~Fountain of Living Waters~
~801. M30~
~Segmentum Tempestus~
~Raisa~
~Abram Cadmus, Knight-Lord of Raisa, Baron of the Golem Keep~
After the standard round of threatening all his knights into shutting up and sitting down again, he let the stranger go through the motions of presentation to the wider audience. Abram himself had already been convinced, but his chickenshit knights liked their 'assurances' and 'rights' to be upheld, whatever the fuck they tried to weasel into what that meant at the time.
So letting the stranger do this long-ass speech and round of answering questions with a hologram was something he just resolved to sit through. Something about military reorganizations and land developments or some shit. He only paid attention to the parts that involved getting more knight-armors repaired and upgraded again.
The rest of the time was spent tormenting slavegirl. Writhing in his lap and shuddering when he pressed in just the right ways. A mean ol' grin was on his face the entire time.
Good to be king and all that.
He had her sent back to her regular duties, namely his laundry, once the big meeting and subsequent feasting was done with. His knights looked skeptical but approving, their womenfolk looked skeptical but excited, and he didn't have to lift a finger. His job was getting others to do their jobs, and slaughtering things, not this boring administration shit.
Currently he was walking with a few of the stranger's machinists and the man's personal guard. Abram technically should have a guard detail of his own, but there wasn't a single soldier willing to join the kingsguard with him in charge. Fine by him. He didn't need weak meatlings to protect him. He was more than capable enough on his own.
The stranger himself got a strange look on his face when one of his knights mentioned 'conquering the wilds', said he wanted to go 'have an interview with a few' or some shit like that. So apparently goatfucking was common to kings, who knew? He didn't really give a shit regardless, so long as he got his new weapons and lots of things to kill.
He pointed the man in the direction of Hrothgar, and offered to escort his machinists to the knight-gallery. He had been sent with a machinist and another one of those people with pointy ears and a habit of flinching.
The machinist walking with him was an interesting sort he supposed. Almost as tall and heavy judging by the footsteps, little bits of his body and armor glowing with energy, face concealed behind an eagle-helm of sorts, and a big bulky backpack on powering the rest of his frame. Archamagos Calculatus apparently.
Powermail and a few machine-implants most likely. The quality was quite a bit better than the footsoldiers of Raisa too. Abram almost opened his mouth to ask what the man had installed, before reminding himself what he was.
Black-clad butchers like him don't make small talk. They just kill. He kept his mouth shut.
The other man was as tall as him, which was a surprise. He wasn't nearly as heavy, footsteps nearly silent as he seemed to glide over the terrain. Flowing robes of silk and leathers of some sort of immense reptile, covered by plates of smooth bone-like armor. Combined with the long bladed staff and the mostly blank helmet made an interesting sort of look. Bonesinger Celebrim apparently.
Heavy steps led him to the chamber doors leading into the Golem Keep knight-chambers, the largest and most effective machining site on the entirety of Raisa. It was here that they managed to preserve most of what was required to keep their more advanced machines running during the time of terrors. Which made sense, as this was originally part of the ship that first brought human settlers to this world in the first place.
The increasingly nervous looking guards stepped aside with a wave of his hand, and the doors to the machining chambers opened wide. Inside was the greatest stockpile of knights on Raisa, most of which were nonfunctional, being used for spare parts for what they had that did still work.
The colony had come to this world with something like seven-hundred knight-armors. Their records told them that was apparently a holy number, and thus standard in those times.
Currently, they had just shy of one-hundred operational knight-armors. Half of that was in the standard Questoris-models. A fourth of that was in lighter Armiger-models. The remaining fourth were split between the larger Dominus and the occasional Cerastus models. There were seven Acastus-Knights, six were non-functional, one was badly damaged and reserved solely for defense of the Golem Keep itself.
Thousands of years makes its fucking mark.
The machinists and slaves, most of which had horns and hooves, were quick at work, loading up the ammunition bins and dutifully polishing out the scratches in the armors, repainting the panels, hammering dents back into shape. The second and third sons of various nobles interfaced with the machines, reading out data-slates and shouting orders to the manifold slaves.
You could point them out because they didn't have horns. The knight-armors were testy about that kind of thing.
"Kingsmith!" He roared out over the already immense noise of the massive inner-chamber. At full capacity, this place could hold all seven-hundred knight armors. Currently, the vast majority of it was filled with rows after rows of those armors, deactivated and slumped down in unpowered states, partially dismantled and scavenged for parts to maintain the armors that did still work.
Six hundred or so warmachines. None of which were currently usable.
The third son of a king before the Hrothgar approached him, dressed and looking as all blacksmiths might. Thick arms and broad shoulders, working apron made from a minotaur's thick leather, thick gloves and boots from similar beast-hide. He was wary as he approached, but the Kingsmith was one of the few Abram didn't bother to threaten. He did his job in keeping all the knight-armors going. No need to give him trouble.
"Yer Majestey." He grumbled out, removing the protective visor-helm and revealing a bushy mustache and squinty eyes. "What can the Glemshop do to serve?"
Abram pointed a thumb at the men standing behind him. "A stellar empire came by wanting an alliance. In exchange for signing up and fighting, they'd get some of their machinists called in to get our knight-armors functional and upgraded again."
Thick eyebrows raised up on the Kingsmith's head. "I'm tah help with their survey I suppose?"
He nodded. And the Kingsmith nodded in turn. "Right. I'd supposed we'd start with the overall state of affairs. Gentlemen, if ye'd follow me to my data-slates?"
Abram turned and strode away, no longer needed in this. If they tried something, he'd kill them and everyone they were allied with until the fleet overhead shelled Raisa off the galactic map. He stopped at the door and loomed over the two guards present. "You watch the guests, got it?"
They shivered as they looked at him, trying their best to snap into a salute. "Y-yes, your majesty!" He snarled at their weakness before stomping away. The scowl on his face gradually settled down into an ever-present glare again.
He stomped all the way to his private chambers again. Each time his path was crossed by another, they quickly found a way to leave the vicinity or duck into closets. The most annoying ones were the people he could hear muttering prayers of thanks after he left. Surrounded by cowardly fools and weak meat. They needed to install a machine-spine, it's clear they aren't using the ones they have.
His joints hurt.
He ignored the lack of guards around his chamber doors. Opening the chamber and entering, he growled in an amused manner to see slavegirl jump in fright, smacking her head against the desk and stumbling back.
She fumbled with the cloth in her hands, resisting the urge to fiddle with it and the urge to rub her now sore head. Twisting brown horns contrasting against short-cropped blonde curls and ever-nervous green eyes.
He huffed as he walked over to the large bed, and grumbled out an order. "Slavegirl, help me out of this armor."
She quickly set the cloth down and hurried over, quickly undoing belts and connections in hard to reach places with practiced hands. While setting his pauldrons off to the side, she stuttered out a sentence. "A-ah, I was t-told by Queen Wealhtheow to r-remind you that I-I'm supposed to be called a s-servant…" She trailed off at his unimpressed expression.
"Tell her to fuck off." He grumbled out an order, knowing full well that she couldn't fulfill that. Now free of that overlapping plate and the connections, he began to shed the unpowered carapace that served as his armor. Each time he disconnected something, slavegirl would be quick to take the plate and set it off to the side. Eventually he was free of his armor, and clad in the leather-jumpsuit that served as the underlayer for his torso.
With a hiss, his arm disconnected from his torso, and the jumpsuit was partially pulled off. Slavegirl tugged the leather out of the way, and he reconnected his arm with a second hiss. This one being of discomfort as his nerves protested the sudden changes. This process was followed with his other arm, then his left leg, then his right leg.
Disconnect, remove, reconnect. It would be far more of a pain in his ass alone.
Eventually he was nude, and sitting on his bed, knees and shoulders aching in that old familiar pain. He grunted as slavegirl climbed over his bed and got to work, hands pressing into his back and shoulders, working at the knots and wear that had accumulated there since last time. Dainty little fingers doing their best to knead at scars and muscle.
Sex was great and all, but getting rid of these aches were better in about every way. He let out a low groan of contentment, and leaned into the ministrations.
It took slavegirl less time than normal to stop flinching everytime he shuffled. Unfortunately she started humming that annoying lullaby about halfway through his back. He ignored the irritation and just focused on the sensation of not being in pain for a brief while.
Tolerating annoying habits was something he had to do as king. After some time, he cracked open an eye and looked around the room again.
The sun was going down, judging from the light coming through the cracks in his thin window. Day was finally fucking over.
Grunting, he flipped over and against the bed, using his arm to bring slavegirl down into the bed with him. She made a noise like a startled animal as he landed against the sheets.
"M-my lord! I-i'm still d-dressed." She stuttered out, lightly pressed against his chest and not looking at him. How annoying, she should know to shut up already. He grunted out in reply, Letting her go and growling out an answer.
"You have three minutes."
In a nervous flurry she pushed up and undid her garments, stumbling twice and accidentally crashing into the floor once. He brought his metal limbs under the more durable but colder leathers, and raised them up quite patiently. His limbs would tear up anything softer, like cotton and silk.
Soon enough, Rosaline's nubile form slipped under them and settled against his scarred chest. It was cold in his room, especially with his limbs being artificial. Turns out metal didn't warm up very well. He needed a bedwarmer to sleep these days, otherwise he spent most of his time shivering, which was infuriating.
He ignored her gentle humming, her roaming hands, and forced himself to sleep. He'd fuck her later, he was tired.
—
"Wealhtheow made sure you found everything in order?" He grunted out, working through the breakfast meal while staring at a wide map of the galaxy marked with things he didn't care about. The stranger was on the opposite side, also working his way through bites of bread and meat and staring at various sheets of parchment and books. Most of which Abram recognized as coming from Raisa's own ledgers.
The stranger… No, it was 'Roboute' wasn't it? Can't call him a stranger if he's his new benefactor. Regardless, he nodded and gestured towards the second map, one of Raisa as a whole. "Indeed. The practice of abduction concerned me for a time, I admit. But the supposed captives were quite insistent that they were happier up in towers than on the forested floor."
Abram nodded. "Aye, Beastmen are fucking savages in all the ways you might expect. Fun to slaughter, but if they ever get the best of you, they tend to follow through with a bout of rape, eating, killing, and sacrificing. Not usually in any particular order or with any particular discrimination, either." He paused for a moment, narrowing his brows in consideration. "So wait a moment. When you said you went to interview em, that's what you actually meant?"
The pointy-eared gal behind him unleashed a suppressed shudder. King Roboute blinked, looking up from the map and furrowing his brow. "Yes…? I strive for honesty when possible. What did you…?" His face twisted into one of slight revulsion. "Ah. No."
Abram swallowed the chunk of lamb and replied. "You won't find me disagreein', I don't see what the goatfuckers see myself. You want me to tell the fuckers to stop?"
The King gave a sigh of frustration. "If the situation was less ambiguous perhaps. I would normally seek to universally punish abductions such as these, but that their captors seem to treat such captives more favorably than their native populations do… It's not a situation I expected to come across. I shall have to draft an addendum to the codex administratum pertaining to captured civilians, and see about what to do with the Beastmen of Raisa once the forests are cleared."
Abram snorted, and gulped down some of his wine. "Two things. Pertaining to the Beastmen, just slaughter them and be done with it. They can't be an issue then. On the second matter, I wish you luck clearing out the wilderwood, none of us ever managed too."
King Roboute spun the quill around in his hands and stared straight at him, one brow raised. "Your people have attempted to clear the wilderwood? Tell me of the attempts."
Abram groaned and called out. "Slavegirl! Go get the wilderwood records!"
"Y-yes My Lord!"
In the distance, he could hear Wealhtheow shouting out. "Servants! They are not slaves you ogre-headed brute!"
He growled out, before pushing up off the table and shouting over the half-drunk men and women. "Listen up you fucks! From now on the Queen's official title is 'Cunt'!" There was much nervous laughter at that. They apparently didn't know he wasn't joking.
Gently a book was set down at his table, bringing him back towards the present. Idly he smacked slavegirl's ass, which made her yelp and jump, and opened the book with deliberate motions of his artificial fingers.
Reaching the correct page in a weighty book that he was forced to memorize was a pain in the ass. Being king was a pain in the ass. Eventually he reached the correct section and refreshed his memory on the doomed affairs.
"Twenty Nine, Nine Twenty Five, The king Korlund orders the burning of the wilderwoods to clear lands and expand from the mountain cities. The initial campaign is an extreme success despite the constant attacks from the Beastmen. The forest grows back too quickly to expand further. The extension to the mountain cities is overrun by a horde of ten-thousand beastmen in two years, most in the extension are raped, killed, and eaten. The forest recovers enough to destroy the original settlement entirely within three years after it is overrun."
Looking up from the book with a flat expression. "There are about a thousand entries identical to this. That was merely the most recent. Forest burned and settlement founded in one year, overrun by beastmen within five years, utterly destroyed by the forest within five more years. It's common wisdom that the only way to expand is building up or tunneling down. The wilderwood does not tolerate invasion."
King Roboute frowns in consideration, before extending a large hand, asking silently to see the tome. Handing it over, Abram gets back to his breakfast as the giant man reads through ancient histories.
"You're correct. The pattern is remarkably consistent. This speaks to deeper powers at work." Roboute rumbled out, flipping through the pages.
Abram grunted in dismissive amusement. "Witchcraft now? There hasn't been a sorcerer born on Raisa in a dozen ages, and the Beastmen shamans have no power."
"Oh?" Roboute sounded curious. "What makes you so certain?"
Jabbing a fork in his direction, Abram growled out. "I'm the best damn murderer Raisa has ever produced. I've killed more Beastmen during my life than the last dozen kings did throughout their reigns. In all that time, I have not once seen a supposed shaman do anything other than wail as I murder it. Saying they wield magicks is a way for shitty knight-pilots to excuse shit performance."
Roboute stared at him for a moment, nodding in confirmation. "Because you are a blank." He spoke with utter conviction, enough that Abram slowed in his chewing for a moment to look at him.
Swallowing, he replied. "The fuck is a blank?" If this was an insult, he'd deck the fucker, no matter how big he was.
"A rare natural condition related to the soul. Normal souls exude a positive psionic field, no matter how weak or strong. Blank souls exude a negative psionic field." He sounded clinical as he spoke of matters of the soul. Abram was focused entirely on the words, ignoring slavegirl refilling his wine for entirely too long and the sudden quiet in the feast-hall. Roboute continued to speak. "This negative-field weakens warp-influence in proximity, the direct bane to witches and sorcerers of all manner, and renders the blank all but immune to their spells."
Taking a strategic sip of wine, Roboute paused to let Abram process that before continuing. "Unfortunately, this negative field is distinctly unnerving to non-blank souls. Causing irrational fear and distrust without cause, in the most extreme cases this even extends to causing physical pain. Most blanks do not live past childhood. Those that do usually have at least one blank parent, as the trait is inheritable."
He didn't remember his mother. He was standing, glaring with a clenched fist and grinding teeth. He was angry. He wasn't sure at what yet. The feast-hall was silent.
"...How the fuck do you know this?…" He growled.
Roboute nodded to the woman behind him, with the long pointy ears. She had a clenched fist and narrowed brows. "Miriel, my attendant, is one of the Eldar. Natural psykers." He turned a flat look to Abram. "Your anger causes her physical pain. I am going to ask that you calm yourself."
He kept his glare up for a moment, before forcing himself to calm. Breathing deeply and sitting down once more. Eyes closed, he counted to ten, before opening them and chugging his wine.
Smashing the cup down on the table, warping the metal with his strength, he growled out again. "Mentioning your sharp-eared woman reminds me. We have one of those in the undervault. Mind taking it off our hands?"
"...What?"
—
Moving down the immense stone stairs into the undervault, he growled out. "Raisa is on the edge of the galaxy. Most of the time what lands here is unremarkable, comets and glass. On occasions, things rain down here from beyond that we don't understand. The solution is simple."
He pushed open the thick metal doors that led to the next chamber and the next set of stairs.
"We lock it away. Don't touch anything down here, most of it has foreign spells on it." He stepped across the clearly marked path, ignoring the many glinting things in the shadows of this room. Much of it took the form of expensive metals and shiny glass. None of it was worth touching.
"Many worlds have similar places." King Roboute commented, also careful to ignore the whispers of things in the vault, flanked by the two 'Eldar' he had already met. Miriel and Celebrim apparently. "Not so many have Eldar locked under their keeps." The tone was not quite accusatory.
"She landed in the Year of Haunted Worlds." Abram growled out an explanation. "By standard date that was…" He thought about it for a moment, converting the timeline of his world into the standard Roboute had provided. Raisa was founded sometime around 16,500, and this was thousands of years after… "Sometime in the twenty-fifth millennium, right before the Time of Troubles."
"She's been here for five-thousand years?" Roboute replied with a hint of something in his voice. Abram nodded and continued. "Before the beastmen and the wilderwood grew in fact. Those came about to their current state fifteen-hundred years after. The worst we had were the Golem Wars. Then the Time of Troubles starts and almost everyone on Raisa starts turning into Beastmen and the forest starts devouring our cities."
"Before all that though, the Baron and his knights went down to where commonfolk claimed they saw a star touch down. They came back with a stasis pod and a giant woman inside. She's been in the deepest levels ever since."
"I see."
"So if you wouldn't mind taking her off my hands." Abram grunted out. "I'm tired of having to flog knights because they wanted to sneak down here and sing bad poetry to her."
This was met with chuckles. He ignored them and pushed open the next layer of doors, this one was made out of the same stone golem-heart that the walls of the keep above was. The seal on the door cracked a hair.
At once, the 'Eldar' staggered back, clutching at themselves for some reason. He raised a brow, before pushing open the doors completely and stepping in.
Inside was an immense chamber with a light inside. A luminous casket of sorts, which shone like a gentle sun and filled the last chamber with enough light to imagine it was day despite being thousands of feet below the surface at this point. The walls of the chamber were originally recorded as being made of carved stone, but that was no longer true, as thick roots extended from the water that covered the chamber floor and all the way up to serve as natural struts of support.
The water, too, was not native to this place. The casket had produced it over the years, crystal clear but filled with fine-grain and fertile soils. Inside the casket, visible through the transparent lens that served as the lid, was a woman.
The most ancient records called her the Queen of Life. He called her a pain to keep knights away from. Perhaps nine or ten feet tall, slender of limb and fair of hair, with delicate and gracefully pointed ears, dressed in a thin white garment. Her dress went on to serve as the inspiration for most of Raisa's own dresses, because originality was lost on his people.
The casket was completely foreign in design. Alien to look at…
He narrowed his eyes as he considered it again. The casket was composed of graceful, flowing bone, or what looked like it at least. The occasional jewel set into the form and shining with light that dimmed as he approached it. He refused to get any closer to the thing, that would get his boots wet.
Turning, he pointed at the casket with his thumb and spoke out. "There she is. Do you need help hauling her out?"
He grunted at seeing their stunned looks.
—
Arms crossed, he leaned against the walls of the chamber as they observed the woman and her prison.
"There is a powerful sorcery woven around the capsule." Celembrim muttered out, trailing a hand across the surface. "It feeds on my touch to empower itself, I do not think a thousand-thousand warlocks would be able to break this seal. It's a masterful creation, no raw power can avail you over it."
"No amount of power then?" King Roboute muttered out, considering the matter with a hand on his chin. He turned to Abram, and called out. "King Abram, would you mind approaching the container?"
"You ask me to get my boots wet." He growled out.
Roboute nodded, a smile on his face. Abram grunted out and did as requested, wading through the shallow water and cave-mud.
He slowed when he noticed the light about the casket dim. He almost hesitated, before letting his glower reassert itself and pushing forwards once more.
Each step brought the light to further dimness.
The chamber was nearly extinguished of light by the time he reached the side of the casket. He swallowed.
Roboute and Celembrim stared at him. The Eldar brought his hand up to rest upon the casket, helmet tilting in consideration. "Please, King of Raisa, lay a hand upon the seal and focus on undoing it. I can do the rest."
"I didn't think you were going to awaken the slumbering queen." He growled out in frustration, but cautiously placed a hand on the casket regardless. "Just make sure she gets off my planet after."
Focus on undoing what? How the fuck does one even do that? Bringing him down here to touch some alien relic and 'focus on undoing it'. What he wanted was for this fucking affair to be over with so he could fuck off and get back to making slavegirl squirm. He let his mental tirade continue for some time.
It was cut off by a sudden crack and hiss. Jolting back suddenly he readied himself to attack.
The transparent lid faded from existence, carried off by sparks of light rapidly dying in the atmosphere of the thin cave. He swallowed slowly as the magnitude of the event slowly dawned on him.
He promptly strangled whatever awe he was about to feel and resolved to murder the sleeping beauty if she made a wrong move.
Her body shifted. The Eldar staggered back. Roboute flinched, foot siding against the muddy floor. He was frozen, unable to turn his head away as the giant 'Eldar' woman slowly shifted in her bed of bone.
The cavern was filled with straining light once more, flickering against his shadows. The woman pushed herself up, a halo of pale blue gemstones slowly forming out of collected drops of dew previously unseen.
Slowly, her eyes opened to reveal gemstones of purest sapphire, shining like stars reflecting in the sea. She took a shuddering breath, then exhaled, and wearily looked about her chamber bed.
Eyes rising, they locked onto his own.
Her face shifted into one of motherly sorrow. She spoke. He did not understand the language. It was beautiful, it was sorrowful, it was alien.
"Oh dear childe."
Hands extended forwards and cupped his face, a thumb rubbed against his cheek, she pulled him in and he strained against limbs that didn't seem this strong before.
"Ne'erborn Babe, Voidsong Son, wither has thine kin departed? Away. Away."
He struggled for a moment, sending a furious and desperate glare towards Roboute, who was just getting his bearings back. He was trapped in the arms of a witch! The situation was an emergency!
"The E'erqueen shall embrace thee for a time, in hopes to bring comfort to thy twisted spirit."
Eventually, she turned her gaze upwards, and noticed the others in the chamber. The giant woman smiled gently, and one hand brushed against his blood-red locks. He renewed his struggle to be free of her beastlike grip.
"Ah, mine own kin and kith greet me. A most pleasant awakening I have been blessed with. Please, speak to me. How long have I slumbered? How goes our struggles against the Mon-Keigh? Does the capital still stand?"
They did not move to free him from this monster's grasp, proving that they were traitors and fiends of the highest order. Instead they began a stuttering conversation.
He would gain revenge one day. Preferably as soon as he was free.