The Speranza had arrived at its interim destination only a few hours prior, hoping to get a better look at the forces that had plagued their journey, and seemed to propagate even now amongst Humanity, before seeking out Holy Terra.
And Harry could only think to himself that it was the Emperor's own blessing that they did so.
The System was known locally as First Fall, and it was one of the many relay worlds that would be used as supply points and repair stations between Terra and the rest of the Imperium. Under normal circumstances, the light of the Astronomican would be almost blinding to Navigators as they sought out their destination, which would in turn require more focused and shorter jumps to compensate for the lack of vision. The upside, of course, was that being this close to the Astronomican meant that the Warp was usually a gentle stream compared to the wild and roiling wakes that could be found within the maelstrom.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, this was anything but a normal circumstance.
The planet below was in utter pandemonium. Reports of massive amounts of chaos worship and heresy everywhere, innumerable numbers of psykers suddenly forced into the open, even entire witch hunter cabals suddenly erupting in psychic light for absolutely no reason and almost immediately being put to the Emperor's Mercy…or at least attempted to do so, as whatever was causing the effect was also pointedly refusing to allow anyone to die from it.
Well, except for the many, many people of the hives below who found themselves breaking out into massive, unsightly mutations and aberrancies without any warning, each one a clear indication of not only chaos taint but how deep and to whom their allegiance was sworn to.
That many a chaos worshiper had been found in places of high authority and prestige, in the ranks of those who were believed to be beyond suspicion, was damning. Hell, even within the Emperor's Own Inquisition, much to the surprise of the masses (who were deliberately kept unaware that Inquisitors could even be rogue) could be found numerous tainted ones. It was nothing less than total chaos, and it was generally agreed by all parties onboard Speranza that they wanted nothing to do with it.
Especially because nearly all of them were still dealing with their own awakenings and transformations.
Amongst the Sororitas onboard, it was Sister Mariel who was by far the most pious of the lot, and she was downright adamant that it was the light of the Emperor himself shining on them and awakening them to what they could truly be. The other Sororitas quickly agreed, to no one's surprise, and even a few of the mixed bag of Van Saar remnants bought into it wholesale, mostly because there was nothing else that actually made sense.
Harry openly laughed at them all. "Trust me, this is somehow Green's fault. Don't ask me how or why, but I am certain that this is his fault."
Somehow, maybe, this did not erupt into an inferno of declarations of heresy and other cries of defamation. In this case, it was likely because Harry was the one most used to the mess that followed his friend around, and had been openly disdainful of the Imperium as it stood for some time, even to the Sisters.
The small bit of good news to come out of this mess was that the injured members of the crew were now recovering at exponential rates, and those of them who were in critical condition before were rapidly approaching full health. This included one Valerie Kransmith, who was none too pleased with her circumstances.
And she had made a point of tracking down her nominal subordinate for answers. Who she located in the mess, going about the process of eating.
"Well, Cain? What the hell is going on? And don't tell me you don't know, you are far too entangled into this mess to not know something."
Again, Harry could only laugh. And it was a good laugh, too. Valerie, for her part, was forced to sit and pout while Harry got it out of his system.
When he was finally finished, only then did he bother to explain anything. "Well, Green ended up locating a full and uncorrupted STC after the shit that went down in the Hive. Local Chaos cults didn't agree with his having it, and even managed to get a full-up daemon involved, for what it was worth. Fallout from that got the Sororitas involved, they got their hands on some goodies that Green's Techpriestess whipped up, and we had a more or less front-row seat to everyone and their grandma moving to stop the STC from getting off planet."
The smirk on his face should have been declared illegal. "They failed."
Valerie took a moment to process the incredulous turn of events. "And how does this pertain to the rest of us suddenly gaining such…abilities recently? And from the Emperor himself, it felt like?"
Harry shrugged. "No actual idea, but I can guarantee that Green is involved somehow. Weird things happen around him."
He took a bite out of a piece of fruit, a delicacy onboard a ship at the best of times. "You get used to it, eventually."
The Guardsmen of Cadia knew their duty. Knew it to be the one true calling of every son and daughter of their proud world, to stand and fight against the hordes that even now sought to break them and unleash the tide of chaos upon the universe.
And yet they stood tall, unbowed and unyielding as the forces of Abaddon the Despoiler threw themselves at their lines time and time again.
Now was another one of those times, won by blood and sacrifice for the glory of the Emperor and the Imperium. Men and women died in the trenches and fighting holes of their positions, in the armored vehicles, and elsewhere as they made sure that the traitor scum paid for every last millimeter of land that they took. Lakes of blood were shed that the chaos filth knew the truth of things: that there would be no easy day here, no victory for the heretic today.
Or tomorrow.
Or the next day.
It was during one of those assaults that something changed.
Commissar Anton Grauser barked orders to his charges, encouragement and 'encouragement' in equal measure as he felt necessary, though he counted himself fortunate that the latter was seldom, if ever, necessary of late. Cadia, as always, produced the finest guardsmen in the Imperium, and none yet were able to stand against their might.
"Come on you dogs! The Heretic advances, MAKE HIM PAY FOR IT!"
His men responded with murderous intent, cutting down the oncoming horde of cultists with ease…and yet more were coming. It had been like this for hours now, the near ceaseless waves of cultists and even some traitorous guardsmen swarming their lines, trying to breach their defenses. Thus far, no attempt had succeeded…and yet the tide was unceasing.
And his men were equally unceasing, much to his shock. Not a man had flagged under the waves of enemies, and not a man had fallen to enemy fire. In fact, their marksmanship was better than ever, their weapons chewing through the heretics with ease that was only deserved of the enemies of Man.
The Commissar would have questioned it, given it thought that maybe, maybe, it was something to worry about, but he had been fighting for over twelve hours now and had little time or patience to waste with unimportant thoughts.
A cultist managed to, by sheer luck, get close enough to engage in melee…and quickly found itself riddled full of holes by his own laspistol, and then summarily cleaved clean through by his service cutlass.
"See, Lads! Watch as the Heretics fall on our steel! Make them weep rivers and oceans of blood for our planet!"
His men howled a battle cry that shook the oncoming heretics to their core.
And not one of them noticed the combined glow surrounding the men as they held their line against all comers.
They were far from the only ones, as the guardsmen of the planet surged with newfound might, stamina, and purpose.
The accounting of the day would turn out to be an especially gruesome one indeed…for the heretics.
Of the defenders, not a single man planet-wide would fall that day, an event that would be attributed to miracle and the Emperor's Grace.
The Craftworld of Biel-Tan was in uproar.
As the surge of power raced across the galaxy, borne on the light of the Astronomican, the Farseers and fate-weavers of the Aeldari suddenly found themselves stumped as the Mon-keigh, the very fools who knew nothing of the true threats of the galaxy, were unexpectedly empowered beyond anything that had been seen in the history of the Aeldari people. That it also completely shattered the plans and machinations of the greatest among their number was seen as an even greater insult.
Perhaps most damning of all was that whatever force this was acting upon the Mon-keigh, it completely ignored everything and everyone else.
Including the Aeldari themselves, much to their ongoing envy.
After all, was it not they who were the true masters of the galaxy? The ones who saw further and did more to stymie the oncoming encroachment of Chaos, the awakening of the accursed tombs of the Necrontyr, and far, far worse still?
It was this scene that greeted the survivors of the disaster that was Necromunda, fresh from the webway after escaping the now Warp storm-wracked world. Questions plenty were asked of those who were there, answers demanded from those who potentially knew anything of what had gone down, and more importantly if this was connected to the strange automaton creature that had recovered one of the old Mon-keigh STC machines.
For young Marasin, none of this mattered. He just wanted to return to his family…or what was left of it, after the mess on Necromunda. Not that anyone would listen to him, if they knew the truth. They barely were willing to give his mother the time of day as it was, and she had been assigned to the place!
No, it was best if he stayed hidden as much as possible, especially considering his maman's circumstances…lest it become known what she had done.
As it was, she was already in enough trouble with the powers that be.
An unwanted mental nudge from the craftworlders around him was deflected with ease as he maintained his concealment. Sure, being physically hidden didn't do much on a craftworld, with the Aeldari in general being powerful psychics all, but it still made him feel better.
And more to the point, it hid the more obvious signs of his heritage…which was now all the more important as the great will worked her way around the galaxy, empowering her children.
Including him. Especially him.
Oh yes, he knew of her existence and what she desired. It was impossible for him not to, not after she had all but reached out to him personally and granted him his birthright as a son of Man.
Not once had the fact that he had also been a son of the Aeldari ever come up, and if anything she seemed amused at the fact. She did not call him monster, abomination, or any number of other things that would have marked him for extermination in the Imperium and derision and scorn at best among the Eldar proper.
His mother had agreed wholeheartedly in that regard, often venting her frustrations on him at the inability of either side to actually see one another, let alone properly talk. Something about a combination of enforced ignorance on the part of the Imperials meeting the complete and absolute Arrogance that was the Aeldari. Because of course only the Aeldari had the vision and strength to save the galaxy from the threats that plagued it, proof to the contrary be damned.
Even as the previous wave of energy, the Force itself, had reached out to them, offered them a place and a choice when before there was none…and the Eldar had rejected it as beneath them, as they were masters of their own fate.
But now?
Now it could no longer be ignored. The strength and will of Humanity could no longer be dismissed as the flailing of children before their elders, as the fools who styled themselves masters of the Eldar had claimed. (oh, his mother had gone OFF on that particular rant…)
And the horror of the situation was that he was living proof of what was possible, now. Now that the Will had awoken, and had reached out to her children.
Marasin could only grin, as the light of his soul shone clearly around him. The screams of frustration of the Bitch that Thirsts were pure music to his ears as he listened to the realization of the chaos god that there was an Eldar soul that was forever beyond its reach…nevermind that that soul was also human, and far, far stronger as a result.
'I wonder what will happen now? Now that the house of cards that is the Eldar is tumbling down?'
A sensation of connection bloomed in his mind, as he was drawn to several distant sparks of light throughout the galaxy, every last one of them being cradled in the Lady's light.
Marasin could only grin at the implications.
The two of us dashed across the lunar surface, practically dancing across the landscape as we moved along.
[Come on, catch me!]
And playing the entire time.
Currently, we were in the middle of an impromptu game of tag that had evolved from the race that we had held earlier. The two of us were rushing about, completely carefree of any and all worries as we chased each other, our objective of reaching the Pytheas moonbase temporary forgotten.
Mio was being particularly elusive, dodging around my various dives and rushes with a careless grace that was only offset by the peals of laughter at my attempts. This, along with the blatantly lewd stream of thoughts and emotions she was throwing at me, only spurred me on ever harder.
Honestly, we really found the place by complete accident. Pytheas was situated inside a rather large crater, the vast majority of it shielded from view to the lunar surface proper, with the exception of the main control tower and what I thought might be a setup for a Mass Driver system of some sort. The crater itself was mostly exposed, with only a central section domed off and protected against the lunar atmosphere (or lack thereof, considering). Considering that I had tackled Mio all but directly into the dome itself in our play, I was surprised I only noticed all of this just now.
Of course, the vent fans for the crater (and wasn't that amusing to see) were broken and leaking atmosphere and spraying moon dust into the protected zone. I took a moment away from focusing on Mio, who was currently squirming quite deliciously in my arms, to take a quick look inside through the clear glasslike material, and saw quite clearly the horde of Typhon moving about below us, many of which that seemed to be shifting to approach us.
It was with a great regret that I steered Mio back on task, and away from her (very successful) attempt at seducing me. [Well, I think that we have a bit of work to do before we can play some more, honey.]
Mio, of course, pouted. Cutely. [They can wait. I need you first.] She punctuated this with an extremely sensual motion that practically had me on fire with need.
But, alas, we had to clear out the Typhon first before I could properly scratch that itch.
The battle was short and uninteresting. Sure, the Typhon were out in drives, and there was a new variant that the local databases referred to as a Moonshark to deal with, but at the end of the day we were simply entirely too strong to deal with now that we didn't have to worry about a space station breaking under the strain of our power, let alone people being adversely affected by the same. Even the Nightmares mixed in with the lot, which were of the severely upgraded variety that I had fought in the Talos Reactor space, were spiked and punted with little fanfare.
If anything, the bigger story here was that somehow our overall power had skyrocketed. Again. The one semi-saving grace attached to it was that most of the gain was purely psionic, likely related to us having to fight off the Apex alone, but the bleedover into the rest of our skills was beginning to highlight some issues that would need addressing.
For one, the mass growth in psionic potential had caused a commensurate spike in chakra potency and a similar (if significantly lesser) boost to capacity for some reason, which in turn impacted Aura reserves and potency, which splashed all over fucking everything with a degree of craziness that could only be allowed because it was literally the manifest soul…you get the idea.
Worse was that the process had completely shot a lot of the fine control stuff that I was used to doing, simply because of the enormity of the boost. My best guess is that it would take months to get back to where I was in that area, and Mio potentially even longer, as she still had the normal issues associated with being a goddamn dragon. Just about the only light in that tunnel was that I had already known and developed a series of high-level control exercises that were part of my normal training routine, and could easily rework them for the new tolerances with little effort.
That being said, Pytheas was a mess, and that was just judging from the crater space alone. There was random junk spread all over the place, most of the unshielded electronics were on the verge of failure for various reasons, and the few places that did have some kind of control or power interconnection were in extreme disrepair.
The fact that the bare few Harvester operators (and wasn't that a novel idea that needed to be deployed Earthside) that weren't corrupted were starting to run down said a lot, really. Especially as the Harvesters themselves were built to some rather intense standards in regard to durability.
I marked places for needing general fixes and upgrades for later. There were a distressingly large amount of them.
Moving through the base's areas told a story all too familiar to me: The Moonworks, which was a combination mining facility and heavy machinery shop, was about what I expected in terms of grisliness, with the requisite bodies everywhere, signs of sabotage and betrayal, and the multitude of Typhon being a pain in the ass. Pytheas Labs was even more of a bloodbath, complete with the unethical and monstrous experimentation on living humans going down, along with a rather idiotic move in playing with fire: what the research notes called a 'Mimic portal', which was supposed to be a form of transport via a type of teleportation? Couldn't figure it out, but I do know that someone had used it at one point or another.
That the live Typhon that were being studied had broken containment and run amok was to be expected. Honestly, I was somewhat surprised that they had managed to work out suitable containment for the stronger forms that held for so long.
Oh no, it was the Crew Quarters that really got me. Bodies everywhere I was used to, Typhon everywhere was a nuisance at best, but it was what we found when we made it to the Director's office that was the shocker.
The base's Director, a one Ms. Riley Yu, was dead. I had expected that much.
What I didn't expect was the cause: somehow she had been hooked up to some kind of neural transfer device, and from the looks of it the feedback from the machine had been responsible for killing her.
Except, even a casual look at the tech involved made it clear that my hypothesis was impossible by design. Meaning that someone had intentionally made a point of killing her off. But why, and what end did it serve to do so? It confused the hell out of me.
I felt Mio nudge against my mind to draw my attention to something. There was a 'ghost' of some type moving around, clearly trying to do some kind of data backup procedure. I watched as she–and yes, I could tell now, that definitely was a she–moved quickly to stuff as much of the operational and experimental data into an Operator of some kind, after which she then sat down in the very chair that Ms. Yu had died in.
And I got a front row seat to watching as some sick kill switch program engaged and made certain that Riley never made it out of the facility.
A quick check of some leftover security footage showed that there was apparently a spy of some type moving around and doing dirty work that may have been responsible. According to the log, she likely used one of the escape pods to get out of dodge.
The part that got to me, though…was my complete lack of empathy for either of them. As much as I wanted to feel bad for Riley, she was still overseeing the brutal and sickening experiments with the Typhon involving 'Volunteers'. And if anything, Pytheas' experiments were worse than those on Talos, lacking the requirement to actually look good for the camera like the Station did.
On the part of her would-be murderer, I felt even less, not knowing for what purpose she struck out or to whom she served, as she clearly had an agenda revolving around that Operator that had been loaded with the experiment data. Likely an extreme case of corporate espionage, but still.
[Satori. There is no shame in not feeling for those who have dug their own graves.] Mio spoke to me, directly addressing the root cause of my problems, as usual. [They are long since beyond our help or influence. Their mistakes are their own. As are their fates.]
She was right, of course. I knew she was. But even then, I couldn't help but compare myself to an idealistic standard and say that I should be better somehow. No matter how illogical and unfair I was being to myself, I still could only feel that my dismissal of their fates as deserved was going too far.
It would be something to think about, later on.
It took about four hours to do a full-clear of Pytheas of all Typhon organisms, and with the place cleaned up of any Xenos influence, Mio and I got to work.
First and foremost, the Base was a wreck and a half, and needed upgrades and retooling at every step. We both took the opportunity to utilize a few extra Ideas that we had been sitting on for some time, mostly as proof-of-concepts, like the combo Recycler/Fabricator setup we were playing around with. Alongside, the base was getting some severe upgrades to both general aesthetic and structural integrity as we moved along, and even getting a bit of an expansion as well. The central command tower (such that it was) in the Crater got the most of our attention, seeing as it was the hub around which everything else was built, but everything got a major touch up.
We'd also created a memorial of sorts, having gone out of the way to cremate the remains of the remaining personnel and bury them beneath the simple plinth we had erected to mourn their loss. This was my idea, mostly because I was still of the impression that even if they were all in on the madhouse that was happening down here, none of them deserved to be eaten by aliens.
That being said, after giving them their resting place, I moved on and never once looked back.
"Alright, we got the relays done, most of the computing systems are upgraded, new mainframes all over the place and a nice central computer core buried underneath the command tower to manage it all. We missing anything else here, honey?"
Mio was reading off of a checklist that we had drafted up in the all of four hours it took to redo the majority of Pytheas to a proper safety standard. Considering that this was phase two of our upgrade plans, it made sense.
"Nothing on my end, and I know nothing on yours. Upgrades to Pytheas labs to change it into something that isn't horrific is next on the list, and then we can get into dealing with Moonworks later." or finish dealing with it, at any rate. There were still a lot of things that we wanted to get finished up with the base, but first and foremost was our current pet project: a proper communications array.
Mio finished setting up her end of the system and quickly returned herself to her 'Designated Proper Position'™ at my side. We had just finished up a relay that should theoretically allow us to punch a signal all the way out through the Oort cloud with minimal signal degradation on either end. Better yet, if the other side was using the appropriate communications gear, they could reply with minimal delays between transmissions.
I stood next to the control panel, a slight anxiety working its way through my body. If this worked…we could find out what happened to the rest of the escapees. Hell, we could probably find out what happened to the ones that had to have been dragged off of Necromunda with us.
Or, if my hunch was correct, we could actually get a signal out to that ship drifting on the system edge, which I believed to be ours.
Mio physically nudged me, and I could feel warmth and encouragement being directed my way as well. It was enough to break my ennui and actually hit the button.
Startup was, for all that it was a bit of a marvel of engineering, a dull and uninteresting affair. Power draw was nominal, the system remained stable, the anti-tampering had successfully fried a technopath that tried to get too close (which reminded me to get something together for a full sweep of the moon itself later on). Everything was working just as it was intended to…including the beacon frequency that had just lit up everything even thinking about looking at the moon with a notification of a new transmitter.
A few adjustments had me sending out a general signal to the outer edge of the system along the same course that I had first picked up the active sweep from. If anything, I had hoped to receive a reply back within about a day or so.
So the sudden connection that we got was a bit surprising, especially since it came with video. Live video, at that.
And on the viewscreen, there was a Small Green dude in an orange Spacesuit, clearly working at getting a stable comms signal. He looked up, and it was with a nice bit of amusement that I watched Bob Kerman partially panic at the signal resolving itself, only to then look at the camera.
He blinked for a few moments. We stared back, amused grins on our faces.
Eventually, he seemed to break out of his trance. "Hey, JEB! We got a Signal! It's the Bosses!"
Jeb rushed into view a moment afterwards, looking slightly haggard for all that it had been maybe fifteen hours since I'd picked up their sweep. Maybe he wasn't sleeping?
"Boss! Glad to see you alright. Was worried for a moment that we would end up losing you somehow."
Mio and I chuckled in grim amusement. "Well, you weren't wrong. I ended up on a space station with Mio that ultimately tried to eat us." I stopped for a moment to buff my nails against my suit. "We flipped the bullshit and instead fried the creatures responsible."
Why, yes, I am just a bit smug about surviving Talos, and allowing for people to escape as well.
Mio took over while I was busy humble-flexing. "Right now we're on Luna, specifically the Moon of Sol III for you guys who are new to this. We basically took over a base that had been overrun by the same bastards as the station, and did some repairs and upgrades after cleaning house. How about you guys?"
Judging by the frowns on both of their faces, I suspect that they had some bad news.
"Well, it's good news and bad news with this, boss." Jeb replied. "Good news is that we have enough provisions to make it for at least a month without issue, and more besides in case of emergency. The bad news is that we might end up stuck here that long for the ship to finish doing its thing and then repair from the crash jump that I did to get out of system from that weird shit." There was a noticeable shudder through both Kerbal's forms at that. My guess is that they nearly got swallowed by the warp storm.
Bob continued onwards. "The Ship itself is mostly fine, but until the process completes, we are drifting on auxiliary power. Nobody wants to risk firing up the main drive for actual power in case of something going wrong, mostly because we have no real clue how things work here."
OOF.
What Bob was describing was a very nasty catch-22 in the situation regarding maintenance of a new-build ship. Namely, you have the competent crew to do the fix, but A) the ship itself is beyond the expertise of your best people, and B) even the manuals are incorrect. The normal solution to this problem, relying on institutional knowledge, is pointless because of the new-build status and the general system novelty factor.
Meaning that the poor Kerbals legitimately had no clue that the reason it was taking so long for the process to complete was because they had denied power to systems. In fairness, it was likely for a really good reason…at first. But then it would get to the point where the issue would have corrected itself, been corrected by the crew, or generally had been worked around, and nobody knew what to do from there because the ship was even now changing under their feet.
Still, the solution was obvious, at least to me. "Bob, I'm going to make a recommendation that you are free to ignore. Restart the main reactor, please."
Bob gave me a harsh look. "We are unsure of what, if any, effect a restart at this time would cause." Jeb stood next to him, nodding along in agreement.
"That being said…it is likely that the ship itself will prevent a restart if it becomes an issue. I will let Bill know to get on it." Cue my personal shock that they were willing to go for it.
Jeb was still nodding along, now with an eager, almost vicious smile on his face. Apparently, some of my shock was clear enough for them to see. "Don't be so shocked, boss. We all know the risks of being up here. Hell, this is what we live for. The risk is well worth it if you think it's good."
Bob had opened up another communication window and was conversing with poor Bill, who had the unenviable task of running the Engineering department of the ship. The discussion window flicked over to the main screen as the discussion finished, and Bill was quick to pounce.
"Alrighty then, Green. Tell me more about how this engine is supposed to work, so I can be satisfied that we're not about to kill ourselves up here."
It took about two hours for the basics of operation to be imparted to Bill, during which time I walked him though a bit of a crash-course in reactor management. It was not made any easier by the fact that the ship itself was seemingly making great inroads into doing some interior modifications to ensure nothing like the crash jump could cause any more major issues.
This, of course, modified the hell out of everything I knew about the reactors and even the engine systems themselves, often leaving me in the position of having to make wild mass guesses as to what was going on at any one time. Which was super fucking annoying, as I had personally designed both the particular setup of Mass Effect Drive and the recently dubbed Etherwave Reactors (the concept mana/photonic hybrid reactors, finally brought to something approaching usability).
Let me tell you, watching your own tech mutate beyond your own understanding is not a fun experience.
Eventually, though, we'd managed to get enough of an understanding and confidence in the system to be willing to do a Reactor start. This may or may not have involved Mio screaming at the Kerbals over a vid link ("Will you stupid fucks just DO IT ALREADY!?") and a not insignificant amount of owed favors on my part, but we got them to start the Reactor back up.
And nothing happened. Which took everyone by surprise, as even Valentina was expecting something to go boom somewhere. It was another three hours before we were all satisfied that Murphy had been given his due, and would trouble us no more this activity.
Reactor start was perfectly normal, everything was in the green, and estimated time until full conversion and repair was dropping like a stone. Better yet, they now had motive power to try and make it back in-system to pick the rest of us up, or at least to set down and check out our nice moonbase…which would now need a spacedock. Fuck.
Well, we were doing remodeling anyway. Might as well make a proper spaceport while we were at it.
Mio had taken the project to renovate Pytheas completely to heart, and even now she was pushing forwards with a gusto that surprised even her.
Didn't stop her from basically tearing the entire base apart at the seams and doing rebuilds practically from the ground up. Crew Quarters got revamped, both to accommodate a more friendly atmosphere and to be far more comfortable to those who actually had to stay there, which necessitated a bit of expansion to the structure that was easily accomplished with all of the spare materials hanging around.
Moonworks was harder, but that place was meant as part of the Helium-3 mining operations anyway, and wouldn't need much in the way of major improvements aside from general safety and efficiency, which she placed onto the back burner.
No, it was the Pytheas Labs that garnered her full and near undivided attention once she became aware of just how horrendous the place was, both to normal senses and supernatural ones. The ghosts of the volunteers that had been abused against their will lingered still, and the echoes of the Typhon somehow clung to the place like a particularly nasty fungus.
Her cleanup efforts spared nothing.
The results spoke for themselves, really. Pytheas labs had now been expanded into a brand new and improved Research and Development center, complete with several technologies that the labs did not have access to, as well as a connection to a small manufacturing and testing area that her Satori had jokingly named the Proving Grounds. Of the original, Typhon-oriented research material there was nothing left, save three items of note: the first was a piloting connectome for programming Neuromods, and one that had likely been used in an escape attempt somewhere. The second was an experiment, the Mimic Portal, that had been left more or less live and neither of them were sure what to do with it.
It was the third that had temporarily stalled her efforts to render her new moonbase into a proper home.
Satori, of course, was hovering around her with his usual curiosity brimming at the surface. "So, what is it, exactly?"
Mio shrugged, her own relative confusion clear. "The notes called it a 'psychostatic cutter'. I haven't been able to find much about exactly what it is just yet, but based on the name alone, I think it's a psionically-enhanced blade of some sort. It's not that big of a deal, but it did catch my interest."
Mio waved an arm over at the machinery of the Mimic Portal, now safely disconnected, and moved out into the crater area, and particularly into a very nasty killbox. "And then there's this thing here, which I don't trust at all but also don't wanna trash in case it's important somehow. Other than that, the renovations to the labs is going well, thank you." The last part was spoken very sarcastically, though she knew that her mate took no offense to it. By now, that was just a part of their game, really.
Satori looked over at the construction efforts that they were laying down with speeds that would terrify normal people…and without their frames, to boot. "So, when'dya think we should call the upgrade process a done deal? Right now, we're kinda just turning the place into a bit of a house, you know…"
"And this is a problem? We cleaned up the mess that Transtar left in here, we are rebuilding it to suit our needs, I say we get to call the place a home. They don't like it? Too bad."
She knew all too well the feelings that her smiles instilled in him. What she very carefully tried to mask was just how devastating the same from him was to her. Already she could feel her arousal spiking and the familiar ache of need echoing…
That man was going to drive her crazy one of these days, just from gestures alone, and she would love it. Fortunately for her, that day was not today.
"So. since this is now our new home, wanna get the place set up properly? There's some things I could use your input on, after all–"
It was now the second day of our current sojourn on the moon, and we had expanded the old Pytheas base into a full complex that spread out all around the crater itself, as well as beneath the lunar surface outside of it. We were actually joking around about expanding to one of the other craters as well, maybe creating a proper lunar city while we were at it, just to tweak Transtar's nose in general.
Of course, that would have to wait for us to finish actually upgrading the base first. Especially since after the first wave of upgrades and remodeling had gone through, we started getting downright inspired about certain things.
Mio had decided to test out a particular variation on the old Transparent Steel concept, except using a material that was significantly stronger, something along the lines of an exotic Titanium alloy if I remember correctly. So far, her results were promising, but slow as all hell, even with the fabrication technology of Transtar to the rescue…which she was not using. Something about wanting to get things right first before going ham with the fabricator.
For my part, I was busy working on a series of experiments in what was now officially the 'experimental computing' wing of the labs. The basics of it involved me reviving some pretty novel forms of old computing tech from the 1980s that I thought I could push to the limit. The first was an experiment in improvements to magnetic storage methods, which tended to keep shockingly well under even general care, despite the otherwise slower access times.
The second, however, was something that I had only heard of in passing on a computing-related chat board years ago, and had forgotten about until now: actual, no-shit holographic storage. And sure enough, there was some old cypher warrior here on Pytheas who had a cache of old computing memorabilia and peripherals, including one of the older holographic drives.
Now, the technology was very much immature even for it's time. For one, while the data kept supremely well in all but the most extreme cases and the access and read times were insane, especially for 80s tech, the main issue was the fact that the format was initially only capable of WORM (Write Once, Read Many) operation, and even as the tech advanced the best that could be done for rewrite operations required the drive to be wiped clean due to the process involved in doing so.
The other major issue revolved around the actual write times as compared to total storage capacity, which was abysmal. While data could be written to the drives at a cheery 20 megabytes/sec, that speed was only for the absolute latest iteration of the drives…which could hold well over 300 gigabytes of data.
In the early 2000s.
In any case, the first was an idle curiosity project that I was undertaking mostly because of the abundance of magnetic storage up here on the moon, and the second because I was pretty sure I could solve nearly all of the major issues with the holographic storage pretty easily.
My current setup involved a series of tests to determine the best material for use as a storage medium in the first place, and so far it was looking like a variant of Silica Quartz was winning based on what I had available. Most of the second and third stage testing had completed already to resounding successes, and was only awaiting my selection of a final material to work with.
It was for this reason that I was very aware when Watts decided that he needed my attention on something important, and immediately pulled me into a mindscape.
Unlike the last few times this had happened, I was more than aware of my own power and faculties and could maintain my perspective without slipping into the 'dream haze' that was characteristic of our earlier meetings, which I appreciated greatly.
The constellations of stars above me that represented the Forge of Stars radiated with an intense light, and I could easily see the various nodes that had been activated with my own eyes, their light shining down upon me and filling me with warmth. I paid no mind to the fact that the forge itself wasn't even a fraction lit, the myriad abilities and skills still slowly gathering power.
Watts remained his usual self, and chose to remain silent for this part, instead gesturing towards a…guest(?) of sorts. The person was tall, taller than even I was, for that matter, and a noticeably earthen skin tone. The only thing that really stood out about him, aside from the clothing that I thought was vaguely Egyptian inspired, was that he literally had a bird head, though I could not place the type.
He was also semi-translucent, as if he was not really all here.
He seemed to notice me as soon as I noticed him, as he immediately perked up and began speaking. "Ah, there you are. It would seem that you are the one that has been chosen to carry the legacy forward, child."
He reached into a satchel that he held at his side and pulled out a series of notebooks, which he then motioned towards me. "I will entrust unto you these, to do with as you see fit. Please try to take care of them, they took me some time to acquire."
Watts remained silent, and it was with a note of startlement that I realized why.
After all, I had only named my freaking Valkyrie Core after him.
Thoth, the Egyptian God of, amongst other things, Magic, Wisdom, Science, and the fucking Moon was apparently entrusting me with his personal notes on something. And as much as I was flattered that the God would deem me worthy in any capacity for such a task, I was busy looking for a catch of some kind.
Which, of course, he noticed, and somehow smiled at me in approval and respect, despite having an Ibis' head at the time. I chalked it up to God and moved on.
"Don't worry. It's just my notes on some things that I felt important enough to catalog on various subjects. They will likely be useful in your endeavors as the master of your forge."
Well, it was hard to argue with that kind of logic, and he was right: the notes of a literal Deity would be very useful to me in my further explorations of both technology and magic alike. Thus, it was with a solemn bow of respect that I accepted the charge of keeping Thoth's notes.
And, of course, that is when things went…not quite wrong, but well…let's just say that Murphy got his revenge.
As I most definitely could hear the crashing, screeching sound of something impacting against the pocket dimension that housed the Hangar HARD.
All three of us immediately looked in the 'direction' of the Hangar, only to find that a confused Mio had popped into the Mindscape as well, trying to find out what had happened, and was looking in the same direction.
And all that we could tell was that there was now something extra in the hangar itself, that I would assume was Thoth's notes…wait a minute…
Mio was faster. "Just what the hell was in those notes of yours?"
Thoth chuckled. It was a friendly chuckle, at least. "My notes. I admit that the entire set is a bit…disorganized, and is in need of some categorization, but they are all there." He took a moment to nod to himself. "In any case, that is all I had for you. I wish you and your lady wife the best. Farewell!"
Thoth left quickly after that, his translucent form vanishing completely as he did so. Watts turned to me with a grimace.
"The things I have to put up with…anyway, yeah. That right there is going to be an issue, and 'digesting' it is going to take a bit, even with it being a kind of mega-packet, so to speak. Fortunately, the guy was nice enough to let me properly integrate his stuff into the forge, so it's not all bad."
And sure enough, I could see one of the stars in a particular constellation burn brighter, it's power slowly flowing through the rest of the whole. Several others had also chosen to activate at that moment, likely as a result of my initiating the integration process for the notes. I wasn't complaining, at any rate.
Mio stepped next to me as we watched the spectacle and majesty of the whirling heavens as we were bathed in their light. I absently wrapped an arm around her, which she reciprocated by leaning into my touch as we just enjoyed the moment.
"Oh yeah, one more thing before you two head back. I looked into the thing with the Force, and apparently something or someone else stepped in before it got too horrible, but there are likely to be outside consequences. Don't be surprised if things start changing beyond what you expect."
"Now, if you will excuse me, I have an extremely hot wife that desperately needs a good dicking down from her hubby, so I'll be on my way. Do enjoy your honeymoon, now."
We both nodded our agreement, and Watts turned to leave.
"Oh, and before I forget: congratulations."
Of course, we paid it no mind, as we were enjoying the moment before we were gently ejected from the mental landscape, and I was once again back to my project.
Then again, Watts did have a good idea, there, regarding things to do with thirsty wives…
Mio grumbled to herself as she went about her newest project, which had been interrupted by that damned horndog of a husband of hers deciding that her time was better spent elsewhere, like on his cock.
And because her man couldn't keep it in his pants, she had lost nearly ten hours on her project.
Nevermind that she did not once complain, reject him, or say anything even remotely looking like the word no. Nor the fact that she had been wildly enthusiastic in both her consent and enjoyment, that she had been openly egging him on to do exactly as he had done since they had gotten here, or that she had systematically made sure that he thought of her exactly as he did now. In fact, completely ignore that she had been tripling and quadrupling down on making it blatantly clear that she was fair game for him at ANY time, or that she was an even bigger pervert than she had finally 'corrupted' him into being (openly no less, at least with her).
No, she still got to complain about his libido taking front and center because she wanted to complain. That, and it kept her thoughts focused away from her own libido screaming out to her that the job was not finished.
'Fine then. Interrupt my projects? See if I letyou sleep tonight…'
Anyway, her own libido and it's implications aside, her current project for the Moonworks section was to do a general refinement of the mining tools and helium-3 extraction equipment, as well as do general cleanup of the place just because. So far, it was tedious but satisfying, leaving even the mining areas in a neat and orderly fashion for her to set up for the next phase of her master plan, which was to begin tunneling out to a location suitable for a small spaceport or at least a dock of some kind that the Rising Phoenix could use.
Honestly, she liked the name. Felt somehow that she was doing justice to the old crew of the Awakening Will by acknowledging the reborn nature of the ship.
That it got her mind off of the things that Satori had done to her during their last session was very much a needed bonus, because otherwise they weren't going to get anything done.
As it turns out, being extremely powerful psychics with several layers of mental and spiritual bonding tends to lend itself to some interesting techniques, one of which had sparked as an idea in her Satori's head and had led down their latest rabbit hole.
Somehow that crazy man had had the idea to plumb her psyche while she was too busy cumming her brains out and had systematically gone after every last one of her mental 'imperfections', as it were. Every insecurity, mental scar, traumatic memory, all of them drowned in the utter ocean of love and support he poured inside, even as he scooped out the lingering pain and trauma and all but flushed it away.
Even now, the benefits were astounding. Her mind had never felt more clear, and the benefits thereof were so numerous that even trying to list them was an exercise in futility. Hell, even her very soul felt as if it was well and truly freed for the first time in ages.
It just felt right.
And it was taking an increasingly great deal of her quite prodigious willpower to not march right back to him, pin him down, and return the favor. In fact, now that she thought about it, she had never been this horny in her life. And yet, every check, every even slightly usable scan that they had for such things indicated that there were no adverse presences or things trying to corrupt them from within. Just two people desperately in love and more than willing to indulge in each other completely and utterly.
A moonshark put in an appearance directly to her side, only to immediately be cut down by a burst of magic before it could even begin its attack
'Well, except for those, anyway.'
Mio grimaced. The Typhon infestation was gone from Pytheas proper, but there were enough of the more annoying types spread out across the lunar landscape that she would not have been surprised if they were attempting to form another nest somewhere away from prying eyes…and seeking bullets. It was something that they were considering options for dealing with without the entire mess turning into a game of whack-a-mole.
This meant that the occasional bigger Typhon creature would try to put in an appearance to annoy them at inopportune times. Hell, they had tried at least twice during her last cuddle session. It was almost as if the Typhon were afraid or something…
The thought alone was enough to elicit a snicker from her. 'Of course they should be afraid. After all, they are no longer the dominant life form on this moon.'
But back to her tedium project. After all, the sooner it got done, the faster she could corner her husband…
I have created a monster.
Mio had completely flipped the table on me last night, and the resulting bout of lovemaking had left me without sleep, likely just as she had intended. Worse, she had taken my odd, instinctual fumbling at mental healing, refined it to hell and back within the all of twenty minutes I wasn't paying active attention to her while fighting my own libido, and had then unleashed the result upon my own mind and all the issues therein.
All I know for sure past a certain point was that I had been crying for a bit somewhere in the middle of that. I didn't have a good track of when or how long, just that it happened and coincided with Mio working me over the same way I had helped her.
The rest of the night (and most of the morning, for that matter) was lost to us engaging in some super degenerate mind-to-mind sex complete with handholding. It was perverse as all hell, and we loved it.
And then I had to get up and deal with the other issues of the day.
For one, the spaceport that we wanted was not going to build itself, and the Phoenix, despite having a pretty good set of construction tools on hand, was not equipped to finish the job on its own, even if we were willing to go that route.
Second, and more concerning, was that the Typhon up here were getting downright uppity about being a nuisance, and clearing them off of the lunar surface was going to need to be a priority.
Third was a bit more insidious. Mio and I had both noticed the uptick in our respective libidos, and despite both of us wanting to wave it off as a non-issue, the fact of the matter was that Chaos had a vested interest in trying to find loopholes on us. The resulting checks for corruption and/or influence supposedly came back clean (which meant that we were okay to use magic again without potentially killing ourselves), but I was not above doing other checks all the same.
Thus, the current instance of silliness that I was working with: rigging up a long-range scanner to search out and detect Warp activity of any kind. With luck, it should locate whatever was amplifying the local warp influence and acting as a relay for the tumors. Perhaps, even, it could help locate wherever it was that we actually reentered realspace proper…or if we even did so at all.
To that end, I had adapted one of the sensor designs used for long-range space probes into something that could work as a ground-based platform, and then loaded it with as much warp detection technology that I was currently aware of and could actually fit. Then, for good measure, I built two more, meant to be deployed in different areas on the Lunar Surface for a bit of triangulation.
Deploying them was going to be a different matter, though…unless…
"Oh. Yeah, that can work."
I'd need to wake up Mio, Though. No way in hell she would want to miss this, and she's better ant the protection blessings anyway…
"So. you want to modify the entire concept of the Operators to use as a kind of mobile platform for not only cleaning up Luna, but also deploying your new sensor arrays without losing time."
Mio, despite my misgivings, was not as annoyed as I'd expected at being awakened. Even better, she agreed with my sentiment that the tracking would be worth the effort, but also wanted to include dome deep space radar satellites out in the asteroid belt or on Mars or something, just in case. Designing them would be on her, by her own request.
But first, we were going to do the complete teardown and rebuild on the Operators as they were currently designed and envisioned.
"So, I take the AI systems, and you get the chassis?"
Mio pouted. "But I wanted to do the exterior stuff. Been a while since I designed a new servitor."
"And yet we are not designing servitors, but Operators." I joked back, laughter clear in my tone. "Besides, the whole gothic skull aesthetic is so overdone…"
Yes, we were back to bickering at each other again, even as we completely dissected an unused Operator for data and knowhow.
The frame was uninteresting except for the thruster jets and miniaturized (and thus low power) nullgrav tech, which could likely be scaled up to a great degree and used elsewhere. Power supply was meh, being little more than a battery pack inside the frame itself, despite the overall capacity. There was a bit of leeway with the normal Operator frame for modification, but for the most part it looked like the design was created more to be easy to manufacture and repair than for anything about proper usability.
And Mio still refused to let me win. "I still say we go with the heavier armor package and start adding all kinds of stuff to them. Doesn't have to be a Servo-skull, but it's skull something good."
"Sure, we can do that…for the fourth and fifth iterations, maybe." I fired back. "At least let's get the basics out of the way before we start overreaching, alright?"
"But we already know how to do this stuff! We can just use this to build the chassis we want now and not worry about the iteration process except to fix errors!"
The fact that Mio was winning this argument was annoying, but only just. Besides, she was missing the point.
"And where is the fun in that, honey? Is all you want to do just build things at the absolute best possible without any thought, or do you want to actually play with the technology a bit?"
"But getting the chassis out of the way lets me get to work on the interesting parts!"
Yeah, we were going to be at this for a bit…
The argument was still ongoing, even after we had basically split the difference and just made separate prototypes for our specific systems and started playing with what we wanted. The gravity system was interesting to us both in many ways, especially because of its low power draw, and the thruster system that piggybacked onto it was something that I wanted to look at as well, as it was potentially a source of reactionless thrust, despite the current incarnation still needing an exhaust.
The part that we both tore into the hardest though was the AI system, or rather VI system considering how limited the systems were. Honestly, Morgan's upload tech was better overall.
None of this deterred us in the slightest in upgrading it to the gills and back and then some, along with adding in some things that we had been working on along the side.
Honestly, at this point we were doing it just because it was fun to poke at each other rather than anything like an actual disagreement.
Still, we had accomplished an objective of sorts and had reworked the technology within the operators into a system capable of seeking out and destroying any and all Typhon on the lunar surface, and even in some of the caverns below. The system itself was rather barebones by the standards we normally work with, being selected more for ease of use and construction rather than anything actually good, but the end result was still more than acceptable.
The final product was a departure from the standard Operator chassis, mostly because we had no need to use the flying suitcase look to make things work right. It bore some resemblance to the Tau drones in that they had a noticeable dome shape attached to them. The difference was in the addition of a second dome on the 'underside' of the frame itself, and that the domes were littered with varying maneuvering thrusters based on improvements to the original operator design.
That was about where the changes ended, though. The central body was a blocky thing, basically a square frame maybe an eighth again the size of the old suitcase setup, complete with better power systems and sensors. We'd left in the assistance modules from the other operator types, as well as a reworked version of the manipulator arms, which would allow for this type to assist any personnel it happened to find along the way if needed.
The big change, of course, was armament. We had taken one look at the laser system installed on the old 'security' operators and basically laughed, then gutted it and added in some real firepower. The new central array housed a small variant of the guardian laser with enough capacitors attached to make repeat firing not be a headache, and had an additional three 'pop-out' laser systems repurposed from the guardian scout's own weapon along each side, with full angles of attack along the axis that it covered. Mio had made a point of ensuring that the ventral laser ports could be used in forward attack as well, despite it not being needed in the slightest.
The final touch was to the command and control systems, with a link back to the central command post that we had set up and enough bandwidth to actually be worth the effort in doing so, as well. This allowed for the VI systems onboard to collect data from their encounters and adapt to the tactics shown by the Typhon as they progressed, which would be a plus. It also was a bit of an inoculation against a Technopath attack, as the remote connection could be used to regain control of the systems in the event of being compromised.
I, personally, had a silent chuckle at the fate of whatever stupid thing tried to backhack the new Operators to the source, thinking to take full control. All I'm saying is that it was not going to end well and that was it.
The finalization of the design let us move onwards to cranking out as many of the things as we wanted to use, which turned out to be a lot. Naturally we got tired of just tooling things by hand for no fucking reason after the first few hundred or so, (and we argued about it the whole time, of course) and after a bit of thought, we ended up repurposing some of the old operator dispensers for the task, though we had to modify the apertures to allow for the larger overall frame to exit properly.
Now, the Operators were busy sweeping the moon for any trace of Typhon materials and eradicating it as they came across it. Fortunately, the upgraded sensors included our customized versions of the psychoscope, which allowed for a lot of leeway in identifying actual Typhon instead of missing things.
This pushed us back to bickering more about the uses for the technology while finishing off the mini-spaceport that the Phoenix would be using once they got back in. of course, with both of us working at it, it took no time at all to complete, and more arguments ensued until we finally decided to just cut the crap and screwed each other silly like we'd actually wanted to do instead.
And I couldn't help but let the thought pass through my mind that for once, life was good.
It would not be even a week before I was cursing that statement.
In the depths of space, a ship crawled along, desperately clawing its way through the void. The hull showed clear signs of having only just barely escaped an absolute disaster of some epic proportions, and yet still the craft lumbered along purely on sublight power.
Within, the majority of the crew and it's altogether entirely too precious cargo were cradled inside emergency stasis, having locked themselves down in order to prevent any more disasters of the nature that had befallen them.
Unfortunately, the ship's Navigator was not one of those people. And the things he had seen coming from the place that he did were nothing short of terrifying in the extreme.
Entire planets outright eaten by the all-consuming cloud of locusts that feasted on any and all biomass that they could get their hands on, innumerable and completely unceasing in their assault. Worse, he could feel the sheer, ravening hunger coming from the mind of those beasts, the all-encompassing need to consume all life that was backed by an utterly alien will. It was all he could do to focus on the task ahead of him.
Fortunately, there was a small boon in this field: an unexpected wave of power coursing through the warp while they had still been within its depths had…changed him, somehow. No longer was his sight clouded and muddy, and no more did his third eye constantly bombard him with the horrors of the Immaterium that only he could see. Instead, it seemed as if his mind had expanded somehow, granting him clarity of both thought and sight within the warp, all the better to accomplish his grim task.
And it was a grim one indeed. It had seemed that, aside from whatever those things were that had consumed the worlds they had come from, the forces of chaos themselves were out in full force to make sure that even this one lonely ship never ever reached beyond to the greater galaxy. Entire shoals of energy blockaded their path forward within the warp, and the few paths that were available to move forward were choked with daemons awaiting the feast to come.
It had been a desperate struggle to break those lines, a battle unlike anything that he had seen before. Many of the fleet that had managed to escape with them had perished here, at this bulwark, and others still were cast adrift int the warp to be devoured and corrupted by the daemons at their leisure.
Only three ships remained, each one carrying the same precious cargo that the rest had died to defend. And even now he was not sure if the odd hunch he'd gotten had been proper to follow, as they trundled along…
Following this hunch gained from the altogether strange and yet familiar power that had freed him from the clutches of the warp's madness, he had directed the last ships towards an odd fluctuation within the empyrean that had then deposited them in this unknown section of realspace, and which had then just as swiftly sealed itself behind them, trapping them wherever they had been. There were no features or landmarks here, nothing at all except for the empty, cold black of space, with the exception of one direction, which they were now travelling towards: a single, ever brightening star that he felt would ultimately be their salvation.
The Navigator spared a thought for the rest of the crew as he piloted the ship on a course with its destiny. He, of course, would not survive to see the end of the journey, but with luck and, dare he say it, a bit of hope, his charges would.
Considering that they were all that remained of a proud and loyal culture that had nearly fallen to those damned locusts, that was all that he could ask.
From a place unknown, he felt the gentle caress of an equally gentle spirit, its very presence seeming to tell him that his sacrifice was both brave and just, and would not go unremembered.
He cared not for such things, though his weary soul eased at the insinuation that he still could save them.
Hopefully, wherever they ended up would be a better place for them all…
Okay, this chapter itself did not fight me so much as the outside perspectives did, and a lot of it had to do with my personal circumstances along with needing to deal with the particular brand of bullshittery that is the Eldar.
Worth noting that the story is going to slightly slow down from here, as we move into the second proper arc, mostly due to the background, and a bit more to give me a chance to adjust things around.
Oh yeah. Before I forget.
I do not want to hear a GOD DAMNED WORD About Marasin. AT ALL. You know who you are, and you know DAMN WELL why this is here.
DON'T.
In any case, please feel free to share your opinion, and thank you for reading.
Perks for this chapter are a bit unique, as I had my fellow writers Xolsis and Fourmyle (who is also my part-time editor and beta reader) roll some perks alongside my own. It's something of a tradition at this point to watch and laugh at the scaling power effect of some of the more broken perks when we do roll for them, and is a bit amusing on the discord.
In any case, the perks here are denoted by who rolled them among the three of us.
Me:
-One-Man Assembly Line (XCOM) (600CP)
You really liked playing with building blocks as a kid. Now that you're all grown up, the world is your playground. Your knowledge of construction and engineering is unprecedented, and making a jet engine from spare parts over a weekend is your idea of fun.
(A/N: Freebies for this jump will be collected later.)
-Notes of Thoth (Kane Chronicles) (400CP)
When Thoth, the god of writing, knowledge, and magic was young, he traveled to the far eaches of the Duat, researching the natures and mechanics of those regions, as well as the spirits and gods that called those places home. His field notes - and the many powers and dangerous spells that resulted from them, later became known as the Book of Thoth. By purchasing this, you gain a collection of his notes about the nature of gods, spirits, and other dimensions and planes of existence in this setting, which could be used to invent many of the spells the Book contained for yourself. Post-jump, these notes will update to include the local versions of such things in new settings.
Xolsis:
-Plowshares from Swords from Plowshares (Warhammer 40k - Squats) (100CP)
You might have noticed most of the best Squat vehicles and weapons are repurposed mining and industrial equipment. This is no accident, for not only do such things have to be tough, they are intimately familiar to operators and engineers alike. You have a particular genius for weaponizing civilian technology, and finding constructive industrial uses for weapons.
-Lost Art (Generic Video Game Developer) (600CP)
You are now an expert of the lost art, the art of code efficiency. Any code and software you make will now be far more efficient, using up far less resources for the same results and running significantly faster than most standard code. Your game would normally be 16GB and requires 8GB of RAM? Now it uses half that, at least. Game causing lag and crashing because too much is going on? Not anymore. Whatever you code, it'll run fast, and it'll run well.
Fourmyle:
-Blacksmithing: Zen Master (World of Warcraft) (300CP)
Smith various melee weapons, mail and plate armor, and other useful trade goods like skeleton keys, shieldspikes and weapon chains to prevent disarming. Blacksmiths can also make various stones to provide temporary physical buffs to weapons.
At this level you've mastered everything from basics to advanced. Additionally you've expanded your knowledge of the profession beyond the mastery of both basics and advanced stuff to complete understanding of it. At this level you're on an even playing field with the top 1% of your profession. Should you write down your knowledge it would easily be considered a work of art in that field.
-Master Smith | Ahzidal's Apprentice (Elder Scrolls Skyrim SB) (800CP)
Master Smith (400CP)
So, how many iron daggers did this take to get? Regardless of the answer to that question the results have surely shown themselves to you and everyone else. You're a master of smithing and the working of metal, forging weapons out of Glass and Ebony is well within your capacity, and even Daedric items may be forged with proper equipment and materials. Your craftsmanship is nothing less than perfection and your opportunity to grow is great as well. Given times you may yet forge tools, weapons and armor that rival even the likes of Daedric artifacts.
Ahzidal's Apprentice (400CP)
The art of spellcasting has more to it than just flinging fireballs and screaming about UNLIMITED POWER as one electrocutes their enemies. The arts of Enchantment and Alteration stand as testaments to this fact, enchantment in particular stands as a powerful, yet indirect system of magic and when it comes to this branch and the operation of it only the Dragon Priest Ahzidal is your equal. Like him you've collected vast knowledge pertaining to the various magical bases of the Mer, whether it be the ancient runes of the Ayleids or the process of harmonizing the seven natures of metal. This craft extends far and wide and with it even a mere band of 500 warriors could be given equipment powerful enough to fell a powerful race of spellcasters like the Falmer, or in other, more simple words your enchantments are legendary. You could perhaps go even further, runes are simply another language, and if understanding them allows you to use them, then perhaps even others like that of the Dovah might be as well. This is lore based Daedric artifacts which includes shit like instant kill weapons or key that can conceptually unlock anything. Or a sword that stole power from a daedra and flew a floating city of soul warriors into mundus. Pretty much all major Daedric artifacts are conceptual even if they are nerfed for the game.
(A/N: I am specifically Ignoring Freebies from this jumpdoc)
-Fingers of the North Star (Cave Story) (200CP)
You have a natural talent with machinery, and this extends to firearms creation. You can disassemble, analyze, and reassemble any projectile weapon you come across, and you have the ability to create unique, one of a kind guns that utilizes odd and esoteric technology. You also gain a free 'stamp' you can apply to any weapon you create, to show it's your work. Upgrading existing weapons is a breeze as well.