A Space Hulk near the edge of the Helix Nebula
Elisandre screamed as she charged. The front rank of the ork lines fell to their knees, clutching their heads as her psychically amplified scream assaulted their brains. She leaped over the incapacitated frontline, and slashed into the second rank. Every pinpoint thrust of her mirrorblades felled an ork. To an outside observer, Elisandre's movements would look choreographed as she moved through the ranks of the orks, but in-fact nothing could be further from the truth. She had not planned this fight. The mission to retrieve the spirit stone cache was about to end in tragedy. They had known about the orks on the space hulk, of course. Orks were not exactly subtle creatures. They cut a path through the ork forces to the spirit stones the farseers had told them it would be. The farseers had missed something in the dark, though: a lictor with an adaptation to make it invisible to the divining powers of the farseers. Elisandre's small group had fought well against the lictor, but by the time they slew it, only two remained: Elisandre, and the spirit seer that had been sent to check the spirit stones and return them to her craftworld. There was only one path to victory, and Elisandre knew it. She urged the spiritseer to retreat, while she stepped out to face the orks, who were attracted by the sound of fighting.
She retrieved the mirrorblades of her Exarch. The blades resisted at first. Elisandre was not the same collective spirit that usually wielded the blades, but she focused her will and thoughts into the blades, urging them to work with her. She snapped back to the present, as the ork boss of the unit stepped up to fight her, it's crude blade slashing in a wide arc. She relaxed. This ork was nowhere near her skill, but the strength of his blows if they connected might end her before she could retaliate. She retreated, her blades whirling, cutting lacerations into his skin for every opening she found in his guard. Others of his unit tried to come to the aid of their leader, but they couldn't even get close before being cut down. She allowed herself to be pushed back, baiting the ork to follow her, and he did. As they moved into a narrower corridor, it made it a lot harder for the ork to fight effectively, while the lithe and swift body of an Aeldari had the advantage. Elisandre scored deeper wounds on the ork, as they fought their way down the corridor, Elisandre slowly gaining the upper hand. As they got to a more open space, the ork attempted to move backwards, where the greater reach of his weapon would have granted him the edge. As he tried to disengage, Elisandre leaped forward inside his guard, slicing down with both mirrorswords, chopping off both his arms at the shoulder.
She brought her blades up in a cross over his throat, and was about to remove his head, when she was surrounded by lightning. She just had time to look over her shoulder at the big mek, his shokk attack gun smoking after it had fired, before her world was all lightning.
In the depths of the Webway
Varana moved through the twisting paths of the Webway, the runes of her profession flying around her so fast, most would think she couldn't possibly read all of them. She gave a frustrated sigh, as several of the runes fizzled out. Pulling out fresh ones, she stored the fizzled-out ones to repair later, before continuing. Every path she tried, every future she scried ended in a dead end. But she did not give up. She needed to find the Black Library. If their legends were true, and Cegorach himself lived within the Black Library, he might be her last hope to return her sister to what she had been. She heard the pneumatic hiss of armoured boots, as something approached from another of the webway's twisting corridors. She moved into the shadows, drawing on the rune of Kurnous the Hunter, which emanated darkness, cloaking her body so that it seemed she faded into them. Three Chaos Sorcerers in the regalia of the Thousand Sons moved past, accompanied by eight of their brethren. Usually, Varana would have left them be, and continued on her own mission, but the path they took would bring them on a course for her craftworld of Merekwoad. She had to act. She drew her shuriken pistol as her runes continued to orbit her, showing her the myriad possibilities of the immediate future. She took aim, aided by the images, and fired a stream of monomolecular disks into the back of the head of the first sorcerer.
He fell to the ground dead, as two of their non-sorcerous brethren went inert. As Varana took aim at the second sorcerer, her future sight saw them turn and fire at her position. She weaved another spell, leaving a psychic duplicate in her place as she stepped to the side. Two psychic blasts hit the duplicate, and instead of dying, it absorbed the energy. It drew it's witchblade, and attacked one of the remaining sorcerers. This left Varana to contend with the third sorcerer, but the non-sorcerous chaos worshippers had turned, and aimed their weapons at her. She shot her pistol into the sorcerer before dodging in every direction faster than the eye, avoiding where she knew each shot would land. Varana threw up a psychic shield, before beginning to channel a more powerful psychic spell. Sorcerous blasts and enchanted bolt rounds both bounced off her shield as the psychic lightning gathered around her. Once she had gathered enough energy, she dropped the shield, and unleashed the torrent of eldritch energy. The sorcerer managed to protect himself with a psychic shield of his own, but his brethren fell to the ground, their armour smoking.
Desperate, the sorcerer dropped his armoured gauntlet to the ground, and cut a series of runes into his own arm, speaking in an eldritch tongue. His armour buckled as a massive winged form clawed itself out of the remains of the sorcerer. The lord of change towered over her, it's eyes sparking with psychic power. Varana knew she would need a miracle to survive this. This was a Lord of Change, a Greater Demon of the Chaos God, Tzeentch. While she had practiced her craft for almost a full millennium, the Lord of Change was magic made manifest. There were scenarios where she won. She could see them. But as she looked, those possibilities were being extinguished, one after the other. She prayed for a miracle.
She was not expecting her prayer to be answered. An area of the webway she thought sealed rippled, and a small host of colourfully dressed warriors exited the corridor. While the players of the troupe began massacring the non-psychic warriors, the starweaver transport moved over to Varana and the troupe master and shadowseer leaped off. The Troupe Master engaged the Lord of Change in melee, while the shadowseer weaved illusions to make him appear in several places at once. Varana stepped up, her duplicate moving up to support the troupe master in melee. Myriad possibilities of the future stretch out in-front of her, and Varana's runes moved, eliminating the timelines that ended in their defeat. The harlequins gained the upper hand, their blades cutting the immaterial beast until it vanished from their reality.
The remaining warriors fell to the ground, as the animating force keeping them together failed.
"You should not be here," the shadowseer said, her mask showing Varana's gruesome death. She ignored it.
"I need to see your master, Cegorach. I have a boon to ask of him."
The troupe master giggled, as they turned, the demon-like mask somehow less unnerving than the shadowseer's gruesome illusions.
"Cegorach does not show himself to any that come looking. You should return to your craftworld, Varana of the Asuryani. You will not find your answer here."
"If you already know who I am, you know I won't turn back," Varana says "And since you know that, you're either here to turn me back forcefully, or you're here to take me to your master."
The troupe master made an exaggerated bow "Your assumptions are correct. Please board our transport, and we'll take you to our leader."
Varana gave the troupe master a suspicious look. This was way too straightforward for a harlequin. There was usually a lot more nuance to their interactions. Unfortunately, she had no choice but to trust them. She stepped into the starweaver, as the rest of the harlequins joined her. The starweaver lifted off, and moved towards the Black Library. The ancient craftworld towered over them as they approached. The starweaver entered a docking port, and landed. About twenty meters from the starweaver sat the Laughing God. Varana was sure it was he. The energy of his psychic signature resonated with her, all the way to even before her species had existed. It was said that at the very birth of their species, each of their gods granted the fledgling race a gift. Cegorach had given the Aeldari irony, so that they might find humour within themselves. Now standing before the Laughing God, Varana found humour in the fact that she had thought Cegorach would look like his more current followers dressed: in bright and garish colours. Instead, Cegorach wore a black suit and tie, and wore glasses, as he beckoned for her to join him.
Varana approached cautiously, and sat down in the armchair opposite the god.
"You know why I am here," she said "Can you do what I ask, or not? Do not be evasive, or deflect, or avoid. Just give it to me straight. Can you bring her back?"
"I can," said the Laughing God "But are you willing to pay the price?"
"She's my sister," Varana says, her voice breaking "If you can't bring my twin back, then you may as well just kill me. I can't stand knowing she's no longer in this world."
"Very well," said Cegorach. He opened his left hand. Three orbs appeared floating above it. One showed a maze, made of stone not wraithbone, so she was pretty sure it was not the Webway. The second showed an ancient Terran ship, designed for moving over water. But it was floating in the air, not on the ground. The third image showed a grove of trees.
"You, your sister and a third champion will be sent to this world. When you arrive, you will be told of your task. Your sister and the other champion will be sent to another of these three locations, separated by time as well as space. When the three of you have completed your task, all of you may return here, and your sister will be alive, with her own body and mind, when you return. Do you understand your task?"
"I do," Varana said. She reluctantly pulled out a stone glowing with green light "Please take care of her." She handed over the spirit stone containing the soul of her twin sister, Velora.
Cegorach nodded, as he carefully took the spirit stone.
"Godspeed, Varana." The world around her turned blue, and when the colour cleared, she was elsewhere.