The Lost Primarch Quest
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A Question About Runes. Or: "Why Is This Elf Clown Asking Me About Magic Scribbles And Lore-Dumping About Their Own?!"
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TinyGladiator
Just another SVer
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Hiya! Decided to make an omake on Runes again, this time a more broad focus and more focused on a different type of Rune stuff than Kesar's own brand. Most of this was written focusing on canon Aeldari lore and stuff on the Discord server, so I hope it's fitting enough to read!
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A Question About Runes. Or: "Why Is This Elf Clown Asking Me About Magic Scribbles And Lore-Dumping About Their Own?!"
You are Kesar Dorlin, Primarch of the Eternal Wardens, and you hear something following your scholarly delving.
Within the Black Library, echoing across its labyrinthine halls, was laughter. A breathless, musical resonance that danced behind the floors and up to the ceiling. The voice of ghosts that were waiting to be heard, waiting to die to become what they were, waiting for the pages to be turned.
The laugh of the Laughing God.
You set down a tome of screams and place it back on the glass pedestal where it belonged. Chains emerged from shadowy nothingness and dragged it away to unseen domains within this realm of knowledge. The sounds of creaking wood, of bending spacetime, herald the chimes of a jester's bells.
A hand pulls away a door that was not there, that wasn't a door, and you blink away the absolute impossibilities that your eyes witnessed and find yourself directly face-to-face with the divine master of this domain.
"Enjoying your stay?" Cegorach, God of the Harlequins, asked with a smile that was like a crescent moon. Gleaming bright teeth shined like they were gemstones. Eyes that were focused on you with an unnerving intensity that conflicted with the exaggerated, laid-back expression as if none of this mattered, a voice that was crystal clear in a way that felt like it imposed itself to be heard above every sound.
"Yes, I was." you say, trying to match the casual tone. "May I ask what this is about?"
"A request. A trade. A… well, you could say a game. What better way to receive answers than to ask questions? A quick one between the two of us, something to fit in this library like a book to a shelf."
Playing games with a trickster god sounded like the type of idea one would right morals about. You didn't particularly feel like you were going to end up as a bad example in a story, unless you thoroughly misjudged everything that lead you to this moment. It should be safe to indulge in this, the polite thing to do. Safe enough, at least.
"How do we play this game?"
"A question is asked, an answer is given. Then a question is asked by the other party, of a related topic. It'll be as quick as you like and as long as you wish. It all depends on what's asked, on what I'll ask."
You grimace, seeing where this was leading. "I didn't realise we were already playing."
"Oh," the Laughing God laughs. "Are we? Of course, you're already a master in strange queries and scholarly pursuits! Well, if you so insist, then I'll properly start and not hold anything back."
The being slowly lowered itself to match your gaze, bending down in a contortion that you were sure an Aeldari could never normally do. Unblinking with their unwavering smile, a face like a mask or perhaps the other way around. There was always laughter in the distance.
It'd probably be a lot more unnerving if you hadn't dedicated your life to facing nightmares far worse than this, albeit you rarely faced anything as dangerous as this. You were prepared to answer anything for this strange interlude. Already focused against Chaos and aware of the Emperor's plans, you could guess what-
"What's with the Runes?" Cegorach suddenly asks, beginning the game.
You blink. "What?"
"The Runes." the god carefully repeats, enunciating as though the word slowly as though it was unfamiliar. "Glyphs. Symbols. Aetheric circuits. The artistic language-based designs of a conceptual nature that reflect ideas sourced from the Sea of Souls that you've been carefully researching and mostly sharing for decades. That whole thing you're doing, ever heard of it?"
"You're asking about that?"
"It's not your turn. Ah, spoke to soon, you're still a beginner at this after all. Will I have to explain my own jokes to you, break them down like it's the Imperial economy?"
There is a sound of a sigh. A breath finally taken from the endless, quiet cacophony of echoing mirth. The god pulls back and takes on the role of simple, dull explanation. Such is the cost of the game.
The Black Library blooms as a flower. Walls fall down, sinking like melting ice on still water, and you gaze upon greater structures that contain more books, scrolls, data-slates, recording devices and carvings than you could read with centuries of dedicated effort.
"This domain is the epitome of knowledge and while vast and varied it is already focused against our archenemy, and while you are uniquely a Daemonsbane and Anathema you have almost nothing I could get from a mere few questions that would add to this collection. That one book you've recently written about the topic is already here because you've freely spread it around. And I already know you, what you've accomplished, what your potential is."
A finger snaps and everything disappears. You blink and look before a shelf that contains tiny, black and white figurines that were arranged together. Some locked in battle against unseen opponents, frozen mid-swing or mid-shot. Others stood as resolute figures that were ready to lead a charge. One of them was you, wielding Epitaph in one hand as you held up raw flame in another.
"I know your history," the Great Harlequin proclaims as they wave their hands towards the little replicas. "I know and deeply understand what drives you and your extremely large lineage. I also know enough about your Runes and how they work and most of the important little details, but it's still a topic surprisingly distant from you. Even with that world of students you've painstakingly made, the idea echoes rather than speaks. So I ask what you're doing with your little efforts there."
You pick up the figurine of yourself. It's as weightless as dust and as fragile as cheap glass. The details were so intricate that they were a marvel. The caricature could almost speak with how their eyes shone in the light, how their blade was sharpened and yet not, how their face seemed to be sculpted to be a strange half-mirror to yours. It wouldn't say anything clever or real, but it got across the idea. The ideal.
"I didn't actually invent the Rune concept." you admit, placing the tiny mimic back down. "That was someone else, from my homeworld's distant past."
"Heavens, you're a plagiarist?" Cegorach recoiled. With another snap of their fingers, the shelf and all the miniature figurines on them were launched somewhere off in the distance as though struck by a Baneblade's cannon. "Disgusting, although not surprising. I've seen many attempts over the long years that were similar to this, if less successful for the most part."
"It was called the Library of Nalanda, an old building built to contain psychic lore. Most of it was damaged and degraded, to the point of it being nearly unusable compared to what it must have been before, but I managed to gather enough knowledge to understand what could be done. I was already trying to study the power of the Immaterium and use it against the wretched corruption I faced, this was just a next step.
How wistful you sounded. Such a distant past now, back when everything was so much simpler and new and yet complex and strange. You had no idea that you'd end up like this. You barely even knew what you were or what you'd end up fighting for.
"'Fight fire with fire', to borrow one of your ancient phrases." the Laughing God quoted. "But you should have considered this power long before an old ruin could tell you how it worked. Daemons, cultists, that old wound I see you suffered. All of them showcase their own arcane designs, ritual circles, runic symbols of the ruin they worship. Never stoked any interest in what else that could be used for?"
"I suspected what could be attempted," you admitted, grimacing at the idea of delving into such in-depth Chaos study at a vulnerable time. "But I could not consider any safe pathway into even beginning such a line of research until Nalanda."
"Ah, Chaos. Such a universal blockage to inspiration and enlightenment." the First Fool nodded sagely, a tone of sympathy slipping from their endless grin. "I bet it feels more than a little satisfying to find any way to harness the Sea of Souls yo your will. But you haven't answered my question, only coloured and spiced it lightly. Why are you so invested in this line of research compared to anything else? What draws you to drawing these scribbles? Into diving so deep here than elsewhere?"
There's so many ways to answer those questions. Ones you've asked yourself a few times, often without even realising you had done so. In the quiet moments between struggle and breakthrough, in the meditative trance of tangible progress for an intangible. You look down briefly to see your own etchings. You look back up and wield your answer.
"Valhalla faced calamity from psykers corrupted by our enemy, yet it also experienced salvation from those that remained pure and resolute. Their sacrifice proved beyond doubt that those that wielded the Empyrean were not inherently evil or misguided. So I want to prove to everyone, especially the forces of Chaos, that the Warp is not merely the domain of daemons and madness."
Gellar fields, Warp drives, void shields, teleportariums, vortex torpedoes and even psykerc focuses all had important roles to surviving the galaxy and winning wars against its worst nightmares and were, in a sense also ways to wield and master the Immaterium. But none were as purely sourced from the Sea of Souls nor as powerful, not even your work with Warp-resonant architecture could compare to this language you slowly made.
"It will be my victory." you declare. "A triumph for all who make, wield and know of this work. Order against Chaos, of my design and vision to be granted to all."
"And how will you attain this mythical victory?" Cegorach suddenly leaned forward, eyes wide and piercing. "Hm? I see that little world you've finished setting up, all the Warp-touched there making their own scratchings. Do you want more worlds like that across the galaxy, more wondrous cities filled with ritualist carvers? Are you going to teach them how to make their own patterns and styles? Find some way to abolish the need for psykers at all in the creation process?"
The Black Library shifts again, gleaming brightly with its crystalline architecture. It shines like a stage above and below the god as it speaks. Its words echo across and awakens the material itself.
"Will you speak Runes to conjure miracles and destroy your enemies? Create enough of these glyphs to genuinely make a new language people can use for both communication and as a tool? What, pray tell, is the end goal?"
The lights turn towards you. Like the tides of an ocean. Like the tendrils of a star.
"Where, Kesar Dorlin, will your desire take you with your art?"
There is only one answer that you can give.
"It will take me to a time where I will carve the death of Chaos itself." you promise.
There's a few moments of silence. The endless laughter abating again for a while. The Great Harlequin slowly leans back and looks up and above your head. Tasting the response as it wormed around the air.
"Hm." the god considers. "Rather… simple for an answer, single-minded. Not a bad reason, though. I suppose that's to be expected from you. Single-mindedness can get you quite far."
Their gaze falls back onto you. The laughter resumes. "Very well, I'll consider this the end of my turn. Ask."
For a related topic, you could think of one thing that you'd want to ask more than anything else. Something so similar yet different, a perfect point of comparison and alternate study. You didn't have the time yet to deeply delve into it, but you wouldn't pass up the opportunity for a brief explanation.
"What do the Runes of the Eldar mean for you, Cegorach?" you ask.
"Ah, aha, such a predictable question." the First Fool nods, rolling their eyes as though you just said an old in-joke. "Fair's fair, mhm? What do you know of the Aeldari language?"
"Not much," you admit. "It's a lot more complicated than I thought to learn, and I haven't had the time. Isn't it my turn to question?"
"Hush, don't act smart with me at my own game, you're going to need a lesson or two to understand anything I'm saying. But if you want haste so plainly, I'll explain it plainly. They're a tapestry."
A moment of silence passes.
"Can you elaborate on that?"
"Yes, I could."
You roll your eyes. "How about right now?"
"Aside from stuff like that," a long finger pokes the Primal Rune of Anathema on your armour. "Which annoying blurs both the veil and my simplifications, your designs do not display, reflect or manifest an entire concept. 'Entierty' is a strange thing to ascribe to something like a concept. There's power to it as much as danger if it's even attempted."
One of the figurines, the little caricature of yourself, suddenly manifests in Cegorach's hand.
"What if one of these little dolls was you? Was imbued by your essence? By all of what makes you… you? Could even seem to move, to think, to speak like you? Would it be you, even as you move, think and talk to me here? That's far too difficult to do. Can you even imagine the entirety of a concept? Any concept? That's far beyond the scope of Runes, that's in the realm of gateways that you don't want to ever suddenly open."
The head of doll the was pointedly tapped against the Primal Rune of Anathema before it disappeared once more.
"All these designs," the First Fool lectures. "Including ones wielded by Chaos, work by calling on a concept and partially channelling it. A small drain for endless, infinite tides. But where they differ is how they channel them at all, the shape of these holes. Your Runes function by your perception, your own understanding, that filters conceptual energy to an easy to reach scale rather than the colossal effort of true totality."
"I'm aware of how intrinsic perception is this process." you interrupt. "Aside from the difficulties of 'sharing my views' to the students on Ogma, my son Crescum Auro has already invented his own Runes based on his own views."
"Really?" Cegorach asked. "What's he made?"
"A Rune of Light that forces all forms of illumination to adhere to the laws of the Materium, and recently a combination of death and time known as Rune of Nechronal."
"Death and time mixed together?" the echoing laughter redoubles. "Hah, that's a throwback! Haven't heard of that in sixty million years or so. Is he dead yet?"
"Not to my knowledge?" you answer, suddenly worried. "Should I be concerned?"
"It's probably fine if he managed to carve it safely. Must be doing something right! The more things that change, hah."
The laughter calms back down to its original state. The voice of the Harlequin god always able to be heard. It clung to them like a mantle. You wondered how your presence sounded to a daemon and hoped that they felt nothing but fear in response, if it made any noise at all.
"The Runes of the Aeldari function, in the sense of 'using' them to channel psychic power, by being based on something you could claim is resonance with divinity."
"So the presence of a god works as an anchor or source of power, and Runes are just a conduit towards them from which this energy can be used?"
"Not quite. Gods can work in a similar way with mundane blessings, but there is so much more to divinity than just the divine. It's mythology itself. Perspective. Faith as well, and yet not necessarily to the gods. Faith in themselves, in what they do. Understanding is the real key. The reason why I brought up the Aeldari language? That's because our Runes are, in a very real sense, simply just our written language."
"Oh?"
"Our symbols don't correlate to 'letters' or 'words' as most humans, and other lifeforms, write things down. Each of them directly represents a concept, just like your Runes. Which means you're a plagiarist twice-over, but all you upstarts are guilty of that. The only real difference is how much power they're given, the intent used to wield them as a tool than as a message."
"Huh," you begin. "That… sort of reminds me of how the psychic shamans of the Orks use their own crude glyphs to channel their Waaagh energies, when most of them just seem to act as normal writing when used elsewhere."
"Always a hilarious comparison!" the First Fool nodded. "Go and tell Eldrad that to his face next time you see him. Or Alcard."
"Who's Alcard?"
"He'll tell you better than I can."
You considered Cegorach's words and everything you knew of the Warp, from your own psychic designs to everything you managed to gain access from the Black Library. The implications were as obvious as they were blinding. So many pieces fit into place under this framework.
"So the Runes of the Eldar work, in a conceptual psychic-sense, by containing or framing everything on Aeldari perception?" you extrapolate. "Utilising your own culture and mythology as a narratively powerful focus, and can be so easily used, channelled and even added to by any Eldar because it's literally just your language?"
"That's a mostly correct way of looking at it."
That made perfect sense. It was also completely insane that any of this was true.
"Is your species literally empowered by… itself?" you ask, baffled. That sounded almost as though how Orks were determined to work. "As my Runes work based on my understanding of concepts, yours all work by the shared concept and perception of an Eldar? It's that easy for you? To achieve that framework, that 'tapestry', would… I can't imagine what power that would take. That goes beyond even gods, how could this even begin to be done?"
The laughter stops. The smile of the Great Harlequin fades away. Something beyond humour and piercing intensity manifests in the god's eyes. A quietness beyond mere silence, an emptiness emerges.
The Master of the Black Library waves a hand and a collection of statues rise up. Massive and gleaming figures that radiated with a power that you rarely felt. They are crafted with glory, carved to a level of detail you weren't sure you could ever match.
Where the Laughing God points is the tallest of them all. A plaque reads, in countless languages, 'Asuryan'.
"Pride and wisdom, to know oneself and their greatness." Cegorach intones, before their hand moves towards one marked 'Isha'. "Love and empathy, to understand another deeply. Creation and brilliance, to manifest dreams into reality. Joy and wonder, the maiden's gift to happiness. Desire and want, to hunt for a greater life. Foresight and fear, to know one's limits and place. Rage and wrath, to survive and defend these precious gifts."
The First Fool gestures at their own form.
"Trickery and mockery, to laugh at others and to know one's absurdity." Cegorach grins once more, the expression smaller than before. "Hypocrisy. Mistakes. Failures. Pointlessness and then perseverance. To see the humour in it all from a distance. I am those words. I am the concepts behind them. I am so much more, but such is how I am shaped. How we were all shaped into such roles. Shaped by words, by concepts, by Aeldari, by what shaped the Aeldari."
The Runes across the Black Library blaze with light. On the floor, on the ceiling, on all the walls around you. They surge with the power from the whispers of a god.
"We have those words because they are what make us. They surge in their minds like blood beats in your twin-hearts. We see a gemstone, the burning core of what it means and represents, and thus we are shaped by the word as much as we cut and cleave and sing. They can be a worthless rock, a tear shed from the love of a gentle fool, an ornament of legend or merely a pleasant gift. All of them are divided by context but share the same concept, the same resonance, are seen by the same minds as the same thing. Our very words are purity itself. That is the difference."
Darkness descends as the gleaming statues lose all lustre. The ignited glyphs around you begin to falter. Everything fades away.
"Even in death, even as they scream in a powerless struggle, these lost children can still wield our voices to sing with them. Because we haven't left them. We are their words, their emotions, their concepts. We will always be with them as they mourn, cry, fight, live, love, desire, hope, pray and strive for the future. Even when we were silenced. Even as we fought each other. We could never really left them. We were there, oh children of the stars. Always."
And the show suddenly stops. You blink and everything was back to normal.
Their language was divine, their gods were shaped and interwoven into emotion and domain on a way that you had not seen outside of Chaos itself, and the Aeldari were psychically united and empowered by mindset and culture.
In a way, you were looking at a glimpse of what your future could be. The victory you sought when you delved deep enough into the script you were slowly making. A true language that could be used. What would that even look like for humanity? Even just for your own sons? For yourself?
"Hah, that's just a bunch of words though." Cegorach casually shrugged. "It's all the same, in the end. Just shapes and sounds. I think it's my turn again? Ah well, I think we've both learned enough for now. I won, by the way."
Without another word, the god disappeared immediately, leaving you to your thoughts.
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A Question About Runes. Or: "Why Is This Elf Clown Asking Me About Magic Scribbles And Lore-Dumping About Their Own?!"
You are Kesar Dorlin, Primarch of the Eternal Wardens, and you hear something following your scholarly delving.
Within the Black Library, echoing across its labyrinthine halls, was laughter. A breathless, musical resonance that danced behind the floors and up to the ceiling. The voice of ghosts that were waiting to be heard, waiting to die to become what they were, waiting for the pages to be turned.
The laugh of the Laughing God.
You set down a tome of screams and place it back on the glass pedestal where it belonged. Chains emerged from shadowy nothingness and dragged it away to unseen domains within this realm of knowledge. The sounds of creaking wood, of bending spacetime, herald the chimes of a jester's bells.
A hand pulls away a door that was not there, that wasn't a door, and you blink away the absolute impossibilities that your eyes witnessed and find yourself directly face-to-face with the divine master of this domain.
"Enjoying your stay?" Cegorach, God of the Harlequins, asked with a smile that was like a crescent moon. Gleaming bright teeth shined like they were gemstones. Eyes that were focused on you with an unnerving intensity that conflicted with the exaggerated, laid-back expression as if none of this mattered, a voice that was crystal clear in a way that felt like it imposed itself to be heard above every sound.
"Yes, I was." you say, trying to match the casual tone. "May I ask what this is about?"
"A request. A trade. A… well, you could say a game. What better way to receive answers than to ask questions? A quick one between the two of us, something to fit in this library like a book to a shelf."
Playing games with a trickster god sounded like the type of idea one would right morals about. You didn't particularly feel like you were going to end up as a bad example in a story, unless you thoroughly misjudged everything that lead you to this moment. It should be safe to indulge in this, the polite thing to do. Safe enough, at least.
"How do we play this game?"
"A question is asked, an answer is given. Then a question is asked by the other party, of a related topic. It'll be as quick as you like and as long as you wish. It all depends on what's asked, on what I'll ask."
You grimace, seeing where this was leading. "I didn't realise we were already playing."
"Oh," the Laughing God laughs. "Are we? Of course, you're already a master in strange queries and scholarly pursuits! Well, if you so insist, then I'll properly start and not hold anything back."
The being slowly lowered itself to match your gaze, bending down in a contortion that you were sure an Aeldari could never normally do. Unblinking with their unwavering smile, a face like a mask or perhaps the other way around. There was always laughter in the distance.
It'd probably be a lot more unnerving if you hadn't dedicated your life to facing nightmares far worse than this, albeit you rarely faced anything as dangerous as this. You were prepared to answer anything for this strange interlude. Already focused against Chaos and aware of the Emperor's plans, you could guess what-
"What's with the Runes?" Cegorach suddenly asks, beginning the game.
You blink. "What?"
"The Runes." the god carefully repeats, enunciating as though the word slowly as though it was unfamiliar. "Glyphs. Symbols. Aetheric circuits. The artistic language-based designs of a conceptual nature that reflect ideas sourced from the Sea of Souls that you've been carefully researching and mostly sharing for decades. That whole thing you're doing, ever heard of it?"
"You're asking about that?"
"It's not your turn. Ah, spoke to soon, you're still a beginner at this after all. Will I have to explain my own jokes to you, break them down like it's the Imperial economy?"
There is a sound of a sigh. A breath finally taken from the endless, quiet cacophony of echoing mirth. The god pulls back and takes on the role of simple, dull explanation. Such is the cost of the game.
The Black Library blooms as a flower. Walls fall down, sinking like melting ice on still water, and you gaze upon greater structures that contain more books, scrolls, data-slates, recording devices and carvings than you could read with centuries of dedicated effort.
"This domain is the epitome of knowledge and while vast and varied it is already focused against our archenemy, and while you are uniquely a Daemonsbane and Anathema you have almost nothing I could get from a mere few questions that would add to this collection. That one book you've recently written about the topic is already here because you've freely spread it around. And I already know you, what you've accomplished, what your potential is."
A finger snaps and everything disappears. You blink and look before a shelf that contains tiny, black and white figurines that were arranged together. Some locked in battle against unseen opponents, frozen mid-swing or mid-shot. Others stood as resolute figures that were ready to lead a charge. One of them was you, wielding Epitaph in one hand as you held up raw flame in another.
"I know your history," the Great Harlequin proclaims as they wave their hands towards the little replicas. "I know and deeply understand what drives you and your extremely large lineage. I also know enough about your Runes and how they work and most of the important little details, but it's still a topic surprisingly distant from you. Even with that world of students you've painstakingly made, the idea echoes rather than speaks. So I ask what you're doing with your little efforts there."
You pick up the figurine of yourself. It's as weightless as dust and as fragile as cheap glass. The details were so intricate that they were a marvel. The caricature could almost speak with how their eyes shone in the light, how their blade was sharpened and yet not, how their face seemed to be sculpted to be a strange half-mirror to yours. It wouldn't say anything clever or real, but it got across the idea. The ideal.
"I didn't actually invent the Rune concept." you admit, placing the tiny mimic back down. "That was someone else, from my homeworld's distant past."
"Heavens, you're a plagiarist?" Cegorach recoiled. With another snap of their fingers, the shelf and all the miniature figurines on them were launched somewhere off in the distance as though struck by a Baneblade's cannon. "Disgusting, although not surprising. I've seen many attempts over the long years that were similar to this, if less successful for the most part."
"It was called the Library of Nalanda, an old building built to contain psychic lore. Most of it was damaged and degraded, to the point of it being nearly unusable compared to what it must have been before, but I managed to gather enough knowledge to understand what could be done. I was already trying to study the power of the Immaterium and use it against the wretched corruption I faced, this was just a next step.
How wistful you sounded. Such a distant past now, back when everything was so much simpler and new and yet complex and strange. You had no idea that you'd end up like this. You barely even knew what you were or what you'd end up fighting for.
"'Fight fire with fire', to borrow one of your ancient phrases." the Laughing God quoted. "But you should have considered this power long before an old ruin could tell you how it worked. Daemons, cultists, that old wound I see you suffered. All of them showcase their own arcane designs, ritual circles, runic symbols of the ruin they worship. Never stoked any interest in what else that could be used for?"
"I suspected what could be attempted," you admitted, grimacing at the idea of delving into such in-depth Chaos study at a vulnerable time. "But I could not consider any safe pathway into even beginning such a line of research until Nalanda."
"Ah, Chaos. Such a universal blockage to inspiration and enlightenment." the First Fool nodded sagely, a tone of sympathy slipping from their endless grin. "I bet it feels more than a little satisfying to find any way to harness the Sea of Souls yo your will. But you haven't answered my question, only coloured and spiced it lightly. Why are you so invested in this line of research compared to anything else? What draws you to drawing these scribbles? Into diving so deep here than elsewhere?"
There's so many ways to answer those questions. Ones you've asked yourself a few times, often without even realising you had done so. In the quiet moments between struggle and breakthrough, in the meditative trance of tangible progress for an intangible. You look down briefly to see your own etchings. You look back up and wield your answer.
"Valhalla faced calamity from psykers corrupted by our enemy, yet it also experienced salvation from those that remained pure and resolute. Their sacrifice proved beyond doubt that those that wielded the Empyrean were not inherently evil or misguided. So I want to prove to everyone, especially the forces of Chaos, that the Warp is not merely the domain of daemons and madness."
Gellar fields, Warp drives, void shields, teleportariums, vortex torpedoes and even psykerc focuses all had important roles to surviving the galaxy and winning wars against its worst nightmares and were, in a sense also ways to wield and master the Immaterium. But none were as purely sourced from the Sea of Souls nor as powerful, not even your work with Warp-resonant architecture could compare to this language you slowly made.
"It will be my victory." you declare. "A triumph for all who make, wield and know of this work. Order against Chaos, of my design and vision to be granted to all."
"And how will you attain this mythical victory?" Cegorach suddenly leaned forward, eyes wide and piercing. "Hm? I see that little world you've finished setting up, all the Warp-touched there making their own scratchings. Do you want more worlds like that across the galaxy, more wondrous cities filled with ritualist carvers? Are you going to teach them how to make their own patterns and styles? Find some way to abolish the need for psykers at all in the creation process?"
The Black Library shifts again, gleaming brightly with its crystalline architecture. It shines like a stage above and below the god as it speaks. Its words echo across and awakens the material itself.
"Will you speak Runes to conjure miracles and destroy your enemies? Create enough of these glyphs to genuinely make a new language people can use for both communication and as a tool? What, pray tell, is the end goal?"
The lights turn towards you. Like the tides of an ocean. Like the tendrils of a star.
"Where, Kesar Dorlin, will your desire take you with your art?"
There is only one answer that you can give.
"It will take me to a time where I will carve the death of Chaos itself." you promise.
There's a few moments of silence. The endless laughter abating again for a while. The Great Harlequin slowly leans back and looks up and above your head. Tasting the response as it wormed around the air.
"Hm." the god considers. "Rather… simple for an answer, single-minded. Not a bad reason, though. I suppose that's to be expected from you. Single-mindedness can get you quite far."
Their gaze falls back onto you. The laughter resumes. "Very well, I'll consider this the end of my turn. Ask."
For a related topic, you could think of one thing that you'd want to ask more than anything else. Something so similar yet different, a perfect point of comparison and alternate study. You didn't have the time yet to deeply delve into it, but you wouldn't pass up the opportunity for a brief explanation.
"What do the Runes of the Eldar mean for you, Cegorach?" you ask.
"Ah, aha, such a predictable question." the First Fool nods, rolling their eyes as though you just said an old in-joke. "Fair's fair, mhm? What do you know of the Aeldari language?"
"Not much," you admit. "It's a lot more complicated than I thought to learn, and I haven't had the time. Isn't it my turn to question?"
"Hush, don't act smart with me at my own game, you're going to need a lesson or two to understand anything I'm saying. But if you want haste so plainly, I'll explain it plainly. They're a tapestry."
A moment of silence passes.
"Can you elaborate on that?"
"Yes, I could."
You roll your eyes. "How about right now?"
"Aside from stuff like that," a long finger pokes the Primal Rune of Anathema on your armour. "Which annoying blurs both the veil and my simplifications, your designs do not display, reflect or manifest an entire concept. 'Entierty' is a strange thing to ascribe to something like a concept. There's power to it as much as danger if it's even attempted."
One of the figurines, the little caricature of yourself, suddenly manifests in Cegorach's hand.
"What if one of these little dolls was you? Was imbued by your essence? By all of what makes you… you? Could even seem to move, to think, to speak like you? Would it be you, even as you move, think and talk to me here? That's far too difficult to do. Can you even imagine the entirety of a concept? Any concept? That's far beyond the scope of Runes, that's in the realm of gateways that you don't want to ever suddenly open."
The head of doll the was pointedly tapped against the Primal Rune of Anathema before it disappeared once more.
"All these designs," the First Fool lectures. "Including ones wielded by Chaos, work by calling on a concept and partially channelling it. A small drain for endless, infinite tides. But where they differ is how they channel them at all, the shape of these holes. Your Runes function by your perception, your own understanding, that filters conceptual energy to an easy to reach scale rather than the colossal effort of true totality."
"I'm aware of how intrinsic perception is this process." you interrupt. "Aside from the difficulties of 'sharing my views' to the students on Ogma, my son Crescum Auro has already invented his own Runes based on his own views."
"Really?" Cegorach asked. "What's he made?"
"A Rune of Light that forces all forms of illumination to adhere to the laws of the Materium, and recently a combination of death and time known as Rune of Nechronal."
"Death and time mixed together?" the echoing laughter redoubles. "Hah, that's a throwback! Haven't heard of that in sixty million years or so. Is he dead yet?"
"Not to my knowledge?" you answer, suddenly worried. "Should I be concerned?"
"It's probably fine if he managed to carve it safely. Must be doing something right! The more things that change, hah."
The laughter calms back down to its original state. The voice of the Harlequin god always able to be heard. It clung to them like a mantle. You wondered how your presence sounded to a daemon and hoped that they felt nothing but fear in response, if it made any noise at all.
"The Runes of the Aeldari function, in the sense of 'using' them to channel psychic power, by being based on something you could claim is resonance with divinity."
"So the presence of a god works as an anchor or source of power, and Runes are just a conduit towards them from which this energy can be used?"
"Not quite. Gods can work in a similar way with mundane blessings, but there is so much more to divinity than just the divine. It's mythology itself. Perspective. Faith as well, and yet not necessarily to the gods. Faith in themselves, in what they do. Understanding is the real key. The reason why I brought up the Aeldari language? That's because our Runes are, in a very real sense, simply just our written language."
"Oh?"
"Our symbols don't correlate to 'letters' or 'words' as most humans, and other lifeforms, write things down. Each of them directly represents a concept, just like your Runes. Which means you're a plagiarist twice-over, but all you upstarts are guilty of that. The only real difference is how much power they're given, the intent used to wield them as a tool than as a message."
"Huh," you begin. "That… sort of reminds me of how the psychic shamans of the Orks use their own crude glyphs to channel their Waaagh energies, when most of them just seem to act as normal writing when used elsewhere."
"Always a hilarious comparison!" the First Fool nodded. "Go and tell Eldrad that to his face next time you see him. Or Alcard."
"Who's Alcard?"
"He'll tell you better than I can."
You considered Cegorach's words and everything you knew of the Warp, from your own psychic designs to everything you managed to gain access from the Black Library. The implications were as obvious as they were blinding. So many pieces fit into place under this framework.
"So the Runes of the Eldar work, in a conceptual psychic-sense, by containing or framing everything on Aeldari perception?" you extrapolate. "Utilising your own culture and mythology as a narratively powerful focus, and can be so easily used, channelled and even added to by any Eldar because it's literally just your language?"
"That's a mostly correct way of looking at it."
That made perfect sense. It was also completely insane that any of this was true.
"Is your species literally empowered by… itself?" you ask, baffled. That sounded almost as though how Orks were determined to work. "As my Runes work based on my understanding of concepts, yours all work by the shared concept and perception of an Eldar? It's that easy for you? To achieve that framework, that 'tapestry', would… I can't imagine what power that would take. That goes beyond even gods, how could this even begin to be done?"
The laughter stops. The smile of the Great Harlequin fades away. Something beyond humour and piercing intensity manifests in the god's eyes. A quietness beyond mere silence, an emptiness emerges.
The Master of the Black Library waves a hand and a collection of statues rise up. Massive and gleaming figures that radiated with a power that you rarely felt. They are crafted with glory, carved to a level of detail you weren't sure you could ever match.
Where the Laughing God points is the tallest of them all. A plaque reads, in countless languages, 'Asuryan'.
"Pride and wisdom, to know oneself and their greatness." Cegorach intones, before their hand moves towards one marked 'Isha'. "Love and empathy, to understand another deeply. Creation and brilliance, to manifest dreams into reality. Joy and wonder, the maiden's gift to happiness. Desire and want, to hunt for a greater life. Foresight and fear, to know one's limits and place. Rage and wrath, to survive and defend these precious gifts."
The First Fool gestures at their own form.
"Trickery and mockery, to laugh at others and to know one's absurdity." Cegorach grins once more, the expression smaller than before. "Hypocrisy. Mistakes. Failures. Pointlessness and then perseverance. To see the humour in it all from a distance. I am those words. I am the concepts behind them. I am so much more, but such is how I am shaped. How we were all shaped into such roles. Shaped by words, by concepts, by Aeldari, by what shaped the Aeldari."
The Runes across the Black Library blaze with light. On the floor, on the ceiling, on all the walls around you. They surge with the power from the whispers of a god.
"We have those words because they are what make us. They surge in their minds like blood beats in your twin-hearts. We see a gemstone, the burning core of what it means and represents, and thus we are shaped by the word as much as we cut and cleave and sing. They can be a worthless rock, a tear shed from the love of a gentle fool, an ornament of legend or merely a pleasant gift. All of them are divided by context but share the same concept, the same resonance, are seen by the same minds as the same thing. Our very words are purity itself. That is the difference."
Darkness descends as the gleaming statues lose all lustre. The ignited glyphs around you begin to falter. Everything fades away.
"Even in death, even as they scream in a powerless struggle, these lost children can still wield our voices to sing with them. Because we haven't left them. We are their words, their emotions, their concepts. We will always be with them as they mourn, cry, fight, live, love, desire, hope, pray and strive for the future. Even when we were silenced. Even as we fought each other. We could never really left them. We were there, oh children of the stars. Always."
And the show suddenly stops. You blink and everything was back to normal.
Their language was divine, their gods were shaped and interwoven into emotion and domain on a way that you had not seen outside of Chaos itself, and the Aeldari were psychically united and empowered by mindset and culture.
In a way, you were looking at a glimpse of what your future could be. The victory you sought when you delved deep enough into the script you were slowly making. A true language that could be used. What would that even look like for humanity? Even just for your own sons? For yourself?
"Hah, that's just a bunch of words though." Cegorach casually shrugged. "It's all the same, in the end. Just shapes and sounds. I think it's my turn again? Ah well, I think we've both learned enough for now. I won, by the way."
Without another word, the god disappeared immediately, leaving you to your thoughts.
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