Ryza's Envy

Rolph caught a whiff of ozone as he opened the door to the shop. The bell chimed and his fingers sparked on the metal door frame, while his hair on his arms stood up on end. All around him were arcane mechanical objects in different states of disrepair. Some were listed for sale, some were not. Most he could only hazard a guess as to their form and function. "Yes. This was definitely the place," he thought.

The shopkeeper came in from behind a curtain in the wall, "Yes, Yes, what is it?"

The Seneschal, dressed in his navy regalia, gave the shopkeeper the sign of the hidden eye, and his tone and demeanor changed immediately. "Yes, yes, of course! Come this way!" He led Rolph behind the curtain and said, "I normally do not get much inquiry about my plasma craft. I must keep it a secret, lest the more superstitious elements among the Echlesiarchy catch wind of it, but I assure you I have a permit signed by the Planetary Governor himself."

"So what might I inquire are you looking for? Mostly I sell simple things such as a power converters or small plasma generators. But because plasma technology is so rare, I often can find a years wages from a single sale. Ryza guards its secrets well."

Rolph stood tall, sucking in his small gut beneath the tailored royal uniform. He cut an imposing, if pompous, figure, his bulk hidden behind the padded dress suit, the pauldrons correcting the slight slump in his shoulders, his boots adding an extra inch to his height. He was not a fat or unhealthy man, merely unshapely, and his duties allowed him more exercise than most imperial officials. "I come seeking armament. I was told you were an exceptional craftsman."

It was true, the shopkeeper had come highly recommended, and was lauded as perhaps the best in the sector. The shopkeeper inquired, "May I see your writ?" Rolph pulled out a scroll from the tube of his scroll case and handed it to him. As the shopkeeper unfurled his writ, he waited impatiently for him to finish reading, tapping his foot. The shopkeeper would most likely not read it in its entirety, skipping towards the various signatures at the bottom, the wax seal of the administratum, and the holographic icon of the Aquila.

"Ah, yes, well, everything seems to be in order here." The shopkeeper seemed almost giddy with excitement. He lead Rolph behind a stairwell into the basement, where a glass showcase displayed various finely crafted plasma weaponry. Surely any of these would set the seneshcal back thousands of thrones, but being in the service of a rogue trader, the money mattered little.

"These are some of my finest work. Unlike most plasma armament issued from typical forge worlds, I used ceramic alloy to line the plasma coil. Very expensive and hard to manufacture, but it dissipates heat very well. I guarantee you, none of them will overheat in battle, you have my word on it."

Rolph thought to himself, "These will have to suffice." He said out loud, "Do you have any other items of perhaps inferior quality? I am likened to purchase as many as you have available."

The shopkeeper bit his knuckle, turned around, and mouthed a silent "Thank you!" to the emperor. He crept deeper into his shop, and waved his hand about. "I have these bits and pieces I keep in my workshop, some of my earlier experiments. They work fine, I assure you, but I can not guarantee they will not burn you should you hold the trigger overlong."

Something caught the Seneshcal's eye on one of the workbenches, a particular frame that had many tools and mechanidrites laid about it. Its center piece was a remarkable pistol, beautifully inlaid with gold. A tiny slat on the gun was open, exposing the nano-circuitry beneath it. It seemed to shimmer in gossamer waves, and produced a rainbow of colors such as when oil was mixed with water and caught the sunlight just right, something that reminded him of the orichulum they used to make imperial holograms on administratum documents.

"What about that one?"

The shopkeeper went over to it with loving arms and adoring hands, and said, "Ah yes, this is my pride and joy. My masterwork." He set about tinkering with the many tiny mechandrite manipulators, turning the cranks so that he picked up what looked like a tiny pin of metal, thin enough to thread through a needle. The tiny micro tweezers gripped it as he maneuvered it towards the open slat in the gun. He delicately placed it inside the gun, soldering it with another mechandrite, then closing the slat that hid the intricate circuitry that underneath the macroscope. "Ahhhh, there. It is finished."

Desire burned inside the seneschal's eyes. "How much is it?"

The shop keep turned about in his chair, and said, "Oh, I am afraid it is not for sale. It was commissioned to me by someone on holy Terra, if you can believe it! A high admiral who is being coordinated as commander of an entire sector! He wants to wear it at his coronation."

The seneschal acted as though struck, deep disappointment resonating throughout him. "I see. And there is no way you would reconsider?"

The shopkeeper turned about, a bit more cautious, said, "No I am afraid not." He held it up in his hands, gently, as if holding a delicate flower. "It took my entire life to craft this. I used one of the most advanced layering techniques known on Ryza to inlay the magnetic containment circuitry. Its sends the plasma into a toroidal spiral, impacting with the force of a thousand suns." He set it back on its pedestal.

"Machine intelligences are strictly forbidden in the imperium. Without cognitor machines to guide my hands, I had to set each pin in the circuit myself. Every ten pins took nearly an hour to set and weld properly. There are over a million pins in the original standard construction template."

"How long did it take you?" Rolph noticed something else sitting on his desk.

"Over a hundred thousand hours. Working nearly eight hours every day, it took me thirty five years to complete. I could have finished sooner, but the design calls for one million, forty-eight thousand, five hundred and seventy six pins exactly." The shopkeeper chuckled, "I figured, I had been at it so long, why cut corners now?"

Rolph picked up the pictured frame of a small boy sitting on his workbench. "Who is this?"

The shopkeeper looked pained. "That is my son. He died fighting the eldar at Chronos Reach."

Rolph set it back down. "I am sorry. I did not mean to put a damper on such an ostentatious occasion."

The shopkeeper said, "It is quite alright. He was shanghaied by a rogue trader as part of an imperial tithe. Our system had already paid its tithe and then some, but his warrant of trade far exceeded our humble grasp. I begged the commissar not to send my son off to die in some futile struggle, but it was no use. We ended up losing that war, but I'm sure that bastard got paid regardless." He spit and mouthed, "Shyster!"

Rolph smiled. He had indeed recognized the battle in question, as he had been a part of the crew that collected that tithe. That the shopkeeper didn't recognize him was perhaps for the best, as he certainly could not recall the names and faces he had condemned to die in that futile war.

"At any rate, it is what led me to my work, and because of that, I am now a rich man, no? With your blessing today and the price of the commission I received for my masterpiece, I shall finally be able to make the pilgrimage to Holy Terra. Ah, to see the land of our birth, the cradle of humanity!" He stood up and smiled. "It seems things have come full circle."

Rolph asked, "I know this may sound presumptuous of me, but may I hold it? I would like just once to know such remarkable craftsmanship first hand."

The shopkeeper pondered for a moment. Being in such good spirits, he said, "You may, but you must be very careful..." He lay it out in the palm of the seneschal, and the seneschal held it aloft in one hand, smiling.

The shop keep stepped back, clasped his hands, and said, "Remarkable, isn't it?"

"Oh yes… remarkable indeed!" The seneschal pulled a plasma canister from off the shelf and attached it to the weapon.

"What are you doing?"

The seneschal leveled the gun at the shopkeeper. "So the fool finally sees!" The shopkeeper lunged at him, but being old and feeble, he was easily pushed aside and fell to the ground. The shop keep quivered under the sights of the gun. "No, please!"

"Things have indeed come full circle, for you are thrice betrayed! Once at the battle of Chronos Reach, were I condemned your son to die! Twice at your life's work, which I now hold in my hand! And again as you stand before me, you're life in my hands!"

The shopkeeper glared at him, his eyes full of hate. He hissed at him, "Damn you… Damn your eyes!"

The shot came in a great rushing and crashing flame, the roar of it tore his hair back in a gale and singed the seneschals brow. When it was finished, little more than a charred and broken skeleton remained, singed of all flesh, beside a massive breach in the basement wall amid a pile of crumbling stone.

The seneschal hesitated for a moment, taken aback at what he had done. In that moment of doubt a subtle intuition hinted at something he could never have, a grace the shop keep possessed that he could never own. He put it aside and tucked the gun into his waistband, climbing up the stairs and exiting the shop like a thief in the night.