Chapter 11: Labyrinths of Body and Mind
Warriors of humanity We stand here at the dawn of the most important day in history. Facing our lifeless enemy. These enemies of humanity shall be defeated for we are the best warriors our race has. We shall be victorious for we are men of honour, men of thousands free planets, who fight here for our right to exist. Our enemies are just lifeless husk. Men of Iron, who lost their humanity long ago. Brace yourselves, men of dreams and march into battle. For Future. For Victory.
-unknown
Lerena was running through the strange twisting corridors of hive city, with her pursuers close behind. She was running through cramped twisting halls full of trash and broken machinery. Sometimes she ran around broken figure just sitting there unmoving with void expression on their faces.
Her small charge was still unearthly quiet. It was beginning to unsettle her . She was just holding to her tightly and did nothing else, but Lerena did not have time to dwell on this problem for now.
She had to find way to higher floors, where would her damn communicator start working. She activated it ,but after strong beginning. Her pursuers activated jamming device and only thing she got of it was sad little beeps and blinking red light signaling a lack of connection.
Soon voices of Lerena's pursuers begun to quiet down as she left them behind. She slowed down, to catch breath and orientate herself. She was at junction of several tunnels, but only two of them seemed to be used in any significant capacity. It was probably way from one settlement on this level to another. The pursuers would probably check them, but Lerena had little choice. She needed to find information about ways to higher levels and this was her best shot.
The tunnels around her were looking more and more inhabited. Amount of graffiti increased significantly and trash was laying on the ground in nearly fresh layer, soon Lerena heard human voices in distance. It was hard to understand them ,but it was looking like they were discussing some problems with waterworks.
As she came closer and closer to the source of voices as she turned around corner, the artificial light nearly blinded her. There was small group of humans dressed in rags standing around small pool of strange black liquid. They were all holding big long sticks and seemed to be arguing about something.
"We should sent message towards top levels, this is third leak in this week," one of the figures was arguing and was pointing at something in the pool. He seemed to be dressed in slightly better clothing than the rest. His rags were even somewhat matching.
"No one will go topside, Mayor. Ratmen are on hunt again. It will take at least few weeks before they calm down," another figure said and delved into the pool with a bent metal wire.
"Damn, what idiocy is on theirs mini brains now?" Mayor asked in a tone of disbelief.
"Sven said that Administratum sent one of the tax collectors to visit them again. Ratmen are rampaging and demanding payment from everyone who just looks at their territory to cover their losses. Hey, is someone in those shadows ?" Lerena hesitated for a moment and stepped into the light with her hand held high in gesture of peace.
Mayor turned around and asked, "What are you doing here?"
"Me and my charge were attacked by some gangs when we were travelling. We need some medical help and food. Can you help us?" Lerena came up with quick lie. On second thought, it did not sound very convincingly.
"You can come and get some healing and pray for respite at the chapel. We are not the kind of people to send away those in need. Arnold could you go and lead her to the chapel," said the Mayor and one of his helpers went to show her the way.
"Follow me," said Alfred to Lerena while signalling the group to follow him.
It took them only a short time to get into the settlement. It was several concentric circles of ugly huts made out of remains of metal crates and plastic sheets. In middle of those ran-shackled structures was tower, with imperial insignia welded onto it. There were cables buzzing in energy hanging from ceiling in strange net. Some of them were going through settlement itself.
It was quite sad looking. There were broken people with empty eyes were doing their daily business in silence and without any enthusiasm. They gazes were cold and their expressions unwelcoming. Lerena even saw some children in rags. They were hiding in the shadows. Few of them even stole stealthy looks at them, before the adults could chastise them.
When they come closer to the tower structure, Lerena could see the building in greater detail. It was different then all other buildings. It was one piece of perfectly round reddish metal, with nearly no sigils or divine runes on it. There was only Imperial aquila on top and it was obviously holding on it by sheer force of divine will. Lerena had bad feeling about it.
"Here is our shrine. Priest should be inside," said Alfred and walked away.
Lerena ventured inside the dark building. There was small altar at one of the walls, but it was otherwise empty. There were opened doors all around the chamber. The young demigoddess could see the stairs leading deeper into the building. Lerena closely inspected the chamber, there was some writing on the wall, but Lerena was unable to decipher them. The strange words were not Imperial runes, but most people would probably not even see them. She saw them somewhere already, but Lerena was unable to remember where.
"My name is Pietr Chronoskij. Can I help you?" said voice, startling her. She turned around and saw a young man in priestly robes. He had youthful face only slightly tired down by worries of life in this place.
Lerena had introduced herself and explained her situation with combination of half-truths and lies, worried that he would not believe her.
"Take her into the insides of shrine. I have some supplies down there," Pietr said and walked into one of the doors in the structure. Lerena followed him. The lower chambers were lighted by electric lights and filled by old junk.
Old imperial regalia and broken machines were hanging on every wall. They were hiding the writings on the wall.
"Please put your charge on the table," Pietr instructed her and brought some crates full of suspiciously looking medical equipment out of the junk. Lerena did so and waited for the examination to end.
It took some time for examination to end. Pietr removed damaged clothes to clean the wounds. A small medallion fell on the ground. Being bored, Lerena grabbed it and opened it.
There was picture of the small girl and the Planetary Governor, under it was written Orrana and papa. Confirming her suspicion, Lerena put it in her pocket and waited for Pietr to end. It did not took that long. Pietr worked with experience honed precision, treating every wound and bruise with speed.
"Orrana, How do you feel ?" asked Lerena , but only answer to her were eyes void of life and silence.
"She is in shock, Lerena. You should get upside and get her some help with Order Hospitalier. They should be able to help her," said Pietr into the uncomfortable silence.
"Thanks for advice. We will leave as soon as we can, but there was thing that has been bugging me. What are the writings on these walls. they are very interesting, Lerena continued the conversation.
"I do not know. This building has been serving as shrine for many generations. From what people told me meaning of those writings were obsession of previous priest, right before he vanished. I sent inquiry to the higher levels of Ecclesiarchy, but I have not gotten any answers as of this date. Why would you ask such thing?" Pietr wondered.
"I cannot get them out of my head,"said Lerena, then she saw something strange. "Did those shadows grow or is it simply my imagination?"
Pietr spun and checked the shadows. "I do not think so, this place has been properly hallowed. I know light can sometimes play strange tricks here...," Pietr stopped his explanation as soon as he saw the shadows around the room morph into the strange creatures with more than few tentacles and big ugly mouths.
"I think we should leave," Lerena loudly proclaimed as she picked up the child and took Orrana to the exit. They were unable to make one step before they heard loud bang of closing iron gate .
"Not again," said Lerena and turned around to seek another exit. "Do you know by any chance different exit?"
"No, there is no different exit. What is happening here? Is this incursion of the Ruinous Powers?" Pietr's eyes were slowly filled with fear.
Lerena did not answer to him. The shadows begun to rise from the floor, taking 3 dimensional forms. The writing on the wall begun to glow and slowly move in entrancing pattern. A small shape pushed itself deep into Lerena's leg. Lerena glanced at Orrana and put her hand protectively over her and drew her knife with the other one.
The Scion had to act quickly. She gently pushed the child away and went to strike the closest shadow beast before it could fully realize. Only one hit was enough to dissolve it completely. She quickly went around and destroyed the rest, before she returned back to Orrana who was looking at the picture before her quietly.
"That was too easy," Lerena looked around her readied for next threat.
The runes were moving quicker with each passing second. They were just glow on the wall now and even Lerena was unable to see them as something different. It was hurting the eyes to try and look at the walls closely for any amount of time. Suddenly an unnaturally sterile voice came from every direction.
It announce, "System initialized, overworld energies utilizing life form detected. Testing area closed off and test initialized. First test: fighting prowess."
"What is this infernal gibberish. Begone in the name of Emperor! Blessed be His Ligh!" Pietr was slowly falling into state of deep panic, but now was not time to think about it, for the announcement system had informed them about new problems right over Pietrs impotent prayers.
"First test cleared, effective 100%. Testing area opened. Begin forced movement procedure in 1 minutes."
It took over 50 long seconds before something else happened. Big hole opened in the floor combined with screeching of metal unused to movement. Lerena could not see what was down there, which was suspicious on itself, but temperature in the room has been rising for some was starting to get uncomfortable.
The Scion had no illusion of her strength as those doors were truly massive. That left only one option to them.
"We have to get into the hole, otherwise we will are going to be cooked here, Pietr." Lerena tried to get the now monotonously praying holy man out of his shock.
"No! We shall stand our ground and Emperor shall deliver us from this trial," Pietr answered and begun to assault the air with another holy litany.
"I do not have time for this. We wait for you at the end of the hole," said Lerena as she grabbed Orrana and jumped down the hole.
The darkness hiding what was inside the chute and what was waiting for its victims. They did not heed the possible dangers it could hide and jumped in. It took them only small amount of time to slide at the end of it, even though it was not very comfortable ride. They bashed from one side of the slide to other rather roughly.
Their ride spat them out into a dark room as they rolled to a stop. Lerena checked Orrana for injuries, but the child was okay, then she checked whole room more closely. There was only very dim light coming out of the ever present writings on the wall that glowed with unearthly energies. This was again a circular room with doorways all around the diameter, but this time dim light allowed Lerena to see endlessly stretching corridors.
"Subjects moved to second trial. Closing entrance. Endurance and capability test initiated. Displaying map."
Gigantic holographic map showed up in the middle of room, blinking in and out focus all the time. In the middle of the structure was big red X. It stayed on for only few minutes, then it turned off returning the room again into the weak reddish light.
Lerena tried to take photo , with her communicator, but it did not work. This was not good. This was extremely bad. Lerena had no good idea, how to navigate this maze. She could get something to scratch or write on the walls. The writing itself did not wanted to cooperate. It shifted at least 3 times in span of their stay.
Lerena was dumbfounded. She was very good with navigation in city, but this was unnatural for her.
"We must find way into the centre of the maze. We should start with making map and then..." Lerena was interrupted by Orrana tugging her sleeve and pointing to one of the doorways.
"What, Do you want me to follow you?" Tugging grew stronger.
Lerena followed the determined child. It took them long time of strangely twisting tunnels and illogically looking crossroads. Orrana did not falter in her determination for even a small second. Lerena was happy about that the girl was finally responding and coming out of her shock. There was something in the shadows relentlessly looking for them.
Lerena could hear breathing and claws of their pursuer striking the floor. It sounded very big. She was running down on her legend and this was problematic.
Luckily they soon found a different door. They were small, barely higher , than Lerena herself. The arcane writings on it was much larger, and shone with much brighter gold and red color. Lerena did not waste time and pushed them open right into the waiting room.
It was very well lit bowl made out of concrete and laced with metal. They were standing at the bottom of the bowl. The bowl itself had no writings on it. Once they entered, the door behind them closed quickly and vanished completely.
"Second test cleared. Third test engaged. Final fight capacity. Transporting war subject."
Nothing happened for some time, but then loud screech reverberated through the bowl. Mechanical parts begun to fly from nowhere to swirl all around them. Lerena quickly covered Orrana by her own body. Only a few of the smaller pieces of metal hurt her. The strange storm stopped nearly immediately.
When Lerena looked up she saw a gigantic pillar of rubble in middle of the bowl. It stood right before them menacingly. Lerena frantically looked for a bolt hole, but there was none.
The Pillar begun to give out sound of squashed iron and its quickly changed into figure of man. Two big hands ended with rusted claws stretched after them.
Lerena drew got her knife ready and went after the hands, before it could reach them. She jumped and landed directly on its right wrist, trying to pierce it with her knife, but the only thing it did was to click harmlessly off the metal.
The automaton stopped just for small moment and then it moved its second arm to squish the hero hanging on its wrist.
Lerena evaded it by jumping on its torso and then started to climb frantically. The hands met with loud clang and the whole statue shuddered. This nearly threw her off the automaton in reaction. As Lerena climbed the uneven surface, she continued searching for some weak spot. Anything at all.
The claws of the monster were striking its own body in their futile attempts to hit Lerena. Its parts were laying all around the bowl shaped arena. Its silence was starting to get annoying for some reason. Why could it not speak and boast like normal foes? She got to the middle of the backside and there she saw some small writing engraved in a pristine piece of metal.
Her strength was fading and she was getting too tired to hold on for much longer. So she summoned remainder of her Legendary Power and struck with all the might of Fate and War entwined in her dagger.
One strike shattered the writings and the giant begun to fall apart. Lerena lost her footing and fell down. Rubble rained on her and darkness slowly claimed her amidst the deafening clatter of a landslide of metal trash.
ch12. Heart of mystery.
People of the world. Today we give you freedom. You shall never again bow before those divine tyrants, who are not of this world. You shall be free from the Titans, who wish only destruction upon you. You will be also free from gods, those uncaring rulers interested only in their petty conflicts and pointless squabbles.
This great working will forever separate them all. You shall be able to live your lives in happiness and good will. With this sacrifice we give you freedom and guardian of that freedom , so those who would threaten it will never rise to stop you.
-Imhotep, Mexico city on the Day of the Great Sacrifice.
Lerena slowly regained consciousness. She was half-buried under the mountain of rubble that had been her last foe. The constant pain she felt from bruises and laceration was nearly overwhelming. She heard the sound of metal moving and tried to turn around to free herself as she lied on the ground pinned like the bug, when a shadow entered the edge her vision. Lerena attempted to get up and ready herself for fight. Rubble gave away to her ditch effort, as pain was clouding her vision. She freed herself successfully and stood up. She was able to do a picture-perfect impersonation/impression of a shambling zombie rising slowly out of grave.
After Lerena got up, she recognized that shadow. It was Orrana carrying a big metal plate to another pile, with a quite worried expression on her face. Lerena's awakening and successful escape took her by surprise and she quickly ran to check Lerena, but stopped few paces away from her looking at her with big eyes.
"I am okay," Lerena tried to calm worried girl and then looked around. The only change the room underwent was the giant pile of metal in middle, but nothing else. "Have you seen exit by chance?" she asked and gave Orrana big smile.
Orrana shook her head shyly.
"No problem, just give me second to pull myself together and we will find something," Lerena assured the girl and slowly checked her injuries.
It was not so bad. It was mainly bruises, nothing seemed to be broken and she steadied herself enough to walk. She would heal herself, but her divine energy was completely depleted. It was a very familiar feeling. She felt vulnerable, incapable of facing any challenges before her.
They needed to get out and waiting would not help her. Lerena went and checked the room more thoroughly. She found nothing interesting, but on the second round she saw something small glint of light reflected in metal on the wall. She inspected it closely with her supernaturally keen eyes.
It was small hand shaped depression around which were few simple writings. Lerena put her hand into it. She felt familiar pull, but nothing happened.
"Orrana, could you come here for a moment," Lerena called the girl after she thought about the problem for some time.
The girl shyly walked towards her. She stopped again before she got into the grabbing distance.
"Could you please put your hand here?" Lerena asked while pointing at the depression on the wall.
Orrana slowly backed away from her.
"It will be okay, nothing will happen to you," Lerena put hand onto the button to prove its safety,"See?" Lerena said to persuade the scared girl. Orrana did not look very determined, but she finally walked up to it and put her hand on the almost invisible depression.
The moment Orrana put her hand on the recess, her whole arm lit up like the roentgen photo. Small impulse travelled down her arm into the cold metal. The depression begun to hum with strange energy and fiery shape of the door frame showed in the metal around the symbol and Orrana.
Shining, hot lines begun to quickly expand towards the place where Orrana had her hand pushed into the metal. Lerena quickly pulled Orrana back, before the lines could hit her hand. It was just in time millisecond after Orrana's hand left metal lines connected and wave of extreme heat hit both of them.
They backed away as the heat intensified and molten metal begun to pour on the floor.
"You have to be kidding me," Lerena complained as our heroes climbed the pile of metal for some form of safety.
Waterfall of molten iron metal was pouring into the chamber. Even sitting on the pile of rubble they could feel the heat. They felt the time move slowly as the gazed on their doom. After few minutes waterfall slowly turned into trickle and trickle finally died out. In its place Lerena saw a long tunnel.
They had to wait long enough until the metal did cool. Lerena checked her equipment and then went to check Orrana.
The girl was looking somewhat better. She was playing with pieces of rubble, but she was still silent and haunted look in her eyes did not vacate her.
Lerena wanted to cheer her up. "You know what? After we get out of this mess we'll go and see some ponies. Okay?"
Orrana smiled weakly and continued to play with the rubble. The uncomfortable silence stretched for long moment.
"I should have something to kill time," Lerena said and checked one of the compartments of her uniform. She brought out deck of cards.
"Pick a card," said Lerena thankful for her time playing card tricks on the streets back before she joined the military. It worked as Orrana played with her and even gave her small smile at especially funny tricks. Time seemed to pass quickly for them then as they forged a strong bond.
It took only around hour for the metal to cool enough to be safe to walk on. Lerena showed her last trick and packed her cards away into her poor uniform. "Time to go, Orrana," Lerena stood up and begun to climb down.
Orrana pouted somewhat, but followed her quickly. The floor was still hot, so they moved quickly and entered the newly created tunnel.
It went upwards, but it was not very steep so they could venture further without problems. It was like venturing through a veritable mountain of compacted metal. The whole tunnel was around five hundred meters long. It was an absolutely identical surface without welds or bolts. Interestingly it was much cooler than down below.
The light at the end of tunnel was not very welcoming. After so long in the tunnels, bright light flooding from the tunnel's exit was hurting Orrana's eyes. She stepped out blinking like the imperial holographic projector.
Lerena saw a big and airy room, with many pillars looming over them. She recognized them from the books she studied as Greek stylized Corinthian columns. In the centre of the room was a large globe shining with divine energy.
There were many tables around the room littered with ancient looking devices, mountains of paper yellowed with age and layers of dust, but there was none on the floor itself. Lerena went to check the nearest of the tables, while Orrana went to another one across the way.
She recognized some devices as storage technology and others as sensors and measurement devices, but they looked withered with great age. The rest of the devices did not make any sense to her. It looked like purposeless wires and cogs in systems, that haphazard and strange.
The papers and scrolls, on the other hand, proved to be brittle. One touch of her hand caused one of them to fall apart immediately into the dust. She could only gaze at the bleached writings. They were strange and unintelligible, in a script that looked similar but alien to Imperial Standard. She checked the rest of tables, but the result were the same. Device too old to function and text too old to read.
She went closer to the glowing ball. It was humming quietly in a pleasant way. On a closer look, she saw veins with a black liquid flowing, enveloping it and the crystalline cubes at its bottom. They were too thin to see from distance. Pulsing liquid in these veins made the orb look like an artist's conception of a heart.
Its pulsing was soothing and relaxing. Lerena slowly put her hand flat upon it. A quick jolt of energy alerted her to the foolishness of this act.
"Dammit," Lerena clutched her hurting hand.
"Presence detected. Energy saving mode deactivated. Status report: 70 tests completed since last full activation. 1 test proceeded to stage 3. Query: Do you wish to download data now?" the orb spoke in an almost mechanical but impressive voice.
"What kind of test?" wondered Lerena aloud, when a loud thud reverberated through the room. Lerena quickly turned around and saw Orrana standing at one table and while looking surprised at the pile of machinery she pushed out of table. Lerena shook her head at those antics.
"The purpose of the test: To catalogue and study of abilities of the divine energy using individuals in this world. Test is compromised from three parts: Fighting prowess, endurance, orientation capability and last moment fighting enhancement."
"Why?" the startled Lerena asked. What?
"For the study of divine energies after the creation of Great Barrier and the Netherworld paradox and its further development." The voice was booming as it filled the room, but strangely was not bothering the normally shy child that she had just rescued.
"Will you answer every question?" Lerena asked the strange machine.
"This unit is able to answer any question in its database. What is your query"
"What are you and what is this place?" Lerena gave it first question.
"This unit is a highly advanced, divine-energy fuelled computing and observation unit created by Divine Forger of Highest Order This place is the facility built for purpose of hosting this unit and the study of the lost Netherworld."
"Netherworld?" Lerena dug deeper. Was that similar to the Underworld that the Eternal Liar had mentioned to her?
"The Netherworld is also known as The Warp. This dimension takes precedence after creation of the Great Barrier. Energies projected by its inhabitants have a similar energy pattern as divine energies. More information is transferred and stored in crystalline technolog number 55554. Transfer complete."
One of the cubes under the orb lit up as energy dripped into it. Lerena took it and put into one of her uniform pads. She would have to look into this later, when they have gotten into safety.
"How can we leave this place and can you store more of your database into data saving devices."
"Impossible. Energy is sufficient only for emergency transport. Power build up for next data transfer is ten years away. Method of leaving: Use of emergency transport system. Energy needed for this process shall consume this unit. Prepare for emergency transport. If you wish to proceed, enter the circle."
A big red circle appeared on the floor before the machine. Its glow was strangely comforting, but it was flickering like it was lacking energy.
"Orrana, we are leaving," Lerena called after the girl still checking the tables and went to get her. The child trotted over, but still kept her distance from the ex-soldier.
Together they entered the circle and red energy begun to swell around them. It enveloped them and then it went from red and then to white when something went very, very wrong.
An incredible pressure began to squeeze Lerena from every direction as a whiteness enfolded her which was silky and incredibly disgusting to touch. It pushed them and crushed them and then it ended. Just at the completion of their trip, Lerena saw an image of a gigantic mountain in the white glare.
Lerena quickly checked the child Orrana. She was shivering. Fresh air and wind blew into Lerena's face and she looked around them. She recognized this place as it was highest spire of the Hive City Laborus Metro-One Alpha. They were standing right in front of the governor's palace. The golden building was stretching before them.
Orrana recognized it, too. And she looked at it with fear in her eyes.
Lerena hugged her as her communicator begun to bleep. "Yes?" Lerna activated it and prepared herself for scolding.
"Welcome back onto the radar. Has your sojourn filled you with joy?" Isha's acerbic voice came out of the communicator.
"Yes it did. I was successful in our endeavour as we have another Scion and she is with me. Should we have this conversation over an unprotected channel ?" Lerena countered, before Isha could get into one of her tirades. Incidents with that Ogryn fan club she led Isha into taught her to fear the Eldar's tirades. It took week before she stopped reminding her about it every time she saw her.
In detail.
In great, excruciating detail.
"We do not have time for that. Go to the platform. We have a shuttle readied for you. Your disappearance caused quite stir around here. Why did you think vanishing for 3 days was good idea?" the ancient 'space elf' demanded in a tone that promised uncomfortable things.
"It was less than a day," Lerena said in confusion while walking towards the landing pads. She had to drag Orrana, who has frozen with fear looking at the palace.
They walked towards shuttles rather briskly. The guards at the gate of the palace seemed to be discussing something, but they did not pursue. Lerena thanked the universe for this brief respite.
The entered the shuttle and took off towards their fleet.
Location: Unknown Forgeworld not on any Imperial charts.
The heavy atmosphere has been lingering in this laboratory. Shadows hid most of the equipment here. The only light in the room came out of strange vials and a big light shining down at the table in middle of the room.
Whimpers of despair were coming out of the bodies strapped to the table. The were opened and their organs were laying around them for better viewing. They were pulsing and twitching in agony. Their owners were still conscious, maddened by pain and the length of their ordeal, which has been going on for days.
Their tormentor walked towards them.
It was a hideous combination of man and machine and was a disproportionate figure with one arm which was huge with lesser appendages hanging from it. Pistons cycled out of its flesh even as tendons stretched out of its body and wrapped themselves around the joint of machinery.
The thing stopped doing unspeakable things to the people on the table. It had felt something. Something unusual. Impossible.
Loss.
"One of the stations stopped working. How unexpected. No one should have been able to enter. Only myself or the other one could without blowing it up. But why would they begun to push their noses into my business after so long a time? Should I investigate?" the figure asked the moaning mess on the table in very deep voice. He expected something, but he did not get a coherent answer.
"No response? How rude. You shall not get any squeaky niceness." He pulled long needle and jabbed it into the writhing mess he was working on. "Interesting reaction."
"You know what? I shall check it out. It is time for some travelling. I suggest you pick only the most important things to take with you," it said to the macabre forms on the vivisection table that still failed to respond correctly. "Damn it, I need a ship. Time to go and build one." Perhaps he should build it with living hearts to pump the sewer subsystems.
The Demigod
As the power of the Scion rises, his human body is slowly replaced with Ichor or sublimated into the godly energy. It is a strange substance that which is the metaphysical manifestation of energy in normal world. The Scion leaves the limitations of the mortal and human body, reaching beyond for something greater and more than perfect. His presence grows more proclaimed and Legend itself surges and binds around him ever more strongly. The world is much more pliable to his whims and at the same time Fate slowly wraps around him to entrap him into the Bonds of Fate.