Lin is currently doing projects that have a -40% chance of success. I very highly doubt it would be that hard to convert her to the Imperial Truth. For all that she consciously doesn't think humans above xenos, she felt the Emperor's death and when she did so she felt loss. She has the capacity for enlightenment and deserves at least a chance to attain it.
Lin is currently doing projects that have a -40% chance of success. I very highly doubt it would be that hard to convert her to the Imperial Truth. For all that she consciously doesn't think humans above xenos, she felt the Emperor's death and when she did so she felt loss. She has the capacity for enlightenment and deserves at least a chance to attain it.
She literally thought about it for a few minutes deducing what happened shrugged and kept on keeping on. Then felt the abomination awaken and knew without a shadow off a doubt what's going on.
She's a powerful sensitive psyker her not picking up on the death of such a strong being would be unusual as it blew the heads off so msny psykers.
She knows what she knows is true, Lin can likely make a better argument than anyone else, but I'd put his chances at -200.
before everyone one panics to much about infiltrators I should remind you that there are around 12 attempts a year, most of which do not make landfall and most of those are caught within a year, so you have 1-2 infiltrators at best getting onto Avernus per year. then they need to get somewhere secure to do any damage, which is hard for Avernite born cultists who have actually solid backgrounds
Personal (5Y, 5Y, 2Y)
5 Years
Y1: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y2: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y3: Spend Time With (Saint Lin)
Y4: Spend Time With (Saint Lin)
Y5: Spend Time With (Saint Lin)
5 Years
Y1: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y2: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y3: Personal Attention (Reagents supply)
2 Years
Y4: Personal Attention (Expand Ain al-Asil to Small Hive)
Compiled DDs
Y1: Counter-Intelligence
Y2: Hyper Battle Cruiser Design: Ragnarok Cannon
Y3: Unknown Metal
Y4: On Primal Gods
Y5: Examine: Vortex Grenades
We should trade for Alkahestry after we acquire the 100 credits, for efficiency purposes. Plus the main gain of Alkahestry would be boosting our expendable Operatives anyhow.
the understanding of the inherent superiority of the human race, the acceptance of the righteousness of subservience to the God-Emperor of Mankind, and the ironclad belief in humanity's Manifest Destiny to rule the galaxy
Please give us at least a chance. It might be a very low chance but a chance nonetheless, and the potential rewards are great enough to justify an attempt for something so unlikely to succeed.
Please give us at least a chance. It might be a very low chance but a chance nonetheless, and the potential rewards are great enough to justify an attempt for something so unlikely to succeed.
Turn One Hundred and Eight Two Hundred and Sixty years since the Founding of Avernus
Siren Rune of Banishment: Black Irons- One suggested use for the Siren Rune of Banishment is to provide the entire Black Irons Division with weapons marked with the rune. This would give your most stalwart division a major boost in combat against daemonic foes. While time consuming, this project would give you an entire elite division that is able to engage daemons with far greater effect then conventional forces, which would be invaluable when you next come up against daemonic hordes again.
Time: 4 years
Cost: 75,000,000 Thrones, 750,000 Advanced Material, 65,000 Exotic Material.
Upkeep per year: 15,000,000 Thrones, 75,000 Advanced Material, 3,200 Exotic Material
Reward: Provide Siren Rune of Banishment Inscribed Weapons to the Black Irons. +50 to all rolls by Black Irons against daemons, +50% to all damage done by Black Irons to daemons, -5 to daemons armour against attacks from Black Irons,
Turn One Hundred and Six Results Two Hundred and Fifty-Five years since the Founding of Avernus
Siren Rune of Banishment: Black Irons- One suggested use for the Siren Rune of Banishment is to provide the entire Black Irons Division with weapons marked with the rune. This would give your most stalwart division a major boost in combat against daemonic foes. While time consuming, this project would give you an entire elite division that is able to engage daemons with far greater effect then conventional forces, which would be invaluable when you next come up against daemonic hordes again.
Time: 4 years
Cost: 75,000,000 Thrones, 750,000 Advanced Material, 65,000 Exotic Material.
Upkeep per year: 15,000,000 Thrones, 75,000 Advanced Material, 3,200 Exotic Material
Reward: Provide Siren Rune of Banishment Inscribed Weapons to the Black Irons. +50 to all rolls by Black Irons against daemons, +50% to all damage done by Black Irons to daemons, -5 to daemons armour against attacks from Black Irons.
Honestly, I think that "conversion" in this case would really happen by nothing else than by a method of a pleasant dialogue anyway. Saint Lin isn't the kind of person to forcefully preach about fire and salvation, if anything he would calmly lay down the facts about the man who has accomplished so much in his life and about why people respect him and worship him. Also remember, Space Marines have the tendency to see him as the Perfect Man, not as a "god", for example, so it's also a question of what the phrase "converting to worship" means in this context.
And yeah, the Diplomacy action is made for this. Knowing Areatha, diplomatic effort will have to be made to keep her away from Lin, as she will probably be continuously pestering him with her incessant curiosity and whatnot and Lin also has some other important things to do.
Reactors help our economy and make our ships better. Titans because modern orks are monsters on the ground. Plus, while it may not affect Mechanicus politics as a whole, it will make the titan legions (and whoever eventually gets to have a titan factory) very happy.
This thing fought me for a damn while. Sometimes it's better to have an adequate something than the perfect nothing.
~~~ WHighxEmbers: CONFESSIONS
~~~
Roberta has said nothing this whole time.
"…Approximately twenty-five thousand years into the future…"
She's just staring, arms crossed.
"…The Emperor of Mankind would finally expire, extinguishing the Astronomican…"
It's actually kind of unnerving. Say something, please.
"…Would then form the heart of what would be known as the Imperial Trust…"
Seriously, Roberta, you're heavy.
Finally, in the midst of an explanation about the reformation of the Mechanicus, Roberta holds up a hand.
"So you're telling me," she says slowly, "that you're not actually a colony that survived the Age of Strife mostly intact, but refugees from some grim, dark future pretending to be a Dark Age colony."
"Essentially correct."
"You are saying," she says in the same tone, "that you are time travelers. From the future. An entire planet—"
"Subsector."
"—Subsector from the future."
I nod. "Yes. Or a parallel universe."
"Oh. Well, that makes perfect sense," she admits.
"…What, really?"
"NO," she shouts into my face, the room shaking. "NO, IT DOES NOT. WHAT PART OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE, FRED. LITERALLY. WHAT. PART."
"…I love you?" I try.
Roberta deflates, slumping over and drowning me in hair. "…I love you too, Fred."
Carefully, I hug her. This is ridiculous; there is a bed right there, and we're on a mattress on the floor. I sigh.
"This does explain the skulls, though," says Roberta as she snuggles in. "I thought it was just a deathworld thing."
"It is a bit retro, I'll admit, but there was a certain charm to the Creed. At least before the Astronomican exploded."
"Because Grandfather died." She sighs.
"Yeah." Let's not touch on the Tyrant before she's taken a look at the good golden book.
…Unless my blood's already built defenses into her.
"What is it, Fred?" says Roberta, staring at my face.
"Right," I say, "remember when we set up the schedule so you could learn martial arts without having to practice?"
Roberta raises an eyebrow. "Yeah? I'm not really feeling it right now."
"No, no, that's fine. It's just that you might have picked up some other things spliced in there as well."
Slowly, as realization dawns, Roberta pales. "Fred," she hisses.
~~~
"Oh my god," cries Roberta, red as an apple. "I thought it was just a Primarch thing!"
"You said they saw snake eyes?" The dataslate rocks on my knee as I tap away. "A lot of the techniques are passive to free up concentration, so the Unflinching Eye might have just manifested as the scariest thing you could imagine."
"Ugh," she groans. "It was that damned giant planet snake. I had nightmares about it for days."
Man, Roberta, the World Serpent's downright friendly compared to the rest of the planet. "Can you do it to me?"
Roberta sits up. "What?"
"Your projection," I say. "Try and open the Eye."
"I heard that," she says quickly, "but are you sure? I don't want to hurt you."
I shrug. "It's there. You might as well learn how to use it, and you're not going to see anything on a mythril ship. And I've …" I frown, trying to remember the more horrifying things I've killed. Except the problem is that they're usually anti-memetic, so the shock's fresh every time. Damn. "I've probably seen worse."
"Okay," Roberta says eventually, and closes her eyes. She wriggles her nose, scrunching up her eyes cutely.
I wait for a few seconds, and just about call it quits when her eyes snap open, a solid, pure black. She stares into nothing for a moment, before the darkness drips out of her eyes and down her face like ink, eyes once again blue as the ocean. As she wipes her face, the ink evaporates into nothing.
"Well?" I ask.
Roberta shakes her head. "That was amazing. I just— I just thought it and suddenly, I could see." She frowns, mouth working as she tries to describe the undescribable.
Nineteen years I've had my soul, and Roberta figures hers out inside of a minute. Not fair. "Well, you are a Primarch. It looks like it worked, from where I was sitting."
"I suppose." She rubs at her eyes. "How was it?"
I sigh. "I didn't see anything."
"Really? Nothing?" Roberta frowns. "It felt right. I remember it being that way the last time it happened. Maybe it doesn't work on you, since you gave it to me?"
"No, no." I lean back, flopping onto the bed. "Dad's one worked when he tried it on me. There shouldn't be an exception. It's a psychic counter-siege. The projection is just the shape it wears."
"Your Dad used it on you?" She sounds shocked.
"Yeah," I say. "It was the Beast. Not nearly as bad as seeing the real thing, but pretty high up there." Dad had to actually exert effort to annihilate someone's physical and spiritual existence with it, instead of it being an unavoidable aspect of his presence. Not that he can't kill someone by sheer presence alone, but that would have contaminated the results.
Oh. Maybe that's it. You can't put up an imitation against the original. Any image of the World Serpent Roberta creates is nothing when I've got its genes inside me. Problem solved, Professor Ahriman, give me an A.
"Wait!" Roberta suddenly shouts. "You distracted me!"
"I did?"
"Yeah! I was trying to find out why you could fight an astartes and win!" She huffs, but her indignation quickly wanes. "On second thought, it's probably something in your genes, isn't it."
"That's probably correct." I watched the vid of myself, and man, it was sloppy. Should be glad I was moving at all, but goddamn.
Roberta fumes, before closing her eyes and opening them as black as night. I still feel nothing, and the next blink is normal white and blue. "I can't see you," she says accusingly, as if it's my fault.
"Was that what you were trying to accomplish?"
She pouts. "Miranda talks all the time about seeing people for who they really are."
"So that's why she's so awkward."
Roberta gasps, and slaps my arm. "Fred!"
Yeah, Miranda doesn't need help being awkward. "You won't see anything with that," I say, rubbing my arm. "The occlusion is an anti-divinatory measure, designed for mortal practitioners to ambush rogue psykers with telepathic specialties. You're not nearly well trained enough to penetrate it."
"But I want to," says Roberta, with a sad frown.
I feel a hot flush on my cheeks. What is this sensation? Is it… mortal embarrassment? Roberta, seeing an opportunity, tackles my stomach and pins me down.
God-Emperor almighty on the Throne is she warm. She is very warm and distracting oh my goodness God-Emperor sir.
And then with a flash, her eyes turn black once more. Then she blinks, and says, "Dang. I thought that would work."
Wait, what. "Roberta," I say, pinching her cheek.
"Nyagh!" Roberta turns red. "You've turned me into a harlot! Shame on you."
~~~
Meanwhile, on Asgard, Emerald of the Nine Worlds…
"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"
Freya heaved the barrel of ale upright, letting the amber liquid trickle into her mouth. At the last droplet, she thumped the barrel on the table to the cheers of the bar. "More!" she yelled, and another barrel was rolled over.
At the bar, Remilia was keeping an eye on her sister while texting on her vox, chewing on some salmiakki the Niflheimers gave as a leaving-gift. The tender, an aged man with a glorious moustache, leaned over. "Now, any particular reason your friend is looking to wipe out my entire stock?"
"Well," said Remilia, tapping the counter with a credit chip, "we were on Avernus—"
"Ah, say no more." He took the chip, and rung up another barrel to be brought up.
Freya suddenly burped, a sonorous echo that lasted fifteen long seconds. "Where's the latrine?" she half-yelled, stumbling over to Remilia.
Remilia sighed, and propped her sister onto a shoulder. "Freya! Oolitic kidney's holding up?"
"It's great!" Freya wobbled. "Bladder's not great!"
"I'll get you one of those water cooler tanks so you don't dry out." They stumbled into the bathroom, and Remilia helped Freya fiddle with the delicate parts of her dress.
As her sister relieved herself, Remilia's vox beeped. It was a message from Morticia, with a link to a datafeed. She clicked it open, waiting for the vid to load in.
Wait, was that Fred? And Robbie? In a throneroom with Uncle Guilliman?
"Roberta! You want to get married?"
Remilia stifled a squeak, her feet stamping in a quiet dance. When she couldn't contain it anymore, she threw her hands up, yelling at the ceiling. "Yes! Yes, finally!"
"What?" slurred Freya from her cubicle.
"Roberta got hitched! Isis owes me ten thousand thrones!"
"Fuckin' great." There was a moment of silence. "Do you have a mint?"
Remi scrounged in her pockets and tossed a breath box over the door. This was definitely going in the holo-album.
N: FREDERICK KENNETH ROTBART
S: M
DOB: 1.950.949.M30
PHYSICIAN: HEINKELMAN, J.
Prenatal observations
No deformities detected. No mutations detected. Growth pathways for biological augmentation suite are present and active. Development within expected bounds. Psychic presence null.
Postnatal observations
Weight: 3.763kg
AB: U-
BP: 70/40
HR: 150-100 bpm
GW: 9/6/1.4 g/dL
No visual mutations. Reflex testing responses as expected of Helheimi augmentation suite. Blood screening shows high immune activity and production of genetic wards. Blood drop test failure against Death's Head venom. Psychic presence null.
Genetic screen
Genebase: HELHEIMI/M30-STC-RETROFIT HYBRID
Splice Markers:
BIO-100788-BLINK: Active
BIO-198347-PHTIG: Dormant
BIO-322648-TYRLI: Dormant
BIO-233475-MAWYR: Dormant
BIO-238746-CONAS: Active
BIO-452873-THUND: Dormant
BIO-439921-SCORP: Dormant
BIO-399761-ANUJAK: Active
BIO-433254-ISLTU: Active
BIO-556738-SUNBET: Dormant
BIO-766283-DELVEE: Active
BIO-693726-[REDACTED]: Active
BIO-772634-[REDACTED]: Dormant
BIO-855634-[REDACTED]: Dormant
BIO-932887-[REDACTED]: Active
BIO-998746-[REDACTED]: Dormant
Psychic screening
Psychic rating: Sigma-1.
Deep contact telepathic divination shows signs of atrophied foundational structures and minimal psychic presence. Inherited techniques present but inactive. Warp intake conduits unstable. Black Crystal structures present and active. Occlusive fortress structures stable but inactive. Alchemical fabricators absent. Alethioscope formation incomplete. Astral eye formation incomplete.
Insatiable Butcher pattern present and active. Indiscriminate Warp assimilation weakly present.
Prognosis and Treatment
Recommend retrofit of quarters to non-psychic technology. Machine Spirits will register assimilation effect as Pariah presence; recommend live Blink guards until reprogramming complete. Additional therapy recommended.
~~~
He didn't seem different to Roberta. Maybe it was just her, but she kind of thought squeezing the secrets out of Fred would somehow change him. And that was fine. That was the risk she accepted when she chose to find out: that accepting nothing but the truth might damage their relationship. That valuing truth over his comfort would push Fred away.
That Fred wouldn't trust her the way she trusted him.
But if anything, Fred was even more talkative. And about so many things!
"The Tau are a nonexistent species that become very annoying to Ultramar in ten thousand years. They're self-righteous, their faces are stupid, and they can't take a punch. Ram into their fleets and open broadsides behind the front lines."
"Tyranids are somewhere in the intergalactic void. They're dumb animals with giant teeth that outsource their thinking. Also, they eat everything. Shoot off their brains and purge."
"Hrud somehow manage to corral entropy into functional spaceships. Just giant clouds of decay floating in the void. Slow as all hell. Plasma shrapnel triggered before entering range just wipes them out."
So interesting!
But about one thing, he was adamantly silent.
"I can't tell you," he said, when she asked what, exactly, had made them choose to return through time, rather than fighting onward. "No, seriously, I can't."
Roberta sighed. "Why not?"
"Classified," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the galaxy. "Didn't your grandfather ever give you the 'horrible monsters in the warp' talk?"
"Fred, I already know about the Ruinous Powers." Roberta crossed her arms. "Grandfather explained when we complained why we all had to learn each other's languages instead of just using Terran Gothic."
"How swell of him."
"Fred."
"Roberta, are you seriously asking me to fill your head with forbidden knowledge?"
"Fred, we're engaged. How long are you going to wait?"
Fred sighed. "You're going to use that for everything now, aren't you."
Roberta smirked, hands on her hips. "Yes, I am."
"You married me to get at my planetary secrets."
"Yep."
"Dastardly."
"The most."
"Still not telling you." He dodged her smack. "It's not going to happen here, anyway. We made sure of that."
"How can you say that," said Roberta, "and not expect me to be curious?"
~~~
They took a trip to Nuceria, since they were in the area, and Roberta's father asked Fred to transport some cargo on the sly. Since Fred's ship was ludicrously fast, it was barely a day before they reached the system.
"It used to be part of Ultramar until about fifteen hundred years ago," said Roberta, as they looked at the auspex. Nuceria floated in the holo, the silver monoliths of civilization winding between the mountains. "Father never reclaimed it, and gave it to Uncle Angron to rule after he broke the slaver-lords."
"Does he do much ruling?" asked Fred, who had refused to tell her what Nuceria was like in the old timeline. Honestly, it couldn't have been worse.
"Father says Uncle Angron could leave a grox on the throne and it would do a better job." Roberta coughed quietly, slightly red. "You didn't hear it from me."
"Of course." Fred sighed. "Alright, let's go pick up your cousin."
After being directed to the nearest World Eater station, they were shuttled down to Fedan Mhor, where Angron had erected his first citadel. The site of his last stand turned assisted victory, the mountain had been hollowed out, converted into a labyrinth of dead-ends and killzones even as the outside was fortified into an adamantium hive.
Roberta had always gotten lost when she visited Furia. Fred, on the other hand, navigated the tunnels without even looking, eventually ending up at a colossal door guarded by a pair of World Eaters, clad in the white and red of the legion.
"Is Furia in?" asked Roberta.
"The Lady Primarch has requested all entrances be barred," said the World Eater on the left. The door thumped.
"No access is allowed. In or out," said the World Eater on the right. The door rumbled.
"Well, we're not waiting here until Furia decides otherwise, are we, Fred?" said Roberta. After a moment, she nudged him.
Fred blinked. "Hm? Oh, yes. Open the doors."
"Are you sure?" said the World Eater on the left.
"Are you very sure?" said the World Eater on the right.
"Pretty sure," said Fred.
The World Eaters shrugged, their blood-red pauldrons heaving. The one on the left began unlocking the padlocks, while the other reached into the wall, pulling out a chain of mesh arch partitions and walking very slowly around them. With a ratcheting clink, it locked into the other side, caging them in.
"Last chance," said the World Eater on the left, a plasteel bolt the only thing holding the rumbling doors shut.
"Very last," said the World Eater on the right.
"Stop fucking around and open the doors."
The World Eater slid the bolt open, and the door was forced open by the weight on the other side, slamming him into the cage. A tide of ankle-high fur burst out, yipping and scurrying between Fred and Roberta's legs.
EEEEEEE, thought Roberta.
"Behold," said the World Eater on the left, a short-furred puppy barking on his helmet. "The terrible war hounds of Nuceria."
"Don't step on them," said the World Eater on the right. He handed Fred a broom.
The door opened to a wide field, seeded with artificial grass and lit by a holographic sky, and was absolutely teeming with small canine bodies. As Fred swept them a path, Roberta called out for her cousin. "Furia! Are you there? Did you get eaten?"
"Roberta?" From a small shed, Furia, daughter of the XII Legion emerged, wiping her hands. Her short trimmed hair was bundled into a medical cap. "Hey, cousin." Several white, fluffy dogs crawled between her legs to join the herd.
"Are you busy?"
"Just finished, actually." Furia picked up one dog with a pink collar. "Viggo caught a bug and needed some monitoring. He's just finished his check-up." She let the dog go, watching it bark into its siblings, before turning to Fred. "Rotbart, right? Saw your fight on Macragge. Pretty dope."
"Thanks," said Fred, as a puppy tried climbing his calf webbing. "Are you going to fight me too?"
"Nah." Furia wrung her hands, the black carapace hardened and thick from years of gnawing dogs. Up close, she was a good half-foot taller than Fred. "Not that I couldn't take you, but I have better things to do." She glanced at Roberta, and back to Fred. "And you do too."
"Furia!" yelped Roberta.
"What? No offense, but you were kind of unbearable before Rotbart crossed your t's and dotted your i's. It's for your own good. Just, uh, don't do that eye thing." She walked them up to a three-storey bungalow on top of one of the artificial hills. "It's a bit cramped, but you can take the second-floor guest bedroom. Just don't make a mess."
~~~
Bleakly shone the light of day upon Fedan Mhor, so named by the tribes of Nuceria past to whom that snowless peak and jagged rock housed none but Mhorr, Viscount Death, Taker of Men, laughing eternally over his underworld realm.
It was in this auspicious place that Angron Thal'Kyr, slave-rebel and lord of naught, chose to die. His existence had been an unending river of blood and rage, but such things, unpermitted, would not follow him to the halls of the dead. One thousand slave-warriors awaited his command, and a host of soldiers half a million strong awaited his head. Even for a man as mighty as him, who had seen no precedent and would see no successor, death, and the hand of Mhorr was assured.
"Angron, son of Adam," whispered the winds. "What are you doing?"
"Mhorr, Lord of the Dead," said Angron, cleaning his axe. "I go to my death, and I bring company. Is it not best to perish gloriously than to live in the misery of servitude?"
"I've never died, so I wouldn't know." The world turned still as glass, the god of the dead appearing to the gladiator, clad in a cloak of mirages, face hidden beneath a bloodstained mask of silvered bone. It was not the guise of Mhorr known to the priests of that sect, whom Angron had witnessed taking the corpses of his slave fellows a thousand times before, and so he almost did not recognize him.
But who else could it be, he reasoned, and said, "Have you appeared before me, your mask washed in blood, to shepherd my brothers and sisters to the final peace?"
"Have those Nails addled you to delirium?" said Mhorr. "I am not some pagan godling. I am a Skitarius, soldier of the Reclamation. Your destiny is among the stars, Primarch. Not to die to savages. To perish here is inconceivable, and I will not allow it! Idiot! Gormless wretch! We are already two days behind schedule!"
Angron felt the first flames of rage stoke his mind all red, and struck the stranger. When the blow failed to snap him in two, his fury cooled to a hateful creed said thus: "And who are you to condemn me? From my first breath, I have been hunted and tortured. My days were of bloodshed, and my dreams of death. What sin have I committed, to be consigned to this life? If I have but one choice then I shall take it gladly."
But the stranger had already stopped listening. "To purchase a scrap of grass with the jewel-hued pearl of a Chthonic Dragon would be less imbecilic! And what are the tools hefted by these wretched savages? Mass accelerators? Grenade cannons? Devices fit only for the culling of masses." He lifted his cloak, revealing a body of black iron and red cloth, sinew and skin written in steel. "Pay attention, Primarch. This is how mankind makes war."
~~~
Temperature: twenty-two degrees. Humidity: forty-three percent. Windspeed: ten knots southwest.
Nicomachus took a deep breath of the Nucerian air, filling all his lungs before letting it out. It was a lovely day. He quite liked lovely days, but not as much as he enjoyed rainy days. It was the noise; the drumming of raindrops against the walls made new music every time. For an eidetic memory, novelty was sweeter than any wine.
"If we succeed, I will consider you free from your duty."
Maybe he was a bad astartes to think so. Oh, well. He had served his time, and now was the age to enjoy the fruit of his labours. The detractors could, as the prince would say, suck it.
The locals here weren't as used to an astartes as those on Macragge. He could see the dawning realization in their eyes as they saw the ports and scars, if the height didn't give him away.
Perhaps it was the muscles. This shirt was a lot more exposing than his usual wardrobe.
"You are of my flesh, and the flesh of my son. No longer are you of the Varangian Guard. Rise, Warriors of Thunder, the Hammer of Man. Rise, Mjolnir."
He took a seat at the closest restaurant with reinforced chairs, silencing protests from the manager with a roll of Throne Gelt. Interesting that they would accept; the value of the Nucerian plata was apparently unstable, a near impossibility for a planet ruled by any sensible Primarch. Alas, most planets had not treated their demigods so appallingly as this one.
Hm? Oh, while he was reminiscing, he'd ordered from the deluxe menu, and here was the first course. Half a fat swine, marinated and roasted above a fire, garnished with starch-chips and sauce. He remembered when something like this barely slowed him down, but now he took the time to fully appreciate its flavour, carefully cataloguing the sensations from his neuroglottis. Smoke, yes, from burning a local variant of hardwood (deciduous, he decided). Now the bones were a bit more of a challenge. The fat in the marrow had the tang of pacifier-hormones, so it was raised in captivity. The bones, after a crunch, were overly dense, more than he'd expect for a captive livestock. Unless it was a breeding sow. Excess calcium derivatives were added to the feed to manage development of its litter. Interesting hypothesis.
The main attraction fully consumed, Nicomachus picked off the starch-chips, matching the flavour profile to the moderated-nutrient growth of hydroponically cultivated potatoes, rather than dirt-fed or aeroponics. Planetside, of course; void hydroponics tended to form a different structure in the cellular arrangement.
The exact structure, he couldn't say. Perhaps he'd look it up later. Perhaps not! Leaving things unknown was a luxury he could afford now.
"This is the face of the Great Enemy. Burn his visage into your mind, and know contempt."
What a poor choice of recollection. With effort, he forced his mind to consider the benefits of isometric exercises over muscle-strain regimens, rather than the horrors of another universe hidden behind a veil of golden light.
Eidetic memory was a chore, sometimes.
"An Avernite astartes, armourless and alone? Amazing."
Nicomachus paused, and looked down. A well-dressed gentleman was leaning on a cane—a sword cane, he realized. Yes, and the hat had a decorative badge with flensing wire coiled inside.
"That worked?" said the gentleman, one grey eyebrow lifting. "Well then."
"What worked?" asked Nicomachus. No, despite his bleaching hair, his skin was aged, not withered. Amateur juvenat treatments? "And who are you?"
"You may call me Forsythe," he said. "And my mother always said an astartes could not abide alliteration."
Nicomachus stared, his mind disassembling the image presented and arriving at a conclusion. Not a juvenat treatment, but natural genetic longevity. The attire, of course, was an oddity, given the current anti-bourgeoisie sentiment on a post-slavery world. And the weapons. "You are an Avernite immigrant."
"Yes," said Forsythe, visibly pleased. "Such alacrity of thought! What gave it away?"
"Nothing," said Nicomachus, "inasmuch as the sum of the clues appealed to my intuition."
"Yes, yes!" Forsythe nodded. "Conscious deduction is a tedious endeavour. Better to let the subconscious handle such things, yes?"
"Indeed." Nicomachus rubbed his chin. What an uncommon opportunity! "Would you care for a walk?"
~~~
"Hey, Fred?"
"Hm?" While Roberta was brushing her teeth, Fred was combing her hair. They were both in sleepwear, Fred having chosen to wear a loose shirt and pants instead of his usual emergency tactical suit. "What is it?"
Roberta spat into the sink, and washed her mouth. Furia's wardrobe didn't fit Roberta, so Fred asked his retinue to send down their luggage with Roberta's clothes. Instead, they'd sent down an ornately embroidered red gown woven with images of mythical provenance in fine golden thread, expressly against his orders not to go overboard. "How did you beat Augustus?"
"Who?"
"The Ultramarine you fought for the Trial."
"Oh, him." Fred ran his fingers along her scalp, lightly scratching and making her shiver. "I'm not sure, actually. I was doing well until I wasn't. Then it's all a blur."
"You ripped acid from his Betcher's Glands and jammed it into his spine."
"I was passed out for that part."
"That's crazy." Fred shrugged, the movement gently caressing her scalp, sending tingles under her skin. "And it doesn't sound crazy to you? That just raises further questions."
"I generally try not to fall unconscious in the middle of a fight. It's a good habit." He held her hair as she washed her face, and handed her a towel. "What I do when my brain's asleep is none of my business. My bodyguard blasted me with a lifegem anyway, so I'm fine."
"Oh!" Roberta held up a finger, patting her face. "Speaking of him, who is Nicomachus exactly?"
Fred shuffled over to use the cubicle. "The Varangian Guard was an Ultramarine successor chapter, so technically he's under your jurisdiction. And like, your gene-nephew, I guess."
Roberta sighed. Of course it was something like that. She cleaned her glasses, letting Fred put them in their case as she walked over to the bed, petulantly tucking herself in. Fred joined her later, putting a bottle of water next to her. With a click of his tongue, the lights shut off.
In the darkness, Roberta said, "Freya told me how you died."
"Did she?"
"Yes."
"Huh." She felt his hand grab hers, and squeeze. "Well, I'm still here."
"Yes, but how?"
She felt him shrug through the mattress. "No idea. The God-Emperor gave me a mulligan."
"I don't think Grandfather can bring back the dead, Fred."
"Okay, I couldn't say this before, but the God-Emperor isn't actually your grandpa."
"What!" Roberta rolled over, staring with enhanced eyesight at Fred's face.
Because of this, she could see the exact expression he made as he said, "It's classified."
Roberta smacked his hand, the mattress bouncing like a boat on a wave.
"Still classified," said Fred, when he stopped bouncing.
Her face set in a furious pout, Roberta rolled away from him, pulling all the blankets to her side. Then she reached back, pulling Fred's arm around her in a cuddle, and furiously went to sleep.
"You don't even need to sleep," Fred complained. "What are we even doing."
~~~
In her bed, Roberta dreamed. When she slept, it wasn't anything as crude and undirected as human REM, but a controlled slumber of bodily repair and knowledge integration. Even unconscious, she retained a rudimentary awareness, never truly losing her senses even as her thoughts dwindled to a trickling mental stream.
In the bed, Roberta slept. In the castle, Roberta opened her eyes.
She shot up from the dark stone, her dress flailing with her wild motion. All around her were dunes of grey sand interspersed with squat towers that glimmered with the shine of the sun, even though the sky was nothing but darkness and starlight of the Milky Way. She was on a circle of dark crystal, engravings of golden geometry embedded in layers beneath her, reaching down into a fading darkness.
"Hello?" she yelled. Nothing answered.
Okay. She had been sleeping in bed. Then she was here. Conclusion: something weird was going on.
Roberta took a step off her platform into the sand. Despite its looks, it felt like standing on a marshmallow. As her feet padded across the desert, the sand flattened ahead of her into a winding pathway. She called out some more, but eventually stopped. It was, if one disregarded the sheer surreal nature of her presence, somewhat peaceful.
There was a flicker of light in the distance, and she hurried in its direction. As she approached, she heard the first noise since she arrived: the babbling whisper of a water fountain.
Only, when she finally laid eyes on it, it wasn't a fountain, but a puddle. Pooling from the middle of yet another stone platform, this one circled with columns, the water shone with the slick of oil. As it spilled over the edge into the sand, it didn't even soak it, just sinking straight down through the grains.
"You're not supposed to be here."
Roberta shrieked, jumping with fright. Her heel caught the platform and she tripped, falling on her bottom onto the hard, wet stone. Strangely, it didn't hurt at all.
Behind her, Fred grinned mischievously, dressed in loose robes and leaning on a metal broom. The garment swung open, revealing his sculpted musculature and not that Roberta paid attention to that sort of thing.
"Fred!" said Roberta. "What are you— where— what?"
"Snooping around, eh?" Fred laughed lightly, the sound so incredibly foreign to Roberta that she was struck dumb for a long moment. "Ah well, can't blame you. Pull up a chair and relax while you're here. Just don't touch anything unless you're sure you know what it does."
"Uh. Um." Roberta made herself comfortable as Fred sifted the sand with his broom. The running water pushed between her fingers, but didn't soak her dress or stain her skin. "Fred? Where are we?"
Her fiancé stuck his broom into the sand, twisting the handle to reveal an auspectic readout. "We are in the soul of Frederick Kenneth Rotbart the Second." With a crank, he popped out a small lever and turned it. On the horizon, another tower rose from the sands. "Specifically, his Seat of Refuge. Or happy place, as Terrans say."
"We're in your soul?" said Roberta. "How?"
"Presumably, you used that neat little eye of yours to project yourself along a line of spiritual union." Checking the readout, Fred nodded, and pulled his broom out, before walking three steps over and sticking it back in. "Why do you keep calling me that?"
"Calling you what?"
"Fred," said Fred, twiddling with the buttons.
"…Is this a trick question?" said Roberta.
Fred looked at her. "No. Young Miss, I am not Frederick." He tapped the columns, and Roberta felt a rumble beneath her as the earth shook. "This is the person you know as Fred, who is currently slumbering in the real world." He tapped himself on the chest. "I am just a figment of thought, a custodian of the mind. The scintillation reflecting from the centre of a diamond soul."
What. Roberta tilted her head in thought. "But you're so…" Functional? Human? Living? "…User friendly?"
Fred, or the custodian with his face, blew out a breath of exaggerated weariness. "I'd have to be, to keep up with this place! You would not believe the hours I pull keeping everything in order."
"…I see," said Roberta, and cursed Miranda silently. This was not at all what she described it as. "Then why do you look like him?"
"Do I?" The custodian shrugged. "This isn't real. It's just how your mind is interpreting the information being transmitted in response to your queries. I'm just the representation of an assisting soul-shard, just as you are representing your projected ego."
Roberta thought that over, while staring at Fred's beaming face. "Then... you're not really alive?"
"Nope!" The custodian twirled his broom. "I have no more internal conflict than a machine spirit. Really, I'm just a glorified receptionist." He poked the sand, raking up a hill that formed into a plasteel chair, and sat down. "And this receptionist is off the clock."
The earth rumbled, sand streaming from the dunes.
"You can't make me work unpaid overtime," said the custodian, reaching inside his robes and putting on a pair of dark spectacles. "I'm with the union."
Distantly, a bonfire ignited from a tower, the flames spearing into the night sky with a howling roar.
"Tell that to the representative," said the custodian.
"How are you rebelling against yourself?" asked Roberta, desperately wishing she'd taken Warp Studies. "Aren't you a part of his soul?"
The custodian lowered his glasses to look at her. "I am a soul-shard, Miss Guilliman. But did I ever say of who?" He clicked his fingers, and Roberta found herself floating in a column of nulled gravity. "Time's up, Miss. I don't think you'd like to be here in his waking hours. Things get a little rough."
Roberta struggled, but with nothing to pull or push against, she settled for keeping upright. The custodian waved at her as she ascended, even as the earth began to twist and writhe beneath him until he was but a speck in the churning grey storm. As the horizon began to curve, she saw a chasm open in the desert, the rainbow scales of a vast serpent shining in the light as it swam through the mantle of the planet.
And it was a planet, she realized, even as it shrunk in her vision, her astral body flying further and further away. The stars shot past her, constellations of a thousand blades and guns and machines of war, all orbiting the dot that bloomed with flaring fire and the burning force of stars.
Then she crashed, back in her bed, as Fred shuffled and sat up. She felt him stroke her hair, before he stretched, standing up and stumbling to the bathroom.
What, she thought.
~~~
At four in the morning, Furia paused the movie when she heard the door slide open. It was Roberta's fiancé, blinking at the brightness of the cinema screen. Tormund raised his head at the foreign scent, and she scratched his head in a calming pattern, rubbing the nubs of scar tissue.
"Hey, Rotbart," she said. "Couldn't sleep?"
"Did sleep." He focused on the screen, fully aware. "Four full hours. I'm getting spoiled."
Furia patted a seat, and he slouched into it, dragging hair from his eyes and rubbing circles on his temples.
"Headache?"
"Something like it." Rotbart clicked his jaw. "It's annoying, but it'll pass."
"And Roberta?" asked Furia.
"Roberta's still in bed. I think we're having a fight."
"You think?"
"I don't know." He shrugged, wincing. "Usually when we're in bed, she doesn't choose to sleep."
"Aaah," said Furia. Tormund woofed, a dusty bark from an old dog. "Are you teasing her? She doesn't like being teased."
"…Maybe." He poked his head. "Lots of planetary secrets in here."
"And you're keeping them from her?"
Rotbart shook his head. "It's a psychic block. Very subtle. I don't know if it's forbidden until I try to tell her."
Furia raised an eyebrow. An orichalcum implant? "Then tell her that you've got a psy-block."
"If I did, she'd figure out the secret." Rotbart slouched even further. "I can tell her anyway, but I think the God-Emperor might disapprove. There's probably a reason why he's forbidding it."
God-Emperor. Right. Stepping around that minefield, Furia said, "Well, if you've gotten this far, I'm sure you'll figure it out."
"Sure." He blinked again, staring at the cogitator-fabrication of Jaghatai Khan on the screen. "What is this?"
Furia held up the datacase. "Live Fast, Die Furious. Fourth in the series." She pressed play.
"I am back," said Jaghatai Khan on his six-wheeled supercycle, flipping his darkened shades over his eyes. They were embossed with ancient glyphs, spelling out RAY-BAN. "And I am here, to take it to the max."
"I came up from the bottom, and into the top!" sang the backing vocals.
As the vid played, Furia watched Rotbart's face slowly morph into confused horror, and snickered. "It's great, isn't it?"
"It's something."
"Roberta said the same thing. She doesn't appreciate bad movies."
"I can't imagine why." He shook his head as the Khan performed a flawless drift through the Webway. "Is there a particular appeal this holds for you?"
Furia hummed. "Did you know it's as garbage to me as it is to you?"
"I can believe that."
"You want to hear a story?"
He waved a hand. "It's four in the morning. Why not."
She scratched Tormund out of habit, putting the words together. "We Primarchs… to us, everything is awful." She looked for his reaction, but he simply nodded in understanding, so she continued, "Everything is too rough, too uneven, too blurry or clumsy or whatever. It doesn't hurt, but you try explaining fluctuations in temperature to a tenth of a degree."
"Like when the climate control cycles off to save power."
"Exactly. It's not your fault; your brains just aren't smart enough to perceive the obvious patterns we can. We have to settle for less in everything, unless we make it ourselves, which we do, because our best is a lot better than your best."
"If you want something done right, do it yourself."
"Pretty much." Furia scratched Tormund at the scruff of his neck. "But it gets lonely on a pedestal, even if everyone we know is dumb and slow and clumsy. And if we want friends, or, you know, something more, we haven't really got a lot of choice in bonding activities. Or in prospects."
Rotbart raised an eyebrow. "Is this a roundabout way of calling me an idiot?"
Furia raised a hand. "No, no. You break the curve, but wait a minute while I finish. So, when we were all like eleven, Roberta made a spreadsheet. She gathered up all the statistics from the Adeptus Terra, plugged them in, and calculated the average of the Imperium. And we all figured out that any mortal lover we took would probably be inferior to us in every way. Slower, dumber, clumsier, weaker. And I don't know about you, but loving something lesser than you isn't love, it's keeping a pet. You love it, sure, you have a responsibility to it, yeah, but it's all give. And there's no take, not in that scenario. You're looking for the moon in a puddle."
Rotbart raised his other eyebrow. "This is a roundabout way of calling me a pet."
"You're not a pet," said Furia. "A pet couldn't take first in Tactics and Strategy in a school with twenty-one Primarchs. A pet couldn't face an astartes in single combat and come out on top. A pet doesn't think four hours is enough sleep. I've seen you move and fight. You're barely human, let alone a pet." She glanced at him, watching his mouth flatten into controlled neutrality. "I'm right, aren't I? You're engineered like us."
Rotbart closed his eyes, frowning. "All Avernites are engineered."
"I've seen Avernites. We have a thousand half-breeds living in the city. None of them do what you do. You're to them what we are to everyone else."
"They've softened."
"Harsh." Tormund snuffled, a low, dusty sound as antique as him, and Furia rubbed his back. "But you understand? If we wanted to be like other girls, we'd have to settle for less. If we wanted to have what other girls could have, volunteers would line up to the equator, but if we wanted what they really had, we'd be starving ourselves for something that probably didn't exist. Not among normal humans, anyway."
Rotbart narrowed his eyes. "Did you cripple yourselves?"
Furia snorted. "Hah! No, sorry, Isis said the same thing when she saw our test scores. We just slowed down, took it easy. Well, as easy as we could; you've seen Roberta go at something, right? But we can sustain this level of lifestyle indefinitely."
He grunted, leaning back and watching the Khan speed through a psychedelic CGI Webway.
"What?" said Furia, stroking Tormund.
"Nothing," said Rotbart, staring at the screen.
"Come on," said Furia. "I've known her since we were tiny. What's your issue?"
"Something between me and her, Furia." For the first time since entering, he reached over to Tormund. The old dog sniffed at him, and woofed with a wheeze. "Good dog," he said. "You've gone through some hell, haven't you?"
Tormund sniffed, letting him rub the scars. Rotbart traced the scars, the imprints of tissue running down the spine and into the base of the skull.
"The Nails," he said, unsurprised.
"For escaped slaves," Furia replied, "they had something special." She rubbed Tormund, who had perked up at the word. "No such thing as bad dogs, only bad owners."
~~~
Accessing database…
Verifying credentials…
Access level: INDIGO CHI
Mechanicus Fiducio Reclamatio Fidelitas -- "For the Glory of Mankind."
Select file…
/MEDICAL PROFILE – ROTBART, F.K.
N: FREDERICK KENNETH ROTBART
S: M
DOB: 1.950.949.M30
PHYSICIAN: PARMITA, O.
Medical checkup 1.433.963.M30
Patient was previously treated for hypothermic shock by Niflheim Medical Centre Alpha, see forwarded records here.
Physical development within bounds. No deformities present. Physical fitness above average. Increased neural activity and signal speed. Records available here.
Patient was bitten by Death's Head Spider and survived fourteen hours before treatment. BIO-998746-[REDACTED] gene markers now Active. No other changes detected.
Psychic presence null.
Psychic screening
Psychic rating: Sigma-2
Passive psychic structures fully functional. Occlusive fortress structures functional. Malformed Warp conduit regulators along central meridians and cognitive chakras.
Unrecognised structures detected on soulscape periphery. No other changes detected.
Insatiable Butcher pattern fully functional. Increased Warp assimilation detected, but active power draw required to initiate virtuous cycle of consumption. Power draw unlikely to increase.
Prognosis and Treatment
Patient is developing normally for his age. Active psychic development unlikely to complete. Recommend hypnotherapy and augmentative treatments to compensate for loss in tactical ability.
~~~
Furia recommended several tourist attractions for us, so I wrote down a list for Roberta to peruse while I did my morning stretches. Halfway through one-handed pushups a dog started licking my foot and that just ruined it.
My head is aching something fierce, but the rest of me is fine. Excellent, even. Weird. Must be biomantic residue.
Roberta plods out of the bathroom, pulling her gifted dress over her head. It tightens to a perfect fit, and she squeaks.
"It's just the auto-fit," I say, rubbing a tissue over my foot. "Thermo-sensitive stitching."
"Right," says Roberta. "Fred, I had a weird dream last night."
"Was it a prophecy?"
"A pro— no, it wasn't." Roberta frowns. "Is that a thing that happens to Avernites?"
I shrug. "If you're a psyker, yeah. Do you usually choose to have normal dreams?"
"Yes," says Roberta, then says, "Fred, what do you mean 'choose'?"
"Well, I do not indulge often, but I'm not sure about Primarchs."
Roberta gives me a weird stare. "Anyway, I had a weird dream. I landed on a planet, except the planet was your soul, and you were there but it wasn't really you, and then we talked and then there was an earthquake and I flew off into space and this is crazy, I'm crazy."
"No, that sounds pretty standard," I say. "Anyway, where do you want to go today?"
Roberta gives me a weirder stare. "It's standard? Really?"
"Who comes from a planet of psykers, Roberta?"
"Miranda does, and she didn't say anything about this."
I hold up a hand. "All due fairness to Miranda, but Prospero barely counts. Did you take a look at the list?"
Roberta pinches the bridge of her nose. "Yes, I took a look at the list." She hands the parchment back to me, where half of the events have been crossed out, and the rest graded on a ten-point scale. Top of the pile: hotsprings?
I take a longer look at the rest of the list. Scenic walks. Meditative sessions. Soup kitchens. Historical tours. It's not… unexpected.
Wait, arts and crafts?
"Roberta," I say, "do you even like origami?"
She stares flatly at me. "Fred, if we only did the things we liked, I'd be at the library and you'd be at the gym and then we'd meet up for sex until Furia was ready to go. I want to have at least one planetary visit that doesn't end with you in hospital."
A fair assessment. "Alright, let's broaden our horizons."
~~~
And when Angron of the Red Sands conquered the last corner of the world known as Nuceria, he came to every palace to clad kings and queens in chains, and in each rich house of the merchant-lords he seized those traders of silks and flesh, and to every marbled capitol he tore free the hiding city-princes, and dragged them, begging and screaming and howling, to the pit of red sands of the Colosseum.
There he ripped from them their fine vestments, their jeweled laurels, their robes of office, and gave them tunics of ash-grey cotton tied with thin silk, so thin it could not be fashioned into a noose worth hanging. And he said unto them:
"You know who I am. You know what I am. When I was only a child you placed red nails into my skull to drive me to rage and slaughter for the amusement of the people. You grew rich on my kills, wagering lives for lives. You broadcasted the death-screams of my victims in celebration of my skill at murder. You put my face on your coins and stamps and banners and sold the nightmare for profit.
"But there are no banners now. There are no more wagers. The nails have grown cold and soft as gold. Once, you believed yourselves my masters. In seven days I will return, and we will see if you are worthy then." And Angron locked the Colosseum to all, and shrouded it with an iron dome, shielded against all auspex and record, and for seven days he slept the sleep of the conqueror who had reached the end of the world.
On the seventh day he awoke, and opened the iron dome of the Colosseum. And where there were once kings and queens, lords and ladies, there was only now beaten flesh and broken bone that painted the sands red with rot.
"Your father will not be pleased," said the Witch-King of Avernus. "Who knows what secret caches and hidden treasures shall go unseized, the knowledge of their hoards buried forevermore."
"Had even one remained alive," said Angron, "I would have let them free. It would have been more than I was promised, and so I am better than them in this aspect, as I am in all matters."
"No argument here," said the Witch-King. "To enslave is a stain on the soul. However, what will you do with the recordings?"
The Lord of Red Sands frowned upon the Witch-King. "There are none."
The Witch-King said nothing. But it is known that the magicians of Hell's Gate see all, and the iron dome was naught to their Eyes that resided outside of the world.
"Let them be destroyed, as I first decided," said Angron, after contemplation. "I did not wish to know what lies they told themselves in the dark, nor the treachery and monstrosity brought out beneath the iron dome. Not then, and not now. Not when I am needed in the stars above."
The Witch-King nodded, and with a wave of his hand, banished the lingering souls to oblivion.
~~~
When I was a child, during my brief Captain Fred of the Nautilon phase (which will be consigned to the banned archives forevermore), I had dreams of being boiled alive. Sometimes in the dark abyss, a submarine swims through a bubble of superheated boiling water farted out by a magma crab or infernal leviathan, and kept down beneath the sun's light by the sheer pressures and gravitic warping of several trillion gallons of warp-tainted ocean.
Nowadays it's impossible; diving vessels have about the same level of armour and insulation as voidships, and can withstand a 5000-degree hyperbaric pressure cooker indefinitely. But before the Ethics Committee got their hands on the Bureau of Fishermen, there used to be emergency evacuation drills in case of Hull Breach through Thermal Shock, which was like all the other hypothetical hull breach drills except in boiling water. Unpleasant, and probably lethal to anyone without the genetic ensuite applied to all Fishermen, but it was definitely a lesson that stuck.
The point is that this onsen is absolutely nothing like that. It's more like a ridiculously overwrought jacuzzi. Someone's cooking eggs, for god's sake.
(Apparently you're not meant to crack eggs straight into your mouth and chew them down whole, but that's how you kill the hatchling dragonlily before it absorbs direct sunlight and grows into a juvenile in ninety seconds flat.)
Later, a well-cooked Roberta grabs my face in disbelief. "You're not even sweating!"
"In a communal pool? That seems unsanitary. Although they were cooking eggs in the water." Man, these robes do not cover anything. "How was it on the women's side?"
Roberta tucks her toga into a complicated knot, averting her eyes for some reason. "Lots of grandmothers trying to introduce me to their second sons."
"Right. Hotsprings: yay or nay?"
Roberta shakes her head. "I couldn't even feel it after the first ten seconds. It just seemed awkward getting out so early."
At least I got brunch. "So that's a bust. What's next?"
Nicomachus held up a hand to block a basketball, flicking it back to a courtyard of youths. They gawked, whispering at a volume insufficiently low to avoid his hearing.
"Is that a fucking space marine?"
Ah, no, Nicomachus had heard this chain of realization before. He discarded attention to that thread of perception, instead tracing the bark of a young tree and comparing the texture to previous examples in his memory. Less than fifty years old, it could not sustain his weight if he decided to climb it. Most likely it had been planted following the Red Angel's urban redevelopment project. Were there the bones of a palace beneath this soil and grass? The Primarch probably gleefully demolished it himself.
"When was this planted?" he asked his new friend.
Forsythe leaned forward, examining the bark. "Half a century or so, I'd wager. They were making an awful racket shifting the old Marquis' summerhouse out of the way, and the lawnfoam was popping like firewood for a week while it dried. My daughter complained to the Administratum about it."
"Delightful." Nicomachus stretched, plucking a leaf from a middle branch, and examined it. "How does an Avernite come all the way to the other side of the galaxy?"
"I am an Avernite in blood only, I'm afraid." Forsythe toyed with the head of his cane. "My mother bore me on the Crusade to some Feralworlder, and I never passed the reflex exam. Too few spiders in my youth, she said."
"There can never be too few spiders," said Nicomachus. Having examined the leaf to his satisfaction, he turned it over to look at the other side.
"True, but despite such a lack she did her best to raise me, along with help from the regiment. More aunts and uncles than a boy could ask to beat him." Forsythe flexed his knuckles, wincing at the cracks. "I spent thirty years as an apprentice technician before the Crusade reached Nuceria. Took a step on solid soil and I knew I never wanted to leave." He shrugged. "Of course, it was a bit of a fixer-upper. Spent two decades with the rebuilding corp, and by the end of it I was Head Project Manager for the Desh'ean State Division."
"Impressive."
"Bloody embarrassing is what it was. I wasn't even that good at it. Just that everyone else couldn't squeeze extra seconds into a minute. So I trained an apprentice, bought a house, and got married. And here I am."
Nicomachus gave him a quick look over. "Your wife runs a bakery," he guessed.
Forsythe clicked his fingers. "How do you do that?"
"Practice. And the hunger requirements; I imagine you had a daily snack for your thirty years on the job."
"They did catering, actually. Madeline was the delivery girl."
The astartes nodded sagely. "The girl who brings the doughnuts is always the favourite." This was a galactic constant.
"You, sir, have a gift." Forsythe stood tall. "How many children do I have?"
"Three."
"Ha! Five."
Nicomachus squinted. "Two births were twins. Generations apart, I feel, although I can't say why. Some measure of character, I suppose."
"Foiled!" Despite such a defeat, Forsythe grinned. "It is so good to find a mind at work."
"Humans are very slow, aren't they?"
~~~
Roberta wobbles on top of her horse, the steed chewing its feed with grim suspicion. It's understandable; if I were born on Nuceria, I'd probably be fucked up too.
"Wah! Horsie," says Roberta soothingly. Surprisingly, they have equestrian leathers in her size. "Horsie, don't run. Don't run, horsie."
"If I were a horse," I say, "I wouldn't trust anybody whose best interests included me not running."
"You're a lot more cooperative when I ride you, it's true." Roberta strokes the horse's mane, unable to quell its paranoid fervor. "There, there. Good… horsie?"
"That's not how you do it, Roberta. They're intelligent animals. You have to bargain with them." I twirl my fingers, catching the stallion's attention. "Buddy. Pal. Keep it cool for me, will you? There's a sugar cube in it for you."
"Are you actually talking to it like it understands you?"
"You should be in the habit of it."
"Is this is a joke or an actual Avernite thing?"
"They're the same thing, most of the time." The stallion's paying attention, I'm sure of it. "Two sugar cubes and five apple slices. Deal?"
The horse nods, and goes in a small circle, Roberta holding on tightly in surprise.
Haha, what? That worked?
~~~
"Checkmate," said Nicomachus, moving his knight token to pin Forsythe's king. "You said you were top dog in the chess scene."
"Clearly, I was mistaken. Best eight out of fifteen?"
"I've nothing but time." Nicomachus dropped the tokens back into their starting positions. "Tell me about your daughter. How was it, raising her here?"
Forsythe smiled. "Terribly restless, but I did not wish to make soldiers of my children. The genes are not as strong without conflict, but conflict of a different kind suffices. Social miscegenation, abolitionism, economic upheaval, all the sorts of things a growing girl needed. One day, she came to me, and said,
"'Papa, I heard a man weeping on the sidewalk. I asked why he cried, and he said, because once I was a slave, and knew my place in the world, no matter how I hated it. And now that is gone to me, and I did not dare to dream of days like this.'" Forsythe made his move, pieces clacking on the board. "The next day she joined the civil gentry."
"There are truly people like that?" asked Nicomachus, genuinely puzzled.
"The realities of this planet's history are not so obvious to us, but do not dismiss their scars. Even prisons can grow comfortable in time. The man, I think, preferred familiar cruelty to the unfamiliar kindness." Forsythe shrugged. "It is not right, but it is so."
~~~
Roberta pauses in the middle of her papier mache Imperator Titan (instructions apparently based off a World Eater machine garrisoned on the planet) to answer her vox. "Hello?"
"Hey, Robbie," says the voice of her sister-cousin. "I need your boyfriend's people for a thing."
"A thing?"
"A psyker thing. And seeing as a whole ship of Avernites is just doing nothing in the sky, might as well put them to use."
Roberta looks at me. I shrug. "Any particular field?" I ask.
"Oh, are we on speaker? PENIS—"
Roberta hastily shuts it off, looking around guiltily at the workshop. Right, we'll work on that later.
An hour later, Furia meets us at the Administratum Capitol, disguised in a dress and long crimson wig. She gives me a flat look, leading us to a discreet elevator. "The fuck are you wearing, Rotbart?"
What? Nothing wrong with combat suits. You can't be fashionable if you're dead. And Roberta thinks it's cool.
She shakes her head. "Nevermind. I need a Master of Psykana. Can you call one down?"
I spread my hands. "As it turns out, I am educated as one."
Furia raises an eyebrow. "Really."
"I'm from Avernus."
"Well, we need an astropath, and last I checked, Avernus doesn't produce astropaths. Do you know anything about astrotelepathy, Rotbart?"
I open my mouth, then close it, then raise a finger, then lower it. "Classified."
Furia sighs. "Lovely. Maybe you can find a plausible source of information for me?"
~~~
"So what's going on?" Roberta asked her cousin, as Fred sent out a summons to his ship. They had secreted themselves into a bunker room while Fred waited on his staff to find an appropriate expert.
"Our choir has gone catatonic," muttered Furia. "We're cut off from the galaxy."
Roberta's head whipped around. "What!"
"Keep it down." Furia cricked her neck. "Well, their days are numbered anyhow, what with your boyfriend's magic mirrors, you know."
"The mirrors are point-to-point only, you'd still need astropaths for local sector CDN." Roberta shook her head. "What do you mean they're catatonic?"
"Catatonic, Robbie. No response, barely living unassisted. And I mean no response; tried sternal taps, pain gloves, adrenal bursts. Nothing. So--" She shrugged— "Psyker bullshit. Miranda's not here, but Rotbart is."
"Clear a space," Fred suddenly shouted, holding up his vox. "Our navigator's coming down." The handheld began blinking with a chime, and Fred swore before tossing it.
Midair, it unfolded into the epicenter of a light-bending sphere that shrunk to hug the form of a woman. A stunning beauty, her deep crimson hair was bound into a tight braid pierced with needles of pure, enchanted amethyst.
She juggled the vox lightly and tossed it back to Fred, before adjusting her blindfold, which glimmered with inset studs of mythril in silver.
"Greetings," she said, landing gently on the lush carpet of the bunker, her battle-robes unruffled. Strips of orichalcum were interweaved with sheaves of diamondsilk, clinging to her form in an impenetrable shell. "Primarch Furia. Marshal-Consort Roberta. Prince-Successor Frederick. I am Navigator Rochelle du Adelie-Minaret. Where are the afflicted?"
Furia blinked. "Right. We're keeping them on ice. Our Librarians have been looking over them—"
Rochelle snorted. "World Eater Librarians! Putting Nails in a witch is something a man does only once."
"Navigator," said Fred.
"Yes, my lord," she said quietly. She reached into her robes, pulling out a thin box and handing it to him. "Also, happy birthday."
Fred gave her a pinched look. "Not for another week." He wedged it into a pouch, seemingly satisfied until Roberta frisked it out of his jacket and into her bag.
"Nevertheless." Rochelle clapped. "Lead me to your worn and weary, Crimson Angel."
Furia clicked her fingers, and a richly appointed wall slid open, revealing a corridor filled by a long row of hibernation capsules. Inside each was a comatose psyker, faces contorted in rictus scowls and silent screams.
"These are only those requisitioned to Nuceria." Furia popped a dataslate from the wall, bringing up statistics. "The Legion has their own pile of sleepers, but Uncle Guilliman's allowed discreet use of Ultramarine Astropathics until whatever this is has passed. Otherwise, we're using couriers. The citizenry have not been informed; panic will only lead to desperation, and that never ends well."
"Mm," said Rochelle, tapping the glass of a withered looking man, clotted blood painting his face. "My lord, what do you think?"
Fred tilted his head, staring flatly. "I'll tell you when I'm a seer, yes? It's not today." He nudged Roberta forward. "She, however, is."
Roberta gave him a wide-eyed look, but the Navigator laughed. "Who wouldn't want to see a child blow up her head? No, no, I'll take point."
"Your loss."
"As you say, my lord." Rochelle sniffed, and turned to Furia. "There's nothing left in there, child. Burn them."
Fred twitched, eyes sharp.
"Wait, what? You can't!" Roberta cried. "There are still lifesigns—"
Furia raised a hand. "Explain," said the daughter of the Twelfth Primarch.
"Soul scooped out and eaten whole. Nothing but a shell for whatever else comes through. Burn them." Rochelle gnawed her lip. "Or get another Psykana Master for a second opinion, hm?"
"The soul-binding should have shielded them," Fred interjected. Roberta saw him start tapping his fingers against his pockets, checking his armoury. "God-Emperor forfend, Navigator."
"My lord."
"We are already under communications embargo, Navigator. If we do burn them," Furia began, and shot a look at Roberta when she opened her mouth, "we will have no astropaths in truth. Our arrangement with Macragge will need to be renegotiated."
Rochelle nodded. "The HVS Name Pending has its own choir, seven hundred and seventy-seven strong. If my lord permits, we will submit a requisition to Terra and handle your traffic until replacements are assigned." She looked to Fred, who nodded. "Very good, my lord."
"I'll send you our ciphers," said Furia, rubbing her forehead. "And order the crematorium warmed up, I suppose."
~~~
In her dreams, Roberta sat on grey dunes while the custodian fiddled with a black pedestal, pulling away pale blue packing paper and checking the instruction pamphlet attached. In an effort to be more accommodating, he'd shed Fred's face, choosing to wear a blank plane of skin instead. This was awful, but the custodian took her horror with irrepressible cheer.
Truthfully, once the novelty of the place wore off, it was somewhat boring. For all the sand around, it wasn't as though there were any beaches. Roberta had, after some quick pointers in psychic landscaping, conjured a modest two-tiered pianoforte, and was filling the space with a lazy duet symphony.
"Why here?" she said suddenly, her melody petering out.
"Hm?" The custodian looked at her without eyes.
"Here. This. You said it was his happy place." Roberta waved at the dim horizon. She'd explored the stark beauty of the endless plains, in hours that felt like seconds. "Is this really what it's like inside his heart?"
"This is a Seat of Refuge, Miss. Happiness doesn't come into it, not usually." The custodian leaned down, sifting through the sand with his fingers. "This is medical-grade asper silicon. Dry sterilizer, fabricated with nano-spikes all over. Lethal to all microbe, bacterial life, or plague carrier worth mentioning. Humans can breathe it, drink it, put it on toast, no problem, but anything single-celled will be rendered into their constituent proteins. No bacteria, no predator bacteria, no food chain, no complex lifeforms, nothing to kill the only sapient beings around." He waved. "This is a graveworld, completely empty of hostile entities. For him, safety is entwined with joy."
Roberta was horrified. She looked around, and really, truly grasped the weight of her presence in this place, so close to the base of her fiancé's soul.
The custodian shrugged. "Frederick has held his life in his hands since he was old enough to grasp a pen. The decisions he makes every day determine whether he will see the next. It is a truth that has consumed his mind and made it into what you know today. I'm simply glad he found someone worth bringing here to speak to this lonely old fellow."
"Who—why are you telling me this?"
"Adam created you with the same effortless insight into the hearts of men he gave to your predecessors. No doubt in service of one of his many schemes, and far more convenient to have daughters capable of good taste than to screen their prospects manually. He did not, however, account for the kind of exhuman Frederick is." The custodian turned his head. Had he eyes, they would have been looking straight at her. "Not that many could, in this age. Consider this a wedding gift; I've shaved off at least six months of worrisome inquisition."
Roberta's mind wheeled and twisted. "You…"
"Yes?"
She lifted a finger, pointing at him. "You're the God-Emperor of Avernus."
The custodian stared, with its parchment pale expanse of face. Then it nodded. "Yes."
She was right? What? No, wait, there were more important things at hand. "What are you doing in Fred's soul?"
The fragment of the god waved his hands. "I'm a custodian! What else would I be doing?"
N: FREDERICK KENNETH ROTBART
S: M
DOB: 1.950.949.M30
PHYSICIAN: ROTBART, E.
Psychic screening
Careful, Adam. I have to keep some cards close. Quality over quantity, as they say.
-- E.
~~~
"What are you humming?" asks Roberta. We're sitting on a balcony, small hovering marble disks serving us sliced fruits.
I blink, and stop humming. I don't remember starting, and when I start to think about it my memory comes up blank. "I don't know. Sorry."
Roberta frowns, and then hums the exact tune that was coming from me. "It's the Hymnal of Tanagra," she explains. "For the piano."
"Tanagra? Like Castra Tanagra?"
Roberta blinks. "Yes. It was written for the acoustics of the Greater Hall."
I tap my chin. "You know, I heard a story about you and Castra Tanagra."
Roberta blanches. "Fred no."
"Smaller than you expected? Really? Should I be worried?" I lean forward, as Roberta hides her face in her hands. "Is there something—"
~~~
YOU.
~~~
--wha
what?
What?
"Fred?!" Roberta's shaking me, eyes wide. "Fred, are you alright?"
I clamber onto my knees, dizzy with a burning ache in my head. An ululating siren is ringing throughout the city. "What—what happened?"
"I don't know! You just passed out!"
I pop an anti-poison pill hidden in my collar, and sit up. I can't feel a purge, so whatever happened wasn't mediated through biological means—
~~~
YOU WILL HEAR MY VOICE.
YOU WILL HEED MY WORDS.
YOU WILL HAVE MY ORDERS.
YOU WILL OBEY.
~~~
--Roberta's screaming! What, who, where is it?!
Blood is streaming from my face, tingeing my vision with a hazy screen. Little streaks and sigils have been dotted on my palm by my fingertips, writing out a message in caver's code.
"Fred!" Roberta grabs my shoulders, tears mingling with specks of bright blood. "Fred, we have to go!"
"Whaaaat?" I slur, my legs numb and dull as rock. Work, damn you, work.
"It's a warp storm! We have to get to a bunker!"
I look to the sky, where the sun is… not there. The sky brightens as it approaches the zenith where there should be a star, but there's nothing there but an expanse of sky.
Whatever storm is there, I can't observe it directly—
Roberta's grip goes slack, her flesh becoming hard and cold. The world fades as though coated in thinner, colour and contour blurring into indistinguishable fog. The air presses at me, a thick blanket slowing my every movement.
"Frederick."
I twist around. Granduncle is standing there, looking at the unseen sun. "Uncle?"
"It is a lovely day," he says. His chest rises and falls with a sigh. "I'm sorry I cannot be here for you."
"Uncle, what's going on?" Roberta's eyes are turning to me, pupils dilating in slow motion, veins of light pulsing with her heartbeat.
"Do you feel that?" he continues. "It is the call of duty, to take up arms against the great enemy."
"Uncle, I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
Uncle blinks, then looks at me. Suddenly, he's next to me, a finger on my forehead.
"Open your eyes," he intones, and my head explodes—
~~~
Fred writhed and screamed, a crackling blur as his skin burned away from the pulsing light piercing through his forehead, as though he were only the paper-thin container of a flaming bonfire. Roberta tried to grab him, but he tore out of her grasp with strength like an astartes, unstoppable grace and calculated, overwhelming force.
"Fred!" Roberta yelled. "You have to— have to—"
Have to what? Her mind came up blank. Surely there was an answer somewhere in her memory, but as Roberta looked at Fred, agonised and bleeding flame, nothing came to mind.
Psychic awakening, came a quiet murmur as she stared. Psychic! Roberta closed her eyes, repeating the mantra of sight, and cast her Unflinching Gaze—
Time slowed. The world grew gray and cold. Fred looked at her, and Roberta flinched.
His eyes had vanished, and where there was once beautiful violet was a churning pit of golden fire.
"Thirteenth," he spoke gently, a voice like water running underground, the merest hint of a vast, merciless current. "Seek shelter with the Twelfth. The Archangyl is beyond you."
"F-Fred?"
"The gate sleeps." As Roberta tentatively reached out, Fred moved his face away from her. "Do not touch the flesh of this body. You lack the power to survive."
With nothing to hold, she cradled her arms to herself. "What's going on?" asked Roberta. "Why are you like—like this?"
"The call was heard," he said. "The gate was narrow. It has been widened." Fred turned, looking into the far west. "There is no time. The horns of the Archenemy grow loud and clear."
"The Arch—you mean Chaos?" Roberta screeched. "We have to call it in! We need to fight it!"
"You are free to act in the ways you deem fit, so long as you do not obstruct this vessel in its duties." Still looking to the west, he stepped up to the banister, perfectly balanced on the thin glass of the divider. "Stay safe." He spread his arms, bent one leg back, and vanished.
The shockwave bowled Roberta over, the world gaining colour and sound once more. She could hear the sirens ringing, lasfire painting the sky.
"Oh," she whispered, eyes wide. "Oh no."
~~~
On Nuceria grew a golden cancer.
Inch by inch, red sands were dyed the colour of the dawning sun, insidious creepers stretching from the west. In the shining desert, a glimmering sea clean of such things as life, a cold wind stirred the dunes, sending cascades into the shadowed valley.
ARISE.
The grains shifted oddly, dancing and glittering. Soon, they grew hot, moving first with the thick flow of tar, then with the swift surge of a storm-tossed river, ethereal molten gold rippling with the touch of the Warp.
From the sun-kissed crucible, rising from the surface of the golden sea, a hand was lifted high as though cast in a mold of glass. A thousand brothers followed, armoured in holy plate and golden ceramite.
SERVE THY EMPEROR.
~~~
Above the steepled arcades and columns of Desh'ea, a shadow flickered. It was not desirable to be noticed by the human mortals below, and so it was not.
The vessel's vision, no longer starved by scarcity of psychic potence, scanned the horizon, acquiring the target across the curvature of the planet. The Warpstorm quivered and shook, bubbles of scintillating irrationality spiraling and dissolving into the surrounding Materium.
As it exceeded the speed of sound, secondary facets of the existence conducted initial divinations.
Query: nature of threat?
The Warp genuflected, disgorging the information directly into the vessel's mind.
Saturnyne Archangyl. Conversion/Supercarrier Type. Estimated time until Angylworld genesis: 2d3h24m54s945ms
In-system forces incapable of combating divine nature assimilation. Mythril Dreadnought cannot be refitted in time. Veil dissolution will form beachhead for further incursions of Abomination forces not only into sector space, but galactic psychostratum at large.
Conclusion: Archangyl must be annihilated.
Deploy Apostate Murder?
Negative. Projected Segmentum casualties of the Beast Helios unacceptable. Requesting Second Layer Augmentation.
Granted.
Like pieces of a puzzle, shards of divinity slotted into the vessel's soul, building from foundations of mortal skill. Lightness of carriage became transient existence. Martial genius bloomed into a shroud of almighty command. Foresight of battle traversed into the realm of true precognition. Some of these skills, the vessel would grasp truly in the years to come, but in the here and now they were gifts, freely given in the line of duty, and freely taken in crisis' end.
The vessel was not his father. His power was not one of concentrated destruction, but of calculation and deceptive craft, schemes turning and wheeling into unstoppable avalanches of force. Mankind needed not a warrior in coming times, but a commander, and for that purpose the God-Emperor, in inestimable wisdom, had willed his existence.
Installation complete. All parameters set. Initiating psychic draw.
The Materium twisted, logic and law shifting into the Warp to stabilize the demands of a nascent planet-soul. The Thief-Prince took a breath, inhaling enough strength to scour a world ten times over, and looked to the Warpstorm as it rippled and tattered the sky.
Analysis returned a grim outlook: under the presence of both an Alpha-plus psychic individual and a fully incarnated Angyl of the Seventh Sphere, the rift was mutating under the Warp's uncontained potential, spiraling from its current pseudostable nature into unpredictability.
The vessel held out a hand, manifesting a spear of translucent, twisting iron, and assumed the Stance of the Thunderer. It aimed, and threw.
There was the silence that snuffed the city's roar, the spear splitting and branching into ten thousand needles. Each length of wire arrived at the rift's branching circumference, stitching and sewing reality against the tide of raw madness.
The solidified logic of the spears would quarantine the advance of the storm for seven days, seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds, before violently deconstructing. By the time it was released, either the Angyl would be slain, or everyone else.
~~~
"In the name of the Father of Stars. In the name of the Father…"
"Is that it?" asked Furia, Daughter of the Twelfth Legion, after the recording looped over thrice more. For the previous eighteen hours it had emitted without end from every machine capable of transmitting audio, from barely functional wrecks and isolated signal splitters to black-boxed commbeads and sonic cannons.
"There have been no variations detected over the course of the broadcast," said a World Eater sergeant. "All attempts to triangulate the source have failed—"
"Of course they've failed. This isn't technology." Furia snarled, her teeth white jewels. Civic disruption reports were filing through by the dozen. Apparently half the population had chosen to be murderous today. "I know witchcraft when I hear it. Turn it off. Nobody listens to it. Anybody who goes mad gets ten days of isolation."
The sergeant relayed her orders, while a serf approached with a geoslate model, the hills and stony steppe of Desh'ea written in morphic clay as a holographic cloud swirled darkly over the western front. "My Lady, there is also the matter of the anomalous sandstorm—"
"Witchcraft, obviously. But we can't do bloody anything about it, can we?"
"O-of course, my lady."
Furia sighed. "I don't want our Librarians going anywhere near that thing until their divinations bear out. Where's our guest Navigator? She should have been here hours ago."
"She's… she's refusing to leave her quarters. The room has been heavily fortified."
"Normal heavily or Avernite heavily?"
The serf did not answer. Furia ground her face into her hands. "I'm going to find my sister," she announced, and walked unimpeded through the crowded room, the plasteel floor shuddering gently with the footsteps of fully armoured astartes tactically retreating.
Already, her mind ticked and churned, the vibrant hot memory of her city now a warmaster's canvas. Though not as great a strategist as her uncles, Furia was still the blood of the Emperor, and gifted in all the ways that counted. Absently, she sent off orders for muster and deployment while her feet wended her way to the bunker.
The World Eater sentries were already barricading the door when Furia came across them. "What's this?" she asked.
"My lady," they greeted. "Your honourable sister is currently unwell." There was a crashing ruckus, and muffled outraged yelling. "It would not be safe."
"Cold will be the stars when Roberta can out-wrestle me." Furia waved them away, and pulled up her sleeves as the portal depressurised. "Gulliman! Belt up, I'm coming in!"
She waded past the wall of upturned chairs, unbarring the broomstick from the door and peeking in.
"…and I'll tie you down myself, so help me great ancestors—" There was a rough grinding sound as Roberta wrung a plank of steelwood timber into dust between her fists. One eye locked onto Furia, and Roberta crackled with lightning, vanishing and reappearing in front of her. "Furia," she said sweetly, the door groaning as she pushed against Furia's own adamantium grip, "it's so nice to see you. Do you remember my fiancé? Tall, dark, too many guns?"
Oh dear. She'd gone insane in confinement. "Sure I do, Guilliman."
"Really?" Roberta said hopefully. "I knew someone must have remembered. Do you know where he went?"
"Nothing's shown up on the auspex," said Furia, who was very carefully not lying to the crazy person. "I'll let you know if he pops up."
"Could I have one?" Roberta babbled. "Just, if Fred shows up, I'd like to see it myself so I can wring his miserable neck."
"If we see Fred, we'll let you know."
Roberta sighed, before a doubtful look came over her. "Wait. What's his name?"
"Fred, we got it—"
"No." In between blinks, Roberta snatched out and seized Furia by the throat. "You never called him Fred. What is his full name?"
Now how was Furia supposed to know what Roberta named her imaginary boyfriend? Also, her grip strength was terrible. "Roberta, you need to calm down—"
Her sister wailed, letting Furia go. "You've forgotten as well! Ooh, what did Mister Caesar say? Amnesic aegis…" Roberta trailed off into a stream of mumbled calculation, before starting. "Furia! I came here in an Avernite voidship with Fred's birthday ship. It must still be up there!"
It was true that an Avernite battleship was orbiting Nuceria, but Furia was sure Roberta's imaginary boyfriend didn't have his own damn ship. Even Furia didn't have one.
~~~
The sandstorm came on the wind in such depth and thickness as to blot out the sky, as though some heavenly vessel had been disemboweled over the city. It wove through the streets and alleys, through the fighting bodies and maddened warriors, each glittering grain itching as they settled in wounds and mouths and eyes.
To die by erosion was not a quick death, nor painless. Even the swiftest death took minutes, as sand infiltrated through the ears and traveled into the brain, tearing and ripping all the way. But die they did, each twitching body falling still as gold was written into flesh.
And then the bodies rose.
~~~
"My lady, damage to the north fortifications—"
"My lady, promethium stocks are running low—"
"My lady, personnel reassignment from sector 53-KR—"
"My lady, the medicae cannot handle this many—"
"My lady—"
"My lady—"
"My lady—"
"Twelfth."
Furia rocked back, orders dying on her tongue. At once, all the vox-speakers crackled to life, as the holo-volumes of the battletable formed the image of a sharp-cornered polygonal skull.
"This enemy is beyond you. Hide."
"Who even the fuck are you," said Furia, triggering a hard reset on the system to no avail.
"This is not your battle." The skull image whirled, displaying some sort of sharp-winged figure, seams of gold boiling where veins would be. "The Angyl subverts resistance through mental and physical conversion alike. Without catechisms of fleshly purity, any concerted offense will only supply it with additional forces. Do not interfere."
The words seemed to echo even after the sound had faded, humming inside her ears. "I said: who the fuck even are you."
"Significant portions of my power are occupied containing psychic intrusions against your person. Do not attempt to undermine them."
"My lady!" called an officer from the banks. "Multiple strategic launches detected!"
The holo-map glitched, returning online. Six Deathstrike missiles had simply appeared, mid-ballistic arc, converging on a target in the western wastes. Furia felt their impact seconds before the city surveillance blinded out in a wash of white.
Amidst the shocked silence, the sound of crumpling plasteel echoed through the room. "Telemetrics," Furia ground out. "Now."
~~~
Crouched on a communications antenna, the Thief-Prince peered into the distance. The Twelfth was refusing assistance rendered, which was suboptimal, and also useless. A hero saved people whether they liked it or not.
Query: continental scrying.
Images fell into his head like sanded blocks. Visual data, waveform analyses, lesser and greater psyaxiomatic arrays. The Archangyl, displaced by megatonne explosions, but grossly intact.
Initial bombardment ineffective. Altering pattern for increased power.
He held a hand above his head, golden shadows bending space before a modified Deathstrike missile was instantiated. The non-standard Grigori warhead required greater fabrication time for enchantment and runic calculations. Mostly the calculations.
Query: parallel bombardment.
The Warp denied him; the detonation would upset the Immaterium, requiring recalculation for subsequent warheads.
The second Grigori Deathstrike, half-formed behind the first, vanished.
Query: long range engagement prospectus.
A thousand simulated battles ran through his head, each more annoying than the last. Archangyl self-coherence established beyond long-range destruction. Must move to engage, wrest control of Immaterial priority.
…Query: how close.
The Warp gave him an answer. This far from the enemy, his own internal radiance was nothing but a candle. He would have to close to melee range before deific annihilation could be enacted against the Archangyl, the scouring light of humanity purging its most hated foe.
The Thief-Prince dragged a hand through his hair, the other still hefting a twenty-foot ballistic projectile by a stabilizer fin.
Query: are you even serious.
~~~
Aboard the mythril dreadnought, as officers watched a planet consume itself in a golden storm, the captain readied the order for orbital bombardment.
"Captain Juna Ikirra."
Suddenly, he lifted his head, sucking in a terrified breath. "Oh."
"Sir," said the adjutant, "Bays 4 to 12 are loaded and hot. Ready to fire at your command."
"No," said the captain, shaking off the brief reverie, "belay that. Load up a drop pod."
~~~
The knife sunk in behind the helmet, clear yellow blood and nutrient fluid bursting in a spray as Nicomachus pulled the knife sideways, then twisted. The head of the Black Templar Marine uncorked, ancient Mark VI armour falling limp and softening into black mud.
"What is this?" muttered Forsythe. He poked the slurry with the end of his cane, examining the stain.
"Their true form." Nicomachus spat a hissing globule of acid, and made the mudra of consumption. "They forsook their lives to a higher power. And that power keeps them long after their flesh has rotted to this state."
"These were Astartes?"
"Once upon a time. It would be inconvenient to explain; ask no more of it."
"As you say."
The coarse wind blew, grains of sand eroding at the plasteel of the hab-blocks. The two made their way through subterranean tunnels, listening for the thunder of boots and smelling for blood. The howl of missiles tore through the air like the baying of hounds, hungry for game. There was a time for valour, and a time for furtive retreat; what could an unarmoured Astartes and a lesser mortal achieve against the golden legion? There would be many rotting carcasses, fly-ridden and pecked by crows, before the day would out. Nicomachus would not be one of them; he had closed his ears to the lamentation of the dying.
Upon coming to a place where golden sand crinkled beneath their shoes, Nicomachus held back the mortal, listening for the thrum of armour. Two, three, five, he counted, by the uneven weight of their footsteps. It was a squad, patrolling for survivors.
"We cannot defeat them," said Nicomachus.
They hid in a lonesome closet, awaiting the passing of a patrol. The Black Templars marched, terrorsight scanning for heretics and infidels. But their technology was an affront to the Omnissiah, seeded with daemons and wicked spirits. Nicomachus, whose ash-cloaked soul could not be perceived by the eyes of evil ghosts, was not discovered.
But Forsythe was old, and in their passage they had disturbed the golden sands. He restrained himself as best as he could, but his lungs seized, as if recognizing the evil in the dust.
The cough rang out; the space marines halted as one, turned as one, and aimed with uncanny coordination.
Nicomachus burst out, steel bent beneath his feet, flesh pulsing with unnatural vigour. He seized the rearguard, driving red steel deep through the cracked lens of its helmet and, as one turns forcefully the wheel of a ship, steered the space marine's head half-circle. The body fell across his shoulders, and Nicomachus charged forward, hot bursts of impaler fire striking against the ceramite bulk.
He unfolded a pistol, shooting their poleyns. Bone and plate shattered, the Templars stumbling down. Nicomachus flung the body on his shoulders forward and pivoted to dodge the return fire, his heel swerving down at speed to crash into the second marine's helmet at neck-breaking speed. He fired two shots, cracking two matching holes in the eyes of the third marine.
Sudden, sheer heat overwhelmed him. Nicomachus threw up an arm to shield his eyes, flesh charring and cooking from the melta blast. He twisted away from the likely shots, feeling two puncturing needles burst through his leg and side, and fired blind at the origin. The unnatural strength pulsed through him, his arm cracking like charcoal, brittle to the touch.
He grabbed the wrist of his burned arm, and pulled. The whole thing came away with a flaking rip, and he flung it through the hazy cloud of melta energy at the remaining two marines. It burst apart and burned against the armour like promethium, abjuration written into its very genetic code.
The last marine raised his impaler, Nicomachus dead to rights. A thin straight sword flew through the air, clattering against the marine's chest, and it fired back a spray.
Nicomachus reached out, grabbing the sword and swinging with enough force to slice off the arm holding the impaler, the wrought metal blade shattering as it sheared through enhanced bone. He dove forward, tackling the marine against the wall, and punched once, twice, splitting its helm from crown to chin. A grotesque red eye peered back, sunken into old, papery skin.
The marine tried to punch him in the side, and he grabbed its wrist, squeezing until ceramite splintered and snapped, before leaning in and spitting into the eye. The body twitched, burning and shriveling amidst golden flames.
Nicomachus heaved, flesh veined with vermillion blooms beneath the surface, like algae beneath the sea. He hurried back, to lift the fallen body of Forsythe. The gentleman had taken a terrible wound; guts and bone were churned up into one, spilled with ash and the poisonous golden steel. His breaths were weak, fluttery things constricted by blood.
"Forsythe," said Nicomachus, sole hand dancing across the torso, taking pulses and feeling for vibrations of the lungs. "Forsythe, these wounds are not survivable."
"I see your f—" Forsythe coughed, spraying black blood— "famed humour is accurate." He eased himself upward, pushing to a wall. "Ah. Tell my wife, please. Make it a splendid end…"
"The brightest."
Forsythe slumped; his eyes grew dull as he passed from the world. Nicomachus bowed his head. May the path be smooth to his side, he prayed, may it be rich with clover and fennel, and shaded by the cypress trees.
A blast thundered from behind, raining dust and plascrete in the red light of the sun. The world turned grey. "Nicomachus Antares."
The astartes whirled unevenly into a bow. "My lord," he uttered.
The prince was a thunderbolt in flesh, godlike power radiating from sacred geometry inscribed so finely across his body it blended into an unbroken legend. His eyes were golden beacons, brimming with light from a land beyond mortal grasp, bending mortals to the will of the most high, the Emperor of Gods. "The seventh-sphere has deployed its Titan Maniple. You are needed. Assume your duty."
"As you say, my lord."
The prince waved a hand, and Nicomachus grit his teeth as a new arm spiraled out of his shoulder, breaking apart at the joints. "Armour and arms will be delivered to this location. All enemies must be routed. You will have no orbital assistance."
"Understood, my lord." He spared a glance, lifting his head upstream against the force of a fractured god. "Where will you go, my lord?"
"I will terminate the Angyl." The prince's head turned to the sky, tracking a falling star. "Hold fast, Nicomachus Antares." He flicked a finger.
Nicomachus was flung up, through seven levels of flooring, through anti-orbital shielding, through the crackling membrane of void-shields, up, up, up through the gathering stormcloud, up to the bleeding sky beneath the watchful stars. The warpstorm seemed to scream, impaled with a thousand lances, and Nicomachus turned away from the madness within.
The HVS sat in the sky, the contorted gravity of its labyrinth twisting nimbuses beneath it like a pedestal. Nicomachus saw a flash of light along its hull, and the burst of white-hot flame as the atmosphere dragged against the projectile heading straight for him.
Slowly, dreamlike, he began to fall.
Hot tremors shook his body as he was targeted by the lock-on system. The payload broke apart into countless segments, each flying after his falling body to seize with piercing armatures, hunks of steel containing entire workshop armatures. Others hovered close, forming a scaffold and unfolding into brilliant holographic petals to dazzle and confuse.
He tunneled through the clouds, wild jets pushing him to his destination, plates of armour crawling across his skin like insects. Sabot rounds whizzed past him from the earth-bound artillery of the Star Fathered, smashing apart the decoys in showers of glittering photon shards.
Electric waves crashed through his nervous system as the cortical jacks locked in. His awareness billowed out like an unfurling cloth into the surrounding machinery, jets and armour juking and twisting to his will, wind pressure and radar witnessed as though it were his own skin and eyes.
The IFF flooded his mind, a locust-swarm of red tags ascending upon him. Nicomachus swerved through them, rounds clipping his legs and chest, blasting through the haze of illusions as the altimeter dropped.
Over the mountains, the cycloptic gaze of the heretic Titan turned on him. Its arm, laden with the ochre lance of the volcano cannon, swung up in a morph of sand that scythed through the air, coalescing reactors hot. The thunder of its report ignited the atmosphere, a well of molten earth blooming beneath as bright plasma hammered through the sky.
It crawled to Nicomachus in the lucid clarity of slowtime, an oncoming torpedo of flame and hate, seeking oblivion of him and of itself.
[POWER ON], said the machine spirit.
The armour flared, jetflares like arrows of light as Nicomachus fell suddenly, blood rushing from his head to his feet under immense forces. The ground approached too quickly, and Nicomachus smashed into a shattered ferrobrick façade, consumed by a whirling dervish of parts and plate.
Seven missiles converged on him, baying through the air like jackals. In the next moment they exploded prematurely, amidst a wind that twisted and cut light like paperglass.
In the eye of Nicomachus, light scrolled madly across his cornea.
POWER: ON
SYSTEM CHECK: COMPLETE
CLOCK: 19:1450:995:55159
Avernus Strategic Operations Superheavy Armoured Infantry Suit Model No.0025891
Checking core functions…
Primary power: SERPENT TEARS POWER CORE
Status: ACTIVE
Estimating lifespan: T- 323yr7mth9dy
Checking DIAMOND-SALT integrity: 87.3%
Checking SUPERCONDUCTOR-CABLE integrity: 99.3% transmission. Self-repair complete. 100% transmission.
Drawing power…12%...57%...99% sympathetic capacity. SPECTIRON-INDUCTOR-COIL saturation reached.
Current power production: 4.5x1019 Th/hr
Activating secondary power reactors…
REACTOR-1: ONLINE
REACTOR-2: ONLINE
REACTOR-3: ONLINE
REACTOR-4: STANDBY
REACTOR-5: STANDBY
REACTOR-6: STANDBY
Current power production: 5.7x1019 Th/hr
Primary core array stable. Initialising diagnostics…
Black Carapace connection: GREEN
Skinsuit: GREEN
Motorframe: GREEN
Myomer Weave: GREEN
Armour Layer: SPEC-ORIC.433.68.2- DRAGONTOOTH REGENERATIVE ALLOY
Orbital Movement Jump Systems: GREEN
Integrated Laser Systems: GREEN
Plasma Guillotine Systems: GREEN
Supercollider Contact Burst Systems: GREEN
Graviton Bunker: GREEN
Sensor Array online…
Omni-Auspex v.10.9.433.2 online…
Comm-Web online…
Combat Protocols online…
Reflex Pankration online…
Fire Control Systems online…
Ballistic Intercept Systems online…
IFF updated. Loading targets…
Scanning for armaments…
TWO (2) armaments found.
Handshake complete.
Drivers exchanged. 2 of 2 armaments successfully connected. Retrieving information…
W489275-44-32: Kanoe Industries Muspelheim-pattern Portable Gravitational Projection Blade
OS: KI.Systems v5.887.63
W887979-69-03: Kanoe Industries Muspelheim-pattern Portable Disjunction Logarithmic Spacetime Dilator Pavise
OS: KI.Systems v5.931.08
Set W489275-44-32 to WEAPON1
Set W887979-69-03 to WEAPON2
WEAPON1: ACTIVE
WEAPON2: ACTIVE
Warp Manifold Scope online…
Third Eye Sentry online…
Precognition Engine online…
SOUL-JUNCTION: Y/N?
Testing ORICHALCUM integrity: 54.33%
Aligning paradigm…
Rectifying structure…
Integrity: 94.87%
Beginning SOUL-JUNCTION…
Reifying patterns…
"Virtuous Unbreakable Spirit" detected.
"Insatiable Butcher Maw" detected.
"Crimson Bonfire Heart" detected.
"Dread Juggernaut Advance" detected.
"Occlusive Deception Bulwark" detected.
"Thunderbolt Clarity Ovation" detected.
"Starlight Revenant Defiance" detected.
"LEGION-13" detected.
"MJOLNIR" detected.
"Blink Spider" detected.
"Congregation Asp" detected.
"Titan Scorpion" detected.
"Island Turtle" detected.
"Dark King" detected.
9 of 14 patterns reified.
With the release of vapours and electric rush of adhesion, the armour powered on. It was the glossy black of witchiron, the legends of Nicomachus written all across him in orichalcum as though from a quill. The Mark XLII, a device of mankind's artifice to war against hell. In his favoured plate, Nicomachus stood like a vibrant war-god, burning with the might of his soul.
To his right hand flew a thick-bladed rod. Nicomachus held it aloft and said a secret word, moving with all the force of muscle and armour and psychic might. The one blade became three, became five, became seven, and seven wounds were cut into gravity itself. The heretic Warlord split apart, dismembered and crashing, a writhing wave of sand bursting forth and consuming the regiments of lesser Titans. From its mass emerged a new goliath machine-god, wearing the blood of the loyal as a shield against him.
"Yes, my lord," Nicomachus muttered. To his left hand was sent a square buckler, space twisted like ivy. He set his feet, shield forward, sword behind him, and prepared to take the charge. "Of course, my lord. No problem at all, my lord."
~~~
On one front, a single astartes held back the titans of mankind. On the other, a single man hunted an angyl.
The Thief-Prince was a burning drumbeat on the world, scarring and charring a trail of long loping footsteps through the air in unrelenting metronome. There was a sickly pallor to the vessel's skin, as the meat beneath was suffused with black vigour, shifting and morphing like the wild roots of an orchid, like twisting sidewinders, and from his right arm burst out hooked claws, black diamonds set in curled iron, five fingers around a palm that seeped with a white flame.
As he ran he held out his hand and breathed the serpent's flame. From shoulder to wrist a white light shone as it moved from heart to hand, reddening the flesh until it was like hot iron, and when it burst it did so as an unceasing ray of sunlight, a twist of the cosmos that wound energy into an unending circle and devoured all it met in infinite power.
Below him were the hordes of the Golden God, disgorging from the bowed frame of the Angyl in lockstep. Men and things in the form of men, enough to conquer worlds.
The Thief-Prince twisted his wrist, flicked it up, and the ray of light swung high and coiled around across him, breast to hip, orbiting like jovian rings. One end was rooted into his palm, the other lashing wildly behind him.
He leapt from his sky-road, falling into the desert where the sand legions gathered around their profane angyl, and swung his whip. He used a whip because these were not true men, worthy of mercy, but beasts, each thundercrack of the serpent's tongue like a terrible scourging bomb, blasting flesh to ash and wind, the desert writhing into clouds.
Acquiring target.
Out stretched his arm, the lightning flame soaring through the ranks, and the Thief-Prince pulled, heaving like a fisherman drags on his hauling net. Dunes kicked up from his feet, each dug-in heel the anchor of a battleship. From the golden clouds came a shadow of a giant tethered to his spear of light.
The Angyl screamed, bursting through the sands with wrathful swings. The Thief-Prince's aim was true, the spear lodged in one weeping eye, tendrils of flame blooming from its skull.
He pulled, leapt, and punched the Angyl as it tumbled toward him, the force of an autogun round behind each knuckle, blows driving deep into the golden flesh. Clenched fingers left marks like glowing firepits in the skin, the shock throwing the Angyl in a tumble before the Thief-Prince pulled it back into his axe kick.
"Saturnyne Angyl," he intoned, each strike like a sledgehammer driving pitons through plascrete. He leapt and pulled on the chain, swinging into the perfect face foot-first, cracking otherworldly bone with otherworldly force. "You are not welcome here. You are not honoured here. For the sake of this world, please die." He crouched, punching again and again, his fist wrapped in a piercing flame. "Die. Die. Die. Die diediedie—"
Four fat fingers wrapped the Thief-Prince, and the Angyl roared, smashing him into the sands. "Pathetic godling shard," it ground out. " Where are your legions? You have come here alone, and you will die alone—"
From the sky screamed the song of creation, carried in the heart of a missile. The great Grigori Deathstrike, an antimatter warhead encapsulated in pure harmonic converters, golden forks tuned to the darkness of a universe without gods or Angyls. It speared the Angyl between the shoulders, and detonated.
A pure white star burned silently, its silent song ringing lower than any human ear could detect. The totality of its annihilating reactor was channeled to the heartbeat of the materium, a rhythm that denied all magic and sorcery.
For a heartbeat there was only the illuminated sands, and the cooling body of the vessel.
Integrating flesh.
The vessel twitched, heart squeezed forcefully into motion. With caution, he sat up, keeping his ruined right arm close. It was hardly any more than bone and strings of black meat, now. He tightened the zips and latches that held it in a sleeve, and secured it to his chest.
The wind stirred.
"…you… dare…."
"For fuck's sake," said the vessel. "Gotta do everything myself." He turned this way and that, facing the mirage of a giant man, sand creeping upward into two rough trunks. Even though there was nothing but air, darkness fell upon the vessel, the shadow of a winged Angyl.
"The galaxy never changes… it only turns… I am eternal… where there is strife… and the cry for peace… I will be there. And you cannot stop me, wretched shard of a heretic."
"Hey. Hey, asshole. " The vessel held up his good hand. In its palm burned a pinpoint star, its heat searing glass into the desert hills. It was a true star, born of the Divine Pyromancy, Heliogenesis. "Pick a card."
~~~
The explosion rocked the command centre. Furia knocked her head into a console, distracting from the sudden rush of memories. Roberta lifted the command throne above her head for another swing.
"Fuck, it's Rotbart," Furia yelled. "His name's Frederick Rotbart!"
Roberta dropped the throne. "You remember."
Furia shook her head. "Everyone stand down, she's not crazy!" She looked at the ringing sirens. "And what the fuck was that? You, deskboy, tell me what the fuck was that."
The console attendant skimmed through the readouts. "My lady, there was a thermonuclear detonation from the western target. Six—no, seven hundred megatons."
"Seven what."
"All the energy is being funneled into space." A grainy feed formed on the holo, heavily filtered through optical hazard scrubbers. The whole world was white, a pillar of bright flame soaring into space. "Optical temperature readings at six thousand degrees, but no thermal bloom, my lady."
There was the sound of tearing plasteel. Roberta was picking apart the throne, piece by piece, as she stared at the image.
"…I think that's where he went," said Furia. She patted her cousin on the shoulder twice. "Sorry."
"I'm going to kill him," said Roberta. "I'm going to find him, and I'm going to kill him."
"Roberta, not even a Warlord could survive that. I'm not even sure Grandpa could get through that untouched."
"My lady," muttered an astartes. "All hostiles have been neutralised. Their sorcerous augmentations have fled them."
"Then go kill them!" yelled Furia. "What the hell do I keep you around for?"
~~~
From the first madman to the last corpse, the invasion took seventy hours. Two hours after cleanup began, an inquisitorial Black Ship screamed out of the warp, cyclonic torpedoes ready and hot.
Frederick Rotbart could not be found.
~~~
On a far away planet around a far away star, a hole appeared. Out tumbled a sizzling body, the webway portal vanishing. It would not open again until gestation of the serpent was complete.
~~~
Gather Information (Roberta Guilliman) – In concert with more mundane means, you are capable of plucking knowledge about a given person from the collective unconsciousness. The cost of ritual materials scales with difficulty of target.
Time: 1 year
Chance of Success: -550% (125% after bonuses)
Cost: 5e6 Thrones, 7.5e2 Relic Material, 4e3 Occult Material, 7 Beast Material
Reward: Gain character sheet of anyone in galaxy.
Complete
Your scryings into the golden forever pay dividends, revealing the truth of Roberta Guilliman, of the Thirteenth, who has captured your son Fred's interest. She's actually kind of boring.
Prince-Successor of Avernus
Name: Frederick Kenneth Rotbart II
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Homeworld: Avernus (Deathworld)
M: 40 – The talent of Fred's bloodline has bred true, culminating in the one of the greatest military minds among the galaxy. Strategies surge effortlessly from his genius like thunder from lightning.
I: 34 – Raised in the Panopticon of Avernus, Fred has honed his skills of concealment against the all-seeing eye of his hovering mother.
A: 29 – Trained and tested in the ruling of a deathworld, Fred possesses almost neurotic planning and preparation skills.
L: 24 – Fred is well versed in the maintenance and craft of his planet's kaleidoscopic armoury, and has a strong grasp of survivalist theory across every biome known to man.
P: 35 – Teeming with the safeguards of ten millennia, Fred's inherent spiritual strength has been bolstered by an unswerving will.
D: 6 – After some advice from his girlfriend, Fred's not completely terrible.
C: 30 – Fred is from Avernus.
Psy Power: 0 – Despite the power of his ancestors, Fred has the psychic imprint of a Sigma-level Blank.
Psy Control: 34 – Fred's understanding of psychic theory and ironclad self-control are greater than many graduates of the Unseen University.
Leaden Millstone Soul (Psychic Power reduced to 0, mild psychological effects, slight calming Warp effect) – A failure of spiritual alchemy, Frederick's soul has silenced itself out of self-preservation, retaining only core functionality and emergency operations. The strewn avalanche of his astral landscape is all that remains of an Alpha-level psychic entity, slain before its time. Abhuman: Avernite ([DATA REDACTED]) – Suffused with the genetic secrets of his homeworld's most dangerous creatures, Frederick is more monster than man. Exemplar of the Rotbart Lineage (instinctive mastery of warcraft, no penalties for commanding in unfamiliar theatres) – On land and sea, in air and void, no mortal alone can defy the motion of nations. No mortal save one. Black Crystal Host (increased compatibility with Black Crystal Regalia, basic Black Crystal techniques available) – The line of Rotbart has been molded into a more suitable form by these ancient artefacts. Witch-Prince (reputation with psychic polities, educated in omnimancy) – Fred is his father's son, in name if not in power. Adherent of the Codex Avernus (Can substitute Martial with Administration and vice versa) – "The common subject of the military and the bureaucracy is the people." Adherent of the Codex Aureus (Piety bonus, Psy Control bonus) – "Honour accorded to all, and everything in moderation." A Dagger Behind Every Smile (Paranoia issues, substitute Intrigue for Diplomacy in matters of orchestrated deceit, social manipulation, and reputational management) – You thought you could lie to me? Fool! It was my afterimage! Courageous Canyon Heart (supreme willpower, pragmatism) – His heart and actions are utterly unclouded; in defiance of fear and without regret, they are those of victory. Regal Visage (Diplomacy bonus) – Tall, dark and handsome. Behold, the genetic prowess of Avernus! You just get lost in his eyes. *sigh* Savant Intellect (Learning bonus) – Written on genetically engineered neural substrate and modeled after MOS-designed cognitive frameworks, Fred's mind ranks in the top one million humans in the galaxy. Voice of Command (Diplomacy bonus in public oration) – Harsh words like the spring thunder, shaking stone and jostling high oaks, lift the head of the virtuous and shudder the legs of the cowardly. Truncated Circadian Cycle (night-time bonuses, reduced exhaustion penalties, Diplomacy penalty) – Fred only needs four hours of sleep for optimal function, although he certainly doesn't look it. Behold the Field in Which I Grow My Fucks (Diplomacy penalties, immune to pleas of compassion) – Fred doesn't have time for your "hurt feelings" bullshit. Feelings grow back; you know what doesn't? FINGERS. The People's Choice (increased Avernite reputation) – Everyone on that hellhole loves this dude, for some reason. A Princely Sum (Administration bonus) – Fred knows a few get-rich-quick schemes. It's Better, Down Where It's Wetter (trained in the operation of watercraft and hydroweapons) – Fred is a certified Bureau of Fisheries Super Weenie Navyman Junior. Thread the Needle (trained in the operation of longshot ballistics) – Fred is skilled in the environmental and celestial mechanics that affect sniping, scoring the Seven-band Bullet in the last Avernus Marksman Competition on a 0.4 light second target. Master of the Brutal Art (Combat bonus) – Fred is trained in the art of Pankration, the axiomatic combat methodology developed by the finest minds of the Reclamation. Master of Arms (Combat bonus when wielding bladed weapons) – Fred has toiled to master the sword arts, in preparation for taking up the death-dealing Black Crystal Sword. Godlike Devastation Body (Diplomacy, Combat bonus) – Fred works out. Blessing of Rotbart (unknown effects) – A golden power sleeps within him. The Grim Dark Future (historical occlusion active) – You don't know, man! You weren't there!
The Prince of Avernus, Frederick was born in the dawn of the great Imperium of Mankind to the Witch-King and the Iron-Queen. As a child, he was constantly ambushed by the countless nightmares of his homeworld, and survived to adulthood with at least half of his original flesh.
The child to a ridiculously powerful psyker, Fred lacks any psychic power at all, a fact he has cursed many times over. Without the reality-warping potence of his infamous father, Fred turned to more mundane means of survival, completing the conditioning portions of Avernus' Slayer Operative Course, studying under the Caver's Society, enduring the Bureau of Fisheries' torturous bureaucratic admissions process, and more.
Fully accredited in nearly every form of combat known to Avernus, Fred has set planetary records in everything from artillery operation and fishing to the highlit arenas of the Brutal Art. With an ultrahuman body and the mind of a tactical cogitator, he is a terrifying physical combatant, proficient in such vaunted styles as Pankration, Satsujinken, Abattoir Fist, Helguard CQC, Dragonblood Emanation, Tiancaidao, Kumogiriken, Saikoujin-ryu, and even the shamefully non-lethal art of Queensberry Aikido.
After completing the Imperial Examination with full marks, Fred received a sanctioned invitation to attend the Palatial Academy beneath the aegis of the Emperor of Mankind, in the same year as the Filiae Imperium. The less said about that, the better.
Paranoid, twitchy, and ghoulish at first glance, deeper inquiry reveals only further layers of carefully attuned madness. Part of his strange nature is the fault of several dozen conflicting psygenetic augmentation procedures vying for dominance beneath his skin, but most of it is just him. In conversation, he is bluntly indifferent to many who pass beneath his gaze, the particular dark humour of his people failing to win any friends.
Imperial Princess
Daughter of the Thirteenth Legion
Heiress of Macragge
Palatial Academy Student Parliament Prime Minister
Palatial Academy Tennis Team Captain
Palatial Academy Volleyball Team Captain
Palatial Academy Track Team Reserve
Palatial Academy Student Library Assistant
"The Good One."
Name: Roberta Antoinette Estelle-Louise Marina Heliopolis Guilliman
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Homeworld: Macragge (Legionworld/Imperial Circle Capital)
M: 38 – As a Lady Primarch, Roberta possesses an instinctual grasp of military command that outshines generals centuries her senior.
I: 13 – Roberta has picked up some things from hunting down her boyfriend, and can make it down a road without being mobbed.
A: 45 – Roberta is trained in running an interstellar polity, and has filled in for her father on occasion.
L: 42 – Roberta possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Imperial science, arts, history, various paraphernalia, and an embarrassingly deep knowledge of Avernite soap operas.
P: 17 – As a second-generation Primarch, Roberta possesses several innate spiritual shields. She is otherwise an unexceptionally moral, levelheaded young woman.
D: 46 – Roberta is experienced in communicating across any divide, whether in the ballroom of high society, the negotiating table of nations, or high-school debate.
C: 19 – Roberta's not that great at fighting. Kind of embarrassing, for a Primarch.
Psy Power: 35 – Although Roberta is untrained, the genetic legacy of a Primarch gives her incredible power.
Psy Control: 24 – Roberta's instinctual control has been bolstered by the augmentations of her soul.
Thirteenth Lady Primarch (+15 all stats, Heart-stopping Beauty applied) – Homo Sapiens Primus v2.0. Roberta is a second-generation Primarch, now with 100% less testosterone. Though her development is decelerated in comparison to her predecessor, she is still leaps and bounds ahead of mere mortals. Scion of the Guilliman Lineage (profound long-term organizational and management skills) – Roberta is the apple of her father's hawklike gaze of terror. Heart-stopping Beauty (Diplomacy bonus) – A head of bronze silk and eyes of ocean blue. Wanna know a secret? She doesn't even need glasses. It's a prop! Gossamer Timbre (Diplomacy bonus) – Her voice is so nice to hear, it's no wonder people sit through her lectures. Blood of Avernus (bonuses to Martial, Combat, assorted bonuses to [DATA REDACTED]) – Well, you are what you eat. Student Parliament Leader (no benefits at all) – Roberta thrashed the election competition like it was all-you-can-eat buffet and she was Jaghatai Khan. It's for her resume! Treasure of the Legion (good relationship with XIIIth Legion) – Roberta has approximately seven hundred thousand little big brothers ready to break face at her command. An Honest Soul (Intrigue penalty) – Roberta once stayed up five minutes after her curfew. It haunts her to this day. Serpent Diamond Ring (Psychic Power boost) – A focus of occulted diamond serves as a powerful psychic catalyst.
Born on Macragge, the Thirteenth Filia Imperium is a kind, intelligent young lady of supreme genetic providence. Crafted to usher in an age of peace, Roberta has been educated by the finest minds of the Imperium alongside her many sister-cousins. Her favourite colour is blue, her favourite food is honeyed cheesecake, and she's a Virgo. Practically perfect in every way!
At eleven years of age, having completed the entire curriculum of Macragge Philosophium, Roberta was sent to the heart of the Imperium to learn under the aegis of her most glorious grandfather, the Emperor of Mankind. She quickly soared to the top of the ranks, outdone only by her sisters and the occasional impetuous mortal. Though she is not the top student (a title held in the bloody grip of Isis Lupercal, Daughter of the Sixteenth), she possesses a specialist's knowledge in the generalist's field, wielding knowledge and insight with the sharp-eyed instinct of a circling eagle.
She also has a fetish for troubled bad boys in tactical suits, but don't tell anybody.
29th Governor of Avernus
Witch-King of Hell's Gate
Beastlike Irides
The Pankratosword
The Undying King
Too OP plz nerf
Name: Henry Isaac Rotbart V
Age: 301
Gender: Male
Homeworld: Avernus (Deathworld)
M: 38 – Henry has led the forces of Avernus in the most tumultuous period of its history, successfully carrying its people into the Silver Age of Mankind.
I: 24 – Although technically capable of stealth and ambush, Henry is not the most subtle of Avernites.
A: 16 – Henry has never had a head for organization, preferring to leave such matters to more suitable persons.
L: 34 – Telepathically educated and trained on Avernus, Henry possesses a deep grasp of countless fields.
P: 52 – With the principles of the Anathema in his veins, Henry is a sworn enemy of the Ruinous Powers.
D: 20 – Henry is canny enough to disguise his unsettling nature with an irritating nature.
C: 55 – Henry does not know what it is like to hit a man twice.
Psy Power: 62 – Henry is an Alpha-plus psyker by birth, with the power of a god incarnated in flesh.
Psy Control: 60 – Henry's control of his powers is fine enough to stencil atoms, and vast enough to crush stars.
NOTE: All stats before Black Crystal augmentations, situational bonuses, psychic fortifications.
Alpha+-Level Psyker – A peerless psychic being, a breaker of worlds, a scourge of sectors. Lesser beings than Henry have been worshipped as gods. Abhuman: Avernite ([DATA REDACTED]) – Beware that monstrous flesh, that wrathful heart. Adherent of the Codex Avernus (Can substitute Martial with Administration and vice versa) – "The common subject of the military and the bureaucracy is the people." Adherent of the Codex Aureus (Piety bonus, Psy Control bonus) – "Honour accorded to all, and everything in moderation." Adherent of the Codex Astralis (Psy Power bonus, Psy Control bonus) – "Do as thou wilt." Acolyte of the Mercury Ocean (skilled in the use of Avernite Sorcery) – "Yer a wizard, Henry." Adherent of the Codex Antiquum (master of Black Crystal techniques and lore) – "I'm proud of you, Syr." Author of the Codex Albanar (Combat bonus, master of Henry Rotbart Style) – Henry wrote a book! Handsome (Diplomacy bonus) – Eh. He's not that great. Destroyer Intellect (Learning, Intrigue bonus) – Henry has a preternatural talent for knowing how to fuck shit up. An Enthusiastic Walk (increased encounter rate) – Henry has the devil's own luck. Blademaster (instinctive use of weapons, mastery of all martial arts, perceptive of weakpoints, Rotbart trait lowered three levels, all handheld weapons gain Relic quality for duration of use) – The vast majority of Henry's martial talent was concentrated into prodigious personal force projection. Invulnerated Flesh of Heaven (Combat bonus, Diplomacy penalty) – Muscles stronger than Titans. Nerves faster than light. Bones of white sunfire. Skin of hammered steel. This is the body worthy of a god. Scion of the Rotbart Lineage (halve all penalties for commanding in unfamiliar theatres, high aptitude for martial command) – Henry does not disappoint his ancestors. Phew! Black Crystal Swordsman (reduced compatibility with Black Crystal Regalia, increased aptitude with the Black Crystal Sword, unlocks Black Crystal Sword hidden techniques) – In attuning more fully to the all-cleaving Black Crystal Sword, Henry has enlightened to the singing melody of that sharp destruction. To bludgeon your enemies with a black hole born of a supergiant corpse would be a far safer prospect than wielding the Black Crystal Sword in its full panoply of annihilation. Piety Paragon Trait: Blood of Immortals (undying, regenerating, cannot fall ill, eternally youthful, all daemons aligned to Nurgle flee on sight) – Having slain the Daemon Primarch Mortarion and consumed his forsaken soul for power, Henry has expelled all purchase of Nurgle's domain upon his flesh. Age, entropy, illness and death will not touch him, the very nature of the Warp allying to his eternal soul. Combat Paragon Trait: Godslaughter (innate mastery of combat, acts twice in combat turn, treat all successes as criticals, dectuple all damage done, natural criticals wipe the field) – Henry has fought every thing he has ever seen, from Titans and Daemons, Starforts and Angylworlds, and won. This insane dedication to combat has honed his already incredible talent for martial arts into an unstoppable force of annihilation. A single stroke of his blade is enough to bisect worlds. Psychic Power Transcendent Trait: Enduring Adamantium Soul (never runs out of power, all wounds halved, all soldiers within range gain Trait: Regeneration (Swift), can kill by proximity, impossibly lucky) – The sheer weight of Henry's soul, refined countless times from the Iron Colossus of his youth, impresses upon the Materium, bending reality to his whims. In such a liminal space, the cold laws of the universe are frayed and distorted like space around a singularity. Psychic Control Transcendent Trait: The King of Witches (perfect control of local Warp, instantaneous grasp of psychic powers, temporarily add Control*0.5 to all stats at will, including Control, revered by psykers) – Achieving masterful knowledge, accumulating wisdom patiently, the secrets of the Warp have laid themselves bare to Henry. With but a thought, he weighs the scales that balance universes, siphoning the phantasmagorical potential of the Warp, or the heartless calculation of the Materium, and bind them to his will. The Blessing of Rotbart: User Access Level 2 (may temporarily channel power from the Alayan Maelstrom at will. Current bonus cap: +200) – Through deep meditation and understanding, Henry has broken the barriers that individuate his soul from the ever-seething wrathful power of mankind's great collective. His body suffused with the primeval flame, by will alone Henry commands the miniscule drop of infinity he has stolen from that fathomless ocean. Trained Medicae (+100 to all medicine rolls) – That's Doctor Rotbart to you, punk! The Grim Dark Future (historical occlusion active) – You don't know, man! You weren't there!
Born in the last millennium of mankind, Henry was raised as a warrior-king, ascending to rulership at twenty-one with the slaying of Daemon Primarch Mortarion, who had moments before beheaded Iris Rotbart, 28th Governor of Avernus. The following century was spent in total warfare, as the full forces of Chaos sought to destroy the work of the Emperor-Resurrect before untold catastrophe fell upon the galaxy.
[HISTORICAL OCCLUSION ACTIVE]
In the modern era, there is no place for a warrior of Henry's caliber, and few equals. Even now, the tales and fables of the Witch-King fade into legend, too fantastical, too terrific, and too grand for this meager realm of Primarchs and Crusades. But in the shadows of Avernus, where the last whispers of an abandoned galaxy linger, one may hear the hymns of an age, whispered only by ghosts and the shadows.
In person, Henry is an agitating jackass.
Knight of Mankind
Name: Thief-Prince
Age: Timeless
Gender: Male
M: 40+50 – The vessel slumbers, dreaming of wars to come.
I: 34+50 – The vessel leaps, swift and formless as shadow.
A: 29+50 – The vessel crafts, a million pieces in their place.
L: 22+50 – The vessel sees, and knows all.
P: 35+50 – The vessel endures, silent and still.
D: 6+50 – The vessel speaks, a thousand act.
C: 30+50 – The vessel battles not for life, but for all life to come.
Psy Power: 54+50 – The vessel has been supplied sufficient power for the task at hand.
Psy Control: 34+50 – The vessel has been grafted sufficient control for the task at hand.
First Layer: All Men Created Equal (stat bonus scales with threat index. Current bonus cap: +50) – Let the scales be balanced. Let the grounds be level. We will see what you are truly worth when the cold wind of nature blows. Second Layer: The Call to Arms (provisional access to the Torch of Mankind, trait loadout customized to each activation, defiant humans are quelled) – Duty calls. Take up arms against the Great Enemy.
Selected loadout:
Martial Blessing Trait: Supreme Commander (All units under overall command may reroll once per tactical engagement and choose greater, character counts as under command of himself, functions over galactic range) – In attuning to the abyss of war, the vessel has seized a fragment of the martial fury that echoes unending from the Warrior Aspect of Mankind. So bright is his genius, so furiously billows his heart's pounding flame, that even the furthest reaches of the battlefield are warmed by its brilliance. Intrigue Blessing Trait: Hologram Tread (all evidence of existence erased, cannot be detected by auspex, divination, or logical inference) – Born in the cloak of deception that occludes the nightmares to come, the vessel walks lighter than leaves dancing on the pond, lighter than feathers in the wind, lighter than a shadow on the plains. There and gone, one wonders whether he was truly there at all. Administration Blessing Trait: Clockwork InterlockWeb (halve time or cost for projects, all units under authority gain +10 bonus to organizational efforts) – In the body of a king is reflected the wellness of his realm. Supreme internal mastery extends outward even as it reaches in, steering entropy to the unified purpose. Learning Blessing Trait: Vitrine Clarion Sight (subjective time dilation, suffers no mental fatigue, automatically generate and complete theories from principles, cannot be deceived) – Distilled from the impurities of the material realm, the vessel surges forth, no longer bound by petty limits of perception or learning. Knowledge of within becomes knowledge of without; a vastness exists within, and two infinities are congruous in every element. Piety Blessing Trait: Mind of Diamond (cannot be corrupted, presence scours corruption, bolsters will and morale of allied forces, is uplifting to the virtuous, detrimental to the immoral, punishing to the heretical) – The vessel carries the vengeance of lost humanity in his breast, alighting to bring incinerating ruin to all traitors in turn. Diplomacy Blessing Trait: Reader of Hearts (cold-reading skill equivalent to telepathy, insidious speech, spirit-breaking condemnation) – The vessel has grasped the truth of correct conduct, and so grasps the iniquities of all those who fail in their reach. From one truth comes ten thousand truths, and from one perfection springs ten thousand imperfections. Combat Blessing Trait: An Avernite is never unarmed (unarmed martial arts gain devastating force, always has one more concealed weapon) – In exemplifying his people, the vessel draws from the apprehension of mankind for the human weapons of Hell's Gate. When his gun fires naught, he draws his blade. When his blade snaps asunder, he readies his fists. To the death he fights, this human weapon, an existence purely of slaughter in all its myriad forms. Psychic Power Blessing Trait: Supernova Ignition Soul (unrestrained growth of power, can create psykers from suitable candidates) – Long has the winter been, and sweetly blooms the spring. In tempering his need and forsaking the comfort of deception for the bed of flames called truth, the vessel suborns greed and weakness, and is greater for it. Only in the crucible of hardship can one transmute lead into gold. Psychic Control Blessing Trait: Fractal Diamond Scintillation (mindstate preserved in self-propagating Warp eddies, multiple copies can be active and reintegrated at will, almost unlimited forking capability) – The paradox of existence: a continuous stream divided into an infinitude of moments. Solidity is a matter of perspective. The vessel has commandeered this paradox engine, reflected a thousand times over within a cage of mirrors. Artifice Layer: Intelligent Design (Machine Spirit unity, Omega-class command of technologies, automatic MMI to all viable devices) – Mankind has shaped the world to his whims, and been shaped in turn. Heavenly Layer: Gate of Eden (rift into the Garden of Paradise can be opened, character wears the mantle of Azirah, assuming a winged form of pure incinerating light and wielding a sword of solar plasma) – The gate has been opened.
The Grim Dark Future (historical occlusion active) – You don't know, man! You weren't there!
The hero-archetype of mankind has arisen at the call of duty, enmeshed into a vessel of flesh. The cunning trickster, the guileful rogue, the deft hand and light foot. The dagger in the night, the poison in the cup. The shadowed prince who pulls the strings of a thousand puppets, and who rules a stolen nation.
Astartes of the Varangian Guard
Annihilator of the Varangian Guard
Pilot of the Nemesis Knight-Titan Dais of Heroes
Sergeant of the 144th Mjolnir Astartes Regiment of the Varangian Guard
A completely normal human ogryn octoroon
Name: Nicomachus Antares
Age: 500+?
M: 46 – Nicomachus is a completely normal human who also happens to know a thing or two about commanding the forces of mankind against the oncoming apocalypse.
I: 28 – Nicomachus is a totally normal human with absolutely nothing strange about him, and it's weird that you'd ask.
A: 31 – Nicomachus is absolutely bog-standard at the intricacies of managing the supply and logistics of a precision elite army in hostile territory.
L: 36 – Nicomachus is pretty average when it comes to half a millennium of accumulated study and wisdom.
P: 42 – Nicomachus eats his greens and says his prayers, like any other God-Emperor fearing citizen of the Imperium.
D: 34 – Nicomachus is a pretty cool dude.
C: 54 – Not to brag, but Nicomachus knows a thing or two about fisticuffs.
Psy Power: 4 – If you really want to know, Nicomachus knows a few card tricks for the kids.
Psy Control: 12 – Nicomachus usually keeps his head on straight.
Varangian Guardsman (skilled in logistical and organizational challenges, martially powerful, minor Avernite heritage) – Nicomachus is most certainly not part of a top-secret organization of astartes that answers only to the Emperor. The Thunderbolt Hammer (classified genetic adjustments) – And Nicomachus was definitely not part of an even secreter elite organization of astartes who served in high-conflict areas of strategic value. Seen It All (maintains cool in all circumstances) – Yeah, he's seen some shit. Paragon Combat Trait: Seven with One Blow (Attacks seven times in single turn, if focusing multiple attacks on single enemy, enemy only gets one saving roll.) – Nicomachus figured out this neat trick while trying to catch some lunch, but really, it's not that great. And that pigeon tasted awful. The Grim Dark Future (historical occlusion active) – You don't know, man! You weren't there!
Nicomachus Antares is a pretty swell guy. What a guy, that Nicomachus!
The Commander of the Iron Legion
Hero of the 41st Millennium
Name: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Age: 10000+
Gender: Male
M: 79 – The supreme commander, a master of intergalactic warfare.
I: 53 – Does he even exist, or is he simply a comforting deception of the Empire?
A: 54 – Efficient. Sufficiently so.
L: 53 – He predates half of the modern Empire, and conquered the other half.
P: 55 – There is little that shakes this man.
D: 9 – He's not here to talk.
C: 58 – A frightening prospect to face him on the battlefield.
Psy Power: 68 – Reality, like all things, surrenders to him in time.
Psy Control: 64 – He has forgotten more than you could ever know. Also, he has eidetic memory.
Command Titan {Tei Kratistos} – The first. The only. The Template. From this golden beast is spawned the unending ocean of Mankind's autonomous combat platforms, each Iron Man imbued with a copy of the Commander's mind itself. When he speaks, it is with ten trillion vox-units! When he strikes, it is with ten trillion fists! When he fires, it is with ten trillion singularities! Favoured Enemy – Tau of T'au – God, he hates them. Hates them so much. Why he hasn't simply wiped them off the face of the galaxy is anyone's guess. A Married Man – What, really? Him? Seriously? Huh. The Grim Dark Future (historical occlusion active) – You still don't know, man! You weren't there!
No one cares, Miranda.
Imperial Princess
Daughter of the Seventh Legion
Chieftainess of Inwit Cluster
Palatial Academy Soccer Striker
Palatial Academy Swim Team Member
Palatial Academy Gridiron Quarterback
Palatial Academy Judo Champ
Palatial Academy Track Team Member
"The Normal One"
Name: Remilia Dorn
Age: 18
Gender: Female
Homeworld: Inwit (Legionworld/Imperial Circle Capital)
M: 31 – As a Lady Primarch, Remilia is pretty dang good at moving pieces around a board.
I: 31 – Remilia knows the value of discretion, and can scheme, connive, and finagle with the best of them.
A: 33 – Remilia's digi-scrapbooking skills are a thing to behold.
L: 24 - Say what you want, but Remilia has some hefty marbles rolling around in that head of hers.
P: 25 – Remilia believes in one person: Remilia Dorn.
D: 32 – Remilia is a ray of sunshine on a cloudy, grimdark day.
C: 17 – Remilia's a lover, not a fighter.
Psy Power: 35 – You fool, Remilia is powerful beyond compare!
Psy Control: 20 – Pew pew! Lasers everywhere!
Seventh Lady Primarch (+15 all stats, Heart-stopping Beauty applied) – Homo Sapiens Primus v2.0. Remilia is a second-generation Primarch, now with 100% less testosterone. Though her development is decelerated in comparison to her predecessor, she is still leaps and bounds ahead of mere mortals. Scion of the Dorn Lineage (profound tolerance for discomfort) – "I, Rogal Dorn, love you, Remilia Dorn. This is true, because I do not lie." Heart-stopping Beauty (Diplomacy bonus) – Were you trying to sneak a peek? Too bad, she's wearing spats! Sportsball Prodigy (negligible benefits) – Give her a thing and another thing to put in that thing and you've got a winner. Sports! We Are Golden (morale benefits) – Remilia is an eternal optimist. There's no giving up when you're young and you want some! Social Dynamo (Diplomacy bonus) – She may not look it, but she's got fingers in every pie in the Palatial Academy. Everybody's best friend. Daddy's Girl (strong relationship with Primarch and Legion) – "Yes, Remilia. I 'wuv' you too." "WE ALSO WUV YOU, HONOURED DAUGHTER." Silver Tongue (Intrigue bonus) – It's not lying, it's enhanced truth. Reality, plus one.
Remilia Dorn is the spunky, cheerful, optimistic daughter of noted spunky, cheerful, and optimistic Primarch, Rogal Dorn. Born and raised in the icy stellar empire of the Inwit System, Remilia is powerfully aware of the effect in maintaining morale across adverse conditions. A vivacious network sensation, her good vibes cannot be stopped. They are unstoppable.
At the age of thirteen, Remilia joined her sisters in attending Terra's Palatial Academy, where she soon established a continent-spanning network of cool dudes and funky dudettes as penpals.
Reagents supply- One of the goods that Lulana is willing to trade Alkahestrial products is a collection of Alkahestry reagents from across Avernus. It will take a few years to determine which are valuable and set up a way to collect them but this is the easiest and least controversial way to expand your trade credit.
Personal (5Y, 5Y, 2Y)
5 Years
Y1: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y2: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y3: Spend Time With (Saint Lin)
Y4: Spend Time With (Saint Lin)
Y5: Spend Time With (Saint Lin)
5 Years
Y1: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y2: Spend Time With (Xavier)
Y3: Personal Attention (Reagents supply)
2 Years
Y4: Personal Attention (Expand Ain al-Asil to Small Hive)
Compiled DDs
Y1: Counter-Intelligence
Y2: Hyper Battle Cruiser Design: Ragnarok Cannon
Y3: Unknown Metal
Y4: On Primal Gods
Y5: Examine: Vortex Grenades
We should trade for Alkahestry after we acquire the 100 credits, for efficiency purposes. Plus the main gain of Alkahestry would be boosting our expendable Operatives anyhow.
Would setting up information back channels between our Arbites and another planet's be a Diplomacy action or an Arbites action? I want our spies to be able to watch for communications channels being set up by infiltrators, and that requires watching at other planets.
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