Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I think it is completely inane to ask for Corvus' help with what Ridcully has said to be a physical wound but let's wait for Durin's responce.
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The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up
- Thread starter Durin
- Start date
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
I'd say even forgetting the fact that there's a curse infused wound, I'd say one needs to be there to explain to him WTF is going on, assuming we succeed.
It won't do to have him try and punch an eldar's head off moments after the healing finishes.
Da Wun True Gitz Quest
- Location
- Earth
Da Wun True Gitz Quest
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(Quite) a few pages of arguing later...
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AN: Whew, this turned out to be much longer than I thought it would be.
scattered_winds said:
Emeria Hayes said:
Mister Chauncey Purcell said:
wyndler said:
Athawale said:
quince-chase said:
Mister Chauncey Purcell said:
Athawale said:
RostiFrosti said:
wyndler said:
scattered_winds said:
quince-chase said:
Emeria Hayes said:
Mister Chauncey Purcell said:
Athawale said:
Emeria Hayes said:
quince-chase said:
scattered_winds said:
GorkDaBrutalistest said:
Emeria Hayes said:
MorkDaKunnin' said:
wyndler said:
GorkDaBrutalistest said:
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(Quite) a few pages of arguing later...
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GorkDaBrutalistest said:
MorkDaKunnin' said:
RostiFrosti said:
GorkDaBrutalistest said:
MorkDaKunnin' said:
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GorkDaBrutalistest said:
MorkDaKunnin' said:
The Moddissar said:
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AN: Whew, this turned out to be much longer than I thought it would be.
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- Location
- Australia
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I should note there is an alternative solution that being to move Lin into the webway.
He'll be restricted to studying Eldar Gods, but there are good options: Meditating on their broken shard as well as Ynnead and Cegorach.
- Location
- Earth
But that's kind of restrictive. Can we just ask on Y1 in personal?
- Location
- Back in Cali
Then that means the danger from our research is back and since the only reason it is possible is because lin is around moving him robs us of that option.
- Location
- western US
while its nice to know about the option of hiding lin. its pretty clear that its little better then just killing him ourselves by removing all of his benifits EXCEPT his final-act.
its not worth it.
its not worth it.
- Location
- Australia
@Durin do we know how the latharians are doing?
Incursion can't happen before the end of the turn anyhow, so I don't really see how it'd be a problem.
- Location
- Australia
That sounds like a contrived and dangerous assumption.
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
I'm like 90% sure that's wrong.
- Location
- western US
I think that even WITHOUT the abom wanting to invade, or without the warp being as high as it has been lately (citation required). the universe hates us enough to send a unrelated invasion oh so conveniently at the right time to kill off lin.
(of course, we already know what it is actually the unwoken Nex subtally pushing things to become worse)
(of course, we already know what it is actually the unwoken Nex subtally pushing things to become worse)
- Location
- western US
I imagine that chaos values their "saints" as much as we do.
so they are probably pretty darn protected. this is not something the eldar can do. a handful of saints? maybe.
but the eldar don't have that kind of resources lieing around.
also:
ironically enough, we probably have as much assassination potential as they do.
HWWO and rids are basically the dream team when it comes to arbitary, ultra-long ranged assasinations....maybe throw in Jane too if/when she gets transcendent to counter people with traits that make true-killing hard.
- Location
- Australia
Could always chuck phoenix avatars at the problem. Chaos gods can beat them and that's about it.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
They ded I think.
A bit of a random question, because I could not find the answer in the information sheets. Is Ullanor/Armagedom in ork hands right now?
- Location
- Someplace USA
Gonna be honest I'm gonna laugh and cry if Lin dies of old age before we try and heal rowboat.
- Location
- Alice Springs, Australia
pretty good
I will mention that they recognize The Ancient One, he was a mid tier but OLD Hero in the WIH known as the Firstborn
near extinct due to Orks
1. you can, they estimate and 80% chance that they will get th,m all within 25 years, at the cost of many of their better warriors and assassins and quite a few issues going unattended
2. often
- Location
- Australia
Damn, too late. Wish I had this idea earlier.
The Custodian-Genetor Part 2: The Exile
- Location
- Singapore
The Custodian-Genetor
Part 2: The Exile
Part 2: The Exile
(Part 1: The Escape)
A thousand years had passed since the death of the Emperor of Mankind. Since the Sol System had been consumed by a warp storm that had now been named the Eye of Terra. Since the one called The Abomination, who purported to be the God-Emperor Reborn, laid claim to Holy Terra and turned Sol into the Daemon Star. Since the rise of Abbadon the Despoiler and his Black Imperium. Since mankind has faced the inexorable inevitability of extinction, yet continues to spit in the eye of annihilation.
Since the disappearance of Belisarius Cawl, Custodian-Genetor. Who was lost with all hands aboard the Zar Questoris and her attendant fleet, alongside his Custodian bodyguard and the Sisters of Silence who accompanied him. Who had made course for Macragge just hours before the death of the Emperor. Who was hurled into the depths of the Immaterium, his fleet scattered, his soul forsaken, his knowledge forever lost.
But time is a fickle thing in the Warp. And though a place of contradictions, paradoxes and mad methods, it turns on the wheel of fate. That which has happened will happen again. That which is lost will be found again. Purpose, burning bright, will never lead good men astray.
And in the immortal words of a madman, Belisarius Cawl is far too busy to die.
----
The Nairdas System is not a place of significance in the galaxy. A white dwarf, burning cold in the void, it has little to its name. The five planets that orbit it, each of them airless and lifeless, are lacking in resources. No rare materials, little metal, pitiful quantities of valuable prometheum compounds. Even the ancients, glorious and mighty and wise as they are, saw little worth in this place. No ancient technology slumbers in the orbit of Nairdas Prime. No secrets to plunder, no history to remember, no value in the warp. It is irrelevant, but for two, minor details.
The second is that it is where the fleet of Belisarius Cawl, Custodian-Genetor and long thought dead, finally returns to the realm of the living.
----
Emergency translation into the Materium accomplished. Seal off Decks 17-33 and vent atmosphere. His mind raced, hundreds of thousands of calculations at a time, as he put out hundreds of fires and answered dozens of calls. His fleet burned around him, screaming as they fought the madness from their minds while the madness of reality tried to strip them from limb to limb.
Magos Kardan is dead, having ripped out his bionics before the warp overtook him. Despite his past experience as an Archmagos Explorator, Cawl finds himself a poor substitute for the previous master of the Zar Questoris. But yet, he is forced to do so. Rerouting power to starboard broadsides 3 and 4. Unleashing neutron pulse in the engine compartment in two minutes.
He needs fire support. Yet his fleet is burning around him. He does what he can, options now available from desperation alone. [Magos Leandros, requesting data inload from the Archive Arcadia. The Zar Questoris is ready for sterilisation mission.] [Magos Xenopathus, requesting lance strike on the Zar Questoris. Data package transmitted. Acknowledge.]
<<Archive Arcadia acknowledges. Transmitting critical locations. Decks 15 and 19 are critical.>>
<<Xenopathus acknowledges. Omnissiah forgive me. Calculating firing solution. Standby, Archmagos.>>
The bridge rocks violently as a distant Battlecruiser fires upon its priceless flagship. The bodies that float amidst the carnage are tossed around, bumping into one another and flying off into chaotic angles. Cawl dismisses them; calculating their trajectories would be a waste of time, and he is anchored to the command throne with his mechadendrites. In moments, he receives confirmation that Deck 55 has been sterilised, and that the aft armoury has been destroyed. Crew losses are staggering, but hostile access to the Enginarium - and the Warp Drive - have been cut off. An internal timer goes off and he feels a twinge in his bionics.
Neutron pulse unleashed. Possessed servitors across Decks 31 through 49 have been slain. Bloodletters continue to operate. Skitarii strike teams have been retasked. Cawl continues to work, when a snarling, burning skull-faced daemon slams its face against the armoured screens of the bridge and stream at him. Primal, unrelenting terror fills his soul, but the Custodian-Genetor shrugs it off. He has too much to do to be terrified. [Ulysses. The Bloodthirster.]
Something strikes at the Greater Daemon from beyond the view of the bridge. It explodes violently under the Bloodthirster's skin, howling hot as a sun is born for a single moment. The Bloodthirster turns its head and screams, its roars heard despite the void of space, before a Custodian Shield-Captain stabs it right in the eye. The Bloodthirster screams again, more in rage than pain, before slapping the Custodian aside into the void - and giving pursuit. Beyond the Greater Daemon, all across the top of the Zar Questoris, daemonic legions continue to rip and tear into the ship's structure. Just beyond the sealed doors, too, Cawl knows they come for him. Only the Sisters of Silence are keeping them at bay.
He considers his options. They must be reinforced. There is only so much a squad of Custodians can do, while they are kept busy by a Bloodthirster. But communications are down, his Astropaths dead or dying, his fleet burning or hulked. But the window for escape is closing. He needs to act, before all his ships become stranded.
[Magos Zaran. Flee with the Light of Malar. Find help.]
Zaran is young, recently attached to his fleet. Though the Light of Malar is but a light cruiser, meant to lead the screening frigates, he is eager to impress. But he is not one to accept the sacrifice of others for his sake. <<But Archmagos, the Navigators… without the Astronomican, we will take weeks! Months!>>
[Then you had best leave. Save us, Zaran - or avenge us.]
Magos Zaran seems to waver over the vox. But he, too, understands. <<...Understood, Archmagos. We shall depart.>>
The daemonic hordes, seemingly sensing the Light Cruiser making a break for it, turn their attention upon it. The Bloodthirster flies towards it, seeking to crush the coward. But Shield-Captain Ulysses, never one to let something like 'being lost in the void with an exhausted means of propulsion' keep him down, slams into its back and rips its wings off.
The fighting intensifies all over, from the fleet battle to aboard the Zar Questoris. But this, Cawl knows, is the best he can do.
Though the Omnissiah is dead, he prays to him for swift travel.
----
Reinforcements arrive days later. The only ship left is the Zar Questoris, half-dead itself, with the only sane lives left aboard being the Sisters of Silence, the ten Custodians, and Belisarius Cawl himself. But these are not human vessels. They are too smooth. Too simple. Their design is undoubtedly xenos.
Recognition dawns on Cawl as these vessels begin firing upon the remaining daemons, not with macrobatteries and lance arrays, but with railguns and missiles. And he soon learns the first detail of the Nairdas System.
----
The Nairdas System is not a place of significance in the galaxy. A white dwarf, burning cold in the void, it has little to its name. The five planets that orbit it, each of them airless and lifeless, are lacking in resources. No rare materials, little metal, pitiful quantities of valuable prometheum compounds. Even the ancients, glorious and mighty and wise as they are, saw little worth in this place. No ancient technology slumbers in the orbit of Nairdas Prime. No secrets to plunder, no history to remember, no value in the warp. It is irrelevant, but for two, minor details.
The first is that it no longer belongs to the Imperium of Man.
"Fear not, ship of Imperium Secundus. For you are now honoured guests of the Greater Good."
It, and the Lav Tes'dep Sector it belongs to, are now the domain of the Tau Empire.
----
A single Ark Mechanicus, against an entire Tau patrol fleet, would be a difficult battle to win. An Ark that had been lost in the Warp? Assailed by countless monsters? Half-dead, without crew, most of its systems offline? There was no contest.
So Cawl surrendered. He remembered bits of the Tau, the xenos empire on the edge of the Ultima Segmentum, which had been left alive by their remoteness - and by the interest his more radical colleagues took in their technology. He himself lacked interest, for though the Tau and their client races possessed some interest to him - the Kroot especially - his work on the Adeptus Astartes was too important, and occupied too much of his time.
Now he was imprisoned. Treated well, of course, and allowed his bodyguard. Given the illusion of fair treatment and care by the Tau. Even informed of the state of the galaxy, such as it was. He had known time would pass after they were lost in the Warp, but…
It had been a long time. Far, far too long. It might be too late. His work was now, more than ever, crucial. He must complete it.
But his capture by the Tau will complicate things. He can only hope that the Light of Malar survived to find Macragge, such as it is.
But he must husband his time. Ulysses recommends simply taking the ship more than once - even without their weapons the Custodians are mighty warriors and frighteningly capable assassins - but he dissuades him. Escape was impossible aboard the crippled Zar Questoris and it remains so now.
He will cooperate. For now.
----
"Good day once more, Archmagos Cawl. Shall we begin?"
[I suppose.]
The Tau Water Caste that greets him today in this white, featureless room is the same one as ever. This diplomat has been engaging him daily ever since they were deposited onto some Tau planet, asking him simple questions and fielding queries of his own. Cawl knows that the Tau want something from him. They know his name, and seem to have expanded far past their former territories. They surely know of his fearsome reputation.
But this one keeps avoiding the question they both know is on their minds. He just continues to field inane smalltalk, trying to get him to lower his guard and trust him. Not that he ever would. He lacks information. He lacks an unbiased opinion. He lacks even an imperial opinion. And there is only one thing Cawl can think of that the Tau would ask him for.
And he would never do something so treasonous as reveal the secrets of the Adeptus Astartes.
The diplomat nods genially, fingers interlaced as he sets his arms across the table - a very human gesture. Some things remain universal. "Archmagos, what have we told you about the galaxy at large?"
[That the Imperium has fallen and a Chaos-corrupted corpse has risen in its stead,] Cawl responds. [And the sane powers of the galaxy are on the edge of annihilation. And the Tau Empire considers itself one of them.]
The diplomat nods with a ghost of a smile. "Do you believe otherwise?"
[I've always known the Tau to be reasonable - when it suits your purposes. And I know that the Tau have always had a strange resistance to the Warp. I have no reason to believe you would lie.]
"That is good," the diplomat nods. "Because we have not been entirely truthful."
Cawl nods. The Tau never mentioned if the Black Imperium was the sum total of the Imperium, but he always considered it unlikely. The Imperium he knew, a rotting carcass long due its death, was too fractured to fall at once. There would be those still willing to resist - and those with the power to do so. The Adeptus Astartes, at least, would not die quietly. [Then tell me what you have neglected to mention.]
And so the diplomat speaks. Of the Empire of Ashes. Of the Krork. Of Imperium Secundus - and then Cawl knew that there was hope for the Light of Malar after all. But the Tau also spoke of the war they fought against the heirs of Guiliman, a war that cooled from one of annihilations for the sake of fighting evil - that is to say, the Orks and the forces of Chaos, as ever… But also the Destroyer. The mutual threat to both their polities.
"And that," the diplomat concludes, "Brings us to why I am telling you all of this."
Cawl leans back. This is when the ultimatum is dropped. [Before that. Why are you being so forthright with me? You have not tried to trap me in a cage of my own words, seal me into a contract I cannot refuse. Why?]
"Because we know what you are capable of, Archmagos Biologis. The former tech-priests of our realm speak highly of you, and they always speak of your genius, your experience…" The diplomat lets the words curl on his tongue. "...Your obsession."
And here it comes. [I refuse. The secrets of the Space Marines are not for sale.]
The diplomat frowns. Partially disappointment, partially anger. Cawl never worked on the Tau but he has read the autopsy reports. He at least knows how to read them - and he knows that this diplomat is being obvious with his emotions, believing that being forthright would lead to better results. "Archmagos Cawl, surely you understand what it means to be in a losing war. In exchange, we will return you, your guards, and your ship to Imperium Secundus. Free, protected passage. Surely, that information is worth, if not the continued existence of sanity in the face of evil, your safe return!"
[It is sacred and off the table. I will speak of it no longer.] Cawl remarks bitterly. But yet, he considers his options. As the diplomat sighs and gets ready to give up, he speaks. [But I do appreciate your honesty. Which is why I will instead offer another deal, one I believe will be more useful to the Tau.]
The diplomat looks at him, blandly interested. "And what would you offer us, Archmagos, for your return?"
[I will not offer the Adeptus Astartes. But I will create a new breed of supersoldier, built off your own species. I understand that the Tau are given to several physical shortcomings. Shortcomings I am more than capable of resolving.] Cawl lies through his teeth, but only partially; his understanding of Tau biology is incomplete, but nothing that he could not resolve after some study. And he is an Archmagos Biologis; one of the most accomplished in the long history of the Imperium. [When I am done with them, you will have mighty warriors, far easier to create and far more numerous than the Adeptus Astartes you seek. In exchange, I expect to have the freedom to work, and to be repaid in safe passage for me and my bodyguards and my Ark back to Macragge itself.]
The diplomat looks at him, firm and unyielding. "I will grant the second, but the first is unreasonable. What if you sabotaged the project?"
Cawl notes some approval that the diplomat is willing to court the possibility. The thought had crossed his mind, and as a master of genetics and biological enhancement it would take a long time before people realised the difference between the limitations of biology and deliberate sabotage. But he is only human. And the Tau are likely more familiar with their own biology.
Still, despite his own obsessive perfectionism, if he were to let some flaws persist this time… Well, who could fault him? He is working with unfamiliar material.
[I have laboured on the mysteries of Gene-Seed for over ten thousand years. Are you questioning my pride in my life's work?]
The diplomat seems satisfied with this answer. "Very well then. Thank you, Archmagos Cawl. We will return shortly with a response."
He stands, as does Cawl. And the diplomat leaves the room. Soon, armed Fire Warriors come to escort Cawl away, as usual.
Cawl immediately begins preparing for his next work. Nothing so grand as the Primaris Project… But something that would buy him safety.
And if the Tau were telling the truth about the galaxy… It might even help the Imperium.
----
"...So, do you think it is viable?"
The Shas'O says nothing. Decades of war have given him a perspective on the frailty of their flesh - the wear of ages shows even on him. Something, anything that could blunt the edge of time itself would be… more than worthwhile. Not to mention general enhancements in all other areas. The soldier was what made the war machine, after all.
But… what if they could do more? There was still the lingering mystery of the Kroot and their genetics. Were this Cawl able to crack that code, they could create an army of chimeric warriors, capable of learning from every enemy they defeat. This could be the decisive edge they need in this eternal war.
"It might well be. Do you think the Archmagos is cooperative?"
The diplomat nods. "I doubt he will put in his best effort, but he is unlikely to sabotage the project."
"Then it will have to do. I will speak to the Aun'O. Expect a swift answer; this has implications for all Septs."
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Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Dude Archetype doesn't increase life span + he's a saint, which precludes gaining an archetype.
Durin just said that having an Archetype does increase lifespan often, and why would being a saint preclude gaining an archetype?