Loki was extremely curious to see Hemingway.
It was named after an ancient author, he knew. Loki had read the books a long time ago and might read them again, so they were loaded onto his datapad. He had a ton of books like that, which was why his datapad was a really expensive model with huge storage. Loki might even need to add some extra storage in the future, with all the games and music he loaded into it. The books took relatively little room.
This is really the best part of being a necron for me, Loki mused, his mind going another way. Some people had trouble adapting to having so much extra time, with no need to sleep, but not Loki. He'd really caught up on his reading list and was branching out into all kinds of fiction from the Imperium of Man. He literally had endless works at his fingertips! He'd even started reading the War in Heaven, although he'd heard he should skip Act 28. Apparently it was a really long conversation about the weather? Loki thought that wasn't quite right, maybe he'd look at it and see.
Hemingway though, it was a really pretty world. It reminded Loki a lot of old Earth, the way it had been described to him anyway. Mostly blue, with a few continents, it looked lovely from orbit. The sun it orbited was a very boring, average star. This all seemed really good for a place for people to live. What was the climate like? Now that they were in orbit, Loki could access the local weather records and he had a program for this situation. Something a Cryptek had made, to put planets in general categories. Loki gathered up all the information and fed it into the program.
"Okay… pretty basic, thin desert bands, thin equatorial jungles, prevalent temperate climate, significant boreal areas, thin tundra and polar ranges. Okay, hmm." Loki muttered to himself. If you ran Hope through the same program, it came up much the same but mentioned prevalent boreal climate, so Hope was colder. "Anything else interesting?" Loki quickly dove into the network and did more research. He had a few other programs loaded to his datapad, meant for data scraping. Cryptek work again, there was at least one Cryptek out there who loved to evaluate and categorize worlds. Loki had no idea who he was… the name assigned to the programs was "Zehet" but Loki knew that was a necron historical reference, not a real name. So this was probably made by a necron, but that was all he knew.
The program characterized Hemingway as a decently advanced Civilized World. Independent in terms of food production, they were actually a food exporter. They also exported well-made civilian technology, particularly vehicles of various stripes. Hemingway had a location of cultural significance, a shrine to Saint Jerome the Pure. That shrine and the city around it were so well thought of that Hemingway had a strong tourist trade, as the moderately wealthy went for a pious vacation. Loki knew how that went… on a lot of planets, it was seriously frowned on to go to some kind of resort and just have a good time. It was seen as hedonistic and indulgent. But if you went on a pilgrimage to a holy shrine, but then spent some time enjoying yourself, that was quite alright.
All of this meant that Hemingway had a really good standard of living. However, it had a serious dark side… it was afflicted with Warp energies. Part of the sector of Imotekh's Empire that faced the Great Rift, it was prone to Chaos cults and had a lot of mutants and psykers. The necrons had a completely different way to deal with that than the Imperium… psykers who looked to be good astropaths were apprenticed directly to the existing ones, in the hopes that the whole system could be maintained. Any psykers who could be dangerous were just implanted with blackstone, permanently shutting down their powers. Loki had heard that most of them actually loved that, glad to just be normal people. If a psyker was so crazy powerful that that didn't work, or if they'd already gotten dangerous, they were killed.
The darkest part of Hemingway, though, were the mutant slums. The data scraping program looked for notable stuff like that and mentioned high levels of pogroms and other suppression tactics. Loki felt sad, looking at his datapad. Luminous didn't have that many mutants, not really, and still treated them like dirt. It sounded like Hemingway treated them much, much worse. I'm really glad mutants on Luminous have a way out now. Although not all of them could take it. It was all so sad.
Sighing to himself – the universe wasn't fair, Loki knew THAT perfectly well – he put his datapad away. They were going to be meeting with Imotekh and Overlord Ke'yanakh very soon, he needed to be presentable. Well, so to speak.
"Loki, have you taken a rest cycle?" Oh Calder!
"Yes, mum, I took my rest cycle." The nagging was getting really annoying! Although. "I actually set up a reminder on my datapad, you can stop reminding me." It was set so the reminder would keep reminding him every half hour if he tried to ignore it.
"Oh, well, that's good. You tend to ignore your body too much, you always have." Loki knew that was true. Once he'd gone a whole week just living on noodle cups, not because he didn't have the money but because a brand-new video game had come out and he just HAD to play it. Calder had been playing with him and started nagging at him in game, before finally coming over and dragging him out to the pub for a proper meal. Pie had never tasted so good.
Loki pulled his mind away from that – was it weird that he could still remember that pie? – and got to meet Overlord Ke'yanakh and the Stormlord. He trailed behind Manric and was awed by both of them. He'd seen Imotekh before but Ke-yanakh was new to him and Loki spent a moment admiring his cloak. It was beautiful, darkness webbed with tiny silver threads and it flowed around him like a cloud of smoke!
"So this is the specialist in human myths and history?" Ke'yanakh said, examining him. Loki saluted respectfully.
"I'm only an amateur historian sir, I just have a passion for it. But I am probably the best you will find outside Hope," Loki said, confident it was true. Calder nodded, backing him up.
"Loki has a very fine mind for anything he's interested in. Although, good luck teaching him something he's NOT interested in. Then you'll discover how well he pretends to be present when his mind is off in the clouds." Oh zing! That was true though, Loki was really good at pretending to care about stuff when he actually couldn't give a toss. Ke'yanakh made glyphs of amusement as Imotekh examined him closely. Loki was a bit intimidated, he was quite terrifying, but he never let stuff like that keep him down.
"Tell us what you know of this Ishtar," Imotekh said and Loki obliged. Manric had surely sent him his stories, but it might be a bit hard for them so Loki tried to condense it down to the major, important bits. Then, he added his own speculation.
"Sir, from what I understand of the Warp, Ishtar's nature would have been evenly split between Khorne and Slaanesh. That was probably part of what let her escape, but only part… I think that the fact that her worship only started to come back after Slaanesh was dead, indicates that she was hiding from the Prince of Pleasure." And that was important because – "Sir, to pull that off means she's tough as old shoe leather, her will is adamantium. And that would be consistent with her stories, Ishtar is incredibly willful. In the stories that mostly makes her come off as a bitch sir, but in our current situation, I think that means she's got grit. She's tough." Loki thought that was important. Ke'yanakh tilted his head.
"Do you mean she is a significant power player in the 'politics' of the Warp?" Loki nodded, pleased that he'd got what he was aiming at. "Yet, she is not remotely as strong as a Ruinous Power."
"No, definitely not, but she's still a player sir. I guess what I'm saying is this isn't just some new cult, or even a revived old one, it's a real, genuine force that's returned and is making moves. She's got power and she's going to use it," Loki said, hoping that would convey his message. Imotekh's eyes flared and Loki could tell he was angry, although not at him. At Ishtar, probably.
"She will pay for this. Let us begin," Imotekh rumbled and the process of investigation began. It was mostly interviews, they had all the basic facts, they were trying to get more now.
The first person they spoke to was Overlord Sulkh, of the Phaeron's Wrath. He was a surprisingly short Overlord, only seven feet tall, and very sturdy. Loki thought he could take one heck of a beating, but was probably a bit slower than most. He used a great warscythe but instead of the usual green, it had a strange purple shade. Loki's eyes flicked over it and he noticed the glyphs for a completely different dynasty.
"Oh, is that a trophy?" Loki said before realizing that maybe he shouldn't as everyone looked at him. Sulkh made a glyph of mild surprise before responding.
"It is. How did you know?" Loki hesitated before gesturing at the glyphs on the haft.
"Well, that's Zokokh Dynasty. They were destroyed in the Wars of Succession, I think, so it would have to be a trophy," Loki said and he could easily sense everyone wondering how he knew that. "It's mentioned in the sixth act of the War in Heaven, when they're fighting over Zokokh's bones?" That had been a good scene, with some nice poetic language, but then they'd ruined it by going on too long. Loki was noticing that theme in the War in Heaven, everything went on too long. If you tightened it all up, you might have a really nice play.
"You are reading the War in Heaven?" Imotekh asked and Loki had no idea what he was thinking. He quickly demurred.
"I'm only on Act 10, sir. It's kind of a slog, I have to take it in chunks. I'm working on it though! Although everyone says to skip Act 28. I thought I'd try it, but skip it if it gets too hard." Loki had a feeling he'd be skipping that one, particularly since everyone had said nothing of value to the story happened there at all.
"Incredible. From what I know of it, that's like reading the dictionary," Manric said and Loki wasn't going to respond, he really wasn't but Calder did it for him.
"Oh, Loki's read the dictionary, twice I think." Aw Calder come on! "Although mostly because he was desperate to win at Scrabble. That's a human game similar to Rykohn." Wait, what?!
"Necrons have scrabble?!" He hadn't heard of that! Calder made a quick glyph of derision.
"It's a glyph game, Loki, and not particularly popular even among necrons." He still wanted to learn it! "You can probably find some Crypteks to play it, but they'll destroy you."
"That's how I get better Calder! I'm already pretty good with the glyphs and that will motivate me to get better!" Loki exclaimed. "And you know I love scrabble but no one will play with me anymore because I'm too good at it!" He inevitably won and everyone was tired of it, they'd rather play bridge.
"Enough of this nonsense." Eeep! Although Imotekh didn't seem too angry at them, just calling them back to the task at hand. "Sulkh, I want your impressions of the other Overlords, everything that was happening, even things that seem inconsequential." Sulkh hesitated a moment.
"I really don't know where to start, Stormlord," he said humbly. "But, I will do my best…" Sulkh paused for a moment before giving what seemed like scrupulously accurate, fair renditions of his fellow Overlords. Loki formed the impression of a pretty normal picket of Necron Overlords. Most of them were okay with their posting… it was kind of funny, since being with the real fleet had a lot of glory attached, but being part of this kind of picket was also a statement of trust. Particularly on the most valuable worlds, like that Feral planet with the transpositanium, being part of a picket meant you were trusted. Hemingway wasn't THAT valuable but it wasn't worthless either, not by a long shot, and this duty gave the picket decent rank.
As Sulkh talked, though, Loki noticed something about him. To make sure he was right in what he was feeling, Loki tried to project the dream from his mind. He imagined a tiny bit of greenery, on Sulkh's warscythe. Could he do it? Loki found he could, but it took an absurd amount of effort and made his head really hurt. Checking himself, he found he was running scarily hot… Loki stopped that, catching Manric looking at him. Well, he'd explain later.
"I have one question," Loki said when a natural lull in the conversation happened. "Did any of the Crypteks from your ship ever spend much time on the planet? Any of the Overlords?" Loki was willing to be the answer was a hard no.
"No. We are all true necrons and we have no use for this place. None of my men asked for leave, nor would I grant it." That seemed a bit mean but Loki was sure that had a lot to do with why Sulkh's ship had been blown up and not corrupted. So, good for him.
When Sulkh was gone, Manric looked at Loki.
"Loki, were you trying to use your psyker abilities on Sulkh?" Manric said severely and Loki made apology glyphs before responding.
"Yes sir, but only to verify that I couldn't." Manric seemed puzzled and Loki pointed after the departed Overlord. "That's a Blank sir!" He was sure of it! Ke'yanakh leaned towards him, eyes suddenly intent.
"A carrier of the Pariah genome? How could – oh. Of course, the clone his soul came from." Yes, that was it exactly! "So his soul is negatively charged to the Warp?" Loki nodded enthusiastically.
"That's why he wasn't corrupted sir, not like the others. With his own uh… blankness and his blackstone protections, Sulkh is close to immune to Chaos corruption." Not entirely immune. If he somehow got caught by an actual Ruinous Power, he'd be screwed. But in terms of normal contacts in the real world, he was immune. "And no one else from his ship went to the planet. That's why they were spared." Ke'yanakh tilted his head to one side, examining Loki closely. Loki wondered what he was thinking, but telepathy was definitely not his thing… maybe a bit of empathy, he was good at telling what people were feeling, but not telepathy at all.
"This is not common knowledge. Where did you learn about this?" he asked and Loki hesitated before pulling out his datapad and quickly finding one section. His selection of Imperial works were a lot more limited than his ancient Terra and Hopian ones, so it wasn't hard to find.
"I read uh, the Fist of the Emperor. It's a pretty old book, about a hundred years old and honestly, I think it was pretty much a propaganda piece. It sure spends a lot of time fluffing the Inquisition. But it also fluffs the Blanks and Pariahs and tells people how to recognize them and give them to the Church instead of killing them… that's a real problem sir, since Pariahs interfere with normal human brain functions. It makes people feel like they're a slimy spider and they get burned as witches a lot, I think this work was meant to address that." Pariahs being killed was a huge loss to the Imperium, from what Loki understood. Unlike psykers, their gifts were completely safe and valuable. "Also, I got this book for free and I'll read anything if it's free." Loki was chronically broke, with all the money he put into his video games. Ke'yanakh made a glyph of amusement.
"Oh, is that why you're reading the War in Heaven?" Uhhh maybe. Ke'yanakh looked at Imotekh for a moment.
(Loki couldn't know, but Ke'yanakh was telling Imotekh via interstitial messaging that he wanted Loki for his work suppressing Chaos)
(when the war for the Pariah Nexus was over, of course)
After interviewing Sulkh, they moved onto the humans. Mostly families of the fled cultists, but also a few people who had been part of the cult for a while and left. Manric and Ke'yanakh made a great good cop/bad cop pair… Manric was gentle and kind while Ke'yanakh always interjected something meant to rattle and scare the humans. Imotekh just watched and Loki was sure he was partly evaluating the performance of his minions. Loki didn't say much… everything seemed about right, everyone was telling the truth as they saw it.
Then they got to one particular family, with a twelve-year-old girl, and things got interesting.
She wants to speak to us, without her parents, Manric said and Loki nodded internally. He could just see it, the girl was shifting from foot to foot and glancing at them as her mother sometimes glared at her. The father of the family was trying to answer all the questions, shielding them from any harm. It made Loki's heart hurt a little… he wouldn't speak ill of his father, he'd done his best, but Loki sometimes felt like he hadn't had a dad at all.
There was no good way to get rid of the parents, so they just had to go with a bad way. Manric gently but forcefully asked them to leave and give them a bit of time with their daughter. They both objected but Ke'yanakh made it clear that if they didn't obey, they would arouse his wrath. That made them leave, although it terrified them. The young girl wasn't remotely afraid… she seemed to regard her parents with impatience and was glad when they were gone.
"You wanted to speak to us?" Manric asked and she nodded.
"I'm Sally. My parents don't know half what I do… my Aunt was trying to talk me into joining the Voice." Oh really? That was interesting! "Normally I wouldn't want to say anything because well, she's my aunt, but I heard a lot of people died?" Loki could tell she was hoping that wasn't true.
"Almost certainly, although we do not know precisely how many. And even those who lived are lost to us, perhaps to slavery, or worse," Ke'yanakh said and Sally looked down. "Please, tell us what you can." She looked up and nodded.
"Alright. My Aunt was always spinning me stories about how powerful Isthar was, how Inanna would lead them to a new, fertile land they could grow and thrive and become strong. She said Inanna would someday lead them to conquest, bringing her word to the rest of the universe." Sally shook her head. "I thought she was crazy and I told her so… the Sautekh Empire and the Imperium of Man wouldn't put up with that. She insisted you wouldn't have a choice, but wouldn't say how. Then, the very last time I saw her, she told me more… she said they had a necron on their side and he was the lover of Ishtar." Loki was kind of shocked at that. THAT was dangerous, he wouldn't have tapped that when he was alive, and he'd been pretty desperate! "She told me Ishtar has given the necron 'command protocols' and they were going to go take a slumbering Dynasty? I didn't really understand that, I asked her how that would work and she didn't know either, she said to take it on faith." Loki felt electrified and could see Imotekh had gone very still. Ke'yanakh seemed taken aback and exchanged a glance with Manric. "I didn't really believe her but she was scaring me so I just said I couldn't leave my family. She cried then and hugged me and said we'd never meet again. That was the last time I saw her." Sally looked down. "I'm sorry I didn't report it but… half the time, my aunt was just full of hot air. She was always coming up with ideas that never panned out, you know? I didn't think this was really serious." Aw!
"No, it's okay!" Loki jumped in, even if he knew the necrons might disagree. "It's tough to turn in family, we understand. But can I ask you something? What did the necron look like? Did she mention that?" Loki had a feeling. Well actually, more of a deduction. Sally looked a bit puzzled.
"Looked like? Um…" Sally thought hard for a moment. "Oh, she did say he had a single eye and a metal beard. She said he looked right into Ishtar's glory when the rest of them had to look away… does that mean anything?"
"It does. Thank you, we appreciate it," Ke'yanakh said politely. Sally was taken to rejoin her family as Ke'yanakh looked at Loki. "You believe the source of the infection began with our psyker Crypteks?" From the way he said it, Loki realized he hadn't been the only one thinking about that.
"Definitely! You probably all know this, but maybe you don't… a lot of the Crypteks volunteered for a psyker soul for the additional rank." Rank and status were super important for necrons. "There are a lot of mid-level and low-level Crypteks who really regret that they aren't more. Some of them accept it with grace, and some of them go on a crazy quest to improve – " Loki knew it was rare, but not unknown for a mid-level Cryptek to try so, so hard that they could actually elevate themselves further. Not the new pwi-necron Crypteks but the necron ones, sixty million years old. It took so much hard work, but some of them could do it. "But some of them get bitter and nasty. I wonder if maybe we gave a psyker soul to someone we shouldn't have." That was his guess about what had gone on, anyway.
"We do know all this, but you have articulated it well… what criteria did we use to pick psyker Crypteks?" Ke'yanakh asked, glancing at Imotekh. The Stormlord seemed quietly pissed to Loki but he responded evenly.
"Volunteers, mostly, although some were selected. I see this was an oversight, but I did not imagine that our own kind would turn to Chaos." Yeah, that had been a mistake. "Still, this is good. I understand where the failure occurred and I will rectify it for the future." Loki felt a bit badly for the psyker Crypteks, they'd probably be getting extra monitoring and tighter controls from now on. Probably limiting how much they could interact with humans, which kind of sucked but it only took one person to ruin everything. "That matter of the Command Protocols, however… how did this creature get such a thing?" Imotekh asked, glancing at Loki.
"Oh, that's the bad part sir. She didn't get that herself, there is just no way," Loki said with absolute confidence. "She's been hiding from Slaanesh until just a pretty short time ago, there's no way she got that on her own! Someone GAVE that to her, which means something big is going on. And honestly, there's not too many candidates… it's either Tzeentch or God." Loki was sure of it!
"Loki, that's close to blasphemy. Why would God help Ishtar?" Calder asked and Loki shook his head.
"I'm not saying he would Calder, I'm just saying there's not many entities who could steal Command Protocols. Tzeentch and God are both characterized as all-knowing, omniscient." Loki paused for a moment. "Although God doesn't have any boots on the ground, so to speak, and Tzeentch totally does with all his Chaos sorcerers and stuff. It was probably Tzeentch… but why? What's he up to?" That was really concerning. Why would Tzeentch be promoting Ishtar? Imotekh tapped his fingers against his staff.
"I despise that wretched bird. We may never know his plans." Loki couldn't say why, but he felt that was dead wrong. Manric made a glyph of uncertainty.
"I cannot say why, yet I somehow feel that his plans will become obvious to us very quickly." Yeah, that was what he felt too! Loki was relieved that Manric was saying it. "There is something in the air." Uh, yeah! Like they were waiting for something?
"Sorcery! I believe there is not much more to be done here, but we will continue to investigate." Yeah, there were still more interviews to do. Maybe someone else would have something important, but Loki doubted anyone would top Sally's story. That had been super valuable.
Still, they needed to be thorough.
