THE DIGNITY OF LORDS
From the first view of it one could tell that the Jarn family palace known as Krakengard was wholly different than the more modern Conomor facility with close to nothing was shared between them despite both at one time being the capital building of their world. Raw and unadulterated symmetry was to be found in every aspect Krakengard, with meticulous detail and craftsmanship employed to ensure that the building possessed no blemish or flaw inherent to its exterior. Rather than artistry it was architectural and engineering precision that was prioritized in the behemoth structure that possessed bold and sharp edges in contrast with the Conomor's rounded ones. Wherein one you could find beauty and wonder, in the other you would find naught but awe and intimidation through sheer size.
It was indicative of the Iron Warriors who had once contributed to its construction that the structure had survived throughout the ages with minimal need for upkeep and repair, having been built to last like the Astartes themselves as they expanded upon and refined the designs of the Kimarans. This could largely be attributed to its lack of complexity and decor, as all that the structure possessed was what was necessary for its function and that function was to house the ruling family, allow for their governance to be carried out, and to provide military refuge in the case of a siege from which the entire city's defenses could be coordinated as well as all of those of the Fortress City grid it found itself within. Designs existed to allow the structure to be expanded to possess additional segments such as gardens and other such amenities, but these ideas had been shelved and left unexplored since the fall of Kimara to the Imperial Fists millennia ago.
To possess such displays of opulence on a barren and frigid world was considered by the remaining Jarns to be disrespectful of other Kimarans who knew no such comforts, and so those very grounds had instead been dedicated to government facilities that would see to the prosperity of their people. Rather than wholly selfless this was done out of a mixture of pragmatism and their direct nature, as directness was a Kimaran trait and even more so one possessed by Jarn's descendants. They were placed in power by their people to rule their world fairly and see to its survival and success, and so even under the Imperium's bootheel they would see to those very tasks to the exclusion of all else. Personal agendas did not factor into rulership, and so in this way despite the rebellion of their kin the Imperium came to accept the Jarn family as overseers of Kimara throughout the ages. They did as they were told and met their quotas while also remaining in the high graces of their taciturn population who sought determination and willpower in their leadership rather than raw charisma.
As a natural consequence of making a stalwart palace that could withstand enemy fire Krakengard possessed reinforced windows that were one way, only allowing those inside to view outwards rather than those without to view those within. Their reinforcement was akin to that of many Battleships in that materials one could view through were typically more fragile than those they may be surrounded by, yet to defy this they were crafted and embedded in such a way that they would not break until the structure surrounding them would. It was difficult work solidifying the necessary view outwards from strategic locations of the palace, but so seamless was the craftsmanship that if not for their differing color to the palace's walls the windows would be nigh indistinguishable. Just as the bridge of a Battleship might endure weapons that could lay waste to a planet, so too could Krakengard both from the ground and from orbit. It was this stalwart nature of the palace that saw it withstand the test of time as well as the coup, appearing no different after a violent revolution took place within it than it had beforehand.
The only complexity to be found in Krakengard was its military considerations with sloped segments, reinforced walls, and a series of sectioned parts to the palace that each could hold back countless more assailants. It was fitting perhaps then that the downfall of the Jarn family came from a sudden coup that saw their building infiltrated, as a more conventional army would have stood little chance of quickly decapitating the royal family before being surrounded by reinforcements or being bombarded into nothingness. The palace itself could withstand the very same artillery bombardments Kimarans were known for, with the defenses of Krakengard externally being based on those that could be found throughout the strongest edifices in the Imperium such as the Imperial Palace itself.
How the Jarn family came into possession of such detailed blueprints to enhance their defenses was unknown especially since many of the Imperial Palace's structural reinforcements came in the time leading up to and during the Horus Heresy, but it was assumed that the service of the Astartes on Kimara had in some way resulted in this, or that mortal defenders and veterans of the invasion of Terra later would influence its construction after the conflict. The truth could be simple or it could be complex, but the initial designs penned by Jarn himself were no doubt at some point further developed during his absence and few would complain about a Fortress City properly living up to its moniker, especially when few who would even travel to Kimara knew the Imperial Palace so well as to compare them.
Regardless it left a fingerprint, a trace of suspicion, on the mind of Verita whose very purpose now was to observe such irregularities and take note of them. Just as she had long since noted the gene-crafted nature of her fellow Schola students Isolde and Dairine well before the other girls at the Schola had, so too did she now notice an oddity that could not help but make her wonder if there was more to this seemingly unimportant detail. The Iron Warriors involved in the Siege of Terra had been those belonging to Perturabo and his Chaos corrupted kin, not the company kept by the first Trahaearn Jarn fighting their own way through the stars. The Imperial Fists who came to Kimara would no doubt never reveal such details, so then who else would have had access and supplied it willingly to Kimara?
There was no way to truly know at the present time so many thousands of years later, especially not after the Conomors did their best to obscure documents from what came before them to better control the minds and will of their people. It was an effective means to do so, of that there was no doubt, but it was still deplorable and held Verita's deepest scorn. Deception and truth were two sides of the same coin, for sometimes to reveal the truth you might have to deceive some to obtain it. Verita had to play on the trust and words of both her informants and her enemies, for it was by penetrating the weakness of individuals that cracks could be formed in a grander narrative shrouding the truth. If she had to lie to a few about her intentions or beliefs and betray those who had already betrayed the entire planet then that was a burden she would carry to enlighten the rest of the world as to whatever secrets they had kept or falsehoods they perpetuated in the name of their own power and benefit.
Perhaps it made her a hypocrite to lie to deceivers and unscrupulous foes when she sought truth, but the only alternative was to inform them of her true intentions and draw no information from their well. Then countless more would be lied to by those very enemies of truth itself, and so Verita cloaked her loyalties to the Schola, Commandant, and her adoptive 'sisters' in the veil of service to the Imperium. The Imperium would benefit from her actions as far as Verita was concerned, and so that was not even a lie on its own: it was just that it was a vehicle by which to see to her more personal motivations. Of discovering the truth of her family's circumstances, of helping her people both in escaping propaganda and in surviving their ordeals, and in ensuring that senseless bloodshed could be avoided and that victims like Umida could be prevented moving forward.
It was through this line of thinking that Verita had no issue misleading the Sons of the Emperor stationed at the Fortress City housing the now derelict palace of the Jarns that she was one of their peers by dressing in their clothing and using her height to pass off as a man. She had left most of her personal belongings in a similarly abandoned outpost nearby that she had reassigned the security codes to ones only she and her fellow Schola members knew, ensuring that any possible interlopers would not be able to readily access them. It was a gut feeling she had that she had been followed after departing the Governor's own city and so Verita had taken further measures to lose any possible trackers in the snowstorms raging across their world as she traveled to the relatively close location the box had led her.
The Fortress City itself had been among those evacuated over the years to move Kimara's population to certain more 'productive' locations, a questionable decision if one were to believe their stated reasons given the city's ideal placement within Kimara's defensive grid and access to resources. Rather than for efficiency, a core tenant of Kimaran life, it was almost certainly to prevent Kimarans from having an everyday reminder of their former leaders in the form of their palace. It had not been destroyed for historical preservation and was of peculiar interest to the Conomors, but as ever their personal motivations were shrouded behind rhetoric and platitudes meant to placate the masses they held under their yoke.
Verita had set aside various caches of useful items in the forgotten outposts spread throughout Kimara's wastelands, allowing her to easily locate this one in particular even as a blizzard swept around it. Obtaining a spare uniform was easy given Dairine's activities, with Verita having no false illusions about what her adoptive sister did whenever she disappeared for days or weeks at a time. All Verita had done was ask that some unbloodied and fitting uniforms be acquired, and one day she returned to her room to find a pile of them tossed over it haphazardly. That Dairine's ability to properly fold clothes or engage in other more domestic pursuits would be an issue to most Kimarans, but Verita instead accepted that everyone had their weak points. Dairine's was seemingly laundry (or more seriously her martial pride), just as Isolde's was her inability to forgive or compromise with those against her, and Verita's own weakness was her stubborn and relentless pursuit of the truth.
Some might call that a strength, but Verita knew that she was playing a dangerous game and that without the Inquisitor's backing she would have been 'disappeared' by now for turning over as many stones as she had. Even so she could not help but do so, it being her driving purpose since her earliest memories, always having been more curious than her peers and trying to figure out whatever puzzles were presented to her. When she was young this had led her to be fascinated by picture puzzles, such as the one Isolde had once interrupted her doing by accident as their first 'meeting', and as a young adult now she was drawn to more theoretical ones. It was near an obsession for her, and that was what had her chasing after such a mysterious artifact as the obsidian cube left behind upon her biological family's passing. So long as there was truth and knowledge to be found she would continue looking, and for those that controlled those secrets and would deny others information that made her a liability to be dealt with at their earliest convenience.
If not for Kimara's frigid temperatures it would be more difficult to pass off as one of the guards, but the soldiers from Wostyn were far from immune to the cold and so they had to bundle up even more than the Kimarans themselves. Kimarans would face similar issues on Wostyn given its intense heat but fortunately only Dairine had to suffer through such conditions so far, as Verita would find it unbearable. By wearing a uniform that concealed her figure and padding it out with equipment she brought with her to further hide her form Verita was almost indistinguishable from her 'fellow' Sons of the Emperor members even under a fair degree of scrutiny. If she was forced to speak with them she would have issues, but by feigning a hangover she avoided such a need.
It was regrettable that she could not just walk into the old palace without drawing unnecessary attention to her true motivations, as it would be difficult to explain why she would have to visit Krakengard while serving as a representative for the Inquisitor. If she did obtain permission it would be under the watchful eyes of the regime, limiting what she could do without possibly revealing secrets or information about the box to them. She had stolen it from them to begin with even if she saw it as reclaiming her family's property, and to use it in their presence could make matters complicated.
Even with all of this in mind she still found herself experiencing the natural awe that Krakengard instilled upon those standing before it as if they were insignificant specks, intimidating those beholding it rather than pleasing them. It was a remnant of an age long since past, as for all its magnificence it was nothing but an abandoned building at this point without a single soul inhabiting its walls. Security systems had been put in place to warn the local garrison of trespassers, but feeding them archived footage was a simple task for Verita who regularly had to go through recordings in her line of work. Disabling the alarms was another thing she had been forced to learn as a child to slip past guards and fortunately nothing fancy had been done with those placed at Krakengard after its fall since they were just there to dissuade Kimarans from touching this piece of their heritage.
Too much equipment would have made Verita appear suspicious for a member of this local garrison and so she had only brought a few tools, some of which she wore within her permanently borrowed uniform strapped around her stomach to balance its size out compared to her chest. The obsidian box was unable to fit and had to be carried in a satchel, with Verita utilizing one from Wostyn to match her outward appearance. The second most important item she carried with her was a handheld scanner meant to pick up on details not visible to the Human eye, allowing her to see fingerprints, stains, minor imperfections, and other such data that allowed her to possess increased understanding of surveyed locations. A flashlight was brought for visibility while for access to locked or otherwise inaccessible rooms Verita had the tools she utilized to fiddle with the video feeds and alarms earlier. A lasgun and helmet completed her ensemble, and while the lasgun would hopefully not be called for it could if necessary be utilized for defense or to shoot through something.
Actually entering Krakengard was simple as the gates had been left ajar since its fall, with vandalism, arson, and theft all prevented by an external energy shield that ran off the power grid of the Fortress City. Normally such a defense for the palace would be done internally, but as its own generators were offline it required external support. Getting through the guards protecting the power generators would be difficult and require direct interaction that would give away Verita's disguise, but tinkering with some wires that traveled to the palace to create a hole in the shield was simple since the Fortress City was so large that not every piece of it could be covered by the guard retinue present.
Drawing closer to the palace was an effort in and of itself given the long entrance to it that was consistent in its construction being designed to evoke the feeling of being puny compared to the looming structure beyond, Krakengard appearing even larger as Verita quietly made her way over. Just because she had taken precautions to mitigate the chance anyone would see her here did not mean something unexpected could not throw her into danger at the drop of a hat, and so she crept silently towards the palace steps. All along she checked the status of the black box to see if there was any reaction, but it gave no indication of unlocking its next piece yet and so she continued on toward whatever it meant her to see.
What lurked just beyond Krakengard's entrance was a surprise even though Verita was well aware of the building's history. Typically an urban battlefield would be somewhat cleaned up afterwards by the victors who sought to conquer a location, but Krakengard's innards remained instead as a monument to the slaughter that had been carried out there. While the bodies had been removed nothing else had been, and from the very first step inside Verita could tell she was standing atop blood-soaked tile. It was dark, but enough light crept into the palace that Verita did not require her flashlight to see yet, though it was inevitable that it would be needed the further she delved into its forgotten halls. The historical significance of the location drew her natural curiosity forward, desiring to uncover whatever secrets lay here whether the box meant for her to or not. To do that she would have to begin exploring, and so Verita ventured forward.
Pillars lined across the palace's primary atrium led to a single point, their repetition and height making their corridor appear to stretch on well beyond its actual length. At the end one would find the relatively narrow entrance to the throne room where the Jarn family once held court, the design of the opening one which would funnel any approaching force and make forced entry difficult beyond the deterrence posed by guards and the reinforced gate that could be deployed to completely seal the throne room off. At the present it remained open, appearing as if a dark void at a distance as one peered down the series of pillars. The foreboding sensation it instilled even now spoke to the success of its architects, further making any who approached feel small and insignificant before their destination.
If not for the fact the mithril gateway that led to the throne room was already open entering it would prove nigh impossible, but it remained as it had been the day of the dynasty's fall and so was untouched both by mortal hands and time itself. The construction throughout the palace spoke to the enduring mindset of its crafters, as here it stood a century after its complete abandonment without malfunction or decay. That it was open rather than destroyed spoke to the underhanded nature of the coup, as with every facet functioning properly it meant that someone had allowed the conspirators through to the throne room without the loyalists having the opportunity to rectify the issue.
The throne room itself was a grand hall that placed a great distance between its entrance and the steps of the mithril throne Kimara's rulers had led from for much of its history, the distance itself lending further to the feeling of one's own diminutive form. The throne itself possessed the natural hue of silver-blue mithril was known for and was crafted to seat not only the king but his queen and other select members of the Jarn family and its supporters as necessary, even accommodating the presence of advisers to lend their thoughts to their lord without outsiders hearing them speak across the court. While possessing a massive width and height both the throne lacked much in regards to decoration, instead possessing the same simple design and flat angular nature as the rest of the palace.
Stylistically the only flourish rather than functional form was the trident-like visage at its top, the throne's mithril having been shaped to come together before then rising from that single point in the shape of a three-pronged trident. Given the history of the Iron Warriors and their Trident and its Triarch members this was perhaps a deliberate design choice, though appeared little more than a source of intimidation for outsiders gazing upon it. Other design choices were purely for their value as a throne, such as heraldry and coats of arms belonging to the Jarns being on prominent display to feed into the cult of personality cultivated over the millennia towards them.
That the Jarns were known for their massive size meant that the thrones were built in such a way that they could be adjusted to the needs of those seated, be it a young man or be it someone who could tower over the average Astarte. While comfort itself was of little consideration soft materials lined the actual seats to prevent those atop them for long periods of time from unnecessary injury from the metal they rested upon, for while the mithril throne having been crafted as a symbol of power and Kimara's near unique material rather than for luxury that did not mean those upon it had to suffer.
Room also was present for Ixolotls to be seated by their masters, something that while soft to an off-worlder would command greater respect from the intended Kimaran audiences who would appreciate the sight of Ixolotls wearing a degree of regalia befitting of their status. While the Jarns might be disinclined towards displays of their wealth on their own person except as necessary, they were fine granting their pets shiny baubles to wear and be contented by and so various gem-encrusted crowns had been constructed over the years for royal Ixolotls. Kimarans did not tend to care about the opinions of those outside their culture and so remained the practice that might cause foreign audiences to balk without a single Kimaran raising a brow at such a display.
That places had been set aside for them to sit was perhaps why it was unsurprising for Verita to find some of the creatures lounging in the spots catering to their comfort, these wild Ixolotls having come to inhabit the palace during its abandonment and that of the Fortress City. Their low dietary needs were met by what they could find within the confines of the palace, and it appeared that many of the alarms set in place had been disabled in this location where they seemed drawn lest it always be set off by their wandering. Had they been domesticated Ixolotls perhaps they could prove useful for guiding Verita, but while no doubt amenable to interacting with her they would have little idea about anything she was saying. The palace was one giant shiny object to them with a shining throne and so they came here when no-one else was there to claim it, and so they sat contently despite not doing much of anything.
Verita decided to leave the wild creatures to their rest, instead focusing on deciphering how things played out in the throne room's conflict. An official story existed, but there were so many mysteries and rumors surrounding the subject that the investigative part of her could not resist the opportunity presented. To this end Verita retrieved the scanner from her equipment and began to use it upon the floor that was so discolored that it was obvious there was a major battle here. To begin she returned to the hallway leading to the throne room, approaching it like the assailants must have done to better get into the event she sought to recreate in her mind.
The faded stains and such remnants of the blood spilled drowned the floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor leading to the throne room such that if not for minor specks untouched one would think that to be its natural color. Such was the concentration of the bloodshed that it was nigh impossible to make out any one splatter, instead it was as if a river of blood had flowed through with how brutally bodies had been cut down one after another. For the blood to have reached as much of the ceiling as it had meant that the dead had stacked up quite high, and with such a narrow width to the entrance they had no way forward but over or through the dead.
To hold back whatever hundreds of foes perished in that long hallway meant that the palace's defenders had stood their ground within that very zone and the immediate space after, as a ranged conflict would have spilled blood beyond the entrance of it as well rather than specifically within. The infiltrators had been able to open the mithril gateway to the throne, but blood against the gate's structure and the surrounding area made it appear that they had been pushed back to it after first breaching it. The royal guard of the Jarn family had reacted to the sudden intrusion swiftly, but they could not seemingly predict that there would be a betrayal that night that saw them besieged by a small army within the palace.
From that point the sea of blood began, Verita seeing through her scanner the relative patterns in which it was spilled and thus fairly certain that almost all of those who perished here had been the invaders. That meant that the blood within the throne room at least in part belonged to the royal guards, as Verita did not believe they would have surrendered under such circumstances. The loyalists were being butchered anyways and they had been betrayed, so of course they would fight to the end to secure not only their lives but that of their monarch.
At the mouth of the throne room the traces of blood were even more concentrated, with it appearing that a defensive semi-circle of defenders had held their ground against the oncoming tide of enemy forces. It was difficult to tell a century after the fact, but by the data given to her by scanning the location Verita felt it was safe to say that the defenders had been outnumbered by at least four to one. Holding a defensive position and possessing likely superior armaments meant that they would trade favorably perhaps well exceeding her conservative estimate, but so little direct evidence remained that it was impossible to be certain. She could approximate who stood where based on the patterns of the splattered blood and occasional partial outlines which formed around the fallen, but time had worn away most of what evidence had remained after the conflict.
With the same calculations in her piecing together of the series of events Verita found herself proud of the defenders, as where the blood splattered back into the throne room it was evident that not a single member of the guard had given an inch, dying on their feet and not retreating as that would grant the enemy the advantage of their greater numbers. It was the intelligent, honorable, and loyal move all at once without ceding any of these qualities she would expect of her planet's finest. They stood and fought until the end right where they had stationed at the entrance, their bodies forming distinctive traces that the assailants were unlikely to have left. The royal guard of the Jarns were known for bearing mithril armor and blades, spears to be precise, and so by thrusting, slashing, and beating back the invaders they would have fallen back, not forward more than not, so the bodies fallen laying towards the throne were almost certainly the defenders instead.
There was a brief gap in the bloodshed until where more Conomor servants had fallen, and given the messy spread that trailed into the rest of the throne room Verita hypothesized that this was where their Sovereign had personally engaged those coming for his head. That the blood stains touched the walls well above the average Human's height told a story of its own: someone particularly large had been beating them aside with such brute force that their bodies had cracked against the walls as they struggled throughout a tide of foes. As massive a man as Jarns were bred to be, there was ample evidence that the final Jarn to rule Kimara had beaten his attackers to death with his bare hands in addition to weapons.
Verita was not someone who enjoyed violence the way Dairine did, finding it a sadly necessary thing rather than a thrilling activity, but even still she could not help but smirk at the thought that the pinnacle of Kimaran society had quite literally struck and thrown his foes so hard that they were no better than ragdolls. That they cracked against the wall enough to splatter blood against it through their armor made the massive bio-engineered and gene-crafted size of the Jarn family was not for show, for while they were not Astartes having a physique reminiscent of them was nothing to sneer at. A normal man would be snapped like a twig by such a behemoth, and Verita would almost feel bad for them if not for their being assassins sent on behalf of eventual tyrants.
Some of the bodies that hit the walls were by the entrance, showing that the king had fought alongside his men and only was driven back when he was the last one standing and thus no longer could maintain the formation to stem the tide. Instead he had fought a retreating battle that continued across the entirety of the throne room, blood spilled all around in sporadic bursts as wounds were inflicted and bodies hit the floor. Every body would have been an insurgent, but the random, smaller splatters of blood were more difficult to discern the owners of which muddied the mental sketch she was drawing of the conflict. With mithril armor and powerful personal shielding the last of the Jarn dynasty had the defenses to survive perhaps a hundred men in close combat, something perhaps the splashes of blood would support even if they did not confirm after all this time with a bare minimum being twenty distinguishable body locations, but inevitably the desperate battle for survival would find its conclusion.
What was evident was that the Sovereign had met his end before the throne itself, his massive form and the weight of the mithril armor he wore having actually left an impact on the floor in addition to the blood that spilled around it. From what Verita could tell he had not gone gently, as four other bodies had fallen around him in ways that made it seem that he had killed them while knocked on his back. Those closing in around him had met the same ends as their peers before them, though a deep hole in the floor showed where a blade had impaled Jarn and ended his reign. That it drove so deep into the reinforced floor meant that it penetrated the thick torso of the Sovereign and his armor and then continued further, indicating a sword by its shape well beyond the normal height of a Human.
Either another Kimaran had dealt the final blow, an Ogryn had done so, or most likely an Astarte called to assist in the assignment dealt that final strike. Given that the Imperium granted them the manpower to launch the invasion the presence of an Astarte was unsurprising, but it did call into question if there was any connection to the local Deathwatch forces. Had he been fighting only unaugmented Humans it was likely the Sovereign could have lasted much longer, but the moment an Astarte entered the field of battle the already worn and wounded Jarn had no chance of victory. That he was able to resist long enough to still kill four more of his attackers was impressive to Verita, and she found herself respecting the last legitimate ruler of her home. He had fought to the end like his men before him, and to perish in battle to an Astarte was nothing to be ashamed by.
With her inspection of the throne room completed and no reaction from the cube Verita decided to search elsewhere, continuing her canvass of the palace, though not before noticing that the wild Ixolotls had taken notice of her finally. They did not do anything, instead choosing to remain in their comfortable seats, but their perpetually 'smiling' faces all looking at her lifted Verita's mood all the same after her somber investigation. The creatures might not care about her existence at all, but the sight was a welcome one after inspecting the stains left behind by blood for the better part of an hour.
Curiosity about the other Jarns who perished in the attack led Verita to the portion of the palace dedicated to their living quarters, a section which comprised a large portion of the palace given the propensity of Kimarans and especially the Jarns to possess large families. Further traces of battle were evident as she explored the palace to locate the royal family's quarters, guards throughout the palace having died for their duty nobly albeit pointlessly given the eventual outcome. Their sacrifice was carried out to preserve those that now were wiped out in seeming totality, and that weighed heavily on Verita's conscience as she passed by what seemed to be where a guard had been impaled into a wall.
Upon finding their former residence Verita braced herself, for outside were more traces of battle which indicated that the other Jarns had been in their rooms when the raid struck during the night. Unlike the Sovereign who was a warrior to the end, this would be his Queen and children who were not in the throne room handling some official business but rather resting in their beds.
After steeling her resolve Verita stepped in and was met by the sight of more stained floors, this time having the blood's remaining traces splattered and coated over furniture, rugs, and more while everything around her was in shambles. Whereas the throne room had been bloodied it had mostly remained intact, but this location instead had drawers scattered from the dressers they belonged to, chairs overturned, tables flipped, and so on the chaos ensued. Rather than pristine and orderly like Krakengard's exterior this area had been rummaged through after the battle no doubt, as nothing remained untouched or unopened, but whatever they had been looking for was not easily found it they had been so thorough as this.
Sections of the palace Verita had passed by held similar appearances to this, but the living quarters were far more unkempt than any of the others she had seen thus far. It made reading the situation more difficult, but by working her way inward Verita tried to create a working hypothesis of how events played out. At first the guards held back the infiltrators, the assailants having invested most of their manpower into slaying the Sovereign and his forces swiftly to prevent his escape as a rallying figure. They dedicated a fair portion of their strength to this location as well but it was nowhere comparable, likely perceiving a Queen and her children too low a physical threat to warrant more focus than necessary to break through their guards.
Once they did force their way through the guards posted they were met by a sole defender, as the trails of blood all were too narrow and concentrated to be from numerous combatants on both sides. Small pieces of ripped cloth could be found throughout the wreckage with bloodstains marring them with their beginning forming at around where the rooms set aside for children lay, the master chambers of the King and Queen at the far end of the hallway opposite the entrance to the palace's subsection. If Verita had to guess the Queen had taken up arms to protect her children before falling as well, noting at least the presence of four assailants through the hall before coming to what likely was the Queen's own death.
From how she fell and where the blood flowed Verita had the feeling that she had been impaled in the upper abdomen, slain instantly more than likely given the evidence present. She fell forward onto a piece of furniture later overturned which Verita brought back into place, the Queen's blood having not primarily spilled outward like a stab upward would have caused but rather downward exclusively like a blade piercing down into her would. Whomever slew her was tall enough to stand well above the Queen, a feat given that according to historical records she was incredibly tall herself. Perhaps not as tall as Isolde, but possessing a height that proportionally matched her husband's by most accounts given the average heights of men and women.
Verita paused and mulled over the fact that both monarchs had been slain by someone of considerable height, wondering if by chance it was coincidence or if they shared a common killer. If it was an Astarte then impaling her from the back would be quite underhanded for their kind, but perhaps it had not been an intentional stab through the back? If she had turned to face another foe she could have caught whatever blade struck her in an unfortunate moment of misfortune, thus explaining the seeming break from typical Astarte combat behavior that saw them obsessed with their personal honor.
Ultimately the killer was secondary to the overall events, but it did still stand out to her and make Verita uneasy about the exact circumstances surrounding the Queen's death. More unnerving was the fact that Verita knew she would have to check each of the rooms around her to try and see just what it was that was so viciously sought after that saw the halls and rooms tossed like a criminal's hideout might be, and in visiting the rooms she would no doubt witness the remains of whatever happened to the younger Jarns.
Being uncomfortable did not outweigh her curiosity however and desire to find out for herself just what happened here, not what the censors and propagandists would have everyone believe. With this determination she pressed forward and stepped into the chambers of the King and Queen first, saving their children's rooms for after she first saw their own.
To say that the room had been eviscerated would be an understatement, the only things remaining untouched being what hung from the walls, and even those showed signs of having been shifted and replaced to check behind them. Anything of note had been destroyed in whatever mad search had taken place or had been removed thereafter, the Jarns' personal belongings confiscated for reasons unknown. Any attempt at a forensic analysis like elsewhere would be nigh pointless, as anything sought after could have been within the items removed from the room's discord.
The only thing that gave Verita pause was when she turned during her search and found herself face-to-face with a portrait of the Sovereign, a man whose face was as stern as any Kimaran's yet possessed the icy calm that had seen the Jarns rule remain strong throughout the ages. He resembled some accounts of what the original Trahaearn was said to look like, but a direct comparison was impossible after the disappearance of the original and the Conomors' removal of depictions of their family. As she expected the Sovereign had almost certainly been gene-crafted, something common on Kimara compared to elsewhere in the Imperium thanks to their Mechanicus and the personal beliefs of the planet's population, but given their power they likely had far greater access to technology of superior quality. What had become of it was anyone's guess at this point, but that investment in ensuring their leaders were mentally stable, intelligent, and physically imposing had allowed them to reign as unquestioned monarchs far longer than most dynasties lasted.
Still, to suddenly come face to face with the powerful stare of her world's last true leader made the typically headstrong Verita meek, bowing both her head and body before his piercing blue eyes.
"My apologies for intruding, my Lord..."
Once she recovered enough from the temporary moment of embarrassment for trespassing upon his personal quarters Verita noticed that beside his portrait was one of him, his wife, and the crown prince from when the latter could not have been more than three or four years old. The boy had the same icy blue eyes as his parents and shared their raven hair, but he seemed perhaps a bit smaller than one would expect a Jarn at his age to be, something that likely would have sorted itself out in time had he been able to have such a thing. Sitting upon his mother's lap, he held the innocence of youth even as he mirrored his parents' stoicism, giving him a precocious appearance that was endearing in a way.
His mother was visibly pregnant, showing that the rumors of there only being one heir to be false, though given what Verita had passed by it was unlikely that such a thing mattered now. The Queen was a beauty befitting of her role, no doubt having benefitted from similar gene-crafting as her husband had, and she possessed an appearance that demonstrated all of the typical Kimaran traits one would expect to see from how her cheeks were set to the shape of her nose. In that way she reminded Verita of Isolde, who had likely been engineered to possess those exact Kimaran features.
Beside that family portrait was where another ought to be hanging given the wall's fixture, but whatever had been there was missing. If it had been removed, destroyed, or was simply never filled in was unknown, though Verita felt that there was a present absence in that spot. Maybe a Jarn before them had used it and they had not yet been able to, perhaps it was something else mundane, but Verita noticed it all the same.
After the torn bedroom came those of the children, the closest belonging to the crown prince and resembling his parents' the most out of them all. Almost all personal touches and traces had been destroyed or removed, though Verita did find a damaged set of books and materials concerning the raising of Ixolotls. Given that his approximate age when he passed away was eight it was likely he had received one on Ixolotl Day and was like a child eagerly interested in their first pet. To support this was the presence of a small, albeit now destroyed, pool a juvenile Ixolotl could rest within.
Despite how many rumors surrounded the crown prince little remained to shed light on him, something Verita was disgruntled by but accepted begrudgingly as she could not wind back the hands of time to restore the room to its visual prime. With his room inspected she looked into those other rooms set aside for their family, finding two of them furnished as if for young children around the ages of 4-6, and another which was a nursery which possessed three beds in it that had been used. Verita could tell they had been used as their royal cribs had been stabbed through by something incredibly sharp and the blood of the infants which once rested on them having stained the surrounding spaces, just as the beds in the second and third royal children's rooms had been.
Verita fought the nausea that struck her immediately after witnessing the grisly sights, having expected as much but still shocked to witness it firsthand. That one detail and the fact each room had been searched through were the only details in common concerning the incident, and by staying focused it allowed her to piece together the next step in the series of events.
After the death of the Queen there had been no-one capable of fighting back against the assassins, and so they executed the children where they had laid in bed. One of the older children had tried hiding to no avail, and the others had been too young to understand what was happening or protect themselves in any way. Each of them had died in bed...but for one.
The crown prince.
Verita could not locate any traces of blood in his own room, nor could she find more than what one would expect of infants and young children in the others. The state of the hallway made it difficult to be certain, but it was likely that the blood there had belonged to the Queen and her opponents only as where it stained it did so in greater quantity than one would think an eight year old boy capable of. He could have been taken and slain elsewhere, or run and been cut down in the process, but from the faint evidence Verita possessed it seemed that the crown prince had not perished alongside his family. That would explain the area being torn apart, with the assassins desperately searching for him, but there were still many unknowns.
Where was he if not in bed? If he had been present at the time he would have died almost certainly with the alleged presence of an Astarte and however many other assassins remained in the area. He might be expected to be studying at his age, but would he not have been doing that in his room?
It struck Verita as she returned to his room and laid eyes on the discarded books and pool just where he would have been: going to play with his new pet and then bring it back with him to bed. He was not present because he was a young boy who loved the sweet and innocent creature that had just been given to him. Those searching for him overlooked the Ixolotl equipment and materials because they likely did not share the personal bond with the creatures Kimarans did and thus underestimated the mutual love shared between pet and owner.
While it made sense, it was a theory that hinged on there being a place for the crown prince to play with his Ixolotl while remaining within the palace, as Verita doubted he would have been allowed outside at such a late hour in the night. The Queen would not have likely disallowed her son from picking up his newborn Ixolotl however, and so inadvertently spared her son the same immediate fate as the others...but Verita still had to locate somewhere that could have been his destination if she was to determine any possibility of him surviving as rumors had whispered ever since.
For the first time in a century there might be conclusive proof located that the crown prince of the Jarn family was alive, and while it was still a longshot it redoubled Verita's efforts even after the disheartening scenes she had just witnessed.
If only she knew she would end up here today, Verita would have brought a schematic of the palace. Instead she would have to check the massive structure's many rooms on her own, and so she began her new search for further evidence of the palace coup's events room by room.
It took hours to traverse the entire structure and locate what she sought, but eventually Verita came across a room dedicated entirely to Ixolotls that mirrored the cave beneath the Schola. It was self-sustaining to a degree and so still had certain simple systems running thanks to the engineering put into them such as water filters and hygiene devices for Ixolotls, the lack of complexity likely due to the fascination the creatures had with peculiar objects that they could take. This helped explain how the wild Ixolotls were able to thrive in the abandoned structure, as they had as much water as they needed and given the signs of their recent usage were intelligent enough to use these systems that made them feel 'clean'.
The room possessed a playground-like quality to it for children and their Ixolotls to interact with while elsewhere were 'igloos' for Ixolotls not belonging to any one particular person to reside within. It was a very simple and relaxed environment but it fulfilled its purpose, though that did not immediately solve Verita's search. She could be wrong in her theory after all and she had no actual evidence, only her gut feeling based on what details stuck out to her in their personal quarters, and so she needed to find something more concrete if she was to substantiate this hypothesis.
Unfortunately for her there did not seem to be any cameras present in the room to access old footage from, nor were there signs of the same conflict as elsewhere, as in this environment some things being knocked over was to be expected given the absentminded nature of the animals residing within. A tail knocking over a chair or other object would go completely unnoticed by an Ixolotl, but it could also be due to another search for the prince, and so Verita wracked her brain for how to read the room like she had the others thus far.
With her other point of reference being the cave at the Schola where Ixolotls gathered and had their 'school', Verita tried to think of any similarities that could benefit her. Going through the features of them bit by bit took some time, but eventually she came to a simple idea: Ixolotl Cam. The love Kimarans had for their pets meant that even when separated from them they enjoyed being able to check on them, and so cameras had been put in place in the Ixolotl school to allow owners to witness their pets throughout the day without having to travel to do so. The video feed was projected openly for anyone on Kimara to witness, and careful attention was paid to camera placement that it would not reveal their actual subversive activities within the Schola.
To do this the cameras had to be hidden, as Ixolotls still learning might not possess the same appreciation for property that older Ixolotls possessed and notice markings on them. Having an Ixolotl disconnect a camera and run away with it happily would cause unnecessary problems, so a set fixture was put in place in the walls to view the classes and allow for them to be unnoticed by the animals present.
How likely was it that a palace engineered by Kimarans that went out of its way to have a large room set aside for such creatures would possess something similar? The security cameras elsewhere in the palace had been since removed along with their footage, but such a hidden camera could have been ignored without anyone knowing.
It took a fair amount of searching, but Verita eventually came to locate a tile on the wall that was slightly different from the others to account for the fact that it was masking a camera's lens as a part of it. Verita sighed a breath of relief as her idea paid off, not knowing what else she would have done if not for this as the room was so sparse that there was little to work with. Whether the camera would have what she wanted revealed on it, if it functioned, if its footage could be properly played, all of these things were unknown still but she began working on unearthing the camera from its fixture while taking care to not damage anything but the wall itself.
Her knack for noticing important details was paying off, and soon Verita held the camera in hand along with its related equipment. Checking it all for recordings took some moments more, but certainly enough it held a native database of recordings similar to those they used elsewhere for security cameras on Kimara. A surveillance tool used to look after simple-minded pets was perhaps odd, but it made sense for them and so Verita continued forward.
The camera itself was dead, but by locating equipment from abandoned rooms in the palace Verita was able to splice together a working monitor to connect the database to. To power it required another search for electronic devices with energy stores that were still held, though the technologically favoring Jarns had plenty of devices throughout the palace for Verita to pilfer. What the objects she was grabbing she did not quite know, but they were cannibalized for parts she did recognize and so eventually she was able to fit an external battery to the system she made as well.
Fiddling here and there was necessary to ignore all the many, many, many days of recorded Ixolotl material that was not relevant but fortunately the appropriated security camera had a timestamp on its footage which allowed Verita to match the footage she was viewing to the date of the coup. At first events seemed normal with nominal sightings of Humans in the room throughout the day, most notably the King and Queen visiting to see their son's Ixolotl when they had a free moment, and then finally the prince himself late at night came to stay for some time as his pet mimicked just about everything he did even if it did not quite understand what it was doing.
There was an easy to read moment of when exactly the coup broke out, as both the prince and the Ixolotls present reacted to something elsewhere within the palace. The prince appeared concerned while his Ixolotl appeared concerned that he stopped patting its head, prompting it to push its forehead into his palm as the prince remained frozen where he was in apt attention. He seemed to be listening to whatever was going on to try and make out what it was, but his fears were confirmed when the conflict's noise began to reach deeper and deeper into the palace's structure.
True to their nature the Ixolotls present in the room did not properly understand the conflict waging elsewhere within the palace, but the sounds of gunfire and cries of pain clued them in that it was time to hide and wait out the storm. The prince did the same, following them into their igloos since he did not know what was happening but likely trusted that he would be safe if he just waited it out while remaining out of sight.
Only a minute later some of the noises died down and so the prince silently crawled over to the edge of the igloo he was within to see if everything was okay now, his face showing the pride one would expect of his people. He likely thought some terrorists had attacked and been taken out by their guards in that moment, only to see and hear a gunfight break out further down the hall. That it was so close scared him as one would expect, though he remained where he was as he noticed a shimmer before him that was difficult to notice on the camera but became obvious a moment after.
Appearing as if from thin air was a new figure, this one standing at what seemed to be twice the prince's height and many times his overall size. That they were an Astarte was obvious by their Power Armor and form, though it remained unadorned with any discernable markings and their face was covered by an old mark of armor likely from the Great Crusade. Attached to their armor was a cameleoline cloak that had allowed for his sudden appearance, and still mostly covered by it was a Power Lance that had blood splattered across the visible portion of its shaft. With the weapon and the Astartes' height it seemed unlikely that it was the one who slew the other Jarns, and so as she watched Verita felt confident that this newcomer was not a threat to the last remaining Jarn.
From the prince's reaction to seeing the figure it was obvious that this was not their first meeting, as rather than recoil he accepted their aid in being lifted up and held. Showing familiarity perhaps with the native culture, the Astarte bent down to also retrieve the prince's own Ixolotl from where it sat on the ground happily thumping its tail up and down. The Prince held his pet while the Astarte in turn held him, and a moment thereafter they disappeared from sight as the cameleoline cloak was brought back into place covering them entirely. There were a few moments where it was possible words were being passed between them throughout the encounter, but the positioning of the camera made it difficult to tell.
From there the camera's recording would continue until its personal power supply would run out some days after the coup, showing in the process the soldiers of the Conomors searching for the prince within and failing to find anything despite overturning everything in their way. The Ixolotls present avoided the soldiers during their hours long search, and it would only be some days after when the room was visited again by what presumably were local Jarn loyalists by their uniforms who would then escort the Ixolotls out and to safety now that the palace had been abandoned. Perhaps they or their offspring had been the ones to return to this place, but Verita pushed that trivia aside to focus on the matter at hand.
Who the Astarte was, what he was doing there, or how the prince knew him were all unknown to Verita, but this discovery was important all the same for it reaffirmed the trail she was on. The absence of bloodshed within the first prince's room could have been considered a coincidence, the boy having been slain in some other place, but this recording proved that he was not with his kin at the time of the attack. A boy's affection and fascination with his new pet had inadvertently spared him the immediate fate of his mother, father, and siblings by pure circumstance.
It did not confirm that the prince escaped, or that his recorded fate did not happen at some later point in the turbulent series of events surrounding the palace coup, but it did mean that Verita's suspicion was confirmed. Prince Trahaearn was evacuated from this location by an unknown Astarte, and given that they would have almost certainly been discovered through the main entrance which saw a flood of conspirators rush inward there would have had to have been another route for them to try and avoid discovery. It was all a theory on Verita's part, but through further observation she felt she could perhaps find the truth hidden in plain sight.
"Ihh."
Verita looked down to see that one of the feral Ixolotls had approached her, it being a juvenile only up to about her thigh. From what she could tell by its gesturing was that it wanted the shiny camera she held, and so without a second thought she handed it over while pocketing the data for herself. This pleased the creature as it sat down and began to use its developing arms to hold its shiny object before it, giving Verita no mind as she once again began to search for a needle in an avalanche...but she had an idea of where to go.
One room that stood out to Verita in her search for the Ixolotl center was a room for prayer, it seemingly being meant for the royal family to pray to the Emperor within given the great mithril monument dedicated to him and the artwork showing his once handsome appearance and flowing black hair as he stood triumphantly in golden armor.
The Jarns were not known to be particularly large adherents to the Emperor's cult, for while they worshipped him they did so in an almost secular manner most records showed. Perhaps the room was just for appearances, but in her hours of searching this was the one room which Verita felt had barely been used. Sure the Jarns would pray to the Emperor, but that was because of his proven power over the Immaterium, not because they thought he was a god that he so vehemently denied he was. So why a typical Imperial styled prayer chamber when something more spartan would fit their sensibilities better? The Imperium accepted many forms of worship for the Emperor since to force a strict interpretation on every world would be difficult, so why the scriptures and dogma?
To a typical Imperial this room would be normal, like any other, but to Verita who was more like the Jarns in her worship of the Emperor it stuck out like a sore thumb. Clausura would have knelt down and immediately begun praying had she been here and not training directly with the Sisters of Battle these days, not that Verita felt her fellow Schola student would side against the Imperial regime on Kimara.
It would be heresy to any Imperial servant who witnessed it, but Verita began fiddling around with the statue of the Emperor that was so conspicuous in the room. It seemed that her suspicion of this out-of-place room was unfounded as she failed to locate anything of note, frustrating her as she tried in vain to find anything to explain this object made to scale of the Emperor.
Then Isolde noticed that the creator, whomever he or she was, had granted the statue a very Kimaran touch: an Ixolotl stood beside the Emperor in as dignified a manner as the creature could muster.
An Ixolotl, the creature some members of the Imperium wished to purge due to the belief that they were despicable Xenos, was placed next to the Emperor of Mankind in all his glory.
Verita reached out to touch the Ixolotl, running her soft hand over its dusty form until she finished fishing out her scanner to better observe it. As one might expect it was most worn on its head where the facsimile of the creature received gentle pats from visitors, but the most recent evidence of being touched was on its tail in a specific spot. From its placement one would have to go out of their way to reach and touch the tail making it not an obvious thing to do, but Verita reached over and did so with her lanky arm.
Sliding her hand around the tail, Verita soon came to find a small button beneath it which when touched caused the entire statue to shift its place to reveal a set of stairs leading down to some unknown location. After observing the process Verita traded her scanner for the black box from where it sat in the satchel at her side, and as expected it was finally reacting unlike everywhere else she had checked within Krakengard.
-OR-E-
The message remained cryptic, but another piece was unveiled and that was what mattered to Verita.
First it brought Verita to the location of a statue dedicated to Trahaearn Jarn and the other Kimarans who became Iron Warriors at the site of their first contact with the Astartes, then it brought her to a location showing the victims of the Conomor regime in grisly detail, and now today it had Verita traverse both the Conomor and Jarn palaces until she came to find this.
The first prince of Kimara, son of the final Jarn to rule the world, might just have survived the purge of his family.
A/N: Wait you mean Ixolotls were important all along? Always were. (Astronaut blam meme here)
I will be releasing more updates this week, but please share your thoughts on this one in the meantime! Figure it has a fair bit for you to chew on, so go ahead and sink your teeth in!
