WARHAMMER 40,000: A Thousand Tiny Suns (40k/Exalted Crossover!)

[DragonCobolt]

You sighed, looking at Kit. He gives you a look back that communicates paragraphs. You gesture to Crys. "Slow us down, lets try and talk."

"You sure?" she asked. "I mean...Clasat doesn't raid the tunnel gangs like Estasia but they're not exactly civilized."

"Just let me try and talk our way past this," you said, nodding.

"They're going to just try and extort us..." Crys muttered, her voice softening. "And if they do, I say we just blow our way through and leave them to lick their sounds." She grumbled. "We're in a hurry."

The airship slowed and came to a step with a gulf of about fifteen meters between the catwalk and you. All those emplaced weapons aimed - but none fired. You swung the hatch at the top of the airship open, clambering up a smallish ladder and sticking your head out, mask glinting in the arclights that blazed overhead. You lifted your hand and waved. "I'm not armed!"

"Good!"

A woman stepped up to the railing, planting a heavy boot on it. She wore a leather jacket with the sleeves torn away, revealing jagged and winding tattoos that ran along her muscular, scarred arms. She wore thick gloves that covered her fingers, which were planted on her hips as she glowered down at you - at least, you were fairly sure she was glowering. You had gotten better and better at reading the unmasked features of other people, and...well, she was throwing in a shoulder frown to go with her lips curving down. Her head had two curious attachments - a pair of jutting antenna that had been bolted to her temples, sweeping back and away like pointed ears above her natural ones, and her jaw had been replaced with a metallic augmeitc, glittering brightly in the harsh overhead lights. Her eyes were narrowed and she had an automatic crossbow pistol at both of her hips, within easy reaching distance

"We're just passing through," you said. "We don't mean any trouble to your...tribe?"

"The Free State of C8-92 is a fully organized representative democracy, not a tribe," the woman said. "I'm Arms Coordinator Skavik." She spat over the side of the railing. "And we help to maintain and police this portion of the tramline-"

"The void she does!" Crys shouted from inside the airship. She moved to glower up past your ankles at you. "Tell her to stop that heresy talk right away - the Octet are the only ones divinely mandated by the Great Maker to provide and protect for his body as he sleeps the sleep of the ages!"

"...you got someone else in there?" Arms Coordinator Skavik asked, frowning. "Or are you speaking for your party, spider?"

"I- uh, Spider?" you asked.

She mimed a wriggly motion with her hand. "Eight legs."

Crys growled. "That's an absurd analogy. For one thing, one leg would be larger, better, smarter, more well educated-"

You squirmed up and tried to half close the hatch, muffling some of Crys' words as you called out. "No, uh, I'm not from the Octet! My name is 41-22, and I'm from beyond the body of Autocthonia."

The entire catwalk started to laugh. Arms Coordinator Skavik stepped away from the railing, turning around and spreading her hands. "Well, boys! Looks like we got ourselves a mythological creature here!" she said. "She's from Creation itself - and she looks like an Estasiat bootlicker!" She turned back. "Let me guess, Creation also has bread lines and order and a boot to the face, so the spiders are all totally right and justified in everything they do, hmm?"

"Well, kinda?" you asked. "If by...Creation you mean the rest of the galaxy."

"This is getting less fun," Skavik said, turning back to face you, shaking her head. "Creation's where you go when you die in all the old stories - to live in a place where food just grows from the ground and water falls from the ceiling without you needing to do anything. A world without machine spirits you have to fear and worship and without spiders crawling around everywhere, taking your children, cramming them into reeducation camps, fastening soul-trackers to their fucking heads, then measuring them on past lives instead of on what they do, right here and fucking now." She glowered down at you. "So you can see why you joking around here gets me only so far."

You blinked, then looked down at the hatch. Crys looked a bit chagrined, biting her lip. She didn't quite refute Skavik's words - but she did look a little guilty.

You looked back at Skavik. "Well, the Imperium would never do that," you said, nodding firmly. "Not unless you were heretics, or consorting with xenos, or didn't accept the Emperor into your heart. Or missed your tithe."

Skavik spat again, in lieu of response.

You coughed. "We're not here to fight, no matter what the Octet has done to your people. We're traveling on to an...a big thing that spits our orichalcium."

"Yeah, we know it," Skavik said. "We skim some of our orichalcium off it sometimes."

"Oh? You do?" you asked. "How?"

Skavik snorted. "We'll let you fly on. We're not going to give you state secrets."

"State," Crys muttered under her breath. "A barely functional collection of huts and lever-pullers don't count as a state, tell me another one, state."

You rubbed your chin, then glanced down. Kit had moved into place beside Crys and his bright, common as dishwater purple eyes, were looking up at you. He had a little knowing smile on his face, like he already knew precisely what you were going to say. You felt an annoying flutter of butterflies, eager and excited at him.

"Anyway, unless you got a horse to show us, oh Creation-Girl, then you can get on flying," Skavik called out.

---
[ ] Offer to trade your skills for information on the Glorious and Most Divine Smelter of the Eternal Maker
[ ] Show them Gitta, to prove you're not with the Octet (to get information on the Glorious and Most Divine Smelter of the Eternal Maker)
[ ] Just ride on - this is an animus you're far too late to fix
[ ] Write In

Health: Fine
Anima: Dim
Willpower: 4/5
Personal Motes: 13/13 | Peripheral Motes: 28/28 (Committed Motes: 5)
Limit: 1/10 (Trigger: Being stymied by indulges around her)
XP: 5 | Solar XP: 6
Major Projects: 0/5
SXP: 21 | GXP: 36 | WXP: 11

 

[DragonCobolt]

You sighed. "Would it prove that we're not with the Octet if I showed off my horse?" you called out.

The men on the gangplank exchanged glances, while Skavik put her hands on her hips. "A horse? What's next, you're going to bring out a dog? Or a cat? Or..." you slid down the railing and the hatch closed. The men on the gangplank shifted and Skavik turned to her forces. She spoke quietly - her voice hushed and quick. She pointed at a few men with crossbows, having them move out. She was used to being attacked by large scale, high damage weaponry - the kind that could sweep clusters of men out of existence as if they had never been. She turned back - just as the cargo hold of the airship unfolded with a whirring click...

And Gitta sprang from the back of the airship, sailing up into the air and landing. The leap was only slightly farther than she normally have been able to leap - being bred to clear trenchlines that could styme tanks, but you had helped her by simply believing in her, essence flowing and lightening her bound.

She crashed down onto the grating between two men who sprang backwards, her clawed talons socketing into the grating with scrapes and screeches, and the gangway shifted ever so slightly under her weight as she tossed back her head, her hairless neck glittering in the arclight, her hips twitching in ancient memory of long missing tail. The Lens Lance rested in your stirrup holster as you settled back into the saddle, feeling more at peace now than...

Good Emperor, the only time you've ever felt like this was in Kit's arms.

And being in Kit's arms twenty four hours a cycle was not workable.

You looked down at Skavik, who was gaping, her metal teeth glittering as she took a step back.

"What..." she whispered, her eyes wide, her irises focusing like a woman who had taken her first hit of slaught. "Is..." She pointed at Gitta. "That!?"
"This is Gitta," you said, trying to not sound smug and failing. You reached down to pat her broad neck. "I can control her, so she'll only disembowl you if I ask her too."

Skavik slowly started to walk forward. Her bare fingers gently touched the place where Gitta's resperator fused with her flesh, the cybernetic interlink warm to her touch. Her fingers brushed along her and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears as she breathed. "S-She's more beautiful than anything I've ever seen in my life." She said, then leaned in close, pressing her forehead to the metal plates covering Gitta's forehead. Gitta blew out a thin stream of warm, if filtered, breath into Skavik's face. Skavik beamed and then drew back.

"I-I...I had no idea!" she said, shaking her head. "You're actually from Creation? Is it as peaceful and bountiful as all the stories say? Where no one has to go hungry?"

You were silent for a bit.

"Uh..."

Kit leaped from the back of the airship and landed beside you. Unlike Gita, he seemed to have simply taken a tiny hop into the air and sailed across without needing to display nearly so much effort. When he landed, it was with a soft ting and he smiled warmly at Skavik, who looked as stunned as when she had seen Gitta, her mouth opening in a quiet O.

"Depends on which part of Creation," he said, which you realized...was possibly the best answer one could give to that kind of question. Skavik took that answer, cocked her head, then laughed.

"You know?" she asked. "I think some might be disappointed. Me? I like it. It means this world isn't as completely fucked as it could be - and there's places that aren't perfect. I dunno. Makes me feel better."

You nodded.

"So..." she said, slowly, her hand rubbing along Gitta's neck, marveling on the touch. Gitta, for her case, took the petting as stolidly as she took many things - even if you felt her non-extant tail wanting to twitch and twhitch eagerly. "Do you want to know the shortcut?"

***
​

The creaky old man who was introduced as Minister of Clericology pointed down the narrow tube that ran away from the small tunnel city that Skavik protected. The city was...very different from the metropoli and patropoli of the Octet - something that Crys was clearly trying to not mention every few seconds. There were many people who simply did not seem to have a job to do - instead they worked on art, they conversed with friends, they sang songs together. The jobs that were done were all the same kind of industrial labors and gathering efforts as in the Octet, as far as you could see...but there was a layer of crudity and directness that the Patropoli you had walked through simply lacked. There, elegant charm-structures made of magical materials smoothly blended into the rough metal and exposed wire of the Great Maker.

Here, the village sat on the intersection of two narrow corridors, in a rectangular chamber about three kilometers wide, with the walls opened up by hand tools, revealing cables, wires, tubes, all of which had been attached to jerry rigged devices that both release food and allowed the tunnel people to perform other arcane, vital tasks - similar to lower deck crew on a voidship. You admitted...seeing how slapdash and half-managed it was made the back of your neck prickle.

The tube, though, was what you were trying to focus on. It was a circular opening that the townies had revealed with their digging and burrowing, and as you looked down it, it appeared to be a slanted slide that went down and down and down - the curve of it bringing the far end out of sight.

"That's the shortcut," the minister said, his voice a soft wheeze. "It's a straight shot unused steam pipe that runs the length of the body to the engine. To come back, our explorers simply get into a capsule we have built on the far end and send back when the pressure switch happens. You then wait, with the capsule loaded, and once the steam pressure builds up..." He pointed to the far end of the chamber, where what appeared to be large net was strung.

You pointed at several huge dents above the net.

"What are those?" you asked.

"Sometimes, the steam pressure is higher than we expect, and the capsule emerges going...ahem...faster..." the minister said, softly. "The honored dead are buried as best as they can, considering...ah...oh it is a dreadful mess."

"Fun," Kit said.

"No it's not!" Amberly exclaimed.

"Tunnel people," Crys muttered.

---
Hmmm...

[ ] Shortcut, take it! Risk? Yes, but, also, a clone of the Emperor is on the line
[ ] You will keep the long way - better safe than sorry!
[ ] This is absurd. First, you're going to repair those half-assed connectromes and make the damn town a proper interface for the Great Maker's systems, and then, you are going to HAVE to come up with something BETTER than a FRIGGING NET! It doesn't matter how long it takes, you will get this steam tram system running SENSIBLY, even if you have to conscript the whole bloody town to do it!
[ ] Write In

Health: Fine
Anima: Dim
Willpower: 4/5
Personal Motes: 13/13 | Peripheral Motes: 28/28 (Committed Motes: 5)
Limit: 1/10 (Trigger: Being stymied by indulges around her)
XP: 5 | Solar XP: 6
Major Projects: 0/5
SXP: 21 | GXP: 36 | WXP: 11

 

[DragonCobolt]

"This is absurd!" you exploded.

"I know, these tunnel people should be forced to pack up and-" Crys muttered.

"No!" You said, then walked over, to the side of the tunnel. "This entire assemblage should be able to handle, three, four trips a day without any problem. Here, let me...does anyone have any paper? Data-slates?" A blinking tunnel person called over by Skavik stepped over and handed you a slate. It lacked any datum functionality, but you were able to start scrawling on it, muttering under your breath.

Kit chuckled, turning to Amberly, Gitta, the eldar, and Skavik.

"She'll be like this for a while," he said, his voice amused.

"No, it's a simple problem, just...a better net...maybe..." You said. You had to focus. You had to focus. Then you did some mental math. "Crys, how far are we from the Smelter?"

"Well, based on observations taken so far, anywhere from a few days to a month and a half, maybe?" she asked. "It depends on the connections and dangers we run into. Why do you ask."

You frowned, then leaned back against the wall, thinking.

"I think..." you started to scribble again, more diagrams. Maybe not a net. You started to sketch out a strutwork that could support the tube tram network, and then muttered under your breath. "You could stabilize local essence fields with something similar to the...yeah, the charm I saw there, yes, that's it..." You slumped down into a hunched writing position, scribbling more and faster.

Kit turned back to Skavik. "Do you have food around here?"

"Of course," she said, looking concernedly at you.

***​

This, you learned after the fact. Kit told you, and was quite amused to tell you, that the tunnelfolk were concerned. Nervous, even. Unsure, about you specifically. Then, midway through one of the preparation phases, where you were hammering away on future slats that would serve as the support struts for the project, the lights had gone out. The villagers had groaned, but it was apparently a normal thing. You faintly remembered being mildly annoyed by the sudden lack of light, but you had just delegated your hands to fixing it, and the come back to designing the tram system.

According to the tunnel people, you had constructed a luminous emitter that they could dial to any setting they wanted, at any time, which fed essence back into the surrounding landscape and brought forth fix beetles - tiny scarab beetles of metal and silver, which were now being used as pets and to help collet trash and litter.

Then, when Kit had shifted in his sleep after dragging you to bed one evening, you had felt a touch cold, crawled out of bed, and done what seemed obvious - then gone back to bed. The villagers had emerged from their homes to find that the luminous emitter had had a heating apparatus attached to it, beating back the killing chill that they had kept at bay with blankets and crudely insulated huts and hovels. Now, frost gathered in the corridors, but not in the junction.

"This last one's my favorite," Kit said, gloatingly. "You put a ration bowl down and it went bad - so you built them a vitae reliquarium." He patted the side of the humming box as you scratched your head, a bit absently.

"...do they mind?" you asked. "Are any tech-priests mad at me?"

"Honorable and most blessed Machine Saint," Skavik said, her voice fully respectful as she walked forward, bowing low. "How goes your day-cycle?"

"No, I don't think they mind," Kit said, cheerfully.

"The representative council has been wondering about the...uh...the construction," she said, smiling, while you turned to see that the villagers had all gathered around a large tarp you had absent mindedly thrown up when, in a haze of frantic work, you had finished up the final stages of the project. You blushed behind your resperator.

"Well, uh, let me show you, it's fairly simple," you said, walking forward to join the crowd. Crys was there, giving you a look somewhere between annoyance and respect - you were not sure how long you had been working, but you took some comfort in the fact that it was maybe less time than going the direct route. You took hold of the tarp, then swept it aside, revealing your addition to the village. The villagers gasped and Crys' eyesbrows shot right up. The eldar, who had emerged from somewhere invisible to loom behind your right shoulder, murmured.

"The touch of Vaul indeed."

You glowered at her, then hastily stepped forward, gesturing. "So, uh, this is a very...simple, basic tramication system - this is where the cargo pods go, they're auto-sorted by that limb there..." You pointed from articulated metal claw-limbs to a rack. "The passenger cars, they're still only one person at a time, they load here, you lay down in the pods, and then they launch you. I added some pads, so it's comfortable, but the system is interfaced with the local aetheric grid-network, your tech-priests can make sure that's maintained. Some basic votive offerings should keep the machine spirits appeased and happy." You nodded. "Also, since it's connected to the aetherics, it means that you can use it every time the other end isn't being used. So, you can probably run four...six, maybe, if you really push it, six transits back and forth, with the cargo pods carrying about a ton each of magical materials. In total. That is."

You hesitated.

"There's a machine on the other end?" The leader of the village asked.

"Well, yeah," you said. "That was the hard part, sending auto-construction material down the pipe before the far end was contructed, like, did you think it'd take me..." You glanced at Kit. He held up five fingers. "...five m-" He shook his head. "D-" He shook his head again. "W-Weeks?" You hazarded. He nodded. "Did you think it'd take me five weeks to just build a tramication system?"

"Y-Yes?" The leader said, sounding unsure.

You smiled behind your mask. "Now, uh...we can take this tram down to the Smelter. And use it to bring the goods back, easily. Then we can load it onto the airship and be back to Clasat far swifter than we ever could have done going through the Reaches normally! Right?" You smiled, then frowned, slightly. Vect was waiting too. The webwat conencted into Auctocthonia. Ugh. You had so many things on your plate right now.

THen, as the villagers started to cheer, Skavik stepped over, adding another.

"What will happen when the spiders hear about this?" she muttered.

...right...

---
[ ] Assure her you'll secure a good treaty
[ ] Tell her how to destroy it, if she's ever threatened
[ ] Point out that being a part of the Octet isn't so bad - maybe this place can be made part of a metropoli?
[ ] Write In

Also!

[ ] Bank your XP for future training
[ ] Use the time spent crafting as an excuse to get EVEN MORE CRAFT CHARMS!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler: Craftaplooza!

4m+1XP+WP to convert artifact into magitech, YES THOSE ARE DIFFERENT THINGS, 11s to do so, conversion complete (+1 WP for stunting)

2 GPX and 2 slots to make a major slot to make the major slot for your building project, now it's time to START HER UP!

...oh wait, your peerless perfection of craft has triggered. +9 SXP, +1 GXP.

Roll 1: 15 GXP + 23 motes! 25s vs diff 5, so that's 20/30 successes!
ROll 2: 10 GPX + 12 motes (using less charms) 24s vs diff 5, so that's 39/30 successes!

Since you beat a terminus 6 roll with 2 rolls, you get the rating x2 GXP per terminus left over (so 4x4 or 16 GXP) and then you get 3 WXP! MOre importantly, you completely no-sell the existing skill challenge - like, you can now head down the pipe without a single bit of risk or rolls required!

HOwever, this is after a few days of planning. During that time, she...

Builds a Lightpost: 10s vs diff 5 (2 SXP from 10s, 9 GXP + 9 SXP for objectives)
Constructs a heating vent: 8s vs diff 5 (1 SXP from 10s, 9 GXP + 9 SXP)
BUilds a refrigeration unit: 11s vs diff 5 (1 SXP from 10s, 9 GXP + 9 SXP)

Health: Fine
Anima: Dim
Willpower: 4/5
Personal Motes: 13/13 | Peripheral Motes: 28/28 (Committed Motes: 5)
Limit: 1/10 (Trigger: Being stymied by indulges around her)
XP: 5 | Solar XP: 6
Major Projects: 0/5
SXP: 57 | GXP: 63 | WXP: 14