13

In the Kor'Shan town square stage, a Silathi Master Artisan was giving a speech. Her audience was mostly Silath but a number of minor Raexa races were also in attendance. Black eyes set in perfect skin made of a strange plastic like material that looked like porcelain. The Silathi Master Artisan had a long snout that reminded Syra of a seahorse. When the Master grew exited in her speech, her long red barbed tongue would lash out. Like most Raexa races it wasn't clear how much of their appearance was natural to their race, and how much was due to warp exposure.

Their "skin" was definitely not due to warp exposure. The plastic like material which covered their bodies was something they did to themselves surgically. The Silathi quest for aesthetic perfection impeled their race to do this to themselves. Syra had never seen a Silath who had their race's natural skin.

How this replacement skin was applied to the individual Silath differed depending on their status. Master Artisan families used nano-machines to replace the skin on their children. For those not born to a Master Artisan family, the process was more brutal. Most Silath were ritualistically flayed as children. Then a semi translucent sheet was draped over their bodies like a full body robe. Systems in the robe would keep their skin from regrowing until they were older. They would wear this robe until they were finished growing so they could have the artificial skin attached to them.

The Master on stage had probably had her skin installed using the nano-machines. The Master wore a motley outfit in purple, pink, and black. Between their choice of dress and their unnatural skin, Silath looked like disturbing living dolls.

Syra, Agniya, Bob, and Ord surveyed the scene from a rooftop. They were currently scouting for information in the settlement of Kor'Shan. There didn't seem to be any Tau aligned races left in the settlement only Raexa races occupied the small city.

The small void ship Syra's team had brought here was docked in the nearby city of Ka'Pav. Syra's team had only arrived on planet the other day. He felt it was important to start gathering intelligence quickly so only one day of rest had been taken.

The human and abhuman team members wore hooded cloaks while in Kor'Shan. The Raexa did not get along with human chaos worshippers, thus human presences would be noted. The team needed as little attention paid to them as possible.

The rest of the team were elsewhere in the city looking for intelligence. Syra's team were watching the Master Artisan giving her speech in the square below them. As none of them spoke Raexa standard or the Silathi tongue they had to rely on a device to translate for them. The Master was giving an effusive description of the how hard life was as a Silath.

In a galaxy of hardship, having people care when you spoke about your problems was a luxury most beings rarely experienced. For the Master to be so assured the beings around her would care about how difficult she said her life was, told Syra the Master's life was not as hard as she thought it was.

Centuries ago when the warp storms had cleared around the Raexa home worlds, the Kagg had colonised many of the other worlds around them. The Silath home world had been one of these worlds. The Kagg enslaved most of the Silath race. Oppressed by the Kagg the Silath called to the chaos gods for deliverance. The god of excess seeing opportunity to deny the god of hate a prize answered this call.

After the establishment of the free Silath race, they threw themselves into artistic expression. Their new god shaped their art into the strange forms of Slaanesh. All Silath were trained to be Artisans and seek perfection of their arts. The leaders of their society were known as Master Artisans. The remainder of the Silath were called Artisan Warriors.

Their art however did not save them from struggle and most Silath still lived in abject poverty. Despite their insistence to the contrary, Master Artisans seemed not to experience the type of oppression they described. Most of those chosen to be Master Artisans came from affluent backgrounds.

Giving these loudmouth Masters a platform was rumoured to be a purposeful act by the Imperium. The Silath were one of the main voices in opposition to the Imperium's influence over the Raexa. By backing members of the Silathi community who came across as all talk, the Imperium weakened the Raexa's ability to be a threat to them. Unfortunately for the Silath as a whole, the Masters were an exception. Most Silath did face the hardships the Masters spoke about.

The beings in the audience seemed to be paying more attention to the corpse starch rations they were given for attending the speech. Even those who were Silath themselves didn't seem to be paying attention to the Master. The Master Artisan was currently going into an explanation of one of the Silath's favourite talking points, Tau and Kagg privilege.

The inherent privilege of the Tau and Kagg races was something the Silathi Masters expressed an absolute belief in. It seemed flagrantly hypocritical that the Silath, being victims of being defined by their species, were so quick to define other beings by their species. Syra believed there had never been a point where a Kagg or Tau had ever responded to being told they were inherently privileged, in a way that was good for the Silath. The Master's confidence in how she spoke about Tau and Kagg privilege was clearly borne out of not actually having to deal with those races.

The Master's speech grew to a crescendo, she shouted, "Now observe the beauty of the art that we have made despite our oppression!" The Master gestured to the stage behind her. From behind a curtain a nightmarish abomination on an anti-grav plinth was pushed out.

This was known as a Pain Sculpture. The highest form of art to the Silath, was twisting beings into living sculptures whose waking lives were perpetual agony. It was hard to tell from the twisted flesh sculpture but the sculpture seemed to be made of three individuals.

As the sculpture was revealed the crowd began paying attention to the stage. Most of the Raexa present, even those who were Silath, had clearly only come to the speech for rations.

The Pain Sculpture was something all those who worshipped the God of Excess reveled in seeing. When the sculpture was positioned on the stage the Master keyed something into a small cogitator slate. The eyes set in the twisted mass of flesh shot open. The sculpture gave out an unnatural wail. The wail was somehow equal parts harmonious and discordant at the same time.

Agniya seemed to think of something and then gave a derisive quiet laugh. "The naive xenos you lay with, says reciprocity is some kind of high moral prerogative. What happens to her ideals when beings make these horrors?" Agniya motioned at the sculpture as she spoke.

Syra brought up a picter and began recording a video of the sculpture. The Silath weren't supposed to have Pain Sculptures on Nu' shar. Intelligence suggested evidence of a single Pain Sculpture wouldn't be enough to make the empire break the ties they were forming with the Raexa. However as much evidence as they could gather would help their mission.

Syra met Agniya's gaze "Twocaste uses her ideals more as a framework for right behaviour then an absolute rule. There are obviously times were beings must be dealt with in ways we do not wish to be treated. However, we must always find when to make exceptions by asking ourselves the questions we demand others ask of themselves."

Agniya rolled her eyes and looked away "Seems too much work for something so pointless." Syra didn't break his gaze from staring at Agniya "Believing it's worth the effort is what gives me the strength to face this galaxy."

Agniya met his gaze again anger in her eyes "Is it worth it? You have gone from having the might of the Ministorum at your back, to scrabbling for survival at the edges of the galaxy's empires."

Syra still met her gaze "When I served the Ministorum the only thing keeping me going was my hate. Twocaste has shown me how to have faith in compassion. It doesn't matter how much work it is, or how hopeless it seems. Compassion feels better as a driving force, than hate."

Agniya gestured down at the wailing Pain Sculpture "The Silath talk about tolerance and compassion all the time, yet look at the fruits of their ideals." Syra shook his head "The Silath use the words tolerance and compassion, but their actions are not compassionate or tolerant."

Agniya made another quiet laugh and turned away shaking her head. Even the act of shaking her head was impressive. She managed it without the small wooden icons woven into her dreadlocks making noise.

Syra couldn't help himself but feel troubled by the other death cult assassin disliking him. He knew she was the Inquisition's creature, and would likely never approve of him. Still, despite himself if for no other reason than her also being a death cult assassin he desired her acceptance. It seemed pointless Agniya wasn't even from the same order as Syra.

Thinking of his order Syra touched the hilt of the ritual short sword he carried. The "Order of the Carrion Wing" probably would resent him still carrying the mark of completing the rite of absolution. Syra still felt he deserved to carry it even as a deserter.

He thought of the ritual goblet he had tried to leave to the Ministorum priest Taddeus the Purifier. It was important to him to at least attempt to return the goblet to the order, but returning it himself was not doable. However he was certain Taddeus would view the goblet as tainted due to him running off with Twocaste.

Even when he had believed in the Ministorum he had known the priest was mad. He had not spoken to Taddeus after coming back from his last trip into the Blackstone. Taking xenos lover was something so heretical it wasn't even seen as possible in the Imperium. The priest now probably hated Syra with an all consuming fury.

Syra was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of shouting from the alley behind them. Syra's group took their attention away from the spectacle in the square to watch what was happening down in the alley.

In between the circular Tau buildings a Silathi child was running from two Artisan Warriors. The child had difficulty running in the frosted plastic like robes they were sealed inside. The bloody outline of the child's skinless body could be somewhat seen through the semi translucent robe.

Syra knew it was probably foolish to save the child. The thought of what Twocaste would want him to do overcame what he thought of as foolish.

Sesier ran as fast as she could. The Earth Mother didn't seem to listen to her. She didn't want to disobey the Master Artisans, but becoming the clay of a Pain Sculpture was too much. The Masters kept asking things of her she didn't want to do, now they had asked more than she could handle, so she ran.

Suddenly a figure in a hooded cloak ambushed her from an alleyway. She yelped as the figure snatched her up. Being held by the creature she realized with surprise that it was a human. She believed it was a male.

The human was fast to a degree she did not think was possible. The human outpaced Sesier's pursuers easily. The human leapt over a steel wall still carrying Sesier. Hiding behind the wall was another cloaked figure.

As their pursuers vaulted the wall after them the second cloaked figure ran up the side of one of the buildings nearby. The second figure pushed off the building launching themself at the two warriors. In mid air the second human slashed with one power sword then twisted and slashed with a second. Both warriors were decapitated.

The human carrying her put Sesier down. Sesier looked at the other cloaked figure and realized it was another human, this one a female. The male human grabbed her hand and beckoned her to come with them. Sesier wasn't sure she could trust the humans but between them and going back to her own kind she chose the humans.