The Overfiend of Octarius
Date: M40,275
Location: Ultima Segmentum, Octarius Sector, Planet Octarius
"It 'ad been a zoggin' great krumpin' fer da las'… sumfin' days," Overfien' Grimskull thought. A rare thing indeed, for an ork to be thinking, but it had indeed been an interesting last few years for the Ork Empire of Octarius. It had, with everything really to involve the Orks, started with something stupid. One Ork, a mere Nob no less, had challenged Grimskull for the title of Overfiend of Octarius. As with all things worth having in Ork society, the crown of Ork teeth, rusty pig iron, and 'tiny' human chain-swords only went to the winner, after a fight. Said Nob, an unimportant Ork of no real prestige would, of course, lose. It had been obvious, every Ork knew it, but they still wanted to see him fail. Orks were unapologetically brutal creatures like that. But unfortunately for the Orks, the Prince of the Void had other plans.
Admittedly, infecting Orks was quite tricky, like trying to grasp quicksilver in a fist. Whether by Old One design, or just the nature of their irritatingly robust psychic field, infecting the Orks with foreign Warp energies was a trial and a half. But it wasn't impossible. It had started with a Shade. One made with the five express purposes. The maximum such entities could be guided with. Shades were the weakest of The Voids' agents, meant to serve as spies, assassins, saboteurs, and a sort of extension of the Void itself. The last was the most critical part, and the advantage the Void had over Chaos corruption. The average individual, whether human, Xenos, Ork, or Eldar, were usually corrupted insidiously. The Warp energies slowly seep in such power into their soul until the 'blessed' couldn't tell where their souls ended, and Chaos began.
The Void, through its Shades, on the other hand, was far more straightforward. Such living shadows would find either a contractor to bond with, trading services, and knowledge in exchange for an anchor into material reality, or it would just keep eating souls until it was roughly self-sustaining. The Orks were never going to have the intelligence or inclination to bargain for power, so this Shade had been made with the sole purpose of eating ork souls. Created with the souls of daemons, gifted with the knowledge of hunters long dead and forgotten and strong enough to prowl free without a host, so long as it avoided direct sunlight. Named after one of the mightiest and most fearsome creatures of human myth, it was a hunter meant to experiment with a Shade's ability to grow like no other power of the Warp could. Thus, what had started as the shadow of a mere pathetic snotling became the mighty Basilisk.
The Shade was smart, though, made with five critical commandments to its purpose, the power of the Four factions of Chaos' daemons bound in its pataphysical form and the power of the Void as well. It was also, intentionally or not, gifted something no other Shade of the Void yet had, a power every Daemon desired, however, feared to obtain its own Name. Names, to Daemons, were a gift like no other and a baleful curse. Every daemon of sufficient power and prestige would need one to continue their ascendancy. True Names were a way to not only call upon daemons as most believed but the entirety of a daemon's history, abilities, personality, and essence firmly defined. With it, a daemon could become more, strike out against others so named similar to themselves, and take their names for their own. But such things were desperately tricky things to obtain, usually.
Only those with names of their own could grant such titles, limiting who could grant them at all, while it would also take no small investment of power to craft a well-fitting name for the recipient. Whether Markus knew it or not, he was the First Prince of Void. Along with Tharja, he was one of the few who could grant such boons, with only The King able to grant or deny such transactions. The King, though, was intrigued by the possibilities, a mere Shade lifted to such loft heights endlessly amusing. Further still, the Name of the Basilisk had been distorted and mutated throughout human history. What might've seen a cunning if a mere beast of the Void born from such a Name instead became something far more in the 40th millennium. The Basilisk was aware of itself, its surroundings, and the souls of everything around it. Arguably more important, the legend of the Basilisk had, at some point, become entangled in a human artillery platform.
Mathematics from the millions of dead and unmourned operators not taken in by the Emperor were blessed to the Basilisk's use, gifting it a level of genuine sapient brilliance to impress a Necron cryptek begrudgingly, if they were to for whatever reason speak to the daemon serpent of shadow. Its actions and thought processes were further refined by the five commandments gifted to it upon its inception. The first was to hunt the enemies of men, for if men lived to fear it, it would only grow stronger. The second was to prepare for one day in the distant future yet to be, a Hive Fleet would come through this Segmentum of space, and the Basilisk was to be strong enough to hunt such prey among the darkness between stars. Its third was more complicated, straining the limits of its abilities but still doable. It would 'create' more Shades like itself, 'reproducing' through splintering like the simplest of living organisms, but a drastic and terrifying ability for any daemon to have.
Its fourth command was to eat these Orks, to devour them all no matter where they hid and learn of their Gods so that they too would one day be eaten. Its last was the simplest, yet riskiest of the bunch, a brilliant bit of wording prepared by the Prince of Void. To fight for the Void and obey the Prince's commands. But the authorities hidden in its soul were mostly irrelevant, its primary purpose once born on Octarius to continue eating Orks until it had grown strong enough to devour the whole planet for the Void. It started its hunt by, of course, eating the pitiful soul of the snotling it had been born at the feet of. Next, it began hunting, trailing at the edges of the Orks' ever violent society to pick off stragglers, devour them down to their souls and continue growing. Then, after devouring the rather juicy brains and power of an Ork Wierdboy, two rather curious things happened.
The first was that the Ork's shadow began to move, detaching itself to face its progenitor, the only difference being its lesser size. The second was the knowledge obtained of how the Orks psychic field was supposed to work. Like a machine still trundling along years after it was to break down, the Orks were capable of far more in their past. They were far more intelligent, more creative in their reality manipulation, and psychokinetic abilities were ubiquitous rather than rendered to only a sub-species. Again, whether Markus meant to or not, the Basilisk was to eat the Orks' souls and learn how they did what they did. The logical conclusion being that it would apply such things. So the basilisk did so, twisting the willing and supple flesh of its splinter until it resembled a snotling. Thus the conflict escalated very quickly. The Basilisk could share its fragments' memories and experiences at little effort, allowing it to experiment exponentially more every hour.
Soo, it discovered that if it created a fragment no bigger than a human fingernail and hid it in the food of the squigs, the squigs would still eat them. Such pieces of the Basilisk would grow, weakening the squig until an Ork eventually ate it. It would continue to grow, introduced into the Ork psychic sphere by their unwitting actions, until finally, it would grow into a new splinter, with the Ork's body serving as a beautiful puppet to house it. This pattern repeated itself across the planet of Octarius, directed by the Basilisk's ever-growing collective intelligence and its endlessly splintering pieces. One in one million Orks were soon flesh puppets, an impressive number when one considered that the planet of Octarius held an estimated number of Orks well into the tens of billions. Then the plan came to fruition.
A lesser shard stepped forth in the body of one of the middling sub-species of Orks, challenging the leader in their ritual of usurpation. The Basilisk shard's flesh puppet was, of course, defeated and cut down handily. But the body was unnecessary, as the splinter rushed out fully formed to latch onto the throat of the Warboss. Across the planet, this cycle repeated ad nauseam. Orks with no business challenging their betters did so anyway, were cut down soon after and had daemons of shadow crawling from their corpses to slay the victors. Not every attempt was successful. The Warboss Grimskull survived by somehow chopping a daemon made of shadows in half, thanks to his innate reality manipulation affects. But that wasn't a problem for the Basilisk. Like the Orks, it always had more bodies.
The weakest of the Basilisk's bodies could only survive in the darkness of away from the sun, but that was only because they didn't have any flesh to guard them against it. The Orks had plenty of meat, too much some people might say, and wasn't it the Basilisk's job to rid the Orks of this problem? Soon, the first year of the Orks sudden fight for their lives was marked with crude torches everywhere so they could at least see what was killing them, Nobs dragged screaming into the darkness of night, and fewer Orks willing to leave their scrap cities without plenty of dakka to 'shoot da' sneks' as the Orks called it. The days were no better, endless battles of screams, death, and horror as those who had been dragged away in the night were sent to find more hosts or cut down the most stubborn.
The worst part for the Orks was undoubtedly the silence, the 'dead uns' as the Orks knew their possessed brethren refusing to make a single sound even as they were cut down. The corpses were thrown into the scrap cities to let the splinters roam free and hunt in the innumerable shadows till no Ork was safe no matter who they were or where they hid. A smarter Ork Warboss would've done a great many things, but Grimskull was not those Warbosses. Instead, he called for aid, speaking of the 'Awesome Scrap!' they had on their hands, and soon the other Orks came. Thus, the Basilisk had more souls to eat, more bodies to inhabit. The Warboss told his most trusted subordinates to bring more troops to root out the infestation. Thus the Basilisk hitched a ride to nearly every other world in the Octarius Sector to continue its feast.
If Grimskull were smarter, he would've noticed the way specific squig farms were left alone, that some of his most trusted Nobs weren't as enthusiastic about fighting as most Orks, or even that the snotling he was about to eat wasn't struggling as hard as it could. One of his Nobs had handed it to him, conveniently not mentioning a great many things. Like the fact, said snotling had been waiting by his side, not cowering in fear or running away as they usually did as if ready to be eaten alive. But Grimskull was too stupid to note these things. Too tired after fighting off a 'dead un' assault for four straight hours. Too unobservant to notice the tiny luminous eyes watching as he ate the smaller Orkoid. No matter how long it took, or how many plans failed, the Basilisk would always get its prey.
The Exciting Exploits of a Shoggoth Spymistress
Date: Time is Meaningless here
Location: Here, There, Everywhere
Despite what many thought, Khorne's worshippers could be quite smart when they put their minds to it. They could plan a battle, concoct schemes and even exploit a foes' defenses. Eating them was undoubtedly a bit troublesome unless one were to get creative, like dropping a few terrified daemonnettes into the flagship of Kharn the Betrayer. Sure, her exact orders regarding pestering such a powerful chosen of the blood God was not to, but she had also been told to study the combat effectiveness of the Four's most potent mortal servants in the Eye of Terror. So she was multi-tasking, learning exactly how much irritation Kharn could take before he became both aware of her and dangerous.
If the howls of blood-curdling terror and howling fury echoing throughout the halls were any indication, then he was quite lethal already and growing more so by the second. She ignored the noises the Khornate berserkers were making, supping on the souls of their most useful members of this fleshy ship of Khorne. Like many of the mortals bound to the helm, the pilot was mostly a daemon, but delicious anyway. By the time Kharn realized the few souls capable of guiding his ship through the Eye Of Terror were gone, he would be unable to do anything but shriek in impotent fury. She giggled, the tendril on board the vessel endlessly harassing Kharn and his Warband on their boat for subjective months before finally leaving after nearly being caught dropping off a half-eaten troupe of pink horrors in their engine room. Her conclusions regarding Khornate worshippers were lackluster. If they couldn't chop their problem to bits, then they were relatively unimpressive.
Another tendril was conducting another test against the followers of Slannesh, primarily by starving a 'Noise Marine' of sound. Taken from the Emperor's Children, said Noise Marine had been demanding to catch but rewarding for the taste if nothing else. Trapped in her stomach, a pocket dimension in the Warp at the center of her being, said Noise Marine had been quite the uncomfortable meal at first.
Blasting impossible sound waves, singing songs of such daemonic pitch and tones that mere mortal ears would melt on contact. To her, he was just a test subject if a rowdy one in his cage. Draining him of his Warp given gifts required nothing more than to keep him contained, her stomach able to break down the very psychic emanations bound in his soul and body like acid. By now, he was lethargic, showing signs of withdrawal and manic depression as the blessings of the Prince of Pleasure were slowly leached away. Other tendrils were conducting countless tasks, for the Prince of Void had made her, crafted her, and set her loose across the entirety of spacetime and the Warp. The rules she was bound by were irritating, but she had greater freedom than most daemons could even imagine in return. That she had been gifted a Name, to guide her on her missions was just another benefit.
She was to act as the Voice of the Prince and the Void, already an indescribable honor. To serve the Prince of the Void as his 'spymistress' as she had heard him describe her when she dared to eavesdrop on him, a thrilling position she was more than pleased to follow. To learn of Chaos another, poking and prodding with her innumerable tendrils of shadows to know their weaknesses and strengths so they may all be devoured later. To twist humanity's fortunes with her most extraordinary talents, soothing the fears of a young noble scion to one day rule as governor even as she led the Inquisition to his parent's hideout to be slaughtered for heresy. To study the nature of souls, so that one day she could devour even whole worlds and release them just as quickly, free of the taint of Chaos. The last two were admittedly the worst, and Lady Tharja had had the grace to convince her Prince to lessen the restrictions binding her to a manageable level. To only eat the souls of those truly trapped in Chaos' clutches was a troublesome rule, but feasible. She had explicitly been left to decide such things herself with Lady Tharja's prompting when she had dared to protest.
How could she grow if she were left to toil against Chaos' insidious corruption yet seek to undo it without being able to eat anything for her troubles? A problem she had blessedly not had to labor under, ensuring she would not be undone by her authorities one day. Of course, she did her best to respect the leeway left to her, helping the silly humans with gusto and rampant probability manipulation. Even if most considered her ability to work such things far too indirect in its application, such influences effectively became a planet and even sector-wide web. This gloriously absurd talent left her able to serve the Void and, arguably, more critical The Prince in ways even that snooty Basilisk couldn't. The last was the worst, one she genuinely hated following, yet simultaneously one that left her in heady anticipation. To serve the Prince in her entirety, give her Name to him, and never serve anyone but Him in her full capacity.
Even though such a command limited her full potential, she was more than apt at fulfilling her most essential duties For Prince And Void. It had been her connection to the Prince that enabled him to speak across any time or distance. Her tendrils were not like Basilisk's splinters, but fragments of her thoughts and self ultimately meant to enact a great many different objectives rather than many disparate minds. Thus, she was only mildly concerned when she had found one of the greatest human sorcerers of all time. Even if such a tendril were destroyed, she could always grow more later.
He was blessedly already isolated, walking calmly through a self-made Warp portal onto a dead world of ice just outside the Eye Of Terror. The planet was honestly forgotten. The humans who had lived there were long gone. There were only hints of knowledge and power; she could 'smell' such nuggets of potential beneath the endless tundra thanks to her particular senses. Understandably, to have the experience necessary to know of such potential buried in the dirt, the energy needed to create relatively stable portals through the Warp, and the extrasensory skills of an Astartes meant Ahriman detected her eyes watching him quite quickly.
Eyes of too many colors, ringed in mastered insanity and mind behind the irises sharper than most blades latched onto her. While her tendril was over ten miles away, hidden under the shadow of a small cliff. He was certainly impressive, this human sorcerer, if nothing else in what seemed to be genuine if a tenuous amount of control over the Chaos corruption in his soul as he should be, to be worthy of not only the Prince's attention but his words as well. Vanishingly few were worthy of such an audience in her mind, a delusion not disrupted in the fact he had only a small list of 'individuals of interest' she was to arrange a meeting.
Her tendril came forward, undaunted by the steadily growing power leashed yet crackling regardless around Ahriman's body as a silent threat. He wasn't trying to strike her down, however, and even if this tendril were given True Death, there was no way to truly unmake her unless her True Name was called out to bring her full form from the Roaming Heart. Soon enough, a black silhouette in the shape of her hidden aspect towered over him, the sorcerer impressively undaunted at the manifestation of a fraction of her actual power. She would've been unimpressed with him if he had been even slightly unnerved after hearing of his fearsome reputation, possibly even tried to devour him. The sorcerer was growing impatient, power still increasing with the thread of control restraining it rapidly fraying. Ahriman could wait. The Prince was busy searching for some silly Astartes on a world lost in the Warp. Orders were passed through their bond to hunt down some other chapter of loyalists in the 39th millennium in the Eastern Fringe called the Retributors. Known to work with the Inquisition and be sons of Rogal Dorn, another name she was to find before the second half of the 41st millennium.
It would be difficult, too little information to go off, and a likely chance of failure or waste of resources if she was unsuccessful just to find the Astartes. The best kind of missions, exemplifying her unique talents to assure her she was both valued and needed. The Prince finished slaying whatever Chaos spawn sought to waylay him, their souls still screaming somewhere in the Roaming Heart as the Prince reached through the bond forged between them to speak through her tendril. Not for the first or last time, as the tendril lost its original shape, she wondered what she would look like whenever the Prince deemed her ready to receive her Name. Lady Tharja may have argued for her to be capable of taking it from the Prince in her most dire circumstances, but was loath to do so. She liked the challenge of working under such limitations and triumphing regardless. To the age's greatest sorcerer, the Prince spoke then, barring the Chaotically corrupted and perhaps the Aeldari.
"Greetings, Ahriman of the Thousand Sons. I trust you will not try to strike my friend or me until we have finished this conversation, hopefully? You seem a civilized sort, aware of Chaos' deficiencies." He began with herself present and witness for both the Void and her own learning. She loved watching him twist fate, souls, and civilizations with only words. Like a student unable to imagine any better mentor, she watched raptly, perfectly willing to strike down the sorcerer should he prove foolish enough to lash out. Ahriman paused, confused at such a confluence of genuinely new power from both a daemon and what seemed to be a human united in purpose. She felt his power poking at their bond, seeking to understand, but he would only feel the Roaming Heart of the Void waiting to grab the reckless who stared too deep into the abyss. His face twisted beneath his helm, Ahriman too curious to learn, as was his and his chapter's greatest sin, of what the Prince could ask.
"Perhaps I won't, although that assumes that the words you'll speak are both worth my time wasted on this conversation and not inherently insulting." The overly prideful fool rumbled from a throat well versed in speaking impossible languages. The insult was unforgivable, but the Prince was seemingly amused, his plan to manipulate the fallen Astartes still on track it seemed. "Of course, busy times and busier hands in this galaxy, don't you think? If you'd like, I can simply skip the sophistry to get to the point then." The Prince 'offered,' conveniently gifting the sorcerer the idea that his ire had won him some control in the conversation. She learned eagerly, amused herself now at the trap laid to ensnare the sorcerer. The fool nodded, power gathered earlier released 'harmlessly' into a light show of impossible colors that happened to test her own ability to devour anything through her tendril.
"To be blunt, then, I wish to kill the Gods of Chaos, undo Fate, see humanity ascend beyond these pathetic means, and enlist your aid in fixing the shattered mind and soul of your Primarch." The Prince dropped the real depth of his goals casually. Seeming to mock the same plans and undermine the truths he spoke while offering the one Ahriman would, of course, be most doubtful, yet desirous of last. The sorcerer latched onto the Prince's every word.
From that point on, she could feel power trying to pierce the Void as if to pull the Prince into his grasp to interrogate. Unwilling to let that insult stand, she fed more energy into her tendril, then let all bloom like flowers around the sorcerer. Admittedly, to her greatest shame, she had doubted herself capable of serving the Prince as he desired her to with only the talents she had been given. Worse still, she had questioned the Prince himself, a scandalous thing but true as she'd been unsure what probability manipulation would be useful for if she ever needed to defend herself. Lady Tharja had as well, the only reason she hadn't thought herself too bold, yet the Prince had been magnanimous enough to explain to them both the real benefits of such a talent.
Most sorcerors and daemons believed that asserting their dominance over the very fundamentals of reality was the pinnacle of psychic sovereignty. Yet, so the Prince argued, didn't the Materium always have the final say? Lightning conjured from a psyker's fingers was still electricity of another form. The manifestations of daemons were eventually banished back to the Warp. Unless one dealt with the truly exceptionally powerful, all were subject to at least some of the Materium's immutable laws. So, why not twist circumstances to say, drop a building on top of a telepath? Guide the Astartes towards the worst of Chaos cultists before they plunged a world into anarchy, then devour the survivors in the aftermath. Further still, didn't almost all of Chaos' most favored chosen reside either exclusively on the mortal plane or in the Warp? Combined with her ability to collect anything in an infinite amount of space in her main body hidden in the Roaming Heart, she had the potential to undermine every enemy of the Prince and Void across the galaxy.
With a few lessons from the Prince and daemons given generously to be used for her purpose, she became quite good at it. Thus, when she unleashed but a fraction of a percentage of her power, bedlam ensued. The ground under the arrogant sorcerer was broken at that moment. Billions of imperfections in the tectonic plate exploited to drop him into a fissure the depth of a skyscraper. Simultaneously, a confluence of pressure fronts and local weather patterns bred a monstrous storm, lighting striking dozens of times around him. An army of half-eaten daemons of the Four was unleashed from the numerous cavities in her stomach roared forth, driven to kill by her tendrils in their flesh. Icicles, glass, long-forgotten weapons of this world's dead warriors were launched, fired, or flung at him from every angle. To his credit, Ahriman abandoned his efforts to pierce the Void to defend himself.
Lighting was to be absorbed, then hastily redirected when the lack of a direct psychic component to their birth rendered his usual methods ineffective. A plane of air and screams was spawned underneath himself, to give himself relatively stable ground above the fissure that sought to swallow him into the molten core of this planet. Tendrils of Warp-fire lashing out to defend himself from the hail of las-fire from weapon emplacements that had 'mysteriously' just come online under her will and blades of brilliant technological make if not condition flung to taste his flesh by the storm winds. The daemons Ahriman sought to bind in chains of an impressive will, yet he quickly discovered her tendrils were able to throw the bodies at him like screaming grenades of Warp and Void. She was pleased to feel his panic, tinged in his power and hasty actions as he finally struck out with his staff actually to kill said daemons and dart between the explosions.
She let him live. The daemons were not replaced. The storm above and weapons emplacements were allowed to die out rather than be fueled for further assault with her power. Of course, the Prince allowed her to do it all, calmly waiting for the sorcerer to cut down the last of the agonized and terrified daemons. She would have to find new ones to eat later, but that was fine. Ahriman rose, still standing on the plane of false air in a casual display of continual psychic control and skill. Yet she felt his power cautiously testing the air, the storm above dissipating, and the few weapons still around them. There was a reason she had started her observance of him from ten miles out, he understood now. Though psykers were undeniably influential, they always expected others of their ilk and especially daemons to only use such powers directly to obliterate threats.
But if she could manipulate mundane events, individuals, and items to her advantage, suddenly her foes were far more vulnerable. How would such psychic opponents and even the more foolish daemons manage to predict her resources when there were no direct psychic components to trace such influences? With the talents inherent to her as one born of the Void, and the countless trinkets, 'forces' like stolen daemons and tendrils, she could set virtually entire solar systems against her enemies with a disgusting lack of effort. As Ahriman seemed to understand, his eyes under his helm veiled under an illusion as they frantically tried to peel away her own manipulations to discover what other traps she had laid. He wouldn't find them. She had practiced the limited foresight ability the Void granted her against other psykers precisely to undermine such a search, via precise amounts of psychic power and long-term planning.
Soon enough, Ahriman spoke again, begrudgingly impressed if very irritated if his tone was any indication. She resisted the urge to drop the asteroid she had prepared for such disrespect to the Prince. "I see you aren't unprepared to deal with me, if not in good faith, considering you speak through a mere puppet if a skilled one." He mocked the Prince. But the Prince was forgiving, smiling genially as if amused the sorcerer had ferreted out such a little secret. The Prince was clever, leaving the sorcerer's damaged pride to assume whatever he thought correct. "Only a fool would make even such a casual mention of the Primarch in your presence without some protection. Suffice to say I wasn't lying in my last statement, either." The Prince assured Ahriman. Ahriman lashed out in childish fury, long pent emotions of hurt/betrayal/damaged awe/bitter acceptance free for less than an instance.
But she noticed, whispering such things in the Prince's ear as Ahriman rebutted. "Impossible nonsense and LIES! The Primarch is whole, whole, and fit to rule as he sees fit!" Ahriman said/pleaded with himself, his mind demanding that indeed he wouldn't have been betrayed by a mere Shard? The Prince pounced on such weakness, as she gleefully watched him entrap the sorcerer in such painful truths. The best kinds of traps, she found, since they were so hard to escape. Some didn't even want to run. "I wouldn't make such claims without some evidence. When you preformed the Second Rubric spell, were there not a great many Shards of Magnus' soul present? Isn't it strange that there were so many, yet countless ones were either never found nor seen again since Prospero burned?" The Prince queried innocently, weaving the tale like a net of knives to pierce and strangle Ahriman's heart. The sorcerer, of course, rebelled against such notions, yet didn't strike out again.
"What of such details? Meaningless things you could've learned of through sorcery and torture, such arguments are barely worth consideration!" The sorcerer ranted in increasing frustration, revealing that he was indeed considering such words. Weakness to be exploited, as The Prince demonstrated. "Did you know that when you cast the Second Rubric, one of the Rubric Marines was restored to his original body? Surely you did, it was your intention in the first place." The Prince insinuated. The web of painful truths tightened, the Sorceror confused now but a hint of something in his demeanor. Ahriman's next words were to those who looked for them, riddled with almost painful Hope for More. "Of course, Helio Isidorus, but he was without his memories and…" His words died off, choking in his throat as the possibility bloomed in his mind.
Nurgle was a fool like no other. To underestimate the devastating infection, that was an idea. The Prince nodded, like a benevolent monarch granting his subject leave to ponder the future. "Isn't it strange that only one was restored? Stranger still that he somehow remembered his name, yet conveniently nothing else of his past? If you would like, you can even test the possibility now, that somehow one of the Shards of your Primarch's soul is still amongst us. All you have to do is try to scry Helio Isidorus." The Prince offered. The words had barely been spoken before Ahriman, with minutely trembling hands, swept his staff in the air. Psychic power pierced reality, the Warp, and spacetime with an Astartes' name cried forth to be found. There was no result. Bent to the will of an Astartes of the Thousand Sons, prolific mages already, focused to less than a razor's edge by Ahrimans' experience, the Warp sought such an individual and found nothing.
The name was real. The Astartes, though, was nowhere to be seen in the window through the Warp. Ahriman committed the spell again, far more power used with the same result. Where the face or image of Helio Isidorus should've been was only the ineffectual sight of the ever-changing Warp. He could barely talk, knees unsteady with hope/ecstasy/terror coursing through his body and soul. The Prince masterfully crippled the sorcerer with mere words and truth, as she watched and learned. "Don't you find it strange, that you know that name, yet have no real idea where that Astartes went or how he escaped so seamlessly from everyone's attention?" The Prince led him on. Ahriman didn't speak, unwilling to believe such a thing, yet desperate to believe it was true. The Prince was kind. Thus he explained it quite well to the sorcerer.
"When I had this 'puppet' of mine, as you call her, try and find an Astartes by that name, do you know hat she found? Much the same, with the one claiming that name nowhere to be found no matter the means used. Almost as if said, Astartes had the psychic power to conceal his presence from the Warp. Yet only those without psychic ability became Rubicae. So, how could this have happened?" The Prince mused aloud. She had been quite confused when she had reported her failure to find what should've been such a minor Astartes; the Prince started laughing. More so when she had peered into the past to see this Astartes, only to fail again. Then he had explained, and she had laughed as well. Ahriman tried to speak, to deny it but desperately didn't want to all the while. "If you were to use post cognition to confirm that this Astartes both existed and never had psychic power previously, you would fail. His very existence is shrouded, quite masterfully as well—the kind of experience and capability to come from only a handful of men. In particular, one symbolically attuned enough to Helio Isidorus, who can hide his past, present, and future from everyone who would seek to scry him in any way." The Prince let him speak the name. Ensnaring the great Ahriman with only words and truth as the exiled Astartes of the Thousand Sons fell to his knees in pure shock.
"Magnus… Magnus lives, to be reborn again." Ahriman spoke the words with all the reverence as if talking of his father/teacher/god in one whisper carried on the chill winds. The Prince smiled kindly and made the offer. "Tell me, Ahriman. What would you do to see your Primarch reborn as he should've been after the sons of Fenris burned your home? Would you fight Chaos for me, teach my little puppet your secrets and even, say, give yourself to the judgment of the Emperor?" The Prince offered. Ahriman flinched, torn for several moments as he shivered in what was most certainly not the cold. Even directly, giving himself to the Emperor was a death sentence in even the best of circumstances. Thus, finally, the Prince revealed his full hand, asking her to dump the Noise Marine body she had been digesting onto the snow before them all.
The man was shivering with mania, babbling in insane depression and sobbing like a transhuman newborn in power armor. His soul had too many holes in it, the daemonic power that once would provide resistance to mortal concerns removed to leave only a broken warrior behind. He wouldn't survive for a year, mind long broken and body starved of necessary nutrients that it had grown accustomed to receiving from the daemonic power of Slannesh. But he was alive, human, and undeniably cleansed of such taint. A pause of incredulity, before Ahriman took the offer and tore said Noise Marine's soul from his body with barely any effort, the body and armor set ablaze in blue flames. It wasn't a pretty thing, screaming in fear, desire, and self-loathing run rampant without the whispers of Chaos to keep human emotions at bay. But, as Ahriman studied it, tearing it to still screaming pieces with manic fervor as the depths of the deal to be made was revealed.
The Prince said nothing, letting him come to terms for a long five minutes. Indeed, she was but a neophyte when compared to his skills. 'Now now Shadroxi, you are still growing into your role. You'll be quite a terror in the future have no fear'. She felt shivers to hear her name spoken as the sorcerer finally came to himself. Ahriman's eyes were burning with a magnetic intensity, a light in his soul waiting to be revealed. "What exactly is the deal? What are the terms, and what are the stakes?" He asked/demanded. The sorcerer could be forgiven such errors; the Prince pleased from the feeling of pleasure pulsing through the bond. He walked forward, finally closing the distance between the two to arm's reach.
"You will teach my shoggoth the ways of sorcery, so she may better serve me. You will assist the Imperium of Man in key, if limited ways, to prove you are taking this seriously and prove to your Primarch's Shard he can trust you. It seems reasonable if all the worst aspects of your Primarch's soul were bound to Tzeentch's service, the those that are left and attached to Helio Isidorus are the best, fighting perhaps against his 'worst half.' I highly doubt no matter our resources combined, we will find him only if he wants to be seen." The Prince illustrated. Offering terms that Ahriman would already follow through logical arguments to wrap the undesirable requests in more acceptable language. Ahriman nodded eagerly, soul alight with zeal as he warmed up to the possibility. The Prince extended a hand, bound in the power of the Void to seal the deal.
"You will allow me to give you orders, if only in the direst of circumstances. Lastly, you will convince Magnus to return to the Emperor, or if that fails to me. If you accept the terms laid out, know now that you will be unable to give up or otherwise betray these oaths to me. The Warp will spite you endlessly should you ever seek to use the powers I also offer. The Dark 'Gods' will seek your eternal torment should this deal of ours ever become known." The Prince illustrated. Ahriman hesitated, fully aware of the value of a geas made, if not the severity of one made with the Void as a witness. The sorcerer raised his hand, eventually, the Prince patient until the time was right. The deal was struck, a powerful ally gained. All accomplished with nothing more than well-chosen words, the truth, and understanding whoever the Prince sought to manipulate. Shadroxi the Shoggoth, the Prince of Void's spymistress, the infinite maw learned well from him a great many things.