[Crossover Fanfiction, Complete] Specialists

[Urist]

Hehe, yep. Unfortunately, the loroi don't *know* that they can't be neutral. Their experience in warfare and international politics has thus far reinforced their view that they can handle what comes, even if it might be a strong challenge (e.g. the war against the Hierarchy). So while they have learned enough about the Imperium to know that that's a challenge they *really* don't want to face right now, they're still working under the belief that they can 'catch up' with the Imperium given only a few more centuries (maybe millennia) of isolation. I'm playing with the situation being essentially a reverse of Outsider canon (the TCA thinks "okay, we're not the big dogs, but we can meaningfully contribute to this war as allies rather than as speedbumps/serfs"), where here it's the loroi who have no idea just how outclassed they are by the foreign power(s).

And keep in mind that their *only* source of information on the Imperium is one Alexander Jardin. Someone who has no military experience in the Imperium, and has not even traveled that much within it. Fireblade has seen much of what he honestly believes to be true about the Imperium (it spans the galaxy, its military is unbeatable, etc.), but the loroi are aware that that essentially represents just the honest beliefs of a single alien. They're being wise to doubt such a clearly-biased source... but in this case he's actually quite accurate in his beliefs about what would happen if the wider Imperium (or even just a sub-sector Governor with ambitions) were to suddenly become aware of the Union's existence.

It's kinda like if, say, a single random person from a modern-day country were transported back in time to Paris, 1810. How well would they be able to convince Napoleon of just how *incredibly* overwhelming the warfighting capabilities of circa-2024 armies are in comparison to the Grand Armée? Even if he had a way to know if the time-traveler were telling the truth, the facts of the matter are so far outside of his experience (and the time-traveler knows almost nothing about the concrete details which might be verifiable) that it would be plausible for him to throw out much of the time-traveler's 'claims' as being clearly just propaganda/nationalistic pride/a civilian's inaccurate image of their military. Especially if said modern-day country were one that is clearly *full* of over-the-top propaganda and wildly-exaggerated claims (e.g. the time-traveler's from North Korea), and it were hard to tell what claims were actually true from those the traveler merely *thought* to be true.

[dragoongfa]

Funny thing is that the Loroi are so outclassed that it is not even a joke.

The Tau who are marginally less outclassed and still vastly superior to the Loroi only survive because the Imperium cannot be bothered to divert enough forces at the Eastern fringes to put the 'greater good' hypocrites into the grave where they belong (Text to Speech jokes aside the Tau are more of a threat to their 'allies' than the Imperium ever would be, see the Poctroon for what awaits every last member species of the 'greater good' when the Ethereals decide that they are not needed anymore). This could change if the Tau piss of Guilliman or the Lion, especially Guilliman.

Add the fact that they are right next to the Throne World in galactic terms, well not a good picture. Ironically enough the Imperium would treat the Loroi as self contained in this particular region of space should they learn about them. Canonically the Imperium simply ignores most aliens beneath a certain threshold, or 'contains' them if it is believed that they could become a threat. Eradication is reserved for species that are proven to be a threat.

Then there are the Rogue Traders, their 'influence' tend to vary between the various houses and based on whom gave them their Warrant of Trade but in general Rogue Traders have authority on par with an Inquisitor when dealing with aliens; as such Rogue Traders are a shield for alien species against the predation of the Imperium as to attack a species that has deals and contracts with a Rogue Trader is legally similar to go against the dealings of an Inquisitor. Something not done lightly, or for good reason and even then it would be something that would draw heavy censure and retaliation.

[Tamri]

It's a real bummer that Alex is soo young and not high enough in the House hierarchy to know much more *convincing* facts. However, his understanding of principles may be enough to compensate for his lack of knowledge of the facts.

The Loroi believe that what Fireblade saw in his mind is "religious propaganda". Too bad for them that "propaganda" is only in the coverage of the facts, and not in the facts themselves. And it is common knowledge in the Imperium that God will give 10% of the facts...

Being so close to the throne world of Humanity - you definitely want to deal with Rogue Traders.

Because if you do not deal with Rogue Traders - you will be dealing with the Inquisition and the Terran Administratum, and these are not the structures you want to deal with, being such a weak xenospecies living in the "backyard" of the Golden Throne.

[Cthulhu]

The most ironic thing is that out of the major factions, meeting the xenophobic Imperium is probably the best least bad option for a fledgling xeno empire. Especially if the first contact is done through a Rogue Trader.

I mean, the Warp may simply drop a rock space-hulk on your head. Full of greenskins or daemons. The ground below might contain some nasty surprises. The Traitors could find your cute little world. Or everything at once, with a nice crispy warpstorm on top of it, for that extra grim-darkness.

It's kinda like if, say, a single random person from a modern-day country were transported back in time to Paris, 1810. How well would they be able to convince Napoleon of just how *incredibly* overwhelming the warfighting capabilities of circa-2024 armies are in comparison to the Grand Armée? Even if he had a way to know if the time-traveler were telling the truth, the facts of the matter are so far outside of his experience (and the time-traveler knows almost nothing about the concrete details which might be verifiable) that it would be plausible for him to throw out much of the time-traveler's 'claims' as being clearly just propaganda/nationalistic pride/a civilian's inaccurate image of their military. Especially if said modern-day country were one that is clearly *full* of over-the-top propaganda and wildly-exaggerated claims (e.g. the time-traveler's from North Korea), and it were hard to tell what claims were actually true from those the traveler merely *thought* to be true.

If I were to meet Napoleon as a time traveler in 1810, then I would most certainly give him an ominous, but highly ambiguous warning. If he is bold enough to march against the rising sun, then he shall destroy a great Empire.

[Urist]

Boots rang against ancient stone, the xenos guards trailing close behind him as he followed this ‘Ironsoul’ deeper into the alien fortress.

Conscious all the while of Fireblade’s eyes burning into him from behind.

His jailer.

Alex snorted. The irony of it all: even having dodged the Black Ships, even without formal registration as a Psyker, he still had ended up with a ‘bodyguard’ whose duty it was to put a bolt through his skull if he stepped out of line.

{A ‘bolt’ seems unnecessarily messy. A telekinetic blow to the neck would suffice.} came the teidar’s voice in his mind, slipping past his thoughts just as easily as she had evaded his mental defenses, earlier.

{Thank you for that helpful mental image.} he responded icily.

{You were the one who openly wished for death, earlier.}

And had meant it, as he repeated to himself. Totally. Of course a quick death would be preferable to spending the rest of his life imprisoned amongst xenos.

Fireblade spoke to his mind again {Then why did you agree to Ironsoul’s offer?}

Why had he? Alex reflexively buried the thought as deep inside his mind as he could. {For reasons that are sufficient to me.}

An ice-cold clamp wrapped around his lower arm, and he flinched at her touch. Fireblade’s now-familiar presence dove into his mind, striding confidently through the un-repairable breach in his castle walls just as she had done earlier. Looked around, and rolled her eyes at what she found. {Oh. Curiosity.}

With a force of will, he yanked his arm away from the teidar’s grasp. Told himself that she hadn’t let him pull free. {‘Curiosity’ is the first step on the road to Damnation. I... merely wish to ensure that these ‘artifacts’ of your people are no threat to me.}

{Or to your ‘jailers’?} she prompted.

{If I am condemned to spend the rest of my life upon this un-sanctified world, then I would rather not see it overrun by daemons.}

{They did not seem to be much of a threat, not once they were visible.} Fireblade responded.

The group left the tightly-spiraling staircase and entered a new corridor. Ironsoul led the way, her stooped posture a natural fit for the rough stone walls. All that the place needed in order to feel familiar were some honest candelabras instead of the austere xenos lux-panels, a few embossed skulls…

He shook his head. Throne, while he was at it he may as well wish for a statue of the Emperor! No xenos facility could possibly mimic the reassuring weight of ancient years found in an Imperial stronghold… and to even dream of it bordered on heresy.

Through his mind, he felt Fireblade’s exasperation behind him.

“Here is our destination.” Ironsoul announced in her scratchy voice, halting in front of a stout wooden door. Placed one hand against it, and waited.

Before he could ask, the door slid silently aside. Not that this implied the comforting presence of a servo-mechanism, of course; some xenos machinery doubtlessly performed the task.

The aged teidar stepped inside, as overhead lux-panels ignited to bathe the room in stark white light. “Our own collection of Soia mysteries, cast-off objects that have withstood the efforts of thousands of years of gallen to identify.” She spun in place, standing between the two long tables topped by void-sealed, translucent-topped boxes. “So. What are they?”

Evidently, Ironsoul’s extreme bluntness extended beyond her mind-speaking.

But at least here was a task that he could accomplish. And while Alex was to be held prisoner here among these xenos, it still might hold some promise for his future that they ‘trusted’ him enough to examine their ancient artifacts. If he performed well enough at this, he could combine that with what insight he could grant into countering — or at least anticipating — their Hierarchy foe’s usage of Chaos magics… and possibly even parlay all of that into eventually being allowed to contact his House. That would be the best outcome for him… and for the loroi, if Heretic forces had become aware of their small and vulnerable empire.

Although just how he could go about contacting anybody within the Imperium was a mystery… but also a problem for the future. For now, he would likely need his focus for this immediate task.

Without a word, Alex stepped to the nearest container, running his hands over it as he peered inside. Four needle-thin prongs extended vertically from around the perimeter of a round base, in whose center a fluted dais stood. The whole assembly seemed to be made of one piece of jet-black metal, aside from what was clearly an axe-shaped blade attached by some sort of swiveling joint. A yellow-green tube stood separately off to one side, jagged edges making it impossible to guess how tall that structure had once been.

Well, it wasn’t any xenos technology that he recognized.

Alex raised his eyes, to find that Ironsoul was leaning over the box from the other side. And next to her, uncomfortably close even by good Human standards, Beryl stared wide-eyed down at the ancient artifact.

He met Ironsoul’s orange eyes from less than a foot away… but at this point, the xenos’s nearness no longer intimidated him.

After all, if he was going to be stuck around these aliens for a long time, such proximity was hardly worsening his situation. “I can tell little from here. I would need to physically handle the artifact.”

She glanced past him, doubtlessly at Fireblade.

Then waved her hand slightly, and one of the other teidar guards that had followed them into the room stepped forwards. Scowling at Alex the whole time, this one pulled a metallic box from her own hip where the broad black stripe across her armor wrapped around to her back, tapping at the device with one hand.

Ah, some form of xenos dataslate.

She held the slate up against the containment box atop the table, and the latter hissed open.

Carefully — he hadn’t been joking, earlier: unknown xenos artifacts were dangerous — Alex reached in and set his fingers gently atop the alien metal.

And concentrated, reaching for the faint echo that he sensed waiting underneath his hands.

The brightly-lit room deep in an alien facility disappeared.

An alien world, not the one upon whose surface he had recently landed, stretched out around him, details too blurry to say more.

From every side, loud war-cries screamed out above pulsing, hissing weapons-fire. One shriek in particular burned at his ears.

An irregular strobing illuminated the pastiche as sickly-green lightning reaching forth.

Each time drawing forth a pained cry, but only for an instant.

From the side that fired, no sound came. Only pitiless silence.

He pulled himself back, drawing in a deep breath.

“Well?” Ironsoul asked.

Alex did not look up, eyes instead fixed on the xenos artifact in front of him. “This weapon was found on your homeworld? This world?”

“This one? No.” She paused for a moment, likely asking a nearby loroi who might know more information. “It was found nearly sixty years previously, on a world now overrun by the Hierarchy.”

“Then pray to whatever god you venerate that the Shells do not wake that which slumbers upon that cursed planet.” He did not know the name of that foe, but he recognized enough from overheard rumors shared by House relatives. Armies of the mechanical dead, rising from ancient soil to drag the living down into eternal silence.

“You say it is a weapon?” This time, it was Beryl who asked. “Who made it?”

Ironsoul quickly added “How can it be utilized?”

How to answer that? “I do not know the name of those who crafted this murderous device. Know only that they are ancient beyond counting, and inimical to all life. As to the artifact itself, I believe it to be but a small fragment of a greater whole, whose construction is beyond the science of any known race of living beings.”

The two loroi stared back at him for a moment, and then past him to where Fireblade was breathing down his neck.

Once more, she laid her hand against his upper arm. Once more, the truth of his warnings was forcibly pulled from his mind.

He gritted his teeth. {Are you going to do that every time?}

{Are you going to keep giving cryptic half-answers?}

Alex did not dignify the teidar with an answer, instead moving to the next box. This one, at least, was easy. “It is an Eldar soulstone.” he said, even before the attendant black-stripe teidar had opened the container.

“You know this without examining it?” Beryl asked, while Ironsoul nodded thoughtfully.

He snorted. “I have seen more than enough of them. Every Eldar wears one, for fear of what will inevitably happen to their soul if they perish without its presence.”

“And what will happen?” the listel asked.

“An eternity of pain and torment as their soul is devoured by the hungry Dark God which their debauched ancestors brought into being.” He answered bluntly.

Beryl opened her mouth to say something.

Froze.

Frowned, eyes darkening as she looked through him.

He sighed. Poor girl, to have the harsh darkness of their universe revealed to —

Now it was he who paused. No, poor ‘xenos,’ to have—

That wasn’t much better. Why pity an alien?

{Why ‘pity’ any warrior?} Fireblade asked. Was it just him, or had she gotten better at reading the thoughts from his mind? {Beryl is a determined warrior, just as I. She does not fear your Imperium’s foes.}

{She should.}

“Is it dangerous?” Ironsoul’s question saved him from having to answer Fireblade further.

“A soulstone may contain an Eldar spirit, and all Eldar are dangerous.” He made no move to reach out to the xenos gem and determine if it was ‘inhabited’ or not; one type of knife-eared alien speaking into his mind today was already more than enough. “I would advise that you keep it in secure and isolated storage; if you have the misfortune to encounter a living Eldar at some later point then that stone may be useful in trade.”

And Throne willing, he’d be gone by then.

The next one was a strange object, unfamiliar to him. Torpedo-shaped, clearly made of wraithbone, but to what purpose? Some form of missile, perhaps an anti-vehicle projectile? As soon as the seal was opened, he lifted the forearm-sized device up, rotating and inspecting it.

Opened his inner eye, feeling for what emotions may have been associated with it—

And immediately dropped it back into the box, hands flinching back.

Ironsoul only silently raised one eyebrow.

“It’s, uh...” he searched for the words in this Soia Trade language. Could not find them, among the lexicon he had pulled from the alien medicus all those days ago. A pulse of curiosity from behind him, and Fireblade reached for the torpedo-shaped object.

He slapped her hand aside. {Don’t touch that. It’s a… how do you say—?}

{Oh.} the teidar’s answer came accompanied by a roiling tide of amusement-tinged disdain.

But he noted that she did not actually answer his question. Well, he wasn’t going to stand here, stammering and red-faced, any longer than he had to. “It is not a weapon, but a device for, ah, ‘pleasure.’”

Ironsoul blinked. Looked down at the ancient Eldar construct whose like had probably never been seen on any of the self-restraint-obsessed Craftworlds.

And laughed. “I suppose the Ancients were people, too.”

That was one use for psycho-plastic material, albeit one that no right-thinking person would have imagined. Although from what he had heard while serving as a liaison to Prince Yndrael, perhaps the vile inhabitants of Commo—

His thoughts slammed to a halt at the next artifact container.

Eyes widened, and his breath stopped along with his pulse.

The moment that the black-stripe teidar opened this container, his hands darted inside.

And grasped the metal Aquila, recognizable despite the strange paint coloration that had been applied, doubtlessly by some vandalous xenos.

For what else could it be?

///////

Fireblade was too slow to stop the alien’s hands as they immediately reached for the next Soia artifact. She caught only the shortest glimpse of a painted white-and-black metal sculpture of two intertwined winged creatures — or perhaps a single one, somehow with two heads? — before Alexander’s grasping hands engulfed it.

And the room around her disappeared.

///////

{—and what of the inspection?} a mind foreign to her sent, thoughts… ‘sharp.’ Emotions too strong, dancing quickly from one peak of feeling to another.

It was not a loroi’s sending, nor Alexander’s.

{What of the inspection?} another unfamiliar mind replied, echoing almost-painfully loud within her own.

Fireblade forced her eyes open, finding herself staring out of a curved glass window onto the landscape beyond. Overhead, the familiar planetary ring of Deinar curved out to the horizon, the stars winking down at her.

But those were the only familiar sights.

Strange buildings stretched across the landscape of her second homeworld, gleaming off-white pointed domes studded with jewels of every color. Grand arches supported elevated walkways whose height dwarfed even the tallest trees.

And a hand — her hand? — rose to idly trace along the inside of the window.

A pale white hand… was she observing a memory from Alexander’s point-of-view? But these buildings did not look like—

The body in which she was trapped turned around, and Fireblade knew that this was not Alexander’s memory.

After all, as dusk turned the inside of the window to a mirror, she caught a brief glimpse of ‘her’ current body.

It was not a human.

Perhaps if a human had been… ‘stretched.’ Too tall, far too thin, dark and narrow eyes peering intently from within a nearly-hairless head.

And another such creature stood facing ‘her’ from across an ornate desk, itself made of the same material that Alexander had called ‘wraithbone.’

{’What of the inspection?’} this second alien echoed, incredulity clear in her — ‘his?’ ‘its?’ She genuinely could not tell — sending. {Are you out of your Khaine-addled mind!?} ‘It’ then hammered one skinny fist onto the table, resulting in a deep gong as if a bell had been struck. {They know, my Prince. They are coming for you. For us all!}

Fireblade was then subjected again to the unpleasant experience of the body in which she rode as an ‘observer’ sending {If they ‘knew,’ you cowardly fool, they would have sent an army. Not a single inspector and his servants. The soft-fisted weaklings would not dare to challenge the Devout of the Most Worthy God with such paltry numbers.}

Her host turned back to the window, leaning forwards slightly to look almost straight down. A distance that must be well over a thousand mannal to the ground below, by the recognizable Deinarid trees growing there.

And in their dark shadows, indistinct loroi-oid figures were being herded into what must be some form of transport-vehicle, a rounded central hull with two swept wings extended in an arc forwards. Somewhat like the upper wings of the Union’s adopted logo, come to think of it.

What was this vision?

Her host continued {Have the… ‘Prototypes’ been dispersed as instructed?}

{Yes, my Prince. The Flesh-sculptors have split the Prototypes into the two component species as ordered; the Sensor-creatures are being moved to their prepared cover-world via the Deep Gate as we speak.}

{So I see.}

A weighty pause came from behind ‘her.’

Once more, her host turned away from the window and its — Deinarid? — vista. {You have something further on your mind.}

{The Flesh-sculptors, my Prince. They were… not happy with the inferior quality of the Sensor-creature's design. They say that its crude and unfinished form hurts them to lay eyes on. They ask for more time to complete—}

{Were you not the one just now complaining of our imminent inspection?} her host waved one hand dismissively, a roaring wave of contempt surging forth. {The Domain’s inspector must find only the Weapons-creatures, their entire species mind-stapled exactly as required by law.}

Her long, pale fingers drummed against the desk. Instead of dull thumps, the staccato impacts raised a musical chorus, each beat a different note forming a melody that itched at Fireblade’s senses. {This temporary offshoot-species. It is as complete as the Prototypes themselves, yes?}

{In function only rather than form, my Prince, but yes. To all but the most in-depth examination they would appear to be an unrelated species to our Weapon-creatures, albeit one clearly shaped by Aeldari hands. The dominant control-caste in particular would be an obvious giveaway, albeit one that is required by law.}

{Then the Flesh-sculptors have already done all that is needed. If they continue to complain, reassure them that this is only a temporary measure. The inspector and his Vaul-spawned team will be ‘finished’ here soon enough... one way or another. Then the Flesh-sculptors have their fun, stitch the halves of our Weapons back together, and—}

The subordinate alien beamed, smile too wide for his face. {Then we begin the Great Correction, and place our Lord at his rightful spot atop the Panthe—!}

Fireblade’s host’s vision blurred into a spiked crimson whorl as an unexpected spike of overwhelming, unalloyed fury overtook her. {You will not interrupt me, vat-born! I will have—!}

The rising flood of anger was too much, and Fireblade’s view of the memory dissolved into motes of light.

Which blinked out of sight into the dark void, one-by-one.

///////

Alex came to, cold stone at his back and a bright light in his face.

Where was the alien office-room, with the two arguing Eldar looking out over—

Wait, had that been—?

“Human.” a cold voice intoned.

Ironsoul.

“What?” he croaked, throat dry and cramped. Made to push himself upright.

And was stopped by a weight on his chest.

The light blinding him slid aside, revealing it to be a lux-caster mounted alongside the muzzle of one of the loroi’s lasguns.

Both of which had been aimed at his face.

“What. Happened.” Ironsoul demanded, any trace of her earlier humor utterly gone as she stared down at his prone form.

No, not at him.

At the Aquila — or Aquila-like; what was an Eldar implanted memory doing on an Imperial sigil? — clasped tightly in his hands.

And at the red marks which it had burned into his skin.

“I… don’t know.” he answered, honestly enough.

Then flinched slightly, waiting resignedly for the inevitable intrusion of Fireblade into his mind.

Kept waiting.

{Fireblade?}

No answer.

He was still pinned to the floor by what he recognized was more of the teidar witchcraft, but he could crane his neck just enough to see the prone red-haired xenos in question slumped on the floor nearby. “Is she okay?” he blurted out, before he could stop himself from voicing concern over a xenos.

That is, could stop himself from feeling concern over— no, from mimicking concern—

Oh, Damn his soul for a Heretic.

From admitting his concern over the teidar.

He owed her a life-debt, after all.

“That’s what we want to know. The doranzer says that she is unharmed, but unconscious.”

“The doranzer?” He looked around again. Ah. The room was rather more crowded than it had been only a second ago: two more teidar with whatever that black stripe meant glared down at him, while a beige-and-blue loroi medicus knelt at Fireblade’s side.

How did they all get here so suddenly? Or— “How long was I out?”

“It has been just under ten-thousand solon.”

He did the math. Two and a half Terran hours!?

Alex let his head slump back against the cool, stone floor. Xenos construction or not, it felt at least vaguely familiar, and he clung to anything reassuring right now. “What happened?”

“And so we return to the beginning: We. Don’t. Know. You will describe what ocurred, starting with what that artifact in your hands actually is.”

“It is an Imperial Aquila.” he instantly replied. Then frowned. “Or, uh, I think it is. It’s colored black-and-white instead of the correct gold, and...” he trailed off, brow furrowing.

“And is knocking people who touch it unconscious normal for such a human artifact?”

“No. Well, sometimes. Maybe for xenos; Holy symbols are said to drive away the unclean and vil—” He remembered exactly how many alien weapons were trained on him at that very moment, and chose to shut up.

“I see.” Ironsoul glanced aside briefly. “The doranzer wishes to know what exact harm was inflicted upon Pallan Fireblade.”

“I don’t know!” he hissed. “I have never seen anything like this! Just ask—”

Oh. Right.

“If you are wise, then you will pray to your deified emperor that Pallan Fireblade wakes from her coma soon.”

One half of his mind voted to do just that immediately, while the more pious half balked at asking Him on Terra to intercede on behalf of a xenos. Would He even consider such an improper act?

Yet what other choice did Alex have? He could only rely upon the medical knowledge of an alien medicus who knew nothing of—

An idea.

“Let me help her!” he ground out.

Ironsoul raised one eyebrow. “You believe that you can?”

“Look, some form of, uh, ‘psychic trap’ must have been laid on this Aquila. I don’t know by whom, and I don’t know why.” A lie, this time; he was pretty sure that those — non-blue — knife-eared bastards were to blame.

As usual.

“But,” he continued, “I know more of how such weapons can harm the mind than do any of your medicae. Let me see what I can do for Fireblade.”

To save himself from the clearly-impending execution, of course. No other reason.

Ironsoul regarded him for several seconds.

Perhaps a minute.

Then “Acceptable.”

The weight lifted from his chest, and he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath.

Although he noted that the armed teidar still kept their weapons trained on him.

Scrabbling on hands and knees — well, hand and knees; one clenching fist kept a white-knuckled grip on the puzzling Aquila that had started this entire mess — he crawled over to Fireblade.

What he had first thought to be an utterly unmoving form did indeed show a slow rise-and-fall of her chest. He tried not to think about exactly why that sign of life so reassured his mind.

Kneeling at Fireblade’s side, Alex held one hand to the alien’s cheek, that being one of the few patches of blue xenos skin uncovered by her armor.

The now-familiar chill of loroi flesh against his fingers met him, as did the brief electrical crackle deep inside his mind at the contact.

He closed his eyes, looking first inwards and then outwards, pushing his Sight into the unconscious alien.

Searching through the cooling embers that slumbered there, once-and-future sources of the blazing fire that had haunted his inner eye for the last several weeks. Or was it more than a Terran month, by now? He’d lost track.

Like in the ice-world stories that Bellarmine’s single Vostroyan-born armsman had regaled the mess decks with, he focused on those faintly-glowing embers. Blew what energy his soul could spare into them, shielding their slowly-rebuilding heat from the ever-present cold of the Immaterial void around them.

He was not one of the Corrupted Eldar, to stoke that waning flame by feeding it the broken remains of other souls. Nor was he a trained psyker — or Heretic sorcerer — to coax it into life by ancient rituals and scrawled runes.

Instead, like the ancient humans of Terra’s time-shrouded most ancient days, he poured all his attention into drawing that fire forth. Imploring it to reignite, wishing with heart and soul.

Hoping, praying that it would do so.

To save his own skin, of course. Not for any other—

Fireblade coughed, blinking her eyes open.

Green met brown from a distance measured in inches.

After a long second, the teidar’s gaze flicked from side to side past him. Clearly taking in the well-armed crowd at his back. {What did you do?}

“I don’t know!” he repeated aloud once more, straightening up as Fireblade also sat upright, a burst of xenos witchcraft batting his hand from her cheek. But not as forcefully as he knew she could. “Tell them!” he extended his hand to her.

After a short, suspicious glance, she took his hand. The intrusion into his mind worked along what were by now well-worn paths. Then she dropped his hand, nodding.

A wave of mechanical clicks echoed around the room, as the other loroi lowered their weapons, re-engaging safeties.

“Now.” Ironsoul intoned. “What. Happened.”

{You saw the same vision as I.} Fireblade sent to him. It was not a question, not anymore.

{The two Eldar, speaking in an office?}

{Those were ‘Eldar’?}

{Pale skin, too tall, ears you could use as bayonets, and their misshapen eyes full of malice, arrogance and trickery? Definitely Eldar.} he replied. {And that view out of the wraithbone structure… wasn’t that this planet? It had that ring in the sky, and everything.}

{I am certain that that was indeed Deinar.} If he concentrated, he could just make out the buzz of thoughts rushing in to crowd Fireblade’s mind.

“How old is this ‘artifact?’” Alex asked aloud, one hand still clutching the Aquila to his chest. It couldn’t be too old, but perhaps if it dated to the earliest years of the Emperor’s Great Crusade, then it might have—

“It was found in a sealed chamber deep beneath this very Citadel.” Beryl read aloud from the dataslate wordlessly handed to her by one of the black-stripe teidar. “The lack of atmosphere in that room made dating it difficult, but the disturbed rock strata around it indicated that it was among the earliest structures ever found on Deinar.” The listel’s eyebrows rose even further.

“Uh-huh.” he said, mostly to himself as he wracked his memory of what he had learned from the loroi of their xenos history. Deinar was one of their ‘Sister Worlds,’ first civilized—

He frowned. That couldn’t be right. “But that would be—”

“Two-hundred-and-seventy-thousand years old, approximately.” Ironsoul deadpanned. “Now, you said that you thought this to be an ‘Imperial’ artifact?”

“It is!” he shouted, clutching the holy symbol even closer to his chest. “The double-headed eagle, symbol of the Emperor himself, adopted at the very earliest moments of the sacred Imperium!”

“Then unless the histories and timeline of your Imperium are even more confused than what I saw in your mind, we have a very conflicting artifact, here.”

Beryl leaned close over the aged teidar’s shoulder, her eyes wide as she stared down at the Aquila in Alex’s hands.

Ironsoul looked aside to Fireblade once more. “Now, Pallan Fireblade has recounted this ‘vision’ she saw — and which you apparently shared — and the ‘Eldar’ within it. This is an alien species known to you, is it not?”

Had she not mentioned ‘seeing’ his memory of those infuriating xenos, in her interrogation of him only minutes — well, technically hours now — ago? Was she trying to push him into explaining for the other xenos who now filled the room?

“The Eldar, yes.” he nodded, mind distractedly recounting the basics of them while he focused on trying to make some sense out of this insanity. “The galaxy was theirs before it was ours. Their corrupt nature brought a Dark God into being, and they have been on the decline ever since.”

“Were they around, in the time of the Soia?”

That forced a laugh from him. “They were around when the galaxy was made, if you ask them. Arrogant bastards, like all xe—” he coughed. “I don’t believe that claim, but they are known to be a truly ancient civilization. Their artifacts can be found all around the galaxy.”

And the stick-thin bastards were known to love playing cruel tricks and pranks on the younger species. Especially their wiser — and infinitely more worthy — successors, Humanity.

That must be it!

Some ancient Eldar farseer had foreseen that the Imperium would arise, and center itself around the Holy Aquila as the symbol of Humanity’s God. And that farseer had decided to seed these fake-Aquilae as some sort of trap, or maybe just as a prank.

His eyes slid aside to Fireblade, meeting her returned stare.

But then why had it affected her so differently than him… and why the nonsensical vision? Two Eldar arguing over a weapons production facility, perhaps the xenos equivalent to a renegade Archmagos and his Forge World? Come to think of it, neither of the knife-ears had worn a visible soulstone: were they Commorites, or had the vision depicted ancient, pre-Fall Eldar?

He looked at the maybe-Aquila in his hands. Now that he looked with eyes not (only) desperate for anything familiar amidst his xenos surroundings, it didn’t look quite correct.

The black-and-white coloration was the big flaw, and the wings curved upwards instead of being confidently straight.

Yet the two eagle heads were exactly as they should be, even down to the blindfold on the right-side head.

Was it truly some ancient Eldar trick?

It must be.

{What is a ‘Deep Gate’?} Fireblade asked.

He blinked. {I don’t know. Probably nothing, just part of a vision added only to confuse, meaning nothing.} Yet that didn’t… ‘feel’ right to him.

Fireblade looked up at Ironsoul, and then stood upright. After a moment, she extended her hand to him, palm open. {I… thank you. For whatever you did to wake me from the slumber imposed by that artifact.}

Well, there was no such thing as a ‘half-heretic’ and he was already pushing the boundaries of Heresy.

So, why not?

Alex grasped the xenos’ offered hand, and was pulled upright.

He licked dry lips, looking anywhere in the room besides the teidar staring back at him. {Of course.}

And only belatedly dropped the hand that he was still holding.

Of course, meeting Ironsoul’s piercing gaze was hardly better than Fireblade’s.

The aged teidar nodded, slowly. “I think there is one more item which we wish you to see, if you yet have the energy for further investigation.”

“Yes.” he answered immediately, before clarifying “Where is it?” It was not like he had anything else to do, and what was one more mind-bending mystery after he had already been stumped by this one?

He glanced between the remaining two containment-boxes in the room.

But Ironsoul shook her head. “Those are for later. If you are willing to face it, I would show you the actual room where that two-headed artifact was found.”

Fireblade drew in a sharp breath.

{?} he sent.

{The lower floors of the Citadel — where this ancient chamber must be — are restricted only to the senior-most of my caste. And some Diadem Councilors.}

“Then lead us to there. Uh, that is, if—” he had only begun to turn his head towards Fireblade when he felt her derision flow over him.

{I am a warrior, of course I am prepared to continue this duty today.}

{That—} he clamped down as best he could on his thoughts, focusing on sending only what he wished. {That was not what I was about to ask.}

It didn’t fool her. {You lie about as poorly as a four-year-old child.}

Unable to think of a good response, he only stepped after Ironsoul as she led them out of the artifact room. Clutching tightly to what dignity he could still gather about him.

Several minutes of silent marching through progressively-older corridors and rough-hewn stairways later, and the group turned a corner.

And Alex froze.

The ancient stone underfoot, weathered by who-knew-how-many generations of xenos footsteps, ended abruptly. Replaced by an off-white smooth material, flexing almost imperceptibly underfoot. Yet to his inner eye, it glowed warmly.

Wraithbone.

{You did not mention this!} he sent, staring around him at the sudden transition between loroi-xenos and Eldar-xenos architecture.

{I have never seen this before!} Fireblade reminded him.

“Attache Jardin?” Beryl asked, from behind him.

Well, that was better than ‘Prisoner Jardin’… although perhaps less accurate, now. “This is wraithbone.” he said aloud. “The same material that the Eldar build, uh, 'everything' out of.”

To Ironsoul he added “Why didn’t you mention this, earlier? This goes well beyond an ‘artifact!’”

The withered xenos eyed him for several seconds before responding. “I had my suspicions, but wished for you to see it first without advance warning. It is truly the work of these ‘Eldar’?”

“I have never heard of any other xenos who worked with wraithbone.”

“I see.” And he could see her jaw working, as the old loroi gritted her teeth. Glanced past him, around the other aliens in the stark-white corridor.

But said nothing more aloud, merely gesturing for him to follow her deeper into the Eldar ruin.

Well, ‘ruin’ was rarely quite appropriate for even the most ancient wraithbone; its self-healing properties usually kept even untended structures from falling into dilapidation. Come to think of it, wouldn’t the psy-active material be harmed by constant exposure to psychic nulls like the loroi? Unless—

{So the Eldar were here, on one of your homeworlds, about when your supposed ‘Soia’ dropped your ancestors here. And the two in that vision were speaking of an artificial species that they had created. It seems that you are the—}

{Loroi are Soia.} Fireblade sent immediately, cutting off his thoughts.

{Are you so certain?} he asked.

{Loroi are Soia.} she repeated.

{Well, I doubt you’re descended from the Eldar, so that leaves—}

{If we were, that still does not align with the rest of the vision.} Fireblade sent insistently.

{?}

{The vision said that the ‘weapon creatures’ created by these Eldar were split into two species. Even if one of those were the loroi — which they aren’t — that would imply that one of the other Soia-Liron species were made alongside us, to a similar design.} She glanced aside at Beryl for a moment, before continuing {And none of those actual Soia creations are especially akin to us, certainly none that seem to have been made to ‘work alongside’ us.} She paused. {Although Beryl reminds me that there are two Soia-liron species known to have once existed… but have long-since went extinct.}

Well, at least that meant two fewer xenos species in the galaxy. Finally some simple, good news.

He ignored Fireblade’s exasperated thoughts as the group proceeded further down the hallway with its distinctive triangular ceiling, regularly-spaced wraithbone arches passing by. Ironsoul paused in front of a door near the end, and it silently opened after a second.

She entered, and Fireblade made to follow.

Until Alex’s hand reached across her to bar her way. {Stop.}

“What is it?” Ironsoul asked, turning around.

But Alex had eyes only for the floor beyond her. “You do not see it?”

“I see a featureless, circular domed room that has long since been emptied of any further artifacts.” the elder teidar answered, although he thought he saw a calculating glint in her eye.

“The floor is… wrong.” The indeed-featureless floor, black as the void between stars, seemed to absorb the reflected light from the temporary lux-casters set up in the room and angled upwards.

It was wraithbone, to be certain. But… ‘corrupted.’

{Wait here.} Alex sent, stepping past Fireblade into the room. Kneeling to place one palm against the floor. Psychometry was easier the more that one handled an object, but ‘handling’ something the size of a room was rather beyond him. Was beyond anyone, save perhaps a psyker Ogryn.

A scary mental image, that.

Whatever the cause, he could perceive… nothing. The jet-black floor-wraithbone ate up his attempts as voraciously as it devoured the projected light.

“What is it?” asked Beryl, stepping closer. Tempo followed behind her, Ironsoul having to move back out of the doorway to make space in the small room.

“I am not sure.” he said once more, a repeated admission that was becoming quite tiresome today.

{Is it another trap?} Fireblade asked.

{I sense no active energy within it. Whatever it is, it appears to be inert.} he replied, one hand still gliding back-and-forth over the floor as if to sweep its veil of mystery aside. {It should be safe.}

He felt her first footstep on the black wraithbone, at the same moment as Ironsoul came closer as well.

Of course, he felt Fireblade’s footstep because it echoed through the wraithbone structure underneath him.

And something answered.

Something eager.

{Stop!} he shouted in his mind, even as energy surged up from below. {Go back! Now!}

His own legs were too slow to uncoil.

Quicker than thought, Fireblade sent out her own pulse of witchcraft.

Ironsoul grunted sharply as she was harshly flung back, out of the light-eating room.

Which presumably left the older teidar with a perfect view as the stone-hard wraithbone underfoot turned to liquid…

And Alex, Fireblade, Beryl and Tempo fell in as if it were water.

The black surface closed back over him, and all became darkness.

///////

Fireblade’s feet hit bottom, and she kicked upwards.

The inky blackness around her parted, and she broke the surface.

Too dark to see, she used her sanzai senses to hunt for Beryl and—

Tempo broke the surface next to her. {What was that!?} the normally calm and collected mizol sent, even as Fireblade pulled Beryl above the maybe-water next to them.

{Unknown.} came Fireblade’s distracted sending, as she hunted for Alexander’s signature. It was easier to spot one’s fellow loroi, after all, but recently she—

Ah. There.

She heaved with her powers, yanking the alien up towards them.

Alex coughed harshly and sucked in great lungfuls of air as soon as he broke the surface next to the three loroi. “What in the Throne’s holy light—!?”

He was evidently just as confused as the rest of them.

Well. There went her hope for an explanation.

{Spread out, and search for the shore.} she sent to the three others, pushing her way through the water with calm, confident strokes that hid her underlying bewilderment.

If only there were some light here, but what faint illumination came from their rank-tabs failed utterly to show anything in the pitch blackness. As if—

Her hand came to rest on something hard, and she pulled herself out of the water onto a surface that was flat, featureless and yet held her grip.

It was familiar.

{Over here.} she sent. {More of this ‘wraithbone,’ but it is solid.}

Beryl was the second one out of the warm water, followed by Tempo... and then Alex, with assistance. Fireblade would have disdained the human’s near-inability to swim, if she hadn’t seen that his homeworld bore no liquid water larger than the bathtubs of his childhood home.

That memory she had not intended to find.

No sooner had Alex’s wet hand slapped onto the wraithbone ‘shore’ next to Fireblade than a faint glow spread from underneath his scrabbling limb.

A glow which continued to strengthen, expanding outwards as the human dragged himself ashore.

A glow that spread along the ground, up pillars, and across the ceiling overhead.

“Where…?” Beryl breathed, her thoughts unraveling in sheer awe and confusion at the sight now visible to all four.

Colonnades of fluted pillars stretched off to infinity in all directions, expanding and fanning out as they rose as if to mimic some unimaginably-large tree. The distance to the ribbed ceiling overhead was impossible to judge, with no frame of reference. It seemed to… shift as soon as Fireblade took her eyes off of one section, although it shifted back when her attention returned.

All of it was wraithbone.

All of it was dotted with those peculiar multicolored gems that she had seen in the earlier vision.

…

Please let this be yet another one of the strange visions that seemed to arise with startling regularity wherever Alexander led her.

“[Throne preserve us.]” Alexander muttered, his head rotating quickly one direction and then the next. It took her a moment to realize that he had not spoken in Trade, and she had read the meaning right out of his mind.

“What is it?” Tempo asked, carefully standing upright and also glancing around. At least her normal reserved demeanor had returned.

“It is the Webway.”

[dragoongfa]

The Soia being a Khaine cult intent on upending the Eldar Pantheon? Par of the course for Eldar and perhaps this would have been enough to stop the birth of 'She Who Thirsts' but Khaine being Khaine and Eldar being Eldar this would have probably ended up being the prelude of an equal disaster for the Eldar; an Eldar god with dreams above his mandated station? Yeah, Khaine would have not stopped there but would have attempted to rise even further.

And the Flesh Shapers, that's Homunculi with an other name, probably how they were called before the fall. Lets hope that the purge the Eldar Empire did of this Cult was thorough enough to at least permakill the Homunculi behind this mess. Last thing anyone wants is Dark Eldar making a bigger mess.

EDIT: And I really hope that the Eldar destroyed that Tomb World as well; last thing anyone want is a Necron Dynasty rising up right next to Terra. That's the recipe of an Instant Crusade and depending on the dynasty it may not be enough.

[Cthulhu]

So this Aeldari sect created several strands of creatures? I suppose it's not as easy as the "normal" Loroi and farseeing Loroi.

And stumbling into the Webway is certainly fun. You might find untold riches, lost artifacts, entire civilizations. Or they find you. I wonder how Fireblade will fare as a gladiator in Commorragh.

[Urist]

EDIT: And I really hope that the Eldar destroyed that Tomb World as well; last thing anyone want is a Necron Dynasty rising up right next to Terra. That's the recipe of an Instant Crusade and depending on the dynasty it may not be enough.

Random hardtrooper on patrol: "Why do I hear music?"

[Urist]

They had spent more than four-thousand solon doing everything imaginable to re-activate the inky-black gate through which they had arrived.

Yet the watery form that it had taken back then had hardened as soon as any of them attempted to submerge once more in the ancient… whatever-it-was.

Which left them apparently marooned, without any supplies, here in what Alexander had called a ‘Webway.’

{No success?} Fireblade asked, standing behind Alex where the human knelt at the perimeter of the once-liquid black structure.

{None.} came his tense answer. He still held his strange two-headed statue — the one that had caused both of them so much trouble earlier — in a white-knuckled grip. Now raised it in front of him, as if to be a shield against harm. {I just don’t understand why—!}

The warring, roiling emotions inside him washed over Fireblade.

In a convulsive, angry movement Alexander hurled the bird-statue down.

It bounced along the smooth, black wraithbone.

But made little sound.

{Are you all right?} Fireblade asked after several solon during which the human only stared at the statue, his clawed hands shaking in front of him.

{Yes.} he lied.

A flurry of emotions shifting too rapidly for Fireblade to parse echoed out from the alien. Like a child too young to control her sendings… or a warrior who had crumpled under the pressures of combat.

Well, alien or not, he was a male after all. Best to give him something else to think on, to distract him from what was obviously rising panic.

And to distract her from thinking too much about certain implications of the vision, earlier. {How far is it between Webway gates?}

{What?} he asked.

{You stated that this realm we find ourselves in is the ‘Webway.’ And that the Eldar use it for travel. However the black gate came to be on Deinar,} which was one of the thoughts that she didn’t want to think about too closely right now, {it seems to be closed to us from this direction. Which leaves us with two options: we can either hope that Ironsoul somehow finds a way to ‘open’ it as you did — which seems most unlikely — or we can search for another gate that might let us return through.}

He laughed. {Through a random Webway gate? Throne help us, we would really be playing Valhallan Roulette with such a choice! Even if we survived wandering lost through the Webway itself, there are vanishingly few worlds where we might emerge that would not prove even more deadly than imminent starvation here.}

She noted that Alexander’s faintly-receivable internal thoughts included Imperial worlds as ‘deadly’… for the three loroi. Even if he did not make that point consciously, at least it showed that he did now think of that as a ‘negative.’

{I do not think that we would be selecting at ‘random.’} Fireblade glanced around the vast chamber in which they found themselves, catching the eyes of Beryl and Tempo where those two other warriors waited off to one side.

Hardened-leather boots scrabbled against wraithbone, as Alexander stood up. {What do you mean?}

{There.} She pointed off past the other two loroi. To a trail leading off into the distance, where the scattered debris was thinner, the route flat and level... albeit thin and still well-worn. {There is a path leading in that direction, no? It is faint and damaged, but clearly there.}

{...yes?} Alex hesitantly agreed.

{And that earlier vision} she gestured to the discarded two-headed statue {mentioned a ‘Deep Gate’ that led to another world where the Eldar — maybe Soia — had placed other creations of theirs.} She did not let her thoughts linger on just what that might mean for the loroi. {That can only mean one of the other Soia-liron species. Hopefully, the Barsam or Neridi, and their homeworlds. Worlds of the Union.} she emphasized.

{With no guarantee that we can exit the Webway there any more than here.} despite his morose complaint, she felt his recognition that she was right. {I have never heard of any such clear ‘path’ in the Webway before; it is said to be a confusing, twisted realm devoid of easy landmarks or directions.}

{Yet that path is our least-bad option.} With the even-greater insight into his mind that she had felt ever since awakening from the vision-induced coma earlier, Fireblade added {Or would your Emperor prefer instead that you sit here until you starve?}

{I am far from certain that He cares much for anything that I do, anymore.} Alex responded. Yet where earlier such thoughts would have been drowned in black depression, now instead a halo of tired resignation surrounded them.

He walked over to the thrown avian-statue, and picked it up. Then, without a word, followed Fireblade back to the rest of the group.

{He has agreed to your plan?} Tempo asked.

Fireblade nodded, moving past the mizol and taking her first few tentative footsteps on this ‘path’ that she had seen.

It was not promising.

The lithe columns stretching far overhead seemed to be in decent shape, unmarred by damage… but the same could not be said for the jumble of fallen wraithbone architecture at ‘ground’ level.

Beryl asked from behind them “What might this collapsed ruin have once been? Do these aliens build structures within this space?”

“I would suspect it was a ‘wall’ or some such equivalent.” Alexander said, taking his place beside her. Carefully picking his way through the mess. “Eldar travel by Webway more than they do by the Materium; if they had sought to restrict access to their facility on your homeworld even for other members of their race, they would have built a guard facility here, at the Gate to that place.”

But even once they had passed beyond the scattered remains of the ruined fortress, the terrain underfoot was not even. Great dunes of fine, powdery material crunched underfoot, the four warriors — well, three warriors and one male — picking their way through the valleys between those small hills.

So it went for the next several thousand mannal.

Fireblade and Alex in the lead, eyes and ears constantly scanning for any of the threats which the human warned may lurk within the vast, alien realm.

Eventually, Fireblade had to ask. {Why do you still carry that?}

He answered immediately, the object in question clearly near the front of his own mind. {It is a holy Aquila.} Nothing more was sent, as if that were answer enough.

But she could see that even his own mind did not consider that sufficient. {One that predates your civilization by hundreds of thousands of years.}

{It is a holy Aquila.} he repeated insistently, clearly more to himself than in answer to her. {...and there is more knowledge stored in it, more visions. I can feel them, but have not yet found a way to draw them forth.}

She eyed him and the statuette clutched in his hands warily. {Make no further attempts until we have returned to the safety of the Union; our group of four cannot afford for you or I to be driven unconscious once more.}

{I believe that the trap has already been sprung, and that no further danger—}

{You believe.} she emphasized.

Alexander wouldn’t meet her eyes. But where earlier that would have been solely because of his programmed distrust of aliens, now she could feel the more… ‘complex’ emotions roiling within him at the thought. Regret, embarrassment, shame...

Fireblade frowned. {What exactly did that trap do?}

{I am not actually certain that it was intended as a trap; many Eldar psy-active artifacts are designed for a stronger mind than—} he was evading the question, she could feel it.

Eyes sweeping the jumbled terrain ahead of him as he walked, Alex briefly glanced over at Fireblade.

And immediately flinched away. {It bit at my soul, attempting to drain a part of it to power the Circuit in which the memories were stored.}

{It bit at your ‘soul.’} she echoed, uncertainly. It all sounded like the nonsense ramblings of a drunken Barsam, but evidently there were some things that humans understood about the mind which loroi did not.

{And it missed. Or… something like that. I don’t know why. But it didn’t end up cutting away any part of mine.}

Fireblade’s boot came down on a rough piece of wraithbone debris, the unsure footing causing her to have to quickly shuffle forwards to avoid falling.

Just as she realized {And instead it went to—}

{Your soul.} He still refused to meet her eyes, even as one hand automatically reached out to stabilize her. Unneeded, of course. {Again, I don’t know why — I haven’t even heard of anything like it — but the artifact turned away from me and went after your…}

His thoughts trailed off.

Fireblade didn’t know how to feel about this revelation. {The doranzer found no injuries on me.}

She could feel that his thoughts were focused elsewhere, as he answered distractedly. {They only know how to search for wounds of the body; diagnosing, let alone healing, wounds inflicted upon the soul are another thing entirely.}

The debris underfoot was thinning out, now, as they got progressively further and further from the Gate now well behind them. {Is that what you did? To restore me to consciousness?}

{Yes.} he replied.

She frowned.

He was lying.

{What did you do?}

{I… used parts of my soul to ‘repair’ the damage to yours.}

She blinked in surprise. That certainly sounded very implausible for a human indoctrinated into his strange religion to do for a loroi. {You harmed yourself in order to—?}

{I don’t know!} he erupted, head jerking agitatedly as he observed the empty grand hallway extending in front of them. {I didn’t feel any of the hollowness and agony that such a desperate act should have led to. There is only one thing that that could mean, but—}

His thoughts unraveled.

{‘But’?} Fireblade prompted. As strange as these ramblings seemed, the alien did evidently know more about the concept than Fireblade did.

{But the only explanation that I can think of, and why the artifact in my hands pulled at your soul is that—} once more, his thoughts dissolved into confused and anguished self-searching.

This was becoming tiresome.

Fireblade stepped closer to him as they walked, the greater proximity making it simpler to follow even his jumbled, halting, rapidly-flickering thoughts. One of them kept coming to the fore, each time being hurled back down. {What is ‘Soul-Binding?’}

{A most sacred and holy ritual that cannot be performed without years of preparation, the assistance of other psykers of great power… and His holy Presence, above all else. It cannot be—} he paused, thoughts looping briefly. {It cannot have been performed without my having felt it… and cannot be done with a xenos.} He finally met her eyes, if only for an instant. {With you.}

{Evidently, you believe that it has.} That explained the mixed confusion and revulsion. Not that she was exactly sure how to feel about the concept, herself.

{But it cannot!} he repeated, thought spattered with panicked mania. {Yet it must have! It—!}

She grasped his hand, tightening her grip around it as she focused on projecting as much simple calmness as possible into his mind. Much as a veteran squad leader would do for a junior warrior whose mind had become frayed by the stresses of combat.

Alien or not, it worked.

{Thank you.} he thought, eyes widening at the honest admission. Then, teeth gritted but mind less frantic than earlier, he continued {A psyker who is soul-bound to the Emperor has a portion of all mind-attacks levied against them directed instead towards His soul, which of course obliterates that portion entirely.}

{And you believe that something like that happened when the statuette’s ‘bite’ towards your soul was directed to mine.} Now she understood. Well, began to understand. All of these pseudo-religious terms just made things more confusing than they had to be. {When could this ‘soul-binding’ have occurred?}

{I have absolutely no idea. But it meant that when I went to restore your soul with parts of mine... their patterns were already attuned.}

She nodded, eyes playing over yet another of the grand columns that surrounded them. {Like an emergency organ donation in the field, where the medical equipment to grow an artificial replacement is not available. Closely-related warriors experience fewer rejection issues.} It was a situation that very rarely came up thanks to the near-ubiquity of trained doranzer and their equipment, but one that warriors who expected to be deployed on long-duration missions were prepared for just in case.

Alex stared at her, affronted. {I speak of matters of the soul, not base… surgery!}

{The concepts seem equivalent enough to me.}

He grimaced and looked away. {Well, perhaps. But it still does not answer how this came to be.} At least the earlier revulsion that had been thick in his mind was now thinning out as he thought to himself {Soul-bound with a xenos…}

She tried not to think why even that lesser distaste in Alex’s mind still stung her so.

///////

They made ‘camp’ maybe thirty minutes after his awkward conversation with Fireblade. The three aliens drew out whatever minor foodstuffs they had happened to be carrying at the time of their unexpected entry into the Webway. Some xenos tuber-plant, stuffed with alien meat. Two water-flasks.

It was all immediately divided into four equal shares.

The fact that none of the three even seemed to hesitate in that was what really shook him. They were xenos, for Throne’s sake; and even though they found themselves trapped in the lifeless Webway — a realm even more alien to them than to him — for an unknown amount of time, they shared their life-sustaining nourishment with him without an apparent second thought!

He was also surprised by how readily he accepted.

The alien food was distasteful, yes, but only moderately worse than the Eldar food that he had been forced to subsist on during his earlier assignment. He had learned techniques to keep those xenos foodstuffs down, and with enough concentration of will he could do the same now.

Alex gnawed at the cut-in-half ‘pozet’ that he had been handed, and let his thoughts run circles around each other.

The loroi were aliens: he was supposed to abhor them. The loroi were allies: they had fought against Chaos.

They were his jailers: he had been condemned to a life on their planet. They were his friends: they had protected and fed him.

They were—

Teeth met finger-tip, and he winced back. Had the food really gone that quickly? He felt almost bad for scarfing it down that rapidly.

The three loroi were each seated with their back to him, albeit still with the physical separation that he had come to associate with the loroi. A gesture that would have been quite rude from fellow humans, but if anything helped soothe his mind here instead. As if he could ignore for just a fleeting moment how much he had mortgaged his soul by aiding xenos, by working alongside xenos, by accepting food from xenos, by—

{If it makes you feel better, I can still take back half of the water-ration we allotted you.} Fireblade sent. His gaze snapped to her, catching one emerald eye returning the attention over her shoulder. One eyebrow minutely raised, a thin gesture that spoke volumes on her normally-impassive face.

Not that he needed it, with how easily the humor in her mind-voice came through.

Another blow to the sanctity of his soul, then: being teased by xenos.

Although he did quickly down the small amount of water that he had been given. Water was just water, right; surely it couldn’t matter by whom it was given? It was one of the most simple of the holy chemicals which the God-Emperor had placed in His universe, after all.

{Surely there are some times when your people ally themselves with aliens?} the teidar asked. And was that a ghost of a smile that he saw? No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Fireblade straightened her face. {You have mentioned working alongside these ‘Eldar’ before.}

{That was done while under direct order from my House. The Warrant of Trade held by my Great-Aunt Mariya grants her the right to interact with any alien necessary for the benefit of Mankind, and that protection extends to members of her household and servants who act under her orders.}

{A strange system. But were you not ‘ordered’ out here on that ship of yours?}

He pursed his lips, handing back the now-empty water flask to Beryl. {I was sent here to explore in search of an ancient weapon, not to serve aliens found in a chance encounter!}

{A ‘chance encounter’ which saved your life. Certainly your government — and cult — will understand?}

He gave her a look. Surely she had seen enough of his memories to know better than that.

{Perhaps not, then.} Fireblade shook her head, standing and crumpling the now-empty wrapper of her own small meal. She rolled the small lump of foil back and forth between two fingers, staring down at it for several seconds. Then asked again {They would truly not begrudge you interacting so with us, even to save your own life?}

{No.}

{Why?} Her mind-tone rang with more ‘confusion’ than any other emotion.

{Because you are aliens.} Before the loroi could ask further, he continued {All xenos turn on humanity, sooner or later. Those who choose to aid the alien only sow the seeds of their own undoing.} Straight from the holy texts. {Only by careful limitations on the scope of interactions with aliens may humanity be kept safe. That is one of the roles of the Houses of Trade: to keep aliens not yet rendered safe under observation, to prepare for their inevitable attack.}

{Is that what you had intended to do, when you came to Deinar? ‘Keep us under observation?’}

Alex paused. He’d talked himself into a corner on that one, hadn’t he? His eyes dropped to the flimsy-metal food wrapper ball in Fireblade’s hand… now crushed into a flat disc.

Best to pick his thoughts with caution, now. At the same time, the teidar had demonstrated her ability to tell when he was outright lying. {Yes.} Perhaps with a bit of His help, blunt honesty would be the better way forward. And it wasn’t like he could actually do anything with his monitoring of the loroi, as unable as he was to pass on any warning to the Imperium. But it was at least a minor balm to his increasingly-troubled soul. Come to think of it, he could put a similarly-sharp question to her. {Unless you deny that your Union would ever contemplate hostilities with the Imperium? Would your people peacefully accept being limited to your settled systems for the rest of eternity, no further exploration outside of that space?}

Fireblade snorted, eyes rising to fix his. Did not bother answering the obvious question. {And was it that same duty that saw you deployed to talk with these ‘Eldar’?}

He hadn’t thought so at the time, but— {Eventually, yes. I had first thought that I was there to represent my people in an ancient treaty against a greater foe, but the Eldar — inevitably — betrayed me. I can but hope that my disappearance serves as warning to my House of the betrayal of that thin-but-ancient trust.}

The group began to ‘break camp.’ That is, the loroi returned their now-lighter water flasks to the carry-points on their armor, and without a spoken word resumed the walk down the apparent-path through the Webway.

{Yet there was an alliance between your people and these Eldar, then. It did not last forever, no, but clearly something was once thought important enough to justify such an agreement.}

{Which turned out to have been a mistake, just as the Ecclesiarchy repeatedly warned.} He shook his head. {It was supposedly a pact to aid one another in the battle against the Great Enemy, the vile forces of the Immaterium and their pawns. Forged in the conflict over the Cursus of—}

A lightning-bolt surged through his heart.

Alex spun on one foot to stare back along the way they had come. Not that that helped in the Webway, of course; the twisting paths hid what lay behind them as well as what may lie ahead of them.

“Attache Jardin? What do you see?” Tempo snapped, breaking the long silence that had had him ‘speaking’ only to Fireblade. By the tone of the mizol’s voice, she clearly assumed that he had detected some threat to the group.

Which perhaps he had.

“It’s a Cursus...” he breathed, eyes staring off into the hazy mist of the Webway, as if he could still see the black water-like section of buried wraithbone that had so unpleasantly forced them into this alien realm.

The three loroi glanced between themselves.

Beryl then asked “That is the artifact found on your homeworld that Fireblade saw in your dream, yes?”

He grimaced at the reminder that his mind was no longer his own. But nodded, glancing around warily. “Yes. An ancient model of Webway gate, connecting to tunnels that run closer to the Immaterium than do the portions of this realm which the modern Eldar prefer to use.”

Suddenly, it felt rather less wise to be walking here out in the ‘open’ between ancient half-decayed ruins. It was not the Immaterium outright, certainly, but who knew what other predators lurked in this long-abandoned place?

“This is most fascinating!” If the ominous implications were known to Beryl, none of them came across in her voice. “And you are certain that the artifact built into the oldest parts of Stone Watcher Citadel was indeed a similar structure?”

“I believe so, now. The behavior of both the aspect of it projected into the Materium and its presence in the Webway match those recorded by the ancient xenographers of Tallarn.”

“Then they are both perhaps the ‘Deep Gates’ which Fireblade’s vision spoke of?” the listel asked, eyes on the Aquila where it bulged from one of Alex’s coat pockets. “It then seems possible that this ‘Tallarn’ world was a Soia colony as well?”

{And where these Soia-Eldar beings from that vision hid their ‘Sensor-creatures’?} Fireblade added.

Alex shook his head. “Tallarn is a dead world. Virus-bombed during the Arch-Betrayer’s uprising, ten-thousand years ago. Nothing of the life-forms found on that world beforehand remain, only Humanity.”

It was an event that still stoked fury in the hearts of any child of Tallarn, adopted or not. The time when the verdant paradise of their ancestors was burned to choking dust and lifeless desert, all in the name of the vile ambition of the Emperor’s traitorous son.

“A pity.” Tempo now spoke. He could not read her mind as he could Fireblade’s — all loroi besides her remained utterly invisible to his senses, no matter how he tried — but there was a definite note of loss in her voice. “Then we are unlikely to ever find out what truth there may or may not have been in the vision seen by Fireblade.”

The mizol glanced after Alex. “Unless there were more of these ‘Cursus’ artifacts?”

“The Eldar claimed that there were three, crafted long ago in the time of their Domain’s rule over the galaxy.” A concept that still struck him as distasteful – a galaxy not under the holy and rightful dominion of Mankind? No wonder it had all gone so wrong. “Ancient enough that their original purpose was lost to the mists of forgotten memory of even such a long-lived people.”

He gazed about him once more, eyeing the frayed Webway columns that kept this narrow realm separate from the eternally-clutching claws of the Immaterium. “Indeed, it is thought even by them that the ‘Gates of the Gods’ now led directly into the Warp, rather than to any functional Webway sections.”

Or at least, that was what they had told him. As always with Eldar, it was quite impossible to determine what they said was true, and what was merely misdirection meant to maneuver you into doing as they intended.

“Then it seems that there may be a third Gate?” Beryl asked, with guarded enthusiasm. “Perhaps it is indeed located on a Union world, with Soia-created species known to us!” Her voice dropped the ‘guarded’ and returned to its normal, eager tone. “Or one of the lost Soia species, perhaps the Mozeret or Tagid!”

“I think instead it would be better for us if we returned to a known Union world.” Tempo spoke, with a quick glance at Alex.

The meaning of which he could not misread. “The Cursus of Alganar on Tallarn was forced closed at the end of the Cursus War. We would find no exit there.” Although he certainly did wish that he could simply… return home. After all the craziness of this mission from the Family, to return to somewhere familiar…

Except.

It no longer surprised him that his stomach twisted at the thought of just what arrival on an Imperial planet would mean for the loroi. For Tempo, Beryl… and Fireblade.

Perhaps he could intervene, speak for them? House Trask would certainly be interested enough in an uncontacted xenos civilization ripe for exploitation… which surely was preferable to genocide. Yet both of those concepts tore at his heart, an emotional reaction that a faithful servant of the Emperor should not have at the thought of xenos being rightfully suppressed.

He grimaced, glancing away from the three aliens around him.

Throne help him, how had it come to this!?

But he could not lie to himself, could not argue his way back to the comforting embrace of the Imperial Creed. Not wholly, not anymore. There were now three loroi-shaped holes in his mental armor of righteousness.

What had wrought this change? Was it the constant calmness of Tempo? The ceaseless enthusiasm of Beryl? Or the deep understanding of Fireblade, as utterly unasked-for as that closeness had been on either side?

{I know little of the finer meaning, but ‘Soul-binding’ certainly sounds like the sort of event that could prompt such a change of heart.} the teidar’s mind-voice crept once more into his skull. He had long since stopped flinching at the xenos’ presence, even so close to his inner soul.

Had long since stopped even minding it.

She continued {Perhaps it even ‘forced’ you to change your mind; that there never was any ‘lack of faith’ on your part.}

Alex blinked, head snapping over to the teidar.

She refused to meet his gaze, instead glancing aside down a side-corridor of the Webway as they passed it.

A hysterical laugh forced its way up and out of his chest.

Followed by a second.

More.

“Are you well, Attache Jardin?” Tempo’s concern-tinged voice asked.

Alex was too doubled-over in unstoppable laughter to so much as look up.

The sheer ridiculousness of it all! Being reassured of his faith by a xenos, when it was his contact with that selfsame xenos that had prompted his moment of doubt in the first place!

A clumsy reassurance, yes, but one whose heartfelt honesty he could feel!

{Sanzai is always honest.} Fireblade sent matter-of-factly, although he could feel a distant echo of his own mirth underlying her thoughts.

He fought himself under control, straightening up. Nodding calmly to Tempo, who then glanced aside at Fireblade.

And to the teidar who had precipitated this episode… he bowed.

A family member of a Noble House of Trade — even if he hailed from a junior branch, he still held the right to be addressed as ‘Lord’ by those of lower birth — bowed to a xenos.

And meant it.

As he knew she knew.

{Thank you.} he sent, straightening up once more.

{A strange gesture. Symbolizing… ‘respect’?}

{Among other things.} he replied, noting as the chill feelers of her own mind probed his in search of those meanings.

Fireblade nodded, a strange look in her emerald eyes. {I see.}

///////

They continued on for several hundred solon in silence — both verbal and mental — after the human’s hip-bending gesture.

Which she still didn’t quite know how to feel about.

The closest loroi equivalent would have been a mental signaling of respect, as to a senior officer. But that would mean little, coming from a non-warrior like Alex.

Yet still, a smile had forced its way past her discipline and onto her face when she felt the meaning of his movement.

After all, it was the first major crack in the alien’s cult-imposed xenophobia.

Tempo broke the silence. {It seems that you are making progress in gaining Attache Jardin’s trust. Or at least, in softening his disposition towards us.} Half-received fragments of plans and plots lurked underneath her sanzai. {And there will be much more time to continue that effort, once we arrive at whichever other Soia-liron planet this ‘Deep Gate’ leads to and arrange for transport back to Deinar.}

Neither of the two of them chose to comment on the assumption that they would indeed emerge from this strange ‘Webway’ realm onto a Union world. Not some Soia laboratory-world, home to another Soia-created people who knew nothing of the Union.

After all, if the four-person group found themselves upon an unknown planet and with no ability to return to the Union anytime soon, then any planning done now would be for naught anyways. It was a possibility that could not be prepared for, at least not any more than the normal trained ability of three Union warriors to overcome unexpected circumstances.

Beryl asked next {I am half-hoping that we will not leave this place too soon.} Her sanzai came through distractedly, as the bulk of the young listel’s concentration was — as expected by anyone who knew her as well as Fireblade and Tempo did — focused on the strange sights around her. {It is most intriguing!}

Piles of unrecognizable wreckage, half-collapsed ruined structures, and some of the forest of columns that surrounded them here seemed to have… ‘cracks.’

“Attache Jardin?” Beryl voiced her question directly to the alien. “It seems that this column is damaged. What is behind—?”

Fireblade’s nerves lit up with alarm, and without conscious thought she felt her powers activate and fling the listel bodily away from the crack in the column that she had been reaching towards.

Only then did she recognize that the surge of near-panic had not come from her own mind.

Alex’s shouted words came a fraction of a solon later. “Don’t touch that!” He took a step closer to the damaged column… but only one step. “The Webway lies between the Materium and the Immaterium, and where its base structure has been damaged holes directly into the Warp can be formed.”

Fireblade pointedly stepped up alongside Alex, gesturing for Tempo to stay back: a teidar’s duty was to place herself between danger and other warriors.

But a wise teidar knew when to heed an alien’s words of warning.

And especially his near-panicking thoughts.

Picking herself up from the crumbled pile of debris that she had been cast into, Beryl eyed Fireblade. {Thank you for the quick action.}

Fireblade nodded, although her brow furrowed in self-reflection. She hadn’t been the one to deploy her powers.

She turned her head slightly, eyeing Alexander out of the corner of her eyes. The human stood transfixed by the jagged tear in the column, one hand tentatively raised out in front of him as if to ward off an attack.

It had been his thoughts that had prompted her action.

Bypassing her conscious mind entirely.

Now she was completely beyond the realm of what she had even heard about closely-bonded loroi minds. To activate another loroi’s telekinesis was something entirely unknown.

Perhaps the human had been right to worry about the effects of this ‘soul-binding.’

{Is it safe?} she asked. Trusting that the human’s relatively-simple grasp of sanzai would detect only her concern over the damaged column, rather than over… whatever this was that tied her and Alex closer together by the day.

Interestingly, his thoughts showed no recognition of what he had done. Was it an ability that he knew of? It appeared not.

And at least it had acted to protect Beryl, which went a long way towards lessening Fireblade’s concerns.

{It’s the bloody Warp!} he responded on instinct. {It is by definition extremely unsafe! I don’t—} his fingers in the raised hand twitched. {I don’t know why we haven’t been attacked yet.}

{By more of those daemons?} If they lived in the Warp, then would one of them notice the hole into the Webway, sooner or later? {We should leave then, and quickly.}

She had fought off two of them easily enough, earlier. But since they were a civilization clearly powerful enough to threaten the humans’ Imperium, the daemons could surely send more than two warriors on a mission adjacent to their home.

The four of them hurried onwards for what felt like thousands of solon, now with Fireblade and Alex keeping station behind Tempo and Beryl.

Always listening, frequently checking behind them for signs of pursuit.

But none came.

All the same, Fireblade couldn’t shake the feeling of... eyes upon her, watching the group from a distance.

Hidden in the distance, where the glow of the wraithbone architecture around the group faded into darkness. The tall, fluted columns disappearing off into the darkness.

{We are indeed being watched.} Alex’s thought came like a bolt of lightning, lancing through her tension.

{By whom?} She gathered her powers, gazing around into the darkness. Relayed Alex’s warning to Tempo and Beryl.

But saw nothing. Felt nothing.

No movement. No mind-signatures.

{I don’t know. But I can feel their presence.}

{You cannot sense them either?} Fireblade asked. Hopefully not more daemons, then.

{I might be able to, if I focused on my inner eye. But to push my senses outwards would show that I am aware of them. And that would be to invite an attack.}

{Who could it be?}

{Impossible to say.} The human’s thoughts were grim. {A great many creatures stalk the webway, from mindless predators to hostile xenos warbands. Yet of those, all but a few would have attacked on sight.}

They continued on in silence, Fireblade holding her powers ready at a solon’s notice while Tempo and Beryl each kept one hand near their holstered weapons. Three warriors — even the elite of Strike Group 51 — was not enough of a fighting force to seek out any sort of confrontation, and if their mysterious observers had not engaged yet there seemed to be no reason to provoke them.

Half a cycle later, Fireblade’s ears twitched at some half-heard distant noise.

{Halt.} she sent to the three others. {Listen.}

They froze, ears straining.

After only a few solon, Fireblade’s ears finally parsed the faint sounds that she had subconsciously heard.

A high-pitched warbling, echoing strangely through the ancient halls.

“Shuriken rifles.” Alex said, thoughts cloudy and dark. “Eldar weapons.”

Then a deeper rumbling rang out.

Alex’s breath caught. “Bolter fire.”

{Human weapons.} Fireblade clarified, sending to all three. {It is coming from ahead of us. Along this same path. Significance?}

It was strangely comforting to drop back into the familiar focused clarity brought on by impending combat.

“The forces of Chaos and their human slaves are known to invade the Webway where they can. And the Eldar fight such intrusions with particular ferocity.” He shuddered, and pointed off to one side. “We would be wise to keep out of their sight.”

If that were possible, of course. Were the hidden eyes that Fireblade felt gazing upon her neck those of yet more aliens like the brusque and violent Eldar that she had seen in her vision?

Tempo led the group away from the exposed ancient path, speaking quietly “It seems that the Webway ‘structures’ here are more damaged than earlier.”

And the mizol was right – many of the columns around them bore jagged gashes torn into them by an unknown cause. Most still stood, albeit twisted; but a few had been snapped off entirely and no longer reached from the floor to the ceiling high overhead. The fallen ones had all toppled in one direction: towards the group, away from whatever waited ahead of them.

Fireblade did not let her gaze linger on what was revealed within those gaping holes torn in the ancient shattered structures.

Looking through them made her eyes ache.

“You’re right.” Alex acknowledged, his lack of warrior training shown by how much longer it took him to take in the sights. “Means that this is a big fight. We really don’t want to be noticed. Hopefully the Gate to our destination is far distant, else—”

He swallowed. “Or else the Enemy may have already found our destination planet.”

That… would not be good. A world of the Union, under attack by a new enemy? Fireblade seemed to be the only loroi who could even see the daemons: who knew what damage such completely invisible warriors could wreak in an invasion?

{If that is so, we need to advance quickly.} Fireblade sent. Perhaps there would be something that she could do to help…

{Are you crazy!?} the human replied, turning to stare wide-eyed at her. {Towards a running battle between xenos and Chaos!?}

{They may be too distracted with one another.} Fireblade supplied, stepping past the human and carefully moving forwards, paralleling the ancient path off to her left. But she did move half-crouched, darting from the base of one column to another and peering ahead through the dusty, ill-lit gloom. {We have to know if a Union world is under attack. It is our duty.}

{Your duty.} Alex shot back. But she felt him following close behind her, all the same.

The four of them crept closer, hearing the sounds of battle grow louder.

And spread out: apparently the fighting was not as concentrated as Fireblade had feared.

{Is it possible to suppress this light around us?} Fireblade asked Alex, indicating the way the wraithbone within a few dozen paces of them glowed. The only ‘natural’ illumination within this alien realm, it had been useful for lighting their way… but now may as well have been a spotlight trained on their party.

{I don’t even know why the wraithbone is acting like that at all.} Alex shook his head, craning his neck to look around them. {It normally only responds at all to Eldar; none other can command or affect it.}

And that vision earlier had implied that the loroi were created by the Eldar, long ago. Perhaps that was the cause?

{Could be.} Alex responded to her un-sent thought, clearly still distracted by anxiously peering about. {Emperor only knows why we haven’t seen anyone yet, though. It sounds like they’re fighting all around us, but none nearby.}

{More fortune for us.} Fireblade replied, expanding her sending to Tempo and Beryl. {We will continue the advance, but take care to maintain a low profile. If anything unusual is spotted, use sanzai only and stay out of sight.}

Two rapid affirmatives came back, the other warriors following a veteran teidar’s leadership as the possibility of dire combat loomed.

They passed several more rows of ancient wraithbone columns without incident, before—

{There!} Beryl sent, indicating off to their right and behind them. {A red glow, off in the distance.}

Fireblade pointed Alex towards it, adding her sub-verbal question as to what it meant. Her eyes could only make out a flickering light, far off in the gloom.

And immediately felt Alex’s surge of panic. {It is a daemon; a large one! Pray that it does not notice us.}

A loud, bestial roar echoed through the shadowed Webway, and Alex clutched at his head. A thin rivulet of blood ran from his nose, dripping over his lips.

Each drop disappeared before it touched the ground.

“RUN!” the human suddenly shouted, one arm pushing Fireblade away from the brightening glow. “It knows we’re here!”

The three loroi followed at the human’s footsteps as he blindly sprinted away from the — single? — daemon.

{Can we not fight it?} Fireblade asked.

{One does not ‘fight’ a towering monster that thirsts for blood!} he replied, his unfamiliarity with sanzai showing in how his thoughts pulsed in tune with his laboring breath.

Once more showing how much of a non-warrior he was, to have such lacking stamina.

Beryl’s spike of curiosity-tinged alarm drew Fireblade’s glance back over her shoulder. {That is a daemon?}

In the distance, a being of flame-red incandescence charged towards them.

By the columns it passed, illuminated by its flickering, angry glow, it was indeed big.

Very big.

Eyes that glowed white-hot locked onto Fireblade’s.

A toothy grin spread wide across its face.

She glared back. It might be a large alien warrior, but it wore no armor that she could see. And—

And it was still too far distant to accurately target her powers.

But by the heat which she could feel radiating from it, even at what seemed to be many hundreds of mannal distant, it seemed like a very bad idea to let it get much closer.

Fireblade noted that Beryl seemed to have no problem ‘seeing’ the daemon this time, unlike aboard the Shell warship earlier. But this was not the best time to ask Alex why that might be.

“Keep—” Alex panted “—running!” With every breath, she felt through his mind the burning scent of brass fill his lungs.

{To where?} Fireblade asked, keeping pace easily with the flagging human.

{Anywhere!} he replied. {It is—} He shot a glance back over his shoulder, at their encroaching pursuer.

His eyes bulged.

And he promptly tripped.

Fireblade ducked, putting her shoulder under his falling arm and wrenching him upright without breaking stride. Twisted Alex in her grip, so that the terrified male’s gaze was forced away from the imposing creature chasing them.

{There!} Alex sent loudly, pointing ahead with his other hand.

To where a ten-mannal-tall dune of pulverized wraithbone only mostly covered a patch of slick, black material spread across the ground.

It seemed similar enough to the Gate that had met them upon leaving Deinar.

But it didn’t look liquid.

{I am certain it is the same, only dormant. It is a Gate!} Alex sent. {Protect me from the daemon; I will open it!}

Fireblade chose to ignore the uncertainty belying his false-brave sanzai.

The alien slid to his knees, Fireblade stepping aside to let him kneel at the edge of the buried maybe-Gate. She briefly eyed the massive pile of shredded wraithbone, and noted that all of the visible columns around them were snapped off, each at the same height. Overhead, the cracked ceiling — whatever it truly was, in this Webway realm that certainly looked like a colossal interior structure — bulged low, coming within several dozen mannal of the floor.

It looked as if a bomb had gone off here, some time in the perhaps-distant past.

A large one.

The colossal red daemon continued to stalk slowly towards them.

Calmly.

‘Leisurely,’ even.

Entirely ignoring the blaster carbine and laser pistol that Tempo and Beryl pointed towards it, hands steady.

Fireblade could feel the thoughts whirring in Alex’s mind as he concentrated on using his alien powers to force open the presumably-Gate that they had found.

The daemon closed to within three-hundred mannal. Already it seemed to loom ever-larger, the heat of its presence tangible even through helmet visors.

Fireblade sent hesitantly to Tempo {...Should we attempt to speak to it?} There had been no diplomatic declaration of war from these daemons’ government against the Union, but there had been those two found aboard the Shell warship…

{This one does not seem to be a diplomat.} the mizol replied, deadpan. {Fire.}

Two energy beams reached out, Tempo’s carbine bolt catching the enemy in its throat while Beryl’s laser shot burned into its arm.

The daemon flinched back, head snapping from side to side as if confused. Eyes of molten metal glared hatefully, glancing right past Beryl and Tempo without reacting before locking onto Fireblade.

She frowned. Had it... not seen the other two loroi here, much as the other loroi had not seen the two daemons she fought earlier aboard the Shell warship? Yet Beryl and Tempo could see it most clearly, right now.

Whatever the case, it did not go down; only scorch-marks marred its skin.

The hulking alien drew itself upright, neck stretching back as it roared aloud.

Heated air blew past their position, hot enough that she felt its tainted embrace even through her sealed armor. The vile aroma of offal, mixed with singed brass.

From behind her, Alex’s wave of nauseous terror wafted over her.

But was driven back by teidar discipline.

Discipline which she pushed forcefully back into the human’s mind, guiding his attention back to his work and away from the closing daemon.

It was just another target, after all.

{Maximal power.} Tempo sent again, mind as calm as ever even as one thumb quietly flicked the selector on her carbine forward several notches. {Aim for the neck – it seems likely to be weakest there.}

A second volley cracked out across the ongoing rumble of distant combat.

Tempo’s shot struck home, and the daemon’s screech cut off in a gurgle.

Beryl’s shot went slightly high this time, slamming into the creature’s face.

Both carbine and pistol beeped insistently, cooling vanes popping open as they fought to shed the waste heat of such powerful shots amidst the ever-warmer atmosphere.

The daemon stamped one hoofed foot, a blow that echoed through the wraithbone underfoot.

Its head snapped back down, single remaining eye glaring all the brighter even while the shattered other wept tears of glowing metal.

Charred-black blood now flecked across its unarmored red chest, but if the hole straight through its neck bothered the alien it did not do so visibly.

{Ten solon until the next shot.} Tempo reported.

Beryl added {The heat is interfering with the cooling systems.}

Fireblade nodded. {I almost have the range on it. A few steps closer, and I will engage it.}

And those heavy hooves did slam down against the smooth floor.

A lumbering stride, at first.

Then a run.

Faster.

And faster.

Fireblade took a half-step back, resting one reassuring hand on Alex’s shoulder as the human shuddered in primal terror. But to his credit, his fear-wracked thoughts stayed focused on his task.

He knew his duty, and she knew hers.

Fireblade’s amplifier had not yet been returned to her at the time of their examination of the ancient artifacts in the Stone Watcher Citadel. Yet she felt her powers thrumming as strongly as if its reassuring weight had indeed graced her brow.

Powers which she now hurled downrange.

The daemon’s unstoppable charge shuddered to a halt.

Hooves scrabbled at wraithbone as its body was knocked backwards, throwing the looming creature off-balance.

Just as it regained its footing, the third volley arrived.

One shot — Fireblade was too concentrated on the target to see whose it was — went low, catching it in the knee.

And wrenched it aside in a spray of flash-cauterized alien blood.

With a wet, blood-flecked roar of indignation, the creature lost its balance and began to topple over.

But before it hit the ground, the daemon’s right hand made a slashing gesture mid-air.

A sword materialized in its right hand.

Fireblade blinked.

It materialized.

It had not been there just a split-solon before.

Wherever the alien had drawn its pre-modern weapon from, it stabbed the flame-wreathed blade into the floor, arresting its fall. Bone-white wraithbone blackened and charred around the impact.

{Tougher than hardtroops, it seems.} Tempo commented drily.

{It will be most fascinating to examine how its internal structure must be arranged, to withstand such damage!} added Beryl, ever-optimistic.

All the same, the two of them stepped backwards, past Fireblade. Putting slightly more distance between themselves and the implausibly-tough daemon.

Fireblade gathered her powers for another attack, judging her next—

“There!” Alex shouted at the same moment, mind glowing with elation.

And his knees, braced on the void-black wraithbone, promptly fell into the now-liquid surface.

Involuntary sanzai yelps came from Tempo and Beryl as they — for the second time in the last day — fell into a deep pool of liquid that had not been there a moment ago.

For a brief solon Fireblade teetered on the edge, unbalanced as her vice-grip on Alex’s shoulder dragged her after him.

She fought down her instinct to use her readied telekinetics to right herself; it was better to follow the group. It seemed that Alex had succeeded, after all.

In the last moment before the waters closed over her, she saw the daemon’s chest erupt from behind in a storm of explosive impacts.

///////

Author's NoteShow

“I used to be a Bloodletter like you, but then I took a blaster-bolt to the knee.”

[dragoongfa]

Good news they exited the Webway somewhere, bad news they don't know where and if it would be better for them to go back into the webway, worse news the Deinar portal is connected to the main webway systems and it is only a matter of time until something emerges from it.

EDIT: Oh Beryl, leave the handling of Daemonic knowledge to the Ordo Malleus, they tend to fuck up less than everyone else.

EDIT2: Something that should be mentioned is the fact that it was the 'Old Ones' who built the Webway, all back when the Warp was still peaceful. What the Eldar did with it afterwards was at best preventative maintenance and ad-hoc repairs with the help of the Gods.

[Urist]

Good news they exited the Webway somewhere, bad news they don't know where and if it would be better for them to go back into the webway...

Yup. Next chapter on Tuesday is where the fun really begins, once the (mostly) Fearless Four emerge in wherever this Gate sent them!

EDIT2: Something that should be mentioned is the fact that it was the 'Old Ones' who built the Webway, all back when the Warp was still peaceful. What the Eldar did with it afterwards was at best preventative maintenance and ad-hoc repairs with the help of the Gods.

You know that, I know that, but Alex doesn't know that. Although it /would/ have been fun to have the loroi and Alex turn a corner in their path and come face-to-face with, say, Cegorach in full jester costume, using one of those squeaky toy-hammers to try and knock a fallen Webway column back into position. "About time you showed up! I've been asking for a repair crew for *millennia*!"

[dragoongfa]

You know that, I know that, but Alex doesn't know that. Although it /would/ have been fun to have the loroi and Alex turn a corner in their path and come face-to-face with, say, Cegorach in full jester costume, using one of those squeaky toy-hammers to try and knock a fallen Webway column back into position. "About time you showed up! I've been asking for a repair crew for *millennia*!"

You want fun? Imagine the same with the addition of (somewhat freed) Khaine and Isha doing the repairs with Chegorach dancing around like a maniac in order to hide them from Khorne and Nurgle for a bit longer until they finish.

EDIT: More fun, someone makes Spidera IV canon.

SpoilerShow

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads ... or.244838/

[Cthulhu]

Okay, out of all the possible "low-to-middle-range" daemons, a Bloodletter is perhaps the most convenient one. It is a most vicious, but very straightforward adversary. Just imagine if the tiny cracks in the walls would start spilling Nurglings instead. Lots of Nurglings.

You want fun? Imagine the same with the addition of (somewhat freed) Khaine and Isha doing the repairs with Chegorach dancing around like a maniac in order to hide them from Khorne and Nurgle for a bit longer until they finish.

I'd reckon it would be a rather annoyed Chegorach trying to get a horde of tiny, ill-behaved Khaines doing anything productive instead. And Isha would be on sick leave...

[Urist]

Author's NoteShow

Hehe, now things /really/ start getting fun!

///////

Alex coughed, sputtering.

Pushed himself upright, bent over as he hacked up liquid from deep in his lungs.

Throne on Terra, this wasn’t any less unpleasant the second time!

Then again, he could feel the sudden disappearance of the daemon; they were safe.

Well, assuming that the vile Warp creature couldn’t follow them into…

...

Where were they, exactly?

{I was hoping you could tell me.} Fireblade sent. A moment later, and with a faint ping her xenos armor lit up again, casting a gemstone-green glow over their surroundings.

A good-sized room, perhaps twenty paces by ten.

Off to one side, a desk. Behind it, a chair.

And on the wall behind that…

Alex closed his eyes, a heartfelt grin spreading wide across his face at the blessed sight of an Aquila emblazoned wide across the wall. A proper Aquila, with the correct shape and proportions this time. Reassuring in its solid-gold honesty. And—

The grin fell.

Where was he?

That second Gate had definitely been of a kind with the one on the xenos world of Deinar, yet this was clearly some Imperial world!

Red and yellow-gold lights added their colors to the confused mix as Tempo and Beryl followed Fireblade’s lead in illuminating their armors.

But the greater brightness did not drive away the shadows of confusion clouding his mind.

For one thing, there was no pool of void-black wraithbone below his feet, only dusty floor-plates.

He climbed upright, bracing one hand on the wall at his side as he straightened. Fingers searched along the wall, feeling for—

And exactly where he expected to find it, the lux-rune next to the doorway activated underneath his touch.

Clear white light burst into the room, drowning out the xenos colors.

This was definitely some sort of office room, but where…?

“Where in Terra’s Holy Light are we?” he mused aloud. Well, there was one way to get his approximate bearings, at least. He was no Navigator, but he should at least be able to say which Segmentum they had stumbled into. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and reached for his Sight. Turning away from the bright-gold glow to one side, so intense that it nearly blinded his inner eye, he—

He froze. That glow was not coming from Fireblade.

He craned his neck, staring up towards one corner where the wall met the ceiling.

WHAT

That was impossible!

He was indeed no Navigator to precisely know his position in the broader galaxy by judging the relative angle and distance to the Astronomican… but he didn’t need to be.

Any psyker could estimate distance to such a blindingly-Holy beacon when they were clearly on the same planet as it was, after all.

Holy Terra.

He forced his eyes away from that distant, all-knowing glow, and towards the three loroi.

Three xenos.

On Holy Terra.

His heart froze in abject terror.

When they caught him, the Inquisition weren’t going to leave enough of him around to be even worth turning into corpse-starch!

What was he going to do!?

He was standing in an office room, on Holy Terra, in the company of three xenos.

He was doomed.

A corner of his mind shouted out the significance of just how the four of them had arrived upon this world in particular, but it was immediately drowned out by a rising flood of panic.

Family and House influence was not nearly enough to get him out of this; no Writ of—

Wait.

There was one very slim chance...

Pulse pounding in his ears, Alex sprinted past Tempo and threw himself behind the desk. Brushed caked-on dust aside with one sleeve, uncaring as the fine leather worth more than a common voidsman’s lifetime earnings grayed.

His other hand yanked open the drawers, one after another.

Filled-out paperwork on ancient parchment crumbled under his questing fingers.

Nothing useful there.

Second drawer, writing implements.

He pulled a pen and inkwell out, slamming them onto the desk.

Third drawer… perfect.

Parchment, empty and untouched. Sacred-wax seal with its holy engraving stamped upon the wrapping held the sheaves together, keeping them fresh and ready.

{You seem to know where we are.} Fireblade sent, now standing opposite him on the other side of the desk. He flinched at her sudden presence. When had she moved?

{Holy Terra. No time.}

He pulled at the cap on the inkwell. It didn’t budge, his shaking hands pulling futilely at the stopper.

Fine, then.

He dashed it against the side of the desk, shattering cap and nozzle both while spilling much of the ink against the ancient wood. Wood from an actual, actual tree, by the look of it — worth a king’s ransom back on Tallarn.

But in the here and now, merely a useful tool for opening recalcitrant inkwells.

Dipping the pen in the remaining ink, he quickly began to write out what he could.

And immediately tore the aged parchment.

Casting it aside, he pulled out another.

Careful, now.

{‘Holy Terra.’ That... is your homeworld, is it not?}

{Yes. Very holy. Not a place for xenos.} he replied, mind focused on recalling what he could of the document that he’d seen waved around more than a few times on Bellarmine’s officer’s mess. By that most unusual of creatures, an Ogryn officer.

Well, ‘officer.’ Kogg’s job had been to use his ‘fixin’ stick’ on the bridge cogitators whenever they malfunctioned and Captain Hamilton did not have time to send for the Tech-priests. Much to the ire of said brothers of the Mechanicus, unsurprisingly. Their strident objections had only barely been kept in check by Kogg’s official promotion to bridge officer… and their personal insults held at bay by the piece of paper that that Ogryn proudly displayed whenever asked (and frequently when not asked).

The document that spelled out in neat High Gothic lettering that Kogg was in fact as human as anyone else, and that any tech-priests who said otherwise were ‘jus’ wrong.’

And if someone could believe that Kogg — all ten feet tall and just-as-many wide of him — was officially ‘human,’ then surely they could believe that—

Alex glanced up, meeting Fireblade’s answering frown.

Blue skin, pointed ears, eyes the wrong shape…

...

Well, it was better than just throwing himself on the mercies of whatever especially-zealous Inquisitors were certain to prowl Holy Terra’s own sacred halls!

Sacred halls that he, Alexander Jardin, had profaned with the presence of three xenos.

...

He wrote faster.

His hand scratched against the rough parchment. ‘...judged Acceptable in His eyes, this being is declared Human and worthy of Life.’ There, that was one Writ done.

He signed the paper in Junior-Confessor Eletrius’s name, a signature that should hopefully not be possible to verify. He was mostly sure that the Ecclesiarchy did not maintain some central database of the signatures of their sanctified members... or at least, that it would not be searchable within many Solar months. He could well picture the apocalyptic fury of that aged and devout — but most of all, aggressive — Ecclesiarchy official if he ever came to know of it, but Eletrius was safely far away aboard Bellarmine, wherever that voidship had ended up after its duel against the Heretic craft. Where the Confessor’s signature on Kogg’s paperwork had always been proudly pointed to by the illiterate Ogryn, who boasted that his papers were signed by the ‘Empra ‘imself!’

Not that anyone had ever been quite bold enough to correct the beaming giant of a man.

Falsifying the signature of an Ecclesiarchy official was a capital crime — would even mean some minor trouble for a junior Rogue Trader like himself — but one that paled in comparison to bringing outright xenos to Holy Terra.

The Inquisition could only execute him once, right?

...best not to answer that.

“Attache Jardin, Pallan Fireblade has explained what seems to be your plan.” Tempo spoke quickly, tone clipped but level. “Do you truly believe that it has a chance to—?”

He interrupted the mizol by pressing his freshly-inked Writ of Sanctified Abhumanity into her hand, blowing frantically over its aged surface to cool the ink faster. No wax brick had been found in the desk, but it wasn’t like he had a signet ring for it available anyways. “If any human sees you, just display this paper, ink-out. Say aloud ‘[No speak Gothic.]’ That... might work.” At least Tempo couldn’t read his mind like Fireblade could, to sense just how little he trusted his hastily-written false Writ.

She exchanged a glance with Fireblade, and then turned back to him.

Held his gaze for a few moments, her mouth hardening.

Well then, if Fireblade decided to share with everyone just how un-confident he was feeling, then she could at least also explain that it was their only hope.

“It has to work.” he told her, already pulling the next sheet of grox-hide parchment from the dusty drawer.

Now with some practice, he printed out duplicate papers for Fireblade and Beryl even while his mind turned to what his cover story was to be. He could hardly claim not to speak either dialect of Gothic, after all.

Perhaps a House explorer, lost amidst the stars and returning to Terra via a webway gate that he had found along with rediscovered abhumans from a world that he had stumbled upon? That had the advantage of being essentially true — minus the ‘abhumans’ part — but didn’t quite—

His thoughts clattered to a halt, the corner of his mind from earlier surging forth once more to voice its pointed observation of just how the four of them came to be here.

The Webway.

How the feth had that led them here to Holy Terra!? It was a xenos transportation network! One that should, by that ancient Eldar vision, have led to a world populated by—

Well.

That was a question that he really didn’t want to look at too closely right now.

But apparently Fireblade did. Her mind whirled with thoughts even more rapidly than did his, but did so with an infuriating, icy calm utterly out of place in this decidedly panic-worthy situation. {The vision did say that the species ‘split off’ from the ancient loroi was moved through the Deep Gate to another world. And here we have followed that Gate from Deinar straight to your species’ homeworld, so—}

{This is not the time for that!} Alex shot a wide-eyed glare at Fireblade, hoping that the near-hysteria which he barely held at bay did not come through in his mind-voice. {It is clearly impossible and false, anyways.}

Hopefully that insistent thought sounded less panicked to her than it felt inside his own mind.

He stood from the desk, holding the last two papers. They would not pass anything more than a cursory inspection, but hopefully whatever Arbites stumbled upon them in what appeared to be a dis-used office block was especially gullible, and—

The door to the room hissed open.

And Alex’s heart wilted.

Not Arbites.

///////

Fireblade followed Alex’s wide-eyed stare, turning to find an open door.

And standing behind it, an only vaguely loroi-shaped veritable wall of polished-gold armor.

Two warriors stood there, each one armored in bulky and richly-decorated plate.

One was clearly human with her face above the nose left exposed, red hair tied into a plume that rose above her mostly-shaved head.

The other towered over her, much-heavier armor leaving no skin uncovered.

In the shorter warrior’s hands, a boxy firearm. In the larger one’s grip, some form of… polearm? A halberd of sorts, as bizarre of a choice as that was for a space-faring civilization.

The boxy firearm rose towards them.

And Alex all but dove in front of Fireblade, Beryl and Tempo before any of the loroi could react.

“[Abhumans! Abhumans!]” he shouted in his native tongue, one hand slamming a paper to Beryl’s chest while the other waved Fireblade’s false-paperwork in front of the two golden warriors.

“[Just a, uh, travel mix-up.]” Alex continued to babble, words pouring out of his mouth as fast as thought. Fireblade found that if she focused, she could understand the meaning of his words by receiving their echo through his thoughts. “[We’ll be off just as soon as we, uh, figure out where we are. Just a normal transportation error, you see, and—]”

The golden mountain reached one massive hand forwards, gauntleted fingers as wide as Fireblade’s forearm nimbly plucking the thin, fragile-looking paper from Alex’s grip.

Holding it up to the flickering light that reached in from the corridor outside — were those candles!?

This world made less and less sense by the solon.

The red-haired warrior shot a brief glance up at Golden Mountain. Not a word was spoken.

The tall, conical helmet dipped, red eye-lenses scanning Alex’s hasty forgery.

And raised it out-of-sight.

Candlelight flared, and Alex’s mind blazed with horror.

He jumped forwards, hands grasping at the singed shreds of paper drifting down from their incineration. “[No no nononono!]”

Golden Mountain lowered its halberd — which upon closer inspection had some form of firearm welded to the tip.

Fireblade readied her powers. She held no illusions about their chances of survival on the homeworld of the deeply-unpleasant empire that she had become familiar with through Alex’s thoughts, but she was loroi.

She would not go down without a fight.

But the Red-haired warrior’s hand left her firearm, coming to rest on the armored vambrace of Golden Mountain. Which froze.

All eyes in the room followed her next gesture, pointing to the two scraps of burned paper cupped in Alex’s shaking hands.

Surrounded by blackened, burned edges, two near-perfect rectangles of paper survived. On them a few words survived untouched, cleanly visible with the other scrawled words around them neatly excised.

Fireblade could not read the scraps directly, but she felt the meaning through Alex’s mind.

‘Acceptable’

‘worthy of Life.’

Golden Mountain paused, and Red-plume’s hand flickered through a rapid sequence of gestures too quickly for Fireblade to follow them all. Palm flat and facing down, rotating back and forth. Then a blur. One finger darting out to tap the singed papers cupped delicately by Alex. Another blur. Then the same finger, rising to point to the ceiling above them.

It meant nothing to Fireblade, and Alex’s mind was stuck in a repeating loop of disbelief-awe-terror. Little help from there.

Then in a deep, booming voice Golden Mountain ordered “[You will follow us.]”

It echoed strangely in her skull and yet the meaning came through clearly. She was… hearing the alien’s spoken phonemes via her own ears, but also the meaning of the giant’s words through Alex’s mind?

{The taller warrior instructs that we follow them. Should we?} Fireblade asked Tempo. Her own instincts leaned towards ‘yes,’ but the situation had possibly just changed from a final-stand in combat to some form of… negotiation, perhaps? Which meant that leadership authority had shifted to Tempo.

{Yes.} replied the mizol, wary yet bemused. {We do not seem to have any better options. We will play for time and see where things go from there.}

Golden Mountain and Red-plume turned and departed.

Fireblade nudged Alex out of his mental haze, all-but-pushing the human ahead of her out of the room.

Two discoveries awaited her in the corridor: The flickering light was indeed coming from a row of large candles lining the corridor walls — and by the stench through her now-opened suit vents, their wax was not a lab-formed chemical — and two more of the towering golden-armored warriors waited off to one direction.

Their bulk thoroughly blocked the corridor over that way, and each was armed with the same bizarre halberd-gun. Perhaps an ancient ceremonial weapon, not meant for actual combat?

No more words were spoken as the four of them followed Golden-mountain and Red-plume through a twisting maze of corridors. The ever-present candlelight glowed dully through the thin haze of smoke that eddied about the high ceilings. Stone walls passed them by, each block precisely cut to the same size… but the edges were worn utterly smooth by the passage of some vast amount of time.

Another puzzling contrast: a pre-modern construction style using stone blocks rather than metal or concrete, yet with each block cut to a precision and regularity only made practical with modern-era machine tools. A deliberate stylistic choice?

Fireblade blinked, shaking her head. She was allowing herself to be distracted by inane thoughts.

{Alex.} she sent.

No response.

{Alex.} she sent much more forcefully, backed up by a telekinetic nudge at the lowest power setting she could manage.

The human stumbled sideways, barely staying on his feet. His shoulder slammed into the wall, yet his hands did not move to brace against the impact. Instead, they continued to cup and shelter the shreds of paper and their surviving words.

{What?} he replied hollowly, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

{To where are we being led?} That was the first thing she needed to know. {Who are these two warriors,} although ‘what’ might be the more appropriate thought for the implausible bulk of Golden-mountain {and why do you and they seem to react so to that scrap of paper?}

His thoughts whirled around for several solon. Then {The tall one is a Custodian; he is one of the God-Emperor’s own hand-picked companions and demigods. I do not know the shorter one. Nor do I know where we are going... but I suspect the Inquisition or a similar examination. And this?} His fingers twitched as if afraid to grip the fragile papers too strongly. {This... is a sign.}

{A sign of what?} While what she could glimpse of his thoughts on the matter made no sense, at least it implied that he had some idea of what was going on.

{I... don’t know. Not exactly.}

So much for that hope.

Alex continued {But it has bought us a reprieve in our judgment, at least for the moment.}

Fireblade grimaced, relaying his less-than-explanatory sendings to Beryl and Tempo.

The listel sent {It is most strange. When we ‘moved’ from Deinar to the Webway, we appeared within the liquid-form of the Gate there. But when we just now went from the Webway to this ‘Terra,’ we emerged in a room without any sign of a Gate structure.}

{Perhaps it is different depending on which ‘direction’ one is traveling? ‘Into’ or ‘out of’ the Webway?} Tempo speculated. It wasn’t like the three loroi had much else to do at the moment — Alex was lost in his thoughts once more, and somehow Fireblade doubted that even Tempo’s skill in speaking could lead to much conversation with the golden-armored warriors around them.

They stepped through another grand doorway, at the top of a long flight of broad stairs.

And then outside, into the night air.

Stars glared down from above, harsher than should be normal from a planet’s surface. A thin atmosphere, perhaps?

And after only a few breaths of the cold air, she coughed harshly at the sudden burning in her throat.

A thin and polluted atmosphere.

{What is this place?} she sent to Alex.

{It is Holy Terra.} he repeated his earlier explanation, after his own strangled cough. {The birthplace of Humanity.}

{I can see why your ancestors left.} she tried breathing shallowly — even briefly considered dipping into her suit's small remaining oxygen reserves — as they were led along a narrow alleyway, imposing black walls rising on either side. The alley eventually opened into a massive open courtyard, surrounded on all sides by massive, dimly-lit walls.

{It was… not always like this.} he replied, neck craning back to stare up at the star-lit buildings stretching far above. In less-focused sanzai, he added to himself {That damage looks recent?}

Fireblade tried to follow his gaze, but it was impossible to tell what jagged edges and sharp corners might be from ‘damage’ rather than from the ludicrously-ornate architectural style that these aliens evidently preferred.

Their guarded procession made a straight-line across the courtyard and towards a truly grand building, whose towering doors swung open at their approach. The frontal façade sported a series of spires atop the roof, each one nearer the center taller than those outside of it. Other spires towered off to each side, connected to the main structure by soaring arched beams.

A military fortress, perhaps? All of the buildings that she could see were lavishly decorated, so it was hard to tell what purpose this one in particular might serve. At least the golden statues that stood proudly outside the edifice, peering out from dozens of shadowy alcoves along the height and breadth of the façade, certainly seemed to be made in the image of warriors.

A small door at the base of the grand structure opened ahead of them, light pouring out onto the worn concrete underfoot.

Correction: a large door. The group trudged towards it for a hundred more solon, and yet it did not grow in apparent size.

Fireblade looked up at the building looming over them once more, now with a greater understanding of its ridiculous scale. It must be thousands of mannal tall, and each statue that glinted in the faint starlight many times life-sized!

Yet she could see the seams between the stone bricks that made up its structure, even from this distance. An ancient structure by its primitive materials, yet built to a scale that no pre-modern civilization could possibly match?

{This building: what is it?} she sent to Alex, putting enough force behind the sanzai to pierce through his whirling, self-recriminating thoughts.

The human raised his head from where he had been staring at his feet.

A twinkling of starlight against the building’s front briefly illuminated a massive glass window, on it a painted image of a golden-armored warrior raising a flaming sword in one hand. Heh. In what Fireblade acknowledged as an impressive display of artwork, the alien figure’s blazing eyes caught the light and flickered, as if gazing down upon the square below. Watching the irregular procession being marched towards... 'him'? It was difficult to tell on the alien's features, and Alex had said that humans recruited warrior-males...

Alex flinched back, averting his eyes as if unwilling to meet the painting’s judging glare. {It is a Grand Cathedral, a most Holy place even upon this most Holy of worlds.}

She nodded. Similar to a Barsam congregation-building, then. Albeit at a scale that even the most crazed devotee of their Prophet would have recognized as an absurd waste of resources. {And that figure, in the glass window?}

{That is the Emperor Himself. He who sits upon the Golden Throne… and who sees all.}

Ah, the current human leader, then. It must be a major project to re-paint such a colossal icon every time a new emperor was appointed. But then again, given the extravagance of building such an unnecessarily-large structure in the first place…

Or perhaps it was instead like some of the older statues in Toridas, depicting the founding leader of the Union rather than Greywind? {Is that your first emperor, or the current one?}

Alex’s tumbling thoughts screeched to a halt with such suddenness that Fireblade felt the mental twist. {There is only The Emperor. There has only ever been The Emperor. There will only ever be The Emperor.}

The pure zealotry in his thoughts gave Fireblade pause. ...Best not to point out the obvious contradiction between the claimed age of his civilization and the impossibility of having had a single leader for all that time.

A different topic, then.

{A religious building seems a strange place for a security team to lead us.}

{It is where we are to be judged, more likely.} he responded, thoughts darkening. Alex’s fingers curled protectively around the singed scraps of parchment in his hands. {I do not know what trick of a laughing god saw these two scraps of paper survive, but it will not shield us for long. Even a shallow examination will see that you are xenos.}

{It seems an even more strange place for a medical examination.} Fireblade sent, grimacing and glancing aside. She kept her powers at the ready, but the team of towering, golden-armored warriors keeping pace with the four of them made any resistance here seem unwise. Ceremonial weapons or not, those guards would at least raise an alarm… at which point it was three loroi against an entire planet of aliens.

{‘Medical examination’?} Fireblade felt Alex’s confused eyes on the back of her head. {Thankfully, no. Pray that you never fall into the hands of the Imperium’s xenobiologists. At least, not while still alive.}

Before she could answer, the two dots that she had been tracking at each side of the yawning door ahead of them resolved into two alien warriors.

Of all the humans she had seen — already rather more than she would have wished — these two were the least, well, alien. Their midnight-black armor was large but not as bulky as that of the golden warriors, with red and white trim on the cloth draped over their armored shoulders. Boxy firearms sat at their waists, and ornamental swords held in two-handed grips rose in what must be a salute as the group approached.

If it hadn’t been for their unnatural skin color, Fireblade could almost have mistaken them for two loroi: blade-wielding warriors of some pre-caste era. Well, that and the way that their short hair — less than shoulder-length — gave the appearance of junior warriors, in odd contrast to the dual inverted lashret-rank symbols on their molded chest-plates. At least the latter made it impossible to mistake them for the strange ‘warrior-males’ that the humans seemed to have.

Although of course the lashret rank-symbol wouldn’t mean the same to an alien, as surprising as such parallel development was.

The two guards glared at the three loroi as they drew level with the door. Brows marked by far more scars than wrinkles darkened over the three functioning eyes that the two aliens boasted between them.

Veteran warriors indeed, then.

Fireblade returned their glare levelly enough, keeping her own visage impassive.

And unsurprisingly, Alex’s lowered head rotated to stare at the two human females as the group passed them by. One could hardly expect a male’s gaze not to be drawn to such fierce-looking warriors, after all. Hopefully it would at least distract him from his earlier, dark thoughts.

And might distract Fireblade from how the door which had appeared so ‘small’ compared to the ludicrously-large structure earlier still towered overhead as the group passed underneath it, a recessed stony archway that must be nearly a hundred mannal tall.

The ‘corridor’ they entered next was large enough to fly multiple shuttles through, side-by-side. Ten pairs of armored boots rang against ancient stone — well, four pairs actually 'rang'; the golden-armored warriors somehow made no sound as they walked, even though their bulky armors must each weigh more than the three loroi put together — the sound echoing along the uncountable number of golden statues lining the walls. Every one a warrior much like the two outside, but each face different. A record of great warriors of the past, perhaps?

Beryl’s lighter footsteps accelerated, and she spoke quietly from close at Alex’s shoulder “This building is perhaps also a mausoleum? A place of interring the dead?”

Fireblade frowned. {That seems like a most unlikely custom, even for these alien warriors.} One that a few ancient pre-Union clans had practiced, yes, but all other loroi had long recognized that a clean incineration was the only honorable way to send a fallen warrior into history. {What leads you to ask that?}

{All the skulls.} the listel answered simply, although there was a noticeable current of unease under her sending.

Fireblade blinked, following Beryl’s raised eyes to the shadowed heights of the walls to either side, just at the edge of the candlelight from below.

Skulls, indeed.

The walls were practically made of them, dancing in-and-out of vision by the flickering illumination.

What must be thousands of empty eye-sockets stared hollowly down at the procession below.

No, tens of thousands: faint starlight filtered in through windows many hundreds of mannal overhead, and by their weak light Fireblade could see that the rows upon rows of skulls — so loroi-like! — reached up even that far.

Her questioning sanzai to Alex dissolved amidst the weight of so much death gazing down at her.

Yet apparently he received her intent well enough. “It is a Cathedral.” Alex repeated simply, as if that explained this macabre display.

Tempo spoke aloud “That word in Trade is borrowed from the Barsam; their ‘cathedrals’ are buildings of light and openness, where Troubadour-diplomats preach the fundamental brotherhood of all sentient life.”

“Ah.” Alex said, and his utter bafflement echoed through the strange mental link that he shared with Fireblade. “That is… different.” The human shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts by manual action. Then, in a measured tone that spoke of him echoing words that had been taught to him many times before, “A true Cathedral is a place of worship, where the innate superiority of the Holy Human Form is venerated. Mostly in the shape of the Emperor as the pinnacle of all that it is to be Human, but also by recognizing the shared identity of all Humans.”

He raised his head, candlelight casting sharp shadows over the tendons in his neck, and nodded to the uncountable skulls overhead. “All human souls, from that of the lowliest serf to the highest-born noble, find themselves equal when brought before His Throne after death. Thus the plain imagery of the skull is a reminder of the inevitability of that moment, a recognition that all who are blessed with the proper Human Form are valued in His eyes.”

“Interesting.” Tempo spoke, although Fireblade knew the mizol well enough to recognize that she was carefully keeping her understandable revulsion at the grim alien imagery out of her voice. Then, with a pointed glance at Fireblade, Tempo added “They look exactly like loroi skulls.”

Alex’s mouth opened to retort.

Closed.

Opened again.

Then he looked aside, grimacing.

The human was saved from having to say anything more, as the group was herded into a new room. Vast, cavernous, poorly-lit by acrid candlelight… it was an Imperial chamber, that much was easy to see. The smoky gloom overhead disappeared up into darkness, only barely lit by what light filtered through the soaring windows and their emperor-painting.

The loroi and their human were silently ushered by one of the golden-armored warriors towards the single wide bench in the middle of the room. Their guards remained behind, taking station at each side of the door.

Off towards one side of the room, where the benches faced, were three raised daises that each held a lavishly-decorated golden lectern.

And behind those, almost lost amid the visual clutter of the overly-decorated space, three more human warriors glowered down at them. And—

Beryl’s confused sanzai blurted out {That cannot be a normal part of their uniform.}

Three humans gazed down at them, each one’s head illuminated from behind by an open flaming brazier apparently mounted to the back of her armor. It seemed that even the slightest backwards tilt of their heads would ignite what short-trimmed hair they still somehow had.

Fireblade found herself agreeing with Alex: she really hoped that these aliens were not at all related to the loroi, no matter what the vision showed, what this Webway transit directly to their home-world implied, or how eerily loroi-like they looked.

The humans were insane.

“[This Inquisitio Sanitas is declared In Session.]” boomed the voice of the left-most burning-back warrior. The flames behind her illuminated the large cloth banner hung above her head, which bore an image of a dark-gray ornate drinking cup… inside of which was a pile of flaming skulls.

Rather repetitive, these aliens.

The right-most one spoke next, from underneath a banner showing an armored gauntlet holding aloft a glowing, white plant-bloom of some sort. “[Alexander Jardin, scion of the Family Jardin, member of House Trask, step forwards.]”

Visibly swallowing, Alex left Fireblade’s side. {Whatever you do, remain seated and call as little attention to yourselves as possible.} he sent, as forcefully as the clearly-terrified alien could manage.

It seemed that there was little else to do other than watch and observe whatever this strange ceremony would be. Fireblade had a grim idea of where it would inevitably lead — one that she had shared with both Tempo and Beryl — but their final moment of resistance could come later just as well as now.

“[Noble Canonesses, I—]” Alex began, before his words were drowned by the center-most of the three latest humans.

Not by her speech, but by a single raised hand.

A golden — because of course — banner hung above her, emblazoned with a stylized image of a black skeleton.

This third alien did not speak, but instead as soon as Alex had fallen silent she gestured to the left-most of the three.

“[It is for actions appearing in defiance of His Will that you are brought here, and it is by His Sight that you will ultimately be Judged.]” Flaming-skull-cup intoned, her battle-scarred visage glaring down from her raised perch.

Alex wilted, head bowing.

White-flower spoke again next, blue eyes peering out from her unreadable, impassive face. “[Do you claim that your actions are in alignment with His Commandments?]”

Alex’s cresting wave of self-loathing washed over her. Yet it passed within solon, replaced by a faint glow of determination… almost lost amidst the desolate wastes of sheer resignation. When he spoke, his voice was frail. “I do so claim.”

“And do you also deny infiltrating the Imperial Palace?” Skull-cup asked again. “In concert with your… ludicrously-claimed ‘abhumans’?”

“I do not know just how I and my party came to find ourselves within that most Holy place.” Alex replied. “We were unexpectedly hurled into the Webway and sought only a way back out.”

Fireblade relayed Alex’s words and that of the other humans to Beryl and Tempo, frowning. From what she understood of Alex’s thoughts, it was most strange indeed for him to mention the alien Webway under these imposing circumstances.

Picking up on her thought, Alex’s frantic sending echoed back {I didn’t mean to! It just came out of my mouth — I couldn’t stop it!}

She blinked, looking up at the three ‘Canonesses’ now in a new light. A forced speaking of one’s thoughts? Perhaps these were akin to alien mizol, then, trained in the art of compelling others to speak the truth?

But to do so with spoken words rather than a simple mental connection, now that was most strange.

“You encountered these abhumans within the Webway?”

Alex stood still for several solon, the muscles in his neck bunching.

Then shook his head. “No.” he gasped.

“Then where did you first encounter them, and how did you come to enter the Webway?”

“I—“ he began. “I was rescued by them. After my vessel had been attacked by Traitor forces, and I was ejected from the damaged voidship.” He took a halting breath. “And we fell into the Webway via an Eldar artifact…" Fireblade felt the answer be wrenched from his lips "on their homeworld.”

And by the way that Skull-cup’s eyes lit up at that admission, she could see why he had tried to prevent it. “Their ‘homeworld,’ you say. Then you no longer claim that these are abhumans, whose ancestral homeworld could only rightfully be Holy Terra?”

Alex’s mind whited-out with stress, as it fought itself to prevent the next statement from leaving his mouth.

And failed.

“I maintain that claim. They are abhumans.”

Skull-cup’s right hand curled into a tight, armored fist as she transferred her furious glare to first Fireblade and then the other two loroi.

White-flower leaned forwards, her gaze darting between the loroi as well… although her emotions were unreadable behind the still mask of her face.

And between them both, Skeleton-cloth only narrowed her eyes.

For her part, Fireblade only nodded slightly at Alex’s admission to himself. Of a thought that he had denied earlier to Fireblade, but so obviously had realized earlier at the same time as she had.

The vision granted to both of them by that ‘aquila’ artifact had shown ancient aliens on Deinar. The ancient aliens spoke of an artificial species that they had made, and then split in half. One half-species to remain on Deinar, and the other shipped out via — presumably — the same Webway gate that was later built upon by the loroi to make Stone Watcher Citadel.

And the only visible path leading from that Gate through the Webway had taken them directly here... to Humanity’s homeworld.

There was only one likely conclusion that could be drawn from the available data.

“Impossible.” Skull-cup stood from her seat, flames flickering and dancing behind her head, and thrust one hand out to point accusingly first at Alex. Then swept it across the three loroi. “The Custodes have already provided us their auspex-scans: these are not abhumans. Their bio-patterns fall far outside of the acceptable degree of deviancy.”

“Still, I—” sweat dripped along the back of Alex’s neck, and his jaw muscles bunched. “I maintain my claim.”

“Then you are twice branded a heret—!” Skull-cup’s tirade cut off mid-sentence.

After all, Skeleton-cloth had silently raised her hand once more.

And again, wordlessly gestured for White-flower to speak. “On what arguments do you base this… implausible claim?”

“On a holy Aquila, recovered from their world where it was held and maintained in pristine condition and without desecration.” Alex replied.

Both White-flower and Skeleton-cloth creased their brows at that, before the former spoke again “Produce this artifact.”

Alex’s hand dipped inside his robes — which no longer seemed quite so excessively ornate, now that Fireblade had seen what the rest of his people considered ‘reasonable’ levels of decoration — and withdrew the Soia artifact that he had pounced on.

The one from a day ago — an eternity ago — on Deinar.

White-flower bent forward over her lectern, one hand extended, palm up.

On hesitant feet, Alex stepped forwards across the intervening distance. Soft footsteps rang loud against the open floor.

He placed the ‘Aquila’ in her hand, before quickly retreating back to his previous position at a greater distance from the imposing three warriors.

White-flower examined the Soia artifact, turning it over in her hands. Running one wizened thumb over the ancient metal. Even holding it close to her face and sniffing it. Wordlessly, she handed it in turn to Skeleton-cloth who repeated the actions.

For her part, Fireblade stifled an incredulous laugh. Amidst all the formality and overbearing self-righteousness of these clearly-experienced alien warriors, for them to examine the artifact like a trio of infant children handed their first toy blaster…!

Alex’s head jerked in her direction, but did not turn all the way. {Don’t.}

Unsurprisingly, he felt far more nervous under the circumstances of this… ‘interrogation’ than any of the loroi did. He was a male after all, and not a warrior. The idea that his life might end in sudden and undeserved violence was simply not as real of a concept to him as it was to those who had spent so many years fighting the ever-encroaching Shells.

And so while his mind and Fireblade’s were in agreement on what would happen here in the near future, it seemed that only Alex let it truly bother him. These alien-despising Imperial officials would examine them, they would realize that the loroi were either complete aliens or their ‘template species’ — Fireblade was uncertain which would offend them more — and then the three loroi and Alex would be sentenced to death.

Not that Fireblade intended to wait quite that long; she and Tempo had been exchanging subconscious plans as to what their opening moves would be in the fight as soon as their sentence was announced. For Fireblade’s part, she wanted to see if those burning braziers were indeed hot enough to set the other human warriors on fire, given the proper trajectory of a telekinetic-enhanced throw. Their hair was short, yes, but it should reach the flames with enough ‘encouragement.’

It would be a doomed fight, of course, but the only proper death for a warrior at the hands of her foes was in a fight. Not an execution.

Skeleton-cloth held out the Aquila to Skull-cup, who snorted derisively and held up one hand, palm-out in clear refusal. After a simple, calm nod, Skeleton-cloth laid the artifact on the lectern in front of her, the swept-up black-and-white wings of the figure jutting out over the edge of the wooden stand.

She bowed her head over it, crossing her arms across her chest in the same strange gesture that Fireblade had seen Alex do several times over the many nanapi that she had now known him.

It was only now that she realized that the gesture was meant to crudely mimic the holy symbol itself, thumbs hooked like the beaked heads of the aquila, fingers splayed wide like the wings.

Ignoring her comrade, Skull-cup thundered again “The recovery of this artifact is a worthy deed, yes, but a mere patch on the misdeeds you have committed by consorting with these xenos and leading their unclean presence to Holy Terra itself! Intentional or not, you have—!”

The whole room disappeared in a blast of golden light.

Fireblade’s hand rose faster than thought, shielding her eyes from the searing brightness beaming down on her from above.

It didn’t help.

The glow was just as bright through her arm.

And her pressed-shut eyes.

{Fireblade?} Beryl’s worried sanzai came. {What is wrong?}

{You cannot see it?} Fireblade asked, forcing as much of her irritation from her sanzai as she could. She suspected the answer already, and it was not Beryl’s fault that these weird mind-things kept happening only to Fireblade.

{What do you see?} Tempo asked, clinically direct.

{A blindingly-bright glow from above, as if from a spotlight.}

{We see nothing; the room remains only dimly-lit.} the mizol replied immediately.

Confirming Fireblade’s suspicions. {Unsurprising.} She turned her mind to Alex, brusquely sending {What is this now!?}

No response.

Fireblade shook her head, but the glow persisted.

Eyes slitted against the brightness, she only now realized that no actual pain accompanied the lancing light. No aching in eyes overloaded by the intensity, no dull headache forming between her temples.

Suddenly, a hand grasped hers.

{Fireblade?} Alex now stood above her, staring down with a worried frown. Silhouetted by the light. {Do you feel any pain?} His sanzai hungered anxiously for the answer to such a minor question.

{None.} She responded, and it was not only a warrior’s boast. Alex seemed to… ‘lessen’ the light as it passed through him, somehow. Making it possible for her to see the room once more, if only dimly.

Alex and the three loroi stood in the middle of a searingly-bright beam of light, yet one that cast no shadows elsewhere in the room. No diffraction, no ever-present dust illuminated by the brightness.

She followed the obnoxiously-bright beam upwards as far as she could, enough to discern its source.

The painted-glass image of the alien emperor. Some light outside the building shone through the colored glass, projecting the golden color of his halo down upon the three loroi and their human.

{It is a sign!} Alex’s mind thundered ecstatically in hers, as his eyes followed her gaze. {From Him, directly!}

{A good one, I hope?} Fireblade asked, allowing more of her testiness to bleed into her sanzai.

Alex ignored it, unless perhaps he was not yet used enough to this better form of communication to receive its finer details. {It— it makes no sense, but it can only signal His approval!} She caught his mind adding on {Somehow.}

After what must have been sixteen or more solon, the light faded. Fireblade blinked, her eyes refusing to accept that such a bright glare had indeed left no after-image. The dim candle-light of the room returned, not at all washed-out in her vision.

Either way, it left her with a much better view of the three Canonesses arguing.

Well, two.

Skull-cup, red in the face, was bellowing across at White-flower “—a trick! Three xenos, on Holy Terra, arriving by subterfuge and without announcement?”

“'A trick'!?” White-flower retorted, her voice louder than earlier but still subdued compared to the irate thundering of Skull-cup. She waved one armored hand, gesturing to where the shaft of golden light had been only moments before. “Then name exactly what other power you believe could achieve such a feat right here at the side of His Holy Palace, and reveal your lack of faith!”

“It can only be such! We have heard nothing — nothing — by our Holy Auguries for years, and now these—!”

“Enough.” Skeleton-cloth finally spoke aloud as she unbowed her head, fingers unlacing from where she had held her prayer-gesture all this time. The other two warriors froze, heads rotating to stare at their comrade. “His Will has been made clear. To doubt it is not our place.”

{Fireblade?} Beryl asked, worry tinging her sanzai.

It was only then that Fireblade realized that she had paused in relaying the aliens’ conversation to her fellow loroi, too caught up in watching three clearly-veteran warriors bickering as hotly as she had ever seen Stillstorm and Tempo going at each other. Quickly summarizing their ongoing argument, she then carefully banished all doubt from her mind and sent {When we get back to the Union, remind me to ask the doranzer to examine me. I could see my own bones through my flesh, in that light — it would be best to screen for cancer once we return.}

She let her budding hope that they would return glow through her sanzai.

Back in the Canoness’s argument, White-flower nodded in clear agreement with Skeleton-cloth. “It is known that He often works through the most…” her eyes darted aside to regard Fireblade coolly, “unlikely of tools.”

Fireblade only raised one eyebrow in response.

Which caused the Canoness’s eyes to narrow slightly, darting between Fireblade and Alex. She then declared “This Inquisitio Sanitas is hereby declared complete. The findings are—” she turned her head aside, eyeing her fellow alien warriors.

Skeleton-cloth nodded gently.

Skull-cup scowled… but also nodded. Slowly.

“—formally resolved as ‘Inconclusive.’ Further investigation of the charges is the domain of a higher court.” She nodded towards Alex. “Alexander Jardin, you and your… indeterminate abhumans will remain within Sororitas custody pending the formation of a body senior enough to pass proper judgment upon your claims. However, within the walls of this Cathedral, you and yours are free to—”

Her formal words trailed off, as one of the golden-armored ‘Custodians’ strode over from the room’s entrance and walked up next to her. A towering mountain of armor and ceremonial weaponry leaned in, dwarfing the more normal-sized warrior even atop her dais and spoke too quietly for Fireblade to overhear.

But she definitely saw the reactions.

Skull-cup’s face paled even as her eyes shot wide in outrage, whirling around to stare incredulously at the golden giant. White-flower’s head turned to stare thoughtfully at Fireblade.

Skeleton-cloth only nodded knowingly, with a thin smile.

“It appears that His Intentions are more immediate than that.” White-flower said after a few moments, as the Custodian stepped aside. “You are to be taken back within the halls of the Imperial Palace, tonight.”

Confusion now shot through the sheer awe that had been radiating from Alex’s mind ever since the bright light.

Confusion that only redoubled as White-flower finished with a sharper tone “The Lord Regent wishes to see you. Immediately.”

///////

Author's NoteShow

With apologies to the Order of the Ebon Chalice for making their representative Canoness here out to be a bit slow to recognize a Holy Miracle right in her face. But she’s doubtlessly had a long day, and was probably just awoken right now in the middle of the night to sit on a tribunal to judge “How the feth this one junior Trader somehow smuggled three obvious xenos into the Imperial Palace itself.”

And, of course, Fireblade is as calm as always in the face of magical nonsense.
Literal Holy Light of an Undying God shines down upon her, shielding her from certain death
Fireblade: {This better not be giving me cancer.}

[Tamri]

To fall out of the Webway not just onto Terra, but right at the Emperor's feet is about as unlucky as coming face to face with Abaddon or one of the traitor Primarchs, without being a Space Marine with an entire Chapter behind you.

And perhaps the direct intervention of the Emperor is the only thing that can save the plot from an immediate end due to the death of the central characters...

[dragoongfa]

Oh, Holy Terra itself, didn't expect that at all.

Cheer Up Alexander, Big E decided to help you a little and you get to meet Papa Smurf in the flesh. The question now is if Yvraine is there with him and if Guilliman has more than a platonic relationship with her or not; THAT would burry Alex's conundrum in regards with Fireblade for good, who is he to judge when the Lord Regent, under the Emperor's own orders, finds solace at the hands of an allied xenos?.

All things being equal though I find it odd that the Custodes didn't properly guard or erect a mechanism to better police the Palace's webway gate after Magnus accidentally fucked up the Emperor's webway project, perhaps that was the firefight all around them at the webway, Custodes and Eldar fighting off the usual daemonic horde that wants to enter the Palace. The Custodes had been doing that alone for 10.000 years but since Guilliman ordered them to go do 'stuff' outside of the palace then he probably had other forces take their place in keeping the breech covered. A mix of Custodes, Space Marines (Grey Knights perhaps?) and Eldar would be the best combination.

What I expected was the Historians being Eldar exodites tasked with 'maintaining' the Regio Silens and had been relying on artifices with cloak and dagger operations to keep up appearances. Then Chaos happened, thrown on the backfoot trying to keep them off the 'Pol' who are the 'weapons system' and our heroes appeared in the midst of it all; with Alex convincing them to have the weapon species come in contact to turn the tide or otherwise the Regio Silens would open and the Imperium would purge every last world inside to ensure that Chaotic corruption doesn't take hold next to the throne world.

[dragoongfa]

To fall out of the Webway not just onto Terra, but right at the Emperor's feet is about as unlucky as coming face to face with Abaddon or one of the traitor Primarchs, without being a Space Marine with an entire Chapter behind you.

And perhaps the direct intervention of the Emperor is the only thing that can save the plot from an immediate end due to the death of the central characters...

Well; the Emperor's fragments are known to work in mysterious ways, perhaps He was the one who was observing and shielding them during their approach to the Imperial Palace. The welcoming committee there is jumpy due to the constant daemonic attacks and the fact that the last time Xenos tried to pay a visit by Webway the Harlequins managed to get as far as the Throne Room itself to deliver their message to big E.

Taking all bets: Alexander gets his own Warrant of Trade for the Regio Silens sometime in the future, with some strings attached.

[Urist]

All things being equal though I find it odd that the Custodes didn't properly guard or erect a mechanism to better police the Palace's webway gate after Magnus accidentally fucked up the Emperor's webway project, perhaps that was the firefight all around them at the webway[...]

That's pretty much what I was going for. I felt that it wasn't "in-character" for a 40k story to have *everything* explained and understandable by the characters, and Alex doesn't know anywhere near enough history to know about things like all the Nothing Wrong that Magnus the Red inflicted on Emps' Webway project. But yes, that was why the area around the gate appeared especially damaged.

SpoilerShow

And there's a reason why the Gate on Deinar only activated once specifically Alex *and* Fireblade stepped onto it, and why the Gate leading to Terra only activated after the same conditions were met... It's indeed possible that there's only one mind on Terra that knows about this particular 'exit' from the Webway there, and He's a bit busy at the moment.

What I expected was the Historians being Eldar exodites tasked with 'maintaining' the Regio Silens and had been relying on artifices with cloak and dagger operations to keep up appearances. Then Chaos happened, thrown on the backfoot trying to keep them off the 'Pol' who are the 'weapons system' and our heroes appeared in the midst of it all; with Alex convincing them to have the weapon species come in contact to turn the tide or otherwise the Regio Silens would open and the Imperium would purge every last world inside to ensure that Chaotic corruption doesn't take hold next to the throne world.

That's roughly similar to my original draft storyline, but I felt that it made the story from the loroi's perspective too 'boring.' That is, they'd be in the position of just any other xenos in 40k (read: alive only until such time as Matt Ward remembers they exist at which point they get obliterated by the Ultramarines), and given that they're *at best* at approximately Tau levels of military strength *and* so close to Holy Terra, it would really be difficult to find any plausible way that they wouldn't get stomped flat by the Imperium or simply doomed to living in eternal mortal terror of a Crusade Fleet warping in above Deinar.

And since the loroi are the 'main characters' of Outsider canon (with all due respect to the TCA or the other aliens Arioch made, everything tends to focus on the blue spelfs), I chose to give them a larger role integrated into the 40k setting. We'll see where they go with it, but they've got a better chance to keep their metaphorical head above water (and attached to their neck) than they would have otherwise.

[Cthulhu]

Arriving on Terra was perhaps too much of a stretch, but half the WH40 canon is a stretch, so why not.

Anyway, I think that Girly-Man will look at Alex with pity, an entire xeno-elf-harem is way too much trouble. Even a single of 'em is enough to drive you crazy. But I'm looking forward to Yvraine's reaction to the Loroi.

[dragoongfa]

Arriving on Terra was perhaps too much of a stretch, but half the WH40 canon is a stretch, so why not.

Plenty of stretch, a lot of it recent as well, like how a Tech Priest 'improved' on Space Marines on his own. How a group of unknowns managed to get to Guilliman's sarcophagus on Ultramar, arguably the second most defended location of the Imperium after the Imperial Palace's Throne Room. How Failbaddon the Harmless actually managed to fail successfully by exchanging a Blackstone Fortress for Cadia (arguably a trade that favored the Imperium). Yes, the biggest stretch of all is that Abaddon became a 'threat' suddenly. The less said about the 'modern audience' retcons the better.

Anyway, I think that Girly-Man will look at Alex with pity, an entire xeno-elf-harem is way too much trouble. Even a single of 'em is enough to drive you crazy. But I'm looking forward to Yvraine's reaction to the Loroi.

As the only Primarch with a proper upbringing at a loving family Guilliman is the best possible father figure for Alex at the point for the 'Xenos girlfriend talk'.

EDIT: I wonder if the Loroi will be told that Terra's population alone is over a Quadrillion and that it is not uncommon for Hive Worlds to go well over 100 billion. Putting the sheer population disparity in focus would dissuade any thought of 'conflict' for the next few millennia at the very least.