AN: In case you guys haven't picked up on this yet I like having fun with the seriousness of the universe when I'm writing this stuff by having some fun with the dialogue. Also while the premise of all this so far seems extremely convenient for the Imperium I will make it all make sense once we get into the thick of things here in a bit, I Promise!
The bridge of the ship was currently in warp travel lockdown, all the windows had been sealed shut with ceramite plating and the only light was the faint flickering of candles high above in the rafters and the green glow of the bridge displays. All around Domastecles he could hear the hum of Gellar shielding in the air. He had put in a weaving matrix of Gellar shielding in his ship that had multiple fail-safes and redundancies built-in thanks to the favors the ordo malleus had owed him. This was something that had the imperium existed in a different time where such a thing was even considered, a rather unsafe practice due to the amount of radiation that a single Gellar field generated. This brought a compoundingly detrimental effect to his unaugmented crew's health but compared to being saved from oblivion on the battlefield at his hands it was a small price to pay. Anybody that Domacstecles would consider worth preventing harm to in any real sense either had mechanicus augments or Astartes biology to prevent such things. One such figure who definitely did not fall into that category was about to enter the bridge to interrupt Domastecles work.
"Inquisitor!" Shouted the Commissar in charge of the Inquisitorial guardsman, bursting through the doors, and approached the command table.
Domastecles, who was hunched over a navigational chart displaying their course across the galaxy, slowly turned to address the Commissar. "Lower your voice before I lower it for you with scalpels, now report."
"Sir, the navigator wishes you to know that our course has been altered due to an unforeseen warpstorm!"
"What? Inload the data now!"
"I'm sorry sir but our Navigator said that he can't say how it will affect our course exactly. There is nothing he could map out for us."
"Hmmmmmm….. very well, summon my acolytes and Thorne to the Navigators chambers… And have someone escort our prisoner there as well while you're at it! I'm requiring his presence." Domastecles shouted over his shoulder as his spider walker exited the bridge and made for the Navigators chambers in the center of the ship.
This is not good, warp storms popping up out of nowhere aren't entirely unheard of but to be caught off guard by one while in the middle of warp travel at a time like this did not sit well with him at all. For throne's sake, this was a navigator from one of the oldest houses whose roots traced back to Terra itself. There was something amiss with this happenstance I'm sure of it!
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Elsewhere on the ship, Malcador was once again in deep meditation. At first he had endeavored to expand his base knowledge of the events that had occurred over the past ten thousand years through an advanced method of warp scrying until more pressing matters came to his attention. For a number of weeks, he had been more and more aware of a growing threat that they would encounter as the warp storm drew nearer to their collective metapsychical representations within the warp. He was currently projecting his psychic presence forward into the warp in order to scout out their path and get a clearer picture of what exactly this warp storm was being caused by. There could be any number of reasons for a warp storm to exist, anything from a particularly large congregation of daemons to ancient Eldar mysticism could be the root cause.
After an indeterminate length of time, an Astral projection of Malcador appears on a rocky cliff in the warp. Everything existed in a way that could not be here, mythos and metaphor had more of a grasp on how things played out here than scientific law. Taking a moment to get his bearings malcadors avatar now stood on a rocky outcropping of a mountain, above him a wall of glossy obsidian rock led upward to a peak that Malcador somehow knew was impossible to reach and within a stone's throw of him at the same time. Below him beyond the cliff's edge was nothing but an abyss of mist that gave way to a massive field of azure crystal. Peering over the edge of the cliff malcador saw with his mind's eye one of the rather worse outcomes that this storm could have been.
Deep below his perch were fields full of daemons of tzeentch, twin headed harpies with claws honed to an impossible edge, blue motes of balefire, horrors of tzeentch circling lords of change, and stranger entities that couldn't be accurately described by traditional high gothic vocabulary.
In the center of the field stood a gargantuan crystal the size of a titan. This one appeared to be carved to geometric perfection compared to the other unrefined gems surrounding it and spread out across the field. Lightning raced across its surface as a truly massive psychic whirlwind of energy erupted from the top of it, this then traveled up into a representation of the storm that malcador was currently investigating. At the center of it all stood a covenant of thousand sons sorcerers standing in a hexagram pattern.
Well shit, they must be after the inquisitor after his latest raid upon their fortress. The presence of some of the sons of Magnus is somewhat disconcerting though Malcador mused to himself as a plan began to form in his mind.
After finishing his preparations Malcador decided to make his presence known. Transforming into a great ball of fire he launched himself towards the central crystal. Even though he was but a mere few thousand meters from the crystal from his perspective the forces of the great deceiver witnessed an entirely different version of events. From the sky above the highest reaches of the cyclone created by the ritual crystal, a massive white-hot ball of anathemic fire punched through and impacted the crystal shattering it. Huge chunks of crystal were flung up from the explosion, flying far out into the crowd of daemons and crushing a few of the smaller ones.
The commander of the Rubricae marines immediately took charge of the situation.
"HOLD, WHO DARES INTERFERE WITH OUR RITUAL, REVEAL YOURSELF SPAWN OF THE CORPSE EMPEROR."
As the light of the fires died down, Malcador gathered the remains of the flames around himself and projected his avatar into a larger form that stood at a rather intimidating 10 feet high, this was nothing to the daemons but it raised him above the marines 8-foot frames. This served two purposes of both adding to the air of superiority he wanted to have for this conversation as well as disguise more effectively his next move. Responding to the marine he altered his voice into a crude but effective mimicry of the emperors.
"HOW BOLD OF YOU TO ASSUME THAT I AM ONE OF YOU, MY GRANDSON."
"WHAT, IT CANNOT BE. OUR SCRYERS SAY THAT YOU HAVE PULLED BACK YOUR AVATARS. YOU ARE NOT HE!"
"HAHA, HOW AMUSING TO SEE THAT YOUR EVEN FARTHER BEHIND THAN I EXPECTED YOU AND YOURS TO BE. TO THINK THAT YOU HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN UNDER THE 1ST LAYER OF MY PLANES LET ALONE ITS DEPTHS. FOR FORCES OF TZEENTCH ITS RATHER UNBECOMING WOULDN'T YOU SAY?"
"YOU DARE, I WILL SMITE YOU WHERE YOU STAND ANATHEMA!"
"OH COME NOW, DON'T EMBARRASS YOURSELF NOW. I DON'T EVEN RECOGNIZE YOU, DO YOU EVEN REALIZE HOW INSIGNIFICANT YOU HAVE TO BE FOR SOMEONE WHO IS NIGH-OMNIPOTENT TO NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE… WHO ARE YOU AGAIN?"
"I AM SORCERER SURANAB, SLAYER OF THE GREAT UNCLEAN ONE BLUZ…."
Excellent, I convinced him to monologue with a one-two punch to his pride, some things such as arrogance from those who hail from Prospero never change it seems Malcador mused as he continued to steadily pour more energy into the avatar while suppressing it down into an increasingly dense core instead of having it pour out of him. All around him the daemons approached the crystal ruins while the other sorcerers held positions at their ritual points from before. None of them seemed eager to engage, all deferred to the fool at the center.
Honestly, it's a little embarrassing, in the short time that I observed him thrice I detected that a lord of change had to modify the ritual he was conducting with the aid of five, count them, FIVE other sorcerers as anchoring conduits. And that was with a focus as massive as that crystal was, standards seemed to have slipped on both sides as the years wore on it seems. No wonder this guy was relegated to storm conjuror instead of actually being deployed to a battlefield….. Hmm, I have enough energy and he's still listing off his titles. Whatever, overkill never hurts.
After another minute or so of additional monologuing, the wizard finally concluded. "SO ANATHEMA IF YOU THINK THAT I'M GOING TO GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT YOU HAVE ANO..."
It was at that moment that Malcador released all the energy he had been building up inside of his avatar. Across an eternity and in an instant a wave of fire much hotter and deadlier than before erupted out in a circle from his avatar. All at once, an entire legion's worth of daemons burned in agony save for a few hastily erected wards from some of the larger lords of change that still left them and any daemons near enough them to seek shelter heavily burnt but nonetheless existing. Fields of daemon corpses littered with burn marks still glowing an ethereal white surrounded a central crater that was filled with clear crystals from the sand in the ground that has been glassed. Slowly the lords of change rose as one and began to slowly retreat back deeper into the warp to their lord's domain to report on the result of this failure, all except one.
Tark'ax was one of Tzeentch's more ambitious daemons. This would just not do, so much time had been lost while he was banished during the glorious days of the great game. Ever since Slaanesh had awoken his master has enjoyed scheme after scheme within more schemes within the grand plans within the great game. The endless dance was change crafted to perfection….. But he had not yet played his part! He had only just recently reincarnated within the warp after his past failures between the tau creatures and the humans. Coming back to his lord after a second mishap would just not do. He needed to act lest he be consumed and simply made energy to be expended as his lord wished. Slowly another plan hatched within his mind that might yet save the day, surely if he came back after all the rest of his flock had fled alone with the reclaimed soul that his master sought then he would be rewarded most excellently.
With a wave of his talon he once more enthralled the remaining lesser daemons that were mindlessly roaming throughout the field now that they were no longer bound to the covenant. While most of the daemons had been either evaporated or severely burned by the fire from before, a still considerable enough amount of them remained that were in fighting condition. With a mighty bear of its four wings, he took off after the trail of fire that Malcadors avatar left streaking into the skyline, the pack of daemons following as more of a cloud of warpfire following the beating of his wings then physical beings flying alongside him.
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Standard practices in the 30th millennium for constructing any vessel that was destined to be warp bound within the Imperium always followed a set of rules and guidelines that the mechanicus rarely deviated from. These traditions of shipbuilding over centuries have been proven correct in the eyes of the mechanicus time and again. Some rules are rather mundane such as how fuel from the reactor should be regulated when passing through areas that the crew would also occupy, others are absolutely vital such as how to layer the superstructure of the ship's skeleton in order to best allow it a chance to survive a broadside from a macroshelling or other such attack methods. In the 41st millennium, these beliefs are so ingrained into the layout and construction of new vessels that the only exceptions ever found is within two groups, any archmagos who has enough clout within the mechanicus to modify their ship without being questioned on the matter by their peers, or any Inquisitor who is mad enough to push his tech priests into changing things to his liking. However, even in those examples, there is still a very small yet important list of things that no one is ever to do lest they be declared a heretic outright upon discovery. At the very top of this list are the specifications on how to build and maintain a chamber that a navigator must go into and remain in during warp travel.
Navigators quarters are the second most heavily protected areas of Imperial ships aside from the bridge. Each wall along with the ceiling and floor is an impressive combination of internal secondary layerings of gellar field technology and specially hardened ceramite infused plasteel. The doors are always locked during warp travel and special runes of warding from the ecclesiarchy are engraved along its borders. Beyond this 1st layer however is a sprawling layout of the pinnacle of humanity's definition of decadence. Statues, artwork, marble columns lined with gold, and genetically engineered food of the golden age of technology passed down through generations and zealously guarded by the Navis Nobility are all standard fare. Within the central chamber that functioned as a massive dining hall sat several figures, among them was the navigator himself along with the commissar of the guard detachment on the ship, the trio of tech priests, and Sargent Thorne. They were in heavy talks and Domastecles was in the middle of making a statement towards the navigators competency when the door suddenly swung open seemingly of its own violation.
"Salutations my travel companions, how do you do?" Malcador announced as he floated into an unoccupied seat at the table.
"WHERE ARE YOUR ESCORTS?" exclaimed the commissar.
"Several deck levels below us, still waiting on an elevator to arrive it would seem," Malcador replied while slyly eyeing some of the food on the table.
"Commissar please have those men shot," Domastecles ordered while rounding the table towards Malcadors position.
"Right away Sir!" the commissar stuttered before composing himself and leaving the Navigators chambers and drawing his laspistol. Malcador subtly manipulated the man's mind as he was leaving to slowly forget his orders by the time the elevator arrived.
Malcador went for the grapes first as he completely ignored all present including the Inquisitor contemplating his death standing directly behind him. After a time Domastecles finally broke the silence "How did you get around the wards placed at the doorway?"
"Oh, that's what you want to know? Come on now I would have thought you all wanted to start with the disappearance of the warp storm we were about to hit."
"SEE, even the prisoner was aware of it! Questioning my competency in this direct a manner after all I've put up with will not be forgotten Inquisitor!"
"No more of that," Domastecles uttered while leveling a glare towards the Navigator that silenced him. Turning back towards Malcador, Domastecles continued "You are both correct and surprisingly well informed, I'll take an answer on the phantom warp storm debacle in lieu of my prior question."
"Well to be frank I handled it."
"What do you mean you handled it?"
"Well, there were some thousand sons marines and their minions causing some trouble with a ritual that would create a warp storm that we honestly don't have time to deal with."
"How the hell did you do that!"
"Oh your actually going to love this one its one of the oldest tricks in the book, you see when you overload a psychic construct with a certain amount of attuned psychic energy the…"
Malcador never finished his sentence as the ship suddenly lurched violently and alarms blared to life.
Warning: Gellar matrix breaches in sections 8 through 17 of the forward hull
Nevermind it looks like they want another crack at us, and I was just about to get to the synthetic wagyu Malcador thought as he stood exasperatedly.
Domastecles immediately took charge "Daemons have breached the ship, Thorne take point at the central causeway of the forward section of the ship, order compartmental isolation around the breach, and summon the guard. Arkh and Thelema go into lockdown level 4 at your designated stations and activate any vivisectors and constructs to find along the way, and you prisoner….. It's time you earn your keep around here, You're coming with me."
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Paladin Amalric of the Grey knights was rather confused, this was the first time he or any other of his squad had had the opportunity to meet their brother unit the venerable custodes as they almost never left the Imperial palace and that was only to other locations on Terra from what he had heard. Yet here they were sending a thunderhawk down on Titan while Several of their cruisers floated in orbit. He along with his fellow paladins and grandmaster Drystann Cromm stood on the launchpad to receive them.
The Thunderhawk touched down and three custodes descended down the ramp and approached Grandmaster Cromm in perfect matching step.
"Greetings grandmaster Cromm, how are things on Titan?"
After a time Grandmaster Cromm slowly responded "Everything is nominal Custodes, all present daemons in our fortress are successfully restrained at this time."
"Excellent, we require your expertise."
"Of course custodes, how may the grey knights be of service."
"The warp mandeville point above titan, we must set up a blockade above it for a daemon incursion that will follow an Inquisitors ship through it. Their Arrival time is expected to be in 18 hours and 27 minutes from now."
"How do you know this!? No daemonic force would dare to intrude on Titans voidspace voluntarily!"
"The Emperor told us that this would be so."
This new information delivered to the grandmaster along with the other grey knights present combined with the matter-of-fact tone that was oh so on brand from the custodian forces left them breathless. Finally, Cromm came to his senses.
"The Emperor told you?"
"The Emperor told us."
"Really?"
"Really."
"TRULY!?"
"Truly."
"HE ACTUALLY SPOKE!?"
"In his own way, considering that state of his physical being but yes….. Can we count on your orders aid in this task?"
"Of course, I will prepare our ships for combat at once!"
Above the moon of Titan, aboard the flagship of the custodes fleet, Valoris sat contemplating all that had been conveyed to him over the past several days via this language of morse code that the emperor could communicate to him with. Even as he sat here and waited for the arrival of the Malcador several other parties of custodes were moving throughout Terra to ensure no overzealous entities that held rather extreme points of view interfered with the events that were about to take place. This was going to be one of the most delicate moments in Imperial political history and both he and the Emperor knew it. If everything didn't go according to the plan that the Emperor had laid out to him then another schism was likely. All that was left to do for the moment however was wait to receive the warm welcome of the immateriums spawns once they emerged from the bowels of this Inquisitor's ship and hope that they make it through the warp in one piece.