Just as a reminder, this is not my work and I am not claiming it as such. The creator of this work, Anirban Chakrabarti, knows that I am posting this here and approves. If you doubt me, go to the comment thread. The title of the video it is under is Mechanicus Soundtrack - Children of the Omnissiah (Extended - Seamless loop).
Roused from your contemplation by this interloper come to break your limbo, you blurt out a greeting in Gothic to which he smiles with his ashen lips. He then turns slightly, to face the crowd in general. " May the red winds bring you word of the Omnissiah... your waiting has come to an end. Your documentation has been reviewed and many of you have been granted entry to the forge.."
With that he started reading out names from a cogitator, his grainy voice not coming from his lips but the staff-borne vox hailer in his hand. From the sizable crowd of pilgrims, only a dozen or so got permission to enter, your name amongst them. The remaining broke out in angered tones, shouting out in protest. Some, instead of arguing, asked to be turned into servitors so they may look at the glories of the hive within. The man stood impassive, something of a cold anger brewed in his eyes. Finally, after many minutes of protests a machine amplified cry of "STOP" rang out and the crowd was cowed. Several gun servitors were already upon the scene while armed servo skulls scanned them from above. The pilgrims, most of them nobles from distant technocracies, slowly sat down again awaiting their turn.
The few that had been granted clearance and you yourself slowly left the scene, your heart again wondering as to what marvel of man's genius lies ahead.
The man introduces himself as Karton, he was among the many hundreds of thousands of Tech-adepts of the forge. His was the responsibility of managing the many pilgrims that came and the many offers of trade that they brought to Holy Mars. Though his voice wasn't as full of tone or emotion as a normal man. He wasn't yet a completely changed being. As he conducted you to your point of entry his zeal in describing Martian history and the many features of his forge was apparent. He never talked to anyone in particular, always addressing the crowd. His extolations seemed very seamless, as if he had said those same words a thousand times before. The walk was short, and stopped beneath an inconspicuous part of the elaborate ramparts. From the rust-tinted smoke above descended a lift. And it was more than enough to accomodate all present. More robust rebreathers were handed out to all, to be able to endure the poisonous smog above. The lift swayed ever-so-slightly as you ascended, the grinding of antiquated gears akin the grunts of a giant beast loathed to move. All were quiet. As if muted by sheer anticipation even as the lift entered the smog layer. All that was visible now through the yellow smoke was the flickering lights dispersed throughout your guide's head, arm, and staff; and the many devices worn by your fellow pilgrims. It must have been a good 15 standard minutes of ascension and you could still make out the same, continuous wall outside the lift's grill.
Then it suddenly stopped ascending and it swayed as if moving from side-to-side. Indeed it was. There must be a lift above that operated this lift. The guide told us we were changing our route because one of the furnaces on this course would be releasing fumes too poisonous for us to breathe through even these machines. After a while on our side-ward sway, we ascended again for a while. The obscuring miasma now faded away with a slight breeze and you could see that you were a hundred metres or more above ground. The giant gate just a few metres to your left. The majestic titans that guarded it seemed dwarfed now. A woman broke out in tears of joy and all prayed in Gothic too accented or too interwoven with binary for you to decipher... your own old heart beat faster than it ever had. To the outside Mars stretched out like a red carpet, its barren flats broken in places by other forge spires rising up. The orbital halo of steel now not just a sliver of silver but a thicker construct. Your 50 hauler ships laden with precious metals were there somewhere. Below again the column of trucks, slaves, looked increasingly like a trail of ants then. The wind too had picked up. The churning of your stomach was inconsequential. You were no stranger to it. Turning the other way, the hive spires now showed themselves in their true glory. They were ornate but not like Imperial hives with their carvings of angels and cherubims emerging out of gold embroidered circular towers. These towers were polygonal: blackened octagons which were once red. Each corner graced with dioramas of machine-enhanced humans with their fleshy parts made of steel (streaked with marks of millenia of poison clouds condensing on them and eating away) and their machine parts made of a golden metal which somehow outshone gold itself, they looked as if they were placed there today. The allegory was clear. But most of these ancient carvings had practical purposes. Some of these human figure belched smoke from their mouths while the staffs held by some of them also doubled up as arbours for wire clusters or transmission towers.
Servo skulls swarmed around these edifices, some of them spraying protective coatings while others welded at unseen joints. Cherubs too flew about in flocks carrying tool-boxes or spools of wire. Some of them rested on the head of the statue of some long gone arch-magos and squabbled over the remains of another one: passed out from exhaustion. The ascension continued. It was indeed a crane that conducted us... from the very top of the forge... or rather it was a titan sized statue of the fabricator general whose many mechadendrites and bionic arms acted as cranes to which many lifts and even cargo containers were attached... being slowly conveyed across the innumerable units of the machine temple.
A thousand furnaces burned promethazine fumes and the ground was hidden in mist soon. It looked dreamy. A cage suspended among the clouds, being slowly lifted up towards the skies... you wondered whether this was indeed a dream and you were just being taken to the Machine God's side... but then again, you had already seen enough to know that no dream could compare to the real glory of mankind. The Sun hid behind the giant statue's bulk and a pink-purple glow was pronounced in the atmosphere. All fell to their knees then. You too. Hum of passing servo-skull swarms, the flap of cherub wings, The distant thrumming of machinery and the thrash of sputtering furnace stacks combined in such a way that it felt like you were hearing the Trinity Machina's own gears turning through eternity. Divine... you lacked anything else that suited this airless, poisoned hinterland to the fabled heavens.