Trazyn the Infinite watched the recording of Panaa dancing for the one thousandth, three hundred and fifty second time. It was beautiful, enthralling, a glimpse of the past of his people. Trazyn had carefully hidden his reaction to the drawings and recordings in the meeting with the pwi-necrons and Oramoton. Primarily because he would not allow himself to have a complete breakdown in front of an enemy.

Oramoton was an enemy, although Trazyn had no idea why he'd wanted to be one in the first place. Trazyn had just been trying to recover the artifacts and a few samples of a dying race of humanoids before their sun went into its' death throes. True, it had been within the Charnovokh sphere of influence, but so what? He hadn't even been stealing – ahem, requisitioning items from them. This particular race had been so weak and pathetic that the necrons hadn't even noticed them or cared.

Oramoton had interfered, Trazyn had been driven off and that minor civilization had been consigned to ash, not even a memento of their passing left in his gallery. It wasn't a major matter but it had been highly vexing and Trazyn had always carried a grudge. Taking Oramoton's staff and kicking the degraded creature he'd become in the face had been highly satisfying. Still, everyone could learn and if Oramoton had genuinely discovered a bit of humility, Trazyn could drop the feud. Returning the staff was, for him, a gesture of forgiveness.

Now, Trazyn was filled with an incredible longing as he watched the recordings again and again, and looked at the precious drawings of the necrontyr. How had they done this? How had this female necron remembered the Flesh Times in such incredible detail? And as she spoke, Trazyn noticed something odd about her. If he turned off his oculars and filtered her voice to an organic tone, he would have sworn he was listening to a human, not an ancient necron. It took him a while but he finally understood why… she sounded young. They were all over sixty million years old, they all fundamentally carried their age like a heavy cloak on their shoulders. How could one of them sound so… young?

"I must know more," Trazyn murmured to himself. But the problem was, how would he learn more? His contacts in Sautekh had dried up which, now that he thought about it, was rather suspicious. Because they had too much to hide now and didn't want to be accused of disloyalty? It was one thing to share a bit of idle gossip, quite another to compromise Imotekh's plans to a potential enemy. So what was he to do?

Trying to infiltrate Hope was on the table, but Trazyn knew it was turning into a tougher and tougher nut to crack. Trazyn was very good at such things and had figured out why… the human capital of Hope's Landing, where most of the interesting things could be found, was under intense observation by the Coreworld AI and the human STC. So intense that even he would have difficulties infiltrating it.

(Trazyn didn't care about the STC because he already had one)

(it wasn't functional, but it didn't have to be for how he was using it. It was nicely cross sectioned to display the technology within)

So, infiltrating Hope probably wouldn't work. What else then? Trazyn considered his collection of shells and various husks… he was a bit short on Sautekh dynasty shells. Also, right now Mandragora seemed to be hosting some kind of great gathering, from what he had managed to get. It would be difficult to slip a shell in right now.

What of his other resources? Trazyn did have a beautiful collection of pwi-necrons now. One from each unit, taken in a way that made it seem like recall failures. He could have taken more than just one but it wasn't necessary, for the displays that required more than one Trazyn had just taken a few Necron Warriors, fixed their chest cartouche's to match the pwi-necron's and used them as stand-ins. The only pwi-necron unit that he had more than one from was the God's Hands. That beautiful scene of true love but also a warrior fighting against orks, clearly outnumbered and about to die but standing proud and tall to the end.

Trazyn could recall the details of every single display in Solemnace with ease, so he immediately arrowed in on that particular pwi-necron. It would be absurd to the point of incredulity, but he could definitely arrange something and make it SO convincing, they would have no choice to believe it. He had tons of orks of course and humans could hardly tell the difference between one war-band and another. Also, with the way they were constantly culled on Luminous, it would be hard in any case. He could use his Mindshackle Scarabs and plant a band of orks on Lumionous, with a certain pwi-necron as a prisoner. Trazyn would make him a proxy, but not in the usual way where he completely re-write the hosts' personality. No, he would wear the former human's personality like a shroud, concealing himself as he tried to understand what was happening in the Sautekh Dynasty.

It was all a bit of an elaborate idea and plenty of things could go wrong, but Trazyn decided he would try it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained as the humans would say. And Trazyn did know one thing.

This would be quite an interesting time.

To Manric's utter relief, Zivok and Semephren arrived in Mandragora in a few months.

Introducing them to everyone was a bit amusing. Semephren wasn't a problem… Nihilakh wasn't an enemy of Sautekh just yet and depending on events, might never be. Not to mention that Semephren had changed his loyalties, which was completely respectable for a Cryptek. Zivok, on the other hand, got many strange looks for very obvious reasons. The eccentric researcher had been customizing his shell and it looked a bit different now.

"Really Zivok? You do realize that other humans get surgery so they can STOP wearing glasses?" Manric said with a buzzing laugh. Zivok made a sound that managed to mimick a sniff fairly well, reaching up to touch the metal on his face, for all the world like he was adjusting them. They were part of his face, though, not actual glasses and purely cosmetic.

"Well for some of us, glasses are also a fashion statement. Did you know that some people wear empty frames because they just like how they look?" What, really? What a bizarre thought. "You were the child who just put on whatever clothes were on the top of the pile and didn't care if you were wearing plaid and stripes, weren't you."

"Guilty as charged, although my mother wouldn't allow me to go out like that," Manric said easily, remembering a few times his mother had forced him to go change. "Why the lab coat though? You don't need it." They were practical garb for working in a lab, as far as Manric knew.

"Manric… I don't tend to talk about my past, but maybe I should for once. I come from a serf family and not a rich one, just field laborers." …Really? Manric was genuinely surprised, that was a very hard road, elevating yourself from such beginnings. "I had to work very hard to get where I am and while I know it might be foolish, this is my badge of rank, the sign of my accomplishments." Zivok reached up to touch his 'glasses' again. "I might eventually get rid of it and replace it with Cryptek markings of rank, when I've earned them, but for now I'm a junior cryptek and not entitled to such things. So I'll keep my lab coat, even if it will make me stand out here."

"There's no point in trying to fit in anyway, with the design of your body," Semephren put in. He'd been listening to the whole thing. He reached out to gently tinkle Zivok's 'hair' in a gesture that struck Manric as friendly. "This is actually rather appealing, it reminds me of the Flesh Times, but it's also very strange." Not to mention Zivok's human model face. Well, they would just have to deal with that.

"Be that as it may, we've brought a new load of what should be psyker level souls. Some using Rafeef's and your DNA, others with the new Navigator stock we acquired. Although, with that, we were careful to look for less powerful Navigators who do small distance hops." Uh… why? "Navigators can be very powerful psykers, Manric, but their mutations and training give them a fairly intense resistance to corruption. Those mutations don't work with a pure soul, they're partly physical, so I am really quite concerned about the dangers of using strong ones." Ah, Chaos corruption. Manric felt a prickle of unease at the thought. Thank heavens that Blackstone was actually incredibly easy for the necrons to churn out. It required only base materials, and they had long ago perfected the transmutation process. The only limitation to it was the energy that was required, but they had C'Tan shards hooked directly to the Blackstone forges to deal with that. "Semephren and I will complete the resouling of the chosen crypteks. Then, I will train them to use their new skills was Semephren assists you with the overall operation."

"That sounds like a plan." One of Zivok's greatest gifts was his skill with teaching. It was a bit bizarre, considering he had very little people skills in most ways, but he was always able to translate things into an understandable format. Manric was good at teaching skill with arms, but his grasp on his psyker abilities was too deep and intuitive and the abilities themselves were too unusual. He had no ability with teaching in that area at all. "Let's get started." He would help them with the resouling of the crypteks.

Once they had an entire team who could complete this process, things would start moving far more quickly.

For Trazyn the Infinite, everything went Just As Planned.

The orks were mildly confused by it all, but played their part extremely well just the same. Trazyn had taken care not to include any excessively intelligent ones – they did exist, and he had a few – so the orks had just accepted their new surroundings and begun doing orkish things. The Mindshackle Scarabs had prevented them from actually doing anything to their 'prisoner' and Trazyn had arranged his captivity quite artistically. The pwi-necron was not just chained, bolts had been driven through his ankles and wrists, attached to the chains and most effectively preventing him from moving. His chest was partially opened, as if an inquisitive ork had been tinkering with his insides.

Trazyn wasn't bothered but the pwi-necron in question was in a state of great discomfort. Trazyn found it mildly amusing, how he futily kept trying to adjust his body to find something a bit less irritating. What a silly child. Yes, it was irritating, but some things just had to be endured.

Rescue eventually came as expected, when the orks began raiding the humans and the forces of Luminous came for them. This was the mildly dangerous part. It was possible that the pwi-necron would take a stray hit from some of the humans' armaments, particularly the heavier weapons the Knight Armors carried. And if he went for recall, Trazyn would be removed from the back of his mind. Then it would all be for naught.

Fortunately, that didn't happen. The humans and pwi-necrons swept through the ork camp, exterminating squigs and other smaller orks as they mopped things up. Trazyn could hear swearing and screams, interspersed with laughter and after a moment of listening, he understood that one of the pwi-necrons had gotten hit by a defecating squig and it had done precisely what the name suggested. Trazyn shuddered a little internally. As someone who had collected plenty of orks in his day, he knew that fecal matter, while not a preferred weapon was never completely off the table. Vomit as well.

Pulling his mind away from the horrible habits of orks, Trazyn listened as his host yelled for help. It wasn't as loud as he might have liked, thanks to the damage to his chest. Before long he was discovered by some other pwi-necrons who were utterly shocked to find a captive. To the point that they were even a bit suspicious.

"Has this ever happened before?" One of them asked in a low tone. One of the others responded more loudly.

"No, but no reason why it couldn't. And if they'd killed him, he'd have gone for recall and they likely knew it." Yes, the recall functions were a form of teleportation, returning their bodies to the recall chambers. That technology was… not lost, precisely, but very difficult to manufacture. Were the Sautekh and Uhnashret expanding their capacity for recalls? Trazyn would not be surprised, although the recall facilities were not normally dedicated to any single unit. It was possible for them to be overwhelmed by mass casualties.

It did mean that the lesser races wanted to examine a necron, they needed to either find one that had completely failed to recall – not even getting to the facilities, rather than suffering a failure on rebuild – find a Tomb world that had failed to awaken, or just keep the necron in question alive. None of those options were easy but of the three, the last was probably the easiest.

His pwi-necron host was delivered to the hands of human engineers who expertly removed the bolts, allowing his body to begin repairing itself. They also mended some of the damage to his chest and Trazyn noticed that one human in particular seemed quite skilled. That was the one who was checking for anything amiss, a touch suspicious of the bizarre nature of the whole thing. Trazyn caught a few whispers and knew part of the issue was the timeline… this unit had been missing for years and they did not understand how he could have been captive for so long.

Some, however, did not care.

"FRIEND!" The pwi-necron he was inhabiting yelped as a new necron barged in and hugged him vigorously. The human engineers swore as they barely avoided the crushing display of affection. "I missed you SO MUCH! We all thought you were dead! Where have you been?!" He very firmly put a hand against his 'friend's face' and pushed him away.

"Look, I appreciate it that you care for me and thought I was dead, but you're making everything worse. Get out of the way so Karl can keep fixing me up a bit," he said firmly and the other pwi-necron settled back, gazing at his 'friend' in a way that struck a bemused Trazyn as adoring. "I'm not sure what happened, I seem to have lost a lot of time. My last memory is getting hit in the face with something… then maybe a month ago I woke up and it seems the orks had me." Had it been a month? Trazyn had barely noticed.

"Wow, that's crazy! But you're really here? You're not a dream?" The pwi-necron reached out to take his hands and his voice wobbled a little. "I missed you so much." Trazyn made a mental note that if he needed to retrieve this one, he should perhaps take them both. This level of attachment was a rare thing.

"Oh, Loki… yes, I'm real and I'm here." Loki? That was a very odd name for a human, Trazyn had never heard that name before.

"I'm so glad Calder. I really, really am." They just stayed together then, holding hands, as the human engineers closed up his chest.

"Alright, that's not fully repaired but your auto-repair functions should be able to do the rest. Just take it easy for a day or two and you'll be fine. Loki, take him out somewhere better, no one in their right mind wants to hang out here." Well, Trazyn wouldn't have minded taking a closer look at the equipment in the hanger-sized repair bay. He hadn't taken a sample of Hope's Knight Armor yet and they looked slightly different from the versions the Imperium used. Still, that was extremely low priority. And as for his host, Trazyn could see why Calder might prefer to get out of this place. The sounds of machines being worked on were not particularly pleasant even for a necron.

"Right right," Loki said agreeably before gently helping his friend to his feet. Trazyn could feel the hand on his chest and the arm around him, steadying him as he was taken outside. "You've been gone so long, we have a little garden now, do you want to see?"

"Really? You mean a vegetable garden or flowers? Either way, it sounds nice," Calder said and Loki began gently guiding him towards that.

"Both, but the vegetables are only fresh herbs for the food. Calder, it was the funniest thing! We planted a lot of mint because well, we like it, it smells nice and tastes great but then a stupid bird came and ate ALL of it and then all the birds died!" Yes well that could happen if you didn't know what you were doing. Trazyn was highly amused, he wouldn't have made a mistake like that. "We're still trying to figure out what happened. So no more mint."

"How tragic," Calder said and Loki flashed a quick series of glyphs that made Trazyn stare in complete perplexity. One of them wasn't even necron, it was something else entirely but translated into a glyph format. "Oh god, stop trying to make norse runes a thing. Also, 'Odin is giggling' is the stupidest message I have ever seen." At least he wasn't the only one to think so. "I blame your parents for this."

"You really are back. I am so happy," Loki sounded deliriously happy, as much as a necron voice could manage. Caldar patted him on the shoulder, a soft sound of metal on metal. Then they reached the gardens and Trazyn saw a rather basic little series of flower beds, with dirt paths between them. The flowers were native blooms that Trazyn tentatively identified as annuals, a riotous assortment of colors. Around each of the beds, though, some thoughtful gardener had planted an edging of white blooms. White on the edges, brilliant colors in the centre, it was simple but beautiful.

"Ah, this is nice. Can we just sit here for a while?" There was a bench and with damaged joints, it was actually more comfortable than standing. Highly unusual for a necron and for Loki standing would surely be better, but he joined his friend on the bench just the same.

"Let me tell you what's been happening while you were gone." And Trazyn quickly found his ears filled with a great deal of gossip. Everything from amusing little incidents, speculations on certain humans intimate relations and the goings on in the town. Trazyn just soaked it in, recording it for later. None of it was important, but it would give him flavor when he added a display taken from this planet. And honestly, he thought Luminous deserved a specific mention in his galleries. It did seem to be quite a charming little place.

And hopefully, with a bit of patience, he would find out what the Sautekh Dynasty was up to these days.