, the hardness of its surface confirmed its non-organic nature.
<No signs of external injuries, but I detected your brainwave to be 70.865% deviant from your standard pattern. Are you well, Syrine?>
This thing was asking me questions in binary beeps. How was I able to understand binary? Nothing made sense anymore, but the reflections on the monster's lenses told a cold truth, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I… I am Syrine now.
Then a realisation struck me like lightning. This metallic monstrosity is acquainted with the Aquila lady. What if it learned I was not the real Syrine but someone else who just took over?
Severe stress took over and total panic was just a hair's breadth away, I needed answers and a way out. Do I have anything to fool this monster just for a while? Information, I need information, do I know anything about it? Anything? ANYTHING?
[Severe stress detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
The world slowed again, the gunfight was still raging on but seemed so distant in the background. Another line of words appeared in my vision.
[Run Analytica? YES / NO]
With almost teary eyes I looked at the prompt. Is this salvation? YESSSS! Readings popped up in my mind displaying information for the monster before me.
Name: Kryptorer Cykell, posthuman, arch tech-priest dominus.
I remembered now, this ginormous grotesque cyborg was definitely looking the part for an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priest Dominus. His overall appearance resembled a hooded and hunched gigantic man with multiple pairs of robotic arms, one of his many hands was carrying the signature Omnissian axe of his order. Over what was left of his body was a hooded robe that was typical for a tech-priest, and completing the package were his non-human legs which looked like a combination of inverted claws dangling with a bundle of random wires. On his back, a myriad of antennas and unknowable instruments stuck like pikes.
The release of the Adeptus Mechanicus plastic range was a relatively new event compared to a lot of the armies of the grimdark universe. If I recall correctly the initial start collecting box package was a particularly generous offer. In my zeal to quickly start up the army, I bought multiple boxes and ended up with a few redundant copies of tech-priest dominus figures laying around.
As for those tracked monstrosities with human torsos and huge guns as arms around the tech-priest, they were a mix of heavy combat units of the Adeptus Mechanicus known as Kataphron breachers and destroyers, these killing machines came in an expensive kit of three per box during release and were spammed by the power gamers.
But enough reminiscing about my hobby, the current situation needs to be resolved. Digging hard into my mind, I reviewed my options given the absurdity of the current circumstances.
Betting on the information gained from the reading, I started by saying his name, 'Krypto…' I flinched at my own voice when it came out and did not manage to finish speaking his name. Unlike the one I was used to for decades, the voice that came out from me was elegant and feminine and it startled me.
<Old Krypto is here for you, Omnissian princess. Please tell me, are you hurt or experiencing any discomfort?> He canted.
Eh? Not finishing saying his name was kinda a jackpot?
Apparently, Syrine was close enough to the tech-priest to address him with a shortened name. Calling him by his full name might actually arouse suspicion that something was amiss.
That was close, too close.
But the next part made me shiver internally. I need to speak in Low Gothic. If this was my old body I swore I would have been sweating by the buckets. But there was no going back, the tech-priest was waiting for me. One way or another, this charade will end with or without my answer and I rather take an active bet.
I had a hunch as earlier when the sister spoke in the language its meaning came automatically to me so I dug deep into my mind for the Low Gothic tongue. As if answering my prayer, the language suddenly bubbled into my head and the words came naturally to me, putting in as much anguish as I could, I pushed them out.
'Where... am I? My head is hurting.'
There, I said it in fluent Low Gothic. To complete the act, I lowered my head to avoid his gaze and put my other hand on top of my head.
The tech-priest dominus made a sound that was halfway between gasping and machine gear grinding to a halt. A slight pause later, a single word escaped his vocal synthesizer.
'Unacceptable.'
It was a crispy metallic voice laced with hints of age. I tensed up and waited, not knowing what would happen next.
Wordlessly, he raised his massive Omnissian axe and struck the ground twice with its end knob, heavy resonance echoed throughout the whole chamber. All the breachers and destroyers stopped firing their weapons on his cue. The tech-priest then turned his back to me to face the chamber, standing tall to his full imposing height and completely blocking my view, then he roared.
'Unforgivable! Inconceivable! You dare? YOU DARE?! None of you, not a single one of your misbegotten kind are even worth her single brain cell!' The volume of his words, amplified many times by overcharged vocal synthesizer, drowned out all the combined sound in the chamber and everything paused.
There the arch tech-priest dominus stood tall at the edge of the elevated platform, he was looking down at all the hostile forces below like an apex predator surveying a herd of helpless lambs, one of his many hands pointing an accusing finger at them.
I gasped internally at his blatant taunting at an armed and hostile crowd. Hey, we are still in a gunfight, you are asking to be shot! As expected, since he made himself stand out so much the tech-priest soon attracted a whole lot of hostile fire, but he was completely unfazed as an energy field flickered to life around him to block most of the incoming fire. Small rings of light flashed on each impact on his protective energy field making it a dazzling sight even when viewed from behind.
The geek inside me cried out with joy and disbelief at the sight of a supposedly physically impossible forcefield in action. However, it appeared to not be foolproof as some rounds did make it through. However those lucky shots merely bounced off him like rain hitting a stone wall, it was then I recalled a tech-priest dominus has some of the best defensive stat lines in the miniature game, outperforming even the premium power armour the Imperium provided for its elites and I was merely witnessing that stat line performance live in action.
With all eyes in the chamber on him, the tech-priest continued, 'As a devout believer of the glorious Omnissiah, I apologize for my unsightly outburst of emotion.' He bowed and waved one of his many hands, dropping judgement with a voice cold with contempt. 'Now, I consign all you unworthy unbelievers to eternal entropy.'
As one every breacher and destroyer fired their heavy weapons, I realised with horror the tech-priest must have done some serious trajectory calculations for his killing machines when he was trash-talking just now. For an undetermined amount of time, an endless stream of deadly shining projectiles was homing to the enemies below and a scene of butchery happened right before my eyes.
Cries of defiance soon turned into despair, returning hostile fire dwindled, then fell silent and finally the Mechanicus heavy combat units ceased firing.
I took a peek at the carnage and saw the aftermath of the onslaught, down there was a scene of sheer brutality. Scores of charred mass vaguely resembling human forms with twisted limbs littered all over the chamber, some of them were still moving but I was not sure if it was because they were still clinging to life or due to the random ammunition rounds and lasgun power packs that were still going off from the remnants of superheated weapon impact.
The smell of ozone and burned meat filled the air. Wordlessly, the battle sisters started walking forward into the charnel house and executing anyone who might actually survive that hell; my civilian brain froze with the sight happening before me.
'Holy daughter.' A female voice called to me. I turned and noticed the sister leader was behind me with her helmet removed, blood was pouring down from the left side of her face.
My brain started to move again, the scene of her courageously trying to shield me from grenade impacts surfaced and made me instinctively look down at myself only to see a flawlessly white robe and my hands were lightly dusted but otherwise in pristine condition despite surviving grenade attacks and rolling on the ground.
How was that even possible?
'I… I am alright. Thank you for saving me, but why do you call me holy daughter?' It was the best reply I could come up with as my mind was a mangled mess, further adding to the difficulties of my mental processing was the eerie sensation of talking in fluent Low Gothic tongue which I have never learned.
What the sister did next boggled my mind, she went down on one knee and knelt before me.
'Revered lady. I am Alicya Sabatith, probationary palatine of Order of The Shining Beacon. You must be the prophesied true daughter of the Emperor that He on Holy Terra has sent to lead us in our darkest hour. Please honour us with your leadership and wisdom, guide our order and the people of Imperium in this testing time.'
I was rendered speechless, but she continued to speak.
'The uprising suppression is at a critical stage. Revered lady, please lead us.' She looked up, her face was a full display of hope and reverence but my mind started numbing again with her revelation.
A hand was reaching out, trying to touch the many reflections of a pretty lady on the many lenses belonging to a metallic monstrosity.
It was a very delicate looking hand with fair, flawless skin ending with really feminine fingers and the final touches of perfect, methodically kept nails. It was not my hand but yet it seemed to obey my every command. Every little twitch of fingers, any slight turning of the palm was reflected in those lenses.
That hand never reached said lenses, a metallic appendage that was shaped into a perfect imitation of a human hand intercepted it. I felt the coldness of the metallic palm. Despite its outward human form, the hardness of its surface confirmed its non-organic nature.
<No signs of external injuries, but I detected your brainwave to be 70.865% deviant from your standard pattern. Are you well, Syrine?>
This thing was asking me questions in binary beeps. How was I able to understand binary? Nothing made sense anymore, but the reflections on the monster's lenses told a cold truth, for reasons beyond my comprehension, I… I am Syrine now.
Then a realisation struck me like lightning. This metallic monstrosity is acquainted with the Aquila lady. What if it learned I was not the real Syrine but someone else who just took over?
Severe stress took over and total panic was just a hair's breadth away, I needed answers and a way out. Do I have anything to fool this monster just for a while? Information, I need information, do I know anything about it? Anything? ANYTHING?
[Severe stress detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
The world slowed again, the gunfight was still raging on but seemed so distant in the background. Another line of words appeared in my vision.
[Run Analytica? YES / NO]
With almost teary eyes I looked at the prompt. Is this salvation? YESSSS! Readings popped up in my mind displaying information for the monster before me.
Name: Kryptorer Cykell, posthuman, arch tech-priest dominus.
I remembered now, this ginormous grotesque cyborg was definitely looking the part for an Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priest Dominus. His overall appearance resembled a hooded and hunched gigantic man with multiple pairs of robotic arms, one of his many hands was carrying the signature Omnissian axe of his order. Over what was left of his body was a hooded robe that was typical for a tech-priest, and completing the package were his non-human legs which looked like a combination of inverted claws dangling with a bundle of random wires. On his back, a myriad of antennas and unknowable instruments stuck like pikes.
The release of the Adeptus Mechanicus plastic range was a relatively new event compared to a lot of the armies of the grimdark universe. If I recall correctly the initial start collecting box package was a particularly generous offer. In my zeal to quickly start up the army, I bought multiple boxes and ended up with a few redundant copies of tech-priest dominus figures laying around.
As for those tracked monstrosities with human torsos and huge guns as arms around the tech-priest, they were a mix of heavy combat units of the Adeptus Mechanicus known as Kataphron breachers and destroyers, these killing machines came in an expensive kit of three per box during release and were spammed by the power gamers.
But enough reminiscing about my hobby, the current situation needs to be resolved. Digging hard into my mind, I reviewed my options given the absurdity of the current circumstances.
Betting on the information gained from the reading, I started by saying his name, 'Krypto…' I flinched at my own voice when it came out and did not manage to finish speaking his name. Unlike the one I was used to for decades, the voice that came out from me was elegant and feminine and it startled me.
<Old Krypto is here for you, Omnissian princess. Please tell me, are you hurt or experiencing any discomfort?> He canted.
Eh? Not finishing saying his name was kinda a jackpot?
Apparently, Syrine was close enough to the tech-priest to address him with a shortened name. Calling him by his full name might actually arouse suspicion that something was amiss.
That was close, too close.
But the next part made me shiver internally. I need to speak in Low Gothic. If this was my old body I swore I would have been sweating by the buckets. But there was no going back, the tech-priest was waiting for me. One way or another, this charade will end with or without my answer and I rather take an active bet.
I had a hunch as earlier when the sister spoke in the language its meaning came automatically to me so I dug deep into my mind for the Low Gothic tongue. As if answering my prayer, the language suddenly bubbled into my head and the words came naturally to me, putting in as much anguish as I could, I pushed them out.
'Where... am I? My head is hurting.'
There, I said it in fluent Low Gothic. To complete the act, I lowered my head to avoid his gaze and put my other hand on top of my head.
The tech-priest dominus made a sound that was halfway between gasping and machine gear grinding to a halt. A slight pause later, a single word escaped his vocal synthesizer.
'Unacceptable.'
It was a crispy metallic voice laced with hints of age. I tensed up and waited, not knowing what would happen next.
Wordlessly, he raised his massive Omnissian axe and struck the ground twice with its end knob, heavy resonance echoed throughout the whole chamber. All the breachers and destroyers stopped firing their weapons on his cue. The tech-priest then turned his back to me to face the chamber, standing tall to his full imposing height and completely blocking my view, then he roared.
'Unforgivable! Inconceivable! You dare? YOU DARE?! None of you, not a single one of your misbegotten kind are even worth her single brain cell!' The volume of his words, amplified many times by overcharged vocal synthesizer, drowned out all the combined sound in the chamber and everything paused.
There the arch tech-priest dominus stood tall at the edge of the elevated platform, he was looking down at all the hostile forces below like an apex predator surveying a herd of helpless lambs, one of his many hands pointing an accusing finger at them.
I gasped internally at his blatant taunting at an armed and hostile crowd. Hey, we are still in a gunfight, you are asking to be shot! As expected, since he made himself stand out so much the tech-priest soon attracted a whole lot of hostile fire, but he was completely unfazed as an energy field flickered to life around him to block most of the incoming fire. Small rings of light flashed on each impact on his protective energy field making it a dazzling sight even when viewed from behind.
The geek inside me cried out with joy and disbelief at the sight of a supposedly physically impossible forcefield in action. However, it appeared to not be foolproof as some rounds did make it through. However those lucky shots merely bounced off him like rain hitting a stone wall, it was then I recalled a tech-priest dominus has some of the best defensive stat lines in the miniature game, outperforming even the premium power armour the Imperium provided for its elites and I was merely witnessing that stat line performance live in action.
With all eyes in the chamber on him, the tech-priest continued, 'As a devout believer of the glorious Omnissiah, I apologize for my unsightly outburst of emotion.' He bowed and waved one of his many hands, dropping judgement with a voice cold with contempt. 'Now, I consign all you unworthy unbelievers to eternal entropy.'
As one every breacher and destroyer fired their heavy weapons, I realised with horror the tech-priest must have done some serious trajectory calculations for his killing machines when he was trash-talking just now. For an undetermined amount of time, an endless stream of deadly shining projectiles was homing to the enemies below and a scene of butchery happened right before my eyes.
Cries of defiance soon turned into despair, returning hostile fire dwindled, then fell silent and finally the Mechanicus heavy combat units ceased firing.
I took a peek at the carnage and saw the aftermath of the onslaught, down there was a scene of sheer brutality. Scores of charred mass vaguely resembling human forms with twisted limbs littered all over the chamber, some of them were still moving but I was not sure if it was because they were still clinging to life or due to the random ammunition rounds and lasgun power packs that were still going off from the remnants of superheated weapon impact.
The smell of ozone and burned meat filled the air. Wordlessly, the battle sisters started walking forward into the charnel house and executing anyone who might actually survive that hell; my civilian brain froze with the sight happening before me.
'Holy daughter.' A female voice called to me. I turned and noticed the sister leader was behind me with her helmet removed, blood was pouring down from the left side of her face.
My brain started to move again, the scene of her courageously trying to shield me from grenade impacts surfaced and made me instinctively look down at myself only to see a flawlessly white robe and my hands were lightly dusted but otherwise in pristine condition despite surviving grenade attacks and rolling on the ground.
How was that even possible?
'I… I am alright. Thank you for saving me, but why do you call me holy daughter?' It was the best reply I could come up with as my mind was a mangled mess, further adding to the difficulties of my mental processing was the eerie sensation of talking in fluent Low Gothic tongue which I have never learned.
What the sister did next boggled my mind, she went down on one knee and knelt before me.
'Revered lady. I am Alicya Sabatith, probationary palatine of Order of The Shining Beacon. You must be the prophesied true daughter of the Emperor that He on Holy Terra has sent to lead us in our darkest hour. Please honour us with your leadership and wisdom, guide our order and the people of Imperium in this testing time.'
I was rendered speechless, but she continued to speak.
'The uprising suppression is at a critical stage. Revered lady, please lead us.' She looked up, her face was a full display of hope and reverence but my mind started numbing again with her revelation.
Thank you for being the first to comment on my humble work.
Would you happen to be a player of the table-top game and/or just a fan of the lore?
- Location
- Phiadelphia P.A
Fan of the Lore, if i had the money then maybe tabletop
BlackBaron
Inspector General
- Location
- Michigan, USA
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
And in the distance a scream echoes out filled with confusion and dripping with horror. That's my take on the MC's reaction at the end, to that loaded proclamation.
CHAPTER 4 NOBODY EXPECTS THE...
CHAPTER 4 NOBODY EXPECTS THE...
'Uprising …?' I murmured.
Overwhelmed by what was happening around me, I merely echoed what palatine Alicya was saying. The truth was my mind had blanked out a while ago.
Around me was this supposedly real version of the grimdark universe of the far future where I heavily invested in its miniature games as my hobby. I was awestruck by the sheer intensity of what I had seen, heard and felt; the smell of blood, sweat, gun powder, ozone and charred flesh in the air, the sound of each and every gut-wrenching bolter discharge as the sisters continued their grim work in the background executing armed thugs.
Indescribable feelings rose inside me, a part of me wanted to shout 'Awesome!' for what must have been a wet dream for any fan of the grimdark universe, to be able to see and experience the universe itself in person; another part of me just wanted to scream and hide from all these as the very core appeal of this universe laid in the fact it was so… utterly horrible and dystopian.
And frankly, I wasn't sure this was a lucid dream session anymore. My mind just wasn't in the right state to answer the palatine, then someone cut into our conversation.
'This is no mere uprising.' A deep and stern voice came somewhere behind. The owner of the voice walked up and appeared beside me and immediately I knew who he was by appearance.
Standing close to 6 feet tall was a man who looked to be in his mid-forties. He was fully geared up with a trench coat overall, on top of his head was a really solid looking capotain brandishing a stylised 'I' on the centre. Beneath the shadow cast by the capotain, a pair of blue eyes glittered with sharpness and wisdom. Overall the man was handsome but slightly rough around the edges and had the look of a model who would most probably be hired to represent a certain classic tobacco brand back on earth. However unlike your run the mill models, this man exuded an air of unquestionable authority even just by standing still.
'Inquisitor.' I said reflexively before realising my mistake and swiftly ran [Analytica] on the newcomer.
The readings came back: Human, inquisitor.
Inquisitors are one of the highest-ranking agents of the Imperial Inquisition. Relentless and deadly, they are the most important arm of the Imperial government dedicated to ensuring the security of the Imperium of Man. Every inquisitor in theory possessed near unlimited authority, thus most have access to an almost limitless variety of Imperial resources that allowed them to act against any threats they perceived to the Imperium. Think of them as a mix of James Bond and Judge Dredd with a blank cheque to carry out their missions.
Unlike Kryptorer the arch tech-priest dominus, no name came back, which meant…
'Thaberus Thorn, Ordo Hereticus.' He introduced himself and fixed a firm gaze on me. 'You would have to excuse me for skipping pleasantries. Quickly now, can you tell me who you are and what you are doing on this planet?'
'Honored inquisitor,' the palatine voiced her displeasure. 'I must protest the way you are addressing the revered lady, and what do you mean by saying this was no mere uprising?'
The man scoffed. 'First, before I can verify the outrageous claim you just mentioned, by the decree of the Holy Inquisition everyone here will be under my personal scrutiny. Second, when has a simple planetary uprising ever involved renegade Astartes?' He finished his statement by pointing somewhere below the platform we were all standing on.
Astartes, a.k.a space marines, were transhuman super-soldiers of the Imperium of Man, these genetically altered superhumans were usually clad in their signature power armour and engage in an endless battle with the horrors of the galaxy, widely known as the poster boys of the grimdark universe. But these supposed guardians of humanity can go bad, becoming renegade or something much, much worse.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to the two space marines that were present in the enemy rank? I followed where the inquisitor was pointing and found the answer. The heavy bolter marine ended up in a pile of rubble, apparently melted together with his choice of cover after being subjected to hails of direct plasma fire. His hands were still twitching as a sister executed him with point-blank shots through the helmet lenses.
Just when I thought things couldn't get any more gruesome for the renegade space marine, another scene was unfolding and it made my jaw drop. There a short distance away a dismembered figure of a giant armoured man was being dragged along the ground by an unknown female figure clad in a skintight black operative suit.
Her sudden appearance sent chills down my spine as I had absolutely no idea when this person had entered the fray and chopped off all the limbs of a space marine. She was dragging the limbless renegade marine towards us, her every movement suggested highly trained lethality, from my knowledge of the grimdark universe, only one type of character fits her profile: an Officio Assassinorum operative or an imperial assassin. Unlike all the operative miniatures I collected, she wore no headgear and exposed her pretty face to the world.
The assassin was a cold foxy beauty with her black hair tied into a warrior's knot that extended into a long ponytail. This seemed like a really popular hairstyle in the miniature range. As I was dazzled by her appearance and couldn't help myself from looking at her, she glanced back sizing me up, making my core shivered with her stares.
'Sir, target acquired.' She addressed the inquisitor and pushed the hapless marine forward as if casually delivering a mailed package. 'Right, we should get this done and over with.' He nodded to her.
The assassin did something to the marine's armour and then yanked the helmet off him. Underneath the helmet was the face of a scarred warrior with a bald head, but thankfully no signs of chaos corruption, massive amounts of blood was pouring all over the place but it did not stop the marine from dropping a tirade of profanity in Low Gothic.
'In the name of the God Emperor, do you repent and cooperate, space marine?' Thaberus asked. The assassin held the marine's head so he was facing the inquisitor.
'Hah!' The marine snarled, 'When my brothers arrive, they will give you all mortals a death not even worthy for street dogs!' Then he spat, the classic acidic spit attack I read in the lore! As if anticipating this action, the assassin turned his head at the last second and his spit hit the floor and sounds of acid burning hissed on the spot. In a swift motion, she quickly followed up by dislocating his jaw to prevent further similar incidents.
Now limbless and with a broken jaw, the marine was making unintelligible angry sounds, it was at the same time the angriest and most helpless thing I have ever seen in my life. Not happy with his behaviour, the assassin delivered some brutal palm strikes on the marine's head to silence him with a knockout.
'Now then,' Thaberus continued as if the events just now were an everyday occurrence. 'Put him away. Shall we continue where we left off?' He turned his cold gaze and looked at me again. I wanted to take a step back but my body couldn't move.
All these individuals were just so casual about brutal violence.
I had just… witnessed more violence in person for the past hour than all my decades of peaceful life combined. A deep understanding of the laws of this universe was imprinted on me: Regardless of who you are here in this place, violent death can and will come to you anytime should you cross the wrong people or be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
That realisation seemed to have triggered some primal level of fear inside me, my mind had reached the threshold for the emotion but strangely my body did not tremble, but mentally I was utterly spent and just wanted to surrender so I came clean with the inquisitor.
'I… I can't seem to remember anything. I just know my name and recall that Arch Dominus Kryptorer is my acquaintance.' The really surprising part of my statement was that my voice wasn't shaking, but inside I just wanted to cry.
Well, judging by their reaction, that bombshell wasn't well received. The inquisitor did not move and his expression could not be read but that couldn't be a good thing, the sister had a surprised and devastated look on her face.
Just as when it felt like things were about to explode, something buzzed, it was the same sort of sound I had heard a while ago.
'This better be good.' The inquisitor said, but his mannerism indicated he was not speaking to me, as expected he appeared to be listening to a vox report via an earpiece and replied to someone a while later. 'No mistake about it? Very well keep me informed if anything changes. Thaberus out.'
With that, his attention returned to me again, and his level of hostility rose. 'Quit playing games lady, tell me what you did and why you did it. My patience has its limits and the latest development just escalated the whole situation!'
This was bad, really really bad.
My instinct was urging me to do the totally illogical action of running away -- they all had guns, and the assassin was just beside me. I was on the very edge of a nervous breakdown when a voice of reason came to my rescue.
'Inquisitor Thorn,' Arch Tech-priest Dominus Kryptorer stepped in, physically putting himself between me and the scary man.
'As the highest-ranking representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus on this planet, I formally request you not to further burden my main benefactor of this holy expedition.'
The inquisitor turned to face the tech-priest and they started a stare-down at each other, I gulped silently looking at the two imperial powerhouses. My old habit as a gamer kicked in and I quickly deduced with a small comfort in the scenario if a fight indeed happened now… Kryptorer and his killer machines had a slight edge over Thaberus' side.
It was palatine Alicya who broke the stalemate. 'Honored inquisitor and dominus, due to the unfortunate incident just now, the revered lady might have suffered from amnesia or brain damage due to the impact of the direct grenade attack. I had shielded her as much as I could but it might not have been enough.' The sister said apologetically, both the parties she addressed looked at her bloodied face and contemplated her statement.
It was at this point more people came forward and gathered near us, it was three people, two men and one woman who looked like what you would expect as the hired guns of the inquisition. Thaberus glanced at the group's most senior-looking individual, and the latter nodded, silently verifying Alicya's statement.
Kryptorer pointed at the impact craters near us and said, 'Direct grenades impact, even with her level of protection there might be complications with her delicate condition of just finishing the activation rituals. Inquisitor Thorn, we should put aside my benefactor's curious case of memory loss under review for the moment, in the meantime what is this latest development you speak of?'
'Arch Dominus.' The inquisitor turned to face the tech-priest. 'I supposed my party does owe you gratitude for your cooperation on apprehending the renegade Astartes. As for that development...'
He said his next words slowly. 'This will affect every imperial subject in this sector, billions and billions of souls are at stake. I was just informed by my crew that the Astronomican can no longer be detected, the light of the Emperor… is lost to us.'
'Uprising …?' I murmured.
Overwhelmed by what was happening around me, I merely echoed what palatine Alicya was saying. The truth was my mind had blanked out a while ago.
Around me was this supposedly real version of the grimdark universe of the far future where I heavily invested in its miniature games as my hobby. I was awestruck by the sheer intensity of what I had seen, heard and felt; the smell of blood, sweat, gun powder, ozone and charred flesh in the air, the sound of each and every gut-wrenching bolter discharge as the sisters continued their grim work in the background executing armed thugs.
Indescribable feelings rose inside me, a part of me wanted to shout 'Awesome!' for what must have been a wet dream for any fan of the grimdark universe, to be able to see and experience the universe itself in person; another part of me just wanted to scream and hide from all these as the very core appeal of this universe laid in the fact it was so… utterly horrible and dystopian.
And frankly, I wasn't sure this was a lucid dream session anymore. My mind just wasn't in the right state to answer the palatine, then someone cut into our conversation.
'This is no mere uprising.' A deep and stern voice came somewhere behind. The owner of the voice walked up and appeared beside me and immediately I knew who he was by appearance.
Standing close to 6 feet tall was a man who looked to be in his mid-forties. He was fully geared up with a trench coat overall, on top of his head was a really solid looking capotain brandishing a stylised 'I' on the centre. Beneath the shadow cast by the capotain, a pair of blue eyes glittered with sharpness and wisdom. Overall the man was handsome but slightly rough around the edges and had the look of a model who would most probably be hired to represent a certain classic tobacco brand back on earth. However unlike your run the mill models, this man exuded an air of unquestionable authority even just by standing still.
'Inquisitor.' I said reflexively before realising my mistake and swiftly ran [Analytica] on the newcomer.
The readings came back: Human, inquisitor.
Inquisitors are one of the highest-ranking agents of the Imperial Inquisition. Relentless and deadly, they are the most important arm of the Imperial government dedicated to ensuring the security of the Imperium of Man. Every inquisitor in theory possessed near unlimited authority, thus most have access to an almost limitless variety of Imperial resources that allowed them to act against any threats they perceived to the Imperium. Think of them as a mix of James Bond and Judge Dredd with a blank cheque to carry out their missions.
Unlike Kryptorer the arch tech-priest dominus, no name came back, which meant…
'Thaberus Thorn, Ordo Hereticus.' He introduced himself and fixed a firm gaze on me. 'You would have to excuse me for skipping pleasantries. Quickly now, can you tell me who you are and what you are doing on this planet?'
'Honored inquisitor,' the palatine voiced her displeasure. 'I must protest the way you are addressing the revered lady, and what do you mean by saying this was no mere uprising?'
The man scoffed. 'First, before I can verify the outrageous claim you just mentioned, by the decree of the Holy Inquisition everyone here will be under my personal scrutiny. Second, when has a simple planetary uprising ever involved renegade Astartes?' He finished his statement by pointing somewhere below the platform we were all standing on.
Astartes, a.k.a space marines, were transhuman super-soldiers of the Imperium of Man, these genetically altered superhumans were usually clad in their signature power armour and engage in an endless battle with the horrors of the galaxy, widely known as the poster boys of the grimdark universe. But these supposed guardians of humanity can go bad, becoming renegade or something much, much worse.
Speaking of which, whatever happened to the two space marines that were present in the enemy rank? I followed where the inquisitor was pointing and found the answer. The heavy bolter marine ended up in a pile of rubble, apparently melted together with his choice of cover after being subjected to hails of direct plasma fire. His hands were still twitching as a sister executed him with point-blank shots through the helmet lenses.
Just when I thought things couldn't get any more gruesome for the renegade space marine, another scene was unfolding and it made my jaw drop. There a short distance away a dismembered figure of a giant armoured man was being dragged along the ground by an unknown female figure clad in a skintight black operative suit.
Her sudden appearance sent chills down my spine as I had absolutely no idea when this person had entered the fray and chopped off all the limbs of a space marine. She was dragging the limbless renegade marine towards us, her every movement suggested highly trained lethality, from my knowledge of the grimdark universe, only one type of character fits her profile: an Officio Assassinorum operative or an imperial assassin. Unlike all the operative miniatures I collected, she wore no headgear and exposed her pretty face to the world.
The assassin was a cold foxy beauty with her black hair tied into a warrior's knot that extended into a long ponytail. This seemed like a really popular hairstyle in the miniature range. As I was dazzled by her appearance and couldn't help myself from looking at her, she glanced back sizing me up, making my core shivered with her stares.
'Sir, target acquired.' She addressed the inquisitor and pushed the hapless marine forward as if casually delivering a mailed package. 'Right, we should get this done and over with.' He nodded to her.
The assassin did something to the marine's armour and then yanked the helmet off him. Underneath the helmet was the face of a scarred warrior with a bald head, but thankfully no signs of chaos corruption, massive amounts of blood was pouring all over the place but it did not stop the marine from dropping a tirade of profanity in Low Gothic.
'In the name of the God Emperor, do you repent and cooperate, space marine?' Thaberus asked. The assassin held the marine's head so he was facing the inquisitor.
'Hah!' The marine snarled, 'When my brothers arrive, they will give you all mortals a death not even worthy for street dogs!' Then he spat, the classic acidic spit attack I read in the lore! As if anticipating this action, the assassin turned his head at the last second and his spit hit the floor and sounds of acid burning hissed on the spot. In a swift motion, she quickly followed up by dislocating his jaw to prevent further similar incidents.
Now limbless and with a broken jaw, the marine was making unintelligible angry sounds, it was at the same time the angriest and most helpless thing I have ever seen in my life. Not happy with his behaviour, the assassin delivered some brutal palm strikes on the marine's head to silence him with a knockout.
'Now then,' Thaberus continued as if the events just now were an everyday occurrence. 'Put him away. Shall we continue where we left off?' He turned his cold gaze and looked at me again. I wanted to take a step back but my body couldn't move.
All these individuals were just so casual about brutal violence.
I had just… witnessed more violence in person for the past hour than all my decades of peaceful life combined. A deep understanding of the laws of this universe was imprinted on me: Regardless of who you are here in this place, violent death can and will come to you anytime should you cross the wrong people or be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
That realisation seemed to have triggered some primal level of fear inside me, my mind had reached the threshold for the emotion but strangely my body did not tremble, but mentally I was utterly spent and just wanted to surrender so I came clean with the inquisitor.
'I… I can't seem to remember anything. I just know my name and recall that Arch Dominus Kryptorer is my acquaintance.' The really surprising part of my statement was that my voice wasn't shaking, but inside I just wanted to cry.
Well, judging by their reaction, that bombshell wasn't well received. The inquisitor did not move and his expression could not be read but that couldn't be a good thing, the sister had a surprised and devastated look on her face.
Just as when it felt like things were about to explode, something buzzed, it was the same sort of sound I had heard a while ago.
'This better be good.' The inquisitor said, but his mannerism indicated he was not speaking to me, as expected he appeared to be listening to a vox report via an earpiece and replied to someone a while later. 'No mistake about it? Very well keep me informed if anything changes. Thaberus out.'
With that, his attention returned to me again, and his level of hostility rose. 'Quit playing games lady, tell me what you did and why you did it. My patience has its limits and the latest development just escalated the whole situation!'
This was bad, really really bad.
My instinct was urging me to do the totally illogical action of running away -- they all had guns, and the assassin was just beside me. I was on the very edge of a nervous breakdown when a voice of reason came to my rescue.
'Inquisitor Thorn,' Arch Tech-priest Dominus Kryptorer stepped in, physically putting himself between me and the scary man.
'As the highest-ranking representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus on this planet, I formally request you not to further burden my main benefactor of this holy expedition.'
The inquisitor turned to face the tech-priest and they started a stare-down at each other, I gulped silently looking at the two imperial powerhouses. My old habit as a gamer kicked in and I quickly deduced with a small comfort in the scenario if a fight indeed happened now… Kryptorer and his killer machines had a slight edge over Thaberus' side.
It was palatine Alicya who broke the stalemate. 'Honored inquisitor and dominus, due to the unfortunate incident just now, the revered lady might have suffered from amnesia or brain damage due to the impact of the direct grenade attack. I had shielded her as much as I could but it might not have been enough.' The sister said apologetically, both the parties she addressed looked at her bloodied face and contemplated her statement.
It was at this point more people came forward and gathered near us, it was three people, two men and one woman who looked like what you would expect as the hired guns of the inquisition. Thaberus glanced at the group's most senior-looking individual, and the latter nodded, silently verifying Alicya's statement.
Kryptorer pointed at the impact craters near us and said, 'Direct grenades impact, even with her level of protection there might be complications with her delicate condition of just finishing the activation rituals. Inquisitor Thorn, we should put aside my benefactor's curious case of memory loss under review for the moment, in the meantime what is this latest development you speak of?'
'Arch Dominus.' The inquisitor turned to face the tech-priest. 'I supposed my party does owe you gratitude for your cooperation on apprehending the renegade Astartes. As for that development...'
He said his next words slowly. 'This will affect every imperial subject in this sector, billions and billions of souls are at stake. I was just informed by my crew that the Astronomican can no longer be detected, the light of the Emperor… is lost to us.'
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Haha, that sounded like my in-depth research into the 40k universe after I started writing this story.
You only need to remove the top layer of flare to notice under that seemingly endless amount of lore is but a sea of vagueness.
40k is more of a space opera than a real sci-fi.
C4d
Has approximate knowledge of many things.
- Location
- Germany
Oh no, that means that Cadia has fallen and the great rift was torn open.
But also that Roboute Guilliman lives again and started the Indomitus Crusade with his buddy Cawl. To bad that you are on the wrong side of the rift.
Can't wait to see if you go for the "i am some kind of Prophet" road and dispense the deep lore bombs onto these guys or just pretend to know nothing about all this beyond the most basic things.
Oh my, a true connoisseur of the universe.
Would you happen to be a table-top player as well?
Funny you mentioned that, later in the story this did happen.
The most shocking of all was her prophecies, oh the prophecies.
'Roboute Guilliman shall return.' She had said it without any hints of doubt or deception. For the very first time in his grim career, Thaberus wanted to doubt his own readings. She was either delusional or telling the truth. Neither was a laughing matter.
'Roboute Guilliman shall return.' She had said it without any hints of doubt or deception. For the very first time in his grim career, Thaberus wanted to doubt his own readings. She was either delusional or telling the truth. Neither was a laughing matter.
I have planned the story for quite a distance ahead, actually writing them down and polishing them up to a degree that will not shame my ancestors when displaying them to the public had proved to be a lot of work. So I will mostly keep to weekly release to keep my sanity.
SYNOPSIS
A disillusioned gamer found himself on an unfamiliar path, devoid of memory regarding his arrival. Progressing through an unusual encounter, he emerged in one of the most brutal sci-fi universes revered by geeks - The Imperium of Man, set in the grim darkness of the far future where there is only war, and inherited an identity with world-shattering secrets.
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- Location
- Anchorage, Alaska
well fuck...this is going to suck aint it? at least, well...if you think about it us people being "responsible" for the 40k verse for existing would have a MASSIVE narrative weight on the immaterium. Basically we would be equivalent to the Great Old One Gods comparatively, for a chaos god to look upon us in full would drive them mad from the revelation of...well...everything. basically once things become "boring" the entire existence of 40k will come to a complete stasis...not even NURGLE wants that shit to happen.
and your weight of your soul?
Alpha fucking Plus at fricken best pysker powers if it ever happens. Or close to Apex due to narrative "Weight". Anyone who gets the author on their side of the equation, well...shit-show wont even describe the level of narrative proclamation for the 40k verse.
and your weight of your soul?
Alpha fucking Plus at fricken best pysker powers if it ever happens. Or close to Apex due to narrative "Weight". Anyone who gets the author on their side of the equation, well...shit-show wont even describe the level of narrative proclamation for the 40k verse.
It's a warhammer40k SI that straight up doesn't suck in the first chapter! Praise be to the emperor for this miracle!
More seriously I do hope that you don't go the active psycher route, the admech are a much more interesting faction (in my opinion). Looking forward to reading more
More seriously I do hope that you don't go the active psycher route, the admech are a much more interesting faction (in my opinion). Looking forward to reading more
Huh?? Is such type of work seriously lacking in a sea of fan fictions?
That part was already determined, all I have to say is I am aware of the Wanda pitfall.
- Location
- Anchorage, Alaska
Can you explain the Wanda pitfall for me? And horray no pysker bullshit!
Most of the ones I've found are Gamer SI, or superer space marine, and usually end up with the SI as a mary sue within 3 chapters. Or they start getting hunted by the inquisition right off the bat. Or join chaos, and suffer none of the numerous drawbacks that entails. Or they are psychers, and have no issues fending off demons or corruption in the warp.
Tldr, yes, it is very surprising (in a good way).
Isn't that a reference to WandaVision?
Where she creates her own 50's dream life with vision and traps an entire town in it? If I remember correctly, she altered reality to suit her. Haven't actually watched it though
Was referring to the scene in Avengers End Game where Wanda was suddenly able to overpower Thanos without explaination because... magic. Thus I call it the Wanda pitfall.
Since Magic / Jedi and psychic power are a sort of "free commodity", IMO if done wrong they are anathema to a good story writing / development, so extra care should always exercise when these powers are involved.
CHAPTER 5 SORTING THE MESS
CHAPTER 5 SORTING THE MESS
The Astronomican, a giant psychic beacon located on planet Earth, was the one thing that binds the Imperium of Man together in this grimdark universe. It was the symbol of unity both spiritually and literally for the galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man.
Without the psychic light of the Astronomican to guide the starships of the Imperium, faster than light warp travel between the vast distances of imperial worlds would become so impractical the empire would cease to function.
Palatine Alicya gasped at the unspoken implications. 'So we are cut off from any chance of outer reinforcements against what that renegade marine mentioned was coming?'
'Intriguing.' Kryptorer voiced his thoughts and turned to me. 'Was that why you were so adamant about immediately activating this psychic beacon when we just arrived, Omnissian princess?'
Wait, what? Syrine did that? This place is the heart of a psychic beacon? And why the princess title?
The arch dominus' statement made everyone look straight at me, and of course, I didn't have the answer. My mind was flooded with an alarming amount of warning sirens from what I just heard. A psychic beacon alone was already a huge deal in its own right, plus the Astronomican going offline now of all times? This had all the hallmarks of a world-ending event looming on the horizon.
[Severe stress detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
It was then that the thought acceleration power automatically activated again. From my experience, every time it happened, I would have like twenty to thirty seconds of extremely dilated time to look around and organise my thoughts when it was just the blink of an eye in real-time. From my brief respite, I realised my immediate concerns were not the doomsday scenario but to bullshit myself out of this soft interrogation.
Working on a hunch, I quickly ran [Analytica] on all the people around me to confirm something I noticed. As expected, only readings from Alicya, Kryptorer and Thaberus came back with their respective names. The three newcomers that looked like inquisitorial hired guns and the imperial assassin all came back nameless but confirmed their human status; except for the assassin, her reading returned as transhuman, confirming my suspicion of her being an Officio Assassinorum operative.
Deducing from what I knew, Kryptorer and Syrine were acquainted and that was why the first [Analytica] readings returned with his name even though he had never mentioned it.
Thaberus' initial reading came back nameless but the inquisitor's name appeared on the second reading after his self-introduction, likewise Alicya's mannerisms definitely indicated this was the first time we met. By rounding out all the information gathered thus far, I saw an opening and tried my luck directing the conversation.
'Krypto. You… you left me all alone during the activation ritual?' I asked, carefully tuning my voice to just the right mix between curiosity and outrage. My probing question made the arch dominus jolted despite his massive size.
'Allow me to explain,' a seemingly agitated Kryptorer quickly offered, 'It was five hours into the activation and you were still in the state of trance when the inquisitor's party and the sisters showed up.'
New information. I looked at him silently, buying time to digest what he just said, but that seemed only to make him more desperate to defend his actions.
'After verifying their identity and waiting for another two hours, the whole system was acting up, so the inquisitor and I decided to venture further into the chamber to see what we could do while the sisters offered to stay behind and look after you. I took all the Kataphron units with me in case of the presence of ancient dormant sentries. Without your authorisation to pacify such entities, any such encounter without overwhelming firepower would be catastrophic to the function of this marvellous technology.'
The arch dominus was talking so fast he was giving me the impression of a child explaining himself after being caught red-handed doing something forbidden by his parents.
'In hindsight,' Thaberus said, 'we were probably being monitored, the timing of their attack was impeccable.' 'So the insurgents attempted to murder the holy daughter?' Alicya asked, fuming with righteous fury.
'That remained to be seen. All we know is the arch dominus' party arrival on this planet had threatened the rebels' plan enough for them to reveal their assets, including the presence of renegade Astartes amongst their ranks.' Thaberus said before turning his attention back on me.
'Now, lady…' he looked at me expectantly.
'Syrine.' I handed him the only accurate information I knew.
'Lady Syrine, would you care to enlighten us? Who are you, how do you know this place and why did you activate this massive psychic beacon?' He was trying to be civilised about his questioning now, but seriously, that did not put a dent on his intimidation value one bit.
So much for diversions.
'I…', my mouth opened but no answer came to mind, desperate for a way out, I ran [Cogitatio Acceleratio] again and tried to use the small period of time dilation to dig into my mind like the trick I did before with the Low Gothic tongue in search for an answer for my predicament. The world slowed again, I closed my eyes to cut off distraction and my consciousness looked inward.
Why was Syrine here? Tell me.
I probed inwards and felt a sense of resistance.
Tell me, I need to know.
A sense of unspoken understanding rose inside me: you are not ready. No, an inquisitor is breathing down on my neck, tell me.
At first, nothing happened, then slowly a hint of a vision flashed for a split second and my mind registered something so terrifying it broke my trance. When I opened my eyes, my face was merely inches away from the floor. Apparently, the assassin's inhuman reflexes had rescued me from a major self-inflicted embarrassment by stopping my body mid-collapse. I turned my head to the assassin only to see her eyeing me with a cold stare.
It was still embarrassing enough and I could only thank her with a wry smile. Sister Alicya quickly aided me back on my feet and protested. 'Lady Syrine is not in the condition for this.' 'Inquisitor Thorn, I would like to reaffirm my request to you to not further burden my benefactor.' Kryptorer backed her up.
The atmosphere tensed up again; while still somewhat dazed I looked around and noticed for the first time the individuals gathered here could probably affect the fate of billions of people with their actions. An inquisitor, with theoretically absolute authority on imperial matters, an arch dominus, who proclaimed himself as the highest-ranking of his cult on the planet, a palatine sister of battle, whose rank was below a canoness of the Adepta Sororitas order … and Syrine, me.
Whoever Syrine was, she was not your ordinary girl next door seeing how Kryptorer treated her with a degree of veneration, and that was even before looking into that ridiculous 'prophesied true daughter of the Emperor' story sister Alicya spoke of.
Within a heartbeat, I somehow got a solid hold of the current situation. What's up with this superhuman level clarity of thinking? But my concern was on the rapidly developing situation, so I cut straight into the main current issues at hand.
'My memory is not good for now. But correct me if I got this wrong, we are now cut off from the wider Imperium and more renegade marines are coming. Did this world request for reinforcements yet and what was this uprising suppression you spoke of, sister Alicya?'
Finally given the chance to talk, Alicya was only too happy to quickly brief me about the plight of their world. A local lord who was the brother of the current planetary governor had taken up arms against the ruling regime with the help of questionable factions and a full-blown civil war was happening even as we speak.
The minor order of Adepta Sororitas stationed on the planet initially stayed neutral in the 'family dispute' but later threw their support to the incumbent governor when they received numerous reports about unknown and sketchy forces that were operating under the usurper lord's faction.
The uprising faction then showed their true colours by massacring the psykers of Adeptus Astra Telepathica chamber to a man, almost cutting off any off-world communication entirely. By then what looked like a power grab at the planetary governor seat had become a separatist movement in all but name and a full-scale war soon followed.
Even with the aid of the Adepta Sororitas, the governor's forces had a hard time dealing with the rebels, further proving the latter had help from unseen players. The fighting was so fierce that a sizable portion of the Order had martyred themselves in it and Alicya was made probationary palatine despite being relatively young for the position.
Now according to the lore I knew, power-grabbing is something the Imperium would usually turn a blind eye to as long as whoever won the seat of power cooperated fully with the empire. But a separationist movement with the aid of renegade space marines? That would open up proper reasons to request urgent reinforcement from the wider Imperium and usually, loyalist Astartes chapters would be racing over to curb stomp the usurpers in such circumstances.
That was when Thaberus broke the bad news: the lone surviving astropath was under his care in a secure location but the psyker had since failed to send out any messages due to unusual warp activities.
'Unacceptable.' Kryptorer declared suddenly. 'The instability caused by this war threatens the wondrous work of the Omnissiah.' I looked at the arch dominus and suddenly recalled how obsessive their kind was to treasuring technological wonders and had a really bad feeling about this uprising consisting of renegade marines, so I put my theory to the test.
'Krypto, if they win they might destroy all this, can you help?'
Kryptorer turned his massive body to me and spoke. 'Affirmative, twelve hours ago I had tapped into the main information network of this planet and have been conversing with the local adepts of my order, appraising the situation.' He paused, then continued.
'From my analysis, the opposition appears to have Astartes level background support in key logistics, electronic and communications warfare. That was why they were having the upper hand.' Sensing his confidence, I followed up. 'Will that be a problem for you?'
'Inconceivable.' He made a sound that was halfway between scoffing and air expulsion. 'For the others, it might be difficult. But electronic communications warfare happens to be one of my primary research topics and we have the support of a whole starship's worth of advanced cogitators in orbit. My analysis shows that a key breakthrough development can be conceptualised within the next seventy-two hours if my resources are deployed to aid the governor.'
It was at this moment a skull probe, literally a drone built into a human skull flew in from nowhere and dropped something into the dominus' hand. He opened his metallic palm for everyone to see the item. It was a boxy spidery thing no bigger than a matchbox.
'This device,' he said with his metallic voice, 'is an Astartes grade sentry probe utilized by some of the stealthier chapters, and how they knew when to attack just now.'
'I have erred in underestimating our opponent and caused harm to you, Omnissian princess.' He bowed to me. 'Allow me to atone by securing victory for the governor and thus safeguarding the glorious work of the Omnissiah.'
I nodded, with that secured I turned to Thaberus. 'Will you allow us to help, inquisitor?' 'Well, they had renegade Astartes on their side so their heresy was all but confirmed. In the light of the Emperor's domain being threatened here, I would allow it for now and will be sorting out your case later. Palatine Alicya, you should take the arch dominus to the governor and Canoness Diadinah immediately and update them on the situation.'
'What about Lady Syrine?' Alicya asked.
'Without a valid reason, she should never be anywhere near the frontline. Only Omnissiah knows what will happen to this psychic beacon should something happen to her.' Kryptorer said.
Thanks! I said internally to Kryptorer as the frontline was the last place I wanted to go. That said, I surveyed the carnage left behind by the gunfight and didn't feel like sticking around either. 'Maybe I can try helping with the call for reinforcements that the Astropath was having problems sending out?' I enquired simply for the heck of it.
To my surprise, Thaberus nodded.
The Astronomican, a giant psychic beacon located on planet Earth, was the one thing that binds the Imperium of Man together in this grimdark universe. It was the symbol of unity both spiritually and literally for the galaxy-spanning Imperium of Man.
Without the psychic light of the Astronomican to guide the starships of the Imperium, faster than light warp travel between the vast distances of imperial worlds would become so impractical the empire would cease to function.
Palatine Alicya gasped at the unspoken implications. 'So we are cut off from any chance of outer reinforcements against what that renegade marine mentioned was coming?'
'Intriguing.' Kryptorer voiced his thoughts and turned to me. 'Was that why you were so adamant about immediately activating this psychic beacon when we just arrived, Omnissian princess?'
Wait, what? Syrine did that? This place is the heart of a psychic beacon? And why the princess title?
The arch dominus' statement made everyone look straight at me, and of course, I didn't have the answer. My mind was flooded with an alarming amount of warning sirens from what I just heard. A psychic beacon alone was already a huge deal in its own right, plus the Astronomican going offline now of all times? This had all the hallmarks of a world-ending event looming on the horizon.
[Severe stress detected]
[Cogitatio Acceleratio auto activated]
It was then that the thought acceleration power automatically activated again. From my experience, every time it happened, I would have like twenty to thirty seconds of extremely dilated time to look around and organise my thoughts when it was just the blink of an eye in real-time. From my brief respite, I realised my immediate concerns were not the doomsday scenario but to bullshit myself out of this soft interrogation.
Working on a hunch, I quickly ran [Analytica] on all the people around me to confirm something I noticed. As expected, only readings from Alicya, Kryptorer and Thaberus came back with their respective names. The three newcomers that looked like inquisitorial hired guns and the imperial assassin all came back nameless but confirmed their human status; except for the assassin, her reading returned as transhuman, confirming my suspicion of her being an Officio Assassinorum operative.
Deducing from what I knew, Kryptorer and Syrine were acquainted and that was why the first [Analytica] readings returned with his name even though he had never mentioned it.
Thaberus' initial reading came back nameless but the inquisitor's name appeared on the second reading after his self-introduction, likewise Alicya's mannerisms definitely indicated this was the first time we met. By rounding out all the information gathered thus far, I saw an opening and tried my luck directing the conversation.
'Krypto. You… you left me all alone during the activation ritual?' I asked, carefully tuning my voice to just the right mix between curiosity and outrage. My probing question made the arch dominus jolted despite his massive size.
'Allow me to explain,' a seemingly agitated Kryptorer quickly offered, 'It was five hours into the activation and you were still in the state of trance when the inquisitor's party and the sisters showed up.'
New information. I looked at him silently, buying time to digest what he just said, but that seemed only to make him more desperate to defend his actions.
'After verifying their identity and waiting for another two hours, the whole system was acting up, so the inquisitor and I decided to venture further into the chamber to see what we could do while the sisters offered to stay behind and look after you. I took all the Kataphron units with me in case of the presence of ancient dormant sentries. Without your authorisation to pacify such entities, any such encounter without overwhelming firepower would be catastrophic to the function of this marvellous technology.'
The arch dominus was talking so fast he was giving me the impression of a child explaining himself after being caught red-handed doing something forbidden by his parents.
'In hindsight,' Thaberus said, 'we were probably being monitored, the timing of their attack was impeccable.' 'So the insurgents attempted to murder the holy daughter?' Alicya asked, fuming with righteous fury.
'That remained to be seen. All we know is the arch dominus' party arrival on this planet had threatened the rebels' plan enough for them to reveal their assets, including the presence of renegade Astartes amongst their ranks.' Thaberus said before turning his attention back on me.
'Now, lady…' he looked at me expectantly.
'Syrine.' I handed him the only accurate information I knew.
'Lady Syrine, would you care to enlighten us? Who are you, how do you know this place and why did you activate this massive psychic beacon?' He was trying to be civilised about his questioning now, but seriously, that did not put a dent on his intimidation value one bit.
So much for diversions.
'I…', my mouth opened but no answer came to mind, desperate for a way out, I ran [Cogitatio Acceleratio] again and tried to use the small period of time dilation to dig into my mind like the trick I did before with the Low Gothic tongue in search for an answer for my predicament. The world slowed again, I closed my eyes to cut off distraction and my consciousness looked inward.
Why was Syrine here? Tell me.
I probed inwards and felt a sense of resistance.
Tell me, I need to know.
A sense of unspoken understanding rose inside me: you are not ready. No, an inquisitor is breathing down on my neck, tell me.
At first, nothing happened, then slowly a hint of a vision flashed for a split second and my mind registered something so terrifying it broke my trance. When I opened my eyes, my face was merely inches away from the floor. Apparently, the assassin's inhuman reflexes had rescued me from a major self-inflicted embarrassment by stopping my body mid-collapse. I turned my head to the assassin only to see her eyeing me with a cold stare.
It was still embarrassing enough and I could only thank her with a wry smile. Sister Alicya quickly aided me back on my feet and protested. 'Lady Syrine is not in the condition for this.' 'Inquisitor Thorn, I would like to reaffirm my request to you to not further burden my benefactor.' Kryptorer backed her up.
The atmosphere tensed up again; while still somewhat dazed I looked around and noticed for the first time the individuals gathered here could probably affect the fate of billions of people with their actions. An inquisitor, with theoretically absolute authority on imperial matters, an arch dominus, who proclaimed himself as the highest-ranking of his cult on the planet, a palatine sister of battle, whose rank was below a canoness of the Adepta Sororitas order … and Syrine, me.
Whoever Syrine was, she was not your ordinary girl next door seeing how Kryptorer treated her with a degree of veneration, and that was even before looking into that ridiculous 'prophesied true daughter of the Emperor' story sister Alicya spoke of.
Within a heartbeat, I somehow got a solid hold of the current situation. What's up with this superhuman level clarity of thinking? But my concern was on the rapidly developing situation, so I cut straight into the main current issues at hand.
'My memory is not good for now. But correct me if I got this wrong, we are now cut off from the wider Imperium and more renegade marines are coming. Did this world request for reinforcements yet and what was this uprising suppression you spoke of, sister Alicya?'
Finally given the chance to talk, Alicya was only too happy to quickly brief me about the plight of their world. A local lord who was the brother of the current planetary governor had taken up arms against the ruling regime with the help of questionable factions and a full-blown civil war was happening even as we speak.
The minor order of Adepta Sororitas stationed on the planet initially stayed neutral in the 'family dispute' but later threw their support to the incumbent governor when they received numerous reports about unknown and sketchy forces that were operating under the usurper lord's faction.
The uprising faction then showed their true colours by massacring the psykers of Adeptus Astra Telepathica chamber to a man, almost cutting off any off-world communication entirely. By then what looked like a power grab at the planetary governor seat had become a separatist movement in all but name and a full-scale war soon followed.
Even with the aid of the Adepta Sororitas, the governor's forces had a hard time dealing with the rebels, further proving the latter had help from unseen players. The fighting was so fierce that a sizable portion of the Order had martyred themselves in it and Alicya was made probationary palatine despite being relatively young for the position.
Now according to the lore I knew, power-grabbing is something the Imperium would usually turn a blind eye to as long as whoever won the seat of power cooperated fully with the empire. But a separationist movement with the aid of renegade space marines? That would open up proper reasons to request urgent reinforcement from the wider Imperium and usually, loyalist Astartes chapters would be racing over to curb stomp the usurpers in such circumstances.
That was when Thaberus broke the bad news: the lone surviving astropath was under his care in a secure location but the psyker had since failed to send out any messages due to unusual warp activities.
'Unacceptable.' Kryptorer declared suddenly. 'The instability caused by this war threatens the wondrous work of the Omnissiah.' I looked at the arch dominus and suddenly recalled how obsessive their kind was to treasuring technological wonders and had a really bad feeling about this uprising consisting of renegade marines, so I put my theory to the test.
'Krypto, if they win they might destroy all this, can you help?'
Kryptorer turned his massive body to me and spoke. 'Affirmative, twelve hours ago I had tapped into the main information network of this planet and have been conversing with the local adepts of my order, appraising the situation.' He paused, then continued.
'From my analysis, the opposition appears to have Astartes level background support in key logistics, electronic and communications warfare. That was why they were having the upper hand.' Sensing his confidence, I followed up. 'Will that be a problem for you?'
'Inconceivable.' He made a sound that was halfway between scoffing and air expulsion. 'For the others, it might be difficult. But electronic communications warfare happens to be one of my primary research topics and we have the support of a whole starship's worth of advanced cogitators in orbit. My analysis shows that a key breakthrough development can be conceptualised within the next seventy-two hours if my resources are deployed to aid the governor.'
It was at this moment a skull probe, literally a drone built into a human skull flew in from nowhere and dropped something into the dominus' hand. He opened his metallic palm for everyone to see the item. It was a boxy spidery thing no bigger than a matchbox.
'This device,' he said with his metallic voice, 'is an Astartes grade sentry probe utilized by some of the stealthier chapters, and how they knew when to attack just now.'
'I have erred in underestimating our opponent and caused harm to you, Omnissian princess.' He bowed to me. 'Allow me to atone by securing victory for the governor and thus safeguarding the glorious work of the Omnissiah.'
I nodded, with that secured I turned to Thaberus. 'Will you allow us to help, inquisitor?' 'Well, they had renegade Astartes on their side so their heresy was all but confirmed. In the light of the Emperor's domain being threatened here, I would allow it for now and will be sorting out your case later. Palatine Alicya, you should take the arch dominus to the governor and Canoness Diadinah immediately and update them on the situation.'
'What about Lady Syrine?' Alicya asked.
'Without a valid reason, she should never be anywhere near the frontline. Only Omnissiah knows what will happen to this psychic beacon should something happen to her.' Kryptorer said.
Thanks! I said internally to Kryptorer as the frontline was the last place I wanted to go. That said, I surveyed the carnage left behind by the gunfight and didn't feel like sticking around either. 'Maybe I can try helping with the call for reinforcements that the Astropath was having problems sending out?' I enquired simply for the heck of it.
To my surprise, Thaberus nodded.
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I think MC might be a Sensei? Maybe? I know they were retconned out of existence, but whatever, screw that noise.
C4d
Has approximate knowledge of many things.
- Location
- Germany
Having the full support of the worlds Cult Mechanicus through direct authority of their highest member is going to be a gamechanger for the loyalist forces especially if they have some expeditionary forces of the Mechanicus around the system, those guys are pretty hardcore even when compared to Space Marines.
I wonder when shes going to accidentally drop some deep lore bomb.
I wonder when shes going to accidentally drop some deep lore bomb.
I used to read books about it exclusively but started a small Dark Angels army with the release of the 8th edition.