Ahriman pondered his meeting with that odd little sorcerer as he gazed out at the obscene beauty of Tizca.

Truly impressive. Astral walking was far from unknown. However, to penetrate the defenses and pure chaos of Tizca, without the slightest iota of training… that was impressive. And then to overlay a mental landscape, to serve as a very effective protection to soul and sanity… that was the kind of thing that normally only a very experienced traveller could accomplish.

Of course, that had disadvantages. Ahriman thought about it for a moment… when you used a mental landscape in that way, everything you interacted with became symbolic of your own mind. A daemon would appear as something you expected, or your own interpretation of what they should look like. And many things would not be seen at all, hidden away and if you were doing it correctly, they would also not see you. Ahriman was sure the little sorcerer had wandered past other sorcerers and fiends without even noticing them, and they had not noticed him. Quite effective, particularly if you knew exactly what you wanted to interact with. Ahriman had done it himself, on occasion.

Apparently, whether he knew it or not, what the little sorcerer had wanted to interact with was him. Ahriman glanced at the raven on his shoulder, then at the one in the windowsill.

"Did the two of you arrange this?" Ahriman knew the ravens. They 'belonged' to Magnus, although from his experience they did not follow his commands in the slightest. Free agents, of a sort. Were they owned by Tzeentch? Even he did not know. The little daemon on the wall though, that he DID know. To him, it did not look like a feathered iguana – what a strange vision – it looked like a small Chaos spawn, with far too many eyes and feathers, signifying that it was a spawn of Tzeentch.

"Yes, pretty much. But not for his benefit, for yours," the raven on the windowsill finally spoke before beginning to groom himself. That made Ahriman lift an eyebrow. For HIS benefit? "We could tell you more but you should figure it out yourself. Also, now that he knows you he'll be back." Yes… that was part of why Ahriman had ended the conversation. He wanted to think about it and speak to the ravens and he was sure, with the premonitions that could come of fine precognition, that the little sorcerer would be back.

"If you ask me, he'd probably be better off never getting trained at all," the raven on his shoulder said and Ahriman turned his head to look at it. "He has such good instincts and he can incorporate anything into his dream. When anything tries to attack him, he just turns it into a 'fight scene'." What?

"Fight scene?" Ahriman asked, a bit bemused. This time the new Chaos spawn, the one that was not his familiar, responded.

"Too much time playing video games," it rasped, its voice sounding shockingly decayed. "To much time reading books… too much time on the boob tube…" What? Ahriman disregarded that, but he got the general message. So this young psyker had the power to force strong Chaos entities to dance to his tune, becoming part of his mental landscape and being defanged in the process. Also, he might have the ability to warp reality itself. So if he dream walked to an actual, physical being, completely in the material realm he might also incorporate that person into his dream. That was… potentially incredibly destructive. And yet.

"He never has negative dreams, does he," Ahriman asked. He'd already sensed that about Loki, even in their brief interaction.

"Nope," the Chaos spawn responded and Ahriman nodded thoughtfully. That was the primary danger of an untrained dream walker. The dream could easily become a nightmare and if the psyker was powerful enough, inflict incalculable damage on the real world, the Warp, and the psyker himself.

"It is very unusual for a psyker to have this ability, and no other." Ahriman knew dream walking well, he did it himself quite a bit. This was normally an advanced power of a sorcerer, not something a psyker had as a primary ability. For a psyker to have this as a primary ability… it was no wonder his power had been missed. Even in the Imperium, where the Black Ships scoured for psykers, this kind of internalized power could easily slip through the cracks. "So dangerous," Ahriman mused, considering killing the young sorcerer. But no, it was much too soon for that and if the birds were not playing him false, this Loki might be of use to him.

The transfer of souls to a necron body. That was of interest. Ahriman had no idea how that process functioned and from the way Loki had spoken, he didn't really know either. Could this be a possible avenue to undo his greatest mistake? At the very least, he should learn of this process to accumulate the knowledge. Even if it ultimately proved useless to him, knowledge was never wasted.

Ahriman thought the best avenue of attack would simply be to quiz Loki, and then politely ask the young sorcerer to get him more information. Loki had a puppy dog like quality of wanting to be liked and Ahriman was an expert manipulator. He was sure he would be able to get the young fool to part with information.

"Don't underestimate him," the Chaos spawn rasped and Ahriman looked at it sharply. "Yeah, don't… he's way older than you think… he didn't tell you, didn't tell you he was old and grey when he stepped through the fires. He's good at looking and sounding dumb, but he's not dumb at all."

"Just be sincere," Munin said and Ahriman frowned. "Don't try to manipulate him, he'll spot it and you don't even need to. Just be sincere." Just be sincere… it sounded laughable, but Ahriman did understand what they were saying. You could manipulate simply via complete sincerity. "I'm wasting my breath… he's not going to trust you, you schemer." The raven sounded affectionate but Ahriman huffed, waving it away. It flew off and the window opened, allowing the two ravens to exit and fly out into the chaos of Tizca.

"Rightly so," Ahriman muttered. There had been a time he'd been trustworthy, but that had died long ago, with the betrayal of a friend. Now he moved entirely for his own ends and one way or the other, he would achieve them.

The ends justified the means and if he had to kill that little sorcerer, he would do it without a single thought.

While Ahriman did not give the slightest of damns that Slaanesh was dead, there were others that cared considerably more.

Magnus was more marvelling at it than anything. As soon as the final Crone Sword was retrieved, he had seen the future unfold and the rearranging of the Warp from four to three again. And he'd seen all the other Ruinous Powers breathing sighs of relief, as the young and deeply threatening sibling was removed. All of them, from Tzeentch to Khorne, had been a little afraid of Slaanesh. They all had desires, even Nurgle.

For them, this was not an unpleasant occasion, more like a realignment to what should have been if the eldar hadn't been such fools. As such, Magnus thought most of the Warp would just shrug a little and get on with things. It was a blow to Chaos Undivided, but not as big a blow as the Imperium of Man might hope.

As Magnus stared at a mirror, investigating the chaos of the Warp, a raven flitted in, followed by another. He was standing at the top of the highest tower of Tizca, a glorious thing of crystal and light. It radiated searing energies that would have raped away the sanity of any human to dare look upon it, but Magnus found that pleasant, even comforting. There were great, open windows that the ravens could easily travel back and forth with.

"Hey," Munin said as he landed on the frame of the mirror. Hugin took a spot on the windowsill, grooming his feathers. Magnus wasn't surprised they'd come to see him… he'd detected them spending some time with Ahriman. Likely trying to help him in some way, Magnus knew they wanted to help him save the Rubric Marines. Magnus himself no longer cared but that was the least of his concerns with Ahriman, so he also didn't care if the chosen of Tzeentch pursued it. "What are you looking at?"

"The changes in the Warp," Magnus replied, still examining the ebbs and flows of power. One very clever and willful Daemon Prince was devouring other Princes and attempting to become a power of Chaos Undivided. It looked like she might even succeed, which was deeply concerning. "I might take action." If he did, though, he might anger all three Ruinous Powers. Would it be worth it though to eliminate something so potentially dangerous? "…Or I might not." Be'lakor had noticed and was going to war against the challenger. And now, the other Ruinous Powers were supporting them both, probably to see who would win. Quite a fight was going on, in the Immaterium and the ripples of it would disrupt interstellar travel again. Who was this daemon prince?

"Ax'senaea is her name. Don't bother even trying to talk to her, she's insane," Hugin said quietly and Magnus turned to look at him. The raven looked back with beady eyes.

"She has no grasp on reality. She thinks that everything is an extension of herself," Munin said from his place on the mirror and Magnus lifted an eyebrow. "But belief has power." That… was concerning. Magnus turned back to the mirror before murmuring a quick incantation. The strengthening he sent to Be'lakor was quite subtle and would probably pass unnoticed. That was about all he could do, no one would take him getting involved well.

Magnus frowned as he watched the conflict in the mirror. This was the one thing he did not like about the downfall of Slaanesh, the way all these strange daemon princes had suddenly been scooped up by the other powers or, in the case of this one, tried to 'court' all three. He already had enough headaches with the other daemon princes of Tzeentch, he had no desire to welcome more completely untrustworthy 'brothers and sisters'.

(Tzeentch had described them that way once. Magnus could not more disagree)

I wonder how Lorgar is reacting to all this? If Magnus had to guess, he was having a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums. What would follow that, though? Would he perhaps go on a quest to avenge one of his lost 'gods'? If so, the eldar would have a remorseless enemy now. Perhaps he would even set his eyes on the necrons, a race that had previously not interested him at all. Would it even stir him to leave his monastery, where he was 'meditating'? Corvus was still stalking him.

Well, they would just have to see.

For Manric, the traitor Primarch and Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, Lorgar Aurelian would have been a very familiar personality type.

Born into a religious family, raised deeply in that religion, he was the kind of person who required faith to exist. Some would say that was brainwashing but in truth, it was also a fundamental personality attribute… Manric had been raised in conditions easily as faith steeped as Lorgar, but the results could not have been more different. Some humans did not need religion, but they were vastly outnumbered by those who did. Lorgar was one of the ones who did.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the one Lorgar would most have reminded Manric of was Kakkophet. He possessed the same intense level of belief, far into the depths of fanaticism. For someone of that nature, having their worldview shifted was painful indeed. If Manric had known how the Emperor had shattered Lorgar's faith in his divinity, he would have been aghast. The events following that had been predictable indeed, in their general outline.

Lorgar had been blithely certain that Slaanesh would prevail over Ynnead. That was part of why he did not even attempt to intervene. Also, it was fitting that Slaanesh put down the upstart eldar god, exactly as she had devoured the previous pantheon. The false gods would fall beneath the true.

That didn't happen and Lorgar's faith had been shaken a second time as he saw and felt one of his patrons be vanquished, claimed and absorbed by the now greater power that was Ynnead. And he sensed Ynnead creating a partition within the Warp, a realm dedicated to herself and the souls of the dead within her. It was Heaven, it was Hell and it was everything in between, but it was where the souls of the aeldari belonged. A place to rest and possibly be reborn from, a true and destined end.

What followed did strongly resemble a tantrum, as Lorgar destroyed most of the furniture and particularly ripped up a tapestry depicting Slaanesh in a frenzy. When that madness was over, he caught his breath and glared at nothing. Then he settled down to meditate on the remaining three gods, to try to determine their will.

To Lorgar's dismay, the three remaining Ruinous Powers felt rather smug. It almost made him despair… how was he to spread the Word of the gods if they insisted on fighting amongst themselves? It did not advance the cause of Chaos!

(the fact that none of them actually gave a damn about that did not cross Lorgar's mind in the slightest)

Unfortunately, things actively got worse. Lorgar watched the same events in the Immaterium as Magnus and felt rage. It might as well have been a gladiatorial pit, to amuse the Ruinous Powers! Was no one taking what had just happened remotely seriously?

Lorgar would have stormed off, gathered his children and launched a full campaign, starting with joining the Night Lords and annihilating Ulthwe… but even as he gathered himself, he felt three leashes go tight on his neck.

"None of you want me to go? WHY? We must avenge her!" Didn't they care at all?!

/No/
/Not/
/NOW/ What? Not NOW? What was happening right now?

Then a vision unfolded before Lorgar. It was a vision of the Immaterium, the glorious, frenetic beauty that he was used to. Then he saw it becoming pallid and grey. He saw the waves of it curdling like old milk, becoming hard and stone like. He saw daemons of Khorne falling to their knees and dropping their weapons, before offering all they were to Khorne himself, so he could survive just a little longer. He saw the blue feathers of Tzeentch falling away, the eyes closing. He saw Nurgle making a different choice, sacrificing himself to try to save his daemons, although it meant nothing in the end. And he saw the golden light of the false God gutter and die. He saw an ending and Lorgar staggered at the impact of it.

"That can't be happening now," Lorgar said after a moment, feeling a soul deep shock. All of his Gods were in danger? Everything was in danger?

/Soon/
/Very soon/ Lorgar swallowed. He knew the 'time sense' of the Ruinous Powers – if you could call it that, when they were non-linear – but 'soon' meant within fifty years. Very soon probably indicated within twenty years.

"Is there anything I can do to prevent this?" Lorgar asked although he suspected the answer was no. Otherwise, they would have told him earlier. There was a sense of the Gods pondering it. Then one of them in particular spoke, the voice Lorgar recognized as Tzeentch.

/Try to find the nameless God/
/It could be/
/Of value/ The nameless God? What were they talking about? Lorgar frowned, then settled down to meditate again. He would decipher what the 'nameless God' could mean.

He was a devoted child of the Gods and would serve them anyway he could.

If Revalt had known of Loki's assessment of himself, he would have completely disagreed.

Captain Revalt knew his own warriors quite well and Loki was ranked highly in his mind. Completely unsuitable for command, Loki was nonetheless extremely valuable. An intelligent and capable soldier, absolutely fearless and never freezing up for a moment. Loki was, in many ways, a natural at combat. Like Ciaphas Cain, he was completely immune to trauma, shaking off things that would bring strong men to their knees. That was because Loki didn't respond to stress like the vast majority of humanity… if Loki had been hooked to monitors during the wars with the drukhari, they would have detected that his pulse never really rose, stress hormones were released, but extremely muted. He had ice water in his veins.

This could have easily gotten Loki killed, as humans have those stress responses for a reason. But Calder had been there to remind him to take care of himself, remind him to pay attention, remind him to survive. And that had kept Loki alive to the point that he'd learned to control himself. A conversation between Loki and Ciaphas Cain would have been quite interesting.

(interesting for them. Almost no one else would have enjoyed it)

Loki's self-image was stuck in those times. He saw himself as the joker, the fool that the rest of the unit put up with. He did not think of himself as remotely valuable, just a minor warrior. Despite the awards he'd gotten, despite the commendations, Loki dismissed himself. Everyone in the unit got commendations, he was nothing special. And for the God's Hands he was somewhat correct, but the God's Hands were also a fairly elite unit, comprised of the old men with collections of medals. Loki did not see or recognize that to match up well to the rest of his unit, meant he was also among the elite.

Calder was more of a conventional warrior, but also ranked quite highly. Revalt didn't like losing any of them – they were close to irreplaceable – but he would never deny them going to join Zahndrekh and Imotekh. Still, that left him in a bit of a quandary.

Does Calder actually know that Loki is taking a transfer? Revalt wasn't sure. He knew Loki was exactly the kind of person to bring up an important topic as a joke, or very obliquely, and expect the other person to understand. Calder was a very concrete person and of fairly average intelligence, while Loki was likely a genius. Was it any wonder they sometimes had misunderstandings, despite knowing each other so long?

And if so, should he do anything about it? Revalt tapped pen to paper, thinking about it. If he did nothing, Calder might not find out until Loki was gone. Revalt didn't know if Loki had spoken to anyone else about it but it was entirely possible that he hadn't. Loki babbled constantly yet could easily keep a secret, as long as he knew it was a secret. And Revalt had noticed before that Loki particularly kept things that really bothered him close to his chest. Despite his endless talking, if you wanted to know what was wrong, you had to pry it out of him.

"I'll give it a few days," Revalt finally decided. He would observe Calder and Loki together and if he saw signs of a severe misunderstanding, he would intervene.

A few days later, Revalt felt he was seeing exactly that. Calder was showing no sign of any change, just treating Loki like the foolish friend as always. There was no tension or unhappiness between them, except when you saw Loki's body language when he and Calder parted. How his shoulders would slip down and he would hunch over a little, the silent signs of pain. Revalt decided he had to step in. As a Captain, it was his duty.

"Calder, could we talk for a moment?" Revalt pulled Calder aside at a good time, when Loki was sparring with some of the others. "Has everything been going well between you and Loki?" Revalt asked, still not entirely sure if Loki had brought it up. Calder made a clumsy glyph for confusion.

"Of course. Why wouldn't things be fine? Has Loki done something?" Calder asked, concerned.

"Well, you might say that… he's put in for a transfer." Revalt didn't need any glyphs to see Calder's shock. It was in the way his body went stiff and his joints locked up, just for a moment.

"What… what are you… he can't do that! What are you saying?" Revalt briefly pitied Calder. He was so used to Loki just following him like a puppy, it was quite a shock to him when his best friend took an independent and decisive action. "Are you joking?!"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Revalt asked, just looking at Calder. He was so agitated, his eyes were flickering, his nodes pulsing with refractory distress. "Calder, calm down. He can make decisions with his own life." Revalt had noticed this dynamic between them before… Calder was the leader, Loki was the follower. And it was very rare, but when Loki tried to go against his friend Calder tended to forcefully pull him back into line.

"He can't do that… he can't… I'll stop him from this nonsense…" Calder's reaction was actually getting worse and Revalt was caught by surprise as he suddenly bolted away. "LOKI!" Revalt swore internally. This was not what he'd wanted! He followed behind quickly, intending to intervene.

"Loki, what is this nonsense?" Calder barged between other matches, completely heedless of his safety and some of the other men swore at him as there were nearly accidents. Loki also had to abort his match very abruptly, yelping as he was seized by the shoulders and shaken. "What are you doing putting in for a transfer and not even telling me?!"

"…" Loki wasn't even trying to reply, just shutting down and not responding. Even his eyes were dimming as his mind seemed to retreat from the conflict. Revalt stepped in, grabbing Calder's shoulder.

"Calder, stop it. Take this off the practice field," Revalt said firmly, escorting them both off the field. Loki went completely passively, which Revalt thought was worrying. He'd never seen Loki behave quite like this.

As soon as they were off the field, though, Calder went back to yelling at Loki. Revalt couldn't get a headache anymore, but his mind faithfully reproduced the sensation.

"Calder, he's not paying attention… Loki?" Revalt touched Loki's shoulder and tilted his head. His body felt oddly hot and Revalt quickly ran a diagnostic on Loki, seeing that he WAS running very hot. Was this an emotional reaction? That was very strange though. "Loki?"

Loki sat on the grey, tiled floor of a rather dirty room. His knees were pulled up to his chest and he had his face hidden in his arms.

This particular part of the Immaterium was now encysted. It could be penetrated, but doing so required solving complicated math and logic puzzles, generated from Loki's imagination and fond memories of his favorite games. Normally, the space inside, where Loki went to be undisturbed, wasn't this dingy. But he was in a poor mood, to say the least.

Calder, please don't yell at me. I know you can't go with me I know you have a family but I have to go I have to go I have to go. Loki was also not unaware of the dynamic between them. He knew Calder would try to bully him out of his decision. It had been like that when they were children too and his mum had assured him it just meant Calder cared. Sometimes it was really hard to take, though.

Loki rocked slightly, unaware of the walls of his cyst changing slightly around him. If he'd been paying attention that would have indicated that something was solving the puzzles and making its' way in. That would have put him on alert but right now he was too lost in his own misery.

Why don't you just stay here? A little voice breathed in his mind. Why don't you stay with us? The 'thought' came with brilliant visions. Wizards in robes and holding staffs, leaning over papers and having a scholarly discussion. Great walls of books. Twisting staircases that reached for the sky. You could be a wizard, just like you've always wanted. You just have to stay. Loki twitched, and lifted his head. Beside him was a very familiar, feathered iguana and the cyst was more than breached… close by, there was a great vortex of bright blue light.

Loki's lips pulled back from his teeth as pure rage consumed him. His hand flicked out and he caught the iguana by the throat. It felt oddly soft and eyes swiveled madly as the iguana struggled, pathetically weak in his grip.

"I am Loki. I am the greatest liar to ever lie, and you think to lie to me?" Loki hissed, his voice a tone of black venom that Calder would have recognized. He'd used it right before gruesomely killing a common drukhari warrior. Loki had demonstrated he did have a bit of sadism in his nature, that day. "GET OUT!" Loki cast the iguana into the vortex, screaming. That done, he glared for a moment at the vortex before quickly exiting his dream world.

The real world might really suck, but his dreams were not safe right now.

"Loki?" Revalt gently shook him and Loki suddenly seemed to wake up, his eyes brightening.

"Calder, I'm sorry, I did tell you… I mean, sort of… and I just have to go. I'm sorry." Loki sloped his shoulders and Calder made a sound like a teakettle. Revalt knew it was quite rare to hear – he'd only heard it himself once – but that was a fairly common sound for necrons to make when they were frustrated beyond all endurance.

"Making some kind of stupid joke out of it isn't telling me, Loki! You joke about EVERYTHING!" Well, Calder was dead right about that. "But why do you want to do this?! You know I have a family!" Revalt wanted to sigh. This isn't about you, Calder. But that wasn't what he meant, not really. He meant why are you making me leave my family.

"I know. You don't have to come, Calder, I understand if you can't," Loki said and Revalt knew he'd detected that subtext too. Calder hesitated a moment before hugging him so roughly, it almost hurt to watch. There was so much emotion behind it.

"You damned idiot! I can't let you go it alone. Revalt, where's the paperwork?" Ah, so it was that way then? Loki looked at Calder and while they had no real expressions, Revalt could see the way his body language changed and his eyes brightened. It was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

"I'll get it for you," Revalt promised. He left the two of them, still squabbling a bit, to fetch that. As he did, he felt honestly relieved.

These best friends really shouldn't be parted.