September 10th, 2541
0300 hours
Planet Remnant
western Dragon Continent
Librarian Nadiaen Redlata
Consciousness came to the Librarian abruptly. Suddenly, he was awake, staring into the darkness of the night. Sitting up, he surveyed his surroundings, to look for anything warranting his immediate attention. He had landed in a forest, though if the clearing he now found himself in was a result of his impact on the ground or had been there before was unknown. The trees surrounding him looked healthy enough, although there was an undercurrent of psychic energy saturating the area. In the distance he could see pitch black mountains with large coverings of snow, indicating that either this planet's climate was generally cold, or that the mountains were very tall. Since there was no immediate danger to his person in the area, he took stock of his situation. Executioner's Voice had survived the Fall intact and functional, as had the Blade of the 1st Legion. However, the Sceptre of Power had not come out of Nadiaen's orbital entry unscathed, and was completely broken in two. He would have to find a very competent blacksmith to fuse the two ends back together. His armour seemed to be fine, but just to be safe, he psychically analysed himself. What he found out was… interesting.
His exposure to the warp seemed to have slightly mutated him, giving him the eyes of a feline, with matching teeth. The warp had also changed his eye colour, from a deep brown to a glowing blue. Likely also a result of his time in the empyrean. This brought with it the advantage of even better night-vision than before, sharper teeth, and an increased intimidation factor. The downside of the changes to his body was being even more noticeable than before, since being a two-and-a-half metre tall heavily muscled being was already very conspicuous. Glowing blue eyes with vertical slits and suspiciously sharp teeth would only worsen the issue.
Deciding that his self-inspection was finished for now, He stood up and looked through the Immaterium for the nearest sign of civilization. Unfortunately, the continent Nadiaen was on seemed to be completely barren of sentient life, only being populated by strange warp-sensitive beasts. They didn't look like they could really harm him in any way, but if his numerous encounters with psychic hybrid-Genestealers had taught him anything, it was that even the smallest of beings could be incredibly dangerous if it could catch you by surprise. So, he planned out his route, picked up his weapons, and started walking.
0600 hours
Atlas Academy
General James Ironwood
"So you're telling me, something appeared out of nothing in Space, heading for a collision course with Remnant at tremendous speed, but somehow slowed down enough not to create an explosion whose shockwave would be felt around the planet", the General was not pleased "Not only that, it altered its course to impact land and not the ocean?"
"Y-Yes, General Ironwood", the lead analyst said, slightly terrified of the Cyborg with an expression of absolute murder on his face "Not only that, w-when the Object started to slow down, it actively damaged our cameras observing it, and gave splitting headaches to anyone observing the footage"
The more Ironwood heard, the worse his mood got. A guided object which hurt anyone who looked at it, entering the atmosphere at speeds which would have caused even the most heat-resistant alloys atlas had to instantly melt, crashing into the only continent where it was nearly impossible to send expeditions due to the enormous amount of Grimm residing there. He sighed.
"Although this is concerning, I will not send an expedition fleet to their deaths to recover an object that might not even be there anymore. Dismissed."
The Analyst quickly nodded and retreated out of the office. Ironwood leaned back in his chair, and after a bit of thought, ordered some Atlesian whiskey up to his office
0700 hours
south-western Dragon Continent
Librarian Nadiaen Redlata
It had been several hours since he had started walking, and he had already made good distance. The psychic beasts were fairly easy to evade, as he only had to hide his presence in the warp, and use his training as a super soldier to not make a sound. However, while sneaking through the forest, he had made some very interesting observations about the psy-beasts. They seemed to emerge from a pool made of a strange black liquid, already fully aged, and ready to join the rest of the pack in hunting sentient life. They also seemed to not possess any organs, as the few he had killed on his way had only spurted the same black liquid as the pools they emerged from held, then dissolved. Nothing of them remained once the process was finished. So, Nadiaen had come to a few conclusions about the beasts. Firstly, they were some kind of aberrations of a daemon, as the predators of the warp possessed similar traits, being able to sense emotion, and dissolving upon death. The Second conclusion he had come to, was that the pools they spawned from had to be some kind of gateway to the warp, otherwise they would not be able to endlessly spawn them like they did. The Librarian's third and final conclusion was that he had definitely been right in his earlier decision to avoid contact with them, as some of the spawning pools on the continent got truly enormous, as did the monsters that emerged from them. He would probably be able to kill a few of them, but as long as the pools were there, the enemy was endless, and it was always unwise to engage such an enemy.
Curiously, he started sensing a trio of sentient beings heading towards him. Humans, if their signature in the warp was anything to go by. One of them also seemed to be an exceptionally strong psyker, although their psychic signature seemed odd, almost as if it were incomplete. Deciding that he would see what they wanted, he stopped walking, and waited for them to reach him.
5 km from Nadiaen's position
Fall Maiden Cinder Fall
Cinder, Tyrian and Hazel had been sent by Salem to investigate a strange meteorite that had crashed on the continent four hours ago, but when they reached the point of impact, nothing was to be found. It turned out that the Meteorite was actually a truly massive man clad in richly decorated black and gold armour, with some very dangerous weapons strapped to his hips without any visible straps.
"He stopped. How curious", said tyrian, while looking through his binoculars in the direction of their target "He seems to have noticed our approach. From five kilometres away… This is certainly going to be interesting."
It was an impressive feat to get Tyrian Callows to be silent, let alone cordial and sensible. But when you were sent to investigate something that fell out of the sky, and it turned out that that something was an absolutely enormous man in some of the heaviest armour ever seen on a huntsman, who was also effortlessly sneaking past Grimm without even breaking a sweat, it kind of made sense.
"It will", rumbled Hazel "I wonder how he survived the fall. The heat trail he left behind when he entered the atmosphere was enormous, meaning that he should've burned up even before he hit the ground, and the impact would have completely obliterated him if he did survive the temperatures of orbital entry. But here he is, completely unscathed, armour in what seems to be pristine condition, and seemingly effortlessly displaying stealth skills that warrant decades of experience…"
"Silence!" Cinder snapped "Our distance to the target is not that big anymore, and seeing the advanced senses he's displayed, he might be able to hear us." And Cinder did not want to accidentally reveal information that might be very troublesome if the unknown man heard it.
Both Tyrian and Hazel fell silent at that, and subtly readied themselves for combat. Because if a fight broke out, the stranger would probably prove to be very difficult to defeat, but seeing as to how he had no helmet on, Cinder could probably hit him with a sufficiently powerful fireball to instantly kill him. She inwardly smiled. The stranger had absolutely no chance against her, as what would his strange weapons be able to do against the forces of nature itself?
After another hour of walking, they reached the clearing where the man waited for them. Seeing his face up close, Cinder came to a few conclusions. Firstly, he was very obviously an experienced warrior, going by the absolutely ludicrous amount of scars on his face. Secondly, the man was some kind of cat-based faunus. He didn't have the ears most had, but the vertical slits of his eyes and unnaturally sharp teeth were most definitely not the signs of a normal human. "Greetings.", the giant rumbled in an impossibly deep voice "I presume you have come to ask what I am doing on this Continent, and how I arrived here."
Librarian Nadiaen Redlata
"You would presume correctly" stated the man with a scorpion tail emerging from his back. He was most probably insane, going by the characteristic glint in his eyes that most mentally unstable people had in one way or another. It might not be noticeable to a normal human, but to his now even more enhanced eyesight, it was nothing.
"But first, Introductions are in Order", the mutant said "My name is Tyrian callows, and these two" he gestured to the woman in a very impractical red dress that had gold accents at the edges, and the very tall & quite muscular man in a green jacket "are Cinder Fall and Hazel Rainart. We were sent out by our… Boss… to assess what crash landed on the continent we are currently on. Please be aware that not telling us what we want to know will result in us using more… direct ways to get our information"
Nadiaen thought about this a bit. They did seem to be quite the dangerous group. Everyone had a strange sort of psychic power that was extremely difficult to detect through the warp, except for the woman of the group. She seemed to hold far more psychic power than the rest of them, but that did not mean they weren't almost equally as threatening. Callows, the Scorpion-tailed one could very probably gravely wound him with his mutant appendage, and the Rainart man carried himself in a way he had only seen the most veteran of warriors do. So, Nadiaen told them everything they would need to be satisfied.
"My name is Nadiaen Redlata, a Librarian. I came here completely by accident, and did not mean to intrude upon any private property I may have accidentally walked through. As for how I arrived here, I truthfully do not know. I woke up in that crater, and decided that it was preferable to leave the site of impact so as to not attract any unwanted attention" The last part was a lie, obviously, but the baselines would not be able to detect any signs of deceit, as he had kept his body language very carefully neutral throughout the conversation, and kept his voice equally as level. It seemed that they believed him, as the woman, Fall, moved to speak
"... Very well. If you could perhaps follow us, we could s-" "I'm afraid I can't do that", Nadiaen interrupted her "I have set out my path, and I intend to follow it until I reach my destination"
He noticed the three people in front of him tense, then subtly readying various weapons. The Mutant innocuously readied a pair of strangely formed wrist-blades, looking as if there was something in the blades. Cinders started to come from Fall's hands, slowly forming into a grip and, presumably, a blade. She was probably creating a weapon from warp-energies, which displayed an impressive amount of skill for a normal human. The enormous man fell into a stance almost mirroring that of astartes hand-to-hand combat, only he had some strange Crystals infused with warp-powers in his hands, presumably to absorb them into himself to boost his powers. All very dangerous in the right hands to be sure, but the Librarian had seen far worse. A Chaos Space Marine Sorcerer, for example, who could summon legions of demons at will and bend space and time, made these three in front of him seem rather unimpressive.
"I would rethink our offer, if I was you", Rainart threatened "We outnumber you 3 to 1, and have tricks up our sleeve that you couldn't even imagine." "Like the fact that the woman is very obviously a psyker, or that she is creating weapons with her powers? Or the fact that I noticed all of you ready various weapons?" the Librarian countered, surprising the three of his adversaries "I do not mean to start conflict. I only wish to leave this continent, and head towards civilization. If you attempt to hinder me however, I will be forced to take more offensive action."
"Is that so?" Cinder threatened, infusing her voice with her powers, also making her eyes glow a small bit to appear more threatening. But Nadiaen did not feel threatened in the slightest bit. This was supposed to be scary? Amusing. So Nadiaen decided to show these people what scary really meant.
Fall Maiden Cinder Fall
The Air around Redlata started to shift. It seemed that he was preparing his own weaponry. Before that came to pass, Cinder decided to end the battle before it could begin, and went throw a-
"It is" The Librarian's words sent a spike of pain through her head unlike any she had ever experienced. Images of absolute Agony flitted through her mind, making her collapse to the floor, grabbing her head in extreme pain, screaming all the while. Every nerve of her body was on fire, her thoughts seemed to splinter, and the worst of all, he was still standing there, staring at her. Nightmarish energy seemed to roll off of him in great, cataclysmic waves. He was staring her directly in the eyes, and she was forced to stare back. And what she saw there was Hell. Pure, unadulterated Hell. He was an impossibly old being of terrible power, and he had deemed her unworthy of his respect. Suddenly, the pain in her head increased sharply on the back of her skull and she blissfully fell into the void of unconsciousness.
Librarian Nadiaen Redlata
While the woman thrashed on the ground in pain, the other two Humans went to attack him, but they lacked conviction in their attacks. His psychic attack on the woman had shakened their resolve and clearly unsettled them, but they moved to engage him anyway. The mutant, Tyrian, tried to sting Nadiaen with his Scorpion Tail, but Nadiaen caught it with one hand, and started pulling. Interestingly, some sort of see-through shield appeared when he tried to pull off the mutant's tail, possibly some sort of psychic shield, but it didn't hold for very long under the Librarian's psychically enhanced super-dense muscles. With a sound like shattering glass, the barrier gave way, and with a sickening squelch, Nadiaen ripped the mutant's tail off. The mutant fell to the floor in terrible agony, clutching the stump of what remained of his tail, before falling unconscious from shock. All of this happened in less than a second, so the other man, Hazel, who was a slight bit slower than the mutant, arrived just a bit too late to help out his comrade. Seeing as the two other members in his group were defeated before the battle even started, Hazel took out various crystals almost bursting with psychic energy, and rammed them into himself, surprising the Librarian. What was even more surprising to Nadiaen however, was that instead of the man exploding from psychic overload, an ethereal shield like the one the mutant had (before getting forcefully amputated) started flashing around the man's body. The visible veins on Hazel's body also started to glow various colours, matching the crystals stabbed into the man's body. The man then launched himself at Nadiaen, surprising him with the speed at which he moved. A regular astartes would have been hard pressed to match such speed, but Nadiaen was no normal space marine. He was a Librarian. The man reached him at speeds bordering on supersonic, and threw a punch at his face. Nadiaen caught it, then started crushing the man's hand under his grip. Hazel's energy shield seemed to be far stronger, so he was actually able to get out of Nadiaen's death grip without going unconscious. The two then engaged in a flurry of hand-to-hand combat, punching and grappling each other. Finally, Nadiaen landed a knife-hand strike that broke the other's psychic barrier, momentarily stunning him. Nadiaen used that time to land a devastating blow to Hazel's chest, caving in his ribs and crushing his lungs. Hazel collapsed to the ground, completely unresponsive. The Librarian surveyed the battlefield. The two others that had tried to attack him were still on the ground, unconscious, but he could see their wounds healing at an unnaturally fast pace, probably a side effect of the psychic abilities they all seemingly had. It would not be long before they would wake again, and by that time, Nadiaen needed to be far enough away from them to be unfindable. So, he ripped open a portal to the warp, stepped inside, and appeared twenty kilometres south shortly after. Satisfied with his distance from the would-be kidnappers, he continued on foot, not wishing to draw any of the psychic beasts with the enormous amounts of residual warp energy left behind by his teleportation
0900 hours
Northern Dragon Continent
Evernight, Grimm Palace
Grimm Witch Salem
Salem sat on her throne, worried. She had seen the exchange between the librarian and her servants through a Seer-Grimm, and was very surprised when Cinder collapsed, apparently in great pain. She was even more shocked however when Tyrian's tail was ripped off by Redlata in less time than it took for Hazel to reach him. Moreover, when Redlata was engaged in hand-to-hand by the dust-infused hazel, Nadiaen beat him without any meaningful damage to his ornate armour. Then he opened some kind of tear in reality, which hurt her Seer to look at, stepped through it, and suddenly appeared over ten kilometres to the south of his earlier position. This meant that, somehow, this man had access to extremely potent magic, and was also very experienced using it, if the various ornaments on his armour, and the way it seemed to glow with infused magic was any proof. In regards to her servants, she had already sent a flock of Nevermores to pick them up, to give their own reports on what happened, as mental matters could not be effectively observed from the outside. One needed an inside look. So, once the three were conscious again, she would make them tell her everything they saw, regardless of their now very probable trauma of Redlata…
south-western Dragon Continent
Librarian Nadiaen Redlata
After traumatising and mutilating the three baselines who had tried to attack him, he located a cave where he was sure to not be found, and started meditating. If these psychic beasts worked as he thought, controlling your emotions was the key to not being spotted, and he was currently quite agitated. Most psychic attacks channelled some sort of emotion alongside the energies of the warp to give them particular attack behaviours, an example being a homing fireball guided by pure spite to reach its target, or the mental assault he used on his would-be kidnappers being enhanced by channelling his own pain and suffering over his long lifespan in the attack. So, seeing as he did not want to alert the warp-beasts, he had to come up with emotionless psychic attacks. A very difficult task, to be sure, but not impossible. These attacks would mostly be pure warp energies, as to shape warp energy into matter, one needed to channel emotion into it. Therefore, emotionless psychic attacks would be completely ineffective against machines and inanimate objects, as pure warp energies mostly harm only the soul and nothing else. Such attacks would actually be quite useful for deception & sabotage, as he could just leave residual warp energies in one area, driving people mad with them not having any idea why or how this was happening, as warp energy was invisible to the naked eye. Promising ideas. But they would have to be tested at a later date, as there wasn't really any sentient life around to test his attacks on. For now, it was time to travel once more, as his anger had dissipated, and the psy-beasts were closing in on his position, due to his unstable emotions a few minutes ago.
So, readying himself for combat if the beasts found him, he stepped out of the cave and into the forest. After five minutes of walking, he was spotted by a pack of the wolf-like subspecies of the psy-beasts.
There were 24 of them, mostly younger ones and a few of the more intelligent and old ones at the back of the group. Those would have to die first, so as to not alert any other being in the vicinity. So Nadiaen threw the small Assassin blades, the Blades of Silence, directly at the heads of the older wolves. While normally, the thick bone armour on their head specifically would protect them from these kinds of attacks, the power-fields the daggers had built into them pierced past the bone as if it was not there, instantly killing them and melting the snow around them from the pure heat the power-fields generated. The younger Psy-beasts, undeterred by this, charged him all at once, probably to overwhelm him with their numbers advantage. What the pitch-black canines did not pull into consideration however, was the very large, very well functioning, and very deadly Power-Longsword that rested in its sheath on the Librarian's hip. Quickly drawing said weapon, activating the power-field and taking a stance to defend against multiple enemies, he waited for the psy-beasts to get close enough for the Blade of the 1st Legion. When the wolves reached him, they immediately tried to attack. One tried to go for his throat, only to get cleaved in two as the Librarian moved faster than any normal or aura-enhanced person could ever be. The second beast tried to get around the Librarian and attack from behind, but an omnidirectional psychic blast prevented that by simply eviscerating its head, along with several other of the wolves. The rest tried to attack him all at once, but a horizontal swing bisected them all before any of them could react.
While the beasts dissolved, Nadiaen went over to where he killed the few older specimens of psy-beasts, picked up the Blades of Silence, and inspected them for any damage. Fortunately, it seemed that the bone armour of the beasts, while unnaturally dense, wasn't psychically enhanced, therefor it was no problem for the assassin blades to cut through it without sustaining major damage, as there were only minor scratches on the polish of the knives, which could be buffed out when he finally returned to civilization and got himself a workshop. But it would at least be two more weeks before he encountered any sentient life, so that wasn't really important now. Finished with his inspection of the Blades of Silence, Nadiaen returned them to their holsters, sheathed his sword, and returned to walking south, towards where a continent that was settled by humanity, not beasts, lay.
1200 hours
Not much had happened in the last three hours. Nadiaen had walked about 300 kilometres since the start of his journey, using psychic abilities and his own inhuman stamina to cover the distance in only nine hours. But now, he had come upon what seemed to be the remnants of a small village that was most probably overrun by the psy-beasts. It was deathly still. Most of the Buildings still stood, yet there were only two lifesigns in the entire settlement. Two life signs which were very close to one of the psy-beasts' warp signatures, which probably meant those two souls were in grave danger. Quickly releasing a pulse of negative emotions to draw the beast away from the souls in question, he ran towards where he sensed all this to be taking place. Once he finally got close enough, Nadiaen could discern more about the situation via visual means. There was one of the smaller hound-like beasts clawing at the sturdy metal door of some kind of bunker, with the two souls in danger being inside said bunker. The door was built well, but the beast seemed to have been doing this for multiple hours, as there were extremely deep gouges in the metal, yet they only got a little bit deeper with each swing. Quickly drawing his bolter, Executioner's Voice, he shot the wolf two times. The first shot blew a gigantic hole in the creature's torso, and the second completely obliterated its head. Now that there wasn't any immediate danger inside the village, he psychically checked for the status of the two souls inside the bunker, his close proximity to them being able to give him a bit more details. They looked to still be in their adolescence, as their emotions bore a pattern that only young baselines matched. They also seemed to be currently in a state of deep fear, as their thoughts were very erratic, extremely negative, and weren't very rational, even for children. Seeing as he would probably receive no answer from them except a fear-filled shriek if he knocked, he psychically tore the lock off the door into unreality, and carefully pushed the now unlocked door open. Once inside, he was greeted by a surprising sight. Two mutant human children, a boy and a girl, looked at him with wide eyes, probably expecting a large pitch-black wolf to burst through the door, not him. They looked to be siblings, as both seemed to take their mutant traits from reptilians, particularly snakes. The boy had reptilian eyes, characterised by him having vertical slits for irises, and also blinking sideways. The girl seemed to have a reptilian jaw, as she was currently baring her teeth at him in fear, letting him see her long, probably poison filled fangs for canines. Seeing as he did not want to test his astartes poison resistance today, he sent out a psychic wave of calmness towards them. Immediately, they relaxed. The boy, who was the older one, looking to be about 12 years old, approached him very carefully.
"Who… who are you?", he quietly asked. That… was actually a very difficult question to answer. Nadiaen couldn't really tell them that he was a psychic super soldier from a galaxy-spanning empire, as it looked like this planet hadn't even achieved space travel yet. So, he had to make up a cover-story, and the best cover-stories are those that are partially true.
"My name is Nadiaen Redlata, a travelling Librarian. I was passing through the area when I noticed the remnants of your town from a far away cliff. Seeing as I am currently running low on supplies, I decided to see if I could scavenge something of worth."
"Pretty weird Librarian…", mumbled the Boy, looking at Nadiaen "Why should we trust you? You just somehow opened a locked bulkhead door, which can only be unlocked from the inside, but not before killing the grimm clawing itself through the doors in two shots. Not only that, but you're wearing the most heavy armour I've ever seen, huntsmen included, and you have one of the weirdest sounding voices I've ever heard." The Boy did bring up some quite valid points, so he would have to address them to ensure the children's trust in him.
"The armour I'm wearing once belonged to another member of my people, who fell in battle while I was travelling with him. Seeing that I was in a dangerous situation at the time, I put on his armour and took his weapons with me. Over my long travels I gradually learned to use the armour and weapons, but the fighting was draining my stamina, leading me here. As for my voice, I'm afraid that's my genetics." Nadiaen answered "But there is another matter at hand. This town is devoid of resources. I'm afraid that, if you continue to stay here, you will starve. So, I propose a solution. I am currently travelling south, towards the continent located there, and will probably come across a city where I can drop you off at a foster home. This will not only allow you to survive, but also to find a family with which you can live a safe life, away from the beasts roaming this place. While we are travelling, I will also safeguard you from any of the 'grimm' that we may encounter."
The Boy pondered this, before asking: "And where do you plan to end your journey? Surely, you're gonna have to find a permanent home relatively soon…"
"I do not know where my travels will lead me, but wherever I settle down, I will most probably open a library for any interesting books I might find. I am a librarian after all." Nadiaen said.
The Boy looked pensive about what the librarian said, before stepping back a bit to discuss it with his sister. To give them their privacy, Nadiaen psychically turned himself deaf to their conversation, and looked around the bunker he was currently in. It seemed to be a general-purpose rock-rete building with thicker walls and reinforced doors. The floor was made of some kind of wood, but he could sense a thick metal plate under it, at least multiple metres thick. It seemed that these psy-beasts, or grimm, possessed some kind ability to burrow beneath the ground. A worrying thought, as subterranean enemies were very difficult to detect and fight, as they could always just go back into the ground to recover. The rest of the room presumably once was a living area, with there being tables, couches and beds in great supply, however all of them were bunched up in one of the corners, forming some kind of makeshift fort, probably acting as more of a hiding place though, as the grimm very clearly could damage metres-thick steel, so cotton was hardly going to stop them.
"Um, mister Redlata?" Nadiaen turned his attention back to the two children, seeing as they had finished their discussion, and were standing before him, looking at him nervously. "We would like to come with you, at least until we reach Sanus, because we'll die if we stay out here any longer, like you said." Nadiaen smiled warmly. Then, he answered: "That is acceptable, but you neglected to tell me your names, and I can hardly call you or your sister 'child' the entire time we are travelling"
The Boy blushed a bit in embarrassment, before gesturing to himself and his sister "I'm Diam, and my sister's named Aryl" Nadiaen's brows furrowed a bit. They had no last names? That was certainly strange, as the idiots who tried to kidnap him earlier did have last names. Then again, maybe they were street children, which would lead to them forgetting their last names. They could've also been slaves, because if Nadiaen knew anything about humanity, it was that they didn't treat those that looked unnatural well. And slaves usually only had one name and some numbers to differentiate them from the others.
"Sooo… what kind of faunus are you?", asked the boy, Diam. When Nadiaen turned to him, eyebrow arched, Diam stuttered: "I-I just thought, because you have those elongated teeth and vertical eyes, you've gotta be some kind of faunus, r-right?" So that's what the mutants were called on this planet. Interesting names for a term used to segregate mutants from normal people. But he supposed that this planet was much more welcoming than the imperium, due to never being exposed to galactic war. Regarding the boy's question, he answered: "I believe I am some kind of feline-based faunus, a large one, if my muscle mass is anything to go by, but I never cared to more closely investigate which species I am. However, I can tell you what my more… animalistic… traits do to my senses. I have excellent night vision. It is so good, in fact, that sometimes it is difficult to differentiate night from day, due to my eyes making it look exactly the same. My canines are razor sharp, and come with denser muscle tissue, giving me the bite force equivalent of a hydraulic press. Along with both of those, I also possess hearing that is far more superior to that of a normal human, letting me detect things from kilometres away. Now that I have told you a bit about my heritage, it would only be courteous for you to do the same."
"But faunus only have one animal trait… ah whatever.", Diam said "Me and my sis are snake based, taipan, to be specific. That means that I can't see things very well, except if it's moving. Aryl has fangs filled with an extremely deadly poison, which were also our only way of defending ourselves while the grimm attacked. Our traits also caused us to be ostracised from the rest of the village, because we were the only faunus children there, and the only grown up faunus, our parents, died five years ago. For the last few years, we were homeless, scavenging food from the trash cans in the back of the only restaurant in town. When the grimm attacked, we only managed to survive by hiding from them, stealing the key to the shelter from a corpse, then locking ourselves inside. We managed to survive in there for a while, and food would've lasted for 3 more weeks at least, but that grimm was way too close to clawing through the door for comfort, and Aryl needs some time to regrow her supply of venom." "You talk quite eloquently for a young child.", Nadiaen rumbled. Diam smiled slightly, answering: "I've been told that before."
Interesting. So the mutations on this planet weren't warp-based, as they actively changed the inhabitant's biology, and were also somewhat rooted in reality. That also explained why Nadiaen couldn't feel the mutations in the warp, as with warp-based mutations, there was always some trace of the empyrean's energy to be found in them.
"Well, now that we have exchanged details, let us stock up on the last supplies of food which are stored here. Then, when we have finished packing, we will start our travels south. I will most probably have to carry you for some parts of the way, as my walking pace is somewhat difficult to keep up with for other people." Diam nodded, and went to check on the food supply. Meanwhile, Aryl approached Nadiaen. She looked to be younger than Diam, but not by much, maybe one or two years at most. Quietly, she asked: "Are you scared of me?" The question seemed to be of great importance to the girl, as she looked at him expectantly, but almost resigned, as if she had asked that question many times, and always received a yes in response. But Nadiaen was not any ordinary person, and he had seen far more threatening things than a girl with snake fangs, even if those fangs were venomous. "I do not fear you, Aryl", he answered, to which her eyes lit up, and she said: "Really?" "Indeed. I have seen my fair share of the grimm, so there are few things able to make me afraid, and you are not one of them." The girl sighed in relief, then sat down on the ground to wait for her brother to come back from the food inspection. When he did, he had a worn out backpack in his hand, which was full to the brim with, presumably, edible food. It'd last the children a few days at most while walking, so Nadiaen would have to continue to hunt for some food for himself to leave the more easily digested rations to them. It also meant that they had to arrive at the coast relatively quickly, so as to not run out too soon. So, the Librarian said: "Now that we have packed, hand me that backpack, and let's start walking" Slightly surprised by the suddenness of the Librarian's sentence, Diam handed him the backpack, which Nadiaen promptly fastened to his back by using his psychic powers to make the bag magnetic, then mag-locking it to his armour. Now that everything was set, Nadiaen and the two faunus children started walking south, towards the coast.
1300 hours
The children were starting to tire. They tried not to show it, but Nadiaen noticed anyway. So, as to not lose the pace they were walking at, he subtly started supporting their muscles with the energies of the empyrean. In his home dimension, doing something like this would have been highly dangerous, as the chance of having your muscles possessed by a daemon was fairly high, but in this dimension, there were no daemons. So the only thing that happened was the children walking faster and generally being in a better mood, as walking didn't take that much of their stamina now. Aryl even started humming a song. It wasn't very complicated melody-wise, but it did achieve soothing Nadiaen's soul, as continually reinforcing the children's muscles with his psychic powers required him to partly lower his emotional barriers, thus possibly drawing the grimm, which would be sub-optimal at the least. But now that the problem had been solved, the group walked on, unhindered by any being attracted to negative emotions.
2100 hours
It was deep into the night, and while the children's warp-supported muscles would carry them on for as long as Nadiaen had psychic power, their minds required sleep, and psychically reinforcing their minds with the ethereal had an extremely high chance of driving them insane in seconds, so Nadiaen stopped, waited for the children to fall asleep while walking, then psychically lifted them up, and started carrying them, so as to not lose any time, and arrive at the coast before food ran out. Now that he didn't need to worry about their walking speed, the Librarian started running, dragging the sleeping, floating children behind him. Once they awoke, they would have to find a safe place where they could eat breakfast. Not that Nadiaen needed it of course, but it would be nice to eat something after 2 weeks of fasting, and the children would very much need nutritional intake to survive until they reached the coast. So, Nadiaen located a cave about 20 kilometres from the coast, and 100 kilometres south of his position. Adjusting his course, he set off towards the cave.
September 11th, 2541
0300 hours
While Aryl and Diam slept, Nadiaen sat beside them, psychically looking for any being in proximity that might try to harm them. Luckily, there were none in a wide radius, so Nadiaen returned to meditating. It didn't look like this continent had any infrastructure, so it probably didn't have a port where they could board a ship to cross the ocean. So Nadiaen had two options. The first was just swimming across the ocean. Astartes were known to have almost limitless stamina, after all. But the children definitely couldn't swim that far, and carrying them with his psychic powers would wear him down before they reached the south continent, not to mention the multitude of aquatic grimm that would try to impede their progress. The other option was to teleport across the ocean via the warp. The Dangers this brought with it were legion, but could be managed. They could get lost in the warp, but that was extremely unlikely, as there were no daemons in this realm. The children could also lose their minds, a far bigger problem, but only if they were conscious for the time they were travelling through the warp. Nadiaen would have to psychically put them to sleep, then carry them through the warp. The only consequences the children would have would be splitting headaches, mostly caused by the immaterium interacting with their subconscious.
That seemed like an acceptable plan. They would cross the ocean without complications, and the children would not suffer any permanent damage. So, with that matter attended to, Nadiaen went back to scanning for threats to the children.
0700 hours
Approximately nine hours had passed since Aryl and Diam fell asleep, so Nadiaen psychically nudged them awake. While he waited for them to completely wake up, he prepared the few food rations they had. It wasn't really much, if he had to be honest. A few slices of bread and a packet of chips were all that was still edible. The Librarian distributed them between the two children, so they would have enough food to continue on travelling. Nadiaen himself would be able to live off of warp energy almost infinitely, provided there were no daemons who could try to possess him in this realm.
The Children finally stirred awake, so Nadiaen went to address them: "Good Morning. We are not far from the coast. Provided we start travelling in less than an hour, we will arrive at the shore before midday. I have also rationed the remaining food we have with us, so you two will be able to efficiently travel to the coast" The two children had finally awoken, and were now very looking around with a confused expression. Diam went to ask the obvious question: "Where are we?" "In a cave. When you fell asleep, I carried you for a few hours until I found a suitable place for you to sleep through the night, that being the location we are currently in'' came Nadiaen's reply. Aryl, who had been awake a little earlier than Diam, therefore actually remembering what the Librarian said, asked: "But if you've rationed the food we've got with us between Diam and me, what will you eat? You look like you need to eat about 20 times more food than we need'' that… would be a difficult question to answer without revealing to the children his nature as a psyker, and Nadiaen would very much like to keep that knowledge to himself, since he didn't know how this planet treated psykers. So, he said: "I hunted for some food while you were asleep, but most of it would be dangerous for your digestion systems, so I consumed it and left the rations to you" That was a shaky explanation at best, and most rational people would immediately question that, but children were not known to be rational, so Aryl just nodded and went to eat her part of the rations while Diam looked at Nadiaen confusedly, then did the same as his sister. While they ate, the Librarian infused their food with the energies of the warp, making it unnaturally filling and thus giving them more energy to travel. He also psychically scanned the area for Grimm and any other being that might threaten them, seeing as there was the trio of humans who had tried to kidnap him. Luckily, there were absolutely no beings with ill intent in a twenty kilometre radius, so they were in the clear to start travelling when the children finished eating.
0720 hours
They had started moving 5 minutes ago, and so far, everything was looking good. There was nothing rapidly approaching, and the group had made good progress up to now. The lush green forests were slowly thinning out, and gave way to a long plateau eventually leading to a beach, behind which a vast blue ocean glistened beautifully in the sunlight. It had actually been quite some time since Nadiaen had seen an ocean that wasn't grey coloured and littered with various waste produced by the fires of war, so he stopped for a short second to appreciate the view. The two children with him stopped as well, grateful for the short break, since Nadiaen couldn't psychically enhance their musculature anymore due to him needing to stockpile psychic energy in advance for an action as exhausting as teleporting 3 separate beings across an entire ocean. Now finished with his sightseeing, Nadiaen continued walking towards said ocean, the children trailing behind him tiredly. They had yet to complain about their exhaustion, but he figured it wouldn't take long before one of the two raised their voice. To solve this issue, the librarian slowed down his superhuman walking speed to that of a normal human, letting the children catch up easier. While they travelled, Nadiaen thought about the two. Aryl seemed to have the exact genes for astartes augmentation, but Nadiaen didn't carry any gene seed with him, he wasn't a techmarine, and the success rate for space marine surgery on a female subject was so astronomically low that there was an almost guaranteed chance she would die during the process. Diam, her older brother, looked to be almost completely incompatible with any kind of genetic modification from the Librarian's short psychic scan of him, and the reptile-like eyes more impaired his vision than improved it, seeing as he was able to see movement fairly easily, but everything else required glasses for him to accurately perceive. What was interesting about the boy however, was the fact that Nadiaen could slightly feel his presence shift in the warp, meaning Diam was a psyker. By the way he behaved, he also didn't seem to be aware of this fact, as he would have already tried to use his ethereal powers to alleviate the strain his muscles were going through by travelling this far of a distance on foot. This meant that, if the boy were to be in high emotional distress, it would most likely result in a psychic explosion similar to an unstable plasma weapon detonating in the holder's hand. Nadiaen would have to be careful not to aggravate the boy or put him under any great amount of pressure. This also meant that the Librarian couldn't afford to let the boy out of his care, as he couldn't afford to have a rogue psychic bomb running around.
Regardless, they would need to cross the ocean in front of them before any thought could be spared for other matters. The shore was only a few minutes of walking away, and the point at which Nadiaen would walk through the Immaterium with the two juvenile souls with him was drawing ever closer. So, drawing even more ethereal energy, Nadiaen continued walking with the children in tow until reaching the shore, where he stopped.
Diam & Aryl looked around confusedly, and Diam even asked: "...soo, how are we gonna get across the ocean? You got like, a boat or someth-" The Librarian sent a psychic pulse of sleep into their minds. They instantly collapsed, now in a very deep and dreamless sleep. Before they could hit the ground however, Nadiaen psychically picked them up and opened a tear in reality in one motion. Then, carrying the Aryl and Diam behind him, he stepped into the warp, instantly feeling the Immaterium wash over his armour.
He had already planned out how to reach his goal, that being to cross the ocean to the southern continent, and so started bending the warp to set his exit into realspace five thousand kilometres south of his entry point, just on the shore of the neighbouring continent. He also had to be extremely mindful of his carry-ons, as dragging them behind him too far in the warp almost certainly meant insanity and then death upon the two. Diam may be a latent psyker, but staring directly into the warp was almost always very harmful, regardless of being a psyker or not. So, keeping the two sleeping children floating near him in a very close radius, Nadiaen carefully started along the immaterial route that would lead him to Sanus, the southern continent. The empyrean in this reality seemed to be extremely calm, as there were no daemons, no rolling waves of ethereal energy, even the chaos gods were almost unnoticeable. It was immensely more worrying that he couldn't feel the Astronomican anymore, though it would make sense that the emperor, wherever he was in this new reality, didn't need to be interred on the golden throne as there was almost no chaotic influence in this universe. Thus it would make sense that the light of the emperor couldn't be sensed anymore. But enough dwelling on that, as more important matters were at hand. It didn't take long, but also an eternity, until Nadiaen reached the end of his trail through the warp. The immaterium rippled before him and then ripped open, revealing reality on the other side. It looked to be a wide-reaching Meadow of flowers which slowly transitioned into a thick forest which disappeared behind the horizon, meaning Nadiaen had correctly set his exit into real space, not accidentally opening a rift above the ocean or hundreds of metres into the ground.
Stepping through, the Librarian slowly released his psychic hold on the two children he had been carrying with him, letting them slowly float to the ground. Then, he sent a psychic pulse of awakening into their minds. Slowly, they stirred from their artificially induced sleep. Diam was the first to wake up. Upon awakening he immediately groaned in pain and clutched his head. "Wh-whuh-what happened?…damn my head hurts…" While the boy fully came to, Nadiaen made up a story on the spot to conceal his psychic powers. When Diam had recovered from his headache enough to lucidly listen, Nadiaen answered: "We found a small motorboat on the shore, and decided to use it to cross the ocean. However, once at sea, the two of you started getting sick. I believe it's something in your faunus biology reacting poorly to large amounts of salt in the air, but I digress. You fell asleep from the sickness, and I continued driving the boat across the ocean until we reached the shore. Then I waited for you to wake up." An obvious lie, and the children would have clocked onto it, were they not still slightly groggy from waking up in an unknown field with a steaming headache. Instead, Diam only nodded, then asked: "So where are we?" "We have landed on the shores of Vacuo.", rumbled Nadiaen.
So. That took absolute ages, and I don't know if I'll release another chapter any time soon.
