On November 24th, in the 653rd year of the 53rd millennium, mysterious signals are detected from below the mountains of Dis. The closest resonances found match ancient readings of Old One technology.
On June 17th, in the 655th year of the 53rd millennium, Konroy Rotbart descends into hell.
~~~
In the mountains of Dis, a ten-man group prepared to die. Held in a cramped adamantium breaching-ram strapped to diamondoid wires, they were suspended over the abyss, a drilled shaft leading down into unseen depths.
Inside the tube, the vox crackled with the sound of the magi. "All systems green. Ready when you are, Governor."
"Call me Konroy," was the reply. "Drop us in."
The servos hitched. The reels spun. And down, down they went, into the dark unknown.
~~~
A lion of a man is the first impression Konroy Rotbart gives. The incumbent Governor of Avernus stands over two metres tall, broad-shouldered and heavily muscled. His face is tanned, the mahogany skin interspersed with whiskery scars, regal cheekbones and heavy jaw mostly hidden beneath a trimmed beard. A mane of dark hair hangs to his shoulders in a mess of unkempt curls, thin braids dangling with commemorative beads of iron, steel, and witch's gold.
He is over four hundred years old, and is the strongest man in the world. In his youth of centuries past he was untamed, an inveterate lothario best known for his impressive string of flings across the Nine Worlds, breaking hearts and bones alike with casual ease. Even as he aged and ascended to the office, his promiscuity was only tempered, not doused, until his accidental impregnation and subsequent marriage to the lady Keira of Asgard.
Nowadays he spends his hours in the office, tending to budgets and distributions. Rarely does he take to the field, leaving the duty of battlefield command to his beloved first son Arthur, while he cares for his second.
"Eric is at a very crucial time in his development," he says. "Arthur may have turned out alright, but I'm stacking the deck for number two."
At five years old, the young scion of Rotbart seems more interested in messing his diapers and eating anything he can get his hands on. His father, who has a flash-pict dedicated to the purpose, records every such occasion of gustatory exploration with scrupulous fidelity.
But thirty years ago, Konroy Rotbart and the crew of Expedition 13 went deeper into the caves of Avernus than any other survey that followed. Only now have the records been opened, collated data disseminated to the wider subsector, and the truth of the two weeks in hell revealed.
~~~
The entry point of the expedition was located within the caverns of the Spine. Though the passageways and biomes of the Avernite underworld change by the day, millennia of exploration by the Department of Cave Surveyance (agents of which are commonly known as 'cavers') have catalogued various unchanging landforms that provide predictable haven to the surveyors. This particular landform was named Atrium 9-A-67; cavers referred to it as the 'Red Altar' due to its central plateau of blood-red stone within the perfectly circular chamber, notable only as a stable and level platform to set a forward base.
Six months before the Governor's expedition, a full regiment of Mechanicus forces were sent in to fortify the position, pulling double-duty as technicians to set up a deep-stratum borehole. Without room to set up a full installation, augery was slowed as cuttings were drawn up and deposited elsewhere in the caverns, vanishing with the shifting of ways. Eventually transport issues became untenable, and automated drills were sent down instead.
During this period, Konroy was recruiting volunteers for his undertaking. He found few willing citizens; though Avernites are willing to die for the Governor, death is not an easy promise to keep in the caverns. Even for those mad enough to agree, the physical requirements were brutal, and the esoteric requirements near impossible.
But eventually he found his crew. Jon Jacobs, Nikolas Reddington, and Auram Jarak, who each served a twenty-year tour in the Helguard before honourable discharge. Hurykon-11F, Yannzi-47-63, and Tranth-5954, Mechanicus Skitarii, outfitted with Reclaimed augmentations. Kethero Urzaka, Alpha psyker and master of the Divine Biomancy. Marjk Kolotsov, Beta psyker and apex Telepath. And lastly, Konroy's own son, Arthur Rotbart.
~~~
"He thought I was mad," says Arthur, thirty years after. "But I knew I had to be there. Besides, I'm not going to die a million miles underground." A hundred and fifty years old, he doesn't look a day over twenty-five, his fair skin free of blemishes, his Asgardian blond locks and sea-green eyes still stirring the adoration of the tween demographics.
Indeed, one persistent datafile that travels the net, the Arthur Rotbart Facts, extols his many virtues, fictional or otherwise. Filled with such sentiments like 'Fact #16: Every time Arthur Rotbart smiles, puppies are born,' and 'Fact #45: You believe in the God-Emperor, but the God-Emperor believes in Arthur Rotbart,' it lacks something in the execution.
When it's brought up, he laughs. "Ah, jeez. They say some pretty weird things, you know? I'm kinda flattered, though." In at least one aspect he matches the fantasy of the wholesome prince, doting on his younger brother with wild abandon.
But surely there was no true need for him to join the expedition? To risk the leadership and succession of Avernus?
"I had to be there," he repeats.
~~~
The breaching-ram hung vertically over the pit, the pulveriser attached to a three-level capsule barely four metres in diameter and twelve in height, with a central pipe for movement between. Fully assembled, a thick column of overlapping steel tapering to a piercing point, it resembled the bolt round of old, loaded and ready to fire into the chasms of the earth.
The bottom level closest to the pulveriser contained the control board and communications equipment, while the two levels above contained crew quarters. Each member would be harnessed into an upright sleeve laden with shock- and inertia-dispersion systems. Tanks within the walls supplied nutrient rations that were administered through intravenous piping, and a single latrine was located on the topmost level, as was the emergency recall. In case of catastrophe, the pulveriser could be detached via explosive bolts, lessening the total weight to be recalled.
The whole device was suspended with a double tackle pulley of high-tension diamondoid wire, the same used in reinforcing hive segments and colossus frameworks.
One by one, the men filed in, each added body and armoury straining the weight. The inertia-sleeves inflated around them, clear and blue as glacial ice. Hurykon-11F, the designated technician, descended into the lower level and entered the pilot pod, integrating into the control board.
Speed was of the essence. Every second the expedition lasted was another second the fortification had to defend the extraction point from cavernous wildlife. Most system checks were performed digitally, but final authorisation needed to be confirmed verbally.
"All systems green, Governor. Ready when you are."
Konroy, fully submerged within the shock-absorbing gel of the sleeve, said, "Call me Konroy. Drop us in."
The ram shuddered, swaying as diamondoid wires loosened and tensed. Then, with a horrendous groan, the ram dropped in freefall. Within the ram, the crew felt no sensation thanks to the inertial gel. Nevertheless, they would not be released until external movement reached manageable levels.
"Two hundred metres," read out Hurykon. "Four hundred. Six. Eight. One K. External temperature holding steady at ten degrees Celsius."
"Well done, everybody," said Konroy. "We've broken a new record." The previous confirmed record for voluntary exploration had belonged to Rigel Korrack of the Citadel, who had traversed to a depth of 865 metres in 422.M53.
Hurykon continued his readout, as the breaching-ram hurtled through the dark, any obstacles or creatures annihilated at such speeds by the multi-tonne projectile. At 8000 metres, the ram began to slow, brakepads squeezing on the wires until they came to a halt just shy over 9053 metres. On a normal Terra-grade planet of Avernus' size, geothermic temperatures at this depth would be enough to boil water. Inside the tunnel, beads of moisture were instead beginning to condense on the outer shell.
At this stage, Hurykon confirmed stable communications with the home base. Sanctionite Marjk Kolotsov, after performing several internal divinations, confirmed the signal for Old One technology was directly below them, and had not increased in strength.
The mood in the ram was mixed. Ten thousand metres of depth, looped four times between crane and ram, was the limit of the diamondoid wire available. A high-grade material, its incredible tensile properties make it suited for suspension-hive construction and orbital elevators, but production of unbroken lengths was slow. It seemed the mission would fail before it even began.
Eventually, Konroy made the call. "We'll go to the bottom, and check there. If there's nothing, we go back up."
The breaching-ram descended at a controlled pace, the metres ticking away. At 9544 metres they struck rubble, half a kilometre before the expected terminus. A cave-in had filled the bottom of the borehole.
Konroy would not be dissuaded. "Dust it," he commanded.
The pulveriser was activated. The stone obstruction was dissolved, shredded into grains that were heated and shuffled to the side of the tunnel. Integrated melta-rings fused the detritus into a smooth, glassy wall. The numbers went up again, even slower than before, Kolotsov performing psychic echoes every ten metres.
"Any changes?" asked Jon Jacobs, whose sleeve was opposite the psyker's.
"If there are, I'll tell you," Kolotsov replied.
9996 metres. 9997 metres. 9998. 9999. Finally, the ram halted with a jerk at ten thousand metres. Kolotsov performed the last divination, and confirmed the signal origin had not decreased in distance.
After a pause, the Governor ordered a recall. Simultaneously unhappy and relieved, the ram was silent for the ascent.
The second trip through the tunnel went slower than the first. At 7650 metres, Konroy would patch into the Mechanicus operations base. "What's taking you so long?" he demanded.
Seven seconds elapsed before a reply arrived. "Expedition, please confirm current depth."
Hurykon confirmed the depth.
Operations then sent the following message: "Expedition, we have recalled twenty thousand metres of cable. Your current depth should be 5000 metres."
Konroy sent a command to increase recall torque. "Torque has been increased," Operations sent. "Please confirm acceleration."
Hurykon confirmed no change in velocity. Forty seconds later, Hurykon announced they were decelerating. Operations, after a minute's delay, confirmed it had reached maximum recall speeds, and had spooled thirty kilometres of cable and counting.
After five minutes, Hurykon confirmed they were beginning to descend. Konroy ordered the arresting pylons activated. The thick studs of metal, designed to dig into the surrounding tunnel, expanded from the circumference of the ram and halted all movement.
"Operations, are you still recalling cable?" asked Konroy.
"Yes," was the reply.
Konroy felt the squeeze of fear. Miles below the earth, the ram had suddenly become the most expensive coffin in Avernite history.
An emergency meeting was called, the course of action opened to discussion. Jacobs, Yannzi-47-63, and Kolotsov recommended waiting for rescue in suspended animation; as per Konroy's requirements, all members had their own ways to cheat hunger. Reddington and Jarak, ninety years of caving between them, called instead to manually climb the tunnel to the nearest aperture, and traverse back to the surface from there.
Fixated on escape, the suggestion from Arthur Rotbart to descend was almost immediately rejected. Untroubled, he laid out his reasoning in calm tones. "It is clear we are at the mercy of the planet. Whatever is required of us, I don't think we have a chance of escaping without performing our duty. If we really weren't meant to be here, don't you think our cable would have been cut for the temerity? Our retreat has been denied; there's no way else but forward."
"Nothing down there but rubble," Tranth-5954 grumbled.
"That was ten minutes ago," Arthur said. "Call it a hunch, but I think it won't be a problem."
Arguments proceeded for another sixteen minutes. Konroy finally called it to a majority vote. He, as final arbiter, would abstain.
The plans were made. Awaiting rescue was supported by Jacobs, Yannzi, Kolotsov, and Hurykon. Spelunking back was supported by Reddington and Jarak. Arthur's suggestion, to instead descend, was backed by Tranth and Urzaka.
Plan Spelunk was struck from the choices, and a second vote was called. Stay, or advance.
Jacobs, Yannzi, Hurykon and Reddington voted to stay. But Arthur, Tranth, and Urzaka were joined by Jarak and, surprisingly, Kolotsov, who had changed his vote. By 5-4 majority, they would advance.
At ten kilometres, the ram detected no obstruction, the hole extended kilometres more. Samples from the external surface before and after the previous terminus revealed no difference in the composition of stone, the same inch of thickness stamped an uncountable distance.
"How far down do we go?" asked Reddington.
"As far as we need to," Arthur said. "Have faith."
Reddington is heard to sigh. "What if we drop into a tube of magma? Or straight into something's mouth?"
"We should be so lucky," the prince answered.
Dread and boredom filled the space, distance markers being called out every kilometre, then every ten, then every fifty. As they descended in a controlled fall, the temperature dropped, communications with base growing sparse, cutting out fully at a hundred kilometres. Past this point, the ram's onboard actuators modulated the descent; slack cable seemed to come without limit.
The crew passed the time through meditation, exercises of marshalling psychic power, or hypno-sims. Speculation on the purpose awaiting them also filled the hours, though all theories were hopelessly cynical.
At 254 km, the ram had to pulse the pulveriser to clear it of ice buildup. At 576 km, the chill steadied out at -45ºC, the band of temperature extending for the next hundred metres, before decreasing steadily with the ram's progress.
At 1134 km, forty hours into the expedition, they encountered an area of 40ºC temperature. A break was called, Yannzi exiting the ram to perform external maintenance and cold-temperature hardening while the opportunity was present, while the crew slipped into powered exo-suits to stave off future chills.
At 2045 km and a hundred hours in, the ram tilted. After some sensor analysis, Hurykon announced they had struck a layer of liquid radon, xenon, and other gases. Where in most other planets would be a mantle of molten earth, Avernus had decided otherwise. Passive power to the melta-ring served to vaporise any obstructions, and they proceeded.
Nearly four thousand kilometres and a full week within the ram, peripheral cogitation systems shut down from hypothermal damage. Though the core motor systems and life-support complex remained functional, the cold began to creep in as atmospheric conditioning underwent spiral malfunction. Konroy ordered an increased rate of descent as Urzaka, himself semi-trained in the art of Ijsmacht from his time in Hibernox Academy, abstracted anti-frost totems and appended them into the souls of the crew. By unspoken agreement, choir drills were included in the schedule.
~~~
At 6277 kilometres, ten days in, Hurykon announced as they drilled through krypton snow that the expedition had reached the centre of Avernus, having traversed the length of the planetary radius to reach its molten core.
Auram Jarak, in response to this announcement, asked, "If we're in the middle of the planet, where is the gravity coming from?"
At no point during the journey had gravity lessened, though the surrounding stone had become brittle with subzero chemical changes. Nobody had a satisfactory answer, until a sudden temperature increase was detected in the Governor's Crown, lasting for seven seconds. The ram reverberated, striking solid bedrock composed of a translucent purple crystal.
The pulveriser was activated at full power for thirty minutes, and produced no visible effect on the strange material. Acting on a hunch, Konroy entered a meditative state, and though what he did is not known, the barrier vanished, disgorging the crew into an empty void.
They had penetrated through a ceiling into an open space void of atmosphere. The slurry of melted gases spilled behind them, vaporising into a spray of crystals in the vacuum. Below them, nearly four hundred metres of vertical drop and a layer of chemical snow, a thick circle of amber and violet caught in the spotlight of the ram.
Kolotsov confirmed the presence of the Old One signal surrounding them. A moot gesture, as even Jon Jacobs, an untrained Delta, was able to perceive the psychic tone that sounded relentlessly, that was "as if a colour could hurt."
Having breached into their destination, the vacuum of the chamber insulated them from temperatures that approached absolute zero. With internal environmental control regained, the crew exited the vessel, Hurykon remaining onboard. At the core of the planet, the chamber had more in common with a void-swallowed comet than anything truly subterranean. Wading through the loose argon ice and nitrogen pools below soon became unbearable to the unaugmented, and Kolotsov's offer for levitation was quickly accepted by all crewmen except Tranth, who proceeded on foot.
It was for this reason they did not immediately perish. The timeline, assembled from eyewitness accounts and recovered auspex data, was made apparent only later:
In contact with the frigid layer coating the floor of the chamber, Tranth detected the seismic movement of its occupant, a single anomaly of evidence against the terabytes of auspectic data without presence of any living thing. His brief warning secured the expedition two and a half seconds of preparation before the creature appeared within visual range.
The treasure of the Old Ones, sealed within the first cell extruded beyond the reach of space, deep within the core of Avernus, was a dragon. Though direct measurements failed, accounts agree on a beast as large as a hill, with scales that swallowed all light and wave and neutrino flung in an attempt to reckon its form. Hollow spears of steel impaled its form, clotted with old blood.
Auram Jarak, held aloft in Kolotsov's grasp, was struck by an errant claw. He died instantly. In the moment of quiet before the battle, Konroy shouted into the vox. "Scatter!"
They leapt apart from the psychic suspension, descending into havoc. Initial movements from the dragon exceeded the speed of sound in an atmosphere that was not present. Despite its bulk, it moved with what was only described as "primal grace," and in this way slaughtered Jon Jacobs with a bisecting swing of its tail.
Kolotsov attempted a mind-mesh to coordinate the disparate elements of the expedition. But as he initiated the accelerated thought pattern, the beast tracked him in a single instant, and let out a roar that shook space, fracturing it like glass. The Beta psyker dissolved, blown apart into kaleidoscopic matter that irradiated the confines of the chamber.
Separated by the dark and the cold, Konroy and Arthur cobbled together a strategy during bursts of communications that were not interdicted by draconic flesh. Unable to perceive the beast save by visual confirmation, Yannzi deployed several hundred suspensor drones, finger-sized motive engines attached to an auspex and lantern, to illuminate the walking shadow. Urzaka unleashed suffocated bursts of sharp plasma, but divinations to centre his target in his mind failed to hold.
A piercing light cut across the space, as Tranth's fortification into the surrounding slush anchored and cooled his overclocked hotshot impaler implant, a mix of molten metals and heavy elements accelerated through electrogravitic mechanisms to appreciable fractions of lightspeed. This scored the first noticeable wound: a gash on the left wing of the dragon, light-swallowing scales chipped away to reveal bleeding flesh that bubbled and boiled silently in the void.
Yannzi, incorporating and providing targeting data through his myriad drones, was swallowed in white flame when the beast struck downward and ignited a cache of frozen oxygen. The resulting explosion tossed the Skitarius into a snap of the jaw that scattered him across the wintry landscape.
Then, Konroy struck. The dragon, through some instinct, had avoided the greatest concentration of martial force in its movements. Black Crystal Sword in hand, the Governor struck at the breast of the beast, spilling cloying blood upon himself. But the blood of the beast was scant degrees warmer than its frozen confines, and Konroy was entombed within a shell of coagulated lifesblood, thick and unyielding to his actuators. He would have died there, vulnerable to the beast's wrath, had his son not sighted its skull amidst the darkness and fired a longshot melta blast straight through its brainpan. The hyperthermal energies, held out of phase long enough to reach distant targets undiffused and unattenuated before reentering normal space, bypassed the natural shielding of the scales to cook any cognitive matter within.
The dragon toppled, whatever guiding intelligence certainly annihilated. And then its tail, which had cut through isosteel and flesh like nothing, swerved around and struck at Arthur, who had leaped away. It began to circle, its claws and tail striking with the same grace that had slain the less fortunate of the crew, mindless and ignorant of the hydrogen plasma Tranth had harvested from his environs.
"Abort the mission!" Arthur yelled into the vox. "Leader down! Leader down!" He tried to reach his father who was pinned almost beneath the main bulk, but could not dodge the claws of the dragon, which had determined a lever of motivation in its inferior understanding.
Then, by a miracle, the dragon seized. Reddington, who had manoeuvred himself through the void onto the beast's back, had grasped and was twisting the spears wildly. His boots were embedded onto the scales by a flush of his suit's CO2 supply adhering him to the surface. With a heave, he drove the spear further in, and its width bloomed like a silver flower, stretching the wound apart to leak the thickly flowing blood of the beast.
With so much of its volume leaking away, the dragon slowed, and Urzaka sighted and fired telekinetic force into the second of the spears. It glowed with psychic runes, and sunk into the flesh of the dragon, opening like a pipe tapped into a flask of drink. The psyker slid through space, enduring the void-shaking roar to retrieve the Governor, then Arthur, teleporting them into the ram as Hurykon initiated escape protocols. He then returned, produced an omnidirectional blast of psychic energy that caused the remaining spears to drill in, before severing Reddington's torso from his frozen legs and teleporting back into the ram. The vessel retreated up the cable at double speed, reentering the frozen borehole as the chamber wall sealed before them.
All in all, from initial detection to expeditious retreat, two hundred and twenty-seven seconds had elapsed.
~~~
Whatever dilatory mechanism had extended their descent had weakened on their return. Working on the ram's integrated mechanisms, they ascended a distance of only seven hundred kilometres over two days before a sudden acceleration marked reattachment to the recall motor of the Mechanicus forward base. Whittled over a dozen nights of continuous subterranean combat, there was only time to transfer the remainder of the expedition to a priority convoy before base and shaft was abandoned. Later exploration to locate the Red Altar would find only a smooth, unbroken plateau of crimson stone.
With such an exciting first encounter, the Gubernatorial Palace expressed a positive reception to news that the Old One signal had ceased. Konroy remained in medical care for two months before release, returning to the office of the Governor the next day.
~~~
In his private quarters, the Governor maintains a gallery of trophies gathered over his long life. Ork technology, silvery flasks of Angyl blood, various arms and armour taken from the xenos conquered beneath his cutlass. In a solitary booth, there is a single transparent tube of the dragon's blood. Claylike in hue, it cascades like silt down a slopeside as he holds it to the light.
"Kethero had to Phase me out of my armour," he says, tapping the plastiglass. "Arthur scraped this off before the rest of it attacked me. With my own armour." He snorts. "Almost choked me to sleep before it burned off in the atmosphere. Glutted itself on free oxygen and temperatures above the melting point of nitrogen. If the real thing came up topside, it'd explode."
His son has a more generous theory. "It was an experiment," says Arthur. "Whatever it was, it had fighting in its blood. Even starving and frozen in a hole without air, it survived. It took out Kolotsov when he tried to establish communications. Yannzi was feeding data to long distance bombardment. Imagine an entire species, without any need for training or hypnotic simulations, a species born as soldiers. A species that can survive without food or water for years and still fight." Even now, he entertains thoughts of returning. "Yeah, I'd have another go. Might take a few voidsmen with me instead."
"Fuck no," his father replies. "You know what I saw before it all went to shit six thousand kilometres beneath the earth? I saw another fucking hole. A goddamn hole straight down into whatever negative depth hides the Old One's other 'failures.' If that dragon starts playing up again, count me out."
~~~
Nikolas Reddington regrew his legs after the expedition. He is retired, and currently tutors in Duat. When asked to comment, he said, "I am immortal."
Kethero Urzaka currently teaches Biomancy at the Unseen University. He declined to comment further.
Tranth-5954 and Hurykon-11F are conducting classified research in the Cumae Belt.
~~~
Name: tomasxavier
Difficulty: Avernite Mode
Hives: 62
Population: 25.5B
Playtime: 06:22:41
Congratulations! You have researched:
Bio-Splice: Dark King of the Core
"White flame, and rushing jaws." Population gains trait: Autonomic Wrath. Population gains trait: Unstoppable Tenacity.
From hell's heart I stab at thee! Your magi have decoded the genetic secrets of the beast that sleeps in the heart of hell, vaulted from realspace by the ancient sorcery of xenos. An unstoppable martial prowess seethes in their cells, the fire of war stolen from prehistoric gods now beating in their chests.
Heroic units: Add +d6 to Martial at chargen. Add +d6 to Combat at chargen. All combat penalties for incapacitation are halved.
Psychic units: Add soul pattern: Dark King. Add technique: Heaven-Shaking Roar.
Population: Combat base index increased by 10. Starvation threshold increased by 15. Fear index increased by 9. Reputation effects with allied nations. Reputation effects with enemy nations. Reputation effects with neutral nations.
Buildings: Can now construct Dragonblood Dojo.
~~~
